Those unhappy wretches had made their
choice between the Spaniards and the ground-
sharks.

THE REVEREND ALFRED HOBLUSH'S
STATEMENT.

YE who listen with credulity to the
whispers of Fancy, and pursue with
eagerness the phantoms of Hope; who expect that
Age will dissipate the shyness of Youth;
attend to the history of Hoblush, curate of
Saint Stylites.

I am aware that Doctor Samuel Johnson
begins his diverting History of Rasselas,
Prince of Abyssinia, very much in this
fashion. That unmeaning young person and
his wearisome adviser are introduced with a
flourish laid down, as it were, on the same
lines. But I say again, Ye who listen with
credulity to the whispers of Fancy, who
expect that Age will dissipate the shyness,
blushes, spilling of fluids, entanglement of
human limbs, with other failings incident to
constitutional nervousness; attend to the
history of Alfred Hoblush, curate of Saint
Stylites.

The configuration of the ecclesiastic known
as Hoblush, is pretty familiar to the parish;
but to the great world outside, it is, in human
probability, caviare. I am tall and slender, very
gentle of aspect, and look out at Nature very
mildly—through glasses. My hair is long, and
usually saturated with unguents, and turns up
spontaneously at the back in a sort of frill.
My garment is long and monkish, shining like
satin; and my umbrella is carried full a yard
in front of my person, being poised daintily
between two fingers, as though it were a
hot rod. In this guise I go my peaceful,
inoffensive round, a-curing of souls: the
Reverend Alfred Hoblush, at your service.

This is the pure shell, the earthy,
out-speaking portion of him. But for that which
passeth show, the spiritual, indestructible
half of the man, a hint or so may be dropped.
I have a quiet, gentle soul, in truth but
ill-calculated for contact with the furze and
briars of a wicked world. The gentle soul
flies in upon itself at anything like a jar, a
start, or shock—at anything like a rough
joke, or what is called quizzing—flies home
fluttering, trembling, and, so to speak, in
blushes. A burst of ill-regulated female
merriment has been known to rout utterly
the little trifler. From the loud laugh that
speaks the vacant mind, it shrinks with
horror.

Not but that my own personality as the
Reverend Alfred Hoblush took exceeding
delight in female society. It was in a manner
the air it breathed; and in my own parish,
that is to say, the little country-town of
Crambington, where I did curacy duty for
the Reverend Doctor Blowers. It may be
stated, with a pardonable vanity, that the
respiratory functions were reciprocal; for,
with the mature virgins of Crambington.
Hoblush was the air they breathed—
inhaled greedily indeed during many a quiet
evening tea. To such entertainment I, so
to speak, let myself out on hire, per
night, and this run upon me positively
continues five nights out of the seven. What
may have been at the bottom of such
hearty appreciation, is not for me to state:
since I did no more than look out placidly
through my spectacles on my parish virgins,
and in quiet tones unfold my experiences of
men and things generally. Positively you
might have heard a pin drop, as, seated in
the midst, those silvery tones echoed
musically through the apartment. O happy,
happy hours! Hours of whose return,
proximate or remote, the probability is
extremely doubtful! Someway, with the rough
creatures belonging to my own sex, I could
not thrive. I did not affect their company,
nor did they mine. Their coarse rough bearing
did not suit my gentle ways; for I was
but a shorn lamb, to which the wind should
be tempered. The bare notion of being
clapped on the back, or welcomed in
Hail-fellow-well-met! fashion, or being joked at
rudely, or being addressed with slang allusion,
gives me a cold feeling down my back.
No, my gentle soul was attuned to the sweet
song of women's voices. It fluttered away to
the soft boudoir sanctuary, and there nestled
among the down cushions and tabourets of
female nature.

But there was one strange peculiarity in my
mental constitution—if peculiarity it can be
called—which should not be passed over in
this free and open confession. There was
implanted in me a mysterious repulsion to
most of the animal creation. Of cats I had
that awe and dread which is common to me,
I believe, with many more of my fellow-creatures;
holding their classification by naturalists
under the head of animals Feræ Naturæ,
or savage beasts to be highly just and
scientific. Horses, too, inspired me with terror, and
I cannot call to mind that I ever, at any
period of my life, found myself on the back of a
fiery courser. But, curious to say, I most shrank
from dogs. Their presence filled me with terror;
I scented them afar off, and was warned
of their approach by a sort of instinct. Everyway
my presence seemed to have the effect of
inflaming them, and even dogs of inoffensive
natures have been known to growl and
glance furiously from their eyes and to display
other marks of irritation. Their furious looks
made me tremble all over, and caused a cold
perspiration to break forth. Such hostility
was as unaccountable as undeserved; yet it had
the effect of bringing me round by circuitous
roads and by-places, to avoid parts where I
knew strange dogs were kept. This very
often embittered the course of my life. I
never knew the day nor the hour when the
fangs of one of these brutes might be closing
on my unsuspecting flesh.