Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. VI, November 1850, Vol. I

"Hallo, you sir – what the deuce, laying a mine to blow up the stocks! just like Guy Fox and the Gunpowder Plot, I declares! What ha' you got in your willainous little fist, there?"

"Nothing, sir," said Lenny, opening his palm.

"Nothing – um!" said Mr. Stirn, much dissatisfied; and then, as he gazed more deliberately, recognizing the pattern boy of the village, a cloud yet darker gathered over his brow; for Mr. Stirn, who valued himself much on his learning – and who, indeed, by dint of more knowledge as well as more wit than his neighbors, had attained his present eminent station in life – was extremely anxious that his only son should also be a scholar; that wish,

"The Gods dispersed in empty air."

Master Stirn was a notable dunce at the Parson's school, while Lenny Fairfield was the pride and boast of it; therefore Mr. Stirn was naturally, and almost justifiably ill-disposed toward Lenny Fairfield, who had appropriated to himself the praises which Mr. Stirn had designed for his son.

"Um!" said the right-hand man, glowering on Lenny malignantly, "you are the pattern boy of the village, are you? Very well, sir – then I put these here stocks under your care – and you'll keep off the other boys from sitting on 'em, and picking off the paint, and playing three holes and chuck farthing, as I declare they've been a-doing, just in front of the elewation. Now you knows your sponsibilities, little boy – and a great honor they are too, for the like o' you. If any damage be done, it is to you I shall look; d'ye understand? and that's what the Squire says to me; so you sees what it is to be a pattern boy, Master Lenny!"

With that Mr. Stirn gave a loud crack of the cart-whip, by way of military honors, over the head of the vicegerent he had thus created, and strode off to pay a visit to two young unsuspecting pups, whose ears and tails he had graciously promised their proprietor to crop that evening. Nor, albeit few charges could be more obnoxious than that of deputy governor or chargé d'affaires extraordinaire to the Parish Stocks, nor one more likely to render Lenny Fairfield odious to his contemporaries, ought he to have been insensible to the signal advantage of his condition over that of the two sufferers, against whose ears and tails Mr. Stirn had no especial motives of resentment. To every bad there is a worse – and fortunately for little boys, and even for grown men, whom the Stirns of the world regard malignly, the majesty of law protects their ears, and the merciful forethought of nature deprived their remote ancestors of the privilege of entailing tails upon them. Had it been otherwise – considering what handles tails would have given to the oppressor, how many traps envy would have laid for them, how often they must have been scratched and mutilated by the briars of life, how many good excuses would have been found for lopping, docking, and trimming them – I fear that only the lap-dogs of fortune would have gone to the grave tail-whole.

CHAPTER XII

The card-table was set out in the drawing-room at Hazeldean Hall; though the little party were still lingering in the deep recess of the large bay window – which (in itself of dimensions that would have swallowed up a moderate-sized London parlor) held the great round tea-table with all appliances and means to boot – for the beautiful summer moon shed on the sward so silvery a lustre, and the trees cast so quiet a shadow, and the flowers and new-mown hay sent up so grateful a perfume, that, to close the windows, draw the curtains, and call for other lights than those of heaven, would have been an abuse of the prose of life which even Captain Barnabas, who regarded whist as the business of town and the holiday of the country, shrank from suggesting. Without, the scene, beheld by the clear moonlight, had the beauty peculiar to the garden ground round those old-fashioned country residences which, though a little modernized, still preserve their original character: the velvet lawn, studded with large plots of flowers, shaded and scented here, to the left, by lilacs, laburnums, and rich seringas – there, to the right, giving glimpses, over low-clipped yews, of a green bowling alley, with the white columns of a summer house built after the Dutch taste, in the reign of William III.; and in front – stealing away under covert of those still cedars, into the wilder landscape of the well-wooded, undulating park. Within, viewed by the placid glimmer of the moon, the scene was no less characteristic of the abodes of that race which has no parallel in other lands, and which, alas, is somewhat losing its native idiosyncracies in this – the stout country gentleman, not the fine gentleman of the country – the country gentleman somewhat softened and civilized from the mere sportsman or farmer, but still plain and homely, relinquishing the old hall for the drawing-room, and with books not three months' old on his table, instead of Fox's Martyrs and Baker's Chronicle– yet still retaining many a sacred old prejudice, that, like the knots in his native oak, rather adds to the ornament of the grain than takes from the strength of the tree. Opposite to the window, the high chimney-piece rose to the heavy cornice of the ceiling, with dark pannels glistening against the moonlight. The broad and rather clumsy chintz sofas and settees of the reign of George III., contrasted at intervals with the tall backed chairs of a far more distant generation, when ladies in fardingales, and gentlemen in trunk-hose, seemed never to have indulged in horizontal positions. The walls, of shining wainscot, were thickly covered, chiefly with family pictures; though now and then some Dutch fair, or battle-piece, showed that a former proprietor had been less exclusive in his taste for the arts. The piano-forte stood open near the fire-place; a long dwarf bookcase at the far end, added its sober smile to the room. That bookcase contained what was called "The Lady's Library," a collection commenced by the Squire's grandmother, of pious memory, and completed by his mother, who had more taste for the lighter letters, with but little addition from the bibliomaniac tenderness of the present Mrs. Hazeldean – who, being no great reader, contented herself with subscribing to the Book Club. In this feminine Bodleian, the sermons collected by Mrs. Hazeldean, the grandmother, stood cheek-by-jowl beside the novels purchased by Mrs. Hazeldean, the mother.

