A little druid wight
Of withered aspect; but his eye was keen
With sweetness mixed,--a russet brown bedight.
THOMSON: Castle of Indolence.
Thus holding high discourse, they came to where
The cursed carle was at his wonted trade,
Still tempting heedless men into his snare,
In witching wise, as I before have said.--Ibid.
It was a fine, joyous summer morning when Clarence set out, alone and
on horseback, upon his enterprise of love and adventure. If there be
anything on earth more reviving and inspiriting than another, it is, to
my taste, a bright day,--a free horse, a journey of excitement before
one, and loneliness! Rousseau--in his own way, a great though rather
a morbid epicure of this world’s enjoyments--talks with rapture of
his pedestrian rambles when in his first youth. But what are your
foot-ploddings to the joy which lifts you into air with the bound of
your mettled steed?
But there are times when an iron and stern sadness locks, as it were,
within itself our capacities of enjoyment; and the song of the birds,
and the green freshness of the summer morning, and the glad motion of
the eager horse, brought neither relief nor change to the musings of the
young adventurer.
He rode on for several miles without noticing anything on his road,
and only now and then testifying the nature of his thoughts and
his consciousness of solitude by brief and abrupt exclamations and
sentences, which proclaimed the melancholy yet exciting subjects of
his meditations. During the heat of the noon, he rested at a small
public-house about ---- miles from town; and resolving to take his horse
at least ten miles farther before his day’s journey ceased, he remounted
towards the evening and slowly resumed his way.
He was now entering the same county in which he first made his
appearance in this history. Although several miles from the spot on
which the memorable night with the gypsies had been passed, his thoughts
reverted to its remembrance, and he sighed as he recalled the ardent
hopes which then fed and animated his heart. While thus musing, he heard
the sound of hoofs behind him, and presently came by a sober-looking
man, on a rough, strong pony, laden (besides its master’s weight) with
saddle-bags of uncommon size, and to all appearance substantially and
artfully filled.
Clarence looked, and, after a second survey, recognized the person of
his old acquaintance, Mr. Morris Brown.
Not equally reminiscent was the worshipful itinerant, who, in the
great variety of forms and faces which it was his professional lot
to encounter, could not be expected to preserve a very nice or
distinguishing recollection of each.
“Your servant, sir, your servant,” said Mr. Brown, as he rode his
pony alongside of our traveller. “Are you going as far as W---- this
evening?”
“I hardly know yet,” answered Clarence; “the length of my ride depends
upon my horse rather than myself.”
“Oh, well, very well,” said Mr. Brown; “but you will allow me, perhaps,
sir, the honour of riding with you as far as you go.”
“You give me much gratification by your proposal, Mr. Brown!” said
Clarence.
The broker looked in surprise at his companion. “So you know me, sir?”
“I do,” replied Clarence. “I am surprised that you have forgotten me.”
Slowly Mr. Brown gazed, till at last his memory began to give itself the
rousing shake. “God bless me, sir, I beg you a thousand pardons: I now
remember you perfectly; Mr. Linden, the nephew of my old patroness, Mrs.
Minden. Dear, dear, how could I be so forgetful! I hope, by the by, sir,
that the shirts wore well? I am thinking you will want some more. I have
some capital cambric of curiously fine quality and texture, from the
wardrobe of the late Lady Waddilove.”
“What, Lady Waddilove still!” cried Clarence. “Why, my good friend,
you will offer next to furnish me with pantaloons from her ladyship’s
wardrobe.”
“Why, really, sir, I see you preserve your fine spirits; but I do think
I have one or two pair of plum-coloured velvet inexpressibles, that
passed into my possession when her ladyship’s husband died, which might,
perhaps, with a leetle alteration, fit you, and, at all events, would be
a very elegant present from a gentleman to his valet.”
“Well, Mr. Brown, whenever I or my valet wear plum-coloured velvet
breeches, I will certainly purchase those in your possession; but to
change the subject, can you inform me what has become of my old host and
hostess, the Copperases, of Copperas Bower?”
“Oh, sir, they are the same as ever; nice, genteel people they are, too.
