“My dear Miss Flora, you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs,” said I; “and it is no bagatelle to escape from Edinburgh Castle. One of us, I think, was even killed.”
“And you are as white as a rag, too,” she exclaimed, “and can hardly stand! Here is my shawl, sit down upon it here in the corner, and I will beat your eggs. See, I have brought a fork, too; I should have been a good person to take care of Jacobites or Covenanters in old days! You shall have more to eat this evening; Ronald is to bring it you from town. We have money enough, although no food that we can call our own. Ah, if Ronald and I kept house you should not be lying in this shed! He admires you so much.”
“My dear friend,” said I, “for God’s sake do not embarrass me with more alms. I loved to receive them from that hand, so long as they were needed; but they are so no more, and whatever else I may lack—and I lack everything—it is not money.” I pulled out my sheaf of notes and detached the top one: it was written for ten pounds, and signed by that very famous individual, Abraham Newlands. “Oblige me, as you would like me to oblige your brother if the parts were reversed, and take this note for the expenses. I shall need not only food, but clothes.”
“Lay it on the ground,” said she. “I must not stop my beating.”
“You are not offended?” I exclaimed.
She answered me by a look that was a reward in itself, and seemed to imply the most heavenly offers for the future. There was in it a shadow of reproach, and such warmth of communicative cordiality as left me speechless. I watched her instead till her hens’ milk was ready.
“Now,” said she, “taste that.”
I did so, and swore it was nectar. She collected her eggs and crouched in front of me to watch me eat. There was about this tall young lady at the moment an air of motherliness delicious to behold. I am like the English general, and to this day I still wonder at my moderation.
“What sort of clothes will you be wanting?” said she.
“The clothes of a gentleman,” said I. “Right or wrong, I think it is the part I am best qualified to play. Mr. St. Ives (for that’s to be my name upon the journey) I conceive as rather a theatrical figure, and his make-up should be to match.”
“And yet there is a difficulty,” said she. “If you got coarse clothes the fit would hardly matter. But the clothes of a fine gentleman—O, it is absolutely necessary that these should fit! And above all, with your”—she paused a moment—“to our ideas somewhat noticeable manners.”
“Alas for my poor manners!” said I. “But, my dear friend Flora, these little noticeabilities are just what mankind has to suffer under. Yourself, you see, you’re very noticeable even when you come in a crowd to visit poor prisoners in the Castle.”
I was afraid I should frighten my good angel visitant away, and without the smallest breath of pause went on to add a few directions as to stuffs and colours.
She opened big eyes upon me. “O, Mr. St. Ives!” she cried—“if that is to be your name—I do not say they would not be becoming; but for a journey, do you think they would be wise? I am afraid”—she gave a pretty break of laughter—“I am afraid they would be daft-like!”
“Well, and am I not daft?” I asked her.
“I do begin to think you are,” said she.
“There it is, then!” said I. “I have been long enough a figure of fun. Can you not feel with me that perhaps the bitterest thing in this captivity has been the clothes? Make me a captive—bind me with chains if you like—but let me be still myself. You do not know what it is to be a walking travesty—among foes,” I added bitterly.
“O, but you are too unjust!” she cried. “You speak as though any one ever dreamed of laughing at you. But no one did. We were all pained to the heart. Even my aunt—though sometimes I do think she was not quite in good taste—you should have seen her and heard her at home! She took so much interest. Every patch in your clothes made us sorry; it should have been a sister’s work.”
“That is what I never had—a sister,” said I. “But since you say that I did not make you laugh——”
“O, Mr. St. Ives! never!” she exclaimed. “Not for one moment. It was all too sad. To see a gentleman——”
“In the clothes of a harlequin, and begging?” I suggested.
“To see a gentleman in distress, and nobly supporting it,” she said.
“And do you not understand, my fair foe,” said I, “that even if all were as you say—even if you had thought my travesty were becoming—I should be only the more anxious for my sake, for my country’s sake, and for the sake of your kindness, that you should see him whom you have helped as God meant him to be seen? that you should have something to remember him by at least more characteristic than a misfitting sulphur-yellow suit, and half a week’s beard?”
“You think a great deal too much of clothes,” she said. “I am not that kind of girl.”
“And I am afraid I am that kind of a man,” said I. “But do not think of me too harshly for that. I talked just now of something to remember by. I have many of them myself, of these beautiful reminders, of these keepsakes, that I cannot be parted from until I lose memory and life. Many of them are great things, many of them are high virtues—charity, mercy, faith. But some of them are trivial enough. Miss Flora, do you remember the day that I first saw you, the day of the strong east wind? Miss Flora, shall I tell you what you wore?”
We had both risen to our feet, and she had her hand already on the door to go. Perhaps this attitude emboldened me to profit by the last seconds of our interview; and it certainly rendered her escape the more easy.
“O, you are too romantic!” she said, laughing; and with that my sun was blown out, my enchantress had fled away, and I was again left alone in the twilight with the lady hens.
CHAPTER IX
THREE IS COMPANY, AND FOUR NONE
The rest of the day I slept in the corner of the hen-house upon Flora’s shawl. Nor did I awake until a light shone suddenly in my eyes, and starting up with a gasp (for, indeed, at the moment I dreamed I was still swinging from the Castle battlements) I found Ronald bending over me with a lantern. It appeared it was past midnight, that I had slept about sixteen hours, and that Flora had returned her poultry to the shed and I had heard her not. I could not but wonder if she had stooped to look at me as I slept. The puritan hens now slept irremediably; and being cheered with the promise of supper I wished them an ironical good-night, and was lighted across the garden and noiselessly admitted to a bedroom on the ground-floor of the cottage. There I found soap, water, razors—offered me diffidently by my beardless host—and an outfit of new clothes. To be shaved again without depending on the barber of the gaol was a source of a delicious, if a childish joy. My hair was sadly too long, but I was none so unwise as to make an attempt on it myself. And, indeed, I thought it did not wholly misbecome me as it was, being by nature curly. The clothes were about as good as I expected. The waistcoat was of toilenet, a pretty piece, the trousers of fine kerseymere, and the coat sat extraordinarily well. Altogether, when I beheld this changeling in the glass, I kissed my hand to him.
“My dear fellow,” said I, “have you no scent?”
“Good God, no!” cried Ronald. “What do you want with scent?”
“Capital thing on a campaign,” said I. “But I can do without.”
I was now led, with the same precautions against noise, into the little bow-windowed dining-room of the cottage. The shutters were up, the lamp guiltily turned low; the beautiful Flora greeted me in a whisper; and when I was set down to table, the pair proceeded to help me with precautions that might have seemed excessive in the Ear of Dionysius.
“She sleeps up there,” observed the boy, pointing to the ceiling; and the knowledge that I was so imminently near to the resting-place of that gold eye-glass touched even myself with some uneasiness.