"Mixtaque ridenti fundet colocasia acantho!"

But, to be sure, the novels, in spite of very inflammatory titles, such as "Fatal Sensibility," "Errors of the Heart," &c., were so harmless that I doubt if the sermons could have had much to say against their next-door neighbors – and that is all that can be expected by the rest of us.

A parrot dozing on his perch – some gold fish fast asleep in their glass bowl – two or three dogs on the rug, and Flimsey, Miss Jemima's spaniel, curled into a ball on the softest sofa – Mrs. Hazeldean's work-table, rather in disorder, as if it had been lately used – the St. James's Chronicle dangling down from a little tripod near the Squire's arm-chair – a high screen of gilt and stamped leather fencing off the card table; all these, dispersed about a room large enough to hold them all and not seem crowded, offered many a pleasant resting-place for the eye, when it turned from the world of nature to the home of man.

But see, Captain Barnabas, fortified by his fourth cup of tea, has at length summoned courage to whisper to Mrs. Hazeldean, "don't you think the Parson will be impatient for his rubber?" Mrs. Hazeldean glanced at the Parson, and smiled; but she gave the signal to the Captain, and the bell was rung, lights were brought in, the curtains let down; in a few moments more the group had collected round the card-tables. The best of us are but human – that is not a new truth, I confess, but yet people forget it every day of their lives – and I dare say there are many who are charitably thinking at this very moment, that my Parson ought not to be playing at whist. All I can say to these rigid disciplinarians is, "Every man has his favorite sin: whist was Parson Dale's! – ladies and gentlemen, what is yours?" In truth, I must not set up my poor parson, nowadays, as a pattern parson – it is enough to have one pattern in a village no bigger than Hazeldean, and we all know that Lenny Fairfield has bespoken that place – and got the patronage of the stocks for his emoluments! Parson Dale was ordained, not indeed so very long ago, but still at a time when churchmen took it a great deal more easily than they do now. The elderly parson of that day played his rubber as a matter of course, the middle-aged parson was sometimes seen riding to cover (I knew a schoolmaster, a doctor of divinity, and an excellent man, whose pupils were chiefly taken from the highest families in England, who hunted regularly three times a week during the season), and the young parson would often sing a capital song – not composed by David – and join in those rotary dances, which certainly David never danced before the ark.

Does it need so long a prolegomenon to excuse thee, poor Parson Dale, for turning up that ace of spades with so triumphant a smile at thy partner? I must own that nothing that well could add to the Parson's offense was wanting. In the first place he did not play charitably, and merely to oblige other people. He delighted in the game – he rejoiced in the game – his whole heart was in the game – neither was he indifferent to the mammon of the thing, as a Christian pastor ought to have been. He looked very sad when he took his shillings out of his purse, and exceedingly pleased when he put the shillings that had just before belonged to other people into it. Finally, by one of those arrangements common with married people, who play at the same table, Mr. and Mrs. Hazeldean were invariably partners, and no two people could play worse; while Captain Barnabas, who had played at Graham's with honor and profit, necessarily became partner to Parson Dale, who himself played a good steady parsonic game. So that, in strict truth, it was hardly fair play – it was almost swindling – the combination of those two great dons against that innocent married couple! Mr. Dale, it is true, was aware of this disproportion of force, and had often proposed either to change partners or to give odds, propositions always scornfully scouted by the Squire and his lady; so that the Parson was obliged to pocket his conscience together with the ten points which made his average winnings.

