by R S Surtees
Sure enough there was Dickey — Dickey in a canter too, for Benjamin, by the aid of what the old “stage coachmen” called a “short tommy,” had succeeded in getting Dickey into motion, who, with the now much lightened vehicle, came jingling along at a sort of donkey’s canter, with Benjamin grinning in the driving-seat.
“Cut along, Binjimin! cut along!” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, waving his arm onwards towards the castle; but Dickey was one of your regular marplots, and came to a standstill immediately opposite his master and fair friend.
“Oh, but you’re a beast!” grinned Mr. Jorrocks with vexation, “do get him out o’ the way, Binjimin, for the dust he raises is quite obfuscatin’, and Mrs. Flather here’s got her Sunday gown on, and not never no cloak, nor nothin’ to protect it.”
Benjamin didn’t like showing the short tommy to his master, so he hit on another expedient for making Dickey go. Leaning over the splashboard, he took off his hat, and rattling his hand in it, produced a noise like distant thunder at Dickey’s tail, who, cocking his ears, set off at a canter which very soon bore him out of sight.
“Cute bouy that Binjimin,” said Mr. Jorrocks, eyeing the receding vehicle with delight, “he’s up to snaff. ‘ Nice wehicle, too,” continued he, following it with his eye. “Had it a long time — done me a deal o’ work. Charley Stubbs, wot married my niece Belinda — as neat a little trout as ever you set eyes on — christen’d it the fire-engine; or, rayther,.one of them sarcy toll-takers on Vaterloo Bridge christen’d it so; but, howsomever, they never could put me out o’ conceit on it, and there it is, and there it isn’t,” concluded he, as it passed out of sight, where the road wound round a clump of trees. “ reckons the coachmaker’s trade’s a particklar good ‘un,” observed Mr. Jorrocks thoughtfully; “almost equal to the possession o’ the philosopher’s stone, for they certainlie do conwert wood and iron into gold in a most mirakilous manner. Nothin’ under a hundred and thirty-eight guineas for elliptics, and a hundred and eighty-five for C springs; and yet if you takes them a boobey hutch back, they’ll hardly give you thirteen for it: offer you ten, p’raps. I gave eight for that; you couldn’t have a nicer one for sweet-’eartin’ in, or no manner o’ purpose, though it has neither ornamented lamps, nor a double’-compass’d dashin’ iron. Crikey, vot a shop!” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, breaking off in his discourse, as the whole castle front, with its terraces and towers, stood full before them. “Vot can a man do with so much ‘ouse room as all that: I wonder now if he pays winder tax on all them funny little pigeon ‘oles, and crosses, and things wot are stuck all about the towers. I reckon the Lumber Troop, or even the City Light ‘Oss, would look uncommon blue if they’d been order’d to ‘take’ that castle! Fancy a panful o’ ‘of lead comin’ down on one’s cocoa-nut from one of them ‘igh places, such as one reads of in Clarendon’s ‘I story of the Rebellion, or Marryat’s Jacob Faithful, I doesn’t mind whether.” Mr. Jorrocks stood staring.
“Oh! but the hart o’ love’s far afore the hart o’ war, isn’t it, my little dack?” continued he, moving on again, with a squeeze of the arm of Mrs. Flather.
“Them ‘ill be the gardens to the left, where I sees all the glass a glitterin’ through the trees,” observed Mr. Jorrocks, pointing them out to his fair friend. “It don’t seem much out of our way now to take them as we go to the castle, and if there’s a short cut, I’ll be bound to say I find it. Let’s see ’ow the enemy goes.”
Having pulled out his great ticker and forgot to look at it, he felt a sudden conviction that a few gusberries before dinner would do them both an infinite deal of good, especially himself, having, as he said, a slight tendency to headache, from having incautiously taken a thimbleful of indifferent brandy the previous evening; that’s to say, from having had a glass too much.
His company was so agreeable that Mrs. Flather could not refuse, so leaving the carriage-road, they struck up a path across the park to the left, leading apparently in the direction of the garden.
