Complete Works of R S Surtees

by R S Surtees

  “Bill’ll be here presently,” observed she, sweeping a handful of filbert shells off the green baize table cover, and throwing them on to the fire. “Take a glass of brandy,” said she, handing a tumbler off a side table, and passing the bottle to Charley, to help himself and replenish her glass.

  “‘Ot with? or cold without?” inquired Mrs. Bowker, pointing to a little black kettle singing on the stand on the upper bar of the fire.

  Charles took hot with, and so did Mrs. Bowker; and the handsome dancer from the Cobourg coming in, they all had hot together.

  “Is Stobbs here?” now exclaimed Bowker, bursting into the shop, with his pea-jacket collar up to his ears, and a low-crowned broad-brimmed hat on his head.— “Ah, you rogue! — what, you’ve found your way to the ladies, have you?” continued he, throwing open the sash-door.— “Well, sorry to interrupt you, but my friend’s awaiting, so come along and renew your acquaintance here another time. Always happy to see you, you know.” Charles bid his fair friends a hasty adieu, and Bowker, thrusting his arm through his, led the way along Eagle Street to the turning down of Dean Street. Under the lamp at the Holborn end, stood a man in shape, make, and dress, the exact counterpart of Bowker. Low-crowned, broad-brimmed hat, pea-jacket up to his ears, tights, and Hessian boots, too.

  “Sorry to have kept you waiting, sir,” said Bowker, in the most respectful tone, as he approached the figure. “Allow me to introduce my friend Mr. Stobbs — Yorkshire gentleman, sir, of great property — Mr. Stobbs, Mr. Jorrocks; Mr. Jorrocks, Mr. Stobbs,” adding, sotto voce, to Stobbs, “member of the Right Worshipful Company of Grocers.”

  Mr. Jorrocks raised his hat, and Mr. Stobbs did the same, and then Bowker, offering an arm to each, they proceeded on their way.

  High Holborn, what with its carts, coaches, busses, and general traffic, affords little opportunity for conversation, and it was as much as the trio could do to keep their place on the flags.

  “Cross here,” observed Mr. Bowker, as they neared the narrower part of the street, and passing under an archway, they suddenly entered upon darkness.

  Savage yells, mingled with the worrying, barking, and howling of dogs, issued from the upper part of a building on the right, and Bowker with difficulty made himself heard as he hallooed for Slender Bill.

  “I ‘opes it’s all right,” observed Mr. Jorrocks, twisting his watch in his fob, and tripping over a heap of something that lay in his way.

  “O, all right, I assure you, sir,” replied Bowker, tripping up also. “Confound the rascals,” continued he, “near as a toucher broke my neck.

  “Slender, A-hooi!” roared he, after three or four ineffectual holloas. “Coming master! coming!” exclaimed a voice, and a person appeared on the top of a step-ladder, holding a blacking bottle, with a candle stuck in the neck.

  “Come, Billy! come!” exclaimed Mr. Bowker, peevishly, “didn’t I tell you to be on the look-out for company, and here you’re letting us break our necks in the dark: pretty way to treat gents: show a light, come!”

  Billy, all apologies, tripped down the ladder, and holding the candle low enough to discover the steps, crawled backwards, followed by Mr. Bowker and his party.

  “What’s to pay?” inquired Mr. Jorrocks, as he reached the landing, of a forbidding-looking one-eyed hag, sitting in a little curtained corner, partitioned from the scene of action by a frowsy green counterpane.

  “O, Mr. Bowker’s free here,” observed Bill to his gentle wife, drawing aside the curtain, and exhibiting the interior. What a scene presented itself! From the centre of the unceiled hugely rafted roof of a spacious building, hung an iron hoop, stuck round with various lengths of tallow candles, lighting an oval pit, in which two savage bull-dogs were rolling and tearing each other about, under the auspices of their coatless masters, who stood at either end applauding their exertions. A vast concourse of ruffianly spectators occupied the benches rising gradually from the pit towards the rafters, along which some were carelessly stretched, lost in ecstasy at the scene below.

