FRANGI, NON FLECTI
"Jack is getting on like a house on fire," Signor Nicolo wrote in an
envelope enclosing a rather grimy letter, which I received on the
following morning; "he has not had a classical education, and so you can
always make out what he means. Specimens to hand confirm his opinion.
Perhaps I shall go out in the spring. Could not stand the cold there
now. Come and see me whenever you think fit."
When this was put into my hand, I was ready to start for London, having
promised to meet Stoneman outside the Exchange, at one o'clock. This had
been my own proposal, for one can never be certain how a man may take
great ups and downs of fortune; and although I had not much apprehension
as to Stoneman's fortitude, it seemed to me that a good friend should be
at hand and do his best for him. So I read the letter of young Jack
Nickols, on my way to London-Bridge, and found it very straightforward
and simple; and who cares for spelling after that? The rising generation
gets on very well without it, and a thousand school-boards do their
utmost to destroy its memory.
"Never did see a place so mountanious,"--this young fellow said,
where I first began to read, for the Signor had kept the first page
in his pocket, or leather bag, or steel safe, so far as I could
tell--"you never get up to the jag of one knife-grinder, before you
have got to fetch your wind, and grind your bones for another. The
Alps is nothing to it; they goes up gradual, and is ever so much
smaller to my mind. And you don't get big chaps here to shove you
up and keep you straight. These fellows cackle at you with a horrid
voice, and they squat in a ring and stare at you, if you want to go
up any clumsy sort of peak, and they tell one another that all
Englishmen are mad. But they are as sharp about the rhino as
Petticoat Lane crossed with a New Cut costermonger; and you can't
bring them to book, as you can a thief at home. You have to do it
all through a chap who knows their lingo; and you can't make out
what he is saying to them, and you can't be sure, without your
revolver ready that they won't stick their skewers, which they call
jingles, into your spine, without letting you look round. I had a
poor time of it at first; but they seem to be getting now to make
me out.
"When you come to know them, you might find worse fellows; for I
cannot call them treacherous exackly. They would skin you to your
spare-rib, if you let them have the chance; but they won't stick a
knife into you, until you aggravate them. I am getting rather thick
with some of them, by making out a little of their crack-jaw words,
though there seems to be no end of them. But talk about jaws, I
need not tell you, as you have seen too much of them. There was a
man in Yorkshire, about fifty years ago, who could get through a
lamb, and then three quarters of her mother. But one of these
fellows would eat the whole sheep first, and then take her little
ones for desert. But you must remember that their sheep weigh less
than ours, and I like to see a man make a hearty dinner. But it is
hard lines to pay him for the sheep; and then let him come to dine
with you, as he must do, so that you never get a taste of it.
"However I am not complaining. The country must be beautiful, when
the snow lets a fellow look at it, and you think the more about it,
because it is out of sight. Tell Rosa that the girls are not a
patch upon her, and she would laugh to see how they put their hair
up. The men are not refined enough to think much of the women; but
make them wear swabs upon their faces, and the insects are
tremenjious in the summer-time. We have got more than we can do now
to keep any road clear to get at the pocket where the stones are,
just a soft place between two tremenjious rocks; down comes the
snow again, and you could scarcely find it out, unless you leave a
black tar-pole sticking up, and then you must fix it wonderfully
firm, or you won't find it in the morning, for the wind does blow,
I can tell you. We shall have to knock off for three months, I am
afraid, and where am I to go to all the time? The Russians are not
half bad fellows, only some of them too pious when you come to know
them. Only you may be glad of that sometimes, because when they go
to say their prayers, you get the best place by the fire. I don't
care for quite so much tea myself, and I have not tasted a good bit
of tobacco for a month. But everybody says that when some great
man, who has been living for several years in England, and I do
believe I have heard you speak of him, when he comes back they say
he will change everything, all the thieves of the mountains will
begin to say their prayers, and nobody will stick his best friend
for nothing. If this can be managed, it will be a true excelsior.
"But you remember what the people said, the year we went to
Yarmouth; and it is out of the question for me to say what I would
give to be there now. They said, and you could not deny it when you
wanted a bloater before they came in--'Sir, we lay ourselves out to
oblige all the gents that come from London, but we cannot make a
red herring swim.' I could not see exactly how they meant it, but
it is just the same thing in the Caucasus.
