LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 202, 1 February 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

BOGGLEBERRY’S WOOING.

What, you never heard of Boggleberry ? A few years since he was one of the foremost men of his time, especially in his native parish, St. Patrick the Verdant, and the influence he possessed was enormous. The exertions of Nicholas Boggleben-y ought to have left an indelible mark upon the calendar of time, and that they have not done so is only another proof of the mutability of human greatness. By trade he was an oil-and-colour-man but by inclination and practice a vestryman; one of the very first water too. Not that his duties as member of the assessment, the sewers, and paving committees engrossed the whole of his attention ; no, he had a finger in nearly all the parish pies. He was a churchwarden, he was on the board of guardians, he was a trustee of the penny clothing fund, he was the secretary (hon. of course) of the society for supplying the benighted female natives of Fiji with toothbrushes and chignons, he was an auditor of the district coal club ; he was one of the borough champions of Liberalism, and as such found a good deal of work to do for * the party he was a past grand-master of the Hearts-are-Trumps Lodge of Oddfellows, he was a ranger of the Nothing-Like-Leather Court of Foresters, he was chairman of the Bricks-and-Mortar Building Society; in short, it would be easier to set down the prominent offices Boggleberry did not hold in the parish than those he did. The claims upon his time and attention were as varied as they were numerous; but he seemed born for parish work, and, throwing his whole soul into his duties, became one of the most celebrated men in the vestry. Remarkable as it may appear, the worthy oilman’s labours did not meet with general approval. A section of those who pretended to know him well averred that Nick Boggleberry was a busybody, and as such ought to be put down ; another section said the man must be a fool to neglect his business as he did ; whilst a third (and perhaps more farseeing) set asserted that Boggleberry’s exertions were not quite so disinterested as they appeared ; inasmuch as he had contrived to obtain a few nice little contracts for supplying the district workhouse with the best mottled soap, rice starch, and candles, and was anxious (so rumour said) to got some more. These statements were of course dictated solely by jealous envy ; but when the great vestryman had attained the height of his ambition, you might as well have tried to pull down the Monument with a wisp of straw, or attempt to blow up the Royal Exchange with a halfpenny cracker, as reduce him to the level of his detractors. Boggleberry had fought hard for his position, and meant to keep it; he had studied parish law until he knew (and could almost quote) every clause and section of the more recent Acts, He had the sanitary laws at his fingers’ ends ; in union chargeability he was well versed, and the complex questions of local taxation he had thoroughly mastered. If there was a deputation to wait upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Home Secretary, or the First Commissioner of Works, Boggleberry was invariably one of its leaders; and such importance had he acquired in a certain matter relating to a right of way across the cowyard of a refractory dairyman, that he had been made the subject of leading articles in the Friday Frying-pan and Sunday Settler. He often ignored Lindley Murray, but generally contrived to crush for a time those who conspired against him ; some people said his oratorical victories were gained by abuse, accompanied by a liberal admixture of Billingsgate—of which tongue the oilman was certainly an accomplished master; but be this as it may, the result was the same aS though he had used the choicest flowers of rhetoric, and Boggleberry was a man who looked at results.

Happily his business was an exceedingly prosperous one. In his father’s time the shop had been so carefully looked after that now it needed but little supervision; and from his early youth the aspiring Nicholas had felt that a higher destiny than the mere vending of turps, dips, soap, and pickles lay before him. Accordingly, when at the tender age of five and forty he became an orphan, he advertised for a managing man, and was fortunate in meeting .with Thomas Ferrars, a good-looking active young fellow, who had a couple of years previously been bitten by taking a business in a new neighbourhood, where inhabitants were at a premium and waste land at a discount. He was single, and had no incumbrances in the shape of a dependent mother or sister ; and furthermore, had still remaining in the bank a small reserve fund. So accepting the limited salary offered (for Boggleberry, when his own pocket was concerned, had, like Mrs Gilpin, a frugal mind), Mr Ferrars forthwith became installed in his new situation. He lived upon the premises, was found to be trustworthy, seemed to have a proper appreciation of his master’s parochial importance and moral and intellectual attainments, and altogether proved a source of satisfaction to that local functionary. In this world there are few things without alloy, and in the overflowing cup of the great Boggleberry there was one drop of bitterness that seemed to taint all the rest: his appearance was not prepossessing, and he knew it. Boggleberry was extremely small of stature, but exceedingly stout—the latter being one result of the many vestry jollifications provided at the expense of the parish, so vulgar critics maintained. His head would have been entirely destitute of hair but for the few stray locks which sprouted just above and in rear of his ears ; his features were as irregular as features could be, and his nose was acquiring a rich mellowness of hue that suffered no diminution in tint by the daily libations of fruity port which he was compelled to take, it need scarcely be said by his doctor’s orders, in order that his system might bear up against the heavy demands upon it. His legs, too, were out of all comparison with his huge body; they were short, spindly, and, about the region of the calves, of odd shapes; so that the shining light of the parish, to an irreverent eye, might be said to bear a resemblance to a battered and decayed pumpkin, into an extremity of which a couple of twigs had been thrust. Now Nicholas Boggleberry, like many another wise man before him, had the misfortune to fall in love. Once he had thought himself superior to such folly; but in a fatal moment Annie Bond, the draper’s daughter, came, saw, and conquered. His enslaver was about the last person one would have thought capable of seizing his matured affections. If some Clytemnestra, Queen Eleanor, Catherine de Medicis, Margaret of

