Nay, sweet Smilinda, do not chideThe wind that wantons with thy hair;The grass will all his prickles hideNor harm thy snowy feet and bare.And, listen, the enamoured airMakes lutestrings of thy locks so fair.At night the stars are mirrors which reflectThine eyes: at least that is what I expect.
Nay, sweet Smilinda, do not chideThe wind that wantons with thy hair;The grass will all his prickles hideNor harm thy snowy feet and bare.And, listen, the enamoured airMakes lutestrings of thy locks so fair.At night the stars are mirrors which reflectThine eyes: at least that is what I expect.
Mr. Wogan spent an hour and three pipes of tobacco over his unwonted exercise, which brought him into a great heat.
Having finished the verse he blew out his cheeks and took a rest from his labours. It was a fine spring morning, and the sun bright as a midsummer day. To his right the creepers were beginning to stretch their green tendrils over the red bricks of the garden wall. To his left half-a-dozen steps led up to a raised avenue of trees. Wogan looked down the avenue, noted the border of spring flowers, and a flash of a big window at the extreme end; and in all the branches the birds sang. The world seemed all together very good, and his poem quite apiece with the world. Wogan stretched his arms and kicked out his feet. His feet struck against something hard in a tuft of grass. He stooped down and picked it up. It was Kelly's Virgil. The book was open, and the pages all blotted and smeared with the dew. It had evidently lain open on the grass by the bench all night. Wogan wiped the covers dry, and, using it as a desk, settled himself to the composition of his second verse. He had not, however, thought of an opening for it before a voice hailed him from behind.
He turned round and saw Kelly coming towards him from the direction of the orchard, and at that moment the opening of his verse occurred to him; Strephon offered to Smilinda his heart's allegiance. Wogan set his pencil to the paper, fearful lest he should forget the line.
'Nick,' cries Kelly, waving a bundle of letters, and starts to run. Wogan slipped his paper between the leaves of the book; just as he did so, Strephon, in return for his heart's 'allegiance,' asked for Smilinda's soft 'obedience.'
'Nick,' cries Kelly again, coming up to the bench, 'what d'you think?'
'I think, 'says Wogan, 'that interruption is the true source of inspiration.'
'What do you mean?' asked Kelly, looking at Wogan's pencil.
'I mean,' says Wogan, looking at the cover of the book, 'that if I lived by my poetry, I would hire a man to rap at my door all day long.'
Kelly, however, had no ears for philosophy.
'Nick,' says he, 'will you listen to me, if you please? I have a letter from Miss Oglethorpe. It explains--'
'Yes,' interposed Wogan thoughtfully. 'It explains why the best poets are ever those who are most dunned by their creditors.'
Kelly snatched the Virgil out of Wogan's hand, and threw it on to the grass. The book opened as it fell. It opened at the soiled pages, and it was behind those pages that Wogan had slipped his poem.
'You are as contrarious as a woman. Here am I, swollen with the grandest news, and you must babble about poets and creditors. Nick, there'll be few creditors to dun you and me for a bit. Just listen, will you?'
He leaned his elbows on the back of the bench, and read from his letter. It was to the effect that, during April, an edict had been published in France, transferring to Mr. Law's company of the West the exclusive rights of trading to the East Indies and the South Seas.
'Think of it, Nick!' he cried. 'The actions have risen from 550 livres to 1,000, and we are as yet at the budding of May. Why, man, as it is we are well to do. Just imagine that, if you can, you threadbare devil! We shall be rich before August.'
'We shall dine off silver plates in September!' cries Nick, leaping up in the contagion of his friend's good spirits..
'And drink out of diamond cups in November,' adds Kelly, dropping at once into the Irish accent.
'Bedad!' shouts Wogan, 'I'll write my poetry on beaten gold,' and he sprang on to the seat.
'You shall,' replies Kelly; 'and your ink shall be distilled out of black pearls.'
'Sure, George, one does not write on gold with ink, but with a graving tool.'
'This nonsense, and poetry, are what the lucky heart sings,' said Kelly.
'To a tune of clinking coins,' said Wogan. He stooped down to his friend. 'Have it all in solid gold, and tied up in sacks,' said he earnestly. 'None of their bills of exchange, but crowns, and pieces of eight, and doubloons, and guinea-pieces; and all tied up in sacks.'
'What will we do with it?' asked Kelly.
'Why, sit on the sacks,' replied Nick, and then grew silent. He looked at Kelly. Kelly looked away to the garden-wall.
'Ah!' said the Parson, with a great start of surprise. 'There's a lizard coming out of the bricks to warm himself,' and he made a step away from the bench. Wogan's hand came quickly down upon his shoulder.
'George,' said he, 'I think we are forgetting something. Not a farthing of it is mine at all.'
'Now, that's a damned scurvy ungenerous remark,' replied George. 'Haven't I borrowed half of your last sixpence before now?'
Wogan got down from the seat.
'Poverty may take a favour from poverty, George, and 'tis all very well.'
Kelly sat himself down on the bench, crossed his knees, and swung a leg to and fro.
'I don't want the money,' said he, with a snort.
'My philosophy calls it altogether an encumbrance,' said Wogan, sitting down by his side.
Kelly turned his back on Wogan, and stared at the garden-wall. Then he turned back.
'I know,' said he of a sudden, and smacks his hand down on Wogan's thigh. 'We'll give it to the King. He can do no more than spend it.'
