Chapter 11

I remember an occasion when a gawsterer was gloppened sorely. There was an ancient mansion, wainscoted and floored with shining oak, _glib_--I have not heard that apposite, terse little monosyllable since I went _slurring_ with the village boys--glib as glass; and in that ancient mansion there was a banquet; and to that banquet came, with other guests, "a fop in a gay coat," a coxcomb wearing the bright vestment of the hunter, albeit in the hour of chase he only hunted gates and gaps; and upon the white satin lining of his "pink" there was a tiny button-hole bouquet, such as Mab might have held with her fairy fingers at the time of her coronation; and in collar, if in nothing else, he resembled the immortal Shakespeare; and his bosom was broad and snowy as the swan's; and his pumps were glossy as the raven's wing; and he was going dinnerward, with a winsome damsel on his arm and a complacent smile of self-conceit upon his countenance, when the smooth soles of these new and shining shoes suddenly performed a rapid evolution, as though they were skates upon ice; and there was a little shriek from the winsome damsel in particular, and a large "Oh!" from the procession in general, and a flash of horizontal scarlet, as when a soldier falls in battle; and then the bruised and bewildered dandy picked himself up, as best he could, to perform a part for which his qualifications were small--the personification of a man who had a relish for pain; and I sympathised with, though I did not love him--not so much because his feelings, as because his raiment was torn, and he, who was generally the most lively and locomotive of all, was now depressed and sedentary, like the lover of Constance, brooding upon his silent grief, as on its nest the dove, while we remained at the dinner-table, and finally backing out of the drawing-room at an early hour, as though our hostess were the queen.

And his involuntary gymnastics remind me, as I pass on to that "terrible thoroughbred" letter H (I have heard men speak of others who ignored it in conversation as though they must be capable of any crime), of a stout old lady in the manufacturing districts, whose husband had been very successful in business, and had purchased a fine old country residence from some dilapidated squire. She was complaining to a visitor of the difficulty which she had in walking upon the polished floors. "First I sluther," she said, "and then I hutch; and then I sluther, and then I hutch; and the more I hutch the more I sluther."

Only one other specimen (for I must hurry on helter-skelter and harum-scarum) from words beginning with H--to be, or cause others to be, on the _hig_, that is, to go about, or cause others to go about, in a fume, angrily excited, menacing revenge. "Betty," I asked one of my parishioners, "why do you make these ill-natured, irritating speeches to your next-door neighbour?" "Oh, bless yer," was the reply I received, "I only said 'em just to set old Sally on the _hig_." She knew that not to many was it given to hear resignedly the bitter word, that not to many was given in its reality the resignation affected by another of my old women, who (one of those wretched combinations of religion and rancour, "who think they're pious when they're only bilious") accosted me with the startling intelligence--"Oh, Mestur 'Ole, I've got another lift towards 'eaven. Bowcocks" (tenants of the cottage adjoining her own), "Bowcocks has been telling more lies; blessed are the parsecuted!" Better open war than this dismal affectation of peace! Better to confess ourselves _hity-tity_, and to raise a _hullabaloo_, than such _humbug_ as this!

I, the egotist, has for once nothing to say; but J recalls to me an extract from a conversation which took place during one of my parochial visitations.

_Pastor_.--"Did I not see old Nanny Smith talking with you at your door just now?"

_Parishioner_.--"Oh yes, she wor' here not three minutes sin', and _jabbering_, as usual, like a clamm'd [famished] jay in a wood; but when she see your reverence coming up th' lane, th' old lass wor' gone in a _jiffey_."

K makes no suggestions, and L but few. "I'll _lay_," has no reference to eggs or to a recumbent posture, but implies a wager. Some years ago, I was riding to the meet, and came up inaudibly, upon the wayside grass, with two grooms on their masters' hunters, peering over their pummels at a mounted horse in the distance before them and anxiously discussing his identity. Just as I was passing the disputants, the one turned to the other and said, "I shall _lay yer_ three threepenny gins to one as it's Colonel's rat-tailed 'oss."

_Lig_ is still commonly used for "lie." "Our Bob has ligabed sin' Monday." "The moon wor _ligging_ behind a cloud, so they couldn't see keepers coming." To _lorp_ is to move awkwardly or idly, and the word suggests a noble line for the alliterative poet:

Lo, lazy lubbers loutish, lorp and loll.

