by R S Surtees
Thus the world proceeds on the aspiring scale, each man looking to the class a little in advance of his own.
“O knew they but their happiness, of men the happiest” are the sporting country gentlemen who live at home at ease — unvexed alike with the torments of the money-maker and the anxieties of the great, and yet sufficiently informed and refined to be the companions of either — men who see and enjoy nature in all her moods and varieties, and live unfettered with the pomp and vexation of keeping up appearances, envying no one, whoever may envy them. If once a man quits this happy rank to breast the contending billows of party in hopes of rising to the one above it, what a harvest of discord he sows for his own reaping. If a man wants to be thoroughly disgusted with human nature, let him ally himself unreservedly to a political party. He will find cozening and sneaking and selfishness in all their varieties, and patriotic false pretences in their most luxuriant growth. But we are getting in advance of our subject, our thesis being Mr. and Mrs. Wotherspoon.
Our snuffy friend Spoon was not exempt from the ambitious failings of lesser men. His great object of ambition was to get Major Yammerton to visit him — or perhaps to put it more correctly, his great object of ambition was to visit Major Yammerton. But then, unfortunately, it requires two parties to these bargains; and Mrs. Yammerton wouldn’t agree to it, not so much because old Spoon had been a butler, but because his wife (our pen splutters as it writes the objection) his wife had been a — a — housekeeper. A handsome housekeeper she was, too, when she first came into the country; so handsome, indeed, that Dicky Boggledike had made two excursions over to their neighbour, Farmer Flamstead, to see her, and had reported upon her very favourably to the noble Earl his august master.
Still Mrs. Yammerton wouldn’t visit her. In vain Mrs. Wotherspoon sent her bantams’ eggs, and guinea fowls’ eggs, and cuttings from their famous yellow rose-tree; in vain old Spoon got a worn-out horse, and invested his nether man in white cords and top boots to turn out after the harriers; in vain he walked a hound in summer, and pulled down gaps, and lifted gates off their hinges in winter — it all only produced thanks and politeness. The Yammertons and they were very good How-do-you-do? neighbours, but the true beef-and-mutton test of British friendship was wanting. The dinner is the thing that signs and seals the acquaintance.
Thus they had gone on from summer to summer, and from season to season, until hope deferred had not only made old Spoon’s heart sick, but had also seen the white cords go at the knees, causing him to retire his legs into the military-striped cinnamon-coloured tweeds in which he appears in:
In addition to muffling his legs, he had begun to mutter and talk about giving up hunting, — getting old, — last season — and so on, which made the Major think he would be losing one of the most personable of his field. This made him pause and consider how to avert the misfortune. Hunted hares he had sent him in more than regular rotation: he had liquored him repeatedly at the door; the ladies had reciprocated the eggs and the cuttings, with dahlias, and Sir Harry strawberry runners; and there really seemed very little left about the place wherewith to propitiate a refractory sportsman. At this critical juncture, a too confiding hare was reported by Cicely Bennett, farmer Merry field’s dairymaid, to have taken up her quarters among some tussuckey brambles at the north-east corner of Mr. Wotherspoon’s cow pasture — a most unusual, indeed almost unprecedented circumstance, which was communicated by Wotherspoon in person to the Major at the next meet of the hounds at Girdle Stone Green, and received with unfeigned delight by the latter.
“You don’t say so!” exclaimed he, wringing the old dandy’s hand; “you don’t say so!” repented he, with enthusiasm, for hares were scarce, and the country good; in addition to which the Major knew all the gaps.
“I do,” replied Spoon, with a confident air, that as good as said, you may take my word for anything connected with hunting.
“Well, then, I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” rejoined the Major, poking him familiarly in the ribs with his whip, “I’ll tell you what we’ll do; we’ll have a turn at her on Tuesday — meet at your house, eh? what say you to that?”
“With all my heart,” responded the delighted Wotherspoon, adding, in the excitement of the moment, “S’pose you come to breakfast?”
“Breakfast,” gasped the Major, feeling he was caught. “Dash it, what would Mrs. Yammerton say? Breakfast!” repeated he, running the matter through his mind, the wigging of his wife, the walk of his hound, the chance of keeping the old boy to the fore if he went — go he would. “With all my heart,” replied he, dashing boldly at the oiler; for it’s of no use a man saying he’s engaged to breakfast, and the Major felt that if the worst came to the worst, it would only be to eat two, one at home, the other with Spoon.
