/~..\ c. — \ l~j± Z_.^, /. — j>. iL...\ : — i l — :■. W«i>mhwww»u^wmHl»M* in. ■ Li ..n rjrzrz-YziT„xz.YZJ5.'2 f£ S55 N. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/pittowncoronetfa01will THE PIT TOWN CORONET: |l 3?ami(g "Stfgotery CHAELES J. WILLS, AUTHOR OF IN THE LAND OF T II E LION AND SUN," ETC IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. WARD AND DOWNEY, 12, YORK STREET, OOVENT GARDEN, LONDON, W.C. 1888 [The right of translation it reserved, and the Dramatic Copyright protected. . PRINTED BY KELLY AND CO., GATE STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, W.C. : AN II MIDDLE -MILL, KiNGSToN-uN-TII A M KS. *l ?23 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. INSCRIBED EDMUND YATES, Esq. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAG E I. — L\ the Rose Garden ... 1 II. — Tiik Croquet Partv .... 2G III. — The Village Dorcas .... 45 IV.— Walls End Castle .... 07 V. - At the Pandemonium Clue . . . ( ,»C VX — Georgia's Wedding ... lib VH.— Lord Mayor's Day .... 138 VIII. — At the Castle ..... 161 IX. — Anastatia's CouRTsnip . . . 182 X.— Rome.- Tiik Ballo Papayani . . , 200 XI. — A Meeting in tiu: good Old Style . . 229 XII. — The Villa Lambert .... 256 THE PIT TOWN (MONET. CHAPTER 1. IX THE ROSE GARDEN. Big Begixald Haggard had been exceedingly attentive to the elder of two very pretty girls of the name of Warrender. Both families came from the eastern counties. The Warrenders had inhabited The Warren, or at all events the older portion of the house, for nearly four centuries. They were harmless people. They manfully stuck to their ancestral acres of fat Essex land. The present head of the family farmed the greater part of the estate himself, as his fathers had done before him. Many a Warrender had held the rich living of King's Warren, and the parson, whoever lie might be, and the vol. i. 1 2 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. reigning Squire Warrender were always the two greatest men in King's Warren village and parish. In the rather old-fashioned garden at The Warren sat a young lady, an open bock upon her lap ; the book was not a novel, it was an argumentative work, a book which dealt with the social problems of the day. But, alas ! the book which Greorgina Warrender had brought out with the serious intention of reading, for the Warrenders of either sex, though always soft-hearted, were a hard- headed race, lay upside down upon her lap. The fact is that she was weighing a man in the balance, an interesting occupation for a lady, and, alas ! finding him a little want- ing. Georgie Warrender had received a great deal of attention during the London season. Her people were well-to-do, the ancestral freeholds were unencumbered, her family was eminently respectable and well known, her connections unimpeachable ; but Miss Warrender's principal attraction to those IN THE ROSE GARDEN. 3 who Lad the privilege of her acquaintance outside the world of balls, dinner parties and musical evenings, was the sturdy open- heartedness of her character, which often distinguishes well brought-up young ladies who have been reared in an atmosphere at once intelligent and healthy, but not ultra-intellectual. Miss Warrender had no craze. She played and sang sufficiently well, but not well enough to be a terror to the home circle. She drew and sketched, as a pastime, but she had no desire to compete with professional artists, nor was her con- versation interlarded with the jargon of the craft. Her reading had been carefully directed by her governess, Miss Hood, who had remained to discharge the onerous duties of chaperon, guide, philosopher, and, above all, friend to Geonne Warrender and her cousin Lucy. Lucy Warrender was Georgie's cousin on the father's side. Colonel Warrender, as the younger brother, was naturally intended 1—2 4 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. for the family living of King's Warren. But fiery young George Warrender declined the Church altogether, so he was sent to Haily- bury, and then he became a soldier of John Company, and was soon known as Fighting George Warrender, and by dint of follow- ing his own bent attained the colonelcy of a native regiment. Then he had a good determined shake at the pagoda tree. And then he made a fool of himself, for just as he had come down to Bombay, having made up his mind to take two years' leave, he was smitten by the blonde beauty of a newly-imported " spin," fresh from the boarding-school ; and being an impulsive man, Colonel George Warrender married the little boarding-school miss, and changed his mind about his furlough. Within a year his daughter Lucy was born. And then the cholera came to Bebreabad, swept off Colonel Warrender and his pale-faced child- wife ; and the little Lucy, his orphan daughter, came home at once in charge IN THE ROSE GARDEN. .3 of an ayah in the Company's ship "Lord Give." On her arrival Squire Warrender pitied the little misery, as she was called by everybody, and treated her as his own daughter. There was but two years' differ- ence between the girls, and they looked upon each other as sisters. The squire's wife had died within a year of his daugh- ter's birth, so that practically neither of the cousins had ever known a mother's care. Squire Warrender's wife had been a local beauty, and her portrait, which hung in Mr. Warrender's stady, represented a loveliness of no common type. Both the girls rode well, but neither was horsey nor doggy. One of the greatest at- tractions in everybody's eyes about Georgie Warrender was her openness ; she never had a secret from Miss Hood, her father, or her cousin. In fact, secrecy was foreign to her nature. As to her appearance, she was a fine, well-developed, thoroughly English gir 1 , fully justifying the raptures an 1 rhapso- G THE PIT TOWN COKONET. dies of her numerous admirers. But it is not with her appearance that we are at present concerned, but with the subject of her meditations. That subject was a serious one, for in her pocket was a formal proposal from Reginald Haggard, whom she had known as " Big Reginald Haggard " from her child- hood. It is probably an axiom that every English girl, under ordinary circumstances, accepts her first offer ; the reason of this is not very manifest, but it is nevertheless a fact, and its being a fact is doubtless one of the causes of the numerous ill- assorted matches that constantly take place. But Miss Warrender, now twenty years of age, had been an exception to the rule. During her first and successful London season, now just over, she had refused three serious offers. The first was from an impecunious young barrister, who had attained some repute in the literary world, and had very nearly killed himself IX THE EOSE GARDEN'. 7 in the process. Mr. Baliol had admired Miss Warrender, had made careful inquiries as to her father's position, had discovered that the two girls would probably be the old man's heiresses, and had promptly pro- posed to Georgie. He had been as promptly refused. Mr. Baliol was in no wise discon- certed. He immediately proceeded to dedi- cate his new novel, " A Woman's Fickle Heart," "to Miss G W , in token of respectful admiration." Baliol scored another success at the circulating libraries, and at once ceased to trouble himself any more about Miss G W . Georgina's second proposal was of a more serious nature. Young Lord Spunyarn had made her an offer. Lord Spunyarn desired an ornamental wife. To him the ideal Lady Spunyarn was a young person respectably connected, good-tempered, and of prepossess- ing appearance. Xot one iota did Spunyarn care for money, birth or brains ; of money he had plenty and to spare : as to birth, 8 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. Avas lie not Lord Spunyarn ? as to brains, clever women were considered bores by his lordship. The young nobleman liked Georgie Warrender, and he liked her people. Though rejected, rather to his astonishment, it made no difference in his friendship with the family. " It's an awful bore, you know. Unluckily they all know it at the club — I mean that I w T as going to make you an offer — and I heard that one of the society journals had the announcement of our engagement already in type. You see, I was to have dined here to-morrow. If you don't mind, I'll come all the same." He did come, did full justice to the dinner, sat next to Georgie, whom he took down, and the pair, thoroughly heart- whole, had a great deal to say to each other. Georgina's next experience was of a more comic character ; her conquest was no longer a nobleman, but a " noble." Jones di Mcnte- Ferrato was a Maltese noble. He possessed certain rights of nobility in the island, his IN THE ROSE GARDEN. 