CAPTAIN BOLD
I have mentioned that Slap-Jack, too, while he rode perforce so
rapidly homewards, was pursued by a black Care of his own, waiting for
a momentary halt to leap up behind. Even with a foretopman, though,
perhaps, no swain ought to have a better chance, the course of true love
does not always run smooth. There was a pebble now ruffling Slap-Jack’s
amatory stream, and that pebble was known at the “Hamilton Arms” as
Captain Bold.
He might have had a score of other designations in a score of other
places; in fact, he was just the sort of gentleman whom one name would
suffice less than one shirt; but here, at least, he was welcomed, and, to
a certain extent, trusted under that title.
Now Captain Bold, if he ever disguised himself for the many expeditions
in which he boasted to have been engaged, must have done considerable
violence to his feelings by suppressing the three peculiarities for
which he was most conspicuous, and in which he seemed to take the
greatest pride. These specialities were the Captain’s red nose, his
falsetto voice, and his bay mare. The first he warmed and comforted with
generous potations at all hours, for though not a deep, he was a frequent
drinker; the second, he exercised continually in warbling lyrics tending
to the subversion of morals—in shrieking out oaths denoting a fertile
imagination, with a cultivated talent for cursing—and in narrating
interminable stories over his cups, of which his own triumphs in love and
war formed the groundwork; the third—he was never tired of riding to and
fro over the moor, of going to visit in the stable, or of glorifying in
the tap-room for the edification of all comers, expatiating on her shape,
her qualities, her speed, her mettle, and her queer temper, amenable to
no authority but his own.
The captain’s first acquaintance with Mrs. Dodge dated some two months
back, when he entered the hostelry one stormy evening, and swaggered
about the stable-yard and premises as if thoroughly familiar with
the place. This did not astonish the landlady, who, herself a late
arrival, concluded he was some old customer of her predecessor’s; but,
hazarding that natural supposition to an ancient ostler, who had been
at the “Hamilton Arms” from a boy, and never slept out of the stable
since he could remember, she was a little surprised to learn old Robin
had no recollection whatever of the captain, though he was perfectly
well acquainted with the mare. That remarkable animal had been fed and
dressed over by his own hands, he declared, only last winter, and was
then the property of a Quaker from the East Riding, a respectable-looking
gentleman as ever he clapped eyes on—warm, no doubt, for the mare was in
first-rate condition, and her master paid him from a purse full of broad
pieces—a _wet_ Quaker, old Robin thought, by reason of his smelling so
strong of brandy when he mounted before daylight in the morning.
Mrs. Dodge, conversing with her guest of the wonderful mare, mentioned
her old servant’s reminiscences.
“Right!” exclaimed the captain, with his accustomed flourish—“right as
my glove! or, I should say, my dear madam, right as your own bodice! A
Quaker—very true! A man about my own size, with a—well, a _prominent_
nose. Pale, flaxen-haired; would have been a good-looking chap with a
little more colouring; and respectable—most respectable! Oh, yes! that’s
the Quaker I bought her of and a good bargain I made. We’ll drink the
Quaker’s health, if you please. A very good bargain!”
And the captain laughed heartily, though Mrs. Dodge could not, for the
life of her, see the point of his jest.
But, while she reprobated his profane conversation, and entertained no
very profound respect for his general character, the captain was yet a
welcome guest in Mrs. Dodge’s sanctum. His anecdotes were so lively—his
talk was so fluent—he took off his glass with so gallant a flourish to
her own and her niece’s health, paying them, at the same time, such
extravagant compliments of the newest town mode—that it was impossible to
damp this genial spirit with an austerity which must have been assumed,
or rebukes uttered by lips endeavouring to repress a smile.
But with Alice it was not so; she held the captain in a natural
abhorrence, and shrank from him as people sometimes do from a toad or
other reptile, when she happened to meet him in passages, staircases,
or out-of-the-way corners, never permitting him to approach her unless
protected by the company of her aunt.
Mrs. Dodge, however, would sometimes spend an hour and more in certain
household duties upstairs, leaving Alice to mind the bar during her
absence. The girl was singing over her needlework, according to custom,
thinking, in all probability, of Slap-Jack, when, much to her annoyance,
the captain’s red nose protruded itself over the half-door, followed, in
due course, by his laced coat, his jack-boots, and the rest of his gaudy,
tarnished, and somewhat dissipated person.
Seeing Alice alone, he affected to start with pleasure, made a feint
of retiring, and then insinuated himself towards the fireplace, with a
theatrical gallantry that was to her, of all his airs and graces, the
most insupportable.
“Divine Alice!” he exclaimed, flourishing his dirty hand, adorned with
rings, “alone in her bower, and singing over her sampler like a siren.
The jade Fortune owed honest Jack Bold this turn. Strike him blind if
she didn’t! He comes for a vulgar drain, and lo! a cordial—the elixir of
life—the rosy dew of innocence—the balmy breath of beauty!”
“What d’ye lack, sir?” asked Alice, contemptuously ignoring this
rhodomontade, and stretching her pretty hand towards a shelf loaded with
divers preparations of alcohol well known to the visitor.
“What I lacked, my sweetest,” said the unabashed captain, “when I entered
this bower of bliss and bastion of beauty, was a mere mortal’s morning
draught—a glass of strong waters, we will say, with a clove in it, or
perhaps a mouthful of burnt brandy, to keep out the raw moorland air.
What I lack now, since I have seen your lovely lips, seems to be the
chaste salute valour claims from beauty. We will take the brandy and
cloves afterwards!”
So speaking, the captain moved a little round table out of his way, and,
taking off his cocked hat with a flourish, advanced the red nose and
forbidding face very close to Alice, as if to claim the desired salute.
