Chapter VI (1)

The morning again dawned, and again was Brag “up and stirring.” He read and reread the narrow strip of paper which had been fastened upon him by the emissary from Messrs. Tapps, Tatlock, and Shackleton, of Pump Court, and was very little the wiser for the information he derived from its contents. Instinct, however, made him very much dislike the affair, upon which, he concluded, he must consult some lawyer of his own; but not having such an officer regularly retained in his household, and knowing but little of the routine of legal business, he proceeded, in the first instance, to act upon the directions of the imp from whom he had received the “strip,” and put it into his pocket.

During breakfast he seriously repeated the usual fruitless inquiries after his servant and equipage, and received the anticipated negative to his questions with an affectation of high displeasure, strengthened by one of those brief but emphatic exclamations, which, if uttered before one of his Majesty’s worshipful justices of the peace, would have subjected him to a fine of five shillings.

Having despatched his morning meal, he repaired to the stables, and ran his eye over the horses which were standing in them,--at times looked knowingly at some of the best,--and spoke technically to the coachmen or grooms about some of the worst. One pair of coach-horses particularly struck his fancy:--To whom did they belong?--was his question to a servant, wearing bright orange plush unmentionables, who was, without coat, waiscoat, or jacket, working away at one of them, polishing him up to a degree of brightness and smoothness very difficult of attainment in horse-skins at the sea-side.

“Whose horses did you say these were?” said Jack.

“Mrs. Peckover’s, sir,” said the man.

“What!” said Jack--“the lady of my friend Mr. Heneage Peckover of Womanswould in Kent?”

“The same, sir,” said the servant.

“Is Mr. Peckover dead?” said Jack.

“Not particularly, sir,” said the man, continually rubbing and hissing as hard as he well could; “on the contrary, he is as lively as ever.”

“Because you said Mrs. Peckover’s horses,” said Jack.

“Yes,” said the man, “we calls everything missus’s. What’s master’s is her’s--and what’s her’s is her own, sir. Master don’t much interfere.”

“Where are they staying?” said Jack.

“At that house, sir,” said the man, stepping out of the stable-door and pointing, “with the bow-window there, sir.”

“Oh,” said Jack, “I must go and call on them.--Very fine pair of nags as ever I clapped my eyes upon--good colour, shape, and make: fast trotters, I take it.”

“Uncommon, sir,” said the man, “and step together like winkin’.”

“All right that,” said Jack, “and no mistake:”--and out he walked, not sorry, however much he might wish for retirement, at finding an acquaintance in the place, who was not very well known either to, or by the persons with whom he, for the present, desired to have no particular connexion.

Jack had met Mr. Peckover out with hounds round London. He was a hale, portly man, of some fifty-six, with rosy cheeks and strong limbs; the voice of a Stentor; and a laugh which, when excited, might be heard “a goodly league at sea.”

It is said that men’s characters sometimes agree with their names, although James Smith has given us an excellent song to exhibit “the rule of contraries” in this particular. Certain it is, however, that Heneage Peckover, of Womanswould in the county of Kent, Esq. was--tall as he was, broad as he was, heavy as he was, and loud as he was--the mere slave of his wife, from whom, it may be necessary to observe, he had derived nearly the whole of the fortune which enabled him to make the figure he made in society. What he originally _had_ been, history has not accurately recorded; but the aristocratic character of the former of his two names (christian-name it can scarcely be called) led people to suppose that his connexions must somehow have been of a superior order.

Jack had never seen the lady,--nor indeed had any of the “friends” with whom Mr. Peckover was in the habit of hunting.--Not to hear of her, after having been five minutes in her husband’s society, would have been impossible. It was not enough that she directed his conduct and controlled his actions; nor that he paid her every deference whilst in her society, and followed her instructions with the implicit obedience of a well-broken spaniel, whenever she thought fit to fulminate them. The habit of submission was so strongly impressed upon his mind, that it had induced something like a veneration for her opinions and decisions, by which his whole conduct in life was regulated; so that although, when away from her, he really was what may be called a capital jolly country gentleman; and laughed, and joked, in _his_ way, with the greatest earnestness and fervour, still he had neither taste nor judgment of his own; and his conversation was therefore made up of continued references to “Mrs. Peckover,” and her views, her opinions, her _dicta_, and her decisions upon all subjects, which were rendered the more strikingly absurd to his ordinary companions, inasmuch as they had never seen the lady, nor ever were likely to see her, since she peremptorily declined receiving her husband’s sporting acquaintance, the exclusion of whom from _her_ house, (as she invariably called it,) was the condition alone upon which she permitted him to enjoy what are called the pleasures of the chase.

The extent of the present scene of action was so small, that all the inhabitants of the comfortable Kraal were visible to each other in the course of any one hour of any one day; and not much more than half that period of time had elapsed, when Jack espied his friend walking with Colonel Stiffkey, whom he also knew, from having met him occasionally at Mrs. Dallington’s. This was rather a drawback to the gratification he experienced in seeing Mr. Peckover, who looked glowingly bright; his rubicund face shining well over a buttoned-up blue coat, “leathers” of the old school, and “tops” to match.

“Bless my soul!--Mr. Brag,” exclaimed Peckover; “who the deuce would have thought of finding you here?”

“I might say the same to you, sir,” said Jack. “How d’ye do, sir? Needn’t ask--charming well, I am sure.”--“How d’ye do, Colonel?” added Brag, waiting to see what sort of recognition the colonel would afford him.

The Colonel’s “Quite well!” was as gracious as possible.

“As for _me_,” said Peckover, “Mrs. Peckover says she never saw me looking better. True enough;--I’m hearty and hale, and all _that_--ha, ha, ha! Are you come to stay here, Mr. Brag?”