"For a long time I could not see my way to be sure of not being
struck at any moment. But I got over that idea, as we must, if we
mean to get on anywhere. I will not say that my life is sacred now,
as people express it in London; but ever since the popular opinion
began to identify me with the Devil, through their ignorance of
English manners, I have had a much better time of it. Tell Rosa,
that in spite of uncommonly rough victuals, I weigh seven pounds
more than I could pull, when she came to see me off at Wood-Green
station. Nobody ever weighs anybody here, for after all they are
not cannibals; though I told her so, to make her kiss me. But the
steelyard I brought goes to half an ounce, and has saved me a lot
of money. And tell her, if you think that it won't be too
encroaching, under the peculiar circumstances, that I am not quite
turned into the Devil yet, though she might say so if she could see
me; and even if the climate had done it, an Angel like her need not
be afraid of him. Hoping to come home with a sackful of emeralds,
believe me, dear Uncle James, your most affectionate nephew,
JOHN NICKOLS."
At the bottom of this very vague and disjointed, but as it proved
afterwards too true description, Signor Nicolo had written in pencil:
"Rosa is my eldest daughter; but I shall have to put a stop to it."
"My noble countrymen!" as Sûr Imar used to call them,--it would take a
long time to fetch them up to that mark, according to this English boy's
account, and the enthusiastic chief could not begin too soon. It
appeared to me that as many generations as he could trace from Karthlos
would scarcely be enough to restore them to the level of antediluvian
"culture." No wonder that he was in a hurry to begin; and if I am doomed
to wait for the completion of his task, _erit altera quæ vehat Argo_,
there will be another ark on the top of Ararat. And sure enough, here is
another Babel to begin with!
For in the absorption of the thoughts above recounted, I found myself
caught in the whirl and crush and uproar of a crowd as wild as any
savage land could show. A crowd not of paupers but well-dressed people
roaring and raging and besieging the portals of the Stock Exchange.
Battered hats, and coats in tatters, fists thrown up, but unable through
crunched elbow to come down again, faces black with choking wrath,
wherever the brown mud peeled from them, grinding teeth and cursing
lips, and chests that groaned with the digs they took without any chance
of returning them--I thought of Lord Melladew's father and the bullock
compressed into his clover-hay. Only let me keep outside the pack of the
central squeeze if possible; for once in there, no strength of man could
get me out or let me out. So I put up my knee, which was a dangerous
thing to do, for if I lost my feet good-bye to me; when a gentleman,
with whom it would have been a joy to dine--so comely, and well-liking,
and well-to-do was he--being unable to get at me with his fists, let out
at me with language I had never heard the like of. I attempted no
retort, for he had already got the worst of it, and without any
knowledge how it came to pass, except that there must be more luck than
wit in shoving, here I was with my clothes still pretty sound, outside
the drum of squashed figs and squealing pigs.
But another poor fellow was not so lucky. "Let him go, slide him on,
he'll be dead in half a minute. Serve him right. No, no. How'd you like
it? Don't tread on him, more than you can help." It was a solid man upon
the ground, but likely to be hollow, before ever he could be an upright
man. I had got a short knob-stick in my hand (which I always carried,
since my faith in human nature had waned through that dastardly bullet)
and in the most blundering and selfish manner I set the knob against my
breast and the stub-end foremost, and charged into the lump of figures
across me. Considerable yielding, and heads running into heads, and
yellow waistcoats sloping like sheaves of wheat in shock, and big boots
toeing up at me, and a hail of blows in flank--it is impossible to say
how I got on. But there must have been a hollow place somewhere in the
mass, for they fought into a lane, and allowed me to lay hold of a pair
of yellow shoes, or at least they had been yellow, and tow out the
prostrate body on its back, and feel it for the signs of life or death.
"Ain't dead yet," said a hoarse and husky voice; "never fainted in my
life, and don't mean to do it now."
I admired the pluck of this poor fellow; for indeed he was in a
frightful mess, and another half-minute must have silenced him forever.
With the help of a bystander, who only cost a shilling, I was able to
get my trodden friend across the street, and into a double doorway,
where a score of people came and stared at him. "Well, if he ain't a
tough 'un. Cut the poor bloke's collar. Stand him on his pins, and blow
to him. Give him a drop of brandy." Advice poured in on every side, more
freely than assistance.
"Don't you know who I am, you fools?" The injured man sat up with the
aid of one hand on the stones, and gazed defiantly. "All over the world
I've been, but never saw such cursed idiots. Captain Strogue, sir, of
the British Pioneers."