Our excellent youth had imported from the city a meat-pie, and I was glad to find it flanked with a decanter of really admirable wine of Oporto. While I ate, Ronald entertained me with the news of the city, which had naturally rung all day with our escape: troops and mounted messengers had followed each other forth at all hours and in all directions; but according to the last intelligence no recapture had been made. Opinion in town was very favourable to us; our courage was applauded, and many professed regret that our ultimate chance of escape should be so small. The man who had fallen was one Sombref, a peasant; he was one who slept in a different part of the Castle; and I was thus assured that the whole of my former companions had attained their liberty, and Shed B was untenanted.
From this we wandered insensibly into other topics. It is impossible to exaggerate the pleasure I took to be thus sitting at the same table with Flora, in the clothes of a gentleman, at liberty and in the full possession of my spirits and resources; of all of which I had need, because it was necessary that I should support at the same time two opposite characters, and at once play the cavalier and lively soldier for the eyes of Ronald, and to the ears of Flora maintain the same profound and sentimental note that I had already sounded. Certainly there are days when all goes well with a man; when his wit, his digestion, his mistress are in a conspiracy to spoil him, and even the weather smiles upon his wishes. I will only say of myself upon that evening that I surpassed my expectations, and was privileged to delight my hosts. Little by little they forgot their terrors and I my caution; until at last we were brought back to earth by a catastrophe that might very easily have been foreseen, but was not the less astonishing to us when it occurred.
I had filled all the glasses. “I have a toast to propose,” I whispered, “or rather three, but all so inextricably interwoven that they will not bear dividing. I wish first to drink to the health of a brave and therefore a generous enemy. He found me disarmed, a fugitive and helpless. Like the lion, he disdained so poor a triumph; and when he might have vindicated an easy valour, he preferred to make a friend. I wish that we should next drink to a fairer and a more tender foe. She found me in prison; she cheered me with a priceless sympathy; and what she has done since, I know she has done in mercy, and I only pray—I dare scarce hope—her mercy may prove to have been merciful. And I wish to conjoin with these, for the first, and perhaps the last time, the health—and I fear I may already say the memory—of one who has fought, not always without success, against the soldiers of your nation; but who came here, vanquished already, only to be vanquished again by the loyal hand of the one, by the unforgettable eyes of the other.”
It is to be feared I may have lent at times a certain resonancy to my voice; it is to be feared that Ronald, who was none the better for his own hospitality, may have set down his glass with something of a clang. Whatever may have been the cause, at least, I had scarce finished my compliment before we were aware of a thump upon the ceiling overhead. It was to be thought some very solid body had descended to the floor from the level (possibly) of a bed. I have never seen consternation painted in more lively colours than on the faces of my hosts. It was proposed to smuggle me forth into the garden, or to conceal my form under a horsehair sofa which stood against the wall. For the first expedient, as was now plain by the approaching footsteps, there was no longer time; from the second I recoiled with indignation.
“My dear creatures,” said I, “let us die, but do not let us be ridiculous.”
The words were still upon my lips when the door opened and my friend of the gold eye-glass appeared, a memorable figure, on the threshold. In one hand she bore a bedroom-candlestick; in the other, with the steadiness of a dragoon, a horse-pistol. She was wound about in shawls which did not wholly conceal the candid fabric of her nightdress, and surmounted by a nightcap of portentous architecture. Thus accoutred, she made her entrance; laid down the candle and pistol, as no longer called for; looked about the room with a silence more eloquent than oaths; and then, in a thrilling voice—“To whom have I the pleasure?” she said, addressing me with a ghost of a bow.
“Madam, I am charmed, I am sure,” said I. “The story is a little long; and our meeting, however welcome, was for the moment entirely unexpected by myself. I am sure——” but here I found I was quite sure of nothing, and tried again. “I have the honour,” I began, and found I had the honour to be only exceedingly confused. With that, I threw myself outright upon her mercy. “Madam, I must be more frank with you,” I resumed. “You have already proved your charity and compassion for the French prisoners: I am one of these; and if my appearance be not too much changed, you may even yet recognise in me that Oddity who had the good fortune more than once to make you smile.”
Still gazing upon me through her glass, she uttered an uncompromising grunt; and then, turning to her niece—“Flora,” said she, “how comes he here?”
The culprits poured out for a while an antiphony of explanations, which died out at last in a miserable silence.
“I think at least you might have told your aunt,” she snorted.
“Madam,” I interposed, “they were about to do so. It is my fault if it be not done already. But I made it my prayer that your slumbers might be respected, and this necessary formula of my presentation should be delayed until to-morrow in the morning.”
The old lady regarded me with undissembled incredulity, to which I was able to find no better repartee than a profound and I trust graceful reverence.
“French prisoners are very well in their place,” she said, “but I cannot see that their place is in my private dining-room.”
“Madam,” said I, “I hope it may be said without offence, but (except the Castle of Edinburgh) I cannot think upon the spot from which I would so readily be absent.”
At this, to my relief, I thought I could perceive a vestige of a smile to steal upon that iron countenance and to be bitten immediately in.
“And if it is a fair question, what do they call ye?” she asked.
“At your service, the Vicomte Anne de Saint-Yves,” said I.
“Mosha the Viscount,” said she, “I am afraid you do us plain people a great deal too much honour.”
“My dear lady,” said I, “let us be serious for a moment. What was I to do? Where was I to go? And how can you be angry with these benevolent children who took pity on one so unfortunate as myself? Your humble servant is no such terrific adventurer that you should come out against him with horse-pistol and”—smiling—“bedroom-candlesticks. It is but a young gentleman in extreme distress, hunted upon every side, and asking no more than to escape from his pursuers. I know your character, I read it in your face”—the heart trembled in my body as I said these daring words. “There are unhappy English prisoners in France at this day, perhaps at this hour. Perhaps at this hour they kneel as I do; they take the hand of her that might conceal and assist them; they press it to their lips as I do——”
“Here, here!” cried the old lady, breaking from my solicitations. “Behave yourself before folk! Saw ever any one the match of that? And on earth, my dears, what are we to do with him?”
“Pack him off, my dear lady,” said I: “pack off the impudent fellow double-quick! And if it may be, and if your good heart allows it, help him a little on the way he has to go.”
“What’s this pie?” she cried stridently. “Where is this pie from, Flora?”
No answer was vouchsafed by my unfortunate and (I may say) extinct accomplices.
“Is that my port?” she pursued. “Hough! Will somebody give me a glass of my port wine?”
I made haste to serve her.
She looked at me over the rim with an extraordinary expression. “I hope ye liked it?” said she.
“It is even a magnificent wine,” said I.
“Awell, it was my father laid it down,” said she. “There were few knew more about port wine than my father, God rest him!” She settled herself in a chair with an alarming air of resolution. “And so there is some particular direction that you wish to go in?” said she.
“O,” said I, following her example, “I am by no means such a vagrant as you suppose. I have good friends, if I could get to them, for which all I want is to be once clear of Scotland; and I have money for the road.” And I produced my bundle.
“English bank-notes?” she said. “That’s not very handy for Scotland. It’s been some fool of an Englishman that’s given you these, I’m thinking. How much is it?”
“I declare to Heaven I never thought to count!” I exclaimed. “But that is soon remedied.”
