mr. tuke was arrayed resplendent, cap-à-pie. his personal baggage had reached him from london, and he felt human, in the sense of the beast of civilization, once more. if his household was as yet unenlarged and his halls filled with little but echoes, he had at least a retiring chamber worthy of the most exquisite refinements of a georgian toilet.
it was four o’clock of a sunny afternoon as he descended the stairs, pulling on his gloves; for he was for a little party at “chatters,” to meet a neighbour or so, and whimple held his horse at the door.
taking him altogether, he was a handsome and amiable-looking gentleman, and manly withal; nor did his subscription to the dandyism of the day exhibit exaggeration or tastelessness. it is true his hair, now surmounted by the high-crowned beaver hat of the period, was “craped,” as the fashion-books would say, over his forehead, and liberally anointed with some lustrous oil; but cleanliness in this respect would have then been considered the merest affectation of eccentricity. for the rest, his long riding-coat, of many capes, concealed a toilet of cloth and silk and plaited lawn that, in its mode and finish, bespoke the highest traditions of metropolitan elegance.
so, at any rate, thought betty pollack, who was standing in the porch waiting to have a word with his honour.
betty had driven over with her grandfather in an old taxed-cart, which was now drawn up at the broad end of the drive.
she curtsied like a daffodil to the sun; and mr. tuke nodded brightly to her as he buttoned the last ray of his glories into his coat.
“on what errand, my girl?” said he.
“with a humble message from grandfather, your honour,” she answered—“that there’s a battle-royal in his cockpit saturday forenoon, and will your honour condescend to take a seat?”
“i don’t know. what would you have me do, betty?”
“sure, your honour’s the best judge. cocks will be cocks, i suppose; but ’tis a cruel business to set natural enemies to the scratch, think i; and i’d rather have them in broth, with their necks wrung, when all’s said and done.”
“then, i won’t come.”
“oh! but save us! that’s only a woman’s view.”
“it flies with all the force of beauty behind it, my dear.”
the girl shrunk back a little.
“then i was to ask you,” she said, in a more strained voice, “if you would favor us with your custom in the matter of poultry and butter and garden stuff?”
the gentleman laughed.
“why, i’ve turned away one with the same offer already,” cried he. then, seeing her fall back timid, as if at a rebuff: “could you undertake to supply ’em very fresh?” he said, with mock gravity.
“oh! rest your honour!” she said eagerly. “we could drive over every day, if needs were.”
“say, twice a week, betty. and, if you lack garden stuff, why come none the less, and i’ll take a fruitful pleasure of your visits.”
he caught his stirrup and mounted, and was gone with a smiling nod to the girl. at the entrance to the drive, the old man saluted him respectfully. he pulled up, and was about to exchange a word with the gaffer, when he remembered his deafness, and made as if to proceed on his way. but grandfather pollack leaned out of his cart and beckoned him.
“that’s a full-blooded girl,” he said, in a hoarse whisper. “a sweet, neat filly, i calls her.”
mr. tuke, feeling the uselessness of speech, nodded after a reserved manner.
“that girl,” said the old man, with a small experimental leer of confidence, “would serve a gentleman well for her beauty and her lovingness.”
he tapped the sleeve of the other’s riding-coat.
“i’m poor, sir, i’m poor and failin’. what a chance if i had a piece o’ goods that costly as to be worth a little annuity to me!”
he received a grunt and scowl of indignation for answer; but it was doubtful if he read their significance.
mr. tuke shook off the old clawing touch and rode on. he did not, however, put a short period to the evil by forbidding the ancient rascal then and there his presence. which of us has the courage to strike at the snake of temptation on the first protrusion of his head from the ground? we want to circumvent him, with that truly human habit of temporizing that so often ends by our getting entangled in the toils.
now he was righteously incensed; yet as he rode away under the yellowing trees, his thoughts ran warm on the ardent beauty of melancholy that characterized the face of all things about him; and gradually his mood fell from indignation to a tenderness that was almost a passion.
miss angela royston received her preserver very prettily, and thanked him with an exaggerated effusiveness which was the more embarrassing inasmuch as the company, to whom the ultimate revelation of what he had done seemed to present itself as a rather tame anti-climax, had already treated his advent (but this was by way of provincial gaucherie) as if it were an intrusion.
the party was of the nature of a kettle-drum, it appeared, with supper to follow and genteel games. the young baronet was not yet in evidence, being ridden to some kennels across country and late in returning; but there were two or three squireens who obviously desired the moral support of his presence, and, lacking it, had so strenuously beaten about in the waste lands of their brains for ideas, as to have grown as apoplectic and nearly as expressionless as tomatoes. a notable member of the company was the honourable mrs. tatty, whose turban was so immense as to give her the perpetual appearance of tilting up her nose to keep it from falling off; and whose observations invariably drew rein on the brink or pit-edge of profundity, where, when one expected much, they sat down abruptly and refused, as it were, to yield their further confidences to strangers.
this lady was accompanied by a quizzical little person, a cousin from london, who was of the order of those who curry favour with their present, by laughing at their late, company; and a saturnine gentleman, addressed as captain luvaine—who said little, and said that as if he grudged it—completed the party.
to all was mr. tuke presented—generally as a neighbour of a romantic cast; and it needed much of his acquired urbanity and deftness in society to carry off the situation without a show of self-consciousness.
