The Major took a good stare at them, never having seen any before. Well, he thought they could not be dear at that; little more than a guinea each. Get them home for fifty shillings, say. There was a deal of gold, and lacker, and varnish about them. Coloured bunches of flowers, inlaid with mother of pearl, Chinese temples, with “insolent pig-tailed barbarians,” in pink silk jackets, with baggy blue trowsers, and gig whips in their hands, looking after the purple ducks on the pea-grcen lake—all very elegant.
He’d have them, dashed if he wouldn’t! Would try and swap them for Mrs. Rocket Larkspur’s Croydon basket-carriage that the girls wanted. Just the things to tickle her fancy. So he went into the office and gave his card most consequentially, with a reference to Pannell, the sadler in Spur Street, Leicestor-square, desiring that the chairs might be most carefully packed and forwarded to him by the goods train with an invoice by post.
When the invoice came, behold! the 43s. had changed into 86s.
“Hilloa!” exclaimed the astonished Major. This won’t do! 86s. is twice 43s.; and he wrote off to say they had made a mistake. This brought the secretary of the concern, Mr. Badbill, on to the scene. He replied beneath a copious shower of arms, orders, flourish, and flannel, that the mistake was the Major’s—that they, “never marked their goods in pairs,” to which the Major rejoined, that they had in this instance, as the ticket which he forwarded to Pannell for Badbill’s inspection showed, and that he must decline the chairs at double the price they were ticketed for.
Badbill, having duly inspected the ticket, retorted that he was surprised at the Major’s stupidity, that two meant one, in fact, all the world over.
The Major rejoined, that he didn’t know what the Reform Bill might have done, but that two didn’t mean one when he was at school; and added, that as he declined the chairs at 86s. they were at Badhill’s service for sending for.
Badbill wrote in reply—
“We really cannot understand how it is possible, for any one to make out that a ticket on an article includes the other that may stand next it. Certainly the ticket you allude to referred only to the chair on which it was placed.”
And in a subsequent letter he claimed to have the chairs repacked at the Major’s expense, as it was very unfair saddling them with the loss arising entirely from the Major’s mistake.
To which our gallant friend rejoined, “that as he would neither admit that the mistake was his, nor submit to the imputation of unfairness, he would stick to the chairs at the price they were ticketed at.”
Badbill then wrote that this declaration surprised them much—that they did not for a moment think he “intentionally misunderstood the ticket as referring to a pair of chairs, whereas it only gave the price of one chair,” and again begged to have them back; to which the Major inwardly responded, he “wished they might get them,” and sent them an order for the 43s.
This was returned with expressions of surprise, that after the explanation given, the Major should persevere in the same “course of error,” and hoped that he would, without further delay, favour the Co. with the right amount, for which Badbill said they “anxiously waited,” and for which the Major inwardly said, they “might wait.”
In due time came a lithographed circular, more imposingly flourished and flanneled than ever, stating the terms of the firm were “cash on delivery;” and that unless the Major remitted without further delay, he would be handed over to their solicitor, &c.; with an intimation at the bottom, that that was the “third application”—of which our gallant friend took no notice.
Next came a written,
“Sir,
“I am desired by this firm to inform you, that unless we hear from you by return of post respecting the payment of our account, we shall place the matter in the hands of our solicitors without further notice, and regret you should have occasioned us so much trouble through your own misunderstanding.”
Then came the climax. The Major’s solicitor went, ticket in hand, and tendered the 43s., when the late bullying Badbill was obliged to write as follows:—
“It appears you are quite correct rejecting the ticket, and we are in error. Our ticketing clerk had placed the figure in the wrong part of the card, the figure ‘two’ referring to the number of chairs in stock, and not as understood to signifying chairs for 43s.;” and Badbill humorously concluded by expressing a hope that the Major would return the chairs and continue his custom—two very unlikely events, as we dare say the reader will think, to happen.
Such, then, was the knowing gentleman who now sought the company of Fine Billy; and considering that he is to be besieged on both sides, we hope to be excused for having gone a little into his host and hostess’ pedigree and performances.
The Major wrote Billy a well-considered note, saying, that when he could spare a few days from his lordship and the foxhounds, it would afford Mrs. Yammerton and himself great pleasure if he would come and pay them a visit at Yammerton Grange, and the Major would be happy to mount him, and keep his best country for him, and show him all the sport in his power, adding, that they had been having some most marvellous runs lately—better than any he ever remembered.
Now, independently of our friend Billy having pondered a good deal on the beauty of the young lady’s eyes, he could well spare a few days from the foxhounds, for his lordship, being quite de Glancey-cured, and wishing to get rid of him, had had him out again, and put him on to a more fractious horse than before, who after giving him a most indefinite shaking, had finally shot him over his head.
The Earl was delighted, therefore, when he heard of the Major’s invitation, and after expressing great regret at the idea of losing our Billy, begged he would “come back whenever it suited him:” well knowing that if he once got him out of the house, he would be very sly if he got in again. And so Billy, who never answered Mamma’s repeated inquiries if there were any “Miss H’s” engaged himself to Yammerton Grange, whither the reader will now perhaps have the kindness to accompany him.
AILWAYS have taken the starch out of country magnificence, as well as out of town.
