CLOVER COTTAGE; 
 
 OR, 
 
 I CAN'T GET IN. 
 
 Sfo&dette, 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF "THE FALCON FAMILY,' 
 " MY UNCLE THE CURATE." 
 
 ' Read it at your idle times, and the follies your good judgment will find 
 in it, blame not but laugh at." SIR PHILIP SYDNEY. 
 
 LONDON: 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1856.
 
 DRAMATIS PERSONS. 
 
 MEN. 
 
 MB. SOLOMON WINDFALL, Bachelor, entitled to Clover, but not in 
 possession of it. 
 
 JACK ROBINSON, his Friend, a good fellow who loves a good Dinner. 
 MR. BLUNT, </te Honest Attorney. 
 MB. WITHERING, Clerk to Mr. Blunt. 
 FLORIO, a Poet, Laureate of the Village. 
 
 POWDERHAM, BAGSHOT, AIMWELL, and COLONEL O'TRIGGER, Mem- 
 bers of the Old Crony Club, and Friends of Mr. Windfall. 
 
 CAPTAIN DOVE and LIEUTENANT SHUNFIELD, Crimean Heroes, 
 and Brother and Cousin of Mrs. Wily. 
 
 WOMEN. 
 
 MRS. WILY, Widow, in possession of Clover, but not entitled to it. 
 
 FIDELIA, her Friend and Confidante. 
 
 MOPSA, her Maid. 
 
 DOROTHY, Servant to Mr. Windfall.

 
 CLOVER COTTAGE. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 MR. WINDFALL RELATES HIS TROUBLES TO HIS 
 FRIEND MR. ROBINSON. 
 
 " VERY pretty very comfortable all that as 
 pretty and snug a thing of the kind as 'there is 
 in all England, I only wish I was in it, 
 Mr. Robinson: but there's the rub I can't 
 get in, can't get in, do you see ? " 
 
 " Can't get in ! can't get into your OAvn house, 
 pooh, nonsense, there are legal forms of course. 
 Oh, Solomon Windfall, you are a lucky dog, to 
 have such a nice thing as that to settle down in 
 for the remainder of your days. You will be as 
 snug as a superannuated bishop. I'm told it's a 
 jewel of a cottage, embosomed in wood abounding
 
 2 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 with game ; on the banks of a stream swarming 
 with trout and salmon ; the cosiest parlour that 
 ever eight or ten good fellows like you and me 
 were ever jolly in and the nicest kitchen that 
 ever cooked a substantial old-fashioned English 
 dinner. I tell you what it is, my good friend 
 Windfall, you shall see a great deal of me in 
 Clover Cottage." 
 
 The first speaker, a comely, rosy-cheeked, 
 elderly gentleman, with a prosperous person, 
 inclined to rotundity, but a rather solicitous and 
 rueful expression of countenance, possibly on 
 account of the difficulty he seemed to be in 
 about getting into possession of his property, 
 or perhaps that he had some hereditary gout 
 flying about him, replied to Mr. Robinson's 
 gratulatory speech with not a little peevishness, 
 stamping the floor as he spoke with his gold- 
 headed cane ; 
 
 " But, I tell you I can't get in I can't get in 
 myself." 
 
 Mr. Robinson, (a bluff square-built gentleman, 
 who seemed to know what the good things of
 
 I CAN T GET IN. 3 
 
 this life consist in and to have been tolerably 
 successful in getting his share of them ;) looked 
 puzzled and bewildered, like a man posed with 
 a conundrum, or undergoing a Civil Service 
 examination. He could not understand how 
 Mr. Windfall, or anybody else, could find any 
 serious difficulty in getting into his own house ; 
 his intellects were not equal to the effort of 
 conceiving such a thing, particularly as he felt 
 that if he were Mr. Windfall, and had such a 
 cottage as that left him by a relative, it would be 
 no easy matter to keep him out of the enjoyment 
 of his good fortune for a single hour. 
 
 After looking, therefore, exceedingly perplexed 
 for the space of a minute or so, he stared his 
 friend fixedly in the face, and in a tone equally 
 emphatic and inquisitive, pronounced the mono- 
 syllable 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Why!" repeated Mr. Windfall, "simply 
 because my late lamented godmother, Mrs. 
 Silverspoon," here he sighed more deeply than 
 was perhaps perfectly consistent with sincerity 
 
 B 2
 
 4 CLOVEE COTTAGE;. OR, 
 
 " was unfortunately prevailed on shortly be- 
 fore her decease, to lend the cottage to a clever 
 little widow the widow "Wily and the widow 
 is in Clover to this hour," and down went 
 the gold-headed stick again, like a paviour's 
 rammer. 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Robinson, seemingly not 
 much more enlightened by this explanation. 
 
 "Well," re-echoed the rubicund gentleman 
 with the rueful physiognomy. 
 
 " Well! Idon'tthinkit is well, Mr. Robinson." 
 
 Mr. Robinson now grew warm, and when 
 men grow warm they sometimes speak more 
 volubly than usual, sometimes the contrary, with 
 short convulsive intervals between their words. 
 Mr. Robinson's warmth betrayed itself in the 
 latter way. 
 
 "Why don't you take possession of your 
 house ? answer me that, Solomon Windfall." 
 
 It was now Mr. Windfall's turn to show some 
 choler, and his choler acting on his imagination 
 suggested a practical mode of illustrating his 
 embarrassment in a way that would probably


 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 5 
 
 make it intelligible to his friend. He laid his 
 cane aside, and taking hold of his friend's two 
 hands, he flopped him down in a particularly 
 well-stuffed elbow-chair which happened to be 
 just behind him. 
 
 " There ! " said Mr. Windfall, letting go the 
 hands. 
 
 Eobinson now began to think his friend was 
 going out of his wits, in fact, that his good 
 fortune had turned the little brains Mr. Windfall 
 had. 
 
 " There ! " repeated Mr. Windfall, " the chair 
 is the cottage, the jewel of a cottage, as you call 
 it you are the clever widow I am myself, the 
 proprietor." 
 
 " Well ! " 
 
 " Don't you see ? " 
 
 " See what, man ? " 
 
 " You find that chair comfortable, don't you ? 
 cosy snug the cosiest in the room in the 
 house ? eh ? " 
 
 " Yes, very I never sat in a more comfortable 
 chair, never."
 
 6 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 " Very well, now I want to get into it." 
 " But you shan't I'm in it before you." 
 " Ah ! there it is," cried Solomon. " You have 
 it at last I want to get in, and I can't you 
 won't let me, and we can't both sit in the chair 
 at once, now do you see ? " 
 
 Mr. Kobinson did see : there was no need to 
 say so his face showed it ; he no longer looked 
 like a man with a hard intellectual nut to crack, 
 and not well off for intellectual nut-crackers. He 
 continued to sit in the chair representing the 
 cottage, an elbow resting on each cushioned arm, 
 looking at his friend anxiously, thoughtfully, 
 deliberatively, like a man hatching the golden 
 egg of friendly advice and suggestion. Windfall 
 sat down facing him ; there was about half a yard 
 between their noses. 
 
 At length Mr. Eobinson, collecting all the rays 
 of his intelligence into one focus, and compressing 
 into one sentence all the lore and experience of a 
 life that had reached its forty-fifth summer, or 
 thereabouts, delivered himself oracularly as 
 follows :
 
 I CAN T GET IN. 7 
 
 " If the widow won't go out of her own accord, 
 you must make her." 
 
 Mr. Solomon Windfall, after a moment's pause, 
 during which he looked more than usually saga- 
 cious, protested he thought this was " by no 
 means bad advice." 
 
 " What steps have you taken already?" inquired 
 Robinson : " of course you have apprised the 
 widow that you require early possession." 
 
 "Yes, yes, most distinctly through Tom 
 Cateran, my friend, and her brother-in-law 
 better than writing myself, you know corres- 
 pondence with a widow is a ticklish thing, a very 
 ticklish thing." 
 
 "I know Tom Cateran," said Mr. Robinson, 
 significantly. 
 
 " To be sure you do," said Mr. Windfall. 
 
 " I dine with him this day week probably 
 you do too." 
 
 " No, I don't, I never dined with Tom 
 Cateran. Tom dines with me, but I never dine 
 with Tom curious, isn't it ? you dine with 
 everybody, friend Robinson."
 
 8 CLOVER COTTAGE ; OR, 
 
 This was very true. Kobinson had as good a 
 knack of getting his legs under the mahogany of 
 his friends and acquaintances as any man 
 living. 
 
 " I'm more social than you, Solomon, but we'll 
 make a social fellow of you, when you get into 
 possession of your cottage ; that's the first con- 
 sideration at present, and now let me ask you a 
 question, how long is it since Tom Cateran 
 undertook to negotiate the surrender of Clover 
 for you ? " 
 
 " Let me see," said Mr. Windfall, " a month 
 ago, a full month ago." 
 
 " A full month you take things very quietly, 
 Solomon. You must bestir yourself, my good 
 friend. Don't rely upon Tom Cateran, or any- 
 body else. What is it to Tom how long you are 
 out of your house and property ? the widow is 
 his relation too remember that. But, putting 
 sinister motives out of the question, Tom has 
 other things to think of, and has probably never 
 troubled his head about you or your cottage ever 
 since you spoke to him on the subject."
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 9 
 
 " Do you really think so ? " said poor Mr. 
 Windfall with anxiety. 
 
 " Remember what Poor Richard says," replied 
 Mr. Robinson ; " if you want to have your busi- 
 ness done, go yourself; if not, send another." 
 
 "I'll be guided by you in future," said Mr. 
 Windfall. " Your advice is sound, excellent ; if 
 the widow won't go out of her own accord, we 
 must make her." 
 
 " We must, Solomon ; if we don't, we shall 
 not be in the cottage before partridge -shooting. 
 You must go down to Clover yourself, and see 
 the widow yourself, without an hour's delay." 
 
 " To that," said Mr. Windfall, with unusual 
 promptitude and decision, and a most vigorous 
 thump of the cane on the floor, " I have an 
 insuperable objection." 
 
 Robinson could not help laughing at the deter- 
 mined manner in which this was said, and the 
 antipathy his friend manifestly had to holding 
 any kind of personal communication with the 
 pretty widow who was keeping him out of his 
 property.
 
 10 CLOVEE COTTAGE; OK, 
 
 " Ah, you inveterate old bachelor ! " cried 
 Robinson, shaking him by the collar of his 
 coat ; " it would do you a great deal of good to 
 hold more intercourse with pretty widows than 
 you do." 
 
 Mr. Windfall only answered with another 
 thump of the cane, puffing his cheeks, and pro- 
 truding his lips, as if the very notion of coming 
 into personal collision with Mrs. Wily had quite 
 dumfounded him. 
 
 " Well, then," said Robinson, " since you won't 
 do the natural thing, and the obvious thing, 
 which is to write yourself, or go yourself, I am 
 at a loss what to advise you, and I must take 
 until to-morrow to deliberate. I'll see you to- 
 morrow, and give you my opinion." 
 
 Mr. Windfall was profuse of thanks to his 
 friend for his active services in his cause ; but 
 Mr. Robinson was frank with him, and told him 
 roundly that he was as anxious about the business 
 as he was, and quite as much interested in it. 
 " For, in fact, my good friend Solomon," said he, 
 " this snug cottage of yours, with the fishing and
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 11 
 
 shooting, is just the thing I have been looking 
 out for in vain for many a year the very thing 
 I wanted." 
 
 " That you wanted ! " exclaimed Mr. Windfall 
 with some surprise. 
 
 " Not the cottage, of course, my dear fellow ; 
 the cottage is yours ; but a friend like you pos- 
 sessing such a cottage that is what I have long 
 wanted ; a place within easy reach of town, where 
 one can run down on a Saturday evening, and 
 stay till Monday morning ; spend the Christmas 
 holidays, the Easter recess, and probably a good 
 deal of the long vacation ; without form or cere- 
 mony. I look forward, Solomon, my dear friend, 
 to a great many merry meetings in this cottage of 
 yours ; and you may therefore rely upon my 
 leaving no stone unturned to help you to get into 
 it as soon as possible." 
 
 Solomon puifed his cheeks a good deal, and 
 looked a little bewildered, as his warm and 
 candid friend went through all the holidays in 
 the year in his jovial speculation on the hospi- 
 talities of Clover; but there was nothing close
 
 12 CLOVER COTTAGE ; OR, 
 
 or niggardly about Solomon Windfall, nothing at 
 all; he had no other feelings towards Robinson 
 but gratitude for his services, and he parted from 
 him with a very hearty shake of the hand and an 
 equally hearty invitation to his cottage, as soon 
 as he could get into it himself.
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 13 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE COTTAGE IN DISPUTE. 
 
 SURRENDER Clover ! 
 
 The moment you saw it, you perfectly un- 
 derstood why Mrs. Wily was in no hurry to 
 surrender it. Despairing of painting it our- 
 selves in colours bright enough to paint it 
 truly, we shall pilfer a short account of this rural 
 gem from the portfolio of the village poet, with 
 whom the reader will in the sequel become 
 personally acquainted. Florio did not often con- 
 descend to prose, and when he did, it was 
 usually in the following somewhat rhapsodical 
 and inflated manner. 
 
 " Imagine the rosiest, cosiest, sunniest, honey- 
 ist, loveliest and doveliest, balmiest, and lamb-iest, 
 neatest, sweetest, and completest cot, cottage,
 
 14 CLOVER COTTAGE; OK, 
 
 nest, nook, den, hermitage, or whatever else there 
 is at once snug and beautiful in all the world ; 
 imagine that, and you have Clover before your 
 mind's eye as perfectly as if it was a picture by 
 Gainsborough." 
 
 Or figure to yourself, if you prefer it, an extract 
 made by Atkinson or Rowland from as many 
 charming rural retreats as there are perfumes 
 that go to the composition of " Milles-Fleurs." 
 Clover was not so much cottage as otto, or con- 
 centrated essence of cottage. It was just the 
 bonny thing that Mab would choose to tickle 
 your fancy with, if she wanted to drive you 
 cottage -mad. You know that form of in- 
 sanity ? The Sylvios and Pastorellas are very 
 subject to it at tender ages, and the fit gene- 
 rally comes on when the "Young May Moon 
 is beaming," so that there is no question of its 
 being a form of lunacy, though one of the 
 mildest. 
 
 Clover, you must know, had the most powerful 
 natural orchestra that ever ravished the tiuman 
 ear. Blackbirds, thrushes, larks, linnets, finches,
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 15 
 
 and doves, in short all the Sweet Unpaid, sang, 
 piped, warbled, and cooed the livelong day in the 
 woods and meadows that encompassed it ; and 
 the moment night came, the nightingale melo- 
 dious roue turned it into day again with his 
 incessant nocturnal performances. Moreover, 
 combining substantial comforts with airy de- 
 lights, this fortunate spot could boast of the 
 happiest family circlet of cows and calves, kids 
 and rabbits, pigs and guinea-pigs, lambs, lamb- 
 kins, and lambkinets, that ever bleated or 
 grunted, frisked or capered, nibbled or browsed. 
 Then its flower-garden, which hung on a southern 
 slope, was a wilderness of sweets, and a blaze of 
 colours ; to what can I compare it but to a varie- 
 gated robe suspended in the sun, or an eastern 
 carpet on which my lady's maid has spilled a 
 whole casket of ^dours ? The kitchen-garden 
 was the flower-garden repeated or prolonged, 
 with the necessary substantial difference of con- 
 taining all manner of delicious fruits and esculent 
 roots and herbs, from the melting peach to the 
 hot horse-radish, which grew, let me tell you, at
 
 16 CLOVEK COTTAGE; OB, 
 
 a prudent distance from the monkshood. The 
 side of the dell opposite to the garden was 
 not covered with green velvet, but with a smooth 
 verdant turf that looked as like green velvet 
 as possible ; and finally, down in the bottom 
 of this romantic hollow, ran sparkling and 
 foaming, a stream abounding with trout of 
 the finest flavour, while across it was flung 
 a rustic bridge, uniting the two sides of the 
 valley, and completing the loveliest picture in 
 the loveliest shire of the loveliest country in 
 Europe. 
 
 Surrender it, indeed ! and at the first summons 
 too! 
 
 You would not have surrendered it yourself, 
 fair and gentle reader, without a vast deal of the 
 maturest consideration. You would have sat a 
 long time believe me, fair one of a sweet 
 summer evening, under its cosy porch, overgrown 
 with roses and eglantine, thinking the matter 
 privately over, or debating it with your privy- 
 councillor, before you would have made up your 
 mind to resign such a prize.
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 17 
 
 Aristides might do it, being so passionate a 
 lover of justice in the abstract; but you, not being 
 Aristides, nor having his immense reputation for 
 probity to support, would have felt that you 
 couldn't, wouldn't, nay shouldn't do it, inas- 
 much as if you once, in a moment of weakness 
 or precipitation, gave Clover up, your chance 
 of ever again tenanting such a charming little 
 model of Elysium would not be worth a song 
 or a sixpence, by all the doctrine of human pro- 
 babilities. 
 
 But whether you or I would, or would not, is 
 not the question. We are not in possession I 
 only wish we were. The question is not put 
 to us, but to the widow Wily : and there she is 
 sitting at tins very moment discussing either 
 that or some other interesting matter with her 
 friend Fidelia, under that very porch on a lovely 
 evening in the prime of June ; the roses gushing 
 into bloom, and the birds singing in full chorus 
 round about her. Fidelia has in her hand some 
 idle book, Mrs. Wily holds in her taper fingers 
 a needle bright and sharp as she is herself,
 
 18 CLOVEE COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 but the needle is unemployed and the book is 
 unread. 
 
 Observe her, pray ! She is a buxom, handsome, 
 winsome little woman, is she not ? 
 
 That she is decidedly, fat and fair, yet not 
 too fat, and a good way yet from forty; comfortable, 
 too, as Clover itself. 
 
 Did you ever see a widow's sad weeds worn 
 so smartly? Did you ever see affliction less 
 disconsolate, or sorrow look so gay ? 
 
 Surely never, and Oh ! what a love of a 
 cap! 
 
 That which you call a cap is not a cap : it 
 is coquetry made of muslin. 
 
 But what a pair of eyes she has in her 
 head! 
 
