Crotchet Castle Part 15

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Then, sir, he will be in office next week.

Peace be with him. Sugar and cream.

MR. CROTCHET. But, Doctor, are you for Chainmail Hall on Christmas Day?

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. That am I, for there will be an excellent dinner, though, peradventure, grotesquely served.

MR. CROTCHET. I have not seen my neighbour since he left us on the ca.n.a.l.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. He has married a wife, and brought her home.

LADY CLARINDA. Indeed! If she suits him, she must be an oddity: it will be amusing to see them together.

LORD BOSSNOWL. Very amusing. He! He! Mr. Firedamp. Is there any water about Chainmail Hall?

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. An old moat.

MR. FIREDAMP. I shall die of malaria.

MR. TRILLO. Shall we have any music?

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. An old harper.

MR. TRILLO. Those fellows are always horridly out of tune. What will he play?

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Old songs and marches.

MR. SKIONAR. Among so many old things, I hope we shall find Old Philosophy.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. An old woman.

MR. PHILPOT. Perhaps an old map of the river in the twelfth century.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. No doubt.

MR. MAC QUEDY. How many more old things?

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Old hospitality; old wine; old ale; all the images of old England; an old butler.

MR. TOOGOOD. Shall we all be welcome?

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Heartily; you will be slapped on the shoulder, and called Old Boy.

LORD BOSSNOWL. I think we should all go in our old clothes. He!

He!

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. You will sit on old chairs, round an old table, by the light of old lamps, suspended from pointed arches, which, Mr. Chainmail says, first came into use in the twelfth century, with old armour on the pillars and old banners in the roof.

LADY CLARINDA. And what curious piece of antiquity is the lady of the mansion?

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. No antiquity there; none.

LADY CLARINDA. Who was she?

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. That I know not.

LADY CLARINDA. Have you seen her?

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. I have.

LADY CLARINDA. Is she pretty?

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. More,--beautiful. A subject for the pen of Nonnus or the pencil of Zeuxis. Features of all loveliness, radiant with all virtue and intelligence. A face for Antigone. A form at once plump and symmetrical, that, if it be decorous to divine it by externals, would have been a model for the Venus of Cnidos. Never was anything so goodly to look on, the present company excepted; and poor dear Mrs. Folliott. She reads moral philosophy, Mr. Mac Quedy, which indeed she might as well let alone; she reads Italian poetry, Mr. Skionar; she sings Italian music, Mr. Trillo; but, with all this, she has the greatest of female virtues, for she superintends the household and looks after her husband's dinner. I believe she was a mountaineer: [Greek text] {1} as Nonnus sweetly sings.

CHAPTER XVIII: CHAINMAIL HALL

Vous autres dictes que ignorance est mere de tous maulx, et dictes vray: mais toutesfoys vous ne la bannissez mye de vos entendemens, et vivez en elle, avecques elle, et par elle. C'est pourquoy tant de maulx vous meshaignent de jour en jour.--RABELIAS, 1. 5. c. 7.

The party which was a.s.sembled on Christmas Day in Chainmail Hall comprised all the guests of Crotchet Castle, some of Mr.

Chainmail's other neighbours, all his tenants and domestics, and Captain Fitzchrome. The hall was s.p.a.cious and lofty; and with its tall fluted pillars and pointed arches, its windows of stained gla.s.s, its display of arms and banners intermingled with holly and mistletoe, its blazing cressets and torches, and a stupendous fire in the centre, on which blocks of pine were flaming and crackling, had a striking effect on eyes unaccustomed to such a dining-room.

The fire was open on all sides, and the smoke was caught and carried back under a funnel-formed canopy into a hollow central pillar. This fire was the line of demarcation between gentle and simple on days of high festival. Tables extended from it on two sides to nearly the end of the hall.

Mrs. Chainmail was introduced to the company. Young Crotchet felt some revulsion of feeling at the unexpected sight of one whom he had forsaken, but not forgotten, in a condition apparently so much happier than his own. The lady held out her hand to him with a cordial look of more than forgiveness; it seemed to say that she had much to thank him for. She was the picture of a happy bride, rayonnante de joie et d'amour.

Mr. Crotchet told the Reverend Doctor Folliott the news of the morning. "As you predicted," he said, "your friend, the learned friend, is in office; he has also a t.i.tle; he is now Sir Guy de Vaux."

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Thank heaven for that! he is disarmed from further mischief. It is something, at any rate, to have that hollow and wind-shaken reed rooted up for ever from the field of public delusion.

MR. CROTCHET. I suppose, Doctor, you do not like to see a great reformer in office; you are afraid for your vested interests.

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Not I, indeed, sir; my vested interests are very safe from all such reformers as the learned friend. I vaticinate what will be the upshot of all his schemes of reform.

He will make a speech of seven hours' duration, and this will be its quintessence: that, seeing the exceeding difficulty of putting salt on the bird's tail, it will be expedient to consider the best method of throwing dust in the bird's eyes. All the rest will be

[Greek text in verse]

as Aristophanes has it; and so I leave him, in Nephelococcygia.

Mr. Mac Quedy came up to the divine as Mr. Crotchet left him, and said: "There is one piece of news which the old gentleman has not told you. The great firm of Catchflat and Company, in which young Crotchet is a partner, has stopped payment."

REV. DR. FOLLIOTT. Bless me! that accounts for the young gentleman's melancholy. I thought they would overreach themselves with their own tricks. The day of reckoning, Mr. Mac Quedy, is the point which your paper-money science always leaves out of view.

MR. MAC QUEDY. I do not see, sir, that the failure of Catchflat and Company has anything to do with my science.