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HARRY COVERDALE’S COURTSHIP, AND ALL THAT CAME OF IT
By Frank E. Smedley,
Author of “Frank Fairlegh,” “Lewis Arundel,”
“The Fortunes Of The Colville Family,” Etc.
London: George Routledge and Sons
1854
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“Those false alarms of strife,
Between the husband and the wife,
And little quarrels, often prove
To be but new recruits of love;
And tho’ some fit of small contest
Sometime fall out among the best,
That makes no breach of faith and love,
But rather (sometimes) serves t’improve.”
Butler.
PREFACE
This Tale of “Harry Coverdale’s Courtship” has been a kind of _enfant
terrible_--a thankless child--to its Author. It was originally begun
as a short story, but the characters grew and expanded upon his hands,
until they forced him to allow them wider proportions than he had
originally intended.
Then the Magazine in which the tale had been commenced changed owners,
and the new proprietor, not being inclined to agree to the arrangements
of his predecessor, saw fit to end the story himself, after a much
more vivacious and dashing fashion than that of the present “lame and
impotent conclusion.”
These and other mishaps, _quæ nunc perscribere longam est_, as dear
Dr. Valpy’s Latin Grammar has it, have occasioned the story to be
written--_à plusieurs reprises_, to use the “correct” phrase.
The conclusion of the tale has been perpetrated at a time when, on
account of severe nervous headaches, the Author was under strict medical
orders not to write a line upon any consideration; and it is with the
fear of the doctor before his eyes that he is penning these “few last
words.” They are not written in the “forlorn hope” of disarming hostile
criticism, but simply to assure those friends who have hitherto looked
with an indulgent eye upon his writings, that if “Harry Coverdale’s
Courtship” does not come up to any expectations they may have formed
from the perusal of his previous works, it is rather the misfortune than
the fault, of their grateful and obedient servant,
THE AUTHOR.
HARRY COVERDALE’S COURTSHIP, AND ALL THAT CAME OF IT.
CHAPTER I.--TREATS OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE.
Harry Coverdale stood six feet one in or out of his stockings, rode
something over eleven stone, was unusually good, or, as young ladies
term it, interesting-looking, numbered six-and-twenty years last grass,
and lived at Coverdale Park when he was at home, with five thousand
a-year to pay for his housekeeping, of which he spent about two. At the
happy moment in which we have the pleasure of introducing him to
our readers, he was _not_ at home, at least not literally, though
figuratively he appeared to be making himself so very decidedly.
He had arrived in London that morning, and had dined at his club, and
strolled down to the Temple afterwards, where, finding that his friend,
Arthur Hazlehurst, was expected to return every minute, he had taken
possession of his vacant chambers, lighted a cigar, laid hands on a
number of _The Sporting Magazine_, and flinging himself at full-length
on the sofa (sofas do occasionally appear in the chambers of the
briefless) looked, and was, especially comfortable. He was not, however,
allowed to enjoy his position long in peace; for scarcely had he
established himself, when a man’s footstep was heard running hastily up
the interminable staircase, while a quick eager voice, addressing the
small boy who did duty for clerk, exclaimed--
“Eh! a gentleman whom you don’t know lying on my sofa and smoking my
last cigar! that’s coming to the point and no mistake; cool though--I
wonder who the deuce it can be--not a client, of course.--Ah! Harry, my
dear old boy, this is an unexpected pleasure; why I’m as glad to see you
as if you were a client almost. I thought you were in the Red Sea, man,
dredging for defunct Egyptians, or chipping old blocks with Layard, or
some such slow thing; when did you return?”
Arthur Hazlehurst, the originator of the foregoing speech, was an old
college chum of Coverdale’s, who, when his friend had taken his degree
(a highly respectable one) and started on an enlarged edition of the
grand tour, had gone to read with a special pleader. Having by a special
slice of luck contrived to acquire a knowledge of the law from that
process, instead of the more usual result of learning how to spend five
hundred per annum out of an allowance of two, and possessing, moreover,
an acute intellect, and a fair portion of industry, Arthur Hazlehurst
was looked upon as a rising young man. In appearance he was, for a fair
man, rather handsome than otherwise, but if his talent for rising could
have been exercised bodily, as well as professionally, it would have
been as well for him, for his friend had the advantage of him in stature
by some three inches; his manner and way of speaking were quick and
eager, and he had altogether a wide-awake look about him, as though
he regarded society at large as perpetually in a witness-box, and was
always prepared to cross-examine and be down upon it.
