St. Ronan's Well. Walter Scott
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Thus painters write their names at Co.
Prior.
The clamour which attends the removal of dinner from a public room had subsided; the clatter of plates, and knives and forks—the bustling tread of awkward boobies of country servants, kicking each other's shins, and wrangling, as they endeavour to rush out of the door three abreast—the clash of glasses and tumblers, borne to earth in the tumult—the shrieks of the landlady—the curses, not loud, but deep, of the landlord—had all passed away; and those of the company who had servants, had been accommodated by their respective Ganymedes with such remnants of their respective bottles of wine, spirits, &c., as the said Ganymedes had not previously consumed, while the rest, broken in to such observance by Mr. Winterblossom, waited patiently until the worthy president's own special and multifarious commissions had been executed by a tidy young woman and a lumpish lad, the regular attendants belonging to the house, but whom he permitted to wait on no one, till, as the hymn says,
“All his wants were well supplied.”
“And, Dinah—my bottle of pale sherry, Dinah—place it on this side—there's a good girl;—and, Toby—get my jug with the hot water—and let it be boiling—and don't spill it on Lady Penelope, if you can help it, Toby.”
“No—for her ladyship has been in hot water to-day already,” said the Squire; a sarcasm to which Lady Penelope only replied with a look of contempt.
“And, Dinah, bring the sugar—the soft East India sugar, Dinah—and a lemon, Dinah, one of those which came fresh to-day—Go fetch it from the bar, Toby—and don't tumble down stairs, if you can help it.—And, Dinah—stay, Dinah—the nutmeg, Dinah, and the ginger, my good girl—And, Dinah—put the cushion up behind my back—and the footstool to my foot, for my toe is something the worse of my walk with your ladyship this morning to the top of Belvidere.”
“Her ladyship may call it what she pleases in common parlance,” said the writer; “but it must stand Munt-grunzie in the stamped paper, being so nominated in the ancient writs and evidents thereof.”
“And, Dinah,” continued the president, “lift up my handkerchief—and—a bit of biscuit, Dinah—and—and I do not think I want any thing else—Look to the company, my good girl.—I have the honour to drink the company's very good health—Will your ladyship honour me by accepting a glass of negus?—I learned to make negus from old Dartineuf's son.—He always used East India sugar and added a tamarind—it improves the flavour infinitely.—Dinah, see your father sends for some tamarinds—Dartineuf knew a good thing almost as well as his father—I met him at Bath in the year—let me see—Garrick was just taking leave, and that was in,” &c. &c. &c.—“And what is this now, Dinah?” he said, as she put into his hand a roll of paper.
“Something that Nelly Trotter” (Trotting Nelly, as the company called her) “brought from a sketching gentleman that lives at the woman's” (thus bluntly did the upstart minx describe the reverend Mrs. Margaret Dods) “at the Cleikum of Aultoun yonder”—A name, by the way, which the inn had acquired from the use which the saint upon the sign-post was making of his pastoral crook.
“Indeed, Dinah?” said Mr. Winterblossom, gravely taking out his spectacles, and wiping them before he opened the roll of paper; “some boy's daubing, I suppose, whose pa and ma wish to get him into the Trustees' School, and so are beating about for a little interest.—But I am drained dry—I put three lads in last season; and if it had not been my particular interest with the secretary, who asks my opinion now and then, I could not have managed it. But giff-gaff, say I.—Eh! What, in the devil's name, is this?—Here is both force and keeping—Who can this be, my lady?—Do but see the sky-line—why, this is really a little bit—an exquisite little bit—Who the devil can it be? and how can he have stumbled upon the dog-hole in the Old Town, and the snarling b——I beg your ladyship ten thousand pardons—that kennels there?”
“I dare say, my lady,” said a little miss of fourteen, her eyes growing rounder and rounder, and her cheeks redder and redder, as she found herself speaking, and so many folks listening—“O la! I dare say it is the same gentleman we met one day in the Low-wood walk, that looked like a gentleman, and yet was none of the company, and that you said was a handsome man.”
“I did not say handsome, Maria,” replied her ladyship; “ladies never say men are handsome—I only said he looked genteel and interesting.”
“And that, my lady,” said the young parson, bowing and smiling, “is, I will be judged by the company, the more flattering compliment of the two—We shall be jealous of this Unknown presently.”
“Nay, but,” continued the sweetly communicative Maria, with some real and some assumed simplicity, “your ladyship forgets—for you said presently after, you were sure he was no gentleman, for he did not run after you with your glove which you had dropped—and so I went back myself to find your ladyship's glove, and he never offered to help me, and I saw him closer than your ladyship did, and I am sure he is handsome, though he is not very civil.”
“You speak a little too much and too loud, miss,” said Lady Penelope, a natural blush reinforcing the nuance of rouge by which it was usually superseded.
“What say you to that, Squire Mowbray?” said the elegant Sir Bingo Binks.
“A fair challenge to the field, Sir Bingo,” answered the squire; “when a lady throws down the gauntlet, a gentleman may throw the handkerchief.”
“I have always the benefit of your best construction, Mr. Mowbray,” said the lady, with dignity. “I suppose Miss Maria has contrived this pretty story for your amusement. I can hardly answer to Mr. Digges, for bringing her into company where she receives encouragement to behave so.”
“Nay, nay, my lady,” said the president, “you must let the jest pass by; and since this is really such an admirable sketch, you must honour us with your opinion, whether the company can consistently with propriety make any advances to this man.”
“In my opinion,” said her ladyship, the angry spot still glowing on her brow, “there are enough of men among us already—I wish I could say gentlemen—As matters stand, I see little business ladies can have at St. Ronan's.”
This was an intimation which always brought the Squire back to good-breeding, which he could make use of when he pleased. He deprecated her ladyship's displeasure, until she told him, in returning good humour, that she really would not trust him unless he brought his sister to be security for his future politeness.
“Clara, my lady,” said Mowbray, “is a little wilful; and I believe your ladyship must take the task of unharbouring her into your own hands. What say you to a gipsy party up to my old shop?—It is a bachelor's house—you must not expect things in much order; but Clara would be honoured”——
The Lady Penelope eagerly accepted the proposal of something like a party, and, quite reconciled with Mowbray, began to enquire whether she might bring the stranger artist with her; “that is,” said her ladyship, looking to Dinah, “if he be a gentleman.”
Here Dinah interposed her assurance, “that the gentleman at Meg Dods's was quite and clean a gentleman, and an illustrated poet besides.”
“An illustrated poet, Dinah?” said Lady Penelope; “you must mean an illustrious poet.”
“I dare to say your ladyship is right,” said Dinah, dropping a curtsy.
A joyous flutter of impatient anxiety was instantly excited through all the blue-stocking faction of the company, nor were the news totally indifferent to the rest of the community. The former belonged to that class, who, like the young Ascanius, are ever beating about in quest of a tawny lion, though they are much more successful in now and then starting a great bore;[13] and the others, having left all their own ordinary affairs and subjects of interest at home, were glad to make a matter of importance of the most trivial occurrence. A mighty poet, said the