And I counted out ten notes of ten pound each, all in the name of Abraham Newlands, and five bills of country bankers for as many guineas.
“One hundred and twenty-six pound five,” cried the old lady. “And you carry such a sum about you, and have not so much as counted it! If you are not a thief, you must allow you are very thief-like.”
“And yet, madam, the money is legitimately mine,” said I.
She took one of the bills and held it up. “Is there any probability, now, that this could be traced?” she asked.
“None, I should suppose; and if it were, it would be no matter,” said I. “With your usual penetration, you guessed right. An Englishman brought it me. It reached me through the hands of his English solicitor, from my great-uncle, the Comte de Kéroual de Saint-Yves, I believe the richest émigré in London.”
“I can do no more than take your word for it,” said she.
“And I trust, madam, not less,” said I.
“Well,” said she, “at this rate the matter may be feasible. I will cash one of these five-guinea bills, less the exchange, and give you silver and Scots notes to bear you as far as the border. Beyond that, Mosha the Viscount, you will have to depend upon yourself.”
I could not but express a civil hesitation as to whether the amount would suffice, in my case, for so long a journey.
“Ay,” said she, “but you havena heard me out. For if you are not too fine a gentleman to travel with a pair of drovers, I believe I have found the very thing, and the Lord forgive me for a treasonable old wife! There are a couple stopping up-by with the shepherd-man at the farm; to-morrow they will take the road for England, probably by skreigh of day—and in my opinion you had best be travelling with the stots,” said she.
“For Heaven’s sake do not suppose me to be so effeminate a character!” I cried. “An old soldier of Napoleon is certainly beyond suspicion. But, dear lady, to what end? and how is the society of these excellent gentlemen supposed to help me?”
“My dear sir,” said she, “you do not at all understand your own predicament, and must just leave your matters in the hands of those who do. I dare say you have never even heard tell of the drove-roads or the drovers; and I am certainly not going to sit up all night to explain it to you. Suffice it, that it is me who is arranging this affair—the more shame to me!—and that is the way ye have to go. Ronald,” she continued, “away up-by to the shepherds; rowst them out of their beds, and make it perfectly distinct that Sim is not to leave till he has seen me.”
Ronald was nothing loth to escape from his aunt’s neighbourhood, and left the room and the cottage with a silent expedition that was more like flight than mere obedience. Meanwhile the old lady turned to her niece.
“And I would like to know what we are to do with him the night!” she cried.
“Ronald and I meant to put him in the hen-house,” said the encrimsoned Flora.
“And I can tell you he is to go to no such a place,” replied the aunt. “Hen-house indeed! If a guest he is to be, he shall sleep in no mortal hen-house. Your room is the most fit, I think, if he will consent to occupy it on so great a suddenty. And as for you, Flora, you shall sleep with me.”
I could not help admiring the prudence and tact of this old dowager, and of course it was not for me to make objections. Ere I well knew how, I was alone with a flat candlestick, which is not the most sympathetic of companions, and stood studying the snuff in a frame of mind between triumph and chagrin. All had gone well with my flight; the masterful lady who had arrogated to herself the arrangement of the details gave me every confidence; and I saw myself already arriving at my uncle’s door. But, alas! it was another story with my love-affair. I had seen and spoken with her alone; I had ventured boldly; I had been not ill received; I had seen her change colour, had enjoyed the undissembled kindness of her eyes; and now, in a moment, down comes upon the scene that apocalyptic figure with the nightcap and the horse-pistol, and with the very wind of her coming behold me separated from my love! Gratitude and admiration contended in my breast with the extreme of natural rancour. My appearance in her house at past midnight had an air (I could not disguise it from myself) that was insolent and underhand, and could not but minister to the worst suspicions. And the old lady had taken it well. Her generosity was no more to be called in question than her courage, and I was afraid that her intelligence would be found to match. Certainly, Miss Flora had to support some shrewd looks, and certainly she had been troubled. I could see but the one way before me; to profit by an excellent bed, to try to sleep soon, to be stirring early, and to hope for some renewed occasion in the morning. To have said so much and yet to say no more, to go out into the world upon so half-hearted a parting, was more than I could accept.
It is my belief that the benevolent fiend sat up all night to balk me. She was at my bedside with a candle long ere day, roused me, laid out for me a damnable misfit of clothes, and bade me pack my own (which were wholly unsuited to the journey) in a bundle. Sore grudging, I arrayed myself in a suit of some country fabric, as delicate as sackcloth and about as becoming as a shroud; and, on coming forth, found the dragon had prepared for me a hearty breakfast. She took the head of the table, poured out the tea, and entertained me as I ate with a great deal of good sense and a conspicuous lack of charm. How often did I not regret the change!—how often compare her, and condemn her in the comparison, with her charming niece! But if my entertainer was not beautiful, she had certainly been busy in my interest. Already she was in communication with my destined fellow-travellers; and the device on which she had struck appeared entirely suitable. I was a young Englishman who had outrun the constable; warrants were out against me in Scotland, and it had become needful I should pass the border without loss of time, and privately.
“I have given a very good account of you,” said she, “which I hope you may justify. I told them there was nothing against you beyond the fact that you were put to the horn (if that is the right word) for debt.”
“I pray God you have the expression incorrectly, ma’am,” said I. “I do not give myself out for a person easily alarmed; but you must admit there is something barbarous and mediæval in the sound well qualified to startle a poor foreigner.”
“It is the name of a process in Scots Law, and need alarm no honest man,” said she. “But you are a very idle-minded young gentleman; you must still have your joke, I see: I only hope you will have no cause to regret it.”
“I pray you not to suppose, because I speak lightly, that I do not feel deeply,” said I. “Your kindness has quite conquered me; I lay myself at your disposition, I beg you to believe, with real tenderness; I pray you to consider me from henceforth as the most devoted of your friends.”
“Well, well,” she said, “here comes your devoted friend the drover. I’m thinking he will be eager for the road; and I will not be easy myself till I see you well off the premises, and the dishes washed, before my servant-woman wakes. Praise God, we have gotten one that is a treasure at the sleeping!”
The morning was already beginning to be blue in the trees of the garden, and to put to shame the candle by which I had breakfasted. The lady rose from table, and I had no choice but to follow her example. All the time I was beating my brains for any means by which I should be able to get a word apart with Flora, or find the time to write her a billet. The windows had been opened while I breakfasted, I suppose to ventilate the room from any traces of my passage there; and, Master Ronald appearing on the front lawn, my ogre leaned forth to address him.
“Ronald,” she said, “wasn’t that Sim that went by the wall?”
I snatched my advantage. Right at her back there was pen, ink, and paper laid out. I wrote: “I love you”; and before I had time to write more, or so much as to blot what I had written, I was again under the guns of the gold eye-glasses.
“It’s time,” she began; and then, as she observed my occupation, “Umph!” she broke off. “Ye have something to write?” she demanded.
“Some notes, madam,” said I, bowing with alacrity.
“Notes,” she said; “or a note?”
“There is doubtless some finesse of the English language that I do not comprehend,” said I.
