with the unexpected, is none the less surprised and offended.
Desmond's pace became slower when, having crossed the valley, he began
the long ascent that led past the site of Tyrley Castle. But when he
again reached a stretch of level road he stepped out more briskly, for
the darkness of the autumn night was moment by moment contracting the
horizon, and he had still several miles to go on the unlighted road. Even
as the thought of his dark walk crossed his mind he caught sight of the
one light that served as a never-failing beacon to night travelers along
that highway. It came from the windows of a wayside inn, a common place
of call for farmers wending to or from Drayton Market, and one whose
curious sign Desmond had many times studied with a small boy's interest.
The inn was named the "Four Alls": its sign, a crude painting of a table
and four seated figures, a king, a parson, a soldier, and a farmer.
Beneath the group, in a rough scrawl, were the words--
Rule all: Pray all:
Fight all: Pay all.
As Desmond drew nearer to the inn, there came to him along the silent
road the sound of singing. This was somewhat unusual at such an hour, for
folk went early to bed, and the inn was too far from the town to have
attracted waifs and strays from the crowd. What was still more unusual,
the tones were not the rough, forced, vagrant tones of tipsy farmers;
they were of a single voice, light, musical, and true. Desmond's
curiosity was flicked, and he hastened his step, guessing from the
clearness of the sound that the windows were open and the singer in full
view.
The singing ceased abruptly just as he reached the inn. But the windows
stood indeed wide open, and from the safe darkness of the road he could
see clearly, by the light of four candles on the high mantel shelf, the
whole interior of the inn parlor. It held four persons. One lay back in a
chair near the fire, his legs outstretched, his chin on his breast, his
open lips shaking as he snored. It was Tummus Biles, the tranter, who had
driven a tall stranger from Chester to the present spot, and whose
indignation at being miscalled Jehu had only been appeased by a quart of
strong ale. On the other side of the fireplace, curled up on a settle,
and also asleep, lay the black boy, Scipio Africanus. Desmond noted these
two figures in passing; his gaze fastened upon the remaining two, who sat
at a corner of the table, a tankard in front of each.
One of the two was Job Grinsell, landlord of the inn, a man with a red
nose, loose mouth, and shifty eyes--not a pleasant fellow to look at, and
regarded vaguely as a bad character. He had once been head gamekeeper to
Sir Willoughby Stokes, the squire, whose service he had left suddenly and
in manifest disgrace. His companion was the stranger, the negro boy's
master, the man whose odd appearance and manner of talk had already set
Desmond's curiosity a-buzzing. It was clear that he must be the singer,
for Job Grinsell had a voice like a saw, and Tummus Biles knew no music
save the squeak of his cartwheels. It surprised Desmond to find the
stranger already on the most friendly, to all appearance, indeed,
confidential terms with the landlord.
"Hale, did you say?" he heard Grinsell ask. "Ay, hale as you an' me, an'
like to last another twenty year, rot him."
"But the gout takes him, you said--nodosa podagra, as my friend Ovid
would say?"
"Ay, but I've knowed a man live forty year win the gout. And he dunna
believe in doctor's dosin'; he goes to Buxton to drink the weeters when
he bin madded wi' the pain, an' comes back sound fur six month."
"Restored to his dear neighbors and friends--caris propinquis--"
"Hang me, but I wish you'd speak plain English an' not pepper your talk
win outlandish jabber."
"Patience, Job; why, man, you belie your name. Come, you must humor an
old friend; that's what comes of education, you see; my head is stuffed
with odds and ends that annoy my friends, while you can't read, nor
write, nor cipher beyond keeping your score. Lucky Job!"
Desmond turned away. The two men's conversation was none of his business;
and he suspected from the stranger's manner that he had been drinking
freely. He had stepped barely a dozen paces when he heard the voice again
break into song. He halted and wheeled about; the tune was catching, and
now he distinguished some of the words--
Says Billy Norris, Masulipatam,
To Governor Pitt: "D'ye know who I am,
D'ye know who I am, I AM, I AM?
Sir William Norris, Masulipatam."
Says Governor Pitt, Fort George, Madras:
"I know what you are--"
Again the song broke off; the singer addressed a question to Grinsell.
Desmond waited a moment; he felt an odd eagerness to know what Governor
Pitt was; but hearing now only the drone of talking, he once more turned
his face homeward. His curiosity was livelier than ever as to the
identity of this newcomer, who addressed the landlord as he might his own
familiar friend.
