John Mellish

“ It was the bounden duty of poor John Mellish, in his capacity of host, to sit at the head of his table, pass the claret-jug, and listen to Colonel Maddison's stories of the pig-sticking and the tiger-hunting, as long as the Indian officer chose to talk for the amusement of his friend and his son-in-law. It was perhaps lucky that patient Mr. Lofthouse was well up in all the stories, and knew exactly which departments of each narrative were to be laughed at, and which were to be listened to with silent and awe-stricken attention; for John Mellish made a very bad audience upon this occasion. ”

“ John Mellish gave a long sigh of relief when the Indian officer finished his third cheroot, and pronounced himself ready to join the ladies. The lamps in the drawing-room were lighted, and the curtains drawn before the open windows, when the three gentlemen entered. Mrs. Lofthouse was asleep upon one of the sofas, with a Book of Beauty lying open at her feet, and Mrs. Powell, pale and sleepless,—sleepless as trouble and sorrow, as jealousy and hate, as anything that is ravenous and unappeasable,—sat at her embroidery, working laborious monstrosities upon delicate cambric muslin. ”

“ Decision, my dear Mellish, decision and prompt action are indispensable in these sad catastrophes."
"The body removed!" repeated John Mellish; "the man is dead, then."
"Quite dead," answered the sailor; "he was dead when I found him, though it wasn't above seven minutes after the shot was fired. I left a man with him—a young man as drove me from Doncaster—and a dog,—some big dog that watched beside him,—howling awful, and wouldn't leave him."
"Did you—see—the man's face?"
"Yes."
"You are a stranger here," said John Mellish; "it is useless, therefore, to ask you if you know who the man is." ”

“ Surely it would have been impossible for any true-hearted woman to withhold some such repayment for such a love as that which, in every word, and look, and thought, and deed, John Mellish bestowed upon his wife. How could she be for ever his creditor for such a boundless debt? Are hearts like his common amongst our clay? Is it a small thing to be beloved with this loyal and pure affection? ”

“ But after duly setting down all this, I have to confess that poor John Mellish was cruelly hen-pecked. Such big, blustering fellows are created to be the much-enduring subjects of petticoat government; and they carry the rosy garlands until their dying hour with a sublime unconsciousness that those floral chains are not very easy to be broken. Your little man is self-assertive, and for ever on his guard against womanly domination. All tyrannical husbands on record have been little men, from Mr. Daniel Quilp upwards ”

“ A dark frown obscured the Yorkshireman's brow as he thought this; a frown that would have promised no good to Mr. James Conyers, had not the trainer passed out of the reach of all earthly good and evil.
"Will God have mercy upon a wretch like that?" thought John Mellish; "will that man be forgiven for having brought disgrace and misery upon a trusting girl?"
It will perhaps be wondered at, that John Mellish, who suffered his servants to rule in his household, and allowed his butler to dictate to him what wines he should drink ”

“ A man may save a good deal of money out of his wages and perquisites with such a master as you. This former trainer may not have liked being superseded by the deceased. He may have felt some animus towards his successor."
"Langley!" cried John Mellish; "he is as good a fellow as ever breathed. ”

“ He left one of the grooms to keep watch in the death chamber, in company with Stephen Hargraves the "Softy;" and, after bidding the surgeon good night, walked slowly homewards with his friends. The church clock was striking twelve as the three gentlemen left the wood, and passed through the little iron gateway on to the lawn.
"We had better not tell the ladies more than we are obliged to tell them about this business," said John Mellish, as they approached the house, where the lights were still burning in the hall and drawing-room; "we shall only agitate them by letting them know the worst." ”

“ They can put a fellow's pipe out, but he can chew his quid in their faces; though I won't say which is wust for their carpets, neither."
I am sorry to be compelled to confess that this brown-visaged merchant-captain, who said wust, and chewed Cavendish tobacco, was uncle to Mrs. John Mellish of Mellish Park; and that the motive for this very journey was neither more nor less than his desire to become acquainted with his niece. ”

