CHAPTER XXXIX

The Lookalofts and the Greenacres

On the whole, Miss Thorne's provision for the amusement and feeding

of the outer classes in the exoteric paddock was not unsuccessful.

Two little drawbacks to the general happiness did take place, but they

were of a temporary nature, and apparent rather than real. The first

was the downfall of young Harry Greenacre, and the other the uprise of

Mrs. Lookaloft and her family.

As to the quintain, it became more popular among the boys on foot than

it would ever have been among the men on horseback, even had young

Greenacre been more successful. It was twirled round and round till it

was nearly twirled out of the ground, and the bag of flour was used

with great gusto in powdering the backs and heads of all who could be

coaxed within its vicinity.

Of course it was reported all through the assemblage that Harry was

dead, and there was a pathetic scene between him and his mother when

it was found that he had escaped scatheless from the fall. A good deal

of beer was drunk on the occasion, and the quintain was "dratted" and

"bothered," and very generally anathematized by all the mothers who

had young sons likely to be placed in similar jeopardy. But the affair

of Mrs. Lookaloft was of a more serious nature.

"I do tell 'ee plainly--face to face--she be there in madam's

drawing-room; herself and Gussy, and them two walloping gals, dressed

up to their very eyeses." This was said by a very positive, very

indignant, and very fat farmer's wife, who was sitting on the end of

a bench leaning on the handle of a huge, cotton umbrella.

"But: you didn't zee her, Dame Guffern?" said Mrs. Greenacre, whom

this information, joined to the recent peril undergone by her son,

almost overpowered. Mr. Greenacre held just as much land as Mr.

Lookaloft, paid his rent quite as punctually, and his opinion in the

vestry room was reckoned to be every whit as good. Mrs. Lookaloft's

rise in the world had been wormwood to Mrs. Greenacre. She had no

taste herself for the sort of finery which had converted Barleystubb

farm into Rosebank and which had occasionally graced Mr. Lookaloft's

letters with the dignity of esquirehood. She had no wish to convert

her own homestead into Violet Villa, or to see her goodman go about

with a new-fangled handle to his name. But it was a mortal injury to

her that Mrs. Lookaloft should be successful in her hunt after such

honours. She had abused and ridiculed Mrs. Lookaloft to the extent

of her little power. She had pushed against her going out of church,

and had excused herself with all the easiness of equality. "Ah, dame,

I axes pardon, but you be grown so mortal stout these times." She had

inquired with apparent cordiality of Mr. Lookaloft after "the woman

that owned him," and had, as she thought, been on the whole able to

hold her own pretty well against her aspiring neighbour. Now, however,

she found herself distinctly put into a separate and inferior class.

Mrs. Lookaloft was asked into the Ullathorne drawing-room merely

because she called her house Rosebank and had talked over her husband

into buying pianos and silk dresses instead of putting his money by to

stock farms for his sons.

Mrs. Greenacre, much as she reverenced Miss Thorne, and highly as she

respected her husband's landlord, could not but look on this as an act

of injustice done to her and hers. Hitherto the Lookalofts had never

been recognized as being of a different class from the Greenacres.

Their pretensions were all self-pretensions, their finery was all

paid for by themselves and not granted to them by others. The local

sovereigns of the vicinity, the district fountains of honour, had

hitherto conferred on them the stamp of no rank. Hitherto their

crinoline petticoats, late hours, and mincing gait had been a fair

subject of Mrs. Greenacre's raillery, and this raillery had been a

safety-valve for her envy. Now, however, and from henceforward, the

case would be very different. Now the Lookalofts would boast that their

aspirations had been sanctioned by the gentry of the country; now they

would declare with some show of truth that their claims to peculiar

consideration had been recognized. They had sat as equal guests in the

presence of bishops and baronets; they had been curtseyed to by Miss

Thorne on her own drawing-room carpet; they were about to sit down to

table in company with a live countess! Bab Lookaloft, as she had always

been called by the young Greenacres in the days of their juvenile

equality, might possibly sit next to the Honourable George, and that

wretched Gussy might be permitted to hand a custard to the Lady

Margaretta De Courcy.