The strangest thing in the world is the different way in which whist affects the temper. It is no test of temper, as some pretend – not at all! The best tempered people in the world grow snappish at whist; and I have seen the most testy and peevish in the ordinary affairs of life bear their losses with the stoicism of Epictetus. This was notably manifested in the contrast between the present adversaries of the Hall and the Rectory. The Squire who was esteemed as choleric a gentleman as most in the county, was the best humored fellow you could imagine when you set him down to whist opposite the sunny face of his wife. You never heard one of these incorrigible blunderers scold each other; on the contrary, they only laughed when they threw away the game, with four by honors in their hands. The utmost that was ever said was a "Well, Harry, that was the oddest trump of yours. Ho – ho – ho!" or a "Bless me, Hazeldean – why, they made three tricks, and you had the ace in your hand all the time! Ha – ha – ha!"

Upon which occasions Captain Barnabas, with great good humor, always echoed both the Squire's ho – ho – ho! and Mrs. Hazeldean's ha – ha – ha!

Not so the Parson. He had so keen and sportsmanlike an interest in the game, that even his adversaries' mistakes ruffled him. And you would hear him, with elevated voice and agitated gestures, laying down the law, quoting Hoyle, appealing to all the powers of memory and common sense against the very delinquencies by which he was enriched – a waste of eloquence that always heightened the hilarity of Mr. and Mrs. Hazeldean. While these four were thus engaged, Mrs. Dale, who had come with her husband despite her headache, sate on the sofa beside Miss Jemima, or rather beside Miss Jemima's Flimsey, which had already secured the centre of the sofa, and snarled at the very idea of being disturbed. And Master Frank – at a table by himself – was employed sometimes in looking at his pumps, and sometimes at Gilray's Caricatures, with which his mother had provided him for his intellectual requirements. Mrs. Dale, in her heart, liked Miss Jemima better than Mrs. Hazeldean, of whom she was rather in awe, notwithstanding they had been little girls together, and occasionally still called each other Harry and Carry. But those tender diminutives belonged to the "Dear" genus, and were rarely employed by the ladies, except at those times when – had they been little girls still, and the governess out of the way – they would have slapped and pinched each other. Mrs. Dale was still a very pretty woman, as Mrs. Hazeldean was still a very fine woman. Mrs. Dale painted in water colors and sang, and made card-racks and pen-holders, and was called an "elegant, accomplished woman." Mrs. Hazeldean cast up the Squire's accounts, wrote the best part of his letters, kept a large establishment in excellent order, and was called "a clever, sensible woman." Mrs. Dale had headaches and nerves, Mrs. Hazeldean had neither nerves nor headaches. Mrs. Dale said, "Harry had no real harm in her, but was certainly very masculine." Mrs. Hazeldean said, "Carry would be a good creature, but for her airs and graces." Mrs. Dale said, "Mrs. Hazeldean was just made to be a country squire's lady." Mrs. Hazeldean said, "Mrs. Dale was the last person in the world who ought to have been a parson's wife." Carry, when she spoke of Harry to a third person, said, "Dear Mrs. Hazeldean." Harry, when she referred incidentally to Carry, said, "Poor Mrs. Dale." And now the reader knows why Mrs. Hazeldean called Mrs. Dale "poor," at least as well as I do. For, after all, the word belonged to that class in the female vocabulary which may be called "obscure significants," resembling the Knox Ompax, which hath so puzzled the inquirers into the Eleusinian Mysteries; the application is rather to be illustrated than the meaning to be exactly explained.

"That's really a sweet little dog of yours, Jemima," said Mrs. Dale, who was embroidering the word Caroline on the border of a cambric pocket-handkerchief, but edging a little farther off, as she added, "he'll not bite, will he?" "Dear me, no!" said Miss Jemima; but (she added, in a confidential whisper), "don't say he– 'tis a lady dog." "Oh," said Mrs. Dale, edging off still farther, as if that confession of the creature's sex did not serve to allay her apprehensions – "oh, then, you carry your aversion to the gentlemen even to lap-dogs – that is being consistent indeed, Jemima!"

Miss Jemima. – "I had a gentleman dog once – a pug! – they are getting very scarce now. I thought he was so fond of me – he snapped at every one else; the battles I fought for him! Well, will you believe, I had been staying with my friend Miss Smilecox at Cheltenham. Knowing that William is so hasty, and his boots are so thick, I trembled to think what a kick might do. So, on coming here, I left Buff – that was his name – with Miss Smilecox." (A pause.)

