One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

George Meredith
CHAPTER XV
rance could say, that the active form of our sympathy consisted
in the pouring of cheeses upon them when they were
A PATRIOT ABROAD
prostrate and unable to resist!
A kind gentleman, Mr. Durance, as Daniel Skepsey had
NINE DAYS after his master’s departure, Daniel Skepsey, a man recent cause to know, but often exceedingly dark; not so patriotic
as desireable, it was to be feared; and yet, strangely
of some renown of late, as a subject of reports and comments
in the newspapers, obtained a passport, for the identification, indeed, Mr. Durance had said cogent things on the art of
if need were, of his missing or misapprehended person in a boxing and on manly exercises, and he hoped—he was emphatic
in saying he hoped—we should be regenerated. He
foreign country, of the language of which three unpronounceable
words were knocking about his head to render the thought must have meant, that boxing—on a grand scale would contribute
to it. He said, that a blow now and then was whole-
of the passport a staff of safety; and on the morning that followed
he was at speed through Normandy, to meet his master some for us all. He recommended a monthly private whipping
for old gentlemen who decline the use of the gloves, to
rounding homeward from Paris, at a town not to be spoken as
it is written, by reason of the custom of the good people of the disperse their humours; not excluding Judges and Magistrates:
he could hardly be in earnest. He spoke in a clergyman’s
country, with whom we would fain live on neighbourly
terms:—yes, and they had proof of it, not so very many years voice, and said it would be payment of good assurance money,
back, when they were enduring the worst which can befall beneficial to their souls: he seemed to mean it. He said, that
us—though Mr. Durance, to whom he was indebted for the old gentlemen were bottled vapours, and it was good for
writing of the place of his destination large on a card, and the them to uncork them periodically. He said, they should be
wording of the French sound beside it, besides the jotting down excused half the strokes if they danced nightly—they resented
of trains and the station for the change of railways, Mr. Du-
motion. He seemed sadly wanting in veneration.
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