So it was settled, much to Mr. and Mrs. Wotherspoon’s satisfaction, who were afterwards further delighted to hear that our friend Billy had returned, and would most likely be of the party. And most assiduously they applied themselves to provide for this, the great event of their lives.
CHAPTER LIV. MR. WITHERSPOON’S DEJEUNER À LA FOURCHETTE.
IVY BANK ‘Power (formerly caled Cow gate Hill), the seat of Jeames Wotherspoon Esquire, stands on a gentle eminence about a stone’s throw from the Horseheath and Hinton turnpike road, and looks from the luxuriance of its ivy, like a great Jack-in-the-green. Ivy is a troublesome thing, for it will either not grow at all or it grows far too fast, and Wotherspoon’s had rairly overrun the little angular red brick, red tiled mansion, and helped it to its new name of Ivy Bank Tower. If the ivy flourished, however, it was the only thing about the place that did; for Wotherspoon was no farmer, and the 75a,:5r. 18p, of which the estate consisted, was a very uninviting looking property. Indeed Wotherspoon was an illustration of the truth of Sydney Smith’s observation that there are three things which every man thinks he ean do, namely, drive a gig, edit a newspaper, and farm a small property, and Spoon bought Cowgate Hill thinking it would “go of itself.” as they say of a horse, and that in addition to the rent he would get the farmer’s profit as well, which he was told ought to be equal to the rent. Though he had the Farmers’ Almanack, he did not attend much to its instructions, for if Mrs. Wotherspoon wanted the Fe-a-ton, as she called it, to gad about the country in, John Strong, the plough-boy footman “loused” his team, and arraying himself in a chocolate-coloured coat, with a red striped vest and black velveteens, left the other horse standing idle for the day. So Spoon sometimes caught the season and sometimes he lost it; and the neighbours used to hope that he hadn’t to live by his land. If he caught the season he called it good management; if he didn’t he laid the blame upon the weather, just as a gardener takes the credit for all the good crops of fruit, and attributes the failures to the seasons. Still Spoon was not at all sensible of his deficiencies, and subscribed a couple of guineas a year to the Harrowford Agricultural Society, in return for which he always had the toast of the healths of the tenant farmers assigned to him, which he handled in a very magnificent and condescending way, acknowledging the obligations the landowners were under to them, and hoping the happy union would long subsist to their mutual advantage; indeed, if he could only have got the words out of his mouth as fast as he got the drink into it, there is no saying but he might some day have filled the presidential chair.
Now, however, a greater honour even than that awaited him, namely, the honour of entertaining the great Major Yammerton to breakfast. To this end John Strong was first set to clean the very dirty windows, then to trim the ivy and polish the brass knocker at the door, next to dig the border, in which grew the famous yellow rose, and finally to hoe and rake the carriage-drive up to the house; while Mrs. Wotherspoon, aided by Sally Brown, her maid-of-all-work, looked out the best blue and gold china, examined the linen, selected a tongue, guillotined the poultry, bespoke the eggs, and arranged the general programme of the entertainment.
The Major thought himself very sly, and that he was doing the thing very cleverly
by nibbling and playing with his breakfast on the appointed morning, instead of eating voraciously as usual; but ladies often know a good deal more than they pretend to do, and Mrs. Yammerton had seen a card from Mrs. Wotherspoon to their neighbour, Mrs. Broadfurrow, of Blossomfield Farm, inviting Broadfurrow and her to a “déjeuner à la fourvhette” to meet Major Yammerton and see the hounds. However, Mrs. Yammerton kept the fact to herself, thinking she would see how her Major would manoeuvre the matter, and avoid a general acquaintance with the Wotherspoons. So she merely kept putting his usual viands before him, to try to tempt him into indulgence; but the Major, knowing the arduous part he would have to perform at the Tower, kept rejecting all her insidious overtures for eating, pretending he was not altogether right. “Almond pudding hadn’t agreed with him,” he thought. “Never did — should have known better than take it,” and so on.
