by R S Surtees
‘He’ll catch it just now,’ said Mr. Wake, eyeing Sponge drawing upon his lordship and Jack, as they led the field as usual. Jack being at a respectful distance behind his great patron, espied Sponge first; and having taken a good stare at him through his formidable spectacles, to satisfy himself that it was nobody he knew — a stare that Sponge returned as well as a man without spectacles can return the stare of one with — Jack spurred his horse up to his lordship, and rising in his stirrups, shot into his ear —
‘Why, here’s the man on the cow!’ adding, ‘it isn’t Washey.’
‘Who the deuce is it then?’ asked his lordship, looking over his left shoulder, as he kept galloping on in the wake of his huntsman.
‘Don’t know,’ replied Jack; ‘never saw him before.’
‘Nor I,’ said his lordship, with an air as much as to say, ‘It makes no matter.’
His lordship, though well mounted, was not exactly on the sort of horse for the country they were in; while Mr. Sponge, in addition to being on the very animal for it, had the advantage of the horse having gone the first part of the run without a rider: so Multum in Parvo, whether Mr. Sponge wished it or not, insisted on being as far forward as he could get. The more Sponge pulled and hauled, the more determined the horse was; till, having thrown both Jack and his lordship in the rear, he made for old Frostyface, the huntsman, who was riding well up to the still-flying pack.
‘Hold hard, sir! For God’s sake, hold hard!’ screamed Frosty, who knew by intuition there was a horse behind, as well as he knew there was a man shooting in front, who, in all probability, had headed the fox.
‘Hold hard, sir!’ roared he, as, yawning and boring and shaking his head, Parvo dashed through the now yelping scattered pack, making straight for a stiff new gate, which he smashed through, just as a circus pony smashes through a paper hoop.
‘Hoo-ray!’ shouted Jack Spraggon, on seeing the hounds were safe. ‘Hoo-ray for the tailor!’
‘Billy Button, himself!’ exclaimed his lordship, adding, ‘never saw such a thing in my life!’
‘Who the deuce is he?’ asked Blossomnose, in the full glow of pulling-five-year-old exertion.
‘Don’t know,’ replied Jack, adding, ‘he’s a shaver, whoever he is.’
Meanwhile the frightened hounds were scattered right and left.
‘I’ll lay a guinea he’s one of those confounded waiting chaps,’ observed Fyle, who had been handled rather roughly by one of the tribe, who had dropped ‘quite promiscuously’ upon a field where he was, just as Sponge had done with Lord Scamperdale’s.
‘Shouldn’t wonder,’ replied his lordship, eyeing Sponge’s vain endeavours to turn the chestnut, and thinking how he would ‘pitch into him’ when he came up. ‘By Jove,’ added his lordship, ‘if the fellow had taken the whole country round, he couldn’t have chosen a worse spot for such an exploit; for there never is any scent over here. See! not a hound can own it. Old Harmony herself throws up.
The whips again are in their places, turning the astonished pack to Frostyface, who sets off on a casting expedition. The field, as usual, sit looking on; some blessing Sponge; some wondering who he was; others looking what o’clock it is; some dismounting and looking at their horses’ feet.
‘Thank you, Mr. Brown Boots!’ exclaimed his lordship, as, by dint of bitting and spurring, Sponge at length worked the beast round, and came sneaking back in the face of the whole field. ‘Thank you, Mr. Brown Boots,’ repeated he, taking off his hat and bowing very low. ‘Very much obleged to you, Mr. Brown Boots. Most particklarly obleged to you, Mr. Brown Boots,’ with another low bow. ‘Hang’d obleged to you, Mr. Brown Boots! D — n you, Mr. Brown Boots!’ continued his lordship, looking at Sponge as if he would eat him.
‘Beg pardon, sir,’ blurted Sponge; ‘my horse—’
‘Hang your horse!’ screamed his lordship; ‘it wasn’t your horse that headed the fox, was it?’
‘Beg pardon — couldn’t help it; I—’
‘Couldn’t help it. Hang your helps — you’re always doing it, sir. You could stay at home, sir — I s’pose, sir — couldn’t you, sir? eh, sir?’
Sponge was silent.
