Scadgers laughed outright. "Married! no, you old fool, not I. Can't a man put on a bit of finery"--here be smoothed the yellow shirt-frill with his grimy fingers--"without your supposing there's a woman in the case? However, I'm goin' to call upon a lady, and that's the truth; but all in a matter of business. Hand over them bills of Prescott's, and don't expect me till you see me."
So saying, Mr. Scadgers took the bills from Jinks and placed them in his fat pocketbook, which he buttoned into the breast-pocket of his frock-coat, gave himself a good mopping with the red-silk pocket-handkerchief before throwing it into the big white hat, and placing that elegant article on his head, took up the one damp glove and the ruler-like stick, and went out.
A consciousness of the shirt-frill, or the hat, or both, pervaded Mr. Scadgers' mind as he walked through the streets; and gave him an air very different from that which usually characterised his business perambulations. He seemed to feel that he was calling upon the passers-by for observation and notice; and certainly the passers-by seemed to respond to the appeal. Ribald boys stuck the red-covered books of domestic household expenditure which they carried into their breasts, and swaggered by with heads erect; others openly expressed their opinion that it was "all dicky" with him; while a more impudent few suggested that he had stolen the "guv'nor's tile," or borrowed his big brother's hat; nor were the suggestions that he was a barber's clerk out for a holiday wanting on the youthful populace. In an ordinary way Mr. Scadgers was thoroughly proof against the most cutting chaff: the most terrific things had been said about his boots, and he had remained adamant; drunken men had requested permission to light their pipes at his nose, and he had never winced; in allusion to his swivel-eye, boys had asked him to look round the corner and tell them what o'clock it was, without ruffling his temper in the smallest degree. But in the present instance he felt in an abnormal state; he knew that there was ground for the satire which was being poured out upon him, and he fled into the first omnibus for concealment. He rode to the utmost limits of the omnibus-journey, and when he alighted he had still a couple of miles to walk to his destination. He inquired his way and set out manfully. The weather was magnificent; one of those early October days when, though the sun's rays are a little tempered of their burning heat, and the air has a freshness which it has not known for months, the country yet wears a summer aspect. Mr. Scadgers' way lay along a high-road, on either side of which were fields: now huge yellow patches shorn of their produce, and, while awaiting the ploughshare, looking like the clean-shaved faces of elderly gentlemen; now broken up into rich loam furrows driven through by the puffing snorting engine which has supplanted the patient Dobbin, the handle-holding labourer, and whip-cracking boy of our childhood, and against which Mr. Tennyson's Northern farmer inveighed with such bitterness. Far away on the horizon lay a broad wooded belt, broken in the centre, where two tall trees, twining their topmost branches together, formed a kind of natural arch, and beyond which one expected--absurdly enough--to find the sea. The road was quiet enough; a few carts, laden with farm-produce or manure, crept lazily along it; now and then a carrier's wagon, drawn by a heavily-trotting horse with bells on his collar, jolted by, or the trap of a town-traveller returning from the home-circuit, driven by an ill-dressed hobbledehoy with the traveller nodding by his side, and the black-leather apron strapped over the back seat, to make the trap look as much like a phaeton as possible, rattled townward. But when in obedience to the directions on a finger-post, Mr. Scadgers turned out of the high-road up a long winding lane, fringed on either side by high hedges, on which "Autumn's fiery finger" had been laid only to increase their beauty a thousand-fold, where not a sound broke the stillness save his own footfall and the occasional chirping of the birds, he seemed for the first time to awake to the beauty of the scene. Climbing to the top bar of a gate in the hedge on the top of a little eminence, he seated himself, took off the big hat, mopped himself violently with the red-silk handkerchief, and looked round on the panorama of meadow and woodland, with tiny silver threads of water here and there interspersed, until his heart softened and he had occasion to rub the silver head of the ruler-like stick into his eyes.
"Lor' bless me!" he muttered to himself; "it's like Yorkshire, and yet prettier than that; softer and quieter like. More than twenty years since I've seen any thing like this. And poor Ann! Daisy-chains we used to make in Fairlow's mead, just like that field there, when we was little children; daisy-chains and buttercups, and--poor Ann! And to think what I'm now a-goin' to--Lord help us! well, it is a rum world!" with which sage though incoherent reflections Mr. Scadgers resumed the big hat, dismounted from the gate, and continued his walk.
As he proceeded up the lane, he began to take particular notice of the objects by which he was more immediately surrounded; and on hearing the tramp of hoofs he peered through the hedge, and saw strings of horses, each mounted by its groom, at exercise. At these animals Mr. Scadgers looked with a by no means uncritical eye, and seemed satisfied, for he muttered, "Good cattle and plenty of 'em too; looks like business that. Wise head she has; I knew it would turn out all right." When he arrived at the lodge, he stopped in front of the gates and looked scrutinisingly about him, then rang the bell, and stared hard but pleasantly at the buxom woman who stood curtseying with the gate in her hand. Inside, Mr. Scadgers noticed that every thing looked neat and prosperous; he did not content himself with going straight up the carriage-drive, but diverged across the lodge-keeper's garden, and peered into the little farmyard, where the mastiff came out of his kennel to scan the stranger, and where two or three helpers, lounging on the straw-ride, or polishing bits as they leant against the stable-doors, mechanically knuckled their foreheads as he passed by. Arriving at the house, Mr. Scadgers found the front-door open; but a pull at the bell brought a staid, middle-aged woman (Kate Mellon, for it was The Den which Mr. Scadgers was visiting, never could stand what she called "flaunting hussies," as servants), by whom he was ushered into the pretty little hall, hung with its antlers, its foxes' brushes, and its sporting picture, and into the dining-room. There he was left by himself to await the coming of the owner of the house.
Now Mr. Scadgers, though by no means a nervous or impressible man, seemed on this occasion to have lost his ordinary calm, and to be in a very excitable state. He laid the big hat carefully on the table, refreshed himself with a thorough mop with the red-silk handkerchief, and rubbed his hands through his stubbly black hair; then he walked up and down the room, alternately sucking the silver head of the ruler-like stick, and muttering incoherencies to himself, and ever and anon he would stop short in his perambulations and glance at the door with an air almost of fright. The door at length was opened with a bang, and Kate Mellon entered the room. The skirt of her dress was looped up, and showed a pair of red-striped stockings and large, though well-shaped, thick Balmoral boots; she had a driving-whip in one hand and on the other a strong dogskin gauntlet, stretched and stained. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright, and the end of her hair was just escaping from the light knot into which it had been bound. With a short nod to her visitor, at whose personal appearance she gave a glance of astonishment, she began the conversation by asking what his pleasure was.
If Mr. Scadgers' behaviour had been somewhat peculiar before her entrance, it was now ten times more remarkable. At first he stood stock-still with his mouth open, gazing at her with distended eyes; then he fell to nodding his head violently and rubbing his hands as if thoroughly delighted, and then looked her up and down as though he were mentally appraising each article of dress.
"What's the man up to?" said Kate, after undergoing a minute of this inspection; "come, none of this tomfoolery here. What do you want?"
Recalled to himself by the sharp tone in which these words were uttered, Mr. Scadgers fell into his usual state, bowed, and said he had called by appointment.
"By appointment?" said. Kate; "oh, ah, I recollect now. You overcharged me for two horses and a dog in the list for last year. I filled up your form-thing fairly enough; why didn't you go by that?"