The Bed-Book of Happiness Part 12

K makes no suggestions, and L but few. "I'll _lay_," has no reference to eggs or to a rec.u.mbent posture, but implies a wager. Some years ago, I was riding to the meet, and came up inaudibly, upon the wayside gra.s.s, with two grooms on their masters' hunters, peering over their pummels at a mounted horse in the distance before them and anxiously discussing his ident.i.ty. Just as I was pa.s.sing the disputants, the one turned to the other and said, "I shall _lay yer_ three threepenny gins to one as it's Colonel's rat-tailed 'oss."

_Lig_ is still commonly used for "lie." "Our Bob has ligabed sin'

Monday." "The moon wor _ligging_ behind a cloud, so they couldn't see keepers coming." To _lorp_ is to move awkwardly or idly, and the word suggests a n.o.ble line for the alliterative poet:

Lo, lazy lubbers loutish, lorp and loll.

In the days of my boyhood I was perplexed conjecturing by what process of the rustic mind moles had changed their names into _Mouldi-warps_; but I have since discovered that in this instance, as in countless others, the bucolic brain was not so mollified by beans and bacon as some would have us believe. The _mould_--and very fine mould it is--is _warped_, turned up by the mole; and this reminds me of a mole-catcher, whose principles were warped also, and whose occupation was gone awhile in our parts, when it was discovered that he carried a collection of dead moles about with him, with which, the morning after his traps had been set, he made a grand display on some contiguous hedge, inducing his employer fondly to imagine that his enemies (as he thought of them) had been all destroyed in a night.

Flying onwards--for this is a very fugitive piece--I would ask admiration for the adjective _muggy_, as exquisitely descriptive of weather, not uncommon in this climate, where a fog gives one the idea, suggested by d.i.c.kens, that nature is brewing on an extensive scale outside, and there's dampness everywhere, taking the curl from ringlet and whisker, and causing our adhesive envelopes to fasten themselves on our writing-table, as though practising the duties of their post.

No sun, no moon, No morn, no noon, No dawn, no dusk, no proper time of day-- No sky, no earthly view, No distance looking blue.

No road, no street, no t'other side the way-- No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease, No comfortable feel in any member, No shade, no shine, no b.u.t.terflies, no bees, No ... vember!

I love, though not as licensed victuallers love, the little monosyllable _nip_. What a nimble agility, what a motive power, in that curt, imperative word!--the pistol-shot which starts the boat-race, the brief, shrill whistle which starts the train. "Just nip off your horse and pull out that stake." "You nipped out o' the army," said a sn.o.b to a friend of mine, who had retired some years before the Crimean invasion, and who, in his magisterial capacity, had offended the sn.o.b; "you know'd t'

war wor' a-coming; you nipped out, you didn't relish them Rooshan baggonets a-prodding and a-p.r.i.c.king. You nipped out o' th' army; you know'd t' war wor' coming. Good morning. I think you were right."

When the wind bloweth in from the Orient, or when our discretion has collapsed before a lobster salad (that claw looked so innocently pink, and that lettuce so crisp and green!) then is poor human nature but too p.r.o.ne to be querulous; we disagree, like the lobster, with our fellow creatures; we are peevishly disposed to _nag_. "My mestur has been a good husband to me," said one of the matrons of my flock, "but he can chime in nasty when he wants to _nag_."

Times of refinement are probably at hand when, under the sacred influence of School Boards, the rural tongue shall cease to subst.i.tute the word _no-at_ for nought, or nothing. I am not sorry that when that epoch comes I shall no longer be attached to this machine. I cling to those expressions, which I have heard from childhood: "He's like a _no-at." "_He's up to _no-at_." One day, years ago, we waited for the train at, not Coventry, but Ratcliffe-on-Trent, and while we waited a weary workman, with his bag of tools on his back, came and sat on the bench beside. Presently we were joined by a third person in the garrulous phase of inebriety, and he pestered the tired artisan with his _bosh_and _gibberish_ (two words which should have been introduced at an earlier period of my history) until he provoked the righteous expostulation, "Oh, don't bother me; you're drunk." Then, with an air of outraged dignity, and with a stern solemnity, which, if he had not wobbled in his gait and stammered in his utterance, might have suggested the idea that he had just been appointed Professor of Philosophy for the Midland Districts, he delivered an oration: "Now just you listen to me.

