Part 4

“A pack of _dogs_, indeed, they were, Mr. Cuddle,” interrupted young Horner; “five or six couple of curs, that lurked about the Castle, gentlemen, which we used sometimes to coax down to the river, and spear or worry an otter; and, now and then, wheedle away to the woods, at midnight, for a badger-hunt, after drinking more ale than we well knew how to carry. I was a boy then, but I could drink ale by the quart.”

“Ay, ay!” exclaimed Caddy Cuddle, “those were famous times! 'Tis true, I never went out with you, but 1 recollect very well how I enjoyed poor Caddy Caddy's animated descriptions of the badger-hunt, when he came back.”

“Oh! then you hunted _badgers_, did you?” said the gentleman of Kent to Tom Horner, in a sneering tone, that produced a titter all round the table. “Yes, sir,--we hunted badgers,” replied Tom; “and capital sport it is, too, in default of better.”

“I dare say it is,” said the gentleman of Kent.

“Allow me to tell you then, sir, that there is really good sport in badger-hunting; it is a fine, irregular sort of pastime, unfettered by the systematic rules of the more aristocratic sports. The stag-hunt and the fox-chase, are so shackled with old ordinances and covert-side statutes, that they remind me of one of the classical dramas of the French: a badger-hunt is of the romantic school;--free as air, wild as mountain breezes;--joyous, exhilarating, uncurbed, and natural as one of our Shakspeare's plays. Barring an otter-hunt, (and what's better still, according to Caddy Cuddle's account, who has been in the North Seas, the spearing of a whale,) there are few sports that suit my capacity of enjoyment, so well as badger-bagging.--Just picture to yourself, that you have sent in a keen terrier, no bigger than a stout fitchet, or thereabouts, to ascertain that the badger is not within; that you have cleverly bagged the hole, and stuck the end of the mouth-line in the fist of a patient, but wary and dexterous clod-hopper; (an old, lame, broken-down, one-eyed gamekeeper, is the best creature on earth for such an office;)--and then, what do you do?--Why, zounds! every body takes his own course, with or without dogs, as it may happen; hunting, yelping, hallooing, and beating every brake for half a mile, or more, round, to get scent of the badger. Imagine the moon, 'sweet huntress of yon azure plain,' is up, and beaming with all her brilliancy; the trees beautifully basking in her splendour; her glance streaming through an aperture in an old oak, caused by the fall of a branch, by lightning, or bluff Boreas, and fringing the mallow-leaf with silver; the nightingale, in the brake, fascinating your ear; the glow-worm delighting your eye:--you stand, for a moment, motionless;--the bat whirrs above your head and the owl, unaccustomed to the sight of man, in such deep solitudes, flaps, fearless, so near as to fan your glowing forehead with his wings:--when suddenly you hear a shout,--a yell,--two or three such exclamations as--'There a' ees!'--'Thic's he!'--'At'un, Juno!'--'Yonder a goath!'--'Hurrah!'--'Vollow un up!'--'Yaw awicks!' and 'Oh! my leg!'--You know by this, that 'the game's a foot;'--you fly to the right or left, as the case may be, skimming over furzy brake, like a bird, and wading through tangled briar, as a pike would, through the deeps of a brook, after a trout that is lame of a fin. You reach the scene of action; the badger is before, half a score of tykes around, and the yokels behind you.--'Hark forward! have at him!' you enthusiastically cry; your spirits are up;--you are buoyant--agile as a roe-buck;--your legs devour space--you--”

“My dear fellow, allow me to conclude,” interrupted Caddy Cuddle, “for your prose Pegasus never can carry you through the hunt at this rate. To be brief, then,--according to what I have heard from my never-to-be-sufficiently-lamented friend, Caddy Caddy,--the badger, when found, immediately makes for his earth: if he reach it without being picked up and taken, he bolts in at the entrance; the bag receives him; its mouth is drawn close by the string; and thus the animal is taken.--But, odds! while I talk of those delights, which were the theme of our discourse in the much-regretted days of Caddy Caddy, I forget that time is on the wing.--I suppose no one is going my way.”

“I am,” replied Tom Homer, “in about three hours' time.”

