by R S Surtees
“all the white bonnets were over the border,”
again, and John Crop was honoured with a perfect ovation as he passed up the Mews.
Sally Saunders the washerwoman, threw an old shoe after him; Billy Booth, the knife-grinder, ceased his discordant noise and grinned extensively; Mrs. Codling, the greengrocer, offered Crop a bushel of apples for his bargain; Jessey Ford and Lucy Grove, the jobbing milliners and dress-makers, clapped their hands and exclaimed, “Those’ll be the swells we saw! — those’ll be the swells we saw!” While Tomkins, the badgeless cabman, hallood out, “I say, sur! is your gov’nor fond o’ valking?”
Crop jerked his head, and tried to look unconcerned, putting it all down to their low back-woodsman-like ignorance. They knew nothing of May Fair. Meanwhile Mr. Bunting having seen the exchange effected, regained his cab and drove off to the station to order the horse-box. built, as George Robins used to say, “regardless of expense,” the architect having apparently taken his idea of the edifice from some scene in the Arabian Nights entertainment. Hence, the splendid dividend of two-pence-halfpenny a share, so complacently announced by the chairman, as shown in the picture of “The Railway Meeting” in that inimitable work, the “Manners and Customs of the English.” If poor George Stephenson had ventured to shadow forth such a gigantic structure in the early days of railways, he would have been “pooh-pooh’d,” and requested not to make a fool of himself; so vast is its space, and interminable its limits. No need of mirrors or artificial means to magnify or reproduce its dimensions. It is startling as it stands. Since, however, the dividends, originally pitched at two hundred and fifty per cent., have dwindled down to two-pence-half-penny, the directors have been endeavouring to rectify their original error by curtailing the working establishment, and instead of having two men — one to help the other to do nothing, as formerly they had — they put the work of two men upon one; so that unless a traveller looks a little to himself, he stands a chance of being only indifferently served. If the majority of railways had been constructed with anything like ordinary prudence and economy, they would have been sources of wealth to the shareholders, and the public might have travelled for half what they now do. As it was, it was believed that their resources were boundless, and every species of folly and extravagance was indulged in. That, however, by way of parenthesis.
When Mr. Bunting arrived at the Great Golconda Station, expecting to have a horse-box supplied as quickly as he would a shilling’s worth of heads at a club, he found there was a good deal of holloaing and shouting, and shifting of work from one person to another. There is nothing so unbusinesslike as a great deal of noise. At length the little caravan was got up to the tramway, the compartment let down, and the willing horses were punched into the box like bullocks. Up then went the side, and nothing further was seen of Owen Ashford but his eye. Tickets were taken, cabs and carriages began to roll into the yard, and presently the engine came hissing down from its house. Meanwhile Mr. Bunting proceeded to give his parting directions to the groom — fearing before to trust him with two sets at a time. The only difficulty he anticipated was that of the man-boy finding his way from the Curleyford Station, where he had to stop, to Burton St. Leger; to obviate which Mr. Bunting had taken a tracing off the county map on to a piece of foreign letter paper, which he now presented to Crop, pointing out to him what to hit, miss, or avoid, in a very blind-leading-the-blind sort of way. “You’ll have no difficulty,” said he, ‘‘you’ll have no difficulty,” repeated he, folding the paper, after mystifying himself and giving it to Crop, who forthwith transferred it to his hat along with his kerchief and a slice of bread and cheese.
Just then Mr. Dick Dawdler, who has the same sort of mania for seeing trains start that some gentlemen of old used to have for seeing the mails leave the White Horse Cellar or the Peacock at Islington, strolled up and claimed our hero’s acquaintance, almost making him forget, in the midst of Dawdler’s sage observations about the weather — what it had been, what it was going to be, what it was last year, — to tell Crop to order him apartments at the Cornwallis Hotel, and have a fly to meet him by the Express train that evening.
The bell then rang. “Take your seats! Please take your scats!” resounded along the platform; late comers rushed frantically in, hollowing out “Stop!” as though they were left behind. A battue of doors sounded from end to end, a shrill whistle followed, and away went the long train, hissing and snorting like an exasperated crocodile. The last joint of its tail having disappeared at the turn, porters again stood at ease, strangers retired, and the Golconda Station sunk into a state of temporary repose.
CHAPTER LXII.
BURTON ST. LEGER.
BURTON ST. LEGER was a large place, or rather a small one stretched out into a large one, just as a goldbeater hammers a small piece of the precious metal into a large circumference, or a little moth of a woman distends herself into a hay-stack with crinoline. It was a longitudinal square, bisected with gravelly cross-roads, round whose spacious green area some spirited individual had planted unhappy-looking limes, in hopes of seeing them emulate the large oaks and elms with which the town, or rather village, outskirts was surrounded. These were now made more visible in leafless winter by the spars and thorns with which their stems were encased to protect them from the cattle and idle boys. The town being purely agricultural, the houses and cottages stood at respectful distances from each other; each seeming to be what the villa agents call “self-contained,” instead of huddled together, dependent on one another for support. There cannot perhaps be a greater contrast to the now thatched, now blue-roofed, now stone-slated miscellany of houses and cottages constituting a real straggling country village than the long monotonous repetitions of dwellings containing a window, a numbered door, and a peep-hole, peculiar to a mining one. The former always look healthy and nice, while the latter too often present a combination of mud, tawdry squalor, and unbecoming finery Burton St. Leger was a real country place, where the women wore bedgowns and went to the well themselves, instead of sending those wretched children-servants the mining population so delight to employ.
