The “Master Guy” of whom I am treating here, or, rather, about to treat, was a youth whose family originally came from Northumberland. That family was, in one sense, more noble than the imperial family of Muscovy, for its members boasted not only of good principles, but of sound teeth.
The teeth and principles of the Romanoffs are known to be in a distressing state of dilapidation.
Well; these Northumbrian Guys having lived extremely fast, and being compelled to compound with their creditors, by plundering the latter, and paying them zero in the pound, migrated southward, and finally settled in Warwickshire. Now, the head of the house had a considerable share of common sense about him, and after much suffering in a state of shabby gentility, he not only sent his daughters out to earn their own livelihood, but, to the intense disgust of his spouse, hired himself as steward to that noble gentleman the Earl of Warwick. “My blood is as good as ever it was,” said he to the fine lady his wife. “It is the blood of an upper servant,” cried she, “and my father’s daughter is the spouse of a flunkey.”
The husband was not discouraged; and he not only opened his office in his patron’s castle but he took his only son with him, and made him his first clerk. This son’s name was Guy; and he was rather given to bird-catching, hare-snaring, and “gentism” generally. He had been a precocious youth from some months previous to his birth, and had given his lady-mother such horrid annoyance, that she was always dreaming of battles, fiery-cars, strong-smelling dragons, and the wrathful Mars. “Well,” she used to remark to her female friends, while the gentlemen were over their wine, “I expect that this boy” (she had made up her mind to that) “will make a noise in the world, draw bills upon his father, and be the terror of maid-servants. Why, do you know——” and here she became confidential, and I do not feel authorized to repeat what she then communicated.
But Master Guy, the “little stranger” alluded to, proved better than was expected. He might have been considerably worse, and yet would not have been so bad as maternal prophecy had depicted him. At eight years ... but I hear you say, “When did all this occur?” Well, it was in a November’s “Morning Post,” that announcement was made of the birth; and as to the year, Master Guy has given it himself in the old metrical romance,
“Two hundred and twenty years and odd,
After our Savior Christ his birth,
When King Athelstan wore the crown,
I livéd here upon the earth.”
At eight years old, I was about to remark, young Guy was the most insufferable puppy of his district. He won all the prizes for athletic sports; and by the time he was sixteen there was not a man in all England who dared accept his challenge to wrestle with both arms, against him using only one.