Among the most respected of the names beginning in C which theCourt-Guide contained, in the year 18--, was that of Crawley, Sir Pitt,Baronet, Great Gaunt Street, and Queen's Crawley, Hants. Thishonourable name had figured constantly also in the Parliamentary listfor many years, in conjunction with that of a number of other worthygentlemen who sat in turns for the borough.

It is related, with regard to the borough of Queen's Crawley, thatQueen Elizabeth in one of her progresses, stopping at Crawley tobreakfast, was so delighted with some remarkably fine Hampshire beerwhich was then presented to her by the Crawley of the day (a handsomegentleman with a trim beard and a good leg), that she forthwith erectedCrawley into a borough to send two members to Parliament; and theplace, from the day of that illustrious visit, took the name of Queen'sCrawley, which it holds up to the present moment. And though, by thelapse of time, and those mutations which age produces in empires,cities, and boroughs, Queen's Crawley was no longer so populous a placeas it had been in Queen Bess's time--nay, was come down to thatcondition of borough which used to be denominated rotten--yet, as SirPitt Crawley would say with perfect justice in his elegant way,"Rotten! be hanged--it produces me a good fifteen hundred a year."

Sir Pitt Crawley (named after the great Commoner) was the son ofWalpole Crawley, first Baronet, of the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office inthe reign of George II., when he was impeached for peculation, as werea great number of other honest gentlemen of those days; and WalpoleCrawley was, as need scarcely be said, son of John Churchill Crawley,named after the celebrated military commander of the reign of QueenAnne. The family tree (which hangs up at Queen's Crawley) furthermorementions Charles Stuart, afterwards called Barebones Crawley, son ofthe Crawley of James the First's time; and finally, Queen Elizabeth'sCrawley, who is represented as the foreground of the picture in hisforked beard and armour. Out of his waistcoat, as usual, grows a tree,on the main branches of which the above illustrious names areinscribed. Close by the name of Sir Pitt Crawley, Baronet (the subjectof the present memoir), are written that of his brother, the ReverendBute Crawley (the great Commoner was in disgrace when the reverendgentleman was born), rector of Crawley-cum-Snailby, and of variousother male and female members of the Crawley family.

Sir Pitt was first married to Grizzel, sixth daughter of Mungo Binkie,Lord Binkie, and cousin, in consequence, of Mr. Dundas. She broughthim two sons: Pitt, named not so much after his father as after theheaven-born minister; and Rawdon Crawley, from the Prince of Wales'sfriend, whom his Majesty George IV forgot so completely. Many yearsafter her ladyship's demise, Sir Pitt led to the altar Rosa, daughterof Mr. G. Dawson, of Mudbury, by whom he had two daughters, for whosebenefit Miss Rebecca Sharp was now engaged as governess. It will beseen that the young lady was come into a family of very genteelconnexions, and was about to move in a much more distinguished circlethan that humble one which she had just quitted in Russell Square.

She had received her orders to join her pupils, in a note which waswritten upon an old envelope, and which contained the following words:

Sir Pitt Crawley begs Miss Sharp and baggidge may be hear on Tuesday,as I leaf for Queen's Crawley to-morrow morning ERLY.

Great Gaunt Street.

Rebecca had never seen a Baronet, as far as she knew, and as soon asshe had taken leave of Amelia, and counted the guineas whichgood-natured Mr. Sedley had put into a purse for her, and as soon asshe had done wiping her eyes with her handkerchief (which operation sheconcluded the very moment the carriage had turned the corner of thestreet), she began to depict in her own mind what a Baronet must be. "Iwonder, does he wear a star?" thought she, "or is it only lords thatwear stars? But he will be very handsomely dressed in a court suit,with ruffles, and his hair a little powdered, like Mr. Wroughton atCovent Garden. I suppose he will be awfully proud, and that I shall betreated most contemptuously. Still I must bear my hard lot as well asI can--at least, I shall be amongst GENTLEFOLKS, and not with vulgarcity people": and she fell to thinking of her Russell Square friendswith that very same philosophical bitterness with which, in a certainapologue, the fox is represented as speaking of the grapes.

