Well, we arrived at Boulogne; and Jemmy, after making inquiries, right
and left, about the Baron, found that no such person was known there;
and being bent, I suppose, at all events, on marrying her daughter to a
lord, she determined to set off for Paris, where, as he had often said,
he possessed a magnificent——, hotel he called it; and I remember Jemmy
being mightily indignant at the idea; but hotel, we found afterwards,
means only a house in French, and this reconciled her. Need I describe
the road from Boulogne to Paris? or, need I describe that Capitol
itself? Suffice it to say that we made our appearance there, at
Murisse's Hotel, as became the family of Coxe Tuggeridge; and saw
everything worth seeing in the metropolis in a week. It nearly killed
me, to be sure; but, when you're on a pleasure party in a foreign
country you must not mind a little inconvenience of this sort.
Well: there is, near the city of Paris, a splendid road and row of
trees, which, I don't know why, is called the Shandeleezy, or Elysian
Fields, in French: others, I have heard, call it the Shandeleery; but
mine I know to be the correct pronunciation. In the middle of this
Shandeleezy is an open space of ground, and a tent, where, during the
summer, Mr. Franconi, the French Ashley, performs with his horses and
things. As everybody went there, and we were told it was quite the
thing, Jemmy agreed that we should go too; and go we did. It's just like
Ashley's: there's a man just like Mr. Piddicombe, who goes round the
ring in a huzzah-dress, cracking a whip; there are a dozen Miss
Woolfords, who appear like Polish Princesses, Dihannas, Sultannas,
Cachuchas, and heaven knows what! There's the fat man, who comes in with
the twenty-three dresses on, and turns out to be the living skeleton!
There's the clowns, the sawdust, the white horse that dances a hornpipe,
the candles stuck in hoops, just as in our own dear country.
My dear wife, in her very finest clothes, with all the world looking at
her, was really enjoying this spectacle (which doesn't require any
knowledge of the language, seeing that the dumb animals don't talk it),
when there came in, presently, "the great Polish act of the Sarmatian
horse-tamer," on eight steeds, which we were all of us longing to see.
The horse-tamer, to music twenty miles an hour, rushed in on four of his
horses, leading the other four, and skurried round the ring. You
couldn't see him for the sawdust, but everybody was delighted, and
applauded like mad. Presently you saw there were only three horses in
front; he had slipped one more between his legs, another followed, and
it was clear that the consequences would be fatal, if he admitted any
more. The people applauded more than ever; and when, at last, seven and
eight were made to go in, not wholly, but sliding dexterously in and
out, with the others, so that you did not know which was which, the
house, I thought, would come down with applause; and the Sarmatian
horse-tamer bowed his great feathers to the ground. At last the music
grew slower, and he cantered leisurely round the ring; bending,
smirking, see-sawing, waving his whip, and laying his hand on his heart,
just as we have seen the Ashley's people do.
But fancy our astonishment, when, suddenly, this Sarmatian horse-tamer,
coming round with his four pair at a canter, and being opposite our box,
gave a start, and a—hupp! which made all of his horses stop stock-still
at an instant!
"Albert!" screamed my dear Jemmy: "Albert! Bahbahbah—baron!"
The Sarmatian looked at her for a minute; and turning head over heels
three times, bolted suddenly off his horses, and away out of our sight.
It was HIS EXCELLENCY THE BARON DE PUNTER!
Jemmy went off in a fit, as usual, and we never saw the Baron again; but
we heard afterwards that Punter was an apprentice of Franconi's, and had
run away to England, thinking to better himself, and had joined Mr.
Richardson's army; but Mr. Richardson, and then London, did not agree
with him; and we saw the last of him as he sprung over the barriers at
the Tuggeridgeville tournament.
"Well, Jemimarann," says Jemmy, in a fury, "you shall marry Tagrag; and
if I can't have a baroness for a daughter, at least you shall be a
baronet's lady!" Poor Jemimarann only sighed; she knew it was of no use
to remonstrate.
