THREE COURSES AND A DESSERT:
Comprising _Three Sets Of Tales_, West Country, Irish, And Legal, And A
Melange
By Anonymous
With Fifty Illustrations By GEORGE CRUIKSHANK
1867.
“Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table.”
_As you like it._
INDUCTION.
The purveyor of the ensuing apology for a “feast of reason,” takes leave
to greet his guests with a hearty, but respectful, welcome. It would
be in bad taste for him to dilate at his threshold upon what he has
provided for their entertainment: his brief bill of fare will presently
be laid before them.
He ventures to indulge a hope, that his repast will prove obnoxious
to none, and, in some degree, gratifying to many; that those who may
discover nothing to their taste in one course, will meet with something
piquant in another; that no one
“Will drag, at each remove, a lengthening chain;”
and, that even if the _dishes_ be disliked, the _plates_, at least,
will please: but he feels bound to state, that whatever faults the
decorations may be chargeable with, on the score of invention, he,
alone, is to blame, and not Mr. George Cruikshank; to whom he is deeply
indebted for having embellished his rude sketches in their transfer to
wood, and translated them into a proper pictorial state, to make their
appearance in public. They have necessarily acquired a value, which
they did not intrinsically possess, in passing through the hands of
that distinguished artist; of whom it may truly, and on this occasion
especially, be said, _Quod tetigit, ornavit_.
Having thus, perhaps rashly, presented himself at the bar of public
opinion, conscious as he feels of his own demerits, he can only throw
himself on the liberality of his judges, and plead for a lenient
sentence.
BILL OF FARE.
FIRST COURSE:-WEST COUNTRY CHRONICLES.
Introduction...........11
Sir Mathew Ale....................13
The Counterpart Cousins........17
Caddy Cuddle....................37
The Braintrees ;.......63
The Sham Fight.........103
The Bachelor's Darling.........120
Habakkuk Bullwrinkle........159
SECOND COURSE:-NEIGHBOURS OF AN OLD IRISH BOT.
Introduction...........177
Jimmy Fitzgerald.........178
The Native and the Odd Fish.......185
Timberleg Toe-trap.........198
Bat Boroo ..........206
The Witch's Switch.........214
The Weed Witness.........225
The Flying Dutchman........233
The Nest Egg..........239
Under the Thumb.........245
Our Tommy...........252
The Dentist;.....257
The Mushroom.......... 262
The Dülosk Girl.........278
THIRD COURSE:--MY COUSIN'S CLIENTS.
Introduction...........301
Adam Burdock.......... 303
The Mathematician.........305
The Little Black Porter........347
THE DESSERT.
Introduction...........387
The Deaf Postilion.........389
Conjugating a Verb.........393
Posthumous Praise.........396
The Dos-a-dos Tête-a-tête...... 398
A Toad in a Hole 400
The Pair of Pumps......... 410
Wanted a Partner..........414
Handsome Hands.........421
Misled by a Name .............425
The Last Man .........430
FIRST COURSE: WEST COUNTRY CHRONICLES.
[Illustration: 018]
INTRODUCTION.
The true old English squire is now nearly extinct: a few admirable
specimens of the class flourished a few years ago in the western
counties; from the discourse and memoranda of one of the most excellent
of these, the substance of the following narratives was gleaned. For
my introduction to, and subsequent acquaintance with, the worthy old
gentleman. I was indebted to the delinquency of a dog. Carlo was most
exemplary in his punctuation; he would quarter and back in the finest
style imaginable; no dog could be more staunch, steady, and obedient to
hand and voice, while there was no living mutton at hand: but no sooner
did he cross a sheep-track, break into view of a fleece, or even hear
the tinkling bell (a dinner bell to him) of a distant flock, than
he would bolt away, as rectilinearly as the crow flies, towards his
favourite prey, in spite of the most peremptory commands, or the smack
of a whip, with the flavour of which his back was intimately acquainted.
I had been allowed a very fair trial of the dog; but, unfortunately,
no opportunity occurred, previously to his becoming my property, of
shooting over him near a sheep-walk. His behaviour was so excellent in
Kent, that I never was more astonished in my life, than when I beheld
him severely shaking a sheep by the haunch, the first time we went out
together in Somerset. Unable to obtain a substitute, and hoping that his
vice would not prove incurable, I was compelled, most indignantly and
unwillingly, to put up with his offences for three days. On the morning
of the fourth, he suddenly broke forward from heel, and went off at full
speed before me: aware, by experience, of what was about to take place,
I lifted the piece to my shoulder, and should, most assuredly, have
tickled his stern, had he not dashed over the brow of a little hillock,
so rapidly, that it was impossible to cover him with my Manton. On
reaching the brow of the acclivity, I saw him, in the valley below, with
his teeth entangled in the wool of a wether; and a sturdy old person, in
the garb of a sportsman, belabouring him over the back with an enormous
cudgel. The individual, who inflicted this wholesome castigation on the
delinquent, offered to cure him for me of his propensity. I gratefully
accepted the offer; and thus became acquainted with that fine specimen
of the old-fashioned gentlemen of England, Sir Mathew Ale, of Little
Redland Hall, Baronet,-(whose grounds I was crossing, on my way to
a manor over which I had the privilege of shooting,)-by means of a
rascally dog, that had a fancy for killing his own mutton.
