THREE COURSES AND A DESSERT:

The purveyor of the ensuing apology for a “feast of reason,” takes leave to greet his guests with a hearty, but respectful, welcome. It would be in bad taste for him to dilate at his threshold upon what he has provided for their entertainment: his brief bill of fare will presently be laid before them.

He ventures to indulge a hope, that his repast will prove obnoxious to none, and, in some degree, gratifying to many; that those who may discover nothing to their taste in one course, will meet with something piquant in another; that no one

“Will drag, at each remove, a lengthening chain;”

and, that even if the dishes be disliked, the plates, at least, will please: but he feels bound to state, that whatever faults the decorations may be chargeable with, on the score of invention, he, alone, is to blame, and not Mr. George Cruikshank; to whom he is deeply indebted for having embellished his rude sketches in their transfer to wood, and translated them into a proper pictorial state, to make their appearance in public. They have necessarily acquired a value, which they did not intrinsically possess, in passing through the hands of that distinguished artist; of whom it may truly, and on this occasion especially, be said, Quod tetigit, ornavit.

Having thus, perhaps rashly, presented himself at the bar of public opinion, conscious as he feels of his own demerits, he can only throw himself on the liberality of his judges, and plead for a lenient sentence.

FIRST COURSE: WEST COUNTRY CHRONICLES.

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INTRODUCTION.

The true old English squire is now nearly extinct: a few admirable specimens of the class flourished a few years ago in the western counties; from the discourse and memoranda of one of the most excellent of these, the substance of the following narratives was gleaned. For my introduction to, and subsequent acquaintance with, the worthy old gentleman. I was indebted to the delinquency of a dog. Carlo was most exemplary in his punctuation; he would quarter and back in the finest style imaginable; no dog could be more staunch, steady, and obedient to hand and voice, while there was no living mutton at hand: but no sooner did he cross a sheep-track, break into view of a fleece, or even hear the tinkling bell (a dinner bell to him) of a distant flock, than he would bolt away, as rectilinearly as the crow flies, towards his favourite prey, in spite of the most peremptory commands, or the smack of a whip, with the flavour of which his back was intimately acquainted. I had been allowed a very fair trial of the dog; but, unfortunately, no opportunity occurred, previously to his becoming my property, of shooting over him near a sheep-walk. His behaviour was so excellent in Kent, that I never was more astonished in my life, than when I beheld him severely shaking a sheep by the haunch, the first time we went out together in Somerset. Unable to obtain a substitute, and hoping that his vice would not prove incurable, I was compelled, most indignantly and unwillingly, to put up with his offences for three days. On the morning of the fourth, he suddenly broke forward from heel, and went off at full speed before me: aware, by experience, of what was about to take place, I lifted the piece to my shoulder, and should, most assuredly, have tickled his stern, had he not dashed over the brow of a little hillock, so rapidly, that it was impossible to cover him with my Manton. On reaching the brow of the acclivity, I saw him, in the valley below, with his teeth entangled in the wool of a wether; and a sturdy old person, in the garb of a sportsman, belabouring him over the back with an enormous cudgel. The individual, who inflicted this wholesome castigation on the delinquent, offered to cure him for me of his propensity. I gratefully accepted the offer; and thus became acquainted with that fine specimen of the old-fashioned gentlemen of England, Sir Mathew Ale, of Little Redland Hall, Baronet,-(whose grounds I was crossing, on my way to a manor over which I had the privilege of shooting,)-by means of a rascally dog, that had a fancy for killing his own mutton.

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SIR MATHEW ALE.

It was a question, even with my friend the Baronet himself, whether, as some of the genealogists asserted, his respectable ancestors were related to the illustrious judge, who, with the exception of an aspirate, was his namesake: but if, as the old gentleman said, he had none of the eminent lawyer's blood flowing in his veins, a fact of much greater importance was indisputable;—he possessed, without the shadow of a doubt, that great man's mug,—the capacious vessel from which he was wont to quaff huge and inspiring draughts of the king of all manly beverages, “nut-brown ale.” The pitcher,—to which appellation its size entitled it,—“filled with the foaming blood of Barleycorn” from ten to fifteen years of age, invariably graced my friend's old oaken table, during our frequent festive meetings. There was a strong likeness, in the outline of Sir Mathew's mug, when full of the frothing liquor in which he delighted, to his “good round belly,” his ruddy face, and his flowing wig. It was highly valued by the old gentleman, while he lived; and is looked upon with a kind of reverential love, by those to whom he endeared himself by his good qualities, as the only likeness of him extant, now that he is dead.

Sir Mathew was an enthusiastic admirer of the customs of merry old England, and especially attached to those of “the West-Countrie.” Bom in Devon, and living, as he said, with one foot in Gloucester and the other in Somerset, he had acquired a greater knowledge of the qualities, habits, and feelings of the people who dwelt in two or three of the “down-a-long” shires, than most men of his day. He was well versed in their superstitions, their quaint customs, and their oddities;—an adept in their traditionary lore, and acquainted with most of the heroes who had figured in their little modern romances of real life. A large portion of his time had been absorbed in making collections for a System of Rustic Mythology, a Calendar of West Country Customs, and in perfecting his favourite work,—the Apotheosis of John Barleycorn. The ensuing pages are devoted merely to a few circumstances which fell under his own observation; with the characters in the narratives, he was, personally, more or less acquainted: the auto-biography of the obese attorney, Habakkuk Bullwrinkle, is faithfully transcribed from the original manuscript, in Sir Mathew's possession.

Sir Mathew frequently declared, that nearly all the superstitions of the people, relating to charms and tokens, were, as he knew by experience, founded in truth. He had, at one time, been a staunch believer in the power of the “dead man's candle” to prevent those, who are sleeping in the house where it is lighted, from waking until it is burned out, or extinguished: but latterly Sir Mathew thought proper to intimate that his belief in the efficacy of the charm had been, in some degree, staggered. A malicious wag, in the neighbourhood, propagated a tale, which, if true, accounts naturally enough for the change in Sir Mathew's opinion upon this point. Whenever an eminent burglar happened to be imprisoned in either of the neighbouring gaols, it was the Baronet's custom, for a number of years past, as the story went, to consult the criminal, as a high authority, on the virtue of the mystic light in house-breaking. The result of his inquiries induced him to repose so much faith in the charm, that, in order to set the question beyond a doubt, he determined on making a midnight entry into the house of a dear friend; who, he knew, neither kept fire-arms, nor would, for a moment, suspect him, even if discovered and taken in the fact, of being actuated by burglarious motives. With the assistance of a lecturer on anatomy, who lived in a neighbouring town, and a clever journeyman-tallow-chandler, Sir Mathew made “a dead man's Candle,” secundum artem; armed with which, he penetrated into his friend's pantry, regaled himself very heartily on some cold beef, and a bottle of stout ale, and finding that his proceedings had not caused the least alarm, he daringly made a great deal of unnecessary noise. His friend and the servants were at length roused: in his hurry to get off undetected, Sir Mathew's candle was extinguished; and during the darkness, his dear friend, and Jacob, his dear friend's butler, thrashed him so unmercifully, that, although his fears endowed him with sufficient agility to effect a retreat, he could scarcely crawl home; and was confined to his bed, by a very mysterious indisposition, for more than a week.

Sir Mathew stoutly denied the truth of this impeachment: he admitted that he was a practical man,—an experimentalist in such matters; but he indignantly pleaded “not guilty” to being so enthusiastic a simpleton as his jocose calumniator had represented him. The wag, in reply, said “that it was very natural, right or wrong, for Sir Mathew to deny the correctness of the story. Although the old gentleman is certainly quite simple enough to do the deed,” added he, “I must needs own, I never suspected him of being such a blockhead as to confess it.”

After this, Sir Mathew treated the tale as an ingenious and venial invention, and always enjoyed it highly whenever it was subsequently related in his hearing. He would have laughed heartily at it, perhaps, if he could; but he had long been compelled to drill his features, periodically, into a state of almost inflexible gravity. “People who know but little of me,” he would say, “call me 'the man without a smile;' I pass, with many, for a very surly fellow; unfortunately, I am often misrepresented, and my real character is mistaken, through, what others would deem, a trifling affliction: the bane of my life is, that, very frequently, for a month together, I can't laugh, and don't dare even to indulge in my habitual smirk, because I have an apparently incurable and terrifically susceptible little crack in my lip.”

Sir Mathew was a most zealous supporter of the ancient customs of the country. He patronised the sports of a neighbouring village fair, at a considerable expense, until its frequenters almost abused him for not giving two pigs with greasy tails to be caught, instead of one. He entertained the cobblers of the surrounding villages, annually, with a barrel of strong ale, in order to keep up the good old custom of Crispin's sons draining a horn of malt liquor, in which a lighted candle was placed,—without singeing their faces, if they could,—on the feast of their patron saint: nor did he discontinue this practice, even after some of them had despoiled him of a favourite pair of boots; until a party of the gentle craft, on one occasion, emboldened by beer, stormed his inmost cellar, tapped a barrel which he did not intend to have broached for half a score of years, and, as he asserted, thickened the beer in three others, by their tremendous uproar! Sir Matthew's housekeeper, whose two sons were cordwainers, ventured to hint that the beer in those barrels had never been fine; and that, even after the fatal feast day, although certainly a little thick, it was far from ropy. Sir Mathew vowed, on the contrary, that it was ropy enough to hang the whole scoundrelly squad; and that he only wished they would give him an opportunity of making the experiment.

Sir Mathew was a decided enemy to duelling; and most vehemently abused the practice of two people popping at each other with pistols. “If gentlemen must fight,” he would exclaim, “in the name of all that's old English and manly, why not make use of the national quarter-staff,—as I did, when Peppercorn Vowler called me out, and gave me my choice of weapons?”

According to tradition, Sir Mathew was almost a stranger to his opponent when the bout between them took place; and much to his astonishment, Peppercorn Vowler gave him an elaborate cudgelling. It was whispered, that the Baronet felt so indignant at the result of the quarter-staff conflict, that he sent his adversary an invitation, which was politely declined, to renew the fight with pistols. Peppercorn Vowler, it appears, felt even a greater aversion to fire-arms than Sir Mathew, and had given the latter his choice of weapons, because he was sure, from the inquiries he had made, that Sir Mathew would most certainly choose the quarter-staff; in the exercise of which Peppercorn Vowler was quite a proficient.

The Baronet adopted the old rustic mode of curing my dog of his propensity to mutton: he turned him into a barn, with a couple of very powerful and evil-disposed rams. “I'll warrant,” said he, as he closed the door, “that the animal will never look a sheep in the face again.” He was certainly right in his prediction; for half an hour afterwards, the dog died under the extraordinary discipline of the battering rams to which Sir Mathew had zealously subjected him.

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THE COUNTERPART COUSINS.

Almost every house, in a little village situate in the lower part of Somersetshire, near the borders of Devon, was tenanted, two or three generations back, either by a Blake or a Hickory. Individuals, of one or the other of these names, occupied all the best farms, and all the minor lucrative posts, in the parish. The shoemaker, the carpenter, the thatcher, and the landlord of the public house, were Blakes; and the parish clerk, the glazier, the tailor, and the keeper of “the shop,” where almost every thing was sold, Hickories. Numerous matrimonial alliances were formed among the young people of the two families. As the Blakes were manly, and the Hickories handsome, it happened, rather luckily, that the children of the former were, for the most part, boys, and those of the latter, girls. If a male child were bom among the Hickories, he grew up puny in frame and womanly in features; and there was not an individual, among the few females of the Blake family, who did not bear the strongly marked features and robust frame, characteristic of the race from which she sprang. The young men of the house of Hickory were too much like their sisters, to be good-looking fellows; and the damsels of the other name resembled their brothers too closely, to be beautiful women; they were, apparently, stout enough in form, and sufficiently bold in heart, had not the days of chivalry been past, to have been esquires to “mettlesome knights of hie renown;” while the striplings of the other family were more adapted, from their lady-like limbs and gentle looks, to be bower-pages to those high-born dames, for whose honour and amusement, their chivalric lords occasionally broke each other's pates in the tourney.

