Miss Potter declared that the Wells was like heaven. In London she saw very little fine company, and only went abroad with her mistress when her ladyship visited the poor, or drove on shopping expeditions to the city. But manners were less formal at the Wells; and Sophy went to picnics and frisked up and down the long perspective of country dances hand in hand with persons of quality.
Never had Sophy known her mistress so eager for amusement as during this particular season. She was ready to join in every festivity, however trivial, however foolish, and diversions that had a spice of eccentricity, like Lady Caroline Petersham's minced-chicken supper at Vauxhall, seemed to please her most. She entertained lavishly, gave breakfasts, picnics, dances, suppers--had a crowd at her tea-table every evening; and Mr. Pitt being at the Wells that year, she gave several entertainments in his honour, notably an excursion to Bayham Abbey, in a dozen coaches and four, and a picnic dinner among the ruins, at which the great minister--who had but lately grasped the sceptre of supreme power--flung off the burden of public care, forgot his gout and the dark cloud of war in Europe and America, Frederick's reverses, misfortunes in Canada, while he sunned himself in Antonia's beauty, and absorbed her claret and champagne.
"I could almost wish for another earthquake that would bury me under these antique walls," he said gaily. "Sure, madam, to expire at your feet were a death more illustrious than the Assyrian funeral pile."
"Sardanapalus was a worthless sybarite, sir, and the world could spare him. England without Mr. Pitt must cease to be a nation."
"Nay, but think how glad Newcastle would be, and how the old King would chuckle if a falling pillar despatched me. 'Twould be the one pleasing episode in my history. His Majesty would order me a public funeral, in his gratitude for my civility in dying. Death is a Prime Minister's ace of trumps, and his reputation with posterity sometimes hangs on that last card."
The minister's visit to Tunbridge was shortened by the news of the taking of Cape Breton and the siege of Louisbourg, the first substantial victory that English arms had won in America since Braddock's disastrous rout on the Monongahela. Amherst and his dragoons had landed on that storm-beaten coast in the nick of time. The aristocratic water-drinkers and the little shopkeepers at the Wells rejoiced as one man. Bonfires blazed on the Common, every window was illuminated, martial music was heard on every side, toasts were drunk, glasses broken, and a general flutter of excitement pervaded the Wells, while in London a train of French standards were being carried to Westminster Abbey, to the sound of trumpets and kettle-drums, and the wild huzzas of the populace.