CHAPTER II.

Even in this enlightened hour, at statute fairs English girls stand in rows and exhibit their points--mental, menial, and physical, to as many farmer’s wives as have tongues and eyes. ’Tis not a happy mode of hiring servants, choosing them as you would sheep; but let us hope that a better time is coming.

And, of course, in the dark middle age, statute fairs were held in England; hence, we naturally get to that fair for which those blythe singers were bound, and whom Lady Henrietta and her court of two followed.

’Twas the usual scene: stout farmers’ wives marching about in the superior manner, the girls looking about in rows of rosy cheeks and giggles, and scandal everywhere; for at statute fairs the way in which the maids run down their old mistresses, and the way in which the mistresses run down their old maids, can easily be imagined.

In one quiet part of the market stood Lionel and Plunket, brothers and farmers.

These two personages had come to hire two servants; but whether the servants were of a very bad kind, or the farmers very difficult to please, certain it is that these latter were servantless, though the fair was half over.

They had not long lost their mother, a good mother, so they were not to be satisfied with any kind of servants.

I love to make all plain, and therefore I may as well say at once that these brothers were not brothers. If affection and sacrifice, and all that kind of thing, made men real brothers, they would have been brothers; but the same woman did not bear them. Plunket was the real son of the mother whose death we have just mentioned, and Lionel was the foundling, though as the mother had been a good woman, she had always had enough love for both her own son and the foundling, and some, indeed, left for the world in general. This old mother, in a year long gone to sleep, had opened her door late one night, for being good she had a stout heart, and there found a man and child upon the threshold. The man died, the child lived to be her foundling, and her second son. Who the man was they never learned. He died, and made no sign. Ah, yes--that little diamond ring given to the good woman in keeping for his son. If ever he was in trouble, this son of his, the ring was to be carried to the queen. But Lionel had never been in any trouble up to the time of the good woman’s death; soon after which the two farmers wanted two servants, and came to the fair to seek them.

And thus naturally are we brought back to the fair.

Neither Lionel nor Plunket could find a single servant to their mind, much less two, and so they went wandering about, and submitted to the hard sarcasm of the would-be hired.

Meanwhile, in another part of the fair the sheriff was doing his duty _like_ a sheriff. Said duty being to announce, as usual, that all agreements between servants and masters were binding for twelve months--said binding to be a legal fact from the very moment the said servants took earnest money from the said masters. Also the sheriff was a blessed go-between, announcing to the servants the wants of the masters, and to the masters the wants of the servants. ’Twas surprising how clever all the servants were according to their own showing, and how doubtful the masters were in believing those same statements; and indeed, ’tis true these statements might have led an observer to surmise that all the good servants in the county had been discharged at one and the same moment.

And it was just at the precise moment when the sheriff was going to retreat, overwhelmed by numbers, that the Lady Henrietta--or Martha, rather--Nancy, and the troubled John--Lord Tristam--came upon the noisy scene.

Now, neither Martha nor Nancy were within a hundred yards of the sheriff, when Lionel and Plunket marked them both, and bore down upon them.

As the lord saw this, he was very urgent indeed that all this disreputable masquerading should come to an end.

Whereupon Martha called out to my lord, “Sir, I’ll not have thee for my master.” And Nancy added her objection too.

“So please thee, good man, thou canst not force the girls to serve,” said Plunket, at whom the old lord stared. However, he could not stare long, for all the servant girls about, hearing Martha refuse the old gentleman’s service, pressed about him, each playing her own little trumpet at the top of her voice. And, to be short, the old young lord thought himself perfectly justified in running away. Lady Henrietta was Lady Henrietta, but that was no reason why his lordship should be worried dead, so he thought he had better go; and did.

“Nancy, Nancy, they are looking at us.” True, indeed, spoke Martha; Lionel and Plunket _were_ looking at “us,” and in the act of questioning each other touching “us.”

And it was at this precise moment that Nancy told Lady Henrietta she was trembling, and Lady Henrietta told Nancy that she suffered also from the same cause.

The chronicles do not state which of the quartette spoke first, while on the other hand the author was not present at the interview. But let it be admitted that Plunket spoke first, and said--“Hem--do ye seek a service, maidens--will ye bargain with us?”

“A capital bargain,” said the other farmer.

“Well,” said Lady Henrietta.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha,” said Nancy, who, being a lady’s-maid, was infinitely scornful at the idea of being a farmer’s servant.

“Oh,” said stout Plunket to the latter, “I love laughter--work is better done by far when servants all gay-hearted are.”

The “maidens” were still doubtful, so the farmer Plunket set to work to show the “place” was not an every-day place--and--and the upshot of it all was that Lady Henrietta, and, oh, more terrible by far, Lady Henrietta’s maid, engaged themselves as farm servants to the two stout young farmers--and then took their earnest money (Lady Henrietta didn’t know what to do with her Queen Elizabeth’s shilling, and so she dropped it)--their earnest money, which bound these two to their masters for twelve whole weary months.

As her ladyship gave up the first money she had ever earned in her life, Lord Tristam came to view again--still harassed by not a few stout handmaidens, who, it seemed, had determined he should choose one of them. However, he flung a good amount of silver about; then, feeling at liberty once more, he came with an air towards the two girls; whereupon he was warned off by their new masters, who seemed rather proud of their proprietorship.

Then it was that the Lady Henrietta proposed to return home. Alas, that despised shilling! Within five minutes more she learned she was actually a servant--bound as surely as any apprentice; and, indeed, the sheriff arrived precisely at that moment, to settle the matter beyond all dispute. Meanwhile, my lord stood in the background, a picture of bewildered despair, and Lady Henrietta stood in the foreground almost in tears. Why, if the court heard of all this she should never be able to show herself in that court’s presence! At all events, the truth could not be spoken then and there. Let her be silent before the horrid mob. Hence it was that Lady Henrietta went off quite meekly as a farm servant, while Nancy took the same road, jerking her head and flouncing her garments as only lady’s maids of all climes and times could and can manage it.

As for Lord Tristam, he looked as nearly ridiculous as an English lord ever could look!