“I’ll contrive, however, to make my meaning very plain to ye, Mosha le Viscount,” she continued. “I suppose you desire to be considered a gentleman?”
“Can you doubt it, madam?” said I.
“I doubt very much, at least, whether you go the right way about it,” she said. “You have come here to me, I cannot very well say how; I think you will admit you owe me some thanks, if it was only for the breakfast I made ye. But what are you to me? A waif young man, not so far to seek for looks and manners, with some English notes in your pocket and a price upon your head. I am a lady; I have been your hostess, with however little will; and I desire that this random acquaintance of yours with my family will cease and determine.”
I believe I must have coloured. “Madam,” said I, “the notes are of no importance; and your least pleasure ought certainly to be my law. You have felt, and you have been pleased to express, a doubt of me. I tear them up.” Which you may be sure I did thoroughly.
“There’s a good lad!” said the dragon, and immediately led the way to the front lawn.
The brother and sister were both waiting us here, and, as well as I could make out in the imperfect light, bore every appearance of having passed through a rather cruel experience. Ronald seemed ashamed to so much as catch my eye in the presence of his aunt, and was the picture of embarrassment. As for Flora, she had scarce the time to cast me one look before the dragon took her by the arm, and began to march across the garden in the extreme first glimmer of the dawn without exchanging speech. Ronald and I followed in equal silence.
There was a door in that same high wall on the top of which I had sat perched no longer gone than yesterday morning. This the old lady set open with a key; and on the other side we were aware of a rough-looking, thick-set man, leaning with his arms (through which was passed a formidable staff) on a dry-stone dyke. Him the old lady immediately addressed.
“Sim,” said she, “this is the young gentleman.”
Sim replied with an inarticulate grumble of sound, and a movement of one arm and his head, which did duty for a salutation.
“Now, Mr. St. Ives,” said the old lady, “it’s high time for you to be taking the road. But first of all let me give the change of your five-guinea bill. Here are four pounds of it in British Linen notes, and the balance in small silver, less sixpence. Some charge a shilling, I believe, but I have given you the benefit of the doubt. See and guide it with all the sense that you possess.”
“And here, Mr. St. Ives,” said Flora, speaking for the first time, “is a plaid which you will find quite necessary on so rough a journey. I hope you will take it from the hands of a Scots friend,” she added, and her voice trembled.
“Genuine holly: I cut it myself,” said Ronald, and gave me as good a cudgel as a man could wish for in a row.
The formality of these gifts, and the waiting figure of the drover, told me loudly that I must be gone. I dropped on one knee and bade farewell to the aunt, kissing her hand. I did the like—but with how different a passion!—to her niece; as for the boy, I took him to my arms and embraced him with a cordiality that seemed to strike him speechless. “Farewell!” and “Farewell!” I said. “I shall never forget my friends. Keep me sometimes in memory. Farewell!” With that I turned my back and began to walk away; and had scarce done so, when I heard the door in the high wall close behind me. Of course this was the aunt’s doing; and of course, if I know anything of human character, she would not let me go without some tart expressions. I declare, even if I had heard them, I should not have minded in the least, for I was quite persuaded that, whatever admirers I might be leaving behind me in Swanston Cottage, the aunt was not the least sincere.
CHAPTER X
THE DROVERS
It took me a little effort to come abreast of my new companion; for though he walked with an ugly roll and no great appearance of speed, he could cover the ground at a good rate when he wanted to. Each looked at the other: I with natural curiosity, he with a great appearance of distaste. I have heard since that his heart was entirely set against me; he had seen me kneel to the ladies, and diagnosed me for a “gesterin’ eediot.”
“So, ye’re for England, are ye?” said he.
I told him yes.
“Weel, there’s waur places, I believe,” was his reply; and he relapsed into a silence which was not broken during a quarter of an hour of steady walking.
This interval brought us to the foot of a bare green valley, which wound upwards and backwards among the hills. A little stream came down the midst and made a succession of clear pools, near by the lowest of which I was aware of a drove of shaggy cattle, and a man who seemed the very counterpart of Mr. Sim making a breakfast upon bread and cheese. This second drover (whose name proved to be Candlish) rose on our approach.
“Here’s a mannie that’s to gang through with us,” said Sim. “It was the auld wife Gilchrist wanted it.”
“Aweel, aweel,” said the other; and presently, remembering his manners, and looking on me with a solemn grin, “A fine day!” says he.
I agreed with him, and asked him how he did.
“Brawly,” was the reply; and without further civilities, the pair proceeded to get the cattle under way. This, as well as almost all the herding, was the work of a pair of comely and intelligent dogs, directed by Sim or Candlish in little more than monosyllables. Presently we were ascending the side of the mountain by a rude green track, whose presence I had not hitherto observed. A continual sound of munching and the crying of a great quantity of moor birds accompanied our progress, which the deliberate pace and perennial appetite of the cattle rendered wearisomely slow. In the midst my two conductors marched in a contented silence that I could not but admire. The more I looked at them, the more I was impressed by their absurd resemblance to each other. They were dressed in the same coarse home-spun, carried similar sticks, were equally begrimed about the nose with snuff, and each wound in an identical plaid of what is called the shepherd’s tartan. In a back view they might be described as indistinguishable; and even from the front they were much alike. An incredible coincidence of humours augmented the impression. Thrice and four times I attempted to pave the way for some exchange of thought, sentiment, or—at the least of it—human words. An Ay or a Nhm was the sole return, and the topic died on the hillside without echo. I can never deny that I was chagrined; and when, after a little more walking, Sim turned towards me and offered me a ram’s horn of snuff, with the question, “Do ye use it?” I answered, with some animation, “’Faith, sir, I would use pepper to introduce a little cordiality.” But even this sally failed to reach, or at least failed to soften, my companions.
At this rate we came to the summit of a ridge, and saw the track descend in front of us abruptly into a desert vale, about a league in length, and closed at the farther end by no less barren hill-tops. Upon this point of vantage Sim came to a halt, took off his hat, and mopped his brow.
“Weel,” he said, “here we’re at the top o’ Howden.”
“The top o’ Howden, sure eneuch,” said Candlish.
“Mr. St. Ivy, are ye dry?” said the first.
“Now, really,” said I, “is not this Satan reproving sin?”
“What ails ye, man?” said he. “I’m offerin’ ye a dram.”
“O, if it be anything to drink,” said I, “I am as dry as my neighbours.”
Whereupon Sim produced from the corner of his plaid a black bottle, and we all drank and pledged each other. I found these gentlemen followed upon such occasions an invariable etiquette, which you may be certain I made haste to imitate. Each wiped his mouth with the back of his left hand, held up the bottle in his right, remarked with emphasis, “Here’s to ye!” and swallowed as much of the spirit as his fancy prompted. This little ceremony, which was the nearest thing to manners I could perceive in either of my companions, was repeated at becoming intervals, generally after an ascent. Occasionally we shared a mouthful of ewe-milk cheese and an inglorious form of bread, which I understood (but am far from engaging my honour on the point) to be called “shearer’s bannock.” And that may be said to have concluded our whole active intercourse for the first day.