Time was when a visitor could hardly drive up to a great man’s door in the country in a po’chav—now it would be considered very magnificent—a bliss, or a one-oss fly being more likely the conveyance. The Richest Commoner in England took his departure from Tantivy Castle in a one-horse fly, into which he was assisted by an immense retinue of servants. It was about time for him to be gone for Mons. Jean Rougier had been what he called “boxaing” with the Earl’s big watcher, Stephen Stout, to whom having given a most elaborate licking, the rest of the establishment were up in arms, and would most likely have found a match for Monsieur among them. Jack—that is to say, Mons. Jean—now kissed his hand, and grinned, and bowed, and bon-jour’d them from the box of the fly, with all the affability of a gentleman who has had the best of it.
Off then they ground at as good a trot as the shaky old quadruped could raise.
It is undoubtedly a good sound principle that Major and Mrs. Yammerton went upon, never to invite people direct from great houses to theirs; it dwarfs little ones so. A few days ventilation at a country inn with its stupid dirty waiters, copper-showing plate, and wretched cookery, would be a good preparation, only no one ever goes into an inn in England that can help it. Still, coming down from a first-class nobleman’s castle to a third-class gentleman’s house, was rather a trial upon the latter. Not that we mean to say anything disrespectful of Yammerton Grange, which, though built at different times, was good, roomy, and rough-cast, with a man-boy in brown and yellow livery, who called himself the “Butler,” but whom the women-servants called the “Bumbler.” The above outline will give the reader a general idea of the “style of thing,” as the insolvent dandy said, when he asked his creditors for a “wax candle and eau-de-Cologne” sort of allowance. Everything at the Grange of course was now put into holiday garb, both externally and internally—gravel raked, garden spruced, stables strawed, &c. All the Major’s old sheep-caps, old hare-snares, old hang-locks, old hedging-gloves, pruning-knives, and implements of husbandry were thrust into the back of the drawer of the passage table, while a mixed sporting and military trophy, composed of whips, swords and pistols, radiated round his Sunday hat against the wall above it.
The drawing-room, we need not say, underwent metamorphose, the chairs and sofas suddenly changing from rather dirty print to pea-green damask, the druggeted carpet bursting into cornucopias of fruit and gay bouquets, while a rich cover of many colours adorned the centre table, which, in turn, was covered with the proceeds of the young ladies’ industry. The room became a sort of exhibition of their united accomplishments. The silver inkstand surmounted a beautiful unblemished blotting-book, fresh pens and paper stood invitingly behind, while the little dictionary was consigned, with other “sundries,” to the well of the ottoman.
As the finishing preparations were progressing, the Major and Mrs. Yammerton carried on a broken discussion as to the programme of proceedings, and as, in the Major’s opinion,
he wanted to lead off with a gallope, to which Mrs. Yammerton demurred. She thought it would be a much better plan to have a quiet day about the place—let the girls walk Mr. Pringle up to Prospect Hill to see the view from Eagleton Rocks, and call on Mrs. Wasperton, and show him to her ugly girls, in return for their visit with Mr. Giles Smith. The Major, on the contrary, thought if there was to be a quiet day about the place, he would like to employ it in showing Billy a horse he had to sell; but while they were in the midst of the argument the click of front gate sneck, followed by the vehement bow-wow-wow-wow-wow bark of the Skye terrier, Fury, announced an arrival, and from behind a ground-feathering spruce, emerged the shaky old horse, dragging at its tail the heavily laden cab. Then there was such a scattering of crinoline below, and such a gathering of cotton above, to see the gentleman alight, and such speculations as to his Christian name, and which of the young ladies he would do for.
“I say his name’s Harry!” whispered Sally Scuttle, the housemaid, into Benson’s—we beg pardon—Miss Benson’s, the ladies’-maid’s ear, who was standing before her, peeping past the faded curtains of the chintz-room.
“I say it’s John!” replied Miss Benson, now that Mr. Pringle’s head appeared at the window.
“I say it’s Joseph!” interposed Betty Bone, the cook, who stood behind Sally Scuttle, at which speculation they all laughed.
“Hoot, no! he’s not a bit like Joseph,” replied Sally, eyeing Billy as he now alighted.
“Lauk! he’s quite a young gent,” observed Bone.
“Young! to be sure!” replied Miss Henson; “you don’t s’pose we want any old’uns here.”
“He’ll do nicely for Miss;” observed Sally.
“And why not for Miss F.?” asked Henson, from whom she had just received an old gown.
“Well, either,” rejoined Sally; “only Miss had the last chance.”
“Oh, curates go for nothin’!” retorted Benson; “if it had been a captin it would have been something like.”
“Well, but there’s Miss Harriet; you never mention Miss Harriet, why shouldn’t Miss Harriet have a chance?” interposed the cook.
“Oh. Miss Harriet must wait her turn. Let her sisters be served first. They can’t all have him, you know, so it’s no use trying.”
Billy having entered the house, the ladies’ attention was now directed to Monsieur.
“What a thick, plummy man he is!” observed Benson, looking down on Rougier’s broad shoulders.
“He looks as if he got his vittles well,” rejoined Bone, wondering how he would like their lean beef and bacon fare.
“Where will he have to sleep?” asked Sally Scuttle.
“O, with the Bumbler to be sure,” replied Bone.
“Not he!” interposed Miss Benson, with disdain. “You don’t s’pose a reg’lar valley-de-chambre ‘ill condescend to sleep with a footman! You don’t know them—if you think that.”
“He’s got mouse catchers,” observed Sally Scuttle, who had been eyeing Monsieur intently.
