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HARRY COVERDALE'S COURTSHIP, AND ALL THAT CAME OF IT

London: George Routledge and Sons

"Those false alarms of strife,

Between the husband and the wife,

And little quarrels, often prove

To be but new recruits of love;

And tho' some fit of small contest

Sometime fall out among the best,

That makes no breach of faith and love,

But rather serves t'improve."

Butler.

Then the Magazine in which the tale had been commenced changed owners, and the new proprietor, not being inclined to agree to the arrangements of his predecessor, saw fit to end the story himself, after a much more vivacious and dashing fashion than that of the present "lame and impotent conclusion."

The conclusion of the tale has been perpetrated at a time when, on account of severe nervous headaches, the Author was under strict medical orders not to write a line upon any consideration; and it is with the fear of the doctor before his eyes that he is penning these "few last words." They are not written in the "forlorn hope" of disarming hostile criticism, but simply to assure those friends who have hitherto looked with an indulgent eye upon his writings, that if "Harry Coverdale's Courtship" does not come up to any expectations they may have formed from the perusal of his previous works, it is rather the misfortune than the fault, of their grateful and obedient servant,

HARRY COVERDALE'S COURTSHIP, AND ALL THAT CAME OF IT.

"Eh! a gentleman whom you don't know lying on my sofa and smoking my last cigar! that's coming to the point and no mistake; cool though--I wonder who the deuce it can be--not a client, of course.--Ah! Harry, my dear old boy, this is an unexpected pleasure; why I'm as glad to see you as if you were a client almost. I thought you were in the Red Sea, man, dredging for defunct Egyptians, or chipping old blocks with Layard, or some such slow thing; when did you return?"

Arthur Hazlehurst, the originator of the foregoing speech, was an old college chum of Coverdale's, who, when his friend had taken his degree and started on an enlarged edition of the grand tour, had gone to read with a special pleader. Having by a special slice of luck contrived to acquire a knowledge of the law from that process, instead of the more usual result of learning how to spend five hundred per annum out of an allowance of two, and possessing, moreover, an acute intellect, and a fair portion of industry, Arthur Hazlehurst was looked upon as a rising young man. In appearance he was, for a fair man, rather handsome than otherwise, but if his talent for rising could have been exercised bodily, as well as professionally, it would have been as well for him, for his friend had the advantage of him in stature by some three inches; his manner and way of speaking were quick and eager, and he had altogether a wide-awake look about him, as though he regarded society at large as perpetually in a witness-box, and was always prepared to cross-examine and be down upon it.

"I returned to England some three weeks since," replied Coverdale, abstracting the cigar from his mouth, and lazily flipping off the ashes from the lighted end with his finger; "but I went quietly down to the Park, and have been plodding over accounts with the agent ever since. Shocking bad tobacco they make you put up with here; you shall try the glorious stuff I've brought back from Constantinople--your Turk is the boy to smoke. So you've become learned in the law, I hear, since I went abroad."

"Eh! Yes, I believe I've picked up a thing or two," returned Hazlehurst modestly; "I've found out the great secret of life; the next move is to make the knowledge pay, and that's not so easy."

"I didn't know there was a great secret to find out," observed Coverdale, stroking his curly black whiskers, "the rule of life seems easy enough to me--make up your mind what you want to do, and then quietly do it--that's my recipe."

"A very good one for you, my dear fellow, you've only to put your hand in your pocket, and, as your money rattles, difficulties disappear; but we're not all born to ?5000 a-year, worse luck; fathers have flinty hearts, and even the amenities of the nineteenth century have failed to macadamise them--'I've given you an expensive education, sir, and I expect to see you turn it to account.' That's about the style of blessing we inherit now-a-day; however, my secret of life is this: everything has a culminating point, and the dodge is to hit upon it yourself, and bring others to it, with the least delay possible; in these four words--come to the point, is embodied the whole philosophy of existence."

"Well, yes, I dare say there is something in it," returned Coverdale, meditatively, "it never exactly struck me before, but there's a beautiful simplicity about it that I rather admire--a little too railroadish, perhaps, unless a man's in an awful hurry; you lose the bright sunny peeps and the jolly old road-side alehouses of life, by rushing so straight to your object."