'He will certainly do no less.' But they did not give it to the King.
Wogan was sitting turned rather towards the house, and as he looked down the avenue, he saw the great windows at the end open, and Lady Oxford come out.
'Here's her ladyship come for her Latin lesson,' said Wogan, and he rose from his seat.
'I'll tell her of our good fortune,' said Kelly, and he walked quickly to the steps at the end of the avenue. Lady Oxford stopped on the first step, with a hand resting on the stone balustrade. George Kelly stood on the grass at the foot of the steps, and told her of his news.
'The shares,' he ended, 'have risen to double value already.'
It seemed to Wogan that her eyes flashed suddenly with a queer, unpleasant light, and the hand which was resting idly on the balustrade crooked like the claws of a bird. He had seen such eyes, and such a hand, at the pharo tables in Paris.
'It is the best news I have heard for many a day,' she said the next instant, with a gracious smile, and coming down the steps, walked by Mr. Kelly's side towards the bench.
'And what will you do with it?' she asked. It was her first question, for she was a practical woman.
'In the first flush,' replied Kelly, hesitating as to how he should put the answer, 'we had a thought of disposing of it where it is sorely needed.'
She looked quickly at Kelly; as quickly looked away. She took a step to the seat with her eyes on the ground.
'Oh,' she observed slowly; 'you would give it away.' There was, perhaps, a trifle of a pucker upon her forehead, perhaps a shade of disappointment in her eyes. But it was all gone in a moment. She clasped her hands fervently together, raised her face to the heavens, her cheeks afire, her eyes most tender. 'Indeed,' she exclaimed, 'the noblest, properest disposition of it! Heaven dispense me more such friends who, in a world so niggardly, retain so ancient a spirit of generosity,' and she stood for a little, with her lips moving, as if in prayer. It was plain to Mr. Wogan that her ladyship had guessed the destination of the money. No such thought, however, troubled George Kelly, who was wholly engaged in savouring the flattery, and, from his appearance, found it very much to his taste.
'I would not, however, if a woman might presume to advise,' she continued, 'be in any great hurry to sell the shares. Though they have risen high, they will doubtless rise higher. And your gift, if you will but wait, in a little will grow worthier of the spirit which prompts it.'
'Madam,' returned Kelly, 'it is very prudent advice. I will be careful to follow it.'
Was it relief which showed for an instant in Lady Oxford's face? Kelly did not notice; Wogan could not tell; and a second afterwards an event occurred which wholly diverted his thoughts.
All three had been standing with their faces towards the garden-seat, the yew-tree and the orchard beyond, Lady Oxford between, and a little in advance of Kelly and Wogan, so that each saw her face obliquely over her shoulders. Now, however, she turned and sat down, giving thus her whole face to the two men; and both saw it suddenly blanch, suddenly flush as though all the blood had leaped from her heart into her cheeks, and then fade again to pallor. Terror widened and fixed her eyes, her lips parted, she quivered as though she had been struck a buffet across the face.
'Your ladyship--' began Kelly, and, noticing the direction of her gaze, he broke off his sentence, and turned him about. As he moved, Lady Oxford, even in the midst of her terror, stole a quick, conscious glance at his face.
'Sure, 'tis a predecessor to George,' thought Wogan; and he too turned about.
Some twenty paces away a man was waiting in an easy attitude. He was of the middle height, and, judged by his travelling dress and bearing, a gentleman. His face was thin, hard, and sallow of complexion, the features rather peaked, the eyes dark, and deepset beneath the brows. Without any pretension to good looks, the stranger had a certain sinister distinction--stranger, for that he was to the two men at this time, whatever he may have been to Lady Oxford. Yet George thought he had seen the man's eyes before, at Avignon, when the King was there; and Wogan later remembered his voice, perhaps at Genoa, which he had used much at one time. He stood just within the opening in the hedge, and must needs have come through the trees beyond, while Lady Oxford and her guests were discussing the Parson's good fortune.
As soon as he saw the faces turned towards him, he took off his hat, made a step forwards, and flourished a bow.
'Your ladyship's most humble and obedient servant.'
He laid a stress upon the word 'obedient,' and uttered it with a meaning smile. Lady Oxford returned his bow, but instinctively shifted her position on the bench towards Kelly, and timidly put out a hand as though she would draw him nearer.
The stranger took another step forwards. There was no change in his expression, but the step was perhaps more swiftly taken.
'Mr. George Kelly,' he said quietly, and bowed again. 'The Reverend Mr. George Kelly, I think,' and he bowed a third time, but lower, and with extreme gravity.
Wogan started as the stranger pronounced the name. Instantly the stranger turned to him.
'Ah,' said he, 'Captain Nicholas Wogan, I think,' and he took a third step. His foot struck in a tuft of grass, and he stumbled forward; he fell plump upon his knees. For a gentleman of so much dignity the attitude was sufficiently ridiculous. Wogan grinned in no small satisfaction.
'Sure, my unknown friend,' said he, 'I think something has tripped you up.'
'Yes,' said the stranger, and, as he stood up, he picked up a book from the grass.
'It is,' said he, 'a copy of Virgil.'
Kelly frowned at Wogan, enjoining silence by a shake of the head. Her ladyship was still too discomposed to speak; she drew her breath in quick gasps; her colour still came fitfully and went. The only person entirely at ease in that company was the disconcerting stranger, and even behind his smiling mask of a face one was somehow aware of sleeping fires; and underneath the suave tones of his voice one somehow felt that there ran an implacable passion.