The fruition of those honours, or such of them as fell to the lot of

the envied family, was not such as should have caused much envy. The

attention paid to the Lookalofts by the De Courcys was very limited,

and the amount of entertainment which they received from the bishop's

society was hardly in itself a recompense for the dull monotony of

their day. But of what they endured Mrs. Greenacre took no account;

she thought only of what she considered they must enjoy, and of the

dreadfully exalted tone of living which would be manifested by the

Rosebank family, as the consequence of their present distinction.

"But did 'ee zee 'em there, dame, did 'ee zee 'em there with your own

eyes?" asked poor Mrs. Greenacre, still hoping that there might be

some ground for doubt.

"And how could I do that, unless so be I was there myself?" asked

Mrs. Guffern. "I didn't zet eyes on none of them this blessed morning,

but I zee'd them as did. You know our John; well, he will be for

keeping company with Betsey Rusk, madam's own maid, you know. And

Betsey isn't none of your common kitchen wenches. So Betsey, she come

out to our John, you know, and she's always vastly polite to me, is

Betsey Rusk, I must say. So before she took so much as one turn with

John she told me every ha'porth that was going on up in the house."

"Did she now?" said Mrs. Greenacre.

"Indeed she did," said Mrs. Guffern.

"And she told you them people was up there in the drawing-room?"

"She told me she zee'd 'em come in--that they was dressed finer by

half nor any of the family, with all their neckses and buzoms stark

naked as a born babby."

"The minxes!" exclaimed Mrs. Greenacre, who felt herself more put

about by this than any other mark of aristocratic distinction which

her enemies had assumed.

"Yes, indeed," continued Mrs. Guffern, "as naked as you please, while

all the quality was dressed just as you and I be, Mrs. Greenacre."

"Drat their impudence," said Mrs. Greenacre, from whose well-covered

bosom all milk of human kindness was receding, as far as the family

of the Lookalofts were concerned.

"So says I," said Mrs. Guffern; "and so says my goodman, Thomas

Guffern, when he hear'd it. 'Molly,' says he to me, 'if ever you

takes to going about o' mornings with yourself all naked in them

ways, I begs you won't come back no more to the old house.' So says I,

'Thomas, no more I wull.' 'But,' says he, 'drat it, how the deuce does

she manage with her rheumatiz, and she not a rag on her;'" and Mrs.

Guffern laughed loudly as she thought of Mrs. Lookaloft's probable

sufferings from rheumatic attacks.

"But to liken herself that way to folk that ha' blood in their

veins," said Mrs. Greenacre.

"Well, but that warn't all neither that Betsey told. There they all

swelled into madam's drawing-room, like so many turkey cocks, as much

as to say, 'and who dare say no to us?' and Gregory was thinking of

telling of 'em to come down here, only his heart failed him 'cause of

the grand way they was dressed. So in they went, but madam looked at

them as glum as death."

"Well, now," said Mrs. Greenacre, greatly relieved, "so they wasn't

axed different from us at all then?"

"Betsey says that Gregory says that madam wasn't a bit too well

pleased to see them where they was, and that to his believing they

was expected to come here just like the rest of us."

There was great consolation in this. Not that Mrs. Greenacre was

altogether satisfied. She felt that justice to herself demanded that

Mrs. Lookaloft should not only not be encouraged, but that she should

also be absolutely punished. What had been done at that scriptural

banquet, of which Mrs. Greenacre so often read the account to her

family? Why had not Miss Thorne boldly gone to the intruder and said,

"Friend, thou hast come up hither to high places not fitted to thee.

Go down lower, and thou wilt find thy mates." Let the Lookalofts be

treated at the present moment with ever so cold a shoulder, they

would still be enabled to boast hereafter of their position, their

aspirations, and their honour.

"Well, with all her grandeur, I do wonder that she be so mean,"

continued Mrs. Greenacre, unable to dismiss the subject. "Did you

hear, goodman?" she went on, about to repeat the whole story to her

husband who then came up. "There's Dame Lookaloft and Bab and Gussy

and the lot of 'em all sitting as grand as fivepence in madam's

drawing-room, and they not axed no more nor you nor me. Did you ever

hear tell the like o' that?"