Mrs. Dale, looking up languidly. – "Well, my love."

Miss Jemima. – "Will you believe it, I say, when I returned to Cheltenham, only three months afterward, Miss Smilecox had seduced his affections from me, and the ungrateful creature did not even know me again. A pug, too – yet people say pugs are faithful!!! I am sure they ought to be, nasty things. I have never had a gentleman dog since – they are all alike, believe me – heartless, selfish creatures."

Mrs. Dale. – "Pugs? I dare say they are!"

Miss Jemima, with spirit. – "Men! – I told you it was a gentleman dog!"

Mrs. Dale, apologetically. – "True, my love, but the whole thing was so mixed up!"

Miss Jemima. – "You saw that cold-blooded case of Breach of Promise of Marriage in the papers – an old wretch, too, of sixty-four. No age makes them a bit better. And when one thinks that the end of all flesh is approaching, and that – "

Mrs. Dale, quickly, for she prefers Miss Jemima's other hobby to that black one upon which she is preparing to precede the bier of the universe. – "Yes, my love, we'll avoid that subject, if you please. Mr. Dale has his own opinions, and it becomes me, you know, as a parson's wife," (said smilingly; Mrs. Dale has as pretty a dimple as any of Miss Jemima's, and makes more of that one than Miss Jemima of three), "to agree with him – that is, in theology."

Miss Jemima, earnestly. – "But the thing is so clear, if you would but look into – "

Mrs. Dale, putting her hand on Miss Jemima's lips playfully. – "Not a word more. Pray, what do you think of the Squire's tenant at the Casino, Signor Riccabocca? An interesting creature, is not he?"

Miss Jemima. – "Interesting! Not to me. Interesting! Why is he interesting?"

Mrs. Dale is silent, and turns her handkerchief in her pretty little white hands, appearing to contemplate the R. in Caroline.

Miss Jemima, half pettishly, half coaxingly. – "Why is he interesting? I scarcely ever looked at him; they say he smokes, and never eats. Ugly, too!"

Mrs. Dale. – "Ugly – no. A fine head – very like Dante's – but what is beauty?"

Miss Jemima. – "Very true; what is it indeed? Yes, as you say, I think there is something interesting about him; he looks melancholy, but that may be because he is poor."

Mrs. Dale. – "It is astonishing how little one feels poverty when one loves. Charles and I were very poor once – before the Squire – ." Mrs. Dale paused, looked toward the Squire, and murmured a blessing, the warmth of which brought tears into her eyes. "Yes," she added, after a pause, "we were very poor, but we were happy even then, more thanks to Charles than to me," and tears from a new source again dimmed those quick, lively eyes, as the little woman gazed fondly on her husband, whose brows were knit into a black frown over a bad hand.

Miss Jemima. – "It is only those horrid men who think of money as a source of happiness. I should be the last person to esteem a gentleman less because he was poor."

Mrs. Dale. – "I wonder the Squire does not ask Signor Riccabocca here more often. Such an acquisition we find him!"

The Squire's voice from the card table. – "Whom ought I to ask more often, Mrs. Dale?"

Parson's voice impatiently. – "Come – come – come, Squire; play to my queen of diamonds – do!"

Squire. – "There, I trump it – pick up the trick, Mrs. H."

Parson. – "Stop! stop! trump my diamond?"

The Captain, solemnly. – "Trick turned – play on, Squire."

Squire. – "The king of diamonds."

Mrs. Hazeldean. – "Lord! Hazeldean – why, that's the most barefaced revoke – ha – ha – ha! trump the queen of diamonds and play out the king! well I never – ha – ha – ha!"

Captain Barnabas, in tenor. – "Ha, ha, ha!"

Squire. – "And so I have, bless my soul – ho, ho, ho!"

Captain Barnabas, in bass. – "Ho – ho – ho."

Parson's voice raised, but drowned by the laughter of his adversaries and the firm clear tone of Captain Barnabas: "Three to our score! – game!"

Squire, wiping his eyes. – "No help for it, Harry – deal for me! Whom ought I to ask, Mrs. Dale? (waxing angry). First time I ever heard the hospitality of Hazeldean called in question!"

Mrs. Dale. – "My dear sir, I beg a thousand pardons, but listeners – you know the proverb."

Squire, growling like a bear. – "I hear nothing but proverbs ever since we have had that Mounseer among us. Please to speak plainly, marm."

Mrs. Dale, sliding into a little temper at being thus roughly accosted. – "It was of Mounseer, as you call him, that I spoke, Mr. Hazeldean."

