"Oh, Miss! what is the matter?" sighs the cook sentimentally, observing at the same time that "her heart beats that quick as she ain't sure she knows her own name when she hears it."
"Oh, cook!" cries the least exhausted of the party, "here's a great—here's a great black beadle in the parlour!" On which a very small scream, and a pretty shudder at the recollection, pervade the assembly.
"A black-beadle, Miss Higgins! is that all! Lauk, well that is disappineting; we thought as you was all a being murdered, and so we couldn't move, we was so frightened. Why, I minds a black-beadle no more nor—no more nor—no, that I don't! But if it had bin a hearwig, Miss Higgins!—ur-r-r-rh! now that's a ruptile as I never could abide!"
Had we rushed down stairs sooner, just before the first ring of the bell, a kitchen-group might have presented itself, not unworthy of being sketched. There should we have seen a feminine party of four seated round a table spread with solid viands; the actresses have played their parts to perfection; not like unfortunate players on the mimic stage, who raise to their parched lips empty japan cups, and affect to eat large slices of pasteboard turkeys. No; they have, in the fullest sense of the word, dined; and are in that delicious state of dreamy repose, induced by a hearty meal, about mid-day in summer, after having risen early and "washed" till twelve! It is at this juncture they hear the loud quick ring of the parlour-bell. At such a moment, when Missus know'd they was at dinner! Again, again, again; nay, the peal is continuous, and mingled with confused screams. Terror and the cold beef combined, strong ale and intense alarm, prevent them from stirring. Still the bell rings, the screams continue, and grow more distinct! Sarah faints, Betsy manages about half a fit, and Jane staggers a few paces and falls into the arms of Robert the gardener. A jug of ale, which the cook mistakes for water, flung into the face of the fair insensible, causes a sensation that arouses the whole party; and curiosity overcoming fear, leads them towards the stairs, where, hushed and horror-stricken, they await the dread intelligence that "a great black beadle has got into the parlour," his first appearance this season!
"Had it been a mad dog, indeed!" they all cry. Yes, and if it had been merely a tiny puppy with the smallest tin kettle tied to his tail, retreating affrightedly from roguish boys, they themselves would have been thrown into a fright indeed. Their instinct would have led them to cry, "Oh here's a mad dog," and to run right in his way.
Every man has his "fright." Toads are exceedingly unpopular. The deathwatch, like conscience, doth make cowards of us all. Spiders are unwelcome visitors. Rats (politics apart) are eminently disagreeable. One of a party who went out to kill buffaloes, happening to run away just as all his courage was required, explained the circumstance to his friends thus: "One man dislikes this, and another man that animal; gentlemen, my antipathy is the buffalo." But in certain climates, people are accustomed to horrors; they sup full of them. Nobody there screams out, "Oh here's a scorpion!" or "Good gracious, here's an alligator!" The visits of such common-places are not angelic, being neither few nor far between. It is only some rarer monster that can hope to make a sensation. Now, a hippopotamus, once a season, would come with a forty black-beetle power to an evening party; and a group of timid ladies, kicking the mere crocodiles and rattle-snakes away, may well be imagined rushing into a corner, startled by an unlooked-for intruder, and crying out "Oh my! if here isn't a mammoth! Mamma! here's a great large leviathan!"