Notwithstanding these disparities, some strong attraction seemed to exist between the blood of the two families; not only did the “manly Blakes” take unto themselves wives from among the “handsome Hickories,”—-this was natural enough,—but the young yeomen of the tribe of Hickory, intermarried with the spinsterhood of the Blakes. Perhaps it was Hobson's choice with the youths,—these or none;—there being scarcely another name in the village except those of the “two great houses”—Hickory and Blake; and in those days, but few of its young folks travelled far beyond the landmarks of their native place.

The Blakes and Hickories, at length, grew so numerous, that the village did not offer sufficient resources for their support, and several of them emigrated;—some to the neighbouring towns, but the greater part to the metropolis, where they were soon lost in its mighty tide of population, which is constantly recruited by “supplies from the country,” as the river, whose banks it ennobles, is supported by the tributary streams which eternally flow into its huge bed. A great number of the descendants of those females of the Blake family, who had intermarried with Hickories, still remained; but it was in vain to seek for the fine Herculean forms, which tradition had assigned to the Blakes, or the surpassing beauty, which, according to old tales, was once possessed by the female Hickories. It is true, that the features of each family were to be seen, scattered among various individuals; but no perfect specimen, in the prime of life, of either race, could be found. Two or three gaunt fellows, the oldest men in the parish, who were issue of the first unions between the two houses, still stalked about, with melancholy countenances, thinking but little of the present, and more often of the past than the future; but as their fathers had been Hickories, and their mothers Blakes, it was said that they did not possess those excellencies of form or feature, which their cousins, who were Blakes by the father's side, and Hickories by the mother's, were reported to have been endowed.

A single individual of the Blake family, in whose veins none of the Hickory blood flowed, remained alive; that individual was a woman, fettered by age and infirmities, to a chair on the kitchen hearth of one of her descendants. Dame Deborah was venerated as a relic of old times, rather than beloved. The beings about her had come into the world when she was aged; and those, to whom she had given life, had passed away before her; leaving their mother to the care of a third generation. To her, those little acts of kindness, which are so endearing in the first stage of human decay through “length of days,” were rarely performed, because she was too withered in mind and feeling to appreciate them. She lived among relations, but had no friends. All her wants were scrupulously provided for; but the attentions, which her grand-children and great-grand-children paid her, were acts of duty rather than affection. The days of her glory, even as an old woman were over: she had ceased to become a domestic adviser; the last child she had nursed, for one of her daughters, was now “a stout and stalwart” young fellow, nearly six feet high; and those, to whom she had told tales of other times, when her memory and breath were both equal to the task, were getting old themselves, and beginning to relate the same chronicles, round the kitchen fire, on winter nights; generally without acknowledging, and often forgetting, to whom they were indebted for that legendary lore, the possession of which so exalted them in the opinions of the young.

From the dark cloud, which usually obscured Dame Deborah's mental faculties, a gleam of youthful memory occasionally shot up, which much amazed many of her descendants. One evening, a warm discussion took place in the kitchen where she sat, as to the precise ages of Ralph Hickory and his cousin Harry. After a world of talk, without an atom of conclusion, Dame Deborah placed her hand upon the arm of one of the disputants, and said, in a tremulous but distinct tone: “Susanna Hickory, who was big Anthony Blake's seventh child, and only daughter, and married one of the young Hickories of Hickory Hatch, was brought to bed of a boy on the second day of our Whitsun revel, the same hour that her cousin Polly had twins,—both boys,—but only one of them lived to be christened. I stood godmother to the two babes. Susey's boy was called Ralph, after my first husband, and Polly's after my second goodman, Harry. That was the year when lightning struck the steeple, and Matty Drew, the witch, was drowned. She told the children's fortunes, and said of them,—

'Merry meeting—sorry parting;
Second greeting—bitter smarting;
Third struggle—'”

Dame Deborah could not finish Matty Drew's prediction; and this was the seventh time, within as many years, that she had attempted to do so, but in vain; a fit of coughing or abstraction invariably seizing her on these occasions, before she could articulate the remainder of the line. The debaters stared with wonder on each other at the old dame's unusual fluency; for she had not spoken, except in monosyllables, during many preceding months; and they looked upon it as an omen of Deborah's death, or some great calamity to one of her living descendants. On examining the church books, they found her account to be correct, so far as regarded the baptism of the two boys, and the interment of one of Polly's twins; and some of her neighbours recollected that the church was struck, as Deborah had related, in the same year that Matty Drew was drowned, by a farmer and his two sons, who supposed she had bewitched them, and their cattle; and ducked her, under the idea that, if she were a witch, she could not be drowned; little thinking of the consequences to themselves, if she did not survive the ordeal. Two of them afterwards fled the country; the third was taken and tried. He stated, in his defence, that he had reason to believe Matty was a witch, for her predictions were always verified by events; and that once, when his mother could not succeed in her churning, he and his father twisted a hazel switch, as tight as their strength would permit, about the chum, and behold, at last, in came Matty, shrieking and writhing, as if in agony, and beseeching them to unloose the gad; which, she admitted, was sympathetically torturing her own waist. He called no witnesses to this fact; and, notwithstanding the ingenious argument which his counsel had written out for him, wherein it was stated that “an unlettered clown” might well be forgiven for entertaining the same opinions as some of the kings of England, and one of her most eminent judges, in old days, the young man was convicted and executed, for acting under an impression that those powers existed, for the possession of which, a century before, helpless old women were found guilty by twelve of their fellow countrymen, and doomed, by a strong-minded judge, to be burned;—more than one of the old creatures having crawled, it is said, when led from the cold dungeon, to warm their chilled limbs by the fire that was kindling to consume them.

Ralph Hickory and Harry Hickory, the objects of Matty Drew's doggrel prophecy, are the heroes of our tale—the Counterpart Cousins;—rather alike in disposition, but bearing no resemblance to each other in outward appearance. Ralph inherited all the strength and height of the Blakes, without their fine form, or the handsome features of the Hickories. His shoulders were broad, but round, and his neck did not seem to rise exactly in their centre: his arms were long, muscular, and well shaped; but his legs were crooked, and too brief in proportion to his body. His maternal ancestor's features were rather of the Roman order, and the wags of the village said, that Ralph had a Blake's nose run to seed:—it was thin, sharp, and disagreeable. Every body confessed that he had the Hickories' merry black eyes;—but his mouth gaped, and looked like a caricature of their pouting and slightly ported lips. The Hickories' teeth were brilliant and pearly; the Blakes' quite the contrary:—the lips of the former delicately exhibited their dental treasures; while those of the latter were so close and clenched, that it was difficult to obtain a glance at the awkward squad which they concealed. Ralph unfortunately inherited the bad teeth of the Blakes, and the open lips of the Hickories; as well as the fair hair of the former, and the dark eyes and long black lashes of the latter: so that Ralph was rather a singular looking being;—but precisely, or nearly such a person as the reader must have occasionally met with;—exhibiting an union of some of the beauties, and many of the deformities, of two or three of the tribes of man.

Harry was very different in person, but not a jot more beautiful than Ralph. His body was broader and more robust than that of a Blake, when the family was in a flourishing state; but it was remarkably short, and shapeless as a log. His head seemed to be squeezed into his shoulders by some giant hand, and his light but well-proportioned Hickory legs exhibited a striking contrast to the clumsy bulk of his huge trunk. The butcher said, that Harry would resemble his big block, with a calf's head on its surface, only that it stood on three legs, and Harry possessed but two. His arms were thick, bony and stunted; and his hands of such an immense size, that he was often called “Molepaw” by his competitors in the wrestling ring. Harry had the large blue eyes of the Blake family, and a thick, short, snub nose; which, the good gossips said, could be traced to nobody. There was a striking resemblance in his other features to the by-gone Hickories: his mouth and chin were really handsome; but an unmeaning smile usually played about his lips; and he had a vacant sort of look, that betokened good humour allied to silliness. But when Harry's blood was warmed by an angry word or two and an extra cup of drink, though he did not “look daggers,” he frowned furiously, and looked, as well as talked, broomsticks, cudgels, kicks on the shin-bone, and various other “chimeras dire.” In such a mood, Harry was dangerous to deal with, and avoided by all those who were peaceably disposed.

In this particular, Ralph was his counterpart There was not a more kind or sociable being in three counties than Ralph Hickory, when he was sober; but liquor made him quarrelsome and rash; it whetted his appetite to give and receive kicks and bruises; and if he could not rouse any one, by insults and taunting, to wrestle, fight, or play a bout at back-sword, or cudgels with him,—he lashed himself up into a fury, attacked, and either scattered those who were about him like chaff, or got felled by a sturdy thwack of fist or cudgel, and fastened down until reason returned hand-in-hand with shame and remorse. To both of the cousins liquor was pure Lethe; they never remembered any thing that occurred, from the time of their passing the rubicon of intoxication, until the moment of their waking the next day.

Ralph and Harry considered themselves as relations to each other, on the credit of certain of the gossiping oral genealogists of the village, who proved, in a very roundabout way, to their auditors, but entirely to their own conviction, that Ralph and Harry were, what are called, in the West Country,—second and third cousins. Each of them was the offspring of a match between a male Hickory and a female Blake; and both were bad specimens of the two fine families, whose more gifted descendants, in regard to personal appearance, the issue of those unions which had been formed between “the manly Blakes” and “the handsome Hickories,” were the individuals who had quitted the village, impelled by a spirit of adventure, when they felt themselves too crowded in their native place, on account of the increase of its population.

Hickory was now the paramount name in the parish; there was not a single Blake in its little community, except old Dame Deborah, whose boast it had been, when she could babble apace, that she was the last of either of the pure stocks left. She had often stated, in the autumn of her life,—that season when the mind yields its richest fruits of memory,—that the good old Blakes began to lose the ascendant, from the time of the battle of Culloden. It will appear strange, that the downfall of the Pretender's forces in the north, should be associated, in Deborah's mind, with that of her family, whose abiding place was in the west. We will explain this nearly in the old dame's own words: “On the 16th of April, in the forty-six, my brother Gilbert,”—thus her story ran,—“who was then an officer in the Duke of Cumberland's dragoons, which rank he had attained, partly by money, partly by merit, did such service under the great Hawley, against the lads in tartans, that he was promised promotion by the famous Duke, who gave him his pistols, in the field, as an earnest of more favours to come. A few days after, while the dragoons were scouring the country, in quest of prisoners of consequence, it was whispered, by some who envied him, that Gilbert had been won by the honeyed words and rich jewels of a noble northern lady, to let her husband, whom he had taken, escape. This report reached Gilbert's ears; and the next day, while he was mounting his horse, an orderly came with commands for him to attend the Duke with all speed. Gilbert directly drew out his men; gave some orders of importance, which were afterwards executed, and proved very beneficial to the service, and directed his junior officer to lead the soldiers off to perform it: he then stepped aside, and, with one of the pistols the Duke had given him on the sixteenth, blew out his brains! On the very evening the news arrived of my brother's death by his own hands, a sad disaster happened to the Blakes:—my father was, that afternoon, beating an apprentice, rather too severely, perhaps, in a field where some of his labourers were hacking-in wheat; when one who was among them,—a little fellow who was not much more than five feet high, but remarkable for his good features and fine form,—left his work, and advancing to my tall and powerful father, reproached him, in so insolent a manner, for beating the boy, who was a favourite with the labourer, that the bad blood of the Blakes became immediately roused, and he inflicted a blow or two on the man's shoulders with his stick: the fellow stepped back a few paces, and then running against my father at full speed, drove his head into the pit of the old man's stomach with such violence, that it laid him dead upon the spot I don't know why, or wherefore, but true it is, that the labourer was acquitted of blame on his trial; and he was the first of the Hickories known in these parts. The same evening, my aunt Elinor, the widow of Frank Cooper, who had sailed round the world with Anson, died away in her chair, without any previous illness. Had my father been killed an hour later, he would have heard of the suicide of his son; and had not my aunt Elinor died before sunset, she would have known, that both her brother and her nephew had gone before her to the grave: but both of them were saved from the bitterness of such news on their dying day. From that time, the Blakes dwindled, and the Hickories rose. They have matched and mated much since; but it is said, perhaps truly, that the Hickories are doomed to root out the Blakes, and then destroy themselves;—they met in the valley of death, and blood will be mixed in their stirrup-cup. My grandson Ralph has now more of the Blakes in him than any other man; and thick Harry, although he has a double dash of us in his veins, is more of a Hickory than any other I know. They are both Hickories in name, but not truly so in nature. Ralph looks upon himself, and is looked up to, as the head of the poor remnant of my father's race; and Harry is in the same situation, as a descendant of the labourer, who took his master's life, on that master's own land. They have both a great many of the bad qualities, and but few of the virtues, of the two families;—and I, for one, say—God keep them from drinking deep out of the same cup!—for liquor is likely to be their bane.”

