The Passionate Elopement
to Mr. Anthony Clare, who, for all he sat so unmoved, had provided eight
cocks for the civilians and stood to lose a pretty pile of guineas.
"Where's Lovely?" asked Vernon, shaking the sawdust from his boots.
"He never comes to cock-fights," Clare replied rather coldly.
"Too brutal for a poet, eh?"
"I have never heard him say so," said Clare.
As a matter of fact Charles strongly disapproved of the sport and it is
a significant fact that at this very moment, he was trotting along the
Bristol road, tired of lashing Curtain polls and determined, against the
advice of his conscience, to stake fifty guineas on the result of the
Main.
The latter progressed with monotonous cruelty until, of the thirty-two
cocks who began, but two pairs were left, all bleeding profusely. And
now with a refinement of brutality, the steel gaffles, hitherto used to
shorten the earlier and less interesting matches, were removed and
silver ones fastened on in their place, because, the latter, being less
deadly, prolonged the miserable contest.
During this momentary lull, Charles entered the barn and was greeted
with cheers in which could be detected a note of surprize. Clare moved
along in order to make room for his friend, and squeezed Mr. Vernon
somewhat unceremoniously in doing so.
"What birds are being set to?" inquired Lovely.
"My Knowsley and Chalkley's Cheshire Pile, and a White Pile of
Campbell's against Winnington's Cuckoo."
The semi-final dragged out its bloody length, until for the final was
left Mr. Clare's famous Knowsley cock, his ebony breast dabbled with
blood and his red pinions ragged and broken, but still preserving some
of the smartness of their slantwise trimming--trimmed so in order that
by a lucky stroke an adversary's eye might be put out. The survivor of
the two Services was Mr. Campbell's White Pile, stained with crimson.
"Will your bird win?" whispered Mr. Lovely.
"I think so," said Clare, "he comes of a good breed."
"Two to one in Tens against the Pile," shouted Mr. Lovely.
"Done," said Vernon.
"Two to one in Twenties against the Pile," shouted Mr. Lovely.
"Done," said Mr. Vernon.
"Three to one in Fifties," shouted Mr. Lovely.
And this wager also was taken by Mr. Francis Vernon.
The Feeders were setting the birds beak to beak. The shouting of odds
was deafening: the gallant cocks were both exhausted by the four
previous fights, but the feathers flew, the wings whirred, the gaffles
clicked, and the blood flowed fast enough to please the vile faces that
looked down through the murky atmosphere.
At last the White Pile, blinded in one eye, began to retreat before the
Knowsley.
"I pound the cock," shouted Charles, flinging his hat into the pit.
The Teller of the Law, a seedy vagabond with a red nose, began to count
in raucous accents. Twice he counted twenty slowly, and
"Vill any vun take it?" he asked.
"Yes," said Mr. Vernon, and just as Mr. Vernon said 'Yes,' the brave
Knowsley cock, the champion of many famous fights, toppled over on his
side, dead.
The Naval and Military Amateurs had won the Welch Main, and Mr. Charles
Lovely had lost two hundred and ten guineas, not to mention ten pounds
for so rashly pounding the cock.
The young gentlemen went back to Curtain Wells much pleased with the
afternoon's entertainment, while the riff-raff walked or drove in queer
vehicles back to their squalid homes, all save one unfortunate
individual, unable to meet a debt of ten shillings incurred by backing
the brave Knowsley, who for all he was dying had pursued his antagonist
so confidently. He spent the night in a basket close to the roof and was
not set down till the next morning by one of the labourers on Blackhart
Farm.
_Chapter the Twentieth_
IN WHICH EVERYTHING GROWS BUT THE PLOT
You will remember, if you have not put this book upon the table
meanwhile, that in the last paragraph of the last chapter, we left an
unfortunate individual swinging in a basket hard by the roof of a barn.
He was hoisted by a pulley amid the acclamations of the mob because he
was unable to fulfil an obligation so small that half a guinea would
have covered it. There he swung amid cobwebs and bats, fearful every
time the basket creaked he should fall into the blood-stained sawdust of
the cock-pit. I cannot tell you his name, but that is no great matter
since we must examine him not as a man, but as a symbol.
Possibly with the Beau's perspective, we might diminish him to the size
of a textual illustration, for this unfortunate man is a textual
illustration, and though not etched with the care of Mr. Stothard, will
serve his purpose well enough.
Suspension is a disreputable attitude for the human body, whatever way
it is brought about, yet I doubt this maltreated anonymity was in better
case than our hero. He paid the penalty for laying unwise wagers and
found earth on the next morning much as he had left it on the afternoon
of the day before. Moreover, he never paid his half-guinea, which was a
real source of consolation. But our hero swung that night in an
immaterial basket that creaked thrice as damnably as the other, and
found no good-natured labouring man to put him on the ground next
morning. The only result of opposing the advice of his conscience, was
an additional debt of two hundred and twenty guineas to our villain.
To make matters worse, he had to meet his creditor over the breakfast
table, and of the many dooms measured out to sinners, this is surely one
of the most difficult to face with equanimity.
In despair, he took to drinking the waters with the rest of the
Exquisite Mob, and earned a few golden glances from Beau Ripple, but
nothing more tangible. Even the advantage of these was neutralized by
the chalybeate, which acted with disconcerting abruptness upon a healthy
body unused to medicinal spurs.
