Love and Life: An Old Story in Eighteenth Century Costume
to gather than the cowslip, fragrant as the breath of a cow. And
Aurelia darted about, piling the golden heap in her basket with untiring
enjoyment; then, producing a tape, called on Harriet, who had been
working in a more leisurely fashion, to join her in making a cowslip
ball, and charged Eugene not to nip off the heads too short.
The sweet, soft, golden globe was made, and even Harriet felt the
delicious intoxication. The young things tossed it aloft, flung from
one to the other, caught it, caressed it, buried their faces in it, and
threw it back with shrieks of glee.
Suddenly Harriet checked her sister with a peremptory sign. She heard
horse-hoofs in the lane, divided from the field by a hedge of pollard
willows, so high that she had never thought of being overlooked, till
the cessation of the trotting sound struck her; and looking round she
saw that a horseman had halted at the gate, and was gazing at their
sports. It was from the distance of a field, but this was enough to
fill Harriet with dismay. She drew herself up in a moment, signing
peremptorily to Aurelia, who was flying about, her hat off, her one long
curl streaming behind as she darted hither and thither, evading Eugene
who was pursuing her.
As she paused, and Eugene clutched her dress with a shout of ecstasy,
Harriet came up, glancing severely toward the gate, and saying, as she
handed her sister the hat, “This comes of childishness! That we should
be seen thus! What a hoyden he will think you!” as the hoofs went on and
the red coat vanished.
“He! Who? Not the farmer?” said Aurelia. “This is not laid up for hay.”
“No indeed. I believe it is he,” said Harriet, mysteriously.
“He?” repeated Aurelia. “Not Mr. Arden, for he would be in black,” and
at Harriet’s disgusted gesture, “I beg your pardon, but I did not
know you had a new _he_. Oh! surely you are not thinking of the young
baronet?”
“I am sure it was his figure.”
“You did not see him yesterday?”
“No, but his air had too much distinction for any one from these parts.”
“Could you see what his air was from this distance? I should never have
guessed it, but you have more experience, being older. Come, Eugene,
another race!”
“No, I will have no more folly. I was too good-natured to allow it. I am
vexed beyond measure that he should have seen such rusticity.”
“Never mind, dear Harriet. Most likely it was no such person, for it
was not well-bred to sit staring at us; and if it were he, you were not
known to him.”
“You were.”
“Then he must have eyes as sharp as yours are for an air of distinction.
Having only seen me in my blue and primrose suit, how should he know me
in my present trim? Besides, I believe it was only young Dick Jewel in a
cast coat of Squire Humphrey’s.”
The charm of the cowslip gathering was broken. Eugene found himself
very hungry, and the noonchin was produced, after which the walk was
continued to the farm-house, where the young people were made very
welcome.
Farmers were, as a rule, more rustic than the present labourer, but they
lived a life of far less care, if of more toil, than their successors,
having ample means for their simple needs, and enjoying jocund plenty.
The clean kitchen, with the stone floor, the beaupot of maythorn on the
empty hearth, the shining walnut-wood table, the spinning-wheel, wooden
chairs, and forms, all looked cool and inviting, and the visitors were
regaled with home-made brown bread, delicious butter and honey, and a
choice of new milk, mead, and currant wine.
Dame Jewel, in a white frill under a black silken hood, a buff turnover
kerchief, stout stuff gown and white apron, was delighted to wait
on them; and Eugene’s bliss was complete among the young kittens and
puppies in baskets on opposite sides of the window, the chickens before
their coops, the ducklings like yellow balls on the grass, and the huge
family of little spotted piglings which, to the scandal of his sisters,
he declared the most delightful of all.
Their hostess knew nothing of the young baronet being in the
neighbourhood, and was by no means gratified by the intelligence.
“Lack-a-day! Miss Harriet, you don’t mean that the family is coming down
here! I don’t want none of them. ‘Tis bad times for the farmer when
any of that sort is nigh. They make nothing of galloping their horses a
hunting right through the crops, ay, and horsewhipping the farmer if he
do but say a word for the sweat of his brow.”
“O Mrs. Jewel!” cried Aurelia, in whose ear lingered the courteous
accents of her partner, “they would never behave themselves so.”
“Bless you, Miss Orreely, I’ll tell you what I’ve seen with my own eyes.
My own good man, the master here, with the horsewhip laid about his
shoulders at that very thornbush, by one of the fine gentlefolks,
just because he had mended the gap in the hedge they was used to ride
through, and my Lady sitting by in her laced scarlet habit on her fine
horse, smiling like a painted picture, and saying, ‘Thank you, sir,
the rascals need to learn not to interfere with our sport,’ all in that
gentle sounding low voice of hers, enough to drive one mad.”
“I thought Sir Jovian had been a kind master,” said Harriet.
“This was not Sir Jovian. Poor gentleman, he was not often out
a-hunting. This was one of the fine young rakish fellows from Lunnun
as were always swarming about my Lady, like bees over that maybush. Sir
Thomas Donne, I think they called him. They said he got killed by a wild
boar, hunting in foreign parts, afterwards, and serve him right! But
there! They would all do her bidding, whether for bad or good, so maybe
it was less his fault than hers. She is a bitter one, is my Lady, for
all she looks so sweet. And this her young barrowknight will be his own
mother’s son, and I don’t want none of ‘em down here. ‘Tis a good job we
have your good papa, the Major, to stand between her and us; I only wish
he had his own, for a rare good landlord he would be.”