Having passed through Gaunt Square into Great Gaunt Street, thecarriage at length stopped at a tall gloomy house between two othertall gloomy houses, each with a hatchment over the middle drawing-roomwindow; as is the custom of houses in Great Gaunt Street, in whichgloomy locality death seems to reign perpetual. The shutters of thefirst-floor windows of Sir Pitt's mansion were closed--those of thedining-room were partially open, and the blinds neatly covered up inold newspapers.

John, the groom, who had driven the carriage alone, did not care todescend to ring the bell; and so prayed a passing milk-boy to performthat office for him. When the bell was rung, a head appeared betweenthe interstices of the dining-room shutters, and the door was opened bya man in drab breeches and gaiters, with a dirty old coat, a foul oldneckcloth lashed round his bristly neck, a shining bald head, a leeringred face, a pair of twinkling grey eyes, and a mouth perpetually on thegrin.

"This Sir Pitt Crawley's?" says John, from the box.

"Ees," says the man at the door, with a nod.

"Hand down these 'ere trunks then," said John.

"Hand 'n down yourself," said the porter.

"Don't you see I can't leave my hosses? Come, bear a hand, my finefeller, and Miss will give you some beer," said John, with ahorse-laugh, for he was no longer respectful to Miss Sharp, as herconnexion with the family was broken off, and as she had given nothingto the servants on coming away.

The bald-headed man, taking his hands out of his breeches pockets,advanced on this summons, and throwing Miss Sharp's trunk over hisshoulder, carried it into the house.

"Take this basket and shawl, if you please, and open the door," saidMiss Sharp, and descended from the carriage in much indignation. "Ishall write to Mr. Sedley and inform him of your conduct," said she tothe groom.

"Don't," replied that functionary. "I hope you've forgot nothink? Miss'Melia's gownds--have you got them--as the lady's maid was to have 'ad?I hope they'll fit you. Shut the door, Jim, you'll get no good out of'ER," continued John, pointing with his thumb towards Miss Sharp: "abad lot, I tell you, a bad lot," and so saying, Mr. Sedley's groomdrove away. The truth is, he was attached to the lady's maid inquestion, and indignant that she should have been robbed of herperquisites.

On entering the dining-room, by the orders of the individual ingaiters, Rebecca found that apartment not more cheerful than such roomsusually are, when genteel families are out of town. The faithfulchambers seem, as it were, to mourn the absence of their masters. Theturkey carpet has rolled itself up, and retired sulkily under thesideboard: the pictures have hidden their faces behind old sheets ofbrown paper: the ceiling lamp is muffled up in a dismal sack of brownholland: the window-curtains have disappeared under all sorts of shabbyenvelopes: the marble bust of Sir Walpole Crawley is looking from itsblack corner at the bare boards and the oiled fire-irons, and the emptycard-racks over the mantelpiece: the cellaret has lurked away behindthe carpet: the chairs are turned up heads and tails along the walls:and in the dark corner opposite the statue, is an old-fashioned crabbedknife-box, locked and sitting on a dumb waiter.

Two kitchen chairs, and a round table, and an attenuated old poker andtongs were, however, gathered round the fire-place, as was a saucepanover a feeble sputtering fire. There was a bit of cheese and bread,and a tin candlestick on the table, and a little black porter in apint-pot.

"Had your dinner, I suppose? It is not too warm for you? Like a drop ofbeer?"

"Where is Sir Pitt Crawley?" said Miss Sharp majestically.

"He, he! I'm Sir Pitt Crawley. Reklect you owe me a pint for bringingdown your luggage. He, he! Ask Tinker if I aynt. Mrs. Tinker, MissSharp; Miss Governess, Mrs. Charwoman. Ho, ho!"

The lady addressed as Mrs. Tinker at this moment made her appearancewith a pipe and a paper of tobacco, for which she had been despatched aminute before Miss Sharp's arrival; and she handed the articles over toSir Pitt, who had taken his seat by the fire.

"Where's the farden?" said he. "I gave you three halfpence. Where'sthe change, old Tinker?"

"There!" replied Mrs. Tinker, flinging down the coin; "it's onlybaronets as cares about farthings."

