SYMPTOMS OF OSSIFICATION.
“An indifference to tears, and blood, and human suffering, that could only belong to a Boney-parte.”—Life of Napoleon.
TIME was, I always had a drop
For any tale or sigh of sorrow;
My handkerchief I used to sop
Till often I was forced to borrow;
I don’t know how it is, but now
My eyelids seldom want a drying;
The doctors, p’rhaps, could tell me how—
I fear my heart is ossifying!
O’er Goethe how I used to weep,
With turnip cheeks and nose of scarlet,
When Werter put himself to sleep
With pistols kiss’d and clean’d by Charlotte;
Self-murder is an awful sin,
No joke there is in bullets flying,
But now at such a tale I grin—
I fear my heart is ossifying!
The Drama once could shake and thrill
My nerves, and set my tears a stealing,
The Siddons then could turn at will
Each plug upon the main of feeling;
At Belvidera now I smile,
And laugh while Mrs. Haller’s crying;
’Tis odd, so great a change of style—
I fear my heart is ossifying!
That heart was such—some years ago,
To see a beggar quite would shock it,
And in his hat I used to throw
The quarter’s savings of my pocket:
I never wish—as I did then!—
The means from my own purse supplying,
To turn them all to gentlemen—
I fear my heart is ossifying!
We’ve had some serious things of late,
Our sympathies to beg or borrow,
New melo-drames, of tragic fate,
And acts and songs, and tales of sorrow;
Miss Zouch’s case, our eyes to melt,
And sundry actors sad good-bye-ing.
But Lord!—so little have I felt,
I’m sure my heart is ossifying!
THE POACHER.
A SERIOUS BALLAD.
But a bold pheasantry, their country’s pride,
When once destroyed can never be supplied.
GOLDSMITH.
BILL BLOSSOM was a nice young man,
And drove the Bury coach;
But bad companions were his bane,
And egg’d him on to poach.
They taught him how to net the birds,
And how to noose the hare;
And with a wiry terrier,
He often set a snare.
Each “shiny night” the moon was bright,
To park, preserve, and wood
He went, and kept the game alive,
By killing all he could.
A BUCK-ANEER!
Land-owners, who had rabbits, swore
That he had this demerit—
Give him an inch of warren, he
Would take a yard of ferret.
At partridges he was not nice;
And many, large and small,
Without Hall’s powder, without lead,
Were sent to Leaden-Hall.
He did not fear to take a deer,
From forest, park, or lawn;
And without courting lord or duke,
Used frequently to fawn.
Folks who had hares discovered snares—
His course they could not stop:
No barber he, and yet he made
Their hares a perfect crop.
To pheasant he was such a foe,
He tried the keeper’s nerves;
They swore he never seem’d to have
Jam satis of preserves.
The Shooter went to beat, and found
No sporting worth a pin,
Unless he tried the covers made
Of silver, plate, or tin.
In Kent the game was little worth,
In Surrey not a button;
The Speaker said he often tried
The Manors about Sutton.
No county from his tricks was safe:
In each he tried his lucks,
And when the keepers were in Beds,
He often was at Bucks.
And when he went to Bucks, alas!
They always came to Herts;
And even Oxon used to wish
That he had his deserts.
But going to his usual Hants,
Old Cheshire laid his plots:
He got entrapp’d by legal Berks,
And lost his life in Notts.
LUNAR CAUSTIC.
SKETCHES ON THE ROAD.
THE SUDDEN DEATH.
THERE are several objections to one-horse vehicles. With two wheels, they are dangerous; with four, generally cruel inventions, tasking one animal with the labour of two. And, in either case, should your horse think proper to die on the road you have no survivor to drag your carriage through the rest of the stage; or to be sent off galloping with the coachman on his back for a coadjutor.
That was precisely Miss Norman’s dilemma.
If a horse could be supposed to harbour so deadly a spite against his proprietor, I should believe that the one in question chose to vent his animosity by giving up the ghost just at the spot where it would cause most annoyance and inconvenience. For fourteen months past he had drawn the Lady in daily airings to a point just short of the Binn Gate;—because that fifty yards further would have cost sixpence; a sum which Miss Norman could, or believed she could, but ill spare out of a limited income. At this very place, exactly opposite the tall elm which usually gave the signal for turning homeward, did Plantagenet prefer to drop down stone dead: as if determined that his mistress should have to walk every inch of it, to her own house.
