"'Propria quæ maribus tri buuntur mascula dicas.—As in præsenti, perfectum format in avi.'"
"'Propria quæ maribus tri buuntur mascula dicas.—As in præsenti, perfectum format in avi.'"
"There," added the Squire, turning triumphantly towards his Harry, who looked with great admiration at this unprecedented burst of learning on the part of Mr Hazeldean—"There, two can play at that game! And now that we have all seen thestocks, we may as well go home, and drink tea. Will you come up and play a rubber, Dale? No!—hang it, man, I've not offended you—you know my ways."
"That I do, and they are among the things I would not have altered," cried the Parson—holding out his hand cheerfully. The Squire gave it a hearty shake, and Mrs Hazeldean hastened to do the same. "Do come; I am afraid we've been very rude; we are sad blunt folks. Do come; that's a dear good man; and of course poor Mrs Dale too." Mrs Hazeldean's favourite epithet for Mrs Dale waspoor, and that for reasons to be explained hereafter.
"I fear my wife has got one of her bad headaches, but I will give her your kind message, and at all events you may depend upon me."
"That's right," cried the Squire, "in half-an-hour, eh?—How d'ye do, my little man?" as Lenny Fairfield, on his way home from some errand in the village, drew aside and pulled off his hat with both hands. "Stop—you see those stocks—eh? Tell all the bad little boys in the parish to take care how they get into them—a sad disgrace—you'll never be in such a quandary!"
"That at least I will answer for," said the Parson.
"And I too," added Mrs Hazeldean, patting the boy's curly head. "Tell your mother I shall come and have a good chat with her to-morrow evening."
And so the party passed on, and Lenny stood still on the road, staring hard at the stocks, which stared back at him from its four great eyes.
But Lenny did not remain long alone. As soon as the great folks had fairly disappeared, a large number of small folks emerged timorously from the neighbouring cottages, and approached the site of the stocks with much marvel, fear, and curiosity.
In fact, the renovated appearance of this monster—à propos de bottes, as one may say—had already excited considerable sensation among the population of Hazeldean. And even as when an unexpected owl makes his appearance in broad daylight, all the little birds rise from tree and hedgerow, and cluster round their ominous enemy, so now gathered all the much excited villagers round the intrusive and portentous Phenomenon.
"D'ye know what the diggins the Squire did it for, Gaffer Solomons?" asked one many-childed matron, with a baby in arms, an urchin of three years old clinging fast to her petticoat, and her hand maternally holding back a more adventurous hero of six, who had a great desire to thrust his head into one of the grisly apertures. All eyes turned to a sage old man, the oracle of the village, who, leaning both hands on his crutch, shook his head bodingly.
"Maw be," said Gaffer Solomons, "some of the boys ha' been robbing the orchards."
"Orchards"—cried a big lad who seemed to think himself personally appealed to—" why, the bud's scarce off the trees yet!"
"No more it in't!" said the dame with many children, and she breathed more freely.
"Maw be," said Gaffer Solomons, "some o' ye has been sitting snares."
"What for?" said a stout sullen-looking young fellow, whom conscience possibly pricked to reply. "What for, when it beant the season? And if a poor man did find a hear in his pocket i' the hay-time, I should like to know if ever a squire in the world would let un off wi' the stocks—eh?"
That last question seemed a settler, and the wisdom of Gaffer Solomons went down fifty per cent in the public opinion of Hazeldean.
"Maw be," said the Gaffer, this time with a thrilling effect, which restored his reputation—"Maw be some o' ye ha' been getting drunk, and making beestises o' yourselves!"
There was a dead pause, for this suggestion applied too generally to be met with a solitary response. At last one of the women said, with a meaning glance at her husband, "God bless the Squire; he'll make some on us happy women if that's all!"
There then arose an almost unanimous murmur of approbation among the female part of the audience; and the men looked at each other, and then at the Phenomenon, with a very hang-dog expression of countenance.
"Or, maw be," resumed Gaffer Solomons, encouraged to a fourth suggestion by the success of its predecessor—"Maw be some o' the Misseses ha' been making a rumpus, and scolding their goodmen. I heard say in my granfeythir's time, that arter old Mother Bang nigh died o' the ducking-stool, them 'ere stocks were first made for the women, out o' compassion like! And every one knows the Squire is a koind-hearted man, God bless un!"
"God bless un!" cried the men heartily; and they gathered lovingly round the Phenomenon, like heathens of old round a tutelary temple. But then rose one shrill clamour among the females, as they retreated with involuntary steps towards the verge of the green, whence they glared at Solomons and the Phenomenon with eyes so sparkling, and pointed at both with gestures so menacing, that Heaven only knows if a morsel of either would have remained much longer to offend the eyes of the justly enraged matronage of Hazeldean, if fortunately Master Stirn, the Squire's right-hand man, had not come up in the nick of time.