“ Lofthouse did not observe her inattention, for in the simple earnestness of his own mind, he thought it scarcely possible that the schoolhouse topic could fail to be interesting. Nothing is so difficult as to make people understand that you don't care for what they themselves especially affect. John Mellish could not believe that the entries for the Great Ebor were not interesting to Mr. ”

“ I'm sometimes afraid that we're too much like the careless children in the pretty childish allegory, who played about amongst the flowers on the smooth grass in the beautiful garden, until it was too late to set out upon the long journey on the dark road which would have led them to Paradise. What shall we do, my darling, to deserve the blessings God has given us so freely; the blessings of youth and strength, and love and wealth? What shall we do, dear? I don't want to turn Mellish into a Philanstery exactly, nor to give up my racing-stud, if I can help it," John said reflectively ”

“ The funeral of the trainer had not yet taken place, and it was scarcely a pleasant thing for Mr. Mellish to remember that the body of the murdered man still lay, stark and awful, in the oak coffin that stood upon trestles in the rustic chamber at the north lodge.
"I'll pull that place down, Lolly," John said, as he turned away from an open window, through which he could see the Gothic chimneys of the trainer's late habitation glimmering redly above the trees. "I'll pull the place down, my pet. The gates are never used, except by the stable-boys ”

“ I have seldom seen anyone so astonished as Mellish was at these words. In the whole course of his professional experience, he had never met with a parallel case. It was hard on the poor man not to be allowed to speak his mind about a matter of four per cent in a book-paper, but what could he do? He could not proceed with his denunciation, for if Bradshaw's explanation turned out a sufficient excuse, he would have to withdraw it all again, and vast stores of golden eloquence would be wasted. ”

“ It is quite wonderful for him to have a relative at hand who is an Englishwoman and familiar with things he will feel he must learn.”
A perhaps singular truth is that but for the unmistakable nature of the surroundings she quickly took in the significance of, and but for the perfection of the carrying out of Mrs. Mellish's delightful idea, it is more than probable that her lady-ship's manner of approaching Miss Alicia and certain subjects on which she desired enlightenment would have been much more direct and much less propitiatory. ”

“ Mellish,” said the youth angrily, “what are you driving at? If your doorkeepers don’t know their own business why don’t you speak to them about it? Are you going to have me turned out?”
“Nothing of the sort,” said Mellish, soothingly, putting his hand in a fatherly manner on the young fellow’s shoulder. “Don’t mistake my meaning. The fact that you are here shows that you have a right to be here. We’ll say no more about that. But you take my advice and quit the business here and now. I was a gambler before you were born, although I don’t gamble any more. Take the advice of a man who knows. ”

“ Mellish's hair was standing on end with excitement, and he stammered. He began groping in his coat-tails and, before the Viceroy knew what was about to happen, he had tipped a bagful of his powder into the big silver ash-tray.
“J-j-judge for yourself, Sir,” said Mellish. “Y' Excellency shall judge for yourself! Absolutely infallible, on my honor.” ”

“ No one seems to pretend that he is anything but extremely nice himself, notwithstanding his disadvantages.”
She kept a fine hazel eye, surrounded by a line which artistically represented itself as black lashes, steadily resting on Miss Alicia as she said the last words.
“He is,” said Miss Alicia, with gentle firmness, “nicer than I had ever imagined any young man could be—far nicer.”
Lady Mallowe’s glance round the luxurious private sitting-room and over the perfect “idea” of Mrs. Mellish was so swift as to be almost imperceptible. ”

“ Mellish did not attempt to argue the question. He was too weary and sick at heart, too anxious for the inquest to be over, and be free to carry Aurora away with him, and turn his back upon the familiar place, which had been hateful to him ever since the trainer had crossed its threshold.
"Yes, my darling," he said to his wife, as he bent over her pillow, "I shall take you away to the south of France directly this business is settled. You shall leave the scene of all past associations, all bygone annoyances. We will begin the world afresh." ”

