by R S Surtees
“May as well have them to the door,” replied the Jug, who didn’t like trouble.
“I’ll go and send them round, then,” said Mr. Bowderoukins, hurrying out of the room, and communicating the glad intelligence to his half-frantic wife that they were going at last.
“Have a weed?” now asked the Jug, diving into his breast-pocket and producing a greasy old Russia leather cigar-case as he spoke, and offering the choice of a row of cigars to our friend.
“Thanks,” replied Mr. Bunting, helping himself to one; adding, “we musn’t smoke here, though, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes,” rejoined the Jug, taking a cedar match out of the bronze stand on the black marble mantel-piece and applying it to the fire. “These things are meant to light them with,” said he; so saying, he I used one for the purpose, and putting it to the cigar, presently raised a good cloud of smoke. —
“Gwacious goodness, they’re smoking, I do believe!” exclaimed Mrs. Bowderoukins, who had the greatest horror of tobacco, and knew that Mrs. Tom Tucker had too. “Oh, Bowdey, Bowdey, run and hurry them with their horses, or they’ll make the whole house reek like a tenth-rate tavern.”
Whereupon Bowderoukins crowned himself again with his drab wide awake, and rushed frantically up to the stable just as the Jug’s horse put his head out of the door. “Quick, Paul, quick!” cried he to the footman who had charge of it, “the gentlemen are in a hurry to be off! — the gentlemen are in a hurry to be off!”
But when Paul, followed by Dick Harwood, the pottering man of all work, hurried into the ring before the house they caused no corresponding activity in the parlour within, for the Jug just went on puffing and blowing dense clouds of smoke above and-around his great fiery face. —
“Horses are come! horses are come!” exclaimed Bowderoukins, opening the dining-room door, as if to promote the egress of his guests.
(Puff) “I see,” (puff) said the Jug, staring vacantly at them through the window, and resuming his cigar.
“Can I lend you a Mackintosh, a paletot, or an overcoat of any sort?” now asked Mr. Bowderoukin, still standing at the open door.
“No, (puff) I’ll (puff) as I am,” replied the Jug, emitting a voluminous cloud over his great red face.
“Well, then, let us be off,” said Mr. Bunting, who really began to feel ashamed of his Mend.
“Off, (puff) off!” replied the Jug; “why, I’ve been (puffing) for you.”
“The deuce you have,” said Mr. Bunting; “I wish I’d known that before;” adding, “come, then, let’s go.”
The Jug then dived into his coat pockets, and fishing up first a pair of old dog-skin gloves, and then a pair of dirty white mits, proceeded to thrust his hands and wrists in them. That feat being accomplished, he then looked leisurely at Mr. Bunting and said, “Now I’m your (puff) man.”
“Bye old (puff) boy,” said the Jug, now advancing and tendering a fat gloved hand to his host.
“Good bye,” exclaimed the emancipated Bowdey, grasping it fervidly.
“I’ll (puff) in upon you again the first time I’m (puffing) this way,” observed the Jug. s “Do!” exclaimed Mr. Bowderoukins, again shaking him heartily by the hand, thinking the Jug would be very sly if he got in.
Mr. Bunting then tendered his adieus; and proceeding to the door, the Jug got his horse punched as close up to the step as he could, to enable him to mount with as little trouble as possible; and having gained the saddle he drew rein, and feeling him gently with his spur passed on to let Mr. Bunting mount the same way. That done, the two red-coated gentlemen sauntered away, leaving Mr and Mrs. Bowderoukins eying and objurgating them from the dining-room window.
“Was there ever such a man as that Mr. Boyston!” exclaimed Mrs. Bowderoukins, from behind the window curtain; “was there ever such a man as that Mr. Boyston! He’s made the place smell like a pot-house. Wonder you let them in, Mister Bowderoukins,” added she, shaking with vexation.
“Couldn’t keep them out, my dear, couldn’t keep them out,” replied Mr. Bowderoukins, soothingly; “fox-hunters, you know, will be in. It’s the red coat that does it — it’s the red coat that does it.”
“Oh fiddle! I’ve no notion of anything of the sort. I don’t see why they should have the run of one’s house any more than soldiers or sailors or other way-faring people.”
The rising dialogue was here interrupted by a horse’s nose, with a silver crest (a star fish) flopping over its forehead, suddenly rounding the laurel clump of the drive, causing the now terrified Mr. Bowderoukins to ejaculate, “WHAT HAVE WE GOT HERE, MISTRESS BOWDEROUKINS?”