Master Stirn was a formidable personage—more formidable than the Squire himself—as, indeed, a squire's right-hand is generally more formidable than the head can pretend to be. He inspired the greater awe, because, like the stocks, of which he was deputed guardian, his powers were undefined and obscure, and he had no particular place in the out-of-door establishment. He was not the steward, yet he did much of what ought to be the steward's work; he was not the farm-bailiff, for the Squire called himself his own farm-bailiff, nevertheless, Mr Hazeldean sowed and ploughed, cropped and stocked, bought and sold, very much as Mr Stirn condescended to advise. He was not the park-keeper, for he neither shot the deer nor superintended the preserves; but it was he who always found out who had broken a park-pale or snared a rabbit. In short, what may be called all the harsher duties of a large landed proprietor devolved by custom and choice upon Mr Stirn. If a labourer was to be discharged, or a rent enforced, and the Squire knew that he should be talked over, and that the steward would be as soft as himself, Mr Stirn was sure to be the avenging αγγελος or messenger, to pronounce the words of fate; so that he appeared to the inhabitants of Hazeldean like the Poet'sSæva Necessitas, a vague incarnation of remorseless power, armed with whips, nails, and wedges. The very brute creation stood in awe of Mr Stirn. The calves knew that it was he who singled out which should be sold to the butcher, and huddled up into a corner with beating hearts at his grim footstep; the sow grunted, the duck quacked, the hen bristled her feathers and called to her chicks when Mr Stirn drew near. Nature had set her stamp upon him. Indeed, it may be questioned whether the great M. de Chambray himself, surnamed the Brave, had an aspect so awe-inspiring as that of Mr Stirn; albeit the face of that hero was so terrible, that a man who had been his lackey, seeing his portrait after he had been dead twenty years, fell a trembling all over like a leaf!
"And what the plague are you all doing here?" said Mr Stirn, as he waved and smacked a great cart-whip which he held in his hand, "making such a hullabaloo, you women, you! that I suspect the Squire will be sending out to know if the village is on fire. Go home, will ye? High time indeed to have the stocks ready, when you get squalling and conspiring under the very nose of a justice of the peace, just as the French Revolutioners did afore they cut off their King's head; my hair stands on end to look at ye." But already, before half this address was delivered, the crowd had dispersed in all directions—the women still keeping together, and the men sneaking off towards the ale-house. Such was the beneficent effect of the fatal stocks on the first day of their resuscitation!
However, in the break up of every crowd there must be always some one who gets off the last; and it so happened that our friend Lenny Fairfield, who had mechanically approached close to the stocks, the better to hear the oracular opinions of Gaffer Solomons, had no less mechanically, on the abrupt appearance of Mr Stirn, crept, as he hoped, out ofsight, behind the trunk of the elm tree which partially shaded the stocks; and there now, as if fascinated, he still cowered, not daring to emerge in full view of Mr Stirn, and in immediate reach of the cart-whip,—when the quick eye of the right-hand man detected his retreat.
"Hallo, you sir—what the deuce, laying a mine to blow up the stocks! just like Guy Fox and the Gunpowder Plot, I declares! What ha' you got in your willanous little fist there?"
"Nothing, sir," said Lenny, opening his palm.
"Nothing—um!" said Mr Stirn much dissatisfied; and then, as he gazed more deliberately, recognising the pattern boy of the village, a cloud yet darker gathered over his brow; for Mr Stirn, who valued himself much on his learning—and who, indeed, by dint of more knowledge as well as more wit than his neighbours, had attained his present eminent station in life—was extremely anxious that his only son should also be a scholar; that wish,
"The gods dispersed in empty air."
"The gods dispersed in empty air."
Master Stirn was a notable dunce at the Parson's school, while Lenny Fairfield was the pride and boast of it; therefore Mr Stirn was naturally, and almost justifiably ill-disposed towards Lenny Fairfield, who had appropriated to himself the praises which Mr Stirn had designed for his son.
"Um!" said the right-hand man, glowering on Lenny malignantly, "you are the pattern boy of the village, are you? Very well, sir—then I put these here stocks under your care—and you'll keep off the other boys from sitting on 'em, and picking off the paint, and playing three holes and chuck farthing, as I declare they've been a-doing, just in front of the elewation. Now you knows your 'sponsibilities, little boy—and a great honour they are too, for the like o' you. If any damage be done, it is to you I shall look; d'ye understand? and that's what the Squire says to me. So you sees what it is to be a pattern boy, Master Lenny!"
With that Mr Stirn gave a loud crack of the cart-whip, by way of military honours, over the head of the vicegerent he had thus created, and strode off to pay a visit to two young unsuspecting pups, whose ears and tails he had graciously promised their proprietor to crop that evening. Nor, albeit few charges could be more obnoxious than that of deputy governor orchargé-d'affaires extraordinaireto the Parish Stocks, nor one more likely to render Lenny Fairfield odious to his contemporaries, ought he to have been insensible to the signal advantage of his condition over that of the two sufferers, against whose ears and tails Mr Stirn had no especial motives of resentment. To every bad there is a worse—and fortunately for little boys, and even for grown men, whom the Stirns of the world regard malignly, the majesty of law protects their ears, and the merciful forethought of nature deprived their remote ancestors of the privilege of entailing tails upon them. Had it been otherwise—considering what handles tails would have given to the oppressor, how many traps envy would have laid for them, how often they must have been scratched and mutilated by the briars of life, how many good excuses would have been found for lopping, docking, and trimming them—I fear that only the lap-dogs of fortune would have gone to the grave tail-whole.
