SIR MOSES, being now a magnate of the land, associating with Lord Oilcake, Lord Repartee, Sir Harry Fuzball and other great dons, of course had to live up to the mark, an inconvenient arrangement for those who do not like paying for it, and the consequence was that he had to put up with an inferior article.—take first-class servants who had fallen into second-class circumstances. He had a ticket-of-leave butler, a delirium tremens footman, and our old friend pheasant-feathers, now calling herself Mrs. Margerum, for cook and house-keeper. And first, of the butler. He was indeed a magnificent man, standing six feet two and faultlessly proportioned, with a commanding presence of sufficient age to awe those under him, and to inspire confidence in an establishment with such a respectable looking man at the head. Though so majestic, he moved noiselessly, spoke in a whisper, and seemed to spirit the things off the table without sound or effort. Pity that the exigencies of gambling should have caused such an elegant man to melt his master’s plate, still greater that he should have been found out and compelled to change the faultless white vest of upper service for the unbecoming costume of prison life. Yet so it was: and the man who was convicted as Henry Stopper, and sentenced to fourteen years’ transportation, emerged at the end of four with a ticket-of-leave, under the assumed name of Demetrius Bankhead. Mr. Bankhead, knowing the sweets of office, again aspired to high places, but found great difficulty in suiting himself, indeed in getting into service at all.
People who keep fine gentlemen are very chary and scrupulous whom they select, and extremely inquisitive and searching in their inquiries.
In vain Mr. Bankhead asserted that he had been out of health and living on the Continent, or that he had been a partner in a brewery which hadn’t succeeded, or that his last master was abroad he didn’t know where, and made a variety of similar excuses.
Though many fine ladies and gentlemen were amazingly taken with him at first, and thought he would grace their sideboards uncommonly, they were afraid to touch for fear “all was not right.”
Then those of a lower grade, thought he wouldn’t apply to them after having lived in such high places as he described, and this notwithstanding Bankhead’s plausible assertion, that he wished for a situation in a quiet regular family in the country, where he could get to bed at a reasonable hour, instead of being kept up till he didn’t know when. He would even come upon trial, if the parties liked, which would obviate all inquiries about character; just as if a man couldn’t run off with the plate the first day as well as the last.
Our readers, we dare say, know the condescending sort of gentleman “who will accept of their situations,” and who deprecate an appeal to their late masters by saying in an airified sort of way, with a toss of the head or a wave of the hand, that they told his Grace or Sir George they wouldn’t trouble to ask them for characters. Just as if the Duke or Sir George were infinitely beneath their notice or consideration.
And again the sort of men who flourish a bunch of testimonials, skilfully selecting the imposing passages and evading the want of that connecting link upon which the whole character depends, and who talk in a patronising way of “poor lord this,” or “poor Sir Thomas that,” and what they would have done for them if they had been alive, poor men!
Mr. Demetrius Bankhead tried all the tricks of the trade—we beg pardon—profession—wherever he heard of a chance, until hope deferred almost made his noble heart sick. The “puts off” and excuses he got were curiously ingenious. However, he was pretty adroit himself, for when he saw the parties were not likely to bite, he anticipated a refusal by respectfully declining the situation, and then saying that he might have had so and so’s place, only he wanted one where he should be in town half the year, or that he couldn’t do with only one footman under him.
It was under stress of circumstances that Sir Moses Mainchance became possessed of Mr. Bankhead’s services. He had kicked his last butler (one of the fine characterless sort) out of the house for coming in drunk to wait at dinner, and insisting upon putting on the cheese first with the soup, then with the meat, then with the sweets, and lastly with the dessert; and as Sir Moses was going to give one of his large hunt dinners shortly after, it behoved him to fill up the place—we beg pardon—office—as quickly as possible. To this end he applied to Mrs. Listener, the gossiping Register Office-keeper of Hinton, a woman well calculated to write the history of every family in the county, for behind her screen every particular was related, and Mrs. Listener, having paraded all the wretched glazey-clothed, misshapen creatures that always turn up on such occasions, Sir Moses was leaving after his last visit in disgust, when Mr. Bankhead walked in—“quite promiscuous,” as the saying is, but by previous arrangement with Mrs. Listener. Sir Moses was struck with Bankhead’s air and demeanour, so quiet, so respectful, raising his hat as he met Sir Moses at the door, that he jumped to the conclusion that he would do for him, and returning shortly after to Mrs. Listener, he asked all the usual questions, which Mrs. Listener cleverly evaded, merely saying that he professed to be a perfect butler, and had several most excellent testimonials, but that it would be much better for Sir Moses to judge for himself, for really Mrs. Listener had the comfort of Sir Moses so truly at heart that she could not think of recommending any one with whom she was not perfectly conversant, and altogether she palavered him so neatly, always taking care to extol Bankhead’s personal appearance as evidence of his respectability, that the baronet was fairly talked into him, almost without his knowing it, while Mrs. Listener salved her own conscience with the reflection that it was Sir Moses’s own doing, and that the bulk of his plate was “Brummagem” ware—and not silver. So the oft-disappointed ticket-of-leaver was again installed in a butlers pantry. And having now introduced him, we will pass over the delirium tremens footman and arrive at that next important personage in an establishment, the housekeeper, in this case our old friend pheasant’s-feathers. Mrs. Margerum, late Sarey Grimes, the early coach companion and confidante of our fair friend Mrs. Pringle—had undergone the world’s “ungenerous scorn,” as well for having set up an adopted son, as for having been turned away from many places for various domestic peculations. Mrs. Margerum, however, was too good a judge to play upon anything that anybody could identify, consequently though she was often caught, she always had an answer, and would not unfrequently turn the tables on her accusers—lawyer Hindmarch like—and make them pay for having been robbed. No one knew better than Mrs. Margerum how many feathers could be extracted from a bed without detection, what reduction a horse-hair mattress would stand, or how to make two hams disappear under the process of frying one. Indeed she was quite an adept in housekeeping, always however preferring to live with single gentlemen, for whom she would save a world of trouble by hiring all the servants, thus of course having them well under her thumb.
