Twilight had given place to night some hours, and it was high noon
in those quarters of the town in which ‘the world’ condescended to
dwell--the world being then, as now, of very limited dimensions and
easily lodged--when Mr Chester reclined upon a sofa in his dressing-room
in the Temple, entertaining himself with a book.
He was dressing, as it seemed, by easy stages, and having performed half
the journey was taking a long rest. Completely attired as to his legs
and feet in the trimmest fashion of the day, he had yet the remainder of
his toilet to perform. The coat was stretched, like a refined scarecrow,
on its separate horse; the waistcoat was displayed to the best
advantage; the various ornamental articles of dress were severally set
out in most alluring order; and yet he lay dangling his legs between the
sofa and the ground, as intent upon his book as if there were nothing
but bed before him.
‘Upon my honour,’ he said, at length raising his eyes to the ceiling
with the air of a man who was reflecting seriously on what he had
read; ‘upon my honour, the most masterly composition, the most delicate
thoughts, the finest code of morality, and the most gentlemanly
sentiments in the universe! Ah Ned, Ned, if you would but form your mind
by such precepts, we should have but one common feeling on every subject
that could possibly arise between us!’
This apostrophe was addressed, like the rest of his remarks, to empty
air: for Edward was not present, and the father was quite alone.
‘My Lord Chesterfield,’ he said, pressing his hand tenderly upon the
book as he laid it down, ‘if I could but have profited by your genius
soon enough to have formed my son on the model you have left to all
wise fathers, both he and I would have been rich men. Shakespeare was
undoubtedly very fine in his way; Milton good, though prosy; Lord Bacon
deep, and decidedly knowing; but the writer who should be his country’s
pride, is my Lord Chesterfield.’
He became thoughtful again, and the toothpick was in requisition.
‘I thought I was tolerably accomplished as a man of the world,’ he
continued, ‘I flattered myself that I was pretty well versed in all
those little arts and graces which distinguish men of the world from
boors and peasants, and separate their character from those intensely
vulgar sentiments which are called the national character. Apart from
any natural prepossession in my own favour, I believed I was. Still, in
every page of this enlightened writer, I find some captivating hypocrisy
which has never occurred to me before, or some superlative piece of
selfishness to which I was utterly a stranger. I should quite blush for
myself before this stupendous creature, if remembering his precepts, one
might blush at anything. An amazing man! a nobleman indeed! any King or
Queen may make a Lord, but only the Devil himself--and the Graces--can
make a Chesterfield.’
Men who are thoroughly false and hollow, seldom try to hide those vices
from themselves; and yet in the very act of avowing them, they lay claim
to the virtues they feign most to despise. ‘For,’ say they, ‘this is
honesty, this is truth. All mankind are like us, but they have not the
candour to avow it.’ The more they affect to deny the existence of any
sincerity in the world, the more they would be thought to possess it in
its boldest shape; and this is an unconscious compliment to Truth on the
part of these philosophers, which will turn the laugh against them to
the Day of Judgment.
Mr Chester, having extolled his favourite author, as above recited,
took up the book again in the excess of his admiration and was composing
himself for a further perusal of its sublime morality, when he was
disturbed by a noise at the outer door; occasioned as it seemed by the
endeavours of his servant to obstruct the entrance of some unwelcome
visitor.
‘A late hour for an importunate creditor,’ he said, raising his eyebrows
with as indolent an expression of wonder as if the noise were in the
street, and one with which he had not the smallest possible concern.
‘Much after their accustomed time. The usual pretence I suppose. No
doubt a heavy payment to make up tomorrow. Poor fellow, he loses time,
and time is money as the good proverb says--I never found it out though.
Well. What now? You know I am not at home.’
‘A man, sir,’ replied the servant, who was to the full as cool and
negligent in his way as his master, ‘has brought home the riding-whip
you lost the other day. I told him you were out, but he said he was to
wait while I brought it in, and wouldn’t go till I did.’
‘He was quite right,’ returned his master, ‘and you’re a blockhead,
possessing no judgment or discretion whatever. Tell him to come in, and
see that he rubs his shoes for exactly five minutes first.’
The man laid the whip on a chair, and withdrew. The master, who had only
heard his foot upon the ground and had not taken the trouble to turn
round and look at him, shut his book, and pursued the train of ideas his
entrance had disturbed.
‘If time were money,’ he said, handling his snuff-box, ‘I would compound
with my creditors, and give them--let me see--how much a day? There’s
my nap after dinner--an hour--they’re extremely welcome to that, and to
make the most of it. In the morning, between my breakfast and the
paper, I could spare them another hour; in the evening before dinner
say another. Three hours a day. They might pay themselves in calls, with
interest, in twelve months. I think I shall propose it to them. Ah, my
centaur, are you there?’