I had the more occasion to remark the extraordinarily desolate nature of that country, through which the drove-road continued, hour after hour, and even day after day, to wind. A continual succession of insignificant shaggy hills, divided by the course of ten thousand brooks, through which we had to wade, or by the side of which we encamped at night; infinite perspectives of heather; infinite quantities of moorfowl; here and there, by a stream-side, small and pretty clumps of willows or the silver birch; here and there, the ruins of ancient and inconsiderable fortresses—made the unchanging characters of the scene. Occasionally, but only in the distance, we could perceive the smoke of a small town or of an isolated farmhouse or cottage on the moors; more often, a flock of sheep and its attendant shepherd, or a rude field of agriculture perhaps not yet harvested. With these alleviations, we might almost be said to pass through an unbroken desert—sure, one of the most impoverished in Europe; and when I recalled to mind that we were yet but a few leagues from the chief city (where the law-courts sat every day with a press of business, soldiers garrisoned the Castle, and men of admitted parts were carrying on the practice of letters and the investigations of science), it gave me a singular view of that poor, barren, and yet illustrious country through which I travelled. Still more, perhaps, did it commend the wisdom of Miss Gilchrist in sending me with these uncouth companions and by this unfrequented path.
My itinerary is by no means clear to me; the names and distances I never clearly knew, and have now wholly forgotten; and this is the more to be regretted as there is no doubt that, in the course of those days, I must have passed and camped among sites which have been rendered illustrious by the pen of Walter Scott. Nay, more, I am of opinion that I was still more favoured by fortune, and have actually met and spoken with that inimitable author. Our encounter was of a tall, stoutish, elderly gentleman, a little grizzled, and of a rugged but cheerful and engaging countenance. He sat on a hill pony, wrapped in a plaid over his green coat, and was accompanied by a horsewoman, his daughter, a young lady of the most charming appearance. They overtook us on a stretch of heath, reined up as they came alongside, and accompanied us for perhaps a quarter of an hour before they galloped off again across the hillsides to our left. Great was my amazement to find the unconquerable Mr. Sim thaw immediately on the accost of this strange gentleman, who hailed him with a ready familiarity, proceeded at once to discuss with him the trade of droving and the prices of cattle, and did not disdain to take a pinch from the inevitable ram’s horn. Presently I was aware that the stranger’s eye was directed on myself; and there ensued a conversation, some of which I could not help overhearing at the time, and the rest have pieced together more or less plausibly from the report of Sim.
“Surely that must be an amateur drover ye have gotten there?” the gentleman seems to have asked.
Sim replied I was a young gentleman that had a reason of his own to travel privately.
“Well, well, ye must tell me nothing of that. I am in the law, you know, and tace is the Latin for a candle,” answered the gentleman. “But I hope it’s nothing bad.”
Sim told him it was no more than debt.
“O Lord, if that be all!” cried the gentleman; and turning to myself, “Well, sir,” he added, “I understand you are taking a tramp through our forest here for the pleasure of the thing?”
“Why, yes, sir,” said I; “and I must say I am very well entertained.”
“I envy you,” said he. “I have jogged many miles of it myself when I was younger. My youth lies buried about here under every heather-bush, like the soul of the licentiate Lucius. But you should have a guide. The pleasure of this country is much in the legends, which grow as plentiful as blackberries.” And directing my attention to a little fragment of a broken wall no greater than a tombstone, he told me, for an example, a story of its earlier inhabitants. Years after it chanced that I was one day diverting myself with a Waverley Novel, when what should I come upon but the identical narrative of my green-coated gentleman upon the moors! In a moment the scene, the tones of his voice, his northern accent, and the very aspect of the earth and sky and temperature of the weather, flashed back into my mind with the reality of dreams. The unknown in the green coat had been the Great Unknown! I had met Scott; I had heard a story from his lips; I should have been able to write, to claim acquaintance, to tell him that his legend still tingled in my ears. But the discovery came too late, and the great man had already succumbed under the load of his honours and misfortunes.
Presently, after giving us a cigar apiece, Scott bade us farewell and disappeared with his daughter over the hills. And when I applied to Sim for information, his answer of “The Shirra, man! A’body kens the Shirra!” told me, unfortunately, nothing.
A more considerable adventure falls to be related. We were now near the border. We had travelled for long upon the track beaten and browsed by a million herds, our predecessors, and had seen no vestige of that traffic which had created it. It was early in the morning when we at last perceived, drawing near to the drove-road, but still at a distance of about half a league, a second caravan, similar to but larger than our own. The liveliest excitement was at once exhibited by both my comrades. They climbed hillocks, they studied the approaching drove from under their hand, they consulted each other with an appearance of alarm that seemed to me extraordinary. I had learned by this time that their stand-off manners implied, at least, no active enmity; and I made bold to ask them what was wrong.
“Bad yins,” was Sim’s emphatic answer.
All day the dogs were kept unsparingly on the alert, and the drove pushed forward at a very unusual and seemingly unwelcome speed. All day Sim and Candlish, with a more than ordinary expenditure both of snuff and of words, continued to debate the position. It seems that they had recognised two of our neighbours on the road—one Faa, and another by the name of Gillies. Whether there was an old feud between them still unsettled I could never learn; but Sim and Candlish were prepared for every degree of fraud or violence at their hands. Candlish repeatedly congratulated himself on having left “the watch at home with the mistress”; and Sim perpetually brandished his cudgel, and cursed his ill-fortune that it should be sprung.
“I wilna care a damn to gie the daashed scoon’rel a fair clout wi’ it,” he said. “The daashed thing micht come sindry in ma hand.”
“Well, gentlemen,” said I, “suppose they do come on, I think we can give a very good account of them.” And I made my piece of holly, Ronald’s gift, the value of which I now appreciated, sing about my head.
“Ay, man? Are ye stench?” inquired Sim, with a gleam of approval in his wooden countenance.
The same evening, somewhat wearied with our day-long expedition, we encamped on a little verdant mound, from the midst of which there welled a spring of clear water scarce great enough to wash the hands in. We had made our meal and lain down, but were not yet asleep, when a growl from one of the collies set us on the alert. All three sat up, and on a second impulse all lay down again, but now with our cudgels ready. A man must be an alien and an outlaw, an old soldier and a young man in the bargain, to take adventure easily. With no idea as to the rights of the quarrel or the probable consequences of the encounter, I was as ready to take part with my two drovers as ever to fall in line on the morning of a battle. Presently there leaped three men out of the heather; we had scarce time to get to our feet before we were assailed; and in a moment each one of us was engaged with an adversary whom the deepening twilight scarce permitted him to see. How the battle sped in other quarters I am in no position to describe. The rogue that fell to my share was exceedingly agile and expert with his weapon; had and held me at a disadvantage from the first assault; forced me to give ground continually, and at last, in mere self-defence, to let him have the point. It struck him in the throat, and he went down like a nine-pin and moved no more.
