The Adventures of Harry Rochester: A Tale of the Days of Marlborough and Eugene
9781465587114
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Stap me, Frank, if ever I rattle my old bones over these roads again! Every joint in me aches; every wrinkle—and I've too many—is filled with dust; and my wig—plague on it, Frank, my wig's a doormat. Look at it—whew! My lord Godolphin took off his cocked hat, removed his full periwig, and shook it over the side of the calash, wrying his lips as the horse of one of his escort started at the sudden cloud. My lord had good excuse for his petulance. It was a brilliant June day, in a summer of glorious weather, and the Wiltshire roads, no better nor worse than other English highways in the year 1702, were thick with white dust, which the autumn rains would by and by transform into the stickiest of clinging mud. The Lord High Treasurer, as he lay back wearily on his cushions, looked, with his lean, lined, swarthy face and close-cropt grizzled poll, every day of his fifty-eight years. He was returning with his son Francis, now nearly twenty-three, from a visit to his estates in Cornwall. Had he been a younger man he would no doubt have ridden his own horse; had he been of lower rank he might have travelled by the public coach; but being near sixty, a baron, and lord of the Treasury to boot, he drove in his private four-horsed calash, with two red-coated postilions, and four sturdy liveried henchmen on horseback, all well armed against the perils of footpads and highwaymen. It was nearing noon on this bright, hot morning, and my lord had begun to acknowledge to himself that he would barely complete his journey to London that day. "Where are we now, Dickory?" he asked languidly of the nearest rider on the off-side. "Nigh Winton St. Mary, my lord," replied the man. "Down the avenue yonder, my lord; then the common, and the church on the right, and the village here and there bearing to the left, as you might say, my lord." "Look 'ee, Frank, we'll draw up at Winton St. Mary and wet our whistles. My lady Marlborough expects us in town to-night, to be sure; but she must e'en be content to wait. Time was——eh, my boy?—but now, egad, I'll not kill myself for her or any woman." "'Twould be a calamity—for the nation, sir," said Frank Godolphin with a grin. "So it would, i' faith. Never fear, Frank, I'll not make way for you for ten years to come. But what's afoot yonder? A fair, eh?" The carriage had threaded a fine avenue of elms, and come within sight of the village common, which stretched away beyond and behind the church, an expanse of rough turf now somewhat parched and browned, broken here by a patch of shrub, there by a dwindling pond, and bounded in the distance by the thick coverts of the manor-house. My lord's exclamation had been called forth by the bright spectacle that met his eyes. At the side of the road, and encroaching also on the grass, were ranged a number of vehicles of various sizes and descriptions, from the humble donkey-cart of a sherbet seller to the lofty coach of some county magnate. Between the carriages the travellers caught glimpses of a crowd; and indeed, as they drew nearer to the scene, their ears were assailed by sundry shoutings and clappings that seemed to betoken incidents of sport or pastime. My lord Godolphin, for all his coldness and reserve in his official dealings, was in his moments a keen sportsman; from a horse-race to a main of cock-fighting or a sword-match, nothing that had in it the element of sport came amiss to him; and as he replaced his wig and settled his hat upon it his eyes lit up with an anticipation vastly different from his air of weary discontent. "Split me, Frank," he cried in a more animated tone than was usual with him; "whatever it is, 'twill cheer us up. John," he added to the postilion, "drive on to the grass, and stop at the first opening you find in the ring. Odsbodikins, 'tis a game at cricket; we'll make an afternoon of it, Frank, and brave your mother-in-law's anger, come what may."
