“How like you that, then?” she cried. “That was my way in the days when Sally Siddons would turn green at the name of Polly Hinton. It’s a fine play, isPizarro.”
“And who wrote it, ma’am?”
“Who wrote it? I never heard. What matter who did the writing of it! But there are some great lines for one who knows how they should be spoken.”
“And you play no longer, ma’am?”
“No, Jim, I left the boards when—when I was weary of them. But my heart goes back to them sometimes. It seems to me there is no smell like that of the hot oil in the footlights and of the oranges in the pit. But you are sad, Jim.”
“It was but the thought of that poor woman and her child.”
“Tut, never think about her! I will soon wipe her from your mind. This is ‘Miss Priscilla Tomboy,’ fromThe Romp. You must conceive that the mother is speaking, and that the forward young minx is answering.”
And she began a scene between the two of them, so exact in voice and manner that it seemed to us as if there were really two folk before us: the stern old mother with her hand up like an ear-trumpet, and her flouncing, bouncing daughter. Her great figure danced about with a wonderful lightness, and she tossed her head and pouted her lips as she answered back to the old, bent figure that addressed her. Jim and I had forgotten our tears, and were holding our ribs before she came to the end of it.
“That is better,” said she, smiling at our laughter. “I would not have you go back to Friar’s Oak with long faces, or maybe they would not let you come to me again.”
She vanished into her cupboard, and came out with a bottle and glass, which she placed upon the table.
“You are too young for strong waters,” she said, “but this talking gives one a dryness, and—”
Then it was that Boy Jim did a wonderful thing. He rose from his chair, and he laid his hand upon the bottle.
“Don’t!” said he.
She looked him in the face, and I can still see those black eyes of hers softening before the gaze.
“Am I to have none?”
“Please, don’t.”
With a quick movement she wrested the bottle out of his hand and raised it up so that for a moment it entered my head that she was about to drink it off. Then she flung it through the open lattice, and we heard the crash of it on the path outside.
“There, Jim!” said she; “does that satisfy you? It’s long since any one cared whether I drank or no.”
“You are too good and kind for that,” said he.
“Good!” she cried. “Well, I love that you should think me so. And it would make you happier if I kept from the brandy, Jim? Well, then, I’ll make you a promise, if you’ll make me one in return.”
“What’s that, miss?”
“No drop shall pass my lips, Jim, if you will swear, wet or shine, blow or snow, to come up here twice in every week, that I may see you and speak with you, for, indeed, there are times when I am very lonesome.”
So the promise was made, and very faithfully did Jim keep it, for many a time when I have wanted him to go fishing or rabbit-snaring, he has remembered that it was his day for Miss Hinton, and has tramped off to Anstey Cross. At first I think that she found her share of the bargain hard to keep, and I have seen Jim come back with a black face on him, as if things were going amiss. But after a time the fight was won—as all fights are won if one does but fight long enough—and in the year before my father came back Miss Hinton had become another woman. And it was not her ways only, but herself as well, for from being the person that I have described, she became in one twelve-month as fine a looking lady as there was in the whole country-side. Jim was prouder of it by far than of anything he had had a hand in in his life, but it was only to me that he ever spoke about it, for he had that tenderness towards her that one has for those whom one has helped. And she helped him also, for by her talk of the world and of what she had seen, she took his mind away from the Sussex country-side and prepared it for a broader life beyond. So matters stood between them at the time when peace was made and my father came home from the sea.
Manya woman’s knee was on the ground, and many a woman’s soul spent itself in joy and thankfulness when the news came with the fall of the leaf in 1801 that the preliminaries of peace had been settled. All England waved her gladness by day and twinkled it by night. Even in little Friar’s Oak we had our flags flying bravely, and a candle in every window, with a big G.R. guttering in the wind over the door of the inn. Folk were weary of the war, for we had been at it for eight years, taking Holland, and Spain, and France each in turn and all together. All that we had learned during that time was that our little army was no match for the French on land, and that our large navy was more than a match for them upon the water. We had gained some credit, which we were sorely in need of after the American business; and a few Colonies, which were welcome also for the same reason; but our debt had gone on rising and our consols sinking, until even Pitt stood aghast. Still, if we had known that there never could be peace between Napoleon and ourselves, and that this was only the end of a round and not of the battle, we should have been better advised had we fought it out without a break. As it was, the French got back the twenty thousand good seamen whom we had captured, and a fine dance they led us with their Boulogne flotillas and fleets of invasion before we were able to catch them again.
My father, as I remember him best, was a tough, strong little man, of no great breadth, but solid and well put together. His face was burned of a reddish colour, as bright as a flower-pot, and in spite of his age (for he was only forty at the time of which I speak) it was shot with lines, which deepened if he were in any way perturbed, so that I have seen him turn on the instant from a youngish man to an elderly. His eyes especially were meshed round with wrinkles, as is natural for one who had puckered them all his life in facing foul wind and bitter weather. These eyes were, perhaps, his strangest feature, for they were of a very clear and beautiful blue, which shone the brighter out of that ruddy setting. By nature he must have been a fair-skinned man, for his upper brow, where his cap came over it, was as white as mine, and his close-cropped hair was tawny.
He had served, as he was proud to say, in the last of our ships which had been chased out of the Mediterranean in ’97, and in the first which had re-entered it in ’98. He was under Miller, as third lieutenant of theTheseus, when our fleet, like a pack of eager fox hounds in a covert, was dashing from Sicily to Syria and back again to Naples, trying to pick up the lost scent. With the same good fighting man he served at the Nile, where the men of his command sponged and rammed and trained until, when the last tricolour had come down, they hove up the sheet anchor and fell dead asleep upon the top of each other under the capstan bars. Then, as a second lieutenant, he was in one of those grim three-deckers with powder-blackened hulls and crimson scupper-holes, their spare cables tied round their keels and over their bulwarks to hold them together, which carried the news into the Bay of Naples. From thence, as a reward for his services, he was transferred as first lieutenant to theAurorafrigate, engaged in cutting off supplies from Genoa, and in her he still remained until long after peace was declared.
How well I can remember his home-coming! Though it is now eight-and-forty years ago, it is clearer to me than the doings of last week, for the memory of an old man is like one of those glasses which shows out what is at a distance and blurs all that is near.
My mother had been in a tremble ever since the first rumour of the preliminaries came to our ears, for she knew that he might come as soon as his message. She said little, but she saddened my life by insisting that I should be for ever clean and tidy. With every rumble of wheels, too, her eyes would glance towards the door, and her hands steal up to smooth her pretty black hair. She had embroidered a white “Welcome” upon a blue ground, with an anchor in red upon each side, and a border of laurel leaves; and this was to hang upon the two lilac bushes which flanked the cottage door. He could not have left the Mediterranean before we had this finished, and every morning she looked to see if it were in its place and ready to be hanged.
