Confessions of an Etonian Part 8

On reaching the church, I found myself to be in good time, but had not proceeded far in the service, when I discovered the clerk to be in such a state of drunkenness, as would have appeared to the least fastidious, blasphemous and repulsive. In this dilemma, I knew it would be useless to tell a noisy boisterous fellow to hold his tongue, so at once, quietly but quickly, reaching his book, I placed it in my reading-desk, and the fellow, without a murmur, resigned himself to his fate and went fast asleep. In spite of the check which my wet clothes might have occasioned, I was rapidly gaining strength, and, to my surprise, got easily through the duty.

At the conclusion of the service, a labourer's wife came up to me with the usual fee between her finger and thumb, the price of being grateful to her G.o.d for safe deliverance in child-birth. She apparently deemed me out of my senses, and I had to tell her twice to keep back the shilling gained by the sweat of her husband's brow.

I had next to visit a dying man, and I had a dread of it. The poor fellow had been for many years an open and avowed infidel, and entertained an invincible hatred towards clergymen. He had, at last, consented to send for me, in compliance with the entreaties of his wife. Being an industrious man, he had realized sufficient to enable him to rent a very comfortable cottage, a cyder orchard, to keep a couple of cows, besides having by him a sum of ready money. A few years back, in a.s.sisting at the harvest, he had strained himself internally, and induced an atrophy. On asking the wife whether they were badly off, her sole reply was to take a cup from the chimney-piece, and show me, in heart-breaking silence, a sixpence and three half-pennies! Cows, money, and orchard--all had disappeared during a lingering illness,--and the poor old woman's inevitable fate was now to await the fast approaching death of a good husband, and then retire, for her few remaining and widowed years, to the workhouse of a distant parish!

On speaking to him, I could not but admire his really gentlemanly self-possession, accompanied by a tone of respect and kindness. After I had finished the prayers for the visitation of the sick, I read a few others which I had copied out from some authors, selected by Paley, and beautiful compositions they are; the poor fellow sunk into an agony of grief, and I wish I had not read them. Was I wrong or not?

I fear that I was, and am sorry for it; but we shall both know by and bye.

On returning in the evening through my own church-yard, never was I so struck with its air of wretchedness. It was placed in the bottom of a swampy moor, confined on one side by the little decrepit old church, with its boarded steeple looking like a dog-hutch, and just small enough to hold three parts of a cracked bell, if I might judge from the tinkling of it. On another side, it was protected from the bitter blast by the poor-house, thus judiciously placed for the benefit of the invalided paupers. It was a dreary evening in February, and everything was looking chilly and black, except, by the bye, an early primrose peering out from the side of a crumbling tomb in the very darkest corner of the whole--that looked fresh and bright enough.

I suspect the sort of humour I was now in, to have been occasioned either by my illness, the death-bed I had just witnessed, or the separation for a whole week to come from a person for whom I had lately found that I felt "a deep and tender friendship."

About thirty miles from my parish, lived my nearest neighbours, and with whom I had become rather intimate. So much was this the case, that this place gradually a.s.sumed the character of what I recollect "home" once used to have for me, many years ago. To this house I used frequently to canter over on a Sunday's evening with all the delight of a school-boy returning from a detested school.

Until now I had thought that my benevolent host had here been my greatest friend; but there was another for whom, to my infinite surprise, I found that I felt far more intensely. Yet it was odd that, in her presence, I was apparently cold and inattentive, and thus, perhaps, it might have ever been, had she not unguardedly attracted my attention by what she meant for a severe rebuke. I happened to be walking with her and a gentleman whose wife had lately experienced, on some occasion, a narrow escape of her life; "and so Miss Ba.s.sett I had nearly become a gentleman free of inc.u.mbrance, and then I should have come and proposed to you."

"But then I should have tried to thwart you, for the mere sake of opposition," was my rather too free and easy reply.

"Oh, Mr. Graham," she answered, "you might have set your mind quite at rest on the subject, for I should have preferred Mr. Goodriche a thousand times before you."

"For what possible reason, Miss Ba.s.sett?" I asked, in sober earnest.

