DOI issue:
April 18, 1868
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16881#0175
1G8
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[April 18, 1SG8.
HA ! WHAEE YE GATIN', YE CRAWLIN' EERLIE ? ”
ertly, some very harmless and
well meant utterances by
the Duke op Cambridge at
the Highland Dinner have,
we perceive from the London.
Scotsman (a capitally man-
aged paper, by the way)
aroused the patriotic rage of
one W. Burns, who scolds
the poor Duke for talking
of “ Englishmen,” and who
declares that the Scotch are
not Englishmen, and have
never been conquered, and
all the. rest of it. As the
Duke’s genius, even with
General Eor3Ter to
prompt h, may not be rip to
the work of scrunching a
fiery Scot, we beg leave to
help his Royal Highness.
Let him tell the Scotch that
they are English, and that
they have been conquered,
and that they give a re-
markable proof of subjuga-
tion. Their own extraor-
dinary dialect is good enough
for their ordinary purposes, i
but they read the English
Bible, and perform all their
religions services in English. |
They are ashamed to use |
charmer, to be charmed at last ? Had she, who had made even women’s
natural enemies, the serpents, dance to her piping, at length found the
serpent who was to pipe to her dancing ? Where was the fascination ?
Or was it he who was fascinated after all?
He watched her lying at full length upon the snow-white ottoman
beneath the overhanging fuchsias and dainty jessamines ; he watched
her as she arranged her pink satin dress with its drapery of moire
antique, trimmed with the rarest embrocation, seldom applied, except,
as now, externally, and he smiled as she threw herself back, reclining
upon the damask pillows. A coronet of diamonds, each separate stone
far exceeding the koh-i-noor, sparkled in her dark hair ; rings flashed
and coruscated again and again, lighting her taper lingers; small
tinkling bells, Benician fashion, sounded from her sandals as she pressed
the drawing-room pile, or shook her feet twinklingly, over the edge of
the fauteuil. Torches of naphtha (for Piel Dornton spared.no ex-
pense) shed their soft light upon her, and upon the cream-like and
rosy tints of the cold frozen ice and small thin wafer cake which she
had taken for her refreshment in that pale voluptuous hand.
“ I wonder,” she said, after a little pause, ‘ where Banbury Cross
is ? ”
“ Do not talk the world’s cant to we,” said Piel Dornton, suddenly
rising and violently kicking over the ormolu tables, the lamps, the
chairs, and the bigger ornaments in the room. “ I know you—beautiful
as you are, I know you.” He stood by the mantel-piece glaring upon
her. Her eyes looking up, met his, and she listened intently. She
had never seen him in this mood before. “ Tell me,” he said, calmly,
yet with firm determination as he flung the velvet stool through the
window, “ Tell me, why am I here ? ”
Eor one moment she, the conqueror, the syren who loved so many
to their destruction, felt how she had been trapped, caged, caught.
Piel Dornton rose from the hearth, and coming towards her,
clasped her waist in his iron grasp. She was power ess in his hand,
and suffered herself to be carried into the ball-room lik'e a child.
by leading the last
LUtHt J_7U l in a
of worship. Give ’em that, Duke, and not Cambridge butter.
CH1KK1N HAZARD.
The Bishop was bringing the festival to a close
dance, which, as is the Benician custom, has something in it of the
__ „ — _ - religious element and of the action of worship; the entire movement
their “Doric” in a place has its own peculiar music, and is dedicated (to one of the Island’s
patron saints, St. Yitus—the other patron being the guardian o.^
Hospitality, namely St. Iuvite-us.
Piel Dornton forced Lady Anna to kneel down, as his ecclesiastical
superior removed from his face the white and red colours which had
served him for a temporary disguise during the Masque.
“ My Lord,” exclaimed Piel, seizing the Bishop’s hand, “She will
be mv wife.
CHAPTER XL.
THE SYREN'S VOICE.
