CUDDY Flintoff did not awake at all comfortable the next morning,
and he distinctly traced the old copyhead of “Familiarity breeds
contempt,” in the hieroglyphic pattern of his old chintz
bed-hangings. He couldn’t think how he could ever be so foolish
as to lay himself open to such a catastrophe; it was just the
wine being in and the wit being out, coupled with the fact of the
man being a Frenchman, that led him away—and he most devoutly
wished he was well out of the scrape. Suppose Monsieur was a top
sawyer! Suppose he was a regular steeple-chaser! Suppose he was a
second Beecher in disguise! It didn’t follow because he was a
Frenchman that he couldn’t ride. Altogether Mr. Flintoff
repented. It wasn’t nice amusement, steeple-chasing he thought,
and the quicksilver of youth had departed from him; getting
called Bareacres, too, was derogatory, and what no English
servant would have done, if even he had called him Bushy Heath.
Billy Pringle, on the other hand, was very comfortable, and slept
soundly, regardless of clubs, cover rents, over-night
consequences, altogether. Each having desired to be called when
the other got up, they stood a chance of lying in bed all day,
had not Mrs. Margerum, fearing they would run their breakfast,
and the servants’-hall dinner together, despatched Monsieur and
the footman with their respective hot-water cans, to say the
other had risen. It was eleven o’clock ere they got dawdled
down-stairs, and Cuddy again began demanding this and that
delicacy in the name of Mr. Pringle: Mr. Pringle wanted Yorkshire
pie; Mr. Pringle wanted potted prawns; Mr. Pringle wanted
bantams’ eggs; Mr. Pringle wanted honey. Why the deuce didn’t
they attend to Mr. Pringle?
The breakfast was presently interrupted by the sound of wheels,
and almost ere they had ceased to revolve, a brisk pull at the
doorbell aroused the inmates of both the front and back regions,
and brought the hurrying footman, settling himself into his
yellow-edged blue-livery coat as he came.
It was Mr. Heslop. Heslop in a muffin cap, and so disguised in
heather-coloured tweed, that Mr. Pringle failed to recognise him
as he entered. Cuddy did, though; and greeting him with one of
his best view holloas, he invited him to sit down and partake.
Heslop was an early bird, and had broke his fast hours before:
but a little more breakfast being neither here nor there, he did
as he was requested, though he would much rather have found Cuddy
alone. He wanted to talk to him about the match, to hear if Sir
Moses had said anything about the line of country, what sort of a
horse he would like to ride, and so on.
Billy went munch, munch, munching on, in the tiresome,
pertinacious sort of way people do when others are anxiously
wishing them done,—now taking a sip of tea, now a bit of toast,
now another egg, now looking as if he didn’t know what he would
take. Heslop inwardly wished him at Jericho. At length another
sound of wheels was heard, followed by another peal of the bell;
and our hero presently had a visitor, too, in the person of Mr.
Paul Straddler. Paul had come on the same sort of errand as
Heslop, namely, to arrange matters about Monsieur; and Heslop and
he, seeing how the land lay, Heslop asked Cuddy if there was any
one in Sir Moses’s study; whereupon Cuddy arose and led the way
to the sunless little sanctum, where Sir Moses kept his other
hat, his other boots, his rows of shoes, his beloved but rather
empty cash-box, and the plans and papers of the Pangburn Park
estate.
Two anxious deliberations then ensued in the study and
breakfast-room, in the course of which Monsieur was summoned into
the presence of either party, and retired, leaving them about as
wise as he found them. He declared he could ride, ride “dem vell
too,” and told Paul he could “beat Cuddy’s head off;” but he
accompanied the assertions with such wild, incoherent arguments,
and talked just as he did to Imperial John before the Crooked
Billet, that they thought it was all gasconade. If it hadn’t been
P. P., Paul would have been off. Cuddy, on the other hand, gained
courage; and as Heslop proposed putting him on his famous horse
General Havelock, the reported best fencer in the country, Cuddy,
who wasn’t afraid of pace, hoped to be able to give a good
account of himself. Indeed, he so far recovered his confidence,
as to indulge in a few hunting noises—“_For-rard, on! For-rard
on!_” cheered he, as if he was leading the way with the race well
in hand.
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Meanwhile Monsieur, who could keep his own counsel, communicated
by a certain mysterious agency that prevails in most countries,
and seems to rival the electric telegraph in point of speed, to
enlist a confederate in his service. This was Mr. Geordey Gallon,
a genius carrying on the trades of poacher, pugilist, and
publican, under favour of that mistaken piece of legislation the
Beer Act. Geordey, like Jack, had begun life as a post-boy, and
like him had undergone various vicissitudes ere he finally
settled down to the respectable calling we have named. He now
occupied the Rose and Crown beershop at the Four Lane-Ends, on
the Heatherbell Road, some fifteen miles from Pangburn Park,
where, in addition to his regular or irregular calling, he
generally kept a racing-like runaway, that whisked a light
spring-cart through the country by night, freighted with pigeons,
poultry, game, dripping—which latter item our readers doubtless
know includes every article of culinary or domestic use. He was
also a purveyor of lead, lead-stealing being now one of the
liberal professions.
Geordey had had a fine time of it, for the Hit-im and Hold-im
shire constables were stupid and lazy, and when the short-lived
Superintendent ones were appointed, it was only a trifle in his
way to suborn them. So he made hay while the sun shone, and
presently set up a basket-buttoned green cutaway for Sundays, in
lieu of the baggy pocketed, velveteen shooting-jacket of
week-days, and replaced the fox-skin cap with a bare shallow
drab, with a broad brim, and a black band, encasing his
substantial in cords and mahogany tops, instead of the navvie
boot that laced his great bulging calves into globes. He then
called himself a sporting man.
Not a fair, not a fight, not a fray of any sort, but Geordey’s
great square bull-headed carcase was there, and he was always
ready to run his nag, or trot his nag, or match his nag in any
shape or way—Mr. George Gallon’s Blue Ruin, Mr. George Gallon’s
Flower of the West, Mr. George Gallon’s Honor Bright, will be
names familiar to most lovers of leather-plating. * Besides this,
he did business in a smaller way. Being a pure patriot, he was a
great promoter of the sports and pastimes of the people, and
always travelled with a prospectus in his pocket of some raffle
for a watch, some shooting-match for a fat hog, some dog or some
horse to be disposed of in a surreptitious way, one of the
conditions always being, that a certain sum was to be spent by
the winner at Mr. Gallon’s, of the Hose and Crown, at the Four
Lane-ends on the Heatherbell Road.
Such was the worthy selected by Monsieur Rougier to guard his
interests in the matter. But how the communication was made, or
what were the instructions given, those who are acquainted with
the wheels within wheels, and the glorious mystification that
prevails in all matters relating to racing or robbing, will know
the impossibility of narrating. Even Sir Moses was infected with
the prevailing epidemic, and returned from hunting greatly
subdued in loquacity. He wanted to be on for a £5 or two, but
couldn’t for the life of him make out which was to be the right
side. So he was very chary of his wine after dinner, and wouldn’t
let Cuddy have any brandy at bed-time—“Dom’d if he would.”