Tales and Novels — Volume 02: Popular TalesEdgeworth, Maria
General
Tales and Novels — Volume 02: Popular Tales
Edgeworth, Maria
Fiction
The stranger, upon hearing this story, burst into a loud fit of
laughter; and, on recovering himself, he desired the ghost-seer to look
stedfastly in his face, and to tell whether he bore any resemblance to
the ghost that walked with the blue taper in the west gallery. The miner
stared for some minutes, and answered, “No; he that walks in the gallery
is clear another guess sort of a person; in a white jacket, a leather
apron, and ragged cap, like what Jervas used to wear in his lifetime;
and, moreover, he limps in his gait, as Lame Jervas always did, I
remember well.” The gentleman walked on, and the miners observed, what
had before escaped their notice, that he limped a little; and, when
he came again to the light, the guide, after considering him very
attentively, said, “If I was not afraid of affronting the like of a
gentleman such as your honour, I should make bold for to say that you be
very much--only a deal darker complexioned--you be very much of the same
sort of person as our Lame Jervas used for to be.” “Not at all like our
Lame Jervas,” cried the old miner, who professed to have seen the ghost;
“no more like to him than _Black Jack to Blue John._” The by-standers
laughed at this comparison; and the guide, provoked at being laughed at,
sturdily maintained that not a man that wore a head in Cornwall should
laugh him out of his senses. Each party now growing violent in support
of his opinion, from words they were just coming to blows, when the
stranger at once put an end to the dispute, by declaring that he was the
very man. “Jervas!” exclaimed they all at once, “Jervas alive!--our Lame
Jervas turned gentleman!”
The miners could scarcely believe their eyes, or their ears, especially
when, upon following him out of the mine, they saw him get into a
handsome coach, and drive toward the mansion of one of the principal
gentlemen of the neighbourhood, who was a proprietor of the mine.
The next day, all the head miners were invited to dine in tents, pitched
in a field near this gentleman’s house. It was fine weather, and harvest
time; the guests assembled, and in the tents found abundance of good
cheer provided for them.
After dinner, Mr. R----, the master of the house, appeared, accompanied
by Lame Jervas, dressed in his miner’s old jacket and cap. Even the
ghost-seer acknowledged that he now looked wonderful like himself. Mr.
R----, the master of the house, filled a glass, and drank--“Welcome
home to our friend, Mr. Jervas; and may good faith always meet with good
fortune.” The toast went round, each drank, and repeated, “Welcome home
to our friend Mr. Jervas; and may good faith always meet good fortune.”
Indeed, what was meant by the good faith, or the good fortune, none
could guess; and many in whispers, and some aloud, made bold to ask for
an explanation of the toast.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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