CHAPTER XIII DISCOVER A GREAT AUTHOR WHERE I LEAST EXPECT TO FIND ONEWhile all this was going forward very eloquent glances were repeatedly exchanged between the justice and the head-constable. They were both equally at a loss to know what to do in the matter. Their plain duty was to have me removed in custody. But this they could not very well do, seeing on what terms of intimacy I had already been placed. There must be a grave mistake somewhere. What it was they were too greatly puzzled to say, but the end of it all was that my fellow-prisoners were removed into the stables against the next morning, when they could be more conveniently taken to prison, whilst I for the nonce was allowed to remain seated at the table in the society of my whimsical friend.Sir Thomas's composure had been so rudely shaken that for a long time he could hardly venture on another word. He sat watching us with a kind of stupefied horror, whilst we made short work of several bottles of his most excellent claret."The true Falernian," says my companion, smacking his lips. "I would that Roman fellow were here in the room of Tommie, who sits like a dead dog in a dry ditch. I have remarked it before, and I remark it again, that I can never understand how it is that a man who can keep such a full-bodied, generous wine in his cellar should yet keep such a lean, ill-liberal heart in his body. It is an internal paradox on which I break my brains anew. You would think that one would cry out upon the other, and that they could live together no better than a keg of gunpowder and a live coal. And how in the first place they ever came to be associated passes me. Ring the bell, Tommie, and tell 'em to bring us up another bottle a-piece."While Sir Thomas did so with the mechanical meekness of one well accustomed to obey, says I:"I think I can give you ease on this last matter, sir. Hath it never struck you that our host may have bought his cellar at the same shop that he bought his ancestors? It sticks in my mind that I have met both his forebears and his vintages before. Indeed, to come down to the details of this odd matter, I believe at the period of which I speak they may have had my name appended to them.""Shrewdly said, sir," says my companion; and then going on to another matter which I had sedulously been leading up to, for I had come to the conclusion that my one chance of ultimate escape lay in betraying myself entirely, continued: "You begin to interest me vastly. I confess you are a man after my own heart. I like your talk, I like your manner, the colour of your eye, the cock of your old beak, i'faith, I like you altogether. You are the very perfect gentle guest; you abuse your host and drink his wine with the same impartial spirit. You bear the same relation to a gypsy as our club-footed Thomas does to the herald Mercury. No, no, my good sir, it will not do;ex ungue leonem.""Your compliments charm me," says I, raising the glass to my lips again, "but I could have wished, sir, that you had not nosed out myincognito. It may be the source of a greater inconvenience than I care to think about, if it and I part company.""The blame is entirely your own, sir," says the other. "Hercules should not try to hide behind an arbutus tree. But no man ever had aught to fear from me, unless that man was myself. To him, it is true, I have been a great enemy. Yet I'll swear on my life that even that poor unlucky young man whose name is proscribed in this morning's news-letter would never be a penny the worse for revealing himself to such a rough fellow as me. As for Tommie, I will answer for Tommie too. It is true that Tommie hath weaknesses, but they are on the surface mostly. If he can never forget that Nature had a hand in the fashioning of Sir T. Wheatley, Knight, and Justice of the Peace, and is in a sense a self-made man therefore, he nevertheless hath a very good heart. I can answer for Tommie as for myself."When he came to mention the "poor unlucky young man," I suppose I must have winced or blinked a little, or he was a marvellously subtle and keen observer, for after looking into my eyes, he slapped his hand on his thigh, and cried:"By God, can it be? Surely it is too whimsical, too fantastical. These things do not happen outside the story books.""Such a coincidence is a little after the manner ofTom Jones, to be sure, sir," says I.I suppose it was the word "story books" that led to my mentioning that immortal novel which at that moment held all the town in a spell of wonder and delight. But no sooner had I uttered the magic name ofTom Jonesthan I thought I saw my companion's flushed face flush deeper than ever, and at the same instant my mind was assailed with a dozen points of recognition. In a flash I jumped to the conclusion that I was being entertained by the author of that inimitable work. For a moment we sat regarding one another with the frankest amusement. Then my companion took up his glass, and lifting it slowly to his lips, says:"Lord Tiverton."Thereupon I followed his polite example; and when the glass was at my lips, says I:"Mr. Henry Fielding."Upon that we fell a-laughing wildly, and wrung one another warmly by the hand. Now that the murder was out we grew closer in good-fellowship. Had we not shown proofs of an admirable sagacity in our previous respect for one another? The magistrate, however, was aghast. No sooner was he acquainted with my name than he was beset with his manifest duty as a justice of the peace."As you are a