'Upon my word,' said he, 'I find myself for a wonder in the most desirable company. A revered clergyman, a fighting captain, a lady worthy of her quality, and a poet.' He tapped the Virgil as he spoke, and it fell open between his hands. His speech had been uttered with a provocative politeness, and since no one responded to the provocation, he continued in the same strain. 'The story of Dido'--the book was open at the soiled pages--'and all spluttered with tears.'
'It has lain open in the dew since yesterday,' interrupted Wogan.
'Tears no less because the night has shed them,' he replied; 'and indeed it is a sad story, though not all true as the poet relates it. For Dido had a gout-ridden husband hidden discreetly away in a dark corner of the Palace, and Æneas was no more than an army chaplain, though he gave himself out for a general.'
Kelly flushed at the words, and took half a step towards the speaker of them.
'It is very true, Mr. Kelly. A chaplain, my soul upon it, a chaplain. Didn't he invoke his religion when he was tired of the lady, and so sail away with a clear conscience? A very parsonical fellow, Mr. Kelly.O infelix Dido!he burst out, 'that met with an army chaplain, and so became food for worms before her time!'
He shut up the book with a bang, and, as ill-luck would have it, Mr. Wogan's poem peeped out from the covers as if in answer to his knock.
'Oho,' says he, 'another poet,' and he read out the dedication.
'Strephon to his Smilinda running barefoot in a gale of wind.'
Kelly laughed aloud, and a faint smile flickered for the space of a second about Lady Oxford's lips. Wogan felt his cheeks grow red, but constrained himself to a like silence with his companions. His opportunity would come later; meanwhile some knowledge was needed of who the stranger was.
'A pretty conceit,' resumed the latter, 'though consumption in its effects. Will the author pardon me?'
He took the sheet of paper in his hand, dropped the Virgil carelessly on the grass, and read out the verses with an absolute gravity which mocked at them more completely than any ridicule would have done. 'It breaks off,' he added, 'most appropriately just when the gentleman claims the lady's obedience. There is generally a break at that point. "At least, that is what I expect,"' he quoted. Then he looked at each of his two adversaries. For adversaries his language and their faces alike proved them to be. 'Now which is Strephon?' he asked, with an insinuating smile, as he calmly put the verses in his pocket. 'Is it the revered clergyman or the fighting captain?'
Kelly's face flushed darkly.
'The revered clergyman,' he broke in, and his voice shook a little, 'would be happy to be reminded of the occasion which brought him the honour of your acquaintance.'
'A sermon,' replied the stranger. 'I was much moved by a sermon which you preached in Dublin upon the text of "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's."'
Mr. Kelly could not deny that he had preached that sermon; and for all he knew the stranger might well have been among his audience. He contented himself accordingly with a bow. So Wogan stepped in.
'And the fighting captain,' he said, with a courtesy of manner no whit inferior to his questioner's, 'would be glad to know when he ever clapped eyes upon your honour's face, if you please.'
'Never,' answered the other with a bow. 'Captain Nicholas Wogan never in his life saw the faces of those who fought behind him. He had eyes only for the enemy.'
Now, Mr. Wogan had fought upon more than one field of which he thought it imprudent to speak. So he copied the Parson's example and bowed.
'Does her ladyship also wish to be reminded of the particulars of our acquaintance?' said the stranger, turning now to Lady Oxford. There was just a tremor, a hint of passion discernible in his voice as he put the question. Both Wogan and Kelly had been waiting for it, had restrained themselves to silence in the expectation of it. For only let the outburst come, and the man's design would of a surety tumble out on the top. Lady Oxford, however, suddenly interposed and prevented it. It may be that she, too, had caught the threatening tremble of his words, and dreaded the outburst as heartily as the others desired it. At all events, she rose from the bench as though some necessity had spurred her to self-possession.
'No, Mr. Scrope,' she said calmly, 'I do not wish to be reminded of our acquaintance either in particular or in general. It was a slight thing at its warmest, and I thank God none of my seeking. Mr. Kelly, will you give me your arm to the house?'
The stranger for a second was plainly staggered by her words. Kelly cast a glance at Wogan which the 'fighting captain' very well understood, offered his arm to Lady Oxford, and before the stranger recovered himself, the pair were up the steps and proceeding down the avenue.
'A slight thing!' muttered Mr. Scrope in a sort of stupor. 'God, what's a strong thing, then?' and at that the passion broke out of him. 'It's the Parson now, is it?' he cried. 'Indeed, Mr. Wogan, a parson is very much like a cat. Whether he throws his cassock over the wall, or no, it is still the same sly, soft-footed, velvety creature, with a keen eye for a soft lap to make his bed in,' and with an oath he started at a run after Kelly. Wogan, however, ran too, and he ran the faster. He got first to the steps, sprang to the top of them, and turned about, just as Mr. Scrope reached the bottom.
'Wait a bit, my friend!' said Wogan.
'Let me go, if you please,' said Mr. Scrope, mounting the lowest step.
'You and I must have a little talk first.'
'It will be talk of a kind uncommon disagreeable to you,' said Mr. Scrope hotly, and he mounted the second step.
Wogan laughed gleefully.
'Why, that's just the way I would have you speak,' said he. Mr. Scrope stopped, looked over Wogan from head to foot, and then glanced past him up the avenue.
