Complete Works of R S Surtees

by R S Surtees

  “Dash it, I shouldn’t wonder if he was to leave it as it is,” said Facey watching; “these town fellows have no idea of cattle trespass, or anything of that sort, and think gates are just put to divide people’s properties, or for larking foxhunters to leap over.” So Facey looked and looked, keeping one eye on the gate and the other on the old red cow, who knew just as well as a Christian when there was the chance of a dash at the great Scotch cabbages at the back of the garden. Still no horse’s head, no vehicle appeared. “Devilish odd,” said Romford, staring; must be me Oncle Gilroy with a friend. Someone praps come down to see some stock. But it’s never like him to hire a fly with his own gig mare only doing half day’s works. Hope his friend pays for it. Never do to have him wasting the inheritance in that way. Must go and see,” continued Facey. Whistling up Juno, and shouldering his Joe Manton, he went striding away, closely followed by Juno, looking somewhat disconcerted at being done out of her fun. Facey was a capital hand across country, whether on foot or on horseback, and soon put the intervening fields between him and the house behind him. His heart beat quicker as he advanced, for he felt there was something unusual in the sight. He had never seen a shut cab at his uncle’s before. It couldn’t be that the long expected event had happened. Hardly, he thought. What was all the luggage for? However, he would soon see. On he went for the purpose. Kicking the little prop out from under the gate, so as to let it close on the swing, he hurried round the corner, and soon had the familiar house full before him. The fly was gone, gone to the stables behind. Couldn’t be Oncle Gilroy, he wouldn’t stand that, Facey knew. No fly-horses baited there; Red Lion was the place. Hark! sounds of mirth proceed from the parlour, children’s voices screaming and shouting, Barley me this, Barley me that. “Oh, what a drum this will make!” exclaimed another, thumping away at Uncle Gilroy’s hard hat.

  “Who the deuce have we here?” muttered Facey, now lost in astonishment. Pushing through the partially opened sash door, he traversed the passage, and presently stood in the widely opened portals of the parlour. A great coarse-looking woman in deep mourning was arranging her crape bonnet in the diminutive mirror above the little imitation marble mantel-piece just opposite the door, while a perfect sliding scale of children, all clad in black too, were romping and rioting about in a way quite inconsistent with grief, — one had the Gilroy testimonial in its hand. The lady started as she saw Romford in the glass, and wheeling round turned a very brandified face, surmounted by a most palpable flaxen front, full upon him.

  “Who are you?” ejaculated Facey, eyeing her intently.

  “And who are you?” demanded she, putting her arms a-kimbo, and staring him full in the face.

  She was a great masculine knock-me-down woman, apparently about five-and-forty, red faced, grey eyed, with a strongish shading of moustache on her upper lip. Facey trembled as he looked at her. He got the creeps all over.

  “Me Oncle Gilroy’s not at home,” at length ejaculated Facey.

  “Hut, you and your uncle Gilroy! D’ye s’pose I don’t know that?” exclaimed she, with a horse laugh.

  “Well, but who are you?” demanded Facey, bristling up.

  “Who am I!” retorted she. “Who am I! I’m the mistress of this ’ere ‘ouse,” replied she; “and this is the young Squire,” patting a boy on the head, so painfully like Gilroy as to be perfectly ridiculous — big bristly head, beady black eyes, capacious mouth, and lop ears.

  The truth flashed upon Facey with terrible velocity. His uncle was dead, and had deceived him. Frightful idea! Facey quivered all over. His knock knees smote each other. It was but too true. Gilroy, instead of retiring to the Royal Oak, or the King and Queen on Paddington Green, there to enjoy a quiet frugal glass before turning in to his seven-shillingsa-week lodgings, as he always represented to Facey and his friends, had a regular establishment in the sylvan retirement of Lisson Grove, St. John’s Wood, where he had reared the covey of little Gilroys who now disported themselves profusely over his parlour. Gilroy was dead.

  While Facey stood as it were transfixed, the lady had dived into her pocket and fished up a document that Facey saw at a glance was the will. “There!” exclaimed she, flourishing it open, so as to display the well-known Gilroy signature, “there’s the writin’s. Now have you got anything for to say?” demanded she. Facey was mute.

