Xander77 posted:

But more to the point. Even at his oldest and most boot-licking, Fraser was still capable of satirizing the empire. Flashman and his friends consistently shove their nose into other people's poo poo, and any harm they come to is essentially justified. Conversely, having your army defend humanity from killer robots, killer Predators and killer Aliens justifies both the militarism and, really, the fascism. Caine can't ever really pose the basic "is there a point to all this" question, because the answer is "of course there is - you're literally all that stands between billions of people and extinction".

Phenotype posted:

Cricket must be the most impenetrable and arbitrary game in the world, that could only have been dreamt up by rich people with far too much time on their hands.

quote:

Explanatory Note

Since the memoirs of Flashman, the notorious Rugby School bully and Victorian military hero, first came to light ten years ago, and have been laid before the public as each successive packet of manuscript was opened and edited, a question has arisen which many readers have found intriguing. The five volumes published so far have been in chronological order, spanning the period from 1839, when Flashman was expelled and entered the Army, to 1858, when he emerged from the Indian Mutiny. But not all the intervening years have been covered in the five volumes; one gap occurs between his first meeting with Bismarck and Lola Montez in 1842-3, and his involvement in the Schleswig-Holstein Question in 1848: yet another between 1849, when he was last seen on the New Orleans waterfront in the company of the well-known Oxford don and slave-trader, Captain Spring, MA, and 1854, when duty called him to the Crimea. It has been asked, what of the "missing years"?

The sixth packet of the Flashman Papers supplies a partial answer, since it deals with its author's remarkable adventures from 1842 to 1845. It is clear from his manuscript that a chance paragraph in the sporting columns of a newspaper caused him to interrupt his normal chronological habit, to fill in this hiatus in his earlier years, and from the bulk of unopened manuscript remaining it appears that his memoirs of the Taiping Rebellion, the US Civil War, and the Sioux and Zulu uprisings are still to come. (Indeed, since a serving officer of the United States Marines has informed me that his Corps' records contain positive pictorial evidence of Flashman's participation in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, there is no saying where it may end.)

The historical significance of the present instalment may be thought to be threefold. As a first-hand account of the early Victorian sporting scene (on which Flashman now emerges as a distinguished if deplorable actor) it is certainly unique; on a different plane it provides an eye-witness description of that incredible, forgotten private war in which a handful of gentlemen-adventurers pushed the British imperial frontier eastwards in the 1840s. Lastly, it sheds fresh light on the characters of two great figures of the time - one a legendary Empire-builder, the other an African queen who has been unfavourably compared to Caligula and Nero.

A small point which may be of interest to students of Flashman's earlier memoirs is that the present manuscript shows signs of having been lightly edited - as was one previous volume - by his sister-in-law, Grizel de Rothschild, probably soon after his death in 1915. She has modified his blasphemies, but has not otherwise tampered with the old soldier's narrative; indeed, she has embellished it here and there with extracts from the private diary of her sister Elspeth, Flashman's wife, and with her own pungent marginal comments. In the presence of such distinguished editing, I have confined myself to supplying foot-notes and appendices, and satisfying myself of the accuracy of Flash-man's account of historical events so far as these can be checked.

G.M.F.

quote:

So they're talking about amending the leg-before-wicket rule again. I don't know why they bother, for they'll never get it right until they go back to the old law which said that if you put your leg in front of the ball a-purpose to stop it hitting the stumps, you were out, and damned good riddance to you. That was plain enough, you'd have thought, but no; those mutton-brains in the Marylebone club have to scratch their heads over it every few years, and gas for days on end about the line of delivery and the point of pitch, and the Lord knows what other rubbish, and in the end they cross out a word and add another, and the whole thing's as incomprehensible as it was before. Set of doddering old women.

It all comes of these pads that batters wear nowadays. When I was playing cricket we had nothing to guard our precious shins except our trousers, and if you were fool enough to get your ankle in the way of one of Alfie Mynn's shooters, why, it didn't matter whether you were in front of the wicket or sitting on the pavilion privy - you were off to get your leg in plaster, no error. But now they shuffle about the crease like yokels in gaiters, and that great muffin Grace bleats like a ruptured choirboy if a fast ball comes near him. Wouldn't I just have liked to get him on the old Lord's wicket after a dry summer, with the pitch rock-hard, Mynn sending down his trimmers from one end and myself going all-out at t'other - they wouldn't have been calling him the "Champion" then, I may tell you; the old bastard's beard would have been snow-white after two overs. And the same goes for that fat black nawab and the pup Fry, too.

From this you may gather that I was a bowler myself, not a batter, and if I say I was a damned good one, well, the old scores are there to back me up. Seven for 32 against the Gentlemen of Kent, five for 12 against the England XI, and a fair number of runs as a tail-end slogger to boot. Not that I prided myself on my batting; as I've said, it could be a risky business against fast men in the old days, when wickets were rough, and I may tell you privately that I took care never to face up to a really scorching bowler without woollen scarves wrapped round my legs (under my flannels) and an old tin soup-bowl over my essentials; sport's all very well, but you mustn't let it incapacitate you for the manliest game of all. No, just let me go in about number eight or nine, when the slow lobbers and twisters were practising their wiles, and I could slash away in safety, and then, when t'other side had their innings - give me that ball and a thirty-pace run-up and just watch me make 'em dance.

It may strike you that old Flashy's approach to our great summer game wasn't quite that of your school-storybook hero, apple-cheeked and manly, playing up unselfishly for the honour of the side and love of his gallant captain, revelling in the jolly rivalry of bat and ball while his carefree laughter rings across the green sward. No, not exactly; personal glory and cheap wickets however you could get 'em, and damnn the honour of the side, that was my style, with a few quid picked up in side-bets, and plenty of skirt-chasing afterwards among the sporting ladies who used to ogle us big hairy fielders over their parasols at Canterbury Week. That's the spirit that wins matches, and you may take my word for it, and ponder our recent disastrous showing against the Australians while you're about it.'

quote:

Of course, I speak as one who learned his cricket in the golden age, when I was a miserable fag at Rugby, toadying my way up the school and trying to keep a whole skin in that infernal jungle - you took your choice of emerging a physical wreck or a moral one, and I'm glad to say I never hesitated, which is why I'm the man I am today, what's left of me. I snivelled and bought my way to safety when I was a small boy, and bullied and tyrannized when I was a big one; how the devil I'm not in the House of Lords by now, I can't think. That's by the way; the point is that Rugby taught me only two things really well, survival and cricket, for I saw even at the tender age of eleven that while bribery, fawning, and deceit might ensure the former, they weren't enough to earn a popular reputation, which is a very necessary thing. For that, you had to shine at games, and cricket was the only one for me.

Not that I cared for it above half, at first, but the other great sport was football, and that was downright dangerous; I rubbed along at it only by limping up late to the scrimmages yelping: "Play up, you fellows, do! Oh, confound this game leg of mine!" and by developing a knack of missing my charges against bigger men by a fraction of an inch, plunging on the turf just too late with heroic gasps and roarings. Cricket was peace and tranquillity by comparison, without any danger of being hacked in the members - and I turned out to be uncommon good at it.

I say this in all modesty; as you may know, I have three other prime talents, for horses, languages, and fornication, but they're all God-given, and no credit that I can claim. But I worked to make myself a cricketer, damned hard I worked, which is probably why, when I look back nowadays on the rewards and trophies of an eventful life - the medals, the knighthood, the accumulated cash, the military glory, the drowsy, satisfied women - all in all, there's not much I'm prouder of than those five wickets for 12 runs against the flower of England's batters, or that one glorious over at Lord's in '42 when - but I'll come to that in a moment, for it's where my present story really begins.

I suppose, if Fuller Pilch had got his bat down just a split second sooner, it would all have turned out different. The Skrang pirates wouldn't have been burned out of their hellish nest, the black queen of Madagascar would have had one lover fewer (not that she'd have missed a mere one, I dare say, the insatiable great bitch), the French and British wouldn't have bombarded Tamitave, and I'd have been spared kidnapping, slavery, blowpipes, and the risk of death and torture in unimaginable places - aye, old Fuller's got a lot to answer for, God rest him. However, that's anticipating - I was telling you how I became a fast bowler at Rugby, which is a necessary preliminary.

It was in the 'thirties, you see, that round-arm bowling came into its own, and fellows like Mynn got their hands up shoulder-high. It changed the game like nothing since, for we saw what fast bowling could be - and it was fast - you talk about Spofforth and Brown, but none of them kicked up the dust like those early trimmers. Why, I've seen Mynn bowl to five slips and three long-stops, and his deliveries going over 'em all, first bounce right down to Lord's gate. That's my ticket, thinks I, and I took up the new slinging style, at first because it was capital fun to buzz the ball round the ears of rabbits and funks who couldn't hit back, but I soon found this didn't answer against serious batters, who pulled and drove me all over the place. So I mended my ways until I could whip my fastest ball onto a crown piece, four times out of five, and as I grew tall I became faster still, and was in a fair way to being Cock of Big Side - until that memorable afternoon when the puritan prig Arnold took exception to my being carried home sodden drunk, and turfed me out of the school. Two weeks before the Marylebone match, if you please - well, they lost it without me, which shows that while piety and sobriety may ensure you eternal life, they ain't enough to beat the MCC.

However, that was an end to my cricket for a few summers, for I was packed off to the Army and Afghanis-tan, where I shuddered my way through the Kabul retreat, winning undeserved but undying fame in the siege of Jallalabad. All of which I've related elsewhere;*(* See Flashman.) sufficient to say that I bilked, funked, ran for dear life and screamed for mercy as occasion demanded, all through that ghastly campaign, and came out with four medals, the thanks of parliament, an audience of our Queen, and a handshake from the Duke of Wellington. It's astonishing what you can make out of a bad business if you play your hand right and look noble at the proper time.

Anyway, I came home a popular hero in the late summer of '42, to a rapturous reception from the public and my beautiful idiot wife Elspeth. Being lionized and feted, and making up for lost time by whoring and carousing to excess, I didn't have much time in the first few months for lighter diversions, but it chanced that I was promenading down Regent Street one afternoon, twirling my cane with my hat on three hairs and seeking what I might devour, when I found myself outside "The Green Man". I paused, idly - and that moment's hesitation launched me on what was perhaps the strangest adventure of my life.

quote:

It's long gone now, but in those days "The Green Man" was a famous haunt of cricketers, and it was the sight of bats and stumps and other paraphernalia of the game in the window that suddenly brought back memories, and awoke a strange hunger - not to play, you understand, but just to smell the atmosphere again, and hear the talk of batters and bowlers, and the jargon and gossip. So I turned in, ordered a plate of tripe and a quart of home-brewed, exchanged a word or two with the jolly pipe-smokers in the tap, and was soon so carried away by the homely fare, the cheery talk and laughter, and the clean hearty air of the place, that I found myself wishing I'd gone on to the Haymarket and got myself a dish of hot spiced trollop instead. Still, there was time before supper, and I was just calling the waiter to settle up when I noticed a fellow staring at me across the room. He met my eye, shoved his chair back, and came over.

"I say," says he, "aren't you Flashman?" He said it almost warily, as though he didn't wish quite to believe it. I was used to this sort of thing by now, and having fellows fawn and admire the hero of Jallalabad, but this chap didn't look like a toad-eater. He was as tall as I was, brown-faced and square-chinned, with a keen look about him, as though he couldn't wait to have a cold tub and a ten-mile walk. A Christian, I shouldn't wonder, and no smoking the day before a match.

So I said, fairly cool, that I was Flashman, and what was it to him.

"You haven't changed," says he, grinning. "You won't remember me, though, do you?"

"Any good reason why I should try?" says I. "Here, waiter!"

"No, thank'ee," says this fellow. "I've had my pint for the day. Never take more during the season." And he sat himself down, cool as be-damned, at my table.

"Well, I'm relieved to hear it," says I, rising. "You'll forgive me, but—"

quote:

"Hold on," says he, laughing. "I'm Brown. Tom Brown - of Rugby. Don't say you've forgotten!"

Well, in fact, I had. Nowadays his name is emblazoned on my memory, and has been ever since Hughes published his infernal book in the 'fifties, but that was still in the future, and for the life of me I couldn't place him. Didn't want to, either; he had that manly, open-air reek about him that I can't stomach, what with his tweed jacket (I'll bet he'd rubbed down his horse with it) and sporting cap; not my style at all.

"You roasted me over the common-room fire once," says he, amiably, and then I knew him fast enough, and measured the distance to the door. That's the trouble with these snivelling little sneaks one knocks about at school; they grow up into hulking louts who box, and are always in prime trim. Fortunately this one appeared to be Christian as well as muscular, having swallowed Arnold's lunatic doctrine of love-thine-enemy, for as I hastily muttered that I hoped it hadn't done him any lasting injury, he laughed heartily and clapped me on the shoulder.

"Why, that's ancient history," cries he. "Boys will be boys, what? Besides, d'ye know - I feel almost that I owe you an apology. Yes," and he scratched his head and looked sheepish. "Tell the truth," went on this amazing oaf, "when we were youngsters I didn't care for you above half, Flashman. Well, you treated us fags pretty raw, you know-of course, I guess it was just thoughtlessness, but, well, we thought you no end of a cad, and - and … a coward, too." He stirred uncomfortably, and I wondered was he going to fart. "Well, you caught us out there, didn't you?" says he, meeting my eye again. "I mean, all this business in Afghanistan … the way you defended the old flag … that sort of thing. By George," and he absolutely had tears in his eyes, "it was the most splendid thing … and to think that you … well, I never heard of anything so heroic in my life, and I just wanted to apologize, old fellow, for thinking ill of you - 'cos I'll own that I did, once - and ask to shake your hand, if you'll let me."

He sat there, with his great paw stuck out, looking misty and noble, virtue just oozing out of him, while I marvelled. The strange thing is, his precious pal Scud East, whom I'd hammered just as generously at school, said almost the same thing to me years later, when we met as prisoners in Russia - confessed how he'd loathed me, but how my heroic conduct had wiped away all old scores, and so forth. I wonder still if they believed that it did, or if they were being hypocrites for form's sake, or if they truly felt guilty for once having harboured evil thoughts of me? Damned if I know; the Victorian conscience is beyond me, thank God. I know that if anyone who'd done me a bad turn later turned out to be the Archangel Gabriel, I'd still hate the bastard; but then, I'm a scoundrel, you see, with no proper feelings. However, I was so relieved to find that this stalwart lout was prepared to let bygones be bygones that I turned on all my Flashy charms, pumped his fin heartily, and insisted that he break his rule for once, and have a glass with me.