Sir Moses having suffered severely from waste, drunkenness and incapacity, had taken Mrs. Margerum on that worst of all recommendations, the recommendation of another servant—viz., Lord Oilcake’s cook, for whom Mrs. Margerum had done the out-door carrying when in another situation. Mrs. Margerum’s long career, coupled with her now having a son equal to the out-door department, established a claim that was not to be resisted when his lordship’s cook had a chance, on the application of Sir Moses, of placing her.
Mrs. Margerum entered upon her duties at Pangburn Park, with the greatest plausibility, for not content with the usual finding fault with all the acts of her predecessors, she absolutely “reformed the butcher’s bills,” reducing them nearly a pound a-week below what they had previously been, and showed great assiduity in sending in all the little odds and ends of good things that went out. To be sure the hams disappeared rather quickly, but then they do cut so to waste in frying, and the cows went off in their milk, but cows are capricious things, and Mrs. Hindmarch and she had a running account in the butter and egg line, Mrs. Hindmarch accommodating her with a few pounds of butter and a few score of eggs when Sir Moses had company, Mrs. Margerum repaying her at her utmost convenience, receiving the difference in cash, the repayment being always greatly in excess of the advance. Still as Mrs. Margerum permitted no waste, and allowed no one to rob but herself, the house appeared to be economically kept, and if Sir Moses didn’t think that she was a “charming woman,” he at all events considered he was a most fortunate man, and felt greatly indebted to Lord Oilcake’s cook for recommending her—“dom’d if he didn’t.”
But though Mrs. Margerum kept the servants well up to their tea and sugar allowances, she granted them every indulgence in the way of gadding about, and also in having their followers, provided the followers didn’t eat, by which means she kept the house quiet, and made her reign happy and prosperous.
Being in full power when Mr. Bankhead came, she received him with the greatest cordiality, and her polite offer of having his clothes washed in Sir Moses’s laundry being accepted, of course she had nothing to fear from Mr. Bankhead. And so they became as they ought to be, very good friends—greatly to Sir Moses’s advantage.
Now for the out-door department of Sir Moses’s ménage. The hunting establishment was of the rough and ready order, but still the hounds showed uncommon sport, and if the horses were not quite up to the mark, that perhaps was all in favour of the hounds. The horses indeed were of a very miscellaneous order—all sorts, all sizes, all better in their wind than on their legs—which were desperately scored and iron-marked. Still the cripples could go when they were warm, and being ridden by men whose necks were at a discount, they did as well as the best. There is nothing like a cheap horse for work.
Sir Moses’s huntsman was the noted Tom Findlater, a man famous for everything in his line except sobriety, in which little item he was sadly deficient. Tom would have been quite at the top of the tree if it hadn’t been for this unfortunate infirmity. “The crittur,” as a Scotch huntsman told Sir Moses at Tattersall’s, “could no keep itself sober.” To show the necessities to which this degrading propensity reduces a man, we will quote Tom’s description of himself when he applied to be discharged under the Insolvent Debtors’ Act before coming to Sir Moses. Thus it ran—“John Thomas Findlater known also as Tom Find’ater, formerly huntsman to His Grace the Duke of Streamaway, of Streamaway Castle, in Streamaway-shire, then of No. 6, Back Row, Broomsfield, in the county of Tansey, helper in a livery stable, then huntsman to Sampson Cobbyford, Esq., of Bluntfield Park, master of the Hugger Mugger hounds in the county of Scramblington, then huntsman to Sir Giles Gatherthrong, Baronet, of Clipperley Park, in the county of Scurry, then huntsman to the Right Honourable Lord Lovedale, of Gayhurst Court, in the county of Tipperley, then of No. 11, Tan Yard Lane, Barrenbin, in the county of Thistleford, assistant to a ratcatcher, then huntsman to Captain Rattlinghope, of Killbriton Castle, in the County Steepleford, then whipper-in to the Towrowdeshire hounds in Derrydownshire, then helper at the Lion and the Lamb public-house at Screwford, in the County of Mucklethrift, then of 6 1/2 Union Street, in Screwford, aforesaid, moulder to a clay-pipe maker, then and now out of business and employ, and whose wife is a charwoman.”
