Part 2

No. III. 320

Letter--from a Parish Clerk in Barbadoes to one in Hampshire, with an Enclosure 321

French and English 326

Our Village 329

The Scrape Book 335

A True Story 339

The Sorrows of an Undertaker 343

The Carelesse Nurse Mayd 347

To Fanny 349

The Fancy Fair 352

Poems, by a Poor Gentleman 357

Stanzas--written under the Fear of Bailiffs 360

Sonnet--written in a Workhouse 360

Sonnet--A Somnambulist 361

Fugitive Lines on Pawning my Watch 361

The Life of Zimmerman (by Himself) 364

The Portrait; being an apology for not making an Attempt on my own Life 369

The Compass, with Variations 375

Summer--A Winter Eclogue 382

Pair’d _not_ match’d 390

The Duel--A Serious Ballad 394

The Rope Dancer--An Extravaganza, after Rabelais 397

Sonnet to Vauxhall 410

Ode to Mr. Malthus 411

A Good Direction 416

The Pleasures of Sporting 418

There’s no Romance in that 424

The Abstraction 429

A Waterloo Ballad 435

Miller Redivivus 440

A Zoological Report 444

Literary Reminiscences 448

Shooting Pains 458

The Schoolmaster’s Motto 462

HOOD’S OWN:

OR, LAUGHTER FROM YEAR TO YEAR.

THE PUGSLEY PAPERS.

How the following correspondence came into my hands must remain a Waverley mystery. The Pugsley Papers were neither rescued from a garret, like the Evelyn,--collected from cartridges, like the Culloden,--nor saved, like the Garrick, from being shredded into a snow storm at a Winter Theatre. They were not snatched from a tailor’s shears, like the original parchment of Magna Charta. They were neither the Legacy of a Dominie, nor the communications of My Landlord,--a consignment, like the Clinker Letters, from some Rev. Jonathan Dustwich,--nor the waifs and strays of a Twopenny Post Bag. They were not unrolled from ancient papyri. They were none of those that “line trunks, clothe spices,” or paper the walls of old attics. They were neither given to me nor sold to me,--nor stolen,--nor borrowed and surreptitiously copied,--nor left in a hackney coach, like Sheridan’s play,--nor misdelivered by a carrier pigeon,--nor dreamt of, like Coleridge’s Kubla Khan,--nor turned up in the Tower, like Milton’s Foundling MS.,--nor dug up,--nor trumped up, like the eastern tales of Horam harum Horam, the son of Asmar,--nor, brought over by Rammohun Roy,--nor translated by Doctor Bowring from the Scandinavian, Batavian, Pomeranian, Spanish, or Danish, or Russian, or Prussian, or any other language dead or living. They were not picked from the Dead Letter Office, nor purloined from the British Museum. In short, I cannot, dare not, will not, hint even at the mode of their acquisition: the reader must be content to know, that, in point of authenticity, the Pugsley Papers are the extreme reverse of Lady L.’s celebrated Autographs, which were all written by the proprietor.

No. I.--_From Master_ RICHARD PUGSLEY, _to Master_ ROBERT ROGERS, _at Number 132, Barbican_.

DEAR BOB,

Huzza!--Here I am in Lincolnshire! It’s good-bye to Wellingtons and Cossacks, Ladies’ double channels, Gentlemen’s stout calf, and ditto ditto. They’ve all been sold off under prime cost, and the old Shoe Mart is disposed of, goodwill and fixtures for ever and ever. Father has been made a rich Squire of by will, and we’ve got a house and fields, and trees of our own. Such a garden, Bob!--It beats White Conduit.

