Jorrocks' Jaunts and JollitiesSurtees, Robert Smith
General
Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities
Surtees, Robert Smith
England -- Fiction; Fox hunting -- Fiction; Hunting stories
The dining-room was the breadth of the passage narrower than the front
drawing-room, and, as Mr. Jorrocks truly said, was rayther small--but
the table being excessively broad, made the room appear less than it
was. It was lighted up with spermaceti candles in silver holders, one at
each corner of the table, and there was a lamp in the wall between the
red-curtained windows, immediately below a brass nail, on which Mr.
Jorrocks's great hunting-whip and a bunch of boot garters were hung. Two
more candles in the hands of bronze Dianas on the marble mantelpiece,
lighted up a coloured copy of Barraud's picture of John Warde on Blue
Ruin; while Mr. Ralph Lambton, on his horse Undertaker, with his hounds
and men, occupied a frame on the opposite wall. The old-fashioned
cellaret sideboard, against the wall at the end, supported a large
bright-burning brass lamp, with raised foxes round the rim, whose
effulgent rays shed a brilliant halo over eight black hats and two white
ones, whereof the four middle ones were decorated with evergreens and
foxes' brushes. The dinner table was crowded, not covered. There was
scarcely a square inch of cloth to be seen on any part. In the centre
stood a magnificent finely spun barley-sugar windmill, two feet and a
half high, with a spacious sugar foundation, with a cart and horses and
two or three millers at the door, and a she-miller working a ball-dress
flounce at a lower window.
The whole dinner, first, second, third, fourth course --everything,
in fact, except dessert--was on the table, as we sometimes see it at
ordinaries and public dinners. Before both Mr. and Mrs. Jorrocks were
two great tureens of mock-turtle soup, each capable of holding a gallon,
and both full up to the brim. Then there were two sorts of fish; turbot
and lobster sauce, and a great salmon. A round of boiled beef and an
immense piece of roast occupied the rear of these, ready to march on the
disappearance of the fish and soup--and behind the walls, formed by the
beef of old England, came two dishes of grouse, each dish holding three
brace. The side dishes consisted of a calf's head hashed, a leg of
mutton, chickens, ducks, and mountains of vegetables; and round the
windmill were plum-puddings, tarts, jellies, pies, and puffs.
Behind Mrs. Jorrocks's chair stood "Batsay" with a fine brass-headed
comb in her hair, and stiff ringlets down her ruddy cheeks. She was
dressed in a green silk gown, with a coral necklace, and one of Mr.
Jorrocks's lavender and white coloured silk pocket-handkerchiefs made
into an apron. "Binjimin" stood with the door in his hand, as the saying
is, with a towel twisted round his thumb, as though he had cut it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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