 Eyes call you them ? say stars rather, the 
 planets Venus and Mercury, for you observe 
 she has an eye for fun and an eye for speculation. 
 
 The latter is the brighter of the two ! 
 
 Perhaps so. 
 
 Poor Mr. Windfall ! will he ever recover his 
 beautiful cottage ?
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 19 
 
 A serious question ! but the author is gossiping 
 with the reader instead of inviting him to listen 
 to what is going on between the widow and her 
 friend. That, however, is of importance enough 
 to claim a chapter to itself.
 
 20 CLOVER COTTAGE ; OB, 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FAIR FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. THE POET JOINS 
 THEM. 
 
 VERY important, indeed very important to 
 Messieurs Windfall and Robinson is the dis- 
 cussion under the cottage porch. The widow 
 is actually making her arrangements for the 
 autumn, so little notion has she of relinquishing 
 Clover until towards the fall of the leaf at the 
 nearest ; nor indeed is she severely to be blamed, 
 considering what milk-and-water measures Mr. 
 Windfall has yet taken to dislodge her. 
 
 " Do you know what I think, Simplicia dear ? " 
 said the fair maid to the buxom widow. 
 
 " Tell me, Fidelia," said the lady in gay weeds, 
 with a remarkably mellow, soft, clear, joyous 
 voice, in perfect harmony with her cosy person. 
 The widow sang divinely, by the bye, just as if
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 21 
 
 she had taken lessons from a nightingale, and 
 bettered her instructions. 
 
 " I think Mr. Solomon Windfall must be either 
 a very, very good-natured gentleman, or he must 
 have very little taste for the country." 
 
 Mrs. Wily looked up from the needle-work 
 which she had just resumed, and nodded assent 
 with a shrewd sparkle of her planetary eyes. 
 
 " Really, I believe he is a very worthy man," 
 she said, after a moment's pause. " I have not 
 the pleasure of knowing him." 
 
 " Evidently he is not impatient to take posses- 
 sion of his propertj 7 ," resumed Fidelia. 
 
 " Well, my dear," said the widow, smiling, 
 " nor am I impatient to give it up to him." 
 
 "Oh, dear!" exclaimed her friend; "I do hope 
 we shall have you here another winter at least. 
 You made the last so pleasant. I really do not 
 know what we shall do in this dull neighbour- 
 hood when we lose our dear Mrs. Wily." 
 
 "Ah, my dear girl," said the widow with a 
 pretty little sigh, " I can hardly look forward so 
 far as that ; but I should certainly be sorry to
 
 22 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 be compelled to leave this before September. 
 You know whom I expect in September, don't 
 you ? " 
 
 " No, Simplicia ; who ? " 
 " My two Crimean heroes no less." 
 "Your brother, Captain Dove ? " 
 " Yes ; and my cousin, Lieutenant Shunfield." 
 " I am enchanted ; it will make you so 
 happy. How I do long to see a Crimean hero. 
 You certainly must not leave this before Sep- 
 tember." 
 
 " I have no present intention of doing so," said 
 the widow. " On the contrary, I have written to 
 my brother to say I have every hope of being 
 here on his return, and to desire him to bring 
 my cousin here with him for the partridge - 
 shooting, which I am told is very good about 
 Clover." 
 
 " They will get leave of absence, of course ? " 
 " Oh, of course ; urgent private affairs, my 
 dear." 
 
 "Which* means partridge-shooting, of course," 
 said Fidelia, laughing.
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 23 
 
 "How much better, my love, than shooting 
 the poor Russians; though, indeed, to do my 
 heroes justice," added the widow, her eyes 
 twinkling with humour, " I believe they have 
 shot very few birds of that feather. I'll answer 
 for my gallant cousin at all events." 
 
 " Perhaps the Russians wouldn't come and be 
 shot, my dear." 
 
 " Well, I hope the partridges will be more 
 obliging." 
 
 " Oh, Simplicia, I look forward to such an 
 autumn ; you here, and your brother and cousin 
 returned from the wars; there will be no end 
 to the dinners and fetes in the neighbourhood. I 
 am almost selfish enough to wish Mr. Windfall 
 a good long steady fit of the gout to keep him 
 perfectly quiet at least till October." 
 
 " You wicked creature," said the widow, with 
 reproving looks and a sweet severity of tone. 
 " But here comes Florio, our village laureate, one 
 of my greatest favourites. We must try and keep 
 him to supper." 
 
 " And a great favourite of mine, too," said
 
 24 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 Fidelia ; " but there will be no difficulty in keep- 
 ing him to supper. You see he has got a paper 
 in his hand ; another song, I hope. I do think 
 him such a very nice poet." 
 
 Meanwhile Florio was advancing towards them, 
 with all the air of a privileged person, and one 
 who well understood the importance belonging 
 to the bardic character, among the pensive 
 maidens, merry wives, and consolable widows of 
 his rural circle. He was a gentle youth, of a 
 roseate complexion, a bright rolling eye, curly 
 brown ringlets dropping from beneath his 
 pastoral chapeau de paille, and a dewy mouth at 
 once pleasant and capacious, formed alike to let 
 good things out in the shape of rustic quips 
 and quiddities, and take good things in, such 
 as gooseberry-champagne, syllabubs, custards, 
 cherry-bounce, or better than all, for 'twas what 
 he most loved, strawberries and clouted cream. 
 Florio in short, was something between a sjdvan 
 Apicius and a village Tennyson ; but if his songs 
 were " lean and flashy," and did usually 
 
 " Grate oil his scrannel pipe of wretched straw,"
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 25 
 
 they had the merit of being suited to the ears 
 and tastes of his audiences, and made him a 
 welcome guest at every table, mahogany or maple, 
 for twenty miles round about. His Muse was 
 always at his elbow, a great point for a practical, 
 every -day working poet as he was. No village 
 nuptials, however rapid might be the transition 
 from Cupid to Hymen, ever found him unready 
 with his epithalamium. The most unexpected 
 parturition never caught Florio without his 
 lyrical compliments to " the little stranger," the 
 " firstling of the flock," or the " last new publi- 
 cation," in the advanced state called " cut and 
 dry." At Christmas he had always his carol, at 
 Easter his hymn, at sheep-shearing his eclogue, 
 and at Harvest Home his " irregular," very 
 irregular, ode to Pan. But although of Sheep 
 he had sung as much as any piping swain of his 
 day, and perhaps eaten as much mutton, he 
 never contracted the simplicity or silliness of 
 that animal ; but on the contrary his insight 
 into character was shrewd, and he knew as 
 well how to turn his penetration to good
 
 26 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 account as if he had been educated in clubs or 
 courts. 
 
 Such was Florio Meadows, who now with a 
 profusion of rustic bows and compliments, 
 presented himself before the fair widow and 
 her confidante, predetermined to partake their 
 comfortable supper, but prepared to entertain his 
 entertainers with the melody he held in his hand. 
 
 The widow began by schooling him ; called 
 him truant, and asked him where he had been 
 straying. Had he been living on filberts in the 
 woods, or fallen asleep in a grotto, or what had 
 he been about, that for three whole days he had 
 not been seen at Clover ? 
 
 Florio replied, he had been only working very 
 steadily at his trade. 
 
 " Do you call poetry a trade ? " said Fidelia, 
 upbraidingly. 
 
 " A poet is a song-wright, is he not? " answered 
 Florio; "but the poet is a man of many trades, 
 he is a weaver of verses, a builder of rhymes, a 
 coiner of words, a scene-painter, a toy-maker, a 
 sculptor because he makes images, a tailor
 
 i CAN'T GET IK. 27 
 
 because he is a man of measures, a carpenter 
 because he hammers his own wooden pate, a 
 poet is everything almost but a baker, for, alas ! 
 he seldom or never makes his bread by his 
 verses." 
 
 " Ah, but if our Florio's pate is a wooden one," 
 said the widow, " it is a very precious wood, as I 
 dare say the verses in his hand this moment are 
 quite enough to prove." 
 
 " He seldom comes empty-handed, to do him 
 justice," said Fidelia. 
 
 "A hand full of empty things may well be 
 said to be empty," said the bard ; " but whether 
 my poor lines be sage or silly, rough or smooth, 
 sweet or scentless, you shall have them : in 
 sooth, I came expressly to lay them at Mrs. Wily's 
 feet, suggested or inspired, as they were, by her 
 fond attachment to this romantic abode and her 
 keen appreciation of all the charms of Nature." 
 
 After this eloquent speech, which was no doubt 
 a studied impromptu, the bard of the village 
 repeated in a sort of recitative the following copy 
 of verses :
 
 28 CLOVER COTTAGE ; OR, 
 
 I. 
 And dost thou ask me why 
 
 I love to linger here 1 
 Here's Beauty for the eye, 
 
 And Music for the ear. 
 
 n. 
 Here Nature bids me stay 
 
 With all her birds and bells. 
 Why should I flee away 
 
 To less enchanting della? 
 
 ill. 
 Once, when I wished to rove, 
 
 Soft music bad me not, 
 The cooing of a dove 
 
 From yonder cosy cot. 
 
 IV. 
 
 I decked my temple fair 
 With wreath of rosy spray ; 
 
 It rustled in my hair 
 The same domestic lay. 
 
 v. 
 
 The wild brook huddling past 
 His hard lot doth bewail, 
 
 Compelled to flee so fast 
 From this delicious vale. 
 
 VI. 
 
 I've spent my happiest hours 
 Beneath those dear old trees ; 
 
 Let those seek other bowers 
 Who are not blest in these.
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 29 
 
 VII. 
 
 Then dost thou ask me why 
 I love to linger here 1 
 
 Here's Beauty for the eye, 
 And Music for the ear. 
 
 This latest triumph of Florio's pastoral reed 
 was received with boundless' applause by his 
 audience, " fit though few; " the widow and maiden 
 promptly paid him with their most radiant smiles, 
 Mrs. Wily stuck a rose in his button-hole, 
 Fidelia decked his hat with a sprig of jessamine, 
 and a little later, when the shadows grew very 
 long and almost every bird but the nightingale 
 was mute, they improved his remuneration 
 substantially with a meal, which was spread by 
 the pretty Mopsa, and combined a tea and a 
 supper in the most comfortable cottage style.
 
 30 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MR. WINDFALL IS ADVISED TO EMPLOY AN 
 ATTORNEY. 
 
 " WELL, Robinson, what do you advise ? 
 what am I to do ? I ought to do something. 
 Have you formed a plan of operations ? " 
 
 " Well, I have," said Mr. Robinson. " Since, 
 incurable old bachelor, that you are, you are 
 afraid to face the widow in person, Solomon, you 
 must face her by proxy, you must only employ 
 an attorney." 
 
 "An attorney, Robinson, must there be an 
 attorney ? " 
 
 " To be sure there must." 
 
 " Why, then, Robinson, I may just as well do 
 the thing handsomely, renounce my dear god- 
 mother's bequest, and give the cottage up 
 altogether. Attorneys bring lawyers lawyers
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 31 
 
 bring actions actions bring costs. I see the 
 bill before me, as long as my arm. The Cottage 
 must be sold to pay them. Eobinson, my dear 
 Eobinson, if an attorney is necessary, I am afraid 
 my poor godmother's affectionate intentions 
 towards me will never be fulfilled." 
 
 " They shall," said Robinson, " I am resolved 
 they shall ; remember I told you I am as much 
 interested in this business as you are yourself. 
 I am in as great a hurry to be in Clover as you 
 are so, now listen I know a thing you don't 
 know a thing you never heard of never 
 dreamed of never would dream of, if you lived 
 for a thousand years, Solomon Windfall. I know 
 an honest attorney ! " 
 
 " An honest attorney ! you are joking." 
 
 " No, I am serious." 
 
 " Then, Robinson, you know something nobler 
 than the noblest work of God. "What's his 
 name? " 
 
 " Blunt." 
 
 " But let Blunt be ever so honest, he must 
 have his costs."
 
 32 CLOVEE COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 " Blunt never acts for any one who has not an 
 honest case such a case as yours. Then he 
 always makes the wrongdoer pay the costs; -if 
 he can't get them, why he does without them. He 
 is an extraordinary man, my friend Blunt." 
 
 " Very, I never heard of such a man before." 
 
 " Do you promise me to leave the case in his 
 hands, and trust me; we observe, Solomon, I 
 say we will be in possession of Clover before 
 at all events before the First of September, ready 
 for the partridge shooting, old fellow ; and you 
 shall ask Powderham, Bagshot, and O'Trigger, 
 and all our old school-fellows, cronies, and cater- 
 cousins; we'll be the j oiliest shooting party in all 
 the stubbles of England." 
 
 " Good-bye, Eobinson. Try to find out what 
 Tom Cateran has been doing for me, if he has 
 been doing anything." 
 
 " Yes, yes, good-bye, Solomon."
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 33 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MR. WINDFALL CALLS UPON THE HONEST 
 ATTORNEY. 
 
 THERE are some few meii in the world upon 
 whose foreheads Nature has written honesty in a 
 hand as plain and legible as she wrote the word 
 " Gentleman " on Uncle Toby's. Mr. Blunt was 
 one of the number. I need hardly add that he 
 was an eccentric member of his profession, for 
 that you know already from the extraordinary 
 character Mr. Robinson gave of him in the last 
 chapter. In fact he was generally looked on by 
 his professional brethren as not only an odd fish 
 but a black sheep ; however, as everybody knows, 
 the sheep that are considered black by a flock of 
 that colour are the very whitest sheep of all. 
 
 " Happy to see you, sir," said Mr. Blunt, 
 " always glad to see a friend of Mr. Robinson's.
 
 34 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 He tells me in his letter now before me, that you 
 
 have got your grievance like other people ; pray 
 
 let us hear what is it ? " 
 
 " I have a beautiful cottage in Hampshire " 
 "I wish I had such a grievance," cried Mr. 
 
 Blunt ; " but proceed, Mr. Windfall." 
 
 " As snug a cottage as ever you saw ; rosy and 
 
 cosy; garden, orchard, shrubbery; shooting and 
 
 fishing everything any reasonable man could 
 
 wish." 
 
 " And you are not content, Mr. Solomon ? " 
 
 " Windfall, if you please." 
 
 " Mr. Windfall I beg your pardon but pray, 
 
 Mr. Windfall, come to the point : what is your 
 
 grievance ? " 
 
 " I can't get into my cottage." 
 
 " The roads are in such bad order ? " 
 
 " Roads, no, no, worse than that." 
 
 " The bridge across the river swept away by 
 
 the floods ? " 
 " No, no." 
 
 " An over-holding tenant, then." 
 " Not exactly a tenant. only an occupier."
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 35 
 
 " Somebody who is in possession of this para- 
 dise of yours, and whom you want to turn out, 
 that's it, I dare say ? " 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Blunt ; but somebody who has no 
 right to be in it." 
 
 Mr. Blunt laughed. 
 
 " I see how it is," he said, " this is a case of 
 * Paradise Lost,' and you want my assistance to 
 make it ' Paradise Regained.' " 
 
 " Exactly so, Mr. Blunt, exactly so ; but re- 
 member the party in possession has no right, no 
 right to it in the world." 
 
 " Never mind that," said the attorney, " never 
 mind the right, at present there is somebody in 
 possession of your property ?" 
 
 Mr. Windfall assented, with a sigh, it was 
 there, critically, the shoe pinched. 
 
 " Well, then, sir," said Mr. Blunt, looking as 
 grave as the gravest judge on the bench, " I'm 
 sorry to say, Mr. Windfall, yours is rather an 
 ugly case." 
 
 " An ugly case !" cried poor Solomon, in the 
 greatest surprise and dismay. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 CLOVER COTTAGE ; OR, 
 
 " Very ugly ; and now I'll tell you why. In 
 every question of law, you must know, there are 
 ten points." 
 
 " Ten points ! so many ! I had no idea," 
 said Mr. Windfall. 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Solomon ; I mean, Mr. Windfall. 
 How is it that in speaking to you I always think 
 of the Solomon first ? Yes, there are ten 
 points, and nine of them are right against 
 you." 
 
 " Why indeed," said poor Solomon, looking 
 very chap-fallen, " I do remember to have heard 
 it said (though I always thought it a joke) that 
 possession is nine points of law." 
 
 " You have only one point on your side, and 
 that a very poor one there is absolutely nothing 
 in your favour but your bare ownership." 
 
 " But ownership, Mr. Blunt ! Surely when a 
 thing is a man's own " 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Windfall, if every man had his own 
 in this world ! " 
 
 " But, sir," cried Mr. Windfall, rapidly warm- 
 ing, while the solicitor, of course, remained cool
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 37 
 
 as a cucumber, " in this country, sir, in this 
 free country, this glorious country, every man's 
 house is his castle ; and though mine is only a 
 cottage, Mr. Blunt," 
 
 " You are on the wrong side of it, Mr. Wind- 
 fall, the outside, don't ruffle yourself, no use 
 in that. Who is the usurper." 
 
 " The Widow Wily, sir." 
 
 " Defendant a widow ! uglier and uglier." 
 
 " On the contrary," said our Solomon, briskly, 
 " they say she is very handsome." 
 
 " Ugly in law, I meant, Mr. Windfall ; let a 
 widow be ever so handsome in fact, she is ugly 
 in law, what we call in professional parlance, 
 an ugly customer." 
 
 " But surely, Mr. Blunt." 
 
 " Something ought to be done for you that's 
 what you were going to say yes, and something 
 shall be done for you, were it only to oblige my 
 old friend, Robinson." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Blunt, thank you very 
 much, Mr. Blunt." 
 
 " What does the widow say for herself ? Of
 
 38 CLOVER COTTAGE ; OR, 
 
 course you have written to her, and have got her 
 answer in your pocket ? " 
 
 " No, I refrained from writing to her in 
 person I was apprehensive" 
 
 " What ! not written ! not so much as de- 
 manded possession ! not so much as a polite 
 note to say you wanted to get into your house ! 
 And you come to a solicitor you come to me 
 to help you. I won't. I'll have nothing to do 
 with your case at least at present. Go home, 
 Mr. Solomon, write the widow a friendly but 
 firm letter, grass before stones, of course ask 
 her civilly to surrender the possession, and if 
 she refuses, then it will be time enough to come 
 back to me." 
 