“Oh, gwacious goodness! it’s Mrs. Mitchison. That unhappy woman’s clock is always half an hour fast.” So saying, she rushed out of the room, and hurried up stairs to arrange her toilette, amid the clamorous peal of the door-bell — strange servants always making a point of pulling as hard as they can. And ere Mrs. Bowderoukins got her best bib and tucker on, another and another peal sounded furiously through the house, another and another letting down of steps was heard, another and another slamming to of doors and grinding away to the back premises.
“Bid Mr. Bowderoukins hunt?”
Mr and Mrs. Bowderoukins were both in extremis. Bowdey couldn’t find his best blue Saxony coat, or Mrs. Roukins her cameo bracelet or cashmere shawl. At length, after almost superhuman exertions, they accomplished their respective programmes, and came smiling into the drawing-room, full of apologies to the now grinning but lately groaning guests for not being ready to receive them. “The fact was, some foxhunting friends had dropped in and ra-a-ther detained them. But they hoped,” &c. And then the conversation took a fox-hunting turn.
“No, Mr. Bowderoukins didn’t hunt — had given it up — used to be very fond of it;” most people thinking it necessary to pay hunting the compliment of pretending they liked it once.
Then the door-bell rang again furiously — more company coming — the dread Mrs. Tucker this time, followed quickly by the Bondells and the Holleydales, and, lastly, the Freemans, who brought young Mr. Shuttleworth, who was suitoring Miss Harriet, instead of papa, who had got a twinge of the gout. And when the conversation, which became rather languid, had got cherished up into a pretty good cry, dinner was announced; and after a little backing and bowing, and “you before-me-ing,” the guests, Mr. Shuttleworth and Miss Harriet included, all got arranged in pretty good order in the tobacco-smelling dining-room, the scent of which, however, was forgotten on the second explosion of the popular sparkling beverage.
So the lunch and the dinner did not clash after all, an announcement that we are sure will give great satisfaction to our housekeeping readers, and encourage them to be generous to the old fox-hunting Jugs, whose name in some countries is LEGION!
CHAPTER LXXVI.
APPLETON HALL.
MB. JOVEY JESSOP was right when he said the Jug knew every gate and gap in the country, for no sooner had Mr. Bunting and he got clear of Mr. Bowderoukins’s premises than the Jug stopped short at the corner of a grass-field, and, fishing a furze-bush out of the hedge with the handle of his hunting-whip, put his horse at the now open place, saying to Mr. Bunting as he rose it, “May as well go over here.”
Mr. Bunting then followed his leader’s example, and the two were presently sailing over the sound sward of an old pasture, the horses cantering gaily together over the high ridge and furrow. Though there was no apparent way out, the Jug sat leisurely on his horse as if in the full confidence of a comfortable exit, and, making for the cattle shed at the end, he passed at the back of it, and pulling out a rail that had been interlaced with the quickset fence, hopped over the lower one and was again upon grass.
“Needn’t mind putting it in again,” observed he, looking back at Mr. Bunting, “there are no stock in either field so saying, the Jug again slouched in his saddle, and went cantering away to a good blue gate opening upon the Farmanby and Oxmanfield road. That gained, he kept its course for some three hundred yards, when again stopping short
the Jug brushed through a weak place in the adjoining hedge and was again on turf. He was now upon Mr. Hollamby’s farm, with its trim hedges, piped ditches, and self-shutting gates, which being sped over, a short divergence over all that now remains of the once wide-stretching Scrubbington Common brought them to the locked iron gates of Flowerdale Lodge.
“Must be through here,” observed the Jug to his companion, “cuts off three-quarters of a mile. Holloa, gate! gate!” roared he, rising in his stirrups and pretending to be in a desperate hurry. “Look sharp, woman! look sharp!” now cried he, as old Peggy Porringer the custodian came toddling along to take a survey through the bars of the barrier. “Look sharp, woman! look sharp,” repeated he, “the hounds are running! the hounds are running! and we shall be left immeasurably in the lurch!”
Seeing red coats, Peggy unlocked and opened the gates, and the Jug, followed by Mr. Bunting, spurring his horse, passed through, and the two went cantering up the avenue as far as the Lodge commanded a view of the line.