“Ay, ay! you're younger, friend Homer, than I have been these fifteen years,” said Cuddle; “time was, before Caddy Caddy lost his wits, when he and I have sat over midnight together, as merry as crickets; but since his misfortune, I have become a very altered man. '_Primâ nocte domum claude_--that has been my motto for years past Mrs. Watermark, my good housekeeper, is, I feel convinced, already alarmed; and it would not become me, positively to terrify her: besides, I am not on very intimate terms with my horse, which I borrowed from my friend, Anthony Mutch, of Mallow Hill, for this occasion: the roads, too, have been so cut and carved about, by the Commissioners,--doubtless, for very wise purposes,--since poor Caddy Caddy's time, that I had much ado to find my way in the broad day-light; and these spectacles, I must needs say, although I reverence the donor, are not to be depended on, so implicitly as I could wish. Let me see--ay--'tis now twelve years ago, from my last birth-day, since they were presented to me; and, believe me, I 've never had the courage to wear them before. I hate changing,--especially of spectacles; I should not have put them on now--confound them!--had it not been for Mrs. Watermark, who protested my others were not fit to be seen in decent society.”

“Under the circumstances you have mentioned,” said the Honourable Charles Caddy, “I must press you to accept of a bed. Pray, make the Castle your own; you will confer an obligation on me by remaining.”

“Cousin Caddy,” replied Cuddle, rising from his seat, and approaching his host, whose hand he took between both his own; “I rejoice to find so worthy a successor of poor Caddy Caddy, master of Caddy Castle. It would be most pleasing to me, if it were possible, to remain; and, I do protest, that I positively would, were it not for the feelings of Mrs. Watermark,--a most worthy and valuable woman,--who is now, perhaps, sitting on thorns on my account But I feel so grateful to you,--so happy in your society, that I will actually quaff another bumper, previously to taking my stirrup-cup; yea, and truly, were honest Jack Cole--old king Cole, as we used to cadi him, in Caddy Caddy's days,--were Jack here, with his fine bass voice, I would actually proffer a stave or so,--say, for instance, the Dialogue between Time and the Drinkers,--if Tom Horner would chime in, as he used to do when a boy, here, in this very room, with honest Jack, poor Caddy Caddy, and my-self, in times past--Honest Jack! most excellent Jack! rare king Cole! would he were here!”

“I should be sorry, cousin,” said the Honourable Charles Caddy, “to have omitted, in my invitation-list, the name of so respectable and staunch a friend of our family, as Mr. Cole, of Colebrook. If I do not mistake, he sits immediately below my friend Wilmot, at the next table; I regret that I have not had an opportunity of making myself more known to him.”

“Jack! honest Jack!” exclaimed Cuddle; “old king Cole, here, and I not know it?--Little Jack, that's silent as the grave, except when he thunders in a glee!--Where, cousin? Oddsbird! eh?--Jack, where are you?”

“Here am I, Caddy,” replied a diminutive old gentleman, with a remarkably drowsy-looking eye; “I thought you were not going to accost me.”

The deep and sonorous tone in which these words were spoken, startled those who sat near old Cole: they gazed at him, and seemed to doubt if the sounds they had heard really emanated from the lungs of so spare and puny a personage. Cuddle crossed his arms on his breast, and exclaimed, “And is it, indeed, my friend Jack Cole?”

“Don't you know me, when I speak even?” growled old Cole, “or d'ye think somebody has borrowed my voice?”

“'Tis Jack, himself!” cried Cuddle; “honest Jack! and I did not see him!--These glasses I cannot help stigmatizing as an egregious nuisance.”

“Well, Mr. Cole, what say you, will you join us?” inquired Homer.

“No, sir,” replied Cole; “sing by yourself; one ass at a time is bad enough; but three braying together, are insupportable.”

“The same man,--the same man as ever;” exclaimed Cuddle, apparently very much pleased;--“begin, Homer;--you know his way;--he can't resist, when his bar comes. He had always these crotchets;--begin, my boy; I will pledge myself that he falls in with the stream of the tune.”

Horner and Cuddle now commenced the glee; and, as the latter had predicted, Cole, after closing his eyes, throwing himself back in his chair, and making sundry wry faces, trowled forth the first reply, and afterwards, all the other responses of old Father Time, in the following verses.--

“Whither away! old Father Time? Ah! whither dost thou run?”-- “Low,--low, I've a mob to mow; My work is never done.”