Such were the varied occupations of a man, who might have lived like a gentleman, if he had only had conduct. There is no finer place than that of a huntsman, for as Beckford truly says, his office is pleasing and at the same time flattering, he is paid for that which diverts him, nor is a general after a victory more proud, than is a huntsman who returns with his fox’s head.
When Sir Moses fell in with Tom Findlater down Tattersall’s entry, Tom was fresh from being whitewashed in the Insolvent Debtors’ Court, and having only ninepence in the world, and what he stood up in, he was uncommonly good to deal with. Moreover, Sir Moses had the vanity to think that he could reclaim even the most vicious; and, provided they were cheap enough, he didn’t care to try. So, having lectured Tom well on the importance of sobriety, pointing out to him the lamentable consequences of drunkenness—of which no one was more sensible than Tom—Sir Moses chucked him a shilling, and told him if he had a mind to find his way down to Pangburn Park, in Hit-im-and-Hold-im shire, he would employ him, and give him what he was worth; with which vague invitation Tom came in the summer of the season in which we now find him.
And now having sketched the ménage, let us introduce our friend Billy thereto. But first we must get him out of the dangerous premises in which he is at present located—a visit that has caused our handsome friend Mrs. Pringle no little uneasiness.
It was fortunate for Sir Moses Mainchance, and unfortunate for our friend Fine Billy, that the Baronet was a bachelor, or Sir Moses would have fared very differently at the hands of the ladies who seldom see much harm in a man so long as he is single, and, of course, refrains from showing a decided preference for any young lady. It is the married men who monopolise all the vice and improprieties of life. The Major, too, having sold Billy a horse, and got paid for him, was not very urgent about his further society at present, nor indisposed for a little quiet, especially as Mrs. Yammerton represented that the napkins and table-linen generally were running rather short. Mamma, too, knowing that there would be nothing but men-parties at Pangburn Park, had no uneasiness on that score, indeed rather thought a little absence might be favourable, in enabling Billy to modify his general attentions in favour of a single daughter, for as yet he had been extremely dutiful in obeying his Mamma’s injunctions not to be more agreeable to one sister than to another. Indeed, our estimable young friend did not want to be caught, and had been a good deal alarmed at the contents of his Mamma’s last letter.
One thing, however, was settled, namely, that Billy was to go to the Park, and how to get there was the next consideration; for, though the Baronet had offered to convey him in the first instance, he had modified the offer into the loan of the gig at the last, and there would be more trouble in sending a horse to fetch it, than there would be in starting fair in a hired horse and vehicle from Yammerton Grange. The ready-witted Major, however, soon put matters right.
“I’ll te te tell you wot,” said he, “you can do. You can have old Tommy P-p-plumberg, the registrar of b-b-births, deaths, and marriages, t-t-trap for a trifle—s-s-say, s-s-seven and sixpence—only you must give him the money as a p-p-present, you know, not as it were for the hire, or the Excise would be down upon him for the du-du-duty, and p-p-p’raps fine him into the b-b-bargain.”
Well, that seemed all right and feasible enough, and most likely would have been all right if Monsieur had proposed it; but, coming from master, of course Monsieur felt bound to object.
“It vouldn’t hold alf a quarter their things,” he said; “besides, how de deuce were they to manage with de horse?”
The Major essayed to settle that, too. There would be no occasion for Mr. Pringle to take all his things with him, as he hoped he would return to them from Sir Moses’s and have another turn with the haryers—try if they couldn’t circumvent the old hare that had beat them the other day, and the thing would be for Mr. Pringle to ride his horse quietly over, Monsieur going in advance with the gig, and having all things ready against Mr. Pringle arrived; for the Major well knew that the Baronet’s promises were not to be depended upon, and would require some little manouvering to get carried out, especially in the stable department.
Still there was a difficulty—Monsieur couldn’t drive. No, by his vord, he couldn’t drive. He was valet-de-chambre, not coachman or grum, and could make nothing of horses. Might know his ear from his tail, but dat was all. Should be sure to opset, and p’raps damage his crown. (Jack wanted to go in a carriage and pair.) Well, the Major would accommodate that too. Tom Cowlick, the hind’s lad at the farm, should act the part of charioteer, and drive Monsieur, bag, baggage and all. And so matters were ultimately settled, it never occurring to Billy to make the attempt on the Major’s stud that the Baronet proposed, in the shape of borrowing a second horse, our friend doubtless thinking he carried persecution enough in his own nag. The knotty point of transit being settled, Billy relapsed into his usual easy languor among the girls, while Monsieur made a judicious draft of clothes to take with them, leaving him a very smart suit to appear in at church on Sunday, and afterwards ride through the county in. We will now suppose the dread hour of departure arrived.