The card-table was set out in the drawing-room at Hazeldean Hall; though the little party were still lingering in the deep recess of the large bay window—which (in itself of dimensions that would have swallowed up a moderate-sized London parlour) held the great round tea-table, with all appliances and means to boot—for the beautiful summer moon shed on the sward so silvery a lustre, and the trees cast so quiet a shadow, and the flowers and new-mown hay sent up so grateful a perfume, that, to close the windows, draw the curtains, and call for other lights than those of heaven, would have been an abuse of the prose of life which even CaptainBarnabas, who regarded whist as the business of town and the holiday of the country, shrank from suggesting. Without, the scene, beheld by the clear moonlight, had the beauty peculiar to the garden ground round those old-fashioned country residences which, though a little modernised, still preserve their original character: the velvet lawn, studded with large plots of flowers, shaded and scented here to the left by lilacs, laburnums, and rich seringas—there, to the right, giving glimpses, over low-clipped yews, of a green bowling alley, with the white columns of a summerhouse built after the Dutch taste, in the reign of William III.; and in front—stealing away under covert of those still cedars, into the wilder landscape of the well-wooded undulating park. Within, viewed by the placid glimmer of the moon, the scene was no less characteristic of the abodes of that race which has no parallel in other lands, and which, alas, is somewhat losing its native idiosyncrasies in this—the stout country gentleman, not the fine gentleman of the country—the country gentleman somewhat softened and civilised from the mere sportsman or farmer, but still plain and homely, relinquishing the old hall for the drawing-room, and with books not three months' old on his table, instead ofFox's MartyrsandBaker's Chronicle—yet still retaining many a sacred old prejudice, that, like the knots in his native oak, rather adds to the ornament of the grain than takes from the strength of the tree. Opposite to the window, the high chimney-piece rose to the heavy cornice of the ceiling, with dark panels glistening against the moonlight. The broad and rather clumsy chintz sofas and settees of the reign, of George III., contrasted at intervals with the tall backed chairs of a far more distant generation, when ladies in fardingales, and gentlemen in trunk-hose, seem never to have indulged in horizontal positions. The walls, of shining wainscot, were thickly covered, chiefly with family pictures; though now and then some Dutch fair, or battle-piece, showed that a former proprietor had been less exclusive in his taste for the arts. The pianoforte stood open near the fireplace; a long dwarf bookcase, at the far end, added its sober smile to the room. That bookcase contained what was called "The Lady's Library," a collection commenced by the Squire's grandmother, of pious memory, and completed by his mother, who had more taste for the lighter letters, with but little addition from the bibliomaniac tendencies of the present Mrs Hazeldean—who, being no great reader, contented herself with subscribing to the Book Club. In this feminine Bodleian, the sermons collected by Mrs Hazeldean, the grandmother, stood cheek-by-jowl beside the novels purchased by Mrs Hazeldean, the mother.
'Mixtaque ridenti fundet colocasia acantho!'
'Mixtaque ridenti fundet colocasia acantho!'
But to be sure, the novels, in spite of very inflammatory titles, such as "Fatal Sensibility," "Errors of the Heart," &c., were so harmless that I doubt if the sermons could have had much to say against their next-door neighbours—and that is all that can be expected by the best of us.
A parrot dozing on his perch—some gold fish fast asleep in their glass bowl—two or three dogs on the rug, and Flimsey, Miss Jemima's spaniel, curled into a ball on the softest sofa—Mrs Hazeldean's work-table, rather in disorder, as if it had been lately used—theSt James's Chronicledangling down from a little tripod near the Squire's arm-chair—a high screen of gilt and stamped leather fencing off the card-table; all these, dispersed about a room large enough to hold them all and not seem crowded, offered many a pleasant resting-place for the eye, when it turned from the world of nature to the home of man.
But see, Captain Barnabas, fortified by his fourth cup of tea, has at length summoned courage to whisper to Mrs Hazeldean, "don't you think the Parson will be impatient for his rubber?" Mrs Hazeldean glanced at the Parson, and smiled; but she gave the signal to the Captain, and the bell was rung, lights were brought in, the curtains let down; in a few moments more the group had collected round the card-tables. The best of us are but human—that is not a new truth, I confess, but yet people forget it every day of their lives—and I dare say thereare many who are charitably thinking at this very moment, that my Parson ought not to be playing at whist. All I can say to those rigid disciplinarians is, "Every man has his favourite sin: whist was Parson Dale's!—ladies and gentlemen, what is yours?" In truth, I must not set up my poor parson, now-a-days, as a pattern parson—it is enough to have one pattern in a village no bigger than Hazeldean, and we all know that Lenny Fairfield has bespoken that place,—and got the patronage of the stocks for his emoluments! Parson Dale was ordained, not indeed so very long ago, but still at a time when churchmen took it a great deal more easily than they do now. The elderly parson of that day played his rubber as a matter of course, the middle-aged parson was sometimes seen riding to cover, (I knew a schoolmaster, a doctor of divinity, and an excellent man, whose pupils were chiefly taken from the highest families in England, who hunted regularly three times a-week during the season,) and the young parson would often sing a capital song—not composed by David—and join in those rotary dances, which certainly David never danced before the ark.
