GUS AND FLORA ARE NAUGHTY IN CHURCH, AND THE WHOLE BUSINESS COMES TO AN
END.
Charles's purpose of being married in London held good. And I need not
say that William's held good too.
Shall I insult your judgment by telling you that the whole story of
Petre Ravenshoe's marriage at Finchampstead was true? I think not. The
register was found, the lawyers were busy down at Ravenshoe, for every
one was anxious to get up to London, and have the two marriages over
before the season was too far advanced.
The memorabilia about this time at Ravenshoe, were--The weather was
glorious. (I am not going to give you any more about the two capes, and
that sort of thing. You have had those two capes often enough. And I am
reserving my twenty-ninth description of the Ravenshoe scenery for the
concluding chapter.) The weather, I say, was glorious. And I was always
being fetched in from the river, smelling fishy, and being made to
witness deeds. I got tired of writing my name. I may have signed away
the amount of the national debt in triplicate, for anything I know (or
care. For you can't get blood out of a stone). I signed some fifty of
them, I think. But I signed two which gave me great pleasure.
The first was a rent-charge on Ravenshoe of two thousand a year, in
favour of William Ravenshoe. The second was a similar deed of five
hundred a year in favour of Miss Ravenshoe. We will now have done with
all this sordid business, and go on.
The ladies had all left for town, to prepare for the ceremony. There was
a bachelors' house at Ravenshoe for the last time. The weather was hot.
Charles Ravenshoe, General Mainwaring, and the rest, were all looking
out of the dining-room windows towards the sea, when we were astonished
by seeing two people ride up on to the terrace, and stop before the
porch.
A noble-looking old gentleman, in a blue coat and brass buttons,
knee-breeches and gaiters, on a cob, and a beautiful boy of sixteen on a
horse. _I_ knew well enough who it was, and I said, Ho! But the others
wondered. William would have known, had he been looking out of window
just then, but by the time he got there, the old gentleman and the boy
were in the porch, and two of Charles's men were walking the horses up
and down.
"Now, who the deuce is this?" said Charles. "They haven't come far; but
I don't know them. I seem to know the old man, somehow; but I can't
remember."
We heard the old gentleman's heavy step along the hall, and then the
door was thrown open, and the butler announced, like a true Devonshire
man--
"Mr. Humby to Hele!"
The old gentleman advanced with a frank smile and took Charles's hand,
and said, "Welcome home, sir; welcome to your own; welcome to Ravenshoe.
A Protestant at Ravenshoe at last. After so many centuries."
Everybody had grown limp and faint when they heard the awful name of
Humby, that is to say, every one but me. Of course I had nothing to do
with fetching him over. Not at all. This was the first time that a Humby
had had friendly communication with a Ravenshoe for seven hundred and
eighty-nine years. The two families had quarrelled in 1066, in
consequence of John Humby having pushed against Kempion Ravenshoe, in
the grand rush across the Senlac, at the battle of Hastings. Kempion
Ravenshoe had asked John Humby where he was shoving to, and John Humby
had expressed a wish to punch Kempion Ravenshoe's head (or do what went
for the same thing in those times. I am no antiquarian). The wound was
never healed. The two families located themselves on adjoining estates
in Devonshire immediately after the Conquest, but never spoke till 1529,
when Lionel Humby bit his thumb at our old friend, Alured Ravenshoe, in
Cardinal Wolsey's antechamber, at Hampton, and Alured Ravenshoe asked
him, what the devil he meant by that. They fought in Twickenham meadow,
but held no relations for two hundred and fourteen years, that is to
say, till 1745, when Ambrose Ravenshoe squeezed an orange at Chichester
Humby, at an election dinner in Stonnington, and Body Fortescue went out
as second to Chichester Humby, and Lord Segur to Ambrose Ravenshoe.
