Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities

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Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities

Robert Surtees

CONTENTS

I. THE SWELL AND THE SURREY
II. THE YORKSHIREMAN AND THE SURREY
III. SURREY SHOOTING: MR. JORROCKS IN TROUBLE
IV. MR. JORROCKS AND THE SURREY STAGHOUNDS
V. THE TURF: MR. JORROCKS AT NEWMARKET
VI. A WEEK AT CHELTENHAM: THE CHELTENHAM DANDY
VII. AQUATICS: MR. JORROCKS AT MARGATE
VIII. THE ROAD: ENGLISH AND FRENCH
IX. MR. JORROCKS IN PARIS
X. SPORTING IN FRANCE
XI. A RIDE TO BRIGHTON ON "THE AGE"
XII. MR. JORROCKS'S DINNER PARTY
XIII. THE DAY AFTER THE FEAST: AN EPISODE BY THE YORKSHIREMAN

I. THE SWELL AND THE SURREY

What true-bred city sportsman has not in his day put off the most urgent business--perhaps his marriage, or even the interment of his rib--that he might "brave the morn" with that renowned pack, the Surrey subscription foxhounds? Lives there, we would ask, a thoroughbred, prime, bang-up, slap-dash, break-neck, out-and-out artist, within three miles of the Monument, who has not occasionally "gone a good 'un" with this celebrated pack? And shall we, the bard of Eastcheap, born all deeds of daring to record, shall we, who so oft have witnessed--nay, shared--the hardy exploits of our fellow-cits, shall we sit still, and never cease the eternal twirl of our dexter around our sinister thumb, while other scribes hand down to future ages the paltry feats of beardless Meltonians, and try to shame old Father Thames himself with muddy Whissendine's foul stream? Away! thou vampire, Indolence, that suckest the marrow of imagination, and fattenest on the cream of idea ere yet it float on the milk of reflection. Hence! slug-begotten hag, thy power is gone--the murky veil thou'st drawn o'er memory's sweetest page is rent!

Harp of Eastcheap, awake!

Our thoughts hark back to the cover-side, and our heart o'erflows with recollections of the past, when life rode the pace through our veins, and the bark of the veriest mongrel, or the bray of the sorriest costermonger's sorriest "Jerusalem," were far more musical sounds than Paganini's pizzicatos or Catalani's clamorous caterwaulings.

And, thou, Goddess of the Silver Bow--chaste Diana--deign to become the leading star of our lucubrations; come perch upon our grey goose quill; shout in our ear the maddening Tally-ho! and ever and anon give a salutary "refresher" to our memory with thy heaven-wrought spurs--those spurs old Vulcan forged when in his maddest mood--whilst we relate such feats of town-born youths and city squires, as shall "harrow up the souls" of milk-sop Melton's choicest sons, and "fright their grass-galloping garrons from their propriety." But gently, Pegasus!--Here again, boys, and "let's to business," as they say on 'Change.

'Twere almost needless to inform our readers, that such portion of a county as is hunted by any one pack of hounds is technically denominated their country; and of all countries under the sun, that of the Surrey subscription foxhounds undoubtedly bears the bell. This superiority arises from the peculiar nature of the soil--wretched starvation stuff most profusely studded with huge sharp flints--the abundance of large woods, particularly on the Kent side, and the range of mountainous hills that run directly through the centre, which afford accommodation to the timid, and are unknown in most counties and unequalled in any.

One of the most striking features in the aspect of this chosen region of fox-hunting, is the quiet easy manner in which the sportsmen take the thing. On they go--now trotting gently over the flints--now softly ambling along the grassy ridge of some stupendous hill--now quietly following each other in long-drawn files, like geese, through some close and deep ravine, or interminable wood, which re-echoes to their never-ceasing holloas--every man shouting in proportion to the amount of his subscription, until day is made horrible with their yelling. There is no pushing, jostling, rushing, cramming, or riding over one another; no jealousy, discord, or daring; no ridiculous foolhardy feats; but each man cranes and rides, and rides and cranes in a style that would gladden the eye of a director of an insurance office.

The members of the Surrey are the people that combine business with pleasure, and even in the severest run can find time for sweet discourse, and talk about the price of stocks or stockings. "Yooi wind him there, good dog, yooi wind him."--"Cottons is fell."--"Hark to Cottager! Hark!"--"Take your bill at three months, or give you three and a half discount for cash." "Eu in there, eu in, Cheapside, good dog."--"Don't be in a hurry, sir, pray. He may be in the empty casks behind the cooper's. Yooi, try for him, good bitch. Yooi, push him out."--"You're not going down that bank, surely sir? Why, it's almost perpendicular! For God's sake, sir, take care--remember you are not insured. Ah! you had better get off--here, let me hold your nag, and when you're down you can catch mine;--that's your sort but mind he doesn't break the bridle. He won't run away, for he knows I've got some sliced carrots in my pocket to reward him if he does well.--Thank you, sir, and now for a leg up--there we are--that's your sort--I'll wait till you are up also, and we'll be off together."

It is this union of the elegant courtesies and business of life with the energetic sports of the field, that constitutes the charm of Surrey hunting; and who can wonder that smoke-dried cits, pent up all the week, should gladly fly from their shops to enjoy a day's sport on a Saturday? We must not, however, omit to express a hope that young men, who have their way to make in the world, may not be led astray by its allurements. It is all very well for old-established shopkeepers "to do a bit of pleasure" occasionally, but the apprentice or journeyman, who understands his duties and the tricks of his trade, will never be found capering in the hunting field. He will feel that his proper place is behind the counter; and while his master is away enjoying the pleasures of the chase, he can prig as much "pewter" from the till as will take both himself and his lass to Sadler's Wells theatre, or any other place she may choose to appoint.

But to return to the Surrey. The town of Croydon, nine miles from the standard in Cornhill, is the general rendezvous of the gallant sportsmen. It is the principal market town in the eastern division of the county of Surrey; and the chaw-bacons who carry the produce of their acres to it, instead of to the neighbouring village of London, retain much of their pristine barbarity. The town furnishes an interesting scene on a hunting morning, particularly on a Saturday. At an early hour, groups of grinning cits may be seen pouring in from the London side, some on the top of Cloud's coaches,[1] some in taxed carts, but the greater number mounted on good serviceable-looking nags, of the invaluable species, calculated for sport or business, "warranted free from vice, and quiet both to ride and in harness"; some few there are, who, with that kindness and considerate attention which peculiarly mark this class of sportsmen, have tacked a buggy to their hunter, and given a seat to a friend, who leaning over the back of the gig, his jocund phiz turned towards his fidus Achates, leads his own horse behind, listening to the discourse of "his ancient," or regaling him "with sweet converse"; and thus they onward jog, until the sign of the "Greyhound," stretching quite across the main street, greets their expectant optics, and seems to forbid their passing the open portal below. In they wend then, and having seen their horses "sorted," and the collar marks (as much as may be) carefully effaced by the shrewd application of a due quantity of grease and lamp-black, speed in to "mine host" and order a sound repast of the good things of this world; the which to discuss, they presently apply themselves with a vigour that indicates as much a determination to recruit fatigue endured, as to lay in stock against the effects of future exertion. Meanwhile the bustle increases; sportsmen arrive by the score, fresh tables are laid out, covered with "no end" of vivers; and towards the hour of nine, may be heard to perfection, that pleasing assemblage of sounds issuing from the masticatory organs of a number of men steadfastly and studiously employed in the delightful occupation of preparing their mouthfuls for deglutition. "O noctes coenæque Deûm," said friend Flaccus. Oh, hunting breakfasts! say we. Where are now the jocund laugh, the repartee, the oft-repeated tale, the last debate? As our sporting contemporary, the _Quarterly_, said, when describing the noiseless pursuit of old reynard by the Quorn: "Reader, there is no crash now, and not much music." It is the tinker that makes a great noise over a little work, but, at the pace these men are eating, there is no time for babbling. So, gentle lector, there is now no leisure for bandying compliments, 'tis your small eater alone who chatters o'er his meals; your true-born sportsman is ever a silent and, consequently, an assiduous grubber. True it is that occasionally space is found between mouthfuls to vociferate "WAITER!" in a tone that requires not repetition; and most sonorously do the throats of the assembled eaters re-echo the sound; but this is all--no useless exuberance of speech--no, the knife or fork is directed towards what is wanted, nor needs there any more expressive intimation of the applicant's wants.

[Footnote 1: The date of this description, it must be remembered, is put many years back.]

At length the hour of ten approaches; bills are paid, pocket-pistols filled, sandwiches stowed away, horses accoutred, and our bevy straddle forth into the town, to the infinite gratification of troops of dirty-nosed urchins, who, for the last hour, have been peeping in at the windows, impatiently watching for the _exeunt_ of our worthies.--They mount, and away--trot, trot--bump, bump--trot, trot--bump, bump--over Addington Heath, through the village, and up the hill to Hayes Common, which having gained, spurs are applied, and any slight degree of pursiness that the good steeds may have acquired by standing at livery in Cripplegate, or elsewhere, is speedily pumped out of them by a smart brush over the turf, to the "Fox," at Keston, where a numerous assemblage of true sportsmen patiently await the usual hour for throwing off. At length time being called, say twenty minutes to eleven, and Mr. Jorrocks, Nodding Homer, and the principal subscribers having cast up, the hounds approach the cover. "Yooi in there!" shouts Tom Hills, who has long hunted this crack pack; and crack! crack! crack! go the whips of some scores of sportsmen. "Yelp, yelp, yelp," howl the hounds; and in about a quarter of an hour Tom has not above four or five couple at his heels. This number being a trifle, Tom runs his prad at a gap in the fence by the wood-side; the old nag goes well at it, but stops short at the critical moment, and, instead of taking the ditch, bolts and wheels round. Tom, however, who is "large in the boiling pieces," as they say at Whitechapel, is prevented by his weight from being shaken out of his saddle; and, being resolved to take no denial, he lays the crop of his hunting-whip about the head of his beast, and runs him at the same spot a second time, with an _obligato_ accompaniment of his spur-rowels, backed by a "curm along then!" issued in such a tone as plainly informs his quadruped he is in no joking humour. These incentives succeed in landing Tom and his nag in the wished-for spot, when, immediately, the wood begins to resound with shouts of "Yoicks True-bo-y, yoicks True-bo-y, yoicks push him up, yoicks wind him!" and the whole pack begin to work like good 'uns. Occasionally may be heard the howl of some unfortunate hound that has been caught in a fox trap, or taken in a hare snare; and not unfrequently the discordant growls of some three or four more, vociferously quarrelling over the venerable remains of some defunct rabbit. "Oh, you rogues!" cries Mr. Jorrocks, a cit rapturously fond of the sport. After the lapse of half an hour the noise in the wood for a time increases audibly. 'Tis Tom chastising the gourmands. Another quarter of an hour, and a hound that has finished his coney bone slips out of the wood, and takes a roll upon the greensward, opining, no doubt, that such pastime is preferable to scratching his hide among brambles in the covers. "Hounds have no right to opine," opines the head whipper-in; so clapping spurs into his prad, he begins to pursue the delinquent round the common, with "Markis, Markis! what are you at, Markis? get into cover, Markis!" But "it's no go"; Marquis creeps through a hedge, and "grins horribly a ghastly smile" at his ruthless tormentor, who wends back, well pleased at having had an excuse for taking "a bit gallop"! Half an hour more slips away, and some of the least hasty of our cits begin to wax impatient, in spite of the oft-repeated admonition, "don't be in a hurry!" At length a yokel pops out of the cover, and as soon as he has recovered breath, informs the field that he has been "a-hollorin' to 'em for half an hour," and that the fox had "gone away for Tatsfield, 'most as soon as ever the 'oounds went into 'ood."

All is now hurry-scurry--girths are tightened--reins gathered up--half-munched sandwiches thrust into the mouth--pocket-pistols applied to--coats comfortably buttoned up to the throat; and, these preparations made, away goes the whole field, "coolly and fairly," along the road to Leaves Green and Crown Ash Hill--from which latter spot, the operations of the pack in the bottom may be comfortably and securely viewed--leaving the whips to flog as many hounds out of cover as they can, and Tom to entice as many more as are willing to follow the "twang, twang, twang" of his horn.

And now, a sufficient number of hounds having been seduced from the wood, forth sallies "Tummas," and making straight for the spot where our yokel's "mate" stands leaning on his plough-stilts, obtains from him the exact latitude and longitude of the spot where reynard broke through the hedge. To this identical place is the pack forthwith led; and, no sooner have they reached it, than the wagging of their sterns clearly shows how genuine is their breed. Old Strumpet, at length, first looking up in Tom's face for applause, ventures to send forth a long-drawn howl, which, coupled with Tom's screech, setting the rest agog, away they all go, like beans; and the wind, fortunately setting towards Westerham, bears the melodious sound to the delighted ears of our "roadsters," who, forthwith catching the infection, respond with deafening shouts and joyous yells, set to every key, and disdaining the laws of harmony. Thus, what with Tom's horn, the holloaing of the whips, and the shouts of the riders, a very pretty notion may be formed of what Virgil calls:

"Clamorque virûm, clangorque tubarum."

A terrible noise is the result!

At the end of nine minutes or so, the hounds come to fault in the bottom, below the blacksmith's, at Crown Ash Hill, and the fox has a capital chance; in fact, they have changed for the blacksmith's tom cat, which rushed out before them, and finding their mistake, return at their leisure. This gives the most daring of the field, on the eminence, an opportunity of descending to view the sport more closely; and being assembled in the bottom, each congratulates his neighbour on the excellent condition and stanchness of the hounds, and the admirable view that has been afforded them of their peculiar style of hunting. At this interesting period, a "regular swell" from Melton Mowbray, unknown to everyone except his tailor, to whom he owes a long tick, makes his appearance and affords abundance of merriment for our sportsmen. He is just turned out of the hands of his valet, and presents the very beau-ideal of his caste--"quite the lady," in fact. His hat is stuck on one side, displaying a profusion of well-waxed ringlets; a corresponding infinity of whisker, terminating at the chin, there joins an enormous pair of moustaches, which give him the appearance of having caught the fox himself and stuck its brush below his nose. His neck is very stiff; and the exact Jackson-like fit of his coat, which almost nips him in two at the waist, and his superlatively well-cleaned leather Andersons,[2] together with the perfume and the general puppyism of his appearance, proclaim that he is a "swell" of the very first water, and one that a Surrey sportsman would like to buy at his own price and sell at the other's. In addition to this, his boots, which his "fellow" has just denuded from a pair of wash-leather covers, are of the finest, brightest, blackest patent leather imaginable; the left one being the identical boot by which Warren's monkey shaved himself, while the right is the one at which the game-cock pecked, mistaking its own shadow for an opponent, the mark of its bill being still visible above the instep; and the tops--whose pampered appetites have been fed on champagne--are of the most delicate cream-colour, the whole devoid of mud or speck. The animal he bestrides is no less calculated than himself to excite the risible faculties of the field, being a sort of mouse colour, with dun mane and tail, got by Nicolo, out of a flibbertigibbet mare, and he stands seventeen hands and an inch. His head is small and blood-like, his girth a mere trifle, and his legs, very long and spidery, of course without any hair at the pasterns to protect them from the flints; his whole appearance bespeaking him fitter to run for half-mile hunters' stakes at Croxton Park or Leicester, than contend for foxes' brushes in such a splendid country as the Surrey. There he stands, with his tail stuck tight between his legs, shivering and shaking for all the world as if troubled with a fit of ague. And well he may, poor beast, for--oh, men of Surrey, London, Kent, and Middlesex, hearken to my word--on closer inspection he proves to have been shaved!!![3]

[Footnote 2: Anderson, of South Audley Street, is, or was, a famous breeches-maker.]

[Footnote 3: Shaving was in great vogue at Melton some seasons back. It was succeeded by clipping, and clipping by singeing.]

After a considerable time spent in casting to the right, the left, and the rear, "True-bouy" chances to take a fling in advance, and hitting upon the scent, proclaims it with his wonted energy, which drawing all his brethren to the spot, they pick it slowly over some brick-fields and flint-beds, to an old lady's flower-garden, through which they carry it with a surprising head into the fields beyond, when they begin to fall into line, and the sportsmen doing the same--"one at a time and it will last the longer"--"Tummas" tootles his horn, the hunt is up, and away they all rattle at "Parliament pace," as the hackney-coachmen say.

Our swell, who flatters himself he can "ride a few," according to the fashion of his country, takes up a line of his own, abreast of the leading hounds, notwithstanding the oft vociferated cry of "Hold hard, sir!" "Pray, hold hard, sir!" "For God's sake, hold hard, sir!" "G--d d--n you, hold hard, sir!" "Where the h--ll are you going to, sir?" and other familiar inquiries and benedictions, with which a stranger is sometimes greeted, who ventures to take a look at a strange pack of hounds.

In the meantime the fox, who has often had a game at romps with his pursuers, being resolved this time to give them a tickler, bears straight away for Westerham, to the infinite satisfaction of the "hill folks," who thus have an excellent opportunity of seeing the run without putting their horses to the trouble of "rejoicing in their strength, or pawing in the valley." But who is so fortunate as to be near the scene of action in this second scurry, almost as fast as the first? Our fancy supplies us, and there not being many, we will just initialise them all, and let he whom the cap fits put it on.

If we look to the left, nearly abreast of the three couple of hounds that are leading by some half mile or so, we shall see "Swell"--like a monkey on a giraffe--striding away in the true Leicestershire style; the animal contracting its stride after every exertion in pulling its long legs out of the deep and clayey soil, until the Bromley barber, who has been quilting his mule along at a fearful rate, and in high dudgeon at anyone presuming to exercise his profession upon a dumb brute, overtakes him, and in the endeavour to pass, lays it into his mule in a style that would insure him rotatory occupation at Brixton for his spindles, should any member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals witness his proceedings; while his friend and neighbour old B----, the tinker, plies his little mare with the Brummagems, to be ready to ride over "Swell" the instant the barber gets him down. On the right of the leading hounds are three crack members of the Surrey, Messrs. B--e, S--bs, and B--l, all lads who can go; while a long way in the rear of the body of the pack are some dozen, who, while they sat on the hills, thought they could also, but who now find out their mistake. Down Windy Lane, a glimpse of a few red coats may be caught passing the gaps and weak parts of the fence, among whom we distinctly recognise the worthy master of the pack, followed by Jorrocks, with his long coat-laps floating in the breeze, who thinking that "catching-time" must be near at hand, and being dearly fond of blood, has descended from his high station to witness the close of the scene. "Vot a pace! and vot a country!" cries the grocer, standing high in his stirrups, and bending over the neck of his chestnut as though he were meditating a plunge over his head; "how they stick to him! vot a pack! by Jove they are at fault again. Yooi, Pilgrim! Yooi, Warbler, ma load! (lad). Tom, try down the hedge-row." "Hold your jaw, Mr. J----," cries Tom, "you are always throwing that red rag of yours. I wish you would keep your potato-trap shut. See! you've made every hound throw up, and it's ten to one that ne'er a one among 'em will stoop again." "Yonder he goes," cries a cock of the old school, who used to hunt with Colonel Jolliffe's hounds, and still sports the long blue surtout lined with orange, yellow-ochre unmentionables, and mahogany-coloured knee-caps, with mother-of-pearl buttons. "Yonder he goes among the ship (sheep), for a thousand! see how the skulking waggabone makes them scamper." At this particular moment a shrill scream is heard at the far end of a long shaw, and every man pushes on to the best of his endeavour. "Holloo o-o-u, h'loo o-o-u, h'loo--o-o-u, gone away! gone away! forward! forrard! hark back! hark forrard! hark forrard! hark back!" resounds from every mouth. "He's making for the 'oods beyond Addington, and we shall have a rare teaser up these hills," cries Jorrocks, throwing his arms round his horse's neck as he reaches the foot of them.--"D--n your hills," cries "Swell," as he suddenly finds himself sitting on the hindquarters of his horse, his saddle having slipped back for want of a breastplate,--"I wish the hills had been piled on your back, and the flints thrust down your confounded throat, before I came into such a cursed provincial." "Haw, haw, haw!" roars a Croydon butcher. "What don't 'e like it, sir, eh? too sharp to be pleasant, eh?--Your nag should have put on his boots before he showed among us."

"He's making straight for Fuller's farm," exclaims a thirsty veteran on reaching the top, "and I'll pull up and have a nip of ale, please God." "Hang your ale," cries a certain sporting cheesemonger, "you had better come out with a barrel of it tacked to your horse's tail."--"Or 'unt on a steam-engine," adds his friend the omnibus proprietor, "and then you can brew as you go." "We shall have the Croydon Canal," cries Mr. H----n, of Tottenham, who knows every flint in the country, "and how will you like that, my hearties?" "Curse the Croydon Canal," bawls the little Bromley barber, "my mule can swim like a soap-bladder, and my toggery can't spoil, thank God!"

The prophecy turns up. Having skirted Fuller's farm, the villain finds no place to hide; and in two minutes, or less, the canal appears in view. It is full of craft, and the locks are open, but there is a bridge about half a mile to the right. "If my horse can do nothing else he can jump this," cries "Swell," as he gathers him together, and prepares for the effort. He hardens his heart and goes at it full tilt, and the leggy animal lands him three yards on the other side. "Curse this fellow," cries Jorrocks, grinning with rage as he sees "Swell" skimming through the air like a swallow on a summer's eve, "he'll have a laugh at the Surrey, for ever and ever, Amen. Oh, dear! oh, dear! I wish I durst leap it. What shall I do? Here bargee," cries he to a bargeman, "lend us a help over and I'll give you ninepence." The bargeman takes him at his word, and getting the vessel close to the water's edge, Jorrocks has nothing to do but ride in, and, the opposite bank being accommodating, he lands without difficulty. Ramming his spurs into his nag, he now starts after "Swell," who is sailing away with a few couple of hounds that took the canal; the body of the pack and all the rest of the field--except the Bromley barber, who is now floundering in the water--having gone round to the bridge.

The country is open, the line being across commons and along roads, so that Jorrocks, who is not afraid of "the pace" so long as there is no leaping, has a pretty good chance with "Swell." The scene now shifts. On turning out of a lane, along which they have just rattled, a fence of this description appears: The bottom part is made of flints, and the upper part of mud, with gorse stuck along the top, and there is a gutter on each side. Jorrocks, seeing that a leap is likely, hangs astern, and "Swell," thinking to shake off his only opponent, and to have a rare laugh at the Surrey when he gets back to Melton, puts his nag at it most manfully, who, though somewhat blown, manages to get his long carcass over, but, unfortunately alighting on a bed of flints on the far side, cuts a back sinew, and "Swell" measures his length on the headland. Jorrocks then pulls up.

The tragedy of George Barnwell ends with a death, and we are happy in being able to gratify our readers with a similar entertainment. Already have the best-mounted men in the field attained the summit of one of the Mont Blancs of the country, when on looking down the other side of the "mountain's brow," they, to their infinite astonishment, espy at some distance our "Swell" dismounted and playing at "pull devil, pull baker" with the hounds, whose discordant bickerings rend the skies. "Whoo-hoop!" cries one; "whoo-hoop!" responds another; "whoo-hoop!" screams a third; and the contagion spreading, and each man dismounting, they descend the hill with due caution, whoo-hooping, hallooing, and congratulating each other on the splendour of the run, interspersed with divers surmises as to what mighty magic had aided the hounds in getting on such good terms with the warmint, and exclamations at the good fortune of the stranger, in being able (by nicking,[4] and the fox changing his line) to get in at the finish.

[Footnote 4: A stranger never rides straight if he beats the members of the hunt.]

And now some dozens of sportsmen quietly ambling up to the scene of action, view with delight (alone equalled by their wonder at so unusual and unexpected an event) the quarrels of the hounds, as they dispute with each other the possession of their victim's remains, when suddenly a gentleman, clad in a bright green silk-velvet shooting-coat, with white leathers, and Hessian boots with large tassels, carrying his Joe Manton on his shoulder, issues from an adjoining coppice, and commences a loud complaint of the "unhandsome conduct of the gentlemen's 'ounds in devouring the 'are (hare) which he had taken so much pains to shoot." Scarcely are these words out of his mouth than the whole hunt, from Jorrocks downwards, let drive such a rich torrent of abuse at our unfortunate _chasseur_, that he is fain to betake himself to his heels, leaving them undisputed masters of the field.

The visages of our sportsmen become dismally lengthened on finding that their fox has been "gathered unto his fathers" by means of hot lead and that villainous saltpetre "digged out of the bowels of the harmless earth"; some few, indeed, there are who are bold enough to declare that the pack has actually made a meal of a hare, and that their fox is snugly earthed in the neighbouring cover. However, as there are no "reliquias Danaum," to prove or disprove this assertion, Tom Hills, having an eye to the cap-money, ventures to give it as his opinion, that pug has fairly yielded to his invincible pursuers, without having "dropped to shot." This appearing to give very general satisfaction, the first whip makes no scruple of swearing that he saw the hounds pull him down fairly; and Peckham, drawing his mouth up on one side, with his usual intellectual grin, takes a similar affidavit. The Bromley barber too, anxious to have it to say that he has for once been in at the death of a fox, vows by his beard that he saw the "varmint" lathered in style; and these protestations being received with clamorous applause, and everyone being pleased to have so unusual an event to record to his admiring spouse, agrees that a fox has not only been killed, but killed in a most sportsmanlike, workmanlike, businesslike manner; and long and loud are the congratulations, great is the increased importance of each man's physiognomy, and thereupon they all lug out their half-crowns for Tom Hills.

In the meantime our "Swell" lays hold of his nag--who is sorely damaged with the flints, and whose wind has been pretty well pumped out of him by the hills--and proceeds to lead him back to Croydon, inwardly promising himself for the future most studiously to avoid the renowned county of Surrey, its woods, its barbers, its mountains, and its flints, and to leave more daring spirits to overcome the difficulties it presents; most religiously resolving, at the same time, to return as speedily as possible to his dear Leicestershire, there to amble o'er the turf, and fancy himself an "angel on horseback." The story of the country mouse, who must needs see the town, occurs forcibly to his recollection, and he exclaims aloud:

"me sylva, cavusque
Tutus ab insidiis tenui solabitur ervo."

