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 DEAD LEAVES. 
 
 ALBERT SMI r 
 
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 CHAPMAN & HALL, 193, PICCAMLLt 
 
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BERKELEY \ 
 
 U5RARY 
 
 UNI ERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA J 
 
WILD OATS 
 
 A>'D 
 
 DEAD LEAVES. 
 
 BY 
 
 ALBERT SMITH. 
 
 LONDON : 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 
 
 MDCCCLX. 
 
Note. — The following pages were all in type at the time of the death 
 of my late brother, and, with the exception of three or four articles at 
 the end of the book, had all been corrected by him for the press. 
 
 I have received communications from several friends, kindly express- 
 ing their desire to add a preface and a memoir to this volume. I have 
 declined these proposals, for the reason that I wished it to be presented 
 to the public exactly as it would have been presented by my brother 
 himself. Fortunately, I found the preface here printed (in his hand- 
 writing) only a few days ago. As it bears date in May, it must have 
 been written but a very little while before he died. 
 
 I look forward, at a future time when I may feel equal to the task (I 
 am very far from feeling equal to it now), to write some little memoir 
 of my brother. Meanwhile, I trust it may not be considered out of 
 place if I here offer my heartfelt thanks to the very many unknown 
 friends who have expressed deep sympathy with me and those others 
 who were dearest to him. 
 
 Arthur Smith. 
 
 August, 1860. 
 

 PREFACE. 
 
 For the last ten years I have been so little before the 
 world in my literary capacity, that it is jnst possible the 
 taste of the light-reading public may have altered — no less 
 from the inevitable change of opinion which that lapse of 
 time exerts over everything, than from the overworking of 
 a style holding out such great facilities for imitation that 
 the mere reputation of a "comic writer" has become the 
 last that a literary man at present would wish to possess. 
 
 And, therefore, it is with some diffidence that I send this 
 volume before the public. All I myself can say in its 
 favour is, that several of the sketches, commencing in 1840, 
 were received with a degree of popularity that gradually 
 led me to more important work. They were my earliest 
 attempts at magazine writing when I was quite a young 
 man, with very little trouble and very great spirits, — when 
 I never had to " think" of a subject, or to hammer it out 
 when once conceived. And I do not believe that I upset 
 
 432 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 many conventional notions, or created many angry thoughts 
 by their publication. 
 
 They have remained undisturbed in their different repo- 
 sitories for years. Some of them are altogether out of 
 print — others have turned up as new to me upon revising 
 them for this edition as I have no doubt they will be to 
 many of my readers. No attempt to redress great wrongs, 
 alter existing institutions, advance progress, or provide " in- 
 tellectual food for the masses," will be found in them. 
 There are many great minds — compared to my own as 
 the Coliseum at Rome to a percussion-cap — who take 
 these matters under their own charge. But believing 
 that of every dozen people who take up a book, eleven 
 do so for amusement, I "doubtingly" offer this to the 
 majority. 
 
 Albert Smith. 
 
 North End Lodge, Walham Green, 
 Mat/, 18G0. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1. Thefts froyi the Percy Reltques 1 
 
 2. Bedfordia 25 
 
 3. A Winter's Xight ^ith mi Old Books, chiefly coxcerx- 
 
 ixg Ghosts and Prodigies 30 
 
 4. A Bead Couxtry Ghost Story 44 
 
 5. Mr. Tones axd his great Christylas Pallere . . . 53 
 
 6. The Boys in the Streets 64 
 
 7. A Prexch School 75 
 
 8. Alexandria to Cairo 79 
 
 9. A Go-ahead Day tvith Barxeyi 86 
 
 10. Certain Tourists 102 
 
 11. Mr. Ledbury reyisiis Paris, axd is igxoyiixiously ex- 
 
 pelled FROYl HIS LODGIXGS Ill 
 
 12. Mrs. Creddle's Axxual Attach 140 
 
 13. The Qeeex of the Fete 151 
 
 14. The Tradiiiox of " The Polly" at Cleftox . . .153 
 
 15. jSarratiye of ax Expeditiox to the exd of Birkexhead, 
 
 1S46 160 
 
 16. Miss Pereapple axd the Gothics' Ball . . . .167 
 
 17. Styeets axd Bitters 177 
 
 18. The Polkaphobia 179 
 
 19. The Struggles of Terpsichore 184; 
 
 20. A Legexdary Charade 159 
 
 21. Lord Mayor's Day 193 
 
 22. A Street Sketch 202 
 
 I 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 23. The Fairy Wedding 206 
 
 24. About Chamois and Hunters 212 
 
 25. Opera Verselets 218 
 
 26. An Old Swiss Traveller 224 
 
 27. A Plea for Boulogne 229 
 
 28. The Complaint op the Foreign-Office Clerk . . . 235 
 
 29. Mr. Grubbe's Night with Memnon 237 
 
 30. Address spoken by Mrs. Keeley at the Lyceum Theatre, 
 
 July 8, 1844 246 
 
 31. The Diligence 248 
 
 32. Cucumber Castle 253 
 
 33. How Mr. Straggles went cheap to Ascot . . .269 
 
 34. The Gilt-buttoned Yachtman 27S 
 
 35. Op Fairs, Fairings, and Fairies 279 
 
 36. Il Fanattco per la Musica 284 
 
 37. A Visit to Eton Montem, 1S41 286 
 
 38. How Mr. Straggles ate Whitebait at Greenwich . .297 
 
 39. Mr. Straggles has a Day's Fishing 308 
 
 40. A Letter prom an Old Country-House . . . 317 
 
 41. Mr. Straggles is prevailed upon to go a Shooting . . 320 
 
 42. Mr. Straggles has a Day with the Harriers, and re- 
 
 nounces Sporting Life 330 
 
 43. Lenora 341 
 
WILD OATS. 
 
 i. 
 
 THEFTS FROM THE PEPvCY RELIQUES. 
 1. — THE BOY AND THE MANTLE. 
 
 Ik a very agreeable little volume of our English Nursery 
 Rhymes — which will entertain all who love to have the days of 
 their tranquil childhood recalled in this grown-up, anxious, wear- 
 ing struggle for existence — compiled with singular care by Mr. 
 Halliwell, there is this metrical historical information : 
 
 When good King Arthur ruled this land, 
 
 He was a goodly king, 
 He stole three pecks of barley-meal, 
 
 To make a bag-pudding. 
 
 A bag-pudding the king did make, 
 
 And stuffed it well with plums ; 
 And in it put great lumps of fat, 
 
 As big as my two thumbs. 
 
 The king and queen did eat thereof, 
 
 And noblemen beside, 
 And what they could not eat that night, 
 
 The queen next morning fried. x 
 
 "Were we addicted to putting forth those hazy speculations 
 and attempts to make facts out of nothing — as the biographers 
 of Shakspeare and other great people delight to do — we might, 
 perhaps, in time glean the whole events of King Arthur's some- 
 what unsatisfactory career from our nursery tales. Starting 
 
 B 
 
2 WILD OATS. 
 
 from this point, it would not be a task of much difficulty to 
 prove that the monarch and his consort were identical with the 
 royal pair who counted out their money, and ate bread and 
 honey during a domestic wash (in which the maid was attacked 
 by a savage bird) and after that singular meal, whereat the 
 dainty device of the two dozen blackbirds in the pasty eclipsed 
 all that Soyer ever conceived. But we would rather come to 
 facts ; and, therefore, with admiration for the king's " good- 
 liness," — who, not being at all proud, stole the materials for a 
 banquet, cooked it himself, and displayed, through his spouse, 
 a most praiseworthy spirit of economy with respect to the 
 debris, — we plunge at once into our legend, premising that, like 
 everything else in the literary line at the present time, it is 
 copied from something that has gone before. 
 
 It was at " merry Carleile" that the king, and queen, and 
 noblemen of the ballad were assembled ; and in the sunny, 
 smiling, leafy May of " once upon a time" — for we have no such 
 Mays now. The seasons have gradually been falling back, like 
 the time of an uncared-for clock, and the year wants fresh re- 
 gulating. 
 
 And merry indeed was the rout that had met together at 
 Carlisle in the castle, and a glorious time they had of it. Queen 
 Guenevere was a fair young hostess ; and not exactly the one 
 to stop any fun once started ; indeed, perhaps it is as well for 
 her character that the chronicles concerning her are somewhat 
 of the haziest ; since, for a married woman and a queen, she 
 was a desperate flirt. But her bright sparkling eyes were the 
 loadstars that drew together a capital set of men ; who, follow- 
 ing the newly-introduced fashion of the king, wore long hang- 
 ing sleeves of all fabrics and colours, and made the court very 
 gay indeed. And since they could not all pay attention to her 
 at once, there were bevies of handsome women to keep them 
 from getting " slow" — fair-haired, blue-eyed ladies of the pure 
 Saxon race, with noble heads and chiselled features, and ex- 
 quisite figures, and tiny hands and feet — all which attributes 
 have been handed down to our noble lords and ladies of the 
 present day, making even an American believe that there is 
 something in blood and lineage after all, in spite of all that 
 penny-a-line philanthropists and professional routers-out of the 
 great wrongs of The People can find to the contrary. 
 
 Certes, here was a goodly party of knights. There was of 
 course Sir Launcelot du Lake, who sat next to G-uenevere at 
 
THE BOY AXD THE MANTLE. O 
 
 the round table, and whose mailed foot a page, who had crept 
 under the table for some missing jewel, saw lightly resting upon 
 the queen's ; and Sir Bevis also came out uncommonly strong ; 
 and Sir Bedivere, and Sir Kay, and also Sir Gawaine, all with 
 handsome ladies. And there was such a rattling of armour 
 when they sat down to dinner that it seemed as if all the Lord 
 Mayor's show had attended, including the Horse Guards. AVine 
 was~ as plentiful as house beer at a club : roasted peacocks with 
 their tails displayed quite obscured the opposite guests; for, 
 independent of the lung's pudding, there was something more 
 on the table than the old conventional apples and ale-glasses of 
 theatrical and pictorial banquets. Knights, for lack of knives,^ 
 carved with their daggers for effect ; aud ladies, for want of 
 forks and dislike of fingers, picked up their food with bodkins ; 
 and such toasts were drunk, and compliments paid, and very 
 fair jokes made for the time of day, that, what with the laughter 
 and chattering, and unheeded music of the bards, the hall was 
 quite like a playhouse when a heavy legitimate drama is over,^ 
 and people are awaiting the ballet or burlesque. Two only of 
 the company were not altogether so noisy as the rest — and 
 these were Sir Caradoc and his lady, who was one of the pret- 
 tiest persons there. But they had lived in the country nearly 
 all their lives, and felt unequal to meet the ready wit of the 
 Londoners, so they kept to themselves, very quiet but very 
 comfortable, smiling at what they understood, and wondering 
 at what they did not ; and thereby filling very useful parts in 
 society. For without a due proportion of smilers and won- 
 derers, your diverting guests are sadly put out of conceit ; and 
 if you make a party of all clever people, it is sure to be a failure. 
 They will either affect dignity and do nothing, or all be fanny 
 at once, which is a more grievous affair than the other. 
 
 Truth to tell, Queen Guenevere did not much like Sir Cara- 
 doc and his lady. The former did not pay her attention enough, 
 and she was jealous of the beauty of the latter. But Sir Cara- 
 doc was a wonderful fighter, and upon need, could slit foreign- 
 ers into slices, like French rolls for rusks, so they could not be 
 openly offended ; and Sir Caradoc and his lady, on their sides, 
 were delighted, as country people, to be at the board of royalty 
 — just as much as rural' patricians at the present day. For 
 although years effect great changes in organic things, the na- 
 tures of men and women remain pretty much the same — in the 
 inundation of a.d. 1S46, as in the flood of B.C. 2000. Xever- 
 
 b2 
 
4 WILD OATS. 
 
 tbeless the queen talked at them now and then, not afraid to 
 say a sharp thing or two to Sir Launcelot at their expense ; and 
 Lady Rose — that was Sir Caradoc's bride's name — now and 
 then blushed deeply at some equivoque, that only made the 
 queen's eyes sparkle more brightly. 
 
 All sorts of wonderful people had been drawn together at 
 Carlisle by the king's sojourn there ; — more gleemen, and jocu- 
 lators, and minstrels, and extraordinary tumblers, than even 
 Strutt himself ever dreamt of, as well as the Northern Scalds, 
 who held that place in poetry which, ages after, the Scottish 
 Burns appropriately enough filled. They came in and out as 
 they listed ; nobody questioned them ; and so nobody was sur- 
 prised when, one day after dinner, before the ladies had left the 
 table, an odd small boy entered the hall, and walking straight 
 up to King Arthur, made an obeisance to him. 
 
 He was a strange, quaint little fellow, and reminded one of 
 a conjuror seen through the wrong end of a telescope ; looking 
 young and old at the same time, as the stunted trees did in the 
 Chinese Collection. He was something like Mr. "Wieland when 
 he played an imp ; more like a dwarf one remembers to have 
 seen for a penny on a third floor in High Holborn ; but most 
 of all like Eumplestilskin, where he has thrust his foot through 
 the floor, in the comical old German tale of that name. He 
 did not appear at all abashed, but having quietly saluted the 
 company, said : 
 
 " God speed you, King Arthur, and fair Queen Guenevere. 
 Thy holy wish comes, leaving me well at present, as I hope it 
 finds all you in return." 
 
 Whereupon he gave a frisk, cut six in the air, went head 
 over heels, and then alighted on his feet again, as cool as an 
 oyster at home during a hard frost. 
 
 " Gadso !" exclaimed the king, " you are a strange wight to 
 regard, but an excellent one to perform. "What else can 
 you do ?" 
 
 " More than you would perhaps like me to," answered the 
 old boy. " I can make every lord in this hall shiver in his 
 armour." 
 
 " You don't look like it," said Sir Kay, who was in the Anglo- 
 Saxon Blues, and wore a heavy corslet, and, if possible, heavier 
 mustachios, which, when he was excited, almost curled up into 
 his eyes. 
 
 " Pooh! stuff! nonsense!" added Sir Launcelot du Lake, as 
 
THE BOY AND THE MANTLE. D 
 
 he crossed one leg over the other, with a noise like a hundred 
 fire-irons all tumbling down into the fender at once. 
 
 " I should like to see you," said Sir Gawaine, with a spas- 
 modic laugh. Sir Gawaine was not very young, but he wore a 
 wig and false mustachios, and his greaves were padded. Many 
 old " Sirs" of the present day do the same. 
 
 The boy made no answer, but his eyes twinkled like an open 
 casement 'in the sunshine on a windy day, as he drew forth a 
 walnut from his scrip, and laid it on the table, simply adding— 
 " There." 
 
 " Well," said King Arthur, pulling up his hanging sleeves 
 as he stretched out his hand to lay hold of it. " I see nothing 
 here but a walnut. We have finer ones at table. This is a 
 joke." 
 
 " Crack it," said the stranger. 
 
 King Arthur did as he was desired, and pulled out a little 
 doll's cloak, very bright in colour, and very fine. 
 
 " Observe," said the little man, taking it from the king - r 
 " vou see how it stretches out. You would say it was india- 
 rubber, only there is no such thing known at present. Xow, 
 elegant as it is, no lady who is not true of heart to her liege 
 lord will be able to put it on." 
 
 There was a great fluttering among the beauties present, and 
 some of the knights looked uncomfortable. Indeed the pause 
 became oppressive, for nobody would venture to try the mantle 
 on, until the king requested Guenevere to set the example. 
 But if he had seen the look she gave Sir Launcelot out of the 
 comers of her beautiful eyes, as she rose, he would not have 
 done it. 
 
 A dead silence reigned as the queen approached the odd 
 visitor and took the mantle from him. She made all sorts of 
 objections to its form and colour, and was sure it would not 
 become her ; and, wonderful to relate, all this time the mantle 
 kept changing its shades like a chameleon, which the spectators 
 attributed to the silk being artfully shot. At last Arthur got 
 impatient, and put it on his wife's shoulders himself. 
 
 ' But no sooner had he done so, than it crackled with a noise 
 that set everybody's teeth on edge, and shrivelled up round the 
 queen's neck'like a piece of parchment in the fire. Guenevere 
 blushed, as though all the scarlet had gone from the mantle 
 to her cheeks ; the king nearly choked himself in trying to 
 wash down a morsel of his own pudding with some hippocras ; 
 
6 WILD OATS. 
 
 Sir Launcelot uncrossed his legs nervously, with another loud 
 clang, and everybody was aghast. Then Guenevere uttered the 
 naughtiest word that had ever left her rosy lips, and throwing 
 the hideous mantle on the ground, rushed off to her room. 
 
 " Come, Sir Kay," said the boy, maliciously, " you're a stal- 
 wart man and chivalric ; prove your lady's allegiance." 
 
 Sir Kay's mustachios completely turned into spirals, like 
 that nasty green stuff on twelfth cakes, as the stranger ad- 
 dressed him. Bat it would not do to refuse before so many 
 people, so he told his lady to stand forth. Pale and trembling, 
 she obeyed. The mantle, which the owner had stretched out 
 again, on being thrown over her, rustled, and fluttered, and flew 
 about, although not a breath of air was stirring, and at last 
 napped over her head, and hid her face from the assembly. 
 This was lucky, for not holding Kay's lady in such dread as 
 they did the queen, the others laughed and winked until she 
 had thrown down the mantle and bolted after Guenevere in 
 great confusion. And then Sir Kay's mustachios, in his agony, 
 stuck right out from his face, as lobsters' feelers would have 
 done, and he began to drink dreadfully. 
 
 The same thing happened to almost all. Some came up as 
 bold as that audacious alloy, brass ; some trembled like aspens 
 — knights as well as ladies ; and Sir Gawaine even tried to 
 tamper with the stranger, offering him twenty marks and his 
 keep for a year if he could make the mantle become his lady. 
 But it was all of no avail ; the cheapest advertising tailor of 
 the present day could not have made anything, with all his in- 
 genuity, that fitted anybody worse than the mantle. And so, 
 one after another, they fled in disgrace to their rooms, and the 
 knights looked as silly as might well be. 
 
 And now there was only left Sir Caradoc's wife, Eose, and 
 she was going to her chamber, finding that she was the only 
 lady at the round table ; when the others insisted that she also 
 should undergo the ordeal, for they longed for the chance of 
 annoying the pair. 
 
 "The mantle shall belong to whoever can wear it," said the 
 boy, to get up a little new excitement. 
 
 " AVin it, Eose," whispered Sir Caradoc, " win it and wear it, 
 sweet wife. I know you can." 
 
 The lady came fearlessly from the table, and took the little 
 cloak from the stranger. As she did so, it quivered and crinkled 
 like a living thing ; and all the knights winked at one another 
 
THE BOY AXD THE 3IAXTLE. 7 
 
 except Sir Gawaine, whose wig was so tight that it would not 
 let hiin. Sir Caradoc felt uneasy as one by one he saw the 
 other ladies stealing back again, in the hopes of witnessing 
 Hose's discomfiture. 
 
 " For shame, mantle," said the lady, boldly addressing the 
 robe, " there is no cause for tins, for I have never done amiss." 
 
 " Never ?" asked the little visitor, with emphasis. 
 
 " Never!" replied Eose. " Oh, yes ! once, perhaps, I might ; 
 and then I kissed the mouth of a gallant single knight under a 
 green tree at home." 
 
 Ail the ladies and knights made eyes at one another, and 
 nudged, and twitched their companions, and laughed, as they 
 crowded eagerly round to hear the confession. 
 
 " And who was that, Lady Eose ?" asked the boy. 
 
 " He was my husband afterwards," she replied, as her blue 
 eyes swam round towards him; and she smiled in acknowledg- 
 ment of the pressure which his gauntlet inflicted on her little 
 hand. Ladies did not wear gloves then. 
 
 No sooner had she made this confession than the mantle, 
 which she had put over her shoulders, turned to a beautiful 
 deep blue, with a pile on it like that of the richest velvet. 
 Gems sparkled out one after another all over it, as the golden 
 stars appear in a twilight sky ; and it grew longer and longer 
 until it fell down to Eose's very feet as a gorgeous mantle, m 
 which she looked so very beautiful that the bystanders could 
 not suppress their admiration. This was very remarkable, the 
 more especially that one or two of the ladies were called upon 
 to praise some one prettier than themselves, and this, with 
 ladies generallv, is a grievous trial. 
 
 But the antics of the boy who had brought the mantle soon 
 abstracted their attention/ For he jumped, and capered, and 
 frisked about; not paying any respect to Queen Guenevere, 
 who stood sneering at'Sir Caradoc and his lady ; nor Sir Kay ; 
 nor Sir Gawaine ; nor Sir Launcelot ; but nourishing round all 
 of them in the maddest manner, kicking his legs and heels 
 about as though he had been pulled by a number of strings, 
 and hanging here and there like a fantoccini, until finding him- 
 self under an open skylight, he gave a final leap through it, and 
 never came down again. The others all looked after him a 
 long time ; but he was clean gone away, and vanished. 
 
 The gentle Lady Eose bore her honours very meekly, and Sir 
 Caradoc loved her more deeply than ever. The mantle was 
 
8 WILD OATS. 
 
 kept for many centuries ; and tradition says that it is some- 
 where, even now, in Wardour-street, but that its real value is 
 not known, as some great family who once possessed it, being 
 in difficulties, took off all the precious stones, and filled up the 
 places with Bristol diamonds. 
 
 But this by the way; for we never believe anything con- 
 nected with "Wardour- street and old furniture — we do not 
 even believe ourselves when we are there. The court of King 
 Arthur was equally incredulous ; but, like animal magnetism 
 and the ether insensibility, although people vapoured about and 
 pronounced it all a humbug, they could not exactly explain it 
 to their satisfaction. There was an old, maniacal, grey-bearded 
 bard, however, called Oroveso, who had whilome burnt a 
 daughter named Norma for forming an improper alliance with 
 a pagan ; and, going mad in consequence, was kept about the 
 court to amuse the guests of Arthur by his soothsaying3. And 
 he said that the old boy's inantle was nothing more than an 
 embodiment of an easy conscience, which, whatever external 
 appearances might be, would not accommodate itself in any 
 wise to frames in which guilt and deception lurked. And so 
 the Lady Bose's truth had won it ; and, in the words of the 
 real story, 
 
 Everye such a lovely ladye, 
 God send her well to speede. 
 
 2. — SIR ALDINGAR. 
 
 "Without doubt you have chanced in your lifetime to see 
 the Lord Mayor's show. 
 
 If you have done so, you will recollect how the procession 
 got confused with the mob, and the mob with the procession, 
 until you could not tell which was which ; how the military 
 gentleman who headed it, balanced himself for dear life, in great 
 fear, upon his horse ; how the banners always overpowered the 
 watermen and their props who bore them ; how ignoble things 
 fell into the tail of the procession — advertising-vans, coal- 
 waggons, and long apple- stalls upon wheels ; and especially 
 when it stopped, as it frequently did, you will call to mind how 
 fearful was the want of respect paid towards the ancient knights 
 by the mob ; how the smallest boys chaffed the mailed and 
 
SIB ALDINGAE. 9 
 
 mounted warrior with the tall brass blanc-mange mould on his 
 head, and recommended him " to get inside and pull the blinds 
 up to be out of sight ;" how the more matured intellects asked 
 him " what he weighed in his own scales ?" how they called 
 out to know if he was " Alderman Armour ?" and how, there- 
 upon, the ancient knight got so fearfully irate that he would 
 have done terrible things to his persecutors, only that, in the 
 first place, he could not turn his head, and in the second, he 
 could not get off his horse without the aid of a crane. 
 
 Just in this position of impotent rage was another ancient 
 knight, Sir Aldingar, when our story begins. He had no other 
 cognomination : he enjoyed his simple name and title, as Sir 
 Peel, Sir Bulwer, Sir Clay, or Sir Hobhouse, do in the French 
 newspapers of the present day : so that whether it was his 
 christian or surname we cannot exactly make out. However, 
 that is of little consequence : Sir Aldingar was in a most awful 
 rage, not the more bearable' because he did not very well see 
 how he could vent it. 
 
 Six hundred years ago, Sir Aldingar was steward to the King 
 of England, and Queen Eleanor was his royal mistress— the 
 sweet and gentle lady who followed her husband to the Holy 
 Land, and drew the poison from Edward's arm with her own 
 rosy lips. There was some love and affection, you see, in these 
 old times, rude and bearish as we are apt to consider them. 
 
 King Edward was a capital fighter, and loved a battle row 
 above all things ; but he was weak in arithmetic, so that Eleanor 
 conducted all the household accounts, and checked Sir Aldin- 
 gar' s entries. He was, however, ever ready to go over the 
 household expenses with her ; for if the truth must out, he 
 admired her exceedingly. Her kind and gentle manner^ he 
 mistook for encouragement; and one day when an illegible 
 item in Sir Aldingar' s book of slates caused them to bring 
 their faces very closely together to make it out, he wickedly 
 said to himself, " Here goes!" and kissed her. 
 
 How did Queen Eleanor behave ? She did not scream, nor 
 ring the bell, nor call in any of those who waited without. She 
 did not tell the king ; for there were such diverting punish- 
 ments in those days — such culinary variations of hanging, broil- 
 ing, drawing, boiling, spitting, and mincing criminals, that her 
 woman's heart shrank from what she knew would be the result 
 of so doing. But she gave Sir Aldingar such a box on the ear 
 that it was red-hot the whole day ; and when he went to bed 
 
10 WILD OATS. 
 
 it seemed as if his head was spinning round so fast that it 
 hummed again like a top, with the exception that it never slept. 
 And being of a bad disposition, he passed the time until morn- 
 ing in planning vengeance against Queen Eleanor, and seeing 
 how he could best hunt her down and ruin her with safety to, 
 himself. 
 
 As he looked down upon the town of Windsor from his bed- 
 room loophole, at which he was shaving himself with his dagger, 
 he saw a wounded, limping man-at-arms, with tattered surcoat, 
 and very bad shoes, having walked all the way from Palestine, 
 begging alms of the holy passengers who were starting for 
 Slough, accompanying himself on a species of banjo of the 
 middle ages, which the musical Crusaders of the time are le- 
 gended to have carried. This was the little song he sang ; with 
 a lithographed frontispiece, it would have enjoyed great draw- 
 ing-room popularity at the present day : 
 
 Y E WARLYKE TROUBADOURE. 
 
 ! I'm y e warlyke Troubadoure, 
 
 "With, my hey downe and willowe ! 
 "When y e crie is raised in war, 
 Then I touch my lighte guitarre, 
 
 Fal, lal, la! Fal, la! 
 
 When y e battel fyghte is won, 
 
 With my hey downe and willowe ! 
 Home I haste from Palestine, 
 Singing lovelye ladye mine, 
 
 Fal, lal, la ! Fal, la ! 
 
 " Now Gradso, grammercy, by my halidame, i' fackins ! thou 
 hast a pretty wit," said Sir Aldingar, speaking after the ap- 
 proved manner of the middle ages, as he approached the limp- 
 ing troubadour, " and a voice like a merle. Wilt be heard by 
 royalty ?" 
 
 " I am not much in condition to go to court," replied the 
 minstrel, as he looked at his paletot of seedy velvet, and his 
 gauntlets, whereof the top scales were gone, so that his finger- 
 ends protruded. 
 
 "Beshrew thee for a faint heart," said Sir Aldingar, again 
 talking moyen age to him. " How dost call thyself ?" 
 
 "lam named Alleyne the Throstle-throated," replied the 
 other. 
 
 " Well, come with me, Alleyne," replied Sir Aldingar, " and 
 you shall sing to the queen within an hour." 
 
SIR ALDINGAR. 11 
 
 "Wondering at his good luck, the footsore and wounded min- 
 strel followed his new friend, who, instead of going through 
 the great gates, opened a series of little doors with a latch-key, 
 until they at last reached the queen's private apartment. 
 Here Sir Aldingar told hiin to stop, and then he started off to 
 find the king. 
 
 Edward was working for health in the little garden at the 
 foot of the Eound Tower, as was his wont, dibbling potatoes 
 with an old sceptre ; but when he saw his steward hastening 
 towards him, with a countenance expressive of much terror, 
 he stopped, and asked him what was the matter. 
 
 " Alack the day !" replied the knight. " I dare not tell your 
 majesty, unless you will pass your word not to harm me.'' 
 
 " Sav on," said the king; " I promise you, you shall be 
 safe." ' 
 
 " Honour!" asked Sir Aldingar, dubiously. 
 
 "Bright!" replied the king, emphatically. "Now, go-a- 
 head." 
 
 " In a word, your queen is faithless, sire," said the evil- 
 minded steward; "her paramour is at this moment in her 
 boudoir." 
 
 King Edward let the sceptre fall from his hand, and stood 
 for a minute speechless, for the tidings had quite taken away 
 his breath. And then, as if he thought all the eyes of the 
 potatoes were looking at him, he kicked away the basket that 
 held them, and exclaimed, 
 
 " Now, look you, Sir Aldingar : if you have told the truth, I 
 will reward you with whatever you like to ask ; but if it is a 
 lie, I will have you hanged to a gibbet so high, that you must 
 go up a fire-escape to be turned off. Now, you know your 
 fate : convince me." 
 
 The evil knight straightway led the king to Eleanor's bou- 
 doir, and there, sure enough* was the minstrel. Imagining 
 that somebody had been brought to hear him, he put himself 
 in an attitude, and was about to strike up a roundelay, when 
 Edward knocked his light guitar into matches, and shook him 
 so soundly, that the queen and her maids of honour, hearing 
 the noise,* ran into the chamber. They were all astonished — 
 the minstrel especially so— and one of the prettiest damsels, 
 Maude Aylmer, having caught sight of the minstrel, cried out, 
 " Alleyne !" and fainted outright. But everybody was too much 
 surprised to look after her ; and so, as is providentially arranged 
 
12 WILD OATS. 
 
 in similar cases, she soon came round, looking very pale, but 
 very beautiful, and evidently knowing a great deal more about 
 the intruder than she cared to say. 
 
 " You miscreant !" cried Edward, as soon as his rage allowed 
 him to speak. " And you, madam ; here's a sight for your 
 parents ; to take up with such a wretched, maimed, and shabby 
 scrub as this — go to ! go to !" 
 
 " To where ?" asked Eleanor, perfectly bewildered. " What 
 does this mean ?" 
 
 " Mean me no means !" cried Edward. " I love you very 
 much, Eleanor, but I really cannot overlook this affair. It is 
 unpleasant, I know ; but" — and here he shrugged his shoulders 
 — " you must be burnt. I regret to see a lady and a queen in 
 such a disgraceful position, and I hope it will be a warning to 
 you." 
 
 He borrowed this last idea from what he was always accus- 
 tomed to say when he was dispensing justice. The queen was 
 almost petrified. At first she appeared paralysed with horror, 
 then she went into hysterics, then she fainted, and next, upon 
 recovering, she swore — not bad words — but oaths of innocence, 
 appealing to all the saints she knew, in succession. 
 
 As her endeavour to tear her hair proved a failure — for it was 
 very long, and strong, and beautiful, and the quantity she seized 
 on would have pulled off her scalp — " Stop!" she cried (as she 
 attempted to beat her breast with similar ill luck, by reason of 
 the pins in her bodice), " I dreamt a dream last night !" 
 
 " A dream ! Oh ! then I see Queen Mab hath been with 
 you," observed the king, with a scarcely suppressed sneer. 
 
 Eleanor had not read Shakspeare, so did not see the allusion ; 
 but she sang this ballad — the words of which Percy has handed 
 down to us — to an extempore air. Eor it was a great thing 
 with the ancient lyrists that they extemporised everything on 
 the instant : 
 
 QUEEN ELEANOR'S LAMENT. 
 
 I dreamt in my Sweven on Thursday eve, 
 
 In my bed whereas I laye, 
 I dreamt a grype and grimlie beast, 
 
 Had carryed my crowne awaye. 
 
 Saving there came a littel gray hawke, 
 
 A merlin him they call, 
 Which untill the grounde did strike the grype 
 
 That dead he down did fall. 
 
SIR ALDINGAE. 13 
 
 Giffe I were a man, as now I am none, 
 
 A battell wold I prove, 
 To fight with that traitor Aldingar : 
 
 Att him I cast my glove. 
 
 The king -was touched ; for a pretty woman in tears, with a 
 good contralto voice, can do a great deal. So he said he did 
 not wish to throw cold water on her destiny (albeit she wished 
 he might do so when the time came), but that he would give 
 her forty days to find a knight ; if she did not in that time, it 
 would be his painful duty to weep over, what would literally 
 be, her ashes 
 
 As soon as the grace was accorded, the queen sat up all 
 night writing notes to her friends to do what they could do for 
 her. And she sent out her heralds all round the country; but 
 no one was found willing to come to the chivalric scratch. And 
 so twenty days passed, and affairs were getting desperate, when 
 her pretty maid of honour, Maude, came and said to her, 
 
 " Gracious lady, I fear that your heralds spend their time in 
 wassail-shops, and forget your interests. I know it is not con- 
 sidered right for a maiden of eighteen to don man's attire ; but, 
 an it please you, I will go forth, and try what I can do." 
 
 The queen did not put much faith in the mission ; but she 
 consented. Whereupon Maude went to the guard-room, and 
 by dint of her blue eyes and rosy lips, got the warder to fit her 
 with some armour. It was a suit that had been made for one 
 of the princes when he was young, and with a very slight altera- 
 tion of rivets, "it fitted tolerably well ; and putting down her 
 visor, she took the queen's own white palfrey, and, unattended, 
 rode forth with the combined feelings of Joan of Arc and 
 Godiva. There was no one to attend her ; and, with only her 
 own good cause and spotless honour to protect her, she com- 
 menced her search. 
 
 It was a dispiriting journey ; for she had many reasons for 
 hoping to prove the queen's innocence, but she found no 
 champion. Day by day went by, and her courage sank within 
 her, until the twentieth morning arrived, when, heart-broken 
 and weary, she sat down by the Thames' side, and unable to 
 bear up any longer, began to cry. Do you know the river 
 above Maidenhead bridge ? If you do, you will be able to call 
 to mind one of the fairest scenes that our sylvan England can 
 boast of. Hanging woods so thick with leaves, that the sun- 
 
14 WILD OATS. 
 
 light can scarcely quiver on the short and glossy turf below, 
 come down to the very water's edge, until their lowest branches 
 are kissed by the ripple, and the petals of their blossoms spangle 
 the blue river in the spring tide. There are long climbing 
 avenues of scented firs and cedars, dark even in blazing noon, 
 and tortuous walks amidst gnarled and mis-shapen bolls of 
 trees, that need every fibre of their withered roots to hold them 
 to the slopes they start from. Here and there a cold spring of 
 crystal waters forms a clear basin, and gurgles over blue, and 
 white, and mottled pebbles, into the Thames. It is a pleasant 
 thing in summer to gaze from the heights on the fair expanse 
 of river and pasture far below, glittering in the afternoon sun, 
 and hear light laughter and stray chords of music flitting 
 through the woods. Tou might travel a long, long way further, 
 and, after all your trouble, see nothing that would^ excite so 
 much admiration as the leafy Clifden. 
 
 It was at this fair spot that Maude sat down to rest and cry 
 and bathe her small white feet, which her armour had chafed 
 and wearied, in the river. As her tears fell fast to mingle with 
 the stream, she thought she saw a very tiny boy rise up from 
 the spring. She did not like to look at first, for she could per- 
 ceive that he was not encumbered with a great deal of clothing 
 — in fact, he had only got a girdle on, to which a sword was 
 hanging, and this is but a scant costume ; but, recollecting she 
 might look at him with an artist's eyes, if she did not with that 
 of a common person, she took courage, and stared him full in 
 the face. 
 
 " Tou look very miserable, damsel fair," said the tiny boy. 
 " What is the matter ?" 
 
 " Alack !" answered Maude, " you can be of no avail." 
 
 " Don't say so," said the child, "till you've heard me. I 
 have brought 'you- this sword. Take it, and fight Sir Aldingar 
 with it yourself." 
 
 " I !" cried Maude, trembling with flurry. " Well, my 
 goodness 1" 
 
 " It is your goodness will protect you," replied the child. 
 "And tell the queen to remember her dream — how a little 
 merlin saved her from the griffin. Heaven will fend her : so 
 mount horse, and away!" 
 
 Having said which, the little boy sank once more into the 
 spring and disappeared, leaving not even a ripple on its sur- 
 face. Maude was inclined to treat it all as a dream, but she 
 
SIR ALDINGAK. 15 
 
 still Lad the sword ; so she once more got on her palfrey, and 
 rode back to Windsor at such a rate, that the wind whistled 
 again through her helmet. 
 
 When she got to Eton she found the town quite deserted. 
 She met nobody as she went ou. There was no tollman at 
 Windsor-bridge, so she rode through without paying. One 
 person only was in the streets, and he was running up the 
 hundred steps as though a mad dog, or a sheriff's officer, or 
 any other dreadful animal, was at his heels. Just then she 
 heard a trumpet sound from the castle, and she directly knew 
 that the queen was in peril ; so, without hesitation, she rode 
 right up the hundred steps as well, just as you have seen horses 
 at°Astley's scale walls and climb mountains ; and, at the top, 
 she threw herself off, and ran through the cloister into the lower 
 
 ward. 
 
 Ko wonder she had seen nobody in the streets. All the 
 population had collected there awaiting the queen's^ ordeal. 
 Eleanor herself, pale as death, and dressed all in white, was 
 sitting on a very uncomfortable couch of fagots in the ring, 
 before a great post ; the troubadour, with his banjo hung 
 round his neck by way of disgrace, was trembling under a 
 gibbet of an awful height ; the king was on a temporary 
 throne ; and Sir Aldingar, armed cap-a-pie and sword in hand, 
 was marching up and down, waiting for the queen's champion. 
 
 "Tip them another blast, Baldwin," said Edward to his 
 herald. 
 
 " They are not worth a blast, sire," replied the herald, not 
 meaning anything wrong, although the kin^ started. 
 
 " But for* the mere form of the thing," said the king. 
 
 Whereupon the herald blew the last challenge, and then the 
 people turned all their attention from the herald to the post. 
 But the echoes had scarcely died away in the nooks and corners 
 of the castle, when Maude jumped into the ring, as lightly as 
 her armour would allow, and threw down her gauntlet at Sir 
 Aldingar's feet, at which the people set up a mighty cheer. The 
 false steward took up the small glove on the point of his sword, 
 and said, contemptuously, 
 
 " What's this r" 
 
 " It is my gage," said Claude. 
 
 "Oh, well! if you wish to fight," observed Sir Aldingar, 
 " there is mine." And he threw down his own large gauntlet, 
 muttering some joke about the broad and narrow gauge to 
 
16 WILD OATS. 
 
 prove his coolness. But the joke didn't go, for the people 
 knew nothing of railways : they were anxious for the fun to 
 begin ; they did not care whether the queen was burnt, or the 
 minstrel hung, or the combatants gashed and hacked into 
 mincemeat, so long as they saw something. 
 
 The trumpets sounded, and Sir Aldingar nourished his large 
 two-handed sword, with which he was reported to have spitted 
 six Paynims to a tree in Palestine, when, in the twinkling of a 
 bedpost, which is now an obsolete idiosyncrasy of furniture, 
 Maude whirled her little sword and cut off both Sir Aldingar's 
 legs at the knees, so that he fell down, so as to say, regularly 
 stumped. 
 
 There was a huzza from the vast crowd, followed by a solemn 
 pause of intense interest, broken only by the king, who, keep- 
 ing his eye upon the turret clock, cried out, "Time!" But 
 Sir Aldingar could not come up to it, not having the pluck of 
 the renowned "Witherington at Chevy Chase. He only called 
 for a priest. 
 
 " I confess my guilt," he said, as soon as one came. " I told 
 stories, and I have suffered for it. Good people," he added, 
 addressing the crowd, " take warning by my sad example, which 
 has brought me to this shameful end, and never keep bad com- 
 pany. I acknowledge the justice of my punishment." 
 
 In half an hour this dying speech had been turned into a 
 " Copy of verses," and was printed, and sung amongst the 
 crowd. 
 
 And now there was general rejoicing. The king flew to re- 
 lease Eleanor, and the royal couple then came down to ask to 
 whom they were indebted for a champion ; when Maude took 
 off her helmet, and letting her long shining ringlets fall about 
 her neck, showed them who she was. My heart ! how the 
 people shouted then ! and how they threw her the nosegays 
 many of them carried, in token of their approbation. And the 
 king embraced her — not longer, though, than was proper before 
 the queen, and told her she might command whatever boon she 
 wished ; upon which she asked for the post Sir Aldingar had 
 just resigned, and it was immediately given to her. 
 
 All this time the troubadour had been quite neglected ; but 
 Maude no sooner received the appointment than she ran to the 
 gallows and led him to the king's feet, exclaiming, as she 
 blushed like sunset : 
 
 11 Your majesty, be is my old sweetheart. "We were be- 
 
THE LADY TURNED SERVING-MAN. 17 
 
 trothed before he went to Palestine. Forgive us, and we won't 
 do so any more." 
 
 " Rise, sir," said the king, as he hit him with his sword ; 
 " we will have you under our especial eye. Eleanor, dearest 
 love, I have wronged you, but trust I am forgiven. And if 
 these kind friends," he added, coming forward to the front of 
 his throne, and addressing the people, as if he had been finish- 
 ing a play, " will overlook our errors, the performances shall 
 never again be repeated." 
 
 There was loud applause ; and the people called for the queen 
 and cheered her ; then they called for Maude ; and then for the 
 troubadour ; and, lastly, hauled Sir Aldingar's body to the gal- 
 lows intended for his victim. There was a tremendous banquet 
 at night, at which all the chroniclers got so tipsy that they 
 could never give a report of it ; but they remembered, up to a 
 certain period, it was excessively jolly. 
 
 So Edward loved his wife again, Maude was happy with her 
 troubadour, and " God speed all this fayre companie!" 
 
 3. — THE LADY TT7BNED SEEYING-MAN. 
 
 It is some little time before the reader of ancient romances — 
 albeit he has a glossary at the end — can become quite reconciled 
 to the notion of all the ladies of the old metrical stories living 
 in " bowers." 
 
 And, indeed, our own ideas of bowers, viewed as ordinary 
 dwelling-places, are anything but satisfactory, judging from the 
 remains of these features of a former asre still extant in tea- 
 gardens. For we do not take a bower to be an arbour or a 
 summer-house. It is a structure more purely vegetable and 
 airy, such as you might have seen formerly in the realm of the 
 Bayswater Flora, before the polypus arms of the new city 
 of Hyde Park overran it ; pleasant in summer, to be sure, 
 with a thatch of clustering canariensis, and twinkling clymatis, 
 and deep-tinged, velvety convolvulus, to keep off the sun — or 
 even covered with hops or scarlet-runners, but still not suited 
 to live in altogether. For the miseries attendant in the 
 summer upon the humblest meals, even tea, taken in a place of 
 this kind, have been made into comic songs ; and the bare 
 notion of any residence therein, in winter, is such an utter ab- 
 surdity that it is not worth a second thought. Akin to this 
 lackadaisical tenement is a "residence under the greenwood 
 
18 WILD OATS. 
 
 tree;" we should imagine, if anything, several degrees more 
 uncomfortable from the prolonged drip after a shower. _ "With 
 this, however, we have at present less to do ; our business is 
 with a " bower" more especially, and the bower of Lady Mabel 
 Clifford. 
 
 A long time ago — in that gloriously uncertain period wherein 
 the simple affirmation, at just starting, of some one having 
 existed, is received as an authority, and shields you from all 
 charges of anachronism — a long time ago, Lady Mabel Clifford 
 lived on the Border. The Border was considered as the Field- 
 lane of Great Britain. All sorts of vagabonds resided there, 
 who were wont to rush out at certain times, pick and steal all 
 they could, and then go back to their fastnesses, where they 
 kept their goods until other stronger authorities, whom they 
 were unable to resist, came and took them back again, occa- 
 sionally leaving the thieves to dangle in the air from gibbets, 
 as the thefts used to do in Field-lane. 
 
 The chronicles tell us that when Lady Mabel's father died — 
 who was an old English baron — she became the bride of a young 
 knight, and that he, in an architectural spirit of affection, " built 
 her a brave bower," in which she lived gaily. Perhaps love 
 made it always summer, which, for reasons stated above, was 
 to be desired. For then a bower is not such a bad place after 
 all, when the scent-laden air murmurs through the quivering 
 leaves ; and the white wings of the butterfly flash across its 
 opening in the sunlight, which darts, here and there, through 
 the light foliage wherever you can catch a glimpse of the deep 
 sky, to gild the tinselled insects that hover about it. And then 
 all around there is pleasant music of life and summer. You 
 may listen to the murmur of unseen myriads high up in the 
 air, whose song lasts until eventide ; and, about, the buds and 
 seed-pods burst and crackle in the glowing light. The river 
 tumbles on and gurgles with fairer melody ; the hum of the bee 
 has a gentler sound of busy self-content, and every tree be- 
 comes an aviary that may not be matched for sweet minstrelsy 
 by 'any art. For a hundred birds shall always sing in har- 
 mony, albeit they are heretofore strangers to each other. Per- 
 haps it was a bower life, like this, that made Lady Mabel so 
 happy. 
 
 But bad times came. Lady Mabel's husband's turn arrived 
 to be set upon by the other borderers, upon some hunting ques- 
 tion ; for the game-laws, in these rude times, caused almost as 
 
THE LADY TUEXED SERVING-MAN. 19 
 
 many men to be murdered in various ways as they do at present. 
 And one night a great party of Scotch chiefs, including the 
 Haggis, andM'Chivey of Cheviot, and the fierce Earl of Grab, 
 and Sir Hugh Ullerbalow, made what they call a foray ; and 
 having fired the residence, they killed Lady Mabel's husband, 
 and then burst open the cellar and began to drink, until they 
 arrived at that pitch of intoxication assigned, by ancient com- 
 parison, to violinists. 
 
 Lady Mabel was very young and beautiful ; and the borderers 
 were very rude. As a woman, she knew the first of these facts 
 intuitively ; and she had learned the second by report. So she 
 determined to fly at once, before they recovered from the 
 fumes of their wine ; and she sought her little foot-page to 
 accompany her. Alack ! her little foot-page had been hewn down 
 as he unwittingly answered the door to the first summons of 
 the marauders, and all her other servants had taken the warn- 
 ing and left their places at a minute's notice. It would not do 
 to risk the journey by herself, just as she was ; so she stole up 
 to her page's wardrobe, and hastily dressed herself, weeping 
 and trembling the whiles, in a suit of his clothes. They were 
 not too small for her ; for a woman of moderate stature in boy's 
 clothes may pass for a very fair page. 
 
 Accounts of female sailors which appear from time to time 
 in the newspapers — when the large gooseberries and showers 
 of frogs have been too often worked — show us that it is still 
 possible for the fair sex to pass themselves off as men. Else, 
 supposing the stage to hold the mirror up to nature, we never 
 should have suspected the '"Little Jockeys," or " Eton Boys," 
 or " Gil Biases," or " Little Devils," to be otherwise than what 
 they really were ; the pinched-in waists, preposterous figures, 
 oddly arranged hair, and utter want of knowing what to do 
 with the hands beyond putting them on the waist — an attitude 
 a man is never seen in — entirely destroying all illusion. Lady 
 Mabel, however, without any hesitation, cut off all her silky 
 rippling tresses, keeping only such length as a page might be 
 supposed to wear ; and leaving them lying about like so many 
 golden snakes upon the ground, fled from the house, she knew 
 not whither. 
 
 Nor more do we. Eor the chronicle simply states that she 
 " travell'd far through many a land," which is a direction as 
 vague in locality as the period, " once upon a time," is in epoch. 
 But we imagine that she arrived at last in one of those pleasant 
 
 c2 
 
20 WILD OATS. 
 
 legendary countries, with the costume and geography, and 
 manners and customs of which Mr. Planche only is well ac- 
 quainted — the fairy realms of the Countess d'Anois, in which 
 we once so fervently believed — the loss of which belief has 
 been the most chilling attribute of increasing years. Useful 
 knowledge is all very right and proper ; but its pleasures do 
 not — caunot — equal the gilded ignorance of childhood. Well, 
 Lady Mabel, all wearied with her toil, at last sat down to rest, 
 and weep, in the middle of a mighty forest ; and make a very 
 frugal meal from beech-nuts and water. Her heart was very 
 full — if it had not run over at her eyes, it would have well-nigh 
 burst. Everything was gloomy around her. The trees of the 
 forest were so tall and thick, that the sunlight never penetrated 
 them ; and there were black rocks and gloomy pools in every 
 direction. She had parted, too, with all her jewels for food, 
 and her shoes were beginning to wear away. It is terrible, 
 at the present day, when the first decay of your pet boots 
 evinces itself; but it was much worse in Mabel's case, for 
 she knew not where to go for others, and her small white feet 
 were not calculated to go without. She thought of all this as 
 she lay against the mossy holl of a huge old tree, whose roots 
 aboveground made a sort of rustic arm-chair, watching the 
 ants running backwards and forwards on their highway, and 
 almost wishing she was one of them, to have a home and com- 
 panions, until, worn out with her great sorrow, she sobbed 
 herself fast asleep. 
 
 She was roused by a great noise of shouting and blowing of 
 horns, to which the stoppage at Cheam Grate, coming home from 
 the Derby, was nothing ; and, opening her eyes in great terror, 
 she found that she was surrounded by a crowd of huntsmen 
 and falconers, both horse and foot, and a bevy of beautiful 
 ladies on palfreys, with long flowing trains of cloth of gold, 
 such as they wear in a circus, when they dance a grand cotillion 
 upon horseback. One of the gentlemen who were mounted 
 was young and handsome, with a great deal more gold and 
 bright things generally upon his dress than any of his fellows. 
 
 " Hillio !" he cried, as he saw Mabel ; " wake up, knavelet, 
 and tell us who you are. Some roysterer, I warrant, who 
 has been up all night, and is taking it out of the noontide. 
 Hillio !" 
 
 First impressions upon waking are usually very hazy affairs. 
 Hence, at times, incoherent answers have been given in reply 
 
THE LADY TUENED SERVING-MAN. 21 
 
 to the servant's knock at the bedroom door, to her great be- 
 wilderment, touching on the subjects of the dream thus broken ; 
 hence, a doze during a sermon — which, although very wicked, 
 cannot be battled with — induces wrong and hurried responses 
 when none ought to be made, upon first waking up ; hence, a 
 friend to whom you are reading a five-act play of your own, will 
 be apt to give loose opinions thereon upon being suddenly 
 questioned. And hence, Lady Mabel's first impression was, 
 that all her Border enemies had followed her to take her pri- 
 soner. So, as the horseman's bright dress was the first thing 
 that attracted her, and he looked the chief of the party, she 
 threw herself at his feet, and cried, 
 
 " Mercy ! mercy ! I implore you !" 
 
 " "What for ?" replied the king, for such he was — " what for, 
 stripling ? For going to sleep ? Gad's my life ! we don't 
 punish people here for idle dreaming. If we did, all the trees 
 in the forest wouldn't serve to make gibbets for our philo- 
 sophers and poets. "Who are you; boy?" 
 
 The last words somewhat reassured Lady Mabel ; for they 
 proved that she was not discovered. So she answered, 
 
 " I feared that I was trespassing. I am well born, but my 
 family have been unfortunate ; and I am seeking employment." 
 
 " You are a comely lad and well built," said the king ; 
 " turn round and let us look at you." 
 
 Lady Mabel blushed deeply. She had beautiful legs, and 
 could have held rose-nobles between her knees, calves, and 
 ankles all at once ; and knowing they were beautiful, she never 
 much cared, in former times, when the wind ruffled her dress 
 round the aforesaid ankles ; but that was very different to 
 having them stared at in a pair of red moyen-age page's trunks. 
 However, she did as the king ordered, but it was in some con- 
 fusion. 
 
 " That will do," said the king, somewhat prepossessed in 
 her favour ; and so thought Mabel, by the way, and wondered 
 what he would have if it didn't ; for she was a woman, and, as 
 such, aware of her beauty. 
 
 " That will do. Now, what would you like to be ? My 
 esquire, to ride after me always ? or the wine-taster, to attend 
 on me in the hall ? or will you be my chamberlain ?" 
 
 Lady Mabel hesitated a minute. There were reasons for 
 declining the first, and she feared her head would not stand 
 the second. She therefore replied, 
 
22 WILD OATS. 
 
 " An 't please you, I will be your chamberlain." 
 " Well, so you shall, boy, so you shall," said the king. 
 " Ho ! lords and ladies, on with the hunt ! Sir Widdicombe, 
 let the stranger have one of your steeds, for he looks footsore." 
 He addressed this speech to the Master of the Horse, who 
 had lived with him, and his father, and great-grandfather, in 
 that capacity. Mabel felt more uncomfortable than ever. She 
 was a capital horsewoman, as all the Border ladies were ; but 
 her only notions of riding were connected with the crutch of a 
 side-saddle ; for she had never seen the ecuyeres at Franconi's. 
 We must draw a veil over her embarrassment, and merely say 
 that she was nearly ridden over in the chase, and before she 
 got home, by the ladies, who were all anxious to get near the 
 young and handsome stranger. 
 
 Time went on ; the sand of his hour-glass passed like that 
 of an egg-boiler, producing the whiles those eccentric actions 
 which it does in the toys, only amidst real men and women — 
 and Lady Mabel rose into high favour ; for the king had not 
 so faithful nor so gentle a servitor. The men about the court 
 found fault with the young chamberlain, to be sure, for he 
 would not drink with them, nor sit long at their banquets ; but 
 the women adored him, which made the men hate him still 
 more ; and seeing in the hunt he was ever first, or, if not there, 
 by the king's side, they so plotted, that one day they got him 
 left behind. 
 
 Lady Mabel had some suspicion that this was unkindly 
 meant. She watched the train depart somewhat sorrowfully, 
 and then wandered over the castle to find a companion. But 
 everybody had left to join the chase. Had the king been 
 married, and blessed with a family, and all his relations gone a 
 hunting, to get the rabbit-skin of nursery renown wherein to 
 rock the darling baby, the party could not have been more 
 universal. Even Blanche Angmering, the falconer's daughter, 
 who believed — poor simpleton — that the chamberlain was in 
 love with her, because Mabel was fond of talking to her when 
 her father was out, had scampered off on her pony with the 
 rest. But as Mabel sat down awhile in her room to play with 
 one or two of the tame hawks, her bright eyes fell upon a 
 lady's dress, a new one, just sent home for Blanche by the 
 court milliner. In an instant, all her woman's feelings re- 
 
THE LADY TUEXED SERYIXG-MAX. 23 
 
 turned. She longed to put on a gown once more ; so, locking 
 the door, she hastily undressed, and donned Blanche's new 
 robe ; not without some trouble, though, for she had gone 
 without stays so long, that it was only with the greatest pains 
 she could make the hooks and eyes meet ; and then she put a 
 wreath in her hair, and taking up a guitar, sang this little 
 song, which we give in Percy's own words : 
 
 i. 
 My father -was as brave a lord 
 As ever Europe might afford ; 
 My mother was a ladye bright ; 
 My husband was a valiant knight. 
 
 ir. 
 
 And I myself a ladye gay, 
 Bedeckt with gorgeous, rich array : 
 The happiest ladye in the land 
 Had not more pleasure at command. 
 
 in. 
 
 I had my musicke every day, 
 Harmonious lessons for to play ; 
 I had my virgins fair and free, 
 Continually to wait on me. 
 
 rr. 
 But now, alas! my husband's dead, 
 And ail my friends are from me fled ; 
 My former days are past and gone, 
 And I am now a serving-man. 
 
 " Bravo !" cried a voice outside, as the song concluded. Lady 
 Mabel threw down the guitar in terror, as she heard the sound 
 of applause from a pair of hands following the exclamation. 
 
 " You can't come in!" she cried, as she ran to the door. 
 
 " Can't !" exclaimed the intruder, whom she at once recog- 
 nised as the king. " Who says I can't go anywhere in my own 
 palace, especially when such a voice invites me ? It was a 
 fair challenge !" 
 
 And sending the door flying before his shoulders, he pushed 
 it into the room, and found Lady Mabel fainting on the otto- 
 man, which she had astonished Blanche by assisting to work. 
 In her fear she looked more beautiful than ever. The denou- 
 ment is quickly told. The king no sooner saw our heroine in 
 
24 WILD OATS. 
 
 her proper habiliments, than he fell desperately in love with her. 
 Evil toDgues whispered that he had returned from the chase, 
 under pretence of fatigue, to flirt with Blanche upon the sly, 
 for he bore the character of being— what all young, handsome, 
 single kings must be, if they have any spirits — un peu roue. It 
 was furthermore asserted that, not being too constant in his 
 attachments wherever a new beauty was concerned, he pressed 
 his attentions somewhat too warmly upon Lady Mabel. But 
 her behaviour was so noble, that the king bethought himself 
 how admirably she would grace his throne ; and, after a very 
 short consideration, he offered her his hand and his heart. 
 Both were accepted ; and so, from a serving-man, Lady Mabel 
 became a queen, and she and her royal husband, in the good 
 old fairy fashion, " lived happily together all the rest of their 
 days until they died." 
 
 Now for the Moral : for if you care to look for it, you will 
 find one in all our old legends, far more pleasantly and kindly 
 set forth than by crabbed, acrid essayists of the present day. 
 In the mantle of Lady Caradoc was shown a good conscience ; 
 in the sword of Sir ' Aldingar's fair adversary, the cause of 
 right ; and in the adventure of Lady Mabel, the bright destiny, 
 never far distant, when everything around us wears its dreariest 
 hue. 
 
( 25 ) 
 
 II. 
 
 BEDFORDIA. 
 
 Neither Mr. Peter Cunningham nor Mr. John Tiinbs, in 
 their excellent books about London, have done becoming jus- 
 tice to the varied district of Bedfordia. "Why not " Bed- 
 fordia ?" It has as much right to have a square for its sponsor 
 as any other region more favoured by patrician homes. Bel- 
 graviais great in ancestral exclusiveness, and Tyburnia weighty 
 in successful commerce, and Bedfordia is equally important — in 
 its way. 
 
 I would define Bedfordia as somewhat freely bounded on 
 the east by the Foundling Hospital, and on the west by that of 
 Middlesex. Northwards, the Xew-road forms its frontier ; and 
 to the south, the rolling tide of Oxford-street prevents its 
 respectability running astray in St. Giles's. Its inhabitants 
 would repudiate Tottenham-court-road if they could, but it is 
 impossible. It is the great artery of the quarter ; and were it, 
 in surgical phrase, '"taken up," no other branches could carry 
 on the circulation of vitality into the contiguous component 
 members. 
 
 It comprises several squares besides the one from which it 
 takes its name. The frigid Fitzroy, the respectable Eussell, 
 the bland Bloomsbury, and the two- windowed Torrington, ven- 
 tilate its atmosphere. A large portion of its inhabitants live as 
 they choose ; an equally large portion live as they can. Eussell- 
 square is the region of the first class ; Bathbone-place of the 
 second. 
 
 Let us consider the first. Possibly nowhere else in London 
 is the conventional mechanism of set social life so gravely ob- 
 served. The heavy morning call in the heavier carriage— the 
 raide routine of the society altogether — the grim grind of the 
 dull dinner-parties— the belief that certain articles can only be 
 procured at certain shops, and those the most expensive — the 
 creed that establishes the importance of the tongue and brains 
 of Grunter on the table over the tongues and brains of anybody 
 round it — the immature French beans in April, only because 
 
26 WILD OATS. 
 
 they are dear— the drawing-room tahle with the same books 
 and articles on it, in the* same places, from year to year — the 
 loss what to say next in conversation, and the leaden platitude 
 that it turns out to be when it is said — the pompous, empty 
 arrogance of disbelief in the immeasurable self-relying supe- 
 riority of artistic and literary life, — all these attributes, and 
 thousands of others that their combined influence, acting to- 
 gether, produce, characterise " the Squares." 
 
 I have terribly dull recollections connected with " the 
 Squares." I had all sorts of relations living all about them 
 when I was a child at school, and I used to dine with one or 
 the other on Sunday. It was not lively. However fine the 
 morning might be, the heavy carriage always took us to the 
 [Foundling Chapel, which was close at hand ; for, but for this, how 
 could other people see the carriage ? And I had, after this, to 
 walk round and round long tables, and see small children eat 
 graviless boiled beef off wooden plates ; and my relations used 
 to think it such a pretty condescension if they — being governors 
 and coming in their carriages — tasted a piece of boiled beef and 
 pronounced it very good. And having done this, they would 
 look round and smile complacently, as if they had achieved a 
 feat ; in the same way as I have seen feeble persons do upon 
 crossing the road, or entering an omnibus or railway. The 
 sight of these little children dining would have been pretty 
 enough once in its way, but it bored me on constant repetition. 
 And it bored my relations, too ; they did not derive a grain of 
 amusement from it ; but it is considered " the thing" in " the 
 Squares" to go to the Foundling ; and so they wished " to afford 
 an opportunity to all classes" — as they say at an exhibition 
 when it does not pay at a shilling and is reduced to sixpence — 
 to see them there. Not, however, that reduction of price had 
 anything to do with them. On the contrary, if their price of 
 admission as a governor, as painted in the dull gold letters on 
 the black board with the names attached, had been doubled, 
 they would have liked " all classes" to have seen them better. 
 
 The ordinary books on the drawing-room table were always 
 removed on Sundays, and replaced by religious ones, which, like 
 their predecessors, were never opened. People called after 
 luncheon, and then the Observer — that effete and musty old 
 newspaper, which still seems to be taken in by people who 
 prefer ancient mould candles to moderator lamps, and gives you 
 an impression that the united ages of its editor, leader writers, 
 
BEDFOEBIA. 27 
 
 reporters, and correspondents, must amount to many hundreds 
 — was put behind the sofa cushions. As the merest boy, I was 
 struck with the twaddle the visitors talked; they told one 
 another things that had been in the newspapers days before, and 
 were especially particular in inquiring after persons I knew 
 they did not care twopence about ; and when at last they said, 
 " Well, we must go now," I wondered how it was that the 
 necessity of departure had not struck them all before. Some 
 friends did not come in, but merely left cards ; they were 
 sensible people, and had considerably the best of it. The po- 
 sition of their cards in the large china dish depended, in a 
 great measure, upon who they were. There was a fat, wheezing 
 man, who had been knighted in the City sometime, with a 
 full-blown lady, and who gave heavy dinners, and was very 
 rich, and could procure anything for money except his h's. He 
 was a great card, actually and metaphorically, and was always 
 at the top of the dish. I dined once at his house ; it was a 
 solemn and dismal banquet. At one time, for three minutes at 
 least not a word was said — not even a platitude was launched. 
 The servants stalked round the table, and gravely croaked 
 " Hock or sherry ?" in your ear ; and there was really nothing 
 left, after you had crumbled all your bread away in despera- 
 tion, but to drink ; and so I took to it for the remainder of the 
 feast. Once I tried to make a little diversion to the dreari- 
 ness, by offering to bet that there was always more false hair 
 at the Opera on the nights of " Don Giovanni" than at any 
 other representation of the season (which there always is, and 
 I can't tell why), but the attempt was a failure. When we 
 went up-stairs, a lady who could not sing tootled out some- 
 thing, half inaudibly, at a piano that must have cost two 
 hundred guineas at least. Then came a dead pause, and the 
 mistress of the house said, " Oh, thank you — it is so very kind 
 of you ;" and somebody near the instrument, obliged to say 
 something, asked whose song it was ; and on being told, was no 
 wiser. Then came another pause ; and then, as I felt strangely 
 inclined, from simple oppression, to stamp and yell, and smash 
 the costly tea-service that the servant was bringing round, by 
 kicking the tray up into the air, as a relief to my bottled-up 
 feelings, I hurried out of the room, and hurrahed to find myself 
 once more upon the free and common pavement. 
 
 Once leave " the Squares," and the population of the streets 
 of Bedfordia is more varied than that of any other department in 
 
2S WILD OATS. 
 
 London. It is,^w excellence, the " Quartier des Arts." From 
 the varied struggling for a livelihood in Bathbone-place, to the 
 academical aspirations of Upper Charlotte-street, there is not 
 a floor that does not boast an " artiste" as an occupant. Heaven 
 only knows how a great part of these folk live! Not the 
 painters who cut large bits out of the fronts of houses over the 
 windows ; nor the sculptors who have roomy studios behind, 
 opening into the mews, with the same dusty old plaster heads, 
 and big hands, and casts of human chines hanging about— 
 of no earthly use but to look professional, as tea-dealers dis- 
 play mandarins and Chinese lanterns — not these clever folks, 
 who are more or less established, but the " professors." Pro- 
 fessors swarm hereabouts. They teach the accordion, and model 
 in leather, and have classes for dancing, French, wax flowers, 
 potichomachie, the guitar, photography, and dress-making. They 
 sell cheap music, and clean gloves, and paint on glass, and dye 
 dresses, and work in hair, and deal in Berlin-wool, and open 
 and close small cigar shops, and retail fancy letter-paper and 
 perforated pasteboard, and songs with piratical frontispieces, 
 shilling books, whereof, like a dancing-show at a fair, the best 
 part is outside, and fancy writing-paper. In fact, they would 
 form, together, the storehouse of that hopeless suburban and 
 semi-marine establishment known as a " Eepository" — one of the 
 havens provided for commercial wrecks. For as the Chinese 
 proverb perhaps says, "the barber must be taught his call- 
 ing, but the repository and the wine-trade require no appren- 
 ticeship :" a terse conception of that sagacious and practical 
 people. 
 
 If I were asked to name the chief productions of Bedfordia, 
 I should say, " Concerts !" The people who pay the half-guinea 
 for tickets, and the professors who sell them, are alike natives 
 of the district. With the exception of private teaching, this 
 is the only case in which the two classes of the population have 
 much intercourse with each other, and the results of this even 
 are visible only out of the district, except the anomalous ga- 
 therings of the Music Hall in Store- street. The concert Bed- 
 fordia mostly approves is in the kindly-granted private house 
 of the "West-end : when the bedroom chairs descend to the 
 drawing-room, and the more movable knick-knacks go up-stairs 
 for the day in exchange : for safety from breakage, however, be 
 it understood, rather than another danger. 
 
 I say "the Squares" mainly support these concerts. The 
 
BEDFORDIA. 29 
 
 usual habitues of the mansion have been too often bored, and 
 stifled, and crushed in the rooms ; but when Lady de Eobinson 
 kindly allows Signor Dolce Feroce to hold his matinee at her 
 residence, "the Squares" love to go, because, for the time, 
 they fancy themselves on visiting terms with the establishment, 
 and when they speak of it afterwards, they say " they were at 
 Lady de Robinson's concert on Thursday," as if her ladyship 
 gave it. The Signor is thus ignored altogether. But he gets, 
 in this case, his guinea a ticket just the same ; which, at first 
 sight, may appear a great deal for three hours of heated har- 
 mony, occasionally supplied in greater perfection, and more 
 commodiously, by St. James's, or St. Martin's Hall, for a small 
 fraction of that sum ; but as for every ticket sold, eight or ten 
 are given away to eligible people with nice bonnets to " dress" 
 the room and crowd it, and make it appear to the outer world 
 that the Signor is run after by admiring mobs, the price per 
 head comes to about the same thing in the end. 
 
 That Bedfordia is gradually decaying there cannot be the 
 least doubt. It has been for some time the " sick man " of 
 the London quarters. As the corners of its streets have gra- 
 dually turned into shops, so has its commercial spirit extended, 
 stealing on from house to house, as the dining-room windows 
 are one after the other knocked into shop-fronts. I see more 
 bills of " apartments to let" about, and I am told that board- 
 ing-houses are on the increase. I believe this to be true ; for 
 on fine afternoons I see at the drawing-room windows, not one, 
 but two or three of those peculiar caps which only ladies at 
 boarding-houses wear. If, however, this innovation forces new 
 sentiments into " the Squares ;" if it teaches them that Verey's 
 ices are as good as Grange's ; that dragging round the Park 
 every afternoon is but a ghastly business of show-oft", with the 
 lovely environs of London available ; that literary people are 
 not all " strange sorts of persons ;" that two or three of their 
 favoured watering-places are only bare, chalky, glariug, leafless 
 leagues of pretence, and that they might go to the Pyrenees 
 for the same money ; that heavy plate on the table does not 
 compensate for heavier people around it ; and that the vulgar 
 old woman with the diamonds and rings who sits next to you 
 is worlds and worlds below the nice governess who has not ap- 
 peared, but is having a dreary time with the children in the 
 schoolroom, — if the change effects all this, and much more in 
 Bedfordia, no amount of administrative reform will ever equal 
 it in value. 
 
( 30 ) 
 
 III. 
 
 A WINTEE'S NIGHT WITH MY OLD BOOKS, CHIEFLY 
 CONCEENING GHOSTS AND PEODIGIES. 
 
 When the weather is cold and the evenings at their longest 
 — when the day closes in at half-past three, and one dines early, 
 because one does not know what else to do ; and afterwards 
 piles up such a fire that, no matter how many candles are 
 lighted, the flashing glow on the ceiliDg, and glass, and picture- 
 frames overcomes them — at this cozy season I sometimes have 
 a small party. My visitors are not numerous. They come at 
 the minute I wish for them, and depart with equally agreeable 
 rapidity. They do not cost me anything to entertain. They 
 are not " fast," up-to-the-time fellows, but grave, and even 
 shabby in their appearance; such as many would not like to be 
 seen in their rooms. We have, however, been friends for many 
 years ; and they have, in times of vexation and fretting, given 
 me more consolation than several others upon whom I might 
 with more plausibility have reckoned. In a word, they are a 
 few favourite red-edged, round-cornered, musty old books. 
 
 I have not many; bibliomania is an expensive passion to 
 indulge in, and will affect a large income ; but where that in- 
 come is fished with a steel pen from the bottom of an inkstand, 
 with the same slippery incertitude that attends the spearing of 
 eels in a muddy pond, the taste is, of necessity, entirely kept 
 down. And so I am content with a very few, that have 
 come to me as heirlooms rather than purchases, awaiting pa- 
 tiently, with the resignation of the Flying Dutchman's wife, 
 the time when the long-expected ship shall come in that con- 
 tains my fortune. 
 
 It so happens that the few old books I have treat almost 
 entirely either of ghosts or prodigies. How our good ancestors 
 contrived to live in full possession of their wits in those old 
 haunted-looking houses, with so many accredited instances in 
 their popular literature of unearthly visitors calling upon them 
 at all times, is, in itself, a marvel. How they ever found them- 
 selves alone in their tall, ghastly beds, with the moon shining 
 through the mullioned windows upon the tapestry, as she rose 
 over the yew-trees of the adjoining churchyard, without dying 
 
A winter's night with my old books. 31 
 
 with fright then and there, is matter for serious discussion. ]Sow, 
 it is true, ghosts have somewhat declined in position ; not but 
 that I still devoutly believe in them, but circumstances are not 
 so favourable to their appearance. In the country they would 
 shun spots where the gleam and stream of the mail-train might 
 disturb their importance ; and in London they would hate the gas- 
 light shining through the bedroom blinds; the rattling of the cabs 
 going home with late roysterers ; and, at this their own season, 
 the waits playing the Eclipse Polka, as well as the cornet-a-pis- 
 tons in the cold can imitate the great fluttering solo of Kcenig, 
 Arban, or Macfarlane. Ghosts have never been in force in 
 London. I can't tell what you might see if you were shut up 
 all night by yourself in Westminster Abbey; but certainly 
 they eschew the squares, and have a horror of hotels. To be 
 in a cellar at midnight might formerly have been considered a 
 favourable position for meeting one. Imagine the chance a 
 spectre would have at twelve p.m., in the Cyder Cellars ! But 
 to our subject more directly. 
 
 The smallest of my books, looking like a withered old gentle- 
 man, is entitled, " Miscellanies, collected by J. Aubrey, Esq." 
 Its title-page of contents, amongst which we find "Appari- 
 tions," " Omens," "Voices," " Knockings," " Corpse Candles," 
 and other " skudderish" subjects, bespeaks its tendency. It is, 
 I think, the only published work of the author. 
 
 Aubrey must have been on excellent terms with ghosts ge- 
 nerally. It is somewhat strange, considering the high respect 
 in which he held them, that none ever paid him a visit. He 
 has, however, no story of his own to recount ; but he evidently 
 believes in all the narrations as though he had been the hero 
 of them ; and it was on this account that Gilford somewhat 
 ill-naturedly called him " a credulous fool." One of his notes, 
 under the head of Majiclc, will cause a smile. It runs as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 " In Herefordshire, and other parts, they do put a cold iron 
 bar upon their barrels, to preserve their beer from being soured 
 by thunder. This is a common practice in Kent." 
 
 Modern science has attributed this remedy to other causes 
 than " majick ;" indeed, " progress" has sadly upset the wizards. 
 Mephistopheles himself, when he tapped the table to bring forth 
 wine for the students, would have been quenched altogether by 
 Eobert-Houdin and his inexhaustible bottle. Take another :^ 
 
 " There was in Scotland one (an obsessus) carried in 
 
 the air several times in the view of several persons, his fellow- 
 
32 WILD OATS. 
 
 soldiers. Major Henton hath seen hiin carry' d away from the 
 guard in Scotland, sometimes a mile or two. Sundry persons 
 are living now (1671), that can attest this story. I had it 
 from Sir Kobert Harley (the son), who marryed Major Hen- 
 ton's widow ; as also from E. T. D. D." 
 
 And next to it : 
 
 " A gentleman of my acquaintance, Mr. M., was in Portu- 
 gal, anno 1655, when one was burnt by the Inquisition for 
 beino- brought thither from Goa in East India, in the air, in 
 an incredible short time." 
 
 Wonderful as these events must have been at the time, a 
 shilling will procure us a similar spectacle on fine summer 
 Monday afternoons at Cremorne Gardens, when Mr. Green not 
 only carries away one, but a dozen with him in the air. And 
 certainly no Essex Inquisition would now think of condemning 
 to be "burnt all "intrepid aeronauts" who come in fifteen 
 minutes from Chelsea to Chelmsford, for which latter neigh- 
 bourhood descending balloons appear to have a great predilec- 
 tion. 
 
 Following up the " Majick," we have a less satisfactory re- 
 ceipt than that for the thunder : 
 
 " To Cure the Thrush. — Take a living frog, and hold it in 
 a cloth, that it does not go down into the child's mouth, and 
 put the head into the child's mouth till it is dead." 
 
 It is not here clearly explained whether the death of the 
 child or the frog puts an end to the thrush. The following is 
 more simple, and at all events harmless : 
 
 " To Cure the Toothache. — Take a new nail and make 
 the gum bleed with it, and then drive it into an oak. This did 
 cure William Neal, Sir William Neal's son^a very stout gentle- 
 man, when he was almost mad with the pain, and had a mind 
 to have pistoll'd himself." 
 
 The cure that an inflamed gum might receive from this rude 
 lancing is not hinted at. Going on, we find it clearly shown 
 why the steel horseshoe now hangs from the glittering chatelaine 
 of our most fashionable West-end belles, to which enviable po- 
 sition, it will be seen, they have been promoted from the door- 
 steps : 
 
 "It is a thing very common to nail horseshoes on the 
 thresholds of doors, which is to hinder the power of witches that 
 enter into the house. Most houses of the West-end of London 
 have the horseshoe on the threshold. It should be a horseshoe 
 
a winter's night with my old books. 33 
 
 one finds. In the Bermudas they used to put an iron into the 
 fire when a witch conies in." 
 
 "We do the latter thing in England, on the entrance of a 
 friend, to give him a cheerful blaze. The next receipt, I think 
 I may safely affirm, is no longer practised : 
 
 " At Paris, when it begins to thunder and lighten, they do 
 presently ring out the bell at the Abbey of St. Germain, which 
 they do believe makes it cease. The like was wont to be done 
 heretofore in Wiltshire ; when it thundered and lightened, they 
 did ring St. Adelras bell at Malmsbury Abbey. The curious 
 do say that the ringing of bells exceedingly disturbs spirits." 
 
 It certainly exceedingly disturbed mine when I once lived 
 opposite to a country church where the "youths" were wont 
 to ring triple-major-bobs, or whatever they called them, twice 
 a week. The subject is, however, worth investigation. Per- 
 haps by it may be accounted for how it happens alwavs to be 
 such serene and lovely weather on the Queen's festival days, 
 and a new fact in meteorology opened to us. 
 
 As regards matrimony, Aubrey had collected many secrets : 
 " The last summer," he says, " on the day of St. John Baptist 
 (1694), I accidently was walking in the pasture behind Mon- 
 tague House. It was xii a clock. I saw there about two or 
 three and twenty young women, most of them well habited, 
 on their knees, very busie, as if they had been weeding. I 
 could now presently learn what the matter was ; at least, a 
 young man told me that they were looking for a coal under the 
 root of a plantain to put under their heads that night, and they 
 should dream who would be their husbands ; it was to be found 
 that day and hour." 
 
 Again : " To know whom one shall marry, you must be in 
 another county, and knit the left garter about the right legg'd 
 stocking (let the other garter and stocking alone), and as you 
 rehearse these following verses, at every comma knit a knot : 
 
 This knot I knit 
 
 To know the thing I know not yet 
 
 That I may see 
 
 The man (woman) that shall my husband (wife) be 
 
 How he goes, and what he wears, 
 
 And what he does all the days. 
 
 Accordingly, in your dream you will see him ; if a musitian, 
 with a lute or other instrument ; if a scholar, with a book, &c 
 A gentlewoman that I knew confessed, in my hearing, that she 
 
 D 
 
34 WILD OATS. 
 
 used tills method, and dreamt of her husband whom she had 
 never seen; about two or three years after, as she was on 
 Sunday at church, up pops a young Oxonian in the pulpit ; she 
 cries out presently to her sister, ' This is the very face of the 
 man I saw in my dream.' Sir William Somes lady did the 
 like." 
 
 Under the head Apparitions, is the following paragraph, 
 which is, perhaps, better known than most of Aubrey's collec- 
 tion : 
 
 " Anno 1670, not far from Cyrencester, was an Apparition ; 
 being demanded whether a good spirit or a bad ? returned no 
 answer, but disappeared with a curious perfume and most melo- 
 dious twang. Mr. W. Lilly believes it was a farie." 
 
 This is certainly unsatisfactory ; the locality is hazily denned, 
 and the detail not well filled up. But the fact that " Mr. W. 
 Lilly" believed it to be a "farie" was quite sufficient. Hitherto 
 we have selected the most ridiculous of Aubrey's miscellanies, 
 but we now come to some which, at all events, are well authen- 
 ticated. And first, under the head of Dreams : 
 
 " Sir Christopher Wren, being at his father's house, anno 
 1651, at Knahill, in Wilts (a young Oxford scholar), dreamt 
 that he saw a fight in a great market-place, which he knew not, 
 where some were flying and others pursuing ; and among those 
 that fled, he saw a kinsman of his who went into Scotland to 
 the king's army. They heard in the country that the king 
 was come into England, but whereabout he was they could not 
 tell. The next night his kinsman came to his father, at Knahill, 
 and was the first that brought the news of the fight at Wor- 
 cester." 
 
 Sir Christopher, in all probability, told this story himself to 
 Aubrey ; at all events, he lived twenty years after the publica- 
 tion of the book. The chronicler also received the following 
 nearly first hand. There is, however, little that is supernatural 
 in it, but its quaintness is most diverting : 
 
 " Dr. Twiss, minister of the new church at Westminster, 
 told me that his father (Dr. Twiss, Prolocutor of the Assembly 
 of Divines, and author of Vindicice), when he was a schoolboy 
 at Winchester, saw the Phantome of a schoolfellow of his 
 deceased (a rakehell), who said to him, ' I am damned.' This 
 was the occasion of Dr. Twiss (the father's) conversion, who 
 had been before that time (as he told his son) a very wicked 
 boy. (He was hypochondriacal.)" 
 
 The one or two more stories that we shall steal from Aubrey 
 
A winter's sight with my old books. 35 
 
 are of a serious character, really " ghost stories," well attested, 
 and inexplicable : 
 
 " Anno 1647," he says, " the Lord Mohun's son and heir (a 
 gallant gentleman, valiant, and a great master of fencing and 
 horsemanship) 'had a quarrel with Prince Griffin ; there was a 
 challenge, and they were to fight on horseback in Chelsey-fields 
 in the morning ; Mr. Mohan went accordingly to meet him ; 
 but about Ebury Farm he was met by some who quarrell'd 
 with him and pistol'd him ; it was believed by the order of 
 Prince Griffin; for he was sure that Mr. Mohun, being so 
 much the better horseman, &c, would have killed him, had 
 they fought. In James-street in Covent-garden did then lodge 
 a gentlewoman, who was Mr. Mohun's sweetheart. Me. Mo- 
 hun was murthered about ten a-clock in the morning ; and at 
 that very time, his mistress being in bed, saw Mr. Mohun come 
 to her bed-side, drew the curtain, looked upon her, and went 
 away ; she called after him, but- no answer ; she knocked for 
 her maid, ask'd her for Mr. Mohun; she said, she did not see 
 him, and had the key of her chamber-door in her pocket. This 
 account my friend, aforesaid, had from the gentlewoman's own 
 mouth, and her maid's. A parallel story to this, is, that Mr. 
 Prown (brother-in-law to Lord Coningsby) discovered his 
 being murthered to several. His Phantome appear' d to his 
 sister and her maid in Pleet-street, about the time he was 
 killed in Herefordshire, which was about a year since, 1693." 
 In the following is ground for a good romance : 
 " Sir Walter Long, of Draycot (grandfather of Sir James 
 Long), had two wives; the first a daughter of Sir — Packin- 
 ton in "Worcestershire ; by whom he had a son : his second wife 
 was a daughter of Sir John Thinne of Longleat ; by whom he 
 had several sons and daughters. The second wife did use much 
 artifice to render the son by the first wife (who had not much 
 Promethean fire) odious to his father ; she would get her ac- 
 quaintance to make him drunk ; and then expose him in that 
 condition to his father ; in fine, she never left of her attempts, 
 till she got Sir Walter to disinherit him. She laid the scene 
 for the doing this at Bath, at the assizes, where was her brother 
 Sir Egrimond Thinne, an eminent serjeant-at-law, who drew 
 the writing ; and his clerk was to set up all night to engross 
 it ; as he was writing, he perceived a shadow on the parchment 
 from the candle ; he look'd up, and there appear' d a hand, 
 which immediately vanished; he was startl'd at it, but thought 
 
 d2 
 
36 WILD OATS. 
 
 it might be only his fancy, being sleepy ; so be writ on ; by- 
 and-by, a fine white hand interposed between the writing and 
 the candle (he could discern it was a woman's hand), but 
 vanish'd as before ; I have forgot, it appeared a third time ; but 
 with that the clerk threw down his pen, and would engross no 
 more, but goes and tells his master of it, and absolutely refused 
 to do it. But it was done by somebody, and Sir Walter Long 
 was prevailed with to seal and sign it. He lived not long after; 
 and his body did not go quiet to the grave, it being arrested at 
 the church-porch by the trustees of the first lady. The heir's 
 relations took his part, and commenced a suit against Sir 
 Walter (the second son), and compell'd him to accept a moiety 
 of the estate ; so the eldest son kept South- Wranchester, and 
 Sir Walter, the second son, Dracot, Cernes, &c. This was about 
 the middle of the reign of King James the First." 
 
 With one more we shall lay Aubrey aside ; this is the more 
 interesting, as it has relation to a well-known event in our 
 history : 
 
 " One Mr. Towes, who had been schoolfellow with Sir George 
 Villers, the father of the first Duke of Buckingham (and was his 
 friend and neighbour), as he lay in his bed awake (and it was 
 daylight), came into his chamber the phantome of his dear 
 friend Sir George Villers. Said Mr. Towes to him, ' Why, 
 you are dead, what make you here?' Said the knight, ' I am 
 dead, but cannot rest in peace for the wickedness and abomina- 
 tion of my son George at court. I do appear to you to tell him 
 of it, and to advise and exhort him from his evil ways.' Said 
 Mr. Towes, ' The duke will not believe me ; but will say that I 
 am mad or doat.' Said Sir George, ' Go to him from me, and 
 tell him by such a token (some mole) that he had which none 
 but himself knew of.' Accordingly, Mr. Towes went to the 
 duke, who laughed at his message. At his return home, the 
 phantome appeared again, and told him that ' the duke would 
 be stabbed (he drew out a dagger) a quarter of a year after, 
 and you shall outlive him half a year. And the warning that 
 you shall have of your death will be, that your nose will fall a- 
 bleeding ;' all of which accordingly fell out so. This account 
 I have had (in the main) from two or three ; but Sir William 
 Dugdale affirms what I have here taken from him to be true, 
 and that the apparition told him of several things to come, 
 which proved true ; e.g. of a prisoner in the Tower that should 
 be honourably delivered. This Mr. Towes had so often the 
 ghost of his old friend appear to him, that it was not at all 
 
a winter's xight with my old books. 37 
 
 terrible to him. He was surveyor of the works at "Windsor 
 (by favour of the duke). Being then sitting in the hall, he 
 cried out, ' The Duke of Buckingham is stabbed !' He was 
 stabbed that very moment." 
 
 Next to Aubrey on my shelves — of the same octavo form, 
 but far stouter in appearance, so that the two books look like 
 an alderman and a genius side by side — is Glanvil's Saducis 
 mus Triumphatus. It differs from Aubrey's work, inasmuch 
 as the former is merely a string of collected anecdotes, im- 
 perfectly arranged, and printed one after the other ; whereas 
 G-lanvil devotes half his book to metaphysical arguments upon 
 the possibility of apparitions : and in his collection of rela- 
 tions, to each of them he adds some comments. It is a re- 
 gular, downright, hair-erecting ghost-book, one only to be 
 read, except by strong-minded persons, in the daytime, and 
 in company ; and even then with the prospect of a bed- 
 fellow. I was a child when I first read it, and at that time 
 it was the most entrancing book I ever came upon. But I paid 
 dearlv for the interest it excited. For a long: season I used 
 to lie trembling in bed for hours, as I pondered on the awful 
 stories it contained. They are mostly too long to extract here, 
 but I remember the relation of the chest with the three locks, 
 which opened one after the other at the foot of Mr. Bourne's 
 bed just before he died ; and also how the Earl of Donegal's 
 steward, Taverner, riding home, was passed at night on the 
 high road by the likeness of James Haddock, who had been 
 dead five years, and who was now mounted on a horse that 
 made no noise ; how this spectre wished him to set a will case 
 to rights ; and how it haunted him night and day, alone and in 
 company, until he did. There was also a fearful tale of the 
 gashed and bleeding likeness of old Mr. Bowes, of Guildford, 
 appearing to a criminal in prison, which led to the apprehen- 
 sion of the real murderers, as related by Mr. Onslow, a justice 
 of peace in the neighbourhood. And another ghost (also at 
 Guildford, of which place, by the way, I shall have to recite my 
 own ghost story presently), who got back some land to the 
 rightful people by appearing to the usurper at a stile, over 
 which he had to pass one evening, going across a field. This 
 last haunted me out of doors as well as within. There was a 
 wooden bridge, with a stile in the middle of it, over a bourne, 
 in the middle of the long, lonely fields, between Chertsey and 
 Thorpe, which I always associated with the apparition ; and 
 when, as sometimes chanced, I was sent with medicine for 
 
38 WILD OATS. 
 
 some urgent case at the latter village, and it was growing dusk 
 at mv return, my heart absolutely quaked within me as I got 
 near the stile. I always expected to see a grey, transparent 
 dead man opposing my passage ; and this feeling grew upon rne 
 so, that at last I preferred to go round the long roadway, even 
 skirting the dark fir copses of St. Anne's hill in preference ; 
 for one might meet a donkey-cart there by chance, or haply the 
 postman ; but in Thorpe fields, except on Saturday night, when 
 the people came to our town to buy things, the solitude was 
 awful. In the latter case they generally went home "jolly;" 
 and the walk on such an evening then became a matter of great 
 glory to me. My nightly fears, through reading Glanvil, were 
 equally acute, and they lasted over a longer space of time. The 
 only occasions on which I slept calmly, were when the people 
 came to brew ; and then the clanking of the pails, the chopping 
 of the wood, and the poking of the fires, kept up all night long, 
 made it very pleasant. 
 
 One of the most fearful stories in Glanvil' s book is not in 
 his narrations, but in a prefatory letter by Dr. H. More, who 
 edited the work, and is well told as follows : 
 
 "About the year of our Lord 1632, near unto Chester in the 
 Street, there lived one "Walker, a yeoman-man of good estate, 
 and a widower, who had a young woman to his kinswoman that 
 kept his house, who was by the neighbours suspected to be about 
 to become a mother, and was towards the dark of the evening one 
 night sent away witli one Mark Sharp, who was a Collier, or one 
 that digged coals under ground, and one that had been born in 
 ~B\akehuYTi-hundred in Lancashire ; and so she was not heard of 
 a long time, and no noise or little was made about it. In the 
 ivinter-time after one James Graham, or Grime {for so in that 
 country they call them), being a miller, and living about two miles 
 from the place where Walker lived, was one night alone very 
 late at the mill grinding corn; and as, about twelve or one 
 6 'clock at night, he came down the stairs from having been put- 
 ting corn in the hopper, the mill-doors being shut, there stood a 
 woman upon the midst of the floor, with her hair about her head, 
 hanging down and all bloody, with five large wounds on her head. 
 He being much affrighted and amazed, began to bless him, and 
 at last asked her who she was, and what she wanted ? To 
 which she said, 1 1 am the spirit of such a woman, who lived 
 with Walker ; and he promised to send me to a place where I 
 should be well look't to until I should come again and keep 
 his house. And accordingly,' said the apparition, 'I was one 
 
A winter's night with my old books. 39 
 
 night late sent away with one Mark Sharp, who, upon a Moor 
 {naming a place that the miller knew), slew me with a pick 
 (such as men dig coals with), and gave me these five wounds, 
 and after threw my body into a coal-pit hard by, and hid the 
 pick under a bank ; and his shoes and stockings being bloudy, 
 he endeavoured to wash ; but seeing the blood would not wash 
 forth, he hid them there.' And the apparition further told the 
 miller, that he must be the man to reveal it, or else that she must 
 still appear and haunt him. The miller returned home very sad 
 and heavy, but spoke not one icord of tvhat he had seen, but 
 eschewed as much as he could to stay in the mill loithin night 
 loithout company, thinking thereby to escape the seeing again of 
 that frightful apparition. But, notwithstanding, one night, when 
 it began to be dark, the apparition met him again, and seemed 
 very fierce and cruel, and threatened him, that if he did not reveal 
 the murder, she ivould continually pursue, and haunt him. Yet, 
 for all this, he still concealed it until St. Thomas's eve before 
 Christmas, ivhen being soon after sunset 'walking on in his garden, 
 she appeared again, and then so threatened him, and affrighted 
 Mm, that he faithfully promised to reveal it next morning. 
 
 " In the morning he went to a magistrate, and made the whole 
 matter known, with all the circumstances ; and diligent search 
 being made, the body teas found in a coal-pit, with five wounds 
 in the head, and the pick, and shoes and the stockings yet bloudy, 
 in every circumstance as the apparition had related to the miller. 
 Whereupon "Walker and Mark Sharp icere both apprehended, 
 but would confess nothing. At the Assizes following (I think it 
 teas at Durham), they ivere arraigned, found guilty, condemned, 
 and executed, but I could never hear that they confessed the fact. 
 There were some that reported that the apparition did appear 
 to the Judge or the Foreman of the Jury (who were alive in 
 Chester in the Street about ten years ago, as I have been cre- 
 dibly informed), but of that I know no certainty. 
 
 There are many persons yet alive that can remember this 
 strange murder and the discovery of it ; for it teas, and some- 
 times yet is, as much discoursed of in the North country, as any- 
 thing that almost hath ever been heard of, and the relation printed, 
 though noiv not to be gotten. I relate this with the greatest con- 
 fidence (though I may fail in some of the circumstances) , because 
 I saw and read the letter that teas sent to Serjeant Hutton, who 
 then lived at Goldsbrugh, in Yorkshire, from the judge before 
 whom Walker and Mark Sharp [were tried, and by whom they 
 were condemned; and had a copy of it until about the year 1658, 
 
40 WILD OATS. 
 
 when I had it and many other books and papers taken from me. 
 And this I confess to be one of the most convincing stories (being 
 of undoubted verity) that ever I read, heard, or knew of and 
 carrieth with it the most evident force to make the most incre- 
 dulous spirit to be satisfied that there are really sometimes such 
 things as apparitions." 
 
 This horrible story is corroborated further by two of the 
 witnesses on the trial, men of credit, before Judge Davenport. 
 One of them deposed, on oath, that he saw the likeness of a 
 child stand on Walker's shoulders during the time of the trial, 
 at which time the judge was very much troubled, and passed 
 sentence that night — a thing never the custom in Durham 
 before. Those who have paid any attention to these matters, 
 may remember, in our own time, that the body of Maria Martin 
 was discovered in the Red Barn, at Polstead, in consequence 
 of her appearing to her parents in a dream. Of course this 
 was not mentioned at the trial of her murderer, Corder ; but 
 it was known to have been the case. There appears something 
 more than nervous fancy or coincidence in this. 
 
 The greater part of Glanvil's book is taken up with accounts 
 of the doings of witches, and of the disturbances in haunted 
 houses ; but they are mostly very silly. As regards the first, 
 Lady Duff Gordon's admirable translation of " The Amber 
 "Witch" is far more interesting ; and, for the second, the most 
 circumstantial detail does not impress you with a hundredth 
 part of the mysterious terror that Hood's Haunted House called 
 forth.* 
 
 * In that fine poem were some half-dozen lines singularly descriptive of the 
 scene, which, some time afterwards, the murder of the Duchesse de Praslin 
 impressed so forcibly on the public mind. I do not think the coincidence was 
 ever noticed. They ran : 
 
 The floor alone retain'd the trace of guilt, 
 Those boards obscurely spotted. 
 
 Obscurely spotted to the door, and thence 
 With many doubles to the grated casement — 
 Oh, what a tale they told of fear intense, 
 Of horror and amazement ! 
 
 What human creature in the dead of night 
 Had coursed like hunted hare that cruel distance ? 
 Had sought the door, the window in the flight, 
 Striving for dear existence? 
 
 What shrieking spirit in that bloody room, 
 Its mortal frame had violently quitted ? 
 
a winter's night with my old books. 41 
 
 One more scrap of Glanvil before we leaye him. Dr. More 
 says he was accustomed to have an argument on the immor- 
 tality of the soul with " an old gentleman in the countrey, an 
 excellent justice of peace, and a piece of a mathematician ; but 
 what kind of philosopher he was, you may understand from a 
 rhyme of his own making, which he commended to me on my 
 taking horse in his yard, which rhyme is this : 
 
 Ens is nothing till sense finds it out : 
 
 Sense ends in nothing, so nought goes about ; 
 
 which rhyme of his was so rapturous to himself, that at the 
 reciting of the second verse the old gentleman turned him- 
 self about upon his toe as nimbly as one may observe a dry 
 leaf whisked round in the corner of an orchard-walk by some 
 little whirlwind." And with this quaint anecdote we put old 
 Glanvil by. 
 
 And from him we turn to a large folio of 1649, teeming with 
 excellent woodcuts, whereof all the personages look as if they 
 were ready dressed to perform in " The Huguenots," and in 
 which the "figures" or "effigies" of the elephant and whale 
 appear as wonders, although the well-defined tables of the 
 human blood-vessels would scarcely disgrace the ablest ana- 
 tomical demonstrator of the present day. This large book con- 
 tains the works of Ambrose Pare, who was successively the 
 bold and successful surgeon to the French kings, Henry II., 
 Francis II., Charles IX., and Henry III., who dressed the 
 wounds of the unfortunate Coligni at the time of the terrible 
 Bartholomew's Eve, and who, on the night before the massacre, 
 was locked up by Charles in his own chamber, that he might 
 not be murdered, albeit he was a Protestant. He says little 
 about ghosts for a believer in the supernatural, but his " Pro- 
 digies" are of the wildest order. He gives pictures of all of them, 
 which, I regret, cannot here be reproduced ; and he has these 
 illustrated from the slightest descriptions. "What he would 
 have made of the sea-serpent is difficult to tell. But Pontop- 
 pidan had not then been born, nor had the Daedalus been 
 launched ; elsewise, in his chapter devoted to " the wondrous 
 nature of some marine things," we might have expected an 
 account as long as its object. One thing, however, is worthy 
 of serious remark in his general " prodigies." Many of them, 
 classed on a level with the rest in point of the marvellous, have 
 had their fellows in our own time. He pictures a case parallel 
 to that of the Siamese twins ; and has also an account of a 
 
42 WILD OATS. 
 
 child with two heads, similar to the infant that died in Paris in 
 1829. He moreover portrays a baby with four arms, four legs, 
 and one head, a companion to which died in Westminster in 
 1838, and an account of it appears in the Times of Septem- 
 ber 17 in that year. Now, if it is possible for such monsters — 
 which take high rank amongst his prodigies — to exist, may not 
 the majority of the rest be also matters of likelihood? 
 
