Repairing to a noted coffee-house in Covent Garden when he left the
locksmith’s, Mr Chester sat long over a late dinner, entertaining
himself exceedingly with the whimsical recollection of his recent
proceedings, and congratulating himself very much on his great
cleverness. Influenced by these thoughts, his face wore an expression
so benign and tranquil, that the waiter in immediate attendance upon him
felt he could almost have died in his defence, and settled in his own
mind (until the receipt of the bill, and a very small fee for very great
trouble disabused it of the idea) that such an apostolic customer was
worth half-a-dozen of the ordinary run of visitors, at least.
A visit to the gaming-table--not as a heated, anxious venturer, but
one whom it was quite a treat to see staking his two or three pieces in
deference to the follies of society, and smiling with equal benevolence
on winners and losers--made it late before he reached home. It was his
custom to bid his servant go to bed at his own time unless he had orders
to the contrary, and to leave a candle on the common stair. There was a
lamp on the landing by which he could always light it when he came home
late, and having a key of the door about him he could enter and go to
bed at his pleasure.
He opened the glass of the dull lamp, whose wick, burnt up and swollen
like a drunkard’s nose, came flying off in little carbuncles at the
candle’s touch, and scattering hot sparks about, rendered it matter
of some difficulty to kindle the lazy taper; when a noise, as of a man
snoring deeply some steps higher up, caused him to pause and listen.
It was the heavy breathing of a sleeper, close at hand. Some fellow
had lain down on the open staircase, and was slumbering soundly.
Having lighted the candle at length and opened his own door, he softly
ascended, holding the taper high above his head, and peering cautiously
about; curious to see what kind of man had chosen so comfortless a
shelter for his lodging.
With his head upon the landing and his great limbs flung over
half-a-dozen stairs, as carelessly as though he were a dead man
whom drunken bearers had thrown down by chance, there lay Hugh, face
uppermost, his long hair drooping like some wild weed upon his wooden
pillow, and his huge chest heaving with the sounds which so unwontedly
disturbed the place and hour.
He who came upon him so unexpectedly was about to break his rest by
thrusting him with his foot, when, glancing at his upturned face, he
arrested himself in the very action, and stooping down and shading the
candle with his hand, examined his features closely. Close as his first
inspection was, it did not suffice, for he passed the light, still
carefully shaded as before, across and across his face, and yet observed
him with a searching eye.
While he was thus engaged, the sleeper, without any starting or turning
round, awoke. There was a kind of fascination in meeting his steady gaze
so suddenly, which took from the other the presence of mind to withdraw
his eyes, and forced him, as it were, to meet his look. So they remained
staring at each other, until Mr Chester at last broke silence, and asked
him in a low voice, why he lay sleeping there.
‘I thought,’ said Hugh, struggling into a sitting posture and gazing at
him intently, still, ‘that you were a part of my dream. It was a curious
one. I hope it may never come true, master.’
‘What makes you shiver?’
‘The--the cold, I suppose,’ he growled, as he shook himself and rose. ‘I
hardly know where I am yet.’
‘Do you know me?’ said Mr Chester.
‘Ay, I know you,’ he answered. ‘I was dreaming of you--we’re not where I
thought we were. That’s a comfort.’
He looked round him as he spoke, and in particular looked above his
head, as though he half expected to be standing under some object
which had had existence in his dream. Then he rubbed his eyes and shook
himself again, and followed his conductor into his own rooms.
Mr Chester lighted the candles which stood upon his dressing-table, and
wheeling an easy-chair towards the fire, which was yet burning, stirred
up a cheerful blaze, sat down before it, and bade his uncouth visitor
‘Come here,’ and draw his boots off.
‘You have been drinking again, my fine fellow,’ he said, as Hugh went
down on one knee, and did as he was told.
‘As I’m alive, master, I’ve walked the twelve long miles, and waited
here I don’t know how long, and had no drink between my lips since
dinner-time at noon.’
‘And can you do nothing better, my pleasant friend, than fall asleep,
and shake the very building with your snores?’ said Mr Chester. ‘Can’t
you dream in your straw at home, dull dog as you are, that you need come
here to do it?--Reach me those slippers, and tread softly.’
Hugh obeyed in silence.
‘And harkee, my dear young gentleman,’ said Mr Chester, as he put them
on, ‘the next time you dream, don’t let it be of me, but of some dog or
horse with whom you are better acquainted. Fill the glass once--you’ll
find it and the bottle in the same place--and empty it to keep yourself
awake.’
Hugh obeyed again even more zealously--and having done so, presented
himself before his patron.
‘Now,’ said Mr Chester, ‘what do you want with me?’
‘There was news to-day,’ returned Hugh. ‘Your son was at our house--came
down on horseback. He tried to see the young woman, but couldn’t get
sight of her. He left some letter or some message which our Joe had
charge of, but he and the old one quarrelled about it when your son had
gone, and the old one wouldn’t let it be delivered. He says (that’s the
old one does) that none of his people shall interfere and get him into
trouble. He’s a landlord, he says, and lives on everybody’s custom.’