“I returned to England some three weeks since,” replied Coverdale,
abstracting the cigar from his mouth, and lazily flipping off the ashes
from the lighted end with his finger; “but I went quietly down to the
Park, and have been plodding over accounts with the agent ever since.
Shocking bad tobacco they make you put up with here; you shall try the
glorious stuff I’ve brought back from Constantinople--your Turk is the
boy to smoke. So you’ve become learned in the law, I hear, since I went
abroad.”
“Eh! Yes, I believe I’ve picked up a thing or two,” returned Hazlehurst
modestly; “I’ve found out the great secret of life; the next move is to
make the knowledge pay, and that’s not so easy.”
“I didn’t know there was a great secret to find out,” observed
Coverdale, stroking his curly black whiskers, “the rule of life seems
easy enough to me--make up your mind what you want to do, and then
quietly do it--that’s my recipe.”
“A very good one for you, my dear fellow, you’ve only to put your hand
in your pocket, and, as your money rattles, difficulties disappear;
but we’re not all born to £5000 a-year, worse luck; fathers have flinty
hearts, and even the amenities of the nineteenth century have failed
to macadamise them--‘I’ve given you an expensive education, sir, and
I expect to see you turn it to account.’ That’s about the style of
blessing we inherit now-a-day; however, my secret of life is this:
everything has a culminating point, and the dodge is to hit upon it
yourself, and bring others to it, with the least delay possible; in
these four words--come to the point, is embodied the whole philosophy of
existence.”
“Well, yes, I dare say there is something in it,” returned Coverdale,
meditatively, “it never exactly struck me before, but there’s a
beautiful simplicity about it that I rather admire--a little too
railroadish, perhaps, unless a man’s in an awful hurry; you lose the
bright sunny peeps and the jolly old road-side alehouses of life, by
rushing so straight to your object.”
“Sunny nonsenses,” was the uncourteous rejoinder--“none of your old
slow-coaching days for me; life’s not long enough for dreaming--Parr’s
life pills are a swindle, and Methusaleh died without leaving his recipe
behind him;--so come to the point say I.”
“Though I won’t promise to adopt your philosophy for a permanency, I’ll
act upon it for once, at all events,” replied Coverdale, smiling (and
a nice, genial, pleasant smile it was too, showing a white, even row
of teeth, and lighting up a pair of large, dark, intelligent eyes, and
making the “smiler” look particularly handsome). “So to come to the
point, I’m here to enlist you in my service for what the women call a
‘day’s shopping’ to-morrow: I’ve no clothes to my back, no horses to
ride, no dog-cart to knock about in--in fact, none of the necessaries of
life;--then, having benefited by your advice and experience, I mean to
carry you off to Coverdale for a crack at the rabbits; thank goodness!
they’ve got the game up and the poachers down, since I’ve been abroad:
that was the only thing I made a row about when I came into the
property. Why, there are no preserves like the Coverdale woods in the
county, and yet my poor uncle never had a pheasant on his table. Things
are rather different now, my boy, and my only real sorrow at the present
moment is, that there are two whole months to be got rid of before the
first of September: well! what do you say to my proposal?”
“Done, along with you,” replied Hazlehurst; “but on one condition only,
viz., that when we’ve polished off the rabbits, you’ll come with me
to the Grange, and make acquaintance with those members of the worthy
family of Hazlehurst, whose virtues are as yet unknown to you.”
“You’re very kind; but you’ve a lot of sisters, or she-cousins, or some
creatures of that dangerous nature, haven’t you? Of course I mean no
disparagement to the ladies of _your_ family in particular; but ’pon
my word, my dear fellow, I cannot stand women: in Turkey they shut ’em
up, you know, so that I’m not accustomed to them; I’ve given up flirting
and dangling, and all the rest of it, long ago; it’s very well for green
boys, but at my time of life a man has something better to think about,”
and, as he spoke, Coverdale flung the end of his cigar into the empty
fireplace, pitched _The Sporting Magazine_ unceremoniously on the table,
and, looking at his watch, continued, “It’s eight o’clock; I took a
couple of stalls for the ‘Prophète’ this morning, on the chance of
catching you; so jump into a pair of black trousers and let us be off.”