This sort of language was too frequently repeated, and the witch Matty Drew's prophecy too often alluded to, by old Deborah, in those days when her tongue still talked triumphantly, although her limbs were incapable of motion, not to produce a deep and lasting impression upon her hearers. One half of the village was in a constant state of alarm, after Ralph had returned, a man, from the “up-along” counties, to which he had departed, a boy, in order to learn some improved mode of cultivating land, lest the two cousins should meet and quarrel in their cups. If they were seen in the village, passing a few moments in friendly chat, a scout immediately acquainted the parties most interested with the circumstance; and, in a short time, one of them was drawn off, by a fictitious story, of lambs tumbling into ditches, cows getting their legs entangled in hurdles, or children fallen into fits.

Ralph and Harry both loved the pastimes of their native place; they could wrestle, and play at back-sword, in very laudable style; but Ralph was the better wrestler, and Harry surpassed in the use of the single-stick. Devon being noted for its wrestlers, and Somerset for its single-stick players, the cousins were attracted in different directions, to enjoy that pastime in which each excelled; so that, up to the fortieth year of their lives,—and they were, as it will be remembered, precisely of the same age,—they had never, much to the satisfaction of their friends, met in the ring as rivals. Especial care had always been taken that they did not join the same convivial parties; they often attempted to make merry together, for Ralph and Harry really felt an affection for each other's society, but the women invariably out-manoeuvred them, and the two cousins were greater strangers to each other, than either of them was to any man else in the village, of his own age and station.

Their forty-first birth-day arrived: Ralph attended a review of the yeomanry-cavalry, in which he was a corporal, and Harry went to market for the purpose of selling some steers. On returning home, they were obliged to cross each other's track. They dwelt at opposite ends of the long, straggling village; which were approached by two different lanes: of these, the letter X will serve as a tolerably good substitute for a ground plan;—the market town being situate at the top of the left, and the common, on which the review was held, on that of the right, limb of the letter; at the lower end of which the village meandered along through meadows and corn-fields; Harry's abode being at the right, and Ralph's at the left end of it. The two lanes were crossed, at the point of intersection, by a third, which, on account of its being two or three yards wider, and a little more frequented than either of them, was dignified with the title of “the high road;” and in this “undeniable situation,” as George Robins would say, stood a snug public house, called Sawney's Cross; the front of which commanded a view, across the high road, for some distance up the lanes which led to the market town and common.

Harry was proceeding down one lane, at a speedy, shuffling pace, betwixt a gallop and trot, on a powerful blind galloway; while Ralph approached the line of intersection, from the common, by the other, on a gaunt, half-bred horse, nearly sixteen hands high, a strong galloper, and quite ungovernable when put upon his mettle. The galloway and the tall horse were both “homeward bound;” and “sniffing the manger from afar,” each of them was going along, impatient of check, and at, what jockies would call, “a tip-top pace.”

Ned Creese, the landlord of Sawney's Cross, stood at his door, and beheld the ominous approach of the two travellers: he was mathematician enough to discover, that equi-distant as they were, from the point where their lines of direction intersected each other in the middle of the main road, and approaching toward such point with equal speed, something unpleasant must needs occur to one of the parties, at the transit. He beckoned, and called out to each of them as loudly as he could: but Harry was short sighted, and could not see his motions; and Ralph was rather hard of hearing, and could not make out what he meant; so that neither of them pulled up; and, as they were concealed from each other by the high hedges of the lanes, neither Harry nor Ralph was aware of the danger that menaced them, until they emerged from the bottom of the lanes. Ralph foresaw the event first, and, with might and main, attempted to pull his horse out of the way: he partly succeeded, but by checking his steed, and making him swerve from the direct line in which he was going, he gave Harry a decided advantage in the ensuing shock. The cousins had just time to ejaculate “Hoy, Ralph!” and “Hilloa, Harry!” when the blind galloway bore his off-shoulder against the tall troop-horse's hind quarters, and just such a catastrophe took place as Creese had anticipated:—Harry was thrown over his galloway's head; and Ralph, with his horse, and the galloway at his heels, were carried to the brink of a horse-pond by the road side. Ralph fell in the mud, and the horses went over him into the water; where they lay struggling together for a few moments; they then got up without assistance, and each limped homeward, leaving their owners to come after them as well as they could.

“Hoy, Ralph!” and “Hilloa, Harry!” were the first words the cousins uttered.

“Art hurt, lad?” asked Ralph.—“No,” was the reply;—“Art thee?”

“Sound as oak; only a bloody nose, and a bump on the forehead.”

“That's right, then; I don't feel much the matter myself; but dowl take thy blind galloway, for all that!”

“He's worth his weight in gold;—didn't'ee see how he capsized you and your troop horse?”

“You charged me in flank when I was filing off;—if I had met'ee full butt, Harry, I should ha' sent thee and thy galloway clean into the muck, and gone on without abating pace, or feeling a jerk in my balance.”

“What, and not ha' turned round to say 'Hilloa, Harry?'”

“Odd! yes, to be sure,—I'd say 'Hilloa, Harry!'—and what will'ee drink, besides.”

“Well,—and what shall we?”

“I don't mind;—but let's ha' something, and make merry together for once.”

“Wi' all my heart!—Here we be, safe from busy meddlers; and dash me if I don't feel inclined to make a day of it.”

“Give me your hand;—this capsize was a bit of luck, weren't it?”

“Aye, to be sure,—brought two good fellows together. What shall we have?—It's cold.—What d'ye say to Hopping John, made Tom Nottle's fashion?—Landlord, mix pint of brandy wi' half a gallon of your best cider, sugared to your own taste; and,—d'ye mind?—pop in about a dozen good roasted apples, hissing hot, to take the chill off.”

In a short time, the two cousins were seated by the fire, in a little room behind the bar of the Sawney's Cross, with a smoking bowl of liquor on the table before them, and Ned Creese assisting them to empty it. By degrees, the cousins became elevated, and their chat was enlivened by budding jokes and choice flowers of rustic song. Harry's forehead frequently reminded him, in the midst of his glee, of the adventure in the road; and he recurred to it, for the fifth time, since the sitting, as Ned brought in a second brewage of hot Hopping John:—“I'd lay a wager I know where my blind galloway is, just about now,” quoth he; “it's odd to me if he isn't stopping at the Dragon's Head, where he always pulls up, and tempts me to call for a cup of cider and a mouthful of hay.”

“Gentlemen,” said Creese, “I'll give you a toast—a Devonshire one—and it's this:—A back fall, or a side fall, or any fall but a fall out.”

“For my part,” continued Ned, after his toast was duly honoured,—“I expected no less than a fight, if you were able to stand, after what I saw would happen;—but I hardly hoped to see both get on your legs, with nothing but one bloody nose between the pair of you.”

“I must say, landlord, I fell very comfortably, indeed, considering,” said Harry.

“And I came down very much to my own satisfaction,” quoth Ralph, “only that I soiled my uniform.”

“It struck me,” observed Ned Creese, “that you must have gone over head and ears into the pond, which is deeper than it should be in the middle; but I consoled myself;—for, thinks I,—if so be that he should, the frogs on his dragoon jacket will save him, if swimming can do it If you'd both broke your necks I couldn't but giggle to see you. It's my belief 'twould have made a horse laugh; as my sign says, it was truly 'good entertainment for man and beast.'—Don't be hipped because I'm jocular: joking's a malady with many a man, and here stands one of'em; we can no more help it than an ague fit. But come, folks; here's 'The West Country Orchards!'—and then let's rouse the crickets with the old apple-tree hymn.—I'll begin.” So saying, Creese commenced, and, assisted by Ralph and Harry, chaunted forth the following rhymes, in a manner that would have amazed Mozart, although it gladdened the hearts of the rustic guests in the Sawney's Cross kitchen.

1.
The white rose was, aye, a dainty flower,
And the hawthorn a bonny tree;
A grove of oaks is a rich dame's dower;
But the barley-straw for me!
2.
From his acorn-cup let the Elfin sip,
And the oak-fruit be munched by swine;
The thrush may have both the haw and hip;
Give me but the jolly vine!
3.
Ale you may brew, from the barley-straw;
Neither ale, nor grape-juice for me;
I care not for acorn, hip, nor haw;—
Give me but the apple-tree!

After they had all three repeated the last verse together, and applauded their performance by sundry exclamations of approval, and thwacks on the table, Ralph observed, “Oddsheart! cousin, we're getting as we should be; a fig for a fell after this.”

“Da capo, say I to it,” exclaimed Creese; “da capo, I say to it, heartily: da capo, as it is written in the score-book we sing the psalms by, in the gallery, at church.”

“Wasn't frightened a trifle, landlord, when thee saw'st us coming?”

“Is the approach of a good bone likely to alarm a hungry dog?—I knew well enough you'd fall; and if you fell, the fall must bring me grist, in meal or malt:—a 'quest jury, if death had been done; board and lodging, in case of broken limbs; and a brace of guests for an hour, if you were only bruised. I shall be much obliged, when you knock one another down again, if you'll do it before my door. Success to cross-roads, blind galloways, helter-skelter dragooning, and blink-eyed farmers!—Ha! ha!—You'll excuse me gentlemen; we're all friends; I hope no offence.—What are your commands?”

“There's one thing I'd wish thee to do, landlord,” said Ralph; “if any body should enquire for us,—don't say we be here.”

“No, truly,” added Harry; “an' thou dost, thou'lt lose a couple of good customers, and get thy head broke to boot, perhaps.”

“Never fear—never fear!” replied Ned; “a secret's safe with me, as though 'twaa whispered in the ear of an ass. Thank heaven, I haven't had a woman in the house these seven yean; so all's snug.—

“A forester slept beneath the beech.
Heigh! norum snorum!
His full flask lay within his arm's reach;
Heigh! horum jorum!
A maiden came by with a blooming face,
Heigh! rosy posey!
She ask'd him the way to Berrywell Chase,—
With its wine so old,
And its pasties cold;—

Forester, what has froze ye?

“A long song is out of place over good liquor; so I'll not sing the other eighteen verses of that one; its moral is, that a woman can't keep a secret, even when the possession of what she desires depends on it; but that her babbling often proves her salvation. A friar comes in sight, while the forester is wooing, and he packs the maid off, for appearance' sake;—telling her, if she'll meet him there the next day, provided she don't reveal his promise to mortal, that he'll give her 'a gown of the richest green,' besprinkled with dewy pearls, or pearly dew, I forget which: but the maiden was so delighted, that when she got to the Chase, she told the warden's niece, and the warden's niece told the maiden's aunt, and the maiden's aunt locked her up for a week: so she saved her reputation, but lost her present, by babbling.—Gentlemen, you don't drink!”

We must here leave the cousins to the care of Creese—they could not have fallen into better hands for the mood in which they met—and remind our readers, that the horses, after extricating themselves from the pond, proceeded homeward as well as the injuries they had received would permit. Their arrival at the village, spread consternation among its inhabitants: parties went forth, in different directions, to seek Ralph and Harry;—the women predicting that they had met and killed each other, and the men endeavouring to stifle their own apprehensions on the subject. Creese, on being asked if he knew any thing of the matter, replied, that “he had seen the horses, without riders, gallop by his door, down the lanes;” and as no one had witnessed the meeting of the cousins but himself and they were kept close in the back parlour, no information could be obtained from any one else. Lights were burnt, in almost every house in the village, nearly all night; and toward day-break the last party returned without any tidings of the lost sheep. Old Dame Deborah, confiding in the predictions of Matty Drew, said, as well as she could, “Bad is this—there's worse to come;—it will prove to be but a

“Merry meeting—sorry parting.”

