Tom Pippin's Wedding. A novel. By the author of 'The Fight at Dame Europa's School'

Front matter

TOM PIPPIN'S WEDDING. TOM PIPPIN'S WEDDING, % Babzl BY THE AUTHOR OF ' THE FIGHT AT DAME EUROPA'S SCHOOL.' LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL AND CO. SALISBURY : BROWN AND CO. AU Rights Beieroed. SALISBURY : EENNETT, PRINTER, JOURNAL OFFICE. CONTENTS. PAGE A Word about Boy-Farming ... ... ... 7 Mr. Goggs demonstrates his love of Boys ... 24 Mr. Goggs converses with a Reverend Brother 42 Mr. Goggs resolves to keep a School ... ... 60 Shewing how the Earl came to do it ... ... 74 Lord Appletree sees his Friends at Dinner ... 104 Captain Northcote pays a visit ... ... 123 A Charade 137 Mr. Goggs gives bread to the hungry ... ... 166 Mr. Goggs keeps Company with his Pig ... 186 Lord Appletree sees a Friend after Dinner ... 253 Mr. Goggs acknowledges the Receipt of a Valentine 293 The Mad Englishman takes a plunge ... 338 Coals of Fire .§01105 PAGE The Windmill 22 Early Morning ... ... ... ... ... 4° The Martyr Boys 58 Going to Sea ... ... ... ... ... 72 My Pet ... ... ... ... ... 102 Children of Light ... ... ... ... 121 To a Little Girl ... ... ... ... 133 The Old Bachelor 183 The Cochin China Fowl ... ... ... 250 In Memoriam ... ... ... ... ... 292 The Fisher Boy .. ... ... ... 336 My Blind Old Dad 372 Easter ... ... ...

TOM PIPPIN'S WEDDING. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. A WORD ABOUT BOY-FARMING. A Sensation Novel. Three murders, two bigamies, a forgery, and a theft. A five days' trial of the innocent heroine, found guilty at last by twelve pig-headed jurymen of her country, and sentenced to death, amid the awful stillness of the Court, by a mean little judge in spectacles, whose voice falters with suppressed emotion, and who afterwards gets very properly extinguished by the Home Secretary and the Author for being such an old idiot as to sum up against the in teresting prisoner at the bar. Two forms emerge at midnight in November from the dark recesses of a copse, where they had A Word abottt Boy-Farming. 8 lain concealed for hours, and where anyone else but a housebreaker would, to say the least, have caught a very severe cold in the head.

Creeping stealthily though the tangled brushwood, lest the numerous passers-by at that time of night should hear the twigs crackle, and catch the muffled sound of their footfall upon the autumn leaves, they gain at length the threshold of some lordly domain, where their inevitable accomplice, the butler, faithless to his trust, draws back the well greased bolt and lets them in. But the master of the house, restless with presentiment of some impending doom, and seeking a volume from the wainscoted library of his ancestors, to beguile the weary hour, foils the guilty purpose of the traitor by accosting him at the bottom of the staircase with a tragical " Ha ! what have we here ?" The disinherited maiden, stung to madness with a sense of her cruel wrongs, kneels beside the death-bed of her stern papa.

Chapter II. Me

GOGGS DEMONSTRATES HIS LOVE OF BOYS. The nursery at Slappingham Vicarage was rather a sight on a Saturday evening. Five little brats, from eight years old and downwards, had to be tubbed, and scrubbed, and combed, and then put to bed, all red and shining, that the maids might go downstairs to supper. And what with the combing, and the scrubbing, and the tubbing, the maids might be said to have fairly earned the best supper that could be provided for them. It was a terrific business. " Master Johnny, just you put down them snuffers, else I'll acquaint your pa." " Now, Freddy, wherever 'ave you laid the soap to ? you've been and left it in the biling water, I do declare, till it's as white as that there counterpin, you good-for-nothing wasteful Boy!" "And what are you two whis- Mr. Goggs demonstrates his love of Boys. 2 5 pering about, I should like to know ?"