Piel Dornton had calculated his chances cleverly; perhaps too
cleverly, for it is so difficult for a sharp man of the Dornton stamp to
avoid being just a thought too clever for himself. He stretches out
his arm to gain his object, but having griped the coveted possession,
he overbalances himself and falls. The Lev. Piel Dornton had not
yet fallen, but was he overbalancing himself? This was a question for
the business conclave which met behind the glass doors in the Banking
House of Chekk, Diss, Count & Co., the great Benicia Agents.
Their decision was that the papers in their hands were correct, and
they could find no reason for disputing the legality of the several
instruments.
So Piel Dornton was cringed to, and bowed to, and fawned upon
by the Benicians, and visiting cards from the wife of the Lord High
Admiral, and the Bishop’s Lady, down t.o the last importation into
Benician salons, were showered in at the doors and windows of
Phlebosco Palace, now the residence of the fortunate clergyman.
On the tenth day after the disappearance of Volcano Villa with its
living freight, it became painfully evident that the Lieutenant and
Grace had ceased to exist.
The Rev. Piel Dornton invited the inhabitants to a Masqued Ball,
and he himself, as Cupid, was the gayest, and apparently the most
light-hearted of all that merry, chattering, brilliant crowd.
“ You are so satirical,” said Lady Anna Domino, removing her
mask in order the. more easily and gracefully to apply her lace-em-
broidered mouckoir to her aristocratically-chiselled nose, a custom
which the highly refined though somewhat artificial Benicians inva-
riably adopt on occasions such as we are describing.
“ Not, to you” murmured Piel, looking into her full hazel eyes,
whose lids were gradually lowered under his steady gaze.
“ But you love some one else,” she whispered, turning away her
head.
“ No; on my soul, no,” exclaimed Dornton, passionately. The
sound of the waltz came fitfully through the doors.
She was a handsome woman. Lady Anna, and she knew it. Through
life, ever since her early impulsive marriage with the dissolute Sir
Palsenows Domino, (who, crible des dettes, had died, leaving her his
entire property) her experience among men of the world had been oi
the veni, vidi, vici order.
And now, what was this had suddenly come over her ? Was she, the
“ Bene ego nunquam !” said the good Bishop, piously. “ Fecisti tu
unquarn ? ”
Piel took a ring from the finger of the fainting Lady Anna, and
was preparing to repeat the usual formula after the Bishop, when a
slight rustling was heard in the crowd, and a black figure, closely hooded
but with two brilliant eyes piercing through the apertures of her mask,
stepped forward. Oa one arm she supported what was apparently a
large oblong shaped bundle.
The disengaged hand she stretched oat, and before the bystanders
could prevent her-
CHAPTER XVI.
’OT2 'OT0H XATT ;
-Handed to Dornton a letter.
" Who brought this ? ” he cried, when he had read it.
No one could, tell him. It was a black-hooded mask, and she had
gone, silently, as she had come.
Lady Anna fainted, and was carried insensible to a fountain, in
whose sparkling basin she was tenderly deposited, in the hopes that
the cold fresh water would revive her.
“ Who will take a message for me?” muttered Dornton to him-
self, confusedly, “ Is there no one I can send ? ”
As if in answer to his half-spoken thought, a voice from the throng
around hissed shrilly, “Me vii.”
“ Who spoke ? ” asked Dornton. A small form emerged from the
crowd. It was the bundle which the Mysterious Mask had on her
arm : a child.
“ How old are you ? ” asked Dornton.
“ Fourteen months and a half,” was ttie ready answer..
“ The emissary for my purpose,” said Piel to himself. A bold bad
man cannot act alone; he needs an instrument, a tool; rarely do bold
bad men find such an one present to their hand as did Piel Dornton
now.
“ You know the town well? ” he inquired, before handing him the;
note.
“ Vev vel,” answered the infant.
“ Your name ? ”
“ Ditthon ; but they called me Little Billee.”
Had not the ears of Piel Dornton been careless to their own good;
he would have recognised in the infant’s lisping accents the name of
Dixon, and he would in all probability have called to mind the motherL-
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[April 18, 1SG8.