“Not a bad move,” replied his companion, “I’ll adorn and be with you
in----”
“_Einem augenblick_,” suggested the grand tourist, philologically.
“If that’s German for the twinkling of a bed-post, yes!” was the
rejoinder, and in less than ten minutes the friends descended the
staircase arm-in-arm, Hazlehurst leaving strict directions with the
small clerk to inform any one who might ask for him, that he was
summoned to attend a very important consultation.
The next day was devoted to the purchase of Coverdale’s necessaries of
life. Owing to Hazlehurst’s perseverance in bringing all the tradesmen
to the point, a vast deal of business was transacted, and before
nightfall Harry was the fortunate possessor of a spicy dog-cart, a blood
mare to run in it, who _could_ trot fourteen miles an hour, and
really did perform ten miles in that space of time, equally to her own
satisfaction and to that of her new master--two showy saddle-horses, the
best being up to fifteen stone with any hounds--a double-barrelled gun,
by a famous maker--a brace of thorough-bred pointers--and a whole host
of the minor “necessaries” animate and inanimate, all of which, put
together, made a considerable hole in a thousand pounds; but, as Harry
sapiently observed, “a man could not live in the country without them,
so where was the use of bothering.”
On the following morning, the two young men and all the purchases,
horses included, started by the Midland Counties Railway, and
dinner-time found them safely deposited at Coverdale Park, a fine old
place, which, with its picturesque mansion, beautiful view, and goodly
extent of wood and water, field and fell, was as desirable a property as
any English gentleman need wish to possess. After dinner the gamekeeper
was summoned: he was a sturdy, good-looking fellow, who had filled the
post of under-keeper in the time of Admiral Coverdale (Harry’s deceased
uncle, an old bachelor, to whose invincible hatred of matrimony his
nephew was indebted for his present position). Harry, before he went
abroad, had discovered the head-keeper to be in league with a gang of
poachers, receiving a per centage on all the game they sold; he had
accordingly dismissed him, and elected his subordinate to fill the
vacant situation--an experiment which had proved eminently successful.
“Take a glass of wine, Markum; this is my friend, Mr. Hazlehurst.
We mean to have a slap at the rabbits to-morrow; so be here at eight
o’clock, and then we shall get a good long day: any more poachers since
we caught those last fellows?” And, as Coverdale spoke, he filled a
large claret-glass to the brim with splendid old port, and handed it to
the keeper, who, received it bashfully, and then, scraping with his foot
and ducking his head twice with an expression of countenance as of a
sheep about to butt, replied, “Your ’ealth, Mr. Coverdale, sir--your
’ealth, gents both,” tossed it off at a draught--“there aint been no
reglur poarchin a-goin on, sir,” he continued, setting down his glass as
if it burned his fingers, and then jibbing away from the table as though
he had shyed at it; “but that ’are young Styles has been a shooting
rabids on Wild Acre farm, and seems to say as he considers he’s a right
so to do.”
“Styles? who is he?” inquired Harry, quickly.
“Well, he’s the son of old Farmer Styles, and he used to shoot just when
and where he liked in the Admiral’s time, and that’s how he fancies
he’s got a sort of right, do ye see, Mr ’Enry--that is, Mr. Coverdale,
sir.”
“Rabbits are not game, so you can’t touch him on the score of poaching,
Harry; but, to come to the point, if he’s on your land without your
permission, he’s trespassing, and that’s where you can be down upon
him,” interrupted Hazlehurst, sententiously.
“Then I shall have the law o’ my side in pitching into him, I suppose,
sir?” inquired Markum eagerly.
“Ho, no, my good fellow; I don’t wish to quarrel with any of my
tenantry, about here,” exclaimed Coverdale hastily, “they’ll be breaking
pheasants’ eggs, and playing up all sorts of mischief,--no: we must
have nothing of that kind--I’ll speak to the young man myself; there’s a
_quiet_ way of doing these things, as I must teach you all. Good night;
remember eight o’clock tomorrow:” and Markum, looking sheepish and
rebuked, quitted the room, to tell the tale in the kitchen with the
following reflection appended, “And if that ’are young Styles happens
to be as cheeky to master as he is to other folks, it strikes me the
quiet dodge won’t pay.”