“For some time, I think,” said Brag. “I have just got away from the Ilfracombes, and the Dawlishes, and Lord Tom, who have been at Dover. Lord Tom wanted me to go to Paris to ride his horses, but I know a trick worth two of that--sure of a wrangle wherever he is concerned; so I backed out, smack, smooth, and no mistake.”

“Mrs. Peckover says,” said Peckover, “that horse-racing is but ticklish work, after all:-too much in the hands of other people--jockeys, trainers, and friends--eh?--ha, ha, ha!”

“I never have been on the turf,” said Stiffkey, with an air of self-satisfaction which would have induced anybody who did not know him, to believe that his abstinence had not proceeded from the positive want of money and horses.

“Mr. Brag,” said Peckover, “is a capital jockey, if you come to that. Well--where do you dine to day?”

This question was asked, first, in the hope that Brag was engaged; and secondly, because Peckover flattered himself that he could prevail upon his lady to admit him and the colonel to her table, by explaining to her that the colonel was _not_ one of his hunting friends, and concealing from her the fact that Brag _was_.

“I am not engaged anywhere,” said Brag--“I’m at the hotel.”

“So am I,” said the Colonel.

“I’m sure Mrs. Peckover will be delighted to see you,” said Heneage. “She dines at six--‘because,’ as, she says, ‘early hours, good air, and plain feeding, are good for one’s health’--and I believe it to be so--ha, ha, ha!”

“I shall be most happy,” said the Colonel.

“And I,” said Jack.

“That’s a large ship in the offing,” said the Colonel.

“Mrs. Peckover tells me she thinks it’s a man-of-war,” said Peckover. “I don’t know much about ships, but I dare say it is. She has been watching it through her glass.”

“For a sea place,” said Jack, “this is uncommon snug--and I like the look of the country round it.”

“Why,” said Peckover, “Mrs. Peckover’s opinion is, that the mixture of trees, and sea, and corn-fields, and downs, and good roads, and fine cliffs, is extremely beautiful. For my own part, I don’t profess to know much about such things; but I take it all as it comes. Ha, ha, ha!”

“That’s the only way to get on in this world,” said the Colonel. “Pray have you been over to Hurstmonceaux?” added the gallant officer.

“No,” said Peckover; “Mrs. Peckover went there last Tuesday, I think it was. She has great taste for ruins, and remnants, and relics, and all that. She took over two or three young ladies, the Miss Gubbinses, who are here, and there was no room for me in the carriage, so I staid here, and played billiards with the marker’s boy till she came back.”

“There seems to be no news in the London papers this morning?” said the Colonel.

“No,” said his friend; “Mrs. Peckover tells _me_, that if Russia, Austria, and Prussia were to join against France, the odds would be greatly in favour of the coalition; but I don’t trouble my head much about politics. Ha, ha, ha!”

“Well,” said Brag, “is there anything to see near at hand? Where is what they call ‘South,’ because I suspect my fool of a servant has lost himself and my phaeton, somewhere in the Wilds of Sussex, and I may, perhaps find him stalled up at ‘The Lamb,’ I think the hotel people call it.”

“Oh, ah!” said Peckover; “South--they call it South, Mrs. Peckover tells me, to distinguish it from East, which they call this. Mrs. Peckover gets all our meat from a butcher at South. I’ll walk with you.”

“With all my heart,” said the Colonel.

“That’s right!” said Jack; “I think a toddle along the road will do us good, and no mistake!”

“Mrs. Peckover says walking exercise is the best,” said her husband, “yet, somehow, she generally drives about herself; however, I don’t pretend to understand these matters. Ha! ha! ha! Come, let’s start.”

And away the trio went, Jack extremely well pleased with his reception, and resolved to keep quiet and easy, more than ever struck with his fat friend’s perpetual reference to his better half, and convinced, by Colonel Stiffkey’s manner towards him, that he had not been enlightened in any degree upon the subject of the affair with Mrs. Dallington and Miss Englefield.

The day was delightful, and they had got on the road just as far as where foot passengers generally strike into the fields, when Brag perceived a man, who, by the azure hue of his coat, and the bright orange-colour of his plushes, he knew to be one of Peckover’s footmen, coming at what he considered a splitting pace in pursuit of them.

“One of your servants, I think,” said Jack.

“Oh,” said Peckover, “most probably Mrs. Peckover wishes to be of our party.--Well, Stephen, what is it?”

“My missus, sir,” said Stephen, “wants you to come in, if you please.”

“Oh, come in, does she?” said the Herculean infant;--“Why doesn’t she come out?--it would do her a vast deal more good. What, is she in the house?”

“Yes, sir,” said Stephen, “and bid me say she was waiting.”

“Why, then, gentlemen,” said Peckover, “I am afraid I must leave you. I know she has some project for this morning, but I don’t pretend to know anything of her movements.--I’m coming, Stephen.--I’ll just step home, and if I can get away I’ll follow you--only don’t mind _me_. Back at six;--don’t forget--punctual to the minute, for as Mrs. Peckover says, you can never expect to have a good dinner or a good cook, if you are not punctual--so mind. Ha, ha, ha!”

“Never fear,” said Jack; “I’ll be at the post, afore the bell rings for saddling, and no mistake.”

“And I will be the very shadow of Mr. Brag,” said the Colonel.

“That’s one of the comforts of matrimony,” said the Colonel, after watching Peckover’s hurried return homewards. “That gentle giant is tied to his lady’s apron string, and beyond its tether, wander he must not.”

“I think,” said Jack, “if I was as big as he, I should try if I couldn’t break it.”

“Did you ever see Mrs. Peckover?” said the Colonel.

“Never set eyes on her,” replied Jack.

“She is a delicate looking woman,” said the Colonel; “her figure small and slight; her nose long, her mouth wide, her voice shrill, and her tongue exhibiting to the curious in ‘natural mechanism’ the long-sought-for desideratum of perpetual motion. The only relief she gives that active member, or her husband, is when she is sulky, upon which occasions she keeps him sitting in her boudoir, or wherever it may be, the whole day, without letting him stir out, or speaking a syllable to him while he stays at home.”