refugee from the law, my lord," says he, looking anxiously at me and then at Fielding, "I fear that I have no alternative other than to hand you over to the proper authorities. You see, as one holding his Majesty's commission of the peace for this county, I am precluded from giving way to any private feelings I might entertain in the matter, but must do my plain and obvious duty, however it be opposed to the dictates of my heart."The dignity and the rather florid effect of this speech, which I will do Sir Thomas the justice of saying was very well meant, was utterly spoiled by Mr. Fielding's reception of it."Come down off the high horse, Tommie, if you love me," says he. "Be damned to the dictates of your heart and your duty too. Do strive to be natural, Tommie; if you would but be content to be natural I would suffer you gladly, for at bottom you are as good a fellow as I know. But when you get on these magisterial airs of yours a common mortal cannot touch you with a six-foot pole.""That is all very well, Harry," says Sir Thomas, "but you forget my responsibilities.""There you go again," says Fielding. "Be damned to your responsibilities. Come and drink a glass of good claret with us and forget yourself, your office, your dignity, your wig, your knighthood, and your laced coat for a brief five minutes. Perpend, Tommie, perpend; and for the nonce consent to be a human being.""Would you have me, then," says the magistrate, "sit down with a man in my own house, knowing him to be a great criminal? How can I possibly entertain such a person? Were I to do so I should be altogether unworthy of the high trust that hath been reposed in me."Mr. Fielding scratched his wig."A very moral sentiment," says he, "but all the morality in the world is not worth a penn'orth of humanity.""Sir," says I warmly, "I am grateful to you. You can scarcely know how an example such as yours helps a drowning man to keep his head above the flood that is like to overwhelm him. But I think I owe it to myself to lessen the weight of Sir Thomas's responsibilities, by assuring you that I am innocent of the horrid crime with which I am charged. The poor fellow came by his end in a fair fight; and therefore if you can only overlook the sums I owe my creditors, you may relieve your scruples.""I am more than glad of these assurances," says the justice. "A great load is taken off my mind.""On the contrary," says Mr. Fielding, "they make not a farthingworth of difference to me. I care not if you are the most long-suffering peer that ever went to the dogs, or if you are the greatest villain that ever tried to dodge the gallows. What's the odds? You are a proper enough fellow for all rational purposes. Certainly I would not choose to meet Mr. Jack Sheppard in a lonely lane on a dark night, but I would as willingly drink a bottle with a lad of his mettle just as well as with another. If a man shall bear himself gallantly at table, with a merry courage and a kindling eye, who am I that shall ask uncivil questions of him?"Whatever Mr. Henry Fielding's philosophy, and it seemed to have a savour of that of the late eminent Sir John Falstaff, Knight, he was a fine merry companion, who asked no better of the hour and the company in which he sat than that they should consort with his humour. After a while his wit, his gallant spirits, and his brave bearing before the bottle did not fail of their effect upon the justice too. That staid and pompous fellow resisted them for a time, but as first one and then another bottle was numbered among the slain, and our tongues grew looser as our brains grew warm, he fell at last from his high estate and was seduced into a course that ill consisted with his sentiments. When he had accepted several glasses from Mr. Fielding's own fair hands he began to grow rather thicker in his speech, weighed his words less, and showed several signs of having departed from his usual habit."You can see," says Mr. Fielding, winking at me, "that our gallant Tommie hath been nurtured on cinnamon-water and Dr. Akenside's sermons. I should say that four glasses are about the limit of him; five, and he goes over the verge."Although both Mr. Fielding and I had already accommodated a far greater quantity than the magistrate, we had served such a much longer apprenticeship to this business (the shame is our own) that whereas we were scarcely conscious as yet of what we had drunk, the square-toed Sir Thomas was already hanging out his evidences. Now no sooner did I observe this disposition in him than I was taken with a scheme by which my poor fellow-prisoners incarcerated in the stables outside were to profit. Whatever my shortcomings, I would never have it said of me that I left a friend in the lurch. These poor gypsies had given us of their hospitality; that in itself therefore was enough of a reason why I should endeavour to spare them a hanging. Therefore I suggested the matter to my companion."Do you think, sir," says I, "that we can get our good magistrate drunk enough to be worked on to give the order for the release of my poor friends the gypsies? It is like to go very hard with them, I fear, unless we can find some such way as this to aid them.""It is very well thought on," says this truly humane fellow, without so much as pausing to consider the matter. "Leave this jocund old justicer to me, and I'll answer for it that the king's enemies shall get a free pardon. Now then, Tommie, by your leave I'll name a toast. We will drink to Law and