Chapter III: Part 3

"Let me see," said Charles, "to-night we must positively keep quiet in deference to the Beau. Monday night I've promised to go to the Assembly."

"What's that?" said Mr. Anthony Clare, a florid young gentleman on the opposite side of the table. "Blewforth!" he called out to a naval officer farther along. "Charles has forsook letters and is going to try life for a change."

"Good G----," said the Lieutenant solemnly. "Charles crowding all canvas after a petticoat?"

Charles looked somewhat disconcerted by this immediate perception of his motives.

"I 'faith, you're in the wrong, Blewforth," he protested, "'tis to please Ripple and that's the whole truth of the matter."

A roar of laughter greeted this excuse, and every young gentleman in hearing vowed to exchange dice for dancing on Monday night.

"I saw Charles leave a note at a house in the Western Colonnade," remarked Ensign Chalkley of the Foot.

"A Valentine for a hundred guineas," said Clare.

"Name the charmer," shouted Blewforth, "name her, and egad, she shall be the toast of the afternoon."

Mr. Vernon felt relieved. Somehow he had half suspected Lovely was in pursuit of Miss Courteen. If he had not decided to wear purple sattin on the day before and buried himself in the closet to extricate the suit, he would have been still more suspicious of Lovely. The latter ignored the friendly jeers.

"Shall we say Wednesday night, Sir?"

"I shall be honoured."

"May I beg the favour of your name, Sir? 'Tis customary with us to elect our associates.'

"My name is Vernon. Francis Vernon of the Crescent, Curtain Wells--and London."

It was Charles' turn to display apprehension. Here was a man well dressed, of genteel appearance, living in the Crescent.

"Ah! the Crescent! I once had a notion to lodge there myself."

"'Tis a quiet position," said Vernon.

"So much the better for my Muse."

"You are a poet, Sir?"

"I have a metrical fancy."

"Try the Colonnade, Charles," bellowed the Lieutenant, "and your Muse'll speedily become the most famous Toast of the time."

"Blewforth owns a spy-glass," said some one.

"I wish he would own a mirrour," said Charles, "his wig is infamous."

"His head is swollen since the w-war," stammered little Peter Wingfield, "or else he was w-wounded in the wig." Blewforth, impervious to smoaking, gave a loud guffaw.

Lovely and Vernon agreed to meet on the following Wednesday and the conversation moved on general lines till the silver hammer of the Mayor summoned the company to attend to the toasts. The eyes of the room were on him as away up at the high table, he rose burly and majestick.

"Mr. Alderman Jobbins," he proclaimed, "the King!" Mr. Jobbins, the youngest of the city fathers, blessed his sovereign with unctuous pride, and the toast was drunk amid acclamations whose echo was drowned in broken glass. Curtain Wells knew when to borrow from military manners.

Then the assembly tilted on its chairs after filling new glasses, and composed itself to listen to Beau Ripple who had risen, monocle in hand.

When the murmur of delighted anticipation had sighed itself out on the wings of a loud 'Hush,' the Great little Man with indescribable suavity begged the company's permission to say a few words.

"Mr. Mayor, my lords, and gentlemen, may I say citizens? (a voice, 'You may') for I think I am giving utterance to the sentiments of this salubrious town when I protest that upon an occasion of such unique interest and such immense significance, we no longer recognize any distinction between visitors and residents (loud applause). We are assembled this morning in order to honour a man for whom no honour is sufficient. We are celebrating the twenty-first consecutive winter at Curtain Wells of Sir Jeremy Dummer (loud cheers). He has been faithful to us, gentlemen. Each year towards the close of the equinoctial gales, his coach has clattered over the cobbles of Curtain Wells. Each year he has alighted at the door of Number Seventeen, the Crescent. Each year he has torn himself away from the gaiety of London in order to set us an example of perseverance. Each year his arrival has encouraged other gentlemen of grave address to put their faith in the cleansing springs of Chalybeate. To be sure, his gout is as virulent as ever, but has he despaired? No (cheers). Has he tried other remedies? No (cheers). He has only been the more firmly convinced of the profound malignity of his disorder and the more resolutely determined to annoy it by any and every means in his power (continued applause). Twenty-one years ago Curtain Wells was a different place. We had, it is true, this Civick Hall. We had Crescent and Colonnade, Curtain Garden and Curtain Rotunda, Curtain Wells and Curtain Pump Room, Curtain Hill and Curtain Dale. But we had not your respected Mayor. In those days he was a younger, shall I add, a more foolish man? I myself was still overshadowed by the reputation of my great predecessor Beau Melon whose alabaster bust consecrates the Assembly Rooms.

"In those days, gentlemen, coaches very rarely exceeded the rate of four miles an hour, and as you have heard, the new Machine proposes to travel at an uniform speed of six. Twenty-one years! This valetudinarian majority should make the youngest of us pause and reflect. Twenty-one years of Chalybeate (a groan from the back of the room).

"Mr. Mayor, my lords and gentleman, I propose the health of Sir Jeremy Dummer and venture to assert that the time-honoured toast was never before fraught with such significance. The health of Sir Jeremy Dummer! It is in order to commemorate his health that we are assembled. Gout has done many ill deeds, ruined many tempers, spoiled many legs, but for this at least we should be grateful---- it has afforded us the spectacle of a gallant gentleman faithful to his earliest prescription, hopeful of an ultimate cure and charitable to the town of his adoption. (Loud and prolonged applause.) One moment, gentlemen: let me add that the guest of this entertainment has expressed a desire to present the town with a new set of mugs for the publick fountains." (Volleys of applause.)