[Illustration: 019]
SIR MATHEW ALE.
It was a question, even with my friend the Baronet himself, whether,
as some of the genealogists asserted, his respectable ancestors
were related to the illustrious judge, who, with the exception of an
aspirate, was his namesake: but if, as the old gentleman said, he had
none of the eminent lawyer's blood flowing in his veins, a fact of much
greater importance was indisputable;--he possessed, without the shadow
of a doubt, that great man's mug,--the capacious vessel from which he
was wont to quaff huge and inspiring draughts of the king of all manly
beverages, “nut-brown ale.” The pitcher,--to which appellation its size
entitled it,--“filled with the foaming blood of Barleycorn” from ten
to fifteen years of age, invariably graced my friend's old oaken table,
during our frequent festive meetings. There was a strong likeness, in
the outline of Sir Mathew's mug, when full of the frothing liquor in
which he delighted, to his “good round belly,” his ruddy face, and his
flowing wig. It was highly valued by the old gentleman, while he lived;
and is looked upon with a kind of reverential love, by those to whom
he endeared himself by his good qualities, as the only likeness of him
extant, now that he is dead.
Sir Mathew was an enthusiastic admirer of the customs of merry old
England, and especially attached to those of “the West-Countrie.” Bom in
Devon, and living, as he said, with one foot in Gloucester and the
other in Somerset, he had acquired a greater knowledge of the qualities,
habits, and feelings of the people who dwelt in two or three of the
“down-a-long” shires, than most men of his day. He was well versed in
their superstitions, their quaint customs, and their oddities;--an adept
in their traditionary lore, and acquainted with most of the heroes
who had figured in their little modern romances of real life. A large
portion of his time had been absorbed in making collections for a
System of Rustic Mythology, a Calendar of West Country Customs, and in
perfecting his favourite work,--the Apotheosis of John Barleycorn. The
ensuing pages are devoted merely to a few circumstances which fell under
his own observation; with the characters in the narratives, he was,
personally, more or less acquainted: the auto-biography of the obese
attorney, Habakkuk Bullwrinkle, is faithfully transcribed from the
original manuscript, in Sir Mathew's possession.
Sir Mathew frequently declared, that nearly all the superstitions of the
people, relating to charms and tokens, were, as he knew by experience,
founded in truth. He had, at one time, been a staunch believer in the
power of the “dead man's candle” to prevent those, who are sleeping in
the house where it is lighted, from waking until it is burned out, or
extinguished: but latterly Sir Mathew thought proper to intimate that
his belief in the efficacy of the charm had been, in some degree,
staggered. A malicious wag, in the neighbourhood, propagated a tale,
which, if true, accounts naturally enough for the change in Sir Mathew's
opinion upon this point. Whenever an eminent burglar happened to be
imprisoned in either of the neighbouring gaols, it was the Baronet's
custom, for a number of years past, as the story went, to consult the
criminal, as a high authority, on the virtue of the mystic light in
house-breaking. The result of his inquiries induced him to repose so
much faith in the charm, that, in order to set the question beyond a
doubt, he determined on making a midnight entry into the house of a dear
friend; who, he knew, neither kept fire-arms, nor would, for a moment,
suspect him, even if discovered and taken in the fact, of being actuated
by burglarious motives. With the assistance of a lecturer on
anatomy, who lived in a neighbouring town, and a clever
journeyman-tallow-chandler, Sir Mathew made “a dead man's Candle,”
_secundum artem_; armed with which, he penetrated into his friend's
pantry, regaled himself very heartily on some cold beef, and a bottle
of stout ale, and finding that his proceedings had not caused the least
alarm, he daringly made a great deal of unnecessary noise. His friend
and the servants were at length roused: in his hurry to get off
undetected, Sir Mathew's candle was extinguished; and during the
darkness, his dear friend, and Jacob, his dear friend's butler,
thrashed him so unmercifully, that, although his fears endowed him with
sufficient agility to effect a retreat, he could scarcely crawl home;
and was confined to his bed, by a very mysterious indisposition, for
more than a week.
Sir Mathew stoutly denied the truth of this impeachment: he admitted
that he was a practical man,--an experimentalist in such matters; but he
indignantly pleaded “not guilty” to being so enthusiastic a simpleton
as his jocose calumniator had represented him. The wag, in reply, said
“that it was very natural, right or wrong, for Sir Mathew to deny the
correctness of the story. Although the old gentleman is certainly quite
simple enough to do the deed,” added he, “I must needs own, I never
suspected him of being such a blockhead as to confess it.”
After this, Sir Mathew treated the tale as an ingenious and venial
invention, and always enjoyed it highly whenever it was subsequently
related in his hearing. He would have laughed heartily at it, perhaps,
if he could; but he had long been compelled to drill his features,
periodically, into a state of almost inflexible gravity. “People who
know but little of me,” he would say, “call me 'the man without a
smile;' I pass, with many, for a very surly fellow; unfortunately, I am
often misrepresented, and my real character is mistaken, through, what
others would deem, a trifling affliction: the bane of my life is, that,
very frequently, for a month together, I can't laugh, and don't dare
even to indulge in my habitual smirk, because I have an apparently
incurable and terrifically susceptible little crack in my lip.”
