"Oh, that will be delightful, Kit! We can dine whenever we please, you know, as your dear father is from home. We will have the cold lamb at one o'clock. I can easily make my dinner then; and then, Kit, if you are very good, what do you think I will try to do? Such a treat as you hardly ever had!"
"What, mother?—what? I must be off to get my tackle ready."
"My dear, I will send to Mr. Squeaker Smith, and order a nice light vehicle, with a very steady pony. And, Kit, I will put on my very worst cloak, and a bonnet not worth six-pence, and stout india-rubber overshoes. And so you shall drive me wherever you please; and I will see you catch all the fish. And you will enjoy every fish twice as much, because your dear mother is looking at you. I will bring some sandwiches, my pet, and your father's flask of sherry; and we can stay out till it is quite dark. Why, Kit, you don't look pleased about it!"
"Mother, how can I be pleased to hear you speak of such things, at this time of year? The spring is scarcely beginning yet, and the edges of the water are all swampy. You would be up to your knees, in no time, in the most horrible yellow slime. I should be most delighted to have your company, my dearest mother; but it will not do."
"Very well, Kit; you know best. But, at least, I can have the ride with you, and wait somewhere while you go fishing?"
"If I were going anywhere else, perhaps we might have contrived it so. But while the wind stays in its present quarter, it is worse than useless to think of fishing, except in the most outlandish places. There would not be even a public-house, if you could stop at such a place, within miles of the water I am going to. And the roads are beyond conception. No wheels can get along them, except in the very height of summer, or a dry black-frost. My dear mother, I am truly grieved to lose your company; but I must ride the old cob Sam, and tie him to a tree or gate; and over and over again you have told me how long you have been waiting for the chance of a good long afternoon to do a little shopping. And the London fashions, for the summer season, arrived by the coach only yesterday."
"Did they, indeed? Are you sure of that? Well, Kit, I would rather have come with you than seen the whole world of fashions, although you can judge, and a lady cannot. But I do not care about that, my dear, if only you enjoy yourself. Ring the bell, my darling, and I will see about your dinner."
Kit's heart burned within him sadly, and his cheeks kept it well in countenance, as the shocking fraud thus practised by him upon his good, unselfish mother. However, there was no help for it; and, after all, mothers must be made to be cheated; or why do they love it so?
Thus well-balanced with his conscience, Kit put all his smartest clothes on, as soon as the early dinner was done, and he felt quite sure in his own mind that his mother was safely embarked upon her grand expedition of shopping. He saw her as clean as possible off the premises and round the utmost corner of the lane; and then he waited for a minute and a half, to be sure that she had not forgotten her purse, or something else most essential. At last, he became sure as sure could be, that his admirable mother must now be sitting on a high chair in a fashionable shop; and with that he ran up to his own room, and kicked off his every-day breeches, and with great caution and vast study drew a brand-new pair of noble pantaloons, with a military stripe, up his well-nourished and established legs. He gazed at the result, and found that on the whole it was not bad; and then he put on his best velvet waistcoat, of a chaste sprig-pattern, not too gaudy. A waterfall tie with a turquoise pin, and a cutaway coat of a soft bottle-green, completed him for the eyes of the public, and—for which he cared far more—certain especially private eyes.
Christopher, feeling himself thus attired, and receiving the silent approval of his glass, stole downstairs in a very clever way, and took from his own private cupboard a whip of white pellucid whalebone, silver-mounted, and set with a large and radiant Cairngorm pebble. His mother had given him this on his very last birth-day, and he had never used it, wisely fearing to be laughed at. But now he tucked it under his arm, and swaggering as he had seen hussars do, turned into a passage leading to his private outlet.