But it was a weary time before the peace was ratified, and it was April of next year before our great day came round to us. It had been raining all morning, I remember—a soft spring rain, which sent up a rich smell from the brown earth and pattered pleasantly upon the budding chestnuts behind our cottage. The sun had shone out in the evening, and I had come down with my fishing-rod (for I had promised Boy Jim to go with him to the mill-stream), when what should I see but a post-chaise with two smoking horses at the gate, and there in the open door of it were my mother’s black skirt and her little feet jutting out, with two blue arms for a waist-belt, and all the rest of her buried in the chaise. Away I ran for the motto, and I pinned it up on the bushes as we had agreed, but when I had finished there were the skirts and the feet and the blue arms just the same as before.
“Here’s Rod,” said my mother at last, struggling down on to the ground again. “Roddy, darling, here’s your father!”
I saw the red face and the kindly, light-blue eyes looking out at me.
“Why, Roddy, lad, you were but a child and we kissed good-bye when last we met; but I suppose we must put you on a different rating now. I’m right glad from my heart to see you, dear lad; and as to you, sweetheart—”
The blue arms flew out, and there were the skirt and the two feet fixed in the door again.
“Here are the folk coming, Anson,” said my mother, blushing. “Won’t you get out and come in with us?”
And then suddenly it came home to us both that for all his cheery face he had never moved more than his arms, and that his leg was resting on the opposite seat of the chaise.
“Oh, Anson, Anson!” she cried.
“Tut, ’tis but the bone of my leg,” said he, taking his knee between his hands and lifting it round. “I got it broke in the Bay, but the surgeon has fished it and spliced it, though it’s a bit crank yet. Why, bless her kindly heart, if I haven’t turned her from pink to white. You can see for yourself that it’s nothing.”
He sprang out as he spoke, and with one leg and a staff he hopped swiftly up the path, and under the laurel-bordered motto, and so over his own threshold for the first time for five years. When the post-boy and I had carried up the sea-chest and the two canvas bags, there he was sitting in his armchair by the window in his old weather-stained blue coat. My mother was weeping over his poor leg, and he patting her hair with one brown hand. His other he threw round my waist, and drew me to the side of his chair.
“Now that we have peace, I can lie up and refit until King George needs me again,” said he. “’Twas a carronade that came adrift in the Bay when it was blowing a top-gallant breeze with a beam sea. Ere we could make it fast it had me jammed against the mast. Well, well,” he added, looking round at the walls of the room, “here are all my old curios, the same as ever: the narwhal’s horn from the Arctic, and the blowfish from the Moluccas, and the paddles from Fiji, and the picture of theCa Irawith Lord Hotham in chase. And here you are, Mary, and you also, Roddy, and good luck to the carronade which has sent me into so snug a harbour without fear of sailing orders.”
My mother had his long pipe and his tobacco all ready for him, so that he was able now to light it and to sit looking from one of us to the other and then back again, as if he could never see enough of us. Young as I was, I could still understand that this was the moment which he had thought of during many a lonely watch, and that the expectation of it had cheered his heart in many a dark hour. Sometimes he would touch one of us with his hand, and sometimes the other, and so he sat, with his soul too satiated for words, whilst the shadows gathered in the little room and the lights of the inn windows glimmered through the gloom. And then, after my mother had lit our own lamp, she slipped suddenly down upon her knees, and he got one knee to the ground also, so that, hand-in-hand, they joined their thanks to Heaven for manifold mercies. When I look back at my parents as they were in those days, it is at that very moment that I can picture them most clearly: her sweet face with the wet shining upon her cheeks, and his blue eyes upturned to the smoke-blackened ceiling. I remember that he swayed his reeking pipe in the earnestness of his prayer, so that I was half tears and half smiles as I watched him.
“Roddy, lad,” said he, after supper was over, “you’re getting a man now, and I suppose you will go afloat like the rest of us. You’re old enough to strap a dirk to your thigh.”
“And leave me without a child as well as without a husband!” cried my mother.
“Well, there’s time enough yet,” said he, “for they are more inclined to empty berths than to fill them, now that peace has come. But I’ve never tried what all this schooling has done for you, Rodney. You have had a great deal more than ever I had, but I dare say I can make shift to test it. Have you learned history?”
“Yes, father,” said I, with some confidence.
“Then how many sail of the line were at the Battle of Camperdown?”
He shook his head gravely when he found that I could not answer him.
“Why, there are men in the fleet who never had any schooling at all who could tell you that we had seven 74’s, seven 64’s, and two 50-gun ships in the action. There’s a picture on the wall of the chase of theCa Ira. Which were the ships that laid her aboard?”
Again I had to confess that he had beaten me.
“Well, your dad can teach you something in history yet,” he cried, looking in triumph at my mother. “Have you learned geography?”
“Yes, father,” said I, though with less confidence than before.
“Well, how far is it from Port Mahon to Algeciras?”
I could only shake my head.
“If Ushant lay three leagues upon your starboard quarter, what would be your nearest English port?”
Again I had to give it up.
“Well, I don’t see that your geography is much better than your history,” said he. “You’d never get your certificate at this rate. Can you do addition? Well, then, let us see if you can tot up my prize-money.”
He shot a mischievous glance at my mother as he spoke, and she laid down her knitting on her lap and looked very earnestly at him.
“You never asked me about that, Mary,” said he.
“The Mediterranean is not the station for it, Anson. I have heard you say that it is the Atlantic for prize-money, and the Mediterranean for honour.”
“I had a share of both last cruise, which comes from changing a line-of-battleship for a frigate. Now, Rodney, there are two pounds in every hundred due to me when the prize-courts have done with them. When we were watching Massena, off Genoa, we got a matter of seventy schooners, brigs, and tartans, with wine, food, and powder. Lord Keith will want his finger in the pie, but that’s for the Courts to settle. Put them at four pounds apiece to me, and what will the seventy bring?”
“Two hundred and eighty pounds,” I answered.
“Why, Anson, it is a fortune!” cried my mother, clapping her hands.
“Try you again, Roddy!” said he, shaking his pipe at me. “There was theXebecfrigate out of Barcelona with twenty thousand Spanish dollars aboard, which make four thousand of our pounds. Her hull should be worth another thousand. What’s my share of that?”
“A hundred pounds.”
“Why, the purser couldn’t work it out quicker,” he cried in his delight. “Here’s for you again! We passed the Straits and worked up to the Azores, where we fell in with theLa Sabinafrom the Mauritius with sugar and spices. Twelve hundred pounds she’s worth to me, Mary, my darling, and never again shall you soil your pretty fingers or pinch upon my beggarly pay.”
My dear mother had borne her long struggle without a sign all these years, but now that she was so suddenly eased of it she fell sobbing upon his neck. It was a long time before my father had a thought to spare upon my examination in arithmetic.
“It’s all in your lap, Mary,” said he, dashing his own hand across his eyes. “By George, lass, when this leg of mine is sound we’ll bear down for a spell to Brighton, and if there is a smarter frock than yours upon the Steyne, may I never tread a poop again. But how is it that you are so quick at figures, Rodney, when you know nothing of history or geography?”
I tried to explain that addition was the same upon sea or land, but that history and geography were not.
“Well,” he concluded, “you need figures to take a reckoning, and you need nothing else save what your mother wit will teach you. There never was one of our breed who did not take to salt water like a young gull. Lord Nelson has promised me a vacancy for you, and he’ll be as good as his word.”
