Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/467

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CONDUCTED BY ""
 * No. 20..
 * SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 1869.
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is a conventional, but by no means a correct, notion, that at the time of a social separation those who are left behind have so very much the worst of it. People imagine that those who remain must necessarily be so dull after the departure of their friends; though very frequently those departing are the very persons who have imported gloom and misery into the household, who have sat like social old men and women of the sea on the necks of the jovial Sindbads, who have been skeletons at the feast, and wet blankets, and bottle-stoppers, and killjoys, and mirth-quenchers, and story-baulkers. It is by no means an uncommon occurrence, that there has been no such pleasant music for weeks, in the ears of those remaining in the house, as the noise of the wheels of the carriage speeding the parting guest.

The people of Helmingham village, when they saw the carriage containing Mr. Creswell and his bride spinning away to the station, after indulging in a fresh theme of talk expressive of their surprise at all that had happened, and their delight at the cleverness of the schoolmaster's daughter, who had, as they politely expressed it, "carried her pigs to such a good market," began to discuss the situation at Woolgreaves; and as it had been universally agreed that the day should be made a general holiday, the new married folk and their kith and kin, their past and future, were served up as topics of conversation, not merely at the various village tea-tables, but in the commercial room of the Lion at Brocksopp, which, there being no commercial gentlemen staying in the house, had been given up to the tenantry on the estate, who were given to understand that Mr. Teesdale, Mr. Creswell's agent, would attend to the bill. It was long since the Lion had done such a roaring trade, for the commercial gents, by whom the house was chiefly frequented, though convivial souls, were apt to be convivial on small orders, "fours" of rum and "sixes" of brandy; and it was only on exceptional occasions that old Mr. Mulock, who "travelled in hardware," would suffer himself to be fined a crown bowl of punch for having committed the uncommercial atrocity of smoking in the commercial room before seven o'clock, or young Mr. Cunynghame, who represented his own firm in Scotch goods—a very pushing young gentleman, and a wonderful fellow to get on—would "stand champagne round" when he had received a specially remunerative order. But now Miss Parkhurst, in the bar, had not a second to herself, the demand for her strong mahogany-coloured brandy-and-water was so great; steaming jorums of "hot with" here, huge goblets of "cold without" there; the fascinating Hebe of the Lion had not dispensed so much drink at one time since the day when old Major Barth was returned in the Conservative interest for Brocksopp—and the major, it is allowed, was not merely a hard drinker himself, but the cause of hard drinking in others; while as for old Tilley, the jolly landlord, he was so overwhelmed with the exertion of punch-compounding, that he took off the short-tailed snuff-coloured coat which he usually wore, and went to work in his shirt-sleeves, slicing lemons, mixing, strengthening, sweetening,—ay, and tasting too—until his pleasant