We must now return to the cousins. On the morning after their concussion in front of Sawney's Cross, Ralph, with whom we shall begin, awoke at day break, and on taking a hasty survey of his apartment, found, to his surprise, that he was not at home. He recollected very well that he had usually worn, for many years past, corduroy small-clothes; and, when he joined the volunteer yeomanry, white doe-skin pantaloons. “Whose black nether garments can those be, then,” thought he, “which I see dangling from yonder peg?”—He leaped out of bed, threw open the lattice, and the first object that attracted his notice was the horse-pond; on the miry edge of which, he remembered having been thrown the day before. This accounted for the colour of his doe-skins. “But, how the dickens,” thought he, “got I this tremendous black eye? Where's my front tooth? And who the deuce has been bruising my ear?—I recollect, well enough, seeing Creese, the landlord, bring in a third brewing of Hopping John, and my singing, 'Creeping Jenny,' or part of it, afterwards but what's come of Harry?”

While these and similar reflections were passing in Ralph's mind, he proceeded to dress himself, which he found a task of considerable difficulty, for he was stiff and sore in every limb. Impatient to resolve the mystery in which he found himself involved, Ralph, before he was completely attired in his soiled uniform, hobbled down stairs, and found Harry, staring at the landlord, as though Creese had just been telling him some very marvellous story.

“Why, Ralph,—cousin Ralph,” said Harry, as Ralph entered the kitchen, “what be this the landlord says?—He vows and protests 'twere you that ha' been tearing my clothes to tatters and rags, and beating my face to a jelly!—I han't a sound inch in my skin!”

“Before I do answer any questions, it be my wish to know of you, landlord,” said Ralph, in an angry tone, and taking Creese by the collar; “and what's more, I insist you do tell me, who took the advantage of me last night—who it were that knocked my tooth out, when I were overcome?”

“I've lost a tooth myself,—be dashed if I han't!” exclaimed Harry, whose attention was so distracted by his other injuries, that he had not discovered the important fact before this moment; “I'll swear I had it in my mouth last night,” pursued he, grasping Creese, with his huge paw, by the collar; “and I'll be told, why and wherefore you've let me be used like a dog, when I were drunk:—answer!”

“Ay, answer, or I'll shake thy life out!” cried Ralph, looking as if he really meant to “suit the action to the word.”

“Gentlemen,—guests,” said Creese, apparently not in the least alarmed, but putting himself in a strong attitude, and calmly collaring the cousins; “be mild, and you shall hear all; or one at a time, and I'm for the first fair fall, who shall pay last night's smart, with the best, or both of you,—one down t'other come on: but if you'll put your hands in your pockets and be peaceable, I'll employ mine to produce your teeth;—that is, if I can.”

The cousins now relinquished their holds, and Ned drew out a drawer of the dresser, and requested they would look into it. “Here,” said he, “you will find the fragments of your feast of fisty-cuffs; perhaps, among the bits of lace, linen, broad-cloth, frogs and buttons, which I carefully swept up last night, after I had put you both to bed, you may find your teeth; if not, I know nothing about them:—send for a constable, and search me, if you like.”

At this offer, the cousins turned to each other and were going to smile; but immediately they were face to face, they stared in so rueful a manner, that Creese was amazingly amused. It was the first time, since Ralph had come down stairs, that the cousins had closely inspected each other's countenances, which might, with propriety enough, as the landlord said, be called “maps of mischance.”

“But it's all your own doings,” quoth he; “the credit and honour belong to nobody but yourselves;—I must say you're both downright dapsters at disfiguration.”

“But how were it, d'ye say, landlord?” asked Ralph.

“Ay, truly, how happened it all, according to your story?”—said Harry.

“Why, gentlemen,” replied Creese, “after I found you were going to drink more than I could well bear,—when it was high tide almost in my head, and my frail wits began to rock to and fro, pitching me about, when I moved, like a barge in a hurricane,—I very wisely anchored in the bar, and attended, as well as I could, to my business: a nap or two between whiles, as I tended my customers, and one cool pipe, brought me round, and it was calm sailing with me again.—All this time you were getting louder and louder; at last, the short gentleman, my worthy friend, Mr. Harry, persuaded you, Mr. Ralph, to try a friendly back-fall with him. There wasn't much harm in that;—though, I promise you, I tried to prevent it, but couldn't. So I cleared away the crockery, and stood by, as 'twas my duty, to see fair. Harry was, clearly, in my mind, the best wrestler; but, somehow, Ralph got the in-lock, and laid him upon the planchin, flat as a pancake.”

“Did I, by jingo?” eagerly exclaimed Ralph.

“No,—it's all his lies;—it couldn't be!” quoth Harry; looking very incredulous and displeased.

“I have said it, and I'll stand to it;”—continued Ned; “and when you got up, as you did, with my help, you went over to Ralph, patted him on the back, and, said you,—'Well done, cousin,—I didn't think it was in thee!' You added, with an oath, it was the best and fairest fall you had seen for years past;—that it nearly drove the breath out of your body; and then you patted him on the back again. After this, you both sat down, talked, sung, and,—by-and-bye,—began to broach something about back-sword.”

“Likely enough, an't it, Harry?” said Ralph.

“I don't believe a word o' the story,” replied Harry;—“but I'll hear it out.”

“I did not ask you to believe it,” said Creese; “but there's special evidence on your head, as well as on your cousin's, that you played at it, long and lustily.”

“And which won?” enquired Ralph.

“Both of you lost blood, as well as temper, at last,” replied Creese; “but, I remember, Harry gave you the first broken head.”

“Never!” replied Ralph, “it never lay in his shoes: he may be as good a wrestler, or better; but scores of men, that my cousin Harry have often and often given his head to, never could touch me.”

“Well! be that as it may,” said the landlord, “he certainly had you last night, Ralph, or I'm out of my senses. Why, I remember it as well as if it was but a minute ago:—you broke open the glass buffet, in which the two sticks my uncle and father won the grand match with—Wilts against Somerset—was stuck up, among the china, with silver mountings, and decorated with green ribbons, cut out like laurel-leaves;—and you said they were the best sticks you ever broke a head with: and when Harry cut your ear, and I cried out 'A bout, a bout!' and put the poker between you, you shook Harry's hand, and said you admired him, for he had done what no man ever had attempted—namely—hit you under your best guard.”

“Ha! ha! ha!” shouted Harry. “Odds buttons! Ralph, but there seems to be some truth in this though, for your ear is cut up, sure enough then, clean as a whistle; it must ha; been done as Creese says.”

Ralph put his hand up to his ear, and, like Lord Burleigh, in The Critic, shook his head and said nothing.

“All this,” continued the landlord, “was friendly and civil: you then ordered a double quantity of brandy in the brewage—if you don't believe me, look in the bill,—and, in about half an hour, I found you fighting in downright earnest, and in all manner of ways;—kicking, cudgelling, wrestling, pulling, punching, tearing one another to pieces very ungentlemanly, and so forth, and clearly bent on destruction. You had cracked the looking-glass, broke the table, 'shod the liquor, and tore the porringer,' as the man said; or, in other words, shed the cider and brandy, and broke the bowl; all which you'll find I've made correct memorandums of in the bill. Then I called in the blacksmiths, from next door, our ostler, and three waggoners who were drinking outside;—we all pitched into you, and, at last, got you asunder: but not before the mischief you see and feel was done; and to shew what minds you were in, when we pulled you, by main force, apart, each of you carried away his hold, like a couple of bull-dogs:—Harry brought off a piece of Ralph's sleeve and his shoulder-belt, and Ralph the forepart of Harry's coat, full two-thirds of his waistcoat, and a pattern of his linen. We then contrived to get you to bed—as you'll see in the bill; and—and—”

“Aye,—and here we be,” added Ralph; “nice objects for a wife and family to look at!”

“Thou'rt quite a scarecrow, cousin Ralph,” said Harry. “Do get him a glass, and let him look at himself, landlord,” said Ralph. “I'm sorry for thee, Harry;—it's my belief 't'ant exactly as the landlord says; but we can't belie the story he has told us, so where's the use of disputing? The question is,—what shall we do?”

“Be dashed if I bean't ashamed to go home,” replied Harry; “I sha'n't be able to look my wife in the face.”

“Ah! that's touching a sore place, Harry.'Tisn't my bruises, nor thine, that I care much about—after all; but frightening the women, poor dear souls!—thy Jane and my Grace, Harry—by staying out all night, eh?”

“Don't talk about it,—but let's get some drink.”

“Small ale, or leek broth, let it be, then, and we'll start while we be sober and solid. We'll get a couple of carts—you shall go to my wife, and smooth her over, and I'll go to thine; and then, at night, let'em come and fetch each of us home.”

“Well! so be it, Ralph; but sha'n't we have a stirrup-cup?”

“No, not this time.—Your hand, Harry—I like thee, cousin; but it strikes me there's some truth in old women and witches. I wouldn't pass another evening with thee, for half the land from here to Axminster.”

A week after the rencounter at Sawney's Cross, each of the cousins was lying at his own home,—a-bed, bandaged, and still suffering from the bruises which they had conferred on each other. They soon, however, recovered: the watchful care of their friends was doubled; neither of them evinced much inclination for the other's company, and a whole year passed away, without any thing remarkable occurring between them.

The birth-day of the cousins was, however, again unlucky.—Harry, perhaps on account of his success in the bout he had with Ralph, at Sawney's Cross, or, it might be, from mere whim, practised back-sword-playing, and became a frequent attendant at the various single-stick matches in the neighbourhood. Some capital pastime having been expected, at a revel, about ten miles up the country, Harry and Ralph, on their forty-second birth-day, totally unaware of each other's intentions, set off to see and join in the sport. The malice or curiosity of some of the parties present, or, perhaps, mere accident, brought the cousins on the stage as opponents. Ralph was going to descend; but Harry whispered in his ear, “If we don't have a bout or two, Ralph, they'll jeer us, and say we be old women.” Ralph still evinced an inclination to retire; when his cousin said aloud, “Now, Ralph, here's a chance for getting the head you lost to me at Sawney's Cross.”

“Aye, true,—true,” replied Ralph, taking a stick, and preparing for the play. They shook hands; both, as usual, said,—“God save our eyes!”—they threw themselves into attitude; and one minute had scarcely elapsed, before Harry received a blow from Ralph's stick, which totally deprived him of sight, in one eye, for the remainder of his existence.

An inflammation of so violent a nature ensued, that Harry's life was, for some time, considered in danger. One day, when his wife came to Ralph's house, weeping, and exclaiming that little hope was left of her husbands recovery, Dame Deborah, in a low, broken tone, said to her, “The day's not come; it is but—

“Second greeting—bitter smarting.”

“Bide a while—there's no fear yet”

Deborah was right: Harry recovered his health and strength, and none ever heard him regret the loss of his eye; about which, he said, poor Ralph “took on” unnecessarily, for it was purely an accident The forty-third and forty-fourth birth-days had passed; and the minds of the relations of Ralph and Harry grew more composed; although they still continued on the alert, to prevent them getting together over “a cup of drink.” It happened that Harry had a heavy crop of oats, in a large field, which were dead-ripe; and bad weather being expected, it was an object of importance with him to get the crop “cut and carried” as quickly as possible. According to the custom of the village, every farmer, who was not in a similar predicament, came, with such servants as he could spare, to assist his neighbour in distress. Ralph was one of the first in the field, and set so fine an example to his companions, that the oats were all down, long before sun-set The work was severe, the weather sultry, and the hospitable Harry did not grudge his cider during the day. Deep draughts had been quaffed, and Harry could not suffer his guests to depart, without a cup round of his best As they were about to quit the field, a grey-headed man unfortunately remarked, that they were standing on the spot where, on that day and hour, a great many years before, little Dick Hickory had killed old Reuben Blake. This produced a string of observations from various individuals of the party: the merits and demerits of the action were freely canvassed; the debate grew hot, and more cider was brought from the house. Ralph and Harry, naturally enough, joined in, and, at length, led the discussion. Ralph blamed Dick Hickory, and Harry applied several harsh epithets, in the warmth of the moment, to Reuben Blake. The cheeks of the spectators grew pale, as the cousins abruptly broke from the original argument, to abuse each other: a well-meant interference increased, rather than allayed, their rage; they cast the alarmed mediators aside, flew toward each other, and grappled:—as Ralph was rushing in, Harry crouched, lifted his cousin off the ground, and threw him completely over his head,—never to rise again!