 " But, Mr. Blunt" 
 
 " I won't hear another word, be your own 
 attorney, sir ; I fear you are a most litigious 
 old gentleman. Go home, sir, and write your 
 letter, firm and resolute, but as civil and polite 
 as you choose."
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 39 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 IN WHICH MR. WINDFALL THROWS GRASS BEFORE 
 STONES. 
 
 THAT same evening Mr. Windfall wrote the 
 rough draft of his letter ; the following morning 
 revised, corrected, and polished it up ; and then, 
 having written it out fair on a sheet of the finest 
 gilt letter-paper, and also made a copy of the 
 corrected composition, he folded and directed 
 his epistle, sealed it with the Windfall crest, and 
 finally took it to the post-office himself, and with 
 his own hands dropped it into the lion's mouth, 
 so as to make as sure as possible of the safe 
 delivery of a document which had cost him so 
 much pains, and upon which so much depended. 
 
 Mr. Robinson, going in full fig to dine with 
 Mrs. Wily's relations, the Caterans, met Mr. 
 Windfall returning after posting his letter, to
 
 40 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 dine on a melancholy mutton chop in the soli- 
 tude of his bachelor's chambers. 
 
 Robinson was scrupulously punctual in his con- 
 vivial engagements, no doubt finding it politic to 
 be so, but he had a few moments now to spare, 
 and he was anxious to hear what advice Mr. 
 Blunt had given. 
 
 " Your honest attorney is a very odd sort of 
 man," said Mr. Windfall. 
 
 " What did he say to you ? " 
 
 " He called me a litigious old fellow, and almost 
 turned me out of his office, only because I was 
 too cautious to write to the widow myself in the 
 first instance." 
 
 " Then I suppose you are now to write : that's 
 the course, eh ? " 
 
 " Yes, Eobinson, and I have written ; I am just 
 come from posting my letter." 
 
 " Right, all right. A strong letter, I hope." 
 
 " Firm and decided," said Solomon ; but civil 
 and polite, very polite. Mr. Blunt dwelt upon 
 that ; ' grass before stones,' those were his very 
 words."
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 41 
 
 " All right ; only follow Mr. Blunt' s directions, 
 and all will go well, depend upon it. I am on 
 my way to dine with Tom Cateran. I wish you 
 were coming with me. Good bye, Solomon. I'll 
 find out whether Tom has been doing anything 
 for you." 
 
 " Do now, Eobinson, like a good fellow." 
 
 Mr. Robinson bustled away, but had hardly 
 turned the corner of the street when Mr. Blunt 
 met him, going home from his office after the 
 day's labour. 
 
 " I have seen your ill-used friend," said the 
 attorney. 
 
 " So he told me : he has written the letter you 
 advised." 
 
 " I hope he has written a peremptory one." 
 
 " Peremptory, but polite, he tells me, according 
 to your instructions." 
 
 " No harm in being civil. Why doesn't he 
 marry the widow ? That would be the best way 
 of settling the matter ? " 
 
 " Ha, ha, ha ! Solomon Windfall is an in- 
 veterate old bachelor ; he'll never marry."
 
 42 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 " Pooh, nonsense ; make him marry the widow. 
 Good bye, Mr. Eobinson ; you are in a hurry to 
 your dinner." 
 
 As we are not going with Mr. Kobinson to 
 dine with Mr. Cateran any more than our friend 
 Mr. Solomon Windfall, we cannot occupy the 
 remainder of this brief chapter better than by 
 producing the "firm but polite" despatch written 
 by the latter gentleman, and which is already on 
 its way to the cottage in Hampshire, to fall like 
 a thunderbolt on the head of the innocent and 
 unsuspecting widow Wily. 
 
 "10, BLOOMSBURT BUILDINGS, 
 June 10th, 1855. 
 
 " DEAR MADAM, 
 
 "Knowing the affectionate intimacy that 
 subsisted between you and my late respected and 
 lamented godmother, Mrs. Silverspoon, I am the 
 more reluctant to trouble you on the subject of 
 the cottage which she lent you some time before 
 her demise, and in which you at present reside ; 
 but you are aware, I presume, dear Madam, of 
 the strong claims I have to it, under the last will
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 43 
 
 and testament of the excellent lady I have just 
 alluded to, and whose irreparable loss in common 
 we deplore. I must be permitted to hope you 
 have found it comfortable in all respects during 
 your residence in it, and that the air of Clover 
 has agreed with the health of you and your 
 interesting young family. It only remains for 
 me now to state, which I do under legal advice, 
 that I shall feel deeply obliged by your letting 
 me know when it will be your perfect convenience 
 to surrender possession; and sincerely hoping 
 that you will have no difficulty in finding in a 
 week or two a residence equally commodious and 
 to your taste in all respects, 
 
 " I have the great honour to be, 
 
 " Dear Madam, 
 " Your respectful and obliged servant, 
 
 " SOLOMON WINDFALL."
 
 44 CLOVEE COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MB. WINDFALL SPENDS A BUSY DAY. 
 
 THE next day the day after the dinner at 
 Mr. Cateran's, where Mr. Robinson was, and 
 Mr. Windfall was not, Mr. Robinson called at 
 Bloomsbury Buildings at a very early hour for 
 a convivial gentleman as he was, namely, 10 
 o'clock in the forenoon. Mr. Windfall was 
 out, which was equally unusual with him ; not 
 because his convivial habits prevented his early 
 rising, but because, with his snug three hundred 
 a-year, he followed no profession ; in fact, had 
 nothing to do but think of his grievances, of 
 which he had now enough on his hands. 
 
 Mr. Windfall's servant had no notion where 
 her master was, but she thought he was gone 
 to his tailor's about his shooting- dress, and 
 would probably not be long out.
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 45 
 
 " A shooting-dress ! " repeated Eobinson, 
 smiling ; " Well, that looks as if he was deter- 
 mined to get into his cottage at all events," and 
 away he went, looking disappointed, but promis- 
 ing to call again. 
 
 He did call again at one o'clock, but only to 
 hear that his friend had returned in the interval, 
 and had gone out a second time, about a new 
 hat he had bought, and the leaf of which he 
 did not approve of. 
 
 " Too wide, I suppose," said Robinson. 
 
 " No, sir," said the maid ; " my master did not 
 think it half wide enough ; he called it a wide- 
 awake, I think." 
 
 " A wide-awake !" exclaimed Robinson, greatly 
 amused ; " I fancy I see your master in a wide- 
 awake." 
 
 " Well, sir," said Dorothy, " master does look 
 funny." 
 
 "Do you know, has he received a letter from 
 the country from Hampshire ? " 
 
 " No, sir, but I know he is expecting one ; I 
 believe, sir, we are going to live at his estate in
 
 46 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 the country in a few days; my master has 
 packed two portmanteaus, and ordered me to 
 pack up the books, plate, and linen, and all my 
 own things." 
 
 " All right tell him I called twice, and was 
 sorry not to find him at home, as I had some- 
 thing very important to say to him." 
 
 " Will you call to-morrow, Mr. Robinson ? " 
 " Well, I probably will, Dorothy ; good-bye." 
 At a still later period of the day Mr. Robinson 
 called at Mr. Windfall's club (The Old Crony), 
 to inquire for him, but with equal ill-success. 
 It greatly puzzled him to think what he could 
 be about, for Solomon, having but few haunts, 
 was in general the easiest person in the world 
 to find when yon wanted him. 
 
 That day, however, was an exception. Never 
 had Mr. Solomon Windfall passed such a busy 
 day in his life. Before breakfast he packed one 
 of the portmanteaus alluded to by his maid. 
 He made a very hasty breakfast, scarcely glanced 
 at his " Times," and went off to his tailor's, to 
 hasten the building of his sportsman's suit.
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 47 
 
 The coat was to have an unprecedented number 
 of pockets, and there were to be partridges and 
 wild ducks alternately on the buttons. He then 
 returned to his lodgings, to see if the widow's 
 letter had come with the expected surrender of 
 the cottage. There was no letter, of course it 
 was quite too soon to expect one but he found a 
 band-box on his table with his wide-awake in it. 
 The brim was hardly a foot broad, which vexed 
 him ; he wanted a particularly broad one, having 
 some vague notion that any other would be 
 highly improper when he came to be a cottager 
 and country gentleman. So away he trotted 
 again, like Mother Hubbard, to the hatters ; 
 after that he did twenty other things, all with 
 direct reference to the near approaching change 
 in his life and habits : he subscribed to the 
 " Sporting Magazine" and the "Gardener's Chro- 
 nicle ; " he bought several books on dogs, an- 
 gling, agriculture, and other rural subjects ; then 
 he got himself a brandy bottle in a wicker case, 
 a game-bag, a fishing-rod, and a double-barrelled 
 gun ; affording so much amusement to the people
 
 48 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 of every shop where these several articles were 
 sold, that they ought in justice to have let him 
 have them at half price at the very most. When 
 he thought he had purchased everything requi- 
 site to the complete sportsman, the Master of 
 Clover turned his mind to farming, and spent 
 an hour at the ware-rooms of Messrs. Raikes 
 and Barrows, describing his prospects to them, 
 asking their advice on various points, and exa- 
 mining and criticising spades, hoes, reaping- 
 hooks, threshing-machines, watering-machines, 
 churns, and things of that sort ; but he actually 
 bought nothing but an implement between a hoe 
 and a walking-stick, to saunter about his place 
 with, rooting up any chick-weed or dandelion, 
 which his gardener might overlook in his labours. 
 From Messrs. Raikes and Barrows he went to 
 his club ; dined precipitately upon cold roast beef 
 and half-a-pint of sherry; desired his friends, 
 Toby Bagshot and old Jonathan Powderham, 
 whom he met there, to keep themselves dis- 
 engaged to shoot partridges with him in 
 September; paid his little bill, scarcely waited
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 49 
 
 for some change due to him, and away again to 
 the very last place in the world where (at least 
 in ordinary times), any friend of his would think 
 of looking for him an establishment at Vauxhall 
 for adult gentlemen, whose sportsmanlike educa- 
 tion had been neglected in their youth, and 
 where the " old idea " was literally taught " to 
 shoot," at the expense of flocks of pigeons kept 
 expressly for their use and practice.
 
 50 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HOW MR. WINDFALL'S LETTER WAS RECEIVED 
 AT CLOVER. 
 
 " I FULLY expected it," said Fidelia: " how I do 
 wish he had a good fit of the gout." 
 
 " "Well then, my dear," said the widow, " what 
 do you think of the letter now it has come ? " 
 
 We need hardly say it was Mr. Windfall's 
 letter they were talking of. Indeed it was lying 
 on Mrs. Wily's lap, she had just read it to 
 her friend. 
 
 " A pretty broad hint, Simplicia, love, that he 
 wants possession of his cottage." 
 
 All the craft of her crafty sex, all the expert- 
 ness of expertest widowhood, combined with the 
 individual native shrewdness and dexterity of the 
 pretty, clever, coquettish, managing, and ma- 
 noeuvring little woman herself, were concen-
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 51 
 
 trated in Mrs. Wily's looks, as she very gravely 
 rejoined to her friend's very natural reply : 
 
 " Now, Fidelia, do you really think so ? " 
 
 Fidelia, who not only did really think so, but 
 never dreamed that any human being could 
 think otherwise, was taken aback by the new 
 view of the matter implied in the widow's utterly 
 unexpected question. 
 
 " Well, really," said the fluttered Fidelia, " I 
 don't know, I'm sure, perhaps I'm wrong, 
 Simplieia, and I'm sure I most sincerely hope I 
 am. But what do you think yourself? " 
 
 " Why then," said the widow, or rather the 
 incarnation of feminine subtlety in the widow's 
 agreeable form, " I do think, Fidelia, I do, 
 indeed, my dear that I never in my life received 
 a kinder, a more gentlemanlike, or more delicate 
 communication." 
 
 " Well, it is gentlemanlike and delicate," said 
 Fidelia, just beginning to see things in a glim- 
 mering way with the help of her friend's 
 shrewder and brighter eyes. 
 
 " So very considerate," continued Mrs. Wily.
 
 52 CLOVER COTTAGE ; OR, 
 
 Fidelia admitted that too. 
 
 " He certainly says your perfect convenience," 
 said Fidelia : " but then 
 
 " But what, my dear ? " 
 
 " Nothing," said Fidelia ; " I was only thinking 
 of the last passage in the letter ; it might, 
 perhaps, be understood to imply that the plaguy 
 old gentleman was impatient to get you out and 
 to get in himself." 
 
 " Now really, Fidelia," said the widow, a little 
 rebukingly, " that is really torturing Mr. Wind- 
 fall's words a little ; besides, allow me to tell 
 you, I do not like to hear him called a plaguy 
 old gentleman." 
 
 The notion of torturing even words was 
 shocking to so good-natured a girl as Fidelia. 
 She thought it would be very wrong to treat 
 anybody's words so barbarously, and made a 
 playful apology for the way in which she had 
 spoken of the worthy proprietor of Clover. She 
 looked, however, a little inquisitive all the time, 
 as if she had some wish to know how her 
 friend understood the words in question; as
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 53 
 
 they could not by any means be interpreted into 
 a notice to quit without violently straining their 
 meaning. 
 
 '' It is perfectly plain to me," said Mrs. Wily, 
 after a moment's pause to explain herself the 
 more fully, " that the letter would never have 
 been written at all, only by the advice of some 
 meddling lawyer or another. I am disposed 
 therefore to look on it as nothing but a matter of 
 form, and I am positive, dear Mr. Windfall 
 intended I should look on it in that light. 
 Observe, he tells me expressly he is acting under 
 legal advice ; and when I couple that with ' my 
 perfect convenience,' and the general kind, 
 extremely kind tone and language of the letter, 
 I do feel, Fidelia dear, I should really be doing a 
 worthy, excellent gentleman a very great injustice 
 if I were to put cold, calculating, harsh con- 
 structions upon any portion of so friendly and 
 handsome a communication. A little reflection, 
 my dear, will, I am sure, convince you I am 
 right." 
 
 Fidelia was all the more easily convinced, as
 
 54 CLOVER COTTAGE ; OR, 
 
 she wished to be so, and her looks and nods 
 expressed pretty plainly how much she was 
 struck with her friend's ingenious views. 
 
 " I only wonder," said the clear Fidelia, " I 
 could ever have seen it for a moment in any 
 other light : but I am such a dull creature, and 
 you, Simplicia love, are so clever, so very 
 clever." 
 
 " Indeed Fidelia, I am no such thing," said 
 Mrs. Wily, gently but firmly repudiating the 
 compliment to her shrewdness. " This is not a 
 case I think requiring cleverness, even if I had 
 it. I hope, however, my heart is better than my 
 head ; the heart, Fidelia, believe me, is one's best 
 counsellor ; I think it right to consult its dictates 
 on little occasions like this as well as great ones. 
 By the bye it is a shame not to have noticed it 
 before, but how very touching Mr. Windfall's 
 allusion to his godmother is ! She was my very 
 dear kind friend you know." 
 
 " I do think, Simplicia," cried Fidelia, with 
 enthusiasm, jumping and kissing the widow's 
 forehead, " you are all, all heart : and it is such a
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 55 
 
 relief to me to think that there is no danger yet of 
 losing you. That letter did alarm me, I confess 
 just now, too, when the roses are blowing and the 
 strawberries coming in, to say nothing of the 
 Crimean heroes coming home, and all the gaieties 
 we are sure to have in September." 
 
 After Fidelia had kissed Simplicia, Simplicia 
 kissed Fidelia : and this interkissing over, the 
 widow remarked how particularly sweetly the 
 birds were singing at the moment. So they were, 
 indeed, as they always do at sunset: probably 
 they have dined then, and their warbling is their 
 grace after their seeds and worms. 
 
 Fidelia tossed back her little summer bonnet, 
 which in truth hardly required it, as it scarcely 
 touched her ears, and listened for an instant with 
 the profoundest attention. 
 
 " You will call me," she said, " a foolish fanciful 
 girl, Simplicia, but do you know I can't help 
 conceiving that the linnets on the laurel hedge 
 yonder are actually singing that sweet air one 
 of Moore's Melodies, isn't it ? ' Fly not yet,' do 
 listen, don't you think so ? and how appro-
 
 56 CLOVER COTTAGE ; OR, 
 
 priate it is to what we have been talking 
 about ! " 
 
 " Well, you are a fanciful creature, Fidelia," 
 said the widow, rising and caressing her friend 
 with a flower she had in her hand, "but really 
 now there is some resemblance, and certainly it 
 is a curious coincidence ' Fly not yet ; ' we 
 won't fly yet, pretty birds, we'll do what you 
 bid us !" 
 
 " Now you shall sing it for me," said Fidelia. 
 
 "You won't care for my singing after the 
 linnets." The melodious widow then complied 
 with her friend's request, and sang two or three 
 stanzas so sweetly, that the little Irish bard 
 himself would have been enchanted, had he 
 heard her. 
 
 " Now let us go in," she said, stopping 
 abruptly ; " I have my answer to write, and you 
 will perhaps kindly see that the hamper for my 
 sister Cateran is packed as usual, with the trout ? 
 chickens, vegetables and other things : to go to 
 town by the morning-train." 
 
 " Yes, my dear, did it occur to you to send
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 57 
 
 any little thing up to Mr. Windfall ? It's very 
 good of me to think of him, for I don't like him 
 half as well as you do; he keeps me in a 
 perpetual fright : I'm always expecting to see 
 his old face appearing over the gate or the 
 hedge." 
 
 " It really did not occur to me," said Mrs. Wily, 
 " but I thank you, Fidelia, for suggesting it, I'll 
 think of it while I'm writing my letter."
 
 58 CLOVER COTTAGE ; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE WIDOW GIVES MR. WINDFALL A FIT OF 
 THE GOUT. 
 
 MR. WINDFALL was sitting in his chamber, 
 very anxious, nervous, and impatient ; expecting 
 three things, the answer from Clover a visit 
 from his friend Robinson and the tailor with 
 his shooting-coat. A fresh embarrassment had 
 arisen about his coat, owing to the difficulty of 
 getting buttons of the wild-duck pattern to mix 
 with the partridges, there seemed no end to 
 Mr. Windfall's troubles. All his purchases of the 
 previous day were scattered about the room, the 
 floor of which was strewn with boxes, hampers 
 and portmanteaus ; all packed and corded, ready 
 to be sent down into the country. He had his 
 " wide-awake" on his head, (a huge sombrero it 
 was,) and he was alternately taking up the
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 59 
 
 Gardener's Chronicle and Sportsman's Magazine, 
 without reading very much of either. 
 