Such is a specimen of Nurse's troubles on a Saturday evening about eight o'clock; and she was not generally left very long in doubt as to the subject on which Freddy and his brother were whispering. It was sure to be something of personal interest to herself. For the most part it would turn out to be some harmless practical joke, hurting nobody, and easily forgiven ; but occasionally it became more serious, as for instance when Johnny threw a cake of yellow soap at Nurse's head, and smote her on the nose. The first thing she did was to howl, and declare that she was dead : the next was to give palpable proof of being alive, by jumping up and vowing that she would go straight downstairs and tell their father of them. Which also she did, leaving the Boys in darkness. " I say, we shall catch it," said Johnny.

" We had better all pretend to be asleep." "I shan't," said Freddy; "I shall put my trousers on." The expediency of this measure was so obvious Mr. Gosss demonstrates that it was adopted forthwith, and in less than two minutes the Boys were all dressed again. " I'm coming !" shouted a well known voice on the stairs ; and the Boys, catching a certain whiz zing sound in the distance, whispered one to another in fear and trembling — •" He has got the spanker !" Now ' the spanker' was a short and narrow piece of board, with a small hole at one end of it, which Parson Goggs had fashioned for the benefit of his offspring. He certainly had got the spanker, and he shewed pretty evident signs of an intention to use it. And then there was a scene. An uncommon one, let us hope, in most families ; but common enough at Slappingham.

The Vicar was a pious man, and read his Bible ; that is to say, he read little bits of it here and there with considerable diligence : and one of these little bits told him to beat his children's sides, so he beat them accordingly. There was another little bit somewhere, which told him to keep his temper; but he omitted to read that. Little Johnny took his share of the spanker like a man, and then crawled into bed, and had out his cry under the sheets. Freddy was inclined to shew fight, and persisted in catching hold of the weapon with his hand as it descended, whereupon his father gave him a double dose, and finally broke the spanker across his shoulders. There was nothing left, therefore, for Bobby, but the palm of the paternal hand, which however was sufficiently well accustomed to its present work to take to it pretty kindly.

The same hand had been writing an unctuous sermon not five minutes before, all about grace, and tender ness, and charity ; but it was not on that account the less efficient in battering little Bobby's head ; nor did it leave off its Scriptural chastisement until it had caught the Boy a foul blow on the face, and made his nose bleed. "I'll teach you to play tricks!" shouted the Vicar, hissing at the child through his teeth. " Now, sir, go and wipe your face, and don't stand blubbering there." And he took a stride towards Bobby, as if he were going to hit him again ; upon which the Boy lost his balance, Mr. Go^s demonstrates 28 and fell off his bed with a heavy thump on the floor. " Why does not he get up ?" whispered one of the others. " Why does he lie there so still ?" "Because he is dead," said the other brother; "and I'll tell you something, Fred, if you will come closer.

If the policeman finds it out, papa will be hung J" "No, will he really?" said Freddy; not by way of disputing his elder brother's learning in such matters, but intimating that the subject was not so painful but that he could endure to hear it discussed at greater length. But Bobby was not dead, or anything near it. He was simply faint, and half stunned, and his affectionate father might have brought him round in a couple of minutes, if he had but known how. Unfortunately, how-ever, he did not know how ; and, for all the help that he could give, Bobby might have lain there for ever. There he stood, pale and shivering with fright, dangling the candle in his left hand, and spilling the grease all over the floor, and looking like well, we won't say what he looked like. To his own children, on such occasions, his visage was apt to suggest comparisons more striking than com plimentary.

" I should like to know," they would say, " what old Bogie can be like, if he is not like papa ?" "Bobby, my Boy, are you hurt?" said the Vicar, at last, holding the candle down to the child's face. It was as pale as his own, and streaked with blood. The eyes were shut, the mouth half open, and the back of the head jambed in between the wall and a projecting knob of the iron bedstead. It was not altogether a pleasant sight for a father to look upon. " Are you hurt, my Boy ?" he said again, whining out the question as if he were the most affectionate of parents. He did not dare to touch him. He was but a clumsy sort of bully. He had knocked his Boy down, but he had not the faintest notion how to pick him up again. This kind office therefore had to be performed by the under nurse, who had been washing the little girls in the next room, and who now came to the rescue with a mug of cold water.

