Page:The world's show, 1851, or, The adventures of Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys and family, who came up to London to "enjoy themselves", and to see the Great Exhibition (IA worldsshow1851or00mayh).pdf/38

 sobbing, he proceeded to appeal to the generosity of Postlethwaite and the feelings of Ann Lightfoot, he spoke of their long services, and how the affection between the master and the servant was the pride of their native county, and imploringly besought them not to leave him in his present position, but to wait only a few days longer, when their friends and neighbours could not fail of returning; for he was convinced London wickedness must pall, after a brief experience, upon the pure and simple minds of the people of Buttermere; and he wound up by pointing to his children, and begged of them not to force him to drag those dear innocents into the foul contamination of a London life.

This appeal had not the desired effect. Postlethwaite, although he had been with Sandboys since a boy, and looked upon Jobby, from long association, almost as a child of his own,—and although in the most lively period of the village, he had never been known to take part in the festivities, nor had made his appearance at a "Merry Night," for the last fifteen years—nevertheless, felt himself, after the departure of the Excursion train of his fellow villagers, lonely and ill-used, in not being allowed to participate in the general holiday. The consequence was, that Mr. Sandboys' eloquence was utterly lost upon the surliness that had usurped the place of his usual regard and respect for his master.

Moreover, Ann Lightfoot had been unable to get over the loss of her "Jwohnny," whom, with a jaundiced eye, she saw clattering away, in calkered boots, at all the merry nights of London, now standing up in many a square-eight reel, or now kneeling at the feet of some "fause-feaced fair," in the sly vagaries of the Cushion-dance. Under these circumstances, she had passed her evening unusually lonely, even for Buttermere; and having no lover to sit up for at night, she had usually spent her leisure time with Postlethwaite, mutually grumbling by the kitchen fire, and filling his mind with ideas and desires for London enjoyments, to which he would otherwise have been an entire stranger. Accordingly, Ann Lightfoot was as little inclined as Deaf Postlethwaite, and Deaf Postlethwaite as little inclined as Ann Light-foot—for the grumblings of the one were echoed in the growlings of the other—to be in any way mollified by their master's appeal to their feelings. So Postlethwaite murmured out that they had made up their minds to go the next day, without further warning.

Sandboys, shuddering, saw the coming desolation of his home, and for a moment had serious thoughts of calling in the constable to make them fulfil their engagements. But, alas, his next remembrance was that the constable, like the grocer, and the blacksmith, and the cobblers, had gone up to London to see the Great Exhibition.

The wretched Cursty resigned himself to his fate. But Fate had still something worse in store for him. No sooner had the servants discharged themselves, than Mrs. Sandboys unmasked a new grievance, and opened a full battery upon him, as he sat dismal and desponding, in the blanket, sipping his gruel in deep despair. She told him, as she handed him the clean shirt she had been airing, that she would ad