“Ay, and a beard like a blacking brush,” whispered Bone.
“He’s surely a foreigner,” whispered Benson, as Monsieur’s, “I say! take vell care of her!—leeaft her down j-e-a-ntly” (alluding to his own carpet bag, in which he had a bottle of rum enveloped in swaddling clothes of dirty linen) to the cabman, sounded upstairs.
“So he is,” replied Benson, adding, after a pause, “Well, anybody may have him for me;”—saying which she tripped out of the room, quickly followed by the others.
Our Major having, on the first alarm, rushed off to his dirty Sanctum, and crowned himself with a drab felt wide-a-wake, next snatched a little knotty dog-whip out of the trophy as he passed, and was at the sash door of the front entrance welcoming our hero with the full spring tide of hospitality as he alighted from his fly.
The Major was overjoyed to see him. It was indeed kind of him, leaving the castle to “come and visit them in their ‘umble abode.” The Major, of course, now being on the humility tack.
“Let me take your cloak!” said he; “let me take your cap!” and, with the aid of the Bumbler, who came shuffling himself into his brown and yellow livery coat, Billy was eased of his wrapper, and stood before the now thrown-open drawing-room door, just as Mrs. Yammerton having swept the last brown holland cover off the reclining chair, had stuffed it under the sofa cushion. She, too, was delighted to see Billy, and thankful she had got the room ready, so as to be able presently to subside upon the sofa, “Morning Post” in hand, just as if she had been interrupted in her reading. The young ladies then dropped in one by one; Miss at the passage door, Miss Flora at the one connecting the drawing-room with the Sanctum, and Miss Harriet again at the passage door, all divested of their aprons, and fresh from their respective looking-glasses. The two former, of course, met Billy as an old acquaintance, and as they did not mean to allow Misa Harriet to participate in the prize, they just let her shuffle herself into an introduction as best she could. Billy wasn’t quite sure whether he had seen her before or he hadn’t. At first he thought he had; then he thought he hadn’t; but whether he had or he hadn’t, he knew there would be no harm in bowing, so he just promiscuated one to her, which she acknowledged with a best Featherey curtsey. A great cry of conversation, or rather of random observation, then ensued; in the midst of which the Major slipped out, and from his Sanctum he overheard Monsieur getting up much the same sort of entertainment in the kitchen. There was such laughing and giggling and “he-hawing” among the maids, that the Major feared the dinner would be neglected.
The Major’s dining-room, though small, would accommodate a dozen people, or incommode eighteen, which latter number is considered the most serviceable-sized party in the country where people feed off their acquaintance, more upon the debtor and creditor system, than with a view to making pleasant parties, or considering who would like to meet. Even when they are what they call “alone,” they can’t be “alone,” but must have in as many servants as they can raise, to show how far the assertion is from the truth.
Though the Yammertons sat down but six on the present occasion, and there were the two accustomed dumb-waiters in the room, three live ones were introduced, viz., Monsieur, the Bumbler, and Solomon, whose duty seemed to consist in cooling the victuals, by carrying them about, and in preventing people from helping themselves to what was before them, by taking the dishes off the steady table, and presenting them again on very unsteady hands.
No one is ever allowed to shoot a dish sitting if a servant can see it. How pleasant it would be if we were watched in all the affairs of life as we are in eating!
Monsieur, we may observe, had completely superseded the Bumbler, just as a colonel supersedes a captain on coming up.
“Oi am Colonel Crushington of the Royal Plungers,” proclaims the Colonel, stretching himself to his utmost altitude.
“And I am Captain Succumber, of the Sugar-Candy Hussars,” bows the Captain with the utmost humility; whereupon the Captain is snuffed out, and the Colonel reigns in his stead.
“I am Monsieur Jean Rougier, valet-de-chambre to me lor Pringle, and I sail take in de potage,—de soup,” observed Rougier, coming down stairs in his first-class clothes, and pushing the now yellow-legged Bumbler aside.
And these hobble-de-hoys never being favourites with the fair, the maids saw him reduced without remorse.
So the dinner got set upon the table without a fight and though Monsieur allowed the Bumbler to announce it in the drawing-room, it was only that he might take a suck of the sherry while he was away. But he was standing as bolt upright as a serjeant-major on parade when “me lor” entered the dining-room with Mrs. Yammerton on his arm, followed by the Graces, the Major having stayed behind to blow out the composites.
They were soon settled in their places, grace said, and the assault commenced.
The Major was rather behind Imperial John in magnificence, for John had got his plate in his drawing-room, while the Major still adhered to the good old-fashioned blue and red, and gold and green crockery ware of his youth.
Not but that both Mamma and the young ladies had often represented to him the absolute necessity of having plate, but the Major could never fall in with it at his price—that of German silver, or Britannia metal perhaps.
We dare say Fine Billy would never have noticed the deficiency, if the Major had not drawn attention to it by apologising for its absence, and fearing he would not be able to eat his dinner without; though we dare say, if the truth were known our readers—our male readers at least—will agree with us, that a good, hot well-washed china dish is a great deal better than a dull, lukewarm, hand-rubbed silver one. It’s the “wittles” people look to, not the ware.