  Ponderous draymen, in coloured plush breeches, with their enormous calves clad in dirty white cotton stockings, sat with their red-capp’d heads resting on their hands, or uproariously applauding as their favourite got the turn. Smithfield drovers, with their badges and knotty clubs; huge coated hackney coachmen; coatless butchers’ boys; dingy dustmen, with their great sou’-westers; sailors, with their pipes; and Jews, with oranges, were mingled with Cyprians of the lowest order, dissolute boys, swell pickpockets, and a few simple countrymen. At the far end of the loft, a partition concealed from view, bears, badgers, and innumerable bull-dogs; while “gentlemen of the fancy” sat with the great round heads, and glaring eye-balls of others between their knees straining of their turn in the pit. The yells and screams of the spectators, the baying of the dogs, the growling of the bears, the worrying of the combatants, and the appearance of the company, caused a shudder through the frames of Mr. Jorrocks and the Yorkshireman.

  A volley of yells and plaudits rent the building, as the white dog pinned the brindled one for the fourteenth time, and the lacerated animal refused to come to the scratch, and as the pit was cleared for a fresh “set-to,” Slender Billy, with a mildness of manner contrasting with the rudeness of the scene, passed our party on, and turned out two coal-heavers and a ticket-porter, to place them advantageously near the centre. This was a signal for renewed uproar.

  “Make vay for the real swells wot pay!” roared a stentorian voice from the rafters.

  “Crikey, it’s the Lord Mayor!” responded a shrill one from below.

  “Does your mother know you’re out?” inquired a squeaking voice just behind.

  “There’s a brace of plummy ones;” exclaimed another, as Bowker and Jorrocks stood up together.

  “Luff, there! Luff! be serene!” exclaimed Slender Billy, stepping into the centre of the pit, making a sign that had the effect of restoring order on the instant. Three cheers for the Captain were then called for by some friend of Bowker’s, as he opened his pea-jacket; and while they were in course of payment, two more bull-dogs entered the pit, and the sports were resumed. After several dog-fights, Billy’s accomplished daughter lugged in a bear, which Billy fastened by his chain to a ring in the centre of the pit.

  “Any gentleman,” said he, looking round, “may have a run at this ’ere hanimal for sixpence;” but though many dogs struggled to get at him, they almost all turned tail, on finding themselves solus with Bruin. Those that did seize were speedily disposed of, and the company being satisfied, the bear took his departure, and Billy announced the badger as the next performer.

  Slender Billy’s boy, a lad of nine years old, had the first run at him, and brought the badger out in his mouth, after which it was drawn by terriers at so much a run, during which Mr. Jorrocks criticised their performances, and with the aid of Charley Stobbs succeeded in selecting one for the glorious old Surrey.

  But enough of Slender Billy and his bull-dogs. He was a well-known character, but all we have to do with him just now is as the medium of introduction between Jorrocks and Stobbs. That introduction ripened into intimacy, and many were the excursion our friends had together, Jorrocks finding cash, and the Yorkshireman company. But for Jorrocks, and perhaps Belinda, Stobbs would very soon have left the law, whose crotchety quibbles are enough to disgust any one with a taste for truth and straightforward riding; and this lengthened episode brings us back to the point from which we started, namely, Charley’s arrival at Handley Cross.

  “‘Ow are ye, my lad o’ wax?” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, bouncing out in his sky-blue dressing-gown and slippers, as Charley appeared at the garden-gate, where we have most unceremoniously kept him standing during his introduction.

  “Delighted to see you!” continued Mr. Jorrocks, wringing his hand, and hopping about on one leg; “most ‘appy indeed! Bed for yourself — stable for your ‘oss; all sung and comfey, in fact. Binjimin! — I say, Binjimin!”

  “Coming, sir! —
coming!” replied the boy, setting himself into a fustain coat.

  “Take this ’ere ‘oss to the stable, and bid Pigg treat him as one of his own — warm stall — thick blanket — lots o’ straw — and crushed corn without end. Now, come in,” said he to Stobbs, “and get some grub; and let’s ‘ear all about it.” In then they bundled together.

  Pretty Belinda took Charles’s proffered hand with a blush, and Mrs. Jorrocks re-entered the room in a clean cap and collar just as the trio were settling into seats. What a burst of inquiries followed!

  “‘Ow’s the dad?” asked Mr. Jorrocks.

  “‘Ow did you come?” inquired Mrs. Jorrocks.

  “How is your sister?” half whispered Belinda.

