by R S Surtees
Then the major, having got up as much consequence as a newly made sergeant, would receive the smirking simpering simpleton with an awfully stiff bow, and, motioning him into a chair, would invite him to unbosom himself — just as a dentist invites a patient to open his mouth.
“Of course,” Guineafowle would say, with a puff of his cheeks and a dive into the bottom of his pockets, as he stuck out his little legs before him—” of course I don’t want you to go into elaborate detail — acreage and all that. What I want is merely a general outline of your p-r-o-r-perty and means of living, so that I may be able to judge whether you have the means of maintaining my daughter in the elegant luxury and comforts to which she has been accustomed. The lawyers will look to the detail of the matter, see that things are all right and on the square,” with which comfortable assurance Guinea would again inflate his cheeks and—” pause for an answer.”
Bless us, how that ominous speech used to scatter and annihilate the hopes and aspirations of signs, and glances, and squeezes, and supper-dances! Guinea knew how to wield the terrors of Roasters and Pinners, and had been done too often himself to let any one do him. But to be brief: the consequence of all this was that men whom our master of hounds without a subscription thought good enough for his daughters did not think the daughters good enough for them — at least, not unless he came down with a good many guineas, which he always most peremptorily refused to do, doubtless considering it honour and glory enough for any one to marry the daughter of a master of hounds without a subscription, the owner, as he used to insinuate, of Slumpington and Squashington, and all the other places.
Guineafowle had bowed out so many insinuating young men, who, snatching up their hats as they rushed through the entrance-hall, felt quite shocked and grieved that there should be such a mercenary spirit in the world, that Mrs Guinea was about tired of passing bills for her lord and master to reject; and the young ladies themselves had resolved just to accept offers without falling in love, until such times as there was a possibility of the suitors passing the upper house. This, however, they did not do, and Mrs Guineafowle saw with concern her own dark-haired, dark-eyed beauties now treading on the heels of the light-haired angels of the former marriage.
Miss Birchtwig had returned Laura, the eldest of the three dark ones, whom, like the street orange-women, she only counted as two, making up, perhaps, in extras what she took off the other end — Miss Birchtwig, we say, had “finished and polished” Laura, and returned her with such a glowing description of her virtues, that any one reading it would immediately exclaim, “Why, this Maida Hill establishment must be a real manufactory for angels!” Laura was “obliging, enchanting, engaging, endearing, and so remarkably attentive to the instructions of her music, dancing, drawing, French, and Italian masters, that they all regretted her departure.” Indeed, she had endeared herself to every one, while Miss Birchtwig doubted not that having had to come in contact with some whose tempers were not quite in unison with her own, would have a beneficial result in exercising her patience — much such a circular as she sent to the parents of all the “select number of pupils,” leaving them, of course, to believe as much of it as they liked, according to their individual capacity for gammon. Best of all, Laura was a perfect beauty; an elegant sylph-like figure, with raven-black hair, a clear Italian complexion, and the largest, deepest, Lola-Montes-like blue eyes, with flashing fringes, that ever were seen. The whole country rang with her beauty. Dicky Thorndyke’s report of her to Lord Heartycheer was so encouraging that his lordship, who had always kept that “pompous, pot-hunting humbug” — as he profanely called Major Guineafowle — at a distance, observed, with a pout of his lips and a hoist of his snow-white eyebrows, that he “didn’t know that there would be any great harm in letting Captain Guinea-pig towl over Barkinside Moor, and so up to their covers at Snipeton and Firle.”
And now, after this wide hare-hunting circumbendibus. made for the purpose of introducing our distinguished friend, we again break off at the major’s invitation to Tom Hall to partake of a hare-hunt, leaving our fair friends to put whatever charitable construction they like on his motive.
So ends this terrible long chapter.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE CAROL HILL GREEN ESTABLISHMENT.