On overhearing which, Mr. Jorrocks hurries back to his brother subscribers, and informs them, very gravely, that the stranger is no less a personage than "Prince Matuchevitz, the Russian ambassador and minister plenipotentiary extraordinary," whereupon the whole field join in wishing him safe back in Russia--or anywhere else--and wonder at his incredible assurance in supposing that he could cope with THE SURREY HUNT.

II. THE YORKSHIREMAN AND THE SURREY

It is an axiom among fox-hunters that the hounds they individually hunt with are the best--compared with them all others are "slow."

Of this species of pardonable egotism, Mr. Jorrocks--who in addition to the conspicuous place he holds in the Surrey Hunt, as shown in the preceding chapter, we should introduce to our readers as a substantial grocer in St. Botolph's Lane, with an elegant residence in Great Coram Street, Russell Square--has his full, if not rather more than his fair share. Vanity, however, is never satisfied without display, and Mr. Jorrocks longed for a customer before whom he could exhibit the prowess of his[5] pack.

[Footnote 5: Subscribers, speaking to strangers, always talk of the hounds as their own.]

Chance threw in his way a young Yorkshireman, who frequently appearing in subsequent pages, we may introduce as a loosish sort of hand, up to anything in the way of a lark, but rather deficient in cash--a character so common in London, as to render further description needless.

Now it is well known that a Yorkshireman, like a dragoon, is nothing without his horse, and if he does understand anything better than racing--it is hunting. Our readers will therefore readily conceive that a Yorkshireman is more likely to be astonished at the possibility of fox-hunting from London, than captivated by the country, or style of turn-out; and in truth, looking at it calmly and dispassionately, in our easy-chair drawn to a window which overlooks the cream of the grazing grounds in the Vale of White Horse, it does strike us with astonishment, that such a thing as a fox should be found within a day's ride of the suburbs. The very idea seems preposterous, for one cannot but associate the charms of a "find" with the horrors of "going to ground" in an omnibus, or the fox being headed by a great Dr. Eady placard, or some such monstrosity. Mr. Mayne,[6] to be sure, has brought racing home to every man's door, but fox-hunting is not quite so tractable a sport. But to our story.

[Footnote 6: The promoter of the Hippodrome, near Bayswater--a speculation that soon came to grief.]

It was on a nasty, cold, foggy, dark, drizzling morning in the month of February, that the Yorkshireman, having been offered a "mount" by Mr. Jorrocks, found himself shivering under the Piazza in Covent Garden about seven o'clock, surrounded by cabs, cabbages, carrots, ducks, dollys, and drabs of all sorts, waiting for his horse and the appearance of the friend who had seduced him into the extraordinary predicament of attiring himself in top-boots and breeches in London. After pacing up and down some minutes, the sound of a horse's hoofs were heard turning down from Long Acre, and reaching the lamp-post at the corner of James Street, his astonished eyes were struck with the sight of a man in a capacious, long, full-tailed, red frock coat reaching nearly to his spurs, with mother-of-pearl buttons, with sporting devices--which afterwards proved to be foxes, done in black--brown shag breeches, that would have been spurned by the late worthy master of the Hurworth,[7] and boots, that looked for all the world as if they were made to tear up the very land and soil, tied round the knees with pieces of white tape, the flowing ends of which dangled over the mahogany-coloured tops. Mr. Jorrocks--whose dark collar, green to his coat, and _tout ensemble_, might have caused him to be mistaken for a mounted general postman--was on a most becoming steed--a great raking, raw-boned chestnut, with a twisted snaffle in his mouth, decorated with a faded yellow silk front, a nose-band, and an ivory ring under his jaws, for the double purpose of keeping the reins together and Jorrocks's teeth in his head--the nag having flattened the noses and otherwise damaged the countenances of his two previous owners, who had not the knack of preventing him tossing his head in their faces. The saddle--large and capacious--made on the principle of the impossibility of putting a round of beef upon a pudding plate--was "spick and span new," as was an enormous hunting-whip, whose iron-headed hammer he clenched in a way that would make the blood curdle in one's veins, to see such an instrument in the hands of a misguided man.

[Footnote 7: The late Mr. Wilkinson, commonly called "Matty Wilkinson," master of the Hurworth foxhounds, was a rigid adherent of the "d----n-all-dandy" school of sportsmen.]

"Punctuality is the politeness of princes," said Mr. Jorrocks, raising a broad-brimmed, lowish-crowned hat, as high as a green hunting-cord which tackled it to his yellow waistcoat by a fox's tooth would allow, as he came upon the Yorkshireman at the corner. "My soul's on fire and eager for the chase! By heavens, I declare I've dreamt of nothing else all night, and the worst of it is, that in a par-ox-ism of delight, when I thought I saw the darlings running into the warmint, I brought Mrs. J---- such a dig in the side as knocked her out of bed, and she swears she'll go to Jenner, and the court for the protection of injured ribs! But come--jump up--where's your nag? Binjimin, you blackguard, where are you? The fog is blinding me, I declare! Binjimin, I say! Binjimin! you willain, where are you?"

"Here, sir! coming!" responded a voice from the bottom of one of the long mugs at a street breakfast stall, which the fog almost concealed from their view, and presently an urchin in a drab coat and blue collar came towing a wretched, ewe-necked, hungry-looking, roan rosinante along from where he had been regaling himself with a mug of undeniable bohea, sweetened with a composition of brown sugar and sand.

"Now be after getting up," said Jorrocks, "for time and the Surrey 'ounds wait for no man. That's not a werry elegant tit, but still it'll carry you to Croydon well enough, where I'll put you on a most undeniable bit of 'orse-flesh--a reg'lar clipper. That's a hack--what they calls three-and-sixpence a side, but I only pays half a crown. Now, Binjimin, cut away home, and tell Batsay to have dinner ready at half-past five to a minute, and to be most particular in doing the lamb to a turn."

The Yorkshireman having adjusted himself in the old flat-flapped hack saddle, and got his stirrups let out from "Binjimin's" length to his own, gathered up the stiff, weather-beaten reins, gave the animal a touch with his spurs, and fell into the rear of Mr. Jorrocks. The morning appeared to be getting worse. Instead of the grey day-dawn of the country, when the thin transparent mist gradually rises from the hills, revealing an unclouded landscape, a dense, thick, yellow fog came rolling in masses along the streets, obscuring the gas lights, and rendering every step one of peril. It could be both eat and felt, and the damp struck through their clothes in the most summary manner. "This is bad," said Mr. Jorrocks, coughing as he turned the corner by Drury Lane, making for Catherine Street, and upset an early breakfast and periwinkle stall, by catching one corner of the fragile fabric with his toe, having ridden too near to the pavement. "Where are you for now? and bad luck to ye, ye boiled lobster!" roared a stout Irish wench, emerging from a neighbouring gin-palace on seeing the dainty viands rolling in the street. "Cut away!" cried Jorrocks to his friend, running his horse between one of George Stapleton's dust-carts and a hackney-coach, "or the Philistines will be upon us." The fog and crowd concealed them, but "Holloa! mind where you're going, you great haw-buck!" from a buy-a-hearth-stone boy, whose stock-in-trade Jorrocks nearly demolished, as he crossed the corner of Catherine Street before him, again roused his vigilance. "The deuce be in the fog," said he, "I declare I can't see across the Strand. It's as dark as a wolf's mouth.--Now where are you going to with that meazly-looking cab of yours?--you've nearly run your shafts into my 'oss's ribs!" cried he to a cabman who nearly upset him. The Strand was kept alive by a few slip-shod housemaids, on their marrow-bones, washing the doorsteps, or ogling the neighbouring pot-boy on his morning errand for the pewters. Now and then a crazy jarvey passed slowly by, while a hurrying mail, with a drowsy driver and sleeping guard, rattled by to deliver their cargo at the post office. Here and there appeared one of those beings, who like the owl hide themselves by day, and are visible only in the dusk. Many of them appeared to belong to the other world. Poor, puny, ragged, sickly-looking creatures, that seemed as though they had been suckled and reared with gin. "How different," thought the Yorkshireman to himself, "to the fine, stout, active labourer one meets at an early hour on a hunting morning in the country!" His reverie was interrupted on arriving opposite the _Morning Chronicle_ office, by the most discordant yells that ever issued from human beings, and on examining the quarter from whence they proceeded, a group of fifty or a hundred boys, or rather little old men, were seen with newspapers in their hands and under their arms, in all the activity of speculation and exchange. "A clean _Post_ for Tuesday's _Times_!" bellowed one. "I want the _Hurl_! (Herald) for the _Satirist_!" shouted another. "Bell's _Life_ for the _Bull_! _The Spectator_ for the _Sunday Times_!"

The approach of our sportsmen was the signal for a change of the chorus, and immediately Jorrocks was assailed with "A hunter! a hunter! crikey, a hunter! My eyes! there's a gamecock for you! Vot a beauty! Vere do you turn out to-day? Vere's the stag? Don't tumble off, old boy! 'Ave you got ever a rope in your pocket? Take Bell's _Life in London_, vot contains all the sporting news of the country! Vot a vip the gemman's got! Vot a precious basternadering he could give us--my eyes, vot a swell!--vot a shocking bad hat!_[8]--vot shocking bad breeches!"

[Footnote 8: "Vot a shocking bad hat!"--a slang cockney phrase of 1831.]

The fog, which became denser at every step, by the time they reached St. Clement's Danes rendered their further progress almost impossible.--"Oh, dear! oh, dear! how unlucky," exclaimed Jorrocks, "I would have given twenty pounds of best Twankay for a fine day--and see what a thing we've got! Hold my 'oss," said he to the Yorkshireman, "while I run into the 'Angel,' and borrow an argand burner, or we shall be endorsed[9] to a dead certainty." Off he got, and ran to the inn. Presently he emerged from the yard--followed by horse-keepers, coach-washers, porters, cads, waiters and others, amid loud cries of "Flare up, flare up, old cock! talliho fox-hunter!"--with a bright mail-coach footboard lamp, strapped to his middle, which, lighting up the whole of his broad back now cased in scarlet, gave him the appearance of a gigantic red-and-gold insurance office badge, or an elderly cherub without wings.

[Footnote 9: City--for having a pole run into one's rear.]

The hackney-coach-and cab-men, along whose lines they passed, could not make him out at all. Some thought he was a mail-coach guard riding post with the bags; but as the light was pretty strong he trotted on regardless of observation. The fog, however, abated none of its denseness even on the "Surrey side," and before they reached the "Elephant and Castle," Jorrocks had run against two trucks, three watercress women, one pies-all-ot!-all-ot! man, dispersed a whole covey of Welsh milkmaids, and rode slap over one end of a buy 'at (hat) box! bonnet-box! man's pole, damaging a dozen paste-boards, and finally upsetting Balham Hill Joe's Barcelona "come crack 'em and try 'em" stall at the door of the inn, for all whose benedictions, the Yorkshireman, as this great fox-hunting knight-errant's "Esquire," came in.

Here the Yorkshireman would fain have persuaded Mr. Jorrocks to desist from his quixotic undertaking, but he turned a deaf ear to his entreaties. "We are getting fast into the country, and I hold it to be utterly impossible for this fog to extend beyond Kennington Common--'twill ewaporate, you'll see, as we approach the open. Indeed, if I mistake not, I begin to sniff the morning air already, and hark! there's a lark a-carrolling before us!" "Now, spooney! where are you for?" bellowed a carter, breaking off in the middle of his whistle, as Jorrocks rode slap against his leader, the concussion at once dispelling the pleasing pastoral delusion, and nearly knocking Jorrocks off his horse.

As they approached Brixton Hill, a large red ball of lurid light appeared in the firmament, and just at the moment up rode another member of the Surrey Hunt in uniform, whom Jorrocks hailed as Mr. Crane. "By Jove, 'ow beautiful the moon is," said the latter, after the usual salutations. "Moon!" said Mr. Jorrocks, "that's not never no moon--I reckon it's Mrs. Graham's balloon." "Come, that's a good 'un," said Crane, "perhaps you'll lay me an 'at about it". "Done!" said Mr. Jorrocks, "a guinea one--and we'll ax my friend here.--Now, what's that?" "Why, judging from its position and the hour, I should say it is the sun!" was the reply.

We have omitted to mention that this memorable day was a Saturday, one on which civic sportsmen exhibit. We may also premise, that the particular hunt we are about to describe, took place when there were very many packs of hounds within reach of the metropolis, all of which boasted their respective admiring subscribers. As our party proceeded they overtook a gentleman perusing a long bill of the meets for the next week, of at least half a dozen packs, the top of the list being decorated with a cut of a stag-hunt, and the bottom containing a notification that hunters were "carefully attended to by Charles Morton,[10] at the 'Derby Arms,' Croydon," a snug rural _auberge_ near the barrack. On the hunting bill-of-fare, were Mr. Jolliffe's foxhounds, Mr. Meager's harriers, the Derby staghounds, the Sanderstead harriers, the Union foxhounds, the Surrey foxhounds, rabbit beagles on Epsom Downs, and dwarf foxhounds on Woolwich Common. What a list to bewilder a stranger! The Yorkshireman left it all to Mr. Jorrocks.

[Footnote 10: Where the carrion is, there will be the crow, and on the demise of the "Surrey staggers," Charley brushed off to the west, to valet the gentlemen's hunters that attend the Royal Stag Hunt.--_Vide_ Sir F. Grant's picture of the meet of the Royal Staghounds.]

"You're for Jolliffe, I suppose," said the gentleman with the bill, to another with a blue coat and buff lining. "He's at Chipstead Church--only six miles from Croydon, a sure find and good country." "What are you for, Mr. Jorrocks?" inquired another in green, with black velvet breeches, Hessian boots, and a red waistcoat, who just rode up. "My own, to be sure," said Jorrocks, taking hold of the green collar of his coat, as much as to say, "How can you ask such a question?" "Oh, no," said the gentleman in green, "Come to the stag--much better sport--sure of a gallop--open country--get it over soon--back in town before the post goes out." Before Mr. Jorrocks had time to make a reply to this last interrogatory, they were overtaken by another horseman, who came hopping along at a sort of a butcher's shuffle, on a worn-out, three-legged, four-cornered hack, with one eye, a rat-tail, and a head as large as a fiddle-case.--"Who's for the blue mottles?" said he, casting a glance at their respective coats, and at length fixing it on the Yorkshireman. "Why, Dickens, you're not going thistle-whipping with that nice 'orse of yours," said the gentleman in the velvets; "come and see the stag turned out--sure of a gallop--no hedges--soft country--plenty of publics--far better sport, man, than pottering about looking for your foxes and hares, and wasting your time; take my advice, and come with me." "But," says Dickens, "my 'orse won't stand it; I had him in the shay till eleven last night, and he came forty-three mile with our traveller the day before, else he's a 'good 'un to go,' as you know. Do you remember the owdacious leap he took over the tinker's tent, at Epping 'Unt, last Easter? How he astonished the natives within!" "Yes; but then, you know, you fell head-foremost through the canvas, and no wonder your ugly mug frightened them," replied he of the velvets. "Ay; but that was in consequence of my riding by balance instead of gripping with my legs," replied Dickens; "you see, I had taken seven lessons in riding at the school in Bidborough Street, Burton Crescent, and they always told me to balance myself equally on the saddle, and harden my heart, and ride at whatever came in the way; and the tinker's tent coming first, why, naturally enough, I went at it. But I have had some practice since then, and, of course, can stick on better. I have 'unted regularly ever since, and can 'do the trick' now." "What, summer and winter?" said Jorrocks. "No," replied he, "but I have 'unted regularly every fifth Saturday since the 'unting began."

After numerous discourses similar to the foregoing, they arrived at the end of the first stage on the road to the hunt, namely, the small town of Croydon, the rendezvous of London sportsmen. The whole place was alive with red coats, green coats, blue coats, black coats, brown coats, in short, coats of all the colours of the rainbow. Horsemen were mounting, horsemen were dismounting, one-horse "shays" and two-horse chaises were discharging their burdens, grooms were buckling on their masters' spurs, and others were pulling off their overalls. Eschewing the "Greyhound," they turn short to the right, and make for the "Derby Arms" hunting stables.

Charley Morton, a fine old boy of his age, was buckling on his armour for the fight, for his soul, too, was "on fire, and eager for the chase." He was for the "venison"; and having mounted his "deer-stalker," was speedily joined by divers perfect "swells," in beautiful leathers, beautiful coats, beautiful tops, beautiful everything, except horses, and off they rode to cut in for the first course--a stag-hunt on a Saturday being usually divided into three.

The ride down had somewhat sharpened Jorrocks's appetite; and feeling, as he said, quite ready for his dinner, he repaired to Mr. Morton's house--a kind of sporting snuggery, everything in apple-pie order, and very good--where he baited himself on sausages and salt herrings, a basin of new milk, with some "sticking powder" as he called it, _alias_ rum, infused into it; and having deposited a half-quartern loaf in one pocket, as a sort of balance against a huge bunch of keys which rattled in the other, he pulled out his watch, and finding they had a quarter of an hour to spare, proposed to chaperon the Yorkshireman on a tour of the hunting stables. Jorrocks summoned the ostler, and with great dignity led the way. "Humph," said he, evidently disappointed at seeing half the stalls empty, "no great show this morning--pity--gentleman come from a distance--should like to have shown him some good nags.--What sort of a devil's this?" "Oh, sir, he's a good 'un, and nothing but a good 'un!--Leap! Lord love ye, he'll leap anything. A railway cut, a windmill with the sails going, a navigable river with ships--anything in short. This is the 'orse wot took the line of houses down at Beddington the day they had the tremendious run from Reigate Hill." "And wot's the grey in the far stall?" "Oh, that's Mr. Pepper's old nag--Pepper-Caster as we call him, since he threw the old gemman, the morning they met at the 'Leg-of-Mutton' at Ashtead. But he's good for nothing. Bless ye! his tail shakes for all the world like a pepper-box afore he's gone half a mile. Those be yours in the far stalls, and since they were turned round I've won a bob of a gemman who I bet I'd show him two 'osses with their heads vere their tails should be.[11] I always says," added he with a leer, "that you rides the best 'osses of any gemman vot comes to our governor's." This flattered Jorrocks, and sidling up, he slipped a shilling into his hand, saying, "Well--bring them out, and let's see how they look this morning." The stall reins are slipped, and out they step with their hoods on their quarters. One was a large, fat, full-sized chestnut, with a white ratch down the full extent of his face, a long square tail, bushy mane, with untrimmed heels. The other was a brown, about fifteen two, coarse-headed, with a rat-tail, and collar-marked. The tackle was the same as they came down with. "You'll do the trick on that, I reckon," said Jorrocks, throwing his leg over the chestnut, and looking askew at the Yorkshireman as he mounted. "Tatt., and old Tatt., and Tatt. sen. before him, all agree that they never knew a bad 'oss with a rat-tail."

[Footnote 11: A favourite joke among grooms when a horse is turned round in his stall.]

"But, let me tell you, you must be werry lively, if you mean to live with our 'ounds. They go like the wind. But come! touch him with the spur, and let's do a trot." The Yorkshireman obeyed, and getting into the main street, onwards they jogged, right through Croydon, and struck into a line of villas of all sorts, shapes, and sizes, which extend for several miles along the road, exhibiting all sorts of architecture, Gothic, Corinthian, Doric, Ionic, Dutch, and Chinese. These gradually diminished in number, and at length they found themselves on an open heath, within a few miles of the meet of the "Surrey foxhounds". "Now", says Mr. Jorrocks, clawing up his smalls, "you will see the werry finest pack of hounds in all England; I don't care where the next best are; and you will see as good a turn-out as ever you saw in your life, and as nice a country to ride over as ever you were in".

They reach the meet--a wayside public-house on a common, before which the hounds with their attendants and some fifty or sixty horsemen, many of them in scarlet, were assembled. Jorrocks was received with the greatest cordiality, amid whoops and holloas, and cries of "now Twankay!--now Sugar!--now Figs!" Waving his hand in token of recognition, he passed on and made straight for Tom Hill, with a face full of importance, and nearly rode over a hound in his hurry. "Now, Tom," said he, with the greatest energy, "do, my good fellow, strain every nerve to show sport to-day.--A gentleman has come all the way from the north-east side of the town of Boroughbridge, in the county of York, to see our excellent 'ounds, and I would fain have him galvanised.--Do show us a run, and let it end with blood, so that he may have something to tell the natives when he gets back to his own parts. That's him, see, sitting under the yew-tree, in a bottle-green coat with basket buttons, just striking a light on the pommel of his saddle to indulge in a fumigation.--Keep your eye on him all day, and if you can lead him over an awkward place, and get him a purl, so much the better.--If he'll risk his neck I'll risk my 'oss's."

The Yorkshireman, having lighted his cigar and tightened his girths, rode leisurely among the horsemen, many of whom were in eager council, and a gentle breeze wafted divers scraps of conversation to his ear.

What is that hound got by? No. How is that horse bred? No. What sport had you on Wednesday? No. Is it a likely find to-day? No, no, no; it was not where the hounds, but what the Consols, left off at; what the four per cents, and not the four horses, were up to; what the condition of the money, not the horse, market. "Anything doing in Danish bonds, sir?" said one. "You must do it by lease and release, and levy a fine," replied another. Scott _v._ Brown, crim. con. to be heard on or before Wednesday next.--Barley thirty-two to forty-two.--Fine upland meadow and rye grass hay, seventy to eighty.--The last pocket of hops I sold brought seven pounds fifteen shillings. Sussex bags six pounds ten shillings.--There were only twenty-eight and a quarter ships at market, "and coals are coals." "Glad to hear it, sir, for half the last you sent me were slates."--"Best qualities of beef four shillings and eightpence a stone--mutton three shillings and eightpence, to four shillings and sixpence.--He was exceedingly ill when I paid my last visit--I gave him nearly a stone of Epsom-salts, and bled him twice.--This horse would suit you to a T, sir, but my skip-jack is coming out on one at two o'clock that can carry a house.--See what a bosom this one's got.--Well, Gunter, old boy, have you iced your horse to-day?--Have you heard that Brown and Co. are in the _Gazette_? No, which Brown--not John Brown? No, William Brown. What, Brown of Goodman's Fields? No, Brown of---- Street--Brown_e_ with an _e_; you know the man I mean.--Oh, Lord, ay, the man wot used to be called Nosey Browne." A general move ensued, and they left "the meet."

"Vere be you going to turn out pray, sir, may I inquire?" said a gentleman in green to the huntsman, as he turned into a field. "Turn out," said he, "why, ye don't suppose we be come calf-hunting, do ye? We throws off some two stones'-throw from here, if so be you mean what cover we are going to draw." "No," said green-coat, "I mean where do you turn out the stag?"--"D--n the stag, we know nothing about such matters," replied the huntsman. "Ware wheat! ware wheat! ware wheat!" was now the general cry, as a gentleman in nankeen pantaloons and Hessian boots with long brass spurs, commenced a navigation across a sprouting crop. "Ware wheat, ware wheat!" replied he, considering it part of the ceremony of hunting, and continued his forward course. "Come to my side," said Mr.----, to the whipper-in, "and meet that gentleman as he arrives at yonder gate; and keep by him while I scold you."--"Now, sir, most particularly d--n you, for riding slap-dash over the young wheat, you most confounded insensible ignorant tinker, isn't the headland wide enough both for you and your horse, even if your spurs were as long again as they are?" Shouts of "Yooi over, over, over hounds--try for him--yoicks--wind him! good dogs--yoicks! stir him up--have at him there!"--here interrupted the jawbation, and the whip rode off shaking his sides with laughter. "Your horse has got a stone in each forefoot, and a thorn in his near hock," observed a dentist to a wholesale haberdasher from Ludgate Hill, "allow me to extract them for you--no pain, I assure--over before you know it." "Come away, hounds! come away!" was heard, and presently the huntsman, with some of the pack at his horse's heels, issued from the wood playing _Rule, Britannia!_ on a key-bugle, while the cracks of heavy-thonged whips warned the stragglers and loiterers to follow. "Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast," observed Jorrocks, as he tucked the laps of his frock over his thighs, "and I hope we shall find before long, else that quarter of house-lamb will be utterly ruined. Oh, dear, they are going below hill I do believe! why we shall never get home to-day, and I told Mrs. Jorrocks half-past five to a minute, and I invited old Fleecy, who is a most punctual man."

Jorrocks was right in his surmise. They arrived on the summit of a range of steep hills commanding an extensive view over the neighbouring country--almost, he said, as far as the sea-coast. The huntsman and hounds went down, but many of the field held a council of war on the top. "Well! who's going down?" said one. "I shall wait for the next turn," said Jorrocks, "for my horse does not like collar work." "I shall go this time," said another, "and the rest next." "And so will I," said a third, "for mayhap there will be no second turn." "Ay," added a fourth, "and he may go the other way, and then where-shall we all be?" "Poh!" said Jorrocks, "did you ever know a Surrey fox not take to the hills?--If he does not, I'll eat him without mint sauce," again harping on the quarter of lamb. Facilis descensus Averni--two-thirds of the field went down, leaving Jorrocks, two horse-dealers in scarlet, three chicken-butchers, half a dozen swells in leathers, a whip, and the Yorkshireman on the summit. "Why don't you go with the hounds?" inquired the latter of the whip. "Oh, I wait here, sir," said he, "to meet Tom Hills as he comes up, and to give him a fresh horse." "And who is Tom Hills?" inquired the Yorkshireman. "Oh, he's our huntsman," replied he; "you know Tom, don't you?" "Why, I can't say I do, exactly," said he; "but tell me, is he called Hills because he rides up and down these hills, or is that his real name?" "Hought! you know as well as I do," said he, quite indignantly, "that Tom Hills is his name."

