IVY BANK Tower (formerly caled Cow gate Hill), the seat of Jeames Wotherspoon Esquire, stands on a gentle eminence about a stone’s throw from the Horseheath and Hinton turnpike road, and looks from the luxuriance of its ivy, like a great Jack-in-the-green. Ivy is a troublesome thing, for it will either not grow at all or it grows far too fast, and Wotherspoon’s had fairly overrun the little angular red brick, red tiled mansion, and helped it to its new name of Ivy Bank Tower. If the ivy flourished, however, it was the only thing about the place that did; for Wotherspoon was no farmer, and the 75A, 3R. 18P., of which the estate consisted, was a very uninviting looking property. Indeed Wotherspoon was an illustration of the truth of Sydney Smith’s observation that there are three things which every man thinks he can do, namely, drive a gig, edit a newspaper, and farm a small property, and Spoon bought Cowgate Hill thinking it would “go of itself,” as they say of a horse, and that in addition to the rent he would get the farmer’s profit as well, which he was told ought to be equal to the rent. Though he had the Farmers’ Almanack, he did not attend much to its instructions, for if Mrs. Wotherspoon wanted the Fe-a-ton, as she called it, to gad about the country in, John Strong, the plough-boy footman “loused” his team, and arraying himself in a chocolate-coloured coat, with a red striped vest and black velveteens, left the other horse standing idle for the day. So Spoon sometimes caught the season and sometimes he lost it; and the neighbours used to hope that he hadn’t to live by his land. If he caught the season he called it good management; if he didn’t he laid the blame upon the weather, just as a gardener takes the credit for all the good crops of fruit, and attributes the failures to the seasons. Still Spoon was not at all sensible of his deficiencies, and subscribed a couple of guineas a year to the Harrowford Agricultural Society, in return for which he always had the toast of the healths of the tenant farmers assigned to him, which he handled in a very magnificent and condescending way, acknowledging the obligations the landowners were under to them, and hoping the happy union would long subsist to their mutual advantage; indeed, if he could only have got the words out of his mouth as fast as he got the drink into it, there is no saying but he might some day have filled the presidential chair. Now, however, a greater honour even than that awaited him, namely, the honour of entertaining the great Major Yammerton to breakfast. To this end John Strong was first set to clean the very dirty windows, then to trim the ivy and polish the brass knocker at the door, next to dig the border, in which grew the famous yellow rose, and finally to hoe and rake the carriage-drive up to the house; while Mrs. Wotherspoon, aided by Sally Brown, her maid-of-all-work, looked out the best blue and gold china, examined the linen, selected a tongue, guillotined the poultry, bespoke the eggs, and arranged the general programme of the entertainment.
The Major thought himself very sly, and that he was doing the thing very cleverly by nibbling and playing with his breakfast on the appointed morning, instead of eating voraciously as usual; but ladies often know a good deal more than they pretend to do, and Mrs. Yammerton had seen a card from Mrs. Wotherspoon to their neighbour, Mrs. Broadfurrow, of Blossomfield Farm, inviting Broadfurrow and her to a “déjeuner à la fourchette” to meet Major Yammerton and see the hounds. However, Mrs. Yammerton kept the fact to herself, thinking she would see how her Major would manoeuvre the matter, and avoid a general acquaintance with the Wotherspoons. So she merely kept putting his usual viands before him, to try to tempt him into indulgence; but the Major, knowing the arduous part he would have to perform at the Tower, kept rejecting all her insidious overtures for eating, pretending he was not altogether right. “Almond pudding hadn’t agreed with him,” he thought. “Never did—should have known better than take it,” and so on.
Our dawdling hero rather discontented his host, for instead of applying himself sedulously to his breakfast, he did nothing but chatter and talk to the young ladies, as if there was no such important performance before them as a hare to pursue, or the unrivalled harriers to display. He took cup after cup, as though he had lost his reckoning, and also the little word “no” from his vocabulary. At length the Major got him raised from the table, by telling him they had two miles farther to go than they really had, and making for the stable, they found Solomon and the footman whipper-in ready to turn out with the hounds. Up went our sportsmen on to their horses, and forth came the hounds wriggling and frolicking with joy. The cavalcade being thus formed, they proceeded across the fields, at the back of the house, and were presently passing up the Hollington Lane. The gift grey was the first object of interest as soon as they got well under way, and the Major examined him attentively, with every desire to find fault.
“Neatish horse,” at length observed he, half to himself, half to our friend; “neatish horse—lightish of bone below the knee, p’raps, but still by no means a bad shaped ‘un.”
Still though the Major could’nt hit off the fault, he was pretty sure there was a screw loose somewhere, to discover which he now got Billy to trot the horse, aud cauter him, and gallop him, successively.
“Humph!” grunted he, as he returned after a brush over the rough ground of Farthingfield Moor; “he has the use of his legs—gets well away; easy horse under you, I dessay?” asked he.
Billy said he was, for he could pull him about anywhere; saying which he put him boldly at a water furrow, and landed handsomely on the far side.
“Humph!” grunted the Major again, muttering to himself, “May be all right—but if he is, it’s devilish unlike the Baronet, giving him. Wish he would take that confounded moon-eyed brute of mine and give me my forty puns back.”
“And he gave him ye, did he?” asked the Major, with a scrutinising stare at our friend.
“Why—yarse—no—yarse—not exactly,” replied Billy, hesitating. “The fact is, he offered to give me him, and I didn’t like taking him, and so, after a good deal to do, he said I might give him fifty pounds for him, and pay him when it suited me.”