‘Here I am,’ replied Hugh, striding in, followed by a dog, as rough and
sullen as himself; ‘and trouble enough I’ve had to get here. What do you
ask me to come for, and keep me out when I DO come?’
‘My good fellow,’ returned the other, raising his head a little from the
cushion and carelessly surveying him from top to toe, ‘I am delighted to
see you, and to have, in your being here, the very best proof that you
are not kept out. How are you?’
‘I’m well enough,’ said Hugh impatiently.
‘You look a perfect marvel of health. Sit down.’
‘I’d rather stand,’ said Hugh.
‘Please yourself my good fellow,’ returned Mr Chester rising, slowly
pulling off the loose robe he wore, and sitting down before the
dressing-glass. ‘Please yourself by all means.’
Having said this in the politest and blandest tone possible, he went on
dressing, and took no further notice of his guest, who stood in the same
spot as uncertain what to do next, eyeing him sulkily from time to time.
‘Are you going to speak to me, master?’ he said, after a long silence.
‘My worthy creature,’ returned Mr Chester, ‘you are a little ruffled and
out of humour. I’ll wait till you’re quite yourself again. I am in no
hurry.’
This behaviour had its intended effect. It humbled and abashed the man,
and made him still more irresolute and uncertain. Hard words he could
have returned, violence he would have repaid with interest; but this
cool, complacent, contemptuous, self-possessed reception, caused him to
feel his inferiority more completely than the most elaborate arguments.
Everything contributed to this effect. His own rough speech, contrasted
with the soft persuasive accents of the other; his rude bearing, and
Mr Chester’s polished manner; the disorder and negligence of his
ragged dress, and the elegant attire he saw before him; with all the
unaccustomed luxuries and comforts of the room, and the silence that
gave him leisure to observe these things, and feel how ill at ease they
made him; all these influences, which have too often some effect on
tutored minds and become of almost resistless power when brought to bear
on such a mind as his, quelled Hugh completely. He moved by little and
little nearer to Mr Chester’s chair, and glancing over his shoulder
at the reflection of his face in the glass, as if seeking for some
encouragement in its expression, said at length, with a rough attempt at
conciliation,
‘ARE you going to speak to me, master, or am I to go away?’
‘Speak you,’ said Mr Chester, ‘speak you, good fellow. I have spoken,
have I not? I am waiting for you.’
‘Why, look’ee, sir,’ returned Hugh with increased embarrassment, ‘am I
the man that you privately left your whip with before you rode away from
the Maypole, and told to bring it back whenever he might want to see you
on a certain subject?’
‘No doubt the same, or you have a twin brother,’ said Mr Chester,
glancing at the reflection of his anxious face; ‘which is not probable,
I should say.’
‘Then I have come, sir,’ said Hugh, ‘and I have brought it back, and
something else along with it. A letter, sir, it is, that I took from
the person who had charge of it.’ As he spoke, he laid upon the
dressing-table, Dolly’s lost epistle. The very letter that had cost her
so much trouble.
‘Did you obtain this by force, my good fellow?’ said Mr Chester, casting
his eye upon it without the least perceptible surprise or pleasure.
‘Not quite,’ said Hugh. ‘Partly.’
‘Who was the messenger from whom you took it?’
‘A woman. One Varden’s daughter.’
‘Oh indeed!’ said Mr Chester gaily. ‘What else did you take from her?’
‘What else?’
‘Yes,’ said the other, in a drawling manner, for he was fixing a very
small patch of sticking plaster on a very small pimple near the corner
of his mouth. ‘What else?’
‘Well a kiss,’ replied Hugh, after some hesitation.
‘And what else?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I think,’ said Mr Chester, in the same easy tone, and smiling twice or
thrice to try if the patch adhered--‘I think there was something else.
I have heard a trifle of jewellery spoken of--a mere trifle--a thing
of such little value, indeed, that you may have forgotten it. Do you
remember anything of the kind--such as a bracelet now, for instance?’
Hugh with a muttered oath thrust his hand into his breast, and drawing
the bracelet forth, wrapped in a scrap of hay, was about to lay it on
the table likewise, when his patron stopped his hand and bade him put it
up again.
‘You took that for yourself my excellent friend,’ he said, ‘and may keep
it. I am neither a thief nor a receiver. Don’t show it to me. You had
better hide it again, and lose no time. Don’t let me see where you put
it either,’ he added, turning away his head.
‘You’re not a receiver!’ said Hugh bluntly, despite the increasing awe
in which he held him. ‘What do you call THAT, master?’ striking the
letter with his heavy hand.
‘I call that quite another thing,’ said Mr Chester coolly. ‘I shall
prove it presently, as you will see. You are thirsty, I suppose?’