Mr. Goggs demonstrates 30 "He'll be better directly," said Jemima Ann, taking up the Boy in her strong fat arms, and laying him on the bed. And then the Vicar slunk sheepishly out of the room, and went down to his sermon. He was in the middle of a long quotation from " Romans," which neither he nor any one else could rightly understand, but upon which he intended nevertheless to dogmatise pretty strongly the next day, when the study door opened, and the mistress of the house came into the room. She had a shawl over her head, for she was an ' invalid,' and she found it necessary to protect herself against the chance of taking cold as she travelled from one room to another. " What was that noise, my dear ?" she asked, in a tone of voice which would have been intensely harsh and disagreeable had it not been so ridi culously feeble that you wondered how ever it got across the room.

" Only the Boys romping upstairs, love ; there is nothing the matter." " But I heard something fall, did I not ?" "Ah, that must have been Bobby. I believe he tripped up, and tumbled on the floor." Now, if Parson Goggs had caught any of his children telling a fib, he would have proceeded on this wise. First, he would have asked the child half a dozen puzzling questions, so as to entrap him into telling a good many more lies than he had meant to tell. Secondly, he would have boxed his ears till he thought it scarcely safe to box them any more. Thirdly, he would have locked the Boy up in a dark room by him self, to meditate upon his sin, visiting him at intervals of half an hour or so with alternate doses of tracts and hymns, and telling him, with many crocodile tears and solemn shakings of the head what a depraved wretch he had shewn himself to be ; while the depraved wretch himself would suck his fingers in the corner, and wish his father and all his tracts and hymns at the bottom of the sea.

For about a week afterwards the young sinner would have been in disgrace. His fault would have been brought up against him on all occasions, fitting or other- Mr. Goggs demonstrates 32 wise ; and if he so much as joined in play with his brothers and sisters he would have been considered as hardened in his sin. Such was the righteous indignation of Parson Goggs when he heard a lie, and such his highly judicious mode of dealing with the liar. Certainly, when the Vicar's Boys did tell lies — and I amafraid they told a good many — they made a better thing of it than their father did. Anybody could find him out, and his wife found him out directly. She knew by the very looks of him that he had been losing his temper ; and she knew also to her cost that it was not such a very unusual thing. So she left him to his Bible, and w~ent upstairs to the nursery.

The children were all wide awake, and dis cussing in language not particularly respectful the temper and disposition of their papa. Mrs. Goggs, w;ho always walked so softly that nobody could hear her coming, listened for a few minutes outside the door ; but, as she had long ago dis covered, by the same simple method, in what light she and her husband were regarded both by the servants and children, nothing that she heard on the present occasion struck her as par ticularly new or interesting. With a gentle sigh, therefore, partly no doubt at the wickedness of her Boys, and partly because her trouble in listening had been so poorly repaid, she opened the door. " You have quite made my head ache with your noise," she said. " Pray what were you all talking about so loudly as I came in ?" "Nothing, mamma, that I know of," said one of the Boys at last.

"Nonsense, child; it must have been some thing. Come, sir, tell me immediately, or I shall fetch your papa." And she took up her candle again, as if she meant to go. "It was Johnny, mamma," said Freddy, who, when he did tell a fib, made it a point of con science to tell a good one. " He was saying his prayers out loud. He is always doing it." " But there was some one else talking, besides Johnny. I heard your voice, Freddy, I am sure." " Oh, yes, mamma, I was telling him to be c Mr. Gog°;s demonstrates 34 quiet, because Matthew vi. 81 tells us we ought to say our prayers to ourselves. Doesn't it, mamma ?" "You are all very naughty, wicked, sinful children, to tell such dreadful stories. Be silent, sir," she continued, seeing that Freddy was about to draw still further on his powers of invention.