9 income was derived from the sale of Maltese oranges ; in fact he was the titular head of Jones and Co., the well-known fruit house of Thames Street. In Thames Street, Jones di Monte-Ferrato said nothing about his nobility, he was " our Mr. Jones." But on his visiting cards was a portentous crown, and Jones di Monte-Ferrato habitually wore a coloured boutonniere in his frock coat ; being red, this decoration was popularly supposed to be the Legion of Honour : it had been purchased however, and purchased cheaply, from the Pope. Jones' nobility carried him far in Maida Yale and Bays water. Xeedless to tell, Miss Warrender would have nothing to say to him. To say that Georgie Warrender was per- fectly heartwhole as she unfolded Haggard's letter, is nothing but the truth. Of course she liked young Haggard, but so did every one. Haggard had enjo} r ed an extraordinary popularity. Eelated as he was to the Earl of Pit Town, he was a welcome guest in 10 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. the best houses. lie had been a dancing man, and could dance well, was exceedingly good-looking, and consequently a catch at the small and earlies and also at more elab- orate entertainments. When a very young man he had been a detrimental, having rapidly dissipated his little fortune. Penni- less, he went to America; in eight years he returned, well off, as good-looking as ever, and with the possibility, the extremely un- likely possibility, of one day succeeding to the earldom of Pit Town. There are some men who always fall on their feet, some men for whom fortune is never tired of turning up trumps ; Haggard was one of these men. When it is said that Haggard was a man of the world in its broadest sense, nothing remains to tell. If he had a religion at all it was the w r orship of his own dear self. Big Beginald remembered Georgie Warrender as a chit of twelve ; he- met her again one of the brightest orna- ments of London society ; he heard her IX THE ROSE GARDEN. 11 spoken of there as handsome Miss Warrender ; and just as he would have longed for a very valuable hunter to carry his sixteen stone to hounds, so he desired to obtain Georgie's hand ; because without doubt she was the handsomest, healthiest, pleas- antest and most unexceptionable girl it had ever been his good fortune to come across. The letter seemed honest enough, it was short and to the point. "Dear Miss Warrender, " You will probably not be surprised at my addressing you on a subject im- portant to us both. We have known each other since the time when you were a little girl and I was a big bad boy. I don't trouble you with business matters, but I have spoken to Mr. Warrender and fully satisfied him on that head. It is with his approbation that I ask you to become my wife. I know that the very remote possi- bility of a coronet will not weigh with you, 12 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. but I do think you ought to let it count against my disadvantages. You will get this at breakfast time. I shall ride over about eleven to urge my suit in person ; may I hope that your good nature will spare me the negative I doubtless deserve, and that you will give me a chance ? " Yours very affectionately, " Begin ald Haggard." As Georgie replaced the letter in . its envelope she blushed ; had Haggard been indifferent to her she would not have hung out this signal of distress. It is impossible to follow the course of reasoning of a woman's mind. Georgie Warrender was no raw girl to be caught by the mere good looks of big Reginald. But first impres- sions go a great way ; she remembered the young fellow in the reckless daring of his first youth ; she remembered, too, her feel- ing of pity when she heard of the prodigal's banishment to a far country to feed the IN THE KOSE GARDEN'. 13 proverbial swine. Georgie remembered, too, the triumphant return of that prodigal some six months ago. She had been pleased at the prodigal's attentions, and she knew that many girls, of far greater social pre- tensions than her own, would willingly have accepted the addresses of the bronzed, curly-headed giant with the big moustache. Perhaps she would have been wiser had she taken counsel with Miss Hood, or had she deliberated more calmly. But Georgie was a self-reliant girl. Even now she heard the measured tread of her lover's hack as he trotted up to the hall door of The Warren. She looked at her watch, it wanted five minutes of the hour. Miss Warrender smiled at her lover's excessive punctuality ; his impatience boded well she thought. Another instant and he is striding down the path of the rose garden; a happy look is on his face, though it is slightly pale with suppressed excitement. Georgie War- 14 THE ITT TOWN CORONET. render's pink roses attain a damask hue as she rises to greet him. Fortune, fickle goddess, still befriends her favourite. There was no outward sign of hesitation or diffidence about Hag- gard, as he held out his hand to Miss Warrender. " It's very good of you to see me ; I'm afraid I don't deserve it," he said, seating himself beside her on the rustic bench, and, man-like, commencing to bore holes in the gravel with the stout ash-plant which he carried. Youth and maid de- corously continued to gaze upon the ground and to critically study their own foot cover- ings. Haggard was a man who looked well in any dress, but the grey tweed suit which he wore, the artistic bit of red of his loosely-tied sailor's knot, his big grey felt hat, his leggings also of tweed, even his stout but well-made lace-up boots seem to give the young giant the needful halo of romance. This, the usual morning dress IN THE ROSE GARDEN. 1.3 of a young English gentleman in the country, is what is generally selected as the costume of the hero of an Adelphi drama, when that wonderful young man is discovered in his virtuous home prior to the commencement of his numerous sufferings and hair-breadth escapes. As for Georgie, the conventional French muslin set off her faultless figure, a large Leghorn O ' CD C hat protected her delicate complexion from the sun's rays, her magnificent hair was worn in the rather severe Grecian style, but then the big plait at the back was all her own, and the bronze chestnut locks, tightly strained as they were around her head, disclosed the small shell-like ear, that sign of breeding which it is impossible to counterfeit. Probably Georgie Warrender had been right when, as a girl, she had declined to have those pretty ears pierced. If we accept the hypothesis that beauty unadorned is adorned the most, then Georgie in her native loveliness was, indeed, highly 1G THE TIT TOWN CORONET. decorated. But she was nervous in this formal tete-a-tete; this showed itself in her heightened colour, which was still main- tained, and in the occasional movement of her delicately fashioned little bronze shoes. As Sir John Suckling said long ago : " Her feet "beneath her petticoat, Like little mice peeped in and out, As though they feared the light." The quotation is somewhat hackneyed, per- haps ; but it ran through Reginald Haggard's mind, as he prodded his stick into the gravel. "I'm afraid, Miss Warre rider, that I have betrayed you into a tete-a-tete. Your father washed me luck, and told me I should find you here, while your cousin informed me that w T e should be quite undisturbed. May I hope that you will give me a chance ; that possibly, after a time, I may not al- together be indifferent to you, Georgie ? " Again the rosy flush mantled on the girl's tell-tale cheek. Haggard continued, " Of course you have seen, dear Georgie, that IX THE ROSE GARDEN. 17 I have been very hard hit this season, for a lazy ne'er-do-weel like myself to dance attendance at every entertainment that Miss Warrender graced with her presence, must have made the state of my affections pretty manifest I suppose. We have known each other a long time. I have never done anything mean or dirty that I know of, Georgie. Of course I was a young fool> and kicked up my heels as young fools- do. But I think I have had all the non- sense knocked out of me. My roving life in Mexico and my chase after the almighty dollar have sobered me. Can you trust me, Georgie ? I'll be good to you, upon my word I will. Good to you and proud of you, if you'll only give me the chance. You are too clever for me to attempt to argue you into it. But, dear Georgie, I love you as I never loved any woman breathing, and not with the nitre passing fancy of a boy. I have seen the world and a good deal of life, the gilded and VUL. i. 2 18 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. the seamy sides. Tell me, Georgie. May I hope ? Will you give me a chance?" Georgie looked into his eyes and smiled. He had spoken it trippingly on the tongue, though seemingly spontaneous, it had been well thought out ; for Haggard was an actor, a leading gentleman, well experienced in lovers' roles. It is not meant by this that Haggard was what the old song calls a " star- breasted villain." But Georgie Warrender was not by any means his first love. Hag- gard looked upon Georgie as a valuable acquisition ; from the physical point of view she was the finest, freshest, fairest girl he had come across. And he coveted her as an amateur covets a picture ; that it may belong to him, and that others may fruit- lessly desire his pearl of great price. True, no sordid consideration influenced Haggard. Can we call this love ? Let us be charit- able and do so. But we will also be just and qualify. It was love of the nineteenth centuiy, of the society type. IN THE ROSE GARDEN. 