by R S Surtees
The Countess, anticipating the victory of her hero, had dispatched Agamemnon early in the day for a chaplet of red-and-yellow immortelles, and having switched the old cab horse up to the winning-post, she gracefully descended, without showing more of her foot and ankle than was strictly correct, and decorated his brow with the wreath, as the Yorkshireman dismounted. Enthusiasm being always the order of the day in France, this act was greeted with the loudest acclamations, and, without giving him time to recover his wind, the populace bundled Mr. Jorrocks neck and shoulders into the cab, and seizing the old horse by the head, paraded him down the entire length of the Champ de Mars, Mr. Jorrocks bowing and kissing his hands to the assembled multitude, in return for the vivas! the clapping of hands, and the waving of ribbons and handkerchiefs that greeted him as he went.
Popularity is but a fickle goddess, and in no country more fickle than in France. Ere the procession reached the end of the dusty plain, the mob had tailed off very considerably, and as the leader of the old white horse pulled him round to return, a fresh commotion in the distance, caused by the apprehension of a couple of pickpockets, drew away the few followers that remained, and the recently applauded and belauded Mr. Jorrocks was left alone in his glory. He then pulled up, and taking the chaplet of immortelles from his brow, thrust it under the driving cushion of the cab, and proceeded to reinstate himself in his tight military frock, re-gird himself with his sword, and resume the cocked hat and feather.
Nothing was too good for Mr. Stubbs at that moment, and, had a pen and ink been ready, Mr. Jorrocks would have endorsed him a bill for any amount. Having completed his toilette he gave the Yorkshireman the vacant seat in the cab, flopped the old horse well about the ears with the pig-driving whip, and trotted briskly up the line he had recently passed in triumphal procession, and wormed his way among the crowd in search of the Countess. There was nothing, however, to be seen of her, and after driving about, and poking his way on foot into all the crowds he could find, bolting up to every lady in blue, he looked at his great double-cased gold repeater, and finding it was near three o’clock and recollecting the fête of St. Cloud, concluded her ladyship must have gone on, and Agamemnon being anxious to see it, of course was of the same opinion; so, again flopping the old horse about the ears, he cut away down the Champ de Mars, and by the direction of Agamemnon crossed the Seine by the Pont des Invalides, and gained the route to Versailles.
Here the genius of the people was apparent, for the road swarmed with voitures of every description, diligences, gondoles, co-cous, cabs, fiacres, omnibuses, dame-blanches, all rolling and rumbling along, occasionally interrupted by the lilting and tilting of a light English cab or tilbury, drawn by a thoroughbred, and driven by a dandy. The spirit of the old white horse even seemed roused as he got among the carriages and heard the tramping of hoofs and the jingling of bells round the necks of other horses, and he applied himself to the shafts with a vigour his enfeebled-looking frame appeared incapable of supplying. So they trotted on, and after a mile travelling at a foot’s pace after they got into close line, they reached the porte Maillot, and resigning the cab to the discretion of Agamemnon, Mr. Jorrocks got himself brushed over by one of the gentry who ply in that profession at all public places, and tucking his sword under one arm, he thrust the other through Mr. Stubbs’s, and, John-Bull-like, strutted up the long broad grass avenue, through the low part of the wood of St. Cloud, as if all he saw belonged to himself. The scene was splendid, and nature, art, and the weather appeared confederated for effect. On the lofty heights arose the stately place, looking down with placid grandeur on the full foliage of the venerable trees, over the beautiful gardens, the spouting fountains, the rushing cascades, and the gay and countless myriads that swarmed the avenues, while the circling river flowed calmly on, without a ripple on its surface, as if in ridicule of the sound of trumpets, the clang of cymbals, and the beat of drums, that rent the air around.
