So pursuing the course of our story, we have brought ourselves to the present extraordinary position. That Charles Ravenshoe, of Ravenshoe, in the county Devonshire, Esquire, and sometime of St. Paul’s College, Oxford, had hired himself out as groom to Lieutenant Hornby, of the 11Oth Hussars, and that also the above-named Charles Ravenshoe was not, and never had been, Charles Ravenshoe at all, but somebody else all the time, to wit, Charles Horton, a gamekeeper’s son, if indeed he was even this, having been christened under a false name. The situation is so extraordinary and so sad, that having taken the tragical view of it in the previous chapter, we must of necessity begin to look on the brighter side of it now. And this is the better art, because it is exactly what Charles began to do himself. One blow succeeded the other so rapidly, the utter bouleversement of all that he cared about in the world. Father, friends, position, mistress, all lost in one day, had brought on a kind of light-hearted desperation, which had the effect of making him seek company, and talk boisterously and loud all day. It was not unnatural in so young and vigorous a man. But if he oke in the night, there was the cold claw grasping his heart. Well, I said, we would have none of this at present, and we won’t.

Patient old earth, intent only on doing her duty in her set courses, and unmindful of the mites which had been set to make love or war on her bosom, and the least of whom was worth her whole well-organized mass, had rolled on, and on, until by bringing that portion of her which contains the island of Britain, gradually in greater proximity to the sun, she had produced that state of things on that particular part of her which is known among mortals as spring. Now, I am very anxious to please all parties. Some people like a little circumlocution, and for them the above paragraph was written; others do not, and for them, I state that it was the latter end of May, and beg them not to read the above flight of fancy, but to consider it as never having been written.

It was spring. On the sea-coast, the watchers at the lighthouses and the preventive stations began to walk about in their shirt-sleeves, and trim up their patches of spray-beaten garden, hedged with tree-mallow and tamarisk, and to thank God that the long howling winter nights were past for a time. The fishermen shouted merrily one to another as they put off from shore, no longer dreading a twelve hours’ purgatory of sleet and freezing-mist and snow; saying to one another how green the land looked, and how pleasant mackarel time was after all. Their wives, light-hearted at the thought that the wild winter was past, and that they were not widows, brought their work out to the doors, and gossiped pleasantly in the sun, while some of the bolder boys began to paddle about in the surf, and try to believe that the Gulf Stream had come in, and that it was summer again, and not only spring.

In inland country places the barley was all in and springing, the meadows were all bush-harrowed, rolled, and laid up for hay; nay, in early places, brimful of grass, spangled with purple orchises, and in moist rich places golden with marsh marigold, over which the south-west wind passed pleasantly, bringing a sweet perfume of growing vegetation, which gave those who smelt it a tendency to lean against gates, and stiles, and such places, and think what a delicious season it was, and wish it were to last for ever. The young men began to slip away from work somewhat early of an evening, not (as now) to the parade ground, or the butts, but to take their turn at the wicket on the green, where Sir John (our young landlord), was to be found in a scarlet flannel shirt, bowling away like a catapult, at all comers, till the second bell began to ring, and he had to dash off and dress. Now lovers walking by moonlight in deep banked lanes began to notice how dark and broad the shadows grew, and to wait at the lane’s end by the river, to listen to the nightingale, with his breast against the thorn, ranging on from height to height of melodious passion, petulant at his want of art, till he broke into one wild jubilant burst, and ceased, leaving night silent, save for the whispering of newborn insects, and the creeping sound of reviving vegetation.

Spring. The great renewal of the lease. The time when nature-worshippers make good resolutions, to be very often broken before the leaves fall. The time the country becomes once more habitable and agreeable. Does it make any difference in the hundred miles of brick and mortar called London, save, in so far as it makes every reasonable Christian pack up his portmanteau and fly to the green fields, and lover’s lanes beforementioned (though it takes two people for the latter sort of business)? Why, yes; it makes a difference to London certainly, by bringing somewhere about 10,000 people, who have got sick of shooting and hunting through the winter months, swarming into the west end of it, and making it what is called full.

I don’t know that they are wrong after all, for London is a mighty pleasant place in the season (we don’t call it spring on the paving-stones). At this time the windows of the great houses in the squares begin to be brilliant with flowers; and, under the awnings of the balconies, one sees women moving about in the shadow. Now, all through the short night, one hears the ceaseless low rolling thunder of beautiful carriages, and in the daytime also the noise ceases not. All through the west end of the town there is a smell of flowers, of fresh watered roads, and Macassar oil; while at Covent Garden, the scent of the peaches and pineapples begins to prevail over that of rotten cabbage-stalks. The fiddlers are all fiddling away at concert pitch for their lives, the actors are all acting their very hardest, and, the men who look after the horses, have never a minute to call their own, day or night. . It is neither to dukes nor duchesses, to actors nor fiddlers, that we must turn our attention just now, but to a man who was sitting in a wheelbarrow watching a tame jackdaw.

The place was a London mews, behind one of the great squares — the time was afternoon. The weather was warm and sunny. All the proprietors of the horses were out riding or driving, and so the stables were empty and the mews were quiet.

This was about a week after Charles’s degradation, almost the first hour he had to himself in the daytime, and so he sat pondering on his unhappy lot.

Lord Ballyroundtower’s coachman’s wife was hanging out the clothes. She was an Irishwoman off the estate (his lordship’s Irish residences, I see on referring to the peerage, are, “The Grove,” Blarney, and “Swatewathers,” near Avoca). When I say that she was hanging out the clothes I am hardly correct, for she was only fixing the lines up to do so, and being of short stature, and having to reach, was naturally showing her heels, and the jackdaw perceiving this, began to hop stealthily across the yard. Charles saw what was conung and became deeply interested. He would not have spoken for his life. The jackdaw sidled up to her, and began digging into her tendon Achilles with his hard bill with force and rapidity which showed that he was fully-aware of the fact, that the amusement, like most pleasant things, could not last long, and must therefore be made the most of Some women would have screamed and faced round at the first assault.!N’ot so our Irish friend. She endured the anguish until she had succeeded in fastening the clothes-line round the post, and then she turned round on the jackdaw, who had fluttered away to a safe distance, and denounced him.

“Bad cess to ye, ye impident divie, sure it’s Sathan’s own sister’s son ye are, ye dirty prothestant, pecking at the hales of an honest woman, daughter of my lord’s own man. Corny O’Brine, as was a dale ............