“Marchioness?—near Humberston? The Marchioness of Montfort, I suppose?”
“Likely enough; I don’t remember. All I know is, that two years ago my old Clown was my tyrannical manager; and being in that capacity, and this world being made for Caesar, which is a shame, sir, he said to me, with a sneer, ‘Old Gentleman Waife, whom you used to bully, and his Juliet Araminta, are in clover!’ And the mocking varlet went on to unfold a tale to the effect, that when he had last visited Humberston, in the race-week, a young tradesman, who was courting the Columbine, whose young idea I myself taught to shoot on the light fantastic toe, treated that Columbine, and one of her sister train (being, indeed, her aunt, who has since come out at the Surrey in Desdemona) to a picnic in a fine park. (That’s discipline!—ha, ha!) And there, sir, Columbine and her aunt saw Waife on the other side of a stream by which they sate carousing.”
“The Clown perhaps said it to spite you.”
“Columbine herself confirmed his tale, and said that on returning to the Village Inn for the Triumphal Car (or bus) which brought them, she asked if a Mr. Waife dwelt thereabouts, and was told, ‘Yes, with his grand-daughter.’ And she went on asking, till all came out as the Clown reported. And Columbine had not even the gratitude, the justice, to expose that villain—not even to say he had been my perfidious servant! She had the face to tell me ‘she thought it might harm him, and he was a kind old soul.’ Sir, a Columbine whose toes I had rapped scores of times before they could be turned out, was below contempt! but when my own Clown thus triumphed over me, in parading before my vision the bloated prosperity of mine enemy, it went to my heart like a knife; and we had words on it, sir, and—I left him to his fate. But a pedlar! Gentleman Waife has come to that! The heavens are just, sir, and of our pleasant vices, sir, make instruments that—that—”
“Scourge us,” prompted the Hag, severely.
Losely rang the bell; the maid-servant appeared. “My horse and bill. Well, Mr. Rugge, I must quit your agreeable society. I am not overflowing with wealth at this moment, or I would request your acceptance of—”
“The smallest trifle,” interrupted the Hag, with her habitual solemnity of aspect.
Losely, who, in his small way, had all the liberality of a Catiline, “alieni appetens, sui profusus,” drew forth the few silver coins yet remaining to him; and though he must have calculated that, after paying his bill, there could scarcely be three shillings left, he chucked two of them towards the Hag, who, clutching them with a profound curtsey, then handed them to the fallen monarch by her side, with a loyal tear and a quick sob that might have touched the most cynical republican.
In a few minutes more, Losely was again on horseback; and as he rode towards Ouzelford, Rugge and his dusty Faithful shambled on in the opposite direction—shambled on, footsore and limping, along the wide, waste, wintry thoroughfare—vanishing from the eye, as their fates henceforth from this story. There they go by the white hard milestone; farther on, by the trunk of the hedgerow-tree, which lies lopped and leafless—cumbering the wayside, till the time come to cast it off to the thronged, dull stackyard. Farther yet, where the ditch widens into yon stagnant pool, with the great dung-heap by its side. There the road turns aslant; the dung-heap hides them. Gone! and not a speck on the Immemorial, Universal Thoroughfare.