Sir Mathew was a most zealous supporter of the ancient customs of the
country. He patronised the sports of a neighbouring village fair, at a
considerable expense, until its frequenters almost abused him for not
giving two pigs with greasy tails to be caught, instead of one. He
entertained the cobblers of the surrounding villages, annually, with
a barrel of strong ale, in order to keep up the good old custom of
Crispin's sons draining a horn of malt liquor, in which a lighted candle
was placed,--without singeing their faces, if they could,--on the feast
of their patron saint: nor did he discontinue this practice, even after
some of them had despoiled him of a favourite pair of boots; until a
party of the gentle craft, on one occasion, emboldened by beer, stormed
his inmost cellar, tapped a barrel which he did not intend to have
broached for half a score of years, and, as he asserted, thickened
the beer in three others, by their tremendous uproar! Sir Matthew's
housekeeper, whose two sons were cordwainers, ventured to hint that
the beer in those barrels had never been fine; and that, even after
the fatal feast day, although certainly a little thick, it was far from
ropy. Sir Mathew vowed, on the contrary, that it was ropy enough to hang
the whole scoundrelly squad; and that he only wished they would give him
an opportunity of making the experiment.
Sir Mathew was a decided enemy to duelling; and most vehemently abused
the practice of two people popping at each other with pistols. “If
gentlemen must fight,” he would exclaim, “in the name of all that's old
English and manly, why not make use of the national quarter-staff,--as
I did, when Peppercorn Vowler called me out, and gave me my choice of
weapons?”
According to tradition, Sir Mathew was almost a stranger to his opponent
when the bout between them took place; and much to his astonishment,
Peppercorn Vowler gave him an elaborate cudgelling. It was whispered,
that the Baronet felt so indignant at the result of the quarter-staff
conflict, that he sent his adversary an invitation, which was politely
declined, to renew the fight with pistols. Peppercorn Vowler, it
appears, felt even a greater aversion to fire-arms than Sir Mathew, and
had given the latter his choice of weapons, because he was sure, from
the inquiries he had made, that Sir Mathew would most certainly choose
the quarter-staff; in the exercise of which Peppercorn Vowler was quite
a proficient.
The Baronet adopted the old rustic mode of curing my dog of his
propensity to mutton: he turned him into a barn, with a couple of very
powerful and evil-disposed rams. “I'll warrant,” said he, as he closed
the door, “that the animal will never look a sheep in the face again.”
He was certainly right in his prediction; for half an hour afterwards,
the dog died under the extraordinary discipline of the battering rams to
which Sir Mathew had zealously subjected him.
[Illustration: 023]
THE COUNTERPART COUSINS.
Almost every house, in a little village situate in the lower part of
Somersetshire, near the borders of Devon, was tenanted, two or three
generations back, either by a Blake or a Hickory. Individuals, of one or
the other of these names, occupied all the best farms, and all the
minor lucrative posts, in the parish. The shoemaker, the carpenter, the
thatcher, and the landlord of the public house, were Blakes; and the
parish clerk, the glazier, the tailor, and the keeper of “the shop,”
where almost every thing was sold, Hickories. Numerous matrimonial
alliances were formed among the young people of the two families. As
the Blakes were manly, and the Hickories handsome, it happened, rather
luckily, that the children of the former were, for the most part, boys,
and those of the latter, girls. If a male child were bom among the
Hickories, he grew up puny in frame and womanly in features; and there
was not an individual, among the few females of the Blake family,
who did not bear the strongly marked features and robust frame,
characteristic of the race from which she sprang. The young men of the
house of Hickory were too much like their sisters, to be good-looking
fellows; and the damsels of the other name resembled their brothers too
closely, to be beautiful women; they were, apparently, stout enough in
form, and sufficiently bold in heart, had not the days of chivalry been
past, to have been esquires to “mettlesome knights of hie renown;”
while the striplings of the other family were more adapted, from their
lady-like limbs and gentle looks, to be bower-pages to those
high-born dames, for whose honour and amusement, their chivalric lords
occasionally broke each other's pates in the tourney.
Notwithstanding these disparities, some strong attraction seemed to
exist between the blood of the two families; not only did the
“manly Blakes” take unto themselves wives from among the “handsome
Hickories,”---this was natural enough,--but the young yeomen of the
tribe of Hickory, intermarried with the spinsterhood of the Blakes.
Perhaps it was Hobson's choice with the youths,--these or none;--there
being scarcely another name in the village except those of the “two
great houses”--Hickory and Blake; and in those days, but few of its
young folks travelled far beyond the landmarks of their native place.
The Blakes and Hickories, at length, grew so numerous, that the village
did not offer sufficient resources for their support, and several of
them emigrated;--some to the neighbouring towns, but the greater part
to the metropolis, where they were soon lost in its mighty tide
of population, which is constantly recruited by “supplies from the
country,” as the river, whose banks it ennobles, is supported by the
tributary streams which eternally flow into its huge bed. A great
number of the descendants of those females of the Blake family, who had
intermarried with Hickories, still remained; but it was in vain to
seek for the fine Herculean forms, which tradition had assigned to the
Blakes, or the surpassing beauty, which, according to old tales, was
once possessed by the female Hickories. It is true, that the features of
each family were to be seen, scattered among various individuals; but no
perfect specimen, in the prime of life, of either race, could be found.
