Bentley's Miscellany, Volume II

"For shame, sir!" said Sarah. "You mustn't. I never permit it; never!"

And he kissed her again; on which she, having, I suppose, exhausted her stock of indignation in the speech already made, offered no observation. He skipped down stairs, and I heard her say, with a sigh, "What a nice man!"

The amorous thought rose softly over my mind. "Avaunt!" said I, "thou green-eyed monster; make way for Cupid, little god of love. Is my rump and my dozen yet lost? No. As the song says,

"When should lovers breathe their vows?
When should ladies hear them?
When the dew is on the boughs,
When none else is near them."

Whether the dew was on the boughs, or not, I could not tell; but it was certain that none else was near us. With the rapidity of thought I jumped out of bed, upsetting a jug full of half-frozen water, which splashed all over, every wretch of an icicle penetrating to my very marrow, but not cooling the ardour of my love. After knocking my head in the dark against every object in the room, and cutting my shins in various places, I at last succeeded in finding my dressing-gown knee smalls, and slippers, and, so clad, presented myself at the top of the staircase before the barmaid. She was leaning over the balustrade, looking down through the deep well after the departing stranger, whose final exit was announced by the slamming of the gate after him by the porter. I could not help thinking of Fanny Kemble in the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet.

She sighed, and I stood forward.

"Oh!" she screamed. "Lor' have mercy upon us! what's this?"

"Be not afraid," said I, "Sarah; I am no ghost."

"Oh, no," said she, recovering, "I didn't suppose you were; but I thought you were a Guy Fawkes."

"No, angelic girl, I am not a Guy Fawkes; another flame is mine!" and I caught her hand, endeavouring to apply it to my lips.

"Get along, you old – " I am not quite certain what the angelic Sarah called me; but I think it was a masculine sheep, or a goat.

"Sarah!" said I, "let me press this fair hand to my lips."

Sarah saved me the trouble. She gave me – not a lady's "slap," which we all know is rather an encouragement than otherwise, – but a very vigorous, well-planted, scientific blow, which loosened my two fore-teeth; and then skipped up stairs, shut herself in her room, and locked the door.

I followed, stumbled up stairs, and approached in the dark towards the keyhole, whence shone the beams of her candle. I was about to explain that innocence had nothing to fear from me, when a somewhat unintelligible scuffling up the stairs was followed by a very intelligible barking. The house-dog, roused by the commotion, was abroad, – an animal more horrid even than the schoolmaster, – and, before I could convey a word as to the purity of my intentions, he had caught me by the calf of the leg so as to make his cursed fangs meet in my flesh, and bring the blood down into my slippers. I do not pretend to be Alexander or Julius Cæsar, and I confess that my first emotion, when the brute let me loose for a moment, and prepared, with another fierce howl, for a fresh invasion of my personal comforts, was to fly, – I had not time to reflect in what direction; but, as my enemy came from below, it was natural that my flight should be upwards. Accordingly, up stairs I stumbled as I could, and the dog after me, barking and snapping every moment, fortunately without inflicting any further wound. I soon reached the top of the staircase, and, as further flight was hopeless, I was obliged to throw myself astride across the balustrade, which was high enough to prevent him from getting at me without giving himself more inconvenience than it seems he thought the occasion called for.

Here was a situation for a respectable citizen, tobacconist, and gallant! The darkness was intense; but I knew by an occasional snappish bark whenever I ventured to stir, or to make the slightest noise, that the dog was couching underneath me, ready for a spring. The thermometer must have been several yards beneath the freezing point, and I had nothing to guard me from the cold but a night-gown and shirt. I was barelegged and barefooted, having lost my slippers in the run. The uneasy seat on which I was perched was as hard as iron, and colder than ice. I had received various bruises in the adventures of the last few minutes, but I forgot them in the smarting pain of my leg, rendered acute to the last degree by exposure to the frost. And then I knew perfectly well, that, if I did not keep my seat with the dexterity of a Ducrow, I was exposed by falling on one side to be mangled by a beast of a dog watching my descent with a malignant pleasure, and, on the other, to be dashed to pieces by tumbling down from the top to the bottom of the house. The sufferings of Mazeppa were nothing compared to mine. He was, at least, safe from all danger of falling off his unruly steed. They had the humanity to tie him on.

Here I remained, with my bedroom candle in my hand, – I don't know how long, but it seemed an eternity, – until at length the dog began to retire by degrees, backwards, like the champion's horse at the coronation of George the Fourth, keeping his eyes fixed upon me all the time. I watched him with intense interest as he slowly receded down the stairs. He stopped a long time peeping over one stair so that nothing of him was visible but his two great glaring eyes, and then they disappeared. I listened. He had gone.

I gently descended; cold and wretched as I was, I actually smiled as I gathered my dressing-gown about me, preparatory to returning to bed. Hark! He was coming back again, tearing up the stairs like a wild bull. I caught sight of his eyes. With a violent spring I caught at and climbed to the top of an old press that stood on the landing, just as the villanous animal reared himself against it, scratching and tearing to get at me, and gnashing his teeth in disappointment. Such teeth too!

"Why, what is the matter?" cried the beauteous Sarah, opening her chamber door, and putting forth a candle and a nightcap.

"Sarah, my dear!" I exclaimed, "call off the dog, lovely vision!"

"Get along with you!" said Sarah; "and don't call me a lovely vision, or I'll scream out of my window into the street. It serves you right!"

"Serves me right, Sarah!" I exclaimed, in a voice which I am quite certain was very touching. "You'll not leave me here, Sarah; look, look at this dreadful animal!"

"You're a great deal safer there than anywhere else," said Sarah; and she drew in her head again, and locked the door, leaving me and the dog gazing at each other with looks of mutual hatred.