Then the Major was afraid his wine wouldn’t pass muster after the Earl’s, and certainly his champagne was nothing to boast of, being that ambiguous stuff that halts between the price of gooseberry and real; in addition to which, the Major had omitted to pay it the compliment of icing it, so that it stood forth in all its native imperfection. However, it hissed, and fizzed, and popped, and banged, which is always something exciting at all events; and as the Major sported needle-case-shaped glasses which he had got at a sale (very cheap we hope), there was no fear of people getting enough to do them any harm.
Giving champagne is one of those things that has passed into custom almost imperceptibly. Twenty, or five-and-twenty years ago, a mid-rank-of-life person giving champagne was talked of in a very shake-the-head, solemn, “I wish-it-may-last,” style; now everybody gives it of some sort or other. We read in the papers the other day of ninety dozen, for which the holder had paid £400, being sold for 13s. 6d. a doz.! What a chance that would have been for our Major. We wonder what that had been made of.
It was a happy discovery that giving champagne at dinner saved other wine after, for certainly nothing promotes the conviviality of a meeting so much as champagne, and there is nothing so melancholy and funereal as a dinner party without it. Indeed, giving champagne may be regarded as a downright promoter of temperance, for a person who drinks freely of champagne cannot drink freely of any other sort of wine after it: so that champagne may be said to have contributed to the abolition of the old port-wine toping wherewith our fathers were wont to beguile their long evenings. Indeed, light wines and London clubs have about banished inebriety from anything like good society. Enlarged newspapers, too, have contributed their quota, whereby a man can read what is passing in all parts of the world, instead of being told whose cat has kittened in his own immediate neighbourhood.—With which philosophical reflections, let us return to our party.
Although youth is undoubtedly the age of matured judgment and connoisseurship in everything, and Billy was quite as knowing as his neighbours, he accepted the Major’s encomiums on his wine with all the confidence of ignorance, and, what is more to the purpose, he drank it. Indeed, there was nothing faulty on the table that the Major didn’t praise, on the old horse-dealing principle of lauding the bad points, and leaving the good ones to speak for themselves. So the dinner progressed through a multiplicity of dishes; for, to do the ladies justice, they always give good fare:—it is the men who treat their friends to mutton-chops and rice puddings.
Betty Bone, too, was a noble-hearted woman, and would undertake to cook for a party of fifty,—roasts, boils, stews, soups, sweets, savouries, sauces, and all! And so what with a pretty girl along side of him, and two sitting opposite, Billy did uncommonly well, and felt far more at home than he did at Tantivy Castle with the Earl and Mrs. Moffatt, and the stiff dependents his lordship brought in to dine.
The Major stopped Billy from calling for Burgundy after his cheese by volunteering a glass of home-brewed ale, “bo-bo-bottled,” he said, “when he came of age,” though, in fact, it had only arrived from Aloes, the chemist’s, at Hinton, about an hour before dinner. This being only sipped, and smacked, and applauded, grace was said, the cloth removed, the Major was presently assuring Billy, in a bumper of moderate juvenile port, how delighted he was to see him, how flattered he felt by his condescension in coming to visit him at his ‘umble abode, and how he ‘oped to make the visit agreeable to him. This piece of flummery being delivered, the bottles and dessert circulated, and in due time the ladies retired, the Misses to the drawing-room, Madam to the pantry, to see that the Bumbler had not pocketed any of the cheese-cakes or tarts, for which, boy-like, he had a propensity.
The Major, we are ashamed to say, had no mirror in his drawing-room, wherein the ladies could now see how they had been looking; so, of course, they drew to that next attraction—the fire, which having duly stirred, Miss Yammerton and Flora laid their heads together, with each a fair arm resting on the old-fashioned grey-veined marble mantel-piece, and commenced a very laughing, whispering conversation. This, of course, attracted Miss Harriet, who tried first to edge in between them, and then to participate at the sides; but she was repulsed at all points, and at length was told by Miss Yammerton to “get away!” as she had “nothing to do with what they were talking about.”
“Yes I have,” pouted Miss Harriet, who guessed what the conversation was about.
“No, you haven’t,” retorted Miss Flora.
“It’s between Flora and me,” observed Miss Yammerton dryly, with an air of authority.
“Well, but that’s not fair!” exclaimed Miss Harriet.
“Yes it is!” replied Miss Yammerton, throwing up her head.
“Yes it is!” asserted Miss Flora, supporting her elder sister’s assertion.
“No, it’s not!” retorted Miss Harriet.
“You weren’t there at the beginning,” observed Miss Yammerton, alluding to the expedition to Tantivy Castle.
“That was not my fault,” replied Miss Harriet, firmly; “Pa would go in the coach.”
“Never mind, you were not there,” replied Miss Yammerton tartly.
“Well, but I’ll ask mamma if that’s fair?” rejoined Miss Harriet, hurrying out of the room.
THE Major having inducted his guest into one of those expensive articles of dining-room furniture, an easy chair—expensive, inasmuch as they cause a great consumption of candles, by sending their occupants to sleep,—now set a little round table between them, to which having transferred the biscuits and wine, he drew a duplicate chair to the fire for himself, and, sousing down in it, prepared for a tête-à-tête chat with our friend. He wanted to know what Lord Ladythorne said of him, to sound Billy, in fact, whether there was any chance of his making him a magistrate. He also wanted to find out how long Billy was going to stay in the country, and see whether there was any chance of selling him a horse; so he led up to the points, by calling upon Billy to fill a bumper to the “Merry haryers,” observing casually, as he passed the bottle, that he had now kept them “five-and-thirty years without a subscription, and was as much attached to the sport as ever.” This toast was followed by the foxhounds and Lord Ladythorne’s health, which opened out a fine field for general dissertation and sounding, commencing with Mr. Boggledike, who, the Major not liking, of course, he condemned; and Mrs. Pringle having expressed an adverse opinion of him too, Billy adopted their ideas, and agreed that he was slow, and ought to be drafted.