“Nothin’ like fox-’unting,” observed Mr. Jorrocks, “for makin’ chaps cunnin’ about country. Now your reg’lar Cockney chaps never think there’s a shorter way than by the road, and go trudgin’ jest the same way as they go on ‘oss-back. James Green, now, for instance, though he saw the glass a glitterin’, would have gone to the castle, knocked, at the door, and axed which was the way to the garden, instead of settin’ off on a woyage of discovery like you and I are a doin’. To be sure an agreeable companion makes any place plisant, and I never thinks of poor Hadam alone in his beautiful garden and plisure grounds, without feelin’ a sort o’ compassion for him. To be sure he lived in good times, no income-tax — no ‘oss-’air pettikits; but then, on the other ‘and, he had no ‘unting. When you marry again, Mrs. Mather, marry a fox-’unter,” said ha “O my dear Mr. Jorrocks, I’ve given up all idea of anything of that sort,” replied Mrs. Mather who at length got a word in sideways, “my poor dear children occupy my only thoughts in this world.”
“Fiddle-de-dee,!” replied Mr. Jorrocks, squeezing her arm more violently than before—” never say that — a nice comely little woman like you — for shame of yourself — you’re any man’s money — any man’s, at least, wot knows the good pints of a woman.”
“O Mr. Jorrocks, you flatter!”
“Never such a thing! never such a thing!” retorted our gallant Squire, waxing warm, “I wow” —
“There ain’t no road this way, my old covey,” roared a green and yellow watcher (who, unseen to our friends, had dodged them for some time), right into Mr. Jorrocks’s ear.
“B — your imperence!” screamed Mr. Jorrocks, doubling his fists, and putting himself into an attitude of defence before his trembling friend. “B — your imperence, I say! you confounded rebellious-looking ruffian, I’ll knock you neck and croup into the middle o’ the week after next, and spit you like a sparrow afore the fire. Vot do you take me for?”
“Take you for!” repeated the man, “why, a trespasser to be sure — may be a poacher, looking after our leverets.
A regular snaring-looking chap,” continued the man, eyeing the Jorrockian jacket pockets.
“I’ll snarin’-lookin’ chap you,” roared Mr. Jorrocks; “stop till I gets to the castle, and I’ll let you see who you’ve been insultin’ of” —
The man looked foolish, and thinking he might have made a mistake, pretended to be taken by the sight of some one else in the distance, and hurried away, with a view of watching their manoeuvres again. Mr. Jorrocks’s equanimity was soon restored, and before the keeper was out of sight, his feathers were down, and he was arm-in-arming it with Mrs. Flather over the green sward as before.
The sombre tint of a massive yew-tree-lined walk led the eye onwards to the garden, which they entered by a triumphal arch through the gardener’s house. The garden was an immense place, five or six acres at least within the walls, with forcing and succession houses of every sort and kind. Vineries, pineries, peach houses, melon frames, and cucumber beds, without end. A dozen gardeners were lounging about, some with watering-pots, some with spades, some with fruit, some with vegetables, some with their hands in their pockets.
“They must be werry fond o’ fruit,” observed Mr. Jorrocks, as, Mrs. Flather on arm, he stood eyeing the premises and retinue. “Wegetable diet altogether, one would think, judging by the quantity they grow. S’pose we have a bunch o’ grapes,” added he, advancing towards a glass-house. “Oh! I declare it’s a pinery! real pines agrowin’ quite natural, instead of perched on plates, as one sees them in Common Garden, or Bond Street. Sarcy meat there, I guess — a guinea at least — howsomever, we’ll have our rewenge here, and get one for nothin’.” Thereupon our worthy friend opened the door, and having selected an exceedingly fine pine, rejoined Mrs. Flather, who waited his return outside. “Where there’s ceremony, there’s no friendship, I always says,” observed he, diving into the lower pocket of the Jorrockian jacket, and producing a large pruning-knife, wherewith he cut off the bottom of
the pine as he held it by the top in the other hand. “There now,” said he, paring and presenting Mrs. Flather with a most liberal slice, “eat that, and then we’ll take a turn at the gusberries.”
Mr. Jorrocks then cut and commenced eating a similar slice himself.
“Werry good,” said he, munching and eating away. “Werry good indeed — fine-flavoured — ripe — juicy — declare the juice’s a-runnin’ down my chin.”
