Part 26 (1/2)
”'Two to one on yellow!' you shout.
”'I'll take it!' roars Lord Pilkington.
”'Two to one on blue!' he shouts back.
”'Put me down for it!' you answer.
”They are on the home run. There is a great hubbub, like the roaring of a tornado, as they sweep under the line, yellow ahead. You swing your hat, and yell as loud as you can. You are ten thousand in. Oh, it is just the jolliest excitement a man can have!”
”If you win, my lord, does not somebody else lose?”
”Of course, Miss Newville.”
”Do they feel equally jolly?”
”Possibly not. Sometimes we are out of pocket, and do not feel quite so hilarious, but we swallow a stiff nipper of brandy and draw our checks like men. I won five thousand from Lord Pilkington, three thousand from Lady Merryfield, and quite a number of one hundred pounders from the ladies of my set, who bet on the blue, while I planked mine on the yellow. You see, Miss Newville, that ladies are sometimes influenced by fancy. Lady Somers, for instance, allowed fancy to get the better of judgment. She likes blue as a color, above yellow. She is quite horsey, and thinks she can drive a tandem. I had examined blue, felt of his muscles, and made up my mind that by and by he would have ringbone on his left fore leg. I believed that yellow had the best wind and bottom; but the ladies followed the lead of Lady Somers, and so I raked in their shekels. They all ponied up promptly, though, and paid their outs, like true-born English ladies.”
”I do not think,” said Miss Newville, ”that I should like to lose or win money in that way.”
”Why, Miss Newville, once get into it, and you would say it is the most delightful sport in the world. If you think, however, that you would not like to partic.i.p.ate in such pleasures, we have the fox hunt, which is the most charming and innocent diversion imaginable. You don't bet any money in that, but have a rollicking good time riding over the country, ladies and gentlemen--leaping hedges and ditches, following the hounds, running Reynard to cover, and having a lunch at the close of the hunt.”
”Foxes are plentiful in this country, but we do not run them down with horses,” Miss Newville replied.
”Do ladies ride horseback in the Colonies?”
”Oh, yes. Were you to attend meeting in the country on the Sabbath, you would see many ladies riding up to the horse-block, wives on pillions behind their husbands. Do the ladies who hunt foxes attend meeting on the Sabbath, my lord?”
”Ha, ha! I suspect what you call going to meeting, with us is going to church. Oh, we are very devout. On Sunday we all go to church, kneel on our ha.s.socks, and confess we are miserable sinners, recite the creed, pray for the king, queen, Prince of Wales, the army and navy.
We do our full duty as Christians, and are loyal to the church, as well as to his majesty. My rector, at Halford, is a very good man. To be sure the living isn't much, but he reads the prayers well, preaches a nice little sermon of ten minutes or so, for he knows I don't care to be bored by the hour. He enjoys a fox hunt, says grace at dinner, and makes a point of having a little game of cards with me Sat.u.r.day evening. He doesn't know much about cards, so I usually let him win a few s.h.i.+llings, knowing the poor fellow will feel better Sunday morning while reading the service if he knows he has a half-crown in his pocket, instead of being out that much. I know how it is, Miss Newville. I can be more devout and comfortable on Sunday after winning instead of losing five or ten thousand at Almack's.”
”Perhaps, my lord, you feel you are not quite such a miserable sinner as you might be after all.”
”You have stated it correctly, Miss Newville,” his lords.h.i.+p replied, not discerning the quiet sarcasm. ”Of course I am not, for if I lose, I curse my luck, and am ready to punch somebody's head, and rip out some swear words, but if I win, I am ready to bless the other fellow for playing a king when he should have laid down an ace.”
His lords.h.i.+p apologized for having tarried so long, and took his departure.
”She's a Puritan, through and through. As lovely and pure as an angel in heaven,” he said to himself as he walked down the street.
While the months were going by, Roger Stanley, student of Harvard College, was learning about life in Rumford, as a surveyor of land, spending his evenings in the house of Joshua Walden, with Robert and Rachel to keep him company, especially Rachel. He found pleasure in telling her the story of Ulysses and Penelope. Most of the young men of Rumford who came to the Walden home could only talk about oxen, which pair of steers could pull the heaviest load, or whose horse could out-trot all others. When the surveying was done, Roger accepted the invitation of the committeemen to keep the winter school. Never before had there been a master who could keep the big boys in order without using the ferule, but somehow the great strapping fellows, who might have put the master on his back in a twinkling, could not find it in their hearts to do anything that would trouble him. Other masters were content if they went through the regular daily stint of reading, writing, spelling, and ciphering, but he told them about men who made the most of themselves, and who had done great things,--Caesar, Augustus, Charlemagne, Alfred the Great.
It was the schoolmaster who suggested that the people should meet once a week in the schoolhouse to discuss the great questions affecting the welfare of the Colonies, and who wrote out the questions to be considered:--
”What are the inalienable rights of the people?”
”Has Parliament any right to tax the people of America without their consent?”
”Is it right ever to resist the authority of the king?”
”Ought the Colonies to unite for self-defense?”