Does it need so long a prolegomenon to excuse thee, poor Parson Dale, for turning up that ace of spades with so triumphant a smile at thy partner? I must own that nothing that well could add to the Parson's offence was wanting. In the first place, he did not play charitably, and merely to oblige other people. He delighted in the game—he rejoiced in the game—his whole heart was in the game—neither was he indifferent to the mammon of the thing, as a Christian pastor ought to have been. He looked very sad when he took his shillings out of his purse, and exceedingly pleased when he put the shillings that had just before belonged to other people into it. Finally, by one of those arrangements common with married people, who play at the same table, Mr and Mrs Hazeldean were invariably partners, and no two people could play worse; while Captain Barnabas, who had played at Graham's with honour and profit, necessarily became partner to Parson Dale, who himself played a good steady parsonic game. So that, in strict truth, it was hardly fair play—it was almost swindling—the combination of these two great dons against that innocent married couple! Mr Dale, it is true, was aware of this disproportion of force, and had often proposed either to change partners or to give odds, propositions always scornfully scouted by the Squire and his lady; so that the Parson was obliged to pocket his conscience, together with the ten points which made his average winnings.
The strangest thing in the world is the different way in which whist affects the temper. It is no test of temper, as some pretend—not at all! The best tempered people in the world grow snappish at whist; and I have seen the most testy and peevish in the ordinary affairs of life bear their losses with the stoicism of Epictetus. This was notably manifested in the contrast between the present adversaries of the Hall and the Rectory. The Squire, who was esteemed as choleric a gentleman as most in the county, was the best-humoured fellow you could imagine when you set him down to whist opposite the sunny face of his wife. You never heard one of these incorrigible blunderers scold each other; on the contrary, they only laughed when they threw away the game, with four by honours in their hands. The utmost that was ever said was a "Well, Harry, that was the oddest trump of yours. Ho—ho—ho!" or a "Bless me, Hazeldean—why, they made three tricks, and you had the ace in your hand all the time! Ha—ha—ha!"
Upon which occasions Captain Barnabas, with great good humour, always echoed both the Squire's ho—ho—ho! and Mrs Hazeldean's ha—ha—ha!
Not so the Parson. He had so keen and sportsmanlike an interest in the game, that even his adversaries' mistakes ruffled him. And you would hear him, with elevated voice and agitated gestures, laying down the law, quoting Hoyle, appealing to all the powers of memory and common sense against the very delinquencies by which he was enriched—a waste of eloquence that always heightened thehilarity of Mr and Mrs Hazeldean. While these four were thus engaged, Mrs Dale, who had come with her husband despite her headache, sate on the sofa beside Miss Jemima, or rather beside Miss Jemima's Flimsey, which had already secured the centre of the sofa, and snarled at the very idea of being disturbed. And Master Frank—at a table by himself—was employed sometimes in looking at his pumps, and sometimes at Gilray's Caricatures, with which his mother had provided him for his intellectual requirements. Mrs Dale, in her heart, liked Miss Jemima better than Mrs Hazeldean, of whom she was rather in awe, notwithstanding they had been little girls together, and occasionally still called each other Harry and Carry. But those tender diminutives belonged to the "Dear" genus, and were rarely employed by the ladies, except at those times when—had they been little girls still, and the governess out of the way—they would have slapped and pinched each other. Mrs Dale was still a very pretty woman, as Mrs Hazeldean was still a very fine woman. Mrs Dale painted in water colours and sang, and made card-racks and pen-holders, and was called an "elegant accomplished woman." Mrs Hazeldean cast up the Squire's accounts, wrote the best part of his letters, kept a large establishment in excellent order, and was called "a clever, sensible woman." Mrs Dale had headaches and nerves, Mrs Hazeldean had neither nerves nor headaches. Mrs Dale said, "Harry had no real harm in her, but was certainly very masculine." Mrs Hazeldean said, "Carry would be a good creature, but for her airs and graces." Mrs Dale said Mrs Hazeldean was "just made to be a country squire's lady." Mrs Hazeldean said, "Mrs Dale was the last person in the world who ought to have been a parson's wife." Carry, when she spoke of Harry to a third person, said, "Dear Mrs Hazeldean." Harry, when she referred incidentally to Carry, said, "Poor Mrs Dale." And now the reader knows why Mrs Hazeldean called Mrs Dale "poor," at least as well as I do. For, after all, the word belonged to that class in the female vocabulary which may be called "obscure significants," resembling the Konx Ompax, which hath so puzzled the inquirers into the Eleusinian Mysteries; the application is rather to be illustrated than the meaning to be exactly explained.