So it was that my father came home to us, and a better or kinder no lad could wish for. Though my parents had been married so long, they had really seen very little of each other, and their affection was as warm and as fresh as if they were two newly-wedded lovers. I have learned since that sailors can be coarse and foul, but never did I know it from my father; for, although he had seen as much rough work as the wildest could wish for, he was always the same patient, good-humoured man, with a smile and a jolly word for all the village. He could suit himself to his company, too, for on the one hand he could take his wine with the vicar, or with Sir James Ovington, the squire of the parish; while on the other he would sit by the hour amongst my humble friends down in the smithy, with Champion Harrison, Boy Jim, and the rest of them, telling them such stories of Nelson and his men that I have seen the Champion knot his great hands together, while Jim’s eyes have smouldered like the forge embers as he listened.
My father had been placed on half-pay, like so many others of the old war officers, and so, for nearly two years, he was able to remain with us. During all this time I can only once remember that there was the slightest disagreement between him and my mother. It chanced that I was the cause of it, and as great events sprang out of it, I must tell you how it came about. It was indeed the first of a series of events which affected not only my fortunes, but those of very much more important people.
The spring of 1803 was an early one, and the middle of April saw the leaves thick upon the chestnut trees. One evening we were all seated together over a dish of tea when we heard the scrunch of steps outside our door, and there was the postman with a letter in his hand.
“I think it is for me,” said my mother, and sure enough it was addressed in the most beautiful writing to Mrs. Mary Stone, of Friar’s Oak, and there was a red seal the size of a half-crown upon the outside of it with a flying dragon in the middle.
“Whom think you that it is from, Anson?” she asked.
“I had hoped that it was from Lord Nelson,” answered my father. “It is time the boy had his commission. But if it be for you, then it cannot be from any one of much importance.”
“Can it not!” she cried, pretending to be offended. “You will ask my pardon for that speech, sir, for it is from no less a person than Sir Charles Tregellis, my own brother.”
My mother seemed to speak with a hushed voice when she mentioned this wonderful brother of hers, and always had done as long as I can remember, so that I had learned also to have a subdued and reverent feeling when I heard his name. And indeed it was no wonder, for that name was never mentioned unless it were in connection with something brilliant and extraordinary. Once we heard that he was at Windsor with the King. Often he was at Brighton with the Prince. Sometimes it was as a sportsman that his reputation reached us, as when his Meteor beat the Duke of Queensberry’s Egham, at Newmarket, or when he brought Jim Belcher up from Bristol, and sprang him upon the London fancy. But usually it was as the friend of the great, the arbiter of fashions, the king of bucks, and the best-dressed man in town that his reputation reached us. My father, however, did not appear to be elated at my mother’s triumphant rejoinder.
“Ay, and what does he want?” asked he, in no very amiable voice.
“I wrote to him, Anson, and told him that Rodney was growing a man now, thinking, since he had no wife or child of his own, he might be disposed to advance him.”
“We can do very well without him,” growled my father. “He sheered off from us when the weather was foul, and we have no need of him now that the sun is shining.”
“Nay, you misjudge him, Anson,” said my mother, warmly. “There is no one with a better heart than Charles; but his own life moves so smoothly that he cannot understand that others may have trouble. During all these years I have known that I had but to say the word to receive as much as I wished from him.”
“Thank God that you never had to stoop to it, Mary. I want none of his help.”
“But we must think of Rodney.”
“Rodney has enough for his sea-chest and kit. He needs no more.”
“But Charles has great power and influence in London. He could make Rodney known to all the great people. Surely you would not stand in the way of his advancement.”
“Let us hear what he says, then,” said my father; and this was the letter which she read to him—
14, Jermyn Street, St. James’s,“April 15th, 1803.“My dear Sister Mary,“In answer to your letter, I can assure you that you must not conceive me to be wanting in those finer feelings which are the chief adornment of humanity. It is true that for some years, absorbed as I have been in affairs of the highest importance, I have seldom taken a pen in hand, for which I can assure you that I have been reproached by manydes plus charmantesof your charming sex. At the present moment I lie abed (having stayed late in order to pay a compliment to the Marchioness of Dover at her ball last night), and this is writ to my dictation by Ambrose, my clever rascal of a valet. I am interested to hear of my nephew Rodney (Mon dieu,quel nom!), and as I shall be on my way to visit the Prince at Brighton next week, I shall break my journey at Friar’s Oak for the sake of seeing both you and him. Make my compliments to your husband.“I am ever, my dear sister Mary,“Your brother,“Charles Tregellis.”
14, Jermyn Street, St. James’s,“April 15th, 1803.
“My dear Sister Mary,
“In answer to your letter, I can assure you that you must not conceive me to be wanting in those finer feelings which are the chief adornment of humanity. It is true that for some years, absorbed as I have been in affairs of the highest importance, I have seldom taken a pen in hand, for which I can assure you that I have been reproached by manydes plus charmantesof your charming sex. At the present moment I lie abed (having stayed late in order to pay a compliment to the Marchioness of Dover at her ball last night), and this is writ to my dictation by Ambrose, my clever rascal of a valet. I am interested to hear of my nephew Rodney (Mon dieu,quel nom!), and as I shall be on my way to visit the Prince at Brighton next week, I shall break my journey at Friar’s Oak for the sake of seeing both you and him. Make my compliments to your husband.
“I am ever, my dear sister Mary,“Your brother,“Charles Tregellis.”
“What do you think of that?” cried my mother in triumph when she had finished.
“I think it is the letter of a fop,” said my father, bluntly.
“You are too hard on him, Anson. You will think better of him when you know him. But he says that he will be here next week, and this is Thursday, and the best curtains unhung, and no lavender in the sheets!”
Away she bustled, half distracted, while my father sat moody, with his chin upon his hands, and I remained lost in wonder at the thought of this grand new relative from London, and of all that his coming might mean to us.
Nowthat I was in my seventeenth year, and had already some need for a razor, I had begun to weary of the narrow life of the village, and to long to see something of the great world beyond. The craving was all the stronger because I durst not speak openly about it, for the least hint of it brought the tears into my mother’s eyes. But now there was the less reason that I should stay at home, since my father was at her side, and so my mind was all filled by this prospect of my uncle’s visit, and of the chance that he might set my feet moving at last upon the road of life.
As you may think, it was towards my father’s profession that my thoughts and my hopes turned, for from my childhood I have never seen the heave of the sea or tasted the salt upon my lips without feeling the blood of five generations of seamen thrill within my veins. And think of the challenge which was ever waving in those days before the eyes of a coast-living lad! I had but to walk up to Wolstonbury in the war time to see the sails of the French chasse-marées and privateers. Again and again I have heard the roar of the guns coming from far out over the waters. Seamen would tell us how they had left London and been engaged ere nightfall, or sailed out of Portsmouth and been yard-arm to yard-arm before they had lost sight of St. Helen’s light. It was this imminence of the danger which warmed our hearts to our sailors, and made us talk, round the winter fires, of our little Nelson, and Cuddie Collingwood, and Johnnie Jarvis, and the rest of them, not as being great High Admirals with titles and dignities, but as good friends whom we loved and honoured above all others. What boy was there through the length and breadth of Britain who did not long to be out with them under the red-cross flag?
