Oh, queer Mrs. Shelfer, oh Balaam and Balak, shall I pretermit your annals? The two Sheriff's officers, having secured their reward, set up therewith a public-house called the "Posse-Comitatus," which soon became the head quarters of all who are agents or patients in the machinery of levying. As at such times all people drink and pay more than double, the public-house has already a Queensbench-ful of good-will.
Poor Mrs. Shelfer and Charley did not invest the 325*l.* altogether judiciously: at least, it went mainly to purchase "eternal gratitude," whose time does not begin to run till the purchaser's is over. But Patty, I am glad to say, has still that 30*l.* a year of her own, left to her in the funds by good and grateful Miss Minto. "Can't touch it, my good friend, not the Queen, the Lord Mayor, and all the royal family. Government give their bond for it, on parchment made of their skins, and the ink come out of their gall." Be this as it may, what is much more to the purpose is that Mr. Shelfer cannot touch it. And now I have pride in announcing, for I never expected such glory, that all the cats and birds, squirrels, mice, and monkeys, live, like the happy family, in our northern lodge, where Patty is most useful and happy as the Queen of the poultry. In a word, they keep the gate, not of their enemies, but of old and grateful friends. I expected to see at least a leading article in the "Times," when Mr. Shelfer left the metropolis; but they let him go very easily for the sake of the discount market. They gave him only two-and-twenty dinners; but when he first came to Vaughan Park, how he wanted country air! Now he attends to the wall-trees, and the avenue, and I hope finds harmony there. At any rate, he never breaks it by any undue exertion. Nevertheless, his very long pipe is of some account with the green fly, which has been very bad on our peaches, ever since they repealed the corn laws. Mr. Shelfer, accordingly, is compelled to spend half his time in smoking them. "Wonderful nice they do taste, Miss Clara; you'd be quite surprised, you know. Wonderful good, Miss, and werry high-flavoured you know, when they begins to fry."
"Come, come, Mr. Shelfer, I fear you cultivate them for their flavour. There are ten times as many of them, I see, as of peaches on the trees. And you charge me every week five shillings for tobacco."
"To be sure, Miss Clara. Shows a fine constitooshun, you know. And dreadful hard work it is to have to smoke so much, you know. And then the sun will come on the wall, and only a quart of beer allowed all the afternoon. And sometimes they makes me go for it myself, you know! Indeed they does, Miss, they has such cheek here in Gloucestershire!"
Patty brought all her sticks of course, in spite of the twenty-five bills of sale, which by this time had grown upon them. One whole roomful was packed in the duplicate inventories. The law on this subject she contemplated from a peculiar point of view.
"Lor, Miss, I never grudges 'em. They do cost a bit at the time; but see how safe they makes them. If it wasn't for them I should be frightened out of my wits of thieves, down here where the trees and all the green grocery is, worse than the Regency Park. Bless me, I never should have gone out of doors, Miss, if you hadn't pulled me. And to see the flowers here all a-growing with their heads up as bootiful as a bonnet. Pray, my good friend, is that what they was made for, if I may be so bold?"
"No, Patty, not for bonnets. They were made for the bees and the butterflies, and for us to enjoy them, while they enjoy themselves."
"Well, I never. Pray, Miss, did I tell you Uncle John's come home, and they only ate a piece of his shoulder for they found his belt was tenderer; and he put the glazing on it the same as they wears on their hats, and three cork pins to hold it, and he find it werry convenient, it save so much rheumatism: and he'll be here next week to convict the man that made his wife swallow the tea-pot. Dear, dear, what things they does do in the country. Not a bit like Christians. And so, Miss Clara, the old man won't drop off after all; and Uncle John a-coming, how nice it would have been."
The old man was poor Whitehead, whose lodge Mrs. Shelfer coveted, as it was larger and livelier than her own.
"No, Mrs. Shelfer, I think he will get over it. Surely you would not wish to hurry him."