152 THE HUNTING FIELD 



is something terribly self - convicting about a job- 

 servant. Seedy, but painfully well-brushed hats, 

 nasty frowsey tartan neckcloths, long ditto waistcoats, 

 white -seamed, button - covered, greasy -collared dark 

 coats, stained drabs with tarnished knee buttons, 

 patched boots with sloggering caps, the whole set 

 off with a pair of baggy Berlin gloves. 



This old boy, blue and all blue, with the tarnished 

 band on the greasy hat, is Cottonwool's coachman. 

 What he has come out for nobody knows, unless 

 Henrietta has sent him to look after Smashgate. Ah, 

 see how old Blue Bluey greets the baronet's groom ! 

 There's a wring of the hand that looks like business. 

 Trust a servant for smelling a rat ! They are at once 

 the best-informed and worst-informed people under 

 the sun. They know everything and nothing — every- 

 thing in the hall, nothing in the parlour. Who would 

 have thought to see such a swell-consequential-looking 

 man — gentleman, we might say — with white cords and 

 basket buttons on his brown cut-away, doing the 

 familiar with such a tawdry, dirty-clothes-bag-looking 

 old file as that coachman — a man whose boots have 

 evidently belonged to his predecessor, and whose 

 plush breeches would hold two pair of such legs as 

 his? Nevertheless there they greet. "Well, Matthew." 

 "Well, Mr. Thomas." Not that Mr. Thomas thinks 

 Henrietta by any means a match for his master ; but 

 Mr. Thomas having cast a favourable eye on the 

 joint-stock lady's maid at Fleecy Hall, who, according 

 to the usual etiquette of servitude, will accompany 

 the first married " Miss," Mr. Thomas thinks it well 

 to favour the suit. What with this double pull upon 

 him, it will be odd if the baronet is not caught. 



But enough for this paper is the scribblement 

 thereof. If this lecture on Grooms should cause one 

 untidy dog to survey himself in the limpid stream 

 and amend his ways, one silly lad to give over 

 considering whether this or that is "his work," one 