After this the families did not speak again for one hundred and ten
years, that is to say, till the time we are speaking of, the end of
April, 1855, when James Humby to Hele frightened us all out of our wits,
by coming into the dining-room at Ravenshoe, in a blue coat and brass
buttons, and shaking hands with Charles, and saying, beside what I have
written above--
"Mrs. Humby and my daughters are in London for the season, and I go to
join them the day after to-morrow. There has been a slight cloud between
the two houses lately" (that is to say, as we know it, for seven hundred
and eighty-nine years. But what is time?) "and I wish to remove it. I am
not a very old man, but I have my whimsies, my dear sir. I wish my
daughters to appear among Miss Corby's bridesmaids, and do you know, I
fancy when you get to London that you will find the whole matter
arranged."
Who was to resist this? Old Humby went up in the train with all of us
the next day but one. And if I were asked to pick out the most
roystering, boisterous, jolly old county member in England, Scotland, or
Ireland, I should pick out old Humby of Hele. What fun he made at the
stations where the express stopped! The way he allowed himself to be
fetched out of the refreshment-room by the guard, and then, at the last
moment, engaged him in a general conversation about the administration
of the line, until the station-master was mad, and an accident imminent,
was worthy of a much younger man, to say the least. But then, in a blue
coat and brass buttons, with drab small clothes, you may do anything.
They are sure to take you for a swell. If I, William Marston, am ever
old enough, and fat enough, and rich enough, I shall dress like that
myself, for reasons. If my figure does not develop, I shall try black
br--ch--s and gaiters, with a shovel hat, and a black silk waistcoat
buttoned up under my throat. That very often succeeds. Either are better
than pegtops and a black bowler hat, which strike no awe into the
beholders.
When we all got to town, we were, of course, very busy. There was a
great deal of millinery business. Old Humby insisted on helping at it.
One day he went to Madame Tulle's, in Conduit Street, with his wife and
two daughters, and asked me to come too, for which I was sorry at first,
for he behaved very badly, and made a great noise. We were in a great
suite of rooms on the first floor, full of crinolines and that sort of
thing, and there were a great many people present. I was trying to keep
him quiet, for he was cutting a good many clumsy jokes, as an
old-fashioned country squire will. Everybody was amused with him, and
thoroughly appreciated his fun, save his own wife and daughters, who
were annoyed; so I was trying to keep him quiet, when a tall,
brown-faced, handsome young man came up to me and said--
"I beg a thousand pardons; but is not your name Marston?"
I said, "Yes."
"You are a first cousin of John Marston, are you not?--of John Marston,
whom I used to meet at Casterton?"
I said, "Yes; that John Marston was my cousin." But I couldn't remember
my man, for all that.
"You don't remember me! I met you once at old Captain Archer's, at
Lashbrook, for ten minutes. My wife has come here to buy fal-lals for
Charles Ravenshoe's wedding. He is going to marry my cousin. My name is
George Corby. I have married Miss Ellen Blockstrop, daughter of Admiral
Blockstrop. Her eldest sister married young Captain Archer of the
merchant service."
I felt very faint, but I congratulated him. The way those Australians do
business shames us old-country folk. To get over a heavy disappointment
and be married in two months and a week is very creditable.
"We bushmen are rough fellows," he said. (His manners were really
charming. I never saw them beaten.) "But you old-country fellows must
excuse us. Will you give me the pleasure of your acquaintance? I am sure
you must be a good fellow, for your cousin is one of the best fellows I
ever knew."
"I should be delighted." And I spoke the truth.
"I will introduce you to my wife directly," he said; "but the fact is,
she is just now having a row with Madame Tulle, the milliner here. My
wife is a deuced economical woman, and she wants to show at the
Ravenshoe wedding in a white moiré-antique, which will only cost fifty
guineas, and which she says will do for an evening dress in Australia
afterwards. And the Frenchwoman won't let her have it for the purpose,
because she says it is incorrect. And I hope to Gad the Frenchwoman will
win, because my wife will get quite as good a gown to look at for twenty
guineas or so."