But now that peace had come, and the fleets which had swept the Channel and the Mediterranean were lying dismantled in our harbours, there was less to draw one’s fancy seawards. It was London now of which I thought by day and brooded by night: the huge city, the home of the wise and the great, from which came this constant stream of carriages, and those crowds of dusty people who were for ever flashing past our window-pane. It was this one side of life which first presented itself to me, and so, as a boy, I used to picture the City as a gigantic stable with a huge huddle of coaches, which were for ever streaming off down the country roads. But, then, Champion Harrison told me how the fighting-men lived there, and my father how the heads of the Navy lived there, and my mother how her brother and his grand friends were there, until at last I was consumed with impatience to see this marvellous heart of England. This coming of my uncle, then, was the breaking of light through the darkness, though I hardly dared to hope that he would take me with him into those high circles in which he lived. My mother, however, had such confidence either in his good nature or in her own powers of persuasion, that she already began to make furtive preparations for my departure.
But if the narrowness of the village life chafed my easy spirit, it was a torture to the keen and ardent mind of Boy Jim. It was but a few days after the coming of my uncle’s letter that we walked over the Downs together, and I had a peep of the bitterness of his heart.
“What is there for me to do, Rodney?” he cried. “I forge a shoe, and I fuller it, and I clip it, and I caulken it, and I knock five holes in it, and there it is finished. Then I do it again and again, and blow up the bellows and feed the forge, and rasp a hoof or two, and there is a day’s work done, and every day the same as the other. Was it for this only, do you think, that I was born into the world?”
I looked at him, his proud, eagle face, and his tall, sinewy figure, and I wondered whether in the whole land there was a finer, handsomer man.
“The Army or the Navy is the place for you, Jim,” said I.
“That is very well,” he cried. “If you go into the Navy, as you are likely to do, you go as an officer, and it is you who do the ordering. If I go in, it is as one who was born to receive orders.”
“An officer gets his orders from those above him.”
“But an officer does not have the lash hung over his head. I saw a poor fellow at the inn here—it was some years ago—who showed us his back in the tap-room, all cut into red diamonds with the boat-swain’s whip. ‘Who ordered that?’ I asked. ‘The captain,’ said he. ‘And what would you have had if you had struck him dead?’ said I. ‘The yard-arm,’ he answered. ‘Then if I had been you that’s where I should have been,’ said I, and I spoke the truth. I can’t help it, Rod! There’s something here in my heart, something that is as much a part of myself as this hand is, which holds me to it.”
“I know that you are as proud as Lucifer,” said I.
“It was born with me, Roddy, and I can’t help it. Life would be easier if I could. I was made to be my own master, and there’s only one place where I can hope to be so.”
“Where is that, Jim?”
“In London. Miss Hinton has told me of it, until I feel as if I could find my way through it from end to end. She loves to talk of it as well as I do to listen. I have it all laid out in my mind, and I can see where the playhouses are, and how the river runs, and where the King’s house is, and the Prince’s, and the place where the fighting-men live. I could make my name known in London.”
“How?”
“Never mind how, Rod. I could do it, and I will do it, too. ‘Wait!’ says my uncle—‘wait, and it will all come right for you.’ That is what he always says, and my aunt the same. Why should I wait? What am I to wait for? No, Roddy, I’ll stay no longer eating my heart out in this little village, but I’ll leave my apron behind me and I’ll seek my fortune in London, and when I come back to Friar’s Oak, it will be in such style as that gentleman yonder.”
He pointed as he spoke, and there was a high crimson curricle coming down the London road, with two bay mares harnessed tandem fashion before it. The reins and fittings were of a light fawn colour, and the gentleman had a driving-coat to match, with a servant in dark livery behind. They flashed past us in a rolling cloud of dust, and I had just a glimpse of the pale, handsome face of the master, and of the dark, shrivelled features of the man. I should never have given them another thought had it not chanced that when the village came into view there was the curricle again, standing at the door of the inn, and the grooms busy taking out the horses.
“Jim,” I cried, “I believe it is my uncle!” and taking to my heels I ran for home at the top of my speed. At the door was standing the dark-faced servant. He carried a cushion, upon which lay a small and fluffy lapdog.
“You will excuse me, young sir,” said he, in the suavest, most soothing of voices, “but am I right in supposing that this is the house of Lieutenant Stone? In that case you will, perhaps, do me the favour to hand to Mrs. Stone this note which her brother, Sir Charles Tregellis, has just committed to my care.”
I was quite abashed by the man’s flowery way of talking—so unlike anything which I had ever heard. He had a wizened face, and sharp little dark eyes, which took in me and the house and my mother’s startled face at the window all in the instant. My parents were together, the two of them, in the sitting-room, and my mother read the note to us.
“My dear Mary,” it ran, “I have stopped at the inn, because I am somewhatravagéby the dust of your Sussex roads. A lavender-water bath may restore me to a condition in which I may fitly pay my compliments to a lady. Meantime, I send you Fidelio as a hostage. Pray give him a half-pint of warmish milk with six drops of pure brandy in it. A better or more faithful creature never lived.Toujours à toi.—Charles.”
“Have him in! Have him in!” cried my father, heartily, running to the door. “Come in, Mr. Fidelio. Every man to his own taste, and six drops to the half-pint seems a sinful watering of grog—but if you like it so, you shall have it.”
A smile flickered over the dark face of the servant, but his features reset themselves instantly into their usual mask of respectful observance.
“You are labouring under a slight error, sir, if you will permit me to say so. My name is Ambrose, and I have the honour to be the valet of Sir Charles Tregellis. This is Fidelio upon the cushion.”
“Tut, the dog!” cried my father, in disgust. “Heave him down by the fireside. Why should he have brandy, when many a Christian has to go without?”
“Hush, Anson!” said my mother, taking the cushion. “You will tell Sir Charles that his wishes shall be carried out, and that we shall expect him at his own convenience.”
The man went off noiselessly and swiftly, but was back in a few minutes with a flat brown basket.
“It is the refection, madam,” said he. “Will you permit me to lay the table? Sir Charles is accustomed to partake of certain dishes and to drink certain wines, so that we usually bring them with us when we visit.” He opened the basket, and in a minute he had the table all shining with silver and glass, and studded with dainty dishes. So quick and neat and silent was he in all he did, that my father was as taken with him as I was.
“You’d have made a right good foretopman if your heart is as stout as your fingers are quick,” said he. “Did you never wish to have the honour of serving your country?”
“It is my honour, sir, to serve Sir Charles Tregellis, and I desire no other master,” he answered. “But I will convey his dressing-case from the inn, and then all will be ready.”
He came back with a great silver-mounted box under his arm, and close at his heels was the gentleman whose coming had made such a disturbance.
My first impression of my uncle as he entered the room was that one of his eyes was swollen to the size of an apple. It caught the breath from my lips—that monstrous, glistening eye. But the next instant I perceived that he held a round glass in the front of it, which magnified it in this fashion. He looked at us each in turn, and then he bowed very gracefully to my mother and kissed her upon either cheek.