THE NOTE OF which we have spoken was not sent to Tom Hall without very deep and mature consideration. It had formed the subject of very anxious deliberation between Major and Mrs Guineafowle; the former opposing his wife’s urgent precipitancy, on the ground that they were not prepared for company; the latter insisting on the necessity of immediate action, because of the certainty of such an undoubted prize as our Tom being quickly caught up. She knew what a run there would be after him, she said, and how all the designing women would be spreading their nets and snares to catch him. The fact of Tom breaking out in the character of a sportsman seemed to favour their design, and Mrs Guineafowle congratulated herself upon not having let the major give up his hounds, as he had often and often threatened to do. The result of the debate was that the major wrote the aforesaid note, quite in the sporting strain, inviting our friend to come over and hunt with his hounds, and partake of whatever might happen to be going on, adding that he could put him up a couple of horses, and hoped he would stay as long as he liked: quite the hail-fellow-well-met sort of note. This style was thought better than requesting the honour of his company on such a day, to stay till such a day, inasmuch as, though they would get up all the steam of pomp and circumstance they could raise, it would enable them to put any deficiency to the rough-and-ready score of the sportsman. In truth, it was rather an anxious time for our friends; for with an advance in family expense there had been a decline in amount of income; the rents of the Squashington and Slumpington estates, as indeed their names would imply, having been seriously affected by the repeal of the corn laws; while the colliery, or coal-mine, near Leeds in the county of York, still did nothing towards their assistance. The consequence was that the major, who had been an ardent repealer, and, like some other intemperate men, had denounced the class of which he was an unworthy member, began to sing extremely small, and complain that he had been robbed and plundered for the million, who had got far more than they ought to have. He threatened most vehemently to give up his hounds. This Mrs Guineafowle still opposed, feeling assured that he would be nothing without them; and knowing how attractive they had been to herself, she was anxious that her daughters should now participate in the benefit. It was only the tax on eight couple — twelve pound sixteen a year — and an occasional lap at the pig-pail the night before hunting. It was worth all that to see them figuring in the newspapers, even though the knowing editors did class them as harriers.
Though a trencher-fed pack is generally a troublesome affair, there being generally some one or other of the worthies in mischief, either worrying sheep or lambs or poultry, or hunting on their own account among the standing corn, yet, upon the whole, the major’s were as well conducted as any.
For this they were mainly indebted to the exertions of their neighbour, Mr, or, as he was commonly called, Billy Bedlington, of Cakeham Manor, a ponderous twenty-stone farmer — not an agriculturist, but a farmer — a man who farmed to make money, who paid great attention as well to the hounds’ breeding as to their morals. He it was who crossed them judiciously, drafting the skirters, and babblers, and nickers, and choppers, and cunning ones, keeping none but true nose-to-the-ground hunters, that wouldn’t go a yard without a scent, his maxim being to keep no cats that didn’t catch mice. Billy was ably assisted by our old friend, Jonathan Falconer, who had grown not only grey but snow-white in the service of the major.
Jonathan Falconer was one of a class of servants now nearly extinct — an honest, industrious, painstaking man — who was always doing something, and could turn his hand to anything, never standing upon this not being his work or that not being his place. He did not begin life as a huntsman, or, indeed, as anything else in particular; and, we dare say, if the major
had taken a yacht instead of a pack of hounds, Jonathan would have turned his hand to the sea-service just as readily as he did to the land. In the major’s establishment he filled many offices, being huntsman, coachman, groom, gardener, game and cow-keeper, and occasionally second footman. The major, when on his high horse at his dear watering-places, and so on, used to talk as if he had a man in each of these departments; and even at home, when talking before those whom he thought were not up to the ins and outs of his establishment, this man-of-all-work was called Jonathan in the house, and Falconer in the field, as if for all the world he were two men.
