badger-hunting; it is a fine, irregular sort of pastime, unfettered by
the systematic rules of the more aristocratic sports. The stag-hunt
and the fox-chase, are so shackled with old ordinances and covert-side
statutes, that they remind me of one of the classical dramas of the
French: a badger-hunt is of the romantic school;--free as air, wild as
mountain breezes;--joyous, exhilarating, uncurbed, and natural as one of
our Shakspeare's plays. Barring an otter-hunt, (and what's better still,
according to Caddy Cuddle's account, who has been in the North Seas,
the spearing of a whale,) there are few sports that suit my capacity of
enjoyment, so well as badger-bagging.--Just picture to yourself, that
you have sent in a keen terrier, no bigger than a stout fitchet, or
thereabouts, to ascertain that the badger is not within; that you have
cleverly bagged the hole, and stuck the end of the mouth-line in the
fist of a patient, but wary and dexterous clod-hopper; (an old, lame,
broken-down, one-eyed gamekeeper, is the best creature on earth for such
an office;)--and then, what do you do?--Why, zounds! every body takes
his own course, with or without dogs, as it may happen; hunting,
yelping, hallooing, and beating every brake for half a mile, or more,
round, to get scent of the badger. Imagine the moon, 'sweet huntress of
yon azure plain,' is up, and beaming with all her brilliancy; the trees
beautifully basking in her splendour; her glance streaming through an
aperture in an old oak, caused by the fall of a branch, by lightning, or
bluff Boreas, and fringing the mallow-leaf with silver; the nightingale,
in the brake, fascinating your ear; the glow-worm delighting your
eye:--you stand, for a moment, motionless;--the bat whirrs above
your head and the owl, unaccustomed to the sight of man, in such deep
solitudes, flaps, fearless, so near as to fan your glowing forehead with
his wings:--when suddenly you hear a shout,--a yell,--two or three such
exclamations as--'There a' ees!'--'Thic's he!'--'At'un, Juno!'--'Yonder
a goath!'--'Hurrah!'--'Vollow un up!'--'Yaw awicks!' and 'Oh! my
leg!'--You know by this, that 'the game's a foot;'--you fly to the right
or left, as the case may be, skimming over furzy brake, like a bird, and
wading through tangled briar, as a pike would, through the deeps of
a brook, after a trout that is lame of a fin. You reach the scene of
action; the badger is before, half a score of tykes around, and the
yokels behind you.--'Hark forward! have at him!' you enthusiastically
cry; your spirits are up;--you are buoyant--agile as a roe-buck;--your
legs devour space--you--”
“My dear fellow, allow me to conclude,” interrupted Caddy Cuddle, “for
your prose Pegasus never can carry you through the hunt at this rate.
To be brief, then,--according to what I have heard from my
never-to-be-sufficiently-lamented friend, Caddy Caddy,--the badger, when
found, immediately makes for his earth: if he reach it without being
picked up and taken, he bolts in at the entrance; the bag receives
him; its mouth is drawn close by the string; and thus the animal is
taken.--But, odds! while I talk of those delights, which were the theme
of our discourse in the much-regretted days of Caddy Caddy, I forget
that time is on the wing.--I suppose no one is going my way.”
“I am,” replied Tom Homer, “in about three hours' time.”
“Ay, ay! you're younger, friend Homer, than I have been these fifteen
years,” said Cuddle; “time was, before Caddy Caddy lost his wits, when
he and I have sat over midnight together, as merry as crickets; but
since his misfortune, I have become a very altered man. '_Primâ nocte
domum claude_--that has been my motto for years past Mrs. Watermark, my
good housekeeper, is, I feel convinced, already alarmed; and it would
not become me, positively to terrify her: besides, I am not on very
intimate terms with my horse, which I borrowed from my friend, Anthony
Mutch, of Mallow Hill, for this occasion: the roads, too, have been so
cut and carved about, by the Commissioners,--doubtless, for very wise
purposes,--since poor Caddy Caddy's time, that I had much ado to find
my way in the broad day-light; and these spectacles, I must needs say,
although I reverence the donor, are not to be depended on, so implicitly
as I could wish. Let me see--ay--'tis now twelve years ago, from my last
birth-day, since they were presented to me; and, believe me, I 've never
had the courage to wear them before. I hate changing,--especially of
spectacles; I should not have put them on now--confound them!--had it
not been for Mrs. Watermark, who protested my others were not fit to be
seen in decent society.”
