I DISCOVER A GREAT AUTHOR WHERE I LEAST EXPECT TO FIND ONE
While all this was going forward very eloquent glances were repeatedly
exchanged between the justice and the head-constable. They were both
equally at a loss to know what to do in the matter. Their plain duty
was to have me removed in custody. But this they could not very well
do, seeing on what terms of intimacy I had already been placed. There
must be a grave mistake somewhere. What it was they were too greatly
puzzled to say, but the end of it all was that my fellow-prisoners were
removed into the stables against the next morning, when they could be
more conveniently taken to prison, whilst I for the nonce was allowed
to remain seated at the table in the society of my whimsical friend.
Sir Thomas's composure had been so rudely shaken that for a long time
he could hardly venture on another word. He sat watching us with a
kind of stupefied horror, whilst we made short work of several bottles
of his most excellent claret.
"The true Falernian," says my companion, smacking his lips. "I would
that Roman fellow were here in the room of Tommie, who sits like a dead
dog in a dry ditch. I have remarked it before, and I remark it again,
that I can never understand how it is that a man who can keep such a
full-bodied, generous wine in his cellar should yet keep such a lean,
ill-liberal heart in his body. It is an internal paradox on which I
break my brains anew. You would think that one would cry out upon the
other, and that they could live together no better than a keg of
gunpowder and a live coal. And how in the first place they ever came
to be associated passes me. Ring the bell, Tommie, and tell 'em to
bring us up another bottle a-piece."
While Sir Thomas did so with the mechanical meekness of one well
accustomed to obey, says I:
"I think I can give you ease on this last matter, sir. Hath it never
struck you that our host may have bought his cellar at the same shop
that he bought his ancestors? It sticks in my mind that I have met
both his forebears and his vintages before. Indeed, to come down to
the details of this odd matter, I believe at the period of which I
speak they may have had my name appended to them."
"Shrewdly said, sir," says my companion; and then going on to another
matter which I had sedulously been leading up to, for I had come to the
conclusion that my one chance of ultimate escape lay in betraying
myself entirely, continued: "You begin to interest me vastly. I
confess you are a man after my own heart. I like your talk, I like
your manner, the colour of your eye, the cock of your old beak,
i'faith, I like you altogether. You are the very perfect gentle guest;
you abuse your host and drink his wine with the same impartial spirit.
You bear the same relation to a gypsy as our club-footed Thomas does to
the herald Mercury. No, no, my good sir, it will not do; _ex ungue
leonem_."
"Your compliments charm me," says I, raising the glass to my lips
again, "but I could have wished, sir, that you had not nosed out my
_incognito_. It may be the source of a greater inconvenience than I
care to think about, if it and I part company."
"The blame is entirely your own, sir," says the other. "Hercules
should not try to hide behind an arbutus tree. But no man ever had
aught to fear from me, unless that man was myself. To him, it is true,
I have been a great enemy. Yet I'll swear on my life that even that
poor unlucky young man whose name is proscribed in this morning's
news-letter would never be a penny the worse for revealing himself to
such a rough fellow as me. As for Tommie, I will answer for Tommie
too. It is true that Tommie hath weaknesses, but they are on the
surface mostly. If he can never forget that Nature had a hand in the
fashioning of Sir T. Wheatley, Knight, and Justice of the Peace, and is
in a sense a self-made man therefore, he nevertheless hath a very good
heart. I can answer for Tommie as for myself."
When he came to mention the "poor unlucky young man," I suppose I must
have winced or blinked a little, or he was a marvellously subtle and
keen observer, for after looking into my eyes, he slapped his hand on
his thigh, and cried:
"By God, can it be? Surely it is too whimsical, too fantastical.
These things do not happen outside the story books."
"Such a coincidence is a little after the manner of _Tom Jones_, to be
sure, sir," says I.