'I have no quarrel with you, Mr. Wogan,' he said politely, and took the third step.
'And have you not?' asked Wogan. 'I'm thinking, on the contrary, that you took exception to my poetry.'
'Was the poetry yours? Indeed, I did not guess that,' he replied. 'But the greatest of men may yet be poor poets.'
'In this case you're mightily mistaken,' cried Wogan, and he stamped his foot and threw out his chest. 'I am my poetry.'
Mr. Scrope squinted up the avenue under Wogan's arm.
'Damn!' said he.
Wogan turned round; Parson Kelly and her ladyship were just passing through the window into the house. Wogan laughed, but a trifle too soon. For as he still stood turned away and looking down the avenue, Mr. Scrope took the last three steps at a bound, and sprang past him. Luckily as he sprang he hit against Wogan's shoulder, and so swung him round the quicker. Wogan just caught the man's elbow, jerked him back, got both his arms coiled about his body, lifted him off his feet, and flattened him up against his chest. Mr. Scrope struggled against the pressure; he was lithe and slippery like a fish, and his muscles gave and tightened like a steel spring. Wogan gripped him the closer, pinioning his arms to his side. In a little Scrope began to pant, and a little after to perspire; then the veins ridged upon his face, and his eyes opened and shut convulsively.
'Have you had enough, do you think?' asked Wogan; 'or shall I fall on you? But you may take my word for it, whatever you think of my love-poems, that I never yet fell on any man but something broke inside of him.'
Mr. Scrope was not in that condition which would enable him to articulate, but he seemed to gasp an assent, and Wogan put him down. He staggered backwards towards the house for a yard or two, leaned against one of the trees, and then, taking out his handkerchief, wiped his forehead; at the same time he walked towards the house, but with the manner of a man who is dizzy, and knows nothing of his direction.
'Stop!' cried Wogan.
Scrope stooped, and turned back carelessly, as though he had not heard the command. Indeed, he seemed even to have forgotten why he was out of breath.
'Mr. Wogan,' he said, 'I do not quite understand. It seems you write love-poems to her ladyship, and yet encourage the Parson to court her.'
Wogan was not to be drawn into any explanation.
'Let us leave her ladyship entirely out of the question. There's the value of my poetry to be argued out.'
Mr. Scrope bowed, and they walked down the steps side by side, and through the opening in the hedge. A path led through the trees, and they followed it until they came to an open space of sward. Wogan measured it across with his stride.
'A very fitting place for the argument, I think,' he said, and took off his coat.
'What? In Smilinda's garden?' asked Scrope easily. 'Within view of Smilinda's windows? Surely the common road would be the more convenient place.'
'Why, and that's true,' answered Wogan. 'It would have been an outrage.'
'No,' said Scrope, 'merely a flaw in the argument. This is the nearest way. At least, I think so,' and he turned off at an angle, passed through a shrubbery, and came out opposite a little postern-gate in the garden-wall.
'You know the grounds well,' said Wogan.
'It is my first visit,' replied Scrope, with a trace of bitterness, 'but I have been told enough of them to know my way.'
He stepped forward and opened the gate. Outside in the road stood a travelling chaise with a pair of horses harnessed to it.
'There is no one within view,' said Wogan. The road ran to right and left empty as far as the eye could reach; in front stretched the empty fields.
'No one,' said Mr. Scrope, and he looked up to the sky.
'Well, I would as lief take my last look at the sunlight as at anything else, and I doubt not it is the same with you.'
Wogan, in spite of himself, began to entertain a certain liking for the man. He had accepted each stroke of ill-fortune--his discomfiture at Lady Oxford's hands, the grapple on the steps, and now this duel--without disputation. Moreover Wogan was wondering whether or no the man had some real grievance against her ladyship and what motive brought him, in what expectation, in his chaise to Brampton Bryan. He felt indeed a certain compunction for his behaviour, and he said doubtfully,
'Mr. Scrope, you and I might have been very good friends in other circumstances.'
'I doubt it very much, Mr. Wogan.' Scrope shook his head and smiled. 'Your poetry would always have come between us. I would really sooner die than praise it.'
He looked up and down the road as he spoke, and then made an almost imperceptible nod at his coachman.
'That field opposite will do, I think,' Scrope said, and advanced from the doorway to the side of his chaise as though he was looking for something. It was certainly not his sword; Wogan now thinks it was his pistols. Wogan felt his liking increase and was inclined to put the encounter off for a little. It was for this reason that he stepped forward and passed an arm through Scrope's just as the latter had set a foot on the step of the chaise, no doubt to search the better for what he needed.
'Now what's amiss with the poem?' asked Wogan in a friendly way.
'It is altogether too inconsequent,' replied Scrope with a sudden irritation for which Wogan was at a loss to account.
'But my dear man,' said he, 'it was not intended for a syllogism.'
Scrope took his foot off the step and turned to Wogan as though a new thought had sprung into his brain.
'Mr. Wogan,' he said, 'I shall have all the pleasure imaginable in pointing out the faults to you if you care to listen and have the leisure. Then if you kill me afterwards, why I shall have done you some slight service and perhaps the world a greater. If I kill you, on the other hand, why there's so much time wasted, it is true, but I am in no hurry.'