In the days of my boyhood I was perplexed conjecturing by what process of the rustic mind moles had changed their names into _Mouldi-warps_; but I have since discovered that in this instance, as in countless others, the bucolic brain was not so mollified by beans and bacon as some would have us believe. The _mould_--and very fine mould it is--is _warped_, turned up by the mole; and this reminds me of a mole-catcher, whose principles were warped also, and whose occupation was gone awhile in our parts, when it was discovered that he carried a collection of dead moles about with him, with which, the morning after his traps had been set, he made a grand display on some contiguous hedge, inducing his employer fondly to imagine that his enemies (as he thought of them) had been all destroyed in a night.

Flying onwards--for this is a very fugitive piece--I would ask admiration for the adjective _muggy_, as exquisitely descriptive of weather, not uncommon in this climate, where a fog gives one the idea, suggested by Dickens, that nature is brewing on an extensive scale outside, and there's dampness everywhere, taking the curl from ringlet and whisker, and causing our adhesive envelopes to fasten themselves on our writing-table, as though practising the duties of their post.

No sun, no moon, No morn, no noon, No dawn, no dusk, no proper time of day-- No sky, no earthly view, No distance looking blue. No road, no street, no t'other side the way-- No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease, No comfortable feel in any member, No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, No ... vember!

I love, though not as licensed victuallers love, the little monosyllable _nip_. What a nimble agility, what a motive power, in that curt, imperative word!--the pistol-shot which starts the boat-race, the brief, shrill whistle which starts the train. "Just nip off your horse and pull out that stake." "You nipped out o' the army," said a snob to a friend of mine, who had retired some years before the Crimean invasion, and who, in his magisterial capacity, had offended the snob; "you know'd t' war wor' a-coming; you nipped out, you didn't relish them Rooshan baggonets a-prodding and a-pricking. You nipped out o' th' army; you know'd t' war wor' coming. Good morning. I think you were right."

When the wind bloweth in from the Orient, or when our discretion has collapsed before a lobster salad (that claw looked so innocently pink, and that lettuce so crisp and green!) then is poor human nature but too prone to be querulous; we disagree, like the lobster, with our fellow creatures; we are peevishly disposed to _nag_. "My mestur has been a good husband to me," said one of the matrons of my flock, "but he can chime in nasty when he wants to _nag_."

Times of refinement are probably at hand when, under the sacred influence of School Boards, the rural tongue shall cease to substitute the word _no-at_ for nought, or nothing. I am not sorry that when that epoch comes I shall no longer be attached to this machine. I cling to those expressions, which I have heard from childhood: "He's like a _no-at." "_He's up to _no-at_." One day, years ago, we waited for the train at, not Coventry, but Ratcliffe-on-Trent, and while we waited a weary workman, with his bag of tools on his back, came and sat on the bench beside. Presently we were joined by a third person in the garrulous phase of inebriety, and he pestered the tired artisan with his _bosh_and _gibberish_ (two words which should have been introduced at an earlier period of my history) until he provoked the righteous expostulation, "Oh, don't bother me; you're drunk." Then, with an air of outraged dignity, and with a stern solemnity, which, if he had not wobbled in his gait and stammered in his utterance, might have suggested the idea that he had just been appointed Professor of Philosophy for the Midland Districts, he delivered an oration: "Now just you listen to me. Do you suppose as a Mighty Power 'ud mak the barley to grow, and the 'ops to grow, and then put it into the minds of other parties to mak' 'em foment, and me not meant to drink 'em? why, you know _no-at_!" Whereupon the apt rejoinder: "I know this--that a Mighty Power never meant the barley to grow, nor the hops to grow, for you to take and turn yoursen into a be-ast."

_Nobbut_ is still common in these parts, in abbreviation of "nothing but." I congratulated an invalid parishioner on the presence of the doctor, and he said dolefully, "Oh yes, sir; thank yer, sir--but it's _nobbut_ th' 'prentice."