  “I’ve heard of you, you nasty sneakin’ mean-spirited wretch,” continued she, “thinkin’ to rob me and mine of their dues. I’ve eat your cock fizzants and your ‘ares, you nasty warmint, and laughed at your folly for sendin’ them;” and thereupon she set up a chuckle that shot through Facey’s every nerve. A waft of the will would almost have been enough to knock him down.

  Just then old Mother Meggison, the housekeeper, who had already attorned to the new régime, came hurrying in with a red-hot poker to light the fire, and Facey gladly availed himself of the opportunity to beat a last retreat. He rushed frantically through the familiar fold yard, nearly upsetting the fly-man, who was crossing with a pail of water for his horse, then struck down the deep lane past the Lizzards, swung through Woodgate Marsh, and on to Ballishaw Barn, bottling up his grief until he got home. Arrived at his little lodgings at Dame Trotter’s, he rushed upstairs, disregarding the liver and bacon he heard hissing for dinner, and entering his little partitioned-off room, threw himself on the stump bed, and groaned loud and audibly.

  “Oh, dear me! Oh, dear me! Oh, dear, what shall I do!” Just as if he had got the stomach-ache. Then clasping his right knee with both hands, as he lay on his back, he held his leg up towards the ceiling, and apostrophised himself as follows:— “Oh, Francis Gilroy Romford, moy beloved friend, you are reglarly floored — done brown! That wretched old Oncle has sold you! Oh, Francis Gilroy Romford, discard the detested name of Gilroy, and be for ever after Romford only. Oh, Francis Romford, Francis Romford, what are you now to do — what are you now to do? Here for years have you been feasting and serving that vicious old man, sending him fish, sending him game, looking after his farm, nearly breaking your wind by playing the flute to him, and now — Oh, heavens, that it should ever have come to this!” and thereupon relinquishing the leg, he buried his face in his hands. Just then Dame Trotter, who had heard his groans and his moans, came hurrying in with her never-failing specific, a glass of hot gin and bitters, which Facey bid her set down on the drawers and retire. Then finding he was overheard, he moderated the expressions of his grief, well knowing that very little clamour would raise a troublesome body of creditors about him. Taking the gin and bitters, therefore, into his sitting-room, he halloaed down-stairs to Mrs Trotter to give his dogs their dinners, adding that he didn’t want any himself; and drawing his wooden-bottomed semicircular chair to the fire, with a foot on each hob, and a pipe of tobacco, he quietly contemplated his condition. It was very bad; there was no denying that. Gilroy had been too many for him. He now understood why he so often had cattle left from one market-day to another, and which he must needs stay in town to look after. The woman in black explained all that.

  Wicked old man, where could he expect to go? Would surely get quilted below. It was not only the money Facey had lost, — the thousands and tens of thousands, — but all the fine chances of preferment he had thrown away on the strength of being Gilroy’s heir. He might have married Susan Burtree, who was reputed to have five thousand pounds, — three certainly, — with great expectations from an aunt. Miss Cropsey, now Mrs Jimmy Dobson, would have been delighted to have had him; and the rich widow Sago had set her cap at him, only she, as Facey said, was past mark of mouth. In the hey-day of heirship he was rather particular and difficult to please. Moreover he was a prudent Facey, and would never make up to a girl until he knew exactly what she had, because — as he used to explain to the mammas, — his Oncle Gilroy would be sure to disinherit him if he made an improvident match. So he never laid himself open to an action, or the charge of having used a girl infamously. He now felt he had built too much on Oncle Gilroy, and too little on h
imself. If he was not altogether handsome, he was of goodly stature — six feet high — and there was something about him, he said, that the girls couldn’t resist. But perhaps the reader would rather have his portrait drawn by a more impartial hand than his own. Well, then, at the time the aforesaid calamity befell him, he was just turned of thirty-one, tall and muscular, with a broad expansive chest, heavy round shoulders, and rather knock knees. His large backward-growing-all-round-the-chin-gingery-whiskered face was lit up with a pair of little roving red-lidded pig eyes, that were constantly on the watch, — sideways, lengthways, cornerways, all ways save frontways. He looked as if he was always premeditating a parable, but somehow never produced it. Not that he was a fool — far from it, as those who had had anything to do with him in the betting or horse-dealing lines could testify; but he looked like a satirist who could cut a man in two with a sarcasm, only, like a generous giant, he refrained from doing so. In short, a sort of you’d-better-leave-me-alone-looking man.

