"Do you always propose yourself in that precipitous manner?" Charles inquired as they cantered past the last house and gained the hedgerows. "You pay very little heed to her corns."
The Lieutenant uttered an enormous guffaw that made his mount swerve again.
"The Royal Navy is always so d-devilish romantick," stammered little Peter Wingfield who looked like a precocious boy beside the burly officer.
"By G--," puffed Blewforth, "that reminds me of a good story I heard of an ensign in Bolt's. He was a d--d bashful man, and couldn't abide the women. One day he was making his compliments to the Colonel's daughter--a gaunt hussy of thirty-five summers or winters. He hung back outside the parlour-door for some time, mustered up courage to enter at last, dashed into the room and, tripping over his hanger, found himself kneeling at her feet. This was a bad beginning truly, but in trying to retrieve the position, he clutched the air and caught hold of her skinny hand. They were married in the spring, and the garrison said he badly wanted her money."
In the outburst of laughter which hailed the climax of the story, Vernon asked with much interest what the young woman's dowry was worth. The subject fascinated him.
"Don't know, sir," replied Blewforth, "but I saw the jade at Portsmouth last year, and I'm d--d if L50,000 would have made her endurable."
They were riding through a pleasant country of meadows and small streams; so Charles walked his mare to admire the willows empurpled by the fast gathering dusk. Vernon seized the opportunity for conversation.
"A fine landskip," he remarked.
Charles looked up half-angry. He disliked a man who suited his words to his own supposed tastes.
"It might be finer," he said shortly.
"Without a doubt," replied the other. "You'll pardon my ignorance, Mr. Lovely, but of what does the entertainment before us consist?"
Charles' face grew clear again at once--at any rate, the man did not claim omniscience.
"The entertainment, sir, is composed of fiddles and country dances enjoyed by the light of tallow-dips in an old barn. There will be some ploughboys, shepherds and farmers, with a few milkmaids and farm wenches, and the whole will resemble a painted Dutch interior."
"And you propose to join the merrymaking?"
"We do."
"It should be a diverting experience."
"I hope so indeed. My friend Clare vows he has discovered a Venus masquerading in fustian."
"His maiden-aunt in short?"
"The same. Like all small societies, sir, we have our intimate jests which to a stranger must seem excessively threadbare."
"On the contrary," said Vernon, "they possess an engaging spontaneity which flatters me with the suggestion that my own youth has not vanished irreclaimably. And yet," he sighed, "I am a man whom the world insults by claiming as its own."
"You have travelled?" inquired Charles.
"I have made the Grand Tour."
"That is a pleasure which I still owe to myself and to my country."
"You lack energy?"
"Of the kind expressed in gold."
"An hour's good luck at the tables."
"I've enjoyed some dozens," interrupted Lovely. "Almost enough to pay for twice as many less fortunate periods."
"Then why continue to play?"
"Why fall in love? Why die in a consumption? Why live this life of ours at all? Your question, sir, takes little account of mankind's innate perversity, and no account at all of his tastes and disposition of mind."
"On the contrary," argued Vernon, "I esteem all these at their greatest effect, but regard with equal reverence the doctrine of free will. I myself--but why should I fatigue you with personal anecdotes?"
"Pray continue," said Charles eagerly. He was always alert at a confidence and plumed himself on his ability to read human character. In this case curiosity outran discernment, and he failed to see the improbability of a man like Vernon exposing his temperament without securing a compensatory advantage.
"I myself, Mr. Lovely, was once addicted to the equally expensive habit of intrigue, but I found it led me into so many cursed situations that I forced myself to enjoy less compromising pastimes. I chose cards."
"Ah! cards!" commented Charles.
"But here again," Vernon continued, "I found the introduction of a passionate element ruined at once my pleasure and my skill. I was confounded. To be sure there remained wine, but whoever heard of a man's will exercised by wine? To be frank, Mr. Lovely, I was unwilling to take the risque of defeat."
"So I am to regard you as a disappointed voluptuary, a hedonist philosopher whose premisses induced him to a false conclusion. No, no, sir, keep your logick for speculations upon the soul, not the body."
"Sir," answered Vernon, "I found, indeed, that pleasure tormented by passion was no pleasure at all, but pleasure divorced from any ulterior emotion I soon discovered to be the highest good."