"A farthing a day is seven shillings a year," answered the M.P.; "sevenshillings a year is the interest of seven guineas. Take care of yourfarthings, old Tinker, and your guineas will come quite nat'ral."

"You may be sure it's Sir Pitt Crawley, young woman," said Mrs. Tinker,surlily; "because he looks to his farthings. You'll know him betterafore long."

"And like me none the worse, Miss Sharp," said the old gentleman, withan air almost of politeness. "I must be just before I'm generous."

"He never gave away a farthing in his life," growled Tinker.

"Never, and never will: it's against my principle. Go and get anotherchair from the kitchen, Tinker, if you want to sit down; and then we'llhave a bit of supper."

Presently the baronet plunged a fork into the saucepan on the fire, andwithdrew from the pot a piece of tripe and an onion, which he dividedinto pretty equal portions, and of which he partook with Mrs. Tinker."You see, Miss Sharp, when I'm not here Tinker's on board wages: whenI'm in town she dines with the family. Haw! haw! I'm glad Miss Sharp'snot hungry, ain't you, Tink?" And they fell to upon their frugal supper.

After supper Sir Pitt Crawley began to smoke his pipe; and when itbecame quite dark, he lighted the rushlight in the tin candlestick, andproducing from an interminable pocket a huge mass of papers, beganreading them, and putting them in order.

"I'm here on law business, my dear, and that's how it happens that Ishall have the pleasure of such a pretty travelling companionto-morrow."

"He's always at law business," said Mrs. Tinker, taking up the pot ofporter.

"Drink and drink about," said the Baronet. "Yes; my dear, Tinker isquite right: I've lost and won more lawsuits than any man in England.Look here at Crawley, Bart. v. Snaffle. I'll throw him over, or myname's not Pitt Crawley. Podder and another versus Crawley, Bart.Overseers of Snaily parish against Crawley, Bart. They can't prove it'scommon: I'll defy 'em; the land's mine. It no more belongs to theparish than it does to you or Tinker here. I'll beat 'em, if it costme a thousand guineas. Look over the papers; you may if you like, mydear. Do you write a good hand? I'll make you useful when we're atQueen's Crawley, depend on it, Miss Sharp. Now the dowager's dead Iwant some one."

"She was as bad as he," said Tinker. "She took the law of every one ofher tradesmen; and turned away forty-eight footmen in four year."

"She was close--very close," said the Baronet, simply; "but she was avalyble woman to me, and saved me a steward."--And in this confidentialstrain, and much to the amusement of the new-comer, the conversationcontinued for a considerable time. Whatever Sir Pitt Crawley'squalities might be, good or bad, he did not make the least disguise ofthem. He talked of himself incessantly, sometimes in the coarsest andvulgarest Hampshire accent; sometimes adopting the tone of a man of theworld. And so, with injunctions to Miss Sharp to be ready at five inthe morning, he bade her good night. "You'll sleep with Tinkerto-night," he said; "it's a big bed, and there's room for two. LadyCrawley died in it. Good night."

Sir Pitt went off after this benediction, and the solemn Tinker,rushlight in hand, led the way up the great bleak stone stairs, pastthe great dreary drawing-room doors, with the handles muffled up inpaper, into the great front bedroom, where Lady Crawley had slept herlast. The bed and chamber were so funereal and gloomy, you might havefancied, not only that Lady Crawley died in the room, but that herghost inhabited it. Rebecca sprang about the apartment, however, withthe greatest liveliness, and had peeped into the huge wardrobes, andthe closets, and the cupboards, and tried the drawers which werelocked, and examined the dreary pictures and toilette appointments,while the old charwoman was saying her prayers. "I shouldn't like tosleep in this yeer bed without a good conscience, Miss," said the oldwoman. "There's room for us and a half-dozen of ghosts in it," saysRebecca. "Tell me all about Lady Crawley and Sir Pitt Crawley, andeverybody, my DEAR Mrs. Tinker."