“But why does not he kick?” said Jack;--“rebel; run rusty?”

“Because he believes her to be the cleverest woman in all the world,” said the Colonel. “As for disputing the excellence of her taste, or doubting the infallibility of her opinions, he would as soon think of flying; and such has been the nature of her management in breaking him in, that he does not in the slightest degree consider her tyranny as oppressive; on the contrary, he thinks her so far above every other living creature, that his homage and submission are voluntary tributes to her perfection.”

“I suppose,” said Jack, “we must not venture to contradict anything she says at dinner, even in the way of joke?”

“You need not be apprehensive of her doing anything in that line,” said the Colonel. “I once, and only once, dined with them at their place Womanswould, and she took offence in the early part of dinner because Peckover drank wine with somebody without asking _her_ which wine he ought to drink; and from that moment she stopped her loquacity dead short, and moped for the rest of the evening.”

“Wouldn’t it be a good thing to affront her a little at starting?” said Jack; “perhaps it might give him a chance of throwing in a word.”

“Not a bit,” said the Colonel: “if _she_ won’t speak, _he_ mustn’t; so we should have to keep up the ball between us, unless one or two of those Miss Gubbinses, who are a good deal with her, should happen to be of the party. However, we must trust to Fate.--You say you are just from Dover?”

“Came off the day before yesterday,” said Jack.

“Did you happen to see some old friends of mine there?” said the Colonel--“the Gunnersburys?”

“Oh, yes,” said Jack; “I dined there the day before I left. Very pleasant party. The Dullinghams, and Sir Henry Rockley, and a Mr. and Mrs. Carnaby. What a queer body Lady Gunnersbury is!”

“Monstrous spirits,” said the Colonel.

“Talk of perpetual motion,” said Jack; “I think she’d give Mrs. Peckover two stone and a distance, and beat her in a canter.”

“Yes, she is an entertaining old lady,” said the Colonel.

“To be sure, how she did go on!” said Jack.

“It is through _her_,” said Stiffkey, “that I am connected with the family. She is my great-aunt; and I mean to pay them a visit before I go to London. Indeed, George Gunnersbury has more than half promised to come over to me here, and in that case we should return together. He is a capital fellow!”

“Oh, very pleasant indeed!” said Jack.

“He has more real fun about him when he is in a good humour, than anybody I know,” said Stiffkey.

“Yes,” thought Jack, may be so--at the same moment congratulating himself that the Colonel’s developement of his connexion with the family, saved him from something very like a repetition of the Dullingham affair, out of which he had so recently escaped.

“By the way,” said the Colonel, wishing, as it should seem, to vary the topics of conversation to suit Jack’s particular taste, “when did you see our fair friends, the widow and her sister?”

“The day before I left town,” said Jack; “I--in fact--I thought it better to--withdraw. I like candour--hate what I call sham-abraham. Give me sincerity--all straight up, right down, and no mistake. And I thought in my own mind that they were playing what I call a shuffling game. It looked somehow like a regular cross.”

“I don’t exactly see,” said the Colonel.

“Why, what I say, Colonel, is this,” said Jack;--“if you mean a thing, say so; and if you don’t mean it, don’t go on worriting and fretting people about nothing. I saw that Lydiard and Rushton,--two deuced good fellows in their way--were making themselves miserable about these two females, so I says to Lydiard, says I, ‘Put a face upon this; don’t be trifled with:’--and I said the same to Rushton:--and, in course,--as I know the sex, and shouldn’t speak without knowing regularly what I was about,--they took my advice: and I’m sure--as you know all the parties, and,--in course, we are tiled--I brought the whole thing about, smack, smooth, and no mistake whatever:--opened their eyes to their own situation; and the night before I left town,--which I did in uncommon high glee at having made up the matter,--I set them down to supper, two regular couple, all wrangles over--and _they_, matched for life as nice as nip, and no mistake.”

It was Jack’s misfortune, whenever he became eloquent, to fall immediately into his own peculiar style of oratory; and this burst, to which he had been encouraged by the colonel’s evident ignorance of all the real facts, brought the gallant officer’s eyes into an almost full stare of astonishment at the mode in which his voluble, volatile friend expressed himself.

“I have thought sometimes,” said the Colonel, “when I have had the pleasure of meeting you there, that you were in the field yourself. It struck me that you thought Miss Englefield’s singing very charming.”

“So I did,” said Jack, still clinging to the _eclat_ of having been favoured by anything so charming as Blanche, and yet wishing to convey the idea that he had been smiled on by both--“so I did; but then I was taken uncommonly by Mrs. Dallington’s talking. They are both delightful creechurs! No: I admired them both as a friend--a sincere friend--nothing more; and so I thought the best thing I could do was, to pair them off with the men whom they liked, and who liked them.”

“Most marvellous self-denial!” said the Colonel.

By this time they had reached “South,” and the colonel accompanied Brag to “The New Inn,” and thence to “The Lamb,” in order that he might go through the ceremony of enquiring for his “fool of a servant, and his phaeton,” which, to do his acting credit, he performed with the greatest apparent earnestness.

These matters adjusted, they returned by a circuitous route, and as they were wending their way through the open gardens at the back of “The Sea Houses,” they beheld the glittering equipage of Mrs. Peckover trailing along the road, containing herself and her two favourite friends, the Gubbinses, and proceeding towards Westham and Pevensey.

“Our friend, taking the air,” said the Colonel.

“Mr. P. isn’t there?” said Jack.

“No, she very seldom takes him out with her,” said the Colonel. “She says he is too big for the inside of the carriage, and she cannot dispense with her footman, who, upon these occasions, shares the box with the coachman. I dare say we shall find him somewhere about; or perhaps she has sent him to pick up laver for her, which is found here in plenty and perfection.”

