Lady Barbarity: A Romance

by J. C. Snaith

As it proved, we were not a second too early in our hiding. A clattering of hoofs announced that the horses had come to the stable door; and it was to our dire misfortune that their riders here dismounted and held a council, whose import was the reverse of comforting. Leaving their animals outside, they sought the protection of the stable against the bitter air, and without restraint discussed their future courses. From our vantage in the upper chamber we looked down and listened with all ears through the trap; and, as they had evidently not the least knowledge of our presence there, we felt quite a keen enjoyment in the situation, which was terribly dashed, however, by the resolution they arrived at.

“You men,” says one, with the authority proper to a corporal—Corporal Flickers was his title, as later I learned to my sorrow—“you men, this fox is a knowin’ varmint. Why did he come back here? I puts it to you. Why did he come back here?”

“’Cause o’ me lady,” was suggested by one of his companions.

“Eggsac’ly,” says the Corporal. “George, you’re knowin’, you are, you take my word for that. ’Cause o’ me lady. And if I was to have a free hand wi’ my lady, what is it I’d do to her?”

“Screw her blazin’ neck,” suggested the same authority.

“Eggsac’ly,” says the Corporal; “screw her blazin neck. George, you’re knowin’, you are. Oh the air’stocracy! They never was no good to England, and durn me if they don’t get wuss. Never did no honest labour in their naturals. Lives high; drinks deep—ow! it turns me pink to mention ’em. It does, George Marshal; it does, John Pensioner; fair congests my liver. And fer brazing plucky impidence their wimmen is the wust. This here ladyship in perticular, a sweet piece, isn’t she? Never does a stitch o’ honest labour, but sucks pep’mint to find a thirst, and bibs canary wine to quench it. And it’s you and me, George, you and me, John, as pervides this purple hussy wi’ canary wine and pep’mint. Us I say, honest tillers o’ the land, honest toilers o’ the sea, as is the prop o’ this stupendjous air’stocracy. It’s we, I say, what finds ’em in canary wine and pep’mint. Poor we, the mob, the scum, the three-damned we what’s not agoing to hevving when we dies. But who’s this ladyship as she should let a prisoner out in the middle o’ the night, and sends six humble men but honest a-scourin’ half Yorkshire for him. As Joseph Flickers allus was polite he’ll not tell you what her name is, but do you know what Joe’d do if he had a daughter who grew up to be a ladyship like her?”

“Drown her,” Mr. George modestly suggested.

“George,” says the Corporal, in a tone of admiration, “you are smart, my boy, downright smart, that’s what you are! Drown her’s what I’d do, with her best dress and Sunday bonnet on. I should take her so, by the back of her commode, gently but firmly, George, and lead her to the Ouse. And then I should say, ‘Ladyship, I allows you five minutes fer your prayers, for they never was more needed; because, ladyship, I’m a-going to drown you, like I would a ordinary cat what strays upon the tiles at night, and says there what she shouldn’t say. Ow, you besom wi’ your small feet and your mincing langwidge, you should smell hell if Joseph Flickers was your pa!”

Now I have sat long and often in a playhouse, but Sir John Vanbrugh, Mr. William Congreve, and all those other celebrated gentlemen of mirth have yet to give me an entertainment I enjoyed half so much as this. There was something so utterly delightful in the idea of Corporal Joseph Flickers being my papa, and his conception of a parent’s duties in that case, that I had perforce to stuff my cloak into my mouth to prevent my laughter disturbing my denouncers.

Next moment, though, there was scanty cause for mirth. The Corporal, having delivered this tremendous speech with a raucous eloquence, gave it as his opinion that the prisoner had already been let into the house with my connivance, and that I had put him in hiding there. They were unanimous in this, and came to the conclusion that he would abide some hours there at least, as he had been so sternly chased that he could not crawl another mile. This was true enough, as their quarry took occasion to whisper as they said so. It was considered inadvisable to challenge the house just then; the majority of its inmates being abed, the night not yet lifted, and therefore favouring concealment, and, above all, they were full of weariness themselves, and their horses beaten. Accordingly they determined to put them up, and also to allow their own weariness a few hours of much needed ease.