Catherine: A Story | Page 9

small
locket (which had been given him by a Dutch lady at the Brill), and
begged Miss Catherine to wear it for his sake, and chucked her under
the chin and called her his little rosebud, it was pretty clear how things
would go: anybody who could see the expression of Mr. Brock's
countenance at this event might judge of the progress of the irresistible
High-Dutch conqueror.
Being of a very vain communicative turn, our fair barmaid gave her
two companions, not only a pretty long account of herself, but of many

other persons in the village, whom she could perceive from the window
opposite to which she stood. "Yes, your honour," said she-- "my Lord, I
mean; sixteen last March, though there's a many girl in the village that
at my age is quite chits. There's Polly Randall now, that red-haired girl
along with Thomas Curtis: she's seventeen if she's a day, though he is
the very first sweetheart she has had. Well, as I am saying, I was bred
up here in the village--father and mother died very young, and I was
left a poor orphan--well, bless us! if Thomas haven't kissed her!--to the
care of Mrs. Score, my aunt, who has been a mother to me--a
stepmother, you know;--and I've been to Stratford fair, and to Warwick
many a time; and there's two people who have offered to marry me, and
ever so many who want to, and I won't have none--only a gentleman, as
I've always said; not a poor clodpole, like Tom there with the red
waistcoat (he was one that asked me), nor a drunken fellow like Sam
Blacksmith yonder, him whose wife has got the black eye, but a real
gentleman, like--"
"Like whom, my dear?" said the Captain, encouraged.
"La, sir, how can you? Why, like our squire, Sir John, who rides in
such a mortal fine gold coach; or, at least, like the parson, Doctor
Dobbs--that's he, in the black gown, walking with Madam Dobbs in
red."
"And are those his children?"
"Yes: two girls and two boys; and only think, he calls one William
Nassau, and one George Denmark--isn't it odd?" And from the parson,
Mrs. Catherine went on to speak of several humble personages of the
village community, who, as they are not necessary to our story, need
not be described at full length. It was when, from the window, Corporal
Brock saw the altercation between the worthy divine and his son,
respecting the latter's ride, that he judged it a fitting time to step out on
the green, and to bestow on the two horses those famous historical
names which we have just heard applied to them.
Mr. Brock's diplomacy was, as we have stated, quite successful; for,
when the parson's boys had ridden and retired along with their mamma

and papa, other young gentlemen of humbler rank in the village were
placed upon "George of Denmark" and "William of Nassau;" the
Corporal joking and laughing with all the grown-up people. The
women, in spite of Mr. Brock's age, his red nose, and a certain squint of
his eye, vowed the Corporal was a jewel of a man; and among the men
his popularity was equally great.
"How much dost thee get, Thomas Clodpole?" said Mr. Brock to a
countryman (he was the man whom Mrs. Catherine had described as
her suitor), who had laughed loudest at some of his jokes: "how much
dost thee get for a week's work, now?"
Mr. Clodpole, whose name was really Bullock, stated that his wages
amounted to "three shillings and a puddn."
"Three shillings and a puddn!--monstrous!--and for this you toil like a
galley-slave, as I have seen them in Turkey and America,--ay,
gentlemen, and in the country of Prester John! You shiver out of bed on
icy winter mornings, to break the ice for Ball and Dapple to drink."
"Yes, indeed," said the person addressed, who seemed astounded at the
extent of the Corporal's information.
"Or you clean pigsty, and take dung down to meadow; or you act
watchdog and tend sheep; or you sweep a scythe over a great field of
grass; and when the sun has scorched the eyes out of your head, and
sweated the flesh off your bones, and well-nigh fried the soul out of
your body, you go home, to what?--three shillings a week and a puddn!
Do you get pudding every day?"
"No; only Sundays."
"Do you get money enough?"
"No, sure."
"Do you get beer enough?"

"Oh no, NEVER!" said Mr. Bullock quite resolutely.
"Worthy Clodpole, give us thy hand: it shall have beer enough this day,
or my name's not Corporal Brock. Here's the money, boy! there are
twenty pieces in this purse: and how do you think I got 'em? and how
do you