PAYING THE FIDDLER.
ASSUME a cheerfulness, if you have it not, and it may presently grow
upon you. This happened to Adam, so that when he left Captain Phipps, to
return to the tavern for his breakfast and to seek out the beef-eaters,
his mood was almost volatile again. There is much virtue in having
something other than one’s troubles to think upon. The sunken treasure
afforded Adam a topic.
He made his way to his apartments in the Crow and Arrow by the stairs at
the rear. He found the rooms empty. Beef-eaters, bag and baggage were
gone. Even the violin-case was not to be found.
Somewhat surprised that his faithful followers would so desert him, or
at least move the family habitation without consulting their comrade,
and on notice so brief, Rust knocked on Wainsworth’s door, to ask him if
he had seen anything of the worthy Pike and Halberd. But Wainsworth too
was out.
Upon proceeding post haste down to the tap-room, Adam broke in upon a
scene of armistice, after a first shock of war. Standing at bay, with
drawn swords, the shabby chattels of the trio in a corner behind them,
were the beef-eaters, confronting and defying the landlord and several
valiant citizens, in the midst of whom was the small individual who had
so much desired to fight, on the previous evening, and who was now
haranguing the opposing forces volubly.
“Here comes the master-vagabond now!” he cried, the moment Adam appeared
in the room. “Now, sirs, for your proof that you are not a pack of
wandering beggars and braggarts!”
“At last!” cried Halberd and Pike, together, coming quickly forward to
grasp their comrade in arms by the hands.
“We have defended your good name and possessions!” said Pike.
“We have flung the lie into the teeth of these varlets!” added Halberd.
“You have come in good time.”
“What’s the meaning of all this business?” demanded Adam, of the
assembled company.
Every one started to talk or to shout at once. Adam heard such things
as:
“They have called you and us a lot of penniless beggars and pirates!”
“What are you but a swaggering bully?”
“You are a fiddling limb of Satan!”
The landlord said, more moderately, “I did but desire to protect my
house in its good repute.”
The fierce little white-eyed man waved both his fists.
“These dogs,” he snapped to Adam, “have boasted that you are loaded down
with gold!”
“Yes, they mentioned gold,” said the landlord, tentatively.
“Gold?” said Adam. “Is it a crime to have no gold? How much gold would
you see?” he pulled his two hands from his pockets and scattered heaps
of yellow sovereigns on the table.
The beef-eaters nearly collapsed with amazement, at the sight of this
wealth. The landlord fell to rubbing his hands with ecstasy.
“You unseemly traducers of fair gentlemen,” he said, with virtuous
indignation, to the belligerents behind him, “how dare you come here to
insult and to villify my guests?”
“He probably stole it,” cried the incorrigible little white-eyed
terrier. “He has naught to do but to make God-fearing men——and his
betters, at that—dance against their will in the public streets!”
“Ah,” said Adam, striding forward and purposely bending with great show
of looking down to where the little man was standing, “so you have come
to pay the fiddler for the sport which your friend enjoyed yesterday
evening? How little he reckons my fiddling worth. This is so sad that
nothing short of a breakfast can console me. Landlord——”
“Braggart! knave!” cried the little man, interrupting. “I offer to fight
you again! You dare not fight!”
The smaller the dog the rarer the punishments and the larger the
arrogance.
“Shatter my hilt!” said Adam, “you and another gnat would devour me
whole.”
Without warning, and yet gently, Rust took him by the collar, twirled
him about so that he could lay his other hand on the trousers of the
midget, and hoisting him off his feet, though he kicked and made a
disturbance with yelling and raving, carried him at once to the open
window of the tavern and dropped him out, on the sidewalk beneath.
Three or four partisans, who had backed up little white-eyes and the
landlord, now edged toward the door. Adam made one motion in their
direction and they got out with becoming alacrity.
“Lock that door till we have had our breakfast,” Rust commanded.
The landlord had no more than complied, than the little rat, dropped
from the window, came banging against the barrier on the outside,
demanding admittance vociferously.
“Who is yon whiffet?” Adam asked.
“His name is Psalms Higgler,” laughed the landlord, with fine hypocrisy.
“How bravely you served him, and rightly too.” He rubbed his hands
gleefully.
“And his friend who sent him hither, he that danced so divertingly, what
may be his name?”
“Isaiah Pinchbecker, you doubtless mean. And what will you have for
breakfast, sire?”
“I will have you carry my bales of merchandise back to my apartments,”
said Adam, who did not propose to move out of the house until he felt
inclined, preferring to remain there and command respect for himself and
the beef-eaters, even while he knew that the landlord had joined the
miserable snappers at his heels. “And look to it you move smartly and
return to order something to eat.”
The landlord, spurred by the sight of the gold, and eager to make all
possible amends for the errors of judgment he had committed, staggered
up the stairs, panting like a grampus.