 But to his marvels : and out of compliment to the marine 
 monster quoted above, who has made a little stir of late, we 
 will commence with some of Ambrose Pare's ocean wonders. 
 And first, of two ecclesiastical prodigies : " In our times, saieth 
 Eondeletius, in Norway, was a monster taken in a tempestuous 
 sea, the which as manie as saw it, presently termed a monk ; and 
 Anno Dom. 1531, there was seen a sea-monster, with the head of 
 a bear, and feet and hands of an ape ; another, with a lion's head, 
 and man's voice ; and one like a man, ' with his countenance 
 composed to gravity and his hair yellow,' but a fish from the 
 waist downwards, who came one fine morning out of the Nile. 
 Others are spoken of as with the ' head, mane, and breast of a 
 horse ;' and others, seventy feet long, with heads like swine's." 
 
 But in another story he is more plausible : " "Whilst in my 
 vineyard," he says, " that is at Meudon, I caused certain huge 
 stones to bee broken to pieces, a toad was found in the midst 
 of one of them. When as I much admired thereat, because 
 there was no space wherein this creature could bee gene- 
 rated, increas, or live ; the stone-cutter wished me not to marvel 
 thereat, for it was a common thing ; and that hee saw it almost 
 everie daie. Certainly it may com to pass, that from the more 
 moist portion of stones, contained in places moist and under- 
 ground, and the celestial heat mixing and diffusing itself over 
 the whole mass of the world, the matters may bee animated for 
 the generation of these creatures." 
 
 Reporters who live upon enormous gooseberries and showers 
 of frogs, might have amassed large incomes in Ins time ; for he 
 speaks of " great and thick bars of iron which fell from heaven, 
 and presently turned into swords and rapiers ;" and also of a 
 stone that tumbled from the skies in Hungary, and weighed two 
 hundred and fifty pounds. And we find, at three separate 
 periods in Italy, it has rained flesh, corn, and milk and oil. 
 If any turn in the weather would bring about a like series of 
 showers in Ireland occasionally, what a great thing it would be ! 
 
 Ambrose Pare's system of surgery and medicine was won- 
 
A WINTER'S NIGHT TYITH 3IY OLD BOOKS. 43 
 
 derfully sensible for the time in which lie lived ; much of his 
 treatment would hold good at the present day. Occasionally, 
 however, vre may put less trust in him. He says, " Of one tell an 
 ass in his ear that hee is stung by a scorpion, they saie that the 
 danger is immediately over." But, he adds, " Oft times there 
 is no small superstition in things that are outwardly applied, 
 such as to make pills of one hanged, against the bitings of a 
 mad dog ; for any one to bee free'd from the cough who shall 
 spit in the mouth of a toad, letting her go away alive ; or the 
 halter wherein one hath been hanged, put about the temples to 
 help the headache." He very properly deems all these as " su- 
 perstitious fictions," albeit the devil will sometimes make them 
 prosper, to keep the workers ensnared to his service. There 
 are many other marvellous histories in Ambrose Pare, but as 
 they are better suited to the medical than the general ear, they 
 may be passed over. 
 
 Finally, I mentioned that I had a ghost-story, hitherto un- 
 published, to tell about Guildford. About twenty years ago, my 
 brother, Arthur Smith,'was a pupil at the grammar-school in that 
 town, under the Eev. Air. Bellin. The boys had been sitting 
 up all night in their bedroom for a frolic, and, in the early 
 
 morning, one of them, young M , of Goclalming, cried out, 
 
 " Why, I'll swear there's the likeness of our old huntsman on 
 his grey horse, going across the whitewashed wall !" The rest 
 of the boys told him he was a fool, and that they had all better 
 think about going to sleep. After breakfast, a servant came 
 
 over from AT 's family to say " that their old huntsman had 
 
 been thrown from his horse and killed, early that morning, 
 whilst airing the hounds." 
 
 Leaving the reader to explain this strange story, which may 
 be relied upon, I put my old books back on their shelves, and 
 lav aside my pen. For it is very late ; the clock is ticking 
 with a ghostly sound, as if it was about to talk, and the furniture 
 appears positively to be growing alive, whilst I cannot help 
 thinking that whole hosts of spectres are behind the window- 
 curtains. The candles, too, are burning with a most uncom- 
 fortable glare, and altogether I expect, if I do not get to bed 
 whilst I can hear somebody moving in the house, the first thing 
 that I see when I open the door to go, will be some dreadful 
 apparition standing on the mat at the bottom of the staircase. 
 
( 44 ) 
 
 IV. 
 
 A REAL COUNTRY GHOST STORY. 
 
 " Graut Liebchen auch ? Der Mond scheint hell ! 
 Hurrah ! die Todten reiten schnell ! 
 Graut Liebchen auch vor Todten ?" 
 " Ach nein ! — Doch lass die Todten."^ 
 
 Burger's " Lenore." 
 
 If the following narrative were nothing more than a mere 
 invention, it would have very little in it to recommend it 
 to the notice of the reader ; but detailing, as closely as pos- 
 sible may be, some circumstances which actually occurred, and 
 which were never accounted for — no case of spectres found to 
 be finger-posts or pollards in the morning, nor dim flickering 
 lights seen in churchyards at midnight, afterwards proved to 
 have been carried by resurrection-men or worm-catchers — it 
 may form a fitting addition to the foregoing repertoire of unac- 
 countable romances, which, taken from the pages of Glanvil 
 and Aubrey, are narrated at this fireside period always in time 
 to induce a dread of going to rest, and a yearning for double- 
 bedded rooms and modern apartments. 
 
 For our own part, w r e believe in ghosts. We do not mean the 
 vulgar ghosts of every- day life, nor those of the Richardson 
 drama, who rise amidst the fumes of Bengal light burned in a 
 fire-shovel, nor the spring-heeled apparitions who every now and 
 then amuse themselves by terrifying the natives of suburban 
 localities out of their wits. To be satisfactory, a ghost must be 
 the semblance of some departed human form, but indistinct and 
 vague, like the image of a magic- lantern before you have got 
 the right focus. It must emit a phosphorescent light — a 
 gleaming atmosphere like that surrounding fish whose earthly 
 sojourn has been unpleasantly prolonged ; and it should be as 
 transparent and slippery, throwing out as much cold about it, 
 too, as a block of sherry-cobbler ice. We would go a great 
 way upon the chance of meeting a ghost like this, and should 
 hold such a one in great reverefnce, especially if it came in the 
 
A REAL COUNTRY GHOST STORY. 45 
 
 dreary grey of the morning twilight, instead of the darkness 
 which its class is conventionally said to admire. "We would, 
 indeed, allow it to come in the moonlight, for this would make 
 its advent more impressive. The effect of a long cold ray stream- 
 ing into a bedroom is always terrible, even when no ghosts are 
 present to ride upon it. Call to mind, for instance, the ghastly 
 shadow of the solitary poplar falling across the brow of Mariana 
 in the " Moated Grange," as Alfred Tennyson has so graphically 
 described it. 
 
 Once we slept— or rather went to bed, for we lay awake and 
 quivering all night long — in an old house on the confines of 
 Windsor Forest. Our bedroom faced the churchyard, the yew- 
 trees of which swept the uncurtained casement with their 
 boughs, and danced in shadows upon the mouldering tapestry 
 opposite, which mingled with those of the fabric until the whole 
 party of the "long unwashed" thereon worked, appeared in 
 motion. The bed itself was a dreadful thing. It was large 
 and tall, and smelt like a volume of the Gentleman's Magazine 
 for 1746, which had reposed in a damp closet ever since. There 
 were feathers, too, on the tops of the tall posts, black with an- 
 cestral dirt and flue of the middle ages ; and heavy curtains, 
 with equally black fringe, which you could not draw. The 
 whole thing' had the air of the skeleton of a hearse that had got 
 into the catacombs and been starved to death. The moonlight 
 crept along the wainscot, panel after panel, and we could see it 
 gradually approaching our face. We felt, when it did so, that 
 it would be no use making the ghosts, whom we knew were 
 swarming about the chamber, believe that we were asleep any 
 more. So we silently brought all the clothes over our head, 
 and thus trembled till morning, preferring death from suffoca- 
 tion to that from terror ; and thinking, with ostrich-like self- 
 delusion, that as long as our head was covered we were safe. 
 Bevond a doubt, many visitors flitted about and over us that 
 night. We were told, in fact, afterwards, that we had been 
 charitably put in the "haunted room" — the only spare one— in 
 which all kinds of ancestors had been done for. Probably this 
 was the reason why none of them let us into their confidence ; 
 there were so many that no secret could possibly be kept. Had 
 we been aware of this interesting fact, we should unquestion- 
 ably have added ourselves to the number of its traditional occu- 
 pants long before morning, from pure fright. As it was. we 
 left the house the next day — albeit we were on a week's visit-— 
 
46 WILD OATS. 
 
 with a firm determination never to sleep anywhere for the future 
 but in some hotel about Covent-garden, where we should be 
 sure of ceaseless noise, and evidences of human proximity all 
 nio-ht long ; or close to the steam-press office of a daily paper. 
 But this by the way ; now to our story. 
 
 On the left bank of the Thames, stretching almost from the 
 little village of Shepperton to Chertsey-bridge, there is a large, 
 flat, blowy tract of land, known as Shepperton Range. In 
 summer it is a pleasant spot enough, although the wind is 
 usually pretty strong there, even when scarcely a breath is 
 stirring anywhere else ; it is the St. Paul's Churchyard, in fact, 
 of the neighbourhood. But then the large expanse of short 
 springy turf is powdered with daisies ; and such a few bushesof 
 hawthorn and attempts at hedges as are to be found upon its 
 broad sweep, are mere standards for indolent ephemeral dog- 
 roses, dissipated reckless hops, and other wild and badly 
 brought-up classes of the vegetable kingdom. There are up- 
 lands rising from the river, and crowned with fine trees, half 
 surrounding the landscape from Egham-hill to Oatlands ; one 
 or two humble towers of village churches ; rippling corn-fields, 
 and small farms, whose homesteads are so neat and well 
 arranged that they remind one of scenes in domestic melo- 
 dramas, and you expect every minute to hear the libertine 
 squire rebuked by the farmer's daughter, who, though poor, is 
 virtuous, and prefers the crust of rectitude to all the entremets 
 of splendid impropriety. The river here is deep and blue— in 
 its full country purity before it falls into bad company in the 
 metropolis, flowing gently on, and knowing neither extraordi- 
 narv high tides of plenitude, nor the low waters of poverty. 
 It is much loved of anglers — quiet, harmless folks, who punt 
 down from The Cricketers, at Chertsey-bridge, the landlord 
 of which hostelry formerly bore the name of Try — a per- 
 suasive cognomination for a fishing inn, especially with regard 
 to the mighty barbel drawn on the walls of the passage, 
 which had been caught by customers. Never did a piscator 
 leave the house in the morning without expecting to go and do 
 likewise. 
 
 But in winter, Shepperton Range is very bleak and_ dreary. 
 The wind rushes down from the hills, howling and driving hard 
 enough to cut you in two, and the greater part of the plain, for 
 a long period, 'is under water. The coach passengers^ used to 
 wrap themselves up more closely as they approached its boun- 
 
A REAL COUNTRY GHOST STORY. 47 
 
 dary. This was in what haters of innovation called the good 
 old coaching times, when " four spanking tits" whirled you 
 along the road, and you had the "pleasant talk" of the coach- 
 man, and excitement of the " changing," the welcome of " mine 
 host" of the posting inn, and other things which appear to have 
 thrown these anti-alterationists into frantic states of delight. 
 Rubbish ! Give us the railway with its speed, and, after all, 
 its punctuality ; its abolition of gratuities to drivers, guards, 
 ostlers, and every idle fellow who chose to seize your carpet- 
 bag and thrust it into the bottom of the boot, whence it could 
 only be extracted by diving down until his inferior extremities 
 alone were visible, like a bee in a bell-flower. When Cowley 
 sent to invite his friend, Bishop Spratt, to Chertsey, he told 
 him he could come from London conveniently in two days " by 
 sleeping at Hampton ;" now you may knock off eighteen out of 
 the twenty^ miles, from ]N"ine-elms to Wey bridge, in forty 
 minutes. 
 
 In winter (to return to the Range), the pedestrian seeks in 
 vain for the shelter of any hedge or bank. If the wind is in 
 his teeth, it is no very easy matter for him to get on at all. 
 Once let it take his hat, too, and he must give it up as utterly 
 lost — all chance of recovery is gone ; and if the snow is on the 
 ground and the moon is shining, he may see it skimming away 
 to leeward for a wonderful distance, until it finally leaps into 
 the river. And this reminds us that it was winter when the 
 events of our story took place, and that the moon was up, and 
 the ground white and sparkling. 
 
 It had been a sad Christmas with the inmates of a large 
 family house near the village end of the Eange. For Christ- 
 mas is not always that festive time which conventionality and 
 advertisements insist upon its being, and the merriment of the 
 season cannot always be ensured by the celebrated " sample 
 hampers," or the indigestion arising from overfeeding. In 
 many houses it is a sad tear-bringing anniversary ; and such it 
 promised to be, in future, at the time of our story, now upwards 
 of sixty years ago, for the domestic circle of the Woodwards, 
 by which name we wish to designate the family in question. It 
 is not, however, the right one. The eldest daughter, Florence, 
 a beautiful girl of twenty, was in the last stage of confirmed 
 consumption. Her family had been justly proud of her ; a 
 miniature by Cosway, which is still in existence, evidences her 
 rare loveliness when in health, and as the reckless disease gained 
 
48 WILD OATS. 
 
 upon her, all its fatal attributes served only to increase her 
 beauty. The brilliant, sparkling eye, with the fringe of long 
 silky lashes ; the exquisitely delicate flush and white tint of her 
 skin ; the bright, arterial lips and pearly teeth, all combined to 
 endow her with fascinations scarcely mortal. 
 
 " The beauty," beyond all comparison, of every circle of 
 society into which she entered, Florence "Woodward had not 
 remained unconscious of her charms. Her disposition in early 
 girlhood was naturally reserved, and to those casually intro- 
 duced to her, cold and haughty ; and this reserve increased 
 with her years, fanned by the breath of constant flattery. She 
 had rejected several most eligible matches, meeting the offers 
 of one or two elder sons of the best families in the neighbour- 
 hood with the coldest disdain, even after having led each of her 
 suitors to believe, from the witchery of her manner, fascinating 
 through all her pride, that he was the favoured one; and 
 although, at last, they felt sure that their offers would be re- 
 jected, if not with a sneer, at least with a stare of surprise at 
 such presumption, yet the number of her admirers did not 
 diminish ; in many instances it became a point of vanity as well 
 as love. The hope of being, at last, the favoured one, urged 
 them on, but always with the same result. She looked upon 
 their hearts as toys — things to be amused with, then to be 
 broken, and cared for no more. 
 
 A year or two before the period of our story, she met Frank 
 Sherborne one evening at the Eichmond ball. The Sherbornes 
 had formerly lived at Halliford, within a mile of the Wood- 
 wards, and the two families were exceedingly intimate at that 
 time. They had now left the neighbourhood some years, and 
 Florence was astonished to find that the mere boy, who used to 
 call her by her Christian name, had grown to be a fine young 
 man in the interim. "Whether it was to pique some other 
 admirer in the room, or whether she really was taken, for the 
 few hours of the ball, with the lively intelligence and unaffected 
 conversation of her old companion, we know not, but Sherborne 
 was made supremely happy that evening by finding himself 
 dancing each time with the belle of the room, and when he was 
 not dancing, sitting by her side, lost in conversation. He was 
 fascinated that night with the spells she wove around him, and 
 he returned home with his brain almost turned, and his pulses 
 throbbing, whilst the thoughts which recalled the beautiful face 
 and low soft voice of Florence "Woodward excluded all other 
 
A REAL COUNTRY GHOST STORY. 49 
 
 subjects. His feelings were not those attendant on a mere 
 flirtation with an attractive woman, in which gratified self-con- 
 ceit has, perhaps, so large a share. He was madly, deeply in 
 love. 
 
 To be brief, his intimacy with the Woodwards was renewed, 
 and Florence led him on, making him believe that he was the 
 chosen above all others, until he ventured to propose. In an 
 instant her manner changed, and he was coldly rejected, with 
 as much hauteur as if he had only been the acquaintance of a 
 single dance. Stunned at first by her heartlessness, he left the 
 house and returned home, without uttering a word of what had 
 occurred to his family. Then came a reaction, and a brain 
 fever supervened, and when he recovered he threw up all his 
 prospects, which were of no ordinary brilliancy, and left home, 
 as it subsequently proved, for ever, taking advantage of his 
 mother's being a relation of Sir John Jervis to enter the navy 
 on board the admiral's ship, and do anything in any capacity 
 that might distract him from his one overwhelming misery. 
 
 No sooner was he gone than Florence found, despite her en- 
 deavours to persuade herself to the contrary, that she also was 
 in love. Self-reproach, and remorse of the most bitter kind, 
 seized upon her. Her spirits drooped, and she gave up going 
 into society, and albeit her pride still prevented her from dis- 
 closing her secret to a soul, its effect was the more terrible 
 from her struggles to conceal it. Day by day she sank, as her 
 frame became more attenuated from constant yet concealed 
 fretting. Winter came, and one cold followed another, until 
 consumption proclaimed its terrible hold upon the beautiful 
 victim. Everything that the deepest family affection and un- 
 limited means could accomplish was done to stop the ravages 
 of the disease ; but although her friends were buoyed up with 
 hope to the last, the medical men knew that her fate was sealed, 
 from the very symptoms, so cruelly delusive, that comforted the 
 others. She was attended by a physician who came daily from 
 London, and an apothecary from a neighbouring town. From 
 the latter we received this story some time back. He was a 
 young man, and had not long commenced practice when it took 
 place. 
 
 He had been up several nights in succession, and was retir- 
 ing to rest about half-past eleven, when a violent peal of the 
 surgery bell caused him to throw up the window and inquire 
 what was wanted. He directly recognised the coachman of the 
 
 E 
 
50 WILD OATS. 
 
 Woodwards upon horseback, who told him that Miss Florence 
 was much worse, and begged he would come over to Shepper- 
 ton immediately. Sending the man at once away with the as- 
 surance that he would be close upon his heels, he re-dressed 
 hurriedly, and going to the stable, put his horse to the gig 
 himself, for the boy who looked after it did not sleep in the 
 house, and then hastily packing up a few things from the sur- 
 gery which he thought might be wanted on emergency, he 
 started off. It was bright moonlight, and the snow lay lightly 
 upon the ground. The streets of the town were deserted ; nor 
 indeed was there any appearance of life, except that in some 
 of the upper windows of the houses lights were gleaming, and 
 it was cold — bitter cold. The apothecary gathered his heavy 
 night-coat well about him, and then drove on, and crossed 
 Chertsey-bridge, under which the cold river was flowing with 
 a swollen, heavy tide, chafing through the arches, as the blocks 
 of ice floating on it at times impeded its free course. The wind 
 blew keenly on the summit of the bridge ; but as Mr. — — 
 descended, it appeared more still, and when he got to the 
 " gully-hole," with its melancholy ring of pollards (w r herein a 
 coach-and-four, with all the passengers, is reported by the 
 natives to have gone down and never been seen again), it had 
 ceased. 
 
 "We have said the moon was bright, more so than common, 
 
 and when Mr. got to the commencement of Shepperton 
 
 [Range, he could see quite across the flat, even to the square 
 white tower of the church ; and then, just as the bell of Little- 
 ton tolled twelve, he perceived something coming into the other 
 end of the Eange, and moving at a quick pace. It was unusual 
 to meet anything thereabouts so late at night, except the 
 London market-carts and the carriers' waggons, and lie could 
 form no idea of what it could be. It came on with increased 
 speed, but without the slightest noise ; and this was remark- 
 able, inasmuch as the snow was not deep enough to muffle 
 the sound of the wheels and horses' feet, but had blown and 
 drifted from the road upon the plain at the side. Nearer and 
 nearer it came, and now the apothecary perceived that it was 
 something like a hearse, but still vague and indistinct in shape, 
 and it was progressing on the wrong side of the road. His 
 horse appeared alarmed, and was snorting hurriedly as his 
 breath steamed out in the moonlight, and Mr. felt him- 
 self singularly and instantaneously chilled. The mysterious 
 
A REAL COTXTEY GHOST STORY. 51 
 
 vehicle was now distant from him only a few yards, and he called 
 out to whoever was conducting it to keep on the right side ; but 
 no attention was paid, and as he endeavoured to pull his own 
 horse over, the object came upon him. The animal reared on 
 his hind legs, and then plunged forwards, overturning the gig 
 against one of the flood posts ; but even as the accident oc- 
 curred he saw that the strange carriage was a dark-coloured 
 vehicle, with black feathers at its corners, and that within were 
 two figures, upon whom a strange and ghastly light appeared 
 to be thrown. One of these resembled Florence Woodward ; 
 and the other, whose face was close to hers, bore the features 
 of young Sherborne. The next instant he was thrown upon the 
 ground. He was not hurt, but scrambled up again upon his 
 legs immediately ; when, to his intense surprise, nothing of the 
 appalling equipage was to be seen. The Range was entirely 
 deserted ; and there was not a hedge or thicket of any kind 
 behind which the strange apparition could have been concealed. 
 But there was the gig upset, sure enough, and the cushions and 
 
 wrappers lying on the snow. Unable to raise the gig, Mr. , 
 
 almost bewildered, took out the horse and rode hurriedly on 
 over the remaining part of the flat, towards the Woodwards' 
 house. He was directly admitted, being expected ; arid, with- 
 out exchanging a word with the servant, flew up-stairs to the 
 bedroom of the invalid. He entered, and found all the family 
 assembled. One or two of them were kneeling round the bed 
 and weeping bitterly ; and upon it lay the corpse of Florence 
 "Woodward. In a fit of coughing she had ruptured a large 
 vessel in the lungs, and died almost instantaneously. 
 
 » Mr. ascertained in an instant that he had arrived too 
 
 late. Unwilling to disturb the members of the family, who in 
 their misery had scarcely noticed his arrival, he drew the nurse 
 from the room, and asked how long she had been dead. 
 
 " It is not a quarter of an hour, sir," replied the old woman, 
 looking on an old-fashioned clock, that was going solemnly with 
 a dead muffled beat upon the landing, and now pointed out 
 the time, about ten minutes after twelve. " She went off close 
 upon midnight, and started up just before she died, holding out 
 her arms as though she saw something ; and then she fell back 
 upon the pillow, and it was all over." 
 
 The apothecary stayed in the house that night, for his assist- 
 ance was often needed by the mother of the dead girl, and 
 left in the morning. The adventure of the night before haunted 
 
 e 2 
 
52 WILD OATS. 
 
 him to a painful degree for a long period. Nor was his perfect 
 inability to account for it at all relieved when he heard, some 
 weeks afterwards, that young Sherborne had died of a wound 
 received in the battle off Cape St. Vincent, on the very day, 
 and at the very hour, when the apparition had appeared to him 
 on Shepperton Eange. 
 
 "We have often heard the story told, and as^ often heard it 
 explained by the listeners. They have said that it was a curious 
 
 coincidence enough, but that Mr. was worn out with 
 
 watching, and had gone to sleep in his gig, pulling it off the 
 road, and thus overturning it. We offer no comments either 
 upon the adventure or the attempt to attribute it to natural 
 causes : the circumstances have been related simply as they 
 were said to have occurred, and we leave the reader to form his 
 own conclusions. 
 
( 53 ) 
 
 V. 
 
 MR. TONES AND HIS GREAT CHRISTMAS FAILURE. 
 
 Mr. Tonks was an eminent retail tea-dealer, as well known 
 in the City as the Exchange grasshopper, the Bank beadle, or 
 the generous gentlemen of the Hebrew persuasion, who used 
 to do nothing all their lives but buy dressing-cases and pen- 
 knives at the open auction in the Poultry. He was portly in his 
 person, and spoke with an air of immutable reliance upon his 
 own opinion. He was a smart tradesman, and very close-fisted, 
 but his name was as good as any in London. In fine, Mr. 
 Tonks was as much esteemed and disliked as any man in any 
 kind of position — so long as it is a position — may expect to be. 
 
 The establishment in which Mr. Tonks daily amassed his 
 wealth was something wonderful to behold; especially so to 
 country visitors. There was tea enough shovelled about in 
 the windows to make you believe that the four hundred and 
 twenty millions of Chinese who made up the last census had been 
 actively engaged, day and night, for a twelvemonth, without ever 
 going to bed, in collecting it, and had not gone through their work 
 even then. And the coffee-mill — there was a monster machine ! 
 It resembled one of those dreadful engines used in pantomimes 
 to grind aged individuals into youths and maidens ; and if the 
 old man who was perpetually turning it had tumbled in by ac- 
 cident, nobody would have been at all surprised to have seen 
 him come out a little boy, in a paper cap and shirt sleeves, at the 
 spout, after a single revolution. 
 
 The rows of gaudy canisters were vividly embellished with 
 scenes of every-day life in the Celestial Empire. Mr. Tonks 
 said, they explained the process of tea-growing ; but he might 
 have said, with equal truth, of the ladies and gentlemen so cun- 
 ningly limned, they portrayed writing for shares, conjuring^ or 
 doing penance. Their chief occupation seemed to be standing 
 in uncommonly painful and dislocated attitudes, as if they had 
 got something down their backs they did not like : watching 
 their friends and relatives carrying pails and gig umbrellas ; or 
 
54 WILD OATS. 
 
 sitting down to a table with nothing on it except a teacup, an 
 article not giving great promise of rollicking festivity. 
 
 And then the young men — real gentlemen, without doubt — 
 perhaps officers come to distress — why, bless you, they attracted 
 as many people inside the shop as the bowing mandarins in the 
 window arrested the passers-by without. You could see thein 
 through the open doors putting up endless pounds of the 
 orange -flavoured pekoe at four shillings (which there was such 
 a struggle among the nobility to possess), writing upon them, 
 banging them about on the counter, and then pitching them 
 into the division for the phantom consumers in the imaginary 
 Dulwich district, where the visionary van would go on Tuesday, 
 in a careless manner, that quite looked as if they regarded the 
 tea no more than the humblest leaflet that ever trembled on its 
 hedge-stalk. And the balloons so brilliantly lighted at night ; 
 the caddies and card pools ; with the old noblemen addicted to 
 corpulency lolling their tongues, as they reposed on heaps of 
 congou ; and the emaciated dervishes, who were posted about 
 the mounds of hyson, altogether made an opposition Chinese 
 Collection, which had the additional advantage of being a gra- 
 tuitous exhibition entirely. 
 
 "Well, in this sumptuous establishment, Tonks and Com- 
 pany — the " company" consisted of his wife and daughter — 
 flourished several years ; for they were well to do, and better 
 each Christmas. Their notions expanded. Gravesend gave 
 place to Margate, Margate to Eamsgate, and Rarasgate to the 
 ^French coast. Miss Tonks was moved from the day-school in 
 the Hackney-road to Miss Turnham's academy at Chiswick, 
 and then to Miss Burton's " Pension" at Boulogne. Then, 
 Mr. Tonks became various great things in the City ; he used 
 to talk a little and eat a great deal at Guildhall, and once went 
 before the Queen ; and at last retired from trade altogether, and 
 bought a large estate in the lower part of Surrey, where he de- 
 termined to reside, and for the rest of his life do the Old Eng- 
 lish Gentleman line of business. 
 
 The house he purchased was a fine old place ; it had long 
 been the home of one of the county families now extinct. It 
 had tall twisted chimneys and heavy mullioned windows ; a 
 porch, a terrace, and a large hall ; a staircase that you might 
 have driven a coach-and-four up — if the horses had been 
 Astley's platform ones, and didn't mind climbing — and wea- 
 thercocks, my goodness, what a lot! If each wind from 
 
MR. TONKS AND HIS GREAT CHRISTMAS FAILURE. 55 
 
 every point of the compass had taken one as its own private 
 vane, not to answer to any other, which was the case with 
 most of them, there would still have been several to spare. 
 The old patriarchal one over the hall appeared to have blown 
 to seed, and all the atoms had taken root on the tiles, and 
 sprung up by scores wherever they chose, their total im- 
 mobility reducing the amateur in meteorology to the primitive 
 process of throwing up straws to satisfy his curiosity — an esta- 
 blished and, at the same time, a diverting experiment. 
 
 Mr. Tonks had money, which the extinct family who lived 
 there before had not ; and the house was soon put in order. 
 Relics of Elizabethan furniture were manufactured for him by 
 the old curiosity dealers, at a day's notice ; and more ancestors 
 took their departure from "Wardour- street than had ever before 
 migrated from that musty locality. The most important of 
 these, Sir Humphrey de Tonkes, who fought at " Az^icou?," 
 was put at the top of the staircase, and his armour was set up 
 in the hall on a dummy, supposed to represent the warrior, 
 which had a propensity to lean forward in rather a drunken 
 attitude than otherwise, giving a notion of the knight as he 
 might have been supposed to have appeared when trying to 
 keep on his legs with the aid of his spear, in the lists, after 
 violently indulging in strong drinks, according to the fashion 
 of the dark ages. The other relatives, preserved in oil, were 
 hung here and there, and about ; the most reputable paintings 
 holding the best places — which is not always the case in pic- 
 ture-hanging — as may be seen any fine day in summer for a 
 shilling, in London. And so they made a goodly line, from the 
 great Humphrey just spoken of, to the small children in quaint 
 straight dresses, who looked as if they might all have been, 
 taken up and rung like so many hand-bells. 
 
 The people in the neighbourhood soon began to call. First 
 the doctor came, then the clergyman, and afterwards some of 
 the families. These last were more tardy ; for country aristo- 
 cracy is cautious, having very little, in the abstract, to assume 
 high ground upon, beyond conventional position, and conse- 
 quently being fearful of more easily jeopardising it. But old 
 Lady Hawksy, who hunted up everybody from w r hom available 
 advantages were to be pumped, or otherwise secured, called at 
 last, and all the rest followed, like ducks going to water, or 
 sheep through a hedge. And then Mr. Tonks made up his 
 own mind, as well as his wife's and daughter's, that it was time 
 
56 WILD OATS. 
 
 for the Old English G-entlemau to come out strong. Annie 
 Tonks — it was not a very pretty name, but that could not be 
 altogether considered as her fault — was very nice-looking ; I 
 don't know how it is, but I never knew an Annie that was not. 
 I may be prejudiced, but I can scarcely think so. Her father 
 already calculated upon her making a good match — good, that 
 is to say, in point of connexion — in return for which he would 
 advance money. And, accordingly, he gave days of shooting to 
 all eligible young men, and got them to his house afterwards. 
 But Annie, thougli exceedingly courteous, never gave any of 
 them the slightest encouragement, at which her father was first 
 surprised, and then annoyed. Possibly he would have been 
 more so, had he known that a certain young lawyer, whom his 
 daughter had met at that paradise of autumnal philanderings, 
 Ramsgate, stood a far better chance — in fact, the aifaire du cceur 
 had almost been put beyond one — of becoming Annie's future 
 husband, than the son of the sheriff, or Lady Hawksy's nephew, 
 or any other elder brothers that Mr. Tonks wished would enter 
 his family. And this young lawyer, whose name was Frederick 
 Walcot, was the most impudent fellow imaginable. He would 
 come to the house, in spite of all Mr. Tonks' s gruff receptions ; 
 and never took hints to go, or that he was not wanted ; and 
 always kept so close to Annie, that there was little room for any- 
 body else to come near her. In fact, with him the young lady 
 was as effectually guarded as the showman who, in describing 
 his view of the battle of Trafalgar, points out Lord Nelson to 
 have been, " s'rounded by Captain Hardy." In former days, 
 there was only one line of Old English Gentlemen to take up ; now 
 there are several. There is the virtuous-indignation Old English 
 'Gentleman, who makes speeches about the " wrongs of the poor 
 man," and " nature's nobility," and maintains the right of the 
 labourer to knock down fences, trespass on preserves, and steal 
 game that he has no right to, whenever he pleases : the Old 
 Gentleman in question not having any preserves of his own, of 
 course. Then there is the Young England Old English Gen- 
 tleman, who, being as proud as Lucifer, gives a ball once a year 
 to his servants and tenants, and apes humility in a manner 
 wonderful to behold, but keeps his own circle about him most 
 religiously, with the silver forks and superior soup at the top 
 cross-table, to show the common people, after all, that this is 
 but condescension on his part, and that the clay of which they 
 are formed is but crockery to the porcelain of his own set. Then 
 
MR. TONKS AND HIS GREAT CHRISTMAS FAILURE. 57 
 
 there is the Squire Old English Gentleman, who can talk of no- 
 thing but dogs and horses, shouts and bawls whenever he 
 Bpeaks, makes his friends drink as much wine as he chooses to 
 swill himself, and appears to put his children and pet animals 
 all on the same level — a descendant of the Western genus still 
 existing. And there is the High Church Old English Gentle- 
 man, and his opponent the Low Church Old English Gentleman, 
 with a score more, if we cared to name them. And lastly, the 
 Old English Gentleman, properly so called, who belongs to a 
 good family, keeps up a good establishment, cultivates good 
 connexions, but at the same time shows great attention to 
 many who are a step below him on the ladder of station, who 
 adopt the courtesy and refined manners of his circle, handing 
 them in turn still lower, and so diffusing in all grades that 
 etiquette without which the barrier of society would be 
 knocked down altogether, and " nature's nobility" might 
 honour us with their company to hob and nob whenever they 
 pleased — which would be a great and glorious thing in the eyes 
 of a philanthropical high-pressure epithet literary gentleman, 
 but not altogether so agreeable in reality. 
 
 Mr. Tonks debated for a long time what sort of Old English 
 Gentleman he should be, and at last thought an amalgamation 
 of certain features from all these classes, with Young England 
 uppermost, would be the best of all. And as* the year was 
 drawing to its close, he decided upon giving a Christmas enter- 
 tainment to his neighbours in the old style at a great ex- 
 penditure ; and so assume a place with the best of them, and 
 marry Annie to the son of the sheriff, or Lady Hawksy's ne- 
 phew, or any other of the elder brothers. 
 
 By the assistance of " Hone's Every-Day Book," and the 
 four-and-sixpenny edition of " Strutt's Sports and Pastimes," 
 Mr. Tonks soon 'found out how Christmas ought to be kept. 
 He determined upon having mummers, a fool, and a wassail- 
 bowl ; there would be also a yule-log, a hobby-horse, and a 
 dragon ; and he also decided upon a " wode-house," or a " sal- 
 vage man," who, according to the book, should " dysporte him- 
 self with fireworks" amongst the company. But this latter 
 character was discarded at the express desire of Mrs. Tonks, 
 who thought squibs and book-muslin dresses, " which as they 
 kiss consume," would not go very well together; and that, al- 
 though violent delights might be thereat produced, they would 
 have equally violent ends, and die in their triumph. 
 
58 WILD OATS. 
 
 Old Lady Hawksy was the first who accepted the invitation ; 
 in consequence of which, by a "bold stroke of policy, the Tonkses 
 put their carriage at her disposal for a week, that she might 
 drive round to all her acquaintances and say she was going, 
 whereby they would be induced to come. And this had 
 its effect ; for whether from curiosity, condescension, love of 
 gaiety, or politeness, everybody " had great pleasure in accept- 
 ing," &c, and the heart of Mr. Tonks swelled with pride, as 
 that of his wife did with maternal speculation, when they 
 thought of all their guests comprising all the gentry of the 
 neighbourhood, and those designated in circulars merely as 
 "inhabitants;" especially Lady Hawksy's nephew, who was in 
 the Guards, and whom Mrs. Tonks hoped would bring some 
 brother officers, and that they would all come in their soldiers' 
 clothes, and look as ferocious and imposing as their partners 
 would permit. No invitation was to be sent to Frederick 
 "Walcot ; this was expressly insisted on, and yet, somehow or 
 another, curiously enough, he contrived to know all about the 
 party, as we shall see. 
 
 Mr. Tonks was determined for once to make a splash. The 
 supper was to come down in light vans from Grunter's ; the 
 music from Chappell's ; and the mummers and hobby-horse 
 from Nathan's — at least, their outward gear. 
 
 The guests were to dance in the hall, and refect in the 
 dining-room, whilst the fool was to say clever things every- 
 where all the evening. For this purpose, Mr. Tonks engaged 
 a witty man at a salary of thirty shillings, who was an actor at 
 one of the minor theatres, and used to conjure and show a 
 magic lantern at his parties when Annie was a little girl. The 
 frame of Sir Humphrey de Tonkes was decked out with holly. 
 His armour was polished up until it looked so new, that you 
 would never have believed it had been worn at Agincourt ; and 
 the feathers from Mrs. Tonks's own bonnet were put in the 
 helmet — handsome drooping ones, quite ready to go to court 
 on the shortest notice. And so, at last, all was ready, and the 
 evening arrived. 
 
 Frost and snow are no longer attributes of Christmas. They 
 used to be, but fog and floods have long since taken their places, 
 and did so more especially on the evening of Mr. Tonks's party. 
 But most of those invited kept carriages — he sent his own for 
 Lady Hawksy, but her nephew preferred driving over in a dog- 
 cart from the barracks — and those who did not, got flys from 
 
ME. TONKS AND HIS GEE AT CHEISTMAS FAILEEE. 59 
 
 the nearest town, so that all arrived pretty well. Mrs. Tonks 
 received the guests in the drawing-room. She had been at 
 Guildhall on various Lord Mayor's days, and took her ideas of 
 receptions generally from the ceremonies observed on that oc- 
 casion, in consequence of which she exhibited much dignity ; 
 and when this was done they passed on to the hall, admired 
 the pictures, made cutting remarks in a low tone, and waited 
 for what came next. But the worst was that, for a long time, 
 nothing did come. The young people had all got engaged — 
 that is to say, only for the dances ; and Annie was to open the 
 ball — which is a ceremony we do not precisely understand, 
 seeing that a ball is generally opened by twenty young ladies 
 simultaneously, in the first quadrille — with old Lady Hawksy's 
 nephew ; but the music had not arrived. "What could be the 
 reason ? Chappell was a man of his word, and Mr. Tonks 
 had expressly engaged him on an evening when Covent Garden 
 would be occupied by those kind-hearted gentlemen who are 
 going to give everybody quartern loaves for a halfpenny apiece. 
 And he had, moreover, arranged that he should put the band in 
 the hall gallery, where they might have crackers, double-barrelled 
 guns, horsewhips, red fire, and a cat and a terrier in one hamper, 
 to give the effects to Jullien's various quadrilles with proper 
 force, as well as the garden engine for a new set called L'Orage, 
 in the finale of which a real shower of rain was to fall on the 
 heads of the guests, to be followed by the Parapluie Polka. 
 What could have become of them ? It was very odd ! — so it 
 was. However, something must be done, and accordingly the 
 mummers were ordered into the hall to carry on time until the 
 musi.c came. But the entrance of mummers without music is 
 in itself a slow proceeding, and not productive of much mirth. 
 The young ladies looked at the odd dresses — mostly moyen-dge 
 costumes with large heads, which preserved that comical ex- 
 pression of stereotyped hilarity, perfectly uninfluenced by cir- 
 cumstances, we notice in pantomimes, and said, " How droll, to 
 be sure!" and the great neighbours looked coldly at one an- 
 other, as much as to ask, " What does all this mean ?" and then 
 the excitement caused by their entrance was over. The ab- 
 sence of the music was the death of everything. The polka 
 could not be danced between the Stag and the Kail way King, 
 who was to be dressed with a tall hat like the chimney of a lo- 
 comotive. The Hobby-horse capered about the hall, and hit 
 the people on the head with a bladder tied to a stick, at which 
 
60 WILD OATS. 
 
 some laughed the first time, but voted it stupid the second ; 
 aud the Dragon was very tame indeed. He kept in a corner of 
 the room, close by Annie, all the evening, and appeared to be 
 her own especial Dragon-in-waiting. 
 
 Mr. Tonks got frantic ; he despatched everybody available 
 from his house in all directions with lanterns and keepers' 
 fusees to look after the music. He ran in and out of the hall 
 upon fictitious business, and was at one time found cowering 
 in the passage, all by himself, fearing to face the yawning com- 
 pany, who were gradually relapsing into solemn silence ; and, at 
 last, gave orders that the Fool should go into the hall and be 
 funny. But the Fool proved as great a failure as everything 
 else. Nobody cared to say anything to him to draw him out, 
 and, if they had, the chances are that he would not have 
 come. Eor he had formed his character upon the models 
 offered by Christmas clowns, and when he had said, " Here we 
 are again I" and " I'm a looking at you !" or " Here's somebody 
 coming !" which were not witticisms productive of great merit 
 upon frequent repetition, he could do nothing more but crow 
 like a cock, a performance not altogether devoid of merit in its 
 proper place — the House of Commons or the Opera omnibus- 
 box, for example — but not calculated to throw people into con- 
 vulsions in formal private society. Everything was now at a 
 dead stand-still. The yule-log, which had been hewn from the 
 freshly-excavated trunk of a tree, would not burn anyhow, but 
 sulked upon the hearth, splitting and sputtering as though it 
 was hissing the failure of the entertainments, and filling the 
 hall with smoke. It was too early for the wassail-bowl, for the 
 company had barely finished tea; and, although Mrs. Tonks 
 rushed about with packs of cards amongst the guests, entreat- 
 ing them to draw one and form a rubber, everybody declined 
 except old Lady Hawksy's nephew, who laboured under the im- 
 pression that the mistress of the house was about to exhibit some 
 conjuring tricks, and having taken a card, expected to be asked 
 to look at it and return it where he pleased, previous to its 
 being discovered in an egg, or a workbox, or, perhaps, a pancake. 
 But on finding that this process was merely a trap to bottle 
 him up in a room, away from everything and everybody except 
 two or three bits of quality tumbled into decay, who were to 
 make up the rubbers with him, he returned it immediately 
 without looking at it, with much alacrity, assuring Mrs. Tonks 
 that he never played anything but skittles, adding, that he 
 
MR. TONKS AND HIS GREAT CHRISTMAS FAILURE. 61 
 
 should be very happy to do so directly, if there were any that 
 could be brought into the ball. 
 
 At length, in his agony of despair, Mr. Tonks assembled bis 
 retainers in the housekeeper's room, and asked if anybody 
 could play any instrument whatever. Yes ! one could : lucky 
 thought ! Tom the helper knew the fiddle. Tom the helper 
 was the graceless ne'er-to-do-well of the village, and con- 
 fined the sphere of his utility chiefly to the stables of " The 
 Tonks' Arms," an hostelry adjoining the Hall, which had been 
 promoted to an inn vice the beershop of " The Crooked Billet." 
 On this eventful evening, Tom had come to the house to assist, 
 and had so proved the hospitality of the kitchen, that, in his 
 present state of self-glorification, he would have offered to have 
 played anything, even if it had been the sackbut, or any other 
 defunct instrument with the nature of which even the most 
 ancient subscribers to the " Ancient Concerts" were unac- 
 quainted. As it was, he went and got his fiddle, which was 
 a marvellous thing to look at, having been made by himself out 
 of tin, for the sole use of the benefit club in the village ; and 
 being arrayed in a spare livery-coat, was put up in the gallery 
 with an enormous jack of strong beer — which, by some perver- 
 sion of his comprehensive faculties, he called " his rossum" — and 
 told to begin whatever he knew. 
 
 But Tom's knowledge was limited. In vain the company 
 suggested the Chatsworth Quadrilles, the Bouquet Royal "Waltz, 
 the Annen or Mont Blanc Polka ; they might as well have called 
 for the particular air to which Doctor Faustus caused his scho- 
 lars, under fear of the whip, to perform that remarkable dance 
 from Scotland into France, and subsequently into the Penin- 
 sula, before he whipped them back again ; although how they 
 contrived to surmount the various engineering difficulties on 
 the route is by no means satisfactorily proved. But this by the 
 way. Tom did not know these, but he knew the " Tank" and 
 "Money Musk," together with a mysterious air, which he 
 termed " Hunches of puddun and lumps of fat," and which 
 nobody was bold enough to call for, the name being an un- 
 pleasant one, not to say offensive. So the "Tank" it was 
 obliged to be ; and before it had been played one minute, Lady 
 Hawksy's nephew found out it was a capital Polka tune ; where- 
 upon he rushed up to Annie, and almost without asking her, he 
 whirled her off in the back step across the hall, and was fol- 
 lowed directly by a dozen couples, who had got wearied to death 
 
62 TFILD OATS. 
 
 from inactivity, and went into it like mad. But in the second 
 round, the Dragon, who had all this time sulked in the corner, 
 crept into the circle, and in the most awkward manner con- 
 trived to get right in the way of Lady Hawksy's nephew, and 
 trip him over, which feat being accomplished, he crept back 
 again to the corner, and Annie, by some means or another, hurt 
 her foot in this very round, and could not dance any more, re- 
 tiring to her old seat, and begging her cavalier would find 
 another partner. 
 
 The people went on dancing ; and it was astonishing what 
 they adapted " The Tank" to. It was played on continuously 
 for 'the quadrilles, but for the waltz was rather difficult, until 
 somebody proposed the Valse a deux temps, which, just come in, 
 not depending upon any tune at all, but being danced at the will 
 of the company, was a good introduction. But all this time the 
 "rossum" was doing its work ; and after gazing at the dancers 
 for some time in bewildered surprise, Tom threw his fiddle 
 down into the hall, through the chandelier, swearing "he'd be 
 jiggered" — the precise meaning of the participle was not clearly 
 understood — " if he played no more ; they beat all the club 
 people he ever know'd !" 
 
 There was terrible confusion, and it is said that some young 
 ladies who had eligible partners fainted right off in their arms. 
 Mr. and';Mrs. Tonks were aghast ; they stood at first speechless, 
 and then each called for Annie at the same time in some vague 
 desire to collect their home forces around them, as if they 
 feared an attack from the indignant visitors. But Annie was 
 nowhere to be found. She had suddenly disappeared; and 
 the Dragon had disappeared also ; and all was speechless amaze- 
 ment, until they learned from the lodge-keeper that the apo- 
 cryphal monster and the young lady had entered the sheriff's 
 own carriage, and gone off through the floods as fast as Mr. 
 Tonks' s own postilion could take them, the sheriff's retainers 
 being drunk in the buttery (as Mr. Tonks would call the wash- 
 house), in which state they forcibly took possession of the 
 wassail-bowl and emptied it. 
 
 The following morning Mr. Chappell's band was discovered, 
 like Spenser's allegory of February, sitting in an old waggon in 
 the middle of the floods, in which state they had been left by the 
 treachery of the man who was to meet them at the nearest rail- 
 way station, and take them all over to the Hall ; and there they 
 would have been much longer, had not the principal cornet 
 
ME. TONKS AND HIS GREAT CHRISTMAS FAILURE. 63 
 
 attracted the attention of the agricultural population — by a post 
 horn without the galop- — to their plight. And, singular to say, 
 this traitor went on straight to the Hall, and took the part 
 of the Dragon, who spirited Annie away, changing again, when 
 in the sheriff's carriage, to no less a person than young "Walcot, 
 who forthwith accompanied the lady of his heart by rail to 
 Gretna — following the force of high example — and came back 
 penitent and married, before Air. and Mrs. Tonks had recovered 
 from the anguish into which the failure of keeping Christmas 
 in the old style had plunged them. 
 
 There was the usual business to go through : the anger, the 
 pleadings, and the forgiveness ; and then, Mr. Tonks thought 
 that Annie had perhaps done better, after all, than if she had 
 caught old Lady Hawksy's nephew. For subsequent little 
 rudenesses on the part of his guests disgusted him with society 
 above him, and he began to think that, however much money 
 he spent, he was only sneered at covertly by those whom he 
 attempted to equalise himself with, and that, if his notions of 
 doing good and being benevolent were real, and not conven- 
 tionally chivalric, they could be carried out as well by the re- 
 tired London tradesman as the got-up-for-the-purpose Old Eng- 
 lish G-entleman, to which position he had no pretensions. 
 
( 64 ) 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE BOYS IN THE STREETS. 
 1. — OF THE " PEOPLE" — THE SOTTECE OF ALL BOYS. 
 
 "We have been some time making up our minds as to the real 
 attributes of the class denominated "the people;" and who, 
 in reality, " the people" are supposed to be. 
 
 A long time ago we imagined them to be something unplea- 
 sant, for their name was always coupled with a depreciative 
 epithet. We heard of " horrid people," and " strange people," 
 and " people nobody liked or visited," and these were generally 
 amongst the middle classes. Next, we set "the people" down as 
 a mass of weak-minded individuals, from the things we saw es- 
 pecially addressed to them. "Whenever anything was adver- 
 tised for " the people," it was generally some cheap rubbish 
 that nobody else could be expected to buy. " The People's 
 Picture Gallery" was probably a reprint from worn-out plates, 
 upon bad paper, of uninteresting subjects. " Holidays for the 
 people" were chiefly characterised by crowds of the lower 
 orders tumbling about the streets tipsy, at late hours on Mon- 
 day evenings ; meetings of thousands at dreary suburban fes- 
 tivals, ringing with the rude joyless riot, so nearly degenerating 
 into absolute brutality, which, unhappily, characterises all the 
 dull fetes of the masses in England, compared to those on the 
 Continent ; sweltering in close meeting-houses at the end of 
 dirty courts, or National Pantheons, or Athenaeums, or other 
 patriotic temples to swill weak infusions of cheap black tea, 
 diluted with spoiled water, as they listened to the noisy gabble 
 of uneducated professors of the " Pm-as-good-as-you" theories 
 of social life ; gaping through the British Museum, not from any 
 interest they felt in the collection, but because there were thou- 
 sands of things they did not understand to be seen there for 
 
THE BOYS IX THE STREETS. 65 
 
 nothing; availing themselves of the permission to stream 
 through the National Gallery and Hampton Court Palace, and 
 stare at the pictures with precisely the same feelings with which 
 they would look at the paintings outside shows, with the excep- 
 tion that they would like the latter much the best ; or return- 
 ing in the evening — with very, very few exceptions — dusty, 
 tired, and quarrelsome. All this did'not elevate " the people" 
 in our estimation. 
 
 Anon came the epoch of "virtuous indignation" in litera- 
 ture, by which authors found they could turn their pens to 
 as good account as the spouters on the same subject did their 
 lungs ; and various phrases, such as " the wrongs of the poor 
 man," and the " crimes of respectability," were without doubt 
 stereotyped, from the frequency of their occurrence, for their 
 use. The professors travelled about to be stared at, having 
 stirred up " the people" with their long pens until they got the 
 freedoms of the towns presented to them in tin saucepans, or 
 pipkins, or razor-cases, or lucifer-boxes, or other specimens of 
 local manufactures. 
 
 And then we learned that " the people" never had any holi- 
 days at all, nor any amusements, nor any anything. And yet, 
 by tracking them slily into various resorts, we found they filled 
 the uproarious galleries of the theatres ; or composed the 
 masses who shouted at the election of candidates, not having 
 the ghost of a vote; who blocked up the streets on Lord 
 Mayor's Day, or swarmed round the Old Bailey scaffold. "W r e 
 then began strongly to suspect that the classes known to the 
 old novelists and essayists by the certainly not too elevating 
 titles of "riff-raff" and " tagrag and bobtail," were "the 
 people" of the Virtuous Indignationists of the present time. 
 
 Finally, we read what M. Michelet had to say upon the 
 subject, and we left off in a greater haze than ever as to 
 who " the people" were. "We, therefore, thought it best to 
 amalgamate the leading points of the various physiologies we 
 have glanced at — and which seemed to be nearest the mark, 
 from observation of the simplest kind — and form our own 
 ideas of "the people" from them ; and from this class, it seems 
 to us, that the boys in the streets take their origin, entirely 
 forming themselves " the people" of the next generation. We 
 have begun at the beginning in endeavouring to give some idea 
 of the stock from which spring the branches we are about to 
 describe. 
 
66 WILD OATS. 
 
 2. — THE EAKLT DATS OF THE BOYS. 
 
 Theee are several spots in which, with very little trouble, you 
 may see the embryo boys to great advantage. During fine 
 weather they swarm in broad paved courts, or culs-de-sac, in 
 crowded neighbourhoods. Punch's show is a capital ground- 
 bait for them, bringing a hundred instantaneously together, 
 where not a single one was visible a minute before. On the 
 broken ground about to be formed into a new street, or built 
 upon, you may at all times make sure of them. The more 
 irregular it is the more they love it, and if the cellar arches are 
 already built, the attraction is paramount to every other, except, 
 perhaps, the spot where wood pavement is being taken up or 
 put down ; for there they storm and defend forts, or make 
 perilous excursions over mountains all day long. 
 
 The boys in this tadpole state — which reptile they somewhat 
 resemble in their active wriggling and love of puddles of water 
 — stand only in awe of one person, and that is the policeman. 
 Their notions of his functions are somewhat vague ; but they 
 are certain he can take them up and punish them — for nothing, 
 and from mere wantonness — whenever he pleases. They spy 
 him out quicker than a crow in a field does a man with a gun ; 
 if you suddenly see a flying army of children bolting from a 
 court or round a corner in terror, you may be certain that a 
 policeman is close at hand. At a more mature age, they will 
 chaff him and run away; but at present their belief in his 
 greatness is unbounded. He would be the giant or the dragon 
 of their nursery story-books ; but, in the first place, they have 
 no nursery, and, in the second, no story-books to read there. 
 And, indeed, the reading is itself a question. 
 
 The children of the London streets are acute from their 
 birth. The very babies, crawling on the kerb, or burrowing in 
 the dust of a building plot, have a cunning expression of face 
 which you do not find in the white-headed country infants ; 
 and, as soon as they can run alone, their sharpness breaks forth 
 most palpably — they are never to be " done.'' In fact, as far 
 as their wits are concerned, they are never children, but minia- 
 ture men. "We have said that it is only in fine weather you 
 see them about ; and then they come out like gnats, and are 
 just as troublesome, especially if you are driving. ¥e have no 
 clear notions of what becomes of them when it is wet; we 
 hardly imagine that the neighbouring houses can contain the 
 
THE BOYS IN THE STREETS. 67 
 
 swarms that we have spoken of. If tliey do, we pity the other 
 dwellers ; we conceive on no other portion of the community 
 can a continuance of rain bring so many discomforts. 
 
 The street children have no regular toys; they have seen 
 them in small shop windows, and on stalls, and long barrows, 
 but never possessed any : all they have they invent. Not that 
 their playthings are the less diverting on this account ; in any 
 circle of life you may give a child the costliest toys with which 
 it will only be amused for a time, to return to the mere furni- 
 ture of the nursery. "We question if the noblest horse and cart 
 just bought from Mr. Myers, or Mr. Cremer, or in any of the 
 bazaars, ever excited half so much whip -enthusiasm in the 
 young charioteer as the footstool harnessed to the rocking- 
 chair. No boxes of bricks would amuse the street child so 
 much as the oyster-shells with which he makes a grotto ; he 
 would not care half so much for a trap and ball as for his little 
 " tip cat" of wood, cut from a fire bundle ; and he has no occa- 
 sion to buy large marbles when the first heap of pebbles will 
 find him in as many " boncers" as he wishes. You will seldom 
 see these street children with dolls. They would not know 
 what to do with them ; for never having been nursed, fondled 
 dressed, or put to bed themselves, they are incompetent to ex- 
 hibit the same attentions to sham infants. But they can set 
 up ninepins of brickbats and broken bottles ; and make carts of 
 old saucepans to fill with rubbish and drag after them ; and lay 
 out banquets of dirt, dressed in various fashions, upon services 
 of bits of tile and crockery, and tureens of old shoes. And as 
 all these things can be immediately replaced when broken, and 
 excite no sorrow when lost, their state is, in this respect, rather 
 to be envied than otherwise. 
 
 And so, leading a life of all holidays, and turning the great 
 world into a playroom for his especial enjoyment, the street 
 infant passes to the boy. ' 
 
 3. — THE BOYS, PKOPERLY SO CALLED. 
 
 The "boys" are as characteristic of our London streets as 
 the gamins are of the quays and canal banks of Paris. Let us 
 consider a general type of their class. 
 
 He hath eight years of existence to answer for. He weareth 
 a paper cap, or a cloth one without a peak, set forward on his 
 head, which he considereth knowing. He standeth on his head 
 with ease, and without apparent necessity to do so ; and is clit- 
 ic 
 
68 WILD OATS. 
 
 done only by the sable musician of Ethiopia, whom the gallery 
 honoureth by the name of " Bones," in his handling the Cas- 
 tanet bits of slate. He danceth to piano organs a measure not 
 taught by any advertising professors ; and, at times, waggishly 
 turneth the handle himself, to the indignation of the Genoese 
 performer. On being remonstrated with, he sparreth playfully 
 at the foreigner, treateth his hat with insult by compressing it 
 as though it were a French mechanical one, and then runneth 
 
 away. 
 
 He loveth all street performances, but contributeth nothing 
 to their support, albeit he taketh the front place. He followeth 
 a fire-engine with ardour, and when nobody is looking, bloweth 
 a lusty note through the metal hose-pipe ; after which, he run- 
 neth to the opened water-plug, which he compresseth with his 
 shoe, aud causeth the stream to spirt over the passengers, which 
 diversion he concludeth by pushing the little brother of some 
 other boy into it. And then he quarrelleth with the other boy, 
 and saith, " I should like to see you do it !" But on neither 
 side is anything ever done. 
 
 He loveth the freedom of shirt-sleeves, and doth not think an 
 apron beneath him, so that he tucketh it up. He returneth 
 speedy answers, intended to wound the feelings of those reprov- 
 ing him, and by this token it is dangerous to chaff him. He 
 detecteth rapidly peculiarities in dress, and hath an ideal type, 
 which he calleth " a swell out of luck." And he doth not 
 think the question, " Hoes your mother know you're out ?" at 
 all worn out or passe, but still indulgeth in it, imagining 
 thereby that he inflicteth a pang whose sharpness precludes 
 reply. If he runneth against you, he will turn away reproof 
 by saying first, "Now then, spooney! can't you see where 
 you're drivin' on." 
 
 He hath the merit of being an indirect author of burlesques, 
 albeit Blackwood did not formerly attack him thereon. For 
 from him did Messrs. Planche, A'Beckett, Tom Taylor, Shirley 
 Brooks, Brough, Talfourd, and another, with whom we are upon 
 terms of great intimacy, borrow the lines and tunes which 
 chiefly set the house in ecstasies. His whistle abroad (which, 
 disguise it as they may, all composers covet) suggesteth the air 
 thai; shall be encored above all others ; his by-word of the day 
 causeth the laugh which Mrs. Keeley, Miss P. Horton, and 
 Miss AVoolgar love to provoke; and, above all, his "Brayvo!" 
 from the heights of the Haymarket, Lyceum, or Adelphi, chiefly 
 
THE BOYS IX THE STREETS. 69 
 
 inspiriteth both audience and actors. Tor he is no mean feature 
 as connected with " the present state of the drama." His voice 
 keepeth the scene-shifters to their duty ; his call, from the gal- 
 lery, of " Higher I" hath power to raise the very skies ; and he 
 even commandeth the great Charles Kean to " Speak up !" 
 when contiguous noise drowneth the sound of that eminent 
 voice. And he often dispelleth the ennui of the audience during 
 the entr'acte, by making his dangerous journey along the front 
 of the rails from one side of the house to the other, when he 
 wisheth to exchange greetings with a half-price friend. He be- 
 lieveth that the whole orchestra is composed but of fiddlers, for 
 he mentioneth them all as " catgut scrapers ;" and he crieth out 
 perpetually, throughout the entertainment, for " Bill Simmuns!" 
 whom he expecteth to join him. He is anxious that everybody 
 who is noisy, except himself, should be thrown over, or turned 
 out ; but he liketh the commandatory rather than the executive 
 power. He hath a merit of discovering ephemeral horsemen 
 and livery-stable nags with a quickness scarcely inferior to 
 that of a turnpike-man ; and if he detecteth in the equestrian 
 a nervous temperament, he calleth out, "You'd, better get 
 inside, sir!" or he kindly saith, "Mind his tail, sir, or else 
 it'll be shook off!" or he facetiously recommends him "to lay 
 hold tight by his ears." And to all coachmen he crieth, " Whip 
 behind !" more especially when there is nothing to whip. Or 
 he telleth John Thomas to " look sharp after his calves, or else 
 they'll pull him off his perch !" 
 
 To coachmen, generally, he is a terror, and to none more than 
 those who are waiting outside the theatres, half asleep upon 
 their boxes, with their whips hanging over the pavement ; for 
 the thongs of these he tuggeth in succession, exclaiming, " My 
 eyes! there's a bite!" as the lash nieth back, and possibly 
 waketh the dozing Jehu with a cut across the face. And also 
 by anglers at the Serpentine is he held in dread, inasmuch as he 
 constantly recommendeth the fisherman to " Pull him up, sir !" 
 when there is no necessity. Or he examineth the contents of 
 the fish-kettle uninvited ; or, if the bites do not arrive so quickly 
 as he desireth, he maketh artificial ones by pelting at the float, 
 thereby causing it to bob. And this hath been known to dis- 
 turb the fish in no small measure, so that they incontinently 
 depart to distant waters, and is, above all others, an intrusion 
 which your angler cannot abide. But herein doth lie the boy's 
 greatest pleasure. 
 
70 . WILD OATS. 
 
 4, — OF THE SEASONABLE EATE AT WHICH THE BOY PEOCTTEES 
 HIS AMUSEMENTS. — OE HIS EEEBESHMENTS. 
 
 The sources of income of the boy are numerous, but, at the 
 same time, the results are small ; and so be is driven to 
 patronise those sports and pastimes of the people of England 
 which require the least outlay. His living is either earned or 
 picked up. By the first, we mean that he may be in a regular 
 place ; but if he is detained in-doors many of his most striking 
 characteristics are destroyed ; for confinement to him is like a 
 flower-pot to a forget-me-not. He must have air, and light, 
 and water, and plenty of them, or he loses his richest attributes ; 
 and so, of the ways of living, he prefers the second. When you 
 land at Hungertbrd, he is there, anxious to carry your carpet- 
 bag the greatest possible distance for the smallest conceivable 
 amount ; or if you shoot a cab flying in the street, he opens the 
 door, pushes you in, bangs it to again, and touches the place 
 where his hat ought to be if he had one, before you know he is 
 near you. He will run miles after your horse, even after 
 saluting you as aforesaid, upon the chance of holding it ; and 
 were he certain that you would make a long call, he would en- 
 deavour to turn a few dishonest halfpence by letting the aris- 
 tocracy of his class have a short ride. But this is a species of 
 money-making attended with some risk. 
 
 All these payments, however, are a long time making up the 
 sum of sixpence ; and when he gets this together, he goes to 
 the play on a Monday evening, not caring how early he arrives, 
 or how long he waits at the gallery door. Indeed, his patient 
 expectation at this post appears to be part of the evening's en- 
 tertainment ; for he will cluster there with his fellows some- 
 times as early as half-past four. And spending his money in 
 this way, he has none left for promiscuous diversions ; and so 
 he studies in what way the greatest amount of amusement can 
 be procured for nothing, or, at least, next to it. 
 
 All street amusements, depending for support on the volun- 
 tary contributions of the bystanders, we have before observed, 
 he liberally patronises — with his presence ; at times contri- 
 buting to their effect by allowing the wandering necromancer 
 to fasten the padlock on his cheek, or becoming the victim 
 whose head is to be cut off the minute ninepence more is 
 thrown into the ring, to make up the sum under which the de- 
 capitation, by some mysterious law of nature, cannot be per- 
 
THE BOYS IN THE STREETS. 71 
 
 formed. But in this respect the boy is pretty safe ; for the 
 ring resembles in some degree the toy of Tantalus's cup : you 
 may throw hundreds of coppers into it, without ever getting 
 the sum to rise above sevenpence-halfpenny. 
 
 Generally speaking, all the enjoyments which those who have 
 money purchase, the boy procures for nothing. He gets to the 
 Derby by riding behind a number of vehicles, and changing 
 them, as he is successively whipped off. He sees an execution 
 from a lamp-post, even obscuring the view of those wealthy 
 amateurs in such matters, who have paid a high rent for the 
 first floor of the Lamb coffee-house. The crater of Mount 
 Vesuvius at the Surrey Zoological Gardens is sufficiently visible 
 above the palings to allow him to enter into all the glories of 
 the rockets and eruptions from the road; and he sees much 
 more of Mr. Green in his balloon from the public road, than 
 any of the company who paid for admission to behold what is 
 termed " the process of filling"— consisting of the diverting ap- 
 plication of a gas-pipe for several hours to a valve at the bottom 
 of the huge looming machine in question, and not being a sight, 
 in the abstract, provocative of great joy or merriment. 
 
 At fairs and festivals, it has long been received as a fact that 
 the outside of the shows is the best part of their performance ; 
 and this the boy enjoys to the utmost. He sees all the actors, 
 and then, if he chooses, he can hear the dialogue of the tragedy, 
 and the comic song of the countryman, by listening at the side 
 of the canvas theatre. He gets a ride in the merry-go-round, 
 by contributing his share of communicated force to impel it, 
 or responding to the master's commands of " Holler, boys !" 
 and raising a shout of enthusiasm to light up a glow of ardour 
 in the breasts of waverers, who are debating between the 
 hobby-horse and the halfpenny. And he sometimes, even, is 
 admitted to the grand arena of equitation, as a reward for 
 forming one of the awkward squad which Mr. Merriman drills 
 on the platform. At races, he lies down at the feet of the 
 people at the ropes, and gets a better view than anybody else ; 
 and at reviews he comes off equally well by climbing a tree. 
 
 Whatever the boy does not spend at tlie theatre goes in 
 things to eat. Eor his consumption are those remarkable 
 penny ham-sandwiches chiefly manufactured, as well as the 
 numerous unintelligible comestibles sold on the stalls which 
 border the pavement. In fact, the kerb is his club, offering all 
 the advantages of one of those institutions, without any sub- 
 
72 WILD OATS. 
 
 scription or ballot. Had he a few pence, he might dine equally 
 well as at Blackwall, and with the same variety of delicacies, 
 without goiug twenty yards either way from the pillars in St. 
 Clement's churchyard. He might begin with a water souchee 
 of eels, varying his fish course with pickled whelks, cold fried 
 flounders, or periwinkles. "Whitebait, to be sure, he would 
 find a difficulty in procuring ; but as the more cunning gour- 
 mands do not believe these delicacies to be fish at all, but 
 merely little bits of light pie-crust fried in grease — and as, 
 moreover, the brown bread-and-butter is, after all, the grand 
 attraction — the boy might soon find a substitute. Then would 
 come the potatoes, apparently giving out so much steam, that 
 the can which contains them seems in momentary danger of 
 blowing up ; large, hot, mealy fellows, that prove how un- 
 founded were the alarms of the bad crop-ites ; and he might 
 next have a course of boiled feet of some animal or another, 
 which he would be certain to find in front of the gin-shop. 
 Cyder-cup, perhaps, he would not get ; but there is " ginger- 
 beer from the fountain at one penny per glass ;" and instead of 
 mulled claret, he could indulge in " hot elder cordial ;" whilst 
 for dessert, he could calculate upon all the delicacies of the 
 season, from the salads at the corner of "Wych-street, to the 
 baked apples at Temple-bar. None of these things would cost 
 more than a penny apiece, some of them would be under that 
 sum ; and since, as at Yerey's and other foreign restaurateurs, 
 there is no objection to your dividing the " portions," the boy 
 might, if he felt inclined to give a dinner to a friend, get off 
 under sixpence. There would be the digestive advantage, too, 
 of moving leisurely about from one course to another ; and, 
 above all, there would be no fees to waiters. 
 
 "We believe that of late years the taste of the boy in the 
 matter of street refreshments is altering for the better ; and 
 we are led to think so by the improvements which the tra- 
 velling vendors of them are making in their establishments, 
 and which now appeal to his artistic feelings rather than his 
 idle curiosity. We remember the time when kidney-puddings 
 — uninviting constructions of the size of small oranges — were 
 sold in the New Cut ; and the stalls were adorned with rude 
 transparencies, to catch the eye of the boys. We recollect 
 there was the courier of St. Petersburg riding six horses at 
 once for a kidney-pudding — a small reward, it is true, after 
 such a perilous journey, but characteristic of the contentment 
 
THE BOYS IN THE STREETS. 73 
 
 of the Eussian Empire ; and there was Eichmond winning the 
 kidney-pudding from Bichard III. by single combat, the viand, 
 without doubt, being intended to typify England in general ; 
 and on another lantern was Mr. Grimaldi as clown, making a 
 face, with a string of sausages hanging out of his pocket. The 
 connexion of this with the subject was somewhat vague, unless 
 it was intended to show him as he appeared after swallowing a 
 kidney-pudding. If this w r as the case, the expression of his 
 face was not favourable to the desire of following his example. 
 But now all these things are gone : the vendor no longer makes 
 a hole in the pudding with his little finger, and pours in some- 
 thing like lamp -oil and hot water shaken together, from a 
 ginger-beer bottle. The stall is a portable kitchen in itself, 
 with three elegant brass lamps at the top, in lieu of the paper 
 lanterns : the kidney-puddings have yielded to entremets of 
 a less ambiguous description. The neighbouring ginger-beer 
 stand boasts elegant glass apparatus, and tumblers instead of 
 mugs, and is even elaborately painted in arabesque patterns. 
 One we saw, the other day, upon wheels, was green, and red, 
 and gold ; and on it was written " La Polka." The general effect 
 was good, but the analogy was difficult to trace. However, 
 one thing is certain : the merchants have found that boys now 
 bestow the greatest patronage upon the most elegant stalls, 
 and ornament them accordingly. But of all these eating- 
 stands, the chief favourite with the boys is the potato-can. 
 They collect round it, as they would do on 'Change, and there 
 talk over local matters, or discuss the affairs of the adjoining 
 cab-stand, in which they are at times joined by the waterman, 
 whom they respect — more so, perhaps, than they do the police- 
 man ; certainly more than they do the square-keeper, for him 
 they especially delight to annoy. And they watch any of their 
 fellows eating a potato with a curiosity and an attention most 
 remarkable, as if no two persons fed in the same manner, and 
 they expected something strange or diverting to happen at every 
 mouthful. 
 
 5. — OF THE FINAL DESTINATION OF THE BOYS. 
 
 "We believe that if birds or animals, who have been taken 
 into private life, are again cast forth upon the world, their 
 fellows directly insult — not to say pitch into — them in a cruel 
 and heartless manner. 
 
 And it is so with the boys. The instant one of them is 
 
74 WILD OATS. 
 
 thrown into society — by which we mean some position above 
 that of the mere errand-boy or printer's devil, in either of 
 which situations he is still, to all intents and purposes, the 
 gamin we have been describing — that instant he is turned into 
 game for his late companions. If he is a " page," they will ask 
 him " what he'll take for his jacket without the buttons ?" If 
 he is a doctor's boy, arrayed in that comical conventional cos- 
 tume which medical men put their lads into — that sad struggle 
 to combine the groom, footman, tiger, page, and knife-cleaner 
 all in one — they wiU, if he is in a gig, shout out, " Ullow, 
 doctor !" after him, to the indignation of his master ; and if 
 he is on foot with the oilskin-covered basket, they will stop 
 him, attempt to bonnet him, and insist on looking into it. And 
 here it sometimes happens that, instead of draughts and mix- 
 tures, they will discover half-pounds of tea, eggs, or, indeed, 
 mutton-chops, for one of the earliest maxims instilled into the 
 mind of the doctor's boy is, never to go out without his basket. 
 It looks professional, and gives neighbours the idea of exten- 
 sive practice, whereas three draughts carried in the hand bear 
 four-and-sixpence on the very face of them. If he turns 
 his thoughts towards learning the art and mystery of a baker, 
 they will rap on his basket as he carries it on his shoulder, or 
 even go so far as to call him " Doughy ;" or at night, when they 
 see him down in the hot lighted cellars, underneath the places 
 where the pavement is always dry when it rains, and the snow 
 always thaws when it falls, they will say, " I say, Joe, how are 
 you off for hallum ?" or allude to " bones," and " sally moniac," 
 and other popular prejudices. If he is a butcher, they do not 
 insult him except at a great distance, or when he has got a 
 heavy tray of meat that he cannot well put down. For they 
 know that in this state he is pugnacious ; and that, unlike his 
 threats in the boy state of existence, if he says he will punch 
 their heads he is pretty safe to do it. 
 
 We have done with the boys as they grow up, for then they 
 cease to be so, and we lose all interest in them. Few of their 
 attributes remain ; they become grave and dull ; you would not 
 recognise in the porter, the journeyman, or the carman, any of 
 the eccentricities that marked their early career. The only 
 positions in which their repartee remains of use to them, and 
 is still cultivated, are those of omnibus cads, cab-drivers, and 
 the touters at the pier-heads of rival steam-boat companies. 
 
70 
 
 VII. 
 
 A FRENCH SCHOOL. 
 
 The continual minor annoyances and ludicrous mistakes to 
 which our knowledge of school Trench perpetually subjected us, 
 induced us to think about some means of acquiring the lan- 
 guage, not as we learn it in England, but as they speak it in 
 France. "We applied to several friends, touching the best 
 means of attaining this end, and everybody said, " Go into a 
 school for a short time ; it is your only way." Thinking of the 
 old adage, which teaches us what every one says must be right, 
 we accordingly made up our minds to become a schoolboy once 
 more, and started one morning in quest of an "institution" 
 likely to suit our purpose. We called at several, but none had 
 the least idea of what a parlour-boarder meant, at least in our 
 sense of the word ; and after splitting our boots to pieces in 
 running up and down the Eue d'Enfer (whose miserably un- 
 paved state entirely contradicts the statement that the " de- 
 scensus Averni" is so easy, and shows Yirgil had not Paris 
 in his eye when he wrote the iEneid), we at length settled 
 with one in the Faubourg St. Jacques, where we stipulated to 
 have a bedroom to ourselves, to dine with the principal, and to be 
 instructed in the French language for one hundred francs per 
 month. Now, we had three reasons for going here. Firstly, it 
 was cheap ; secondly, it was near the Barriere Mont-Parnasse, 
 to whose amusement on fete days we had a great predilection ; 
 and lastly (we blush to own our cowardice), the e'leves were all 
 " small boys" whom we could thrash into subjection if they 
 were impudent, or halloo'd after us " Boslif Anglais ," u God- 
 dem" or any other entertaining polyglot witticisms that the 
 said " small boys" of Paris, there called gamins, were apt to 
 indulge in at our expense. 
 
 It was a wet, dirty day, in the beginning of November, that 
 we left our lodging at the Hotel Corneille, Place de l'Odeon, 
 and hiring a porter at the corner of the Eue Eacine, paddled 
 up the never-ending, and always dirty, Eue St. Jacques to our 
 
76 WILD OATS. 
 
 new abode. On arriving, we entered the great gates, with 
 which all French schools are embellished, and immediately 
 carried our effects to our bedroom, which was a closet with a 
 tiled floor, about eight feet square, and whose sole furniture 
 was comprised in a little wooden bedstead without curtains, a 
 deal chair, and a corresponding table, on which was a pie-dish 
 to wash in, and a pint white jug for water. Had we been as- 
 tronomers, the room would have had many advantages, since it 
 was ingeniously lighted by a window in the ceiling, which, in fine 
 weather, illumined our chamber very well, but in the event of a 
 heavy fall of snow, left us nearly in total darkness. It was late 
 in the evening when we arrived, so we went to bed at once, sup- 
 plying the want of sufficient bed-furniture by an English great- 
 coat spread over the counterpane, and a carpet-bag, emptied of 
 its contents, made a sort of mat to lay on the ground and stand 
 upon while we undressed. 
 
 Long before daylight the next morning we were aroused from 
 our slumbers by a bell ringing to summon the poor devils of Sieves 
 to the commencement of their studies. "We heard much yawning 
 and scrambling after clothes, and then a silent and measured 
 step as the usher assembled them, two and two, to march down 
 stairs to school. About seven, the cook of the establishment — 
 a dirty fellow, in a dirtier white nightcap — brought us a cup of 
 milk and a piece of bread, which we were informed was to be 
 our first breakfast ; the other was at half-past eleven. Unfor- 
 tunately for us, we always had a great aversion to bread-and- 
 milk ; we think it is neither one thing nor the other, and appears 
 to hold an intermediate rank between tea and water. Although 
 we remembered in our infancy to have possessed a book of nur- 
 sery rhymes, written by some anonymous poet of the dark ages 
 of infantile literature, where there was a picture of a little 
 child, with very curly hair, dragging a respectable female, who 
 looked something between a Sunday-school teacher and a bar- 
 maid, towards a cow feeding in a romantic meadow; and, more- 
 over, some lines, which commenced, as far as our memory 
 serves us : 
 
 Thank you, pretty cow, that made 
 Pleasant milk to soak my bread; 
 
 and followed by some well-founded cautions not to chew hem- 
 lock and other rank weeds ; still, we repeat, in spite of all these 
 associations, we do not like bread-and-milk. Accordingly, 
 
A FRENCH SCHOOL. 77 
 
 when we found this was all we were to be allowed before noon, 
 we were out of temper, and getting up very cross, we sauntered 
 down into the playground to inspect our new residence. 
 
 The reader must imagine a large court, enclosed on three 
 sides by buildings and walls, and on the fourth by some 
 palings communicating with the garden. The edifices on the 
 ri^hthand were diyided into numerous little cells, each haying 
 a door, and those were dignified by titles placed over the said 
 doors. The first was called " Salle de Musique" and, in conse- 
 quence, was fitted up with a cistern and leaden trough, where 
 the eleves performed their morning ablutions, when there hap- 
 pened to be any water. Xext to this was the " Salle de Dessin" 
 or drawing academy ; and some empty easels, with a very 
 rickety form or two, showed a great deal went on there. Then 
 came "the " Classe," or schoolroom, where the eleves studied 
 under the surveillance of two ushers, who ordained a rigid 
 silence amongst their pupils, save and except such times as the 
 said ushers were on duty as national guards. On the other 
 side the court was the dwelling-house and bedrooms, with the 
 " Refectoire" of the pupils, where they fed ; and in the middle 
 of the playground, which, from having two trees in it, was de- 
 nominated* the "Pare," were divers gymnastic poles and bars, 
 and a deep well, which supplied the establishment with water, 
 when anybody was at leisure to wind it up — an operation of 
 half an hour. 
 
 We were tolerably hungry at eleven o'clock, and were not 
 sorry to hear the bell for the boys' breakfast, as we knew ours 
 came after. The pupils silently marched two and two into 
 their room, and took their places at two long tables, where 
 each boy had a fork, cup, and napkin laid for him ; tablecloths 
 and knives were unknown. An allowance oiyotage, seemingly 
 composed of cabbage-water and bits of bread, was first served 
 out to each ; after that, they had some tin ordinaire and water, 
 but such wine — the only thing we could compare it to was ink 
 and small beer mixed together — and when this was well di- 
 luted with water, we could imagine how delicious it was. A 
 course of boiled spinach came next, and the breakfast concluded 
 by a dab of currant-jam being distributed to each, winch was 
 eaten with their bread, of which, however, there was an un- 
 limited supply. This meal was repeated at five o'clock, with 
 such agreeable variations as the taste of the cook directed ; but 
 beyond small pieces of hard boiled beef, and little bits of calf's 
 
78 WILD OATS, 
 
 liver, we did not see much meat. Potato salads, cold arti- 
 chokes, and boiled lentils, appeared to be the staple articles of 
 refreshment. The meals which we partook with the master and 
 his family were about the same standard, except that the wine 
 was superior, and some cotelettes of mutton and veal were 
 occasionally displayed. The Sieves themselves had none of the 
 spirit of English schoolboys, and, indeed, it was not to be won- 
 dered at. We could not help often contrasting the washy 
 mess they were eating to the wholesome roast and boiled joints 
 of our schools. They appeared to have no regular games or 
 toys of their own, and all their play-time was spent in running 
 after one another, with no other end that we could perceive 
 but to warm themselves ; for although the weather was despe- 
 rately cold, there were no fires, or even fireplaces, in several of 
 the rooms. They never inflicted corporal punishment, but 
 offenders were ordered to stand against a particular tree for 
 half an hour, or be deprived of a dish at dinner. We thought 
 it would have had a better effect to thrash them well, and feed 
 them well. 
 
 As we may imagine, from their early rising, they were gene- 
 rally pretty well fatigued at night, and they were always in a 
 deep sleep when we went to bed. As the way to our chamber 
 lay through that of the eleves, we had frequent opportunities of 
 inspecting it. It was a large bare room, with the beds arranged 
 round it, and down the middle, like Eoux's ward at the Hotel- 
 Dieu, only the beds had no curtains. Some of the boys had 
 little round mats by the beds to stand upon, but the majority, 
 who could not afford to hire these luxuries of the master of 
 the school, had the gratification of planting their naked feet 
 on a tiled floor every morning. A dim and solitary lamp burnt 
 all night in the chamber, barely lighting its extreme ends ; not 
 an article of furniture but the beds themselves, and one chair 
 for the usher, was in the room, and the windows all closed with 
 that unattractive irreconcilability which is only known to the 
 windows of the Continent. 
 
 We contrived to get through a month at our institution, and 
 then we left. We had, it is true, picked up a good deal of 
 French, but in point of expense it had not saved us much, for 
 — the truth must out — we never got enough to eat, and, in 
 consequence, generally dined again at the nearest restaurant ; 
 nay, more than once, we detected ourselves eating broiled 
 herrings at a wine- shop outside the Barriere d'Arcueil. 
 
( 79 ) 
 VIII. 
 
 ALEXANDRIA TO CAIRO. 
 
 Tea yelling on the Nile is not one of continuous poetic 
 dreaming, when you do not come near any relics of antiquity. 
 If you lose the Overland Mail transit steamer, as I did, from 
 being kept in quarantine through a mistake, and have to hire a 
 Icancljia to go from Pompey's Pillar to the Pyramids, you must 
 make up your mind to be bored, for five or six days and nights, 
 beyond all endurance. 
 
 On Monday morning, the 8th of October, 1849, finding that 
 there would be no steamer for ten days, I determined to get 
 up to Cairo as I could, and went down with my servant (a 
 clever Piedmontese attached to Key's Hotel) to the water-side 
 to select a boat. There are many always waiting to be hired 
 here, and we selected one tolerably new and clean, fashioned 
 something like a small City barge, but with two masts, fore and 
 aft, and said to be a good sailer. The reis, or captain, asked 
 four hundred piastres (a little more than four pounds) for the 
 journey, but immediately took two hundred and fifty, with a 
 promise of backsheesh if he and his crew behaved well. All the 
 afternoon we were looking up our stores for the journey, which 
 we packed in the useful, light, palm-wood crates, or cafasses, of 
 Egypt. These consisted of the commonest knives, forks, plates, 
 dishes, and glasses, a clay fireplace, a frying-pan, a coffee-pot, 
 a wool mattress, and the crates full of fowls, eggs, and vege- 
 tables. "We had also some luxuries, such as sardines, tea, two 
 dozen of pale ale, and a bottle of cognac. Giovanni, the dra- 
 goman, added two fine old, long-muzzled, hard-kicking guns ; 
 and all these things, being heaped upon a truck, were taken 
 down, by a guard of sun-baked, screaming little Arab boys, 
 to the quay. We joined the boat just below Pompey's Pillar, 
 and pushed off from shore about seven in the evening. 
 
 Alexandria is connected with the Nile by the Mahmoudieh 
 Canal, a channel between high banks, forty miles long, ter- 
 minating at the village of Atfeh. The story of the formation 
 of this canal is an oft-told tale, but I suppose I shall not be 
 the last by many to relate it. It was excavated by order of 
 Mahomed Ali, and a terrible undertaking it proved. With the 
 impetuosity which distinguished all his acts, he dragged two 
 
80 WILD OATS. 
 
 hundred and fifty thousand of the wretched Egyptian pea- 
 santry — men, women, and children — from the villages on the 
 Nile, and set them to work to dig this canal, or rather to scoop 
 it out with their hands, for they had no implements to assist 
 them. The poor creatures had only brought provisions with 
 them for one month's consumption ; and Mahomed AH, deter- 
 mined not to allow them any more when these were gone, kept 
 them at work, under the lashes and pikes of his soldiery, until 
 the blood streamed down their limbs, even of the children of 
 four or five years old. Maddened by pain and famine, they 
 tore up the ground with an energy that only desperation could 
 have given them ; and the canal was made in the incredibly 
 short space of six weeks ; but averaging the accounts of different 
 writers, more than thirty thousand of the labourers perished in 
 this period from torture and starvation. The bodies were thrown 
 up with the clay by their fellow-sufferers, and assisted to form 
 the banks ; so that the whole of the Mahmoudieh, between 
 Alexandria and Atfeh, may be considered as one huge and 
 ghastly cemetery. 
 
 As we pushed off, four of the Arabs — there Vere seven in the 
 crew, with the captain — sat in pairs on the deck, taking up some 
 boards to drop their feet into, and began to row. They also 
 sang a monotonous chant. The captain gave a word or two, 
 and the others added a refrain ; it was to the effect that there 
 was a fair wind, we were travelling famously, and everything 
 was " all right." The wind was dead against us, and we were 
 just moving. However, the East is said to be all romance. 
 
 We occupied the first half-hour of our journey in stowing 
 away our goods. Every time we moved a board or a box, a 
 great black spider scuffled out and instantaneously disappeared 
 down some favourite crevice ; and drawing the wooden blinds 
 of the windows disturbed dozens. 
 
 "We were not long in getting clear of the crowd of boats 
 that form the " pool" of Alexandria ; and then the Arabs left 
 off singing, and began to tow. When they met with another 
 kandjia, or came to two or three moored against the shore, they 
 threw off their long blue shirts, and plunged into the canal, 
 swimming dog-fashion, or throwing out their arms alternately, 
 until they carried the rope round, and then they went on again. 
 There was nothing to see during this part of the journey ; one 
 might as well have travelled in a railway cutting of dry dusky 
 mud. About half-past nine the sail went up, on turning a 
 corner, and then we began to move ; and, not being particularly 
 
ALEXANDRIA TO CAIRO. 81 
 
 amused, I "turned in," in nautical phrase, which consisted in 
 taking off my coat and lying down upon a thin mattress placed 
 on a broad shelf, and then I dozed for about two hours. I was 
 waked up at midnight by the intense stifling heat, and, looking 
 up to the window, I saw a rat, larger than an average-sized 
 kitten, perched on the sill immediately over my head. He did 
 not move when I sat up, and I had nothing to throw at him 
 but my boots ; so I pulled up the blind very suddenly, and 
 thus frightened him so that he leaped into the water. And 
 now a nuisance far more irritating arose : the mosquitoes came 
 in such legions that I was nearly eaten alive. Clothes appeared 
 to be no protection, and when I got up at last, half mad, and 
 went and sat upon deck, they attacked me with tenfold spite. 
 The moon was shining with a brightness I never witnessed in 
 England, and in its light the deck and cabins appeared 
 swarming with horrible things — cockroaches, beetles, spiders, 
 and centipedes. Any more sleep was out of the question, and 
 I sat upon a crate until morning, when the greater part of these 
 abominations shrank from the heavy fog into their fastnesses, 
 and then I tried to get a little more sleep. 
 
 Tuesday, 9th. — A dead calm, and the boat made very little 
 way ; the high, dingy banks still continued, and I was glad 
 when Giovanni contrived from his rude kitchen to turn out a 
 wonderful breakfast of cutlets, fowl and rice, potatoes, toast, 
 and coffee. A wild dog, having smelt the cooking, followed us 
 for miles ; but, with the exception of a boy on a ragged camel, 
 he was the only living thing we sarw on the banks for three or 
 four hours. The crew still threw off their clothes and tumbled 
 into the canal on the least occasion, but were singularly quiet : 
 they did not appear to speak to one another all the day long. 
 I occupied myself in fitting up my cabin, driving pegs into the 
 cracks to hang my watch, looking-glass, lantern, and " house- 
 wife" on, and runniug down the spiders, until two o'clock, 
 when we passed some trees and arrived at Atfeh. This was a 
 village of mud-huts, on either side of the canal, thatched with 
 grass and fodder, without windows, but having irregular holes 
 for the inmates to crawl in and out. Some had round mud 
 towers built on them, swarming with pigeons. Half-naked 
 women, and children entirely so, were selling coarse bread 
 under huge umbrellas. Arabs were idling about in the dust 
 and sun, which they seemed to prefer : and there was a com- 
 plete "jam" of the most incomprehensible boats I ever saw, 
 of which all the crews were screaming and swearing at the top 
 
 G 
 
82 WILD OATS. 
 
 of their voices, banging one another with poles, breaking each 
 other's rigging, or going coolly down to prayers in the middle 
 of all the uproar. We had to wait more than two hours for 
 some sort of passport, and, at last, got clear of the entangled 
 thicket of boats, and, passing through the locks, swung out 
 into the Nile. 
 
 I could see nothing ahead, astern, or around, but one bound- 
 less rapid current of reddish clay-coloured water, for the inun- 
 dation was scarcely subsiding ; but the expanse was a great 
 relief after the confined pestilent canal. The stream was so 
 strong, that, before we got up our sails, we were carried a long 
 way down. However, there was a brisk north wind, and we 
 soon began to rush through the water. Opposite to Atfeh we 
 passed Eooah, a town with minarets and domes, which looked 
 well in the afternoon haze, rising as it were from a mighty lake. 
 Here the country got very desolate again, with a flat Essex- 
 marsh sort of look-out on either side, and at dark the wind fell, 
 and we pulled up under a bank for the night, if necessary. 
 One advantage over yesterday was, that we had got rid of the 
 mosquitoes. There were several ordinary gnats and flies, but 
 I set a trap for them with great effect. This was very simple, 
 and was formed by opening the door of the lantern, and hang- 
 ing it near an open window : in the morning the bottom was 
 half an inch deep in semi-consumed corpses. 
 
 Wednesday, 10th. — I found, on awaking, that we had been 
 creeping on, almost imperceptibly, nearly all night ; and at six 
 in the morning we were nearly thirty miles above Atfeh. As 
 the Arabs tumbled into the water upon the Icandjia running 
 aground, I tumbled in too, and had a good long swim. It was 
 utterly contemptible, however, trying to compete with them : 
 they shot through the water like wager-boats. All the day we 
 kept gliding on, passing many more villages of mud-houses, 
 looking like clumps of enormous thimbles ; and now and then 
 we saw several small processions of men along the banks on 
 donkeys, asses, and camels ; and here and there was a solitary 
 palm ; but with the exception of these, the scenery still main- 
 tained its Essex-marsh character. 
 
 The Arabs continued very silent. One of them was the 
 cook to the party, and he was never away from the fireplace, 
 boiling up lentils with coarse bread. This was their only food, 
 and they drank the Nile water. I found to-day that the meat 
 we had brought from Alexandria was touched by the heat ; so 
 
ALEXANDRIA TO CAIRO. 83 
 
 I gave it to the crew, who soon disposed of it. They threw 
 lumps of it on the live embers, and so broiled it. 
 
 The mosquitoes had gone, but the flies were almost as bad. 
 They took possession of the cabin, and would not be driven 
 away, worrying me almost into a fever. At last I cut out one 
 of the paper-net "fly-catchers," and hung it from the roof. As 
 night came, they all settled on it ; and then I gently moved it 
 away, and sent it floating down the ]S"ile, with its freight of in- 
 truders. This was all the excitement of the day ; but at night 
 there was a terrible skirmish amongst the rats, who, attracted 
 by the fowls, appeared to be boarding the boat in all quarters. 
 
 Thursday, 11th. — The morning broke with a dead calm. Now 
 and then the wind came in little puffs, and then died away again. 
 The monotony of the voyage was broken by a fight between 
 Giovanni and one of the Arabs, or, rather, my servant had it all 
 on his own side. The man objected to get into the water to tow, 
 upon which the dragoman gave him a good thrashing with a rope, 
 and then he got overboard and worked away well. 
 
 About noon the wind came, and all the afternoon we amused 
 ourselves with shooting hawks and ibises, of which there were 
 great numbers. I also shot a sicsac ; one of the birds reported 
 to get into the crocodile's mouth and pick its teeth of parasitical 
 water-animals. It had sharp points on the top of its wings, 
 which the Arabs said were to keep the crocodile from closing 
 its jaws. When the birds fell, the Arabs dashed overboard just 
 like spaniels, and brought them back in their mouths. 
 
 It was curious to see how they watched us. "Whatever we 
 were about — eating, washing, or reading — they never took their 
 eyes from us, but followed every movement. Their actions 
 were singularly like those of a monkey : they picked up small 
 things and examined them carefully, usually trying them first 
 with a bite ; and an old envelope I had thrown on one side was 
 a matter of great scrutiny : they could not make it out at all ; 
 but after passing it round, and apparently offering many opinions 
 on it, they put it by carefully under a board. Giovanni told me 
 they were all thieves, but stole singularly minute things — odd 
 bits of string, useless lucifers, knobs of sealing-wax, and such- 
 like rubbish. At night a good rattling breeze came on ; and 
 whilst we were surging through the water, I amused them with 
 some common-place conjuring tricks, from which time I was re- 
 garded as a great magician. 
 
 "We anchored alongside a village at night, and I got rid o f 
 
 g2 
 
84 • WILD OATS. 
 
 the flies as before. About one o'clock I was lying awake, and 
 bearing a throbbing noise up the river, I looked, and saw a 
 light advancing. It came on, and in a few minutes I found it 
 was the Overland Mail steamer, homeward bound. This little 
 incident was very impressive. The boat came near enough for 
 me to shout out, " Good night !" which was returned by one or 
 two persons on deck, surprised, I have no doubt, at the familiar 
 salutation from the moored kandjia. I watched this out of 
 sight ; and then, after a look at my crew, who had completely 
 wrapped themselves up in canvas until they looked like mere 
 bundles, and were lying about in the bright moonlight, I turned 
 in to sleep. 
 
 Friday, 12th. — The people in the village commenced making 
 such an unearthly riot at daybreak, that, as there was no wind, 
 I made the Arabs tow us up some miles higher to another 
 clump of houses. A large traffic-boat from Cairo had stopped 
 here, crammed with peasants, many of them blind ; the majority 
 of them had but one eye, and all the children were suffering 
 from ophthalmia. The passengers landed and bought bread, like 
 pancakes, of other women who came down to sell it. The Arabs 
 kept on towing, but very slowly. I do not think we made 
 above a mile an hour; and at noon, with a suffocating hot 
 wind dead against us, they pulled up at a village, and said they 
 could not go on, because there was a shallow just above us right 
 across the river, and that we must wait for a wind to take us 
 over to the other bank. I was very angry, but to no effect ; so 
 we lay broiling under the sun until three, when they punted 
 across, and we started again. They had only dawdled about from 
 sheer idleness. In the afternoon a cripple, with limbs shock- 
 ingly distorted, and hands webbed like fins, swam off from a 
 hovel on shore to beg money. The wind now came on dead 
 against us ; the towing-paths were all under water, and the men 
 really could not track the boat, as they did not know where 
 they were going, and every now and then disappeared into 
 deep holes ; so we were obliged to come to a stand-still again, 
 and made fast for the night under a bank of osiers. We amused 
 ourselves and the Arabs by making little rafts of palm-wood, 
 putting bits of lighted candle on them, and launching them off, 
 one after the other, down the stream. As there was no wind, 
 they burnt very steadily, and, when several were started, looked 
 very pretty. The Arabs said the peasants would think they were 
 devils. This night was the worst I ever passed in my life. The 
 
ALEXANDRIA TO CAIRO. 85 
 
 foliage brought the mosquitoes again in overwhelming force ; 
 the rats came along the ropes from the land and scuffled about 
 our very feet ; the spiders and cockroaches were in full activity ; 
 afcd a man, or successive men, beat a drum ashore, in some reli- 
 gious ceremony, all night long. A verdict of " Temporary In- 
 sanity" would' have justified anything that a man might have 
 done under these inflictions. 
 