‘He’s a jewel,’ smiled Mr Chester, ‘and the better for being a dull
one.--Well?’
‘Varden’s daughter--that’s the girl I kissed--’
‘--and stole the bracelet from upon the king’s highway,’ said Mr
Chester, composedly. ‘Yes; what of her?’
‘She wrote a note at our house to the young woman, saying she lost the
letter I brought to you, and you burnt. Our Joe was to carry it, but
the old one kept him at home all next day, on purpose that he shouldn’t.
Next morning he gave it to me to take; and here it is.’
‘You didn’t deliver it then, my good friend?’ said Mr Chester, twirling
Dolly’s note between his finger and thumb, and feigning to be surprised.
‘I supposed you’d want to have it,’ retorted Hugh. ‘Burn one, burn all,
I thought.’
‘My devil-may-care acquaintance,’ said Mr Chester--‘really if you do not
draw some nicer distinctions, your career will be cut short with most
surprising suddenness. Don’t you know that the letter you brought to
me, was directed to my son who resides in this very place? And can you
descry no difference between his letters and those addressed to other
people?’
‘If you don’t want it,’ said Hugh, disconcerted by this reproof, for he
had expected high praise, ‘give it me back, and I’ll deliver it. I don’t
know how to please you, master.’
‘I shall deliver it,’ returned his patron, putting it away after a
moment’s consideration, ‘myself. Does the young lady walk out, on fine
mornings?’
‘Mostly--about noon is her usual time.’
‘Alone?’
‘Yes, alone.’
‘Where?’
‘In the grounds before the house.--Them that the footpath crosses.’
‘If the weather should be fine, I may throw myself in her way to-morrow,
perhaps,’ said Mr Chester, as coolly as if she were one of his ordinary
acquaintance. ‘Mr Hugh, if I should ride up to the Maypole door, you
will do me the favour only to have seen me once. You must suppress your
gratitude, and endeavour to forget my forbearance in the matter of the
bracelet. It is natural it should break out, and it does you honour; but
when other folks are by, you must, for your own sake and safety, be as
like your usual self as though you owed me no obligation whatever, and
had never stood within these walls. You comprehend me?’
Hugh understood him perfectly. After a pause he muttered that he hoped
his patron would involve him in no trouble about this last letter;
for he had kept it back solely with the view of pleasing him. He was
continuing in this strain, when Mr Chester with a most beneficent and
patronising air cut him short by saying:
‘My good fellow, you have my promise, my word, my sealed bond (for a
verbal pledge with me is quite as good), that I will always protect you
so long as you deserve it. Now, do set your mind at rest. Keep it at
ease, I beg of you. When a man puts himself in my power so thoroughly as
you have done, I really feel as though he had a kind of claim upon me. I
am more disposed to mercy and forbearance under such circumstances
than I can tell you, Hugh. Do look upon me as your protector, and rest
assured, I entreat you, that on the subject of that indiscretion, you
may preserve, as long as you and I are friends, the lightest heart that
ever beat within a human breast. Fill that glass once more to cheer you
on your road homewards--I am really quite ashamed to think how far you
have to go--and then God bless you for the night.’
‘They think,’ said Hugh, when he had tossed the liquor down, ‘that I am
sleeping soundly in the stable. Ha ha ha! The stable door is shut, but
the steed’s gone, master.’
‘You are a most convivial fellow,’ returned his friend, ‘and I love your
humour of all things. Good night! Take the greatest possible care of
yourself, for my sake!’
It was remarkable that during the whole interview, each had endeavoured
to catch stolen glances of the other’s face, and had never looked full
at it. They interchanged one brief and hasty glance as Hugh went out,
averted their eyes directly, and so separated. Hugh closed the double
doors behind him, carefully and without noise; and Mr Chester remained
in his easy-chair, with his gaze intently fixed upon the fire.
‘Well!’ he said, after meditating for a long time--and said with a deep
sigh and an uneasy shifting of his attitude, as though he dismissed some
other subject from his thoughts, and returned to that which had held
possession of them all the day--‘the plot thickens; I have thrown the
shell; it will explode, I think, in eight-and-forty hours, and should
scatter these good folks amazingly. We shall see!’
He went to bed and fell asleep, but had not slept long when he started
up and thought that Hugh was at the outer door, calling in a strange
voice, very different from his own, to be admitted. The delusion was so
strong upon him, and was so full of that vague terror of the night
in which such visions have their being, that he rose, and taking his
sheathed sword in his hand, opened the door, and looked out upon the
staircase, and towards the spot where Hugh had lain asleep; and even
spoke to him by name. But all was dark and quiet, and creeping back
to bed again, he fell, after an hour’s uneasy watching, into a second
sleep, and woke no more till morning.