My limits do not allow me to mind my L's and Q's and R's, or I might have enlarged upon such words as _palaver_, and _pawling_, and _peart_, and _prod_, and_romper_, and _ramshackle_, and _rawm_; and I can only dwell upon one selection from the S's, of which there is a long Sigmatismus, such as _snag_ ("Billy and Sally's always at _snags_"), and _scuft_, and _scrawl_ ("he wor' just a glass over the scrawl," _i.e._ the line of sobriety), and _scrawm_, and _slape_, and _snigger_, and _slive_ ("I see that _shack a-_sliving_ and a_-skulking about"), and _slare_, and_slawmy_, and _sneck_, and _snoozle_, and _spank_, and _stodge_, and _stunt_, and _swish_.

The word which I would illustrate is _skimpy_. It signifies something mean and defective; and in the following history, told to me by a clerical friend, it refers to an attenuated and bony female. When a curate in a remote country parish, he took a raw village lad into his service, to train him for some better place; and, when his education was sufficiently advanced, and he had made some progress in the art of writing, he was permitted to accompany his master to a large dinner-party given by a neighbouring squire. Next morning he communicated his experiences to the housekeeper, and she treacherously repeated them to my friend. "'Oh,' he said, 'it just wor' grand. Me and t'other gentlemen in livery we stood i' th' 'all, and they flung open folding-doors, and out comes the quality tu and tu, harm i' harm, all a-talking and a-grinning, and as smart as ninepence. I wor' quite surprised at mestur. He come out last of all, with a _skimpy_old woman. I should say she wor' sisty off, and there were squire's daughter, looking as bewtifle as bewtifle, and dressed up as gay as waxwork. I never made no mistake, except giving one gentleman mustard wrong side, and just a drop or so o' gravy down a hunbeknown young lady's back.'" I have reached the length of my tether, and will go no longer a-_tweing_ after words, lest I put my readers in a _tiff_, and leave them in a _tantrum_. I will _yark_ off. Said an underkeeper who had just shot at a snipe: "It _yarked_ up and screeted, and I nipped round and blazed; but I catched my toe on a bit of a tussock, and so, consarn it, I missed." Let me hope that I have not so completely failed in my aim, while firing my small shot against certain abuses and disuses connected with The Vulgar Tongue.

THE SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD WITH HIS SON [Sidenote: _Calverley_]

O what harper could worthily harp it, Mine Edward! this wide-stretching wold (Look out _wold_) with its wonderful carpet Of emerald, purple, and gold? Look well at it--also look sharp, it Is getting so cold.

The purple is heather _(erica)_; The yellow, gorse--call'd sometimes "whin." Cruel boys on its pickles might spike a Green beetle as if on a pin, You may roll in it, if you would like a Few holes in your skin.

You wouldn't? Then think of how kind you Should be to the insects who crave Your compassion--and then, look behind you At yon barley-ears! Don't they look brave As they undulate _(undulate_, mind you, From _unda, a wave_).

The noise of those sheep-bells, how faint it Sounds here--(on account of our height)! And this hillock itself--who could paint it, With its changes of shadow and light? Is it not---(never, Eddy, say "ain't it")-- A marvellous sight?

Then yon desolate eerie morasses, The haunts of the snipe and the hern-- (I shall question the two upper classes On _aquatiles_ when we return)-- Why, I see on them absolute masses Of _felix_, or fern.

How it interests e'en a beginner (Or _tiro_) like dear little Ned! Is he listening? As I am a sinner, He's asleep--he is wagging his head. Wake up! I'll go home to my dinner, And you to your bed.

The boundless ineffable prairie; The splendour of mountain and lake, With their hues that seem ever to vary; The mighty pine-forests which shake In the wind, and in which the unwary May tread on a snake;

And this wold, with its heathery garment, Are themes undeniably great. But--although there is not any harm in't-- It's perhaps little good to dilate On their charms to a dull little varmint Of seven or eight.

TARTARIN DE TARASCON [Sidenote: _Daudet_]

At the time of which I am speaking, Tartarin of Tarascon was not the Tartarin that he is to-day, the great Tartarin of Tarascon, so popular throughout the South of France. However--even then--he was already king of Tarascon.

Let me tell you whence this kingship.

You must know, first, that every one there is a huntsman, from the greatest to the smallest.