 Saturday, 13th. — I routed all the men up at six, and, as there 
 was the usual lack of wind, set them to work. They grumbled 
 at going into the water whilst it was so cold ; but I soon settled 
 this, and at seven we were fairly off. I was so heartily sick of 
 the boat, with its delays and inconveniences, that we stopped 
 at a village, and tried to get some camels or donkeys to ride on 
 to Cairo, "across country." The people, however, were so 
 miserably poor, they had nothing ; and I was getting altogether 
 out of heart, when a brisk wind sprang up and blew us along 
 bravely, under a press of sail that almost lifted the handjia out 
 of the water. About noon Giovanni showed us the Pyramids 
 on the horizon, and soon after we rounded the apex of the 
 Delta. Provisions were running short, but it was not worth 
 ■while to buy any more ; so I had a " scratch" dinner of macca- 
 roni, potatoes, onions, and rice-pudding, all chopped up together 
 and fried, which was really capital. The wind kept up, and by- 
 and-by we came to the great works erected for the barrage of 
 the Nile, which is to cost a great deal and not ultimately answer. 
 Then villages came quickly after one another, and the people 
 thickened on the banks. Anon palaces, kiosks, and beautiful 
 gardens diversified the prospect ; the crowd of boats increased ; 
 the Pyramids rose higher above the scenery. Then I saw mi- 
 narets and towers, off and away on our left ; and at last, just 
 in time to save ourselves from being locked out for the night, 
 the Jcandjia stopped at one of the landing-places of Boolak, the 
 port of Cairo. 
 
 Giovanni soon procured donkeys, and, leaving the boat in 
 charge of the Arabs, we rode off. "We first passed through 
 Boolak, with swarms of dogs yelping after us— as many as I 
 had seen at Constantinople : then along neat Oriental streets, 
 with picturesque wooden-latticed windows, and garden -walls, over 
 which we saw dates and prickly pears growing ; and at last, tra- 
 versing a cool English-looking road, bordered with acacias, I 
 entered Cairo at the Esbekeyah, and pulled up at the British 
 hotel, delighted beyond all measure to have done, for at least 
 some time, with the Nile and the Tcandjia. 
 
( 86 ) 
 
 IX. * 
 
 A GO-AHEAD DAY WITH BARNUM. 
 
 [The reader will see, by the date of the following paper 
 (which preceded its appearance in JBentlefs Miscellany by a 
 few months only), that it was written long before Mr. Barnum 
 himself gave his version of the day's excursion in his Auto- 
 biography. One or two of his companion's opinions were put 
 into the mouth of Mr. Bossett in " The Scattergood Family," 
 distorted to suit the circumstances of the story ; but most of 
 the following remarks are nearly word for word as the author 
 heard them.] 
 
 "We saw more on Thursday, the 5th of September, 1844, than 
 ever we did in our lives in one day ; and this is how we came 
 to do it. 
 
 For the first time for several years we found seven consecu- 
 tive days that did not require our actual presence in London — 
 an entire week, from the beginning to the end of which we 
 could escape from the pen that we had been chained to, like a 
 galley-slave to his oar, in the continuously painful process, or 
 rather intention, of being always " funny !" And so we got off 
 at once, not telling any one where we were going to, that no 
 letters might be sent after us ; and we determined upon having 
 a week's scamper upon the railways, and see some of the large 
 towns. For although we had twice walked from Geneva to 
 Milan, we had never been above six hours' journey from Lon- 
 don, in our own country. But this, we believe, is by no means 
 a peculiar idiosyncrasy of English character. Well, we visited 
 Bath, Bristol, and Clifton, Cheltenham and Gloucester, a day 
 at each ; and after seeing pins made at Phipson's, and buttons 
 at Bullivant's, and papier-m&che ornaments at Jennings and 
 Betteridge's, and electro-type articles at Elkington's, we came 
 back to our hotel at Birmingham, and began to think gloomily 
 about returning. 
 
 "We were certainly very agreeably disappointed in the ap- 
 pearance of Birmingham. Before people see a person or a 
 place, they always form an idea to themselves of what he or it 
 
A GO-AHEAD DAY WITH BAENUM. 87 
 
 is like, and they are always decidedly wrong in their notions. 
 "We had pictured Birmingham as a town of narrow streets, 
 bounded by dingy buildings, with blackened and many-paned 
 casements, and surrounded by forests of tall chimneys that 
 never had a holiday, but were taught to smoke as soon as they 
 could be trusted alone, and never left off after it. And instead 
 of this, in the first short stroll we took before breakfast, we 
 found a large clean town, with a pure country air blowing about 
 its handsome streets. No smoke, no forests of chimneys — no 
 blacks to fly in at the window and pollute everything that was 
 clean in the apartments ; and the people, instead of the squalid, 
 miserable race, that strong-penned humanity-mongers love to 
 work up into an effect and an appeal to the sympathies, were a 
 healthy, happy-looking set enough — fat and rosy if you will — 
 even to the children who were going to their labour at the dif- 
 ferent factories. In good truth, we felt rather out of conceit 
 with ourselves in the absence of that dirt and misery which 
 we had determined was right and proper to be seen at Bir- 
 mingham. 
 
 We were at breakfast in the coffee-room of Dee's Hotel, 
 writing off a quantity of " slips" to London, when the head 
 waiter, who had been regarding us some time with much at- 
 tention, inquired : 
 
 "Ask pardon, sir. Literarygentleman, sir?" 
 
 The question was put with such civility, that at the risk of 
 rendering him anxious about the spoons and forks, we said that 
 we were something of the sort. 
 
 " Thought so, sir," he replied, " because I saw you only wrote 
 on one side of the paper. Quite a treat, sir, to have a literary 
 gentleman to wait on ; don't mind nothing that I can do for a 
 gentleman as can write a book. I've seen Sir Edward Bul- 
 wer write, sir." 
 
 "Indeed!" 
 
 " Ah ! that I have, sir. Nice gentleman. He used to come 
 and write at the hotel I lived at at Bichmond. And smoke — 
 how he did smoke ! — a long pipe, sir ; and then he went from 
 the hearth to the table and put down what he'd thought of, and 
 then come back again." 
 
 The conversation was here disturbed by an unwonted tumult 
 and hum of voices in the street whereon some of the windows 
 looked. There was also a similar riot in the yard ; and in both 
 places we found some three or four hundred people assembled, 
 
88 WILD OATS. 
 
 apparently in eager expectation of seeing something wonderful. 
 The mystery was soon solved. Two grooms opened the door 
 of a coach-house with important gravity, the boys set up a 
 great shout, and the Lilliputian carriage of General Tom Thumb 
 drove out into the street amidst the turbulent cheers of the 
 spectators. "We directly found that the small General was 
 sojourning in our hotel; and the waiter called our attention 
 to a tall, active person who was arranging the cortege, and cuff- 
 ing the more intrusive boys into order, saying he was also a 
 literary gentleman — Mr. Barnum, Tom Thumb's governor. 
 We had met him once before at M. Baugniet's, the artist's, and 
 found him so very original and amusing, that we determined to 
 renew the acquaintance. On his return we found he intended 
 to go to Stratford the next day, and Kenilworth, if practicable, 
 and we immediately offered to join him. But he said we must 
 *' go-ahead," and we certainly did. 
 
 At five o'clock next morning — a period of day we had only 
 seen before when coming home with blinking eyes and jaded 
 limbs from an evening party — Barnum was at our bedroom 
 door, and at six we were at " The Hen and Chickens," in New- 
 street, waiting for a coach. It soon came up — a pair horse one 
 — with a regular old-fashioned English coachman on the box, 
 a stout, jolly man, who was a most perfect type of that once nu- 
 merous class which is fast departing from the earth in company 
 with the legitimate drama, sedan-chairs, and North American 
 Indians. 
 
 After leaving Birmingham, the road is, at parts, exceedingly 
 picturesque, with occasional glimpses of fine old abbey-looking 
 churches, and ancient villages. 
 
 " We've none of them old fixings in ' Merrekey,' " said 
 Barnum ; " they've no time to get old there." 
 
 We inquired how that was. 
 
 " Why, you see, a man never builds a house to last above a 
 year or two, because he's gone-ahead in that time, and wants 
 a bigger one. And go-ahead is our motto. Shut the fire door, 
 sit on the safety-valve, and whop the sun. We've no bonds on 
 airth that can keep us back." 
 
 We attempted a feeble joke about those of Pennsylvania, but 
 it did not make a hit. So we said, " Are you all alike ?" c 
 
 " I reckon we are," said Barnum. " As Yankee Doodle says, 
 the chief end of all men is to get money. So we don't ' swop 
 even' in any case, but strive to have the pull always. If you 
 
A GO-AHEAD DAY WITH BARNUM. 89 
 
 fail, you're called a ' Do ;' if you succeed, you become a capi- 
 talist. There's just the same' difference between a hung rebel 
 and a crowned conqueror." 
 
 " But what does the world say to this — I mean America ?" 
 
 " Well, that is the world, I reckon. Who cares what it says ? 
 The world's only a bugbear to frighten timid people. If you 
 care for what people say, get lots of money, and then you can 
 make them talk as you like. They call me humbug now. Very 
 good, I can afford it. They won't, some day." 
 
 We had so frequently heard Barnum called a humbug, that 
 we did not even venture the courtesy of saying, " Oh, no ! you 
 must be mistaken." 
 
 " I'd sooner be a humbug than anything," continued Barnum, 
 "if it's what my experience leads me to believe it is. Humbug 
 is, now-a-days, the t knack of knowing what people will pay 
 money to see or support. Anybody who's up to this is safe to 
 be called a humbug by everybody who isn't." 
 
 As we approached the little village of Henley-in-Arden, it 
 came on to rain very smartly, and we got wet through. We 
 were all, however, in such good humour with ourselves and 
 everybody else, that we laughed it away ; and Barnum's prin- 
 cipal laugh was against the coachman, who had been declaring 
 all along that there was not the least chance of rain. Barnum 
 asked him "if it always came down so in Warwickshire?" to 
 which he replied, " Yes ; he'd never known it come down from 
 anywhere but the skie." Our friend was somewhat "riled" at 
 being thus sold ; but he had his revenge, for a minute or two 
 afterwards, when the coachman inquired " if he was afraid of 
 catching a cold r" Barnum answered, "Not at all, for the 
 horses went too slow to catch anything." 
 
 In the village just spoken of we saw the name of " Shak- 
 speare, hairdresser," over a little shop, and this gave rise to 
 some more of our friend's speculation. 
 
 " Now if that barber was just to write a play," said Barnum, 
 " it wouldn't be thought anything of, however good it was, till 
 he'd been dead no end of years. Tou talk a great deal about 
 your Shakspeare being the pride of England, but I can see 
 nobody knew or cared a cent about him while he was alive,_ or 
 else you'd have known more of him now. If he'd been a living 
 author, and I'd had my exhibition, I'd have backed the General 
 to have shut him up in a week." 
 
 We alighted at the "Bed Horse," at Stratford-upon-Avon, 
 
90 WILD OATS. 
 
 after our soaking journey. It was so cold and dismal we had 
 a fire lighted ; and during the time we were waiting for our 
 breakfast we read Washington Irving' s '^Sketch Book," a copy 
 of which is kept in the parlour of the inn. All that por- 
 tion pertaining to it, and Stratford generally, has been so 
 thumbed, and mended, and pencilled, and spliced, that we have 
 some idea of starting a subscription to present the " Bed Horse" 
 with a new copy. For, being kept for public perusal, visitors 
 cannot have a more kindly or pleasant guide to introduce them 
 to the Shakspeare house and church than its good author. 
 
 As we were paddling up to the house in which " the divine 
 Williams"* was born, Barnum observed : " The General's father, 
 Stratton, isn't a man of much reading. He always travels with 
 us, and when we came through here before, from Leamington, 
 whilst he was at breakfast I said to him, ' Come, make haste, or 
 we shan't have time to see the Shakspeare room.' ' Oh !' says 
 he, ' Shakspeare ? Who's he ? I didn't know the General was to 
 exhibit here.' And then I found he thought Shakspeare was 
 somebody who let public rooms." 
 
 The tenement in Henley-street is a humble-looking place 
 enough, with a public -house on the right hand and a small 
 abode, with a shed, on the left. It is inlaid with rough beams 
 black with age ; and there is a rickety, tumble- down board 
 over the door, very like an inn-sign, which might be taken 
 down with advantage. The room into which you pass from the 
 street was a butcher's shop ; the fittings-up still remain, but 
 the business is not carried on. It also has a small shed before 
 the window, and the floor is paved with irregularly-shaped 
 stones. 
 
 We must confess — and it is, we know, only short of high 
 treason to say so — that our enthusiasm was not in any way 
 excited by entering the room, after ascending the flight of 
 stairs from the dark back-parlour, in which " le vieux Gruil- 
 laume," as Janin says, is reported to have uttered his first cry. 
 There is not the slightest ground for the haziest supposition 
 that he was born here ; and hence we have not been so much 
 cut up and utterly prostrated with indignation at the report 
 that the Shakspeare house was going to be sold and taken to 
 America — we believe Barnum to be the purchaser — as some of 
 our acquaintance. He might just as reasonably have been born 
 
 * Vide French authors, passim, when they quote English. 
 
A GO-AHEAD DAY WITH BARNUM. 91 
 
 at his father's copyhold in Greenhill-street, or, more properly, 
 at Ingon, on the Warwick-road. Interesting, perhaps, the 
 room is, from the recollection of the pilgrims who have visited 
 it; and valuable, to the owner, from the shillings collected 
 there— too valuable, we should expect, to be readily allowed to 
 go into other hands. A decent elderly woman did the honours 
 of the house. She had been there some time, and took great 
 pleasure in pointing out the different names of note in the 
 visitors' book. The worn appearance of the page on which Mr. 
 Dickens put his autograph attested the curiosity to see it. It 
 was followed by that of Mr. Forster. The old housekeeper recol- 
 lected Mr. Washington Irving coming there twice, with Mr. 
 Willis, Mr. Everett, Mr. Forest, and other Americans — indeed, 
 their numbers predominated over those of other foreigners. 
 
 "I see you've got pictures here, ma'am," said Barnum, 
 pointing to a portrait. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said the old lady, in stately tones, " that is the 
 only one ; a likeness of Shakspeare." 
 
 " Very good," replied Barnum. " It wants a companion. 
 I'll send you a portrait of the General from Birmingham ; and 
 you can hang it up too, you know, the other side." 
 
 And then, having signed his name as " P. T. Barnum, U.S., 
 Guardian of General Tom Thumb," in the book, where it may 
 still be seen under the above date, he took his departure, leav- 
 ing with the old lady a quantity of the little cards the General 
 used to distribute at his levees, and begging her to tell the 
 Shakspearian visitors that he was to be seen every day at Bee's 
 Hotel, Birmingham. 
 
 From the house to the church is a walk of ten minutes, pass- 
 ing a very fine old specimen of ancient architecture in the street 
 leading to the church, on the right hand, about one-third of the 
 way down. The chancel is very picturesque, and had lately 
 been restored. There are various monuments about, which 
 elsewhere would be interesting, but all are here overlooked _ for 
 the chief one. It is on the left hand, near the communion- 
 table, eight or ten feet from the ground ; and in front are some 
 tombstones pointing out the last resting-places of several mem- 
 bers of the poet's family, including his daughter and her hus- 
 band, Mrs. and Dr. John Hall. There are two books in an 
 adjoining chapel— one of which the clergyman owns— m which 
 the visitors sign their names. We asked if Mr. Dickens's was 
 here also ; but the man sighed at the question— it was evidently 
 
92 WILD OATS. 
 
 a sore subject. " No, sir," he at length replied, "it is not. I 
 never knew it was Mr. Dickens until he had gone, for some 
 visitors were here at the time. I ran after him, but it was no 
 use." He was evidently much hurt that the house in Henley- 
 street had an attraction superior to the chancel. 
 
 One of the latest names in the book was that of a lady of the 
 Lucy family of Charlcote, whose ancestor provoked the lampoon 
 from Shakspeare connected with the deer-stealing. 
 
 This brought up the anecdote. 
 
 " There again, now," said Barnum, as he prepared to wafer 
 one of the General's visiting cards on the monument, saying it 
 was for an advertisement — " there again, if he had been alive 
 now, I reckon the critics would have pitched into him consider- 
 able. Fancy if your Sheridan Knowles or Douglas Jerrold was 
 caught rabbit-stealing, what a row there'd be, and how they'd 
 get it." 
 
 Returning to the inn, we went on to "Warwick in a fly, our 
 friend beguiling the journey all the way by anecdotes of his career 
 as an "exhibitioner" in America. He is, it seems, the pro- 
 prietor of a large establishment in New York called the Ame- 
 rican Museum — from what we could make out, something 
 between Madame Tussaud's and the Polytechnic Institution ; 
 and to stock this place with wonders, next to spreading the 
 renown of the General, were all his efforts directed. 
 
 "A man has quite a right to take in the public if he can," 
 observed Barnum. " He's fighting single-handed against all 
 creation, and it's the greatest credit to him if he whops 'em, for 
 they are long odds." 
 
 We asked him what species of attraction he most relied on 
 at his Museum. 
 
 " Oh, anything," he replied, " from Niagara to bell-ringers. 
 I got the Falls up first-rate, I can assure you — all Croton 
 water ; * and I placarded the model as sending down no end of 
 hogsheads a day. But the Croton Company were very steep, 
 for they came down upon me, and says, ' How's this, Mr. 
 Barnum ? you contracted with us for the average supply to the 
 Museum, and here you are getting rid of tons every day.' ' All 
 right,' says I ; ' let's bring it to trial.' And to a trial it came. 
 ' Well,' says the company, quite prepared to shut me up, ' we 
 find on such and such a day, several months back, you began to 
 
 * The Croton aqueduct supplies New York with water. 
 
A GO-AHEAD DAY WITH BARXUM. 93 
 
 send down these no end of hogsheads a day.' ' So I did,' says 
 I, ' but only once ; for then I pumped them back again to the 
 tank, and used 'em all over again.' You should have seen how 
 the company looked : just as if it had had nothing for dinner 
 but an appetite for the last six months. It shut them up, 
 though." 
 
 "But you said something about bell-ringers ?" 
 
 " Oh ! — yes — I should think so. They were the Lankayshire 
 lads you had in London, but I called them the Swiss Youths. 
 I engaged them here, and I said, ' Now let your mustachios 
 grow, and you'll be downright foreigners by the time you get 
 to the Museum.' ' But,' says they, speaking in their country 
 fashion, which was uncommon grating, to be sure, ' how'll they 
 take us to be Swiss ?' ' Well,' says I, ' if you always speak as 
 you're doing now, the devil himself won't understand you.' 
 And sure enough, when they got there, nobody did ; but they 
 drew a heap of money to the Museum." 
 
 We found the borough of "Warwick very lively as we entered, 
 for it was the day of the races, and all the natives had turned 
 out in their holiday costumes. After a luncheon at the War- 
 wick Arms, where the table was kept laid out all day for 
 droppers in — and there was a large piece of cold boiled beef, 
 which almost made us believe the race of descendants from the 
 renowned Dun Cow was not yet extinct — we walked up to the 
 lodge of the castle. On knocking at the gate it was opened by 
 an important old retainer in livery, who asked us if we wanted 
 to see the castle. 
 
 "Well now," said Barnum, "what the devil do you think we 
 came and knocked here for, if we didn't?" The old man 
 looked very indignant, and recollected the affront. 
 
 We then sauntered through a shady alley, apparently cut 
 through the solid rock, covered with climbing plants of every 
 species, until we came to the castle. Our only notions of War- 
 wick Castle had, up to this period, been connected with Mr. 
 W. H. Payne, who so comically enacted the Earl Guy, in a 
 pantomime, three or four years before, at Covent' Garden ; and 
 when we peeped in at one of the wickets, we almost expected 
 to see the awful guard with the unnaturally large head come 
 out and bang us with the terrible club filled with spikes ; or 
 Miss Farebrother's beaming face appear at one of the case- 
 ments. But nothing extraordinary occurred. There was no 
 guard, no Dun Cow, no Guy, no Miss Parebrother. We passed 
 
94 WILD OATS. 
 
 under the gateway perfectly unmolested, and were received by 
 the butler at the entrance of the inhabited portion of the castle, 
 and by him conducted over the apartments, most of which 
 command the most enchanting views of the park and silvery 
 Avon. 
 
 But, let "us pause a minute in our day. Directly, we shall 
 speak of "Warwick Eaces, and how Barnum engaged a giant ; 
 his great " "Washington's nurse" bubble ; Kenilworth and Co- 
 ventry ; and, as a rider to the paper, the whole' s history of the 
 ""What is it?" deception, "from authentic documents," as 
 they say in advertisements, " never before made known." 
 
 #jfr dfc aifr «m» m. 
 
 W VT ^P W TT 
 
 There is a great deal to see in Warwick Castle, and Barnum 
 wanted to buy everything that struck him, for his American 
 Museum. The New Torkites ought to patronise it, for cer- 
 tainly no pains or expense are spared to make it attractive. 
 He tried to bid for a pair of horns of a gigantic elk — dug out 
 of some bog in Ireland — which adorn the hall. Then he was 
 struck with some fine paintings of Leicester and Essex — the 
 favourites of Elizabeth — and a Circe by Guido ; and lastly, he 
 saw a picture, by Rubens, of St. Ignatius. 
 
 " I reckon he founded them Jesuits," he said. " I've seen 
 that picture in the ' Everyday Book/ and know all the story 
 about him." 
 
 The story was, that St. Ignatius, being in the depth of winter 
 at Cyprus, on his return from a pilgrimage, wanted to go to 
 Yenice ; but the captain, disliking his seedy appearance, told 
 him that if he was a saint, he could walk upon the water very 
 well without a ship ; whereupon Ignatius set sail upon a mill- 
 stone, and arrived safely at Venice. 
 
 " Now, I don't believe that," said Barnum. " If it was trew, 
 you'd see all your high-pressure Exeter-Hall people start off 
 some morning with the tide for Gravesend, floating comfortably 
 upon pavement flags ; and, I calculate, that would astonish the 
 steamers." 
 
 Upon leaving the inhabited part of the castle, we crossed 
 the lawn, and ascended to the summit of Guy's Tower, stopping 
 on the way to look at some guard-rooms in the interior. The 
 view from the ramparts, as well as from the summit, was most 
 enchanting ; and the white canvas booths of the race-course, 
 fluttering in the sun and wind, formed pleasing objects in the 
 panorama. There were sly niches in the embrasures for arrows, 
 
A GO-AHEAD DAY WITH BARNUM. 95 
 
 and other artful perches to shoot from, all the way up. Alto- 
 gether, in its days of prime, Warwick Castle must have been a 
 tolerably tough place enough to have attacked. Barnuin him- 
 self allowed that America couldn't have taken it. 
 
 "When we came down from the tower, another vassal, who 
 appeared old enough to have recollected Guy himself, hobbled 
 across the grounds with us to the greenhouse, wherein was 
 placed the "Warwick Yase. When he had assembled an au- 
 dience, he got a stick, hopped upon the steps of the pedestal, 
 and began its history in a true showman-like manner, and then 
 we went back to the lodge. 
 
 In the left-hand tower, as you enter, are deposited the won- 
 derful relics of the immortal Guy, and the old man who had let 
 us in showed us the curiosities with great dignity. Besides 
 ourselves, several country families, who had come into Warwick 
 for the races, were the spectators. 
 
 " This," said the old gentleman, " is Guy's porridge-pot" (it 
 was a large caldron two or three feet across). " When the 
 late heir came of age, it was filled with punch several times, 
 and taken on to the lawn. This is his flesh fork" (a sort of 
 metal prong) ; " and this is his walking-staff. This is the 
 armour he wore when he fought the Dun Cow, and this is 
 the armour his horse wore. This is a rib of the Dun Cow, and 
 this " 
 
 " I say, old fellow," interrupted Barnum, " I should reckon 
 you'd told these lies so often that you believe them to be trew. 
 What'll you take now for the lot ?" 
 
 The old man was very indignant. He had evidently never 
 been spoken to so before. 
 
 " Just as you like," replied Barnum. " But I'll get up a 
 better set than these within six months at my Museum, and 
 I'll swear mine are the real originals, and bust up your show 
 altogether in no time." 
 
 The idea of reducing the display of the relics to a mere show 
 so hurt the feelings of the old retainer, that he did not con- 
 descend to address us any more, except when we gave him a 
 trifle upon leaving. And this is an arrangement connected 
 with the exhibition at Warwick Castle which might be im- 
 proved with advantage. We were confided to the care of four 
 guides, and they each expected a gratuity after they had led us 
 over their different departments of the property. 
 
 " I don't mind the tin," said Barnum ; " but it's too much, 
 
96 WILD OATS. 
 
 and don't look nat'ral anywhere out of St. Paul's Cathedral 
 and your other expensive religious peep-shows. "We whop you 
 to smash as a free and intelligent nation in that, I reckon." 
 
 From the castle, a walk of ten minutes brought us to the 
 race-course, and amongst the shows he was in his glory; in 
 fact, he never looked at the running. 
 
 " Ask the opinion of the respectable company who are now 
 leaving the caravan," said the showman, as his audience de- 
 parted. 
 
 We followed his advice ; and, on being told that it was " un- 
 common good to be sure," we paid threepence each, although 
 Barnum fought hard to be classed with the " servants and 
 working people," a penny. But the show-people soon found 
 him out as the governor of Tom Thumb, and the news was 
 carried along the line of exhibitions as if a telegraph had taken 
 it. Whilst we were waiting, there was another race, which 
 provoked the following dialogue between the clown of the show 
 and the proprietor : 
 
 Clown. — " Now, sir, let us have a bet upon the race." 
 
 Master. — " I never bet, Mr. Merriman." 
 
 Clown. — " Never mind, sir. I'll bet you a bottle of black- 
 ing, and you shall have first drink of it, upon the favourite 
 against the field." 
 
 Master. — Done, Mr. Mcmiiian." 
 
 Clown. — " Then I've won, sir." 
 
 Master. — " How so, Mr. Merriman." 
 
 Clown. — " Because the field's never moved at all." 
 
 The inside of the caravan was a compact little place, with the 
 usual chintz drapery drawn across the end of it, a very bright 
 brass fireplace, several mysterious lockers, made to sit or stand 
 upon, bits of coloured glass let into the smartly-painted door, 
 and a canary in a cage, singing through all the din outside. 
 "When it was full, the master showed us two gigantic females, 
 nearly seven feet high ; a pacific-looking African, with some 
 cock's feathers stuck in his head, who passed to the Warwick- 
 shire lads and lasses as an Ojibbeway, and with whom Barnum 
 was acquainted ; a trained monkey, and some serpents, one 
 of which the keeper was represented wearing, as a mighty 
 cravat, on the picture outside. 
 
 We waited until the exhibition was over; and, when the 
 people had left the caravan, the showman said to Barnum : 
 
 " I know a dwarf in Lambeth that Tom Thumb could put 
 in his pocket ; only she can't chaff like the General." 
 
A GO-AHEAD DAY WITH BARNUM. 97 
 
 " No," said Barnum, " I reckon not. They're precious few 
 that can. The General can chaff the sky yellow when he 
 pleases. He's a regular screamer. But who's this dwarf — 
 Emma Pattle ?" 
 
 He appeared to know all about the dwarfs all over England — 
 in fact, the exhibition wonders of every kind. 
 
 " That's her," said the man. 
 
 " Pooh!" returned Barnum. " Tom Thumb put her in his 
 pocket ! Stuff! none of them can touch him. They hire 
 children that can't walk and ain't weaned, and put them into 
 top-boots and cocked-hats to make Generals, but it's no go ! 
 Now, look here ; do you know a good giant, who'd go out to 
 Merrekey for my Museum ?" 
 
 " Why, you've got one," said the man. 
 
 " Ah, but I want another, to get up an opposition against 
 myself. Don't you see ?" 
 
 "There's Bob Hales," said the Indian; "he's over seven 
 feet, but he's got his own caravan, and it wouldn't be worth his 
 while. I don't know where he is, too." 
 
 " Oh, he's in Leicestershire," returned Barnum, evidently 
 acquainted with all his movements. 
 
 The Indian here mentioned another tall man of his acquaint- 
 ance, in the last show of the rank. He had not spoken of him 
 before, because the affair was an antagonistic one. So Barnum 
 at once proceeded onwards. 
 
 " The giants know me," he said. " The last I had broke his 
 engagement and set up against me ; but I put him in prison, 
 and there he is, safely kept until I want him." 
 
 The bargain was soon concluded. The giant was to start by 
 the " "Washington," which was to sail in a few days from Liver- 
 pool, and he was to have seven pounds a week for salary, besides 
 a military suit to exhibit in. "We then hired another fly, and 
 went on to Coventry, pausing at Kenilworth in our way, and 
 going through Leek "Wootton, a small village, near which 
 Edward the Second's favourite, Gavestone, was beheaded. 
 
 The ruins at Kenilworth are not on the main road, but a 
 short detour is necessary to arrive at them. As our fly stopped 
 at the modest wicket, it was literally stormed by children with 
 eighteenpenny guide-books in their hands, which they struggled 
 earnestly to dispose of, almost to the hindrance of our leaving 
 the carriage. Then they offered to lend them to us for a very 
 small consideration, and finally, when we were inside, the poor 
 
 H 
 
98 WILD OATS. 
 
 tilings thrust them under the door, and threw them over the 
 wall, with their handkerchiefs tied to them, as a last forlorn 
 hope. Barnum could not withstand their perseverance, and he 
 purchased one of a bright-eyed doll of seven years old, who, 
 having disposed of her stock, scampered home across the 
 common as fast as her little legs would carry her. Indeed, he 
 bought everything everywhere, and it was all for the American 
 Museum. 
 
 " I've sent them over the court suit that the General wore 
 before her Majesty," he said. 
 
 "We humbly suggested that we had seen it the previous day 
 at Birmingham. 
 
 " So you did," he replied ; " but the one I've sent over is so 
 like it, that the tailor couldn't tell which was which. They'll 
 crowd to see it ; there's nothing like a bit of state or aristocracy 
 to catch a Yankee, with all his talk." 
 
 "We went on. On entering the ground, by the side of the 
 great gatehouse, you first perceive a board, which informs you 
 that "the old chimney-piece may be seen within for sixpence." 
 This is well worthy of inspection, as well as the old wainscoted 
 room in which it is placed. The greater part of the building 
 appears to be used as a storehouse for meal and apples. Upon 
 leaving this, you are left to wander where you please : an excel- 
 lent arrangement, since nothing is more annoying than tagging 
 about at the heels of a mechanical, calculating guide. It is this 
 voluntary strolling that renders a visit to Hampton Court so 
 agreeable. Kenilworth is, indeed, a ruin, but no ruin can be 
 more noble in its desolation — for which it is more indebted, by 
 the way, to the hands of Cromwell's officers, to whom the manor 
 was given, than the ravages of time. Not a single chamber of 
 the once magnificent pile remains ; all are levelled to the turf 
 or choked up with rubbish, which nearly everywhere affords an 
 easy path to the top of the walls and towers, so that, without 
 closely studying the localities, it is difficult to follow them in 
 connexion with the novel. The lake has long been drained 
 and filled up ; the chase is built upon and cultivated ; and the 
 garden has fallen to an untidy and uncared-for orchard. 
 
 It was a lovely day. The old ruins glowed in the sunlight, 
 which burst through the Gothic window-holes and embrasures 
 to fall on the short turf below in flickering patches, as the wind 
 gently moved the festoons of creeping plants and ivy that 
 crossed them. The noble trees were waving in all their full 
 
A GO-AHEAD DAY WITH BAKXUM. 99 
 
 and deep autumnal foliage against the clear blue sky, bowing 
 gracefully to the light breeze that played with their branches. 
 But within the enclosure of the ruins the air was quite still. 
 The wild flowers did not even tremble ever so gently on their 
 stalks, and the insects poised themselves apparently in the 
 same position, as no breath came to disturb their floating rest. 
 In the space once occupied by the hall, a large and youthful 
 party had assembled there for a pic-nic — a more beautiful spot 
 for such a meeting it is impossible to conceive — and their loud 
 merry laughter echoed again through the old arches and pas- 
 sages. At a short distance, in a recess of the " Caesar's Tower," 
 as it is foolishly called, a more quiet assembly had gathered, in 
 a very Boccacio-like group, round a young lady, who was read- 
 ing Scott's gorgeous romance of " Kenilworth." Their rapt 
 attention evidently showed that, following the author, they had 
 again restored and peopled every part of the old castle, and that 
 Amy Kobsart, Varney, Leicester, Tressilian, and Elizabeth were 
 once more flitting about the still noble pile around them. 
 
 " I took above a hundred pounds a day, in shillings, for the 
 General at Birmingham andManchester," said Barnum, suddenly 
 turning the train of our thoughts on to a down line. " Pretty 
 steep business, wasn't it ?" 
 
 We could think no more of Amy Eobsart, but, rising from 
 our seat upon an old mossy window-sill, walked by his side to- 
 wards the gate. 
 
 " It was all a chance, though," he continued. u I brought 
 over a thousand pounds from New York with Tom Thumb, and 
 I spent every farthing of it in your country making him ' go,' 
 and all with Englishmen ; so you needn't have screamed so, 
 after all. The Liverpool Chronicle folks know it, I reckon, for 
 they were the first I saw. The G-eneral didn't draw, though, at 
 first. It wasn't till I got him to London, in Markwell's private 
 house, that he did anything. And then I made no charge ; but 
 I put a plate on the table, with a sovereign or two in it, and 
 they took the hint first-rate." 
 
 The road from Kenilworth to Coventry is very continental 
 in its appearance, being straight, with rows of trees on each 
 side, having bolls of earth heaped round the lower parts of 
 their trunks. Begarding the route, there is an anecdote told 
 of a dispute between two commercial travellers at an inn, as to 
 which was the most beautiful ride in England, each offering 
 that he knew best. At last a wager was made, and they were 
 
 h2 
 
100 WILD OATS. 
 
 both to write down the name of their favourite journey. On 
 coming to the decision, it was found that one had chosen " from 
 "Warwick to Coventry," and the other from " Coventry to 
 "Warwick." The road, however, scarcely appeared to merit the 
 eulogium. 
 
 As we rode on, Barnum told us of the most extraordinary 
 " do" that had ever been practised on the public, of which he 
 was the prime mover. He had, by some means or another, pro- 
 cured an old toothless negress, and by a series of consummate 
 schemes, succeeded in passing her off all through America as 
 " Washington's nurse." As the President was born in 1732, it 
 may be conceived what age the old creature was reported to be. 
 He-wrote documents, dipped them in tobacco- water, hung them 
 up the chimney, and rubbed the corners of them, to give them 
 an appearance of age; he drilled the object into the part she 
 was to play, created a furore wherever she appeared, and drew 
 the dollars into his treasury faster than he could count them. 
 At last the old woman died, and great was the fresh excitement 
 in the medical world as to the state of the vascular system in a 
 person presumed to be so old. High prices were paid to be 
 present at the autopsy ; the first American medical men as- 
 sisted at it, and one, who was to conduct the post-mortem ex- 
 amination, gave a lecture beforehand upon the probable vast 
 extent of ossification of the arteries that would be met with. 
 But no — there was nothing of the kind (as well there might 
 not be ; for, after all, the poor woman was not above sixty), 
 and the bubble was at once burst. The whole of the New York 
 press opened their artillery upon Barnum, but his 'cuteness led 
 them into their own fire ; and a literal fortune was the result 
 of the trick. 
 
 At last the carriage crossed the railway by the bridge of Co- 
 ventry, on which Alfred Tennyson "hung with grooms and 
 porters," and put us down at an inn in the street, at the corner 
 of which Peeping Tom is represented as looking out upon Lady 
 Godiva. Her costume is certainly not that of 1044, when the 
 occurrence of her ladyship riding such a pose plastique kind of 
 attire through the streets of Coventry is reported to have taken 
 place ; in fact, there are very good reasons for believing that 
 the whole affair is a fiction, and that it arose in the madcap 
 times of Charles the Second, when Lady Godiva first figured in 
 the " Show-fair" procession, as it was called, dressed (or, more 
 properly, undressed) in a style that quite accorded with the 
 
A GO-AHEAD DAY WITH BARNUM. 101 
 
 licentious manners of the epoch ; and so we mistrust the me- 
 morial of the circumstance, which is said to have been pre- 
 served in stained glass in one of the windows of Trinity Church 
 until about the fifteenth century, and, according to Dugdale, 
 represented Leofric presenting to his spouse a charter, with 
 these words inscribed thereon : 
 
 I Luriche for love of thee 
 Do make Coventrie toll free. 
 
 St. Mary's Hall and St. Michael's Church are well worth a 
 visit. The latter, built in the early style of architecture, is, we 
 believe, the largest parish church in England, at least so Barnum 
 said, seeming to know all about it ; and it looked now exceed- 
 ingly beautiful in the ruddy light of the evening. After this 
 we walked about the city, noticing the method the butchers 
 have of beautifying their meat by skewering little bouquets, so 
 to speak, of fat* about them, a custom we had not noticed else- 
 where. Here Barnum entered into an arrangement with a 
 wandering exhibition of animals of dissimilar habits all in one 
 cage, that we met by chance, and he settled that they were to 
 accompany the giant. 
 
 At a quarter past nine we quitted Coventry station, and 
 arrived once more at Birmingham, at ten, heartily tired with 
 our excursion, having, in one day, visited Stratford-on-Avon, 
 "Warwick Castle, the races, Kenilworth, and Coventry, by the 
 united aid of coach, fly, phaeton, railway, and our own legs. 
 
 As we expressed our fatigue at supper, Barnum said, " Well, 
 I don't know what you call work in England, but if you don't 
 make thirty hours out of the twenty-four in Merrekey, I don't 
 know where you'd be at the year's end. If a man can't beat 
 himself in running, he'll never go ahead ; and if he don't go 
 ahead, he's done." 
 
( 102 ) 
 
 X. 
 
 CERTAIN TOURISTS. 
 
 1. — WHICH IS MERELY THE SETTING EORTH ; AS WELL AS 
 TOUCHING THE HEAT. 
 
 There is something absolutely refreshing in this blazing, 
 baking month of June — at least to ourselves, and, we trust, to 
 you — in turning to the subject of this paper. There certainly 
 never was such weather in England. It looks as if June had 
 become rather tired of riding on the Crab, on which, according 
 to Spenser, " he bent his force contrary to his face," and had 
 changed places with July, " boiling like to fire, that all his gar- 
 ments he had cast away," in which primitive fancy dress he was 
 now braving a coup de soleil about Great Britain. 
 
 There is no cool to be got anywhere. In town it is perfectly 
 insane to look after it except in a sherry-cobbler, or a very 
 large glass of claret-cup, and the reaction of this indulgence is 
 something fearful. We believe the story of Bruce cooking his 
 beefsteaks on the glowing rocks of Abyssinia, for the first time. 
 We would wager on this present twenty-second of June, which is 
 shamefully late for a magazine article, we confess ; and harasses 
 the printers ; and, with reason, worries Mr. Bentley; and gets us 
 a bad name ; and must by no means be mentioned as a precedent 
 for magazine writers — we would wager anything light and sum- 
 mary — a hundred- weight of congealed Wenham Lake, or a gos- 
 samer paletot ; twelve tickets for Peerless Pool ; a dozen of iced 
 Seltzer water, or the wettest blanket of any one's acquaintance, 
 which, wrapped about a substance, might produce cold by eva- 
 poration — that we could poach an egg, or cook a Welsh rabbit, 
 anywhere upon the pavement in Kegent- street, whilst one of 
 the sixpenny Lowther-arcade sand-glasses — which never do them 
 correctly in the normal state of things — was running out. 
 
 The omnibuses are insupportable. Their roofs are like the 
 hot plates that we are told foreign conjurors teach turkeys to 
 dance upon ; and their interiors are like ovens. There is no 
 
CERTAIN TOURISTS. 103 
 
 shade anywhere ; excessive heat seems to have warped the very 
 sunbeams, and endowed them with the power of twisting round 
 corners and far under colonnades. The very fountains are tepid 
 — a few more degrees of Fahrenheit and they would emulate 
 the Geysers ; and the gold fish in globes appear to be under- 
 going a process of gradual parboiling. Nor is the country any 
 better ; the lawns are all turning to heaths ; the grass is making 
 itself into hay ; the birds are too hot to sing, and nothing is 
 heard amidst the gasping vegetation but the restless chirping 
 of hot, thirsty grasshoppers. On the roads horses throw up 
 clouds of dust, and large loose stones throw down horses. The 
 meadows are gaping, in all directions, with model earthquakes, 
 and the breezes are a great deal too lazy to stir themselves ; 
 there is not even a draught of air to be got in the third-class 
 carriages on the railways. Everything, everywhere, is dying 
 with heat, except Lascar street-sweepers, Bengal tigers, Lally- 
 baloo Toll Loll, on a visit to England, and specimens of the 
 cactus. All else must be commiserated, and most especially the 
 poor Polar bear at the Zoological Gardens, who looks the imper- 
 sonation of torrid wretchedness. 
 
 And on account of all this we find something refreshing in 
 our subject. The sultry promenade of the gent, the blazing 
 foot-lights of the ballet-girl, the close stifling room of the 
 country medical man, and the arid dusty rubbish-heap of the 
 boys in the streets, cannot be thought upon for a moment. But 
 the idea of the tourist is suggestive of pleasant things just at 
 present — of clear still lakes, too deep to be boiled by the sun ; 
 and cool rivers flowing through dark gorges, babbling and 
 tumbling along forest slopes under impenetrable foliage; or 
 falling, bright and feathery, for some hundred feet down the 
 shady side of a mountain ; of glaciers, too, which might contract 
 safely to supply eternity with sherry-cobblers, could a sufficient 
 supply of wine be relied upon, with the currents of iced water 
 cutting their own channels, and their borders of wood-straw- 
 berries ; of wild demi-civilised places where you may knock 
 over all conventionality in dress, and scarcely know that such 
 things are, as neckcloths, black hats, cloth coats, and gloves. 
 
 2. — OF THE INCENTIVES TO TEA.VEL. 
 
 Mighty as is the rush from England, when the season is over, 
 to strange localities, yet all are not influenced by the same mo- 
 
104 WILD OATS. 
 
 tives. Many save up at home for nine months of the year, to 
 squander abroad the other three ; many more go off to pull in 
 their expenditure. Some go — there are really invalids — for 
 health; others, hypochondriacs, to see whether the foreign 
 doctors cannot find something really the matter with them ; 
 others go to write books, and others to make sketches ; but by 
 far the greater proportion travel from motives of popular imi- 
 tation, known commonly as fashion. Take the members of a 
 family in whatever circle you please, and you will find that, 
 however high they may themselves carry their heads, there is 
 somebody whom they look up to, and studiously endeavour to 
 imitate in every particular of their domestic or family existence. 
 This feeling extends both ways in the scale of society, affecting 
 every link of the great chain. Let us attempt to show, in a 
 series of graduated examples, how it sends everybody travelling, 
 as soon as the curtain of the opera has descended upon the last 
 twinkling feet of the ballet, the last speech has provoked 
 cheers or crowing within the walls of St. Stephen's, and the 
 last grand reunion of the season has collected the long lines of 
 private and lamped carriages along the sides of Piccadilly and 
 the streets that deboucJient into it. 
 
 Rank the First. 
 
 The Countess of Princeton is an acknowledged leader of the 
 aristocratic circle. Her name is always amongst the ladies- 
 patronesses of the most exclusive reunions, and the list of royal 
 and patrician guests at her parties occupies half a column of the 
 Morning Post. She has one or two daughters ; the second, 
 Lady Blanche Rosebud, is very beautiful, and the Eight Ho- 
 nourable Viscount Hampton has paid her some attention during 
 the season. He is young, and handsome, and very rich. So 
 that when it is ascertained Lord Hampton is going in his yacht 
 — the finest in the R. Y. C. — to Naples, Lady Princeton settles 
 to go there as well, in the hopes that a twilight lounge in an 
 orange grove, or a sleepy cruize along the bay, with the not 
 unimportant accessories of skies, climate, and general associa- 
 tions, may bring about a proposal, and so we soon read amongst 
 the departures — " The Earl and Countess of Princeton and 
 Lady Blanche Rosebud, from Belgrave House, for Naples." 
 
 Rank the Second. 
 Lady "Wingfield reads the above paragraph, and forthwith 
 
CERTAIN TOURISTS. 105 
 
 determines to go abroad. Sir John "Wingfield is only a knight, 
 but of tolerably good family ; and his possessions and interest 
 are so great in a county, of which it is in contemplation to 
 start Hampton as a representative at the next election, that 
 the Countess of Princeton finds it polite to notice the family. 
 Hence they are invited to entertainments at Belgrave House, 
 and the brilliant fetes at the velvet-lawned, river-washed villa 
 at Twickenham. Hence the Countess herself presented the 
 pretty trembling Amy Wingfield at Court. Par consequence ■, 
 Lady "Wingfield imitates the Princetons in everything ; not ser- 
 vilely, but still she imitates them ; and when she finds that 
 they are going to Naples, and hears further that they will 
 return through Switzerland to Baden, she determines to go to 
 the latter place, and be thrown in their way without the ap- 
 pearance of hunting them up ; and she knows, furthermore, 
 that this will annoy The Haggis, a great Scotch chieftain, 
 whose family turn up their noses even more than nationally at 
 the Wingfields, but, nevertheless, have not the entree at Belgrave 
 House, and are going to Baden also. For in every rank of life 
 there is a Mrs. Grundy ; each sphere has its " Browns" to 
 astonish ; and so, in a day or two afterwards, there is another 
 fashionable departure in the Morning Post, and the world learns 
 that the "Wingfields are gone to Baden. 
 
 Rank the Third. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Brown Holland visit Lady "Wingfield. Their 
 names were formerly Mr. and Mrs. Holland, but somebody left 
 them some money and the name; and it is difficult to tell 
 which they were most pleased with. "Whereon they left "Upper 
 Bedford-place, Bussell-square, and took such a house, one of 
 the most elegant in the new city that has risen out of the 
 ground between the Edgware-road and the Bayswater tea- 
 gardens — all Louis Quatorze and candelabra. And they took 
 some new friends with the house — the Counts Patchouli and 
 Corazza, and Colonel Grab of the Spanish Infantry, and other 
 distinguished persons, including crowds of scarecrow men in 
 mustachios, whom nobody knew, and with whom their parties 
 were always overdone. The Wingfields are the great people, 
 however, of their acquaintance, and they determine upon fol- 
 lowing them at once to Baden, making no attempt to conceal 
 the manner in which they imitate them, but thus expressing 
 the sincerest flattery. 
 
106 WILD OATS. 
 
 Rank the Fourth. 
 
 The Higgses are retired tradesfolks, and live at one of those 
 houses at Clapham which you always see lighted up coming home 
 from the Derby. Our friends above notice them, because Mrs. 
 Higgs's carriage is at times very convenient for Mr3. Brown 
 Holland to go out in ; and Mrs. Higgs is too happy to lend it, 
 in return for the patronage the lady bestows upon the Higgs's 
 girls generally .^ There are three daughters, who have all been 
 educated at Miss Burton's, at Boulogne, and so speak French 
 very well ; and as soon as Mrs. Higgs finds that the Hollands 
 are going out of town, she tells Mr. Higgs tnat it is absolutely 
 incumbent upon them to go too. Mr. Higgs does not at first 
 see the necessity, but is obliged at last to consent, and Paris is 
 determined on. They do not know much about Baden, and are 
 not to be trusted a great way by themselves in the German 
 language. Besides, Mrs. Holland persuades them from going 
 there, as she does not altogether wish the Wingfields to see how 
 intimate she is with the Higgses, and tells them that there is 
 very little amusement at any of the German baths. So they 
 finally settle upon Paris, by Mrs. Brown Holland's recommen- 
 dation to an excellent hotel, stopping a little while at Capecure 
 for bathing. 
 
 Rank the Fifth. 
 
 "Whilst Mr. Higgs was in trade, Mr. Startin was his head con- 
 fidential clerk, and jn consequence of this, Mr. and Mrs. Startin, 
 who live at Islington, and have more children than even mar- 
 ried clerks in general are surrounded by, are asked once a year 
 to dine with the Higgses, the party being arranged for the 
 purpose. Be sure that the Hollands are not amongst the 
 guests on this occasion. "Well, the Higgs girls take Mrs. 
 Startin into their room, and are quite affable, and show her 
 the hothouse, and give her some flowers, and play new polkas 
 to her, and ask her where she is going this year. To which 
 Mrs. Startin answers she don't exactly know, nor indeed does 
 she, for with her little family a change is not so easily managed ; 
 but this puts into her head that she ought to go somewhere ; 
 and so when she leaves at night with Mr. Startin, in a cab, 
 which will be dismissed at the Elephant and Castle for the 
 Islington omnibus, she tells him that they must really go out 
 of town, or else "it will seem so strange!" "Within ten days 
 
CERTAIN TOURISTS. 107 
 
 they are all at Eamsgate — a start rendered more speedy by the 
 complaint of Mrs. Startin that that nasty pain has returned to 
 her chest, and she is sure that nothing but warm sea-bathing 
 will remove it. 
 
 Rank the Sixth. 
 
 In the counting-house wherein Mr. Startin at present pre- 
 sides is a junior clerk, Mr. Tiddy. He lives somewhere up very 
 high behind Crosby Hall, and dines at Bucklersbury during 
 the week, and on Sundays very often strides up to Islington, 
 where he finds a knife and fork at Mr. Startin' s table always 
 laid for him ; and in the evening he takes the children for a 
 walk along the New Eiver. He believes in the family to the 
 fullest extent, and pays the utmost deference to Mr. Startin's 
 opinion in everything ; so that when he finds that they are 
 going out of town, he intimates that he ought to go as well. 
 But as leave of absence is difficult for minor clerks to procure, 
 Mr. Tiddy can only go within an hour or two of Mincing-lane, 
 and therefore he takes a moderate bedroom at Gravesend, look- 
 ing forward still to Sunday, for a glimpse of the sea, when he 
 contrives to pay a visit to the Startins at Eamsgate, not a little 
 gratified at showing them that he also can have a holiday. 
 
 And by these and similar influences are the autumnal tour- 
 ists determined, acting on each other's opinions in such regu- 
 lar gradations, from the proudest to the humblest, that with 
 very little difficulty a perfect " House-that- Jack-built" kind of 
 rhyme might be formed upon their migrations. 
 
 3. — OF THE COKTENTIO^AL TOTJBIST. 
 
 Theee is another class distinct from the ranks we have just 
 enumerated, and that is composed of the tourists who travel, 
 not from any particular enjoyment that it gives them, but be- 
 cause they think it proper to do so ; just as people eat salt 
 fish on Ash Wednesday. Mr. Julius Praps may be taken as a 
 type of this class. We will describe him. 
 
 As August approacheth, he sayeth that he hath an invitation 
 to shoot over ten thousand acres of moor, but that it is a bore, 
 and he meaneth to travel. He letteth his mustachios grow 
 thereby, and buyeth a handbook, a knapsack, and a pair of 
 shoes ; he ordereth a blouse, and pervadeth London after pass- 
 ports. He also getteth a journal, and a solid sketch-book ; but 
 
108 WILD OATS. 
 
 after the first week lie useth neither ; and thus he starteth for 
 Boulogne, on his way to Switzerland and Italy. 
 
 At Boulogne he seeth much novelty, not having been on the 
 Continent before. He speaketh frightful French, but, in his 
 innocence, thinketh it the thing ; he drinketh much brandy, 
 because it is cheap, and also claret, and well-nigh getteth drunk. 
 Being green abroad, he describeth a diligence that he hath seen, 
 as a wonderful thing, to the company at the table d'hote, and 
 sayeth that it is droll to hear the children speak French ; both 
 which things have been frequently done before. He maketh a 
 purchase of a pair of large fur gloves, not that he wanteth 
 them, ^ : but he is struck with the novelty and price ; and after- 
 wards he knoweth not what to do with them. 
 
 Formerly he took a place in the coupe because it was genteel, 
 and looked with disdain upon the " bad style of men" that 
 loved the banquette, nor did he commune with them when they 
 stopped for dinner at Abbeville. 
 
 At Paris he goeth to Meurice's, or Lawson's, and seeth the 
 sights by rule, as they are put down in the handbook. He form- 
 eth his notions of Paris in this wise. He stayeth at an Eng- 
 lish hotel, and is waited on by English servants. He meeteth 
 nought but English people at the table d'hote ; he hath an Eng- 
 lish laquais de place, and readeth the English papers. He 
 buyeth even English things to take home with him, at shops 
 where they write up "English spoken here," and speaketh 
 English himself, all day long. And then he sayeth to himself, 
 " "When I get home I will write a book upon Paris and its 
 people." He thinketh it right to dine once at Very's, or 
 Phillippe's, and once at the Trois Freres ; and delighteth in 
 ordering the dinner himself, albeit he maketh wild shots at 
 the dishes, and if there is a party of three or four, amazeth the 
 gargon by ordering a portion apiece for everybody. He doth 
 not much like the French theatres, but goeth as a duty, and 
 laugheth with the audience, as do many at the French plays in 
 London ; but he understandeth not a line he heareth ; and 
 therefore doth he prefer the Cirque. He findeth that his clothes, 
 brought from London, produce not the effect he desireth in 
 Paris, and thereon riggeth himself out in the Palais-Boyal. But 
 he doth not approach nearer to the Frenchman for all that, and 
 when he goeth to the Chemin de Fer, and asketh, " Esker eel 
 e ar oon train, mossieu, poor Grenave ?" he is disgusted to 
 hear the clerk reply incontinently, " Yes, sir, every morning 
 at eight o'clock." 
 
CERTAIN TOURISTS. 109 
 
 In Switzerland he walketh much, but hath a guide to carry 
 his knapsack, and telleth people at inns that he hath an inten- 
 tion of going up Mont Blanc. But the intention vanisheth as 
 he approacheth Savoy, and at Chamouni disappeareth alto- 
 gether, inasmuch as he there contenteth himself by saying that 
 he knoweth a man who hath been up once. Hebuyeth a paper- 
 cutter of white wood at the Righi Culm for his study-table, 
 and a salad spoon and fork for his aunt, from whom he hath 
 expectations, and who asketh him much on his return about 
 "William Tell, with whom she thinketh he must have been ac- 
 quainted, her whole idea of Switzerland being confined to that 
 apocryphal (as it really appears) individual, and the time of the 
 Swiss Boy. But he knoweth little except that which he readeth 
 in the handbook; nor doth he ever deviate from the route 
 they lay down in the slightest degree. He goeth to Grindel- 
 wald, and sayeth that the Glacier is only a lot of ice, but still 
 it is proper to see it, not as an amusement, but to say after- 
 wards that he hath been there, which appeareth to be the great 
 end of all his travels. And when he starteth for Italy, he 
 crosseth the Simplon in the night, to save time, and get the 
 quicker to Italy, whereby he doth not get a sight of any por- 
 tion of the pass. But at Duomo d'Ossola he readeth all about 
 it in the handbook, and his end is answered. And now he 
 taketh care not to let anything astonish him, or at least to 
 appear as though it did, thinking that he is an experienced 
 traveller. And he joineth little in the society of the table 
 d'hote, but taketh notes as if on the sly, that the company may 
 think him to be a great author, travelling in disguise, towrite 
 a large book. And, indeed, he hath an intention of trying to 
 do something for a magazine on his return ; but he findeth, to 
 his disgust, that it hath been done before. 
 
 At Venice he hireth a gondola, and boasteth that he hath 
 seen all the churches in one day ; and he goeth through the 
 ducal palace, not that he findeth interest in its associations, 
 but because it is a place that must be visited solely to talk of 
 afterwards. He stoppeth at Venice twenty-four hours ; after 
 which he pronounceth it the "slowest" place he ever was in, 
 and declareth that it hath been much overrated. At Verona 
 he goeth to the tomb of Juliet, whom he confuseth with some 
 actress, but cannot call the tragedy to mind with distinctness : 
 nevertheless, he buyeth a model of her tomb, and determineth 
 to read it on his return, or go and see it acted. And then he 
 visiteth every place mentioned in the handbook, the which he 
 
110 WILD OATS. 
 
 yawneth over, as doth an admirer of Yerdi at Exeter Hall ; and 
 when he seeth the amphitheatre, he sayeth to himself, " This is 
 very fine, but not to be compared to the Cirque Olympique in 
 the Champs Elysees, or even Astley's." 
 
 He devoteth two entire days to Florence, and is on his legs 
 from six in the morning until ten at night, looking at every 
 picture and statue, not to admire it, but to say that he hath 
 seen it, on future opportunities. Eor, as far as enjoyment 
 goes, he [thinketh the Venus equally good which adorneth the 
 shop of the ingenious Italian opposite the stage-door of Drury 
 Lane Theatre. 
 
 Eome he liljeth not, nor taketh pleasure in its remains ; for 
 he careth not for the ancients, his associations being alone con- 
 nected with dog's-eared Virgils and ink-stained Commentaries. 
 But his handbook directeth him to see everything, and he 
 laboriously obeyeth it, albeit he findeth nothing so agreeable 
 as our own Colosseum in the Eegent's Park ; and wisheth that 
 the Pope would engage Mr. Bradwell to renovate the city. In 
 his heart he voteth Eome a " sell," and hateth the ruins, from 
 recollections of the cane and Latin mark. 
 
 And thus he yawneth and fatigueth himself for three months 
 about parts of Europe, having become footsore to obtain glory 
 at home, as pilgrims go to Mecca to be put on the free-list of 
 the Prophet's paradise, and he remembereth nothing that he 
 hath seen, no more than the passenger by an express-train can 
 call to mind the stations that he shooteth by. But he believeth 
 that he hath attained a higher rank in life by being able to talk 
 of where he hath been ; and he remarketh, at dinner-parties : 
 "Once, when I was crossing the Simplon," or " During my re- 
 sidence at Elorence," whenever an opportunity occurreth, and 
 sometimes when it doth not. And if by luck he encountereth 
 a tourist who hath not been to Elorence, but speaketh highly 
 of Danneker's Ariadne at Erankfort, he sayeth forthwith, " Ah, 
 but you should see the Venus de Medici." Yet he recollecteth 
 it but slightly, and the other he hath no notion of, beyond that 
 furnished by a pose plastique. 
 
 But the greatest pleasure, after all, that one tourist knoweth 
 is to talk down another, and to this end chiefly doth our tra- 
 veller look for distinction. 
 
( 111 ) 
 
 XI. 
 
 MR. LEDBURY REVISITS PARIS, AND IS IGN0MIN10USLY 
 EXPELLED PROM HIS LODGINGS. 
 
 We have lately heard a little news of an old friend, with 
 whom we were once upon terms of considerable intimacy for 
 some time — Mr. Titus Ledbury, formerly of Islington. "We 
 should not have intruded this intelligence upon our gentle 
 readers, had we not been frequently asked what had become of 
 him; and as they ever evinced a disposition to receive him 
 courteously, and looked upon him as a simple, kind-hearted 
 creature, who, if he did not create any remarkably out-of- 
 the-way sensation, never, at all events, offended those to whom 
 he was introduced, we make bold once more to bring him into 
 their presence. 
 
 The London season was in a confirmed state of rapid decline, 
 so far gone, indeed, that immediate change of air to a more 
 congenial climate was universally agreed upon by everybody. 
 The carriages sensibly diminished in numbers in the parks and 
 at the West- end; Opera orders were abundant, and sometimes 
 people got a box who had never been in one before, and dis- 
 playing their innocence thereof by buying a bill and hanging 
 it over the edge, pinned to the amber satin, and mistaking Mario 
 for Sims Eeeves, and Balfe for Mr. Lumley. The concerts were 
 all over, and the light halls of Willis and Hanover-square, and 
 the dirty — we had well-nigh said " grubby" — room of Her 
 Majesty's Theatre, no longer bottled up well-meaning people, 
 who had been guilty of no offence, and therefore did not deserve 
 such treatment, from noon till dewy eve. 
 
 Fashionable entertainments, too, diminished. Thes dansants 
 and dejeuners a pied — from lack of seats — were no longer 
 chronicled. Stay-at-home unfortunates were promised more 
 grouse by Highland marauders than all the moors could fur- 
 nish ; coloured shirts, of wild and wondrous patterns, hitherto 
 christened " Regatta," were suddenly converted into "Shoot- 
 ing;" and " dents' Once Bounds" retired into private life to 
 
112 WILD OATS. 
 
 make room in the windows for "Balmoral Ties," as worn by 
 the superior class at Perth, and other game pitches. There 
 were no more fetes champ (aigii)etres, no more marvellous exhi- 
 bitions. Indeed, it became a question difficult to answer, where 
 the wonders went to — the mannikins and Bosjesmen, the oxen, 
 horses, and iceberg dogs — the living statues and waxen cele- 
 brities, that collectively drew the shilling from the popular 
 pocket, as the loadstone rock of the " Arabian Nights" whilom 
 did the nails from the argosies that came within the sphere of 
 its attraction. 
 
 "Whitebait got larger ; in fact, it became as difficult to esta- 
 blish the line where the " bait" ended and the bleak began, as 
 to define at which point of the Oregon of the mind instinct 
 merged into reason. There were no longer the rows of " drags," 
 and " traps," and mail-phaetons, bold barouches, and sly-looking 
 Broughams outside the Trafalgar. Mr. Hart breathed again, 
 and Mr. Quartermaine sat down — both for the first time since 
 spring came in with the radishes. Flounders enjoyed their 
 own cold water soucliee in the river ; and ducks to follow, 
 simply followed one another on the tranquil inland waters of 
 Blackheath. 
 
 Everything was getting dried up and dusty. Plants outside 
 windows turned brown, and mignionette went very wild and 
 was not replaced ; for the long flower-laden barrows ceased 
 to come round, the people having found out that their contents 
 always died two days after purchase, in spite of every care. 
 Even ladies and gentlemen appeared parched up for want of 
 water, and betook themselves accordingly to aquatic districts ; 
 and shutters closed, and servants were put upon board wages, 
 and nobody was at home any more for several months. 
 
 One fine afternoon, at this season of the year, Mr. Ledbury 
 was sitting on a very high stool at his office, drawing Carlotta 
 Grisi in " Esmeralda" on his blotting-paper, from the pattern 
 of his shirt, on which she was reproduced many times in a cho- 
 colate tint, together with various other Terpsichorean planets, 
 and humming an appropriate air for the edification of Mr. 
 Biggs, the clerk, who had never been to the Opera but once — 
 and then he was not admitted, from appearing in nankeen 
 trousers, and a light pepper-and-salt tweed — when there was a 
 ring at the bell. Mr. Ledbury pulled a string which opened 
 a door, and who should come in but his friend and brother-in- 
 law Jack Johnson. 
 
MR. LEDBURY REVISITS PARIS. 113 
 
 " Hollo, Jack !" said Mr. Ledbury, stopping short in the 
 middle of the " Truandaise ;" " how d'ye do, old fellow ?" 
 
 " How are you, Leddy ? I'm all right, always. Isn't it 
 hot?" 
 
 And in proof that he thought it was, Jack took off his hat, 
 inverted it, spun it in the air, and then let it twirl, as he caught 
 it on the point of his forefinger, to the great delight of Mr. 
 Biggs, who always looked upon Jack as a marvellous person, 
 and smiled humbly at everything he did. 
 
 " That's a wonderful shirt you've got on, Mr. Biggs," said 
 Jack ; " stunning !" 
 
 " I'm glad you like it, sir," said Mr. Biggs. " It has been 
 much admired at "Walworth." 
 
 " It is very appropriate," said Jack. " It looks as if you 
 had ruled it yourself with red ink, and then ornamented the 
 lines with wafers. It is exceedingly neat, without being 
 gaudy." 
 
 Mr. Ledbury laughed. 
 
 " Mr. Biggs," continued Jack ; " what do you drink this 
 hot weather ?" 
 
 " I think shandy-gaff is the most pleasant beverage," replied 
 the clerk, mildly. 
 
 " Shandy how much ?" inquired Jack. 
 
 " It is ginger-beer and ale," said Mr. Ledbury. " We will 
 try some now. Mr. Biggs, bring me the cellar." 
 
 Whereon Mr. Biggs reached down a large tin-box, labelled 
 "Title Deeds," and brought it to Mr. Ledbury, who found 
 some ginger-beer in it, which he marshalled upon the desk. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Biggs," said Jack, with mock politeness, " I 
 think we must presume upon your acknowledged affability to 
 request you will procure us some ale. Take that blue bag, and 
 go and get it." 
 
 The vehicle w r as an odd one ; but Mr. Biggs appeared to* 
 understand the order, and left the office. 
 
 "How's Emma, though?" asked Mr. Ledbury, inquiring 
 after his sister, as if he felt he ought to have done so before. 
 
 "Very well," answered Jack; "and baby's very great. I 
 think I shall make something of him. He takes a sight at the 
 nurse capitally. There's a deal of fun in him, for he's always 
 laughing. Only sometimes we can't make out his jokes. 
 However, never mind baby just now. I've got something in 
 store for you. What do you think of a rush over to Paris ?" 
 
 I 
 
114 WILD OATS. 
 
 " You don't mean that?" said Mr. Ledbury, in a doubt of 
 delight. " Come now, Jack ; no nonsense." 
 
 " On ray honour, I'm in earnest, Leddy. If you like to 
 come, as before, all expenses will be paid. It's about the 
 Great Northern Railway. I must be back within a week, but 
 you can stay on if you like. Will you go ?" 
 
 " Rather, Jack," replied his friend. " The governor pro- 
 mised me a holiday. I'm game !" 
 
 " The Brighton, Dieppe, and Rouen's the mark," said Jack, 
 "and we will be off to-morrow morning." 
 
 Mr. Biggs here returned with the blue bag, from which he 
 produced°a bottle of Scotch ale ; and this being turned into a 
 wash-hand jug, with an equal quantity of ginger-beer, Jack 
 wrote, " Gone on 'Change — back in half an hour," on a slip of 
 paper, and wafered it on the office door, which he closed inside. 
 And then they sat and discussed the new beverage along 
 with Mr. Biggs, who, in his humility, from lack of tumblers, 
 could scarcely be kept from drinking out of a new inkstand. 
 But this the others would not hear of, so he was supplied with 
 a hyacinth-glass, in which a bulb had been all the year getting 
 to the similitude of a spring onion, and there stopped ; and this 
 did very well. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Biggs," said Jack, " what do you think of the 
 railways?" . ' 
 
 " They are the great arteries of mercantile and social life, 
 sir, and place the knowledge gained by travel within the grasp 
 of the poor man," said Mr. Biggs, humbly, quoting from some 
 work for " The People," that he had read in a coffee-shop. 
 
 " Quite right, Mr. Biggs," said Jack, " and beautifully ex- 
 pressed. Here's ' May time never shut off your steam until 
 you get to the extension terminus.' Come, Leddy ; you must 
 drink that." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Jack," said Mr. Ledbury, whose ima- 
 gination had already carried him to the Boulevards. "Mr. 
 Biggs, may time never cut off your terminus — what is it, Jack ? 
 I didn't hear." 
 
 "Never mind," said Jack, and he continued: "Had you 
 any shares in the railways, Mr. Biggs ?" 
 
 " None, sir," said the clerk ; " I am a poor man." 
 " Then you're a lucky fellow, if you knew it," said Jack. 
 " The poor man never had so many friends as at present. I 
 know a fellow — -jolly chap he is, too — who writes for news- 
 
MR. LEDBURY REVISITS PARIS. 115 
 
 papers and periodicals; knows what life is ; never goes to bed, 
 and lives upon pale ale and boiled bones." 
 
 " How very odd !" said Mr. Ledbury. " I thought there had 
 been a great row lately about eating bones." 
 
 " Ah, they were raw," said Jack. " Well, this fellow took a 
 wonderful start lately ; set up a dog-cart, and lived in a house 
 all to himself. So I asked him how he did it. ' Why/ he said, 
 1 it's all the poor man ; I'm sure I ought to be his friend, for 
 his is the only dodge in writing that pays well, now. I don't 
 know whether it does him much good, for pens and ink are not 
 very nourishing ; and that's all it ends in. But it's capital for 
 uaJ" 
 
 Mr. Ledbury rather shook his head at this, for he believed 
 in philanthropy and virtuous indignation; and Mr. Bio-gs was 
 undecided how to look, until .Jack plunged him into still deeper 
 confusion by asking him to favour them with some popular 
 ballad. Upon which Mr. Biggs said he would with pleasure, 
 if he could, but he never knew one ; whereon Mr. Ledbury 
 pleasantly reproved him, and revealed how Mr. Biggs had told 
 an untruth ; and how he had one day heard him, from the back 
 office, singing the foreign air of " Old Dan Tucker," and dancing 
 a strange measure, as he tried to imitate the bones accompani- 
 ment with the paper-knife and some sticks of sealing-wax, until 
 he broke the latter in his enthusiasm. Hereat Mr. Biggs 
 blushed fuchsia, and said, "Oh, Mr. Titus— really !" and then 
 Mr. Ledbury told him to put words to the " Post-horn Hymn," 
 which a Genoese organist, of slow temperament, was grinding 
 below the window, in a dilatory manner, that would have driven 
 Arban mad had he heard it. But, finding that Mr. Biggs 
 was too nervous to sing himself, they went on talking, until 
 Mr. Ledbury, under the influence of ale, treated Mr. Biggs to 
 a French song — which, as far as Mr. Biggs was concerned, 
 might have been double Sanscrit, or provincial Chinese, both 
 which dialects are somewhat difficult to acquire fluently. But 
 Mr. Biggs thought it so good, that Mr. Ledbury's desire to 
 amuse increased ; and he next showed the placid clerk how the 
 students danced at the Chaumiere, and at what part they were 
 turned out by the Garde Mimicipale, concluding by performing 
 a galop with the invoice-book, until Jack joined him, and the 
 divertissement concluded with & pas de deux of such originality, 
 that Mr. Biggs clapped his hands quite deliriously, and declared 
 he had never seen any thing half so good—no, not at the Bower, 
 
 i2 
 
116 WILD OATS. 
 
 nor any other fashionable place of entertainment. And as old 
 Mr. Ledbury was out of town for the day, their rapid act of 
 merriment was only brought to a close by Titus dancing over 
 his spectacles, and the Exchange clock striking five with an 
 intensity that nearly knocked over the grasshopper from his 
 ticklish pinnacle. 
 
 It did not take Mr. Ledbury long to make up his mind to 
 go with Jack, and pack up his wardrobe. He longed to let his 
 mustachios grow ; but all the efforts he had made for years to 
 get them to shoot had been failures ; and the same with regard 
 to his whiskers. None of the wonderful things which the young 
 men who cut his hair always recommended, answered ; his con- 
 sumption of Circassian Cream must have affected in no small 
 degree the trade of the Black Sea and the regions of the 
 Caucasus ; but still his face was smooth. And once, when he 
 had been rash enough to buy a pair of false mustachios, that 
 were fixed with a spring to his nostrils, he brought on such a 
 wonderful fit of sneezing, that he had well-nigh blown all his 
 brains out by the same route as those of the Egyptian mummies 
 are reported, by cunning men who delight in unrolling those 
 bales of pitchy mortality, to have left their tenement. So that 
 he gave up the notion, fondly as he clung to it, and determined 
 upon trusting, as heretofore, to his elegant manners and 
 knowledge of foreign style generally, to be considered a true 
 Parisian. 
 
 Little occurred worthy of especial notice on the road to Paris. 
 Eor steam-boat journeys across the Chanuel were then all alike ; 
 and when you knew one conducteur of a diligence, you were upon 
 terms of perfect intimacy with all, all over Erance ; nor was there 
 any great diversity in the fashion of diligences. The boiled 
 mutton and Erench-beans skated about the chief-cabin table as 
 usual, when the able-bodied assembled to dine, half way be- 
 tween the Chain Pier and Dieppe quais ; the same lady of a 
 certain age lay helpless on deck, with her head on a carpet- 
 bag, and her feet in an old cloak ; and now and then requested 
 to be thrown overboard without further delay, and put out of 
 her misery at once, as formerly. There were, apparently, the 
 very same soldiers and douaniers on the pier that Titus knew 
 at Boulogne; and the same incomprehensible soup, made of 
 cheese, lamp-oil, and hot water, shaken up together, awaited 
 them ; with the identical white crockery, blunt knives, and 
 wooden cruet-frames in the salle a manger of the ubiquitous 
 
MR. LEDBURY REVISITS PARIS. 117 
 
 Hotel " d'Angleterre," or " de Londres," or " de l'Europe," or 
 whatever it was ; but it was sure to be one of these. 
 
 Nor did Mr. Ledbury think otherwise than that he had slept 
 on the same walnut-tree bedstead, and washed in the same 
 white pie-dish, and used the same scanty towels, that look as if 
 they were the sheets cut into little pieces, a hundred times 
 before. And as for the diligence, next morning, somehow or 
 other it must have been the very one that first took him from 
 Boulogne to Paris. There were beggars too, with all of whom 
 he was upon terms of the greatest familiarity ; and the same 
 horses whinnied, and fought, and rattled the bits of jack-chain 
 and remnants of box-cord that formed the harness, and were 
 sworn at with precisely the same oaths by the postilion. 
 
 xit Kouen, however, there was a little change, for now there 
 was a railway. But they did not leave the diligence for all 
 that ; for the body of the carriage was taken off its wheels, and 
 hoisted up into the air, passengers, luggage, and all, by the 
 ornithological and crustaceous union of a crane and a crab, as 
 if it had been merely a sack of wool, and then lowered down 
 upon the truck. 
 
 There was much to amuse at this part of the journey, more 
 especially as regarded a very fussy lady, who complained that 
 riding sideways in the interieur made her sick, and so with 
 much labour, for she was heavily fashioned, was hoisted, pushed, 
 and guided into the banquette. When she got there, she hoped 
 " she was not disturbing the gents," and then, not being in any 
 way proud, entered into conversation, and said she was going 
 to join Lord Somebody's family at Paris, and that her name 
 was Mrs. Mills, and that she had been sent for from England 
 to superintend the establishment — in other words, as Jack soon 
 found out — to be a housekeeper. She had evidently enjoyed 
 her dinner, and talked considerably in consequence. 
 
 " Ah !" she said, as soon as they had packed her safely away, 
 " this is better. But nothing should have made me come, if I'd 
 know'd it." 
 
 " Haven't you had a pleasant journey, ma'am ?" asked Jack. 
 
 " Pleasant indeed, sir ! AVho could expect it, in foreign parts. 
 I'm sure I thought I should have died all the way from 
 Brighton, and a little more would have done it. I never hope 
 to see that Chain Pier again. And it's nothing when you do, 
 no more than what Hungerford-bridge would be with Lambeth 
 took clean away." 
 
118 WILD OATS. 
 
 " We must cultivate her, Leddy," whispered Jack, deter- 
 mining to draw her out ; and thus he proceeded: 
 
 " You didn't have a pleasant passage then, ma'am ?" 
 
 " No, sir," said the lady, sharply, as though enraged with 
 Jack for asking. u I was insulted at first starting, by being 
 asked at Brighton if I had a passport. ' No,' said I, ' and 
 I hope I never shall have, for my marriage certificate is 
 framed and glazed, and I am not afraid to show it to anybody, 
 although now I am a lone woman !' But the chambermaid — a 
 impedent hussy she was too — made me go to a. Mr. Black, 
 where I paid ten shillings for a bit of paper, which has bothered 
 me the whole way. Passport, indeed ! paugh ! what will they 
 want nest, I should like to know ?" 
 
 " Very true, ma'am," observed Jack ; " as you properly say, 
 what will they want next ?" 
 
 " They'd have my bandbox when I landed, if they could, for 
 good," said Mrs. Mills ; "for a tall fellow stopped me as I was 
 going ashore. 'And what do you want?' says I. ' ArretayJ 
 says he, which I knew by his look meant something bad ; and 
 there they rummidged it dreadful, and afterwards I was boxed 
 up in the back of this machine, in a stivy part, just like a slice 
 of omnibus, with foreign gentlemen, who were dressed respect- 
 able, but knew no more of English than an unborn babe. At 
 last I heard my native tougue outside, and I said to the speaker, 
 1 Sir, as you are a Christian, and not a Frenchman, pray ask 
 leave for me to go in front ;' and here I am." 
 
 The last affirmation was not to be denied, any more than the 
 popular information of " Now we're off!" which everybody feels 
 called upon to say when a train moves, without fear of contra- 
 diction. Whereupon Jack went on : 
 
 " My friend here," pointing to Mr. Ledbury, " makes pre- 
 cisely the same complaint. A clever young man," whispered 
 Jack to the lady ; " his name is Hopley, a cousin of the Maid 
 of Orleans you have heard of." 
 
 " I have heard speak of her, but can't say I knew her, sir," 
 said Mrs. Mills. " I saw her statue this morning." 
 
 " He came to Eouen to see it also," said Jack. " She was 
 burnt, you know, in the market, after the battle of "Waterloo ; 
 a blot upon the Duke of Wellington's name, great as it is — a 
 sad mistake." And Jack shook his head. 
 
 " What did you think of the figure, ma'am ?" asked Titus, 
 who had heard all this. 
 
MR. LEDBURY REVISITS PARIS. 119 
 
 " A fine girl, sir ; but not so handsome as her effigies at 
 Madame Tussaud's, neither." 
 
 " You must expect a Maid of Orleans to be plummy," ob- 
 served Jack, gravely. 
 
 Mrs. Mills did not take the pun, but Titus went into a tem- 
 porary fit of St. Yitus's dance. 
 
 " My friend is trying to see what connexion there is between 
 Noah's Ark and Joan of Arc," continued Jack. "AVhat is 
 your opinion of her, Mr. Hopley ?" 
 
 " She was a strange young woman," said Ledbury, "when 
 she was in service, and dangerous to have a Sunday out, as 
 Susan used to say, although she was always very correct and 
 proper. Go on, Jack," he whispered ; " I can't tell such crams; 
 I'm sure to laugh." 
 
 " Her head ran too much on soldiers," continued Jack. 
 " She thought more of guns and helmets than brooms and 
 afternoon caps. Tou can imagine, ma'am, how it astonished a 
 respectable and piously-cheerful family, to find their housemaid 
 learning the sword exercise in the kitchen. And yet she was 
 the acknowledged heroine of domestic drama." 
 
 "I thought such things were never done but at Ashley's," 
 said Mrs. Mills. " I knew a lady there — a real lady she was 
 too, and very good-looking — who played warrior queens, 
 but she was peaceable enough at home, and never wanted to 
 fight six ruffians, or clamber up a blazing fortress on horse- 
 back." 
 
 At this moment Mr. Ledbury, who had been looking another 
 way and pretending to blow his nose, and putting on an ex- 
 pression of apoplectic jocular suffering, burst into a fit of 
 laughter ; Jack also'; tittered from sympathy ; and Mrs. Mills, 
 who for some little time had mistrusted her companions, mut- 
 tered something about " behaving as gentlemen," and made 
 allusions to '"'shop-boys out for the day" (which, considering 
 where they had got to, must have been a pretty long one), 
 and then relapsed into dignified and contemptuous silence, 
 which lasted until they arrived at the Paris debarcadere. In a few 
 minutes the diligence was again hoisted on to its carriage, to 
 which the horses were already attached, and they once more 
 clattered down the Rue de Grenelle St. Honore, into the 
 court-yard of the Messageries. Here they got a citadine, and 
 proceeded over the river to the Hotel de l'Etoile — a cheap 
 students' house on the Quai St. Michel, and on the river 
 
120 WILD OATS. 
 
 boundary of the Quartier Latin, where they intended to stay 
 merely until they hunted up some of their old friends. 
 
 Jack was certainly a very jolly married man — one of the 
 best you could encounter in a long day's search — and although 
 he made Ledbury's sister a capital husband, was not at all 
 " slow," and therefore he told Titus he was game for anything 
 that evening ; and as it was Thursday, and he thought they 
 might meet some acquaintances of former days, they settled at 
 once to dress themselves, and go up to the Chaumiere, deter- 
 mined to make the most of their united stay in Paris. So they 
 made their toilet, and Mr. Ledbury insisted upon having his 
 hair curled en papillotes, by the coiffeur in the "Rue de l'Ecole 
 de Medecine," and bought a pair of bright yellow nineteen-sous 
 gloves to make an effect, and then went off, with the greatest 
 reliance upon his personal appearance, towards the Boulevard 
 du Mont-Parnasse. 
 
 It was very capital — the walk thither. Nothing seemed 
 much altered. The nursemaids were flirting with the soldiers 
 in the gardens of the Luxembourg, and the old men were still 
 playing bowls by the ground where Ney was executed ; and 
 when Mr. Ledbury saw two grisettes in airy barege dresses 
 and coquettish little muffin-shaped caps, not made as they used 
 to wear them, but formed something like a low-crowned hat 
 made of lace, with no rim, but large lappets, he was for rushing 
 towards them at once, and engaging them for innumerable 
 dances ; only Jack restrained him, " for," said he, " we shall 
 be sure presently to meet some old friends, so do not be 
 too excited, Leddy." And this recommendation just came in 
 time, for no sooner did Mr. Ledbury hear the distant band 
 over the wall, than he performed a pas seul upon the boulevards 
 from very joyousness of heart, no less than to distinguish him- 
 self in the eyes of the grisettes just named, and to show them 
 that he was quite at home in Paris — rather ! And this was not 
 concluded until he had danced against a gendarme and a mar- 
 chand de coco, whose tin temple of beverage he almost knocked 
 over. 
 
 They went into the gardens, and, as Jack had said, soon met 
 some old friends. Jules was there, and Henri — the two young 
 artists, and they pointed out Eulalie, and Clara, and Sophie, 
 and Heloise, and all sorts of pretty little faces, that looked 
 a few years younger, if anything ; and when they recognised 
 Ledbury and Jack, there was such a shout, and such shaking 
 
MR. LEDBURY REVISITS PARIS. 121 
 
 of hands, and, as regarded the young grisettes, such going 
 through other ceremonies of recognition, which popular maxims 
 say it is not right to tell of, as was delightful to behold. It 
 was lucky for Jack that Aimee was not there — very lucky — for 
 Jack was married, and you know it would have been so 
 awkward, the meeting^. And then they all got round a table 
 and ordered expensive things — punch and champagne even — 
 and talked and laughed, and kicked up such a famous row, that 
 the authorities had well-nigh interfered ; and Clara, who was 
 a fair-haired, blue-eyed, rosy-mouthed little Belgian, thought 
 Mr. Ledbury so funny, and Mr. Ledbury was so flattered 
 thereby, that he quite lost his head, and proposed the health of 
 Belgium generally, and volunteered to sing " She wore a wreath 
 of roses," in which he was always very great, and which he 
 now began, but was prevented from finishing by Jack voting 
 for a polka. And here it was that Mr. Ledbury did indeed 
 shine. His dancing was the admiration of the whole party, 
 and his elegant attitudes, no less than his good-tempered face, 
 attracted all eyes. And when he had finished, and led his 
 panting, breathless partner from the enclosure, they gave him 
 a round of applause ; whereon, with much grace, he drank to 
 them in a small tumbler of champagne, and by this time he 
 was ready for anything. 
 
 The Jeu de Bague—a. game like the roundabouts at our fairs 
 — was in full swing, and Titus proposed that they should have 
 a game between the dances. 
 
 " I will show these Frenchmen what a Briton can do, Jack, 
 when he pleases," he said. 
 
 " Keep all right, Leddy," said Jack, "or, perhaps, they will 
 show you what they can do in return. Remember former 
 scrapes." 
 
 " It's all right, Jack," said Titus ; "now see them look at 
 me." 
 
 There were two horses and two chairs on the roundabout ; 
 and the game consisted in the players being furnished with 
 little spears like knife-sharpeners, and trying to take offsmall 
 rings from a hook on which they were hung — a modification of 
 the old tilting at the ring. Mr. Ledbury got on one of the 
 horses, which he sat gallantly, to show the Parisians he was a 
 sportsman; and Clara occupied one of the chairs; the two 
 other places were taken by Jack and one of the grisettes, and 
 off" they went. 
 
122 WILD OATS. 
 
 For the first few rounds Mr. Ledbury simply smiled at the 
 company, politely bowing to them every time he came near 
 them, like the little man at the evening party on the top of the 
 organ ; and then he kissed his hand, and waved his pocket- 
 handkerchief, and, finally, with a flourish of his spear, began to 
 play, imitatiDg martial music on a cornet. By some good luck 
 or other he carried off a ring or two, at which the students 
 and grisettes who were looking on cheered. This was quite 
 enough to drive him into any act of wildness, and, after a few 
 more turns, which did not improve his steadiness, coming on 
 the champagne, he formed a project of unequalled boldness. 
 One of the garde was standing near the game, looking with 
 folded arms and frowning brow npon the players. As Titus 
 came near him he seized his helmet, and lifted it forcibly from 
 his head, directly afterwards putting it upon his own, to the in- 
 tense astonishment of the soldier. 
 
 Any insult offered to the authorities is sure to be hailed with 
 acclamation by the frequenters of the Chaumiere, and a roar of 
 delight burst forth. At this Mr. Ledbury was so excited, that 
 by some marvellous exertion he contrived to stand up in his 
 stirrups, and would have got upon the horse itself, to have 
 thrown himself into a tableau, had not the enraged functionary 
 stopped the machine and pulled the offender from his charger. 
 The crowd pressed round, and tried to hustle him away by 
 pushing the grisettes all in a heap against the guard, knowing 
 that he would not attack them. Jack had sprung from his 
 perch like lightning, and, seeing their object, caught Ledbury 
 by the collar, and dragged him actually through a party of 
 gendarmes who were coming to the scene of the row. Then 
 lugging him into one of the bosquets, where the obscurity pro- 
 tected them, lie said : 
 
 " Keep still, Leddy. How could you be such an ass !" 
 
 " I'll show them what an Englishman dares to do, Jack," said 
 Titus, quite bewildered ; and he began to sing — 
 
 " For England, home, and beauty." 
 
 "England, home, and fiddlesticks," said Jack. "Hold your 
 tongue, do, or they'll have you now. Sit down." 
 
 And, knowing that when Mr. Ledbury got into these heroics 
 he was heedless of everything, Jack seized him by the throat 
 and fairly choked him down behind one of the benches, in spite 
 of all his declarations that he would go and see fair play, and 
 not allow friends he respected to be ill-treated on his account. 
 
MR. LEDBURY REVISITS PARIS. 123 
 
 And here, for a few minutes, Mr. Ledbury remained, in great 
 excitement and indignation. 
 
 It was very fortunate for Mr. Ledbury that Jack had some 
 command over him, for his ambition at all times to distinguish 
 himself was so great, more especially in the presence of the fair 
 sex, that there is no telling to what lengths he might have been 
 led in the way of display had it not been for his friend's firm 
 clutch. His susceptibility was not an interested feeling. So 
 long as he knew that two bright eyes, set in a pretty face, were 
 watching him — whether tbey belonged to a duchess or a grisette 
 was perfectly immaterial — they were quite sufficient to inspire 
 him to brave the Garde Municipale, or storm the Tuileries, or 
 do any other madcap freak that he fancied might have been re- 
 quired of him. 
 
 Of course the authorities were put upon the wrong scent ; 
 and whilst they marched off to some part of the gardens to- 
 wards which they were told the perfidious Englishmen had 
 retreated, Jack pulled Ledbury from his hiding-place and pre- 
 pared to quit the Chaumiere. As he left the arbour, Titus said 
 something about the British lion being at bay in his lair, and 
 appeared desirous of realising the six positions of the Fighting 
 Gladiator ; upon which Jack got the two young artists to ac- 
 company them, and these three, performing a wild dance as they 
 went through the gate, in the mazes of which they hustled 
 round Mr. Ledbury whenever he attempted to speak, prevented 
 him from addressing the gatekeeper, who thought it was merely 
 a convivial party returning home. Thus they contrived to get 
 him out safely upon the boulevard, along which they proceeded 
 a little way, and then all sat down to rest on the edge of one 
 of the hollows which are dug between the trees, for no other 
 apparent purpose than to form traps for strangers to tumble 
 into. 
 
 When they were seated, Mr. Ledbury, who had been per- 
 forming a forced march, looked round at his companion with a 
 severe aspect, and then he stared up at the moon, which was 
 shining brightly. The sight of the calm planet appeared to 
 soften his feelings, for his face gradually lost its severity, and he 
 next said, in a plaintive tone, as he waved his head backwards 
 and forwards : 
 
 " I am far from home and from everything I love on earth, 
 without friends, and a stranger in a foreign land !" 
 
 " Hear, hear !" cried Jack, convivially. " ' Off, off! said the 
 stranger !' " 
 
124 WILD OATS. 
 
 " Jack," said Mr. Ledbury, iu reproving accents, " I did not 
 expect this from you, whom I always thought my friend. But 
 no matter — I am used to it. Would I were at home — at my 
 own humble home, on which that same moon is now shining ! 
 How have I misspent my time and deceived my kind parents !" 
 
 Here Mr. Ledbury wept ; he was evidently labouring under 
 some impression that he had committed a series of unpardon- 
 able crimes, and was altogether an outcast from decent society. 
 
 " Why, Leddy — old brick ! — what's the matter r" asked Jack, 
 placing a hand on his shoulder. 
 
 " Nothing — nothing, Jack," replied Titus, putting away his 
 friend. " It is long since I have thus wept ; not since I was a 
 child — a guileless, sportive thing of four years old — a little, 
 little, little child !" 
 
 " Ah !" said Jack, drawing him out, " and you remember, you 
 remember how happy you were when your childhood flitted by, 
 and your little lovers came with lilies and cherries, and all sorts 
 of larks." 
 
 " They will never come again," replied Mr. Ledbury. " And 
 where is the little Belgian who polked so well ? Has she left 
 me too ?" 
 
 " Oh," thought Jack, " we shall do now." 
 
 So recollecting that in their rapid act of horsemanship they 
 had forgotten the grisettes in a very un gallant manner, he got 
 Jules and Henri to go back after them. And as soon as they 
 were gone, Mr. Ledbury's excitement arrived at the affectionate 
 stage, and he shook Jack warmly by the hand, and said he was 
 a good fellow, and that they were all good fellows, and knew 
 he'd never behaved well to Jack, nor showed him such attention 
 as he ought to have done ; but that was neither here nor there, 
 nor, as Jack observed, anywhere else that he knew of. 
 
 However, they got wonderful friends again, and by this time 
 the young artists came back with Clara,and Eulalie,andHeloise ; 
 and, making over the former to the protection of Mr. Ledbury, 
 they started, seven abreast, along the boulevard on their way 
 home, indulging, as a matter of course, in the right and proper 
 chorus to be sung at such times, which nobody was ever 
 known to go home along the boulevards from the Chaumiere 
 without joining in. This is it : 
 
MR. LEDBURY REVISITS PARIS. 
 
 125 
 
 THB STUDENTS' CHAUMIERE SONG. 
 I. 
 
 
 !.J | J J K J | 
 
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 The win - ter's gone a - way ; The Bonle-vard trees are 
 
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 d ml ml wL 
 
 wa - ving ; Gri - settes and stu - dents 
 
 gay 
 
 For 
 
 
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 £s£ 
 
 ft 
 
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 Mont Par - nasse are era - ving. Tou -jours! Tou- 
 
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 m 
 
 i r r 
 
 E£ 
 
 jours 
 
 ! Tou - jours ! Now all its joys al- 
 
 1 
 
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 § 
 
 3=£ 
 
 n: r : < S c^ ^ 
 
 lure. Eh! ioup! ioup! ioup! tra la la la la! Eh! 
 
 
 S 
 
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 f 9 g . 
 
 ioup ! ioup ! ioup ! tra la la la la 
 
 Eh! 
 
 I 
 
 F^? 
 
 £=£ 
 
 £=?E 
 
 2=5= 
 
 T^-g' 
 
 J S 
 
 s 
 
 ioup! ioup! ioup ! Tra la la la la. Eh! ioup! ioup! ioup! tra 
 
 S 
 
 S 
 
 la la ]a la la la 
 
 <8_ 
 
 S 
 
 ■£ 
 
 TTl 
 
 la la la la! 
 
 ii. 
 
 Messieurs les Etudlans 
 
 All at the Chaumiere now, 
 To dance the wild cancan 
 
 Beneath the band repair now, 
 Toujour s! toujour s! toujour s! 
 Bacchus et " les amours!" 
 
 {Chorus.) Eh! ioup! ioup! ioup! &c. 
 
126 WILD OATS. 
 
 ni. 
 
 The Garde Municipale 
 
 Has only to show fight, boys, 
 We stop our wild cabal, 
 
 And then we take a sight, boys, 
 Toujour s! toujours ! toujour s! 
 The which we can't endure. 
 
 (Chorus.) Eh! ioup! ioup! ioup! &c. 
 
 IV. 
 
 At once wb follow up 
 
 Our studies, love, and folly ; 
 We read, we drink, we sup, 
 
 And still are always jolly, 
 Toujours! tor jours! toujours! 
 Whilst night and da}- endure. 
 
 (Chorus.') Eh! ioup! ioup! ioup! &c. 
 
 v. 
 
 Our passions soon are o'er : 
 
 We sigh for He'loise, 
 Now Clara we adore, 
 
 And now we kiss Louise, 
 Toujours! toujours! toujours! 
 And all the rest abjure. 
 
 (Chorus.) Eh ! ioup ! ioup ! ioup ! &c. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Here's Julie's sparkling eyes, 
 
 Whose every glance expresses, 
 " Faint heart ne'er won the prize — 
 
 I wait for your addresses." 
 Toujours! toujours! toujours! 
 The treasure, then, secure. 
 
 (Chorus.) Eh! ioup! ioup! ioup! &c. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Despite the sermons slow, 
 
 Of tutor or of father, 
 The students always show 
 
 They love the Chaumiere — rather. 
 Toujours! toujours! toujours! 
 With wine and " les amours!* 
 
 (Chorus.) Eh ! ioup ! ioup ! ioup ! &c 
 
 There are no places in the Quartier Latin of Paris to " finish" 
 an evening at. English innovation has kept some of the cafes 
 open very late on the northern boulevards; but by eleven 
 o'clock at night this classical region is deserted. And as the 
 young ladies — the daughters of the proprietor — who conjointly 
 kept the lodge of the Hotel de l'Etoile du Nord were models of 
 propriety, and did not approve of tbe visits of any other young 
 ladies to their domicile at any hour, but always received them 
 
ME. LEDBURY REVISITS PARIS. 127 
 
 with an aspect of fearful severity, which the boldest did not like 
 to encounter a second time, jack and Mr. Ledbury took an 
 affectionate good night of their friends at the door, and espe- 
 cially of the little Belgian, to whom Titus, in his enthusiasm, 
 had been talking Tennyson for the last quarter, of an hour in- 
 stead of singing, and trying to put the good poetry into bad 
 Trench as he proceeded, to the utter bewilderment of his com- 
 panion, for even Mr. Ledbury's French was not of the purest. 
 " Ecoutez," said Mr. Ledbury : " La reine du Mai est la plus 
 jolie de tout ; elle est la reine du fete, vous savez, comme 9a. 
 Je la chanterai." And, stopping his ears to the chorus, he 
 went on : 
 
 " LA KEINE DU MAI. 
 
 Si vous etes veillante, appelle-moi, ma mere, appelle-moi de bonne heure ; 
 
 Demain sera de toute l'annee le plus fortune jour; 
 
 De toute l'annee nouvelle, ma mere, la journee le plus gai, 
 
 Car je serai l'Reine du Mai, ma mere! je serai l'Reine du Mai! 
 
 N'est ce pas que c'est touchante ?" 
 
 " Charmante !" said the little Belgian, in a perfect haze as to 
 its meaning : " bien gentille !" 
 
 " I shan't be waking to call you early, Leddy, if you don't 
 come in," observed Jack, just as Mr. Ledbury was beginning 
 another verse. 
 