"Though I won't promise to adopt your philosophy for a permanency, I'll act upon it for once, at all events," replied Coverdale, smiling . "So to come to the point, I'm here to enlist you in my service for what the women call a 'day's shopping' to-morrow: I've no clothes to my back, no horses to ride, no dog-cart to knock about in--in fact, none of the necessaries of life;--then, having benefited by your advice and experience, I mean to carry you off to Coverdale for a crack at the rabbits; thank goodness! they've got the game up and the poachers down, since I've been abroad: that was the only thing I made a row about when I came into the property. Why, there are no preserves like the Coverdale woods in the county, and yet my poor uncle never had a pheasant on his table. Things are rather different now, my boy, and my only real sorrow at the present moment is, that there are two whole months to be got rid of before the first of September: well! what do you say to my proposal?"

"Done, along with you," replied Hazlehurst; "but on one condition only, viz., that when we've polished off the rabbits, you'll come with me to the Grange, and make acquaintance with those members of the worthy family of Hazlehurst, whose virtues are as yet unknown to you."

"If that's German for the twinkling of a bed-post, yes!" was the rejoinder, and in less than ten minutes the friends descended the staircase arm-in-arm, Hazlehurst leaving strict directions with the small clerk to inform any one who might ask for him, that he was summoned to attend a very important consultation.

On the following morning, the two young men and all the purchases, horses included, started by the Midland Counties Railway, and dinner-time found them safely deposited at Coverdale Park, a fine old place, which, with its picturesque mansion, beautiful view, and goodly extent of wood and water, field and fell, was as desirable a property as any English gentleman need wish to possess. After dinner the gamekeeper was summoned: he was a sturdy, good-looking fellow, who had filled the post of under-keeper in the time of Admiral Coverdale . Harry, before he went abroad, had discovered the head-keeper to be in league with a gang of poachers, receiving a per centage on all the game they sold; he had accordingly dismissed him, and elected his subordinate to fill the vacant situation--an experiment which had proved eminently successful.

"Take a glass of wine, Markum; this is my friend, Mr. Hazlehurst. We mean to have a slap at the rabbits to-morrow; so be here at eight o'clock, and then we shall get a good long day: any more poachers since we caught those last fellows?" And, as Coverdale spoke, he filled a large claret-glass to the brim with splendid old port, and handed it to the keeper, who, received it bashfully, and then, scraping with his foot and ducking his head twice with an expression of countenance as of a sheep about to butt, replied, "Your 'ealth, Mr. Coverdale, sir--your 'ealth, gents both," tossed it off at a draught--"there aint been no reglur poarchin a-goin on, sir," he continued, setting down his glass as if it burned his fingers, and then jibbing away from the table as though he had shyed at it; "but that 'are young Styles has been a shooting rabids on Wild Acre farm, and seems to say as he considers he's a right so to do."

"Styles? who is he?" inquired Harry, quickly.

"Well, he's the son of old Farmer Styles, and he used to shoot just when and where he liked in the Admiral's time, and that's how he fancies he's got a sort of right, do ye see, Mr 'Enry--that is, Mr. Coverdale, sir."

"Rabbits are not game, so you can't touch him on the score of poaching, Harry; but, to come to the point, if he's on your land without your permission, he's trespassing, and that's where you can be down upon him," interrupted Hazlehurst, sententiously.

"Then I shall have the law o' my side in pitching into him, I suppose, sir?" inquired Markum eagerly.

"I tell you what it is, Harry," exclaimed Hazlehurst, setting down an empty tumbler, "if I eat any more luncheon, you will have to send me home in a wheelbarrow, for to walk I shall not be able--as it is, I feel like an alderman after a city feast."

"In that case, you'd require a very capacious wheelbarrow, and I should pity the individual who had to trundle it. Come! finish the bottle--you won't? then I will--and now we'll be off--it strikes me, fatigue has something to do with it, as well as the luncheon; you've been smoke-drying in London, young man, till you're out of condition," returned Coverdale, laughing, as he remarked the stiff manner in which his friend rose and walked across the cottage.