When his sorrowful companions brought home the body of poor Ralph, they found old Deborah repeating, in a low, shrill, and, as they afterwards said, unearthly tone, the rhymes of Matty Drew: but the last words of the third line died away on her lips; and when some of the family ceased, for a moment, to gaze on the livid face of Ralph, and turned toward the kitchen-hearth, they saw that Dame Deborah was dead in her chair.

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CADDY CUDDLE.

On the second anniversary of their wedding-day, the Honourable Charles Caddy, and Lady Letitia, his high-born and beautiful wife, entertained a large party of guests at Caddy Castle. Until a few months previously to this event, the old building had been left nearly desolate, for a period of eleven or twelve years: a few domestics were its only inhabitants, except old Squire Caddy Caddy, its unfortunate owner, who had lost his wits, and was confined in one of its comfortable turrets, under the care of a couple of stout and wary keepers.

The castle had recently been put in order for the reception of the Honourable Charles Caddy, a distant relation of, but next heir to, the lunatic, who was entrusted with the care of Caddy Caddy's property. He came down to Caddy Castle, with a determination of making himself popular in the neighbourhood; and began by giving invitations to all the gentlemen and ladies of respectability, within a circuit of several miles. A number of his own personal friends, and those of Lady Letitia, had followed them, shortly after their departure from town, to spend the Christmas holidays at Caddy Castle; so that the ancient edifice was by far more gay than it had ever been, even during the time when the once jovial Caddy Caddy was lord paramount in the halls of his ancestors.

Among the guests assembled in honour of the day, was Mr. Caddy Cuddle, a quiet elderly bachelor, of small fortune, related, on his mother's side, to the Caddy family, who had been one of Caddy Caddy's most intimate associates, in former times. By order of the medical gentlemen who attended on Caddy Caddy, Mr. Cuddle, as well as all his old friends, had been denied access to the lunatic, from very proper motives, at the outset of his confinement Caddy Cuddle's cottage was eleven miles distant; the Castle had lost its chief attraction; and this was the first time he had been near it, for several years.

In his younger days, Caddy Cuddle was of a very active and enterprising spirit; he shared the perils of his father's three last voyages, and would, in all probability, have made as good a seaman as old Herbert Cuddle himself, had it not been for the solicitude of his mother; who, losing her other two children rather suddenly, persuaded young Caddy that a life of ease, with sufficient to satisfy the desires of a moderate person, was preferable by far to the dangers attendant upon a chace after Fortune, on the perilous ocean. Caddy then amused himself by studying the learned languages; and, at length, as some of his simple neighbours said, had got them so completely at his fingers' ends, that it was a pity his parents had not made him a parson.

He was simple, kind, and innocent of evil intentions, as it was possible for a man to be; but it was his misfortune, owing to his ignorance of that most useful of all sciences, a knowledge of the world, to touch the feelings of his host rather smartly, on several occasions, during the discourse that took place, over the bottle, among the guests at the Castle. Cuddle was naturally taciturn; but two or three extra glasses of wine produced their usual effect upon such a temperament, and rendered him too loquacious to be pleasant. The happiest hours of his life, were those which he had passed, above a dozen years before, at Caddy Castle; and he repeatedly alluded to his unhappy friend, poor Caddy Caddy,—the feats they had performed, the jokes they had cracked, the simple frolics they had enacted, and the songs they had sung together, over their ale and tobacco, in the good old days.

The Honourable Charles Caddy felt particularly annoyed at the fact of his lunatic relation's confinement in the Castle,—which, perhaps rather in bad taste, he had made the scene of festivity,—being thus abruptly revealed to his fashionable visitors; but he was too well-bred to display the least symptom of his feelings. Watching, however, for an opportunity, when he might break in upon Cuddle's narratives, without palpably interrupting him, the Honourable Charles Caddy, adroitly, as he thought, started a subject, which, he imagined, would be at once interesting to his neighbours, and turn two or three of his metropolitan friends from listeners to talkers.

“I have been looking over the common, this morning,” said he, “and it occurs to me, that, in a neighbourhood so opulent as ours, races might be established without much difficulty. The common would afford as pretty a two-mile course as any gentleman could desire. If such a thing were set on foot, I should be happy to lend it all the support in my power. I would take leave to offer a cup, to commence with; and I think I could answer for a plate from the county members. Indeed, it surprises me, rather, that the idea has not before occurred to some gentleman in the vicinity.”

“Cousin Caddy, it has!” exclaimed Cuddle; “our respected friend and relation, up stairs, gave away a dozen smock-frocks and a bundle of waggon-whips, for seven successive years; and would, doubtless, have done so to this day, had not his misfortune deprived him of the power. The prizes were contested for, regularly, on the second day of the fair,—which then took place on the common,—immediately after the pig with the greasy tail was caught; and the boys had eaten the hot rolls, sopped in treacle; and the women had wrestled for the new gown; and—”

“Women wrestle!” exclaimed one of the Honourable Charles Caddy's friends.

“Mr. Cuddle is quite correct, sir,” replied young Tom Horner, who had lately come into possession of a snug estate in the neighbourhood; “I have seen them wrestle, in various other parts of the county, as well as on our common.”

“Never heard of such savages since the day I drew breath! Egad!—never, I protest!” said the gentleman who had interrupted Caddy Cuddle.

“Why, it's bad enough, I must admit,” said Homer; “but I think I heard you boast that you were a man of Kent, just now, sir; and, as I am told, the women of that county play cricket-matches very frequently. Now, in my opinion, there is not a very great difference between a female match at cricket, on a common, and a feminine bout at wrestling, in a ring. In saying this, I beg to observe that I mean no offence.”

“I take none; I protest I see no occasion,—no pretence for my taking umbrage.—I am not prepared to question the fact,”—added the speaker, turning toward his host; “not prepared to question the fact, you observe, after what has dropped from the gentleman; although, with permission, on behalf of the women of Kent, I take leave to declare, that I never heard of their indulging in such an amusement, before the gentleman mentioned it.”

“Well, sir,” said Caddy Cuddle, who had been very impatient, all this time, to blazon the generosity and spirit of his friend, Caddy Caddy; “I was going on to state, that, after the gold-laced hat was grinned for, through a horse-collar; the pig was caught, and so forth,—the expense of all which pastimes Caddy Caddy bore;—the waggon-horse-race was run, for the whips and frocks.”

“A waggon-horse-race!” said the gentleman of Kent; “I beg pardon; did I hear you correctly?—Am I to understand you, as having positively said—a waggon-horse-race?”

“Certainly, sir,” said Tom Homer; “and capital sport it is: I have been twice to Newmarket, and once to Doncaster; I know a little about racing; I think it a noble, glorious, exhilarating sport; but, next to the first run I saw for the St Leger, I never was half so delighted with any thing, in the shape of racing, as when Billy Norman, who now keeps the west gate of Caddy Park here, exactly sixteen years ago, come August, won the whips on the common.”

“Indeed!” simpered the gentleman of Kent, gazing at Tom Horner, as though he were a recently imported nondescript “Billy, on that occasion, rode most beautifully;” continued Horner; “he carried the day in fine style, coming in, at least seven lengths, behind all his competitors.”

“If I may be allowed,” observed the gentleman of Kent, “you would say, before.”

“Not at all, sir; not at all;” exclaimed Caddy Cuddle; “draught horses are not esteemed as valuable in proportion to their speed: in the waggon-horse-race no man is allowed to jockey his own animal; the riders are armed with tremendous long whips; their object is to drive all their companions before them; he that gets in last, wins: and so, sir, they slash away at each other's horses;—then, sir, there's such shouting and bellowing; such kicking, rearing, whinnying, galloping, and scrambling, that it would do a man's heart good to look at it. Poor Caddy Caddy used to turn to me, and say, as well as his laughter would let him,—'What are your Olympic games,—your feats, and fine doings at the tombs of your old Greek heroes, that you prate about, compared with these, cousin Cuddle?'”

The Honourable Charles Caddy smiled, and bit the inner part of his lip with vexation: he now tried to give the conversation another turn, and introduced the chase; thinking that it was a very safe subject, as Caddy Caddy had never kept a pack of hounds. “I feel very much inclined,” said he, “anxious as I am to forward the amusement of my neighbours, to run up a kennel, beyond the rookery, at the north end of the park,—where there is very good air, and a fine stream of water,—and invite my friend, Sir Harry Parton, to hunt this country, for a couple of months during the season. One of my fellows says, that there are not only numbers of foxes in the neighbourhood, but what is still better, a few,—a very few,—of those stags, about which we have heard so much. I think I have influence enough with Sir Harry to persuade him; at all events, I'll invite him; and if he should have other existing engagements, I pledge myself,—that is, if such a step would be agreeable,—to hunt the country myself.”

“Our respected and unfortunate friend, cousin Caddy,” said Cuddle, “had a little pack of dogs—”

“A pack of dogs, indeed, they were, Mr. Cuddle,” interrupted young Horner; “five or six couple of curs, that lurked about the Castle, gentlemen, which we used sometimes to coax down to the river, and spear or worry an otter; and, now and then, wheedle away to the woods, at midnight, for a badger-hunt, after drinking more ale than we well knew how to carry. I was a boy then, but I could drink ale by the quart.”

“Ay, ay!” exclaimed Caddy Cuddle, “those were famous times! 'Tis true, I never went out with you, but 1 recollect very well how I enjoyed poor Caddy Caddy's animated descriptions of the badger-hunt, when he came back.”

“Oh! then you hunted badgers, did you?” said the gentleman of Kent to Tom Horner, in a sneering tone, that produced a titter all round the table. “Yes, sir,—we hunted badgers,” replied Tom; “and capital sport it is, too, in default of better.”

“I dare say it is,” said the gentleman of Kent.

“Allow me to tell you then, sir, that there is really good sport in badger-hunting; it is a fine, irregular sort of pastime, unfettered by the systematic rules of the more aristocratic sports. The stag-hunt and the fox-chase, are so shackled with old ordinances and covert-side statutes, that they remind me of one of the classical dramas of the French: a badger-hunt is of the romantic school;—free as air, wild as mountain breezes;—joyous, exhilarating, uncurbed, and natural as one of our Shakspeare's plays. Barring an otter-hunt, (and what's better still, according to Caddy Cuddle's account, who has been in the North Seas, the spearing of a whale,) there are few sports that suit my capacity of enjoyment, so well as badger-bagging.—Just picture to yourself, that you have sent in a keen terrier, no bigger than a stout fitchet, or thereabouts, to ascertain that the badger is not within; that you have cleverly bagged the hole, and stuck the end of the mouth-line in the fist of a patient, but wary and dexterous clod-hopper; (an old, lame, broken-down, one-eyed gamekeeper, is the best creature on earth for such an office;)—and then, what do you do?—Why, zounds! every body takes his own course, with or without dogs, as it may happen; hunting, yelping, hallooing, and beating every brake for half a mile, or more, round, to get scent of the badger. Imagine the moon, 'sweet huntress of yon azure plain,' is up, and beaming with all her brilliancy; the trees beautifully basking in her splendour; her glance streaming through an aperture in an old oak, caused by the fall of a branch, by lightning, or bluff Boreas, and fringing the mallow-leaf with silver; the nightingale, in the brake, fascinating your ear; the glow-worm delighting your eye:—you stand, for a moment, motionless;—the bat whirrs above your head and the owl, unaccustomed to the sight of man, in such deep solitudes, flaps, fearless, so near as to fan your glowing forehead with his wings:—when suddenly you hear a shout,—a yell,—two or three such exclamations as—'There a' ees!'—'Thic's he!'—'At'un, Juno!'—'Yonder a goath!'—'Hurrah!'—'Vollow un up!'—'Yaw awicks!' and 'Oh! my leg!'—You know by this, that 'the game's a foot;'—you fly to the right or left, as the case may be, skimming over furzy brake, like a bird, and wading through tangled briar, as a pike would, through the deeps of a brook, after a trout that is lame of a fin. You reach the scene of action; the badger is before, half a score of tykes around, and the yokels behind you.—'Hark forward! have at him!' you enthusiastically cry; your spirits are up;—you are buoyant—agile as a roe-buck;—your legs devour space—you—”

“My dear fellow, allow me to conclude,” interrupted Caddy Cuddle, “for your prose Pegasus never can carry you through the hunt at this rate. To be brief, then,—according to what I have heard from my never-to-be-sufficiently-lamented friend, Caddy Caddy,—the badger, when found, immediately makes for his earth: if he reach it without being picked up and taken, he bolts in at the entrance; the bag receives him; its mouth is drawn close by the string; and thus the animal is taken.—But, odds! while I talk of those delights, which were the theme of our discourse in the much-regretted days of Caddy Caddy, I forget that time is on the wing.—I suppose no one is going my way.”