"That's really a sweet little dog of yours, Jemima," said Mrs Dale, who was embroidering the wordCarolineon the border of a cambric pocket-handkerchief, but edging a little farther off, as she added, "he'll not bite, will he?" "Dear me, no!" said Miss Jemima; but (she added, in a confidential whisper,) "don't sayhe—'tis a lady dog!" "Oh," said Mrs Dale, edging off still farther, as if that confession of the creature's sex did not serve to allay her apprehensions—"oh, then, you carry your aversion to the gentlemen even to lap-dogs—that is being consistent indeed, Jemima!"
Miss Jemima.—"I had a gentleman dog once—a pug!—they are getting very scarce now. I thought he was so fond of me—he snapped at every one else;—the battles I fought for him! Well, will you believe,—I had been staying with my friend Miss Smilecox at Cheltenham. Knowing that William is so hasty, and his boots are so thick, I trembled to think what a kick might do. So, on coming here, I left Buff—that was his name—with Miss Smilecox." (A pause.)
Mrs Dale, looking up languidly.—"Well, my love."
Miss Jemima.—"Will you believe it, I say, when I returned to Cheltenham, only three months afterwards, Miss Smilecox had seduced his affections from me, and the ungrateful creature did not even know me again. A pug, too—yet peoplesaypugs are faithful!!! I am sure they ought to be, nasty things. I have never had a gentleman dog since—they are all alike, believe me—heartless, selfish creatures."
Mrs Dale.—"Pugs? I dare say they are!"
Miss Jemima, with spirit.—"Men!—I told you it was a gentleman dog!"
Mrs Dale, apologetically.—"True, my love, but the whole thing was so mixed up!"
Miss Jemima.—"You saw that cold-blooded case of Breach of Promise of Marriage in the papers—anold wretch, too, of sixty-four. No age makes them a bit better. And when one thinks that the end of all flesh is approaching, and that—"
Mrs Dale, quickly, for she prefers Miss Jemima's other hobby to that black one upon which she is preparing to precede the bier of the universe.—"Yes, my love, we'll avoid that subject, if you please. Mr Dale has his own opinions, and it becomes me, you know, as a parson's wife," (said smilingly; Mrs Dale has as pretty a dimple as any of Miss Jemima's, and makes more of that one than Miss Jemima of three,) "to agree with him—that is, in theology."
Miss Jemima, earnestly.—"But the thing is so clear, if you would but look into—"
Mrs Dale, putting her hand on Miss Jemima's lips playfully.—"Not a word more. Pray, what do you think of the Squire's tenant at the Casino, Signor Riccabocca? An interesting creature, is not he?"
Miss Jemima.—"Interesting! Not to me. Interesting? Why is he interesting?"
Mrs Dale is silent, and turns her handkerchief in her pretty little white hands, appearing to contemplate the R in Caroline.
Miss Jemima, half pettishly, half coaxingly.—"Why is he interesting? I scarcely ever looked at him; they say he smokes, and never eats. Ugly, too!"
Mrs Dale.—"Ugly—no. A fine head—very like Dante's—but what is beauty?"
Miss Jemima.—"Very true; what is it indeed? Yes, as you say, I think there is something interesting about him; he looks melancholy, but that may be because he is poor."
Mrs Dale.—"It is astonishing how little one feels poverty when one loves. Charles and I were very poor once—before the Squire——." Mrs Dale paused, looked towards the Squire, and murmured a blessing, the warmth of which brought tears into her eyes. "Yes," she added, after a pause, "we were very poor, but we were happy even then, more thanks to Charles than to me," and tears from a new source again dimmed those quick lively eyes, as the little woman gazed fondly on her husband, whose brows were knit into a black frown over a bad hand.
Miss Jemima.—"It is only those horrid men who think of money as a source of happiness. I should be the last person to esteem a gentleman less because he was poor."
Mrs Dale.—"I wonder the Squire does not ask Signor Riccabocca here more often. Such an acquisition we find him!"
The Squire's voice from the card table.—"Whom ought I to ask more often, Mrs Dale?"
Parson's voice impatiently.—"Come—come—come, Squire: play to my queen of diamonds—do!"
Squire.—"There, I trump it—pick up the trick, Mrs H."
Parson.—"Stop! stop! trump my diamond?"
The Captain, solemnly.—"Trick turned—play on, Squire."
Squire.—"The king of diamonds."
Mrs Hazeldean.—"Lord! Hazeldean—why, that's the most barefaced revoke—ha—ha—ha! trump the queen of diamonds and play out the king! well I never—ha—ha—ha!"
Captain Barnabas, in tenor.—"Ha, ha, ha!"
Squire.—"And so I have, bless my soul—ho, ho, ho!"
Captain Barnabas, in bass.—"Ho—ho—ho."
Parson's voice raised, but drowned by the laughter of his adversaries and the firm clear tone of Captain Barnabas:—"Three to our score!—game!"
Squire, wiping his eyes.—"No help for it, Harry—deal for me! Whom ought I to ask, Mrs Dale? (waxing angry.) First time I ever heard the hospitality of Hazeldean called in question!"
Mrs Dale.—"My dear sir, I beg a thousand pardons, but listeners—you know the proverb."