Beau Ripple after leading the toast with three very urbane Huzzas resumed his seat, and Sir Jeremy Dummer doddered up to make his reply. As it consisted chiefly of a long and detailed account of his symptoms and extended over half an hour, and as you, with knowledge of his speedy death, will not bear it with the slumberous equanimity of his contemporaries, I shall not recount it. It is enough to say that when it was concluded, everybody woke with a start and cheered vociferously. Then the Mayor proposed the health of Mr. Ripple, and somebody else proposed the health of the Mayor, and so on until all the dignitaries had had enough wine drunk to their long life to ensure for every one of them an undiseased immortality.

When the toasts were finished, the quality adjourned to the Civick Chamber to meet the ladies over a dish of tea, while the quantity marched off to put the seal on a great occasion by talking it over in the various taprooms round the town.

Vernon was not inclined to brave the extension of the affair when he perceived his new friends cautiously escaping from the Beau. He hated to be conspicuous, and it was a small pleasure to meet his Phyllida among the dowagers. Indeed, he was beginning to wish he had been less hasty in taking lodgings in the Crescent, and the prospect of the _Blue Boar_ was already alluring enough to make him inquire the price of a room in that merry house. So he asked if he might take Mr. Lovely's arm.

In the square, the elegant young gentlemen made a bright knot.

"What's to be done?" cried the Lieutenant.

"L-l-let's ride over to B-Baverstock Regis and s-see T-Tony's m-maiden aunt," stammered little Peter Wingfield.

"Bravo!" shouted Charles.

Clare looked up in surprize. Charles was seldom willing to play the game of light love. Could that chatter of Blewforth's have gone deeper than he thought? There was a strange excitement about him--an excitement that was aroused by something stronger than the civick wine. Was he in love? Mr. Anthony Clare was puzzled.

"You must know, gentlemen," said Mr. Lovely, "that this maiden aunt is of a very singular complexion. 'Tis usual, as we are all aware, to look to maiden aunts for legacies and presents, but this lady, as I know by the state of Tony's purse, gets more than she gives."

"Fie! Charles," protested his friend, "I vow your point of view deteriorates." What could be the matter with him?

"Well, gentlemen," he continued, "since you are so set on meeting my relatives, egad! you shall. We'll ride over to Baverstock to-night; there are dances in Baverstock Barn, and the maids--maiden-aunts will all be there. You'll come Charles?"

"Not another word. I'll lead the love-chase or, shall we say, the legacy hunt."

"And you, sir?" Clare continued with a bow to Vernon.

After a moment's hesitation due, no doubt, to bashfulness, the latter assented, and in a trice the whole party went whooping and holloaing in the direction of the _Blue Boar_.

And all this time, Phyllida was counting the kisses in her teacup while she watched Miss Sukey Morton search energetically for strangers.

_Chapter the Sixth_

BAVERSTOCK BARN

Vernon left his companions at the door of his lodgings in order to adapt his dress to the road, having settled with them to meet presently at the _Blue Boar_ where a horse was to be saddled in readiness. He wondered while pulling on his riding-boots what was the monetary value of his new friends. They talked of play; but was it high enough to make their fellowship worth joining? They were all apparently expensive in their tastes and habits, but seemed so young and irresponsible. That however was rather an advantage. They belonged to the World, the World that is of St. James' Street; yet if they were callow pigeons, why were they learning to fly to far from the nest which bred them?

Now Mr. Vernon had got hold of a wrong analysis. These young men of Curtain Wells in spite of their outward freshness were not at all fit for the table. They had tough breasts beneath an array of fine feathers. This society of theirs, so remote from the larger society of London, with a toleration of good and bad alike, was in its essence eclectick, like a regiment or a college. An air of genial self-satisfaction clung to it nourished by rules and opinions and traditions which had never been proved to be false or harmful. The members were all clipped to a pattern and displayed a wealth of blooms in a prim setting. Even Lovely straggled too much, and was only allowed to disturb the fellowship on account of his decorative qualities and because he was evidently only a strong sport from the conventional habit of growth.

Vernon in making up his mind to join this elegant association was quite unaware that the condescension was on the side of youth. He was willing to instruct them in the ways of the great world, but found what he had been compelled to learn, they knew by inherited instinct. He was ignorant of their existence: they on the other hand had experienced many Mr. Vernons. Still he was endowed with too much insight not to understand almost immediately that he must imitate their standards, and soon caught the tone of his companions well enough to be voted an acquisition.

However, as he wrestled with his riding-boots, he was distinctly at a loss. This ride to Baverstock was presumably an expedition of gallantry, and yet he had felt it unwise to obtrude a jest appropriate to the occasion. The conversation had possessed a certain elusive ribaldry; women were discussed with frankness, and yet he had not ventured to boast of his own conquests. These young men chattered of love, much as they would have talked of fox-hunting. Love was a theory, a philosophy with a cant terminology of its own. And yet the analogy was incomplete. No man would hesitate to chronicle his leaps, but then no man would confess to having shot a fox. There was the rub. He was a fox shooter; these were hunters. Gadslife! How absurdly young they all were. And this Lovely? He was evidently more prudish than the rest of them--a man of sentiment who objected to either mode of death. He would like to see this paragon of virtue who had stared so coldly at the tale of old Sir John Columbine and his frail exquisite consort, put to the test. From that moment he began to hate Charles, and stamped the wrinkles out of his boots with considerable feeling. He would devote himself to emptying Lovely's purse before he tried the rest of them.

Vernon in a very pleasant frame of mind strolled through the chill of approaching twilight. The humiliation of Lovely was in a way achieved as soon as conceived. This was how Vernon always escaped from awkward situations. He so seldom faced facts.

