I COME A PRISONER TO A FAMILIAR HOUSE, AND FIND STRANGE COMPANY
We had marched along for what seemed to me in my unhappy state an
intolerable period, although I suppose actually the time was less than
an hour, when we passed through the gates of a great house. When the
porter came out of his lodge to let us through, and held his lantern
against the iron-work, I observed that the device of the family wrought
therein had a strangely familiar appearance. There was something about
the porter too that awoke all sorts of remote recollections in my mind.
As we went along the paths, even the situation of the trees that
skirted them added to this impression. And when we came at last on to
the lawn, and the house itself was clearly exposed in the moonlight, a
cry of surprise almost escaped my lips, for the place had once been my
own.
It was a house in which a great part of my boyhood had been spent, and
one that I had inherited at my father's death. It was but a little
while that it remained in my hands, however, for one night, having lost
much more than I cared about over a game of piquet, I think it was, in
a desperate attempt to retrieve my fortunes, I staked this precious
house upon the cards and lost it also, to a fellow as reckless as
myself. It is impossible to say, therefore, what my emotions were at
this my strange return to the home of my childhood, and the seat for
many a generation of those whose name I bore. But I think that the
first moment of recognition over, my tendency was towards laughter, for
could anything have been more comical than that I should be brought in
such a company, and on such a charge, to this of all the places in the
world?
Even the fellow who replied to the summons on the great hall-door, I
remembered nearly as well as my own father, for I ought to tell you
that servants, furniture and plate had passed over with the property.
We were kept waiting without whilst the head-constable or chief officer
among our captors went in to confer with the magistrate. In the end it
was decided that we should be brought before the justice in person. He
was said to have been a prime mover in the matter from the first, and
was highly incensed against the unfortunate gypsies.
"We could not have come to a worse place," said my friend the
flute-player, who stood beside me. "This is the house of Sir Thomas
Wheatley, a hard man, and the biggest enemy to us poor folk of any one
about. If his name and interest count for anything, we shall all of us
infallibly be hanged."
There were eight of us prisoners, and we were presently led into Sir
Thomas's presence. When we were brought into the fine dining-room that
I knew so well, every inch of which was so familiar to me, in which
every object of vertu and article of furniture was a thing so well
recollected that even in this predicament I could not refrain from
regarding them with pride and affection, how can I indicate the flood
of emotions that surged in my head? After all, a man in the depths of
his abandonment is something more than a piece of wood.
The justice was a common type of person enough; a man in middle life,
who doubtless lived well and drank much, to judge by his purple cheeks
and the somewhat puffed appearance of his body. He was a middling sort
of man in every way; middling in his stature, in his mind and in his
character, and more especially so, as we were to discover, in his
thoughts and ideas. He affected the very nicest style of the squire in
his dress, was highly formal in his deportment; and he sat playing
cards with another fellow, apparently not so much for the amusement of
himself or the entertainment of his friend, but rather as one who
followed a dignified occupation in a dignified way. In his every word,
gesture and motion he had an indescribable air of one sitting for his
picture. He was in a towering rage, it is true, but it was a rage that
appeared not to spring from the heat of his blood, for he was of that
lethargic habit, which does not rise to heats of any sort. He was in a
towering rage, because it was expected of one of his position and
sentiments to be in one at such a time. Therefore, when we poor
prisoners had been ranged along the wall, he put down his cards with
great deliberation, slowly wheeled his chair round towards us, put
together his thumbs, and looked us all over with a noble indignation.
"Soh!" says the justice, counting us carefully. "One, two,
three--eight of you fairly taken; eight cut-throat rogues that most
richly merit a hanging. And a hanging you shall get if there is any
law left in the country. I will commit you at once, so help me I will!
Fetch me pen and ink somebody, and I'll fill in the mittimus. I hope
you are mightily ashamed of yourselves, you wicked, blackamoor
villains."
"Can you not see that they are, good Tommie?" says the man with whom he
was playing at cards. "They are as ashamed as the devil was when he
singed the hairs on his tail through overheating his parlour."
The solemn justice was somewhat shocked at this piece of levity. He
frowned at his companion, and coughed to cover his annoyance. The man
who had spoken to this disconcerting tenor appeared rather a singular
fellow. It was difficult to say who or what he might be. Of a rather
massive frame, he had a countenance that recommended him to the
curious. His features were large and bold, with an aquiline nose, a
devil of a chin, and a short upper lip. His face shone with wassail
and intemperate excess; there was a deal of sensuality in it, and more
than a suggestion of coarseness, but it was for none of these things
that it was remarkable. There was something besides that was baffling
and indescribable to a degree, that drew one's attention to it again
and again. It was a face of marvellous humorous animation, with the
mockery of a devil and the candour of a saint. It was as prodigal of
wit as it was of appetite; of majesty and mischief; of impudence and
nobility. It was the face of a poet and a sot. Here, apparently, was
a great heart, a humane spirit overlaid with flesh and infirmities. I
think I was never so arrested by a countenance before, and certainly
never more puzzled by one.