Now, Bob, I’ll tell you what I want. I want you to come down here for the holidays. Don’t be afraid. Ask your Sister to ask your Mother to ask your Father to let you come. It’s only ninety mile. If you’re out of pocket money, you can walk, and beg a lift now and then, or swing by the dickies. Put on cordroys, and don’t care for cut behind. The two prentices, George and Will, are here to be made farmers of, and brother Nick is took home from school to help in agriculture. We like farming very much, it’s capital fun. Us four have got a gun, and go out shooting: it’s a famous good un, and sure to go off if you don’t full cock it. Tiger is to be our shooting dog, as soon as he has left off killing the sheep. He’s a real savage, and worries cats beautiful. Before Father comes down, we mean to bait our bull with him.

There’s plenty of New Rivers about, and we’re going a fishing as soon as we have mended our top joint. We’ve killed one of our sheep on the sly to get gentles. We’ve a pony, too, to ride upon when we can catch him, but he’s loose in the paddock, and has neither mane nor tail to signify to lay hold of. Isn’t it prime, Bob? You must come. If your Mother won’t give your Father leave to allow you,--run away. Remember, you turn up Goswell Street to go to Lincolnshire, and ask for Middlefen Hall. There’s a pond full of frogs, but we won’t pelt them till you come, but let it be before Sunday, as there’s our own orchard to rob, and the fruit’s to be gathered on Monday.

If you like sucking raw eggs, we know where the hens lay, and mother don’t; and I’m bound there’s lots of birds’ nests. Do come, Bob, and I’ll show you the wasps’ nest, and everything that can make you comfortable. I dare say you could borrow your father’s volunteer musket of him without his knowing of it; but be sure anyhow to bring the ramrod, as we have mislaid ours by firing it off. Don’t forget some bird-lime, Bob--and some fish-hooks--and some different sorts of shot--and some gut and some gunpowder and a gentle box, and some flints,--some May flies, and a powder horn,--and a landing net and a dog-whistle--and some porcupine quills, and a bullet mould--and a trolling-winch, and a shot-belt and a tin can. You pay for ’em, Bob, and I’ll owe it you.

Your old friend and schoolfellow, RICHARD PUGSLEY.

No. II.--_From the Same to the Same._

DEAR BOB,

When you come, bring us a ’bacco-pipe to load the gun with. If you don’t come, it can come by the waggon. Our Public House is three mile off, and when you’ve walked there it’s out of everything. Yours, &c.,

RICH. PUGSLEY.

No. III.--_From Miss_ ANASTASIA PUGSLEY, _to Miss_ JEMIMA MOGGRIDGE, _at Gregory House Establishment for Young Ladies, Mile End_.

MY DEAR JEMIMA,

Deeply solicitous to gratify sensibility, by sympathising with our fortuitous elevation, I seize the epistolary implements to inform you, that, by the testamentary disposition of a remote branch of consanguinity, our tutelary residence is removed from the metropolitan horizon to a pastoral district and its congenial pursuits. In futurity I shall be more pertinaciously superstitious in the astrological revelations of human destiny. You remember the mysterious gipsy at Hornsey Wood?--Well, the eventful fortune she obscurely intimated, though couched in vague terms, has come to pass in minutest particulars; for I perceive perspicuously, that it predicted that papa should sell off his boot and shoe business at 133, Barbican, to Clack and Son, of 144, Hatton Garden, and that we should retire, in a station of affluence, to Middlefen Hall, in Lincolnshire, by bequest of our great-great maternal uncle, Pollexfen Goldsworthy Wrigglesworth, Esq., who deceased suddenly of apoplexy at Wisbeach Market, in the ninety-third year of his venerable and lamented age.

At the risk of tedium, I will attempt a cursory delineation of our rural paradise, altho’ I feel it would be morally arduous, to give any idea of the romantic scenery of the Lincolnshire Fens. Conceive, as far as the visual organ expands, an immense sequestered level, abundantly irrigated with minute rivulets, and studded with tufted oaks, whilst more than a hundred windmills diversify the prospect and give a revolving animation to the scene. As for our own gardens and grounds, they are a perfect Vauxhall--excepting, of course, the rotunda, the orchestra, the company, the variegated lamps, the fire-works, and those very lofty trees. But I trust my dear Jemima will supersede topography by ocular inspection; and in the interim I send for acceptance a graphical view of the locality, shaded in Indian ink, which will suffice to convey an idea of the terrestrial verdure and celestial azure we enjoy, in lieu of the sable exhalations and architectural nigritude of the metropolis.