An outraged husband once threatened him with a riding whip, and Vernon promptly climbed out by the window. In the street he only remembered he had successfully seduced the wife, and forgot the uncomfortable epilogue. He behaved to futurity in the same generous way as he treated the past.

Presently he found the company assembled in the yard of the inn, with a dozen horses pawing the cobbles impatient of the cold. They were soon mounted and the arched entry rang again with the sound of hoofs as they trotted through the High Street.

"Which way?" shouted Vernon who was in front.

"Straight ahead and turn to the right," answered Clare. "We've eight miles to go and a good road to go on."

"Huzza!" shouted Vernon who felt that extreme heartiness was the correct attitude.

In the clap and clack of the horses' hoofs, the affectation passed unnoticed.

How the fat shopkeepers stared to see these young gentlemen cantering away in the late afternoon, 'Some wild frolick,' they thought and turned half-regretfully to attend to their customers who were just as much interested in the jolly troop as themselves. Children scrambled from the gutters on to the pavement with yells of dismay as the horsemen scattered their mud pies. Little girls effected heroick rescues of favourite dolls from the very gate of death and little boys bowled their hoops between the legs of wayfarers with more assiduity than usual, in their struggles to avoid the legs of the horses.

Lieutenant Blewforth like most sailors was an inferior rider, but on this occasion he surpassed himself, and sat his horse like a Bedouin. He only wished buxom Miss Page would step to the door of the cook-shop and behold his prowess. Unluckily at the very moment when his ambition was in process of achievement, his mount swerved, and the gay Lieutenant found himself at his charmer's feet. The inevitable idler secured the horse, and Blewforth, having no small change, was obliged to reward him with a crown, and what is more look as if he enjoyed the expense. To give him credit, he certainly succeeded.

"Do you always propose yourself in that precipitous manner?" Charles inquired as they cantered past the last house and gained the hedgerows. "You pay very little heed to her corns."

The Lieutenant uttered an enormous guffaw that made his mount swerve again.

"The Royal Navy is always so d-devilish romantick," stammered little Peter Wingfield who looked like a precocious boy beside the burly officer.

"By G--," puffed Blewforth, "that reminds me of a good story I heard of an ensign in Bolt's. He was a d--d bashful man, and couldn't abide the women. One day he was making his compliments to the Colonel's daughter--a gaunt hussy of thirty-five summers or winters. He hung back outside the parlour-door for some time, mustered up courage to enter at last, dashed into the room and, tripping over his hanger, found himself kneeling at her feet. This was a bad beginning truly, but in trying to retrieve the position, he clutched the air and caught hold of her skinny hand. They were married in the spring, and the garrison said he badly wanted her money."

In the outburst of laughter which hailed the climax of the story, Vernon asked with much interest what the young woman's dowry was worth. The subject fascinated him.

"Don't know, sir," replied Blewforth, "but I saw the jade at Portsmouth last year, and I'm d--d if L50,000 would have made her endurable."

They were riding through a pleasant country of meadows and small streams; so Charles walked his mare to admire the willows empurpled by the fast gathering dusk. Vernon seized the opportunity for conversation.

"A fine landskip," he remarked.

Charles looked up half-angry. He disliked a man who suited his words to his own supposed tastes.

"It might be finer," he said shortly.

"Without a doubt," replied the other. "You'll pardon my ignorance, Mr. Lovely, but of what does the entertainment before us consist?"

Charles' face grew clear again at once--at any rate, the man did not claim omniscience.

"The entertainment, sir, is composed of fiddles and country dances enjoyed by the light of tallow-dips in an old barn. There will be some ploughboys, shepherds and farmers, with a few milkmaids and farm wenches, and the whole will resemble a painted Dutch interior."

"And you propose to join the merrymaking?"

"We do."

"It should be a diverting experience."

"I hope so indeed. My friend Clare vows he has discovered a Venus masquerading in fustian."

"His maiden-aunt in short?"

"The same. Like all small societies, sir, we have our intimate jests which to a stranger must seem excessively threadbare."

"On the contrary," said Vernon, "they possess an engaging spontaneity which flatters me with the suggestion that my own youth has not vanished irreclaimably. And yet," he sighed, "I am a man whom the world insults by claiming as its own."

"You have travelled?" inquired Charles.

"I have made the Grand Tour."

"That is a pleasure which I still owe to myself and to my country."

"You lack energy?"

"Of the kind expressed in gold."

"An hour's good luck at the tables."

"I've enjoyed some dozens," interrupted Lovely. "Almost enough to pay for twice as many less fortunate periods."

"Then why continue to play?"

"Why fall in love? Why die in a consumption? Why live this life of ours at all? Your question, sir, takes little account of mankind's innate perversity, and no account at all of his tastes and disposition of mind."

"On the contrary," argued Vernon, "I esteem all these at their greatest effect, but regard with equal reverence the doctrine of free will. I myself--but why should I fatigue you with personal anecdotes?"

"Pray continue," said Charles eagerly. He was always alert at a confidence and plumed himself on his ability to read human character. In this case curiosity outran discernment, and he failed to see the improbability of a man like Vernon exposing his temperament without securing a compensatory advantage.

"I myself, Mr. Lovely, was once addicted to the equally expensive habit of intrigue, but I found it led me into so many cursed situations that I forced myself to enjoy less compromising pastimes. I chose cards."

"Ah! cards!" commented Charles.

"But here again," Vernon continued, "I found the introduction of a passionate element ruined at once my pleasure and my skill. I was confounded. To be sure there remained wine, but whoever heard of a man's will exercised by wine? To be frank, Mr. Lovely, I was unwilling to take the risque of defeat."

