Outalissi; a Tale of Dutch Guiana

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Chapter III. Self-Inspection.

‘Who hath not paused when beauty's pensive eye
Ask'd from his heart the homage of a sigh?’
     Campbell.

The hospitality of countries is generally proportioned to the scantiness of demands upon it; in British West Indians it has always been conspicuous, and as few men are without some good quality, or the semblance of some to conceit themselves upon, and this is a sort of splendid virtue least incongruous with a sensual life, no man had made it more his study, or knew better how to practise it, and that gracefully, than Mr. Cotton. Nor indeed had he been less disposed to it, was it likely, whilst living at a distance of one hundred and fifty miles from the port and capital of the colony, and whilst his only white neighbours were the directors (a class of men for the most part of

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the lowest and coarsest description) of the adjacent plantations, that a young man like Edward Bentinck, of superior education and perfectly gentlemanly manners, with intelligent, prepossessing features, and a good figure of five foot ten inches, set off by a military carriage, and that air of self-possession which the abrupt and sudden shifts of demand upon all a man's faculties, as well of body as of mind, comprised in a life of adventure and danger, can only give, should not be a welcome accession to his table, to which he was often accordingly invited; and having no companion at his own solitary meal in his barracks, the rules of the service requiring only the presence of a single officer with so small a detachment of men, he became, after a few weeks, not only a regular guest at Mr. Cotton's table, but almost an inmate in his family, and his mornings as well as evenings were often spent there.

The reader has perhaps already anticipated an attachment between Edward and Matilda; but whatever the reader may suppose, it was a long time before Edward himself could come to any such conclusion. On his first assumption of his military profession, he had with great innocence, prudence, and decision, solemnly abjured the worship of the little blind boy, as utterly incompa-

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tible with the frequent hardships, exiles, and dangers by which alone the honours of such a profession could be won. Besides, he had seen a good deal of London society, and been admitted from the rank of his father, Count Bentinck, into that of the court circle at Brussels and the Hague, and he had triumphantly withstood the ordeal of masquerades, operas, routs, waltzes, conversaziones, and all other modern fashionable modes of promoting the influence of the social powers. He had often seen at these parties objects that could not but excite his admiration - girls of surpassing beauty adorned with all that art and study could contrive to increase its captivation - radiant figures like the Dauphiness of Versailles, as described by Burke when he saw her (as he says) ‘just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in - glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendour, and joy.’ But he had always brought his heart away unwounded, and, as he would fain have persuaded himself, invulnerable; what therefore (thought he) can I have to apprehend from the dusky belles of the equator, or if a solitary English rose should chance to grow in such a wilderness, what little chance is there that I should ever come across it, or if I should, I can admire it and pass on as I

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have done many a score times in England itself, where the rose and the lily unite their matchless empire of female beauty! So much for the self-knowledge and resolution upon that subject of four and twenty! The fact was, he had never withstood any ordeal at all. Nothing can be more unpropitious to any sentimental influence than the noise, heat, collision, constraint, embarrassment, and often ill-dissembled mutual antipathies, jealousies, envies, and rivalships of a fashionable London or Brussels party. The flowers that he had seen by their number and variety had distracted his interest, and very much disenchanted each other. No single isolated rose had ever before for so long a time together engaged his undivided attention. For a little while after his arrival the novelty of the natural as well as moral scenery by which he was surrounded entirely absorbed all his reflections: the enormous scale of the landscape, the interminable sweep of massy wood, the size of some of the trees, the breadth and beauty of the rivers clothed with wood down to the water's edge - except where in intervals of cultivation the bright and vivid green of a large plantation of canes finely contrasted with the dark foliage of the surrounding forest - the luxuriant growth of the canes themselves shooting up perhaps a dozen feet

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above his head, which made him feel always in walking through them like Gulliver in the Brobdignagian corn fields - the singular appearance, to an eye accustomed to the European clothing, of a negro and almost naked slave population, occasionally intermixed with a tribe or family of the free and aboriginal Indians, very much of the colour of new mahogany, with their light fantastic coronals of the beautiful feathers of the red and blue macaws, and their salempores or long pieces of dark blue calico thrown gracefully over one shoulder, and across the body like a Roman toga - every thing for a little while was so strange to him, and so unlike any thing he had seen before, as to render him quite insensible to his danger from an object of much greater and more important attraction of a European character, till one day when some slight indisposition had prevented Matilda from occupying her usual place at dinner, and in the evening acccompanying his flute (which he played very agreeably, because with truth and judgment, and without any affectation) with her harp or piano, a suspicion from the pain he felt that he was not quite in marching order at a moment's notice came across him, and as he sauntered home by the light of a full moon, he began to challenge himself a little. Is it not very

