Part 11 (2/2)

There was a battle once on a small scale, the only rational duel ever fought, in which a brace of Blabs were sweetly discomfited. They had succeeded in separating ”very friends,” and had arranged a hostile meeting; but, through the intervention of better men, and without their cognisance, the princ.i.p.als entered into explanation, and, finding that they had been misled, mutually agreed to fire at the seconds, who had made the mischief. One Blab received a bullet in the calf of his leg, and the other a _ping_ close to his whiskers; and then the combatants said that their honour was satisfied, and the party broke up.

Some years ago there lived in our village an individual who was known to us as _Brawnging_ Bill. Does not the epithet describe the man? As you p.r.o.nounce it, does not William's photograph present itself to your mental eye? A large, obese, idle _hulk_ of a man (fine old Saxon word, that _hulc_!) lounging about with his hands in his pockets and a pipe in his mouth; a man who talks at the top of his voice, and laughs the loud laugh which tells the vacant mind, and lies with such volubility that you would think truth was a fool. Eloquent, didactic, imperious was he in the taproom and by the blacksmith's forge, in the quoit-yard and in the alley of skittles, and yet, whene'er his tongue led him into trouble, and there was whisper of peril to that fat form of his, at the first utterance of a threat, the first sign of aggressive anger, there was a dissolving view of our Brawnging Bill.

From B to C.--Whenever the fairer s.e.x enter Parliament (breathes there a man with ears so deaf as to doubt their powers of parlance?) and we have a House of Ladies as well as a House of Lords, I antic.i.p.ate that among the first measures introduced will be a coercive Bill for Regulating in the Clay Districts the sc.r.a.ping, wiping, and cleaning of men's boots on their return from the garden or the field. A sore provocation it must surely be to those who love order and brightness to find slabs of dirt upon their new oil-cloth, Indian mats, and bright encaustic tiles.

Justly may the gentlest spirit _chunter_ and complain while the guilty husband, from his dressing-room hard by, vainly essays to evade his shame by a quotation--”Would my darling have me come bootless home--home without boots, and in wet weather, too?” Better to give the real, the only excuse, and say that the soil is so--no, not adhesive, not sticky, not tenacious, but, to use a word ten thousand times more expressive than these, so _clarty_.

And do you not remember (on we go, voyaging among the C's,) a time, a happy time, before you knew what digestion meant, when you delighted to _cranch_ the unripe gooseberry, until you heard the _clomp_ of the paternal tread on the _causey_, and crouched lest you should _catch it_, hid to escape a hiding; and how, nevertheless, swift retribution followed upon the track of crime, and you suffered those internal pains, which were vulgarly known as _colly-wobbles_, and were _coddled_, in consequence, upon your mother's knee?

Going on to D--d.i.c.kens, in a description of a street row, represents one of the lady disputants as saying to her adversary, ”You go home, and, when you are quite sober, mend your stockings”; and he adds that these allusions, not only to her intemperate habits but to the state of her wardrobe, were so exasperating to the accused party that she proceeded to comply, not with the suggestion of her accuser, but with the request of the bystanders, and to ”pitch in” with considerable alacrity.

a.s.suming that her hose was as reported, let us hope that she had the worst of the combat, for there is something in the idea of a _dowdy_ which is hateful to the manly mind. How life-like the portrait which the word paints for us! a coa.r.s.e, fat female, her dingy cap, with its faded ribbons, awry upon her unkempt hair; eyes hookless, holes b.u.t.tonless, upon her shabby gown; a boot-lace trailing on the ground. When we clergy visit Mrs. Dowdy's home, or the residence of her sister, Mrs. Slattern, and find that, though it is towards evening, they have not tidied either self or house, we know why the children are unhealthy and untaught, and why the husband prefers the warmth and cleanliness of ”The Manor Arms”

to his own miserable hut. As a house-keeper, Mrs. Dowdy could only ”please the pigs”; and this reminds me what an apt word we have in _dunky_ for a rotund, obese, little porket. I do not find the latter in Johnson, but dowdy in Shakespeare, and _slattern_ is from the Swedish.

No word suggests itself as I stand at E's, and I therefore proceed with a sonata in F, composed, not by Beethoven, but by a horse-breaker, with certain amplifications of my own: ”The young horse was in famous _fettle_, and _framed_ splendidly over the _flakes_; but he seemed all of a _flabber-gaster_ when he caught sight of the water, put himself into a regular _fandango_, and the more I _flanked_ him the more he _funked,_ till in he went with a _flop._”

I come now to a gem of purest ray serene. To me the monosyllable _gorp_ is a thing of beauty and a joy for ever. Take a youth, who has pa.s.sed his life as an underling on some secluded farm, to an exhibition of wax figures, gorgeously attired, rolling their eyes and lifting up their arms to slow music, and you shall see him _gorp_. Or go with that young man to a display of fireworks, and when the first asteroid rocket sends out its glowing stars you shall see that wide-mouthed, wobbling agriculturist so gorp as to make it almost impossible for the descending stick to go anywhere save down his throat.