Do you suppose as a Mighty Power 'ud mak the barley to grow, and the 'ops to grow, and then put it into the minds of other parties to mak'

'em foment, and me not meant to drink 'em? why, you know _no-at_!"

Whereupon the apt rejoinder: "I know this--that a Mighty Power never meant the barley to grow, nor the hops to grow, for you to take and turn yoursen into a be-ast."

_n.o.bbut_ is still common in these parts, in abbreviation of "nothing but." I congratulated an invalid parishioner on the presence of the doctor, and he said dolefully, "Oh yes, sir; thank yer, sir--but it's _n.o.bbut_ th' 'prentice."

My limits do not allow me to mind my L's and Q's and R's, or I might have enlarged upon such words as _palaver_, and _pawling_, and _peart_, and _prod_, and_romper_, and _ramshackle_, and _rawm_; and I can only dwell upon one selection from the S's, of which there is a long Sigmatismus, such as _snag_ ("Billy and Sally's always at _snags_"), and _scuft_, and _scrawl_ ("he wor' just a gla.s.s over the scrawl," _i.e._ the line of sobriety), and _scrawm_, and _slape_, and _sn.i.g.g.e.r_, and _slive_ ("I see that _shack a-_sliving_ and a_-skulking about"), and _slare_, and_slawmy_, and _sneck_, and _snoozle_, and _spank_, and _stodge_, and _stunt_, and _swish_.

The word which I would ill.u.s.trate is _skimpy_. It signifies something mean and defective; and in the following history, told to me by a clerical friend, it refers to an attenuated and bony female. When a curate in a remote country parish, he took a raw village lad into his service, to train him for some better place; and, when his education was sufficiently advanced, and he had made some progress in the art of writing, he was permitted to accompany his master to a large dinner-party given by a neighbouring squire. Next morning he communicated his experiences to the housekeeper, and she treacherously repeated them to my friend. "'Oh,' he said, 'it just wor' grand. Me and t'other gentlemen in livery we stood i' th' 'all, and they flung open folding-doors, and out comes the quality tu and tu, harm i' harm, all a-talking and a-grinning, and as smart as ninepence. I wor' quite surprised at mestur. He come out last of all, with a _skimpy_old woman.

I should say she wor' sisty off, and there were squire's daughter, looking as bewtifle as bewtifle, and dressed up as gay as waxwork. I never made no mistake, except giving one gentleman mustard wrong side, and just a drop or so o' gravy down a hunbeknown young lady's back.'" I have reached the length of my tether, and will go no longer a-_tweing_ after words, lest I put my readers in a _tiff_, and leave them in a _tantrum_. I will _yark_ off. Said an underkeeper who had just shot at a snipe: "It _yarked_ up and screeted, and I nipped round and blazed; but I catched my toe on a bit of a tussock, and so, consarn it, I missed."

Let me hope that I have not so completely failed in my aim, while firing my small shot against certain abuses and disuses connected with The Vulgar Tongue.

THE SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD WITH HIS SON [Sidenote: _Calverley_]

O what harper could worthily harp it, Mine Edward! this wide-stretching wold (Look out _wold_) with its wonderful carpet Of emerald, purple, and gold?

Look well at it--also look sharp, it Is getting so cold.

The purple is heather _(erica)_; The yellow, gorse--call'd sometimes "whin."

Cruel boys on its pickles might spike a Green beetle as if on a pin, You may roll in it, if you would like a Few holes in your skin.

You wouldn't? Then think of how kind you Should be to the insects who crave Your compa.s.sion--and then, look behind you At yon barley-ears! Don't they look brave As they undulate _(undulate_, mind you, From _unda, a wave_).

The noise of those sheep-bells, how faint it Sounds here--(on account of our height)!

And this hillock itself--who could paint it, With its changes of shadow and light?

Is it not---(never, Eddy, say "ain't it")-- A marvellous sight?

Then yon desolate eerie mora.s.ses, The haunts of the snipe and the hern-- (I shall question the two upper cla.s.ses On _aquatiles_ when we return)-- Why, I see on them absolute ma.s.ses Of _felix_, or fern.

How it interests e'en a beginner (Or _tiro_) like dear little Ned!

Is he listening? As I am a sinner, He's asleep--he is wagging his head.

