A Surprise and a Battle.  
“Here! halloo! hi! Hobbs! I say,” shouted Mr Sudberry, running out at the front door, after having swept Lucy’s work-box off the table and trodden on the cat’s tail. “Where has that fellow gone to? He’s always out of the way. Halloo!” (looking up at the nursery window), “Mrs Brown!”
 
Mrs Brown, being deeply impressed with the importance of learning, (just because of Mrs Sudberry’s contempt thereof), was busily engaged at that moment in teaching Miss Tilly and Master Jacky a piece of very profound knowledge.
 
“Now, Miss Tilly, what is the meaning of procrastination?” (“Ho! hi! halloo-o-o-o,” from Mr Sudberry; but Mrs Brown, supposing the shout is meant for any one but herself; takes no notice of it.)
 
Tilly.—“Doing to-day what you might have put off till to-morrow.” (“Halloo! ho! don’t you hear? hi!” from below.)
 
Mrs Brown.—“No, you little goose! What is it, Jacky?”
 
Jacky.—“Doing to-morrow what you might have put off till to-day.” (“Hi! halloo! are you deaf up there?”)
 
Mrs Brown.—“Worse and worse, stupid little goose!”
 
Jacky, (indignantly).—“Well, then, if it’s neither one thing nor t’other, just let’s hear what you make it out to be—” (“Hi! ho! halloo! Mrs Bra–a–own!”)
 
“Bless me, I think papa is calling on me. Yes, sir. Was you calling, sir?” (throwing up the window and looking out.)
 
“Calling! no; I wasn’t ‘calling.’ I was shrieking, howling, yelling. Is Hobbs there?”
 
“No, sir; ’Obbs is not ’ere, sir.”
 
“Well, then, be so good as to go and look for him, and say I want him directly to go for the letters.”
 
“’Ere I am, sir,” said Hobbs, coming suddenly round the corner of the house, with an appearance of extreme haste.
 
Hobbs had, in fact, been within hearing of his master, having been, during the last half-hour, seated in McAllister’s kitchen, where the uproarious merriment had drowned all other sounds. Hobbs had become a great favourite with the Highland family, owing to his hearty good humour and ready power of repartee. The sharp Cockney, with the easy-going effrontery peculiar to his race, attempted to amuse the household—namely, Mrs McAllister, Dan, Hugh, and two good-looking and sturdy-limbed servant-girls—by measuring wits with the “canny Scot,” as he called the farmer. He soon found, however, that he had caught a Tartar. The good-natured Highlander met his raillery with what we may call a smile of grave simplicity, and led him slyly into committing himself in such a way that even the untutored servants could see how far the man was behind their master in general knowledge; but Hobbs took refuge in smart reply, confident assertion, extreme volubility, and the use of hard words, so that it sometimes seemed to the domestics as if he really had some considerable power in argument. Worthy Mrs McAllister never joined in the debate, except by a single remark now and then. She knew her son thoroughly, and before the Sudberrys had been a week at the White House she understood Hobbs through and through.
 
She was wont to sit at her spinning-wheel regarding this intellectual sparring with grave interest, as a peculiar phase of the human mind. A very sharp encounter had created more laughter than usual at the time when Mr Sudberry halloed for his man-servant.
 
“You must be getting deaf; Hobbs, I fear,” said the master, at once pacified by the man’s arrival; “go down and fetch—”
 
“Pray do not send him away just now,” cried Mrs Sudberry: “I have something particular for him to do. Can you go down yourself, dear?”
 
The good man sighed. “Well, I will go,” and accordingly away he went.
 
“Stay, my dear.”
 
“Well.”
 
“I expect one or two small parcels by the coach this morning; mind you ask for ’em and bring ’em up.”
 
“Ay, ay!” and Mr Sudberry, with his hands in his pockets, and his wideawake thrust back and very much on one side of his head, sauntered down the hill towards the road.
 
One of the disadvantageous points about the White House was its distance from any town or market. The nearest shop was four miles off, so that bread, butter, meat, and groceries, had to be ordered a couple of days beforehand, and were conveyed to their destination by the mail-coach. Even after they were deposited at the gate of Mr McAllister’s farm, there was still about half a mile of rugged cart-road to be got over before they could be finally deposited in the White House. This was a matter of constant anxiety to Mr Sudberry, because it was necessary that someone should be at the gate regularly to receive letters and parcels, and this involved constant attention to the time of the mail passing. When no one was there, the coachman left the property of the family at the side of the road. Hobbs, however, was usually up to time, fair weather and foul, and this was the first time his master had been called on to go for the letters.
 
Walking down the road, Mr Sudberry whistled an extremely operatic air, in the contentment of his heart, and glanced from side to side, with a feeling amounting almost to affection, at the various objects which had now become quite familiar to him, and with many of which he had interesting associations.
 