With his magisterial inquiry the Major was not so fortunate, his lordship being too old a soldier to commit himself before a boy like Billy; and the Major, after trying every meuse, and every twist, and every turn, with the proverbial patience and pertinacity of a hare-hunter, was at length obliged to whip off and get upon his horses. When a man gets upon his horses, especially after dinner, and that man such an optimist as the Major, there is no help for it but either buying them in a lump or going to sleep; and as we shall have to endeavour to induce the reader to accompany us through the Major’s stable by-and-bye, we will leave Billy to do which he pleases, while we proceed to relate what took place in another part of the house. For this purpose, it will be necessary to “ease her—back her,” as the Thames steamboat boys say, our story a little to the close of the dinner.
Monsieur Jean Rougier having taken the general bearings of the family as he stood behind “me lor Pringle’s” chair, retired from active service on the coming in of the cheese, and proceeded to Billy’s apartment, there to arrange the toilette table, and see that everything was comme il faut. Billy’s dirty boots, of course, he took downstairs to the Bumbler to clean, who, in turn, put them off upon Solomon.
Very smart everything in the room was. The contents of the gorgeous dressing-case were duly displayed on the fine white damask cloth that covered the rose-colour-lined muslin of the gracefully-fringed and festooned toilette cover, whose flowing drapery presented at once an effectual barrier to the legs, and formed an excellent repository for old crusts, envelopes, curlpapers, and general sweepings. Solid ivory hair-brushes, with tortoiseshell combs, cosmetics, curling fluids, oils and essences without end, mingled with the bijouterie and knick-nacks of the distinguished visitor. Having examined himself attentively in the glass, and spruced up his bristles with Billy’s brushes, Jack then stirred the fire, extinguished the toilette-table candle, which he had lit on coming in, and produced a great blue blouse from the bottom drawer of the wardrobe, in which, having enveloped himself in order to prevent his fine clothes catching dust, he next crawled backwards under the bed. He had not lain there very long ere the opening and shutting of downstairs doors, with the ringing of a bell, was followed by the rustling of silks, and the light tread of airy steps hurrying along the passage, and stopping at the partially-opened door. Presently increased light in the apartment was succeeded by less rustle and tip-toe treads passing the bed, and making up to the looking-glass. The self-inspection being over, candles were then flashed about the room in various directions; and Jack having now thrown all his energies into his ears, overheard the following hurried sotto voce exclamations:—
First Voice. “Lauk! what a little dandy it is!”
Second Voice. “Look, I say! look at his boots—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten: ten pair, as I live, besides jacks and tops.”
First Voice. “And shoes in proportion,” the speaker running her candle along the line of various patterned shoes.
Second Voice. (Advancing to the toilette-table). “Let’s look at his studs. Wot an assortment! Wonder if those are diamonds or paste he has on.”
First Voice. “Oh, diamonds to be sure” (with an emphasis on diamonds). “You don’t s’pose such a little swell as that would wear paste. See! there’s a pearl and diamond ring. Just fits me, I do declare,” added she, trying it on.
Second Voice. “What beautiful carbuncle pins!”
First Voice. “Oh. what studs!”
Second Voice. “Oh. what chains!”
First Voice. “Oh, what pins!”
Second Voice. “Oh, what a love of a ring!” And so the ladies continued, turning the articles hastily over. “Oh, how happy he must be,” sighed a languishing voice, as the inspection proceeded.
“See! here’s his little silver shaving box,” observed the first speaker, opening it.
“Wonder what he wants with a shaving box,—got no more beard than I have,” replied the other, taking up Billy’s badger-hair shaving-brush, and applying it to her own pretty chin.
“Oh! smell what delicious perfume!” now exclaimed the discoverer of the shaving-box. “Essence of Rondeletia, I do believe! No, extrait de millefleurs,” added she, scenting her ‘kerchief with some.
Then there was a hurried, frightened “hush!” followed by a “Take care that ugly man of his doesn’t come.”
“Did you ever see such a monster!” ejaculated the other earnestly.
“Kept his horrid eyes fixed upon me the whole dinner,” observed the first speaker.
“Frights they are,” rejoined the other.
“He must keep him for a foil,” suggested the first.
“Let’s go, or we’ll be caught!” replied the alarmist; and forthwith the rustling of silks was resumed, the candles hurried past, and the ladies tripped softly out of the room, leaving the door ajar, with Jack under the bed to digest their compliments at his leisure.
But Monsieur was too many for them. Miss had dropped her glove at the foot of the bed, which Jack found on emerging from his hiding place, and waiting until he had the whole party reassembled at tea, he walked majestically into the middle of the drawing-room with it extended on a plated tray, his “horrid eyes” combining all the venom of a Frenchman with the hauteur of an Englishman, and inquired, in a loud and audible voice, “Please, has any lady or shentleman lost its glo-o-ve?”
“Yes, I have!” replied Miss, hastily, who had been wondering where she had dropped it.