19 "You pay me a great compliment, Mr. Haggard, a very undeserved compliment. I cannot pretend to be taken by surprise, for, as you say, your attentions have been very marked. What am I to say to you ? With a girl it is a very serious matter ; for once we give our hearts, at least some of us, Mr. Haggard, we give them for good and all. A mistake once made, in our case, cannot be set right. Our affections once given away to a man, and perhaps after- wards flung aside, then leave us with nothing to bestow but our miserable selves. Are you quite sure you have made up your mind, and that you won't want to change it?" she said, looking up archly in his face. But his teeth were set, and the muscles of his massive jaw were working hard, as he gazed intently on the gravel at his feet. It was evidently no laughing matter with Hazard. The muscles of his jaw had DO ° worked in a similar way only a week ago, when he stood on the grand stand at Ep- 20 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. som, and saw the favourite, whom he had backed heavily, almost " collared " on the post ; but the favourite had won, and Dark Despair had failed to land the odds of sixty to one laid against him. So had the muscles of Eeginald Haggard's jaw worked when he had " bluffed " Don Emmanuel Garcia at the almost historical game of poker, which they had played at Chihuahua. Haggard had only held knave high, about as small a hand as a poker player can hold ; he had successfully " bluffed " the Mexican, and won. He is bluffing now, for hearts are trumps at the game that is being played ; and we, who look over the cards of both hands, can see that bi^ Hesrinald's at least is a poor one. Will he win? Of course he will. What chance has Georgie War- render against so experienced a player? The stakes were Haggard's before he had cut or shuffled the cards. " Sure, Georgie ? of course I'm sure. I may hope, then ? T may dare to hope ? " IN THE ROSE GARDEN. 21 Wise man as lie was, he carried, the place by a determined rush. He took her hand in his, the taper little fingers were not withdrawn. " Georgie, darling, how can I thank you ? I am not good at this sort of thing.' , If he had. not attained perfection in the art of love, it was certainly not for want of practice ; for if the truth be told, the big Lothario habitually made love to every pretty woman he met ; and if there was no pretty woman, then to the least un- prepossessing one of those present, The rest of the conversation went on much as such conversations usually do. Haggard swore eternal constancv. Georgie confessed that she " supposed she did care for him." But this modified sympathy did not satisfy Haggard ; he pleaded for something more explicit. "I have always liked you, Mr. Haggard," she said, for Georgie could not yet bring her- 22 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. self to address lier lover by his Christian name ; "but I fear I must seem a very poor creature after all the dashing South-American beauties, to say nothing of the many re- cognized successes of the past season." " But you were the success of the past season, Georgie. Everybody knows it Why, they raved about you. You must know very well that Madame Hortense made a little fortune with the ' Warrender ' hat." " Ah, that was Lucy's idea, not mine, Mr. Haggard." "A very charming idea, Georgie, but never so charming as when you wore it." Georgie Warrender rose and made him a low courtesy. "I see you deal in sugared compliments," she said. He got up and offered his arm. The hideous and snobbish custom of taking a lady's arm had not then been in- vented. And to do him justice, even if it had, Haggard was too much of a gentle- man to have attempted it. For customs bor- IN THE ROSE GARDEN. 23 rowed from the habits of the demi raonde would have been sadly out of place with a girl like Georgie Warrender. With her cousin it might have been different; but with Georgie the thins: would have been impossible. As the extent of his own good luck began to dawn upon Haggard, he felt that the world had indeed gone very well with him ; for as he had marched down the walk of the old-fashioned rose garden that morning, for the first time in his life he had felt diffident of success ; for the first time in his life he now vowed in his fickle mind to be true to the smiling girl who, in the bright glamour of a first love, hung so confidingly on Ins arm. Of course he vowed eternal constancy. At lovers' perjuries they say Jove laughs, and well might the whole Olympian chorus have joined in the loud guffaw with which the king of all the gods doubtlessly greeted the protestations of Fortune's favourite. As each drank deep draughts of the subtle 24 THE PIT TOWN COKOXKT. poison from the other's eyes, their glances grew brighter, and they were only awakened from the dream that comes to ns all, at least once in our lifetimes, by the imperi- ous clash of the luncheon-bell. Old Mr. Warrender and Lucy appeared upon the lawn, and the broad smile on her fathers face and Lucy's merry laugh told the happy pair that they might spare any explanation. Georgie, in the pride of her honest love, disdained to take her hand from the young man's arm. With womanly dignity she advanced to meet her delighted father. He kissed her on the forehead, and then the blushing girl took refuge in her cousin's affectionate embrace. " Be good to her, my boy," said Squire Warrender, his honest voice a little broken as he thought of the old days of his own too short-lived happiness, and of the proud dead beauty, Georgie 1 s mother. It was a short speech, but it rang in Eeginald Hag- gard's ears for many a year. IN THE ROSE GARDEN. 25 Will lie be good to her? He should be. If not good to her, surely Eeginald Hag- gard will be less than a dosr. CHAPTEE II. THE CROQUET PARTY. Everybody agreed that the day had been a success. The lawn at The Warren was an ideal croquet - lawn, large, level, and daisyless. It was an old lawn, and was care- fully watered. What better place, then, for the local tournament to be fought out upon, than the old lawn at The Warren. At last the final game has been played. The day had been excessively warm. Everybody was sitting in the shade discussing the claret-cup, the sylla- bubs, the strawberries and cream, and the home-made confectionery, that were so freely pressed upon the large and rather miscellaneous assemblage which filled the old - fashioned grounds of Diggory War- render. The owner of this archaic name THE CROQUET PARTY. :7 we have met for an instant in the preced- ing chapter. He was a hale old country gentleman, a J. P. for his county, and uni- versally liked. Perhaps there was more of the yeoman than the squire about old Mr. Warrender. Though he farmed many acres, yet he did so at a profit, strange to say. But perhaps this is hardly to be wondered at when it is remembered that the acres were his own, and that consequently there was no rent to pay. Mr. Warrender, who rather scorned claret-cup, was about to discuss the merits of a foaming tankard of home-brewed ale. The ale was good ; perhaps it tasted the better to old Warrender as he drank it from the silver tankard of the time of Charles I., which bore the name and arms of his ancestor, Diggory Warrender, armiger, of that epoch. " Won't you try some, Lord Spunyarn ? " old Warrender said ; " It has made me the man I am," and certainly this statement was 28 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. a flaming testimonial to the merits of the Warren ale ; for old Warrender, who stood six feet in his socks, seemed to be all mnscle, while his white and perfect teeth, he being a man of sixty-five, proved that, at all events as yet, physical decay had not set in in the master of The Warren. But Lord Spunyarn shook his head as he signed to the butler to give him what he termed a B. and S. " Beer is too bulky for me, Warrender," said the spindle-shanked nobleman, as he stretched out his shapely but rather shaky hand for the panacea. " I object to bulk, Warrender, on principle ; it is my terror of becoming a welterweight that made me go in for athletics, Why, look at my father, and they had to make a hole in the Avail to get my grandfather's coffin out of the house. No, Warrender, mind and muscle are my strong points." And so they were in Lord Spunyarn' s own idea. Spunyarn was perpetually in training. THE CROQUET PARTY. 