Hugh drew his sleeve across his lips, and gruffly answered yes.
‘Step to that closet and bring me a bottle you will see there, and a
glass.’
He obeyed. His patron followed him with his eyes, and when his back was
turned, smiled as he had never done when he stood beside the mirror.
On his return he filled the glass, and bade him drink. That dram
despatched, he poured him out another, and another.
‘How many can you bear?’ he said, filling the glass again.
‘As many as you like to give me. Pour on. Fill high. A bumper with a
bead in the middle! Give me enough of this,’ he added, as he tossed it
down his hairy throat, ‘and I’ll do murder if you ask me!’
‘As I don’t mean to ask you, and you might possibly do it without
being invited if you went on much further,’ said Mr Chester with great
composure, ‘we will stop, if agreeable to you, my good friend, at the
next glass. You were drinking before you came here.’
‘I always am when I can get it,’ cried Hugh boisterously, waving the
empty glass above his head, and throwing himself into a rude dancing
attitude. ‘I always am. Why not? Ha ha ha! What’s so good to me as this?
What ever has been? What else has kept away the cold on bitter nights,
and driven hunger off in starving times? What else has given me the
strength and courage of a man, when men would have left me to die, a
puny child? I should never have had a man’s heart but for this. I
should have died in a ditch. Where’s he who when I was a weak and sickly
wretch, with trembling legs and fading sight, bade me cheer up, as this
did? I never knew him; not I. I drink to the drink, master. Ha ha ha!’
‘You are an exceedingly cheerful young man,’ said Mr Chester, putting
on his cravat with great deliberation, and slightly moving his head
from side to side to settle his chin in its proper place. ‘Quite a boon
companion.’
‘Do you see this hand, master,’ said Hugh, ‘and this arm?’ baring the
brawny limb to the elbow. ‘It was once mere skin and bone, and would
have been dust in some poor churchyard by this time, but for the drink.’
‘You may cover it,’ said Mr Chester, ‘it’s sufficiently real in your
sleeve.’
‘I should never have been spirited up to take a kiss from the proud
little beauty, master, but for the drink,’ cried Hugh. ‘Ha ha ha! It was
a good one. As sweet as honeysuckle, I warrant you. I thank the drink
for it. I’ll drink to the drink again, master. Fill me one more. Come.
One more!’
‘You are such a promising fellow,’ said his patron, putting on his
waistcoat with great nicety, and taking no heed of this request, ‘that
I must caution you against having too many impulses from the drink, and
getting hung before your time. What’s your age?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘At any rate,’ said Mr Chester, ‘you are young enough to escape what
I may call a natural death for some years to come. How can you trust
yourself in my hands on so short an acquaintance, with a halter round
your neck? What a confiding nature yours must be!’
Hugh fell back a pace or two and surveyed him with a look of mingled
terror, indignation, and surprise. Regarding himself in the glass with
the same complacency as before, and speaking as smoothly as if he were
discussing some pleasant chit-chat of the town, his patron went on:
‘Robbery on the king’s highway, my young friend, is a very dangerous and
ticklish occupation. It is pleasant, I have no doubt, while it lasts;
but like many other pleasures in this transitory world, it seldom lasts
long. And really if in the ingenuousness of youth, you open your heart
so readily on the subject, I am afraid your career will be an extremely
short one.’
‘How’s this?’ said Hugh. ‘What do you talk of master? Who was it set me
on?’
‘Who?’ said Mr Chester, wheeling sharply round, and looking full at him
for the first time. ‘I didn’t hear you. Who was it?’
Hugh faltered, and muttered something which was not audible.
‘Who was it? I am curious to know,’ said Mr Chester, with surpassing
affability. ‘Some rustic beauty perhaps? But be cautious, my good
friend. They are not always to be trusted. Do take my advice now, and be
careful of yourself.’ With these words he turned to the glass again, and
went on with his toilet.
Hugh would have answered him that he, the questioner himself had set him
on, but the words stuck in his throat. The consummate art with which his
patron had led him to this point, and managed the whole conversation,
perfectly baffled him. He did not doubt that if he had made the retort
which was on his lips when Mr Chester turned round and questioned him
so keenly, he would straightway have given him into custody and had him
dragged before a justice with the stolen property upon him; in which
case it was as certain he would have been hung as it was that he had
been born. The ascendency which it was the purpose of the man of the
world to establish over this savage instrument, was gained from that
time. Hugh’s submission was complete. He dreaded him beyond description;
and felt that accident and artifice had spun a web about him, which at a
touch from such a master-hand as his, would bind him to the gallows.