Master Adolphus has grown into a fine young gentleman, very nearly as
tall as you and I are. His worthy father preserves his jovial vein, and
is very merry whenever I call there. Indeed it was but last week that he
made an admirable witticism. ‘Bob,’ said he (Tom,--you remember Tom,
or De Warens, as Mrs. Copperas was pleased to call him,--Tom is gone),
‘Bob, have you stopped the coach?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ said Bob. ‘And what coach
is it?’ asked Mr. Copperas. ‘It be the Swallow, sir,’ said the boy.
‘The Swallow! oh, very well,’ cried Mr. Copperas; ‘then, now, having
swallowed in the roll, I will e’en roll in the swallow! ‘Ha! ha! ha!
sir, very facetious, was it not?”
“Very, indeed,” said Clarence; “and so Mr. de Warens has gone; how came
that?”
“Why, sir, you see, the boy was always of a gay turn, and he took to
frisking about, as he called it, of a night, and so he was taken up for
thrashing a watchman, and appeared before Sir John, the magistrate, the
next morning.”
“Caractacus before Caesar!” observed Linden; “and what said Caesar?”
“Sir?” said Mr. Brown.
“I mean, what said Sir John?”
“Oh! he asked him his name, and Tom, whose head Mrs. Copperas (poor good
woman!) had crammed with pride enough for fifty foot-boys, replied, ‘De
Warens,’ with all the air of a man of independence. ‘De Warens!’ cried
Sir John, amazed, ‘we’ll have no De’s here: take him to Bridewell!’ and
so, Mrs. Copperas, being without a foot-boy, sent for me, and I supplied
her--with Bob!”
“Out of the late Lady Waddilove’s wardrobe too?” said Clarence.
“Ha, ha! that’s well, very well, sir. No, not exactly; but he was a son
of her late ladyship’s coachman. Mr. Copperas has had two other servants
of the name of Bob before, but this is the biggest of all, so he
humorously calls him ‘Triple Bob Major!’ You observe that road to the
right, sir: it leads to the mansion of an old customer of mine, General
Cornelius St. Leger; many a good bargain have I sold to his sister.
Heaven rest her! when she died I lost a good friend, though she was a
little hot or so, to be sure. But she had a relation, a young lady; such
a lovely, noble-looking creature: it did one’s heart, ay, and one’s eyes
also, good to look at her; and she’s gone too; well, well, one loses
one’s customers sadly; it makes me feel old and comfortless to think of
it. Now, yonder, as far as you can see among those distant woods, lived
another friend of mine, to whom I offered to make some very valuable
presents upon his marriage with the young lady I spoke of just now, but,
poor gentleman, he had not time to accept them; he lost his property
by a lawsuit, a few months after he was married, and a very different
person now has Mordaunt Court.”
“Mordaunt Court!” cried Clarence; “do you mean to say that Mr. Mordaunt
has lost that property?”
“Why, sir, one Mr. Mordaunt has lost it, and another has gained it: but
the real Mr. Mordaunt has not an acre in this county or elsewhere, I
fear, poor gentleman. He is universally regretted, for he was very
good and very generous, though they say he was also mighty proud and
reserved; but for my part I never perceived it. If one is not proud
one’s self, Mr. Linden, one is very little apt to be hurt by pride in
other people.”
“And where is Mr. Algernon Mordaunt?” asked Clarence, as he recalled his
interview with that person, and the interest with which Algernon then
inspired him.
“That, sir, is more than any of us can say. He has disappeared
altogether. Some declare that he has gone abroad, others that he is
living in Wales in the greatest poverty. However, wherever he is, I am
sure that he cannot be rich; for the lawsuit quite ruined him, and the
young lady he married had not a farthing.”
“Poor Mordaunt!” said Clarence, musingly.
“I think, sir, that the squire would not be best pleased if he heard you
pity him. I don’t know why, but he certainly looked, walked, and moved
like one whom you felt it very hard to pity. But I am thinking that
it is a great shame that the general should not do anything for Mr.