There was no escape from the duel; that Wogan knew. Mr. Scrope had insulted the Parson, Lady Oxford, and himself; he was aware besides that the Parson and Wogan, both of them at the best suspected characters, were visiting the Earl of Oxford; and he had, whether it was justified or no, a hot resentment against the Parson. He might, since he knew so much, know also more, as, for instance, the names under which the Parson and Wogan were hiding themselves. It would not in any case need a very shrewd guess to hit upon their business, and if Mr. Scrope got back safe to London, why he might make himself confoundedly unpleasant. Wogan ran through these arguments in his mind, and was brought to the conclusion that he must most infallibly kill Mr. Scrope; but at the same time a little of his company meanwhile could do no harm.
'Nor I,' replied Wogan accordingly. 'I shall be delighted to confute your opinions.'
Mr. Scrope bowed; it seemed as though his face lighted up for a moment.
'There is no reason why we should stand in the road,' he said, 'when we can sit in the chaise.'
'Very true,' answered Wogan.
Scrope mounted into the chaise. Wogan followed upon his heels. They sat down side by side, and Scrope pulled out the verses from his pocket. He read the dedication once more:
'Strephon to Smilinda running barefoot over the grass in a gale of wind.'
'Let me point out,' said he, 'that you have made the lady run barefoot at the very time when she would be most certain to put on her shoes and stockings. And that error vitiates the whole poem. For the wind is severe, you will notice. So when she reprimands the storm, she should really reprimand herself for her inconceivable folly.'
'But Smilinda has no shoes and stockings at all in the poem,' replied Wogan triumphantly.
'That hardly betters the matter,' returned Scrope. 'For in that case her feet might be bare but they would certainly not be snowy.'
He stooped down as he spoke and drew from under the seat a bottle of wine, which he opened.
'This,' he said, 'may help us to consider the poem in a more charitable light.'
He gave Wogan the bottle to hold, and stooping once more fetched out a couple of glasses. Then he held one in each hand.
'Now will you fill them?' he said. Wogan poured out the wine and while pouring it:
'Two glasses?' he remarked. 'It seems you came prepared for the conversation.'
Scrope raised his eyes quickly to Wogan's face, and dropped them again to the glasses.
'One might easily have been broken,' he explained.
They leaned back in the chaise, each with a glass in his hand.
'It is to your taste, I hope,' said Scrope courteously.
Wogan smacked his lips in contentment.
'Lord Oxford has no better in his cellars.'
'I may agree without boastfulness. It is indeed Florence of a rare vintage, which I was at some pains to procure.' He laughed with a spice of savagery and resumed the consideration of Wogan's verses.
'You seem to me to have missed the opportunity afforded by your gale of wind. A true poet would surely have made great play with the lady's petticoats.'
'Smilinda had none,' again replied Wogan in triumph, and he emptied his glass.
'No shoes and stockings and no petticoats,' said he in a shocked voice. 'It is well you wrote a poem about her instead of painting her portrait,' and he filled Wogan's glass again, and added a little to his own, which was no more than half empty.
'Don't you comprehend, my friend,' exclaimed Wogan, 'that Smilinda's a nymph, an ancient Roman nymph?'
'Oh, she's a nymph!'
'Yes, and so wears no clothes but a sort of linsey-wolsey garment kirtled up to her knees.'
'Well, let that pass. But here's a line I view with profound discontent. "The grass will all its prickles hide." Thistles have prickles, Mr. Wogan, but the grass has blades like you and me; only, unlike you and me, it has no scabbards to sheathe them in.'
'Well,' said Wogan, 'but that's very wittily said,' and he laughed and chuckled.
'It is not bad, upon my faith,' replied Scrope. 'Let us drink to it in full glasses.'
He emptied the bottle into Wogan's glass and tossed it into the road.
'Now here's something more. The wind, you observe, makes lutestrings of Smilinda's hair.'
'There is little fault to be discovered in that image, I fancy,' said Wogan, lifting his glass to his lips with a smile.
'It is a whimsical image,' replied Scrope. 'It is as much as to call her hair catgut.'
Wogan was startled by the criticism. He sat up and scratched his nose.
'Well, I had not thought of that,' he said. He was somewhat crestfallen, and he looked to his glass for consolation. The glass was empty; he looked on to the road where the empty bottle rolled in the dust.
'I have its fellow,' said Scrope, interpreting Wogan's glance. He produced a second bottle from the same place. The second bottle brought them to the end of the verse. There was, however, a little discussion over the last line, and a third bottle was broached to assist.
'"At least that is what I expect." It is a very vile line, Mr. Wogan.'
'It is, perhaps, not so good as the others,' Wogan admitted. 'But you must blame the necessities of rhyming.'
'But the art of the poet is to conceal such necessities,' answered Scrope. 'And observe, Mr. Wogan, you sacrifice a great deal here to get an accurate rhyme, but in the remaining two lines of the next verse you do not trouble your head about a rhyme at all.'
'Oh, let me see that!' said Wogan, holding out a hand for the paper. He had clean forgotten by this time what those two lines described.
'Allegiance, Mr. Wogan,' said Scrope, politely handing him the verses, 'is no rhyme to obedience.'
'Allegiance--obedience--obedience--allegiance,' repeated Wogan as clearly as he could. 'Nay, I think it's a very good rhyme.'
'Oh!' exclaimed Scrope in a sudden comprehension. 'If you tell me the verses are conceived in the Irish dialect, I have not another word to say.'
Now Mr. Wogan, as a rule, was a little touchy on the subject of his accent. But at this moment he had the better part of three bottles of admirable Florence wine under his belt and was so disposed to see great humour in any remark. He grew uproarious over Mr. Scrope's witticism.