How long I continued in this position I feel it impossible to guess; It appeared to me rather more than the duration of a whole life. I was not even soothed by the deep snoring which penetrated from the sleeping apartment of the fair cause of all my woes, and indicated that she was in the oblivious land of dreams.

I suppose I should have been compelled to await the coming of daylight, and the wakening of the household, before my release from my melancholy situation, if fortune had not so far favoured me as to excite, by way of diversion, a disturbance below stairs, which called off my guardian fiend. I never heard a more cheerful sound than that of his feet trotting down stairs; and, as soon as I ascertained that the coast was clear, I descended, and tumbled at once into bed, much annoyed both in mind and body. The genial heat of the blankets, however, soon produced its natural effect, and I forgot my sorrows in slumber. When I woke it was broad daylight, – as broad, I mean, as daylight condescends to be in December, – an uneasy sensation surprised me. Had I missed the coach? Devoting the waiters to the infernal gods, I put my hand under my pillow for my watch; but no watch was there. Sleep was completely banished from my eyes, and I jumped out of bed to make the necessary inquiries; when, to my additional horror and astonishment, I found my clothes also had vanished. I rang the bell violently, and summoned the whole posse comitatûs of the house, whom I accused, in the loftiest tones, of misdemeanors of all descriptions. In return, I was asked who and what I was, and what brought me there; and one of the waiters suggested an instant search of the room, as he had shrewd suspicions that I was the man with the carpet-bag, who went about robbing hotels. After a scene of much tumult, the appearance of Boots at last cut the knot. I was, it seems, "No. 12, wot was to ha' gone by the Edenbry coach at six o'clock that morning, but wot had changed somehow into No. 11, wot went at four."

"And why," said I, "didn't you knock at No. 12?"

"So I did," said Boots; "I knocked fit to wake the dead, and, as there warn't no answer, I didn't like to wake the living; I didn't knock no more, 'specially as Sarah – "

"What of Sarah?" I asked in haste.

" – 'Specially as Sarah was going by at the time, and told me not to disturb you, for she knowd you had been uneasy in the night, and wanted a rest in the morning."

"I waited for no further explanation, but rushed to my room, and dressed myself as fast as I could, casting many a rueful glance on my dilapidated countenance, and many a reflection equally rueful on the adventures of the night.

My place was lost, and the money I paid for it; that was certain: but going to Edinburgh was indispensable. I proceeded, therefore, to book myself again; and, on doing so, found Joe Grabble in the coffee-room talking to Sarah. He had returned, like Paul Pry, in quest of his umbrella, or something else he had forgotten the night before, and I arrived just in time to hear him ask if I was off. The reply was by no means flattering to my vanity.

"I do not know nothink about him," said the indignant damsel, "except that, whether he's off or on, he's a nasty old willin."

"Hey-day, Peter!" exclaimed Joe. "So you are not gone? What is this Sarah says about you?"

"May I explain," said I, approaching her with a bow, "fair Sarah?"

"I don't want your conversation at no price," was the reply. "You're an old wretch as I wouldn't touch with a pair of tongs!"

"Hey-day!" cried Joe. "This is not precisely the character you expected. The rump and dozen – "

But the subject is too painful to be pursued. My misfortunes were, however, not yet at an end. I started that evening by the mail. We had not got twenty miles from town when the snow-storm began. I was one of its victims. The mail stuck somewhere in Yorkshire, where we were snowed up and half starved for four days, and succeeded only after a thousand perils, the details of which may be read most pathetically related in the newspapers of the period, in reaching our destination. When there, I lost little time in repairing to our agent, – a W.S. of the name of M'Cracken, – who has a handsome flat in Nicholson-street, not far from the College. He welcomed me cordially; but there was something dolorous in his tone, nevertheless.

"Sit ye down, Master Gayless; sit ye down, and tak' a glass o' wine; it wull do ye guid after yer lang and cauld journey. I hae been looking for ye for some days."

"What about the house of Screw and Longcut?" I inquired, with much anxiety.

"I am vera sorry to say, naething guid."

"Failed?"

"Why, jest that; they cam' down three days ago. They struggled an' struggled, but it wad no do."

"What is the state of their affairs?"

"Oh! bad – bad – saxpence in the pund forby. But, why were you no here by the cotch o' whilk ye advised me. That cotch cam' in safe eneuch; and it puzzled me quite to see yer name bookit in the waybill, an' ye no come. I did no ken what to do. I suppose some accident detained you?"

"It was indeed an accident," replied I faintly, laying down my untasted glass.

"I hope it's of nae consequence elsewhere," said M'Cracken, "because it is unco unlucky here; for if ye had been in E'nbro' on the Saturday, I think – indeed I am sure – that we wad hae squeezed ten or twelve shillings in the pund out o' them, – for they were in hopes o' remittances to keep up; but, when the Monday cam', they saw the game was gane, and they are now clane dished. So you see, Mr. Gayless, ye're after the fair."

"After the fair, indeed," said I; for men can pun even in misery.

What my man of business told me, proved to be true. The dividend will not be sixpence in the pound, and it is more than six hundred and fifty pounds odd out of my pocket. I had the expense (including that of a lost place) of a journey to Edinburgh and back for nothing. I was snowed up on the road, and frozen up on the top of a staircase. I lost a pair of teeth, and paid the dentist for another. I was bumped and bruised, bullied by a barmaid, and hunted by a dog. I paid my rump and dozen amid the never-ending jokes of those who were eating and drinking them; and I cannot look forward to the next dog-days without having before my eyes the horrors of hydrophobia.

Such was my last love!

MY FATHER'S OLD HALL