“we call you the lord of wastelands,” said miss royston, with a little smiling blush, as if she offered him the fruit of her invention. certainly she looked a very dainty body, and she bore her daintiness as if it were a burden she loved. her fair hair, combed over her forehead and falling in ringlets on her neck, was banded with a fillet of gold like a sunbeam. her robe was of pure white satin, clasped at one shoulder with a diamond button; and in her hand she flirted a little sparkling fan no bigger than a pheasant’s wing, and much its colour.
naturally, in the presence of this radiant bird of his feather, mr. tuke lost mental sight and consideration of homely betty.
“waste lands they may be,” said he gaily; “but consecrated to beauty since you visited them.”
“it was a laying on of lands, not hands,” she cried merrily in response. “i brought away a rare impression of their picturesqueness—but ’twas on my gown;” and then the fine creature must give the company the history of her introduction to the squire of romance, whom she looked at very tenderly as she eulogized him.
“a remarkable situation,” said mrs. tatty, scenting the neighbourhood of the pit with uplifted nostrils. “mr. richardson himself never imagined a more pronounced. sure there is an affinity in circumstance—and therein lies the explanation.”
“it was like poor julia’s experience,” said the little cousin from london. “only that julia was trop embarrassée de sa personne to extricate herself with grace.”
“oh!” cried angela. “i blush to hear you talk of grace.”
“’twas after meat, my dear,” said mrs. tatty, with a splendid benevolence of humour; and immediately sat down, morally, on the brink.
mr. tuke laboriously strained at a camel of wit. “before, before!” he cried—“for ’twas the grace that introduced food for reflection.”
“am i that” cried miss royston. “then i must be angélique glacée. but my poor bréviaire, that i cried to have lost! had i had that charm with me, no accident would have befallen.”
“but fifty others failed to save you,” said the baronet, with a low bow, and, it must be admitted, considerable gallantry; for his back was yet stiff with dipping for the abominable trinket.
and at this point sir david entered the room.
his sister ran at him, and scolded him with twenty little tricks of endearment.
“sure, sir,” she cried, “this is pretty behaviour to your guests!”—and she came forward on his arm, mutely daring slander to deny perfection to so beautiful a couple.
the little gentleman was charmed to meet his new neighbour, and said so with amazing condescension. he was very daintily attired, and prodigal of self-important courtesy to all.
“i passed your fellow,” he said, “hob-nobbin’ with a gipsy hag. i know the witch by sight. he caught me up later, and we fell a-talkin’. we’ve been neighbours, you know, ever since i can remember. there’s no beast-leech like him in all the county.”
“indeed?” said mr. tuke dryly.
“you’d not think it, eh? it’s truth, sir. why,” said the baronet, “i don’t s’pose the fellow’s ever fired a fowling-piece in his life; but he knows more of the habits of animals, ground and winged, than any dozen sportsmen in the parish. ain’t that so, charlie?”
“that’s so, by gad, davy,” said the squireen addressed, greatly stimulated and emboldened by the presence of his host.
“he cured my bitch daisy of a capped hock,” said another; and then looked as if he wished he hadn’t spoken.
“they are all jack-puddings to showman davy,” whispered miss angela, looking up at her cavalier with a waggish twinkle.
“come!” cried the master of “chatters.” “who’s for a game? let’s have ‘pinch without laughin’.’”
the squireens boisterously assented; but miss royston and the cousin from london cried “no! no!” feeling their little powdered noses in jeopardy. so they played “hot cockles,” and “jack’s alive,” and “shadow buff,” and enjoyed themselves after the light-hearted manner of the period, the problems of which were, indeed, mostly exercised in merriment.
when they settled down at last, flushed and dishevelled, mr. tuke looked in the face of a certain lady, with whom he sat in a corner, and was aware of his pulses drumming a little thickly.
“i think i have lived an empty life for long,” he said; “and now i have learned to know myself.”
she twinkled up at him archly.
“does the knowledge repay the study?” said she.
“cruel!” he answered. “ah! if you only guessed my tutor.”
“but i cannot.”
“think, madam, what eloquent teachers are your eyes.”
“indeed, they have pupils, sir. oh, the heavenly pedagogues!”
“their irises paint one the colour of hope. it is blue, i vow.”
“like the rose that lives in man’s imagination. oh, fie, mr. tuke! here is an ardent philosopher of the desert! tell me, does the house of shadows yield many mysteries? i am dying to hear all about it.”
“then i will save you.”
“as you have once already.”
“it yields—yes; i think i can say it yields one at least.”
“oh! oh! what is it about?”
“a lake of wine.”
both talkers turned round with a start. captain luvaine had, it appeared, been seated solitary near them, and had dropped upon the ground a heavy book in which he had been reading.
“really, captain luvaine,” said miss royston peevishly, “i protest you near frightened me to death.”
the melancholy soldier was apologizing with much humility and confusion, when up came sir david, and insisted upon carrying off the gentlemen for a pipe and a glass.