"So I am to regard you as a disappointed voluptuary, a hedonist philosopher whose premisses induced him to a false conclusion. No, no, sir, keep your logick for speculations upon the soul, not the body."

"Sir," answered Vernon, "I found, indeed, that pleasure tormented by passion was no pleasure at all, but pleasure divorced from any ulterior emotion I soon discovered to be the highest good."

"So you would persuade me that you're an Epicurean who flings withered rose leaves and drinks sour wine. Come, come, sir, I wager your fingers would twitch and your lips quiver if one of us held a dice-box with a deep stake on the main."

"I deny that."

"We shall see."

"I hope we may."

"Ay, sir, and I wager this affectation of indifference will not outlast a week's ill luck, and as for woman, why the very dairymaids to-night will kindle a spark in your eyes."

"My life on't, they will not," cried Vernon.

"Foregad! you wear too stolid a mask to convince me it is your natural countenance."

This duologue, which seems to show that Mr. Lovely was younger and less wise than we might have thought, was interrupted by the shouts of the riders in front who wanted to know whether Charles imagined they were part of a funeral pomp.

"For d----e!" shouted Mr. Golightly, "we are all nodding like plumes and the twilight obscures the undeniable charms of the prospect."

Baverstock Barn, like a great cathedral, loomed upon them at last. As they dismounted, revelry and the drawling chatter of rustick voices, mingled with the tuning of fiddles, came from within, while the flickering light from the open door enchanted a heap of roots to the appearance of huge gems.

Clare approached the entrance while the rest stood by their horses.

"Farmer Hogbin!" he sang out.

"Who be caaling?"

"Mr. Anthony Clare!"

"Come in now, do 'ee come in."

"I've brought over a party with me, farmer?"

"Maids, do 'ee hear that? Maister Clare have brought wi'un a passel o' gallantry."

There was much jingling merriment from the maids.

"Now then Jock, Tommas, William, Jarge, Joe, Sam, Peter, Ern, move your shanks and stable they hosses."

The farmer, a huge Falstaff of a man quite in proportion to his barn, towered in the doorway obscuring the light, while the farm hands clumped with heavy legs towards the horses.

"Gi' they pleanty o' oats, my lads."

"A' right," mumbled the lads in chorus.

"Come in, my gentlemen, come in. Never mind for a speck of mud; the maids'll dust 'ee."

This sally provoked a ripple of laughter from the maids, and a chuckle from the young gentlemen.

The farmer surveyed them solemnly as they stepped into the barn.

"Why, you be all in top-boots?" he shouted. "Ho! ho! my maids, ye'll get thy twinkling toes rarely trod on, or shall I lend 'em my slippers to each in turn?"

This was considered splendid fooling, and laughter again resounded.

"Nay, farmer, you're in the wrong," said Charles producing a pair of pumps from the pockets of his riding coat.

"Why! dang me, if they han't brought a King's wardrobe wi'en. Eh! maids, you must mind your modesties to-night."

The maids, huddled together like a bunch of red apples, were set shaking with laughter at this warning--as if by a boisterous wind.

"Who will help us with our boots?" asked Clare as he subsided upon a truss of straw and flung his legs wide apart.

There was considerable whispering from the heart of the bunch till one of the maids was pushed by her companions out into the open with ejaculations of "Go on, stoopid."

"Thee needst not let on to be so backward." "Thee wast forthy enough behind the kitchen door yester'een." "Eh! bustle thyself, great gowk," and others of like freedom of opinion.

The maid selected for Mr. Clare was blooming indeed.

"Cream and claret," murmured Charles.

"Gad! a Venus by a Dutch master truly," commented Vernon.

"She's no g-ghost," stammered little Peter Wingfield.

_"Farewell and adieu to you, gay Spanish ladies,
Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain."_

sang or rather bellowed Mr. Blewforth, slapping his thigh with a nautical zest.

_"Our Blewforth, careening far nearer than Cadiz
Will give to green fields what was meant for the Main."_

continued Charles to the same tune.

"Give what?" asked Tom Chalkley.

"The breezy charm of his manner," replied Charles.

Now ensued jests, giggles, laughter, pranks, and struggles, as each gentleman persuaded a fair to wrestle with his riding-boots. Vernon who had forgotten to provide himself with pumps remained aloof from the merriment not sorry for an opportunity to convince Mr. Lovely of his remoteness from anything so vulgar as excitement.

Great was the mirth of everybody when the Lieutenant produced an enormous Valentine that depicted a peculiarly fat Cupid winking at a dairymaid over a brimming bowl of milk. Greater still was the mirth when he presented the token with much earnestness to the bashful lass they called Margery, and it became uproarious indeed when he explained he had wished to offer it on the preceding night, but had been deterred by Mr. Clare's reputed jealousy.

"Whoever heard tell of such a thing in the milk before?"

"Tis a Cupid, Margery," said Mr. Clare.

"There now and if I didn't go for to think it were a baby," declared Margery.

Farmer Hogbin coming back from attending to the horses in time to hear this remark called out in his great voice:

"Don't 'ee fret thyself, my lass, what thee wants'll come soon enough, I warrant. Now my gentlemen, take your partners, we was just a-going to begin a round dance. Tune up your squeaking boxes, fiddlers, and tip us _Come lasses and lads_."

The fiddlers smiled encouragement at the dancers as they struck off with the gallant old tune. Even Mr. Vernon, boots and all, was made to give an arm to buxom Mrs. Crumplehorn, the cowman's wife. The sanded floor of the barn resounded with the perpetual tripping of toes and heels.