 No letter no tailor no Robinson. 
 
 Poor Solomon grew more and more fidgety 
 every moment, and at last commenced pacing up 
 and down his chamber, with his new hoe in his 
 hand, feigning to try it on the daisies, cowslips, 
 or whatever they were with which the carpet was 
 figured, and ever and anon drawing himself up 
 opposite the glass to see how his comical slouched 
 hat became him. At last there came a double 
 knock, too free for the tailor, and without the 
 peculiarity of the postman's, in fact it was 
 Mr. Robinson ; and that gentleman entered the 
 next moment, looking as if he had something of 
 consequence to communicate, and yet as if it had 
 a ludicrous side to it, which it was impossible to 
 prevent the mind's eye from dwelling on. Mr. 
 Windfall could not help noticing this facetious 
 expression in his friend's physiognomy, and he 
 was not long without calling on him to explain 
 'what it was that diverted or tickled him. 
 
 The question seemed at once to compose Mr.
 
 60 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 Eobinson, who apologised for his gaiety, adding 
 that it was no laughing matter at all, but quite 
 the contrary. 
 
 " No laughing matter," said Solomon, naturally 
 enough, "yet it makes you laugh; perhaps it 
 would make me laugh, too." 
 
 The worthy gentleman did not often express 
 himself with so much vivacity or antithesis. 
 
 " No, my dear Solomon," replied his friend, 
 shaking his head and looking doubly grave, " it 
 would not make you laugh, decidedly." 
 
 " Why so ? " demanded poor Mr. Windfall. 
 
 " Because it is not only a serious matter, Solo- 
 mon, but a serious matter affecting you seriously." 
 
 " Affecting me ! " exclaimed Solomon, briskly, 
 " no bad news, I hope, about the cottage ? " 
 
 " You shall hear," said Robinson, looking about 
 for a seat, and eventually seating himself on a port- 
 manteau. " By the bye, Solomon, you will never 
 see the birds with so broad a brim to your hat." 
 
 " Never mind the hat," said Mr. Windfall ; " I 
 want to hear your story." 
 
 " You will hear it time enough, my dear fellow."
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 01 
 
 "Pray, go on now." 
 
 " I dined the day before yesterday with our 
 common friend, or perhaps I should say our 
 common acquaintance, Tom Cateran." 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know that." 
 
 " I never eat a better plain dinner in all my 
 life." 
 
 "A good dinner is a good thing," said Solo- 
 mon, " and there is no better judge of one than 
 you are ; but come to the point." 
 
 " Everything was good, nay excellent, but 
 three or four things were perfect ; you must not 
 be impatient or I can't tell my story; three 
 things were perfect the fish, the finest trout I 
 ever tasted the rabbits and young ducks, the 
 tenderest and plumpest I ever saw on a table 
 and the peas and potatoes, the greenest, the 
 youngest, the most delicious that ever were 
 served up to the Lord Mayor himself." 
 
 " Well, Robinson, well, well, well." 
 
 " By no means well for you, my dear friend 
 Windfall, be calm now while I finish what I have 
 to say."
 
 62 CLOVER COTTAGE; OE, 
 
 " Calm, why should I not ? Go on, Robinson." 
 
 " Where now do you think all these good things 
 came from ? " 
 
 " I have no idea, how can I tell ? " 
 
 " Every single one of them, Solomon, from 
 Clover Cottage, presents from the widow in 
 possession to your trusty friend Tom Cateran, 
 or rather to his wife, her first cousin. Now you 
 see how wisely you relied upon him in this 
 business, and now you know why he did not ask 
 you to dinner." 
 
 Solomon could only express his horror and 
 vexation by a groan, or rather a series of groans. 
 
 " Clover Cottage ducks," resumed Robinson, 
 " Clover Cottage peas and potatoes, and Clover 
 Cottage rabbits smothered with Clover Cottage 
 onions ! " 
 
 A deep groan from poor Mr. "Windfall followed 
 each clause in this painfully accurate bill of 
 particulars. It might have been inferred from 
 the extreme depth of the last groan of the three 
 that the rabbits smothered in onions affected the 
 injured gentleman most; and in point of fact it
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 63 
 
 was so, for if there was one dish more than 
 another which Mr. Windfall loved it was the dish 
 in question, and the prospect of eating his own 
 rahbits smothered in his own onions had long 
 been one of his most agreeable day-dreams con- 
 nected with his godmother's bequest. 
 
 Probably Mr. Robinson was not aware of this, 
 or he would have smothered both rabbits and 
 onions, and avoided wounding his friend so 
 grievously. However, "fidclia vulnera amid." 
 It was necessary thoroughly to awaken Mr. "Wind- 
 fall to a sense of his situation, and Mr. Robinson 
 only did his duty in letting him know to what a 
 monstrous extent his simplicity was practised on 
 by Mrs. Wily and her relations. 
 
 Mr. Windfall, however, was unfortunately of a 
 gouty constitution : and before his friend had 
 concluded his astounding disclosures, he felt by 
 most unmistakeable twinges in one of the toes of 
 his right foot that he was in imminent danger of 
 a pretty sharp fit of that painful but gentleman- 
 like distemper. 
 
 Almost before he spoke came the sharp tap-tap
 
 64 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 of the letter-carrier. Mrs. "Wily's answer ! Mr. 
 Windfall forgot both the rabbits and the twinge 
 of his toe in the eagerness with which he tore 
 open a letter which would of course put an end 
 to all his difficulties. He was not prepared (as 
 the reader is) to read the following response 
 from Mrs. Wily, acting under no legal adviser, 
 having no professional assistance, but simply in- 
 spired by her natural shrewdness, and the pro- 
 verbial subtlety and daring of her sex and con- 
 dition. 
 
 "CLOVER COTTAGE, 
 I6th June. 
 
 " MY DEAR MR. WINDFALL, 
 
 " Truly, most truly, grateful I am for the 
 kind, more than kind, feeling which breathes 
 through every line of your letter of the 10th 
 instant, written, as you are so good as to acquaint 
 me, under the direction of your lawyers, and 
 which I therefore presume to have been a neces- 
 sary step in support of the claims you allude to, 
 under the will of the late truly excellent Mrs. 
 Silverspoon. I can of course form no opinion 
 upon the subject, and can only say that I shall
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 65 
 
 be very happy if you succeed in establishing 
 your title. It is, however, a great comfort to me 
 in my present situation to mingle my tears with 
 yours over the memory of the best of godmothers, 
 as she was to you, and the best of friends, as 7 
 always found her. Clover deserves all you say 
 of it : no place can be sweeter or more comfort- 
 able. I have enjo} r ed better health since I 
 resided here than in any former period of my 
 life. Permit me to add that, in the present 
 posture of affairs, should either your business 
 or pleasure bring you down to this part of the 
 country, it will give me only too much pleasure 
 to receive you ; and I think I may even venture, 
 my dear sir, to offer you a shake-clown, if you do 
 me the favour of a visit. 
 
 " I am, my dear Mr. Windfall, 
 
 " Yours very sincerely, 
 
 "SIMPLICIA WILY." 
 
 " P.S. Excuse me sending you by the railway 
 a cauliflower or two, with a few Brussels sprouts."
 
 66 CLOVER COTTAGE J OR, 
 
 The present of his own vegetables, and the 
 offer of the shake-down in his own house, were 
 probably the portions of this letter that most 
 poignantly affected Mr. Windfall. Altogether, 
 however, it completed what the revelations made 
 by Mr. Robinson had begun, and gave the 
 unlucky proprietor of Clover, not only the 
 sharpest, but the longest fit of the gout he had 
 ever been visited with. He was confined to his 
 room or his couch for a calendar month, so that 
 it was past the middle of July when he was in a 
 condition to make another move in the cause ; 
 all which time, of course, was clear gain to 
 Mrs. Wily, which we need hardly say she turned 
 to the very best advantage. The strawberries 
 were particularly fine that year, and the widow 
 gave a very pretty and agreeable strawberry fete 
 to the young people of the neighbourhood; 
 which added greatly to her popularity; and led 
 many to hope that she would eventually (by some 
 process or another) turn possession into right, 
 and by hook or by crook make the cottage her 
 own.
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 67 
 
 On two different occasions during this period 
 of uninterrupted enjoyment, Mrs. Wily was so 
 considerate as to send Mr. Windfall a few of the 
 Clover strawberries. Fortunately, however, Mr. 
 Robinson happened on each occasion to be at 
 Bloomsbury Buildings to prevent the relapse 
 which these delicate but galling attentions would 
 have infallibly caused, had they been communi- 
 cated to Mr. Windfall. This friendly office Mr. 
 Robinson performed in a very simple way, by 
 eating the strawberries up himself. 
 
 F2
 
 68 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ANOTHER STEP IN THE CAUSE. 
 
 IT was on the 18th of July that Mr. Windfall 
 went out for the first time, to see Mr. Blunt 
 again by appointment : having previously, how- 
 ever, transmitted to the attorney both the widow 
 Wily's letter and a copy of his own production, 
 which he had been careful to keep by him. 
 
 Poor gentleman ! nothing showed how low he 
 was than that he had laid aside the wide-awake, 
 as if almost despairing of ever being a cottager 
 or a country gentleman ; and he still rather hob- 
 bled than walked, with one of his legs swathed 
 up as big as three, and every now and then 
 experiencing one of those sharp pangs which 
 survive attacks of the gout, like the bitter days 
 that occasionally come with an east wind, even 
 after summer has regularly set in. Mr. Windfall
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 69 
 
 had a paper in his hand ; the attorney desired 
 to know whether it was a document in the cause, 
 another letter from the widow, but it was only 
 a medical certificate to the effect that a few 
 months of the country air would be highly 
 expedient after his confinement, and particularly 
 recommending the air of Hampshire. 
 
 " Why not accept the widow's hospitable 
 invitation, my dear sir ? " said Mr. Blunt ; " she 
 offers you a shake-down, why not accept it ? " 
 
 Mr. Windfall experienced one of the shooting 
 pangs we have just mentioned, at this unpleasant 
 reminiscence. 
 
 " Now did you ever read such a correspondence 
 as that in all your life, Mr. Blunt ? " 
 
 The two letters were lying before Mr. Blunt 
 upon his desk. 
 
 " Very bad, indeed," said the attorney. 
 
 " Did you ever read a more improper letter ? " 
 
 " Never, Mr. Windfall, never." 
 
 " I am glad to hear you say so," said Solomon ; 
 " mine was a pretty good one, I think." 
 
 " Yours ! why I'm speaking of yours, man ! "
 
 70 CLOVER COTTAGE ; OE, 
 
 " Mine, Mr. Blunt ! " 
 
 " Yours, Mr. Windfall ! The widow's was 
 capital the best letter I ever read in my life." 
 
 " Why, but it gave me this confounded fit of 
 the gout." 
 
 " Just because it was so good." 
 
 " It gave me this foot, sir." 
 
 " Oh, indeed, Mr. Solomon, you put your foot 
 in it." . 
 
 " You desired me to write a polite friendly 
 letter, and I did so." 
 
 " Did I desire you to throw a doubt on your 
 own title, eh ? The widow hit the blot beauti- 
 fully. She deserves Clover, and long may she 
 inhabit and enjoy it." 
 
 " You are a most extraordinary man, Mr. Blunt. 
 Did I not speak of the strength of my claims ? " 
 
 "Which nobody ever does but a man who has 
 some doubts of his rights." 
 
 "You ought to have written the letter yourself, 
 Mr. Blunt." 
 
 " So it seems." 
 
 Mr. Windfall looked exceedingly blank for a
 
 I CAN T GET IN. 71 
 
 few moments, and then feebly inquired what was 
 to be done ? 
 
 " Nothing," said the solicitor. " Take all the 
 fruit and vegetables you can get, and be thankful 
 for getting anything out of your cottage." 
 
 Solomon was stung by this, it warmed hinv, 
 it made him eloquent. 
 
 " Is there no law," he exclaimed, " to meet 
 such a case as mine ? Can a party, male or 
 female, occupy my house against my will ? Can 
 she refuse to go out after I give her notice to 
 quit ? Can she use my furniture, eat my 
 chickens, kill my rabbits, enjoy my grounds, con- 
 sume my fruit and my vegetables ? Can a party 
 do all this? Can she, Mr. Blunt ? that's the 
 question, Mr. Blunt." 
 
 At every clause in this series of indignant 
 interrogations, delivered with a vigour almost 
 reaching to oratory, the gold-headed cane de- 
 scended with an emphatic thump on the floor of 
 the office, expressive of Mr. Windfall's strong 
 sense of the cogency of his reasoning. 
 
 Mr. Blunt' s reply was very brief :
 
 72 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 " The widow Wily does it, does she not ? " 
 
 " Of course she does." 
 
 " Then I think a party can, Mr. Windfall." 
 
 " And no remedy, no help, no redress ? " 
 
 " I should he happy to serve you," said the 
 attorney, " as a friend of Mr. Eohinson's. Now 
 what do you propose that I should do ? " 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Windfall, cheering up a little, 
 " we tried grass and it failed, let us now try 
 stones. Write to her yourself, Mr. Blunt, in 
 the character of my attorney-at-law." 
 
 " It shall be done," said Mr. Blunt, and the 
 client and solicitor parted.
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 73 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE ATTORNEY AND THE WIDOW. 
 
 ME. BLUNT had a dry formal reverend old 
 conducting clerk who, he thought, would write 
 the sort of a letter the case required better than 
 he could do it himself; accordingly he sent for 
 Mr. Withering and gave him the requisite 
 instructions. 
 
 This was a mistake on Mr. Blunt's part: 
 " to err is human," not even honest attorneys are 
 exempt, he should have written the letter him- 
 self; but let us not anticipate. 
 
 When the dry old Mr. Withering appeared, he 
 inquired what the style of the letter was to be. 
 
 " Plain," said Mr. Blunt, " as plain as possible, 
 formal, very formal precise, but full no ambi- 
 guity no mistake."
 
 74 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 "Post ? " said the monosyllabic Mr. Withering. 
 
 " Go down yourself by the railway," answered 
 the attorney ; " Clover is not far from town, it 
 will only take a few hours, and I should wish 
 you to deliver it to the defendant with your own 
 hand." 
 
 Mr. Withering retired to his private den, and 
 composed a letter of which he was so proud, that 
 he read it over twice with not a little pomposity 
 for the edification of the junior clerks, and then 
 made one of them copy it into his book of prece- 
 dents. It is only necessary, however, to place 
 upon record here, a single passage : that in which 
 " Simplicia Wily, widow, was required to sur- 
 render on a certain day therein named the cottage 
 
 
 
 of Clover in the county of Hampshire, with all 
 
 x 
 
 lands, premises, messuages, offices, gardens, 
 orchards, woods, forests, meadows, warrens and 
 fisheries, thereto in any wise belonging or appur- 
 tenant, to Solomon Windfall Esquire, lawful 
 and rightful owner of the same, in default 
 whereof on her part, the law would take its 
 course against her, her executors, or adminis-
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 75 
 
 trators, with, all the usual and unpleasant con- 
 sequences of judgment, costs, executions and so 
 forth" an array of terrors that might well daunt 
 the courage of the stoutest widow in all England. 
 
 It was dusk, almost dark, on the loveliest of 
 evenings that ever concluded a day in July, when 
 Mr. Withering, who had not often an opportunity 
 of seeing so much of the country, arrived at the 
 railway- station nearest to Clover, and set out on 
 foot for his destination. 
 
 Is it possible to conceive in the wide world a 
 human being in a position more strongly con- 
 trasted with his habits, ideas, associations, and 
 antecedents, than an ancient attorney's clerk in a 
 delicious rural scene by the light of a summer 
 moon? Fancy, then, Mr. Withering, long, dry, 
 and formal, as one of his own most formal docu- 
 ments, treading over the charming green lanes 
 that led to Clover Cottage, he who had dwelt in 
 Chancery Lane for the greater part of half-a- 
 century, and whose experience of the woods and 
 forests was limited to a sober Sunday walk in 
 Kensington Gardens. The moon, the trees, the
 
 76 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 birds, the flowers, the smells, were all novelties ; 
 and being of a timid constitution, the solitude 
 discomposed rather than soothed him, the distant 
 barking of a dog made him uneasy, and his mind 
 was alternately filled with visions of robbers and 
 wild beasts. 
 
 In this state of his faculties, the sound of 
 nimble footsteps behind him was at once com- 
 forting and alarming. An honest companion 
 would be welcome, but it seemed at least equally 
 probable, at that place and hour, that a com- 
 panion of another character might be desirous to 
 overtake him. The uncertainty, however, was of 
 short duration. He was joined in a few seconds 
 by a young man whose rosy and radiant counte- 
 nance, even imperfectly seen as it was, dispelled 
 every idea of distrust, although a certain pic- 
 turesqueness of costume might have been a little 
 suggestive of the sentimental bandit of a melo- 
 drama. 
 
 With a merry ringing voice, the stranger 
 accosted Mr. Withering, the beauty of the even- 
 ing affording a convenient excuse for commencing
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 77 
 
 a way-side conversation. After the interchange 
 of a few remarks on the nioon and the weather, 
 the old clerk, not being cock-sure that he was in 
 the right path to Clover, asked his lively com- 
 panion if he knew the house of a Mr. Windfall in 
 that neighbourhood. 
 
 "No;" replied the other, "I do not even 
 remember to have ever heard the name, and yet I 
 think I know most of the houses for twenty miles 
 round about." 
 
 "Perhaps, sir, you may know, or have heard 
 of Clover Cottage, then," said Mr. Withering. 
 
 " Know Clover ! I should think I do," said 
 the other laughing ; " why, man, I am going there 
 this moment going to sup there." 
 
 " Very odd," said the clerk, " you should 
 know Clover so well, and never have heard of 
 Mr. Solomon Windfall." 
 
 "Windfall Solomon Windfall well, now I 
 reflect, I do think I have heard the name," said the 
 other, " in some kind of connection with Clover." 
 