You who know my pastoral aspirings, and have been the indulgent confidant of my votive tributes to the Muses, will conceive the refined nature of my enjoyment when I mention the intellectual repast of this morning. I never could enjoy Bloomfield in Barbican,--but to-day he read beautifully under our pear-tree. I look forward to the felicity of reading Thomson’s Summer with you on the green seat, and if engagements at Christmas permit your participation in the bard, there is a bower of evergreens that will be delightful for the perusal of his Winter.

I enclose, by request, an epistolary effusion from sister Dorothy, which I know will provoke your risible powers, by the domesticity of its details. You know she was always in the homely characteristics a perfect Cinderella, though I doubt whether even supernatural agency could adapt her foot to a diminutive vitrified slipper, or her hand for a prince of regal primogeniture. But I am summoned to receive, with family members, the felicitations of Lincolnshire aristocracy; though whatever necessary distinctions may prospectively occur between respective grades in life, they will only superficially affect the sentiments of eternal friendship between my dear Jemima and her affectionate friend,

ANASTASIA PUGSLEY.

No. IV.--_From Miss_ DOROTHY PUGSLEY _to the Same_.

MY DEAR MISS JEMIMA,

Providence having been pleased to remove my domestic duties from Barbican to Lincolnshire, I trust I shall have strength of constitution to fulfil them as becomes my new allotted line of life. As we are not sent into this world to be idle, and Anastasia has declined housewifery, I have undertaken the Dairy, and the Brewery, and the Baking, and the Poultry, the Pigs and the Pastry,--and though I feel fatigued at first, use reconciles to labours and trials, more severe than I at present enjoy. Altho’ things may not turn out to wish at present, yet all well-directed efforts are sure to meet reward in the end, and altho’ I have chumped and churned two days running, and it’s nothing yet but curds and whey, I should be wrong to despair of eating butter of my own making before I die. Considering the adulteration committed by every article in London, I was never happier in any prospect, than of drinking my own milk, fattening my own calves, and laying my own eggs. We cackle so much I am sure we new-lay somewhere, tho’ I cannot find out our nests; and I am looking every day to have chickens, as one pepper-and-salt-coloured hen has been setting these two months. When a poor ignorant bird sets me such an example of patience, how can I repine at the hardest domestic drudgery! Mother and I have worked like horses to be sure, ever since we came to the estate; but if we die in it, we know it’s for the good of the family, and to agreeably surprise my Father, who is still in town winding up his books. For my own part, if it was right to look at things so selfishly, I should say I never was so happy in my life; though I own I have cried more since coming here than I ever remember before. You will confess my crosses and losses have been unusual trials, when I tell you, out of all my makings, and bakings, and brewings, and preservings, there has been nothing either eatable or drinkable; and what is more painful to an affectionate mind,--have half poisoned the whole family with home-made ketchup of toadstools, by mistake for mushrooms. When I reflect that they are preserved, I ought not to grieve about my damsons and bullaces, done by Mrs. Maria Dover’s receipt.

Among other things, we came into a beautiful closet of old china, which, I am shocked to say, is all destroyed by my preserving. The bullaces and damsons fermented, and blew up a great jar with a violent shock that smashed all the tea and coffee cups, and left nothing but the handles hanging in rows on the tenter-hooks. But to a resigned spirit there’s always some comfort in calamities, and if the preserves work and ferment so, there’s some hope that my beer will, as it has been a month next Monday in the mash tub. As for the loss of the elder wine, candour compels me to say it was my own fault for letting the poor blind little animals crawl into the copper; but experience dictates next year not to boil the berries and kittens at the same time.