"Well, I will, thank'ee," says he, and when the beer had come and we'd drunk to dear old Rugby (sincerely, no doubt, on his part) he puts down his mug and says:

"There's another thing - matter of fact it was the first thought that popped into my head when I saw you just now - I don't know how you'd feel about it, though - I mean, perhaps your wounds ain't better yet?"

He hesitated. "Fire away," says I, thinking perhaps he wanted to introduce me to his sister.

"Well, you won't have heard, but my last half at school, when I was captain, we had no end of a match against the Marylebone men - lost on first innings, but only nine runs in it, and we'd have beat 'em, given one more over. Anyway, old Aislabie - you remember him? - was so taken with our play that he has asked me if I'd like to get up a side, Rugby past and present, for a match against Kent. Well, I've got some useful hands - you know young Brooke, and Raggles - and I remembered you were a famous bowler, so … What d'ye say to turning out for us - if you're fit, of course?"

It took me clean aback, and my tongue being what it is, I found myself saying: "Why, d'you think you'll draw a bigger gate with the hero of Afghanistan playing?"

"Eh? Good lord, no!" He coloured and then laughed. "What a cynic you are, Flashy! D'ye know," says he, looking knowing, "I'm beginning to understand you, I think. Even at school, you always said the smart, cutting things that got under people's skins - almost as though you were going out of your way to have 'em think ill of you. It's a contrary thing - all at odds with the truth, isn't it? Oh, aye," says he, smiling owlishly, "Afghanistan proved that, all right. The German doctors are doing a lot of work on it - the perversity of human nature, excellence bent on destroying itself, the heroic soul fearing its own fall from grace, and trying to anticipate it. Interesting." He shook his fat head solemnly. "I'm thinking of reading philosophy at Oxford this term, you know. However, I mustn't prose. What about it, old fellow?" And drat his impudence, he slapped me on the knee. "Will you bowl your expresses for us - at Lord's?"

I'd been about to tell him to take his offer along with his rotten foreign sermonizing and drop 'em both in the Serpentine, but that last word stopped me. Lord's - I'd never played there, but what cricketer who ever breathed wouldn't jump at the chance? You may think it small enough beer compared with the games I'd been playing lately, but I'll confess it made my heart leap. I was still young and impressionable then and I almost knocked his hand off, accepting. He gave me another of his thunderous shoulder-claps (they pawed each other something damnable, those hearty young champions of my youth) and said, capital, it was settled then.

"You'll want to get in some practice, no doubt," says he, and promptly delivered a lecture about how he kept himself in condition, with runs and exercises and foregoing tuck, just as he had at school. From that he harked back to the dear old days, and how he'd gone for a weep and a pray at Arnold's tomb the previous month (our revered mentor having kicked the bucket earlier in the year, and not before time, in my opinion). Excited as I was at the prospect of the Lord's game, I'd had about my bellyful of Master Pious Brown by the time he was done, and as we took our leave of each other in Regent Street, I couldn't resist the temptation to puncture his confounded smugness.

"Can't say how glad I am to have seen you again, old lad," says he, as we shook hands. "Delighted to know you'll turn out for us, of course, but, you know, the best thing of all has been - meeting the new Flashman, if you know what I mean. It's odd," and he fixed his thumbs in his belt and squinted wisely at me, like an owl in labour, "but it reminds me of what the Doctor used to say at confirmation class - about man being born again - only it's happened to you - for me, if you understand me. At all events, I'm a better man now, I feel, than I was an hour ago. God bless you, old chap," says he, as I disengaged my hand before he could drag me to my knees for a quick prayer and a chorus of "Let us with a gladsome mind". He asked which way I was bound.

quote:

"Oh, down towards Haymarket," says I. "Get some exercise, I think."

"Capital," says he. "Nothing like a good walk."

"Well … I was thinking more of riding, don't you know."

"In Haymarket?" He frowned. "No stables thereaway, surely?"

"Best in town," says I. "A few English mounts, but mostly French fillies. Riding silks black and scarlet, splendid exercise, but damned exhausting. Care to try it?"

For a moment he was all at a loss, and then as understanding dawned he went scarlet and white by turns, until I thought he would faint. "My God," he whispered hoarsely. I tapped him on the weskit with my cane, all confidential.

"You remember Stumps Harrowell, the shoemaker, at Rugby, and what enormous calves he had?" I winked while he gaped at me. "Well, there's a German wench down there whose poonts are even bigger. Just about your weight; do you a power of good."

He made gargling noises while I watched him with huge enjoyment.

"So much for the new Flashman, eh?" says I. "Wish you hadn't invited me to play with your pure-minded little friends? Well, it's too late, young Tom; you've shaken hands on it, haven't you?"

He pulled himself together and took a breath. "You may play if you wish," says he. "More fool I for asking you - but if you were the man I had hoped you were, you would—"

"Cry off gracefully - and save you from the pollution of my company? No, no, my boy - I'll be there, and just as fit as you are. But I'll wager I enjoy my training more."

"Flashman," cries he, as I turned away, "don't go to - to that place, I beseech you. It ain't worthy—"

"How would you know?" says I. "See you at Lord's." And I left him full of Christian anguish at the sight of the hardened sinner going down to the Pit. The best of it was, he was probably as full of holy torment at the thought of my foul fornications as he would have been if he'd galloped that German tart himself; that's unselfishness for you. But she'd have been wasted on him, anyway.

Arbite posted:

Also, out of my depth and will need some help explaining all of the Cricket that goes down, so if anyone wants to give the aspects that arise an overly detailed explanation with many visual aids and historical references, that'd be great.

quote:

So they're talking about amending the leg-before-wicket rule again. I don't know why they bother, for they'll never get it right until they go back to the old law which said that if you put your leg in front of the ball a-purpose to stop it hitting the stumps, you were out, and damned good riddance to you.

quote:

It all comes of these pads that batters wear nowadays. When I was playing cricket we had nothing to guard our precious shins except our trousers

quote:

Alfie Mynn, that great muffin Grace, that fat black nawab and the pup Fry

quote:

From this you may gather that I was a bowler myself, not a batter

quote:

It may strike you that old Flashy's approach to our great summer game wasn't quite that of your school-storybook hero, apple-cheeked and manly, playing up unselfishly for the honour of the side and love of his gallant captain, revelling in the jolly rivalry of bat and ball while his carefree laughter rings across the green sward. No, not exactly; personal glory and cheap wickets however you could get 'em, and damnn the honour of the side, that was my style, with a few quid picked up in side-bets, and plenty of skirt-chasing afterwards among the sporting ladies who used to ogle us big hairy fielders over their parasols at Canterbury Week.

quote:

our recent disastrous showing against the Australians

quote:

I rubbed along at it only by limping up late to the scrimmages yelping: "Play up, you fellows, do! Oh, confound this game leg of mine!" and by developing a knack of missing my charges against bigger men by a fraction of an inch, plunging on the turf just too late with heroic gasps and roarings.

quote:

I suppose, if Fuller Pilch had got his bat down just a split second sooner...

quote:

It was in the 'thirties, you see, that round-arm bowling came into its own, and fellows like Mynn got their hands up shoulder-high.

quote:

He shook his fat head solemnly. "I'm thinking of reading philosophy at Oxford this term, you know. However, I mustn't prose."

quote:

while piety and sobriety may ensure you eternal life, they ain't enough to beat the MCC

quote:

Lord's - I'd never played there, but what cricketer who ever breathed wouldn't jump at the chance? You may think it small enough beer compared with the games I'd been playing lately, but I'll confess it made my heart leap.

quote:

However, just because I'd punctured holy Tom's daydreams, don't imagine that I took my training lightly. Even while the German wench was recovering her breath afterwards and ringing for refreshments, I was limbering up on the rug, trying out my old round-arm swing; I even got some of her sisters in to throw oranges to me for catching practice, and you never saw anything jollier than those painted dollymops scampering about in their corsets, shying fruit. We made such a row that the other customers put their heads out, and it turned into an impromptu innings on the landing, whores versus patrons (I must set down the rules for brothel cricket some day, if I can recall them; cover point took on a meaning that you won't find in "Wisden", I know). The whole thing got out of hand, of course, with furniture smashed and the sluts shrieking and weeping, and the madame's bullies put me out for upsetting her disorderly house, which seemed a trifle hard.

Next day, though, I got down to it in earnest, with a ball in the garden. To my delight none of my old skill seemed to have deserted me, the thigh which I'd broken in Afghanis-tan never even twinged, and I crowned my practice by smashing the morning-room window while my father-in-law was finishing his breakfast; he'd been reading about the Rebecca Riots over his porridge, it seemed, and since he'd spent his miserable life squeezing and sweating his millworkers, and had a fearful guilty conscience according, his first reaction to the shattering glass was that the starving mob had risen at last and were coming to give him his just deserts.

"Ye damned Goth!" he spluttered, fishing the fragments out of his whiskers. "Ye don't care who ye maim or murder; I micht ha'e been killed! Have ye nae work tae go tae?" And he whined on about ill-conditioned loafers who squandered their time and his money in selfish pleasure, while I nuzzled Elspeth good morning over her coffee service, marvelling as I regarded her golden-haired radiance and peach-soft skin that I had wasted strength on that suety frau the evening before, when this had been waiting between the covers at home.

"A fine family ye married intae," says her charming sire. "The son stramashin' aboot destroyin' property while the feyther's lyin' abovestairs stupefied wi' drink. Is there nae mair toast?"

"Well, it's our property and our drink," says I, helping myself to kidneys. "Our toast, too, if it comes to that."

"Aye, is't, though, my buckie?" says he, looking more like a spiteful goblin than ever. "And who peys for't? No' you an' yer wastrel parent. Aye, an' ye can keep yer sullen sniffs to yersel', my lassie," he went on to Elspeth. "We'll hae things aboveboard, plump an' plain. It's John Morrison foots the bills, wi' good Scots siller, hard-earned, for this fine husband o' yours an' the upkeep o' his hoose an' family; jist mind that." He crumpled up his paper, which was sodden with spilled coffee. "Tach! There my breakfast sp'iled for me. `Our property' an' 'our drink', ye say? Grand airs and patched breeks!" And out he strode, to return in a moment, snarling. "And since you're meant tae be managin' this establishment, my girl, yell see tae it that we hae marmalade after this, and no' this damned French jam! Con-fee - toor! Huh! Sticky rubbish!" And he slammed the door behind him.

"Oh, dear," sighs Elspeth. "Papa is in his black mood. What a shame you broke the window, dearest."

"Papa is a confounded blot," says I, wolfing kidneys. "But now that we're rid of him, give us a kiss."

quote:

Flashman's memory is playing him false here, but only slightly. The so-called Rebecca Riots did not begin until some months later, in 1843, when a peculiar secret society known as "Rebecca and her Daughters" began a terrorist campaign against high toll charges in South Wales. They went armed, masked, and disguised as women, and would descend by night on toll-houses and toll-gates, which they wrecked. They apparently took their name from an allusion in Genesis xxiv, 60: "And they blessed Rebekah … and said … let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them." (See Halev's History of the English People, vol. iv, and Punch, vol. v, Introduction, 1843.) [p. 21]

quote:

You'll understand that we were an unusual menage. I had married Elspeth perforce, two years before when I had the ill-fortune to be stationed in Scotland, and had been detected tupping her in the bushes - it had been the altar or pistols for two with her fire-eating uncle. Then, when my drunken guv'nor had gone smash over railway shares, old Morrison had found himself saddled with the upkeep of the Flashman establishment, which he'd had to assume for his daughter's sake.

A pretty state, you'll allow, for the little miser wouldn't give me or the guv'nor a penny direct, but doled it out to Elspeth, on whom I had to rely for spending money. Not that she wasn't generous, for in addition to being a stunning beauty she was also as brainless as a feather mop, and doted on me - or at least, she seemed to, but I was beginning to have my doubts. She had a hearty appetite for the two-backed game, and the suspicion was growing on me that in my absence she'd been rolling the linen with any chap who'd come handy, and was still spreading her favours now that I was home. As I say, I couldn't be sure - for that matter, I'm still not, sixty years later. The trouble was and is, I dearly loved her in my way, and not only lustfully - although she was all you could wish as a nightcap - and however much I might stallion about the town and elsewhere, there was never another woman that I cared for besides her. Not even Lola Montez, or Lakshmibai, or Lily Langtry, or Ko Dali's daughter, or Duchess Irma, or Takes-Away-Clouds-Woman, or Valentina, or … or, oh, take your choice, there wasn't one to come up to Elspeth.

For one thing, she was the happiest creature in the world, and pitifully easy to please; she revelled in the London life, which was a rare change from the cemetery she'd been brought up in - Paisley, they call it - and with her looks, my new-won laurels, and (best of all) her father's shekels, we were well-received everywhere, her "trade" origins being conveniently forgotten. (There's no such thing as an unfashionable hero or an unsuitable heiress.) This was just nuts to Elspeth, for she was an unconscionable little snob, and when I told her I was to play at Lord's, before the smartest of the sporting set, she went into raptures - here was a fresh excuse for new hats and dresses, and preening herself before the society rabble, she thought. Being Scotch, and knowing nothing, she supposed cricket was a gentleman's game, you see; sure enough, a certain level of the polite world followed it, but they weren't precisely the high cream, in those days - country barons, racing knights, well-to-do gentry, maybe a mad bishop or two, but pretty rustic. It wasn't quite as respectable as it is now.

quote:

One reason for this was that it was still a betting game, and the stakes could run pretty high - I've known £50,000 riding on a single innings, with wild side-bets of anything from a guinea to a thou on how many wickets Marsden would take, or how many catches would fall to the slips, or whether Pilch would reach fifty (which he probably would). With so much cash about, you may believe that some of the underhand work that went on would have made a Hays City stud school look like old maid's loo - matches were sold and thrown, players were bribed and threatened, wickets were doctored (I've known the whole eleven of a respected county side to sneak out en masse and piss on the wicket in the dark, so that their twisters could get a grip next morning; I caught a nasty cold myself). Of course, corruption wasn't general, or even common, but it happened in those good old sporting days - and whatever the purists may say, there was a life and stingo about cricket then that you don't get now.

