Theo. Kennedy — Chapter II

The last rays of a bright September sunset lit up the latticed windows of Gothic Hall, and spread a golden nimbus around the scanty locks which fringed the otherwise bald head of its proprietor. Mr. Giles Houndly sat with his legs under his mahogany. He was already discussing a bottle of port ; but the empty chair opposite, the wine-glasses and damask napkin symmetrically arranged, as also the display of dessert, a little beyond the almonds and raisins of every-day life, indicated to a discerning mind, the coming of a visitor. Mr. Houndly digested his dinner with the easy conscience of a man who had done his duty to the world in general, and to Farnorth in particular. Alone and unaided he had represented Justice on the bench that day. He had balanced the scales with an unerring finger. Two votaries of Bacchus, taken red handed, had been condemned to imprisonment, and four luckless urchins convicted of turnip stealing would writhe under the birch to-morrow. " Turnip stealing," said the balancer of the scales, as he pronounced sentence on the culprits, " is an easy road to the gallows, and drunkenness so much the vice and curse of this district, that if I had my way I would withdraw the licences from all the beer-shops in the neighbourhood." The rich red juice in the old-fashioned cut-glass decanter was fast disappearing and transferring some of its colour to the face of the imbiber as it made its transit. " What on earth keeps Sparkles, I wonder," he murmured impatiently ; " I said six o'clock sharp. He can be punctual enough when he has money to earn. So, here he is at last. Why Sparkles, how late you are ; I was just giving you up." The tardy guest, a handsome man of more than middle age, was not very profuse in his apologies. " Sit down, sir ; sit down," said bustling Giles. " Which wine will you take ? Try the port—it is genuine thirty -four. You will not drink such wine, sir, every day out of your six-and-eightpences, I know. And now Sparkles—I say—is the news true ? All Farnorth rings with it." " What news do you mean ?" " Oh come now, that won't do sir ; as if you had not heard all about it. Helped to draw out the new lease, too, I'll be bound. Sam Gravell, sir, is the very luckiest old rascal in Christendom. Here's the lease of that swindling mine of his just run out after half Farnorth had burnt their fingers with it, and down comes a man, from goodness knows where, who applies for a new lease, and offers at the same time an increase of dead rental. The man must be a fool sir, whatever else he may be. Whom will he bank with, I wonder? The Blankshire Company, I suppose. I advise the old birds to look sharp about them, for ten to one the man is an adventurer." " The Blankshire Company are not remarkable for keeping their eyes shut." " No, to give them their due, that they're not," assented Giles ; " but wide awake as they are they have been taken in before now, so I repeat sir, they had better not be too confiding. Gravell will be perky enough now sir. He was rather down in the mouth when the last company would not have the lease renewed. They tell me this adventurous gentleman wishes to rent Becklands. It will take no small income to keep that place up decently, I can tell you. Has Croesus tumbled in amongst us, sir?" "Really I cannot say," replied his visitor. " You seem to know a vast deal more about the matter than I do. And now I must say good-bye, for I have to call at Eose Cottage on my way home." " What ! business with the old ladies so late as this ? I should think they might wait until to-morrow morning. I suppose they are in the Slough of Despond for the loss of their big soldier. They say, sir, that Miss Mary bewails him more like a mother than an aunt." I must observe *en passant* that " they say " was Mr. Houndly's Mrs. Harris. Now the principal mission of that puppet of the immortal Mrs. Gamp was, if I remember aright, to sound the amiable lady's praises on all and every occasion. The " they say " of Giles Houndly was an ambiguity under the which he sheltered himself when he shot that venom which prudence otherwise would have compelled him to restrain. "I believe both the good ladies were greatly distressed to part with him," said Mr. Sparkles, gravely ; " and no wonder—I do not know a finer fellow breathing than Horace Snowe." "Horace Snowe, or Horace anything, sir, would do just as well, I expect. Well, if you must go, you must ; so good evening to you sir. As close as wax," he added when his visitor was out of hearing. "I would have seen him somewhere though before I would have decanted my thirtyfour for him, had I suspected he would have been so deuced mute. However, I shall hear more about this affair to-morrow. The town was full enough of it this morning." And the town was full enough of it the ' next morning, and for several mornings