Billinger Esqre, Mr Macqueen etc., is enjoying a brief relaxation from state cares at Colonel Luckyman’s country house, Catton Lodge.

Lord Charles and the young ladies Flower have joined their noble mother at Mowbray. Sigston’s Hotel is engaged entirely for the use of Lady Richton and her household. Lord Charles Flower, who, as well as his sisters, is just recovering from the measles, continues under the care of Dr Morrison, the family physician. The noble ambassador himself is in the south.

From these paragraphs it was evident that the season was now completely over. No more assemblies at Flower House, no more select dinner-parties at the Fidena Palace. Closed were the saloons of Thornton Hotel, forsaken were the squares round Ellrington Hall and Wellesley House, void were the habitations of Castlereagh, darkened the tabernacles of Arundel! Whereas now, in remote woods, the chimneys of Girnington Hall sent out their blue smoke to give token that the old spot was peopled again; in remoter meads, the broad sashes of Summerfield House were thrown up, to admit the gale sweeping over those wide prairies into rooms with mirrors cleared and carpets spread and couches unswathed in holland. Every blind was withdrawn at Stuartville Park, every shutter opened, and the windows through crimson curtains looked boldly towards the green ascent where Edwardston smiles upon its young plantations. The rooks were cawing at Warner Hall with cheerier sound than ever as, early on a summer morning, the Prime Minister of Angria, standing on his front-door steps, looked at the sun rising over his still grounds and deep woods and over the long, dark moors of Howard.

I could have grown poetical. I could have recalled more distant and softer scenes touched with the light of other years, hallowed by higher – because older – associations than the campaign of –33, the rebellion of –36. I might have asked how sunrise yet became the elms and the turret of Wood Church. But I restrained myself, and merely put the question, shall I have me out or not? And whither shall I direct my steps? To my old quarters at the Greyhound opposite Mowbray Vicarage? To my friend Tom Ingham’s farm at the foot of Boulshill? To some acquaintances I have North awa’ in the vicinity of Fidena? Or to a snug country lodging I know of in the south not far from my friend Billinger’s paternal home? Time and chance shall decide me. I’ve cash sufficient for the excursion; I’ve just rounded off my nineteenth year and entered on my twentieth; I’m a neat figure, a competent scholar, a popular author, a gentleman and a man of the world. Who then shall restrain me? Shall I not wander at my own sweet will? Allons, reader, come, and we will pack the carpet-bag. Make out an inventory: Item – 4 shirts, 6 fronts, 4 pair cotton, 2 pair silk stockings, 1 pair morocco pumps, 1 dress satin waistcoat, 1 dress coat, 2 pair dress pantaloons, 1 pair nankeens, 1 brush and comb, 1 bottle macassar oil, 1 tooth-brush, box vegetable tooth-powder, 1 pot cream of roses, 1 case of razors (N. B. for show not use), two cakes of almond soap, 1 bottle eau de cologne, 1 bottle eau de mille fleurs, 1 pair curling-irons. C’est tout! I’m my own valet now! Reader, if you’re ready, so am I. The coach is coming, hillo! Off at full speed to meet it!

At Stancliffe’s Hotel, amongst
the commercial travellers

‘Well, I think I shall have to stay at Zamorna all night. It’s a delightful June evening.’ So I soliloquized to myself, as, standing in the traveller’s room at Stancliffe’s Hotel, I from the window watched the umbrellas, cloaks, and mackintoshes which ever and anon traversed Thornton Street in Zamorna. It had been market-day, and the gigs of the clothiers, now homeward-bound, were bowling along the pavement in the teeth of the driving showers and fitful blasts in which the before-mentioned delightful June evening had thought proper to veil its close. Now and then a cavalcade of some half-dozen mounted manufacturers passed the window at full trot. These gentlemen had doubtless dined en comité at the Woolpack or the Stuart Arms, and the speed and lightness of their progress, the pleasing gaiety of their aspects, and the frequency of the laugh and jest in their ranks indicated pretty plainly that they were, one and all – to speak technically – market-fresh. Many of the gigs, too, shot past with a vengeable rapidity which warranted that [the] occupants had duly laid in the stock of brandy and water. Wild and boisterous as the wind swept up the street and drove before it a heavy constant rain, these heroes, safe in the external shield of waterproof capes and the internal specific of no less waterproof cognac, dashed away towards the open Edwardston or Adrianopolitan roads, as if in defiance of the storm which was to meet them in fuller force when removed from the partial shelter of the city.

The traveller’s room at Stancliffe’s Hotel by no means exhibited the silence and solitude of a hermit’s cell. Gentlemen in the soft and hard line strode in and out incessantly from the trampled inn-passage, whose wet and miry floor plainly told the condition of the streets outside. Then there were loud calls for the waiters, incessant ringings of the weary bell, orders about sundry carpet-bags and portmanteaus, deliveries of divers wet great-coats and drenched pea-surtouts to be dried instantly at the kitchen-fire, expostulations about mysterious subjects unintelligible except to the affrighted waiter and the aggrieved complainant. One furious individual, whose gig drove up to the Hotel amidst the pelting of a wilder torrent of rain than had fallen in the course of the whole afternoon, entered the room with a dark and ominous aspect. As he was drawing off his three-caped great-coat, from which the water dripped in streams, something in the condition of the fire-place seemed to strike him with conscientious horror. He rushed to the door.

‘Waiter! Waiter!! Waiter!!!’ he exclaimed with the voice of a lion.

The waiter came. The person who had summoned him was a portly man and an apoplectic; his rage seemed at first to impede his utterance, but not for long.