At my earnest entreaty, the idea of assembling the tenants especially
was allowed to drop, and I was to be inducted at the Midsummer dinner,
which was very near at hand. A deed had been prepared by the London
solicitors, reciting the facts and assuring all the estate to me, as my
father's proper heiress. My Uncle also desired to settle upon me all
the personal property, except a sum of 10,000*l.*, which he would
reserve for his children, to enable them, if ever they should be found,
to establish their claims in Corsica: then if the son obtained his
rights, his sister was to have the money with all expenditure made good
by him. But I would not hear of it. It would have made me a rogue. By
his skill and economy, my Uncle, during the nine years of his
management, had saved more than 50,000*l.* from the proceeds of the
estate. But he had added at least an equal amount to the value of the
land, by carrying out most judiciously the improvements begun by my
father; and the whole was now considered the best-managed estate in
Gloucestershire.
Therefore, when he abandoned his legal right, in the most honourable
manner, it would have been horribly shabby and unlike a Vaughan, to hold
him accountable for the back rents. I begged him to leave the whole of
it for the benefit of his poor children, requesting only, and
unnecessarily, that the hypocrite might not have sixpence. Another
thing I entreated, that he would prolong his guardianship, and
stewardship, if his health allowed it, until I should be of age, that is
to say, for two years and a half. Seeing how earnestly I desired it, he
undertook to do so, though he made the promise with a melancholy smile,
adding that he hoped his children would be found ere then, if he was to
see them at all.
When the rent-dinner was over, and the glasses had been replaced, my
Uncle, who had not been there as usual, led me into the great old hall.
Feeble as he was, he entered with a grace and courtesy not always to be
discovered in the mien of princes. The supper--as the farmers called
it--had not begun till six o'clock; and now the evening sunshine glanced
through the western window, and between the bunches of stoning grapes
into the narrow doorway, stealing in from the Vinery with sandals of
leafy pattern. The hall was decked with roses, no other flower but
roses; yet who could want any other, when every known rose was there?
Even the bright yellow blossoms of the Corsican rock-rose, a plant so
sensitive that to steal one flower is to kill all the rest. From time
out of mind, some feudal custom of tenure by the rose had been handed
down in our family.
All the guests rose as we passed, which made me rather nervous, albeit I
knew every one of them from my childhood up. Then my Uncle, leaning on
me, spoke a few words from the step, plain and simple words without
flourish or pretence. What he said was known long since, and had been
thoroughly discussed in every house of the village. He finished by
setting me in the black oak chair of state--which he had never used--and
presenting me with a rose; then he turned round and proposed my health.
When I took the rose, an exquisite crested moss, kissed it and placed it
in my bosom, according to the usage, such a shout arose, such an English
hurrah, that it must have echoed to the other bank of the distant
Severn. At first I was quite frightened, then I burst into tears as I
thought of him whose chair I sat in, whose memory still was echoing in
that mighty shout. It was not only love of right, or sympathy with a
helpless girl, that moved those honest bosoms, but the remembrance of
him who had been so pleasant to them, humble, kind and just, in one
word, a gentleman.
But as they came up, one by one, and begged to take my hand, and wished
me joy and long life with all their hearts, I found that I was right in
one thing; I knew them better than my Uncle did. Instead of being rude
or cold to him, as he expected, they almost overwhelmed him with praise
and admiration. But all this I must not dwell on, for my story hurries
hence, and its path is not through roses.
Annie Franks, who still was with us, and did not mean to go until she
had finished all the Froissart novels, and such a dear good girl she
was, that we hoped they would last for ever, Annie Franks brought me
next day two letters of aspect strange to "good society." One I knew at
a glance to be from Tossil's Barton, though the flourishes were amazing,
and the lead-pencil lines rubbed out. The other, a work of far less
ambition and industry, was an utter stranger; so of course I took it
first. Nevertheless, I will treat of it last, because it opens the
stormy era.
Dear Sally's gossip is not to be served up whole. Even if it were
interesting to others as to me, my space permits no dalliance with
farm-yards, no idyls of Timothy Badcock, nay, nor even the stern iambics
of Ebenezer Dawe. Only to be just and clear, I may not slur it all.
The direction was remarkable. The farmer was always afraid of not being
duly explicit, for he believed that letters were delivered throughout
England as in the parish of Trentisoe; where all, except those for the
parson and Tossil's Barton farm, were set upside down in the window at
Pewter Will's, the most public-house in the place. The idea was
ingenious, and, I believe, original--having been suggested by the
Queen's boy, whose head Mrs. Huxtable punched. It was that no one could
read the name upside down, except the owner of the name and therefore of
the letter. Sound or not, I cannot say, having had no experience; but
there was this to be said for it, that no one would try the puzzle who
did not expect a letter, unless indeed he were of precocious genius, and
from that Trentisoe was quite safe.
Upon the present "papper-scrawl," after a long description of me,
patronymical, local, and personal, the following injunctions and menaces
were added, "Not be stuck tops I turve I on no account in no public
house. She be in her own house now again, thank God and dang them as
turned her out I say, so mind you carr it there. A deal of money there
be in it, and no fear of Joe because he knows it, and there lives a man
in Gloucestershire knows me well by the name of Thomas Henwood. Best
look sharp I say. I be up to every one of you. John Huxtable his name,
no mark this time. God save the queen."
So the farmer had actually learned to write, although as yet to a
strictly limited extent. Of course he had not written any of the above
except his name; but that was his, and did him credit, though it nearly
described a circle.
