A HEAVY STAKE.
The travellers spent their first night agreeably enough. The weather was
fine, the inn at Hounslow roomy and luxurious. My lady seemed pleased
with the fresh eggs, the country cream. My lord found amusement in the
airs and graces of his hostess, who was more than flattered by the
notice of so fine a gentleman. Even the servants were good enough to
express approval of the ale, the lodging, and the change. Our whole
party started next morning in good humour, and the very waiting-maid,
who had been in tears for the first six miles out of London, protested
that under certain conditions the country might be almost tolerable.
My lord's first footman, a stout high-coloured personage in charge of
the blunderbuss, was unremitting in his attentions, and Mistress Rachel,
as she was called, in the absence of higher game, condescended to
receive his homage with the favour five-and-forty shows to
five-and-twenty. At a subsequent period indeed she declared "he hadn't
the heart of a hen!" but for the present seemed satisfied to accept him
as he was.
Such a favourable state of things could not be expected to last
four-and-twenty hours. At noon of the second day it began to rain, a
trace broke, a horse cast a shoe, the man with the blunderbuss proved
useless in a difficulty, Mistress Rachel grew despondent, my lady
sulked, my lord swore, the unwieldy vehicle creaked, groaned, swung, and
finally stopped in the middle of a hill.
"Let me out!" screamed Lady Bellinger, whose nervous system was of the
weakest, and on whose temper fear had an exasperating effect. "I'd
rather walk. I _will_ get out, I'll go back,--Richard!--Robin! open the
door."
"Don't be a fool!" exclaimed my lord, as the carriage got into motion
once more. "How can you go back, Ellen? You're forty miles from London
if you're a yard."
My lady's head-dress vibrated with anger. "I am a fool indeed," she
replied, "or I shouldn't be here! And this is the reward of my devotion
as a wife. This is your return for my accompanying you into exile. Lord
Bellinger, I _will_ speak. Indifference I am accustomed to. Unkindness I
have put up with for many a long day, patient, and forbearing, while my
heart was broke, but I have a spirit ("you have indeed," muttered his
lordship), though you try your best to crush it, and ill-usage I will
submit to no longer."
It is possible her husband might have entered a more energetic protest
than the "d--d nonsense" he whispered under his breath, but that his
attention was diverted at this juncture to the beauty and action of a
horse passing at a gallop, ridden by a young man whose seat and bearing
did justice to the animal he bestrode. When Lord Bellinger, who thrust
himself half out of the carriage to follow the pair with his eyes,
subsided into his seat, he had forgotten all about their dispute in this
new excitement; my lady, however, with her face buried in a
handkerchief, continued to sob at intervals, till they reached their
destination for the night.
This was a comfortable hostelry enough, yet lacking many of the luxuries
that rendered the inn at Hounslow so agreeable a resting-place. Mistress
Rachel, alighting with a hand on the shoulder of her admirer, expressed
alarm lest it might be tenanted by ghosts; whereat the latter's comely
cheek turned pale, while he resolved incontinently to fortify his
courage with beer. The new arrivals had no reason to complain of their
reception. The servants were amply regaled in the kitchen, a good supper
was served for my lord and my lady in the parlour. The choicer meal
vanished in profound silence, which Lord Bellinger tried more than once
to break; but, finding his efforts ineffectual, and knowing by
experience the obstinacy of his wife's reserve when she was "out of
spirits," he gave up the attempt, and applied himself to the Burgundy
his host brought in person. He finished the bottle as her ladyship, in
dignified silence, retired to bed; and ringing the bell for another,
felt creeping over him the accustomed longing for cards, dice,
company--some excitement in which to spend the evening.
"Landlord," said he, as that stout and stolid personage entered the room
with a cobwebbed bottle and a corkscrew, "can you play picquet?"
The landlord smiled foolishly. He did not know what his lordship was
driving at.
"Fetch a pack of cards," continued my lord, "and I will teach you."
The landlord excused himself in considerable alarm. "It was too much
honour," he said; "he doubted he was too old to learn. Would his
lordship like a toast of bread and an olive with his wine?"
"I had rather deal than drink," answered Lord Bellinger, "though I'm in
the humour for both. If there's nobody in the house to play a game at
whist or ombre, send round to the stable, and tell the ostler I will try
my luck with him at all-fours."
The landlord stared; but a bright thought struck him, and he observed:
"There's a gentleman in the Sunflower who arrived this afternoon. He
looks like a gentleman who wouldn't object to a game of cards, or
anything in that way."
"Bravo, Boniface," was the answer. "Carry him my respects--Lord
Bellinger's respects--with a bottle of your best, and say, if he is at
leisure I shall be happy to wait on him at once."