It looked so different, even; if I close my eyes I can see Lord's as it was then, and I know that when the memories of bed and battle have lost their colours and faded to misty grey, that at least will be as bright as ever. The coaches and carriages packed in the road outside the gate, the fashionable crowd streaming in by Jimmy Dark's house under the trees, the girls like so many gaudy butterflies in their summer dresses and hats, shaded by parasols, and the men guiding 'em to chairs, some in tall hats and coats, others in striped weskits and caps, the gentry uncomfortably buttoned up and the roughs and townies in shirt-sleeves and billycocks with their watch-chains and cutties; the bookies with their stands outside the pavilion, calling the odds, the flash chaps in their mighty whiskers and ornamented vests, the touts and runners and swell mobsmen slipping through the press like ferrets, the pot-boys from the Lord's pub thrusting along with trays loaded with beer and lemonade, crying "Way, order, gents! Way, order!"; old John Gully, the retired pug, standing like a great oak tree, feet planted wide, smiling his gentle smile as he talked to Alfred Mynn, whose scarlet waist-scarf and straw boater were a magnet for the eyes of the hero-worshipping youngsters, jostling at a respectful distance from these giants of the sporting world; the grooms pushing a way for some doddering old Duke, passing through nodding and tipping his tile, with his poule-of-the-moment arm-in-arm, she painted and bold-eyed and defiant as the ladies turned the other way with a rustle of skirts; the bowling green and archery range going full swing, with the thunk of the shafts mingling with the distant pomping of the artillery band, the chatter and yelling of the vendors, the grind of coach-wheels and the warm hum of summer ebbing across the great green field where Stevie Slatter's boys were herding away the sheep and warning off the bob-a-game players; the crowds ten-deep at the nets to see Pilch at batting practice, or Felix, agile as his animal namesake, bowling those slow lobs that seemed to hang forever in the air.

Or I see it in the late evening sun, the players in their white top-hats trooping in from the field, with the ripple of applause running round the ropes, and the urchins streaming across to worship, while the old buffers outside the pavilion clap and cry "Played, well played!" and raise their tankards, and the Captain tosses the ball to some round-eyed small boy who'll guard it as a relic for life, and the scorer climbs stiffly down from his eyrie and the shadows lengthen across the idyllic scene, the very picture of merry, sporting old England, with the umpires bundling up the stumps, the birds calling in the tall trees, the gentle evenfall stealing over the ground and the pavilion, and the empty benches, and the willow wood-pile behind the sheep pen where Flashy is plunging away on top of the landlord's daughter in the long grass. Aye, cricket was cricket then.

Barring the last bit, which took place on another joyous occasion, that's absolutely what it was like on the afternoon when the Gentlemen of Rugby, including your humble servant, went out to play the cracks of Kent (twenty to one on, and no takers). At first I thought it was going to be a frost, for while most of my team-mates were pretty civil - as you'd expect, to the Hector of Afghanistan - the egregious Brown was decidedly cool, and so was Brooke, who'd been head of the school in my time and was the apple of Arnold's eye - that tells you all you need to know about him; he was clean-limbed and handsome and went to church and had no impure thoughts and was kind to animals and old ladies and was a midshipman in the Navy; what happened to him I've no idea, but I hope he absconded with the ship's funds and the admiral's wife and set up a knocking-shop in Valparaiso. He and Brown talked in low voices in the pavilion, and glanced towards me; rejoicing, no doubt, over the sinner who hadn't repented.

quote:

Then it was time to play, and Brown won the toss and elected to bat, which meant that I spent the next hour beside Elspeth's chair, trying to hush her imbecile observations on the game, and waiting for my turn to go in. It was a while coming, because either Kent were going easy to make a game of it, or Brooke and Brown were better than you'd think, for they survived the opening whirlwind of Mynn's attack, and when the twisters came on, began to push the score along quite handsomely. I'll say that for Brown, he could play a deuced straight bat, and Brooke was a hitter. They put on thirty for the first wicket, and our other batters were game, so that we had seventy up before the tail was reached, and I took my leave of my fair one, who embarrassed me damnably by assuring her neighbours that I was sure to make a score, because I was so strong and clever. I hastened to the pavilion, collared a pint of ale from the pot-boy, and hadn't had time to do more than blow off the froth when there were two more wickets down, and Brown says: "In you go, Flashman."

quote:

cover point took on a meaning that you won't find in "Wisden", I know

quote:

old John Gully, the retired pug

quote:

the crowds ten-deep at the nets

quote:

to see Pilch at batting practice, or Felix, agile as his animal namesake, bowling those slow lobs that seemed to hang forever in the air.

quote:

the egregious Brown was decidedly cool, and so was Brooke, who'd been head of the school in my time and was the apple of Arnold's eye

quote:

Here comes Speedicut, and Flashman the School-house bully, with shouts and great action. Won't you two come up to young Brooke, after locking-up, by the School-house fire, with “Old fellow, wasn't that just a splendid scrummage by the three trees?” But he knows you, and so do we.

quote:

Gentlemen of Rugby vs the cracks of Kent

quote:

Flashy waxing nostalgic over cricket

quote:

I see myself, an awkward overgrown boy, fielding anxiously at mid-on. And there’s Ned Noakes, the whiskered and one-eyed wicketkeeper, alert and active, though he’s forty-five if he’s a day. With his one eye (and a glass one) he sees more than most of us do, and his enthusiasm for the game is apparent in every attitude. Alongside of him lounges big Will Picksett, a taciturn good-natured young yokel; though over-deliberate in his movements, Will is a tower of strength in the team, and he sweeps half-volleys to the boundary with his enormous brown arms as though he were scything a hayfield.

But there is no more time to describe the fielders, for Dodd has thrown a bright red ball to Frank Peckham, who is to begin the bowling from the top end. While Crump and Bishop are still on their way to the wickets I cannot help wondering whether, to modern eyes, the Butley team would not seem just a little unorthodox. William Dodd, for example, comfortably dressed in a pale pink shirt and grey trousers; and Peter Baitup, the ground-man (whose face is framed in a ‘Newgate fringe,’) wearing dingy white trousers with thin green stripes, and carrying his cap in his belt while he bowls his tempting left-hand slows. But things were different in those days.

quote:

So I picked up a bat from beside the flagstaff, threaded my way through the crowd who turned to look curiously at the next man in, and stepped out on to the turf- you must have done it yourselves often enough, and remember the silence as you walk out to the wicket, so far away, and perhaps there's a stray handclap, or a cry of "Go it, old fellow!", and no more than a few spectators loafing round the ropes, and the fielding side sit or lounge about, stretching in the sun, barely glancing at you as you come in. I knew it well enough, but as I stepped over the ropes I happened to glance up - and Lord's truly smote me for the first time. Round the great emerald field, smooth as a pool table, there was this mighty mass of people, ten deep at the boundary, and behind them the coaches were banked solid, wheel to wheel, crowded with ladies and gentlemen, the whole huge multitude hushed and expectant while the sun caught the glittering eyes of thousands of opera-glasses and binocles glaring at me - it was damned unnerving, with that vast space to be walked across, and my bladder suddenly holding a bushel, and I wished I could scurry back into the friendly warm throng behind me.

You may think it odd that nervous funk should grip me just then; after all, my native cowardice has been whetted on some real worthwhile horrors - Zulu impis and Cossack cavalry and Sioux riders, all intent on rearranging my circulatory and nervous systems in their various ways; but there were others to share the limelight with me then, and it's a different kind of fear, anyway. The minor ordeals can be damned scaring simply because you know you're going to survive them.

quote:

It didn't last above a second, while I gulped and hesitated and strode on, and then the most astounding thing happened. A murmur passed along the banks of people, and then it grew to a roar, and suddenly it exploded in the most deafening cheering you ever heard; you could feel the shock of it rolling across the ground, and ladies were standing up and fluttering their handkerchieves and parasols, and the men were roaring hurrah and waving their hats, and jumping up on the carriages, and in the middle of it all the brass band began to thump out "Rule, Britannia", and I realized they weren't cheering the next man in, but saluting the hero of Jallalabad, and I was fairly knocked sideways by the surprise of it all. However, I fancy I played it pretty well, raising my white topper right and left while the music and cheering pounded on, and hurrying to get to the wicket as a modest hero should. And here was slim little Felix, in his classroom whiskers and charity boy's cap, smiling shyly and holding out his hand - Felix, the greatest gentleman bat in the world, mark you, leading me to the wicket and calling for three cheers from the Kent team. And then the silence fell, and my bat thumped uncommon loud as I hit it into the blockhole, and the fielders crouched, and I thought, oh God, this is the serious business, and I'm bound to lay an egg on the scorer, I know I am, and after such a welcome, too, and with my bowels quailing I looked up the wicket at Alfred Mynn.

quote:

He was a huge man at the best of times, six feet odd and close on twenty stone, with a face like fried ham garnished with a double helping of black whisker, but now he looked like Goliath, and if you think a man can't tower above you from twenty-five yards off, you ain't seen young Alfie. He was smiling, idly tossing up the ball which looked no bigger than a cherry in his massive fist, working one foot on the turf - pawing it, bigod. Old Aislabie gave me guard, quavered "Play!" I gripped my bat, and Mynn took six quick steps and swung his arm.

I saw the ball in his hand, at shoulder height, and then something fizzed beside my right knee, I prepared to lift my bat - and the wicket-keeper was tossing the ball to Felix at point. I swallowed in horror, for I swear I never saw the damned thing go, and someone in the crowd cries, "Well let alone, sir!" There was a little puff of dust settling about four feet in front of me; that's where he pitches, thinks I, oh Jesus, don't let him hit me! Felix, crouching facing me, barely ten feet away, edged just a little closer, his eyes fixed on my feet; Mynn had the ball again, and again came the six little steps, and I was lunging forward, eyes tight shut, to get my bat down where the dust had jumped last time. I grounded it, my bat leaped as something hit it a hammer blow, numbing my wrists, and I opened my eyes to see the ball scuttling off to leg behind the wicket. Brooke yells "Come on!", and the lord knows I wanted to, but my legs didn't answer, and Brooke had to turn back, shaking his head.

This has got to stop, thinks I, for I'll be maimed for life if I stay here. And panic, mingled with hate and rage, gripped me as Mynn turned again; he strode up to the wicket, arm swinging back, and I came out of my ground in a huge despairing leap, swinging my bat for dear life - there was a sickening crack and in an instant of elation I knew I'd caught it low down on the outside edge, full swipe, the bloody thing must be in Wiltshire by now, five runs for certain, and I was about to tear up the pitch when I saw Brooke was standing his ground, and Felix, who'd been fielding almost in my pocket, was idly tossing the ball up in his left hand, shaking his head and smiling at me.

How he'd caught it only he and Satan know; it must have been like snatching a bullet from the muzzle. But he hadn't turned a hair, and I could only trudge back to the pavilion, while the mob groaned in sympathy, and I waved my bat to them and tipped my tile- after all I was a bowler, and at least I'd taken a swing at it. And I'd faced three balls from Alfred Mynn.

We closed our hand at 91, Flashy caught Felix...

quote:

... nought, and it was held to be a very fair score, although Kent were sure to pass it easily, and since it was a single-hand match that would be that. In spite of my blank score - how I wished I had gone for that single off the second ball! - I was well received round the pavilion, for it was known who I was by now, and several gentlemen came to shake my hand, while the ladies eyed my stalwart frame and simpered to each other behind their parasols; Elspeth was glowing at the splendid figure I had cut in her eyes, but indignant that I had been out when my wicket hadn't been knocked down, because wasn't that the object of the game? I explained that I had been caught out, and she said it was a most unfair advantage, and that little man in the cap must be a great sneak, at which the gentlemen around roared with laughter and ogled her, calling for soda punch for the lady and swearing she must be taken on to the committee to amend the rules.

I contented myself with a glass of beer before we went out to field, for I wanted to be fit to bowl, but damme if Brown didn't leave me loafing in the outfield, no doubt to remind me that I was a whoremonger and therefore not fit to take an over. I didn't mind, but lounged about pretty nonchalant, chatting with the townies near the ropes, and shrugging my shoulders eloquently when Felix or his partner made a good hit, which they did every other ball. They fairly knocked our fellows all over the wicket, and had fifty up well within the hour; I observed to the townies that what we wanted was a bit of ginger, and limbered my arm, and they cheered and began to cry: "Bring on the Flash chap! Huzza for Afghanistan!" and so forth, which was very gratifying.

I'd been getting my share of attention from the ladies in the carriages near my look-out, and indeed had been so intent on winking and swaggering that I'd missed a long hit, at which Brown called pretty sharply to me to mind out; now one or two of the more spirited ladybirds began to echo the townies, who egged them on, so that "Bring on the Flash chap!" began to echo round the ground, in gruff bass and piping soprano. Finally Brown could stand it no longer, and waved me in, and the mob cheered like anything, and Felix smiled his quiet smile and took fresh guard.

quote:

On the whole he treated my first over with respect, for he took only eleven off it, which was better than I deserved. For of course I flung my deliveries down with terrific energy, the first one full pitch at his head, and the next three horribly short, in sheer nervous excitement. The crowd loved it, and so did Felix, curse him; he didn't reach the first one, but he drew the second beautifully for four, cut the third on tip-toe, and swept the last right off his upper lip and into the coaches near the pavilion.

How the crowd laughed and cheered, while Brown bit his lip with vexation, and Brooke frowned his disgust. But they couldn't take me off after only one turn; I saw Felix say something to his partner, and the other laughed - and as I walked back to my look-out a thought crept into my head, and I scowled horribly and clapped my hands in disgust, at which the spectators yelled louder than ever. "Give 'em the Afghan pepper, Flashy!" cries one, and "Run out the guns!" hollers another; I waved my fist and stuck my hat on the back of my head, and they cheered and laughed again.

They gave a huge shout when Brown called me up for my second turn, and settled themselves to enjoy more fun and fury. You'll get it, my boys, thinks I, as I thundered up to the wicket, with the mob counting each step, and my first ball smote about half-way down the pitch, flew high over the batsman's head, and they ran three byes. That brought Felix to face me again, and I walked back, closing my ears to the shouting and to Brown's muttered rebuke. I turned, and just from the lift of Felix's shoulders I could see he was getting set to knock me into the trees; I fixed my eye on the spot dead in line with his off stump - he was a left-hander, which left the wicket wide as a barn door to my round delivery - and ran up determined to bowl the finest, fastest ball of my life.

And so I did. Very well, I told you I was a good bowler, and that was the best ball I ever delivered, which is to say it was unplayable. I had dropped the first one short on purpose, just to confirm what everyone supposed from the first over - that I was a wild chucker, with no more head than flat beer. But the second had every fibre directed at that spot, with just a trifle less strength than I could muster, to keep it steady, and from the moment it left my hand Felix was gone. Granted I was lucky, for the spot must have been bald; it was a shooter, skidding in past his toes when he expected it round his ears, and before he could smother it his stump was cart-wheeling away.