The wry water served a good purpose, however, by souring his
point-of-view. The liquid iron entered into his soul and he lashed the
Curtain Polls in a variety of metres. He also took long walks into the
country, and sought by the contemplation of scenery to acquire an
impersonal attitude towards his fellow creatures. After all, there is no
better training for a mob-master than the exercise of a satirical pen,
and as time went on Mr. Lovely's book increased in bulk, although it
never achieved more than a suggestive slimness even when bound in calf.
February faded into March, and in accordance with the season everything
began to grow.
Mr. Lovely's book we have already noticed.
Mr. Vernon's seductive arts grew daily more seductive, and, though for a
week or two after Mr. Ripple's warning, Mrs. Courteen arranged for the
complete occupation of Phyllida's leisure, the growth of Mrs. Courteen's
figure necessitated a stricter attention to diet and exercise, and
caused her so much anxiety that her vigilance was soon relaxed. So
whenever the forenoons were fine enough, Phyllida sat on the moss-grown
seat in the centre of the Maze, and, under the patronage of the little
stone Cupid, grew daily more powerfully enchanted by the magical
personality of Mr. Francis Vernon.
Thomas, the footman, grew daily more unctuous owing to the visit of a
gouty dean who, being invited to occupy St. Simon's pulpit, preached a
remarkable sermon in seven divisions and twenty-three sub-divisions,
conclusively establishing the identity of the English Nation with the
tribe of Benjamin. Mr. Moon and Major Tarry grew more entirely devoted
to the widow, and Thomasina the cat also grew owing to the advent of
kittens. In fact, everybody and everything grew prodigiously in the
merry springtime.
The list of visitors grew. Rich Mrs. Bendish arrived and made all the
dowagers jealous with her chest of precious stones that she brought back
from an island in the Caribbean Sea--buried treasure that was actually
discovered. Lord Rocquepool came, and his daughters, the Honourable
Georgina and the Honourable Caroline de Winqule. The Honourable Mrs.
Winter-Green came, and the Welch baronet, Sir Owen Ap Taffy. The
Marquess of Hurricane arrived, and several members of the great Wind
family. Also, with all these aristocratick visitors, it is not
surprizing that Mr. Ripple's snuff bill grew daily.
March came in like a lamb that year, and the sweet season danced in the
bleak furrows over which the lank hares leaped and scampered. White
violets scented equinoctial dusks, and in every window of the Wells big
daffodils hung down their golden ruffs. March went by to the tune of
fiddles and flutes. Mr. Ripple had to attend near half a dozen routs
every night, and the weekly Assemblies were more fully thronged than
ever before.
Every day the jolly sun grew more powerful and the noise of polite
conversation was almost drowned by the twittering of the sparrows as
they, like their betters, made a chorus of loves, jealousies, hopes,
plans and disappointments in a world of chimney-stacks and slanting
roofs. They perched in the most fashionable gutters, just as, down below
on the sunny side of the High Street, the Exquisite Mob ruffled before
the gayest shops.
"How well that chip hat becomes me!"
"What wonderful silks are being displayed this spring!"
"They say that hoops and head-dresses will both show a monstrous
increase in size this year."
As if the daffodils had intoxicated the whole race of dyers, nothing but
shades of yellow were to be seen. In these happier days for the
followers of the Mode, Blonda and Brunetta, those charming sisters,
were not compelled to rely on their natural complexions in order to wear
a certain shade. In these happier days, powder, rouge and patches
availed to make the gaudy apricock glow even beside the blooming peach
without injury to either. Therefore the artfully arranged bow-windows
with rolls of citron damasks, canary velvets, golden brocades, lemon
sattins and orange silks, dismayed not Blonda any more than the sapphire
and turquoise of the autumnal mode fretted the vanity of Brunetta. As
for young maidens, their fashion like the eternal mountains was always
white.
But suddenly on the twenty-seventh of the month the weather changed.
Masses of wet grey clouds swept in from the Atlantick, and March
prepared to go out like a lion.
And on this very morning _Curtain Polls severely lashed by a Curtain
Rod_ appeared on Mr. Paul Virgin's counter.
This small work produced far greater consternation than the sudden
change in the weather. Though it rained and blew, and whistled and
streamed, nobody paid the slightest attention, nobody said 'What a
change in the weather,' for all the world was deeply engrossed in
reading about his asterisked self and his asterisked neighbour.
_Chapter the Twenty-first_
CURTAIN POLLS
There had been nothing to prepare Curtain Wells for its chastizement. No
wreathed pamphlet warned readers in the most choice preliminary duff
that a sarcastick comet would presently singe their vices, their follies
and their vanities. Nobody had been invited to subscribe in advance to
his own ridicule. As it were on the wings of a Westerly gale, these
destructive little volumes settled upon the fields of Pleasure like
locusts on a Bedouin plantation.
Two speculative chap-book pedlars sold the first twenty to as many
drinkers of chalybeate hastening home to breakfast. For those who
stopped to buy there was no breakfast that morning. The kidneys and the
bacon and the eggs and the ham and the loin chops and the red herrings
and the toasted bread were neglected. The vanguard of purchasers were,
in reading about neighbours, too much diverted, and, in reading about
themselves, too indignant to eat.
Out went the kidneys and the bacon and the eggs and the ham and the loin