 " A tolerably close connection, I believe," said 
 Mr. Withering.
 
 78 CLOVER COTTAGE J OR, 
 
 " He is only the owner, or something of that 
 sort," said our friend Florio, who has of course 
 been fulty recognised long since. 
 
 " That's all," said Mr. Withering drily, and 
 with difficulty restraining the feelings with which 
 he heard "ownership" spoken of as if it consti- 
 tuted one of the most insignificant incidents of 
 property. 
 
 " That's all," said Mr. Withering ; " only the 
 owner, only the proprietor in fee simple." 
 
 " I know nothing of legal quibbles," said his 
 companion ; " do you know what my opinion of 
 lawyers is?" 
 
 " No," said Mr. Withering. 
 
 "Very much the same, then, as Dick's, the 
 butcher, in one of Shakespeare's historical plays 
 you know perhaps what Dick proposes to do 
 with them?" 
 
 Mr. Withering did not remember, having pro- 
 bably never known. 
 
 " The first thing we do, says Dick ; let's hang 
 all the lawyers." 
 
 "And does he support his opinions by any
 
 i CAN'T GET ix. 79 
 
 reasons ? " Mr. Withering begged to be in- 
 formed. 
 
 " His friend Jack Cade gives the reasons," 
 replied Florio. " Is not this, says he, a lamentable 
 thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should 
 be made parchment; and that parchment being 
 scribbled over should undo a man? There's 
 more to the same effect admirable doctrine it is 
 in my opinion, for my part I only value the 
 lamb for two things : first, because he is useful 
 in poetry as an emblem of innocence, and a 
 rhyme for calm, and secondly, for his valuable 
 contributions to the kitchen ; we are to have a 
 delicious fore -quarter roasted for supper this very 
 night at Clover, with young potatoes and green 
 peas but, perhaps, you are bound for Clover 
 yourself, friend, you seem so interested about it? " 
 
 " Truly I am going there," said the clerk ; 
 " but, unluckily, not for supper. I am the bearer 
 of a letter to the widow Wily, the very lady you 
 are going to sup with on roast lamb." 
 
 "An invitation, probably ?" said the poet. 
 
 "Why, 'yes," said Mr. Withering, after a
 
 80 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 moment's pause, "it is an invitation;" but he was 
 too cunning, of course, to specify what descrip- 
 tion of invitation it was. 
 
 " I'll deliver it for you," said Florio, obligingly, 
 " and save you some trouble." 
 
 " Thanks, sir," said the other, " but I must 
 deliver it to the widow in person." 
 
 " Oh, very well," said the poet, " then you had 
 better follow the lane about a quarter of a mile 
 further, until you come to the green door in the 
 hedge on your right hand side. There is a shorter 
 and rougher path over this stile which I always 
 take myself: so here I must bid you good 
 night." 
 
 Just at the stile there happened to be a con- 
 siderable opening in the trees, so that there was 
 no longer anything to intercept the rays of the 
 moon, which shone with her full fair face on Mr. 
 Withering's yellow one, and enabled his com- 
 panion for the first time to see his features 
 distinctly. 
 
 It was impossible to look at Mr. Withering 
 without making a very good guess at his vocation.
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 81 
 
 Florio penetrated his secret with a single glance, 
 and laughing said, with his foot on the stile: 
 
 " I hope, sir, I have not offended you by the 
 freedom of my remarks on the practitioners of 
 the law, for being a little of a physiognomist, I 
 am much mistaken if you are not yourself one of 
 the fraternity." 
 
 Poor Mr. Withering was struck dumb by this 
 shrewd detection of what he would fain have 
 most carefully kept from the stranger's know- 
 ledge, not only because he was plainly one of the 
 widow's faction, but because he was sure to reach 
 the cottage first, and give warning ojf the enemy's 
 approach. 
 
 However, the discovery was made there was 
 no help for it. Florio had jumped across the 
 stile and disappeared, laughing lustily, down a 
 steep bank, while the clerk was meditating what 
 to reply. 
 
 Deeply chagrined at this unlucky incident, and 
 vexed with himself for having been so unguard- 
 edly communicative, Mr. Withering at last 
 reached the door in the hedge, and pulled the
 
 82 CLOVEE COTTAGE; cm, 
 
 wire which he found attached to it, with but faint 
 hopes of receiving an answer. 
 
 The only answer, in truth, was the barking 
 of dogs a noise he particularly disliked and 
 sounds of distant merriment and laughter, the 
 nature and occasion of which it was only too easy 
 to conjecture. 
 
 Mr. "Withering had ample time to study the 
 beauties of the cottage and all about it ; and 
 there was just verdure enough left in his old 
 heart, after thirty years of pettifogging and desk- 
 work, to set it feebly throbbing again, perhaps for 
 the last time, at the mingled aspect of loveliness 
 and comfort which characterised the scene before 
 him. 
 
 The nightingales were singing most musically : 
 the moon was " round as my shield," and Clover 
 never looked so lovely as in the light of a full- 
 moon. One side of the little glen lay deep in 
 the shadow, but the other side and the cottage 
 itself were flooded with the silver rays, so that 
 every beautiful detail was brought out in per- 
 fection, and the thought occurred to Mr. Wither-
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 83 
 
 ing, that occurred to everybody who had ever 
 stood on the same spot, " If this were mine, 
 would I not keep possession of it, if I could, 
 against all the lawyers and claimants in the 
 world ? " 
 
 But the very thought recalled the grave clerk 
 from his momentary sentimental reverie, and he 
 pulled the bell a second time with more vigour 
 than before. 
 
 Again the same distant and inarticulate sounds 
 of barking and laughing were the only response. 
 
 He pulled again, and so energetically that he 
 heard the ringing of the bell itself. Now the 
 laughing became more distinct, and the bell 
 seemed also to have excited the dogs, for they 
 barked with redoubled spirit. 
 
 Presently he could distinguish voices, and that 
 of his late companion among the number, at 
 least he thought so. The voices seemed to be 
 employed in restraining the dogs. 
 
 " Down Lion ! " 
 
 " Don't let Tiger loose." 
 
 " I can't hold him." 
 
 G 2
 
 84 CLOVER COTTAGE ; OR, 
 
 " Down Lion, down Tiger, good Tiger down." 
 The height of the gate and hedge not being 
 sufficient, in Mr. Withering' s opinion, to protect 
 him from these formidable dogs, should they 
 escape from the persons who (to do them justice) 
 seemed trying to control them, he flung his 
 letter into the letter-box attached to the door, 
 and in extreme agitation between anger and 
 alarm retreated expeditiously from before the 
 gates of the fortress.
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 85 
 
 CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 NOCTES CLOVERIAN.E. 
 
 MR. WITHERING intended to return by the way 
 he came, but in his trepidation he made a mistake, 
 and, after wandering about for nearly half-an-hour, 
 he found himself, to his surprise, under the very 
 eaves of the cottage from which he had been re- 
 pulsed; for the rere of Clover looked into one 
 of the labyrinth of lanes amidst which it was 
 situated, and was only separated from the path 
 by a low hedge of privet and sweet-briar. 
 
 Mr. Withering was no eavesdropper, but re- 
 peated peals of merriment drew his attention, 
 and it was impossible to resist taking a pretty 
 long peep at the scene which immediately pre- 
 sented itself to his gaze through the thin white 
 curtains of a parlour, from which the voices and 
 joyous sounds issued. Only for the curtains, he
 
 86 CLOVER COTTAGE ; OR, 
 
 would have had a full view of the jovial party, 
 which the companion of his evening walk was 
 hastening to join; and indeed, notwithstanding 
 the impediment, he was able to distinguish that 
 personage playing a prominent part with his 
 knife and fork, and thought he could even see 
 the roast lamb smoking on the table. 
 
 This happened to be one of the very snuggest 
 of the widow's "Noctes Cloverianse," as Florio 
 had appropriately named them. It was a party 
 of six. Beside the fair mistress herself, and her 
 Fidelia, there were the Poet, the two Caterans, 
 husband and wife, birds of Mrs. "VVily's own 
 feather ; and a well-fed gentleman in black, 
 probably the rector or vicar of the parish, so 
 that the pastoral interest was doubly repre- 
 sented. Two well-attired and neat-handed 
 maidens were acting as Hebe and Ganymede 
 to the worshipful company; one handing the 
 well-filled plates, the other crowning the glasses 
 or goblets with a variety of bright and exhilara- 
 ting beverages. Coursing each other round the 
 board, and caressed by everybody in turn, were
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 87 
 
 two small dogs, one a little spaniel, and the 
 other a Skye terrier: could these be the Lion 
 and Tiger which had shaken poor Mr. "Wither- 
 ing's nerves so grievously ? There was but too 
 much reason to think so ; though it might have 
 been open to doubt whether those were their 
 proper names, or only soubriquets given them on 
 the spur of the moment. The widow herself 
 was easily distinguished by the gaiety of her 
 mourning, the coquetry of her cap, the vivacity 
 of her manners, and the roguish sparkling of her 
 eyes, which attracted and fascinated Mr. Wither- 
 ing even through all the folds of the white muslin. 
 She had something in her hand, which at first he 
 took for a handkerchief or napldn, but, in fact, it 
 was Mr. Blunt's, or rather his clerk's letter, 
 which she was reading in the most humorous 
 manner, making her guests shake with laughing, 
 instead of throwing them into consternation, and 
 depriving them of their appetites. The letter 
 was then handed successively to the Poet and 
 Mr. Cateran, who seemed to comment on it in 
 turn, each, no doubt, in his own peculiar vein of
 
 88 CLOVER COTTAGE; OK, 
 
 pleasantry, for the mirth increased every moment. 
 Then Mopsa was seen bustling round the board, 
 filling the glasses of the revellers to the brim 
 with some bright liquor or another, and the 
 Friar Tuck of the gang (if, indeed, the gentle- 
 man in black was of the clerical profession) rose 
 and proposed a toast, probably the health of the 
 buxom hostess herself, for she seemed agitated 
 with joyous emotions, which communicated 
 themselves even to her ribbons and muslins, 
 and made her appear to quiver all over with 
 social glee. Then Mrs. Wily was unanimously 
 solicited to sing; the Poet being the most 
 zealous and eloquent of the petitioners. She 
 did sing, and though Mr. Withering did not 
 very distinctly hear the words of the melody, 
 which was " They may rail at this earth," he 
 was so bewitched by the performance, that he 
 was very near expressing his raptures aloud, and 
 discovering himself to the party. Indeed, he 
 now thought that he had been playing Paul Pry 
 a little too long, particularly as the night was 
 rapidly advancing, and he was accordingly on the
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 89 
 
 point of going his way, when the sonorous but 
 sweet voice of his friend Florio arrested his 
 attention, and he felt an irresistible curiosity 
 to hear the song of that rather loose-principled 
 gentleman before he took his leave. In conse- 
 quence of the remarkable distinctness of the 
 Poet's utterance, Mr. Withering was able to 
 catch almost every word of the ballad, or 
 whatever it was, which he favoured the company 
 with, and which was no doubt written by him 
 expressly for the occasion. The reader will 
 easily conceive how much such a strain as the 
 following must have added to the shock which 
 Florio's conversation had already given to 
 Mr. Withering's legal morality. 
 
 A SONG OF POSSESSION. 
 
 i. 
 
 Dull questions of Title let lawyers discuss, 
 The blissful Possession's sufficient for us, 
 The Power to enjoy is worth all other Powers, 
 No Property surely is Real but ours. 
 
 ir. 
 
 Yes, ours are the joys of the hearths and the homes, 
 While Title in pride and in poverty roams ;
 
 90 CLOVER COTTAGE ; OR, 
 
 Our chairs in a circle we cosily draw, 
 
 And drink merry healths to the Owner in Law. 
 
 nr. 
 
 Nine Muses of old did the poets inflame, 
 For us our Nine cardinal points do the same ; 
 Our Nine we have still better cause to admire, 
 Who keep us at once both in food and in fire. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Does the carolling bird, or the murmuring bee, 
 Care who is the owner in Tail, or in Fee. 
 The bees and the birds, like ourselves, have no brain 
 For dry legal quibbles and points of chicane. 
 
 v. 
 
 Those sticklers for Rights, who Possession disturb, 
 Some law ought to punish, some statute should curb ; 
 This life is too short to be spent in the brawls 
 Of your Lincoln's Inns and your Westminster Halls. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Estates are like rose-trees, and carry like them, 
 Together both roses and thorns on their stem ; 
 Possession's the rose which your bosom adorns, 
 You care not who plucks or Possesses the thorns.
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 91 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE WIDOW FILES HER ANSWER TO THE 
 ATTORNEY'S BILL. 
 
 NEXT morning, Mr. Blunt was alternately irri- 
 tated and diverted by the report of Mr. Witliering's 
 proceedings and adventures. Mr. Withering 
 related all the events of the evening, with 
 the minutest circumstantiality, dwelling parti- 
 cularly upon the festivities he had witnessed, 
 and the unprincipled ballad which he had heard 
 sung. 
 
 " However," said the attorney, " I am glad 
 you delivered the letter at all events. The 
 defendant's answer will be a guide to us. I 
 doubt if the widow found it as amusing this 
 morning at breakfast as she did last night at 
 supper."
 
 92 CLOVER COTTAGE ; OE, 
 
 "It will make her uncomfortable, sir," said 
 Mr. Withering, " depend upon it." 
 
 " What kind of a place is this Clover Cottage, 
 Mr. Withering ? " 
 
 "I'm greatly mistaken, sir," answered the 
 clerk in professional language, "if the case of 
 Windfall versus Wily, widow, will not be a very 
 long time in the office." 
 
 "We shall see," said the honest attorney. He 
 expected the widow's answer the following day, 
 hut no answer came ; nor the following day ; nor 
 the day after that again. Mr. Blunt grew daily 
 warmer, warmer, and warmer in his client's 
 cause. 
 
 The repeated daily calls, too, of poor Mr. Wind- 
 fall increased his provocation. The plaintiff was 
 even a greater bore than the defendant. He was 
 always stumping in with his gold-headed cane, to 
 ask if there was an answer yet from the widow, and 
 as he had resumed his " wide-awake," and some- 
 times even appeared of a morning in his new 
 shooting-coat, his visits disturbed the solemn 
 routine of the office, and interfered with the
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 93 
 
 transaction of business. One of the junior clerks, 
 who had a genius for caricaturing, took a capital 
 sketch of Mr. Windfall in his sporting attire, which 
 upset the gravity of Mr. Blunt himself. However, 
 when he ceased laughing, he rehuked the amateur 
 artist, and admonished him not to exercise his 
 talents in future upon his employer's clients. 
 
 Nearly a week elapsed without a word or a 
 sign from the pretty usurper. Another week 
 gained. The summer was going over ; the 
 weather growing hot, and Mr. Blunt getting hot 
 along with it. At length he received the following 
 reply in the informal shape of a lady's triangular 
 note, which made him actually red : 
 
 " MRS. WILY presents her compliments to 
 Mr. Blunt, attorney-at-law, and hegs to acknow- 
 ledge his letter of the 20th inst., the greater part 
 of which she is totally unable to comprehend, 
 not being conversant (happily for herself) in law 
 matters. She is called on to restore Mr. Windfall 
 such a variety of things that she really cannot but 
 suspect Mr. Blunt must be joking in sending her
 
 94 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 such a strange catalogue ; among other things she 
 is required to surrender a forest and a messuage, 
 indeed, several of them ; as to forests, there are 
 none in this part of the country that she has 
 ever heard of; and as to the thing called a 
 messuage, she would feel much obliged to 
 Mr. Blunt to let her know what it is, as a neces- 
 sary preliminary to her restoring it to Mr. Wind- 
 fall, or anybody else. Besides, Mrs. Wily 
 thinks it right to acquaint Mr. Blunt that she 
 is in actual correspondence herself with Mr. 
 Windfall on the subject of his claims to this 
 property, and she can hardly bring herself to 
 believe that gentleman capable, under sucli deli- 
 cate circumstances, of not only directing an 
 attorney to proceed against her, but authorising 
 such an invasion of her privacy as she was 
 subjected to a few evenings since, and which 
 she begs may not be repeated." 
 
 " This is too bad," cried Mr. Blunt, throwing 
 the note vehemently from him after he had read 
 it, and striking the table with his knuckles ; " too
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 95 
 
 bad ! another blot ! and again the widow has 
 hit it ! Why did I not write myself ? Mr. 
 Withering, Mr. Withering oh, Mr. Withering ! " 
 Mr. Withering appeared. 
 "Bead that!" 
 
 " These widows, these widows," muttered poor 
 Mr. Withering to himself as he perused Mrs. 
 Wily's note ; the very shape of which he looked 
 upon as a deliberate insult. 
 
 " I wanted a plain letter, Mr. Withering," said 
 the solicitor with more melancholy in his tone 
 than displeasure ; " there was no occasion for 
 your forests and messuages : see the advantage 
 you have given the enemy !" 
 
 "You did say plain, sir; but you also said 
 formal, and very formal; I followed our best 
 precedents in pari materia" 
 
 " Too bad, too bud ! to be baffled in this way, 
 take care, for your life, not to let the plaintiff 
 see either our letter or the defendant's answer; 
 after the abuse I gave poor Mr. Windfall for 
 Ids production, it would never do to let him see 
 that we have been not much more successful."
 
 96 CLOVER COTTAGE; OE, 
 
 "All the widow wants is time," said the chop- 
 fallen clerk. 
 
 " To be sure, to be sure ; but time is every- 
 thing, the summer is going over and she is 
 enjoying it in my client's house and at his 
 expense. Here is a poor simple gentleman kept 
 out of his cottage and his farm by this audacious 
 little widow; he has invited his friends for the 
 first of September to shoot partridge with him ; 
 he has got a fit of the gout in the cause already ; 
 he is ordered by his doctors to go to the country, 
 and his country-house is shut in his face : there 
 seems, too, to be quite a gang of them; they 
 have got even their Friar Tuck. I won't stand 
 it a day longer this is a case of gross injustice, 
 and I won't submit to it ; I feel, I do by Jupiter, 
 as if I was the plaintiff myself; (except that I 
 hope I am not an ass,) and I'll see him righted, 
 Mr. Withering; no widow shall triumph over 
 me. Pull baker, pull devil ; pull widow, pull 
 attorney; we shall see whether John Blunt, or 
 Simplicia Wily, carries the day." 
 