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strange (said he to himself) that whenever that girl is absent when I had expected the pleasure of her company my heart sinks, and I feel as if my visit had been exclusively to her; and if I do not look like a fool, I always feel as if I must do so, I cannot enter with any animation into the subject of conversation - my mind seems withdrawn by some powerful spell from every thing before me, yet what can I be to Miss Cotton? Or what (fetching a deep sigh) ought she to be to me? Surely I am not such a fool as to be in love! however cavendo tutus! I'll not go to-morrow, I'm resolved, or the next day either, unless I feel myself quite stout again.

Accordingly the next morning he awoke with all his heroism in full force, resolved to absent himself from the source of danger, but yet (said he) her father said she had a headache, it would be brutal after so much hospitality not to ask how she is to-day; I may as well walk towards Anne's Grove (the name of Mr. Cotton's plantation) as any where else, and I dare say I shall meet some of the servants, or perhaps her father himself, of whom I can inquire; besides I wish to take the exact measure of that silk cotton tree near the house, which would cover the front of half a dozen of the first rate London

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houses, and make the largest British oak look really diminutive by the side of it.

Having executed this prudent intention without any interruption, and put down the dimensions in his pocket book, (viz.) height, one hundred and twenty-five feet; extreme projection of the branches each way, between seventy and eighty feet; diameter of head (say) one hundred and fifty feet; girth above the buttresses fifteen feet;^* Edward was just proceeding towards the house in perfect satisfaction with himself, unconsciously repeating with great emphasis from Sir Walter Scott's beautiful poem of Rokeby -

‘The myrtle bids the lover live,
But that Matilda will not give;’

when the voice of a young lady, who had approached very near to one side of the tree whilst he was busy taking the girth of the other, startled him with ‘Good morning, Mr. Bentinck! is my father with you? I thought I heard my name pronounced by some one?’

* This is an actual measurement, the girth appears small in proportion, but the branches spring from a low part of the stem, which is supported by enormous buttresses exactly like those of a Gothic cathedral, sometimes nearly twenty feet high. - Note by the Author.

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‘Ye--s, I believe - that is - no! I have not seen him,’ replied Edward, colouring up to his ears, ‘I was also looking for him to inquire after the health of Miss Cotton, whom he mentioned yesterday as being slightly indisposed; but I am better pleased in having this ocular proof of her amendment.’

‘O,’ said Matilda, whilst a slight tinge of carnation suffused her marble brow, and improved her soft complexion, ‘'twas merely a slight headache, but my father insisted on my keeping myself quiet; he is over anxious about me, indeed, since the death of my mother, (the tears starting into her eyes, and her voice becoming rather tremulous from an apparent effort to controul some strong emotion,) although nothing can repair her loss to me, my father has been too good to me, and is scarcely satisfied, unless I solicit his indulgence of some new whim or other at least once or twice a month. You'll dine with us to-day, Mr. Bentinck, it will really be a charity to my father, who is not fond of soliloquy, and there are not many subjects of interest with him that I can enter into?’

‘I am afraid,’ said Edward, ‘it will not be in my power to wait upon Mr. Cotton to-day; I am already a good deal in arrear with my regi-

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mental returns from the enjoyment of his obliging hospitalities, and I must return to-day to arrange them.’

‘Well then,’ said Matilda, ‘you must breakfast and spend the day with us to-morrow; regimental returns have rather a serious sound, but, to say the truth, I want the help of your taste and pencil a little in the construction of an alcove which I have obtained my father's permission to erect upon the sea-shore, it is not above a quarter of a mile from the house, and we are so protected from the sun by the impenetrable foliage over our heads, in the walk I have had cut to it through the wood, that it is cooler than the house even in the middle of the day. I shall beg the favour of your attending me there to-morrow.’

‘That,’ said Edward, ‘is a challenge that it would be difficult for any one to refuse; my taste and pencil are already much indebted to the encouragement of Miss Cotton, and cannot be better employed than in her service. I shall do myself the honour of presenting myself at Anne's Grove to-morrow, at the time you appoint, to receive my further orders;’ and having conducted his companion to the door of her house, and made his bow with rather a constrained air of formality, he returned to his post.