It was just as Mrs. Pringle predicted! There were the red eye-lids and laced kerchiefs, and all the paraphernalia of leave-taking, mingled with the hopes of Major and Mrs. Yammerton, that Billy would soon return (after the washing, of course); for, in the language of the turf, Billy was anybody’s game, and one sister had just as good a right to red eye-lids as another.
Having seen Billy through the ceremony of leave-taking, the Major then accompanied him to the stable, thinking to say a word for himself and his late horse ‘ere they parted. After admiring Napoleon the Great’s condition, as he stood turned round in the stall ready for mounting, the Major observed casually, “that he should not be surprised if Sir Moses found fault with that ‘oss.”
“Why?” asked Billy, who expected perfection for a hundred guineas.
“D-d-don’t know,” replied the Major, with a Jack Rogers’ shrug of the shoulders. “D-d-don’t know, ‘cept that Sir Moses seldom says a good word for anybody’s ‘oss but his own.”
The clothes being then swept over the horse’s long tail into the manger, he stepped gaily out, followed by our friend and his host.
“I thought it b-b-better to send your servant on,” observed the Major confidentially, as he stood eyeing the gay deceiver of a horse: “for, between ourselves, the Baronet’s stables are none of the best, and it will give you the opportunity of getting the pick of them.”
“Yarse,” replied Billy, who did not enter into the delicacies of condition.
“That ho-ho-horse requires w-w-warmth,” stuttered the Major, “and Sir Moses’s stables are both d-d-damp and d-d-dirty;” saying which, he tendered his ungloved hand, and with repeated hopes that Billy would soon return, and wishes for good sport, not forgetting compliments to the Baronet, our hero and his host at length parted for the present.
And the Major breathed more freely as he saw the cock-horse capering round the turn into the Helmington road.
FROM Yammerton Grange to Pangburn Park is twelve miles as the crow flies, or sixteen by the road. The Major, who knows every nick and gap in the country, could ride it in ten or eleven; but this species of knowledge is not to be imparted to even the most intelligent head. Not but what the Major tried to put it into Billy’s, and what with directions to keep the Helmington road till he came to the blacksmith’s shop, then to turn up the crooked lane on the left, leaving Wanley windmill on the right, and Altringham spire on the left, avoiding the village of Rothley, then to turn short at Samerside Hill, keeping Missleton Plantations full before him, with repeated assurances that he couldn’t miss his way, he so completely bewildered our friend, that he was lost before he had gone a couple of miles. Then came the provoking ignorance of country life,—the counter-questions instead of answers,—the stupid stare and tedious drawl, ending, perhaps, with “ars a stranger,” or may be the utter negation of a place within, perhaps, a few miles of where the parties live. Billy blundered and blundered; took the wrong turning up the crooked lane, kept Wanley windmill on the left instead of the right, and finally rode right into the village of Rothley, and then began asking his way. It being Sunday, he soon attracted plenty of starers, such an uncommon swell being rare in the country; and one told him one way; another, another; and then the two began squabbling as to which was the right one, enlisting of course the sympathies of the bystanders, so that Billy’s progress was considerably impeded. Indeed, he sometimes seemed to recede instead of advance, so contradictory were the statements as to distance, and the further be went the further he seemed to have to go.
If Sir Moses hadn’t been pretty notorious as well from hunting the country as from his other performances, we doubt whether Billy would have reached Pangburn Park that night. As it was, Sir Moses’s unpopularity helped Billy along in a growling uncivil sort of way, so different to the usual friendly forwarding that marks the approach to a gentleman’s house in the country.
“Ay, ay, that’s the way,” said one with a sneer. “What, you’re gannin to him—are ye?” asked another, in a tone that as good as said, I wouldn’t visit such a chap. “Aye, that’s the way—straight on, through Addingham town”—for every countryman likes to have his village called a town—“straight on through Addingham town, keep the lane on the left, and then when ye come to the beer-shop at three road ends, ax for the Kingswood road, and that’ll lead ye to the lodges.”
All roads are long when one has to ask the way—the distance seems nearly double in going to a place to what it does in returning, and Billy thought he never would get to Pangburn Park. The shades of night, too, drew on—Napoleon the Great had long lost his freedom and gaiety of action, and hung on the bit in a heavy listless sort of way. Billy wished for a policeman to protect and direct him. Lights began to be scattered about the country, and day quickly declined in favour of night. The darkening mist gathered perceptibly. Billy longed for those lodges of which he had heard so much, but which seemed ever to elude him. He even appeared inclined to compound for the magnificence of two by turning in at Mr. Pinkerton’s single one. By the direction of the woman at this one, he at length reached the glad haven, and passing through the open portals was at length in Pangburn Park. The drab-coloured road directed him onward, and Billy being relieved from the anxieties of asking his way, pulled up into a walk, as well to cool his horse as to try and make out what sort of a place he had got to. With the exception, however, of the road, it was a confused mass of darkness, that might contain trees, hills, houses, hay-stacks, anything. Presently the melodious cry of hounds came wafted on the southerly breeze, causing our friend to shudder at the temerity of his undertaking. “Drat these hounds,” muttered he, wishing he was well out of the infliction, and as he proceeded onward the road suddenly divided, and both ways inclining towards certain lights, Billy gave his horse his choice, and was presently clattering on the pavement of the court-yard of Pangburn Park.