 "What do you propose doing, sir."
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 97 
 
 " 111 go myself," said Mr. Blunt. 
 
 "Will you excuse my making an humble 
 suggestion, sir," said Mr. Withering. 
 
 " Of course, always glad to have the benefit 
 of your judgment and experience." 
 
 " Then, sir, it occurs to me there is only one 
 way of managing this business satisfactorily, and 
 that is by uniting the two adverse interests : 
 the plaintiff is a bachelor, sir, and the 
 defendant a widow." 
 
 "That's my thunder," cried the attorney. "I 
 threw out the hint to Mr. Robinson : but there's 
 no use in thinking of it, the old fellow is such an 
 inveterate woman-hater, and has got such a 
 mortal dread of widows in particular." 
 
 " He has been used ill by the widows," said 
 the clerk. 
 
 " But how did such a gay notion occur to you, 
 Mr. Withering ? you have been in this office 
 for twenty years, and this is the first bit of 
 romance or sentiment I ever heard from your 
 lips." 
 
 " Leaning, sir, on the gate of Clover Cottage
 
 98 CLOVER COTTAGE J OB, 
 
 that evening, in the moonlight, listening to the 
 nightingales." 
 
 " Upon my word a very likely situation to 
 inspire one with such an idea," said Mr. Blunt 
 with a hearty laugh.
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 99 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 UTTER DARKNESS OF ME. WINDFALL'S PROSPECTS. 
 
 THE prospects of Mr. Windfall were just now 
 very dark indeed, but they were destined to grow 
 darker still, in consequence of the unfortunate 
 incidents which we have now to record. Mrs. 
 Wily was not satisfied with turning Mr. Blunt's 
 flank in the manner described in the last chapter, 
 but she aimed a too successful blow at the 
 entente cordiale subsisting between attorney and 
 client, by the following short note which she 
 addressed to Mr. Windfall, of the same date as 
 her reply to his solicitor. 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR. 
 
 "I have received a very improper com- 
 munication from a gentleman of the name of 
 Mr. Blunt, professing to act upon your behalf. 
 
 H2
 
 100 CLOVER COTTAGE J OR, 
 
 I feel confident you have not authorised a letter 
 of the kind, and I think it right to apprise you 
 of it, that the same impropriety may not be 
 repeated. 
 
 " I remain, my Dear Sir, 
 
 " Yours sincerely, 
 
 "SIMPLICIA WILY." 
 
 Mr. Windfall had felt annoyed for some days 
 at the dry answers which he always got, when he 
 called at Mr. Blunt's office sometimes from 
 the clerks, sometimes from the attorney himself ; 
 so that he was greatly out of humour, and not 
 unprepared to learn that an improper letter had 
 heen sent to the widow, and thought himself 
 called on as a gentleman immediately to disclaim 
 it. Accordingly he sat down and wrote the 
 following short answer. 
 
 " MADAM, 
 
 " You only do me justice in believing me 
 incapable of authorising such a letter as you
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 101 
 
 inform me you have received from Mr. Blunt. 
 I beg most distinctly and entirely to disavow it. 
 " I have the honour, Madam, to remain 
 " Your obedient servant, 
 
 "SOLOMON WINDFALL." 
 
 The widow having received this reply, lost no 
 time in dispatching it to the attorney, with the 
 following few words of her own in the envelope. 
 
 " MRS. WILY encloses Mr. Blunt a letter 
 she has just received from her friend, Mr. Windfall. 
 It will show Mr. B. that she was right in her 
 impression that Mr. W. had not sanctioned' the 
 extraordinary communication of which she has 
 had so much cause to complain." 
 
 Upon receiving this, Mr. Blunt's indignation 
 with his client may be imagined. Without a 
 moment's delay, he wrote to Mr. Windfall as 
 
 follows : 
 
 " SIR, 
 
 "As I find you are not only in personal 
 communication with the lady against whom you
 
 102 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 employed me to act as your solicitor, but that 
 you actually take it upon you to disapprove and 
 disavow my proceedings in your behalf, I have 
 no alternative but to inform you that I will have 
 no more to do with the business of a gentleman 
 capable of such improper and unwarrantable 
 conduct. 
 
 " Your obedient servant, 
 
 "JOHN BLUNT." 
 
 Mr. Windfall was as much astonished and con- 
 founded by this note as if he had not provoked 
 it by his own folly. He went immediately in 
 quest of Mr. Eobinson. 
 
 " Read that ! " he said to his friend, when he 
 found him, throwing down Mr. Blunt' s letter on 
 the table before him, and hardly able to speak 
 with agitation. 
 
 " A pretty kettle of fish," said Robinson, after 
 reading the note. 
 
 " I'll have no more to do with honest 
 attorneys," said Mr. Windfall, with his emphatic 
 thump of the cane.
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 103 
 
 " Solomon, this comes of your foolish meddling. 
 Why can't you keep yourself quiet ? " 
 
 Mr. Robinson took the matter very seriously ; 
 he began now really to fear that September 
 would come without the possession of Clover and 
 the shooting-party. 
 
 " When it was proper for you to write to this 
 crafty widow, it was almost impossible to get you 
 to do it ; and now that, having an attorney, it is 
 positively wrong for you to hold any intercourse 
 with her, you have involved yourself, it seems, 
 in a regular correspondence." 
 
 Mr. Windfall was unable to speak, he was so 
 nervous, and there was so much justice in his 
 friend's reproaches. 
 
 " What could have induced you," pursued the 
 relentless Robinson, " to disclaim anything done, 
 said, or w r ritten by your solicitor ? eh, Solomon, 
 most wise Solomon, answer me that." 
 
 Robinson paused for a reply, and when at 
 length he got it, it sufficed, confused as it was, 
 to show him pretty clearly how matters really 
 stood.
 
 104 CLOVER COTTAGE ; OR, 
 
 " I see how it is the widow set a trap for you, 
 and you tumbled into it head foremost." 
 
 "I did everything, Mr. Robinson, with the 
 best intentions : from the first to the last in this 
 unfortunate business, I have acted with the best 
 and most honourable intentions." 
 
 " You ' meant well,' like Master Slender in the 
 play, so now, my dear friend, I must only do 
 what I can to set matters right ; but Blunt is a 
 man of warm temperament : you have given him 
 just cause of offence, and it may not be very easy 
 to pacify him. However, I'll go to him at once ; 
 there is no time to be lost." 
 
 " Do, Robinson ; do, my dear Robinson." 
 
 " And do you go home, Solomon, and stay as 
 quiet as a mouse. I almost wish you had an- 
 other fit of the gout, and in the hand, to keep 
 you from letter-writing." 
 
 When Mr. Robinson called at Mr. Blunt's 
 office, in less than half-an-hour after this dia- 
 logue, he was informed that the solicitor had 
 gone to the north of England, on business likely 
 to detain him for a month. This was a tre-
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 105 
 
 mendous blow. Mr. Robinson went away, look- 
 ing nearly as rueful as his friend Solomon had 
 looked himself in the gloomiest hours of his long 
 struggle with fortune and the widow.
 
 106 CLOVER COTTAGE; on, 
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 THE OLD CRONIES. 
 
 CLOVER Cottage was now become a standing 
 joke with the majority of Mr. Windfall's friends, 
 particularly those whom he had invited to shoot 
 there with him in September, a period which was 
 now not very remote. Nay, more, more than 
 one of these gentlemen began to suspect that 
 either no such cottage at all existed, or at least 
 that Solomon Windfall had no valid right to it. 
 
 " Where's this Clover ? in what county ? " 
 asked old Jonathan Powderham one day, at 
 "The Old .Cronies," sitting with several more 
 of the Windfall party in a semicircle round the 
 fire. 
 
 "Faith," said Colonel OTrigger, in reply, 
 " I am not particularly well made up in the 
 geography of Air-shire."
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 107 
 
 " There are cottages in the air as well as 
 castles in the air," said Mark Aimwell. 
 
 " Our friend Solomon will hardly be in Clover 
 on the first of September, at all events," said 
 Toby Bagshot. 
 
 " We'll spind the faste of Next-never-corne- 
 tide with him there," said the Irish Colonel 
 he was a Colonel in the Balruddery Militia, 
 M.P. for Botherall, and pretended to be a lineal 
 descendant of the celebrated Sir Lucius, of the 
 same name. 
 
 " I fancy," resumed Jonathan Powderham, 
 " our friend's title is none of the soundest." 
 
 " It stands to reason," said Mr. Bagshot, 
 " that if his right was clear he would have 
 established it before this, particularly with John 
 Blunt for his solicitor. The truth is, I suppose, 
 old Mrs. Silverspoon's will was no will at all ; 
 not properly witnessed, perhaps ; or the old lady 
 was not of sound and disposing mind." 
 
 " Mr. Blunt has thrown the case up," said 
 Mark Aimwell. 
 
 "There it is!" said Bagshot. "Everybody
 
 108 CLOVER COTTAGE ; OE, 
 
 knows Mr. Blunt will have nothing to do with 
 any case that's not strictly honest and honour- 
 able. Solomon Windfall has no more right to 
 the cottage than I have." 
 
 " At all events," said Powderham, " we had all 
 better look out for another engagement for the 
 First of September." 
 
 " I'd invite every mother's son of ye to my 
 bit of a castle on the Shannon," said OTrigger, 
 " only that they sould it upon me the other day 
 in the Incumbered Estates Court, and the divil 
 a bit of it is mine at this moment at all, at all." 
 
 " Why don't you show the Commissioners up 
 in the House, Colonel ? " 
 
 " Och, they never listen to the Irish Mimbers 
 talking," said the Member for Botherall. " We 
 are tired of wasting our sweetness on the desert 
 air; it wouldn't much surprise me, some fine 
 morning, if we were all with one consint to 
 come to a unanimous resolution nem. con. to 
 make our motions and give our votes in indig- 
 nant silence." 
 
 " Move for a return," said Bagshot.
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 109 
 
 " If they would only return me the halls of 
 my forefathers, I'd forgive them," answered the 
 senator; "but to tell you the honest truth, and 
 no lie in it, I don't expect to get into O 'Trigger 
 Castle again until the day that Solomon Windfall 
 gets into Clover Cottage ; so as I see nothing 
 better to do, gintlenien, I'll just accept the invi- 
 tation of my bosom friend, the Earl of Derby, 
 and spind the shooting sayson at his box in 
 Tipperary."
 
 110 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 FAIR FRIENDS AGAIN IN COUNCIL. 
 
 AT Clover itself, after the little stir that Mr. 
 Withering's mission and the attorney's letter 
 made had subsided, the fact of Mr. Windfall's 
 existence seemed almost to have been forgotten. 
 Nothing disturbed the deep tranquillity of that 
 sweet valley but the succession of innocent 
 festivities of which the cottage was the scene, 
 under the auspices of the clever, daring, and 
 successful little widow. Her "noctes" were 
 celebrated with the greatest regularity; the 
 poetical effusions of Florio were becoming so 
 numerous, that he was meditating a publication 
 of them, with the title of Musee Cloverianee, to be 
 dedicated, of course, to the lady whose charms 
 and hospitalities had inspired them. The 
 hampers of fowls and vegetables went up regu-
 
 I CAN'T GET IN. Ill 
 
 larly twice a week to the Caterans in town ; and 
 the most active preparations were on foot to 
 give a suitable reception to the gallant captain 
 and brave lieutenant returning from the Crimea, 
 and no doubt by this time at no great distance 
 from the shores of England. 
 
 Now and then, perhaps, there would come over 
 the mind of the fair widow, like a little cloud 
 over a bright sky, a disturbing thought of the 
 instability of fortune ; or a remark casually met 
 with in a book on the eventual though tardy 
 triumph of honesty over fraud, would ruffle for 
 a few minutes her sweet serenity. She would 
 sometimes dream of John Thrustout, in the 
 person of a gouty old gentleman in a wide- 
 awake, with a gun on his shoulder. Sometimes 
 a stranger, perhaps a passing tourist, pausing 
 on the brow of the hill to regale his eye with 
 the prospect, would fright the household from 
 their propriety, and Mopsa would fly to the 
 green door, to secure it against an expected 
 invasion. Sometimes Fidelia would suddenly 
 see, as it were, the apparition of Mr. Windfall,
 
 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 or the " reversioner," as Mr. Cateran had nick- 
 named him, and give her friend a momentary 
 shock by mentioning him apropos of something 
 or nothing. 
 
 One morning, for instance, while Fidelia was 
 gathering flowers to fill the vases in the drawing- 
 room, she had Mr. Windfall before her eyes the 
 whole time ; she could not cease thinking of 
 him ; and as this led to a curious and important 
 dialogue between the widow and her friend, we 
 think it right to relate what passed. 
 
 " Only think of that dry, inveterate old bache- 
 lor," murmured Fidelia to herself, " calling this 
 lovely garden his own, and all these roses and 
 pinks. I dare say he cares no more for flowers 
 than I do for guns and pistols ; probably he 
 will have them all rooted up, and cabbages and 
 onions planted in their stead." 
 
 " Who, my dear ? " asked Mrs. Wily, who 
 was seated at a little distance, under an acacia, 
 with the Skye terrier crouching at her feet, half 
 hid under her petticoats. 
 
 " Oh, I'm thinking of that tiresome, trouble-
 
 Payt 113.
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 113 
 
 some, encroaching, old Mr. Windfall. The 
 notion of his supplanting you in a dear place 
 like this, which seems just made for a sweet 
 nice creature like you, and would be quite thrown 
 away upon him, provokes me more than I can 
 tell, whenever I think of it." 
 
 " Then don't think of it, Fidelia, love," said 
 the widow. 
 
 " Sometimes I cannot help it, Simplicia ; I 
 have not my thoughts under such control as you 
 have ; when there is a disagreeable thing to 
 think of, I must think of it at least to-day I 
 can't think of anything else. I have his ugly 
 face always before me." 
 
 " How curious you should always call him 
 old and ugly," said the widow, " when he is 
 neither the one nor the other ; at least neither 
 very old nor very ugly. That's his picture, you 
 know, in the spare bed-room. It was done for 
 his godmother not more than four years hence, 
 and really it is the picture of a tolerably good- 
 looking man." 
 
 " I declare, Simplicia, I do think you are the 
 
 i
 
 114 CLOVER COTTAGE; OK, 
 
 strangest creature in the world," said Fidelia, 
 approaching with her hands full of flowers, and 
 sitting down at the widow's side under the 
 acacia : " and if you have a fault, it is that you 
 are a great deal too amiable. You seem to take 
 a particular pleasure in saying kind and good- 
 natured things of Mr. Windfall, and he I might 
 almost say, your natural enemy." 
 
 Mrs. Wily smiled benevolently, and, almost in 
 a devout tone, hoped she had not an enemy in 
 the world. 
 
 "I admit," she said, after a moment's pause, 
 " that Mr. Windfall was a little troublesome 
 lately ; but he is acting extremely well at 
 present, and has no notion, I am certain, of mo- 
 lesting me, at least until the end of the autumn. 
 But now, my love, let us change the subject, if 
 you please, and talk of our grand fete for the 
 First of September." 
 
 " Do let me say one word more, Sirnplicia." 
 
 "Well, Fidelia?" 
 
 " I wish your brother-in-law, Mr. Cateran, 
 would not joke as he sometimes does about you
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 115 
 
 marrying Mr. Windfall. It makes me quite 
 uncomfortable. Shocking as it would be to see 
 him in possession of Clover, it would be infinitely 
 worse (at least to me) to see him in possession of 
 you, my dear." 
 
 " You foolish thing," said the widow, " to mind 
 anything Tom Cateran says." 
 
 " I hope he is only joking, I'm sure ; but it 
 provokes me, my love, and I can perceive it 
 annoys somebody else still more." 
 
 " Who ? Florio ? " 
 
 " Yes, I do mean Florio." 
 
 " And what signifies it whether it annoys him 
 or not ? " 
 
 " Well, I am sure, my dear, if you were to marry 
 again, which I hope you will some time or another, 
 I should a thousand times rather see you married 
 to Florio than to Mr. Windfall." 
 
 " Marry a poet ! " exclaimed Mrs. Wily, with 
 all her charming shrewdness flashing from both 
 her eyes ; " but really, Fidelia, I don't see why 
 I should marry either one or the other, and now 
 I must fly, for the sun is getting too hot." 
 
 12
 
 116 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 Mrs. Wily rose so ' abruptly that it really 
 seemed as if she did not wish to continue the 
 conversation longer, after the matrimonial turn 
 it had taken ; and her friend remained in the 
 garden arranging her flowers, and beginning for 
 the first time to suspect that the idea of a match 
 with the proprietor of Clover was by no means 
 the most disagreeable one that had ever been 
 presented to the widow's mind.
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 117 
 
 CHAPTEK XVII. 
 
 MR. WINDFALL'S FORTUNE BEGINS TO SMILE. 
 
 IT is a " wise saw " supported by a great many 
 " modern instances," as well as ancient, that when 
 things come to the worst they mend; a truth 
 which is sometimes figuratively expressed by the 
 remark, that the darkest moment of the night is 
 that which immediately precedes the first rosy 
 streak of dawn. 
 
 The Windfall case now looks as gloomy as ever 
 a case looked. He is not only deserted by his 
 attorney, but seems to be abandoned by justice 
 herself. "Be just and fear not" is to him a 
 poetical illusion. That "honesty is the best 
 policy," he is prepared to deny on the authority 
 of his own melancholy experience. In vain he 
 calls his own his own. In vain for him the law 
 proclaims that every wrong has its remedy. His
 
 118 CLOVER COTTAGE; OK, 
 
 has none. In vain he appeals to the will of Mrs. 
 Silverspoon. The will of Jupiter seerns to have 
 set it aside as effectually as a judgment of the 
 Prerogative Court. The red republican's defini- 
 tion of property is the only one that meets the 
 case of Clover Cottage. 
 
 " Qu'est-ce que c'est que la propriete ? " 
 
 " C'est un vol." 
 