Anjou, Mrs Manning, or any other lady of reputed uncontrollable will, had pounced upon poor Boggleberry, his captivity wt.uld have been less sm-prising. But to think that a fair-haired, blue-eyed, frolicsome lass, who had but just passed her twenty-first year, should so completely shear the locks of the local Samson, was a circumstance almost unparalleled in its absurdity. Boggleberry felt his weakness ; but, as he remarked to Mr Ferrars in his privacy of the little parlour at the rear of the shop, it was not every one who could realise the extent of Helen’s influence in the memorable affair at Troy ; neither could an unimpressionable world feel the power which Cleopatra, that ‘serpent of old Nile,’ exercised over the vacillating and misguided Marc Antony. History supplied many examples for Boggle berry’s consolation, and it was but natural he should select those most calculated to shed a reflected lustre upon himself. The enamoured vestryman did not, however, allow the passion of love to overcome the claims of his parish, and oft had the complaisant assistant to bear his master’s apologies to the fair Annie. Highly pleased with his factotum, Nicholas treated him as a personal friend, and poured into his _ ear all his eager aspirations, and the various motives which had induced him to seek the hand of his charmer. In addition to her good looks, Annie Bond had several recommendations. Old Nick considered that, notwithstanding she had for two years past served behind her father’s counter, she was not in the least imbued with the follies of the age, and therefore might be expected to readily indorse his well-considered opinions ; she was already in possession of a snug annuity left by a deceased maiden aunt, furthermore, old Bond was reputed to be ‘ warm ’ from a monetary point of view, and Annie was his only child. With the wisdom characteristic of Boggleberry, he took care to be sure of Annie’s acceptance of him ere he made his proposal. Love-making was an art somewhat foreign to him, despite his oratorical readiness. If he had gone to Miss Bond’s feet upon a question of local rating, upon a dispute relative to the power of the licensing magistrates, or upon an infringement of the Common Lodging-house Act, he would have felt no diffidence in the matter. But old Bond was upon the St Patrick and Verdant Sewers Committee, and having received an inkling of his brother vestryman’s hopes, broached the matter to his daughter, and so effectually paved the way, that when Nicholas dropped down upon his knees he was accepted at once. Some ill-natured folk asserted that Mr Bond’s conduct had been actuated by Boggleberry’s promise that, for the future, all the long-cloth, flannel, and towelling required for the should come from his future father-in-law’s shop. But this could have been nothing but vile calumny ; and Mr Bond very properly showed his disregard of such slanders by at once attending to a large order which strangely enough came a few days after the betrothal, and was succeded by many others. With so many parochial matters on his hand, Nicholas had not much time for courtship, To his confidant and general manager he intrusted all the preparations for the wedding. Boggleberry himself seldom went in the direction of the draper’s establishment ; and it was a great consolation to him in his philanthropic efforts for the wellbeing of the parish, to know that his affianced uttered no complaint at his prolonged absence.

‘I hope, Tom,’ he remarked one evening, after Mr Ferrars had returned from the house of his betrothed, * you impressed upon Miss Bond my wish that the affair should be conducted in the quietest manner possible—no cards, no presents, no bridesmaids, no bell-ringing, or any rubbish of that sort. ’ ‘ Miss Bond, sir, desires to meet your wishes in this as in every other respect. By the 10th of next month she will have completed all her preparations, and coincides with your suggestion that the marriage should be celebrated on that day,’ responded Mr Ferrars.

‘As the church is only a quarter of a mile from the house, we shall walk, you know. I want to do the thing as cheap as I can. I’ve no money to waste upon absurdities. Whatever the affair comes to, Mrs Bqggleberry that is to be will have to make it up afterwards out of the housekeeping money.’ Mr Ferrars ventured an observation, that the cost depended upon how many were to be invited. * First of all there’s myself ; then there’s Annie, her father —you will act as my best man—and Annie’s two cousins, who are to be the bridesmaids—girls I don’t like a bit, for they always seem to be laughing at me ; but we must have ’em, I suppose, just as we are compelled to have that hard mass of indigestion commonly called a bride-cake. There’s six of us altogether.’ * But wouldn’t you invite any of the Vestry ?’ * Why, Tom, you must be mad to think of such a thing. But there, you don’t know what the Vestry can accomplish in the matter of eating and drinking. I do.’ Mr Boggleberry’s dull spiritless eyes here set to winking with such rapidity, and his face assumed such an extraordinarily comic and knowing expression, that Mr Ferrars, on a pretence of wanting to sneeze, was compelled to turn aside his head in order to conceal a laugh. ‘After the gchurch ceremony,’ continued Nicholas, ‘ we shall have just a simple breakfast, and then return here. There’s no necessity to close the shop, I won't have any fuss, or else, perhaps, we might find the rough music waiting for us on our coming home. As it is, I expect I shall be called an old fool for marrying when I’ve passed fifty, but I don’t mind that, for I flatter myself 1 know my own business best. I’ll go tomorrow and give directions for the banns to be published for the first time on Sunday next. As for all the other arrangements, I shall leave them to you ; only I must beg you’ll not tell the customers or anybody upon what day the wedding is fixed. I don’t want a lot of people staring at me and wanting to drink my health. If Miss Bond likes to incur frivolous expenses, she’ll have to pay the bill; I sha’nt. Just bear that in mind.’

Mr Ferrars nodded and observed, ‘‘My general instructions, then, are to exercise as much economy as possible ?’ ‘ Exactly; and the cheaper the thing is done the better I shall be pleased.’ To he continued.