I suppose it was the word "story books" that led to my mentioning that
immortal novel which at that moment held all the town in a spell of
wonder and delight. But no sooner had I uttered the magic name of _Tom
Jones_ than I thought I saw my companion's flushed face flush deeper
than ever, and at the same instant my mind was assailed with a dozen
points of recognition. In a flash I jumped to the conclusion that I
was being entertained by the author of that inimitable work. For a
moment we sat regarding one another with the frankest amusement. Then
my companion took up his glass, and lifting it slowly to his lips, says:
"Lord Tiverton."
Thereupon I followed his polite example; and when the glass was at my
lips, says I:
"Mr. Henry Fielding."
Upon that we fell a-laughing wildly, and wrung one another warmly by
the hand. Now that the murder was out we grew closer in
good-fellowship. Had we not shown proofs of an admirable sagacity in
our previous respect for one another? The magistrate, however, was
aghast. No sooner was he acquainted with my name than he was beset
with his manifest duty as a justice of the peace.
"As you are a refugee from the law, my lord," says he, looking
anxiously at me and then at Fielding, "I fear that I have no
alternative other than to hand you over to the proper authorities. You
see, as one holding his Majesty's commission of the peace for this
county, I am precluded from giving way to any private feelings I might
entertain in the matter, but must do my plain and obvious duty, however
it be opposed to the dictates of my heart."
The dignity and the rather florid effect of this speech, which I will
do Sir Thomas the justice of saying was very well meant, was utterly
spoiled by Mr. Fielding's reception of it.
"Come down off the high horse, Tommie, if you love me," says he. "Be
damned to the dictates of your heart and your duty too. Do strive to
be natural, Tommie; if you would but be content to be natural I would
suffer you gladly, for at bottom you are as good a fellow as I know.
But when you get on these magisterial airs of yours a common mortal
cannot touch you with a six-foot pole."
"That is all very well, Harry," says Sir Thomas, "but you forget my
responsibilities."
"There you go again," says Fielding. "Be damned to your
responsibilities. Come and drink a glass of good claret with us and
forget yourself, your office, your dignity, your wig, your knighthood,
and your laced coat for a brief five minutes. Perpend, Tommie,
perpend; and for the nonce consent to be a human being."
"Would you have me, then," says the magistrate, "sit down with a man in
my own house, knowing him to be a great criminal? How can I possibly
entertain such a person? Were I to do so I should be altogether
unworthy of the high trust that hath been reposed in me."
Mr. Fielding scratched his wig.
"A very moral sentiment," says he, "but all the morality in the world
is not worth a penn'orth of humanity."
"Sir," says I warmly, "I am grateful to you. You can scarcely know how
an example such as yours helps a drowning man to keep his head above
the flood that is like to overwhelm him. But I think I owe it to
myself to lessen the weight of Sir Thomas's responsibilities, by
assuring you that I am innocent of the horrid crime with which I am
charged. The poor fellow came by his end in a fair fight; and
therefore if you can only overlook the sums I owe my creditors, you may
relieve your scruples."
"I am more than glad of these assurances," says the justice. "A great
load is taken off my mind."
"On the contrary," says Mr. Fielding, "they make not a farthingworth of
difference to me. I care not if you are the most long-suffering peer
that ever went to the dogs, or if you are the greatest villain that
ever tried to dodge the gallows. What's the odds? You are a proper
enough fellow for all rational purposes. Certainly I would not choose
to meet Mr. Jack Sheppard in a lonely lane on a dark night, but I would
as willingly drink a bottle with a lad of his mettle just as well as
with another. If a man shall bear himself gallantly at table, with a
merry courage and a kindling eye, who am I that shall ask uncivil
questions of him?"
Whatever Mr. Henry Fielding's philosophy, and it seemed to have a
savour of that of the late eminent Sir John Falstaff, Knight, he was a
fine merry companion, who asked no better of the hour and the company
in which he sat than that they should consort with his humour. After a
while his wit, his gallant spirits, and his brave bearing before the
bottle did not fail of their effect upon the justice too. That staid
and pompous fellow resisted them for a time, but as first one and then
another bottle was numbered among the slain, and our tongues grew
looser as our brains grew warm, he fell at last from his high estate
and was seduced into a course that ill consisted with his sentiments.
