"Oh, sir, 'twas that mixture of spite and over-fed merriment
which passes for humor with the vulgar. In their fun, they have
much resemblance to a turkey-cock. It has a cruel beak, and
a silly iteration of ugly sounds; it spreads its tail in
self-glorification, but shows you the wrong side of the
ornament--liking admiration, but knowing not what is admirable."
This Sunday evening, which promised to be so memorable in the experience
of the Sproxton miners, had its drama also for those unsatisfactory
objects to Mr. Johnson's moral sense, the Debarrys. Certain incidents
occurring at Treby Manor caused an excitement there which spread from
the dining-room to the stables; but no one underwent such agitating
transitions of feeling as Mr. Scales. At six o'clock that superior
butler was chuckling in triumph at having played a fine and original
practical joke on his rival, Mr. Christian. Some two hours after that
time he was frightened, sorry, and even meek; he was on the brink of a
humiliating confession; his cheeks were almost livid; his hair was
flattened for want of due attention from his fingers; and the fine roll
of his whiskers, which was too firm to give way, seemed only a sad
reminiscence of past splendor and felicity. His sorrow came about in
this wise.
After service on that Sunday morning, Mr. Philip Debarry had left the
rest of the family to go home in the carriage, and had remained at the
rectory to lunch with his uncle Augustus, that he might consult him
touching some letters of importance. He had returned the letters to his
pocket-book but had not returned the book to his pocket, and he finally
walked away leaving the enclosure of private papers and bank-notes on
his uncle's escritoire. After his arrival at home he was reminded of his
omission, and immediately dispatched Christian with a note begging his
uncle to seal up the pocket-book and send it by the bearer. This
commission, which was given between three and four o'clock, happened to
be very unwelcome to the courier. The fact was that Mr. Christian, who
had been remarkable through life for that power of adapting himself to
circumstances which enables a man to fall safely on all-fours in the
most hurried expulsions and escapes, was not exempt from bodily
suffering--a circumstance to which there is no known way of adapting
one's self so as to be perfectly comfortable under it, or to push it off
on to other people's shoulders. He did what he could: he took doses of
opium when he had an access of nervous pains, and he consoled himself as
to future possibilities by thinking that if the pains ever became
intolerably frequent, a considerable increase in the dose might put an
end to them altogether. He was neither Cato nor Hamlet, and though he
had learned their soliloquies at his first boarding-school, he would
probably have increased his dose without reciting those master-pieces.
Next to the pain itself he disliked that any one should know of it:
defective health diminished a man's market value; he did not like to be
the object of the sort of pity he himself gave to a poor devil who was
forced to make a wry face or "give in" altogether.
He had felt it expedient to take a slight dose this afternoon, and still
he was not altogether relieved at the time he set off for the rectory.
On returning with the valuable case safely deposited in his hind
pocket, he felt increasing bodily uneasiness, and took another dose.
Thinking it likely that he looked rather pitiable, he chose not to
proceed to the house by the carriage-road. The servants often walked in
the park on a Sunday, and he wished to avoid any meeting. He would make
a circuit, get into the house privately, and after delivering his packet
to Mr. Debarry, shut himself up till the ringing of the half-hour bell.
But when he reached an elbowed seat under some sycamores, he felt so ill
at ease that he yielded to the temptation of throwing himself on it to
rest a little. He looked at his watch: it was but five; he had done his
errand quickly hitherto, and Mr. Debarry had not urged haste. But in
less than ten minutes he was in a sound sleep. Certain conditions of his
system had determined a stronger effect than usual from the opium.
As he had expected, there were servants strolling in the park, but they
did not all choose the most frequented part. Mr. Scales, in pursuit of a
light flirtation with the younger lady's maid, had preferred a more
sequestered walk in the company of that agreeable nymph. And it happened
to be this pair, of all others, who alighted on the sleeping
Christian--a sight which at the very first moment caused Mr. Scales a
vague pleasure as at an incident that must lead to something clever on
his part. To play a trick, and make some one or other look foolish, was
held the most pointed form of wit throughout the back regions of the
Manor, and served as a constant substitute for theatrical entertainment:
what the farce wanted in costume or "make up" it gained in the reality
of the mortification which excited the general laughter. And lo! here
was the offensive, the exasperatingly cool and superior Christian,
caught comparatively helpless, with his head hanging on his shoulder,
and one coat-tail hanging out heavily below the elbow of the rustic
seat. It was this coat-tail which served as a suggestion to Mr. Scales's
genius. Putting his finger up in warning to Mrs. Cherry, and saying,
"Hush--be quiet--I see a fine bit of fun"--he took a knife from his
pocket, stepped behind the unconscious Christian, and quickly cut off
the pendent coat-tail. Scales knew nothing of the errand to the rectory;
and as he noticed that there was something in the pocket, thought it was
probably a large cigar-case. So much the better--he had no time to
pause. He threw the coat-tail as far as he could, and noticed that it
fell among the elms under which they had been walking. Then, beckoning
to Mrs Cherry, he hurried away with her toward the more open part of
the park, not daring to explode in laughter until it was safe from the
chance of waking the sleeper. And then the vision of the graceful,
well-appointed Mr. Christian, who sneered at Scales about his "get up,"
having to walk back to the house with only one tail to his coat, was a
source of so much enjoyment to the butler, that the fair Cherry began to
be quite jealous of the joke. Still she admitted that it really was
funny, tittered intermittently, and pledged herself to secrecy. Mr.