“Indeed, marm,” replied Monsieur, bowing and presenting it to her on the tray, adding, in a still louder voice, “I found it in Monsieur Pringle’s bed-room.” And Jack’s flashing eye saw by the brightly colouring girls which were the offenders.
Very much shocked was Mamma at the announcement; and the young ladies were so put about, that they could scarcely compose themselves at the piano, while Miss Harriet’s voice soared exultingly as she accompanied herself on her harp.
MRS. Yammerton carried the day, and the young ladies carried paper-booted Billy, or rather walked him up to Mrs. Wasperton’s at Prospect Hill, and showed him the ugly girls, and also the beautiful view from Eagleton Rocks, over the wide-spreading vale of Vernerley beyond, which, of course, Billy enjoyed amazingly, as all young gentlemen do enjoy views under such pleasant circumstances. Perhaps he might have enjoyed it more, if two out of three of the dear charmers had been absent, but then things had not got to that pass, and Mamma would not have thought it proper—at least, not unless she saw her way to a very decided preference—which, of course, was then out of the question. Billy was a great swell, and the “chaws” who met him stared with astonishment at such an elegant parasol’d exquisite, picking his way daintily along the dirty, sloppy, rutty lanes. Like all gentlemen in similar circumstances, he declared his boots “wouldn’t take in wet.”
Of course, Mamma charged the girls not to be out late, an injunction that applied as well to precaution against the night air, as to the importance of getting Billy back by afternoon stable time, when the Major purposed treating him to a sight of his stud, and trying to lay the foundation of a sale.
Perhaps our sporting readers would like to take a look into the Major’s stable before he comes with his victim, Fine Billy. If so, let them accompany us; meanwhile our lady friends can skip the chapter if they do not like to read about horses—or here; if they will step this way, and here comes the Dairymaid, they can look at the cows: real Durham short-horns, with great milking powers and most undeniable pedigrees. Ah, we thought they would tickle your fancy. The cow is to the lady, what the horse is to the gentleman, or, on the score of usefulness, what hare-hunting is to fox-hunting—or shooting to hunting. Master may have many horses pulled backwards out of his stable without exciting half the commiseration among the fair, that the loss of one nice quiet milk-giving cushy cow affords. Cows are friendly creatures. They remember people longer than almost any other animal, dogs not excepted. Well, here are four of them, Old Lily, Strawberry Cream, Red Rose, and Toy; the house is clean and sweet, and smells of milk, and well-made hay, instead of the nasty brown-coloured snuff-smelling stuff that some people think good enough for the poor cow.
The Major is proud of his cows, and against the whitewashed wall he has pasted the description of a perfect one, in order that people may compare the originals with the portrait. Thus it runs:—
Now for the stable; this way, through the saddle-room, and mind the whitening on the walls. Stoop yonr head, for the Major being low himself, has made the door on the principle of all other people being low too. There, there you are, you see, in a stable as neat and clean as a London dealer’s; a Newmarket straw plait, a sanded floor with a roomy bench against the wall on which the Major kicks his legs and stutters forth the merits of his steeds. They are six in number, and before he comes we will just run the reader through the lot, with the aid of truth for an accompaniment.
This grey, or rather white one next the wall, White Surrey, as he calls him, is the old quivering tailed horse he rode on the de Glancey day, and pulled up to save, from the price-depressing inconvenience of being beat. He is eighteen years old, the Major having got him when he was sixteen, in a sort of part purchase, part swap, part barter deal. He gave young Mr. Meggison of Spoonbill Park thirteen pounds ten shillings, an old mahogany Piano-Forte, by Broadwood, six and a half octaves, a Squirrel Cage, two Sun-blinds, and a very feeble old horse called Nonpareil, that Tom Rivett the blacksmith declared it would be like robbing Meggison to put new shoes on to, for him. He is a game good shaped old horse, but having frequently in the course of a chequered career, been in that hardest of all hard places, the hands of young single horse owners, White Surrey has done the work of three or four horses. He has been fired and blistered, and blistered and fired, till his legs are as round and as callous as those of a mahogany dining-table; still it is wonderful how they support him, and as he has never given the Major a fall, he rides him as if he thought he never would. His price is sometimes fifty, sometimes forty, sometimes thirty, and there are times when he might be bought for a little less—two sovereigns, perhaps, returned out of the thirty. The next one to him—the white legged brown,—is of the antediluvian order too. He is now called Woodpecker, but he may be traced by half-a-dozen aliases through other stables—Buckhunter, Captain Tart, Fleacatcher, Sportsman, Marc Anthony, &c. He is nearly, if not quite thorough bred, and the ignoble purposes to which he has been subjected, false start making, steeple chasing, flat and hurdle racing, accounts for the number of his names. The Major got him from Captain Caret, of the Apple-pie huzzars, when that gallant regiment was ordered out to India,—taking him all away together, saddle, bridle, clothing, &c., for twenty-three pounds, a strong iron-bound chest, fit for sea purposes, as the Major described it, and a spying glass. This horse, like all the rest of them, indeed, is variously priced, depending upon the party asking, sometimes fifty, sometimes five-and-twenty would buy him.