The hounds, with the majority of the field, having effected the descent of the hills, were now trotting on in the valley below, sufficiently near, however, to allow our hill party full view of their proceedings. After drawing a couple of osier-beds blank, they assumed a line parallel to the hills, and moved on to a wood of about ten acres, the west end of which terminated in a natural gorse. "They'll find there to a certainty," said Mr. Jorrocks, pulling a telescope out of his breeches' pocket, and adjusting the sight. "Never saw it blank but once, and that was the werry day the commercial panic of twenty-five commenced.--I remember making an entry in my ledger when I got home to that effect. Humph!" continued he, looking through the glass, "they are through the wood, though, without a challenge.--Now, my booys, push him out of the gorse! Let's see vot you're made of.--There goes the first 'ound in.--It's Galloper, I believe.--I can almost see the bag of shot round his neck.--Now they all follow.--One--two--three--four--five--all together, my beauties! Oh, vot a sight! Peckham's cap's in the air, and it's a find, by heavens!" Mr. Jorrocks is right.--The southerly wind wafts up the fading notes of the "Huntsman's Chorus" in _Der Frieschutz_ and confirms the fact.--Jorrocks is in ecstasies.--"Now," said he, clawing up his breeches (for he dispenses with the article of braces when out hunting), "that's what I calls fine. Oh, beautiful! beautiful!--Now, follow me if you please, and if yon gentleman in drab does not shoot the fox, he will be on the hills before long." Away they scampered along the top of the ridge, with a complete view of the operations below. At length Jorrocks stopped, and pulling the telescope out, began making an observation. "There he is, at last," cried he, "just crossed the corner of yon green field--now he creeps through the hedge by the fir-tree, and is in the fallow one. Yet, stay--that's no fox--it's a hare: and yet Tom Hills makes straight for the spot--and did you hear that loud tally-ho? Oh! gentlemen, gentlemen, we shall be laughed to scorn--what can they be doing--see, they take up the scent, and the whole pack have joined in chorus. Great heavens, it's no more a fox than I am!--No more brush than a badger! Oh, dear! oh, dear! that I should live to see my old friends, the Surrey fox'ounds, 'unt hare, and that too in the presence of a stranger." The animal made direct for the hills--whatever it was, the hounds were on good terms with it, and got away in good form. The sight was splendid--all the field got well off, nor between the cover and the hills was there sufficient space for tailing. A little elderly gentleman, in a pepper-and-salt coat, led the way gallantly--then came the scarlets--then the darks--and then the fustian-clad countrymen. Jorrocks was in a shocking state, and rolled along the hill-tops, almost frantic. The field reached the bottom, and the foremost commenced the steep ascent.

"Oh, Tom Hills!--Tom Hills!--'what are you at? what are you after?'" demanded Jorrocks, as he landed on the top. "Here's a gentleman come all the way from the north-east side of the town of Boroughbridge, in the county of York, to see our excellent 'ounds, and here you are running a hare. Oh, Tom Hills! Tom Hills! ride forward, ride forward, and whip them off, ere we eternally disgrace ourselves." "Oh," says Tom, laughing, "he's a fox! but he's so tarnation frightened of our hounds, that his brush dropped off through very fear, as soon as ever he heard us go into the wood; if you go back, you'll find it somewhere, Mr. Jorrocks; haw, haw, haw! No fox indeed!" said he.--"Forrard, hounds, forrard!" And away he went--caught the old whipper-in, dismounted him in a twinkling, and was on a fresh horse with his hounds in full cry. The line of flight was still along the hill-tops, and all eagerly pressed on, making a goodly rattle over the beds of flints. A check ensued. "The guard on yonder nasty Brighton coach has frightened him with his horn," said Tom; "now we must make a cast up to yonder garden, and see if he's taken shelter among the geraniums in the green-house. As little damage as possible, gentlemen, if you please, in riding through the nursery grounds. Now, hold hard, sir--pray do--there's no occasion for you to break the kale pots; he can't be under them. Ah, yonder he goes, the tailless beggar; did you see him as he stole past the corner out of the early-cabbage bed? Now bring on the hounds, and let us press him towards London."

"See the conquering hero comes", sounded through the avenue of elms as Tom dashed forward with the merry, merry pack. "I shall stay on the hills", said one, "and be ready for him as he comes back; I took a good deal of the shine out of my horse in coming up this time". "I think I will do the same", said two or three more. "Let's be doing", said Jorrocks, ramming his spurs into his nag to seduce him into a gallop, who after sending his heels in the air a few times in token of his disapprobation of such treatment, at last put himself into a round-rolling sort of canter, which Jorrocks kept up by dint of spurring and dropping his great bastinaderer of a whip every now and then across his shoulders. Away they go pounding together!

The line lies over flint fallows occasionally diversified with a turnip-field or market-garden, and every now and then a "willa" appears, from which emerge footmen in jackets, and in yellow, red and green plush breeches, with no end of admiring housemaids, governesses, and nurses with children in their arms.

Great was the emulation when any of these were approached, and the rasping sportsmen rushed eagerly to the "fore." At last they approach "Miss Birchwell's finishing and polishing seminary for young ladies," whose great flaring blue-and-gold sign, reflecting the noonday rays of the sun, had frightened the fox and caused him to alter his line and take away to the west. A momentary check ensued, but all the amateur huntsmen being blown, Tom, who is well up with his hounds, makes a quick cast round the house, and hits off the scent like a workman. A private road and a line of gates through fields now greet the eyes of our M'Adamisers. A young gentleman on a hired hunter very nattily attired, here singles himself out and takes place next to Tom, throwing the pebbles and dirt back in the eyes of the field. Tom crams away, throwing the gates open as he goes, and our young gentleman very coolly passes through, without a touch, letting them bang-to behind him. The Yorkshireman, who had been gradually creeping up, until he has got the third place, having opened two or three, and seeing another likely to close for want of a push, cries out to our friend as he approaches, "Put out your hand, sir!" The gentleman obediently extends his limb like the arm of a telegraph, and rides over half the next field with his hand in the air! The gate, of course, falls to.

A stopper appears--a gate locked and spiked, with a downward hinge to prevent its being lifted. To the right is a rail, and a ha-ha beyond it--to the left a quick fence. Tom glances at both, but turns short, and backing his horse, rides at the rail. The Yorkshireman follows, but Jorrocks, who espies a weak place in the fence a few yards from the gate, turns short, and jumping off, prepares to lead over. It is an old gap, and the farmer has placed a sheep hurdle on the far side. Just as Jorrocks has pulled that out, his horse, who is a bit of a rusher, and has got his "monkey" completely up, pushes forward while his master is yet stooping--and hitting him in the rear, knocks him clean through the fence, head foremost into a squire-trap beyond!--"Non redolet sed olet!" exclaims the Yorkshireman, who dismounts in a twinkling, lending his friend a hand out of the unsavoury cesspool.--"That's what comes of hunting in a new[12] saddle, you see," added he, holding his nose. Jorrocks scrambles upon "terra firma" and exhibits such a spectacle as provokes the shouts of the field. He has lost his wig, his hat hangs to his back, and one side of his person and face is completely japanned with black odoriferous mixture. "My vig!" exclaims he, spitting and spluttering, "but that's the nastiest hole I ever was in--Fleet Ditch is lavender-water compared to it! Hooi yonder!" hailing a lad, "Catch my 'oss, boouy!" Tom Hills has him; and Jorrocks, pocketing his wig, remounts, rams his spurs into the nag, and again tackles with the pack, which had come to a momentary check on the Eden Bridge road. The fox has been headed by a party of gipsies, and, changing his point, bends southward and again reaches the hills, along which some score of horsemen have planted themselves in the likeliest places to head him. Reynard, however, is too deep for them, and has stolen down unperceived. Poor Jorrocks, what with the violent exertion of riding, his fall, and the souvenir of the cesspool that he still bears about him, pulls up fairly exhausted. "Oh, dear," says he, scraping the thick of the filth off his coat with his whip, "I'm reglarly blown, I earn't go down with the 'ounds this turn; but, my good fellow," turning to the Yorkshireman, who was helping to purify him, "don't let me stop you, go down by all means, but mind, bear in mind the quarter of house-lamb--at half-past five to a minute."

[Footnote 12: There is a superstition among sportsmen that they are sure to get a fall the first day they appear in anything new.]

Many of the cits now gladly avail themselves of the excuse of assisting Mr. Jorrocks to clean himself for pulling up, but as soon as ever those that are going below hill are out of sight and they have given him two or three wipes, they advise him to let it "dry on," and immediately commence a different sort of amusement--each man dives into his pocket and produces the eatables.

Part of Jorrocks's half-quartern loaf was bartered with the captain of an East Indiaman for a slice of buffalo-beef. The dentist exchanged some veal sandwiches with a Jew for ham ones; a lawyer from the Borough offered two slices of toast for a hard-boiled egg; in fact there was a petty market "ouvert" held. "Now, Tomkins, where's the bottle?" demanded Jenkins. "Vy, I thought you would bring it out to-day," replied he; "I brought it last time, you know." "Take a little of mine, sir," said a gentleman, presenting a leather-covered flask--"real Thomson and Fearon, I assure you." "I wish someone would fetch an ocean of porter from the nearest public," said another. "Take a cigar, sir?" "No; I feel werry much obliged, but they always make me womit." "Is there any gentleman here going to Halifax, who would like to make a third in a new yellow barouche, with lavender-coloured wheels, and pink lining?" inquired Mr.----, the coach-maker. "Look at the hounds, gentlemen sportsmen, my noble sportsmen!" bellowed out an Epsom Dorling's correct--cardseller--and turning their eyes in the direction in which he was looking, our sportsmen saw them again making for the hills. Pepper-and-salt first, and oh, what a goodly tail was there!--three quarters of a mile in length, at the least. Now up they come--the "corps de reserve" again join, and again a party halt upon the hills. Again Tom Hills exchanges horses; and again the hounds go on in full cry. "I must be off," said a gentleman in balloon-like leathers to another tiger; "we have just time to get back to town, and ride round by the park before it is dark--much better than seeing the end of this brute. Let us go"; and away they went to canter through Hyde Park in their red coats. "I must go and all," said another gentleman; "my dinner will be ready at five, and it is now three." Jorrocks was game; and forgetting the quarter of house-lamb, again tackled with the pack. A smaller sweep sufficed this time, and the hills were once more descended, Jorrocks the first to lead the way. He well knew the fox was sinking, and was determined to be in at the death. Short running ensued--a check--the fox had lain down, and they had overrun the scent. Now they were on him, and Tom Hills's who-whoop confirmed the whole.

"Ah! Tom Hills, Tom Hills!" exclaimed Jorrocks, as the former took up the fox, "'ow splendid, 'ow truly brilliant--by Jove, you deserve to be Lord Hill--oh, had he but a brush that we might present it to this gentleman from the north-east side of the town of Boroughbridge, in the county of York, to show the gallant doings of the men of Surrey!" "Ay," said Tom, "but Squire----'s keeper has been before us for it."

"Now," said a gentleman in a cap, to another in a hat, "if you will ride up the hill and collect the money there, I will do so below--half-a-crown, if you please, sir--half-a-crown, if you please, sir.--Have I got your half-a-crown, sir?"--"Here's three shillings if you will give me sixpence." "Certainly, sir--certainly." "We have no time to spare," said Jorrocks, looking at his watch. "Good afternoon, gentlemen, good afternoon," muttering as he went, "a quarter of house-lamb at half-past five--Mrs. Jorrocks werry punctual--old Fleecy werry particular." They cut across country to Croydon, and as they approached the town, innumerable sportsmen came flocking in from all quarters. "What sport have you had?" inquired Jorrocks of a gentleman in scarlet; "have you been with Jolliffe?" "No, with the staghounds; three beautiful runs; took him once in a millpond, once in a barn, and once in a brickfield--altogether the finest day's sport I ever saw in my life." "What have you done, Mr. J----?" "Oh, we have had a most gallant thing; a brilliant run indeed--three hours and twenty minutes without a check--over the finest country imaginable." "And who got the brush?" inquired the stag-man. "Oh, it was a gallant run," said Jorrocks, "by far the finest I ever remember." "But did you kill?" demanded his friend. "Kill! to be sure we did. When don't the Surrey kill, I should like to know?" "And who got his brush, did you say?" "I can't tell," said he--"didn't hear the gentleman's name." "What sport has Mr. Meager had to-day?" inquired he of a gentleman in trousers, who issued from a side lane into the high road. "I have been with the Sanderstead, sir--a very capital day's sport--run five hares and killed three. We should have killed four--only--we didn't." "I don't think Mr. Meager has done anything to-day." "Yes, he has," said a gentleman, who just joined with a hare buckled on in front of his saddle, and his white cords all stained with blood; "we killed this chap after an hour and forty-five minutes' gallop; and accounted for another by losing her after running upwards of-three-quarters of an hour." "Well, then, we have all had sport," said Jorrocks, as he spurred his horse into a trot, and made for Morton's stables--"and if the quarter of house-lamb is but right, then indeed am I a happy man."

III. SURREY SHOOTING: MR. JORROCKS IN TROUBLE

Our readers are now becoming pretty familiar with our principal hero, Mr. Jorrocks, and we hope he improves on acquaintance. Our fox-hunting friends, we are sure, will allow him to be an enthusiastic member of the brotherhood, and though we do not profess to put him in competition with Musters, Osbaldeston, or any of those sort of men, we yet mean to say that had his lot been cast in the country instead of behind a counter, his keenness would have rendered him as conspicuous--if not as scientific--as the best of them.

For a cockney sportsman, however, he is a very excellent fellow--frank, hearty, open, generous, and hospitable, and with the exception of riding up Fleet Street one Saturday afternoon, with a cock-pheasant's tail sticking out of his red coat pocket, no one ever saw him do a cock tail action in his life.

The circumstances attending that exhibition are rather curious.--He had gone out as usual on a Saturday to have a day with the Surrey, but on mounting his hunter at Croydon, he felt the nag rather queer under him, and thinking he might have been pricked in the shoeing, he pulled up at the smith's at Addington to have his feet examined. This lost him five minutes, and unfortunately when he got to the meet, he found that a "travelling[13] fox" had been tallied at the precise moment of throwing off, with which the hounds had gone away in their usual brilliant style, to the tune of "Blue bonnets are over the border." As may be supposed, he was in a deuce of a rage; and his first impulse prompted him to withdraw his subscription and be done with the hunt altogether, and he trotted forward "on the line," in the hopes of catching them up to tell them so. In this he was foiled, for after riding some distance, he overtook a string of Smithfield horses journeying "foreign for Evans," whose imprints he had been taking for the hoof-marks of the hunters. About noon he found himself dull, melancholy, and disconsolate, before the sign of the "Pig and Whistle," on the Westerham road, where, after wetting his own whistle with a pint of half-and-half, he again journeyed onward, ruminating on the uncertainty and mutability of all earthly affairs, the comparative merits of stag-, fox-, and hare-hunting, and the necessity of getting rid of the day somehow or other in the country.

[Footnote 13: He might well be called a "travelling fox," for it was said he had just travelled down from Herring's, in the New Road, by the Bromley stage.]

Suddenly his reverie was interrupted by the discharge of a gun in the field adjoining the hedge along which he was passing, and the boisterous whirring of a great cock-pheasant over his head, which caused his horse to start and stop short, and to nearly pitch Jorrocks over his head. The bird was missed, but the sportsman's dog dashed after it, with all the eagerness of expectation, regardless of the cracks of the whip--the "comes to heel," and "downs to charge" of the master. Jorrocks pulled out his hunting telescope, and having marked the bird down with the precision of a billiard-table keeper, rode to the gate to acquaint the shooter with the fact, when to his infinite amazement he discovered his friend, Nosey Browne (late of "The Surrey"), who, since his affairs had taken the unfortunate turn mentioned in the last paper, had given up hunting and determined to confine himself to shooting only. Nosey, however, was no great performer, as may be inferred, when we state that he had been in pursuit of the above-mentioned cock-pheasant ever since daybreak, and after firing thirteen shots at him had not yet touched a feather.

His dog was of the right sort--for Nosey at least--and hope deferred had not made his heart sick; on the contrary, he dashed after his bird for the thirteenth time with all the eagerness he displayed on the first. "Let me have a crack at him," said Jorrocks to Nosey, after their mutual salutations were over. "I know where he is, and I think I can floor him." Browne handed the gun to Jorrocks, who, giving up his hunter in exchange, strode off, and having marked his bird accurately, he kicked him up out of a bit of furze, and knocked him down as "dead as a door-nail." By that pheasant's tail hangs the present one.

Now Nosey Browne and Jorrocks were old friends, and Nosey's affairs having gone crooked, why of course, like most men in a similar situation, he was all the better for it; and while his creditors were taking twopence-halfpenny in the pound, he was taking his diversion on his wife's property, which a sagacious old father-in-law had secured to the family in the event of such a contingency as a failure happening; so knowing Jorrock's propensity for sports, and being desirous of chatting over all his gallant doings with "The Surrey," shortly after the above-mentioned day he dispatched a "twopenny," offering him a day's shooting on his property in Surrey, adding, that he hoped he would dine with him after. Jorrocks being invited himself, with a freedom peculiar to fox-hunters, invited his friend the Yorkshireman, and visiting his armoury, selected him a regular shot-scatterer of a gun, capable of carrying ten yards on every side.

At the appointed hour on the appointed morning, the Yorkshireman appeared in Great Coram Street, where he found Mr. Jorrocks in the parlour in the act of settling himself into a new spruce green cut-away gambroon butler's pantry-jacket, with pockets equal to holding a powder-flask each, his lower man being attired in tight drab stocking-net pantaloons, and Hessian boots with large tassels--a striking contrast to the fustian pocket-and-all-pocket jackets marked with game-bag strap, and shot-belt, and the weather-beaten many-coloured breeches and gaiters, and hob-nail shoes, that compose the equipment of a shooter in Yorkshire. Mr. Jorrocks not keeping any "sporting dogs," as the tax-papers call them, had borrowed a fat house-dog--a cross between a setter and a Dalmatian--of his friend Mr. Evergreen the greengrocer, which he had seen make a most undeniable point one morning in the Copenhagen Fields at a flock of pigeons in a beetroot garden. This valuable animal was now attached by a trash-cord through a ring in his brass collar to a leg of the sideboard, while a clean licked dish at his side, showed that Jorrocks had been trying to attach him to himself, by feeding him before starting.

"We'll take a coach to the Castle", said Jorrocks, "and then get a go-cart or a cast somehow or other to Streatham, for we shall have walking enough when we get there. Browne is an excellent fellow, and will make us range every acre of his estate over half a dozen times before we give in". A coach was speedily summoned, into which Jorrocks, the dog Pompey, the Yorkshireman, and the guns were speedily placed, and away they drove to the "Elephant and Castle."

There were short stages about for every possible place except Streatham. Greenwich, Deptford, Blackheath, Eltham, Bromley, Footscray, Beckenham, Lewisham--all places but the right. However, there were abundance of "go-carts," a species of vehicle that ply in the outskirts of the metropolis, and which, like the watering-place "fly," take their name from the contrary--in fact, a sort of _lucus a non lucendo_. They are carts on springs, drawn by one horse (with curtains to protect the company from the weather), the drivers of which, partly by cheating, and partly by picking pockets, eke out a comfortable existence, and are the most lawless set of rascals under the sun. Their arrival at the "Elephant and Castle" was a signal for a general muster of the fraternity, who, seeing the guns, were convinced that their journey was only what they call "a few miles down the road," and they were speedily surrounded by twenty or thirty of them, all with "excellent 'osses, vot vould take their honours fourteen miles an hour." All men of business are aware of the advantages of competition, and no one more so than Jorrocks, who stood listening to their offers with the utmost sang-froid, until he closed with one to take them to Streatham Church for two shillings, and deliver them within the half-hour, which was a signal for all the rest to set-to and abuse them, their coachman, and his horse, which they swore had been carrying "stiff-uns" [14] all night, and "could not go not none at all". Nor were they far wrong; for the horse, after scrambling a hundred yards or two, gradually relaxed into something between a walk and a trot, while the driver kept soliciting every passer-by to "ride," much to our sportsmen's chagrin, who conceived they were to have the "go" all to themselves. Remonstrance was vain, and he crammed in a master chimney-sweep, Major Ballenger the licensed dealer in tea, coffee, tobacco, and snuff, of Streatham (a customer of Jorrocks), and a wet-nurse; and took up an Italian organ-grinder to ride beside himself on the front, before they had accomplished Brixton Hill. Jorrocks swore most lustily that he would fine him, and at every fresh assurance, the driver offered a passer-by a seat; but having enlisted Major Ballenger into their cause, they at length made a stand, which, unfortunately for them, was more than the horse could do, for just as he was showing off, as he thought, with a bit of a trot, down they all soused in the mud. Great was the scramble; guns, barrel-organ, Pompey, Jorrocks, driver, master chimney-sweep, Major Ballenger, were all down together, while the wet-nurse, who sat at the end nearest the door, was chucked clean over the hedge into a dry ditch. This was a signal to quit the vessel, and having extricated themselves the best way they could, they all set off on foot, and left the driver to right himself at his leisure.

[Footnote 14: Doing a bit of resurrection work.]

Ballenger looked rather queer when he heard they were going to Nosey Browne's, for it so happened that Nosey had managed to walk into his books for groceries and kitchen-stuff to the tune of fourteen pounds, a large sum to a man in a small way of business; and to be entertaining friends so soon after his composition, seemed curious to Ballenger's uninitiated suburban mind.

Crossing Streatham Common, a short turn to the left by some yew-trees leads, by a near cut across the fields, to Browne's house; a fiery-red brick castellated cottage, standing on the slope of a gentle eminence, and combining almost every absurdity a cockney imagination can be capable of. Nosey, who was his own "Nash," set out with the intention of making it a castle and nothing but a castle, and accordingly the windows were made in the loophole fashion, and the door occupied a third of the whole frontage. The inconveniences of the arrangements were soon felt, for while the light was almost excluded from the rooms, "rude Boreas" had the complete run of the castle whenever the door was opened. To remedy this, Nosey increased the one and curtailed the other, and the Gothic oak-painted windows and door flew from their positions to make way for modern plate-glass in rich pea-green casements, and a door of similar hue. The battlements, however, remained, and two wooden guns guarded a brace of chimney-pots and commanded the wings of the castle, one whereof was formed into a green-, the other into a gig-house.

The peals of a bright brass-handled bell at a garden-gate, surmounted by a holly-bush with the top cut into the shape of a fox, announced their arrival to the inhabitants of "Rosalinda Castle," and on entering they discovered young Nosey in the act of bobbing for goldfish, in a pond about the size of a soup-basin; while Nosey senior, a fat, stupid-looking fellow, with a large corporation and a bottle nose, attired in a single-breasted green cloth coat, buff waistcoat, with drab shorts and continuations, was reposing, _sub tegmine fagi_, in a sort of tea-garden arbour, overlooking a dung-heap, waiting their arrival to commence an attack upon the sparrows which were regaling thereon. At one end of the garden was a sort of temple, composed of oyster-shells, containing a couple of carrier-pigeons, with which Nosey had intended making his fortune, by the early information to be acquired by them: but "there is many a slip," as Jorrocks would say.

Greetings being over, and Jorrocks having paid a visit to the larder, and made up a stock of provisions equal to a journey through the Wilderness, they adjourned to the yard to get the other dog, and the man to carry the game--or rather, the prog, for the former was but problematical. He was a character, a sort of chap of all work, one, in short, "who has no objection to make himself generally useful"; but if his genius had any decided bent, it was, perhaps, an inclination towards sporting.

Having to act the part of groom and gamekeeper during the morning, and butler and footman in the afternoon, he was attired in a sort of composition dress, savouring of the different characters performed. He had on an old white hat, a groom's fustian stable-coat cut down into a shooting-jacket, with a whistle at the button-hole, red plush smalls, and top-boots.

There is nothing a cockney delights in more than aping a country gentleman, and Browne fancied himself no bad hand at it; indeed, since his London occupation was gone, he looked upon himself as a country gentleman in fact. "Vell, Joe," said he, striddling and sticking his thumbs into the arm-holes of his waistcoat, to this invaluable man of all work, "we must show the gemmem some sport to-day; vich do you think the best line to start upon--shall we go to the ten hacre field, or the plantation, or Thompson's stubble, or Timms's turnips, or my meadow, or vere?" "Vy, I doesn't know," said Joe; "there's that old hen-pheasant as we calls Drab Bess, vot has haunted the plantin' these two seasons, and none of us ever could 'it (hit), and I hears that Jack, and Tom, and Bob, are still left out of Thompson's covey; but, my eyes! they're 'special vild!" "Vot, only three left? where is old Tom, and the old ramping hen?" inquired Browne. "Oh, Mr. Smith, and a party of them 'ere Bankside chaps, com'd down last Saturday's gone a week, and rattled nine-and-twenty shots at the covey, and got the two old 'uns; at least it's supposed they were both killed, though the seven on 'em only bagged one bird; but I heard they got a goose or two as they vent home. They had a shot at old Tom, the hare, too, but he is still alive; at least I pricked him yesterday morn across the path into the turnip-field. Suppose we goes at him first?"

The estate, like the game, was rather deficient in quantity, but Browne was a wise man and made the most of what he had, and when he used to talk about his "manor" on 'Change, people thought he had at least a thousand acres--the extent a cockney generally advertises for, when he wants to take a shooting-place. The following is a sketch of what he had: The east, as far as the eye could reach, was bounded by Norwood, a name dear to cockneys, and the scene of many a furtive kiss; the hereditaments and premises belonging to Isaac Cheatum, Esq. ran parallel with it on the west, containing sixty-three acres, "be the same more or less," separated from which, by a small brook or runner of water, came the estate of Mr. Timms, consisting of sixty acres, three roods, and twenty-four perches, commonly called or known by the name of Fordham; next to it were two allotments in right of common, for all manner of cattle, except cows, upon Streatham Common, from whence up to Rosalinda Castle, on the west, lay the estate of Mr. Browne, consisting of fifty acres and two perches. Now it so happened that Browne had formerly the permission to sport all the way up to Norwood, a distance of a mile and a half, and consequently he might have been said to have the right of shooting in Norwood itself, for the keepers only direct their attention to the preservation of the timber and the morals of the visitors; but since his composition with his creditors, Mr. Cheatum, who had "gone to the wall" himself in former years, was so scandalised at Browne doing the same, that no sooner did his name appear in the _Gazette_, than Cheatum withdrew his permission, thereby cutting him off from Norwood and stopping him in pursuit of his game.