It seemed this was the signal for the engagement to be discontinued. The other combatants separated at once; our foes were suffered, without molestation, to lift up and bear away their fallen comrade; so that I perceived this sort of war to be not wholly without laws of chivalry, and perhaps rather to partake of the character of a tournament than of a battle à outrance. There was no doubt, at least, that I was supposed to have pushed the affair too seriously. Our friends the enemy removed their wounded companion with undisguised consternation; and they were no sooner over the top of the brae than Sim and Candlish roused up their wearied drove and set forth on a night march.
“I’m thinking Faa’s unco bad,” said the one.
“Ay,” said the other, “he lookit dooms gash.”
“He did that,” said the first.
And their weary silence fell upon them again.
Presently Sim turned to me. “Ye’re unco ready with the stick,” said he.
“Too ready, I’m afraid,” said I. “I am afraid Mr. Faa (if that be his name) has got his gruel.”
“Weel, I wouldna wonder,” replied Sim.
“And what is likely to happen?” I inquired.
“Aweel,” said Sim, snuffing profoundly, “if I were to offer an opeenion, it would not be conscientious. For the plain fac’ is, Mr. St. Ivy, that I div not ken. We have had crackit heids—and rowth of them—ere now; and we have had a broken leg, or maybe twa; and the like of that we drover bodies make a kind of a practice like to keep among oursel’s. But a corp we have none of us ever had to deal with, and I could set na leemit to what Gillies micht consider proper in the affair. Forbye that, he would be in raither a hobble himsel’ if he was to gang hame wantin’ Faa. Folk are awfu’ throng with their questions, and parteecularly when they’re no’ wantit.”
“That’s a fac’,” said Candlish.
I considered this prospect ruefully; and then making the best of it, “Upon all which accounts,” said I, “the best will be to get across the Border and there separate. If you are troubled, you can very truly put the blame upon your late companion; and if I am pursued, I must just try to keep out of the way.”
“Mr. St. Ivy,” said Sim, with something resembling enthusiasm, “no’ a word mair! I have met in wi’ mony kinds o’ gentry ere now; I hae seen o’ them that was the tae thing, and I hae seen o’ them that was the tither; but the wale of a gentleman like you I have no’ sae very frequently seen the bate of.”
Our night march was accordingly pursued with unremitting diligence. The stars paled, the east whitened, and we were still, both dogs and men, toiling after the wearied cattle. Again and again Sim and Candlish lamented the necessity: it was “fair ruin on the bestial,” they declared; but the thought of a judge and a scaffold hunted them ever forward. I myself was not so much to be pitied. All that night, and during the whole of the little that remained before us of our conjunct journey, I enjoyed a new pleasure, the reward of my prowess, in the now loosened tongue of Mr. Sim. Candlish was still obdurately taciturn: it was the man’s nature; but Sim, having finally appraised and approved me, displayed without reticence a rather garrulous habit of mind and a pretty talent for narration. The pair were old and close companions, co-existing in these endless moors in a brotherhood of silence such as I have heard attributed to the trappers of the West. It seems absurd to mention love in connection with so ugly and snuffy a couple; at least, their trust was absolute; and they entertained a surprising admiration for each other’s qualities; Candlish exclaiming that Sim was “grand company!” and Sim frequently assuring me in an aside that for “a rale auld stench bitch there was na the bate of Candlish in braid Scotland.” The two dogs appeared to be entirely included in this family compact, and I remarked that their exploits and traits of character were constantly and minutely observed by the two masters. Dog-stories particularly abounded with them; and not only the dogs of the present but those of the past contributed their quota. “But that was naething,” Sim would begin: “there was a herd in Manar, they ca’d him Tweedie—ye’ll mind Tweedie, Can’lish?” “Fine, that!” said Candlish. “Aweel, Tweedie had a dog—” The story I have forgotten; I dare say it was dull, and I suspect it was not true; but indeed my travels with the drovers had rendered me indulgent, and perhaps even credulous, in the matter of dog-stories. Beautiful, indefatigable beings! as I saw them at the end of a long day’s journey frisking, barking, bounding, striking attitudes, slanting a bushy tail, manifestly playing to the spectator’s eye, manifestly rejoicing in their grace and beauty—and turned to observe Sim and Candlish unornamentally plodding in the rear with the plaids about their bowed shoulders and the drop at their snuffy nose—I thought I would rather claim kinship with the dogs than with the men! My sympathy was unreturned; in their eyes I was a creature light as air; and they would scarce spare me the time for a perfunctory caress or perhaps a hasty lap of the wet tongue, ere they were back again in sedulous attendance on those dingy deities, their masters—and their masters, as like as not, damning their stupidity.
Altogether the last hours of our tramp were infinitely the most agreeable to me, and I believe to all of us; and by the time we came to separate there had grown up a certain familiarity and mutual esteem that made the parting harder. It took place about four of the afternoon on a bare hillside from which I could see the ribbon of the great north road, henceforth to be my conductor. I asked what was to pay.
“Naething,” replied Sim.
“What in the name of folly is this?” I exclaimed. “You have led me, you have fed me, you have filled me full of whisky, and now you will take nothing!”
“Ye see we indentit for that,” replied Sim.
“Indented?” I repeated; “what does the man mean?”
“Mr. St. Ivy,” said Sim, “this is a maitter entirely between Candlish and me and the auld wife Gilchrist. You had naething to say to it; weel, ye can have naething to do with it, then.”
“My good man,” said I, “I can allow myself to be placed in no such ridiculous position. Mrs. Gilchrist is nothing to me, and I refuse to be her debtor.”
“I dinna exac’ly see what way ye’re gaun to help it,” observed my drover.
“By paying you here and now,” said I.
“There’s aye twa to a bargain, Mr. St. Ivy,” said he.
“You mean that you will not take it?” said I.
“There or thereabout,” said he. “Forbye that it would set ye a heap better to keep your siller for them you awe it to. Ye’re young, Mr. St. Ivy, and thoughtless; but it’s my belief that, wi’ care and circumspection, ye may yet do credit to yoursel’. But just you bear this in mind: that him that awes siller should never gie siller.”
Well, what was there to say? I accepted his rebuke, and, bidding the pair farewell, set off alone upon my southward way.
“Mr. St. Ivy,” was the last word of Sim, “I was never muckle ta’en up in Englishry; but I think that I really ought to say that ye seem to me to have the makings of quite a decent lad.”
CHAPTER XI
THE GREAT NORTH ROAD
It chanced that as I went down the hill these last words of my friend the drover echoed not unfruitfully in my head. I had never told these men the least particulars as to my race or fortune, as it was a part, and the best part, of their civility to ask no questions: yet they had dubbed me without hesitation English. Some strangeness in the accent they had doubtless thus explained. And it occurred to me, that if I could pass in Scotland for an Englishman, I might be able to reverse the process and pass in England for a Scot. I thought, if I was pushed to it, I could make a struggle to imitate the brogue; after my experience with Candlish and Sim, I had a rich provision of outlandish words at my command; and I felt I could tell the tale of Tweedie’s dog so as to deceive a native. At the same time, I was afraid my name of St. Ives was scarcely suitable; till I remembered there was a town so called in the province of Cornwall, thought I might yet be glad to claim it for my place of origin, and decided for a Cornish family and a Scots education. For a trade, as I was equally ignorant of all, and as the most innocent might at any moment be the means of my exposure, it was best to pretend to none. And I dubbed myself a young gentleman of a sufficient fortune and an idle, curious habit of mind, rambling the country at my own charges, in quest of health, information, and merry adventures.