But Miss Norman never walked.
“TAKE CARE OF THE PENCE, AND THE POUNDS WILL TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES.”
Pedestrianism was, in her opinion, a very vulgar exercise, unavoidable with the poor, and to some people, as Postmen, Bankers’ clerks, Hawkers, and the like, a professional mode of progression, but a bodily exertion very derogatory to persons of birth and breeding. So far was this carried, that she was once heard to declare, speaking of certain rather humble obsequies, “she would rather live for ever than have a walking funeral!” On another occasion, when the great performance of Captain Barclay, in walking a thousand miles in a thousand hours, was submitted to her opinion, she said “it was a step she did not approve.”
DESCENDED FROM THE CONQUEROR.
It might be surmised from such declarations, that she was incapable of personal locomotion, through some original infirmity, for instance, such as results from the rickets; whereas, so far from allowing any deficiency on the part of her nurse or parents, in putting her to her feet, Miss Norman professed to have the perfect command of all her limbs, and would have felt extremely offended at a hint that she could not dance. It was quite another weakness than any bodily one which restricted her promenades, and made her feet almost as useless to her as those of the female Chinese. Pride was in fault; and partly her surname, for suggesting to one of her ancestors that he was a descendant of William the First of England: a notion, which, after turning his own head, had slightly crazed those of his successors, who all believed, as part and parcel of their inheritance, on the strength of the “Norman” and some dubious old pedigree, that the Conqueror was their great Progenitor.
The hereditary arrogance engendered by this imaginary distinction, had successively displayed itself by outbreaks of different character, according to the temperament of the individual who happened to be head of the family: with Miss Norman, the last of her line, it took the form of a boast that every branch and twig of her illustrious tree had always ridden “in their own carriage.” I am not quite sure whether she did not push this pretension further back than the date of the invention of “little houses on wheels” would warrant; however, it held good, in local tradition, for several generations, although the family vehicle had gradually dwindled down from an ample coach to a chariot, a fly, and, finally, the one-inside sedan-chair upon wheels, which the sudden death of Plantagenet left planted fifty yards short of the Binn Gate. To glance at the whole set-out, nobody would ever have attributed high birth and inherent gentility to its owner. ’Twas never of a piece. For once that the body was new-painted, the arms were thrice refreshed and touched up, till the dingy vehicle, by the glaring comparison, looked more ancient than the quarterings. The crest was much oftener renewed than the hammer-cloth; and Humphrey, the coachman, evidently never got a new suit all at once. He had always old drab to bran-new bright sky-blue plush; or vice versâ. Sometimes a hat in its first gloss got the better of its old tarnished band; sometimes the fresh gold lace made the brown beaver look still more an antique. The same with the harness and the horse, which was sometimes a tall spanking brute, who seemed to have outgrown the concern; at other times, a short pony-like animal, who had been put into the shafts by mistake. In short, the several articles seemed to belong the more especially to Miss Norman because they belonged so little to each other. A few minutes made a great change in her possessions, instead of a living horse, hight Plantagenet, she was proprietor of certain hundred-weights of dogs’-meat.
“WARRANTED QUIET TO RIDE OR DRIVE.”
It was just at this moment that I came up with my gig; and knowing something of the lady’s character, I pulled up in expectation of a scene. Leaving my own bay, who would stand as steady as a mute at death’s door, I proceeded to assist the coachman in extricating his horse; but the nag of royal line was stone dead: and I accompanied Humphrey to the carriage-door to make his report.
A recent American author has described as an essential attribute of high birth and breeding in England, a certain sort of quakerly composure, in all possible sudden emergencies, such as an alarm of the house on fire, or a man falling into a fit by one’s side; in fact, the same kind of self-command which Pope praises in a lady who is “mistress of herself, though China fall.” In this particular Miss Norman’s conduct justified her pretensions. She was mistress of herself, though her horse fell. She did not start—exclaim—put her head out of the window, or even let down the front glass: she only adjusted herself more exactly in the middle of the seat, drew herself bolt upright, and fixed her eyes on the back of the coach-box. In this posture Humphrey found her.
