OF 3) ***




Produced by Al Haines.





                         *THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS*

                               *A Novel*


                                   BY

                            S. BARING GOULD

                               AUTHOR OF
    'MEHALAH,' 'COURT ROYAL,' 'JOHN HERRING,' 'THE GAVEROCKS,' ETC.



                            IN THREE VOLUMES

                                VOL. I.



                                 LONDON
                       SPENCER BLACKETT & HALLAM
        MILTON HOUSE, 35, ST. BRIDE STREET, LUDGATE CIRCUS, E.C.
                                  1889

                        [_All rights reserved_]




                         *CONTENTS OF VOL. I.*


CHAPTER

      I. SHAKING THE TREE
     II. SALOME
    III. A TRUST
     IV. ON THE TOWPATH
      V. RIPE AND DROPPED
     VI. A COTTAGE PIANO
    VII. TAKING POSSESSION
   VIII. IN ONE COMPARTMENT
     IX. ARRIVAL
      X. WITH A LOAF AND A CANDLE
     XI. EXPECTATION
    XII. SURPRISES
   XIII. WHAT NEXT?
    XIV. ADMINISTRATION
     XV. THE WOMAN WITH A PIPE
    XVI. WHO?  WHAT?




                         *THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS.*



                              *CHAPTER I.*

                          *SHAKING THE TREE.*


There is an aboriginal race in Borneo, of which it is said that they
dispose of their aged parents and relatives in an interesting, novel,
and altogether aboriginal fashion.

They courteously, but withal peremptorily, require them periodically to
climb trees, and when they are well up and grappling the branches, they
shake the trees.  If the venerable representatives of the earlier
generation hold on, they are pronounced to be still green; but if they
drop, they are adjudged ripe, are fallen upon and eaten, the palms of
the hands and the soles of the feet being reserved as the prerogative of
the heir-at-law, as the richest morsels.

We do nothing of this sort in Christendom, least of all in civilized
England.  God, we thank Thee that we are not as other men are, even as
these Borneans, for the conversion of whom we put prayer up at the
family altar, that is, the breakfast-table, or offer our mite--a
veritable mite, a microscopic fraction of our income.  We look in
England on our aged relatives with reverence, not with greed, and if we
butter them, it is not because we desire to eat them, but because they
are susceptible to butter.  We never calculate the number of pounds they
weigh, we never look hungrily at their palms, and never put the ladder
against the tree, and with hat off and professions of respect and
endearment invite them to climb.  The Esquimaux act very differently
from the Borneans; they take their ancient relations, and put them out
of their huts in the cold, and leave them to freeze or starve.  What a
stride humanity has made with us! We deal with our poor, meagre
relatives in this way? We!--as little do we turn them out in the cold as
we do fall upon and eat up our plump ones, like the Borneans.

'One of the pleasures of having a rout, is the pleasure of having it
over,' said Tom Hood, in his poem of Miss Killmansegg and her Golden
Leg, and he said truly--most truly, when that rout was one of obligation
or of interest, or of obligation and interest combined, when it was not
a spontaneous burst of hospitality, but a laboured affair, and like a
laboured literary effort--heavy.

Mrs. Sidebottom, or as she was pleased to accentuate her name,
Siddy-bot-TOME, sat before the fire with her silk evening skirt turned
up over her knees to prevent it from becoming scorched, and with her
neat little feet on the fender.

What tricks we do play with our names to deliver them from the suspicion
of vulgarity.  How we double the capital F's, and convert the i's into
y's, so that common little Finches can strut as Ffinches and
insignificant Smiths can add a cubit to their stature as Smythes!  How
for distinction we canonize our final syllables, and convert Singeons
into St. John's, and Slodgers into St. Ledgers; and elevate Mungy into
Mont Joye, and Gallicize our Mullens into Molleynes, take the blackness
out of Death by spelling it De'Ath and even turn a Devil into De Ville!

The candles had been blown out on the chimney-piece, in the sconces on
the walls, and on the piano. A savour of extinguished candles pervaded
the room.

Mrs. Siddy-bot-TOME--her name is given as pronounced once again, that it
may stamp itself on the memory of the reader--Mrs. Siddy-bot-TOME (the
third time is final)--sat by the fire with puckered lips and brows.  She
was thinking.  She was a lady of fifty, well--very well--preserved,
without a gray hair or a wrinkle, with fair skin and light eyes, and
hair the colour of hemp.  Her eyelashes were lighter still, so light as
to be almost white--the white not in fashion at the time, but about to
come into fashion, of a creamy tinge.

She was not a clever woman by any means, not a woman of broad
sympathies, but a woman who generally had her own way through the force
and energy of her character, and as that force was always directed in
one direction, and her energy always exerted for one purpose, she
accomplished more than did many far cleverer women.  She rarely failed
to carry her point, whatever that point was.

