Two Years Ago, Volume I

"Went over a gate as soon as he saw the couples; and wouldn't come in at any price, sir," says the huntsman. "Gone home by himself, I expect."

"Goodman, Goodman, boy!" And forthwith out of the station-room slips the noble old hound, grey-nosed, grey-eyebrowed, who has hidden, for purposes of his own, till he sees all the rest safe locked in.

Up he goes to Mark, and begins wriggling against his knees, and looking up as only dogs can. "Oh, want to go first-class with me, eh? Jump in, then!" And in jumps the hound, and Mark struggles after him.

"Hillo, sir! Come out! Here are your betters here before you," as he sees Stangrave, and a fat old lady in the opposite corner.

"Oh, no; let the dog stay!" says Stangrave.

"I shall wet you, sir, I'm afraid."

"Oh, no."

And Mark settles himself, puffing, with the hound's head on his knees, and begins talking fast and loud.

"Well, Mr. Mellot, you're a stranger here. Haven't seen you since poor Miss Honour died. Ah, sweet angel she was! Thought my Mary would never get over it. She's just such another, though I say it, barring the beauty. Goodman, boy! You recollect old Goodman, son of Galloper, that the old squire gave our old squire?"

Claude, of course, knows—as all do who know those parts—who The Old Squire is; long may he live, patriarch of the chase! The genealogy he does not.

"Ah, well—Miss Honour took to the pup, and used to walk him out; and a prince of a hound he is; so now he's old we let him have his own way, for her sake; and nobody'll ever bully you, will they, Goodman, my boy?"

"I want to introduce you to a friend of mine."

"Proud to know any friend of yours, sir."

"Mr. Stangrave—Mr. Armsworth. Mr. Stangrave is an American gentleman, who is anxious to see Whitbury and the neighbourhood."

"Well, I shall be happy to show it him, then—can't have a better guide, though I say it—know everything by this time, and everybody, man, woman, and child, as I hope Mr. Stangrave'll find when he gets to know old Mark."

"You must not speak of getting to know you, my dear sir; I know you intimately already, I assure you; and more, am under very deep obligations to you, which, I regret to say, I can only repay by thanks."

"Obligation to me, my dear sir?"

"Indeed I am: I will tell you all when we are alone." And Stangrave glanced at the fat old woman, who seemed to be listening intently.

"Oh, never mind her," says Armsworth; "deaf as a post: very good woman, but so deaf—ought to speak to her, though"—and, reaching across, to the infinite amusement of his companions, he roared in the fat woman's face, with a voice as of a speaking-trumpet—"Glad to see you, Mrs. Grove! Got those dividends ready for you next time you come into town."

"Yah!" screamed the hapless woman, who (as the rest saw) heard perfectly well. "What do you mean, frightening a lady in that way? Deaf, indeed!"

"Why," roared Mark again, "ain't you Mrs. Grove, of Drytown Dirtywater?"

"No, nor no acquaintance! What business is it of your'n, sir, to go hollering in ladies' faces at your age?"

"Well:—but I'll swear if you ain't her, you're somebody else. I know you as well as the town clock"

"Me? If you must know, sir, I'm Mrs. Pettigrew's mother, the Linendraper's establishment, sir; a-going down for Christmas, sir!"

"Humph!" says Mark: "you see—was sure I knew her—know everybody here. As I said, if she wasn't Mrs. Grove, she was somebody else. Ever in these parts before?"

"Never: but I have heard a good deal of them; and very much charmed with them I am. I have seldom seen a more distinctive specimen of English scenery."

"And how you are improving round here!" said Claude, who knew Mark's weak points, and wanted to draw him out. "Your homesteads seem all new; three fields have been thrown into one, I fancy, over half the farms."

Mark broke out at once on his favourite topic,—"I believe you! I'm making the mare go here in Whitford, without the money too, sometimes. I'm steward now, bailiff—ha! ha! these four years past—to Mrs. Lavington's Irish husband; I wanted him to have a regular agent, a canny Scot, or Yorkshireman. Faith, the poor man couldn't afford it, and so fell back on old Mark. Paddy loves a job, you know. So I've the votes and the fishing, and send him his rents, and manage all the rest pretty much, my own way."

When the name of Lavington was mentioned, Mark observed Stangrave start; and an expression passed over his face difficult to be defined—it seemed to Mark mingled pride and shame. He turned to Claude, and said, in a low voice, but loud enough for Mark to hear,—

"Lavington? Is this their country also? As I am going to visit the graves of my ancestors, I suppose I ought to visit those of hers."

