I’ll ne’er be drunk again but in honest and godly company,
for this trick.
SHAKSPEARE.
There was not the usual market-day bustle outside the Queen’s Head,
and Farmer Darnell dismounting, followed his old mare, who well knew
her way to her usual stable in the backyard through the passage,
which was so narrow as to limit its accommodation to equestrians.
“Call the hostler, lad,” said the farmer from the stable to George,
who had followed him into the yard; an injunction which George
vociferously complied with, thinking that now the sooner he and his
pony were separated the better for the indulgence of their mutual
appetites.
“Eh, Sally, and who will that be calling about him?--run and see,”
said a voice from the back of one of the outhouses, at the window
of which the person who had thus spoken immediately appeared, and
seeing George, continued, “And is it only you, my lad, making all
that clatter? who taught you to call about you like a lord? They say
patience saves many a pennyworth of lungs--what may you want, pray?”
“Uncle and I want our horses fed.”
“And who is your uncle?” inquired the landlady.
When, Richard Darnell presenting himself at the door of the stable,
his appearance answered the question.
“And is it indeed you, Mr. Darnell--and this not market-day?--and
of all days in the week that you should just look in upon me at
washing-up, and I a shame to be seen,” she added, half raising
her soap-suddy hands to pull her cap over her _papillotes_, till
recollecting that such a contact would not be advantageous.
However, no one of her time of life could better bear to be seen at
disadvantage than the Widow Westbury, for upon the whole surface
of the fair fresh skin which the _papillotes_ left unshaded, forty
winters had failed to leave a furrow, and during as many summers her
indoor avocations had saved her even from a freckle; whilst an active
disposition had prevented her full form swelling into corpulency.
On this occasion, the sleeves tucked-up almost to her shoulders,
displayed a well-rounded arm, and tidy habits had prevented the rest
of her dress from being discomposed, or even her apron splashed. “And
if that idle fellow Joe Hostler won’t be gone to the ’leatherplating
sporting on the Wold! but you know where the corn is kept, Richard,
and here is the key of the bin,” (throwing it to him,) “and I’ll go
and see after your dinner and the lad’s.”
Now, though this was a part of the establishment upon which she much
prided herself, yet, upon this occasion, with a special injunction
to be careful, she consigned it exclusively to Sally, preferring to
spend the next few minutes herself rather before the looking-glass
than the kitchen-fire; and when George, having fed his pony, was
seeking his room up-stairs, he found her coming out of hers, with
the cap changed, and the _papillotes_ removed. By the excessive
care she immediately took of all his comforts, she soon removed the
unfavourable impression at first made on his mind by the rebuke he
had received from her for his stentorian bellowing after the hostler.
During the savoury and substantial meal, George could not help
remarking, how all his uncle’s tastes were consulted, with a delicate
attention, which combined the zealous activity of the hostess
with the acquired tact of companionship; and as he observed the
exhilarating effect it had upon his spirits, and as he contrasted it
with the state of subjection he suffered under at home, he no longer
wondered at the fervent wish he had expressed, “that there were two
market-days in every week.”
Soon after dinner, which their long ride had made rather late, the
snug trio was swelled by the dropping in of two of the natives of
Mayton, upon whose hands, in consequence of their fellow townsmen
being more _healthy_ than _wealthy_, time occasionally hung a little
heavy. These were an extra apothecary, and a supernumerary attorney,
articles in which the market of Mayton had been overstocked.
They were both of them jovial companions over a bottle; an
accomplishment which they had the more opportunities of cultivating,
as, before their arrival, the supply of both physic and parchment
had in Mayton been fully equal to the demand; and whilst there
was another doctor or druggist in the neighbourhood, everybody
was convinced that the apothecary had neither skill enough to
write prescriptions, nor shop enough to make them up; and unless
there should be some _third_ party to lawsuit beside plaintiff
and defendant, no one would leave either of the two established
practitioners for the new attorney.