 It was a peculiarity of Mr. Ledbury's nature, that, when he 
 was just at all excited, he always began to talk Tennyson. If 
 young ladies jilted him after supper at parties, he always abused 
 his " cousin Amy" in right good Locksley Hall style, as a relief 
 to his feelings. If he felt slow, he quoted " Mariana ;" and 
 when he wanted to create a favourable impression, he whis- 
 pered the Ear-ring and Necklace song from " The Miller's 
 Daughter" to his partner in the rest of a polka. But Jack, 
 who had heard all these pieces over and over again, did not al- 
 ways enter into his enthusiasm as warmly as he wished, and 
 now even rudely cut him short. So the good night was re- 
 peated — one would fancy it must have been a very agreeable 
 proceeding by the evident general desire to encore it ; and then 
 the grisettes were escorted by the artists along the Quai £>t. 
 Michel. They struck up the chorus again as they left, whilst 
 Mr. Ledbury waved his hand with the air of a cliatelain of the 
 olden time when a procession left his castle ; and the strain 
 awakened the echoes of the old buildings from the Morgue — 
 which was exactly opposite to them— to Kotre-Dame, until, as 
 they turned up the Bue de la Harpe, it stopped suddenly, at 
 
128 WILD OATS. 
 
 the request of a body of the Garde Municipale, who just then 
 came round the corner. And then, as Mr. Ledbury had seen 
 enough of those functionaries for that evening, he retreated in- 
 doors, and, taking his candle from the eldest Mademoiselle 
 Petit, followed Jack up to bed. But his cerebral excitement 
 had not yet gone off, and his visions were disturbed. He 
 dreamt that he was a cuirassier, fighting for Belgium and beauty, 
 and then dancing strange Chaumiere figures over a body of 
 prostrate gendarmes, being joined by all the lamps and musical 
 instruments in the garden, which appeared to be always rapidly 
 descending before his eyes, without getting any lower. And 
 indeed the morning sun came through the quivering leaves of 
 the scarlet-runners that bordered his window, before he sank 
 into a quiet slumber. 
 
 Jack's first care was to get the business transacted that 
 he had come about, and this took up a couple of days, 
 which Mr. Ledbury passed chiefly with Jules and Henri in 
 their atelier during the morning, getting rid of the evening by 
 treating the little Belgian to unlimited ices at the Cafe de la 
 Kotonde, and then going to see Dejazet. And he found this 
 life so very pleasant, that, with a little persuasion, he left the 
 Hotel de l'Etoile, and took what Jack very rudely denominated 
 a first-class cockloft over the studio of his friends. It contained 
 a bed and a chair, and was so limited in its proportions, that 
 the occupier was obliged to sit on the floor to dress, and could 
 not open the door without getting on the bed. But neverthe- 
 less, Mr. Ledbury was exceedingly joyous in it; and would 
 have been more so but for the " lean-to" ceiling, against which 
 he regularly bumped his head every morning. 
 
 " I don't think I like this pigeon-house much, Leddy," said 
 Jack, as Titus, in the fulness of his heart, wished his friend to 
 partake of it. 
 
 " Oh, it's capital, Jack — ten francs a month — think of that ! 
 Such a pure air, too, and such a view !" 
 
 "A view — ah ! yes, I see," replied Jack, looking towards the 
 panes of glass in the roof, through which alone light was ad- 
 mitted ; " capital, if you like astronomy. You can lie in bed 
 and learn the Great Bear famously." 
 
 " No, no ; look here, Jack," said Mr. Ledbury, anxious to ex- 
 hibit all the advantages of his new domicile. " You must get 
 on the bed, and then open the skylight, and heave yourself up 
 through it — so. There, now, I can see the telegraphs on St. 
 Sulpice working away like several one o'clocks. I wonder 
 
MR. LEDBURY REVISITS PARIS. 129 
 
 what they mean ? they're very like an P just now : can you 
 tell ?" 
 
 " That's a comprehensive clue, certainly," said Jack. u But 
 it's sure to be ' news from Bayonne,' about a row in Spain. 
 The French telegraphs never do anything else." 
 
 " I can see all the roofs and chimney-pots along the Rue 
 Eacine," said Mr. Ledbury. " And — I say, Jack — -look here : 
 this is the great point. No ; you must get up, and put your 
 head through. There; do you see that window where the 
 canary-bird is ?" 
 
 " Quite well, Leddy. What is it ?" 
 
 " That's where the little Belgian lives. She's an illumineuse 
 — paints maps and things. Isn't it jolly ?" 
 
 " Very," said Jack, wedging himself a little tighter into the 
 skylight, until there appeared a chance of their getting fixed 
 there irremediably. " I don't much see what use it is, though." 
 
 " Oh, telegraph, telegraph, Jack; beats St. Sulpice all to no- 
 thing. Look here, now." 
 
 Whereupon Mr. Ledbury contrived, by dint of sheer animal 
 force, to release himself from the skylight : and then taking up 
 a walking-stick, he put a glove on it, and removing the bit of 
 looking-glass which formed his mirror from the wall, reas- 
 cended. 
 
 " Now, first, we must call her attention," said Titus ; " and 
 I do that, when the sun is out, by making a Jack-o'-lantern on 
 the canary-bird. There — see how it frightens him, and what a 
 row he makes. That will bring her to the window." 
 
 Mr. Ledbury was right. In half a minute Clara's pretty 
 face peeped between the convolvulus leaves which ran upon bits 
 of tape all over the windows, and nodded to him. 
 
 " Now for the burgee," said Mr. Ledbury, who had learned 
 the name when somebody took him one day in a yacht to Erith, 
 but had not the wildest notion of its meaning. " Here goes." 
 And he hoisted up the glove on the walking-stick. " There— 
 that means ' Can you come to the Chaumiere to-night ?' " 
 
 The little grisette shook her head, and held up a map half- 
 coloured; and then retiring for an instant, she brought for- 
 ward a champagne-bottle, which evidently served for a candle- 
 stick — for there was a little piece still in it — and putting it on 
 the coping before her, held up all her fingers and laughed. 
 
 " Now I know what she means," said Mr. Ledbury. " She 
 can't come to the Chaumiere, because she has work to do ; but 
 
130 WILD OATS. 
 
 she will sup with us at ten o'clock. She's a good one, isn't 
 she, Jack ?" 
 
 " I'm sure, if you say so, she is," replied his friend, getting 
 down ; and then Mr. Ledbury, after a rapid series of nods to the 
 beloved object, which made him look like a galvanised man- 
 darin, followed him. 
 
 " You won't come and live here, then, Jack, while you stay 
 in Paris ?" asked Titus, as they reached the floor. 
 
 " JNo, I think not. There isn't room to swing a kitten, 
 Leddy, to say nothing of a cat." 
 
 " Well, but we didn't come to Paris for that, you know," 
 said Mr. Ledbury. " Besides, I haven't seen such a thing as a 
 cat since I have been here. I can't tell how it is. "With such 
 capital tiles as these are, they would have swarmed like flies in 
 London." 
 
 " It's all owing to the restaurateurs" said Jack. " Where- 
 ever you see ' lapin? on their bill of fare, you maybe sure there 
 are no cats at large in the neighbourhood. They are not even 
 in Leicester-square as they used to be, since all the cheap 
 French houses started up. Pact : depend upon it." 
 
 Before long they joined Jules and Henri on the floor below, 
 and went together to dine at Viot's, the eating-house which the 
 students of the Quartier Latin chiefly love to patronise. It is 
 a thing that should not be missed, a dinner " chez Viot." The 
 carte is extensive, and not at all expensive : you may get off 
 famously for a franc, including a sou for the waiter. You don't 
 often see much wine there ; but there is an unlimited supply of 
 water, somewhat tepid, and in hazy decanters ; but it quenches 
 the thirst of the students just as well as if it had been kept in 
 crystal filters and Wenham ice all the day. They have some 
 remarkable beverage, too, which they call " biere blanche ;" 
 translated, it might be termed " intermediate," from forming a 
 gradation between penny ginger-beer and the traditional result 
 of rincing out porter- tubs and washing brewers' aprons, which 
 low minds denominate " swipes." Their meats are six sous the 
 plate ; their vegetables and dessert, three ; bread is a, discretion ; 
 and the labours of M. Yiot — who looks like the knave of clubs 
 setting up for himself in the licensed victualler line — in cutting 
 up the long rolls are beyond description. The waiters, too, are 
 all pictures. They outdo all the jugglers you ever saw, in ba- 
 lancing pyramids of dishes on their arms ; and their single - 
 breath orders of " Une Julienne — deux croutons — un bceuf aux 
 
ME. LEDBURY EEVISITS PARIS. 131 
 
 choux — trois haricots verts a l'huile — un porames sautees (avec 
 beaucoup de jus) — deux bifteks un peu saiguants — un osufs sur 
 le plat — deux fraises — deux fro-mages a la creme — un riz au 
 lait-t-t-t !" are sounds wliich will readily be recollected by the 
 old habitues of the house. 
 
 There is a great excitement, too, at a dinner at Viot's which 
 assists digestion, for man is gregarious ; and, besides, the in- 
 comprehensible cotelette of the tavern is far beyond the sod- 
 dened lonely chop of lodgings, albeit you know not of what 
 animal fibre it is composed. And the noise is quite charming. 
 "What with the unceasing orders, as above given ; the shutting 
 of the glass-door into the street, which makes all the windows 
 go off every minute with a bang, owing to their thin glass and 
 scanty metal frames, like the clash of a brass band ; the cata- 
 racts of dirty plates shot down the inclined plane into the 
 kitchen ; the shouts of impatient guests ; the clatter of table 
 implements, and the deep responsive "Ho!" of the barytone 
 cook, who rivals the " Garcon Lablache" of the Palais Eoyal 
 Cafe in his low notes, — what with all this, the meal is delightful 
 at least when you get used to it. On your first visit the row 
 takes all your appetite away, so intense is your terror. But 
 Mr. Ledbury and Jack were not so easily frightened. This is 
 what they each had. 
 
 YIOT, EESTAUEA^T. 
 
 Hue de la Harpe. 
 
 sous 
 1 Pot age {Puree aux Croutons) . . . q 
 
 This is, as tea-merchants say of three-and-sixpenny congou, 
 " a fine old-fashioned" soup. Its component parts°are 
 unknown ; but it is supposed to be made of dice of 
 bread fried in dripping, and then simmered in whatever 
 comes handy, from cabbage-water to kitchen-stuff, fla- 
 voured with diluted peas-pudding. It is very nourish- 
 
 1 Biftek aux Pommes . . . . Q 
 
 A popular dish. The "biftek" should more properly be 
 termed a rasher, as it is here cooked. It looks like a 
 large broiled mushroom. It is called beef, as cheese 
 is sometimes termed a rabbit, or certain preparations 
 of veal, " olives." Physiologists are divided in their 
 
 k2 
 
132 WILD OATS. 
 
 sous 
 opinions respecting it ; but the majority agree that it 
 is an artful combination of horse and india-rubber. 
 1 Haricots verts a VAnglaise . . . .3 
 
 An interesting example of the supposed advantage of 
 makiDg things foreign, " haricots a l'Anglaise" being 
 precisely what we call" French beans." They are eaten 
 with a curious lump of adipose substance, very similar 
 to that used to put into the boxes of railway wheels, 
 which is dabbed on the top, and allowed to melt there. 
 1 Fraises du Bois . . . . . .3 
 
 A little plate of wild strawberries, really very good when 
 eaten without another mysterious adjunct served with 
 them, which looks like a saucer full of whitewash. 
 The Oargon . . . . . .1 
 
 This is dropped into a vase on the counter, on which the 
 lady in attendance, who displays the slightest suspicion 
 in the world of rouge, gracefully inclines her head, in 
 return to the bow from the euest. 
 
 Total . . .19 
 
 Leaving change out of the franc. The " leg of beef soup, 
 with bread and potatoes, for threepence," in St. Giles's, is the 
 only dinner that beats this for cheapness. Berthollini cannot 
 be mentioned in the same breath. 
 
 The dinner being over, the party repaired to one of the cafes 
 in the Rue de l'Ecole de Medecine, and here the remainder of 
 the afternoon was spent in billiards. Mr. Ledbury did not 
 particularly shine in the game. He played with wrong balls, 
 and never knew which was the spot ; and sent it flying, when 
 he did, over the cushions, and out of the window, and down 
 stairs, and into all kinds of irregular places ; and, although he 
 was always chalking his cue, this did not improve his play, 
 until at last, having cut the cloth into a right-angled laceration, 
 he gave it up, and, ordering his " demi-tasse" and accompani- 
 ment, looked on. 
 
 Jack continued to play, as well as the artist, and at last they 
 got up a large game at pool, which Henri was fortunate enough 
 to win. And, as the evening was advancing, Mr. Ledbury 
 thought it was time to call for Clara, which proposition was 
 readily agreed to. Jules and Henri also — by such a lucky 
 
MR. LEDBURY REVISITS PARIS. 133 
 
 chance — met Eulalie, and Sophie, and Helo'ise, so that each had 
 now a companion. Jack offered his arm to the latter — a dark- 
 eyed, very-Vicked-indeed-looking Lyonnaise. He could not do 
 otherwise, of course, if only from mere politeness. Perhaps it was 
 as well Emma did not see him : not that there was the slightest 
 harm in it, but ladies' imaginations, in matters of jealousy, 
 are like microscopes, and make the most wonderful images out 
 of the smallest objects, magnifying tiny innocent creatures into 
 monsters so terrible that the normal state of the earth cannot 
 show their parallel. As it was, they were all very joyous, and 
 Henri promised to spend all his winnings in festivity that 
 evening; upon which they proceeded together to the Cafe 
 Anglais, to the great delight of the grisettes, who had never 
 aspired beyond the Palais Royal. 
 
 Be sure that the supper was noisy enough. A reunion of 
 this kind can never be very dull on the Boulevards ; for, putting 
 on one side the lights, and lustres, and looking-glasses, the 
 busy, cheerful noise of life and relaxation, and the constant 
 motion of the guests, as attributes at all cafes, increased in 
 estaminets by the click of billiard-balls and the rollicking of 
 dominoes, there is a most joy-inspiring air about the houses on 
 the Boulevards. The hundreds of twinkling lamps on the stalls 
 round the theatres and at the side of the hack carriages — the 
 perambulating marcliands, each also with his little basket illu- 
 minated — the twanging of guitars and harps, or the jingling 
 hum of tambourines, and the countless, indescribable vocal and 
 instrumental sounds in all directions — the leaping forth of eman- 
 cipated corks, when a bottle of Iimona.de gazeuse creates as 
 great an effect as one of champagne, — all contribute to an en- 
 semble which defies anything like melancholy. 
 
 Mr. Ledbury was never so rich. The jokes he made were 
 perfectly marvellous ; and so the rest would have thought, if 
 they could have understood but one word of them ; but puns 
 are* difficult to translate into French, and especially Mr. Led- 
 bury's ; but when they did not laugh at what he said, they 
 laughed at him himself, which made him just as happy. And 
 when he showed them how to draw up cherries into his mouth 
 by the stalk, and finally to put the large claw of the lobster on 
 his nose, my heart, how they all screamed! so rapturously, that 
 Henri got black in the face, and Jack got up and untied his 
 neckcloth, and patted his back ; which medical proceeding only 
 increased the uproar to such a pitch, that some dressed-to-death 
 
134 WILD OATS. 
 
 English ladies, whose husbands had taken them from their 
 hotels to see the cafes, insisted that staying there any longer 
 was not proper, and declared such disgraceful creatures ought 
 not to be permitted to come in ! And yet, au fond, there was 
 no great harm in the merry party ; and the little grisettes 
 might, perhaps, have held their heads as high and proudly as any 
 of the " Browns," who appeared angry that, after loading them- 
 selves with all the expensive things they could procure, they 
 did not produce any effect like the trim figures, close-fitting 
 lareges, and wicked little caps of French girls. 
 
 At last they found that they had all ordered as much as they 
 had money to pay for, which alone brought the festival to an 
 end ; and then they all turned out upon the boulevard to go 
 home, chorusing some popular polka, which Mr. Ledbury illus- 
 trated with Clara in front of them along the pavement ; for it 
 was &pas he ever loved to dance, knowing his elegance therein. 
 Indeed, such was his devotion to it, that nobody at last would 
 go with him to the Promenade Concerts, or the band in Ken- 
 sington-gardens ; for, whenever a polka was played, he incon- 
 tinently danced thereto, unless restrained by physical force, its 
 effect on him only being excelled by that which, as recent ob- 
 servation shows us, the high-pressure speed of a locomotive is 
 apt to have upon the natives of Ethiopia residing in Alabama. 
 And this dance and chorus lasted until they left the Boulevards, 
 and turned down towards the southern part of the city. 
 
 The night-police of Paris are not too obtrusive. The streets 
 are watched by the municipal guard, who go about in bodies, 
 and when they have passed you may play up whatever^ games 
 you like for the next half-hour, from the indefinite " old goose- 
 berry" — if you know it — to the devil, who is at all times very 
 popular and ubiquitous here. And so Jack, who was becoming 
 very light-hearted, commenced the sports and pastimes by leap- 
 ing up and pulling down one of the little boards labelled "Ap- 
 partement garni a louer presentement" which hang in such 
 numbers over the portes cocheres of the houses. This species 
 of entertainment, being new in Paris, was immediately pro- 
 nounced a hit ; and accordingly the gentlemen started 'off on 
 either side of the way, taking a jump at all they saw, until they 
 had collected a dozen of them at the end of the street. The 
 question now arose as to how these should be carried, when 
 Henri saw a tempting-looking board over a shop, on which was 
 painted the sign of a man making chocolate in his shirt-sleeves, 
 
MB. LEDBURY REVISITS PARIS. 135 
 
 and it was accordingly doomed. By a little modification of 
 what circus-bills call " the human pyramids of the Athenian 
 acrobats of the Pyrenees," they contrived to climb upou one 
 another's shoulders until they pulled it down ; and then they 
 stacked the other little boards upon it. 
 
 There was a little debate as to who should carry it. At 
 length, by each statiug that he did not dare to do it, they 
 got Mr. Ledbury to say he would, for he thought the act of 
 bravery would distinguish him in the eyes of the young ladies ; 
 and, accordingly, he put the board on his head, and marched on, 
 having crushed his hat down like a Gibus, but with no chance, 
 like a Gibus, of springing up again. But this he did not mind; 
 for he felt that he was the " marquis," so to speak, of the party, 
 and that was all in all sufficient ; so he balanced his cargo with 
 one arm, and offered the other to Clara, as proud as an under- 
 taker carrying the tray of feathers, like pies, in front o£ his 
 first carriage-funeral. 
 
 Now they had all got somewhere to put the things, they did 
 not mind what they took possession of. They pulled down a 
 great red tin hand from a glovemaker's, and a cocked-hat from 
 another shop, and, finally, carried off half a dozen plaster masks 
 of Grisi, Eubini, Thillon, Plessy, and others, which hung at the 
 entrance of the Galerie Colbert, until Mr. Ledbury could 
 scarcely move ; but he kept bravely on until they reached the 
 Place des Victoires, when, on arriving at the foot of Louis the 
 Fourteenth's statue, he gasped out that he must rest a minute, 
 which was agreed to. 
 
 " Now, look here, Leddy," said Jack, struck by a sudden 
 idea. " I've got a notion that will immortalise you." 
 
 " What is it, Jack?" asked Titus, eagerly. 
 
 " See this board with ' Unfurnished room to let' on it. What 
 do you say to tying this round the head of the statue, and leav- 
 ing it there ?" 
 
 " Glorious ! capital !" said Mr. Ledbury ; " I'll do it !" 
 
 " Stop !" said Jack ; " take your time. Mind the rails— there 
 — now — be sure of your footing. I should like to do it myself, 
 only you are the tallest." 
 
 With a boldness that only the grisettes' eyes and the cham- 
 pagne could have given him, Mr. Ledbury, by the help of his 
 long arms and legs, contrived to reach the statue, and fix the 
 announcement on his head. But he had barely finished this, 
 when Jack, who was ever on the qui vive, heard something like 
 
136 WILD OATS. 
 
 the measured tramp in one of the streets running into the 
 Place, and exclaimed, in a quick, alarmed voice, 
 
 " Look out, boys ! Here's the guard coming round. Get 
 down, Leddy, get down ! Jules ! Henri ! take up the boards 
 and things. We must be off. Keep the pedestal between 
 them and ourselves. Leddy, look sharp, I tell you — down the 
 Eue des Petits Champs!" 
 
 They were all on the alert. Unwilling to leave their prizes, 
 they lifted up the board, and, followed by the grisettes, went 
 off as swiftly and as quietly as they could down the street 
 Johnson had indicated. But poor Mr. Ledbury — he was in a 
 sad way. His coat-tails had got, somehow or other, by some 
 strange accident, which never would have occurred to anybody 
 but himself, entangled in the metal trappings of the horse, and 
 he could not move. He uttered a fearful cry to " Stop !" as 
 the .others flitted off; but it was of no avail. The next minute 
 the guard entered the Place, and, seeing his outline against 
 the moonbeams, marched up to him, and ordered him to de- 
 scend. Eor a moment a wild thought entered his head of 
 keeping them at bay, knowing they could not reach him with 
 their accoutrements ; but at the very first demonstration made 
 to this effect, the muskets were pointed at him, and he was 
 compelled, with the loss of his tails, to come down. 
 
 Meanwhile, Jack, unwilling to leave him all alone, returned 
 with the Lyonnaise in the rear of the guard ; and they stood 
 looking on as casual spectators, until Mr. Ledbury reached the 
 ground in a sorry plight enough. He immediately perceived 
 his friend, and Jack feared he should also be apprehended in 
 consequence of the recognition. Wonderfully enough, Mr. 
 Ledbury saw in an instant the utter futility of showing that 
 they were acquainted ; but he felt somewhat comforted that 
 Jack was near him, and directly, without a word, accompanied 
 the patrol to the Corps de Garde as a prisoner — his second ap- 
 pearance in that character since we first knew him in Paris. 
 
 There was something so very novel in the charge, that the 
 head-patrol scarcely knew what to make of it ; but he saw 
 enough to be convinced that Mr. Ledbury was in a state of 
 fermented beverages ; and, therefore, instead of locking him up, 
 as he looked respectable, he allowed him to sit until morning 
 in the lodge ; and then, assured that he was no agent to any 
 secret society, and that the placard had no reference to shoot- 
 ing at royalty, he sent a guard up with him to his lodgings, to 
 
MB. LEDBURY REVISITS PARIS. 137 
 
 ascertain if his address was true. He was pleased to see Jack 
 waiting for him at the door of the Corps de Grarde ; and he was 
 followed hy his friend to the Hue Kacine, wherein his lodgings 
 were situated. 
 
 As they went up-stairs, Johnson passed quickly by them, and 
 whispered a word or two to Ledbury in English ; and then he 
 continued on, until he came to the artists' studio, into which 
 they entered, followed by the landlord, the porter, the porter's 
 wife, one or two lodgers, and some idlers, whom the appearance 
 of the guard had brought together, in the expectation of seeing 
 a room discovered full of infernal machines, seditious papers, 
 and arms of all sorts. 
 
 Mr. Ledbury's room was here indicated to the authorities, 
 and they were about to enter it, when Titus threw himself 
 before it, and begged they would desist ; but finding that the 
 guard, which never yielded generally, was not disposed to do so 
 on the present occasion in particular, he next changed from the 
 suppliant to the heroic state, and, thumping his breast, said 
 that if they entered it should be through his heart, which would 
 have been a curious way of getting into a room. Whereupon 
 the Sergent de Ville asked him for his key, which Mr. Ledbury 
 produced, and with a melodramatic " Jamais !" threw it far 
 away through the window. On this, the word was given to 
 apply the butt-ends of the guns to the door ; and, as the iron- 
 work of France is not celebrated for massive strength, it yielded 
 at the first blow. What was the surprise of the party to see, 
 surrounded by the masks, tin gloves, boards, and cocked-hats — 
 the spoils of 'the preceding night— the pale, trembling, pretty 
 form of Clara, the little Belgian ! 
 
 You must not prejudice her. Let us hasten to show how 
 she came there ; for appearances are certainly against her. She 
 had gone home with the others ; but finding it so late, and 
 afraid to ring up the concierge of her house, who was a terrible 
 babbler, the rest had offered her Mr. Ledbury's room, knowing 
 pretty well that he would be furnished that night with a lodging 
 by the authorities; and the champagne and advanced hours 
 had kept the grisette in bed far bevond her usual time. To 
 this effect had Jack spoken to Mr. Ledbury on the staircase ; 
 and this accounted for his chivalric behaviour. 
 
 The proprietor of the house was in a dreadful state of vir- 
 tuous indignation at the discovery, and the various articles 
 strewed about the chamber increased his wrath. He bustled 
 
138 WILD OATS. 
 
 into the room, and turned poor Clara out in the most ungallant 
 manner by the shoulder, on which Mr. Ledbury would have 
 flown at him, but for the guard ; and then, kicking the various 
 articles to the landing with his foot, he seemed inclined to in- 
 clude Mr. Ledbury with them. At all events, he told him to 
 quit the house that instant ; that he forgave him all his rent, 
 but that he should not stay there a minute longer, so that he 
 had better follow his carpet-bag, which he had already got to 
 the floor below. Upon this the lodgers started a great cry of 
 execration, which brought all the rest out of doors, and the 
 tumult increased to a pitch that was absolutely fearful, until 
 Mr. Ledbury reached the front gate, whence, from the new 
 feature given to his case by the stolen property, he was com- 
 pelled to return to the guard-house, as well as poor little Clara, 
 who already pictured herself in a long white dress, with her 
 hair down her shoulders, going to the guillotine. 
 
 Fortunately, the head-officer was a good fellow, who had been 
 a student himself, and at once saw the state of things. The 
 grisette was immediately acquitted ; and Mr. Ledbury was com- 
 pelled to give up his passport (which is equivalent to putting 
 in bail, as you cannot well move without it), and wait, under 
 the surveillance of the police, until such times as the people 
 should claim their goods, and the Procureur du Eoi should 
 " invite" him to appear at the Palais du Justice to explain his 
 motives ; and then he also was allowed to depart. 
 
 " "We must cut as fast as we can, Leddy," said Jack, as they 
 met outside. 
 
 " But I can't," replied Titus. " I must stay here, for they've 
 got my passport. And that pretty girl ! Keally — I don't know 
 — but I've put her in such a very awkward predicament, that I 
 think some little attention — I can't explain exactly — but now, 
 don't you, Jack ?" 
 
 " Oh, we'll set all that to rights," replied Johnson. " Tou 
 really are not safe to go alone yet, Leddy; but there's no mis- 
 take about it, we must be off, and sell them all. I'll manage 
 it." 
 
 And Jack was as good as his word. That very afternoon he 
 went to a railway friend of his, a gentleman who was in a tem- 
 porary state of provisionary exile, and got his passport vised 
 for England, promising to send it back to him in a letter as 
 soon as they arrived. And then he booked two places also that 
 afternoon in the Boulogne diligence, for himself in his own 
 
MR. LEDBURY REVISITS PARIS. 139 
 
 name, and Mr. Ledbury as Mr. Straggles, and departed at 
 once ; although, as Titus said, it tore his heart-strings to leave 
 the little Belgian so abruptly. But Johnson told him to have 
 a pipe, and promised to send her over six pair3 of English 
 stockings, which is a present grisettes prize above diamonds 
 and all other jewels of great price, and that then he would be 
 quite happy. 
 
 There was a little parting dinner at a restaurant, close to the 
 Messageries ; and Jules and Henri promised to come to England 
 in the spring. And — it ought scarcely to be mentioned in 
 fairness — just before he took his seat, Mr. Ledbury gave the 
 little Belgian a kiss, and not only one, but two or three good 
 downright long ones, all of them. And then they waved an 
 adieu, and the postilion " cree'd" as usual, and the conduct eur 
 lighted a cigar, and the passengers got silent and sleepy. And 
 being blessed with a quick journey and a fair passage, that time 
 the next day they were at Folkestone, once more under the 
 shelter of the British Lion, and out of all danger from guards, 
 guillotines, and galleys — and, perhaps, what is more, from 
 sparkling- eyed grisettes. 
 
( 140 ) 
 
 XII. 
 
 MRS. CRUDDLE'S ANNUAL ATTACK. 
 
 Eyeetbodt could not have lived where Mrs. Cruddle did. 
 It was at the end of a court, that went out of a lane, that opened 
 upon a street, that led into a great thoroughfare between St. 
 Paul's and the river. It was, furthermore, in a locality that 
 looked as if all the spare warehouses and private dwellings, left 
 after London was finished, had been turned into a neighbour- 
 hood by themselves, without any regard to order ; just as the 
 dealers in old furniture make up cabinets and davenports of 
 any old scraps of plain and ornamental woodwork thrown aside 
 by them after their great design has been achieved. 
 
 Her house, moreover, was difficult to arrive at. First of all, 
 the very cabmen were slow at finding it out, never, according 
 to the habits of their race, stopping to inquire of any one ; but 
 driving on, and on, and on, as if they expected some inherent 
 instinct would ultimately show them, or their horses, where to 
 stop. Next, if you walked and asked, your first hope, a pedes- 
 trian, would reply that he was a stranger in those parts, look 
 wistfully around him as if he sought some index floating in the 
 air, like the guiding hands in the "White Cat," and then pass 
 on. Tour second, a policeman, would keep you some minutes in 
 suspense, and finish the interview by admitting that he had 
 heard of the place, but confessing his ignorance of its exact 
 whereabouts ; and your final chance, a baker at the corner, 
 would not be sure whether it was the third turning or the 
 fourth. Lastly, if you found it out, your journey was all the way 
 one of great terror, from the chances that the overhanging wheels 
 of the huge waggons would grate you to death against the walls 
 of the narrow footway, which was only a kerb; or, that the 
 mighty woolpacks and sugar hogsheads, that hung from the 
 cranes high in air over this edging of pavement, would fall just 
 as you were passing under, and knock your head into your 
 stomach beyond all possible chance of recovery. 
 
 When, however, you arrived at Mrs. Cruddle's house, it was 
 not lively. It seemed to be all back rooms, go into whichever 
 one you would, even up at the top, except the very attic, whose 
 
MES. CRUDDLE'S ANNUAL ATTACK. 141 
 
 -windows opened upon a widely-extended thicket of chimney- 
 pots, ultimately lost in the smoke they were giving out, or a 
 falling and rising prairie of roofs, reminding one of nothing but 
 the view from a railway that runs into the heart of a great city. 
 But here Mrs. Cruddle had lived for twenty years. We men- 
 tion the lady more particularly than her husband, because his 
 claims to be considered an actual resident were less decided, 
 inasmuch as he was a " commercial gentleman," travelling for a 
 wholesale druggist, and having as many homes — at all of which 
 he was equally known and welcomed — as there were old com- 
 mercial inns in principal towns in Great Britain. Mrs. Cruddle, 
 however, could scarcely be considered a lone woman. Her 
 house was always filled with lodgers — clerks from Doctors' Com- 
 mons, boys from St. Paul's School, and young men from Pater- 
 noster-row ; and to all of these, as well as to her own family, 
 scattered about in various parts of the City, Mrs. Cruddle was 
 a mother. But at one time of the year the domestic position 
 of Mrs. Cruddle was considerably altered. Legal courts were 
 closed, holidays arrived at the school, and even in Paternoster- 
 row leaves of absence were granted between " magazine days ;" 
 so that the house became comparatively deserted. Mr. Cruddle 
 returned from his travels ; the tracts of chimney-pots became 
 more extended in the clear air ; theatres shut, and gardens 
 opened ; boats ran to Gravesend for sums that it would have 
 been dangerous to have sold a bottle-imp for ; and everything 
 proclaimed that the lazy end of summer had arrived. 
 
 And with it came a complaint to which Mrs. Cruddle had 
 long been subject. It was not cholera, nor influenza, nor any- 
 thing else that " went about" to the great delight of the doctors. 
 It did not depend upon states of the air, or sanitary neglect ; 
 nor was it like the potato disease, general, being in a measure 
 confined to England. It was, in fact, the very reverse of the 
 Swiss disease of over-love for the fatherland, consisting in an 
 irrepressible desire to get as far away from home as possible. 
 
 Mrs. Cruddle and her husband were such a happy couple, 
 that she knew she had only to express her wish for a change 
 of air to procure permission and the means forthwith. But 
 this did not do. For some incomprehensible organisation 
 of her woman's disposition, a request and a ready acquiescence 
 would have taken away all the pleasure of the trip. It was ab- 
 solutely necessary that the suggestion should come from her 
 husband, and that then light reasons should be given for its iin- 
 
142 WILD OATS. 
 
 practicability that year, and doubts urged as to its judiciousness. 
 And to effect this, she would at this period get up a sort of 
 mono drama, and perform it in a very truthful manner, com- 
 mencing by complaining of the closeness of the rooms, untying 
 her cap-strings, and opening all the windows, as she hinted at 
 the luxury of fresh air. Next she would envy Mrs. Saddler of 
 Knight Eider-street, and Mrs. Egg of Addle-hill, and the Drivers 
 of Great Carter-lane, for that they had all gone somewhere in 
 steam-boats ; and were, perhaps, enjoying nice wet feet on the 
 sands, or slipping off the green seaweed into the holes of the 
 periwinkle rocks, at that very moment. And the number of 
 minor diseases that attacked her, perfectly irreducible to any 
 medical category, would have puzzled the British College of 
 Health, whoever that gentleman may be. Into all these traps 
 Mr. Cruddle would good-temperedly fall, in the same kind 
 spirit in which you take the card which the conjuror evidently 
 forces on you, instead of brutally drawing one from the undis- 
 played portion of the pack ; so that at last Mrs. Cruddle, satis- 
 fied that the sea-air alone would do her good, prepared to put 
 it to the test. Her husband readily acquiesced in everything, 
 always excepting that he should be expected to go too, for all 
 the time. He enjoyed the holiday much more, he said, when it 
 only came once a week ; and so he settled to breathe sea- air 
 from Saturday until Monday, keeping in town all the rest of 
 the time. It is true during this space he was seen about at 
 resorts, dining at Blackwall, or going to Cremorne, with cer^ 
 tain old friends of his, wags of the travellers' rooms ; and these 
 same friends would also, now and then, assemble at his house, 
 upon the sly hint that "the broom was hung out," and smoke 
 cigars in the drawing-room during a rubber of very long whist. 
 But all this was very fair ; and Mrs. Cruddle, even, could not 
 be angry when she heard of it. 
 
 " And where do you think of going, my dear?" said Mr. 
 Cruddle to his partner, who, ever since the sojourn had been 
 determined upon, appeared to have been engaged in learning 
 Bradshaw by heart, all the way through, including cab-fares and 
 advertisements. " Gravesend ?" 
 
 " Now, Cruddle ! Gravesend !" answered the lady, reproach- 
 fully. " Gravesend for sea-bathing ! Why, it's nothing but 
 brackish mud and shrimps' tails. Besides, a shilling there and 
 back : what can you expect at such a price ?" 
 
 " Well, Margate, then?" 
 
MRS. CEUDDLE'S ANNUAL ATTACK. 143 
 
 " No, Cruddle, not Margate : no." And here Mrs. Cruddle 
 made that kind of face which people do when they, get the 
 first sight of the black draught they are about to take. " No, 
 the last bedstead I had there was quite enough for me. 
 Ugh !" 
 
 " "What was that, my dear ?" 
 
 " Don't ask me— no : a perfect colony of them. I never 
 shall forget Alfy saying he saw a little black ladybird on the 
 pillow." , , 
 
 " Oh! that was it, was it?" replied Mr. Cruddle; "thats 
 nothing at the sea-side, you know. You should see the fleas at 
 Chester. Lor ! he, he, "he ! We all used to laugh so." And 
 the recollection of them appeared so diverting that Mr. Cruddle 
 chuckled again. " Joe Eobins used to say always when he 
 got there, ' Now, Fanny !' he used to say, ' bring me the mouse- 
 trap.' — < La ! Mr. Eobins,' Fanny used to say, ' what do you 
 want with the mouse-trap ?'— ' What !' Joe always said, ' why, 
 to catch the fleas with, to be sure !' And then how they used 
 to laugh. Lor !" 
 
 And the mere reminiscence of the fun again threw Mr. 
 Cruddle into such a state of hilarity that he forgot all about the 
 subject of conversation, and, possibly, would not have reverted 
 to it again if Mrs. Cruddle had not answered some imaginary 
 question of her own by observing, " No, I never was so robbed 
 as I was that August at Eamsgate. The moist sugar alone 
 would keep me from ever going there again." 
 
 " Try Boulogne !" suggested Mr. Cruddle, brought back to 
 the topic. " It's very cheap, and uncommonly curious." 
 
 " France !" cried the lady. " My goodness gracious, Cruddle ! 
 " What— to be made into a barricade, or blown out of your 
 bedroom by artillery in the middle of the night, and then 
 guillotined. I do declare I've thought of nothing but that 
 room at Madame Tussaud's ever since the French Ee volution 
 began." 
 
 « -Well— I'm sure I don't know, my dear," said Mr. Cruddle. 
 
 " Now, look here," continued his wife, turning over to Brad- 
 shaw, " ' London and South- Western'— that's it." 
 
 " ' Cornelius Stovin, manager,' " read Mr. Cruddle. _ " Lor ! 
 what an odd name— Stove in ! How it puts you in mind of a 
 horse-box got on the wrong line and the express coming up." 
 
 "Now don't, Cruddle!" exclaimed the other; "you quite 
 make one nervous. See here : ' London to Southampton, second 
 
144 WILD OATS. 
 
 class, ten-and-six.' Now then, turn to the boats, and read. 
 There it is — ' Southampton ' " 
 
 " ' Southampton to Bombay, on the 3rd of every ' " 
 
 " No, no ! — ' to Ryde ;' there it is : ' all day long.' Very 
 convenient, isn't it ? And the Isle of "Wight is so very beauti- 
 ful — I think it must be the Isle of "Wight." 
 
 And the Isle of Wight was accordingly fixed on ; and it was 
 agreed that poor Miss Peers, who never had a holiday, and 
 thought so much of going out, was to accompany Mrs. Cruddle 
 on her tour. 
 
 Miss Peers was the useful friend of the Cruddle family — one 
 of those available persons who can always come whenever they 
 are asked — which is usually when they are most wanted — and 
 always look pleasant under the most trying domestic contre- 
 temps. She could do everything. Her Tarragon vinegar was 
 pronounced, by competent authorities, to be more than supe- 
 rior ; and no one could manage short-crust in a floured cloth so 
 successfully. She was artful with pink saucers, knew where 
 peculiar tints of worsted could be procured at the cheapest 
 rate, and understood tea-making to a marvel. If a servant 
 was discharged hurriedly by Mrs. Cruddle, Miss Peers always 
 knew of the very one to take her place. She possessed in her 
 head a whole library of secrets respecting rough-dried linen, 
 pickled onions, grape wine, plate powder, and clear-starching ; 
 and, the day after a party, knew where everything was to go 
 back to, what was left, and how it was to be disposed of, better 
 than the hostess herself. Hence she was a great treasure — a 
 real blessing to a mother like Mrs. Cruddle ; and as Mrs. Cruddle 
 never had any time to read anything, and Miss Peers — who was 
 suspected of shaving her forehead to bring out her intellect — 
 took in, or borrowed, all the cheap periodicals, and retailed 
 their contents during the stringing of a cullender of French 
 beans, or the repairing of a basket of the infant Cruddle socks, 
 she was as entertaining as useful. Besides which, she was a 
 great favourite with little Alfy, who was to accompany his 
 mother. 
 
 "We pass over intermediate matters — how the strange parcel 
 of umbrellas, cloaks, and spades of former years, for the sand 
 industry of little Alfy, quite astonished the guards on the rail- 
 way ; how they met a poor gentleman who had heedlessly got 
 into the wrong train, meaning to go to Richmond, and had 
 been whirled down to "Woking before he found it out, both 
 
MRS. CRUDDLE'S ANNUAL ATTACK. 145 
 
 starting at the same hour, and being in reality a reputable 
 and harmless man, had been looked upon as a swindler, made 
 to pay excess fare, and kept out of a lucrative commission ; 
 how they enjoyed the sea-trip, and Mrs. Cruddle declared 3he 
 was a capital sailor, and so was little Alfy, and Miss Peers too — 
 Southampton "Water and the Solent being as smooth as glass ; 
 and how Miss Peers showed Mrs. Cruddle Netley Abbey and 
 Calshot Castle, the first of which she had seen in some dissolv- 
 ing views at the Polytechnic, and the last in a pocket-book, as 
 well as at the top of an illustrated sheet of note-paper sent 
 very appropriately from the Mile-end-road. How they landed 
 ultimately at Eyde, and found that Portsmouth would have 
 been their proper line — but had been overlooked in a vague con- 
 ventional reminiscence of the coaching days — also formed a fea- 
 ture in the trip. But we omit all its detail, and plant our 
 party at Ventnor on the same evening, after having crossed 
 the island in, possibly, the only stage-coach left in England. 
 
 " "Well, I declare the sea-air makes me feel better already," 
 observed Mrs. Cruddle, looking upon her present condition of 
 perfect health as a remarkable cure ; " and I never saw a child 
 eat as Alfy did at tea. There's nothing like it." 
 
 Mrs. Cruddle made this remark to Miss Peers as they started 
 from the inn to look after lodgings. Miss Peers entirely coin- 
 cided with the assertion, forgetting that little Alfy had made 
 but an indifferent dinner on the railway from a dry sandwich, 
 with nothing to drink ; and that this might, in some degree, 
 account for the quantity of shrimps he had devoured, and the 
 number of times he had been choked by their heads and tails. 
 
 There were many lodgings to let, but none that suited. Some 
 were too dear, and others too dirty ; and at all Mrs. Cruddle 
 persisted in tasting the water, and telling a story of a friend of 
 her husband's who turned light blue through drinking from a 
 chalybeate pump constantly, and always got rusty in damp 
 weather afterwards. The search would have tired many people, 
 but Mrs. Cruddle was never so happy as when she was routing 
 about after apartments with no idea of where she would ulti- 
 mately go to bed that night. And of course Miss Peers was 
 happy, too ; and little Alfy, being lured on from one to the other, 
 under false promises of digging sand that very night, was equally 
 contented. 
 
 At last, quite at the end of the village, they found what they 
 wanted. It was a comical little house, something between a 
 
 L 
 
146 WILD OATS. 
 
 Swiss cottage and a donjon keep, with a flagstaff at the door, 
 and two wooden cannon on the roof, to which access could be 
 obtained. This much delighted Miss Peers., as from it she 
 could watch from the lonely tower, and see the rovers' barks in 
 the distance, with other romantic pleasures. And, perhaps, the 
 landlord might be a bold buccaneer ! It was charming. 
 
 There was everything they wanted. A sitting-room and two 
 bedrooms, one of which, looking towards the beach, was appro- 
 priated to Miss Peers, because she loved to hear the ocean's 
 murmur. Little Alfy had a sofa, since it was his custom to go 
 to sleep upon his hands and knees, with his head burrowing in 
 the pillow, which, although agreeable to himself, was less plea- 
 sant to a bedfellow. There were no carpets, but, as Mrs. 
 Cruddle said, that made the room more airy, and air was 
 everything at the sea-side ; and the furniture was singular and 
 scanty, which contented Miss Peers declared was half the charm 
 of a lodging. So that it was all just as if it was made for them ; 
 and so cheap, too, they could scarcely understand it. 
 
 Of course there was nothing in the house. There never is at 
 lodgings ; and it is wonderful to think how the real natives live 
 without salt, vinegar, potatoes, or any other of the inevitable 
 articles of consumption, the existence of which is always so 
 calmly denied, if they are asked, until the lodgers procure 
 their own. There was not even a bit of bread for Alfy, so 
 Miss Peers started forth to procure comestibles, leaving Mrs. 
 Cruddle to unpack the boxes, which, having done, she sat 
 down to look around her. There was a curious air of desola- 
 tion in the rooms. Everything appeared to have been carried 
 off except the barest necessities. There were nails for pictures, 
 but none suspended therefrom ; and rods and hooks for cur- 
 tains, but none attached. The only well-stocked part of the 
 room was the mantelpiece, and this was covered with bottles of 
 sand, vases of seaweed, trifles from Shauklin, cockle pincushions, 
 shell dolls, and cats made of putty and periwinkles — articles 
 interesting from association, but of small intrinsic value. When 
 Miss Peers returned and they wanted something warm, there 
 was no fire ; and when they wanted the fire, there were no coals. 
 But Mrs. Cruddle was not put out ; she said they had come 
 suddenly, so they could not expect to find everything as at 
 home, and, after all, health was the greatest blessing. Upon 
 which they fell back upon cracknels and cold weak brandy-and- 
 water, giving Alfy a little in a glass egg-cup ; for there were 
 no wine-glasses in the house. 
 
MRS. CRUDDLE's AXNUAL ATTACK. 147 
 
 However, they slept very soundly. Had they not been tired 
 with the journey, the constant murmur of talk that went on in 
 the kitchen nearly all night would have disturbed them, and 
 induced much speculation upon its import. Bat once off, their 
 slumber endured until morning. Mrs. Cruddle dreamt that 
 her husband came down on Sunday and brought a dozen friends 
 with him, and that they had nothing for dinner but one duck. 
 Little Alfv fancied he 'had due: such a large hole in the sand 
 that he tumbled into it, which awoke him with a start ; and 
 Miss Peers's visions were of becoming the bride of a bold buc- 
 caneer, more or less Grecian in appearance, varied with notions 
 of being a mermaid in coral submarine caves, where lobsters 
 and home-made pickled salmon could be had for the mere 
 trouble of catching. 
 
 Very bright and beautiful was the next morning, when the 
 ladies first looked from their windows — lovely as the first fine 
 morning at the sea-side always is to a Londoner. Not a cloud 
 was to be seen in the blue sky, except a few white mists which 
 occasionally rolled across the summits of the more lofty hills. 
 In some places the downs were covered with small white dots, 
 which a closer inspection would have proved to have been 
 sheep ; in others, with long, sloping wheat-fields, which, as the 
 wind came, waved gracefully in a thousand billows, revealing 
 the corn-flowers, and bright, intruding poppies growing over 
 them. Cockney architecture had been lavished on the village, 
 but it could not destroy the beauty of the undercliff ; and sea- 
 ward the tide splashed its sparkling foam upon the rocks and 
 pebbles of the beach, with a sound perfectly musical. Mrs. 
 Cruddle pronounced herself better than ever she had been in 
 her life, breathing, indeed, with the greatest ease ; and Miss 
 Peers's was equally salubrious ; whilst xllfy's appetite astonished 
 them both as much as the traditional Jack's did the easily- 
 imposed-upon giant, whose hospitality was so craftily taken 
 advantage of at breakfast. They settled to go out directly 
 after the meal and market — it was a sin to lose an instant of 
 such lovely weather — and, accordingly, off they started. But, 
 upon their return, they found the door of the house fast closed ; 
 and Mrs. Grit, the landlady, looking out of the first-floor 
 window in great apparent anxiety, increased as she saw them 
 approach. 
 
 " Just wait one minute — only a minute, ladies," said Mrs. 
 Grit. " I am very sorrv to keep you, but it can't be helped." 
 
 l2* 
 
148 WILD OATS. 
 
 Mrs. Cruddle and Miss Peers looked at the landlady and 
 tlien at each other, rather bewildered. 
 
 " I want my spade !" ejaculated Alfy. 
 
 " A low, sneaking fellow !" continued Mrs. Grit, watching the 
 retreating form of the man. " It will be quite safe directly, 
 ladies," she added to her lodgers. 
 
 " Mamma, you said I might go on the sand as soon as you 
 bad bought the mutton-chops," Alfy went on. 
 
 " Now tben, ladies — now then!" cried Mrs. Grit, hurriedly, 
 as she disappeared from the window. " But please make 
 haste." 
 
 "What can this mean?" thought Mrs. Cruddle and Miss 
 Peers. 
 
 "That's the way to the sand," said Alfy; "and I know 
 there's periwinkles, and starfish, and little crabs, like there 
 was at Margate." 
 
 The door was here opened a little way as Mrs. Grit looked 
 out. Then she allowed the party to enter, as soon as she was 
 satisfied that they had not changed places with anybody else ; 
 and, finally, she slammed the door again, with nervous haste, 
 and shot the bolt. 
 
 " The beggars are abominable," said Mrs. Grit, when the 
 feeling of security was re-established : " so unpleasant, too, for 
 you ladies to be kept waiting. But it is not my fault." 
 
 Prom the imperfect view obtained of the man who had de- 
 parted as they came up, Mrs. Cruddle did not think that he 
 looked very like a beggar. He was florid and hearty, well clad, 
 and carried a walking-stick. 
 
 " I cannot understand this at all," she said to Miss Peers, as 
 they entered their sitting-room. 
 
 " I think there must be smuggling going on ; if so, the 
 Prench brandy is remarkably good for cherries," replied the 
 other lady, in whose mind romance and domestic economy were 
 ever mingled. " A smuggler — dear me ! I wish I had taken 
 more notice of him." 
 
 " Once I w^ent on the sands directly after breakfast." hinted 
 Alfy, " and was so good all day afterwards." 
 
 But the suggestion was unattended to in the curiosity of the 
 minute. 
 
 Anon new matter for wonder arose. The butcher's boy 
 arrived with some meat that had been ordered, and instead of 
 delivering it in at the door, in the ordinarv method, was told 
 
MRS. CRUDDLE's ANNUAL ATTACK. 149 
 
 by Mrs. Grit to wait until she got a long piece of string, by 
 which the shoulder of lamb was pulled up to the bedroom 
 window. And then, as little Alfy still kept indulging in illu- 
 sions of the sea-coast, it was thought proper to indulge him. 
 But just as they were about to start, Mrs. Grit put herself be- 
 fore the door, in the attitude of a stage heroine, who declares 
 that if anybody attempts to pass it shall be over her dead body, 
 and implored them to wait a minute. 
 
 " He is here !" she exclaimed, but almost in a whisper. " It 
 is not safe just now — pray wait a minute, ladies." 
 
 Mrs. Cruddle grew still more astonished. As for Miss Peers, 
 she at once put down the object of alarm as a sea-Chartist, or 
 something equally terrible. Every attempt to procure a tran- 
 quil explanation from Mrs. Grit was a failure. She only re- 
 plied that she was a wretched woman, but that they should one 
 day know all : and then, beckoning them to the back of the 
 house, opened the kitchen door, after a cautious survey through 
 the window, almost pushed them out, and banged it to, as 
 before, after them. Under these mysterious circumstances the 
 walk was not agreeable ; and although little Alfy was in high 
 spirits, and heaped up shingles, dug holes, collected marine 
 trash, and got his feet wet after the most approved fashion, 
 and in a way that would, at another time, have called forth the 
 highest encomiums, Mrs. Cruddle and Miss Peers had a cloud 
 hanging over them which prevented them from fully entering 
 into the spirit of his diversions. Their return was attended 
 with still greater unpleasantry. They were not admitted for 
 half an hour, and then in a hurried manner by a French 
 window, just as the mysterious stranger appeared round the 
 corner of the house. All this was so bad, that Mrs. Cruddle 
 determined to leave the place the next morning. Even the few 
 hours of it, she said, were beginning to undermine her health. 
 
 . The afternoon passed very uncomfortably, and at last they 
 went to bed, sleeping less readily than on the preceding even- 
 ing, but towards morning falling into a deep slumber. From 
 this Miss Peers was awakened by a noise in her room, and, 
 opening her eyes, she observed, to her horror, that the dreaded 
 man had opened her window, which she had neglected to fasten, 
 and stepped into her chamber. He now stood at the foot of 
 the bed. 
 
 " "Who are you ? Go away ! What do you want, man r" cried 
 Miss Peers, with a ringing scream. 
 
150 WILD OATS. 
 
 u Don't be afraid, ma'am, it's an execution," replied the in- 
 truder. 
 
 " A what !" shrieked. Miss Peers ; and by this time her cries 
 had brought Mrs. Cruddle into the room, who nearly fainted. 
 She had caught the man's word, and expected nothing else but 
 that everybody was to be put out of the way immediately. 
 
 " I'm sorry to intrude," continued the man; "but don't dis- 
 tress yourselves now. Only I'm in possession now, that's all." 
 
 "Oh!" gasped the ladies; Mrs. Cruddle having wrapped 
 her form in the bed-curtain, and Miss Peers pulled the counter- 
 pane up to her very eyes. 
 
 The truth dawned upon them. They saw that the miserable 
 state of the house was owing to everything available having 
 been sold, and that their difficulty of egress and entry was ac- 
 counted for by the presence of the man. 
 
 " Leave the room !" cried Mrs. Cruddle. " Leave the room, 
 and let us pack up our things at once, and go. "Well — I'm 
 sure!" 
 
 "Beg your pardon, ladies," said the man; "but you can't 
 move a thing. I'm in possession." 
 
 " But everything you see is ours — these boxes, and clothes, 
 and linen even." 
 
 '• Very sorry, ma'am," said the man ; " but you mustn't touch 
 'em. They all belong to me." 
 
 Mrs. Cruddle uttered a cry of despair, and threw herself 
 upon the reclining form of Miss Peers. Little Alfy heard the 
 noise, and came in, joining his screams to the confusion, as he 
 clung to his mother. The tableau of horror — helpless, crushing 
 horror — was complete. 
 
 TT "TV* » "«• w 
 
 The straits to which the unfortunate ladies were reduced, 
 how they could not even get a pocket-handkerchief, how they 
 did not dare to write to Mr. Cruddle, and how he arrived on 
 Saturday in the middle of it, will be detailed to anybody who 
 passes the house at Ventnor, and may care to call. But Mrs. 
 Cruddle is supposed to be cured. As violent remedies at 
 times put a stop to long-standing diseases, this terrible adven- 
 ture is supposed to have annihilated her marine propensities. 
 At all events, she confidently told Miss Peers, on the evening 
 of their return to the court in London, that " there was nothing 
 like home after all." 
 
( 151 ) 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE QUEEN OF THE FETE. 
 
 1. THE DAT BEFORE. 
 
 (To he read with liveliness.*) 
 
 Ie you're waking, call me early, mother, fine, or wet, or bleak ; 
 To-morrow is the happiest day of all the Ascot week ; 
 It is the Chiswick fete, mother, of flowers and people gay, 
 And I'll be queen, if I may, mother ; I'll be queen, if I may. 
 
 There's many a bright barege, they say, but none so bright as 
 mine, 
 
 And whiter gloves, that have been cleaned, and smell of tur- 
 pentine ; 
 
 But none so nice as mine, I know, and so they all will say ; 
 
 And I'll be queen, if I may, mother ; I'll be queen, if I may. 
 
 I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake, 
 If you do not shout at my bedside, and give me a good shake ; 
 Tor I have got those gloves to trim, with blonde and ribbons 
 
 g a . v > 
 And I'm to be queen, if I may, mother ; I'm to be queen, if I 
 
 may. 
 
 As I came home to-day, mother, whom think you I should meet, 
 But Harry — looking at a cab, upset in Oxford-street ; 
 He thought of when we met, to learn the Polka of Miss Eae — 
 But I'll be queen, if I may, mother ; I'll be queen, if I may. 
 
 They say he wears mustachios, that my chosen he may be ; 
 They say he's left; off raking, mother — what is that to" me ? 
 I shall meet all the Fusiliers upon the Chiswick day ; 
 And I will be queen, if I may, mother ; I will be queen, if I may. 
 
 The night cabs come and go, mother, with panes of mended glass, 
 And all the things about us seem to clatter as they pass : 
 The roads are dry and dusty : it will be a fine, fine day, 
 And I'm to be queen, if I may, mother; I'm to be queen, if I may. 
 
152 WILD OATS. 
 
 The weather-glass hung in the hall has turned to " fair" from 
 
 " showers," 
 The seaweed crackles and feels dry, that's banging 'midst the 
 
 flowers, 
 Vauxhall, too, is not open, so 'twill be a fine, fine day, 
 And I will be queen, if I may, mother ; I will be queen, if I may. 
 
 So call me, if you're waking; call me, mother, from my rest — 
 The "Middle Horticultural" is sure to be the best. 
 Of all the three, this one will be the brightest, happiest day ; 
 And I will be queen, if I may, mother ; I will be queen, if I may. 
 
 2. THE DAY AFTEB. 
 
 (Sloiv, with sad exjyression.') 
 
 If you're waking, call me early — call me early, mother dear ; 
 The soaking rain of yesterday has spoilt my dress, I fear ; 
 I've caught a shocking cold, mamma, so make a cup for me 
 Of what sly folks call blackthorn, and facetious grocers, tea. 
 
 I started forth in floss and flowers to have a pleasant day, 
 When all at once down came the wet, and hurried all away, 
 And now there's not a flower but is washed out by the rain : 
 I wonder if the colours, mother, will come round again ? 
 
 I have been wild and wayward, but I am not wayward now ; 
 I think of my allowance, and I am sure I don't know how 
 I shall make both ends meet. Papa will be so wild ! 
 He says already, mother, I'm his most expensive child. 
 
 Just say to Harry a kind word, and tell him not to fret ; 
 Perhaps I was cross, but then he knows it was so very wet ; 
 Had it been fine — I cannot tell — he might have had my arm, 
 But the bad weather ruined all, and spoilt my toilet's charm. 
 
 I'll wear the dress again, mother — I do not care a pin — 
 Or, perhaps, 'twill do for Effie, but it must be taken in ; 
 But do not let her see it yet — she's not so very green, 
 And will not take it until washed and ironed it has been. 
 
 So, if you're waking, call me, when the day begins to dawn ; 
 I dread to look at my barege — it must be so forlorn ; 
 We'll put in the rough-dried box; it may come out next year ; 
 So, if you're waking, call me — call me early, mother dear. 
 
( 153 ) 
 XIV. 
 
 THE TRADITION OF "THE FOLLY" AT CLIFTON. 
 
 We heard a story once of a respectable tradesman, some- 
 where in the country, who had an old horse that was accus- 
 tomed to go round and round in a mill for the purpose of grind- 
 ing some article or another used in his business ; in fact, the 
 animal never did anything else. But one day his master took 
 it into his head to attend some neighbouring races with his 
 family, and Dobbin was accordingly brought from the mill and 
 promoted to the four-wheeled chaise, being his first appearance 
 in that character for many years. But such was the habit he 
 had acquired in the mill, that the minute his master gave the 
 customary expression of a desire to start, the horse turned 
 short round, and, falling into his usual routine, described a circle 
 with the chaise, and then another, and another : just like one 
 of Mr. Cooke's rapid act steeds at a circus, when the gentleman 
 in flesh all-overs is making up his mind to jump over the piece 
 of striped stair-drugget : until his owner, finding that it was of 
 no use trying to make him go in any other manner, gave up the 
 excursion in despair. 
 
 But you will say, " What has all this to do with ' The Folly' 
 at Clifton ?" Just this : that the labours of a periodical writer 
 may be in some measure compared to those of the mill-horse 
 mentioned above ; and that if he keeps going on too long with- 
 out diversion, he will fall into the same jog-trot style, and never 
 be able to get out of it. And so, finding that our ideas were, 
 so to speak, getting perfectly mouldy from want of change, we 
 resolved upon making a rash start, and going we scarcely knew 
 whither, but with a determination not to leave our address in 
 London. We invested sixpence in the purchase of a BracMaw, 
 and tried the ancient divining process of pricking the leaves 
 with a pin. It opened at the Great Western, which has three 
 pages all to itself; so, cramming a few things into a curtailed 
 carpet-bag of so miraculous a nature that it is never so full 
 but you can stow something else into it, we rose with the lark — 
 or rather the ragged bird who hangs outside the second-floor 
 window of the next house, and does duty for one— and started 
 for Bristol. 
 
154 WILD OATS. 
 
 A bell — a squeal — and we are off. Deep London cuttings, 
 and a distant view of Kensal Green; the Hanwell Viaduct, 
 with its rich pastures below ; the grey profile of Windsor 
 Castle on the left, and then the Slough Station, where all the 
 •up-and-down lines appear to cross, and twist, and tie them- 
 selves into knots, and yet seldom bring about a collision. On 
 again ! Maidenhead is passed, and the fair woods of Clifden, 
 glorious in the noontide heat, and the springs where the Wind- 
 sor and Eton people have such pleasant pic-nics. Then a long, 
 long cutting, where you see nothing for miles but a bank ; then 
 Heading gaol — ruins and churches flying by, or rather, we are ; 
 rich plains and distant headlands, with the diminished Thames 
 creeping through the green pastures here and there, until we 
 are at Swindon, where the noble refreshment-rooms, and the 
 pretty girls who attend them, are as much worth seeing as 
 anything else upon the line, and well deserve the ten minutes' 
 grace allowed to hungry travellers. By the way, there were 
 prettier girls once at Wolverton, but they have flown. We 
 suppose they have been married off. 
 
 On arriving at the noble terminus at Bristol, which puts one 
 in mind of Westminster Hall compressed, we climbed an atten- 
 dant omnibus bound for Clifton. The flys attached to the 
 railway form the most ludicrous collection of those vehicular 
 insects ever known, being of all possible shapes and dimensions ; 
 but looking to the extraordinary hills they contrive to climb, 
 they approach nearer to the common fly in their nature than 
 any others ; for we are convinced, if need were, they would go 
 up the wall of a house. We wound through a lot of old streets, 
 bounded by old houses, amongst which we will particularise the 
 White Hart Inn : just such a house as you could fancy flung 
 back the sunlight from its lozenged casements in Chepe in the 
 olden time, whilst the 'prentices played at buckler below. Then 
 we crossed a bridge over the Avon, which is here a dock, and 
 got upon the quays. This part of the city is exceedingly like 
 an English translation of Havre, with the exception that we 
 miss the cockatoos, Java sparrows, shells, and monkeys, with 
 which the latter place abounds. 
 
 After toiling up a succession of hills — dusty, shadowless, 
 and baking — until we began to entertain doubts as to whether 
 we were not at once going to the moon, we were deposited at 
 an hotel at Clifton, and soon started off a pied to see the chief 
 lion. This is St. Vincent's Bock — a cross-breed between the 
 Drachenfels on the Bhine, and Windmill Hill at Gravesend, 
 
THE TKADITION OF " THE FOLLY" AT CLIFTON. 155 
 
 so renowned for their separate Barons, Siegfried and Nathan. 
 It is certainly very beautiful ; but our first impressions of the 
 Avon were not favourable, its appearance being that of dirty 
 pea-soup. It was low water, to be sure : when the tide is in 
 there is a vast difference, but still the colour is the same. The 
 scenery around is most lovely ; it is a portion of the Ehine 
 seen through the wrong end of a telescope, or rather a glass of 
 very diminishing power. Far away, over the hills, you can trace 
 the* Severn, and beyond this the view is bounded by the blue 
 "Welsh mountains ; whilst inland there are a number of equally 
 charming prospects, although of a different nature. On the 
 opposite banks are beautiful woods, with cottages for making 
 tea, which are always thronged with visitors, chiefly of the 
 working classes, and" a fine pure atmosphere it is for them to 
 escape into, from the confined air of Bristol. Their great 
 amusement is swinging, six or seven of these machines being 
 always in motion ; and the white dresses of the girls, oscillating 
 amongst the trees, have a curious effect. 
 
 If you look towards the sea, you will perceive, higb up on 
 the hill, a round tower ; and if you ask any native of the place 
 what it is, he will tell you it is called " The Folly." Why it is 
 so named we are going to tell you, for of course there is a tra- 
 dition attached to it. A tower without a tradition would be a 
 public building without a public discontent at its design — a 
 cab without a broken-kneed horse— a fancy ball without a King 
 Charles or a Bochester — a burlesque without a joke upon " cut 
 your stick" — a number of Punch without one of Mr. Leech's 
 pretty girls — a list of new books without one from Mr. Trol- 
 lope, or Mrs. Gaskell ; or any other improbability. This, then, 
 is the story : 
 
 In that romantic epoch which forms the middle age between 
 the periods of " once upon a time" and " there was formerly a 
 king" — the era of everything that was wonderful in the fairy 
 chronicles — there was, one day in autumn, great feasting and 
 revelry on a very fine estate, whose homestead rose where the 
 tallest and oldest trees now cap the rocks opposite St. Vincent's 
 — a leafy wig kindly furnished by nature to the bald limestone. 
 They knew what revelry was in those days, when they really 
 went in for it. The retainers were not bored with speeches 
 about temperance and the wrongs of the poor man. They 
 were all allowed to feast, and dance, and tipple, and get won- 
 derfully drunk just as they pleased ; and on this particular day 
 they did so with a vengeance, for it was a very joyful occa- 
 
156 WILD OATS. 
 
 sion. The lady of the house had presented her liege lord with 
 a little son and heir, after he had waited several years for the 
 arrival of the small stranger ; and so, in his joy, he presented 
 all his household with a little sun and air as well, giving them 
 a grand banquet on his lawo, and extending his invitations to 
 everybody round about the country who chose to come. And 
 a rare feast they made of it. They roasted a dozen oxen entire ; 
 and tapped more barrels of beer than all the horses of all the 
 brewers in England could have drawn, had they kindly lent 
 them for the occasion; and after they had danced with the 
 girls, and flustered them with such ringing kisses that the very 
 woods echoed again ; and pitched about the plates and drinking- 
 mugs so recklessly that, had they been hired of a professed 
 lender of rout glass and china, a whole year's income would 
 not have covered the breakages. But luckily all the plates 
 were wooden platters, and the mugs black leather jacks, so 
 that they could have been kicked into the last quarter of the 
 next moon without injury. In fact, the girls' hearts were the 
 only things there that might have been ticketed " with care ;" 
 and several of these, the chronicles say, were broken outright 
 that day. 
 
 People who are clever in legendary lore find out that many 
 traditions bear a wonderful analogy to one another. Arabia, 
 Germany, France, and England, all lay claim to the same 
 stories ; and the Sultana Scheherazade, M. Grimm, the Coun- 
 tess d'Anois, and the Dowager Bunch were evidently originally 
 all of one family, but were driven by circumstances to settle in 
 different parts of the world. And so we did not wonder at 
 the opening event in the story being like a circumstance in the 
 life of " The Sleeping Beauty" — the unfortunate omission of 
 somebody who expected to have been invited to the birthday 
 festivities. This is, however, not so improbable, for we believe 
 there never was a large party given yet but a similar mistake 
 occurred. 
 
 However, although in the present case it was not a fairy, it 
 was somebody equally wonderful — no less a person than an 
 astrologer — one of those gentlemen who at the present time 
 live in back garrets in Paternoster-row and write almanacks, 
 but who formerly poked about in caves and hovels, and wore 
 old dressing-gowns covered with red tinsel copies of the signs 
 on the show-bottles of chemists and druggists and cheap 
 doctors, and studied enormous ledgers in a similar language, 
 as difficult for common eyes to read as the cypher on a young 
 
THE TRADITION OF " THE FOLLY" AT CLIFTON. 157 
 
 lady's note paper. He was not asked, because they knew he 
 was a wizard ; and they thought that if any of them inadver- 
 tently offended him he* would change the roast beef they were 
 eating to crooked pins and tin-tacks, or carry them up on the 
 stable brooms to indefinite heights above the level of the Avon, 
 and then let them fall on the rocks. In fact, they trusted to 
 his not hearing anything about it. 
 
 But they forgot'the party was in the country, and that in the 
 country, then as now, everybody was sure to know what was 
 taking place. The astrologer, who was known as the Wizard 
 of the Sou'-West, heard of it ; and as he had not received an 
 invitation, he came without. Xobody dared oppose him ; he 
 stalked through the lines of tables, and went to the end one, 
 at which the lord of the estate, and a few exclusive friends who 
 would have been allowed silver forks at the present day, were 
 seated. And then, before the host could speak, he drew forth 
 a scroll, and read as follows : 
 
 " Twenty times shall Avon's tide 
 In chains of glist'ning ice be tied : 
 Twenty times the woods of Leigh, 
 Shall wave their branches merrily; 
 In spring burst forth in mantle gay, 
 And dance in summers scorching ray ; 
 Twenty times shall autumn's frown 
 Wither all their green to brown, 
 And still the child of yesterday 
 Shall laugh the happy hours away. 
 That period past, another sun 
 Shall not his annual circle run 
 Before a silent, secret foe 
 Shall strike the boy a deadly blow. 
 Such — and sure — his fate shall be : 
 Seek not to change his destiny/' 
 
 And having delivered himself of this prediction, he gave the 
 scroll to the host, and made a bow, as though he had been pre- 
 senting an address ; but, not waiting for any " gracious answer," 
 stalked proudly back again to where he came from, the precise 
 locality of which spot we cannot ascertain. The common 
 people at the lower end of the table, thinking it was a speech, 
 applauded lustily, without understanding it a bit, as is their 
 wont. The lord looked very much put out, but it would not 
 do to be " slow" on such a day before his guests ; so he called 
 for "Some more wine, ho!" and having drunk himself into 
 utter forgetfulness of everything, determined, after the manner 
 of many married gentlemen in similar domestic positions, to 
 
158 WILD OATS. 
 
 make a night of it, which process consisted in not allowing there 
 to be any night at all. 
 
 But he thought of it, the first thing on waking in the morn- 
 ing or rather the afternoon, of the next day ; and when his 
 lady was sufiiciently recovered to bear it, he told her ; and 
 although they both agreed it was all nothing, and everybody 
 must be daft to listen to the ravings of an impostor, they 
 thought a good deal about it nevertheless. 
 
 • • • • « 
 
 " Twenty years are supposed to have elapsed between the 
 first and second parts," as the playbills say ; and the heir had 
 become the realisation of a novelist's and dramatic hero. He 
 was tall, handsome, and clever. He would have fought any 
 odds of villains, had he seen just occasion. In the sports of 
 the field and forest nobody could surpass him ; and in winning 
 the favour of any fair one he chose to pay his court to, he dis- 
 tanced all his competitors ; indeed, he finished by gaining the 
 love of the most beautiful and charming girl in all the south of 
 England. But, as the period of his majority arrived, the father 
 and mother recollected the prediction, and got very nervous ; 
 and, after much curtain debate, they agreed the best plan 
 would be to build him up in a tower, all alone by himself, until 
 the fatal period had passed. The matter was settled, and a 
 cunning architect was sent for, who ran up the building in a 
 space of time that would have thunderstruck even the Bays- 
 water and Park Village builders, especially if they had known 
 it would have lasted for centuries. The young Lord of Clifton 
 did not altogether much approve of his solitary confinement, 
 more especially as he had been guilty of no crime; but the 
 parents were imperative, and so, as soon as his twentieth birth- 
 day arrived, he went to the tower, which they had fitted up 
 verv comfortably, with as many missals as they could collect, to 
 beguile the time, and every sort of preserve, and potted meats, 
 and bottled drinks that the age knew how to prepare. He was 
 to wait entirely on himself ; not a servant, not a human being 
 was to be his companion ; everything he wanted was to be 
 pulled up by a cord to a high window, and the lord himself, with 
 his most trustworthy followers, encamped round the building. 
 
 He found it rather dull at first, for he was naturally fond of 
 company ; but by little and little he got used to it, and he in- 
 vented a species of telegraph, by which he could converse with 
 his friends— and one especially, across the river — so that the 
 time did not hang quite so heavily. Even at an amateur per- 
 
THE TRADITION OF " THE FOLLY" AT CLIFTON. 159 
 
 formance there is a pitch when you get beyond yawning, with 
 nothing to divert you but the wonderful odd people, and they 
 are always worth a visit to look at any day. Well, the winter 
 went away, the woods became green once more in the spring, 
 and the tangled wild flowers spangled them in the summer. 
 Then their leaves began to rustle, and the days got short and 
 chilly, and the prisoner, at the first cold breath, not deterred 
 by economical motives of any kind, thought that it was time to 
 begin fires, and hauled his fagots up accordingly. 
 
 The term of his solitude at length came to an end, and one 
 bright, sharp, autumnal morning all the family assembled to 
 conduct him home. But, for a wonder, they did not see him at 
 his usual place at the window to meet them. They shouted 
 and blew their horns, but all to no effect ; and at last got a 
 ladder, and the father himself ascended and climbed through 
 the loophole ; but his cry of grief soon brought the rest up 
 after him. They thronged up the ladder as though they had 
 been a besieging party at modern Astley's, and entered the 
 room, where they found their master lying prostrate on the bed 
 of his son, convulsed with mental agony. A single glance 
 assured them that the boy was dead. 
 
 One or two of the servants lifted the Lord of Clifton from 
 the body, as another turned down the coverlid to discover the 
 cause of the fatal occurrence. And there, coiled upon the 
 young heir's breast, with its head resting on a livid spot, they 
 found a poisonous viper, who had evidently crept out of one of 
 the fagots, roused from torpor by the warmth of the chamber. 
 In spite of all the precautions, the astrologer's prediction had 
 been fulfilled. 
 
 This, then, is the story of " The Eolly." "We cannot vouch 
 for its severe authenticity ; in fact, if we were driven hard by a 
 strong-minded inquirer, we might confess that we don't believe 
 a word of it. But whilst such marvellous impossibilities are 
 associated with every old wall and tumble- down tower on the 
 Rhine, and holiday tourists really think it absolutely necessary 
 to get them up, and become as enthusiastic about them as a 
 bottle of steam-boat Moselle will always make them, we don't 
 see why our own ruins should not enjoy an equal share of the 
 romantic visitors' sentimental reveries ; and therefore we re- 
 commend all who are apt to be taken so, to go to Clifton, and 
 once more people the neighbourhood with the personages of 
 our story. The excursion is worth all the trouble. 
 
( 16 ° ) 
 
 XV. 
 
 NARRATIVE OF AN EXPEDITION TO THE END OF 
 BIRKENHEAD, 1846. 
 
 There is a delicious feeling of approaching enterprise always 
 experienced upon emerging from the terminus of a long railway 
 into a strange town. The utter uncertainty as to the direction 
 you must take ; the eager curiosity with which'you approach the 
 corner of every street, almost regarding it as you would do the 
 green curtain of a theatre that will presently discover some 
 new scene to you ; the idea that all the shops, and houses, and 
 people have sprung into existence that very moment, and that 
 they had no being before you saw them, but have been con- 
 jured up to meet you — a somewhat conceited thought ; the 
 entirely different appearance of the place to what you had de- 
 termined it ought to have been, in your own mind, before you 
 saw it, and consequently the greater novelty, — all these things 
 make a first visit to anywhere sufficiently exciting. 
 
 But when this feeling of strangeness lasts beyond the first 
 impression, it is apt to get tiresome, and especially so to a 
 Londoner, who can scarcely comprehend being in a large place 
 that he does not know the minute anatomy of — at least in his 
 own country. Abroad, he never ventures out, if an utter 
 stranger, without a guide or a map ; and, indeed, seldom desires 
 to see more than the places whose locale is sufficiently conven- 
 tional to be discovered without much difficulty, putting aside 
 the chance of his not knowing the language indigenous to the 
 country. But when he comes to a large place of which there 
 is as yet no popular map, and whose outskirts are rising up in 
 the night like Aladdin's palaces, quicker than even the abori- 
 gines can follow the names that indicate their sites, his case is 
 somewhat perplexing. 
 
 Everybody has heard of Birkenhead — originally a little nu- 
 cleus of life, which has been shooting out in all directions, like 
 a crystal forming on the disc of a microscope, until its diameter 
 has come to be a very fair walk for an appetite — on the Cheshire 
 
EXPEDITION TO THE END OF BIRKENHEAD, 184G. 161 
 
 side of the Mersey. It so happened that, a short time since, 
 being at Liverpool, we determined upon paying a visit, before 
 leaving for town by the half-past-four express, to a cousin, a 
 young architect, located in the before-mentioned rising town ; 
 a follower of the large permanent encampment there setting 
 up, with whom we had passed through all the constructive 
 stages of infantile mud, itamsgate sand, toy-shop bricks, dis- 
 sected barns, little theatres, rabbit-hutches, and rustic veran- 
 dahs, to those wilder castellated buildings of maturer age, 
 which, in the spirit of true opposition as regards freedom, the 
 French give to Spain, and we to the air. At last we parted. 
 He took to building magazines in stories ; we, to constructing 
 stories in magazines ; and when, after a long separation, we 
 found we were at Liverpool, and that he, as his card informed 
 us, was at " St. Michael' s-terrace, Birkenhead," we determined 
 to call upon him. 
 
 " Terrace" — it was a grand word : there would be little diffi- 
 culty in finding it. " St. Michael's," too, sounded well. Had 
 it been" Prospect-terrace," or "Albert-terrace," or " Brown's- 
 terrace," we should have mistrusted it ; but " St. Michael's- 
 terrace" conjured up at once images of terraces known to the 
 great world ; of the terrace at "Windsor Castle, when the band 
 is playing, and the tall mustachios of the Life Guards are out 
 for a stroll : of Connaught-terrace, wherein drawing-rooms light 
 up so well, and cornets-a-pistons — sound so silvery amidst the 
 wax-lights — pure patrician wax-lights, not Price doing duty for 
 them — in the " Bridal Waltz," that one above all others for 
 deux temps, cinq temps, or any time at all that could be in- 
 vented by the most frantic professor ; even of the terrace on 
 the old Adelphi drop-scene, where the cavalier of the middle 
 ages is supposed to be singing to his lady, who is, in turn, sup- 
 posed to be listening to him inside the window ; or of "West- 
 bourne-terrace, where there are some inmates who would have 
 driven all the cavaliers of the middle ages into the wildest tom- 
 fooleries of chivalry, but the number of which we do not tell, 
 for fear the public should flock to see then too eagerly. All 
 these associations put us quite at rest about the practicability 
 of readily finding out St. Michael's-terrace. 
 
 In the pride of our heart, having, in the language of the 
 Neapolitan fisherman, " beheld how brightly broke the morn- 
 ing," we left St. George's Pier, Liverpool, on board the odd 
 steamer which conveys anybody who " don't care twopence" 
 
 M 
 
162 WILD OATS. 
 
 (paid for the journey) to Woodside, on the other shore of the 
 Mersey, which is to Birkenhead what Bankside is to the 
 Borough. The steamer was a curious affair. It had all sorts 
 of strange decks and seats, and a rudder and wheel at either 
 end, so that it could " go ahead" or take " half a turn astarn" 
 with equal facility ; and the engine was directed upon deck. 
 Two iron bars kept oscillating from out the hatches, as if a 
 gigantic metal lobster was imprisoned below, and these were 
 his feelers ; by them was the machinery governed. The journey 
 occupied two or three minutes — literally no time, in the amuse- 
 ment derived from the panorama of clocks, ships, buildings, and 
 flashing water around us. 
 
 On landing at "Woodside, we were too proud just at present 
 to ask our way, so we followed the throng up what appeared to 
 be the principal thoroughfare, and at last coming to a division 
 of roads, thought it time to inquire after St. Michael's-terrace. 
 To this end, we placed our faith in the intelligence of a con- 
 tiguous baker, who, in return, " thought he knew the name, 
 but couldn't exactly say whereabouts it was, not for a certainty, 
 except that it wasn't within a goodish bit of his shop ; but he 
 reckoned the policeman opposite might know." "With that 
 irritable feeling always provoked by a person, who, upon being- 
 asked the way to anywhere, never puts you out of your misery 
 at once, but, after keeping you in suspense for some time, at 
 last confesses "he's a stranger in these parts," we left the shop 
 somewhat discourteously, and attacked the policeman. The 
 policeman's answer was frank and decisive ; he had never heard 
 of no such place at all ; but added, that there was a map in the 
 market, a little way off; and so we turned towards the market. 
 
 Birkenhead will, without doubt, some day be a great town ; 
 but at present it is rather suggestive than imposing. The 
 grand thoroughfares are simply marked out by a kerb and a gut- 
 ter ; and marvellous traps are laid to catch foreign pedestrians, 
 fashioned like that which Jack laid for the Cornish giant, by 
 covering sticks over a deep' hole, which let you fall into embryo 
 areas and dust-holes. The sticks in this case are planks, and 
 they tip up sideways like a beetle-trap when you tread on 
 them. Everything is new; new door-steps, new slates, new 
 shutters ; and where there are no houses, they are preparing to 
 build them. Deep foundations are dug here and there, and 
 about, which form into ponds for the ducks to dabble in ; 
 ground is partitioned off, and traces of the old localities are 
 
EXPEDITION TO THE END OF BIEKENHEAD, 1846. 163 
 
 rapidly disappearing. jS"ow and then, a bit of primeval hedge, 
 black and stunted, stares up in amazement at the improve- 
 ments around it ; and a piece of old wall, that hemmed in some 
 garden of the middle ages, finds itself in the centre of an in- 
 tended square ; but beyond this, there is little to recognise the 
 former spot by. 
 
 We contrived to find the market-place, a nice building, by 
 the way, resembling a railway terminus pulled out like a tele- 
 scope, with fountains, and stalls, and edibles, and, we should 
 suppose customers, only we could not have been there at the 
 proper time to meet them. But there must have been people 
 to buy things somewhere, because there were shops, with cloth 
 caps at sixpence, and stout men's highlows in the windows ; and 
 even note-paper and envelopes. At the end of the market-place 
 we found the map ; it was, if we remember aright,, a manuscript 
 one, and the authorities had blockaded all approach to it with 
 large forms and tables. But our situation was somewhat des- 
 perate. We were not to be stopped by trifles j and we climbed 
 over all the obstacles until we got close enough to it. There 
 were all sorts of names of existing and intended streets, but 
 not the one we wanted ; and getting down again at the peril of 
 our neck, we vandyked along the central avenue, asking every 
 stall-keeper on each side, and with the same ill luck. At last 
 we were directed to apply at the Parish Office ; and this ap- 
 peared the best chance yet : it must be a strangely desolate 
 place that rate-collectors did not know of it. But that know- 
 ledge, even here, was somewhat hazy ; they certainly had heard 
 of such a place, although they did not know at which point of 
 Birkenhead it was situated ;' but they rather thought it was at 
 the end of Grange-lane. 
 
 The end of Grange-lane ! There was desolation in the very 
 name. It told of dreary coppices and quags ; of water-courses 
 and lonely paths : of moated granges without even a IMariana 
 to be aweary in them. Our spirits sank within us ; but we 
 thanked the gentlemen in the office for the sympathy they 
 evinced in our tale of distress, and having had our route pointed 
 out to us on another map, evidently the fellow to the one in the 
 market-place, we set off again upon our weary pilgrimage. At 
 the corner, a boy— the onlv one in sight— was standing on his 
 head with his feet against the wall, apparently for lack of better- 
 employment. We gently knocked him over to ask if we 
 were right, intending to give him a penny ; but the acerbity 
 
 m2 
 
164 WILD OATS. 
 
 of his " Now then, you jest do that again, that's all !" stopped 
 our mouth, and we went on until we saw the shop of John 
 Power, a licensed victualler, invitingly open. "We entered, and 
 humbly made the old inquiry. 
 
 " Parthrick !" cried the individual we applied to, with a strong 
 Hibernian accent. 
 
 " Sirr !" replied a hamper, in the corner of the shop. 
 
 "Which is Michael's staircase?" said the first speaker; at 
 least we thought so, and we mildly suggested St. Michael's- 
 terrace. 
 
 " Oh, your sowl, it's all the same, and he knows it, you'll 
 see," continued the man. " Where is it ?" 
 
 " Down by the hotel," answered the hamper; and then the 
 lid rose, and a head appeared from it, and went on : " Keep 
 right away from the door, and take a turning you'll see before 
 you, and then anybody will tell you." 
 
 And this information being considered sufficient, the head 
 went down again, and there was a noise as of packing bottles. 
 
 Whether the directions were wrong, or whether the position 
 of our informer made the difference, we cannot tell. We only 
 know that, after much more dispiriting wandering, in the ab- 
 sence of the Polar star to guide us, we described almost a circle, 
 and found ourselves once more at the market. We were 
 literally ashamed to ask again. We fancied that the policeman 
 looked suspiciously at us ; and the dealers eyed us as if we had 
 been the Wandering Jew. At last, by the luckiest chance in 
 the world, we saw a postman — a strong-minded, intelligent 
 man, above equivocation — and he directed us as clearly as 
 minute directions about places perfectly out of sight would 
 allow him to do. We followed his plan ; and, after passing- 
 rows of shell houses, and embryo chapels, and crossing perilous 
 chasms, and limping over roads of broken crockery, and an- 
 gular bits of granite with all their sharp sides uppermost, 
 which made the walk as pleasant as it would have been along 
 a wall with bottles on the top, w^e at length arrived, footsore 
 and weary, 'at a row of houses they told us was St. Michael' s- 
 terrace, for no name had been put up ; neither were there 
 any numbers, and all the doors were alike. Morgiana and her 
 chalk could have bothered the whole of the forty thieves be- 
 yond all chance of identifying any of the abodes, better than 
 in Bagdad. 
 
 We found out the house, however, and conceived the last 
 
EXPEDITION TO THE END OF BIRKENHEAD, 1846. 165 
 
 coup had "been given to our misery by finding, also, that our 
 cousin was not at home. Hearing that we were at Liverpool, 
 
 he had gone over to Radley's to find us out, and he had got 
 
 the keys ! So we wrote a few words, in bitterness of heart, on 
 a card, as we should have done to put in a bottle, in some great 
 extremity out at sea ; and sorrowfully began to retrace our 
 steps. Of course we missed our way again. We had noticed 
 a sandstone wall, with a top made of uneven bits, set on their 
 edges, but there were so many like this, that when we thought 
 to be at Woodside, we found ourselves at Birkenhead Church ; 
 and now having, as we conceived, a right to rest, we strolled 
 into the churchyard. 
 
 The ruins of the old Priory of Birkenhead — or Byrhhed, as 
 it was once called — are behind the church, and we paid them a 
 visit. There was something inexpressibly refreshing in arriving 
 at this tranquil oasis in the wilderness of new glaring bricks, 
 and glowing slates, and dusty scaffold-boards and poles, that 
 surrounded it. In an instant its ivy-costumed walls shut out 
 everything from the view ; and nothing told of neighbouring 
 life, except a few bright green-house plants gleaming through 
 an old Grothic w r indow-space from the garden of a cottage ornee 
 adjoining. The door of the chapel was open, and we rested on 
 one of the benches. The sun fell pleasantly upon the old red 
 monuments of the cemetery, and pierced the evergreens of 
 the ruins to flit on the turf below. All was calm and soothing ; 
 nothing breaking the quiet but the pattering of the autumnal 
 leaves as they were driven into the chapel, and almost sounded 
 like footsteps, as if its ghostly residents once more peopled it. 
 There is a board at one of the gates leading to an inner ruin 
 making known that " strangers are not permitted to go into 
 this place on the Sabbath-day." It is difficult to conceive what 
 feeling not in accordance with the day in question could be 
 generated by a visit thereto. But there must be some other 
 reason. 
 
 The pier-bell broke our day-dreams. "We hurried down to 
 the ferry and missed the boat ; so that as the steamers do not 
 leave Monk-ferry so frequently as they quit the other piers, 
 we were obliged to go on to "Woodside. Everywhere the spirit 
 of enterprise and speculation is at work ; on all sides hotels, 
 streets, public buildings, and docks towards the river, are in 
 progress of formation. The entire colony has the appearance 
 of being certain to prove either the greatest hit or the grandest 
 
1&6 WILD OATS. 
 
 failure on record, for those concerned in it. The part that 
 struck us as most worthy of notice, is the Park, which we sub* 
 sequently visited. We have nothing at all like it of the kind 
 in London, nor, we should conceive, anywhere else. It is laid 
 out and varied with consummate taste. 
 
 "We had to wait again at "Woodside until the half-hour came 
 round, and when we got once more to Liverpool, we had still 
 so much to do, that all notions of leaving that day were out of 
 the question. Even our ten minutes at the ruins would not 
 have aided us, if they had been recalled. And so we wish well 
 to Birkenhead, and shall be delighted to read in the papers of 
 its extension and improvement, of the spirit of its inhabitants 
 and prosperity of its institutions ; but we shall not venture 
 into its wilds again, until all its streets and rows and terraces 
 are marked in proper maps, and some of the dangers are abo- 
 lished which at present threaten the enterprising visitor at 
 every step. Until then, whatever relations w^e have to esta- 
 blish with its inhabitants shall be accomplished by post. 
 
( 167 ) 
 
 XVL 
 
 MISS PERKAPPLE AXD THE GOTHICS' BALL. 
 
 Miss Perkapple was the oldest young lady we ever knew ; 
 and we wager the world to a China orange— which are long 
 odds, but which, at the same time, there is no possibility of 
 settling, even if you lose, so they may always he laid with tran- 
 quillity — that if you had known her you would have thought 
 the saine. And we will even allow you to have lived amidst a 
 legion of young old ladies, who had fallen back upon the calm 
 of & tracts and canaries, from the anxiety attendant upon man's 
 insincerity. 
 
 Miss Perkapple' s nose was sharp, and always got red in cold 
 weather before anybody else's ; and she had very uncomfortable 
 shoulders, with curious points and peaks about them unknown 
 in popular social anatomy. She had also great evidence of 
 collar-bone ; and wore spectacles, with glasses of a light bluish 
 tint; and she was accustomed to dress her hair in fanciful 
 designs, the like of which had never been seen before — not 
 even in the imaginative range that begins in the fashion books 
 and terminates on the waxen brows of hairdressers' dummies. 
 Prom these it may be conceived by intelligent minds that Miss 
 Perkapple was also literary — in fact, a Prancer. 
 
 Not that all literary characters are like her— very far from 
 it. Por some have white rounded shoulders ; and some have 
 finelv chiseled profiles ; and in others, nothing of red is remark- 
 able m the features except where it ought to be — glowing on 
 the lips and faintly flushing on the cheeks. And there is one 
 sweet lady whose face you could gaze upon for ever, and 
 marvel not that, between the beauty of her floating glittering 
 eyes and glossy braided hair and rosy mouth, and that of the 
 sweet thoughts she can give utterance to, there should be some 
 close analogy. 
 
 But these are not Miss Perkapple's clique. Por when we 
 state that, in addition to her other characteristics, she wore 
 gloves, generally, without regard to temperature, with the tops 
 
168 WILD OATS. 
 
 of the fingers cut off, through which the real ones protruded, 
 as though the j had thrust themselves out to see what was 
 going on, like caddis-worms ; and was reported to have a fine 
 ankle, which at times she needlessly exhibited on a footstool ; 
 and was a beautiful figure— not a bit made up — principally 
 from the want of any appui for crinoline to rest upon, — when 
 we whisper all this, it will be seen at once that Miss Perkapple 
 belonged to the high-purposed, rather than the popular, style 
 of literature. So those of her class, acting on the same notion 
 that framed the proverb, " The nearer the church the farther 
 from Heaven," addict themselves to subjects of domestic family 
 interest, dependent in no small measure upon that holy state, 
 which they have not the most remote chance of ever knowing 
 anything about. 
 
 Perhaps Miss Perkapple was a trifle more romantic than the 
 majority of her co-poetesses. She believed in Venice — in fact, 
 she had a very great idea of Venice — and she had written a 
 great many ballads to her gondolier. She had never been 
 there ; but she had a beautiful lithograph of the Grand Canal, 
 from the title-page of a song; and a line engraving of the 
 Piazza San Marco, cut from an Annual ; and she had, more- 
 over, read Cooper's " Bravo ;" and had once seen the " Bottle 
 Imp" acted in London, with " its bright and glittering palaces ;" 
 so that she was quite qualified to address her gondolier when- 
 ever she chose. She was also much attached to Spain, and had 
 written of Boleros and bull-fights ; and spoke of Andalusian 
 eyes, and the sparkling Guadalquiver, and rich Aragon blood ; 
 she never said much, however, about Spanish onions or Cas- 
 tile soap, they were too commercial to be romantic ; and she 
 touched but lightly upon Seville oranges. But she had a pair 
 of castanets hung up in her room, which, by the way, she could 
 not play; and in a corner of the Fogthorpe Messenger she 
 had written various Spanish ballads, in which she called thirty- 
 shilling sherry "her golden wine of Xeres," and alluded to 
 " the Cid," and made some hazy mention of the " Alhambra ;" 
 though, from her knowledge of "the latter place being somewhat 
 vague, albeit she had never been there, she was very nearly 
 putting her foot in it. But what she lacked in absolute ac- 
 quaintance with Spain, she made up in enthusiasm. 
 
 It must not be presumed that Miss Perkapple always lived 
 at Fogthorpe. She had friends in London, who occasionally 
 asked her to stay with them, and took her about to literary 
 
MISS PERKAPPLE AND THE GOTHICS' BALL. 169 
 
 soirees at institutions, and pointed out to her the popular 
 writers of the day ; and although they sometimes made slight 
 mistakes, and whispered that Mr. Thackeray was M. Louis 
 Blanc, and called Mr. Charles Kean Mr. Bobson, and pointed 
 out Sir Edwin Landseer as Mr. Alfred Crowquill, the funny 
 gentleman ; yet, as she was not undeceived at the time, these 
 things made 'Miss Perkapple equally happy. Indeed, she was 
 determined to enjoy everything ; for she had got over her 
 Christmas literary labours, and written a seasonable tale, called 
 " The Frost on the "Window-pane," after having turned the 
 Every-day Book inside out to find some new winter subject, all 
 the yule 'logs, wassail bowls, mistletoes, plum-puddings, holly 
 boughs, new-year's days, and snows having been long used up. 
 The friends of Miss' Perkapple were most respectable tailors. 
 Not common tailors, understand ; there was no shop with 
 little wax boys at the door, and remarkable ready-made waist- 
 coats labelled "The Thing!" in the window. They did not 
 throw books into railway omnibuses, nor advertise poetically, 
 nor publish small works of fiction pertaining to their calling ; 
 such as "The Walhalla of Waistcoats," or "'The Paletot 
 Palace," or " The Kingdom of Kerseymere." No. They had 
 a quiet window with a wire gauze blind, on which their name 
 alone appeared ; and sometimes you would see a single pair of 
 trousers — generally of a noisy check pattern — hanging over 
 the blind aforesaid ; and if you went in, there was Mr. Striggs, 
 the principal, working problems on rolls of cloth with French 
 chalk, and mighty scissors that looked more fitted to cut off the 
 heads of pantaloons in a pantomime than to cut out their legs 
 on a shop-board. There was a private entrance in the passage, 
 too, fitted up with one of those irritable, snappish little brass 
 knockers which always flourish on inner doors; and if you 
 chanced to be inside when the postman attacked it from with- 
 out, the sharp percussion would well-nigh make your heart 
 leap up to your mouth — only such a start is anatomically im- 
 possible. "We have hinted that the Striggses did all they could 
 to render Miss Perkapple's visits agreeable ; and they never 
 made her more happy than when they announced to her their 
 intention of taking her to the Gothics' Ball, which was a very 
 gay ten-and-sixpenny affair at the Hanover- square Booms, sub- 
 ject to such proper regulations as kept its visitors in the sphere 
 of its conductors. For, as Paris had its Longchamps, so has 
 London — or recently had— its Gothics ; either being the fete of 
 
170 WILD OATS. 
 
 intelligent costumiers to exhibit those dresses which they wish 
 to render most popular in the ensuing season. 
 
 The choosing of a wedding gown was not a matter of more 
 difficulty than the choice of a costume was to Miss Perkapple 
 when she decided to go. She wished to make a hit ; she felt it 
 due to her literary reputation to do so ; albeit the Fogthorpe 
 Messenger was not extensively read in town. And first she 
 thought of going as the Comic Muse, but there was nothing in 
 the dress marked enough ; and she did not like the notion of 
 being obliged to lean against a column, with a mask in her 
 hand, all the evening, to support the character; for, although 
 there were two columns under the royal box well adapted for 
 such a purpose, yet the attitude, however appropriate, might 
 become monotonous after a time. So Thalia was discarded. 
 
 Miss Perkapple next thought of Sappho ; but being some- 
 what fluttered at a few traditionary stories respecting the fair 
 Lesbian, she decided it would not be proper : more especially 
 as the common world will not always look at things in an 
 artistic spirit ; and as an artistic spirit, like charity, will cover 
 any amount of impropriety, this is unfortunate. Then she 
 thought of going poudree, after some of the sketches from the 
 Queen's ball in the Illustrated News ; but, although a white 
 wig sets off a pretty face, it is fearfully trying to even one of 
 ordinary mould ; and spectacles of light blue tint don't im- 
 prove the general effect. Her glass hinted this to Miss Perk- 
 apple very mildly, and the powder was abjured. 
 
 She ran over a variety of other costumes, including the cheap 
 and popular one of the plaid scarf and Scotch bonnet, to typify 
 any Highland lassie in general ; the favourite Plantagenet 
 tunic of pink cotton velvet trimmed with white rabbit skin ; 
 the Marquise, with the habit and whip. She knew that with a 
 two-shilling tambourine an Esmeralda could be got up at a 
 small expense, but her hair was not long enough, to plait down 
 her back ; it would only make two little horns, and she mis- 
 trusted false tails. It would be so awkward if one was to 
 come off! At last she remembered that her pinksatin dress 
 might be turned to good account. It was a little passe to be 
 sure, but deep flounces of black lace would hide its weak 
 points, and she could go as a Spanish girl. She could also 
 " support the character" — a conventional notion connected 
 with fancy balls — with great effect ; and quote her own Spanish 
 poetry. How very nice ! 
 