Scales explained to her that Christian would try to creep in unobserved,
but that this must be made impossible; and he requested her to imagine
the figure this interloping fellow would cut when everybody was asking
what had happened. "Hallo, Christian! where's your coat tail?" would
become a proverb at the Manor, where jokes kept remarkably well without
the aid of salt; and Mr. Christian's comb would be cut so effectually
that it would take a long time to grow again. Exit Scales, laughing, and
presenting a fine example of dramatic irony to any one in the secret of
Fate.
When Christian awoke, he was shocked to find himself in the twilight. He
started up, shook himself, missed something, and soon became aware what
it was he missed. He did not doubt that he had been robbed, and he at
once foresaw that the consequences would be highly unpleasant. In no way
could the cause of the accident be so represented to Mr. Philip Debarry
as to prevent him from viewing his hitherto unimpeachable factotum in a
new and unfavorable light. And though Mr. Christian did not regard his
present position as brilliant, he did not see his way to anything
better. A man nearly fifty who is not always quite well is seldom
ardently hopeful: he is aware that this is a world in which merit is
often overlooked. With the idea of robbery in full possession of his
mind, to peer about and search in the dimness, even if it had occurred
to him, would have seemed a preposterous waste of time and energy. He
knew it was likely that Mr. Debarry's pocket-book had important and
valuable contents, and that he should deepen his offence by deferring
his announcement of the unfortunate fact. He hastened back to the house,
relieved by the obscurity from that mortification of his vanity on which
the butler had counted. Indeed, to Scales himself the affair had already
begun to appear less thoroughly jocose than he had anticipated. For he
observed that Christian's non-appearance before dinner had caused Mr.
Debarry some consternation; and he had gathered that the courier had
been sent on a commission to the rectory. "My uncle must have detained
him for some reason or other," he heard Mr. Philip say; "but it is odd.
If he were less trusty about commissions, or had ever seemed to drink
too much, I should be uneasy." Altogether the affair was not taking the
turn Mr. Scales had intended. At last, when dinner had been removed, and
the butler's chief duties were at an end, it was understood that
Christian had entered without his coat tail, looking serious and even
agitated; that he had asked leave at once to speak to Mr. Debarry, and
that he was even then in parley with the gentleman in the dining-room.
Scales was in alarm; it must have been some property of Mr. Debarry's
that had weighted the pocket. He took a lantern, got a groom to
accompany him with another lantern, and with the utmost practical speed
reached the fatal spot in the park. He searched under the elms--he was
certain that the pocket had fallen there--and he found the pocket; but
he found it empty, and, in spite of further search, did not find the
contents, though he had first consoled himself with thinking that they
had fallen out, and would be lying not far off. He returned with the
lanterns and the coat tail and a most uncomfortable consciousness in
that great seat of a butler's emotion, the stomach. He had no sooner
re-entered than he was met by Mrs. Cherry, pale and anxious, who drew
him aside to say that if he didn't tell everything she would; that the
constables were to be sent for; that there had been no end of bank-notes
and letters and things in Mr. Debarry's pocket-book, which Christian was
carrying in that very pocket Scales had cut off; that the rector was
sent for, the constable was coming, and they should all be hanged. Mr.
Scales's own intellect was anything but clear as to the possible issues.
Crest-fallen, and with the coat-tail in his hands as an attestation that
he was innocent of anything more than a joke, he went and made his
confession. His story relieved Christian a little, but did not relieve
Mr. Debarry, who was more annoyed at the loss of the letters, and the
chance of their getting into hands that might make use of them, than at
the loss of the bank-notes. Nothing could be done for the present, but
that the rector, who was a magistrate, should instruct the constables,
and that the spot in the park indicated by Scales should again be
carefully searched. This was done, but in vain; and many of the family
at the Manor had disturbed sleep that night.