So, every Sunday morning, Tarascon takes arms and leaves the walls, game-bag on the back, gun on the shoulder, with a commotion of dogs, ferrets, trumpets, and hunting-horns. It is a superb sight. Unfortunately, game is wanting, absolutely wanting.

However stupid animals may be, in the end they had become wary.

For five leagues round Tarascon warrens are empty, nests deserted. Not a thrush, not a quail, not the least little rabbit, not the smallest leveret.

And yet these pretty Tarascon hillocks are very tempting, perfumed with myrtle, lavender, and rosemary; and these fine muscat grapes, swollen with sweetness, which grow by the side of the Rhone, extremely appetising too--yes, but there is Tarascon behind, and in the little world of fur and feather Tarascon has an evil fame. The birds of passage themselves have marked it with a big cross on their maps of the route, and when the wild-ducks, descending towards Camargue in long triangles, see the steeples of the town in the distance, the leader screams at the top of his lungs, "There is Tarascon!--There is Tarascon!" and the whole flight turns.

In short, as far as game is concerned, only one old rogue of a hare remains, who has escaped by some miracle from the September massacres of the Tarasconners, and who insists on living there. In Tarascon this hare is well known. They have given him a name. He is called "The Express." It is known that his form is in M. Bompard's ground--which, by the way, has doubled and even trebled its price--but so far no one has been able to get at it.

At the present moment there are one or two desperate fellows who have set their hearts upon him.

The others have made up their minds that it is hopeless, and "The Express" has become a sort of local superstition, although the Tarasconners are not very superstitious and eat swallows in a salmi when they can get them.

"But," you object, "if game is so rare in Tarascon, what do the Tarascon sportsmen do every Sunday?"

What do they do?

Well, bless me! they go out into the open country two or three leagues from the town. They gather into little groups of six or seven, stretch themselves tranquilly in the shadow of an old wall, an olive-tree, take out of their game-bags a great piece of beef seasoned with _daube_, some uncooked onions, a large sausage, some anchovies, and begin an interminable luncheon, moistened by one of those nice little Rhone wines which make a man laugh and sing.

After that, when one has laid in a good stock of provisions, one rises, whistles the dogs, loads the guns, and the chase begins. That is to say, each gentleman takes his cap, flings it into the air with all his might, and fires at it.

He who puts most shots into his cap is proclaimed king of the hunt, and returns in the evening to Tarascon in triumph, with his peppered cap on the end of his gun, amidst yappings and fanfares.

Needless to say, there is a great trade of caps in the town. There are even hatters who sell caps torn and full of holes for the use of the clumsy. But hardly any one but Bézuquet, the chemist, buys them. It is dishonouring!

As a cap-hunter, Tartarin of Tarascon has no equal. Every Sunday morning he starts with a new cap; every Sunday evening he returns with a rag. At the little house with the baobab-tree the greenhouses were full of the glorious trophies. For this reason all the Tarasconners recognised him as their master, and as Tartarin knew the code of a sportsman through and through, had read all the treatises, all the manuals of every conceivable hunt, from the pursuit of caps to the pursuit of Bengal tigers, these gentlemen made him their great sporting justicier, and appointed him arbitrator in all their discussions.

Every day, from three to four, at Costecalde's the gunsmith, a fat man was to be seen, very grave, with a pipe between his teeth, sitting in a chair covered with green leather, in the middle of a shop full of cap-hunters, all standing and wrangling. It was Tartarin of Tarascon administering justice, Nimrod added to Solomon.

CONCERNING CHARLES LAMB

PERSONS ONE WOULD WISH TO HAVE SEEN [Sidenote: _William Hazlitt_]

... "There is one person," said a shrill, querulous voice, "I would rather see than all these--Don Quixote!"

"Come, come!" said Hunt; "I thought we should have no heroes, real or fabulous. What say you, Mr. Lamb? Are you for eking out your shadowy list with such names as Alexander, Julius Caesar, Tamerlane, or Genghis Khan?"

"Excuse me," said Lamb; "on the subject of characters in active life, plotters and disturbers of the world, I have a crotchet of my own, which I beg leave to reserve."

"No, no! come out with your worthies!"

"What do you think of Guy Fawkes and Judas Iscariot?"