Joe's proposition being duly seconded, Mr. Jorrocks, in the most orthodox manner, flushed off his old flint and steel fire-engine, and proceeded to give it an uncommon good loading. The Yorkshireman, with a look of disgust, mingled with despair, and a glance at Joe's plush breeches and top-boots, did the same, while Nosey, in the most considerate sportsmanlike manner, merely shouldered a stick, in order that there might be no delicacy with his visitors, as to who should shoot first--a piece of etiquette that aids the escape of many a bird in the neighbourhood of London.

Old Tom--a most unfortunate old hare, that what with the harriers, the shooters, the snarers, and one thing and another, never knew a moment's peace, and who must have started in the world with as many lives as a cat--being doomed to receive the first crack on this occasion, our sportsmen stole gently down the fallow, at the bottom of which were the turnips, wherein he was said to repose; but scarcely had they reached the hurdles which divided the field, before he was seen legging it away clean out of shot. Jorrocks, who had brought his gun to bear upon him, could scarcely refrain from letting drive, but thinking to come upon him again by stealth, as he made his circuit for Norwood, he strode away across the allotments and Fordham estate, and took up a position behind a shed which stood on the confines of Mr. Timms's and Mr. Cheatum's properties. Here, having procured a rest for his gun, he waited until old Tom, who had tarried to nip a few blades of green grass that came in his way, made his appearance. Presently he came cantering along the outside of the wood, at a careless, easy sort of pace, betokening either perfect indifference for the world's mischief, or utter contempt of cockney sportsmen altogether.

He was a melancholy, woe-begone-looking animal, long and lean, with a slight inclination to grey on his dingy old coat, one that looked as though he had survived his kindred and had already lived beyond his day. Jorrocks, however, saw him differently, and his eyes glistened as he came within range of his gun. A well-timed shot ends poor Tom's miseries! He springs into the air, and with a melancholy scream rolls neck over heels. Knowing that Pompey would infallibly spoil him if he got up first, Jorrocks, without waiting to load, was in the act of starting off to pick him up, when, at the first step, he found himself in the grasp of a Herculean monster, something between a coal-heaver and a gamekeeper, who had been secreted behind the shed. Nosey Browne, who had been watching his movements, holloaed out to Jorrocks to "hold hard," who stood motionless, on the spot from whence he fired, and Browne was speedily alongside of him. "You are on Squire Cheatum's estate," said the man; "and I have authority to take up all poachers and persons found unlawfully trespassing; what's your name?" "He's not on Cheatum's estate," said Browne. "He is," said the man. "You're a liar," said Browne. "You're another," said the man. And so they went on; for when such gentlemen meet, compliments pass current. At length the keeper pulled out a foot-rule, and keeping Jorrocks in the same position he caught him, he set-to to measure the distance of his foot from the boundary, taking off in a line from the shed; when it certainly did appear that the length of a big toe was across the mark, and putting up his measure again, he insisted upon taking Jorrocks before a magistrate for the trespass. Of course, no objection could be made, and they all adjourned to Mr. Boreem's, when the whole case was laid before him. To cut a long matter short--after hearing the pros and cons, and referring to the Act of Parliament, his worship decided that a trespass had been committed; and though, he said, it went against the grain to do so, he fined Jorrocks in the mitigated penalty of one pound one.

This was a sad damper to our heroes, who returned to the castle with their prog untouched and no great appetite for dinner. Being only a family party, when Mrs. B---- retired, the subject naturally turned upon the morning's mishap, and at every glass of port Jorrocks waxed more valiant, until he swore he would appeal against the "conwiction"; and remaining in the same mind when he awoke the next morning, he took the Temple in his way to St. Botolph Lane and had six-and-eightpence worth with Mr. Capias the attorney, who very judiciously argued each side of the question without venturing an opinion, and proposed stating a case for counsel to advise upon.

As usual, he gave one that would cut either way, though if it had any tendency whatever it was to induce Jorrocks to go on; and he not wanting much persuasion, it will not surprise our readers to hear that Jorrocks, Capias, and the Yorkshireman were seen a few days after crossing Waterloo Bridge in a yellow post-chaise, on their way to Croydon sessions.

After a "guinea" consultation at the "Greyhound," they adjourned to the court, which was excessively crowded, Jorrocks being as popular with the farmers and people as Cheatum was the reverse. Party feeling, too, running rather high at the time, there had been a strong "whip" among the magistrates to get a full attendance to reverse Boreem's conviction, who had made himself rather obnoxious on the blue interest at the election. Of course they all came in new hats,[15] and sat on the bench looking as wise as gentlemen judges generally do.

[Footnote 15: Magistrates always buy their hats about session times, as they have the privilege of keeping their hats on their blocks in court.]

One hundred and twenty-two affiliation cases (for this was in the old Poor Law time) having been disposed of, about one o'clock in the afternoon, the chairman, Mr. Tomkins of Tomkins, moved the order of the day. He was a perfect prototype of a county magistrate--with a bald powdered head covered by a low-crowned, broad-brimmed hat, hair terminating behind in a _queue_, resting on the ample collar of a snuff-brown coat, with a large bay-window of a corporation, with difficulty retained by the joint efforts of a buff waistcoat, and the waistband of a pair of yellow leather breeches. His countenance, which was solemn and grave in the extreme, might either be indicative of sense or what often serves in the place of wisdom--when parties can only hold their tongues--great natural stupidity. From the judge's seat, which he occupied in the centre of the bench, he observed, with immense dignity, "There is an appeal of Jorrocks against Cheatum, which we, the bench of magistrates of our lord the king, will take if the parties are ready," and immediately the court rang with "Jorrocks and Cheatum! Jorrocks and Cheatum! Mr. Capias, attorney-at-law! Mr. Capias answer to his name! Mr. Sharp attorney-at-law! Mr. Sharp's in the jury-room.--Then go fetch him directly," from the ushers and bailiffs of the court; for though Tomkins of Tomkins was slow himself, he insisted upon others being quick, and was a great hand at prating about saving the time of the suitors. At length the bustle of counsel crossing the table, parties coming in and others leaving court, bailiffs shouting, and ushers responding, gradually subsided into a whisper of, "That's Jorrocks! That's Cheatum!" as the belligerent parties took their places by their respective counsel. Silence having been called and procured, Mr. Smirk, a goodish-looking man for a lawyer, having deliberately unfolded his brief, which his clerk had scored plentifully in the margin, to make the attorney believe he had read it very attentively, rose to address the court--a signal for half the magistrates to pull their newspapers out of their pockets, and the other half to settle themselves down for a nap, all the sport being considered over when the affiliation cases closed.

"I have the honour to appear on behalf of Mr. Jorrocks," said Mr. Smirk, "a gentleman of the very highest consideration--a fox-hunter--a shooter--and a grocer. In ordinary cases it might be necessary to prove the party's claim to respectability, but, in this instance, I feel myself relieved from any such obligation, knowing, as I do, that there is no one in this court, no one in these realms--I might almost add, no one in this world--to whom the fame of my most respectable, my most distinguished, and much injured client is unknown. Not to know JORROCKS is indeed to argue oneself unknown."

"This is a case of no ordinary interest, and I approach it with a deep sense of its importance, conscious of my inability to do justice to the subject, and lamenting that it has not been entrusted to abler hands. It is a case involving the commercial and the sporting character of a gentleman against whom the breath of calumny has never yet been drawn--of a gentleman who in all the relations of life, whether as a husband, a fox-hunter, a shooter, or a grocer, has invariably preserved that character and reputation, so valuable in commercial life, so necessary in the sporting world, and so indispensable to a man moving in general society. Were I to look round London town in search of a bright specimen of a man combining the upright, sterling integrity of the honourable British merchant of former days with the ardour of the English fox-hunter of modern times, I would select my most respectable client, Mr. Jorrocks. He is a man for youth to imitate and revere! Conceive, then, the horror of a man of his delicate sensibility--of his nervous dread of depreciation--being compelled to appear here this day to vindicate his character, nay more, his honour, from one of the foulest attempts at conspiracy that was ever directed against any individual. I say that a grosser attack was never made upon the character of any grocer, and I look confidently to the reversion of this unjust, unprecedented conviction, and to the triumphant victory of my most respectable and public-spirited client. It is not for the sake of the few paltry shillings that he appeals to this court--it is not for the sake of calling in question the power of the constituted authorities of this county--but it is for the vindication and preservation of a character dear to all men, but doubly dear to a grocer, and which once lost can never be regained. Look, I say, upon my client as he sits below the witness-box, and say, if in that countenance there appears any indication of a lawless or rebellious spirit; look, I say, if the milk of human kindness is not strikingly portrayed in every feature, and truly may I exclaim in the words of the poet:"

If to his share some trifling errors fall,
Look in his face, and you'll forget them all.'

"I regret to be compelled to trespass upon the valuable time of the court; but, sir, this appeal is based on a trespass, and one good trespass deserves another."

The learned gentleman then proceeded to detail the proceedings of the day's shooting, and afterwards to analyse the enactments of the new Game Bill, which he denounced as arbitrary, oppressive, and ridiculous, and concluded a long and energetic speech, by calling upon the court to reverse the decision of the magistrate, and not support the preposterous position of fining a man for a trespass committed by his toe.

After a few minutes had elapsed, Mr. Sergeant Bumptious, a stiff, bull-headed little man, desperately pitted with the smallpox, rose to reply, and looking round the court, thus commenced:

"Five-and-thirty years have I passed in courts of justice, but never, during a long and extensive practice, have I witnessed so gross a perversion of that sublimest gift, called eloquence, as within the last hour"--here he banged his brief against the table, and looked at Mr. Smirk, who smiled.--"I lament, sir, that it has not been employed in a better cause--(bang again--and another look). My learned friend has, indeed, laboured to make the worse appear the better cause--to convert into a trifle one of the most outrageous acts that ever disgraced a human being or a civilised country. Well did he describe the importance of this case!--important as regards his client's character--important as regards this great and populous county--important as regards those social ties by which society is held together--important as regards a legislative enactment, and important as regards the well-being and prosperity of the whole nation--(bang, bang, bang). I admire the bombastic eloquence with which my learned friend introduced his most distinguished client--his most delicate minded--sensitive client!--Truly, to hear him speaking I should have thought he had been describing a lovely, blushing young lady, but when he comes to exhibit his paragon of perfection, and points out that great, red-faced, coarse, vulgar-looking, lubberly lump of humanity--(here Bumptious looked at Jorrocks as he would eat him)--sitting below the witness-box, and seeks to enlist the sympathies of your worships on the Bench--of you, gentlemen, the high-minded, shrewd, penetrating judges of this important cause--(and Bumptious smiled and bowed along the Bench upon all whose eyes he could catch)--on behalf of such a monster of iniquity, it does make one blush for the degradation of the British Bar--(bang--bang--bang--Jorrocks here looked unutterable things). Does my learned friend think by displaying his hero as a fox-hunter, and extolling his prowess in the field, to gain over the sporting magistrates on the Bench? He knows little of the upright integrity--the uncompromising honesty--the undeviating, inflexible impartiality that pervades the breast of every member of this tribunal, if he thinks for the sake of gain, fear, favour, hope, or reward, to influence the opinion, much less turn the judgment, of any one of them." (Here Bumptious bowed very low to them all and laid his hand upon his heart. Tomkins nodded approbation.) "Far, far be it from me to dwell with unbecoming asperity on the conduct of anyone--we are all mortals--and alike liable to err; but when I see a man who has been guilty of an act which has brought him all but within the verge of the prisoners' dock; I say, when I see a man who has been guilty of such an outrage on society as this ruffian Jorrocks, come forward with the daring effrontery that he has this day done, and claim redress where he himself is the offender, it does create a feeling in my mind divided between disgust and amazement"--(bang).

Here Jorrock's cauldron boiled over, and rising from his seat with an outstretched shoulder-of-mutton fist, he bawled out, "D--n you, sir, what do you mean?"

The court was thrown into amazement, and even Bumptious quailed before the fist of the mighty Jorrocks. "I claim the protection of the court," he exclaimed. Mr. Tomkins interposed, and said he should certainly order Mr. Jorrocks into custody if he repeated his conduct, adding that it was "most disrespectful to the justices of our lord the king."

Bumptious paused a little to gather breath and a fresh volume of venom wherewith to annihilate Jorrocks, and catching his eye, he transfixed him like a rattlesnake, and again resumed.

"How stands the case?" said he. "This cockney grocer--for after all he is nothing else--who I dare say scarcely knows a hawk from a hand-saw--leaves his figs and raisins, and sets out on a marauding excursion into the county of Surrey, and regardless of property--of boundaries--of laws--of liberties--of life itself--strides over every man's land, letting drive at whatever comes in his way! The hare he shot on this occasion was a pet hare!--For three successive summers had Miss Cheatum watched and fed it with all the interest and anxiety of a parent. I leave it to you, gentlemen, who have daughters of your own, with pets also, to picture to yourselves the agony of her mind in finding that her favourite had found its way down the throat of that great guzzling, gormandising, cockney cormorant; and then, forsooth, because he is fined for the outrageous trespass, he comes here as the injured party, and instructs his counsel to indulge in Billingsgate abuse that would disgrace the mouth of an Old Bailey practitioner! I regret that instead of the insignificant fine imposed upon him, the law did not empower the worthy magistrate to send him to the treadmill, there to recreate himself for six or eight months, as a warning to the whole fraternity of lawless vagabonds." Here he nodded his head at Jorrocks as much as to say, "I'll trounce you, my boy!" He then produced maps and plans of the different estates, and a model of the shed, to show how it had all happened, and after going through the case in such a strain as would induce one to believe it was a trial for murder or high treason, concluded as follows:

"The eyes of England are upon us--reverse this conviction, and you let loose a rebel band upon the country, ripe for treason, stratagem, or spoil--you overturn the finest order of society in the world; henceforth no man's property will be safe, the laws will be disregarded, and even the upright, talented, and independent magistracy of England brought into contempt. But I feel convinced that your decision will be far otherwise--that by it you will teach these hot-headed--rebellious--radical grocers that they cannot offend with impunity, and show them that there is a law which reaches even the lowest and meanest inhabitant of these realms, that amid these days of anarchy and innovation you will support the laws and aristocracy of this country, that you will preserve to our children, and our children's children, those rights and blessings which a great and enlightened administration have conferred upon ourselves, and raise for Tomkins of Tomkins and the magistracy of the proud county of Surrey, a name resplendent in modern times and venerated to all eternity."

Here Bumptious cast a parting frown at Jorrocks, and banging down his brief, tucked his gown under his arm, turned on his heel and left the court, to indulge in a glass of pale sherry and a sandwich, regardless which way the verdict went, so long as he had given him a good quilting. The silence that followed had the effect of rousing some of the dozing justices, who nudging those who had fallen asleep, they all began to stir themselves, and having laid their heads together, during which time they settled the dinner-hour for that day, and the meets of the staghounds for the next fortnight, they began to talk of the matter before the court.

"I vote for reversing," said Squire Jolthead; "Jorrocks is such a capital fellow." "I must support Boreem," said Squire Hicks: "he gave me a turn when I made the mistaken commitment of Gipsy Jack." "What do you say, Mr. Giles?" inquired Mr. Tomkins. "Oh, anything you like, Mr. Tomkins." "And you, Mr. Hopper?" who had been asleep all the time. "Oh! guilty, I should say--three months at the treadmill--privately whipped, if you like," was the reply. Mr. Petty always voted on whichever side Bumptious was counsel--the learned serjeant having married his sister--and four others always followed the chair.

Tomkins then turned round, the magistrates resumed their seats along the bench, and coming forward he stood before the judge's chair, and taking off his hat with solemn dignity and precision, laid it down exactly in the centre of the desk, amid cries from the bailiffs and ushers for "Silence, while the justices of the peace of our sovereign lord the king, deliver the judgment of the court."

"The appellant in this case," said Mr. Tomkins, very slowly, "seeks to set aside a conviction for trespass, on the ground, as I understand, of his not having committed one. The principal points of the case are admitted, as also the fact of Mr. Jorrocks's toe, or a part of his toe, having intruded upon the respondent's estate. Now, so far as that point is concerned, it seems clear to myself and to my brother magistrates, that it mattereth not how much or how little of the toe was upon the land, so long as any part thereof was there. 'De minimis non curat lex'--the English of which is 'the law taketh no cognisance of fractions'--is a maxim among the salaried judges of the inferior courts in Westminster Hall, which we the unpaid, the in-cor-rup-ti-ble magistrates of the proud county of Surrey, have adopted in the very deep and mature deliberation that preceded the formation of our most solemn judgment. In the present great and important case, we, the unpaid magistrates of our sovereign lord the king, do not consider it necessary that there should be 'a toe, a whole toe, and nothing but a toe,' to constitute a trespass, any more than it would be necessary in the case of an assault to prove that the kick was given by the foot, the whole foot, and nothing but the foot. If any part of the toe was there, the law considers that it was there _in toto_. Upon this doctrine, it is clear that Mr. Jorrocks was guilty of a trespass, and the conviction must be affirmed. Before I dismiss the case I must say a few words on the statute under which this decision takes place.

"This is the first conviction that has taken place since the passing of the Act, and will serve as a precedent throughout all England. I congratulate the country upon the efficacy of the tribunal to which it has been submitted. The court has listened with great and becoming attention to the arguments of the counsel on both sides: and though one gentleman with a flippant ignorance has denounced this new law as inferior to the pre-existing system, and a curse to the country, we, the magistrates of the proud county of Surrey, must enter our protest against such a doctrine being promulgated. Peradventure, you are all acquainted with my prowess as a shooter; I won two silver tankards at the Red House, Anno Domini 1815. I mention this to show that I am a practical sportsman, and as to the theory of the Game Laws, I derive my information from the same source that you may all derive yours--from the bright refulgent pages of the _New Sporting Magazine_!"

IV. MR. JORROCKS AND THE SURREY STAGHOUNDS

The Surrey foxhounds had closed their season--a most brilliant one--but ere Mr. Jorrocks consigned his boots and breeches to their summer slumber, he bethought of having a look at the Surrey staghounds, a pack now numbered among the things that were.

Of course he required a companion, were it only to have some one to criticise the hounds with, so the evening before the appointed day, as the Yorkshireman was sitting in his old corner at the far end of the Piazza Coffee-room in Covent Garden, having just finished his second marrowbone and glass of white brandy, George--the only waiter in the room with a name--came smirking up with a card in his hand, saying, that the gentleman was waiting outside to speak with him. It was a printed one, but the large round hand in which the address had been filled up, encroaching upon the letters, had made the name somewhat difficult to decipher. At length he puzzled out "Mr. John Jorrocks--Coram Street"; the name of the city house or shop in the corner (No.--, St. Botolph's Lane) being struck through with a pen. "Oh, ask him to walk in directly," said the Yorkshireman to George, who trotted off, and presently the flapping of the doors in the passage announced his approach, and honest Jorrocks came rolling up the room--not like a fox-hunter, or any other sort of hunter, but like an honest wholesale grocer, fresh from the city.

"My dear fellow, I'm so glad to see you, you can't think," said he, advancing with both hands out, and hugging the Yorkshireman after the manner of a Polar bear. "I have not time to stay one moment; I have to meet Mr. Wiggins at the corner of Bloomsbury Square at a quarter to six, and it wants now only seven minutes to," casting his eye up at the clock over the sideboard.--"I have just called to say that as you are fond of hunting, and all that sort of thing, if you have a mind for a day with the staghounds to-morrow, I will mount you same as before, and all that sort of thing--you understand, eh?" "Thank you, my good friend," said the Yorkshireman; "I have nothing to do to-morrow, and am your man for a stag-hunt." "That's right, my good fellow," said Jorrocks, "then I'll tell you what do--come and breakfast with me in Great Coram Street, at half-past seven to a minute. I've got one of the first 'ams (hams) you ever clapt eyes on in the whole course of your memorable existence.--Saw the hog alive myself--sixteen score within a pound; must come--know you like a fork breakfast--dejeune à la fauchette, as we say in France, eh? Like my Lord Mayor's fool I guess, love what's good; well, all right too--so come without any ceremony--us fox-hunters hates ceremony--where there's ceremony there's no friendship.--Stay--I had almost forgotten," added he, checking himself as he was on the point of departure. "When you come, ring the area bell, and then Mrs. J---- won't hear; know you don't like Mrs. J---- no more than myself."

At the appointed hour the Yorkshireman reached Great Coram Street, just as Old Jorrocks had opened the door to look down the street for him. He was dressed in a fine flowing, olive-green frock (made like a dressing-gown), with a black velvet collar, having a gold embroidered stag on each side, gilt stag-buttons, with rich embossed edges; an acre of buff waistcoat, and a most antediluvian pair of bright yellow-ochre buckskins, made by White, of Tarporley, in the twenty-first year of the reign of George the Third; they were double-lashed, back-stiched, front-stiched, middle-stiched, and patched at both knees, with a slit up behind. The coat he had won in a bet, and the breeches in a raffle, the latter being then second or third hand. His boots were airing before the fire, consequently he displayed an amplitude of calf in grey worsted stockings, while his feet were thrust into green slippers. "So glad to see you"! said he; "here's a charming morning, indeed--regular southerly wind and a cloudy sky--rare scenting it will be--think I could almost run a stag myself. Come in--never mind your hat, hang it anywhere, but don't make a noise. I stole away and left Mrs. J---- snoring, so won't do to wake her, you know. By the way, you should see my hat;--Batsey, fatch my hat out of the back parlour. I've set up a new green silk cord, with a gold frog to fasten it to my button-hole--werry illigant, I think, and werry suitable to the dress--quite my own idea--have a notion all the Surrey chaps will get them; for, between you and me, I set the fashions, and what is more, I sometimes set them at a leap too. But now tell me, have you any objection to breakfasting in the kitchen?--more retired, you know, besides which you get everything hot and hot, which is what I call doing a bit of plisure." "Not at all," said the Yorkshireman, "so lead the way"; and down they walked to the lower regions.

It was a nice comfortable-looking place, with a blazing fire, half the floor covered with an old oil-cloth, and the rest exhibiting the cheerless aspect of the naked flags. About a yard and a half from the fire was placed the breakfast table; in the centre stood a magnificent uncut ham, with a great quartern loaf on one side and a huge Bologna sausage on the other; besides these there were nine eggs, two pyramids of muffins, a great deal of toast, a dozen ship-biscuits, and half a pork-pie, while a dozen kidneys were spluttering on a spit before the fire, and Betsy held a gridiron covered with mutton-chops on the top; altogether there was as much as would have served ten people. "Now, sit down," said Jorrocks, "and let us be doing, for I am as hungry as a hunter. Hope you are peckish too; what shall I give you? tea or coffee?--but take both--coffee first and tea after a bit. If I can't give you them good, don't know who can. You must pay your devours, as we say in France, to the 'am, for it is an especial fine one, and do take a few eggs with it; there, I've not given you above a pound of 'am, but you can come again, you know--waste not want not. Now take some muffins, do, pray. Batsey, bring some more cream, and set the kidneys on the table, the Yorkshireman is getting nothing to eat. Have a chop with your kidney, werry luxterous--I could eat an elephant stuffed with grenadiers, and wash them down with a ocean of tea; but pray lay in to the breakfast, or I shall think you don't like it. There, now take some tea and toast or one of those biscuits, or whatever you like; would a little more 'am be agreeable? Batsey, run into the larder and see if your Missis left any of that cold chine of pork last night--and hear, bring the cold goose, and any cold flesh you can lay hands on, there are really no wittles on the table. I am quite ashamed to set you down to such a scanty fork breakfast; but this is what comes of not being master of your own house. Hope your hat may long cover your family: rely upon it, it is cheaper to buy your bacon than to keep a pig". Just as Jorrocks uttered these last words the side door opened, and without either "with your leave or by your leave", in bounced Mrs. Jorrocks in an elegant dishabille (or "dish-of-veal", as Jorrocks pronounced it), with her hair tucked up in papers, and a pair of worsted slippers on her feet, worked with roses and blue lilies.

"Pray, Mister J----," said she, taking no more notice of the Yorkshireman than if he had been enveloped in Jack the Giant-killer's coat of darkness, "what is the meaning of this card? I found it in your best coat pocket, which you had on last night, and I do desire, sir, that you will tell me how it came there. Good morning, sir (spying the Yorkshireman at last), perhaps you know where Mr. Jorrocks was last night, and perhaps you can tell me who this person is whose card I have found in the corner of Mr. Jorrocks's best coat pocket?" "Indeed, madam", replied the Yorkshireman, "Mr. Jorrocks's movements of yesterday evening are quite a secret to me. It is the night that he usually spends at the Magpie and Stump, but whether he was there or not I cannot pretend to say, not being a member of the free and easy club. As for the card, madam..." "There, then, take it and read it," interrupted Mrs. J----; and he took the card accordingly--a delicate pale pink, with blue borders and gilt edge--and read--we would fain put it all in dashes and asterisks--"Miss Juliana Granville, John Street, Waterloo Road."

This digression giving Mr. Jorrocks a moment or two to recollect himself, he pretended to get into a thundering passion, and seizing the card out of the Yorkshireman's hand, he thrust it into the fire, swearing it was an application for admission into the Deaf and Dumb Institution, where he wished he had Mrs. J----. The Yorkshireman, seeing the probability of a breeze, pretended to have forgotten something at the Piazza, and stole away, begging Jorrocks to pick him up as he passed. Peace had soon been restored; for the Yorkshireman had not taken above three or four turns up and down the coffee-room, ere George the waiter came to say that a gentleman waited outside. Putting on his hat and taking a coat over his arm, he turned out; when just before the door he saw a man muffled up in a great military cloak, and a glazed hat, endeavouring to back a nondescript double-bodied carriage (with lofty mail box-seats and red wheels), close to the pavement. "Who-ay, who-ay," said he, "who-ay, who-ay, horse!" at the same time jerking at his mouth. As the Yorkshireman made his exit, a pair eyes of gleamed through the small aperture between the high cloak collar and the flipe of the glazed hat, which he instantly recognised to belong to Jorrocks. "Why, what the deuce is this you are in?" said he, looking at the vehicle. "Jump up," said Jorrocks, "and I'll tell you all about it," which having done, and the machine being set in motion he proceeded to relate the manner in which he had exchanged his cruelty-van for it--by the way, as arrant a bone-setter as ever unfortunate got into, but which he, with the predilection all men have for their own, pronounced to be a "monstrous nice carriage." On their turning off the rough pavement on to the quiet smooth Macadamised road leading to Waterloo Bridge, his dissertation was interrupted by a loud horse-laugh raised by two or three toll-takers and boys lounging about the gate.

