DANGEROUS EXPEDITION.
“I should be happy to join you, but you see I am engaged to my friends
here,” observed Frere to Grandeville.
“You would never dream of standing on ceremony with me, Frere, I hope,”
interposed Lewis.
“Why should we not all go together?” inquired Frere; “the more the
merrier, particularly if it should come to a shindy.”
“What’s the nature of the entertainment?” asked Leicester.
“Tell them, De Grandeville,” said Frere, looking hard at his cousin, as
he slightly emphasised the _De_.
“Ar--well, you won’t let it go further, I’m sure, but there’s a meeting
to be held to-night at a kind of Mechanics’ Institute, a place I and one
or two other influential men have had our eyes on for some time past,
where they promulgate very unsound opinions; and we have been only
waiting our opportunity to give the thing a check, and show them that
the landed gentry are united in their determination not to tolerate
sedition, or in fact anything of the sort; and I have had a hint from
a very sure quarter (I walked straight from Downing Street here) that
to-night they are to muster in force--a regular showoff; so a party
of us are going to be present and watch the proceedings, and if
there should be seditious language used, we shall make a decided
demonstration, let them feel the power they are arraying themselves
against, and the utter madness of provoking such an unequal struggle.”
“Then we have a very fair chance of a row, I should hope,” interposed
Lewis eagerly, his eyes sparkling with excitement; “ ’twill put us in
mind of old sixth-form days, eh, Frere?”
“Leicester, what say you? Do you mind dirtying your kid gloves in the
good cause?” asked Frere.
“There is no time to put on an old coat, I suppose?” was the reply. “A
broken head I don’t mind occasionally, it gives one a new sensation; but
to sacrifice good clothes verges too closely on the wantonly extravagant
to suit either my pocket or my principles.”
“I will lend you one of mine,” returned Frere.
“Heaven forfend!” was the horrified rejoinder. “I have too much regard
for the feelings of my family, let alone those of my tailor, to dream of
such a thing for a minute. Only suppose anything were to happen to me,
just see how it would read in the papers: ‘The body of the unfortunate
deceased was enveloped in a threadbare garment of mysterious fashion;
in the enormous pockets which undermined its voluminous skirts was
discovered, amongst other curiosities, the leg-bone of a fossil
Iguanodon.’”
“Gently there!” cried Frere; “how some people are given to exaggeration!
Because I happened accidentally one day to pull out two of the vertebræ
of----”
“Ar--if you’ll allow me to interrupt you,” began Grandeville, “I don’t
think you need apprehend any display of physical force; our object is,
if possible, to produce a moral effect--in fact, by weight of character
and position, to impress them with a deep sense of the power and
resources of the upper classes.”
“Still a good licking is a very effectual argument where other means of
persuasion fail. I have great faith in fists,” said Frere.
“Ar--in the event of our being obliged to have recourse to such extreme
measures, I must impress upon you the necessity of discipline,” returned
Grandeville. “Look to me for orders, ar--I am not exactly--ar--regular
profession--ar--military, though when I was at the headquarters of
the ----th in Ireland last year, they did me the honour to say that I
had naturally a very unusual strategic turn--a good officer spoiled--ha!
ha!”
“I always thought you had a sort of Life-guardsman-like look about you,”
said Leicester, with a sly glance at the others. “You often hear of
a man being one of ‘Nature’s gentlemen,’ now I should call you one of
‘Nature’s guardsmen.’”
“Ar--yes, not so bad that,” returned Grandeville, the possibility of
Leicester’s meaning to laugh at him faintly occurring to him, and being
instantly rejected as utterly inconceivable. “Here, sir,” he continued,
turning abruptly to Lewis, “feel my arm; there’s muscle for you! I don’t
say it by way of a boast, but there is not such an arm as that in her
Majesty’s ~*--th; there was not one of their crack men that could hold
up so heavy a weight as I could, for I tried the thing when I was over
at Killandrum last autumn, and beat them all.”
“At what time does your entertainment commence, may I ask?” inquired
Leicester.
“Ar--I promised to join the others at a quarter before nine; the meeting
was to commence at nine, and we shall have some little way to walk.”
“Then the sooner we are off the better,” said Frere. “But you expect a
reinforcement, do you?”
“Ar--some men, some of our set, you understand, very first-rate fellows
who have the cause at heart, have agreed to come and carry the matter
through with a high hand. Failure might produce very serious results,
but the right measures have been taken; I dropped a hint at the Horse
Guards.”
“I suppose I had better not take Faust,” observed Lewis. “If there is a
crowd he will get his toes trodden on, and he is apt to show fight under
these circumstances. May I leave him here?”
“Yes, certainly,” replied Frere; “that is, if you can persuade him to
stay quietly, and bind him over to keep the peace till we return.”
“That is soon accomplished,” rejoined Lewis, and calling the dog to him,
he dropped a glove on the floor and uttered some German word of command,
when the well-trained animal immediately laid down with the glove
between his huge paws.
“Caution your old lady not to interfere with the glove,” he continued,
“or Faust will assuredly throttle her.”
“What, is he touchy on that head?” inquired Grandeville, poising himself
on one leg while he endeavoured to kick the glove away with the other. A
growl like that of an angry tiger, and the display of a set of teeth of
which a dentist or a crocodile might equally have been proud, induced
him to draw back his foot with rather more celerity than was altogether
in keeping with the usual dignity of his movements.
“The dog has not such a bad notion of producing a moral impression,”
said Leicester, laughing. “Don’t you think he might be useful to us
to-night?”
“Ar--now, there is nothing I should like better than to take that glove
away from him,” observed Grandeville, casting a withering glance on
Faust. “Ar--I wish I had time.”
“I wish you had,” returned Lewis dryly.
“Why, do you think it would be so mighty difficult?” retorted
Grandeville.
“When Rudolph Arnheim, a fellow-student of mine, tried the experiment, I
had some trouble in choking Faust off before the dog had quite throttled
him,” was the reply. “Rudolph is no child, and had a heavy wager
depending on it.”
“Ar--well, I can’t see any great difficulty in the thing, but it depends
on a man’s nerve, of course. Now, are we ready?”
So saying, Marmaduke Grandeville, Esq., placed his hat firmly on his
head, and with the gait of a heavy dragoon and the air of a conquering
hero, marched nobly out of the apartment. Leicester held back to allow
Lewis to follow, then drawing Frere on one side, he said--
“Richard, I like your friend Arundel; he is a manly, intelligent young
fellow, much too good to be bear-leader to a half-witted cub like this
precious ward of old Grant’s; and if I were as rich as I am poor, I
would do something better for him. Now, if he had but a few hundreds to
go on with, matrimony would be the dodge for him. With such a face and
figure as his, he might secure no end of a prize in the wife market;
there’s a thoroughbred look about him which would tell with women
amazingly.”
“He has all the makings of a fine character in him,” replied Frere, “but
he is proud and impetuous; and pride and poverty are ill companions,
though they often go together.”
“Do they?” replied Leicester. “Well, I am poor enough for anything, as
a very large majority of the metropolitan tradesmen know to their cost,
but, upon my word, I am not proud. Any man may give me a good dinner,
and I’ll eat it,--good wine, and I’ll drink it; I never refuse a stall
at the Opera, though the bone may belong to an opulent tallow-chandler;
and there is not a woman in England with £150,000 that I would not marry
to-morrow if she would have me. No! I may be poor, but you can’t call me
proud.” And placing his arm through that of his cousin, they descended
to the street together, and rejoined Lewis and his companion.