"Because I could have led a quiet, happy life with him--now perhaps I might have liked you, and then you would have immediately behaved like a wretch, and broken my heart."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] One who kills game exclusively to lessen his butcher's bill.

CHAPTER III.

It was on my way to London, in company with her father, that, as the sun rose, I caught a glimpse in the horizon of the hill, on the other side of which the abode of my family was situated--I may not call it home, for it is too true, that "without hearts there is no home."

Still, how I must have loved the spot! its woods, its lawns, and its valleys! No sooner had the steamer touched at a port, than I left my luggage to go on with it as it might, and jumped out, in order to take one more peep at a place which set at defiance every recollection that I could force to rise up in judgment against it.

Having walked twenty miles, I stopped at a public-house within a mile and a half of the place, for some refreshment, as well as to await the darkness of night. At ten o'clock I sallied forth, and the first of the paternal estate on which I trespa.s.sed was a large wood, every tree of which, I might say, was an old acquaintance.

Here, then, what a contrast was I conscious of! Some years back, I used to range this very wood, the sworn friend of the keeper, in order to detect the poacher; and now I was listening to every rustle, and peering along the gloomy paths, lest I myself should be detected by my former ally. So much did my fears on this point increase on me, that I took to the open fields, and gained the park.

Here at once, in spite of everything, I felt myself to be on my own property,--roaming about in ecstacy--visiting every tree that I had planted and fenced round years ago. Each of these I pruned, and even had the temerity to steal into the green-house, which was close to the library, and procure the gardener's saw, with which I climbed up into an old Scotch fir, and dismembered a large limb which over-hung and injured a lime-tree I had planted in the dell below. Having sawed the limb into portable pieces, I concealed the whole in an adjoining plantation.

Notwithstanding the lights in the windows evinced that the inmates had not yet retired to rest, I sauntered over every part of the lawn, and at last walked directly up to the drawing-room window. The blind was down, but the shutters unclosed. By stooping close to the ground, and peeping beneath the blind, I could survey the whole room.

Here were two daughters and their father. The eldest was fast asleep in an arm-chair; the younger one working, and their father, as usual reading a volume of Sir Walter Scott, the well known binding of which I at once recognised. I could not get a sight of his face, for the book he held before him; but I saw his forehead and thin silvery hair.

What was now my surprise, to hear a carriage, at this time of the night, driving towards the house! I instantly placed myself behind a tree, close to the road-side. Curious to state, at that very spot the carriage suddenly stopped, and I might have touched it with my hand.

The horses had gibbed, owing to the steepness of the ascent; and on her inquiring into the cause, I immediately recognised the voice of another daughter, who, with her husband, was coming on a visit to her father from a distant county.

I now returned to my public-house, and was off at dawn in a coach for town. Byron felt from experience, when he sighed, "and oh, the utter solitude of pa.s.sing your own door without a welcome, finding your hearth turned into a tombstone, and around it the ashes of your early hopes, lying cold and deserted."

In all and each of my various excursions, in foul weather or in fair, I had ever one invariable companion. This was my horse, and his name was Clodhopper. He was a light bay, with a pale face. Our intimacy commenced under the following circ.u.mstances:

One Sat.u.r.day afternoon I was staying on a visit with a family, many miles from my church, and being therefore in great need of a horse, I at once went to look through the stables of an extensive horse-dealer in a neighbouring town. Having ascertained the price of several likely-looking horses, I ordered a large powerful one, for better examination, to be led into the yard. It was not unnecessary in this case; for the animal had one totally-extinguished and dreadfully-disfigured eye, a broken knee, both fore-legs fired, and a conspicuous spavin.

"He's a little blemished, Mr. Turner," I observed.

"Why, how, Sir, can you, or any other gentleman, expect to see a great, fine, upstanding horse like that ere, but what has a some'ut?"

But as I did, I requested to see another. For this one he asked but eighteen pounds. With my own eyes I could see that he stood above fifteen hands, was only just coming six, and was a strong, hardy animal, with a written warranty for soundness. All this being quite clear, I could not possibly account for the lowness of the price, otherwise than by feeling quite confident that there must be "a some'ut."