When he had accepted several glasses from Mr. Fielding's own fair hands
he began to grow rather thicker in his speech, weighed his words less,
and showed several signs of having departed from his usual habit.
"You can see," says Mr. Fielding, winking at me, "that our gallant
Tommie hath been nurtured on cinnamon-water and Dr. Akenside's sermons.
I should say that four glasses are about the limit of him; five, and he
goes over the verge."
Although both Mr. Fielding and I had already accommodated a far greater
quantity than the magistrate, we had served such a much longer
apprenticeship to this business (the shame is our own) that whereas we
were scarcely conscious as yet of what we had drunk, the square-toed
Sir Thomas was already hanging out his evidences. Now no sooner did I
observe this disposition in him than I was taken with a scheme by which
my poor fellow-prisoners incarcerated in the stables outside were to
profit. Whatever my shortcomings, I would never have it said of me
that I left a friend in the lurch. These poor gypsies had given us of
their hospitality; that in itself therefore was enough of a reason why
I should endeavour to spare them a hanging. Therefore I suggested the
matter to my companion.
"Do you think, sir," says I, "that we can get our good magistrate drunk
enough to be worked on to give the order for the release of my poor
friends the gypsies? It is like to go very hard with them, I fear,
unless we can find some such way as this to aid them."
"It is very well thought on," says this truly humane fellow, without so
much as pausing to consider the matter. "Leave this jocund old
justicer to me, and I'll answer for it that the king's enemies shall
get a free pardon. Now then, Tommie, by your leave I'll name a toast.
We will drink to Law and Order. Fill up, Tommie, and no heel-taps."
So thoroughly did Mr. Fielding enter into this plan, that very soon Sir
Thomas began to babble in his talk with a most unwonted levity, and
even essayed to sing a song. With such assiduity was he plied, that he
presently advanced stage by stage, until my companion considered him to
be sufficiently primed for this business. Thereon Fielding rang the
bell and ordered the head-constable, who with his men was keeping guard
over the premises, to be brought to him. When that worthy presented
himself, Mr. Fielding says with an inimitable glib audacity:
"Sir Thomas, after much weighing of the merits of this case, hath come
to the conclusion that the evidence is not sufficient to send these
prisoners for trial. He is sensibly fearful of some miscarriage of
justice, the more particularly as one of their number that you brought
before him hath turned out on an examination to be anything but what he
was represented. Therefore Sir Thomas bids me to inform you that he
hath decided to remit these charges. And he would have you release
these people at once, that they may go about their business. And when
you have done this, you are to take your men to the kitchen, where they
are to have a good supper of beef and ale, and they can then repair to
their homes. And at least this course, this somewhat extreme course I
may say, that Sir Thomas hath decided on will save you all from a long
and weary vigil in the night air."
However surprised the head-constable was at this unexpected turn of
events, he was by no means disposed to cavil at it, since the only way
in which the fate of the gypsies could affect himself was the one that
Mr. Fielding had so adroitly indicated. Not so the scandalized
justice. Fuddled as he was, he had enough wit left to apprehend what
was going forward. But he had not enough, however, to interpose his
authority in a way that was at all likely to take effect. At all his
thick and nearly inarticulate protests, his friend Mr. Fielding kept
hushing and soothing him down, with highly eloquent and imploring
gestures.
"Oh lord, Tommie," he would say, "I pray you have a care. Here am I
trying to conceal the fact that you are abominably drunk, and yet you
will flaunt it and advertise it, before the servants too. Think of
your own dignity, Tommie, I beseech you."
Whereon the head-constable would rub his coat-sleeve across his face to
conceal his laughter. Sir Thomas would grunt and wriggle and writhe
his tipsy protests, and his friend, Mr. Fielding, with the oddest
mingling of sorrow, amusement, and solemnity, apparently struggled to
put the best face he could on the justice's scandalous behaviour.