MR. WILLIAM TO HIS MAMMA.
“Yammerton Grange.
“My dearest Mamma,
“Your letters have all reached me at once, for though both Rougier and I especially charged the butler and another fine fellow, and gave them heads to put on, to send all that came immediately, they seem to have waited for an accumulation so as to make one sending do. It is very idle of them.
“The seals are beautiful, and I am very much obliged to you for them. I will seal this letter with the large one by way of a beginning. It seems to be uncommonly well quartered—quite noble.
“I will now tell you all my movements.
“I have been here at Major Yammerton’s,—not Hammerton’s as you called him—for some days enjoying myself amazingly, for the Major has a nice pack of harriers that go along leisurely, instead of tearing away at the unconscionable pace the Earl’s do. Still, a canter in the Park at high tide in my opinion is a much better thing with plenty of ladies looking on. Talking of cantering reminds me I’ve bought a horse of the Major’s,—bought him all except paying for him, so you had better send me the money, one hundred guineas; for though the Major says I may pay for him when I like, and seems quite easy about it, they say horses are always ready money, so I suppose I must conform to the rule. It is a beautiful bay with four black legs, and a splendid mane and tail—very blood-like and racing; indeed the Major says if I was to put him into some of the spring handicaps I should be sure to win a hatful of money with him, or perhaps a gold cup or two. The Major is a great sportsman and has kept hounds for a great number of years, and altogether he is very agreeable, and I feel more at home here than I did at the Castle, where, though everything was very fine, still there was no fun and only Mrs. Moffatt to talk to, at least in the lady way, for though she always professed to be expecting lady callers, none ever came that I saw or heard of.
“I really forget all about the dinners there, except that they were very good and lasted a long time. We had a new dish here the other night, which if you want a novelty, you can introduce, namely, to flavour the plates with castor oil; you will find it a very serviceable one for saving your meat, as nobody can eat it. Mrs. Moffatt was splendidly dressed every day, sometimes in blue, sometimes in pink, sometimes in green, sometimes in silk, sometimes in satin, sometimes in velvet with a profusion of very lovely lace and magnificent jewelry. Rougier says, ‘she makes de hay vile the son does shine.’
“I don’t know how long I shall stay here, certainly over Friday, and most likely until Monday, after which I suppose I shall go back to the Castle. The Major says I must have another day with his hounds, and I don’t care if I do, provided he keeps in the hills and away from the jumps, as I can manage the galloping well enough. It’s the jerks that send me out of my saddle. A hare is quite a different animal to pursue to a fox, and seems to have some sort of consideration for its followers. She stops short every now and then and jumps up in view, instead of tearing away like an express train on a railway.
“The girls here are very pretty—Miss Yammerton extremely so,—fair, with beautiful blue eyes, and such a figure; but Rougier says they are desperately bad-tempered, except the youngest one, who is dark and like her Mamma; but I shouldn’t say Monsieur is a particular sweet-tempered gentleman himself. He is always grumbling and grouting about what he calls his ‘grob’ and declares the Major keeps his house on sturdied mutton and stale beer. But he complained at the Castle that there was nothing but port and sherry, and composite candles to go to bed with, which he declared was an insult to his station, which entitles him to wax.
“You can’t, think how funny and small this place looked after the Castle. It seemed just as if I had got into a series of closets instead of rooms. However, I soon got used to it, and like it amazingly. But here comes Monsieur with my dressing things, so I must out with the great seal and bid you good bye for the present, for the Major is a six o’clock man, and doesn’t like to be kept waiting for his dinner, so now, my dearest Mamma, believe me to remain ever your most truly affectionate son,
“Wm. Pringle,”
To which we need scarcely say the delighted Mrs. Pringle replied by return of post, writing in the following loving and judicious strain.
“25, Curtain Crescent,
“Belgrave Square.
“My own Beloved Darling,
“I was so overjoyed you can’t imagine, to receive your most welcome letter, for I really began to be uneasy about you, not that I feared any accident out hunting, but I was afraid you might have caught cold or be otherwise unwell—mind, if ever you feel in the slightest degree indisposed send for the doctor immediately. There is nothing like taking things in time. It was very idle of the servants at Tantivy Castle to neglect your instructions so, but for the future you had better always write a line to the post-master of the place where you are staying, giving him your next address to forward your letters to; for it is the work for which they are paid, and there is no shuffling it off on to anybody else’s shoulders. The greatest people are oftentimes the worst served, not because the servants have any particular objection to them personally—but because they are so desperately afraid of being what they call put upon by each other, that they spend double the time in fighting off doing a thing that it would take to do it. This is one of the drawbacks upon rank. Noblemen must keep a great staff of people, whom in a general way they cannot employ, and who do nothing but squabble and fight with each other who is to do the little there is, the greatest man among servants being he who does the least. However, as you have got the letters at last we will say no more about it.
“I hope your horse is handsome, and neighs and paws the ground prettily; you should be careful, however, in buying, for few people are magnanimous enough to resist cheating a young man in horses;—still, I am glad you have bought one if he suits you, as it is much better and pleasanter to ride your own horse than be indebted to other people for mounts. Nevertheless, I would strongly advise you to stick to either the fox or the stag, with either of which you can sport pink and look smart. Harriers are only for bottle-nosed old gentlemen with gouty shoes. I can’t help thinking, that a day with a milder, more reasonable fox than the ones you had with Lord Ladythorne, would convince you of the superiority of fox-hounds over harriers. I was asking Mr. Ralph Rasper, who called here the other day, how little Tom Stott of the Albany managed with the Queen’s, and he said Tom always shoes his horses with country nails, and consequently throws a shoe before he has gone three fields, which enables him to pull up and lament his ill luck. He then gets it put on, and has a glorious ride home in red—landing at the Piccadilly end of the Albany about dusk. He then goes down to the Acacia or some other Club, and having ordered his dinner, retires to one of the dressing-rooms to change—having had, to his mind, a delightful day.
“Beware of the girls!—There’s nothing so dangerous as a young man staying in a country house with pretty girls. He is sure to fall in love with one or other of them imperceptibly, or one or other of them is sure to fall in love with him; and then when at length he leaves, there is sure to be a little scene arranged, Miss with her red eye-lids and lace fringed kerchief, Mamma with her smirks and smiles, and hopes that he’ll soon return, and so on. There are more matches made up in country houses than in all the west-end London ones put together,—indeed, London is always allowed to be only the cover for finding the game in, and the country the place for running it down. Just as you find your fox in a wood and run him down in the open. Be careful therefore what you are about.
“It is much easier to get entangled with a girl than to get free again, for though they will always offer to set a young man free, they know better than do it, unless, indeed, they have secured something better,—above all, never consult a male friend in these matters.
“The stupidest woman that ever was born, is better than the cleverest man in love-affairs. In fact, no man is a match for a woman until he’s married,—not all even then. The worst of young men is, they never know their worth until it is too late—they think the girls are difficult to catch, whereas there is nothing so easy, unless, as I said before, the girls are better engaged. Indeed, a young man should always have his Mamma at his elbow, to guard him against the machinations of the fair. As, however, that cannot be, let me urge you to be cautious what you are about, and as you seem to have plenty of choice, Don’t be more attentive to one sister than to another, by which means you will escape the red eye-lids, and also escape having Mamma declaring you have trifled with Maria or Sophia’s feelings, and all the old women of the neighbourhood denouncing your conduct and making up to you themselves for one of their own girls. Some ladies ask a man’s intentions before he is well aware that he has any himself, but these are the spoil-sport order of women. Most of them are prudent enough to get a man well hooked before they hand him over to Papa. It is generally a case of ‘Ask Mamma’ first. Beware of brothers!—I have known undoubted heiresses crumpled up into nothing by the appearance (after the catch) of two or three great heavy dragooners. Rougier will find all that out for you.