'Sure, but that's the most delicate jest I have heard for months,' he cried. 'Conceived in the Irish dialect! Ho! Ho! I must tell it at the Cocoa Tree--though it hits at me,' and he stood up in the chaise. 'Obedience--allegiance.' Mr. Scrope steadied him by the elbow. 'Faith, Mr. Scrope, but you and I must have another crack one of these days.' He put a foot out on the step of the chaise. 'I love a man that has some warmth in his merriment--and some warmth in his bottle too.' He stepped out of the chaise on to the ground. 'The best Florence I have tasted--the best joke I have heard--the Irish dialect. Ha, ha!' and he waved a hand at Scrope. Scrope called quickly to the coachman; the next instant the chaise started off at a gallop.
Wogan was left standing in the road, shouting his laughter. When the coach chaise was some thirty yards away, however, his laughter stopped completely. He rubbed his hand once or twice over his bemused forehead.
'Stop!' he yelled suddenly, and began to run after the chaise. Scrope stood up and spoke to the driver. The horses slackened their pace until Wogan got within twenty yards of it. Then Scrope spoke again, and the coachman drove the horses just as fast as Wogan was running.
'You have forgotten something, my friend,' cries Wogan.
'And what's that?' asked Scrope pleasantly, leaning over the back of the chaise.
'You have forgotten the duel.'
'No,' shouted Scrope with a grimace. 'It is you that forgot that.'
'Ah, you cheese-curd!--you white-livered coward!' cried Wogan, 'and I taking you for a fine man--equal to myself--you chalky cheese-curd!' He quickened his pace; Scrope called to the coachman; the coachman whipped up his horses. 'Oh wait a bit till I come up with you. I'll eat you in your clothes.'
Wogan bounded along the road, screaming out every vile epithet he could lay his tongue to in the heat of the moment. His hat and wig fell off on the road; he did not stop, but ran on bareheaded.
'But listen, the enamoured airMakes lutestrings of thy locks so fair,'
'But listen, the enamoured airMakes lutestrings of thy locks so fair,'
quoted Scrope, rubbing his hands with delight. Wogan's fury redoubled, he stripped off his coat and ran till the road grew dizzy and the air flashed sparks at him. But the chaise kept ever at the same distance. With this interval of twenty yards between them, chaise and Wogan dashed through the tiny street of Brampton Bryan. A horde of little boys tumbled out of the doors and ran at Wogan's heels. The more he cursed and raved, the more the little boys shouted and yelled. Scrope in the chaise shook with laughter, clapped his hands as if in commendation of Wogan's powers, and encouraged him to greater efforts. They passed out of the village; the children gave up the pursuit, and sent a few parting stones after Wogan's back; in front stretched the open road. Wogan ran half a mile further, but he was too heavily handicapped with his three bottles of wine, and Scrope's horses were fresh. He shouted out one last oath, and then in a final spasm of fury sat down by the roadside, stripped off his shoe, and springing into the middle of the road, hurled it with all his might at the retreating chaise. The shoe struck the top of the hood, balanced there for a moment, and bounced over on to the seat. Scrope took it up and waved it above his head.
'The grass will all its prickles hide,Nor harm thy snowy feet and bare.'
'The grass will all its prickles hide,Nor harm thy snowy feet and bare.'
The driver plied his whip; the chaise whirled out of sight in a cloud of dust; and the disconsolate Wogan hobbled back to Brampton Bryan with what secrecy he could.
Mr. Scrope was on his way with the road to London open, were he disposed to follow it. Mr. Wogan seemed to see his chaise flashing through the turnpikes, and his sallow cheeks taking on an eager colour as the miles were heaped behind him.
He knew that Mr. Kelly and Nicholas Wogan were at Lord Oxford's house at Brampton Bryan. He knew enough, therefore, to throw some disorder on the Chevalier's affairs were he disposed to publish his news. But not in that way did he take, at this time, his revenge upon the Parson.
While Wogan pursued in vain a flying foe, Lady Oxford and Parson Kelly waited in the house for his return, her ladyship in a great discomposure and impatience, and the Parson more silent than ordinary. Whatever he may have thought of Scrope's unexpected visit, his pride forbade him questions.
'The most unfortunate affair,' exclaimed her ladyship distractedly. 'Sure never was a woman so cursed. But indeed I was born under a frowning star, Mr. Kelly, and so my lord's friends cannot visit him, but some untoward accident puts them into peril.'
'You need be troubled by no fears on our account,' replied Kelly, 'for Nick will ensure the fellow's silence before ever he lets him out of his sight.'
'True,' said she, with a fresh pang of anxiety, 'Mr. Wogan is with him and will doubtless seek an explanation.'
Kelly smiled, but without any overwhelming amusement.
'Neither,' said he, 'need your ladyship fear that he will listen to any indiscreet explanation. Words have very little to do with the explanations which Nicholas favours.'
Lady Oxford remarked the distant stateliness in Kelly's tone and was in a hurry to retrieve the slip she had made.
'It is just that I mean,' she cried, coming over to Kelly. 'If Mr. Wogan--kills this man,' and her eyes flashed as though she did in her heart desire that consummation, 'here at the Park Gates--'
'Believe me,' replied Kelly reassuringly, 'he will omit no proper ceremony if he does.'