afterwards. Farnorth had not had such a pleasant morsel of gossip for months. Weasle Mine—the royalty dues were payable to Mr. Samuel Gravell—had been the bete noire of almost every speculator in the district. The first company who took the lease—it is more than twenty years ago now— were cautious men, who, after a short time wriggled out of the business, contriving to dispose of their shares at a considerable profit. Giles Houndly was one of the wrigglers. Their successors soon wearied of the Weasle and got rid of their shares and plant, at a dead loss, to some enterprising adventurers. This last company, to give them their due, battled manfully against the water, the rock, and the running sand, which were the agreeable characteristics of the Weasle. These three giants proved, however, in the end too strong for them, and for years before the lease had expired the luckless tenants had not at tempted to raise an ounce of ore ; but were glad enough to get off by paying a dead rental to their landlord. No wonder Farnorth cackled considerably when another voluntary victim to its Minotaur appeared en scene. The victim, attended by a black servant clad in quiet livery, had arrived at the Crescent Hotel in High Street, some three or four months ago. It was the sable accompaniment that acted as a nourish of trumpets, and arrested popular atten tion in the first instance. Mine host and hostess of the Crescent Hotel, spoke loudly in praise of the stranger. Never had they had such a liberal lodger. In the eyes of these simple people, he was a Monte Christo. He certainly had an amazing amount of energy. He lost no time in securing Becklands, when he heard that desirable ready-furnished family mansion, with its lands and tenements, was to let. As soon as he had concluded his arrangements, he took his departure from Farnorth; and when he loomed on that place again, it was as the master of Becklands, in company with his young daughter, her French governess, and a modest retinue. All " offcomes," our red-ochred peasantry said. The Sunday after their arrival, every eye in the parish church was focussed in eager expect ancy on the Becklands pew. Every eye was doomed to disappointment, for no one appeared, and whispers of " Papistry," and what was scarcely worse "Atheism," swept like a sirocco down the aisles. The storm was allayed, and all suspicion of a lack of orthodoxy put to flight on the fol lowing Sunday. The new arrival, his young daughter, and her French governess, occupied the large square pew, and the two former were atten tive auditors to the good pastor's discourse. Mr. Harding—so the present tenant of Becklands was named—was a tall, handsome man, of possibly some fifty years of age. His eyes and his hair were so dark, as to give him almost a foreign aspect. There was force and character in his face, and also strength as well as symmetry in his muscular frame. His daughter, a slight, graceful girl, just entering her teens, greatly resembled him. Madame was a buxom-looking person, essentially Parisian in her appearance. Her toilette was unexceptionable. Her bonnet, her shawl, her dress with its many flounces, her gloves of such perfect fit, her parasol in such exquisite taste, absolutely brought tears into the eyes of Miss Benton, the principal modiste in Farnorth. Madame yawned through the service, and did not listen very attentively to the sermon. She understood very little English, she said ; but I am afraid if she had been ever so proficient, she would not have made much effort to pick up the pearls that were so plentifully scattered from the pulpit. She surveyed the congregation with weary dis contented eyes. What wretched toilettes! she thought, with a shrug of her ample shoulders. How was she to endure her triste existence; "parmi ces sauvages." Some of these blonde Meeses would be pretty well if they were " bien mise ; " but dressed as they were—" Ma foi ! " The congregation in their turn, being soaked and saturated in the prae-Waterloo prejudices against our lively neighbours across the Channel, were gazing at her with distended nostrils, and curling lips, thinking what a dreadfully artificial creature she was. Now to do poor Madame only moderate justice, apart from the modish bonnet, dress, gloves, &c, &c, she was, I devoutly believe, very much as nature had made her ; but Farnorth doubted her from the crown of her head to the sole of her foot. They doubted her hair, her eyes, her eyebrows, her forehead, her cheeks, her lips, her teeth. It was all art, Farnorth said. No one called on the new-comers. Farnorth has learnt some lessons : she does not admit into her society any person who does not bring letters of introduction to some one in the neighbourhood. The first, second, and third formation of our upper strata, are all equally tenacious on this point. I am obliged to confess the Becklands