this month, and the lad, with
his hair dishevelled, raging about the room flamberge au vent, and
pinking the affrighted innkeeper and chaplain, would have afforded a
good subject for the pencil. But oh, to think of him stumbling over a
stool, and prostrated by an enemy who has stole away his brains! Come,
Gumbo! and help your master to bed!

CHAPTER XXXII. In which a Family Coach is ordered

Our pleasing duty now is to divulge the secret which Mr. Lambert
whispered in his wife's ear at the close of the antepenultimate chapter,
and the publication of which caused such great pleasure to the whole of
the Oakhurst family. As the hay was in, the corn not ready for cutting,
and by consequence the farm horses disengaged, why, asked Colonel
Lambert, should they not be put into the coach, and should we not all
pay a visit to Tunbridge Wells, taking friend Wolfe at Westerham on our
way?

Mamma embraced this proposal, and I dare say the honest gentleman who
made it. All the children jumped for joy. The girls went off straightway
to get together their best calamancoes, paduasoys, falbalas, furbelows,
capes, cardinals, sacks, negligees, solitaires, caps, ribbons, mantuas,
clocked stockings, and high-heeled shoes, and I know not what articles
of toilet. Mamma's best robes were taken from the presses, whence they
only issued on rare, solemn occasions, retiring immediately afterwards
to lavender and seclusion; the brave Colonel produced his laced hat and
waistcoat and silver-hilted hanger; Charley rejoiced in a rasee holiday
suit of his father's, in which the Colonel had been married, and which
Mrs. Lambert cut up, not without a pang. Ball and Dumpling had their
tails and manes tied with ribbon, and Chump, the old white cart-horse,
went as unicorn leader, to help the carriage-horses up the first hilly
five miles of the road from Oakhurst to Westerham. The carriage was an
ancient vehicle, and was believed to have served in the procession which
had brought George I. from Greenwich to London, on his first arrival to
assume the sovereignty of these realms. It had belonged to Mr. Lambert's
father, and the family had been in the habit of regarding it, ever since
they could remember anything, as one of the most splendid coaches in the
three kingdoms. Brian, coachman, and--must it also be owned?--ploughman,
of the Oakhurst family, had a place on the box, with Mr. Charley by his
side. The precious clothes were packed in imperials on t