The yell that went up split the heaven, and he walked past me shaking his head and shooting me a quizzy look while the fellows slapped my back, and even Brooke condescended to cry "Well bowled!" I took it very offhand, but inside I was thinking: "Felix! Felix, by God!"— I'd not have swapped that wicket for a peerage. Then I was brought back to earth, for the crowd were cheering the new man in, and I picked up the ball and turned to face the tall, angular figure with the long-reaching arms and the short-handled bat.

I'd seen Fuller Pilch play at Norwich when I was a young shaver, when he beat Marsden of Yorkshire for the single-wicket championship of England; so far as I ever had a boyhood hero, it was Pilch, the best professional of his day - some say of any day, although it's my belief this new boy Rhodes may be as good. Well, Flash, thinks I, you've nothing to lose, so here goes at him.

quote:

Now, what I'd done to Felix was head bowling, but what came next was luck, and nothing else. I can't account for it yet, but it happened, and this is how it was. I did my damndest to repeat my great effort, but even faster this time, and in consequence I was just short of a length; whether Pilch was surprised by the speed, or the fact that the ball kicked higher than it had any right to do, I don't know, but he was an instant slow in reaching forward, which was his great shot. He didn't ground his bat in time, the ball came high off the blade, and I fairly hurled myself down the pitch, all arms and legs, grabbing at a catch I could have held in my mouth. I nearly muffed it, too, but it stuck between finger and thumb, and the next I knew they were pounding me on the back, and the townies were in full voice, while Pilch turned away slapping his bat in vexation. "Bloody gravel!" cries he. "Hasn't Dark got any brooms, then?" He may have been right, for all I know.

By now, as you may imagine, I was past caring. Felix - and Pilch. There was nothing more left in the world just then, or so I thought; what could excel those twin glorious strokes? My grandchildren will never believe this, thinks I, supposing I have any - by George, I'll buy every copy of the sporting press for the next month, and paper old Morrison's bedroom with 'em. And yet the best was still to come.

Mynn was striding to the crease; I can see him now, and it brings back to me a line that Macaulay wrote in that very year: "And now the cry is `Aster'! and lo, the ranks divide, as the great Lord of Luna comes on with stately stride." That was Alfred the Great to a "t", stately and magnificent, with his broad crimson sash and the bat like a kid's paddle in his hand; he gave me a great grin as he walked by, took guard, glanced leisurely round the field, tipped his straw hat back on his head, and nodded to the umpire, old Aislabie, who was shaking with excitement as he called "Play!"

quote:

I'd got Felix by skill, Pilch by luck, and I'd get Mynn by knavery or perish in the attempt. I fairly flung myself up to the crease, and let go a perfect snorter, dead on a length but a good foot wide of the leg stump. It bucked, Mynn stepped quickly across to let it go by, it flicked his calf, and by that time I was bounding across Aislabie's line of sight, three feet off the ground, turning as I sprang and yelling at the top of my voice "How was he there, sir?"

Now, a bowler who's also a Gentleman of Rugby don't appeal unless he believes it; that gooseberry-eyed old fool Aislabie hadn't seen a damned thing with me capering between him and the scene of the crime, but he concluded there must be something in it, as I knew he would, and by the time he had fixed his watery gaze, Mynn, who had stepped across, was plumb before the stumps. And Aislabie would have been more than human if he had resisted the temptation to give the word that everyone in that ground except Alfie wanted to hear. "Out!" cries he. "Yes, out, absolutely! Out! Out!"

It was bedlam after that; the spectators went wild, and my team-mates simply seized me and rolled me on the ground; the cheering was deafening, and even Brown pumped me by the hand and slapped me on the shoulder, yelling "Bowled, oh, well bowled, Flashy!" (You see the moral: cover every strumpet in London if you've a mind to, it don't signify so long as you can take wickets.) Mynn went walking by, shaking his head and cocking an eyebrow in Aislabie's direction -- he knew it was a crab decision, but he beamed all over his big red face like the sporting rear end he was, and then did something which has passed into the language: he took off his boater, presented it to me with a bow, and says: "That trick's worth a new hat any day, youngster."

(I'm damned if I know which trick he meant, and I don't much care; I just know the leg-before-wicket rule is a perfectly splendid one, if they'll only let it alone.)

After that, of course, there was only one thing left to do. I told Brown that I'd sprained my arm with my exertions -- brought back the rheumatism contracted from exposure in Afghanistan, very likely...horrid shame...just when I was finding a length...too bad...worst of luck...field all right, though...(I wasn't going to run the risk of having the other Kent men paste me all over the ground, not for anything.) So I went back to the deep field, to a tumultuous ovation from the gallery, which I acknowledged modestly with a tip of Mynn's hat, and basked in my glory for the rest of the match, which we lost by four wickets. (If only that splendid chap Flashman had been able to go on bowling, eh? Kent would have been knocked all to smash in no time. They do say he has a jezzail bullet in his right arm still - no it ain't, it was a spear thrust - I tell you I read it in the papers, etc., etc.)

It was beer all round in the pavilion afterwards, with all manner of congratulations - Felix shook my hand again, ducking his head in that shy way of his, and Mynn asked was I to be home next year, for if the Army didn't find a use for me, he could, in the casual side which he would get together for the Grand Cricket Week at Canterbury. This was flattery on the grand scale, but I'm not sure that the sincerest tribute I got wasn't Fuller Pilch's knitted brows and steady glare as he sat on a bench with his tankard, looking me up and down for a full two minutes and never saying a word.

quote:

Felix, crouching facing me, barely ten feet away, edged just a little closer, his eyes fixed on my feet

quote:

We closed our hand at 91

quote:

Flashman bowls Felix out

quote:

Golden duck for Pilch

quote:

A shocker for Mynn

quote:

Three balls, three batters out

quote:

old Aislabie's a Rugby man, and it was out of pride in the old school that he arranged this fixture; honest as God, to be sure, but like all enthusiasts he'll see what he wants to see, won't he?

quote:

“Come, none of your irony, Brown,” answers the master. “I'm beginning to understand the game scientifically. What a noble game it is, too!”

“Isn't it? But it's more than a game. It's an institution,” said Tom.

“Yes,” said Arthur—“the birthright of British boys old and young, as habeas corpus and trial by jury are of British men.”

“The discipline and reliance on one another which it teaches is so valuable, I think,” went on the master, “it ought to be such an unselfish game. It merges the individual in the eleven; he doesn't play that he may win, but that his side may.”

“That's very true,” said Tom, “and that's why football and cricket, now one comes to think of it, are such much better games than fives or hare-and-hounds, or any others where the object is to come in first or to win for oneself, and not that one's side may win.”

Trin Tragula posted:

“That's very true,” said Tom, “and that's why football and cricket, now one comes to think of it, are such much better games than fives or hare-and-hounds, or any others where the object is to come in first or to win for oneself, and not that one's side may win.”

Arbite posted:

It was all taking shape even as I ran up to the wicket: I'd got Felix by skill, Pilch by luck, and I'd get Mynn by knavery or perish in the attempt. I fairly flung myself up to the crease, and let go a perfect snorter, dead on a length but a good foot wide of the leg stump. It bucked, Mynn stepped quickly across to let it go by, it flicked his calf, and by that time I was bounding across Aislabie's line of sight, three feet off the ground, turning as I sprang and tumultuous ovation from the gallery, which I acknowledged modestly with a tip of Mynn's hat, and basked in my glory for the rest of the match, which we lost by four wickets. (If only that splendid chap Flashman had been able to go on bowling, eh? Kent would have been knocked all to smash in no time. They do say he has a jezzail bullet in his right arm still - no it ain't, it was a spear thrust - I tell you I read it in the papers, etc., etc.)

quote:

It was all taking shape even as I ran up to the wicket: I'd got Felix by skill, Pilch by luck, and I'd get Mynn by knavery or perish in the attempt. I fairly flung myself up to the crease, and let go a perfect snorter, dead on a length but a good foot wide of the leg stump. It bucked, Mynn stepped quickly across to let it go by, it flicked his calf, and by that time I was bounding across Aislabie's line of sight, three feet off the ground, turning as I sprang and yelling at the top of my voice "How was he there, sir?"

Now, a bowler who's also a Gentleman of Rugby don't appeal unless he believes it; that gooseberry-eyed old fool Aislabie hadn't seen a d----d thing with me capering between him and the scene of the crime, but he concluded there must be something in it, as I knew he would, and by the time he had fixed his watery gaze, Mynn, who had stepped across, was plumb before the stumps. And Aislabie would have been more than human if he had resisted the temptation to give the word that everyone in that ground except Alfie wanted to hear. "Out!" cries he. "Yes, out, absolutely! Out! Out!"

It was bedlam after that; the spectators went wild, and my team-mates simply seized me and rolled me on the ground; the cheering was deafening, and even Brown pumped me by the hand and slapped me on the shoulder, yelling "Bowled, oh, well bowled, Flashy!" (You see the moral: cover every strumpet in London if you've a mind to, it don't signify so long as you can take wickets.) Mynn went walking by, shaking his head and cocking an eyebrow in Aislabie's direction -- he knew it was a crab decision, but he beamed all over his big red face like the sporting rear end he was, and then did something which has passed into the language: he took off his boater, presented it to me with a bow, and says: "That trick's worth a new hat any day, youngster."

(I'm d----d if I know which trick he meant, and I don't much care; I just know the leg-before-wicket rule is a perfectly splendid one, if they'll only let it alone.)

After that, of course, there was only one thing left to do. I told Brown that I'd sprained my arm with my exertions -- brought back the rheumatism contracted from exposure in Afghanistan, very likely...horrid shame...just when I was finding a length...too bad...worst of luck...field all right, though...(I wasn't going to run the risk of having the other Kent men paste me all over the ground, not for anything.) So I went back to the deep field, to a tumultuous ovation from the gallery, which I acknowledged modestly with a tip of Mynn's hat, and basked in my glory for the rest of the match, which we lost by four wickets. (If only that splendid chap Flashman had been able to go on bowling, eh? Kent would have been knocked all to smash in no time. They do say he has a jezzail bullet in his right arm still - no it ain't, it was a spear thrust - I tell you I read it in the papers, etc., etc.)

Genghis Cohen & Phenotype posted:

Missing content.

sebmojo posted:

Yeah with lbw the idea is that the only legitimate thing to defend your wicket stumps with is your bat.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underarm_bowling_incident_of_1981 for another incident of cricketing perfidy for which our criminal cousins are still infamous

quote:

Even the doddering Duke came up to compliment me and say that my style reminded him absolutely of his own—“Did I not remark it to you, my dear?” says he to his languid tart, who was fidgeting with her parasol and stifling a yawn while showing me her handsome profile and weighing me out of the corner of her eye. “Did I not observe that Mr Flashman’s shooter was just like the one I bowled out Beauclerk with at Maidstone in ’06?—directed to his off stump, sir, caught him goin’ back, you understand, pitched just short, broke and shot, middle stump, bowled all over his wicket—ha! ha! what?”

I had to steady the old fool before he tumbled over demonstrating his action, and his houri, assisting, took the opportunity to rub a plump arm against me. “No doubt we shall have the pleasure of seeing you at Canterbury next summer, Mr Flashman,” she murmurs, and the old pantaloon cries aye, aye, capital notion, as she helped him away; I made a note to look her up then, since she’d probably have killed him in the course of the winter.

It wasn’t till I was towelling myself in the bathhouse, and getting outside a brandy punch, that I realised I hadn’t seen Elspeth since the match ended, which was odd, since she’d hardly miss a chance to bask in my reflected glory. I dressed and looked about; no sign of her among the thinning crowd, or outside the pavilion, or at the ladies’ tea tables, or at our carriage; coachee hadn’t seen her either. There was a fairish throng outside the pub, but she’d hardly be there, and then someone plucked my sleeve, and I turned to find a large, beery-faced individual with black button eyes at my elbow.

quote:

“Mr Flashman, sir, best respex,” says he, and tapped his low-crown hat with his cudgel. “You’ll forgive the liberty, I’m sure—Tighe’s the monicker, Daedalus Tighe, ev’yone knows me, agent an’ accountant to the gentry—” and he pushed a card in my direction between sweaty fingers. “Takin’ the hoppor-toonity, my dear sir an’ sportsman, of presentin’ my compliments an’ best vishes, an’—”

“Thank’ee,” says I, “but I’ve no bets to place.”

“My dear sir!” says he, beaming. “The werry last idea!” And he invited his cronies, a seedy-flash bunch, to bear him witness. “My makin’ so bold, dear sir, was to inwite you to share my good fortun’, seein’ as ’ow you’ve con-tribooted so ’andsome to same—namely, an’ first, by partakin’ o’ some o’ this ’ere French jam-pain—poodle’s piss to some, but as drunk in the bes’ hestablishments by the werriest swells such as—your good self, sir. Wincent,” says he, “pour a glass for the gallant—”

“Another time,” says I, giving him my shoulder, but the brute had the effrontery to catch my arm.

“’Old on, sir!” cries he. “’Arf a mo’, that’s on’y the sociable pree-liminary. I’m vishful to present to your noble self the—”

“Go to the devil!” snaps I. He stank of brandy.

“—sum of fifty jemmy o’ goblins, as an earnest o’ my profound gratitood an’ respeck. Wincent!”

quote:

And damned if the weasel at his elbow wasn’t thrusting a glass of champagne at me with one hand and a fistful of bills in the other. I stopped short, staring.

“What the deuce…?”

“A triflin’ token of my hes-teem,” says Tighe. He swayed a little, leering at me, and for all the reek of booze, the flash cut of his coat, the watch-chain over his flowery silk vest, and the gaudy bloom in his lapel—the marks of the vulgar sport, in fact—the little eyes in his fat cheeks were as hard as coals. “You vun it for me, my dear sir—an’ plenty to spare, damne. Didn’t ’e, though?” His confederates, crowding round, chortled and raised their glasses. “By the sweat—yore pardon, sir—by the peerspyration o’ yore brow—an’ that good right arm, vot sent back Felix, Pilch, ’an Alfred Mynn in three deliveries, sir. Look ’ere,” and he snapped a finger to Vincent, who dropped the glass to whip open a leather satchel at his waist—it was stuffed with notes and coin.