After the warmest congratulations and returning the five-pound note,
which I had sent for interest, with an indignant inquiry from father
whether I took him for a Jew, and after several anecdotes and some
histories of butter sold at Ilfracombe market, Sally proceeded thus:
"Now what do you think, Miss Clara dear? No you never would guess as
long as you live--father are going to London town, and me, and Jack, and
Beany Dawe. None of us have slept two grunts of a pig, ever since it
were made up, only father, and he always sleep without turning. Now
mind if I tell you all about it, you must not tell again, Miss Clara,
because there is ever so much money upon it, and we do hear they have
put it on some London paper and no business of theirs. Two great
gentlefolks, the greatest of any about these parts, have been and made
up a bet for my father to wrestle along with a great big chap as they
calls the North Country champion. Seems as some great Northern lord was
boasting in London one dinner-time, Speaker's dinner they called it
because there were a deaf and dumb dinner next day, this here great lord
was telling up as how Sam Richardson were the strongest man in the
world. So our Sir Arthur spake up for Devonshire, and laid him a
quart-pot full of sovereigns as he would find a better man in the West
country. And so I don't know the rights of it, nor father nor mother
either, but it was made up atwixt them that Farmer Huxtable, that's my
father, Miss, should try this great North country chap at the time of
the great Xabition--you never showed me the way to spell it, Miss, so I
go by the light of nature, as you used to say, Miss--and should take
best of three falls for 200*l.* a side. That will be 400*l.* for us,
when father gets it, and all his expenses paid, and they say the other
folk won't allow no kicking, so he must be a soft-shelled chap; but
father feel no call to hurt him, if so be he can help it. Mother don't
want father to go, but he say he be bound for the honour of old
Devonshire, or maybe they will take a man not good enough to make a
standard.
And please, Miss, when we brings home the money, I be to go to Miss
Bowden's, in Boutport Street, and our Jack to be put to a day-school not
more than six miles away, and then I hope he know himself, and look
higher than that minx of a Tabby Badcock. What do you think, Miss
Clara, you would never believe it I know, but only a week ago last
Tuesday I come sudden round the corner, and catched her a kissing of our
Jack in the shed there by the shoot. And after all you taught her,
Miss! Jack he ran away, as red as mangawazzle, but that brazen slut,
there she stand with her legs out, as innocent as a picture. Never a
word I said, but with no more to do I put her head in the calves'
stommick as we makes the cheese with, in a bucket handy. It would have
done you good to see her Miss, she did cry so hard, and she smell of it
for a week, and it cure our Jack, up to Sunday anyhow. Mother come out
at the noise, but her see that she deserve it, and the runnet was no
account, except for the pigs, because it were gone by. I hope she know
her manners now and her spear in life with her sheep's eyes, and not
come trying to catch any of my family.
Well, Miss Clara please, father want mother to go; but no, say she,
"with all they"--she ought to have said "them" Miss, now hadn't she
ought?--"with all they young pigs, and the brown cow expecting every
day, and Suke no head at all, and all the chillers and little
Clara"--she call her "Clara" now, Miss,--"why farmer what be thinking
of?" Then father rub the nose of him, you know the way he do it, Miss,
and he say, "I must have some one. London be such a wicked place."
Mother look up very sharp at that, and say quite peart, "take your
daughter, farmer Huxtable, if you wants to be kept respectable." So I
be to go Miss; and go I wouldn't without Jack and leave him along of
that sly cat Tabby, and her got sweet again now; besides I want him to
choose a knife I promised him, same as he saw to Coom one time, if he
wouldn't let Tabby kiss him with seven blades and a corkscrew, and I'll
give eighteen pence for it, that I will. And Beany Dawe must go to show
us the way about, and see as they doesn't cheat us, because his father
was once to London town, and told him a power about it.
If you please, Miss Clara, father be put in training as they call it in
these parts, all the same as a horse. He run up and down Breakneck hill,
with the best bed on his back, nine times every day, and he don't drink
no cider, no nor beer, nor gin and water, and mother hardly know him, he
be come so clear in the skin; but he say his hand shake still from the
time I taught him to write, and please, Miss, what do you think of the
way he is going to sign this? I can't get him to put his thumb right,
no nor his middle finger, and he stick his elbow out every bit as bad as
Tabby, and he say he like the pot-hooks over the fire best, but for all
that I believe I shall make a scholard of him, particular when he give
up wrestling, which he have sworn to do if he throw this Cumberland
chap, and stick to his Bible and Prayer-book.
Please, Miss, not to be offended, but excuse us asking if you like to
see the great wrestling. Father say no, it would not be fitty, and that
be the worst of being a gentlefolk; but mother say what harm, and she be
sure the farmer do it twice as well with you there, and you shall have
the best seat in the place next to the two judges, and such a pretty
handkerchief they sent down all spotted the same as a Guernsey cow, how
the people in church did stare at me, and you shall have two of the
best, Miss, but I am afraid it be making too bold; but you never see any
wrestling, Miss, and I am sure you would enjoy it so. It take place in
the copandhagen fields, next Saturday week. Do come, Miss Clara dear,
it will do you so much good, and you see father, and me, and Jack, and
Beany Dawe."
I need recount no more of poor Sally's soft persuasions. The other
letter was of a different vein:--
"HONOURED Miss,--Balak and me after a deal of trouble and labouring
night and day and throwing up our vacation has at last succeeded in
finding you knows who. Personal interview will oblige, earliest
inconvenience. No more at present not being safe on paper, from your
most obedient servants and suitors
BALAAM AND BALAK--you knows who.--
Poscrip.--Balak says a sharp young lady quite sure to know what is
right, but for fear of accidents please a little of the ready will
oblige, large families both of us has and it do take a deal of beer more
than our proper vacation no one would guess unless they was to try and
bad beer too a deal of it. For self and partner.--BALAAM."