Two or three gaunt fellows, the oldest men in the parish, who were issue
of the first unions between the two houses, still stalked about, with
melancholy countenances, thinking but little of the present, and
more often of the past than the future; but as their fathers had been
Hickories, and their mothers Blakes, it was said that they did not
possess those excellencies of form or feature, which their cousins, who
were Blakes by the father's side, and Hickories by the mother's, were
reported to have been endowed.
A single individual of the Blake family, in whose veins none of the
Hickory blood flowed, remained alive; that individual was a woman,
fettered by age and infirmities, to a chair on the kitchen hearth of one
of her descendants. Dame Deborah was venerated as a relic of old times,
rather than beloved. The beings about her had come into the world when
she was aged; and those, to whom she had given life, had passed away
before her; leaving their mother to the care of a third generation. To
her, those little acts of kindness, which are so endearing in the first
stage of human decay through “length of days,” were rarely performed,
because she was too withered in mind and feeling to appreciate them.
She lived among relations, but had no friends. All her wants were
scrupulously provided for; but the attentions, which her grand-children
and great-grand-children paid her, were acts of duty rather than
affection. The days of her glory, even as an old woman were over: she
had ceased to become a domestic adviser; the last child she had nursed,
for one of her daughters, was now “a stout and stalwart” young fellow,
nearly six feet high; and those, to whom she had told tales of other
times, when her memory and breath were both equal to the task, were
getting old themselves, and beginning to relate the same chronicles,
round the kitchen fire, on winter nights; generally without
acknowledging, and often forgetting, to whom they were indebted for that
legendary lore, the possession of which so exalted them in the opinions
of the young.
From the dark cloud, which usually obscured Dame Deborah's mental
faculties, a gleam of youthful memory occasionally shot up, which much
amazed many of her descendants. One evening, a warm discussion took
place in the kitchen where she sat, as to the precise ages of Ralph
Hickory and his cousin Harry. After a world of talk, without an atom
of conclusion, Dame Deborah placed her hand upon the arm of one of
the disputants, and said, in a tremulous but distinct tone: “Susanna
Hickory, who was big Anthony Blake's seventh child, and only daughter,
and married one of the young Hickories of Hickory Hatch, was brought to
bed of a boy on the second day of our Whitsun revel, the same hour that
her cousin Polly had twins,--both boys,--but only one of them lived
to be christened. I stood godmother to the two babes. Susey's boy
was called Ralph, after my first husband, and Polly's after my second
goodman, Harry. That was the year when lightning struck the steeple, and
Matty Drew, the witch, was drowned. She told the children's fortunes,
and said of them,--
'Merry meeting--sorry parting;
Second greeting--bitter smarting;
Third struggle--'”
Dame Deborah could not finish Matty Drew's prediction; and this was the
seventh time, within as many years, that she had attempted to do so,
but in vain; a fit of coughing or abstraction invariably seizing her on
these occasions, before she could articulate the remainder of the line.
The debaters stared with wonder on each other at the old dame's unusual
fluency; for she had not spoken, except in monosyllables, during many
preceding months; and they looked upon it as an omen of Deborah's death,
or some great calamity to one of her living descendants. On examining
the church books, they found her account to be correct, so far as
regarded the baptism of the two boys, and the interment of one of
Polly's twins; and some of her neighbours recollected that the church
was struck, as Deborah had related, in the same year that Matty Drew was
drowned, by a farmer and his two sons, who supposed she had bewitched
them, and their cattle; and ducked her, under the idea that, if she were
a witch, she could not be drowned; little thinking of the consequences
to themselves, if she did not survive the ordeal. Two of them afterwards
fled the country; the third was taken and tried. He stated, in his
defence, that he had reason to believe Matty was a witch, for her
predictions were always verified by events; and that once, when his
mother could not succeed in her churning, he and his father twisted a
hazel switch, as tight as their strength would permit, about the chum,
and behold, at last, in came Matty, shrieking and writhing, as if in
agony, and beseeching them to unloose the gad; which, she admitted, was
sympathetically torturing her own waist. He called no witnesses to this
fact; and, notwithstanding the ingenious argument which his counsel had
written out for him, wherein it was stated that “an unlettered clown”
might well be forgiven for entertaining the same opinions as some of the
kings of England, and one of her most eminent judges, in old days, the
young man was convicted and executed, for acting under an impression
that those powers existed, for the possession of which, a century
before, helpless old women were found guilty by twelve of their fellow
countrymen, and doomed, by a strong-minded judge, to be burned;--more
than one of the old creatures having crawled, it is said, when led
from the cold dungeon, to warm their chilled limbs by the fire that was
kindling to consume them.
Ralph Hickory and Harry Hickory, the objects of Matty Drew's doggrel
prophecy, are the heroes of our tale--the Counterpart Cousins;--rather
alike in disposition, but bearing no resemblance to each other in
outward appearance. Ralph inherited all the strength and height of
the Blakes, without their fine form, or the handsome features of the
Hickories. His shoulders were broad, but round, and his neck did not
seem to rise exactly in their centre: his arms were long, muscular, and
well shaped; but his legs were crooked, and too brief in proportion
to his body. His maternal ancestor's features were rather of the Roman
order, and the wags of the village said, that Ralph had a Blake's nose
run to seed:--it was thin, sharp, and disagreeable. Every body confessed
that he had the Hickories' merry black eyes;--but his mouth gaped, and
looked like a caricature of their pouting and slightly ported lips.