" I will not hear another word from you ; and I will never never never believe you again. I know perfectly well what you were talking about, for I heard it on the stairs ; and I shall tell your papa everything when I go down." "Please not this time, mamma." "Yes, I shall, Bobby; the very first thing on Monday morning — not to-night, lest the thought of your wickedness should disturb his mind through the blessed Sabbath day." After which cautious determination, and having satisfied her self that none of Bobby's bones were broken by his father's violence, Mrs. Goggs left the Boys to themselves. " Come and kiss me, mamma," said Freddy. " No, Freddy, you are far too naughty to be kissed. I must see some decided change of heart in you before I can love you any more." Per haps, on the whole, Freddy did not lose much.

An embrace from such a woman might have given the poor child the nightmare. But though his mother would not salute him, he would on no account omit to salute his mother ; and this he did, as soon as her back was turned, after a fashion equally elegant and expressive. If any one thinks this picture over-drawn, I suspect that it has not been his lot to meet many Evangelical parsons, with invalid wives, large families, and somewhere about £400 a year. About the time when he left the University and 'went into the Church,' which I conceive to be the correct modern phrase for taking Holy Orders, young Goggs was by no means a bad sort of fellow. Without being either very clever or very wise, he had that happy knack of making himself generally agreeable, which is a talent in itself; and while serving his first Curacy at a Proprietary Chapel in London he contrived to make himself so especially agreeable to Miss Elizabeth Ague, a c2 Mr. Goggs dcmo7istratcs 36 young lady who rented a thirty shilling seat in the gallery, that she provided him with bands and slippers for three calendar months, and then committed herself and all her worldly goods into his charge.

The first item in this important trust consisted of a plain mealy face, with very regular lady-like features, and no expression at all. The second was a sum of £2000 in the Funds, bequeathed to her by a pious aunt, on condition that she attended three Bible Society meetings every year, collected half-a-crown a quarter in penny subscriptions for the mission aries, and never married any one whose views were not in accordance with 2 Timothy iii. 19. There could be no doubt whatever about Mr. Goggs' views, so she married him ; and he was soon afterwards presented by Simeon's Trustees to the Vicarage of Slappingham, in the Diocese of Dumplington. Here he found out, after a very short ex perience, that Miss Ague was not precisely the wife to make a parson happy. She had always, acccording to her own account, "enjoyed" bad health ; and she now became so absurdly nervous and hypochondriacal as to settle down at last into that most selfish and most useless of beings, an invalid.

And sorely did her husband regret the day when she and her £2000 came into his possession. For the incessant whining of his partner's languid voice — the nuisance of living in a house where not a door might be left open for fear of the draught, or banged for fear of upsetting the mistress' nerves ; not to mention the difficulty of paying the butcher's bill, and of providing medicine enough, at eighteenpence the bottle, to satisfy the imaginary cravings of Mrs. Goggs' exhausted system : these things had so worried and soured the Vicar's temper that any old college friend would scarcely have known him. And they had done worse than sour his temper. They had made him a hypocrite and a humbug. Poverty had taught him all kinds of mean shifts for making ends meet. As his quiver became full, his perceptions of what was generous and upright grew less and less keen.

Stingy contrivances which would once have seemed to him intolerable Mr. Goggs demonstrates had now to be tolerated every day ; and though at first he could not help being disgusted at his wife's meanness, he gradually became reconciled to her doctrine that in the cause of domestic economy anything is lawful. And the principal sufferers from the code of household laws thus framed were of course the children. Servants will not be "put upon" in the matter of beef and mutton. When supplies fail, they can give notice and go. But the poor children had no such remedy ; so they munched their stale bread and drank their luke-warm milk and water, looking forward to glorious days when they should be grown up, and should never touch bread any more, but should devour huge slices of cake, spread an inch thick with jam and clotted cream.