With these thoughts passing through his mind, and yet wondering at the
very same time how he who came there rioting in the confidence of this
man (as he thought), should be so soon and so thoroughly subdued, Hugh
stood cowering before him, regarding him uneasily from time to time,
while he finished dressing. When he had done so, he took up the
letter, broke the seal, and throwing himself back in his chair, read it
leisurely through.
‘Very neatly worded upon my life! Quite a woman’s letter, full of what
people call tenderness, and disinterestedness, and heart, and all that
sort of thing!’
As he spoke, he twisted it up, and glancing lazily round at Hugh as
though he would say ‘You see this?’ held it in the flame of the candle.
When it was in a full blaze, he tossed it into the grate, and there it
smouldered away.
‘It was directed to my son,’ he said, turning to Hugh, ‘and you did
quite right to bring it here. I opened it on my own responsibility, and
you see what I have done with it. Take this, for your trouble.’
Hugh stepped forward to receive the piece of money he held out to him.
As he put it in his hand, he added:
‘If you should happen to find anything else of this sort, or to pick
up any kind of information you may think I would like to have, bring it
here, will you, my good fellow?’
This was said with a smile which implied--or Hugh thought it did--‘fail
to do so at your peril!’ He answered that he would.
‘And don’t,’ said his patron, with an air of the very kindest patronage,
‘don’t be at all downcast or uneasy respecting that little rashness we
have been speaking of. Your neck is as safe in my hands, my good fellow,
as though a baby’s fingers clasped it, I assure you.--Take another
glass. You are quieter now.’
Hugh accepted it from his hand, and looking stealthily at his smiling
face, drank the contents in silence.
‘Don’t you--ha, ha!--don’t you drink to the drink any more?’ said Mr
Chester, in his most winning manner.
‘To you, sir,’ was the sullen answer, with something approaching to a
bow. ‘I drink to you.’
‘Thank you. God bless you. By the bye, what is your name, my good soul?
You are called Hugh, I know, of course--your other name?’
‘I have no other name.’
‘A very strange fellow! Do you mean that you never knew one, or that you
don’t choose to tell it? Which?’
‘I’d tell it if I could,’ said Hugh, quickly. ‘I can’t. I have been
always called Hugh; nothing more. I never knew, nor saw, nor thought
about a father; and I was a boy of six--that’s not very old--when they
hung my mother up at Tyburn for a couple of thousand men to stare at.
They might have let her live. She was poor enough.’
‘How very sad!’ exclaimed his patron, with a condescending smile. ‘I
have no doubt she was an exceedingly fine woman.’
‘You see that dog of mine?’ said Hugh, abruptly.
‘Faithful, I dare say?’ rejoined his patron, looking at him through his
glass; ‘and immensely clever? Virtuous and gifted animals, whether man
or beast, always are so very hideous.’
‘Such a dog as that, and one of the same breed, was the only living
thing except me that howled that day,’ said Hugh. ‘Out of the two
thousand odd--there was a larger crowd for its being a woman--the dog
and I alone had any pity. If he’d have been a man, he’d have been
glad to be quit of her, for she had been forced to keep him lean and
half-starved; but being a dog, and not having a man’s sense, he was
sorry.’
‘It was dull of the brute, certainly,’ said Mr Chester, ‘and very like a
brute.’
Hugh made no rejoinder, but whistling to his dog, who sprung up at the
sound and came jumping and sporting about him, bade his sympathising
friend good night.
‘Good night,’ he returned. ‘Remember; you’re safe with me--quite safe. So
long as you deserve it, my good fellow, as I hope you always will, you
have a friend in me, on whose silence you may rely. Now do be careful of
yourself, pray do, and consider what jeopardy you might have stood in.
Good night! bless you!’
Hugh truckled before the hidden meaning of these words as much as such
a being could, and crept out of the door so submissively and
subserviently--with an air, in short, so different from that with which
he had entered--that his patron on being left alone, smiled more than
ever.
‘And yet,’ he said, as he took a pinch of snuff, ‘I do not like their
having hanged his mother. The fellow has a fine eye, and I am sure she
was handsome. But very probably she was coarse--red-nosed perhaps, and
had clumsy feet. Aye, it was all for the best, no doubt.’
With this comforting reflection, he put on his coat, took a farewell
glance at the glass, and summoned his man, who promptly attended,
followed by a chair and its two bearers.
‘Foh!’ said Mr Chester. ‘The very atmosphere that centaur has breathed,
seems tainted with the cart and ladder. Here, Peak. Bring some scent and
sprinkle the floor; and take away the chair he sat upon, and air it; and
dash a little of that mixture upon me. I am stifled!’
The man obeyed; and the room and its master being both purified, nothing
remained for Mr Chester but to demand his hat, to fold it jauntily under
his arm, to take his seat in the chair and be carried off; humming a
fashionable tune.