“Under the circumstances you have mentioned,” said the Honourable
Charles Caddy, “I must press you to accept of a bed. Pray, make the
Castle your own; you will confer an obligation on me by remaining.”
“Cousin Caddy,” replied Cuddle, rising from his seat, and approaching
his host, whose hand he took between both his own; “I rejoice to find so
worthy a successor of poor Caddy Caddy, master of Caddy Castle. It
would be most pleasing to me, if it were possible, to remain; and, I do
protest, that I positively would, were it not for the feelings of Mrs.
Watermark,--a most worthy and valuable woman,--who is now, perhaps,
sitting on thorns on my account But I feel so grateful to you,--so happy
in your society, that I will actually quaff another bumper, previously
to taking my stirrup-cup; yea, and truly, were honest Jack Cole--old
king Cole, as we used to cadi him, in Caddy Caddy's days,--were Jack
here, with his fine bass voice, I would actually proffer a stave or
so,--say, for instance, the Dialogue between Time and the Drinkers,--if
Tom Horner would chime in, as he used to do when a boy, here, in this
very room, with honest Jack, poor Caddy Caddy, and my-self, in times
past--Honest Jack! most excellent Jack! rare king Cole! would he were
here!”
“I should be sorry, cousin,” said the Honourable Charles Caddy, “to have
omitted, in my invitation-list, the name of so respectable and staunch a
friend of our family, as Mr. Cole, of Colebrook. If I do not mistake,
he sits immediately below my friend Wilmot, at the next table; I regret
that I have not had an opportunity of making myself more known to him.”
“Jack! honest Jack!” exclaimed Cuddle; “old king Cole, here, and I
not know it?--Little Jack, that's silent as the grave, except when he
thunders in a glee!--Where, cousin? Oddsbird! eh?--Jack, where are you?”
“Here am I, Caddy,” replied a diminutive old gentleman, with a
remarkably drowsy-looking eye; “I thought you were not going to accost
me.”
The deep and sonorous tone in which these words were spoken, startled
those who sat near old Cole: they gazed at him, and seemed to doubt if
the sounds they had heard really emanated from the lungs of so spare and
puny a personage. Cuddle crossed his arms on his breast, and exclaimed,
“And is it, indeed, my friend Jack Cole?”
“Don't you know me, when I speak even?” growled old Cole, “or d'ye think
somebody has borrowed my voice?”
“'Tis Jack, himself!” cried Cuddle; “honest Jack! and I did not
see him!--These glasses I cannot help stigmatizing as an egregious
nuisance.”
“Well, Mr. Cole, what say you, will you join us?” inquired Homer.
“No, sir,” replied Cole; “sing by yourself; one ass at a time is bad
enough; but three braying together, are insupportable.”
“The same man,--the same man as ever;” exclaimed Cuddle, apparently very
much pleased;--“begin, Homer;--you know his way;--he can't resist, when
his bar comes. He had always these crotchets;--begin, my boy; I will
pledge myself that he falls in with the stream of the tune.”
Horner and Cuddle now commenced the glee; and, as the latter had
predicted, Cole, after closing his eyes, throwing himself back in his
chair, and making sundry wry faces, trowled forth the first reply, and
afterwards, all the other responses of old Father Time, in the following
verses.--
“Whither away! old Father Time?
Ah! whither dost thou run?”--
“Low,--low,
I've a mob to mow;
My work is never done.”
“Tarry awhile with us, old Time,
And lay thy scythe aside!”--
“Nay!--nay!
'Tis a busy day;
My work it lieth wide.”
“Tell us, we pray thee, why, old Time,
Thou look'st so pale and glum?”--
Fie!--fie!
“I evermore sigh,
'Eternity, oh! come!'”
“Art thou, then, tired, old Father Time?
Thy labour dost thou rue?”--
“Long,--long,
Has it been my song,--
'Could I but die like you!'”
“Tell us, then, when, old Father Time,
We may expect thy death!”--
“That morn Eternity's born,
Receives my parting breath.”
“And what's eternity, Father Time?
We pray thee, tell us now!”--
“When men
Are dead, it is then Eternity they know.”
“Come, fill up thy glass, old Father Time,
And clog its sands with wine!”--
“No, no;
They would faster flow,
And distil tears of brine!”
