 | THE BUSY MAN. Bracebridge Hall, or, The humorists |  |
THE BUSY MAN.
A decayed gentleman, lives most upon his own mirth and my
master's means, and much good do him with it; he is the finest companion
of all; he does hold my master up with his stories and songs
and catches, and such tricks and jigs, you would admire—he is
with him now.
Jovial Crew.
By no one has my return to the Hall been
more heartily greeted than by Mr. Simon Bracebridge,
or Master Simon, as the Squire most
commonly calls him. I encountered him just as
I entered the park, where he was breaking a
pointer, and he received me with all the hospitable
cordiality with which a man welcomes a
friend to another one's house. I have already
introduced him to the reader, as a brisk old
bachelor looking little man; the wit and superannuated
beau of a large family connexion, and
the Squire's factotum. I found him, as usual,
full of bustle, with a thousand petty things to
good humour; for there are few happier beings
than a busy idler; that is to say, a man who is
eternally busy about nothing.
I visited him the morning after my arrival,
in his chamber, which is in a remote corner of
the mansion; as he says he likes to be to himself,
and out of the way. He has fitted it up
in his own taste; so that it is a perfect epitome
of an old bachelor's notions of convenience and
arrangements. The furniture is made up of
odd pieces from all parts of the house, chosen
on account of their suiting his notions, or fitting
some corner of his apartment, and he is very
eloquent in praise of an ancient elbow chair;
from which he takes occasion to digress into a
censure on modern chairs, as having degenerated
from the dignity and comfort of high backed
antiquity.
Adjoining to his room is a small cabinet,
which he calls his study. Here are some hanging
shelves, of his own construction, on which
are several old works on hawking, hunting, and
songs of the reign of Elizabeth, which he studies
out of compliment to the Squire; together with
the novellist's magazine, the sporting magazine,
the racing kalender, a volume or two of the
Newgate kalender, a book of peerage, and another
of heraldry.
His sporting dresses hang on pegs in a small
closet; and about the walls of his apartment are
hooks to hold his fishing tackle, whips, spurs,
and a favourite fowling piece, curiously wrought
and inlaid, which he inherits from his grandfather.
He has also a couple of old single
keyed flutes, and a fiddle, which he has repeatedly
patched and mended himself: affirming it
to be a veritable cremona, though I have never
heard him extract a single note from it that was
not enough to make one's blood run cold.
From this little nest his fiddle will often be
heard, in the stillness of mid-day, drowsily sawing
some long forgotten tune; for he prides himself
on having a choice collection of good old English
music, and will scarcely have any thing to
at which his musical powers are of most use,
is now and then of an evening, when he plays
for the children to dance in the Hall; and he
passes among them and the servants for a perfect
Orpheus.
His chamber also bears evidence of his various
avocations; there are half copied sheets
of music; designs for needlework; sketches of
landscapes, very indifferently executed; a camera
lucida; a magic lanthorn, for which he is
endeavouring to paint glasses; in a word, it is
the cabinet of a man of many accomplishments,
who knows a little of every thing, and does
nothing well.
After I had spent some time in his apartment,
admiring the ingenuity of his small
inventions, he took me about the establishment
to visit the stables, dog kennel, and other
dependencies; in which he appeared like a
general visiting the different quarters of his
camp; as the Squire leaves the control of all
these matters to him, when he is at the Hall.
He inquired into the state of the horses;
examined their feet; prescribed a drench for
one and bleeding for another; and then took
me to look at his own horse, on the merits of
which he dwelt with great prolixity, and which
I noticed had the best stall in the stable.
After this I was taken to what he termed the
falconry, to see a famous hawk which he was
training; for he told me he would show me,
in a few days, some rare sport of the good old
fashioned kind. In the course of our round I
remarked that the grooms, gamekeeper, whippers-in,
and other retainers, seemed all to be on
somewhat of a familiar footing with Master
Simon, and fond of having their joke with
him; though it was evident they had great
deference for his opinion in matters relating to
their functions.
There was one exception, however, in old
Christy, a testy old huntsman as hot as a pepper-corn,
a meagre wiry old fellow that seemed
made of buckram and whalebone. He wore a
threadbare velvet jockey cap, and a pair of
as though they had been japanned. He was
very contradictory and pragmatical, and apt,
as I thought, to differ from Master Simon
now and then out of mere captiousness. This
was particularly the case with respect to the
treatment of the hawk, which Master Simon
insisted he would ruin if he went on as he
was doing. The latter made a most pedantic
clatter about casting, and imping, and gleaming,
and enseaming, and giving her the rangle,
about all which I saw old Christy knew as
little as I did myself; but, notwithstanding, he
maintained his point most doggedly; and I was
surprised to see the good nature with which
Master Simon gave up to him.
Master Simon explained the matter to me
afterwards. Old Christy is the most ancient
servant on the place, having lived among dogs
and horses the greater part of a century, and
been in the service of Mr. Bracebridge's father.
He knows the pedigree of every horse on the
place, and has bestrode the great great grand-sires
detail of every fox hunt for the last sixty
or seventy years; and has a history for every
stag's head about the house, and every hunting
trophy nailed to the door of the dog kennel.
All the present race have grown up under
his eye, and humour him in his old age. He
once attended the Squire to Oxford when he
was a student there, and enlightened the whole
university with his hunting lore. All this is
enough to make the old man opinionated, since
he finds on all these matters of first rate importance
he knows more than the rest of the
world.
Indeed, Master Simon had been his pupil,
and acknowledges that he derived his first
knowledge in hunting from the instructions of
old Christy: and I much question whether the
old man does not still look upon him as rather
a green horn.
On our return, just as we were crossing the
lawn in front of the Hall, we heard the porter's
bell ring at the lodge; and shortly after a kind
of cavalcade advanced slowly up the avenue.
On sight of it Master Simon paused and considered
it for a moment, and then, making a
sudden exclamation, hurried away to meet it.
As it approached I discerned a fair, fresh looking,
elderly lady, dressed in an old fashioned
riding habit, and a large white beaver hat,
with a very broad brim. She was riding on
a white pony, followed by a fat footman in rich
livery, mounted on an over-fed hunter. At a
little distance in the rear was an ancient cumbrous
chariot, drawn by two very corpulent
horses, and driven by as corpulent a coachman,
beside whom sat a page dressed in fanciful
green livery. Inside of the chariot was a
starched prim figure, with a look somewhat
between a lady's companion and a lady's maid;
and a pampered cur was perched at each window.
There was a general turning out of the garrison
at the Hall to receive this new comer.
The Squire assisted her to alight; and saluted
her affectionately on each cheek; the fair Julia
flew into her arms, and they embraced with the
was escorted into the house by Julia's lover, towards
whom she showed distinguished favour;
and a line of the old servants who had collected
in the Hall, bowed most profoundly as she passed.
I observed that Master Simon was extremely
assiduous in his attentions upon this old lady.
He walked by the side of her pony up the avenue;
and while she was receiving the salutations
of the rest of the family, he took occasion to
notice the fat old coachman; to pat the sleek
carriage horses, and above all, to say a civil
word to my lady's gentlewoman, the prim, sour
looking vestal in the chariot. I had no more
of his company for the rest of the morning.
He was swept off in the vortex that followed
in the wake of this lady. Once indeed he
paused for a moment as he was hurrying by
me, on some errand of the good lady's, to let me
know that this was Lady Lillycraft, a sister of
the Squire's; of large fortune, which the captain
would inherit, and that her estate lay in
one of the best hunting countries in all England!
| THE BUSY MAN. Bracebridge Hall, or, The humorists | |