Solomon, watching Mr. Trumbull’s movements, were thinking that high learning interfered sadly with serious affairs. Mr. Borthrop Trumbull really knew nothing about old Featherstone’s will; but he could hardly have been brought to declare any ignorance unless he had been arrested for misprision of treason.
“I shall take a mere mouthful of ham and a glass of ale,” he said, reassuringly. “As a man with public business, I take a snack when I can. I will back this ham,” he added, after swallowing some morsels with alarming haste, “against any ham in the three kingdoms. In my opinion it is better than the hams at Freshitt Hall—and I think I am a tolerable judge.”
“Some don’t like so much sugar in their hams,” said Mrs. Waule. “But my poor brother would always have sugar.”
“If any person demands better, he is at liberty to do so; but, God bless me, what an aroma! I should be glad to buy in that quality, I know. There is some gratification to a gentleman”—here Mr. Trumbull’s voice conveyed an emotional remonstrance—“in having this kind of ham set on his table.”
He pushed aside his plate, poured out his glass of ale and drew his chair a little forward, profiting by the occasion to look at the inner side of his legs, which he stroked approvingly— Mr. Trumbull having all those less frivolous airs and gestures which distinguish the predominant races of the north.
“You have an interesting work there, I see, Miss Garth,” he observed, when Mary reentered. “It is by the author of Waverley : that is Sir Walter Scott. I have bought one of his works myself—a very nice thing, a very superior publication, entitled Ivanhoe . You will not get any writer to beat him in a hurry, I think—he will not, in my opinion, be speedily