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  PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

            VOL. 107.

         August 11, 1894.




  LORD ORMONT'S MATE AND MATEY'S AMINTA.

      BY G***GE M*R*D*TH.

  VOLUME III.

And now the climax comes not with tongue-lolling sheep-fleece wolves,
ears on top remorselessly pricked for slaughter of the bleating imitated
lamb, here a fang pointing to nethermost pit not of stomach but of
Acheron, tail waving in derision of wool-bearers whom the double-rowed
desiring mouth soon shall grip, food for mamma-wolf and baby-wolf,
papa-wolf looking on, licking chaps expectant of what shall remain; and
up goes the clamour of flocks over the country-side, and up goes howling
of shepherds shamefully tricked by AEsop-fable artifice or doggish
dereliction of primary duty; for a watch has been set through which the
wolf-enemy broke paws on the prowl; and the King feels this, and the
Government, a slab-faced jubber-mubber of contending punies,
party-voters to the front, conscience lagging how far behind no man can
tell, and the country forgotten, a lout dragging his chaw-bacon hobnails
like a flask-fed snail housed safely, he thinks, in unbreakable shell
soon to be broken, and no man's fault, while the slow country sinks to
the enemy, ships bursting, guns jammed, and a dull shadow of defeat on a
war-office drifting to the tide-way of unimagined back-stops on a lumpy
cricket-field of national interests. But this was a climax revealed to
the world. The Earl was deaf to it. Lady CHARLOTTE dumbed it
surprisingly. Change the spelling, put a for u and n for b in the
dumbed, and you have the way MORSFIELD mouthed it, and MATEY swimming
with BROWNY full in the Harwich tide; head under heels up down they go
in Old Ocean, a glutton of such embraces, lapping softly on a pair of
white ducks tar-stained that very morning and no mistake.

"I have you fast!" cried MATEY.

"Two and two's four," said BROWNY. She slipped. "_Are_ four," corrected
he, a tutor at all times, boys and girls taken in and done for, and no
change given at the turnstiles.

"Catch as catch can," was her next word. Plop went a wave full in the
rosy mouth. "Where's the catch of this?" stuttered the man.

"A pun, a pun!" bellowed the lady. "But not by four-in-hand from
London."

She had him there. He smiled a blue acquiescence. So they landed, and
the die was cast, ducks changed, and the goose-pair braving it in dry
clothes by the kitchen fire. There was nothing else to be done; for the
answer confessed to a dislike of immersions two at a time, and the hair
clammy with salt like cottage-bacon on a breakfast-table.

Lord ORMONT sat with the jewels seized from the debating, unbeaten
sister's grasp.

"She is at Marlow," he opined.

"Was," put in Lady CHARLOTTE.

The answer blew him for memory.

"MORSFIELD's dead," his lordship ventured; "jobbed by a foil with button
off."

"And a good job too."

Lady CHARLOTTE was ever on the crest-wave of the moment's humour. He
snicked a back-stroke to the limits, shaking the sparse hair of
repentance to the wind of her jest. But the unabashed one continued.

"I'll not call on her."

"You shall," said he.

"Shan't," was her lightning-parry.

"You shall," he persisted.

"Never. Her head is a water-flower that speaks at ease in the open sea.
How call on a woman with a head like that?"

The shock struck him fair and square.

"We wait," he said, and the conflict closed with advantage to the
petticoat.

A footman bore a letter. His step was of the footman order, calves
stuffed to a longed-for bulbousness, food for donkeys if any such should
chance: he presented it.

"I wait," he murmured.

"Whence and whither comes it?"

"Postmark may tell."

"Best open it," said the cavalry general, ever on the dash for open
country where squadrons may deploy right shoulders up, serre-files in
rear, and a hideous clatter of serjeant-majors spread over all. He
opened it. It was AMINTA's letter. She announced a French leave-taking.
The footman still stood. Lord ORMONT broke the silence.

"Go