[Illustration:
THE HEIGHT OF SPECULATION—Groundless Expectations.
]
Paris grew dull to us after this; and we were more eager than ever to go
back to London; for what should we hear, but that that monster,
Tuggeridge, of the city—old Tug's black son, forsooth!—was going to
contest Jemmy's claim to the property, and had filed I don't know how
many bills against us in Chancery! Hearing this, we set off immediately,
and we arrived at Boulogne, and set off in that very same Grand Turk
which had brought us to France.
If you look in the bills, you will see that the steamers leave London on
Saturday morning, and Boulogne on Saturday night; so that there is often
not an hour between the time of arrival and departure. Bless us! bless
us! I pity the poor Captain that, for twenty-four hours at a time, is on
a paddle-box, roaring out, "Ease her! Stop her!" and the poor servants,
who are laying out breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, supper;—breakfast,
lunch, dinner, tea, supper again;—for layers upon layers of travellers,
as it were; and, most of all, I pity that unhappy steward, with those
unfortunate tin basins that he must always keep an eye over.
Little did we know what a storm was brooding in our absence, and little
were we prepared for the awful, awful fate that hung over our
Tuggeridgeville property.
Biggs, of the great house of Higgs, Biggs, and Blatherwick, was our man
of business: when I arrived in London I heard that he had just set off
to Paris after me. So we started down to Tuggeridgeville instead of
going to Portland Place. As we came through the lodge-gates we found a
crowd assembled within them; and there was that horrid Tuggeridge on
horseback, with a shabby-looking man, called Mr. Scapgoat, and his man
of business, and many more. "Mr. Scapgoat," says Tuggeridge, grinning,
and handing him over a sealed paper, "here's the lease; I leave you in
possession, and wish you good morning."
"In possession of what?" says the rightful lady of Tuggeridgeville,
leaning out of the carriage-window. She hated black Tuggeridge, as she
called him, like poison: the very first week of our coming to Portland
Place, when he called to ask restitution of some plate which he said was
his private property, she called him a base-born blackamoor, and told
him to quit the house. Since then there had been law-squabbles between
us without end, and all sorts of writings, meetings, and arbitrations.
"Possession of my estate of Tuggeridgeville, madam," roars he, "left me
by my father's will, which you have had notice of these three weeks, and
know as well as I do."
"Old Tug left no will," shrieked Jemmy; "he didn't die to leave his
estates to blackamoors—to negroes—to base-born mulatto story-tellers; if
he did, may I be——"
"Oh hush! dearest mamma," says Jemimarann. "Go it again, mother!" says
Tug, who is always sniggering.
"What is this business, Mr. Tuggeridge?" cried Tagrag (who was the only
one of our party that had his senses); "what is this will?"
"Oh, it's merely a matter of form," said the lawyer, riding up. "For
Heaven's sake, madam, be peaceable; let my friends, Higgs, Biggs, and
Blatherwick, arrange with me. I am surprised that none of their people
are here. All that you have to do is to eject us; and the rest will
follow, of course."
"Who has taken possession of this here property?" roars Jemmy, again.
"My friend, Mr. Scapgoat," said the lawyer. Mr. Scapgoat grinned.
"Mr. Scapgoat," said my wife, shaking her fist at him (for she is a
woman of no small spirit), "if you don't leave this ground, I'll have
you pushed out with pitchforks, I will, you and your beggarly
blackamoor, yonder." And, suiting the action to the word, she clapped a
stable-fork into the hands of one of the gardeners, and called another,
armed with a rake, to his help, while young Tug set the dog at their
heels, and I hurrahed for joy to see such villainy so properly treated.
"That's sufficient, ain't it?" said Mr. Scapgoat, with the calmest air
in the world. "Oh, completely," said the lawyer. "Mr. Tuggeridge, we've
ten miles to dinner. Madam, your very humble servant." And the whole
posse of them rode away.