“Be cautious too about letter-writing. There is no real privacy about love-letters, any more than there is about the flags and banners of a regiment, though they occasionally furl and cover them up. The love letters are a woman’s flags and banners, her trophies of success, and the more flowery they are, the more likely to be shown, and to aid in enlivening a Christmas tea-party. Then the girls’ Mammas read them, their sisters read them, their maids read them, and ultimately, perhaps, a boisterous energetic barrister reads them to an exasperated jury, some of whose daughters may have suffered from simitar effusions themselves. Altogether, I assure you, you are on very ticklish ground, and I make no doubt if you could ascertain the opinion of the neighbourhood, you are booked for one or other of the girls, so again I say, my dearest boy, beware what you are about, for it is much easier to get fast than to get free again;—get a lady of rank, and not the daughter of a little scrubby squire; and whatever you do, don’t leave this letter lying about, and mind, empty your pockets at nights, and don’t leave it for Rougier to find.
“Now, about your movements. I think I wouldn’t go back to Lord L.‘s unless he asks you, or unless he named a specific day for your doing so when you came away. Mere general invitations mean nothing; they are only the small coin of good society. ‘Sorry you’re going. Hope we shall soon meet again. Hope we shall have the pleasure of seeing you to dinner some day,’ is a very common mean-nothing form of politeness.
“Indeed, I question that your going to a master of harriers from Tantivy Castle would be any great recommendation to his Lordship; for masters of foxhounds and masters of harriers are generally at variance. Altogether, I think I would pause and consider before you decided on returning. I would not talk much about his Lordship where you now are, as it would look as if you were not accustomed to great people. You’ll find plenty of friends ready to bring him in for you, just as Mr. Handycock brings in Lord Privilege in Peter Simple. We all like talking of titles. Remember, all noblemen under the rank of dukes are lords in common conversation. No earls or marquises then.
“It just occurs to me, that as you are in the neighbourhood, you might take advantage of the opportunity for paying a visit to Yawnington Hot Wells, where you will find a great deal of good society assembled at this time of year, and where you might pickup some useful and desirable acquaintances. Go to the best hotel whatever it is, and put Rougier on board wages, which will get rid of his grumbling. It is impertinent, no doubt, but still it carries weight in a certain quarter.
“As you have got a hunting horse, you will want a groom, and should try to get a nice-looking one. He should not be knocknee’d; on the contrary, bow-legged,—the sort of legs that a pig can pop through. Look an applicant over first, and if his appearance is against him. just put him off quietly by taking his name and address, and say that there are one or two before him, and that you will write to him if you are likely to require his services.
“You will soon have plenty to choose from, but it is hard to say whether the tricks of the town ones, or the gaucheries of the country ones are most objectionable. The latter never put on their boots and upper things properly. A slangy, slovenly-looking fellow should be especially avoided. Also men with great shock heads of hair. If they can’t trim themselves, there will not be much chance of their trimming their horses. In short, I believe a groom—a man who really knows and cares anything about horses—is a very difficult person to get. There are plenty who can hiss and fuss, and be busy upon nothing, but very few who can both dress a horse, and dress themselves.
“I know Lord Ladythorne makes it a rule never to take one who has been brought up in the racing-stable, for he says they are all hurry and gallop, and for putting two hours’ exercise into one. Whatever you do, don’t take one without a character, for however people may gloss over their late servant’s faults and imperfections, and however abject and penitent the applicants may appear, rely upon it, nature will out, and as soon as ever they get up their condition, as they call it, or are installed into their new clothes, they begin to take liberties, and ultimately relapse into their old drunken dissolute habits. It is fortunate for the world that most of them carry their characters in their faces. Besides, it isn’t fair to respectable servants to bring them in contact with these sort of profligates.
“Whatever you do, don’t let him find his own clothes. There isn’t one in twenty who can be trusted to do so, and nothing looks worse than the half-livery, half-plain, wholly shabby clothes some of them adopt.
“It is wonderful what things they will vote good if they have to find others themselves, things that they would declare were not fit to put on, and they couldn’t be seen in if master supplied them. The best of everything then is only good enough for them.
“Some of them will grumble and growl whatever you give them; declare this man’s cloth is bad, and another’s boots inferior, and recommend you to go to Mr. Somebody else, who Mr. This, or Captain That, employs, Mr. This, or Captain That, having, in all probability, been recommended to this Mr. Somebody by some other servant. The same with the saddlers and tradespeople generally. If you employ a saddler who does not tip them, there will be nothing bad enough for his workmanship, or they will declare he does not do that sort of work, only farmer’s work—cart-trappings, and such like things.
“The remedy for this is to pay your own bills, and give the servants to understand at starting that you mean to be master. They are to be had on your own terms, if you only begin as you mean to go on. If the worst comes to the worst, a month’s notice, or a month’s pay, settles all differences, and it is no use keeping and paying a servant that doesn’t suit you. Perhaps you will think Rougier trouble enough, but he would be highly offended if you were to ask him to valet a horse. I will try if I can hear of anything likely to suit you, but the old saying, ‘who shall counsel a man in the choice of a wife, or a horse,’ applies with equal force to grooms.
“And now, my own dearest boy, having given you all the advice and assistance in my power, I will conclude by repeating what joy the arrival of your letter occasioned me, and also my advice to beware of the girls, and request that you will not leave this letter in your pockets, or lying about, by signing myself ever, my own dearest son, your most truly loving and affectionate Mamma,
“Emma Pringle.
“P.S.—I will enclose the halves of two fifty-pound notes for the horse, the receipt of which please to acknowledge by return of post, when I will send the other halves.
“P.S.—Mind the red eyelids! There’s nothing so infectious
CHAPTER XXVII.
SIR MOSES MAINCHANCE.
OUR friend Billy, as the foregoing letter shows, was now very comfortably installed in his quarters, and his presence brought sundry visitors, as well to pay their respects to him and the family, as to see how matters were progressing.
Mr. and Mrs. Rocket Larkspur, Mrs. Blurkins, and Mrs. Dotherington, also Mrs. Crickleton came after their castor-oil entertainment, and Mrs. and Miss Wasperton, accompanied by their stiff friend Miss Freezer, who had the reputation of being very satirical. Then there were Mr. Tight and Miss Neate, chaperoned by fat Mrs. Plumberry, of Hollingdale Lodge, and several others. In fact Billy had created a sensation in the country, such godsends as a London dandy not being of every-day occurrence in the country, and everybody wanted to see the great “catch.” How they magnified him! His own mother wouldn’t have known him under the garbs he assumed; now a Lord’s son, now a Baronet’s, now the Richest Commoner in England; with, oh glorious recommendation! no Papa to consult in the matter of a wife. Some said not even a Mamma, but there the reader knows they were wrong. In proportion as they lauded Billy they decried Mrs. Yammerton; she was a nasty, cunning, designing woman, always looking after somebody.
Mrs. Wasperton, alluding to Billy’s age, declared that it was just like kidnapping a child, and she inwardly congratulated herself that she had never been guilty of such meanness. Billy, on his part, was airified and gay, showing off to the greatest advantage, perfectly unconscious that he was the observed of all observers. Like Mrs. Moffatt he never had the same dress on twice, and was splendid in his jewelry.
Among the carriage company who came to greet him was the sporting Baronet, Sir Moses Mainchance, whose existence we have already indicated, being the same generous gentleman that presented Major Yammerton with a horse, and then made him pay for it.
Sir Moses had heard of Billy’s opulence, and being a man of great versatility, he saw no reason why he should not endeavour to partake of it. He now came grinding up in his dog cart, with his tawdry cockaded groom (for he was a Deputy-Lieutenant of Hit-im and Holt-im shire), to lay the foundation of an invitation, and was received with the usual wow, wow, wow, wow, of Fury, the terrier, and the coat shuffling of the Bumbler.