_"Come, lasses and lads,
Take leave of your dads."_

The waist of every fair was encircled by a neat arm that tapered to a fine wrist as the dancers swung down to their places. Little Peter Wingfield unable to enfold the ample Polly was given her pinner as if he were indeed the child his appearance and behaviour proclaimed him.

Every one admired the first two couples that took the middle. Mr. Lovely was so graceful and Mr. Clare was so thorough. Round they went and down they went and across and through and over and under while the rest of the dancers clapped and tapped their appreciation. Faster and faster went the fiddles, faster and faster went the shoes. Thicker and thicker rose the sand and saw-dust from the floor until the barn seemed to be the centre of a raging storm, such a wind the petticoats made and so dense became the atmosphere. Thunder was added when the gigantick farmer and the burly Lieutenant, whom merry chance had thrown into the arena together, charged through their Pas Seul, bellowing the while with Gargantuan laughter.

At last the fiddles stopped and, panting mutual congratulations, the exhausted couples subsided upon the various trusses of straw laid along the side of the barn. Even the ivory paleness of Mr. Vernon's cheeks wore a faint tinge of carmine, and some curls of his modish wig were very slightly ruffled.

Jock, Tommas, William, Jarge, Joe, Samuel, Peter, and Ern, who had gathered into a critical knot, feeling themselves eclipsed by these active visitors, were released from their sheepishness by a demand for the bowls of spiced ale.

After this, they played Kiss in the Ring; and it was truly a most exhilarating sight to see Mr. Anthony Clare with flapping coat-tails in pursuit of the blooming Margery who was soon caught not very unwillingly as we may suppose. It was ludicrous in the extreme to see little Peter Wingfield darting hither and thither like a little brown rabbit. His little white wig seemed to twinkle like a tail set too high on his little brown body. But he let himself be caught by Polly beneath a lingering spray of mistletoe, and how all the world laughed when she lifted him up and gave him a resonant kiss on his little red lips. As for the large farmer and the burly Lieutenant they thundered after every maid in the barn quite regardless of any rules and, as I think, kissed the most of them very heartily indeed.

But the chief excitement of all was caused by a great white owl that came flapping down from the rafters and put out half the candles with his great sweeping wings. How all the lasses screamed and how earnestly the lads reassured them, and though the former were repeatedly told that owls while feeding on mice had not yet imbibed their habits, they persistently held their skirts a little higher than usual and nestled very close and comfortable to the exquisite young gentlemen from the _Blue Boar_.

Then, of course, they all danced _Sir Roger de Coverley_, and drank more spiced ale while they rested. Somebody called on Charles for a song and he gave them one of his own which everybody agreed was much too serious for so jolly an occasion. Charles swore he had composed the tune himself, but everybody else vowed they had heard it before, and as for the words, there was not a trace of originality about them. However, his voice was pleasant enough as he sang:

_"When in the dews of early morn
My Chloe trips for may,
Across the fields of springing corn
I watch her pass,
The fairest lass,
That e'er was won with vows of love
Upon a summer's day._

_"Ah! shame that I should leave thee, dear,
And cross the roaring sea,
That I should leave thee lonely here:
Think not, sweetheart,
Because we part
And I to foreign lands do rove,
Thou art less dear to me."_

Blewforth protested he had said good-bye with almost identical rhymes in every port of the two hemispheres, and moreover was not ashamed to confess as much. All the maids, however, grew quite tearful and vowed the evening was spoiled; indeed, they made such ado that Charles sang one of Mr. d'Urfey's ballads to cheer their spirits and succeeded in providing such a burst of laughter that the echo of it never died away during the rest of the evening.

Of course, it was decided they must dance _Sir Roger_ once more and, that duty accomplished, it was discovered that Anthony Clare and Margery had vanished. Of course everybody wondered where they could have gone, and when they returned in time to take a last sip at the spiced ale, it was noticed that Margery hung back in the shadows with a melancholy expression of countenance that made her companions nudge each other with wise looks.

Soon word came that the horses were saddled and waiting. Good-byes were murmured, and many a promise to come again was faithfully sworn and many a kiss given and taken. The ousted yokels held each a soil-stained hand for their genteel rivals to mount from. The maids stood huddled in the flickering light of the open barn-door; Farmer Hogbin bellowed a last farewell which was thunderously echoed by the Lieutenant, as with flushed faces and half-regretful memories, the horsemen cantered towards Curtain Wells under a sailing moon.

Clare rode by Charles to hear the judgment of Paris upon his tatterdemalion Venus.

"I'd liefer for her sake that you were overseas next barley-harvest," said Charles shortly.

"Plague on the man, what a cold stream it is!"

"My excellent Tony, your Blowzabella will be happier mating on a straw pallet with Hodge than living under your protection in London."

"She would see the world."

"Pshaw! her world is a garden of gillyflowers. She was never meant to be pushed out of sight for an importunate visitor."

"She would return."

"Like a spent primrose fit only for the bonfire."

"I could secure an annuity for her."

"You'll tire of her in London. Drain the claret from her cheeks, smear the downy bloom, and you'll find rank lees and rotten core. Hodge never would. No, no, the thought of so much comely maidenhood languishing for your velvet-sleeved caresses is merely droll."

Clare loved and admired Charles too much to despise his tirades however self-consciously virtuous they might appear. He felt more than ever convinced that his friend was in love, in love too with some one the very antithesis of the dairymaid. He would try one more test.

"But if I told I was in mind to wed my Venus?"

Charles jerked his reins in astonishment.

"Z----ds, Tony look round you. There are maids more fit I say. Why wed a mountain, however rich in pasture when you can wed a mountain-nymph?"

