The Waverley Novels | Page 9

against the
neighbourhood of Gandercleuch, for circulating reports to the prejudice
of my literary talents, as well as my accomplishments as a pedagogue,
and transferring the fame thereof to mine own usher. Secondly, against
my spouse, Dorothea Cleishbotham, for transferring the sad calumnious
reports to my ears in a prerupt and unseemly manner, and without due
respect either to the language which she made use of, or the person to
whom she spoke,--treating affairs in which I was so intimately
concerned as if they were proper subjects for jest among gossips at a
christening, where the womankind claim the privilege of worshipping
the Bona Dea according to their secret female rites.
Thirdly, I became clear that I was entitled to respond to any whom it
concerned to enquire, that my wrath was kindled against Paul Pattison,
my usher, for giving occasion both for the neighbours of Gandercleuch
entertaining such opinions, and for Mrs. Cleishbotham disrespectfully
urging them to my face, since neither circumstance could have existed,
without he had put forth sinful misrepresentations of transactions,
private and confidential, and of which I had myself entirely refrained
from dropping any the least hint to any third person.

This arrangement of my ideas having contributed to soothe the stormy
atmosphere of which they had been the offspring, gave reason a time to
predominate, and to ask me, with her calm but clear voice, whether,
under all the circumstances, I did well to nourish so indiscriminate an
indignation? In fine, on closer examination, the various splenetic
thoughts I had been indulging against other parties, began to be merged
in that resentment against my perfidious usher, which, like the serpent
of Moses, swallowed up all subordinate objects of displeasure. To put
myself at open feud with the whole of my neighbours, unless I had
been certain of some effectual mode of avenging myself upon them,
would have been an undertaking too weighty for my means, and not
unlikely, if rashly grappled withal, to end in my ruin. To make a public
quarrel with my wife, on such an account as her opinion of my literary
accomplishments, would sound ridiculous: and, besides, Mrs. C. was
sure to have all the women on her side, who would represent her as a
wife persecuted by her husband for offering him good advice, and
urging it upon him with only too enthusiastic sincerity.
There remained Paul Pattison, undoubtedly, the most natural and
proper object of my indignation, since I might be said to have him in
my own power, and might punish him by dismissal, at my pleasure. Yet
even vindictive proceedings against the said Paul, however easy to be
enforced, might be productive of serious consequences to my own
purse; and I began to reflect, with anxiety, that in this world it is not
often that the gratification of our angry passions lies in the same road
with the advancement of our interest, and that the wise man, the vere
sapiens, seldom hesitates which of these two he ought to prefer.
I recollected also that I was quite uncertain how far the present usher
had really been guilty of the foul acts of assumption charged against
him.
In a word, I began to perceive that it would be no light matter, at once,
and without maturer perpending of sundry collateral punctiuncula, to
break up a joint-stock adventure, or society, as civilians term it, which,
if profitable to him, had at least promised to be no less so to me,
established in years and learning and reputation so much his superior.

Moved by which, and other the like considerations, I resolved to
proceed with becoming caution on the occasion, and not, by stating my
causes of complaint too hastily in the outset, exasperate into a positive
breach what might only prove some small misunderstanding, easily
explained or apologized for, and which, like a leak in a new vessel,
being once discovered and carefully stopped, renders the vessel but
more sea-worthy than it was before.
About the time that I had adopted this healing resolution, I reached the
spot where the almost perpendicular face of a steep hill seems to
terminate the valley, or at least divides it into two dells, each serving as
a cradle to its own mountain-stream, the Gruff-quack, namely, and the
shallower, but more noisy, Gusedub, on the left hand, which, at their
union, form the Gander, properly so called. Each of these little valleys
has a walk winding up to its recesses, rendered more easy by the
labours of the poor during the late hard season, and one of which bears
the name of Pattison's path, while the other had been kindly
consecrated to my own memory, by the title of the Dominie's Daidling-
bit. Here I made certain to meet my associate, Paul Pattison, for