The Dame’s vain wishes were cut short by shrieks from the poultry-yard,
where Eugene was discovered up to his ankles in the black ooze of the
horse-pond, waving a little stick in defiance of an angry gander, who
with white outspread wings, snake-like neck, bent and protruded, and
frightful screams and hisses, was no bad representation of his namesake
the dragon, especially to a child not much exceeding him in height.
The monster was put to rout, the champion dragged out of the pond,
breathlessly explaining that he only wanted to look at the goslings when
the stupid geese cackled and the gander wanted to fly at his eyes. “And
I didn’t see where I was going, for I had to keep him off, so I got into
the mud. Will sister be angry?” he concluded, ruefully surveying the
dainty little stockings and shoes coated with black mud.
But before the buckled shoon had been scraped, or the hosen washed and
dried, the cheerful memory of boyhood had convinced itself that the
enemy had been put to flight by his manful resistance; and he turned a
deaf ear to Aurelia’s suggestion that the affair had been retribution
for his constant oblivion of Comenius’ assertion that _auser gingrit,_
“the goose gagleth.”
They went home more soberly, having been directed by Mrs. Jewel to a
field bordered by a copse, where grew the most magnificent of Titania’s
pensioners tall, wearing splendid rubies in their coats; and in due
time the trio presented themselves at home, weary, but glowing with
the innocent excitement of their adventures. Harriet was the first
to proclaim that they had seen a horseman who must be Sir Amyas. “Had
sister seen him?”
“Only through the window of the kitchen where I was making puff paste.”
“He called then! Did my papa see him?”
“My father was in no condition to see any one, being under the hands and
razor of Palmer.”
“La! what a sad pity. Did he leave no message?”
“He left his compliments, and hoped his late partner was not fatigued.”
“Is he at the Great House? Will he call again?”
“He is on his way to make a visit in Monmouthshire, together with a
brother office, who is related to my Lady Herries, and finding that
their road led them within twenty miles of our town, the decided on
making a diversion to see her. It was only from her that Sir Amyas
understood how close he was to his mother’s property, for my Lady is
extremely jealous of her prerogative.”
“How did you hear all this, sister?”
“Sir George Herries rode over this afternoon and sat an hour with my
father, delighting him by averring that the young gentleman has his
mother’s charms of person, together with his father’s solidity of
principle and character, and that he will do honour to his name.”
“O, I hope he will come back by this route!” cried Harriet.
“Of that there is small likelihood,” said Betty. “His mother is nearly
certain to prevent it since she is sure to take umbrage at his having
visited the Great House without her permission.”
CHAPTER IV. MY LADY’S MISSIVE.
To the next coffee-house he speeds,
Takes up the news, some scraps he reads.--GAY.
Though Carminster was a cathedral city, the Special General Post only
came in once a week, and was liable to delay through storms, snows, mire
and highwaymen, so that its arrival was as great an event as is now
the coming in of a mail steamer to a colonial harbour. The “post” was
a stout countryman, with a red coat, tall jackboots and a huge hat.
He rode a strong horse, which carried, _en croupe_, an immense pack,
covered with oiled canvas, rising high enough to support his back, while
he blew a long horn to announce his arrival.
Letters were rare and very expensive articles unless franked by a Member
of Parliament, but gazettes and newsletters formed a large portion of
his freight. No private gentleman except the Dean and Sir George Herries
went to the extravagance of taking in a newspaper on his own account,
but there was a club who subscribed for the _Daily Gazetteer_, the
_Tatler_, and one or two other infant forms of periodical literature.
These were hastily skimmed on their first arrival at the club-room at
the White Dragon, lay on the table to be more deliberately conned for
a week, and finally were divided among the members to be handed about
among the families and dependants as long as they would hold together.
Major Delavie never willingly missed the coming of the mail, for his
foreign experiences gave him keen interest in the war between France and
Austria, and he watched the campaigns of his beloved Prince Eugene with
untiring enthusiasm, being, moreover, in the flattering position of
general interpreter and guide to his neighbours through the scanty
articles on foreign intelligence.
It was about ten days after the syllabub party, when he had quite
recovered his ordinary health, that he mounted his stout pony in his
military undress, his cocked hat perched on his well-powdered bob-wig,
with a queue half-way down his dark green gold-laced coat, and with
his long jack-boots carefully settle by Palmer over the knee that would
never cease to give him trouble.
Thus he slowly ambled into the town, catching on his way distant toots
of the postman’s horn. In due time he made his way into the High
Street, broad and unpaved, with rows of lime or poplar trees before the
principal houses, the most modern of which were of red brick, with heavy
sash-windows, large stone quoins, and steps up to the doors.
The White Dragon, dating from the times of the Mortimer badge, was built
of creamy stone, and had an archway conducting the traveller into a
courtyard worthy of Chaucer, with ranges of galleries running round
it, the balustrades of dark carved oak suiting with the timbers of the
latticed window and gables, and with the noble outside stair at one