“You, sir, earned that. You did, though. Ven you put avay Fuller Pilch—an’ veren’t that a ’andsome catch, now?—I sez to Fat Bob Napper, vot reckons e’s king o’ the odds an’ evens—’Napper,’ sez I, ‘that’s a ’ead bowler, that is. Vot d’ye give me ’e don’t put out Mynn, first ball?’ ‘Gammon,’ sez ’e. ‘Three in a row—never! Thahsand to one, an’ you can pay me now.’ Generous odds, sir, you’ll allow.” And the rascal winked and tapped his nose. “So—hon goes my quid—an’ ’ere’s Napper’s thahsand, cash dahn, give ’im that—an’ fifty on it’s yore’s, my gallant sir, vith the grateful compliments of Daedalus Tighe, Hesk-wire, agent an’ accountant to the gentry, ’oo ’ereby salutes”—and he raised his glass and belched unsteadily—“yore ’onner’s pardon, bastar them pickles—’oo salutes the most wicious right harm in the noble game o’ cricket today! Hip-hip-hip—hooray!”

I couldn’t help being amused at the brute, and his pack of rascals—drunken bookies and touts on the spree, and too far gone to appreciate their own impudence.

“My thanks for the thought, Mr Tighe,” says I, for it don’t harm to be civil to a bookie, and I was feeling easy, “you may drink my health with it.” And I pushed firmly past him, at which he staggered and sat down heavily in a froth of cheap champagne, while his pals hooted and weaved in to help him. Not that I couldn’t have used the fifty quid, but you can’t be seen associating with cads of that kidney, much less accepting their gelt. I strode on, with cries of “Good luck, sir!” and “Here’s to the Flash cove!” following me. I was still grinning as I resumed my search for Elspeth, but as I turned into the archery range for a look there, the smile was wiped off my lips—for there were only two people in the long alley between the hedges: the tall figure of a man, and Elspeth in his arms.

How are u posted:

Thanks for the cricket elaboration, it really is nice to have more context.

Notahippie posted:

However, it confirms my experience from having other British and Aussie friends explain it: even with footnotes and context, I fundamentally cannot understand this game. I think you probably have to watch it while also reviewing the rules or something.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

There's an extended set piece joke in one of the Aubrey/Maturin books that relies on the differences between English cricket and Irish hurling and after hours and hours on wikipedia and numerous explanations on this forum, I *still* don't get it.

quote:

the one I bowled out Beauclerk with

Genghis Cohen posted:

I thought that bit was fairly simple - Maturin, sent in to bat for his ship's side, has completely misunderstood Aubrey's explanation of the rules. He runs out to catch the ball with his hurling bat, dribbles forward and knocks down the other batsman's wicket. It's as if (in football, aka soccer) a midfielder had got possession of the ball, sprinted toward his own team's goal and scored an own goal.

I don't think there's much detailed knowledge of hurling required, it's more that Maturin didn't follow which team was supposed to guard the wickets.

withak posted:

Just picture Maturin joining a pickup basketball game then immediately drop-kicking the ball over the backboard and declaring victory.

quote:

I came to a dead halt, silent—for three reasons. First, I was astonished. Secondly, he was a big, vigorous brute, by what I could see of him—which was a massive pair of shoulders in a handsomely-cut broadcloth (no expense spared there), and thirdly, it passed quickly through my mind that Elspeth, apart from being my wife, was also my source of supply. Food for thought, you see, but before I had even an instant to taste it, they both turned their heads and I saw that Elspeth was in the act of stringing a shaft to a ladies’ bow—giggling and making a most appealing hash of it—while her escort, standing close in behind her, was guiding her hands, which of course necessitated putting his arms about her, with her head against his shoulder.

All very innocent—as who knows better than I, who’ve taken advantage of many such situations for an ardent squeeze and fondle?

quote:

“Why, Harry,” cries she, “where have you been all this while? See, Don Solomon is teaching me archery—and I have been making the sorriest show!” Which she demonstrated by fumbling the shaft, swinging her bow arm wildly, and letting fly into the hedge, squeaking with delighted alarm. “Oh, I am quite hopeless, Don Solomon, unless you hold my hands!”

“The fault is mine, dear Mrs Flashman,” says he, easily. He managed to keep an arm round her, while bowing in my direction. “But here is Mars, who I’m sure is a much better instructor for Diana than I could ever be.” He smiled and raised his hat. “Servant, Mr Flashman.”

I nodded, pretty cool, and looked down my nose at him, which wasn’t easy, since he was all of my height, and twice as big around—portly, you might say, if not fat, with a fleshy, smiling face, and fine teeth which flashed white against his swarthy skin. Dago, for certain, perhaps even Oriental, for his hair and whiskers were blue-black and curly, and as he came towards me he was moving with that mincing Latin grace, for all his flesh. A swell, too, by the elegant cut of his togs; diamond pin in his neckercher, a couple of rings on his big brown hands—and, by Jove, even a tiny gold ring in one ear. Part-n*****, not a doubt of it, and with all a rich n*****’s side, too.

quote:

“Oh, Harry, we have had such fun!” cries Elspeth, and my heart gave a little jump as I looked at her. The gold ringlets under her ridiculous bonnet, the perfect pink and white complexion, the sheer innocent beauty of her as she sparkled with laughter and reached out a hand to me. “Don Solomon has shown me bowling, and how to shoot—ever so badly!—and entertained me—for the cricket came so dull when you were not playing, with those tedious Kentish people popping away, and—”

“Hey?” says I, astonished. “You mean you didn’t see me bowl?”

“Why, no, Harry, but we had the jolliest time among the side-shows, with ices and hoop-la…” She prattled on, while the greaser raised his brows, smiling from one to the other of us.

“Dear me,” says he, “I fear I have lured you from your duty, dear Mrs Flashman. Forgive me,” he went on to me, “for I have the advantage of you still. Don Solomon Haslam, to command,” and he nodded and flicked his handkerchief. “Mr Speedicut, who I believe is your friend, presented me to your so charming lady, and I took the liberty of suggesting that we…take a stroll. If I had known you were to be put on…but tell me…any luck, eh?”

“Oh, not too bad,” says I, inwardly furious that while I’d been performing prodigies Elspeth had been fluttering at this oily flammer. “Felix, Pilch and Mynn, in three balls—if you call it luck. Now, my dear, if Mr Solomon will excuse—”

To my amazement he burst into laughter. “I would call it luck!” cries he. “That would be a daydream, to be sure! I’d settle for just one of ’em!”

“Well, I didn’t,” says I, glaring at him. “I bowled Felix, caught out Pilch, and had Mynn leg before—which probably don’t mean much to a foreigner—”

“Good God!” cries he. “You don’t mean it! You’re bamming us, surely?”

“Now, look’ee, whoever you are—”

“But—but—oh, my G-d!” He was fairly spluttering, and suddenly he seized my hand, and began pumping it, his face alight. “My dear chap—I can’t believe it! All three? And to think I missed it!” He shook his head, and burst out laughing again. “Oh, what a dilemma! How can I regret an hour spent with the loveliest girl in London—but, oh, Mrs Flashman, what you’ve cost me! Why, there’s never been anything like it! And to think that we were missing it all! Well, well, I’ve paid for my susceptibility to beauty, to be sure! Well done, my dear chap, well done! But this calls for celebration!”

I was fairly taken aback at this, while Elspeth looked charmingly bewildered, but nothing must do but he bore us off to where the liquor was, and demanded of me, action by action, a description of how I’d bowled out the mighty three. I’ve never seen a man so excited, and I’ll own I found myself warming to him; he clapped me on the shoulder, and slapped his knee with delight when I’d done.

quote:

“Well, I’m blessed! Why, Mrs Flashman, your husband ain’t just a hero—he’s a prodigy!” At which Elspeth glowed and squeezed my hand, which banished the last of my temper. “Felix. Pilch, and Mynn! Extraordinary. Well—I thought I was something of a cricketer, in my humble way—I played at Eton, you know—we never had a match with Rugby, alas! but I fancy I’d be a year or two before your time, anyway, old fellow. But this quite beats everything!”

It was fairly amusing, not least for the effect it was having on Elspeth. Here was this gaudy foreign buck, who’d come spooning round her, damned little flirt that she was, and now all his attention was for my cricket. She was between exulting on my behalf and pouting at being overlooked, but when we parted from the fellow, with fulsome compliments and assurances that we must meet again soon, on his side, and fair affability on mine, he won her heart by kissing her hand as though he’d like to eat it. I didn’t mind, by now; he seemed not a bad sort, for a ’breed, and if he’d been to Eton he was presumably half-respectable, and obviously rolling in rhino. All men slobbered over Elspeth, anyway.

quote:

So the great day ended, which I’ll never forget for its own splendid sake: Felix, Pilch, and Mynn, and those three ear-splitting yells from the mob as each one fell. It was a day that held the seed of great events, too, as you’ll see, and the first tiny fruit was waiting for us when we got back to Mayfair. It was a packet handed in at the door, and addressed to me, enclosing bills for fifty pounds, and a badly-printed note saying “With the compliments of D. Tighe, Esq.” Of all the infernal impudence; that bloody bookie, or whatever he was, having the starch to send cash to me, as though I were some pro, to be tipped.

I’d have kicked his backside to Whitechapel and back, or taken a cane to him for his presumption, if he’d been on hand. Since he wasn’t, I pocketed the bills and burned his letter; it’s the only way to put these upstarts in their place.

quote:

[Extract from the diary of Mrs H. Flashman, undated, 1842]

…to be sure, it was very natural of H. to pay some attention to the other ladies at Lord’s, for they were so forward in their admiration of him—and am I to blame you, less fortunate sisters? He looked so tall and proud and handsome, like the splendid English Lion that he is, that I felt quite faint with love and pride…to think that this striking man, the envy and admiration of all, is—my husband!! He is perfection, and I love him more than I can tell.

Still, I could wish that he had been a little less attentive to those ladies near us, who smiled and waved to him when he was in the field, and some even so far forgot the obligations of modesty upon our tender sex, as to call out to him! Of course, it is difficult for him to appear indifferent, so Admired as he is—and he has such an unaffected, gallant nature, and feels, I know, that he must acknowledge their flatteries, for fear that he should be thought lacking in that easy courtesy which becomes a gentleman. He is so Generous and Considerate, even to such déclassé persons as that odious Mrs Leo Lade, the Duke’s companion, whose admiration of H. was so open and shameless that it caused some remark, and made me blush for her reputation—which to be sure, she hasn’t any!!! But H.’s simple, boyish goodness can see no fault in anyone—not even such an abandoned female as I’m sure she is, for they say…but I will not sully your fair page, dear diary, with such a Paltry Thing as Mrs Leo.

Yet mention of her reminds me yet again of my Duty to Protect my dear one—for he is still such a boy, with all a boy’s naiveté and high spirit. Why, today, he looked quite piqued and furious at the attention shown to me by Don S.H., who is quite sans reproche and the most distinguished of persons. He has over fifty thousand a year, it is said, from estates and revenues in the Far East Indies, and is on terms with the Best in Society, and has been received by H.M. He is entirely English, although his mother was a Spanish Donna, I believe, and is of the most engaging manners and address, and the jolliest person besides. I confess I was not a little amused to find how I captivated him, which is quite harmless and natural, for I have noticed that Gentlemen of his Complexion are even more ardent in their addresses to the fair than those of Pure European Blood. Poor H. was not well pleased, I fear, but I could not help thinking it would do him no harm to be made aware that both sexes are wont to indulge in harmless gallantries, and if he is to be admired by such as Mrs L.L., he cannot object to the Don’s natural regard for me. And to be sure, they are not to be compared, for Don S.H.’s addresses are of the utmost discretion and niceness; he is amusing, with propriety, engaging without familiarity. No doubt we shall see much of him in Society this winter, but not so much, I promise, as will make my Dear Hero too jealous—he has such sensibility…

[End of extract—G. de R.]

quote:

It was eight months before I so much as gave a thought to cricket again, but I’m bound to say that even if it had been blazing summer from October to March I’d still have been too busy. You can’t conduct a passionate affair with Lola Montez, in which you fall foul of Otto Bismarck—which is what I was doing that autumn—and still have much time for recreation. Besides, this was the season when my fame was at its zenith, what with my visit to the Palace for the Kabul medal; in consequence I was in demand everywhere, and Elspeth, in her eagerness for the limelight, saw to it that I never had a moment’s peace—balls and parties and receptions, and devil a minute for serious raking. It was splendid, of course, to be the lion of the hour, but confounded exhausting.

But little enough happened to the point of my story, except that the stout Don Solomon Haslam played an increasingly lively part in our doings that winter. That was an odd fish, decidedly. Nobody, not even his old Eton chums, seemed to know much about him except that he was some kind of nabob, with connections in Leadenhall Street, but he was well received in Society, where his money and manners paid for all. And he seemed to be right in the know wherever he went—at the embassies, the smart houses, the sporting set, even at the political dinners; he was friendly with Haddington and Stanley at one end of the scale, and with such rascals as Deaf Jim Burke and Brougham at t’other. One night he would be dining with Aberdeen, and the next at Rosherville Gardens or the Cider Cellars, and he had a quiet gift of being first with the word from all quarters: if you wanted to know what was behind the toll riots, or the tale of Peel’s velveteens, ask Solomon; he had the latest joke about Alice Lowe, or Nelson’s Column, could tell you beforehand about the new race cup for Ascot, and had songs from the “Bohemian Girl” played in his drawing-room months before the opera was seen in London. It wasn’t that he was a gossip or couch-whisperer, either; whatever way the talk turned, he just knew the answers.

He ought to have been detestable, but strangely enough he wasn’t, for he didn’t push or show off. His entertainment was lavish, in his house on Brook Street, where he gave a Chinese Party that was said to have cost twenty thou., and was the talk for weeks, and his appearance was what the ladies called Romantic—I’ve told you about the earring, enough said—but with it all he managed to appear modest and unaffected. He could charm, I’ll say that for him, for he had the true gift of flattery, which is to show the keenest possible interest—and, of course, he had money to burn.

quote:

I didn’t mind him much, myself; he went out of his way to be pleasant to me, and once I had satisfied myself that his enthusiasm for Elspeth wasn’t likely to go the length, I tolerated him. She was ready to flirt with anything in breeches—and more than flirt, I suspected, but there were horny captains I was far leerier of than the Don. That bastard Watney, for one, and the lecherous snob Ranelagh, and I fancy young Conyngham was itching after her, too. But Solomon had no name as a rake; didn’t even keep a mistress, apparently, and did no damage round Windmill Street or any of my haunts, leastways. Another odd thing: he didn’t touch liquor, in any form.

Oddest of all, though, was the way that my father-in-law took to him. From time to time during that winter old Morrison came south from his lair in Paisley to inflict himself on us and carp about expense, and it was during one of these visits that we had Solomon to dine. Morrison took one look at the fashionable cut of his coat and Newgate knockers, sniffed, and muttered about “anither scented gommeril wi’ mair money than sense”, but before that dinner was through Solomon had him eating out of his palm.