29 He was ever matched against somebody, or against that very successful competitor, Father Time. But Spunyarn was never " fit," to use a sporting term. Naturally of a weakly constitution, his originally puny form had been carefully educated and developed at the great public school where athletics, " tone," and Latin verse, are the only subjects seriously taught. Spunyarn had failed to catch the " tone," Latin verse was a closed book to him, but he stuck to athletics. The name of Lord Spunyarn was constantly to be seen in the sporting prints, and though Spunyarn pluckily struggled along, coming in last in the foot races, being knocked about in the middle-weight boxing matches (knockings about which, to his credit it must be said, he bore with the patience of a martyr), yet, with all his suffer- ings, no single trophy as yet adorned Lord Spunyarn's rooms in Jenny n Street. To-day Spunyarn had been beaten in the croquet tournament, and his partner had put 30 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. down their united failure to the presence of Lord Spunyarn, while Spunyarn himself when they were beaten simply remarked, " Great mistake not taking the matutinal B. and S., you know." This hardly consoled the smart young lawyer, his lordship's partner, for his day's loss of time, his hotel bill, and his new and elaborate morning kit ; still, he had had the honour of playing with a lord. But metal more attractive soon compelled Spunyarn's attention, for his eyes fell upon the two pretty Warrender girls as they tripped towards the aged host, both hang- ing on the willing arms of the new Essex lion, Eeggie Haggard. Big Reginald Haggard was the ideal of the country maiden. He was not hideously beautiful, as it has become the fashion to depict the heroes of modern romance. It may at once be said that Haggard was un- deniably good-looking. His long black moustache gave him, in the eyes of the ladies assembled at The Warren, the necessary THE CROQUET PARTY. 31 romantic air. What is very much to the point in such matters was the fact that he was also extremely well dressed. He had the military neatness without the military swagger, and for the first time in his life Haggard's well-cut clothes were paid for, to the unspeakable pleasure and astonishment of his tailor. For Reginald Haggard, who eight years ago had left the paternal mansion an expatriated black sheep, had returned a man of comparative wealth. Turned loose a mere boy in London, his money had been spent, as young men about town usually spend their money. That young but very fashionable club, the Pandemonium, that club which has an oyster cellar in its basement, which keeps open all night, and at which shilling cigars are tie rigueur, had been the cause of most of young Haggard's embarrass- ments. At the Pandemonium Haggard had made the acquaintance of Captains Spotstroke and Pool, half-pay ; that acquaintance had naturally proved expensive. Bets ware made 32 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. and paid. Haggard was introduced to the bill-discounting fraternity, and had even lunched with the great Hyam Hyams ; which fact shows how deep he was in the books of that great connoisseur and money-lender. As a rule Hyams's business lay only with members of the aristocracy, but Eeginald Haggard was accepted as a client because he was distantly related to the Earl of Pit Town. Three lives, three good lives, stood between Haggard and the childless earl. There are such things as contingent post-obits. In these precarious commodities the fortune of Mr. Hyam Hyams had been made, under the astute advice of his solicitor, Mr. Morris Israels, of Bloomsbury Square, and it was to these precious securities that his dealings with young Haggard were confined. But at length Hyams would advance no more. Haggard, at an alarming sacrifice, parted with his jewellery, bid his family farewell, and quitted Essex for South America. At the expiration of eight years Haggard returned THE CROQUET PARTY. 33 as a landed proprietor, the owner of numerous ranches, and of countless flocks and herds. His liabilities in England consisted solely of his debt to Hyani Hyams. This debt, how- ever, was only payable in the rather unlikely contingency of his succeeding to the earldom of Pit Town. Also, much in opposition to the wishes of that respected solicitor, Mr. Morris Israels, a power had been reserved to Eeginald Haggard to pay off both the prin- cipal and its interest at any time, in the extremely unlikely event of his ever having the money to do so. Such was Haggard's position when he became engaged, as has been narrated, to Georgina, Squire Warrender's handsome daughter, at the end of her first and triumphant London season. It has been noted that among Georgie's numerous and most assiduous admirers had been our friend Spunyarn. He had proposed to and been rejected by Georgie, but they still remained sworn friends. The two girls, the elder of whom was but vol. i. 3 $1 'J 1 HE PIT TOWN CORONET. twenty, her cousin being two years younger, presented a striking contrast. Georgie was a remarkably line girl of the true English type. Three centuries of Warrenders, a family which began as yeomen, but soon took its place in the squirearchy of its county, had transmitted to Georgie that healthy type, that sound physique and that clear complexion, which is seen only in England ; and even in England, only among healthy rustics, or the women of those families of the upper class who habitually pass the greater portion of the year out of London. Not that Georgie Warrender was a mere rustic beauty, as her taper hands and tiny feet showed. It takes a good foot to look well in a w T alking shoe, and even in the trying walking shoe Georgie's foot was unmistakably a good one. Her clear blue eyes were honest and sympathetic ; Georgie Warrender looked every one straight in the face, she had evidently nothing to conceal, nothing to be ashamed or afraid of. The two girls had been carefully educated, THE CROQUET PARTY. 35 the " olo&ies " having been wisely omitted. Georgie's magnificent chestnut bronze hair was her great attraction. It is needless to say that a lock of it was in Haggard's pocket- book, and that one of Haggard's raven curls was worn in Georgie's locket. The engage- ment was an open one. There was no self-consciousness about either of the parties. They were both evidently proud of it. Lucy was in many respects the exact oppo- site of her cousin. Lucy was a blonde ; pretty, rather in the American style. But unlike most American beauties, far from being a mere skeleton in a skin, Lucy was a plump, well- developed specimen of the dreamy blonde. In type she much resembled the descriptions of Madame de Pompadour in her youth, before she had seen and captivated the great- grandson of the Grand Monarque. She was mignonne, no other word will express it. Her strong points were her pink and white com- plexion, her masses of wavy golden hair, her a 9. 36 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. dark eyebrows and her magnificent hazel eyes ; those dark dreamy eyes in which lurked latent fires. Young as she was, Lucy well knew how to use those eyes, and the way in which she gazed into the face of her cousin's betrothed seemed to detract nothing from his happiness. But in the same way she gazed into Spunyarn's face, it was not mere looking, it was " gazing." So she had gazed into the local general-practitioner's eyes when that poor young man looked at her tongue for the first time. It was Lucy Warrender's burning glance that had temporarily made the village doctor a discontented man, and had caused him to style his mid-day hashed mutton jn muck." In direct contrast, too, to her cousin's, was Lucy's mind. She was not a girl who could be loved by other girls. Save when employed in " gazing " she never looked any one straight in the face. The servants, our stern and acute judges, said that "Miss Lucy wasn't to be trusted, but that Miss Georgie was as THE CROQUET PARTY. 37 good as gold." As usual, the servants were right. " Unsuccessful again, Lord Spunyarn," said Lucy, dropping him an ironical courtesy, and making a provoking little mone. "As usual, and I suppose my own fault, though my last serious failure was certainly not my fault, but entirely due to you, Miss Warrender." " It was certainly not your lordship's mis- fortune," smiled the young lady. Haggard and his fiancee seemed to have a good deal to say to each other, but probably like that of most engaged persons, their conver- sation was merely childish. And now the little crowd of players and spectators came to make their adieux. For in the country people still retain the fashion of bidding their hosts good-bye. Nay, more, they are in the habit of even thank- ing them for their entertainment, and for the pleasure they have received : whereas your fashionable, having had all there is to have, 38 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. and eaten and drank of what scemeth unto him good, carefully rejecting the less recherche viands, simply disappears. He was, and is not. The Warrender girls were surrounded by a cluster of artless maidens ; these shook hands and kissed, after the manner of their kind, and as they w T ere more or less intimate with their hostesses. " He is perfect, quite perfect," whispered the rector's romantic sister, as she squeezed Georgie's hand, " but, oh, I do hope that you are sure of his principles, Georgie, dear, for in marriage so much depends, dear, upon principles." As Haggard's only principles were his personal comfort, filliped b} r the gentle stimulus of frequent flirtations, was Georgie quite right in replying, " Oh, dear Miss Dodd, I am quite sure of his principles ? " Gradually the miscellaneous gathering took its departure. No man or male person left the premises without one of Lucy's fatal oeillades ; each one of the stronger sex, too, received a rather more than necessary pressure of her soft and dim- THE CROQUET PARTY. 