‘See, sir!’ continued his lordship, pointing to the mute pack now following the huntsman, ‘you’ve lost us our fox, sir — yes, sir, lost us our fox, sir. D’ye call that nothin’, sir? If you don’t, I do, you perpendicular-looking Puseyite pig-jobber! By Jove! you think because I’m a lord, and can’t swear, or use coarse language, that you may do what you like — but I’ll take my hounds home, sir — yes, sir, I’ll take my hounds home, sir.’ So saying, his lordship roared home to Frostyface; adding, in an undertone to the first whip, ‘bid him go to Furzing-field gorse.’
CHAPTER XXI
A COUNTRY DINNER-PARTY
‘WELL, WHAT SPORT?’ asked Jawleyford, as he encountered his exceedingly dirty friend crossing the entrance hall to his bedroom on his return from his day, or rather his non-day, with the ‘Flat Hat Hunt.’
‘Why, not much — that’s to say, nothing particular — I mean, I’ve not had any,’ blurted Sponge.
‘But you’ve had a run?’ observed Jawleyford, pointing to his boots and breeches, stained with the variation of each soil.
‘Ah, I got most of that going to cover,’ replied Sponge; ‘country’s awfully deep, roads abominably dirty!’ adding, ‘I wish I’d taken your advice, and stayed at home.’
‘I wish you had,’ replied Jawleyford, ‘you’d have had a most excellent rabbit-pie for luncheon. However, get changed, and we will hear all about it after.’ So saying, Jawleyford waved an adieu, and Sponge stamped away in his dirty water-logged boots.
‘I’m afraid you are very wet, Mr. Sponge,’ observed Amelia in the sweetest tone, with the most loving smile possible, as our friend, with three steps at a time, bounded upstairs, and nearly butted her on the landing, as she was on the point of coming down.
‘I am that,’ exclaimed Sponge, delighted at the greeting; ‘I am that,’ repeated he, slapping his much-stained cords; ‘dirty, too,’ added he, looking down at his nether man.
‘Hadn’t you better get changed as quick as possible?’ asked Amelia, still keeping her position before him.
‘Oh! all in good time,’ replied Sponge, ‘all in good time. The sight of you warms me more than a fire would do’; adding, ‘I declare you look quite bewitching, after all the roughings and tumblings about out of doors.’
‘Oh! you’ve not had a fall, have you?’ exclaimed Amelia, looking the picture of despair; ‘you’ve not had a fall, have you? Do send for the doctor, and be bled.’
Just then a door along the passage to the left opened; and Amelia, knowing pretty well who it was, smiled and tripped away, leaving Sponge to be bled or not as he thought proper.
Our hero then made for his bedroom, where, having sucked off his adhesive boots, and divested himself of the rest of his hunting attire, he wrapped himself up in his grey flannel dressing-gown, and prepared for parboiling his legs and feet, amid agreeable anticipations arising out of the recent interview, and occasional references to his old friend Mogg, whenever he did not see his way on the matrimonial road as clearly as he could wish. ‘She’ll have me, that’s certain,’ observed he.
‘Curse the water! how hot it is!’ exclaimed he, catching his foot up out of the bath, into which he had incautiously plunged it without ascertaining the temperature of the water. He then sluiced it with cold, and next had to add a little more hot; at last he got it to his mind, and lighting a cigar, prepared for uninterrupted enjoyment.
‘Gad!’ said he, ‘she’s by no means a bad-looking girl’ (whiff). ‘Devilish good-looking girl’ (puff); ‘good head and neck, and carries it well too’ (puff)— ‘capital eye’ (whiff), ‘bright and clear’ (puff); ‘no cataracts there. She’s all good together’ (whiff, puff, whiff). ‘Nice size too,’ continued he, ‘and well set up (whiff, puff, whiff); ‘straight as a dairy maid’ (puff); ‘plenty of substance — grand thing sub
stance’ (puff). ‘Hate a weedy woman — fifteen two and a half — that’s to say, five feet four’s plenty of height for a woman’ (puff). ‘Height of a woman has nothing to do with her size’ (whiff). ‘Wish she hadn’t run off (puff); ‘would like to have had a little more talk with her’ (whiff, puff). ‘Women never look so well as when one comes in wet and dirty from hunting’ (puff). He then sank silently back in the easy-chair and whiffed and puffed all sorts of fantastic clouds and columns and corkscrews at his leisure. The cigar being finished, and the water in the foot-bath beginning to get cool, he emptied the remainder of the hot into it, and lighting a fresh cigar, began speculating on how the match was to be accomplished.