Along the broad avenue were ranged shows of every description — wild beasts, giants, jugglers, tumblers, mountebanks, and monsters, while in spots sheltered from the sun by lofty trees were dancing-places, swings, roundabouts, archery-butts, pistol-ranges, ball-kicking and head-thumping places, montagnes-Suisses, all the concomitants of fairs and fêtes — beating “Bartlemy Fair,” as Mr. Jorrocks candidly confessed, “all to nothing.”
The chance of meeting the Countess Benvolio in such a multitude was very remote indeed, but, to tell the truth, Mr. Jorrocks never once thought of her, until having eat a couple of cold fowls and drank a bottle of porter, at an English booth, he felt in his pocket for his purse, and remembered it was in her keeping. Mr. Stubbs, however, settled the account, and in high glee Mr. Jorrocks resumed his peregrinations, visiting first one show, then another, shooting with pea-guns, then dancing a quadrille, until he was brought up short before a splendid green-and-gold roundabout, whose magic circle contained two lions, two swans, two black horses, a tiger, and a giraffe. “Let’s have a ride,” said he, jumping on to one of the black horses and adjusting the stirrups to his length. The party was soon made up, and as the last comer crossed his tiger, the engine was propelled by the boys in the centre, and away they went at Derby pace. In six rounds Mr. Jorrocks lost his head, turned completely giddy, and bellowed out to them to stop.
They took no heed — all the rest were used to it — and after divers yells and ineffectual efforts to dismount, he fell to the ground like a sack. The machine was in full work at the time, and swept round three or four times before they could stop it. At last Mr. Stubbs got to him, and a pitiable plight he was in. He had fallen on his head, broken his feather, crushed his chapeau bras, lost off his mustachios, was as pale as death, and very sick. Fortunately the accident happened near the gate leading to the town of St. Cloud, and thither, with the aid of two gendarmes, Mr. Stubbs conveyed the fallen hero, and having put him to bed at the Hôtel d’Angleterre, he sent for a “médecin,” who of course shook his head, looked very wise, ordered him to drink warm water — a never-failing specific in France — and keep quiet. Finding he had an Englishman for a patient, the “médecin” dropped in every two hours, always concluding with the order “encore l’eau chaud.” A good sleep did more for Mr. Jorrocks than the doctor, and when the “médecin” called in the morning, and repeated the injunction “encore l’eau chaud,” he bellowed out, “Cuss your l’eau chaud, my stomach ain’t a reserwoir! Give me some wittles!” The return of his appetite being a most favourable symptom, Mr. Stubbs discharged the doctor, and forthwith ordered a déjeuner à la fourchette, to which Mr. Jorrocks did pretty fair justice, though trifling in comparison with his usual performances. They then got into a Versailles diligence that stopped at the door, and rattling along at a merry pace, very soon reached Paris and the Rue des Mauvais-Garçons.
“Come up and see the Countess,” said Mr. Jorrocks as they arrived at the bottom of the flight of dirty stairs, and, with his hands behind his back and his sword dragging at his heels, he poked upstairs, and opening the outer door entered the apartment. He passed through the small ante-room without observing his portmanteau and carpet-bag on the table, and there being no symptoms of the Countess in the next one, he walked forward into the bedroom beyond.
Before an English fire-place that Mr. Jorrocks himself had been at the expense of providing, snugly ensconced in the luxurious depths of a well-cushioned easy chair, sat a monstrous man with a green patch on his right eye, in slippers, loose hose, a dirty grey woollen dressing-gown, and black silk nightcap, puffing away at a long meerschaum pipe, with a figure of Bacchus on the bowl. At a sight so unexpected Mr. Jorrocks started back, but the smoker seemed quite unconcerned, and casting an unmeaning grey eye at the intruder, puffed a long-drawn respiration from his mouth.
“How now!” roared Mr. Jorrocks, boiling into a rage, which caused the monster to start upon his legs as though he were galvanised. “Vot brings you here?”