“If you please, Ma’am, Planty-ginit be dead.” The lady acquiesced with the smallest nod ever made.
“I’ve took off the collar, and the bit out, and got un out o’ harness entirely; but he be as unanimate as his own shoes;” and the informant looked earnestly at the lady to observe the effect of the communication. But she never moved a muscle; and honest Humphrey was just shutting the coach-door, to go and finish the laying out of the corpse, when he was recalled.
“Humphrey!”
“What’s your pleasure, Ma’am?”
“Remember, another time——”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“When a horse of mine is deceased——”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Touch your hat.”
The abashed coachman instantly paid up the salute in arrear. Unblessed by birthright with self-possession, he had not even the advantage of experience in the first families, where he might have learned a little from good example: he was a raw uncouth country servant, with the great merit of being cheap, whom Miss Norman had undertaken to educate; but he was still so far from proficient, that in the importance of breaking the death to his mistress, he had omitted one of those minor tokens of respect which she always rigorously exacted.
It was now my own turn to come forward, and as deferentially as if she had been indeed the last of the Conqueror’s Normandy pippins, I tendered a seat in my chaise, which she tacitly declined, with a gracious gesture of head and hand.
“If you please, Ma’am,” said Humphrey, taking care to touch his hat, and shutting his head into the carriage so that I might not overhear him, “he’s a respectable kind of gentleman enough, and connected with some of the first houses.”
“The gentleman’s name?”
“To be sure, Ma’am, the gentleman can’t help his name,” answered Humphrey, fully aware of the peculiar prejudices of his mistress; “but it be Huggins.”
“ONE MAY GO FARTHER AND FARE WORSE”—AS THE HORSE SAID
“Shut the door.”
It appeared, on explanation with the coachman, that he had mistaken me for a person in the employ of the opulent firm of Naylor and Co., whose province it was to travel throughout Britain with samples of hardware in the box-seat of his gig. I did not take the trouble to undeceive him, but determining to see the end of the affair, I affected to hope that the lady would change her mind; and accordingly I renewed, from time to time, my offer of accommodation, which was always stiffly declined. After a tolerably long pause on all sides, my expectation was excited by the appearance of the W—— coach coming through the Binn Gate, the only public vehicle that used the road. At sight of the dead horse, the driver (the noted Jem Wade) pulled up—alighted—and standing at the carriage-door with his hat off, as if he knew his customer, made an offer of his services. But Miss Norman, more dignified than ever, waved him off with her hand. Jem became more pressing, and the lady more rigid. “She never rode,” she condescended to say, “in public vehicles.” Jem entreated again; but “she was accustomed to be driven by her own coachman.” It was in vain that in answer he praised the quietness of his team, the safety of his patent boxes, besides promising the utmost steadiness and sobriety on his own part. Miss Norman still looked perseveringly at the back of her coach-box; which, on an unlucky assurance that “he would take as much care of her as of his own mother,” she exchanged for a steady gaze at the side-window, opposite to the coachman, so long as he remained in the presence.
“By your leave, Ma’am,” said Humphrey, putting his hand to his hat, and keeping it there, “Mr. Wade be a very civil-spoken careful whip, and his coach loads very respectable society. There’s Sir Vincent Ball on the box.”
“If Sir Vincent Ball chooses to degrade himself, it is no rule for me,” retorted the lady, without turning her head; when, lo! Sir Vincent appeared himself, and politely endeavoured to persuade her out of her prejudices. It was useless. Miss Norman’s ancestors had one and all expressed a very decided opinion against stage-coaches, by never getting into one; and “she did not feel disposed to disgrace a line longer than common, by riding in any carriage but her own.” Sir Vincent bowed and retreated. So did Jem Wade, without bowing, fervently declaring “he would never do the civil thing to the old female sex again!”
“JACK’S AS GOOD AS HIS MASTER.”