Order. Fill up, Tommie, and no heel-taps."So thoroughly did Mr. Fielding enter into this plan, that very soon Sir Thomas began to babble in his talk with a most unwonted levity, and even essayed to sing a song. With such assiduity was he plied, that he presently advanced stage by stage, until my companion considered him to be sufficiently primed for this business. Thereon Fielding rang the bell and ordered the head-constable, who with his men was keeping guard over the premises, to be brought to him. When that worthy presented himself, Mr. Fielding says with an inimitable glib audacity:"Sir Thomas, after much weighing of the merits of this case, hath come to the conclusion that the evidence is not sufficient to send these prisoners for trial. He is sensibly fearful of some miscarriage of justice, the more particularly as one of their number that you brought before him hath turned out on an examination to be anything but what he was represented. Therefore Sir Thomas bids me to inform you that he hath decided to remit these charges. And he would have you release these people at once, that they may go about their business. And when you have done this, you are to take your men to the kitchen, where they are to have a good supper of beef and ale, and they can then repair to their homes. And at least this course, this somewhat extreme course I may say, that Sir Thomas hath decided on will save you all from a long and weary vigil in the night air."However surprised the head-constable was at this unexpected turn of events, he was by no means disposed to cavil at it, since the only way in which the fate of the gypsies could affect himself was the one that Mr. Fielding had so adroitly indicated. Not so the scandalized justice. Fuddled as he was, he had enough wit left to apprehend what was going forward. But he had not enough, however, to interpose his authority in a way that was at all likely to take effect. At all his thick and nearly inarticulate protests, his friend Mr. Fielding kept hushing and soothing him down, with highly eloquent and imploring gestures."Oh lord, Tommie," he would say, "I pray you have a care. Here am I trying to conceal the fact that you are abominably drunk, and yet you will flaunt it and advertise it, before the servants too. Think of your own dignity, Tommie, I beseech you."Whereon the head-constable would rub his coat-sleeve across his face to conceal his laughter. Sir Thomas would grunt and wriggle and writhe his tipsy protests, and his friend, Mr. Fielding, with the oddest mingling of sorrow, amusement, and solemnity, apparently struggled to put the best face he could on the justice's scandalous behaviour.
While all this was going forward very eloquent glances were repeatedly exchanged between the justice and the head-constable. They were both equally at a loss to know what to do in the matter. Their plain duty was to have me removed in custody. But this they could not very well do, seeing on what terms of intimacy I had already been placed. There must be a grave mistake somewhere. What it was they were too greatly puzzled to say, but the end of it all was that my fellow-prisoners were removed into the stables against the next morning, when they could be more conveniently taken to prison, whilst I for the nonce was allowed to remain seated at the table in the society of my whimsical friend.
Sir Thomas's composure had been so rudely shaken that for a long time he could hardly venture on another word. He sat watching us with a kind of stupefied horror, whilst we made short work of several bottles of his most excellent claret.
"The true Falernian," says my companion, smacking his lips. "I would that Roman fellow were here in the room of Tommie, who sits like a dead dog in a dry ditch. I have remarked it before, and I remark it again, that I can never understand how it is that a man who can keep such a full-bodied, generous wine in his cellar should yet keep such a lean, ill-liberal heart in his body. It is an internal paradox on which I break my brains anew. You would think that one would cry out upon the other, and that they could live together no better than a keg of gunpowder and a live coal. And how in the first place they ever came to be associated passes me. Ring the bell, Tommie, and tell 'em to bring us up another bottle a-piece."
While Sir Thomas did so with the mechanical meekness of one well accustomed to obey, says I:
"I think I can give you ease on this last matter, sir. Hath it never struck you that our host may have bought his cellar at the same shop that he bought his ancestors? It sticks in my mind that I have met both his forebears and his vintages before. Indeed, to come down to the details of this odd matter, I believe at the period of which I speak they may have had my name appended to them."
"Shrewdly said, sir," says my companion; and then going on to another matter which I had sedulously been leading up to, for I had come to the conclusion that my one chance of ultimate escape lay in betraying myself entirely, continued: "You begin to interest me vastly. I confess you are a man after my own heart. I like your talk, I like your manner, the colour of your eye, the cock of your old beak, i'faith, I like you altogether. You are the very perfect gentle guest; you abuse your host and drink his wine with the same impartial spirit. You bear the same relation to a gypsy as our club-footed Thomas does to the herald Mercury. No, no, my good sir, it will not do;ex ungue leonem."