'No, nor will the county justices either,' retorted Lady Oxford, 'and there are Mr. George Kelly and Mr. Nicholas Wogan to explain their presence at Brampton Bryan Manor, as best they can, to a bench of bumpkins.'
'Again your ladyship is unnecessarily alarmed. For if Mr. Scrope is now no more, Mr. George Kelly and Mr. Nicholas Wogan are still Mr. James Johnson and his secretary Mr. Hilton. No harm threatens Brampton Bryan Manor from their visit.'
This he said no less coldly, and to cut the conversation short, stalked with excessive dignity to the door. Lady Oxford was gazing ruefully down the avenue from the window, when she heard the knob of the door move under his hand. She turned quickly about.
'It was not of Brampton Bryan Manor I was thinking,' she said hurriedly, 'nor of our safety. Why, in what poor esteem do you hold me! Am I then so contemptible a thing?' There was no anger in her reproach. Rather it melted in a most touching sadness. 'Have I no friends whose safety troubles me?' she added. At that out came her handkerchief and fluttered at her eyes. 'Nay, but I thought I had--two of the noblest.' It was a mere scrap of a handkerchief, and the greater part of that a lace edging. It would not have sopped up many tears, but it served her ladyship's turn. For indeed the mere sight of it convinced Kelly of his monstrous cruelty.
'Your ladyship!' he cried, turning back. 'Tears! And I have caused them. Faith, I should be hanged for that. Yet they flow for my friend and me, and I am blessed instead.'
But she would have none of his apologies. She stepped back as he approached.
'No,' said she, and wiped an imaginary tear-drop from the dryest of eyes; 'you have asked me for an explanation of Mr. Scrope's coming and you have a right to ask it.'
'Madam,' expostulated Kelly, 'I was careful, on the contrary, to ask for no explanation whatever. For I have no right to it.'
'Oh, but you have,' returned her ladyship with asperity; and then up went her handkerchief again.
'All men,' she said, in a voice most pathetical, 'have a right to ask any explanation of any woman, at anytime. Women, poor sad creatures, are suspect from their cradles, and to distrust them is the prerogative of manhood.' Here she tore away her handkerchief and lifted her hands in an ardent prayer. 'Oh that some day I might meet with one single man who would believe us worthy of respect!' She walked away to the window and said in a low voice, 'With what friendship would I requite him.'
Thus the unfortunate Mr. Kelly was not merely plunged in remorse, but brought to see that he had missed the one solitary path which would have led him into this great lady's friendship.
'Your ladyship,' he implored, 'mistakes my sentiments altogether.'
'Mr. Kelly,' she replied, proudly, 'we will not, if you please, pursue the matter. You have your explanation and I trust you will allow it to content you,' and so she sailed majestically out of the room, leaving Mr. Kelly in that perturbation that he quite failed to notice he had received no explanation whatever. She dropped her stateliness, however, when the door was closed behind her, and, hurrying across the hall, lay in wait behind a shrubbery for Wogan's return. Wogan, on the other hand, had admirable reasons for avoiding all paths, and so slipped into the back of the house unseen. Consequently it was not until half-an-hour later, when Lady Oxford was fairly distracted, that she discovered him, decently clothed, and urging upon Kelly the necessity of an immediate retreat. He broke off from his advice as Lady Oxford entered.
'You have done him no hurt? 'she asked, looking Wogan over from head to foot in search of a speck of blood, and ready to swoon if she saw one.
'Not the least in the world,' replied Wogan.
'Nor he you?'
'There was never any likelihood of that.' Wogan had to put the best face on the matter possible, and since he could not own to the humiliating truth, why, the necessary lie might just as well redound to his credit. 'I swore him to secrecy upon his bended knees. He took the oath on the hilt of this very sword, 'and Wogan hitched forward his hanger.
A footman at this moment announced that dinner was served.
'Will you give me your hand, Mr. Wogan?' asked Lady Oxford, and detaining him until Kelly had passed out of the room:
'He gave you doubtless a reason for his coming?' she asked.
'Surely he did,' said Wogen, who was not for admitting any omission on his own part.
'And what reason?' asked her ladyship.
Mr. Wogan looked at the ground and got a flash of inspiration.
'Why,' said he as bold as brass, 'precisely the same reason which you gave to my friend George Kelly,' in which answer Wogan hit the literal truth, although her ladyship looked puzzled, as well she might, and then flushed a fine crimson.
However, she made up an ingenious story, and that same day hinted rather than told it with a pretty suggestion of sympathy which quite melted Mr. Kelly's heart, and threw Wogan into some doubt whether to believe her or no. Scrope, it appeared, had been at some indefinite time a secretary to Mr. Walpole, and was entrusted with the keeping of the good man's accounts. Lady Oxford was then simply Mistress Margaret Middleton and intimate with her cousin, Mr. Walpole, although since her marriage, as Mr. Kelly and his friend were requested to note, that intimacy had entirely ceased. Hence it came about that the rash Scrope cast longing eyes upon the humble relation of his patron, and was indeed so carried away by passion that Margaret was forced now and again to chide him for the forwardness of his demeanour. Also, alas! he transgressed in a more serious way. For Mr. Walpole's accounts fell into the saddest disorder; there were sums of money of which no trace could be found until--well, the deplorable affair was hushed up. Mr. Scrope was turned off and set down his dismissal to Margaret, who, gentle soul, would not have hurt a fly. From that time he had not spared her his resentment, and would go miles out of his way if by any chance he might fix a slight upon her. Which conduct she most Christianly forgave, since indeed the poor man's head must needs be turned.