The third is a mare, a black mare, called Star, late the property of Mr. Hazey, the horse-dealing master of the Squeezington hounds. Hazey sold her in his usual course of horse-dealing cheating to young Mr. Sprigginson, of Marygold Lodge, for a hundred and twenty guineas (the shillings back), Hazey’s discrimination enabling him to see that she was turning weaver, and Sprigginson not liking her, returned her on the warranty; when, of course, Hazey refusing to receive her, she was sent to the Eclipse Livery and Bait Stables at Hinton, where, after weaving her head off, she was sold at the hammer to the Major for twenty-nine pounds. Sprig then brought an action against Hazey for the balance, bringing half-a-dozen witnesses to prove that she wove when she came; Hazey, of course, bringing a dozen to swear that she never did nothin’ ‘o the sort with him, and must have learnt it on the road; and the jury being perplexed, and one of them having a cow to calve, another wanting to see his sweetheart, and the rest wanting their dinners, they just tossed up for it, “Heads!” for Sprig; “Tails!” for Hazey, and Sprig won. There she goes, you see, weaving backwards and forwards like a caged panther in a den. Still she is far from being the worst that the Major has; indeed, we are not sure that she is not about the best, only, as Solomon says, with reference to her weaving, she gets the “langer the warser.”
Number four is a handsome whole coloured bright bay horse, “Napoleon the Great,” as the Major calls him, in hopes that his illustrious name will sell him, for of all bad tickets he ever had, the Major thinks Nap is the worst. At starting, he is all fire, frisk, and emulation, but before he has gone five miles, he begins to droop, and in hunting knocks up entirely before he has crossed half-a-dozen fields. He is a weak, watery, washy creature, wanting no end of coddling, boiled corn, and linseed tea. One hears of two days a-week horses, but Napoleon the Great is a day in two weeks one. The reader will wonder how the Major came to get such an animal, still more how he came to keep him; above all, how he ever came to have him twice. The mystery, however, is explained on the old bartering, huckstering, half-and-half system. The Major got him first from Tom Brandysneak, a low public-house-keeping leather-plater, one of those sporting men, not sportsmen, who talk about supporting the turf, as if they did it like the noblemen of old, upon principle, instead of for what they can put into their own pockets; and the Major gave Sneak an old green dog-cart, a melon frame, sixteen volumes of the “Racing Calendar,” bound in calf, a ton of seed-hay, fifty yards of Croggon’s asphalt roofing felt, and three “golden sovereigns” for him. Nap was then doing duty under the title of Johnny Raw, his calling being to appear at different posts whenever the cruel conditions of a race required a certain number of horses to start in order to secure the added money; but Johnny enacted that office so often for the benefit of the “Honourable Society of Confederated Legs,” that the stewards of races framed their conditions for excluding him; and Johnny’s occupation being gone, he came to the Major in manner aforesaid. Being, however, a horse of prepossessing appearance, a good bay, with four clean black legs, a neat well set-on head, with an equally neat set-on tail, a flowing mane, and other &c’s, he soon passed into the possession of young Mr. Tabberton, of Green Linnet Hill, whose grandmamma had just given him a hundred guineas wherewith to buy a good horse—a real good one he was to be—a hundred-guinea-one in fact. Tabberton soon took all the gay insolence out of Johnny’s tail, and brought him back to the Major, sadly dilapidated—a sad satire upon his former self.
Meanwhile the Major had filled up his stall with a handsome rich-coloured brown mare, with a decidedly doubtful fore-leg; and the Major, all candour and affability, readily agreed to exchange, on condition of getting five-and-twenty pounds to boot. The mare presently went down to exercise, confirming the Major’s opinion of the instability of her leg, and increasing his confidence in his own judgment. Napoleon the Great, late Johnny Raw, now reigns in her stead, and very well he looks in the straw. Indeed, that is his proper place; and as many people only keep their horses to look at, there is no reason why Napoleon the Great should remain in the Major’s stables. He certainly won’t if the Major can help it.
Number five is a vulgar looking little dun-duck-et-y mud-coloured horse, with long white stockings, and a large white face, called Bull-dog, that Solomon generally rides. Nobody knows how old he is, or how many masters he has had, or where he came from, or who his father was, or whether he had a grandfather, or anything whatever about him. The Major got him for a mere nothing—nine pounds—at Joe Seton’s, the runaway Vet’s sale, about five years ago, and being so desperately ugly and common looking, no one has ever attempted to deprive the Major of him either in the way of barter or sale. Still Bully is a capital slave, always ready either to hunt, or hack, or go in harness, and will pass anything except a public-house, being familiarly and favourably known at the doors of every one in the county. Like most horses, he has his little peculiarity; and his consists of a sort of rheumatic affection of the hind leg, which causes him to catch it up, and sends him limping along on three legs, like a lame dog, but still he never comes down, and the attack soon goes off. Solomon and he look very like their work together.
The next horse to Bull-dog, and the last in the stable, is Golden-drop, a soft, mealy chestnut—of all colours the most objectionable. He is a hot, pulling, hauling, rushing, rough-actioned animal, that gives a rider two days’ exercise in one.