Squire Humby begged to be introduced. Which I did.
"I am glad, sir," he said, "that my daughters have not heard your
conversation. It would have demoralised them, sir, for the rest of their
lives. I hope they have not heard the argument about the fifty-guinea
gown. If they have, I am a ruined man. It was one of you Australians who
gave twelve hundred guineas for the bull, 'Master Butterfly,' the day
before yesterday?"
"Well, yes," said George Corby, "I bought the bull. He'll pay, sir,
handsomely, in our part of the world."
"The devil he will," said Squire Humby. "You don't know an opening for a
young man of sixty-five, with a blue coat and brass buttons, who
understands his business, in your part of the country, do you?"
And so on. The weddings took place at St. Peter's, Eaton Square. If the
ghost of the little shoeblack had been hovering round the wall where he
had played fives with the brass button, he might have almost heard the
ceremony performed. Mary and Charles were not a handsome couple. The
enthusiasm of the population was reserved for William and Jane Evans,
who certainly were. It is my nature to be a Jack-of-all-trades, and so I
was entrusted with old Master Evans, Jane's father, a magnificent old
sea-king, whom we have met before. We two preferred to go to church
quietly before the others, and he, refusing to go into a pew, found
himself a place in the free seats, and made himself comfortable. So I
went out into the porch, and waited till they came.
I waited till the procession had gone in, and then I found that the tail
of it was composed of poor Lord Charles Herries' children, Gus, Flora,
and Archy, with their nurse.
If a bachelor is worth his salt, he will make himself useful. I saw that
nurse was in distress and anxious, so I stayed with her.
Archy was really as good as gold till he met with his accident. He
walked up the steps with nurse as quiet as possible. But even at first I
began to get anxious about Gus and Flora. They were excited. Gus
wouldn't walk up the steps; but he put his two heels together, and
jumped up them one at a time, and Flora walked backwards, looking at him
sarcastically. At the top step but one Gus stumbled; whereupon Flora
said, "Goozlemy, goozlemy, goozlemy."
And Gus said, "you wait a minute, my lady, till we get into church,"
after which awful speech I felt as if I was smoking in a powder
magazine.
I was put into a pew with Gus, and Flora, and Archy. Nurse, in her
modesty, went into the pew behind us.
I am sorry to say that these dear children, with whom I had had no
previous acquaintance, were very naughty. The ceremony began by Archy
getting too near the edge of his hassock, falling off, pitching against
the pew door, bursting it open, and flying out among the free seats,
head foremost. Nurse, a nimble and dexterous woman, dashed out, and
caught him up, and actually got him out of the church door before he had
time to fetch his breath for a scream. Gus and Flora were left alone
with me.
Flora had a great scarlet and gold church service. As soon as she opened
it, she disconcerted me by saying aloud, to an imaginary female friend,
"My dear, there is going to be a collection; and I have left my purse on
the piano."
At this time, also, Gus, seeing that the business was well begun,
removed to the further end of the pew, sat down on the hassock, and took
from his trousers' pocket a large tin trumpet.
I broke out all over in a cold perspiration as I looked at him. He saw
my distress, and putting it to his lips, puffed out his cheeks. Flora
administered comfort to me. She said, "You are looking at that foolish
boy. Perhaps he won't blow it, after all. He mayn't if you don't look at
him. At all events, he probably won't blow it till the organ begins; and
then it won't matter so much."
Matters were so hopeless with me that I looked at old Master Evans. He
had bent down his head on to the rail of the bench before him. His
beautiful daughter had been his only companion at home for many years,
for his wife had died when Jane was a little bare-legged thing, who
paddled in the surf. It had been a rise in life for her to marry Mr.
Charles Ravenshoe's favourite pad-groom. And just now she had walked
calmly and quietly up the aisle, and had stopped when she came to where
he sat, and had pushed the Honiton-lace veil from her forehead, and
kissed his dear old cheek: and she would walk back directly as Mrs.