“May take it easy now,” observed the Jug, pulling up; adding, “there are no locked gates at the other end, and if they won’t let us keep the road, I know a way through the fields.” So saying, he relaxed into a gentle trot, and passing unchallenged at the back of the gardens, passed the keeper’s lodge, and out at the saw-mill on the Sunburry road. This line they kept for some distance, till at length a once white wicket, between rather ornamental stone posts at the low end of a belt of beech, announced a change of scene; and the Jug, pushing the unlatched gate open with his toe, turned his willing horse to it, who entered of its own accord.
“What place is this?” now asked our hero, fearing they were going to commit another trespass.
“All right,” replied the Jug, “all right;” adding, “this is Appleton.”
“Appleton, is it,” rejoined Mr. Bunting, as a glorious sunset illuminated the many windows of a large stone mansion. “Appleton, is it; it’s a very fine place. Tell me,” added he, “is Mr. Jessop married?”
“Married, no! hadn’t need,” replied the Jug, laughing.
Mr. Bunting looked confused.
“Not that I mean to say anything disrespectful of matrimony,” observed the Jug, apologetically; “only I mean to say that Appleton wouldn’t quite suit a lady.”
“Indeed,” replied Mr. Bunting, adding, “Why not? It’s large enough at all events, and nobody ever saw a house that was too large for a lady.”
“Large enough,” said the Jug, looking at it; “large enough, only there’s no furniture in it.”
“Oh, indeed,’ smiled Mr. Bunting, adding, “that’s rather against it; but how do Mr. Jessop and you manage then?”
“O we just knock on the best way we can. Jessop don’t care for finery; no more do I; so we get on well enough — the stables are good, and so is the eating and drinking; and, between ourselves, I’m not sure but that dinners are quite as comfortable without the ladies, lor you see they have all dined beforehand, and only come to show their clothes and talk and interrupt one in one’s eating.”
“Well, but they help to pass the evening pleasantly at all events,” observed Mr. Bunting.
“Oh, have them in the evening if you like,” rejoined the Jug; “have them in the evening if you like — they are all very well in the evening; then they can spread their sails and show off, but when they are jammed and crammed under a dinner-table there is nothing for them but to poke one with questions and put one out of one’s stride, with one’s soup, or one’s fish, or one’s something.”
A nearer approach of our horsemen to the mansion now began to show the imperfections of the place. There was a sad want of maintenance about it — patched roofs, inefficient spouts, broken rails, restive gates, and blotchy, blistery doors.
Some houses in the country let as soon as they become vacant, others will not let at all. Of this latter description was Appleton Hall — it infested the country papers till everybody was tired of seeing it. Appleton Hall with its spacious park and beautiful pleasure-grounds — Appleton Hall with its pineries and vineries — Appleton Hall with its sporting attractions. It had tried its luck as a ladies’ school, also as a nunnery, and a cold-water-cure establishment, and had signally failed in all — each succeeding occupant leaving the house worse than he found it, the cold-water-cure gentleman being generally supposed to have stolen the lead off the roof.
When a house gets to this deplorable state there is nothing for it but either to let it tumble down or to let it off in tenements; and there not being sufficient population about Appleton for the latter purpose, the owner was extremely glad to close with Mr. Jovey Jessop’s offer of doing the necessary repairs on condition of sitting rent free. So Mr. Jessop did up the stables, converted the coach-house into a kennel, the vinery into a shoe-house, the pinery into a saddle-room, restored the lost lead to the roof of the Hall, and made the premises water-tight generally. As, however, the owner expected to return to it every year himself, as indeed he had been expecting for the last twenty years, of course Mr. Jessop did not do more to it than was absolutely necessary, either inside or out.
And now let us, suppose our friends to have disposed of their horses at the stable, and let us get them out of the cold night-air into the more comfortable atmosphere of the mansion. The Jug being a short-cut man generally now piloted our Mend the back way instead of leading him round to the Corinthian column-porticoed door, and across the lofty black and white marble-flagged entrance hall of the house. “I’ll show you the way,” said he, stumping along, occasionally meeting a man or a maid, who halted and stood respectfully aside to let the great guns pass. Traversing a cocoa-nut-matted passage, a genial glow of warmth from an open door shone upon them, and the Jug, now stopping, bowed Mr. Bunting into his bed-room. It was not a sumptuously furnished apartment — indeed it contained little beyond the absolute requirements of life, save an oil-painting of Boyston Hall, with the meet of Lord Spankerley’s hounds on the lawn, above the mantelpiece, which the Jug used to sit and contemplate as he smoked his cigar, wondering if he would ever return to live at it again. His bed was a common stump one, very near the ground (for he was in the habit of tumbling out), two buff and green painted rush-bottomed chairs, a cream-coloured chest of drawers picked out with black, on the top of which stood the Jug’s Sunday hat, his other pair of hot-tops, also the redoubtable jacks, that looked as if they might be applied to any purpose. On a common deal clothes-horse near the now blazing wood and coal Are were clean flannels and linen, and somewhat soiled nankin pantaloons, with very roomy dress-shoes and a pair of much-faded worsted-worked slippers in front. Here, too, was the remnant of a hearth-rug, with many holes in the middle, but whose texture was softer to the feet than the cocoa-nutmatting, with which the rest of the room was supplied. Before the unpainted washhand-stand, with its solitary white jug and basin, was the hide of our friend’s once famous bay horse Dreadnought; but beyond the jug and basin and a water-bottle there was no bath or other symptom of enlarged lavement, the Jug, in truth, not being a great advocate for water.