Clare decided his suspicion was confirmed. Lovely objected to milkmaids on the score of a taste sharpened to an exquisite point of refinement by an ideal passion. He was postulating mere theories of life on account of the charms of one dear She. Who was the witch? She had not withdrawn him from their late junketing whatever her spells.

"Your morality, Charles, did not prevent you from entering very heartily into the spirit of our pastoral piece."

They had fallen behind the others, and through the silent night Charles' voice caught a melody from the wakening year as he rhapsodized.

"Fore Heaven! I love the country, I love these creamy hussies. I love their swains with the sweet earth all about them. I was happy to-night! I was happy with those dear people. I could lose my tricked-out self in that twinkling barn. I bowed to merriment as a tree bows to the wind. I wanted to hear the singing hopes and joys and desires of humble people. There we were, all of us populating a frieze for some merry artist god. We were as wax moulded to some fantastick dancing shape. On these occasions, I can surmize at immortality and imagine the heart of the universe. I doubt you think I'm babbling nonsense, but I'm trying to tell you I was entirely disinterested in our merry-making of to-night."

Clare stretched out to touch the poet's arm.

"Try to think that I, chattering of Margery, am not more personal than you. 'Tis true, I piped a love-ditty, but though it may trouble the bush and brake of a small wood, it would seem thin fluting----"

"To any but her," Charles interrupted. "The thinnest tune will charm one who is nearer than you to the primitive animal too easily quelled by sweet songs. Pipe to a crowd, Tony, but musick dedicated to a solitary shepherdess at the sight of whom your mouth will be awry in a year's time is ill work for her."

"I doubt you're right," said Clare softly. "You are compassionate to poor nymphs to-night, Charles. Have you met a goddess?"

"Tony, I have."

"May you prosper!"

"Thank'ee. I'll tell you more of her when I know more myself."

They urged their horses to a trot and were silent for a while. Then Clare asked Charles what he thought of Vernon.

"Oh! a statue positively. I doubt the whole affair was to him vastly low.

"Umph! there was a permanent leer carved on his lips. I dislike the fellow."

"Nay! you're too stern in your judgments. He has promised me an evening for Hazard."

Clare smiled. It was useless to remonstrate with a man whom the thought of two dice transformed into a machine with glassy eyes and curiously sensitive fingers.

So they rode silently.

Charles could see Phyllida in the moon-enchanted clouds, sometimes with the trim waist of a dice-box.

_Chapter the Seventh_

SUNDAY MORNING

Sunday morning at Curtain Wells was eminently a day of rest. A stroke of organizing genius on the part of Beau Ripple had abolished the fatigues of early Chalybeate by transferring the corporeal obligations of fashionable humanity to an hour which would not interfere with the respect owed to the spirit.

"A glass of Chalybeate," he had remarked, "will promote the proper digestion of the homily. Moreover, the vanity of post-religious promenades will be considerably mitigated by the discipline of the Pump."

At Curtain Wells, therefore, soon arose the pleasant custom of inviting one's friends and neighbours to partake of a substantial breakfast before setting out to St. Simon's parish church. The neighbours, if gentlemen, were expected to provide a suitable escort for their lady-hosts, and there was not a dame in the town who did not make it a point of honour to be armed in at the great West door on fine mornings or handed out of her chair with cautious ceremony if the weather was unsettled.

The Widow Courteen was not the woman to neglect or despise any prescriptive right conferred upon her sex. It was not surprizing, therefore, to see Major Constantine Tarry and Mr. Gregory Moon turning solemnly into the Crescent on the first Sunday morning whose events I am privileged to chronicle. The demeanour of neither gentleman would have allowed us even a momentary hesitation as to the day. The Sabbath wrote itself in the devout wrinkles of Mr. Moon's domed forehead and expressed itself in the stiff curls of the Major's military wig. As they drew near to Mrs. Courteen's house the latter voiced a desire to see eggs and bacon upon the breakfast table, and the former encouraged his ambition by repeating a legend of a fecundity among hens unusual at this season of the year. The meditation carried the two gentlemen to Mrs. Courteen's door in silence.

"Your turn to knock, Tarry," said Mr. Moon, in a rather depressed voice, as he fumbled with the steps from which the Major assaulted the door with military abruptness.

To them after a decent interval appeared Thomas in resplendent waistcoat of Sunday and with nose polished to the limit of a nose's power of brightness.

"Is your mistress within?" inquired the Major.

"Within and awaiting you," said solemn Mr. Thomas.

"Then I think, Mr. Moon," said the Major with half a turn, "we will step inside immediately."

"I think we may venture," replied the latter.

They were ushered into the passage where Thomas received their hats and canes. Thomas had such a sober effect on his fellow men that the slightest action in which he took part was conducted with a ritual at once austere and grand. One felt that the delivery of a hat, smallsword, cane, or message possessed at least the dignity, the entire absence of all worldly considerations that belong to the Sunday alms.

"Will your mistress receive us in the front parlour or the back parlour this morning?" inquired Tarry whose legs were prepared for either emergency.

"In the front parlour," said Thomas. "Miss Thomasina was ill this morning."

"In the back parlour, I presume?" said Moon.

"Very ill with retching and divers pains," continued Thomas.

"Poor Thomasina," said the Major with an attempt at jocularity.

"A feeble animal," said the footman, "and too fond of grass; and the grass of this city is fit only for Nebuchadnezzar."

A bright fire was crackling in the grate, and on each hob a kettle of burnished copper sang with considerable sentiment.

Thomas withdrew, and the Major and Mr. Moon took up the Englishman's position on the hearthrug with coat-tails wide apart to allow the grateful warmth free access to whatever chillness of morning air still clung about their bodies. So they remained, silent, wrapped in the dignified contemplation of an inferior painting in oils on the opposite wall. No doubt in reality their thoughts were far away, possibly in the chaste seclusion of the Widow's own room or possibly in the kitchen whence from time to time ascended the pleasant jingle and chink that heralds food's approach.