Sir Moses’s hospitality was rather of a spurious order; he would float his friends with claret and champagne, and yet grudge their horses a feed of corn. Not but that he was always extremely liberal and pressing in his offers, begging people would bring whatever they liked, and stay as long as they could, but as soon as his offers were closed with, he began to back out. Oh, he forgot! he feared he could only take in one horse; or if he could take in a horse he feared he couldn’t take in the groom. Just as he offered to lend Billy his gig and horse and then reduced the offer into the loan of the gig only. So it was with the promised two-stalled stable. When Monsieur drove, or rather was driven, with folded arms into the court-yard, and asked for his “me lors stable,” the half-muzzy groom observed with a lurch and a hitch of his shorts, that “they didn’t take in (hiccup) osses there—leastways to stop all night.”
“Vell, but you’ll put up me lor Pringle’s,” observed Jack with an air of authority, for he considered that he and his master were the exceptions to all general rules.
“Fear we can’t (hiccup) it,” replied the blear-eyed caitiff; “got as many (hiccup) osses comin to-night as ever we have room for. Shall have to (hiccup) two in a (hiccup) as it is” (hiccup).
“Oh, you can stow him away somewhere,” now observed Mr. Demetrius Bankhead, emerging from his pantry dressed in a pea-green wide-awake, a Meg Merrilies tartan shooting-jacket, a straw-coloured vest, and drab pantaloons.
“You’ll be Mr. Pringle’s gentleman, I presume,” observed Bankhead, now turning and bowing to Jack, who still retained his seat in the gig.
“I be, sare,” replied Jack, accepting the proffered hand of his friend.
“Oh, yes, you’ll put him up somewhere, Fred,” observed Bankhead, appealing again to the groom, “he’ll take no harm anywhere,” looking at the hairy, heated animal, “put ‘im in the empty cow-house,” adding “it’s only for one night—only for one night.”
“O dis is not the quadruped,” observed Monsieur, nodding at the cart mare before him, “dis is a job beggar vot ve can kick out at our pleasure, but me lor is a cornin’ on his own proper cheval, and he vill vant space and conciliation.”
“Oh, we’ll manage him somehow,” observed Bankhead confidently, “only we’ve a large party to-night, and want all the spare stalls we can raise, but they’ll put ‘im up somewhere,” added he, “they’ll put ‘im up somewhere,” observing as before, “it’s only for one night—only for one night. Now won’t you alight and walk in,” continued he, motioning Monsieur to descend, and Jack having intimated that his lor vould compliment their politeness if they took vell care of his ‘orse, conceived he had done all that a faithful domestic could under the circumstances, and leaving the issue in the hands of fate, alighted from his vehicle, and entering by the back way, proceeded to exchange family “particulars” with Mr. Bankhead in the pantry.
Now the Pangburn Park stables were originally very good, forming a crescent at the back of the house, with coach-houses and servants’ rooms intervening, but owing to the trifling circumstance of allowing the drains to get choked, they had fallen into disrepute. At the back of the crescent were some auxiliary stables, worse of course than the principal range, into which they put night-visitors’ horses, and those whose owners were rash enough to insist upon Sir Moses fulfilling his offers of hospitality to them. At either end of these latter were loose boxes, capable of being made into two-stalled stables, only these partitions were always disappearing, and the roofs had long declined turning the weather; but still they were better than nothing, and often formed receptacles for sly cabby’s, or postboys who preferred the chance of eleemosynary fare at Sir Moses’s to the hand in the pocket hospitality of the Red Lion, at Fillerton Hill, or the Mainchance Arms, at Duckworth Bridge. Into the best of these bad boxes the gig mare was put, and as there was nothing to get in the house, Tom Cowlick took his departure as soon as she had eaten her surreptitious feed of oats. The pampered Napoleon the Great, the horse that required all the warmth and coddling in the world, was next introduced, fine Billy alighting from his back in the yard with all the unconcern that he would from one of Mr. Splint’s or Mr. Spavins’s week day or hour jobs. Indeed, one of the distinguishing features between the new generation of sportsmen and the old, is the marked indifference of the former to the comforts of their horses compared to that shown by the old school, who always looked to their horses before themselves, and not unfrequently selected their inns with reference to the stables. Now-a-days, if a youth gives himself any concern about the matter, it will often only be with reference to the bill, and he will frequently ride away without ever having been into the stable. If, however, fine Billy had seen his, he would most likely have been satisfied with the comfortable assurance that it was “only for one night,” the old saying, “enough to kill a horse,” leading the uninitiated to suppose that they are very difficult to kill.