William Ravenshoe. And so the noble old privateer skipper had bent down,
and there was nothing to be seen there but a grey head and broad
shoulders, which seemed to shake.
And so I looked up to the east end. And I saw the two couples kneeling
before the clergyman. And when I, knowing everything as I did, saw
Charles kneeling beside Mary Corby, with Lord Ascot, great burly, brutal
giant, standing behind him, I said something which is not in the
marriage service of the Church of England. After it all, to see him and
her kneeling so quietly there together! We were all happy enough that
day. But I don't think that any one was much happier than I. For I knew
more than any one. And also, three months from that time, I married my
present wife, Eliza Humby. And the affair had only been arranged two
days. So I was in good spirits.
At least I should have been, if it had not been for Lord Charles
Herries' children. I wish those dear children (not meaning them any
harm) had been, to put it mildly, at play on the village green, that
blessed day.
When I looked at Gus again, he was still on the hassock, threatening
propriety with his trumpet. I hoped for the best. Flora had her
prayer-book open, and was playing the piano on each side of it, with her
fingers. After a time she looked up at me, and said out loud--
"I suppose you have heard that Archy's cat has kittened?"
I said, "No."
"Oh, yes, it has," she said. "Archy harnessed it to his meal cart, which
turns a mill, and plays music when the wheels go round; and it ran
downstairs with the cart; and we heard the music playing as it went; and
it kittened in the wood-basket immediately afterwards; and Alwright
says she don't wonder at it; and no more do I; and the steward's-room
boy is going to drown some. But you mustn't tell Archy, because, if you
do, he won't say his prayers; and if he don't say his prayers, he will,"
&c., &c. Very emphatically and in a loud tone of voice.
This was very charming. If I could only answer for Gus, and keep Flora
busy, it was wildly possible that we might pull through. If I had not
been a madman, I should have noticed that Gus had disappeared.
He had. And the pew door had never opened, and I was utterly
unconscious. Gus had crawled up, on all fours, under the seat of the
pew, until he was opposite the calves of his sister's legs, against
which calves, _horresco referens_, he put his trumpet and blew a long
shrill blast. Flora behaved very well and courageously. She only gave
one long, wild shriek, as from a lunatic in a padded cell at Bedlam, and
then, hurling her prayer-book at him, she turned round and tried to kick
him in the face.
This was the culminating point of my misfortunes. After this, they
behaved better. I represented to them that every one was just coming out
of the vestry, and that they had better fight it out in the carriage
going home. Gus only made an impertinent remark about Flora's garters,
and Flora only drew a short, but trenchant, historical parallel between
Gus and Judas Iscariot; when the brides and bridegrooms came down the
aisle, and we all drove off to Charles's house in Eaton Square.
And so, for the first time, I saw all together, with my own eyes, the
principal characters in this story. Only one was absent. Lord Saltire. I
had seen him twice in my life, and once had the honour of a conversation
with him. He was a man about five feet eleven, very broad shouldered,
and with a very deep chest. As far as the animal part of him went, I
came to the conclusion, from close and interested examination for twenty
minutes, that he had, fifty or sixty years before, been a man with whom
it would have been pleasanter to argue than to box. His make was
magnificent. Phrenologically speaking, he had a very high square head,
very flat at the sides: and, when I saw him, when he was nearly eighty,
he was the handsomest old man I had ever seen. He had a florid, pure
complexion. His face was without a wrinkle. His eyebrows were black, and
his hair seemed to refuse to be grey. There was as much black as grey in
it to the last. His eye was most extraordinary--a deep blue-grey. I can
look a man as straight in the face as any one; but when Lord Saltire
turned those eyes on me three or four times in the course of our
interview, I felt that it was an effort to meet them. I felt that I was
in the presence of a man of superior vitality to my own. We were having
a talk about matters connected with Charles Ravenshoe, which I have not
mentioned, because I want to keep myself, William Marston, as much out
of this story as possible. And whenever this terrible old man looked at
me, asking a question, I felt my eyebrows drawing together, and knew
that I was looking _defiantly_ at him. He was the most extraordinary man
I ever met. He never took office after he was forty. He played with
politics. He was in heart, I believe (no one knows), an advanced Whig.
