The Passionate Elopement

"One night--no! now, sirrah, now." Mr. Ripple stamped his little foot, probably to shake off the mud of the humiliating accident. "Now?" Mr. Upex looked surprized, that is to say the mouth of Mr. Upex remained fixed in a cavernous gape. "Why not now?" exclaimed the peremptory Beau. "Ain't your beds aired, landlord? Ain't they made yet?" "Oh, certainly, your honour." "Then show me upstairs at once. I shall lie down until the wheel of my chaise is mended. And shew this lady another room, and send two or three chambermaids to attend to her." Mr. Upex looked much relieved. It was not such a shameless affair as he had been led by wanton ambiguity of phrase to believe. "What about the duck?" "What duck? What duck?" asked Mr. Ripple fretfully. "The duck your honour ordered--that is, was about to order when I interrupted your honour." "Send up three slices of the breast on a small tray to my chamber, and don't put any stuffing on the plate, the odour of sage upsets my appetite." "Indeed?" said Mr. Upex, quite frankly interested by such a nasal idiosyncrasy. "Yes, and send out a woman of taste and discretion to purchase a nightcap." "I wouldn't say, your honour, as how one of the maids wouldn't oblige your--er--the good lady." "For myself, landlord, for myself." "I beg your honour's pardon." Mr. Upex hurried off to execute his guest's requirement and presently returned to escort them to their rooms. "When my man comes in," said the Beau, "send him up to me with the nightcap." Pridgeon had rescued the wheel from the pond and, having successfully directed two bumpkins to trundle it to the blacksmith, arrived at the inn with an admiring retinue of idlers, whom he regaled with quarts of bitter beer. The woman of taste entrusted with the purchase of the nightcap (she was the scullerymaid) returned with the vestment neatly wrapped in paper, and, meeting her master on the stairs, was told to hand it to the diminutive groom, who chucked her under the chin with the parcel and took his bow-legged way upstairs to Mr. Ripple's temporary apartment. Outside he rapped smartly on the door, which was cautiously opened sufficiently wide to allow the urbane countenance of the Beau to peer round the corner. "Is that you, Pridgeon?" "Me, y'r honour, with a present from Great Cobblebury." The Beau took the nightcap, and in its place handed muddied smallcloaths, smeared coat, and wrinkled waistcoat. "Have these cloaths thoroughly brushed." "Yes, y'r honour." "And bring me three slices of breast in an hour's time." "Yes, y'r honour." "And don't get drunk to celebrate your carelessness." "No, y'r honour." "Poor clod," murmured the Beau to his polite self, as he closed the door of his chamber and double locked it against intrusion. I think it would certainly be indiscreet to spy upon Mr. Ripple's retirement. How did he spend his time in bed? The whisper of book-leaves tempts me to suppose that he read several of the bitterest odes, very possibly a whole satire of Quintus Horatius Flaccus, that poet so fierce but withal so urbane. Meanwhile Mrs. Courteen, surrounded by three maids, respectively known as Susan, Joan, and Elizabeth, held forth upon her misfortunes to a sympathetick audience. She stood in the middle of her chamber, a massive figure pouring forth ludicrous complaint. It was as if a stork should seek to emulate a nightingale. Susan knelt on the floor and industriously stitched away at the ragged train; Joan knelt with innumerable pins stuck between her pearly teeth and judiciously fastened several gaps in her attire, while Elizabeth, who was being courted by Johnny, the _Green Dragon's_ sibilant hostler, rubbed away at the mud with as near an imitation of the sounds produced by her lover's stringy throat as the softness of her own would allow. "I have been greatly distressed," said the widow, "grossly deceived, intolerably put about for, though Mr. Ripple has the character of a block of marble, it don't become a woman to be seen alone with a man anywhere, especially in a yellow chaise which attracts everybody's attention. I vow I heard that odious young Miss Kitcat laugh from her balcony as we flew past--yes, flew--and such bumping! I dare swear I'm bruised from head to foot, and my skin shows the smallest mark. I remember when I was a young woman, I stepped a minuet with young Mr. Heavibois of Heavibois Hall, and I declare he might have been taking the grossest liberties all through the evening, for the way my wrist was marked. Lud! it was as purple as my grandmother's silk coverlet that was given to her by a young lieutenant in the Navy, and was thought to belong to the wife of the Cham of Tartary, though I dare say he bought it in Cheapside for ten shillings, being a young gentleman on whose word nobody could rely, that is the worst of men, young women, you cannot trust 'em. And now my own daughter has run away with a London spark, and I, her own mother, must give up half a score routs and my Lady Pickadilly's drum--the most fashionable affair of the kind that will ever be known in Curtain Wells, for my Lady Pickadilly is newly come from town with her second son the Hon. John Hyde, as quiet a young gentleman as ever said Bo! to a goose, and here we are nearly into April, and if my daughter drowns herself from London Bridge, why then I shall be wearing black at the Fetes Champetres and a pretty figure I shall be truly! though, indeed, if one had the courage to wear a white velvet vizard, I might very well pass for an Allegory of Moonlight--and yet that would never do, for to be sure that malicious creature Mrs. Dudding, whose Conversazione last month was the completest failure ever known, would make one of her odious epigrams about poor Mr. Moon, the best natured of gentlemen and the very personification of the milk of human kindness. To be