After the pear-tree covered parsonage, and the red brick fox-hunting farmer, Mr. Buckwheat’s residence, the Lord Cornwallis Inn was decidedly the most imposing-looking house in the place, being bow-windowed and blue-roofed, with white rails set in the stone coping of a low wall in front. Here on a summer’s evening the rural parliament would assemble and talk over matters quite as important to them as those that are discussed at St. Stephen’s — how Mrs. Manby managed her husband; how Luke Brown had been out poaching again; how Giles Summerbell had got forty shillings for his barley, while Tom Crosier had “nabbut getten” thirty-eight, and other equally important rural and agricultural matters. In the old ploughing days of posting, the Lord Cornwallis Inn was a sleeping house, and many great people have reposed in its old tapestried state apartment; but when roads began to mend, people found they could run through from High-green to Mayfield, and the Marquisate business began to decline. First his lordship’s cocked hat and wig on the sign went, then his coat, and lastly the effigy, like the marquisate itself, disappeared altogether. The name of the house, at the time of our tale, was only represented by a once sparkling blue board, having on it the following inscription in somewhat lack-lustre letters: —
MATTHEW MÜLDOON,
LICENSED VICTUALLER, JOB AND POST MASTER.
MEAT WINS, MEAT POSTCHAISES, &C.
But though the name of the master appeared on the sign, the business of the house was in fact entirely conducted by his wife, Mrs. Muldoon, Matty haying long retired from business and devoted himself entirely to drinking — being always to be found at the receipt of custom in the bar, with his clay-pipe, ready to give or take glasses with any one. The taste for giving “glasses” among the lower orders seems to correspond with that of giving dinners among the higher ones, many people being willing to give glasses and dinners who would be very sorry to give the other party the money the gl
asses or dinners would cost. The dinners we can understand, because there is the gratification of display; but what pleasure there can be in seeing human beings reduce themselves to a level with the animal creation, by gulping down glass after glass of liquid fire, does seem to us to be rather incomprehensible. Nevertheless, Matty was always at it: never incapacitated by the quantity he had taken, but as ready to accept the hospitality of the last man as he had been of the first. Thus he had gone on year after year for many years, and though his corporation had increased and his legs spindled, while his face had assumed a more mulberry-like hue, yet people said the drink did him “ne harm,” he was “se used to it and as the doctrine was a convenient one, Matty thought not either. So he sotted and drank for the good of the house and the bad of himself — a practice not so common now as it was a few years since.
Taking the general range of country inns, however, we may say that the same division into which the old butler threw his master’s malt liquor, and we threw the lawyer’s, may describe the whole range of them, namely, ale, table, and lamentable. The George at Melton, the Station at York, the Bedford at Brighton, and a few others that do not immediately occur to us, are ale, but by far the greater number are only “table,” and very, very many “lamentable.” In fact there is no branch of our rural economy that requires more revision and amendment than the country inns; in fact there is no economy about them at all. The large comfortable old posting-houses that existed prior to railways have all disappeared or been converted into schools or convents, or such like purposes. At one of these a man with his horses could live very comfortably during the hunting season. The landlords were generally sportsmen themselves, and also large farmers, so that there was a stroll over the farm at all events, if not a little shooting to occupy a non-hunting day, while the constant expectation of travellers, the tinkle, tinkle, tinkle of the ostler’s bell, with the commotion consequent on the long traces, the handing up of the smoking glass to the green-veiled maid in the rumble, with the grand aërial sweep of the landlord’s hat as the quickly-changed ploughmen post-boys climbed on to their horses and whipped away with their cargoes, with the commentaries of the now left-behind ones on the travellers’ liberality, all helped to beguile the tedium of the time. Those houses have all disappeared, or if any remain, are dragging out miserable existences, with weak worn-out establishments, women waiters, and either antediluvian ostlers or ignorant hobbledehoys, fresh at each quarter, who hardly know how to put on a bridle, and who, after staring at a stranger on horseback, ask him if he wants him “put oop.” Then to see them whip off the saddle, let the horse be ever so hot, and dash in the corn as quick as they can get it — giving him what they call “a lick and a promise,” instead of cleaning him — all irritate the man who knows how a horse should be attended to. And here we may observe that ostlers are generally either very quick clever men, or very slow useless ones; we seldom meet a medium man in the situation of ostler, though we meet with a great many brandy-nosed bad ones. Some of the good ones are marvellously active in their habits. In the old coaching days we knew a man who looked after twenty-five coach-horses and harness, with the aid of only one helper, and did the general stable business of the house into the bargain. But then he was a man who was always at work, never lounging at street corners or popping into the inn-bar to see what o’clock it was. Third-rate country inns in England are deplorable places. Keen must be the British sportsman, or desperately in love the man who can stay long at one of these gristly, tough mutton houses for the purpose of hunting or courting, or even for a combination