Caddy Cuddle, at the conclusion of these verses, took possession of a
vacant chair, by the side of old Cole, and soon forgot that there was
such a being as Mrs. Watermark in existence. He quaffed bumper after
bumper with honest Jack;--an hour passed very pleasantly away in talking
of old times;--and Cuddle wondered to find himself slightly intoxicated.
He immediately rose, took his leave rather uncourteously, and went out,
muttering something about “eleven miles,” and “Mother Watermark.” In
a few minutes, he was mounted, and trotting toward the park gate which
opened on the high road. “A fine night, Billy Norman;--a fine night,
Billy;” said Cuddle, as he rode through, to the old gatekeeper; “pray,
Billy, what say you? Don't you think they have cut the roads up cruelly,
of late years?--Here's half a crown, Billy.--What with planting, and
enclosing, and road-making, I scarcely know the face of the country;
it's as puzzling as a labyrinth.--Good night, Billy!”
Cuddle, who was a tolerably bold rider, for a man of his years, now
struck his horse rather forcibly, with his heels, and urged him at once
into a brisk hand-gallop.
“He hath a spur in his head,” said Billy Norman to himself, as Cuddle
disappeared down the road; “I hope nought but good may happen him; for
he's one of the right sort, if he had it.” The roads were dry and hard,
the air serene, and Billy stood listening, for a few minutes, to the
sounds of the horse's feet; he soon felt convinced, by the cadences,
that Caddy Cuddle was increasing, rather than diminishing, his speed.
The beat of the hoofs became, at length, barely audible; it gradually
died away; and Norman was going in to light his pipe, when he thought he
heard the sounds again. He put his hand behind his ear, held his breath,
and, in a few moments, felt satisfied that Caddy Cuddle had taken the
wrong turning, and was working back, by a circular route, toward
Caddy Castle again. As he approached nearer, Norman began to entertain
apprehensions that Cuddle's horse had run away with him, in consequence
of the violent pace, at which, it was clear, from the sound of its feet,
that the animal was going. Norman stepped off the pathway into the road,
and prepared to hail Cuddle, as he passed, and ascertain, if possible,
what really was the matter. The horse and his rider came on nearly
at full speed, and Norman shouted, with all his might,--“Holloa! hoy!
stop!”
“I carry arms! I carry arms!” cried Cuddle, urging his horse forward
with all his might.
“Zauns!” exclaimed Norman, “he takes I for a highwayman!--He must ha'
mistook the road, that's certain; the horse can't ha' run away wi' un,
or a'uldn't kick un so.--Sailor, you be out o' your latitude.”
The circle, which Caddy Cuddle had made, was about two miles in
circumference: he went precisely in the same direction again, without,
in the least, suspecting his error; and having, as he thought, mastered
four miles of his road homeward, and given his horse a tolerable
breathing, he began to pull up by degrees, as he, for the second time,
approached the little rustic lodge of Caddy Park, from which he had
issued at his departure. Norman again hailed him, for he felt tolerably
satisfied that Caddy carried no other arms than those with which Nature
had endowed him. Caddy now knew the voice, and pulled up:--“Who's
there?” said he; “A friend, I think; for I remember your tone.--Who are
you, honest man?”
“Heaven help us, Mr. Cuddle!” exclaimed Norman, “Are'ee mad, sir, or
how?”
“Why, nipperkins! Norman, is it you?”
“Ay, truly.”
“And how got you here?--I thought nothing had passed me on the road.
Where are you going, honest Norman?”
“Going!--I be going no-where,” replied the gate-keeper; “I be here,
where you left me. Why, doant'ee know, that you ha' been working
round and round, just like a horse in a mill?--And after all this
helter-skelter work, here you be, just where you were!”
“D--n the spectacles, then!” said Cuddle; “and confound all
innovators!--Why couldn't they let the country alone?--I've taken the
wrong turning, I suppose?”
“Yeas,--I reckon't must be summat o' that kind:--there be four to the
right, out o' the strait road, across the common; the three first do
bring'ee round this way, t'other takes'ee home:--but, odds! Muster
Cuddle! do'ee get off!--Here be a girth broke,--and t'other as old as
my hat, and half worn through, as'tis.--Oh! you must go back; you must,
truly, go back to the stables, and put the tackle in order.”
Cuddle seemed rather loath to return, but old Norman was inflexible: he
led the horse inside the gate, which he safely locked, and put the key
in his pocket, and then hobbled along, by the side of Caddy, toward the
stables. As he passed the outer door of the house, he whispered to the
porter, his fears for Cuddle's safety, if he were suffered to depart
again, and begged that the porter would contrive to let his master be
made acquainted with the circumstance of Caddy's ride.