Our dawdling hero rather discontented his host, for instead of applying himself sedulously to his breakfast, he did nothing but chatter and talk to the young ladies, as if there was no such important performance before them as a hare to pursue, or the unrivalled harriers to display. he took cup after cup, as though he had lost his reckoning, and also the little word “no” from his vocabulary. At length the Major got him raised from the table, by telling him they had two miles farther to go than they really had, and making for the stable, they found Solomon and the footman whipper-in ready to turn out with the hounds. Up went our sportsmen on to their horses, and forth came the hounds wriggling and frolicking with joy. The cavalcade being thus formed, they proceeded across the fields, at the back of the house, and were presently passing up the Hollington Lane. The gift grey was the first object of interest as soon as they got well under way, and the Major examined him attentively, with every desire to find fault.
“Neatish horse,” at length observed he, half to himself, half to our friend; “neatish horse — lightish of bone below the knee, p’raps, but still by no means a bad shaped ‘un.”
Still though the Major could’nt hit off the fault, he was pretty sure there was a screw loose somewhere, to discover which he now got Billy to trot the horse, aud cauter him, and gallop him, successively.
“Humph!” grunted he, as he returned after a brush over the rough ground of Farthingfield Moor; “he has the use of his legs — gets well away; easy horse under you, I dessay?” asked he.
Billy said he was, for he could pull him about anywhere; saying which he put him boldly at a water furrow, and lauded handsomely on the far side.
“Humph!” grunted the Major again, muttering to himself, “May be all right — but if he is, it’s devilish unlike the Baronet, giving him. Wish he would take that confounded moon-eyed brute of mine and give me my forty puns back.”
“And he gave him ye, did he?” asked the Major, with a scrutinising stare at our friend.
“Why — yarse — no — yarse — not exactly,” replied Billy, hesitating. “The fact is, he offered to give me him. and I didn’t like taking him, and so, after a good deal to do, he said I might give him fifty pounds for him, and pay him when it suited me.”
“I twig,” replied the Major, adding, “then you have to pay fifty pounds for him, eh?”
“Or return him,” replied Billy, “or return him. He made me promise if over I wanted to part with him, I would give him the refusal of him again.”
“Humph!” grunted the Major, looking the horse over attentively. “Fifty puns,” muttered he to himself,— “must be worth that if he’s sound, and only eight off. Wouldn’t mind giving fifty for him myself,” thought he; “must be something wrong about him — certain of that — or Sir Moses wouldn’t have parted with him;” with which firm conviction, and the full determination to find out the horse’s weak point, the Major trotted along the Bodenham Road, through the little hamlet of Maywood, thence across Faulder the cattle jobber’s farm, into the Heath-field Road at Gilden Bridge. A quarter of a mile further, and Mr. Wotherspoon’s residence was full in sight.
The “Tower” never, perhaps, showed to greater advantage than it did on this morning, for a bright winter’s sun lit up the luxuriant ivy on its angular, gable-ended walls, nestling myriads of sparrows that flew out in flocks at the approach of each visitor.
“What place is this?” asked our hero, as, at a jerk of the Major’s head, Solomon turned off the road through the now propped-open gate of the approach to the mansion.
“Oh, this is where we meet,” replied the Major; “this is Mr. Wotherspoon’s, the gentleman you remember out with us the day we had the famous run when we lost the hare at Mossheugh Law — the farm by the moor, you know, where the pretty woman was churning — you remember, eh?”
“O, ah!” repeated Billy: “but I thought they called his place a Tower, — Ivy something Tower,” thinking this was more like two great sentry boxes placed at right angles, and covered with ivy than anything else.