MISS PERKAPPLE AND THE GOTHICS' BALL. 171 
 
 The evening came at last, and Mr. Striggs, in tight red lega 
 and pointed shoes ; and Mr. J. Striggs, as a white mousque- 
 taire ; and Miss Striggs, after the Marie Antoinette of Madame 
 Tussaud; together with Miss Perkapple, as the Cachucha, all 
 got into a coach, followed by Mr. Spong, who paid attentions to 
 Miss Striggs, and went all alone by himself in a Hansom's cab 
 as a Crusader. With a beating heart she gave her ticket to 
 the George the Second nobleman at the door, and they then 
 went up- stairs and entered the room. 
 
 "What enchantment!" said Miss Striggs, as the gay scene 
 broke upon them. " I scarcely know whether I am on my head 
 or my heels." 
 
 Miss Perkapple blushed deeply as she thought upon the 
 terrible effect one of those positions might produce. But she 
 replied, " How gorgeously brilliant! Don't speak to me." 
 
 And hereon Sliss Perkapple fell into a poetic reverie, and 
 thought of something for the Fogtlwrpe Messenger, begin- 
 ning 
 
 • I pace the gay and glittering scene, 
 And feel thou art not there ;" 
 
 and then she ran over, mentally, "queen, green," "between, 
 mien"— that was good — "my altered mien:" having got which 
 rhyme, she proceeded to build the line up to it, which is a safe 
 plan in writing poetry — proceeding 
 
 " And shudder at my altered mien ;" 
 
 and was going to finish with " and look of blank despair," 
 when Mr. Striggs hoped she would stand up in a quadrille 
 
 with him, just then forming. So she left the " Lines to " 
 
 for a little while, and took her place. 
 
 The programme of the evening's dances was printed on a 
 card, with places to pencil down the engagements. Perhaps it 
 carried out the name of the ball better than any other of its 
 components ; for there were " Spanish dances," and " country 
 dances," in the middle of the evening ; and "polka quadrilles," 
 and a " Cellarius waltz," and other Terpsichorean vagaries, 
 which savour more of the dancing academy than the drawing- 
 room. And some of the company bowed to their partners, and 
 to the corners, when they began ; and others, in the polka, did 
 fandango figures, and launched into wild intricacies and atti- 
 
172 WILD OATS. 
 
 tudes. But there were only two polkas down on the card ; for 
 the Gothics preferred the good old steady quadrille. Their 
 notions of the raise a deux temps were limited ; and the Post- 
 horn Galop was beyond them altogether. One or two grace- 
 less debardeurs, who had been used to faster things, expressed 
 audible disapprobation at the arrangements. But when one of 
 the stewards came up, and intimated his astonishment at their 
 vulgarity, their discontent was soon knocked on the head, and 
 the Gothics immediately looked on the debardeurs with much 
 contempt — their notions of them being very indistinct, but 
 rather tending to the belief that they were foreigners who had 
 come in their shirt-sleeves. 
 
 To the Spanish dance Miss Perkapple looked anxiously for- 
 ward. She was always very great in it ; and as most old young 
 ladies are indefatigable dancers, she calculated upon making an 
 effect in her Cachucha costume ; and when Mr. Striggs intro- 
 duced her to a Spanish nobleman, who she learned was Don 
 Cesar de Bazan, a thrill passed through her frame. She took 
 his arm, and they wandered down stairs for refreshment. 
 
 " Have you travelled this last autumn ?" asked Miss Perk- 
 apple, with her most insinuating tones. 
 
 " I was from London two months," replied Don Cesar. 
 
 " In sunny Spain ?" inquired the lady, softly, as she looked 
 at the cavalier from his plumed hat to his boots. " Seville ?" 
 
 " No ; Rosherville," answered the Don. 
 
 Miss Perkapple, fortunately for her feelings, did not know 
 where Hosherville was ; and she would not show that she was 
 ignorant. So she played with her coffee, lifting spoonfuls out 
 of her cup to bale them in again. 
 
 " Your dress is charming," continued the lady ; " so tasteful, 
 so exact! Where did it come from?" And Miss Perkapple 
 concluded that the sun of Madrid had gleamed upon it. 
 
 " It is from Nathan's," replied De Bazan. Miss Perkapple 
 did not know in what department of Spain the locale was 
 situated. "Tour costume is also most characteristic," con- 
 tinued her companion, who had learned what it was from the 
 pictures of Duvernay. 
 
 " I am glad you like it," answered Miss Perkapple ; " a 
 simple thing, but correct in detail." And she advanced her 
 foot a little way beyond the lowest lace flounce. " But I adore 
 everything Spanish — don't you? Its eyes and mantillas " 
 
 " Its onions and liquorice," said the Don. 
 
MISS PERKAPPLE AND THE GOTHICS' BALL. 173 
 
 " Playful fellow !" thought Miss Perkapple. " "What a nice 
 sense of the ludicrous he possesses ! How cleverly he banters ! 
 May I trouble you to put my cup down ?" she added, aloud. 
 
 Don Cesar rose, and did as he was requested with infinite 
 grace. Miss Perkapple was enchanted, and thought she had 
 never before seen so efficient a stem for the teDdrils of her 
 young heart to cling to. His figure, his dark moustache, his 
 air altogether, were perfect. " Can it be possible that I love 
 again ?" she thought. And then she sighed as she recollected 
 the faithless editor of the Fogthorpe Messenger, who had printed 
 all her poetry in the top left-hand corner of the last page, 
 which he must have seen was addressed to himself; and all the 
 time was courting the doctor's daughter, whom he ultimately 
 married. 
 
 The Spanish dance was performed, and Miss Perkapple's 
 share in its mazes was unequalled. Nobody else could come 
 up to the spirit of her attitudes ; she bounded forward in the 
 true Andalusian fashion, and swung round her vis-a-vis, and 
 beat audible time with her feet to call attention to them, and 
 in the waltz poussette was especially great, turning her head 
 alternately to the right and left as she went round ; in fact, as 
 a coarse-minded Polka-nobleman observed, who was looking on, 
 she was all legs and wings, like an untrussed chicken. But the 
 anti-confidential style is that which old young ladies greatly 
 incline to, and very different to the present acknowledged one ; 
 which, we take to be, figures in tolerable approximation ; heads 
 over each other's right shoulder ; your left arm extended well 
 out from the side as the hand sustains your partner's right, 
 and keeps it almost on a level with the top button of your 
 waistcoat ; her left hand over your shoulder ; a well-kept short 
 deux-temps step, and then — go ahead ! But the Gothics don't 
 try that yet. 
 
 Supper came ; and under the influence of the champagne, 
 and lights, and feathers, and spangles, Miss Perkapple believed 
 in all the fairy tales she had ever read ; and she established a 
 great flirtation with Don Cesar de Bazan, who engaged him- 
 self to her for all kinds of dances. For she was entertaining 
 in her conversation, and the Don was at the same time some- 
 what overcome by her flattering speeches. And she introduced 
 him to Miss Striggs, whilst she danced with the Crusader lover, 
 and all went merry as a marriage-bell — if that announcement 
 of the addition of two more victims to a popular delusion can 
 
174 WILD OATS. 
 
 be considered so. But though she was anxious to get the Don 
 to -dance the last quadrille on the programme with her, she 
 could not prevail on him to stay. He must go, he said ; he 
 had business, great business of importance to transact before 
 he retired to rest, and must tear himself a way. Miss Perk- 
 apple admired him more than ever ; what could he be ? An 
 attache ? or perhaps a literary gentleman on a newspaper, and 
 that a London one ! 
 
 The time for parting arrived; and when Don Cesar had 
 wished her adieu, Miss Perkapple enjoyed the revelry no more. 
 She went up to the royal box, and gazing on the festive triflers 
 below, thought how fleeting was happiness, and quoted some of 
 Medora's lines to herself, until the last dance on the card arrived 
 — the Eritish Navy Quadrille — and the Striggses prepared to 
 depart. Shawls were recovered, coaches called, and, in the cold 
 grey of morning, amidst a mob of early risers who were loitering 
 round the door to watch the company out, they drove away. 
 Miss Perkapple thought but of one subject — the partner of the 
 evening ; and, with her eyes closed, pretended to be asleep as 
 she conjured up his image before her. But she was aroused 
 from her reverie by a laugh from Mr. Striggs, and a cheer in 
 the streets, as if from boys, which somewhat startled her. 
 Looking from the windows, a spectacle met her own pair that 
 well-nigh brought on a fit of hysterics. They were in a West- 
 end thoroughfare ; and there, in front of a shop — a common 
 normal grocer's shop — was Don Cesar de Bazan, as he appeared 
 an hour previously, taking down the shutters to the delight of 
 a crowd of boys on the pavement, who were madly dancing 
 about him. Some unprovoked assault upon his cloak caused 
 him to turn sharply round as the hackney-coach passed, and 
 Miss Perkapple saw that he had only one moustache! The 
 other had been danced off in the last polka, and was now lying 
 on the floor of the Hanover-square Booms ; for he had trusted 
 to composition instead of springs, which latter had set him so 
 sneezing that he had well-nigh blown his head off" before he 
 came. As he turned, his eye caught Miss Perkapple's. De- 
 spite the cold air of morning he blushed crimson, and shot the 
 shutter he held down a grating under the window with a pre- 
 cipitancy that looked as if he would have given worlds to have 
 gone down after it ; after which he rushed into the shop and 
 disappeared behind a monster coffee-grinder, but whether he 
 
MISS PERKAPPLE AST) THE GOTHICS* BALL. 175 
 
 merely hid for the moment, or committed suicide "by throwing 
 himself into it, remained a mystery. 
 
 The spell had "been too rudely broken, and Miss Perkapple 
 saw that the secret of his anxiety to "leave the halls of dazzling 
 lio-ht" was fully explained. She suppressed the cry that rose to 
 her lips as well as she was able, and pulling her shawl over her 
 head, at the great peril of her Cachucha comb, and the — shall we 
 sav it ! — and the back plait attached to it, was alone in her 
 misery. For Mr. Striggs had kindly gone in the cab by 
 himself to let Mr. Spong ride with the beloved object of his 
 heart, and of course they were only occupied with one an- 
 other ; and Mr. J. Striggs's white mousquetaire costume was 
 too small for him, so that he had been in an ill temper all the 
 evening, and scarcely spoke to anybody, and therefore our 
 heroine felt as only old young ladies can feel under such cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 The discovery was cruel ! Had she seen him reeling from 
 the contiguous posada — it was a gin-shop in common language 
 — followed by his brawling companions, it would have been 
 something ; or, if he had attacked one of the bulls who were 
 p-oing by on their way to Smithfield, it would still have been in 
 character ; despite the cold, she would have waved her hand- 
 kerchief from the window in passing recognition. But shutters ! 
 dreary things only used to close shops, and carry accidents of 
 unromantic character upon : her very soul revolted from the 
 association. To be sure, even that would have been nothing in 
 Madrid; but in London that was quite another thing. For 
 the glamour of distance — both of time and space — that makes 
 poetic temperaments conceive Swiss girls and vivandieres to be 
 beautiful creations, and invests 'prentices of the middle ages 
 with more ennobling attributes than those of the present time, 
 had great sway over Miss Perkapple. 
 
 The blow was never recovered. The next day Miss Perk- 
 apple looked forlorn and deserted ; and when she did look so it 
 was to a remarkable extent. Her friends put it down to - 
 fatigue : but she alone knew whence the chill upon her heart 
 arose. London had lost all its charms for her ; the Cachucha 
 dress became a souvenir of bygone happiness, as mad brides, in 
 affecting stories, gaze upon the faded orange-blossoms that 
 tell of brighter hours. She retired early to her room, and 
 began some touching '-'Stanzas for Music," but her spirits 
 
176 WILD OATS. 
 
 failed her, and, after another immature attempt at " The Spirit 
 "Weary : a Sonnet," she went to bed. 
 
 The day after that she left London. Her visit had a marked 
 effect upon her writings. It is said that no author is worth 
 half-a-crown a page until he has been in love or difficulties ; 
 and Miss Perkapple felt that for one bright evening in her 
 life's gloom she had been the former. Hitherto she had, in 
 the manner of her class, described hapless flirtations entirely 
 from imagination — except that with the editor, which could 
 scarcely be called one — creating her lovers on purpose to be 
 deserted by them; but now her genius took a more decided 
 turn. The Fogthorpe Messenger was, in consequence, a gainer 
 thereby ; and the Spanish ballads became a great feature in its 
 columns, for they told so plaintively of wretched hopes and hap- 
 pier hours. Indeed, they are about to be collected for repub- 
 lication, by subscription, with a preface by Miss Perkapple, 
 stating that " many of her friends — in this instance, she fears, 
 too partial ones — have urged her to the venture." But she is 
 at present undecided as to whether they shall be dedicated to 
 " The Spanish Legion" or " The Memory of the Past." 
 
( 177 ) 
 
 XVII. 
 
 SWEETS AXD BITTERS. 
 A Burro LTEIC. 
 
 It is decreed that man should lead 
 
 A life without alloy, 
 But from its cup, the draught should sup, 
 
 Of sorrow, mixed with joy. 
 And though some pleasures may o'ernow, 
 
 Without a chance of pain, 
 Too oft, alas ! a shade of woe 
 
 Will follow in their train. 
 And should you question what we sing, 
 
 And doubt our moral trite, 
 Pray listen to the truths we bring, 
 
 And own we're in the right. 
 
 'Tis sweet into some fair one's ear 
 
 Your tale of love to pour ; 
 But rather awkward, when papa 
 
 Is listening at the door. 
 'Tis sweet to wander side by side, 
 
 The bright moon to behold : 
 Eut not so pleasant, when you find 
 
 Next day you've both caught cold. 
 'Tis sweet to hear her lips confess 
 
 That marriage is her plan ; 
 Eut most distressing, when you find 
 
 That you are not the man. 
 
 'Tis sweet when some one sends a cheque 
 
 Tor debts long given o'er ; 
 But most annoying, when the bank 
 
 Has failed the day before. 
 
178 WILD OATS. 
 
 'Tis sweet to get an Opera-box 
 
 For nothing in the spring ; 
 But not so pleasant, when you find 
 
 No great artiste will sing. 
 'Tis sweet when to America 
 
 From bailiffs you take flight ; 
 But not so pleasant, when you find 
 
 The packet sailed last night. 
 
 'Tis sweet to see the morning sun 
 
 In all his radiance bright ; 
 But not so pleasant, when it proves 
 
 You have sat up all night. 
 'Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog bark- 
 
 At least so Byron said — 
 Sweet to be waken'd by the lark, 
 
 And called up from your bed ; 
 But not so pleasant, when the dog, 
 
 Barks day and night as well ; 
 Or when the lark's at your expense, 
 
 As pulling off the bell. 
 
 'Tis very sweet to some gay ball 
 
 Beceiving an invite ; 
 But rather awkward, when you go, 
 
 And find it's the wrong night. 
 'Tis sweet to be pick'd out to take 
 
 Some beauties to the play ; 
 But very awkward, when you find 
 
 That you have got to pay. 
 'Tis sweet to buy some comic sheet, 
 
 For lots of fun to look ; 
 But very awkward, when you find 
 
 'Tis not our little book. 
 
( 179 ) 
 XTIIT. 
 
 THE POLKAPHOBIA. 
 
 A LITTLE XEWS OT MB. LEDBURY CONNECTED WITH THE 
 POLKA, AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE YEAR ISiL 
 
 It is now a little more than twelve months since we last 
 heard any news of onr old acquaintance Mr. Titus Ledbury. 
 His friends will be glad to hear that during this interval 
 he has been well and happy ; that his manners and general 
 bearing in society are, if possible, more elegant than ever ; and 
 his graceful attitudes have greatly distinguished him in the 
 salons of the Transislingtonian districts. At the same time, his 
 mind has lost nothing of its well-poised intentions ; albeit, as 
 formerly, they do not altogether at times produce the exactly 
 desired effect. But he is a good creature, and everybody is 
 always happy to see him. 
 
 Of course, Mr. Ledbury was one of the first to learn the 
 Polka. Like everybody else, as long as he could not dance it, 
 he said it was very uninteresting, and would never keep its 
 ground ; but when he came to know it, he was most indo- 
 mitable, and after supper, completely frenetique in its mazes, 
 especially in the i: chasse" and the '"'back step," upon which 
 he rather prided himself. He has been known, at this period 
 of the evening, to tire down three young ladies, and then ask 
 to be introduced to a fourth — madly, wildly, desperately — even 
 after she had confessed that she only knew it a little. And 
 this, too, when he saw there was no chance of the tune coming 
 to a conclusion, by reason of the cornet and piano, having 
 numbed their feelings with sherry, and played on mechanically, 
 with the dogged action of a culprit who anticipates much exer- 
 cise on the treadmill. It is a merciful dispensation that the 
 cornet can be played with the eyes shut, in common with many 
 other Terpsichorean instruments. If it could not, polkas and 
 cotillons would gradually vanish from the face of the drawing- 
 room, to the fiendish delight of those manchons de societe 
 (muffs of society), who tell you that the aforesaid polkas and 
 cotillons are " very strange kinds of dances, which they never 
 wish their girls to join in." - 
 
 h2 
 
180 WILD OATS. 
 
 Old Mr. Ledbury did not see much in the polka ; in fact, he 
 had a dislike generally to what he termed " people kicking 
 their heels about in outlandish fashions." But the instant 
 Titus perceived that every one who wished to distinguish him- 
 self in society must learn the polka — not to mention the Valse 
 a deux temps and Cellarius, which he had scarcely courage 
 enough yet to attempt — he determined to conquer its diffi- 
 culties. And to this end, he joined a class at a professor's who 
 taught polkas night and day ; in whose house the violin never 
 stopped, in whose first-floor windows the blinds were never 
 drawn up. The professor was connected with the ballet at the 
 theatres, and he used to bring one or two of the " pets" of that 
 department to be partners on the occasion — pretty little girls, 
 with glossy braided hair and bright eyes, who tripped about in 
 the morning in blue check polka cloaks, and in the evening in 
 pink tights and gauze petticoats — sylphs that people paid 
 money to see ; peris whom men in white neckcloths and private 
 boxes had looked at through binocular glasses. What hap- 
 piness for Titus! Under such tuition he improved rapidly. 
 He went out everywhere, and polked all the evening ; at last, 
 nothing could satisfy him but that his people must give a polka 
 party themselves. There was a great deal to be said against 
 this. Since his sister Emma's marriage, there had not been 
 much gaiety at home ; and, besides, Emma had now a little 
 baby, regarding whose appearance, in reply to Master Walter 
 Ledbury's too minute inquiries, the most remarkable horti- 
 cultural stories connected with silver spades and the vegetation 
 of parsley had been promulgated ; a tiny, fair, velvet-cheeked 
 doll, in whose face everybody found a different likeness. The 
 other little Ledbury girls were not old enough to be brought 
 out, and Mrs. Ledbury said she could not take all the trouble 
 upon herself: but there was a greater obstacle than all thisto 
 contend with. The family had left Islington at the expiration 
 of their lease, and taken a new house somewhere on the out- 
 skirts of the Begent's Park, in a freshly-made colony, which 
 cabmen never could find out, but wandered about for hours 
 over rudely gravelled roads, without lamps and policemen, and 
 between skeleton houses, until, at break of day, they found 
 themselves somewhere infringing upon Primrose Hill, at an 
 elevation of a considerable number of feet above the level of 
 Lord's cricket-ground. And, moreover, there was a clause in 
 the leases of these houses, that no dancing could be allowed 
 therein, under heavy forfeits, which threw aspersions on their 
 
THE POLKAPHOBIA. 181 
 
 stability. But architectural improvement is daily progressing ; 
 and economy of time and material being the great desiderata in 
 all arts and sciences, particular attention is paid to this point. 
 Houses are run up, like Aladdin's palace, in one night ; and 
 the same ingenuity that could formerly overspread Vauxhall 
 Gardens with a single ham, is put into fresh requisition to see 
 how many acres of building-ground may be covered with the 
 same number of bricks that were employed, in times gone by, 
 for one family mansion. 
 
 All these facts were urged by Mr. Ledbury, senior ; but Titus 
 did not give it up, for all that. He knew that his father was 
 as insensible as a rock to his hints, but he also knew that the 
 constant dropping of hints would at last have a softening 
 effect ; and so it proved. He implored so earnestly, and im- 
 pressed the fact so frequently upon his parents, that the land- 
 lord need never know anything about it, as at last to get their 
 consent. And then he struck the iron while it was hot. He 
 bought some engraved invitation note-paper with " Polka" in 
 the corner ; drew up a list of friends ; and, lastly, got his 
 mother to ask Miss Seymour to come and stay with them for 
 the time being. Fanny "Wilmer, his country friend, was also 
 asked up from Clumpley, to which place the polka had not yet 
 reached. Baby required all Emma's attention, and so she was 
 left out of the" question ; but her husband promised to come, 
 and be Jack Johnson as heretofore, " by particular desire, and 
 upon that occasion only." For having passed through that stage 
 of feeling, during the time he was engaged, which rude people 
 designate as " spooney," and the subsequent enchantment, after 
 matrimony, during the premieres illusions — in both which 
 states a man is not fit company for anybody except one— he 
 was now returning once more, as is the invariable rule, to a 
 capital fellow. 
 
 The chief occupation of Titus before the ball was to teach 
 Eanny "Wilmer the polka. And to this end they practised all 
 day long, whilst Miss Seymour kindly played the Annen and 
 the opera editions until her fingers were as weary as their feet. 
 They did the promenade, and the waltz, and the return, and the 
 double polka on the square, and the chasse, and the whirl, 
 turning round so fast and leaning back to such a degree, that 
 thev resembled a revolving V made of two human figures, like 
 an animated initial letter. All this practising, however, had 
 its desired end. Fanny "Wiliner learnt the polka, and Titus 
 was so charmed at the effect he was certain they would produce 
 
182 WILD OATS. 
 
 together, that he had some vague notion of putting on a pair of 
 red morocco boots with brass heels, that would click together, 
 expressly for the occasion. 
 
 At last the night came. By dint of much previous instruc- 
 tion, everybody found the way to the house pretty well, except 
 old Mrs. Hoddle, who came in a fly all the way from Islington, 
 not believing in cabs, and missing the proper road, got benighted 
 in St. John's "Wood, which, in her imagination, she peopled 
 with North American Indians, having some vague recollec- 
 tions of an Ioway encampment thereabouts. Jack assisted 
 Titus in his duties as master of the ceremonies, for he knew 
 almost everybody there ; and then the festivities of the evening 
 commenced. Old Mr. Ledbury gave himself up to his misery 
 with great resignation. He intended, as heretofore, either to 
 have visited a friend, or to have gone to bed ; but, in the first 
 case, everybody he knew lived too far off ; and, in the second, 
 his bedroom was turned out of window for the evening. The 
 supper was laid in the dining-room, the door of which was 
 locked ; and the ices and cherry -water were dispensed in the 
 back parlour, which Titus, from the presence of a few grave 
 volumes, and some loose numbers of periodicals, called his 
 " study." 
 
 They had a quadrille and then a waltz ; then a quadrille, then 
 a polka, and so on. Mr. Ledbury greatly distinguished him- 
 self, and was much admired. Nor was Jack Johnson less con- 
 spicuous. He had not regularly learned the polka, but he said 
 it was merely a diluted edition of a Quartier Latin dance, for 
 which he had sometimes been compelled to leave the Chaumiere, 
 and therefore he did not find it very difficult. 
 
 Of course there was, and there always is, a large proportion 
 of the guests who did not dance the polka ; but they stood 
 round the room, and looked pleasant, which was all that was re- 
 quired of them. Nor were they, in this capacity of wall-flowers, 
 without their value, for spectators are useful things in a party 
 to inspirit the others ; and the bare idea that you are doing 
 something which somebody else cannot who is looking on, en- 
 courages you to perform unexpected marvels of Terpsichorean 
 agility. Some people call this vanity, others human nature. 
 However, the enthusiasm spread, and every polka was more 
 energetic than the last, until the room trembled again. 
 
 It would have been well had this been the only sensation 
 created. The servants had entered the dining-room, to make 
 the last preparations for supper, when a wild scene of horror 
 
THE POLKAPHOBIA. 183 
 
 presented itself, unparalleled even in the annals of the Lisbon 
 and Guadaloupe earthquakes. Well might the landlord have 
 prohibited dancing in his tenement. The ceiling had curved 
 round, and was bulging into the room like an inverted arch, 
 whilst, from its patera, the lamp was swinging recklessly, as 
 though it had been an incense-burner in the hands of a priest. 
 Every glass on the table, chattering its own music, was polking 
 witli its fellow, until it fell off the edge ; a Crusader, in black- 
 leaded plaster, had chasse'd from his bracket, and was lying 
 piecemeal on the carpet ; a bust of Shakspeare was nodding 
 time to the tune as he prepared to follow its example ; and 
 there was not a barley-sugar ship or windmill which had not 
 been jolted into fragments that left no trace of the original 
 form. Well enough might the domestic supernumeraries en- 
 gaged for the night have been scared. There was a momentary 
 expectation of all the guests coming down to supper by a much 
 quicker method than the staircase. 
 
 Terrible and general was the alarm when the remarkable 
 state of the architectural affairs was promulgated. There was 
 only one person happy, and that was old Mr. Ledbury. As 
 soon as he saw his guests were frightened, he rubbed his hands 
 and smiled, and promulgated the intelligence that the floor was 
 about to fall in, with the same glee as he would have done the 
 news of a favourable change in the ministry, or a rise in the 
 railway shares, of which he was a large participator. Titus, 
 who was stopped in the middle of a distinguished step, turned 
 pale ; Jack laughed ; and Mrs. Ledbury hurried all her visitors 
 down stairs with the most nervous eagerness, which gave them 
 a pretty broad hint that they were to bolt their supper and go 
 away. They took it very speedily. 
 
 This was Mr. Ledbury's first polka party, and his last. It 
 certainly had created a sensation, but not the one he had antici- 
 pated. He determined, if he danced the polka again, to do so 
 at the residences of other people ; and old Mr. Ledbury, who 
 got involved in a mild lawsuit in consequence, after many 
 anathemas against outlandish dances and their followers, finally 
 gravitated into a determination to leave his present abode, 
 which never recovered its right angles ; and for the future, next 
 to the polka, to abhor all houses run up to be let in suburban 
 neighbourhoods, which were as picturesque and fragile as those 
 of the illuminated village carried at evening on the head of the 
 ingenious Italian in quiet neighbourhoods. 
 
( 184 ) 
 
 XIX. 
 
 THE STRUGGLES OF TERPSICHORE. 
 
 We have no very clear ideas respecting the comparative dif- 
 ference between the worldly prospects of the Muses at the 
 present day and in those remote times before the invention of 
 clairvoyance, nerves, railways, printing, and Puseyism, when 
 people believed in the mythology. Our best notions of the 
 manner in which they passed their lives are collected from the 
 drop-scenes of theatres and the ceilings of royal palaces. From 
 these authorities we learn that they held a perpetual conversa- 
 zione: some playing on remarkable instruments, the like of 
 which are not recognised even by the directors of the Ancient 
 Concerts ; others singing ; others dancing ; others reciting poetry 
 or making speeches : but as all appear to be exhibiting at the 
 same time, we opine that some degree of confusion must have 
 characterised these reunions. As they had no listeners beyond 
 themselves, and must have been perfectly acquainted with every- 
 thing each other could do, the meetings in question must have 
 been, without doubt, singularly " slow ;" as dull, in fact, as an 
 amateur matinee musicale, or a set obligatory annual family 
 dinner-party. 
 
 We learn, however, one thing for certain from these pictures 
 — -the Muses were idle. There is nothing to show that they 
 were going all through this display to earn a living. 
 
 But now, in these days of utter mercantile materiality, things 
 have altered, and the Muses are compelled to work — nay, 
 struggle — for a livelihood ; they will do anything to avoid a 
 union — we mean in the more modern acceptation of the word. 
 Melpomene has had a hard light for subsistence ; and, being 
 harshly made to assume a spangled dress under all circum- 
 stances, had thrown herself into the New Eiver Head, when 
 she was charitably taken out by the Shakspeare Humane So- 
 ciety, and carried into Sadler's Wells to be resuscitated. Thalia 
 is a little better off, having married Momus, who is a man well 
 to do, and so she allows her sister a trifle. Calliope travels 
 with, or for, a show, and is constantly employed ; and Euterpe 
 
THE STRUGGLES OF TERPSICHORE. 185 
 
 and Polyhymnia get good dividends from shares in the St. 
 James's and St. Martin's Hail ; or, not being proud, oscillate 
 between Exeter Hall and Evans's — whichever pays best for the 
 time. Clio is proprietress of a pictorial newspaper, finding 
 history will only go down in that style ; during the week she 
 sells the catalogues at Madame Tussaud's. Erato picks up a 
 precarious pound or two, now and then, by writing a libretto 
 for an opera ; and Urania has found an asylum in the observa- 
 tory at Kew, as long as the British Association will support 
 her. But of all, Terpsichore has worked the hardest ; and to 
 her fortunes a few years back we now turn. 
 
 She had supported herself creditably, if not in first-rate style, 
 for some time in England. The whirling, maddening waltz had 
 triumphed over the stately minuet, and the first set and Lan- 
 cers had mercilessly trampled down " Sir Eoger de Coverley," 
 when, all on" a wild March morning," in the year of grace one 
 thousand eight hundred and forty-four, the Paris correspon- 
 dent of the Times sent us word that a new dance was turn- 
 ing the heads, bodies, and heels of our neighbours, to the utter 
 exclusion of all other topics, and that it was called the " Polka." 
 "We said, " Indeed !" and for a week thought no more about 
 the matter ; until, at the expiration of that time, the epidemic 
 broke out in England, all at once, like a Cremorne firework, 
 which begins with a small blue flame — a mere hint — and then 
 suddenly flashes and sparkles in every direction, twirling all 
 ways at the same time. What this all led to everybody knows. 
 Pamphlets, magazine-papers, farces, songs, caricatures, all took 
 the " Polka" for their theme ; and then Terpsichore's run of 
 luck commenced. Elderly people, whose dancing days ought 
 to have been over a very long time indeed, were actually de- 
 tected taking lessons : whilst young gentlemen, who did not 
 yet know it, when they received invitations where the awful 
 word appeared in the corner, " regretted a previous engage- 
 ment compelled them to decline" the attention ; and then re- 
 gistered a solemn vow upon their Gibus to learn the " Polka' 
 forthwith. " Polka" academies of professors— rivals a Vou~ 
 trance — collected people to dance in the middle of the day, and 
 afforded opportunities for all kinds of pleasant ante-prandial 
 frock-coat- and-barege flirtations; columns of advertisements 
 deployed over the pages of the newspapers ; and the " Polka" 
 was even danced in public as a sight — a tiring to pay money to 
 se e — from Carlotta and Cerito, in all the pride of beauty and 
 
186 WILD OATS. 
 
 position, to their humble sister of the carrefours and race- 
 courses, who demonstrated it upon a shutter, in the red serge 
 tunic, trimmed with rabbit's fur, with leather boots plus ou 
 moins rougeatres, and the rattling brass heels, and the tarnished 
 finery of the anomalous petticoat, for whatever the drum and 
 Pandsean pipes could collect in the invalided decanter- stand. 
 
 These were great days for Terpsichore. She kept a carriage 
 and drove in the Parks — that is to say, when she could find 
 time. She visited the sea-side, and was even seen in Paris, 
 after our season, floating about the Gardens of the Tuileries and 
 Boulevards adjoining the Chaussee d'Antin, or beaming from 
 the avant-scenes of the Academie Eoyale. She forgot Graves- 
 end, or affected never to have known that there was such a 
 place, but spoke of "Wiesbaden. She had climbed the Alton 
 Schloss, but repudiated AYindmill Hill. 
 
 Knowing that it is far easier to establish luxuries hitherto 
 unenjoyed than to put them down when once experienced, we 
 somewhat trembled for her. We knew that the time would 
 come, sooner or later, when everybody would have learned the 
 "Polka:" when the simple, agreeable figure, alone now re- 
 cognised, would supersede all the " promenades," the " chasses," 
 and the toe-and-heel atrocities of the dancing academies and 
 public balls : and we were right. The advertisements disap- 
 peared from the papers one by one ; the matinees at the different 
 rooms were discontinued. The terrible time had come, and 
 everybody knew the " Polka !" 
 
 We were in a state of great uncertainty as to what our 
 darling Muse would do next, when one evening we went to a 
 party ; and there, in the middle of the entertainments, a tune 
 of novel measure and harmony suddenly arose from the band, 
 and two couples — there were no more — went off hopping, and 
 diving, and sliding about the room in a sort of dislocated waltz. 
 "We did not choose to demean ourselves by asking what it was 
 that the guests suddenly crowded round to gaze at with such 
 curiosity; but we soon heard that it was called the " Cellarius." 
 "We saw immediately the cause of its introduction. Terpsi- 
 chore meant it to keep up the dancing excitement of the public 
 and her own income. But we formed our opinion at the time, 
 and future experience only strengthened it : none of the couples 
 ever danced the " Cellarius" as though they loved it. They 
 went through it with the air of feudal tenants performing some 
 grave ceremony, by which they held their situations ; or they 
 
THE STRUGGLES OF TERPSICHORE. 187 
 
 showed the 'bystanders that they desired no display, and yet felt 
 that people were looking at them. There was none of the road 
 spirit of the waltz or polka in it. No silky perfumed curls 
 ever swept across your very face; no panting staccato words 
 could be breathlessly flirted into the delicate ear that almost 
 touched the lips that uttered them, unnoticed by all but the 
 one : there were none of those deliciously romping concussions, 
 for which a smile or a laughing, gasping exclamation was the 
 
 only punishment ; none of those Xever mind, we leave the 
 
 other agremens to the imagination of the dancers. 
 
 "Well, the " Cellarius," to speak in theatrical idiom, was 
 comparatively a failure ; and so it was backed up by the Yalse 
 a deux temps — a charming scuffling sort of exercise enough, 
 but somewhat troublesome where only two desperate people 
 danced it in a circle of two dozen, revolving on the old method. 
 This, in its turn, was soon learned, and Terpsichore got despe- 
 rate. What was to be done ? 
 
 Again she flew to Paris ; but this time it was on a profes- 
 sional errand — not on a pleasure-seeking sojourn. She in- 
 sinuated herself into private society ; there was nothing there. 
 She plunged into public balls — the " Chaumiere," " Mabille," 
 and the " Prado d'Ete :" decidedly there was nothing there. 
 The Paubourg St. Germain and the Barriere du Mont Par- 
 nasse, each failed : the Quartier Latin was no more available 
 than the Rue Eoyale. She promulgated whispers of wonderful 
 dances — the "Mazurka," the " Prottesca," the " Napolitaine." 
 JSTo. In vain she told the readers of the Family Herald 
 that these were danced by the highest circles in Paris. She 
 did not appear to be believed. The carriage was put down for 
 the hack cab ; and that only on wet days. Gravesend was 
 again recognised ; Windmill Hill was not so despicable after 
 all ; and she had heard of a contiguous wild and savage place 
 called Eosherville, yet haunted by a few forgotten mortals who 
 did not know the " Polka." She went there : it was a fall, to 
 be sure, but what was she to do ? 
 
 At last came the Palace Costume Ball of 1845 ; and all the 
 minuets that had slumbered for a century, like Sleeping Beau- 
 ties, were awakened by the magic touch of royalty. Again 
 Terpsichore's star was in the ascendant ; for those whose edu- 
 cation had long since been pronounced complete, found they 
 did not even know how to bow and curtsey with proper effect. 
 Her spirits revived, and advertisements once more appeared ; 
 
188 WILD OATS. 
 
 but the minuets came as comets : they illumined a certain 
 sphere for a time, and then passed away and were forgotten. 
 In vain professors offered to teach what they assured the world 
 would be the furore of the season : in vain the theatres kept up 
 the plot, and "Weippert, Collinet, and Musard programmed the 
 music — the real identical royal music ! It was of no avail : 
 Terpsichore found herself once more sunk to her former inac- 
 tivity. 
 
 A¥hat she will do next we cannot tell. The civilised world has 
 been pretty well ransacked for novel dances, which have proved 
 failures ; so that all hope is at an end in those quarters of the 
 globe. Japan, however, we believe to be open ; and there are 
 yet Almees in the desert, according to Felicien David, although 
 I never saw any there, when I have crossed it. Whether any- 
 thing new can be procured from these resources we know not. 
 If there can, it will be all the better for Terpsichore : if there 
 cannot, we recommend her to cultivate the friendship of the 
 Hindoo Nautch girls ; from whose repertoire something may be 
 brought out, without doubt very original, that may get up a 
 sensation for an ensuing season. 
 
( 139 ) 
 
 XX. 
 
 A LEGENDARY CHAEADE. 
 
 MX TIBST. 
 
 " Jfow lithe and listen, little page. 
 
 And set the merlin down ; 
 Thy bonnet don, this message take, 
 
 And bear it to the town. 
 
 " For there are drums and clarions loud, 
 
 And casques and pennons bright, 
 And my sweetheart, Sir Galafred, 
 Has come back from the fight. 
 
 " Go, tell him, if he sees to-night 
 
 A cresset on the keep, 
 'Twill show him that my father's eyes 
 
 Are closed in heavy sleep. 
 
 " But if no light upon the wall 
 
 He marks to guide his track, 
 Then tell him not to come at all, 
 
 But speedily turn back." 
 
 The lady's page was not at all like those we meet in Kussell- 
 square, 
 
 "With rows of buttons, beaver hat, and shining face, and short- 
 cut hair ; 
 
 But wore long flowing chesnut curls, and velvet doublet — gold 
 and green — 
 
 In fact, just such a page as now is only in the coulisses seen. 
 
 Alboni, in " The Huguenots," was like him, only not so slim, 
 
 For, truth to tell, the great contralto would have made a score 
 of him. 
 
 Laughing-eyed and sunny-hearted, 
 Off the little page departed ; 
 But it was a summer's day, 
 And he loitered on his way. 
 
190 WILD OATS. 
 
 Now lie lingered at the hostel, where the noisy troopers stayed, 
 Listening to the fearful stories of the forays they had made. 
 Next he met the miller's daughter, whom he chid despite her 
 
 charms, 
 For that she had thrown him over for some stalwart man-at- 
 arms. 
 But we know that lovers' tiffs amoris integratio est, 
 
 So they very soon made friends, and never mind, we'll guess 
 
 the rest. 
 In this way so long he tarried, that the sun was sinking down, 
 Gilding vanes, and roofs, and spires, when he reached the 
 bustling town. 
 
 Knights and squires, spear and bow men, 
 Mail-clad guards and jerkined yeomen, 
 Minstrels clothed in Lincoln green, 
 Damsels decked in kirtle sheen, 
 So confused the little page, 
 Did his young eyes so engage, 
 That he quite forgot his charge, and told Sir G-alafred to come 
 If he saw no watchlight gleaming from the lady's castled home. 
 
 MT SECOND. 
 
 Hesperus ! thou bringest all good things 
 Home to the weary : dinner's dainty cheer, 
 
 Or, in the house where stout Alboni sings, 
 
 The welcome stall to him who lists to hear. 
 "Whate'er of mirth about our circle clings, 
 
 "Whate'er our deux-temps waltzers hold most dear, 
 Are gathered round us at thy genial hour: 
 Thou bring'st the knight, too, to the lady's bower. 
 
 Perchance you think you've heard all this before, 
 Or something very like it ? Never mind, 
 
 Ideas are not so teeming as of yore, 
 So be unto the theft a little kind. 
 
 1 was about to say that day was o'er, ♦ 
 And not one ray of sunset left behind, 
 
 When brave Sir Galafred, to her amazement, 
 Just showed his face outside the lady's casement. 
 
a lege:ndary charade. 191 
 
 Quick and startled was the greeting 
 At this unexpected meeting. 
 " Ely !" she cried, " ere they have caught^ you ! 
 "What sad chance has hither brought you?" 
 " Give me one," the knight replied. 
 " ]STo — pray go !" the lady sighed. 
 " Only one !" was still his prayer, 
 As a yoice cried, " Who goes there ?" 
 " Never mind the risk, 
 I'll brave it : 
 One is all I ask !" 
 She gave it. 
 
 MY WHOLE. 
 
 The fields in sunny Normandy were in proud England hands, 
 And Cherbourg bold and Harfleur old were smoking from her 
 
 brands, 
 And Caen had given up her stores— plate, gems, and velvet fine, 
 And Tancarville was sent in strange captivity to pine. 
 Ey smouldering homes the course was shown of Edward's armed 
 
 might, 
 Until, on Cressy's green hill-side, they halted for the fight ; 
 And there, before the set of sun, they made a bloody fray, 
 That few were they who 'scaped to tell the fortunes of that day. 
 
 King Edward from a windmill saw the chances of the field, 
 And how his son, by numbers pressed, had got good cause to 
 
 yield ; 
 But when they sent a messenger to beg his instant aid, 
 The king still'kept back his reserve, and this was all he said : 
 " Go, tell my son, to him be all the honour of the fight, 
 And bid him win his golden spurs, and wear them as a knight, 
 So that his name be known to fame in future songs and tales, 
 And bards shall praise my noble boy, young Edward, Prince of 
 
 Wales!" 
 
 Then forth the mighty engines burst, outpouring death and fire, 
 And first on battle-field was felt the angry cannon's ire. 
 The lady's father marked its force, and when the fight was o'er, 
 He pondered much upon its use, and then an oath he swore, 
 
192 WILD OATS. 
 
 That once again on English ground he would no pleasure take 
 Until such arms, of lighter form, his armourer should make, 
 By which he might in better plight his castle watch and ward, 
 And from all flight with lover light his gentle daughter guard. 
 
 And thus was made the demi-haque, and arquebus-a-croc, 
 The musquet, haquebut, caliver, snap-haunce, and tricker-lock, 
 The hand-gun, fusil, carabine, wheel-lock, and esclopette, 
 And one from which Sir Galafred his death had well-nigh met ; 
 For, blazing from an embrasure, as 'cross the chase he fled, 
 A shower of bullets rattled through the branches o'er his head 
 But he escaped to come again, and this time all was right, 
 Since, when he left, his lady-love was partner in his flight. 
 
( 193 ) 
 
 XXI. 
 
 LORD MAYOR'S DAY. 
 
 I do not remember to have met with a matter-of-fact de- 
 scription of Lord Mayor's Day. Some years ago, the late Mr. 
 Theodore Hook published a famous story called " The Splendid 
 Annual," in which he depicted, as he only could have done it, 
 the glory of the Lord Mayor when he took possession of his 
 office, and the grandeur thereunto attached, ending with a 
 capital account of the indignities he endured when he sank the 
 mayor in the citizen at the conclusion of his reign. Every 
 year the papers come out with long lists of the viands provided 
 upon the occasion ; the quantity of tureens of turtle, " each 
 containing three pints;" the number of dishes of potatoes, 
 " mashed and otherwise ;" the bottles of " sherbet," which I 
 take to be the Guildhall for "punch ;" the plates of biscuits, 
 and the removes of game ; enough in themselves to have 
 emptied all the West India ships, Irish fields, Botolph-lane 
 warehouses, ovens, preserves, and shops generally, ever known 
 or recognised. And they also tell us how the Lord Mayor 
 went, and how he came back ; how he was joined, on his return 
 at the Obelisk in Fleet-street, by all the noble and distin- 
 guished personages invited to the banquet at Guildhall ; and 
 what were the speeches given. But they omit the common- 
 place details ; and as this is something that is sought after, 
 now-a-days, whether it relates to a visit to a pin-manufactory, a 
 day in a coal-mine, or a dinner in the City, I venture to give a 
 report : and I beg to state that this is intended more for the 
 amusement of my friends in quiet country nooks and corners 
 — who hear occasionally by a third day's paper of what is 
 going on in our great world of London — than for those who 
 know City dinners by heart, and can look back through a long 
 vista of many years at the sparkling splendour of Guildhall, as 
 on our retreat from Vauxhall we used to cast a glance at the 
 Neptune at the end of the walk, ever spouting out amidst his 
 jets and glories. 
 
194 WILD OATS. 
 
 My earliest recollections of Lord Mayor's Day are con- 
 nected with my scholarship at Merchant Taylors'. The school 
 was once called " Merchant Tailors' ;" but I remember, 
 when instruction in writing was first introduced there, and 
 we had copies to do, with the name of the establishment 
 as our motto, that our esteemed head-master, " Bellamy" 
 (for " Eeverend" or "Mr." were terms alike unknown to us), 
 altered the orthography. " How will you have ' Tailors' spelt, 
 sir?" asked Mr. Clarke, who had come from the Blue-Coat 
 School (if I remember aright) to teach us our pothooks and 
 hangers. "With ay, most certainly," was the answer of the 
 "Jack Gull;" for Bellamy (that I should live to write his 
 name thus lightly, and so treat him without fear of an imposi- 
 tion ! but he was a goodly creature and a great scholar, and 
 will forgive me) had his name inscribed over the door of the 
 schoolroom as " Jac. Gul. Bellamy, B.D., Arcliididascalo" and 
 from this abbreviation he took his cognomen amongst the boys. 
 And so, we did not mind being called "snips" by opposing 
 schools (and, mind you, we had great fights with Mercers' and 
 St. Paul's thereanent, and pitched battles in Little St. Thomas 
 Apostle and Great Knight-Eider-street), but we stuck to 
 the y : and henceforth believed greatly in our school, and its 
 motto : " Parvce res concordid crescunt" although ribald minds 
 still told us that its true translation was, " Nine tailors make a 
 man." 
 
 But I humbly beg pardon : all this time I am forgetting Lord 
 Mayor's Day. 'it was to me a great holiday. I had some kind 
 friends in Bridge-street, Blackfriars, who always invited me, on 
 that festival, to join their party ; and from their windows, over 
 the little court that runs from the above-named thoroughfare 
 into Bride-lane, I first beheld the pageant. I look back upon 
 those meetings now with very great pleasure ; enough, I hope, 
 to excuse my dilating upon them in these few lines. None of 
 the parties which, as a floating literary man upon town, I have 
 since been thrown up with, have ever equalled the in in un- 
 strained fun and honest welcome. I can recal vividly the 
 crowd in the street ; the only parallel to which I ever saw was 
 from the roof of Newgate previous to an execution ; for a mob 
 is not particular as to the object of its assembling. The visi- 
 tors, and above all the girls, at the windows above ; the laugh- 
 ter that the pieman caused when he was pushed about by the 
 crowd ; the hard time the applewoman had of it when she un- 
 
loed mayor's day. 195 
 
 advisedly ventured into the middle of the street, with the perti- 
 nacity of a half-price pit fruit- vendor ; the impudent boy who 
 had got on the lamp-post, and actually made faces at the police- 
 man, knowing that he was beyond his power; the fortunate 
 people, having possession of the door-step, looked down upon 
 their fellows ; and, above all, the lucky mob, whom it was the 
 fashion in after times, before the misery of Europe put them 
 at a discount, to call " the people," who had carried the obelisk 
 by storm, and perched themselves upon every available ledge, — 
 all these things, I say, I can recal, and wish I could look at 
 them again with the same feelings of fresh enjoyment, before it 
 was so constantly dunned, and hammered, and insisted on, and 
 bawled into my ears that "purpose" was the end of all obser- 
 vation. 
 
 "Well, the crowd jostled, and swayed, and quarrelled, and 
 chaffed, and at last the procession started from the bridge. Its 
 commencement was difficult to determine. Toil saw a nao- 
 waving about amidst an ocean of hats, and an active gentleman 
 on horseback riding backwards and forwards to clear the way. 
 Then the flag stopped, until more flags came up — from where 
 goodness only knows — and waved about also. Then the sound 
 of a distant band was heard, only the bass notes falling on the 
 ear in that unsatisfactory strain that reaches you when a brass 
 band is in the next street ; .and at last there did appear to be 
 an actual movement. Large banners, that nearly blew the men 
 over, preceded watermen, and " companies," and all sorts of 
 bands played various tunes as they passed under the windows, 
 until they were lost up Ludgate-hill, until at length came the 
 " ancient knights." They were the lions of the show. I had 
 long wondered at them from their " effigies" in a moving toy I 
 had of the Lord Mayor's Show, which my good father had made 
 for me when quite a little boy ; and henceforth thev were 
 always the chief attraction. I can now picture their very style 
 of armour, their scale surtouts and awe-inspiring helmets, 
 which reckless spirits have since called brass " blancmange 
 moulds ;" the difficulty they had to sit upright ; the impossi- 
 bility it would have been for them to have stood a course, " in 
 the name of Heaven, our Lady, and St. George," in lists. But 
 they were very fine. And then came the carriages, so like 
 other toys I bought at the fair, in a long box, where the coach- 
 man had a curly goose's feather in his hat, and the horses 
 dazzled with Dutch metal; then came other bands, and the 
 
 o2 
 
196 WILD OATS. 
 
 huzzas, and the mob again. It was all very delightful ; and 
 nothiug ever moved me so much, not even the procession in 
 The Jeivess, when I first saw it. And it was very proper too. 
 ]STow I am writing this very paper in the depths of the country. 
 A wood fire is flashing upon the wainscot panels of my vast 
 bedroom, which are crackling, from time to time, with its heat. 
 The air without is nipping, and frosty, and dead still. A fine 
 old hound, who has chosen to domicile himself with me for the 
 night, is lying on the rug, like a dead hare, dreaming fitfully of 
 bygone chases ; and nothing is heard but the wheezing turret- 
 clock, that sounds as if it had not been oiled since the Refor- 
 mation. It is impossible to conceive anything more opposite 
 to a sympathy with civic festivity than this picture ; but yet I 
 look back to New Bridge-street and Lord Mayor's Day with 
 the greatest gratification. I do not call the pageant " slow" or 
 absurd. I only think if the spirit that would suppress it, with 
 our other institutions, had been allowed to run wilful riot 
 abroad, where would our homes and hearths have been at pre- 
 sent ? "What would the inarcliands of Paris, from the Chaussee 
 d' Antin to the Quartier Latin, not give to see any of their fes- 
 tivals of the middle ages progressing in the same unaltered, 
 steady-going fashion as our own " Lord Mayor's Show ?" 
 
 The procession over, I cared not what became of its consti- 
 tuents ; and it was not until a few years ago that I ever had the 
 chance of dining at Guildhall, and seeing what became of the 
 principal part of them. 
 
 The ticket I received was wonderfully imposing ; a whole 
 sheet of Bristol board had apparently been used in its con- 
 struction ; and it was accompanied by a plan of all the plates 
 at the table, my own being painted red, so that I knew at once 
 where I was to sit. It did not say at what time the dinner 
 would be ready, but informed me that nobody would be 
 admitted after a certain hour ; so that, from some hazy recol- 
 lection of the procession taking in its distinguished guests at 
 the obelisk about three o'clock, I thought four would be a 
 proper hour to arrive at Guildhall. The ride thither was by 
 no means the least striking part of the day's excitement. From 
 Ludgate-hill to Gresbam-street my cab ploughed its course 
 through the densest mob of people I ever saw ; and as they 
 were all in the way, and had to be " Hi'd !" and sworn at, and 
 policed therefrom, I do not believe any one ever received so 
 many epithets, more or less complimentary, in half an hour, as 
 
lord mayor's day. 197 
 
 I did daring that time. The windows were alive with heads — ■ 
 where the bodies thereunto belonging were crammed was im- 
 possible to guess — and not only the windows, but the balconies 
 and copings, the tops of shop-fronts and parapets, were equally- 
 peopled ; and this continued all the way to the doors of Guild- 
 hall, where my ticket and hat were delivered up, and I entered 
 the Hall. 
 
 The effect upon entering was very beautiful. The long lines 
 of tables, sparkling with glass and plate, were striking in them- 
 selves; but they were comparatively nothing. The noble 
 building itself, with its picturesque architecture outlined by 
 dazzling gas jets ; the brilliant star at the western window, 
 and the enormous Prince of "Wales's feather of spun glass, at 
 the eastern, surmounting the trophy of armour ; the helmets, 
 banners, and breastplates hung round ; the men-at-arms on 
 their pedestals, in bright harness ; the barons of beef on their 
 pulpits ; and, above all, Gog and Magog gazing, as they had 
 gazed for centuries, on the banquet, carrying fearfully spiked 
 weapons, which now-a-days nobody but_ Mr. W. H. Payne is 
 allowed to use — and he only in a pantomime ; all this formed a 
 tableau really exciting : and, distant matters being considered,, 
 made one think there was no national conceit in the pride and 
 glory of being an Englishman after all. 
 
 Prom the Hall the majority of the guests went on to the 
 Council Chamber, where the presentations were to take place ~ 
 and here there was amusement enough to be found in watching 
 the toilets of the company. The gentlemen in their court- 
 dresses and coloured gowns, were well enough : there was a 
 grave municipal appearance about them that set off the scene 
 wonderfully, nor could it have been possible to have seen so 
 many good old honest intelligent heads together anywhere 
 else. But we must run the risk of being considered for ever 
 ungallant in saying that the dress of the ladies, with few ex- 
 ceptions, was in itself worth going to see. Their costumes 
 were not poor — on the contrary, they were as magnificent as 
 Genoa, Lyons, and Mechlin could make them. Xeither were 
 they old-fashioned : such would not have been altogether out 
 of keeping. But they were singularly comical ; the most hete- 
 rogeneous colours, styles, and trimmings were all jumbled toge- 
 ther : and the wonderful combinations of manufactures _ they 
 wore in, and on, and round their heads, would require a list as 
 long as the Morning Post's after a drawing-room to describe. 
 
198 WILD OATS. 
 
 Caricatures of the coiffures of all the early Queens of Trance 
 and England might have been detected, by a sharp eye, amongst 
 the company ; nay, one old lady had made up so carefully after 
 Henry VIII., that, with whiskers and beard, she would have 
 been wonderful. A large proportion had a great notion of a 
 fluffy little feather stuck on the left side of their heads ; and 
 all preferred curls to bands when such were practicable — and 
 curls of elaborate and unwonted nature and expanse. Amongst 
 them, to be sure, were some lovely girls who would have put 
 the West-end belles upon their mettle — faultless in dress and 
 tournure as a presentation beauty — but they were overwhelmed 
 by the dowagers. 
 
 There did not appear to be much to be seen here, for it was 
 impossible to get near the dais, so I went back to the Hall, to 
 my place at the table, and learnt, to my sorrow, that dinner 
 would not take place before seven. But there was plenty to be 
 amused at as the more distinguished guests arrived, and passed 
 on to the Council Chamber through an avenue of gazers, 
 being announced by name as they entered. This name, how- 
 ever, it was impossible to catch ; every one, from the size of the 
 place, ended in unintelligible reverberations. So that from "Lord 
 Or-r-r-r!" "Mr. Baron Pr-r-r-r !" or "Captain Uls-s-s-s!" 
 you made out what you conceived to be the most probable, and 
 were contented accordingly. Eroin time to time a brass band 
 in the gallery played selections from operas ; hungry gentlemen 
 looked wistfully at the cold capons ; and frantic officials, with 
 white wands, ran about with messages and ordered the waiters. 
 For myself, I confess to having settled quietly down on my 
 form, and made myself as perfectly happy with my Trench roll 
 and some excellent Madeira as any one could possibly have de- 
 sired. 
 
 At length some trumpets announced the approach of the 
 Lord Mayor ; and his procession, including my dear old friend 
 of childhood, with the large flower-pot-shaped muff" upon his 
 head, entered the Hall to a grand march. They came in long 
 array down the steps, then round the end below Gog and 
 Magog, along the southern side, and so up to their tables. 
 This was really impressive ; and, as the civic authorities, the 
 judges, and Serjeants, the trumpeters, and all the rest, marched 
 round, one was tempted to think much more of Dick Whit- 
 tington, and Sir William Walworth, Evil May Day, the Con- 
 duit in Chepe, together with Stow, Strutt, Holinshed, and 
 
LORD MAYORS DAY. 199 
 
 Eitzstephen, than the present good Lord Mayor of London, 
 and all the municipal, military, naval, and forensic celebrities 
 that accompanied him, to the tune of " Oh, the roast beef of 
 old England !" played in the gallery. 
 
 Our good friend Mr. Harker — without whom I opine all 
 public dinners would go for nothing, and the Old Bailey Court 
 become a bear-garden— gave the signal for grace, the tureens 
 having already appeared upon the tables during the cortege ; 
 and then what a warfare of glass and crockery, of knives and 
 forks and spoons, and calipash and calipee began ! The hapless 
 guests by the tureens had a hard time of it in supplying their 
 fellow visitors ; and the rule for politeness in the " Book of 
 Etiquette" which says "it is bad taste to partake twice of 
 soup," had evidently never been learnt; for they partook not 
 only twice, but three times, and would, doubtless, have gone 
 on again but for the entire consumption of the delicacy. Eor 
 the vast number of people present it was astonishing, by the 
 wav, how well everybody was attended to. The waiters ran 
 over one another less than they usually do at great dinners ; 
 they recollected when you asked for a fork, and brought you 
 one ; and if it had not been for their clattering down all the 
 plates and dishes against your heels under your form, the 
 arrangements would have been perfect. 
 
 At the head of our table was the most glorious old gentle- 
 man I had ever seen. Whether Earringdon Without or Broad- 
 street claimed him as its own I do not know, for the wards were 
 divided at the table ; but whichever it was had a right to be 
 proud of him. He knew everybody, and all treated him with 
 the greatest respect. He was a wit, too, and made some very 
 fair puns; besides which, by his continued pleasantries, he 
 kept the whole table alive. He took wine with all whom he 
 saw were strangers, and offered them his snuff-box with a merry 
 speech. He was the best mixture of the fine old courtier and 
 common councilman it was possible to conceive, and my ad- 
 miration of his good fellowship was increased, when I was 
 told that he was actually eighty-two years of age ! I should 
 like to have had some quiet talk with that old gentleman. He 
 must have known many youths, barely living on their modest 
 salary, who afterwards rode in their own carriages in the Lord 
 Mayor's procession — perhaps as chief actors. He could, I will 
 be "bound, have told us stories of the riots of '80, when he 
 was a mere boy ; and of the banquet given to the allied sove- 
 
200 WILD OATS. 
 
 reigns in that very old Guildhall, a score and half of years 
 afterwards. But he left our table early, and when he went, 
 and told us all that he was going home to put on his slippers 
 and have a cigar, we were really grieved to part with him, and 
 could have better spared the tetchy gentleman near him, who 
 did nothing but squabble with the waiters and threaten to 
 report them. 
 
 The dinner was despatched — the cold turkeys, and hams, and 
 tongues, and the tolerably hot pheasants and partridges — in 
 less time than might be conceived. There was no lack of any- 
 thing. The punch was unexceptionable, the Madeira of the 
 choicest, and the champagne unlimited. And after all this, a 
 bevy of pretty young ladies, with an equal number of gentle- 
 men, appeared in the south music gallery to sing the grace, 
 which they did very well. The visitors evidently knew their 
 business. They did not applaud, when the grace was over, in 
 the manner of some reckless and enthusiastic spirits fresh at 
 a public dinner, who look upon it as they would do upon a 
 Cider Cellars chorus, but received it gravely, filled their glasses, 
 and waited for what was to come next. Then the trumpets 
 sounded, and were answ r ered from the other end of the Hall, and 
 the new Lord Mayor rose and proposed " The Queen." And 
 if her Majesty could have heard how that toast was received, 
 with an enthusiasm that made the very men-in-armour totter 
 on their pedestals, and Gog and Magog almost invisible through 
 the haze of excitement, she would have known that the expres- 
 sion of her belief in the allegiance of her good old City of 
 London, with which she was accustomed to respond to ad- 
 dresses, were beyond the conventional, after all. 
 
 The remaining toasts could only be heard by those at the 
 principal table ; but when the ladies left, the gentlemen went 
 up, and stood about on the forms and benches to see and hear 
 the "great guns" of the evening. Afterwards tea and coffee 
 were served in a long room to the right of the Council Chamber, 
 and then dancing began in the latter apartment, until the part 
 of the Hall above the railing was cleared for the same purpose. 
 Luring this period the company had an opportunity of seeing 
 two very clever pieces of scenic view which were displayed, to 
 be looked at through windows, on what might possibly otherwise 
 have been a blank wall. These were modelled representations of 
 the Tower, and the Eialto at" Venice. They had a charming effect; 
 
LORD MAYOR'S DAY. 201 
 
 the sober light and air of tranquillity thrown over them being 
 in excellent contrast with the noise and brilliancy of what was 
 in reality "the hall of dazzling light," usually treated as a 
 poetic and, perhaps, apocryphal piece of festivity inseparable 
 from striking a light guitar. 
 
 The dancing was famously kept up, " with unabated spirit," 
 as newspapers say of a ball. To be sure, the more^ refined 
 Terpsichorean nerves were occasionally shocked by hearing sub- 
 dued wishes for " The Caledonians." The majority, too, pre- 
 ferred the polka to the waltz, and mistrusted themselves in the 
 deux temps. But they were evidently very happy, and believed 
 greatly in everything about them, and if we could always do the 
 same in society we should have little to grumble at. At last, 
 not choosing to let the world generally know at what hour my 
 faithful latch-key put me in possession of that most inestimable 
 property, one's own bedroom, I slipped off, and arrived at home- 
 with calm propriety, filled with gratitude to the Lord Mayor, 
 the sheriffs, and the corporation generally, for a very hospitable 
 (and, to me, a very novel) entertainment. 
 
( 202 ) 
 
 XXII. 
 
 A STREET SKETCH. 
 (July 9, 1851.) 
 
 Ooeay-t-t-t-t-y-y ! ! ! Bang ! Here she comes, Bill ! 
 Ooray-y-y-y-y-y ! ! ! Rang - dang - dang - dang ! Now then, 
 Missus, one way or the other ! Bang-dang ! Bang-dang-dang ! 
 Ooray-y-y-y-y-y-y ! ! Rang-dang-bang-kling-klang ! Bang ! 
 Bang ! ! Bang ! ! ! "Where are you a shovin' me under the 
 'orses 'eels ? Hur-ray-y-y-y-y-y ! ! ! 
 
 God save the Queen! It is long after midnight, but the 
 streets are alive with life ; and the mighty stream eddies round 
 the horse soldiers on guard, and nearly hurries the policeman 
 on its current. The gas stars light up the road like day, and 
 flash on the breastplates and helmets ; the people are taking 
 early places on the kerbs ; the boys have appropriated to them- 
 selves all the churchyard railings, and building hordes, and 
 mountains of wooden pavement on the line ; the heavy Life 
 Guard chargers are moving their hoofs about as daintily as 
 though they imagined that a lady's little foot was likely to be 
 under all of them ; and with renewed hurrahs, and bell clanging, 
 and distant guns, and braying trumpets, through Temple-bar, 
 which appears, from the Strand, to be the portal of a temporary 
 city of light and banners, on comes the Queen ! 
 
 They have held high festival at Guildhall to-night, and the 
 riches of our mighty city have flown right and left to do honour 
 to her Majesty. But we would not have given much to have 
 seen her there, otherwise than as the chief personage in a grand 
 mob. It is here — at midnight, in the streets amongst her 
 people — that we feel our heart rising into our eyes as we watch 
 her progress and hurrah with the best of them. 
 
 Look at her, European democrats, and republicans, and 
 liberators, and patriots, and all other names of restless scamps 
 who bawl about "freedom" and " light ;" and, having nothing 
 to lose, plunge your countries into bloodshed and misery before 
 
A STREET SKETCH. 203 
 
 you scramble off to England, in which you ought to arrive, if 
 practicable, at a cart's tail. Look at that young woman, so 
 honoured, and so secure in the honest affections of her people, 
 that although her guard is as nothing compared to the crowds 
 in the streets, she sits there as calmly as if she were in her own 
 room in Windsor Castle. Dare but even to scowl at her, and 
 you shall be yelled and chevied along the causeway like curs on 
 a race-course. Look at her smiling face as she passes, and the 
 roar of enthusiastic recognition becomes louder and more con- 
 tinuous until she can scarcely acknowledge it. And then look 
 at all those good folks who are cheering and crushing round her 
 carriage in thousands. They have no secret police or spies after 
 them except the clever detectives ; they do not know what domi- 
 ciliary visits are ; they have never been " disarmed ;" they may 
 all make gunpowder in their outhouses, or cartridges in their 
 back kitchens, all the week long if they please ; they have no 
 passports, they can leave England when they like, and return 
 at their pleasure ; if they had common sporting permission, 
 they might all have carried double-barrelled guns and cutlasses 
 about the streets all night for their own diversion ; and yet the 
 Queen is safer among them than she would be in the centre of 
 a belt of bristling bayonets and artillery ! The cortege goes on, 
 and the public once more take entire possession of the streets 
 to stare at the illuminations. What a festival it is ! Every- 
 body seems to have a party to-night in every room of the house. 
 We never saw so many decanters as are visible through the 
 first-floor windows ; and there is blaster Brown, who would 
 light up the Y. K. himself from the window, in broad daylight, 
 so excited and anxious was he, and has sat behind it ever since, 
 to show his connexion with the spectacle, and will not go to 
 bed until the last wick has expired in the smell ; and there 
 is Jones and Bunting, who have taken advantage of their 
 neighbour's gas star, and hung a flag from their second floor, 
 which catches all the light therefrom, and makes a great 
 effect at a cheap rate, whilst their neighbour, whose banner is 
 obscured by its own shade, like the clock at the White Horse 
 Cellar, achieves small triumph. Why, there is a very old friend 
 — to be sure it is — in the shape of a transparency. We can 
 scarcely call to mind when we first saw that, but it is some 
 time ago. It is what is called an " allegory," a sort of thing 
 you see in the frontispieces to old magazines and encyclopaedias, 
 and on the ceilings of Hampton Court, which nobody can make 
 
204 WILD OATS. 
 
 out, or, if they can, don't care about. Here we have the Queen 
 in a large scallop shell, riding on the sea, drawn by dolphins, 
 with a lion at her feet, and girls, with great display of shoulders, 
 swimming about her ; and Neptune getting bang in her way, 
 with large calves, and deltoide muscles, offering her a trident. 
 By the way, why are calves and deltoides always larger in alle- 
 gories than anything else? Now all this is very absurd. 
 Heaven forfend that her Majesty should trust herself with a 
 lion in a scallop-shell, and go to sea. "We question, indeed, 
 whether any persuasion would make her do so, so long as she 
 had her own steamer — especially to be drawn by dolphins — 
 quite out of the water of course. We know the instant fish 
 get out of their element what freaks they indulge in, and we 
 should mistrust the dolphins. No — no ; it is all nonsense ; we 
 prefer the reality of the clown in the washing-tub drawn by 
 ducks, and this is all that it reminds us of. 
 
 Half-past one ! The crowd still keeps streaming on ; and we 
 go with it. But the illuminations become rather monotonous. 
 The inventive genius of the folks in this line never gets beyond 
 a Y, an A, a star, and a crown ; and these wear on repetition. 
 The " lampions" of the Continent are beyond all comparison 
 more effective in their ensemble — those pretty, many-coloured 
 globes with which they festoon the streets and cover the houses. 
 One naked gas star over the shop of a dingy brick house is 
 certainly worse than nothing ; it puts one in mind of a dirty 
 man in corduroys with a diamond brooch on. 
 
 By degrees the crowd thins and the lamps go out, Temple 
 Bar, so gorgeous an hour ago, looks as ragged as a moulting 
 parrot ; and the people who sat up all the evening at the ad- 
 joining windows to look at it, have gone to bed. The wind is 
 getting up, and the gas stars in and out, the lights and shadows 
 flying about them as on a corn-field. Sometimes the B becomes 
 a P, and then an I, and then a small d ; and the fading devices of 
 the variegated lamps assume unintelligible patterns, like the 
 cards of a Jacquard loom, or a constellation without its picture. 
 And now, right away to the east, a glimmer of grey light steals 
 upwards, and the tops of the houses, hitherto hidden by the 
 glare below, begin to show their outlines against the sky. 
 
 The mob is gone ; the soldiers have gone ; the policemen even 
 have gone, except the ordinary numbered letters of the dis- 
 trict ; and the great heart of London begins to beat tranquilly 
 once more, soothed by the pure air of morning. And now 
 
A STREET SKETCH. 205 
 
 another procession begins along the line of the Royal progress. 
 "Waggons of cabbages and Tans of flowers come toiling on to 
 Covent-garden ; and the Essex labourer whips his team uncon- 
 cernedly along the streets, where none but the wheels of Ma- 
 jesty were permitted to revolve a few hours ago, and stares 
 with stupid wonder at the dying illuminations. 
 
 "What a chance for a writer of large sympathies and great 
 purpose that Essex clodhopper affords ! How he could be ad- 
 vantageously compared in his stalwart health to the pampered 
 children of empty state who rode in their tinsel and spangles 
 along the same route two hours ago ! How his utility in the 
 great scale of creation could be weighed in sonorous words 
 against that of the idle courtiers who preceded him ! Stuff and 
 nonsense ! we have seen a swell thrash a snob into fits, and with 
 the greatest pleasure ; and, as far as the utility line goes, we 
 wager, if the Essex clodhopper was subjected to a rigorous ex- 
 amination, it might turn out that packing cabbages and driving 
 a team was all he was fit for, or capable of achieving. 
 
 Still he is useful in his way, and so are the swells, and so let 
 us hope we all are. And it has been a very pleasant day, and 
 thousands of people have appeared very happy, and we all seem 
 very flourishing and comfortable'generally, and don't envy any- 
 body, and are very proud, prouder than ever, of England and 
 our Queen ; and so, God bless us all ! 
 
( 206 ) 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 THE FAIRY WEDDING. 
 
 Once upon a time, all the rich Chertsey meadows, which lie 
 between the Abbey Biver and Laleham Ferry on the Thames, 
 formed a large plain. Old Master Goring, who was a hundred 
 years old the day King "William the Fourth opened Staines 
 Bridge — on which occasion he had the honour of being pre- 
 sented to his Majesty — once told me that he could remember 
 when any one could look right away from the Thames to Net- 
 tlebury Hole, standing on the Laleham Burway, without a 
 hedge or plantation to cut the view. And there was not such 
 a rauge of grass all about the country ; insomuch that the above 
 venerable gentleman, who proved in himself that " the oldest 
 inhabitant" was not the myth he was popularly supposed to be, 
 also informed me how he remembered the Royal Hunt once 
 came here, and all the townspeople ran out and left their shops, 
 just as they do now for a balloon descent, or a fight, or a drown- 
 ing, to see King George the Third, who pulled up his horse, 
 and said to his companions, " I always stop to admire these 
 meadows." It was my aged friend's name which once so scan- 
 dalised our parish in good Mr. Pembroke's time. For when 
 that esteemed minister asked the farmer's daughter who was 
 the oldest man, to test the extent of her serious knowledge 
 prior to confirmation, she answered, " If you please, sir, old 
 Master Goring !" "Which threw the Sunday-schools in such a 
 flutter, that the children had to learn an extra hymn every week 
 during the summer, with closed windows, to do away with the 
 district disgrace. 
 
 These meadows always had the reputation of being haunted. 
 The notion had originated in the "fairy rings," the circles of 
 fresh green grass which covered them, and which were always 
 brightly verdant, however scorched up the surrounding turf 
 might be. A few of these still remain ; and the old story, that 
 they were traces of the fairies' tinkling steps as they danced 
 round the throne mushroom, is still promulgated, but not cre- 
 dited ; the first stream of the railway locomotive blew away all 
 belief on its puff of steam. 
 
 Elsewise I do not know who would have been bold enough 
 on May-night ? or St. Mark's Eve, or any other haunted anni- 
 
THE FAIRY WEDDING. 207 
 
 versary, to have sat on the banks of the Abbey Elver, all alone, 
 and asked, in the awful language of the Medium, " Are there 
 any spirits present ?" I wouldn't. Leaving alone the chance 
 of witnessing, in shadows, the dreary funeral convoy of King 
 Henry the Sixth, as it came up this very river in a rude black 
 boat, with a torch at the head, dripping into the sputtering 
 water, and flashing its light about on the blood-clotted features 
 of the murdered monarch, until they appeared to writhe again 
 with his last agony, without monk or mourner, except the pale 
 spectre of his son, which floated in the air in an armour of dull 
 blue light, clouded in half a dozen places by the gore from his 
 wounds, as it burst forth in Edward's tent at Tewkesbury ; leav- 
 ing alone all this, I say I should be very nervous, for a very 
 great many people have been drowned in the Abbey Eiver. 
 Some have gone, with nothing more to hope for in this world, 
 on dark terrible nights, to put themselves at once beyond the 
 power of human wrong and agony ; others, stout swimmers, 
 have been pulled down in the bright summer noontide, by long 
 snake-like weeds that twisted round their legs, and bubbled 
 up their last breath with the sun dancing on their struggling 
 limbs through the overhanging pollards ; and others, I regret 
 to add, returning with uncertain notions, at night, from Lale- 
 ham brotherly love clubs, have mistaken the bridge, and walked 
 cheerfully into the water, cutting short their vocal intentions 
 of drowning care in a bowl, by substituting themselves and 
 the river, in which they have been found, the next morning, 
 sitting down at the bottom, with a pipe still in their hands, 
 and, to all appearance, presiding at an extensive free-and-easy 
 of fishes. More agreeable would be the meadow spirits than 
 the corpse- like visions I should expect on the river. They ap- 
 pear to have been always very well-meaning and grateful little 
 persons, if they were only well treated ; but if you put them 
 out, they were terribly mischievous ; and this brings me to the 
 fairy rings on the Burway, and how they came there. 
 
 Old Sir Eeginald "Wapshott lived at Eedwynde Court, on the 
 pasture still marked out in the old histories of Surrey. The 
 "Wapshotts had resided ever since the Conquest, as everybody 
 knows, at Almoners' Barns, on St. Anne's Hill, near Hardwicke 
 Court, where Charles James Fox used always to go to the fair, 
 and see the girls dance in the barn, and walk about, eating a 
 great brick of stale gingerbread. They had always been ex- 
 cellent people ; and none of them ever rose above or sank below 
 the grade of respectable yeomen ; through all the civil wars and 
 
208 WILD OATS. 
 
 turmoils that so upset the middle ages, except this Eeginald. 
 He had beeu knighted for some service rendered to the king ; 
 and being a fine fellow to boot, had attracted the attention of 
 Dame Blanche Audley, widow of Neville Audley, and a daughter 
 of Sir Mark Heriot — the same Blanche who, when a girl, hung 
 to the clapper of the old monastery bell, still to be seen, with 
 its monkish inscription (as figured in Bray and Manning's 
 " Surrey" by my father), in the bell-tower of Chertsey Church, 
 to delay her lover's execution. So Sir Eeginald and Dame 
 Audley were married ; and he got fine, and did not mix much 
 with his old friends ; and perhaps it was on that account that 
 they said Dame Audley's early energy had turned into ceaseless 
 curiosity and tittle-tattle, and that this would one day bring 
 her husband into trouble. Probably they might have exag- 
 gerated it ; and, truth to tell, the old lady was rather an in- 
 quisitive and scandalous "party;" and, indeed, it is a local 
 attribute to be so ; for, from time immemorial, the good folks 
 of Chertsey have always felt such a much greater interest in 
 other people's business than in their own, that it is_ not asto- 
 nishing the town stands pretty much the same as it did fifty 
 years ago. 
 
 One fine autumnal night the moon was full outupon the 
 bowling-green of Bedwynde. It was after curfew time — they 
 ring the curfew even now at Chertsey— and most of the house- 
 hold had gone to rest, except old Sir Eeginald, who sat in an 
 arbour drinking Malvoisie, and pondering on things in general ; 
 which is a pleasant kind of rumination, and the very thing for 
 country gentlemen to indulge in, as it involves but little brain 
 weariness. The night was very fine and very still. Not a leaf 
 was moving, and nothing broke the silence except the plash of 
 the fountain as its bright drops fell into the basin, sparkling 
 in the moonbeams. One by one the lights went out in the 
 windows ; and Sir Eeginald was thinking of bed himself, when 
 lie saw what appeared to him to be a cluster of blue sparks 
 moving across the lawn. They came nearer very slowly, and 
 then he made out that they were glow-worms. In the middle 
 of them, like a shepherd in a flock of sheep, walked the daintiest 
 little person he had ever set eyes on. He was not above three 
 or four inches high, and he wore a little cap made of a foxglove 
 bell. His tunic was a large tulip, put on topsy-turvy, and he 
 carried a stalk of lavender for a staff or wand. With this he 
 directed the movements of the glow-worms, placing some here 
 and others there, until he had distributed them all about the 
 
THE FAIRY WEDDING. 209 
 
 turf banks that bordered the plot, when the ground appeared 
 powdered with light ; and then the drops of water, that fell 
 with various twinkling notes into the basin, appeared to utter 
 most exquisite music, finer and softer than anything the knight 
 had yet heard; and, as an accompaniment, every harebell in 
 the garden appeared turned to silver suddenly, and assisted in 
 ringing out a peal of marvellous changes. Whilst this went on, 
 mushrooms of delicate whiteness rose from the turf, always 
 surrounding one larger than the rest ; and this grew and grew, 
 until it covered the others, and made a perfect tent, which 
 fresh troops of glow-worms directly edged and spiralled with 
 charming devices, always under the direction of the little cham- 
 berlain, who, when he had apparently finished everything to his 
 satisfaction, sat down on a small mushroom and surveyed the 
 arrangements with great complacency. 
 
 And now, from every direction, groups of fairies came on 
 to the bowling-green, all exquisitely dressed in the latest 
 elfin fashions, which would require the pen of Mr. Planche 
 to describe, so fanciful and faylike were they. Some of 
 the leading belles had fans of butterflies' wings, and wore 
 plumes from the humming-bird ; but their robes of moleskin 
 velvet were more especially admired, above all when trimmed 
 with ribbons of Indian grass and ladybirds, and jewels from the 
 diamond-beetles. Amongst the more exquisite beaux might be 
 seen some very absurd dandies. One wore a " "What's-o'- 
 clock?" or "Ptiffaway," on his head, which almost gave him 
 the air of a Kaffir chief ; and another, in a tight-fitting suit of 
 bat's-wing membrane, with a jay's feather in his hat, looked 
 almost like a rope-dancer, and quite prepared to perform upon 
 the long spider's thread that stretched across the lawn. Two 
 or three had caps of calceolarea petals ; and one silly fellow 
 came in a Templar-looking helmet, formed of a filbert husk, 
 worn upside down, with the forepart cut away. But these 
 were mere coxcombs — empty young swells that could be routed 
 with an awn of barley. 
 
 They all took their places about on the little mushrooms as 
 they pleased ; and then Master Seville saw that it was a 
 wedding. For the bride and bridegroom had places of honour ; 
 and the pretty little lady, in a veil of leaf lace trimmed with 
 thistle down, looked a ravir. They made very merry for a long 
 time, during which the old knight watched them from his 
 arbour with the greatest wonder and admiration ; and at last 
 
 p 
 
210 WILD OATS. 
 
 they appeared to Lave come to the end of the mouse-skins 
 of wine which they brought with them. They squeezed out 
 the last drops and then looked about for more, and finally 
 began to complain of their miscalculation with loud lamenta- 
 tions ; for their wine caves were far off in the remotest caverns 
 of the Peak of Derbyshire, and the fairies hated to go in there 
 at night, on account of the dwarfs, who set all sorts of traps for 
 them. For every hill, as is well known, is inhabited by dwarfs ; 
 in fact, it is owing to their spite, for the rout and confusion 
 caused in the tunnelling of Primrose Hill, that the accidents 
 occur on the North-Western Railway, where they play such 
 tricks with the switches and signals that the guards and porters 
 have a hard time of it. 
 
 Sir Seville thought it a great pity that such festive little 
 folks should be stopped in their mirth for want of wine, and on 
 such an occasion too. So he caught up a bottle of Malvoisie 
 yet uncorked, and threw it amongst them. It came down with 
 a " thug" on the turf, well-nigh smashing two or three of them, 
 and causing great consternation generally. But one of them 
 had seen the quarter that it came from ; so, going at once to 
 the summer-house, he discovered the knight, and made an obei- 
 sance to him. After which he said : 
 
 " We have never yet allowed a mortal to keep his eyes after 
 they have looked upon our gatherings. But you have a good 
 heart, and have prolonged our cheer; and, therefore, we hope 
 you will join our party." 
 
 The old knight could not refuse, there was so much grace and 
 courtesy in the little gentleman's manner ; so he took a garden- 
 stool with him, and sat down very carefully, for fear of accident, 
 amongst the company. They were all very polite, and pledged 
 him repeatedly, and at last they began to dance ; and the beau- 
 tiful little bride herself came up, and invited him to be her 
 partner. They were not very well matched as to size, to be 
 sure ; but it seemed to make very little difference to the fairies 
 whether they were on the ground or off it : so, as Sir Neville 
 could not very well stoop down to them, they flew up to him. 
 And then they began to go round and round and round, until the 
 old knight was fain to drop. But they would not stop — on they 
 went, quicker and quicker, until, all of a sudden, a splash of 
 water came down in the midst of them. In an instant everything 
 was gone — fairies, glow-worms, banquet, and mushrooms ; and 
 the old knight was lying upon the grass in the quiet moonlight, 
 without a trace of the revelry about him, quite bewildered. 
 
THE FAIRY WEDDING. 211 
 
 But not for long. The sound of the last music still hung on 
 his ear, when it was broken in upon by the shrill voice of 
 Dame Blanche, who was at one of the windows with a large 
 black jack in her hand, which, just before full of water, she had 
 emptied over the dancers. She had not seen them, for they had 
 all put their caps on, which renders fairies invisible ; but she 
 had perceived her husband capering about like a maniac, and 
 believing him to be very far gone in his cups, had taken this 
 summary mode of exacting his attention. 
 
 No doubt there would have been an angry dialogue ; but, just 
 as it was commencing, the little fairy chamberlain came flitting 
 through the air, and thus spoke to the lady : 
 
 " "We have been very much irritated by your rudeness and 
 meddling — you have broken up a very pleasant party ; and we 
 are equally indignant at your husband's pusillanimity in sub- 
 mitting to such treatment. It was nothing to you that he was 
 enjoying himself; and he ought to have held you in better 
 subjection than to have permitted your outrage. And so, to 
 punish you, as you threw water out upon us, the place shall 
 never be dry again — not in summer, for that would be no 
 punishment, but in the damp, cold winter. And, at the same 
 time, the marks of our last dances shall remain, to remind you 
 and those who come after you of the cause." 
 
 Having said which, he disappeared, like Aubrey's fairy, with 
 a melodious twang, and was never seen again. 
 
 But the threat was carried out. Every winter when the 
 mist drops from the skeleton trees and the gaunt pollards into 
 the water, and the weirs are choked, and the towing-path 
 covered, the floods roll over the Abbey Meads, and the boats 
 go through the gateways, and the fish get into the fields, and 
 Chertsey becomes almost an island. But in the summer the 
 green rings come out amazingly fresh on Laleham Bur way, 
 however scorched up the surrounding pasturage may be. The 
 fairies, however, have never appeared since. I cannot think 
 what has become of them all. Perhaps a few have got a little 
 employment in rapping for the spirits, but a vast number, I 
 believe, emigrated to the Continent, and nestled about Heidel- 
 berg, or led wandering lives with their cousins, the Djins and 
 Peris of the East. And this may be what M. Grimm once, 
 heard — a tale similar to the above — abroad ; but be sure this is 
 the original version, and the only true one. 
 
 p2 
 
( 212 ) 
 
 XXIY. 
 
 ABOUT CHAMOIS AND HUNTERS. 
 
 Few of my fellow tourists in the Valley of Chamouni have 
 remained many days in the village without seeing a dead 
 chamois hanging up some morning in the court-yard of their 
 hotel ; and subsequently tasting it, and pretending that it was 
 eatable, at the table d'hote in the afternoon. "What its flesh 
 would be treated as venison, cared for, and hung, and delicately 
 cooked, I cannot tell. As it is usually eaten within twenty- 
 four hours of its death-shot, it is about as unpalatable as any- 
 thing I know ; and pickled in vinegar for winter, as I have 
 tasted it on the Siniplon and St. Bernard, it is nastier still. 
 
 The principal game of this portion of the Alps may be di- 
 vided into four heads— hares, marmots, chamois, and bouque- 
 tins. The latter beautiful animal is becoming more scarce every 
 season, and is extinct on the Mont Blanc range : it is only to 
 be found about the Piedmontese glaciers of Monte Bosa. There 
 are, besides, badgers and foxes ; a lynx was shot at Servoz in 
 1841 ; wolves are all but annihilated ; and the last bear about 
 Chamouni was killed nearly ninety years ago by one of the 
 Payots— a grandfather of the man who lost the forepart of his 
 feet during Mr. Behren's ascent of Mont Blanc in 1851, and who 
 now keeps a little refreshment chalet on the route to Montan- 
 vert. The animal was shot hard by the Cascade des Pelerins. 
 There was a large rock near the spot called the Pierre a l'Ours, 
 but the guides have forgotten which it is ; so I recommended 
 them to mvent one, which would do just as well as many other 
 Alpine memorials for the ruck of tourists. 
 
 When a hunter kills a chamois, he brings it to one of the 
 hotels at Chamouni, and receives, on an average, twenty-five 
 francs for it'; sometimes the chase brings in a larger return. I 
 gave old Jean Tairraz a commission, in 1853, to get me a pair 
 alive. He and his neighbours contrived to catch two young 
 ones about St. Grervais ; but by the time they arrived in Loii- 
 
ABOUT CHAMOIS AND HUNTEBS. 213 
 
 don, they cost me as much as a pair of ponies would have done. 
 Neither of them lived ; one had a broken leg on its arrival, 
 which ultimately caused its death, and the other pined away, 
 although very great attention and kindness were shown to 
 both. 
 
 Colonel Colt would go mad if he saw the old carbines the 
 chamois hunters use in the age of his revolving rifles. They 
 are almost too heavy to lift, wonderful kickers, and hang-fire 
 once or twice. But this perhaps is fortunate, otherwise there 
 would soon be no chamois left ; for the fascination of the pur- 
 suit appears to be beyond that of any kind of hunting. Gordon 
 Cumming and Jules Gerard themselves are not more ardent 
 lovers of their peculiar chase than the men of Sixt and Sa- 
 moens, and on their hunting-grounds England is worthily re- 
 presented by Mr. Bagge, the member for West Xorfolk. 
 
 How these hardy fellows go out alone amongst the glaciers, 
 or rather high moraines where the rock joins the ice, with 
 nothing but a little bread, cheese, and brandy, all of the worst 
 description, and without any clear notion as to when they shall 
 return ; how they forget all danger in the excitement ; and how 
 their whitened bones are sometimes found under the ledge of 
 a huge granite boulder, where they had gone to sleep, never to 
 wake again, many able pens have recounted. I do not know 
 if what I have to add to these accounts is already well known 
 or not ; but it has been picked up, orally, about Servoz or 
 Chamouni. 
 
 The chamois hunters are singularly superstitious. This is 
 easily accounted for. They pass hours, sometimes days, alone, 
 ainidst the remote horrors of the glaciers ; and these regions 
 abound in strange phenomena and mysterious noises, with 
 effects of light and twilight uncertainties. They have vague 
 recollections of spectre animals and mountain dwarfs ; ghostly 
 hunters, doomed to chase phantom game for ever, and lights 
 indicating the locality of ice-caverns filled with grains of pure 
 gold. It was in seeking for the latter that old Jacques Balinat, 
 who first went up Mont Blanc, lost his life. They believe 
 greatly in spells and enchantments. They all entertain a notion, 
 more or less, that they shall perish eventually on the glaciers ; 
 but this seems to increase rather than diminish their passion 
 for the sport. A young man once told De Saussure that his 
 father and grandfather had both been lost on the mountains, 
 and he knew that would also be his end ; indeed, he called Ins 
 
214 WILD OATS. 
 
 knapsack his winding- sheet. His presentiment proved true 
 shortly afterwards. He started from Sixt, and was never heard 
 of again. 
 
 One afternoon I had walked up ahead of the char-a-bancs 
 from Ohede to Servoz, and I was sitting outside Jean Carrier's 
 inn there, opposite the church, to rest and take a p'tit verre. 
 There is a curiosity-shop next the inn kept by Michel Des- 
 champs; and "here one can see" (to quote foreign English) 
 a stuffed bouquetin. 
 
 While I was looking at it a peasant came up, and we had a 
 talk. He told me he lived in the valley of Sixt, and that one 
 night on the Buet he saw a hundred bouquetins all at once. 
 He added, that they were being driven by a number of priests 
 across the chasms of the glaciers, as easily as a boy would drive 
 sheep over a pasture ; that they did not stop at the largest 
 crevices, but went over them like birds ; and that in the morn- 
 ing not a trace of them was to be seen. Of course this had 
 all been next to a dream. He had been dozing with his eyes 
 open — a perfectly possible state, that may be induced by over- 
 watching — and whilst this actual scenery before him was printed 
 on the retina, his wandering fancies had supplied the phantom 
 appearances. With more foundation he told me of an orchard, 
 close to the ironworks on the Giffre, which the devil swallowed 
 up in one night, because the priests wanted it. That this 
 orchard disappeared I found to be perfectly true, and there is 
 a lake now in its place. He complained bitterly of the devil, 
 as a great enemy to that part of the country. They had done 
 all they could by putting up crosses and little chapels every- 
 where, but he was still uncommonly troublesome. 
 
 The devil is not, however, the most important of the mys- 
 terious personages who hunt the chamois hunters ; they all 
 believe in Mountain Dwarfs, leading features in most popular 
 superstitions. Once upon a time — I must begin the legend in 
 the regular way — a Chamouni guide went to hunt chamois 
 upon the Glacier d'Argentiere, which lies on the other side of 
 the tall Aiguille Yerte, separated, indeed, by it from the well- 
 known Mer de Glace. He came upon a herd of chamois, and 
 followed them so eagerly, that at last he reached quite the end 
 of the glacier. The animals scrambled up the rocks, and the 
 hunter, Pierre Ravenal, after them. He had hard work with 
 his carbine, but he went up and up, and at last gained the 
 highest peaks, and, looking over, he saw below him the Jardin — 
 
ABOUT CHAMOIS AND HUNTERS. 215 
 
 the well-known plot of grass and flowers which is such a fa- 
 mous excursion from Chamouni — and all the chamois grazing 
 upon it. Picking out the finest of them, he lodged his rifle on 
 a rock to make a surer aim, and was just going to fire, when 
 his arm was seized as with a grasp of iron. He turned round, 
 and saw, at his side, the most horrible dwarf it was possible to 
 conceive— the king of all the bogies. 
 
 " So," said the little monster, " I have caught you at last ! 
 I thought I should find out, some fine day, who was so con- 
 stantly poaching about my property. And now to make you 
 pay for it." 
 
 He spoke with a hoarse, grating voice, that sounded like a 
 tin-tack between two grindstones, and appeared to set his own 
 teeth on edge as it came through them, from the faces he made. 
 And then he took Pierre by the collar of his coat, and lifted 
 him up until he overhung the precipice of the rocks above the 
 Jardin — four hundred feet of smooth granite with jagged blocks 
 at the bottom. 
 
 " Oh, mercy ! mercy !" cried the wretched guide ; " I am a 
 poor devil with a large family, and have no choice between 
 hunting and starvation. I did not know the chamois were 
 yours." 
 
 The dwarf appeared to think there might be some reason in 
 this appeal, for he drew his victim back upon the rocks, and 
 then relaxed his grip. 
 
 " Now look here," he said ; " if I allow you to live, will you 
 promise me never to carry a rifle again between Mont Blanc 
 and the Great St. Bernard ?" 
 
 Pierre would have promised anything. 
 
 " Very well. Now get back to your family. Here is a 
 cheese for you all to live upon, which will always be sufficient 
 as long as you do not devour it entirely : be careful that there 
 is always a small piece left. And now — take that !" 
 
 And with these words, the dwarf gave him such a tremendous 
 kick, that it might have been sent to the museum at Geneva 
 for a curiosity. It started Ravenal on his way home with such 
 an impetus, that he and the cheese went rolling down the 
 glacier, and bounding over the crevices at a rate the chamois 
 themselves could not have kept up with ; and all this time the 
 dwarf's horrid voice sounded in his ears, turning all his nerves 
 the wrong way. If you have ever played with mortar, and 
 let it dry on your hands, and then rubbed them together; 
 
'216 WILD OATS. 
 
 or filed your teeth during a hard frost with the outside of an 
 oyster-shell ; or turned a dry flower-pot round in its saucer, 
 with a little grit in it ; or listened to a skid on a hot road ; and 
 then recalled all these things together, you will have some 
 notion of his sensations. 
 
 When he got home, he did not mention a word of his adven- 
 ture; and although rather bruised and confused — as well he 
 might be — he was in good spirits at his escape. He told his 
 wife that he had got the cheese in exchange for a couple of 
 marmots he had taken, and the good woman believed it. "Wives 
 believe more wonderful stories than that sometimes — not as a 
 rule. 
 
 To their utter astonishment, when they went to look at the 
 cheese the next morning, the wedge they had cut out of it was 
 entirely filled up ; and this happened again and again during 
 several weeks, until the excitement quite passed away, and 
 Pierre got bored, and wanted to be with his rifle once more on 
 the glaciers ; and would sit for hours sighing and looking at it, 
 huug over the fireplace of the chalet. 
 
 One day, as he was wandering about the woods over Montan- 
 vert, picking flowers to dry between paper for the tourists to 
 purchase, he saw a fine chamois standing, as cool as might be, 
 at the base of the Aiguille des Charmoz. All his old enthu- 
 siasm returned. He ran down to Montanvert, borrowed a 
 carbine, went back to the spot, and, without the least trouble, 
 killed the animal, which bounded from crag to crag down the 
 : Aiguille, and at last fell on the glacier. He marked the spot 
 and returned home, for it was getting too dark to go after the 
 game that night ; but the next day he started betimes, arid took 
 .the Gheese with him. He did not observe, in his renewing 
 ardour, that the last gap made in it had not been replaced. He 
 reached the chamois, and being hot and hungry, with a little 
 well of cold crystal water in the ice at his side, he sat down to 
 breakfast, and before he reflected upon what he was doing, he 
 had finished all the cheese. At that minute, a thunder-clap, 
 which he thought was an avalanche, echoed amongst the moun- 
 tains, a dark mist rose over the glacier, and the horrible dwarf 
 once more stood at his side. 
 
 "Miserable wretch!" he cried, in the same dreadful grating 
 tones ; " you have broken your promise, and shall suffer for it. 
 Perish!" 
 
 In spite of the hunter's cries and entreaties, the dwarf 
 
ABOUT CHAMOIS AND HUNTERS. 217 
 
 dragged him to the edge of one of those yawning, boiling, 
 bottomless caldrons known on the glaciers as Moulins. He 
 held his screaming victim over it for a minute, and then let 
 him fall right into the centre, and the whirling waters spun 
 him round and round with a terrible roar, until he disappeared 
 in the icy depths. 
 
 Some years since there was a great to do at Chamouni. The 
 papers stated that the ice about the source of Arveiron — or 
 rather what used to be the source — had come very low down 
 towards the hamlet of Bois, and that on melting, a human 
 body had been found in it. The local papers said it was that 
 of Jacques Balmat, who had been lost whilst looking for gold 
 in the mountains ; but as he had perished in the Vallee de Sixt, 
 this was utterly impossible. As well might a champagne cork, 
 shot into the Thames from a yacht at the Nore, find its way 
 into the Peak of Derbyshire. If I had been there, I should 
 have told them that it was Bavenal ; but they would not have 
 believed me, and I don't believe it myself. 
 
( 218 ) 
 
 XXV. 
 
 OPERA VERSELETS. 
 1. — THE WAR OP THE NORHAS. 
 
 Now glory to La Diva, who still reigns the queen of song ; 
 And glory, too, to Costa — may he wield the baton long ! 
 Now let the distant sound of song, and echo of the band, 
 Be heard through Covent-garden, and Long-acre, and the Strand. 
 And thou, too, Morning Chronicle, bold partisan of Beale, 
 As thou wert constant in our ills, be joyous in our weal. 
 Eor ill-advised was Jenny, when she thought to reach the throne 
 Of that unrivalled songstress who made the part her own. 
 Hurrah! hurrah! the first night proved she had essayed too 
 
 much; 
 Hurrah ! hurrah, for Grisi and the Norma none can touch! 
 