The landlord delivered his message with alacrity, and in less than five
minutes John Garnet answered it in person at his lordship's door. He had
come to this hostelry for the very purpose of obtaining the introduction
he now found so easy; and rather regretted the amount of thought he had
wasted after supper in considering how he should make Lord Bellinger's
acquaintance, and gain his confidence sufficiently to betray it. With
his best bow and pleasantest smile, "plain John Garnet" stood on the
threshold, and assured the other that no consideration would have
induced him to permit his lordship to ascend to the Sunflower till he
had himself come down to conduct him upstairs, if he would so far honour
his humble apartment, where he would at once direct preparations to be
made for the reception of his noble visitor.
"Zounds, man!" answered the other, who at this period of the evening was
seldom disposed to stand on ceremony, "we want nothing but a bottle of
Burgundy and a pack of cards. They are both on that table. Let us sit
down at once and make the most of our time."
"Agreed," replied his guest; "and your lordship shall choose the game
and the stakes."
"What say you to picquet?" asked the nobleman, opening the Burgundy,
"Ten guineas a game. Twenty--fifty, if you like?"
John Garnet, reflecting that he knew nothing of his adversary's force,
and was himself no great performer, modestly chose the lowest stake, and
proceeded to play his hand with as much care as his own preoccupation
and the strange position in which he found himself permitted. Picquet is
a game requiring, no less than skill and practice, undivided attention.
John Garnet could not forbear glancing about the room for some symptoms
of the documents he desired to make his own; wondering if they were kept
in his lordship's pockets, in her ladyship's baggage, under charge of
the servants. It is not surprising that at the end of the first game he
found himself the better by two glasses of moderate Burgundy, and the
worse by ten golden pieces stamped with the image of King George. He
ventured a second game, and with the same result.
To do Lord Bellinger justice, he was not a rapacious gambler. He loved
winning well enough, but would rather lose heavily than not play at all.
"I am too strong for you," said he; "I ought to have told you picquet is
my especial game."
But when did a loser ever admit the superiority of an adversary's skill?
"Your lordship held good cards," answered John Garnet; "my luck is the
likelier to turn. I call for a fresh pack."
So the waiter was summoned, and more cards, with another bottle of wine,
were brought in. Lord Bellinger began to feel the old wild impulses
rising in his heart; and John Garnet, a desperate man, bound on a
desperate errand, had no disinclination to venture Katerfelto's money in
an undertaking that compromised his own head.
After two more games, Lord Bellinger had won a hundred guineas; and John
Garnet was at the end of his resources.
"My lord," said he, "a man does not journey a-horseback with the Bank of
England in his pocket. I have lost to your lordship as much as I can
afford to pay."
He spoke with some ill-humour, and rose from the table as though to take
his leave.
"One more game," pleaded Lord Bellinger, who would have paid his last
guinea rather than go to bed before midnight. "Sit down again, my good
sir; if we cannot play for money, we can play for money's worth."
John Garnet obeyed, with a forced smile. To be a good loser was
considered one of the essentials in the character of a gentleman; and he
would have sunk in his own, no less than in his companion's esteem, had
he declined the unequal contest for so paltry an excuse as want of
means.
"That is a fine horse you rode here," continued his lordship, shuffling
the cards. "If you like to put a price on him, I will stake the sum
named against the animal."
"Five hundred!" answered John Garnet.
"Agreed," said the other, though the five hundred guineas he had
borrowed from Katerfelto constituted all the funds he possessed in the
world.
So they played one more game, and again Fortune smiled on Lord
Bellinger, who emptied his glass with a smack, having despoiled his
adversary of the grey horse and one hundred guineas in gold.
It seemed an unpromising beginning, but John Garnet's courage rose with
the exigencies of his position. He pulled a purse from his pocket, and
counted down on the table one hundred guineas, piece by piece, with a
good-humoured smile.
"No doubt," said he, "your lordship will give me my revenge at some
future time. I shall leave the horse in charge of your lordship's
servants to-morrow morning. I can pledge you my word he is as good as he
looks."
"What do you call him?" asked the other, carelessly.
"Katerfelto," answered John Garnet, taken by surprise, and blurting out
the word that first occurred to him, because it would have seemed so
strange to hesitate at the name of his own horse.
Lord Bellinger started. "Do _you_ know Katerfelto?" said he. "I have
always believed that man must be the devil in person!"
"I got the horse with that name," answered John Garnet, "and his new
owner can alter it at pleasure; but as I must be a-foot, literally
a-foot, early to-morrow morning, I will now take my leave, and wish your
lordship good-night."
So, with many profound bows, the pair separated, and the loser, to his
extreme disgust, heard Lord Bellinger's door carefully locked on the
inside.