Squire, growling like a bear.—"I hear nothing but proverbs ever since we have had that Mounseer among us. Please to speak plainly, marm."
Mrs Dale, sliding into a little temper at being thus roughly accosted.—"It was of Mounseer, as you call him, that I spoke, Mr Hazeldean."
Squire.—"What! Rickeybockey?"
Mrs Dale, attempting the pure Italian accentuation.—"Signor Riccabocca."
Parson, slapping his cards on the table in despair.—"Are we playing at whist, or are we not?"
The Squire, who is fourth player, drops the king to Captain Higginbotham's lead of the ace of hearts. Now the Captain has left queen, knave, and two other hearts—four trumps to the queen and nothing to win a trick with in the two other suits. This hand is therefore precisely one of those in which, especially after the fall of that king of hearts in the adversary's hand, it becomes a matter of reasonable doubt whether to lead trumps or not. The Captain hesitates, and not liking to play out his good hearts with the certainty of their being trumped by the Squire, nor, on the other hand, liking to open the other suits in which he has not a card that can assist his partner, resolves, as becomes a military man, in such dilemma, to make a bold push and lead out trumps, in the chance of finding his partner strong, and so bringing in his long suit.
Squire, taking advantage of the much meditating pause made by the Captain—"Mrs Dale, it is not my fault. I have asked Rickeybockey—time out of mind. But I suppose I am not fine enough for those foreign chaps—he won't come—that's all I know!"
Parson, aghast at seeing the Captain play out trumps, of which he, Mr Dale, has only two, wherewith he expects to ruff the suit of spades of which he has only one, (the cards all falling in suits) while he has not a single other chance of a trick in his hand.—"Really, Squire, we had better give up playing if you put out my partner in this extraordinary way—jabber—jabber—jabber!"
Squire.—"Well, we must be good children, Harry. What!—trumps, Barney? Thank ye for that!" And the Squire might well be grateful, for the unfortunate adversary has led up to ace king knave—with two other trumps. Squire takes the Parson's ten with his knave, and plays out ace king; then, having cleared all the trumps except the Captain's queen and his own remaining two, leads off tierce major in that very suit of spades of which the Parson has only one,—and the Captain, indeed, but two—forces out the Captain's queen, and wins the game in a canter.
Parson, with a look at the Captain which might have become the awful brows of Jove, when about to thunder.—"That, I suppose, is the newfashioned London play! In my time the rule was 'First save the game, then try to win it.'"
Captain.—"Could not save it, sir."
Parson, exploding.—"Not save it!—two ruffs in my own hand—two tricks certain till you took them out! Monstrous! The rashest trump"—Seizes the cards—spreads them on the table, lip quivering, hands trembling—tries to show how five tricks could have been gained—(N.B. it isshortwhist, which Captain Barnabas had introduced at the Hall) can't make out more than four—Captain smiles triumphantly—Parson in a passion, and not at all convinced, mixes all the cards together again, and falling back in his chair, groans, with tears in his voice.—"The cruellest trump! the most wanton cruelty!"
The Hazeldeans in chorus.-"Ho—ho—ho! Ha—ha—ha!"
The Captain, who does not laugh this time, and whose turn it is to deal, shuffles the cards for the conquering game of the rubber with as much caution and prolixity as Fabius might have employed in posting his men. The Squire gets up to stretch his legs, and, the insinuation against his hospitality recurring to his thoughts, calls out to his wife—"Write to Rickeybockey to-morrow yourself, Harry, and ask him to come and spend two or three days here. There, Mrs Dale, you hear me?"
"Yes," said Mrs Dale, putting her hands to her ears in implied rebuke at the loudness of the Squire's tone. "My dear sir, do remember that I'm a sad nervous creature."
"Beg pardon," muttered Mr Hazeldean, turning to his son, who, having got tired of the caricatures, had fished out for himself the great folio County History, which was the only book in the library that the Squire much valued, and which he usually kept under lock and key, in his study, together with the field-books and steward's accounts, but which he had reluctantly taken into the drawing-room that day, in order to oblige Captain Higginbotham. For the Higginbothams—an old Saxon family, asthe name evidently denotes—had once possessed lands in that very county. And the Captain—during his visits to Hazeldean Hall—was regularly in the habit of asking to look into the County History, for the purpose of refreshing his eyes, and renovating his sense of ancestral dignity with the following paragraph therein:—"To the left of the village of Dunder, and pleasantly situated in a hollow, lies Botham Hall, the residence of the ancient family of Higginbotham, as it is now commonly called. Yet it appears by the county rolls, and sundry old deeds, that the family formerly styled itself Higges, till, the Manor House lying in Botham, they gradually assumed the appellation of Higges-in-botham, and in process of time, yielding to the corruptions of the vulgar, Higginbotham."
"What, Frank! my County History!" cried the Squire. "Mrs H. he has got my County History!"
"Well, Hazeldean, it is time he should know something about the County."
"Ay, and History too," said Mrs Dale, malevolently—for the little temper was by no means blown over.
Frank.—"I'll not hurt it, I assure you, sir. But I'm very much interested just at present."
