It is a sad thing to be the most unfortunate creature in the world; and
the only consolation under such calamity, is the thought that it is
by no means uncommon. Almost every body is in this condition at some
period or other of his life. This calamity befel Lord Spoonbill at the
juncture of which we are now writing. It happened under the following
circumstances.
We have related that Mr Primrose, after hearing of the stoppage of
his banker, went into the City to his agent at a preposterously late
hour of the day, and that in so doing he lost his labour. We have
also related that, during the absence of Mr Primrose from his hotel,
the Right Honorable Lord Spoonbill called and made overtures to Miss
Primrose. We have also related that Lord Spoonbill, finding that it was
absolutely impossible to live without Penelope, and finding also that,
without an establishment, it would be as impossible to live with her,
had made known to his respected parents his intention to lead that same
young lady to the altar, or, in plain English, to marry her. Leading a
lady to the altar is merely a newspaper phrase, and sounds heathenish;
we ought rather to say, leading her to the communion table. But, not to
use superfluous words, let us proceed.
We have narrated that the right honorable parents of Lord Spoonbill
were indignant at the proposal of their son, and we have also stated
that despatch was to the young gentleman an object of the greatest
importance. The reason why he was in so much haste has also been stated.
Now it so happened, that on the very day on which the letter of Robert
Darnley was intercepted at the house of Lord Smatterton, and by the
meanness of Lord Spoonbill, Mr Primrose went again into the City and
called on his agent, and made enquiries concerning the probabilities
or chances of his bankers paying a good dividend. In these enquiries
he found himself most agreeably surprised, by ascertaining two very
important points: one was, that only part, and that no very great
part of his property had been paid into the hands of the said banker;
and another was, that what had been already paid there would, in
all probability, be soon forthcoming again, very little, if at all,
diminished by the untoward circumstances that compelled a stoppage.
While therefore Lord Spoonbill was sulking and pouting to his papa
and mama about Penelope Primrose, that young lady was enjoying the
agreeable and pleasant intelligence which her father had brought from
the City. The brief discussion which passed between the father and
daughter concerning the propriety of writing to Robert Darnley, we have
already narrated. This took place on the morning of the day on which
Mr Primrose, going into the City, found his affairs in so much better
order than he had anticipated.
On the evening of that day the subject was renewed, though but faintly
and indirectly. But in the course of conversation Mr Primrose alluded
to the offer which Mr Pringle, the new rector of Smatterton, had made
of accommodating Mr Primrose with the parsonage-house, provided he
should choose to take up his residence at Smatterton. Now Penelope
loved Smatterton for many reasons. There had she first learned to
know and feel what was real kindness of heart. With that village were
blended all her early associations and recollections. She loved the
village church, and there was to her ear music in its abrupt little
ring of six small bells. The very air of the village was wholesome
to her, morally as well as physically. The great booby boys and the
freckled girls of the village were her intimates; not her companions
indeed, but she could sympathize with them, although they could not
always sympathize with her. She also knew the cows and the dogs and the
horses. She knew the names of a great many of them; and very often,
during her short sojourn in the great city, she had called to mind with
a starting tear the recollection of the monotonous, drawling, daily
tone, with which the farmers' men talked to these animals.
When therefore her father proposed taking up his abode at Smatterton,
and hiring for that purpose the parsonage-house, she altogether
forgot its vicinity to Neverden and its association with the name of
Darnley, and she was delighted with the prospect of going back again
to those scenes with which her mind connected images of pleasure and
recollections of peace.
It was with ready and delightful acquiescence that Penelope assented to
the proposal; and as Mr Primrose saw that his child was pleased with
the thought of going to reside at Smatterton, he hastened to put his
intentions into execution; and at the very time that Lord Spoonbill
was grumbling about his right to marry whomsoever he pleased, Mr
Primrose was making arrangements to leave London.