3D pled hand. Many among the elders, nay, the patriarchs even, felt their pulses quicken at the unexpected pressure and the sly bright glances ; it made them feel, not as if they were smitten with the good looks of Lucy Warrender, but as if she herself had been cap- tivated by the prepossessing appearance and manners of each special victim. That was the art of it. The dinner that evening at The Warren was a cheerful one ; the humours of the day were described with biting satire by the gentle Lucy. She it was who had cruelly incited the stout vicar to elephantine gambols, to the intense disgust and annovance of his angular wife. Who but Lucy could have caused the coldness between young farmer Wurzel and his affianced bride, Miss Grains, the brewer's daughter ? Who but Lucy, as she sat on the shafts of the horse- roller, listening with appar- ently rapt attention to the lucubrations of young Wurzel on the subject of shorthorns. Perhaps the clasped hands and the ecstatic 40 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. look were hardly necessary, for even so inter- esting a subject as stockbreeding. But Lucy had noted, out of the corner of her watchful eye, the arrival of Miss Grains, indignant and perspiring. " You'll excuse him, Miss Warrender, it's more thoughtlessness than want of manners ; but he oughtn't to be taking up your time like this," cried the brewer's daughter, as she bore off her reluctant prize. To this day nothing will ever persuade the buxom mother of farmer Wurzel's fine young family that her William was not actually audacious enough to propose to Miss Lucy Warrender, and that his attentions were favourably received. So often has poor William Wurzel been twitted on this matter that he has come to look upon himself as a very Lothario, rescued at the right moment. In the drawing-room things went on much as they always do in country drawing-rooms in the hot weather. The girls sang ; Miss Hood, their chaperon, played the inevitable Chopin ; THE CROQUET PARTY. 41 but (as, unlike zoophites, chaperons cannot be cut in two pieces, and yet live) Miss Hood felt it her duty to leave Lucy, and to follow into the verandah Haggard and his fiancee. Perhaps, after all, this may have been rather a relief to the lovers, for they had had a long innings that day, no one having presumed to disturb the numerous tetes-a-tete of the engaged couple. Squire Warrender sat asleep in his chair, his face covered by a big brown bandanna, so that actually Spunyarn and Lucy were prac- tically alone. But the young lord didn't attempt to renew his attentions to Lucy. In his own mind Spunyarn perhaps felt that he was well out of it. Lucy, a past-mistress in the art of flirtation, was delicious as a friend ; as a sweetheart there would have been two sides to the question ; but Lucy Warrender as a wife would have been simply appalling and impossible. Lucy's bygone escapade with her uncle's second footman — for failing high game, Lucy Warrender was not above captivating even a second footman — had been carefully 42 THE TIT TOWN CORONET. hushed up. ]t was the cause of the poor young man's receiving a month's wages on the spot and his dismissal. For Miss Hood had detected him in passing a very pink-looking letter to Lucy Warrender. Pinker far than the letter were the face and ears of the guilty domestic, as he placed the intercepted missive in Miss Hood's hands, on her sternly ordering him to do so. Of course the letter was shown to Mr. Warrender ; he was very angry under the circumstances. But the letter of the un- fortunate Joseph, though it had caused him many agonies in its composition, was comic in the extreme. It was full of what the writer called " pottery ;" it was the poor young fellow's first love letter. Alas, it was a mere answer to a letter of Lucy's; she had commenced the correspondence ; it was she who had thrown the handkerchief. Needless to say Lucy was deported at once, and Madame Planchette's, nee Jones, finishing establishment in the Champs Elysees received a fresh pupil. Lucy's minauderies could now THE CROQUET PARTY. 43 only be practised on her own sex. But even there the girl succeeded in setting the whole house by the ears ; and causing the sudden dismissal of the Italian professor, a gifted Pied- montese, with a gigantic head of black curly hair and long but dirty nails. At the end of a year she returned to her uncle's roof, having achieved an intimate acquaintance with French argot; her accent, however, was undeniable. Miss Warrender, too, now added to her already dangerous fascinations the charms of a French manner and a Parisian accent. But her per- sistent secret studies of the works of Flaubert, Zola and Co. probably had not improved her mind. As soon as Miss Bood left the room, Lucy seized the opportunity, on finding her- self thus practically alone with Lord Spun- yarn, to give him a rather florid render- ing of " Cest dans le nez que qa me chatouille" in which she out-heroded Herod, and was even more piquante and suggestive than Madame Chaumont herself. However, it did Spunyarn at all events no harm, French beino; a sealed 44 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. book to him. The strains of the syren at last woke her uncle, and brought back Miss Hood, who suggested that it was late. And the party broke up at last at her instigation. CHAPTER III. THE VILLAGE DORCAS. The big room at King's Warren Parsonage was already fairly well filled. Old Mrs. Wurzel and the buxom but not too well-favoured heiress of the house of Grains were at the head of the table. Old Mrs. Wurzel was a personage in her way ; she it was who made the annual contract with the local linen- draper ; she it was who, as an adept learned in the art, officiated at the awful ceremony of " cutting-out " ; she it was who, with infinite trouble, obtained for the school children those antiquated straw bonnets of a forgotten type, which were the despair of the juvenile village beauties. She herself had worn them in her youth, and they were the proper bon- nets for " growing girls." But, alas ! Nemesis had arrived ; the head coverings worn in 46 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. country places thirty years ago had become once more the fashion, and the little maids from school had been voted by Spunyarn " quite smart people." It was Mrs. Wurzel who with her own fair but energetic hands had, with her famous cutting-out scissors, shorn away the luxuriant but obnoxious fringe which Jemima Ann Blogg, the poacher's daughter, had appeared in at the Confirmation. Jemima Ann had violently resisted, but her struggles were in vain ; in this case the sheep had not been dumb when in the hands of the shearer : the daughter of the village Eadical had returned to her father's roof weeping, but shorn. It is true that old Mrs. Wurzel had reluctantly paid to Blogg the sum of five pounds, under the threat of a summons for assault, but the honest fellow r had honourably kept her secret as he had promised, and Mrs. Wurzel's reputation, as the champion of virtue and respectability, had in no way suffered, though she had paid her five pounds for it. THE VILLAGE DORCAS. 47 The vicar's wife, whose principal charac- teristics were her interest in missionary work and the saliency of her angles, was a mere priestess in the little circle of which old Mrs. Wurzel was the permanent archdruidess. Vicars' wives had come and gone, but all had submitted, some after a brief struggle, to old Airs. WurzeTs sway. But Mrs. Dodd, the present vicar's wife, retained the precious prerogative of choosing the book to be read at the monthly Dorcas. Mrs. Dodd's choice was invariably the biography of some mission- ary ; and she did her best to carry out the idea that a Dorcas meeting should provide self-mortification for the ladies present, in the shape of coarse work for the fingers and repellent reading for the mind. The village Dorcas was that happy neutral ground where the various ranks of society met on an equality. Here might be seen the three good-looking and well-educated daughters of the local draper. Nice girls these, but under the baleful shadow, the 48 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. bitter blight of trade. For country places are very conservative : the squire looks down on the yeoman, the doctor and the lawyer, all three of whom consider themselves consider- ably taller in social stature than the tenant farmer, who in his turn will eat no bread and drink no water in the houses of those Kecha- bites, the tradesmen. All these people, how- ever, join in despising the rich stockbroker who has recently purchased the pretentious place which he calls " The Park ; " the gates of which are almost celestial, being of bright gilded iron work. The unfortunate inhabi- tant of "The Park," notwithstanding his well-appointed barouche and his men in livery, is but a pariah. For not a year ago, till the big corner occurred in Mex. Eails in which he made his pile, little Sleek, of Sleek and Dabbler, of Throgmorton Street, had " been to business " every morning. Sleek now passes his time in good works, he takes a great interest in local affairs, and, unless he flings the whole matter up in a THE VILLAGE DORCAS. 