 Oh ! how our hearts were beating when, a week before the day, 
 We saw proud Lumley posting up his bills in long array, 
 And read 'twas by the Queen's command, that she and all her 
 
 peers 
 "Would to the grand ovation join her bouquet and their cheers. 
 There stood the name of Grand Lablache, of mighty voice and 
 
 limb, 
 And there too was Fraschini, but we did not care for him. 
 We saw the salle : we thought of handsome Edmund's cravat 
 
 white, 
 And good Sir Henry's blonde moustache all curling with delight, 
 And we cried unto our Norma, that she might be underlined, 
 To combat for her own great name, and leave the Lind behind. 
 
 The Queen is come to welcome Lind ; and early did she dine, 
 And all along the Haymarket are Life Guards in a line ; 
 She looks upon her people, pack'd within the Opera walls, 
 And they look at Grisi overhead, and Mario in the stalls. 
 
ESMERALDA. 219 
 
 Now rouse thee, Lind ; portray the priestess Norma's rage and 
 
 shame ; 
 "Work up the end of the first act ! Be not so very tame ! 
 A thousand here have Grisi heard ; strong minds who won't be 
 
 done, 
 By what they call " new readings," when there can be only one. 
 Go on — go on ! more power yet ! Alack the curtain falls, 
 And " Very nice, but not the thing," is murmured in the stalls. 
 
 Ho ! partisans of Lumley, don habiliments of woe ! 
 
 "Weep, rend your hair, to hear the truth: your Norma was 
 
 "no go." 
 Ho ! Verdi, bring for charity thy opera to their aid, 
 That Jenny Lind may sing and no comparison be made. 
 Ho ! Bold Bond-street librarians find the public still is true 
 Unto their long-tried favourite to whom all praise be due, 
 For Grisi still hath proved herself the best of all the bunch, 
 Hath mocked the critic of the Post, and box-bought praise of 
 
 Punch. 
 Then glory to La Diva, who yet reigns the queen of song ; 
 And glory, too, to Costa — may he wield the baton long ! 
 
 2. — ES1IEKALDA. 
 BY A MIDDLE-AGED GENTLEMAN. 
 
 (Written in her Majesty's Theatre, Thursday, April 23, 1857.) 
 
 Cais" thirteen years be gone and past, 
 Since I saw Esmeralda last, 
 
 And heard the tambourine 
 Caelotta rattled at the wing, 
 Ere, with that bright and joyous fling, 
 
 She bounded on the scene ? 
 
 Can it be true ? Alack ! alack ! 
 Through a long vista looking back 
 
 I trace the period o'er ! 
 I'm stouter than I used to be ; 
 Last birthday I was forty -three ; 
 
 At balls I dance no more. 
 
220 WILD OXTS. 
 
 This morning Mr. Truefitt said 
 He fear'd the hair upon my head 
 
 At top was getting thin. 
 " Thin !" What he so politely call'd 
 "Was formerly considered bald — 
 
 I bore it with a grin. 
 
 Why — thirteen years ago — let's see, 
 Enchanting Piccolomini 
 
 Was quite a tiny witch ; 
 Of Jenny Lind we'd scarcely heard — 
 Of great Alboni not a word — 
 
 And Delafield was rich. 
 
 I mind me of the grand Copere, 
 Of Perrot's comical despair — 
 
 St. Leon Phoebus play'd; 
 Venefra eke, and G-ourriet too, 
 And all the twinkling-footed crew 
 
 That such ensemble made ! 
 
 Those were the ballet's days. How well 
 I recollect how fair Giselle 
 
 And Ondine whirl'd about ; 
 And Alma, in Cerito's prime 
 (Another Alma since that time 
 
 Has put her fire quite out). 
 
 But still, whilst sitting happy here, 
 Old forms and faces still appear 
 
 In amber- curtain' d nooks : 
 And from the omnibus a lot 
 Of friends, like me who've stouter got, 
 
 Gaze forth, with pleasant looks. 
 
 And see ! the old familiar scene — 
 The Truands waiting for their queen, 
 
 Upon their own demesne ; 
 The captive poet, pale and lean — 
 Small chance him and the rope between !- 
 
 And hark ! the tambourine ! 
 
" THE TKAYIATA" AT EXETER HALL. 221 
 
 A graceful girl, with deer-like bound, 
 That seems to spurn the level ground, 
 
 Springs on, so fresh and fair ! 
 And as she dips, her petticoats 
 So swim about, she fairly floats 
 
 In the enamoured air. 
 
 Comes, too, each old-remember'd strain — 
 I feel I'm thirty once again — 
 
 The gipsies' galop wild, 
 The Nuit des JS^oces, the Traandaise, 
 And all that long since did amaze 
 
 In times so well beguil'd. 
 
 Midst " Bravas /" loud the curtain falls; 
 I leave the Opera's well-loved walls, 
 
 And to my club repair. 
 I'll try some supper once again, 
 And in a beaker of champagne 
 
 I'll toast Pocchent there. 
 
 3. — " THE TEAVIATA" AT EXETEE HAEL. 
 
 (Easter Monday, April 13, 1857.) 
 
 Come, Reverend Stiggins, Mrs. Priggings, get your umberellars — 
 There will be such a rush to-night amongst the ticket-sellers. 
 The chance won't come again to us, the world's regenerators, 
 To hear improper music, and not in the vile theayters. 
 
 Come, all ye chosen lambs that form the audience of the Hall ; 
 
 Come, blessed Barebones family — sly, sleek-haired, grim, and 
 tall; 
 
 Come, gaunt old maids, with false dry braids, long past tempta- 
 tion's ken ; 
 
 Come, pious clerks, who weep at larks; come, " Christian 
 young men." 
 
 Come, Bankers, who commence with prayer ; come, Zion's trusty 
 
 helps, 
 "Who would not let your children learn with those of Mr. Phelps ; 
 Come, above all, that fusty smell of silks long worn and rank, 
 "Which, on the days of dividends, floats all about the Bank* 
 
222 WILD OATS. 
 
 Yet weep to hear how, on Good Friday, Sydenham's pile was 
 
 cramm'd, 
 And thirty-seven thousand sonls teetotally were damn'd 
 For worshipping God's glories from His universal book, 
 And flying from the mumbling drone of some parochial Book. 
 
 And having dropped the pious tear o'er that ungodly day, 
 Repeat some prayers — cut up the stairs — and get what seat 
 
 you may, 
 For Verdi holds high festival, and to the godly throng 
 The Traviata's piquant tale will be expressed in song ! 
 
 It is not very likely that the outline of the plot 
 Will be distributed about — in fact, 'twere better not : 
 Suffice to say the heroine, to whom the treat is owed, 
 ShoiM live at Brompton, and should die in the Blackfriars- 
 road. 
 
 But is it not a blessed thing, that chosen ones, like us, 
 Can hear it at our sainted Hall, without unpleasant fuss ? 
 Journals condemned its play-house form ; but bless our happy 
 
 land, 
 Which makes sin in the Haymarket religion in the Strand. 
 
 So Beverend Stiggins, Mrs. Priggings, let us haste away, 
 The thin end of the wedge is in, on this auspicious day, 
 And, in the garb of sanctity, who knows but we may hear 
 Some more " improper" music in the Easter week next year ! 
 
 Oh-be-Joyeul Higgins. 
 
 Clapham Common. 
 
 4. — LE STOTTYEATI PIEE-PAEE DE MOSSOO. 
 
 (From the amended version ofLes Huguenots.') 
 
 This great work lay neglected for some months, until the 
 political events of February, 1858. It was then circulated. 
 Sung in every corner of Mossoodom, it caused the army to push 
 the cries of enthusiasm the most lively (" pousser les cris dhm 
 entTiousiasme le plus vif") ; and, taken up in an ironical chorus 
 of men voices by Mr. Milner Gibson's JDerlydizzygesangverein, 
 
LE NOUVEAU PIFF-PAFF DE MOSSOO. 223 
 
 it actually sang Lord Palm erst oil's administration out of the 
 House : 
 
 Air — Marcel. 
 
 A bas les sacres Bosbifs ! 
 
 Jean Bull a terre ! 
 A bas leurs femmes a vendre ! 
 
 Au feu Ley-ces-tere-squerre ! 
 Au feu de Londres les murs, 
 
 Bepaires impurs ! 
 Les Anglais ! Terrassons-les ! 
 
 Prappons-les ! 
 Piff ! paff ! pouf ! Boxons-les ! 
 Qu'ils pleurent, 
 Qu'ils meurent, 
 Mais grace Groddarn ! 
 
 Jamais la Prance ne trembla 
 
 Aux plumes du Times ! 
 Malheur au Punch perfide, 
 
 Qui vante les crimes ! 
 Brisons Boebuck, qui triche, 
 
 Qui spik Angleesh ! 
 Docks, Lord-Mayor — cassez-les ! 
 
 Chassez-les ! 
 Piff! paff! pouf! Prappez-les! 
 Aff-an-Aff, 
 Portare — paff ! 
 Mais grace Goddam ! 
 
( 224 ) 
 
 XXYI. 
 
 AN OLD SWISS TRAVELLER. 
 
 A teavellee must have taken a very high ground a few 
 hundred years ago. Scarcely any place had been visited, and 
 very few had been described ; so that a tourist could publish 
 what marvels he pleased, without much fear of contradiction in 
 the next edition of " Murray's Hand-book." When the inge- 
 nious American showman of modern times painted his ten-mile 
 long panorama of some mighty and unexplored river, and, on 
 being asked whether he had been there, replied, " JSTo — nor 
 more had anybody else, which was his great advantage, because 
 nobody could tell whether he was right or wrong," he reflected 
 to some extent the spirit of the old travellers. It was not 
 necessary to go far away from one's home to seek for marvels, 
 or to become a " lion," in the sixteenth century. And indeed, 
 before that, Marco Polo and John Mandeville, and the early 
 adventurers who so excited Columbus with their mysterious 
 islands in terrible and distant oceans, and their wondrous tales 
 of Cipango, and St. Brandard, and Atlantis, might have created 
 the same sensation without leaving their country to judge from 
 the credit and renown attached to other chroniclers whilst the 
 heavy fogs of credulity and ignorance hung over Europe. 
 
 "We have been led into these considerations through lighting 
 on an old book of travels, purporting to be a description of a 
 part of Switzerland, and published at Lucerne in the year 1645. 
 Its author, Jean Leopold Cysat, was a native of that city ; and 
 his book presents a quaint evidence of the state of the natural 
 sciences and credulity of the people at that epoch. His " tra- 
 vels" were not very extensive ; they were principally confined 
 to what would now be termed an "excursion" round the Lake 
 of Lucerne, about which the citizens knew absolutely nothing. 
 The little steamer that leaves Lucerne twice a day for Fluelyn, 
 which it reaches in an hour or two, runs over the extent of 
 Cysat' s wanderings. We gain in time, but we certainly lose 
 in marvels, for we see nothing like the old traveller saw ; and 
 this with every intention to make use of our eyes. We do not 
 
AN OLD SWISS TRAVELLER. 225 
 
 remember much beyond the Highi visitors getting in at Weggis, 
 and the meadow of Griittli, and Tell's Chapel. This latter 
 spot did not much interest Master Cysat. His belief in the 
 pippin-splitting patriot was evidently small. The acorn of tra- 
 dition had not grown up into the oak-tree of fact, nurtured by 
 the sunny holiday credulity of Cockney tourists. 
 
 After having enlarged upon the beauties of the lake, our 
 good traveller describes minutely the wonderful fish found in 
 it. Any one of these, hung in the shop of a West-end fish- 
 monger during the season, would have collected an impenetrable 
 erowd. Amongst them was one with four legs and a frog's 
 head. He also saw carp with humps on their backs like dro- 
 medaries, and others with faces like those of cats. Many 
 had stones in their heads, which served as remedies against 
 several disorders ; and, for fear that we should doubt this, he 
 gravely tells us that in 1642 he found one of these stones in a 
 crayfish caught in the Lake of Sempach, and that the likeness 
 of our Saviour was engraven upon it. He goes on to say that 
 some of the fish in the Lake of Lucerne are so large that they 
 run out and swallow the cattle when they come to drink ; and 
 in one of these fish he found a man's hand with two gold rings 
 on it. We might conclude this to have been an alligator, only 
 our author expressly states that it had neither scales nor teeth, 
 and that it must have been a whale, which had mounted the 
 Rhine, the Aar, and the Eeuss to gain the lake ! Its flesh was 
 rather nasty, but possessed great virtues. It cleared the voice 
 of those who tasted it, and cured sciatica. We have fished for 
 hours in the Lake of Lucerne, but never yet chanced to hook 
 such a marvel. 
 
 The newspaper paragraphist's last resource, a " shower of 
 frogs," would not have astonished the good Cysat. ]S"ear 
 Mussegg he was out in a heavy rain of them. They fell all 
 about him and on his hat in incredible quantities. He says 
 they appeared young, but were very thin ; and that those 
 which fell on the road were killed, but those tumbling on the 
 grass hopped away in fine style. He also saw several dragons ; 
 but he is puzzled whether to class them as birds, fish, or qua- 
 drupeds. One started from the Eighi and flew away towards 
 Mount Pilatus, so frightening a peasant at work in the fields 
 that he fainted, but on recovering found a precious stone near 
 him as large as a goose's egg, which the dragon had dropped, 
 and which subsequently cured, in an astonishing manner, many 
 
 Q 
 
226 WILD OATS. 
 
 stout disorders, and at last appears to have involved the whole 
 population in a lawsuit as to its possession. 
 
 We do not invest the Eighi with much supernatural romance 
 just at present. Fairies cannot abide hotels, and they hate the 
 clatter of knives and forks, and the Anglo-French of wrangling 
 travellers, and the popping of corks from bottles of champagne 
 and limonade gazeuse. Neither could they pursue their moon- 
 light dances on the summit without the fear of being disturbed 
 long before daybreak by the appearance of some eager tourist, 
 wrapped up in his own counterpane, freshly crept out of his 
 bedroom to see if it was time for the sun to rise. But it seems 
 there is, or was, a great deal to see on the Eighi beyond the 
 sunrise, the view from the Kulm and Staffel, and the Fall of 
 the Bossberg. When Master Cysat went up he was shown 
 several very curious grottos, one of which was inhabited by 
 dwarfs of the mountains (Bergmannlien) ; "but this," he says, 
 in a most Herodotus-like spirit of straightforward candour, " I 
 must say that I was but told: let them believe it who may." 
 Subsequently he was shown a lake, at the bottom of which the 
 inhabitants of the district occasionally saw large herds of pigs, 
 which turned over suddenly on their backs when looked at; 
 and on an adjacent peak, an ecclesiastic of high repute told 
 him that he had seen some fragments of a vast ship, which he 
 believes must have rested there since the Deluge. To back up 
 this story, he quotes a writer who declared that in a mine at 
 Berne, three hundred feet under ground, he had found a ship, 
 with the bodies of forty men on board, together with anchors 
 and rigging. And, continuing his route, he mentions a lake of 
 a marvellous nature. When any one stands on its bank, and 
 shouts three times, the water commences to boil over with such 
 violence that the intruder has scarcely time to get out of the 
 way ; and, without fail, always dies within the year. Master 
 Cysat appears rather incredulous on this point. He did not 
 test it himself, not considering the result in any way satis- 
 factory. 
 
 But while Master Cysat thus minutely and carefully gathers 
 the physical wonders of the lake of the Tour Cantons, he does 
 not forget the social aspects. Everybody who has been up and 
 down the Eighi recollects the sunny little village of Weggis, and 
 its wooden pier, on which it is so pleasant to sit and watch the 
 blue sparkling water, and wait for the St. Gf-othard steam-boat. 
 Well, one fine Saturday, in the autumn of 1617, it seems that 
 the treasurer of the parish, a thirsty " party," named Eishlien, 
 
AN OLD SWISS TRAVELLER. 227 
 
 suddenly recollected that the next day was the fete of the local 
 patron, and that a great consumption of meat, wine, liqueurs, 
 and fruit would take place in consequence ; and so, careless of 
 dragons, and whales, and other terrors of the lake, he started off 
 in his boat for Lucerne, there to lay in a stock of comestibles. 
 Master Cysat describes these boats as hollowed out of the 
 trunks of trees like the canoes of savages. Oar good man 
 arrived at Lucerne without any accident, and made his pur- 
 chases, paving especial attention to the choice of the wines ; in 
 fact, he was so anxious to select the finest for his patrons, that 
 no thirsty soul with a "tasting order " in the cool cellars of the 
 London Docks ever discussed so many varieties. At last, 
 having finished everything to his satisfaction, he re-embarked. 
 It was a beautiful evening ; the heat of the sun had declined, 
 and a light breeze coming down from 3Iount Pilatus blew 
 directly across to Weggis. All this was very agreeable ; so 
 Fishlien hoisted a little square sail, and then laid himself com- 
 fortablv down at the bottom of his boat, and contemplated the 
 stars which began to peep and twinkle through the violet sky. 
 Eut he soon found that the vapours of the wine he had tasted 
 troubled his observations. The stars danced and whirled round 
 like flies in a ceiling quadrille, and indeed were doubled in 
 number; so that, after a time, murmuring a confused and 
 melancholy convivial song, he shut his eyes, and, leaving to the 
 wind all the task of driving his boat to his native shore, fell fast 
 asleep. 
 
 It so chanced that the wind soon fell asleep too. The current 
 of the Eeuss was running with its usual rapidity through the 
 lake ; and the good man, boat, wine, provisions and all, turned 
 back again towards Lucerne. He darted under the first bridge, 
 and might have been stopped, if, like the Lady of Shalott, when 
 she floated down to the " many-towered Camelot," he had kept 
 on singing. But he was still fast as a church, and he glided on 
 unperceived under the second bridge, and then under the third, 
 all very quietly, until he came to that part of the Eeuss where 
 the rapids began. And here his boat was so tossed, and driven, 
 and bumped against the shore, that he was roused from his 
 slumbers, and perceived in his horror that he was shooting 
 along the stream between strange landmarks, and perfectly 
 helpless. At last, after every vain attempt, he contrived to 
 hold on to a bramble, and so pull himself to land. Eut he had 
 come so far that no assistance was near, and, ultimately, he 
 
 q2 
 
228 WILD OATS. 
 
 never got back to Weggis with his meats and drinks until the 
 fete was all passed and over. And this being all the story, it is 
 remarkable what pains Master Cysat has taken to chronicle a 
 matter of such great simplicity amidst the other astounding 
 marvels with which his book abounds. 
 
 Looking back to the credulous old writer, we almost regret 
 some of his marvels are not yet extant, for the benefit of Swiss 
 travellers, who will romance about his tours. They might there 
 have seen something that would have served them to have talked 
 about on their return home beyond " storms on the Grimsel." 
 We all know a class of young men — they are chiefly budding 
 barristers — who bore you if you sit next to them at dinner-par- 
 ties, with accounts of frightful adventures they encountered in 
 the snow, with ignorant guides, on the most beaten passes of 
 the Cockney Swiss itinerary. You know all the time that 
 these things never happened ; that every road, and pass, and 
 sentier of the Alps is as secure as Hampstead Heath ; that the 
 long-detailed conversations these travellers had with their 
 guides, their determined resolutions, threats, altercations, and 
 triumphs, were vivid inventions, looking to the average French 
 of the Temple ; that adventures altogether in travelling have 
 long ceased to be, since the existence of continental railways^ 
 circular notes, and "Murray;" that those who go to the Mer 
 de Glace have not been half of the way up Mont Blanc, nor 
 anything approaching to it ; and that when the corks of Bar- 
 clay and Perkins floated on the Lake of Lucerne, and the echoes 
 of Tell's meadow were called forth by the " Half a turn astarn !" 
 of the steam-boat engineer's boy, no more adventures would be 
 allowed to run about the dessert. And, therefore, we wish 
 that Cysat's book would hold good at present, to furnish these 
 ehatterers with new themes. Besides, what a draw his Eighi 
 dragon would be at the Zoological Gardens ; or his large fish in 
 the tank at the Polytechnic Institution! How a family of the 
 mountain dwarfs would put out of joint the noses — as much as 
 they possess — of the Bosjesmen, managed by a 'cute American ! 
 And what a blessing, as soon as Parliament and the elections 
 were over, his shower of frogs would be to the entire newspaper 
 interests of the United Kingdom ! 
 
 But these things are not. Bradshaw^ is the great Iconoclast 
 of romantic images, and the dread interior of Africa is now the 
 only spot left for any one to go to who wishes to make an un- 
 contradicted excitement by a book of travels. 
 
( 229 ) 
 
 XXYIT. 
 
 A PLEA FOR BOULOGNE. 
 
 "We never respect old gents — for there are old gents as well 
 as young ones— who, not being able to get beyond a few phrases 
 of 'the French conversation-book, and uttering even these with 
 an unintelligibility which makes the French maid request they 
 will speak English — get enthusiastically patriotic after dinner y 
 and talk to travellers at table about "'our own country," and 
 the " no wish to see foreign lands until they know their own." 
 
 Xor do we overmuch like the young ones — in addition to a 
 rooted hatred to gents in general— who catch up the same idea 
 second-hand, and cling to it as they know they would do to the 
 side of the steamer, when they are pretending to look after some 
 creature that was following on their lee, but literally concealing 
 their discomfort ; who, when a guest says he lias crossed the St. 
 Gothard, exclaim, "Ah, but you should see Wales!" and who, 
 when you mention the rocks of ACeillerie, exclaim, " Oh ! but 
 did you ever go to Hastings ?" There are hundreds of these 
 individuals who, having walked up to the waterspout at the 
 end of Shanklin Chine, will sneer at all you can humbly venture 
 to say about Interlachen or Aosta. And when those who ought 
 to be good, honest persons, descant upon " the beauties of our 
 own land, if people would but look after them," we get some- 
 what angry. Not that we deny the glories of an English land- 
 scape—Heaven forfend we ever should I— if there was only the 
 afternoon sunlit glade upon which the curtain rises for the 
 romance of Ivanhoe left in our country to keep up the cha- 
 racter for sylvan beauty : but these remarks are always made 
 in depreciation of some foreign spot the speaker has never 
 visited. We would, on such occasions, always provide him 
 with a handbook, and a private set of memoranda to boot^of 
 the choicest hotels and least deceptive vetturini on the high 
 roads of Europe, that they might go forthwith and be un- 
 deceived. The observation that we so often hear made of 
 " England being the place for everything, after all," is, as re- 
 
230 WILD OATS. 
 
 gards travelling, as deceptive as the absurd one that our 
 school-days are our happiest — at least we judge by our own — 
 and we suppose that the discipline of Merchant Taylors' may 
 be considered a fair type of the unmeaning severity with which 
 boys are treated at public schools, the unjust torture which is 
 felt at the time, and, sometimes, dispassionately recollected. _ 
 
 For all such notions are conventional ; and conventionality 
 is the log that old slow coaches lay across the railway upon 
 which the train of social improvement is to run, with first, 
 second, and even third-class passengers. But many things 
 hitherto considered unimpeachable — that is to say, conven- 
 tionally so — are, we rejoice to say, finding their level. Dreary 
 five-act comedies, which we know of as " standard" from the 
 play-bills, as we know of something else of the same name in 
 Cornhill from the milestones ; dismal dinner-parties, the battles 
 of which are desperately fought with heavy silver spoons, 
 different champagne-glasses to any one ever saw before, new 
 methods of drinking wine, and wine-coolers in which bottles 
 are stuck without an atom of ice, but merely put there because 
 the coolers are silver ; the notion with some men that a cigar 
 must be smoked after breakfast or during billiards, if they 
 would have their lives worth a day's purchase; putting dif- 
 ferent trousers on on Sundays ; declaring that you derive more 
 pleasure from the Ancient Concerts, or listening to " Septettes" 
 in ever so many flats, played to many more,' than from Bellini 
 or Auber : all these things — very slowly, but surely — are dis- 
 appearing ; and we hope soon to number also amongst them 
 the frequenters of English watering-places. 
 
 We do not say the places themselves, but their habitues ; for 
 with these latter lies the fault of making them so dreary as they 
 are. Let us take three resorts, by way of example, as typical 
 of what we wish to explain — Brighton, Eamsgate, and Margate. 
 They are Cockney specimens— pur sang — we admit ; but after 
 all, the much-abused and burlesqued epithet pertains to a great 
 deal that is ardently followed and copied amongst those who 
 would be the last to confess it. AVe might, perhaps, except 
 Margate, on the ground that there is a rampant, glorious vul- 
 garity about it, which makes it at times marvellously enter- 
 taining. There is no aiming in the deportment of the Margate 
 visitors : you may dress as well as you please all day longhand 
 still be allowed to go unnoticed. JSay, if we recollect aright, 
 there was some sylvan retreat within scent of the sea-weed, 
 
A PLEA FOR BOULOGNE. 231 
 
 where you could procure a tea " in a pleasing style of rusticity 
 at eightpence per bead," without being stared at ; and if, after 
 the Arcadian meal, you bad cbosen to dance a fandango 
 amongst the cups and saucers, in the style of the renowned 
 Baron of Bosherville, and in your own buff slippers, you might 
 have done it, and yet, somehow or another, kept within the 
 pale of Margate society. And so, we will not further speak of 
 Margate beyond two words of praise — one for its breakfast- 
 bread, and the other for Cobb's ale. 
 
 But at Bamsgate all this is very different. The good adyice 
 which we once saw pasted under a kitchen clock, of " a time 
 for everything and everything at its time," might well be 
 engraved at the end of the pier. For there is a proper order 
 of doing things there whether you like it or no. You must 
 bathe at a certain time, in order to be ready at the proper 
 period to read old novels on the sands, and tumble backwards 
 in your arm-chairs, or have your shoes — they don't like slippers 
 at Bamsgate — filled with specimens of the aforesaid sands by 
 the ceaseless toil of the infantile labouring classes with their 
 spades. And when this period has elapsed, woe betide you if 
 you are not ready to go home to lunch ! To be seen about at 
 such a period in the streets would be as bad as a AYest-end man 
 to be detected in London on the Derby Day, the Middle Hor- 
 ticultural Eete, or the beginning of September; it would be 
 taken that you had neither lunch nor lodgings. Having 
 lunched on bread-and-butter — if at a boarding-house, yester- 
 day's joint cold in addition — you dress for the time of going 
 on the pier, and there you must walk with a pertinacity that 
 would tire the "Wandering Jew, until it is time " to see the 
 boat come in." The spectacle is not exciting ; if you have a 
 friend on board, you recognise and nod to him ; and then do 
 not know what else to do but to keep nodding on like a man- 
 darin, and smiling, until he dives after his luggage ; if you 
 know nobody, you wait for the grand finale of seeing the pas- 
 sengers come up the steps, and then the show is over. And 
 then comes the sadness of the after-promenade — of meeting 
 those you know, once, and having a small conversation with 
 them on the topics of the day ; and then meeting them at the 
 next turn, and saying, " Still* here, you see ;" and then meeting 
 them coming back, and gasping, " What, not gone yet !" and 
 then not knowing for twelve more turns what the deuce to say, 
 but trying not to see them at all, or smiling blandly sideways 
 
232 WILD OATS. 
 
 as they pass. This goes on until it is time to go home and do 
 nothing for an hour before dinner, literally from having nothing 
 to do ; and then you dine. If you are in lodgings, a desolate 
 chop from a sheep who may have been fed on shrimps, or any- 
 thing else that came handy; or a melancholy fowl who may 
 have been brought up upon those marine plants you pop with 
 your fingers, and so inflated rather than fattened, is your meal. 
 If at a boarding-house, you meet those wonderful old ladies 
 one never encounters anywhere else; who, when they have 
 said, "Have you been out to-day, Miss Pippy?" to the very 
 person they met on the pier, think that the dinner-conversation 
 is established. And to see them squabble afterwards at cards : 
 that certainly, for a little time, is amusing. Then comes the 
 library — the time for that is nine ; the " chances" — well may 
 they be termed so — for the six-shilling ticket ; the watch, or 
 work-box, or caddy, that is to form the grand sweepstakes ; the 
 same people you have seen in the morning, noon, and night, 
 whom, if you do not know, you are bound to look at disdain- 
 fully. This, a little after ten, concludes the day, and has only 
 one good point — you may win a ticket, and that is a safe em- 
 ployment for two hours the next morning in selecting out its 
 value from the mass of purses, pomatum, bandoline, mats, and 
 chimney ornaments that confound you. In this respect, let 
 us award all praise to Mr. Sackett and Mr. Fuller for their 
 oft-tried patience, their courtesy, and wish to oblige. 
 
 The same remarks, with little variation, apply to Brighton. 
 But here less is aimed at; it is Regent-street planted quite 
 at its ease upon the cliffs. You know all the faces and 
 equipages you meet, and you meet them as a matter of 
 course. Sensible people do not go there for relaxation, but as 
 a conventional dutv thev owe to societv : the weak-minded be- 
 lieve that it is pure tranquil enjoyment. Look upon Brighton 
 as a bright amphibious resuscitation of the London season, and 
 it is glorious ; talk of it as a sea-side resort for letting down the 
 tightly drawn strings of your occupied life, and the failure is 
 painful. If you " went in" for comfort and carelessness you 
 would soon find out your mistake. In a shooting-jacket, a 
 ballet-girl shirt (or a quieter pattern if you choose), and a loose 
 single-tied Joinville, you would directly be taught to shrink 
 from the noon sun like a convolvulus. An Ojibbeway would 
 not attract more attention. You might as well, being grown 
 
A PLEA FOR BOULOGNE. 233 
 
 up, ride from Norfolk-square to the Albion Hotel in a goat- 
 chaise. 
 
 In contradistinction to all this imaginary enjoyment, let us 
 take the pleasant, careless Boulogne. It has been customary to 
 deride this new keyhole to the Continent ; to joke about the 
 mobs who fly there, like the ships, for a harbour of refuge ; to 
 allude to " stags" and sharpers, and broken incomes — in fact, to 
 throw every possible slur upon it and its inhabitants. And yet 
 there is no place in the world where really pleasant relaxation 
 can be so readily procured, and at such a cheap rate. You will 
 be told by its enemies that Boulogne is now quite an English 
 town. Don't believe them. "What is there English in its gay, 
 lively port, and lines of smart hotels— its thoroughly conti- 
 nental Eue Neuve Chaussee and moyen-age Upper Town — its 
 poissarde population, with their short red petticoats and naked 
 legs, or blue stockings — its hundreds of glittering white caps in 
 the Place on market-day ? Walk a mile away from it in any 
 direction — towards "Wimereux, Wimille, or Portel — and you will 
 see as much of Erance as though you had been right across it 
 from Boulogne to Besancon. "Where will you show us such a 
 glorious stroll as that along the cliffs to Ambleteuse, with the 
 sea and the picturesque rocks and martello towers so far below 
 you, and literally in sight of home all the way, if the day be 
 but moderately clear ? 
 
 You need not make yourself smart to go on the pier at Bou- 
 logne ; you might wander about dressed in the popular costume 
 of Eobinson Crusoe all day, if you pleased, and no one would 
 turn his head to look after you ; and if there is no better 
 amusement than to watch and hear the small impish children 
 play marbles, and squabble in Erench, why that is something. 
 But seeing the boat come in is here something worth waiting 
 for. It is a glorious sight to watch her, if the wind is strong, 
 and the tide somewhat low, rolling and plunging over the bar ; 
 and the debarkation of the passengers is as good as a farce, 
 especially if there are two or three undecided in their minds as 
 to their abode, for then they are sure to go to all manner of 
 hotels at once, so urgently do the touters urge the claims of 
 their various establishments. 
 
 There is no ennui at Boulogne, because there is no conven- 
 tional observance of rules for deportment. Everybody does 
 what he likes ; not what he thinks he ought to like. And, 
 
234 WILD OATS. 
 
 if you wish it, there is a charming private society. In fact, 
 Boulogne is fining down to exceeding respectability ; for it has 
 become a trifle too expensive for the outlawed tribes, and they 
 have emigrated, many, we believe, to Calais. It is still much 
 cheaper than England, even to casual visitors, the ordinary ex- 
 penses of staying there being, compared with the resorts above 
 alluded to, as two to three. The pleasant excitement of a trip 
 thither lasts to the very return ; for are you not in duty bound 
 to smuggle eau-de-Cologne, gloves, embroidered pocket-hand- 
 kerchiefs, and trifling jewellery ? It is true, to be sure, you 
 may get everything at the same rate in the Lowther Arcade ; 
 but that is a very dull way of procuring them. Every contra- 
 band article becomes an object of interest, far more valuable than 
 the unmeaning " trifle from" any of the home watering-places 
 we have before alluded to. 
 
 Newspaper statistics show you, from time to time, the num- 
 bers who pass from Folkestone to Boulogne, compared with the 
 last year. Increase the proportion every season, and you will 
 not repent of having done so. 
 
( 235 ) 
 XXVIII. 
 
 THE COMPLAINT OF THE FOREIGN-OFFICE CLERK. 
 
 Confound the telegraphs and war, 
 
 And letters sent off wet ! 
 Confonnd the Russians and their Czar ! 
 
 Confound the whole Gazette! 
 I thought at last upon the Alps 
 
 That you and I should meet, 
 But now you are at Chamouni, 
 
 And I'm in Downing-street. 
 
 I made my plans, I fixed the day, 
 
 I got some thick-soled shoes 
 To " do the Alps ;" and on the way 
 
 I meant to buy a blouse. 
 I lost myself in visions bright, 
 
 Day-dreaming of the treat, 
 To be with you at Chamouni, 
 
 Away from Downing-street. 
 
 I thought of those dark pine-tree woods, 
 
 Those fern-clad granite cells, 
 Those channels of the glacier floods, 
 
 Those sweet-toned cattle bells. 
 That milk — these girls — those /raises dw hois— 
 
 In fact, those things you meet 
 At every turn in Chamouni, 
 
 But not in Downing-street. 
 
 And, Annie dear, I thought of you — 
 
 A poet would say " thee" — 
 In that " unclouded weather blue" 
 
 (That's Tennyson, not me, 
 Or rather " I "), but all my wits 
 
 Have beaten a retreat, 
 Whilst thinking you're at Chamouni, 
 
 And I'm in Downins-street. 
 
236 WILD OATS. 
 
 And worst of all, I thought of him, 
 
 And came a shadow dark — 
 That wretched boy, with figure slim, 
 
 You rode with iu the Park. 
 I know at every table d'hote 
 
 By you he'll take his seat, 
 And you will talk of Chamouni, 
 
 Nor thinh of Downing-street. 
 
 Annie ! I'm sure that you must own 
 
 You can't like such a muff, 
 "Whose small moustache has not yet grown, 
 
 But still remains like pluff. 
 His French is vile — he cannot dance, 
 
 I'd waltz him off his feet ; 
 But muffs come out at Chamouni, 
 
 "Who're crushed in Downing-street. 
 
 I feel that it is very wrong, 
 
 But get him to go up 
 "What he, no doubt, would call Mont Blong 7 
 
 And at the Mulets sup ; 
 And in the dark down some crevasse 
 
 A proper end he'll meet, 
 And then, perchance, at Chamouni, 
 
 You'll think of Downing-street. 
 
 A postman's knock — they're very long — 
 
 A letter ! and from you ! 
 You dear, dear thing ! I was so wrong ! 
 
 You're still as nice as true. 
 And " muff" has not been there at all \ 
 
 All love then till we meet ; 
 And you shall talk of Chamouni, 
 
 And I — of Downing-street. 
 
( 237 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 ME. GRUBBE'S NIGHT WITH MEMNON. 
 
 In the far west of London — preserving many traces of its 
 original characteristics, amidst the wide expanse of architectural 
 innovations which are continually springing up around it — 
 there is a sober and antiquated, but withal respectable, locality, 
 known to those travellers whose enterprise has led them thus 
 far into the occidental suburbs, as Brompton. It is a district 
 principally inhabited by theatricals, literati, and small an- 
 nuitants ; and is much esteemed on account of the salubrity of 
 its climate, the mildness of its society, and the economy of its 
 household arrangements. Its chief natural curiosities are tea- 
 parties and old ladies ; and its overland journey to London is 
 performed in omnibuses, unless the route by water is preferred. 
 But this is somewhat circuitous — Cadogan Pier, which is the 
 nearest port, standing in the same relation to Brompton as 
 Civita Yecchia does to Borne. . 
 
 Mr. "Withers Grubbe, who was an old inhabitant of this 
 pleasant village, resided in a modest tenement situate at the 
 edge of the great Bulham-road. His establishment comprised 
 himself and his housekeeper — a staid woman of matronly ap- 
 pearance — from which circumstance it may be fairly presumed 
 that he was either a widower or a bachelor ; but the uncer- 
 tainty as to which of these two orders of single life he came 
 under will be quite removed when we state that he was an 
 antiquary, an entomologist, and a general natural philosopher, 
 somewhat resembling a cocoa-nut, being shrivelled in external 
 appearance, but possessing a good heart or kernel, and not 
 entirely destitute of the milk of human kindness. As his 
 favourite pursuits had been, from time immemorial, at variance 
 with matrimony, he had never taken unto himself a wife. 
 Once, and once only, did his friends speak of his falling in love. 
 It was in the Park, one bright frosty morning, when he saw a 
 lady, whose cloak somewhat resembled the delicate tintings of 
 the privet moth ; but this lepidopterous attachment was very 
 
238 WILD OATS. 
 
 transient, and the next chrysalis of the Sphynx Atropos, or 
 number of the Gentleman' 's Magazine that came to hand, 
 immediately banished it from his mind. And he was an occa- 
 sional correspondent to the aforenamed humorous publication. 
 He had sent them a drawing of the old key of his dust-bin, and 
 a dissertation upon several worn-out brass button-tops he had 
 from time to time picked up in his walks, believing them to be 
 ancient coins ; as well as a plan of the Eoman encampment on 
 the Birmingham Eailway, and other interesting articles, the 
 majority of which were " declined, with thanks," by the vene- 
 rable and undying Mr. Urban. He belonged also to most of 
 the learned and scientific bodies, to all of whom he read the 
 rejected contributions, so that his time was pretty well occu- 
 pied, and more especially in the spring ; for then his larvae and 
 aurelije broke forth into a new life, and there was such a buzzing, 
 and fluttering, and pinning, and labelling all over the house, 
 with intrusive butterflies getting into the bedrooms, and strange 
 caterpillars walking up and down stairs, that people of ordinary 
 nerves, and uninterested in insect architecture, were afraid to 
 go into the house. But he cherished all his living things 
 with singular affection, even to the moths which had fattened 
 upon his waistcoats, and the cockroaches which ran about his 
 kitchen ; although Mrs. Weston, the housekeeper, could never 
 understand that the former insects only did any mischief in 
 their first stage of existence, and that the latter were looked 
 upon as sacred things, from the high veneration they were held 
 in amongst the ancient Egyptians. The poor ignorant woman, 
 in the darkness of her intellect, classed them as "warmint." 
 
 The great aim of Mr. Grubbe's labours was to get up some 
 paper that should produce a striking sensation in the learned 
 world by the novel facts that it might disclose— a consumma- 
 tion which had never yet arrived, for his most interesting dis- 
 coveries had always been forestalled. To this great end did he 
 consume his midnight patent stearine ; for this did he burn 
 holes in all his carpets with the contents of his galvanic battery, 
 and get phosphorus under his nails, or take all the colour from 
 his table-covers ; in prosecuting this endeavour, by rubbing his 
 buffer of black lead over cartridge paper, laid upon engraved 
 stones and brass tablets to take the impression, was he three 
 times apprehended for Swing, and once for sacrilege. But 
 hitherto he had never produced any extraordinary impression 
 beyond that which his appearance created with the rustics ; 
 
MK. GEUBBE'S NIGHT WITH MEMNON 239 
 
 and although he was a walking catalogue of the British Mu- 
 seum — far more copious and elaborate than those hired by 
 country visitors at contiguous fishmongers' and public-houses — 
 he found every object therein had been so often and so minutely 
 described that nothing fresh was left to dilate upon. _ And this 
 opinion for a time subdued his energy, until one eveninghe was 
 present at the unrolling of a mummy. He listened with intense 
 attention to the remarks of the lecturer, and envied him the 
 proud position he was for the time placed in, as the descriptive 
 link between the present and the long-past epochs. But when 
 the ceremony was finished, and Mr. Grubbe found, upon re- 
 viewing the 'lecture, that our acquaintance with the ancient 
 Egyptians extended just far enough to show that we knew 
 nothing at all about them, a fresh chain of research presented 
 itself to his mind, and from that time every other pursuit was 
 merged in the depths of the Great Pyramid, or perched upon 
 the edge of Belzoni's sarcophagus. He made a mummy of his 
 favourite cat, called his abode Sphynx Cottage, and allowed the 
 kitchen to swarm with cockroaches — which he called searabsei, 
 and Mrs. "Weston black beadles — more than ever. 
 
 Things stood thus when, one sultry July morning, a learned 
 friend called to beg his company in a visit to the docks, to view 
 some wonderful organic remains, not yet landed, which a ship 
 had brought from a distant country. Mr. Grubbe immediately 
 prepared for the excursion; and after having drawn an odd 
 pair of boots upon the wrong legs in his absence of mind, as 
 well as omitted to take oif his duffel dressing-gown, he gave 
 himself up to the care of Mrs. Weston, who finally pronounced 
 him fit to appear in the public streets. He accordingly started 
 with his friend, taking the omnibus to the Bank^whence they 
 proceeded to the docks on foot, saving the other sixpence; and 
 beguiling the journey with many curious arguments and opinions 
 upon ichthyosauri and the blue lias clay. 
 
 The inspection of the fossils was most satisfactory, and they 
 were pronounced highly interesting, the more so because several 
 of them were perfectly'incomprehensible ; and notwithstanding 
 the confined and heated places in which they were stowed, Mr. 
 Grubbe poked about amongst the packing-cases, covered with 
 dust and perspiration, and dragging his friend after him, until 
 every available object had been investigated, and they emerged 
 from the hold into the free air. A fresh treat now awaited 
 him. His friend was attached to everything old equally with 
 
240 WILD OATS. 
 
 himself, and old wine possessed no insignificant share of his 
 affections. "With praiseworthy foresight he had provided a 
 tasting-order as a crowning finish to their excursion ; and 
 having raised Mr. Grubbe's curiosity by mysterious hints of 
 pipes and casks that had long slumbered in cool excavations 
 below the level of the Thames, and wine more generous, oily, 
 and sparkling than ever came into the dealers' hands, they were 
 not long in providing themselves with inches of candle in split 
 laths, and following their guide — a priest of Bacchus in high- 
 lows and corduroys — into the bowels of the docks. How long 
 they lingered therein we are ashamed to state ; nor will we tell 
 the world too ruthlessly how many casks were broached by the 
 relentless gimlet ; how the wine leaped bright and creaming 
 from the wood ; how the glasses held twice the ordinary quan- 
 tity, and how they were even rinsed out with claret and Ma- 
 deira, which was thrown about amongst the sawdust like water. 
 Neither will we betray the number of samples tasted by the 
 visitors ; nor do more than just hint at Mr. Grubbe's slapping 
 the cellarman on the back for a good fellow, and endeavouring 
 to strike up an ancient bacchanalian melody, sung by Dignuni 
 in his young days. "We only know that this subterranean 
 sojourn w*as protracted to a period we blush to chronicle, de- 
 layed, no doubt, by a learned disquisition, poured forth by Mr. 
 Grubbe, upon the home-made wines of Thebes, which ended just 
 as they got to the top of the staircase, and stood once more, blink- 
 ing and confused, in the glaring sunshine of a July afternoon. 
 And terrible was the effect of the warm atmosphere upon their 
 temperaments before a few minutes had passed. "Whiz-z-z-z-z-z 
 went their eyes and brains together ; the ships flew round 
 and round like the revolving boats at Greenwich fair, and the 
 warehouses heaved and rolled as the billows of the sea. It was 
 with great difficulty, amidst this general bouleversement of sur- 
 rounding objects, that the two men of science staggered to the 
 gate, and deposited themselves in the first omnibus that passed. 
 They had not particularly inquired in what direction it was 
 going ; and, in consequence, after much travelling, Mr. Grubbe 
 ■was somewhat surprised to find the vehicle stop in Tottenham- 
 court-road, w T hen he expected to be at the White Horse Cellar. 
 But he was in the humour for treating every mishap that might 
 have occurred with exceeding levity ; and finding that the lo- 
 cality suited his friend just as well, even better than Piccadilly, 
 he Avished him good-by very affectionately, and took advantage 
 
MR. GEUBBE'S NIGHT WITH MEMNON. 241 
 
 of its proximity to pay a visit to his favourite British Museum, 
 partly in the belief that its cool tranquillity "would allay his 
 cerebral excitement. 
 
 He left his inseparable gingham umbrella — which answers 
 the double purpose of keeping off the rain when open, and 
 serving as a portmanteau of collected curiosities when shut — 
 ■with the porter upon entering ; and then turned his steps to- 
 wards the Egyptian Gallery, which was his usual lounge, still 
 cherishing some vague notion that his skull had turned into a 
 bag of hydrogen, so elastic and vivacious was his step. There 
 were, as usual, a great many people gaping about and asking 
 foolish questions of the attendant ; some mixing up the Sphynx 
 with the fossils they had seen, and asking if it ever was alive ; 
 others feeling rather afraid of going too near the mummies by 
 themselves; and the others lost in mental arguments as to 
 whether the colossal fist of red granite was a thunderbolt or 
 the hand of a petrified giant ; together with a great many ill- 
 conducted little boys, with no veneration for antiquities, who 
 laughed at the different objects as they would have done at any 
 of Mr. "W. Bradwell's wondrous creations in pantomime. Heed- 
 less of the visitors, Mr. Grubbe was soon lost in mighty specu- 
 lations upon the mysterious productions by which he was sur- 
 rounded; and so continued until the constant shuffling of feet 
 and increasing influx of strangers, whose inane remarks grated 
 upon his learned ears, drove him from the block upon which 
 he was sitting to some more remote corner of the gallery. En- 
 sconcing himself in a recess behind one of the enormous heads, 
 and screened by a sarcophagus, he fell into a fresh train of in- 
 tense thought upon hieroglyphics in general, and those of 
 mummies in particular. To this succeeded a confused picture 
 of wine-vaults, pyramids, docks, claret casks, and megatheria ; 
 and finally, overcome by the influence of heat, fatigue, and the 
 tasting-order, he fell fast asleep. 
 
 How long he slumbered remains to this day a mystery, and 
 probably ever will be so. But when he awoke, all was still and 
 quiet as the interior of the Theban tombs ; the gallery was 
 entirely deserted, and the moon was pouring a flood of light 
 through the windows, which fell upon the statues and remains, 
 rendering them still more cold and ghastly. In an instant the 
 truth broke upon the unhappy antiquary : he had been over- 
 looked when the Museum was cleared at seven o'clock, and 
 was locked in — bolted, barred, almost hermetically shut up in 
 
242 WILD OATS. 
 
 the gallery, in the most remote part of the building, with 
 nothing but stony monsters and crumbling mortality for his 
 associates ! Chilled to the heart with terror, despair, and the 
 reaction of his previous excitement, he started from his corner 
 with the intention of trying the doors, when his movement was 
 arrested by the chime of a clock. He knew the sound well : 
 it was the bell of St. George's, Bloomsbury, and it proclaimed 
 the hour of twelve ! And he was there alone — alone, at mid- 
 night, in the Egyptian chamber of the British Museum. In a 
 frenzy of terror he rushed towards the large doors, in the hope 
 of finding them open ; but they were fast closed, and he rattled 
 the handles until the whole building rang again with the 
 echoes. Hark! what was that sound? The echo had died 
 away, and was now renewed, although he had desisted from his 
 impotent attempts to gain some mode of egress. It sounded 
 from above, and now came nearer and nearer, louder and louder, 
 like the deadened and regular beat of muffled drums. There 
 were footsteps too — he could plainly distinguish them, in au- 
 dible progression, coming down stairs, and now a fearful spec- 
 tacle met his horrified gaze. The immense marble scarabseus 
 on the floor of the gallery vibrated with incipient animation ; 
 and then it stretched forth its huge feelers, and opened its 
 massy wings, like a newly-born insect trying the properties of 
 its novel limbs ; and next, with the heavy cumbrous motion 
 of a tortoise, it crept across the floor, throwing back the moon- 
 beams from its polished surface, towards the principal entrance 
 of the gallery. Tramp, tramp, tramp, — onward came the noise, 
 as of a great assembly, the drums still keeping up their mono- 
 tonous accompaniment, and at last they approached close to 
 the door, which quivered immediately afterwards with three 
 loud knocks upon its panels from without. As the hapless Mr. 
 Grubbe shrank still further into the recess, the large beetle 
 scuffled nearer the door, and then raising one of its hideous 
 feelers, it turned the handle. The gigantic granite first moved 
 by itself towards the entrance, and repeated the signal on the 
 panels ; and, at the last blow, a sound like the low rumbling of 
 thunder echoed through the edifice, and the door flew open, 
 admitting a glare of purple light, that for a few moments 
 blinded the terrified intruder, whilst on either side the Memnon 
 and the Sphynx retreated back against the wall to allow room 
 for the dismal cortege that approached. 
 
 The whole collection of mummy-cases in the rooms above 
 
ME. GRUBBE'S NIGHT WITH MEMNON. 243 
 
 had given up their inmates, who now glided down the staircase 
 one after another, to join their ancient compatriots of the 
 gallery below, lifting up the covers of their painted tombs and 
 stretching out their pitched and blackened arms to welcome 
 them. And next, the curious monsters with the birds' heads 
 who up to this moment had remained patiently sitting against 
 the side of the room with their hands upon their knees' rose 
 courteously to salute their visitors. The light which filled the 
 apartment, although proceeding from no visible point grew 
 brighter and brighter, until it assumed the brilliancy o'f oxy- 
 hydrogen, and when the last of the dusty and bandaged fmests 
 had arrived, the doors closed violently, and the orgies began. 
 The figures in the pictures became animated and descended 
 from the tablets, being by far the most attractive portion of 
 the company, either male or female, as they were semblances 
 of life, bearing amphora? of the choicest wine from the vine- 
 yards of Memphis ; strange birds in long striped tunics and 
 stranger creations, whose shapes inherited an attribute of everv 
 class of the animal kingdom, acted as attendants, and obse- 
 quiously waited upon the superior deities ; whilst the oreat 
 feature of the gallery — the mystic, awe-inspirino- Memoon 
 moved in stately progress to the end of the room, and com- 
 menced pouring forth that wondrous harmonv with which at 
 sunrise and twilight he welcomes his early worshippers. Then 
 commenced an unearthly galopade — a dreary carnival of the 
 dead, to the music of their master, accompanied bv the strano-e 
 sounds of instruments brought by the mummies most inclined 
 to conviviality from the glass-cases up stairs. But the strangest 
 sight in the whole spectacle was the curious way in which Mr. 
 Grubbe, despite his fears, perceived that they mingled ancient 
 with, modern manners when the dance came to an end. Some 
 of the animated Egyptians betook themselves to, pipes and 
 beer ; others brought large aerolites from the different rooms, 
 and began to play at ninepins with the inferior household gods 
 of blue glazed clay ; one young Memphian even went so far as 
 to thrust an enormous hook, as big as an anchor, through the 
 body of the scaraba?us, and then spin him at the end of li rope 
 round the room ; and finally, they wheeled a sarcophagus into 
 the centre of the gallery, and filled it with what Mr. Grubbe's 
 nose told him was excellent mixed punch, which they tippled 
 until the eyes of Memnon twinkled with conviviali'tv, as he 
 snuffed up the goodly aroma ; and at length, forgetting his 
 
 r 2 
 
244 WILD OATS. 
 
 dignity altogether, volunteered to play the Aurora waltzes (in 
 compliment of course to his mother) out of his head. The 
 monumental punch-bowl was directly pushed on one side, and 
 they began to dance again, Mr. Grubbe getting gradually more 
 and more excited by the music, uutil, unable to contain himself 
 anv longer, he rushed from his recess, and seizing a fair young 
 daughter of the Nile round the waist, was in an instant whirl- 
 ing round in the throng of deities, mummies, hieroglyphics, 
 ibises, and anomalous creations which composed the assembly. 
 The hours flew along like joyous minutes, and still the un- 
 earthly waltz was continued with persisting energy, until Mr. 
 Grubbe's brain became giddy' and bewildered. His strength 
 also began to fail, in spite of the attractions of his young Mem- 
 phienne, whose soft downy cheeks, roguish kissable lips, and 
 supernaturally sparkling eyes, had for a time made him forget 
 his age. He requested her to stop in their wild gyrations, but 
 she heeded him not ; breathless and exhausted, he was pulled 
 round and round, whilst the Memnonian orchestra played itself 
 louder and louder, until at length, losing all power, he fell 
 down in the midst of the dancers. Twenty others, who had 
 been twirling onwards, not perceiving their prostrate companion, 
 immediately lost their footing ; and finally, the whole assembly, 
 like so many bent cards, giddy with wine and excitement, bun- 
 dled one over the other, the unfortunate antiquary being the 
 undermost of the party. In vain he struggled to be free — each 
 moment the pressure of the superincumbent Egyptians ^ in- 
 creased ; until, in a last extremity — unable to breathe, bruised 
 by their legs and arms, and half-suffocated with mummy-dust 
 — he gave a few fruitless gasps for air, and then became in- 
 sensible. 
 
 It was broad daylight when he once more opened his eyes ; 
 and the motes were dancing in the bright morning sunbeams 
 that darted into the gallery. There were sounds of life and 
 motion, too, on every side (although no one had as yet entered 
 the apartment), and the rumble of distant vehicles in the 
 streets. It was some little time before Mr. Grubbe could col- 
 lect his ideas, for his brain was still slightly clouded — his lips 
 also were parched, and his eyeballs smarting with the revelry 
 of the night. But there he still was, in the room, surrounded 
 by his late company, although they had now resumed their 
 usual situations ; the Memnon and the Sphynx were vis-a-vis, 
 and the scarabseus in his customary place, as cold and inani- 
 
MB. GRUBBE'S NIGHT WITH MEMNON. 245 
 
 mate as ever ; whilst the gigantic fist had once more taken 
 possession of its pedestal, and the gentlemen with the cnrious 
 heads were sitting with their hands upon their knees in their 
 wonted gravity. But, notwithstanding all this chill reality, the 
 antiquary's mind was in a tumult of excitement. The dim un- 
 dying magic of ancient Egypt was still in force, unconquered 
 by time or distance. He had been admitted to the orgies of 
 Memnon ; he had watched the revelries and manners of the 
 hitherto mysterious race ; above all, he had gleaned information 
 for a paper that would bring the Society of Antiquaries at his 
 feet in wondrous veneration ! 
 
 The doors were, ere long, thrown open, and Mr. Grubbe left 
 the gallery unnoticed. On arriving at Brompton, he found 
 Mrs. Weston in a state of extreme terror and exhaustion^ 
 having watched the whole night for her master's return, that 
 worthy gentleman never having passed so long a period irom. 
 home. He retired immediately to his study, and laboured 
 until dusk with unceasing industry ; and from that period 
 Egypt alone occupied his thoughts. He thought of nothing 
 else by day, and dreamed of that subject only at night. The 
 subject grew beneath his hands and ideas, and what with the 
 circumstances he imagined, and those he dreamed about — for 
 in his labours he ever confounded them together — the work is 
 still unfinished ; and he will not give it to the world in an im- 
 perfect condition, although his most intimate friends already 
 fear that his application is affecting his brain. But when his 
 task is concluded, great will be his triumph : he will have fur- 
 nished — at least such is his expectation — a key to all the 
 mystic customs of the early Nile ; the hidden lore of Memphis 
 will be unravelled to the million ; he will walk abroad a thing 
 for men to gaze at and reverence ; and his name will go down 
 to posterity in company with Memnon and the Great Pyramid. 
 
 These are his own anticipations. His intimate friends have 
 only one hope — that he will be spared from Bedlam sufficiently 
 long to perfect his colossal undertaking ; and that on no ac- 
 count will he be induced any more to venture with a tasting- 
 order to the docks. 
 
.( 246 ) 
 
 XXX. 
 
 ADDRESS SPOKEN BY MRS. KEELEY 
 
 ON THE FIRST REPRESENTATION OF 
 "MAETLN" CnUZZLEWIT," 
 
 At the Lyceum Theatre, July 8, 1844. 
 
 No ghostly legend cull'd from mouldy page, 
 And " carefully adapted to the stage ;" 
 No grand romantic drama, deep and dire, 
 Filled with " terrific combats" and red fire, 
 Boast we to-night. No flimsy plot shall trench 
 Upon our scene " translated from the French ;" 
 But one in deep emotious far more rife — 
 The powerful romance of common life ! 
 
 "We owe this story of the present hour 
 To that great master hand, whose graphic power 
 Can call up laughter, bid the tear-drop start, 
 And find an echoing chord in every heart. 
 One we have learned to deem a household friend, 
 "Who, 'midst his varied writings, never penn'd 
 One line that might his guileless pages spot, 
 One word that " dying he would wish to blot." 
 
 We know there is around his simple name 
 A prestige thrown, your sympathies to claim ; 
 But our poor playwright, feeling well his task, 
 Has sent me forth your clemency to ask. 
 And some old friends, selected from the rest — 
 Of human kind the sweetest and the best — 
 Presuming on the fellowship of yore, 
 Crowd forth, your patient hearing to implore. 
 
 Good Mr. Pickwick first, with smiling face 
 And kindly heart, implores your patient grace ; 
 
ADDRESS SPOKEN BY MRS. KEELET. 247 
 
 Then arm in arm, led onwards by one will, 
 The Brothers Clieeryble endorse our bill, 
 And warm by kindness, ever both alike, 
 The timid hopes of poor neglected SmiJce ; 
 Whilst not unmindful of your past kind deeds, 
 Oliver Twist next for indulgence pleads. 
 Dick Swiveller, who has crept here by stealth, 
 " Passes the rosy" ere he drinks your health, 
 Surrounded by those friends we know so well, 
 "Watch' d over by the shade of Little Nell. 
 iNText laughing at Joe Willett in our train, 
 Dear Dolly Varclen flirts, and laughs again, 
 And hopes your pleasure will not be alloyed 
 Because she knows that Miyys will be annoyed. 
 And lastly, whilst around both cot and hall 
 The echoes of the Christmas Carol fall, 
 Dob Cr at diet on raised wages, spruce and trim, 
 Leads forwards, with his crutch, poor Tiny Tim.. 
 
 The others are to come. In anxious state 
 Behind the scenes your fiat they await. 
 Be satisfied, for yours and their behoof, 
 They'll do the best they can ; now to the proof! 
 
( 248 ) 
 
 . XXXI. 
 
 r 
 
 THE DILIGENCE. 
 A SKETCH ON THE EC- AD, 
 
 " Allons, messieurs, montez ! Monsieur Schmeet ! JSTumero 
 un!" 
 
 There is no response. 
 
 " Monsieur Smeece !" 
 
 Still no rejoinder. 
 
 " Monsieur Schmits !" cried the conducteur, after an oath ; 
 and then, having some vague idea that "Smith" is the name 
 intended, and that it must be meant for ourselves, we climb up 
 the step, and tumble down into the corner of the interieur, 
 doomed to be our prison for the next thirty hours. 
 
 Thirty hours ! All the people now clustering about the office 
 will dine, and go to bed, and sleep, and get up again, and dine 
 once more, and we shall still be in that corner ! That foreign 
 gentleman in spectacles and a felt hat, without a shirt-collar, 
 who has not washed his face, and is breakfasting from a 
 cigarette, will get through the day at his "bureau," and idle 
 away the evening at his cafe, and sleep — the chimney-pots only 
 know where — and perhaps be here again to-morrow morning : 
 and the corner will still contain us ! They have written up over 
 the door, " Dijon in thirty hours !" as if it was an achievement 
 of rapidity. "We look upon it with different views ; to us it only 
 suggests a note of alarm instead of admiration, that we have all 
 that time to pass before we get there. 
 
 The lading is completed. The men have pulled tight the 
 leathern rick-cloth-looking coverlid by the thongs and iron 
 rings ; the three leaders are fighting and neighing, and being 
 sworn at by the postilion, as they try to turn round and run 
 against their own splinter-bars ; the passengers have all 
 climbed into their respective places, and settled down in them 
 hopelessly, as though they meant to grow there for ever ; the 
 conducteur mounts on to the box — he will not come into the 
 banquette until night approaches — with his portfolio between 
 his teeth j and at last we are off. 
 
THE DILIGENCE. 249 
 
 "Hi!" The huge whip cracks like a succession of dis- 
 charges from a mighty electrifying machine, as we lumber 
 round the corner, and every thin pane of glass in the hatter's 
 shop rattles with the vibration of our great vehicle over the 
 stones. The signs, and names, and people who come to the 
 door to see us pass, go by like objects in a magic lantern. We 
 catch them rapidly one after another — li Nouveautes et 
 Bouenneries." ' 'Cachot, Perblantier-Lampiste en tous genres." 
 "Ala Villede Lyon." " Cafe du Midi." " Boidart-Minet, Mar- 
 chand de Yins, en gros et en detail." "An Sanglier. Charcu- 
 terie." " Maison succursale de la Belle Jardiniere : Vetements 
 d'homme: grand choix de vingt-cinq mille paletots de Paris" — 
 and then more streets, and gapers, and carts that will get in 
 the way, and rattling shop-windows, and oaths, and whip deto- 
 nations, until we squeeze through a small arch, about half the 
 size every way of the diligence, and emerge into the country, 
 when the excitement suddenly ceases, and the pace drops from 
 the display of the streets to the heavy six miles an hour that 
 we are doomed to for the rest of the journey. We look for the 
 first time at our companions. They are all foreign ; and, as 
 such, have crammed the straps of the roof with those wonderful 
 caps, baskets, sticks, umbrellas, and odd parcels, that you only 
 see abroad. An old man is opposite to us, with a black velvet 
 cap and snuify neckcloth tie : and we know we shall have many 
 encounters with his legs during the night. Then there is a 
 woman in a cap, who appears to be going hundreds of miles 
 with no other luggage than a bird-cage and a basket, in which 
 last are some sour plums and pieces of bread. jS"ext to us is a 
 dirty man with a velveteen coat and two days' beard, who has 
 been eating garlic, and has no luggage at all. And the other 
 passengers are two fat women, who will look worse, we know, 
 when they wake up in the morning than it is possible to con- 
 ceive. 
 
 "Why do all French women get so fat and hideous, and have 
 the air of sinking at once into monthly nurses after they turn 
 forty ? The matron, who forms so beautiful a class of our un- 
 equalled English females, is not known amongst them : the 
 "grosse maman" of Paul de Kock and Daumier is really and 
 truly their only phase of maturity. They can't help it, to be 
 sure ; but they might avoid light 'jean trodden-over boots and 
 short petticoats under similar circumstances. 
 
 " Hi !" We are crawling on. The people have pulled up all 
 
250 WILD OATS. 
 
 the windows, to stew and swelter according to their wont ; for 
 your foreigners have a great dislike to fresh air. We have, 
 however, the command of one pane, and we let this down, and 
 resolutely keep it so ; it is more agreeable, even with the dust 
 and flies. 
 
 Oh ! don't begin to talk, there's good people : your conver- 
 sation is as wearying and uninteresting as that of farmers in an 
 up Monday morning train. We know all you are about to 
 say ; you are sure to tell one another where you have come 
 from and where you are going to ; and it is all nothing when 
 we know. Your affairs, too, have little moment in them. Do 
 you imagine, madame, that it can possibly beguile our time, or 
 interest us, to know that you have a sister married at Dole, 
 and that last year she went for two weeks with her husband to 
 Paris ? We shall not utter any of those exclamations of sur- 
 prise at the remarkable occurrence that your compatriots will ; 
 tell them, and they will be astonished ; but don't bore us. It 
 is nothing to go to Paris — it is not, indeed; even the Lord 
 Mayor did it the other day. And what is there in the fact of 
 your married sister living at Dole ? She must live somewhere ; 
 and why not there ? It is a dull, common-place town enough. 
 If she had chosen to live half way down the crater of Vesuvius, 
 the position might have interested us. 
 
 They are all off; and now they won't stop for some hours. 
 The old man in the velvet cap informs the society that he has 
 something the matter with his skin, and is going to some famous 
 baths in consequence. We don't see the necessity of his men- 
 tioning that ; but immediately all the others tell him that they 
 have had relations with refractory skins, and each recommends 
 a different course ; and this pleasing subject, and the observa- 
 tions it gives rise to, last full two hours. 
 
 "Hi!" Still the monotonous cry of the postilion, and the 
 djing-djing-djing of the bells on the horses' headpieces, as 
 they walk at a snail's pace up a small rise. A miserable 
 beggar knows they always walk up here, so he lies in wait at 
 the bottom, and whines by our side all the way to the top. 
 Presently we come to an inn where they change. We are 
 hurried into a rude salle-a-manger, where there is feeble soup 
 and tasteless bouilli, and something very nasty made with veal, 
 and a thin warm fowl with cold water-cresses, and some hard 
 pears and rough wine and sourish bread, and three francs to 
 pay. But we eat eagerly and pay cheerfully ; anything for a 
 
THE DILIGENCE. 251 
 
 relief from the dusty interieur ! Only the coupe dines with us ; 
 the others have some potage and an omelette, and pay sixteen 
 sous, at a side-table. One woman— she with the unripe plums 
 —makes a light repast without leaving the diligence; and 
 another, in the rotonde, finishes a hard-boiled egg, which she 
 has fished up from amongst the cherries, rags, birdseed, and 
 chocolate crumbs of her basket. At last the sun goes out of 
 our eyes, and night comes on ; the passengers have got quiet — 
 some of them, even now, are having a dusty doze ; and we 
 begin to think about sleep. 
 
 Only to think about it, though. We never yet slept in a car- 
 riage, and we don't suppose this night will be different to the 
 others. The corner is uncomfortable ; you can't lay your head 
 against it for }^our shoulders, and the loop at the side of the 
 window is too high up, or too low down. At all events, it is 
 useless : for when you put your elbow in it and rest your head 
 upon your hand, and you think you are all right, it flies away 
 and lets your face down suddenly, and chucks your chin, per- 
 haps, and you are much worse off than ever. All the old pro- 
 gramme is gone through once more. Tou arrange your legs 
 with your neighbour for the fiftieth time, and place your cheek 
 gravely and philosophically against the side of the vehicle, and 
 say to yourself, "Now I will go to sleep." But we do not, 
 still. After flattering ourselves that we are falling off gently, 
 we open our eyes, which we closed to strengthen the belief^ and 
 find that we are as wide awake as ever ; and so, for a little 
 diversion, we wind up our watch, rearrange our legs, and then 
 shut our eyes again. Nearly oft', by Jove ! We lost our train 
 of thought, and fancied we were in another place, surrounded 
 by strange people. Can we have been asleep long ? Alas, no ; 
 our watch has not made half a minute since we wound it up, 
 and we are more wakeful than ever. The chins of our fellow- 
 passengers have dropped upon their breasts, and they are dream- 
 ing. Eor us, we can still hear the. "Hi!" of the postilion 
 and the djing-djing-djing of the rumbles. Ajid yet we are 
 desperately tired. A sofa, a rug— nay, the boards, with some- 
 thing to put our head upon — would be paradise. 
 
 It is very evident that we cannot go to sleep leaning -on our 
 right side, so we turn over on our left. That will do beautifully. 
 ]So it won't ; it is not so comfortable as the other. Then we 
 sit upright, and lean our head back, as if we were going to have 
 a tooth out ; that is worse than all. Oh dear ! oh dear ! we 
 
252 WILD OATS. 
 
 coiild kick all the people violently in our watchful irritability 
 How nice it would be to be in bed ! 
 
 At last we get into a wide-awake, dogged, open-eyed state of 
 watchfulness that lasts quite through the night. "We are re- 
 conciled now ; we shall not sleep, and so we bear it patiently, 
 in that dead calm of irritation which attends the later stages of 
 the nettle-rash, after having scratched your wealed skin raw 
 with a comb, or raised it to red heat with your hardest hair- 
 brush. Heigho ! we give a long, wearied yawn, and look out 
 at the stars, for we do not even shut our eyes now — we have 
 found out the failure. 
 
 Gaunt trees pass the windows in endless processions ; thus 
 we go through a village, locked in repose, with nobody stirring 
 but the man with the lantern at the relais. The lamp of the 
 diligence shines on a board, and we read " Messageries Grene- 
 rales de Caillard et C ie , Eue Saint-Honore, No. 130, Paris." 
 "We have read that often before, but we have nothing else to do. 
 There is a clumping about of wooden shoes, a dialogue in a rude, 
 incomprehensible patois, a neighing and fighting of the leaders, 
 a string of French oaths, and then the postilion once more 
 cries " Hi !" and the bells jingle as we are on the road again. 
 
 At last morning comes — there is one consolation, it always 
 must, if you wait for it — and we can see our companions, in- 
 cluding the new one, who came in in the night, when the dirty 
 man got out. They are wonderfully wrapped up, and do not 
 look pretty ; but we expect we are nothing remarkable ourself. 
 Our eyes are smarting, and we feel caked with dust — French 
 dust, too — not common road powder, but plaster of Paris, that 
 would take a mould of our face if it came on to rain. 
 
 We come to a long hill, and the conducteur asks us to walk 
 up it. Not veiy conscious of what we are about, v r e join in the 
 blushing train of scaramouches who follow the diligence ; and 
 then, at the top, climbing and diving once more into our destined 
 corner, we rearrange our legs with our vis-a-vis, dry-rub our face 
 with a pocket-handkerchief, and prepare for six hours more 
 misery, whilst the postilion still cries " Hi !" and there is no 
 cessation to the djing-djing-djing of the bells. 
 
( 253 ) 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 CUCUMBER CASTLE. 
 
 The following squib was privately printed, immediately after 
 the opening of the Crystal Palace in 1854:. It has never before 
 been publicly circulated, bat is now reproduced to show how 
 very truly ail its prophecies have been carried out. 
 
 What lias been the end, in the Crystal Palace, of all the non • 
 sense which various solemn noodles talked about " the cultiva- 
 tion of Art amongst the People" — whose palace it was stated to 
 Ije — the unfortunate shareholders know too well. It has come 
 down, and come down badly, to a mere trysting-place for an 
 out-of-town holiday — and certainly a very pleasant one, which 
 might still be made a great deal better : its only hope. The 
 brilliant success of the original Exhibition in 1851 had nothing 
 in the world to do with ' : Art" and " The People." It was a 
 charming novelty — it was in an admirable position, where folks 
 have ever loved to congregate, even in its normal state ; and it 
 was to be kept open only for a time, and that time during the 
 blaze of the London season. And most beautiful, in truth, it 
 was ; but " Art" had nothing to do with its success, or its 
 results. After all its pottery purls, "The People" still clung 
 to the Toby Philpot brown jugs and willow pattern plates, as 
 they do still. 
 
 Every show since started on the Art-cant principle has been 
 a failure, simply because the really common-place and unsu^ges- 
 tive, people whose names have become wound up with its direc- 
 tion, from nobody caring to oppose them, do not understand 
 what the public — not " The People" — will pay for. jNew York, 
 Dublin, and Manchester have failed, or barely cleared their 
 expenses, and now another is again talked of in London ! 
 And another beyond that; and avowedly for our old friends 
 " The People" again, in a remote northern region somewhere 
 on the road to Hertfordshire, called Muswell Hill. If it is for 
 " The People," it will, of course, be open for nothing (for they 
 will not pay to go anywhere where they are bored), and this is 
 
254 WILD OATS. 
 
 very kind of the company who have undertaken to erect it. But 
 if any charge is made, "The People" will most likely prefer 
 Highbury Barn, where they can amuse themselves, if they 
 please, as they like. 
 
 After all, Mr. G-ye's Floral Hall, which has nothing to do 
 with " Art" or "The People" — in spite of its doubtful prestige 
 derived from that scene of comfort and refinement, the Volun- 
 teers' Ball — will be quite as beautiful, and more accessible, than 
 anything else. No fuss has been made about it, and nobody 
 will be let in for "shares." The frieuds of " The People" at 
 present appear to think that " Art," like cucumbers, can only 
 be brought to perfection under glass. 
 
 programme. 
 
 SCENE — The Interior of tlie Crystal Palace on the \§ih of 
 June. There are a great many People assembled; some are 
 very nice indeed, more are very common-place, and many 
 excite doubts as to their having paid their two guineas for the 
 Season Tickets, bearing a great resemblance to upper-box orders 
 out for the day. Several Gentlemen, in evening costume, are 
 charming; several more, in unwonted Court attire, are very 
 uncomfortable. 
 
 CHOEUS of Discontented People. 
 
 Oh, dear ! what can the matter be ? 
 Hear, hear ! what can that clatter be ? 
 Hear, dear ! each will mad as a hatter be — 
 
 "Why are we seated out here ? 
 "We paid our two guineas to place us in clover, 
 But now the baize barrier we may not climb over ; 
 For the sight, we might all just as well be at Dover, 
 
 Or sitting on Hungerford Pier ! 
 Oh, dear! &c. 
 
 LAUGHING CHOEUS— "Der Freyschutz." 
 
 DiEECTORS, 
 
 "Why, good people, are you raving ? 
 Eor our friends the seats we're saving ; 
 You are let in here to-day 
 
CUCUMBER CASTLE. 255 
 
 Offensive Party. 
 " Let in !" — yes, you well may say ! 
 
 Dieectoes. 
 
 Never mind — you've Lad to pay ! 
 
 Ha, ha, ha, ha ! &c. 
 
 GKAKD MAECH— "Norma Vieni." 
 
 The sun bursts through the Crystal roof, as The Queen 
 enters, with a brilliant army of attendant sprites. The 
 Directors betray nervousness, as ivell as the Authors. 
 
 SONG— Me. Laing. 
 
 (To the Heads of the Departments.) 
 
 Air — " To all you ladies now on land" (or, more po~ 
 pularly, to the celebrated Cantata, " The Whale" as 
 sung by 31. Billet Roussel, the present primo tenore 
 at the Theatre de la Guerre, Varna). 
 
 The highest Lady in the land 
 
 "Will now your Handbooks take. 
 In walking back, pray understand, 
 
 That no faux pas you make, 
 
 Erave boys ! 
 
 With a fal lal, lal, lal, la, la, la ! &c. 
 
 Th' occasion for the greatest care 
 
 And best attention begs, 
 Lest any one should chance to get 
 
 His sword between his legs, 
 
 Erave boys ! 
 
 With a fal lal, lal, lal, la, la, la ! &c. 
 
 D UEIOIJS CHOEUS of Presentees of Handbooks. 
 Air — " Such a getting upstairs P 
 
 Such a getting up-stairs, such a bowing in the middle, 
 
 Such a kneeling at the top, I never did see ! 
 Such a backing down stairs — quite an acrobatic riddle ! 
 
 If it's toilsome to Breadalbane, oh ! what must it be to me ? 
 
256 WILD OATS. 
 
 Me. Laing now advances, and sings to Her Majesty the 
 following well-known Air, from " Bombastes Furioso" 
 
 AIE— Me. Laing. 
 Aie — " What will your Majesty please to wear?" 
 
 Here will your Majesty please to turn, 
 
 And Mr. Fuller's medals take, 
 Whose general eye o'er the whole concern 
 
 Has for some months kept him wide awake ? 
 
 SONG— Me. Fullee. 
 Air — " Jolly Nose." 
 
 Jolies clioses you here see 'neath the Palace of Glass, 
 
 All beauties of form and of colour ; 
 And the greater the labour, I find come to pass, 
 
 The fuller I fill it— Frank Fuller ! 
 
 Jolies clwses ! jolies clioses! 
 
 Jolies clioses are displayed in your Majesty's sight, 
 For instruction in science and art meant, 
 
 And these medals I tender as having a right 
 To meddle with ev'ry department. 
 
 Jolies clioses ! jolies clioses ! 
 
 AIE {repeated) — Me. Laing. 
 
 Here will your Majesty please to look ; 
 
 Sir Joseph Paxton now presents 
 The Crystal Palace's History book, 
 
 Of how it was built, and at what expense. 
 
 EECITATIYE— Sie Joseph Paxton. 
 
 This is the House that Joe built. 
 
 And this is the book, if in it you look, 
 That describes the House that Joe built ; 
 
 And its height immense, and its lavish expense, 
 And its horticultural ornaments 
 (Though we dare not say that we think it will pay, 
 But the best shall be done in the newspaper way), 
 
CUCUMBER CASTLE. 257 
 
 And its acres of glass, and gardens and grass, 
 
 And frescoes and models, and illustrious noddles, 
 
 And stuffed bears and lynxes, and palm-trees and spkynxes, 
 
 And lightly-clad figures of Earthmen and niggers, 
 
 And temples and shops, and statues and strops, 
 
 And its things for sale, and pints of pale ale, 
 
 That lay in the House that Joe built ! 
 
 AIE (repeated) — Me. Laing-. 
 
 Here will your Majesty please incline ? 
 
 Here's Owen Jones, who's quite at home 
 (Though not in an ambassadorial line) 
 
 With the Courts of Alhambra, Greece, and Eome. 
 
 Mb. Owen Jones advances, gracefully dancing a bolero, 
 preceded by the Corps de Ballet of the Boyal Italian 
 Opera, Covent Garden, specially drilled for the occasion 
 by Mr. A. Harris. 
 
 PAS MAUEESQUE. 
 
 At the conclusion of ivhich, Mr. Owen Jones thus 
 declaims : 
 
 "Where the Yega of Granada all its gushing wealth displays, 
 And the snows of the Nevada temper summer's fervent rays, 
 Where along the Alpuxarras little rills run drivelling cool ; 
 And his mother to Boabdil said, " Shut up, vou snivelling 
 
 fool!" 
 
 Where the wizard, David Eoberts, took those views beyond 
 compare, 
 
 And the less ambitious Burford brought the spot to Leicester- 
 square, 
 
 Where the silver- win ding Xenil through the plains and gardens 
 smiles, 
 
 There I found my bricks and borders — thence I brought my, 
 tints and tiles. 
 
 s 
 
258 WILD OATS. 
 
 'Tis my hobby, and I ride it ; but without me, all may see, 
 Who would bring out Longman's Missals — where would Jul- 
 
 lien's Albums be? 
 Gold leaf, green, cobalt, vermilion— leaves and cherries, fresh 
 
 and bright ; 
 Put me by the side of Sang— the leaden-hued by candlelight ! 
 
 Crabbed minds may say mine is not like the Lion's Court at 
 
 ail- 
 That the fountain's too extensive, or the alcoves are too 
 
 small ; — 
 Never mind— I've been and done it,— jealous eyes may pry and 
 
 quiz : 
 Bound by columns, rods, and girders, they must take it as 
 
 it is. 
 
 Though the gold leaf sized upon it has a pretty penny cost, 
 That the shareholders may settle — my great chance has not 
 
 been lost. 
 Mine the pride, and mine the glory, of these colours, tints, and 
 
 tones : 
 Please to recollect the name — not Owen Swift, but Owen 
 
 Jones. 
 
 The Gitanas form a circle round him, under cover of 
 which he retreats. 
 
 AIB {repeated) — Me. Laing. 
 
 Here will your Majesty please behold 
 
 Digby Wyatt, who's got by heart 
 A Court- Guide of Pompeii old, 
 
 And all the Courts of Christian art ? 
 
 Me. Digbt Wtatt advances with " true courtly grace" (as 
 the newspapers observed), and sings the following : 
 
 SONG— Me. Diget Wtatt. 
 Aie — " It segreto per esser felice." 
 
 So great is the lesson I teach ye, 
 
 I scarcely know where to begin ; 
 Byzantium, Paris, Portici, 
 
 Are all to my service pressed in ; 
 
CUCUMBER CASTLE. 259 
 
 I have Courts Mediaeval, Kenaissance — 
 
 What that means I have not time to explain ; 
 
 So at once will I make my obeisance, 
 And back myself down stairs again. 
 
 At the conclusion, Me. Digbt Wyatt lacks down with 
 great success, amidst the cheers of the Spectators, after a 
 course of six lessons from Serr Deani {not Johnny), the 
 celebrated Sprite^ ivho comes backwards down stairs on a 
 globe. 
 
 N.B. — About this time, The Queen begins to be rather 
 bored, but with graceful courtesy suppresses the 
 yawn. 
 
 AIK (repeated) — Me. Laing. 
 
 These will your Majesty please to read ? 
 
 Samuel Phillips* has compiled 
 General Handbooks, suited indeed 
 
 To the grown-up man or the sensible child. 
 
 Me. Phillips advances very imposingly, in a costume some- 
 thing between that of an Undergraduate and Zamiel. 
 
 SONG— Me. Phillips. 
 
 Air — " Nix my dolly." 
 
 At books in which the minor fry 
 
 Hank nonsense scribble, the Times and I 
 
 Blaze away ; 
 "With my sharp steel pen, for slaughter ripe, 
 Through a column or two of well-spaced type, 
 
 Oh ! isn't it jolly to blaze away ? 
 
 Isn't it jolly to blaze away ? 
 
 Choetts and Dance of Mr. Phillips, Ambassadors, M.P.s, 
 Shareholders, and all the Company in the reserved 
 places : 
 
 Oh ! isn't it jolly to blaze away ? 
 
 * The late amiable and gifted literary critic of the Times. 
 
 s2 
 
260 WILD OATS. 
 
 And if such knowledge you would diffuse, 
 Unfettered let every land of news 
 Make a way — 
 - The penny take off from the news-sheet damp, 
 Which at present is not of a popular stamp ; 
 Oh ! it would be jolly to take it away, 
 It would be jolly to take it away ! 
 
 Chorus and Dance as he/ore ; during which, Mr. Phillips 
 dances down. 
 
 AIR {repeated) — Me. Laing-. 
 
 This will your Majesty please peruse ? 
 
 Layard's Assyrian Gazetteer ; 
 But another has modelled the Doctor's views, 
 
 For Mr. Fergusson does lodge here. 
 
 Me. Fergusson advances, ill at ease. 
 
 SONG— Mr. Fergusson. 
 
 Nursery Rhyme — " Dickery, dickery, dock" 
 
 Diggery, diggery, dirt, 
 
 Stripped to the sleeves of your shirt ; 
 
 We've long since begun, 
 
 And for ages to run 
 'Twill be diggeiy, diggery, dirt. 
 
 In retreating, Mr. Fergusson gets still more nervous, and 
 
 at last, in his confusion, turns round three times, throws 
 
 four somersets, pitches a pie, cuts six, and ultimately goes 
 
 round on his hands and legs like a wheel, and so exits, 
 
 amidst loud applause. 
 
 AIE {repeated) Mr. Laing. 
 
 Here will your Majesty please to own 
 Professor Owen (not Owen-ap-Jones) ? 
 
 As the " Antediluvian Pell" he's known, 
 He's so uncommonly great on bones. 
 
CUCUMBEPw CASTLE. 261 
 
 DUET — Proeessor Owen and Ms. "Waterhouse 
 Hawkins. 
 
 Air—" The Monies of old:' 
 
 P. 0. 'Tis liere we unfold what monsters of old 
 
 "Were masters of earth and sea ; 
 "W. H. And what we don't know of their colours, we show 
 
 As we think they were likely to be. 
 P. O. Megatheria laughed and Iguanodons chaffed 
 W. H. At the Ichthyosaurus's fears ; 
 P. 0. And they shrieked ha-r-r-ha-r-r ! 
 W. H. And they squeaked ha-r-r-ha-r-r ! 
 Ensemble. In the Antediluvian years. 
 
 Her Majesty being graciously pleased to encore tliis Duet, 
 they sing it again, and then retire with their arms over one 
 another's shoulders, Wee Acrobats after they have made 
 their low at the lamps. 
 
 AIB (repeated)— Mn. Laing. 
 
 Here will your Majesty please to scan 
 
 Books of ethnological lore, 
 With every sort of plant and man 
 
 Described as never they were before ? 
 
 ARIA — Proeessor Forbes. 
 Air — " Guy Fawlces." 
 
 "We've here Saforthia elegans, Sparmannia Africana, 
 
 The Phoenix dactylifera, Sahal BlacJcbumiana ; 
 Strange lilies will the water deck, when in the tanks we let it ; 
 But a little thing prevents us, for as yet we cannot get it. 
 But they'll grow, grow, grow, 
 And have a great blow out, and blossom afleur d'eau. 
 
 SOXG-— Dr. Latham. 
 
 Air — "A man's a man for a' that."' 
 
 Oh ! why should prudish folks pretend 
 To turn the head, and a' that, 
 
262 WILD OATS. 
 
 From my collection made of men 
 White, black, and red, and a' that ? 
 Eor a' that, and a' that, 
 
 Tattooing, paint, and a' that ; 
 Though piggy's ring be in his nose, 
 A man's a man for a' that ! 
 
 POLACCA— Me. Laing. 
 
 Very good songs — very well sung, 
 Heads of departments every one ! 
 
 CHORUS of People. 
 
 Heads of departments every one, 
 
 We're very glad you have all of you done ! 
 
 CHOEUS of Heads oe Depaethents (despondinghj) . 
 
 Such a getting down stairs, such a stumbling in the middle, 
 
 Such crab-like locomotion, we never did see ; 
 And after presentation, only greater is the riddle, 
 
 What good or use to any one such etiquette can be. 
 
 BENEDICTION — The Aechbishop oe Canteebtjey. 
 
 (We are requested to repel, on authority and with indig- 
 nation, the report that the Archbishop of Canterbury is 
 open to engagements, during the ensuing season, to bless 
 the Bosherville Bazaar, Cremome, Cooke's Circus, High- 
 licry Barn, the Loiother Arcade, the Pantheon Conserva- 
 tory, Vauxhall, Madame Tussaud's, the Wellington 
 Dining-rooms, the Plaster-cast Shops in Drury-lane, or 
 any other shows that in their aggregate may form the 
 Crystal Palace?) 
 
 God bless the season-ticket swells, 
 
 God bless the shilling days, 
 God bless the water-pots and wells, 
 
 God bless the scarlet baize ! 
 
 God bless the man who rents a/ space, 
 
 God bless the ginger-pop^ 
 God bless bold Spiers and his case, 
 
 Bless Mechi's magic strop ! 
 
CUCUMBER CASTLE. 263 
 
 God bless the road — God bless the rail — 
 
 God bless the Sheffield wares — 
 God grant there may not be much hail — 
 
 And oh ! God bless the shares ! 
 
 At the conclusion of the Benediction, clouds obscure the 
 entire building, and the Old Hundredth is heard — By 
 degrees the mists disperse, and disclose a 
 
 GEAXD ALLEGORICAL TABLEAU, 
 
 REPRESENTING 
 
 THE FUTURE! 
 
 The fountains burst forth, and arches of flowers rise round 
 the walks in which the People are enjoying tea, with 
 shrimps, at ninepence a head, preparatory to the Grand 
 Display of Fireworks on the Model Picture of Constanti- 
 nople during the Bamazan, at the end of the Gardens, 
 under the direction of Chevalier Mobtbam. 
 
 The Old Directors, disgusted at the progressive attraction 
 for the People, of the refreshments and amusements over 
 the Love-ofthe-Fine-Arts-Inculcation Departments, have 
 retired : and their places are now supplied by Messrs. 
 Wardell, Simpson, Tyler, Jullien, Laurent, and Franconi, 
 whose experiences in catering for the essential shillings 
 are producing a rich harvest. 
 
 The Pompeii Booms are turned into ' : Cabinets Particu- 
 liers "for suppers, §c. 
 
 In the Roman and Greeh Courts, Madame Wharton ex- 
 hibits her Poses Plastiques—with the most severe regard 
 to decency — every day. at 12, 3, and 8. 
 
 The Centre Transept forms a beautiful Pall-Boom, under 
 the direction of M. Laurent, of the Argyle Rooms. 
 Masters of the" Ceremonies : Messrs. Mott, Frere, and 
 Gouriet. 
 
 Tlie Egyptian Jugglers in the Temple of Abou-Simbel, every 
 evening at 9; and the Great Nineveh Secromancer, in 
 the Enchanted Palace of the Winged Bulls, at intervals. 
 
264 WILD OATS. 
 
 Dr. Kahn laving bought 'the 'Ethnological Parties, their 
 f laces are supplied by the Zulus, Farthmen, Aztecs, Bos- 
 jesmen, Esquimaux, and others — all alive. 
 
 Unparalleled Feat of Selling Seven Hundred Muslin 
 Dresses in Seven Minutes, by the Bouncing Brothers of 
 Barege. 
 
 Terrific Descent of Joel II Diavolo, on a single wire, from 
 the Centre Transept to the Sydenham Station; Grand 
 Fine Art Distribution of Plaster Casts by Tickets in the 
 Wheel of Fortune ; American Bowling Alleys ; Shooting 
 Gallery of Moving Hares; Swings and Boundabouts, 
 horizontal and perpendicular; Climbing the Greased 
 Statues of Barneses for a Shoulder of Mutton, — and a 
 variety of other attractions too numerous to mention. 
 
 GRAND FINALE by One Hundred Thousand Voices : 
 G-od save the Queen ! 
 
 A WORD TO THE DIRECTORS. 
 
 Gentlemen, — You have, beyond all doubt, observed that the 
 two great attractions at present in the Crystal Palace are the 
 Dinners and the Brass Band. There is no mistake about this. 
 It may be humiliating to the lover of the Fine Arts, but, never- 
 theless, it is hard truth. All the newspaper paragraphs in the 
 world can't alter this. 
 
 The people — a vague class, but, I suppose in your classifica- 
 tion, one comprising those who can pay a shilling at your show 
 (and, in serious truth, a most beautiful one it is), care more 
 for amusement than instruction. I watched them for more 
 than two hours the other day. They wandered and wondered, 
 and occasionally gaped ; but when the band struck up, or a 
 visitor played an attractive polka in the Music Court, they 
 hurried off at once in that direction, and the gates of the Bap- 
 tistery, or the Earnese Bull, might have gone to Hades for 
 aught they cared, until the music was over. You must, I 
 repeat, amuse them ; and you must not talk nonsense about 
 " position" and " high aims." There is nothing so silly in any 
 
CUCUMBER CASTLE. 265 
 
 suburban tea-gardens, as that collection of bogies and stuffed 
 things near the dining place ; where you may sit amongst 
 camellias, and look at a bear climbing over an iceberg of 
 whitewashed something sprinkled with Epsom salts ; or watch 
 a party of dirty aborigines — you don't care where from — doing 
 something, you don't care what— as you enjoy your excellent 
 lobster salad, or really good three-and-sixpenny claret. TJiatfs 
 the hit of the whole show — Nimrod, Phidias, Sesostris, and the 
 Parthenon into the bargain. 
 
 Pray, pray be honest . Say boldly that your undertaking is a 
 mere commercial, City speculation, in the hardest, clearest 
 sense — that all your newspaper puffs are only other ways of 
 shouting, " "Walk up, ladies and gentlemen !" Tour sole aim is 
 to collect the halfpence — " Twopence more, and up go the 
 fountains I" You showed this too palpably in your Handbook 
 mistake, when, at the very opening of the Palace, you removed 
 all the names from the busts and statues, to force the sale of 
 the catalogues. And don't call it " The People's Palace." 
 Why is it ' ; The People's Palace ?" What have they had to do 
 with it ? — what have they now ? — what will they ever have ? 
 It is quite beautiful enough to stand on its own merits without 
 all that cant. 
 
 There are so many excellently-good fellows holding situations 
 about your establishment — names widely known and affec- 
 tionately esteemed — that the success of the Crystal Palace is 
 the wish of everybody. If you find the people merely walk 
 through the courts and say " How pretty!" — as five minutes' 
 observation will show you they do — don't get angry and drag 
 them back, and say to them, ' ; You shall be elevated," because, if 
 you bore them in that way, they won't come again. "Watch, 
 which way their likings incline, and gratify those likings. 
 You will only bewilder that old lady, who has come up with a 
 basket from Banbury, by endeavouring to make her take home 
 a clear notion of the Byzantine and Renaissance styles of 
 architecture. 
 
 If your only aim is " to inspire the masses with a love of 
 art," go on as you are now going. But if you don't want to 
 lose all your money, attract the public by every possible means. 
 You have much, to combat, and above all things, the distance 
 from town. There is no blinking the fact. There is as much 
 looking at your watch, and calculating the time, and squabbling 
 with cabs, and struggling through the City, and waiting at the 
 
266 WILD OATS. 
 
 station, as if you were going to Folkestone — with the exception 
 that in the latter case you are on the South-Eastern line, and in 
 the other you are on the Brighton, which is not quite so pre- 
 ferable. 
 
 Tour obedient, humble servant, 
 
 William Jones. 
 
 GRATIFYING CORROBORATION. 
 
 Mr. "William Jones thus writes, July 10th : 
 
 " Beyond all doubt, the two great attractions at present in 
 the Crystal Palace are the Dinners and the Brass Band. There 
 is no mistake about this. It may be humiliating to the lover 
 of the Pine Arts, but, nevertheless, it is the hard truth. All 
 the newspaper paragraphs in the world can't alter this." 
 
 The Times thus writes, July 24<th : 
 
 " The brass band on the terrace will take away from the 
 Alhambra its most enthusiastic admirers, and leave the restora- 
 tions of Egyptian Architecture as deserted as their originals 
 on the sand plains of the Nile. As luncheon and dinner time 
 arrive, Mr. Home's department becomes by far the most im- 
 portant in the building." 
 
 ANOTHER WORD TO THE DIRECTORS. 
 
 Gentlemen, — The costly mistake of Art-attraction has never 
 been dealt with in a spirit of hard common sense. The huge 
 mass of the public, I repeat, do not care two straws about 
 Art. The gaping crowds that stream through the British Mu- 
 seum on holidays, go there because it is something in the 
 middle of London that they can see for nothing ; and they 
 would like it better still if Memnon had an organ in his inside, 
 and nodded his head, and moved his eyes. And talking of 
 Memnon reminds me that you must have spent more on those 
 hideous large figures of Barneses — which have only the merit 
 of being big, and which any lot of boys could have built in 
 snow if they had had sufficient — than would have furnished an 
 
CUCUMBER CASTLE. 267 
 
 entire court of amusement. And, as I have told you, visitors 
 prefer to be amused. You remember where the crowd always 
 was in the old Crvstal Palace of 1S51 ? Xot before the dear 
 " Art Manufactures" (as sixpenny cream-jugs were called when 
 they were altered in shape and sold for ten shillings), but be- 
 fore the wonderful stuffed animals from Wurtemberg. They 
 will do the same at Sydenham if you will provide things for 
 them to look at, and you want a few entertaining objects ter- 
 ribly. At present, the ruling genius of your Show, apart from 
 the lobster-salad and pale ale, is boke— costly, wearying, pon- 
 derous, fine-artistic bore. 
 
 A clever statistician, who sat one day for five hours under 
 King Charles at Charing-cross, states that only one person in 
 every five hundred who went by looked at it, out of those going 
 westward — out of those going eastward, one in four hundred 
 and thirty. He believes the sun caused this difference, which 
 is, however, worth investigation. 
 
 ' Now, if they don't care for the real tiling, what value will 
 they set on a cast of it ?— except the trivial pleasure of seeing 
 a familiar object when you are at a distance from it, as you see 
 your lodgings at Gravesend reproduced in the Camera on Wind- 
 mill Hill. 
 
 Again, the power of association has been overlooked. When 
 you gaze at the Venus de' Medici in the Tribune of the Palace 
 at Florence, you are looking at a wonder of the world— the 
 actual priceless treasure — after a walk across the bright Piazza 
 Gran' Duca, or a rest in the shaded Loggia de' Lanzi, with the 
 Florentine sky above you, and Italian colours glowing around 
 you, and the Tuscan accent everywhere floating about you. 
 You are away from home, and smoke, and worry ; and, above 
 all, you have nothing else to do. You have had a pleasant 
 breakfast, with girls throwing flowers at you, at the Cafe Donin, 
 and you are looking forward to an agreeable dinner at the table 
 filiate of the Hotel du Xord, and a lively drive in the Cascine 
 at night amongst the fire-flies and glow-worms. You have left 
 the Alps and are going to the Apennines ; and all this increases 
 your enthusiasm about the Venus. A great deal different is 
 that which you experience when you are looking at a mere cast, 
 and remember that whether the trains go fast or slow — every 
 ten minutes or every hour— are full or empty— you must even- 
 tually be turned adrift upon the world at London-bridge, and 
 struggle with a cab through the Borough or Cheapside, just as 
 
268 WILD OATS. 
 
 much as if you had come from Boulogne, or been to Ber- 
 mondsey to buy leather. 
 