  “Where have you been since we last saw you?” was demanded before Stobbs had answered any of the preceding, and a great cry of conversation was got up.

  In the evening Mr. Jorrocks celebrated the event with a couple of bottles of fine fruity port, and a night-cap of the usual beverage— “B. and W.” as he briefly designates his brandy and water.

  CHAPTER XXV. MR. JORROCKS AT EARTH.

  OUR MASTER TOOK a cooling draught — a couple of Seidlitz powders — the next morning, intending to lie at earth as he said, and was later than usual in getting down stairs. Stobbs improved his opportunity, and got sixteen kisses of Belinda, according to Ben’s reckoning, who was listening outside, ere Mrs. Jorrocks made her appearance either. A voluminous correspondence — a week’s St. Botolph’s-lane letters, and many private ones, some about hounds, some about horses, awaited our master’s descent. The first he opened was the following from our old friend Dick Bragg: —

  “London.

  “Dear Mr. J.,

  “Though I fear it may involve a charge of fickleness, I feel it due to myself to make the following communication: —

  “The fact of my having offered my services to you having transpired, I have been so persecuted with remonstrances from those whose judgment and good opinion I value, and representations of the impolicy of accepting office, other than in similar administrations to those I have heretofore co-operated with, that I really have no alternative but most respectfully to request that you will allow me to withdraw my previous communication. It is, I assure you, with great reluctance that I make this announcement, knowing, as I do, by sad experience, the difficulty there is in obtaining talent even under the most favourable circumstances, let alone in the middle of a season, when every body worth having is taken up; but it is one of those casualties that cannot be helped, and, in making this communication, allow me to assure you, Sir, that I shall always speak of you with respect, Sir — yes, Sir, I shall always speak of you with respect, Sir, and esteem you, Sir, as an upright gentleman and a downright fox-hunter. Allow me to subscribe myself,

  “Yours very faithfully,

  “Rich. Bragg.

  “To — Jorrockes, Esquire, “Handley Cross.”

  “Ah! Rich. Bragg indeed,” grunted Mr. Jorrocks when he read it, “you must think I’ve a deal more o’ the Michaelmas bird i’ me than I ‘ave to believe you wrote this afore you got my letter. There, Batsay,” said he, as the handsome maid now entered with the hissing urn, “take that,” handing it to her, “and make curl-papers on’t, and don’t you be so ‘eavy on my witey-brown.”

  The next letter he selected was from Mr. Bowker.

  “Lincoln’s Inn, London.

  “Dear Sir,

  “On calling to pay ‘The Life’ for your advertisement of ‘A hunting-man wanted,’ he expressed a wish for you to contribute information respecting the sport with your hounds; and, knowing I had the honour of acquaintance, he wished me to sound you on the subject. He says he gets lots of pot-house accounts of stag, and bag fox-hunting, with harriers, and such like rubbish; but what he wants is real sporting accounts of runs with superior establishments like yours. An editor, you know, can’t be everywhere, or he would like to have a horse in every hunt in the kingdom; but he says if you would have the kindness to furnish off-hand accounts, he would spice them up with learning and Latin. He has ‘Moore’s Dictionary of Quotations,’ and can come the classical quite as strong as the great Mr. Pomponius Ego, whom they reckon the top-sawyer in that line. Some gentlemen, ‘The Life’ says, send their accounts to a third party, to be copied and forwarded as from an indifferent person; but that consumes time without answering a good end, as the utmost secrecy may be relied upon, and ‘The Life’ is most particular in combing them into English. In short, gentlemen unaccustomed to public writing may forward their accounts to him with perfect confidence.

  “You will be sorry to hear the Slender is in trouble. He had long been suspected of certain spiritual runnings, in the shape of an illicit still, at the back of his horse-slaughtering premises in Copenhagen Fields, and an exciseman was despatched last Thursday to watch, and, if necessary, take him. Somehow or other the exciseman has never cast up again, and poor Billy has been taken up on suspicion of having sent him to ‘that bourne from whence no traveller returns.’ I hope he has not, but time will show.