“I am,” replied Tom Homer, “in about three hours' time.”

“Ay, ay! you're younger, friend Homer, than I have been these fifteen years,” said Cuddle; “time was, before Caddy Caddy lost his wits, when he and I have sat over midnight together, as merry as crickets; but since his misfortune, I have become a very altered man. 'Primâ nocte domum claude—that has been my motto for years past Mrs. Watermark, my good housekeeper, is, I feel convinced, already alarmed; and it would not become me, positively to terrify her: besides, I am not on very intimate terms with my horse, which I borrowed from my friend, Anthony Mutch, of Mallow Hill, for this occasion: the roads, too, have been so cut and carved about, by the Commissioners,—doubtless, for very wise purposes,—since poor Caddy Caddy's time, that I had much ado to find my way in the broad day-light; and these spectacles, I must needs say, although I reverence the donor, are not to be depended on, so implicitly as I could wish. Let me see—ay—'tis now twelve years ago, from my last birth-day, since they were presented to me; and, believe me, I 've never had the courage to wear them before. I hate changing,—especially of spectacles; I should not have put them on now—confound them!—had it not been for Mrs. Watermark, who protested my others were not fit to be seen in decent society.”

“Under the circumstances you have mentioned,” said the Honourable Charles Caddy, “I must press you to accept of a bed. Pray, make the Castle your own; you will confer an obligation on me by remaining.”

“Cousin Caddy,” replied Cuddle, rising from his seat, and approaching his host, whose hand he took between both his own; “I rejoice to find so worthy a successor of poor Caddy Caddy, master of Caddy Castle. It would be most pleasing to me, if it were possible, to remain; and, I do protest, that I positively would, were it not for the feelings of Mrs. Watermark,—a most worthy and valuable woman,—who is now, perhaps, sitting on thorns on my account But I feel so grateful to you,—so happy in your society, that I will actually quaff another bumper, previously to taking my stirrup-cup; yea, and truly, were honest Jack Cole—old king Cole, as we used to cadi him, in Caddy Caddy's days,—were Jack here, with his fine bass voice, I would actually proffer a stave or so,—say, for instance, the Dialogue between Time and the Drinkers,—if Tom Horner would chime in, as he used to do when a boy, here, in this very room, with honest Jack, poor Caddy Caddy, and my-self, in times past—Honest Jack! most excellent Jack! rare king Cole! would he were here!”

“I should be sorry, cousin,” said the Honourable Charles Caddy, “to have omitted, in my invitation-list, the name of so respectable and staunch a friend of our family, as Mr. Cole, of Colebrook. If I do not mistake, he sits immediately below my friend Wilmot, at the next table; I regret that I have not had an opportunity of making myself more known to him.”

“Jack! honest Jack!” exclaimed Cuddle; “old king Cole, here, and I not know it?—Little Jack, that's silent as the grave, except when he thunders in a glee!—Where, cousin? Oddsbird! eh?—Jack, where are you?”

“Here am I, Caddy,” replied a diminutive old gentleman, with a remarkably drowsy-looking eye; “I thought you were not going to accost me.”

The deep and sonorous tone in which these words were spoken, startled those who sat near old Cole: they gazed at him, and seemed to doubt if the sounds they had heard really emanated from the lungs of so spare and puny a personage. Cuddle crossed his arms on his breast, and exclaimed, “And is it, indeed, my friend Jack Cole?”

“Don't you know me, when I speak even?” growled old Cole, “or d'ye think somebody has borrowed my voice?”

“'Tis Jack, himself!” cried Cuddle; “honest Jack! and I did not see him!—These glasses I cannot help stigmatizing as an egregious nuisance.”

“Well, Mr. Cole, what say you, will you join us?” inquired Homer.

“No, sir,” replied Cole; “sing by yourself; one ass at a time is bad enough; but three braying together, are insupportable.”

“The same man,—the same man as ever;” exclaimed Cuddle, apparently very much pleased;—“begin, Homer;—you know his way;—he can't resist, when his bar comes. He had always these crotchets;—begin, my boy; I will pledge myself that he falls in with the stream of the tune.”

Horner and Cuddle now commenced the glee; and, as the latter had predicted, Cole, after closing his eyes, throwing himself back in his chair, and making sundry wry faces, trowled forth the first reply, and afterwards, all the other responses of old Father Time, in the following verses.—

“Whither away! old Father Time?
Ah! whither dost thou run?”—
“Low,—low,
I've a mob to mow;
My work is never done.”
“Tarry awhile with us, old Time,
And lay thy scythe aside!”—
“Nay!—nay!
'Tis a busy day;
My work it lieth wide.”
“Tell us, we pray thee, why, old Time,
Thou look'st so pale and glum?”—
Fie!—fie!
“I evermore sigh,
'Eternity, oh! come!'”
“Art thou, then, tired, old Father Time?
Thy labour dost thou rue?”—
“Long,—long,
Has it been my song,—
'Could I but die like you!'”
“Tell us, then, when, old Father Time,
We may expect thy death!”—
“That morn Eternity's born,
Receives my parting breath.”
“And what's eternity, Father Time?
We pray thee, tell us now!”—
“When men
Are dead, it is then Eternity they know.”
“Come, fill up thy glass, old Father Time,
And clog its sands with wine!”—
“No, no;
They would faster flow,
And distil tears of brine!”

Caddy Cuddle, at the conclusion of these verses, took possession of a vacant chair, by the side of old Cole, and soon forgot that there was such a being as Mrs. Watermark in existence. He quaffed bumper after bumper with honest Jack;—an hour passed very pleasantly away in talking of old times;—and Cuddle wondered to find himself slightly intoxicated. He immediately rose, took his leave rather uncourteously, and went out, muttering something about “eleven miles,” and “Mother Watermark.” In a few minutes, he was mounted, and trotting toward the park gate which opened on the high road. “A fine night, Billy Norman;—a fine night, Billy;” said Cuddle, as he rode through, to the old gatekeeper; “pray, Billy, what say you? Don't you think they have cut the roads up cruelly, of late years?—Here's half a crown, Billy.—What with planting, and enclosing, and road-making, I scarcely know the face of the country; it's as puzzling as a labyrinth.—Good night, Billy!”

Cuddle, who was a tolerably bold rider, for a man of his years, now struck his horse rather forcibly, with his heels, and urged him at once into a brisk hand-gallop.

“He hath a spur in his head,” said Billy Norman to himself, as Cuddle disappeared down the road; “I hope nought but good may happen him; for he's one of the right sort, if he had it.” The roads were dry and hard, the air serene, and Billy stood listening, for a few minutes, to the sounds of the horse's feet; he soon felt convinced, by the cadences, that Caddy Cuddle was increasing, rather than diminishing, his speed. The beat of the hoofs became, at length, barely audible; it gradually died away; and Norman was going in to light his pipe, when he thought he heard the sounds again. He put his hand behind his ear, held his breath, and, in a few moments, felt satisfied that Caddy Cuddle had taken the wrong turning, and was working back, by a circular route, toward Caddy Castle again. As he approached nearer, Norman began to entertain apprehensions that Cuddle's horse had run away with him, in consequence of the violent pace, at which, it was clear, from the sound of its feet, that the animal was going. Norman stepped off the pathway into the road, and prepared to hail Cuddle, as he passed, and ascertain, if possible, what really was the matter. The horse and his rider came on nearly at full speed, and Norman shouted, with all his might,—“Holloa! hoy! stop!”

“I carry arms! I carry arms!” cried Cuddle, urging his horse forward with all his might.

“Zauns!” exclaimed Norman, “he takes I for a highwayman!—He must ha' mistook the road, that's certain; the horse can't ha' run away wi' un, or a'uldn't kick un so.—Sailor, you be out o' your latitude.”

The circle, which Caddy Cuddle had made, was about two miles in circumference: he went precisely in the same direction again, without, in the least, suspecting his error; and having, as he thought, mastered four miles of his road homeward, and given his horse a tolerable breathing, he began to pull up by degrees, as he, for the second time, approached the little rustic lodge of Caddy Park, from which he had issued at his departure. Norman again hailed him, for he felt tolerably satisfied that Caddy carried no other arms than those with which Nature had endowed him. Caddy now knew the voice, and pulled up:—“Who's there?” said he; “A friend, I think; for I remember your tone.—Who are you, honest man?”

“Heaven help us, Mr. Cuddle!” exclaimed Norman, “Are'ee mad, sir, or how?”

“Why, nipperkins! Norman, is it you?”

“Ay, truly.”

“And how got you here?—I thought nothing had passed me on the road. Where are you going, honest Norman?”

“Going!—I be going no-where,” replied the gate-keeper; “I be here, where you left me. Why, doant'ee know, that you ha' been working round and round, just like a horse in a mill?—And after all this helter-skelter work, here you be, just where you were!”

“D—n the spectacles, then!” said Cuddle; “and confound all innovators!—Why couldn't they let the country alone?—I've taken the wrong turning, I suppose?”

“Yeas,—I reckon't must be summat o' that kind:—there be four to the right, out o' the strait road, across the common; the three first do bring'ee round this way, t'other takes'ee home:—but, odds! Muster Cuddle! do'ee get off!—Here be a girth broke,—and t'other as old as my hat, and half worn through, as'tis.—Oh! you must go back; you must, truly, go back to the stables, and put the tackle in order.”

Cuddle seemed rather loath to return, but old Norman was inflexible: he led the horse inside the gate, which he safely locked, and put the key in his pocket, and then hobbled along, by the side of Caddy, toward the stables. As he passed the outer door of the house, he whispered to the porter, his fears for Cuddle's safety, if he were suffered to depart again, and begged that the porter would contrive to let his master be made acquainted with the circumstance of Caddy's ride.

The information was immediately conveyed to the dining-room, and half-a-dozen gentlemen, with the Honourable Charles Caddy at their head, immediately proceeded to the stables, where they found Cuddle, perspiring very copiously, and endeavouring to obtain information for his guidance, in his contemplated journey, from those, who were, from the same cause, as incapable of giving, as Cuddle was of following, correct directions. The Honourable Charles Caddy, in spite of his good breeding, could not help laughing, when he heard Cuddle's account of the affair; but he very judiciously insisted on Cuddle's remaining at the Castle until morning. Caddy vowed that he would acquiesce only on one condition; which was, that a servant should be immediately dispatched to his cottage, to allay the fears of Mrs. Watermark; and that such servant should be specially enjoined, not to blab a word of his mishap, to the good old gentlewoman. “If he should,” said Cuddle, “Mrs. Watermark will be terrified, and we shall have her here before morning, even if she walk all the way.”

It was in vain that the Honourable Charles Caddy and his visitors entreated Caddy Cuddle to return to the table; he preferred retiring to rest at once. “You must put up with one of the ancient bed-rooms, cousin Cuddle,” said the Honourable Charles Caddy; “but you fear no ghosts, I apprehend?”