"I say, Tom, twig this 'ere machine," said one. "Dash my buttons, I never seed such a thing in all my life." "What's to pay?" inquired Jorrocks, pulling up with great dignity, their observations not having penetrated the cloak collar which encircled his ears. "To pay!" said the toll-taker--"vy, vot do ye call your consarn?" "Why, a phaeton," said Jorrocks. "My eyes! that's a good 'un," said another. "I say, Jim--he calls this 'ere thing a phe-a-ton!" "A phe-a-ton!--vy, it's more like a fire-engine," said Jim. "Don't be impertinent," said Jorrocks, who had pulled down his collar to hear what he had to pay--"but tell me what's to pay?" "Vy, it's a phe-a-ton drawn by von or more 'orses," said the toll-taker; "and containing von or more asses," said Tom. "Sixpence-halfpenny, sir," "You are a saucy fellow," said Jorrocks. "Thank ye, master, you're another," said the toll-taker; "and now that you have had your say, vot do ye ax for your mouth?" "I say, sir, do you belong to the Phenix? Vy don't you show your badge?" "I say, Tom, that 'ere fire-engine has been painted by some house-painter, it's never been in the hands of no coach-maker. Do you shave by that 'ere glazed castor of yours?" "I'm blowed it I wouldn't get you a shilling a week to shove your face in sand, to make moulds for brass knockers." "Ay, get away!--make haste, or the fire will be out," bawled out another, as Jorrocks whipped on, and rattled out of hearing.

"Now, you see," said he, resuming the thread of his discourse, as if nothing had happened, "this back seat turns down and makes a box, so that when Mrs. J---- goes to her mother's at Tooting, she can take all her things with her, instead of sending half of them by the coach as she used to do; and if we are heavy, there is a pole belonging to it, so that we can have two horses; and then there is a seat draws out here (pulling a stool from between his legs) which anybody can sit on." "Yes, anybody that is small enough," said the Yorkshireman, "but you would cut a queer figure on it, I reckon." The truth was, that the "fire-engine" was one of those useless affairs built by some fool upon a plan of his own, with the idea of combining every possible comfort and advantage, and in reality not possessing one. Friend Jorrocks had seen it at a second-hand shop in Fore Street, and became the happy owner of it, in exchange for the cruelty-van and seventeen pounds.--Their appearance on the road created no small sensation, and many were the jokes passed upon the "fire-engine." One said they were mountebanks; another that it was a horse-break; a third asked if it was one of Gurney's steam-carriages, while a fourth swore it was a new convict-cart going to Brixton. Jorrocks either did not or would not hear their remarks, and kept expatiating upon the different purposes to which the machine might be converted, and the stoutness of the horse that was drawing it.

As they approached the town of Croydon, he turned his cloak over his legs in a very workman-like manner, and was instantly hailed by some brother sportsmen;--one complimented him on his looks, another on his breeches, a third praised his horse, a fourth abused the fire-engine, and a fifth inquired where he got his glazed hat. He had an answer for them all, and a nod or a wink for every pretty maid that showed at the windows; for though past the grand climacteric, he still has a spice of the devil in him--and, as he says, "there is no harm in looking." The "Red Lion" at Smitham Bottom was the rendezvous of the day. It is a small inn on the Brighton road, some three or four miles below Croydon. On the left of the road stands the inn, on the right is a small training-ground, and the country about is open common and down. There was an immense muster about the inn, and also on the training-ground, consisting of horsemen, gig-men, post-chaise-men, footmen,--Jorrocks and the Yorkshireman made the firemen.

"Here's old Jorrocks, I do declare", exclaimed one, as Jorrocks drove the fire-engine up at as quick a pace as his horse would go. "Why, what a concern he's in", said another, "why, the old man's mad, surely".--"He's good for a subscription," added another, addressing him. "I say, Jorrocks, old boy, you'll give us ten pound for our hounds won't you?--that's a good fellow." "Oh yes, Jorrocks promised us a subscription last year," observed another, "and he is a man of his word--arn't you old leather breeches?" "No, gentlemen," said Jorrocks, standing up in the fire-engine, and sticking the whip into its nest, "I really cannot--I wish I could, but I really cannot afford it. Times really are so bad, and I have my own pack to subscribe to, and I must be 'just before I am generous.'" "Oh, but ten pounds is nothing in your way, you know, Jorrocks--adulterate a chest of tea. Old----here will give you all the leaves off his ash-trees." "No," said Jorrocks, "I really cannot--ten pounds is ten pounds, and I must cut my coat according to my cloth." "By Jove, but you must have had plenty of cloth when you cut that coat you've got on, old boy. Why there's as much cloth in the laps as would make a pair of horse-sheets." "Never mind," said Jorrocks, "I wear it, and not you." "Now," said Jorrocks in an undertone to the Yorkshireman, "you see what an unconscionable set of dogs these stag-'unters are. They're at every man for a subscription, and talk about guineas as if they grew upon gooseberry-bushes. Besides, they are such a rubbishing set--all drafts from the fox'ounds.--Now there's a chap on a piebald just by the trees--he goes into the _Gazette_ reglarly once in three years, and yet to see him out, you'd fancy all the country round belonged to him. And there's a buck with his bearing-rein so tight that he can hardly move his neck," pointing to a gentleman in scarlet, with a tremendous stiff blue cravat--"he lives by keeping a mad-house and being werry high, consequential sort of a cock, they calls him the 'Lord High Keeper!'--I'll tell ye a joke about that fellow," said he, pointing to a man alighting from a red-wheeled buggy--"he's a werry shabby screw, and is always trying to save a penny.--Well, he hires a young half-witted hawbuck for a servant, who didn't clean his boots to his liking, so he began reading the Riot Act one day, and concluded by saying, 'I'm blowed if I couldn't clean them better myself with a little pump-water.'--The next day, up came the boots duller than ever.--'Bless my soul,' exclaimed he, 'why, they are worse than before, how's this, sir?'--'Please, sir, you said you could clean them better with a little pump-water, so I tried it, and I do think they are worse!' Haw! haw! haw!--Yon chap in the black plush breeches and Hessians, standing by the ginger-pop tray, is the only man what ever got the better of me in the 'oss-dealing line, and he certainlie did bite me uncommon 'andsomely. I gave him three and twenty pounds, a strong violin case with patent hinges, lined with superfine green baize, and an uncut copy of Middleton's _Cicero_, for an 'oss that the blacksmith really declared wasn't worth shoeing.--Howsomever, I paid him off, for I christened the 'oss Barabbas--who, you knows, was a robber--and the seller has gone by the name of Barabbas ever since."

"Well, but tell me, gentlemen, where do we dine?" inquired Jorrocks, turning to a group who had just approached the fire-engine. "We don't know yet," said a gentleman in scarlet, "the deer has not come yet; but yonder he is," pointing up the road to a covered cart, "and there are the hounds just coming over the hill at the back." The covered cart approached, and several went to meet it. The cry of "Oh, it's old Tunbridge," was soon heard. "Well, we shall have a good dinner," said Jorrocks, "if that is the case. Is it Tunbridge?" inquired he eagerly of one of the party who returned from the deer-cart. "Yes, it's old Tunbridge, and Snooks has ordered dinner at the Wells for sixteen at five o'clock, so the first sixteen that get there had better look out." "Here, bouy," said Jorrocks in an undertone to his servant, who was leading his screws about on the green, "take this 'oss out of the carriage, and give him a feed of corn, and then go on to Tunbridge Wells, and tell Mr. Pegg, at the Sussex Arms, that I shall be there with a friend to the dinner, and bid him write 'Jorrocks' upon two plates and place them together.--Nothing like making sure," said he, chuckling at his own acuteness.

"Now to 'orse--to 'orse!" exclaimed he, suiting the action to the word, and climbing on to his great chestnut, leaving the Yorkshireman to mount the rat-tail brown. "Let's have a look at the 'ounds", turning his horse in the direction in which they were coming. Jonathan Griffin[16] took off his cap to Jorrocks, as he approached, who waved his hand in the most patronising manner possible, adding "How are you, Jonathan?" "Pretty well, thank you, Mister Jorrocks, hope you're the same." "No, not the same, for I'm werry well, which makes all the difference--haw! haw! haw! You seem to have but a shortish pack, I think--ten, twelve, fourteen couple--'ow's that? We always take nine and twenty with the Surrey". "Why, you see, Mister Jorrocks, stag-hunting and fox-hunting are very different. The scent of the deer is very ravishing, and then we have no drawing for our game. Besides, at this season, there are always bitches to put back--but we have plenty of hounds for sport.--I suppose we may be after turning out," added Jonathan, looking at his watch--"it's past eleven."

[Footnote 16: Poor Jonathan, one of the hardest riders and drinkers of his day, exists, like his pack, but in the recollection of mankind. He was long huntsman to the late Lord Derby, who, when he gave up his staghounds, made Jonathan a present of them, and for two or three seasons he scratched on in an indifferent sort of way, until the hounds were sold to go abroad--to Hungary, we believe.]

On hearing this, a gentleman off with his glove and began collecting, or capping, prior to turning out--it being the rule of the hunt to make sure of the money before starting, for fear of accidents. "Half a crown, if you please, sir." "Now I'll take your half a crown." "Mr. Jorrocks, shall I trouble you for half a crown?" "Oh, surely," said Jorrocks, pulling out a handful of great five-shilling pieces; "here's for this gentleman and myself," handing one of them over, "and I shan't even ask you for discount for ready money." The capping went round, and a goodly sum was collected. Meanwhile the deer-cart was drawn to the far side of a thick fence, and the door being opened, a lubberly-looking animal, as big as a donkey, blobbed out, and began feeding very composedly. "That won't do," said Jonathan Griffin, eyeing him--"ride on, Tom, and whip him away." Off went the whip, followed by a score of sportsmen whose shouts, aided by the cracking of their whips, would have frightened the devil himself; and these worthies, knowing the hounds would catch them up in due time, resolved themselves into a hunt for the present, and pursued the animal themselves. Ten minutes having expired and the hounds seeming likely to break away, Jonathan thought it advisable to let them have their wicked will, and accordingly they rushed off in full cry to the spot where the deer had been uncarted. Of course, there was no trouble in casting for the scent; indeed they were very honest, and did not pretend to any mystery; the hounds knew within an inch where it would be, and the start was pretty much like that for a hunter's plate in four-mile heats. A few dashing blades rode before the hounds at starting, but otherwise the field was tolerably quiet, and was considerably diminished after the three first leaps. The scent improved, as did the pace, and presently they got into a lane along which they rattled for five miles as hard as ever they could lay legs to the ground, throwing the mud into each other's faces, until each man looked as if he was roughcast. A Kentish wagon, drawn by six oxen, taking up the whole of the lane, had obliged the dear animal to take to the fields again, where, at the first fence, most of our high-mettled racers stood still. In truth, it was rather a nasty place, a yawning ditch, with a mud bank and a rotten landing. "Now, who's for it? Go it, Jorrocks, you're a fox-hunter," said one, who, erecting himself in his stirrups, was ogling the opposite side. "I don't like it," said Jorrocks; "is never a gate near?" "Oh yes, at the bottom of the field," and away they all tore for it. The hounds now had got out of sight, but were heard running in cover at the bottom of the turnip-field into which they had just passed, and also the clattering of horses' hoofs on the highway. The hounds came out several times on to the road, evidently carrying the scent, but as often threw up and returned into the cover. The huntsman was puzzled at last; and quite convinced that the deer was not in the wood, he called them out, and proceeded to make a cast, followed by the majority of the field. They trotted about at a brisk pace, first to the right, then to the left, afterwards to the north, and then to the south, over grass, fallow, turnips, potatoes, and flints, through three farmyards, round two horse-ponds, and at the back of a small village or hamlet, without a note, save those of a few babblers. Everyone seemed to consider it a desperate job. They were all puzzled; at last they heard a terrible holloaing about a quarter of a mile to the south, and immediately after was espied a group of horsemen, galloping along the road at full speed, in the centre of which was Jorrocks; his green coat wide open, with the tails flying a long way behind that of his horse, his right leg was thrust out, down the side of which he kept applying his ponderous hunting whip, making a most terrible clatter. As they approached, he singled himself out from the group, and was the first to reach the field. He immediately burst out into one of his usual hunting energetic strains. "Oh Jonathan Griffin! Jonathan Griffin!" said he, "here's a lamentable occurrence--a terrible disaster! Oh dear, oh dear--we shall never get to Tunbridge--that unfortunate deer has escaped us, and we shall never see nothing more of him--rely upon it, he's killed before this." "Why, how's that?" inquired Griffin, evidently in a terrible perturbation. "Why," said Jorrocks, slapping the whip down his leg again, "there's a little girl tells me, that as she was getting water at the well just at the end of the wood, where we lost him, she saw what she took to be a donkey jump into a return post-chaise from the 'Bell', at Seven Oaks, that was passing along the road with the door swinging wide open! and you may rely upon it, it was the deer. The landlord of the 'Bell' will have cut his throat before this, for, you know, he vowed wengeance against us last year, because his wife's pony-chaise was upset, and he swore that we did it." "Oh, but that's a bad job", said the huntsman; "what shall we do?" "Here, Tom," calling to the whipper-in, "jump on to the Hastings coach" (which just came up), "and try if you can't overtake him, and bring him back, chaise and all, and I'll follow slowly with the hounds." Tom was soon up, the coach bowled on, and Jonathan and the hounds trotted gently forward till they came to a public-house. Here, as they stopped lamenting over their unhappy fate, and consoling themselves with some cold sherry negus, the post-chaise appeared in sight, with the deer's head sticking out of the side window with all the dignity of a Lord Mayor. "Huzza! huzza! huzza!" exclaimed Jorrocks, taking off his hat, "here's old Tunbridge come back again, huzza! huzza!" "But who's to pay me for the po-chay," said the driver, pulling up; "I must be paid before I let him out." "How much?" says Jonathan. "Why, eighteen-pence a mile, to be sure, and three-pence a mile to the driver." "No," says Jorrocks, "that won't do, yours is a return chay; however, here's five shillings for you, and now, Jonathan, turn him out again--he's quite fresh after his ride--and see, he's got some straw in the bottom."

Old Tunbridge was again turned out, with his head towards the town from whence he took his name, and after a quarter of an hour's law, the pack was again laid on. He was not, however, in very good wind, and it was necessary to divide the second chase into two heats, for which purpose the hounds were whipped off about the middle, while the deer took a cold bath, after which he was again set a-going. By half-past three they had accomplished the run; and Mr. Pegg, of the "Sussex Arms," having mounted his Pegasus, found them at the appointed place by the Medway, where old Tunbridge's carriage was waiting, into which having handed him, they repaired to the inn, and at five o'clock eighteen of them sat down to a dinner consisting of every delicacy of the season, the Lord High Keeper in the chair. Being all "hungry as hunters," little conversation passed until after the removal of the cloth, when after the King and his Majesty's Ministers had been drunk, the President gave "The noble, manly sport of stag-hunting," which he eulogised as the most legitimate and exhilarating of all sports, and sketched its progress from its wild state of infancy when the unhappy sportsmen had to range the fields and forests for their uncertain game, to the present state of luxurious ease and elaborate refinement, when they not only brought their deer to the meet, but by selecting the proper animal, could insure a finish at the place they most wished to dine at--all of which was most enthusiastically applauded; and on the speaker's ending, "Stag-hunting," and the "Surrey staghounds," and "Long life to all stag-hunters," were drank in brimming and overflowing bumpers. Fox-hunting, hare-hunting, rabbit-hunting, cat-hunting, rat-catching, badger-baiting--all wild, seasonable, and legitimate sports followed; and the chairman having run through his list, and thinking Jorrocks was getting rather mellow, resolved to try the soothing system on him for a subscription, the badgering of the morning not having answered. Accordingly, he called on the company to charge their glasses, as he would give them a bumper toast, which he knew they would have great pleasure in drinking.--"He wished to propose the health of his excellent friend on his right--MR. JORROCKS (applause), a gentleman whose name only required mentioning in any society of hunters to insure it a hearty and enthusiastic reception. He did not flatter his excellent friend when he said he was a man for the imitation of all, and he was sure that when the present company recollected the liberal support he gave to the Surrey foxhounds, together with the keenness with which he followed that branch of amusement, they would duly appreciate, not only the honour he had conferred upon them by his presence in the field that morning, and at the table that day, but the disinterested generosity which had prompted him voluntarily to declare his intention of contributing to the future support of the Surrey staghounds (immense cheers). He therefore thought the least they could do was to drink the health of Mr. Jorrocks, and success to the Surrey foxhounds, with three times three," which was immediately responded to with deafening cheers.

Old Jorrocks, after the noise had subsided, got on his legs, and with one hand rattling the five-shilling pieces in his breeches-pocket, and the thumb of the other thrust into the arm-hole of his waistcoat, thus began to address them.--"Gentlemen," said he, "I'm no orator, but I'm an honest man--(hiccup)--I feels werry (hiccup) much obliged to my excellent friend the Lord High Keeper (shouts of laughter), I begs his pardon--my friend Mr. Juggins--for the werry flattering compliment he has paid me in coupling my name (hiccup) with the Surrey fox'ounds--a pack, I may say, without wanity (hiccup), second to none. I'm a werry old member of the 'unt, and when I was a werry poor man (hiccup) I always did my best to support them (hiccup), and now that I'm a werry rich man (cheers) I shan't do no otherwise. About subscribing to the staggers, I doesn't recollect saying nothing whatsomever about it (hiccup), but as I'm werry friendly to sporting in all its ramifications (hiccup), I'll be werry happy to give ten pounds to your 'ounds."--Immense cheers followed this declaration, which lasted for some seconds. When they had subsided, Jorrocks put his finger on his nose and, with a knowing wink of his eye, added: "Prowided my friend the Lord High Keep--I begs his pardon--Juggins--will give ten pounds to ours!"

V. THE TURF: MR. JORROCKS AT NEWMARKET

"A muffin--and the _Post_, sir," said George to the Yorkshireman,--on one of the fine fresh mornings that gently usher in the returning spring, and draw from the town-pent cits sighs for the verdure of the fields,--as he placed the above mentioned articles on his usual breakfast table in the coffee-room of the "Piazza."

With the calm deliberation of a man whose whole day is unoccupied, the Yorkshireman sweetened his tea, drew the muffin and a select dish of prawns to his elbow, and turning sideways to the table, crossed his legs and prepared to con the contents of the paper. The first page as usual was full of advertisements.--Sales by auction--Favour of your vote and interest--If the next of kin--Reform your tailor's bills--Law--- Articled clerk--An absolute reversion--Pony phaeton--Artificial teeth--Messrs. Tattersall--Brace of pointers--Dog lost--Boy found--Great sacrifice--No advance in coffee--Matrimony--A single gentleman--Board and lodging in an airy situation--To omnibus proprietors--Steam to Leith and Hull--Stationery--Desirable investment for a small capital--The fire reviver or lighter.

Then turning it over, his eye ranged over a whole meadow of type, consisting of the previous night's debate, followed on by City news, Police reports, Fashionable arrivals and departures, Dinners given, Sporting intelligence, Newmarket Craven meeting. "That's more in my way," said the Yorkshireman to himself as he laid down the paper and took a sip of his tea. "I've a great mind to go, for I may just as well be at Newmarket as here, having nothing particular to do in either place. I came to stay a hundred pounds in London it's true, but if I stay ten of it at Newmarket, it'll be all the same, and I can go home from there just as well as from here"; so saying, he took another turn at the tea. The race list was a tempting one, Riddlesworth, Craven Stakes, Column Stakes, Oatlands, Port, Claret, Sherry, Madeira, and all other sorts. A good week's racing in fact, for the saintly sinners who frequent the Heath had not then discovered any greater impropriety in travelling on a Sunday, then in cheating each other on the Monday. The tea was good, as were the prawns and eggs, and George brought a second muffin, at the very moment that the Yorkshireman had finished the last piece of the first, so that by the time he had done his breakfast and drawn on his boots, which were dryer and pleasanter than the recent damp weather had allowed of their being, he felt completely at peace with himself and all the world, and putting on his hat, sallied forth with the self-satisfied air of a man who had eat a good breakfast, and yet not too much.

Newmarket was still uppermost in his mind, and as he sauntered along in the direction of the Strand, it occurred to him that perhaps Mr. Jorrocks might have no objection to accompany him. On entering that great thoroughfare of humanity, he turned to the east, and having examined the contents of all the caricature shops in the line, and paid threepence for a look at the _York Herald_, in the Chapter Coffee-house, St. Paul's Churchyard, about noon he reached the corner of St. Botolph Lane. Before Jorrocks & Co.'s warehouse, great bustle and symptoms of brisk trade were visible. With true city pride, the name on the door-post was in small dirty-white letters, sufficiently obscure to render it apparent that Mr. Jorrocks considered his house required no sign; while, as a sort of contradiction, the covered errand-cart before it, bore "JORROCKS & Co.'s WHOLESALE TEA WAREHOUSE," in great gilt letters on each side of the cover, so large that "he who runs might read," even though the errand-cart were running too. Into this cart, which was drawn by the celebrated rat-tail hunter, they were pitching divers packages for town delivery, and a couple of light porters nearly upset the Yorkshireman, as they bustled out with their loads. The warehouse itself gave evident proof of great antiquity. It was not one of your fine, light, lofty, mahogany-countered, banker-like establishments of modern times, where the stock-in-trade often consists of books and empty canisters, but a large, roomy, gloomy, dirty, dingy sort of cellar above ground, full of hogsheads, casks, flasks, sugar-loaves, jars, bags, bottles, and boxes.

The floor was half an inch thick, at least, with dirt, and was sprinkled with rice, currants, and raisins, as though they had been scattered for the purpose of growing. A small corner seemed to have been cut off, like the fold of a Leicestershire grazing-ground, and made into an office in the centre of which was a square or two of glass that commanded a view of the whole warehouse. "Is Mr. Jorrocks in?" inquired the Yorkshireman of a porter, who was busy digging currants with a wooden spade. "Yes, sir, you'll find him in the counting-house," was the answer; but on looking in, though his hat and gloves were there, no Jorrocks was visible. At the farther end of the warehouse a man in his shirt-sleeves, with a white apron round his waist and a brown paper cap on his head, was seen under a very melancholy-looking skylight, holding his head over something, as if his nose were bleeding. The Yorkshireman groped his way up to him, and asking if Mr. Jorrocks was in, found he was addressing the grocer himself. He had been leaning over a large trayful of little white cups--with teapots to match--trying the strength, flavour, and virtue of a large purchase of tea, and the beverage was all smoking before him. "My vig," exclaimed he, holding out his hand, "who'd have thought of seeing you in the city, this is something unkimmon! However, you're werry welcome in St. Botolph Lane, and as this is your first wisit, why, I'll make you a present of some tea--wot do you drink?--black or green, or perhaps both--four pounds of one and two of t'other. Here, Joe!" summoning his foreman, "put up four pounds of that last lot of black that came in, and two pounds of superior green, and this gentleman will tell you where to leave it.--And when do you think of starting?" again addressing the Yorkshireman--"egad this is fine weather for the country--have half a mind to have a jaunt myself--makes one quite young--feel as if I'd laid full fifty years aside, and were again a boy--when did you say you start?" "Why, I don't know exactly," replied the Yorkshireman, "the weather's so fine that I'm half tempted to go round by Newmarket." "Newmarket!" exclaimed Jorrocks, throwing his arm in the air, while his paper cap fell from his head with the jerk--"by Newmarket! why, what in the name of all that's impure, have you to do at Newmarket?"

"Why, nothing in particular; only, when there's neither hunting nor shooting going on, what is a man to do with himself?--I'm sure you'd despise me if I were to go fishing." "True," observed Mr. Jorrocks somewhat subdued, and jingling the silver in his breeches-pocket. "Fox-'unting is indeed the prince of sports. The image of war, without its guilt, and only half its danger. I confess that I'm a martyr to it--a perfect wictim--no one knows wot I suffer from my ardour.--If ever I'm wisited with the last infirmity of noble minds, it will be caused by my ingovernable passion for the chase. The sight of a saddle makes me sweat. An 'ound makes me perfectly wild. A red coat throws me into a scarlet fever. Never throughout life have I had a good night's rest before an 'unting morning. But werry little racing does for me; Sadler's Wells is well enough of a fine summer evening--especially when they plump the clown over head in the New River cut, and the ponies don't misbehave in the Circus,--but oh! Newmarket's a dreadful place, the werry name's a sickener. I used to hear a vast about it from poor Will Softly of Friday Street. It was the ruin of him--and wot a fine business his father left him, both wholesale and retail, in the tripe and cow-heel line--all went in two years, and he had nothing to show at the end of that time for upwards of twenty thousand golden sovereigns, but a hundredweight of children's lamb's-wool socks, and warrants for thirteen hogsheads of damaged sherry in the docks. No, take my adwice, and have nothing to say to them--stay where you are, or, if you're short of swag, come to Great Coram Street, where you shall have a bed, wear-and-tear for your teeth, and all that sort of thing found you, and, if Saturday's a fine day, I'll treat you with a jaunt to Margate."

"You are a regular old trump," said the Yorkshireman, after listening attentively until Mr. Jorrocks had exhausted himself, "but, you see, you've never been at Newmarket, and the people have been hoaxing you about it. I can assure you from personal experience that the people there are quite as honest as those you meet every day on 'Change, besides which, there is nothing more invigorating to the human frame--nothing more cheering to the spirits, than the sight and air of Newmarket Heath on a fine fresh spring morning like the present. The wind seems to go by you at a racing pace, and the blood canters up and down the veins with the finest and freest action imaginable. A stranger to the race-course would feel, and almost instinctively know, what turf he was treading, and the purpose for which that turf was intended".

