Chapter 17

Ten good nights and ten good days It would take to tell thy ways, Various, many, and amazing: Neck-or-Nothing bangs all praising. Wonders great and wonders small Are found in Neck-or-Nothing Hall.

Racing rascals of ten a twain, Who care not a rush for hail nor rain, Messages swiftly to go or to come, Or duck a taxman or harry a bum,[7] Or "clip a server,"[8] did blithely lie In the stable parlour next to the sky[9] Dinners, save chance ones, seldom had they, Unless they could nibble their beds of hay; But the less they got, they were hardier all-- 'T was the custom of Neck-or-Nothing Hall.

[7] A facetious phrase for bailiff, so often kicked.

[8] Cutting off the ears of a process-server.

[9] Hayloft.

One lord there sat in that terrible hall, Two ladies came at his terrible call,-- One his mother and one his wife, Each afraid of her separate life; Three girls who trembled--four boys who shook Five times a day at his lowering look, Six blunderbuses in goodly show, Seven horse-pistols were ranged below, Eight domestics, great and small, In idlesse did nothing but curse them all; Nine state beds, where no one slept-- Ten for family use were kept; Dogs eleven with bums to make free, With a bold thirteen[10] in the treasury-- (Such its numerical strength, I guess It can't be more, but it may be less). Tar-barrels new and feathers old Are ready, I trow, for the caitiff bold Who dares to invade The stormy shade Of the grim O'Grade, In his hunting hold.

[10] A shilling, so called from its being worth thirteen pence in those days.

When the iron tongue of the old gate bell Doth summon the growling grooms from cell, Through cranny and crook They peer and they look, With guns to send the intruders to heaven.[11] But when passwords pass That might "serve a mass,"[12] Then bars are drawn and chains let fall, And you get into Neck-or-Nothing Hall.

[11] This is not the word in the MS.

[12] Serving mass occupies about twenty-five minutes.