“We don’t sacrifice much to the Graces here,” observed the Jug, as Mr. Bunting now approached his unshrouded toilette-table, with its shilling comb, its black bristly eighteen-penny brush, and its sixpenny pot of hard-featured pomatum, to have a look at himself in the glass. “We don’t sacrifice much to the Graces,” said he, “for we don’t see the use of men dressing up smart to captivate each other; and though this is what they call a furnished house, there is in reality very little furniture in it. I was obliged to buy my own boot-jack,” continued he, taking up a rather smart folding mahogany one; adding, “by the way, if your boots don’t come off easily, I’ll be happy to lend you it, for Jessop can kick his off flying, and says everybody should be able to do the same, so there isn’t another in the house. It’s rather a neat article,” continued he, folding it up and showing it to Mr. Bunting—” French polished, brass hinges, steel screws — cost two shillings. Don’t know a greater nuisance tha
n pulling off one’s boots with one’s toes and kicking one’s nails with one’s heels. But come,” continued he, laying the boot-jack on the dressing-table, “won’t you be seated?” pointing to his American rocking-chair, in which he dozed away life in anticipations of the future.
“Thank you replied Mr. Bunting, now returning and seating himself on the high green fender before the fire. “You keep good fires here,” observed he, as the warmth shot through him summarily.
“Capital,” said the Jug, “good fires and good fare is the order of the house. By the way, would you like to take anything before dinner?”
“Thank you, no,” replied Mr. Bunting, adding, “Mr. Bowdey what ‘s-his-name has prevented that. What time do we dine?”
“Six thirty,” replied the Jug, “six thirty, from the tenth of November to the tenth of February — seven at all other times of the year;” saying which our friend took a little hand-bell off the mantelpiece, and, going to the door, rang a prolonged peal in the passage. “No bells in this house,” observed the Jug, returning and replacing it on its stand. “No bells at least that will ring, though there are plenty of wires and places where bells ought to be,”
The summons was speedily answered by a neat but plainly dressed footman, in drab and red, by whom Mr. Boyston sent word to Ambrose the butler that there would be eight to dinner instead of six. Having thus discharged his commission, he used his French-polished boot-jack, and drawing off his boots put his feet into his slippers, and, exchanging his red coat for an old grey duffle dressing-gown, prepared his mouth for a smoke.
Mr. Bunting subsided into the American rocking-chair; the Jug put his two rush-bottomed chairs together, sitting upon one, and laying his legs on the other, and proceeded to breathe a strong trail of Havannah cigar-smoke round his face. His black eyes were steadily fixed on the picture of Boyston Park, but he was not in reality indulging in any reverie or speculation either as to the past or the future of it; for he was thinking over that day’s run, and wondering if he had taken the water whether he would have got to the end of it. “Wished he had taken the (puff) water. If he had only taken the water, might have got Archey Ellenger a (curl) ducking, and altogether he was vexed he had not taken the water.” Then he wondered which way they had gone. “Shouldn’t be surprised if the fox had taken his old (puff) line, than which nothing could be (cloud) finer or better calculated to give a (curl) stranger a favourable impression of the (puff) country.” And again he upbraided himself for not taking the (puff) water, and resolved on all future occasions to shut his (puff) eyes and just do as others did. “A ducking was nothing (puff) when a man had plenty of dry clothes (puff). Wouldn’t do to sit in a (puff) railway carriage (cloud) in wet things; but on (puff) horseback it was (puff, cloud) nothing. Dashed if he wouldn’t always take (puff) water in future.”