49 rage, he may yet become a justice of the peace. Sleek finds it far harder work than fortune-making ; but he pursues his Will- o'-the-Wisp with untiring energy. So do we all. It is for this, that Sleek contributes so liberally to the local charities. It is for this, that the two Misses Sleek, clad in shining raiment of needlework, are seated at the big table, pursuing the unromantic occupation of hemming huckaback towels of a more than Spartan coarseness. But something has been already gained by the monthly martyr- dom ; Mrs. Dodd and her sister-in-law the ethereal Anastatia address them as " dear," and they have a bowing acquaintance, which they energetically attempt to increase, with the Misses Warrender. Within this charmed circle the veterinary surgeon's womankind and the grocer's daugh- ters also dare to tread, but they are there merely on sufferance. The line must be drawn somewhere, and the vicar's wife, as did her predecessor, drew it at that man of vol. i. 4 50 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. blood, the harmless Kubble, the local butcher. He and the rest of those shut out from Para- dise sought their enjoyment, and a perhaps more congenial society, at those buttery banquets, the tea meetings of the local Little Bethel. Thus, as in most country places, Dissent was at a premium among the humbler classes, and possibly the continued assertion of their position by the clergy of the State has had a good deal to do with the spread of Dissent in other villages than King's Warren. There were at least a dozen ladies seated round the big table at the Parsonage. Our friends Lucy and Georgina were among the number, their simple muslins strikingly con- trasting with the more elaborate garments of the Misses Sleek. Anastatia Dodd flut- tered (it is the only word) round the workers, as they plied their busy needles; she "gave out" the various garments, or portions there- of, of mysterious shape ; and as she did so whispered her little word of welcome, her THE VILLAGE DORCAS. 51 little chirrup of harmless gossip to each. Mrs. Dodd who sat at the bottom of the table as vice-chairmaness, now opened a thick black book in which various markers of coloured paper had been inserted. ' : I think we are all here," she said, as she put on her spectacles in a determine 1 manner, and ominously cleared her throat. Nobody disputed this proposition ; the hum of conver- sation ceased. " I think we left off at the second appendix, which contained letters from the wife of the lamented subject of the biography. I will now continue. " ; Quashi-Bungo, "'July 21st, 18—. '• ' Dearest Mary, " ' I received your wel- come letter and the boxes of stores. Yoii were quite right when you said that I seemed to be launching out in the matter of outfit. But I suddenly find myself (under Provi- dence) a means of civilization to the poor be- 4—2 JJBRAf 52 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. nighted natives. These unfortunate heathen, until our arrival, had no sense of propriety. M'Bongo, the great chief of this neighbour- hood, paid a ceremonial visit to my husband. Of course we understood that he would wear the court costume of the Kukulokos. I seized the opportunity to watch what I supposed would be a most interesting inter- view, from behind a curtain. Oh Mary, what was my indignation when I saw the nasty savage enter our dear little morning room ! His great shock head of woolly hair w T as dyed a bright yellow with quicklime, in his ears were a pair of huge ear-rings of massive gold that made my mouth w r ater. (William told me afterwards that they were worth at least fifty pounds). On his head was the second-hand hat of some parvenu's coachman, gold lace, cockade and all. Fancy my horror, dear Mary, my terror, indignation and astonishment, when I per- ceived that the rest of his costume merely consisted of a thick layer of palm oil, with THE VILLAGE DORCAS. 53 which the wretch had covered his disgusting body. I saw no more ; I need not say I fainted from the mingled effects of terror, indignation, and astonishment. On coming to, William told me that the courtiers, some twenty in number, wore precisely the same costume, minus the hat and ear-rings. " ' Such, dear Mary, was the degraded condition of M' Bongo and his court on our arrival ; but it has been my happy lot (under Providence) to change all this, and my endeavours have not been without even an earthly reward. Only think, Mary, M'Bongo's ear-rings are now my own, my very own. They will reach you by the hands of Mr. Mackenzie, a worldly-minded Scotch merchant, but honest as to earthly things. On no account, dear Mary, in disposing of these priceless treasures, have anything to do with the jewellers, who I am told are extremely dishonest persons. You had better try to sell them to the South Kensington Museum as curios, or at 54 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. some fashionable bazaar ; or failing these, to some wealthy but unworldly person, who takes an interest in our working in Africa. Do not forget to mention that they are royal ear-rings.' " Here one of the Miss Sleeks coughed, but the broad grin on her face subsided instantly under the severe look which Mrs. Dodd gave her over her spectacles. After a short pause and a snort of indignation, the vicar's wife continued : " ' I have been the blessed instrument, dear Mary, of a great work in this county. M'Bongo and his whole court are now clothed, I am happy to say, at least to a certain extent. The greater portion of the royal garments have been obtained from me ; unfortunately I have been com- pelled to take payment in cattle and grain. You remember my scarlet rep underskirt, the one I wore so much during our last winter in dear old England ; with a little alteration at the waist, to which I have THE VILLAGE DORCAS. added a green velvet collar, and an addi- tional placket hole (through which the royal arms are thrust), and wearing my galoshes, M'Bon^o attended service here yesterday for the first time. Both garment and galoshes were quite useless to me in this hot country. William was unable to persuade him to remove the cockaded hat. which he, in his benighted way, looks upon as a royal crown ; but as my husband's is the only other hat in the country, this does not perhaps much matter. William has thus been happily able to report to the society the approaching conversion of M'Bongo and his imminent civilization. The poor king, however, complains much of the heat, and I am sorry to say only wears these robes on ceremonial occasions. Still it has been a ^reat, ^reat comfort to us both. " ' Yours lovingly, " ' Amelia Eees.' 5G THE PIT TOWN CORONET. " Many such interesting letters were re- ceived from our self-sacrificing country- woman up to the death of her husband and fellow-worker. The sad end of the mission to King M'Bongo has been narrated in the body of this work. But Mrs. Eees was loth to leave her sphere in Africa, and is now happily married to Alonzo P. Jones, an energetic coloured Baptist minis- ter, of Cape Coast Castle." There was a universal sigh of relief. '•'I wonder whether she wears the ear- rings ? " remarked the elder Miss Sleek pertly. i5 Perhaps they were the attraction to Alonzo P. Jones," suggested her sister, as she triumphantly folded and smoothed her second completed towel. " It's always the way with them," sighed Miss Grains, who suffered from a complication of romantic tendency and very tight stays. " It's the money that attracts them, and possibly Mrs. Eees might have THE VILLAGE DOBCAS. 57 been Mrs. Eees to the end of the chapter, if it hadn't been for the ear-rings and the sale of her old clothes for countless flocks and herds." " Doubtless Miss Grains speaks from painful experience, my dears,'' retorted Mrs. Dodd, with a severe look at her victim ; " but you may be quite certain that the acquisition of the ear-rings and the sale of the clothes were but the blessed means to an end, a mere spoiling of the Egyptians, that the work might progress." " In fact, a robbing of Peter to pay Paul," suggested Lucy "Warrender, but with- out raising her eves from her work. The needle of the archdruidress broke, as she shook her head viciously at the scoffer. " Ah, my dear, you shouldn't laugh at sacred things," said the elder lady. "But I don't look upon Mrs. Rees as a sacred thing," cried Lucy, not to be in- timidated. 58 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. c; A person no one would wish to know," chimed in Miss Sleek. " Ah, but think how she loved the blacks, and gave herself up to them," cooed the vicaress, in a tone intended at the same time to convey instruction and reproof. " Nasty thing," retorted Lucy, with biting sarcasm. " I suppose it was because she loved the blacks and gave herself up to them, that she married the energetic negro ranter with, the dreadful name." This proved too much for Mrs. Dodd. " I am surprised and ashamed, Lucy War- render, at your attempt to depreciate the noble self-immolation of dear Mrs. Jones. Of course it is a great privilege to be married to a clergyman, a very precious privilege, but when he is a negro and a Baptist — hum — I suppose I must say clergy- man, then a woman's life must be indeed a martyrdom." " I suppose he beats her ? " asked one THE VILLAGE DORCAS. 