“You will permit me to compliment you, my dear Mary,” said he, in a voice which was the most mellow and beautiful that I have ever heard. “I can assure you that the country air has used you wondrous well, and that I should be proud to see my pretty sister in the Mall. I am your servant, sir,” he continued, holding out his hand to my father. “It was but last week that I had the honour of dining with my friend, Lord St. Vincent, and I took occasion to mention you to him. I may tell you that your name is not forgotten at the Admiralty, sir, and I hope that I may see you soon walking the poop of a 74-gun ship of your own. So this is my nephew, is it?” He put a hand upon each of my shoulders in a very friendly way and looked me up and down.
“How old are you, nephew?” he asked.
“Seventeen, sir.”
“You look older. You look eighteen, at the least. I find him very passable, Mary—very passable, indeed. He has not thebelair, thetournure—in our uncouth English we have no word for it. But he is as healthy as a May-hedge in bloom.”
So within a minute of his entering our door he had got himself upon terms with all of us, and with so easy and graceful a manner that it seemed as if he had known us all for years. I had a good look at him now as he stood upon the hearthrug with my mother upon one side and my father on the other. He was a very large man, with noble shoulders, small waist, broad hips, well-turned legs, and the smallest of hands and feet. His face was pale and handsome, with a prominent chin, a jutting nose, and large blue staring eyes, in which a sort of dancing, mischievous light was for ever playing. He wore a deep brown coat with a collar as high as his ears and tails as low as his knees. His black breeches and silk stockings ended in very small pointed shoes, so highly polished that they twinkled with every movement. His vest was of black velvet, open at the top to show an embroidered shirt-front, with a high, smooth, white cravat above it, which kept his neck for ever on the stretch. He stood easily, with one thumb in the arm-pit, and two fingers of the other hand in his vest pocket. It made me proud as I watched him to think that so magnificent a man, with such easy, masterful ways, should be my own blood relation, and I could see from my mother’s eyes as they turned towards him that the same thought was in her mind.
All this time Ambrose had been standing like a dark-clothed, bronze-faced image by the door, with the big silver-bound box under his arm. He stepped forward now into the room.
“Shall I convey it to your bedchamber, Sir Charles?” he asked.
“Ah, pardon me, sister Mary,” cried my uncle, “I am old-fashioned enough to have principles—an anachronism, I know, in this lax age. One of them is never to allow mybatterie de toiletteout of my sight when I am travelling. I cannot readily forget the agonies which I endured some years ago through neglecting this precaution. I will do Ambrose the justice to say that it was before he took charge of my affairs. I was compelled to wear the same ruffles upon two consecutive days. On the third morning my fellow was so affected by the sight of my condition, that he burst into tears and laid out a pair which he had stolen from me.”
As he spoke his face was very grave, but the light in his eyes danced and gleamed. He handed his open snuff-box to my father, as Ambrose followed my mother out of the room.
“You number yourself in an illustrious company by dipping your finger and thumb into it,” said he.
“Indeed, sir!” said my father, shortly.
“You are free of my box, as being a relative by marriage. You are free also, nephew, and I pray you to take a pinch. It is the most intimate sign of my goodwill. Outside ourselves there are four, I think, who have had access to it—the Prince, of course; Mr Pitt; Monsieur Otto, the French Ambassador; and Lord Hawkesbury. I have sometimes thought that I was premature with Lord Hawkesbury.”
“I am vastly honoured, sir,” said my father, looking suspiciously at his guest from under his shaggy eyebrows, for with that grave face and those twinkling eyes it was hard to know how to take him.
“A woman, sir, has her love to bestow,” said my uncle. “A man has his snuff-box. Neither is to be lightly offered. It is a lapse of taste; nay, more, it is a breach of morals. Only the other day, as I was seated in Watier’s, my box of prime macouba open upon the table beside me, an Irish bishop thrust in his intrusive fingers. ‘Waiter,’ I cried, ‘my box has been soiled! Remove it!’ The man meant no insult, you understand, but that class of people must be kept in their proper sphere.’
“A bishop!” cried my father. “You draw your line very high, sir.”
“Yes, sir,” said my uncle; “I wish no better epitaph upon my tombstone.”
My mother had in the meanwhile descended, and we all drew up to the table.
“You will excuse my apparent grossness, Mary, in venturing to bring my own larder with me. Abernethy has me under his orders, and I must eschew your rich country dainties. A little white wine and a cold bird—it is as much as the niggardly Scotchman will allow me.”
“We should have you on blockading service when the levanters are blowing,” said my father. “Salt junk and weevilly biscuits, with a rib of a tough Barbary ox when the tenders come in. You would have your spare diet there, sir.”
Straightway my uncle began to question him about the sea service, and for the whole meal my father was telling him of the Nile and of the Toulon blockade, and the siege of Genoa, and all that he had seen and done. But whenever he faltered for a word, my uncle always had it ready for him, and it was hard to say which knew most about the business.
“No, I read little or nothing,” said he, when my father marvelled where he got his knowledge. “The fact is that I can hardly pick up a print without seeing some allusion to myself: ‘Sir C. T. does this,’ or ‘Sir C. T. says the other,’ so I take them no longer. But if a man is in my position all knowledge comes to him. The Duke of York tells me of the Army in the morning, and Lord Spencer chats with me of the Navy in the afternoon, and Dundas whispers me what is going forward in the Cabinet, so that I have little need of theTimesor theMorning Chronicle.”
This set him talking of the great world of London, telling my father about the men who were his masters at the Admiralty, and my mother about the beauties of the town, and the great ladies at Almack’s, but all in the same light, fanciful way, so that one never knew whether to laugh or to take him gravely. I think it flattered him to see the way in which we all three hung upon his words. Of some he thought highly and of some lowly, but he made no secret that the highest of all, and the one against whom all others should be measured, was Sir Charles Tregellis himself.
“As to the King,” said he, “of course, I aml’ami de famillethere; and even with you I can scarce speak freely, as my relations are confidential.”
“God bless him and keep him from ill!” cried my father.
“It is pleasant to hear you say so,” said my uncle. “One has to come into the country to hear honest loyalty, for a sneer and a gibe are more the fashions in town. The King is grateful to me for the interest which I have ever shown in his son. He likes to think that the Prince has a man of taste in his circle.”
“And the Prince?” asked my mother. “Is he well-favoured?”
“He is a fine figure of a man. At a distance he has been mistaken for me. And he has some taste in dress, though he gets slovenly if I am too long away from him. I warrant you that I find a crease in his coat to-morrow.”
We were all seated round the fire by this time, for the evening had turned chilly. The lamp was lighted and so also was my father’s pipe.
“I suppose,” said he, “that this is your first visit to Friar’s Oak?”
My uncle’s face turned suddenly very grave and stern.
“It is my first visit for many years,” said he. “I was but one-and-twenty years of age when last I came here. I am not likely to forget it.”
I knew that he spoke of his visit to Cliffe Royal at the time of the murder, and I saw by her face that my mother knew it also. My father, however, had either never heard of it, or had forgotten the circumstance.