The stage rattled away at an indignant gallop; and we were left once more to our own resources. By way of passing the time, I thrice repeated my offers to the obdurate old maiden, and endured as many rebuffs. I was contemplating a fourth trial, when a signal was made from the carriage window, and Humphrey, hat in hand, opened the door.
“Procure me a post-chaise.”
“A po-shay!” echoed Humphrey, but, like an Irish echo, with some variation from his original—“Lord help ye, Ma’am, there bean’t such a thing to be had ten miles round—no, not for love nor money. Why, bless ye, it be election time, and there bean’t coach, cart, nor dog-barrow, but what be gone to it!”
“No matter,” said the mistress, drawing herself up with an air of lofty resignation. “I revoke my order; for it is far, very far from the kind of riding that I prefer. And Humphrey——”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Another time—”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Remember once for all—”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“I do not choose to be blest, or the Lord to help me.”
Another pause in our proceedings, during which a company of ragged boys, who had been black-berrying, came up, and planted themselves, with every symptom of vulgar curiosity, around the carriage. Miss Norman had now no single glass through which she could look without encountering a group of low-life faces staring at her with all their might. Neither could she help hearing some such shocking ill-bred remarks as, “Vy don’t the frizzle-vigged old Guy get into the gemman’s drag?” Still the pride of the Normans sustained her. She seemed to draw a sort of supplementary neck out of her bosom, and sat more rigidly erect than ever, occasionally favouring the circle, like a mad bull at bay, with a most awful threatening look, accompanied ever by the same five words:
“I CHOOSE to be alone.”
It is easy to say choose, but more difficult to have one’s choice. The blackberry boys chose to remain; and in reply to each congé only proved by a general grin how very much teeth are set off to advantage by purple mouths. I confess I took pity on the pangs even of unwarrantable pride, and urged my proposal again with some warmth; but it was repelled with absolute scorn.
“Fellow, you are insolent.”
“Quis Deus vult perdere,” thought I, and I determined to let her take her fate, merely staying to mark the result. After a tedious interval, in which her mind had doubtless looked abroad as well as inward, it appeared that the rigour of the condition, as to riding only in her own carriage, had been somewhat relaxed to meet the exigency of the case. A fresh tapping at the window summoned the obsequious Humphrey to receive orders.
“Present my compliments at the Grove—and the loan of the chariot will be esteemed a favour.”
“By your leave, Ma’am, if I may speak—”
“You may not.”
Humphrey closed the door, but remained for a minute gazing on the panel, at a blue arm, with a red carving-knife in its hand, defending a black and white rolling-pin. If he meditated any expostulation, he gave it up, and proceeded to drive away the boys, one of whom was astride on the dead Plantagenet, a second grinning through his collar, and two more preparing to play at horses with the reins. It seemed a strange mode enough that he took to secure the harness, by hanging it, collar and all, on his own back and shoulders; but by an aside to me, he explained the mystery, in a grumble,
“It be no use in the world. I see the charrot set off for Lonnon. I shan’t go complimenting no Grove. I’se hang about a bit at the George, and compliment a pint o’ beer.”
Away he went, intending, no doubt, to be fully as good as his word: and I found the time grow tedious in his absence. I had almost made up my mind to follow his example, when hope revived at the sound of wheels, and up came a tax-cart carrying four insides, namely, two well-grown porkers, Master Bardell the pig-butcher, and his foreman Samuel Slark, or, as he was more commonly called, Sam the Sticker. They were both a trifle “the worse for liquor,” if such a phrase might honestly be applied to men who were only a little more courageous, more generous, and civil and obliging to the fair sex, than their wont when perfectly sober. The Sticker, especially—in his most temperate moments a perfect sky-blue-bodied, red-faced, bowing and smirking pattern of politeness to females, was now, under the influence of good ale, a very Sir Calidore, ready to comfort and succour distressed damsels, to fight for them, live or die for them, with as much of the chivalrous spirit as remains in our times. They inquired, and I explained in a few words the lady’s dilemma, taking care to forewarn them, by relating the issue of my own attempts in her behalf.