“Tarry awhile with us, old Time, And lay thy scythe aside!”-- “Nay!--nay! 'Tis a busy day; My work it lieth wide.”

“Tell us, we pray thee, why, old Time, Thou look'st so pale and glum?”-- Fie!--fie! “I evermore sigh, 'Eternity, oh! come!'”

“Art thou, then, tired, old Father Time? Thy labour dost thou rue?”-- “Long,--long, Has it been my song,-- 'Could I but die like you!'”

“Tell us, then, when, old Father Time, We may expect thy death!”-- “That morn Eternity's born, Receives my parting breath.”

“And what's eternity, Father Time? We pray thee, tell us now!”-- “When men Are dead, it is then Eternity they know.”

“Come, fill up thy glass, old Father Time, And clog its sands with wine!”-- “No, no; They would faster flow, And distil tears of brine!”

Caddy Cuddle, at the conclusion of these verses, took possession of a vacant chair, by the side of old Cole, and soon forgot that there was such a being as Mrs. Watermark in existence. He quaffed bumper after bumper with honest Jack;--an hour passed very pleasantly away in talking of old times;--and Cuddle wondered to find himself slightly intoxicated. He immediately rose, took his leave rather uncourteously, and went out, muttering something about “eleven miles,” and “Mother Watermark.” In a few minutes, he was mounted, and trotting toward the park gate which opened on the high road. “A fine night, Billy Norman;--a fine night, Billy;” said Cuddle, as he rode through, to the old gatekeeper; “pray, Billy, what say you? Don't you think they have cut the roads up cruelly, of late years?--Here's half a crown, Billy.--What with planting, and enclosing, and road-making, I scarcely know the face of the country; it's as puzzling as a labyrinth.--Good night, Billy!”

Cuddle, who was a tolerably bold rider, for a man of his years, now struck his horse rather forcibly, with his heels, and urged him at once into a brisk hand-gallop.

“He hath a spur in his head,” said Billy Norman to himself, as Cuddle disappeared down the road; “I hope nought but good may happen him; for he's one of the right sort, if he had it.” The roads were dry and hard, the air serene, and Billy stood listening, for a few minutes, to the sounds of the horse's feet; he soon felt convinced, by the cadences, that Caddy Cuddle was increasing, rather than diminishing, his speed. The beat of the hoofs became, at length, barely audible; it gradually died away; and Norman was going in to light his pipe, when he thought he heard the sounds again. He put his hand behind his ear, held his breath, and, in a few moments, felt satisfied that Caddy Cuddle had taken the wrong turning, and was working back, by a circular route, toward Caddy Castle again. As he approached nearer, Norman began to entertain apprehensions that Cuddle's horse had run away with him, in consequence of the violent pace, at which, it was clear, from the sound of its feet, that the animal was going. Norman stepped off the pathway into the road, and prepared to hail Cuddle, as he passed, and ascertain, if possible, what really was the matter. The horse and his rider came on nearly at full speed, and Norman shouted, with all his might,--“Holloa! hoy! stop!”

“I carry arms! I carry arms!” cried Cuddle, urging his horse forward with all his might.

“Zauns!” exclaimed Norman, “he takes I for a highwayman!--He must ha' mistook the road, that's certain; the horse can't ha' run away wi' un, or a'uldn't kick un so.--Sailor, you be out o' your latitude.”

The circle, which Caddy Cuddle had made, was about two miles in circumference: he went precisely in the same direction again, without, in the least, suspecting his error; and having, as he thought, mastered four miles of his road homeward, and given his horse a tolerable breathing, he began to pull up by degrees, as he, for the second time, approached the little rustic lodge of Caddy Park, from which he had issued at his departure. Norman again hailed him, for he felt tolerably satisfied that Caddy carried no other arms than those with which Nature had endowed him. Caddy now knew the voice, and pulled up:--“Who's there?” said he; “A friend, I think; for I remember your tone.--Who are you, honest man?”

“Heaven help us, Mr. Cuddle!” exclaimed Norman, “Are'ee mad, sir, or how?”

“Why, nipperkins! Norman, is it you?”

“Ay, truly.”

