CHAP. XII.

An hour had elapsed, when the Doctor’s horse gallopped up to the door; and, in two minutes after he had taken off his boots, he entered the room.

“Well! Doctor, what news? Is she dead? How stands the will? Were you in time? May we congratulate you? Has the cordial had any effect?”—reiterated from every lip, till they fairly stunned the poor Doctor; who, hemming very loud, demanded silence, to answer their profuse inquiries.

He then deliberately drew his chair, and prefaced the recital by assuring them Mrs. Drinkwater was not dead. “She called me to her bed-side,” continued the Doctor, “to request I would sign her will; which I instantly refused, stating, if I was a witness, of course my name was not in the will; a circumstance which nettled me most devilishly, you must know.”

“Of course,” cried everybody; and the Doctor thus went on; while his auditors, and particularly his own young cormorants, sat, with open mouths and attentive ears, to catch the sequel:—

“Well, Sirs, the lawyer presented me the pen and ink, which, like a man of spirit, I inflexibly pushed away, positively declaring I would not sign any thing to my own disadvantage, having flattered myself, as an old friend, I should have been handsomely remembered.”

“My dear Doctor,” said Mrs. Drinkwater, “don’t mistake my request; for, though your name is not down, I have taken care of your family: I have left all your children a plum-cake a-piece.”

“Oh! very well, Madam,” said I; “if you have done that, I’m satisfied. With that, I seized the pen, and affixed my sign manual at the oven’s mouth; for what sized cake it will produce, I know not. So there’s an end of the concern; and my boys and girls will reap the harvest their father ploughed.”

“Humph!” ejaculated Mrs. Tonic, on whose features sat the shade of disappointment: “I confess I’m surprised at her conduct.”

“I hope there’s plenty of plums in the cake, however,” said Bob Tonic, with an unintelligent grin.

“Few or many,” replied the Doctor, “you’ll take your chance: her old fool of a husband served me the same trick—in fact, worse; for he only left me a ring. Egad! I’ve kept her alive, by art, these seven years.”

“Yes; your happy medical art, subjoined to the power of her head physician, the brandy bottle,” said Mr. Prolix, sneeringly, who felt he was five guineas out of pocket by the job. “Are you sure,” continued he, “she was compos?”

“That’s no look-out of mine,” said the Doctor; “I only know I’m d—d mad.”

“Then you know nothing of the tenor of the will?” asked Mr. Deposit.

“Not I! I don’t care a fig about it. If she sends for me any more, Bob shall go; he’s paid for it: I won’t go, by G—d!”

“Blessed is he who never expects, for he shall never be disappointed,” exclaimed Parson Faddle.

“Amen,” ejaculated Bob Tonic, bursting into a laugh at his own sagacity.

“Well,” cried the Widow Quiz (primming her mouth, and shoving her elbows into her sides, as she drew up her head); “I wonder whether she has cut off the entail of her estate.”

“She may cut off her head, for what I care,” replied the Doctor. “But come, good folks; if your cards are over, we’ll adjourn to supper; where, if we don’t find plum-cakes, we must content ourselves with bread and cheese.”

We now followed, en train, to a table of cold relics: but as there was no chantilly, Mistresses Deposit and Fungus declined eating what they privately termed kitchen scraps, which the derisive contraction of their noses most perfectly evinced. The Doctor made a stiff bowl of punch, at which he was a famous hand; and Miss Elizetta treated us, after supper (at her papa’s request), with the “Beautiful Maid,” whom she completely murdered, for no screech-owlet ever quivered or shrieked more unmusical. My uncle fixed his eyes on me; and I very prudently cast mine on the table, till the hooting scream finished.

“Bravo! bravo!” thundered the Doctor, rapping the table with his knuckles; while Mr. Deposit responded with the foot of his wine-glass, with as much dexterity as if it had been his own pulpit hammer.

“Did you ever hear Braham sing that delightful song, Miss Tonic?” asked Mrs. Deposit, winking at Mrs. Fungus.