If the late handsome Recorder of London had to present this ugly old file to the Judges as one of the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex, he would most likely introduce him in such terms as the following:—
“My Lords, I have the honour to present to your Lordships’ (hem) notice Sir Moses Mainchance, (cough) Baronet, and (hem) foxhunter, who has been unanimously chosen by the (hem) livery of London to fill the high and important (cough) office of Sheriff of that ancient and opulent city. My Lords, Sir Moses, as his name indicates, is of Jewish origin. His great-grandfather, Mr. Moses Levy, I believe dealt in complicated penknives, dog-collars, and street sponges. His grandfather, more ambitious, enlarged his sphere of action, and embarked in the old-clothes line. He had a very extensive shop in the Minories, and dealt in rhubarb and gum arabic as well. He married a lady of the name of Smith, not an uncommon one in this country, who inheriting a large fortune from her uncle, Mr. Mainchance, Mr. Moses Levy embraced Christianity, and dropping the name of Levy became Mr. Mainchance, Mr. Moses Mainchance, the founder of the present most important and distinguished family. His son, the Sheriff elect’s father, also carried on the business in the Minories, adding very largely to his already abundant wealth, and espousing a lady of the name of Brown.
“In addition to the hereditary trade he opened a curiosity shop in the west end of London, where, being of a highly benevolent disposition, he accommodated young gentlemen whose parents were penurious,—unjustly penurious of course,—with such sums of money as their stations in life seemed likely to enable them to repay.
“But, my Lords, the usury laws, as your Lordships will doubtless recollect, being then in full operation, to the great detriment of heirs-at-law, Mr. Mainchance, feeling for the difficulties of the young, introduced an ingenious mode of evading them, whereby some article of vertu—generally a picture or something of that sort—was taken as half, or perhaps three-quarters of the loan, and having passed into the hands of the borrower was again returned to Mr. Mainchance at its real worth, a Carlo Dolce, or a Coal Pit, as your Lordships doubtless know, being capable of representing any given sum of money. This gentleman, my Lords, the Sheriff elect’s father, having at length paid the debt of nature—the only debt I believe that he was ever slow in discharging—the opulent gentleman who now stands at my side, and whom I have the honour of presenting to the Court, was enabled through one of those monetary transactions to claim the services of a distinguished politician now no more, and obtain that hereditary rank which he so greatly adorns. On becoming a baronet Sir Moses Mainchance withdrew from commercial pursuits, and set up for a gentleman, purchasing the magnificent estate of Pangburn Park, in Hit-im and Hold-im shire, of which county he is a Deputy-Lieutenant, getting together an unrivalled pack of foxhounds—second to none as I am instructed—and hunting the country with great circumspection; and he requests me to add, he will be most proud and happy to see your Lordships to take a day with his hounds whenever it suits you, and also to dine with him this evening in the splendid Guildhall of the ancient and renowned City of London.’”
The foregoing outline, coupled with Sir Moses’ treatment of the Major, will give the reader some idea of the character of the gentleman who had sought the society of our hero. In truth, if nature had not made him the meanest, Sir Moses would have been the most liberal of mankind, for his life was a continual struggle between the magnificence of his offers and the penury of his performances. He was perpetually forcing favours upon people, and then backing out when he saw they were going to be accepted. It required no little face to encounter the victim of such a recent “do” as the Major’s, but Sir Moses was not to be foiled when he had an object in view. Telling his groom to stay at the door, and asking in a stentorian voice if Mr. Pringle is at home, so that there may be no mistake as to whom he is calling upon, the Baronet is now ushered into the drawing-room, where the dandified Billy sits in all the dangerous proximity of three pretty girls without their Mamma. Mrs. Yammerton knew when to be out. “Good morning, young ladies!” exclaims Sir Moses gaily, greeting them all round—“Mr. Pringle,” continued he, turning to Billy, “allow me to introduce myself—I believe I have the pleasure of addressing a nephew of my excellent old friend Sir Jonathan Pringle, and I shall be most happy if I can contribute in any way to your amusement while in this neighbourhood. Tell me now,” continued he, without waiting for Billy’s admission or rejection of kindred with Sir Jonathan, “tell me now, when you are not engaged in this delightful way,” smiling round on the beauties, “would you like to come and have a day with my hounds?”
Billy shuddered at the very thought, but quickly recovering his equanimity, he replied, “Yarse, he should like it very much.
“Oh, Mr. Pringle’s a mighty hunter!” exclaimed Miss Yammerton, who really thought he was.—“Very good!” exclaimed Sir Moses, “very good! Then I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We meet on Monday at the Crooked Billet on the Bushmead Road—Tuesday at Stubbington Hill—Thursday, Woolerton, by Heckfield—Saturday, the Kennels. S’pose now you come to me on Sunday, I would have said Saturday, only I’m engaged to dine with Lord Oilcake, but you wouldn’t mind coming over on a Sunday, I dare say, would you?” and without waiting for an answer he went on to say, “Come on Sunday, I’ll send my dogcart for you, the thing I have at the door, we’ll then hunt Monday and Tuesday, dine at the Club at Hinton on Wednesday, where we always have a capital dinner, and a party of excellent fellows, good singing and all sorts of fun, and take Thursday at Woolerton, in your way home—draw Shawley Moss, the Withy beds at Langton, Tangleton Brake, and so on, but sure to find before we get to the Brake, for there were swarms of foxes on the moss the last time we were there, and capital good ones they are. Dom’d if they aren’t. So know I think you couldn’t be better Thursday, and I’ll have a two-stalled stable ready for you on Sunday, so that’s a bargain—ay, young ladies, isn’t it?” appealing to our fair friends. And now fine Billy, who had been anxiously waiting to get a word in sideways while all this dread enjoyment was paraded, proceeded to make a vigorous effort to deliver himself from it. He was very much obliged to this unknown friend of his unknown uncle, Sir Jonathan, but he had only one horse, and was afraid he must decline. “Only one horse!” exclaimed Sir Moses, “only one horse!” who had heard he had ten, “ah, well, never mind,” thinking he would sell him one. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do, I’ll mount you on the Tuesday—I’ll mount you on the Tuesday—dom’d if I won’t—and that’ll make it all right—and that’ll make all right.” So extending his hand he said, “Come on Sunday then, come on Sunday,” and, bowing round to the ladies, he backed out of the room lest his friend the Major might appear and open his grievance about the horse. Billy then accompanied him to the door, where Sir Moses, pointing to the gaudy vehicle, said, “Ah, there’s the dog-cart you see, there’s the dog-cart, much at your service, much at your service,” adding, as he placed his foot upon the step to ascend, “Our friend the Major here I make no doubt will lend you a horse to put in it, and between ourselves,” concluded he in a lower tone, “you may as well try if you can’t get him to lend you a second horse to bring with you.” So saying, Sir Moses again shook hands most fervently with his young friend, the nephew of Sir Jonathan, and mounting the vehicle soused down in his seat and drove off with the air of a Jew bailiff in his Sunday best.
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Of course, when Billy returned to the drawing-room the young ladies were busy discussing the Baronet, aided by Mamma, who had gone up stairs on the sound of wheels to reconnoitre her person, and was disappointed on coming down to find she had had her trouble for nothing.
If Sir Moses had been a married man instead of a widower, without incumbrance as the saying is, fine Billy would have been more likely to have heard the truth respecting him, than he was as matters stood. As it was, the ladies had always run Sir Moses up, and did not depart from that course on the present occasion. Mrs. Yammerton, indeed, always said that he looked a great deal older than he really was, and had no objection to his being talked of for one of her daughters, and as courtships generally go by contraries, the fair lady of the glove with her light sunny hair, and lambent blue eyes, rather admired Sir Moses’ hook-nose and clear olive complexion than otherwise. His jewelry, too, had always delighted her, for he had a stock equal to that of any retired pawnbroker. So they impressed Billy very favourably with the Baronet’s pretensions, far more favourably the reader may be sure than the Recorder did the Barons of the Court of Exchequer.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE HIT-IM AND HOLD-IM SHIRE HOUNDS.
DESCENDING Long Benningborough Hill on the approach from the west, the reader enters the rich vale of Hit-im and Hold-im shire, rich in agricultural productions, lavish of rural beauties, and renowned for the strength and speed of its foxes.
As a hunting country Hit-im and Hold-im shire ranks next to Featherbedfordshire, and has always been hunted by men of wealth and renown. The great Mr. Bruiser hunted it at one time, and was succeeded by the equally great Mr. Customer, who kept it for upwards of twenty years. He was succeeded by Mr. Charles Crasher, after whom came the eminent Lord Martingal, who most materially improved its even then almost perfect features by the judicious planting of gorse covers on the eastern or Droxmoor side, where woodlands are deficient.
