England -- Social conditions -- 19th century -- Fiction; Working class -- Fiction
It had a fine tower and steeple, and this Dora thought of as a
delightful subject for a sketch from the Parsonage garden. She made
great friends with Lucy Grantley, the eldest daughter, over their tastes
in drawing, as well as in the Waverley novels and in poetry, and was
invited to spend a long day at Poppleby and take a portrait of the
steeple.
After the calls had been made and returned, began the dinner-parties.
Elmour Priory was so near Greenhow that it would have been easy to walk
there across the fields, or to drive in the phaeton, especially as the
hours were much earlier, and six or half-past was held to be a late
dinner hour, but this would have been contrary to etiquette, especially
the first time, with people who evidently thought much of "style," and
the Carbonels were not superior to such considerations, which were--or
were supposed to be--of more importance in those days. So a chaise was
ordered, and they went in state, and had a long, dull evening, chiefly
enlivened by the Miss Selbys and Dora playing on the piano.
As they were going home, all round by the road, when they were near the
top of the hill, before they came to the "Fox and Hounds," the postilion
first shouted and then came to a sudden stop. The captain, putting his
head out at the window, saw by the faint light of a young moon, going
down in the remains of sunset, that he was jumping off his horse,
growling and swearing, but under his breath, when the captain sprang
out. A woman was lying across the road, and had barely escaped being
run over. Mary and Dora were both out in a moment.
"Poor thing, poor thing! Is it a fit? She is quite insensible."
"A fit of a certain kind," said the captain, who was dragging her into
the hedge, while the post-boy held the horses. "Go back, Mary, Dora!"
"It is Nanny Barton!" said Dora in horror.
Mary took down one of the carriage lamps and held it to the face. "Yes,
it is!" said she. "Can't we take her home, or do anything?"
"No, no; nonsense!" said Edmund. "Don't come near, don't touch her.
Don't you see, she is simply dead drunk."
"But we can't leave her here."
"The best thing to do! Yes, it is; but we will stop at the `Fox and
Hounds,' if that will satisfy you, and send some one out to see after
her."
They were obliged to be satisfied, for the tones were authoritative, and
they had to accept his assurance that the woman was in no state for them
to meddle with. She would come to no harm, he said, when he had put her
on the bank, and it was only to pacify them that he caused the postilion
to stop at the public-house, whence roaring, singing, and shouts
proceeded. The landlord came out, supposing it was some new arrival,
and when Captain Carbonel jumped out, and, speaking severely, desired
that some one would go to look after the woman, who was lying in the
road, and whom the horses had almost run over, he answered as if he had
been doing the most natural and correct thing in the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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