But we are all of us naturally fond of gorping. We abstain in our sensitive days, because somebody said it was vulgar; but, as we grow older and wiser, and that bell-wether Fas.h.i.+on tinkles vainly in our ears, we flatten our happy noses upon the shop-windows once again, and thoroughly enjoy our _gorp_.

At Oxford, I remember, it was considered very low indeed to gorp. In fact, we did not allow ourselves to be astonished at anything, unless it was the audacity of trades-people with reference to the payment of their little bills. Wherefore I the more honour the conduct and courage of a college friend who, honest himself, and as free from humbug as any man I know, was bored, especially in London, by the society of an affected c.o.xcomb, who persisted in attaching himself whenever they met, giving himself all sorts of silly airs, enlarging upon his intimacy with t.i.tled folks, and a.s.serting himself to be, like Mrs. Jarley's show, the delight of the n.o.bility and gentry of the day. ”Gradually,” said my friend to me, ”I discovered a process by which I might execute a deed of separation. First, I rattled my stick against the area railings, and I saw him wince; then I whistled an Ethiopian serenade, and 'o'er his face a tablet of unutterable thoughts was traced'; but when I set my hat well on the back of my head, and _gorped_ with open mouth at six legs of pork in a butcher's shop, he fled, and I saw him no more.”

Thus did my friend successfully a.s.sume the lineaments of a _gawk_, and the deportment of a _gorby_, that he might evade the oppressive attentions of a companion given to _gawster_. The enemy whom he so adroitly dispersed bore a strong family likeness to a fraternal nuisance, whom we recently inspected, being, in fact, a new edition, on toned paper and elegantly bound, of the braggart, ”Brawnging Bill,” and exhibiting the same feeble powers of resistance when his silly conceits were thwarted. Honest men, hoping reformation, rejoice to see him slink away, rejoice to see the _gawsterer_ subdued, as when Theodore Hook rushed across Fleet Street to one, who was walking as proudly down it as though the Bank of England was his counting-house and St. Paul's his private Chapel, and, almost breathless with admiring awe, gasped his anxious question--”O sir, O pray sir, may I ask, sir--are you anybody in particular?” Certainly it is either a great amus.e.m.e.nt or a great irritation (as the weather, or disposition, or digestion may influence), to meet with persons in parks, promenades, esplanades, and spas who ostensibly expect you to look at them in an ecstasy of wonder, as though they were a sunset on Mont Blanc or the Balaklava Charge.

Only in three exceptional cases is it permissible, as I think, to _gawster_. I like to see a drum-major, with my grandmother's carriage-m.u.f.f on his head, and a baton in his hand as long as a bean-rod, swaggering at the head of his regiment, as though he had only to knock at the gates of a besieged city and the governor would instantly send the keys. Secondly, I was disappointed the other day at the stolid behaviour of a sheep, who went on grazing with a sublime indifference when a peac.o.c.k, having marched some distance for the purpose, wheeled round within a yard of his nose, displaying his brilliant charms in vain; and all the eyes of Argus seemed to pale their ineffectual fire, as when Mercury, with his delightful music, in accordance with the command of Jupiter, and with Lempriere's dictionary, made them wink in a delicious drowse. And, thirdly, in the case of a game bantam, once my property, who flew up every morning to the top of a tall pump, and challenged Nottinghams.h.i.+re to fight, I could not but admire the gawstering spirit, because he so thoroughly meant all that he said, and would have gladly matched himself against a mad elephant, or would have crowed defiance, midway between the rails, as the express rushed on at speed.

But in other animals I would pitilessly suppress proclivities to gawster. I would ask power from Parliament to whip, when mild persuasion failed, the precocious prig, ”neither man nor boy,” who struts about on Sundays, scoffing at religion, and polluting the air with bad tobacco and worse talk; and I would authorise the police to supervise, and to send home at their discretion, those small giggling girls who, having lost the shame which is a glory and a grace, and coveting every adornment but one, the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, are seen in our streets, with nearly half a year's wage upon their backs, and the change on their faces--in bra.s.s.

To gawster, in fine, is a sure indication of moral and physical debility. He who gawsters is like a show, which has enormous pictures and clanging cymbals, and gongs, and drums, and an obese showman, in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, lying through a speaking-trumpet at the top of his voice, _outside_, and little more than a three-headed puppy, or a seven-legged lamb (not in vigorous life, as shown upon the canvas, but in gla.s.s and spirits of wine) _within_. When, for example, you hear a man gawster about his horsemans.h.i.+p, you may be sure that he will never be first over a fence, unless it be some wee obstacle, which you could almost arrange on a rocking-horse, and then he will rush wildly at it, as though he had made up his mind to die; or, if his boasting be of cricket, you may expect next morning to see him miss the first easy catch which comes.