The real domestic staff, at the period of which we are writing, consisted of one Joshua Cramlington, a tall, knock-kneed stripling, who outgrew his clothes, and whose protruding hands and receding knees now showed how far advanced was the quarter. He was an awkward careless boy, always breaking and spoiling things, whom no drilling would ever make into a servant. The major, who always dealt in cubs of this description, used to console himself for their awkward gaucheries with the reflection that they were cheap, and by getting them young, he attached them to his person; while, he said, they would make fine figure footmen as they grew up and got furnished. When, however, they did grow up and get furnished, they invariably took themselves off, and the major had to catch another, and go through the process of teaching and attaching again. Cramlington was, however, perhaps the most hopeless article the major had ever had to do with, being as stupid and mischievous a lad as ever came out of a workhouse. His extreme cheapness — £8 the first year, and £10 the second — was completely counteracted by the enormity of his appetite and the amount of his breakage.
The sporting reader will perhaps observe that, amid the great multiplicity of real or imaginary servants, there has been no mention whatever of that usual appendage to a pack of hounds, a whipper-in. The censorious will perhaps imagine that the major had none, or, perhaps, that he filled that department himself, or was indebted to the exertions of any chance sportsman for turning the hounds to Jonathan Falconer; but there they would be wrong — the major had a whipper-in, though he didn’t do to talk about, being, in fact, neither more nor less than a great, tailless, Smithfield cur, that ran at the erring pack just as he would at a flock of sheep. At a word — almost a look — from Jonathan Falconer, Bluecap — as they called him, from his colour — would rush from his horse’s heels, and “at” the pack with a zeal that made them uncommonly glad to fly to Falconer — for protection. It was a cheap and ingenious device; and if it had been ingenious without being cheap, possibly the major might have proclaimed it; as it was, however, he was content with knowing it himself, and let others find it out that liked. “Moy whipper-in,” therefore, was never mentioned.
We will now take a look at our Tom, for which purpose we will begin a fresh chapter.
CHAPTER XXXII.
TOM’S AFFECTIONS IN DANGER.
“SIVIN AND FOUR’S elivin, and fourteen is twenty-five — I’ve heard of Major Guineafowle; that’s to say, I know the name. He’s one of your huntin’, gammlin’ chaps,” replied old Hall, in answer to his son’s inquiry if he knew anything of him. “Ah!” continued he, running his memory through the light reading of his ledger, “his name was to Longwind’s bills in 1849, and a precious deal of trouble we had with it — was forced to put it into Grinder’s hands afore we could get the money.”
“He keeps a pack of hounds,” observed Tom, exhibiting the fine hunt-embossed note — men, with winding horns, riding among a porpoisey pack along the top.
“I know he does,” replied Hall, taking it; “see ’em in the papers constant — at least, every now and then; and that’s what surprised me that he didn’t take up the bill. But these huntin’, gammlin’ chaps are all queer — never know where you have them — always outrunnin’ the constable, as Grinder says.”
This was rather a damper; and there is no saying but Tom would have listened to his father’s suggestions had he not been suffering under the united influence of Angelena’s coquetry and Laura’s loveliness.
Ruddles’ “this is the gent — the right honourable gent that’s a-courtin’ of the great heiress at the barracks,” still sounded in Tom’s ears, while Laura had drawn her languishing, love-killing eyes slowly over his face and down his fat person as she lolled becomingly in the old barouche before Diaper and Dimity’s door. She had given him just such a look as Miss Longmaide gave the major the first time they met at Rumbleford Wells — a look that neither said “what an object you are!” nor yet “what a beauty you are!” but just a medium look of approbation, inviting, as it were, a further acquaintance.
Tom, who always loved best the last eyes that beamed upon him, was so struck with Laura’s beauty that he took three turns up and down before the carriage ere he went to the Salutation Inn to ask the ostler whose carriage that was with all the fine things on the panel, the major having come out uncommonly strong with two crests, the Longmaide and his own, and supporters, two guinea-hens, with a many-quartered coat of arms, made entirely out of his own head, surmounted with red-and-white petticoats, entwined with bell-pulls in great abundance. Jonathan Falconer, too, wore a three-rows-of-curls coachman’s wig under his gold-laced cockaded hat, an appendage that Jonathan complained gave him cold when he exchanged it for his hunting-cap. However, “pride feels no pain” being one of the maxims of the major, he adhered to the wig, consoling Jonathan with liquorice, and assuring him that it was the weather and not the wig that gave him cold; that he had cold himself, just the same, and he didn’t wear a wig.