The worst of him is, he has the impudence to decline harness; for though he doesn’t “mill,” as they call it, he yet runs backwards as fast as forwards, and would crash through a plate-glass window, a gate, a conservatory, or anything else that happened to be behind. As a hack he is below mediocrity, for in his walk he digs his toes into the ground about every tenth step, and either comes down on his nose, or sets off at score for fear of a licking, added to which, he shies at every heap of stones and other available object on the road, whereby he makes a ten miles’ journey into one of twelve. The Major got him of Mr. Brisket, the butcher, at Hinton, being taken with the way in which his hatless lad spun him about the ill-paved streets, with the meat-basket on his arm—the full trot, it may be observed, being the animal’s pace—but having got him home, the more the Major saw of him the less he liked him. He had a severe deal for him too, and made two or three journeys over to Hinton on market-days, and bought a pennyworth of whipcord of one saddler, a set of spur-leathers of another, a pot of harness-paste of a third, in order to pump them about the horse ere he ventured to touch. He also got Mr. Paul Straddler, the disengaged gentleman of the place, whose greatest pleasure is to be employed upon a deal, to ferret out all he could about him, who reported that the horse was perfectly sound, and a capital feeder, which indeed he is, for he will attack anything, from a hayband down to a hedge-stake. You see he’s busy on his bedding now.
Brisket knowing his man, and that the Major killed his own mutton, and occasionally beef, in the winter, so that there was no good to be got of him in the meat way, determined to ask a stiff price, viz., £25 (Brisket having given £14, which the Major having beat down to £23 commenced on the mercantile line, which Brisket’s then approaching marriage favoured, and the Major ultimately gave a four-post mahogany bedstead, with blue damask furniture, palliasse and mattress to match; a mahogany toilet-mirror, 23 inches by 28: a hot-water pudding-dish, a silver-edged cake-basket, a bad barometer, a child’s birch-wood crib, a chess-board, and £2 10 s. in cash for him, the £2 10 s.. being, as the Major now declares (to himself, of course,) far more than his real worth. However, there the horse stands; and though he has been down twice with the Major, and once with the Humbler, these little fore paws (faux pas) as the Major calls them, have been on the soft, and the knees bear no evidence of the fact. Such is our friend’s present stud, and such is its general character.
But stay! We are omitting the horse in this large family-pew-looking box at the end, whose drawn curtains have caused us to overlook him. He is another of the Major’s bad tickets, and one of which he has just become possessed in the following way:—
Having—in furtherance of his character of a “thorrer sportsman,” and to preserve the spirit of impartiality so becoming an old master of “haryers”—gone to Sir Moses Mainchance’s opening day, as well as to my Lord’s, Sir Moses, as if in appreciation of the compliment, had offered to give the horse on which his second whip was blundering among the blind ditches.
The Major jumped at the offer, for the horse looked well with the whip on him; and, as he accepted, Sir Moses increased the stream of his generosity by engaging the Major to dine and take him away. Sir Moses had a distinguished party to meet him, and was hospitality itself. He plied our Major with champagne, and hock, and Barsac, and Sauterne, and port, and claret, and compliments, but never alluded to the horse until about an hour after dinner, when Mr. Smoothley, the jackal of the hunt, brought him on the tapis.
“Ah!” exclaimed Sir Moses, as if in sudden recollection, “that’s true! Major, you’re quite welcome to ‘Little-bo-peep,’ (for so he had christened him, in order to account for his inquisitive manner of peering). Your quite welcome to ‘Little-bo-peep,’ and I hope he’ll be useful to you.”
“Thank’e, Sir Moses, thank’e!” bobbed the grateful Major, thinking what a good chap the baronet was.
“Not a bit!” replied Sir Moses, chucking up his chin, just as if he was in the habit of giving a horse away every other day in the week. “Not a bit! Keep him as long as you like—all the season if you please—and send him back when you are done.”
Then, as if in deprecation of any more thanks, he plied the wine again, and gave the Major and his “harriers” in a speech of great gammonosity. The Major was divided between mortification at the reduction of the gift into a loan, and gratification at the compliment now paid him, but was speedily comforted by the flattering reception his health, and the stereotyped speech in which he returned thanks, met at the hands of the company. He thought he must be very popular. Then, when they were all well wined, and had gathered round the sparkling fire with their coffee or their Curaçoa in their hands, Sir Moses button-holed the Major with a loud familiar, “I’ll tell ye what, Yammerton! you’re a devilish good feller, and there shall be no obligation between us—you shall just give me forty puns for ‘Little-bo-peep,’ and that’s making you a present of him for it’s a hundred less than I gave.”
“‘Ah! that’s the way to do it!” exclaimed Mr. Smoothley, as if delighted at Sir Moses having dropped upon the right course. “Ah! that’s the way to do it!” repented he, swinging himself gaily round on his toe, with a loud snap of his finger and thumb in the air.
And Sir Moses said it in such a kind, considerate, matter-of-course sort of way, before company too, and Smoothley clenched it so neatly, that our wine-flushed Major, acute as he is, hadn’t presence of mind to say “No.” So he was saddled with “Little-bo-peep,” who has already lost one eye from cataract, which is fast going with the other.
But see! Here comes Solomon followed by the Bumbler in fustian, and the boy from the farm, and we shall soon have the Major and Billy, so let us step into Bo-peep’s box, and I hear the Major’s description of his stud.
Scarcely have the grooms dispersed the fast-gathering gloom of a November afternoon, by lighting the mould candles in the cord-suspended lanterns slung along the ceiling, and began to hiss at the straw, when the Major entered, with our friend Billy at his heels. The Bumbler and Chaw then put on extra activity, and the stable being presently righted, heads were loosened, water supplied, and the horses excited by Solomon’s well-known peregrination to the crushed corn-bin. All ears were then pricked, eyes cast back, and hind-quarters tucked under to respond gaily to the “come over” of the feeder.