Mrs. Loudon

“Of snowy white the dress, the buskin white,
And purest white, the graceful waving plume.”

In about six weeks the marriage of Frances and Lord L— took place, and the happy couple set off for Beech Park, his lordship’s seat, near London. Within the following ten days Mrs. Montgomery made all her home arrangements, paid her pensioners, gave orders for the Christmas dinner of the neighbouring poor, placed Edmund in the peculiar care of Mrs. Smyth; and, finally, the day before she set out to join her daughter and son-in-law, dispatched Henry, under escort of the butler, back to S— B— school. The school, as we have before observed, was an excellent, though a cheap one; but the lodging was such as Mrs. Montgomery certainly would not have selected for her nephew, nor indeed suffered him to occupy, could she have known the scenes and society into which it threw him.

Henry arrived at the village of S— B—, and jumped out of the carriage at the door of a butcher’s house. While the servant was taking out the luggage, Henry addressed, very familiarly, a woman who stood with her back to him; and accommodating his language, as was his custom, to his company, said, “Weel, Katty, and whoo is’t wee aw wee you?” “No mickle the better for yeer axin!” she replied, continuing her washing. The next moment Henry was engaged in a game of romps with a fine girl of fourteen, who just then came in from the garden: all the flowers which had lately bloomed there collected in her apron, to be tied up in penny bunches for the ensuing day’s market. On receiving, though not, it must be confessed, without richly deserving it, a smart slap on the ear from his fair antagonist, the young gentleman closed with her, and commenced an absolute boxing-match. At this juncture the butcher himself entered.

“What’s aw this? what’s aw this?” he exclaimed. The angry voice of David Park (such was the butcher’s name) ended the scuffle.

“Mr. Henry and me was no’ but larking, fether,” replied his daughter, adjusting her disordered hair and drapery, and gathering up her scattered flowers.

“Mr. Henry! Mr. Deevil!” said the man, recognising Henry with a scowl. “Bonny larking truly!” he continued; “bonny larking truly! And what business had you, wife, to aloo of ony sic work?” And he sat down sullenly, deterred from taking signal vengeance on the laughing young gentleman, by the dread of losing his lodger. “Bonny larking truly!” he resumed, as, without looking round, he poked the fire before which he had seated himself, and began to light his pipe. “Ye’ll soon be oure aul’, te lark afther that gate wi’ the scholar lads, I can tell yee!” Here he glanced at his daughter, and added, “Git awaw wi’ ye, and don yeer sel’, lass! yeer na fit till stand afoor a man body noo, tho’ he be thee fether! Yeer aw ribbands!”

We shall here leave Henry to keep such society, and to follow such pursuits unmolested, and give our attention again to other and more amiable personages of our history.