The Hickories' teeth were brilliant and pearly; the Blakes' quite the
contrary:--the lips of the former delicately exhibited their dental
treasures; while those of the latter were so close and clenched, that
it was difficult to obtain a glance at the awkward squad which they
concealed. Ralph unfortunately inherited the bad teeth of the Blakes,
and the open lips of the Hickories; as well as the fair hair of the
former, and the dark eyes and long black lashes of the latter: so that
Ralph was rather a singular looking being;--but precisely, or nearly
such a person as the reader must have occasionally met with;--exhibiting
an union of some of the beauties, and many of the deformities, of two or
three of the tribes of man.
Harry was very different in person, but not a jot more beautiful than
Ralph. His body was broader and more robust than that of a Blake, when
the family was in a flourishing state; but it was remarkably short, and
shapeless as a log. His head seemed to be squeezed into his shoulders
by some giant hand, and his light but well-proportioned Hickory legs
exhibited a striking contrast to the clumsy bulk of his huge trunk. The
butcher said, that Harry would resemble his big block, with a calf's
head on its surface, only that it stood on three legs, and Harry
possessed but two. His arms were thick, bony and stunted; and his hands
of such an immense size, that he was often called “Molepaw” by his
competitors in the wrestling ring. Harry had the large blue eyes of the
Blake family, and a thick, short, snub nose; which, the good gossips
said, could be traced to nobody. There was a striking resemblance in his
other features to the by-gone Hickories: his mouth and chin were really
handsome; but an unmeaning smile usually played about his lips; and
he had a vacant sort of look, that betokened good humour allied to
silliness. But when Harry's blood was warmed by an angry word or two
and an extra cup of drink, though he did not “look daggers,” he frowned
furiously, and looked, as well as talked, broomsticks, cudgels, kicks on
the shin-bone, and various other “chimeras dire.” In such a mood, Harry
was dangerous to deal with, and avoided by all those who were peaceably
disposed.
In this particular, Ralph was his counterpart There was not a more kind
or sociable being in three counties than Ralph Hickory, when he was
sober; but liquor made him quarrelsome and rash; it whetted his appetite
to give and receive kicks and bruises; and if he could not rouse any
one, by insults and taunting, to wrestle, fight, or play a bout at
back-sword, or cudgels with him,--he lashed himself up into a fury,
attacked, and either scattered those who were about him like chaff, or
got felled by a sturdy thwack of fist or cudgel, and fastened down until
reason returned hand-in-hand with shame and remorse. To both of the
cousins liquor was pure Lethe; they never remembered any thing that
occurred, from the time of their passing the rubicon of intoxication,
until the moment of their waking the next day.
Ralph and Harry considered themselves as relations to each other, on the
credit of certain of the gossiping oral genealogists of the village,
who proved, in a very roundabout way, to their auditors, but entirely to
their own conviction, that Ralph and Harry were, what are called, in the
West Country,--second and third cousins. Each of them was the offspring
of a match between a male Hickory and a female Blake; and both were bad
specimens of the two fine families, whose more gifted descendants, in
regard to personal appearance, the issue of those unions which had been
formed between “the manly Blakes” and “the handsome Hickories,” were
the individuals who had quitted the village, impelled by a spirit of
adventure, when they felt themselves too crowded in their native place,
on account of the increase of its population.
Hickory was now the paramount name in the parish; there was not a single
Blake in its little community, except old Dame Deborah, whose boast it
had been, when she could babble apace, that she was the last of either
of the pure stocks left. She had often stated, in the autumn of
her life,--that season when the mind yields its richest fruits of
memory,--that the good old Blakes began to lose the ascendant, from
the time of the battle of Culloden. It will appear strange, that the
downfall of the Pretender's forces in the north, should be associated,
in Deborah's mind, with that of her family, whose abiding place was in
the west. We will explain this nearly in the old dame's own words: “On
the 16th of April, in the forty-six, my brother Gilbert,”--thus her
story ran,--“who was then an officer in the Duke of Cumberland's
dragoons, which rank he had attained, partly by money, partly by merit,
did such service under the great Hawley, against the lads in tartans,
that he was promised promotion by the famous Duke, who gave him his
pistols, in the field, as an earnest of more favours to come. A few
days after, while the dragoons were scouring the country, in quest of
prisoners of consequence, it was whispered, by some who envied him, that
Gilbert had been won by the honeyed words and rich jewels of a noble
northern lady, to let her husband, whom he had taken, escape. This
report reached Gilbert's ears; and the next day, while he was mounting
his horse, an orderly came with commands for him to attend the Duke
with all speed. Gilbert directly drew out his men; gave some orders of
importance, which were afterwards executed, and proved very beneficial
to the service, and directed his junior officer to lead the soldiers off
to perform it: he then stepped aside, and, with one of the pistols the
Duke had given him on the sixteenth, blew out his brains! On the very
evening the news arrived of my brother's death by his own hands, a sad
disaster happened to the Blakes:--my father was, that afternoon, beating
an apprentice, rather too severely, perhaps, in a field where some of
his labourers were hacking-in wheat; when one who was among them,--a
little fellow who was not much more than five feet high, but remarkable
for his good features and fine form,--left his work, and advancing to my
tall and powerful father, reproached him, in so insolent a manner, for
beating the boy, who was a favourite with the labourer, that the bad
blood of the Blakes became immediately roused, and he inflicted a blow
or two on the man's shoulders with his stick: the fellow stepped back a
few paces, and then running against my father at full speed, drove his
head into the pit of the old man's stomach with such violence, that it
laid him dead upon the spot I don't know why, or wherefore, but true it
is, that the labourer was acquitted of blame on his trial; and he was
the first of the Hickories known in these parts. The same evening, my
aunt Elinor, the widow of Frank Cooper, who had sailed round the world
with Anson, died away in her chair, without any previous illness. Had my
father been killed an hour later, he would have heard of the suicide of
his son; and had not my aunt Elinor died before sunset, she would have
known, that both her brother and her nephew had gone before her to the
grave: but both of them were saved from the bitterness of such news on
their dying day. From that time, the Blakes dwindled, and the Hickories
rose. They have matched and mated much since; but it is said, perhaps
truly, that the Hickories are doomed to root out the Blakes, and then
destroy themselves;--they met in the valley of death, and blood will be
mixed in their stirrup-cup. My grandson Ralph has now more of the Blakes
in him than any other man; and thick Harry, although he has a double
dash of us in his veins, is more of a Hickory than any other I know.