At Newcastle, which was the first town I reached, I completed my preparations for the part, before going to the inn, by the purchase of a knapsack and a pair of leathern gaiters. My plaid I continued to wear from sentiment. It was warm, useful to sleep in if I were again benighted, and I had discovered it to be not unbecoming for a man of gallant carriage. Thus equipped, I supported my character of the light-hearted pedestrian not amiss. Surprise was indeed expressed that I should have selected such a season of the year; but I pleaded some delays of business, and smilingly claimed to be an eccentric. The devil was in it, I would say, if any season of the year was not good enough for me; I was not made of sugar, I was no mollycoddle to be afraid of an ill-aired bed or a sprinkle of snow; and I would knock upon the table with my fist and call for t’other bottle, like the noisy and free-hearted young gentleman I was. It was my policy (if I may so express myself) to talk much and say little. At the inn-tables, the country, the state of the roads, the business interest of those who sat down with me, and the course of public events, afforded me a considerable field in which I might discourse at large and still communicate no information about myself. There was no one with less air of reticence; I plunged into my company up to the neck; and I had a long cock-and-bull story of an aunt of mine which must have convinced the most suspicious of my innocence. “What!” they would have said, “that young ass to be concealing anything! Why, he has deafened me with an aunt of his until my head aches. He only wants you should give him a line, and he would tell you his whole descent from Adam downward, and his whole private fortune to the last shilling.” A responsible solid fellow was even so much moved by pity for my inexperience as to give me a word or two of good advice: that I was but a young man after all—I had at this time a deceptive air of youth that made me easily pass for one-and-twenty, and was, in the circumstances, worth a fortune—that the company at inns was very mingled, that I should do well to be more careful, and the like; to all which I made answer that I meant no harm myself and expected none from others, or the devil was in it. “You are one of those d——d prudent fellows that I could never abide with,” said I. “You are the kind of man that has a long head. That’s all the world, my dear sir: the long heads and the short horns! Now, I am a short horn.” “I doubt,” says he, “that you will not go very far without getting sheared.” I offered to bet with him on that, and he made off, shaking his head.
But my particular delight was to enlarge on politics and the war. None damned the French like me; none was more bitter against the Americans. And when the north-bound mail arrived, crowned with holly, and the coachman and guard hoarse with shouting victory, I went even so far as to entertain the company to a bowl of punch, which I compounded myself with no illiberal hand, and doled out to such sentiments as the following:—
“Our glorious victory on the Nivelle!” “Lord Wellington, God bless him! and may victory ever attend upon his arms!” and, “Soult, poor devil! and may he catch it again to the same tune!”
Never was oratory more applauded to the echo—never any one was more of the popular man than I. I promise you, we made a night of it. Some of the company supported each other, with the assistance of boots, to their respective bed-chambers, while the rest slept on the field of glory where we had left them; and at the breakfast-table the next morning there was an extraordinary assemblage of red eyes and shaking fists. I observed patriotism to burn much lower by daylight. Let no one blame me for insensibility to the reverses of France! God knows how my heart raged. How I longed to fall on that herd of swine and knock their heads together in the moment of their revelry! But you are to consider my own situation and its necessities; also a certain lightheartedness, eminently Gallic, which forms a leading trait in my character, and leads me to throw myself into new circumstances with the spirit of a schoolboy. It is possible that I sometimes allow this impish humour to carry me further than good taste approves: and I was certainly punished for it once.
This was in the episcopal city of Durham. We sat down, a considerable company, to dinner, most of us fine old vatted English tories of that class which is often so enthusiastic as to be inarticulate. I took and held the lead from the beginning; and, the talk having turned on the French in the Peninsula, I gave them authentic details (on the authority of a cousin of mine, an ensign) of certain cannibal orgies in Galicia, in which no less a person than General Caffarelli had taken a part. I always disliked that commander, who once ordered me under arrest for insubordination; and it is possible that a spice of vengeance added to the rigour of my picture. I have forgotten the details; no doubt they were high-coloured. No doubt I rejoiced to fool these jolter-heads; and no doubt the sense of security that I drank from their dull, gasping faces encouraged me to proceed extremely far. And for my sins, there was one silent little man at table who took my story at the true value. It was from no sense of humour, to which he was quite dead. It was from no particular intelligence, for he had not any. The bond of sympathy, of all things in the world, had rendered him clairvoyant.
Dinner was no sooner done than I strolled forth into the streets with some design of viewing the cathedral; and the little man was silently at my heels. A few doors from the inn, in a dark place of the street, I was aware of a touch on my arm, turned suddenly, and found him looking up at me with eyes pathetically bright.
“I beg your pardon, sir; but that story of yours was particularly rich. He—he! Particularly racy,” said he. “I tell you, sir, I took you wholly! I smoked you! I believe you and I, sir, if we had a chance to talk, would find we had a good many opinions in common. Here is the ’Blue Bell,’ a very comfortable place. They draw good ale, sir. Would you be so condescending as to share a pot with me?”
There was something so ambiguous and secret in the little man’s perpetual signalling, that I confess my curiosity was much aroused. Blaming myself, even as I did so, for the indiscretion, I embraced his proposal, and we were soon face to face over a tankard of mulled ale. He lowered his voice to the least attenuation of a whisper.
“Here, sir,” said he, “is to the Great Man. I think you take me? No?” He leaned forward till our noses touched. “Here is to the Emperor!” said he.
I was extremely embarrassed, and, in spite of the creature’s innocent appearance, more than half alarmed. I thought him too ingenuous, and, indeed, too daring for a spy. Yet if he were honest he must be a man of extraordinary indiscretion, and therefore very unfit to be encouraged by an escaped prisoner. I took a half course, accordingly—accepted his toast in silence, and drank it without enthusiasm.
He proceeded to abound in the praises of Napoleon, such as I had never heard in France, or at least only on the lips of officials paid to offer them.
“And this Caffarelli, now,” he pursued; “he is a splendid fellow, too, is he not? I have not heard vastly much of him myself. No details, sir—no details! We labour under huge difficulties here as to unbiassed information.”
“I believe I have heard the same complaint in other countries,” I could not help remarking. “But as to Caffarelli, he is neither lame nor blind, he has two legs, and a nose in the middle of his face. And I care as much about him as you care for the dead body of Mr. Perceval!”
He studied me with glowing eyes.
“You cannot deceive me!” he cried. “You have served under him. You are a Frenchman! I hold by the hand, at last, one of that noble race, the pioneers of the glorious principles of liberty and brotherhood. Hush! No, it is all right. I thought there had been somebody at the door. In this wretched, enslaved country we dare not even call our souls our own. The spy and the hangman, sir—the spy and the hangman! And yet there is a candle burning, too. The good leaven is working, sir—working underneath. Even in this town there are a few brave spirits who meet every Wednesday. You must stay over a day or so and join us. We do not use this house. Another, and a quieter. They draw fine ale, however—fair, mild ale. You will find yourself among friends, among brothers. You will hear some very daring sentiments expressed!” he cried, expanding his small chest. “Monarchy, Christianity—all the trappings of a bloated past—the Free Confraternity of Durham and Tyneside deride.”