"Your compliments charm me," says I, raising the glass to my lips again, "but I could have wished, sir, that you had not nosed out myincognito. It may be the source of a greater inconvenience than I care to think about, if it and I part company."
"The blame is entirely your own, sir," says the other. "Hercules should not try to hide behind an arbutus tree. But no man ever had aught to fear from me, unless that man was myself. To him, it is true, I have been a great enemy. Yet I'll swear on my life that even that poor unlucky young man whose name is proscribed in this morning's news-letter would never be a penny the worse for revealing himself to such a rough fellow as me. As for Tommie, I will answer for Tommie too. It is true that Tommie hath weaknesses, but they are on the surface mostly. If he can never forget that Nature had a hand in the fashioning of Sir T. Wheatley, Knight, and Justice of the Peace, and is in a sense a self-made man therefore, he nevertheless hath a very good heart. I can answer for Tommie as for myself."
When he came to mention the "poor unlucky young man," I suppose I must have winced or blinked a little, or he was a marvellously subtle and keen observer, for after looking into my eyes, he slapped his hand on his thigh, and cried:
"By God, can it be? Surely it is too whimsical, too fantastical. These things do not happen outside the story books."
"Such a coincidence is a little after the manner ofTom Jones, to be sure, sir," says I.
I suppose it was the word "story books" that led to my mentioning that immortal novel which at that moment held all the town in a spell of wonder and delight. But no sooner had I uttered the magic name ofTom Jonesthan I thought I saw my companion's flushed face flush deeper than ever, and at the same instant my mind was assailed with a dozen points of recognition. In a flash I jumped to the conclusion that I was being entertained by the author of that inimitable work. For a moment we sat regarding one another with the frankest amusement. Then my companion took up his glass, and lifting it slowly to his lips, says:
"Lord Tiverton."
Thereupon I followed his polite example; and when the glass was at my lips, says I:
"Mr. Henry Fielding."
Upon that we fell a-laughing wildly, and wrung one another warmly by the hand. Now that the murder was out we grew closer in good-fellowship. Had we not shown proofs of an admirable sagacity in our previous respect for one another? The magistrate, however, was aghast. No sooner was he acquainted with my name than he was beset with his manifest duty as a justice of the peace.
"As you are a refugee from the law, my lord," says he, looking anxiously at me and then at Fielding, "I fear that I have no alternative other than to hand you over to the proper authorities. You see, as one holding his Majesty's commission of the peace for this county, I am precluded from giving way to any private feelings I might entertain in the matter, but must do my plain and obvious duty, however it be opposed to the dictates of my heart."
The dignity and the rather florid effect of this speech, which I will do Sir Thomas the justice of saying was very well meant, was utterly spoiled by Mr. Fielding's reception of it.
"Come down off the high horse, Tommie, if you love me," says he. "Be damned to the dictates of your heart and your duty too. Do strive to be natural, Tommie; if you would but be content to be natural I would suffer you gladly, for at bottom you are as good a fellow as I know. But when you get on these magisterial airs of yours a common mortal cannot touch you with a six-foot pole."
"That is all very well, Harry," says Sir Thomas, "but you forget my responsibilities."
"There you go again," says Fielding. "Be damned to your responsibilities. Come and drink a glass of good claret with us and forget yourself, your office, your dignity, your wig, your knighthood, and your laced coat for a brief five minutes. Perpend, Tommie, perpend; and for the nonce consent to be a human being."
"Would you have me, then," says the magistrate, "sit down with a man in my own house, knowing him to be a great criminal? How can I possibly entertain such a person? Were I to do so I should be altogether unworthy of the high trust that hath been reposed in me."
Mr. Fielding scratched his wig.
"A very moral sentiment," says he, "but all the morality in the world is not worth a penn'orth of humanity."
"Sir," says I warmly, "I am grateful to you. You can scarcely know how an example such as yours helps a drowning man to keep his head above the flood that is like to overwhelm him. But I think I owe it to myself to lessen the weight of Sir Thomas's responsibilities, by assuring you that I am innocent of the horrid crime with which I am charged. The poor fellow came by his end in a fair fight; and therefore if you can only overlook the sums I owe my creditors, you may relieve your scruples."
"I am more than glad of these assurances," says the justice. "A great load is taken off my mind."