"There's a magic in the web of it."

"Oh, I knows you are a most persuasive cock," observed Mr. Jorrocks interrupting the Yorkshireman, "and would conwince the devil himself that black is white, but you'll never make me believe the Newmarket folks are honest, and as to the fine hair (air) you talk of, there's quite as good to get on Hampstead Heath, and if it doesn't make the blood canter up and down your weins, you can always amuse yourself by watching the donkeys cantering up and down with the sweet little children--haw! haw! haw!--But tell me what is there at Newmarket that should take a man there?" "What is there?" rejoined the Yorkshireman, "why, there's everything that makes life desirable and constitutes happiness, in this world, except hunting. First there is the beautiful, neat, clean town, with groups of booted professors, ready for the rapidest march of intellect; then there are the strings of clothed horses--the finest in the world--passing indolently at intervals to their exercise,--the flower of the English aristocracy residing in the place. You leave the town and stroll to the wide open heath, where all is brightness and space; the white rails stand forth against the dear blue sky--the brushing gallop ever and anon startles the ear and eye; crowds of stable urchins, full of silent importance, stud the heath; you feel elated and long to bound over the well groomed turf and to try the speed of the careering wind. All things at Newmarket train the mind to racing. Life seems on the start, and dull indeed were he who could rein in his feelings when such inspiring objects meet together to madden them!"

"Bravo!" exclaimed Jorrocks, throwing his paper cap in the air as the Yorkshireman concluded.--"Bravo!--werry good indeed! You speak like ten Lord Mayors--never heard nothing better. Dash my vig, if I won't go. By Jove, you've done it. Tell me one thing--is there a good place to feed at?"

"Capital!" replied the Yorkshireman, "beef, mutton, cheese, ham, all the delicacies of the season, as the sailor said"; and thereupon the Yorkshireman and Jorrocks shook hands upon the bargain.

Sunday night arrived, and with it arrived, at the "Belle Sauvage," in Ludgate Hill, Mr. Jorrocks's boy "Binjimin," with Mr. Jorrocks's carpet-bag; and shortly after Mr. Jorrocks, on his chestnut hunter, and the Yorkshireman, in a hack cab, entered the yard. Having consigned his horse to Binjimin; after giving him a very instructive lesson relative to the manner in which he would chastise him if he heard of his trotting or playing any tricks with the horse on his way home, Mr. Jorrocks proceeded to pay the remainder of his fare in the coach office. The mail was full inside and out, indeed the book-keeper assured him he could have filled a dozen more, so anxious ware all London to see the Riddlesworth run. "Inside," said he, "are you and your friend, and if it wern't that the night air might give you cold, Mr. Jorrocks" (for all the book-keepers in London know him), "I should have liked to have got you outsides, and I tried to make an exchange with two black-legs, but they would hear of nothing less than two guineas a head, which wouldn't do, you know. Here comes another of your passengers--a great foreign nobleman, they say--Baron something--though he looks as much like a foreign pickpocket as anything else."

"Vich be de voiture?" inquired a tall, gaunt-looking foreigner, with immense moustache, a high conical hat with a bright buckle, long, loose, blueish-blackish frock-coat, very short white waistcoat, baggy brownish striped trousers, and long-footed Wellington boots, with a sort of Chinese turn up at the toe. "Vich be de Newmarket Voiture?" said he, repeating the query, as he entered the office and deposited a silk umbrella, a camlet cloak, and a Swiss knapsack on the counter. The porter, without any attempt at an answer, took his goods and walked off to the mail, followed closely by the Baron, and after depositing the cloak inside, so that the Baron might ride with his "face to the horses," as the saying is, he turned the knapsack into the hind boot, and swung himself into the office till it was time to ask for something for his exertions. Meanwhile the Baron made a tour of the yard, taking a lesson in English from the lettering on the various coaches, when, on the hind boot of one, he deciphered the word Cheapside.--"Ah, Cheapside!" said he, pulling out his dictionary and turning to the letter C. "Chaste, chat, chaw,--cheap, dat be it. Cheap,--to be had at a low price--small value. Ah! I hev (have) it," said he, stamping and knitting his brows, "sacré-e-e-e-e nom de Dieu," and the first word being drawn out to its usual longitude, three strides brought him and the conclusion of the oath into the office together. He then opened out upon the book-keeper, in a tremendous volley of French, English and Hanoverian oaths, for he was a cross between the first and last named countries, the purport of which was "dat he had paid de best price, and he be dem if he vod ride on de Cheapside of de coach." In vain the clerks and book-keepers tried to convince him he was wrong in his interpretation. With the full conviction of a foreigner that he was about to be cheated, he had his cloak shifted to the opposite side of the coach, and the knapsack placed on the roof. The fourth inside having cast up, the outside passengers mounted, the insides took their places, three-pences and sixpences were pulled out for the porters, the guard twanged his horn, the coachman turned out his elbow, flourished his whip, caught the point, cried "All right! sit tight!" and trotted out of the yard.

Jorrocks and the Yorkshireman sat opposite each other, the Baron and old Sam Spring, the betting man, did likewise. Who doesn't know old Sam, with his curious tortoiseshell-rimmed spectacles, his old drab hat turned up with green, careless neckcloth, flowing robe, and comical cut? He knew Jorrocks--though--tell it not in Coram Street, he didn't know his name; but concluded from the disparity of age between him and his companion, that Jorrocks was either a shark or a shark's jackal, and the Yorkshireman a victim. With due professional delicacy, he contented himself with scrutinising the latter through his specs. The Baron's choler having subsided, he was the first to break the ice of silence. "Foine noight," was the observation, which was thrown out promiscuously to see who would take it up. Now Sam Spring, though he came late, had learned from the porter that there was a Baron in the coach, and being a great admirer of the nobility, for whose use he has a code of signals of his own, consisting of one finger to his hat for a Baron Lord as he calls them, two for a Viscount, three for an Earl, four for a Marquis, and the whole hand for a Duke, he immediately responded with "Yes, my lord," with a fore-finger to his hat. There is something sweet in the word "Lord" which finds its way home to the heart of an Englishman. No sooner did Sam pronounce it, than the Baron became transformed in Jorrocks's eyes into a very superior sort of person, and forthwith he commences ingratiating himself by offering him a share of a large paper of sandwiches, which the Baron accepted with the greatest condescension, eating what he could and stuffing the remainder into his hat. His lordship was a better hand at eating than speaking, and the united efforts of the party could not extract from him the precise purport of his journey. Sam threw out two or three feasible offers in the way of bets, but they fell still-born to the bottom of the coach, and Jorrocks talked to him about hunting and had the conversation all to himself, the Baron merely replying with a bow and a stare, sometimes diversified with, or "I tank you--vare good." The conversation by degrees resolved itself into a snore, in which they were all indulging, when the raw morning air rushed in among them, as a porter with a lanthorn opened the door and announced their arrival at Newmarket. Forthwith they turned into the street, and the outside passengers having descended, they all commenced straddling, yawning, and stretching their limbs while the guard and porters sorted their luggage. The Yorkshireman having an eye to a bed, speedily had Mr. Jorrocks's luggage and his own on the back of a porter on its way to the "Rutland Arms," while that worthy citizen followed in a sort of sleepy astonishment at the smallness of the place, inquiring if they were sure they had not stopped at some village by mistake. Two beds had been ordered for two gentlemen who could not get two seats by the mail, which fell to the lot of those who did, and into these our heroes trundled, having arranged to be called by the early exercising hour.

Whether it was from want of his usual night-cap of brandy and water, or the fatigues of travelling, or what else, remains unknown, but no sooner was Mr. Jorrocks left alone with his candle, than all at once he was seized with a sudden fit of trepidation, on thinking that he should have been inveigled to such a place as Newmarket, and the tremor increasing as he pulled four five-pound bank-notes out of his watch-pocket, besides a vast of silver and his great gold watch, he was resolved, should an attempt be made upon his property, to defend it with his life, and having squeezed the notes into the toe of his boots, and hid the silver in the wash-hand stand, he very deliberately put his watch and the poker under the pillow, and set the heavy chest of drawers with two stout chairs and a table against the door, after all which exertions he got into bed and very soon fell sound asleep.

Most of the inmates of the house were up with the lark to the early exercises, and the Yorkshireman was as early as any of them. Having found Mr. Jorrocks's door, he commenced a loud battery against it without awaking the grocer; he then tried to open it, but only succeeded in getting it an inch or two from the post, and after several holloas of "Jorrocks, my man! Mr. Jorrocks! Jorrocks, old boy! holloa, Jorrocks!" he succeeded in extracting the word "Wot?" from the worthy gentleman as he rolled over in his bed. "Jorrocks!" repeated the Yorkshireman, "it's time to be up." "Wot?" again was the answer. "Time to get up. The morning's breaking." "Let it break," replied he, adding in a mutter, as he turned over again, "it owes me nothing."

Entreaties being useless, and a large party being on the point of setting off, the Yorkshireman joined them, and spent a couple of hours on the dew-bespangled heath, during which time they not only criticised the figure and action of every horse that was out, but got up tremendous appetites for breakfast. In the meantime Mr. Jorrocks had risen, and having attired himself with his usual care, in a smart blue coat with metal buttons, buff waistcoat, blue stocking-netted tights, and Hessian boots, he turned into the main street of Newmarket, where he was lost in astonishment at the insignificance of the place. But wiser men than Mr. Jorrocks have been similarly disappointed, for it enters into the philosophy of few to conceive the fame and grandeur of Newmarket compressed into the limits of the petty, outlandish, Icelandish place that bears the name. "Dash my vig," said Mr. Jorrocks, as he brought himself to bear upon Rogers's shop-window, "this is the werry meanest town I ever did see. Pray, sir," addressing himself to a groomish-looking man in a brown cut-away coat, drab shorts and continuations, who had just emerged from the shop with a race list in his hand, "Pray, sir, be this your principal street?" The man eyed him with a mixed look of incredulity and contempt. At length, putting his thumbs into the arm-holes of his waistcoat, he replied, "I bet a crown you know as well as I do." "Done," said Mr. Jorrocks holding out his hand. "No--I won't do that," replied the man, "but I'll tell you what I'll do with you,--I'll lay you two to one, in fives or fifties if you like, that you knew before you axed, and that Thunderbolt don't win the Riddlesworth." "Really," said Mr. Jorrocks, "I'm not a betting man." "Then, wot the 'ell business have you at Newmarket?" was all the answer he got. Disgusted with such inhospitable impertinence, Mr. Jorrocks turned on his heel and walked away. Before the "White Hart" Inn was a smartish pony phaeton, in charge of a stunted stable lad. "I say, young chap," inquired Jorrocks, "whose is that?" "How did you know that I was a young chap?" inquired the abortion turning round. "Guessed it," replied Jorrocks, chuckling at his own wit. "Then guess whose it is."

"Pray, are your clocks here by London time?" he asked of a respectable elderly-looking man whom he saw turn out of the entry leading to the Kingston rooms, and take the usual survey first up the town and then down it, and afterwards compose his hands in his breeches-pockets, there to stand to see the "world." [17] "Come now, old 'un--none o' your tricks here--you've got a match on against time, I suppose," was all the answer he could get after the man (old R--n the ex-flagellator) had surveyed him from head to foot.

[Footnote 17: Newmarket or London--it's all the same--"The world" is but composed of one's own acquaintance.]

We need hardly say after all these rebuffs that when Mr. Jorrocks met the Yorkshireman, he was not in the best possible humour; indeed, to say nothing of the extreme sharpness and suspicion of the people, we know of no place where a man, not fond of racing, is so completely out of his element as at Newmarket, for with the exception of a little "elbow shaking" in the evening, there is literally and truly nothing else to do. It is "Heath," "Ditch in," "Abingdon mile," "T.Y.C. Stakes," "Sweepstakes," "Handicaps," "Bet," "Lay," "Take," "Odds," "Evens," morning, noon and night.

Mr. Jorrocks made bitter complaints during the breakfast, and some invidious comparisons between racing men and fox-hunters, which, however, became softer towards the close, as he got deeper in the delicacy of a fine Cambridge brawn. Nature being at length appeased, he again thought of turning out, to have a look, as he said, at the shows on the course, but the appearance of his friend the Baron opposite the window, put it out of his head, and he sallied forth to join him. The Baron was evidently incog.: for he had on the same short dirty-white waistcoat, Chinese boots, and conical hat, that he travelled down in, and being a stranger in the land, of course he was uncommonly glad to pick up Jorrocks, so after he had hugged him a little, called him a "bon garçon," and a few other endearing terms, he run his great long arm through his, and walked him down street, the whole peregrinations of Newmarket being comprised in the words "up street" and "down." He then communicated in most unrepresentable language, that he was on his way to buy "an 'oss," and Jorrocks informing him that he was a perfect connoisseur in the article, the Baron again assured him of his distinguished consideration. They were met by Joe Rogers the trainer with a ring-key in his hand, who led the way to the stable, and having unlocked a box in which was a fine slapping four-year old, according to etiquette he put his hat in a corner, took a switch in one hand, laid hold of the horse's head with the other, while the lad in attendance stripped off its clothes. The Baron then turned up his wrists, and making a curious noise in his throat, proceeded to pass his hand down each leg, and along its back, after which he gave it a thump in the belly and squeezed its throat, when, being as wise as he was at starting, he stuck his thumb in his side, and took a mental survey of the whole.--"Ah," said he at length--"foin 'oss,--foin 'oss; vot ears he has?" "Oh," said Rogers, "they show breeding." "Non, non, I say vot ears he has?" "Well, but he carries them well," was the answer. "Non, non," stamping, "I say vot ears (years) he has?" "Oh, hang it, I twig--four years old." Then the Baron took another long look at him. At length he resumed, "I vill my wet." "What's that?" inquired Rogers of Jorrocks. "His wet--why, a drink to be sure," and thereupon Rogers went to the pump and brought a glass of pure water, which the Baron refused with becoming indignation. "Non, non," said he stamping, "I vill my wet." Rogers looked at Jorrocks, and Jorrocks looked at Rogers, but neither Rogers nor Jorrocks understood him. "I vill my wet," repeated the Baron with vehemence. "He must want some brandy in it," observed Mr. Jorrocks, judging of the Baron by himself, and thereupon the lad was sent for three-penn'orth. When it arrived, the Baron dashed it out of his hand with a prolonged sacré-e-e-e--! adding "I vill von wet-tin-nin-na-ary surgeon." The boy was dispatched for one, and on his arrival the veterinary surgeon went through the process that the Baron had attempted, and not being a man of many words, he just gave the Baron a nod at the end. "How moch?" inquked the Baron of Rogers. "Five hundred," was the answer. "Vot, five hundred livre?" "Oh d----n it, you may take or leave him, just as you like, but you won't get him for less." The "vet" explained that the Baron wished to know whether it was five hundred francs (French ten-pences), or five hundred guineas English money, and being informed that it was the latter, he gave his conical hat a thrust on his brow, and bolted out of the box.

But race hour approaches, and people begin to assemble in groups before the "rooms," while tax-carts, pony-gigs, post-chaises, the usual aristocratical accompaniments of Newmarket, come dribbling at intervals into the town. Here is old Sam Spring in a spring-cart, driven by a ploughboy in fustian, there the Earl of---- on a ten-pound pony, with the girths elegantly parted to prevent the saddle slipping over its head, while Miss----, his jockey's daughter, dashes by him in a phaeton with a powdered footman, and the postilion in scarlet and leathers, with a badge on his arm. Old Crockey puts on his greatcoat, Jem Bland draws the yellow phaeton and greys to the gateway of the "White Hart," to take up his friend Crutch Robinson; Zac, Jack and another, have just driven on in a fly. In short, it's a brilliant meeting! Besides four coronetted carriages with post-horses, there are three phaetons-and-pair; a thing that would have been a phaeton if they'd have let it; General Grosvenor's dog-carriage, that is to say, his carriage with a dog upon it; Lady Chesterfield and the Hon. Mrs. Anson in a pony phaeton with an out-rider (Miss---- will have one next meeting instead of the powdered footman); Tattersall in his double carriage driving without bearing-reins; Old Theobald in leather breeches and a buggy; five Bury butchers in a tax-cart; Young Dutch Sam on a pony; "Short-odds Richards" on a long-backed crocodile-looking rosinante; and no end of pedestrians.

But where is Mr. Jorrocks all this time? Why eating brawn in the "Rutland Arms" with his friend the Baron, perfectly unconscious that all these passers-by were not the daily visables of the place. "Dash my vig," said he, as he bolted another half of the round, "I see no symptoms of a stir. Come, my lord, do me the honour to take another glass of sherry." His lordship was nothing loath, so by mutual entreaties they finished the bottle, besides a considerable quantity of porter. A fine, fat, chestnut, long-tailed Suffolk punch cart mare--fresh from the plough--having been considerately provided by the Yorkshireman for Mr. Jorrocks, with a cob for himself, they proceeded to mount in the yard, when Mr. Jorrocks was concerned to find that the Baron had nothing to carry him. His lordship, too, seemed disconcerted, but it was only momentary; for walking up to the punch mare, and resting his elbow on her hind quarter to try if she kicked, he very coolly vaulted up behind Mr. Jorrocks. Now Jorrocks, though proud of the patronage of a lord, did not exactly comprehend whether he was in earnest or not, but the Baron soon let him know; for thrusting his conical hat on his brow, he put his arm round Jorrocks's waist, and gave the old mare a touch in the flank with the Chinese boot, crying out--"Along me, brave _garçon_, along _ma cher_," and the owner of the mare living at Kentford, she went off at a brisk trot in that direction, while the Yorkshireman slipped down the town unperceived. The sherry had done its business on them both; the Baron, and who, perhaps was the most "cut" of the two, chaunted the _Marsellaise_ hymn of liberty with as much freedom as though he were sitting in the saddle. Thus they proceeded laughing and singing until the Bury pay-gate arrested their progress, when it occurred to the steersman to ask if they were going right. "Be this the vay to Newmarket races?" inquired Jorrocks of the pike-keeper. The man dived into the small pocket of his white apron for a ticket and very coolly replied, "Shell out, old 'un." "How much?" said Jorrocks. "Tuppence," which having got, he said, "Now, then, you may turn, for the heath be over yonder," pointing back, "at least it was there this morning, I know." After a volley of abuse for his impudence, Mr. Jorrocks, with some difficulty got the old mare pulled round, for she had a deuced hard mouth of her own, and only a plain snaffle in it; at last, however, with the aid of a boy to beat her with a furze-bush, they got her set a-going again, and, retracing their steps, they trotted "down street," rose the hill, and entered the spacious wide-extending flat of Newmarket Heath. The races were going forward on one of the distant courses, and a slight, insignificant, black streak, swelling into a sort of oblong (for all the world like an overgrown tadpole), was all that denoted the spot, or interrupted the verdant aspect of the quiet extensive plain. Jorrocks was horrified, having through life pictured Epsom as a mere drop in the ocean compared with the countless multitude of Newmarket, while the Baron, who was wholly indifferent to the matter, nearly had old Jorrocks pitched over the mare's head by applying the furze-bush (which he had got from the boy) to her tail while Mr. Jorrocks was sitting loosely, contemplating the barrenness of the prospect. The sherry was still alive, and being all for fun, he shuffled back into the saddle as soon as the old mare gave over kicking; and giving a loud tally-ho, with some minor "hunting noises," which were responded to by the Baron in notes not capable of being set to music, and aided by an equally indescribable accompaniment from the old mare at every application of the bush, she went off at score over the springy turf, and bore them triumphantly to the betting-post just as the ring was in course of formation, a fact which she announced by a loud neigh on viewing her companion of the plough, as well as by unpsetting some half-dozen black-legs as she rushed through the crowd to greet her. Great was the hubbub, shouting, swearing, and laughing,--for though the Newmarketites are familiar with most conveyances, from a pair of horses down to a pair of shoes, it had not then fallen to their lot to see two men ride into the ring on the same horse,--certainly not with such a hat between them as the Baron's.

The gravest and weightiest matters will not long distract the attention of a black-leg, and the laughter having subsided without Jorrocks or the Baron being in the slightest degree disconcerted, the ring was again formed; horses' heads again turn towards the post, while carriages, gigs, and carts form an outer circle. A solemn silence ensues. The legs are scanning the list. At length one gives tongue. "What starts? Does Lord Eldon start?" "No, he don't," replies the owner. "Does Trick, by Catton?" "Yes, and Conolly rides--but mind, three pounds over." "Does John Bull?" "No John's struck out." "Polly Hopkins does, so does Talleyrand, also O, Fy! out of Penitence; Beagle and Paradox also--and perhaps Pickpocket."

Another pause, and the pencils are pulled from the betting-books. The legs and lords look at each other, but no one likes to lead off. At length a voice is heard offering to take nine to one he names the winner. "It's short odds, doing it cautiously. I'll take eight then," he adds--"sivin!" but no one bites. "What will anyone lay about Trick, by Catton?" inquires Jem Bland. "I'll lay three to two again him. I'll take two to one--two ponies to one, and give you a suv. for laying it." "Carn't" is the answer. "I'll do it, Jem," cries a voice. "No, you won't," from Bland, not liking his customer. Now they are all at it, and what a hubbub there is! "I'll back the field--I'll lay--I'll take--I'll bet--ponies--fifties--hundreds--five hundred to two." "What do you want, my lord?" "Three to one against Trick, by Catton." "Carn't afford it--the odds really arn't that in the ring." "Take two--two hundred to one." "No." "Crockford, you'll do it for me?" "Yes, my lord. Twice over if you like. Done, done." "Do it again?" "No, thank you."

"Trick, by Catton, don't start!" cries a voice. "Impossible!" exclaim his backers. "Quite true, I'm just from the weighing-house, and----told me so himself." "Shame! shame!" roar those who have backed him, and "honour--rascals--rogues--thieves--robbery--swindle--turf-ruined"--fly from tongue to tongue, but they are all speakers with never a speaker to cry order. Meanwhile the lads have galloped by on their hacks with the horses' cloths to the rubbing-house, and the horses have actually started, and are now visible in the distance sweeping over the open heath, apparently without guide or beacon.

The majority of the ring rush to the white judge's box, and have just time to range themselves along the rude stakes and ropes that guard the run in, and the course-keeper in a shooting-jacket on a rough pony to crack his whip, and cry to half a dozen stable-lads to "clear the course," before the horses come flying towards home. Now all is tremor; hope and fear vacillating in each breast. Silence stands breathless with expectation--all eyes are riveted--the horses come within descrying distance--"beautiful!" three close together, two behind. "Clear the course! clear the course! pray clear the course!" "Polly Hopkins! Polly Hopkins!" roar a hundred voices as they near. "O, Fy! O, Fy!" respond an equal number. "The horse! the horse!" bellow a hundred more, as though their yells would aid his speed, as Polly Hopkins, O, Fy! and Talleyrand rush neck-and-neck along the cords and pass the judge's box. A cry of "dead heat!" is heard. The bystanders see as suits their books, and immediately rush to the judge's box, betting, bellowing, roaring, and yelling the whole way. "What's won? what's won? what's won?" is vociferated from a hundred voices. "Polly Hopkins! Polly Hopkins! Polly Hopkins!" replies Mr. Clark with judicial dignity. "By how much? by how much?" "Half a head--half a head," [18] replies the same functionary. "What's second?" "O, Fy!" and so, amid the song of "Pretty, pretty Polly Hopkins," from the winners, and curses and execrations long, loud, and deep, from the losers, the scene closes.

The admiring winners follow Polly to the rubbing-house, while the losing horses are left in the care of their trainers and stable-boys, who console themselves with hopes of "better luck next time."

After a storm comes a calm, and the next proceeding is the wheeling of the judge's box, and removal of the old stakes and ropes to another course on a different part of the heath, which is accomplished by a few ragged rascals, as rude and uncouth as the furniture they bear. In less than half an hour the same group of anxious careworn countenances are again turned upon each other at the betting-post, as though they had never separated. But see! the noble owner of Trick, by Catton, is in the crowd, and Jem Bland eyeing him like a hawk. "I say, Waggey," cries he (singling out a friend stationed by his lordship), "had you ought on Trick, by Catton?" "No, Jem," roars Wagstaff, shaking his head, "I knew my man too well." "Why now, Waggey, do you know I wouldn't have done such a thing for the world! no, not even to have been made a Markiss!" a horse-laugh follows this denunciation, at which the newly created marquis bites his livid lips.

[Footnote 18: No judge ever gave a race as won by half a head; but we let the whole passage stand as originally written.--EDITOR.]

The Baron, who appears to have no taste for walking, still sticks to the punch mare, which Mr. Jorrocks steers to the newly formed ring aided by the Baron and the furze-bush. Here they come upon Sam Spring, whose boy has just brought his spring-cart to bear upon the ring formed by the horsemen, and thinking it a pity a nobleman of any county should be reduced to the necessity of riding double, very politely offers to take one into his carriage. Jorrocks accepts the offer, and forthwith proceeds to make himself quite at home in it. The chorus again commences, and Jorrocks interrogates Sam as to the names of the brawlers. "Who be that?" said he, "offering to bet a thousand to a hundred." Spring, after eyeing him through his spectacles, with a grin and a look of suspicion replies, "Come now--come--let's have no nonsense--you know as well as I." "Really," replies Mr. Jorrocks most earnestly, "I don't." "Why, where have you lived all your life?" "First part of it with my grandmother at Lisson Grove, afterwards at Camberwell, but now I resides in Great Coram Street, Russell Square--a werry fashionable neighbourhood." "Oh, I see," replies Sam, "you are one of the reg'lar city coves, then--now, what brings you here?" "Just to say that I have been at Newmarket, for I'm blowed if ever you catch me here again." "That's a pity," replied Sam, "for you look like a promising man--a handsome-bodied chap in the face--don't you sport any?" "O a vast!--'unt regularly--I'm a member of the Surrey 'unt--capital one it is too--best in England by far." "What do you hunt?" inquired Sam. "Foxes, to be sure." "And are they good eating?" "Come," replied Jorrocks, "you know, as well as I do, we don't eat 'em." The dialogue was interrupted by someone calling to Sam to know what he was backing.