“Sprechen sie Deutsch?” responded the smoker, opening his eye a little
wider, and taking the pipe from his mouth. “Speak English, you fool,” bawled Mr. Jorrocks. “Sie sind sehr unverschämt” (you are very impudent), replied the Dutchman with a thump on the table. “I’ll run you through the gizzard!” rejoined Mr. Jorrocks, half drawing his sword,— “skin you alive, in fact!” when in rushed the Countess and threw herself between them.
Now, Mynheer Van Rosembom, a burgomaster of Flushing, was an old friend of the Countess’s, and an exceedingly good paying one, and having cast up that morning quite unexpectedly by the early diligence from Dunkirk, and the Countess being enraged at Mr. Jorrocks for not sharing the honours of his procession in the cab on the previous day, and believing, moreover, that his treasury was pretty well exhausted, thought she could not do better than instal Rosembom in his place, and retain the stakes she held for the Colonel’s board and lodging.
This arrangement she kept to herself, simply giving Rosembom, who was not a much better Frenchman than Col. Jorrocks, to understand that the room would be ready for him shortly, and Agamemnon was ordered to bundle Mr. Jorrocks’s clothes into his portmanteau and bag, and place them in readiness in the ante-room. Rosembom, fatigued with his journey, then retired to enjoy his pipe at his ease, while the Countess went to the Marche St. Honoré to buy some sour crout, roast beef, and prunes for his dinner.
“Turn this great slush-bucket out of my room!” cried Mr. Jorrocks, as the Countess rushed into his apartment. “Vot’s he doing here?”
“Doucement, mon cher Colonel,” said she, clapping him on the back, “he sall be my brodder.” “Never such a thing!” roared Mr. Jorrocks, eyeing him as he spoke. “Never such a thing! no more than myself — out with him, I say, or I’ll cut my stick — toute suite — directly!”
“Avec tout mon coeur!” replied the Countess, her choler rising as she spoke. “You’re another,” rejoined Mr. Jorrocks, judging by her manner that she called him something offensive— “Vous ête one mauvaise woman!” “Monsieur,” said the Countess, her eyes flashing as she spoke, “vous êtes un polisson! — von rascal! — von dem villain! — un charlatan! — von nasty — bastely — ross bif! — dem dog!” and thereupon she curled her fingers and set her teeth on edge as though she would tear his very eyes out. Rosembom, though he didn’t exactly see the merits of the matter, exchanged his pipe for the poker, so what with this, the sword, and the nails, things wore a very belligerent aspect.
Mr. Stubbs, as usual, interposed, and the Countess, still keeping up the semblance of her rage, ordered them to quit her apartment directly, or she would have recourse to her old friends the police. Mr. Stubbs was quite agreeable to go, but he hinted that she might as well hand over the stakes that had been entrusted to her keeping on the previous day, upon which she again indulged in a torrent of abuse, swore they were a couple of thieves, and that Mr. Jorrocks owed her far more than the amount for board and lodging. This made the Colonel stare, for on the supposition that he was a visitor, he had been firing away his money in all directions, playing at everything she proposed, buying her bonnets, Perigord pies, hiring remises, and committing every species of extravagance, and now to be charged for what he thought was pure friendship, disgusted him beyond expression.
The Countess speedily summoned the porter, the man of letters of the establishment, and with his aid drew Mr. Jorrocks out a bill, which he described as “reaching down each side of his body and round his waist,” commencing with 2 francs for savon, and then proceeding in the daily routine of café, 1 franc; déjeuner à la fourchette, 5 francs; diner avec vin, 10 francs; tea, 1 franc; souper, 3 francs; bougies, 2 francs; appartement, 3 francs; running him up a bill of 700 francs; and when Mr. Stubbs remonstrated on the exorbitance of the charges, she replied, “It sall be, sare, as small monnaie as sail be consistent avec my dignified respectability, you to charge.”
There seemed no help for the matter, so Mr. Stubbs paid the balance, while Mr. Jorrocks, shocked at the duplicity of the Countess, the impudence of Rosembom, and the emptiness of his own pockets, bolted away without saying a word.