“ Now those accursed medics had unleashed the monster of war and as it stared at him from the screen it had that blood-freezing, that hypnotic effect which the Greeks once ascribed to the monstrous Gorgon.
Mellish's voice—or was it Bondy's?—seemed to come through a fog and over a vast distance as it asked: "What seems to be the matter, Lee? You're sweating, your body shakes; what do you feel?"
"It's those rays," he tried to defend himself. "It's the vibrations—the fingers. They are gripping the heart; it's like the whole body was turned into a heart. ”

“ Mellish was nervously anxious to go straight to his Fumigatory, and talked at random until tiffin was over and His Excellency asked him to smoke. The Viceroy was pleased with Mellish because he did not talk “shop.”
As soon as the cheroots were lit, Mellish spoke like a man; beginning with his cholera-theory, reviewing his fifteen years' “scientific labors,” the machinations of the “Simla Ring,” and the excellence of his Fumigatory, while the Viceroy watched him between half-shut eyes and thought: “Evidently, this is the wrong tiger; but it is an original animal.” ”

“ He does worry me so when he prowls about the drawing-room."
"Let him go, by all means. I don't mind at all," Auntie acquiesced.
"I knew she'd win. They always do, when they've money, and don't want to," Mellish said to his wife, talking over the evening's game. "Played threepence a hundred, didn't she?"
"Isn't it mean of her!" Grace said. "With a purse full of sovereigns—for I saw them when she gave it to me to pay the cab—and thirty more, she told me, in her jewel-case. By the way, the servants asked for their wages again to-day, Gussie." ”

“ Many believed that Melville suffered more on account of his religion than of treachery to the country. John Johnston, D.D. [q. v.] , places him among his Scottish heroes (Heroes ex omni Historia Scotica lectissimi, 1603, pp. 28, 29) . Melville was twice married, first to Margaret, daughter of John Wemyss of that ilk, and secondly to Helen Napier, of the family of Merchiston, and he had a family of nine sons and three daughters. John, the eldest son of his second marriage, succeeded to the family estates; others of his sons were Robert, first lord Melville [q. v.] ”

“ Mellish held for some years before his elevation to the Bench in 1869 a position unique at the English Common-law Bar as a giver of opinions on points of law. As the Israelites in King David’s day said of Ahithophel that his counsel was as if a man had inquired at the oracle of God, [25] so the legal profession deemed Mellish 177 practically infallible, and held an opinion signed by him to be equal in weight to a judgment of the Court of Exchequer Chamber (the then court of appeal in common-law cases) . ”

“ He had no objection, of course, to Mr Mellish saying that his work during the term, and especially his Livy, had been disgraceful. A master has the right to say that sort of thing if he likes. It is one of the perquisites of the position. But when he went on to observe, without a touch of shame, that there would be an examination in the Livy as far as they had gone in it on the following Saturday, Pillingshot felt that he exceeded. It was not playing the game. ”

“ In Mellish culminated all the best of these various qualities which were considered the appanage of a patrician sportsman of his day. A most expert whip, no man drove four-in-hand with more skill and with less labour than he did; and to display that skill he often selected very difficult horses to drive, satisfied if they were goers. As a rider he was equally eminent: for years after his death his memory lingered in many a hunt, where he had led all the light weights of Leicestershire, Rutlandshire, and Yorkshire, when he was himself riding fourteen stone. ”

“ A sharp customer, no doubt; wants to sell a horse, I dare say, and heard I didn't mind giving a good price for a good thing."
Mr. Mellish might have gone even further than this, for there were many horsey gentlemen in his neighbourhood, past masters in the art they practised, who were wont to say that the young squire, judiciously manipulated, might be induced to give a remarkably good price for a very bad thing; and there were many broken-down, slim-legged horses in the Mellish stables that bore witness to the same fact. ”