Mordaunt’s wife, for she was his own flesh and blood; and I am sure he
had no cause to be angry at her marrying a gentleman of such old family
as Mr. Mordaunt. I am a great stickler for birth, sir; I learned that
from the late Lady W. ‘Brown,’ she said, and I shall never forget her
ladyship’s air when she did say it, ‘Brown, respect your superiors, and
never fall into the hands of the republicans and atheists’!”
“And why,” said Clarence, who was much interested in Mordaunt’s fate,
“did General St. Leger withhold his consent?”
“That we don’t exactly know, sir; but some say that Mr. Mordaunt was
very high and proud with the general, and the general was to the full
as fond of his purse as Mr. Mordaunt could be of his pedigree; and so, I
suppose, one pride clashed against the other, and made a quarrel between
them.”
“Would not the general, then, relent after the marriage?”
“Oh! no, sir; for it was a runaway affair. Miss Diana St. Leger, his
sister, was as hot as ginger upon it, and fretted and worried the poor
general, who was never of the mildest, about the match, till at last he
forbade the poor young lady’s very name to be mentioned. And when Miss
Diana died about two years ago, he suddenly introduced a tawny sort of
cretur, whom they call a mulatto or creole, or some such thing, into
the house; and it seems that he has had several children by her, whom he
never durst own during Miss Diana’s life, but whom he now declares to be
his heirs. Well, they rule him with a rod of iron, and suck him as dry
as an orange. They are a bad, griping set, all of them; and, I am sure,
I don’t say so from any selfish feeling, Mr. Linden, though they have
forbid me the house, and called me, to my very face, an old cheating
Jew. Think of that, sir!--I, whom the late Lady W. in her exceeding
friendship used to call ‘honest Brown,’--I whom your worthy--”
“And who,” uncourteously interrupted Clarence, “has Mordaunt Court now?”
“Why, a distant relation of the last squire’s, an elderly gentleman who
calls himself Mr. Vavasour Mordaunt. I am going there to-morrow morning,
for I still keep up a connection with the family. Indeed the old
gentleman bought a lovely little ape of me, which I did intend as a
present to the late (as I may call him) Mr. Mordaunt; so, though I will
not say I exactly like him,--he is a hard hand at a bargain,--yet at
least I will not deny him his due.”
“What sort of a person is he? What character does he bear?” asked
Clarence.
“I really find it hard to answer that question,” said the gossiping Mr.
Brown. “In great things he is very lavish and ostentatious, but in small
things he is very penurious and saving, and miser-like; and all for one
son, who is deformed and very sickly. He seems to dote on that boy; and
now I have got two or three little presents in these bags for Mr. Henry.
Heaven forgive me, but when I look at the poor creature, with his face
all drawn up, and his sour, ill-tempered voice, and his limbs crippled,
I almost think it would be better if he were in his grave, and the
rightful Mr. Mordaunt, who would then be the next of kin, in his place.”
“So then, there is only this unhappy cripple between Mr. Mordaunt and
the property?” said Clarence.
“Exactly so, sir. But will you let me ask where you shall put up at
W----? I will wait upon you, if you will give me leave, with some very
curious and valuable articles, highly desirable either for yourself or
for little presents to your friends.”
“I thank you,” said Clarence, “I shall make no stay at W----, but I
shall be glad to see you in town next week. Favour me, meanwhile, by
accepting this trifle.”
“Nay, nay, sir,” said Mr. Brown, pocketing the money, “I really cannot
accept this; anything in the way of exchange,--a ring, or a seal, or--”
“No, no, not at present,” said Clarence; “the night is coming on, and I
shall make the best of my way. Good-by, Mr. Brown;” and Clarence trotted
off: but he had scarce got sixty yards before he heard the itinerant
merchant cry out, “Mr. Linden, Mr. Linden!” and looking back, he beheld
the honest Brown putting his shaggy pony at full speed, in order to
overtake him; so he pulled up.
“Well, Mr. Brown, what do you want?”
“Why, you see, sir, you gave me no exact answer about the plum-colored
velvet inexpressibles,” said Mr. Brown.