HA ! WHAEE YE GATIN', YE CRAWLIN' EERLIE ? ”
ertly, some very harmless and
well meant utterances by
the Duke op Cambridge at
the Highland Dinner have,
we perceive from the London.
Scotsman (a capitally man-
aged paper, by the way)
aroused the patriotic rage of
one W. Burns, who scolds
the poor Duke for talking
of “ Englishmen,” and who
declares that the Scotch are
not Englishmen, and have
never been conquered, and
all the. rest of it. As the
Duke’s genius, even with
General Eor3Ter to
prompt h, may not be rip to
the work of scrunching a
fiery Scot, we beg leave to
help his Royal Highness.
Let him tell the Scotch that
they are English, and that
they have been conquered,
and that they give a re-
markable proof of subjuga-
tion. Their own extraor-
dinary dialect is good enough
for their ordinary purposes, i
but they read the English
Bible, and perform all their
religions services in English. |
They are ashamed to use |
charmer, to be charmed at last ? Had she, who had made even women’s
natural enemies, the serpents, dance to her piping, at length found the
serpent who was to pipe to her dancing ? Where was the fascination ?
Or was it he who was fascinated after all?
He watched her lying at full length upon the snow-white ottoman
beneath the overhanging fuchsias and dainty jessamines ; he watched
her as she arranged her pink satin dress with its drapery of moire
antique, trimmed with the rarest embrocation, seldom applied, except,
as now, externally, and he smiled as she threw herself back, reclining
upon the damask pillows. A coronet of diamonds, each separate stone
far exceeding the koh-i-noor, sparkled in her dark hair ; rings flashed
and coruscated again and again, lighting her taper lingers; small
tinkling bells, Benician fashion, sounded from her sandals as she pressed
the drawing-room pile, or shook her feet twinklingly, over the edge of
the fauteuil. Torches of naphtha (for Piel Dornton spared.no ex-
pense) shed their soft light upon her, and upon the cream-like and
rosy tints of the cold frozen ice and small thin wafer cake which she
had taken for her refreshment in that pale voluptuous hand.
“ I wonder,” she said, after a little pause, ‘ where Banbury Cross
is ? ”
“ Do not talk the world’s cant to we,” said Piel Dornton, suddenly
rising and violently kicking over the ormolu tables, the lamps, the
chairs, and the bigger ornaments in the room. “ I know you—beautiful
as you are, I know you.” He stood by the mantel-piece glaring upon
her. Her eyes looking up, met his, and she listened intently. She
had never seen him in this mood before. “ Tell me,” he said, calmly,
yet with firm determination as he flung the velvet stool through the
window, “ Tell me, why am I here ? ”
Eor one moment she, the conqueror, the syren who loved so many
to their destruction, felt how she had been trapped, caged, caught.
Piel Dornton rose from the hearth, and coming towards her,
clasped her waist in his iron grasp. She was power ess in his hand,
and suffered herself to be carried into the ball-room lik'e a child.
by leading the last
LUtHt J_7U l in a
of worship. Give ’em that, Duke, and not Cambridge butter.
CH1KK1N HAZARD.
The Bishop was bringing the festival to a close
dance, which, as is the Benician custom, has something in it of the
__ „ — _ - religious element and of the action of worship; the entire movement
their “Doric” in a place has its own peculiar music, and is dedicated (to one of the Island’s
patron saints, St. Yitus—the other patron being the guardian o.^
Hospitality, namely St. Iuvite-us.
Piel Dornton forced Lady Anna to kneel down, as his ecclesiastical
superior removed from his face the white and red colours which had
served him for a temporary disguise during the Masque.
“ My Lord,” exclaimed Piel, seizing the Bishop’s hand, “She will
be mv wife.
CHAPTER XL.
THE SYREN'S VOICE.