The lady was safe, that was clear; he had nothing to do but ‘pop.’ That he would do in the evening, or in the morning, or any time — a man living in the house with a girl need never be in want of an opportunity. That preliminary over, and the usual answer ‘Ask papa’ obtained, then came the question, how was the old boy to be managed? — for men with marriageable daughters are to all intents and purposes ‘old boys,’ be their ages what they may.
He became lost in reflection. He sat with his eyes fixed on the Jawleyford portrait above the mantelpiece, wondering whether he was the amiable, liberal, hearty, disinterested sort of man he appeared to be, indifferent about money, and only wanting unexceptionable young men for his daughters; or if he was a worldly minded man, like some he had met, who, after giving him every possible encouragement, sent him to the right-about like a servant. So Sponge smoked and thought, and thought and smoked, till the water in the foot-bath again getting cold, and the shades of night drawing on, he at last started up like a man determined to awake himself, and poking a match into the fire, lighted the candles on the toilet-table, and proceeded to adorn himself. Having again got himself into the killing tights and buckled pumps, with a fine flower-fronted shirt, ere he embarked on the delicacies and difficulties of the starcher, he stirred the little pittance of a fire, and, folding himself in his dressing-gown, endeavoured to prepare his mind for the calm consideration of all the minute bearings of the question by a little more Mogg. In idea he transferred himself to London, now fancying himself standing at the end of Burlington Arcade, hailing a Fulham or Turnham Green ‘bus; now wrangling with a conductor for charging him sixpence when there was a pennant flapping at his nose with the words “all the way 3d.” upon it; now folding the wooden doors of a hansom cab in Oxford Street, calculating the extreme distance he could go for an eightpenny fare: until at last he fell into a downright vacant sort of reading, without rhyme or reason, just as one sometimes takes a read of a directory or a dictionary— “Conduit Street, George Street, to or from the Adelphi Terrace, Astley’s Amphitheatre, Baker Street, King Street, Bryanston Square any part, Covent Garden Theatre, Foundling Hospital, Hatton Garden,” and so on, till the thunder of the gong aroused him to a recollection of his duties. He then up and at his neckcloth.
“Ah, well,” said he, reverting to his lady love, as he eyed himself intently in the glass while performing the critical operation, “I’ll just sound the old gentleman after dinner — one can do that sort of thing better over one’s wine, perhaps, than at any other time: looks less formal too,” added he, giving the cravat a knowing crease at the side; “and if it doesn’t seem to take, one can just pass it off as if it was done for somebody else — some young gentleman at Laverick Wells, for instance.”
So saying, he on with his white waistcoat, and crowned the conquering suit with a blue coat and metal buttons. Returning his Mogg to his dressing-gown pocket, he blew out the candles and groped his way downstairs in the dark.
In passing the dining-room he looked in (to see if there were any champaign-glasses set, we believe), when he saw that he should not have an opportunity of sounding his intended papa-in-law after dinner, for he found the table laid for twelve, and a great display of plate, linen, and china.
He then swaggered on to the drawing-room, which was in a blaze of light. The lively Emily had stolen a march on her sister, and had just entered, attired in a fine new pale yellow silk dress with a point-lace berthe and other adornments.
High words had ensued between the sisters as to the meanness of Amelia in trying to take her beau from her, especially after the airs Amelia had given herself respecting Sponge; and a minute observer might have seen the slight tinge of red on Emily’s eyelids denoting the usual issue of such scenes. The result was, that each determined to do the best she could for herself; and free trade being proclaimed, Emily proceeded to dress with all expedition, calculating that, as Mr. Sponge had come in wet, he would, very likely dress at once and appear in the drawing-room in good time. Nor was she out in her reckoning, for she had hardly enjoyed an approving glance in the mirror ere our hero came swaggering in, twitching his arms as if he hadn’t got his wristbands adjusted, and working his legs as if they didn’t belong to him.
“Ah, my dear Miss Emley!” exclaimed he, advancing gaily towards her with extended hand, which she took with all the pleasure in the world; adding, “and how have you been?”
“Oh, pretty well, thank you,” replied she, looking as though she would have said, “As well as I can be without you.”