“And how got you here?--I thought nothing had passed me on the road. Where are you going, honest Norman?”

“Going!--I be going no-where,” replied the gate-keeper; “I be here, where you left me. Why, doant'ee know, that you ha' been working round and round, just like a horse in a mill?--And after all this helter-skelter work, here you be, just where you were!”

“D--n the spectacles, then!” said Cuddle; “and confound all innovators!--Why couldn't they let the country alone?--I've taken the wrong turning, I suppose?”

“Yeas,--I reckon't must be summat o' that kind:--there be four to the right, out o' the strait road, across the common; the three first do bring'ee round this way, t'other takes'ee home:--but, odds! Muster Cuddle! do'ee get off!--Here be a girth broke,--and t'other as old as my hat, and half worn through, as'tis.--Oh! you must go back; you must, truly, go back to the stables, and put the tackle in order.”

Cuddle seemed rather loath to return, but old Norman was inflexible: he led the horse inside the gate, which he safely locked, and put the key in his pocket, and then hobbled along, by the side of Caddy, toward the stables. As he passed the outer door of the house, he whispered to the porter, his fears for Cuddle's safety, if he were suffered to depart again, and begged that the porter would contrive to let his master be made acquainted with the circumstance of Caddy's ride.

The information was immediately conveyed to the dining-room, and half-a-dozen gentlemen, with the Honourable Charles Caddy at their head, immediately proceeded to the stables, where they found Cuddle, perspiring very copiously, and endeavouring to obtain information for his guidance, in his contemplated journey, from those, who were, from the same cause, as incapable of giving, as Cuddle was of following, correct directions. The Honourable Charles Caddy, in spite of his good breeding, could not help laughing, when he heard Cuddle's account of the affair; but he very judiciously insisted on Cuddle's remaining at the Castle until morning. Caddy vowed that he would acquiesce only on one condition; which was, that a servant should be immediately dispatched to his cottage, to allay the fears of Mrs. Watermark; and that such servant should be specially enjoined, not to blab a word of his mishap, to the good old gentlewoman. “If he should,” said Cuddle, “Mrs. Watermark will be terrified, and we shall have her here before morning, even if she walk all the way.”

It was in vain that the Honourable Charles Caddy and his visitors entreated Caddy Cuddle to return to the table; he preferred retiring to rest at once. “You must put up with one of the ancient bed-rooms, cousin Cuddle,” said the Honourable Charles Caddy; “but you fear no ghosts, I apprehend?”

“Nipperkins! not I!” replied Cuddle. “If I am to sleep out of my own bed, I care not if you place me in the most alarming room in the Castle. To confess the truth,--but this under the rose, cousin,--I feel a touch of the influence of Bacchus, and '_dulce periculum est,_' you know, when that's the case.”

The bed-chamber to which Cuddle was consigned, still retained its tapestry hangings; and the good man quivered, either with cold, or at the solemn appearance of the room, when he entered it. A very prominent figure in the arras actually appeared to move, as Cuddle sat down in a capacious old chair, at the right-hand side of the bed, to undress himself. After gazing earnestly at it, for a moment, with his stockings half drawn off, he corrected himself for indulging in so ridiculous a fancy:--“None of these Pygmalion freaks,” said he; “none of your Promethean tricks, Mr. Imagination of mine: and yet, perhaps, I am accusing you wrongfully, and these mischievous glasses have endowed yonder figure with seeming vitality; I hope I may not break them, in a-pet, before I get home.”

