CHAPTER IV.
THE FAIR-GREEN OF PALMERSTOWN.
There were half-a-dozen carriages, and a score of led horses outside the
fair-green, a precious lot of ragamuffins, and a good resort to the
public-house opposite; and the gate being open, the artillery band, rousing all the echoes round with harmonious and exhilarating thunder, within—an occasional crack of a 'Brown Bess,' with a puff of white smoke over the hedge, being heard, and the cheers of the spectators, and sometimes a jolly chorus of many-toned laughter, all mixed together, and carried on with a pleasant running hum of voices—Mervyn, the stranger, reckoning on being unobserved in the crowd, and weary of the very solitude he courted, turned to his right, and so found himself upon the renowned fair-green of Palmerstown.
It was really a gay rural sight. The circular target stood, with its
bright concentric rings, in conspicuous isolation, about a hundred yards
away, against the green slope of the hill. The competitors in their best
Sunday suits, some armed with muskets and some with fowling pieces—for
they were not particular—and with bunches of ribbons fluttering in
their three-cornered hats, and sprigs of gay flowers in their breasts, stood in the foreground, in an irregular cluster, while the spectators, in pleasant disorder, formed two broad, and many-coloured parterres, broken into little groups, and separated by a wide, clear sweep of green sward, running up from the marksmen to the target.
In the luminous atmosphere the men of those days showed bright and gay. Such fine scarlet and gold waistcoats—such sky-blue and silver—such pea-green lutestrings—and pink silk linings—and flashing buckles—and courtly wigs—or becoming powder—went pleasantly with the brilliant costume of the stately dames and smiling lasses. There was a pretty sprinkling of uniforms, too—the whole picture in gentle motion, and the bugles and drums of the Royal Irish Artillery filling the air with inspiring music.
All the neighbours were there—merry little Dr. Toole in his grandest
wig and gold-headed cane, with three dogs at his heels,—he seldom
appeared without this sort of train—sometimes three—sometimes
five—sometimes as many as seven—and his hearty voice was heard bawling
at them by name, as he sauntered through the town of a morning, and
theirs occasionally in short screeches, responsive to the touch of his
cane. Now it was, 'Fairy, you savage, let that pig alone!' a yell and a
scuffle—'Juno, drop it, you slut'—or 'Cæsar, you blackguard, where are
you going?'
'Look at Sturk there, with his lordship,' said Toole, to the fair
Magnolia, with a wink and a nod, and a sneering grin. 'Good natured dog
that—ha! ha! You'll find he'll oust Nutter at last, and get the agency; that's what he's driving at—always undermining somebody.' Doctor Sturk and Lord Castlemallard were talking apart on the high ground, and the artillery surgeon was pointing with his cane at distant objects. 'I'll lay you fifty he's picking holes in Nutter's management this moment.'
I'm afraid there was some truth in the theory, and Toole—though he did
not remember to mention it—had an instinctive notion that Sturk had an
eye upon the civil practice of the neighbourhood, and was meditating a
retirement from the army, and a serious invasion of his domain.
Sturk and Toole, behind backs, did not spare one another. Toole called
Sturk a 'horse doctor,' and 'the smuggler'—in reference to some affair
about French brandy, never made quite clear to me, but in which, I
believe, Sturk was really not to blame; and Sturk called him 'that
drunken little apothecary'—for Toole had a boy who compounded, under
the rose, his draughts, pills, and powders in the back parlour—and
sometimes, 'that smutty little ballad singer,' or 'that whiskeyfied
dog-fancier, Toole.' There was no actual quarrel, however; they met
freely—told one another the news—their mutual disagreeabilities were
administered guardedly—and, on the whole, they hated one another in a
neighbourly way.
Fat, short, radiant, General Chattesworth—in full, artillery
uniform—was there, smiling, and making little speeches to the ladies, and bowing stiffly from his hips upward—his great cue playing all the time up and down his back, and sometimes so near the ground when he stood erect and threw back his head, that Toole, seeing Juno eyeing the appendage rather viciously, thought it prudent to cut her speculations short with a smart kick.