Squire. – "What! Rickeybockey?"

Mrs. Dale, attempting the pure Italian accentuation. – "Signor Riccabocca."

Parson, slapping his cards on the table in despair: "Are we playing at whist, or are we not?"

The Squire, who is fourth player drops the king to Captain Higginbotham's lead of the ace of hearts. Now the Captain has left queen, knave, and two other hearts – four trumps to the queen and nothing to win a trick with in the two other suits. This hand is therefore precisely one of those in which, especially after the fall of that king of hearts in the adversary's hand, it becomes a matter of reasonable doubt whether to lead trumps or not. The Captain hesitates, and not liking to play out his good hearts with the certainty of their being trumped by the Squire, nor, on the other hand, liking to open the other suits in which he has not a card that can assist his partner, resolves, as becomes a military man, in such a dilemma, to make a bold push and lead out trumps, in the chance of finding his partner strong, and so bringing in his long suit.

Squire, taking advantage of the much meditating pause made by the Captain. – "Mrs. Dale, it is not my fault. I have asked Rickeybockey – time out of mind. But I suppose I am not fine enough for those foreign chaps – he won't come – that's all I know!"

Parson, aghast at seeing the Captain play out trumps, of which he, Mr. Dale, has only two, wherewith he expects to ruff the suit of spades of which he has only one (the cards all falling in suits) while he has not a single other chance of a trick in his hand: "Really, Squire, we had better give up playing if you put out my partner in this extraordinary way – jabber – jabber – jabber!"

Squire. – "Well, we must be good children, Harry. What! – trumps, Barney? Thank ye for that!" And the Squire might well be grateful, for the unfortunate adversary has led up to ace, king, knave – with two other trumps. Squire takes the Parson's ten with his knave, and plays out ace, king; then, having cleared all the trumps except the Captain's queen and his own remaining two, leads off tierce major in that very suit of spades of which the Parson has only one – and the Captain, indeed, but two – forces out the Captain's queen, and wins the game in a canter.

Parson, with a look at the Captain which might have become the awful brows of Jove, when about to thunder: "That, I suppose, is the new fashioned London play! In my time the rule was 'First save the game, then try to win it.'"

Captain. – "Could not save it, sir."

Parson, exploding. – "Not save it! – two ruffs in my own hand – two tricks certain till you took them out! Monstrous! The rashest trump." – Seizes the cards – spreads them on the table, lip quivering, hands trembling – tries to show how five tricks could have been gained – (N.B. it is short whist, which Captain Barnabas had introduced at the Hall) can't make out more than four – Captain smiles triumphantly – Parson in a passion, and not at all convinced, mixes all the cards together again, and falling back in his chair, groans, with tears in his voice: "The cruelest trump! the most wanton cruelty!"

The Hazeldeans in chorus. "Ho – ho – ho! Ha – ha – ha!"

The Captain, who does not laugh this time, and whose turn it is to deal, shuffles the cards for the conquering game of the rubber with as much caution and prolixity as Fabius might have employed in posting his men. The Squire gets up to stretch his legs, and the insinuation against his hospitality recurring to his thoughts, calls out to his wife – "Write to Rickeybockey to-morrow yourself, Harry, and ask him to come and spend two or three days here. There, Mrs Dale, you hear me?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Dale, putting her hands to her ears in implied rebuke at the loudness of the Squire's tone. "My dear sir, do remember that I'm a sad nervous creature."

"Beg pardon," muttered Mr. Hazeldean, turning to his son, who, having got tired of the caricatures, had fished out for himself the great folio County History, which was the only book in the library that the Squire much valued, and which he usually kept under lock and key, in his study, together with the field-books and steward's accounts, but which he had reluctantly taken into the drawing-room that day, in order to oblige Captain Higginbotham. For the Higginbothams – an old Saxon family, as the name evidently denotes – had once possessed lands in that very county. And the Captain – during his visits to Hazeldean Hall – was regularly in the habit of asking to look into the County History, for the purpose of refreshing his eyes, and renovating his sense of ancestral dignity with the following paragraph therein: "To the left of the village of Dunder, and pleasantly situated in a hollow, lies Botham Hall, the residence of the ancient family of Higginbotham, as it is now commonly called. Yet it appears by the county rolls, and sundry old deeds, that the family formerly styled itself Higges, till, the Manor House lying in Botham, they gradually assumed the appellation of Higges-in-botham, and in process of time, yielding to the corruptions of the vulgar, Higginbotham."