The father of Penelope was not slow in his movements, and he was not
in the habit of giving his purposes time to cool. He wrote by that
evening's post to Smatterton, and at an early hour on the following
morning he and his daughter commenced their journey. So that when Lord
Spoonbill, who heeded not his father's long lecture on the subject
of dignity, called again at Mr Primrose's hotel, and heard that the
gentleman and his daughter were gone, and that they were gone to
Smatterton, then his lordship was grieved beyond measure, and his
perplexity was serious, and his fears rose within him: for he took it
for granted that there must soon be an interview and an explanation,
and then he distrusted Nick Muggins, and there rose up before his
mind's eye the phantom of that ungainly cub and his clumsy pony: that
image which, in the recollection of most who had seen it, would excite
a smile at its uncouthness, was to the Right Honorable Lord Spoonbill
productive of very painful emotions and disagreeable apprehensions. So
his lordship thought himself the most unfortunate creature in the world.
Then again there was in his lordship's possession the letter from
Robert Darnley to Mr Primrose, and his lordship hardly knew what to do
with that. He thought that the secret of his having already detained it
for a whole day must inevitably transpire. Whether he should send it
or detain it would be equally ruinous to his schemes. He looked very
thoughtfully at the letter, and at length resolved to send it with an
explanation to Mr Primrose at Smatterton. He thought that, if there
should be on the letter any symptoms of curious or prying fingers, it
might be attributed to any one rather than to his lordship; and he
thought that, at the worst, no one would explicitly charge him with
an attempt to penetrate into its secresy. The letter was therefore
despatched with an apology for its detention as much like a lie as
anything that a lord could write.
There was nothing now left for Lord Spoonbill to do but to sigh over
his calamitous loss as deeply as he could, and to explain to his
father, as ingeniously as might be, the singular event of the sudden
departure of Mr Primrose and his daughter from London, at the very
moment when a right honorable suitor for the young lady's hand had
started up in the person of Lord Spoonbill. The son said it was very
strange, and the father also thought it was very strange, and he
recommended his son not to have any farther correspondence with persons
who could behave thus disrespectfully. But the young gentleman was too
much enamoured to listen to such advice, and he exercised most heartily
all his little wits to devise means of carrying on his suit to Penelope.
For the present we must leave his loving lordship in London, enjoying
all the luxuries and splendors which gas, fog, smoke, foolery, wax
candles, painted faces, late hours, French cookery, Italian music,
prosy dancing, Whig politics, and patrician scandal, could afford him.
It is far more to our taste to follow Mr Primrose and his daughter into
the country than to remain with Lord Spoonbill in London. If any of our
readers wish to know what Lord Spoonbill did with himself in London,
they may form a tolerably correct idea from ascertaining how the rest
of that tribe occupy their time. He was a very fashionable man, he knew
all the common-places perfectly, and with his own set he was quite at
home. There let us leave him.
Mr Primrose and Penelope travelled to Smatterton in perfect safety;
and the father congratulated himself and his daughter upon their safe
arrival, observing that had they ventured to use the stage-coach
instead of post-chaises, they would certainly have had their necks
broken at the bottom of some steep hill.
Their reception at Smatterton parsonage was most cordial and highly
courteous. Nothing could exceed the happiness of the young rector
in receiving under his roof so respected a friend as Mr Primrose.
Preparations had been made according to the best of the young
clergyman's ability; and, as Mr Primrose's letter mentioned the day
and the hour of his arrival, Mr Pringle thought that he could not do
otherwise than make a party to meet the gentleman at dinner.
Since the departure of Mrs Greendale from Smatterton, the establishment
of Mr Pringle had continued the same, but his domestics had not had
a very bustling life; and they ventured to contradict the popular
theory which represents man as a creature of habit. For during the
reign of Mrs Greendale they had been accustomed to fly about the house
with unceasing bustle and activity, but since her departure they had
become almost as lazy as their master. The domestics were two female
servants, one about sixty and the other about forty. They were clumsy
and uncouth, but their clumsiness was hardly visible in the time of
Mrs Greendale; for under her administration they had been habituated
to move about with most marvellous celerity, and now that the old
lady was departed they seemed glad to take breath, and they took it
very leisurely. It was a great mercy that they were not absolutely
broken-winded.