He glanced at me with hazy eyes, which told of many strong waters, and
would tell of many more, if Heaven permitted; and then he tried to bow,
but a pang in his chest took the grace from that salutation. "All right!
Down the alley, three doors to the left."
He shoved away all who pressed forward to lift him, but allowed me to
help him with his knees still hanging, to the place he had indicated.
And sure enough everybody knew him there.
"The Captain, the Captain, the bold British Captain! He have been in the
wars, and no mistake!" Out came the landlady and the barmaid, with tears
in their eyes--for he had promised to marry both--and an ancient potboy
with all his wits about him brought a rummer and a teaspoon, and stirred
up something hot. "That's the physic, ma'am," he said; and the lady
smiled and offered it, and met with no refusal.
In a word, Captain Strogue was in the right place now, and after helping
to bestow him snugly upon a horse-hair sofa in a small back room, I was
at the point of leaving, when he put up one hand and stopped me.
"Owe you my life," he said; "not worth much now, but has done a deal of
service to civilization. Near St. Paul's, ain't we? That's where they'll
put me. Know your face very well, but can't remember."
He seemed to be dropping off into a doze, having finished his strong
potation; but I told him my name and where I had met him, for I was
eager to be off to keep my time with Stoneman.
"Don't be in a hurry, sir; you have helped me, and I can help you.
Strogue pays his debts. Somebody else will find that out." His eyes
shone fiercely, and he pressed his knuckles to his side. "Widow Lazenby
knows what I am--don't you, ducky?"
"Oh, Captain! And at such a crisis!" the landlady murmured, after
looking round to be certain where the barmaid was. "But, sir, he have
described himself. Wonders he have done, without wondering at himself."
It is a righteous thing that men of such achievements should have their
reward, where it is sweetest. Fame they may never get, for that is all a
fluke; gold they scarcely ever gain, because they are no grubbers; love
they cannot stop to grasp, and see but savage frames of it; rank they
laugh at, having found it the chief delight of black boys; but to get
his grog for glory, and his victuals for victory, is the utmost any
English pioneer can hope of England.
"Cranleigh, you can go," said Strogue, for his manners were not perfect;
"you are involved in this little shindy, and you want to know all about
it. These thieves shut shop at one o'clock on a Saturday, some one told
me. But if you will come back by two, I shall have set this rib by then,
and have rump-steak and oysters. Join me, without any ceremony. I owe
you a debt, and you shall have it."
I had seen too many strange things now to be surprised at anything, as I
might have been six months ago; and it was plain that this companion of
the hateful Hafer meant to do me some good turn at a private
opportunity. So I promised to return by two o'clock, and hurried to
Stoneman's business place, avoiding the crowd that still was yelling at
every approach to the House of Mammon. "Bless you, sir; it is nothing at
all compared to what it was yesterday. Ah, that was something like a
row!" a big policeman told me; "there was fifty taken to hospital, and
the barriers snapped like hurdles. Why, there ain't been half-a-dozen
ribs to-day. You can't call that no panic."
Neither did I find any panic at Jackson Stoneman's offices. A stolid old
clerk was putting things away, and evidently anxious to get home to
early dinner. He told me that his principal had been disappointed at not
meeting me, and concluded (as the train had been in long enough) that
something had occurred to stop me, and so had departed on his own
account. When I asked how things had gone that morning, old Peppersall
eyed me with some indignation, as if it were impossible for anything to
go wrong with a firm so stable and majestic. "Well, how did the senior
partner look?" I asked; and Peppersall replied: "He was a bit put out
about a sixpence that rolled off a desk in room No. 8, till it turned up
under the wainscoting."
"You'll do," I said rather rudely, for this rebuff was not too
courteous, and he stared at me as if there could be any doubt about his
doing. "That is the sort of fellow for a business-man, instead of any
new young manager"--was my reflection, as I strode with good heart
towards the rump-steak and oysters.
Captain Strogue had been sponged and darned and brushed and polished
up--so far as he was capable of polish--by skilful and tender hands, and
was sitting in a brown arm-chair, as bolt upright as if his ribs had
thickened, as a barn-floor does, by the flail of many heels upon them.
"Keep 'em like that," he said, "for about two hours, and fill up well
inside, and it stands to reason that they must come right--can't help
themselves. Doctors? None of them for Bat Strogue. The only doctor I
ever knew was any good is down your way now, a queer German cove. Say
grace for me, and carve for me, and fall to, my son. Take me for your
guest; and you might have a more squeamish one."