 " AVe took seven hundred pounds again yesterday, for re- 
 freshments !" This is the reply to all questions about " How 
 are you going on?" Carry this out still further — have small 
 private rooms (not poked about here and there, but command- 
 ing charming views, internal and external) : get the water 
 about as quickly as you can, for its plashing sparkling presence 
 is always delicious : continue to improve your excellent com- 
 missariat : fight your hardest for something about Sundays ; and, 
 in another season, Blackwall, Greenwich, Richmond, Virginia 
 Water, and Thames Ditton, will not be heard of. 
 
 And do not run away with the notion that you are " swells," 
 to be approached with awe, and praised for everything you do, 
 and placed above receiving suggestions. You are nothing of 
 the kind. You want either to ride your respective hobbies to 
 death, or make as much money as you can out of the Public ; 
 and I am really anxious that you should do this with pleasure 
 and profit on both sides. You are all gentlemen of position, 
 talent, and unimpeachable respectability ; but you are showmen, 
 and you and the Public must assume an appropriate relation to 
 each other. Please them, and they will be sure to support 
 you. Let them go away with a bright impression ; so that 
 when you stand outside, and beat your drum and cymbals (the 
 Press), and cry, " There is no deception ! — inquire the nature 
 of the exhibition of the company who are now leaving the 
 caravan! As you like it, so we hope you'll recommend it!" — 
 when you do this, let them so well report of you, that every 
 one may send a dozen. 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 "William Jones. 
 
( 269 ) 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 HOW MR STRAGGLES WENT CHEAP TO ASCOT. 
 
 Mr. Stbagg-les sat by himself, on a high stool, in his lonely 
 chambers, which were up at the top of the house, thinking on 
 things in general, and looking over his garden. 
 
 His garden was not very extensive, being of necessity con- 
 fined to his window-sill; but it was sufficiently varied. He 
 had one root of mignionette restrained within bounds by a 
 light fence of matches, and that vegetable string, whatever it is,, 
 by which the early vagaries of lettuces are curbed : a pot of 
 nasturtiums, the leaves whereof turned yellow successively, and 
 then dropped away ; some delicate creepers producing small 
 yellow flowers, which in the fulness of a generous imagination 
 he termed canary-birds ; and two scarlet-runners, which he 
 would watch, and wonder, as they grew, whether they would 
 ever form a bean-stalk similar to that renowned one of the 
 nursery chronicles that Jack ascended with such ultimate profit 
 to his family. 
 
 Mr. Straggles's garden would have been in a better condition. 
 had his disposition been less impatient or inquiring. But a 
 desire to become acquainted with the beautiful workings of 
 nature led him so frequently to poke up the seeds with a steel 
 pen, to see how they were getting on, that their growth was 
 much affected by these investigations. And as they were re- 
 placed in a careless manner, topsy-turvy, or half uncovered, or 
 much too deep, their health was considerably deranged. ISTor 
 was the soil favourable to their growth. Many years ago it 
 had been mould, but was now composed of little chips of mortar, 
 washings of the house-tops, fragments of glass and crockery, 
 bits of stick, and sweepings of the floor. Life, however, goes 
 on under marvellous disadvantages ; and, somehow or other, the 
 seeds struggled into stalks and leaves, which climbed and flut- 
 tered, and caught the blacks, and died, around what old authors 
 would have called " Mr. Straggles his windows." 
 
 No one knew precisely what profession Mr. Straggles fol- 
 
270 WILD OATS. 
 
 lowed. He had chambers, and people called on hira, and he 
 was seen flitting about Westminster Hall, and Mark-lane, and 
 the General Post-office. He knew a great many respectable 
 persons, and a great many who were not. He had a small 
 property of his own ; was never known to be in debt ; wore 
 fancy shirts; loved cheap steam-boats; and took walks to 
 Dulwich ; generally wore shoes ; liked theatres ; dined at 
 Hancock's in Eupert-street ; was rather feeble-fibred than 
 strong-minded ; and in stature somewhat approaching the style 
 popularly known as "gangling." He always looked as if he 
 wanted training up a ladder, or hop -pole. If you pressed him 
 into a corner by 'asking point-blank what he was, he would 
 confess to being an "Agent," which meant, he could get your 
 coals, wine, second-hand books, cigars, bottled ale, musical 
 boxes, fish-sauce, or misfit Lehocq's boots, in any quantity and 
 upon the most advantageous terms. 
 
 " Ah !" exclaimed Mr. Straggles, addressing the scarlet- 
 runner as he gave it a little water from the carafe on his 
 wash-stand — " ah ! you may well look dried up. I am. 
 Pbeugh!" 
 
 And Mr. Straggles threw open his waistcoat, and displayed 
 all the huntsmen on his shirt, with their red coats and blue 
 horses, to the best advantage. Having done which, he finished 
 the contents of the water-bottle himself, and directly afterwards 
 appeared to grow an inch higher. 
 
 " Paper !" shouted a boy at the door, as he accompanied the 
 last syllable with a loud knock. Mr. Straggles had yesterday's 
 Times every morning ; and having taken it in, he began to read 
 the news. 
 
 " Bless me !" he said to himself, as his eye fell upon a string 
 of advertisements of the things presumed to be indispensable 
 for the races, from guinea hampers and paletots, to gents' 
 sporting handkerchiefs and "nobby" pattem'd shawls — " bless 
 me ! it's Ascot, and I meant to go to-morrow. How are the 
 funds ?" 
 
 Mr. Straggles looked in his desk, and there was a little purse 
 apparently made to just fit the top of his thumb. He found, 
 on examining its contents, that he had a sovereign less than he 
 thought he had. And the man who owed him five pounds was 
 always out of town when he called. 
 
 "Well," he thought, after a little philosophical reflection, 
 " go I must ; but I won't do it expensively. No, no, I'll go 
 
HOW ME. STRAGGLES YVEXT CHEAP TO ASCOT. 271 
 
 cheap. Xone of your fast coaches there and back for thirty 
 shillings. I won't spend more than ten ; and when I'm on the 
 course, who'll know how I went r" And in this resolve he im- 
 mediately caught a boy in the street, whom he despatched on 
 a message to his laundress to let her know that he should want 
 his white trousers on Wednesday night ; and he went himself 
 after the two pair of kid gloves that he had left to be cleaned 
 the week before at the bonnet-shop where the young lady was 
 with the nice hair, whom Mr. Straggles had promised to escort 
 some fine evening to Cremorne Gardens — when he got an 
 order. 
 
 Thursday morning arrived — as Thursday morning always will 
 do if you only wait patiently for it — and Mr. Straggles rose 
 with the lark that hopped about a bit of turf outside the second 
 floor window of the opposite house — for second floors are par- 
 tial to larks in various ways — and betook himself to the Golden 
 Cross. It was early in the morning. The young men were 
 setting out the shop windows ; omnibus loads of inward bound 
 suburban clerks loitered up the Strand ; coflee-room windows 
 were open to let out the fumes of the night before ; wet morn- 
 ing papers fluttered round the coach offices, and the man with 
 the cheap cutlery commenced cutting his gloves to pieces. How 
 Mr. Straggles pitied everybody who remained in town ! 
 
 " Cab, sir ! Here y'are, sir!" said a driver. 
 
 " ISTonsense," replied Mr. Straggles, pleasantly bantering in 
 the lightness of his heart. "How can I be there, when I'm 
 here ?" 
 
 " Better ride, sir, it's pourin' of rain where you're going." 
 
 But Mr. Straggles walked on. 
 
 " I say, sir," cried the driver after him, " mind your leg3 
 don't bolt away from you. You'll never keep up with them, at 
 that rate." 
 
 "Which pleasant humour so delighted a boy who was playing 
 on the bones to an old fruit woman as she set out her stall for 
 the da}*, that he preceded Mr. Straggles with a Nubian melody, 
 occasionally warning the passengers of the important person he 
 preceded by telling them to get out of the way. And in this 
 manner Mr. Straggles reached the Golden Cross, having thus 
 far avoided all expenditure. 
 
 " South- "Western Railway, sir r" inquired the book-keeper. 
 " Omnibus gone about five minutes, sir. I should recommend 
 a cab, or you'll lose the train." 
 
272 WILD OATS. 
 
 There was no other way : it was two shillings gone, but what 
 was to be done ? Mr. Straggles performed the difficult feat of 
 getting into a restless Hansom, and told the driver to overtake 
 the omnibus. But the driver could not, all he could do. He 
 dropped his whip, and got hemmed in by coal-waggons at Mill- 
 bank, and blockaded by numbers going into the new Houses of 
 Parliament, right across Abingdon-street, so that when he 
 reached Vauxhall-bridge there was no trace of the bus. And 
 then came two pikes, which, with their natural voracity, swal- 
 lowed large sums of halfpence : so that when he got to Nine 
 Elms, he had anything but a Cup-day temper. 
 
 Careless people would at once have taken a seat to Woking, 
 but Mr. Straggles was cautious to a fault. " Wo," he rea- 
 soned j " the vehicles at "Woking will make a harvest and com- 
 bine. I know their ways. I will stop at Weybridge, where 
 there will be no rush, and make a quiet bargain." So he took 
 a second-class return ticket to "Weybridge, and saved something 
 besides. 
 
 Off went the train, gasping among the nursery-grounds, and 
 screaming across Battersea-fields ; rattling over the Wandle, 
 and rushing through the wilds of Wimbledon as if Jerry Aber- 
 shaw had been again at its heels ; squeaking past forlorn 
 Kingston-upon-Bailway ; scaring the goslings on Ditton Marsh, 
 and racketing through the cutting of St. George's Hills, until 
 it pulled up at Weybridge, and Mr. Straggles got out. 
 
 Here he found nothing but a four-wheeled chaise which went 
 to Chertsey, where, the driver told him, "there was lots of 
 things to the races." 
 
 " Oh I" said Mr. Straggles ; " what's your fare ?" 
 
 " Take you to Chessy for three shillings, sir. Perhaps some- 
 bony else is going: then it'll come cheaper." 
 
 Mr. Straggles cast his eyes towards the station, and thought 
 he saw a passenger who looked as if he was going to " Chessy," 
 as the driver called it. He did not know why ; but in his 
 anxiety he caught at men of straws. The passenger came up, 
 looked to the right and to the left, then at the four-wheeled 
 chaise, gave a whistle of indecision, shook his head in answer 
 to the hail, and walked off across the common, as if he had 
 seven-leagued boots on. Hope left Mr. Straggles's bosom, 
 carrying with her the three shillings from his pocket. 
 
 "Never mind," thought Mr. Straggles ; " I was going to the 
 Haymarket on Saturday, and now I won't : so it will not make 
 
HOW MB. STRAGGLES WENT CHEAP TO ASCOT. 273 
 
 any difference in the long run." Then he added aloud to the 
 driver : 
 
 " Now on to Chertsey with your sacred, load." 
 The man had not read Shakspeare— he had not got to 
 Chertsey yet — but the speech seemed to imply a wish to start, 
 and off* they went, Mr. Straggles singing " The Standard- 
 Bearer, " to 'German words of his own, until it verged into 
 "Robert toi que j'aime;" in which ballad, when he came to 
 "Grace!" he shouted it out so lustily, that the old horse 
 actually jumped forward, and the man thought his companion 
 a little touched. But Mr. Straggles's joyousness was more 
 hysterical than real, as his expenditure increased. He was 
 singing to drown reflection, in that noisily absent manner 
 which Mr. Punch affects after he has thrown his infant out of 
 window— the mask worn by a hollow heart, as was once beauti- 
 fully observed. And so they went on until they arrived at 
 their destination. 
 
 Chertsey is a mild market town, which once boasted a power- 
 ful abbey/ nobody knows where; where Henry the Sixth was 
 buried, nobody knows how; and finally annihilated, nobody 
 knows when ; for it escaped at the time of the dissolution or 
 the religious houses, nobody knows why. Its natives are 
 friendly, tranquil persons. If the Wandering Jew paid perio- 
 dical visits thereto every quarter of a century, he would find 
 the inhabitants precisely in the same places, doing what they 
 did five-and-twenty years ago; unmoved by external excite- 
 ments, and unaltered* by popular progress. But at Ascot time 
 the heart of Chertsey commences to throb faintly. The inha- 
 bitants see people they do not know about the streets, and run 
 out of their shops to" look at them. Horses, whose existence 
 was never suspected, emerge into active life ; and long-departed 
 coaches, pertaining to the good old times of drawling locomo- 
 tion, are pulled from their mausoleums, and mopped and 
 greased, and once more put upon the road. 
 
 " Where's that trap going to ?" inquired Air. Straggles, as 
 he saw a coach waiting at one of the inns. 
 
 " Ask-it," answered the man. 
 
 Mr. Straggles put on a severe expression at what he consi- 
 dered the man's impertinence, for he did not at first perceive 
 his meaning. But when he found it was going to Ascot, and 
 that there was just one place left, which he could have for ten 
 shillings, he closed at once, and climbed on to the roof, behind. 
 
 T 
 
274 WILD OATS. 
 
 "In for a penny in for a pound," lie thought. " Thank good- 
 ness, this is the last expense !" 
 
 The man touched his hat, and begged a trifle for himself. 
 Mr. Straggles gave him a shilling, and told him to keep six- 
 pence. But he had not got it ; so Mr. Straggles, perceiving a 
 pretty girl inside who was looking at him, said, " Ah ! well, 
 never mind, keep it all," with dashing liberality. "When the 
 man had driven off, Mr. Straggles found he had left his gloves 
 in the chaise, so he had just fifteen seconds to jump down and 
 buy some more. In his hurry of trying on, he split one pair 
 into ribbons, which he had to pay for ; and getting up quickly 
 into the coach, he blacked the others against some dreadful 
 composition put on to make it look new for the day : and by 
 this time he was getting perfectly reckless, so much so that he 
 began to sing "The Standard-Bearer" again, and after some 
 bottled ale at the Wheatsheaf at Virginia Water, volunteered 
 it aloud for the delight of his fellow-passengers. 
 
 " I think we must have a sweepstakes," said a traveller in a 
 cut-away coat on the box. " Are you all agreeable, gents ?" 
 
 " Oh yes — certainly :" they were all agreeable ; and Mr. 
 Straggles could not say he was not. It was to be half-a-crown 
 a chance, which he paid, and drew a horse he never heard of. 
 Never mind : outsiders did win sometimes. 
 
 " I'll take your fares, if you please," said the coachman, as 
 they crept up the hill beyond Blacknest. " It will save trouble 
 on the course." 
 
 Again Mr. Straggles' s hand was in his pocket, and the song 
 of " The Standard-Bearer" died as faintly away as did the voice 
 of the bleeding hero. But the arrival on the course for a time 
 chased away his despair. 
 
 " We shall keep here," said the coachman, as he at last drew 
 up in the ranks below the distance ; " and we'll meet after the 
 last race, if you please : you'll hear a horn. Now, just leave 
 the horses alone, will you ?" 
 
 This was said to half a dozen men, who were violently un- 
 harnessing the horses, to take them, by force, to all sorts of 
 stables. Then Mr. Straggles got down, with some others, to 
 support the coachman ; and directly he put his feet to the 
 ground, two men seized him, and insisted upon brushing him 
 almost into a state of electricity, until he had bribed them to 
 desist, after which he was permitted to go at large. 
 
HOW MB. STEAGGLES WEKT CHEAE TO ASCOT. 27.3 
 
 How Mr. Straggles walked up and down within the rails, 
 and assumed refined attitudes as he eyed the ladies in the front 
 rank of carriages ; how he bought an " Oxley's c'rect card," 
 and read it with an air of great depth and interest ; how he met 
 some friends who had lunch, and gave him some, luring him 
 into more sweepstakes, all of which he lost ; how he was also 
 attracted by some wonderful eyes, that had driven him mad at 
 an evening party the week before, to go into the Grand Stand ; 
 and how the same bright eyes complained of the heat, and 
 accepted ices and expensive accompaniments ; and how Mr. 
 Straggles determined upon not going to the Haymarket there- 
 upon, but also gave up a notion he had of a new paletot and a 
 week at Boulogne — all these things might have happened had 
 he gone by any other way to the races, and therefore need not 
 be particularly chronicled. 
 
 At length the last race was run, and Mr. Straggles sought 
 the trysting-place. But however easily to be found out it had 
 been when the coach first came on the course, it was now a 
 matter almost of impossibility ; for there were hundreds of 
 coaches alike all along the densely crowded ranks right down 
 to the corner. And the same number of horns were blowing 
 in every direction — the sound being to the ears what the "Will- 
 o'-the-wisp is to the eyes, leading the wanderer here and there, 
 only to laugh at him as it rose in another place. He got al- 
 most frantic. Like Leonora, he ran up and down the lines 
 wringing his hands, and asking for his particular vehicle, but 
 none could give the information. The clouds of dust around 
 the course showed how" quickly the company were departing. 
 He dived under drags, and got behind horses' heels — stood on 
 strange wheels, and clambered across unknown front seats — 
 mounted wrong roofs in his agony, and was thought to be one 
 of the swell mob in consequence — until the last coach went off 
 and again carried Hope away on its seat, together with half of 
 his ten shillings, and the return of his day-ticket. 
 
 " Now then, who's for Slough ?" shouted a man, who was 
 driving a curiously fragile car with one horse — one of those 
 vehicles formerly denominated ;; flying bedsteads," in the days 
 when we went G-reenwiching by the Kent-road. " Take yer to 
 the rail, sir r" 
 
 This was addressed to Mr. Straggles, and he immediately 
 hailed the driver, regardless of consequences. He was not off 
 
 t2 
 
276 WILD OATS. 
 
 yet, though. The man would ply all along the booths and 
 taverns, and got invited to have a drink at all of them ; so that 
 it was actually getting dark when he started. Then the horse 
 would not go beyond a slow trot ; and one of the wheels was 
 obliged to be watched every minute, for fear it should catch 
 fire,°until the bell for the last up-train was ringing when they 
 crossed the old high road at Slough and neared the station. 
 
 " There's the train!" cried Mr. Straggles, "I can see the 
 smoke. Drive on ! drive on ! What's to pay ?" 
 
 " Ten bob," answered the man, pithily. 
 
 " Ten what ?" screamed Mr. Straggles. " Ten ! What for ? 
 Pooh! stuff!" 
 
 " Can't let you down, master, if you don't. That's my 
 rights," said the man, with great coolness. 
 
 " I'll pull you up," said Mr. Straggles. " There's your money. 
 And mind, you shall hear of this again, you damned infernal 
 scamp ! Where's your number ?" 
 
 " That's werry unlucky," answered the man. " Lor ! where 
 can it be ? I'm sure I don't know — do you ?" 
 
 The train had stopped at the station, and the doors were closed. 
 With the recklessness of desperation, Mr. Straggles vaulted 
 over the rails of the platform, and just as it was moving on, 
 rushed into the only carriage that appeared available ; and, 
 closing the door after him, was in another second rattling off 
 towards London ; and then, completely exhausted in mind and 
 body, he sank down into a corner, and fell asleep. 
 
 He was roused by the lantern of the guard glaring in his 
 eyes, as his ticket was demanded at Paddington. Of course, he 
 had none to give, and they fetched the superintendent. In vain 
 he assured them that he had got in at Slough, acknowledging 
 that the doors of the station were closed. He looked in his 
 dishevelled state such a suspicious character, that the police- 
 men entered the carriage to accompany him to the terminus, 
 when he was immediately marched between two guards to the 
 secretary's office. 
 
 " I cannot help it, sir," said the functionary, after a rapid 
 and feverish attempt of Mr. Straggles to explain his case. " The 
 by-laws of the company order that any person found without a 
 ticket must pay " 
 
 Mr. Straggles groaned. 
 
 " Must pay full fare from the most distant station." 
 
HOW MR. STRAGGLES WENT CHEAP TO ASCOT. 277 
 
 " And that is ?" gasped our luckless friend. 
 
 " Let me see. First class, single journey, from Exeter. Two 
 pounds four shillings and sixpence." 
 
 Mr. Straggles heard no more. The lights whirled round 
 him ; the noise as of a thousand engines letting off their steam 
 at once sounded in his ears, and he fell into the arms of the 
 nearest policeman. 
 
 # # # # * 
 
 He recovered from a Drain fever a poorer, but a wiser man. 
 And he made two great resolves : first, never to go to the races 
 again, if he could help it ; and secondly, if at any time his 
 feehle mind yielded to the temptation, not to try any cheap 
 methods, however tempting they might appear, since cutting 
 short the expenses, like short cuts in general, was certain to 
 end only in trouble, and wearing and tearing disappointment. 
 
( 278 ) 
 XXXIY. 
 
 THE GILT-BUTTONED YACHTMAN. 
 
 (dedicated to the amateur marines who did not go out.) 
 
 See "West Cowes thronged with gazers — the race lias begun, 
 And that swell with the girls thinks the scene " rather fun." 
 The Club-house is crowded — the steamers are crammed — 
 Yachts, gigs, and Hythe-wherries together are jammed. 
 In a somewhat short jacket, with air of command, 
 "Whilst he eyes all the rigging he don't understand ; 
 As the bark is blown over the mildest of seas, 
 The Gilt-buttoned Yachtsman feels " rather the cheese !" 
 
 Now, up ye bold mariners, over the sea, 
 Launch out on the Channel so daring and free ; 
 No longer round Harwich or Babbicombe creep, 
 But, hardy as Norsemen of yore, rule the deep. 
 The sea topped with breakers, the heavens like lead, 
 The deck running water from big waves ahead, 
 "With a yearning to be once again on "firm earth," 
 The Grilt-buttoned Yachtsman is ill in his berth ! 
 
 "War curses the earth, and the cold Ural blast 
 
 Sweeps over the steppes to our army at last, 
 
 Half-clothed and half-famished ! Do such ills betide 
 
 His old cherished friends of the Lobby and Eide ? 
 
 You have called each " old fellow" — behave, then, as such — 
 
 A few English comforts would cheer them so much ! 
 
 But instead of embarking to soften their rubs, 
 
 The Gilt-buttoned Yachtsman talks trash at the Clubs. 
 
 And now, at Spithead, by the trains carried down, 
 
 To watch the review, we find out the whole town : 
 
 How truly our brave sailors fought, and how well, 
 
 The Baltic, Crimea, and Azoif can tell. 
 
 As the " gallant" bark bobs up and down like a buoy, 
 
 Turning out but a costly and fine-weather toy, 
 
 "When he thinks that he, too, could have witnessed each scene, 
 
 The Gilt-buttoned Yachtsman feels horribly mean ! 
 
( 279 ) 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 OF FAIRS, FAIRINGS, AND FAIRIES. 
 
 I tell of festivals, and fairs, and plays, 
 Of merriment, and mirth, and bonfire blaze, 
 I tell of brooks and blossoms, birds and bowers, 
 Of April, May, of June and July flowers, 
 I tell of groves, of twilights, and I sing 
 The court of Mab, and of the fairy king. 
 
 Qtjaixt old Herrick — from whose pleasant synopsis the fore- 
 going lines are taken, reading as though they were meant to he 
 written upon green leaves, and sung only to the music of a 
 glancing rill, tumbling, gurgling, and whirling down a hill- side 
 over glittering pebbles, and through beds of sunny forget-me- 
 nots — what a mercy it was, with his summery and country 
 feelings, that he was born in those happy times when May 
 was green and warm, and such things were as fairs and festi- 
 vals; before daisies were driven, back and back, from their 
 prairies like wild tribes, or trampled under foot by civilising 
 colonists ; when all the practical use to which steam had been 
 applied was in removing the tight lids from the state-prison 
 kettles of the middle ages ! 
 
 How would his heart have broken gradually — (there were 
 hearts, too, in his day ; real home-made hearts, warranted 
 sound, not very clever imitations — Birmingham hearts with 
 sentiments of electrotyped brass, which the " frequent rob- 
 beries" called into fashion in later times, like spurious plate) — 
 how would it have gone piecemeal, one string after another, in 
 the fashion of a harp in a hot room, if he could have witnessed 
 the desecration of his groves by "junctions" and " extensions ;" 
 of his twilight by gas and colza ; of his real fairs by fancy ones ; 
 of his festivals and fairies, by what professional philanthropists 
 call " an improved condition of the people," and country police- 
 men. 
 
 "We regret this state of things as deeply as he would have 
 done, but our heart has not yet broken. It is incrusted with 
 
280 WILD OATS. 
 
 the barnacles of the world's rubs, as old submarine timber is 
 coated and preserved by other Crustacea. We cannot tell 
 whether this may, or may not, be an advantage. "We only 
 know that so it is ; but that, notwithstanding, we lament the 
 gradual decay of all those pleasant things, which Herrick sang 
 about, so rapidly hastening to the state of organic remains. 
 Man has not yet been found in the form of a fossil — why not, 
 we leave it to the geological disputants to determine — but we 
 firmly believe that in a few ages, the British Museum, should it 
 be still existing, will be graced with fossil fairies and petrified 
 maypoles. 
 
 Of those objects quoted at the head of our paper, the depar- 
 ture of the fairs and fairies are most to be lamented. They 
 went together, and within our recollection. "We know not 
 where to, but are comforted in a theory of astronomy — that the 
 stars are suns to other solar systems ; and that, if this be the 
 case, perhaps one of these brighter orbs, where improvements 
 have not arrived at the high-pressure pitch of our own globe, 
 has offered them an asylum. 
 
 Not many years ago the village in which we lived, scarcely a 
 score of miles from London, could boast both of fairies and rustic 
 festivals. It was a quiet, sleepy-looking place, off the high road ; 
 and w r hen you ascended the hill near it, on a fine summer's 
 afternoon, you saw r its steeple peeping above the foliage in 
 which the houses were embosomed, with the weathercock 
 dozing and glittering in the warm sunlight ; and all looking so 
 tranquil that it required no small degree of harsh matter-of- 
 fact persuading to make yourself believe the place was really 
 inhabited by the bustling and industrious natives, who squabbled 
 .and wrangled as they carried on the trade in " malt, brooms, 
 and poultry," for which the Gazetteer told us the place was re- 
 markable. There were long, long lanes, too, whose thoroughfare 
 was the best compromise between turf and Macadam ever known, 
 going away into the country, and arched over by bending trees, 
 which in the absence of other excitement appeared to me bowing 
 to one another all day long for amusement. And the limes 
 that overhung the pathway across the churchyard grew at one 
 point so close to the chancel window that they swept its case- 
 ment, as their morning shadows fell, in quivering patches, upon 
 the old brasses and tablets of the interior ; whilst without, the 
 sunlight darted through their leaves to flicker on the green turf 
 ,of the quiet graves below. 
 
OF FAIRS, FAIRINGS, AND FAIRIES. 281 
 
 Beyond this was a wooded pasture where the fairies lived. 
 Nobody we knew had actually ever seen them, although every- 
 body else knew somebody that had. But we were sure they 
 were there, for the rings where they danced were very plainly- 
 seen ; and in hot summers, when everything else was parched 
 up with drought, these rings were always fresh and green, as 
 though a circular spring of water ran beneath them. How the 
 mushrooms grew on these rings too ! Tight, button-like little 
 fellows, lifting up their heads above the grass, no doubt on pur- 
 pose for the fairies' own use, but whether as food, tables, or 
 umbrellas, we never knew. It was something of a mystery 
 where the tiny spirits went in the daytime : we opine that they 
 never were caught in it, but followed the twilight round the 
 earth, riding on its last shadows. A young lady who wrote 
 poetry in our provincial paper, and was thought to be a little 
 mad, said they lodged in the cowslips. But this was nonsense: 
 the children could never have made chains with the petals if 
 such had been the case. 
 
 It was on this spot, with its high wavy boundary of trees, 
 that the fair was also held. And it was a fair—a downright 
 earnest one, where you could buy a fiddle for sixpence, and 
 net tender a five-pound note for a Louis Quatorze pen-wiper or 
 a wire-gauze nothing, worked with floss silk impossibilities, and 
 get no change. There were shows, too— wonderful shows — 
 we have never seen any like them since ; the exhibitions of 
 London have, in fact, merely excited a feeling of contempt. 
 Nothing of Landseer's ever came up to their canvas of the 
 " Lionels attacking the Exeter mail!" The surprise of the 
 gentleman on the box in the fashionable coat, the terror of the 
 respectable lady inside, the agony of the horses — it was grand! 
 And how Maclise's great pictures fell in our estimation when 
 we thought of the vivid cartoon which showed " The Circassian 
 negress with the silver hair !— The smallest man now travelling ! 
 — The black wild Indian captured by the bravery of a British 
 officer !" All these marvels, together and alive, were exhibit- 
 ing to elegant company of all nations, in a beautiful room with 
 crimson drapery for a ceiling. The Indian fed on raw meat — 
 real raw meat from the butcher that supplied our own table, and 
 he was a man above suspicion ; indeed, he was twice overseer. 
 The Ioways never did that! Certainly the interior of the 
 caravan was not of the splendid description represented outside, 
 but then a painter's licence is very great, as the Academy por- 
 
282 WILD OATS. 
 
 traits, especially, yearly prove. What a blessing is photo- 
 graphy ! 
 
 All day loog the people from the neighbouring villages could 
 be seen coming over the fields towards our fair, on every side ; 
 rosy-faced girls, in smart cotton prints that would have shamed 
 your mousselines de laine into utter insignificance, as much as 
 their cheeks would have outdone those of the metropolitan belles 
 who wore them ; smart young fellows, who looked like country 
 editions of the chorus in " La Sonnambula" and the "Elisir 
 d'Amore ;" chubby children, who had dreamt of trumpets, gin- 
 gerbread, and halfpence at their actual disposal, for months 
 previously. "What a day it was for everybody ; and what a 
 great one for the Eed Lion public-house ! Alas ! the Eed 
 Lion public-house became an inn, then a tavern, and is now a 
 railway hotel. But then it stood on the edge of the fair green, 
 out of the dust and crowd, yet not too far removed but " the 
 swarming sound of life" came pleasantly to its door, and here 
 the visitors rested, and drank its famous ale — such ale, too ! — 
 like liquid amber, through which the bubbles rose in myriads 
 of tiny balloons, hastening to be drunk. The secret of brewing 
 it has evidently been lost, with those of painting missals and 
 making mummies. And there was amusement, too, for those 
 who rested here : the wanderiug curiosities strolled from the 
 crowd to exhibit before its doors. Here the small boy in ochre- 
 coloured tights, which fitted indifferently, sang the song stand- 
 ing upon his head ; here the Dutch girls carolled their Lieber 
 Augustin — nobody knew where they came from, except from 
 " abroad," and that was a locality somewhere in France, com- 
 prising India and everywhere else, in the judgment of the au- 
 dience ; certainly we preferred their singing to Heinefetter's or 
 Devrient's ■ indeed, we do not think the latter would ever have 
 been so popular with the villagers as the broom girls. The only 
 person who never thought much of them was the host's daugh- 
 ter ; but this was because a gay fellow, who was much struck 
 with them, was strongly suspected of being her "young man," 
 and it required all his wit, and more than his usual fairing, to 
 make all smooth again. And these fairings were very smart ; 
 they were of the same class as those objects of virtu which 
 young English gentlemen of playful temperaments, and who 
 are not proud, throw at with sticks at the races — pincushions, 
 thimbles, and money-boxes. We never knew the swains buy 
 " bunches of ribbons" in our time, and therefore look upon the 
 
OF FAIRS, FAIRINGS, AND FAIRIES. 283 
 
 vague " Johnny" — of whose long stay at the fair a lyrical tra 
 dition is extant — to have been a fiction. 
 
 At night the revelry must have scared the fairies ; what 
 laughs and pretty screams, and "Done, thens!" resounded on 
 every side. Fancy-fairs do not terminate so now-a-days ; good- 
 ness, if they did, how popular they would become! There 
 was always a game at " kiss in the ring" before dark. Imagine 
 what "kfss in the ring" would be in the Eegent's Park Gar- 
 dens, and all the stall-keepers and patronesses joining in it ! 
 And for a benevolent object too ! 
 
 But we have been idly gossiping of things long past, for- 
 getting they have gone. Our fair is as much an old extinct 
 festival now, as setting the watch on St. John's eve, or meeting 
 in Fenchurch-street to gather in the may. Our fairies exist no 
 longer, but doubtless, like other broken-up families, have emi- 
 grated ; where their green rings could be seen on the fair green, 
 there is now a railway embankment. The noble trees that 
 surrounded it have fallen, and summer and winter, day and 
 night, engines fly by, blazing, gasping, screaming, roaring, and 
 exulting savagely in their own infernal powers ; flinging their 
 glowing cinders right and left to scorch the once velvet turf, and 
 scaring the cattle into downright madness as the steam shoots 
 out from their burnished valves, in passing what were formerly 
 such quiet pastures. Mobs of strangers, too, overrun the vil- 
 lage, who get a ride and rheumatism at a penny a mile in cheap 
 excursion trains ; and perking cottages, looking as if they had 
 retired from London upon incomes, are springing up every- 
 where. 
 
 "We know not if all this innovation be good — we cannot tell ; 
 it may be — at least ingenious gentlemen who can write large 
 books tell us that it is so, and we suppose they are right. But 
 we would give a great deal to behold our old-fashioned rustic 
 fair once more — not the suburban riots which now adopt the 
 name. Sometimes we dream of one, and see the old amuse- 
 ments over again ; but it is only to be awakened by the blowing 
 of a battered horn, announcing the departure of a miserable 
 omnibus, which half a dozen times a day carries unsympathising 
 strangers backwards and forwards, to and from the melancholy 
 building, in form and proportions so like the Morgue at Paris, 
 which they call the " station." And this, too, on the very spot 
 where the fairies danced, and the dear old festival was held ! 
 
( 284 ) 
 
 XXXYI. 
 
 IL FANATICO PER LA MUSICA. 
 
 Ha! ha! ha! the letter has escaped the keepers in the dis- 
 guise of a shrimp, and -will reach the office. " "Why should I go 
 mad ?" as the ballad observes, written by Mark and Alfred — 
 not the evangelist and the early Saxon king — but those two 
 sweet fruits, Lemon and Mellon. Ho! melodious Pomona! 
 have I not a nice little Pine to add to Fancy's dessert ? Oh ! 
 Oranges and Lemmens ! and thou, fair syren, of whom East- 
 end Cockneys remark, " Her songs are so Yinning!" But my 
 brain is chirping wildly. 
 
 I have gone mad from music. I took checks for years at 
 St. Martin's Hall, and was known and honoured. Ask the lin- 
 guist "Willert, the aftable Tom, the bearded Arthur, the re- 
 searching "William. I have sunny memories of my life. I 
 have spoken to " ce clier Sams,'" as Paris lions speak of him. 
 Markwell, Vami des artistes, once bowed to me when I was on 
 an omnibus — I, not he ; for a Markwell never rode in an om- 
 nibus since Sir Gruillaume, in the time of the Crusades, and his 
 family privately* poisoned him. I have visited the abode of Joy 
 — I have seen the part author of the venerable Adam Bede. 
 I have witnessed the St. Ledger run — when crossing Piccadilly. 
 And have I not sought Ella's bower, and witnessed that great 
 man ride at the circus of the Alhambra in the morning, and 
 rule at the musical union afterwards ? And do I not recollect 
 when he played Harlequin ? Ho ! I have him there ! "Who is 
 Osborne ? who is he ? with a fa, la, la ! — but the composer of 
 La Pluie des JPerles, and proprietor of a house he lets to the 
 Queen, where Brinley Sloper was born. 
 
 The haze of my tobacco-smoke opens. The musical shuffling 
 of kindly slippers is heard, and Padre Grreen looms through it. 
 " Pardon me, my dear friend," he says, " have you got every- 
 thing you wish ? Compliment me, by listening to this glee." 
 All among the Kidneys — I know it, sung by the tuneful quire 
 of Happy Land : 
 
IL FANATICO PER LA MUSICA. 285 
 
 The chop is like a cutlet, 
 
 But only not so small ; 
 Welsh rabbits taste like toasted cheese, 
 
 And that I think is all. 
 Poached eggs are pockets, pink and white, 
 
 Containing all they can, 
 But the blithe and bounding kidney 
 
 Makes glad the heart of man. 
 
 All among the kidneys, &c. 
 
 " Now I mount, now, now I fly" — so listen to one who has 
 heard the Travitora and If Elixir Borgia, as sung by Yerdigrisi. 
 I have written a song ! I will send it to you weekly. The 
 words are by Kingslake, the author of " EotheD, or from the 
 Yeast." It is thine own, oh, Charlotte Helen! of whoia 
 CEdipus wrote : 
 
 My Jtrst is loved in childhood's hours , 
 
 My second rifles sweetest flowers, 
 
 My whole enchants us with her powers. 
 
 It's a Doll and a Bee, and a Miss Doll-bee. So list ; 
 
 NEW SONG. 
 
 Three Fishers went sailing to westward afar, 
 
 Heigho ! says Hullah. 
 Three Fishers went sailing to westward afar, 
 Whilst followed the boys, and the harbour bar 
 Went rowley, powley, salmon, and Greenwich, 
 
 Heigho ! for Headland ! 
 
 That's all! Phit! Whiz! Bo! 
 
 The Honest Froglandee. 
 
 Colney Hatch, Nov. 25. 
 
28G 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 A VISIT TO ETON MONTEM, 1841. 
 
 We are not going to cry down the celebration of this trien- 
 nial festival ; on the contrary, we enter into its innocent follies 
 with keen delight. On the score of antiquity alone it is to be 
 venerated, for we adore all these fast-fading relics of the cus- 
 toms of our ancestors ; and we look upon their quaint ordi- 
 nances with the same feelings of mingled respect and amuse- 
 ment that would be inspired by gazing on an old piece of china, 
 which, fashioned in the present day, would be pronounced both 
 ludicrous and absurd, but, as a memorial of bygone times, is 
 endowed with value and interest. We love the pageantry of 
 the Montem dearly, and we trust the period is far off when re- 
 finement and the schoolmaster shall have done their worst, and 
 the holiday shall only be mentioned among the fasti of other 
 days. 
 
 Many circumstances combined to render the late Montem far 
 more attractive than it had been for several years. The pre- 
 sence of Prince Albert for the first time at its celebration was 
 one principal source of interest : at the same time he had ren- 
 dered himself extremely popular with the Eton scholars. There 
 was also a chance of fine weather, tolerably well assured, as far 
 as corns and quicksilver guarantee a change in our variable 
 climate ; and last, though not least, the trains of the Great 
 Western Eailway offered facilities to the Londoners to enter 
 into the amusements of the day which they had never before 
 enjoyed. Whispers also arose, from the glittering magazines 
 of the masquerade warehouses, that the fancy dresses would be 
 numerous and costly ; and perhaps the anticipation of seeing 
 Greeks and Circassians walking about the public roads in broad 
 daylight was as important as any of the other inducements. 
 
 It was in one of those bright moods of joyousness and hilarity 
 which a fine summer morning in the country excites, that we 
 walked through Windsor Park. We were in perfect good 
 
A VISIT TO ETON M0NTEM, 1841. 287 
 
 humour with, ourselves aud everybody around us, and we hoped 
 the feeling was reciprocal. We say we hoped, for their hearts 
 must be indeed withered upon whom sunlight and a clear blue 
 sky, the blithe hum of insects and the scent of wild flowers, 
 have no influence, aud are unable to make them feel, at least 
 for the time being, both happier and better creatures. Our 
 road lay apart from the beaten track, amidst coverts of fern 
 and fair pastures, encompassed by ancient and picturesque trees. 
 Indeed, it needed little imagination to reverse the flight of 
 Time, and fancy ourselves once more living in the feudal ages ; 
 with the keep of the noble castle rising above the surrounding 
 foliage, and the herds of deer grazing below in quietude, until 
 the clanging horn of the merry green-coated hunters should 
 scare them from their repose. We thought of the many changes 
 some of the old trees had seen — how they had calmly budded 
 and flourished when the kingdom was torn with inward con- 
 tention, and inundated with its best blood — how they would 
 still push forth their verdure when the very recollection of 
 those who now loitered in their shade would have passed away. 
 "We traced in our own mind, heedless of all antiquarian direc- 
 tions and disputes, the spot where the sack-loving Sir John 
 Falstaff suffered from his fair tormentors ; and in another direc- 
 tion we pictured William de "Wykeham surveying, with honest 
 pride, the first elevations of the structure which was hereafter 
 to become so favoured. 
 
 Our arrival at "Windsor soon broke this train of thought, and 
 turned it upon another set of rails — to adopt the steam-loving 
 language of the day — for here all was activity and movement. 
 Long lines of carriages near the principal inns showed that we 
 were not the first who had arrived to " don observance" to the 
 ]Montem ; and others were every instant pouring in from the 
 different roads, together with crowds of foot-passengers, who, 
 being principally from the neighbouring villages, would have 
 formed, by their clean, homely dress, and healthy, open counte- 
 nances, a strong contrast to a like assembly in London. 
 
 We passed down Thames-street, and at Windsor-bridge en- 
 countered the first real indication of the Montem, in the shape 
 of a salt-learer, attired as an Albanian, who, attended by a 
 runner, proffered us a handsome pink satin bag to receive our 
 contribution. We gave a trifle consistent with our means, and 
 received from the attendant in return a small green-paper 
 ticket, inscribed as follows ; the possession of which, we un- 
 
288 WILD OATS. 
 
 derstood, was to free us from any further demands being levied 
 upon our purse. We accordingly stuck it in our hat, suck ap- 
 pearing to be the fashion upon the present occasion : 
 
 MOS PRO LEGE. 
 
 1841. 
 
 Ftbat Ifagfna. 
 
 The narrow High-street of Eton tended to condense the 
 influx of company, who were arriving from all parts, in no small 
 degree, acting like the extremely contracted inlet at the pay- 
 place of the pit-door of a theatre ; and opposite the College, at 
 the union of the separate roads from London, Windsor, and 
 Lorney, the carriages and foot-passengers were wedged into 
 one dense mass ; amongst which, however, the salt-bearers 
 were assiduously plying their vocation, creeping before the 
 horses, and behind, and in some cases under, the carriages, 
 whenever the absence of a ticket betokened the presence of a 
 defaulter, who had not yet tendered his offering. 
 
 At this stage of " the order of the day," the Quadrangle of 
 the College was the chief point of attraction ; where the re- 
 view, if we may so term it, of the entire school was to take 
 place under the inspection of her Majesty. Here admission 
 was only to be obtained by tickets, and we had neglected to 
 procure one previously from the proper quarter. It is, how- 
 ever, an axiom with us, at all public sights, to see as much as 
 we can ; and in any case of exclusiveness, provided we are not 
 •furnished with the regular passports, we invariably "try it on' r 
 without. We argue that we may succeed, and that if we do 
 not, we can but be turned back. In the present instance, we 
 followed closely upon an elderly gentleman of corpulent propor- 
 tions, and whilst he was searching in the profundity of his waist- 
 coat-pockets for his card of admission, we contrived to slip in by 
 mistake, like the Irishman's bad guinea amongst the halfpence. 
 We have some faint recollection of a policeman seizing us forcibly 
 
A VISIT TO ETOX MONTEM, 1841. 289 
 
 by the shoulder ; but at this critical period a crowd of polemen, 
 with their blue jackets and wands, came driving through the 
 arch, and we were borne on before tliem, until we found our- 
 selves in the Quadrangle, at the foot of the statue, whose stolen 
 sceptre caused so much noise a short period since. 
 
 The large area was filled with a crowd of elegant company, 
 mixed with the boys of the school, who were flitting about from 
 one acquaintance to another, or running to execute imaginary 
 orders of ideal importance, in all the pride of their red coats, 
 cocked-hats, swords, and fancy dresses. A cluster of beautiful 
 women had assembled upon the stone steps leading up to the 
 chapel, from whence one of the best coups-cVoeil was obtained ; 
 and they formed a strange contrast, by their delicate and breath- 
 ing forms, to the rough old carved work and tracery of the pa- 
 rapet, to whose outlines they were clinging. 
 
 The roofs of the Long Chamber and Upper School, which 
 form the northern and eastern boundaries of the Quadrangle, 
 were equally tenanted by groups of fair spectators, as were the 
 various windows looking into the square, with the exception of 
 the larger one in the Clock Tower, which was reserved for the 
 Queen and Prince Albert, and towards which many anxious 
 glances were cast. At this period (half-past ten a.m.) the 
 spectacle was exceedingly animated and striking; the scene 
 owing its chief brilliancy, of course, to the fancy dresses of the 
 boys ; and some of these were remarkably elegant. _ There 
 were several parties of hunters in " Lincoln Green," with bows 
 and arrows ; various Grecian and Turkish costumes ; more be- 
 longing to no country at all, but a happy confusion of the 
 attributes of each ; several Hungarians in fur edging and red 
 tights ; and a formidable army of field-marshals, lieutenants, 
 and other military ofiicers, who, in addition to their swords — 
 " real sharp swords," as we heard a little girl designate them— 
 each carried a taper black cane. A Charles the Second, a 
 Captain Macheath, and a Greek with long black ringlets, and 
 some what taller than his compatriots, struck us as being the most 
 faithtful costumes : the most elegant we opine to have been two 
 moyen-age dresses of light pink satin and silver, worn by two 
 youths (brothers, we expect) about fourteen years old. They 
 were gracefully designed, but, if anything, too delicate for the 
 occasion — the slightest shower would have been instant annihi- 
 lation to their beauty. 
 
 The band struck up the national anthem at eleven o'clock, 
 
 V 
 
290 WILD OATS. 
 
 which was the signal of her Majesty's arrival at the College. 
 The boys immediately fell into their places for the procession, 
 and when, a few minutes afterwards, the Queen made her ap- 
 pearance at the window in the tower, such a shout arose from 
 their lungs as did one's heart good to hear ; and there was such 
 a waving of plumes and streamers, and such a renewing and 
 repetition of cordial welcome, that we can well account for the 
 slight flush that passed over the Queen's fair face when she 
 looked at the delighted assembly of some hundreds of young 
 hearts, many of them beating with the noblest blood in Eng- 
 land, amidst whom her presence shed such joyous enthusiasm. 
 It was not the formal greeting of an adult assembly. They 
 were all boys, and they cheered her with the overflowing fervour 
 of a boys' devotion. 
 
 As soon as order was somewhat restored, the procession round 
 the Quadrangle commenced, headed by a military band, the 
 space for the cortege being preserved by some of the Rifles, who 
 were on duty at the Castle. The fortunate captain, the hero of 
 the day, Mr. Thring, took his place immediately behind the 
 band, dressed in full military costume. The polemen were sta- 
 tioned two and two, at various distances, amongst the wearers 
 of the fancy dresses, to whose brilliancy their blue jackets and 
 white trousers formed an agreeable contrast. "We noticed 
 amongst them one very little boy — so small, that he appeared 
 the beau ideal of that class of miniature personages who come 
 out of oyster-barrels and flower-pots in pantomimes. At the 
 conclusion of the march we saw him no more. "We fear, that 
 when the band laid down their instruments, he tumbled into 
 one of the bugles, and there lay until the next player blew him 
 out. 
 
 After parading twice or three times round the Quadrangle, 
 the ceremony of waving the College flag took place, under the 
 window at which the Queen and her royal consort were seated. 
 The ensign of the school, bearing a large crimson banner, now 
 commenced a series of very extraordinary performances indeed 
 with it, to which the flourishing of Miss Woolford's flags, when 
 that lady rode very fast round the Astley's arena upon the nan- 
 keen-coloured horse, was as nothing. We marvelled much at 
 his untiring energy, and the wonderful power of his wrist, 
 which would have raised even Cartwright's jealousy. The only 
 thing the whirling and twirling of the flag reminded us of was 
 
A VISIT TO ETON 3IONTEM, 1841. 291 
 
 the tomahawk performance of a black wild Indian we witnessed 
 some years back at a perambulating penny show in Tottenham- 
 court-road ; and in which we enjoyed a ride for nothing as far 
 as Broad-street, St. Giles's, from the circumstance of our being 
 one of the audience at the time the caravan was ordered off by 
 the police of the P division. Seriously, however, the ensign 
 displayed considerable dexterity. First, he whisked it about in 
 one hand as if it had been a broadsword ; then he cut, in suc- 
 cession, all the problems of Euclid in the air, as well as figures 
 of eight, and strange diagrams only found in Skater's Pocket 
 Companions ; next, he swung it round, passing it quickly from 
 one hand to the other, and keeping the silk floating horizontally 
 about him ; and he concluded, his feats of dexterity by inclining 
 the flag reverentially towards her Majesty, who was, no doubt, 
 thinking, in common with every one else, how very hot and 
 fatigued the poor young man must be, and what an immensity 
 of practice and wrist-spraining was to be gone through before 
 the present pitch of perfection could be arrived at. 
 
 As soon as the applause which accompanied the last flutter 
 of the banner had died away, a general rush took place towards 
 the Playing-fields. "We elbowed our way with the rest into the 
 cloisters of the inner Quadrangle, and thence along a curiously 
 inconvenient passage, where the squeeze was terrific, until we 
 came out once more into the open air, through a small postern- 
 gate. The majority of the boys immediately scampered oif, in 
 a sort of running steeple-chase, towards Salt-hill, in order to 
 arrive there before the Queen. Part of the visitors also left 
 the College to seek their carriages — no very easy task ; others 
 followed the line marked out by the boys ; and a few waited 
 still in the Playing-fields, to see the royal cortege pass from 
 the College, in which number of loiterers we were included. It 
 was during this short delay that the Montem laureate intro- 
 duced himself to us, with a request that we would purchase his 
 u Ode." He was evidently " a fellow of infinite humour," and 
 was tastefully attired in a fancy costume of glazed calico and 
 window-curtains, which had an imposing effect. ~V\"e invested 
 sixpence in the purchase of his ode, and had no reason to 
 grumble at our expenditure, for we derived much amusement 
 from it. It is too long to introduce here, and being entirely 
 local, would not be of sufficient interest. Some of the ideas, 
 however, are not bad, and the rhvme throughout is very well kept 
 
 v2 
 
292 WILD OATS. 
 
 up. Here are four lines, introducing a couplet that put us in 
 mind of some of the versifying conceits of the inimitable Thomas 
 Ingoldsby : 
 
 Grave Hallam tries to act the sergeant, 
 
 And Neville, practising a frown, 
 Almost as dreadful as a large ant, 
 
 With martial terrors awes us down. 
 
 As soon as the Queen and her suite had passed, we left the 
 Playing-fields, and made the best of our way to the "Windmill 
 Inn. Countless vehicles were crowding along the road, and 
 thinking we might as well ride as walk, without waiting for the 
 chance of any of our acquaintances overtaking us, we took ad- 
 vantage of a slight check at the Slough-road gate, and estab- 
 lished ourselves very comfortably on the footboard behind a 
 handsome chariot that was going in the direction _ we wished. 
 Here we maintained our seat, in spite of the malicious cries of 
 " Whip behind !" which every little boy indulged in who per- 
 ceived or envied us ; and thus, in great state, riding like a 
 traitor, with our back to the horses — after being seen, of 
 course, by everybody of our connexion whose notice we were 
 most anxious to elude — did we arrive at Salt-hill. 
 
 If the throng of carriages, horsemen, and foot-passengers 
 had been great in the neighbourhood of the College, it was 
 " confusion worse confounded" at Salt-hill ; indeed, it was with 
 much difficulty, when the royal party arrived, that room could 
 be cleared for their progress. In a short time, the boys again 
 fell into their respective places in the procession, and the in- 
 defatigable ensign again prepared to exhibit his powers of 
 nourishing the flag upon the summit of the mount, on which 
 station every one was enabled to catch a much better sight of 
 his dexterity than when he was on a level with themselves in 
 the crowded Quadrangle of the College. "We believe the origin 
 of this ceremony is not known : it merely appears to have been 
 coeval with the" foundation of the College, as long back as the 
 year 1440, when Henry VI. purchased the perpetual advowson 
 of the parish of Eton for that purpose. The mound in ques- 
 tion is supposed to be a Saxon barrow, and the contributions of 
 " salt" (which, as the reader is doubtless aware, signifies the 
 money collected for the captain of the school previous to his 
 leaving for the University) are presumed to have derived the 
 somewhat dubious title from a monkish procession which, in the 
 
A VISIT TO ETON MONTEM, 1841. 293 
 
 olden time, took place annually to this mount, and on which 
 occasion consecrated salt was sold to the spectators. This may- 
 or may not be the case : we do not answer for the truth of the 
 tradition, but merely give the reason as we have heard it.* 
 
 At the conclusion of this part of the day's observances, the 
 royal carriages departed, the Queen and Prince Albert receiv- 
 ing the same hearty cheers which greeted their arrival, and 
 which they acknowledged with extreme courtesy. It w r as long 
 before the other carriages could be extricated ; they were locked 
 together in so intricate a manner, that it was necessary to wait 
 until the outer ones of the dense mass had cleared off, before 
 the least attempt to move could be made. A course of whip- 
 ping, plunging, and clashing then commenced, which can only 
 be imagined by picturing the Haymarket after a crowded opera- 
 night, if all the carriages had been allowed to come up just as 
 their drivers chose, without paying the least attention to the 
 regulations for the direction of their horses' heads and tails. 
 
 A fresh rush to dinner now took place amongst the boys, and 
 although we heard many imprecations launched against those 
 who had abolished the " champagne tent," yet, by the alacrity 
 with which they hurried to the Windmill, w T e perceived that 
 the meal had still great attractions. "We ourselves could have 
 joined them with much pleasure ; but we were not of Eton and 
 its school, and anything like quiet refreshment at the inn was 
 out of the question. Fortunately, we lighted upon some friends, 
 at whose carriage we procured the usual race-course sort of 
 luncheon, of dusty sandwiches and warm sherry, which was, 
 nevertheless, very acceptable. A vast portion of company still 
 remained, and these w r ere admitted to Botham's Gardens, upon 
 
 * Since the above was written, we have been favoured with the following 
 information : It is the opinion of Mr. Lysons, that the Eton Montem origi- 
 nated in the ceremonial of the Bairn, or Boy-Bisbop. He states that it origi- 
 nally took place on the 6th of December, the festival of St. Nicholas, the 
 patron of children, being the day on which it was customary to elect the Boy- 
 Bishop from among the children belonging to the cathedral or college. This 
 mock dignity lasted till Innocents' day, and during the intermediate time the 
 boy performed various episcopal functions. If it happened that he died before 
 the allotted period of this singular assumption had expired, he was buried with 
 all the ceremonials which are used at the funerals of prelates. In the collec- 
 tion of antiquities bequeathed by Mr. Cole to the British Museum, there is a 
 note which mentions that Geoffry Blythe, Bishop of Lichfield, who died in 1530, 
 bequeathed several ornaments 'to Eton College, "for the dress of the Bairn 
 Bishop." 
 
294 WILD OATS. 
 
 each presenting a ticket, which was to he purchased for a shil- 
 ling, at the bar of the "Windmill. 
 
 How the dinner went off, we cannot tell ; the chronicles of 
 this part of the ceremony remain a sealed book to the vulgar. 
 It was, doubtless, of first-rate excellence, and the carte indis- 
 putably perfect ; for the Eton boys are " queer customers" if 
 they think they are not treated in a manner befitting their im- 
 portance ; and glass, moreover, is of a fragile and perishable 
 nature. We doubt not that they were well entertained, for 
 their countenances were of most hilarious expression, when they 
 sallied forth into the gardens at the conclusion of the banquet. 
 And now began the scene of spoliation, for which the company 
 had been waiting the last hour in patient expectation. The 
 swords, which up to the present time had rested idly in their 
 scabbards, now flashed wildly in the air, and a general attack 
 was made upon everything in the gardens endowed with vege- 
 table existence. The first onset took place against a hollow 
 square of cabbages, which they charged as furiously as did the 
 Cuirassiers against our own human parallelograms at Waterloo ; 
 and in two minutes, nothing but stumps remained. Potatoes, 
 lettuces, and asparagus followed, without appeasing their fury : 
 on the contrary, the taste of sap seemed to have given fresh 
 edges to their swords ; and when not even a currant or goose- 
 berry bush was left, half a dozen of the most stalwart warriors 
 directed their attacks upon a large apple-tree, which, after being 
 much hacked about, tumbled to the ground amidst the cheers 
 of the bystanders. In another quarter of an hour, the bloom- 
 ing Eden was converted into a blank desert ; not a plant being 
 left to sigh out the story of the destruction of its companions 
 to the next zephyr which came that way on its road from Lon- 
 don to Bath. The last object on which they attempted to wreak 
 their remaining vengeance was the garden-roller ; but its cast- 
 iron cylinder resisted their most strenuous efforts ; and having 
 broken two or three of their swords sharp off at the hilt, they 
 abandoned the attempt in despair. 
 
 Boyish and trifling as was this part of the day's festivities, 
 there was much in it to afford food for the reflection of a philoso- 
 pher, even in the midst of the turmoil of the "Windmill Gardens. 
 Many who were now turning their bloodless weapons against 
 a shrub or currant-tree, might hereafter occupy a well-earned 
 and honourable position in the list of our country's defenders. 
 The Cabinet, the Bar, and the Church would, perhaps, each draw 
 
A VISIT TO ETON MONTEM, 1841. 295 
 
 its most brilliant members from the frolic crowd of thoughtless 
 youths who were now revelliug joyously in the ruin they were 
 creating ; and the pastime of the present day— the trifling oc- 
 currence of a passing moment — might, years hence, recal 
 thoughts of the Montem and its harmless follies, amidst medi- 
 tations of a deeper and sterner cast, when those who now 
 entered into its observances with the careless enthusiasm of 
 boyhood, had themselves become the parents of the next 
 generation. 
 
 It was generally understood, in consequence of the departure 
 of the Queen for London after the second display of the flag, 
 that the usual promenade upon the terrace of Windsor Castle 
 would be transferred to the Playing-fields of Eton College ;and 
 the change was greatly for the better. As soon as the diver- 
 sions in the gardens had terminated, there was a temporary ces- 
 sation of proceedings, until the call of " absence" in the pre- 
 cincts of the College, at six o'clock — the term absence being 
 applied, somewhat contradictorily, to the reading over the roll 
 of boys' names who are supposed to Represent. We took ad- 
 vantage of this entr'acte to inspect the schoolrooms and dor- 
 mitories of the College, which are certainly contrived with a 
 praiseworthy disregard of splendour or decoration, nothing 
 more costly than plain unpainted board being anywhere to be 
 found. We afterwards paid a visit to the Library, which is 
 well worth seeing. Amongst several remarkable objects of in- 
 terest, we were shown a curious map of Pekin, the production 
 of a Chinese artist ; a small box of slips of papyrus, on which is 
 written a manuscript in an Oriental character ; and some early 
 illuminated missals, including a French Bible, and an elaborate 
 Roman history. The quiet of these rooms, which look into the 
 cloisters of the inner Quadrangle, formed a singular contrast to 
 the noise and revelry that reigned without. In the apartment 
 appropriated to the provost there is a portrait, painted on a 
 panel, of Jane Shore ; we were informed that a former provost 
 of Eton College officiated as her confessor, and that it was 
 under his orders that the present portrait was taken. The hair 
 is of the true Saxon auburn, and the forehead high and intel- 
 lectual ; but we could not discover in the features those traces 
 of beauty which led to this fair creature's ultimate infamy and 
 death. 
 
 By half-past six o'clock, the Playing-fields presented a most 
 animated spectacle, as most of the morning's company were 
 
296 WILD OATS. 
 
 reunis on this fine tract of pasture, as well as the whole of the 
 hoys ; and two military bands played continually during the 
 evening, which was pre-eminently fine. The indefatigable salt- 
 bearers were still working hard at their calling, and they singled 
 out with scrutinising gaze any individual who had no green 
 ticket displayed to frank him from further demands. A hand- 
 some collection had been the result of their labours, the captain 
 receiving exactly 1233Z. 13s. 10d.; out of which sum, however, 
 he had various expenses to defray, which amounted to nearly- 
 half. Most of the boys were promenading with their friends, 
 and it was gratifying to see the guileless pride with which 
 the younger branches of the different families clustered round 
 their brothers — with what ecstatic admiration the little girls 
 regarded the scarlet and gold heroes, who, for that day at least, 
 would not have changed places with any one in England. Some 
 of the boys were sleeping on the grass, under the fine trees ; 
 we heard that several had scarcely closed their eyes throughout 
 the preceding night, and all were moving between four and five 
 in the morning. Indeed, the salt-bearers and their oppidans 
 had worked like horses ; and certain of them had no trifling 
 distance to travel over in the performance of their duties, as, 
 independently of their demands upon the visitors, it is their 
 custom to call at the houses of the families in the neighbour- 
 hood for salt, and some of these are situated five or six miles 
 from Eton. 
 
 By nine o'clock, all was again quiet : the company had de- 
 parted, and with them the glories of the Montem for three 
 more years. Eor that period the flag will sleep in tranquil 
 inactivity, and the cloisters will resume their wonted gravity. 
 Many who participate in its boyish parade will, ere its next 
 celebration, have been scattered over the earth, and, perhaps, 
 found distant homes in strange lands. Others will be gra- 
 dually following the path to fame in the course of life that 
 destiny has allotted to them, and some — but we will stop all 
 gloomy anticipations. Let us hope that all who, this year, 
 witnessed the Montem and its mimic glories, may be enabled 
 to enter into the spirit of the succeeding ceremonial, without 
 one bitter thought or retrospection of aught that has occurred 
 since they last gazed upon its harmless pageantry. 
 
( 297 ) 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 HOW MR. STRAGGLES ATE WHITEBAIT AT GREENWICH. 
 
 July came on, and it was more hot than ever in London. 
 You might have poached eggs on the pavement, and there was 
 no shade anywhere. Even in Covent-garden the strawberries 
 sweltered and baked in their pottles ; the gold and silver fish 
 languished in globes of tepid water ; Mary Johnson's bouquets 
 drooped over their lacework papers ; and the heat forced the 
 crimson pendants of the fuchsias into long pink trumpets, 
 which, being blown, shrivelled and died. 
 
 The only thing cool in all London was the block of "Wenham 
 Lake ice in the Strand, and that appeared to be perspiring at 
 such a rate that its dissolution was always being immediately 
 expected. The curds-and-whey on the stalls positively steamed, 
 and the small dusty high-dried crabs, at three a penny, rattled 
 again, as every one became its own oven. How the gasping 
 passengers in the omnibuses survived the inside transit is dif- 
 ficult to conceive ; the Fire King himself would have suffered. 
 The only people who underwent but little inconvenience were 
 the cooks at the chop-houses, and the stokers in the river steam- 
 boats, and they never perceived any difference, as they faced 
 their ever glowing ranges and furnaces. But the wild beasts 
 under the mighty bell-glasses at the Surrey Zoological Gardens 
 yawned, and blinked, and stretched themselves out at full length 
 upon the hot floor of their dens, and thought they were once 
 more at home, dreaming of torrid jungles, and simoons, and 
 scorching sands, until cool evening dispelled the illusion, and 
 the besieging of Gibraltar, with its rockets, and drums, and 
 crackers, recalled them once more to a sense of their true 
 position. 
 
 ]N~o one suffered more from heat than did Mr. Straggles in 
 his small chambers before alluded to, immediately under the 
 roof, which now collectively formed a hot-house, wherein he 
 might have grown pine-apples. He could not get cold. He 
 opened all the doors and windows, but a draught of heated air 
 
298 WILD OATS. 
 
 was all that came to refresh him. He left off wearing waist- 
 coats, and bought a blouse, but he only felt the oppressiveness 
 of the sun the more when he put on his ordinary attire to go 
 out ; and then he longed to be July, as Spenser once described 
 that month; envied the performers in the Poses Plastiques, 
 and fell into some wild notion of taking: the diving-bell at the 
 Polytechnic Institution for a week, and living at the bottom of 
 the tank. 
 
 But it was worst of all when he went to his dinner. He 
 took this meal, generally, at the restaurant of an ingenious 
 foreigner, somewhere in the rear of the National Gallery, who 
 was reported to have the right of shooting over Leicester- 
 square, to supply the varied preparations of rabbits on his carte. 
 Here it was that Mr. Straggles could scarcely breathe. For 
 the soups, and the gravies, and the stews, the plates of pallid 
 meat, and the tough and piping portions of unholy puddings, 
 formed such a hot thickened atmosphere, that the very flies had 
 difficulty in forcing their way through it to the open windows, 
 from which dense vapours might be seen rolling ; and these, 
 diluted with the air, pervaded the neighbourhood for some dis- 
 tance round to such an extent, that you might almost have be- 
 lieved the inhabitants lived upon the odours. Mr. Straggles 
 stood this a long time, for the place was cheap, and the races 
 had cost him so much money that he was obliged to retrench. 
 But at length he got nearly stewed himself, and in a desperate 
 plight of not knowing what to do next, formed Arcadian plans 
 for living on bread and fruits, or periwinkles and pickled eels, 
 beneath the coolest arcades of Hungerford. " TJllow ! Straggy !" 
 said a voice down the letter-box to our hero. " Are you at 
 home ?" 
 
 "What, Joe!" exclaimed Mr. Straggles, stopping in the 
 attempt he had persevered in for some months to play the 
 minor part of "The Standard-Bearer" on his octave flute. 
 " That's not you ?" 
 
 " Isn't it though : look out." 
 
 And then the end of a small walking-stick was pushed through 
 the letter slit, and the box opened, not having a trustworthy 
 fastening, as its contents fell on the floor. Mr. Straggles' s box 
 formed the receptacle for all sorts of fugitive donations, pre- 
 sented by the men in the other chambers, as they went up and 
 down stairs — kings and knaves of playing-cards, cherry-stones, 
 straws from sherry-cobblers, pit checks of theatres the night 
 
HOW MR. STRAGGLES ATE WHITEBAIT AT GREENWICH. 299 
 
 "before, advertising tailors' brochures, sometimes crackers, and 
 once be found a mouse. 
 
 " Come in, old fellow : who'd have throught of seeing you?" 
 The new arrival looked something like a fashionable gentle- 
 man who had been kept from last year, with a dash of the Lei- 
 cester-square foreigner about him. He had only one glove, 
 which he held in his hand, and this had once been yellow. His 
 boots, though trodden out and cracked at the outside, were 
 intensely polished, and had long toes which somewhat turned 
 up ; and protuberances at the ankle, before and behind, under 
 the trousers, which were strapped down, showed that they were 
 shorts. He had a long black stock, much perforated by pins, 
 and no collar ; in fact, the general style of his get-up was the 
 " seedy," a word implying approaching extermination as for- 
 cibly as reproduction. 
 
 " "Why, Joe, what a 3Iossoo you look !" said 3Ir. Straggles. 
 
 "Mossoo," was the Straggles for "Monsieur," picked up 
 from a course of six lessons in French, and the received stage 
 pronunciation, and applied by our friend generally to all foreign 
 gentlemen of peculiarly continental cut. 
 
 " And where have you been ?" he added. 
 
 " Boulogne, sir, Boulogne — the land of the free. Ever since 
 the railways blew up, I have been obliged to come to Dan 
 Tucker. Eh, twig ? pheugh! yerg! yerg! yerg!" 
 
 And here the friend put himself in an attitude of banjo- 
 playing with his stick, made Ethiopian noises, and lyrically 
 described the excitement caused by the coming to town of the 
 person above named. 
 
 " But I say, Joe, where have you been living ?" 
 
 " Till within two months on board the ]Sore Light — provi- 
 sional director of the floating beacon. They never thought of 
 looking for me there. I've made great friends with the keeper ; 
 very jolly fellow, who never goes on shore, because he says it 
 makes him so sick. He gets qualmish sometimes on board, 
 when it's calm." 
 
 " Are you all right now ?" 
 
 " Eight as twenty trivets : only they'd have me, if they could, 
 about that cursed Slushpool and Landmark Heath Extension. 
 There must be as many writs out against me as, pasted together, 
 would reach the whole length of the line ?" 
 
 " Then what are you here for ?" 
 
 " Oh ! I was obliged to come over. I've got a plan, and 
 
300 WILD OATS. 
 
 been sitting up all night with capitalists and accountants to 
 carry it out. Ten thousand pounds down, and half a million a 
 year safe." 
 
 " Have you got the ten thousand down, Joe ?" 
 
 " No ; but as good — as good. I'm going back to Boulogne 
 to-night to see about it." 
 
 Mr. Straggles thought that Boulogne, from what he had 
 heard of it, was not exactly the place to go for ten thousand 
 pounds ; but he knew his friend, and did not say anything. 
 
 For Mr. Joseph Flitter, as he was called, lived in a self- 
 created world of gigantic schemes, and had never been out of 
 hot water since Mr. Straggles had known him. Their agencies 
 had first thrown them together, and they had never met but 
 he had something to propose that must return five hundred 
 per cent. No matter what the scheme was ; he got up com- 
 panies, and railways, and newspapers, with equal facility. When 
 a junction-bank failed he started a floating-bath, with the same 
 prospects of liquidation ; and as soon as he found that one 
 bushel of the new argillaceous shale would not fuel a steamer 
 over the Atlantic, he had the galvanic decomposition of water 
 patent all ready, the apparatus for which, to work the Great 
 Western, could be put under a hat. 
 
 " I suspect one or two are on the look-out for me," said Mr. 
 Flitter ; " so I'll tell you how I'm going to Boulogne. That 
 London-bridge wharf is never safe. Sir, I believe the writs 
 walk about there bolt upright by themselves, all day long, 
 to catch the passengers. But the steward of the boat is a 
 capital fellow ; I wear coats and shawls on shore for him, and 
 carry uncorked bottles of brandy ; and he is going to look out 
 for me, and hook on to a boat if I'll be in it, off the Isle of 
 Dogs to-night. Now, where do you dine ?" 
 
 Mr. Straggles suggested the place above mentioned, near 
 Leicester-square. 
 
 " Oh no, no !" said Mr. Flitter. " Fancy this weather, too — 
 pah ! Let's dine at Greenwich, eh? Do the thing for once; 
 oceans of water souchee ; swamps of stewed eels ; no end of 
 salmon cutlets ; pyramids of whitebait ; and an acre of brown 
 bread-and-butter." 
 
 "Beautiful!" cried Mr. Straggles, carried away by his 
 friend's enthusiasm. 
 
 " I believe you, my boy," continued Mr. Flitter. " Gallons 
 of cyder-cup, too, and Badminton. Iced punch ! ducks ! peas ! 
 
HOW ME. STRAGGLES ATE WHITEBAIT AT GREENWICH. 301 
 
 cutlets! and brown bread-and-butter again! And then the 
 ■wine, and the river, and the strawberries ! Ah !" 
 This time Mr. Straggles sighed. 
 " But it costs so much, Joe," he added, sadly. 
 " Cost be (something)'d," replied Mr. Flitter. " You can 
 do it at all prices. Look here" — and he pulled a small bill from 
 his pocket—'' ' Tea with shrimps, a shilling ; ditto with children, 
 sixpence.' " 
 
 " I don't seem to care much about children," observed Mr. 
 Straggles. 
 
 " No — no nonsense, Straggy. I mean to pay. you know. 
 You shall be my guest, and see me off. I say, you haven't got 
 such a thing as a pair of boots to lend a fellow, have you ? 
 Yours would fit me." 
 
 Mr. Straggles had a cherished pair with red tops, so smart, 
 that he often regretted that he could not wear them outside 
 his trousers, when they would have given him the air of a Polka 
 nobleman. Under other circumstances he would not have 
 thought of lending them, but Mr. Flitter was going to stand 
 the dinner, so he brought them from his bedroom. 
 
 " But I say, Joe," he asked, ' ; if you are off to Boulogne, 
 what will become of my boots?" 
 
 « Oh — all right. You must come with me as far as Graves- 
 end, just to see me off ; you can get back for a shilling, and 
 take your boots with you. A collar, too, I think ; yes, a 
 collar" and then I shall be slap up. Recollect— for I've got 
 business to do, and must be off— if we don ; t meet again, the 
 Hospital Terrace, at seven o'clock." 
 
 Mr. Flitter went into Mr. Straggles' s room, and put on the 
 articles, and then took his departure. 
 
 At five p.^r. Mr. Straggles locked his outer door, and went 
 to London-bridge by water for a farthing, in a new steamer 
 called The Earwig, and then waited on the pier, and enjoyed 
 a penn'orth of cherries, as he watched the flock of steamers 
 crowding along the river. 
 
 " Now, who's for Grinnidge :" bawled a man. " Outside 
 boat!" 
 
 Mr. Straggles took his ticket, and found the boat would start 
 at the half-hour; but as it wanted a few minutes, he went back 
 to buv another bunch of cherries, to beguile the journey. He 
 was kept a little time waiting for change, the woman having 
 hunted under every leaf in her basket for the coppers, and he 
 
302 WILD OATS. 
 
 then went and took his place in the outside boat, by the man 
 at the wheel, just as she was starting. 
 
 " I say!" exclaimed Mr. Straggles, as the boat appeared to 
 be off the wrong way, " where are you going to ?" 
 
 " 'Ungerford," was the reply. 
 
 " Bat I'm going to Greenwich !" 
 
 " No, that you isn't ; leastwise now," said the man. " That's 
 the Grinnidge boat just moving." 
 
 " They told me it was the outside one," cried Mr. Straggles. 
 
 " So she was till we come round," said the man. "This 
 here's The Earywig." 
 
 The very boat he had come by ! But there was no appeal, 
 so Mr. Straggles went back to Hungerford, and there had to 
 wait half an hour for the next chance, in which interval the 
 tide turned the wrong way. But at last the hospitable Water- 
 man No. 9 received him, and he got fairly off, looking ruefully 
 at the unavailable ticket he had before taken, and munching 
 his cherries rather than enjoying them. 
 
 But the journey to Greenwich by water on a bright after- 
 noon, with a whitebait dinner in anticipation, is not calculated 
 to nourish blue devils, albeit it does good to spirits generally. 
 There is so much to look at, and it is always amusing, even if 
 you have gone backwards and forwards every day, from the 
 restless, scuffling, swarming steamers, to the lumbering barges, 
 that will get in the way of everything by choice, as the man, 
 pulling them by the heavy oars — or rather conceiving that he 
 does so — appears so disproportioned to his work, as the diligent 
 flea who draws the man-of-war; old tumble-down wharfs, 
 and crazy public-houses with singularly unsafe galleries, and 
 warehouses so lofty that they have as many stories as the 
 " Arabian Nights," as Mr. Straggles pleasantly observed ; little 
 boys bathing in the mud under the shelter of stranded lighters ; 
 heavy continental boats, like drowsy leviathans, just breathing 
 from their funnels, with their crew idling over the sides ; huge 
 manufactories of articles hitherto unheard of, or scarcely sup- 
 posed important enough to have a room for themselves ; and a 
 border of flag-staffs, steeples, chimneys, scaffolds, and more 
 ships, out and away at the distance, and apparently built into 
 the very heart of London, — all these things furnish plenty to 
 look at. And so Mr. Straggles forgot his lost ticket, and de- 
 termined to make up for his loss by not having a cigar for two 
 days, unless somebody gave him one. 
 
HOW MB. STRAGGLES ATE WHITEBAIT AT GREENWICH. 303 
 
 He got to Greenwich safely, and found Mr. Flitter on the 
 Terrace, accompanied by whom he went to one of the taverns 
 that look so agreeably on the realms of the whitebait beyond 
 the Hospital. There was a large private dinner in the regular 
 coffee-room, so a smaller apartment on the ground floor had 
 been substituted for it, and here Air. Flitter and Mr. Straggles 
 fortunately got a table by the window, as a party was just 
 leaving. Mr. Straggles unfolded his napkin, and disposed his 
 green-and-white wine glasses, and assumed the air of a bon- 
 vivant, as though he bad always dined at the Clarendon. 
 
 The room was quite full. There was that pleasant buzz of 
 life which always makes a coffee-room dinner so agreeable, and, 
 to our thinking, assists digestion. Mr. Flitter ordered a course 
 offish — "the usual thing," he said, "with a duck and peas, or 
 something of the sort" — then he inquired of his friend what he 
 usually drank. Mr. Straggles usually took half-and-half; but 
 the elegant atmosphere of the room, and the contiguity of 
 ladies, awed and refined his feelings, and he suggested " pale 
 ale." 
 
 " Oh, of course," said Mr. Flitter ; " but I mean besides. 
 Punch, you know." 
 
 " Certainly, certainly," said Mr. Straggles. 
 
 " And Badminton, eh. ? — of course, some Badminton?" con- 
 tinued Mr. Flitter. 
 
 " Of course," said Mr. Straggles, as he felt that the ladies 
 were looking at them. But if Mr. Flitter, instead of Badmin- 
 ton, had suggested Chippenham, or Devizes, or Cricklade Cup, 
 the answer would have been the same. 
 
 The fish was brought, and then, in his first excitement, Mr. 
 Straggles quietly told Mr. Flitter that he had never dined at 
 Greenwich before. Whereupon Mr. Flitter told him to eat lots 
 of everything, and then he would do the proper thing. 
 
 So Mr. Straggles commenced with water souchee (which at 
 first he conceived to be flounder broth), and ate all the parsley 
 into the bargain, and then got timid at the imposing waiter 
 who came to change his plate, and said he preferred the same ; 
 but this the man would not allow by any means, and took it 
 away with a strong-minded effort. After which, Mr. Straggles 
 was'lost in admiration of the stewed eels, and in wonder at the 
 pickles which nestled amidst the salmon cutlets, and in fear at 
 the pyramid of whitebait which soon made its appearance ; so 
 much so, that he drank deeply of punch to regain his presence 
 
304 WILD OATS. 
 
 of mind. And then he watched Mr. Flitter closely— how he 
 slanted his plate with a wedge of bread, whilst he squeezed the 
 lemon over the cayenne pepper ; how he helped himself reck- 
 lessly to ravenous quantities, and devoured them as voraciously: 
 all this Mr. Straggles did, even to slapping one bit of brown 
 bread-and-butter upon another, face to face, as carelessly as 
 though he had done so for years. 
 
 " Well, Straggy," said Mr. Flitter, "what do you think of 
 whitebait'? What are they like ?" 
 
 " I can't make out," replied his friend. " Baked curl papers 
 I should say were the nearest things to them. But the bread- 
 and-butter's first rate." 
 
 " More bait," ordered Mr. Flitter ; and more after that ; and 
 then devilled bait ; and the Badminton. Capital stuff it was, 
 too. " I'll tell you how to make that," said that gentleman. 
 " Pour out a bottle of vin ordinaire into a jug, and shoot a 
 bottle of soda-water into it. Add some sugar, and some kuobs 
 of Wenham ice. Put a suspicion of your favourite liqueur, or 
 a phantom of lemon-peel, into it, and there you are. Ah I" 
 
 This last expression accompanied a deep draught, which Mr. 
 Straggles imitated to perfection, as the devilled bait had made 
 his throat all of a blaze. And upon this he put pale ale, finish- 
 iug with champagne, which Flitter would order. 
 
 " I don't seem to care much about any more to eat," said 
 Mr. Straggles, as he felt the whitebait almost up to his throat. 
 
 " Oh, but you must. Here are lovely peas ! and duck, too ! 
 or perhaps you'd like some of this ham r" 
 
 Mr. Straggles thought he would ; it was less to eat. But it 
 was so salt that he was obliged to have some more Badminton, 
 and soon got very jolly indeed. 
 
 " This is doing it, Joe, isu't it ?" he said. 
 
 " Rather," answered Mr. Flitter. " Waiter, some of that 
 
 old port." ' ' 
 
 " And strawberries, sir? — yes, sir," replied the man. 
 The dessert came ; and the day wore away. The sunset gun 
 was fired ; the yachts below the taverns took down their flags ; 
 and the lights' alone, before long, marked the passage of the 
 steamers towards the Pool. The company, too, left the coffee- 
 room ; but the large party up-stairs, who were going to fiuish 
 with a ball, kept the tavern alive ; and as, in addition, Mr. 
 Flitter told the waiters he expected a friend to sup there be- 
 fore he started from the Aberdeen wharf at midnight, they 
 
HOW MR. STRAGGLES ATE WHITEBAIT AT GREENWICH. 305 
 
 were not disturbed. Mr. Straggles h ad drunk himself into a 
 halo of poetry and romance, and when the band above played 
 "The Standard-Bearer Quadrilles," he sang the song so loudly 
 that the boys below the windows cheered him for very admira- 
 tion. All this time Mr. Flitter was looking anxiously from the 
 window upon the river, as, like Mariana, he gazed " athwart 
 the glooming flats" of the Isle of Dogs. At last he said, 
 when Mr. Straggles had uttered his dying declaration that he 
 would not name the lady of his love, 
 
 " Straggy, you haven't such a thing as five pounds about 
 you, have you?" 
 
 " Lord, Joe ! no !" replied Mr. Straggles, as much astonished 
 at the possibility even of such a thing being entertained for an 
 instant by his friend, as aghast at the question. 
 
 " Because," continued Mr. Flitter, " I must have had my 
 pocket picked coming down ; I can't find my purse." 
 
 " Why ! what can we do ?" cried Mr. Straggles, now in real 
 terror. 
 
 " Well, I can't see exactly ; we must get away without 
 paying." 
 
 u Without paying ! Xow, Joe, don't ! we shall be taken up 
 for swindlers." 
 
 " We shall, if we stay," said Mr. Flitter. " But of course I 
 shall pay ; you shall bring back the money." 
 
 " I won't go away," answered Mr. Straggles, now quite 
 gravely. " I'll stop in pawn." 
 
 " Tou can't. Xow look here, Straggy. Would you ruin me, 
 your friend, and dash down ten thousand pounds at a blow ? 
 "Ha ! here he is. Stop !" 
 
 As he spoke, the plash of a pair of sculls was heard, and a 
 boat came underneath the window. A waiter entered the room 
 at the same time, so that Mr. Flitter could not attend to it ; but 
 he ordered coffee, and, the minute the door closed, he beckoned 
 to the waterman, who stuck a note on a boat-hook, and gave it 
 to him. 
 
 "I thought so," said Mr. Flitter, as he read it hurriedly. 
 " Some of them have seen me in London, and Sloman knows I'm 
 here. It's about the time, too. Wait a minute." 
 
 Mr. Straggles did as he was ordered — he could do nothing 
 else — and waited in great fear and trepidation. 
 
 As soon at the coffee was brought, Mr. Flitter placed a bottle 
 of wine that was on the sideboard in Mr. Straggles's hand ; and 
 
 x 
 
306 WILD OATS. 
 
 assuming a determined sepulchral voice, pointed to the river and 
 said, 
 
 " Descend into the boat !" 
 
 "What! there! Pooh! stuff! I can't. "What do you 
 mean ?" 
 
 " What I say; the bailiffs are after me, and I shouldn't 
 wonder if they take you too, as an accomplice. Get into the 
 boat ; we have not a second to spare. Away !" 
 
 Bewildered with the dilemma and the drink, Mr. Straggles 
 took the bottle, and climbed down the iron work in front of the 
 window, scarcely knowing what he did. Mr. Flitter followed, 
 when, as he was stepping down, he heard a cry, followed by a 
 plunge amongst the billows on his lee, which the last steamer 
 had called up, and, on turning round, could just see the luck- 
 less Straggles disappearing under the surface of the water, his 
 hand in the air, however, clutching the brandy bottle as firmly 
 as his friend " The Standard-Bearer" ever did his colours. In 
 his flurry he had stepped on the side of the boat and gone over. 
 Fortunately, however, it was not deep. Mr. Flitter and the 
 waterman pulled him in again ; and then the former said, " Go 
 ahead !" as the dark form of the Boulogne boat was observable 
 coming down the river. 
 
 " Now, give way !" he said. " Get as close as you can on 
 her larboard side, and go as if you were trying to race her." 
 
 As Mr. Flitter had expected, there was somebody on board 
 looking out. When the boat came up, the man pulled near 
 enough to her paddles to be interesting ; a rope was thrown 
 out and caught, and, when it was dragged amidst the boiling 
 water in their wake to the side, Mr. Flitter pulled Mr. Straggles 
 after him, and they stood on the deck. The waterman received 
 a few shillings ; a hurried recognition passed with the steward, 
 who appeared to be a friend ; a waiter was seen looking out of 
 the distant coffee-room window ; and the Boulogne boat kept 
 on as if nothing had happened. 
 
 "I'm dripping!" were the first words that Mr. Straggles 
 uttered, as, with chattering teeth and trembling frame, he formed 
 a small pond about him on the deck, till it ran out at the 
 scuppers. 
 
 " Dear, dear ! of course you are," said Mr. Flitter. * Here, 
 come down to a berth, and get off your clothes as quickly as 
 possible, and take some brandy." 
 
 Mr. Flitter dragged Mr. Straggles down to the cabin, and 
 assisted him to skin off his wet clothing. Then making him 
 
HOW ME. STRAGGLES ATE WHITEBAIT AT GREENWICH. i)01 
 
 swallow a glass of pure brandy, he put him into a "berth, and 
 told him to keep warm whilst his clothes were dried in the 
 engine-room ; and that he would let him know when they 
 were near Gravesend, where he could be at once put on board 
 the first steamer that was going up to town in the morning. 
 ***** 
 
 Mr. Straggles had curiou3 visions. He dreamt he was'i a 
 whitebait in a river of Badminton, wearing patent boots with 
 red tops, and fighting for liberty and truth as Mr. Flitter's 
 standard-bearer ; then everybody he knew in the world w as 
 dining with him in a vast coffee-room, where all the tables kept 
 going round and round in the air like an up-and-down at a fair, 
 when the river rose, and all the fish got out of their dishes and 
 attacked the company, until they called in the pensioners, who 
 drove them out of the window; and as a beautiful girl of the 
 party was just going to ask him to take her out for a row in a 
 continental steamer, he awoke. 
 
 It was broad daylight. The paddles had ceased to work, and 
 the people had left their berths, and were now rushing down 
 and snatching bags and baskets from remote corners of the 
 cabin, ere they hurried up again. There were many feet shuf- 
 fling overhead, and uncouth voices were heard vociferating un- 
 intelligibly all at once. 
 
 " Gravesend !" cried Mr. Straggles, as he started up ; " and 
 I am undressed ! Halloo ! Steward, where are my things ?" 
 
 " All right, sir," said the man, bringing his things dry and 
 folded. " We've had a rough passage, though." 
 
 " Passage ! Why, where are we ?" 
 
 " I thought you'd wonder," said the steward. u Tou slept 
 so heavily we couldn't rouse you, all we could do ; so Mr. Flitter 
 said we had better leave you alone. Where do you go ?" 
 
 " Oh ! back to London by the next boat." 
 
 " Yes, sir, that's the Harlequin, she goes at twelve to-night ; 
 and there's the Magician, to Dover; and the Queen of the 
 French, to Folkestone, at eight to-morrow morning." 
 
 " Dover ! Folkestone !" gasped Mr. Straggles. " What the 
 devil do you mean ? Where am I r" 
 
 " Just under the douane, sir, in Boulogne harbour," was the 
 reply. 
 
 Mr. Straggles gave a shriek of anguish, and covering his face 
 with the sheet, to the discomfort of his legs, gave way to the 
 wildest despair. 
 
 x2 
 
( 308 ) 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 MR. STRAGGLES HAS A DAY'S FISHING. 
 
 JMr. Straggles contrived to get back from Boulogne, to 
 wljiich place he had been so unceremoniously carried against his 
 will. But if Mr. Roberts, of the boarding-house upon the port, 
 had not kindly given him credit until he got a remittance from 
 England, he would have been in a sad way, for bis friend ap- 
 peared to be no better off in France tban at home, in spite of 
 hi si gigantic expectations ; in fact, he disappeared suddenly one 
 night after a game of billiards at the cafe, at the corner of the 
 Grrande Rue, and was never heard of again. The men who were 
 building the new bridge that crosses to Capecure, dragged 
 the harbour; and the gardeners below the ramparts of the 
 Haute Ville searched the ground for the body, believing that 
 he had committed suicide in consequence of his losses that 
 evening, which were known to be great. But as the winners 
 never got anything, it was fairly presumed that Mr. Flitter had 
 never paid them ; and as no body was found, it was also, with 
 some plausibility, conceived that he had not made away with 
 himself. In Boulogne, however, he was not. After the first 
 shock, Mr. Straggles got on well enough. There were some 
 pleasant people at the house, and it fortunately was not a busy 
 time in London, so that he did not fret at his absence. He 
 walked to Portel and Wimereux, and half fell in love with a 
 pretty girl who waited at the inn at Wimille, on the right hand 
 of the route going towards Calais, and if she is still there she 
 will repay the walk. He went to the balls at the Etablissement 
 and Salle Delplanque,and knocked over more old ladies and chairs 
 in his polking than had ever been known ; he had cheap baths 
 from the little sentry-boxes that wheel down to the edge of the 
 tide ; he walked through mud to the chapel of the hamlet of 
 Jesus Flagelle, and was perfectly scared at the votive offerings 
 hung round it ; he joined in all the rows about the parsons 
 which so interest the English residents ; and, finally, was sorry 
 when he left. But it was a case of " must," so he braced up 
 
MR. STRAGGLES HAS A DAY'S FISHIXG. 809 
 
 his nerves, and gave his last farewell to bis fellow-boarders, 
 who ran along the pier, by the side of the steamer, to see | him 
 off, and finally waved their handkerchiefs from the rounded ex- 
 tremity, until the Queen of the French was out of sight, on. her 
 way to Folkestone. For a few weeks after he returned, Mr. 
 Straggles kept very quiet, for his funds partook of what the 
 City articles called " the general tightness of the money 
 market." He limited his dinner to a shilling, and gave up all 
 notion of cabs anywhere. He found discarded clothes of past 
 gaiety, at the bottoms of his drawers, that would still do— in 
 fact, like old clothes generally, they were wonderfully improved 
 by inaction, for turning an old coat into drawers is as beneficial 
 as turning a worn horse out to grass. He did without suppers, 
 and never went to the play but with a newspaper order — not an 
 actor's, because he knew he should pay for it with remarkable 
 interest when the benefits came round. Instead of having bis 
 pennyworth of the Times every day, he found out some coffee- 
 rooms where he could indulge in the fragrant berry, or what- 
 ever it was, at a cheap rate, and could read the papers for 
 nothing ; and whenever he felt elastic, and wanted an excursion, 
 he paid a penny, and rode from London-bridge to Hungerford 
 and back again, or took a short trip in a Parliamentary train, 
 and walked home. But through it all he was still the same 
 joyous Straggles. 
 
 It was a touching thing, though, when his friends called upon 
 him as they were leaving town. One was going to Gravesend 
 — that was Mr. Knapps, of Mincing-lane ; another was on his 
 way to Ramsgate — that was Mr. Howard, of the West-end em- 
 porium. Mr. Brown, of Brixton, came to inquire about Bou- 
 logne ; and Mr. Eicketts, the stockbroker, spoke largely of 
 pheasants in Surrey. In fact, everybody was off somewhere, 
 and Mr. Straggles not liking to be thought behind them, kept 
 a gun in his chamber, which he always began to oil and polish 
 when any one came to the door, hung up a shooting-coat and 
 fishing-basket behind it, threw old gaiters and thick shoes 
 carelessly about the floor, and hoisted an ancient hat, with 
 artificial fly-hooks stuck all round it, on the back of an old arm- 
 chair, telling everybody that he meant " to see what the barbel 
 were like next week," which, as he had not the least idea, was, 
 in a measure, a praiseworthy and instructive investigation. 
 
 "What ! going fishing r" asked his friend Mr. Hackle, one 
 day, when he called. 
 
310' WILD OATS. 
 
 ]^r. Hackle was a decided fisherman ; that is to say, he be- 
 lieved in the killing properties of baits that the fish could never 
 possibly, by any chance, have met with before — old cheese, rusty 
 bacon, raw dough, and the like. He never caught a fish, were 
 it only a bleak, but he allowed it to play and flap about on the 
 top of the water before he pulled it out. He never crossed a 
 rivulet without stopping to watch it with much affection for 
 half an hour, perfectly satisfied if, at the end of that period, he 
 saw a roach wriggling up against the stream ; and he never 
 passed a weedy, froggy, willow-bordered swamp, but he would 
 say, " I'll be bound there are some fine jack there." Au reste, 
 he wore blue spectacles, and made other things he fondly be- 
 lieved to be flies, from bits of old hat, bed feathers, and the 
 lining of chairs. 
 
 "Straggles," observed Mr. Hackle, "you coop yourself up 
 too much — quite tike a caddis worm ; you want air and exer- 
 cise. Come with me for a day's fishing. I see you've got a 
 basket." 
 
 It was all Mr. Straggles had got in the angling line, and 
 even that had not been purchased for its proper purpose. On 
 short trips, he was accustomed, once upon a time, to carry his 
 wardrobe in it ; but now he had given that up. For the rude 
 omnibus cads nsed to call him a "jolly fisherman," and " young 
 Ikey Walton," and the little dirty boys persisted in walking by 
 his side, singing, " In the days when we went hangling, a long 
 time ago," and Mr. Straggles could never stand the little boys. 
 Once, to be sure, he had taken to fish, mildly, in the Serpentine, 
 but the boys drove him away ; for they used to come and sit 
 down by his side, entering into conversation, without any en- 
 couragement or introduction, recommending him to " Pull him 
 out, sir ; you've got him at last !" telling him, " There's a bite !" 
 examining his kettle, and committing other familiarities, until at 
 last they came to pelting his float, which ultimately drove him 
 away. 
 
 However, he agreed to go with Mr. Hackle; and he bought 
 a cheap rod and line at a fishing-tackle-maker's, whose stock 
 was so large that he had been for years selling it off "at an 
 enormous sacrifice," and who kept a tin fish suspended over his 
 door, which had spun a dozen bilious opposite neighbours 
 away from their abodes, by its restless gyrations. His friend 
 was to provide baits and appliances generally, and the day was 
 fixed upon. 
 
MR. STRAGGLES HAS A DAY'S FISHING. 311 
 
 "When the appointed morning arrived, Mr. Hackle made his 
 appearance, so laden with apparatus — rods, and poles, and rakes, 
 and landing-nets; bags, and baskets, and kettles, and a camp- 
 stool — that he looked as if he was about to start on a pedestrian 
 tour round the world, carrying everything with him. Mr. 
 Straggles merely carried his own basket with some sandwiches 
 in it, from the " splendid-glass-of-ale" shop; and then being 
 told that they were going to a very likely piece of water beyond 
 Hampstead, he started with his friend, guided entirely by him ; 
 for if Mr. Hackle had proposed dragging for lobsters at Sadler's 
 Wells, or angling for mackerel in Highgate Ponds, Mr. Strag- 
 gles had that reliance on his piscatorial experience that he 
 would directly have accompanied him without a misgiving. 
 
 They got up to Hampstead pretty well, and without much 
 annoyance. The boys, to be sure, were as vigilant and atten- 
 tive as ever, occasionally inquiring of Mr. Hackle, in a friendly 
 commercial spirit, " What he would take for his straw hat 
 without the lining?" and they also asked, in allusion to his 
 spectacles, " Why he didn't light his lamps?" and gazing at 
 Mr. Straggles's tall proportions, they recommended him "to 
 mind he didn't knock the moon out when he came back again 
 at night." But the anglers merely smiled at these sallies, pre- 
 tending to be higbly amused thereby ; whereas, internally, such 
 was far from being the case. 
 
 It was tolerably hot when they had toiled up the last hill to 
 Hampstead Heath, and as they had still some little way farther 
 to go, Mr. Hackle proposed they should ride. Mr. Straggles 
 directly consented, and without much difficulty they soon 
 found some animals. 
 
 There are various localities in the vicinity of London where 
 donkeys nourish ; they have peculiar districts, like hops and 
 sausages. In the suburban ruralities of Primrose Hill many 
 fine studs may be met with ; at Blackheath they form a staple 
 means of peregrination ; at Gravesend, they delight the poor 
 deluded people who fancy they are at the sea-side, and bear 
 them to shrimps-and-watercresses-devouring localities. Still 
 more distant, at the convivial Margate, they bake in the sun on 
 the chalk cliffs above the Port, until they become as tawny as 
 the slippers of their riders ; and at Bamsgate, the adjacent bay 
 of Pegwell — promising and hunger-implying name — owes much 
 of its commercial importance to the means of transport they 
 afford. But it is at Hampstead Heath alone that they are to 
 
312 WILD OATS. 
 
 be seen in all their glory. What matters it if the saddles be 
 old and time-worn ? An expanse of calico, bound with gay tape, 
 conceals the blemishes and improves the appearance. So have 
 we seen the tail-coat, when somewhat seedy as to the lappels, 
 converted into the dress garment by a silk facing. If they are 
 idly inclined, are there not boys to run behind, and provoke 
 activity by a pointed stick ? originating the offensive but 
 widely-known comparison between donkeys and lollipops, inas- 
 much as the more they were licked the faster they went. Did 
 a donkey from Hampstead ever get tired ? — did it ever break 
 its knees ? — was it ever blind ? — did it ever run away ? — did it 
 ever shuffle off any other coil than the mesh of string, tape, tin, 
 jack-chain, and old thongs that formed its bridle ? Never. 
 
