It was a fortunate thing that the _déjeûné 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 set justice in pursuit of
that itinerant trader; for, to say truth, Richard Avenel was a man
accustomed to make enemies among 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 _déjeûné
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 _déjeûné dansant_ was fairly done with.
Among these considerations was the letter which Leonard wished to write
to the Parson. "Wait a bit, and we will _both_ write!" said Richard
good-humoredly, "the moment the _déjeûné dansant_ is over!"
It must be owned that this fête 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 _déjeûnés 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 of 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 _déjeûné dansant_ in honor
of Mrs. M'Catchley, but he had fixed in his heart of hearts upon that
occasion (when surrounded by all his splendor, 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!"