Meanwhile they were not without some privileges, for occasionally it was permitted to them to come down stairs to breakfast, and to watch their parents eating kidneys and broiled ham. And sometimes, if an egg were sent in which would have been very nice and fresh a few days before' the Vicar would generously make over the savoury morsel to one of his Boys. " Bobby has been a good Boy lately," he would say, making a horrible face as he broke the shell, "and he shall have my egg, for a great treat. And, Bobby, you had better go and eat it in the kitchen, for fear you should dirty the clean cloth;" the cloth having been washed, as Bobby and his father both knew well enough, something like three weeks ago. Such were some of the instructive lessons which the Slappingham children learned from their papa and mamma.

And if these lessons were remembered and acted upon in after life, we can scarcely be surprised. W^hen Mrs. Goggs left the nursery she rejoined her husband in the study, and sat mending Bobby's socks until ten o'clock. About this time a tray was brought in, and the Vicar, having finished the peroration of his sermon, mixed himself a tumbler of something and water, and handed a wine-glass full of the same compound to his wife. Which comforting beverage having been sipped in silence, the pious couple retired to rest. &avlv horning. Oh, who would lie asleep, asleep, Hot drowsy vapours breathing, When silver crowns, on every steep, Fresh morning mists are wreathing ? And every echo from the hill, And every zephyr's play, And every dimple on the rill, Sings Anthems to the Day ? While matrons snooze abed, abed, By sluggish dreams benighted, 'Tis then that lovers' words are said, And lovers' vows are plighted.

Too late of prudent schemes to talk, When Janie greets you, now, All radiant from her morning walk, With kisses on her brow. Early Morning. 41 Then, lads and maids, awake, awake, Your work betimes be doing ! At early dawn your rambles take — At early dawn your wooing ! No careful dames shall guard the night, To catch you as you stray ; Your loves be all too pure and bright For aught but sunniest Day ! %{jm$% Mr. Gosres converses with a 42

Chapter III. Mr

GOGGS CONVERSES WITH A REVEREND BROTHER. The next morning Bobby woke up witb a head ache, and a feverish pulse. " I don't mean to lie in bed, though," said Bobby to the nurse, "or else I shall have to take a horrid dose of rhubarb and magnesia, or castor oil." There was a considerable amount of nasty medicine consumed in the Slappingham nursery in the course of a year. The air was dry and bracing, and the children's appetites enormous ; so enormous that an occa sional pill or pow-der was found to be a convenient and economical check upon them. It was not very probable that Bobby would escape the inflic tion ; and his father settled the question for him by visiting him in his dressing gown. "Well, my precious Boy, how are you this bright Sabbath morning? You know the hymn, do you not? 'Awake my soul and with the sun' " " Yes, papa, ' Improve each shining hour.' " But Bobby was not permitted to finish the verse, for his affectionate father hit him a blow on the cheek which left its red mark for an hour or more.

" Oh, papa !" cried Bobby, shrinking away into the furthest corner of his little bed. " I'll teach you to make fun of the Hymn Book, sir, that I will." "But I thought that was right, papa, really. Only I have such a lot of things to learn I can't remember them all." " Don't tell me any more lies, sir, but put out your tongue directly." This was not so very easy, considering that the poor child was shaking with his sobs. He did, however, manage to get his tongue out at last, though that unfortunate member got terribly bitten in the process. " There is nothing the matter with the Boy," said the Vicar ; " only a bilious attack. You have Mr. Gorgs converses with a 44 been eating and drinking too much, sir, that is what it is." Poor Bobby ! it was little enough, in the way of nice unwholesome things, that he had to eat and drink.

He scarcely knew the taste of any thing but dry bread, boiled rice, and cold mutton. But every ailment at Slappingham was set down as a bilious attack, so Bobby swallowed his nauseous poison like a man, not even daring to make a face as he gave the glass back to his father. And then the Vicar went down to shave — let us hope successfully. Let us hope that he did not, in a careless moment, inflict a wound upon his reverend chin. Let us hope, if he did chance to do so, that he employed no ejaculation unbe coming in a clergyman. Let us hope, moreover, supposing that he had gashed himself pretty severely, that his dear children would have been properly grieved. I believe that I should be thought an unnatural monster if I were to say that Bobby and his brothers and sisters hated the very sight of their father and mother.