Mark caught the words which he was not intended to.

"Eh? Sir, do you belong to these parts?"

"My family, I believe, lived in the neighbourhood of Whitbury, at a place called Stangrave-end."

"To be sure! Old farm-house now; fine old oak carving in it, though; fine old family it must have been; church full of their monuments. Hum,—ha! Well! that's pleasant, now! I've often heard there were good old families away there in New England; never thought that there were Whitbury people among them. Hum—well! the world's not so big as people think, after all. And you spoke of the Lavingtons? They are great folks here—or were—" He was going to rattle on: but he saw a pained expression on both the travellers' faces, and Stangrave stopped him, somewhat drily—

"I know nothing of them, I assure you, or they of me. Your country here is certainly charming, and shows little of those signs of decay which some people in America impute to it."

"Decay!" Mark went off at score. "Decay be hanged? There's life in the old dog yet, sir! and dead pigs are looking up since free trade and emigration. Cheap bread and high wages now: and instead of lands going out of cultivation, as they threatened—bosh! there's a greater breadth down in wheat in the vale now than there ever was; and look at the roots. Farmers must farm now, or sink; and by George! they are farming, like sensible fellows: and a fig for that old turnip ghost of Protection! There was a fellow came down from the Carlton—you know what that is!" Stangrave bowed, and smiled assent. "From the Carlton, sir, two years since, and tried it on, till he fell in with old Mark. I told him a thing or two; among the rest, told him to his face that he was a liar; for he wanted to make farmers believe they were ruined, when he knew they were not; and that he'd get 'em back Protection, when he knew that he couldn't—and, what's more, he didn't mean to. So he cut up rough, and wanted to call me out."

"Did you go?" asked Stangrave, who was fast becoming amused with his man, "I told him that that wasn't my line, unless he'd try Eley's greens at forty yards; and then I was his man: but if he laid a finger on me, I'd give him as sound a horsewhipping, old as I am, as ever man had in his life. And so I would." And Mark looked complacently at his own broad shoulders. "And since then, my lord and I have had it all our own way; and Minchampstead and Co. is the only firm in the vale."

"What's become of a Lord Vieuxbois, who used to live somewhere hereabouts? I used to meet him at Rome."

"Rome?" said Mark solemnly. "Yes; he was too fond of Rome, awhile back: can't see what people want running into foreign parts to look at those poor idolators, and their Punch and Judy plays. Pray for 'em, and keep clear of them, is the best rule:—but he has married my lord's youngest daughter; and three pretty children he has,—ducks of children. Always comes to see me in my shop, when he drives into town. Oh!—he's doing pretty well.—One of these new between-the-stools, Peelites they call them—hope they'll be as good as the name. However, he's a freetrader, because he can't help it. So we have his votes; and as to his Conservatism, let him conserve hips and haws if he chooses, like a 'pothecary. After all, why pull down anything, before it's tumbling on your head? By the by, sir, as you're a man of money, there's that Stangrave-end farm in the market now. Pretty little investment,—I'd see that you got it cheap; and my lord wouldn't bid against you, of course, as you're a liberal—all Americans, are, I suppose. And so you'd oblige us, as well as yourself, for it would give us another vote for the county."

"Upon my word, you tempt me; but I do not think that this is just the moment for an American to desert his own country, and settle in England. I should not be here now, had I not this autumn done all I could for America in America, and so crossed the sea to serve her, if possible, in England."

"Well, perhaps not; especially if you're a Frémonter."

"I am, I assure you."

"Thought as much, by your looks. Don't see what else an honest man can be just now."

Stangrave laughed. "I hope every one thinks so in England."

"Trust us for that, sir! We know a man when we see him here; I hope they'll do the same across the water."

There was silence for a minute or two; and then Mark began again.

"Look!—there's the farm; that's my lord's. I should like to show you the short-horns there, sir!—all my Lord Ducie's and Sir Edward Knightley's stock; bought a bull-calf of him the other day myself for a cool hundred, old fool that I am. Never mind, spreads the breed. And here are mills—four pair of new stones. Old Whit don't know herself again. But I dare say they look small enough to you, sir, after your American water-power."

"What of that? It is just as honourable in you to make the most of a small river, as in us to make the most of a large one."

"You speak like a book, sir. By the by, if you think of taking home a calf or two, to improve your New England breed—there are a good many gone across the sea in the last few years—I think we could find you three or four beauties, not so very dear, considering the blood."

"Thanks; but I really am no farmer."