 We have already seen with regret how well 
 disposed all the poor gentleman's friends at the 
 Old Cronies are to forsake him in his adversity ; 
 to call the righteousness of his cause nay, the 
 very existence of the subject-matter of it into 
 question. It is with still greater pain we have 
 now to mention that not even Mr. Robinson 
 himself was steady in his affections in this hour 
 of bitterness and trial even the faithful heart 
 of Robinson wavered; he was already thinking 
 of the coming September and its sports with 
 reference to new stubbles, and his spirit, like 
 that of Lycidas, was wandering among " other 
 groves and other streams." 
 
 A curious circumstance, however, recalled his
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 119 
 
 mind to Clover, just when he was on the point of 
 forgetting that such a little paradise had ever 
 bewitched his imagination. Happening one day 
 to be left by his evil genius to his own resources 
 at dinner-time, Mr. Eobinson called upon Mr. 
 Windfall, and prevailed upon him to forget his 
 sorrows for a few hours, and accompany him to 
 the Cock and Pie tavern, a house famed among 
 other things for rabbits smothered in onions a 
 partiality to which dish was, as we have already 
 mentioned, an hereditary weakness in the house 
 of Windfall. There, having previously agreed 
 that the name of Clover was not to be breathed 
 by either of them, they were making themselves 
 as comfortable as it was possible for men to do 
 who have to pay for their dinners, when two 
 young men, in military undress, with exceedingly 
 fierce moustaches, came in and took possession 
 of the box and table just behind them. They 
 were not in the room five minutes before they 
 took pains to let everybody present know that 
 they were just returned from before Sebastopol. 
 Our friends paid them very little attention; they
 
 120 CLOVER COTTAGE; on, 
 
 had some excellent mulligatawny soup before 
 them, and were not to he diverted from it by 
 a pair of self-crowned conquerors, whose laurels 
 had evidently not been purchased with their 
 blood. The young men, however, were talking 
 in a key that made every word they said dis- 
 tinctly audible, particularly by persons only 
 separated from them by a low partition, and 
 who were speaking in the subdued tone that 
 so well harmonised with Mr. Windfall's dejected 
 spirits. For some time the conversation of the 
 young officers was totally devoid of interest, 
 except to themselves ; but all of a sudden it 
 took a turn which attracted the attention of 
 their next neighbours, and before long made 
 Mr. Windfall drop his fork which he had just 
 stuck into the leg of a boiled rabbit. 
 
 " If this weather lasts, Dove," said one to the 
 other, "we shall have a glorious First of Septem- 
 ber at Clover." 
 
 " Do you hear that, Robinson ? " Robinson 
 with a frown and a shake of his head desired Mr. 
 Windfall to keep himself quiet.
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 121 
 
 " This day week, Shunfield, my boy, we shall 
 be popping at the partridges', instead of shooting 
 the Cossacks." 
 
 " Clover is a delightful spot, by all accounts." 
 
 " I believe so : my sister finds it extremely 
 comfortable, and if she takes my advice, she will 
 settle there permanently." 
 
 " Will she indeed ! permanently will she ?" 
 
 " Hush, Solomon, hush not a word out of 
 your lips." 
 
 " Is Clover absolutely her own ? " 
 
 " Let us hear the answer to that now ? " 
 whispered Mr. Robinson. 
 
 " Not strictly, I believe ; but possession, you 
 know, is nine points of law. There is a gentle- 
 man of the name of Windham, or Windfall, 
 who pretends to have some title to the pro- 
 perty." 
 
 ''Pretends! Robinson do you hear? pre- 
 tends ! flesh and blood can't " 
 
 Robinson held him down, or he would have 
 jumped up, and flung defiance at the Crimean 
 heroes.
 
 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 "I heard something about this Mr. Windfall 
 from Tom Cateran, who knows him." 
 
 " Now we shall hear what your friend Cateran 
 says of you," said Mr. Robinson. 
 
 " Tom tells me, he is a gouty, selfish, old 
 Sybarite, immensely rich, too rich to live in a 
 cottage, or trouble himself about the odds and 
 ends of his enormous property." 
 
 "The rascal! the rascal!" murmured poor 
 Solomon, bitterly, "too rich to live in a cottage 
 the rascal ! " 
 
 " I don't know," said Captain Dove, " but my 
 sister gives a very different account of him." 
 
 There was no occasion to keep Mr. Windfall 
 still; his curiosity to hear his own character 
 sketched by Mrs. Wily was strong enough for the 
 purpose. 
 
 " She has frequently mentioned him in her 
 letters to the Crimea, and always with respect, 
 indeed with affection ; he seems to have made a 
 favourable impression on her by his gentleman- 
 like and handsome conduct with respect to the 
 cottage : only think, he actually quarrelled with
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 123 
 
 his lawyers for urging him to eject her ; and, in 
 fact, whatever his rights may be, he has never 
 shown the least disposition to enforce them in 
 any manner inconvenient or unpleasant to my 
 sister." 
 
 " Come, Solomon, there's compensation for 
 you there is good in that clever little widow 
 after all, but hush !" 
 
 "Oh, then," said Lieutenant Shunfield, "he 
 must be a fine old cock, this Mr. Windfall, and 
 an honour to human nature; let us drink his 
 health ! " 
 
 " With all my heart," said the captain, filling 
 his glass, " Mr. Windfall's health ! " 
 
 " Now let us pay our bill and go to the Hay- 
 market." 
 
 As the young officers, in going out, passed the 
 box where Mr. Windfall and his friend were 
 seated, the former could not refrain from rising 
 and bowing to them ; a civility, however, which 
 they fortunately attributed to his recognition of 
 their claims to universal homage, on the score of 
 their recent services in the East. They returned
 
 124 CLOVER COTTAGE ; OR, 
 
 the worthy gentleman's salute with a dignity that 
 showed how worthy they felt themselves of every 
 possible distinction, and having twisted their 
 moustaches, and lighted their cigars, they strode 
 out of the Cock and Pie. 
 
 " Now I have got something to build on," cried 
 Mr. Robinson, slapping the table. 
 
 "I am quite bewildered," said Solomon. 
 
 " Go home and go to bed," said the other, 
 " I am greatly mistaken if I have not a plan 
 prepared against to-morrow morning that will 
 bring the great Clover question to a speedy and 
 satisfactory issue. Do you go to bed and leave 
 the rest to me."
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 125 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 MR. WINDFALL'S FRIENDS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 MR. ROBINSON having parted with his com- 
 panion, went straight to the Old Cronies, where 
 he knew very well he would be sure to find all 
 Mr. Windfall's shooting party assembled on that 
 particular evening. 
 
 " In the multitude of counsellors there is 
 safety," said Robinson to himself: "a saying of 
 a wiser Solomon than my poor friend Windfall." 
 
 The counsellors in requisition were all in their 
 usual haunt, even Colonel O'Triggcr himself, 
 notwithstanding the engagement to his friend 
 the Earl of Derby. 
 
 " What's in the wind now ? " cried old Jonathan 
 Powderham, seeing the brow of Robinson preg- 
 nant with momentous matters.
 
 126 CLOVEE COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 " Windfall's in the wind," said Kobinson, 
 nodding to the semicircle. 
 They all laughed. 
 
 " Clover's in the wind," continued Robinson. 
 The Cronies all laughed again. 
 "We have given up Clover long ago," said 
 Mark Aimwell. 
 
 " Forgotten all about it," said Bagshot. 
 " I'm off to my noble friend's sate in the morn- 
 ing," said the Colonel of the Balruddery Militia. 
 "No, you are not, Colonel!" said Robinson. 
 "Not!" exclaimed the Colonel indignantly. 
 " No," said Robinson ; " for I presume you are 
 too polite to accept a gentleman's invitation and 
 break your engagement. You are all engaged, 
 like myself, to Solomon Windfall, to shoot 
 partridge at Clover Cottage on the First of 
 September." 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! ha !" laughed Jonathan Powderham. 
 " He ! he ! he !" laughed Mark Aimwell. 
 "Hi! hi! hi!" laughed Toby Bagshot. 
 " Ho ! ho ! ho ! " roared Colonel O' Trigger, and 
 another " ho ! ho ! ho ! " proceeded from a new
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 127 
 
 arrival, no other than Mr. Blunt, who had only 
 that very day returned from the north. 
 
 " When you have all done laughing," said Mr. 
 Robinson calmly, "we will proceed to business." 
 
 "How is your poor friend," said Mr. Blunt; 
 " I really sincerely pity him, although he treated 
 me as ill as I was ever treated by a client." 
 
 "Well enough in bodily health," said Robinson, 
 " low enough, of course, in spirits." 
 
 "Who can administer to a mind disaised?" 
 cried the Colonel. 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " said Powderham. 
 
 " The victim of a monomania," said Aimwell. 
 
 " I was talking this morning," said Mr. Bagshot, 
 " to a mad doctor, and he said he considered Mr. 
 Windfall's case a very peculiar one. It seems 
 when men go mad on the subject of property, 
 they generally imagine themselves possessed of 
 palaces or castles ; never of anything so humble 
 as a cottage." 
 
 " Curious," said Jonathan Powderham. 
 
 " Natural," said another. 
 
 " But that poor Mr. Windfall's is a case of
 
 128 CLOVER COTTAGE J OR, 
 
 lunacy, there can be no possible doubt," said a 
 third. 
 
 "However, gentlemen," said Mr. Blunt; "since 
 Mr. Robinson seems to have got something to 
 say, we ought to hear him." 
 
 " Hear him ! hear him ! " cried the Irish M.P. 
 
 " Let us hear him, of course," cried everybody. 
 
 Mr. Robinson then related in full detail the 
 scene at the Cock and Pie, and the extra- 
 ordinary conversation he and Mr. Windfall had 
 unintentionally overheard there between the two 
 officers returned on " urgent private affairs" from 
 the Crimea. 
 
 The circle was highly diverted, but nobody 
 could conjecture what practical purpose the inci- 
 dent could be turned to. 
 
 " You see, gentlemen," said Robinson, " the 
 Widow Wily is going to have her festive meet- 
 ing on the First of September." 
 
 " That's plain enough. I only wish we were 
 all invited ; " said several of the company. 
 
 " I have a mind to invite my own self," said 
 the Colonel.
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 129 
 
 " Go on, Robinson," said Mr. Blunt, " go on 
 with your statement. What's your plan ? " 
 
 " What I propose is to go down in a body to 
 Clover on the same day, Mr. Windfall and all 
 of us, with our guns in our hands ; invite our- 
 selves to the widow's feast, and then and there 
 put our worthy friend in possession of his right- 
 ful property." 
 
 " By Jupiter ! " cried Mr. Blunt, " there's a 
 great deal of sense in that." 
 
 " By St. Patrick, Robinson, you are no fool," 
 said the Colonel. 
 
 " Two shooting parties," said Mark Aimwell, 
 timidly, " I don't like that idea exactly: sup- 
 pose a hostile collision ! " 
 
 " And two Crimean officers on the other side ! " 
 said Jonathan Powderham, who was not much 
 stouter than Mark Aimwell, notwithstanding that 
 his name smelled of sulphur and nitre. 
 
 " Never mind the Crimean officers," said 
 Robinson ; " I'll answer for it they have more 
 appetite for shooting partridges than shooting 
 their fellow-creatures. Colonel O'Trigger would
 
 130 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 rout a regiment of such heroes as Captain Dove 
 and Lieutenant Shunfield." 
 
 " At the same time," said Mr. Blunt, " if the 
 scheme is to be acted on at all, it must be 
 managed in perfect good-humour, more like a 
 scene in a little comedy, than an actual ejectment 
 by main force." 
 
 " I have no objection to offer," said Mr. Aim- 
 well, " to the plan, as modified by Mr. Blunt." 
 
 " Nor I," said Toby Bagshot. 
 
 " Nor I," said Mr. Powderham. 
 
 " Lave it to me," said Colonel O'Trigger, 
 " although as a gentleman and an Irishman, I 
 would naturally prefer shooting the gallant Cap- 
 tain Dove and his comrade to any other way of 
 settling the business ; yet as we live in civilised 
 times, and there's a lady in the case, we must 
 keep our timpers, and be gentle as lambs, though 
 as resolute as lions. I see the way before me 
 as clearly as if it was the Hill of Howth. We'll 
 all go down, as Jack Robinson proposes, with 
 our guns and other accoutrements ; we will then 
 manoeuvre about the fields, avoiding the foe, just
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 131 
 
 as the Crimean officers did the Eooshians, and 
 take our divarsion until we hear the dinner-bell 
 at the cottage ringing ; upon which Mr. Windfall 
 will take the lead, and under his gallant conduct 
 we will invade the premises, just as if we were 
 all formally invited to dinner ; Mr. Windfall will 
 introduce himself politely to the widow, and tell 
 her that he and his friends have dropped in to 
 take pot-luck with her." 
 
 Here Mr. Blunt broke in with animation : 
 " One word," he cried, " apropos of pot-luck. 
 Among the Clover papers in my possession at 
 this moment is a letter, written by Mrs. Wily 
 to Mr. Windfall, early in the proceedings, in 
 which letter she actually gives him a general 
 invitation to the Cottage, and not only offers 
 him pot-luck, but a shake-down, gentlemen," 
 and he thumped the table with emphasis. 
 
 " Capital ! better and better," cried Colonel 
 O'Trigger. " We have the whole plan now 
 completely organised : a shake-down after the 
 pot-luck We'll sleep as well as dine in Clover ; 
 and if our friend Mr. Windfall, being once in, 
 
 K 2
 
 132 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 ever suffers himself to be put out, he doesn't 
 desarve that half-a-dozen good fellows should 
 be after taking so much pains to sarve him." 
 
 " And more," said Mr. Blunt, " and it is a 
 point which I wonder the Colonel, being an 
 Irishman, has overlooked ; I say, if he turns the 
 widow out he will show himself unworthy of our 
 friendship, and we'll leave him to himself in the 
 next scrape he gets into." 
 
 "Marrying the widow I took to be a matter 
 of coorse," said the Colonel, " and that was just 
 the rayson I said nothing about it." 
 
 " A very good reason it was," said Mr. Blunt. 
 " And now, gentlemen, I think we ought to give 
 Mr. Robinson and the Colonel a good supper, 
 in testimony of our approval of the excellence of 
 their advice in a matter which, I frankly admit, 
 completely baffled my professional skill, while 
 I acted as Mr. Windfall's solicitor." 
 
 " A widow was too much for an attorney, no 
 great wonder in that," said Toby Bagshot. 
 
 " There's not a subtler animal in the field 
 than a pretty little thorough-bred English
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 133 
 
 widow," said the Colonel ; " and as to the 
 supper, gentlemen, I beg on my own hehalf, as 
 well as that of my honourable friend Mr. 
 Robinson, to accept it in the handsomest 
 manner. We'll drink to both the young widow 
 and the old bachelor, not forgetting a bumper 
 to our success on the First of September."
 
 134 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE CRISIS APPROACHES. 
 
 WHEN the First of September arrived it was 
 a day worthy of the events that were destined 
 to make it for ever memorable in the domestic 
 annals of Clover. The interval that elapsed 
 since the occurrences mentioned in the last 
 chapter had been turned to the best account. 
 Mr. Windfall underwent prodigious drilling at 
 the hands of Mr. Robinson, Mr. Blunt, and 
 Colonel O'Trigger, to make him perfect in the 
 delicate part he had to perform ; and those 
 judicious gentlemen, well knowing that boldness 
 is the best element of success, took care to 
 imbue the mind of their pupil with a degree 
 of confidence in himself which seemed actually 
 to add several inches to his stature, and subtract 
 the same number of years from his age. Arrayed
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 135 
 
 in full sporting costume, his double-barrelled 
 gun on his shoulder, and his " wide-awake " 
 prudently retrenched a little in the brim, so as 
 no longer to tempt a caricaturist, Solomon 
 Windfall presented a picture which equally 
 surprised and gratified his brethren in arms. 
 He really looked a not ill-chosen leader for as 
 comely a knot of elderly sportsmen as ever 
 sallied out of London on a splendid autumnal 
 morning, to make the fields and woodlands ring 
 with the sharp reports of their fowling-pieces. 
 The bluff, hearty, vigorous Mr. Blunt, the erect 
 and soldierly Jonathan Powderham, the stout- 
 built and well-fed Robinson, the slight but 
 active and elastic Aimwell, the burly Bagshot, 
 and, though last not least, the tall and strapping 
 descendant of Sir Lucius O' Trigger. 
 
 They had sent down their dogs the evening 
 before to the Wild-Goose Inn, about a mile from 
 Clover, and there also they had ordered a sub- 
 stantial breakfast to be ready for them at the 
 reasonably early hour of ten o'clock. Strict 
 directions had also been given to the servants
 
 136 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 not to breathe Mr. Windfall's name, lest by chance 
 it should reach the cottage, and put the hostile 
 garrison 011 the alert. 
 
 Never had a substantial breakfast better justice 
 done to it. Hams disappeared, sirloins vanished, 
 eggs came and went in dozens, loaves in baskets, 
 and cream in floods, so high were the spirits of 
 the party, and their appetites, in consequence, so 
 keen, independently of the effects of the transition 
 from the smoky atmosphere of the metropolis to 
 the pure air of the fields and groves. 
 
 But, notwithstanding the excellence of the 
 breakfast, it was no sooner over than Mr. Blunt, 
 being by virtue of his profession the most provi- 
 dent and circumspect of the band, mooted the 
 serious question, whether their well-concerted 
 scheme might not after all break down in a 
 momentous particular, should it turn out that 
 the dinner at the cottage was unequal to the 
 additional strain upon it resulting from the 
 addition of half-a-dozen unexpected guests to the 
 widow's party. 
 
 This point was no sooner started, than they
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 137 
 
 all sat down again to discuss it with a gravity 
 suited to its importance. 
 
 Mr. Windfall said he had very little appre- 
 hension on the subject, from all he had ever 
 heard of the freedoms taken by the inhabitants 
 of Clover with his rabbits and poultry, and the 
 produce of his farm in general. 
 
 Toby Bagshot, one of the mightiest of men 
 with his knife and fork, was of opinion that 
 " nothing ought to be left to chance." 
 
 " Bagshot is right," said Mr. Robinson. 
 
 " Well, Blunt, what do you propose ? " said 
 Mark Aimwell. 
 