Wake up! I'll go home to my dinner, And you to your bed.

The boundless ineffable prairie; The splendour of mountain and lake, With their hues that seem ever to vary; The mighty pine-forests which shake In the wind, and in which the unwary May tread on a snake;

And this wold, with its heathery garment, Are themes undeniably great.

But--although there is not any harm in't-- It's perhaps little good to dilate On their charms to a dull little varmint Of seven or eight.

TARTARIN DE TARASCON [Sidenote: _Daudet_]

At the time of which I am speaking, Tartarin of Tarascon was not the Tartarin that he is to-day, the great Tartarin of Tarascon, so popular throughout the South of France. However--even then--he was already king of Tarascon.

Let me tell you whence this kingship.

You must know, first, that every one there is a huntsman, from the greatest to the smallest.

So, every Sunday morning, Tarascon takes arms and leaves the walls, game-bag on the back, gun on the shoulder, with a commotion of dogs, ferrets, trumpets, and hunting-horns. It is a superb sight.

Unfortunately, game is wanting, absolutely wanting.

However stupid animals may be, in the end they had become wary.

For five leagues round Tarascon warrens are empty, nests deserted. Not a thrush, not a quail, not the least little rabbit, not the smallest leveret.

And yet these pretty Tarascon hillocks are very tempting, perfumed with myrtle, lavender, and rosemary; and these fine muscat grapes, swollen with sweetness, which grow by the side of the Rhone, extremely appetising too--yes, but there is Tarascon behind, and in the little world of fur and feather Tarascon has an evil fame. The birds of pa.s.sage themselves have marked it with a big cross on their maps of the route, and when the wild-ducks, descending towards Camargue in long triangles, see the steeples of the town in the distance, the leader screams at the top of his lungs, "There is Tarascon!--There is Tarascon!" and the whole flight turns.

In short, as far as game is concerned, only one old rogue of a hare remains, who has escaped by some miracle from the September ma.s.sacres of the Tarasconners, and who insists on living there. In Tarascon this hare is well known. They have given him a name. He is called "The Express."

It is known that his form is in M. Bompard's ground--which, by the way, has doubled and even trebled its price--but so far no one has been able to get at it.

At the present moment there are one or two desperate fellows who have set their hearts upon him.

The others have made up their minds that it is hopeless, and "The Express" has become a sort of local superst.i.tion, although the Tarasconners are not very superst.i.tious and eat swallows in a salmi when they can get them.

"But," you object, "if game is so rare in Tarascon, what do the Tarascon sportsmen do every Sunday?"

What do they do?

Well, bless me! they go out into the open country two or three leagues from the town. They gather into little groups of six or seven, stretch themselves tranquilly in the shadow of an old wall, an olive-tree, take out of their game-bags a great piece of beef seasoned with _daube_, some uncooked onions, a large sausage, some anchovies, and begin an interminable luncheon, moistened by one of those nice little Rhone wines which make a man laugh and sing.

After that, when one has laid in a good stock of provisions, one rises, whistles the dogs, loads the guns, and the chase begins. That is to say, each gentleman takes his cap, flings it into the air with all his might, and fires at it.

He who puts most shots into his cap is proclaimed king of the hunt, and returns in the evening to Tarascon in triumph, with his peppered cap on the end of his gun, amidst yappings and fanfares.

Needless to say, there is a great trade of caps in the town. There are even hatters who sell caps torn and full of holes for the use of the clumsy. But hardly any one but Bezuquet, the chemist, buys them. It is dishonouring!

As a cap-hunter, Tartarin of Tarascon has no equal. Every Sunday morning he starts with a new cap; every Sunday evening he returns with a rag. At the little house with the baobab-tree the greenhouses were full of the glorious trophies. For this reason all the Tarasconners recognised him as their master, and as Tartarin knew the code of a sportsman through and through, had read all the treatises, all the manuals of every conceivable hunt, from the pursuit of caps to the pursuit of Bengal tigers, these gentlemen made him their great sporting justicier, and appointed him arbitrator in all their discussions.

Every day, from three to four, at Costecalde's the gunsmith, a fat man was to be seen, very grave, with a pipe between his teeth, sitting in a chair covered with green leather, in the middle of a shop full of cap-hunters, all standing and wrangling. It was Tartarin of Tarascon administering justice, Nimrod added to Solomon.