'Yet he had all the appearances of prosperity,' objected Wogan.
'I fancied that I said that there were large sums missing,' replied her ladyship.
'Yes, you did indeed say so,' said Mr. Kelly, 'but you avoided the implication out of your generous pity.'
It is not in truth very difficult to befool a man who does half the fooling himself. Mr. Kelly was altogether appeased by Lady Oxford's explanation, which to his friend seemed to explain nothing, but none the less he readily acknowledged to Wogan the propriety of hurrying his business to a close.
'To tell the truth,' said Wogan, as soon as her ladyship had withdrawn, 'I feel my cravat stiffening prophetically about my neck. My presence does not help you; indeed, it is another danger; and since we are but a few miles from Aberystwith, I am thinking that I could do nothing wiser than start for that port to-night.'
The Parson drew figures with his forefinger on the table for a while; then:
'I would not have you go, he said slowly. 'I will use what despatch I may; but I would not have you go, and leave me here.'
Kelly was true to his word, and used so much despatch that within two days he extorted a promise from Lord Oxford to undertake the muslin trade in England, as the cant phrase went. Possibly he might have won that same promise before had used the same despatch. But Lord Oxford's foible was to hold long discourses, and Mr. Pope truly said that he had an epical habit of beginning everything at the middle. However it may be, the two men left the Manor on the morning of the third day. Wogan drove back with the Parson as far as Worcester, who for the first few miles remained in a melancholy silence, and then burst out of a sudden.
'To think that she should be mewed up in a corner of Herefordshire, with no companions but drunken rustics! Mated to an old pantaloon, too!'
'Sure it was her ladyship's own doing,' murmured Wogan.
'No woman in all London could hold a candle to her. And we distrusted her--we distrusted her, Nick.' He beat a clenched fist into the palm of his other hand to emphasise the enormity of the crime. 'Why, what impertinent fools men are!'
Then he again relapsed into silence and again broke out.
'Damme! but Fortune plays bitter tricks upon the world. 'Tis all very well to strike at a pair of rascals like you and me, Nick, but she strikes at those who offend her least. Faith, but I am bewildered. Here is a woman indisputably born to be a queen and she is a nurse. And no better prospect when my lord dies than a poor jointure and a dull Dower House.'
'Oh, she told you that, did she?' said Wogan. 'Sure it was a queenly complaint.'
'She made no complaint,' said Kelly fiercely. 'She would not--she could not. It is a woman of unexampled patience.'
He grumbled into silence, and his thoughts changed and turned moodily about himself.
'Why did I ever preach that sermon?' he exclaimed. 'But for that I might now have the care of half-a-dozen rambling parishes. Instead of hurrying and scurrying from one end of Europe to the other, at the risk of my neck, I might sit of an evening by the peat fire of an inn kitchen and give the law to my neighbour. I might have a little country parsonage all trailed over with roses, and leisure to ensure preferment by my studies and enjoy the wisdom of my Latin friend Tully. I might have a wife, too,' he added, 'and maybe half a score of children to plague me out of my five wits with their rogueries.'
He fetched up a sigh as he ended which would have done credit to my Lady Oxford; and Wogan, seeing his friend in this unwonted pother, was minded to laugh him out of it.
'And a credit to your cloth you would have been,' says he. 'Why, it's a bottle you would have taken into the pulpit with you, and a mighty big tumbler to measure your discourse by. Indeed there would have been but one point of resemblance between yourself and your worthier brethren, and that's the number of times you turned your glass upside down before you came to an end.'
Kelly, however, was not to be diverted from his melancholy. The picture of the parsonage was too vivid on the canvas of his desires. And since he dreamed of one impossibility, no doubt he went a step further and dreamed of another besides. No doubt his picture of the parsonage showed the figure of the parson's wife, and no doubt the parson's wife was very like to my Lady Oxford.
Wogan, though he had laughed, was, to tell the truth, somewhat disturbed, and began to reckon up how much he was himself to blame for setting Kelly's thoughts towards her ladyship. He had not thought that his friend had taken the woman so much to heart. But whenever the Parson fell a dreaming of a quiet life and the cure of souls, it was a sure sign the world was going very ill with him.
'I would have you remember, George,' said Wogan, 'that not so long ago I saw you stand up before a certain company in Paris and cry out with an honest--ay, an honest passion, "May nothing come between the Cause and me!"
Kelly flushed as his words were recalled to him and turned his head away. Wogan held out his hand.
'George, am I then to understand that something has come between the Cause and you?' And he had to repeat the question before he got an answer. Then Kelly turned back.
'Understand nothing, Nick, but that I am a fool,' he cried heartily, and slapped his hand into Wogan's. 'True, the Cause, the Cause,' he muttered to himself once or twice. After all, Nick,' he said, 'we have got the old man's assurance. My Lord Oxford will lend a hand. We have not failed the Cause.' And they did not speak again until they drove into Worcester. Then Kelly turned to Nick with a sad sort of smile.
'Well, have you nothing to say to me? 'said he.
Mr. Wogan could discover nothing to say until he had stepped out of the chaise at the post-house and was shaking his friend's hand. Then he delivered himself of the soundest piece of philosophy imaginable.
'Woman,' he said, 'is very much like a jelly-fish--very pretty and pink and transparent to look at, but with a devil of a sting if you touch it.'