“Well,” said Jack, “if I were Mr. Peckover, sooner than stand _that_, I would dig stones in a quarry on my own account.”

“There is no accounting for taste,” said the Colonel; “besides, there are secrets in all families, and we do not perhaps know what the reciprocal obligations of the parties to each other may be; one thing is certain, he wears his chains merrily. I never saw a man more perfectly happy: however, let us proceed to the library, where, if his lady-wife have not ordered him on some fatigue-party, we shall in all probability find him knocking the balls about as usual, either by himself or with the marker’s boy.”

Anything makes a pursuit at a watering-place. A glassblower, whose performances have been before your eyes for years in London, without exciting your attention in the slightest degree, at a watering-place becomes an object of wonder and surprise;--a sick rattle-snake, who would slumber unseen and disregarded in his flannel waistcoat, at the Zoological Gardens in London, is visited with the greatest avidity: and a fish caught the night before, which happens to be two feet longer, or one foot thicker, than fishes of the same kind generally are, attracts a crowd of astonished spectators, and elicits a thousand interesting remarks and observations.

It turned out that Mr. Peckover was not at the library, nor was he gathering laver; on the contrary, he was sitting on a bench facing the sea, at which he was looking wistfully, and evidently much depressed. When he saw Brag and the colonel advancing, he rose to meet them--and they perceived in a moment that something had worried him.

“I am glad I have found you,” said he. “Upon my life! I am almost ashamed to say what I am going to say:--Mrs. Peckover tells me that she has engaged herself to go to Hastings to buy some French things at a smuggling shop, and that she shan’t be able to have the pleasure of receiving you at dinner to-day.”

“Oh,” said the Colonel, “never mind--don’t care about _that_:--some other day. As Mr. Brag and I are both staying at the same hotel, we can have our little “_portions_” _tête-à-tête_, and you’ll let us come to you when you are quite disengaged.”

“I saw the carriage going along the road,” said Jack:--“capital steppers those bays--never saw better: all right that, sir, and no mistake.”

“Why! Mrs. Peckover tells _me_,” said the husband, “that the Marquess of Whitechapel says they are the best pair of carriage-horses in London. I don’t trouble myself much about carriage-horses--she does:--ha, ha, ha!”

“But suppose,” said the Colonel, “as Mrs. Peckover will not be back in time for dinner, that you were to join us, _en garçon_, at the hotel.”

“Why,” said Peckover, “that would be very agreeable; but if that were to be the order of the day, you two might as well dine with _me_ _en garçon_, at our house; only you see, Mrs. Peckover tells me that she shall be back early, and--”

“Well,” said the Colonel, “but see, if we were to dine with _you_, we might be in the way of Mrs. Peckover and her _dames d’honneur_, when they returned, tired, perhaps, with the excursion; but if _you_ came to us--”

“Ah!” said the obedient husband, “I don’t think Mrs. Peckover would like _that_--no, I must be at home to receive her; besides, there are several letters which Mrs. Peckover has desired me to write--and--no, some other time Mrs. Peckover will be most happy to receive you; so let it be as it is. I am very sorry I did not consult her beforehand. I did not know of her engagement; have you forgiven me, gentlemen?”

“Oh, in course,” said Jack, “and many thanks for your offer.”

“Well,” said the Colonel to Brag, “then we had better go to our inn, and order our dinner; we will dine early, if you please.”

“Whenever you like,” said Jack. “I’m always agreeable, and no mistake.”

Jack--upon whose heart or mind, events which would have been of killing interest to others, made no deep impression--was so pleased by the encouragement of Colonel Stiffkey, that he entirely “forgot his own griefs.” The melancholy fate of his sister, now and then flashed across his mind, but since he had ascertained the nature of her defection, he was less anxious for a letter from his mother, upon the subject. His defeat at the widow’s had almost become a matter of joke with him; his rejection by Lord Tom was counterbalanced by the receipt of the money he had recovered from him, and so upon casting his eye over the balance-sheet, the debtor and creditor sides seemed pretty equal; and just now the turn lay rather on the credit side, since he had made good his footing with his fashionable companion.

Still, one of those clouds which must almost constantly hang over the heads of quacks and pretenders, was rising in the horizon, in the shape of the arrival of young Gunnersbury. To quit Eastbourne, where he had strangely enough secured the society of such a man as Stiffkey, was most painful. Stiffkey looked down with an air of placid contempt upon the few inhabitants of Sea Houses, and yet he strolled about familiarly with Jack. This was agreeable in the highest degree to the little man’s vanity, although really and truly the gay colonel fell into the association without reflecting or thinking about it for one moment. He had met Brag in good society, and in places where he felt evidently at home; he had heard Lord Tom speak of him in high terms, as what is called a “sporting chap,” and, moreover, he was somebody to talk to. There can be little doubt if a more aristocratic friend had arrived, Jack would have been cast off; for the colonel was one of those who, soaring eagle-high above the Brags of Jack’s school, was known as one of the most decided tuft-hunters about town.

The colonel, too, observed with great care the different grades and degrees of the peerage in the selection of the invitations which he received; like Brag, he possessed, only upon the greater scale, what Foote calls, “the paltry ambition of levying and following titles; the poverty of fastening upon men of distinction in public, for no other reason but because of their rank, adhering to Sir John till the baronet is superseded by my lord, quitting the puny peer for an earl, and sacrificing all three to a duke.”