I mean to attempt cream cheese as soon as we can get cream,--but as yet we can’t drive the Cows home to be milked for the Bull--he has twice hunted Grace and me into fits, and kept my poor Mother a whole morning in the pigsty. As I know you like country delicacies, you will receive a pound of my fresh butter when it comes, and I mean to add a cheese as soon as I can get one to stick together. I shall send also some family pork for Governess, of our own killing, as we wring a pig’s neck on Saturday. I did hope to give you the unexpected treat of a home-made loaf, but it was forgot in the oven from ten till six, and so too black to offer. However, I hope to surprise you with one by Monday’s carrier. Anastasia bids me add she will send a nosegay for respected Mrs. Tombleson, if the plants don’t die off before, which I am sorry to say is not improbable.

It’s really shocking to see the failure of her cultivated taste, and one in particular, that must be owned a very pretty idea. When we came, there was a vast number of flower roots, but jumbled without any regular order, till Anastasia trowelled them all up, and set them in again, in the quadrille figures. It must have looked sweetly elegant, if it had agreed with them, but they have all dwindled and drooped like deep declines and consumptions. Her dahlias and tulips too have turned out nothing but onions and kidney potatoes, and her ten week stocks have not come up in twenty. But as Shakspeare says, Adversity is a precious toad--that teaches us Patience is a jewel.

Considering the unsettled state of coming in, I must conclude, but could not resist giving your friendliness a short account of the happy change that has occurred, and our increase of comforts. I would write more, but I know you will excuse my listening to the calls of dumb animals. It’s the time I always scald the little pigs’ bread and milk, and put saucers of clean water for the ducks and geese. There are the fowls’ beds to make with fresh straw, and a hundred similar things that country people are obliged to think of.

The children, I am happy to say, are all well, only baby is a little fractious, we think from Grace setting him down in the nettles, and he was short-coated last week. Grace is poorly with a cold, and Anastasia has got a sore throat, from sitting up fruitlessly in the orchard to hear the nightingale; perhaps there may not be any in the Fens. I seem to have a trifling ague and rheumatism myself, but it may be only a stiffness from so much churning, and the great family wash-up of everything we had directly we came down, for the sake of grass-bleaching on the lawn. With these exceptions, we are all in perfect health and happiness, and unite in love, with

Dear Miss Jemima’s affectionate friend, DOROTHY PUGSLEY.

No. V.--_From_ MRS. PUGSLEY _to_ MRS. MUMFORD, _Bucklersbury_.

MY DEAR MARTHA,

In my ultimatum I informed of old Wrigglesworth paying his natural debts, and of the whole Middlefen estate coming from Lincolnshire to Barbican. I charged Mr. P. to send bulletings into you with progressive reports, but between sisters, as I know you are very curious, I am going to make myself more particular. I take the opportunity of the family being all restive in bed, and the house all still, to give an account of our moving. The things all got here safe, with the exception of the Crockery and Glass, which came down with the dresser, about an hour after its arrival. Perhaps if we hadn’t overloaded it with the whole of our breakables, it wouldn’t have given way,--as it is, we have only one plate left, and that’s chipt, and a mug without a spout to keep it in countenance. Our furniture, &c., came by the waggon, and I am sorry to say a poor family at the same time, and the little idle boys with their knives have carved and scarified my rosewood legs, and, what is worse, not of the same patterns; but as people say, two Lincolnshire removes are as bad as a fire of London.

The first thing I did on coming down, was to see to the sweeps going up,--but I wish I had been less precipitous, for the sooty wretches stole four good flitches of bacon, as was up the kitchen chimbly, quite unbeknown to me. We have filled up the vacancy with more, which smoked us dreadfully, but what is to be cured must be endured. My next thing was to have all holes and corners cleared out, and washed, and scrubbed, being left, like bachelor’s places, in a sad state by old single W.; for a rich man, I never saw one that wanted so much cleaning out. There were heaps of dung about, as high as haystacks, and it cost me five shillings a load to have it all carted off the premises; besides heaps of good-for-nothing littering straw, that I gave to the boys for bonfires. We are not all to rights yet, but Rome wasn’t built in St. Thomas’s Day.

