'Truly madam, I fear you are not far wrong,' said the moral Robert, 'our young gentlemen are rather too free both in their conversation and manners, but in the case of so very distinguished a beauty, as I hear Miss Fielding is, little talk comes natural. Besides, madam, in this case it is quite excusable, as report does say that your daughter is going to make a high marriage.'
'People should mind their own business and not tell lies about other folk's affairs,' said Mrs. Fielding, remembering Mr. Bonham's admonitions on the subject of silence and secrecy.
'Ah, well, if it is a lie,' replied the astute Robert, making his point at once, 'I'll correct it-whenever I hear it- and mention my authority.'
'Not but what Rosa could be if she choose,' interposed the old dame, 'of course such things are generally unlikely.'
'Very unlikely,' here interrupted Robert, in order to interrupt her, irritate her and lead her on.
'But there are exceptions to every rule, and my girl Rosa, who is as good as she is pretty, may be an exception in this case. Mind, I don't say she is!'
'Oh, of course not!' interposed the military groom, 'and that's exactly the reason she has gone to London, I suppose!'
'Why, not exactly to be married,' replied Mrs. Fielding, forgetting all about concealment in her own satisfaction, and drawn on by her guest's confident manner, 'not to be married just yet. You see, though Rosa has been well brought up, yet a little London polish is desirable to fit her for the high station she will occupy.'
'Oh, of course,' replied Robert, in a matter-of-fact way, as if he knew all about it, and highly approved, but thinking to himself all the while: 'You are a nice soft old lady, and if you let out this secret to every one as easily as you let it out to me, it will very soon be parish news. But your ale is good at any rate, so here's your good health, ma'am.'
This last remark was uttered aloud and acknowledged.
'Oh, I am afraid that you are a dreadful set up at the barracks, young man. You are in service to one of the gentlemen, I see. Pray, who may he be?'
'Only acting as officer's servant, madam,' replied her guest, 'you know the officers are at liberty to choose the smartest and best lookingahem- of the men, to act as servants for them.'
'Certainly,' said the fanner's wife, 'why not? And who are you with at present?'
All this interlude gave Robert time for invention, so accordingly out he came with one of the biggest lies he had ever told in his life, — and that is saying a good deal.
'Major Ringtail, madam, of the 51st Dragoons, is the gentleman I am with. He drove over to Rutshole this morning, and as he did not want me to assist him in the business he was after, he gave me a holiday; which I thought I could not employ more innocently than by a walk in the country.'
'Quite right, young man,' replied the old lady, 'and what sort of a man is the Major?'
'Oh, he's a very nice quiet sort of a gentlemanly man,' was the reply, 'he's rather addicted to drinking and gambling, but then you know, Mrs. Fielding, that officers at country quarters must amuse themselves somehow-and he may be said by strict people to be damnably given to cursing and swearing and fighting. Indeed, the Reverend Brother Stiggins said so the other day, when the Major kicked him out of the barracks yard. But then, you know, madam, men will be stupid and aggravating; and fools like Stiggins will interfere where they have no business. And people do say of my respected master, — people will talk you know-that he spends too much of his time in fornication; and that he is over much given to rogering any of the pretty country lasses, or any other girls that he may happen to fall in with. But I suppose that he considers that proceeding to be part of his duty, as an officer of HM's 51st Dragoons. And,' said Robert in conclusion, 'considering that he is a Dragoon officer, I think he behaves himself on the whole as well as can be expected.'
'On the whole,' said Mrs. Fielding to herself, 'well perhaps he does, I wonder how he behaves off the whole?' But she only said, 'Pray young man, what did the respectable gentleman, your master, kick the sainted Brother Stiggins out of the barracks for? I think that holy man was terribly indiscreet in venturing to trust his sainted body in such a den of iniquity. But I beg your pardon, young man, I did not mean to hurt your feelings, the words slipped out unaware.'