“Was it at the inn you stayed?” he asked.
“I stayed with the unfortunate Lord Avon. It was the occasion when he was accused of slaying his younger brother and fled from the country.”
We all fell silent, and my uncle leaned his chin upon his hand, looking thoughtfully into the fire. If I do but close my eyes now, I can see the light upon his proud, handsome face, and see also my dear father, concerned at having touched upon so terrible a memory, shooting little slanting glances at him betwixt the puffs of his pipe.
“I dare say that it has happened with you, sir,” said my uncle at last, “that you have lost some dear messmate, in battle or wreck, and that you have put him out of your mind in the routine of your daily life, until suddenly some word or some scene brings him back to your memory, and you find your sorrow as raw as upon the first day of your loss.”
My father nodded.
“So it is with me to-night. I never formed a close friendship with a man—I say nothing of women—save only the once. That was with Lord Avon. We were of an age, he a few years perhaps my senior, but our tastes, our judgments, and our characters were alike, save only that he had in him a touch of pride such as I have never known in any other man. Putting aside the little foibles of a rich young man of fashion,les indescrétions d’une jeunesse dorée, I could have sworn that he was as good a man as I have ever known.”
“How came he, then, to such a crime?” asked my father.
My uncle shook his head.
“Many a time have I asked myself that question, and it comes home to me more to-night than ever.”
All the jauntiness had gone out of his manner, and he had turned suddenly into a sad and serious man.
“Was it certain that he did it, Charles?” asked my mother.
My uncle shrugged his shoulders.
“I wish I could think it were not so. I have thought sometimes that it was this very pride, turning suddenly to madness, which drove him to it. You have heard how he returned the money which we had lost?”
“Nay, I have heard nothing of it,” my father answered.
“It is a very old story now, though we have not yet found an end to it. We had played for two days, the four of us: Lord Avon, his brother Captain Barrington, Sir Lothian Hume, and myself. Of the Captain I knew little, save that he was not of the best repute, and was deep in the hands of the Jews. Sir Lothian has made an evil name for himself since—’tis the same Sir Lothian who shot Lord Carton in the affair at Chalk Farm—but in those days there was nothing against him. The oldest of us was but twenty-four, and we gamed on, as I say, until the Captain had cleared the board. We were all hit, but our host far the hardest.
“That night—I tell you now what it would be a bitter thing for me to tell in a court of law—I was restless and sleepless, as often happens when a man has kept awake over long. My mind would dwell upon the fall of the cards, and I was tossing and turning in my bed, when suddenly a cry fell upon my ears, and then a second louder one, coming from the direction of Captain Barrington’s room. Five minutes later I heard steps passing down the passage, and, without striking a light, I opened my door and peeped out, thinking that some one was taken unwell. There was Lord Avon walking towards me. In one hand he held a guttering candle and in the other a brown bag, which chinked as he moved. His face was all drawn and distorted—so much so that my question was frozen upon my lips. Before I could utter it he turned into his chamber and softly closed the door.
“Next morning I was awakened by finding him at my bedside.
“‘Charles,’ said he, ‘I cannot abide to think that you should have lost this money in my house. You will find it here upon your table.’
“It was in vain that I laughed at his squeamishness, telling him that I should most certainly have claimed my money had I won, so that it would be strange indeed if I were not permitted to pay it when I lost.
“‘Neither I nor my brother will touch it,’ said he. ‘There it lies, and you may do what you like about it.’
“He would listen to no argument, but dashed out of the room like a madman. But perhaps these details are familiar to you, and God knows they are painful to me to tell.”
My father was sitting with staring eyes, and his forgotten pipe reeking in his hand.
“Pray let us hear the end of it, sir,” he cried.
“Well, then, I had finished my toilet in an hour or so—for I was less exigeant in those days than now—and I met Sir Lothian Hume at breakfast. His experience had been the same as my own, and he was eager to see Captain Barrington; and to ascertain why he had directed his brother to return the money to us. We were talking the matter over when suddenly I raised my eyes to the corner of the ceiling, and I saw—I saw—”
My uncle had turned quite pale with the vividness of the memory, and he passed his hand over his eyes.
“It was crimson,” said he, with a shudder—“crimson with black cracks, and from every crack—but I will give you dreams, sister Mary. Suffice it that we rushed up the stair which led direct to the Captain’s room, and there we found him lying with the bone gleaming white through his throat. A hunting-knife lay in the room—and the knife was Lord Avon’s. A lace ruffle was found in the dead man’s grasp—and the ruffle was Lord Avon’s. Some papers were found charred in the grate—and the papers were Lord Avon’s. Oh, my poor friend, in what moment of madness did you come to do such a deed?”
The light had gone out of my uncle’s eyes and the extravagance from his manner. His speech was clear and plain, with none of those strange London ways which had so amazed me. Here was a second uncle, a man of heart and a man of brains, and I liked him better than the first.
“And what said Lord Avon?” cried my father.
“He said nothing. He went about like one who walks in his sleep, with horror-stricken eyes. None dared arrest him until there should be due inquiry, but when the coroner’s court brought wilful murder against him, the constables came for him in full cry. But they found him fled. There was a rumour that he had been seen in Westminster in the next week, and then that he had escaped for America, but nothing more is known. It will be a bright day for Sir Lothian Hume when they can prove him dead, for he is next of kin, and till then he can touch neither title nor estate.”
The telling of this grim story had cast a chill upon all of us. My uncle held out his hands towards the blaze, and I noticed that they were as white as the ruffles which fringed them.
“I know not how things are at Cliffe Royal now,” said he, thoughtfully. “It was not a cheery house, even before this shadow fell upon it. A fitter stage was never set forth for such a tragedy. But seventeen years have passed, and perhaps even that horrible ceiling—”
“It still bears the stain,” said I.
I know not which of the three was the more astonished, for my mother had not heard of my adventures of the night. They never took their wondering eyes off me as I told my story, and my heart swelled with pride when my uncle said that we had carried ourselves well, and that he did not think that many of our age would have stood it as stoutly.
“But as to this ghost, it must have been the creature of your own minds,” said he. “Imagination plays us strange tricks, and though I have as steady a nerve as a man might wish, I cannot answer for what I might see if I were to stand under that blood-stained ceiling at midnight.”
“Uncle,” said I, “I saw a figure as plainly as I see that fire, and I heard the steps as clearly as I hear the crackle of the fagots. Besides, we could not both be deceived.”
“There is truth in that,” said be, thoughtfully. “You saw no features, you say?”
“It was too dark.”
“But only a figure?”
“The dark outline of one.”
“And it retreated up the stairs?”
“Yes.”
“And vanished into the wall?”
“Yes.”
“What part of the wall?” cried a voice from behind us.
My mother screamed, and down came my father’s pipe on to the hearthrug. I had sprung round with a catch of my breath, and there was the valet, Ambrose, his body in the shadow of the doorway, his dark face protruded into the light, and two burning eyes fixed upon mine.
“What the deuce is the meaning of this, sir?” cried my uncle.
It was strange to see the gleam and passion fade out of the man’s face, and the demure mask of the valet replace it. His eyes still smouldered, but his features regained their prim composure in an instant.