It was during Lord Martingal’s reign that Hit-im and Hold-im shire may be said to have attained the zenith of its fame, for he was liberal in the extreme, not receiving a farthing subscription, and maintaining the Club at the Fox and Hounds Hotel at Hinton with the greatest spirit and popularity. He reigned over Hit-im and Hold-im shire for the period of a quarter of a century, his retirement being at length caused by a fall from his horse, aggravated by distress at seeing his favourite gorses Rattleford and Chivington cut up by a branch-line of the Crumpletin railway.
On his lordship’s resignation, the country underwent the degradation of passing into the hands of the well-known Captain Flasher, a gentleman who, instead of keeping hounds, as Lord Martingal had done, expected the hounds to keep him. To this end he organised a subscription—a difficult thing to realise even when men have got into the habit of paying, or perhaps promising one—but most difficult when, as in this case, they had long been accustomed to have their hunting for nothing. It is then that the beauties of a free pack are apparent. The Captain, however, nothing daunted by the difficulty, applied the screw most assiduously, causing many gentlemen to find out that they were just going to give up hunting, and others that they must go abroad to economise. This was just about the gloomy time that our friend the Major was vacillating between Boulogne and Bastille; and it so happened that Mr. Plantagenet Brown, of Pangburn Park, whose Norman-conquest family had long been pressing on the vitals of the estate, taking all out and putting nothing in, suddenly found themselves at the end of their tether. The estate had collapsed. Then came the brief summing-up of a long career of improvidence in the shape of an auctioneer’s advertisement, offering the highly valuable freehold property, comprising about two thousand five hundred acres in a ring fence, with a modern mansion replete with every requisite for a nobleman or gentleman’s seat, for sale, which, of course, brought the usual train of visitors, valuers, Paul-Pryers, and so on—some lamenting the setting, others speculating on the rising sun.
At the sale, a most repulsive, poverty-stricken looking little old Jew kept protracting the biddings when everybody else seemed done, in such a way as to cause the auctioneer to request an imparlance, in order that he might ascertain who his principal was; when the Jew, putting his dirty hands to his bearded mouth, whispered in the auctioneer’s ear, “Shir Moshes Mainchance,” whereupon the languid biddings were resumed, and the estate was ultimately knocked down to the Baronet.
Then came the ceremony of taking possession—the carriage-and-four, the flags, the band of music, the triumphal arch, the fervid address and heartfelt reply, amid the prolonged cheers of the wretched pauperised tenantry.
That mark of respect over, let us return to the hounds.
Captain Flasher did not give satisfaction, which indeed was not to be expected, considering that he wanted a subscription. No man would have given satisfaction under the circumstances, but the Captain least of all, because he brought nothing into the common stock, nothing, at least, except his impudence, of which the members of the hunt had already a sufficient supply of their own. The country was therefore declared vacant at the end of the Captain’s second season, the Guarantee Committee thinking it best to buy him off the third one, for which he had contracted to hunt it. This was just about the time that Sir Moses purchased Pangburn Park, and, of course, the country was offered to him. A passion for hunting is variously distributed, and Sir Moses had his share of it. He was more than a mere follower of hounds, for he took a pleasure in their working and management, and not knowing much about the cost, he jumped at the offer, declaring he didn’t want a farthing subscription, no, not a farthing: he wouldn’t even have a cover fund—no, not even a cover fund! He’d pay keepers, stoppers, damage, everything himself,—dom’d if he wouldn’t. Then when he got possession of the country, he declared that he found it absolutely indispensable for the promotion of sport, and the good of them all, that there should be a putting together of purses—every man ought to have a direct interest in the preservation of foxes, and, therefore, they should all pay five guineas,—just five guineas a-year to a cover fund. It wasn’t fair that he should pay all the cost—dom’d if it was. He wouldn’t stand it—dom’d if he would.
Then the next season he declared that five guineas was all moonshine—it would do nothing in the way of keeping such a country as Hit-im and Hold-im shire together—it must be ten guineas, and that would leave a great balance for him to pay. Well, ten guineas he got, and emboldened by his success, at the commencement of the next season he got a grand gathering together, at a hand-in-the-pocket hunt dinner at the Fox and Hounds Hotel at Hinton, to which he presented a case of champagne, when his health being drunk with suitable enthusiasm, he got up and made them a most elaborate speech on the pleasures and advantages of fox-hunting, which he declared was like meat, drink, washing and lodging to him, and to which he mainly attributed the very excellent health which they had just been good enough to wish him a continuance of in such complimentary terms, that he was almost overpowered by it. He was glad to see that he was not a monopoliser of the inestimable blessings of health, for, looking round the table, he thought he never saw such an assemblage of cheerful contented countenances—(applause)—and it was a great satisfaction to him to think that he in any way contributed to make them so—(renewed applause). He had been thinking since he came into the room whether it was possible to increase in any way the general stock of prosperity—(great applause)—and considering the success that had already marked his humble endeavours, he really thought that there was nothing like sticking to the same medicine, and, if possible, increasing the dose; for—(the conclusion of this sentence was lost in the general applause that followed). Having taken an inspiriting sip of wine, he thus resumed, “He now hunted the country three days a-week,” he said, “and, thanks to their generous exertions, and the very judicious arrangement they had spontaneously made of having a hunt club, he really thought it would stand four days.”—(Thunders of applause followed this announcement, causing the glasses and biscuits to dance jigs on the table. Sir Moses took a prolonged sip of wine, and silence being at length again restored, he thus resumed):—“It had always stood four in old Martingal’s time, and why shouldn’t it do so in theirs?—(applause). Look at its extent! Look at its splendid gorses! Look at its magnificent woodlands! He really thought it was second to none!” And so the company seemed to think too by the cheering that followed the announcement.
“Well then,” said Sir Moses, drawing breath for the grand effort, “there was only one thing to be considered—one leetle difficulty to be overcome—but one, which after the experience he had had of their gameness and liberality, he was sure they would easily surmount.”—(A murmur of “O-O-O’s,” with Hookey Walkers, and fingers to the nose, gradually following the speaker.)
“That leetle difficulty, he need hardly say, was their old familiar friend £ s. d.! who required occasionally to be looked in the face.”—(Ironical laughter, with sotto voce exclamations from Jack to Tom and from Sam to Harry, of—) “I say! three days are quite enough—quite enough. Don’t you think so?” With answers of “Plenty! plenty!” mingled with whispers of, “I say, this is what he calls hunting the country for nothing!”
“Well, gentlemen,” continued Sir Moses, tapping the table with his presidential hammer, to assert his monopoly of noise, “Well, gentlemen, as I said before, I have no doubt we can overcome any difficulty in the matter of money—what’s the use of money if it’s not to enjoy ourselves, and what enjoyment is there equal to fox-hunting? (applause). None! none!” exclaimed Sir Moses with emphasis.
“Well then, gentlemen, what I was going to say was this: It occurred to me this morning as I was shaving myself——”
“That you would shave us,” muttered Mr. Paul Straddler to Hicks, the flying hatter, neither of whom ever subscribed.
“—It occurred to me this morning, as I was shaving myself, that for a very little additional outlay—say four hundred a year—and what’s four hundred a-year among so many of us? we might have four days a-week, which is a great deal better than three in many respects, inasmuch as you have two distinct lots of hounds, accustomed to hunt together, instead of a jumble for one day, and both men and horses are in steadier and more regular work; and as to foxes, I needn’t say we have plenty of them, and that they will be all the better for a little more exercise.—(Applause from Sir Moses’ men, Mr. Smoothley and others). Well, then, say four hundred a-year, or, as hay and corn are dear and likely to continue so, suppose we put it at the worst, and call it five—five hundred—what’s five hundred a-year to a great prosperous agricultural and commercial country like this? Nothing! A positive bagatelle! I’d be ashamed to have it known at the ‘Corner’ that we had ever haggled about such a sum.”
“You pay it, then,” muttered Mr. Straddler.