Caddy Cuddle was one of those unfortunate beings who accustom themselves to read in bed; and who, from long habit, can no more compose themselves to sleep, without perusing a few pages, in their night-gear, than some others can without a good supper, or a comfortable potation. Caddy discovered two or three old, worm-eaten books, in a small table drawer, and selected that one which was printed in the largest type, for his perusal, when recumbent. It was a volume of tracts, on geomancy, astrology, and necromancy. Cuddle read it with avidity, and by the time the small piece of candle, with which he had been furnished, was burnt out, he had filled his brain with images of imps and familiars. Finding himself, suddenly, in utter darkness, he laid down the book; and then, turning himself on his back, very soon fell asleep No man, perhaps, ever kept a log-book of his dreams; ant yet, such an article would certainly be more amusing than many an honest gentleman's diary; for there are persons in the work whose waking adventures are as dull and monotonous as the ticking of a clock, while their biography in bed,--their nightly dreams,7--if correctly narrated, would, in some cases, be exceedingly droll; and, in others, insupportably pathetic. The happiest people by day-light, often suffer agonies by night; a man who would not harm a worm, with his eyes open, sometimes commits murder, and actually endures all the misery of being taken, tried, convicted, and half executed, in imagination, while he lies snug, snoring, and motionless, beneath a pair of Witney blankets. It is rash to say that any individual is, or, at least, ought to be, happy, until we ascertain how he dreams. A very excellent country 'squire, in the west of England, was once told, by a person of discrimination, that he appeared to be the most comfortable man in existence:--“Your desires are within your means;”--thus the squire was addressed;--“your wife is most charming in temper, manners, and person; your affection is mutual; your children are every thing that a parent could wish; your life has been so irreproachable, that you must be as easy in mind as it is possible for a man to be: no one bears you malice; on the contrary, every body blesses you: your house and your park are delightful; you are most felicitous, even in your servants and cattle; you are naturally--”

“True, true, to the letter,” impatiently interrupted the 'squire; “but what's all the world to a man who, without why or wherefore, dreams that he's with old Nick every night of his life?” Caddy Cuddle was not much addicted to dreaming; but, on the night he slept in the ancient room, at Caddy Castle, he felt satisfied, as he afterward said, that in the course of a few hours, his imagination was visited with fantasies enough to fill a volume; although he could not recollect, with any distinctness, even one of them, half an hour after he awoke. The moon was shining full upon the window, and making the chamber almost as light as day, with her radiance, when Caddy opened his eyes, after his first sleep, to satisfy himself, by the view of some familiar object, that he was not among the strange creatures of whom he had been dreaming. Perched upon his nose,--threatening it with whip, as Caddy saw, and galling it with spur, as Caddy felt,--he beheld an imp, whose figure was, at once, more grotesque and horrible, than any of those which had flitted before his mind's eye, during his slumbers! The creature seemed to be staring at him with terrific impudence, and jockeying his feature, as though it were actually capable of running a race. Caddy's eye-balls were almost thrust out of their sockets with dismay; his nether-jaw dropped, and he groaned deeply, under the influence of the visible nose-night-mare with which he was afflicted. For more than a minute, Caddy was incapable of moving either of his limbs; but he summoned up resolution enough, at last, to close his eyes, and make a clutch at the fiend, that rode his nose in the manner above described. With a mingled feeling of surprise, mortification, and joy, he found the nose-night-mare to be his spectacles!--He had gone to sleep without removing them from his nose; and, by tumbling and tossing to and fro, in his dreams, he had displaced, and twisted them, sufficiently, to assume a position and form, that might have alarmed a man of stouter nerves than Caddy Cuddle, on awaking in the middle of a moonlight night, after dreaming of more monsters than the German authors have ever located on Walpurgis Night in the Hartz.

Caddy tried to compose himself to sleep again; but grew restless, feverish, and very uncomfortable: he beat up his pillow, shook his bed, smoothed his sheets, walked several times up and down the room, and then lay down again;--determined, at least, to doze. But Morpheus had taken leave of him; and Caddy, at last, resolved on dressing himself, going down to the kitchen, and, as he had tobacco about him, to smoke a pipe, if he could find one, clean or dirty. He attributed his want of rest to not having indulged in his usual sedative luxury, before going to bed; and very resolutely taxed himself with the commission of an egregious folly, for having drank more than he ought. Anthony Mutch's horse, and the Commissioners of the roads, he very copiously abused, while dressing himself: the spectacles were, however, the grand objects of his indignation; but, bad as they were, he conceived that it was necessary to coax them into shape again, and mount them on his nose, previously to attempting, what he deemed, the perilous descent, from his chamber, which was on the third floor, to the kitchen below. Caddy, however, was too well acquainted with the topography of the house, to incur much danger: moreover, the moon beamed with such brilliancy, through the glass dome that lighted the great circular staircase of Caddy Castle, that a man, much more short-sighted than our hero, might have gone safely from the top to the bottom, without the assistance of glasses.