"Why do you propose to hang these gentlemen, Tommie?" says this
whimsical fellow, with a mockery in his eyes and a curl of the lip that
made the justice more uncomfortable than ever. "Have they picked a few
hazel-twigs off your honour's footpaths?"
"Oh lord, Harry, I pray you be a little serious," says the justice.
"These are gypsies and sheep-stealers; villains and rascals all."
"They are beyond our prayers then," says Harry. "The law must take its
course. Even if it could overlook the rape of the mutton, it could
never condone the colour of their hair. _Lex citius tolerare vult
privatum damnum quam publicum malum_. There you are as pat and
pragmatical as Marcus Tullius Cicero. I tell you, Tommie, the world
lost a great lawyer when I became a hackney writer."
While this was going forward I had collected a few of my wits and had
determined on the course to pursue. Unless by hook or by crook I could
seize these precious moments prior to our committal to prison in which
to put myself right or regain my freedom, all chance would be gone.
Jack Tiverton was as dear to the law as a sheep-stealing gypsy, and
once before a judge I must prove myself to be the one before I could
prove I was not the other. Therefore I boldly seized the occasion.
"I beg your worship's pardon," says I, humbly; "but surely you will not
commit a man without evidence? And there is not a tittle of evidence
against me. I am neither a gypsy nor a sheep-stealer."
I was several times interrupted in the course of this little address by
one of our custodians, who continued to pluck at my sleeve, and
enjoined me in audible whispers to hold my impertinent tongue. The
justice was astounded by my audacity in daring to address him, and grew
as red and pompous as a turkey-cock.
"How dare you, fellow, talk to me?" says he. "If I had the power I
would commit you twice over for your insolent presumption, yes I would,
so help me."
"Yes, Tommie, you would, so help you," says his friend. "The spirit of
Hector; ye speak like Priam's son. How dare the fellow ask to hear the
evidence when you have had the magnanimity to commit him without it?
Does he forget too that when innocence ceases to suffer it will no
longer be the highest wisdom to be a rogue?"
I was likely to profit nothing by these protestations of my innocence.
This justice was evidently of the worst type of magistrate. He was too
high and mighty to imperil his preconceived opinions by entering into
the merits of the matter. He was too lofty to argue; too swollen with
self-esteem to be affronted with facts. All persons who were brought
before him must be guilty of some crime or other, otherwise they would
not have come there; and he held that he had discharged his office with
credit to himself and with profit to his country when he had
impartially committed them to gaol. I soon came to the conclusion
therefore that it would be impossible to prevail on a man of this mould
with a simple relation of the case, or expect to meet with any
suggestion of justice at his hands. I must try a more uncompromising
method; and that an exceedingly bold one. I must prove to him beyond
all doubt that I was far other than an ignorant gypsy, taking the risk
of the revelation of my true identity, and any consequences that might
ensue. For that matter if I must go to gaol, I might just as well go
there in the role of the defaulting nobleman as in that of the
larcenous vagabond.
Disregarding all attempts on the part of the officers of the law to
restrain me, I gazed about the spacious apartment with the air I might
have worn had it still belonged to me, and says: "The old place is just
as it was, I see. But, my good Sir Thomas, it grieves me to observe
that you have put your fat aunt by the side of a Rubens; and that you
have not scrupled to set a pompous citizen in a tie-wig, who, to judge
by a certain consanguinity of expression and countenance, was the
illustrous man your father and a cheesemonger at that, cheek by jowl
with one of Vandyck's gentlemen."
The justice was too incensed by this audacious speech to find words
with which to reply to it. He spluttered and stuttered himself to the
verge of an apoplexy. His friend took it far otherwise, however.
"A hit, a palpable hit," says he, laughing heartily. "I never heard a
ripe thought better expressed. And, damn it, Tommie, you deserve it
too. Your fat aunt, and your illustrious father the cheesemonger in a
tie-wig, ha, ha, ha! Our friend of the black eye and the bloody
countenance is an amateur of the arts, a lover of the beautiful."
"Remove the prisoners out of my presence," says the justice in a fury.
"No, no, Tommie," says his companion, "you go too fast. Our friend is
so monstrous good that I vow and I protest he must drink a glass of
claret."
Thereupon he countermanded the justice's order with a certain easy air
of authority that was natural to him, which carried more weight than
all the assumption of the magistrate. This strange fellow, still
chuckling, poured out a glass of wine from one of several bottles that
adorned the table, and leaving his seat carried it over to me, despite
the fact that he hobbled very badly with the gout. When he stood up he
was wonderfully imposing, being more than six feet tall, with an
appearance of perfect breeding and majesty, for all his profligate
looks and his free, laughing, jovial, devil-may-care manners. As he
offered me the glass of claret with a charming grace, I looked down at
the cords that so tightly secured my wrists with an air of humorous
deprecation.