That very night the Malle-Poste bore them from the capital, with two cold fowls, three-quarters of a yard of bread, and a bottle of porter, for Mr. Jorrocks on the journey, and ere another sun went down, the sandy suburbs of Calais saw them toiling towards her ramparts, and rumbling over the drawbridges and under the portcullis, that guard the entrance to her gloomy town. Calais! cold, cheerless, lifeless Calais! Whose soul has ever warmed as it approached thy town? but how many hearts have turned with sickening sorrow from the mirthless tinkling of thy bells!
“We’ll not stay here long I guess,” said Mr. Jorrocks as the diligence pulled up at the post-office, and the conducteur requested the passengers to descend. “That’s optional,” said a bystander, who was waiting for his letters, looking at Mr. Jorrocks with an air as much as to say, what a rum-looking fellow you are, and not without reason, for the Colonel was attired in a blue sailor’s jacket, white leathers, and jack-boots, with the cocked hat and feather. The speaker was a middle-aged, middle-statured man, with a quick intelligent eye, dressed in a single-breasted green riding-coat, striped toilinette waistcoat, and drab trousers, with a whip in his hand. “Thank you for nothing!” replied Mr. Jorrocks, eyeing him in return, upon which the speaker turned to the clerk and asked if there were any letters for Monsieur Apperley or Nimrod. “NIMROD!” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, dropping on his knees as though he were shot. “Oh my vig what have I done? Oh dear! oh dear! what a dumbfounderer — flummoxed I declare!”
“Hold up! old ‘un,” said Nimrod in astonishment; “why, what’s the matter now? You don’t owe me anything I dare say!”
“Owe you anything! yes, I does,” said Mr. Jorrocks, rising from the ground, “I owes you a debt of gratitude that I can never wipe off — you’ll be in the day-book and ledger of my memory for ever and a year.”
“Who are you?” inquired Nimrod, becoming more and more puzzled, as he contrasted his dialect with his dress.
“Who am I? Why, I’m Mister Jorrocks.”
“Jorrocks, by Jove! Who’d have thought it! I declare I took you for a horse-marine. Give us your hand, old boy. I’m proud to make your acquaintance.”
“Ditto to you, sir, twice repeated. I considers you the werry first man of the age!” — and thereupon they shook hands with uncommon warmth.
“You’ve been in Paris, I suppose,” resumed Nimrod, after their respective digits were released; “were you much gratified with what you saw? What pleased you most — the Tuileries, Louvre, Garden of Plants, Père la Chaise, Notre Dame, or what?”
“Why now, to tell you the truth, singular as it may seem, I saw nothing but the Tuileries and Naughty Dame. — I may say a werry naughty dame, for she fleeced me uncommonly, scarcely leaving me a dump to carry me home.”
“What, you’ve been among the ladies, have you? That’s gay for a man at your time of life.”
“Yes, I certainlie have been among the ladies, — countesses I may say — but, dash my vig, they are a rum set, and made me pay for their acquaintance. The Countess Benwolio certainlie is a bad ‘un.”
“Oh, the deuce! — did that old devil catch you?” inquired Nimrod.
“Vot, do you know her?”
“Know her! ay — everybody here knows her with her black boy. She’s always on the road, and lives now by the flats she catches between Paris and the coast. She was an agent for Morison’s Pills — but having a fractious Scotch lodger that she couldn’t get out, she physicked him so dreadfully that he nearly died, and the police took her licence away. But you are hungry, Mr. Jorrocks, come to my house and spend the evening, and tell me all about your travels.”
Mr. Stubbs objected to this proposition, having just learned that the London packet sailed in an hour, so the trio adjourned to Mr. Roberts’s, Royal Hotel, where over some strong eau-de-vie they cemented their acquaintance, and Mr. Jorrocks, finding that Nimrod was to be in England the following week, insisted upon his naming a day for dining in Great Co
ram Street.