No doubt they would both have stood there long enough for us to moralize on England and the greatness of England, had not Mrs. Courteen come into the room just then.

Ponto, Phyllida's black spaniel, sidled in with the breakfast and Phyllida herself followed, and the freshness of her in the morning was strewn about the room like petals of roses.

Conversation at breakfast suited itself to the solemnity of the day. The widow sighed at every remark that was made, and in the gentle pathos of her manner indicated placidly her conviction of fleeting time and sorrow, and all those melancholy reflexions which are considered proper to the Sabbath. However, at all times she was accustomed to preserve a cloistral rigour of speech before her daughter. No one loved better to gather the easier blooms on the safe side of the garden-god's perfumed hedge, but they could only be plucked in numerous corners of ballrooms and during secluded promenades. The presence of Phyllida made her mother's blood so much rennet. Conversation became mere verbal curds and whey.

However, the Justice talked into his cup of the swift approach of Spring, of the benefit of sun, the intolerable increase in vagrancy, the need for repressing poachers. If platitudes were esteemed as high as rolling hexameters, Moon would have been among the epical poets. As for Major Tarry, he thrashed each topick at if his tongue were a little rattan cane. One felt that any observation was regarded by that gallant gentleman as an awkward recruit. He had an air of drilling the conversation. After breakfast, the various members dispersed to acquire a seemly attitude towards matters of religion.

Since the search for attitudes occupies a vast deal of human energy, it may not be out of place to inform my reader where the half-dozen required for Morning Prayer at St. Simon's were found.

The Widow Courteen found hers hidden between powder puff and patch-box.

Miss Courteen found hers between the lines of a three-cornered note.

Madam Betty found hers in the coral secrets of Miss Courteen's left ear.

Mr. Thomas found his in a Bible as large and heavy as a Bible should be.

Major Tarry found his in the stem of a churchwarden pipe.

Mr. Moon found his in the best attitude that exists.

Soon Mrs. Courteen's chairmen were knocking at the door and the whole party prepared to set out. The widow seated in her chair, hummed a hymn _tempo di minuetto_. The Major marched upon her left and the Justice upon her right, and Thomas marched in front. Phyllida and Betty kept to the pavement and had scarcely time to wonder if all the world would be at church, when they arrived at the porch and found that all the world certainly was.

As the Major had handed the widow into her chair, Mr. Moon handed her out, and the party of Mrs. Courteen proceeded to Mrs. Courteen's pew, while Mrs. Courteen's chairmen carried the chair to an alley beloved of chairmen and proceeded to doze away the Sabbath morning in its damask recesses and were no doubt as comfortable as their mistress in the musty cushions of St. Simon's pews. In the Western gallery, three fiddles, two hautboys, and a bass viol squeaked and groaned with much fervour. In the pulpit the parson squeaked and groaned with equal fervour and in the desk below the clerk squeaked and groaned with most fervour of all. When the parson threatened damnation, the ladies fanned themselves rapidly and when he spoke of alms and oblations, they consoled themselves with carraway comfits.

The service was rather worldly and seemed remote enough from anything at all spiritual, but nevertheless in so far as it was indigenous to fair King Richard's land, it should exact from us as much respect as we owe to a Chippendale chair and that is or ought to be very great indeed. If so much condemnatory fervour was equivalent to breaking these butterflies of fashion upon a religious wheel, it cannot be denied that the exquisite bloom of their ruined wings was a great deal more pleasant to regard than the spattered blood and bones of earlier and more tangible martyrs to an extreme mode.

The parson continued to prophesy hell-fire. But hell-fire means so many kinds of illumination--certainly it had an invincible attraction for these gay moths and butterflies. Perhaps they thought of it merely as a huge aggregation of wax candles by which most of them had more than once been morally singed. If any permanency of emotion was desirable, it would certainty be more endurable in heat and gaiety than in chill aerial solitudes. And, thanks to chickens, there would always be painted fans. This was the sum of the congregation's united reflection during the sermon; individually, no doubt, each soul played with more particular premisses, but the ultimate conclusion was the same for all.

After so much damnation, the blessing was a rhetorical anti-climax. Clouds had gathered during the homily due, no doubt, to the violence of the preacher and, as the worshippers tripped out through the great West door, the clouds burst and the streaming rain inclined them more favourably than ever to the prospect of eternal warmth.

The morning's fair promise had been utterly belied, and many appealing glances were launched at Mr. Ripple as he beckoned to his chairman. Surely he would not be so barbarous as to force so much accumulated fine raiment through mud and water, to drink the latter element in a less pleasing form. But Mr. Ripple was inexorable: he stepped into his gilded chair, regardless of appeal: the chairmen tightened their muscles for the long pull uphill, and Gog and Magog, the diminutive negroes balanced one on each step, guarded their master from interruption. Now ensued shouts, whistles, cockcrows and screams. Hats were waved, canes flourished, and lily-white hands shaken. All this uproar was due to the fact that there were just half as many coaches and chairs as were required, and when these were filled, and on their way to the Pump Room, there remained in the church too many foolish virgins, too many improvident dowagers, too many thoughtless beaux.

The rain fell in torrents, and the last vehicle had turned the corner.

A desolate remnant surveyed the situation. It was wet enough.

Now arose one of those crises which are inseparable from a despotism. Somebody, for his presumption will always remain anonymous, somebody suggested that the idea of climbing the hill of health in such a downpour was unimaginable.

The stranded exquisites depended for the moment entirely on their rouge for colour.