"Here, hold this, and keep your long nose clear of the rim," says he,
putting the wine into the hands of the astonished head-constable. He
then drew a knife from his pocket, and without more ado cut off my
fetters. As he did so an honest indignation seemed to run in him
suddenly.
"What a dirty way to treat a gentleman!" he said. "But you must excuse
these low fellows; they are not to blame. They have no discretion but
simply to follow their calling. They only know a hog by his bristles."
"As a former _custos rotulorum_ for the county of Wilts, none knows
that better than I, sir. But I am vastly obliged to you, vastly
obliged."
Thereupon I drank the glass he so kindly handed to me.
"My dear sir," says he, with another great laugh, "that was not the
work of a tyro. There was a neatness and a deftness in the manner of
it that must have cost you at least ten thousand liftings of the elbow
to acquire. You are as good to drink with as to talk to. I'faith you
must do me the honour of sitting at table, for you are a three-bottle
man, or I have never seen one in the world."
You may be sure that I was nothing loth to accept an invitation that
was as unexpected as it was desirable. The bewilderment of the
justice, the constable and his men, and the poor gypsies too, was
boundless as I briskly followed this extraordinary gentleman when he
hobbled back to his chair, and promptly ensconced my disreputable self
in one of the high-backed oaken seats of my forefathers, now so
courteously placed at my disposal. While he proceeded to refill my
glass and his own too, the scandalized magistrate very naturally
expostulated in the most vehement manner.
"Why, Harry, God save us all!" he cried, "have you gone horn-mad? It
is the most outrageous thing that ever was perpetrated. I vow and
protest, Harry, that you are gone stark mad to bring a thief and a
gypsy to my table to share your cups. It is unbearable, Harry, and
'fore God I will not have it. When this gets wind in the county they
will deride me to death. Lord, I shall get struck off the
justice-roll."
"Your petitioner will ever pray," says Harry, while simultaneously we
raised the distraught justice's good claret to our lips.
Taking my cue from the familiarity of my entertainer, I threw aside
restraint and adopted the attitude of a guest in lieu of the humbler
one of a prisoner. Continuing to gaze about completely at my ease,
says I, with that frank criticism that had been formerly so effective:
"Things are no longer what they were. This place hath deteriorated
since I was in it last. The city creeps into the ancestral hall;
cheesemongery obtrudes itself. Where formerly there were Old Masters
and French Tales, there are now Bibles and bad prints. But I rejoice
to see that some few of my ancestors are still faithful to their
old-time haunt. My parents, my grand parents, my uncles, my cousins
and my aunts, Vandycks, Lelys, and Knellers, and the devil knows who,
are still assembled here, even to the replica of Sir Peter's picture of
that nobleman, most illustrious of his race, who made a Commentary on
the _Analects of Confucius_, the original of which I last saw in the
shop of a Jew dealer the other day."
My singular acquaintance with the contents of his dining-room,
evidently far more extensive than his own, was not without its effect
on the justice.
"What is the meaning of all this, Harry?" he asked of my benefactor.
"What is the fel----what is the man talking of? What does the man mean
by his ancestors? Who ever heard such impudence, such effrontery?"
"Well, Tommie," says his frank friend, "I'll lay my last guinea that he
hath more right to call them his ancestors than their present owner."
"A murrain take you," says the justice, more purple than before, for
this was a stab in a tender place. "Will you never learn to control
your infernally long tongue? And yet again must I ask you not to
address me as Tommie when I am in the exercise of my high functions.
Thomas if you like, or my full title would be still better on these
occasions. The King would not have conferred it upon me, were it not
designed for use, and that he desired I should profit by it."
His friend nearly choked himself with laughter long before the justice
had come through this solemn homily. Indeed he could not recover his
breath until he had poured himself out another glass of wine, and had
refilled mine.
"You will kill me of laughing, Tommie, one of these days," says he.
"If it were not that your claret is as good as any for thirty miles
round London, I would never come near you. How a man can keep such a
good table and yet such a poor understanding is a thing I have never
fathomed. But I protest you will certainly kill me if you do not amend
your mind a little."
"Harry," says the justice sternly. "I can never understand how it is
that a grandson of the Earl of Denbigh, and a person of undeniable
family and descent, should have such ungenteel manners."
"Damn the Earl of Denbigh," says Harry, banging his fist on the table,
"and you too, Tommie. You can no more keep that fly out of the
ointment, than a pig can his snout out of the muck."
"What, sir," says I eagerly, "are you also cursed with a grandfather?"
"Aye, to be sure I am," says he. "Though I'll thank no man that names
him. If it were not for my grandfather I could go to the devil in my
own way."
"Why, my dear sir," says I, "never were there two such brothers in
misfortune. Your case is the very counterpart of mine."