THE GENTLEMAN OF FIFTY AND THE DAMSEL OF NINETEEN

(An early uncompleted fragment.)

By George Meredith



CHAPTER I

Passing over Ickleworth Bridge and rounding up the heavily-shadowed river
of our narrow valley, I perceived a commotion as of bathers in a certain
bright space immediately underneath the vicar's terrace-garden steps. My
astonishment was considerable when it became evident to me that the vicar
himself was disporting in the water, which, reaching no higher than his
waist, disclosed him in the ordinary habiliments of his cloth. I knew my
friend to be one of the most absent-minded of men, and my first effort to
explain the phenomenon of his appearance there, suggested that he might
have walked in, the victim of a fit of abstraction, and that he had not
yet fully comprehended his plight; but this idea was dispersed when I
beheld the very portly lady, his partner in joy and adversity, standing
immersed, and perfectly attired, some short distance nearer to the bank.
As I advanced along the bank opposed to them, I was further amazed to
hear them discoursing quite equably together, so that it was impossible
to say on the face of it whether a catastrophe had occurred, or the great
heat of a cloudless summer day had tempted an eccentric couple to seek
for coolness in the directest fashion, without absolute disregard to
propriety. I made a point of listening for the accentuation of the
'my dear' which was being interchanged, but the key-note to the harmony
existing between husband and wife was neither excessively unctuous, nor