He chose to call himself Tory. He played the Radical game very deep,
early in life, and, I think, he got disgusted with party politics. The
last thing the old Radical atheist did in public life was to rally up to
the side of the Duke in opposition to the Reform Bill. And another fact
about him is, that he had always a strong personal affection for Sir
Francis.
He was a man of contradictions, if one judges a man by Whig and Tory
rules; but he was a great loss to the public business of the country. He
might have done almost anything in public life, with his calm clear
brain. My cousin John thinks that Lord Barkham's death was the cause of
his retirement.
So much about Lord Saltire. Of the other characters mentioned in this
story, I will speak at once, just as I saw them sitting round the table
at Charles and William Ravenshoe's wedding.
I sat beside Eliza Humby. She was infinitely the most beautiful, clever,
and amiable being that the world ever produced. (But that is my
business, not yours.) Charles Ravenshoe sat at the head of the table,
and I will leave him alone for a minute. I will give you my impressions
of the other characters in this story, as they appeared to me.
Mary was a very charming-looking little person indeed, very short, and
with small features. I had never seen her before, and had never heard
any one say that she was pretty. I thought her very pretty indeed. Jane
Evans was an exceedingly beautiful Devonshire girl. My eye did not rest
very long on her. It came down the table to William, and there it
stopped.
I got Eliza Humby to speak to him, and engage him in conversation while
I looked at him. I wanted to see whether there was anything remarkable
in his face, for a more remarkable instance of disinterested goodwill
than his determining to find Charles and ruin himself, I never happened
to have heard of.
Well, he was very handsome and pleasing, with a square determined look
about the mouth, such as men brought up among horses generally have.
But I couldn't understand it, and so I spoke to him across Lizzie, and I
said, casting good manners to the winds, "I should think that the only
thing you regretted to-day was, that you had not been alongside of
Charles at Balaclava;" and then I understood it, for when I mentioned
Charles and Balaclava, I saw for one instant not a groom, but a poet.
Although, being a respectable and well-conducted man, he has never
written any poetry, and probably never will.
Then I looked across the table at Lady Ascot. They say that she was
never handsome. I can quite believe that. She was a beautiful old woman
certainly, but then all old women are beautiful. Her face was very
square, and one could see that it was capable of very violent passion;
or could, knowing what one did, guess so. Otherwise there was nothing
very remarkable about her except that she was a remarkably charming old
lady. She was talking to General Mainwaring, who was a noble-looking old
soldier.
Nothing more. In fact, the whole group were less remarkable and
tragical-looking than I thought they would have been. I was disappointed
until I came to Lord Ascot, and then I could not take my eyes off him.
There was tragedy enough there. There was coarse brutality and passion
enough, in all conscience. And yet that man had done what he had done.
Here was a puzzle with a vengeance.
Lord Ascot, as I saw him now, for the first time, was simply a low-bred
and repulsive-looking man. In stature he was gigantic, in every respect
save height. He was about five feet nine, very deep about the chest. His
hair was rather dark, cut close. His face was very florid, and perfectly
hairless. His forehead was low. His eyes were small, and close together.
His eyebrows were heavy, and met over his nose, which was short and
square. His mouth was large; and when you came to his mouth, you came to
the first tolerable feature in his face. When he was speaking to no one
in particular, the under lip was set, and the whole face, I am sorry to
say, was the sort of face which is quite as often seen in the dock, as
in the witness-box (unless some gentleman has turned Queen's evidence).