sure, his ankles are very big, but indeed I vow if one were to regard all the defects in humanity, very few of us would be able to hold up our heads. Mr. Ripple himself is the smallest man in the Wells, but nobody esteems him the less for that. To be sure, I think he was very ill-advised,--though for that matter he was never known to take anybody's advice but his own--very ill-advised, I say, not to speak more severely to my daughter. I was always so careful of her modesty that I never allowed her to sit in the Maze with an odious little nudity in stone always hovering about, till I declare they should have planted ivy to climb up his shameless legs. I'm sure nothing could be more Biblical than such vegetable apparel. Cupid they call him: Stupid I call it." Mrs. Courteen here paused to take a longer breath and Susan exclaimed: "La! ma'am, what to do wi' your petticoat I doan't know. It comes peaping through your gown like Tom o' Coventry in the Christmas mumming." "Pin it, child, pin it," said the widow. "La! ma'am, we ha' used nigh forty pins already, and thee'll be like a hedgehog soon." "No matter, child, no matter how I appear. I must do my duty as a mother, but I vow I blush when I think that near everybody takes us for man and wife. To be sure, I don't mind, and always say that if the world wishes to talk, the world will talk; and there once was a time when I was talked about from one corner of the county to the other. And now this improper affair of my daughter's will set every idle tongue wagging again. My own maid Betty, who was privy to the whole unhappy intrigue, was truly frightened when she found how far ignorance and wilfulness had taken her. 'What will they say at Courteen Grange, ma'am, and what will Mr. Rumble the carrier say, and Mrs. Rumble and the old widow who keeps the shop and poor old Jonas the gardener and all the good folk of the shire?' 'Ah,' said I, 'what indeed?' Ugh! child, you're running pins into my--into my legs!" "Dear life, ma'am," said Susan the culprit, apparently not much abashed by the accusation, "'tis difficult to find a bit of leg to run a pin into, for, O my soul and body, you're shining like a starlight night, wi' pins all over 'ee." So the rehabilitation of Mrs. Courteen went on with diffuse anecdotes on the side of the widow, with similes from deft-fingered Susan, with much displaying of pearly teeth from Joan, and with a gentle cooing from Elizabeth, who was betrothed to the hostler of the _Green Dragon_ Inn. Outside it was raining faster than ever, and the wind was beginning to moan under the eaves and away in the remote corners of the house. A flash of lightning and a terrifick burst of thunder that followed immediately upon its heels undid half an hour's steady pinning, owing to the violent tremours with which it afflicted poor Mrs. Courteen. It made Mr. Ripple break a Caesura and, worse, it made him try to mend it with a false quantity. Altogether the prospect was extremely uninviting, and the succulent odour of roast duck was certainly no temptation to precipitate his departure. However, the duck came to an end, and the morsels of it which began to freeze upon his plate made him so impatient of farther delay that when Pridgeon knocked at the door and informed him the chaise was once more fit for the roads, he called for his bill and, as I believe, (such a sweet change had Horace and roast duck wrought in his mind) hummed a popular jig while he buttoned up his breeches. Soon he was tapping delicately at the door of Mrs. Courteen's chamber, saying: "Come, ma'am, I hope you're rested. Our horses are waiting--'tis a most atrocious night--but never mind, ma'am, never mind, we shall sleep the sounder," he had almost said "for having done our duty," but not even the stress of an untoward adventure could condemn his spirit to a second platitude that stormy night, and he altered the unfinished sentence to "for not having to endure Mrs. Dudding's epigrams. Foregad, ma'am," he went on, "she churns the sour cream of her intellect and produces, after infinite toil, a very rancid wit." Then the Great little Man pattered downstairs, condescended to felicitate Mr. Upex upon his timely meal, inquired the name of his cook, said she was a good woman and would go far, listened to Farmer Gruby's opinion that this rain would do a power o' good to the land, condoled with him upon a bovine loss which he was still lamenting, bade Pridgeon stand another quart of ale each to the good fellows who had assisted to talk about the accident, raised his monocle to a bill of sale affixed to the wall, inquired into the state of the roads before them, evoked an atmosphere of respectful adoration by presenting the landlord with a card inscribed 'Horace Ripple, The Great House,' and finally won the perpetual devotion of Mr. George Upex by writing in his neatest hand at the top right corner of the engraved card 'Recommended by.' The landlord vowed he would have the precious voucher of identity framed and hung up in the parlour underneath a painting on glass of his gracious Majesty K---- G----, and in close proximity to a likeness of Lord Breda's prize bullock Jupiter, which several drunken loyalists had been known to salute in mistake for the K----. Mrs. Courteen sailed downstairs, followed by Susan, Joan and Elizabeth, all of whom were kept busy picking up pins, which they stuck between their teeth, to the great disappointment of Mr. Pridgeon, who would have very much liked to snatch a kiss from each Hebe in turn, and, seeing that the hostler was standing outside in the rain, I dare swear that but for the pins he would have been successful in his amorous project. Off went the chaise into the gathering gloom, spattering the onlookers with mud, and almost drowning with its clatter the hearty cheers of the inhabitants of Great Cobblebury.