“Mayhap you warn’t half purlite or pressing enough,” observed Sam, with a side wink at his master. “It an’t a bit of a scrape, and a civil word, as will get a strange lady up into a strange gemman’s gig. It wants warmth-like, and making on her feel at home. Only let me alone with her, for a persuader, and I’ll have her up in our cart—my master’s that is to say—afore you can see whether she has feet or hoofs.”
In a moment the speaker was at the carriage-door, stroking down his sleek forelocks, bowing, and using his utmost eloquence, even to the repeating most of his arguments twice over. She would be perfectly safe, he told her, sitting up between him and master, and quite pleasant, for the pigs would keep themselves to themselves at the back of the cart, and as for the horse, he was nothing but a good one, equal to twelve mile an hour—with much more to the same purpose. It was quite unnecessary for Miss Norman to say she had never ridden in a cart with two pigs and two butchers; and she did not say it. She merely turned away her head from the man, to be addressed by the master, at the other window, the glass of which she had just let down for a little air. “A taxed cart, Madam,” he said, “mayn’t be exactly the wehicle, accustomed to, and so forth; but thereby, considering respective ranks of life, why, the more honour done to your humbles, which, as I said afore, will take every care, and observe the respectful; likewise in distancing the two hogs. Whereby, every thing considered, namely, necessity and so forth, I will make so bold as hope, Madam, excusing more pressing, and the like, and dropping ceremony for the time being, you will embrace us at once, as you shall be most heartily welcome to, and be considered, by your humbles, as a favour besides.”
“NONE BUT THE BRAVE DESERVE THE FAIR.”
The sudden drawing up of the window, so violently as to shiver the glass, showed sufficiently in what light Miss Norman viewed Master Bardell’s behaviour. It was an unlucky smash, for it afforded what the tradesman would have called “an advantageous opening” for pouring in a fresh stream of eloquence; and the Sticker, who shrewdly estimated the convenience of the breach, came round the back of the carriage, and as junior counsel “followed on the same side.” But he took nothing by the motion. The lady was invincible, or, as the discomfited pair mutually agreed, “as hard for to be convinced into a cart, as any thing on four legs.” The blackberry boys had departed, the evening began to close in, and no Humphrey made his appearance. The butcher’s horse was on the fret, and his swine grumbled at the delay. The master and man fell into consultation, and favoured me afterwards with the result, the Sticker being the orator. It was man’s duty, he said, to look after women, pretty or ugly, young or old; it was what we all came into the world to do, namely, to make ourselves comfortable and agreeable to the fair sex. As for himself, purtecting females was his nature, and he should never lie easy agin, if so be he left the lady on the road; and providing a female wouldn’t be purtected with her own free will, she ought to be forced to, like any other ’live beast unsensible of its own good. Them was his sentiments, and his master followed ’em up. They knowed Miss Norman, name and fame, and was both well-known respectable men in their lines, and I might ax about for their characters. Whereby, supposing I approved, they’d have her, right and tight, in their cart, afore she felt herself respectfully off her legs.
Such were the arguments and the plan of the bull-headed pair. I attempted to reason with them, but my consent had clearly been only asked as a compliment. The lady herself hastened the catastrophe. Whether she had overheard the debate, or the amount of long pent-up emotion became too overwhelming for its barriers, I know not, but Pride gave way to Nature, and a short hysteric scream proceeded from the carriage. Miss Norman was in fits! We contrived to get her seated on the step of the vehicle, where the butchers supported her, fanning her with their hats, whilst I ran off to a little pool near at hand for some cold water. It was the errand only of some four or five minutes, but when I returned, the lady, only half conscious, had been caught up, and there she sate, in the cart, right and tight, between the two butchers, instead of the two Salvages, or Griffins, or whatever they were, her hereditary supporters. They were already on the move. I jumped into my own gig, and put my horse to his speed; but I had lost my start, and when I came up with them, they were already galloping into W——. Unfortunately her residence was at the further end of the town, and thither I saw her conveyed, struggling in the bright blue, and somewhat greasy, arms of Sam the Sticker, screaming in concert with the two swine, and answered by the shouts of the whole rabblement of the place, who knew Miss Norman quite as well, by sight, as “her own carriage!”
“I’M AFRAID I’M IN LOW COMPANY!”
A MINOR CANON.