For with a good deal of difficulty, as you may guess, we managed to preserve an appearance of mighty dignified unconcern, however far we might be from feeling it, and contrived to converse one with another in a perfectly natural and amiable manner, for all the world as though we were not sitting in the stocks at all, but in the village alehouse. In the face of such a fine contempt the spectators were just as much at a loss as ever the squire had been. They were there to bully and bait us, but under our unwavering eyes had not the courage to do so. Indeed it seemed to involve such a degree of initiative on their part to kick two persons who after all were not thoroughly and effectually knocked down, that one by one they followed the example of the squire and slunk away.
When the best part of these idle and mischievous persons had departed, and our admirers were diminished to about a score of the village urchins who were not to be so easily daunted, says I to my little companion, who to be sure had been wonderfully steadfast through all our misfortunes:
"I think, your ladyship, we shall best forget the distresses of our present situation by arrogating to ourselves the grandeur of our former state. How was the dear queen when you saw her last? Had she quite recovered of her whooping-cough?"
"Oh yes, I thank your lordship," says Cynthia glibly. "But surely your lordship was at the levée last Tuesday month?"
"No, rat me if I was," says I, with a languid air. "The fact of the matter is, I have not the taste for these routs and drums and crushes and assemblies. My father, the late lord, I have heard boast that he never missed above three in thirty years. But I think your ladyship will be the first to own that in these days the haut ton is not so vastly energetic as it once was. For myself, I would be the first to confess that the practices and observances of the genteel and polite world weary me to distraction. I never get into my Court suit but what I die of fatigue in the operation!"
"His Grace of Middlesex I have heard speak to the same tenor," says Cynthia; "and often enough have I heard her grace the duchess reprove it in him."
"I think," says I, "it was a fashion that first obtruded itself in the Prince of Wales."
"Ah, the dear prince!" says she. "How like his poor dear Royal Highness it is, to be sure! I hope your lordship was not with him at that particular drawing-room where he took off so many of the gentlemen to play a game at basset or hazard or what not in the antechamber."
"Primero, your ladyship," says I gravely.
It was in this edifying fashion that we supported ourselves in our present trials. Our conversation was carried to the very heights of the genteel, and was chiefly concerned with the Royal Family. We mentioned nobody under a peer, and contrived to bring in those great persons in a highly inept and fashionable manner. Had any one heard our conversation they must have marvelled to know how two people so vastly polite and who moved in such exalted circles could ever have come in that place. The smack of humour in the thing was undeniable, but I am not sure that we did not retail those details, anecdotes, and reminiscences in the mincing, clipping tone of St. James's as much for a vindication of ourselves and a salve for our wounded feelings as for the whimsicality of the occupation.