“Catch him doing that,” growled Hicks.
Sir Moses here took another sip of sherry, and thus resumed:—
“Well, now, gentlemen, as I said before, it only occurred to me this morning as I was shaving, or I would have been better prepared with some definite proposal for your consideration, but I’ve just dotted down here, on the back of one of Grove the fishmonger’s cards (producing one from his waistcoat pocket as he spoke), the names of those who I think ought to be called upon to contribute;—and, waiter!” exclaimed he, addressing one of the lanky-haired order, who had just protruded his head in at the door to see what all the eloquence was about, “if you’ll give me one of those mutton fats,—and your master ought to be kicked for putting such things on the table, and you may tell him I said so,—I’ll just read the names over to you.” Sir Moses adjusting his gold double eye glasses on his hooked nose as the waiter obeyed his commands.
“Well, now,” said the Baronet, beginning at the top of the list, “I’ve put young Lord Polkaton down for fifty.”
“But my Lord doesn’t hunt, Sir Moses!” ejaculated Mr. Mossman, his Lordship’s land-agent, alarmed at the demand upon a very delicate purse.
“Doesn’t hunt!” retorted Sir Moses angrily. “No; but he might if he liked! If there were no hounds, how the deuce could he? It would do him far more good, let me tell him, than dancing at casinos and running after ballet girls, as he does. I’ve put him down for fifty, however,” continued Sir Moses, with a jerk of his head, “and you may tell him I’ve done so.”
“Wish you may get it,” growled Mr. Mossman, with disgust.
“Well, then,” said the Baronet, proceeding to the next name on the list, “comes old Lord Harpsichord. He’s good for fifty, too, I should say. At all events, I’ve put him down for that sum;” adding, “I’ve no notion of those great landed cormorants cutting away to the continent and shirking the obligations of country life. I hold it to be the duty of every man to subscribe to a pack of fox-hounds. In fact, I would make a subscription a first charge upon land, before poor-rate, highway-rate, or any sort of rate. I’d make it payable before the assessed taxes themselves”—(laughter and applause, very few of the company being land-owners). “Two fifties is a hundred, then,” observed Sir Moses, perking up; “and if we can screw another fifty out of old Lady Shortwhist, so much the better; at all events. I think she’ll be good for a pony; and then we come to the Baronets. First and foremost is that confounded prosy old ass, Sir George Persiflage, with his empty compliments and his fine cravats. I’ve put him down for fifty, though I don’t suppose the old sinner will pay it, though we may, perhaps, get half, which we shouldn’t do if we were not to ask for more. Well, we’ll call the supercilious old owls five-and-twenty for safety,” added Sir Moses. “Then there’s Sir Morgan Wildair; I should think we may say five-aud-twenty for him. What say you, Mr. Squeezely?” appealing to Sir Morgan’s agent at the low end of the table.
“I’ve no instructions from Sir Morgan on the subject, Sir Moses,” replied Mr. Squeezely, shaking his head.
“Oh, but he’s a young man, and you must tell him that it’s right—necessary, in fact,” replied Sir Moses. “You just pay it, and pass it through his accounts—that’s the shortest way. It’s the duty of an agent to save his principal trouble. I wouldn’t keep an agent who bothered me with all the twopenny-halfpenny transactions of the estate—dom’d if I would,” said Sir Moses, resuming his eye-glass reading.
He then went on through the names of several other parties, who he thought might be coaxed or bullied out of subscriptions, he taking this man, another taking that, and working them, as he said, on the fair means first, and foul means principle afterwards.
“Well, then, now you see, gentlemen,” said Sir Moses, pocketing his card and taking another sip of sherry prior to summing up; “it just amounts to this. Four days a-week, as I said before, is a dom’d deal better than three, and if we can get the fourth day out of these shabby screws, why so much the better; but if that can’t be done entirely, it can to a certain extent, and then it will only remain for the members of the club and the strangers—by the way, we shouldn’t forget them—it will only remain for the members of the club and the strangers to raise any slight deficiency by an increased subscription, and according to my plan of each man working his neighbour, whether the club subscription was to be increased to fifteen, or seventeen, or even to twenty pounds a-year will depend entirely upon ourselves; so you see, gentlemen, we have all a direct interest in the matter, and cannot go to work too earnestly or too strenuously; for believe me, gentlemen, there’s nothing like hunting, it promotes health and longevity, wards off the gout and sciatica, and keeps one out of the hands of those dom’d doctors, with their confounded bills—no offence to our friend Plaister, there,” alluding to a doctor of that name who was sitting about half-way down the table—“so now,” continued Sir Moses, “I think I cannot do better than conclude by proposing as a bumper toast, with all the honours, Long life and prosperity to the Hit-im and Hold-im shire hounds!”
When the forced cheering had subsided, our friend—or rather Major Yammerton’s friend—Mr. Smoothley, the gentleman who assisted at the sale of Bo-peep, arose to address the meeting amid coughs and knocks and the shuffling of feet. Mr. Smoothley coughed too, for he felt he had an uphill part to perform; but Sir Moses was a hard task-master, and held his “I. O. U.‘s” for a hundred and fifty-seven pounds. On silence being restored, Mr. Smoothley briefly glanced at the topics urged, as he said, in such a masterly manner by their excellent and popular master, to whom they all owed a deep debt of gratitude for the spirited manner in which he hunted the country, rescuing it from the degradation to which it had fallen, and restoring it to its pristine fame and prosperity—(applause from Sir Moses and his claqueurs). “With respect to the specific proposal submitted by Sir Moses, Mr. Smoothley proceeded to say, he really thought there could not be a difference of opinion on the subject—(renewed applause, with murmurs of dissent here and there). It was clearly their interest to have the country hunted four days a week, and the mode in which Sir Moses proposed accomplishing the object was worthy the talents of the greatest financier of the day—(applause)—for it placed the load on the shoulders of those who were the best able to bear it—(applause). Taking all the circumstances of the case, therefore, into consideration, he thought the very least they could do would be to pass a unanimous vote of thanks to their excellent friend for the brilliant sport he had hitherto shown them, and pledge themselves to aid to the utmost of their power in carrying out his most liberal and judicious proposal.
“Jewish enough,” whispered Mr. Straddler into the flying hatter’s ear.
And the following week’s Hit-im and Hold-im shire Herald, and also the Featherbedfordshire Gazette, contained a string of resolutions, embodying the foregoing, as unanimously passed at a full meeting of the members of the Hit-im and Hold-im shire hunt, held at the Fox and Hounds Hotel, in Ilinton, Sir Moses Mainchance, Bart., in the chair.
And each man set to work on the pocket of his neighbour with an earnestness inspired by the idea of saving his own. The result was that a very considerable sum was raised for the four days a-week, which, somehow or other, the country rarely or ever got, except in the shape of advertisements; for Sir Moses always had some excuse or other for shirking it,—either his huntsman had got drunk the day before, or his first whip had had a bad fall, or his second whip had been summoned to the small debts court, or his hounds had been fighting and several of them had got lamed, or the distemper had broken out in his stable, or something or other had happened to prevent him.
Towards Christmas, or on the eve of an evident frost, he came valiantly out, and if foiled by a sudden thaw, would indulge in all sorts of sham draws, and short days, to the great disgust of those who were not in the secret. Altogether Sir Moses Mainchance rode Hit-im and Hold-im shire as Hit-im and Hold-im shire had never been ridden before.
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CHAPTER XXIX.
THE PANGBURN PARK ESTATE.
THE first thing that struck Sir Moses Mainchance after he became a “laird” was that he got very little interest for his money. Here he was he who had always looked down with scorn upon any thing that would not pay ten per cent., scarcely netting three by his acres. He couldn’t understand it—dom’d if he could. How could people live who had nothing but land? Certainly Mr. Plantagenet Smith had left the estate in as forlorn a condition as could well be imagined. Latterly his agent, Mr. Tom Teaser, had directed his attention solely to the extraction of rent, regardless of maintenance, to say nothing of improvements, consequently the farm buildings were dilapidated, and the land impoverished in every shape and way. Old pasture-field after old pasture-field had gradually succumbed to the plough, and the last ounce of freshness being extracted, the fields were left to lay themselves down to weeds or any thing they liked. As this sort of work never has but one ending, the time soon arrived when the rent was not raiseable. Indeed it was the inability to make “both ends meet,” as Paul Pry used to say, which caused Mr. Plantagenet Smith to retire from Burke’s landed gentry, which he did to his own advantage, land being sometimes like family plate, valuable to sell, but unprofitable to keep.