59 of the draper's daughters of the experienced ]\Irs. Wurzel. " I sincerely trust he does," broke in the irreverent Lucy. Just at this moment the door was hur- riedly opened, and the Reverend John Dodd entered the room. He was a stout man, his principal characteristics being an intense pleasure in ladies' society, and an obliviousness of the fact that he was no longer the pale slim young curate of earlier days. A life of almost absolute inactivity, which was forced upon him by his wife's jealousy of the rest of the sex, had ren- dered the muscular young Dodd of Oriel a perfect Daniel Lambert. Little irreverent boys from the village corners were in the habit of shouting " Jumbo " at the poor vicar. He was accustomed to pursue them, but in vain ; a stern chase is proverbially a long chase, and poor Mr. Dodd's futile efforts to capture his persecutors had be- come a bye- word. But the Eeverend John GO THE PIT TOWN COKONET. Dodd's weak point, the red rag to the bull, the bee in his bonnet, was his devotion to the fair sex. Handsome Jack Dodd, as he had been once called, in his undergrad- uate and curate days, had been accus- tomed to find his attentions very highly appreciated. The habit grew on him, love- sick maidens sighed, and love-sick maidens wept, but all in vain. Handsome Jack Dodd, a very clerical butterfly, flitted from flower to flower. His admiration was freely, openly, ardently expressed for every variety of female beauty. Was Jack Dodd a flirt ? Not a bit of it ; he was merely a fancier, just as there are pigeon fanciers and poultry fanciers ; so Handsome Jack Dodd was a fancier, an admirer, a wor- shipper of the entire female sex : that is to say, the select specimens of it. What be could have seen in Canon Drivel's daughter who can say? though, when he married Cecilia Drivel, she was a well- known light of London. She it was who, THE VILLAGE DORCAS. Gl in the severity of her classic and rather imperial beauty, had posed to Malilstick, E.A , for his well-known picture of Judith with the head of Holofernes. Alas ! for poor Jack Dodd, he had assisted at the numerous sittings. He it was who had had the honour of sitting (that is to say lying prone on a bedstead of the period) for the headless trunk of Holofernes. To lie prone on a bedstead of any period, and have nothing to do for two mortal hours but gaze on the classic proportions of any lady — for Mahlstick was a strict disciplinarian and discouraged conversation — is enough to seal the fate of any man, even if he were of a less inflammable type than Handsome Jack. Miss Drivel was her father's only daughter, and ambitious ; but four seasons, during which she was much admired, but never once received a serious offer, had warned the waning beauty not to neglect her opportunities. Miss Drivel was a lady of no imagination 02 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. and strong will ; the interest of her father, a notorious pluralist, was very great : Cecilia Drivel was determined to marry Dodd. She did so, and her victim became her obedient slave, and was duly inducted to the fat living of King's Warren. In all things Jack Dodd. as the weaker vessel, yielded to his wife. He had but one drawback in her eyes, he retained his pas- sion, his innocent passion, for the fair sex. At the shrine of beauty he remained a constant and ecstatic worshipper. This was Mrs. Dodd's cross, and she had to bear it. An idle life at King's Warren Parsonage, and frequent dinner parties, for the Eev- erend John Dodd was a popular man, had caused Handsome Jack to expand into a very Falstaff. Alas, anxiety had had pre- cisely the reverse effect upon the vicar's wife. The once statuesque "Judith" had disappeared, and Mrs. Dodd's characteristics were now high principle and bone. "Busy as usual, my dear," said the vicar THE VILLAGE DORCAS. G3 to his wife, as he proceeded to welcome each member of the female bevy in turn, devoting perhaps a little more time than was necessary to handsome Miss Warrender and her cousin. Mrs. Dodd closed the thick black book with a slap. k ' I suppose work is over now for the day ; you really should not intrude on our Dorcas, John/' she said in a severe tone. " My dear, it is my duty to encourage my parishioners in good works, nay. it is my pleasure," replied the parson. "No one doubts it, Mr. Dodd,'" said the vicaress in an icy manner. But Mrs. Dodd was evidently in a minority. The ladies crowded round their popular vicar. It is easy to spoil a man, and the Eeverend John Dodd had been much spoilt by his parishioners, and seemed to like the process-. And now a whispered conference took place between the Misses Sleek. With 64 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. smiles and conscious blushes, the elder sister addressed the vicar. "Oh, dear Mr. Dodd, we do so want you to do us a favour," she faltered. "Granted, my dear young lady, granted before it is asked." Mrs. Dodd vainly sought to fix her husband with a freezing look, and gazed appealingly at old Mrs. Wurzel, but that experienced matron had been present at many similar scenes, and was rather amused than otherwise, to watch the dis- comfiture of the vicar's imperious wife. Mrs. Wurzel's eagle eye detected the little parcel which the younger Miss Sleek hesitatingly attempted to hold towards the vicar. "It is our own work, dear Mr. Dodd," she said, " and we hope, we do hope, we do so hope that you will accept them." "And wear them too," chimed in her sister. In an elaborate box, from which Miss THE VILLAGE DORCAS. 65 Sleek rapidly tore the paper in which it was wrapped, and hurriedly opened, lay a dozen bands of the latest ecclesiastical fashion. " Oh ladies, dear ladies, so you equip your faithful knight for the fray ; accept my grateful thanks, my very grateful thanks," sighed the vicar. " So pleased you like them, dear Air. Dodd," chorused the stockbroker's daughters. The triumphs of decorative millinery were passed from hand to hand. " They never made these," muttered old Mrs. Wurzel to herself, as she criti- cally held one up to the light. " The minxes," she inwardly added. Mrs. Wurzel was quite right ; they had been supplied, regardless of cost, from Messrs. Eochet and Stole's well-known establishment. " Ah," purred Lucy Warrender, " the ladies used to arm their knights with their own fair hands in the days of chivalry." The parson laughed. " And have the vol. i. 5 GG THE PIT TOWN CORONET. days of chivalry departed, ladies?" he said, protruding his head, much as the uncon- scious aldermanic turtle is said to protrude his, when awaiting the fatal stroke. Conny Sleek, the younger and bolder of the two, looked at her sister ; the elder girl nodded maliciously. Conny stepped smilingly forward, and proceeded to affix the band around the vicar's massive throat. Fat Jack Dodd was in his glory ; " Jumbo " was in the seventh heaven of bliss. A smile of beatitude spread over his enormous countenance during the pro- cess. But it suddenly disappeared, as a sharp slam of the door announced the sudden departure of his indignant wife, the outraged Cecilia, Will it ever dawn on Mrs. Dodd's mind, that parsons, even married parsons, are but men? CHAPTEE IV. WALLS END CASTLE. Walls End Castle was the seat of John, Earl of Pit Town. It had come into the family through the marriage of a former earl with the heiress of the great Chud- leigh family. It was one of England's show places. The great park which surrounded it was one of the most celebrated in all England, celebrated alike for its size and its beauty. The entry to the park was never denied to artists ; and they, their easels, and their umbrellas, might be seen at the various well-known " bits " all through the summer and autumn. The boys of the Elizabethan Grammar School had also the privilege of roaming in the park ; and time had been when the people of the neighbouring town and the public 5—2 GS THE PIT TOWN CORONET. generally were admitted ; but excursionists had arrived in crowds, they had destroyed the poetry of the place with pieces of greasy newspaper, broken bottles, ham bones, and the remains of their Homeric banquets. They had shouted and whistled in the great picture galleries, they had written their names upon the window panes, they had committed all the innumerable offences that such people do commit ; but the final straw which determined the present earl to exclude them, was their having played at the game of Kiss-in-the-ring, one Whit- Monday, directly under the windows of the noble owner. After that memorable day, Lord Pit Town kept his castle and his park to himself. His lordship during the earlier part of his reign never came near Walls End Castle. The widowed earl travelled con- tinuously in Southern Europe. He travelled, and he collected pictures, statuary, gems, plate, china — nothing came amiss to him WALLS END CASTLE. 