The Dodd Family Abroad Volume I Part 12

Our game was not to bet on the general race, but to look on as mere spectators and see what could be done in a private match. This was not so easy, since these Belgian fellows were so intent on the "Lige St.

Lger" and the "Spa Derby," and twenty other travesties of the like kind, that they would not listen to anything but what sounded at least like English sport. We had therefore to wait with all due patience for their tiresome races,--"native horses and native jockeys," as the printed programme very needlessly informed us. "Flemish mares and fat riders" would have been the suitable description.

I had almost despaired of doing anything, when near five o'clock George came up to say that he had made a match for a hundred Naps, a side,--Bob against Bronchitis, twice round the course,--I to ride my own horse, and Count Amde de Kaerters the other, he giving me twelve pounds and a distance. Not too much odds, I a.s.sure you, since Bronchitis is out of Harpsichord by a Bay Middleton mare.

Before I had reached the stand, George had made a very pretty book, taking five, and even seven to two, against Bob, and an even fifty on her being distanced. Still I was far from comfortable when I saw Bronchitis; a splendid-looking horse, with a great slapping stride, light about the head, and strong in the quarters; just the kind of horse that wants no riding whatever, only to be let do his own work his own way.

"The mare can't gallop with that horse, George!" said I, in a whisper.

"She 'll never see him after the first time round!"

"I'm half afraid of that," said he, in the same low voice. "They told me he wasn't all right, but he's in top condition. We must see what's to be done." He smoked his cigar quite coolly for a minute or two, and then said, "Ah, here comes the Count! I have it, 'Jim!'"--he always calls me "Jim,"--"just mind me, and it will all come right."

I was by no means convinced that everything was so safe, however; and had I been possessed of the fifty Naps. required, I should gladly have paid the forfeit. Fortunately, as it turned out, I had n't so much money; so into the scale I went, my heart being the heaviest spot about me!

"Eleven two," said George; "we 'll say eleven."

The Count weighed eleven stone four, which, with his added weight, brought him to upwards of twelve stone.

"It's exactly as I suspected," whispered George to me. "The Belgian has weighed himself as if he was a gold guinea. He has been so anxious not to give you an ounce too much, that he has outwitted himself. All that you 've to do, Jim, is, ride at him every now and then; tease and worry the fellow wherever you can, and try if you can't take some of that loose flesh off him before it's over."

I saw the scheme at once, Bob. I had nothing whatever to do but to save my distance to win the race; for it was clearly impossible that the Count could go twice round a mile course, and come in as heavy as he started.

I must be brief, for my minutes are few. Would that you could have seen us going round!--I lying always on his quarter, making a rush whenever I got a bit of ugly ground, and, though barely able to keep up with him, just being near enough to worry him. He wasn't much of a rider, it is true, but he knew quite enough to see that he could run away from me whenever he liked; and so he did when he came to the last turn near home. Off he went at speed, pitching the mud behind him, and making my smart jacket something like a dirty draught-board. It was only by dint of incessant spurring and tremendous punishment that I was able to get inside the distance-post just as the cheering in front announced to me that he had pa.s.sed the grand stand.

_My_ canter in--for I was so dead-beat it was only a canter--was greeted with a universal yell of derision. To have a laugh against the Englishman on a race-course was a national triumph of no mean order. "It was a 'set-off' against Waterloo," George said.

In I came, splashed, splattered, and scorned, but not crestfallen, Bob, for one glance at my victorious rival satisfied me that all was safe.

The Count was so completely f.a.gged that he could scarcely get down from his horse, and when he did so, he staggered like a drunken man.

"Come now, Count, into the scale!" cried Lord George; "show your weight, and let us pay our money!"

"I have weighed already," said the other. "I weighed before the start."

"Very true," rejoined George, "but let us see that you are the same weight still."

It required considerable explanation and argument to show the justice of this proposition, nor was it till a jury of English jocks decided in its favor that the Belgians were convinced.

At last he did consent to get into the scale, and to the utter wonderment of all but the few English present, it was discovered that he had lost something like six pounds, and consequently lost the race.

It was capital fun to see the consternation of the Belgians at the announcement. They had been betting with such perfect certainty; they had been giving any odds to tempt a wager; and there they were!--"in,"

as George said, "for a whole pot of money."