Here was a devil of a prospect for a gentleman whose whole design was to avoid observation! The Free Confraternity had no charms for me; daring sentiments were no part of my baggage; and I tried, instead, a little cold water.
“You seem to forget, sir, that my Emperor has reestablished Christianity,” I observed.
“Ah, sir, but that was policy!” he exclaimed. “You do not understand Napoleon. I have followed his whole career. I can explain his policy from first to last. Now, for instance, in the Peninsula, on which you were so very amusing, if you will come to a friend’s house who has a map of Spain, I can make the whole course of the war quite clear to you, I venture to say, in half an hour.”
This was intolerable. Of the two extremes, I found I preferred the British tory; and, making an appointment for the morrow, I pleaded sudden headache, escaped to the inn, packed my knapsack, and fled, about nine at night, from this accursed neighbourhood. It was cold, starry, and clear, and the road dry, with a touch of frost. For all that, I had not the smallest intention to make a long stage of it; and about ten o’clock, spying on the right-hand side of the way the lighted windows of an ale-house, I determined to bait there for the night.
It was against my principle, which was to frequent only the dearest inns; and the misadventure that befell me was sufficient to make me more particular in the future. A large company was assembled in the parlour, which was heavy with clouds of tobacco-smoke, and brightly lighted up by a roaring fire of coal. Hard by the chimney stood a vacant chair in what I thought an enviable situation, whether for warmth or the pleasure of society; and I was about to take it when the nearest of the company stopped me with his hand.
“Beg thy pardon, sir,” said he; “but that there chair belongs to a British soldier.”
A chorus of voices enforced and explained. It was one of Lord Wellington’s heroes. He had been wounded under Rowland Hill. He was Colbourne’s right-hand man. In short, this favoured individual appeared to have served with every separate corps, and under every individual general in the Peninsula. Of course I apologised. I had not known. The devil was in it if a soldier had not a right to the best in England. And with that sentiment, which was loudly applauded, I found a corner of a bench, and awaited, with some hopes of entertainment, the return of the hero. He proved, of course, to be a private soldier. I say of course, because no officer could possibly enjoy such heights of popularity. He had been wounded before San Sebastian, and still wore his arm in a sling. What was a great deal worse for him, every member of the company had been plying him with drink. His honest yokel’s countenance blazed as if with fever, his eyes were glazed and looked the two ways, and his feet stumbled as, amidst a murmur of applause, he returned to the midst of his admirers.
Two minutes afterwards I was again posting in the dark along the highway; to explain which sudden movement of retreat I must trouble the reader with a reminiscence of my services.
I lay one night with the out-pickets in Castile. We were in close touch with the enemy; the usual orders had been issued against smoking, fires, and talk, and both armies lay as quiet as mice, when I saw the English sentinel opposite making a signal by holding up his musket. I repeated it, and we both crept together in the dry bed of a stream, which made the demarcation of the armies. It was wine he wanted, of which we had a good provision, and the English had quite run out. He gave me the money, and I, as was the custom, left him my firelock in pledge, and set off for the canteen. When I returned with a skin of wine, behold, it had pleased some uneasy devil of an English officer to withdraw the outposts! Here was a situation with a vengeance, and I looked for nothing but ridicule in the present and punishment in the future. Doubtless our officers winked pretty hard at this interchange of courtesies, but doubtless it would be impossible to wink at so gross a fault, or rather so pitiable a misadventure as mine; and you are to conceive me wandering in the plains of Castile, benighted, charged with a wine-skin for which I had no use, and with no knowledge whatever of the whereabouts of my musket, beyond that it was somewhere in my Lord Wellington’s army. But my Englishman was either a very honest fellow, or else extremely thirsty, and at last contrived to advertise me of his new position. Now, the English sentry in Castile and the wounded hero in the Durham public-house were one and the same person; and if he had been a little less drunk, or myself less lively in getting away, the travels of M. St. Ives might have come to an untimely end.
I suppose this woke me up; it stirred in me besides a spirit of opposition, and in spite of cold, darkness, the highwaymen and the footpads, I determined to walk right on till breakfast-time: a happy resolution, which enabled me to observe one of those traits of manners which at once depict a country and condemn it. It was near midnight when I saw, a great way ahead of me, the light of many torches; presently after, the sound of wheels reached me, and the slow tread of feet, and soon I had joined myself to the rear of a sordid, silent, and lugubrious procession, such as we see in dreams. Close on a hundred persons marched by torchlight in unbroken silence; and in their midst a cart, and in the cart, on an inclined platform, the dead body of a man—the centre-piece of this solemnity, the hero whose obsequies we were come forth at this unusual hour to celebrate. It was but a plain, dingy old fellow of fifty or sixty, his throat cut, his shirt turned over as though to show the wound. Blue trousers and brown socks completed his attire, if we can talk so of the dead. He had a horrid look of a waxwork. In the tossing of the lights he seemed to make faces and mouths at us, to frown, and to be at times upon the point of speech. The cart, with this shabby and tragic freight, and surrounded by its silent escort and bright torches, continued for some distance to creak along the high-road, and I to follow it in amazement, which was soon exchanged for horror. At the corner of a lane the procession stopped, and, as the torches ranged themselves along the hedgerow-side, I became aware of a grave dug in the midst of the thoroughfare, and a provision of quicklime piled in the ditch. The cart was backed to the margin, the body slung off the platform and dumped into the grave with an irreverent roughness. A sharpened stake had hitherto served it for a pillow. It was now withdrawn, held in its place by several volunteers, and a fellow with a heavy mallet (the sound of which still haunts me at night) drove it home through the bosom of the corpse. The hole was filled with quicklime, and the bystanders, as if relieved of some oppression, broke at once into a sound of whispered speech.
My shirt stuck to me, my heart had almost ceased beating, and I found my tongue with difficulty.
“I beg your pardon,” I gasped to a neighbour, “what is this? what has he done? is it allowed?”
“Why, where do you come from?” replied the man.
“I am a traveller, sir,” said I, “and a total stranger in this part of the country. I had lost my way when I saw your torches, and came by chance on this—this incredible scene. Who was the man?”
“A suicide,” said he. “Ay, he was a bad one was Johnny Green.”
It appeared this was a wretch who had committed many barbarous murders, and being at last upon the point of discovery fell of his own hand. And the nightmare at the cross-roads was the regular punishment, according to the laws of England, for an act which the Romans honoured as a virtue! Whenever an Englishman begins to prate of civilisation (as, indeed, it’s a defect they are rather prone to), I hear the measured blows of a mallet, see the bystanders crowd with torches about the grave, smile a little to myself in conscious superiority—and take a thimbleful of brandy for the stomach’s sake.