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The Lay of St. Cuthbert, or, The Devil’s Dinner-Party
By Richard Harris Barham (Thomas Ingoldsby) (1788–1845)

A Legend of the North Countree

There’s nothing I hate, in

The world, like waiting!

It’s a monstrous great bore, when a Gentleman feels

A good appetite, thus to be kept from his meals!”

It’s in Bolton Hall, and the clock strikes Two!

And the scullions and cooks are themselves “in a stew,”

And the kitchen-maids stand, and don’t know what to do,

For the rich plum-puddings are bursting their bags,

And the mutton and turnips are boiling to rags,

And the fish is all spoiled,

And the butter’s all oiled,

And the soup’s got cold in the silver tureen,

And there’s nothing, in short, that is fit to be seen!

While Sir Guy Le Scroope continues to fume,

And to fret by himself in the tapestried room,

And still fidgets and looks

More cross than the cooks,

And repeats that bad word, which we’ve softened to “Zooks!”

Two o’clock’s come, and Two o’clock’s gone,

And the large and the small hands move steadily on,

Still nobody’s there,

No De Roos, or De Clare,

To taste of the Scroope’s most delicate fare,

Or to quaff off a health unto Bolton’s Heir,

That nice little boy who sits in his chair,

Some four years old, and a few months to spare,

With his laughing blue eyes and his long curly hair,

Now sucking his thumb, and now munching his pear.

Again Sir Guy the silence broke,

“It’s hard upon Three!—it’s just on the stroke!

Come, serve up the dinner!—A joke is a joke”—

Little he deems that Stephen de Hoaques,

Who “his fun,” as the Yankees say, everywhere “pokes,”

And is always a great deal too fond of his jokes,

Has written a circular note to De Nokes,

And De Styles and De Roe, and the rest of the folks,

One and all,

Great and small,

Who were asked to the Hall

To dine there and sup, and wind up with a ball,

And had told all the party a great bouncing lie, he

Cooked up, that the “fête was postponed sine die,

The dear little curly-wigged heir of Le Scroope

Being taken alarmingly ill with the croop!”

When the clock struck Three,

And the Page on his knee

Said, “An’t please you, Sir Guy Le Scroope, On a servi!”

And the Knight found the banquet-hall empty and clear,

With nobody near

To partake of his cheer,

He stamped, and he stormed—then his language!—Oh dear!

’Twas awful to see, and ’twas awful to hear!

And he cried to the button-decked Page at his knee,

Who had told him so civilly “On a servi,”

“Ten thousand fiends seize them, wherever they be!

—The Devil take them! and the Devil take thee!

And the DEVIL MAY EAT UP THE DINNER FOR ME!”