  Well, then, this stout strong able-bodied man, without a grey hair in his head, was suddenly thrown on his beam-ends without the slightest notice, or provocation on his part. A long weary apprenticeship to his uncle Gilroy’s fortune regularly thrown away. The position was critical, for the woman in black would be sure to proclaim it, after which Facey felt there would be no quietus for him. And deeply he pondered on his alarming condition, and voluminous were the clouds of smoke he raised in his aid. Dame Trotter’s cuckoo clock chimed three before he turned into bed, and the bird announced four, and the bird announced five, ere he dropped off into an unquiet sleep, greatly dreading the terrors of the coming dawn.

  II. A FRIEND IN NEED

  SOMEHOW FACEY ROMFORD AWOKE BETTER than he expected. The reality of his position was mercifully continued to him, instead of having to be gathered in disjointed fragments and put together again. His quick apprehension, too, suggested a resource.

  On the south side of the village of Hezelton, where Facey lived, about equidistant from his uncle Gilroy’s, was Puddingpote Bower, the seat of Mr Jogglebury Crowdey, or Jogglebury Crowdey, Esq., as we suppose he ought to be called; a fat, estimable gentleman, who devoted himself to the administration of the poor law, the propagation of his species, and the manufacture of fancy-headed walking-sticks. Of children, he had twelve, with the prospect of more, to each of whom he flattered himself if he could leave a sufficient number of walking-sticks he would make them very independent. So he cut and hacked and hewed and fashioned ashes, hollies, blackthorns, &c., into the heads of great people, — poets, authors, statesmen, and so on.

  To this and his other pursuits Mr Jogglebury Crowdey had at one time united those of shooter and occasional fox-hunter, more perhaps to promote the grand object of stick-hunting than from any decided inclination for either sport; but his waistband increasing in size he had long relinquished the saddle, and had latterly entered into an arrangement with Mr Facey Romford, whereby the latter was to have the free range of his manor (which indeed Facey had long taken without leave), in consideration of a certain equivalent in the way of game. So Crowdey, who was a good shooter, but a bad hitter, got a small supply of birds — as many as Facey thought were good for him — while he saved not only the cost of his certificate, but also of his powder and shot, to say nothing of the exertions of himself and his plethoric dog, Ponto, who like his master had become fat and lazy. This gunning arrangement of course brought Mr Romford occasionally to Puddingpote Bower, and. Mrs Crowdey, ever anxious for the welfare of her numerous progeny, and perhaps rayther mistrusting Jog’s sticks, had conceived the notable idea of securing the Gilroy fortune, after Facey was done with it, for one of her youngsters. So she made up to Facey a good deal, always had him to dine when there was a goose (not her husband, but the bird), and put Master Marcus Aurelius forward as the most promising boy in the parish.

  And Facey feeling all this, and thinking that perhaps the Puddingpote intimacy might now end, resolved to conclude it with a loan, which present circumstances favoured the prospect of getting. So, arraying himself immediately after his porridge breakfast in a glossy suit of black that he had long kept in lavender to be ready for his Oncle, he craped his Sunday hat deeply, and drawing on a pair of new black kid gloves, took the way across the fields, avoiding Bickerton and Branshaugh, to the Bower. Arrived there he found Jog feeding his Cochins, who started at the sight, and nearly broke the brown earthenware bowl in which he had the barley-meal.

  “Oncle dead,” whispered Facey, with a knowing look and a solemn shake of the head.

  “Poor (puff)!” ejaculated Jog; “when did it (puff, wheeze) happen?”

  “Only heard of it last night,” replied Facey, slowly.

  “(Puff) in, and (gasp) Mrs Jogglebury,” said Jog, taking Facey’s muscular arm and leading the way through the back kitchen to the dining-room, where Mrs Jog was just sweeping the chips Jog had made in cutting a Lord Palmerstonian-headed stick under the grate.

  “My (puff) dear, here’s (gasp) Mr Romford,” said Jog, opening the door and putting his friend forward to bear the brunt of the action in case it should be wrong. Mrs Jog started, too, for she had never seen Facey in anything but his somewhat miscellaneous coloured clothes, and the contrast was rather appalling. She soon jumped to a conclusion.