In his operations, the skirt of his heavily laced coat brought work,
work-box, thimble, and all to the ground.
Alice stooped to pick them up. When she rose again her colour was very
bright, possibly from the exertion, and she pointed once more to the
bottles.
“Give your orders, sir,” said she, angrily, “and go! I am sure I never—I
never expected to be rude to a customer, but—there—it’s too bad—I won’t
stand it, I won’t—not if I go up to my aunt in her bedroom this very
minute!”
Poor Alice was now dissolved in tears, but, true to her instincts, filled
the captain his glass of brandy all the same.
The latter drank it slowly, relishing every drop, and, keeping his
person between Alice and the half-door, seemed to enjoy her confusion,
which, obviously, from the conceited satisfaction of his countenance,
he attributed to an unfortunate passion for himself. Suddenly her face
brightened, a well-known footstep hastened up the passage, and the next
moment Slap-Jack entered the bar.
Alice dashed away her tears, the captain assumed an attitude of profound
indifference, and the new arrival looked from one to the other with a
darkening brow.
“What, again?” said he, turning fiercely on the intruder, and approaching
very close, in that aggressive manner which is almost equivalent to a
blow. “I thought as I’d given _you_ warning already to let this here
young woman be. You think as you’re lying snug enough, may be, in smooth
water, with your name painted out and a honest burgee at your truck; but
I’ll larn you better afore I’ve done with you, if you comes cruising any
more in my fishing-ground. There’s some here as’ll make you show your
number, and we’ll soon see who’s captain then!”
Honest Jack Bold, as he called himself, was not deficient in
self-command. Sipping his brandy with the utmost coolness, he turned to
Alice, and, motioning towards Slap-Jack, boiling over within six inches
of him, observed, in his high-quavering voice:
“Favoured lover, I presume! Visits here, I hope, with our good aunt’s
sanction. Seems a domestic servant by his dress, though I gather, from
the coarseness of his language, he has served before the mast!—a sad
come-down, sweet Alice! for a girl with your advantages. These seaman, I
fancy, are all given to liquor. Offer your bachelor something to drink,
and score it, if you please, to my account. A sad come-down!—a sad
come-down! Why burn me, Mistress Alice, with your good looks, you might
almost have married a gentleman—you might, indeed! Sink me to the lowest
depths of matrimonial perdition, if you might not!”
Slap-Jack could have stood a good deal, but to be offered a dram by a
rival in this off-hand way, through the medium of his own sweetheart,
was more than flesh and blood could swallow. In defiance of Alice’s
entreaties, who was horribly frightened at the prospect of a quarrel, and
as pale now as she had been flushed a few minutes back, he shook a broad
serviceable fist in the captain’s face, and burst out—
“A gentleman! you swab! What do _you_ know about gentlemen? All the
sort as _you’ve_ seen is them that hangs at Tyburn; and look, if you’re
not rove up there yourself some fine morning, my saucy blade, with your
night-cap over your ears, and a bunch of rue in your hand. Gentlemen
indeed! Now look you here, Captain John Bold, or whatever other _alias_
your papers may show when they’re overhauled, if ever I catches of you
in here alone, a parsecutin’ of my Alice, or even hears o’ your so much
as standing’ off-and-on, a watchin’ for her clearin’ out, or on the open
moor, or homeward bound, or what not, I’ll smash that great red nose
of yours as flat as a Port-Royal jelly-fish, you ugly, brandy-faced,
bottle-nosed, lop-sided son of a gun!”
The captain had borne with considerable equanimity his adversary’s
quarrelsome gestures and threats of actual violence, keeping very near
the door, corporeally, indeed, and entrenching himself morally, as it
were, in the dignity of his superior position, but at these allusions to
his personal appearance he lost all self-control. His face grew livid,
his very nose turned pale, his eyes blazed, and his hand stole to the
short cutlass or hanger he carried at his side. Something in Slap-Jack’s
face, whose glance followed the movement of his fingers, checked any
resort to this weapon, and even in his fury, the captain had the presence
of mind to place himself outside the half-door of the bar; but when there
he caught hold of it with both hands, for he was trembling all over, and
burst forth—
“You think the sun is on _your_ side of the hedge, my fine fellow, I
dare say, but you’ll know better before a week’s out. Ay, you may laugh,
but you’ll laugh the other side of your mouth when the right end is
uppermost, as uppermost it will be, and I take you out on the terrace
with a handkerchief over your eyes, and a file of honest fellows, with
carbines loaded, who are in my pay even now. Ay, you’ll sing small then,
I think, for all your blare and bluster to-day. You’ll sing small, d’ye
hear? on the wet grass under the windows at Hamilton Hill, and your
master’ll sing small with his feet tied under his horse’s belly, riding
down the north road and on his way to Tyburn, under a warrant from King
Ja― Well, a warrant from the king; and that Frenchified jade, your
missus’ll sing small―”
But here the captain sprang to the door, at which his mare was standing
ready, leaped to the saddle, and rode off at a gallop, cursing his tongue
the while, which, in his exasperation, he had suffered to get so entirely
the better of his discretion.
It was high time; Slap-Jack, infuriated at the allusion to his lady, had
broken from the gentle grasp of Alice, and in another moment would have
been upon him. He even followed the mare for a few paces and shook his
fist at the retreating figure fleeting away over the moor like the wind;
then he returned to his sweetheart, and drowned his wrath in a flagon of
sound ale drawn by her sympathising hands.
He soon ceased to think of his opponent’s threats, for when the
excitement of action was over, the seaman bore no malice and nursed no
apprehensions; but Alice, who, like many silent, quiet women, was of a
shrewd and reflective turn of mind, pondered them deeply in her heart.
She seemed to see the shadow of some great danger threatening her lover
and the family whose bread he ate.