"Rebellion," they muttered and the ominous word flapped over their heads and darkened the gloom more profoundly.

"The Beau will be furious."

"He will never forgive us."

"We shall be banished."

"Curtain Wells will no longer know us."

Again the daring voice was upraised:

"We are strong enough to defy Ripple. He has no right to make us wade through mud for a whim of his own. If we do so, we'll do so in shifts and shirts." The unknown voice gathered force with each new proposition, and the startled exquisites huddled closer in a very ecstasy of perturbation.

"Shall damask flowers lose their beauty, shall silver lace be tarnished and broideries lack lustre because Ripple has commanded the impossible? Silk is the fashion, ay! and watered silk, but not sodden silk. Well was it named the Pump Room, for such shall we become, mere pumps exuding moisture at the propulsion of a tyrant!"

The apparent carelessness of the unknown tyrannicide had its effect; a suspicion began to creep in that Mr. Ripple's domination was based on insecurity. The thin end of this destructive wedge was enough to break open the fortress of their duty and, the rain stopping for a moment, the stranded exquisites hurried home to discuss the probable result of their revolt over hot rum and lemon. Up at the Pump Room Mr. Ripple missed many a well-known face that Sunday, and his urbane countenance lost some of its smoothness as the minutes rolled by without the arrival of a single person on foot.

At the expiration of the quarter of an hour, he despatched Gog to see what had happened and when Gog came back with the news that the stranded exquisites had one and all departed to their own lodgings, Mr. Ripple ascended his marble pedestal with an air of determination.

"My lords, ladies and gentlemen," he began, and just then Magog hurried up with the Beau's glass of chalybeate. The latter looked at it for a moment. Pity and anger fought visibly for the mastery. Anger won, and the remorseless Beau dashed the glass into a thousand sparkling fragments.

"The Pump Room will be closed until--until this--," he faltered over the description of such ingratitude, "until the extraordinary behaviour of certain visitors has been justified, if it can be justified. There will be no Assembly to-morrow night."

The company shivered unanimously and the Beau, dismissing his chairmen, walked forth into the rain with all the dignity in the world. It is said he ruined three suits of unparagoned cut that fatal day by walking about the principal thoroughfares of Curtain Wells for the remainder of a very wet afternoon.

_Chapter the Eighth_

THE GREAT REBELLION

Not unnaturally, the only topick of that memorable Sunday was the rebellion. The excitement it raised far exceeded anything of the sort not excepting the Jacobite rising, and the oldest inhabitant of the Wells positively asserted that the landing of the Duke of Monmouth was altogether inferior in the quality of emotional interest.

Sirloins of beef were allowed to freeze into glaciers of fat, horse radish lost its sting, and the most frothy ale was flat in the presence of such an absorbing topick of conversation. When at last everybody, momentarily exhausted, sought recuperation in the Sunday dinner, everybody ate so fast to be the sooner at the coffee-house or the Town Hall or the Assembly Rooms or some such equally renowned haunt of gossip that everybody had a remarkably bad attack of indigestion.

From every doorway the crowds hurried forth after dinner, scorning the sacred forty winks. But coffee-house, Town Hall, and Assembly Rooms were closed, bolted, barred and shuttered, and for a sign over each was a scroll of parchment on which was inscribed in the finest gold leaf:

_Closed till further notice. By order. Horace Ripple._

Disconsolately the ladies trooped home again to discuss developments over a dish of Bohea; eagerly the gentlemen trotted to the _Blue Boar_ only to be told that nobody save lodgers could be admitted.

Most of them admired the decision of the Great little Man, but the rebels who, having once started, felt bound to hold out if only against the censure of the faithful, laughed very loudly and boldly and said it was all very well to close the places of publick entertainment on Sunday, that was only a loss of two hours custom to the proprietors, but on the next day, a very different tale would be told. So they prophesied as they tripped home to their pipes and hot rum, with a twirl of their elegant canes, a shake of their exquisite heads, and a _Whack row-de-dow_ from their irreverent lips.

The faithful who had seen the Beau in the first flood of his wrath were not so sanguine. They knew that like the late King of France he could say _L'etat, c'est moi_, and what shopkeeper, innkeeper, or porter, would be brave enough to defy him?

The sun set on a gloomy town and everybody went to bed at half-past eight o'clock having nothing better to do.

Mr. Ripple had earlier in the afternoon assured himself of Mr. Lovely's fidelity, and in the company of the young gentlemen of the _Blue Boar_, passed a very pleasant evening over some capital Burgundy opened at his expense. He sent down messages to my Lord Cinderton and my Lord Vanity begging the favour of their company, and both my lords hurried back as fast as their dignified legs would carry them. Of course, they quite agreed with Mr. Ripple that the outbreak was scandalous and were determined to support his decrees against the whole of society provided they were not included in the excommunication. The news of Sir Jeremy Dummer's sudden decease was brought in, and Mr. Ripple, deeply moved by the melancholy event, ascribed it to the horror with which the old baronet was overwhelmed at the defiance of himself. It was soon announced in every drawing-room that Sir Jeremy Dummer had died of an apoplexy brought on by the sight of the rebel abstainers from morning Chalybeate.

It was arranged, almost in silence, that everybody faithful to the great Beau, should repair to the Pump Room on the following morning, dressed in funereal black, a quarter of an hour earlier than usual. They might not be admitted, but their devotion would carry its own reward, and would certainly afford the Beau confidence in the loyalty of the most of his subjects. It was farther arranged that a deputation of the leading visitors and residents should wait upon him at his lodgings with an address black-edged, assuring him of their sorrow and fidelity. As for the rebels, they must make what terms they could.