I need hardly ask whether you have known, my reader, what it is to feel yourself _gloppened_, as when in boyhood (if feminine, please ask your brother), you had just finished your first pipe of the herb called s.h.a.g, and on your face a tablet of unutterable thoughts was traced, as represented in that marvellous sketch by John Leech, ”Old Bagshawe under the influence of tobacco”; when you went forth with your mother for an innings, as you hoped, at the confectioner's, and a second ditto at the toyshop, and saw her ringing the dentist's bell; when you had carefully adjusted that cracker to Mr. Nabal's knocker, and were lighting the lucifer within the quiet seclusion of your cap, and suddenly the knuckles of Mr. Nabal's left pressed rudely on your nape, and the thumb and finger of his right essayed to meet each other through the lobe of your ear; when your dearest friend, in the strictest confidence, and having sworn you to secrecy, showed you a lock of gleaming hair, given to him by the girl whom you adored.

And it was you, my Thomas, you, The friend in whom my soul confided, Who dared to gaze on her--to do, I may say, much the same as I did.

Or when, in after-years, unequally mated, you groaned, with Parolles, under the subjection of a stronger will, ”a man that's married is a man that's marred”; and it might be said of you, as once it was said by a labourer of one of his neighbours (so have I read in a book about roses, a charming volume, which should be on every table), ”Bill has been and married his mestur, and she has _gloppened_ him a goodish bit.”

I remember an occasion when a gawsterer was gloppened sorely. There was an ancient mansion, wainscoted and floored with s.h.i.+ning oak, _glib_--I have not heard that apposite, terse little monosyllable since I went _slurring_ with the village boys--glib as gla.s.s; and in that ancient mansion there was a banquet; and to that banquet came, with other guests, ”a fop in a gay coat,” a c.o.xcomb wearing the bright vestment of the hunter, albeit in the hour of chase he only hunted gates and gaps; and upon the white satin lining of his ”pink” there was a tiny b.u.t.ton-hole bouquet, such as Mab might have held with her fairy fingers at the time of her coronation; and in collar, if in nothing else, he resembled the immortal Shakespeare; and his bosom was broad and snowy as the swan's; and his pumps were glossy as the raven's wing; and he was going dinnerward, with a winsome damsel on his arm and a complacent smile of self-conceit upon his countenance, when the smooth soles of these new and s.h.i.+ning shoes suddenly performed a rapid evolution, as though they were skates upon ice; and there was a little shriek from the winsome damsel in particular, and a large ”Oh!” from the procession in general, and a flash of horizontal scarlet, as when a soldier falls in battle; and then the bruised and bewildered dandy picked himself up, as best he could, to perform a part for which his qualifications were small--the personification of a man who had a relish for pain; and I sympathised with, though I did not love him--not so much because his feelings, as because his raiment was torn, and he, who was generally the most lively and locomotive of all, was now depressed and sedentary, like the lover of Constance, brooding upon his silent grief, as on its nest the dove, while we remained at the dinner-table, and finally backing out of the drawing-room at an early hour, as though our hostess were the queen.

And his involuntary gymnastics remind me, as I pa.s.s on to that ”terrible thoroughbred” letter H (I have heard men speak of others who ignored it in conversation as though they must be capable of any crime), of a stout old lady in the manufacturing districts, whose husband had been very successful in business, and had purchased a fine old country residence from some dilapidated squire. She was complaining to a visitor of the difficulty which she had in walking upon the polished floors.

”First I s.l.u.ther,” she said, ”and then I hutch; and then I s.l.u.ther, and then I hutch; and the more I hutch the more I s.l.u.ther.”

Only one other specimen (for I must hurry on helter-skelter and harum-scarum) from words beginning with H--to be, or cause others to be, on the _hig_, that is, to go about, or cause others to go about, in a fume, angrily excited, menacing revenge. ”Betty,” I asked one of my paris.h.i.+oners, ”why do you make these ill-natured, irritating speeches to your next-door neighbour?” ”Oh, bless yer,” was the reply I received, ”I only said 'em just to set old Sally on the _hig_.” She knew that not to many was it given to hear resignedly the bitter word, that not to many was given in its reality the resignation affected by another of my old women, who (one of those wretched combinations of religion and rancour, ”who think they're pious when they're only bilious”) accosted me with the startling intelligence--”Oh, Mestur 'Ole, I've got another lift towards 'eaven. Bowc.o.c.ks” (tenants of the cottage adjoining her own), ”Bowc.o.c.ks has been telling more lies; blessed are the pa.r.s.ecuted!”

Better open war than this dismal affectation of peace! Better to confess ourselves _hity-t.i.ty_, and to raise a _hullabaloo_, than such _humbug_ as this!

I, the egotist, has for once nothing to say; but J recalls to me an extract from a conversation which took place during one of my parochial visitations.

_Pastor_.--”Did I not see old Nanny Smith talking with you at your door just now?”

_Paris.h.i.+oner_.--”Oh yes, she wor' here not three minutes sin', and _jabbering_, as usual, like a clamm'd [famished] jay in a wood; but when she see your reverence coming up th' lane, th' old la.s.s wor' gone in a _jiffey_.”

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