"Well, and what for shouldn't they?" said Farmer Greenacre.

"Likening theyselves to the quality, as though they was estated folk,

or the like o' that!" said Mrs. Guffern.

"Well, if they likes it, and madam likes it, they's welcome for me,"

said the farmer. "Now I likes this place better, 'cause I be more at

home-like, and don't have to pay for them fine clothes for the missus.

Everyone to his taste, Mrs. Guffern, and if neighbour Lookaloft thinks

that he has the best of it, he's welcome."

Mrs. Greenacre sat down by her husband's side to begin the heavy

work of the banquet, and she did so in some measure with restored

tranquillity, but nevertheless she shook her head at her gossip to

show that in this instance she did not quite approve of her husband's

doctrine.

"And I'll tell 'ee what, dames," continued he; "if so be that we

cannot enjoy the dinner that madam gives us because Mother Lookaloft

is sitting up there on a grand sofa, I think we ought all to go home.

If we greet at that, what'll we do when true sorrow comes across us?

How would you be now, Dame, if the boy there had broke his neck when

he got the tumble?"

Mrs. Greenacre was humbled and said nothing further on the matter.

But let prudent men such as Mr. Greenacre preach as they will, the

family of the Lookalofts certainly does occasion a good deal of

heart-burning in the world at large.

It was pleasant to see Mr. Plomacy as, leaning on his stout stick, he

went about among the rural guests, acting as a sort of head constable

as well as master of the revels. "Now, young'un, if you can't manage

to get along without that screeching, you'd better go to the other

side of the twelve-acre field and take your dinner with you. Come,

girls, what do you stand there for, twirling of your thumbs? Come out,

and let the lads see you; you've no need to be so ashamed of your

faces. Hollo there, who are you? How did you make your way in here?"

This last disagreeable question was put to a young man of about

twenty-four who did not, in Mr. Plomacy's eye, bear sufficient

vestiges of a rural education and residence.

"If you please, your Worship, Master Barrell the coachman let me in

at the church wicket, 'cause I do be working mostly al'ays for the

family."

"Then Master Barrell the coachman may let you out again," said Mr.

Plomacy, not even conciliated by the magisterial dignity which had

been conceded to him. "What's your name? And what trade are you?

And who do you work for?"

"I'm Stubbs, your worship, Bob Stubbs; and--and--and--"

"And what's your trade, Stubbs?"

"Plasterer, please your worship."

"I'll plaster you, and Barrell too; you'll just walk out of this 'ere

field as quick as you walked in. We don't want no plasterers; when we

do, we'll send for 'em. Come my buck, walk."

Stubbs the plasterer was much downcast at this dreadful edict. He

was a sprightly fellow, and had contrived since his ingress into the

Ullathorne elysium to attract to himself a forest nymph, to whom

he was whispering a plasterer's usual soft nothings, when he was

encountered by the great Mr. Plomacy. It was dreadful to be thus

dissevered from his dryad and sent howling back to a Barchester

pandemonium just as the nectar and ambrosia were about to descend on

the fields of asphodel. He began to try what prayers would do, but

city prayers were vain against the great rural potentate. Not only

did Mr. Plomacy order his exit but, raising his stick to show the way

which led to the gate that had been left in the custody of that false

Cerberus Barrell, proceeded himself to see the edict of banishment

carried out.

The goddess Mercy, however, the sweetest goddess that ever sat upon

a cloud, and the dearest to poor, frail, erring man, appeared on the

field in the person of Mr. Greenacre. Never was interceding goddess

more welcome.

"Come, man," said Mr. Greenacre, "never stick at trifles such a day as

this. I know the lad well. Let him bide at my axing. Madam won't miss

what he can eat and drink, I know."