'Well, madam,' said Robert gravely, 'we don't generally call the barracks a den of iniquity. You see, perhaps our gentlemen might not understand what that meant, but it's commonly known by the name of Hell's Blazes; and Mrs. Mantrap, the Colonel's lady, — his wife's at Cheltenham-calls it Little Sodom. But that's neither here nor there,' continued the narrator, with a side glance at his hostess's horrorstricken countenance, 'you were asking me about that little unpleasantness between the Major and that apostle, Stiggins. I know all about it; for you see the Major had got me with him in case of Stiggins, or any of the congregation turning nasty.'
'What, were you in the chapel?' asked the old lady, in great surprise.
'And what were you doing there?'
'We were in Little Bethel Chapel, madam, to offer up our devotions to the best of our ability,' replied Robert demurely. 'You see in the tenth pew from the pulpit, on the left hand side, a deuced nice girl used to sit, and in the afternoon, generally by herself. I told my master, as in duty bound, and he was taken with a pious fit. So he found out who the girl was, and after speaking to her two or three times in the street, in the most impudent way, he pretends that she has converted him, — ha, ha! and says that he should like to be gathered into the fold, the only fold he was thinking of being the folds of her petticoats. Well ma'am, I don't think she could be quite such a fool as to believe all he said, but what with having her brain softened with Stiggins' nonsensical saintly trash, and what with the pride of showing off a Dragoon Officer as a brand: saved from the burning, in her own pew: and perhaps a little feeling of another kind besides, — you know what I mean, Mrs. F-all combined together to induce her to make a fool of herself, and she made an appointment with the Major to meet her in her pew one Sunday afternoon, when her mother would be asleep at home and her father smoking his pipe. All this my master told me of course, for I was to stick to him, and what's more I got a special chum of mine, Tom, Lieutenant Larkyn's man, to come with me and sit pretty close, for you see madam, there was no telling how the congregation, to say nothing of the deacons and elders, and that bad lot, might take it.'
Take it! Take what?' exclaimed Mrs. Fielding.
'Patience, madam, and you shall hear,' replied Robert with drunken gravity, for the strong ale was beginning to take effect upon him.
'During the first part of Stiggins' mountebanking, his prayers and howlings, and damning everybody except himself, up hill and down dale, my master behaved himself tolerably quiet, merely kissing Miss Larcher, (that's her name) every now and then, giving her an occasional squeeze, and putting his hand up her petticoats in a devotional manner, when they knelt down together.'
'Good Lord!' interrupted the farmer's wife, 'do you call that behaving quietly?'
'Very much so indeed, madam,' was the reply, 'not a sound was to be heard in the pig-market-I beg pardon- chapel-except the bawling of that Stiggins who bawled enough for sixty. His bawling had one good effect at any rate, it sent half his disciples to sleep before he got to tenthly and when he arrived and called thirteenthly, half the congregation were snoring comfortably. Not so my master and his fair friend. I had noticed him getting on very favourably. Once he laid her backward, on the seat, and took a regular good, long, groping feel at her privates. On another occasion he took out his standing prick and showed it to her; I suppose she wanted to convert that too, for she took hold of it admiringly. All this was very pleasant, and I suppose the Major had been keeping a pretty bright look-out on the state of the congregation, for when he perceived what I noticed, that one half of them were happily out of hearing of Stiggins' howls; he thought it a good opportunity to go to work in earnest. I had been stooping down below the level of the door of the pew to get a good suck at a flask of brandy and water, which I had brought with me to enable me to bear up against the fatigue and to bring myself into a devotional frame of mind, when on raising my eyes, the first thing I saw, was a pair of remarkably good legs, nicely set off by clean white stockings, and neat little shoes, showing over the side of the adjoining pew. Of course I knew what such an apparition as this meant, and if I couldn't guess, I was very soon enlightened, for on peeping over the edge, — as was my duty, in order to see that all was straight-forward and pleasant, there I saw my respected and gallant master fucking, as the common people call it, Miss Larcher in a most splendid style. The seat of the pew was not much of a rest for her fine broad rump, but in spite of her heavings and wrigglings, he pinned her hard and fast; and did not leave off until he had completely enjoyed her beautiful body. As for her, I only hope she enjoyed herself in proportion to her sufferings, for when the Major got off her, before she closed her thighs or put her clothes down, I noticed that her chemise was stained with blood, as she must have smarted a little.'