“Ah, my dear Pringle!” exclaimed Sir Moses, rising from the depths of a rather inadequately stuffed chair (for Mrs. Margerum had been at it). “Ah, my dear Pringle, I’m delighted to see you!” continued the Baronet, getting Billy by both hands, as the noiseless Mr. Bankhead, having opened the library door, piloted him through the intricacies of the company. Our host really was glad of a new arrival, for a long winter’s evening had exhausted the gossip of parties who in a general way saw quite enough, if not too much, of each other. And this is the worst of country visiting in winter; people are so long together that they get exhausted before they should begin.
They have let off the steam of their small talk, and have nothing left to fall back upon but repetition. One man has told what there is in the “Post,” another in “Punch,” a third in the “Mark Lane Express,” and then they are about high-and-dry for the rest of the evening. From criticising Billy, they had taken to speculating upon whether he would come or not, the odds—without which an Englishmen can do nothing—being rather in favour of Mrs. Yammerton’s detaining him. It was not known that Monsieur Rougier had arrived. The mighty problem was at length solved by the Richest Commoner in England appearing among them, and making the usual gyrations peculiar to an introduction. He was then at liberty for ever after to nod or speak or shake hands with or bow to Mr. George and Mr. Henry Waggett, of Kitteridge Green, both five-and-twenty pound subscribers to the Hit-im and Hold-im-shire hounds, to Mr. Stephen Booty, of Verbena Lodge, who gave ten pounds and a cover, to Mr. Silverthorn, of Dryfield, who didn’t give anything, but who had two very good covers which he had been hinting he should require to be paid for,—a hint that had procured him the present invitation, to Mr. Strongstubble, of Buckup Hill, and Mr. Tupman, of Cowslip Cottage, both very good friends to the sport but not “hand in the pocket-ites,” to Mr. Tom Dribbler, Jun., of Hardacres, and his friend Captain Hurricane, of Her Majesty’s ship Thunderer, and to Mr. Cuthbert Flintoff, commonly called Cuddy Flintoff, an “all about” sportsman, who professed to be of all hunts but blindly went to none. Cuddy’s sporting was in the past tense, indeed he seemed to exist altogether upon the recollections of the chace, which must have made a lively impression upon him, for he was continually interlarding his conversation with view holloas, yoicks wind ‘ims! yoick’s push ‘im ups! Indeed, in walking about he seemed to help himself along with the aid of for-rardson! for-rards on! so that a person out of sight, but within hearing, would think he was hunting a pack of hounds.
He dressed the sportsman, too, most assiduously, bird’s-eye cravats, step-collared striped vests, green or Oxford-grey cutaways, with the neatest fitting trousers on the best bow-legs that ever were seen. To see him at Tattersall’s sucking his cane, his cheesy hat well down on his nose, with his stout, well-cleaned doe-skin gloves, standing criticising each horse, a stranger would suppose that he lived entirely on the saddle, instead of scarcely ever being in one. On the present occasion, as soon as he got his “bob” made to our Billy, and our hero’s back was restored to tranquillity, he at him about the weather,—how the moon looked, whether there were any symptoms of frost, and altogether seemed desperately anxious about the atmosphere. This inquiry giving the conversation a start in the out-of-doors line, was quickly followed by Sir Moses asking our Billy how he left the Major, how he found his way there, with hopes that everything was comfortable, and oh! agonising promise! that he would do his best to show him sport.
The assembled guests then took up the subject of their “magnificent country” generally, one man lauding its bottomless brooks, another its enormous bullfinches, a third its terrific stone walls, a fourth its stupendous on-and-offs, a fifth its flying foxes, and they unanimously resolved that the man who could ride over Hit-im and Hold-im-shire could ride over any country in the world. “Any country in the world!” vociferated Cuddy, slowly and deliberately, with a hearty crack of his fat thigh. And Billy, as he sat listening to their dreadful recitals, thought that he had got into the lion’s den with a vengeance. Most sincerely he wished himself back at the peaceful pursuits of Yammerton Grange. Then, as they were in full cry with their boasting eulogiums, the joyful dressing-bell rang, and Cuddy Flintoff putting his finger in his ear, as if to avoid deafening himself, shrieked, “hoick halloa! hoick!” in a tone that almost drowned the sound of the clapper. Then when the “ticket of leaver” and the delirium tremens footman appeared at the door with the blaze of bedroom candles, Cuddy suddenly turned whipper-in, and working his right arm as if he were cracking a whip, kept holloaing, “get away hoick! get away hoick!” until he drove Billy and Baronet and all before him.
“Rum fellow that,” observed the Baronet, now showing Billy up to his room, as soon as he had got sufficient space put between them to prevent Cuddy hearing, “Rum fellow that,” repeated he, not getting a reply from our friend, who didn’t know exactly how to interpret the word “rum.”