And this was the man who had risked a duke's fortune, because "There
were some things a fellow couldn't do, you know."
It was very puzzling till he began to speak about his grandmother, and
then his lower lip pouted out, his eyebrows raised, his eyes were apart,
and he looked a different man. Is it possible that if he had not been
brought up to cock-fighting and horse-racing, among prize-fighters and
jockeys, that he might have been a different man? I can't say, I am
sure.
Lord and Lady Hainault were simply a very high-bred, very handsome, and
very charming pair of people. I never had the slightest personal
acquaintance with either of them. My cousin knows them both very
intimately, and he says there are not two better people in the world.
Charles Ravenshoe rose to reply to General Mainwaring's speech,
proposing the brides and bridegrooms, and I looked at him very
curiously. He was pale, from his recent illness, and he never was
handsome. But his face was the face of a man whom I should fancy most
people would get very fond of. When we were schoolfellows at Shrewsbury,
he was a tall dark-haired boy, who was always laughing, and kicking up a
row, and giving his things away to other fellows. Now he was a tall,
dark, melancholy-looking man, with great eyes and lofty eyebrows. His
vivacity, and that carriage which comes from the possession of great
physical strength, were gone; and while I looked at him, I felt ten
years older. Why should I try to describe him further? He is not so
remarkable a man as either Lord Ascot or William. But he was the best
man I ever knew.
He said a few kind hearty words, and sat down, and then Lord Ascot got
up. And I took hold of Lizzie's hand with my left; and I put my right
elbow on the table and watched him intensely, with my hand shading my
face. He had a coat buttoned over his great chest, and as he spoke he
kept on buttoning and unbuttoning it with his great coarse hand. He
said--
"I ain't much hand at this sort of thing. I suppose those two Marstons,
confound them, are saying to themselves that I ought to be, because I am
in the House of Lords. That John Marston is a most impudent beggar, and
I shall expect to see his friend to-morrow morning. He always was, you
know. He has thwarted me all through my life. I wanted Charles Ravenshoe
to go to the deuce, and I'll be hanged if he'd let him. And it is not to
be borne."
There was a general laugh at this, and Lord Ascot stretched his hand
across General Mainwaring, and shook hands with my cousin.
"You men just go out of the room, will you?" (the servants departed, and
Lord Ascot went to the door to see they were not listening. I thought
some revelation was coming, but I was mistaken.) "You see I am obliged
to notice strangers, because a fellow may say things among old friends
which he don't exactly care to before servants.
"It is all very well to say I'm a fool. That is very likely, and may be
taken for granted. But I am not such a fool as not to know that a very
strong prejudice exists against me in the present society."
Every one cried out, "No, no!" Of all the great wedding breakfasts that
season, this was certainly the most remarkable. Lord Ascot went on. He
was getting the savage look on his face now.
"Well, well! let that pass. Look at that man at the head of the
table--the bridegroom. Look at him. You wonder that I did what I did.
I'll tell you why. I love that fellow. He is what I call a man, General
Mainwaring. I met that fellow at Twyford years ago, and he has always
been the same to me since. You say I served him badly once. That is true
enough. You insulted me once in public about it, Hainault. You were
quite right. Say you, I should not talk about it to-day. But when we
come to think how near death's gates some of us have been since then,
you will allow that this wedding day has something very solemn about it.
"My poor wife has broken her back across that infernal gate, and so she
could not come. I must ask you all to think kindly of that wife of mine.
You have all been very kind to her since her awful accident. She has
asked me to thank you.
"I rose to propose a toast, and I have been carried away by a personal
statement, which, at every other wedding breakfast I ever heard of, it
would be a breach of good manners to make. It is not so on this
occasion. Terrible things have befallen every one of us here present.
And I suppose we must try all of us to--hey!--to--hah!--well, to do
better in future.