"The Bedlamite colt, my lord," with a forefinger to his hat. "Who's that?" inquired Jorrocks. "That's my Lord L----, a baron-lord--and a very nice one--best baron-lord I know--always bets with me--that's another baron-lord next him, and the man next him is a baron-knight, a stage below a baron-lord--something between a nobleman and a gentleman." "And who be that stout, good-looking man in a blue coat and velvet collar next him, just rubbing his chin with the race card--he'll be a lord too, I suppose?" "No,--that's Mr. Gully, as honest a man as ever came here,--that's Crockford before him. The man on the right is Mr. C----, who they call the 'cracksman,' because formerly he was a professional housebreaker, but he has given up that trade, and turned gentleman, bets, and keeps a gaming-table. This little ugly black-faced chap, that looks for all the world like a bilious Scotch terrier, has lately come among us. He was a tramping pedlar--sold worsted stockings--attended country courses, and occasionally bet a pair. Now he bets thousands of pounds, and keeps racehorses. The chaps about him all covered with chains and rings and brooches, were in the duffing line--sold brimstoned sparrows for canary-birds, Norwich shawls for real Cashmere, and dried cabbage-leaves for cigars. Now each has a first-rate house, horses and carriages, and a play-actress among them. Yon chap, with the extravagantly big mouth, is a cabinet-maker at Cambridge. He'll bet you a thousand pounds as soon as look at you."

"The chap on the right of the post with the red tie, is the son of an ostler. He commenced betting thousands with a farthing capital. The man next him, all teeth and hair, like a rat-catcher's dog, is an Honourable by birth, but not very honourable in his nature." "But see," cried Mr. Jorrocks, "Lord---- is talking to the Cracksman." "To be sure," replies Sam, "that's the beauty of the turf. The lord and the leg are reduced to an equality. Take my word for it, if you have a turn for good society, you should come upon the turf.--I say, my Lord Duke!" with all five fingers up to his hat, "I'll lay you three to two on the Bedlamite colt." "Done, Mr. Spring," replies his Grace, "three ponies to two." "There!" cried Mr. Spring, turning to Jorrocks, "didn't I tell you so?" The riot around the post increases. It is near the moment of starting, and the legs again become clamorous for what they want. Their vehemence increases. Each man is _in extremis_. "They are off!" cries one. "No, they are not," replies another. "False start," roars a third. "Now they come!" "No, they don't!" "Back again." They are off at last, however, and away they speed over the flat. The horses come within descrying distance. It's a beautiful race--run at score the whole way, and only two tailed off within the cords. Now they set to--whips and spurs go, legs leap, lords shout, and amid the same scene of confusion, betting, galloping, cursing, swearing, and bellowing, the horses rush past the judge's box.

But we have run our race, and will not fatigue our readers with repetition. Let us, however, spend the evening, and then the "Day at Newmarket" will be done.

Mr. Spring, with his usual attention to strangers, persuades Mr. Jorrocks to make one of a most agreeable dinner-party at the "White Hart" on the assurance of spending a delightful evening. Covers are laid for sixteen in the front room downstairs, and about six o'clock that number are ready to sit down. Mr. Badchild, the accomplished keeper of an oyster-room and minor hell in Pickering Place, is prevailed upon to take the chair, supported on his right by Mr. Jorrocks, and on his left by Mr. Tom Rhodes, of Thames Street, while the stout, jolly, portly Jerry Hawthorn fills--in the fullest sense of the word--the vice-chair. Just as the waiters are removing the covers, in stalks the Baron, in his conical hat, and reconnoitres the viands. Sam, all politeness, invites him to join the party. "I tank you," replies the Baron, "but I have my wet in de next room." "But bring your wet with you," rejoins Sam, "we'll all have our wet together after dinner," thinking the Baron meant his wine.

The usual inn grace--"For what we are going to receive, the host expects to be paid",--having been said with great feeling and earnestness, they all set to at the victuals, and little conversation passed until the removal of the cloth, when Mr. Badchild, calling upon his vice, observed that as in all probability there were gentlemen of different political and other opinions present, perhaps the best way would be to give a comprehensive toast, and so get over any debatable ground,--he therefore proposed to drink in a bumper "The king, the queen, and all the royal family, the ministry, particularly the Master of the Horse, the Army, the Navy, the Church, the State, and after the excellent dinner they had eaten, he would include the name of the landlord of the White Hart" (great applause). Song from Jerry Hawthorn--"The King of the Cannibal Islands".--The chairman then called upon the company to fill their glasses to a toast upon which there could be no difference of opinion. "It was a sport which they all enjoyed, one that was delightful to the old and to the young, to the peer and to the peasant, and open to all. Whatever might be the merits of other amusements, he had never yet met any man with the hardihood to deny that racing was at once the noblest and the most legitimate" (loud cheers, and thumps on the table, that set all the glasses dancing), "not only was it the noblest and most legitimate, but it was the most profitable; and where was the man of high and honourable principle who did not feel when breathing the pure atmosphere of that Heath, a lofty self-satisfaction at the thought, that though he might have left those who were near and dear to him in a less genial atmosphere, still he was not selfishly enjoying himself, without a thought for their welfare; for racing, while it brought health and vigour to the father, also brought what was dearer to the mind of a parent--the means of promoting the happiness and prosperity of his family--(immense cheers). With these few observations he should simply propose 'The Turf,' and may we long be above it"--(applause and, on the motion of Mr. Spring, three cheers for Mrs. Badchild and all the little Badchildren were called for and given). When the noise had subsided. Mr. Jorrocks very deliberately got up, amid whispers and inquiries as to who he was. "Gentlemen," said he, with an indignant stare, and a thump on the table, "Gentlemen, I say, in much of what has fallen from our worthy chairman, I go-in-sides, save in what he says about racing--I insists that 'unting is the sport of sports" (immense laughter, and cries of "wot an old fool!") "Gentlemen may laugh, but I say it's a fact, and though I doesn't wish to create no displeasancy whatsomever, yet I should despise myself most confoundedly--should consider myself unworthy of the great and distinguished 'unt to which I have the honour to belong, if I sat quietly down without sticking up for the chase (laughter).--I say, it's one of the balances of the constitution (laughter).--I say, it's the sport of kings! the image of war without its guilt (hisses and immense laughter). He would fearlessly propose a bumper toast--he would give them 'fox-hunting.'" There was some demur about drinking it, but on the interposition of Sam Spring, who assured the company that Jorrocks was one of the right sort, and with an addition proposed by Jerry Hawthorn, which made the toast more comprehensible, they swallowed it, and the chairman followed it up with "The Sod",--which was drunk with great applause. Mr. Cox of Blue Hammerton returned thanks. "He considered cock-fighting the finest of all fine amusements. Nothing could equal the rush between two prime grey-hackles--that was his colour. The chairman had said a vast for racing, and to cut the matter short, he might observe that cock-fighting combined all the advantages of making money, with the additional benefit of not being interfered with by the weather. He begged to return his best thanks for himself and brother sods, and only regretted he had not been taught speaking in his youth, or he would certainly have convinced them all, that 'cocking' was the sport." "Coursing" was the next toast--for which Arthur Pavis, the jockey, returned thanks. "He was very fond of the 'long dogs,' and thought, after racing, coursing was the true thing. He was no orator, and so he drank off his wine to the health of the company." "Steeplechasing" followed, for which Mr. Coalman of St. Albans returned thanks, assuring the company that it answered his purpose remarkably well. Then the Vice gave the "Chair," and the Chair gave the "Vice"; and by way of a finale, Mr. Badchild proposed the game of "Chicken-hazard," observing in a whisper to Mr. Jorrocks, that perhaps he would like to subscribe to a joint-stock purse for the purpose of going to hell. To which Mr. Jorrocks, with great gravity, replied; "Sir, I'm d----d if I do."

VI. A WEEK AT CHELTENHAM: THE CHELTENHAM DANDY

Mr. Jorrocks had been very poorly indeed of indigestion, as he calls it, produced by tucking in too much roast beef and plum pudding at Christmas, and prolonging the period of his festivities a little beyond the season allowed by Moore's _Almanack_, and having in vain applied the usual remedies prescribed on such occasions, he at length consented to try the Cheltenham waters, though altogether opposed to the element, he not having "astonished his stomach," as he says, for the last fifteen years with a glass of water.

Having established himself and the Yorkshireman in a small private lodging in High Street, consisting of two bedrooms and a sitting-room, he commenced his visits to the royal spa, and after a few good drenches, picked up so rapidly, that to whatever inn they went to dine, the landlords and waiters were astounded at the consumption of prog, and in a very short time he was known from the "Royal Hotel" down to Hurlston's Commercial Inn, as the great London Cormorant. At first, however, he was extremely depressed in spirits, and did nothing the whole day after his arrival, but talk about the arrangement of his temporal affairs; and the first symptom he gave of returning health was one day at dinner at the "Plough," by astonishing two or three scarlet-coated swells, who as usual were disporting themselves in the coffee-room, by bellowing to the waiter for some Talli-ho "sarce" to his fish. Before this he had never once spoken of his favourite diversion, and the sportsmen cantered by the window to cover in the morning, and back in the afternoon, without eliciting a single observation from him. The morning after this change for the better, he addressed his companion at breakfast as follows: "Blow me tight, Mr. York, if I arn't regularly renowated. I'm as fresh as an old hat after a shower of rain. I really thinks I shall get over this terrible illness, for I dreamt of 'unting last night, and, if you've a mind, we'll go and see my Lord Segrave's reynard dog, and then start from this 'ere corrupt place, for, you see, it's nothing but a town, and what's the use of sticking oneself in a little pokey lodging like this 'ere, where there really is not room to swing a cat, and paying the deuce knows how much tin, too, when one has a splendid house in Great Coram Street going on all the time, with a rigler establishment of servants and all that sort of thing. Now, you knows, I doesn't grudge a wisit to Margate, though that's a town too, but then, you see, one has the sea to look at, whereas here, it's nothing but a long street with shops, not so good as those in Red Lion Street, with a few small streets branching off from it, and as to the prommenard, as they calls it, aside the spa, with its trees and garden stuff, why, I'm sure, to my mind, the Clarence Gardens up by the Regent's Park, are quite as fine. It's true the doctor says I must remain another fortnight to perfect the cure, but then them 'ere M.D.'s, or whatever you calls them, are such rum jockeys, and I always thinks they say one word for the patient and two for themselves. Now, my chap said, I must only take half a bottle o' black strap a day at the werry most, whereas I have never had less than a whole one--his half first, as I say, and my own after--and because I tells him I take a pint, he flatters himself his treatment is capital, and that he is a wonderful M.D.; but as a man can't be better than well, I think we'll just see what there's to be seen in the neighbourhood, and then cut our sticks, and, as I said before, I should like werry much to see my Lord Segrave's hounds, in order that I may judge whether there is anything in the wide world to be compared to the Surrey, for if I remember right, Mr. Nimrod described them as werry, werry fine, indeed."

Having formed this resolution, Jorrocks stamped on the floor (for the bell was broken) for the little boy who did the odd jobs of the house, to bring up his Hessian boots, into which having thrust his great calves, and replaced the old brown great-coat which he uses for a dressing-gown by a superfine Saxony blue, with metal buttons and pockets outside, he pulled his wig straight, stuck his white hat with the green flaps knowingly on his head, and sallied forth for execution as stout a man as ever. Knowing that the kennel is near the Winchcourt road, they proceeded in that direction, but after walking about a mile, came upon a groom on a chestnut horse, who, returning from the chase, was wetting his whistle at the appropriate sign of the "Fox and Hounds," and who informed them that they had passed the turning for the kennel, but that the hounds were out, and then in a wood which he pointed out on the hillside about two miles off, into which they had just brought their fox. Looking in that direction, they presently saw the summit of one of the highest of the range of hills that encircle the town of Cheltenham, covered with horsemen and pedestrians, who kept moving backwards and forwards on the "mountain's brow," looking in the distance more like a flock of sheep than anything else. Jorrocks, being all right again and up to anything, proposed a start to the wood, and though he thought they should hardly reach it before the hounds either killed their fox or he broke away again, they agreed to take the chance, and away they went, "best leg first" as the saying is. The cover (Queen Wood by name, and, as Jorrocks found out from somebody, the property of Lord Ellenborough) being much larger than it at first appeared and the fox but a bad one, they were in lots of time, and having toiled to the top of the wood, Jorrocks swaggered in among the horsemen with all the importance of an alderman. For full an hour after they got there the hounds kept running in cover, the fox being repeatedly viewed and the pack continually pressing him. Once or twice he came out, but after skirting the cover's edge a few yards turned in again. Indeed, there were two foxes on foot, one being a three-legged one, and it was extraordinary how he went and stood before hounds, going apparently very cautiously and stopping every now and then to listen. At last a thundering old grey-backed fellow went away before the whole field, making for the steep declivities that lead into the downs, and though the brow of the hill was covered with foot-people who holloa'd and shouted enough to turn a lion, he would make his point, and only altering his course so as to avoid running right among the mob, he gained the summit of the hill and disappeared. This hill, being uncommonly steep, was a breather for hounds that had been running so long as they had, in a thick cover too, and neither they nor the horses went at it with any great dash. The fox was not a fellow to be caught very easily, and nothing but a good start could have given them any chance, but the hounds never got well settled to the scent, and after a fruitless cast his lordship gave it up, and Jorrocks and Co. trudged back to Cheltenham, J---- highly delighted at so favourable an opportunity of seeing the hounds. Indeed, so pleased was he with the turn-out and the whole thing, that finding from Skinner, one of the whippers-in, that they met on the following morning at Purge Down-turnpike, in their best country, forgetting all about his indigestion and the royal spa, he went to Newman and Longridge, the horse dealers and livery stable keepers and engaged a couple of nags "to look at the hounds upon," as he impressed upon their minds, which he ordered to be ready at nine o'clock.

This day he proposed to give the landlord of the "George Inn," in the High Street, the benefit of his rapacious appetite, and about five o'clock (his latest London hour) they sat down to dinner. The "George" is neither exactly a swell house like the "Royal Hotel" or the "Plough," nor yet a commercial one, but something betwixt and between. The coffee-room is very small, consequently all the frequenters are drawn together, and if a conversation is started a man must be deuced unsociable that does not join in the cry.

As three or four were sitting round the fire chatting over their tipple, and Jorrocks was telling some of his best bouncers, the door opened and a waiter bowed a fresh animal into the cage, who, after eyeing the party, took off his hat and forthwith proceeded to pull off divers neckcloths, cloaks, great-coats, muffitees, until he reduced himself to about half the size he was on entering. He was a little square-built old man, with white hair and plenty of it, a long stupid red face with little pig eyes, a very long awkward body, and very short legs. He was dressed in a blue coat, buff waistcoat, a sort of baggy grey or thunder-and-lightning trousers, over which he had buttoned a pair of long black gaiters. Having "peeled," he rubbed his hands and blew upon them, as much as to say, "Now, gentlemen, won't you let me have a smell of the fire?" and, accordingly, by a sort of military revolution, they made a place for him right in the centre.

"Coldish night I reckon, sir," said Jorrocks, looking him over.

"Very cold indeed, very cold indeed," answered he, rubbing his elbows against his ribs, and stamping with his feet. "I've just got off the top of the Liverpool coach, and, I can assure you, it's very cold riding outside a coach all day long--however, I always say that it's better than being inside, though, indeed, it's very little that I trouble coaches at all in the course of the year--generally travel in my own carriage, only my family have it with them in Bristol now, where I'm going to join them; but I'm well used to the elements, hunting, shooting, and fishing, as I do constantly."

This later announcement made Jorrocks rouse up, and finding himself in the company of a sportsman and one, too, who travelled in his own carriage, he assumed a different tone and commenced on a fresh tack--"and pray, may I make bold to inquire what country you hunts in, sir?" said he.

"Oh! I live in Cheshire--Mainwaring's country, but Melton's the place I chiefly hunt at,--know all the fellows there; rare set of dogs, to be sure,--only country worth hunting in, to my mind."

_Jorrocks_. Rigler swells, though, the chaps, arn't they? Recollect one swell of a fellow coming with his upper lip all over fur into our country, thinking to astonish our weak minds, but I reckon we told him out.

_Stranger_. What! you hunt, do you?

_Jorrocks_. A few--you've perhaps heard tell of the Surrey 'unt?

_Stranger_. Cocktail affair, isn't it?

_Jorrocks_. No such thing, I assure you. Cocktail indeed! I likes that.

_Stranger_. Well, but it's not what we calls a fast-coach.

_Jorrocks_. I doesn't know wot you calls a fast-coach, but if you've a mind to make a match, I'll bet you a hat, ay, or half a dozen hats, that I'll find a fellow to take the conceit out o' any your Meltonians.

_Stranger_. Oh! I don't doubt but you have some good men among you; I'm sure I didn't mean anything offensive, by asking if it was a cocktail affair, but we Meltonians certainly have a trick, I must confess, of running every other country down; come, sir, I'll drink the Surrey hunt with all my heart, said he, swigging off the remains of a glass of brandy-and-water which the waiter had brought him shortly after entering.

_Jorrocks_. Thank you, sir, kindly. Waiter, bring me a bottom o' brandy, cold, without--and don't stint for quantity, if you please. Doesn't you think these inns werry expensive places, sir? I doesn't mean this in particular, but inns in general.

_Stranger_. Oh! I don't know, sir. We must expect to pay. "Live and let live," is my motto. I always pay my inn bills without looking them over. Just cast my eyes at the bottom to see the amount, then call for pen and ink, add so much for waiter, so much for chambermaid, so much for boots, and if I'm travelling in my own carriage so much for the ostler for greasing. That's the way I do business, sir.

_Jorrocks_. Well, sir, a werry pleasant plan too, especially for the innkeeper--and all werry right for a gentleman of fortune like you. My motto, however, is "Waste not, want not," and my wife's father's motto was "Wilful waste brings woeful want," and I likes to have my money's worth.--Now, said he, pulling out a handful of bills, at some places that I go to they charges me six shillings a day for my dinner, and when I was ill and couldn't digest nothing but the lightest and plainest of breakfasts, when a fork breakfast in fact would have made a stiff 'un of me, and my muffin mill was almost stopped, they charged me two shillings for one cake, and sixpence for two eggs.--Now I'm in the tea trade myself, you must know, and I contend that as things go, or at least as things went before the Barbarian eye, as they call Napier, kicked up a row with the Hong merchants, it's altogether a shameful imposition, and I wonder people put up with it.

_Stranger_. Oh, sir, I don't know. I think that it is the charge all over the country. Besides, it doesn't do to look too closely at these things, and you must allow something for keeping up the coffee-room, you know--fire, candles, and so on.

_Jorrocks_. But blow me tight, you surely don't want a candle to breakfast by? However, I contends that innkeepers are great fools for making these sort of charges, for it makes people get out of their houses as quick as ever they can, whereas they might be inclined to stay if they could get things moderate.--For my part I likes a coffee-room, but having been used to commercial houses when I travelled, I knows what the charges ought to be. Now, this room is snug enough though small, and won't require no great keeping up.

_Stranger_. No--but this room is smaller than the generality of them, you know. They frequently have two fires in them, besides no end of oil burning.--I know the expense of these things, for I have a very large house in the country, and rely upon it, innkeepers have not such immense profits as many people imagines--but, as I said before, "live and let live."

_Jorrocks_. So says I, "live and let live"--but wot I complains of is, that some innkeepers charge so much that they won't let people live. No man is fonder of eating than myself, but I don't like to pay by the mouthful, or yet to drink tea at so much a thimbleful. By the way, Sar, if you are not previously engaged, I should be werry happy to supply you with red Mocho or best Twankay at a very reasonable figure indeed for cash?

_Stranger._ Thank you, sir, thank you. Those are things I never interfere with--leave all these things to my people. My housekeeper sends me in her book every quarter day, with an account of what she pays. I just look at the amount--add so much for wages, and write a cheque--"live and let live!" say I. However, added he, pulling out his watch, and ringing the bell for the chambermaid, "I hate to get up very early, so I think it is time to go to bed, and I wish you a very good night, gentlemen all."

Jorrocks gets up, advances half-way to the door, makes him one of his most obsequious bows, and wishes him a werry good night. Having heard him tramp upstairs and safely deposited in his bedroom, they pulled their chairs together again, and making a smaller circle round the fire, proceeded to canvass their departed friend. Jorrocks began--"I say, wot a regular swell the chap is--a Meltonian, too.--I wonders who the deuce he is. Wish Mr. Nimrod was among us, he could tell us all about him, I dare say. I'm blowed if I didn't take him for a commercial gentleman at first, until he spoke about his carriages. I likes to see gentlemen of fortune making themselves sociable by coming into the coffee-room, instead of sticking themselves up in private sitting-rooms, as if nobody was good enough for them. You know Melton, Mr. York; did you ever see the gentleman out?"

"I can't say that I ever did," said his friend, "but people look so different in their red coats to what they do in mufti, that there's no such thing as recognising them unless you had a previous acquaintance with them. The fields in Leicestershire are sometimes so large that it requires a residence to get anything like a general knowledge of the hunt, and, you know, Northamptonshire's the country for my money, after Surrey, of course."

"I don't think he is a gentleman," observed a thin sallow-complexioned young man, who, sitting on one side of the fire, had watched the stranger very narrowly without joining in the conversation. "He gives me more the idea of a gentleman's servant, acting the part of master, than anything else."

_Jorrocks._ Oh! he is a gentleman, I'm sure--besides, a servant wouldn't travel in a carriage you know, and he talked about greasing the wheels and all that sort of thing, which showed he was familiar with the thing.

"That's very true," replied the youth--"but a servant may travel in the rumble and pay for greasing the wheels all the same, or perhaps have to grease them himself."

"Well, I should say he's a foolish purse-proud sort of fellow," observed another, "who has come into money unexpectedly, and who likes to be the cock of his party, and show off a little."

_Jorrocks._ I'll be bound to say you're all wrong--you are not fox-hunters, you see, or you would know that that is a way the sportsmen have--we always make ourselves at home and agreeable--have a word for everybody in fact, and no reserve; besides, you see, there was nothing gammonacious, as I calls it, about his toggery, no round-cut coats with sporting buttons, or coaches and four, or foxes for pins in his shirt.

"I don't care for that," replied the sallow youth, "dress him as you will, court suit, bag wig, and sword, you'll make nothing better of him--he's a SNOB."

Jorrocks, getting up, runs to the table on which the hats were standing, saying, "I wonder if he's left his castor behind him? I've always found a man's hat will tell a good deal. This is yours, Mr. York, with the loop to it, and here's mine--I always writes Golgotha in mine, which being interpreted, you know, means the place of a skull. These are yours, I presume, gentlemen?" said he, taking up two others. "Confound him, he's taken his tile with him--however, I'm quite positive he's a gentleman--lay you a hat apiece all round he is, if you like!"

"But how are we to prove it?" inquired the youth.

_Jorrocks._ Call in the waiter.

_Youth._ He may know nothing about him, and a waiter's gentleman is always the man who pays him most.

_Jorrocks._ Trust the waiter for knowing something about him, and if he doesn't, why, it's only to send a purlite message upstairs, saying that two gentlemen in the coffee-room have bet a trifle that he is some nobleman--Lord Maryborough, for instance,--he's a little chap--but we must make haste, or the gentleman will be asleep.

"Well, then, I'll take your bet of a hat," replied the youth, "that he is not what I call a gentleman."

_Jorrocks._ I don't know what you calls a gentleman. I'll lay you a hat, a guinea one, either white or black, whichever you like, but none o' your dog hairs or gossamers, mind--that he's a man of dibs, and doesn't follow no trade or calling, and if that isn't a gentleman, I don't know wot is. What say you, Mr. York?

"Suppose we put it thus--You bet this gentleman a hat that he's a Meltonian, which will comprise all the rest."

_Jorrocks._ Werry well put. Do you take me, sir? A guinea hat against a guinea hat.

"I do," said the youth.

_Jorrocks._ Then DONE--now ring the bell for the waiter--I'll pump him.

_Enter waiter._

_Jorrocks._ Snuff them candles, if you please, and bring me another bottom o' brandy-cold, without--and, waiter! here, pray who is that gentleman that came in by the Liverpool coach to-night? The little gentleman in long black gaiters who sat in this chair, you know, and had some brandy-and-water.

_Waiter._ I know who you mean, sir, quite well, the gentleman who's gone to bed. Let me see, what's his name? He keeps that large Hotel in---- Street, Liverpool--what's the--Here an immense burst of laughter drowned the remainder of the sentence.

Jorrocks rose in a rage. "No! you double-distilled blockhead," said he, "no such thing--you're thinking of someone else. The gentleman hunts at Melton Mowbray, and travels in his own carriage."

_Waiter_. I don't know nothing about Melton Mowbray, sir, but the last time he came through here on his road to Bristol, he was in one of his own rattle-trap yellows, and had such a load--his wife, a nurse, and eight children inside; himself, his son, and an apple-tree on the dickey--that the horses knocked up half-way and...

_Jorrocks_. Say no more--say no more--d----n his teeth and toe-nails--and that's swearing--a thing I never do but on the most outrageous occasions. Confounded humbug, I'll be upsides with him, however. Waiter, bring the bill and no more brandy. Never was so done in all my life--a gammonacious fellow! "There, sir, there's your one pound one," said he, handing a sovereign and a shilling to the winner of the hat. "Give me my tile, and let's mizzle.--Waiter, I can't wait; must bring the bill up to my lodgings in the morning if it isn't ready.--Come away, come away--I shall never get over this as long as ever I live. 'Live and let live,' indeed! no wonder he stuck up for the innkeepers--a publican and a sinner as he is. Good night, gentlemen, good night."

_Exit Jorrocks_.