“Nipperkins! not I!” replied Cuddle. “If I am to sleep out of my own bed, I care not if you place me in the most alarming room in the Castle. To confess the truth,—but this under the rose, cousin,—I feel a touch of the influence of Bacchus, and 'dulce periculum est,' you know, when that's the case.”

The bed-chamber to which Cuddle was consigned, still retained its tapestry hangings; and the good man quivered, either with cold, or at the solemn appearance of the room, when he entered it. A very prominent figure in the arras actually appeared to move, as Cuddle sat down in a capacious old chair, at the right-hand side of the bed, to undress himself. After gazing earnestly at it, for a moment, with his stockings half drawn off, he corrected himself for indulging in so ridiculous a fancy:—“None of these Pygmalion freaks,” said he; “none of your Promethean tricks, Mr. Imagination of mine: and yet, perhaps, I am accusing you wrongfully, and these mischievous glasses have endowed yonder figure with seeming vitality; I hope I may not break them, in a-pet, before I get home.”

Caddy Cuddle was one of those unfortunate beings who accustom themselves to read in bed; and who, from long habit, can no more compose themselves to sleep, without perusing a few pages, in their night-gear, than some others can without a good supper, or a comfortable potation. Caddy discovered two or three old, worm-eaten books, in a small table drawer, and selected that one which was printed in the largest type, for his perusal, when recumbent. It was a volume of tracts, on geomancy, astrology, and necromancy. Cuddle read it with avidity, and by the time the small piece of candle, with which he had been furnished, was burnt out, he had filled his brain with images of imps and familiars. Finding himself, suddenly, in utter darkness, he laid down the book; and then, turning himself on his back, very soon fell asleep No man, perhaps, ever kept a log-book of his dreams; ant yet, such an article would certainly be more amusing than many an honest gentleman's diary; for there are persons in the work whose waking adventures are as dull and monotonous as the ticking of a clock, while their biography in bed,—their nightly dreams,7—if correctly narrated, would, in some cases, be exceedingly droll; and, in others, insupportably pathetic. The happiest people by day-light, often suffer agonies by night; a man who would not harm a worm, with his eyes open, sometimes commits murder, and actually endures all the misery of being taken, tried, convicted, and half executed, in imagination, while he lies snug, snoring, and motionless, beneath a pair of Witney blankets. It is rash to say that any individual is, or, at least, ought to be, happy, until we ascertain how he dreams. A very excellent country 'squire, in the west of England, was once told, by a person of discrimination, that he appeared to be the most comfortable man in existence:—“Your desires are within your means;”—thus the squire was addressed;—“your wife is most charming in temper, manners, and person; your affection is mutual; your children are every thing that a parent could wish; your life has been so irreproachable, that you must be as easy in mind as it is possible for a man to be: no one bears you malice; on the contrary, every body blesses you: your house and your park are delightful; you are most felicitous, even in your servants and cattle; you are naturally—”

“True, true, to the letter,” impatiently interrupted the 'squire; “but what's all the world to a man who, without why or wherefore, dreams that he's with old Nick every night of his life?” Caddy Cuddle was not much addicted to dreaming; but, on the night he slept in the ancient room, at Caddy Castle, he felt satisfied, as he afterward said, that in the course of a few hours, his imagination was visited with fantasies enough to fill a volume; although he could not recollect, with any distinctness, even one of them, half an hour after he awoke. The moon was shining full upon the window, and making the chamber almost as light as day, with her radiance, when Caddy opened his eyes, after his first sleep, to satisfy himself, by the view of some familiar object, that he was not among the strange creatures of whom he had been dreaming. Perched upon his nose,—threatening it with whip, as Caddy saw, and galling it with spur, as Caddy felt,—he beheld an imp, whose figure was, at once, more grotesque and horrible, than any of those which had flitted before his mind's eye, during his slumbers! The creature seemed to be staring at him with terrific impudence, and jockeying his feature, as though it were actually capable of running a race. Caddy's eye-balls were almost thrust out of their sockets with dismay; his nether-jaw dropped, and he groaned deeply, under the influence of the visible nose-night-mare with which he was afflicted. For more than a minute, Caddy was incapable of moving either of his limbs; but he summoned up resolution enough, at last, to close his eyes, and make a clutch at the fiend, that rode his nose in the manner above described. With a mingled feeling of surprise, mortification, and joy, he found the nose-night-mare to be his spectacles!—He had gone to sleep without removing them from his nose; and, by tumbling and tossing to and fro, in his dreams, he had displaced, and twisted them, sufficiently, to assume a position and form, that might have alarmed a man of stouter nerves than Caddy Cuddle, on awaking in the middle of a moonlight night, after dreaming of more monsters than the German authors have ever located on Walpurgis Night in the Hartz.

Caddy tried to compose himself to sleep again; but grew restless, feverish, and very uncomfortable: he beat up his pillow, shook his bed, smoothed his sheets, walked several times up and down the room, and then lay down again;—determined, at least, to doze. But Morpheus had taken leave of him; and Caddy, at last, resolved on dressing himself, going down to the kitchen, and, as he had tobacco about him, to smoke a pipe, if he could find one, clean or dirty. He attributed his want of rest to not having indulged in his usual sedative luxury, before going to bed; and very resolutely taxed himself with the commission of an egregious folly, for having drank more than he ought. Anthony Mutch's horse, and the Commissioners of the roads, he very copiously abused, while dressing himself: the spectacles were, however, the grand objects of his indignation; but, bad as they were, he conceived that it was necessary to coax them into shape again, and mount them on his nose, previously to attempting, what he deemed, the perilous descent, from his chamber, which was on the third floor, to the kitchen below. Caddy, however, was too well acquainted with the topography of the house, to incur much danger: moreover, the moon beamed with such brilliancy, through the glass dome that lighted the great circular staircase of Caddy Castle, that a man, much more short-sighted than our hero, might have gone safely from the top to the bottom, without the assistance of glasses.

In a hole in the kitchen chimney, Caddy found two or three short pipes; he congratulated himself on the discovery, and immediately filled one of them from his pouch. The Castle was now as quiet as the grave; and no soul, but Caddy himself, seemed to be stirring. He felt rather surprised to see the stone floor of the kitchen, for above a yard from the chimney, covered with embers of expiring logs, while the hearth itself was “dark as Erebus.” Caddy Cuddle, however, did not trouble himself much about this circumstance: he had often seen the kitchen in a similar condition, after a frolic, in Caddy Caddy's time; and very gravely lighting his pipe, he deposited himself on a warm iron tripod,—which had been standing on the hearth, probably, the whole evening,—in preference to a cold oak chair. The kitchen was comfortable, notwithstanding it was dark, (for the embers, as we have already stated, were expiring, and Caddy was without a candle,) and he smoked the pipe so much to his satisfaction, that he determined to enjoy another. Kicking the bits of burning wood together, as he sat, in order to light his tobacco, he, unintentionally, produced a little blaze, which proved rather disastrous to him:—as he stooped to light the pipe, he heard a noise, that attracted his attention; Caddy looked about, and, on the spacious hearth, beheld something, that bore a rude similitude to a human figure!

Caddy was rather alarmed; and he uttered an exclamation, which seemed to rouse the object of his fears. It raised itself on its hands, and after staring Caddy full in the face, as he afterwards stated, began to uncoil itself, and, at length, rose, and stood, tolerably terrified, to judge from appearances, gazing at the odd-looking figure which Caddy cut, with his night-cap, spectacles, and pipe, on the large iron tripod. Cuddle now perceived that his companion, although of masculine frame, was arrayed in female habiliments, which were black as the exterior of an old stew-pan. It was Martha Jones, the scullion, a Welsh girl, who, whenever she could, indulged herself with a night's rest, in her clothes, on the warm hearth of Caddy Castle kitchen, instead of a comfortable bed in one of its turrets. On these occasions, she previously swept the embers from the hearth to the stone floor; as Caddy Cuddle had found them, on entering to smoke his pipe. She was indulged in these and a few other odd vagaries, on account of her excellence as an under-strapper to the cook, who frequently said, that she could, and would, do more work in one day, than a brace of the ordinary run of scullions did in a week. Martha possessed a pair of immense muscular arms, which resembled, in hue, the outer leaf of a frost-bitten red cabbage: her cheeks were of the same colour, when clean; and shone, after a recent ablution, as though they had been smeared with bees-wax and turpentine, and polished by means of a furniture-brush. Caddy Cuddle, in his subsequent description of Martha, said, that her hair was jetty as a black cart-horse's tail;—her lips pouted like a pair of black puddings; and her eye,—for truth to say, she had but one,—was as fiery and frightful as that of a Cyclops. Martha's features were, however, though large, remarkably well-formed; and more than one ploughman, in the neighbourhood, already sighed to make her a bride.

After Martha had gazed, for more than a minute, at Caddy Cuddle, who ceased to puff, and almost to breathe, from the moment the scullion had first begun to move, she burst out into a loud fit of laughter, in which she indulged for some time;—occasionally stirring and raking the embers on the floor together, to create a better blaze, in order that she might enjoy a full view of Caddy Cuddle, who was now quite as ludicrous in her estimation, as she had been terrible in his. Cuddle, at last, waxed wroth; threw his pipe on the floor; thrust one of his hands beneath the breast of his waistcoat; placed the other behind him, under the tail of his coat, which he considerably elevated by the action; and, in this, as he deemed, most imposing attitude, asked Martha how she dared to insult one of her master's guests in that manner.—“Stand aside,” continued he, “and let me withdraw to my chamber, woman!”

“Ooman!” cried the scullion, ceasing to laugh in an instant, and putting on rather an alarming frown:—“Ooman!—her name is Martha Jones, and no more a—Yes, her is a ooman, though, tat's true;—but Martha Jones is her name, and her will not be called ooman py nopoty, look you; that is what her will not—Ooman, inteet! Cot pless her! To live six long years in the kitchen of 'Squire Morgan, and one pesides, at 'Squire Caddy's, with a coot character, and her own aunt a laty, to be called 'ooman,' py a little man in a white night-cap! look you, I sall tie first!”

Caddy Cuddle's experience with the woman-kind, at our excellent friend, Jonathan Oldbuck ycleps the fair part of the creation, was very limited: he had read of heroines, in the Latin and Greek authors; spoken to a few demi-savages, when a boy, during his nautical adventures in foreign parts; occasionally chucked a dairymaid under the chin, when Bacchi plenus, in the reign of Caddy Caddy, at Caddy Castle; and had a few quarrels with his housekeeper, Mrs. Watermark. He was of opinion, from what he had witnessed, that a little flattery was of sovereign virtue with the sex; and, in order to escape from Martha's clutches, of which he felt in considerable awe, Caddy Cuddle essayed to soothe and allay the fever into which he had thrown the scullion by calling her a woman, with a few compliments. But, like all inexperienced persons, Caddy Cuddle could not hit the golden mean; he overstepped the mark so much, as to make honest Martha imagine that he really admired her. Caddy was not aware to what an extent his flattery was leading him: he plumed himself on his tact and discretion, when Martha's face began to relax into a smile; launched boldly into hyperbole, as soon as she curtsied at his compliments; and, in order to effect a dashing retreat, by a bold coup-de-main, attacked the enemy with a brigade of classical metaphors. The scullion could hold out no longer; she strode over the intervening embers; clutched Cuddle in her colossal grasp; and, in an instant, she was seated on the tripod which he had previously occupied, with the very alarmed little gentleman perched upon her knee.

The nose-night-mare was a trifle, in Cuddle's estimation, compared with what he now endured: he struggled, and roared with all his might-called Martha Jones, “Circe, Canidia, Scylla, Medea, Harpy, Polyphemus, and Witch of Edmonton,” without the least effect: she seemed to consider all these appellatives as endearing epithets, and kissed Caddy, so vehemently, that he thought his heart would break.