Another hour's striding through high grass and fern proved the correctness of this assertion; for Hazlehurst, unaccustomed to such severe exercise, began to show unmistakable symptoms of knocking up. His friend observed him with attention--"You really are tired, Arthur," he said, good naturedly, "you'll be fit for nothing to-morrow, if you walk much farther. Go back, Markum, and send one of your boys for the shooting pony; let him bring it to us at the bridge foot--I am going over Wild Acre farm next: I shall try through the spinney and round the large meadow, so you can cut across and join us again in half-an-hour--and Markum--wait one moment:--What sort of person is this man Styles? How should I know him if I should happen to run against him?"

"Well, he be a tall, broad-shouldered, roughish-looking chap, rather an orkard customer for to tackle, Mr. Coverdale, sir, and he generally have a sort of cross-bred, lurcher-like dog along with him, if you please Mr. 'Enry, that is, Mr. Coverdale, sir"--and so saying, Markum started at a swinging trot to execute his master's wishes.

"The fellow looks as if he could go on at that pace for a fortnight without turning a hair," observed Hazlehurst, pausing to wipe his brow; "I never saw such a cast-iron animal."

"He's at it every day, and that keeps him in good order," replied Coverdale; "but I've walked him down before now, and should not wonder if I were to do so to-day--I'm just getting what the jockeys call my 'second wind,' and am good for the next four hours at least--ha! there's a rabbit sitting, pull at it when I clap my hands."

"It's too long a shot for me," replied Hazlehurst, "bag him yourself."

Thus urged, Coverdale brought his gun to his shoulder and drew the trigger, but the cap was a bad one, and would not go off, and his second barrel being loaded with small shot, in the hope of picking up a landrail , the rabbit skipped away uninjured. It had not proceeded ten paces, however, when it sprang into the air, and rolled over dead--at the same moment the report of a gun rang out from behind some low bushes, and a lurcher dog dashed forward, and picked up the defunct rabbit. Coverdale's face flushed with anger, and hastily exchanging the defective percussion cap for a sound one, he raised his gun with the intention of shooting the dog; but, though quick-tempered, Harry was a thoroughly kind-hearted fellow, and a moment's reflection caused him to relinquish his purpose; recovering his gun, he muttered--

"Poor brute, why should I kill it?--it's not his fault, but his master's."

As he spoke a tall figure rose from behind the bushes, whence the shot had proceeded, and whistling to the dog, took the rabbit from him, and put it in the pocket of a voluminous-skirted shooting-jacket.

"Don't be a week about it, that's all--come to the point at once, there's a good fellow, for I want to knock over another rabbit or two before my Bucephalus arrives," rejoined Hazlehurst.

Thus urged, Coverdale advanced towards the stranger, and slightly raising his wide-awake as he approached him, said with an air of Grandisonian politeness--"Mr. Styles I presume?"

"Yes, young man, my name's Styles. What's yourn?" was the unceremonious reply.

"Well then, Mr. Coverdale, if that's your name, the sooner you take yourself back to Coverdale Park the better I shall be pleased, for I'm a shooting rabbits, and your jabbering scares the creeturs," was the astounding rejoinder.

"And suppose I does, what then? feller!" returned the other insolently.

"This!" was the reply, as springing hastily forward, Coverdale struck Styles so violent a blow on the cheek with the back of his open hand, that he staggered and nearly fell;--recovering himself with difficulty, and holding one hand to his injured jaw, he muttered with an oath, "If it wasn't for the confounded guns, I'd give you the heartiest thrashing ever you had in your life."

"You don't mean seriously you're going to fight the fellow:" inquired Hazlehurst.

"Indeed, I do, and, what's more, nobody shall prevent me, unless he shows the white feather," was the positive answer.

"But--but you'll get knocked about so: besides, the brute's a bigger, heavier man than you, and as strong as an elephant. Suppose he should injure you," remonstrated Hazlehurst.

"He may if he can," was the confident reply; "why Arthur, you're as nervous as a girl; this is not the first time you've seen me use my fists, and I've taken lessons from Ben Caunt since the old Eton days."

"Now, Mr. Styles, I'm at your service," remarked Coverdale, addressing his antagonist politely.

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