Sponge, though a consummate judge of a horse, and all the minutiae connected with them, was still rather green in the matter of woman; and having settled in his own mind that Amelia should be his choice, he concluded that Emily knew all about it, and was working on her sister’s account, instead of doing the agreeable for herself. And there it is where elder sisters have such an advantage over younger ones. They are always shown, or contrive to show themselves, first; and if a man once makes up his mind that the elder one will do, there is an end of the matter; and it is neither a deeper shade or two of blue, nor a brighter tinge of brown, nor a little smaller foot, nor a more elegant waist, that will make him change for a younger sister. The younger ones immediately become sisters in the men’s minds, and retire, or are retired, from the field— “scratched,” as Sponge would say.
Amelia, however, was not going to give Emily a chance; for, having dressed with all the expedition compatible with an attractive toilet — a lavender-coloured satin with broad black lace flounces, and some heavy jewellery on her well-turned arms, she came sidling in so gently as almost to catch Emily in the act of playing the agreeable. Turning the sidle into a stately sail, with a haughty sort of sneer and toss of the head to her sister, as much as to say, ‘What are you doing with my man?’ — a sneer that suddenly changed into a sweet smile as her eye encountered Sponge’s — she just motioned him off to a sofa, where she commenced a sotto voce conversation in the engaged-couple style.
MR. SPONGE AND THE MISSES JAWLEYFORD
The plot then began to thicken. First came Jawleyford, in a terrible stew.
‘Well, this is too bad!’ exclaimed he, stamping and flourishing a scented note, with a crest and initials at the top. ‘This is too bad,’ repeated he; ‘people accepting invitations, and then crying off at the last moment.’
‘Who is it can’t come, papa — the Foozles?’ asked Emily.
‘No — Foozles be hanged,’ sneered Jawleyford; ‘they always come — the Blossomnoses!’ replied he, with an emphasis.
‘The Blossomnoses!’ exclaimed both girls, clasping their hands and looking up at the ceiling.
‘What, all of them?’ asked Emily.
‘All of them,’ rejoined Jawleyford.
‘Why, that’s four,’ observed Emily.
‘To be sure it is,’ replied Jawleyford; ‘five, if you count them by appetites; for old Blossom always eats and drinks as much as two people.’
‘What excuse do they give?’ asked Amelia.
‘Carriage-horse taken suddenly ill,’ replied Jawleyford; ‘as if that’s any excuse when there are post-horses within half a dozen miles.’
‘He wouldn’t have been stopped hunting for want of a horse, I dare say,’ observed Amelia.
‘I dare say it’s all a lie,’
observed Jawleyford; adding, ‘however, the invitation shall go for a dinner, all the same.’
The denunciation was interrupted by the appearance of Spigot, who came looming up the spacious drawing-room in the full magnificence of black shorts, silk stockings, and buckled pumps, followed by a sheepish-looking, straight-haired, red apple-faced young gentleman, whom he announced as Mr. Robert Foozle. Robert was the hope of the house of Foozle; and it was fortunate his parents were satisfied with him, for few other people were. He was a young gentleman who shook hands with everybody, assented to anything that anybody said, and in answering a question, wherein indeed his conversation chiefly consisted, he always followed the words of the interrogation as much as he could. For instance: ‘Well, Robert, have you been at Dulverton to-day?’ Answer, ‘No, I’ve not been at Dulverton to-day.’ Question, ‘Are you going to Dulverton to-morrow?’ Answer, ‘No, I’m not going to Dulverton to-morrow.’ Having shaken hands with the party all round, and turned to the fire to warm his red fists, Jawleyford having stood at ‘attention’ for such time as he thought Mrs. Foozle would be occupied before the glass in his study arranging her head-gear, and seeing no symptoms of any further announcement, at last asked Foozle if his papa and mamma were not coming.
‘No, my papa and mamma are not coming,’ replied he.
‘Are you sure?’ asked Jawleyford, in a tone of excitement.
‘Quite sure,’ replied Foozle, in the most matter-of-course voice.
MR. ROBERT FOOZLE
‘The deuce!’ exclaimed Jawleyford, stamping his foot upon the soft rug, adding, ‘it never rains but it pours!’
‘Have you any note, or anything?’ asked Mrs. Jawleyford, who had followed Robert Foozle into the room.
‘Yes, I have a note,’ replied he, diving into the inner pocket of his coat, and producing one. The note was a letter — a letter from Mrs. Foozle to Mrs. Jawleyford, three sides and crossed; and seeing the magnitude thereof, Mrs. Jawleyford quietly put it into her reticule, observing, ‘that she hoped Mr. and Mrs. Foozle were well?’