VII. AQUATICS: MR. JORROCKS AT MARGATE

The shady side of Cheapside had become a luxury, and footmen in red plush breeches objects of real commiseration, when Mr. Jorrocks, tired of the heat and "ungrateful hurry of the town," resolved upon undertaking an aquatic excursion. He was sitting, as is "his custom always in the afternoon," in the arbour at the farther end of his gravel walk, which he dignifies by the name of "garden," and had just finished a rough mental calculation, as to whether he could eat more bread spread with jam or honey, when the idea of the jaunt entered his imagination. Being a man of great decision, he speedily winnowed the project over in his mind, and producing a five-pound note from the fob of his small clothes, passed it in review between his fingers, rubbed out the creases, held it up to the light, refolded and restored it to his fob. "Batsay," cried he, "bring my castor--the white one as hangs next the blue cloak;" and forthwith a rough-napped, unshorn-looking, white hat was transferred from the peg to Mr. Jorrocks's head. This done, he proceeded to the "Piazza," where he found the Yorkshireman exercising himself up and down the spacious coffee-room, and, grasping his hand with the firmness of a vice, he forthwith began unburthening himself of the object of his mission. "'Ow are you?" said he, shaking his arm like the handle of a pump. "'Ow are you, I say?--I'm so delighted to see you, ye carn't think--isn't this charming weather! It makes me feel like a butterfly--really think the 'air is sprouting under my vig." Here he took off his wig and rubbed his hand over his bald head, as though he were feeling for the shoots.

"Now to business--Mrs. J---- is away at Tooting, as you perhaps knows, and I'm all alone in Great Coram Street, with the key of the cellar, larder, and all that sort of thing, and I've a werry great mind to be off on a jaunt--what say you?" "Not the slightest objection," replied the Yorkshireman, "on the old principle of you finding cash, and me finding company." "Why, now I'll tell you, werry honestly, that I should greatly prefer your paying your own shot; but, however, if you've a mind to do as I do, I'll let you stand in the half of a five-pound note and whatever silver I have in my pocket," pulling out a great handful as he spoke, and counting up thirty-two and sixpence. "Very good," replied the Yorkshireman when he had finished, "I'm your man;--and not to be behindhand in point of liberality, I've got threepence that I received in change at the cigar divan just now, which I will add to the common stock, so that we shall have six pounds twelve and ninepence between us." "Between us!" exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, "now that's so like a Yorkshireman. I declare you Northerns seem to think all the world are asleep except yourselves;--howsomever, I von't quarrel with you--you're a goodish sort of chap in your way, and so long as I keep the swag, we carn't get far wrong. Well, then, to-morrow at two we'll start for Margate--the most delightful place in all the world, where we will have a rare jollification, and can stay just as long as the money holds out. So now good-bye--I'm off home again to see about wittles for the woyage."

It were almost superfluous to mention that the following day was a Saturday--for no discreet citizen would think of leaving town on any other. It dawned with uncommon splendour, and the cocks of Coram Street and adjacent parts seemed to hail the morn with more than their wonted energy. Never, save on a hunting morning, did Mr. Jorrocks tumble about in bed with such restless anxiety as cock after cock took up the crow in every gradation of noise from the shrill note of the free street-scouring chanticleer before the door, to the faint response of the cooped and prisoned victims of the neighbouring poulterer's, their efforts being aided by the flutterings and impertinent chirruping of swarms of town-bred sparrows.

At length the boy, Binjimin, tapped at his master's door, and, depositing his can of shaving-water on his dressing-table, took away his coat and waistcoat, under pretence of brushing them, but in reality to feel if he had left any pence in the pockets. With pleasure Mr. Jorrocks threw aside the bed-clothes, and bounded upon the floor with a bump that shook his own and adjoining houses. On this day a few extra minutes were devoted to his toilet, one or two of which were expended in adjusting a gold foxhead pin in a conspicuous part of his white tie, and in drawing on a pair of new dark blue stocking-net pantaloons, made so excessively tight, that at starting, any of his Newmarket friends would have laid three to two against his ever getting into them at all. When on, however, they fully developed the substantial proportions of his well-rounded limbs, while his large tasselled Hessians showed that the bootmaker had been instructed to make a pair for a "great calf." A blue coat, with metal buttons, ample laps, and pockets outside, with a handsome buff kerseymere waistcoat, formed his costume on this occasion. Breakfast being over, he repaired to St. Botolph Lane, there to see his letters and look after his commercial affairs; in which the reader not being interested, we will allow the Yorkshireman to figure a little.

About half-past one this enterprising young man placed himself in Tommy Sly's wherry at the foot of the Savoy stairs, and not agreeing in opinion with Mr. Jorrocks that it is of "no use keeping a dog and barking oneself," he took an oar and helped to row himself down to London Bridge. At the wharf below the bridge there lay a magnificent steamer, painted pea-green and white, with flags flying from her masts, and the deck swarming with smart bonnets and bodices. Her name was the _Royal Adelaide_, from which the sagacious reader will infer that this excursion was made during the late reign. The Yorkshireman and Tommy Sly having wormed their way among the boats, were at length brought up within one of the vessels, and after lying on their oars a few seconds, they were attracted by, "Now, sir, are you going to sleep there?" addressed to a rival nautical whose boat obstructed the way, and on looking up on deck what a sight burst upon the Yorkshireman's astonished vision!--Mr. Jorrocks, with his coat off, and a fine green velvet cap or turban, with a broad gold band and tassel, on his head, hoisting a great hamper out of the wherry, rejecting all offers of assistance, and treating the laughter and jeers of the porters and bystanders with ineffable contempt. At length he placed the load to his liking, and putting on his coat, adjusted his hunting telescope, and advanced to the side, as the Yorkshireman mounted the step-ladder and came upon deck. "Werry near being over late," said he, pulling out his watch, just at which moment the last bell rang, and a few strokes of the paddles sent the vessel away from the quay. "A miss is as good as a mile," replied the Yorkshireman; "but pray what have you got in the hamper?"

"In the 'amper! Why, wittles to be sure. You seem to forget we are going a woyage, and 'ow keen the sea hair is. I've brought a knuckle of weal, half a ham, beef, sarsingers, chickens, sherry white, and all that sort of thing, and werry acceptable they'll be by the time we get to the Nore, or may be before."

"Ease her! Stop her!" cried the captain through his trumpet, just as the vessel was getting into her stride in mid-stream, and, with true curiosity, the passengers flocked to the side, to see who was coming, though they could not possibly have examined half they had on board. Mr. Jorrocks, of course, was not behindhand in inquisitiveness, and proceeded to adjust his telescope. A wherry was seen rowing among the craft, containing the boatman, and a gentleman in a woolly white hat, with a bright pea-green coat, and a basket on his knee. "By jingo, here's Jemmy Green!" exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, taking his telescope from his eye, and giving his thigh a hearty slap. "How unkimmon lucky! The werry man of all others I should most like to see. You know James Green, don't you?" addressing the Yorkshireman--"young James Green, junior, of Tooley Street--everybody knows him--most agreeable young man in Christendom--fine warbler--beautiful dancer--everything that a young man should be."

"How are you James?" cried Jorrocks, seizing him by the hand as his friend stepped upon deck; but whether it was the nervousness occasioned by the rocking of the wherry, or the shaking of the step-ladder up the side of the steamer, or Mr. Jorrocks's new turban cap, but Mr. Green, with an old-maidish reserve, drew back from the proffered embrace of his friend. "You have the adwantage of me, sir," said he, fidgeting back as he spoke, and eyeing Mr. Jorrocks with unmeasured surprise--"Yet stay--if I'm not deceived it's Mr. Jorrocks--so it is!" and thereupon they joined hands most cordially, amid exclamations of, "'Ow are you, J----?" '"Ow are you, G----?" "'Ow are you, J----?" "So glad to see you, J----" "So glad to see you, G----" "So glad to see you, J----" "And pray what may you have in your basket?" inquired Mr. Jorrocks, putting his hand to the bottom of a neat little green-and-white willow woman's basket, apparently for the purpose of ascertaining its weight. "Only my clothes, and a little prowision for the woyage. A baked pigeon, some cold maccaroni, and a few pectoral lozenges. At the bottom are my Margate shoes, with a comb in one, and a razor in t'other; then comes the prog, and at the top, I've a dickey and a clean front for to-morrow. I abominates travelling with much luggage. Where, I ax, is the use of carrying nightcaps, when the innkeepers always prowide them, without extra charge? The same with regard to soap. Shave, I say, with what you find in your tray. A wet towel makes an excellent tooth-brush, and a pen-knife both cuts and cleans your nails. Perhaps you'll present your friend to me," added he in the same breath, with a glance at the Yorkshireman, upon whose arm Mr. Jorrocks was resting his telescope hand. "Much pleasure," replied Mr. Jorrocks, with his usual urbanity. "Allow me to introduce Mr. Stubbs, Mr. Green, Mr. Green, Mr. Stubbs: now pray shake hands," added he, "for I'm sure you'll be werry fond of each other"; and thereupon Jemmy, in the most patronising manner, extended his two forefingers to the Yorkshireman, who presented him with one in return. For the information of such of our readers as may never have seen Mr. James Green, senior junior, either in Tooley Street, Southwark, where the patronymic name abounds, or at Messrs. Tattersall's, where he generally exhibits on a Monday afternoon, we may premise, that though a little man in stature, he is a great man in mind and a great swell in costume. On the present occasion, as already stated, he had on a woolly white hat, his usual pea-green coat, with a fine, false, four-frilled front to his shirt, embroidered, plaited, and puckered, like a lady's habit-shirt. Down the front were three or four different sorts of studs, and a butterfly brooch, made of various coloured glasses, sat in the centre. His cravat was of a yellow silk with a flowered border, confining gills sharp and pointed that looked up his nostrils; his double-breasted waistcoat was of red and yellow tartan with blue glass post-boy buttons; and his trousers, which were very wide and cut out over the foot of rusty-black chamois-leather opera-boots, were of a broad blue stripe upon a white ground. A curly, bushy, sandy-coloured wig protruded from the sides of his woolly white hat, and shaded a vacant countenance, which formed the frontispiece of a great chuckle head. Sky-blue gloves and a stout cane, with large tassels, completed the rigging of this borough dandy. Altogether he was as fine as any peacock, and as vain as the proudest.

"And 'ow is Mrs. J----?" inquired Green with the utmost affability--"I hopes she's uncommon well--pray, is she of your party?" looking round. "Why, no," replied Mr. Jorrocks, "she's off at Tooting at her mother's, and I'm just away, on the sly, to stay a five-pound at Margate this delightful weather. 'Ow long do you remain?" "Oh, only till Monday morning--I goes every Saturday; in fact," added he in an undertone, "I've a season ticket, so I may just as well use it, as stay poking in Tooley Street with the old folks, who really are so uncommon glumpy, that it's quite refreshing to get away from them."

"That's a pity," replied Mr. Jorrocks, with one of his benevolent looks. "But 'ow comes it, James, you are not married? You are not a bouy now, and should be looking out for a home of your own." "True, my dear J----, true," replied Mr. Green; "and I'll tell you wot, our principal book-keeper and I have made many calculations on the subject, and being a man of literature like yourself, he gave it as his opinion the last time we talked the matter over, that it would only be avoiding Silly and running into Crab-beds; which I presume means Quod or the Bench. Unless he can have a wife 'made to order,' he says he'll never wed. Besides, the women are such a bothersome encroaching set. I declare I'm so pestered with them that I don't know vich vay to turn. They are always tormenting of me. Only last week one sent me a specification of what she'd marry me for, and I declare her dress, alone, came to more than I have to find myself in clothes, ball-and concert-tickets, keep an 'oss, go to theatres, buy lozenges, letter-paper, and everything else with. There were bumbazeens, and challies, and merinos, and crape, and gauze, and dimity, and caps, bonnets, stockings, shoes, boots, rigids, stays, ringlets; and, would you believe it, she had the unspeakable audacity to include a bustle! It was the most monstrous specification and proposal I ever read, and I returned it by the twopenny post, axing her if she hadn't forgotten to include a set of false teeth. Still, I confess, I'm tired of Tooley Street. I feel that I have a soul above hemp, and was intended for a brighter sphere; but vot can one do, cooped up at home without men of henergy for companions? No prospect of improvement either; for I left our old gentleman alarmingly well just now, pulling about the flax and tow, as though his dinner depended upon his exertions. I think if the women would let me alone, I might have some chance, but it worries a man of sensibility and refinement to have them always tormenting of one.--I've no objection to be led, but, dash my buttons, I von't be driven." "Certainly not," replied Mr. Jorrocks, with great gravity, jingling the silver in his breeches-pocket. "It's an old saying, James, and times proves it true, that you may take an 'oss to the water but you carn't make him drink--and talking of 'osses, pray, how are you off in that line?" "Oh, werry well--uncommon, I may say--a thoroughbred, bang tail down to the hocks, by Phantom, out of Baron Munchausen's dam--gave a hatful of money for him at Tatts'.--five fives--a deal of tin as times go. But he's a perfect 'oss, I assure you--bright bay with four black legs, and never a white hair upon him. He's touched in the vind, but that's nothing--I'm not a fox-hunter, you know, Mr. Jorrocks; besides, I find the music he makes werry useful in the streets, as a warning to the old happle women to get out of the way. Pray, sir," turning to the Yorkshireman with a jerk, "do you dance?"--as the boat band, consisting of a harp, a flute, a lute, a long horn, and a short horn, struck up a quadrille,--and, without waiting for a reply, our hero sidled past, and glided among the crowd that covered the deck.

"A fine young man, James," observed Mr. Jorrocks, eyeing Jemmy as he elbowed his way down the boat--"fine young man--wants a little of his father's ballast, but there's no putting old heads on young shoulders. He's a beautiful dancer," added Mr. Jorrocks, putting his arm through the Yorkshireman's, "let's go and see him foot it." Having worked their way down, they at length got near the dancers, and mounting a ballast box had a fine view of the quadrille. There were eight or ten couple at work, and Jemmy had chosen a fat, dumpy, red-faced girl, in a bright orange-coloured muslin gown, with black velvet Vandyked flounces, and green boots--a sort of walking sunflower, with whom he was pointing his toe, kicking out behind, and pirouetting with great energy and agility. His male _vis-à-vis_ was a waistcoatless young Daniel Lambert, in white ducks, and a blue dress-coat, with a carnation in his mouth, who with a damsel in ten colours, reel'd to and fro in humble imitation. "Green for ever!" cried Mr. Jorrocks, taking off his velvet cap and waving it encouragingly over his head: "Green for ever! Go it Green!" and, accordingly, Green went it with redoubled vigour. "Wiggins for ever!" responded a female voice opposite, "I say, Wiggins!" which was followed by a loud clapping of hands, as the fat gentleman made an astonishing step. Each had his admiring applauders, though Wiggins "had the call" among the ladies--the opposition voice that put him in nomination proceeding from the mother of his partner, who, like her daughter, was a sort of walking pattern book. The spirit of emulation lasted throughout the quadrille, after which, sunflower in hand, Green traversed the deck to receive the compliments of the company.

"You must be 'ungry," observed Mr. Jorrocks, with great politeness to the lady, "after all your exertions," as the latter stood mopping herself with a coarse linen handkerchief--"pray, James, bring your partner to our 'amper, and let me offer her some refreshment," which was one word for the Sunflower and two for himself, the sea breeze having made Mr. Jorrocks what he called "unkimmon peckish." The hamper was speedily opened, the knuckle of veal, the half ham, the aitch bone of beef, the Dorking sausages (made in Drury Lane), the chickens, and some dozen or two of plovers' eggs were exhibited, while Green, with disinterested generosity, added his baked pigeon and cold maccaroni to the common stock. A vigorous attack was speedily commenced, and was kept up, with occasional interruptions by Green running away to dance, until they hove in sight of Herne Bay, which caused an interruption to a very interesting lecture on wines, that Mr. Jorrocks was in the act of delivering, which went to prove that port and sherry were the parents of all wines, port the father, and sherry the mother; and that Bluecellas, hock, Burgundy, claret, Teneriffe, Madeira, were made by the addition of water, vinegar, and a few chemical ingredients, and that of all "humbugs," pale sherry was the greatest, being neither more nor less than brown sherry watered. Mr. Jorrocks then set to work to pack up the leavings in the hamper, observing as he proceeded, that wilful waste brought woeful want, and that "waste not, want not," had ever been the motto of the Jorrocks family.

It was nearly eight o'clock ere the _Royal Adelaide_ touched the point of the far-famed Margate Jetty, a fact that was announced as well by the usual bump, and scuttle to the side to get out first, as by the band striking up _God save the King_, and the mate demanding the tickets of the passengers. The sun had just dropped beneath the horizon, and the gas-lights of the town had been considerately lighted to show him to bed, for the day was yet in the full vigour of life and light.

Two or three other cargoes of cockneys having arrived before, the whole place was in commotion, and the beach swarmed with spectators as anxious to watch this last disembarkation as they had been to see the first. By a salutary regulation of the sages who watch over the interests of the town, "all manner of persons," are prohibited from walking upon the jetty during this ceremony, but the platform of which it is composed being very low, those who stand on the beach outside the rails, are just about on a right level to shoot their impudence cleverly into the ears of the new-comers who are paraded along two lines of gaping, quizzing, laughing, joking, jeering citizens, who fire volleys of wit and satire upon them as they pass. "There's leetle Jemmy Green again!" exclaimed a nursery-maid with two fat, ruddy children in her arms, "he's a beauty without paint!" "Hallo, Jorrocks, my hearty! lend us your hand," cried a brother member of the Surrey Hunt. Then there was a pointing of fingers and cries of "That's Jorrocks! that's Green!" "That's Green! that's Jorrocks!" and a murmuring titter, and exclamations of "There's Simpkins! how pretty he is!" "But there's Wiggins, who's much nicer." "My eye, what a cauliflower hat Mrs. Thompson's got!" "What a buck young Snooks is!" "What gummy legs that girl in green has!" "Miss Trotter's bustle's on crooked!" from the young ladies at Miss Trimmer's seminary who were drawn up to show the numerical strength of the academy, and act the part of walking advertisements. These observations were speedily drowned by the lusty lungs of a flyman bellowing out, as Green passed, "Hallo! my young brockley-sprout, are you here again?--now then for the tizzy you owe me,--I have been waiting here for it ever since last Monday morning." This salute produced an irate look and a shake of his cane from Green, with a mutter of something about "imperance," and a wish that he had his big fighting foreman there to thrash him. When they got to the gate at the end, the tide of fashion became obstructed by the kissings of husbands and wives, the greetings of fathers and sons, the officiousness of porters, the cries of flymen, the importunities of innkeepers, the cards of bathing-women, the salutations of donkey drivers, the programmes of librarians, and the rush and push of the inquisitive; and the waters of "comers" and "stayers" mingled in one common flood of indescribable confusion.

Mr. Jorrocks, who, hamper in hand, had elbowed his way with persevering resignation, here found himself so beset with friends all anxious to wring his digits, that, fearful of losing either his bed or his friends, he besought Green to step on to the "White Hart" and see about accommodation. Accordingly Green ran his fingers through the bushy sides of his yellow wig, jerked up his gills, and with a _négligé_ air strutted up to that inn, which, as all frequenters of Margate know, stands near the landing-place, and commands a fine view of the harbour. Mr. Creed, the landlord, was airing himself at the door, or, as Shakespeare has it, "taking his ease at his inn," and knowing Green of old to be a most unprofitable customer, he did not trouble to move his position farther than just to draw up one leg so as not wholly to obstruct the passage, and looked at him as much as to say "I prefer your room to your company." "Quite full here, sir," said he, anticipating Green's question. "Full, indeed?" replied Jemmy, pulling up his gills--"that's werry awkward, Mr. Jorrocks has come down with myself and a friend, and we want accommodation." "Mr. Jorrocks, indeed!" replied Mr. Creed, altering his tone and manner; "I'm sure I shall be delighted to receive Mr. Jorrocks--he's one of the oldest customers I have--and one of the best--none of your 'glass of water and toothpick' gentleman--real downright, black-strap man, likes it hot and strong from the wood--always pays like a gentleman--never fights about three-pences, like some people I know," looking at Jemmy. "Pray, what rooms may you require?" "Vy, there's myself, Mr. Jorrocks, and Mr. Jorrocks's other friend--three in all, and we shall want three good, hairy bedrooms." "Well, I don't know," replied Mr. Creed, laughing, "about their hairiness, but I can rub them with bear's grease for you." Jemmy pulled up his gills and was about to reply, when Mr. Jorrocks's appearance interrupted the dialogue. Mr. Creed advanced to receive him, blowing up his porters for not having been down to carry up the hamper, which he took himself and bore to the coffee-room, amid protestations of his delight at seeing his worthy visitor.

Having talked over the changes of Margate, of those that were there, those that were not, and those that were coming, and adverted to the important topic of supper, Mr. Jorrocks took out his yellow and white spotted handkerchief and proceeded to flop his Hessian boots, while Mr. Creed, with his own hands, rubbed him over with a long billiard-table brush. Green, too, put himself in form by the aid of the looking-glass, and these preliminaries being adjusted, the trio sallied forth arm-in-arm, Mr. Jorrocks occupying the centre. It was a fine, balmy summer evening, the beetles and moths still buzzed and flickered in the air, and the sea rippled against the shingly shore, with a low indistinct murmur that scarcely sounded among the busy hum of men. The shades of night were drawing on--a slight mist hung about the hills, and a silvery moon shed a broad brilliant ray upon the quivering waters "of the dark blue sea," and an equal light over the wide expanse of the troubled town. How strange that man should leave the quiet scenes of nature, to mix in myriads of those they profess to quit cities to avoid! One turn to the shore, and the gas-lights of the town drew back the party like moths to the streets, which were literally swarming with the population. "Cheapside, at three o'clock in the afternoon," as Mr. Jorrocks observed, was never fuller than Margate streets that evening. All was lighted up--all brilliant and all gay--care seemed banished from every countenance, and pretty faces and smart gowns reigned in its stead. Mr. Jorrocks met with friends and acquaintances at every turn, most of whom asked "when he came?" and "when he was going away?" Having perambulated the streets, the sound of music attracted Jemmy Green's attention, and our party turned into a long, crowded and brilliantly lighted bazaar, just as the last notes of a barrel-organ at the far end faded away, and a young woman in a hat and feathers, with a swan's-down muff and tippet, was handed by a very smart young man in dirty white Berlin gloves, and an equally soiled white waistcoat, into a sort of orchestra above where, after the plaudits of the company had subsided, she struck-up:

"If I had a donkey vot vouldn't go."

At the conclusion of the song, and before the company had time to disperse, the same smart young gentleman,--having rehanded the young lady from the orchestra and pocketed his gloves,--ran his fingers through his hair, and announced from that eminence, that the spirited proprietors of the Bazaar were then going to offer for public competition in the enterprising shape of a raffle, in tickets, at one shilling each, a most magnificently genteel, rosewood, general perfume box fitted up with cedar and lined with red silk velvet, adorned with cut-steel clasps at the sides, and a solid, massive, silver name-plate at the top, with a best patent Bramah lock and six chaste and beautifully rich cut-glass bottles, and a plate-glass mirror at the top--a box so splendidly perfect, so beautifully unique, as alike to defy the powers of praise and the critiques of the envious; and thereupon he produced a flashy sort of thing that might be worth three and sixpence, for which he modestly required ten subscribers, at a shilling each, adding, "that even with that number the proprietors would incur a werry heavy loss, for which nothing but a boundless sense of gratitude for favours past could possibly recompense them." The youth's eloquence and the glitter of the box reflecting, as it did at every turn, the gas-lights both in its steel and glass, had the desired effect--shillings went down, and tickets went off rapidly, until only three remained. "Four, five, and ten, are the only numbers now remaining," observed the youth, running his eye up the list and wetting his pencil in his mouth. "Four, five and ten! ten, four, five! five, four, ten! are the only numbers now vacant for this werry genteel and magnificent rosewood perfume-box, lined with red velvet, cut-steel clasps, a silver plate for the name, best patent Bramah lock, and six beautiful rich cut-glass bottles, with a plate glass mirror in the lid--and only four, five, and ten now vacant!" "I'll take ten," said Green, laying down a shilling. "Thank you, sir--only four and five now wanting, ladies and gentlemen--pray, be in time--pray, be in time! This is without exception the most brilliant prize ever offered for public competition. There were only two of these werry elegant boxes made,--the unfortunate mechanic who executed them being carried off by that terrible malady, the cholera morbus,--and the other is now in the possession of his most Christian Majesty the King of the French. Only four and five wanting to commence throwing for this really perfect specimen of human ingenuity--only four and five!" "I'll take them," cried Green, throwing down two shillings more--and then the table was cleared--the dice box produced, and the crowd drew round. "Number one!--who holds number one?" inquired the keeper, arranging the paper, and sucking the end of his pencil. A young gentleman in a blue jacket and white trousers owned the lot, and, accordingly, led off the game. The lottery-keeper handed the box, and put in the dice--rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, plop, and lift up--"seven and four are eleven"--"now again, if you please, sir," putting the dice into the box--rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, plop, and lift up--a loud laugh--"one and two make three"--the youth bit his lips;--rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, plop--a pause--and lift up--"threes!"--"six, three, and eleven, are twenty." "Now who holds number two?--what lady or gentleman holds number two? Pray, step forward!" The Sunflower drew near--Green looked confused--she fixed her eye upon him, half in fear, half in entreaty--would he offer to throw for her? No, by Jove, Green was not so green as all that came to, and he let her shake herself. She threw twenty-two, thereby putting an extinguisher on the boy, and raising Jemmy's chance considerably. "Three" was held by a youngster in nankeen petticoats, who would throw for himself, and shook the box violently enough to be heard at Broadstairs. He scored nineteen, and, beginning to cry immediately, was taken home. Green was next, and all eyes turned upon him, for he was a noted hand. He advanced to the table with great sangfroid, and, turning back the wrists of his coat, exhibited his beautiful sparkling paste shirt buttons, and the elegant turn of his taper hand, the middle finger of which was covered with massive rings. He took the box in a _négligé_ manner, and without condescending to shake it, slid the dice out upon the table by a gentle sideway motion--"sixes!" cried all, and down the marker put twelve. At the second throw, he adopted another mode. As soon as the dice were in, he just chucked them up in the air like as many halfpence, and down they came five and six--"eleven," said the marker. With a look of triumph Green