CHAPTER ii. -- A RAILING.
The next morning the family purposed setting off as soon as breakfastwas over; young Delvile, however, waited not so long; the fineness ofthe weather tempted him, he said, to travel on horse-back, and thereforehe had risen very early, and was already gone. Cecilia could not butwonder, yet did not repine.
Just as breakfast was over, and Mr and Mrs Delvile and Cecilia werepreparing to depart, to their no little surprise, the door was opened,and, out of breath with haste and with heat, in stumpt Mr Briggs! "So,"cried he to Cecilia, "what's all this? hay?--where are you going?--acoach at the door! horses to every wheel! Servants fine as lords! what'sin the wind now? think to chouse me out of my belongings?"
"I thought, Sir," said Cecilia, who instantly understood him, though Mrand Mrs Delvile stared at him in utter astonishment, "I had explainedbefore I left you that I should not return."
"Didn't, didn't!" answered he, angrily; "waited for you three days,dressed a breast o' mutton o' purpose; got in a lobster, and two crabs;all spoilt by keeping; stink already; weather quite muggy, forced tosouse 'em in vinegar; one expense brings on another; never begin thelike agen."
"I am very sorry, indeed," said Cecilia, much disconcerted, "ifthere has been any mistake through my neglect; but I had hoped I wasunderstood, and I have been so much occupied--"
"Ay, ay," interrupted he, "fine work! rare doings! a merry Vauxhalling,with pistols at all your noddles! thought as much! thought he'd tipthe perch; saw he wasn't stanch; knew he'd go by his company,--a set ofjackanapes! all blacklegs! nobody warm among 'em; fellows with a month'sgood living upon their backs, and not sixpence for the hangman in theirpockets!"
Mrs Delvile now, with a look of arch congratulation at Cecilia as theobject of this agreeable visit, finding it not likely to be immediatelyconcluded, returned to her chair; but Mr Delvile, leaning sternly uponhis cane, moved not from the spot where he stood at his entrance, butsurveyed him from head to foot, with the most astonished contempt at hisundaunted vulgarity.
"Well I'd all your cash myself; seized that, else!--run out theconstable for you, next, and made you blow out your brains for company.Mind what I say, never give your mind to a gold lace hat! many a onewears it don't know five farthings from twopence. A good man alwayswears a bob wig; make that your rule. Ever see Master Harrel wear sucha thing? No, I'll warrant! better if he had; kept his head on his ownshoulders. And now, pray, how does he cut up? what has he left behindhim? a twey-case, I suppose, and a bit of a hat won't go on a man'shead!"
Cecilia, perceiving, with great confusion, that Mr Delvile, thoughevidently provoked by this intrusion, would not deign to speak, that MrBriggs might be regarded as belonging wholly to herself, hastily said "Iwill not, Sir, as your time is precious, detain you here, but, as soonas it is in my power, I will wait upon you in the city."
Mr Briggs, however, without listening to her, thought proper to continuehis harangue.
"Invited me once to his house; sent me a card, half of it printed like abook! t'other half a scrawl could not read; pretended to give a supper;all a mere bam; went without my dinner, and got nothing to eat; allglass and shew; victuals painted all manner of colours; lighted up likea pastry-cook on twelfth-day; wanted something solid, and got a greatlump of sweetmeat; found it as cold as a stone, all froze in my mouthlike ice; made me jump again, and brought the tears in my eyes; forcedto spit it out; believe it was nothing but a snowball, just set up forshow, and covered over with a little sugar. Pretty way to spend money!Stuffing, and piping, and hopping! never could rest till every farthingwas gone; nothing left but his own fool's pate, and even that he couldnot hold together."
"At present, Sir," said Cecilia, "we are all going out of town; thecarriage is waiting at the door, and therefore--"
"No such thing," cried he; "Sha'n't go; come for you myself; take you tomy own house. Got every thing ready, been to the broker's, bought a niceblanket, hardly a brack in it. Pick up a table soon; one in my eye."
"I am sorry you have so totally mistaken me, Sir; for I am now goinginto the country with Mr and Mrs Delvile."
"Won't consent, won't consent! what will you go there for? hear ofnothing but dead dukes; as well visit an old tomb."
Here Mr Delvile, who felt himself insulted in a manner he could leastsupport, after looking at him very disdainfully, turned to Cecilia, andsaid "Miss Beverley, if this person wishes for a longer conference withyou, I am sorry you did not appoint a more seasonable hour for yourinterview."
"Ay, ay," cried the impenetrable Mr Briggs; "want to hurry her off!see that! But 't won't do; a'n't to be nicked; chuse to come in for mythirds; won't be gulled, sha'n't have more than your share."
"Sir!" cried Mr Delvile, with a look meant to be nothing less thanpetrific.
"What!" cried he, with an arch leer; "all above it, hay? warrant yourSpanish Don never thinks of such a thing! don't believe 'em my duck!great cry and little wool; no more of the ready than other folks; merepuff and go one."