It is greatly to be lamented in the present much-complained-of--how justly I do not pretend to decide--absence of talent in dramatic writing, that the rich and abundant humour of Foote, should, because it is certainly overlaid by much of that, which, in these days of delicacy and refinement would not be endured upon the stage, be altogether lost. Having quoted a line or two from one of his comedies, illustrative of Colonel Stiffkey’s passion for tufts, I cannot resist the temptation of extracting that part of the scene, in the “Lame Lover,” in which he justifies the young lady’s expressed opinion of his addiction to titles, and practically works it out. The passage is curious as well as humorous--humorous, because the satire strikes at all ages; and curious, inasmuch as in twenty lines it familiarises us with customs and habits characteristic of the time at which it was written (the year 1770), of which now no trace or vestige remains.

Sir Luke, the tuft-hunter, is on the stage, with Serjeant Circuit and Charlotte, a servant enters and delivers a card to Sir Luke.

SIR LUKE.

(_Reads_) “Sir Gregory Goose desires the honour of Sir Luke Limp’s company to dine. An answer is desired.”--Gad-so! a little unlucky--I have been engaged for these three weeks.

SERJEANT.

I find Sir Gregory is returned for the corporation of Fleece’em.

SIR LUKE.

Is he?--Oh, ho!--that alters the case.--George, give my compliments to Sir Gregory, and say I’ll certainly come and dine there.--Order Joe to run to Alderman Inkle’s, in Threadneedle-street: sorry can’t wait upon him; but confined to my bed for two days with the influenza.

CHARLOTTE.

You make light, Sir Luke, of this sort of engagements?

SIR LUKE.

What can a man do? These fellows (when one has the misfortune to meet them) take scandalous advantage; teazing one with, “Pray when will you do me the honour, Sir Luke, to take your mutton with me? Do name the day.” What’s to be done?--they are as bad as a beggar, who attacks your coach going up-hill, there’s no getting rid of either without a penny to one, and a promise to the other; not but that upon these occasions there is no man in England more punctual than--

_Enter a servant, who gives_ SIR LUKE _a letter_.--From whom?

SERVANT.

The Earl of Brentford, Sir Luke. The servant waits for an answer.

SIR LUKE.

Answer!--By your leave, Mr. Serjeant and Charlotte. (_Reads._) “Taste for music!”--umph!--“Mons. Dupont--fail--dinner upon table at five.” Gad-so!--I hope Sir Gregory’s servant is not gone.

SERVANT.

Immediately, sir, on receiving the answer.

SIR LUKE.

Run after him, as fast as you can. Tell him--“quite in despair:--recollect an engagement that can’t in nature be missed:”--and be back in an instant.

[_Servant runs out._

CHARLOTTE.

You see, sir, the knight must give way to my lord.

SIR LUKE.

No: it isn’t that, my dear Charlotte. You saw that it was quite an extempore business. No, it isn’t for the title; but, to tell you the truth, Brentford has more talent than any man in the world: it is _that_, which makes me fond of his house.

CHARLOTTE.

By the choice of his company he gives an unanswerable instance of _that_.

SIR LUKE.

You are right, my dear girl. But now, to give you a proof of his wit:--Brentford’s finances are a little out of repair, which procures him some visits he would very gladly excuse. One morning a Welsh coachmaker came to him with his bill; my lord had him up. “You are called Mr. Lloyd, I think?” said Brentford. “At your lordship’s service, my lord.” “What!--Lloyd with an L?” “With an L, my lord,” said the coachmaker. “--Because,” said my lord, “I have heard that in _your_ part of the world, Lloyd and Floyd are synonymous--the very same names.” “Always, my lord,” said the coachmaker. “That,” says my lord, “is rather unlucky: for, you must know, I am paying off my debts alphabetically; and in four or five years you _might_ have come in with an F; but I can give you very slight hopes for your L.”--Ha, ha, ha!--(_Enter a servant abruptly, who runs against_ SIR LUKE.)--Can’t you see where you are running? you rascal!

SERVANT.

Sir, his grace the Duke of ----

SIR LUKE.

Grace!--where is he?--where?

SERVANT.

In his coach at the door. If you a’n’t better engaged, would be glad of your company to go into the City, and take a dinner at Dolly’s.

SIR LUKE.

In his own coach, did you say?

SERVANT.

Yes, sir.

SIR LUKE.

With the coronets--or----?

SERVANT.

I believe so.

SIR LUKE.

There’s no resisting that:--bid John run to Sir Gregory Goose’s.

SERVANT.

He is already gone to Alderman Inkle’s.

SIR LUKE.

Then do you step to the knight’s. Hey!--no--you must go to my lord’s. Hold, hold!--no--I have it:--step first to Sir Greg’s; then pop in at Lord Brentford’s, just as the company are going to dinner.

SERVANT.

What shall I say to Sir Gregory?

SIR LUKE.

Anything!--what I told you before.

SERVANT.

And what to my lord?

SIR LUKE.

What?--why, tell him that my uncle from Epsom----no,--that won’t do,--for he knows I don’t care a farthing for _him_. Hey!--tell him--hold!--I have it:--tell him, that as I was getting into my chair, to obey his lordship’s commands, I was arrested by a couple of bailiffs, forced into a hackney-coach, and carried to “The Pied Bull” in the Borough.--I beg ten thousand pardons for keeping his grace waiting--but his grace knows my misfor----

And away goes Sir Luke, without taking the slightest notice of either his learned friend the serjeant, or the dear girl Charlotte, both of whom he leaves perfectly satisfied with the justness of the character the latter had drawn of her “lame lover.”

The spirit of this bit, and the peculiarities of contemporaneous society which it exhibits, will perhaps excuse the quotation. The duke inviting the knight to a dinner at Dolly’s; the knight getting into his chair to go to dine with the earl, and resting his apology upon an arrest by bailiffs, and a transfer to “The Pied Bull” in the Borough, all sound marvellously strange to modern ears: and yet there are still those alive who well remember Foote, and who speak of him as a correct painter of manners, and whose inherent humour received additional brilliancy from his unquestioned power of “holding the mirror up to Nature.”

