Mudfog and Other Sketches | Page 7

strong, the companionable
footman put it on his own head, to the immeasurable and unrecordable
delight of the cook and housemaid. The companionable footman was
very facetious to Ned, and Ned was very gallant to the cook and
housemaid by turns. They were all very cosy and comfortable; and the
something strong went briskly round.
At last Ned Twigger was loudly called for, by the procession people:
and, having had his helmet fixed on, in a very complicated manner, by

the companionable footman, and the kind housemaid, and the friendly
cook, he walked gravely forth, and appeared before the multitude.
The crowd roared--it was not with wonder, it was not with surprise; it
was most decidedly and unquestionably with laughter.
'What!' said Mr. Tulrumble, starting up in the four-wheel chaise.
'Laughing? If they laugh at a man in real brass armour, they'd laugh
when their own fathers were dying. Why doesn't he go into his place,
Mr. Jennings? What's he rolling down towards us for? he has no
business here!'
'I am afraid, sir--' faltered Mr. Jennings.
'Afraid of what, sir?' said Nicholas Tulrumble, looking up into the
secretary's face.
'I am afraid he's drunk, sir,' replied Mr. Jennings.
Nicholas Tulrumble took one look at the extraordinary figure that was
bearing down upon them; and then, clasping his secretary by the arm,
uttered an audible groan in anguish of spirit.
It is a melancholy fact that Mr. Twigger having full licence to demand
a single glass of rum on the putting on of every piece of the armour, got,
by some means or other, rather out of his calculation in the hurry and
confusion of preparation, and drank about four glasses to a piece
instead of one, not to mention the something strong which went on the
top of it. Whether the brass armour checked the natural flow of
perspiration, and thus prevented the spirit from evaporating, we are not
scientific enough to know; but, whatever the cause was, Mr. Twigger
no sooner found himself outside the gate of Mudfog Hall, than he also
found himself in a very considerable state of intoxication; and hence
his extraordinary style of progressing. This was bad enough, but, as if
fate and fortune had conspired against Nicholas Tulrumble, Mr.
Twigger, not having been penitent for a good calendar month, took it
into his head to be most especially and particularly sentimental, just
when his repentance could have been most conveniently dispensed with.
Immense tears were rolling down his cheeks, and he was vainly
endeavouring to conceal his grief by applying to his eyes a blue cotton
pocket-handkerchief with white spots,--an article not strictly in keeping
with a suit of armour some three hundred years old, or thereabouts.
'Twigger, you villain!' said Nicholas Tulrumble, quite forgetting his
dignity, 'go back.'

'Never,' said Ned. 'I'm a miserable wretch. I'll never leave you.'
The by-standers of course received this declaration with acclamations
of 'That's right, Ned; don't!'
'I don't intend it,' said Ned, with all the obstinacy of a very tipsy man.
'I'm very unhappy. I'm the wretched father of an unfortunate family; but
I am very faithful, sir. I'll never leave you.' Having reiterated this
obliging promise, Ned proceeded in broken words to harangue the
crowd upon the number of years he had lived in Mudfog, the excessive
respectability of his character, and other topics of the like nature.
'Here! will anybody lead him away?' said Nicholas: 'if they'll call on me
afterwards, I'll reward them well.'
Two or three men stepped forward, with the view of bearing Ned off,
when the secretary interposed.
'Take care! take care!' said Mr. Jennings. 'I beg your pardon, sir; but
they'd better not go too near him, because, if he falls over, he'll
certainly crush somebody.'
At this hint the crowd retired on all sides to a very respectful distance,
and left Ned, like the Duke of Devonshire, in a little circle of his own.
'But, Mr. Jennings,' said Nicholas Tulrumble, 'he'll be suffocated.'
'I'm very sorry for it, sir,' replied Mr. Jennings; 'but nobody can get that
armour off, without his own assistance. I'm quite certain of it from the
way he put it on.'
Here Ned wept dolefully, and shook his helmeted head, in a manner
that might have touched a heart of stone; but the crowd had not hearts
of stone, and they laughed heartily.
'Dear me, Mr. Jennings,' said Nicholas, turning pale at the possibility of
Ned's being smothered in his antique costume--'Dear me, Mr. Jennings,
can nothing be done with him?'
'Nothing at all,' replied Ned, 'nothing at all. Gentlemen, I'm an unhappy
wretch. I'm a body, gentlemen, in a brass coffin.' At this poetical idea
of his own conjuring up, Ned cried so much that the people began to
get sympathetic, and to ask