I felt decidedly nervous, as the time approached when I should make my first appearance before an audience. And the receipt of long letters from Colonel Prowley, overflowing with hopes, expectations, and offers about my contemplated harangue, did not decrease my embarrassment.
"How shall I tell the old gentleman," I exclaimed, one day, after reading one of his Pre-Adamite epistles,--"how shall I tell him, that, instead of the solid discourse he expects, I have nothing but a collection of trumpery rhymes?"
"Why tell him anything about it?" said Kate. "The committee have not asked you to announce a subject, or even to declare whether you intend to address them in prose or verse. Then say nothing; when you begin to speak, it will be time enough for people to find out what you are to speak about, and whether they like it or not."
"A capital plan!" I cried; "for I know, that, if Prowley, Dastick, and the rest of them, can once hear the thing, and find out how popular it is with the audience, they will come round and talk about sugared verses, or something of the sort."
So it was decided that no notice of what I was to say, or how I was to say it, should be given to any inhabitant of Foxden. The town, unprepared by the approaches of a regular literary siege, must be carried by a grand assault. At times I felt doubtful; but then I knew it was the distrust of modesty and inexperience.
A fine, clear day, unusually warm for the season, was the important fifth of November. Devoting the early hours to tedious travelling by the railroad, we drove up to the Prowley homestead soon after eleven o'clock. The Colonel and his sister received us with the old enthusiasm of hospitality,--Miss Prowley carrying Kate up-stairs for some fresh mystery of toilet, while her brother walked me up and down the piazza in a maze of inquiries and information.
I was glad to find that he cordially approved my resolution not to announce in advance the subject or manner of my evening performance. Professor Owlsdarck had said nothing of the particular theme of discourse selected for the trustees; and, indeed, it had often been the custom for the Foxden Lyceum to make no other announcement than the name of the lecturer. I was greatly relieved by this assurance, and was about to express as much, when my companion left me to greet a tall, ungainly-looking gentleman who came round the east corner of the house. This stranger was about forty years old, wore light-blue spectacles, and had a near-sighted, study-worn look about him that speedily suggested the essayist of cenotaphs. There was a gloomy rustiness in his countenance, a stiff protrusion of the head, and an apparent dryness about the joints, that made me feel, that, if he could be taken to pieces and thoroughly oiled, he would be much better for it.