"For thy walls a pretty slight drollery."
_The Second Part of King Henry IV_.
"A bad lot. Yes, sir, a thoroughly bad lot."
"You don't mean it."
"Yes, ma'am, a bad lot is the Uphill people. Good for nothing and
ungrateful! I've known them these thirty-years, and no one will do
anything with them."
The time was the summer of 1822. The place was a garden, somewhat gone
to waste, with a gravel drive running round a great circle of
periwinkles with a spotted aucuba in the middle. There was a low,
two-storied house, with green shutters, green Venetian blinds, and a
rather shabby verandah painted in alternate stripes of light and darker
green. In front stood a high gig, with a tall old, bony horse trying to
munch the young untrimmed shoots of a lilac in front of him as he waited
for the speaker, a lawyer, dressed as country attorneys were wont to
dress in those days, in a coat of invisible green, where the green
constantly became more visible, brown trousers, and under them drab
gaiters. He was addressing a gentleman in a blue coat and nankeen
trousers, but evidently military, and two ladies in white dresses,
narrow as to the skirts, but full in the sleeves. One had a blue scarf
over her shoulders and blue ribbons in her very large Leghorn bonnet;
the other had the same in green, and likewise a green veil. Her bonnet
was rather more trimmed, the dress more embroidered, the scarf of a
richer, broader material than the other's, and it was thus evident that
she was the married sister; but they were a good deal alike, with the
same wholesome smooth complexion, brown eyes, and hair in great shining
rolls under their bonnet caps, much the same pleasant expression, and
the same neat little feet in crossed sandalled shoes and white stockings
showing out beneath their white tambour-worked gowns.
With the above verdict, the lawyer made his parting bow, and drove off
along a somewhat rough road through two pasture fields. The first gate,
white and ornamental, was held open for him by an old man in a short
white smock and long leathern gaiters, the second his own servant
opened, the third was held by half a dozen shock-headed children, with
their backs against it and hands held out, but in vain; he only smacked
his driving-whip over their heads, and though he did not strike any of
them, they requited it with a prolonged yell, which reached the ears of
the trio in front of the house.
"I'm afraid it is not far from the truth," said the green lady.
"Oh no; I am sure he is a horrid man," said her blue sister. "I would
not believe him for a moment."
"Only with a qualification," rejoined the gentleman.
"But, Edmund, couldn't you be sure that it is just what he would say,
whatever the people were?"
"I am equally sure that the exaction of rents is not the way to see
people at their best."
"Come in, come in! We have all our settling in to do, and no time for
you two to fight."
Edmund, Mary, Dorothea, and Sophia Carbonel were second cousins, who had
always known one another in the house of the girls' father, a clergyman
in a large country town. Edmund had been in the army just in time for
the final battles of the Peninsular war, and had since served with the
army of occupation and in Canada. He had always meant that Mary should
be his wife, but the means were wanting to set up housekeeping, until
the death of an old uncle of his mother's made him heir to Greenhow
Farm, an estate bringing in about 500 pounds a year. Mary and her next
sister Dora had in the meantime lost their parents, and had been living
with some relations in London, where their much younger sister Sophy was
at school, until Edmund, coming home, looked over the farm, decided that
it would be a fit home for the sisters, and retired from the army
forthwith. Thus then, after a brief tour among the Lakes, they had
taken up Dora in London, and here they were; Sophy was to join them when
the holidays began. Disorder reigned indeed within, and hammers
resounded, nor was the passage easy among the packing-cases that
encumbered the narrow little vestibule whence the stairs ascended.
Under the verandah were the five sash windows of the three front rooms,
the door, of course, in the middle. Each had a little shabby furniture,
to which the Carbonels were adding, and meant to add more; the
dining-room had already been papered with red flock in stripes, the
drawing-room with a very delicate white, on which were traced in tender
colouring-baskets of vine leaves and laburnums.
Dora gave a little scream. "Look! Between the windows, Mary; see, the
laburnums and grapes are hanging upward."
"Stupid people!" exclaimed Mary, "I see. Happily, it is only on that
one piece, but how Edmund will be vexed."