 The fineness of the morniDg, the light air, and the holiday 
 altogether, coupled with some pale ale at Jack Straw's Castle, 
 so elevated Mr. Straggles's spirits, that he sang the " Standard- 
 Bearer" louder than ever ; and following Mr. Hackle, held his 
 fishing-rod like a lance, and assumed a martial bearing, only in- 
 terrupted when his feet dragged against the ground, which, 
 from their length, they occasionally did. They crossed the 
 Heath, and wound along the pleasant roads beyond it ; and at 
 last stopped at a gate, where Mr. Hackle said they were to dis- 
 mount, as it must be the one he had been told of by a brother 
 angler. They then sent the boys back to the inn, with direc- 
 tions to bring them some bottled ale, together with bread and 
 cheese, at two o'clock ; and pushing their way through a wet 
 copse, the trees of which caught their tackle every minute, 
 arrived at the edge of a piece of water. 
 
 " I say," observed Mr. Straggles, " look at that board : ' Per- 
 sons fishing in this water without permission will be prosecuted 
 as the law directs.' "We mustn't try here." 
 
 "Oh! that's nothing," said Mr. Hackle; "a mere form. 
 Besides, nobody can see us : we're quite hidden." 
 
 " "Well, I suppose you know best," answered Mr. Straggles, 
 with resignation, as he sat down upon the ground. " Here 
 goes." 
 
 Mr. Hackle was less precipitate in his movements ; for with 
 your anglers it is a great point to elaborate everything as much 
 as possible. He performed a great many intricate feats with 
 his floats, and caps, and split shot, and plummets ; and spread 
 everything out with great display at his side. Then he made 
 several small stone dumplings, with a light crust of bran, clay, 
 
MK. STKAGGLES HAS A DAY'S FISHING. 313 
 
 and gentles, which he distributed, here and there, in the water. 
 After this he took all his hooks out of their parchment enve- 
 lopes, one after another, and, having looked at them, shut them 
 all up again. Then, after plumbing his depth, which he did 
 over every square inch within reach of his rod, he found he had 
 too many shot, and took some off. Then he had not enough, 
 and was obliged to put some on again. Next, his top-joint 
 was the wrong one, and all his tackle had to be taken to pieces 
 again. But as all this is a great part of the contemplative 
 man's recreation, Mr. Hackle was rather entertained than 
 otherwise. 
 
 " Why won't my float sail along upright ?" said Mr. Straggles, 
 pointing to his porcupine's quill, which was lying horizontally 
 upon the water. 
 
 " You're too deep," answered Mr. Hackle. 
 
 " No I'm not," said Mr. Straggles, taking him in a moral 
 sense. " I really don't know." 
 
 Whereupon Mr. Hackle set him right, put on his bait, and 
 committed it to the depths of the water; upon which, Mr. 
 Straggles, feeling all comfortable, began to sing : 
 
 " Upon the tented field a minstrel knight 
 His lonely midnight standard watch is keeping." 
 
 " Hush!" cried Mr. Hackle; "you mustn't do that." 
 
 " What!" observed Mr. Straggles, stopping suddenly j "not 
 sing ? Oh, bother ! What did I come out for?" 
 
 " To fish," said Mr. Hackle, gravely. 
 
 " Well, so I do," returned Mr. Straggles. " Hulloo ! here 
 he is ! I've got him !" 
 
 And hereat he pulled out a fish with a jerk that sent it 
 whirling over his head, and even amongst the willows behind 
 him. 
 
 Mr. Hackle here uttered those common sounds of regret 
 which are as difficult to spell as the horse-impelling noise which 
 the ostler beat his boy for not knowing how to express in letters 
 on his return from school. " You should play him," he con- 
 tinued, " and draw him out quietly. Ho ! there's a bite. Now, 
 you see, I have him. So ho ! it's a roach." 
 
 " How can you tell ?" asked Mr. Straggles. 
 
 " How should I, but by my eyes. Can't you ?" 
 
 " Deuce a bit. I've got a fishing-book, with pictures, but 
 they're all alike. Pull him up." 
 
314 WILD OATS. 
 
 " No, no — steady," said Mr. Hackle ; for this was evidently 
 the great pleasure. * See how he fights ! Now I have him." 
 
 " No you don't," cried Mr. Straggles, as the fish suddenly 
 vanished, shooting off into deep water. " There, now, which 
 is the best way ?" 
 
 Mr. Hackle was so angry at the failure, that he only replied, 
 " It was all the noise Mr. Straggles was making." 
 
 ""Well, never mind," replied the other; "be convivial. 
 There's as good fish in the water, I dare say, as ever came out 
 of it. Hurrah ! here's another ! Why, what the devil is it — a 
 red herring?" 
 
 He pulled up the glittering, wriggling fish as he spoke, and 
 showed it to Mr. Hackle. It was a gold-fish ; and almost at 
 the same instant Mr. Hackle caught another. 
 
 " This is very strange !" he said. 
 
 " But famous, isn't it ?" observed Mr. Straggles. " Put 'em 
 in the kettle. I've got an old globe at home, and I'll keep 
 them in it. This is fishing with a vengeance !" 
 
 " It's not sport," remarked Mr. Hackle, throwing back the 
 prize. 
 
 " Oh, isn't it, though ? "What do you do that for ?" said his 
 friend. 
 
 " Now, pray keep quiet," exclaimed Mr. Hackle. 
 
 " Very well ; I will, then. Let's see who catches the next. 
 Give them some more bait. That's the thing." 
 
 And Mr. Straggles commenced throwing in the dumplings 
 so recklessly, that he was obliged to be severely checked. But 
 they went on fishing with varied success ; now catching bleak, 
 now the gold-fish again, and now piebald ones, until the time 
 arrived for luncheon. 
 
 "I wonder where the donkey-boys are," said Mr. Hackle, 
 looking at his watch. " They ought to be here." 
 
 " I hear them, I think," said Mr. Straggles, " coming through 
 the trees. Yes — it must be them. Huiloo-o-o !" 
 
 " Ullo-o-o-w !" cried the boys, in return. 
 
 " All right," said Mr. Straggles ; and he turned to receive 
 them, when the trees were put on one side, and two men in 
 velveteen jackets and gaiters made their appearance. 
 
 " So, we've got you at last, have we?" said one of them. 
 " Now I suppose we shall find how master's gold fish got into 
 Covent-garden. Out with the handcuffs, Bill, and cripple him 
 first." 
 
MR. STRAGGLES HAS A DAY'S FISHING. 315 
 
 The man pointed to Mr. Hackle, who, from his display of 
 apparatus, they took to be the ringleader, and they advanced 
 to take him, having been put up to the capture by the donkey- 
 boys, whom they had met at the gate, bringing the ale, which 
 they immediately appropriated. As they advanced towards 
 Mr. Hackle, all the better feelings of Mr. Straggles deserted 
 him. He ought to have stood by his friend and seen him 
 through it ; but his terror was so great, picturing Newgate, 
 Norfolk Island, and even the scaffold, all at once, that he lost 
 all feelings but that of self-preservation. Committing his rod 
 and basket to the water, he darted into the copse, and the next 
 moment was wildly fighting his way through the wet trees and 
 underwood, and trying his strength against that of long black- 
 berry brambles, which, if they did not lie on the ground and 
 coil about his ankles, hung in festoons at the level of his face, 
 and behaved accordingly. He was afraid to look back ; but he 
 soon perceived, from the noises behind, that he was pursued, 
 and he redoubled his energy. He went over banks like a bird, 
 stumbled into ditches, recovered his legs, and bolted through 
 fences and brushwood clumps, as if he had been a hunted hare; 
 until at last he came to a wall, stretching to the right and left 
 so far away that he could see no end to it. His pursuer was 
 close upon his heels. Fortunately a hurdle was leaning against 
 the wall, forming a rude sort of ladder, up which he hurriedly 
 scrambled, and got to the top just as the fellow came up and 
 tried to clutch his ankle. He had a vague bird's-eye view of a 
 house and pleasure-grounds below him ; but without pausing 
 an instant to look where he was going, he leaped wildly away 
 from the grasp of his follower. There was a loud smashing 
 sound of glass, and the following instant Mr. Straggles found 
 himself on the floor of a hot-house, having broken through the 
 roof, and borne down the vine beneath his weight, which, 
 whilst it broke his fall, now formed the bed of crushed bunches 
 of grapes upon which he was lying. He was directly seized by 
 the men about, including the one that had pursued him. The 
 proprietor of the grounds, who was also a magistrate, was from 
 home at the time ; but the round-house was close at hand, and 
 to that dreary dungeon Mr. Straggles was immediately con- 
 signed, with the intimation that he would not be long without 
 company, as his accomplice would soon join him. And then 
 they closed the double doors upon him, and left him to his mi- 
 serable reflections. 
 
316 WILD OATS. 
 
 He, however, procured his liberty, and was indebted to 
 the Gentleman 's Magazine for the manner in which this 
 was effected, for Mr. Hackle and the magistrate had long known 
 one another as fellow-contributors. They had each sent 
 sketches of extinct fonts and unintelligible inscriptions, and 
 enormous rusty keys, the locks whereof had long been missing, 
 to that light periodical ; and when the latter returned — which 
 was just as Mr. Hackle was about to be locked up with his 
 friend — he immediately ordered them to be set at liberty, and 
 even prevailed upon them to dine with him. It appeared that 
 a grotto and fountain in his garden communicated with the 
 water in which they had been fishing, but that the depredations 
 constantly committed had got to such a pitch, that he had set 
 his servants to watch and apprehend all invaders. 
 
 And so the affair ended in a laugh, and the gentleman in- 
 sisted upon Mr. Straggles keeping all the fish he had caught. 
 But they never proved a source of much pleasure to him : he 
 could not regard them without shuddering at his past scrape. 
 And as for fishing itself, he so far hated the very name, that 
 had it been possible for him to have bought up every copy of 
 " The Complete Angler," he would willingly have expended his 
 last farthing in so doing, rather than another disciple should be 
 gained to what he termed " the slowest twaddling any rational 
 man could believe he found amusement iu." 
 
( 317 ) 
 
 XL. 
 
 A LETTER FROM AN OLD COUNTRY-HOUSE. 
 
 Deae Aetiiue, 
 
 'Tis so very slow, 
 
 I can't tell what to do, 
 And so I've got a pen and ink, 
 
 And mean to write to you ! 
 You know how intervening space 
 
 I reckon' d bit by bit, 
 Until this time arrived : and now 
 
 It has not proved a hit ! 
 
 'Tis very well. The house is old, 
 
 With an enormous hall ; 
 I think what learned architects 
 
 Elizabethan call. 
 "With mullion'd windows, shutters vast 
 
 And mystic double floors, 
 And hollow wainscots, creaking stairs, 
 
 And four-horse power doors. 
 
 And authors who could write a book 
 
 Might subjects find in hosts, 
 Of civil wars, and wrongful heirs, 
 
 And murders, bones, and ghosts. 
 And this you know's all very well 
 
 'Neath a bright noontide sun ; 
 But when the dismal nightfall comes, 
 
 'Tis anything but fun. 
 
 I'll own — but this is entre nous — 
 
 I was in such a fright 
 At my gaunt bedroom, that my eyes 
 
 I never closed all night 
 "When first I lay there : for each thing 
 
 Associations brought 
 Of bygone crimes, and mouldy deeds, 
 
 "With frightful interest fraught. 
 
318 WILD OATS. 
 
 'Twas like the room where Tennyson 
 
 Made Mariana stay — 
 A chamber odorous with time, 
 
 And damp and chill decay. 
 The moon looked in with ghastly stare 
 
 On those who haply slept, 
 And 'gainst the casement all night long 
 
 Some cypress branches swept. 
 
 And tapestry was on the walls — 
 
 Dull work that did engage 
 Pair fingers, fleshless long ago — 
 
 Now dim and black with age. 
 And when I trod upon the floor, 
 
 It groaned, and wheezed, and creak'd, 
 And made such awful noises that 
 
 One's very temples reek'd. 
 
 And in the middle of the night, 
 
 Half dozing in my bed, 
 Although beneath the counterpane 
 
 I buried deep my head, 
 I saw most ghastly phantom forms 
 
 Of mildew'd men and girls, 
 "With axe-lopp'd heads, and steel-pierced breasts 
 
 And long gore-dabbled curls. 
 
 I was so glad when morning came, 
 
 For then all fear was o'er : 
 I slept 'till Fox had three times changed 
 
 The water at my door. 
 And when I reach' d the breakfast-room 
 
 The eggs and game were gone, 
 And I was tied to marmalade 
 
 And haddock all alone. 
 
 Now nothing can make up for this, 
 Nor horse, nor game, nor gun ; 
 
 Nor yet charades, night after night, 
 Until they lose their fun ; 
 
A LETTER FROM AN OLD COUNTRY-HOUSE. 319 
 
 Nor Emily's contralto voice, 
 
 And dark and floating eyes ; 
 Nor that young countess — belle de nuit ! 
 
 Nor Julia's smart replies. 
 
 I long to be in town again, 
 
 For all the world recals 
 The raptures of a private box, 
 
 Or comfort of the stalls ; 
 Those cozy dinners at the club ; 
 
 Those rich regalia fumes ; 
 A whirl at Weippert's ; or, perchance, 
 
 A supper at our rooms. 
 
 So tell the boys I'm coming back, 
 
 No more this year to roam 
 (Don't send the birds to Collingwood ; 
 
 He never dines at home). 
 The second dinner-bell has rung, 
 
 I'll finish, then, forthwith, 
 
 And so, 
 
 Believe me to remain, 
 Tours always, 
 
 Albeet Smith. 
 
 Court, October 20, 1847. 
 
( 320 
 
 XLI. 
 
 MR. STRAGGLES IS PREVAILED UPON TO^GO A SHOOTING. 
 
 There are certain things the appearance of which on the 
 stage of a theatre during the performance of a pantomime en- 
 sures their doom, either to total destruction, insult, or treat- 
 ment of the worst description. As examples, we may mention 
 sedan-chairs, frying-pans, bandboxes, and old ladies ; for the 
 first, we know, will be broken in at its top by the reckless 
 attempts of the clown to obtain a seat to which he had no 
 right ; the second will have its bottom knocked out in forming 
 a species of pillory necklace for the maltreated pantaloon ; the 
 next will be crushed and comminuted to atoms in that ill- 
 organised outburst of popular fury, in which, at the same time, 
 fish and images always come off so poorly ; and the last — the 
 defenceless old lady — will have to undergo such a series of 
 frights, ill usage, and even violence, in comparison with her 
 years, that the extent of suffering which female heroism can 
 support under certain circumstances is really marvellous to 
 contemplate. 
 
 Just as these things are upon the mimic stage, so was Mr. 
 Straggles upon the theatre of real life. With every good in- 
 tention and caution in the world, he was constantly in trouble. 
 "Whether acting for himself, or striving to stand in the shoe of 
 another, he always, so to speak, put his foot in it. He was the 
 sedan-chair that only led to the injury of the person he tried to 
 succour ; he was the frying-pan that was sure, somehow or 
 another, to hamper those he associated with ; he was, in a row, 
 the human bandbox that always came off worst ; and it is a 
 question if the clown ever felt so wickedly towards the old 
 ladies as did the impudent boys in the street whenever he ap- 
 peared. And so, with his constant dilemmas, it is a wonder he 
 ever engaged in any expedition at all. Bafc his nature was so 
 inclined to festivity and relaxation, that h;s perpetual scrapes 
 had little effect upon him ; indeed, he was always ready for 
 
ME. STRAGGLES PREVAILED UPON TO GO A SHOOTING. 321 
 
 anything in the way of an excursion at the slightest hint, a want 
 of funds being his only stumbling-block. 
 
 It was a very slow time in town. The leaves had fallen at 
 Vauxhall ; and such people as were left living on one side of the 
 squares began to see those on the other, once more, through 
 the withering foliage. Xearly all the theatres were shut, so 
 there was nowhere to go at night ; and it was too chilly and 
 dreary to sit at home, and not cold enough to have a fire. 
 People fought against coals and candles as long as they could, 
 apparently in the belief that they could drive winter back by 
 thus opposing his firmest allies ; but the water was cold on the 
 washhand-stand in the morning, and the toilet was more hurried 
 than ordinary ; and those who still would not demean them- 
 selves by yielding to another blanket, were glad to throw their 
 dressing-gown upon the bed. The paletot of last spring was 
 pulled from its closet to see what it looked like ; forgotten 
 trousers of once loved winter check were hunted out from the 
 depths of wardrobes ; and collections of stout boots, discarded 
 for the gaiety of the summer sunlit pavements, once more came 
 into favour, as they were passed in review with respect to 
 their capabilities of new soling. Dingy muslin curtains, that 
 it was not worth while washing, gave place to newly dyed 
 moreen ; and you began your dinner in daylight, went on with 
 it in neutral gloom, and finished it with candles, which, as soon 
 as lighted, made the black fireplace doubly gloomy, in spite of 
 the dismal little soot-peppered ornaments of snipped silver 
 paper that hung from its bars. Mr. Straggles sat at dayfall, at 
 this season, in his chambers, thinking what to do. Inclination 
 said, " Go and have a mild cigar and opera at the Eagle;" pru- 
 dence suggested it were better to stay at home and work. But 
 everything looked so cheerless in the cold twilight, that he was 
 about to rush out to avoid all chance of autumnal suicide, when 
 he heard the wheels of a cart stop in front of his house, and 
 two minutes after the porter brought him up three partridges 
 with a note tied round their necks. Having spent the usual 
 time in wondering who could have sent them, he broke the seal, 
 which bore the impression of a percussion- cap several times 
 applied, and read as follows : 
 
 " Deae old Steaggs, — Herewith you will receive a leash of 
 birds — not " three partridges," as I know you will already have 
 called them. And now to business. "Where these came from 
 
 T 
 
322 WILD OATS. 
 
 there's more than you can have a notion of; the poultry shop at 
 the bottom of Holborn-hill, if it was to rise and fly away, wouldn't 
 give you an idea of our coveys. So the governor hopes you'll 
 come down and have a shy at them, in return for your kindness 
 in seeing about his commissions in London. We can find you 
 a gun, but you must bring everything else. The Brighton 
 Railway's the nearest line, and get down at Hayward's Heath. 
 So, mind you come, and 
 
 " Good afternoon. 
 
 " Tours no end, 
 
 " Joe. 
 
 " Bramblesly, Oct." 
 
 The birds and the note put Mr. Straggles to much perplexity. 
 For, in the first place, you cannot send a more distressing 
 present to a man in chambers, who dines out, than a leash of 
 birds. He does not know what in the world to do with them. 
 The first day he hangs them up to look at, and hopes that 
 somebody will call to see them, and believe in his connexions. 
 On the second he begins to think whom he shall present them 
 to, and the inquiry puzzles him until the third, when he 
 wavers between six friends of equal claims upon his attention. 
 Arguing the case occupies two days more, until at last they 
 get very high ; and not having any servant to send on the in- 
 stant with them, and mistrusting other methods, he gives them 
 to his laundress, who sells them to the poulterer, and where 
 they go to after that the dealer only knows. 
 
 This was one cause of distress to Mr. Straggles; the other 
 was, that his experience in shooting was limited. He knew 
 that, to let off a gun, you put a percussion-cap on a little knob, 
 and pulled a thing underneath ; and then if you had previously 
 rammed some powder down the barrel with a bit of paper, it 
 made a bang and kicked against the shoulder ; but to this was 
 his knowledge confined. As to taking an aim at anything, he 
 might as well have attempted to shoot the moon, at which, in 
 its commonly received sense, he might have succeeded ; so he 
 made up his mind to go to a shooting-gallery, thinking that 
 after a dozen shots at three-halfpence each, he should be ready 
 for anything. So have we known landsmen about to take a 
 voyage, go off quite contented with a sixpenny handbook on 
 swimming. 
 
 There is in Leicester-square a remarkable establishment, 
 
MK. STEAGGLES PREVAILED UPON TO GO A SHOOTING. 323 
 
 appropriated to many purposes in its different compartments. 
 It -was once the repository of Miss Linwood's needlework, a 
 popular exhibition, which, however, we never saw ourselves — 
 nor, remarkably enough, did we ever know anybody who, being 
 driven to the point, could say he had either — but which is 
 believed to have been immensely popular with well-regulated 
 country families visiting London once a year as a compulsory 
 pleasure. At that time a little Turk upon horseback used to 
 trot across three panes of glass in one of the windows every 
 half minute, to the delight of the passengers, especially the 
 boys, who always enter keenly into everything exhibited for 
 nothing. But when the needlework went, the Turk went with 
 it ; and then the establishment became so divided by different 
 interests, that few could tell whether it was a theatre, a wine- 
 vaults, a billiard-room, a coffee-shop, a gunsmith's, or a Royal 
 Academy ; or if they could, they never knew, amidst the 
 ascending and descending steps, and doors, and passages, which 
 one to take to get anywhere. The Egyptian Hall is as 
 mvstic in this respect as is the interior of the Pyramids. 
 Nobody ever went to see Tom Thumb without finding himself 
 amongst the Ojibbeways by a wrong door : and the visitor to the 
 Model of Yenice, having been so confused as to pay separately 
 for the Speaking Machine, or the Fat or Mysterious Lady, 
 ultimately never got there at all. But the Piccadilly labyrinth 
 is nothing to the one in Leicester- square. A confusion of 
 sounds tends further to bewilder the visitor : the noise of 
 evervthins: is heard everv where else. The click of billiard- 
 balls ; the music of poses plastiques ; the thwacking of single- 
 sticks ; the cracking of rifles, and the stamping of delighted 
 "Walhalla-ists, all mingle with each other : and it is only by 
 taking refuge in the lowest apartment, which partakes of a 
 coffee-room, a cabin, and a cellar, that you find repose. But 
 Mr. Straggles had been told there was a good gallery here, and 
 with some trouble he at last found his way to it. 
 
 It was a large room divided down the middle ; one half being 
 taken up with swings, ropes, bars, ladders, and various con- 
 trivances for performing fearful feats of strength with ; and the 
 other was appropriated to shooting against an iron target at 
 the end. A gentleman in shirt-sleeves, whose life was passed in 
 loading fire-arms, received Mr. Straggles as he entered. 
 
 " I want to shoot," observed Mr. Straggles, with assumed 
 indifference. 
 
 t2 
 
324 WILD OATS. 
 
 " Yes, sir. Eifle, sir ?" said the assistant. 
 
 " Yes, a rifle," replied Mr. Straggles, unconcernedly. He 
 supposed it was all right, having some vague notions of rifles, 
 and game, and Hurons, and dead shots, from Mr. Cooper's 
 novels. But he would have answered the same had the man 
 suggested a musket or a blunderbuss. 
 
 " Stop a minute, sir," said the man, as he painted the target 
 with whitewash. " Now it's ready." 
 
 Mr. Straggles took the gun and aimed at the target in the 
 most approved style. He was one of those gentlemen who con- 
 stantly take aim with their walking-sticks at different objects, 
 to impress bystanders with a belief in their sporting propen- 
 sities. 
 
 " You haven't cocked it," said the man. 
 
 " Oh !" replied Mr. Straggles, " to be sure ; that's it. Now 
 then." 
 
 As the sight of the gun described various flourishes about 
 the bull's eye, Mr. Straggles pulled the trigger, and a black 
 mark appeared on the extreme verge of the target. 
 
 " That's not so bad, is it ?" asked Mr. Straggles. 
 
 iC Very good shot, sir," said the man. 
 
 " And all the shot are together, ain't they ?" 
 
 " Beg your pardon, sir ?" 
 
 " I mean, all the shot went out of the barrel in a heap." 
 
 " No, sir," said the man, smiling. " Eifle, sir, 's loaded with 
 ball." 
 
 " Oh, to be sure it is ! What a fool I am!" returned Straggles. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said the man. 
 
 Mr. Straggles fired away his eighteen-penny worth with vary- 
 ing success, and was then recommended to try and hit the 
 swinging bird, which hung from a string before the target. 
 But this he could by no means accomplish, and the bullets 
 went into the floor, and ceiling, and wall, and everywhere, in 
 fact, but near the wooden pigeon. 
 
 " It's very difficult," he said. " I think it must be because I 
 shut my eyes, to keep the cap from flying into them, when I 
 pull the trigger." 
 
 " Very likely, sir," said the man. " Gentlemen are often 
 taken so when they're not used to it." 
 
 " Oh ! I'm used to it enough," said Mr. Straggles, quite in- 
 dignant ; " but I'm nervous. I never could bear anything 
 swinging before my eyes. That hit him, though !" 
 
MR. STRAGGLES PREVAILED UPON TO GO A SHOOTING. 325 
 
 By chance it did. By the common laws of motion the bullet 
 was compelled to go somewhere, and that time it went against 
 the bird. The man complimented Mr. Straggles ; and he was 
 so pleased with his skill, that he wrote to Joe Tollit the next 
 morning, accepting his invitation ; and giving up cigars for the 
 time, spent all his money in shots until the day arrived. 
 
 In one of the streets between the squares of Soho and Lei- 
 cester, Mr. Straggles found out a valuable shop, which exists 
 still, for we passed it the other day. It was particularly calcu- 
 lated to attract incipient sportsmen, for the window was filled 
 with every implement for the field, set forth in the most allur- 
 ing manner. There were guns, air-canes, and pistols ; fiasks, 
 cartridges, and cap-holders; together with packets of gun- 
 powder, and in a corner such piles of catherine-wheels and 
 crackers, that had the house taken fire, there is no knowing 
 where the neighbours would have been blown to. And to ex- 
 cite timid sportsmen there were labels such as these : " Look ! 
 twisted barrels, patent breech, and back action — and all for 
 41 10s. !" or, " The real pheasant astonisher, only thirty shil- 
 lings !" And to an air-gun was affixed, " Fancy stunning down 
 a bird with this, and no keeper the wiser— three guineas !" 
 "Whilst a brace of pistols was labelled, " Men of England ! have 
 you your wives' or sisters' honour at heart ? Buy these for 
 two pound!" Mr. Straggles was overcome by the friendly 
 nature of these communications, and he bought several accou- 
 trements, including a packet of cartridges, one of which amused 
 him all night in dissecting, and wondering what its contents of 
 shot, sand, and little network wire cage could be meant for. 
 And when he considered that his arrangements were perfect, 
 he put himself into the third class of a slow train, and got out 
 at the nearest station to Bramblesly that evening. The even- 
 ing passed in chat with his friends, and about half-past ten— a 
 wholesome country hour — he retired to bed, all ready for his 
 first appearance, as a sort of Young Hawthorn, on the morrow. 
 With the first beams of the rising sun, Joe Tollit was at his 
 bedroom door ; and as soon as Mr. Straggles was dressed, he 
 set him to punch an old hat into small discs for wadding, which 
 occupied him until breakfast. During this meal, Joe was con- 
 stantly clicking the guns, to see that they were all right, to the 
 great terror of Mr. Straggles, as the barrels were generally 
 pointed to his head. They were not loaded, to be sure. Of 
 that he was aware : but empty guns occasionally did such won- 
 
326 WILD OATS. 
 
 derful things, that he was very glad when the direction was 
 altered. And at last, after breakfast, they went and let the 
 dogs loose, and started for their day ; Mr. Straggles being ac- 
 commodated with a donble-barrelled gun, which he had as much 
 notion of handling as if it had been a cornet-a-piston, and, 
 knowing this, he turned it off, saying, " Ah ! if that had been 
 a rifle I could have shown you something." 
 
 It was. not all fun at first. They had to walk over ploughed 
 fields, and into swamps, and through dreadful hedges, composed 
 entirely of blackberries, holly, and stinging-nettles. And Mr. 
 Straggles did not understand the dogs as he ought to have 
 done. He had formed his notions of their attitudes from a tin 
 pointer on a chimney-pot behind his chambers ; and not seeing 
 them copy this exactly, he occasionally gave them a kick on, 
 when they stopped, thinking they were pointing at rubbish ; 
 and then he was rebuked by Joe. For take it as a rule, that 
 in certain sports, as well as at whist, your dearest friend will 
 insult you, and you have no appeal. Now and then some birds 
 rose, and went whir-r-r-ring off, one of whom Joe generally 
 brought down; but if he didn't, Mr. Straggles was so long 
 taking his aim to make sure, that they got away comfortably, 
 before he fired, into foreign covers, and felt small. But he was 
 still self-confident outwardly, and always said, "Ah! they'd 
 better not come in my way again I" 
 
 They did not, however, come to the countless flocks of birds 
 Joe had spoken of, although the man with them beat the 
 bushes into splinters. Indeed, it seems an immutable fact in 
 all sporting invitations, that hopes held forth are seldom 
 realised. Tor if a man tells you as an inducement that some- 
 ' body caught twelve dozen gudgeon at a particular pitch the 
 day before, be sure you will never get a bite. Babbits vanish 
 underground, like barbel worms before a lantern, at the approach 
 of a visitor ; no one who had expressly asked a friend to course 
 ever found a hare ; and we should mistrust that day's subsist- 
 ence which depended upon all the birds brought down on 
 estates where they were said to be as thick as flies in a sugar- 
 tub. 
 
 After going on for some time without a chance, during which 
 Mr. Straggles longed to shoot at the small birds, but was not 
 allowed, Joe came to the conclusion that they had been fright- 
 ened into other covers. 
 
MB. STRAGGLES PREVAILED UPON TO GO A SHOOTING. 327 
 
 " There's a shaw over there," he said, as they at last halted 
 to take some refreshment, "which I know swarms with them." 
 
 "Ah!" gasped Mr. Straggles, as he put down a little tub, 
 from the cork-hole of which he had been taking a long pull of 
 ale. " "Well, let's go there." 
 
 " But you see it's not the governor's land ; it belongs to 
 Wovty, the brewer." 
 
 " Well, then, let's stop here, it's very jollv. Have you heard 
 ' The Standard-Bearer ?' " 
 
 Joe would not say he had not, because he foresaw Mr. 
 Straggles would oiler to sing it, and then the dav would end in 
 conviviality. So he said he knew it well, and so nipped the 
 symphony in the bud, which his friend was beginning to hum ; 
 and then he added, " Our lands join, to be sure ; so if we skirt 
 the copse, we may do something. Come on." 
 
 They started off again, but with no greater success ; still 
 they kept hearing shots around them, which proved there must 
 be some birds somewhere, until Joe got desperate, and, cross- 
 ing the boundary, plunged into the adjoining property, telling 
 Straggles to follow him, as well as he could, through the 
 tangled brake. 
 
 " I say, Joe!" said Air. Straggles, suddenly, from the centre 
 of a nut-bush. 
 
 " "Well, what is it ?" asked his friend, who was down in a 
 quarry. 
 
 " I see a pheasant ; shall I shoot him r" 
 
 " Of course; but put him up first." 
 
 " No, I can hit him better as he sits. Here goes." 
 
 Air. Straggles took his aim, and pulled the trigger. Bang- 
 bang ! went both barrels in rapid sequence ; and the echoes 
 carried out the sound into a prolonged rumble like thunder 
 round the corner of the world. 
 
 « Why— I say, Joe— I'm d ." 
 
 "We break off; there is no occasion to state what Mr. Strag- 
 gles said he was. 
 
 " Well, what's the matter r" inquired his friend. 
 
 ""Why, he's sitting there just the same as ever; not even 
 frightened." 
 
 Joe climbed up the side of the old quarry as his friend spoke, 
 and looked in the direction of the furzes. 
 
 " Why, Stragg3," he said, "that's a wooden dummy, put up 
 
328 WILD OATS. 
 
 there to trap the poachers. What a pity to have wasted your 
 powder and shot upon it." 
 
 " Never mind," replied Mr. Straggles ; " ' on we goes again,' 
 as they say" — he was getting ahead with the effects of the 
 ale—" I'll punish 'em yet." 
 
 " Hush !" said Joe ; " I thought I heard voices." 
 
 " No," said Mr. Straggles ; " echoes, Joe, nothing more. 
 Listen!" 
 
 And hereupon he imitated a cornet-a-piston with the air of 
 " The Standard-Bearer," and waited for the echo. But there 
 was none. 
 
 " Ah ! that's nothing," he said ; " some echoes only repeat 
 voices, not notes. There !" he continued, as he gave the finish- 
 ing ram down to his charges. "I should think that would 
 doit." 
 
 " I'd rather keep away from you," said Mr. Tollit, " if you've 
 no objection." 
 
 " Not at all," observed Straggles. " I'd rather ; then, if I hit 
 a bird, we shall be sure about who's done it." 
 
 The pair accordingly separated. They forced their way 
 through the copse, and were now upon a ridge of furze field 
 that sloped down towards another shaw similar to the one they 
 had just left. Mr. Straggles was first, and was pushing vigo- 
 rously on, when a pheasant rose from the lea below them, and 
 the same instant a voice exclaimed, " Mark !" 
 
 " Go on!" cried Joe, earnestly. " Here, Juno! Eover! come 
 here! Straggs, do you hear? go on! go on!" 
 
 " I'm a going," said Mr. Straggles, misunderstanding him ; 
 and again, bang-bang ! went both his barrels, and the bird fell. 
 
 Elated with his success, he rushed towards where he con- 
 ceived it would be found. He bounded over the fern like a 
 fawn — pushed through the furze as if his legs had been adamant, 
 and rushed through the saplings like a thunderbolt, until he 
 came to the clump of nut-trees into which the bird had fallen. 
 As he drove through it, a gentleman and two keepers received 
 him. 
 
 " Oh ! that is it, is it ?" said the gentleman. " And pray, 
 sir, who are you ?" 
 
 Mr. Straggles was so frightened that he could scarcely speak. 
 He had read of affrays with poachers, in the newspapers, and 
 imagined that he was to be shot forthwith. 
 
ME. STRAGGLES PREVAILED UPON TO GO A SHOOTING. 329 
 
 " Where's your license, sir ?" continued the gentleman. 
 
 A flash of hope illumined Mr. Straggles's mind. He called 
 to memory a legend he had heard, that nobody could ask for a 
 license without showing his own ; so he gasped forth : 
 
 " Show me yours first." 
 
 The gentleman directly complied ; and took from his pocket 
 a flimsy piece of paper, printed upon with green ink, acknow- 
 ledging the receipt of four pounds and tenpence from the 
 owner. 
 
 " And now, sir, let me see yours," he continued. 
 
 Poor Mr. Straggles ! He might as well have asked for a 
 thousand-pound bank-note. Anything like a license could not 
 be found ; and although he called Joe as loud as he could, and 
 explained that he was a friend of a neighbour, the gentleman 
 would not believe him, but told his keepers to take him into 
 custody ; and between them both Mr. Straggles was walked 
 off from the copse, and, for lack of a round-house, deposited 
 as a poacher in a high-walled-in coal-yard of the gentleman's 
 house. 
 
 And so passed the first day of Mr. Straggles's shooting ex- 
 pedition. What adventures his subsequent day with the har- 
 riers gave rise to, tbe following chapter will show. 
 
( 330 ) 
 
 XLIL 
 
 MR. STRAGGLES HAS A DAT WITH THE HARRIERS, AND 
 RENOUNCES SPORTING LIFE. 
 
 The residence of Mr. Tollit, to which Mr. Straggles returned 
 with great joy after his respectability had been ascertained, and 
 he had been released from the coal-hole by the gentleman who 
 had seized him as a poacher, was an old country farm-house. 
 The parlour was kept, like the bright poker in the grate, more 
 for show than use, as generally the family resided in the large 
 kitchen ; and the front door had as idle a time of it as the great 
 one of St. Paul's that faces Ludgate-hill, which appears only to 
 have been made to be kept shut. On high holidays both were 
 thrown open, but these came but seldom ; and the usual ingress 
 to the house was through the back door from the farm-yard. 
 Mr. Tollit and his son were regarded by Mr. Straggles in the 
 light of that class of relationship, now in its decadence, known 
 as country cousins. "We say in its decadence, since it has been 
 ordained that everything in the world should become extinct 
 after a certain time, whether animated or inorganic. In the 
 remains of the vestiges of creation which frighten the holiday 
 people at the Eritish Museum, we find the ichthyosaurus, the 
 ammonite, the mammoth, and a vast crowd of monsters terrible 
 to behold, upon the total disappearance of which we have every 
 reason to congratulate ourselves. In later times, amongst 
 things which were, but are believed in no longer, are execu- 
 tions, high art, five-act plays, stage coachmen, great actors, and 
 Dutch weather houses. Young ladies declare that offers are 
 getting every day more scarce ; so are old English gentlemen, 
 prize-fights, and fair horse-races ; and country cousins are now 
 passing away as well. 
 
 When Mr. Straggles first recollected his old world friends 
 the Tollits, things were differently constituted. They had al- 
 ways lived at Bramblesly, but then the journey was an under- 
 taking. An anomalous gig, something between a private cab 
 
MK. STRAGGLES HAS A DAY WITH THE HARRIERS. 331 
 
 and a dog-cart, had to start at some irregular hour, elaborate 
 to remember, and meet the coach in the dim morning twilight, 
 traversing a route that was along a track of ruts crossing a 
 common, on either side of which the fog hung heavily upon the 
 gossamers that sway in grey festoons from heath to furze bush. 
 There were various motives, too, for this journey. It might be 
 love, or law, or physic ; it might be an ambition to talk of town 
 and seize the fashions ; sometimes it oscillated between polite- 
 ness and dividends. But travelling was then a matter of toil 
 and importance, and a real motive was always put forward by 
 the Tollits as an excuse for their visit. They never came to 
 town upon a mere whim. 
 
 It then happened that Mr. Straggles used to take beds for 
 them at an hotel. Their common resort, with many others of 
 the same class, was the Sussex Hotel, an establishment bounded 
 on the west by Bouverie-street, Eleet-street, and on the east 
 by the Bolt-in-Tun coach-office. There were inns much nearer 
 to Mr. Straggles' s chambers, but the Tollits always went there, 
 because the coach that came from their part of the world went 
 there too. The distance between them was that uncomfortable 
 one which would have been an eighteenpenny fare if it could, 
 but it couldn't ; and so the journey was always enlivened, by 
 an argument with the coachman — cabs were not patronised 
 then— who invariably got the best of it, until the Tollits bought 
 a little Book of Pares, which they carried about with them in 
 preference to their watches, and which was distinguished in 
 always having the fares between all places but those which they 
 wanted. 
 
 The Bolt-in-Tun is much changed now ; quiet country gen- 
 tlemen, who knew it when they were obliged to sleep in town, 
 but never do so now in consequence of the quick transit, would 
 hardly recognise it. Then there were galleries running round 
 it which made strangers imagine they were going to bed out of 
 doors ; and at certain hours of the day the visitors would 
 appear from the sleeping-rooms that looked down into the yard, 
 awaiting the arrival of the stage-coach to learn the local news. 
 And there were plenty of coaches then in the yard of the Bolt- 
 in-Tun — heavy, florid vehicles, like so many apoplectic ele- 
 phants, snoozing under the sheds until the ostlers dragged 
 them forth to be washed and dressed. All night long they 
 rattled in and out, teaching country folks by the noise that 
 
332 WILD OATS. 
 
 the j were in Loudon ; and in the intervals of their clatter, 
 restless horses stamped and snorted, and shook their harness 
 in adjacent stables, at which they arrived by going up and down 
 inclined planes, like the approaches to the steam-boat piers, or 
 the platform of Astley's, along which the " Untamed Horse of 
 the Tartar horde of Circassia" bears the rightful prince from 
 his enemies, or brings him to succour female innocence, just in 
 the nick of time. But now the coaches have all gone — no one 
 can tell for a certainty where to — the rickety, fore-shortened 
 railway omnibus that shuffles up to the door of the booking- 
 office, and is generally off again before any one knows that it 
 has arrived, but ill makes up for the deficiency. 
 
 In those old times Mr. Straggles was proud to go about town 
 with the Tollits, since, whatever was the exciting cause of the 
 visit, it always had the same results — seeing sights and spend- 
 ing money — and he used to feel that he was, as it were, their 
 Mentor. They began to buy things immediately on their 
 arrival. The Jews who haunted the front of the Elephant 
 and Castle found amongst them the readiest customers for 
 their wares, from the Annual with the worn-out plates, to the 
 pewter pencil-case w T ith the flawed glass seal at the top. And 
 there appeared to be resorts especially appropriated to them, 
 which Mr. Straggles seemed to know little about, although he 
 would not confess it. Exeter- change and Miss Linwood's were 
 in high favour. Cranbourne-alley was alone thought trust- 
 worthy with respect to bonnets, and the corner of St. Paul's 
 as regarded books. Alack ! Exeter-change is changed altoge- 
 ther; its cutlery has cut itself, and its beasts have become 
 denizens of another district ; they have avoided the desert of 
 the modern Exeter Arcadia. Miss Linwood is no more, and 
 her cause has yielded to that of more distressed needlewomen ; 
 the fast, shuffling quietude of Cranbourne-alley no longer 
 exists, and the female touters at the doors of the shops appear 
 to shrink from the bustle of the new thoroughfare. The 
 " Scenes in Europe" have retired from St. Paul's Churchyard 
 before Mr. Grant's work of high-pressure, forty-Peter Parley 
 power ; and the spirit of philosophy has been diluted into negus 
 to suit juvenile palates. 
 
 AYe laugh at a yokel in London, but a Cockney in the country 
 is a far more contemptible person, and this Mr. Straggles began 
 to feel. For the changes pervading everything did not allow 
 
MR. STEAGGLES HAS A DAY WITH THE HAREIERS. 333 
 
 him to assume that mental superiority over the Tollits which 
 he once did. Formerly they were delighted to go everywhere, 
 and see anything : all the singers at the Opera were equally 
 unknown to them, and sometimes they proffered a quiet pe- 
 tition for a playbill. But what the newspapers called " faci- 
 lity of communication" had made them almost as sharp as Mr. 
 Straggles conceived himself to be. Illustrated newspapers, ra- 
 pidly brought down to their home, gave them an idea of the 
 theatres, exhibitions, fashions, and lions, as soon as himself — 
 nay, sooner — for it is proverbial that those living in town are 
 the last to see anything in it. Periodicals of every kind — 
 funny ones with cuts, and sober ones without — put them up to 
 that horological knowledge popularly known as " the time of 
 day ;" and London lecturers, whisked down to their literary in- 
 stitutions, left no fresh points of scientific discovery a novelty. 
 In fact, a visit to town had almost become a " little go," to 
 which the Tollits came up as knowing as Mr. Straggles himself: 
 in fact, more so, being as perfectly crammed in one way as col- 
 legians in another. So he was much puzzled how to keep up 
 his character. He found they knew everything, from Jenny 
 Lind to gutta-percha; but he was innately deficient in sporting 
 and agricultural matters, and therefore he determined to as- 
 sume a knowledge of everything as far as he was able. 
 
 " Straggs," observed Mr. Tollit, junior, as they sat in the 
 kitchen before the huge fire, at which two fowls were roasting 
 before the wood embers, to the great astonishment of the 
 gentleman addressed — " Straggs, what [are you like outside a 
 horse ?" 
 
 It was a home question. "With less uneasiness the member 
 of a respectable pious country family might have been asked, 
 " what was his opinion of Carlotta Grrisi compared with 
 Ellsler." So Mr. Straggles, after a moment's incertitude, re- 
 plied : 
 
 "Oh— all right!" 
 
 " I'm glad of that," said Joe, "because Jack Easper's har- 
 riers are coming over here to-morrow, and we are going to 
 mount you, just by way of a change. The governor said he 
 was sure you'd take a fence." 
 
 " Take offence!" observed Mr. Straggles; " what at ?" 
 
 "At?" replied Joe; "anything: a double ditch, with a 
 quickset in the middle — an ox-rail — a row of hurdles — or a light 
 
334 WILD OATS. 
 
 park paling. "We'll put you on something that will take you 
 over them if you can stick on." 
 
 Stick on ! * It had a terrible sound. It spoke of that im- 
 pressive sort of horsemanship, that clinging ride of terror and 
 incertitude which characterised the equestrianism of a monkey. 
 And yet Mr. Straggles did not like to confess his feeble- 
 mindedness on this point to his " country cousins." He found 
 that they could criticise Alboni and speak of the Nassau bal- 
 loon as readily as he could himself, and therefore, determined 
 not to appear behind them, he accepted the proffered steed. 
 
 Not without many misgivings, though ; for his practice in 
 riding had hitherto been very limited. He had, it is true, 
 gone on donkeys to Pegwell Bay, and the place near Gravesend 
 where the watercresses grow ; and he had once ventured into 
 the Park upon a hack horse, where he had contrived to keep his 
 seat, albeit the many salutations he received from ill-condi- 
 tioned boys, on his journey thither, had well-nigh abashed him. 
 But he would not confess his fears ; and he thanked Mr. Tollit 
 as coolly as though he had been accustomed to take stone walls 
 and five-barred gates every day of his life. 
 
 " Old Jack will be just the thiDg for you," said Joe, " be- 
 cause he knows the country. He's rather high actioned, but 
 that's a fault on the right side ; because he won't come down 
 like your daisy-clippers that shuffle a penny-piece from a 
 turnpike road. I don't think you have any top-boots, have 
 you?" 
 
 Mr. Straggles had not — in fact, he might just as well have 
 been asked for a pair of epaulettes or a turban from his ward- 
 robe. 
 
 " Ah, never mind," said Joe; "we'll fit you out in proper 
 style. You can have those, if you like." 
 
 Mr. Tollit pointed to a pair that were lying up in a corner, 
 and were of that kind which John Bull is always accustomed 
 to wear, according to popular pictorial authority. They were 
 heavy and large, with brown tops and round toes ; and looked 
 as it they could have done duty upon emergency for the cele- 
 brated seven-league boots of the legend. 
 
 " "Why, I could get into them altogether," said Mr. Straggles, 
 as he looked, first at them, and then at his own ten-and-six- 
 penny Alberts. "If I wore them I could never lift my legs." 
 " Oh yes you could," said Joe. " Besides, if they are so 
 
MR. STRAGGLES HAS A DAY WITH THE HARRIERS. 335 
 
 heavy, what of that? — they'll steady you, you know, when you're 
 once up, with their weight on each side." 
 
 And to prove the truth of this assertion by a model, Mr. 
 Tollit stuck two forks in a cork, which he afterwards elevated 
 on a pin, and then made the entire apparatus revolve and 
 oscillate on the foot of an inverted wine-glass. 
 
 " There, don't you see ?" he went on, " you can't knock it 
 over ; you're the cork, you know, and the forks are your legs 
 and boots. They'll be regular ballast to you ; you'll never get 
 lopsided if you wear them." 
 
 The night that Mr. Straggles passed, after the hour of bed- 
 time arrived, was indeed a fearful one. Half dozing, he was 
 haunted by vivid pictures of all the equestrian mischances that 
 had ever occurred. John Griipin kept flying round his bed, as 
 he had seen him pictured, wigless and scared, with the two 
 broken bottles hanging against his hips. The unfortunate Mr. 
 Button, whose fearful ride to Brentford was only equalled by 
 that of Burger's Leonora in horror, appeared going through 
 all those rapid acts of horsemanship that have become matters 
 of history, riding now on the neck, and now on the extreme 
 verge of the crupper, with his face to the tail, or across the 
 horse like a sack, with all the other remarkable positions which 
 that devoted tailor was made to assume. Then he called to 
 mind the story of the nobleman, who, staying at a friend's 
 house, after a day with the hounds, upon being called to go to 
 cover the next morning, cried, with an air of haggard mistrust, 
 " What ! do people go hunting twice ?" And, lastly, he recol- 
 lected an uncomfortable book upon the Epping Hunt, with 
 pictures of dilemmas more perilous than any one man could 
 have been supposed to have survived ; as well as a set of 
 coloured prints of some great steeple-chase, where, from the 
 start to the come in, the view had always been taken just as a 
 gentleman rider had been pitched upon his head, or been left 
 behind a " double," or plumped into a brook, or gone over al- 
 together with his horse, as if upon an invisible centrifugal rail- 
 way. And these desperate scenes merging into his sleeping 
 visions, kept him starting from his slumbers all night, with the 
 impression that he was falling from the roof of a house, fashioned 
 like a saddle on a mighty horse. 
 
 Bright Chanticleer proclaimed the day at last, according to 
 his custom on hunting mornings. And Mr. Straggles awoke 
 
336 WILD OATS. 
 
 from his uurefreshing sleep. Nothing, however, is ever in 
 reality so terrible as we fancy it in the dead of night, and the 
 sunlight reassured him ; so much so, indeed, that as he was 
 dressing, he began to sing " The Standard-Bearer," and from 
 this he went into various appropriate melodies connected with 
 southerly winds and cloudy skies ; and " harked forward" more 
 than once as he was shaving, and said "Tantivy!" But he 
 used this latter word in a reckless manner, not exactly knowing 
 what it meant, or at what especial time it ought to be spoken 
 — whether it applied to particular positions in the chase, or 
 whether it was an expression of joy which might be indulged 
 in at any period, as Scotch gentlemen are wont to shout 
 "Hoo !" in a reel. 
 
 Still Mr. Straggles was not perfectly at ease ; his gaiety was 
 of that forced, reflection-drowning kind which Mr. Punch in- 
 dulges in when he sings on the very eve of his execution. He 
 did not make a good breakfast, in spite of Mr. Tollit's urgent 
 recommendation to him " to lay in a good foundation," in 
 which country folks imagine the whole secret of health and 
 longevity is comprised. However, he contrived to get into the 
 boots, rather than put them on ; and as they were large enough 
 for him to tuck his trousers' legs into, he did not require knee- 
 breeches. His terror now increased : he heard the sound of 
 gathering men and horses in the homestall, and, as the clock 
 struck ten, Mr. Tollit told him all the preparations were com- 
 pleted, put a whip in his hand, and then the melancholy pro- 
 cession — so to speak — started. 
 
 There were a great many people in the farm-yard, and the 
 owner of the pack, to whom Mr. Tollit bad given his permission 
 to come, was carrying on an animated conversation with the 
 dogs. 
 
 " Law !" observed Mr. Straggles, as he saw them ; " I 
 thought they would be greyhounds. Don't greyhounds hunt 
 hares ? I've got a picture of some doing it." 
 
 " That's coursing," said Mr. Tollit ; " all very well, but slow 
 fun to what we are going at. No, these are the right sort — 
 crosses between the heavy old harriers and the little fox 
 beagles — all bone and nose; too good almost for thistle- 
 whippers." 
 
 " Slow fun to what we are going at!" repeated Mr. Straggles 
 to himself. "Why, in the picture he alluded to, the horses 
 
ME. STRAGGLES HAS A DAY WITH THE HAEEIEES. 337 
 
 were going at a splitting gallop as it was ; what could lie be 
 expected to do more. He was so struck by this idea, that lie lost 
 Mr. Tollit's remarks, and was only recalled by that gentleman's 
 observing, 
 
 " Now, here comes Old Jack. Come, Straggs ; now's your 
 time." 
 
 The horse was brought — a tall, bony, Irish animal, that looked 
 as if it could have taken a barn on an emergency. 
 
 " Stop a minute," said Joe ; "you can't reach the stirrup. 
 Here, Oakes, give Mr. Straggles a leg up." 
 
 To show his alacrity, Mr. Straggles gave a lively sprint, and 
 the man hoisted him up at the same time, but with such power, 
 that he shot him clean over, and he came down on the other 
 side. 
 
 "Never mind, Straggs," cried Joe, laughing ; " you'll soon 
 be used to it. Now — up ! — that's it. How are the stirrups ?" 
 
 " Oh, they're all right," replied Straggles, who was sittino- 
 with the leathers so short that his knees almost met over the 
 pommel. 
 
 " No, that won't do ; you must let them out five holes at 
 least," continued Joe. " There, that's better, isn't it ? Now 
 you are " 
 
 " Quite jolly," replied Mr. Straggles ; but the air of comfort 
 was but put on. He spoke it, as the boy who first gets into 
 cold water, when bathing, gasps out, " B-b-b-beautiful !" to his 
 fellows on the bank, in reply to their questions concerning 
 temperature. 
 
 " That's all right," said Mr. Tollit. " Now keep by me, and 
 I promise you we shall be well up with the dogs. My gal- 
 loway has beaten many a thorough-bred, but then I know all the 
 fences." 
 
 " I don't care particularly to be up with the dogs," suggested 
 Mr. Straggles, mildly. 
 
 " Ob, but I do. Keep your knees firm to the saddle, and 
 your toes straight forward, or you'll be nicely caught by a gate- 
 post, if two or three go through at once." 
 
 Mr. Straggles did immediately as he was directed. In fact, if 
 he could have tied his legs in a double knot under the horse's 
 girths he would have done it. 
 
 They rode about the fields for a little time, opening gates aud 
 shifting hurdles all very pleasantly, and Mr. Straggles said he 
 
 z 
 
338 WILD OATS. 
 
 liked it very much. But "before long a hare was found, the 
 dogs gave tongue, and off they started. 
 
 Away they went — through the copse and over the turnip- 
 field, down the lane and across the water — splash — like a whirl 
 of leaves blown along by the autumn wind, and at last they 
 came to a large meadow which the dogs crossed diagonally. 
 
 " I — say — Joe !" exclaimed Mr. Straggles, convulsively, as he 
 wanted four hands to hold the reins, his hat, his whip, and the 
 pommel of the saddle all at once — " I — say — Joe — how — are — 
 we — to — get — out — of — here ?" 
 
 " Over the ditch," replied his friend ; " see there, where 
 those fellows are taking it." 
 
 Mr. Straggles with difficulty looked ahead, and saw various 
 mounted forms rising up on the horizon of the field, and then 
 coining off and away again. " Oh dear !" he said to himself, 
 v ' here it comes !" 
 
 " Now hold fast, Straggs," cried Joe; " I'll go ahead." 
 
 The dreaded spot seemed advancing towards him rather than 
 he nearing it. As it approached, he pushed his hat on tight, 
 clutched the reins, and shut his eyes. There was a violent jolt ; 
 he felt himself doing dreadful things in the air that the Bedouin 
 Arabs would have failed in, and the next instant, with an in- 
 tense shock, he was sitting on some ploughed ground on the 
 other side of the fence, the horse remaining on the bank he had 
 just quitted. 
 
 " Why, Straggs ! man alive !" cried Mr. Tollit, who had gone 
 over like a bird, " how the devil did you come there ?" 
 
 " Ah ! I wish I knew," answered his friend, completely be- 
 wildered. " Which side am I ?" 
 
 " Oh ! all right ; you shouldn't have checked the rein just as 
 you were going to leap. Lookout ! Old Jack's a coming." 
 
 And the horse, who knew his business well, cleared the ditch 
 and Mr. Straggles too, as Joe caught him by the bridle. 
 
 " There, never mind," cried Mr. Tollit ; "jump up." 
 
 "I can't," replied Mr. Straggles, who was not yet quite 
 satisfied whether he was a mass of broken bones or not. 
 
 " Pshaw ! wait a minute. Now then — up ! There you are 
 
 again." 
 
 Mr. Tollit had got off his horse, and given a second " leg 
 up" to Mr. Straggles, who acquitted himself this time rather 
 better. 
 
ME. STKAGGLES HAS A DAY WITH THE HAEPJERS. 339 
 
 Once more they were off, Joe trying to make up for lost time 
 as he flew on, over the furrows, like the wind. But now Mr. 
 Straggles was not so ardent. He held back behind his friend, 
 who, eager to join the others, did not see what he was about 
 until he had got far ahead of him, and when they had all cleared 
 away round a shaw, he pulled up to breathe and recover him- 
 self. 
 
 "Whilst thus occupied, as he gazed into the next field he fan- 
 cied he saw the hare running in an opposite direction to that 
 in which she had just been going ; in fact, puss had made a 
 sharp double and followed it up, and Mr. Straggles' s knowledge 
 of sporting matters went just so far as to assure him that such 
 had been the case. 
 
 u Ha! ha!" he said, "now I think I can astonish them a 
 little." As he turned back, he saw the hounds scrambling over 
 the bank at the top of the next field ; and, determined to be 
 even with them, he made a dash at the small ditch that sepa- 
 rated them, and in an instant was amongst them. In vain the 
 huntsman shouted ; Mr. Straggles, elate with his position, kept 
 tearing on, thinking that now or never was the time to retrieve 
 his character, and soon beneath Old Jack's hoofs the dogs 
 were being sent about in all directions, At last, seeing an un- 
 comfortable row of hurdles ahead, he pulled up, and the next 
 instant the owner of the pack was by his side. 
 
 i; What the (something) are you about, you infernal scoun- 
 drel!" he cried; "take that, you (something else) tailoring snob!" 
 
 And as he spoke, he made the lash of his heavy hunting-whip 
 wind round Mr. Straggles's shoulders each time, with stinging: 
 torce. 
 
 " Leave me alone !" screamed our hapless friend ; " I couldn't 
 help it ! Oh dear ! Hi ! Joe — Joe Tollit ! Leave me alone !" 
 Again was the arm raised for punishment, when Mr. Tollit 
 fortunately came up ; and poor Straggles, who had not that 
 insensibility to the "horrors of the lash" which is only enjoyed 
 by the clowns of the ring, appealed to him in writhing and 
 piteous accents for an explanation. This was given, and all 
 amends made immediately with the ready heartiness of an 
 English sportsman. 
 
 Mr. Straggles hunted no more that day, nor, indeed, did he 
 
 z2 
 
340 WILD OATS. 
 
 ever again ; the next morning he packed up his things and re- 
 turned to town, still sore with his chastisement as regarded his 
 shoulders, and not less uncomfortable generally from his un- 
 wonted horsemanship. He has returned to his profession, and 
 made a holy vow never to plunge into sporting life again, but in 
 future to confine his fishiDg to that for crabs from the end of 
 the Chain Pier ; his shooting to after dinner — eighteen-penny- 
 worth at the gallery in Leicester-square, or for nuts with per- 
 cussion-caps at Greenwich ; and his riding to that tranquil 
 domestic exercise which Gravesend and Thanet, or the more 
 contiguous expanse of the mild Blackheath, can afford, without 
 risk of neck-breaking or horsewhipping. 
 
L E N R A. 
 
 (from bcrger.) 
 
 Theee have been so many excellent translations done of this 
 powerful Ballad, that some little apology should be made for 
 offering the present one to the reader. But the metre of the 
 original has not been strictly preserved in any I have seen ; and, 
 in consequence, the Poem loses much of its impressiveness. In 
 the following attempt, I have carefully kept to the metre ; and 
 in some lines the words are in the exact order of the original ; 
 indeed, I have sacrificed everything to make it as close and literal 
 as possible. But for this intention many of the verses might 
 have been considerably improved.- 
 
I. 
 
 £enore fuf)r um^ sjftorgenrotf) 
 (£mpor cms fdbftxren Srdumen : 
 ,,35tfl untreu, 5Bii&elm, ober tobt? 
 3Bie lange rmttjl bu faumen ?" — 
 (gr war mit SSonig griebridf)'* SJtadbt 
 @qoa,en in bte ^rager ©#lad&t, 
 Unb {>attc nicbt gefcfrrtcben, 
 Db cr Qcfunb gcHte&cn. 
 
 ii. 
 
 S)cr .^t*ntg unb bte ^atferinn, 
 
 £>c$ langcn ioabcr^ mube, 
 
 (Srftmcbten ijiren Garten 6inn, 
 
 Unb macbten cnblidb ftriebe ; 
 
 Unb jebd freer, mit €>ing unb ©ana,, 
 
 SJlit 3>au!cnf*laci un5 Sling unb Shane, 
 
 ©cfd)mutff mit grunen SReifern, 
 
 gog jmm ju feinen frdufern. 
 
I E N B A. 
 
 I. 
 
 Le^oka at the blush of day, 
 
 Prom heavy slumbers started, 
 " Art dead, or faithless, "Wilhelm r say, 
 
 How long must we be parted ?" 
 He was with Frederick's armed might, 
 At Prague, and there engaged jui fight, 
 Had sent no word or token, 
 To prove his health unbroken. 
 
 ii. 
 
 The Empress and the Prussian King, 
 
 Weary of constant striving, 
 Their stubborn natures softening, 
 
 Saw peace at last arriving. 
 And all the troops rejoiced and sang, 
 With kettle-drums and martial clang, 
 Their arms with green boughs twining, 
 Towards their homes inclining:. 
 
 :d in Ug 
 
344 WILD OATS. 
 
 III. 
 
 Unb itberall, all uberall, 
 
 5luf 2Bcgen unb auf ©tcc^en, 
 
 S09 TO unb ^una, 5cm Subclfcfcall 
 
 £>cr $ommcnben enfa.cgen. 
 
 „@offlob !" rlcf £irib unb ©afttnttfaut, 
 
 „£BinfomtitC!t!" mand)c frol;e 23rauf. 
 
 5ld)! aber fur £enorcn 
 
 ■ffiar ©ruf unb $tij? eerloren. 
 
 IT. 
 
 ©te frug ben 3u$ mo&l auf unb otv 
 
 Unb frua, nad) alien SRamen ; 
 
 5>odb Reiner war, ber $unbfcbaff gab, 
 
 33on Allien, fo t>a famen. 
 
 51 U nun ber Quo, fcoruber mar, 
 
 gerraufte fie tin 3tabtnfyaat, 
 
 Unb marf ftd) £in jur (Srbc 
 
 Wit mutter ©eberbe. 
 
 y. 
 
 £)ie gutter lief mol fun ju ij)r : — 
 
 ,,5ld), baf ftcb ©oft erbarme! 
 
 £>u trautel £inb, ma$ tjl mtt bir ?"— 
 
 Unb faMof? ftc in bic virtue. — 
 
 „ „D Gutter, flutter ! gtttt iff $in! 
 
 *Run fo&re SKclt unb TO«i 6tn ! 
 
 §3ei ©off tjl fctn (Srbarmen. 
 
 £> me£, mc& mtr airmen !"" — 
 
 VI. 
 
 ,,|)tlf, ©off, j)ilf! <£ic& un$ gnabig an! 
 $tnb, bef cin 23aferunfer! 
 2Ba$ ©off f&ut, ba* tjl mol)la,efj)an. 
 ©off, ©off crbarmf fid) unfer!"— 
 „ „D buffer, bluffer ! gifler 2Ba&n ! 
 ©off j)af an mir ntcbf rooi)la,ef()an ! 
 2Ba$ fcalf, ma* ()alf mein §3efcn ? 
 *Run iji'S nidbf me^r (Jonn5ffK'tt." // — 
 
LENOBA. 345 
 
 ill. 
 
 And everywhere — all, all around, 
 Prom roads and pathways meeting, 
 
 Both old and young, with joyous sound, 
 Went forth to give their greeting. 
 
 " Thank God !" the child and wife outcried, 
 
 And " Welcome !" many a happy bride : 
 
 Lenora, only, misses 
 
 The warm embrace and kisses. 
 
 IT. 
 
 And up and down, amidst the brave, 
 She new, each name repeating ; 
 
 But none the information gave 
 Of all that warlike meeting. 
 
 And when the train had passed elsewhere, 
 
 She tore her locks of raven hair, 
 
 To earth her fair form flinging, 
 
 Her hands in frenzy wringing. 
 
 Her mother ran to her, and cried, 
 " With mercy, Heaven, invest her, 
 
 What ill can my dear child betide r" 
 And in her fond arms pressed her. 
 
 " Oh, mother — gone is gone for aye, 
 
 The world and all may pass away, 
 
 God has no kindness done me. 
 
 Oh woe ! oh woe upon me !" 
 
 VI. 
 
 " Help, God ! help ! Leave us not unblest 
 
 Pray to Him to befriend us. 
 What is His will, is for the best, 
 
 God ! God ! some comfort send us !" 
 " Oh, mother, mother ! foolish plea ! 
 God has done nothing well for me ! 
 My prayers unhelped, unheeded, 
 Shall never more be needed !" 
 
346 WILD OATS. 
 
 YII. 
 
 „#«f, ©oft, &ilf ! 2Ber ben SSattv fcnnf, 
 £)er metf, er fytlft ben ^inbern. 
 S)a$ {jocbgeloMc ©aframent 
 SBirb betnen jammer Unbcm." — 
 „„D Gutter, Gutter! roa$ mid) brennt, 
 S)a$ linbert mtr fctn Saframent ! 
 &ein ©aframenf mag £eben 
 S)en Sobten mteber geben."" 
 
 tiii. 
 
 r&bx* Stinb! 2Bte menu ber falfcbe *mann 
 
 3m fernen Ungcrlanbe, 
 
 @icb feineS ©laubenS afcgctljatt 
 
 gum neuen <£fycbanbe? 
 
 £a£ fasten, Stinb, fcin fterj bajjin ! 
 
 @r £at es" ntmmermebr ©ettnnn ! 
 
 SOSann ©eel' unb £etb jicfo frennen, 
 
 2Birb i{m fetn ^ctneib brennen." 
 
 IX. 
 
 „ „D muttcv, flutter ! £in if! &tn ! 
 
 IBerloren if! fccrloren! 
 
 £>er Sob, ber Sob tjl mcin ©ewinn ! 
 
 D mar' td) nte a,eboren ! 
 
 Stfdb au$, metn*£td)t, auf emig au$ ! 
 
 (2>ftrb f)in, ftirb jutt in 9lad)t unb ©rauS ! 
 
 fSei ©ott ift fcin (grbarmen ! 
 
 D mej), o mel) mtr Airmen!""— 
 
 x. 
 
 „£Uf, ©off, 5>tlf I @ef)' nid)£ ins ©erid;t 
 9Jttt bcincm armen $tnbe ! 
 ©ie roeif? nicbt, roaS btejgunge fpriaM. 
 25c£alt' t£r nicbt bie ©unbe !— 
 5ld) ! $tnb, fcera,tf? bein irbifd) £eib. 
 Unb ben! an ©ott unb ©celigfeit ! 
 ©o fturb bod) beiner ©eelen 
 S)er SSraufigam nid)t fefylen." 
 
LEXORA. 
 
 VII. 
 
 " Help, God ! the True Believers know 
 Their gloom His aid can brighten : 
 
 The hallowed sacramental vow, 
 Thy misery shall lighten.'' 
 
 " Oh, mother, this consuming rage, 
 
 ]So sacrament can e'er assuage ; 
 
 JSo sacrament e'er taken, 
 
 Has power the dead to waken." 
 
 Tin. 
 
 " List, child. Perchance thy lover now, 
 
 In distant lands united, 
 In falsehood has renounced his vow, 
 
 To some new marriage plighted. 
 So let him go. His love thus o'er, 
 His heart shall never profit more ; 
 "When soul and body sever, 
 His pangs shall last for ever." 
 
 IX. 
 
 " Oh, mother— mother ! Gone is gone ! 
 
 The past, the past is ended ! 
 Death— death is now my gain alone, 
 
 "Why was I born unfriended ? 
 Be quenched my light— be quenched for aye, 
 In night and horror die away. 
 God hath no kindness done me, 
 Oh woe ! oh woe upon me 
 
 347 
 
 p» 
 
 " Help, God ! nor into judgment go, 
 
 On this poor child's expressions ; 
 What her tongue says, she does not know : 
 
 Eecord not her transgressions. 
 Forget all earthly woe, like this, 
 Think but on God and heavenly bliss ; 
 Then to thy spirits panting, 
 No bridegroom shall be wanting." 
 
348 WILD OATS. 
 
 XI. 
 
 „ „D Gutter! 2Ba$ iff ©cligMt ? 
 D Gutter! 2$a$ ijl £Mle ? 
 f35ct ifyrn, bet i&m tji ©cligfeit, 
 Unbofme2BUMm£one!— 
 gtfd) au$, mcin £td)f, auf eroig an* ! 
 ©ttrb &in, jlirb &in in Sftadbt unb ®rau$ ! 
 Dj)n' i&n mag id) auf (£rbcn, 
 9ftag 5ort ntcbt felig roerben." "— 
 
 XII. 
 
 ©0 ftjuf^ek 33erjft)ctflung 
 3(K in @e()irn unb $ibern. 
 due fuj)r mtt ®otte$ 33orfeJ)Uttg 
 Skrmeffen fort ju jjabern, 
 S^rfaMug ben 33ufen unb jcrrang 
 £)te i^anb Hi (Sonnenuntergang, 
 33i$ auf am £immei$bogen 
 Die golbnen 6terne jogen. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Unb auj?en, j)ord)! ging'$ trap, trap, trap, 
 
 MS rote eon SKoJTc* fpufen ; 
 
 Unb Hirrenb fHeg cin ^letter ab 
 
 5ln be» ©elanberS ©tufen ; 
 
 Unb Jjord) ! — unb &ord)! bcr §)fortenring 
 
 ©anj lofc, Icifc, flingltngling : 
 
 £ann famen burd) bie p forte 
 
 £3ernc|)mltd) biefc SBorte : 
 
 XIY. 
 
 z/^oHa, l^olta ! S£u' auf, mem SStnb ! 
 
 ©cWafjl, £iebd>en, ober road)fl bu ? 
 
 SBie bijt nod) gegen mid) gejtnnt ? 
 
 Unb roeineft ober lad)ft bu?"— 
 
 „ tf m, SBU&elm, bu ?-6o fpat bei ^ai)t 
 
 ©eroetnet fyaV id) unb gcroadbt ; 
 
 Sid), grofeS £eib erlitten !— 
 
 SBo fommj! bu &er geritten V "— 
 
LEXOEA. . 349 
 
 XI. 
 
 " Ob, mother ! what is hell — or bliss — 
 
 That thus you speak about it ? 
 I knew but heaven in Wilhelm's kiss, 
 
 And all is hell without it. 
 Be quenched my light — be quenched for aye, 
 In night and horror die away ; 
 On earth without my lover, 
 All happiness is over." 
 
 XII. 
 
 Thus her despair o'er every sense 
 And through each vein was raging, 
 
 And war against G-od's Providence 
 Most rashly she was waging. 
 
 She wrung her hands and beat her breast, 
 
 Until the sun went down to rest, 
 
 And up in heaven's arch beaming, 
 
 The golden stars were gleaming. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Hush ! listen ! listen ! tramp — tramp — tramp ! 
 
 A courser's steps she counted, 
 The rider next, with clattering stamp, 
 
 Before the porch dismounted. 
 And listen ! at the gate, a ring, 
 Sounds faintly — softly — kling-ling-ling ! 
 And then came, through the portal, 
 These words, distinctly mortal : 
 
 XIY. 
 
 " Holla ! open the door, my pet ; 
 
 "VVatchest thou, love ? or sleepest ? 
 How art thou mooded towards me yet ? 
 
 And laughest thou, or weepest ?" 
 " Ah, Wilhelm ! thou ! so late at night ! 
 I've watch' d for thee in sorrowing plight, 
 And undergone much chiding. 
 Whence com'st thou now, thus riding r" 
 
350 WILD OATS. 
 
 XT. 
 
 ,,3Btr fottcln nur urn WUUxnafat ; 
 $Qut riff icb ^er fcon 23o&men. 
 3d) £ak fpaf mid) aufgemacbf, 
 Unb itJtXI bid) mif mir nej)men." — 
 „ ,,51*, SBttJKlm, erjl fccrein gefdwtnb ! 
 £)en $aa,eborn burd)fauf'f ber SBinb. 
 $cretn, in meinen airmen, 
 frersliefejler, ju erftarnien I' 7 " — 
 
 XYI. 
 
 „ga$ faufen burd) ben Jpageborn ! 
 
 gaf? faufen, £inb, taf faufen ! 
 
 IDer liRappe fd)arrt, cl flirrt ber (£porn ; 
 
 3d) barf attfner mc&i faufen. 
 
 &omm', fdmrje, farina,' unb fdwinge bid) 
 
 ^Xuf metnen happen Winter mtd) ! 
 
 *5Jlu£ (jeut nod) fjunbert ^etlen 
 
 TOt bir in$ Sdvauttett cilen."— 
 
 XVII. 
 
 „„$id)! ftJOtXfcjr Ijunberf ^ftcilcn nod) 
 
 *£ftid) &euf in$ 23rautfccff frogett ? 
 
 Unb Jord) ! e$ ferummt 5te ©locfe nod), 
 
 (Die elf fc&on angefcblagcn." "— 
 
 „6ief) 0tn, fielder! £!er 5Hon5 fdjemf {jell. 
 
 2Bir unb bie Sobfen reifen fcfcneU. 
 
 3d) fcrtnge bid), jur 2Bctfe, 
 
 sftocb fceut' inl pod^ctt&eftc."— 
 
 XTIII, 
 
 „ „@a9' an, mo ift bein ^ammerletn ? 
 
 2Bo ? aue bein ^)0d)jCtt6cttd)cn P" " 
 
 ,,2Beif, meif eon £ier ! . . 6fiU, fttt)l unb flein ! . ♦ 
 
 @ed)3 fSrettcr unbjmei 23rertd)cn !"— 
 
 „ ,, feat's SHaum fur mid) P" " — „ $ur bid) unb mid) ' 
 
 &omm', fdmne, tyring' unb fdwinge btc&! 
 
 S>ic ^odb^eitgajie (joflren ; 
 
 Die Stammer fle()t un* Offen." 
 
LENORA. 351 
 
 XV. 
 
 " We only saddle at midnight ; 
 
 From far Bohemia, hither, 
 I rous'd myself late for the flight, 
 
 And now will bear thee thither." 
 " Stay, Wilhelm, stay ! The wind doth rush 
 Loud whistling through the hawthorn-bush. 
 Here — heart's love — let me hold thee, 
 My warm arms shall enfold thee." 
 
 XVI. 
 
 " Let the wind whistle through the haws, 
 
 Child — let it whistle stronger ! 
 Now clinks my spur ; the black-horse paws ; 
 
 I dare not tarry longer. 
 Come — come : truss up thy dress, and swing 
 On my black horse — behind me spring — 
 To reach our couch to-day, love, 
 One hundred miles away, love." 
 
 XVII. 
 
 " And must I ride one hundred miles 
 
 To our bride-bed to-day, love ? 
 And hark ! the church clock tolls ineanwhiles. 
 
 Eleven ! doth it say, love ?" 
 " See here ! — see there ! — the moon is high ; 
 We and the dead can swiftly fly. 
 'Tis for a bet we're flying, 
 To where the couch is lying." 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 " Yet say — where is thy bridal hall, 
 Thy nuptial bed — where lies it ?" 
 
 " Ear — far from hence ! — still, cool, and small, 
 Eight slender planks comprise it." 
 
 " Hast room for me ?" " Eor me and thee ! 
 
 Come, gird thy dress ; quick, mount with me. 
 
 The guests are there to meet thee ; 
 
 The doors wide open greet thee." 
 
352 WILD OATS. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 ©<Wn gtebdbcn fdburjfe, fprano, unb f<&wang 
 
 ©id) auf ba$ SRoj? bc{>enbc ; 
 
 2M)t urn ben trautcn heifer faMana, 
 
 ©te i!)re giltenjmnbc ; 
 
 Unb fyurre, &urre, &op, &op, &op ! 
 
 ©ina/S fort in faufenbem ©alopp, 
 
 £)a|? S^lof? unb better fdmoben, 
 
 Unb StieS unb Junfcn fioben. 
 
 xx. 
 
 gur redbten unb jur linfcn &an5 
 
 23orbet Oor ibren 35lttfen, 
 
 SKic flogen ^na,er, £atb' unb Sanb ! 
 
 SBic bonnertcn bie Snutfen ! 
 
 „ ©raut 2iebd)en aucb?....£>er ^Konb febeinf {jell 
 
 £urra{) ! bte Sobfen reiten fdmctt ! 
 
 ©raut gtebaVn aucb ©or Sobten ?"— 
 
 „ „«<fc netn !— £od) lag t>u Sobten !" " 
 
 XXI. 
 
 5Ba$ Hang bort fur ©efana, unb $lang? 
 
 2Ba$ flatterten bte *Raben?.. 
 
 £orcb ©lotfenHang! fcord) Sobtenfang: 
 
 „£a#i un* ben £eib begraben !" 
 
 Unb na&er 509 cin Scicbenjug, 
 
 S)cr ©arg unb Sobtcnbaftre trug. 
 
 $)ai Steb war ju fcergleid)en 
 
 £)em Unfcnruf in Xetcben. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 „!Racf) TOtternacbt begrabt ben gcib 
 mit SSlattQ unb ©ana unb Stla^e ! 
 Scfct fuf)r' icb fceim mcin jungeS SBeib, 
 9JUt mir jum 23rautgelage! 
 S?omm', buffer, fcter ! $omm' mit 5cm @f)Or, 
 Unb gurgle mir ba$ 23rautlteb Oor! 
 £omm', Pfaff, unb fpridb ben ©egen, 
 @&' mir 3U 25ett un$ legen!" 
 
'5 
 
 LEXORA. 353 
 
 XIX. 
 
 The fair girl quickly dressed, and sprung 
 
 Upon the horse behind him j 
 And, round the trusty rider flung, 
 
 Her lily arms entwined him. 
 And hurra ! off ! away ! the steed 
 Flies like the wind, with whistling speed 
 The horse and rider quivering, 
 And sparks and pebbles shivering ! 
 
 xx. 
 
 And right and left — on either hand, 
 Before their eyes quick sunder'd, 
 
 How flew the lawns, and heaths, and land ! 
 And how the bridges thunder' d ! 
 
 ' : Dearest, dost fear ? The moon is high ! 
 
 Hurra ! the dead can swiftly fly ! 
 
 Dost fear the dead, my own love ?" 
 
 " INay — leave the dead alone, love." 
 
 XXI. 
 
 What sound is that of clang and knell ? 
 
 Why d o the ravens fl utter ? 
 Hark ! the deatli-iong : ana tolls the bell ! 
 
 " B ury the corpse," theyutterj 
 A funeral tram was coming near ; 
 They bore the coffin and the bier : 
 The hymn, the croak resembled 
 Of frogs, in ponds assembled. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 " After midnight inter the dead, 
 
 "With knell and lamentation : 
 Xow, my young wife I homeward lead, 
 
 "With bridal celebration. 
 Come, sexton, with thy choral throng, 
 And drawl us out thy bridal song ! 
 Come, gabble, priest, thy blessing, 
 Ere towards the couch we're pressing !" 
 
354 WILD OATS. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 etiU £(<M9 unb ©ang — . S>ic 23af>re f*wan& . ■ • 
 
 @ei)0rfam feinem SRufen 
 
 £am'$ |)urre, fyurre ! nadb Qerantrf," 
 
 jport &infcr'3 happen £>ufcn. 
 
 Unb tmmer Wetter, f)op, Jop, l)op ! 
 
 ©tnc^ fort in faufenbem ©atop?, 
 
 S)a£ 3to£ unb better fc&nobcn, 
 
 Unb SvteS unb gunfen jtobcn. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 2Bte flogen retd)S, nrie flogen linf* 
 
 ©ebirge, 33aum' unb £ecfen ! 
 
 2Bte flogen itnf« unb recbtS unb Unfl 
 
 Die Surfer, ®t*W unb gletfen !— , 
 
 „@raut gtebeben aud)? ... £>er ^onb febetnt &cH! 
 
 £urra|)! bie Sobten retten ftfmcU! 
 
 ©rout Siebd^cn aud) bor Sobtcn ?" 
 
 „„**! 2a£ fie ru&n bte Sobfett!" " 
 
 XXV 
 
 6tef) ba! fte&fca! 5lm ^ocfegcrtcfet 
 Sanjt' urn be$ SRabeS ©ptnbel, 
 £>alb ftcbtabritcb bet ^onbentubt 
 (Sin lufttge* ©eftnbel.— 
 „©afa! ©eftnbel, 6tcr, fomm' frier! 
 ©eftnbel, Jomm' unb folge mtr ! 
 Xanj' un3 ben ^oebjeitreigen, 
 SBann ftrir )\x 35ette ftetgen !" 
 
 XXYI. 
 
 Unb tat ©eftnbel, &ufd>, 6uf<&, &»f* ! 
 Stam frinten nacb gepraffelt, 
 2Bie 2Btrbelftrinb am £afclbufcb 
 Durd) bitrre flatter raffeit; 
 Unb wetter, wetter, &op, f)op, fcop ! 
 ©in^'S fort in faufenbem ©atopp, 
 £a£ *Ro£ unb better febnoben, 
 Unb &ie$ unb gunfen jlofccn. 
 
LENORA. 355 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 The clang was still' d ; vanish' d the bier, 
 
 Obedient to his calling : 
 And all beside — less and less near 
 
 Behind his horse was falling. 
 And further — faster still — the steed 
 Mies like the wind with whistling speed ; 
 The horse and rider quivering, 
 And sparks and pebbles shivering ! 
 
 xxiv. 
 
 And left, and right, how swift in flight 
 Pass'd hedges, trees, and mountains ! 
 
 How flew on right, and left, and right, 
 Towns, villages, and fountains ! 
 
 " Dearest ! dost fear ? The moon is high ! 
 
 Hurra ! the dead can swiftly fly ! 
 
 Dost fear the dead, my own love ?" 
 
 •' Ah, leave the dead alone, love !" 
 
 XXV. 
 
 See there ! about the gallows' height 
 Hound the wheel's axle prancing, 
 
 Seen dimly in the pale moonlight, 
 A shadowy mob is dancing. 
 
 " Halloo — there ! Rabble ! Ho ! come here ! 
 
 Come, mob, with me — and follow near ! 
 
 Our wedding-dance be skipping, 
 
 When we to bed are tripping !" 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 And quickly on the mob did rush 
 
 Behind them, noisy- clattering, 
 As whirlwinds through the hazel-bush, 
 
 Send down the dry leaves pattering : 
 And further — faster still — the steed 
 Plies like the wind, with whistling speed ; 
 The horse and rider quivering, 
 And sparks and pebbles shivering ! 
 
356 WILD OATS. 
 
 XXYII. 
 
 2Btc flog, wa$ runb ber 9Konb frefdnen, 
 
 SSie flog c^ in Me $erne! 
 
 2Bie flogen ofeen uber fy\n 
 
 £)er ipimmel unb bic ©tcrne ! 
 
 „@rauf Siebdben aucb ? . . . £>er 9Konb fdfreint jjefl ! 
 
 £)urraj) ! 5te Sobten retten fdmeU ! 
 
 ©rauf Sicfccfyen aucb fcor Sobten P w 
 
 „ „D mfy ! 2aj? ru&n 5tc Sobfcn !" " 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 „3lapp'! Sfiapp' ! TOcb bxintt, 5cr £a{m fd;o« ruff 
 
 §3alb ftmb ber £>anb fcerrinnen. 
 
 3tapp' ! xHapp' ! 3cf> ftrittre sEftorcjenluff— 
 
 S^app' ! fummlc hid) Oon jjtnnen ! 
 
 S3oUbrad)f, ooUfcracbf ig unfcr £auf ! 
 
 S)a£ £)0d)3cttkcffc tjjut ft'd> auf ! 
 
 S)ie Sobten rcifen fdmette! 
 
 2Bir ftnb, ftrir ftnb jur ©fette !" 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 SRafcfc auf cin etfern @iftcrij)or 
 ©trig's mtf fccr&dngtcm 3^1. 
 9ft if fcfcwanfer ©erf ctn <£dblag baOor 
 3erfprengfe (Scblol? unb SRtcgel. 
 £>ie Slugcl flogen Htrrenb auf, 
 Unb ufcer ©rabcr ging ber Sauf. 
 @S blinffen Setcfren Heine 
 SRunb urn im ^JtonbenfcfKine. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 £at) fief) ! £>at) ftet)! im Siugenfclitf, 
 
 |>uj)u, ein graf ltd) 2Bunber! 
 
 DeS sRuttvi hotter, ©tuff fur @<u<f, 
 
 giel ab, trie murfcer gun5cr. 
 
 Sum ©cfyabel, un^o&ne gopf unb ©cfropf, 
 
 gum nacftcn ©dwbel warb fein $opf, 
 
 ©ein ^orper jum ©erippe, 
 
 ^ETtit 6funbengla$ unb £>ippe. 
 
LENORA. 357 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 How flew they in the moon's wide light, 
 
 Soon into distance speeding ! 
 And overhead, how quick in flight 
 
 "Were heavens and stars receding ! 
 " Dearest ! dost fear ? The moon is high ! 
 Hurra ! the dead can swiftly fly ! 
 Dost fear the dead, my own love ?" 
 " Oh, leave the dead alone, love!" 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 " My steed ! methinks the cock doth crow ; 
 
 The sand is just expended ; 
 My steed ! the morning air I know, 
 
 Quick, hence ! our course is ended ! 
 Achiev'd, achiev'd now is our ride ! 
 The nuptial chamber opens wide ! 
 The dead ride swiftly striving ! 
 The goal, the goal's arriving!" 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 And swiftly tow'rds an iron grate 
 
 With tearing speed they thunder'd : 
 With a slight switch he strikes the gate, 
 
 And lock and bolt is sunder'd. 
 The doors unfolded, creaking wide, 
 And over graves still on they ride 
 With tombstones round them gleaming, 
 On which the moon is beaming. 
 
 xxx. 
 
 Look ! in the twinkling of an eye, 
 
 Ho ! ho ! — a ghastly wonder ! 
 Piecemeal the rider's garments lie, 
 
 Like tinder shred asunder. 
 A skull — of tuft and queue bereft, 
 A naked skull alone is left ! 
 A skeleton, before her, 
 Holds scythe and sand-glass o'er her ! 
 
358 WILD OATS. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 ftocfr fcaumfc ftd), ftrilb fcbncb 5er Slapp', 
 Unb fprufrte ^euerfimfen ; 
 Unb |wt! roar's untcr i()r junab 
 SBcrfa^ftmnben unb fcerfunfen. 
 @ej)cul ! ©e&eul au$ fjc&cr £uff, 
 ©eftrinfel (am au$ ttefer ©ruff. 
 genorenS £erj, mtt 33cfccn, 
 iHang jftufaKtt Sob unb Sefccn. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 :Run tonjtcn woI)l bet SOlonbenglanj, 
 
 SRunb urn Jerum tm Stretfe, 
 
 Die ©etjfer etnen ^etfenfanj, 
 
 Unb j)eulten bicfe SBeifc : 
 
 r/ Oc5uI5 ! ©cbulb! ttKnn'S g>er} aucf) ferial ! 
 
 9JIU ©oft tm vgnmnul frabre nicbt ! 
 
 (Dc$ 2etM fcttf bu lebta, ; 
 
 ©oft fet ber ©eele Qnabtg !" 
 
LENORA. 359 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 The black horse wildly snorts and rears, 
 And breathes forth sparks ; and shrinking 
 
 From underneath them, disappears, 
 Quick vanishing and sinking. 
 
 Wild howling fills the welkin round, 
 
 And groans from the deep grave resound. 
 
 Lenora's heart, just shivering, 
 
 'Tvrixt life and death is quivering. 
 
 XXXIT. 
 
 And now beneath the moon's pale glance, 
 
 Bound in a circle scowling, 
 Link'd hand in hand, the spectres dance, 
 
 And to this tune are howling : 
 " Forbear ! forbear ! though breaks the heart, 
 'Gainst God in Heaven take no part ! 
 Kow from thy body sever, — 
 God save thy soul for ever !" 
 
 THE END. 
 
C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND 
 
JUST PUBLISHED, SECOND EDITION. 
 
 THE THAMES ANGLER. 
 
 BY 
 
 One Shilling. 
 CHAPMAN & HALL, 193, PICCADILLY; 
 
 AND ALL BOOKSELLERS AND FISHING-TACKLE SHOPS. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 Angling Literature.— The Thames Angler. By Arthur Smith.— [Chap- 
 man and Hall.]— This is an amusing little production, containing instructions for 
 young anglers, hints to their cooks, and fun and jokes for their friends, combined 
 with some useful information anent the scenery of the banks of the silvery Thames 
 from Richmond to Oxford. To it is added a list of fishing stations between the 
 same points, the names of the fishermen, the best pitches for all kinds of fish, and, 
 in fact, all that the angler could expect to find in a perfect guide to the Thames. 
 The little work is replete with very capital illustrations, and altogether is a most 
 welcome addition to our angling literature. The " Hints for Anglers" at the con- 
 clusion are admirable. The last hint, which is a recommendation to purchasers of 
 the book to read it, and not to lend it to their friends, but to tell them to purchase 
 it at 193, Piccadilly, is not to be despised. It is a hint we have no hesitation in 
 making more public. — Bell's Life. 
 
 The Thames Angler.— Under this title Mr. Arthur Smith has just published a 
 useful little work, which, while specially recommending itself to the disciples of 
 Izaak Walton, will be perused with interest by the general reader. In about eighty 
 moderate-sized pages we have the very fullest information upon all the more im- 
 portant details of Thames angling, written not in the cut-and-dry style of ordinary 
 guide books, but with a freshness, gaiety, and good-humoured animation that are 
 as original as they are entertaining. Mr. Smith's work is, indeed, most pleasantly 
 varied in its composition. It opens in the dialogue form, which has ever found 
 such favour with writers upon this theme ; then soars upward into idyllic verse, 
 and only in Chapter III. settles down into the sobriety of expression befitting the 
 explanations given there upon the materials for Thames angling. Throughout the 
 book there are a variety of admirably-executed wood engravings, representing the 
 more prominent spots above bridge on our great English river, the fish to be 
 obtained in the stream, and some of the incidents which are associated with the 
 experiences of the rod and line. Not the least interesting of the chapters in this 
 attractive volume is that which trenches on the domain of Mrs. Glasse. Mr. Arthur 
 Smith tells us not only how to catch our fish, but how to cook it when it is caught, 
 and spreads out before us a dish of piscatorial dainties that would have brought 
 
 2 B 
 
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 tears of rapture into the eyes of that unfortunate M. de Vendome, who died, as is 
 well known, from a too great partiality for spitchcocked eels and soles au gratin. 
 The " Thames Angler" is sure to become a great favourite with all lovers of the 
 time-honoured sport on which it treats.— Daily Telegraph. 
 
 It would be rather difficult to describe the mode in which this book has been 
 constructed, as verse, woodcuts, and dialogue have all been called upon to play 
 their parts. Smith (alias " Piscator"), Brown, Jones, and Robinson hold a lively 
 dialogue, to begin with, near Teddington Lock. Then we have a summer idyll, 
 showing how the merry fisher's life is the coolest and best of any, in the days when 
 every one is glad to seek the " sweet, shady side of Pall-mall," and when, as the 
 author sings, 
 
 " In Hungerford's gay halls 
 The penny ice collapsed, and Sainsbury's 
 Rang with the popping of self-shooting corks." 
 This is, however, the mere fringe of the matter, and anon we have chapters on 
 " Materials for Thames Angling," " Different Descriptions of Fish, and Manner of 
 Angling for them," which show a profound study, not of " Coke upon Littleton," 
 but of Ephemera upon Izaak Walton. Fishing-stations and locks between Ted- 
 dington and Oxford all come under review in their turn, with the rules of the 
 Thames Preservation Society; then a few hints on "Cooking;" and lastly, a 
 general homily to anglers, under twenty heads, which, if well got up, may serve to 
 help many a tyro in difficulties, and prevent him the second mortification, for 
 instance, of seeing his gentles turn to grubs, and his worms dry into bits of wire 
 from exposure to the sun ; or his trout become dull in the scales simply because 
 they are not rolled in stinging-nettles or flannel.— Illustrated London News. 
 
 Mr. Smith's brilliant " Thames Angler" will well repay any one for the shilling 
 invested in its purchase. Something in the style of the immortal Izaak Walton, 
 and most charmingly and abundantly illustrated, it is one of the freshest and 
 most amusing little books we have seen for a long time. It contains most useful 
 and admirable hints to the angler, which are none the worse for being mixed with 
 jokes and riddles and the funny chit-chat of Piscator and his friends. 
 
 The woodcuts of the " Thames Angler" are as graceful and as full of nature as 
 the book itself, which we.'cordially recommend to lovers of the gentle craft, and 
 with its author quote the words of rare Ben Jonson : 
 
 " Happy am I in that I bought this book ; 
 Happy his studies who composed this book ; 
 And fortunate the man who sold this book." 
 
 Indeed, we linger on its pages with some fondness, as they recal days and 
 persons long passed away. Our earliest recollection of a day or two's visit from 
 home is of a sojourn at Ham Common, and passing some five or six hours in a punt 
 in the centre of the river, and proudly, as an urchin, landing our four dozen 
 gudgeons from the stream to the great satisfaction of our venerable parent and 
 fellow-sportsman. We could willingly now repeat the same pleasant task in the 
 reversed character of " governor" with our own schoolboys as companions. The 
 Amazons, the Rhine, the Tweed, and other rivers, may have ther respective charms 
 of scenery or sport, but there is to us a special attraction in Father Thames, and 
 we heartily thank Mr. Smith for recalling our attention to our old favourite, 
 wherein we have rowed, swum, and fished times innumerable, and we now look 
 forward with renewed zest to Eel Pie Island and Teddington Lock with the 
 " Thames Angler" in our pocket.— Era. 
 
 The Thames Angler. By Arthur Smith. Chapman and Hall.— There never 
 was such a complete little book upon angling sent forth upon the world's waters 
 as this of Mr. Arthur Smith's. It coutaius such an abundance of information upon 
 all matters interesting to anglers, that one might suppose a long lifetime had been 
 spent in its collection ; and it is not a dry, formal list of articles and charac- 
 teristics, but as charming a narrative as good old Izaak Walton himself might 
 have written ; and it will induce thousands of delighted readers to go a fishing 
 who never went before. Here you may learn where to go to find good fish, and 
 how to catch them, and after all, how to cook them. You will know how to eat 
 them without instruction. There are many clever illustrations interspersed 
 throughout the text, enhancing the interest and attraction of the work. — News of 
 the World. 
 
 The Thames Angler is an instructive little work, illustrated, which contains 
 every item of information concerning the subject on which it very pleasantly 
 treats. About the river, and its piscatorial inhabitants, and the rods, lines, 
 hooks, &c, by which they may be angled for and caught, we assure those who are 
 fond of the sport that they will, in the present work, find all that is necessary for 
 the purposes of successful angling in the Thames, and the directions for this pur- 
 pose may also be obtained at a trifling cost.— Leader. 
 
€utKh$n uf ^btfb, 
 
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 REDGRAVE ON THE NECESSITY OF PRINCIPLES 
 
 IN TEACHING DESIGN. Fcap. sewed. Price 6d. 
 
 A DIAGRAM TO ILLUSTRATE THE HARMONIOUS 
 
 RELATIONS OF COLOUR. Small folio. Priced. 
 PRINCIPLES OF DECORATIVE ART. Folio, sewed. Price Is. 
 LINDLEY'S SYMMETRY OF VEGETATION. 8vo, sewed. 
 
 PricG "Ls 
 
 ROBINSON'S LECTURES ON THE MUSEUM. Fcap. sewed. 
 
 Price 6d. 
 
 AN ALPHABET OF COLOUR. Reduced from the works of Field, 
 Hay, Chevreuil. 4to, sewed. Price 3s. 
 
 DIRECTIONS FOR INTRODUCING ELEMENTARY 
 
 DRAWING IN SCHOOLS AND AMONG WORKMEN. Published at the request 
 of the Society of Arts. Small 4to, cloth. Price 4s. 6d. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS TO BE EMPLOYED IN THE PRAC- 
 TICAL LESSONS ON BOTANY. Adapted to all classes. Prepared for the South 
 Kensington Museum. By the REV. PROF. HENSLOW. With Illustrations. Post 
 Svo. Price 6d. 
 
 DRAWING FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS ; Being a 
 
 Manual of the Method of Teaching Drawing. Specially adapted for the Use of Masters 
 of National and Parochial Schools. By ELLIS A. DA VIDSON, Head Master of the 
 Chester School of Art, and Professor of Drawing at the Chester Diocesan Training 
 College. Published under the sanction of the Science and Art Department of the 
 Committee of Council of Education. Post Svo, cloth. 3s. 
 
 BRADBUB.T AND EVANS, fBINTEBS, WHITBFMARS. 
 
■ I 
 
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 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
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 (6889sl0)476B 
 
 General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
 Berkeley 
 

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