They are both Hickories in name, but not truly so in nature. Ralph looks
upon himself, and is looked up to, as the head of the poor remnant of
my father's race; and Harry is in the same situation, as a descendant
of the labourer, who took his master's life, on that master's own land.
They have both a great many of the bad qualities, and but few of the
virtues, of the two families;--and I, for one, say--God keep them from
drinking deep out of the same cup!--for liquor is likely to be their
bane.”
This sort of language was too frequently repeated, and the witch Matty
Drew's prophecy too often alluded to, by old Deborah, in those days when
her tongue still talked triumphantly, although her limbs were incapable
of motion, not to produce a deep and lasting impression upon her
hearers. One half of the village was in a constant state of alarm, after
Ralph had returned, a man, from the “up-along” counties, to which he
had departed, a boy, in order to learn some improved mode of cultivating
land, lest the two cousins should meet and quarrel in their cups. If
they were seen in the village, passing a few moments in friendly chat,
a scout immediately acquainted the parties most interested with the
circumstance; and, in a short time, one of them was drawn off, by a
fictitious story, of lambs tumbling into ditches, cows getting their
legs entangled in hurdles, or children fallen into fits.
Ralph and Harry both loved the pastimes of their native place; they
could wrestle, and play at back-sword, in very laudable style; but
Ralph was the better wrestler, and Harry surpassed in the use of the
single-stick. Devon being noted for its wrestlers, and Somerset for
its single-stick players, the cousins were attracted in different
directions, to enjoy that pastime in which each excelled; so that, up
to the fortieth year of their lives,--and they were, as it will be
remembered, precisely of the same age,--they had never, much to the
satisfaction of their friends, met in the ring as rivals. Especial care
had always been taken that they did not join the same convivial parties;
they often attempted to make merry together, for Ralph and Harry really
felt an affection for each other's society, but the women invariably
out-manoeuvred them, and the two cousins were greater strangers to each
other, than either of them was to any man else in the village, of his
own age and station.
Their forty-first birth-day arrived: Ralph attended a review of the
yeomanry-cavalry, in which he was a corporal, and Harry went to market
for the purpose of selling some steers. On returning home, they were
obliged to cross each other's track. They dwelt at opposite ends of the
long, straggling village; which were approached by two different lanes:
of these, the letter X will serve as a tolerably good substitute for a
ground plan;--the market town being situate at the top of the left, and
the common, on which the review was held, on that of the right, limb
of the letter; at the lower end of which the village meandered along
through meadows and corn-fields; Harry's abode being at the right, and
Ralph's at the left end of it. The two lanes were crossed, at the point
of intersection, by a third, which, on account of its being two or
three yards wider, and a little more frequented than either of them,
was dignified with the title of “the high road;” and in this “undeniable
situation,” as George Robins would say, stood a snug public house,
called Sawney's Cross; the front of which commanded a view, across the
high road, for some distance up the lanes which led to the market town
and common.
Harry was proceeding down one lane, at a speedy, shuffling pace, betwixt
a gallop and trot, on a powerful blind galloway; while Ralph approached
the line of intersection, from the common, by the other, on a gaunt,
half-bred horse, nearly sixteen hands high, a strong galloper, and quite
ungovernable when put upon his mettle. The galloway and the tall horse
were both “homeward bound;” and “sniffing the manger from afar,” each
of them was going along, impatient of check, and at, what jockies would
call, “a tip-top pace.”
Ned Creese, the landlord of Sawney's Cross, stood at his door, and
beheld the ominous approach of the two travellers: he was mathematician
enough to discover, that equi-distant as they were, from the point where
their lines of direction intersected each other in the middle of the
main road, and approaching toward such point with equal speed, something
unpleasant must needs occur to one of the parties, at the transit. He
beckoned, and called out to each of them as loudly as he could: but
Harry was short sighted, and could not see his motions; and Ralph was
rather hard of hearing, and could not make out what he meant; so that
neither of them pulled up; and, as they were concealed from each other
by the high hedges of the lanes, neither Harry nor Ralph was aware of
the danger that menaced them, until they emerged from the bottom of
the lanes. Ralph foresaw the event first, and, with might and main,
attempted to pull his horse out of the way: he partly succeeded, but by
checking his steed, and making him swerve from the direct line in which
he was going, he gave Harry a decided advantage in the ensuing shock.
