As Mr. Trotter thus hospitably concluded, he ushered his guests into a comfortable kitchen, where a tallow candle was still glimmering in its accustomed place. The master was obviously in the habit of coming home late; but that the practice was contrary to the rules of domestic discipline Mr. Sawyer gathered from the accents of a shrill voice raised in tones of reproach from an upstairs dormitory.
“Trotter! Trotter!” exclaimed the voice, unconscious of visitors, and proceeding apparently from beneath a considerable weight of bed-clothes, “is that you at last? It’s too bad! It’s nigh upon two o’clock. Mind you rake out the fire, and don’t go spilling the candle-grease all about as you come upstairs!”
Mr. Trotter, still perceptibly elevated, winked facetiously at his guests. “Get up, Margery!” he called out; “get up, I tell ye! make haste and come down. Never mind your night-cap. Here’s two gentlemen come to see ye!” And with many apologies and repeated allusions to the substantive “keys,” Mr. Trotter stirred up the fire, lit another candle, and proceeded upstairs to rouse his better-half.
In less time than you or I as a bachelor could believe it possible, a smiling dame made her appearance from above-stairs, with a neat morning cap over her comely head, and a bright rosy face, very different from the sallow hues of many a fine lady when first she wakes, blushing beneath it. That her petticoat was put on in a hurry, and her gown unfastened behind, was only what might be expected in such a rapid turn-out. These trifling drawbacks detracted not the least from the bustling hospitality with which she received her guests. It was only by the most pathetic entreaties that the Honourable dissuaded her from having a fire lighted in the best parlour, and extorted her permission for them to sit in the kitchen.
Dry slippers were soon provided for the guests. The horses, inspected by the stable lantern, were discovered not to be irremediably injured, though Marathon’s chance was out for the steeple-chase, “if indeed,” as his former and present owners remarked in a breath, though with different emphasis, “he ever had one.” The Boy was put to bed, where he might be heard snoring all over the house. What Mr. Trotter called a “snack” was set on the table, consisting of a round of beef, a ham, some cold pork-pie, an Eddish cheese, and a few other trifles of a like nature, adapted for a late meal as being light and easy of digestion. Port and sherry were produced and declined in favour of huge steaming beakers of hot brandy-and-water. Arrangements were entered into for forwarding the two gentlemen to Harborough in the farmer’s gig “first thing to-morrow morning.” Mr. Trotter produced a box of cigars and announced his intention of “making a night of it!”
A faint scream from his wife promised to a certain extent to modify the conviviality of the meeting. “She couldn’t abear the sight of blood,” she said, with many excuses for her feminine susceptibility, and drew the company’s attention to the personal appearance of Mr. Sawyer, which everybody had hitherto been too busy to observe, and which indeed presented a sufficiently ghastly aspect to excuse the good dame’s reiterated assurances that it “had give her quite a turn.”
A severe contusion on the eyebrow, accompanied by a cut extending to the cheek-bone, and which had covered one side of his face with dried blood, made him look much more damaged than he really was, and though kindly Mrs. Trotter quickly recovered her equanimity and brought him warm water and vinegar and balsam, and eventually plastered him up with about half a sheet of diachylon, she could not help shuddering during the operation, and seemed glad when it was over. Our farmers’ wives of the present day are not quite so much accustomed to broken heads as bonny “Ailie,” the helpmate of immortal Dandie Dinmont.
The borderer, however, could not have been more hospitably inclined than was the jovial Leicestershire farmer. Setting aside the difference of time and locality, they had indeed many qualities in common. The same love of hunting, the same daring in the saddle, the same open-hearted hospitality and tendency to push good-fellowship a little over the bounds of sobriety. The only difference perhaps was this that Dandie Dinmont would have been getting up before Mr. Trotter was thinking of going to bed.
I am not going to recapitulate the sayings and doings of those jovial small hours after Mrs. Trotter had betaken herself once more hopelessly to her couch. The Honourable Crasher, always a gentleman, though rather a torpid one, was equally at home with a duke and a drayman, perhaps more in his element with a hunting friend like Trotter than either. The good runs they recapitulated, the horses they remembered, the grey that was bought by Mr. G——, and the chestnut that had carried Lord W—— so well for years, the fences they had negotiated—nay, the very toasts they proposed and did justice to, would fill a chapter. It is sufficient to say that when Mr. Sawyer awoke in the best bedroom about sunrise the following morning, he had a racking head-ache, his mouth felt like the back of a Latin grammar, and the only distinct recollection with which he could charge his memory of the previous night’s conversation was his host’s recipe for making a young horse a safe fencer, which he certainly did not then feel in a condition to adopt.
“If you’ve got a green horse as you’re not very confident on at strong timber,” said Mr. Trotter, about the fourth glass of brandy-and-water, “you tackle him my way. You take him out o’ Sundays or any afternoon as you’ve nothing particular to do, and pick him out some real stiff ones. Give him two or three good heavy falls, and I’ll warrant you’ll have very little trouble afterwards. That’s the way to make ’em rise!—ain’t it, Mr. Crasher?”