There was the miniature hut, on the roof of which he usually laid his rod on returning from a day’s fishing. There was the rude stone bridge over the burn, on the low parapet of which he and the family were wont to sit on fine evenings, and commune of fishing, and boating, and climbing, and wonder whether it would be possible ever again to return to the humdrum life of London. There was the pool in the same burn over which one day he, reckless man, had essayed to leap, and into which he had tumbled, when in eager pursuit of Jacky. A little below this was the pool into which the said Jacky had rushed in wild desperation on finding that his father was too fleet for him. Passing through a five-barred gate into the next field, he skirted the base of a high, precipitous crag, on which grew a thicket of dwarf-trees and shrubs, and at the foot of which the burn warbled. Here, on his left, stood the briar bush out of which had whirred the first live grouse he ever set eyes on. It was at this bird, that, in the madness of his excitement, he had flung first his stick, then his hat, and lastly his shout of disappointment and defiance. A little further on was that other bush out of which he had started so many grouse that he now never approached it without a stone in each hand, his eyes and nostrils dilated, and his breath restrained. He never by any chance on these occasions sent his artillery within six yards of the game; but once, when he approached the bush in a profound reverie, and without the usual preparation, he actually saw a bird crouching in the middle of it! To seize a large stone and hit the ground at least forty yards beyond the bush was the work of a moment. Up got the bird with a tremendous whizz! He flung his stick wildly, and, hitting it, (by chance), fair on the head, brought it down. To rush at it, fall on it, crush it almost flat, and rise up slowly holding it very tight, was the result of this successful piece of poaching. Another result was a charming addition to a dinner a few days afterwards.
 
At all these objects Mr Sudberry gazed benignantly as he sauntered along in the sunshine, indulging in sweet memories of the recent past, and whistling operatically.
 
The high-road gained, he climbed upon the gate, seated himself upon the top bar to await the passing of the mail, and began to indulge in a magnificent air, the florid character of which he rendered much more effective than the composer had intended by the introduction of innumerable flourishes of his own.
 
It was while thus engaged, and in the middle of a tremendous shake, that Mr Sudberry suddenly became aware of the presence of a man not more than twenty yards distant. He was lying down on the embankment beside the road, and his ragged dress of muddy-brown corduroy so resembled the broken ground on which he lay that he was not a very distinct object, even when looked at point-blank. Certainly Mr Sudberry thought him an extremely disagreeable object as he ended in an ineffective quaver and with a deep blush; for that man must be more than human, who, when caught in the act of attempting to perpetrate an amateur concert in all its parts, does not feel keenly.
 
Being of a sociable disposition, Mr Sudberry was about to address this ill-favoured beggar—for such he evidently was—when the coach came round a distant bend in the road at full gallop. It was the ordinary tall, top-heavy mail of the first part of the nineteenth century. Being a poor district, there were only two horses, a white and a black; but the driver wore a stylish red coat, and cracked his whip smartly. The road being all down hill at that part, the coach came on at a spanking pace, and pulled up with a crash.
 
The beggar turned his face to the ground, and pretended to be asleep.
 
Mr Sudberry noticed this; but, being interested in his own affairs, soon forgot the circumstance.
 
“Got any letters for me to-day, my man?”
 
Oh, yes, he has letters and newspapers too. Mr Sudberry mutters to himself as they are handed down, “Capital!—ha!—business; hum!—private; ho!—compasses; good! Any more?”
 
There are no more; but there is a parcel or two. The coachman gets down and opens the door of the box behind. The insides peep out, and the outsides look down with interest. A great many large and heavy things are pulled out and laid on the road.
 
Mr Sudberry remarks that it would have been “wiser to have stowed his parcels in front.”
 
The coachman observes that these are his parcels, shuts the door, mounts the box, and drives away, with the outsides grinning and the insides stretching their heads out, leaving Mr Sudberry transfixed and staring.
 
“‘One or two small parcels,’” murmured the good man, recalling his wife’s words; “‘and mind you bring ’em up.’ One salmon, two legs of mutton, one ham, three dozen of beer, a cask of—of—something or other, and a bag of—of—ditto, (groceries, I suppose), ‘and mind you bring ’em up!’ How! ‘that is the question!’” cried Mr Sudberry, quoting Hamlet, in desperation.
 
Suddenly he recollected the beggar-man. “Halloo! friend; come hither.”
 
The man rose slowly, and rising did not improve his appearance. He was rather tall, shaggy, loose-jointed, long-armed, broad-shouldered, and he squinted awfully. His nose was broken, and his dark colour bespoke him a gypsy.
 
“Can you help me up to yonder house with these things, my man?”
 
“No,” said the man, gruffly, “I’m footsore with travellin’, but I’ll watch them here while you go up for help.”
 
“Oh! ahem!” said Mr Sudberry, with peculiar emphasis; “you seem a stout fellow, and might find more difficult ways of earning half a crown. However, I’ll give you that sum if you go up and tell them to send down a barrow.”
 
“I’ll wait here,” replied the man, with a sarcastic grin, limping back to his former seat on the bank.
 
“Oh! very well, and I will wait here,” said Mr Sudberry, seating himself on a large stone, and pulling out his letters.
 
Seeing this, the gypsy got up again, and looked cautiously along the road, first to the right and then to the left. No human being was in sight. Mr Sudberry observed the act, and felt uncomfortable.
 
“You’d better go for help, sir,” said the man, coming forward.
 
“Thank you, I’d rather wait for it.”
 
“This seems a handy sort of thing to carry,” said the gypsy, taking up the sack that looked like groceries, and throwing it across his shoulder. “I’ll save you the trouble of taking this one up, anyh............