Caught in a Trap Part 37

3,000 pounds and costs!

And he hadn't a penny in his pocket but Mrs Martin's five pounds!

Pleasant!

"But your friends will soon come and see you," said the Cerberus of the sponging-house in words of comfort. If Markworth had been arrested for a trifling sum, he would have taken no notice of him whatever. There is a dignity even in debt, if it be large enough! Your paltry insolvents are but small fry: a colossal defaulter is a man to be looked up to and envied, _vide_ the annals of the Bankruptcy Court. So Markworth was comfortably treated, and had a private room, as he owed a heavy sum, and, moreover, had money in his pocket.

Oh! yes, there was not the least doubt Markworth's friends would look after him. He had a visitor the very first day of his incarceration, and who it was may easily be guessed.

Volume 3, Chapter IX.

PRINGLE "PECKED."

The nuptial couch is not always a bed of roses, and so the young inc.u.mbent of Hartwood found out after a time. Not that it was all the fault of his newly-married spouse. Laura loved him in her languid way, and would have endeavoured to make his home happy if she had been left to herself; but the old campaigner stood in the gap: she had became Herbert Pringle's _bete noir_.

Shortly after the happy pair came back from their honeymoon to the parsonage, Lady Inskip made a proposition, which by dint of judicious manoeuvring she managed to carry into operation. Now that her eldest daughter was married, and Carry, "the bold, ungrateful girl," had left her in that scandalous manner, there was no need for her to keep up any longer a special establishment as she had formerly done. She only had her darling boy, Mortimer, now to care for, and Laburnum Cottage would be too big for herself and him only. She suggested to her dear, kind, clever son-in-law what she would do. She would give up the cottage--her time would be out on Lady-day, and it did not want such a very long time now to that date, and come and live at the parsonage with her affectionate children. Nothing could be better! Of course she would insist on paying her share of the housekeeping expenses; but then she did eat so very little; that would be of little count. Would not her dear Herbert and Laura--she put it to them--welcome her? She was such a good manager, and they were so ignorant of the world.

"Of course, dear ma!" said Laura. "That will be so nice; and then I should not have any trouble with the house and that horrid cookery book.

I hate it! I wish Soyer had never been born. I'm sure I cannot make head or tail of all his 'economical dishes,' as he calls them."

"Certainly, my love!" responded the campaigner with alacrity. It was wonderful how very sweet and affectionate she could be when she had any point to gain. "I should take charge of all that off your hands, my dear! It _would_ be hard if I could not be of use to my own children, whom I only have left to care for."

"That'll be all right, ma, then?" said Laura, considering the matter settled; but the campaigner was not so sure, for her son-in-law had not made any response yet to the offer.

"What does Herbert say, my pet?" exclaimed the old general, playfully, and looked the Rev. Herbert full in the face. "Will he turn his old mother into the street, or--?"

"Oh! certainly, Lady Inskip, certainly!" promptly answered up the young divine, confused at being appealed to. "That is, of course we'll be glad to have you here for a time, and--"

"Oh! I see," interposed the campaigner, with a capital a.s.sumption of offended pride and wounded feeling, "I should be intruding when I only offered to come here and help my darling child. Oh! that I have lived to hear this."

"Oh! ma," said Laura, "don't go on so. Herbert didn't mean anything of the kind."

"That I have lived to see this day!" repeated the campaigner, with solemn emphasis, and looking as if she were going to cry; however as she was seldom given to lachrymals, tears did not come so readily as would have now suited her purpose, but she twisted up her eyes, nevertheless, and sniffed ominously.

"Pray don't say so, ma! Don't say so! Say something, Herbert, to her, and don't be so unfeeling!" eagerly e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Laura, turning to her husband, who did not know what to say. He certainly had hoped that he and his wife could have lived together without the services of his honoured mother-in-law, the lady in her own right; but what could he do?

Here was she asking, and Laura urging it; and he was a single man against two energetic females. He was helpless, although he wished to do battle on his sister Lizzie's behalf, being certain that she and the campaigner would not get on well together. He was driven to the wall, however, for Laura had called on him to say something, and he must speak!

"Certainly, Lady Inskip, certainly!" he began. "That is, I mean to say, we will be most happy, Laura, and myself, to have you to live with us.