  “Susan Slummers has cut the Cobourg, and got engaged at Sadlers’ Wells, under the name of Clarissa Howard. I said if she was choosing a name, she might as well take a good one: she is to do genteel comedy, and is not to be called upon to paint black or wear tights. Her legs have got rather gummy of late, from too constant strain on the sinews, and the manager wanted to reduce her salary, and Susan kicked in consequence; and this reminds me that I have seen a blister in your stable — James’s or Jones’s, I forget which — that your groom, Benjamin, told me you applied to horses’ legs when they are enlarged. Might I take the liberty of asking if you think it would be beneficially applied in this case?

  “As I presume from a letter I had from Mr. Stobbs the other day that he will be with you by this time, perhaps you will have the kindness to inform him that Mrs. B. will send his ‘baccy’ by the early train tomorrow, along with your Seidlitz powders, so as to make one parcel do. Old Twist’s business is sadly fallen off — my fees have diminished a third — though my twist hasn’t. We have only half the number of pupils we had. That, however, makes no difference to me, as I never got anything from them but sauce. I hope Mrs. and Miss Jorrocks are enjoying the pure air of Handley Cross. We are enjoying a dense yellow fog here — so thick and so damp, that the gas-lights, which have been burning all day, are hardly visible; I tripped over a child at the corner of Chancery Lane, and pitched head foremost into an old chestnut-woman’s roasting oven.

  “By the way, I read an advertisement in a north country paper the other day, of ‘the eatage of the fog in a park to let.’ I wish some one would take the eatage of it here; he’d get a good bellyful, I’m sure. Adieu. Excuse haste and a bad pen, as the pig said when he ran away from the butcher; and believe me to remain,

  “Dear Sir,

  “Yours most respectfully,

  “Wm. Bowker.

  “To John Jorrocks, Esq.

  “Master of Fox-Hounds, &c. &c.

  “Handley Cross Spa.”

  Then before Mr. Jorrocks got half through his city letters and made his pencil observations thereupon — who to do business with, whose respectability to inquire into, who to dun, who to decline dealing with, the gossiping Handley Cross Paul Pry, with its list of arrivals, fashionable millinery, dental surgery advertisements, &c., having passed the ordeal of the kitchen, made its appearance with the following important announcement: —

  “The Handley Cross (Mr. Jorrocks’s) Fox-Hounds

  “Will meet on Wednesday at the Round of Beef and Carrots, Apple-dove-road, and on Saturday at the Mountain Daisy, near Hookey’s Hutch, each day at ten o’clock.

  “N.B. These hounds will hunt and Fridays, with an occasional bye on the Wednesdays in future.”

  “Why you’re advertising, I see!” exclaimed Charley, on reading the above.

  “I am,” replied Mr. Jorrocks, with a grin, “comin’ it strong, arn’t I?”

  “Very,” replied St
obbs, “three days a week — will want a good many horses for that.”

  “O, I sha’n’t be much troubled on the Wednesdays,” rejoined Mr. Jorrocks; “shall jest make that long or short ‘cordin’ as it suits.”

  “But you’ll go out I s’pose,” observed Stobbs.

  “In course,” replied Jorrocks. “In course — only I shall go out at my own hour — may be height, may be sivin, may be as soon as we can see. Not many o’ these waterin’ place birds that’ll get hup for an ‘unt, only ye see as I wants their money, I must give them walue received — or summut like it; but there’s nothing like the mornin’ for makin’ the foxes ery ‘Capevi!’” added he, with a grin of delight.

  “Nothing,” asented Stobbs.

  “We’ll ‘ave some rare chiveys!” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, his eyes glistening as he spoke.

  “Hope so,” replied Stobbs, adding, “let’s give them a trot out to-day.”

  “To-day,” mused our master— “to-day,” repeated he, thrusting his hands deep in his pockets, and then taking a dry shave of his chin— “couldn’t well go out to-day. To-morrow if you like — got a lot o’ letters to write and things to do — not quite right nouther — feel as if I’d eat a hat or a pair o’ worsted stockins.”

  “To-morrow will be too near your regular day,” observed Stobbs.

  “Ah, true, so it would,” assented Mr. Jorrocks, thinking he must attend to appearances at first, at all events.

  “Better give them a round to-day,” continued Stobbs, returning to his point.

  “Not prepared,” mused Jorrocks— “not prepared. Pigg hasn’t got himself ‘fettled oop’ yet, as he calls it.”