Hunt turned an eye upon him like a wild Indian, but cordial and full of smothered glee. "Your most exquisite reason!" was echoed on all sides; and all thought that Lamb had now fairly entangled himself.

"Why, I cannot but think," retorted he of the wistful countenance, "that Guy Fawkes, that poor, fluttering, annual scarecrow of straw and rags, is an ill-used gentleman. I would give something to see him sitting pale and emaciated, surrounded by his matches and his barrels of gunpowder, and expecting the moment that was to transport him to Paradise for his heroic self-devotion; but if I say any more, there is that fellow Godwin will make something of it. And as to Judas Iscariot, my reason is different. I would fain see the face of him who, having dipped his hand in the same dish with the Son of Man, could afterwards betray Him. I have no conception of such a thing; nor have I ever seen any picture (not even Leonardo's very fine one) that gave me the least idea of it."

"You have said enough, Mr. Lamb, to justify your choice."

"Oh! ever right, Menenius--ever right!"

"There is only one person I can ever think of after this," continued Lamb; but without mentioning a name that once put on a semblance of mortality. "If Shakespeare was to come into the room, we should all rise up to meet him; but if that person was to come into it, we should all fall down and try to kiss the hem of his garment."

HAYDON'S IMMORTAL NIGHT [Sidenote: _B.R. Haydon_]

On December 28th the immortal dinner came off in my painting-room, with Jerusalem towering up behind us as a background. Wordsworth was in fine cue, and we had a glorious set-to--on Homer, Shakespeare, Milton, and Virgil. Lamb got exceedingly merry and exquisitely witty; and his fun in the midst of Wordsworth's solemn intonations of oratory was like the sarcasm and wit of the fool in the intervals of Lear's passion. He made a speech and voted me absent, and made them drink my health. "Now," said Lamb, "you old lake poet, you rascally poet, why do you call Voltaire dull?" We all defended Wordsworth, and affirmed there was a state of mind when Voltaire would be dull. "Well," said Lamb, "here's Voltaire--the Messiah of the French nation, and a very proper one too."

He then, in a strain of humour beyond description, abused me for putting Newton's head into my picture--"a fellow," said he, "who believed nothing unless it was as clear as the three sides of a triangle." And then he and Keats agreed he had destroyed all the poetry of the rainbow by reducing it to the prismatic colours. It was impossible to resist him, and we all drank "Newton's health, and confusion to mathematics." It was delightful to see the good-humour of Wordsworth in giving in to all our frolics without affectation, and laughing as heartily as the best of us.

By this time other friends joined, amongst them poor Ritchie, who was going to penetrate by Fezzan to Timbuctoo. I introduced him to all as "a gentleman going to Africa." Lamb seemed to take no notice; but all of a sudden he roared out, "Which is the gentleman we are going to lose?" We then drank the victim's health, in which Ritchie joined.

In the morning of this delightful day, a gentleman, a perfect stranger, had called on me. He said he knew my friends, had an enthusiasm for Wordsworth, and begged I would procure him the happiness of an introduction. He told me he was a comptroller of stamps, and often had correspondence with the poet. I thought it a liberty; but still, as he seemed a gentleman, I told him he might come.

When we retired to tea we found the comptroller. Introducing him to Wordsworth, I forgot to say who he was. After a little time the comptroller looked down, looked up and said to Wordsworth, "Don't you think, sir, Milton was a great genius?" Keats looked at me, Wordsworth looked at the comptroller. Lamb, who was dozing by the fire, turned round and said, "Pray, sir, did you say Milton was a great genius?" "No, sir; I asked Mr. Wordsworth if he were not." "Oh," said Lamb, "then you are a silly fellow." "Charles! my dear Charles!" said Wordsworth; but Lamb, perfectly innocent of the confusion he had created, was off again by the fire.

After an awful pause the comptroller said, "Don't you think Newton a great genius?" I could not stand it any longer. Keats put his head into my books. Ritchie squeezed in a laugh. Wordsworth seemed asking himself, "Who is this?" Lamb got up, and, taking a candle, said, "Sir, will you allow me to look at your phrenological development?" He then turned his back on the poor man, and at every question of the comptroller he chaunted:

"Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John, Went to bed with his breeches on."