CHAPTER IV.
The party at the rectory was not kept up to such a late hour as to prevent Lord Spoonbill and Colonel Crop from riding over to Neverden the next morning to take a day’s shooting with Sir George Aimwell, whom we shall have great pleasure in introducing to our readers.
Sir George Aimwell, of Neverden Hall, Bart. was descended from a long line of illustrious ancestry, and was a wholesale poulterer, and one of the great unpaid. Not that we mean by this expression to insinuate that the retail poulterers did not pay him for what they had: we merely mean to say, that the preserve-worshipping, spring-gun-setting, poacher-committing baronet administered justice for nothing; and, with reverence be it spoken, that was quite as much as it was worth. Perhaps we may do our country a piece of service that shall immortalize us, if we suggest by the way a great improvement on the present system of justice-mongering. Let not Mr Hume imagine that we are going to recommend that the country justices of the peace should be paid for their valuable time and invaluable labours. A far better plan would be, that they should pay for their places, and that the magistracy should be given to the highest bidder. For surely it is worth something to have authority, to be able to accommodate or annoy a neighbour, to commit a poacher, and to keep a whole village in awe. It is worth something also to be called “your worship.” This however is a digression. Not that we apologize for it, but rather take to ourselves praise for communicating so much valuable information in so pleasant a style.
To proceed then with our description of Sir George Aimwell. The worthy baronet was a most active magistrate, peculiarly acute in matters of summary conviction; and thinking it a great pity that any rogue should escape, or that any accused, but honest man, should lose an opportunity of clearing his character by means of a jury of his fellow countrymen, he never failed to commit all that were brought before him. There was also modesty in this; for he thereby insinuated that he would not take upon himself to make a decision in these cases, but would leave the determination to the judges of assize and the wisdom of a jury. Sir George professed Whig politics; these were hereditary in his family, but by no means constitutional in him as an individual. Therefore he passed for a very moderate Whig; for one who would not clog the wheels of government. In short, he was no more a Whig than a game preserver ought to be; and that, as our readers know, is not much. He took especial pains to keep the parish clear of vagrants and paupers; and by his great activity he kept down the poor-rates to a very moderate sum. The excessive zeal and satisfaction with which he exercised the magisterial functions led us to the recommendation which we have given above. Sir George, though a professed Whig, was not very partial to the education of the lower orders, and he always expressed himself well pleased when he met with a country booby who could neither read nor write. For this reason Nick Muggins, the post-boy, was a great favourite with him. Our worthy baronet could not see the use of reading, and he thought it a great piece of affectation for country gentlemen to have libraries. His own books, for he had a few, were huddled together in a light closet, where he kept his guns and sporting tackle. There was a Lady Aimwell, wife to Sir George; but this lady was a piece of still life, of whom the neighbours knew nothing, and for whom her husband cared nothing.
Colonel Crop was quite at home with Sir George Aimwell, and so he could be with any one who kept a good table. Shooting was not any great pleasure to the colonel, but as he could not sleep all day long, and as the dinner hour did not hurry itself to accommodate him, he was content to walk about the fields with a gun, and say alternately yes or no to the various wise remarks made by Lord Spoonbill or Sir George Aimwell. Let no one despise Colonel Crop for this most useful of all social qualities, a decided and settled acquiescence in all that his feeders may please to assert. The colonel belonged to a profession the glory of which is to obey orders. If therefore he carried this spirit into all his intercourse with those whom he considered his superiors, it is neither to be wondered at nor to be blamed. We do not wish to speak disrespectfully of the army; it is very useful in war and very ornamental in peace.
The morning’s sport was not good, and therefore the worthy baronet was sulky and ill-humoured, and kicked his dogs; and he made use of such language as is very unfashionable to print. Colonel Crop re-echoed the unprintable exclamations of the great unpaid, but Lord Spoonbill did not seem to heed the sport, or more properly speaking the want of sport. It is very provoking to be in a passion with anything that thwarts our humour, and it is still more provoking to find another, who ought to be in a passion with the same object, regard the matter with total indifference and unconcern. Thus provoked was the worthy and exemplary magistrate Sir George Aimwell. His red face grew redder, and his magisterial looks became more majestic; at length, with a due degree of deference to one of noble rank, he began to utter something like reproach or expostulation to Lord Spoonbill.
“Upon my word, Spoonbill, this may be very good sport for you, but it is not so for me. I never saw the birds so shy or the dogs so stupid. But you seem to be very easy about the matter.” Then turning to the colonel, he continued: “I suppose his lordship is thinking of old Greendale’s pretty niece.”—At this speech the baronet laughed, and so did the colonel. Who could help laughing at it?
Lord Spoonbill smiled, and only replied in an affected drawl, “By all that is good, Sir George, you must think me a great simpleton to be caught by a pretty face. The fact is, I am not much of a sportsman, you know. I could enjoy a battue very well, but this hunting about for a few stray birds is poor work.”
“A battue, forsooth!” exclaimed the amiable baronet:—“I believe those villains the poachers have scarcely left a single bird in the Cop-wood.”
The worthy magistrate was going on, but his indignation at the shocking violation of those most excellent laws which the wisdom of our ancestors has formed, and the folly of their descendants has tolerated, so entirely overcame his feelings, that in the violence of his anger he incurred the penalty of five shillings; but his companions did not inform against him. In a word, he swore most bitterly and tremendously. Our readers must not blame him too hastily for this transgression. Let them consider that he was a magistrate, and of course very zealous for the due observance of the laws. Swearing is certainly wrong; but that is a mere trifle compared to poaching: the uttering of a single profane oath being, in the eye of our most excellent laws, precisely one-twentieth part of the crime of an unqualified person having in his possession a dead partridge.