of both. There is no resemblance to civilisation in anything about them, save the bill, that is generally a famous one. Six shillings a bottle, or rather three-quarters of a bottle, of the earthiest sherry; eight shillings a bushel for oats; and servants keep, out of all comprehension. A master should always put his servant on extra board-wages before going to an inn, or he will pay double for what the man would himself get for one-half. Considering that the rule is for the groom to have a bed for nothing where there are horses, very little extra should do it, seeing that an innkeeper can victual a party of servants at two shillings a day each, or three shillings a day where there is only one. Of course there are some innkeepers who will exclaim on reading this, “it can’t be done, some one has written this who knows nothing of the requirements of gentlemen’s servants;” but we beg to say that we had the information from one of themselves, therefore it may be taken to be true. If they cannot board grooms for a guinea a week, how, let us ask, does it happen that a farm-hind will board a stout ploughman for six shillings a week, and make money by it too? It is no advantage to a master to have his servant eating veal-cutlets or lamb’s fry for breakfast; he wants him fed like his horses for useful work, and the man would not order such dainties if he was paying for himself; he would have his money’s worth of good wholesome food, and if the innkeeper would not supply him at reasonable prices, he would soon find plenty of people about who would. The groom would thus pocket something a week for himself, and the master would also save by the arrangement, for if he gives the groom his head he will soon eat him a couple of pounds a week at innkeepers’ prices. Horses, too, are terribly overcharged at inns, which prevents sportsmen going to them if they can by any possibility avoid it. We have before us two bills, one for three horses for a week at a country inn, amounting to 4l. 12s. 3d., exclusive of the expectations of the ostler; the other for the cost of two horses standing ten weeks in a private stable, amounting to 51. 14s. 8d. A gentleman of our acquaintance, being presented with his stable-bill on the morning of his departure from an inn, intending to hunt his way home, was surprised to find that his horses had eaten four bushels of oats a week each, exclusive of hay, bran, beans, and other et ceteras, making the bill up to about double what he expected, 13l. Is. 6d., whereupon he had a long conference with the Boniface, who at length generously agreed to take off the odd eighteen-pence; whereupon our sportsman proceeded to the meet, and had the satisfaction of hearing that the hounds had found their fox immediately and gone right away, nobody knew where. So he saved his eighteen-pence and lost his hunt.
Still sportsmen like touring, and would tour very considerably if they could only get moderately housed at anything like reasonable rates; but the present system is almost a bar to locomotion. It is not that sportsmen object to paying inn bills where the accommodation is good, but that they object to pay the price of good accommodation for very bad. Nevertheless we must bring our friend Mr. Bunting down from the elegancies of the Polyanthus Club to take his chance at the Marquis of Cornwallis Hotel and Posting-house at Burton St. Leger. But first we must get his stud there.
CHAPTER LXIII.
THE LORD CORNWALLIS INN.
IT WAS A dull winter’s day, with a cold rain beating right into the pit of his stomach, that a coat-collar-turned-up groom was seen working a couple of tuck-tailed horses round Barnfather’s Corner, asking his way to Burton St. Leger. This was our friend Mr. Crop, who, after a variety of perils by rail and by road, had at length advanced thus far into the bowels of the land, wondering when his journey would end, when his question, “How far is it to Burton St. Leger?” caused Morrison, the foot Post-messenger, to whom it was addressed, to pause and stare with astonishment at the idea of anybody not knowing Burton St. Leger.
“How far!” exclaimed he, eyeing Crop with incredulous suspicion—” how far! Why this be it, to be sure!”
“Oh, this is it, is it?” replied our Cockney friend, half-glad at the termination of his journey — half-shocked at the desolate appearance of the place, no flags, no gas, no cabs, no ‘bus, no nothing; only a large green with a flock of geese on a pond in the centre.
“Then please where be the Markis Cornwallis Inn?” asked Crop, eyeing the scattered assortment of houses and cottages in the vista.
“The Cornwallis Inn be the great white house on the right there,” replied Morrison, pointing towards it; “there,” continued he, “where the man has just come out from under th
e entry.”
“Thank ye,” replied Crop, getting his horses in motion again and trotting up to the indicated quarter.
There stood a man in an old badger-skin cap, with a cadaverous countenance and desperately sore eyes, whose dirty fustian clothes might be improved, but could not possibly be spoiled, by the rain, of which indeed he seemed quite regardless, as with his hands in his tattered trowser-pockets he gazed, first up the street and then down, in the usual style of utter vacuity. Seeing horses approaching, he thought the rider might stop for a glass, in which case he would perhaps get something for holding them; so as their rounding heads showed which way they were coming, he stepped a little aside, to give them the shelter of the entry. But Crop passed under the arch into the narrow stable-yard beyond, the clatter of the horses’ feet on the pavement, disturbing Mr. Muldoon over his glass, and bringing the man of the fustians up the yard to see what was wanted. This was the ostler, Sore-eyed Sam as he was familiarly called, a wonderful fellow for shuffling off work and making excuses, a sort of performance that a man who is good at is seldom good at anything else.