Whatever that point was, it was invariably one that revolved about
herself, as the moon about the earth in the universe, as Papageno about
Papagena, in the 'Magic Flute,' and as the cork attached to the cat's
tail in the nursery.

If Mrs. Sidebottom had been a really clever woman, she would have
concealed her ends and aims, as those who are smuggling lace or silk,
coil them about them, and hide them in their umbrellas, under their
cloaks, and in their bosoms.  But she lacked this cleverness, or failed
to admit that selfish aims were contraband. We are all selfish, from the
smallest herb, that strives to outrun and smother those herbs that grow
about it; through the robin Pecksy, that snaps the worm from its sister
Flapsy; and the dog that holds the manger against the ox; to ourselves,
the crown of creation and the climax of self-seeking, but we do not show
it.  The snail has telescopic eyes, wherewith to peer for something he
may appropriate to himself; but the snail, when he thinks himself
observed, withdraws his horns and conceals them behind a dimple.

Mrs. Sidebottom was either too eager or too careless, or--for charity
hopeth all things--too sincere, to disguise her horns.  She thrust them
this way, that way; they went up to take bird's-eye views; they dived
beneath, to survey matters subterranean; they went round corners,
described corkscrews, to observe things from every conceivable aspect.
They were thrust down throats and into pockets, and, though small, were
of thousandfold magnifying power, like those of a fly, and, like those
of a prophet, saw into futurity, and, like those of the historian,
explored the past.

In a lounging chair, also near the fire, but not monopolizing the middle
like his mother, sat Captain Pennycomequick, the son of Mrs. Sidebottom.
He wore a smoking jacket, braided with red or brown; and was engaged
languidly on a cigarette-case, looking for a suitable cigarette.

Mrs. Sidebottom's maiden name had been Pennycomequick, and as she
despised her married name, even when accentuated past recognition, she
had persuaded her son to exchange his designation, by royal licence, to
Pennycomequick.

But euphony was not the sole or principal motive in Mrs. Sidebottom that
induced her to move her son to make this alteration.  She was the
daughter of a manufacturer, now some time deceased, in the large
Yorkshire village or small town of Mergatroyd in the West Riding, by his
second wife.  Her half-brother by the first wife now owned the mill, was
the head and prop of the family, and was esteemed to be rich.

She was moderately well provided for.  She had a sort of lien on the
factory, and the late Mr. Sidebottom, solicitor, had left something.
But what is four hundred per annum to a woman with a son in the army
dependent on her, and with a soul too big for her purse, with large
requirements, an ambition that could only be satisfied on a thousand a
year. Would any stomach be content on half-rations that had capacity for
whole ones?  On the fringe of the Arctic circle a song is sung that
'Iceland is the fairest land that ever the sun beheld,' but it is only
sung by those who have never been elsewhere.  Now, Mrs. Sidebottom had
seen much more luxuriant and snugger conditions of existence than that
which can be maintained on four hundred a year.  For instance, her
friend, Mrs. Tomkins, having six hundred, was able to keep a little
carriage; and Miss Jones, on a thousand, had a footman and a butler.
Consequently Mrs. Sidebottom was by no means inclined to acquiesce in a
boreal and glacial existence of four hundred, and say that it was the
best of states that ever the sun beheld.

Mrs. Sidebottom's half-brother, Jeremiah Pennycomequick, was unmarried
and aged fifty-five.  She knew his age to a day, naturally, being his
sister, and she sent him congratulations on his recurrent
birthdays--every birthday brought her nearer to his accumulations.  She
knew his temperament, naturally, being his sister, and could reckon his
chances of life as accurately as the clerk in an Assurance Office. To
impress the fact of her relationship on Jeremiah, to obtain, if
possible, some influence over him, at all events to hedge out others
from exercising power over his mind, Mrs. Sidebottom had lately migrated
to Mergatroyd, and had brought her son with her. She was the rather
moved to do this, as her whole brother, Nicholas Pennycomequick, had
just died. There had been no love lost between Jeremiah and Nicholas,
and now that Nicholas was no more, it was possible that his son Philip
might be received into favour, and acquire gradually such influence over
his uncle as to prejudice him against herself and her son. To prevent
this--prevent in both its actual and its original significations--Mrs.
Sidebottom had pulled up her tentpegs, and had encamped at Mergatroyd.

The captain wore crimson-silk stockings and glazed pumps.  He had neat
little feet, like his mother. When he had lighted a cigarette, he blew a
whiff of smoke, then held up one of his feet and contemplated it.

'My dear Lambert,' said Mrs. Sidebottom, 'I wish you could slip those
red stockings of yours into your uncle's beetle-crushers.'

'They would be too roomy for me,' said the captain.

