CHAPTER VI.
“I joy to see you here, but should have thought
It likelier to have heard of you at court,
Pursuing there the recompenses due
To your great merit.”
Tuke.
It is now high time to introduce more particularly to our readers the Hon. Philip Martindale. He has been glancing and flitting before our eyes; but he has not stayed long enough to be fairly seen and understood. He did not appear to great advantage at the assizes, where he sat laughing or sneering at the progress of his own cause; nor would he have made a very imposing figure, had we opened upon him on the evening of the day of the trial, when, on his return home, the trusty Oliver announced to him the arrival of two gentlemen, calling themselves sheriffs’ officers. To delay any longer to introduce our honorable acquaintance to our readers, would be intruding upon their patience beyond reason.
The Hon. Philip Martindale finding that it would not be possible to get rid of this encumbrance by any other means than by discharging the debt, and knowing that the debt could not be discharged without money, and knowing that money was not at that emergency to be obtained but by the medium of the people of Israel, sent his trusty Oliver to the Red Lion to provide a chaise to carry him on his way to London. It would be more agreeable to us, if it were possible, to bring our readers to an acquaintance with the honorable gentleman lolling in his own chariot, for that would be more befitting his rank in society, than to see him travelling in so plebeian a vehicle as a hired chaise, drawn by a pair of hack horses. But though the Hon. Philip Martindale was a man of high rank, and somewhat proud of the station which he held in society, he was not altogether unable or unwilling to condescend; and though the Denvers, the Flints, the Prices, and all the other gentry, thought him a very proud and haughty man, yet there were many in Brigland, many in Newmarket, and many in London and its vicinity, who could bear testimony to his condescension.
To describe a journey to London in a post-chaise, along thirty or forty miles of turnpike-road, bounded on the right hand by hedges and ditches, and on the left by ditches and hedges, requires powers of description and imagination to which we are too humble to make pretension. As we are not presuming to descant on the history of the journey, we may as well say a word or two concerning the person who took the said journey. We are perfectly aware that it would be more artist-like and effective, to let our characters speak for themselves, and by their own acts or words develope their own peculiarities; but this is not altogether possible to be done effectually; for the same words from different lips have a different meaning; and there is a peculiarity of tone and accent and look which does much towards rendering the character intelligible. These matters may be imitated in the drama on the stage, but they cannot be well transfused into plainly-written dialogue.
Without farther apology, then, we proceed to speak of the Hon. Philip Martindale somewhat more particularly. We speak of this person in the first place, for that was a first consideration with himself. He was tall, but not thin; rather clumsily formed about the shoulders; his gait was rather swaggering than stately; his features were not unhandsome, but they wanted expression; his manner of speaking was not remarkable for its beauty, for he had a habit of drawling which seemed to strangers a piece of affectation; his style of dress was plain, somewhat approaching to that of the driver of a coach, but any one might see in a moment that he was a man of some consequence. As to his mind, he was by no means a blockhead or a simpleton; nor was he to be considered as ill-humored. He was of an easy disposition; and had he been placed in a situation which required the exercise of his mental powers to gain a living, he would have passed for a man of very good understanding.