Delighted, I'm sure; and Laura can make all the arrangements; but if there's anything you want me to see to, you have only to ask. That's all, and--and--"

"You dear, impulsive creature," interrupted the campaigner; "you are so good. I thought you did not mean to be unkind; but my feelings have been so lacerated of late that a very little affects me now." The campaigner spoke of a very little affecting her as if she were alluding to the imbibition of gin, or some other stimulant. "And so _that's_ all arranged, and I can give up the cottage at once. It will be delightful to live here altogether; just like the happy family, won't it?"

"Quite so, Lady Inskip, quite so!" responded the Reverend Herbert; but he did not speak cheerfully, and I fear he had other views in his own mind of what a "happy family" arrangement might be.

"Charming, ma!" chorused Laura. "We'll see about making the arrangements at once, in order to prevent you from changing your mind."

The inc.u.mbent's wife need not, however, have been under any anxiety on that score: the campaigner knew very well when she had made a bargain, and she was not going to back out of it.

"I must send the darling boy Mortimer to school, however. It will be so sad parting with him, but it must be done. It would never do to have him here, would it?"

And she looked inquiringly at her son-in-law.

Pringle had sundry experiences of the darling boy's tractable disposition, and was rather disinclined in being so intimately a.s.sociated with the young hopeful, so he combatted the point.

"You're quite right, Lady Inskip. He'd better be sent to school; not that I'd have any objections to his coming here, but then--"

"Yes," sighed the campaigner, "I suppose he must go; it would be too much to ask."

"Oh! have him here, ma. Don't send him to school, poor little fellow!

Herbert won't mind, will you?" struck in Laura.

The inc.u.mbent was again doomed to defeat. He could refuse his young wife nothing when she was so judiciously "backed up" by the campaigner.

"Oh! certainly not, Lady Inskip. Have him here by all means."

He gave in. He thought as the campaigner was coming the mischief was done; and he would be equally willing now to receive all the rest of the family; even Carry and her military husband, if it was suggested that they should all be invited; and the green parrot, too, the Persian cats, and all the other pets of My Lady's. He succ.u.mbed hopelessly, and was thenceforth a pecked man.

I remember once coming across a little Oriental anecdote which lays particular stress on the relations of connubial folk. Pity that Pringle was not acquainted with it before he committed himself. The story runs as follows:--Once upon a time a gay young fellow married the widow of a great Khan--the scene is laid in Persia. On the wedding night the lady determined to a.s.sert her authority, and show who was the real lord and master. She accordingly treated her spouse with great contempt when he entered the ante-room, where she was seated on rose-leaf cushions caressing a large white cat, of which she pretended to be very fond indeed. She appeared very much annoyed at her husband's entrance, and looked at him out of the corners of her eyes with cold disdain as he came in.

"I hate cats," observed the young husband, blandly, as if he were only making a casual observation; "they offend my sight."

If his wife had looked at him with glances of cold disdain before, her eyes now wore an expression of anger and contempt, such as no words can express. She did not even deign to answer him, but took the cat to her bosom and fondled it pa.s.sionately: her whole heart seemed to be in the cat, and cold was the shoulder that she turned to her husband.

"When any one offends me," continued her gallant, gaily, "I cut off his head. It is a peculiarity of mine which I am sure will only make me dearer to you."

Then, drawing his sword, he took the cat gently but firmly from her arms, cut off its head, wiped the blade, sheathed it, and sitting down continued to talk affectionately to his wife as if nothing had happened.

After which, says tradition, she became the best and most submissive wife in the world.

A hen-pecked fellow, meeting him the next day as he rode with a gallant train through the market place, began to condole with him.

"Ah!" said the hen-pecked one with deep feeling, "you, too, have taken a wife, and got a tyrant. You had better have remained the poor soldier that you were. I pity you from my very heart!"

"Not so," replied the other, jollily; "keep your sighs to cool yourself next summer."

He then related the events of his wedding night with their satisfactory results.

The hen-pecked man listened attentively, and pondered long.

"I also have a sword," said he, "though it is rusty, and my wife is likewise fond of cats. I will cut off the head of my wife's favourite cat at once."

He did so, and received a sound beating. His wife, moreover, made him go down upon his knees and tell her what djinn, or evil spirit, had prompted him to do the b.l.o.o.d.y deed.

"Fool!" said the lady, when she had possessed herself of the hen-pecked's secret, with a vixenish vinegar smile on her sallow lips, "you should have done it the first night!"

The moral is obvious: the Persians say "Advice is useless to fools!"

Pringle did not kill the cat at once; hence his position.