"On the contrary," says Mr. Fielding, "they make not a farthingworth of difference to me. I care not if you are the most long-suffering peer that ever went to the dogs, or if you are the greatest villain that ever tried to dodge the gallows. What's the odds? You are a proper enough fellow for all rational purposes. Certainly I would not choose to meet Mr. Jack Sheppard in a lonely lane on a dark night, but I would as willingly drink a bottle with a lad of his mettle just as well as with another. If a man shall bear himself gallantly at table, with a merry courage and a kindling eye, who am I that shall ask uncivil questions of him?"
Whatever Mr. Henry Fielding's philosophy, and it seemed to have a savour of that of the late eminent Sir John Falstaff, Knight, he was a fine merry companion, who asked no better of the hour and the company in which he sat than that they should consort with his humour. After a while his wit, his gallant spirits, and his brave bearing before the bottle did not fail of their effect upon the justice too. That staid and pompous fellow resisted them for a time, but as first one and then another bottle was numbered among the slain, and our tongues grew looser as our brains grew warm, he fell at last from his high estate and was seduced into a course that ill consisted with his sentiments. When he had accepted several glasses from Mr. Fielding's own fair hands he began to grow rather thicker in his speech, weighed his words less, and showed several signs of having departed from his usual habit.
"You can see," says Mr. Fielding, winking at me, "that our gallant Tommie hath been nurtured on cinnamon-water and Dr. Akenside's sermons. I should say that four glasses are about the limit of him; five, and he goes over the verge."
Although both Mr. Fielding and I had already accommodated a far greater quantity than the magistrate, we had served such a much longer apprenticeship to this business (the shame is our own) that whereas we were scarcely conscious as yet of what we had drunk, the square-toed Sir Thomas was already hanging out his evidences. Now no sooner did I observe this disposition in him than I was taken with a scheme by which my poor fellow-prisoners incarcerated in the stables outside were to profit. Whatever my shortcomings, I would never have it said of me that I left a friend in the lurch. These poor gypsies had given us of their hospitality; that in itself therefore was enough of a reason why I should endeavour to spare them a hanging. Therefore I suggested the matter to my companion.
"Do you think, sir," says I, "that we can get our good magistrate drunk enough to be worked on to give the order for the release of my poor friends the gypsies? It is like to go very hard with them, I fear, unless we can find some such way as this to aid them."
"It is very well thought on," says this truly humane fellow, without so much as pausing to consider the matter. "Leave this jocund old justicer to me, and I'll answer for it that the king's enemies shall get a free pardon. Now then, Tommie, by your leave I'll name a toast. We will drink to Law and Order. Fill up, Tommie, and no heel-taps."
So thoroughly did Mr. Fielding enter into this plan, that very soon Sir Thomas began to babble in his talk with a most unwonted levity, and even essayed to sing a song. With such assiduity was he plied, that he presently advanced stage by stage, until my companion considered him to be sufficiently primed for this business. Thereon Fielding rang the bell and ordered the head-constable, who with his men was keeping guard over the premises, to be brought to him. When that worthy presented himself, Mr. Fielding says with an inimitable glib audacity:
"Sir Thomas, after much weighing of the merits of this case, hath come to the conclusion that the evidence is not sufficient to send these prisoners for trial. He is sensibly fearful of some miscarriage of justice, the more particularly as one of their number that you brought before him hath turned out on an examination to be anything but what he was represented. Therefore Sir Thomas bids me to inform you that he hath decided to remit these charges. And he would have you release these people at once, that they may go about their business. And when you have done this, you are to take your men to the kitchen, where they are to have a good supper of beef and ale, and they can then repair to their homes. And at least this course, this somewhat extreme course I may say, that Sir Thomas hath decided on will save you all from a long and weary vigil in the night air."
However surprised the head-constable was at this unexpected turn of events, he was by no means disposed to cavil at it, since the only way in which the fate of the gypsies could affect himself was the one that Mr. Fielding had so adroitly indicated. Not so the scandalized justice. Fuddled as he was, he had enough wit left to apprehend what was going forward. But he had not enough, however, to interpose his authority in a way that was at all likely to take effect. At all his thick and nearly inarticulate protests, his friend Mr. Fielding kept hushing and soothing him down, with highly eloquent and imploring gestures.
"Oh lord, Tommie," he would say, "I pray you have a care. Here am I trying to conceal the fact that you are abominably drunk, and yet you will flaunt it and advertise it, before the servants too. Think of your own dignity, Tommie, I beseech you."
Whereon the head-constable would rub his coat-sleeve across his face to conceal his laughter. Sir Thomas would grunt and wriggle and writhe his tipsy protests, and his friend, Mr. Fielding, with the oddest mingling of sorrow, amusement, and solemnity, apparently struggled to put the best face he could on the justice's scandalous behaviour.