“Well, yes; he calls this a Tower,” replied the Major, seeing by Billy’s face that his friend had not risen in his estimation by the view of his mansion. “Capital feller Spoon, though,” continued he, “must go in and pay our respects to him and his lady.” So saying, he turned off the road upon the closely eaten sward, and, calling to Solomon to stop and let the hounds have a roll on the grass, he dismounted, and gave his horse in charge of a fustian-clad countryman, telling him to walk him about till he returned, and he would remember him for his trouble. Our friend Billy did the same, and knocking the mud sparks off his boots against the well pipe-clayed door-steps, prepared to enter the Tower. Before inducting them, however, let us prepare the inmates for their reception.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Wotherspoon had risen sufficiently early to enable them to put the finishing stroke to their respective arrangements, and then to apparel themselves for the occasion. They were gorgeously attired, vieing with the rainbow in the colour of their clothes. Old Spoon, indeed, seemed as if he had put all the finery on he could raise, and his best brown cauliflower wig shone resplendent with Macassar oil. He had on a light brown coat with a rolling velvet collar, velvet facings and cuffs, with a magnificent green, blue, and yellow striped tartan velvet vest, enriched with red cornelian buttons, and crossed diagonally with a massive Brazilian gold chain, and the broad ribbon of his gold double-eye-glasses. He sported a light blue satin cravat, an elaborately worked ruby-studded shirt front, over a pink flannel vest, with stiff wrist-bands well turned up, showing the magnificence of his imitation India garnet buttons. On his clumsy fingers he wore a profusion of rings — a brilliant cluster, a gold and opal, a brilliant and sapphire, an emerald half-hoop ring, a massive mourning, and a signet ring, — six in all, — genuine or glass as the case might be, equally distributed between the dirty-nailed fingers of each hand. His legs were again encased in the treacherous white cords and woe-begone top-boots that were best under the breakfast table. He had drawn the thin cords on very carefully, hoping they would have the goodness to hang together for the rest of the day.
Mrs. Wotherspoon was bedizened with jewellery and machinery lace. She wore a rich violet-coloured velvet dress, with a beautiful machinery lace chemisette, fastened down the front with large Cairngorum buttons, the whole connected with a diminutive Venetian chain, which contrasted with the massive mosaic one that rolled and rattled upon her plump shoulders. A splendid imitation emerald and brilliant brooch adorned her bust, while her well-rounded arms were encircled with a mosaic gold, garnet and turquoise bracelet, an imitation rose diamond one, intermixed with pearl, a serpent armlet with blood-stone eyes, a heavy jet one, and an equally massive mosaic gold one with a heart’s ease padlock. Though in the full development of womanhood, she yet distended her figure with crinoline, to the great contraction of her room.
The two had scarcely entered the little parlour, some twelve feet square, and Spoon got out his beloved Morning Post, ere Mr. and Mrs. Broadfurrow were seen wending their way up the road, at the plodding diligent sort of pace an agricultural horse goes when put into harness; and fo
rthwith the Wotherspoons dismissed the last anxieties of preparation, and lapsed into the easy, unconcerned host and hostess. When John Strong threw open the door, and announced Mr. and Mrs. Broadfurrow, they were discovered standing over the fire, as if d’ejeuner à la fourchette giving was a matter of every day’s occurrence with them. Then, at the summons, they turned and came forward in the full glow of cordiality, and welcomed their guests with all the fervour of sincerity; and when Mrs. Wotherspoon mounted the weather for a trot with Mrs. Broadfurrow, old Spoon out with his engine-turned gold snuff-box, and offered Broadfurrow a pinch ere he threw his conversation into the columns of his paper. The offer being accepted, Wotherspoon replenished his own nose, and then felt ready for anything. He was in high feather. He sunk his favourite topic, the doings of the House of Lords, and expatiated upon the Princess Royal’s then approaching marriage. Oh, dear, he was so glad. He was so glad of it — glad of it on every account — glad of it on the Princess’s account — glad of it on her most gracious Majesty’s account. Bless her noble heart! it almost made him feel like an old man when he remembered the Prince Consort leading her to the hymeneal altar herself. Well, well, life was life, and he had seen as much of it as most men; and just as he was going to indulge in some of his high-flown reminiscences, the crack of a hunting whip sounded through the house, and farmer Nettlefold’s fat figure, attired in the orthodox green coat and white cords of the Major Yammerton’s hunt was seen piled on a substantial brown cob, making his way to the stables at the back of the Tower. Mr. Nettlefold, who profanely entered by the back door, was then presently announced, and the same greetings having been enacted towards him, Wotherspoon made a bold effort to get back to the marriage, beginning with “As I was observing,” when farmer Rintoul came trotting up on his white horse, and holloaed out to know if he could get him put up.