The cousins had just time to ejaculate “Hoy, Ralph!” and “Hilloa,
Harry!” when the blind galloway bore his off-shoulder against the tall
troop-horse's hind quarters, and just such a catastrophe took place as
Creese had anticipated:--Harry was thrown over his galloway's head; and
Ralph, with his horse, and the galloway at his heels, were carried to
the brink of a horse-pond by the road side. Ralph fell in the mud,
and the horses went over him into the water; where they lay struggling
together for a few moments; they then got up without assistance, and
each limped homeward, leaving their owners to come after them as well as
they could.
“Hoy, Ralph!” and “Hilloa, Harry!” were the first words the cousins
uttered.
“Art hurt, lad?” asked Ralph.--“No,” was the reply;--“Art thee?”
“Sound as oak; only a bloody nose, and a bump on the forehead.”
“That's right, then; I don't feel much the matter myself; but dowl take
thy blind galloway, for all that!”
“He's worth his weight in gold;--didn't'ee see how he capsized you and
your troop horse?”
“You charged me in flank when I was filing off;--if I had met'ee full
butt, Harry, I should ha' sent thee and thy galloway clean into
the muck, and gone on without abating pace, or feeling a jerk in my
balance.”
“What, and not ha' turned round to say 'Hilloa, Harry?'”
“Odd! yes, to be sure,--I'd say 'Hilloa, Harry!'--and what will'ee
drink, besides.”
“Well,--and what _shall_ we?”
“I don't mind;--but let's ha' something, and make merry together for
once.”
“Wi' all my heart!--Here we be, safe from busy meddlers; and dash me if
I don't feel inclined to make a day of it.”
“Give me your hand;--this capsize was a bit of luck, weren't it?”
“Aye, to be sure,--brought two good fellows together. What shall we
have?--It's cold.--What d'ye say to Hopping John, made Tom Nottle's
fashion?--Landlord, mix pint of brandy wi' half a gallon of your best
cider, sugared to your own taste; and,--d'ye mind?--pop in about a dozen
good roasted apples, hissing hot, to take the chill off.”
In a short time, the two cousins were seated by the fire, in a little
room behind the bar of the Sawney's Cross, with a smoking bowl of liquor
on the table before them, and Ned Creese assisting them to empty it. By
degrees, the cousins became elevated, and their chat was enlivened
by budding jokes and choice flowers of rustic song. Harry's forehead
frequently reminded him, in the midst of his glee, of the adventure in
the road; and he recurred to it, for the fifth time, since the sitting,
as Ned brought in a second brewage of hot Hopping John:--“I'd lay a
wager I know where my blind galloway is, just about now,” quoth he;
“it's odd to me if he isn't stopping at the Dragon's Head, where he
always pulls up, and tempts me to call for a cup of cider and a mouthful
of hay.”
“Gentlemen,” said Creese, “I'll give you a toast--a Devonshire one--and
it's this:--A back fall, or a side fall, or any fall but a fall out.”
“For my part,” continued Ned, after his toast was duly honoured,--“I
expected no less than a fight, if you were able to stand, after what I
saw would happen;--but I hardly hoped to see both get on your legs, with
nothing but one bloody nose between the pair of you.”
“I must say, landlord, I fell very comfortably, indeed, considering,”
said Harry.
“And I came down very much to my own satisfaction,” quoth Ralph, “only
that I soiled my uniform.”
“It struck me,” observed Ned Creese, “that you must have gone over head
and ears into the pond, which is deeper than it should be in the middle;
but I consoled myself;--for, thinks I,--if so be that he should, the
_frogs_ on his dragoon jacket will save him, if swimming can do it If
you'd both broke your necks I couldn't but giggle to see you. It's my
belief 'twould have made a horse laugh; as my sign says, it was truly
'good entertainment for man and beast.'--Don't be hipped because I'm
jocular: joking's a malady with many a man, and here stands one of'em;
we can no more help it than an ague fit. But come, folks; here's 'The
West Country Orchards!'--and then let's rouse the crickets with the
old apple-tree hymn.--I'll begin.” So saying, Creese commenced, and,
assisted by Ralph and Harry, chaunted forth the following rhymes, in a
manner that would have amazed Mozart, although it gladdened the hearts
of the rustic guests in the Sawney's Cross kitchen.
1.
The white rose was, aye, a dainty flower,
And the hawthorn a bonny tree;
A grove of oaks is a rich dame's dower;
But the barley-straw for me!
2.
From his acorn-cup let the Elfin sip,
And the oak-fruit be munched by swine;
The thrush may have both the haw and hip;
Give me but the jolly vine!
3.
Ale you may brew, from the barley-straw;
Neither ale, nor grape-juice for me;
I care not for acorn, hip, nor haw;--
Give me but the apple-tree!
After they had all three repeated the last verse together, and applauded
their performance by sundry exclamations of approval, and thwacks on the
table, Ralph observed, “Oddsheart! cousin, we're getting as we should
be; a fig for a fell after this.”
