The Passionate Elopement
and many a hunting field. They belonged to a world of broad acres and
park gates and double lodges and Corinthian hunting-boxes. They were
revered at home by many peasants and wore the mantle of life with an air
of easy proprietorship. They possessed something like the dignified
stability of the Church of England. They were a force, an institution, a
product of insular civilization. In fact, they were English Gentlemen,
and Mr. Vernon contemplated their existence with great self-satisfaction.
He, too, was an English Gentleman, he reassured himself. It was the
consciousness of being one which gave him that pleasant sense of
superiority to the rest of the world when he found himself in the
congenial company of his peers.
Yet poor Mr. Vernon (I am rather sorry for poor Mr. Vernon) could not
conceal from his shrewd self that he had no business to be at all unduly
elated at the prospect of entertaining young Tom Chalkley of the Foot,
Lieutenant Blewforth of the _Lively_, Mr. Harry Golightly of Campbell's
Grey Dragoons, Mr. Anthony Clare, little Peter Wingfield, Jack
Winnington, the Honourable Mr. Harthe-Brusshe, my Lord Squall, Lord
Augustus Wind and Mr. Charles Lovely.
It was Mr. Vernon's note of invitation to the last which had caused him
to d---- Vernon's hazel eyes, in the taproom of the _World turned Upside
Down_. Presently came a sound of laughter and careless talk as the young
gentlemen of the _Blue Boar_ came swaggering in. Was it merely a sense
of eccentricity that made the host fancy he detected a note of
condescension in their loud and jovial greeting to himself? Probably.
The early guests talked, as early guests always will, with half an eye
on the clock and the other half on the table.
"Squall is late," said Vernon.
"Squall coming?" inquired Blewforth.
"L-l-ook out for squalls," stammered little Peter Wingfield.
"Squall's an ass," said Mr. Golightly.
"So is his brother," said Chalkley.
"Always was," said Clare.
"Wind is coming too," said Vernon. "Augustus, that is, and
Harthe-Brusshe."
The young gentlemen of the _Blue Boar_ looked peevish; it was tactless
of that fellow Vernon to keep them waiting for three such asses as
these.
"They are late," said Blewforth very emphatically.
"I'm expecting Lovely, too," said Vernon almost humbly. Somehow or other
he felt the slightest inclination to apologize, exactly what for he did
not know.
"Charles is always late. He's a d----d careless fellow," said Mr.
Golightly, and one felt the final judgment upon Charles had been passed.
"Charles is not jigging with old Butterbun, is he?" asked little Peter
Wingfield.
"Oh! the d----l! not he," said Blewforth. "He's found a red-cheeked
hussy with whom he's carrying on an intrigue."
"Eh, what! Never?" exclaimed a chorus.
"What's his charmer's name?" said Chalkley.
"Burgundy," replied Blewforth with a great guffaw that made all the
glasses and goblets and decanters on the big oak dresser ring an echo.
"I never thought Charles cared much for wine or women," said Golightly.
"Nor he don't," Blewforth put in. "Nor he don't. That's what beats me.
But I tell you I saw Charles Lovely sitting in the taproom of the _World
Turned Upside Down_. Nobody goes there unless he wishes to be drunk by
nightfall. Eh, boys? So depend on't when Charles does arrive, he'll
arrive drunk. But why? That's the riddle."
"Perhaps the fair Courteen has slighted him," said Chalkley. "Serve him
right. He had no business to take himself so seriously. 'Tis very
fashionable to be a poet, but egad! 'tis devilish low to behave like
one."
"Is that Miss Phyllida Courteen?" said Vernon, trying to speak as though
he had read her name in the list of visitors published every week by the
proprietors of the _Curtain Wells Chronicle and Pump Room
Intelligencer_.
"Aye! d'ye know her? Blooming seventeen with a short upper lip, blue
eyes and hair the colour of that chestnut gelding, What's His Name sold
'tother day."
"Very poor animal," said Golightly.
"Not at all. I disagree with you."
"Very poor animal indeed," said Golightly.
"It fetched a very pretty price."
"Oh," said Mr. Golightly and the argument was over.
"Does she carry a white swansdown muff?" asked Vernon.
"Who?"
"Miss Courteen."
"Eh? Oh! I don't know," and since Mr. Chalkley's tone of voice implied a
lack of further interest on the subject, the subject was dropped.
"My belief is," said Lieutenant Blewforth loudly, and moving as he spoke
in the direction of the fireplace. "Egad, Vernon would you take it
unkind if I rang for a tankard of ale? I'm as dry as a gunner in action.
My belief is," he went on spreading his coat-tails to the genial warmth,
"my belief is----"
"Gadslife! B-B-lewforth," interrupted Peter Wingfield, "pray get on with
the recitation of your c-creed."
"Don't get excited, little man," said Blewforth. "My belief is Charles
wrote that book."
"What book?" said Chalkley, whose acquaintance with the literature of
the day was remarkably small.
"Curtain Polls."
"Never heard of it," said Mr. Chalkley.
"Rubbish!" said Clare, entering suddenly into the conversation.
"Rubbish!" and yet Mr. Anthony Clare was one of the two people in the
room who knew for certain that Charles was, indeed, the author of that
satirical trifle.
"It has caused a terrible amount of talk," Blewforth went on. "My old
aunt Seaworthy to whom I paid my annual visit yesterday tells me that
all the world is very much hurt at being treated with such freedom."
"I d-don't see why Charles should take to drink because he's wrote a
book." This was from Peter Wingfield.
