“Oh! sir, sir! pray—dear sir!” said the little girl, who had several times in vain attempted to make herself heard, during the preceding dialogue between Darby and the tinker, “did you say the gentleman's name was Hackle?”
“Yea, I did, troth!” replied the tinker; “Parson Hackle.”
“Parson Hackle!” repeated the little girl; “where is he going?”
“Down to the revel, I reckon,” said the tinker, “like we be; only he goeth a-horseback, and we poor folks a-foot; and he goeth to help to keep the peace, and we, mayhap, to help to break it. I can't answer for myself, much more for my friends, after one o'clock.”
The tinker was right in his supposition that the reverend gentleman was on his way to the scene of the revel, and necessity compels us to accompany him; leaving the little girl and her three friends, to follow us at their leisure. The Reverend Reginald Hackle rode on at a quicker pace than his steed was accustomed to: Reginald partook, in some degree, of the hereditary impatience of the Hackles; the humour broke out but rarely, for Reginald's life was as seldom ruffled, as the gentle stream which glode along by the garden-hedge of his quiet abode: but he was now on his way to pass a few hours with his brother Archibald, whom he had not seen for a number of years; and the old horse, unused to such exertions as those to which his reverend rider, on this occasion, urged him, smoked like a dumpling recently lifted from a crock, by the time he reached the village.
Hackle Hall, the ancient and odd-looking edifice, toward which Reginald turned his horse's head, on emerging from the lane, was the residence of his elder brother, Sir Waldron; a man noted, as the tinker had stated in other words, for being harsh and unforgiving to those rural rakes, from whom scarcely any village in the kingdom is free. Neither Sir Waldron nor Reginald was married; their younger brother, Archibald, had a wife and a large family. Reginald, in addition to his duties as the pastor of a neighbouring parish, educated six or eight youths of the first families in the county, and Archibald had agreed to place his only boy, Waldron, under Reginald's care, for three or four years, in compliance with the reverend gentleman's affectionate and frequent invitations. He had stolen away from London, leaving business, as he said, to take care of itself for a few days, and brought young Waldron down with him. Reginald was absent on his arrival, at a considerable distance, relative to certain affairs, the arrangement of which he would have postponed, had he been made acquainted with Archibald's intended visit; but the latter had determined, very suddenly, on the journey. On taking a mental glance at his affairs one morning, while he was discussing a glass of sherry and a sandwich, at Garraway's, he discovered that there was nothing remarkably pressing, in the way of business, for some days forward: the funds were closed; two or three holidays at the public offices occurred in the ensuing week; he had not been out of town, except to fetch his family from a watering-place, for years past; he yearned to see his brothers,—and sent a ticket-porter to book places by the Exeter mail of the same evening. Young Waldron had scarcely time to take leave of his mother and sisters; and as to packing up his clothes, Mrs. Hackle declared such an exploit to be impossible. “Then what the devil is there in these, my love?” said Archibald, pointing to two trunks, a portmanteau, a carpet-bag, a bundle, and a hat-box, which lay before him. Mrs. Hackle replied, that they merely contained a change of linen, or so, and a few immediate necessaries for himself and his son. “Then, I suppose,” said he, “Waldron may expect the main body of his baggage by the broad-wheeled waggon.”
Partings and meetings between relatives are seldom of any interest except to those immediately concerned in them: we shall not, therefore, indulge in a description of what took place at the departure of Archibald and his son from Mrs. and the six Misses Hackle, nor of what Reginald said to Archibald, or Archibald said to Reginald, during the first ten minutes of their interview at Hackle Hall. We rather prefer relating the conversation of the three brothers after they had made a tolerable lunch on a cold pigeon-pie and two quarts of very respectable ale.
“Well, brother Archibald,” said the reverend gentleman as soon as the tray was removed, “and, pray, what aspect does your native place wear to your eye, since your long absence from it?—But you were so young when you quitted it, for a dismal, smoky, London-merchant's 'counting-house, that I suppose all recollection of it must have escaped your memory.”
“That's the positive truth,” replied Archibald; “if I had remembered the place and its people; if the least remnant of a sample had cleaved to me, not even the pleasure of seeing you and Waldron, would have induced me to have quitted the metropolis to pay it a visit.”
“You amaze me!” exclaimed Reginald; “the hospitality—”