69 But John, Earl of Pit Town, was wise in his generation ; he remembered that " if you sup with the devil, it is best to use a long spoon." He never purchased with- out an expsrli's aid ; consequently the immense collection he had gradually accu- mulated was free from rubbish. Nothing doubtful or " reputed " ever arrived in the huge packing-cases consigned to Walls End Castle. For years his lordship was seldom seen in London, the great house in Gros- venor Square was never opened. When Lord Pit Town was in England, he stayed at Long's Hotel. Friends he had none ; his doctor and his courier were the people who saw most of him. But as years rolled on his lordship grew tired of travel, his well-known figure, in the short blue cloak anl velvet collar, was seen no more in the great picture galleries of Europe. Lord Pit Town now commenced the work of his life, the building of the new galleries at Walls End Castle. Winter and summer 70 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. the little old man, for hje was over sixty now, might be seen in the blue cloak, inspecting the growth of the vast galleries with a critical eye. Emilius Wolff, his German architect, was his constant com- panion. The great Mr. Buskin paid him a yearly visit ; on these occasions Dr. Wolff (for Wolff was a doctor of philosophy) joined his lordship and the great art- critic at dinner. At length the great Pit Town collection was housed as it deserved to be. Its principal feature was the picture gallery. This was a vast building of classi- cal design, resembling a Grecian temple. Dr. Wolff was a Berliner, and the tradition of Berlin is that a picture gallery should resemble a Greek temple. The vast galleries were probably among the best in Europe. They were lighted and heated to perfection. But the great galleries had one peculiarity ; at irregular intervals along the wall were blank spaces of varying size ; in the centre of each space was a label WALLS END CASTLE. 71 in his lordship's own writing : on these labels were inscribed the names of various great painters. It was now the only busi- ness of the Earl of Pit Town to gradually fill these spaces, each with a representative masterpiece of the artist indicated. Possibly John, Earl of Pit Town, notwithstanding his boundless wealth, could hardly hope to complete such a work in his own life- time. The great Mr. Abrahams had an unlimited commission to secure at any price, a long list of great works. There was but one condition attached, any pur- chase must be above suspicion. But even the great Mr. Abrahams, on one notable occasion at least, had been deceived. A new acquisition, purchased from the col- lection of a wealthy amateur in the Eue Drouot, had arrived at Walls End Castle. A furious controversy concerning this picture had arisen among art critics. Herr Yandenbossche had defended the authenticity of the work, but old Mr. Tl THE PIT TOWN CORONET. Creeps had demolished him in an ex- haustive article in the Friday Review. Old Mr. Creeps was considerably astonished at receiving an almost affectionate letter from Lord Pit Town. His lordship thanked him for the article, and requested what lie termed " the exceeding great pleasure of receiving you here ;" the letter was dated from Walls End Castle. Old Mr. Creeps accepted the invitation for a couple of days. On his arrival at the local railway station he was met by his lordship in person. Lord Pit Town, one of the proudest and most exclusive of men, treated old Mr. Creeps with marked deference. At dinner, at which John Buskin and Dr. Wolff were present, conversation ran purely upon art matters. Old Mr. Creeps, the critic, had never enjoyed himself so much ; the sitting was prolonged till the small hours. Next day, at noon, the council of four sat in solemn conclave upon Lord Pit Town's latest purchase. Old Mr. Creeps triumphantly WALLS END CASTLE. 73 proved his case. Lord Pit Town looked at Mr. Buskin. Mr. Buskin nodded. " Well, Wolff? " remarked his lordship. " It is onhappy, most onhappy," replied the doctor of philosophy, " but I fear it is drue, too drue." " What wall your lordship do with it ? " said old Mr. Creeps. "You shall see," replied that eminent collector with a smile, as he advanced to the easel on which the doubtful picture stood. His lordship opened his penknife, carefully and quietly he cut the canvas out of the frame, he folded it in half : again lie cut it, as though he w r ere cutting up a sheet of brown paper ; he repeated the process several times, then, handing the pieces to the German, he merely remarked, " Oblige me by burning these, Wolff." " They shall make a vamous blaze," said the philosopher, as he left the room to carry out the sentence. " Would that all collectors could afford to 74 THE PIT TOWN CORONET. do the same, Lord Pit Town," remarked John Buskin with a sigh. " Your lordship has done a noble act," cheerfully cried old Mr. Creeps, as he rubbed his hands. " Of course you will trounce Abrahams. When the artistic world hears of this morning's work, Lord Pit Town, it will know what it owes to England's most distinguished amateur." " No, no, Mr. Creeps. I must ask you to keep this business a secret ; no cheap popu- larity for me," replied the old lord. " Cheap ! " echoed the critic, as he raised his eyes to the skylight. "Good heavens! he calls it cheap," whispered the old man to John Buskin. " His lordship is right," was the oracle's oracular reply. Men said that Lord Pit Town was eccen- tric. Gossips said that he was mad. Per- haps after all he was only honest according to his lights. Next day the handsome frame, carefully packed, was returned to Mr. WALLS END CASTLE. 75 Abrahams ; it was duly deducted from his account. But he got his cheque for the price of the picture, and his very liberal commission. In vain did the artists who frequented Walls End Park attempt to stalk the old nobleman in his lonely walks. They never succeeded in selling him a picture from the easel. " Capital, capital," his lordship would remark with great alacrity, when there was no other way of escape. The eldest Miss Solomonson, the most talented member of that clever Hebrew family — she is great at animals — tried to shoot the wary old lord with her well-known picture of " The Timid Fawn," but she ignominiously failed. " The old wretch called me ' my dear,' and said he liked my sky, when I hadn't even indicated the sky," she indignantly remarked to her amused father. Miss Solomonson's masses of jetty hair, and the fire from the glances of her oriental eyes, were said to have melted the stony hearts 7G THE PIT TOWN CORONET. even of dealers who were her co-religionists. But with all her advantages Miss Solomon son failed with the old lord, and she abuses him to this da} 7 . She had her revenge, however, for in her well-known Academy picture of the following year, " Balaam and his Ass," the angel was represented by a glorified por- trait of Miss Solomonson herself, who glared down in an indignant manner upon the terri- fied and kneeling Balaam. Old Mr. Creeps and the other art-critics chuckled as they recognized the angelic portrait ; but the} r chuckled still more, when they saw that the terrified Balaam was but an ill-natured cari- cature of John, Earl of Pit Town. " I'd have done him as the ass, you know, only he was too ugly. I hope he'll like the figures better than the sky this time," snorted the indignant Hebrew maiden. The curse of the Earl of Pit Town's life was the so-called gallery of old masters in Walls End Castle. He couldn't sell them ; he couldn't burn them ; he was even com- WALLS END CASTLE. 77 pelled to insure them, to his intense disgust. For when a former lord had inherited Walls End Castle from the Chudleighs, old masters had been the fashion ; and the purchaser, delighted with his toy, had made the pictures heirlooms. But the present lord had shut up what to him was a mere chamber of horrors. He and Dr. Wolff had actually composed a catalogue raisonne of the entire collection, in which the fictitious nature of the claims to respect of each monstrous daub was triumphantly demonstrated. The spraw- ling Eubenses were shown to be but inferior copies, the Paul Veronese was proved a transparent sham, while the great Yandyck, representing the Martyr-King seated on a gigantic grey horse, was demonstrated to be but a wretched replica of a miserable original. There they hung, the old Pit Town heirlooms, grimy with dirt ; for as the old lord used to say, " To have cleaned them would have been only to make their natural hideousness still more apparent." Each picture bore a 78 TIIE PIT TOWN CORONET. label, giving a true description of the once- honoured gem. Alas ! these veracious tablets cruelly contrasted with the flourishes of the old housekeeper's descriptions. Two only of his heirlooms had stood the crucial inspections of Lord Pit Town and his experts. These were the great Eaphael, and the celebrated portrait of Barbara Chud- leigh, the well-known beauty of Charles the Second's time, by Sir Peter Lely. Wicked Bab Chudleigh, as a wood nymph, simpered upon the walls of the new gallery in which the Chudleigh Eaphael occupied the post of honour. We have seen what manner of man John, Earl of Pit Town, was. We have seen how his heirlooms troubled him not a little. We have seen how he passed his life with the faithful Wolff at Walls End Castle, patiently waiting to fill the numerous blanks on the walls of the new galleries } in fact to accom- plish his destiny. For if ever there was a born collector, a real collector, to whom the WALLS END CASTLE. 7