It was providential I hampered myself with cold provisions, for except the bacon there were no eatables in the house. What old W. lived upon is a mystery, except salads, for we found a whole field of beet-root, which, all but a few plants for Dorothy to pickle, I had chucked away. As the ground was then clear for sowing up a crop, I directed George to plough it up, but he met with agricultural distress. He says as soon as he whipped his horses, the plough stuck its nose in the earth, and tumbled over head and heels. It seems very odd when ploughing is so easy to look at, but I trust he will do better in time. Experience makes a King Solomon of a Tom Noddy.

I expect we shall have bushels upon bushels of corn, tho’ sadly pecked by the birds, as I have had all the scarecrows taken down for fear of the children dreaming of them for Bogies. For the same dear little sakes I have had the well filled up, and the nasty sharp iron spikes drawn out of all the rakes and harrows. Nobody shall say to my teeth, I am not a good Mother. With these precautions I trust the young ones will enjoy the country when the gipsies have left, but till then, I confine them to round the house, as it’s no use shutting the stable door after you’ve had a child stole.

We have a good many fine fields of hay, which I mean to have reaped directly, wet or shine; for delays are as dangerous as pickles in glazed pans. Perhaps St. Swithin’s is in our favour, for if the stacks are put up dampish they won’t catch fire so easily, if Swing should come into these parts. The poor boys have made themselves very industrious in shooting off the birds, and hunting away all the vermin, besides cutting down trees. As I knew it was profitable to fell timber, I directed them to begin with a very ugly straggling hollow tree next the premises, but it fell the wrong way, and knocked down the cow-house. Luckily the poor animals were all in the clover-field at the time. George says it wouldn’t have happened but for a violent sow, or rather sow-west,--and it’s likely enough, but it’s an ill wind that blows nothing to nobody.

Having writ last post to Mr P., I have no occasion to make you a country commissioner. Anastasia, indeed, wants to have books about everything, but for my part and Dorothy’s we don’t put much faith in authorised receipts and directions, but trust more to nature and common sense. For instance, in fatting a goose, reason points to sage and onions,--why our own don’t thrive on it, is very mysterious. We have a beautiful poultry yard, only infested with rats,--but I have made up a poison, that, I know by the poor ducks, will kill them if they eat it.

I expected to send you a quantity of wall-fruit, for preserving, and am sorry you bought the brandy beforehand, as it has all vanished in one night by picking and stealing, notwithstanding I had ten dozen of bottles broke on purpose to stick a-top of the wall. But I rather think they came over the pales, as George, who is very thoughtless, had driven in all the new tenter-hooks with the points downwards. Our apples and pears would have gone too, but luckily we heard a noise in the dark and threw brickbats out of window, that alarmed the thieves by smashing the cowcumber frames. However, I mean on Monday to make sure of the orchard, by gathering the trees,--a pheasant in one’s hand is worth two cock sparrows in a bush. One comfort is, the house dog is very vicious, and won’t let any of us stir in or out after dark--indeed, nothing can be more furious, except the bull, and at me in particular. You would think he knew my inward thoughts, and that I intend to have him roasted whole when we give our grand house-warming regalia. With these particulars, I remain, with love, my dear Dorcas, your affectionate sister,

BELINDA PUGSLEY.

P.S.--I have only one anxiety here, and that is, the likelihood of being taken violently ill, nine miles off from any physical powers, with nobody that can ride in the house, and nothing but an insurmountable hunting horse in the stable. I should like, therefore, to be well doctor-stuff’d from Apothecaries’ Hall, by the waggon or any other vehicle. A stitch in the side taken in time saves nine spasms. Dorothy’s tincture of the rhubarb stalks in the garden, doesn’t answer, and it’s a pity now they were not saved for pies.

No. VI.--_From Mrs._ PUGSLEY _to Mrs._ ROGERS.

MADAM,