“I beg your pardon, Sir Charles,” said he. “I had come in to ask you if you had any orders for me, and I did not like to interrupt the young gentleman’s story. I am afraid that I have been somewhat carried away by it.”
“I never knew you forget yourself before,” said my uncle.
“You will, I am sure, forgive me, Sir Charles, if you will call to mind the relation in which I stood to Lord Avon.” He spoke with some dignity of manner, and with a bow he left the room.
“We must make some little allowance,” said my uncle, with a sudden return to his jaunty manner. “When a man can brew a dish of chocolate, or tie a cravat, as Ambrose does, he may claim consideration. The fact is that the poor fellow was valet to Lord Avon, that he was at Cliffe Royal upon the fatal night of which I have spoken, and that he is most devoted to his old master. But my talk has been somewhattriste, sister Mary, and now we shall return, if you please, to the dresses of the Countess Lieven, and the gossip of St. James.”
Myfather sent me to bed early that night, though I was very eager to stay up, for every word which this man said held my attention. His face, his manner, the large waves and sweeps of his white hands, his easy air of superiority, his fantastic fashion of talk, all filled me with interest and wonder. But, as I afterwards learned, their conversation was to be about myself and my own prospects, so I was despatched to my room, whence far into the night I could hear the deep growl of my father and the rich tones of my uncle, with an occasional gentle murmur from my mother, as they talked in the room beneath.
I had dropped asleep at last, when I was awakened suddenly by something wet being pressed against my face, and by two warm arms which were cast round me. My mother’s cheek was against my own, and I could hear the click of her sobs, and feel her quiver and shake in the darkness. A faint light stole through the latticed window, and I could dimly see that she was in white, with her black hair loose upon her shoulders.
“You won’t forget us, Roddy? You won’t forget us?”
“Why, mother, what is it?”
“Your uncle, Roddy—he is going to take you away from us.”
“When, mother?”
“To-morrow.”
God forgive me, how my heart bounded for joy, when hers, which was within touch of it, was breaking with sorrow!
“Oh, mother!” I cried. “To London?”
“First to Brighton, that he may present you to the Prince. Next day to London, where you will meet the great people, Roddy, and learn to look down upon—to look down upon your poor, simple, old-fashioned father and mother.”
I put my arms about her to console her, but she wept so that, for all my seventeen years and pride of manhood, it set me weeping also, and with such a hiccoughing noise, since I had not a woman’s knack of quiet tears, that it finally turned her own grief to laughter.
“Charles would be flattered if he could see the gracious way in which we receive his kindness,” said she. “Be still, Roddy dear, or you will certainly wake him.”
“I’ll not go if it is to grieve you,” I cried.
“Nay, dear, you must go, for it may be the one great chance of your life. And think how proud it will make us all when we hear of you in the company of Charles’s grand friends. But you will promise me not to gamble, Roddy? You heard to-night of the dreadful things which come from it.”
“I promise you, mother.”
“And you will be careful of wine, Roddy? You are young and unused to it.”
“Yes, mother.”
“And play-actresses also, Roddy. And you will not cast your underclothing until June is in. Young Master Overton came by his death through it. Think well of your dress, Roddy, so as to do your uncle credit, for it is the thing for which he is himself most famed. You have but to do what he will direct. But if there is a time when you are not meeting grand people, you can wear out your country things, for your brown coat is as good as new, and the blue one, if it were ironed and relined, would take you through the summer. I have put out your Sunday clothes with the nankeen vest, since you are to see the Prince to-morrow, and you will wear your brown silk stockings and buckle shoes. Be guarded in crossing the London streets, for I am told that the hackney coaches are past all imagining. Fold your clothes when you go to bed, Roddy, and do not forget your evening prayers, for, oh, my dear boy, the days of temptation are at hand, when I will no longer be with you to help you.”
So with advice and guidance both for this world and the next did my mother, with her soft, warm arms around me, prepare me for the great step which lay before me.
My uncle did not appear at breakfast in the morning, but Ambrose brewed him a dish of chocolate and took it to his room. When at last, about midday, he did descend, he was so fine with his curled hair, his shining teeth, his quizzing glass, his snow-white ruffles, and his laughing eyes, that I could not take my gaze from him.
“Well, nephew,” he cried, “what do you think of the prospect of coming to town with me?”
“I thank you, sir, for the kind interest which you take in me,” said I.
“But you must be a credit to me. My nephew must be of the best if he is to be in keeping with the rest of me.”
“You’ll find him a chip of good wood, sir,” said my father.
“We must make him a polished chip before we have done with him. Your aim, my dear nephew, must always be to be inbon ton. It is not a case of wealth, you understand. Mere riches cannot do it. Golden Price has forty thousand a year, but his clothes are disastrous. I assure you that I saw him come down St. James’s Street the other day, and I was so shocked at his appearance that I had to step into Vernet’s for a glass of orange brandy. No, it is a question of natural taste, and of following the advice and example of those who are more experienced than yourself.”
“I fear, Charles, that Roddy’s wardrobe is country-made,” said my mother.
“We shall soon set that right when we get to town. We shall see what Stultz or Weston can do for him,” my uncle answered. “We must keep him quiet until he has some clothes to wear.”
This slight upon my best Sunday suit brought a flush to my mother’s cheeks, which my uncle instantly observed, for he was quick in noticing trifles.
“The clothes are very well for Friar’s Oak, sister Mary,” said he. “And yet you can understand that they might seemrococoin the Mall. If you leave him in my hands I shall see to the matter.”
“On how much, sir,” asked my father, “can a young man dress in town?”
“With prudence and reasonable care, a young man of fashion can dress upon eight hundred a year,” my uncle answered.
I saw my poor father’s face grow longer.
“I fear, sir, that Roddy must keep his country clothes,” said he. “Even with my prize-money—”
“Tut, sir!” cried my uncle. “I already owe Weston something over a thousand, so how can a few odd hundreds affect it? If my nephew comes with me, my nephew is my care. The point is settled, and I must refuse to argue upon it.” He waved his white hands as if to brush aside all opposition.
My parents tried to thank him, but he cut them short.
“By the way, now that I am in Friar’s Oak, there is another small piece of business which I have to perform,” said he. “I believe that there is a fighting-man named Harrison here, who at one time might have held the championship. In those days poor Avon and I were his principal backers. I should like to have a word with him.”
You may think how proud I was to walk down the village street with my magnificent relative, and to note out of the corner of my eye how the folk came to the doors and windows to see us pass. Champion Harrison was standing outside the smithy, and he pulled his cap off when he saw my uncle.
“God bless me, sir! Who’d ha’ thought of seein’ you at Friar’s Oak? Why, Sir Charles, it brings old memories back to look at your face again.”
“Glad to see you looking so fit, Harrison,” said my uncle, running his eyes over him. “Why, with a week’s training you would be as good a man as ever. I don’t suppose you scale more than thirteen and a half?”
“Thirteen ten, Sir Charles. I’m in my fortieth year, but I am sound in wind and limb, and if my old woman would have let me off my promise, I’d ha’ had a try with some of these young ones before now. I hear that they’ve got some amazin’ good stuff up from Bristol of late.”
