Dismounting, therefore, and finding himself very stiff as soon as he reached terra firma, the parson consigned the pad to the hostler, and walked into the sanded parlour of the inn, to repose himself on a very hard Windsor chair.
He had been alone rather more than half-an-hour, reading a county newspaper which smelled much of tobacco, and trying to keep off the flies that gathered round him in swarms, as if they had never before seen a parson, and were anxious to ascertain how the flesh of him tasted,—when a stagecoach stopped at the inn. A traveller got out with his carpetbag in his hand, and was shown into the sanded parlour.
The parson rose politely, and made a bow.
The traveller touched his hat, without taking it off, looked at Mr. Dale from top to toe, then walked to the window, and whistled a lively, impatient tune, then strode towards the fireplace and rang the bell; then stared again at the parson; and that gentleman having courteously laid down the newspaper, the traveller seized it, threw himself into a chair, flung one of his legs over the table, tossed the other up on the mantelpiece, and began reading the paper, while he tilted the chair on its hind-legs with so daring a disregard to the ordinary position of chairs and their occupants, that the shuddering parson expected every moment to see him come down on the back of his skull.
Moved, therefore, to compassion, Mr. Dale said mildly,—“Those chairs are very treacherous, sir. I’m afraid you’ll be down.”
“Eh,” said the traveller, looking up much astonished. “Eh, down?—oh, you’re satirical, sir.”
“Satirical, sir? upon my word, no!” exclaimed the parson, earnestly.
“I think every freeborn man has a right to sit as he pleases in his own house,” resumed the traveller, with warmth; “and an inn is his own house, I guess, so long as he pays his score. Betty, my dear.”
For the chambermaid had now replied to the bell. “I han’t Betty, sir; do you want she?”
“No, Sally; cold brandy and water—and a biscuit.”
“I han’t Sally, either,” muttered the chambermaid; but the traveller, turning round, showed so smart a neckcloth and so comely a face, that she smiled, coloured, and went her way.
The traveller now rose, and flung down the paper. He took out a penknife, and began paring his nails. Suddenly desisting from this elegant occupation, his eye caught sight of the parson’s shovel-hat, which lay on a chair in the corner.
“You’re a clergyman, I reckon, sir,” said the traveller, with a slight sneer.
Again Mr. Dale bowed,—bowed in part deprecatingly, in part with dignity. It was a bow that said, “No offence, sir, but I am a clergyman, and I’m not ashamed of it.”
“Going far?” asked the traveller.
PARSON.—“Not very.”
TRAVELLER.—“In a chaise or fly? If so, and we are going the same way, halves.”
PARSON.—“Halves?”
TRAVELLER.—“Yes, I’ll pay half the damage, pikes inclusive.”
PARSON.—“You are very good, sir. But” (spoken with pride) “I am on horseback.”
TRAVELLER.—“On horseback! Well, I should not have guessed that! You don’t look like it. Where did you say you were going?”
“I did not say where I was going, sir,” said the parson, dryly, for he was much offended at that vague and ungrammatical remark applicable to his horsemanship, that “he did not look like it.”
“Close!” said the traveller, laughing; “an old traveller, I reckon.”
The parson made no reply, but he took up his shovel-hat, and, with a bow more majestic than the previous one, walked out to see if his pad had finished her corn.
The animal had indeed finished all the corn afforded to her, which was not much, and in a few minutes more Mr. Dale resumed his journey. He had performed about three miles, when the sound of wheels behind him made him turn his head; and he perceived a chaise driven very fast, while out of the windows thereof dangled strangely a pair of human legs. The pad began to curvet as the post-horses rattled behind, and the parson had only an indistinct vision of a human face supplanting those human legs. The traveller peered out at him as he whirled by,—saw Mr. Dale tossed up and down on the saddle, and cried out, “How’s the leather?”
“Leather!” soliloquized the parson, as the pad recomposed herself, “what does he mean by that? Leather! a very vulgar man. But I got rid of him cleverly.”
Mr. Dale arrived without further adventure at Lansmere. He put up at the principal inn, refreshed himself by a general ablution, and sat down with good appetite to his beefsteak and pint of port.
The parson was a better judge of the physiognomy of man than that of the horse; and after a satisfactory glance at the civil smirking landlord, who removed the cover and set on the wine, he ventured on an attempt at conversation. “Is my Lord at the Park?”
LANDLORD (still more civilly than before).—“No, sir, his Lordship and my Lady have gone to town to meet Lord L’Estrange!”
“Lord L’Estrange! He is in England, then?”
“Why, so I heard,” replied the landlord, “but we never see him here now. I remember him a very pretty young man. Every one was fond of him and proud of him. But what pranks be did play when he was a lad! We hoped he would come in for our boro’ some of these days, but he has taken to foren parts,—more ‘s the pity. I am a reg’lar Blue, sir, as I ought to be. The Blue candidate always does me the honour to come to the Lansmere Arms. ‘T is only the low party puts up with the Boar,” added the landlord, with a look of ineffable disgust. “I hope you like the wine, sir?”
“Very good, and seems old.”
“Bottled these eighteen years, sir. I had in the cask for the great election of Dashmore and Egerton. I have little left of it, and I never give it but to old friends like,—for, I think, Sir, though you be grown stout, and look more grand, I may say that I’ve had the pleasure of seeing you before.”
“That’s true, I dare say, though I fear I was never a very good customer.”
“Ah, it is Mr. Dale, then! I thought so when you came into the hall. I hope your lady is quite well, and the squire too; fine pleasant-spoken gentleman; no fault of his if Mr. Egerton went wrong. Well, we have never seen him—I mean Mr. Egerton—since that time. I don’t wonder he stays away; but my Lord’s son, who was brought up here, it an’t nat’ral like that he should turn his back on us!”
Mr. Dale made no reply, and the landlord was about to retire, when the parson, pouring out another glass of the port, said, “There must be great changes in the parish. Is Mr. Morgan, the medical man, still here?”
“No, indeed! he took out his ‘ploma after you left, and became a real doctor; and a pretty practice he had too, when he took, all of a sudden, to some new-fangled way of physicking,—I think they calls it homy-something.”
“Homoeopathy?”
“That’s it; something against all reason: and so he lost his practice here and went up to Lunnun. I’ve not heard of him since.”
“Do the Avenels still reside in their old house?”
“Oh, yes!—and are pretty well off, I hear say. John is always poorly, though he still goes now and then to the Odd Fellows, and takes his glass; but his wife comes and fetches him away before he can do himself any harm.”
“Mrs. Avenel is the same as ever?”
“She holds her head higher, I think,” said the landlord, smiling. “She was always—not exactly