“No, Ma’am; I never heard nobody sing it,” answered the bronze songstress.

“I suppose not, my dear,” replied Mrs. Deposit, bursting into a rude laugh. “But that was not exactly the question I asked; because, of course, nobody never could sing nothing nowhere; but somebody, blessed with the enchanting powers of a Braham, might sing anywhere.”

“True,” said the Doctor (who was neither aware of the exposure of his daughter’s oratory by the sarcastic lip of Mrs. Deposit, nor of Miss Elizetta’s self-conviction of false grammar), “true; but my daughter’s are all pure wild notes; therefore, I say, the greater the merit. What think you, Mr. Victor?”

“I agree with you, that some wild notes are exquisitely melodious, Sir,” returned I.

“Can’t you tip us a stave, Victor?” asked my uncle. “They tell me you were always a devotee at the Oxford Music Meetings. It’s my opinion, you’re like the monkeys—know more than you think proper to own. Come, strike up; I challenge you. If I could sing, I’d set you the example.”

Recollecting my uncle’s injunction, to dash, I instantly complied, and, to the best of my abilities, sang “Beware of Love;” for which I received a thunder of applause from Mrs. Deposit, who discovered I was well versed in the science of music. “Why, my dear Sir,” said she, “you are positively the Apollo of the village: you frequent the Opera, I’ll be bound.”

I confessed it an amusement of which I was extravagantly fond.

“I thought so, I declare,” continued the voluble lady; “and, I dare say, you are a frequenter of that fashionable lounge, the “Odechorologean,” the “Musederian,” &c.”

“I am, Madam, an occasional visitor.”

“Oh, oh!” said Mrs. Fungus, “I find you’re a very dashing young man: I shall send you a card for my fête, addressed to Apollo Victor St. Alban, Esq.—hey!”

“Omit the first and last title, Madam,” said I; “and I’ll answer to the rest, according to the wishes of my uncle, and the record of the parish register.”

“You see what we Londoners can do, Doctor,” cried my uncle. “Ah! London’s the mart of science, the school of manners; it’s the only place worth living in.”

“There I beg leave to differ,” said Widow Quiz: “I think London’s the school of vice—a nasty, dirty, smoky place—full of bad people—all extravagance and extortion.”

“Then you don’t allow there are any bad people in the country,” replied my uncle; “or that, while a great hulking clodpole is swinging on a gate, and chewing fat bacon, he can possibly be brooding mischief, on the score of a blight monopoly in his corn, and a dearth monopoly of his cattle! No, no; let a countryman alone for that: though a fool in form and manners, he’s a knave in principle. And what else can you expect from an uncivilized being, bred up amongst sticks, stones, and the beasts of the field—a mere living composition of pork and cabbage—just human, and that’s all?”

“And, pray, what’s better than good wholesome pork and cabbage, Sir?” resumed the Widow. “If you lived with me, you’d have pork and cabbage, cold, for breakfast; cabbage and pork, hot, for dinner, by way of change; and cold pork and cabbage for supper, all the year round; with the exception of stone dumplings and harvest puddings.”

“I thank you, Madam, for your bill of fare,” said my uncle; “but it would not suit my appetite.”

“No, I believe not,” replied the Doctor. “However, we thank you for your portrait of a country man. You’re a very severe genius, upon my word. We must mind what we’re about.”

“Oh! I don’t mind being quizzed for a satirical crab, I assure you: I speak the plain, honest, home truth: I can nip as sharp as your blisters; aye, make as sore a place, occasionally,” retorted my uncle.

At this moment Mrs. Fungus’s little lacquey-boy was announced, with his mistress’s clogs and lantern; and Mrs. Prolix’s girl-maid brought her mistress’s umbrella. This intelligence dissolved the party. The Widow Quiz retired to the Doctor’s best check bed; and my uncle, self, and Parson Faddle, found our way home in the dark; while the fantastic Mrs. Deposit condescended to follow her dear neighbour Fungus’s “glow-worm,” she styled it; her family scout being left in London to sweep out the auction-room. And thus finished our visit.