"Perhaps there is another piece unused."
"I am sure I hope there is! Don't you know, Edmund fell in love with it
at Paris. It was his first provision for future housekeeping, and it
was lying laid up in lavender all these years till we were ready for
it."
"It is only that one division, which is a comfort."
"What's the matter?" and the master of the house came in.
"Senseless beings! It must be covered directly. It is a desight to the
whole room. Here!" and he went out to the carpenter, who was universal
builder to the village, and was laying down the stair carpet. "Here,
Hewlett, do you see what you have done?"
Hewlett, a large man with a smooth, plump, but honest face, came in, in
his shirt sleeves, apron, and paper cap, touched his forehead to the
ladies, stood, and stared.
"Can't you see?" sharply demanded the captain.
Hewlett scratched his head, and gazed round.
"See here! How do grapes grow? Or laburnums?"
An idea broke in on him.
"What! they be topsy-turvy?" he slowly observed, after looking from the
faulty breadth to the next.
"Of course they are. Find the rest of the paper! We must have a piece
put on at once, or the whole appearance of the room is spoilt," said
Captain Carbonel. "It will make a delay, but it must be done at once.
Where is the piece left over?"
Hewlett retreated to find it, while the captain said something about
"stupid ass."
Presently his gruff voice was heard demanding, "Dan, I say, where's the
remnant of that there fancy paper?"
Dan's answer did not rise into audible words, but presently Hewlett
tramped back, saying, "There ain't none, sir."
"I tell you there must be," returned the captain, in the same angry
tones. And he proceeded to show that the number of pieces he had
bought, and the measure of which he had ascertained, was such that there
ought to have been half-a-piece left over from papering the room, the
size of which he had exactly taken. Hewlett could do nothing but
stolidly repeat that "there weren't none left, not enow to make a
mouse's nest."
"Who did the papering? Did you?"
"Daniel Hewlett, sir, he did the most on it. My cousin, sir."
The captain fell upon Daniel, who had more words at command, but was
equally strong in denial of having any remnant. "They had only skimped
out enough," he said, "just enough for the walls, and it was a close fit
anyhow."
The captain loudly declared it impossible, but Mary ran out in the midst
to suggest that mayhap the defect was in the French measure. Each piece
might not have been the true number of whatever they called them in that
new revolutionary fashion.
Dan Hewlett's face cleared up. "Ay, 'tis the French measure, sure, sir.
Of course they can't do nothing true and straight! I be mortal sorry
the ladies is disappointed, but it bain't no fault of mine, sir."
"And look here, Edmund," continued Mary, "it will not spoil the room at
all if Mr Hewlett will help move the tall bureau against it, and we'll
hang the `Death of General Wolfe' above it, and then there won't be more
than two bits of laburnum to be seen, even if you are curious enough to
get upon a chair to investigate."
"Well, it must be so," returned Captain Carbonel, "but I hate the idea
of makeshifts and having imperfections concealed."
"Just like you, Edmund," laughed Dora. "You will always seem to be
looking right through at the upright sprays, though all the solid weight
of Hume, Gibbon, and Rollin is in front of them."
"Precisely," said Edmund. "It is not well to feel that there is
anything to be hidden. The chief part of the vexation is, however," he
added--shutting the door and lowering his voice--"that I am convinced
that there must have been foul play somewhere."
"Oh, Edmund; French measure!"
"Nonsense! That does not account for at least a whole piece
disappearing."
He took out a pencil, and went again into his calculations, while his
sister-in-law indignantly exclaimed--
"It is all prejudice, because that horrid attorney said all these poor
people were a bad lot."
"Hush, hush!" said Mrs Carbonel, rather frightened, and--
"I advise you to think before you speak," said Captain Carbonel quietly
but sternly.
Still Dora could not help saying, as soon as she was alone with her
sister, "I shall believe in the French measure. I like that slow, dull
man, and I am sure he is honest."
"Yes, dear, only pray don't say any more to Edmund, but let us get the
book-case placed as fast as we can, and let him forget all about it."