"This is language, Sir," said Mr Delvile, "so utterly incomprehensible,that I presume you do not even intend it should be understood;otherwise, I should very little scruple to inform you, that no man ofthe name of Delvile brooks the smallest insinuation of dishonour."
"Don't he?" returned Mr Briggs, with a grin; "why how will he help it?will the old grandees jump up out of their graves to frighten us?"
"What old grandees, Sir? to whom are you pleased to allude?"
"Why all them old grandfathers and aunts you brag of; a set of poorsouls you won't let rest in their coffins; mere clay and dirt! finethings to be proud of! a parcel of old mouldy rubbish quite departedthis life! raking up bones and dust, nobody knows for what! ought to beashamed; who cares for dead carcases? nothing but [carrion]. My littleTom's worth forty of 'em!"
"I can so ill make out, Miss Beverley," said the astonished Mr Delvile,"what this person is pleased to dive at, that I cannot pretend to enterinto any sort of conversation with him; you will therefore be so goodas to let me know when he has finished his discourse, and you are atleisure to set off."
And then, with a very stately air, he was quitting the room; but wassoon stopt, upon Mr Briggs calling out "Ay, ay, Don Duke, poke in theold charnel houses by yourself, none of your defunct for me! didn't careif they were all hung in a string. Who's the better for 'em?'
"Pray, Sir," cried Mr Delvile, turning round, "to whom were you pleasedto address that speech?"
"To one Don Puffendorff," replied Mr Briggs; "know ever such a person,hay?"
"Don who? Sir!" said Mr Delvile, stalking nearer to him, "I must troubleyou to say that name over again."
"Suppose don't chuse it? how then?"
"I am to blame," said Mr Delvile, scornfully waving his hand with arepulsive motion, "to suffer myself to be irritated so unworthily; andI am sorry, in my own house, to be compelled to hint that the sooner Ihave it to myself, the better I shall be contented with it."
"Ay, ay, want to get me off; want to have her to yourself! won't be sosoon choused; who's the better man? hay? which do you think is warmest?and all got by myself; obliged to never a grandee for a penny; what doyou say to that? will you cast an account with me?"
"Very extraordinary this!" cried Mr Delvile; "the most extraordinarycircumstance of the kind I ever met with! a person to enter my house inorder to talk in this incomprehensible manner! a person, too, I hardlyknow by sight!"
"Never mind, old Don," cried Briggs, with a facetious nod, "Know mebetter another time!"
"Old who, Sir!--what!"
"Come to a fair reckoning," continued Mr Briggs; "suppose you were in mycase, and had never a farthing but of your own getting; where wouldyou be then? What would become of your fine coach and horses? you mightstump your feet off before you'd ever get into one. Where would be allthis fine crockery work for your breakfast? you might pop your headunder a pump, or drink out of your own paw; what would you do for thatfine jemmy tye? Where would you get a gold head to your stick?--Youmight d
ig long enough in them cold vaults before any of your oldgrandfathers would pop out to give you one."
Mr Delvile, feeling more enraged than he thought suited his dignity,restrained himself from making any further answer, but going up to thebell, rang it with great violence.
"And as to ringing a bell," continued Mr Briggs, "you'd never know whatit was in your life, unless could make interest to be a dust-man."
"A dust-man!"--repeated Mr Delvile, unable to command his silencelonger, "I protest"--and biting his lips, he stopt short.
"Ay, love it, don't you? suits your taste; why not one dust as well asanother? Dust in a cart good as dust of a charnel-house; don't smellhalf so bad."
A servant now entering, Mr Delvile called out "Is everything ready?"
"Yes, Sir."
He then begged Mrs Delvile to go into the coach, and telling Cecilia tofollow when at leisure, left the room.
"I will come immediately, Sir," said Cecilia; "Mr Briggs, I am sorryto leave you, and much concerned you have had this trouble; but I candetain Mr Delvile no longer."
And then away she ran, notwithstanding he repeatedly charged her tostay. He followed them, however, to the coach, with bitter revilingsthat every body was to make more of his ward than himself, and with themost virulent complaints of his losses from the blanket, the breast ofmutton, the crabs and the lobster!
Nothing, however, more was said to him; Cecilia, as if she had not heardhim, only bowed her head, and the coach driving off, they soon lostsight of him.
This incident by no means rendered the journey pleasant, or Mr Delvilegracious; his own dignity, that constant object of his thoughts and hiscares, had received a wound from this attack which he had not the senseto despise; and the vulgarity and impudence of Mr Briggs, which oughtto have made his familiarity and boldness equally contemptibleand ridiculous, served only with a man whose pride out-ran hisunderstanding, to render them doubly mortifying and stinging. He couldtalk, therefore, of nothing the whole way that they went, but theextreme impropriety of which the Dean of had been guilty, in exposinghim to scenes and situations so much beneath his rank, by leaguing himwith a person so coarse and disgraceful.
They slept one night upon the road, and arrived the next day at DelvileCastle.