A very important-looking personage, who, but for the attendance of a couple of followers with flower sticks and bass matting, Mr. Jorrocks might have taken for the Duke of Donkeyton himself, now bore upon them right up the centre of the walk. “This is Mr. Tuliptree, the head gardener,” whispered Mrs. Flather, seeing her companion was rather puzzled.
“Indeed!” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, resuming his wonted gaiety, and staring most unceremoniously — a feat that Mr. Tuliptree was perfectly equal to; for, making a dead halt before them, he stood making an apparent mental calculation whether the rum-looking figures he saw could possibly be Castle company or not.
“Yell, old Cabbage-stalk!” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks as they met, “’ow are you, this fine weather?— ‘ow’s Mr. Stalk, and all the little Sprouts?” —
Mr. Tuliptree stared.
“You grow grand pines,” continued he, holding the half finished one up to Mr. Tuliptree’s nose. “Excellent, I may say; but there’s an old sayin’, and it’s a werry true un, too much puddin’ ‘ill choke a dog, and too much pine ‘ill do the same by a gen’lman, so now show us the way to your best gusberry bushes — not your great overgrown prize sorts, all skin and seeds, what have no more flavour nor a turnip, but some o’ the nice little prickly old-fashioned sort, scarlet or green — you know wot I mean, old buoy.”
“Pray, sir, may I ask if you’re staying at the Castle?” inquired Mr. Tuliptree.
“Goin’ to” replied Mr. Jorrocks, taking another cut at the pine; “but first,” said he, “give me a bit o’ that bass mattin’, and get me a cabbage leaf, for I really think I shall be makin’ myself sick with this pine, and that would have a werry nasty appearance, you know, old Cabbage-stalk, not to say ungenteel; there now,” said he, when he had got what he wanted, “we’ll tie it up, and so keep it fresh, and maybe i’ the mornin’ I may like to take another cut at it;” so saying Mr. Jorrocks popped the remainder of the pine into the lower Jorrockian jacket-pocket, leaving the top of it sticking above the diagonal pocket hole. —
Mr. Tuliptree was posed; but having seen some queerlooking customers at the Castle, who afterwards turned out to be lords, he thought he had best put on his servitude manners, which he immediately did, and most obsequiously led the way to the gooseberry bushes.
Mr. Jorrocks then fell to.
“Our old gal ‘ill be a-wonderin’ wot’s got me,” observed Mr. Jorrocks at length, gathering a parting handful of gooseberries, and thinking what a wigging he was running the risk of.. “‘Ark! there’s the clock — one — two — three — four — five — six — six as I live — my vig — there’s a go — they’ll be a-sittin’ down to dinner without us — tempus fuggit, money flies certainly.”
“Oh, they don’t dine till seven,” observed Mrs. Flather, “and I think the Castle’s not far off — there used to be a bridge somewhere about here, between it and the garden, I think, over a brook, if I recollect right.”
“Ah, you ‘ill be it!” replied Mr. Jorrocks, pointing to a bridge a little way off, nearly obscured by foliage—” the Castle can’t be werry far off, or that clock must be own brother to the one at Saint Paul’s. Well, I’d a deal rayther walk in these nice shady humbrageous walks with sich a sweet hen-angel as you, nor go and stuff wenison and fizzy with my Lord Dukeship up there — deary me now, it’s been jest these sort o’ summer, sunshiny valks that Dean Swift meant when he talked ‘bout the greenest spot on memory’s waste. Ah! it must be a plisant waste wot’s a covered with sich spots. There’s a deal o’ plisant sentiment I always thinks in them nice lines o’ Peter Pindar’s:
‘And say, without our ‘opes, without our fears,
Without the joy wot plighted love endears,
Without the smile from partial beauty won,
O vot were man? a vorld without a sun!’
“Ain’t there, my darlin’?” asked Mr. Jorrocks, looking under Mrs. Flather’s bonnet, and squeezing her hand as it rested on his arm, a pressure, we are shocked to say, Mrs. Flather slightly returned.
Mr. J. then kissed her.
“You and I’ll ride ‘ome together” said the steady old gentleman, beginning to puff as the ascent of the hill announced their approach to the Castle. Presently they were on the terrace.