Stiffkey, however, was not Limp, and when he and Jack strolled to the hotel to order their repast, his countenance brightened up considerably when the waiter handed him a letter, which had been sent over by somebody coming from Hailsham, to which place it had been forwarded by the cross-road coach from Dover, and which he in a moment recognised as being from George Gunnersbury. His announcement to Jack of this happy arrival was not quite so well received by the little gentleman in the cords as he imagined it might have been.

Jack walked about the room while his new friend was reading the despatch, very much in doubt what the nature of its contents might be; and hoping, with all possible fervour and earnestness, that at all events it might announce some insurmountable obstacle in the way of the writer’s visit to Eastbourne.

“Gad!” said Stiffkey, “George is a capital fellow; he will be here to-morrow afternoon; he writes the best letter of any fellow I know: he is particularly shy to strangers, but when one knows him thoroughly, his sly humour, that I spoke of this morning, is capital. He gives a description of a dinner party they had the other day, which is admirable. He says, ‘My dear good father, who is certainly the best-disposed general in his Majesty’s service, contrives to pick up the oddest tigers imaginable; we had a day or two ago a German baron, who spoke no English, and, as nobody in our family, except my sister Eliza, understands three words of German, the poor gentleman--or, by courtesy--nobleman, had a bad time of it; but we had also a fellow presented to us, under the fostering protection of a worthy friend of ours, who beat anything I had ever seen out of a travelling caravan,--an animal which certainly talked, and was therefore human, otherwise I should have taken it for an astounding cross in the breed between an ape and a horse-jockey: he affronted half the party, after having disgusted all of it, and made his escape from a pelting of decanters and wine-glasses by affecting to save some people from a stranded brig, near which he never went, but, instead of venturing ancle-deep into the water to rescue the sufferers, retired to bed ‘half-seas-over,’ at least, so I have heard; but of these matters we will discourse more anon. I will be with you by six at the latest.’”

“Capital fun,” said the Colonel, “isn’t it? A cross between an ape and a horse-jockey! uncommon good!”

“Deuced funny, indeed!” said Jack, whipping his boots; “that’s a capital fellow,--eh? straight up, right down, and no mistake. We _shall_ have fun when _he_ comes.”

The detestation which Mr. George Gunnersbury’s personal conduct had engendered in Jack’s heart in the first instance, had now grown to its fullest growth; nor was it in the slightest degree qualified by the accidental omission of his name, or that of his introducer, (as Jack called it,) which would certainly have rendered the rest of the day more disagreeable than it promised to be in the company of the colonel. For the next, Jack, “in course,” was prepared,--a letter from Town would call him away; and so everything seemed at the moment to turn up well, out of all the ills that threatened him; his mother’s answer to his letter from Hythe would, in all probability, come to hand in the morning, which would give an air of consistency to his sudden departure, and satisfy his aristocratic friend of the absolute necessity for breaking up the agreeable party.

After having ordered dinner, the colonel and Jack strolled down on to the sands, wrote words on the sand with their sticks; sat down on the shingle; then wandered towards the watch-house; then came back and talked to the vestals at the baths,--inquired about laver,--found it too early in the season to have it good; then looked at the half-dozen carriages which were standing in the coach-house of the hotel; then went to Weston’s, and bought some gingerbread nuts; then into the Library, and played with a little ball that went into a hole at the top of a twisted tube, and came out at the bottom, and rolled about a little, and at last settled into a hole of its own; then Stiffkey looked through a glass, and saw a schooner pitching disagreeably, and Jack went out and helped a little fat-faced child who wore a straw hat and feather, and trousers, and scarlet morocco slippers, on to the back of a donkey; and then the colonel puffed little pellets out of a pea-shooter, across the shop, at a doll, which one of the young ladies of the establishment immediately removed; and then Jack looked up at a little bay-window where a prettyish girl was sitting, who immediately got up and pulled the blind down; and then they both betook themselves to throwing stones from the beach into the sea, during which operation they had the satisfaction of seeing Mrs. Peckover and her party draw up to the door of _her_ house, it then wanting one hour of their time of dining, and at least two of that, at which Peckover proposed their dining with _him_. This settled that affair, and convinced them, as Mrs. Peckover intended it should, that into _her_ house no such persons as Jack should set foot. The colonel might have been received; but the moment that Mrs. Peckover, with her lynx eyes, perceived Jack’s unfortunate white cords and tops, from her balcony, _his_ fate was decided. She taxed Peckover with the fact of his being one of his hunting friends, and P. could not endure the trial;--it was so,--and admitted,--but then, Mrs. Peckover knew everything intuitively.

In divers and sundry pursuits, equally interesting and exciting with those which have just been described, the two new friends killed the enemy, until it was time to dress for dinner; they accordingly repaired to their rooms, Stiffkey’s servant being in readiness to attend him, and Jack swearing at the incalculable stupidity of his man who was not there to dress _him_. Jack affected to bear it all with good-nature and complacency, and it all went very well till he actually found himself alone, and then it was that he began to calculate whither he should next go,--for go he must; the arrival of the hated Gunnersbury would be the signal for his extinction and extermination; but thought Jack, “At all events, I’m safe till the morning; and then the letter, and all that, will get me clear off, if it comes; and if it don’t, I must write one myself.”

Accordingly Jack proceeded to dress, and made himself look uncommon nice, with an olive-green coat, and a Pomona-green waistcoat, and a pair of uncommonly smart black kerseymere trousers, with stockings and shoes to match: in short, he felt that he had done it; and when he made allowance for the absence of a servant, the approbation of his elegant friend would no doubt be unqualified: and so down he went to the dining-room, where, in a few minutes, he was joined by Stiffkey, who without any effort had achieved that, which Jack could never have accomplished with a two-hundred horse power. He looked like a gentleman.