The information was immediately conveyed to the dining-room, and
half-a-dozen gentlemen, with the Honourable Charles Caddy at their
head, immediately proceeded to the stables, where they found Cuddle,
perspiring very copiously, and endeavouring to obtain information for
his guidance, in his contemplated journey, from those, who were, from
the same cause, as incapable of giving, as Cuddle was of following,
correct directions. The Honourable Charles Caddy, in spite of his good
breeding, could not help laughing, when he heard Cuddle's account of the
affair; but he very judiciously insisted on Cuddle's remaining at the
Castle until morning. Caddy vowed that he would acquiesce only on one
condition; which was, that a servant should be immediately dispatched to
his cottage, to allay the fears of Mrs. Watermark; and that such servant
should be specially enjoined, not to blab a word of his mishap, to the
good old gentlewoman. “If he should,” said Cuddle, “Mrs. Watermark will
be terrified, and we shall have her here before morning, even if she
walk all the way.”
It was in vain that the Honourable Charles Caddy and his visitors
entreated Caddy Cuddle to return to the table; he preferred retiring to
rest at once. “You must put up with one of the ancient bed-rooms, cousin
Cuddle,” said the Honourable Charles Caddy; “but you fear no ghosts, I
apprehend?”
“Nipperkins! not I!” replied Cuddle. “If I am to sleep out of my own
bed, I care not if you place me in the most alarming room in the Castle.
To confess the truth,--but this under the rose, cousin,--I feel a touch
of the influence of Bacchus, and '_dulce periculum est,_' you know, when
that's the case.”
The bed-chamber to which Cuddle was consigned, still retained its
tapestry hangings; and the good man quivered, either with cold, or at
the solemn appearance of the room, when he entered it. A very prominent
figure in the arras actually appeared to move, as Cuddle sat down in
a capacious old chair, at the right-hand side of the bed, to undress
himself. After gazing earnestly at it, for a moment, with his stockings
half drawn off, he corrected himself for indulging in so ridiculous
a fancy:--“None of these Pygmalion freaks,” said he; “none of your
Promethean tricks, Mr. Imagination of mine: and yet, perhaps, I am
accusing you wrongfully, and these mischievous glasses have endowed
yonder figure with seeming vitality; I hope I may not break them, in
a-pet, before I get home.”
Caddy Cuddle was one of those unfortunate beings who accustom themselves
to read in bed; and who, from long habit, can no more compose themselves
to sleep, without perusing a few pages, in their night-gear, than some
others can without a good supper, or a comfortable potation. Caddy
discovered two or three old, worm-eaten books, in a small table drawer,
and selected that one which was printed in the largest type, for
his perusal, when recumbent. It was a volume of tracts, on geomancy,
astrology, and necromancy. Cuddle read it with avidity, and by the time
the small piece of candle, with which he had been furnished, was burnt
out, he had filled his brain with images of imps and familiars. Finding
himself, suddenly, in utter darkness, he laid down the book; and then,
turning himself on his back, very soon fell asleep No man, perhaps, ever
kept a log-book of his dreams; ant yet, such an article would certainly
be more amusing than many an honest gentleman's diary; for there are
persons in the work whose waking adventures are as dull and monotonous
as the ticking of a clock, while their biography in bed,--their nightly
dreams,7--if correctly narrated, would, in some cases, be exceedingly
droll; and, in others, insupportably pathetic. The happiest people by
day-light, often suffer agonies by night; a man who would not harm a
worm, with his eyes open, sometimes commits murder, and actually endures
all the misery of being taken, tried, convicted, and half executed, in
imagination, while he lies snug, snoring, and motionless, beneath a pair
of Witney blankets. It is rash to say that any individual is, or, at
least, ought to be, happy, until we ascertain how he dreams. A very
excellent country 'squire, in the west of England, was once told, by a
person of discrimination, that he appeared to be the most comfortable
man in existence:--“Your desires are within your means;”--thus the
squire was addressed;--“your wife is most charming in temper, manners,
and person; your affection is mutual; your children are every thing that
a parent could wish; your life has been so irreproachable, that you must
be as easy in mind as it is possible for a man to be: no one bears you
malice; on the contrary, every body blesses you: your house and your
park are delightful; you are most felicitous, even in your servants and
cattle; you are naturally--”
“True, true, to the letter,” impatiently interrupted the 'squire; “but
what's all the world to a man who, without why or wherefore, dreams that
he's with old Nick every night of his life?” Caddy Cuddle was not much
addicted to dreaming; but, on the night he slept in the ancient room,
at Caddy Castle, he felt satisfied, as he afterward said, that in the
course of a few hours, his imagination was visited with fantasies
enough to fill a volume; although he could not recollect, with any
distinctness, even one of them, half an hour after he awoke. The moon
was shining full upon the window, and making the chamber almost as light
as day, with her radiance, when Caddy opened his eyes, after his first
sleep, to satisfy himself, by the view of some familiar object, that
he was not among the strange creatures of whom he had been dreaming.
