Phemie Keller

by Mrs. J. H. Riddell

Anyhow, Hastings and St. Leonards were full—too full for comfort; but not too full for amusement to anyone who knew London and its people well.

To the country squire, to the grand folks who, by reason of their great wealth and greater gentility, are far removed from all the pleasures of watching their commoner fellows and trying to understand their ways, these sea-side places must seem, as a rule, stale, flat, and unprofitable. It is the naturalist who loves to note the habits and instincts and modes of existence of the commonest animal; the bees going and coming—the ants busy at work—the mole heaps in the garden: the eccentricities of toad life have no charm to anyone who does not understand something of the nature of bee, or ant, or mole, or toad: and in like manner, the person who does not comprehend the modes of life and habits of thought of the men and the women he sees around him, cannot reasonably be expected to take much interest in observing their peculiarities.

There are those, however, who ask no better enjoyment than watching Jones, Brown, and Robinson out for a holiday; who delight in tracing Jones to his clique, and Brown to his, and Robinson to his; who luxuriate among snobs; who, watching them staring out of the windows at St. Leonards, or airing themselves in the balconies at Robertson Terrace, or lounging up and down the Parade, or adventuring their necks on the backs of much-enduring horses, can classify the swell, the millionaire, the fortune-hunter, the pretender, the distant relation of some great house, the newly rich, the poor man of family, to a nicety.

And behold! there are all the men, women, and children he has become so familiar with in the course of his walks and residences round London.

There is Paterfamilias, drearily promenading with Materfamilias, and making believe to enjoy a holiday, which is a continual anxiety, and, as the poor man feels, an unwarrantable expense.

In the whole of his married life he has never before seen so much of his children, and he never—heaven forgive him!—wants to see so much of them again. He is tired of the objectless days passed in the unexciting society of the wife of his bosom and of his numerous progeny. On the whole, he wishes the holiday were over, and he back at business once again; while Materfamilias wages war with the landlady, and is pathetic concerning the price of meat.

There are the young ladies from No. 7, who will go out in the yacht twice a day, together with a friend, who has invariably to be relanded, if the sea proves rough, amidst the pity of the passengers and the secret maledictions of the crew. There is young Tomkins, the corn-factor, taking great airs upon himself, walking in sandboots along the Parade, and staring in the face of every woman he meets; there is his future father-in-law, driving out his better-half in one of those pony-carriages that are a cross between a clothes and a plate basket, and charioteering the safest and most docile of ponies, who could not run away if he would—as Alexander might have been supposed to manage Bucephalus, had that animal ever been harnessed to a modern dog-cart. In all Hastings there is nothing more amusing than to watch these amateur whips, who hold the reins wide apart, and with great skill manage to keep a firm grasp on the whip at the same time.

No young blood tooling his four-in-hand along the high road ever felt grander than a regular cockney at Hastings seated behind a slowly-trotting pony en route to Crowhurst.

I have often wondered what the ponies say to each other about their hirers when they get back to their chaff and their oats at night. Do they take any part of the hauling and mauling out in sneers and sarcasms?—do they curse the day when basket-carriages were invented?—do they make lamentation over their weary legs and roughly-handled mouths?—do they tell about how they are cantered up hill and rattled down?—do they scoff at the hundred weights of flesh they have had to pull about?—do they recount their experiences, and do they, as a rule, consider mankind a mistake?

And as for the riding-horses—for the galled backs, for the broken winds—for the way they are mauled about, and pulled from side to side and harassed with curbs—and men who do not know what to do with either bridle or whip—and women who will hang on their crutches—and equestrians generally, who seem to think horses machines, incapable of weariness or aching bones—what shall we say of all this?—what of the great people who drive about in their own carriages, languidly surveying the commonalty through eye-glasses?—what of the little people who walk up and down for hours and go to the beach to pick up shells, and sit on the benches and listen to the music?—what of the lonely men and the solitary women?—what of the excursionists who come down from London to stay for one day, and are taken back at a single fare, and who eat more apples, pears, and plums, and drink more beer in that time than an inexperienced person might deem possible?—what of the nobs who come down here, for any purpose, as it would seem, judging from their faces, save pleasure?—what of the snobs, who ape the airs of the nobs, and enjoy themselves little accordingly?—what of the lawyer you have known so well in London, who mounts to the very top of the East Cliff, and lies down on the grass there, far away from men and the noise thereof—lies down, not to think, or to look, or to dream, but to rest!—what of the invalid, who gazes out from shaded window at the changing groups upon the shore?—what of the children and the nursemaids, of the lovers and the newly married, of the childless and the widowed? What? Dear reader, go to Hastings, and look upon them all for yourself; go, as Mrs. Stondon did, and yourself a dispassionate observer, look over the throng.