And it was not merely the warmth of the scullion's gratitude or affection—whichever it might be—that so discomposed Caddy Cuddle; Martha, in striding across the blazing embers, had ignited her greasy, and, consequently, very combustible apparel; and although she, in her raptures, seemed to be quite unconscious of the circumstance, Caddy Cuddle felt that the incipient flame had begun to singe his stockings. At length, Mistress Martha herself, became, somehow or other, cognizant of the fact; and she instantly threw Caddy Cuddle off her knee, shrieked like an infuriated maniac, snatched up the kitchen poker, and flourished it about Caddy's head, threatening him, by her actions, with immediate annihilation; as though he, good innocent man, had been the cause of the combustion.

Luckily for Caddy and the scullion, their tete-a-tete had been so boisterous, as to have alarmed the Castle; and the French cook, with two or three other men-servants, burst into the kitchen at a very critical instant both for Caddy and Miss Jones. A bucket of water, dexterously applied by the coachman, quenched the blazing petticoats, and somewhat allayed the fiery heart of the scullion; who retreated behind a pile of pots and kettles. While Caddy apostrophized the cook, Martha was loud in vituperation; the men-servants were noisy as Bedlamites; and the cuisinier himself, a recently imported Frenchman, imprecated, very loudly, in his own language,—consigning Caddy, the scullion, coachman, and his fellow-domestics, with all other the English people, past, present, and to come, in one lot, to the care of King Pluto and his sable adherents. Alarmed at the uproar, the guests at Caddy Castle came in by twos and threes, and, in a few minutes, the kitchen was thronged.

The Honourable Charles Caddy had scarcely closed his eyes, when the exclamations, from Caddy Cuddle and the scullion, reached his ears; the lovely Lady Letitia having amused herself by giving him a curtain lecture, of some two hours' duration, after they had retired, on his gross and most apparent gallantry to the plainest woman among the visitors at the Castle. He leaped out of bed, on hearing the noise, rather to escape from the dulcet abuse of his beautiful better-half, than from any strong feelings of interest or curiosity; and, as soon as he could make himself fit to be seen, hurried toward the place of declamation. There he found Caddy Cuddle, encircled by twenty or thirty people, (who, although they were his guests, and had dined with him, he positively did not know in their night-caps,) exclaiming, prodigiously, against the scullion, and endeavouring, by dint of vociferation, to prove that he was not at all to blame.

The Honourable Charles Caddy soon cleared the kitchen, when he found that nothing of consequence had occurred: the guests and servants retired; and Caddy Cuddle, after making several apologies and protestations of innocence, whatsoever the scullion might say of him, to his cousin, took up a candle, which somebody had left on the dresser, and marched off to the staircase. The Honourable Charles Caddy, who had detained the cook, now inquired who and what the creature of darkness was behind the saucepans; and while the cook was explaining, and Martha Jones was giving most excellent account of herself, Caddy Cuddle proceeded toward his bed-chamber. As he passed Lady Letitia's door, he knocked, and whispered, through the key-hole, a long string of apologies, in which he was interrupted by the lady's husband; who, after politely marshalling him to his room, made him a most ceremonious and courtly bow, and wished him a very excellent good night.

Caddy paced two or three times up and down the room, lamenting his misfortunes, and inwardly vowing never to quit his cottage for a castle again. He was so anxious not to disturb the household, that he neither stamped on the floor, nor groaned audibly; but rather “stepped a-tip-toe,” from the window to the fire-place, and thence to the window again, scarcely breathing as he moved. Finding but little relief from this state of constraint, he threw himself on the old chair that stood on the right-hand side of the bed, and began to recover a little of his usual good humour. He reviewed the circumstances which had happened during the night; and they now presented themselves in so droll a light to Caddy's mind, that he could not help smiling at his mishaps, and proceeded to unbutton his waistcoat All at once, the remembrance of the moving tapestry flashed across him, and his eye was instantly fixed on the figure that had alarmed him, previous to his retiring to rest “Surely,” thought he, “it could not have been imagination, for it moveth, even now, most palpably!—or my visionary organs are singularly impaired;—or these new spectacles lead me into very unpleasant errors. Would that I had never accepted them!” He removed the suspected offenders from his nose, wiped them carefully with the tail of his coat, and was going to put them on again, when a tall, stout-built person, slipped out from behind the arras, and advanced, with hasty steps, toward him, exclaiming, “Soho! friend Caddy Cuddle, you're come at last!”

“What, in the name of all that's good, art thou?” exclaimed Caddy, feeling surprised that he was not more frightened;—“who art thou?”

“Don't you know me, Caddy?” said the intruder, laying his hand on Cuddle's arm; who was very much pleased to feel that his visitor possessed the property of tangibility, and was, therefore, no ghost.—“Don't you know me, Caddy?” repeated the figure, in rather a reproachful tone.

“I dare say I should, sir, if you would permit me to put on my spectacles,—bad as they are,” replied Caddy; “and if you'd step back a yard or two, so as to get, as it were, at the proper focus of my sight:—suppose you take a chair.”

The tall man retreated some paces, and Caddy put on his spectacles:—“Now, sir,” said he, “we shall see:—Where are you?—Oh! I perceive—Why, bless my soul, sir—is it—can it be? Are these glasses really playing me tricks? or have I, in truth, leaped out of the frying-pan into the fire?—You surely can't be my very unfortunate and most respected friend, Caddy Caddy, of Caddy Castle!”

“The same,” replied the tall old man, with a sigh:—“Caddy Caddy, sir, of Caddy Castle.”

“And how the nipperkins did you break loose?” cried Cuddle, rising from the chair, and advancing two or three steps.

“Where now, where now, sir?” said Caddy Caddy, taking a gentle hold of Cuddle's arm:—“Where now, friend Cuddle?”

“Where?—why, to the door, doubtless!—Am I doomed to do nothing but alarm the castle?”

“Alarm the castle!” exclaimed Caddy Caddy; “are you out of your senses? why, they'd lock me up, man, if you did.”

“To be sure they would, and that's precisely what I want them to do.—My dear sir, I beg pardon; I wouldn't give offence I'm sure,—neither to you nor the people of the Castle; but I can't help it.—You must allow me to give the alarm.—I cannot submit to be shut up with a madman.”

“So, then, you join in the slander, do you?” said Caddy Caddy; “Cuddle, you hurt me to the soul!”

“Well, well,—my dear friend,—my respected friend,—I am sorry I said so;—it was but in joke.”

“Cuddle,” replied Caddy, “I was ruined by a joke:—somebody called me a madman, in jest; the rest of the world joined in the cry, though it was a fool who gave tongue; and, at last, they ran me down; proved, to their own satisfaction, that I was out of my wits, for being in a passion with, and turning upon, those who were hunting me. Nothing is more easy than to prove a man mad:—begin, by throwing a slur upon his mental sanity; watch him narrowly; view all he does with a jaundiced eye; rake up a score of facts, which occurred a year apart,—facts that are really frolics, freaks, whims, vagaries, or what you will, of the like nature; place them all together, and the business is done; you make as fine a picture of lunacy as a man would wish to look at. I assure you, Caddy Cuddle, I am no more a lunatic than you are,—take my word for it; so sit down and tune the fiddle.”

“Fiddle! what?—where?—which fiddle?”

“Oh! they allow me my fiddle; I should go crazy in earnest without that I left it behind the arras;—come—”

“Come! come where?”

“Come and fetch it,” said Caddy, dragging Cuddle toward the place from which he had issued.

“Nipperkins, cousin!” cried Cuddle, “go and get it yourself.”

“No, no,” replied the other, with a knowing look; “If I were to do so, you'd slip out, while my back was turned, and raise the Castle. I've had trouble enough to elude their vigilance, during the bustle, to lose my liberty so easily again. By-and-bye, we'll go down stairs together, and break open the cellar;—it's all my own, you know, if right was cock of the walk. I'm for gamocks and junketting, I forewarn you, and we'll have a jolly night of it.” By this time, Caddy had approached the arras, with Cuddle fast in his clutch; he stooped down, and drawing forth an old fiddle and stick, put them into the hands of Cuddle; who, as may readily be imagined, was by no means enamoured of his situation.

“Now,” said Caddy, “in the first place, my friend, play Rowley Waters. I have been trying to recollect the two last bars of it for these three years, but I cannot. Do you remember how beautifully my drunken old butler, Barnaby, used to troul it?”

“Ay, those were merry days, cousin,” said Cuddle; “poor Barnaby! his passion for ale laid him low, at last.”

“And many a time, before.”

“What! was it in time of your sanity? I beg pardon—Do you remember, then, our finding him, flat on his back, by the side of an untapped vat of the stoutest beer that ever Caddy Castle could boast?—Methinks I can see him now, with the gimlet in his hand, with which he had made an aperture in the cask, and sucked the blood of barley-corn, to such an abominable extent—the old beast did—that—”

“Don't asperse him, Cuddle,” said Caddy; “he put a peg in the hole before he died. He was the best of butlers; if he always drank a skinful, he never wasted a noggin. But now for Rowley Waters;—play up, and I'll jig.”

“No, no,” said Cuddle, laying down the instrument; “I'll do no such thing;—I won't, by Jupiter!—that's resolute.”

“Well, then, I'll play, and you shall dance.”

“Don't make me swear,” said Cuddle; “don't, Caddy Caddy!—What! raise a riot again?—You don't know, perhaps, that I have, already, sinned egregiously;—although, I protest, without the least evil intention. Besides, it would produce that very effect which you wish to—Eh! what was I saying?—Well, I don't mind if I do give you one tune.”

“Thank you, kindly, cousin Cuddle,” said Caddy, taking up the fiddle; “but you have raised an objection, which I admit to be of great weight. Oh! cousin Cuddle! Did you want to betray me?—I thank you for the hint:—we should, indeed, alarm my enemies. You overreached yourself, and saved me, cousin.”

“Well, I scorn a lie,” replied Cuddle; “such a thought as you suspect did occur to me; for I protest I am not very comfortable in your company, much as I respect you. Go back to your bed; do, pr'ythee now, be ruled—oblige me, cousin;—for your own sake, go.”

“Oh! what a thing self-interest is!” exclaimed Caddy; “'for your own sake, go,' quoth he, when it is solely for his! Cousin Cuddle, I shall not;—that's a plain answer for you.”

Caddy now placed a chair immediately opposite to that one on which he had found Cuddle sitting, on his entrance; he forced the alarmed little gentleman into his seat; and, in a few moments, resumed the conversation.

“Cuddle,” said he, looking very seriously, “as the world goes, I take you to be an honest man, and my friend. Now, I'll confide something to your ear that will perfectly astonish you. The people about me, don't know a syllable of the matter; I kept it snug from them; if I had not, they would have restricted me to one room, instead of allowing me the liberty and use of three.—Draw your chair close.—About three years' since, I broke loose.”

“So I heard,” said Cuddle, trembling as he remembered what had been related of Caddy's violence on that occasion. The great staircase of the better part of Caddy Castle, was circular, and surmounted by a magnificent dome, which lighted it completely down to the hall; Caddy had thrown himself over the banisters, and must, inevitably, have been dashed to pieces, had it not been for a scaffolding, which some workmen had erected within the circle of the staircase, for the purpose of repairing some part of the masonry, a few days before. Caddy fell among the people on the temporary platform, and was taken up, apparently, lifeless; but, in the course of a couple of months, his bodily health was restored,—his mental malady remaining nearly in its former state.

“You know,” continued Caddy, “of my leap; I gave them the slip, then, cousin, in good earnest I fell a terrific depth, and did the business at once. I recollect the moment of my near approach to the scaffolding, of the erection of which, I was ignorant; but, as it happened, it did not frustrate my intentions.”

Three Courses and a Dessert / Comprising Three Sets of Tales, West Country, Irish, and Legal; and a Melange

THREE COURSES AND A DESSERT:

ComprisingThree Sets Of Tales,West Country, Irish, And Legal, And A Melange

With Fifty Illustrations By GEORGE CRUIKSHANK

1867.

"Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table."As you like it.

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INDUCTION.

FIRST COURSE: WEST COUNTRY CHRONICLES.

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INTRODUCTION.

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SIR MATHEW ALE.

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THE COUNTERPART COUSINS.

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CADDY CUDDLE.

Comprising
Three Sets Of Tales,
West Country, Irish, And Legal, And A Melange

"Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table."
As you like it.