The dinner was served, and put down. Stiffkey proposed some of Toone’s sherry, and one bottle of champaign between the two;--should it be _moussu_?--well iced;--certainly--the soup was--soup;--the fish not entirely blameable, and whatever other things there were, were all tolerable,--each in its way. Claret followed the champaign; and in about half an hour after they sat down, they were tranquilly sipping their wine, with a few watering-place pears and cricket-ball peaches by way of dessert, discoursing upon topics the most interesting and agreeable.

“If I stayed here,” said the colonel, “I should get some house or lodging; this hotel is all very well, but it isn’t quite the thing; and yet I don’t know about a house for a single man,--and, probably, I shall go back with George in two or three days.”

“There’s certainly a difference,” said Jack, “between this and the ‘Ship’ at Dover: the ‘Ship’ is, in course, the only house fit to go to there: for my own part, I think that _is_ the worst of travelling;--the chances and changes,--and then to be ‘run to earth’ here without a slavey. It is the very deuce,--eh!--uncommon slow, and no mistake.”

“Help yourself to some claret,” said the colonel, cracking a biscuit; “yes,--it _is_ a bore to be sure. I think you live in Grosvenor street, when you are in town?--at least I have seen your name on a door there.”

“Yes,” said Jack; “I’m very little at home;--I’m what you call, everywhere;--I hate being still; whenever I can, I run down to a little place I have out of town, where I shut myself up whenever I am able.”

“Have you much wood about your place?” said Stiffkey.

Jack recollected the carpenter’s-shop, and said, confidently,--“Yes, lots.”

“Well,” said the colonel, “I declare I thought you would have married that Mrs. Dallington.”

“No,” said Jack; “there are many things more than meet the ear;--there _are_ objections,--so I made way for those, who couldn’t make their own.”

At this moment the waiter entered the room, and announced that the London coach had just arrived, and that a lady and gentleman, on the outside, were inquiring for Mr. Brag.

“For me!” said Jack, a thousand horrid ideas rushing into his brain.

“Yes, sir,” said the waiter, “they are in the hall.”

This announcement startled Jack most tremendously:--a lady enquiring for him--just arrived. Who could it be?--neither the widow Dallington nor Miss Blanche Englefield--certainly not. But might it not be Anne--Nancy? That she had been most violently agitated at beholding him, was perfectly certain; that the only account he had received of her feelings or wishes as to breaking off their acquaintance for ever, was derived from her husband, who might have assumed a tone which, after all he was not justified by facts in adopting. Perhaps she still loved him,--still resolved to prove her affection: after struggling for years, her firmness had yielded, and she had eloped from her new husband to pass the rest of her life with him.

The first flash of this thought was delightful: interest--adventure--escape--pursuit--vanity--notoriety--action for crim. con.--damages--a duel--“a bullet in the thorax”--all whirled through his well-curled head, as he jumped from his seat at table to shield and screen the interesting object of his hopes and wishes from the gaze of Stiffkey, until he was quite sure of his bird;--when, before he could reach the door, his eyes were greeted, and his ears astounded, by the appearance of his exemplary mother, and a cry of “Jack, my boy, how are you?” uttered by that respectable matron.

“My dear ma’am,” said Jack, almost petrified, and extending his arms,--not for an embrace, but to endeavour to prevent her farther entrance into the room--“what on earth has brought you here?”

“The stage-coach,” said the old lady. “Come, git out of the way; let us come in and sit down.”

Saying which, she pushed by her son, to the astonishment of Stiffkey, who immediately rose from his seat.

“Don’t disturb yourself, sir,” said the lady; “there’s plenty of room:--only coming outside, the wind blows up all about one, and I’m as cold as charity--though Jim made me have a glass of hot rum and water at the last place we stopped at.”

“Very nice beverage, ma’am,” said Stiffkey, with one of his most graceful bows.

“My dear ma’am,” said Jack, “wouldn’t you rather have another room? We have scarcely finished dinner, and it would be more comfortable to have a sitting-room to yourself.”

“They haven’t got another sitting-room disengaged,” said the lady; “Jim asked them. No matter: what’s good enough for _you_, Jack, is good enough for _me_; so this will do for us till bed-time.”

“My dear colonel,” said Jack--

“My dear sir,” said Stiffkey, “no apologies. I am too glad to see any friends of yours--if I don’t intrude.”

“Intrude!” said the lady--“not a bit: we have no secrets, sir. To be sure, things have turned out queerish: however, you have as much right here as we, and we as you--so we won’t make no words of that. Why, you dine late, Jack!”

“No, on the contrary, rather early,” said Jack, perfectly at a loss what to do, overcome by the unexpectedness of the visit, from its being so particularly ill-timed, and by the malicious determination which Stiffkey had too evidently formed of not stirring: indeed, the announcement of the fact, that there was no other sitting-room disengaged, would of itself have justified his remaining in what really was his own apartment, even if he had not wished to stay out a scene which promised him some amusement.

“Jack,” said the lady, “I want you just to look out and see if Jim is getting in all the bundles and things.”

“Who is Jim?” said Jack in an under tone.

“Jim Salmon,” said the lady.

“What! is _he_ with you?”

“Yes,” said his mother, “where else should he be?”

At this moment Jem made his appearance, dressed in a tight light green coat, and a buff-waistcoat, with striped blue and white cotton trousers, made tightish to his plump figure, a coloured check handkerchief round his neck, and a white hat stuck on one side of his head, with a bunch of whitish-red curls sticking out from under it.

“Ah!” said Jem, “Brag, how d’ye do?”--“didn’t expect us. I reckoned--skimming down here--eh? Titsy would come--agreeable surprise--twig?”

“Very agreeable, indeed!” said Brag, drawing back somewhat indignantly from the familiar approach of the _ci-devant_ shopboy.

“Have you got all the parcels up to the bed-room, J. S.?” said the lady.

“Yes, Titsy,” said Jem.

“Got the umbrella, J. S.?” said the lady.

