The Adventures of Harry Richmond. Complete. George Meredith
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running over the hill-side, making as if he meant to bowl down what looked a black body of a baby against the sky, and shouting, ‘See, you fellows, here’s a find!’ He ran through us, swinging his goose up to the hampers, saying that he had found the goose under a furze-bush. While the words were coming out of his mouth, he saw the tramps, and the male tramp’s eyes and his met.
The man had one eyebrow and his lips at one corner screwed in a queer lift: he winked slowly. ‘Odd! ain’t it?’ he said.
Saddlebank shouldered round on us, and cried, ‘Confound you fellows! here’s a beastly place you’ve pitched upon.’ His face was the colour of scarlet in patches.
‘Now, I call it a beautiful place,’ said the man, ‘and if you finds gooses hereabouts growing ready for the fire, all but plucking, why, it’s a bountiful place, I call it.’
The women tried to keep him silent. But for them we should have moved our encampment. ‘Why, of course, young gentlemen, if you want to eat the goose, we’ll pluck it for you and cook it for you, all nice,’ they said. ‘How can young gentlemen do that for theirselves?’
It was clear to us we must have a fire for the goose. Certain observations current among us about the necessity to remove the goose’s inside, and not to lose the giblets, which even the boy who named them confessed his inability to recognize, inclined the majority to accept the woman’s proposal. Saddlebank said it was on our heads, then.
To revive his good humour, Temple uncorked a bottle of champagne. The tramp-woman lent us a tin mug, and round it went. One boy said, ‘That’s a commencement’; another said, ‘Hang old Rippenger.’ Temple snapped his fingers, and Bystop, a farmer’s son, said, ‘Well, now I’ve drunk champagne; I meant to before I died!’ Most of the boys seemed puzzled by it. As for me, my heart sprang up in me like a colt turned out of stables to graze. I determined that the humblest of my retainers should feed from my table, and drink to my father’s and Heriot’s honour, and I poured out champagne for the women, who just sipped, and the man, who vowed he preferred beer. A spoonful of the mashed tarts I sent to each of the children. Only one, the eldest, a girl about a year older than me, or younger, with black eyebrows and rough black hair, refused to eat or drink.
‘Let her bide, young gentlemen,’ said a woman; ‘she’s a regular obstinate, once she sets in for it.’
‘Ah!’ said the man, ‘I’ve seen pigs druv, and I’ve seen iron bent double. She’s harder ‘n both, once she takes ‘t into her head.’
‘By jingo, she’s pig-iron!’ cried Temple, and sighed, ‘Oh, dear old Heriot!’
I flung myself beside him to talk of our lost friend.
A great commotion stirred the boys. They shrieked at beholding their goose vanish in a pot for stewing. They wanted roast-goose, they exclaimed, not boiled; who cared for boiled goose! But the woman asked them how it was possible to roast a goose on the top of wood-flames, where there was nothing to hang it by, and nothing would come of it except smoked bones!
The boys groaned in consternation, and Saddlebank sowed discontent by grumbling, ‘Now you see what your jolly new acquaintances have done for you.’
So we played at catch with the Dutch cheese, and afterwards bowled it for long-stopping, when, to the disgust of Saddlebank and others, down ran the black-haired girl and caught the ball clean at wicket-distance. As soon as she had done it she was ashamed, and slunk away.
The boys called out, ‘Now, then, pig-iron!’
One fellow enraged me by throwing an apple that hit her in the back. We exchanged half-a-dozen blows, whereupon he consented to apologize, and roared, ‘Hulloa, pig-iron, sorry if I hurt you.’
Temple urged me to insist on the rascal’s going on his knees for flinging at a girl.
‘Why,’ said Chaunter, ‘you were the first to call her pig-iron.’
Temple declared he was a blackguard if he said that. I made the girl take a piece of toffy.
‘Aha!’ Saddlebank grumbled, ‘this comes of the precious company you would keep in spite of my caution.’
The man told us to go it, for he liked to observe young gentlemen enjoying themselves. Temple tossed him a pint bottle of beer, with an injunction to him to shut his trap.
‘Now, you talk my mother tongue,’ said the man; ‘you’re what goes by the name of a learned gentleman. Thank ye, sir. You’ll be a counsellor some day.’
‘I won’t get off thieves, I can tell you,’ said Temple. He was the son of a barrister.
‘Nor you won’t help cook their gooses for them, may be,’ said the man. ‘Well, kindness is kindness, all over the world.’
The women stormed at him to command him not to anger the young gentlemen, for Saddlebank was swearing awfully in an undertone. He answered them that he was the mildest lamb afloat.
Despairing of the goose, we resolved to finish the cold repast awaiting us. The Dutch cheese had been bowled into bits. With a portion of the mashed tarts on it, and champagne, it tasted excellently; toffy to follow. Those boys who chose ginger-wine had it, and drank, despised. The ginger-beer and ale, apples and sallylunns, were reserved for supper. My mind became like a driving sky, with glimpses of my father and Heriot bursting through.
‘If I’m not a prince, I’m a nobleman,’ I said to Temple.
He replied, ‘Army or Navy. I don’t much care which. We’re sure of a foreign war some time. Then you’ll see fellows rise: lieutenant, captain, colonel, General—quick as barrels popping at a bird. I should like to be Governor of Gibraltar.’
‘I’ll come and see you, Temple,’ said I.
‘Done! old Richie,’ he said, grasping my hand warmly.
‘The truth is, Temple,’ I confided to him, ‘I’ve an uncle-I mean a grandfather-of enormous property; he owns half Hampshire, I believe, and hates my father like poison. I won’t stand it. You’ve seen my father, haven’t you? Gentlemen never forget their servants, Temple. Let’s drink lots more champagne. I wish you and I were knights riding across that country there, as they used to, and you saying, “I wonder whether your father’s at home in the castle expecting our arrival.”’
‘The Baron!’ said Temple. ‘He’s like a Baron, too. His health. Your health, sir! It’s just the wine to drink it in, Richie. He’s one of the men I look up to. It ‘s odd he never comes to see you, because he’s fond of you; the right sort of father! Big men can’t be always looking after little boys. Not that we’re so young, though, now. Lots of fellows of our age have done things fellows write about. I feel—’ Temple sat up swelling his chest to deliver an important sentiment; ‘I feel uncommonly thirsty.’
So did I. We attributed it to the air of the place, Temple going so far as to say that it came off the chalk, which somehow stuck in the throat.
‘Saddleback, don’t look glum,’ said Temple. ‘Lord, Richie, you should hear my father plead in Court with his wig on. They used to say at home I was a clever boy when I was a baby. Saddleback, you’ve looked glum all the afternoon.’
‘Treat your superiors respectfully,’ Saddlebank retorted.
The tramp was irritating him. That tramp had never left off smoking and leaning on his arm since we first saw him. Two boys named Hackman and Montague, not bad fellows, grew desirous of a whiff from his pipe. They had it, and lay down silent, back to back. Bystop was led away in a wretched plight. Two others, Paynter and Ashworth, attacked the apples, rendered desperate by thirst. Saddlebank repelled them furiously. He harangued those who might care to listen.
‘You fellows, by George! you shall eat the goose, I tell you. You’ve spoilt everything, and I tell you, whether you like it or not, you shall have apples with it, and sage and onions too. I don’t ask for thanks. And I propose to post outposts in the wood to keep watch.’
He wanted us to draw lots again. His fun had entirely departed from him; all he thought of was seeing the goose out of the pot. I had a