people were, to all appearance, very contented under this social taboo. Madame, attended by a neat groom, took daily drives with her young pupil, and Mr. Harding was evidently entirely absorbed in his new undertaking. The borers were very busy on the Weasle Mine for many months, without any great result, and popular interest was gradually fading away, when it was startled into new life again by a report, that in one of their beer houses, the Weasle miners had boasted they had come upon, "sic a sop o' ore, as the like had nivver been hard tell on by any o' t' mouldy warps in t' nebburhood." This report was, in more elegant language, subse quently confirmed by both the - Farnorth Advertiser' and the -District Reflector.' [It was the contradictory statements in those two weekly vehicles of local information, which led to that celebrated correspondence in their several papers, between Scylla and Charybdis, which you must most of you remember. What wonderful letters they were! How rich in italics. How keenly cutting the cool irony of Scylla ; how courageously and savagely personal the abuse of Charybdis! Since the days of Junius and Sir William Draper, we have never had anything at all equal to them.] When first the news of the treasure trove reached the ears of Giles Houndly, Esq., that gentleman was in a great way, and discharged many explosive syllables ; but Nature, in her benevolence, has planted the dock very closely to the nettle, and the healing herb shortly presented itself to our friend suffering from the sting occasioned by the sudden prosperity of his neighbour, and rubbed out the smart, by suggesting the delicious thought of the mortification this intelligence would bring with it to the last company who had exhausted so much time and money on the Farnorth Minotaur ; straightway Giles rushed to those unhappy moles, stamped his stick on the ground, cleared his throat, and spoke in his own pleasant and peculiar fashion:—"Ahem ! this man has got brains, sir, whoever he may be. They say the mine has had no chance before, because it has never been properly worked. What do you think? I always said the ore lay where they have now found it, and I told What's-his-name so, and wanted him to sink a shaft there when we first started the mine years ago, but he was so mighty clever and would have his own way." It was pretty soon evident that these three giants, who had lorded it so grandly and tyrannically for so many years, had no chance whatever against the war persistently waged against them by the present proprietor of the Weasle. Mighty engines sucked up giant Water, and forced it all red, hot, and bubbling, to the surface, to find a new home where best it could. Gunpowder, unsparingly used, blew giant Eock into fragments ; and as to giant Sand, layers of cold, wet, uncomfortable straw quite spoilt its holiday, and damped its running propensities. Farnorth looked on in amazement. The time-honoured buckets, the tumble-tree, the windlas and gin, gave place to the bogie and cage worked by steam-engines of goodness knows what power. Trams were laid to the nearest port, and the quantity of ore shipped in one year from the Weasle dwarfed into nothing ness the combined efforts of all the iron-ore companies for twenty miles round. " Money is character," saith the sage, and even the prospect of it will go a long way towards giving you a good one in this discriminating world of ours. Very soon after Mr. Harding's good fortune was officially confirmed, the first clique of our Farnorth Society decided, in solemn conclave, that it would perhaps be better after all, you know, to waive all ceremony, and call upon these people. The second and third cliques, with their different declensions, only waited the decision of their leader to follow abjectly in its footsteps, and so it came to pass, that for the space of three days, the woolly-headed Cerberus at Becklands had nothing else to do but to open the door to visitors, and receive an avalanche of pasteboard into his black paws. The Hardings expanded into sudden popularity. Mr. Harding was so essentially the gentleman, Farnorth said ; his daughter Zo6, was such a lovely charming child. Even Madame was permitted to bask in this universal sunshine. The matrons and spinsters carefully drew out their French, that had been laid up for the last twenty years, and aired it for the benefit of this lady. What a cruel war they waged with these moods and tenses, these good people. How superbly unmindful were they of any concordance between nouns and adjectives. Bless them, how thoroughly British they were. Madame stared and shuddered slightly as the odd sentences fell on her ear, but she said " Oui, oui," to everything, and smiled and showed the even row of teeth which all Farnorth had pronounced false, but which all Farnorth was willing enough to accept as genuine now.