Sir Moses, flushed with his reception and the consequence he had acquired, met his tenants gallantly the first rent-day, expecting to find everything as smooth and pleasant as a London house-rent audit. Great was his surprise and disgust at the pauperised wretches he encountered, creatures that really appeared to be but little raised above the brute creation, were it not for the uncommon keenness they showed at a “catch.” First came our old friend Henerey Brown & Co., who, foiled in their attempt to establish themselves on Major Yammerton’s farm at Bonnyrigs, and also upon several other farms in different parts of the county, had at length “wheas we have considered” Mr. Teaser to some better purpose for one on the Pangburn Park Estate.
This was Doblington farm, consisting of a hundred and sixty of undrained obdurate clay, as sticky as bird-lime in wet, and as hard as iron in dry weather, and therefore requiring extra strength to take advantage of a favourable season. Now Henerey Brown & Co. had farmed, or rather starved, a light sandy soil of some two-thirds the extent of Doblington, and their half-fed pony horses and wretched implements were quite unable to cope with the intractable stubborn stuff they had selected. Perhaps we can hardly say they selected it, for it was a case of Hobson’s choice with them, and as they offered more rent than the outgoing tenant, who had farmed himself to the door, had paid, Mr. Teaser installed them in it. And now at the end of the year, (the farms being let on that beggarly pauper-encouraging system of a running half year) Henerey & Humphrey came dragging their legs to the Park with a quarter of a year’s rent between them, Henerey who was the orator undertaking to appear, Humphrey paying his respects only to the cheer. Sir Moses and Mr. Teaser were sitting in state in the side entrance-hall, surrounded by the usual paraphernalia of pens, ink, and paper, when Henerey’s short, square turnip-headed, vacant-countenanced figure loomed in the distance. Mr. Teaser trembled when he saw him, for he knew that the increased rent obtained for Henerey’s farm had been much dwelt upon by the auctioneer, and insisted upon by the vendor as conducive evidence of the improving nature of the whole estate. Teaser, like the schoolboy in the poem, now traced the day’s disaster in Henerey’s morning face. However, Teaser put a good face on the matter, saying, as Henerey came diverging up to the table, “This is Mr. Brown, Sir Moses, the new tenant of Doblington—the farm on the Hill.” he was going to add “with the bad out-buildings,” but he thought he had better keep that to himself. Humph sniffed the eager baronet, looking the new tenant over.
“Your sarvent, Sir Moses,” ducked the farmer, seating himself in the dread cash-extracting chair.
“Well, my man, and how dy’e do? I hope you’re well—How’s your wife? I hope she’s well,” continued the Baronet, watching Henerey’s protracted dive into his corduroy breeches-pockets, and his fish up of the dirty canvas money-bag. Having deliberately untied the string, Henerey, without noticing the Baronet’s polite enquiries, shook out a few local five pound notes, along with some sovereigns, shillings, and sixpence upon the table, and heaving a deep sigh, pushed them over towards Mr. Teaser. That worthy having wet his thumb at his mouth proceeded to count the dirty old notes, and finding them as he expected, even with the aid of the change, very short of the right amount, he asked Henerey if he had any bills against them?
“W-h-o-y no-a ar think not,” replied Henerey, scratching his straggling-haired head, apparently conning the matter over in his mind. “W-h-o-y, yeas, there’s the Income Tax, and there’s the lime to ‘loo off.”
“Lime!” exclaimed the Baronet, “What have I to do with lime?”
“W-h-o-y, yeas, you know you promised to ‘loo the lime,” replied Hererey, appealing to Mr. Teaser, who frowned and bit his lip at the over-true assertion.
“Never heard of such a thing!” exclaimed Sir Moses, seeing through the deceit at a glance. “Never heard of such a thing,” repeated he. “That’s the way you keep up your rents is it?” asked he: “Deceive yourselves by pretending to get more money than you do, and pay rates and taxes upon your deceit as a punishment. That ‘ill not do! dom’d if it will,” continued the Baronet, waxing warm.
“Well, but the income tax won’t bring your money up to anything like the right amount,” observed Mr. Teaser to Henerey, anxious to get rid of the lime question.
“W-h-o-y n-o-a,” replied Henerey, again scratching his pate, “but it’s as much as I can bring ye to-day.”
“To-day, man!” retorted Sir Moses, “Why, don’t you know that this is the rent-day! the day on which the entire monetary transactions on the whole estate are expected to be settled.”
Henerey—“O, w-h-o-y it ‘ill make ne odds to ye, Sir Moses.”
Sir Moses—“Ne odds to me! How do you know that?”
Henerey—(apologetically) “Oh, Sir Moses, you have plenty, Sir Moses.”
Sir Moses—“Me plenty! me plenty! I’m the poorest crittur alive!” which was true enough, only not in the sense Sir Moses intended it.
Henerey—“Why, why, Sir Moses, ar’ll bring ye some more after a bit; but ar tell ye,” appealing to Teaser, “Ye mun ‘loo for the lime.”
“The lime be hanged,” exclaimed Sir Moses. “Dy’e sp’ose I’m such a fool as to let you the land, and farm ye the land, and pay income tax on rent that I never receive? That won’t do—dom’d if it will.”
Henerey—(boiling up) “Well, but Sir Moses, wor farm’s far o’er dear.”
Sir Moses—(turning flesh-colour with fury) “O’er dear! Why, isn’t it the rent you yourself offered for it?”
Henerey—“Why, why, but we hadn’t looked her carefully over.”
“Bigger fool you,” ejaculated the Jew.
“The land’s far worse nor we took it for—some of the plough’s a shem to be seen—wor stable rains in desprate—there isn’t a dry place for a coo—the back wall of the barn’s all bulgin oot—the pigs get into wor garden for want of a gate—there isn’t a fence ‘ill turn a foal—the hars eat all wor tormots—we’re perfectly ruined wi’ rats,” and altogether Henerey opened such a battery of grievances as completely drove Sir Moses, who hated anyone to talk but himself, from his seat, and made him leave the finish of his friend to Mr. Teaser.
As the Baronet went swinging out of the room he mentally exclaimed, “Never saw such a man as that in my life—dom’d if ever I did!”
Mr. Teaser then proceeded with the wretched audit, each succeeding tenant being a repetition of the first—excuses—drawbacks—allowances for lime—money no matter to Sir Moses—and this with a whole year’s rent due, to say nothing of hopeless arrears.
“How the deuce,” as Sir Moses asked, “do people live who have nothing but land?”
When Sir Moses returned, at the end of an hour or so, he found one of the old tenants of the estate, Jacky Hindmarch, in the chair. Jacky was one of the real scratching order of farmers, and ought to be preserved at Madame Tussaud’s or the British Museum, for the information of future ages. To see him in the fields, with his crownless hat and tattered clothes, he was more like a scare-crow than a farmer; though, thanks to the influence of cheap finery, he turned out very shiney and satiney on a Sunday. Jacky had seventy acres of land,—fifty acres of arable and twenty acres of grass, which latter he complimented with an annual mowing without giving it any manure in return, thus robbing his pastures to feed his fallows,—if, indeed, he did not rob both by selling the manure off his farm altogether. Still Jacky was reckoned a cute fellow among his compatriots. He had graduated in the Insolvent Debtors’ Court to evade his former landlord’s claims, and emerged from gaol with a good stock of bad law engrafted on his innate knavery. In addition to this, Jacky, when a hind, had nearly had to hold up his hand at Quarter Sessions for stealing his master’s corn, which he effected in a very ingenious way:—The granary being above Jacky’s stable, he bored a hole through the floor, to which he affixed a stocking; and, having drawn as much corn as he required, he stopped the hole up with a plug until he wanted a fresh supply. The farmer—one Mr. Podmore—at length smelt a rat; but giving Jacky in charge rather prematurely, he failed in substantiating the accusation, when the latter, acting “under advice,” brought an action against Podmore, which ended in a compromise, Podmore having to pay Jacky twenty pounds for robbing him! This money, coupled with the savings of a virtuous young woman he presently espoused, and who had made free with the produce of her master’s dairy, enabled Jacky to take the farm off which he passed through the Insolvent Debtors’ Court, on to the Pangburn Park estate, where he was generally known by the name of Lawyer Hindmarch.