And what had the stranger to do with Sir Willoughby Stokes? For it was
Sir Willoughby that suffered from the gout; he it was that went every
autumn and spring to Buxton; he was away at this present time, but would
shortly return to receive his Michaelmas rents. The stranger had not the
air of a husbandman; but there was a vacant farm on the estate; perhaps
he had come to offer himself as a tenant.
And why did he wear that half glove upon his right hand? Finger stalls,
wrist straps, even mittens were common enough, useful, and necessary at
times; but the stranger's glove was not a mitten, and it had no fellow
for the left hand. Perhaps, thought Desmond, it was a freak of the
wearer's, on a par with his red feather and his vivid neckcloth. Desmond,
as he walked on, found himself hoping that the visitor at the Four Alls
would remain for a day or two.
After passing through the sleeping hamlet of Woods Eaves, he struck into
a road on his left hand. Twenty minutes' steady plodding uphill brought
him in sight of his home--a large, ancient, rambling grange house lying
back from the road. It was now nearly ten o'clock, an hour when the
household was usually abed; but the door of Wilcote Grange stood open,
and a guarded candle in the hall threw a faint yellow light upon the
path. The gravel crunched under Desmond's boots, and, as if summoned by
the sound, a tall figure crossed the hall and stood in the entrance. At
the sight Desmond's mouth set hard; his hands clenched; his breath came
more quickly as he went forward.
"Where have you been, sirrah?" were the angry words that greeted him.
"Into the town, sir," returned Desmond.
He had perforce to halt, the doorway being barred by the man's broad
form.
"Into the town? You defy me, do you? Did I not bid you remain at home and
make up the stock book?"
"I did that before I left."
"You did, did you? I lay my life 'tis ill done. What did you in the town
this time o' night?"
"I went to see General Clive."
"Indeed! You! Hang me, what's Clive to you? Was you invited to the
regale? You was one of that stinking crowd, I suppose, that bawled in the
street. You go and herd with knaves and yokels, do you? and bring shame
upon me, and set the countryside a-chattering of Richard Burke and his
idle young oaf of a brother! By gad, sir, I'll whip you for this; I'll
give you something to remember General Clive by!"
He caught up a riding whip that stood in the angle of the doorway, and
took Desmond by the shoulder. The boy did not flinch.
"Whip me if you must," he said quietly, "but don't you think we'd better
go outside?"
The elder, with an imprecation, thrust Desmond into the open, hauled him
some distance down the path, and then beat him heavily about the
shoulders. He stood a foot higher, his arm was strong, his grip firm as a
vise; resistance would have been vain; but Desmond knew better than to
resist. He bent to the cruel blows without a wince or a murmur. Only, his
face was very pale when, the bully's arm being tired and his breath
spent, he was flung away and permitted to stagger to the house. He
crawled painfully up the wainscoted staircase and into the dark corridor
leading to his bedroom. Halfway down this he paused, felt with his hand
along the wall, and, discovering by this means that a door was ajar,
stood listening.
"Is that you, Desmond?" said a low voice within.
"Yes, mother," he replied, commanding his voice, and quietly entering. "I
hoped you were asleep."
"I could not sleep until you came in, dear. I heard Dick's voice. What is
the matter? Your hand is trembling, Desmond."
"Nothing, mother, as usual."
A mother's ears are quick; and Mrs. Burke detected the quiver that
Desmond tried to still. She tightened her clasp on his hot hand.
"Did he strike you, dear?"
"It was nothing, mother. I am used to that."
"My poor boy! But what angered him? Why do you offend your brother?"
"Offend him!" exclaimed the boy passionately, but still in a low tone.
"Everything I do offends him. I went to see General Clive; I wished to;
that is enough for Dick. Mother, I am sick of it all."
"Never mind, dear. A little patience. Dick doesn't understand you. You
should humor him, Desmond."
"Haven't I tried, mother? Haven't I? But what is the use? He treats me
worse than any carter on the farm. I drudge for him, and he bullies me,
miscalls me before the men, thrashes me--oh, mother! I can't endure it
any longer. Let me go away, anywhere; anything would be better than
this!"
Desmond was quivering with pain and indignation; only with difficulty did
he keep back the tears.
"Hush, Desmond!" said his mother. "Dick will hear you. You are tired out,
dear boy; go to bed; things will look brighter in the morning. Only have
patience. Good night, my son."