This sort of finery being unusual in the country, and the major’s carriage haunting the streets of Rattlinghope rather than Fleecy borough, caused considerable commotion, especially with such a beauty as Laura inside, and such dashing green-and-yellow rosettes flowing at the well-shaped but rather light-carcassed hunter-carriage-horses’ heads. Shuttleton, and Jaycock, and Gape, and Pippin, and several others of the Jolly Heavysteeders, had been ringing their spurs on the flags, and ogling the fair inmates of the carriage as it jingled from Miss Flouncey’s to Mrs Sarcenet’s, and from Mrs Sarcenet’s to Miss Cheapstitche’s, and from Miss Cheapstitche’s to Mrs Skein’s, for an ounce of Lady Betty worsted, and from the Lady Betty worsted-shop back to Miss Flouncey’s again. Whether Laura had looked benignly on them, too, is not to the purpose of our story, seeing that Tom was not there, and assuredly she looked pleasantly on him. That look, or rather that series of looks, were now counteracting old Hall’s advice.
“Well, but he” (meaning the major) “must have money,” observed Tom, “for he keeps a pack of hounds, and I’ve heard that old Heartycheer’s cost him three or four thousand a year.”
“Sivin and four’s elivin, and twenty’s thirty-one — if they do, he must be a very bad old man,” replied Hall. “Sivin and four’s elivin, and thirteen is twenty-four — no wonder the major couldn’t take up the bill. Sivin and four’s elivin, and forty-one is fifty-two — these huntin’, gammlin’ chaps are none on ’em to be trusted,” mused Hall, inwardly determining to get rid of head-and-shoulders Brown’s account, which was oftener on the wrong side than the right.
And so old Hall talked against the invitation.
Mrs Hall thought better of the major than her husband did, or rather, having had a good look at Laura as she passed the carriage on her way to Brisket the butcher, she thought she was not only a great deal younger but a great deal better-looking than Angelena, whom, she inwardly hoped, Laura might extinguish; consequently she favoured the expedition, and undertook to get all Tom’s flash shirts and ties ready against the day, by which time she had no doubt he would have recovered from the unpleasant effects of the day with Lord Heartycheer’s hounds. So, after many pros and cons, our Tom wrote to the major saying that he would have great pleasure in availing himself of his polite invitation — an answer that reconducts us to Carol Hill Green.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE GUINEAFOWLES ORGANISE A DINNER.
THE RECEIPT O
F Tom’s note changed the spirit of speculation in which our friends were indulging into that of bustling active preparation. The major, as we said before, ever since the repeal of the corn laws, had been reducing his expenditure, and in place of maintaining, had been letting things go downhill a little. The consequence was that, what with the natural wear and tear of that consuming animal, a house, aided by the spoilage and breakage of such boys as Cramlington, now that it became necessary to smarten up a little, it was found that there was a very serious deficiency in glass, china, crockery — all perishable articles, in fact; the very lampshades that Cramlington displayed so conspicuously on his shelves were found to be broken on the far side, though, as the major had not taken stock on the departure of his predecessor, John Snuffles, of course Cramlington declared they were so when he came. Of tumblers and decanters there was a woeful deficiency, while the stock of wine-glasses was scarcely worth speaking of. Altogether the major found things in a very dilapidated state; though, as Cramlington stood out that they were just as they were when he came, the major could only anathematise Snuffles, and determine to look sharper after Cramlington and Co in future.
Though it was so near Christmas, and his credit by no means first-rate, sundry little documents being in course of preparation at Rattlinghope, headed with the ominous words, “to bill delivered,” the major was forced to try his luck at Fleecyborough for such things as couldn’t be dispensed with, thereby suffering severely in carriage for his want of credit at home. However, he hoped it was all for the best, and that the expenditure would tend to the capture of our most desirable young friend, Mr Hall. So the major took heart, and dashed off his order just as if he was full of money.