Piel Dornton had calculated his chances cleverly; perhaps too
cleverly, for it is so difficult for a sharp man of the Dornton stamp to
avoid being just a thought too clever for himself. He stretches out
his arm to gain his object, but having griped the coveted possession,
he overbalances himself and falls. The Lev. Piel Dornton had not
yet fallen, but was he overbalancing himself? This was a question for
the business conclave which met behind the glass doors in the Banking
House of Chekk, Diss, Count & Co., the great Benicia Agents.
Their decision was that the papers in their hands were correct, and
they could find no reason for disputing the legality of the several
instruments.
So Piel Dornton was cringed to, and bowed to, and fawned upon
by the Benicians, and visiting cards from the wife of the Lord High
Admiral, and the Bishop’s Lady, down t.o the last importation into
Benician salons, were showered in at the doors and windows of
Phlebosco Palace, now the residence of the fortunate clergyman.
On the tenth day after the disappearance of Volcano Villa with its
living freight, it became painfully evident that the Lieutenant and
Grace had ceased to exist.
The Rev. Piel Dornton invited the inhabitants to a Masqued Ball,
and he himself, as Cupid, was the gayest, and apparently the most
light-hearted of all that merry, chattering, brilliant crowd.
“ You are so satirical,” said Lady Anna Domino, removing her
mask in order the. more easily and gracefully to apply her lace-em-
broidered mouckoir to her aristocratically-chiselled nose, a custom
which the highly refined though somewhat artificial Benicians inva-
riably adopt on occasions such as we are describing.
“ Not, to you” murmured Piel, looking into her full hazel eyes,
whose lids were gradually lowered under his steady gaze.
“ But you love some one else,” she whispered, turning away her
head.
“ No; on my soul, no,” exclaimed Dornton, passionately. The
sound of the waltz came fitfully through the doors.
She was a handsome woman. Lady Anna, and she knew it. Through
life, ever since her early impulsive marriage with the dissolute Sir
Palsenows Domino, (who, crible des dettes, had died, leaving her his
entire property) her experience among men of the world had been oi
the veni, vidi, vici order.
And now, what was this had suddenly come over her ? Was she, the
“ Bene ego nunquam !” said the good Bishop, piously. “ Fecisti tu
unquarn ? ”
Piel took a ring from the finger of the fainting Lady Anna, and
was preparing to repeat the usual formula after the Bishop, when a
slight rustling was heard in the crowd, and a black figure, closely hooded
but with two brilliant eyes piercing through the apertures of her mask,
stepped forward. Oa one arm she supported what was apparently a
large oblong shaped bundle.
The disengaged hand she stretched oat, and before the bystanders
could prevent her-
CHAPTER XVI.
’OT2 'OT0H XATT ;
-Handed to Dornton a letter.
" Who brought this ? ” he cried, when he had read it.
No one could, tell him. It was a black-hooded mask, and she had
gone, silently, as she had come.
Lady Anna fainted, and was carried insensible to a fountain, in
whose sparkling basin she was tenderly deposited, in the hopes that
the cold fresh water would revive her.
“ Who will take a message for me?” muttered Dornton to him-
self, confusedly, “ Is there no one I can send ? ”
As if in answer to his half-spoken thought, a voice from the throng
around hissed shrilly, “Me vii.”
“ Who spoke ? ” asked Dornton. A small form emerged from the
crowd. It was the bundle which the Mysterious Mask had on her
arm : a child.
“ How old are you ? ” asked Dornton.
“ Fourteen months and a half,” was ttie ready answer..
“ The emissary for my purpose,” said Piel to himself. A bold bad
man cannot act alone; he needs an instrument, a tool; rarely do bold
bad men find such an one present to their hand as did Piel Dornton
now.
“ You know the town well? ” he inquired, before handing him the;
note.
“ Vev vel,” answered the infant.
“ Your name ? ”
“ Ditthon ; but they called me Little Billee.”
Had not the ears of Piel Dornton been careless to their own good;
he would have recognised in the infant’s lisping accents the name of
Dixon, and he would in all probability have called to mind the motherL-