There was also remaining in the establishment a man servant, an
amphibious animal as it were, not because he lived partly on land and
partly in water, but as living partly in the house and partly out
of it. He was a mighty pluralist, and filled, or rather occupied,
many places; and from the universality of his genius he might,
had he been in higher station, have aspired to be prime minister,
commander-in-chief, lord chancellor, and archbishop of Canterbury. As
it was, his occupations were quite as multitudinous and heterogeneous.
His great skill was in gardening, and finding that he was successful
in cultivating cabbages, he ventured also to undertake the cavalry
department in the late Dr Greendale's service. His duties here were not
many or oppressive, seeing that the late doctor kept but one horse,
and that was very quiet and gentle. This universal genius acted also
as butler and footman. In this last capacity he did not shine. He did
not want for head, he had enough of that, and more than enough. As for
figure, it is difficult to say what that was, it was so exceedingly
indefinite. It was considerate of the late Dr Greendale that he did not
task the poor man very hardly as to his department of footman. But the
new rector loved state, and it was his pride to keep a livery servant,
and he would also insist upon the attendance of this man at table. And
though the footman was not himself a great adept in waiting at table,
he soon brought his master to wait.
With this ungainly establishment, the Reverend Charles Pringle took it
into his head to give a dinner to as many as he could collect, in order
to pay a compliment to Mr Primrose, and to pay court to Miss Primrose.
Unfortunately for Mr Pringle it did not answer.
It would be wearying to our readers to have the particulars and
the failures of a clumsy mockery of an elegant dinner set forth at
full length. Let it be supposed that there was expense, inelegance,
constraint, anxiety, mortification. As we are not writing for cooks, we
pass over the minutenesses of a spoiled dinner; the greatest evil of
which was, that the party was in some degree silent during the progress
of dinner, for they had not much opportunity of talking gastronomically.
The English people can talk, but they must have something to begin
with. If they meet out of doors, they must begin talking about the
weather, and within doors, especially at dinner time, they must begin
talking about eatables and drinkables. From such beginnings they can
go on to any subject; but they must of necessity have a common-place
beginning.
After the cloth was removed, and the spoiled or ill-arranged dishes
were forgotten, the party felt themselves more at liberty. We have not
yet named the persons who composed the party; and when we say that
Mr Kipperson, Mr Zephaniah Pringle, and five or six of lesser note
were present, our readers may well suppose that there was no lack of
inclination to discourse, especially on the part of those two gentlemen
whom we have named.
Now it has been stated, that Zephaniah the critic had carried down to
Smatterton an awkward rumour concerning Penelope Primrose. The source
from whence the said critic had gathered the information has been also
stated. But as soon as the intelligence of Mr Primrose's intention to
reside with his daughter at Smatterton reached the new rector, and
was by him communicated to his brother and to Mr Kipperson, a virtual
contradiction was given to the ill report; and then all three of the
gentlemen found out that they had never believed it.
To render themselves as agreeable as possible to Mr Primrose, the
three whom we have named talked great abundance of nonsense and
magnificence. Their first concern immediately after dinner was to
consult on the best means of saving the nation. Mr Kipperson was well
satisfied that nothing would or could do the nation the slightest
service, so long as the agricultural interest was neglected. There were
two serious evils which were growing worse and worse, the increase of
the population, and the importation of foreign grain. The ingenious
agriculturist proved that the farmer was eaten up by the increasing
population, and that the quantity of grain in the country was so large
that it could not find consumers.
Zephaniah Pringle agreed with Mr Kipperson in the grand principle that
there were too many consumers for the corn, and too much corn for the
consumers. There was the great evil, he thought, in these two troubles
existing at once; were they in existence separately they might soon
be got rid of. The consumers might consume an extra quantity, and
soon settle matters in that way, or the want of corn might thin the
consumers, and soon settle matters that way. But, while the two evils
operated together, they were dreadful calamities.