  “Poor man!” exclaimed she, clasping her hands, “when did it happen?”

  “Only heard of it last night,” replied Facey sorrowfully, as the woman in black flashed across his mind.

  “Indeed! Then was he away from home?”

  “Been away for a week,” replied Facey; “was to have come home on Tuesday.”

  “Only think!” ejaculated Mrs Jogglebury, turning her eyes up to the ceiling, as if with a fine moral reflection, but in reality calculating Aurelius’s chances. “What, died in London, did he?”

  “Died in London,” assented Facey.

  “Then you’ll be going up to see about things, won’t you?” asked Mrs Jogglebury, anxious for Marcus Aurelius’s interest.

  “That’s just it,” said Facey, looking out of the corners of his little ferretty eyes at Jogglebury, “that’s just it. You see the bankers won’t let me have any money till the will is proved, and I’ve just come down to see if you can let me have a — —”

  “Oh (gasp, puff, wheeze) yes, they will,” ejaculated Jog. “When my (wheeze) uncle (gasp) Crowdey died, Blunt and Buggins let me have as much as I (gasped).”

  “Ah, that was in the country,” observed Mrs Jog, thinking to clench the Aurelius interest with a loan.

  “That was in the country,” said Facey, adopting the idea. “London is a very different place; they’ll hardly change you a fi’ pun note without a reference.”

  “Well, but your (gasp) uncle would have an account in the (wheeze) country as well,” observed Jog.

  “Not he,” replied Facey; “me Oncle wasn’t the man to tell his right hand what his left hand did. However,” continued he, raising the craped hat from the floor, “I must just see what the Londoners will do, for time is precious, and things must be looked after.” So saying, Facey rose as if to depart, whereupon Mrs Jog essayed another coup at her husband.

  “Well, but Jog, my dear, I dare say you could let Mr Romford have what he wants.”

  “My (puff, gasp) dear, I have only (gasp) pound in the house,” replied the excited Jog, stamping, and turning perfectly scarlet.

  Now (gasp) pounds being an indefinite sum, and having the missus on his side, Facey did not like to say it would do, so, pretending indifference, he said he was only providing against possible contingencies, and did not know he might want it at all. That comforted Jog considerably, for he did not like lending money to anybody; but Mrs Jog speedily dispelled the delusion by observing that perhaps he could give Mr Romford a cheque for what he required.

  “Ah, that might do,” said Facey, brightening up, “and then I could cash it or not, as I wanted it;” and Jog, seeing that a storm was imminent, after a long leisurely hunt for his keys, a
t length found them, and proceeded to unlock a great brass-bound mahogany writing-desk, out of a secret drawer of which he produced the important little money sheaf of a cheque book. Then he had to look for a pen that would write, next for some ink that would mark, after that for his almanack, and finally for his spectacles. Still Romford, though in such a desperate hurry, did not back out. So Jog, having consumed all the time that he could, at length filled in the date, and then came to the next blank after the word pay. Messrs. Blunt and Buggins, pay— “Pay who?” asked Jog, looking up.

  “Oh, pay me,” replied our friend. “Pay me — Mr Romford — pay Mr Romford or order — say, fifty pund — not that I dare say I shall want it, but it will make even money, and I can send you down a fifty pun note — cut in two, you know;” adding, “dessay I shall find plenty of specie when I get there — only one likes to be provided.”

  This last observation had a consolatory effect upon Jog, who, after a hunt for his blotting-paper, at length found it, and stamping it severely on the cheque as if he would knock its wind out, took a last farewell, and tearing it abruptly from the book handed it over to Facey, with a feeling as though he were parting with his heart’s blood.

  “All right,” said Romford, glancing at it, and then folding it up he placed it in his betting-book and pocketed it.

  “You’ll let us hear from you in London, I suppose,” observed Mrs Jogglebury Crowdey, as Facey prepared to depart.

  “Certainly,” replied Facey, “certainly — write to you as soon as I get there — most likely send you your check back.” So saying he shook each heartily by the hand and hurried away through the kitchen.

  Without waiting for the bang of the back door, Jog’s pent up wrath exploded with a “I wonder you are such a (gasp) as to (puff) away money in that way.”