Old Morrison had started off on one of his usual happy harangues about the state of the nation, so that for the first course we had cockaleekie soup, halibut with oyster sauce, and the income tax, removed with minced chicken patties, lamb cutlets, and the Mines Act, followed by a second course of venison in burgundy, fricassee of beef, and the Chartists, with grape ices, bilberry tart, and Ireland for dessert. Then the ladies (Elspeth and my father’s mistress, Judy, whom Elspeth had a great fancy for, God knows why) withdrew, and over the port we had the miners’ strike and the General Ruin of the Country.

Fine stuff, all of it, and my guv’nor went to sleep in his chair while Morrison held forth on the iniquity of those scoundrelly colliers who objected to having their infants dragging tubs naked through the seams for a mere fifteen hours a day.

“It’s the infernal Royal Commission,” cries he. “Makin’ mischief—aye, an’ it’ll spread, mark me. If bairns below the age o’ ten year is no’ tae work underground, how long will it be afore they’re prohibitin’ their employment in factories, will ye tell me? drat that whippersnapper Ashley! ‘Eddicate them’, says he, the eejit! I’d eddicate them, would I no’! An’ then there’s the Factory Act—that’ll be the next thing.”

quote:

“The amendment can’t pass for another two years,” says Solomon quietly, and Morrison glowered at him.

“How d’ye ken that?”

“It’s obvious, surely. We have the Mines Act, which is all the country can digest for the moment. But the shorter hours will come—probably within two years, certainly within three. Mr Horne’s report will see to that.”

His easy certainty impressed Morrison, who wasn’t used to being lectured on business; however, the mention of Horne’s name set him off again—I gathered this worthy was to publish a paper on child employment, which would inevitably lead to bankruptcies all round for deserving employers like my father-in-law, with free beer and holidays for the paupers, a workers’ rebellion, and invasion by the French.

“Not quite so much, perhaps,” smiles Solomon. “But his report will raise a storm, that’s certain. I’ve seen some of it.”

“Ye’ve seen it?” cries Morrison. “But it’s no’ oot till the New Year!” He glowered a moment. “Ye’re gey far ben,* sir.” He took an anxious gulp of port. “Does it…was there…that is, did ye chance tae see any mention o’ Paisley, maybe?”

Solomon couldn’t be certain, but said there was some shocking stuff in the report—infants tied up and lashed unmercifully by overseers, flogged naked through the streets when they were late; in one factory they’d even had their ears nailed down for bad work.

“It’s a lie!” bawls Morrison, knocking over his glass. “A damned lie! Never a bairn in oor shop had hand laid on it! Ma Goad—prayers at seeven, an’ a cup o’ milk an’ a piece tae their dinner—oot o’ ma ain pocket! Even a yard o’ yarn, whiles, as a gift, an’ me near demented wi’ pilferin’—”

quote:

Solomon soothed him by saying he was sure Morrison’s factories were paradise on earth, but added gravely that between the Horne report and slack trade generally, he couldn’t see many good pickings for manufacturers for some years to come. Overseas investment, that was the thing; why, there were millions a year to be made out of the Orient, by men who knew their business (as he did), and while Morrison sniffed a bit, and called it prospectus talk, you could see he was interested despite himself. He began to ask questions, and argue, and Solomon had every answer pat; I found it a dead bore, and left them prosing away, with my guv’nor snoring and belching at the table head—the most sensible noises I’d heard all night. But later, old Morrison was heard to remark that yon young Solomon had a heid on his shoothers, richt enough, a kenspeckle lad—no’ like some that sauntered and drank awa’ their time, an’ sponged off their betters, etc.

One result of all this was that Don Solomon Haslam was a more frequent visitor than ever, dividing his time between Elspeth and her sire, which was perverse variety, if you like. He was forever talking Far East trade with Morrison, urging him to get into it—he even suggested that the old bastard should take a trip to see for himself, which I’d have seconded, nem. con. I wondered if perhaps Solomon was some swell magsman trying to diddle the old rascal of a few thou.; some hopes, if he was. Anyway, they got along like a matched pair, and since Morrison was at this time expanding his enterprises, and Haslam was well-connected in the City, I dare say my dear relative found the acquaintance useful.

So winter and spring went by, and then in June I had two letters. One was from my Uncle Bindley at the Horse Guards, to say that negotiations were under way to procure me a lieutenancy in the Household Cavalry; this great honour, he was careful to point out, was due to my Afghan heroics, not to my social desirability, which in his opinion was negligible—he was from the Paget side of our family, you see, and affected to despise us common Flashmans, which showed he had more sense than manners. I was quite flown by this news, and almost equally elated by the other letter, which was from Alfred Mynn, reminding me of his invitation to play in his casual side at Canterbury. I’d been having a few games for the Montpeliers at the old Beehive field, and was in form, so I accepted straight off. It wasn’t just for the cricket, though: I had three good reasons for wanting to be out of Town just then. First, I had just encompassed Lola Montez’s ruin on the London stage, and had reason to believe that the mad bitchh was looking for me with a pistol—she was game for anything, you know, including murder; secondly, a female acrobat whom I’d been tupping was pretending that she was in foal, and demanding compensation with tears and menaces; and thirdly, I recalled that Mrs Lade, the Duke’s little piece, was to be in Canterbury for the Cricket Week.

Arbite posted:

he was some kind of nabob, with connections in Leadenhall Street

quote:

he was friendly with Haddington and Stanley at one end of the scale

quote:

and with such rascals as Deaf Jim Burke and Brougham at t’other

quote:

One night he would be dining with Aberdeen, and the next at Rosherville Gardens or the Cider Cellars

quote:

How long ago is it since gentlemen of the highest degree went to the Cider Cellars and the Coal Hole? Speculating on the changes in London at play, within the last five-and-twenty years, in that corner of Evans's where, any night, you could at once tell by a sudden influx that the House was up; we trundle back through the seasons, to the time when the bar parlour of the Cider Cellars-a dirty, stifling underground tavern in Maiden Lane, behind the Strand-was the meeting place from Fop's Alley, after the opera. The Cave of Harmony was a cellar for shameful song-singing-where members of both Houses, the pick of the Universities, and the bucks of the Row, were content to dwell in indecencies for ever.

quote:

the latest joke about Nelson’s Column,

quote:

had songs from the “Bohemian Girl” played in his drawing-room

quote:

The Mines Act and the Factories Act

quote:

I’d been having a few games for the Montpeliers at the old Beehive field

Arbite posted:

Now a little timeskip.

quote:

Besides, this was the season when my fame was at its zenith, what with my visit to the Palace for the Kabul medal; in consequence I was in demand everywhere, and Elspeth, in her eagerness for the limelight, saw to it that I never had a moment’s peace—balls and parties and receptions, and d---l(?) a minute for serious raking. It was splendid, of course, to be the lion of the hour, but confounded exhausting.

Trin Tragula posted:

quote:

When she had her London debut as "Lola Montez, the Spanish dancer" in June 1843, she was recognized as "Mrs. James." The resulting notoriety hampered her career in England, so she departed for the continent, where she had success in Paris and Warsaw.[10] At this time, she was almost certainly accepting favours from a few wealthy men, and was regarded by many as a courtesan

quote:

So you can see a change of scene was just what old Flashy needed; if I’d known the change I was going to get I’d have paid off the acrobat, let Mrs Lade go hang, and allowed Montez one clear shot at me running—and thought myself lucky. But we can’t see into the future, thank God.

I’d intended to go down to Canterbury on my own, but a week or so beforehand I happened to mention my visit to Haslam, in Elspeth’s presence, and right away he said famous, just the thing; he was keen as mustard on cricket himself, and he’d take a house there for the week: we must be his guests, he would get together a party, and we’d make a capital holiday of it. He was like that, expense was no object with him, and in a moment he had Elspeth clapping her hands with promises of picnic and dances and all sorts of junketings.

“Oh, Don, how delightful!” cries she. “Why, it will be the jolliest thing, and Canterbury is the most select place, I believe—yes, there is a regiment there—but, oh, what shall I have to wear? One needs a very different style out of London, you see, especially if many of our lunches are to be al fresco, and some of the evening parties are sure to be out of doors—oh, but what about poor, dear Papa?”

I should have added that another reason for my leaving London was to get away from old Morrison, who was still infesting our premises. In fact, he’d been taken ill in May—not fatally, unfortunately. He claimed it was overwork, but I knew it was the report of the child employment commission which, as Don Solomon had predicted, had caused a shocking uproar when it came out, for it proved that our factories were rather worse than the Siberian salt mines. Names hadn’t been named, but questions were being asked in the Commons, and Morrison was terrified that at any moment he’d be exposed for the slave-driving swine he was. So the little villain had taken to his bed, more or less, with an attack of the nervous guilts, and spent his time damning the commissioners, snarling at the servants, and snuffing candles to save money.

quote:

Of course Haslam said he must come with us; the change of air would do him good; myself. I thought a change from air was what the old pest required, but there was nothing I could do about it, and since my first game for Mynn’s crew was on a Monday afternoon, it was arranged that the party should travel down the day before. I managed to steer clear of that ordeal, pleading business—in fact, young Conyngham had bespoken a room at the Magpie for a hanging on the Monday morning, but I didn’t let on to Elspeth about that. Don Solomon convoyed the party to the station for the special he’d engaged. Elspeth with enough trunks and bandboxes to start a new colony, old Morrison wrapped in rugs and bleating about the iniquity of travelling by railroad on the sabbath, and Judy, my father’s bit, watching the performance with her crooked little smile.

She and I never exchanged a word, nowadays. I’d rattled her (once) in the old days, when the guv’nor’s back was turned, but then she’d called a halt, and we’d had a fine, shouting turn-up in which I’d blacked her eye. Since then we’d been on civil-sneer terms, for the guv’nor’s sake, but since he’d recently been carted away again to the blue-devil factory to have the booze bogies chased out of his brain, Judy was devoting her time to being Elspeth’s companion—oh, we were a conventional little menage, sure enough. She was a handsome, knowing piece, and I squeezed her thigh for spite as I handed her into the carriage, got a blood-freezing glare for my pains, and waved them farewell, promising to meet them in Canterbury by noon next day.

quote:

I forget who they hung on the Monday, and it don’t matter anyway, but it was the only Newgate scragging I ever saw, and I had an encounter afterwards which is part of my tale. When I got to the Magpie on Sunday evening, Conyngham and his pals weren’t there, having gone across to the prison chapel to see the condemned man attend his last service; I didn’t miss a great deal apparently, for when they came back they were crying that it had been a dead bore—just the chaplain droning away and praying, and the murderer sitting in the black pen talking to the turnkey.

“They didn’t even have him sitting on his coffin,” cries Conyngham. “I thought they always had his coffin in the pew with him—drat you, Beresford, you told me they did!”

“Still, t’aint every day you see a chap attend his own burial service,” says another. “Don’t you just wish you may look as lively at your own, Conners?”

After that they all settled down to cards and boozing, with a buffet supper that went on all evening, and of course the girls were brought in—Snow Hill sluts that I wouldn’t have touched with a long pole. I was amused to see that Conyngham and the other younger fellows were in a rare sweat of excitement—quite feverish they got in their wining and wenching, and all because they were going to see a chap turned off. It was nothing to me, who’d seen hangings, beheadings, crucifixions and the Lord knows what in my wanderings; my interest was to see an English felon crapped in front of an English crowd, so in the meantime I settled down to écarté with Speedicut, and by getting him well foxed I cleaned him out before midnight.

By then most of the company were three-parts drunk or snoring, but they didn’t sleep long, for in the small hours the gallows-builders arrived, and the racket they made as they hammered up the scaffold in the street outside woke everyone. Conyngham remembered then that he had a sheriff’s order, so we all trooped across to Newgate to get a squint at the chap in the condemned cell, and I remember how that boozy, rowdy party fell silent once we were in Newgate Yard, with the dank black walls crowding in on either side, our steps sounding hollow in the stone passages, breathing short and whispering while the turnkey grinned horribly and rolled his eyes to give Conyngham his money’s worth.

quote:

I reckon the young sparks didn’t get it, though, for all they saw in the end was a man lying fast asleep on his stone bench, with his jailer resting on a mattress alongside; one or two of our party, having recovered their spunk by that time, wanted to wake him up, in the hope that he’d rave and pray. I suppose; Conyngham, who was wilder than most, broke a bottle on the bars and roared at the fellow to stir himself, but he just turned over on his side, and a little beadle-like chap in a black coat and tall hat came on the scene in a tearing rage to have us turned out.

“Vermin!” cries he, stamping and red in the face. “Have you no decency? Dear God, and these are meant to be the leaders of the nation! drat you, drat you, drat you all to hell!” He was incoherent with fury, and vowed the turnkey would lose his place; he absolutely threw Conyngham out bodily, but our bold boy wasn’t abashed; when he’d done giving back curse for curse he made a drunken dash for the scaffold, which was erected by now, black beams, barriers, and all, and managed to dance on the trap before the scandalised workmen threw him into the road.

His pals picked him up, laughing and cheering, and got him back to the Magpie; the crowd that was already gathering in the warm summer dawn grinned and guffawed as we went through, though there were some black looks and cries of “Shame!” The first eel-piemen were crying their wares in the street, and the vendors of tiny model gibbets and Courvoisier’s confession and pieces of rope from the last hanging (cut off some chandler’s stock that very morning, you may be sure) were having their breakfast in Lamb’s and the Magpie common room, waiting for the real mob to arrive; the lower kind of priggers and whores were congregating, and some family parties were already established at the windows, making a picnic of it; carters were putting their vehicles against the walls and offering places of vantage at sixpence a time; the warehousemen and porters who had their business to do were damning the eyes of those who obstructed their work, and the constables were sauntering up and down in pairs, moving on the beggars and drunks, and keeping a cold eye on the more obvious thieves and flash-tails. A bluff-looking chap in clerical duds was watching with lively interest as Conyngham was helped into the Magpie and up the stairs; he nodded civilly to me.

“Quiet enough so far,” says he, and I noticed that he carried his right arm at an odd angle, and his hand was crooked and waxy. “I wonder, sir, if I might accompany your party?” He gave me his name, but I’m shot if I recall it now.

I didn’t mind, so he came abovestairs, into the wreck of our front room, with the remains of the night’s eating and drinking being cleared away and breakfast set, and the sluts being chivvied out by the waiters, complaining shrilly; most of our party were looking pretty seedy, and didn’t make much of the chops and kidneys at all.

