It was a fortunate thing that the dejeune dansant so absorbed Mr. Richard
Avenel's thoughts that even the conflagration of his rick could not scare
away the graceful and poetic images connected with that pastoral
festivity. He was even loose and careless in the questions he put to
Leonard about the tinker; nor did he send justice in pursuit of that
itinerant trader; for, to say truth, Richard Avenel was a man accustomed
to make enemies amongst the lower orders; and though he suspected Mr.
Sprott of destroying his rick, yet, when he once set about suspecting, he
found he had quite as good cause to suspect fifty other persons. How on
earth could a man puzzle himself about ricks and tinkers when all his
cares and energies were devoted to a /dejeune dansant/? It was a maxim
of Richard Avenel's, as it ought to be of every clever man, "to do one
thing at a time;" and therefore he postponed all other considerations
till the /dejeune dansant/ was fairly done with. Amongst these
considerations was the letter which Leonard wished to write to the
parson. "Wait a bit, and we will both write!" said Richard, good-
humouredly, "the moment the dijeune dansant is over!"
It must be owned that this fete was no ordinary provincial ceremonial.
Richard Avenel was a man to do a thing well when he set about it,--
"He soused the cabbage with a bounteous heart."
By little and little his first notions had expanded, till what had been
meant to be only neat and elegant now embraced the costly and
magnificent. Artificers accustomed to /dejeunes dansants/ came all the
way from London to assist, to direct, to create. Hungarian singers and
Tyrolese singers and Swiss peasant-women, who were to chant the /Ranz des
Vaches/, and milk cows or make syllabubs, were engaged. The great
marquee was decorated as a Gothic banquet-hall; the breakfast itself was
to consist of "all the delicacies of the season." In short, as Richard
Avenel said to himself, "It is a thing once in a way; a thing on which I
don't object to spend money, provided that the thing is--the thing!"
It had been a matter of grave meditation how to make the society worthy
of the revel; for Richard Avenel was not contented with the mere
aristocracy of the town,--his ambition had grown with his expenses.
"Since it will cost so much," said he, "I may as well come it strong, and
get in the county."
True, that he was personally acquainted with very few of what are called
county families. But still, when a man makes himself a mark in a large
town, and can return one of the members whom that town sends to
parliament; and when, moreover, that man proposes to give some superb and
original entertainment, in which the old can eat and the young can dance,
there is no county in the island that has not families enow who will be
delighted by an invitation from THAT MAN. And so Richard, finding that,
as the thing got talked of, the dean's lady, and Mrs. Pompley, and
various other great personages, took the liberty to suggest that Squire
this, and Sir somebody that, would be so pleased if they were asked,
fairly took the bull by the horns, and sent out his cards to Park, Hall,
and Rectory, within a circumference of twelve miles. He met with but few
refusals, and he now counted upon five hundred guests.
"In for a penny in for a pound," said Mr. Richard Avenel. "I wonder what
Mrs. M'Catchley will say?" Indeed, if the whole truth must be known,--
Mr. Richard Avenel not only gave that /dejeune dansant/ in honour of Mrs.
M'Catchley, but he had fixed in his heart of hearts upon that occasion
(when surrounded by all his splendour, and assisted by the seductive arts
of Terpsichore and Bacchus) to whisper to Mrs. M'Catchley those soft
words which--but why not here let Mr. Richard Avenel use his own
idiomatic and unsophisticated expression? "Please the pigs, then," said
Mr. Avenel to himself, "I shall pop the question!"