'Not at all, Lamb.  Your feet would expand to fill his shoes,' argued
his mother.

'My feet are pinched enough now--certainly,' sighed Lambert
Pennycomequick.

'This dinner will not have cost us nothing,' mused Mrs. Sidebottom,
looking dreamily into the coals. 'The champagne was six-and-six a
bottle, and three bottles were drunk,' she also heaved a sigh.

'Almost a pound.  Surely, gooseberry would have done.'

'No, Lamb! it would not.  It never does to be stingy in such matters.
Though how we are to pay for it all----'  Mrs. Sidebottom left the
sentence as unsettled as the bill for the champagne was likely to
remain.

'I don't see why you should not tell Uncle Jeremiah how crippled we
are.'

'Never,' said his mother decisively.  'Man's heart as naturally closes
against impecunious relatives as does a tulip against rain.  When you
are bathing, Lamb, you never voluntarily swim within reach of an
octopus.  If you see one coming, with its eyes fixed on you, and its
feelers extended, you strike out for dear life.  It is so in the great
sea of life, which is full of these many-armed hungry creatures.  The
waters are alive with them, great as a needy relation, and small as a
begging letter.  It is insufficient to know how to swim; one must know
also how to kick out and keep away from octopuses.  No, Jeremiah must
not suppose that we want anything of him.'

'It seems to me, mother,' said Lambert, 'that you might just as well
tell him we are in difficulties and need his assistance.  I am sure he
sees it; he was very cold and reserved to-night.'

'Not on any account.  You are quite mistaken; he has not a suspicion.
Let me see, the waiters were half a guinea each, and the pheasants seven
shillings a pair.  We could not have sixpenny grapes--it would never
have done.'

'I hate reckoning on dead men's shoes,' said Lambert.  'It is mean.
Besides, Uncle Jeremiah may outlive us both.'

'No, Lamb, he cannot.  Consider his age; he is fifty-five.'

'And you, mother, are fifty, only five years' difference.'

Mrs. Sidebottom did not wince.

'You do not consider that his has been a sedentary life, which is very
prejudicial to health.  Besides, he has rushes of blood to the head.
You saw how he became red as a Tritoma when you made that ill-judged
remark about Salome.  Apoplexy is in the family.  Our father died of
it.'

'Well, I hate counting the years a fellow has to live.  We must all hop
some day.'

'I trust he enjoyed himself,' said Mrs. Sidebottom. 'He took one of the
_anges-a-cheval_.  Did he touch the ices?'

'I think not.'

'I am sorry--I mean, I am thankful, they are bad for apoplectic persons,
Lamb.  He pays income-tax on twelve hundred.'

'He does not live at the rate of five hundred.'

'Not at the rate of three.'

'Perhaps eventually he may leave the mill to Philip, and the savings to
me.  I won't think of it, as it may all turn out different; but that
would be best for me.'

'Not best, Lamb.  Both the savings and the mill should be yours.'

'What should I do with the mill?  You would not have me turn
manufacturer?'

'No; but you could sell the business.'

'This is like selling the lion's skin before the lion is killed,' said
the captain with a little impatience.

After a pause, during which Mrs. Sidebottom watched a manufactory and a
bank and much treasure in the red-hot coals crumble down in the gradual
dissolution to ashes, she said:

'Lamb, you have no occasion to be uneasy about your cousin Philip.'

'I am not.  I have not given him a thought.'

'Jeremiah can never forgive Nicholas for withdrawing his money from the
business at a critical moment, and almost bringing about a catastrophe.
When Nicholas did that I was as angry, and used as strong remonstrance
as Jeremiah, but all in vain.  Nicholas, when he took an idea into his
head, would not be diverted from carrying it out, however absurd it was.
I did not suppose that Nicholas would be such a fool as he proved, and
lose his money.  He got into the hands of a plausible scoundrel.'

'Schofield?'

'Yes; that was his name, Schofield, who turned his head, and walked off
with pretty nearly every penny. But he might have ruined himself, and I
would not have grumbled.  What alarmed and angered me was that he
jeopardized my fortune as well as that of Jeremiah.  A man has a right
to ruin himself if he likes, but not to risk the fortunes of others.'

The captain felt that he was not called upon to speak.

'It is as well that we are come here,' pursued Mrs. Sidebottom.  'Though
we were comfortable at York, we could not have lived longer there at our
rate, and here we can economize.  The society here is not worth
cultivation; it is all commercial, frightfully commercial.  You can see
it in the shape of their shoulders and in the cut of their coats.  As
for the women----  But there, I won't be unkind.'

'Uncle Jeremiah winced at my joke about Salome.'

'Salome!' repeated his mother, and her mouth fell at the corners.
'Salome!'  She fidgeted in her chair. 'I had not calculated on her when
I came here