"So you would persuade me that you're an Epicurean who flings withered rose leaves and drinks sour wine. Come, come, sir, I wager your fingers would twitch and your lips quiver if one of us held a dice-box with a deep stake on the main."
"I deny that."
"We shall see."
"I hope we may."
"Ay, sir, and I wager this affectation of indifference will not outlast a week's ill luck, and as for woman, why the very dairymaids to-night will kindle a spark in your eyes."
"My life on't, they will not," cried Vernon.
"Foregad! you wear too stolid a mask to convince me it is your natural countenance."
This duologue, which seems to show that Mr. Lovely was younger and less wise than we might have thought, was interrupted by the shouts of the riders in front who wanted to know whether Charles imagined they were part of a funeral pomp.
"For d----e!" shouted Mr. Golightly, "we are all nodding like plumes and the twilight obscures the undeniable charms of the prospect."
Baverstock Barn, like a great cathedral, loomed upon them at last. As they dismounted, revelry and the drawling chatter of rustick voices, mingled with the tuning of fiddles, came from within, while the flickering light from the open door enchanted a heap of roots to the appearance of huge gems.
Clare approached the entrance while the rest stood by their horses.
"Farmer Hogbin!" he sang out.
"Who be caaling?"
"Mr. Anthony Clare!"
"Come in now, do 'ee come in."
"I've brought over a party with me, farmer?"
"Maids, do 'ee hear that? Maister Clare have brought wi'un a passel o' gallantry."
There was much jingling merriment from the maids.
"Now then Jock, Tommas, William, Jarge, Joe, Sam, Peter, Ern, move your shanks and stable they hosses."
The farmer, a huge Falstaff of a man quite in proportion to his barn, towered in the doorway obscuring the light, while the farm hands clumped with heavy legs towards the horses.
"Gi' they pleanty o' oats, my lads."
"A' right," mumbled the lads in chorus.
"Come in, my gentlemen, come in. Never mind for a speck of mud; the maids'll dust 'ee."
This sally provoked a ripple of laughter from the maids, and a chuckle from the young gentlemen.
The farmer surveyed them solemnly as they stepped into the barn.
"Why, you be all in top-boots?" he shouted. "Ho! ho! my maids, ye'll get thy twinkling toes rarely trod on, or shall I lend 'em my slippers to each in turn?"
This was considered splendid fooling, and laughter again resounded.
"Nay, farmer, you're in the wrong," said Charles producing a pair of pumps from the pockets of his riding coat.
"Why! dang me, if they han't brought a King's wardrobe wi'en. Eh! maids, you must mind your modesties to-night."
The maids, huddled together like a bunch of red apples, were set shaking with laughter at this warning--as if by a boisterous wind.
"Who will help us with our boots?" asked Clare as he subsided upon a truss of straw and flung his legs wide apart.
There was considerable whispering from the heart of the bunch till one of the maids was pushed by her companions out into the open with ejaculations of "Go on, stoopid."
"Thee needst not let on to be so backward." "Thee wast forthy enough behind the kitchen door yester'een." "Eh! bustle thyself, great gowk," and others of like freedom of opinion.
The maid selected for Mr. Clare was blooming indeed.
"Cream and claret," murmured Charles.
"Gad! a Venus by a Dutch master truly," commented Vernon.
"She's no g-ghost," stammered little Peter Wingfield.
_"Farewell and adieu to you, gay Spanish ladies, Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain."_
sang or rather bellowed Mr. Blewforth, slapping his thigh with a nautical zest.
_"Our Blewforth, careening far nearer than Cadiz Will give to green fields what was meant for the Main."_
continued Charles to the same tune.
"Give what?" asked Tom Chalkley.
"The breezy charm of his manner," replied Charles.
Now ensued jests, giggles, laughter, pranks, and struggles, as each gentleman persuaded a fair to wrestle with his riding-boots. Vernon who had forgotten to provide himself with pumps remained aloof from the merriment not sorry for an opportunity to convince Mr. Lovely of his remoteness from anything so vulgar as excitement.
Great was the mirth of everybody when the Lieutenant produced an enormous Valentine that depicted a peculiarly fat Cupid winking at a dairymaid over a brimming bowl of milk. Greater still was the mirth when he presented the token with much earnestness to the bashful lass they called Margery, and it became uproarious indeed when he explained he had wished to offer it on the preceding night, but had been deterred by Mr. Clare's reputed jealousy.