Jacky and his excellent wife attempted to farm the whole seventy acres themselves; to plough, harrow, clean, sow, reap, mow, milk, churn,—do everything, in fact; consequently they were always well in arrear with their work, and had many a fine run after the seasons. If Jacky got his turnips in by the time other people were singling theirs, he was thought to do extremely well. To see him raising the seed-furrow in the autumn, a stranger would think he was ploughing in a green crop for manure, so luxuriant were the weeds. But Jacky Hindmarch would defend his system against Mr. Mechi himself; there being no creature so obstinate or intractable as a pig-headed farmer. A landlord had better let his land to a cheesemonger, a greengrocer, a draper, anybody with energy and capital, rather than to one of these self-sufficient, dawdling nincompoops. To be sure, Jacky farmed as if each year was to be his last, but he wouldn’t have been a bit better if he had had a one-and-twenty years’ lease before him. “Take all out and put nothing in,” was his motto. This was the genius who was shuffling, and haggling, and prevaricating with Mr. Teaser when Sir Moses returned, and who now gladly skulked off: Henerey Brown not having reported very favourably of the great man’s temper.
The next to come was a woman,—a great, mountainous woman—one Mrs. Peggy Turnbull, wife of little Billy Turnbull of Lowfield Farm, who, she politely said, was not fit to be trusted from home by hisself.—Mrs. Turnbull was, though, being quite a match for any man in the country, either with her tongue or her fists. She was a great masculine knock-me-down woman, round as a sugar-barrel, with a most extravagant stomach, wholly absorbing her neck, and reaching quite up to her chin. Above the barrel was a round, swarthy, sunburnt face, lit up with a pair of keen little twinkling beady black eyes. She paused in her roll as she neared the chair, at which she now cast a contemptuous look, as much as to say, “How can I ever get into such a thing as that?”
Mr. Teaser saw her dilemma and kindly gave her the roomier one on which he was sitting—while Sir Moses inwardly prepared a little dose of politeness for her.
“Well, my good woman,” said he as soon as she got soused on to the seat. “Well, my good woman, how dy’e do? I hope you’re well. How’s your husband? I hope he’s well;” and was proceeding in a similar strain when the monster interrupted his dialogue by thumping the table with her fist, and exclaiming at the top of her voice, as she fixed her little beady black eyes full upon him—
“D’ye think we’re ganninn to get a new B-a-r-r-u-n?”
“Dom you and your b-a-r-r-n!” exclaimed the Baronet, boiling up. “Why don’t you leave those things to your husband?”
“He’s see shy!” roared the monster.
“You’re not shy, however!” replied Sir Moses, again jumping up and running away.
And thus what with one and another of them, Sir Moses was so put out, that dearly as he loved a let off for his tongue, he couldn’t bring himself to face his friends again at dinner. So the agreeable duty devolved upon Mr. Teaser, of taking the chair, and proposing in a bumper toast, with all the honours and one cheer more, the health of a landlord who, it was clear, meant to extract the uttermost farthing he could from his tenants.
And that day’s proceedings furnished ample scope for a beginning, for there was not one tenant on the estate who paid up; and Sir Moses declared that of all the absurdities he had ever heard tell of in the whole course of his life, that of paying income-tax on money he didn’t receive was the greatest. “Dom’d if it wasn’t!” said he.
In fact the estate had come to a stand still, and wanted nursing instead of further exhaustion. If it had got into the hands of an improving owner—a Major Yammerton, for instance,—there was redemption enough in the land; these scratching fellows, only exhausting the surface; and draining and subsoiling would soon have put matters right, but Sir Moses declared he wouldn’t throw good money after bad, that the rushes were meant to be there and there they should stay. If the tenants couldn’t pay their rents how could they pay any drainage interest? he asked. Altogether Sir Moses declared it shouldn’t be a case of over shoes, over boots, with him—that he wouldn’t go deeper into the mud than he was, and he heartily wished he had the price of the estate back in his pocket again, as many a man has wished, and many a one will wish again—there being nothing so ticklish to deal with as land. There is no reason though why it should be so; but we will keep our generalities for another chapter.
Sir Moses’s property went rapidly back, and soon became a sort of last refuge for the destitute, whither the ejected of all other estates congregated prior to scattering their stock, on failing to get farms in more favoured localities. As they never meant to pay, of course they all offered high rents, and then having got possession the Henerey Brown scene was enacted—the farm was “far o’er dear”—they could “make nout on’t at that rent!” nor could they have made aught on them if they had had them for nothing, seeing that their capital consisted solely of their intense stupidity. Then if Sir Moses wouldn’t reduce the rent, he might just do his “warst,” meanwhile they pillaged the land both by day and by night. The cropping of course corresponded with the tenure, and may be described as just anything they could get off the land. White crop succeeded white crop, if the weeds didn’t smother the seeds, or if any of the slovens did “try for a few turnips,” as they called it, they were sown on dry spots selected here and there, with an implement resembling a dog’s-meat man’s wheelbarrow—drawn by one ass and steered by another.
Meanwhile Mr. Teaser’s labours increased considerably, what with the constant lettings and leavings and watchings for “slopings.” There was always some one or other of the worthies on the wing, and the more paper and words Mr. Teaser employed to bind them, the more inefficient and futile he found the attempt. It soon became a regular system to do the new landlord, in furtherance of which the tenants formed themselves into a sort of mutual aid association. Then when a seizure was effected, they combined not to buy, so that the sufferer got his wretched stock back at little or no loss.
Wretched indeed, was the spectacle of a sale; worn out horses, innocent of corn; cows, on whose hips one could hang one’s hat; implements that had been “fettled oop” and “fettled oop,” until not a particle of the parent stock remained; carts and trappings that seemed ready for a bonfire; pigs, that looked as if they wanted food themselves instead of being likely to feed any one else; and poultry that all seemed troubled with the pip.
The very bailiff’s followers were shocked at the emptiness of the larders. A shank bone of salt meat dangling from the ceiling, a few eggs on a shelf, a loaf of bread in a bowl, a pound of butter in a pie-dish,—the whole thing looking as unlike the plentiful profusion of a farm-house as could well be imagined.
The arduous duties of the office, combined with the difficulty of pleasing Sir Moses, at length compelled Mr. Teaser to resign, when our “laird,” considering the nature of the services required concluded that there could be no one so fit to fulfil them as one of the “peoplish.” Accordingly he went to town, and after Consulting Levy this, and “Goodman” that, and Ephraim t’other, he at length fixed upon that promising swell, young Mr. Mordecai Nathan, of Cursitor-street, whose knowledge of the country consisted in having assisted in the provincial department of his father’s catchpoll business in the glorious days of writs and sponging-houses.
In due time down came Mordecai, ringed and brooched and chained and jewelled, and as Sir Moses was now the great man, hunting the country, associating with Lord Oilcake, and so on, he gave Mordecai a liberal salary, four-hundred a year made up in the following clerical way:
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Besides, which, Sir Moses promised him ten per cent, upon all recovered arrears, which set Mordecai to work with all the enthusiastic energy of his race.
CHAPTER XXX.
COMMERCE AND AGRICULTURE.
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ONE of the most distinguishing features between commerce and agriculture undoubtedly is the marked indifference shown to the value of time by the small followers of the latter, compared to the respectful treatment it receives at the hands of the members of the commercial world. To look at their relative movements one would think that the farmer was the man who carried on his business under cover, instead of being the one who exposes all his capital to the weather. It is a rare thing to see a farmer—even in hay time—in a hurry. If the returns could be obtained we dare say it would be found that three-fourths of the people who are late for railway trains are farmers.
