and Laxley, deferentially disregarding him, dealt with Jack alone.
In a tone plainly directed at Mr. Raikes, he said: “Well, Harry, tired of this? The agriculturals are good fun, but I can’t stand much of the small cockney. A blackguard who tries to make jokes out of the Scriptures ought to be kicked!”
Harry rejoined, with wet lips: “Wopping stuff, this ale! Who’s that you want to kick?”
“Somebody who objects to his bray, I suppose,” Mr. Raikes struck in, across the table, negligently thrusting out his elbow to support his head.
“Did you allude to me, sir?” Laxley inquired.
“I alluded to a donkey, sir.” Jack lifted his eyelids to the same level as Laxley’s: “a passing remark on that interesting animal.”
Laxley said nothing; but the interjection “blackguard!” was perceptible on his mouth.
“Did you allude to me, sir?” Jack inquired, in his turn.
“Would you like me to express what I think of a fellow who listens to private conversations?” was the answer.
“I should be happy to task your eloquence even to that extent, if I might indulge a hope for grammatical results,” said Jack.
Laxley thought fit to retire upon his silent superiority. His friend Harry now came into the ring to try a fall.
“Are you an usher in a school?” he asked, meaning by his looks what men of science in fisticuffs call business.
Mr. Raikes started up in amazement. He recovered as quickly.
“No, sir, not quite; but I have no doubt I should be able to instruct you upon a point or two.”
“Good manners, for instance?” remarked the third young cricketer, without disturbing his habitual smile.
“Or what comes from not observing them,” said Evan, unwilling to have Jack over-matched.
“Perhaps you’ll give me a lesson now?” Harry indicated a readiness to rise for either of them.
At this juncture the chairman interposed.
“Harmony, my lads!—harmony to-night.”
Farmer Broadmead, imagining it to be the signal for a song, returned:
“All right, Mr. Mr. Chair! but we an’t got pipes in yet. Pipes before harmony, you know, to-night.”
The pipes were summoned forthwith. System appeared to regulate the proceedings of this particular night at the Green Dragon. The pipes charged, and those of the guests who smoked, well fixed behind them, celestial Harmony was invoked through the slowly curling clouds. In Britain the Goddess is coy. She demands pressure to appear, and great gulps of ale. Vastly does she swell the chests of her island children, but with the modesty of a maid at the commencement. Precedence again disturbed the minds of the company. At last the red-faced young farmer led off with “The Rose and the Thorn.” In that day Chloe still lived: nor were the amorous transports of Strephon quenched. Mountainous inflation—mouse-like issue characterised the young farmer’s first verse. Encouraged by manifest approbation he now told Chloe that he “by Heaven! never would plant in that bosom a thorn,” with such volume of sound as did indeed show how a lover’s oath should be uttered in the ear of a British damsel to subdue her.
“Good!” cried Mr. Raikes, anxious to be convivial.
Subsiding into impertinence, he asked Laxley, “Could you tip us a Strephonade, sir? Rejoiced to listen to you, I am sure! Promise you my applause beforehand.”
Harry replied hotly: “Will you step out of the room with me a minute?”
“Have you a confession to make?” quoth Jack, unmoved. “Have you planted a thorn in the feminine flower-garden? Make a clean breast of it at the table. Confess openly, and be absolved. ’Gad, there’s a young woman in the house. She may be Chloe. If so, all I can say is, she may complain of a thorn of some magnitude, and will very soon exhibit one.”
While Evan spoke a word of angry reproof to Mr. Raikes, Harry had to be restrained by his two friends. Jack’s insinuation seemed to touch him keenly. By a strange hazard they had both glanced close upon facts.
Mutterings amid the opposite party of “Sit down,” “Don’t be an ass,” “Leave the snob alone,” were sufficiently distinct. The rest of the company looked on with curiosity; the mouth of the chairman was bunched. Drummond had his eyes on Evan, who was gazing steadily at the three. Suddenly “The fellow isn’t a gentleman!” struck the attention of Mr. Raikes with alarming force.
I remember hearing of a dispute between two youthful clerks, one of whom launched at the other’s head accusations that, if true, would have warranted his being expelled from society: till, having exhausted his stock, the youth gently announced to his opponent that he was a numskull: upon which the latter, hitherto full of forbearance, shouted that he could bear anything but that,—appealed to the witnesses generally for a corroboration of the epithet, and turned back his wristbands.
It was with similar sensations, inexplicable to the historian, that Mr. Raikes, who had borne to have imputed to him frightful things—heard that he was not considered a gentleman: and as they who are themselves, perhaps, doubtful of the fact, are most stung by the denial of it, so do they take refuge in assertion, and claim to establish it by violence.
This Mr. John Raikes seized on, and vociferating: “I’m the son of a gentleman!” flung it in the faces of the three.
Drummond, from the head of the table, saw that a diversion was imperative. He leaned forward, and with a look of great interest, said:
“Are you really? Pray, never disgrace your origin, then.”
He spoke with an apparent sincerity, and Jack, absorbed by the three in front of him, and deceived by the mildness of his manner, continued glaring at them, after a sharp turn of the head,