But why they should be supposed to love them is more than I could tell. They had scarcely ever received from them a really kind word. Now and then there was some pretence of affection, when the Vicar would put on a silly playful manner, which did not become him in the least, and in a whining sentimental voice would call one of them his own precious child, and quote a text of Scripture at him. But the precious child took all that for what it was worth, knowing that his father was as likely as not to fly into a passion the next minute, and box his ears. And yet, strange to say, Parson Goggs thought himself the very model of an affectionate parent. He believed that no one in the world understood the art of bringing up children as well as he did. His discipline was so admirable, his Boys so perfectly under command ; their religious tone so high — their acquaintance with the Bible so extensive — their observations so intelligent — their innocence of the ways of the world so refreshing.

The foolish man did not consider how dearly he paid for having his children under command, seeing that he had Mr. Gopvs converses with a 46 made them afraid of the very sound of his foot step, and destroyed for ever all chance of gaining their confidence. It never occurred to him to ask whether either they or he understood the meaning of half the texts which were always at their tongues' end, apropos of nothing at all ; nor did he for a moment suspect that their religious talk and precocious questions were all put on for a purpose, because the little rogues were sharp enough to see how to get the right side of their evangelical papa. And as for their innocence of the ways of the world, the parson forgot that there are worse ways than these ; and that when children are taught deceit both by precept and example, and encouraged by various means to become dishonest little humbugs, they are pretty sure to find out for themselves the very worst ways that a child can possibly follow.

When the Vicar came into the breakfast room at eight o'clock to read prayers, the postman was passing the window with the vicarage letter-bag hanging behind his back. But he was not allowed to leave the bag on a Sunday, so he trudged on to the post-office in the village. Parson Goggs was a rigid observer of the Sabbath day — at least, he meant to be — only, poor man, he was always just a day too late, mistaking Sunday for Saturday. He would not have written a letter, or opened one, on a Sunday, for any consideration. "What are you reading, Bobby?" he would ask, on a Sunday evening after tea. " Pilgrim's Progress, papa." " Then put it away, my Boy. The Bible on Sunday, and the Bible only." "Which wise regulation did not, I suspect, increase Master Bobby's love either for the Bible or the Sabbath day.

So the Postman tramped on ; and at five o'clock in the evening he tramped back again, having left the parson's letters at the village post-office ; and the letters were brought to the vicarage on Monday morning by a small village maiden. It was on Monday morning, then, that the Vicar found out what an important letter he had missed. " Rev. Sir" (said the letter), " Mr. Barroll is dangerously ill, and wishes to Air. Gogo-s converses with a 48 see yourself or Mrs. Goggs immediately. Your obedient servant, John Jones." Now, Mr. Barroll was Parson Goggs' uncle, who had lately retired from the well known and highly respectable house of Barroll and Corke, brewers, and was supposed to be worth about forty thousand pounds. He had quarrelled with his nephew many years ago, ever since the parson had had the bad taste to throw in his teeth that he was a brewer, and lived on the drunkenness of the multitude.

Then and there did the old gentleman vow that his relative should never touch a sixpence of his ill-gotten wealth, and he had hitherto most religiously kept his word. But when the doctor told him that he was going to die, he thought better of it, and made his lawyer write off at once for Parson Goggs. "Is he not come?" asked the sick man, about the middle of the day on Sunday. " No, sir," said the doctor. " It is Sunday, you know. Perhaps he could not get his duty done." " That would not prevent his wife from coming, would it, stupid?" growled the brewer, who had no respect for doctors, even in the hour of his dissolution. "Ah, he won't see me," muttered the old man at last. " He won't defile himself with the dirty money. Then it shall go as I have left it, to Harry Northcote. If he had come he should have had the half of it, for his trouble."