Desmond kissed his mother and went to his room. But it was long before he
slept. His bruised body found no comfort; his head throbbed; his soul was
filled with resentment and the passionate longing for release.
His life had not been very happy. He barely remembered his father--a big,
keen-eyed, loud-voiced old man--who died when his younger son was four
years old. Richard Burke had run away from his Irish home to sea. He
served on Admiral Rooke's flagship at the battle of La Hogue, and, rising
in the navy to the rank of warrant officer, bought a ship with the
savings of twenty years and fitted it out for unauthorized trade with the
East Indies. His daring, skill, and success attracted the attention of
the officers of the Company. He was invited to enter the Company's
service. As captain of an Indiaman he sailed backwards and forwards for
ten years; then at the age of fifty retired with a considerable fortune
and married the daughter of a Shropshire farmer. The death of his wife's
relatives led him to settle on the farm their family had tenanted for
generations, and it was at Wilcote Grange that his three children were
born.
Fifteen years separated the elder son from the younger; between them came
a daughter, who married early and left the neighborhood. Four years after
Desmond's birth the old man died, leaving the boy to the guardianship of
his brother.
There lay the seed of trouble. No brothers could have been more unlike
than the two sons of Captain Burke. Richard was made on a large and
powerful scale; he was hard working, methodical, grasping, wholly
unimaginative, and in temper violent and domineering. Slighter and less
robust, though not less healthy, Desmond was a boy of vivid imagination,
high strung, high spirited, his feelings easily moved, his pride easily
wounded. His brother was too dull and stolid to understand him, taking
for deliberate malice what was but boyish mischief, and regarding him as
sullen when he was only dreamily thoughtful.
As a young boy Desmond kept as much as possible out of his brother's way.
But as he grew older he came more directly under Richard's control, with
the result that they were now in a constant state of feud. Their mother,
a woman of sweet temper but weak will, favored her younger son in secret;
she learned by experience that open intervention on his behalf did more
harm than good.
Desmond had two habits which especially moved his brother to anger. He
was fond of roaming the country alone for hours together; he was fond of
reading. To Richard each was a waste of time. He never opened a book,
save a manual of husbandry or a ready reckoner; he could conceive of no
reason for walking, unless it were the business of the farm. Nothing
irritated him more than to see Desmond stretched at length with his nose
in Mr. Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, or a volume of Hakluyt's Voyages, or
perhaps Mr. Oldys's Life of Sir Walter Raleigh. And as he himself never
dreamed by day or by night, there was no chance of his divining the fact
that Desmond, on those long solitary walks of his, was engaged chiefly in
dreaming, not idly, for in his dreams he was always the center of
activity, greedy for doing.
These daydreams constituted almost the sole joy of Desmond's life. When
he was only a little fellow he would sprawl on the bank near Tyrley
Castle and weave romances about the Norman barons whose home it had
been--romances in which he bore a strenuous part. He knew every
interesting spot in the neighborhood: Salisbury Hill, where the Yorkist
leader pitched his camp before the battle of Blore Heath; Audley Brow,
where Audley the Lancastrian lay watching his foe; above all Styche Hall,
whence a former Clive had ridden forth to battle against the king, and
where his namesake, the present Robert Clive, had been born. He imagined
himself each of those bold warriors in turn, and saw himself, now a
knight in mail, now a gay cavalier of Rupert's, now a bewigged Georgian
gentleman in frock and pantaloons, but always with sword in hand.
No name sang a merrier tune in Desmond's imagination than the name of
Robert Clive. Three years before, when he was imbibing Latin, Greek, and
Hebrew under Mr. Burslem at the grammar school on the hill, the amazing
news came one day that Bob Clive, the wild boy who had terrorized the
tradespeople, plagued his master, led the school in tremendous fights
with the town boys, and suffered more birchings than any scholar of his
time--Bob Clive, the scapegrace who had been packed off to India as a
last resource, had turned out, as his father said, "not such a booby
after all"--had indeed proved himself to be a military genius. How
Desmond thrilled when the old schoolmaster read out the glorious news of
Clive's defense of Arcot with a handful of men against an overwhelming
host! How he glowed when the schoolroom rang with the cheers of the boys,
and when, a half holiday being granted, he rushed forth with the rest to
do battle in the church yard with the town boys, and helped to lick them
thoroughly in honor of Clive!