In these accelerated days, when even the very street waggon horses trot, they are the only beings whose pace has not been improved. The small farmer is just the same slowly moving dawdling creature that he was before the perfection of steam. Never punctual, never ready, never able to give a direct answer to a question; a pitchfork at their backs would fail to push some of these fellows into prosperity. They seem wholly lost to that emulative spirit which actuates the trader to endeavour to make each succeeding year leave him better than the last. A farmer will be forty years on a farm without having benefited himself, his family, his landlord, or any human being whatever. The last year’s tenancy will find him as poor as the first, with, in all probability, his land a great deal poorer. In dealing, a small farmer is never happy without a haggle. Even if he gets his own price he reproaches hiself when he returns home with not having asked a little more, and so got a wrangle. Very often, however, they outwit themselves entirely by asking so much more than a thing is really worth, that a man who knows what he is about, and has no hopes of being able to get the sun to stand still, declines entering upon an apparently endless negotiation.
See lawyer Hindmarch coming up the High Street at Halterley fair, leading his great grey colt, with his landlord Sir Moses hailing him with his usual “Well my man, how d’ye do? I hope you’re well, how much for the colt?”
The lawyer’s keen intellect—seeing that it is his landlord, with whom he is well over the left—springs a few pounds upon an already exorbitant price, and Sir Moses, who can as he says, measure the horse out to ninepence, turns round on his heel with a chuck of his chin, as much as to say, “you may go on.” Then the lawyer relenting says, “w—h—o—y, but there’ll be summit to return upon that, you know, Sir Moses, Sir.”
“I should think so,” replies the Baronet, walking away, to “Well my man—how d’ye do? I hope you’re well,” somebody else.
A sale by auction of agricultural stock illustrates our position still further, and one remarkable feature is that the smaller the sale the more unpunctual people are. They seldom get begun under a couple of hours after the advertised time, and then the dwelling, the coaxing, the wrangling, the “puttings-up” again, the ponderous attempts at wit are painful and oppressive to any one accustomed to the easy gliding celerity of town auctioneers. A conference with a farmer is worse, especially if the party is indiscreet enough to let the farmer come to him instead of his going to the farmer.
The chances, then, are, that he is saddled with a sort of old man of the sea; as a certain ambassador once was with a gowk of an Englishman, who gained an audience under a mistaken notion, and kept sitting and sitting long after his business was discussed, in spite of his Excellency’s repeated bows and intimations that he might retire.
Gowk seemed quite insensible to a hint. In vain his Excellency stood bowing and bowing—hoping to see him rise. No such luck. At length his Excellency asked him if there was anything else he could do for him?
“Why, noa.” replied Gowk drily; adding after a pause, “but you haven’t asked me to dine.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon!” replied his Excellency, “I wasn’t aware that it was in my instructions, but I’ll refer to them and see,” added he, backing out of the room.
Let us fancy old Heavyheels approaching his landlord, to ask if he thinks they are gannin to get a new barrun, or anything else he may happen to want, for these worthies have not discovered the use of the penny-post, and will trudge any distance to deliver their own messages. Having got rolled into the room, the first thing Heels does is to look out for a seat, upon which he squats like one of Major Yammerton’s hares, and from which he is about as difficult to raise. Instead of coming out with his question as a trader would, “What’s rum? what’s sugar? what’s indigo?” he fixes his unmeaning eyes on his landlord, and with a heavy aspiration, and propping his chin up with a baggy umbrella, ejaculates—“N-o-o,” just as if his landlord had sent for him instead of his having come of his own accord.
“Well!” says the landlord briskly, in hopes of getting him on.
“It’s a foine day,” observes Heavyheels, as if he had nothing whatever on his mind, and so he goes maundering and sauntering on, wasting his own and his landlord’s time, most likely ending with some such preposterous proposition as would stamp any man for a fool if it wasn’t so decidedly in old Heavyheel’s own favour.
To give them their due, they are never shy about asking, and have always a host of grievances to bait a landlord with who gives them an opportunity. Some of the women—we beg their pardon—ladies of the establishments, seem to think that a landlord rides out for the sake of being worried, and rush at him as he passes like a cur dog at a beggar.
Altogether they are a wonderful breed! It will hardly be credited hereafter, when the last of these grubbing old earthworms is extinct, that in this anxious, commercial, money-striving country, where every man is treading on his neighbour’s heels for cash, that there should ever have been a race of men who required all the coaxing and urging and patting on the back to induce them to benefit themselves that these slugs of small tenant farmers have done. And the bulk of them not a bit better for it. They say “y-e-a-s,” and go and do the reverse directly.
Fancy our friend Goodbeer, the brewer, assembling his tied Bonnifaces at a banquet consisting of all the delicacies of the season—beef, mutton, and cheese, as the sailor said—and after giving the usual loyal and patriotic toasts, introducing his calling in the urgent way some landlords do theirs—pointing out that the more swipes they sell the greater will be their profit, recommending them to water judiciously, keeping the capsicum out of sight, and, in lieu of some new implement of husbandry, telling them that a good, strong, salt Dutch cheese, is found to be a great promoter of thirst, and recommending each man to try a cheese on himself—perhaps ending by bowling one at each of them by way of a start.
But some will, perhaps, say that the interests of the landlord and tenant-farmer are identical, and that you cannot injure the latter without hurting the former.
Not more identical, we submit, than the interests of Goodbeer with the Bonnifaces; the land is let upon a calculation what each acre will produce, just as Goodbeer lets a public-house on a calculation founded on its then consumption of malt liquor; and whatever either party makes beyond that amount, either through the aid of guano, Dutch cheese, or what not, is the tenant’s. The only difference we know between them is, that Goodbeer, being a trader, will have his money to the day; while in course of time the too easy landlord’s rent has become postponed to every other person’s claim. It is, “O, it will make ne matter to you, Sir Moses,” with too many of them.
Then, if that convenient view is acquiesced in, the party submitting is called a “good landlord” (which in too many instances only means a great fool), until some other favour is refused, when the hundredth one denied obliterates the recollection of the ninety-nine conferred, and he sinks into a “rank bad un.” The best landlord, we imagine, is he who lets his land on fair terms, and keeps his tenants well up to the mark both with their farming and their payments. At present the landlords are too often a sort of sleeping partners with their tenants, sharing with them the losses of the bad years without partaking with them in the advantages of the good ones.
“Ah, it’s all dom’d well,” we fancy we hear Sir Moses Mainchance exclaim, “saying, ‘keep them up to the mark,’ but how d’ye do it? how d’ye do it? can you bind a weasel? No man’s tried harder than I have!”
We grant that it is difficult, but agriculture never had such opportunities as it has now. The thing is to get rid of the weasels, and with public companies framed for draining, building, doing everything that is required without that terrible investigation of title, no one is justified in keeping his property in an unproductive state. The fact is that no man of capital will live in a cottage, the thing therefore is to lay a certain number of these small holdings together, making one good farm of them all, with suitable buildings, and, as the saying is, let the weasels go to the wall. They will be far happier and more at home with spades or hoes in their hands, than in acting a part for which they have neither capital, courage, nor capacity. Fellows take a hundred acres who should only have five, and haven’t the wit to find out that it is cheaper to buy manure than to rent land.
This is not a question of crinoline or taste that might be advantageously left to Mrs. Pringle; but is one that concerns the very food and well being of the people, and landlords ought not to require coaxing and patting on the back to induce them to partake of the cheese that the commercial world offers them. Even if they are indifferent about benefiting themselves they should not be regardless of the interests for their country. But there are very few people who cannot spend a little more money than they have. Let them “up then and at” the drainage companies, and see what wonders they’ll accomplish with their aid!
We really believe the productive powers of the country might be quadrupled.
CHAPTER XXXI.
SIR MOSES’S MENAGE.—DEPARTURE OF FINE BILLY.
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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.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE BAD STABLE; OR, “IT’S ONLY FOR ONE NIGHT.”
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.
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“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.