"Ripple may have been annoyed. He's confoundedly touchy about a little
matter like that and Charles thinks Ripple is a demigod."
The Earl of Squall, Lord Augustus Wind and the Honourable Mr.
Harthe-Brusshe came into the room at that moment, and Mr. Vernon, who
had been feeling a little outside the intimacy of the company, made
haste to propose that, everybody save Charles being present, the wine
should be brought in.
Everybody agreed that nothing fitted in more exactly with their wishes
than Mr. Vernon's timely suggestion and everybody selected his chair
with that preciseness which stamps the beginning of an entertainment.
Everybody sat down and the nuts were circulated.
Presently John entered with twelve quart-bottles of Burgundy on a huge
tray. All of them had been gently warmed before a slow fire, and all of
them were wiped clean of the cobwebs and dust of the several years spent
in the ample cellars of the _Blue Boar_.
Vernon had prepared a short oration for the entrance of the liquor and
while John reverently stationed a bottle at everybody's right hand, he
made haste to deliver it. Perhaps his utterance was a shade too
reminiscent of one of the many prologues spoken by his mother at the
theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, but that did not matter since nobody in
the room was old enough to remember that lady's inimitable delivery of
Mr. Dryden's rhymed Alexandrines.
"The life of Burgundy," said Mr. Vernon, "is very like the life of a
butterfly. At first the grape or caterpillar-grub, feeding upon the
richness of the soil, then the cocoon or bottle stage when it languishes
for many years in darkness below the earth until--until it emerges
glowing with a thousand varied tints of crimson--and, like a butterfly,
wings its airy way into the brain of mankind."
The company, with the exception of my Lord Squall who was sometimes
taken in the old family coach of the Winds to hear his father speak in
the House of Lords, were not accustomed to lengthy speeches and looked
at each other bashfully.
Lieutenant Blewforth with nautical tact saved the situation by drinking
Mr. Vernon's health in a very large and brimming pint bumper which he
emptied in two sonorous gulps.
As everybody else proceeded to follow this good example, everybody was
soon very cheerful, and the advent of the second dozen of bottles was
mightily applauded.
However, the master mind was still absent and the drinking, though
steady, had not yet enlivened the company to uproarious spirits.
"Where's Charles?" bellowed Blewforth munching a devilled biscuit.
"Where's that fellow Charles. Demme! He'll never catch us up at this
rate and we shall have him sober as a post-captain when we are beginning
to amuse ourselves."
"What, you rogue," cried our hero entering just as the Lieutenant
bellowed his inquiry. "I wager five guineas, I am two bottles ahead of
any gentleman present." In order to clinch the bet he flung his purse in
the direction of the table. The gauntlet snuffed in its course two of
the candles and fell with a plump into a piping bowl of punch splashing
Tom Chalkley as high as his stock and imparting to His Majesty's uniform
an odour of hot squeezed lemons that lasted for quite a couple of weeks.
"Charles! Charles!" bellowed the burly Lieutenant, "Huzza for Charles!"
The latter lurched into the vacant chair next to his friend Tony without
a word to the host. However, nobody observed this breach of good
manners, because everybody was anxiously leaning over to fill every
glass in reach of the newcomer as a preliminary to drinking his very
good health a score of times, without a heeltap to any one of them.
"Z--ds! Charles. Where have you been?" said Chalkley.
"Drinking old Burgundy with a rogue of a bagman who looked like Ranelagh
Garden en Fete, for his face was illuminated with every hue of crimson
lamp and I stake my wig his nose was as large and round as the Rotunda."
With the arrival of Charles, everybody woke up and there were calls for
a song. The gallant Lieutenant was the first to respond with my Lord
Dorset's _To you fair ladies now at Land_.
Let me remind you of that fine old ballad:
_To you fair ladies now at Land
We men at Sea indite;
But first would have you understand
How hard it is to write_.
"Not at all," cried Charles.
_The Muses now, and Neptune too,
We must implore to write to you;_
"and chorus, gentlemen, please,"
_With a Fa, la, la, la, la, la
The Muses now, and Neptune too,
We must implore to write to you_.
and so on to the last
_With a Fa, la, la, la, la
Let us hear of no Inconstancy
We have too much of that at Sea_.
And a proper noise everybody made with the _Fa la-la-la-la_ accentuating
every _Fa_ with a bottle and every _La_ with one of Mr. Jeremy Daish's
handsome silver spoons.
The song being a very lengthy one allowed everybody plenty of time to
drink another quart of Burgundy before its rousing conclusion, and if
the company cheered loudly at the beginning, by heavens, they cheered so
loudly at the end that the noise was heard above the fiddlers in the new
ballroom of Daish's famous Rooms and put everybody out of step in the
last Cotillon notwithstanding the heroick efforts of the disreputable,
but nimble-footed Captain Mann.
Then Charles gave a new ballad (new that is in the reign of Queen Anne)
sung first at Messieurs Brook and Hellier's Club at the Temple Tavern in
Fleet Street, but slightly altered by him to suit present company,
_Since I'm in the Chair and every one here
Appears in gay humour and easy;
Say, why should not I, a new Ballad try,
Bright Brethren o' the Bottle to please ye.
This wine is my theme, this is all on's Esteem,
For Jeremy Daish cannot wrong us;
Let them get Wealth who keeps us in health.
By bringing neat liquor among us_.
(with chorus of last two lines repeated).
_Each Vintner of late, has got an Estate
By brewing and Sophistication
With cyder and sloes, they've made a d----d dose,
Has poisoned one half of the nation_.
and so on until