“That fellow’s up to everything,—cleverest fellow under the sun,” continued Sir Moses, now throwing open the door of an evident bachelor’s bed-room. Not but that it was one of the best in the house, only it was wretchedly furnished, and wanted all the little neatnesses and knic-knaceries peculiar to a lady-kept house. The towels were few and flimsy, the soap hard and dry, there was a pincushion without pins, a portfolio without paper, a grate with a smoky fire, while the feather-bed and mattress had been ruthlessly despoiled of their contents. Even the imitation maple-wood sofa on which Billy’s dress-clothes were now laid, had not been overlooked, and was as lank and as bare as a third-rate Margate lodging-house, one—all ribs and hollows.
“Ah, there you are!” exclaimed Sir Moses, pointing to the garments, “There you are!” adding, “You’ll find the bell at the back of your bed,” pointing to one of the old smothering order of four-posters with its dyed moreen curtains closely drawn, “You’ll find the bell at the back of the bed, and when you come down we shall be in the same room as we were before.” So saying, the Baronet retired, leaving our Billy to commence operations.
WE dare pay it has struck such of our readers as have followed the chace for more than the usual average allowance of three seasons, that hunts flourish most vigorously where there is a fair share of hospitality, and Sir Moses Mainchance was quite of that opinion. He found it answered a very good purpose as well to give occasional dinners at home as to attend the club meetings at Hinton. To the former he invited all the elite of his field, and such people as he was likely to get anything out of while the latter included the farmers and yeomen, the Flying Hatters, the Dampers, and so on, whereby, or by reason or means whereof, as the lawyers say, the spirit of the thing was well sustained. His home parties were always a great source of annoyance to our friend Mrs. Margerum, who did not like to be intruded upon by the job cook (Mrs. Pomfret, of Hinton), Mrs. Margerum being in fact more of a housekeeper than a cook, though quite cook enough for Sir Moses in a general way, and perhaps rather too much of a housekeeper for him—had he but known it. Mrs. Pomfret, however, being mistress of Mrs. Margerum’s secret (viz., who got the dripping), the latter was obliged to “put up” with her, and taking her revenge by hiding her things, and locking up whatever she was likely to want. Still, despite of all difficulties, Mrs. Pomfret, when sober, could cook a very good dinner, and as Sir Moses allowed her a pint of rum for supper, she had no great temptation to exceed till then. She was thought on this occasion, if possible, to surpass herself, and certainly Sir Moses’s dinner contrasted very favourably with what Billy Pringle had been partaking of at our friend Major Yammerton’s, whose cook had more energy than execution. In addition to this, Mr. Bankhead plied the fluids most liberally, as the feast progressed, so that what with invitations to drink, and the regular course of the tide, the party were very happy and hilarious.
Then, after dinner, the hot chestnuts and filberts and anchovy toasts mingling with an otherwise excellent desert flavoured the wine and brought out no end of “yoicks wind ‘ims” and aspirations for the morrow. They all felt as if they could ride—Billy and all!
“Not any more, thank you,” being at length the order of the day, a move was made back to the library, a drawing-room being a superfluous luxury where there is no lady, and tea and coffee were rung for. A new subject of conversation was wanted, and Monsieur presently supplied the deficiency.
“That’s a Frenchman, that servant of yours, isn’t he, Pringle?” asked Sir Moses, when Monsieur retired with the tray.
“Yarse,” replied Billy, feeling his trifling moustache after its dip in the cup.
“Thought so,” rejoined Sir Moses, who prided himself upon his penetration. “I’ll have a word with him when he comes in again,” continued he.
Tea followed quickly on the heels of coffee, Monsieur coming in after Bankhead. Monsieur now consequentially drank, and dressed much in the manner that he is in the picture of the glove scene at Yammerton Grange.
“Ah, Monsieur! comment vous portez-vous?” exclaimed the Baronet, which was about as much French as he could raise.
“Pretty middlin’, tenk you, sare,” replied Jack, bowing and grinning at the compliment.
“What, you speak English, do you?” asked the Baronet, thinking he might as well change the language.
“I spake it, sare, some small matter, sare,” replied Jack, with a shrug of his shoulders—“Not nothing like my modder’s tongue, you knows.”
“Ah! you speak it domd well,” replied Sir Moses. “Let you and I have a talk together. Tell me, now, were you ever out hunting?”
Jean Rougier. “Oh, yes, sare, I have been at the chasse of de small dicky-bird—tom-tit—cock-robin—vot you call.”
Sir Moses (laughing). “No, no, that is not the sort of chace I mean; I mean, have you ever been out fox-hunting?”
Jean Rougier (confidentially). “Nevare, sare—nevare.”
Sir Moses. “Ah, my friend, then you’ve a great pleasure to come to—a great pleasure to come to, indeed. Well, you’re a domd good feller, and I’ll tell you what I’ll do—I’ll tell you what I’ll do—I’ll mount you to-morrow—domd if I won’t—you shall ride my old horse, Cockatoo—carry you beautifully. What d’ye ride? Thirteen stun, I should say,” looking Jack over, “quite up to that—quite up to that—stun above it, for that matter. You’ll go streaming away like a bushel of beans.”