Those of our readers who are not agriculturists, or political
economists, cannot understand this reasoning, or, more properly
speaking, they will not; they are blinded by their own interested
feelings; they have prejudices which agriculturists have not.
But though Zephaniah Pringle agreed with Mr Kipperson, that the people
were starving because there was too much corn, and that the corn could
not find consumers because there were so many people to eat it, yet
he thought that there were more serious evils in the country yet. He
thought that those obscure seditious newspapers and vile trumpery
publications, which nobody reads and which everybody despises, which
are published by a set of needy miscreants, who spare no expense in
circulating them all over the kingdom, had corrupted the minds of all
the people in this once happy land. He thought that the nation was in
a most prosperous condition, and that nothing was wanting to render it
more prosperous, than an additional number of bishops, and an increase
in the numbers of the yeomanry cavalry.
Mr Primrose listened with polite and pleased attention to these
dextrous and acute politicians, and he thought that his Majesty need
never be at a loss for a prime minister, or for two, if he wanted
them, while Zephaniah Pringle and Mr Kipperson should live. But, as Mr
Primrose was neither an agriculturist, nor a political economist, he
felt himself a little puzzled to reconcile the apparent contradiction
which was contained in Mr Kipperson's statement of the agricultural
grievances. Mr Kipperson was very properly angry with Mr Primrose for
expressing a doubt on the subject; and the scientific agriculturist
immediately and satisfactorily explained that all the superfluous
population was pennyless, and could not pay for the corn which they
would like to consume. Whereupon Mr Primrose understood that in the
good old times people were born with money in their pockets.
Zephaniah Pringle almost feared that Mr Primrose was a radical, at
least he thought he was in the high road to become so, unless he should
resist that foolish propensity of wishing to understand what he talked
about.
There might have been at the table of Mr Pringle, rector of Smatterton,
some diversity of political opinion, as there certainly was, seeing
that Mr Kipperson was a Whig, and Zephaniah Pringle a Tory; but the
corn question most cordially united them. How far these gentlemen
differed in some other points, we have seen already in the matter
of mechanics' institutes. On this subject Mr Kipperson's hopes were
rather too sanguine; and perhaps Zephaniah the critic was too nervously
susceptible, on the other hand, of apprehensions of danger to the
Protestant succession; for, to his mind, the mechanics' institutes
had no other ultimate object in view than transubstantiation and
republicanism.
Concerning gymnastics, the gentlemen also differed. Zephaniah condemned
them in toto, and so did the rector of Smatterton, in spite of his
whiggism. Mr Kipperson spoke very learnedly about muscles and tension,
and proved that bodily exercise was essential to intellectual vigour;
but he had the candour to acknowledge that he could never persuade his
men to take gymnastic exercises when their day's work was over; and he
attributed their ignorance of science to their neglect of gymnastics.
The whole of the conversation, to which we have above alluded, did not
take place in the hearing of Miss Primrose, nor indeed did one tenth
part of it; for the fatigue of the journey, together with the agitation
of her spirits, led her to make an early retreat from the dining-room.
And the old female servant, who had known Penelope from childhood,
was delighted in the opportunity of again attending upon her. Fluent
was the old gentlewoman's speech, and mightily communicative was she
touching the various changes which had taken place in Smatterton and
Neverden since the decease of the good Dr Greendale. The kind-hearted
woman also expressed herself delighted at the return of Miss Primrose
to Smatterton, inasmuch as there was one person who would be so happy
to see her again, and that person was Mr Robert Darnley. Penelope
begged that his name might never be mentioned again in her hearing, and
thereupon the poor old domestic began to fear that there was some truth
in the stories that had been talked about in the village concerning
Miss Primrose and Lord Spoonbill. And when the old servant found that
she could not talk to her late young mistress concerning love-matters,
she hastily finished her discourse and left the young lady to retire
quietly to rest.