“First time for most of them,” says my new acquaintance. “Interesting, sir, most interesting.” At my invitation he helped himself to cold beef, and we talked and ate in one of the windows while the crowd below began to increase, until the whole street was packed tight as far as you could see both sides of the scaffold; a great, seething mob, with the peelers guarding the barriers, and hardly room enough for the dippers and mobsmen to ply their trade—there must have been every class of mortal in London there; all the dross of the underworld rubbing shoulders with tradesmen and City folk; clerks and counter-jumpers; family men with children perched on their shoulders; beggar brats scampering and tugging at sleeves; a lord’s carriage against a wall, and the mob cheering as its stout occupant was heaved on to the roof by his coachmen; every window was jammed with onlookers at two quid a time; there were galleries on the roofs with seats to let, and even the gutters and lamp-brackets had people clinging to them. A ragged little urchin came swinging along the Magpie’s wall like a monkey; he clung to our window-ledge with naked, grimy toes and fingers, his great eyes staring at our plates; my companion held out a chop to him, and it vanished in a twinkling into the ugly, chewing face.

Someone hailed from beneath our window, and I saw a burly, pug-nosed fellow looking up; my crooked-arm chap shouted down to him, but the noise and hooting and laughter of the crowd was too much for conversation, and presently my companion gave up, and says to me:

“Thought he might be here. Capital writer, just you watch; put us all in the shade presently. Did you follow Miss Tickletoby last summer?” From which I’ve since deduced that the cove beneath our window that day was Mr William Makepeace Thackeray. That was my closest acquaintance with him, though.

“It’s a solemn thought,” went on my companion, “that if executions were held in churches, we’d never lack for congregations—probably get much the same people as we do now, don’t you think? Ah—there we are!”

As he spoke the bell boomed, and the mob below began to roar off the strokes in unison: “One, two, three…” until the eighth peal, when there was a tremendous hurrah, which echoed between the buildings, and then died away in a sudden fall, broken only by the shrill wail of an infant. My companion whispered:

“St Sepulchre’s bell begins to toll,
The Lord have mercy on his soul.”

As the chatter of the crowd grew again, we looked across that craning sea of humanity to the scaffold, and there were the constables hurrying out of the Debtors’ Door from the jail, with the prisoner bound between them, up the steps, and on to the platform. The prisoner seemed to be half-asleep (“drugged,” says my companion; “they won’t care for that”). They didn’t, either, but began to stamp and yell and jeer, drowning out the clergyman’s prayer, while the executioner made fast the noose, slipped a hood over the condemned man’s head, and stood by to slip the bolt. There wasn’t a sound now, until a drunk chap sings out, “Good health, Jimmy!” and there were cries and laughter, and everyone stared at the white-hooded figure under the beam, waiting.

“Don’t watch him,” whispers my friend. “Look at your companions.”

I did, glancing along at the next window: every face staring, every mouth open, motionless, some grinning, some pale with fear, some in an almost vacant ecstasy. “Keep watching ’em,” says he, and pat on his words came the rattle and slam of the drop, an almighty yell from the crowd, and every face at the next window was eagerly alight with pleasure—Speedicut grinning and crowing, Beresford sighing and moistening his lips, Spotts-wood’s heavy face set in grim satisfaction, while his fancy woman clung giggling to his arm, and pretended to hide her face.

“Interesting, what?” says the man with the crooked arm. He put on his hat, tapped it down, and nodded amiably. “Well, I’m obliged to you, sir,” and off he went. Across the street the white-capped body was spinning slowly beneath the trap, a constable on the platform was holding the rope, and directly beneath me the outskirts of the crowd was dissolving into the taverns. Over in a corner of the room Conyngham was being sick.

Author's note posted:

From Flashman’s description of the “bluff-looking chap in clerical duds” with the crippled arm, it seems certain that he was Richard Harris Barham (1788-1845), author of The Ingoldsby Legends, of which one of the most famous relates how Lord Tomnoddy, accompanied by “…M’Fuze, and Lieutenant Tregooze, and…Sir Carnaby Jenks of the Blues”, attended a Newgate execution, and revelled the previous night at the Magpie and Stump, overlooking the street where the scaffold was erected. However, Barham’s inspiration did not come from the execution which Flashman describes; he wrote his famous piece of gallows humour some years earlier, but may well have attended later executions out of interest. Thackeray’s presence is interesting, since it suggests that he had got over the revulsion he felt at Courvoisier’s hanging three years earlier, when he could not bear to watch the final moment. (See Barham; The Times, July 7, 1840, and May 27, 1868, reporting the Courvoisier and Barret executions; Thackeray’s “Going to See a Man Hanged”, Fraser’s Magazine, July 1840; Dickens’ Barnaby Rudge and “A Visit to Newgate”, from Sketches by Boz; and Arthur Griffiths’ Chronicles of Newgate 1884 and Criminal Prisons of London 1862.)

quote:

I went downstairs and stood waiting for the crowd to thin, but most of ’em were still waiting in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the hanging corpse, which they couldn’t see for the throng in front. I was wondering how far I’d have to walk for a hack, when a man loomed up in front of me, and after a moment I recognised the red face, button eyes, and flash weskit of Mr Daedalus Tighe.

“Vell, vell, sir,” cries he, “here ve are again! I hears as you’re off to Canterbury—vell, you’ll give ’em better sport than that, I’ll be bound!” And he nodded towards the scaffold. “Did you ever see poorer stuff, Mr Flashman? Not vorth the vatchin’, sir, not vorth the vatchin’. Not a word out o’ him—no speech, no repentance, not even a struggle, blow me! That’s not vot ve’d ’ave called a ‘angin’, in my young day. You’d think,” says he, sticking his thumbs in his vest, “that a young cribsman like that there, vot ’adn’t no upbringin’ to speak of, nor never amounted to nothin’—till today—you’d think, sir, that on the great hocassion of ’is life, ’e’d show appreciation, ‘stead o’ lettin’ them drug ’im vith daffy. Vere vas his ambition, sir, allowin’ ’imself to be crapped like that there, ven ’e might ’ave reckernised the interest, sir, of all these people ’ere, an’ responded to same?” He beamed at me, head on one side. “No bottom, Mr Flashman; no game. Now, you, sir—you’d do your werry best if you vas misfortinit enough to be in his shoes—vhich Gawd forbid—an’ so should I, eh? Ve’d give the people vot they came for, like good game Henglishmen.

“Speakin’ of game,” he went on, “I trust you’re in prime condition for Canterbury. I’m countin’ on you, sir, countin’ on you, I am.”

Something in his tone raised a tiny prickle on my neck. I’d been giving him a cool stare, but now I made it a hard one.

“I don’t know what you mean, my man,” says I, “and I don’t care. You may take yourself—”

“No, no, no, my dear young sir,” says he, beaming redder than ever. “You’ve mistook me quite. Vot I’m indicatin’, sir, is that I’m interested—werry much interested, in the success of Mr Mynn’s Casual XI, vot I hexpec’ to carry all before ’em, for your satisfaction an’ my profit.” He closed an eye roguishly. “You’ll remember, sir, as ’ow I expressed my appreciation o’ your notable feat at Lord’s last year, by forwardin’ a token, a small gift of admiration, reelly—”

“I never had a damned thing from you,” says I, perhaps just a shade too quickly.

“You don’t say, sir? Vell, blow me, but you astonish me, sir—you reelly do. An’ me takin’ werry partikler care to send it to yore direction—an’ you never received same! Vell, vell,” and the little black eyes were hard as pebbles. “I vonder now, if that willain o’ mine, Wincent, slipped it in ’is cly, ‘stead o’ deliverin’ same to you? Hooman vickedness, Mr Flashman, sir, there ain’t no end to it. Still, sir, ve needn’t repine,” and he laughed heartily, “there’s more vere that come from, sir. An’ I can tell you, sir, that if you carries yore bat against the Irreg’lars this arternoon—vell, you can count to three hundred, I’ll be bound, eh?”

I stared at him, speechless, opened my mouth—and shut it. He regarded me benignly, winked again, and glanced about him.

“Terrible press, sir; shockin’. Vhy the peelers don’t chivvy these damned magsmen an’ cly-fakers—vhy, a gent like you ain’t safe; they’ll ’ave the teeth out yore ’ead, ’less you looks sharp. Scandalous, sir; vot you need’s a cab; that’s vot you need.”

He gave a nod, a burly brute close by gave a piercing whistle, and before you could wink there was a hack pushing through the crowd, its driver belabouring all who didn’t clear out fast enough. The burly henchman leaped to the horse’s head, another held the door, and Mr Tighe, hat in hand, was ushering me in, beaming wider than ever.

“An’ the werry best o’ luck this arternoon, sir,” cries he. “You’ll bowl them Irreg’lars aht in no time, I’ll wager, an’”—he winked again—“I do ‘ope as you carries your bat, Mr Flashman. Charin’ Cross, cabby!” And away went the cab, carrying a very thoughtful gentleman, you may be sure.

quote:

I considered the remarkable Mr Tighe all the way to Canterbury, too, and concluded that if he was fool enough to throw money away, that was his business—what kind of odds could he hope to get on my losing my wicket, for after all, I batted well down the list, and might easily carry my bat through the hand? Who’d wager above three hundred on that? Well, that was his concern, not mine—but I’d have to keep a close eye on him, and not become entangled with his sort; at least he wasn’t expecting me to throw the game, but quite the reverse; he was trying to bribe me to do well, in fact. H’m.

The upshot of it was, I bowled pretty well for Mynn’s eleven, and when I went to the wicket to bat, I stuck to my block-hole like glue, to the disappointment of the spectators, who expected me to slog. I was third last man in, so I didn’t have to endure long, and as Mynn himself was at t’other end, knocking off the runs, my behaviour was perfectly proper. We won by two wickets, Flashy not out, nil—and next morning, after breakfast, there was a plain packet addressed to me, with three hundred in bills inside.

I near as a toucher sealed it up again and told the footman to give it back to whoever had brought it—but I didn’t. Warm work—but three hundred is three hundred—and it was a gift, wasn’t it? I could always deny I’d ever seen it—G-d, I was an innocent then, for all my campaign experience.

This, of course, took place at the house which Haslam had taken just outside Canterbury, very splendid, gravel walks, fine lawns, shrubbery and trees, gaslight throughout, beautifully-appointed rooms, best of food and drink, flunkeys everywhere, and go-as-you-please. There were about a dozen house guests, for it was a great rambling place, and Haslam had seen to every comfort. He gave a sumptuous party on that first Monday night, at which Mynn and Felix were present, and the talk was all cricket, of course, but there were any number of ladies, too, including Mrs Leo Lade, smouldering at me across the table from under a heap of sausage curls, and in a dress so décolleté that her udders were almost in her soup. That’s one over we’ll bowl this week that won’t be a maiden, thinks I, and flashed my most loving smile to Elspeth, who was sparkling radiantly beside Don Solomon at the top of the table.

Presently, however, her sparkle was wiped clean away, for Don Solomon was understood to say that this week would be his last fling in England; he was leaving at the end of the month to visit his estates in the East, and had no notion when he would return; it might be years, he said, at which there were genuine expressions of sorrow round the table, for those assembled knew a dripping roast when they saw one. Without the lavish Don Solomon, there would be one luxurious establishment less for the Society hyenas to guzzle at. Elspeth was quite put out.

“But dear Don Solomon, what shall we do? Oh, you’re teasing—why, your tiresome estates will do admirably without you, for I’m sure you employ only the cleverest people to look after them.” She pouted prettily. “You would not be so cruel to your friends, surely—Mrs Lade, we shan’t let him, shall we?”

Solomon laughed and patted her hand. “My dear Diana,” says he—Diana had been his nickname for her ever since he’d tried to teach her archery—“you may be sure nothing but harsh necessity would take me from such delightful company as your own—and Harry’s yonder, and all of you. But—a man must work, and my work is overseas. So—” and he shook his head, his smooth, handsome face smiling ruefully. “It will be a sore wrench—sorest of all in that I shall miss both of you”—and he looked from Elspeth to me and back again—“above all the rest, for you have been to me like a brother and sister.” And, damne, the fellow’s great dark eyes were positively glistening; the rest of the table murmured sympathetically, all but old Morrison, who was champing away at his blancmange and finding bones in it, by the sound of him.

quote:

At this Elspeth was so overcome that she began piping her eye, and her tits shook so violently that the old Duke, on Solomon’s other side, coughed his false teeth into his wine-glass and had to be put to rights by the butler. Solomon, for once, was looking a little embarrassed; he shrugged and gave me a look that was almost appealing. “I’m sorry, old boy,” says he, “but I mean it.” I couldn’t fathom this—he might be sorry to miss Elspeth; what man wouldn’t? But had I been so friendly?—well, I’d been civil enough, and I was her husband; perhaps that charming manner of mine which Tom Hughes mentioned had had its effect on this emotional dago. Anyway, something seemed called for.

quote:

“Well, Don,” says I, “we’ll all be sorry to lose you, and that’s a fact. You’re a damned stout chap—that is, I mean, you’re one of the best, and couldn’t be better if…if you were English.” I wasn’t going to gush all over him, you understand, but the company murmured “Hear, hear,” and after a moment Mynn tapped the table to second me. “Well,” says I, “let’s drink his health, then.” And everyone did, while Solomon gave me his bland smile, inclining his head.

“I know,” says he, “just how great a compliment that is. I thank you—all of you, and especially you, my dear Harry. I only wish—” and then he stopped, shaking his head. “But no, that would be too much to ask.”

“Oh, ask anything, Don!” cries Elspeth, all idiot-imploring. “You know we could not refuse you!”

He said no, no, it had been a foolish thought, and at that of course she was all over him to know what it was. So after a moment, toying with his wine-glass, he says: “Well, you’ll think it a very silly notion, I dare say—but what I was about to propose, my dear Diana, for Harry and yourself, and for your father, whom I count among my wisest friends—” and he inclined his head to old Morrison, who was assuring Mrs Lade that he didn’t want any blancmange, but he’d like anither helpin’ o’ yon cornflour puddin’ “—I was about to say, since I must go—why do the three of you not come with me?” And he smiled shyly at us in turn.

I stared at the fellow to see if he was joking; Elspeth, all blonde bewilderment, looked at me and then at Solomon, open-mouthed.

“Come with you?”