“Oh, sare, I tenk you, sare,” replied Jack, “but I have not got my hunting apparatus—my mosquet—my gun, my—no, not notin at all.”
“Gun!” exclaimed Sir Moses, amidst the laughter of the company. “Why, you wouldn’t shoot the fox, would ye?”
“Certainement” replied Jack. “I should pop him over.”
“Oh, the devil!” exclaimed Sir Moses, throwing up his hands in astonishment. “Why, man, we keep the hounds on purpose to hunt him.”
“Silly fellers,” replied Jack, “you should pepper his jacket.”
“Ah, Monsieur, I see you have a deal to learn,” rejoined Sir Moses, laughing. “However, it’s never too late to begin—never too late to begin, and you shall take your first lesson to-morrow. I’ll mount you on old Cockatoo, and you shall see how we manage these matters in England.”
“Oh, sare, I tenk you moch,” replied Jack, again excusing himself. “But I have not got no breeches, no boot-jacks—no notin, comme il faut.”
“I’ll lend you everything you want,—a boot-jack and all,” replied Sir Moses, now quite in the generous mood.
“Ah, sare, you are vare beautiful, and I moch appreciate your benevolence; bot I sud not like to risk my neck and crop outside an unqualified, contradictory quadruped.”
“Nothing of the sort!” exclaimed Sir Moses, “nothing of the sort! He’s the quietest, gentlest crittur alive—a child might ride him, mightn’t it, Cuddy?”
“Safest horse under the sun,” replied Cuddy Flintoff, confidently. “Don’t know such another. Have nothing to do but sit on his back, and give him his head, and he’ll take far better care of you than you can of him. He’s the nag to carry you close up to their stems. Ho-o-i-ck, forrard, ho-o-i-ck! Dash my buttons, Monsieur, but I think I see you sailing away. Shouldn’t be surprised if you were to bring home the brush, only you’ve got one under your nose as it is,” alluding to his moustache.
Jack at this looked rather sour, for somehow people don’t like to be laughed at; so he proceeded to push his tray about under the guests’ noses, by way of getting rid of the subject. He had no objection to a hunt, and to try and do what Cuddy Flintoff predicted, only he didn’t want to spoil his own clothes, or be made a butt of. So, having had his say, he retired as soon as he could, inquiring of Bankhead, when he got out, who that porky old fellow with the round, close-shaven face was.
When the second flight of tea-cups came in, Sir Moses was seated on a hardish chaise longue, beside our friend Mr. Pringle, to whom he was doing the agreeable attentive host, and a little of the inquisitive stranger; trying to find out as well about the Major and his family, as about Billy himself, his friends and belongings. The Baronet had rather cooled on the subject of mounting Monsieur, and thought to pave the way for a back-out.
“That’s a stout-built feller of yours,” observed he to Billy, kicking up his toe at Jack as he passed before them with the supplementary tray of cakes and cream, and so on.
“Yarse,” drawled Billy, wondering what matter it made to Sir Moses.
“Stouter than I took him for,” continued the Baronet, eyeing Jack’s broad back and strong undersettings. “That man’ll ride fourteen stun, I dessay.”
Billy had no opinion on the point so began admiring his pretty foot; comparing it with Sir Moses’s, which was rather thick and clumsy.
The Baronet conned the mount matter over in his mind; the man was heavy; the promised horse was old and weak; the country deep, and he didn’t know that Monsieur could ride,—altogether he thought it wouldn’t do. Let his master mount him if he liked, or let him stay at home and help Bankhead with the plate, or Peter with the shoes. So Sir Moses settled it in his own mind, as far as he was concerned, at least, and resumed his enquiries of our Billy. Which of the Miss Yammertons he thought the prettiest, which sang the best, who played the harp, if the Major indulged him with much hare-soup, and then glanced incidentally at his stud, and Bo-Peep.
He then asked him about Lord Ladythorne; if it was true that Mrs. Moffatt and he quarrelled; if his lordship wasn’t getting rather slack; and whether Billy didn’t think Dicky Boggledale an old woman, to which latter interrogatory he replied, “Yarse,”—he thought he was, and ought to be drafted.
While the tête-à-tête was going on, a desultory conversation ensued among the other guests in various parts of the room, Mr. Booty button-holeing Captain Hurricane, to tell him a capital thing out of “Punch,” and receiving in return an exclamation of—“Why, man, I told you that myself before dinner.” Tom Dribbler going about touching people up in the ribs with his thumb, inquiring with a knowing wink of his eye, or a jerk of his head, “Aye, old feller, how goes it;” which was about the extent of Tom’s conversational powers. Henry Waggett talking “wool” to Mr. Tupman; while Cuddy Flintoff kept popping out every now and then to look at the moon, returning with a “hoick wind ‘im; ho-ick!” or—