From that moment there was for Desmond but one man in the world, and that
man was Robert Clive. In the twinkling of an eye he became the devoutest
of hero worshipers. He coaxed Mr. Burslem to let him occupy Clive's old
desk, and with his fists maintained the privilege against all comers. The
initials R. C. roughly cut in the oak never lost their fascination for
him. He walked out day after day to Styche Hall, two miles away, and
pleased himself with the thought that his feet trod the very spots once
trodden by Bob Clive. Not an inch of the route from Hall to school--the
meadow path into Longslow, the lane from Longslow to Shropshire Street,
Little Street, Church Street, the church yard--was unknown to him: Bob
Clive had known them all. He feasted on the oft-told stories of Clive's
boyish escapades: how he had bundled a watchman into the bulks and made
him prisoner there by closing down and fastening the shutters; how he had
thrown himself across the current of a torrential gutter to divert the
stream into the cellar shop of a tradesman who had offended him; above
all, that feat of his when, ascending the spiral turret stair of the
church, he had lowered himself down from the parapet, and, astride upon a
gargoyle, had worked his way along it until he could secure a stone that
lay in its mouth, the perilous and dizzy adventure watched by a
breathless throng in the churchyard below. The Bob Clive who had done
these things was now doing greater deeds in India; and Desmond Burke sat
day after day at his desk, gazing at the entrancing R. C., and doing over
again in his own person the exploits of which all Market Drayton was
proud, and he the proudest.
But at the age of fourteen his brother took him from school, though Mr.
Burslem had pleaded that he might remain longer and afterwards proceed to
the university. He was set to do odd jobs about the farm. To farming
itself he had no objection; he was fond of animals and would willingly
have spent his life with them. But he did object to drudging for a hard
and inconsiderate taskmaster such as his brother was, and the work he was
compelled to do became loathsome to him, and bred a spirit of discontent
and rebellion. The further news of Clive's exploits in India, coming at
long intervals, set wild notions beating in Desmond's head, and made him
long passionately for a change. At times he thought of running away: his
father had run away and carved out a successful career, why should not he
do the same? But he had never quite made up his mind to cut the knot.
Meanwhile it became known in Market Drayton that Clive had returned to
England. Rumor credited him with fabulous wealth. It was said that he
drove through London in a gold coach, and outshone the king himself in
the splendor of his attire. No report was too highly colored to find easy
credence among the simple country folk. Clive was indeed rich: he had a
taste for ornate dress, and though neither so wealthy nor so gaily
appareled as rumor said, he was for a season the lion of London society.
The directors of the East India Company toasted him as "General" Clive,
and presented him with a jeweled sword as a token of their sense of his
services on the Coromandel coast.
No one suspected at the time that his work was of more than local
importance and would have more far-reaching consequences than the success
of a trading company. Clive had, in fact, without knowing it, laid the
foundations of a vast empire.
At intervals during the two years, scraps of news about Clive filtered
through to his birthplace. His father had left the neighborhood, and
Styche Hall was now in the hands of a stranger, so that Desmond hardly
dared to hope that he would have an opportunity of seeing his idol. But,
information having reached the court of directors that all was not going
well in India, their eyes turned at once to Clive as the man to set
things right. They requested him to return to India as Governor of Fort
St. David, and, since a good deal of the trouble was caused by quarrels
as to precedence between the king's and the Company's officers, they
strengthened his hands by obtaining for him a lieutenant colonel's
commission from King George.
Clive was nothing loath to take up his work again. He had been somewhat
extravagant since his arrival in England; great holes had been made in
the fortune he had brought back; and he was still a young man, full of
energy and ambition. What was Desmond's ecstasy, then, to learn that his
hero, on the eve of his departure, had accepted an invitation to the town
of his birth, there to be entertained by the court leet. From the bailiff
and the steward of the manor down to the javelin men and the ale taster,
official Market Drayton was all agog to do him honor. Desmond looked
forward eagerly to this red letter day.
His brother, as a yeoman of standing, was invited to the banquet, and it
seemed to Desmond that Richard took a delight in taunting him, throwing
cold water on his young enthusiasm, ironically commenting on the mistake
someone had made in not including him among the guests. His crowning
stroke of cruelty was to forbid the boy to leave the house on the great
evening, so that he might not even obtain a glimpse of Clive. But this
was too much: Desmond for the first time deliberately defied his
guardian, and though he suffered the inevitable penalty, he had seen and
heard his hero, and was content.