Now Mr. Plomacy and Mr. Greenacre were sworn friends. Mr. Plomacy had

at his own disposal as comfortable a room as there was in Ullathorne

House, but he was a bachelor, and alone there, and, moreover, smoking

in the house was not allowed even to Mr. Plomacy. His moments of

truest happiness were spent in a huge armchair in the warmest corner

of Mrs. Greenacre's beautifully clean front kitchen. 'Twas there that

the inner man dissolved itself and poured itself out in streams of

pleasant chat; 'twas there that he was respected and yet at his ease;

'twas there, and perhaps there only, that he could unburden himself

from the ceremonies of life without offending the dignity of those

above him, or incurring the familiarity of those below. 'Twas

there that his long pipe was always to be found on the accustomed

chimney-board, not only permitted but encouraged.

Such being the state of the case, it was not to be supposed that Mr.

Plomacy could refuse such a favour to Mr. Greenacre; but nevertheless

he did not grant it without some further show of austere authority.

"Eat and drink, Mr. Greenacre! No. It's not what he eats and

drinks, but the example such a chap shows, coming in where he's not

invited--a chap of his age, too. He too that never did a day's work

about Ullathorne since he was born. Plasterer! I'll plaster him!"

"He worked long enough for me, then, Mr. Plomacy. And a good hand

he is at setting tiles as any in Barchester," said the other, not

sticking quite to veracity, as indeed mercy never should. "Come, come,

let him alone to-day and quarrel with him to-morrow. You wouldn't

shame him before his lass there?"

"It goes against the grain with me, then," said Mr. Plomacy. "And take

care, you Stubbs, and behave yourself. If I hear a row, I shall know

where it comes from. I'm up to you Barchester journeymen; I know what

stuff you're made of."

And so Stubbs went off happy, pulling at the forelock of his shock

head of hair in honour of the steward's clemency and giving another

double pull at it in honour of the farmer's kindness. And as he went

he swore within his grateful heart that if ever Farmer Greenacre

wanted a day's work done for nothing, he was the lad to do it for

him. Which promise it was not probable that he would ever be called

on to perform.

But Mr. Plomacy was not quite happy in his mind, for he thought of

the unjust steward and began to reflect whether he had not made for

himself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness. This, however, did

not interfere with the manner in which he performed his duties at the

bottom of the long board; nor did Mr. Greenacre perform his the worse

at the top on account of the good wishes of Stubbs the plasterer.

Moreover the guests did not think it anything amiss when Mr. Plomacy,

rising to say grace, prayed that God would make them all truly

thankful for the good things which Madame Thorne in her great

liberality had set before them!

All this time the quality in the tent on the lawn were getting on

swimmingly--that is, if champagne without restriction can enable

quality folk to swim. Sir Harkaway Gorse proposed the health of Miss

Thorne, and likened her to a blood race-horse, always in condition

and not to be tired down by any amount of work. Mr. Thorne returned

thanks, saying he hoped his sister would always be found able to run

when called upon, and then gave the health and prosperity of the De

Courcy family. His sister was very much honoured by seeing so many of

them at her poor board. They were all aware that important avocations

made the absence of the earl necessary. As his duty to his prince had

called him from his family hearth, he, Mr. Thorne, could not venture

to regret that he did not see him at Ullathorne; but nevertheless he

would venture to say--that was, to express a wish--an opinion, he

meant to say--And so Mr. Thorne became somewhat gravelled, as country

gentlemen in similar circumstances usually do; but he ultimately sat

down, declaring that he had much satisfaction in drinking the noble

earl's health, together with that of the countess, and all the family

of De Courcy Castle.

And then the Honourable George returned thanks. We will not follow

him through the different periods of his somewhat irregular eloquence.

Those immediately in his neighbourhood found it at first rather

difficult to get him on his legs, but much greater difficulty was

soon experienced in inducing him to resume his seat. One of two

arrangements should certainly be made in these days: either let all

speech-making on festive occasions be utterly tabooed and made as it

were impossible; or else let those who are to exercise the privilege

be first subjected to a competing examination before the civil-service

examining commissioners. As it is now, the Honourable Georges do but

little honour to our exertions in favour of British education.

In the dining-room the bishop went through the honours of the day

with much more neatness and propriety. He also drank Miss Thorne's

health, and did it in a manner becoming the bench which he adorned.

The party there was perhaps a little more dull, a shade less lively

than that in the tent. But what was lost in mirth was fully made up

in decorum.

And so the banquets passed off at the various tables with great éclat

and universal delight.