“Permits” to embark having been considerately granted “gratis” by the Government for a franc apiece, at the hour of ten our travellers stepped on board, and Mr. Jorrocks, having wrapped himself up in his martial cloak, laid down in the cabin and, like Ulysses in Ithaca, as Nimrod would say, “arrived in London Asleep.”
XI. A RIDE TO BRIGHTON ON “THE AGE”
(IN A VERY “Familiar Letter” to Nimrod)
DEAR NIMROD,
You have favoured myself, and the sporting world at large, with a werry rich high-flavoured account of the great Captain Barclay, and his extonishing coach, the “Defiance”; and being werry grateful to you for that and all other favours, past, present, and to come, I take up my grey goose quill to make it “obedient to my will,” as Mr. Pope, the poet, says, in relating a werry gratifying ride I had on the celebrated “Brighton Age,” along with Sir Wincent Cotton, Bart., and a few other swells. Being, as you knows, of rather an emigrating disposition, and objecting to make a nick-stick of my life by marking down each Christmas Day over roast-beef and plum pudding, cheek-by-jowl with Mrs. J —— at home, I said unto my lad Binjimin — and there’s not a bigger rogue unhung— “Binjimin, be after looking out my Sunday clothes, and run down to the Regent Circus, and book me the box-seat of the ‘Age,’ for I’m blow’d if I’m not going to see the King at Brighton (or ‘London-sur-Mary,’ as James Green calls it), and tell the pig-eyed book-keeper it’s for Mr. Jorrocks, and you’ll be sure to get it.”
Accordingly, next day, I put in my appearance at the Circus, dressed in my best blue Saxony coat, with metal buttons, yellow waistcoat, tights, and best Hessians, with a fine new castor on my head, and a carnation in my button-hole. Lots of chaps came dropping in to go, and every one wanted the box-seat. “Can I have the box-seat?” said one.— “No, sir; Mr. Jorrocks has it.” “Is the box-seat engaged?” asked another.— “Yes, sir; Mr. Jorrocks has taken it.” “Book me the box,” said a third with great dignity.— “It’s engaged already.” “Who by?”— “Mr. Jorrocks”; and so they went on to the tune of near a dozen. Presently a rattling of pole chains was heard, and a cry was raised of “Here’s Sir Wincent!” I looks out, and saw a werry neat, dark, chocolate-coloured coach, with narrow red-striped wheels, and a crest, either a heagle or a unicorn (I forgets which), on the door, and just the proprietors’ names below the winder, and “The Age,” in large gilt letters, below the gammon board, drawn by four blood-like, switch-tailed nags, in beautiful highly polished harness with brass furniture, without bearing reins — driven by a swellish-looking young chap, in a long-backed, rough, claret-coloured benjamin, with fancy-coloured tyes, and a bunch of flowers in his button-hole — no coachman or man of fashion, as you knows, being complete without the flower. There was nothing gammonacious about the turn-out; all werry neat and ‘andsome, but as plain as plain could be; and there was not even a bit of Christmas at the ‘orses’ ears, which I observed all the other coaches had. Well, down came Sir Wincent, off went his hat, out came the way-bill, and off he ran into the office to see what they had for him. “Here, coachman,” says a linen-draper’s “elegant extract,” waiting outside, “you’ve to deliver this (giving him a parcel) in the Marine Parade the instant you get to Brighton. It’s Miss — — ‘s bustle, and she’ll be waiting for it to put on to go out to dinner, so you musn’t lose a moment, and you may charge what you like for your trouble.” “Werry well,” says Sir Wincent, laughing, “I’ll take care of her bustle. Now, book-keeper, be awake. Three insides here, and six out. Pray, sir,” touching his hat to me, “are you booked here? Oh! Mr. Jorrocks, I see. I begs your pardon. Jump up, then; be lively! what luggage have you?” “Two carpet-bags, with J. J., Great Coram Street, upon them.” “There, then we’ll put them in the front boot, and you’ll have them under you. All right behind? Sit tight!” Hist! off we go by St. Mertain’s Church into the Strand, to the booking-office there.