TheCaptain, putting down the cards to cut.—"You've got hold of that passage about Botham Hall, page 706, eh?"
Frank.—"No; I was trying to make out how far it is to Mr Leslie's place, Rood Hall. Do you know, mother?"
Mrs Hazeldean.—"I can't say I do. The Leslies don't mix with the county; and Rood lies very much out of the way."
Frank.—"Why don't they mix with the county?"
Mrs Hazeldean.—"I believe they are poor, and therefore I suppose they are proud: they are an old family."
Parson, thrumming on the table with great impatience.—"Old fiddledee!—talking of old families when the cards have been shuffled this half hour!"
Captain Barnabas.—"Will you cut for your partner, ma'am?"
Squire, who has been listening to Frank's inquiries with a musing air.—"Why do you want to know the distance to Rood Hall?"
Frank, rather hesitatingly.—"Because Randal Leslie is there for the holidays, sir."
Parson.—"Your wife has cut for you, Mr Hazeldean. I don't think it was quite fair; and my partner has turned up a deuce—deuce of hearts. Please to come and play, if youmeanto play."
The Squire returns to the table, and in a few minutes the game is decided by a dexterous finesse of the Captain against the Hazeldeans. The clock strikes ten: the servants enter with a tray; the Squire counts up his own and his wife's losings; and the Captain and Parson divide sixteen shillings between them.
Squire.—"There, Parson, I hope now you'll be in a better humour. You win enough out of us to set up a coach and four."
"Tut!" muttered the Parson; "at the end of the year, I'm not a penny the richer for it all."
And, indeed, monstrous as that assertion seemed, it was perfectly true, for the Parson portioned out his gains into three divisions. One-third he gave to Mrs Dale, for her own special pocket-money; what became of the second third he never owned, even to his better half—but certain it was, that every time the Parson won seven-and-sixpence, half-a-crown, which nobody could account for, found its way to the poor-box; while the remaining third, the Parson, it is true, openly and avowedly retained: but I have no manner of doubt that, at the year's end, it got to the poor quite as safely as if it had been put into the box.
The party had now gathered round the tray, and were helping themselves to wine and water, or wine without water—except Frank, who still remained poring over the map in the County History, with his head leaning on his hands, and his fingers plunged in his hair.
"Frank," said Mrs Hazeldean, "I never saw you so studious before."
Frank started up, and coloured, as if ashamed of being accused of too much study in anything.
TheSquire, with a little embarrassment in his voice.—"Pray, Frank,what do you know of Randal Leslie?"
"Why, sir, he is at Eton."
"What sort of a boy is he?" asked Mrs Hazeldean.
Frank hesitated, as if reflecting, and then answered—"They say he is the cleverest boy in the school. But then he saps."
"In other words," said Mr Dale, with proper parsonic gravity, "he understands that he was sent to school to learn his lessons, and he learns them. You call that sapping—I call it doing his duty. But pray, who and what is this Randal Leslie, that you look so discomposed, Squire?"
"Who and what is he?" repeated the Squire, in a low growl. "Why, you know, Mr Audley Egerton married Miss Leslie the great heiress; and this boy is a relation of hers. I may say," added the Squire, "that he is as near a relation of mine, for his grandmother was a Hazeldean. But all I know about the Leslies is, that Mr Egerton, as I am told, having no children of his own, took up young Randal, (when his wife died, poor woman,) pays for his schooling, and has, I suppose, adopted the boy as his heir. Quite welcome. Frank and I want nothing from Mr Audley Egerton, thank heaven."
"I can well believe in your brother's generosity to his wife's kindred," said the Parson sturdily, "for I am sure Mr Egerton is a man of strong feeling."
"What the deuce do you know about Mr Egerton? I don't suppose you could ever have even spoken to him."
"Yes," said the Parson, colouring up, and looking confused, "I had some conversation with him once;" and observing the Squire's surprise, he added—"when I was curate at Lansmere—and about a painful business connected with the family of one of my parishioners."
"Oh! one of your parishioners at Lansmere—one of the constituents Mr Audley Egerton threw over, after all the pains I had taken to get him his seat. Rather odd you should never have mentioned this before, Mr Dale!"
"My dear sir," said the Parson, sinking his voice, and in a mild tone of conciliatory expostulation, "you are so irritable whenever Mr Egerton's name is mentioned at all."
"Irritable!" exclaimed the Squire, whose wrath had been long simmering, and now fairly boiled over.—"Irritable, sir! I should think so: a man for whom I stood godfather at the hustings, Mr Dale! a man for whose sake I was called a 'prize ox,' Mr Dale! a man for whom I was hissed in a market-place, Mr Dale! a man for whom I was shot at, in cold blood, by an officer in his Majesty's service, who lodged a ball in my right shoulder, Mr Dale! a man who had the ingratitude, after all this, to turn his back on the landed interest—to deny that there was any agricultural distress in a year which broke three of the best farmers I ever had, Mr Dale!—a man, sir, who made a speech on the Currency which was complimented by Ricardo, a Jew! Good heavens! a pretty parson you are, to stand up for a fellow complimented by a Jew! Nice ideas you must have of Christianity. Irritable, sir!" now fairly roared the Squire, adding to the thunder of his voice the cloud of a brow, which evinced a menacing ferocity that might have done honour to Bussy d'Amboise or Fighting Fitzgerald. "Sir, if that man had not been my own half-brother, I'd have called him out. I have stood my ground before now. I have had a ball in my right shoulder. Sir, I'd have called him out."