“Da capo, say I to it,” exclaimed Creese; “da capo, I say to it,
heartily: da capo, as it is written in the score-book we sing the psalms
by, in the gallery, at church.”
“Wasn't frightened a trifle, landlord, when thee saw'st us coming?”
“Is the approach of a good bone likely to alarm a hungry dog?--I knew
well enough you'd fall; and if you fell, the fall must bring me grist,
in meal or malt:--a 'quest jury, if death had been done; board and
lodging, in case of broken limbs; and a brace of guests for an hour,
if you were only bruised. I shall be much obliged, when you knock
one another down again, if you'll do it before my door. Success to
cross-roads, blind galloways, helter-skelter dragooning, and blink-eyed
farmers!--Ha! ha!--You'll excuse me gentlemen; we're all friends; I hope
no offence.--What are your commands?”
“There's one thing I'd wish thee to do, landlord,” said Ralph; “if any
body should enquire for us,--don't say we be here.”
“No, truly,” added Harry; “an' thou dost, thou'lt lose a couple of good
customers, and get thy head broke to boot, perhaps.”
“Never fear--never fear!” replied Ned; “a secret's safe with me, as
though 'twaa whispered in the ear of an ass. Thank heaven, I haven't had
a woman in the house these seven yean; so all's snug.--
“A forester slept beneath the beech.
Heigh! norum snorum!
His full flask lay within his arm's reach;
Heigh! horum jorum!
A maiden came by with a blooming face,
Heigh! rosy posey!
She ask'd him the way to Berrywell Chase,--
With its wine so old,
And its pasties cold;--
Forester, what has froze ye?
“A long song is out of place over good liquor; so I'll not sing the
other eighteen verses of that one; its moral is, that a woman can't keep
a secret, even when the possession of what she desires depends on it;
but that her babbling often proves her salvation. A friar comes in
sight, while the forester is wooing, and he packs the maid off, for
appearance' sake;--telling her, if she'll meet him there the next day,
provided she don't reveal his promise to mortal, that he'll give her 'a
gown of the richest green,' besprinkled with dewy pearls, or pearly dew,
I forget which: but the maiden was so delighted, that when she got to
the Chase, she told the warden's niece, and the warden's niece told the
maiden's aunt, and the maiden's aunt locked her up for a week: so she
saved her reputation, but lost her present, by babbling.--Gentlemen, you
don't drink!”
We must here leave the cousins to the care of Creese--they could not
have fallen into better hands for the mood in which they met--and remind
our readers, that the horses, after extricating themselves from the
pond, proceeded homeward as well as the injuries they had received would
permit. Their arrival at the village, spread consternation among its
inhabitants: parties went forth, in different directions, to seek Ralph
and Harry;--the women predicting that they had met and killed each
other, and the men endeavouring to stifle their own apprehensions on
the subject. Creese, on being asked if he knew any thing of the matter,
replied, that “he had seen the horses, without riders, gallop by his
door, down the lanes;” and as no one had witnessed the meeting of the
cousins but himself and they were kept close in the back parlour, no
information could be obtained from any one else. Lights were burnt,
in almost every house in the village, nearly all night; and toward
day-break the last party returned without any tidings of the lost sheep.
Old Dame Deborah, confiding in the predictions of Matty Drew, said, as
well as she could, “Bad is this--there's worse to come;--it will prove
to be but a
“Merry meeting--sorry parting.”
We must now return to the cousins. On the morning after their concussion
in front of Sawney's Cross, Ralph, with whom we shall begin, awoke at
day break, and on taking a hasty survey of his apartment, found, to his
surprise, that he was not at home. He recollected very well that he had
usually worn, for many years past, corduroy small-clothes; and, when he
joined the volunteer yeomanry, white doe-skin pantaloons. “Whose black
nether garments can those be, then,” thought he, “which I see dangling
from yonder peg?”--He leaped out of bed, threw open the lattice, and the
first object that attracted his notice was the horse-pond; on the miry
edge of which, he remembered having been thrown the day before. This
accounted for the colour of his doe-skins. “But, how the dickens,”
thought he, “got I this tremendous black eye? Where's my front tooth?
And who the deuce has been bruising my ear?--I recollect, well enough,
seeing Creese, the landlord, bring in a third brewing of Hopping John,
and my singing, 'Creeping Jenny,' or part of it, afterwards but what's
come of Harry?”
While these and similar reflections were passing in Ralph's mind,
he proceeded to dress himself, which he found a task of considerable
difficulty, for he was stiff and sore in every limb. Impatient to
resolve the mystery in which he found himself involved, Ralph, before he
was completely attired in his soiled uniform, hobbled down stairs, and
found Harry, staring at the landlord, as though Creese had just been
telling him some very marvellous story.
“Why, Ralph,--cousin Ralph,” said Harry, as Ralph entered the kitchen,
“what be this the landlord says?--He vows and protests 'twere you that
ha' been tearing my clothes to tatters and rags, and beating my face to
a jelly!--I han't a sound inch in my skin!”
“Before I do answer any questions, it be my wish to know of you,
landlord,” said Ralph, in an angry tone, and taking Creese by the
collar; “and what's more, I insist you do tell me, who took the
advantage of me last night--who it were that knocked my tooth out, when
I were overcome?”