While thus deliberating, "Mr. Graham," said the dealer, "will you mind what I says? You'll never be married--you never can make up your mind to nothun, I see."

On my getting into the saddle, to try him along a few streets, Mr.

Turner added this very disinterested advice--

"Now, don't you go and hammer a good horse like that ere over the hard stones. A parcel of little ragged, dirty-nosed boys, run athwart, and upsots a respectable individual."

I did hammer him, wasn't "upsot," and bought Clodhopper.

There were two accomplishments in which I think he was unrivalled--falling down without breaking his knees, and in running backwards. In performing the first feat, which, on an average, occurred twice in three weeks, he fell, without a moment's hesitation, directly on his head, and instantly took a somersault on his back; so that literally he never had time to break his knees, though he broke the saddle now and then. The second, he could perform at a frightful pace; and the more one whipped and spurred, the faster he would go, and never stop till he came in contact with something. One of these I suspect to have been the "some'ut"--unless, by-the-bye, it had been the whooping-cough, or something very like it.

But Clodhopper's chief recommendation was, that whether in winter or in summer, with oats or without them, he was ever the same--stoical and indefatigable, so long as he was on the top of his legs. When eventually I had no further use for his services, I sold him for a leader to a coach proprietor, for seventeen pounds and a dozen of bad champagne; but I fear that the unfortunate wheeler in his rear must, by this time, have tumbled over him a lamentable number of times.

There was another rather prominent character in my establishment. This was "Old Bob."

The master whom he served was a neighbouring farmer, but I frequently obtained his services. His appearance was that of a veteran bull-dog, seamed with the traces of youthful strife, but in reality he was a pointer. Unfortunately, too, in his younger days, the stable-door had jambed his tail off within two inches of its origin, but still Bob flattered himself that it was a tail, for he affected to brush the flies away with it.

I think he had a high opinion of my shooting, for, whenever I was so inclined, he despised the society of any one else. As he was a selfish fellow, I suspect that I was indebted for his services to interested motives. He was a pot-hunter, like myself, and would instantly swallow anything I shot, could he but reach it first. He could certainly trot very fast, but that was the best pace he could accomplish, and had we anything like a fair start, I could distance him; and so convinced did he become of this, that the moment he found me abreast of him, he would give up the race in despair.

Considering this and other infirmities, for he was stone deaf and very near-sighted, he was highly creditable to his profession.

Though he frequently found game under his very nose, he was perfectly aware, though his mouth watered to taste it, that he had not a chance until I came up and shot it. He was, in consequence, the staunchest dog in the country. Only once, in this respect, did I know him guilty of a breach of decorum, and that too, I must say, under very aggravating circ.u.mstances.

One sultry day, at the expense of a great deal of time, and still more trouble, he had carefully footed an old c.o.c.k pheasant round three sides of a very extensive field, and at last brought him to a stand-still in a bunch of nettles, and was now patiently waiting for me to come up and help him. In the meantime, an unfortunate terrier had chanced upon the trail of the pheasant, and now came yapping along the ditch as hard as he could scamper. Of course, Bob being as deaf as a post, was quite unaware of this circ.u.mstance, and as the terrier brushed rudely by him, poor Bob looked so mortified! He wasn't going to find game for him, so "the devil take the hindmost," became the order of the day, and had I not shot the pheasant, which they put up between them, Bob was so angry that he would have wrung the very soul out of little Whisky.

After the fatigues of a long day, Bob was dozing in the farm-yard, when the team arrived in the evening from market. n.o.body saw Bob, and Bob couldn't hear the wagon, which the next moment pa.s.sed over his neck, and broke it.

CHAPTER IV.

The sole thing connected with my days on this spot, attended by a satisfactory feeling, is the remembrance of my long and quiet evenings, when I did happen to spend the week in the parish. It was the only period of my life that I read to any effect, and I must own, that even then it was no fault of mine, for it was impossible to do otherwise.

I used to rise at one o'clock in the afternoon, and go to bed at five the next morning. As to late hours, as it is termed, I have no sort of compunction, so long as I do not spend more than the necessary quantum of the twenty-four in bed.