"Mr Hazeldean! Mr Hazeldean! I'm shocked at you," cried the Parson; and, putting his lips close to the Squire's ear, he went on in a whisper—"What an example to your son! You'll have him fighting duels one of these days, and nobody to blame but yourself."
This warning cooled Mr Hazeldean; and, muttering, "Why the deuce did you set me off?" he fell back into his chair, and began to fan himself with his pocket-handkerchief.
The Parson skilfully and remorselessly pursued the advantage he had gained. "And now, that you may have it in your power to show civility and kindness to a boy whom Mr Egerton has taken up, out of respect to his wife's memory—a kinsman, you say, of your own—and who has never offended you—a boy whose diligence in his studies proves himto be an excellent companion to your son;—Frank," (here the Parson raised his voice,) "I suppose you wanted to call on young Leslie, as you were studying the county map so attentively?"
"Why, yes," answered Frank, rather timidly, "if my father did not object to it. Leslie has been very kind to me, though he is in the sixth form, and, indeed, almost the head of the school."
"Ah," said Mrs Hazeldean, "one studious boy has a fellow-feeling for another; and though you enjoy your holidays, Frank, I am sure you read hard at school."
Mrs Dale opened her eyes very wide, and stared in astonishment.
Mrs Hazeldeanretorted that look with great animation. "Yes, Carry," said she, tossing her head, "though you may not think Frank clever, his masters find him so. He got a prize last half. That beautiful book, Frank—hold up your head, my love—what did you get it for?"
Frank, reluctantly.—"Verses, ma'am."
Mrs Hazeldean, with triumph.—"Verses!—there, Carry, verses!"
Frank, in a hurried tone.—"Yes, but Leslie wrote them for me."
Mrs Hazeldean, recoiling.—"O Frank! a prize for what another did for you—that was mean."
Frank, ingenuously.—"You can't be more ashamed, mother, than I was when they gave me the prize."
Mrs Dale, though previously provoked at being snubbed by Harry, now showing the triumph of generosity over temper.—"I beg your pardon, Frank. Your mother must be as proud of that shame as she was of the prize."
Mrs Hazeldean puts her arm round Frank's neck, smiles beamingly on Mrs Dale, and converses with her son in a low tone about Randal Leslie. Miss Jemima now approached Carry, and said in an "aside,"—"But we are forgetting poor Mr Riccabocca. Mrs Hazeldean, though the dearest creature in the world, has such a blunt way of inviting people—don't you think if you were to say a word to him, Carry?"
Mrs Dalekindly, as she wraps her shawl round her.—"Suppose you write the note yourself. Meanwhile, I shall see him, no doubt."
Parson, putting his hand on the Squire's shoulder.—"You forgive my impertinence, my kind friend. We parsons, you know, are apt to take strange liberties, when we honour and love folks, as I do you."
"Pish!" said the Squire, but his hearty smile came to his lips in spite of himself.—"You always get your own way, and I suppose Frank must ride over and see this pet of my—"
"Brother's," quoth the Parson, concluding the sentence in a tone which gave to the sweet word so sweet a sound that the Squire would not correct the Parson, as he had been about to correct himself.
Mr Dale moved on; but as he passed Captain Barnabas, the benignant character of his countenance changed sadly.
"The cruellest trump, Captain Higginbotham!" said he sternly, and stalked by—majestic.
The night was so fine that the Parson and his wife, as they walked home, made a littledétourthrough the shrubbery.
Mrs Dale.—"I think I have done a good piece of work to-night."
Parson, rousing himself from a reverie.—"Have you, Carry?—it will be a very pretty handkerchief."
Mrs Dale.—"Handkerchief!—nonsense, dear. Don't you think it would be a very happy thing for both, if Jemima and Signor Riccabocca could be brought together?"
Parson.—"Brought together!"
Mrs Dale.—"You do snap one up so, my dear—I mean if I could make a match of it."
Parson.—"I think Riccabocca is a match already, not only for Jemima, but yourself into the bargain."
Mrs Dale, smiling loftily.—"Well, we shall see. Was not Jemima's fortune about £4000?"
Parsondreamily, for he is relapsing fast into his interrupted reverie;—"Ay—ay—I daresay."
Mrs Dale.—"And she must have saved! I dare say it is nearly £6000 by this time;—eh! Charles dear, you really are so—good gracious, what's that!"
As Mrs Dale made this exclamation, they had just emerged from the shrubbery, into the village green.
Parson.—"What's what?"
Mrs Dalepinching her husband's arm very nippingly.—"That thing—there—there."
Parson.—"Only the new stocks, Carry; I don't wonder they frighten you, for you are a very sensible woman. I only wish they would frighten the Squire."