The consequence of all this was, that they had frequently met Farmer
Darnell at the Widow Westbury’s; one of which occasions had produced
almost the only case in which either had been employed; having, as
they walked home together late at night, literally _thrown_ into
their hands a common joint job, in the shape of a sleepy “outsider,”
who, swinging round the corner on the top of the very night-coach
by which George was going, was chucked off at the moment they were
passing by. The doctor bled the passenger, and the lawyer bled the
coachmaster, in the shape of an action for damages, and the jury
being more inflammable than the patient, they both succeeded beyond
what their professional merits fairly earned. Having soon heard, (as
what is not soon heard in a country town?) that Farmer Darnell was
stopping at the Queen’s Head with his nephew, who was to go that
night by the one o’clock coach, they stepped in to learn the why,
and the where; and upon hearing that he was about to commence his
career afloat, insisted upon drinking his future success in life in
a bottle of port, or a bowl of punch. This, at first, the farmer
declined, probably from not liking to exceed before his nephew, and
mistrusting himself enough to know that the first was the most
favourable moment for resistance, and that abstinence was easier
than temperance. The hostess, though professionally interested in
the affirmative of the proposal, seemed to regret, that by the
interruption of her chat with her friendly guest, and her own
necessary withdrawal from the drinking bout, she should pay in person
what she received in purse.
The question, when a decided negative was no longer possible, having
been put to Dick Darnell, in the amended form, “whether it should be
_port_ or _punch_?” with the zeal of a convert he voted for _both_.
George Darnell, in whose exclusive honour they were undertaken,
seemed not to participate in the pleasure the others took in these
mingled potations. In fact, there were many things he regretted
in the home he was leaving behind him, and it did not please him
that the image of “cousin Lucy,” on which his fancy liked to dwell,
should be whisked away in the rotatory evolutions of the apothecary’s
red nose, and the attorney’s bushy brow, which both seemed soon to
dance round him, as the mixture of _old wine_ and _new rum_ took a
speedy effect upon his unseasoned head. The last thing he recollected
distinctly was his kind hostess smoothing his pillow, and assuring
him that he should not be too late for the coach.
When he awoke from his heavy slumber, it might have been _five
hours_, or only _five minutes_ afterwards, all was perfectly stilled
around, and instead of his uncle’s mellow voice singing a hunting
song, and his two companions croaking in untuneful chorus, nothing
met his ear but the loud ticking of the kitchen clock.
He had an indistinct recollection of old Sally having been sent on
some such celestial embassy as “up to the Angel to let him know
when the Star stopped.” He still dreaded being too late, and the
ship sailing without him, when he found that, in spite of the wine,
he had, as is often the case, waked instinctively just at the proper
time, for the piercing notes of the guard’s horn were first heard
in the distance, and then, as it reached the pavement, the rattling
clatter of the coach echoing through the empty streets.
George hurried on his clothes, thinking, as he was left undisturbed
to do so, it was lucky that he did not trust to his hostess’s promise
to call him. He hastily huddled on his things, and making his way
down-stairs, by the first glimmer of dawn he perceived that the
door of the hostess’s room, through which he had seen her come the
day before, was open; he concluded that she had just then stepped
into his uncle’s to call him in time to take leave of him; as was
probably the case, for they very soon descended together, the hostess
ostensibly to let them out, and Darnell to escort his nephew to the
coach. George took a short farewell of the kind hostess, who, being
only hastily half dressed, ensconced herself behind the door she held
open.
The uncle’s faculties seemed still a little offuscated with the
effects of the last night’s debauch, as, after walking most of the
way to the Angel in silence, he said, “You’ll not forget, George, to
tell your aunt all the good advice I gave you yesterday.”
“You forget, Sir, that I am not going home, and that it will be long
before I see my aunt or any of you again.”
“True, true; and perhaps, when you do, it may be as well to have
clean forgotten all about this last night. Good bye, George; afore
you see your old uncle Richard again, you will have seen many more
men who preach better than they practise.”
Helping George up with one arm, and shaking his hand heartily with
the other, he did not relinquish his friendly gripe till the horses
began tugging hardly more powerfully the other. George soon lost
sight of his uncle’s portly figure in the indistinctness of the misty
dawn, and it was long before he again caught a glimpse of any of the
previously familiar forms of his early youth.