But old Tinker was not to be pumped by this little cross-questioner;and signifying to her that bed was a place for sleeping, notconversation, set up in her corner of the bed such a snore as only thenose of innocence can produce. Rebecca lay awake for a long, longtime, thinking of the morrow, and of the new world into which she wasgoing, and of her chances of success there. The rushlight flickered inthe basin. The mantelpiece cast up a great black shadow, over half ofa mouldy old sampler, which her defunct ladyship had worked, no doubt,and over two little family pictures of young lads, one in a collegegown, and the other in a red jacket like a soldier. When she went tosleep, Rebecca chose that one to dream about.

At four o'clock, on such a roseate summer's morning as even made GreatGaunt Street look cheerful, the faithful Tinker, having wakened herbedfellow, and bid her prepare for departure, unbarred and unbolted thegreat hall door (the clanging and clapping whereof startled thesleeping echoes in the street), and taking her way into Oxford Street,summoned a coach from a stand there. It is needless to particularizethe number of the vehicle, or to state that the driver was stationedthus early in the neighbourhood of Swallow Street, in hopes that someyoung buck, reeling homeward from the tavern, might need the aid of hisvehicle, and pay him with the generosity of intoxication.

It is likewise needless to say that the driver, if he had any suchhopes as those above stated, was grossly disappointed; and that theworthy Baronet whom he drove to the City did not give him one singlepenny more than his fare. It was in vain that Jehu appealed andstormed; that he flung down Miss Sharp's bandboxes in the gutter at the'Necks, and swore he would take the law of his fare.

"You'd better not," said one of the ostlers; "it's Sir Pitt Crawley."

"So it is, Joe," cried the Baronet, approvingly; "and I'd like to seethe man can do me."

"So should oi," said Joe, grinning sulkily, and mounting the Baronet'sbaggage on the roof of the coach.

"Keep the box for me, Leader," exclaims the Member of Parliament to thecoachman; who replied, "Yes, Sir Pitt," with a touch of his hat, andrage in his soul (for he had promised the box to a young gentleman fromCambridge, who would have given a crown to a certainty), and Miss Sharpwas accommodated with a back seat inside the carriage, which might besaid to be carrying her into the wide world.

How the young man from Cambridge sulkily put his five great-coats infront; but was reconciled when little Miss Sharp was made to quit thecarriage, and mount up beside him--when he covered her up in one of hisBenjamins, and became perfectly good-humoured--how the asthmaticgentleman, the prim lady, who declared upon her sacred honour she hadnever travelled in a public carriage before (there is always such alady in a coach--Alas! was; for the coaches, where are they?), and thefat widow with the brandy-bottle, took their places inside--how theporter asked them all for money, and got sixpence from the gentlemanand five greasy halfpence from the fat widow--and how the carriage atlength drove away--now threading the dark lanes of Aldersgate, anonclattering by the Blue Cupola of St. Paul's, jingling rapidly by thestrangers' entry of Fleet-Market, which, with Exeter 'Change, has nowdeparted to the world of shadows--how they passed the White Bear inPiccadilly, and saw the dew rising up from the market-gardens ofKnightsbridge--how Turnhamgreen, Brentwood, Bagshot, were passed--neednot be told here. But the writer of these pages, who has pursued informer days, and in the same bright weather, the same remarkablejourney, cannot but think of it with a sweet and tender regret. Whereis the road now, and its merry incidents of life? Is there no Chelseaor Greenwich for the old honest pimple-nosed coachmen? I wonder whereare they, those good fellows? Is old Weller alive or dead? and thewaiters, yea, and the inns at which they waited, and the cold rounds ofbeef inside, and the stunted ostler, with his blue nose and clinkingpail, where is he, and where is his generation? To those greatgeniuses now in petticoats, who shall write novels for the belovedreader's children, these men and things will be as much legend andhistory as Nineveh, or Coeur de Lion, or Jack Sheppard. For themstage-coaches will have become romances--a team of four bays asfabulous as Bucephalus or Black Bess. Ah, how their coats shone, asthe stable-men pulled their clothes off, and away they went--ah, howtheir tails shook, as with smoking sides at the stage's end theydemurely walked away into the inn-yard. Alas! we shall never hear thehorn sing at midnight, or see the pike-gates fly open any more.Whither, however, is the light four-inside Trafalgar coach carrying us?Let us be set down at Queen's Crawley without further divagation, andsee how Miss Rebecca Sharp speeds there.