“Yes, the Bristol yellowman has been the winning colour of late. How d’ye do, Mrs. Harrison? I don’t suppose you remember me?”
She had come out from the house, and I noticed that her worn face—on which some past terror seemed to have left its shadow—hardened into stern lines as she looked at my uncle.
“I remember you too well, Sir Charles Tregellis,” said she. “I trust that you have not come here to-day to try to draw my husband back into the ways that he has forsaken.”
“That’s the way with her, Sir Charles,” said Harrison, resting his great hand upon the woman’s shoulder. “She’s got my promise, and she holds me to it! There was never a better or more hard-working wife, but she ain’t what you’d call a patron of sport, and that’s a fact.”
“Sport!” cried the woman, bitterly. “A fine sport for you, Sir Charles, with your pleasant twenty-mile drive into the country and your luncheon-basket and your wines, and so merrily back to London in the cool of the evening, with a well-fought battle to talk over. Think of the sport that it was to me to sit through the long hours, listening for the wheels of the chaise which would bring my man back to me. Sometimes he could walk in, and sometimes he was led in, and sometimes he was carried in, and it was only by his clothes that I could know him—”
“Come, wifie,” said Harrison, patting her on the shoulder. “I’ve been cut up in my time, but never as bad as that.”
“And then to live for weeks afterwards with the fear that every knock at the door may be to tell us that the other is dead, and that my man may have to stand in the dock and take his trial for murder.”
“No, she hasn’t got a sportin’ drop in her veins,” said Harrison. “She’d never make a patron, never! It’s Black Baruk’s business that did it, when we thought he’d napped it once too often. Well, she has my promise, and I’ll never sling my hat over the ropes unless she gives me leave.”
“You’ll keep your hat on your head like an honest, God-fearing man, John,” said his wife, turning back into the house.
“I wouldn’t for the world say anything to make you change your resolutions,” said my uncle. “At the same time, if you had wished to take a turn at the old sport, I had a good thing to put in your way.”
“Well, it’s no use, sir,” said Harrison, “but I’d be glad to hear about it all the same.”
“They have a very good bit of stuff at thirteen stone down Gloucester way. Wilson is his name, and they call him Crab on account of his style.”
Harrison shook his head. “Never heard of him, sir.”
“Very likely not, for he has never shown in the P.R. But they think great things of him in the West, and he can hold his own with either of the Belchers with the mufflers.”
“Sparrin’ ain’t fightin’,” said the smith.
“I am told that he had the best of it in a by-battle with Noah James, of Cheshire.”
“There’s no gamer man on the list, sir, than Noah James, the guardsman,” said Harrison. “I saw him myself fight fifty rounds after his jaw had been cracked in three places. If Wilson could beat him, Wilson will go far.”
“So they think in the West, and they mean to spring him on the London talent. Sir Lothian Hume is his patron, and to make a long story short, he lays me odds that I won’t find a young one of his weight to meet him. I told him that I had not heard of any good young ones, but that I had an old one who had not put his foot into a ring for many years, who would make his man wish he had never come to London.
“‘Young or old, under twenty or over thirty-five, you may bring whom you will at the weight, and I shall lay two to one on Wilson,’ said he. I took him in thousands, and here I am.”
“It won’t do, Sir Charles,” said the smith, shaking his head. “There’s nothing would please me better, but you heard for yourself.”
“Well, if you won’t fight, Harrison, I must try to get some promising colt. I’d be glad of your advice in the matter. By the way, I take the chair at a supper of the Fancy at the Waggon and Horses in St. Martin’s Lane next Friday. I should be very glad if you will make one of my guests. Halloa, who’s this?” Up flew his glass to his eye.
Boy Jim had come out from the forge with his hammer in his hand. He had, I remember, a grey flannel shirt, which was open at the neck and turned up at the sleeves. My uncle ran his eyes over the fine lines of his magnificent figure with the glance of a connoisseur.
“That’s my nephew, Sir Charles.”
“Is he living with you?”
“His parents are dead.”
“Has he ever been in London?”
“No, Sir Charles. He’s been with me here since he was as high as that hammer.”
My uncle turned to Boy Jim.
“I hear that you have never been in London,” said he. “Your uncle is coming up to a supper which I am giving to the Fancy next Friday. Would you care to make one of us?”
Boy Jim’s dark eyes sparkled with pleasure.
“I should be glad to come, sir.”
“No, no, Jim,” cried the smith, abruptly. “I’m sorry to gainsay you, lad, but there are reasons why I had rather you stayed down here with your aunt.”
“Tut, Harrison, let the lad come!” cried my uncle.
“No, no, Sir Charles. It’s dangerous company for a lad of his mettle. There’s plenty for him to do when I’m away.”
Poor Jim turned away with a clouded brow and strode into the smithy again. For my part, I slipped after him to try to console him, and to tell him all the wonderful changes which had come so suddenly into my life. But I had not got half through my story, and Jim, like the good fellow that he was, had just begun to forget his own troubles in his delight at my good fortune, when my uncle called to me from without. The curricle with its tandem mares was waiting for us outside the cottage, and Ambrose had placed the refection-basket, the lap-dog, and the precious toilet-box inside of it. He had himself climbed up behind, and I, after a hearty handshake from my father, and a last sobbing embrace from my mother, took my place beside my uncle in the front.
“Let go her head!” cried he to the ostler, and with a snap, a crack, and a jingle, away we went upon our journey.
Across all the years how clearly I can see that spring day, with the green English fields, the windy English sky, and the yellow, beetle-browed cottage in which I had grown from a child to a man. I see, too, the figures at the garden gate: my mother, with her face turned away and her handkerchief waving; my father, with his blue coat and his white shorts, leaning upon his stick with his hand shading his eyes as he peered after us. All the village was out to see young Roddy Stone go off with his grand relative from London to call upon the Prince in his own palace. The Harrisons were waving to me from the smithy, and John Cummings from the steps of the inn, and I saw Joshua Allen, my old schoolmaster, pointing me out to the people, as if he were showing what came from his teaching. To make it complete, who should drive past just as we cleared the village but Miss Hinton, the play-actress, the pony and phaeton the same as when first I saw her, but she herself another woman; and I thought to myself that if Boy Jim had done nothing but that one thing, he need not think that his youth had been wasted in the country. She was driving to see him, I have no doubt, for they were closer than ever, and she never looked up nor saw the hand that I waved to her. So as we took the curve of the road the little village vanished, and there in the dip of the Downs, past the spires of Patcham and of Preston, lay the broad blue sea and the grey houses of Brighton, with the strange Eastern domes and minarets of the Prince’s Pavilion shooting out from the centre of it.
To every traveller it was a sight of beauty, but to me it was the world—the great wide free world—and my heart thrilled and fluttered as the young bird’s may when it first hears the whirr of its own flight, and skims along with the blue heaven above it and the green fields beneath. The day may come when it may look back regretfully to the snug nest in the thornbush, but what does it reck of that when spring is in the air and youth in its blood, and the old hawk of trouble has not yet darkened the sunshine with the ill-boding shadow of its wings?