Perched upon his nose,--threatening it with whip, as Caddy saw, and
galling it with spur, as Caddy felt,--he beheld an imp, whose figure
was, at once, more grotesque and horrible, than any of those which had
flitted before his mind's eye, during his slumbers! The creature seemed
to be staring at him with terrific impudence, and jockeying his feature,
as though it were actually capable of running a race. Caddy's eye-balls
were almost thrust out of their sockets with dismay; his nether-jaw
dropped, and he groaned deeply, under the influence of the visible
nose-night-mare with which he was afflicted. For more than a minute,
Caddy was incapable of moving either of his limbs; but he summoned up
resolution enough, at last, to close his eyes, and make a clutch at the
fiend, that rode his nose in the manner above described. With a
mingled feeling of surprise, mortification, and joy, he found the
nose-night-mare to be his spectacles!--He had gone to sleep without
removing them from his nose; and, by tumbling and tossing to and fro, in
his dreams, he had displaced, and twisted them, sufficiently, to assume
a position and form, that might have alarmed a man of stouter nerves
than Caddy Cuddle, on awaking in the middle of a moonlight night, after
dreaming of more monsters than the German authors have ever located on
Walpurgis Night in the Hartz.
Caddy tried to compose himself to sleep again; but grew restless,
feverish, and very uncomfortable: he beat up his pillow, shook his bed,
smoothed his sheets, walked several times up and down the room, and then
lay down again;--determined, at least, to doze. But Morpheus had taken
leave of him; and Caddy, at last, resolved on dressing himself, going
down to the kitchen, and, as he had tobacco about him, to smoke a pipe,
if he could find one, clean or dirty. He attributed his want of rest to
not having indulged in his usual sedative luxury, before going to bed;
and very resolutely taxed himself with the commission of an egregious
folly, for having drank more than he ought. Anthony Mutch's horse, and
the Commissioners of the roads, he very copiously abused, while
dressing himself: the spectacles were, however, the grand objects of his
indignation; but, bad as they were, he conceived that it was necessary
to coax them into shape again, and mount them on his nose, previously
to attempting, what he deemed, the perilous descent, from his chamber,
which was on the third floor, to the kitchen below. Caddy, however,
was too well acquainted with the topography of the house, to incur much
danger: moreover, the moon beamed with such brilliancy, through the
glass dome that lighted the great circular staircase of Caddy Castle,
that a man, much more short-sighted than our hero, might have gone
safely from the top to the bottom, without the assistance of glasses.
In a hole in the kitchen chimney, Caddy found two or three short pipes;
he congratulated himself on the discovery, and immediately filled one
of them from his pouch. The Castle was now as quiet as the grave; and no
soul, but Caddy himself, seemed to be stirring. He felt rather surprised
to see the stone floor of the kitchen, for above a yard from the
chimney, covered with embers of expiring logs, while the hearth itself
was “dark as Erebus.” Caddy Cuddle, however, did not trouble himself
much about this circumstance: he had often seen the kitchen in a similar
condition, after a frolic, in Caddy Caddy's time; and very gravely
lighting his pipe, he deposited himself on a warm iron tripod,--which
had been standing on the hearth, probably, the whole evening,--in
preference to a cold oak chair. The kitchen was comfortable,
notwithstanding it was dark, (for the embers, as we have already stated,
were expiring, and Caddy was without a candle,) and he smoked the
pipe so much to his satisfaction, that he determined to enjoy another.
Kicking the bits of burning wood together, as he sat, in order to light
his tobacco, he, unintentionally, produced a little blaze, which proved
rather disastrous to him:--as he stooped to light the pipe, he heard
a noise, that attracted his attention; Caddy looked about, and, on the
spacious hearth, beheld something, that bore a rude similitude to a
human figure!