“No, Titsy,” replied Jem, “but I’ll be after it in no time--twig?”

Jack’s dismay and mortification had now risen to a considerable height. What could have induced his mother to make Jem Salmon her travelling companion?--what could have induced her to undertake the journey?--or what Jem could mean by calling his respectable parent “Titsy,” were to him questions unsolvable. One thing, however, appeared necessary: the old lady had evidently planted herself for the evening where she was; Stiffkey, who had scarcely begun his wine, and had no engagement elsewhere, had quietly deposited himself in an arm-chair: Jack, therefore, felt it absolutely essential to introduce the colonel to their fair visiter, resolving, afterwards, to check her in her conversation, so as to prevent the developement of all the real circumstances of the case, and trust to chance and impudence to wriggle through and out of this most “untoward affair.”

“This, Colonel,” said Jack, “is my mother:--Colonel Stiffkey, madam.”

Mutual bows ratified the treaty.

“I say,” said the lady, “put a chair for Jim. P’raps, he is taking a drop of something.”

“Mr. Salmon, ma’am,” said Brag--“is he coming in?”

“I s’pose so,” said the lady.

“Oh!” said Brag.

“Here he is,” said the lady. “All right now, Jim?”

“Yes, Titsy,” said Jem.

Jack’s astonishment at the repetition of this “familiar word” was too great to admit of concealment, and accordingly betrayed itself in his countenance.

“Ah!” said his mother, “that’s it--isn’t it, Jim? He doesn’t know all.”

“No,” said Jem--“don’t twig, Titsy.”

“I told you, John, I should surprise you one of these days,” said his mother:--“J. S. and I are married!”

“Married!” exclaimed Jack.

“Yes,” said Jem, “Titsy is Mrs. Salmon--d’ye twig?”

“My dear mother,” said Jack, “are you serious?”

“No, Jack,” replied Mrs. James Salmon,--for such she really was,--“never less serious in my life since your daddy died. All true:--Jim and I were married last Friday was a week at Hornsey church, and passed the honey-day--we couldn’t stop out longer on account of the business--at ‘The Sluice House.’”

“This _is_ really a surprise!” said Stiffkey, sipping his claret, looking, how--it is impossible to describe.

Jack was, as Major Downing says, “catawampously stumped,” and could say nothing.

“It oughtn’t to be, sir,” said Mrs. Salmon, addressing herself to the dandy. “Jack knowed well enough what a lone life I led. He never came near me--never, except for what you could get, Jack--did you? He advised me to marry, sir--and I could tell you a pretty story about _that_, if I liked--eh! Jack?--the pickle-shop. Well, so things went on, till at last--praise afore people’s faces sometimes spoils them--I took Jim for better or worse.”

“A very prudent resolve, indeed, ma’am,” said the Colonel, taking a huge pinch of snuff.

“My dear Colonel,” said Jack, “I am sure we ought to apologize for troubling you with our family affairs. I wish--eh!--isn’t there any other room--are you sure?”

“A’nt I?” said Jem--“first thing as I axed about--twig?”

“Get yourself something warm, Jim,” said the ancient bride: “I’m sure if the cold once gets into your poor little stomach, you’ll have no rest all night. I know what it is myself to be troubled with cold:--and I tell you what, Johnny, we shall want a bit of something by way of supper; for though we had three or four mutton-chops at Godstone, which were very nicely done, and fine meat too, and uncommon fat, still that was some time ago--and I get peckish at night somehow.”

“Fat!” said Mr. Salmon--“yes, they _were_ fat--reminded me of the shop, Brag--twig?”

“I should venture to recommend,” said the colonel with the most studied politeness, “something to drink--a glass of claret--or----”

“Oh, Lor’ no!” said Mrs. Salmon, “no claret for me, sir: as I used to say to my poor dear first--Jack’s father--don’t talk to me of claret: it’s a waste of time as well as of money to drink them sort of thin stuffs! If Jack was to have behaved like what he is, he might have asked me to take some kind of refreshment before this; for since the rum and water at--what do they call that last place we stopped at, Jemes?”--

“Wholesome, Titsy,” said the bridegroom.

“Hailsham, mother,--Hailsham,” said Jack, “is the name of the place.”

“I haven’t had the least drop as is, in my mouth, since Godstone,” continued Mrs. Salmon.

“And there,” said Salmon, “the hale was uncommon ’eavy.”

“What! ma’am,” said Stiffkey, “had you a storm, coming down?”

“No, no,” said Jack,--who, although he could not, as his mother would have said, “exasperate” the _h_ himself, was nervously alive to the absurdity of anybody else who laboured under a similar incapacity--“ale--the ale was heavy.”

“Come, Mr. Brag,” said the Colonel, “the wine is with you.”

“Yes,” said Jack, “and I’m not the man to stop it--eh? I like it to go--keep circulating, as we say, right up, straight down, and no mistake?”

“What do they charge, John, for claret here?” said Mrs. Salmon, addressing her son.

“Can’t say, I am sure,” said Jack.

“I say,” said Salmon, leaning over towards his wife, with his hand up to his mouth to hide a very audible whisper--“that’s _it_--they never pay!--twig? But, I say, Titsy, what will you have--something hot?”

“Whatever you like, dear,” said the respectable matron.

“I tell you what,” said Salmon, “I’ll just go out and brew for you myself. I know your taste--eh?--don’t I? Sugar, rum, nutmeg--eh?--twig?”

With this most affectionate speech Mr. Salmon left the room, Jack regularly used up, and the colonel, who was now convinced that his particular friend must be the identical creature described in Gunnersbury’s letter from Dover, having thrown himself back in his chair, waited to hear what might happen next.

“Sad business about Kitty!” said Mrs. Salmon.

“Yes, mother,” said Jack, “but don’t you think we might as well defer any discussion of that sort till the morning.”