Adam now turned to his comrades, who recited three times over the
incidents of the morning, which consisted chiefly of the charges made by
Psalms Higgler, evidently at the instigation of Pinchbecker—the
nimble-footed—and which had so nearly culminated in their expulsion from
the tavern.
Tempest in a teapot as it had been, the business was an indication of
feelings which went as deep as politics, in which the whole colony had
been simmering for years. Moreover, the incident was not yet concluded.
The same year which had witnessed King Philip’s war, at the close of
which Adam had gone away, one of the greatest mischief-makers with whom
the Colonists had ever been called upon to deal, Edward Randolph, had
come to Boston with a design to despoil the colony of its charter. He
had worked openly, in some directions, secretly in others. He had
enlisted malcontents, dissenters-from-everything, hypocrites and men
with private greeds, in his Tory following. Among these were
Pinchbecker, his friend, the landlord of the Crow and Arrow, Psalms
Higgler and many others of their ilk.
Now Pinchbecker came under the category of hypocrites. He assumed the
Puritans’ manners, speech and customs, and did, in fact, despise some of
the looser habits of the Royalists, though he was their willing tool,
working for future favor and gain. He had therefore felt himself sorely
aggrieved when compelled to his dance, in a public highway, and having
first egged on his little terrier, Psalms, had then repaired to Edward
Randolph, himself, for redress of his wrongs.
Randolph, thinking he smelt a bluff and ready Tory lot, in Adam, and his
company, found occasion to visit the tavern without delay. He arrived
while Rust and the beef-eaters were still at their breakfast. He entered
the house at the rear and ordered a drink at the bar.
Motioning the landlord to silence, that worthy being much astonished to
see him so early, Randolph presently turned about, as if he had not
before observed the trio at table.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I drink ill when I drink alone; will you not
permit me to order something in which you can join me?”
Adam looked up. “Thank you,” he said, “it is our misfortune to have
ordered, just as you were coming in.”
“The misfortune is mine,” insisted Randolph. He drank alone.
Rust had taken in the visitor’s details at a glance. The man was of
medium size and nervous temperament. He had a great brow, heavy with
perceptive faculties, at the expense of those of reflection. His eyes
were deep-set, round, intense and close together, the nose that divided
them being as thin and curved as a beak. His lips were thin and
tight-shutting. He looked like a human bird-of-prey.
“By your dress and manner you are recently from England,” said the man,
sauntering leisurely toward Adam, when he had smacked his lips and set
down his mug.
“By your courtesy,” said Adam, “you are a student, curious to know your
fellow-beings.”
Randolph laughed. “Curious?” said he. “You do me wrong. I care neither
who nor what a gentleman is, so long as he is witty and blest with
humor. Your repute and the tale of your love for dancing have preceded
you, sir. I confess I was tempted to come here and see you.”
“I beseech you for an opportunity to say that I was merely charitable,”
said Rust. “I ordered the dance to amuse my beef-eaters. Perhaps you are
a dancer yourself?”
Randolph bit his lip. He was not getting on to his liking. He smiled,
however, and said:
“I have few graces, after I have mentioned a sense of admiration——”
“And blandishment,” put in Adam, who frankly disliked the man.
“Say appreciation, rather,” corrected Randolph. “I have had a hearty
laugh over that dance. I wish I had been there to see it; such merriment
is so rare in Massachusetts.”
“Nearly as rare as introductions between gentlemen,” Adam answered.
He tipped up his mug and drank the last of his brew carelessly. Randolph
turned red with anger. His gray eyes looked like cold fire, yet he was
still unwilling to accept defeat in his effort to find out the bent of
Adam’s political views.
“We live in a time when the stoutest friends and companions in good
causes might be lost to each other by formality,” he said, with a smile
doing its best to bend his features. “I must beg your pardon, if I
seem——”
He was interrupted by the entrance, at this moment, of William Phipps,
who came in at the door which the landlord had quietly unbolted.
“What, Adam, not yet done with eating?” he called out, bluntly. “Come,
come, I have been waiting this long time for you and your friends to
have a look over the brig.”
“With you at once,” rejoined the rover.
He and the beef-eaters knocked over their heavy chairs and stools, as
they arose from the table. Phipps looked at Randolph. The two men
nodded, distantly and somewhat frowningly. Without so much as glancing
at Randolph, Adam and his retinue walked to the door and so away, with
the Captain.
Randolph needed no further intimation of Adam’s probable leanings,
politically, than this obvious camaraderie with Phipps—who was a patriot
as immovable and staunch as a rock fortress. He clenched his fists and
ground his molars savagely.
“Curse the young fool!” he said. “I’ll make him wish for a civil tongue
to be hung in his head!”
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