While they were counting down the cash, too, George kept a.s.suring them that the lesson they had just received was "cheap as dirt;" "that it ought by right to have cost them thousands instead of hundreds, but that we preferred doing the thing in an amicable way." At such times, I must say, George is perfect. He is so cool, so courteous; so apparently serious, too, that even his sharpest cuts seem like civil speeches and kindly counsel. I never admired him more than when, having bought a courier's leather-bag to stuff the gold in, he slung it round his neck, and, taking leave of the party with a polite bow, said,--

"There are times, gentlemen, when one goes all the lighter for a little additional weight!"

I scarcely remember how we reached Lige. It was almost one roar of laughter between us the whole road! And then such plans and schemes for the future!

Luck stood by me to the last. I reached home before the governor, and in time to resume my bandages and my toothache. Mary Anne had taken care to have a very tidy bit of dinner ready; and now, while I sip my Bordeaux, I dedicate to you the last moments of my long and eventful day.

I do not ask of you to write to me till you hear again, for there is no guessing where I may be this day fortnight. Vickars may possibly respond to my request; or I may find some complaisant doctor to order me to a distant watering-place, in which case I may get free of the Dodd family, who, I own to you, Bob, are a serious drawback on the progress and advancement of your

Attached, but now wide-awake friend,

James Dodd.

Dodd pre has just come home with a sprained ankle. The scoundrel of a coachee overdid his instructions, and upset the "conveniency" into a lime-kiln. I suppose I'll have to pay two or three Naps, additional for the damage.

One good result, however, has followed: the governor is in such a rage that he has determined to leave this tomorrow.

LETTER XV. MISS DODD TO MISS DOOLAN, OF BALLYDOOLAN.

My dearest Kitty,--I do not, indeed, deserve your reproaches. Mine is not a heart to forget the fondest ties of early affection, nor would you charge me with this were you near me. But how can _you_, lying peacefully in the calm haven of domestic quiet, "sleeping on your shadow," as the poetess says, sympathize with one storm-tossed, and all but shipwrecked on the wild, wide ocean of life?

Of the past I cannot trust myself to speak, and I must say, Kitty, if there be one lesson which the Continent teaches above all others, it is not to go over the bygone. A week ago, in foreign acceptation, is half a century; and he who remembers the events of yesterday rather verges on being a "bore" for his pains. Probably it is the intensity with which they throw themselves into the "present" that imparts to foreigners their incontestable superiority in all that const.i.tutes social distinction,--their glowing enthusiasm even about what we should call trifles,--their ardor to attain what we should deem of little moment!

If you were not to witness it, Kitty, you could n't believe what an odious thing your regular untravelled Englishman is. His pride, his stiffness, his self-conceit, his contempt for everybody and everything, from good breeding to grammar. Contrast him with your pliant Frenchman, your courteous German, or your devoted Italian; so smiling and so submissive, so grateful for the slightest mark of your favor, that you feel all the power of riches in the wealth of your smiles or the resources of your wit!

And they are so ingenious in discovering your perfections! It is not alone the rich color of your hair, the arch of your eyebrow, or the symmetry of your instep, Kitty, but even the secret workings of your fancy, the fitful playings of your imagination: these they understand by a kind of magic. I really believe that the reason Englishmen do not comprehend women is that they despise and look down upon them.

Foreigners, on the other hand, adore and revere them! There is a kind of worship paid to the s.e.x abroad that is most fascinating.

One reason for all this may be that in England there are so many roads to ambition quite separated from female influence. Now, here this is not the case. We are everything abroad, Kitty. Political, literary, artistic, fashionable,--as we will. We can be fascinating and go everywhere, or exclusive and only admit a chosen few. We can be deep in all the secrets of State, and exhausted with all the cares of the cabinet, or can be _lionnes_, and affect cigars and men society, talk scandal and _coulisses_, wear all the becoming caprices of costume, and be even more than men in independence.

I see--or I fancy that I see--your astonishment at all that I am telling you, and that you half exclaim, "Where and how did Mary Anne learn all this?" I 'll tell you, my dearest Kitty, since even the expansion of heart to my oldest friend is not sweeter to me than the enjoyment of speaking of one whose very name is already a spell to me.

You must know, then, that after various incidents, too numerous to recount, we left Brussels for Lige, where poor mamma was taken so ill that we were forced to remain several weeks. This, of course, threw a gloom over our party, and deprived me of the inestimable pleasure I should have felt in visiting the scenes so graphically described in Scott's delightful "Quentin Durward." As it was, I did contrive to make acquaintance with the old palace of the prince bishops, and brought away, as souvenir, a very pretty lace lappet and a pair of gold earrings of antique form, which I wanted greatly to suit a _moyen ge_ costume that I have just completed, and of which I shall speak hereafter.

