Page:Once a Week Jul - Dec 1859.pdf/67

Alas! for that royal wine! Our only consolation must be that there remains enough in stock for the use of men now of middle age. Posterity must take care of itself. Our descendants could never appreciate the pungency of our regret, or the extent of their own loss. It is something to have lived through the Madeira epoch of the world. Finally, it must have struck every London diner-out, how much Rhenish wine has disappeared from the table within the last few years. England now only takes 60,000 gallons of wine from the Rheingau, and from the bright Moselle—and Germany imports more wine for her own use than she exports for foreign consumption.

Take it all for all, the British Islands are not badly off in respect of drink. No Englishman of sane mind will speak lightly of such beer as can now be produced in this country. Our tea is better than can be found elsewhere out of China, Russia excepted; and in our coffee there is a marked improvement. If we regret that practical experience has shown that the finer sorts of Burgundy suffer from sea-sickness, in compensation we are obtaining far easier access to the Gironde, and the more delicate wines of Bordeaux. There is, however, a striking deterioration in Port: the finer qualities ordered are almost beyond the reach of persons of moderate means; but Sherry, for ordinary purposes, is better, and more readily procurable than it used to be twenty years ago. Marsala is no bad substitute for the inferior sorts. Compare our happy condition with that of the ancients! who, having cut out blocks of the hardened nastiness which they called wine, melted them in hot water to stimulate their praises of these products of Asia or Arcadia.

t was a strange scene. The waggon was close to the circus, formed indeed part of it—the poor woman was lying on the low shelf, called the bed, of the travelling caravan; two or three of the wives of the men attached to the exhibition were round her, endeavouring by their exertions to relieve momentarily increasing pain, and helping her to bear it patiently by their sympathy.

“He ought to have been here half an hour ago,” said one of the women. “Jim started for him on the piebald two hours since?”

“Did he take the piebald?” said another. “Why I thought he was in the Italian Lovers?”

“No, he wouldn’t run with the spotted mare, so they’ve put the blind grey with her, and took the piebald in the quadrille for Dick Gravel to take bottom couple with.”

The explanation seemed satisfactory, for silence ensued.

Presently a roar of such laughter as is only heard in a circus at a country village,—fresh, genuine, hearty,—shook the sides of the frail vehicle.

“What’s that?” said the apparently dying woman.

“Only your Bill’s Quaker story,” said one.

“O, then he’ll soon be here, won’t he?” said she.

“Yes, he’s only got three more points, and then he’ll come: he don’t go in in the Sylph scene.”

“Three fainter peals of laughter told that the three points had hit, but not as well as the Quaker Story; and then he came in.

“Well,” said he, “how is she now?” in a voice whose anxiety contrasted most strangely with his tawdry dress, that of tumbling clown at a travelling circus. “How is she now?”

“I’m better, Bill,” said the woman. “Can you stop a little?”

“Yes; I don’t go in next, it’s Chapman’s turn;” and so saying, the man seated himself by the side of the woman.

She was still young, and, as far as the dim light hung from the roof would enable a judgment to be formed, good-looking; the cork-grimed eyebrows, and cracked lips, and dry cheeks, told that she too had appeared before the public for its amusement; indeed the traces of rouge were still on parts of the face, and told too truly that she had lain there but a short time, only since the last evening’s performance: indeed, when, during one of her jumps through the hoop, a man’s putting on his hat startled the horse, and so caused a false step, which brought her heavily to the ground. The experienced ring-master saw she could scarcely stand, and handed her out, kissing her hand in the usual style, and few, if any, of the spectators knew that when rapturously applauding the most unparalleled feat, the leap from the horse’s back through the hoop to the ground, their applause was unheard by their intended object. She had fainted immediately on reaching the dressing-room, and was at once carried to the moving chamber where she now lay.