"I rose, I said, to propose a toast. I rose to propose the most
blameless and excellent woman I ever knew. I propose that we drink the
health of my grandmother, Lady Ascot."
And oh! but we leapt to our feet and drank it. Manners to the winds,
after what we had gone through. There was that solemn creature, Lord
Hainault, with his champagne glass in his hand, behaving like a
schoolboy, and giving us the time. And then, when her dear grey head was
bent down over the table, buried in her hands, my present father-in-law,
Squire Humby, leapt to his feet like a young giant, and called out for
three times three for Lord Ascot. And we had breath enough left to do
that handsomely, I warrant you. The whole thing was incorrect in the
highest degree, but we did it. And I don't know that any of us were
ashamed of it afterwards.
And while the carriages were getting ready, Charles said, would we walk
across the square. And we all came with him. And he took us to a piece
of dead white wall, at the east end of St. Peter's Church, opposite the
cab-stand. And then he told us the story of the little shoeblack, and
how his comical friendship for that boy had saved him from what it would
not do to talk about.
* * * * *
But there is a cloud on Charles Ravenshoe's face, even now. I saw him
last summer lying on the sand, and playing with his eldest boy. And the
cloud was on him then. There was no moroseness, no hardness in the
expression; but the face was not the merry old face I knew so well at
Shrewsbury and Oxford. There is a dull, settled, dreaming melancholy
there still. The memory of those few terrible months has cast its shadow
upon him. And the shadow will lie, I fancy, upon that forehead, and will
dim those eyes, until the forehead is smoothed in the sleep of death,
and the eyes have opened to look upon eternity.
Good-bye.
WARD, LOCK AND BOWDEN, LTD., LONDON, NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The best banisters for sliding down are broad oak ones, with a rib
in the middle. This new narrow sort, which is coming in, are wretched.
[2] The short description of the University boat-race which begins this
chapter was written two years ago, from the author's recollections of
the race of 1852. It would do for a description of this year's race,
quite as well as of any other year, substituting "Cambridge" for
"Oxford," according to the year.
[3] I mean C. M.
[4] A fact with regard to one tribe, to the author's frequent confusion.
Any number above two, whether of horses, cattle, or sheep, was always
represented as being eighty-four. Invariably, too, with an adjective
introduced after the word "four," which we don't use in a drawing-room.
[5] Once for all, let me call every honest reader to witness, that,
unless I speak in the first person, I am not bound to the opinions of
any one of the characters in this book. I have merely made people speak,
I think, as they would have spoken. Even in a story, consisting so
entirely of incident as this, I feel it necessary to say so much, for no
kind of unfairness is so common as that of identifying the opinions of a
story-teller with those of his _dramatis personæ_.
[6] As a matter of curiosity I tried to write this paragraph from the
word "Mary," to the word "bosom," without using a single word derived
from the Latin. After having taken all possible pains to do so, I found
there were eight out of forty-eight. I think it is hardly possible to
reduce the proportion lower, and I think it is undesirable to reduce it
so low.
[7] Which is a crib from Sir E. B. L. B. L.
[8] The most famous voyage of the _Himalaya_, from Cork to Varna in
twelve days with the Fifth Dragoon Guards, took place in June. The
voyage here described, is, as will be perceived a subsequent one, but
equally successful, apparently.
[9] If one has to raise an imaginary regiment, one must put it in an
imaginary place. The 17th Dragoons must try to forgive me.
[10] These names actually occur, side by side, in my newspaper (_The
Field_), to which I referred for three names. They are in training by
Henry Hall, at Hambleton, in Yorkshire. Surely men could find better
names for their horses than such senseless ones as these. I would that
was all one had to complain of. I hope the noble old sport is not on its
last legs. But one trembles to think what will become of it, when the
comparatively few high-minded men who are keeping things straight are
gone.
[11] Perhaps a reference to "The Wild Huntsman" will stop all criticism
at this point. A further reference to "Faust" will also show that I am
in good company.