 " We must send a spy into the camp," said the 
 attorney, " and I would recommend for the service 
 either Robinson or Bagshot ; no man understands 
 the quality of a dinner better than Jack, and as a 
 judge of quantity no man living can compete with 
 my friend Toby." 
 
 " Let Bagshot go," shouted the whole party. 
 " Quantity before quality under existing cir- 
 cumstances." 
 
 Toby lost no time, but instantly changed his
 
 138 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 shooting dress for an ordinary suit, and set out 
 on his expedition. 
 
 It was short and successful. He had the good 
 luck to fall in with the poet on his way to the 
 Clover festivities, and received from him an 
 actual copy of the bill of fare, which being now 
 produced and read to the company left not a 
 shade of doubt on the mind of any one as to the 
 ample sufficiency of the entertainment. Mr. 
 Windfall therefore immediately headed his little 
 band of Spartans, and they struck boldly into the 
 fields, at the same time discreetly avoiding the 
 line of march which they had learned from 
 another scout that Mrs. Wily's forces had already 
 taken. 
 
 The shooting of that day was not very 
 creditable on the whole to the " Old Cronies." 
 Mr. Blunt brought down three brace of birds; 
 Jonathan Powderham two and a half; Bagshot 
 bagged only one brace and a couple of hares ; 
 O'Trigger massacred a family of rabbits ; Robinson 
 and Mark Aimwell did hardly anything. The 
 most successful gun of all was Mr. Windfall's;
 
 Page 139.
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 139 
 
 lie slew as many partridge as Mr. Blunt, as many 
 hares as Bagshot. and as many rabbits as the 
 Colonel; but the truth was, there was a tacit 
 agreement among his friends to give him the 
 best of the day's sport, in order to keep him well 
 up for the business of the evening. 
 
 Among other particulars, gleaned from Florio 
 by Mr. Bagshot, was the exact dinner hour at 
 the Cottage ; this enabled the party to time 
 their . movements, and shape their course with 
 such nicety, that precisely as the dinner bell 
 rang, Mr. Windfall and his friends arrived at the 
 little green door in the hedge ; which they 
 fortunately found open, the parson having just 
 entered, and in his hurry to the banquet, forgotten 
 to close it behind him. 
 
 The party advanced in the following order : 
 Mr. Windfall in the van, looking positively young 
 and handsome, for air and exercise had given 
 him the glow of perfect health; and his spirits 
 (excited no less by his success as a sportsman, 
 than by his feelings as the lord of the soil he 
 trod on) were as buoyant as those of a young
 
 140 CLOVER COTTAGE ; OR, 
 
 bridegroom. Next to Mr. Windfall came Mr. 
 Robinson and Mr. Blunt, marching side by side. 
 Then Colonel OTrigger alone in his glory. 
 After the Colonel followed Jonathan Powderham 
 and Toby Bagshot, as hungry as a brace of 
 hawks, and thinking more of their dinners than 
 of their friend Solomon's rights. Mark Aimwell 
 brought up the rere, chagrined at his bad 
 shooting, and railing alternately at the wildness 
 of the partridge and the defects of his gun.
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 141 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE WAR ENDS IN A DRAWN BATTLE. 
 
 THE vigilant and affectionate Fidelia was the 
 first to discover the invaders. Mrs. Wily was 
 just in the act of marshalling her guests for 
 dinner, when Fidelia rushed in, exclaiming 
 
 " Simplicia, Simplicia ! Mr. Windfall, Mr. 
 Solomon Windfall ! " 
 
 " Mr. Windfall ! " repeated the widow, in 
 extreme surprise ; " but you must be mistaken, 
 my dear. I am sure you are." 
 
 "If it is not Mr. Windfall himself," said 
 Fidelia, " it is assuredly his ghost ; or the 
 picture in the spare bed-room has walked out 
 of its frame." 
 
 The poet ridiculed the notion of Mr. Wind- 
 fall making his appearance at Clover, of all 
 places in the world.
 
 142 CLOVER COTTAGE; OB, 
 
 So did the Parson. 
 
 So did the Caterans. 
 
 So did Captain Dove and Lieutenant Shunfield. 
 . So did everybody. 
 
 While they were all laughing at the notion of 
 such an improbability, Mr. Windfall entered 
 (considerably in front of his friends), and ad- 
 vancing courteously, with a radiant countenance 
 and a graceful bow, to the astonished widow, 
 introduced himself in a neat little prepared 
 speech (the composition of Colonel O'Trigger), 
 the peroration .of which was that he had " too 
 long postponed the pleasure of accepting Mrs. 
 Wily's hospitable offer of pot-luck and a shake- 
 down at Clover." 
 
 The widow now displayed all the proverbial 
 tact and adroitness of her sex in quickly adapting 
 themselves to any emergency, no matter how 
 difficult and unexpected. Recovering her com- 
 posure almost as soon as she had lost it, Mrs. 
 Wily could hardly have welcomed her formidable 
 guest more graciously, with more agreeable 
 smiles, or in more hospitable tones, if she had
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 143 
 
 specially invited and been prepared to receive 
 him. 
 
 Mr. Windfall then apologised briefly and 
 slightly for the long train of friends he had 
 brought with him ; and certainly, as they filed 
 in, one after the other, and made their obeisances 
 
 to Mrs. Wily in succession, until she thought 
 
 
 there was no end of them, it was enough to 
 
 disturb the self-possession of the best-tempered 
 matron who ever sat at the head of a table. 
 Indeed nothing but the consciousness that her 
 dinner was of a nature to stand the shock of such 
 a host of unlooked-for guests could have enabled 
 her to preserve her equanimity under circum- 
 stances so trying. 
 
 Mr. Windfall took very little notice, and that 
 rather contemptuous, of Mr. Cateran ; but when 
 Captain Dove was presented to him, he shook 
 him cordially by the hand, and congratulated him 
 on his safe return from fighting the battles of 
 his country. Captain Dove immediately recog- 
 nised the gentleman who had saluted him at the 
 Cock and Pie, and begged in his turn to present
 
 144 CLOVER COTTAGE ; OE, 
 
 his brother in arms, Lieutenant Shunfield, to 
 whom also Mr. Windfall was exceedingly civil, 
 recollecting in what handsome terms the Lieu- 
 tenant had proposed his health. 
 
 There seemed no end to introductions and 
 presentations. The poet and the parson were 
 particularly anxious to be made known to Mr. 
 Windfall. The widow thoroughly understood the 
 interested motives that actuated those gentlemen, 
 but prudently kept to herself the opinion she 
 privately entertained of their time-serving con- 
 duct, and eagerness to worship the rising sun. 
 
 Toby Bagshot now got impatient for dinner, 
 and poking Mr. Windfall in the ribs, desired him 
 in a whisper to pull the bell, and order dinner, as 
 he was now in his own house ; but Solomon was 
 much too urbane to commit such a rudeness, and 
 snubbed Bagshot very decidedly for his unman- 
 nerly hint. Presently, however, came Mopsa, in 
 her holiday gown, and a cap all fluttering with 
 pink ribbons, and proclaimed that dinner was on 
 the board. Mr. Windfall now showed as much 
 promptitude as Mrs. Wily had done before, for
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 145 
 
 although he refused to pull the bell as Mr. Bag- 
 shot had suggested, yet he thought he might 
 now very properly and gracefully assume the 
 place of master of Clover, by presenting his arm 
 to the widow, and leading her to the dining- 
 room. 
 
 Solomon got great credit from his friends for 
 this stroke, which was entirely of his own imagi- 
 ning. It was a silent, and delicate, but at the 
 same time, a most unambiguous announcement 
 that the tables were turned completely upon his 
 fair opponent. 
 
 Mrs. Wily, to do her simple justice, received 
 the blow with the most charming submissiveness. 
 It was evident by the look of calm resignation 
 with which she took her place at the right hand 
 of Mr. Windfall, at the head of the table, that 
 from that moment she struck her colours, and 
 considered herself only a guest in the beautiful 
 cottage which had been so long her own. 
 
 The contest therefore having happily ended 
 almost as soon as it was begun, the united parties 
 spent a most harmonious and delightful evening.
 
 146 CLOVER COTTAGE ; OR, 
 
 Not an unpleasant word was said ; there were no 
 disagreeable and hackneyed jests at the expense 
 of parsons, poets, or attorneys; no allusions to 
 freebooters, which might possibly have hurt the 
 feelings of some of the company ; or to " urgent 
 private affairs," or bloodless laurels, by which 
 others might have been offended. But as to 
 refraining from little pleasantries on the subjects 
 of old bachelors and pretty widows, that of course 
 was impossible ; nobody either refrained himself, 
 or expected others to refrain from those legitimate 
 and irresistible topics. All, however, was in the 
 best humour, if not in the most exquisite taste ; 
 and a case of champagne, which Mr. Windfall had 
 taken the liberty to add to the resources of the 
 widow's cellar, did not seriously diminish the glee 
 of the meeting. 
 
 Mrs. Wily bore herself so admirably in her 
 difficult position, put such an enchanting face on 
 the business, and though deposed, looked so 
 worthy to be the queen of the day, that she won- 
 all hearts as well as fascinated all eyes ; and it 
 was with the greatest reluctance she was at length
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 147 
 
 permitted to withdraw with her small retinue of 
 female friends. 
 
 Then burst forth all the hitherto somewhat 
 subdued hilarity and enthusiasm of the party. 
 Then indeed Eigour was "sent to bed" and "strict 
 age and sour severity " sent after him. 
 
 Mr. Windfall himself, in a speech teeming 
 with fun and gallantry, proposed the health of 
 " The charming tenant in possession." - nine 
 times nine. 
 
 Then Captain Dove rose, and having returned 
 thanks for the compliment paid his sister, asked 
 leave to give 
 
 " The spirited and high-minded proprietor 
 in fee," which was drank with the same accla- 
 mation. 
 
 Thirdly rose the honest attorney, and in a 
 most humorous and hearty strain, called upon 
 the company to join him in what was more a 
 sentiment than a toast, " May the lesser estate 
 merge in the greater, and may the Church 
 speedily unite the conflicting interests !" 
 
 A toast so pointed as this made Mr. Windfall, 
 
 L 2
 
 148 CLOVER COTTAGE ; OR, 
 
 no doubt, very fidgety on his chair ; but he had 
 made up his mind to bear the waggeries of his 
 friends, and he only laughed heartily at the 
 innumerable jokes and pleasantries which every- 
 body in turn fired off at him. 
 
 At last the poet was requested to contribute 
 his share to the mirth, and, as usual, he was not 
 unprepared to comply, for he had long since, in 
 shrewd expectation of such a crisis, composed a 
 ballad expressly for it. The following song 
 therefore was generally believed to be an improvi- 
 sation, and Florio received the compliments paid 
 him under that impression with characteristic 
 coolness and complacency. 
 
 WHAT is Life but a chace, both in country and town 1 
 A game to pursue, or a prize to bring down. 
 This world after all "s but a huge round of sports, 
 In Church, or in Senate, in Camps, and in Courts. 
 Yes, all men are sportsmen, since each has his aim, 
 His business, or pleasure, his fortune, or fame. 
 What 's youth but a love-chace in boudoir, or bower ) 
 What 's manhood ] A hunt after riches or power. 
 The Lawyer's a Nimrod of ancient renown, 
 He hunts for his fees in his wig and his gown ; 
 Grows keener and bolder the stiffer the fence, 
 Now leaps over justice, now fliea over sense ;
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 149 
 
 Akin to the fox, he is partial to vermin, 
 
 And never pulls up till he runs down the ermine. 
 
 The Parson is equally fearless and blythe, 
 In chase of a living, or hunting for tithe ; 
 The Dean 's in pursuit of his Bishop's old mitre, 
 The Bishop of one that is richer or brighter ; 
 The race of preferment allows him no breath, 
 His lordship is sure to be in at the death. 
 
 The Member 's a sportsman ; his gun is his vote, 
 He brings down a place, or he changes his coat. 
 The Minister hunts, we all know, with a pack, 
 Of Members themselves open-mouthed at his back. 
 He too has his game, which he follows from far, 
 A dukedom, a garter, a title, a star. 
 
 Our Heroes in red to no huntsman will yield, 
 Their fighting-days over, they still keep the field, 
 What fields of the foe with their own can compare ! 
 A single step here is worth all the steppes there. 
 Promotion 's as quick in the west as the east, 
 And here 'tis no Filder that orders the feast. 
 
 The Bard, upon Pegasus galloping by, 
 Is after a rhyme, sir, in full hue and cry ; 
 The idlest of sports are his keenest pursuits, 
 Profusion of flowers and very few fruits. 
 
 Thus each has his game in this strange sporting life, 
 Why, here's a sly bachelor after a wife ! 
 We all must confess he took capital aim, 
 A buxom young widow is always fair game ; 
 No shooting but hcr's could exceed his renown, 
 The bird as she dropped did the fowler bring down. 
 This world after all's but a huge round of sport, 
 In Church and in Senate, Camp, Cottage, and Court. 
 
 The last stanza was encored and encored 
 again; but, while this was going on amidst
 
 150 CLOVER COTTAGE; OR, 
 
 thunders of applause, Mr. Windfall, being no 
 longer able to sit quiet, under such very broad 
 allusions to the most delicate of all subjects, got 
 up, affected to be lost in admiration of the moon, 
 recommended a stroll in the garden, and would 
 have proposed to join the ladies at tea, only that 
 the proposal from him would assuredly have been 
 misconstrued. 
 
 The feast of course could not be much longer 
 protracted, though probably old Powderham and 
 Toby Bagshot would have greatly preferred 
 another bottle of Claret to the widow's Souchong. 
 However, everybody rose, and then poor Mr. 
 Windfall had reason indeed to wish himself with 
 the ladies, or in some other safe asylum. 
 
 He got almost as many pokes in the ribs as 
 there were jolly fellows in the room, and every 
 poke was accompanied with a decisive intimation 
 that he had only one course now to take, and that if 
 he did not take it, he might as well make up his 
 mind to quarrel with all his friends at once and 
 for ever. 
 
 Mr. Blunt gave the first thrust; "If you
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 151 
 
 presume to turn that pretty widow out of 
 Clover," said Mr. Blunt, " now that you have got 
 into it yourself, I'll turn you out of it in turn 
 I'll find a flaw in your title if there is not one in 
 it, I'll make one turn her out, sir, if you dare ! " 
 
 Mr. Robinson came up next, and poking 
 said " Solomon Windfall ! if you don't do what 
 we are all agreed you ought to do, respecting 
 that beautiful young widow, I'll give you up, 
 Solomon, altogether. I'll not spend the Christ- 
 mas with you ; I'll desert you at Easter ; when 
 the long vacation comes I'll not come with it ; 
 in a word, Solomon, propose for the widow like 
 a man, or if you don't ! " 
 
 Tohy Bagshot vowed he would move his 
 expulsion from the old Cronies. " I will, sir, 
 as sure as my name is Toby Bagshot." 
 
 Mark Aiuiwell swore he would call Mr. Wind- 
 fall out if he proved refractory. 
 
 Jonathan Powderham gave him a tremendous 
 poke, with " I say ditto to Mark Aimwell." 
 
 The parson vowed he would excommunicate 
 him.
 
 152 CLOVEE COTTAGE ; OR, 
 
 The poet swore he would make an example of 
 him in the bitterest lampoon he ever composed. 
 
 The Crimean officers pledged themselves to 
 kill him with no more scruple than if he were 
 a Kussian Grenadier. Captain Dove, in the 
 excitement of the moment, and under the 
 influence of the champagne, utterly forgot the 
 reserve which his near relationship to Mrs. Wily 
 should have imposed upon him, and was as 
 zealous as any of Mr. Windfall's oldest friends. 
 
 And finally came Colonel O'Trigger. " Mr. 
 Solomon Windfall," said the Colonel, with 
 terrible solemnity, " I've just got a word to say 
 to you as well as the rest ; now that you have 
 come into your estate, we'll be all looking mighty 
 sharp to see how you behave as a landlord. I 
 hope, sir, you'll have the good sense to remember 
 that ' property has its duties as well as its rights ' ; 
 take a friend's advice, and don't begin by ejecting 
 your tenantry, Mr. Windfall. If you have the 
 incomprehensible baseness to sarve notice to 
 quit on that nice young widow, by holy Patrick 
 and all the saints in glory, I'll forget I'm not in
 
 i CAN'T GET IN. 153 
 
 Tipperary some fine morning, and I'll just pop 
 at you through the rose bushes yonder with as 
 little ceremony as if you were only a rabbit." 
 
 And the Colonel, suiting his action to this 
 vigorous expression of his feelings, poked poor 
 Mr. Windfall so vigorously under the midriff, 
 
 that he almost tumbled head foremost into the 
 
 
 
 drawing-room, through the door which Mopsa 
 had just half opened to see whether there was 
 any chance of the bottle ceasing to circulate at 
 a reasonable hour. 
 
 There are writers who would infallibly add at 
 least one more chapter, but we are more con- 
 scientious; and being satisfied that the reader's 
 quick apprehension has already outstripped the 
 speed of our pen, and gained a full view of the 
 happy and necessary conclusion of Mr. Windfall's 
 adventures, we feel that the author may here 
 properly retire, and leave to the imagination of 
 others all that remains to be told, how the 
 tedious formalities of courtship were almost
 
 154 CLOVER COTTAGE. 
 
 dispensed with ; how the answer was popped as 
 soon as the question was asked ; how all the 
 dramatis personts graced the wedding; how 
 punctually Mr. Robinson redeemed his pledge 
 to spend all the holidays of the year with his 
 hospitable friend; and how after feasting for 
 many a year upon his own rabbits smothered 
 in his own onions, and gathering his old com- 
 rades around him many a jolly First of Sep- 
 tember, Mr. Solomon Windfall was eventually 
 served with a notice to quit which he was not 
 at liberty to disobey, and making no defence 
 to the action, left Clover Cottage once more in 
 the sole possession of a comely and not incon- 
 solable widow. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
 
 WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 THE FALCON FAMILY; 
 
 OB, YOUNG IRELAND : A SATIRICAL NOVEL. 
 Foolscap, boards, 2a. 
 
 THE BACHELOR OF THE ALBANY. 
 
 Foolscap, boards, 2s. 
 
 MY UNCLE THE CURATE. 
 
 A NOVEL. 
 Foolscap, boards, 2s. 
 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
 
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