_Abimelech Henley to Sir Arthur St. Ives, Baronet_
_Wenbourne-Hill_
Most onnurable Sir, my ever onnurd Master,
The instructions[1] you wus pleased to give me have bin kept in mind.
Your onnur's commands is my duties; your precepts is my laws. For why?
Your noble onnur knows how to command, and I knows how to obey.
[Footnote 1: The editor has sometimes found it very difficult to
translate the letters of this correspondent, out of bad spelling into
English. Had they been left as they were written, they would have been
half unintelligible. The editor however has used his own judgment, in
suffering various words to retain their primitive dress; the better to
preserve what would otherwise have been too much unlike its author, had
the orthography been rendered perfect. It would have been assassination
to have omitted any of the dialectic or cant terms, in which this
honest Abimelech takes so much delight: for which reason they have been
carefully retained.]
The willow dell is fillin up; all hands is at work. I keeps 'em to it.
The sloap of the grande kinal will be finisht and turft over in 3
wekes; and I have chosen the younk plants for the vardunt hall: nice
wons they be too, your onnur!
But I have a bin ponderaitin on all these thinks, and sooth an trooth
to say, your onnur, I doubt as how the bitt [I mean the kole, your
onnur] witch your noble onnur has a bin pleesd to stipilate and lay by
for these here improvements [And glorious improvements they will be,
let me tell your onnur. I think I knows a sumthink of the matter; thos
to be sure I must a say as how I am no more nur a chit, a kintlin, to
your onnur, in matters of taste and the grande goosto, and all a that
there; but I'll give your onnur my two ears if there be any think at
all komparissuble or parallel to it in all England.] But as I wus a
sayin to your noble onnur--I am afeard we shall want cash; and I am a
sure that would be a ten m of pitties. Especially if your onnur thinks
any think more of the vister, with another church steepil in
prospekshun. And to be sure it was a noble thoft; I must say it would
be a sin and a shame to let sitch an elegunt ideer a slip through your
fingurs. And then, pardn me your onnur, but for what, and for why, and
for wherefore?
Besides all witch, your onnur wus a menshinnin a willdurness, and a
hermmutidge, and a grotto; all witch as your onnur said would conceal
the dead flat anenst the 3 old okes. And would your onnur think of
stoppin short, after havin a done all that your onnur has a done, to
bring Wenbourne Hill into vogue an reppitaishun, and make it the talk
of the hole kuntree? Nay, for the matter of that, it is a that already;
that I must say. But then, as your onnur says, in answer, nothink is
done till every think is done.
And so I have paradventerd umbelly to speak my foolish thofts, on this
here business. For why? I knows a what your onnur will say. Your onnur
will tell me, when your onnur comes back. Ay, honest Aby, I wish the
shiners' that I a spent and a bamboozild in that there France had a bin
strewed over these here grounds. For, over and above of what I a bin a
menshinnin to your onnur, there is the tempel beside a the new
plantation, of a witch your onnur has so long a bin talkin of a buildin
of. And then there is the extenshun and ogmenshun of the new ruins. So
that all together, I must say that if simple honest Aby might
paradventer to put in my oar to so generous and so noble a gentleman,
and moreover won of his majesty's baronets, why I would keep the money
now I had a got it; since, as your onnur finds, money is not so easy to
be a come at. Pray your onnur, I beesiege your onnur don't forget that;
money is not so easy to be a come at.
And so I most umbelly rimmane, with the blessin of almighty mercifool
praise, your onnur's most umbel and most obedient, very faithfool and
very thankfool, kind sarvent to command,