Those who have stood on the ramparts of the city of Berne — the Aar at their feet — and the setting sun shedding a roseate hue over the snow-clad encircling Alps, can form an idea of the splendour of the scene from the terrace of Donkeyton Castle, inferior of course in magnificence, but wonderful when found in our not over picturesque country of England. Mr. Jorrocks, however, was not much of a man for scenery, and Mrs. Flather was too busy thinking of her reception from the Duchess and other things, to give it a thought, so they turned to the massive, richly-carved portico of the Castle to await the answer to the summons of the bell. —
“The chap must have had a wast o’ grandfathers, as D — h R — e would say,” observed Mr. Jorrocks, eyeing the many time-worn shields studding the walls of the centre tower, the arms on some of which were mouldering into decay.
“I’d take them old things down if I was the Duke, and put up some pretty images — shepherds and shepherdesses, Wenuses, or Diannas, or things o’ that sort, summut more in the taste of the times — might have them in wood or Mulgrave cement, if he didn’t like to go to the expense o’ carvin’ in marble or stone.”
A fat porter in state livery — his pea-green coat and yellow waistcoat almost concealed with gold lace, and a court bag to his collar, opened the massive door to admit our guests into the hall. Here they were met by two gigantic footmen similarly attired, and the groom of the chamber in full dress. —
“You cut it fat here, old bouy,” observed Mr. Jorrocks, handing his hat to the porter and a glove to each footman, “‘ope you don’t injure yourselves with work. These chaps, observed Mr. Jorrocks to Mrs. Flather, “are jest like wot the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs o’ London ‘ave.”
“What name shall I say, sir?” asked the groom of the chamber in the politest manner possible, motioning them across the lofty baronial hall, the stained glass of the deeply mullioned windows casting a variety of shades over the armour, and banner-displaying rafters of the oak ceiling and walls.—’
“MR. JORROCKS, to be sure,” exclaimed our hero, “who else should it be? Mr. Jorrocks and Mrs. Flather, in fact.”
Passing onwards into what would be a large room for a house, though a small one for a castle, the groom of the chamber opened a lofty door on the right, and ushered them into a sixty by thirty feet library, fitted up in the extreme of Gothic style; old oak chairs, old oak tables, old oak sofas, Old oak screens, old oak wainscoting half up the walls — at least half up those that were not covered with old oak bookcases. —
“Mr and Mrs. Jorrocks, your Grace,” whispered the well-trained menial in the low funereal sort of voice that distinguishes the servants of the nobility from the name in angling brawlers of High Life Below Stairs, as his Grace reclined in a luxuriously-cushioned, richly-carved black oak chair, taking a skim of the Morning Chronicle.
Down went the paper, and up got his Grace. He was a fine, tall, noble-looking man, quite bald, with a little snow-white hair behind, and full whiskers and beard under his chin. Indeed, he looked as though the hair had been scraped off his head and made into a fringe for his face. There was a glow of health upon his countenance, and a straightness in his gait that took considerably from his age, which (on the wrong side of sixty) might, with the aid of Persian dye to his “snow wreaths,” have passed for five and forty or fifty. He w
as dressed in a black frock-coat and waistcoat, with drab trousers, and wore eye-glasses affixed to a massive gold chain across his waistcoat.
“How do you do, Mr. Jorrocks? I’m very happy to see you,” said his Grace, offering his hand, and bowing very low.
“How do you do, Mrs. Jorrocks? I’m monstrous happy to make your acquaintance,” continued his Grace, extending a hand of fellowship to her, his naturally misty memory making him forget that he had greeted Mrs. Jorrocks not very long before, who was since gone with the Duchess to her bedroom.
“This is Mrs. Flather, your Grace,” observed Mr. Jorrocks, after their hands were released, “she’s corned with me” — adding, with a sly look and shake of his head, “nothin’ wrong though, I assure you.”
“Ah, true!” exclaimed his Grace, pretending the evening shades had dimmed his vision, and seizing Mrs. Flather again by the hand, “My old friend, Mrs. Flather, to be sure, I’m very glad indeed to see you;” adding, “and where’s my old friend, your husband; he’s coming, I hope?”
