IT was late before the Lotos-eaters parted, although London clubmen
take more out of the night than is the habit with New-Yorkers. The
raciness of the evening’s speeches was repeated in the stories that
were told by the genial few, who sat and talked and smoked with their
guest until Fifth avenue was as quiet and deserted as it was when a
crowd of admiring friends went out to meet the “Britannic” a week
previously. _Apropos_ of an amusing anecdote, with a practical joke in
it, which was related, I think, by Colonel Knox, the courteous honorary
secretary of the club, Irving said, “I am not much of a hand at that
kind of fun, but I remember an incident in which my old friend Toole, a
Glasgow doctor, and myself were engaged that may amuse you. Some years
ago we found ourselves with a holiday forced upon us by the church of
Scotland. We utilized it by going out a short distance into the country
and dining together at a famous roadside inn. The house was quite empty
of guests, and we claimed the privilege of travellers, on our way to
the next town, to sit over our dinner a trifle later than it was the
custom to keep the bar open. The landlord was very civil, and we had an
excellent dinner. The waiter who attended to our wants was a quaint old
fellow,—one of those rugged sort of serving-men with whom Sir Walter
Scott has made us all so well acquainted. While he was respectful,
he was, nevertheless, very talkative. He told us there had been of
late many robberies in the neighborhood. The constabulary, he said,
were quite out of their reckoning in regard to tracing the thieves.
He wondered if the country was going back again to the coaching days
when cracksmen and highwaymen had it all their own way in those parts.
The old fellow was a little superstitious too, and a lover of the
marvellous, as many of the country people who live outside great cities
are apt to be.
“‘You seem a trifle hipped,’ I said; ‘take a glass of wine.’
“‘I am just a wee bit low,’ he said; ‘what wi’ the bad weather, the
dull times’—
“‘And the robberies you’ve lately had about here,’ I suggested.
“‘Ah, weel, they’re nae calculated to raise one’s sperits. Good health
to you, gentlemen!’
“We thanked him and I filled his glass again.
“‘This house,’ said Toole, ‘is rather a lonely place; you don’t have
many guests staying here?’
“‘Not at this time o’ the year,’ he replied; ‘only just chance
customers.’
“I filled his glass again before he went for the cheese. When he came
back I took up a fork, and expressed some surprise that his master
should, in these thieving days, entrust his guests with real silver
plate.
“‘I dinna bring it oot for everybody,’ he replied; ‘but for a pairty o’
gentlemen like yoursels, it’s a defferent thing.’
“‘Is the salver there,’ asked Toole, taking up the running and pointing
to the sideboard, ‘real silver?’
“‘Indeed it is, and all the plate aboot is silver, and I ken they dinna
mak’ sich silver nowadays.’
“‘Bring us a little whiskey!—a pint in a decanter; a drop of the
best,’ I said.
“Having planted the right kind of seed in his mind for the working of
a little jest I had in my own, my companions and myself entered into
a conspiracy against the peace of this harmless Scotchman. Invited to
take a nip of whiskey, he readily complied, and just as readily took
a seat. We drew him out about all the robberies and murders he could
remember, and then deftly got from him the statement that his master
had gone to bed, leaving up only himself, the bar-maid, and his wife.
Presently the doctor looked at his watch, and said it would soon be
time for us to go. ‘I think you had better get our bill, Sandy,’ I
said, for by this time I was quite on familiar terms with him, and he
with me. ‘You need not be in a hurry; let us have it in about a quarter
of an hour,’ added Toole, somewhat mysteriously. ‘We are not quite
ready to go yet.’
“‘Vary weel, and thank ye,’ he said, at the same time making us a
bow which was quite a study of manner, combining independence and
servility. He was a fine old fellow, straight as a poplar, but with a
face full of wrinkles, and a characteristic gait that some people would
call a mannerism.
“The moment he left the room each of us seized a piece of plate until
we had cleared up every bit of silver in the room. We noted the exact
places from which we took every piece; then we opened the window. It
was a very dark night, but we had noticed that close by the window
there were some thick shrubs. We put out the gas, but left alight two
candles on the table, so that we could see from our hiding-place what
Sandy’s face would look like when it should dawn upon him that we were
a pack of thieves—perhaps part of the gang of swell mobsmen who had
become the terror of the district.
“I shall never forget the bewildered expression of the poor fellow’s
face as he stared at the empty room. Amazement gave place to fear,
and fear to indignation, when he discovered that the silver had been
carried off.
“‘Great heevens!’ he exclaimed. ‘Thieves! berglers! robbers! An’ if the
rogues hae nae carried off the plate and gan awa’ wi’out payin’ their
score into the bargain, my name is nae Sandy Blake!”
“He rushed to the open window and peered wildly out into the darkness.
“‘The scoundrels were just fooling me, like any softy.’
“Then he began to shout ‘Thieves!’ and ‘Murder!’ and ran off, as we
hoped and expected he would, to alarm the house. We all crept back to
the room, closed the window, drew down the blind, relighted the gas and
our cigars, put each piece of silver back into its proper place, and
sat down to wait for our bill. We could hear Sandy, at the top of his
voice, telling the story of the robbery; and in a few minutes we heard,
evidently the entire household, coming pell-mell to the dining-room.
Then our door was flung open; but the crowd, instead of rushing in upon
us, suddenly paused _en masse_, and Sandy exclaimed, ‘Great God! Weel,
weel! Hae I just gane clean daft?’
“‘Come awa’, drunken foo’, come awa’!’ exclaimed the landlord, pulling
Sandy and the rest back into the passage and shutting the door; but we
could hear how both master and wife abused poor Sandy, who did nothing
but call upon his Maker and declare, if he had to die that minute, when
he went into the room it was empty of both guests and silver. He was
told to go to bed and sleep off his drunk, and thank his stars that his
long service saved him from instant dismissal.
“We rang the bell. The landlord himself answered it. We asked for an
explanation of the hubbub. It was nothing, he said, only that his man
had got drunk and made a fool of himself. Was that all, we asked.
Well, yes, except that he was very sorry to have so disturbed us.
To have all the house burst in upon us, we said, was such a strange
proceeding, that we begged he would explain it. He said he did not
like to do so. It was the first time Sandy had ever been known to get
so drunk as to lose his senses, and all he could do was to express his
regret that his servant had made a fool of himself; but he would not
insult his guests by telling them how great an ass the fellow was. We
coaxed him, however, to explain the entire business; and at last, with
many apologies, he told us how the drunken fool had mistaken us for
a pack of thieves, and swore we had run off without paying our bill
and taken the plate with us. We humored the landlord for a time, and
when he was at last in a genial temper we told him the true story,
and he enjoyed the joke as well as any of us. Then we had him send
for Sandy, who was so glad to discover that he had not lost his wits
that a couple of sovereigns left him, at our departure, just as happy
and contented a man as he was before making the acquaintance of ‘a
parcel of actors,’ who are still regarded in some remote corners of
Great Britain as the ‘rogues and vagabonds’ they are proclaimed in our
ancient statute-books.”