Lige, however, did not agree with any of us. Mamma never slept at night; papa did little else than sleep day and night; poor James overworked himself at study; and Cary and myself grew positively plain!

so that we started at last for Aix-la-Chapelle, intending to proceed direct to the Rhine. On arriving, however, at the "Quatre Saisons"

Hotel, pa found an excellent stock of port wine, which an Englishman, just deceased, had brought over for his own drinking, and he resolved to remain while it lasted. There were fortunately only seven dozen, or we should not have got away, as we did, in three weeks.

Not that Aix was entirely devoid of amus.e.m.e.nt. In the morning there is a kind of promenade round the bath-house, where you drink a sulphur spa to soft music; but, as James says, a solution of rotten eggs in ditch water is scarcely palatable, even with Donizetti. After that, you breakfast with what appet.i.te you may; then you ride out in large parties of fifteen or twenty till dinner, the day being finished with a kind of half-dress, or no dress, ball at "the rooms." The rooms, my dear Kitty, require a word or two of description. They are a set of six or seven _salons_ of considerable size, and no mean pretension as to architecture; at least, the ceilings are very handsome, and the architraves of doors and windows display a vast deal of ornament, but so dirty, so shamefully, shockingly dirty, it is incredible to say! In some there are newspapers; in others they talk; in one large apartment there is dancing; but the rush and recourse of all seem to two chambers, where they play at rouge-et-noir and roulette.

I only took a pa.s.sing peep at this pandemonium, and was shocked at the unshaven and ill-cared-for aspect of the players, who really, to my eyes, appeared like persons in great poverty; and, indeed, Lord George informs me that the frequenters of this place are a very inferior cla.s.s to those who resort to Ems and Baden.

I was not very sorry to get away from this; for, independently of other reasons, pa had made us very remarkable--I had almost said very ridiculous--before the first week was over. In order to prevent James from frequenting the play-room, papa stationed himself at the door, where he sat, with a great stick before him, from twelve o'clock every day till the same hour at night,--a piece of eccentricity that of course drew public attention to him, and made us all the subject of impertinent remarks, and indeed of some practical jokes: such as sudden alarms of fire, anonymous letters, and other devices, to seduce him from his watch.

It was, therefore, an inexpressible relief to me to hear that we were off for Cologne,--that city of sweet waters and a glorious cathedral!--though I must own to you, Kitty, that in the first of these two attractions the place is disappointing. The manufacturers of the far-famed perfume would seem so successfully to have extracted the odor of the richly gifted flowers, that they have actually left nothing endurable by human nose! Of all the towns in Europe, it is, they tell, the very worst in this respect; and even papa, who between snuff and nerves long inured to Irish fairs and quarter sessions, is tolerably indifferent,--even he said that he felt it "rather close and stuffy."

As for the cathedral, dearest, I have no words to convey my sensations of awe, wonderment, and worship. Yes, Kitty, it was a sense of soft devotional bewilderment,--a kind of deliciously pious rapture I felt come over me, as I sat in a dark recess of this glorious building, the rich organ notes pealing through the vaulted aisles, and floating upwards towards the fretted roof. Even Lord George--that volatile spirit--could not resist the influence of the spot, and he pressed my hand in the fervor of his feelings,--a liberty, I need scarcely tell you, he never would have ventured on under less exciting circ.u.mstances.

Shall I own to you, Kitty, that this sign of emotion on his part emboldened me to a step that you will call one of daring heroism? I could not, however, resist the temptation of contrasting the solemn grandeur and gorgeous sublimity of _our_ Church with the cold, unimpressive nakedness of _his_. The theme, the spot, the hour,--all seemed to inspire me, Kitty; and I suppose I must have pleaded eloquently, for his hand trembled, his head drooped, and almost fell upon my shoulder. I told him repeatedly that it was his reason I wished to convince,--that I neither desired to captivate his imagination nor engage his heart.

"And why not my heart?" cried he, pa.s.sionately. "Is it that--"

Oh, Kitty, who can tell what he would have said next, if a dirty little acolyte had not whisked round the corner and begged of us to move away and let him light two tapers beside a skull in a gla.s.s case? The officious little wretch might, at least, have waited till we had gone away; but no, nothing would do for him but he must illuminate his bones that very instant, and thus, probably, was lost to me forever the un speakable triumph I had all but accomplished.