“It’s only to the other side of the world, after all,” says he, whimsically. “No, no—I am quite serious; it is not as bad as that. You know me well enough to understand that I wouldn’t propose anything that you would not find delightful. We should cruise, in my steam-brig—it’s as well-appointed as any royal yacht, you know, and we’d have the most splendid holiday. We would touch wherever we liked—Lisbon, Cadiz, the Cape, Bombay, Madras—exactly as the fancy took us. Oh, it would be quite capital!” He leaned towards Elspeth, smiling. “Think of the places we’d see! The delight it would give me, Diana, to show you the wonder of Africa, as one sees it at dawn from the quarterdeck—such colours as you cannot imagine! The shores of the Indian Ocean—yes, the coral strand! Ah, believe me, until you have anchored off Singapore, or cruised the tropical coasts of Sumatra and Java and Borneo, and seen that glorious China Sea, where it is always morning—oh, my dear, you have seen nothing!”

Nonsense, of course; the Orient stinks. Always did. But Elspeth was gazing at him in rapture, and then she turned eagerly to me. “Oh, Harry—could we?”

“Out o’ the question,” says I. “It’s the back of beyond.”

“In these days?” cries Solomon. “Why, with steam you may be in Singapore in—oh, three months at most. Say, three months as my guests while we visit my estates—and you would learn, Diana, what it means to be a queen in the Orient, I assure you—and three months to return. You’d be home again by next Easter.”

“Oh, Harry!” Elspeth was positively squeaking with joy. “Oh, Harry—may we? Oh, please, Harry!” The chaps at the table were nodding admiringly, and the ladies murmuring enviously; the old Duke was heard to say that it was an adventure, damned if it wasn’t, and if he was a younger man, by George, wouldn’t he jump at the chance?

Well, they weren’t getting me East again; once had been enough. Besides, I wasn’t going anywhere on the charity of some rich dago show-off who’d taken a shine to my wife. And there was another reason, which enabled me to put a good face on my refusal.

“Can’t be done, m’dear,” says I. “Sorry, but I’m a soldier with a living to make. Duty and the Life Guards call, what? I’m desolate to deny you what I’m sure would be the jolliest trip”—I felt a pang, I’ll admit, at seeing that lovely child face fall—“but I can’t go, you see. I’m afraid, Don, we’ll have to decline your kind offer.”

quote:

He shrugged good-humouredly. “That’s settled, then. A pity, but—” he smiled consolingly at Elspeth, who was looking down-in-the-mouth “—perhaps another year. Unless, in Harry’s enforced absence, your father could be persuaded to accompany us?”

It was said so natural it took my breath away, but as it sank home I had to bite back an angry refusal. You bastard, thinks I, that’s the game, is it? Wait till old Flashy’s put himself out of the running, and then innocently propose a scheme to get my wife far away where you can cock a leg over her at leisure. It was plain as a pikestaff; all my dormant suspicions of this smooth tub of n***** suet came back with a rush, but I kept mum while Elspeth looked down the table towards me—and, bless her, it was a doubtful look.

“But…but it would be no fun without Harry,” says she, and if ever I loved the girl it was then. “I…I don’t know—what does Papa say?”

Papa, who appeared to be still tunnelling away at his pudding, had missed nothing, you may be sure, but he kept quiet while Solomon explained the proposal. “You remember, sir, we spoke of the possibility that you might accompany me to the East, to see for yourself the opportunities of business expansion,” he was adding, but Morrison cut him short in his charming way.

“You spoke of it, no’ me,” says he, busily engulfing blancmange. “I’ve mair than enough o’ affairs here, withoot gallivantin’ tae China at my time o’ life.” He waved his spoon. “Forbye, husband an’ wife should be thegither—it was bad enough when Harry yonder had tae be away in India, an’ my wee lassie near heartbroken.” He made a noise which the company took for a sentimental sniff; myself I think it was another spoonful being pried loose. “Na, na—I’ll need a guid reason afore I’ll stir forth o’ England.”

quote:

And he got it—to this day I can’t be certain that it was contrived by Solomon, but I’ll wager it was. For next morning the old hound was taken ill again—I don’t know if surfeit of blancmange can cause nervous collapse, but by afternoon he was groaning in bed, shuddering as with a fever, and Solomon insisted on summoning his own medico from Town, a dundreary-looking cove with a handle to his name and a line in unctuous gravity that must have been worth five thousand a year in Mayfair. He looked down solemnly at the sufferer, who was huddled under the clothes like a rat in its burrow, two beady eyes in a wrinkled face, and his nose quivering in apprehension.

“Overstrained,” says the sawbones, when he had completed his examination and caught the tune of Morrison’s whimpering. “The system is simply tired; that is all. Of organic deterioration there is no sign whatever; internally, my dear sir, you are sound as I am—as I hope I am, ha-ha!” He beamed like a bishop. “But the machine, while not in need of repair, requires a rest—a long rest.”

“Is it serious, doacter?” quavers Morrison. Internally, as the quack said, he might be in A1 trim, but his exterior suggested James I dying.

“Certainly not—unless you make it so,” says the poultice-walloper. He shook his head in censorious admiration. “You captains of commerce—you sacrifice yourselves without thought for personal health, as you labour for family and country and mankind. But, my dear sir, it won’t do, you know. You forget that there is a limit—and you have reached it.”

“Could ye no’ gi’ me a line for a boatle?” croaks the captain of commerce, and when this had been translated the medico shook his head.

“I can prescribe,” says he, “but no medicine could be as efficacious as—oh, a few months in the Italian lakes, or on the French coast. Warmth, sunshine, rest—complete rest in congenial company—that is my ‘line’ for you, sir. I won’t be answerable for the consequences if you don’t take it.”

Well, there it was. In two seconds I had foreseen what was to follow—Solomon’s recollection that he had only yesterday proposed just such a holiday, the quack’s booming agreement that a sea voyage in comfort was the ideal thing, Morrison’s reluctance being eventually overborne by Elspeth’s entreaties and the pill-slinger’s stern admonition—you could have set it all to music and sung the damned thing. Then they all looked at me, and I said no.

quote:

There followed painful private scenes between Elspeth and me. I said if old Morrison wanted to sail away with Don Solomon, he was more than welcome. She replied that it was unthinkable for dear Papa to go without her to look after him; it was absolutely her duty to accept Don Solomon’s generous offer and accompany the old goat. If I insisted on staying at home in the Army, of course she would be desolate without me—but why, oh why, could I not come anyway?—what did the Army matter, we had money enough, and so forth. I said no again, and added that it was a piece of impudence of Solomon’s even to suggest that she should go without me, at which she burst into tears and said I was odiously jealous, not only of her, but of Don Solomon’s breeding and address and money, just because I hadn’t any myself, and I was spitefully denying her a little pleasure, and there could be no possible impropriety with dear Papa to chaperon her, and I was trying to shovel the old sod into an early grave, or words to that effect.

I left her wailing, and when Solomon tried to persuade me later himself, took the line that military duty made the trip impossible for me, and I couldn’t bear to be parted from Elspeth. He sighed, but said he understood only too well—in my shoes, he said with disarming frankness, he’d do the same. I wondered for a moment if I had wronged him—for I know I tend to judge everyone by myself, and while I’m usually not far wrong to do so, there are decent and disinterested folk about, here and there. I’ve seen some.

Old Morrison, by the way, didn’t say a word; he could have forced my hand, of course, but being as true a Presbyterian hypocrite as ever robbed an orphan, he held that a wife should abide by her husband’s rule, and wouldn’t interfere between Elspeth and me. So I continued to say “no”, and Elspeth sulked until the time came to put on her next new bonnet.

quote:

So a couple of days passed, in which I played cricket for Mynn’s side, tumbling a few wickets with my shiverers, and slogging a few runs (not many, but 18 in one innings, which pleased me, and catching out Pilch again, one hand, very low down, when he tried to cut Mynn past point and I had to go full length to it. Pilch swore it was a bump, but it wasn’t—you may be sure I’d tell you if it had been). Meanwhile Elspeth basked in admiration and the gay life, Solomon was the perfect host and escort, old Morrison sat on the terrace grumbling and reading sermons and share prices, and Judy promenaded with Elspeth, looking cattish and saying nothing.

Then on Friday things began to happen, and as so often is the case with catastrophe, all went splendidly at first. All week I’d been trying to arrange an assignation with the tantalising Mrs Leo Lade, but what with my own busy affairs and the fact that the old Duke kept a jealous eye on her, I’d been out of luck. It was just a question of time and place, for she was as ready as I; indeed, we’d near got to grips on the Monday after dinner, when we strolled in the garden, but I’d no sooner got her panting among the privet with her teeth half-way through my ear than that bloody minx Judy came to summon us to hear Elspeth sing “The Ash Grove” in the drawing-room; it would be Judy, smiling her knowing smile, telling us to be sure not to miss the treat.

However, on Friday morning Elspeth went off with Solomon to visit some picture gallery, Judy was shopping with some of the guests, the house was empty except for old Morrison on the terrace, and Mrs Lade bowled up presently to say that the Duke was abed with an attack of gout. For show’s sake we made small talk with Morrison, which infuriated him, and then went our separate ways in leisurely fashion, meeting again in the drawing-room in a fine frenzy of fumbling and escaping steam. We weren’t new to the business, either of us, so I had her breasts out with one hand and my breeches down with the other while I was still kicking the door to, and she completed her undressing while we were positively humping the mutton all the way to the couch, which argued sound training on her part. By George, she was a heavy woman, but nimble as an eel for all her elegant poundage; I can’t think offhand of a partner who could put you through as many different mounting-drills in the course of one romp, except perhaps Elspeth herself when she had a drink in her.

It was exhilarating work, and I was just settling myself for the finish, and thinking, we’ll have to have more of this another time, when I heard a sound that galvanised me so suddenly that it’s a wonder the couch didn’t give way—rapid footsteps were approaching the drawing-room door. I took stock—breeches down, one shoe off, miles from the window or any convenient cover, Mrs Lade kneeling on the couch, me peering from behind through her feathered headdress (which she had forgotten to remove; quite a compliment, I remember thinking), the doorknob turning. Caught, hopeless, not a chance of escape—nothing for it but to hide my face in the nape of her neck and trust that the visible side of me wouldn’t be recognised by whoever came in. For they wouldn’t linger—not in 1843—unless it was the Duke, and those footsteps didn’t belong to a gout patient.

The door opened, the footsteps stopped—and then there was what a lady novelist would call a pregnant pause, lasting about three hours, it seemed to me, and broken only by Mrs Lade’s ecstatic moanings; I gathered she was unaware that we were observed. I stole a peep through her feathers at the mirror above the fireplace—and almost had convulsions, for it was Solomon reflected in the doorway, his hand on the latch, taking in the scene.

He never even blinked an eye; then, as other footsteps sounded somewhere behind him he stepped back, and as the door closed I heard him saying: “No, there is no one here; let us try the conservatory.” Dago or not, he was a damned considerate host, that one.

quote:

The door hadn’t closed before I was trying to disengage, but without success, for Mrs Lade’s hands reached back in an instant, clamping her claws into my rear, her head tilting back beside mine. “No, no, no, not yet!” gasps she, chewing away at me. “Don’t go!”

“The door,” I explained. “Must lock the door. Someone might see.”

“Don’t leave me!” she cried, and I doubt if she knew where she was, even, for her eyes were rolling in her head, and damned if I could get loose. Mind you, I was reluctant; torn two ways, as it were.

“The key,” I mumbled, thrusting away. “Only take a moment—back directly.”

“Take me with you!” she moans, and I did, heaven knows how, hobbling along with all that flesh to carry. Fortunately it all ended happily just as my legs gave way, and we collapsed at the threshold in joyous exhaustion; I even managed to get the key turned.

Whether she could dress as quickly as she stripped, I can’t say, for she was still swooning and gasping against the panels, with her feathers awry, when I flung on my last garment and shinned down the ivy. Feverish work it had been, and the sooner I was elsewhere, establishing an alibi, the better. A brisk walk was what I needed just then—anyway, I had a match in the afternoon, and wanted to be in trim.

quote:

[Extract from the diary of Mrs Flashman, June—, 1843]

…never have I felt so guilty—and yet, what could I do? My heart warned me, when Don S. cut short our visit to the gallery—and there were some Exquisite Water-colours which I would have liked to view at leisure—that he had some Purpose in returning early to the house. What my Foreboding was I cannot explain, but alas! it was justified, and I am the most Wretched Creature in the world! ! The house was quite deserted, except for Papa asleep on the terrace, and Something in Don S.’s manner—it may have been the Ardent Expression in his eyes—led me to insist that we should seek out my Dear H. at once. Oh, would that we had found him! We looked everywhere, but there was no one to be seen, and when we came to the conservatory, Don S. filled me with Alarm and Shame by declaring himself in the most forward manner—for the atmosphere of the plants, being extremely Oppressive, and my own agitation, made me feel so faint that I was forced to support myself by leaning on his arm, and find relief by resting my head on his shoulder.

(A likely story ! ! !—G. de R.)

In that moment of faintness, picture my utter distress when he took advantage of the situation to press his lips to mine!! I was so affronted that it was some moments a moment before I could find the strength to make him desist, and it was only with difficulty that I at last Escaped his Embrace. He used the most Passionate Expressions to me, calling me his Dear Diana and his Golden Nymph (which struck me, even in that Moment of Perturbation, as a most poetic conceit), and the Effect was so weakening that I was unable to resist when he clasped me to his bosom yet again, and Kissed me with even greater Force than before. Fortunately, one of the gardeners was heard approaching, and I was able to make good my retreat, with my wits quite disordered.

My Shame and Remorse may be imagined, and if aught could have increased them it was the sudden sight of my darling H. in the garden, taking his exercise, he explained, before his match in the afternoon. The sight of his flushed, manly countenance, and the knowledge that he had been engaged in such a healthy, innocent pursuit while I had been helpless in the Heated Embrace of another, however much against my will, were as a knife in my heart. To make it worse, he called me his Jolly Old Girl, and asked eagerly after the picture gallery; I was moved almost to tears, and when we went together to the terrace, and found Mrs L.L., I could not but remark that H. paid her no more than the barest civility (and, indeed, there was very little about her to Entice any man, for she appeared quite bedraggled), but was all kindness and attentiveness to me, like the dear best of husbands that he is.

But what am I to think of Don S.’s conduct? I must try not to judge him too harshly, for he is of such a warm temperament, and given to passionate disclosure of it in every way, that it is not to be wondered at if he is Susceptible to that which he finds attractive. But surely I am not to blame if—through no fault of mine—I have been cast by Kind Nature in a form and feature which the Stronger Sex find pleasing? I console myself with the thought that it is Woman’s Portion, if she is fortunate in her endowments, to be adored, and she has little to reproach herself with so long as she does not Encourage Familiarity, but comports herself with Proper Modesty…

[Conceit and humbug! End of extract—G. de R.]