_Of our first acquaintance with the Señor Don Sanchez del Castillo de
Castelaña, and his brave entertaining of us._
I was taking a turn or two outside the shed,--for the sight of Jack
Dawson hugging poor Moll to his breast and trying to soothe her bodily
misery with gentle words was more than I could bear,--when a drawer
coming across from the inn told me that a gentleman in the Cherry room
would have us come to him. I gave him a civil answer and carried this
message to my friends. Moll, who had staunched her tears and was smiling
piteously, though her sobs, like those of a child, still shook her thin
frame, and her father both looked at me in blank doubt as fearing some
trap for our further discomfiture.
"Nay," says Jack, stoutly. "Fate can serve us no worse within doors than
without, so let us in and face this gentleman, whoever he is."
So in we go, and all sodden and bedrabbled as we were, went to follow
the drawer upstairs, when the landlady cried out she would not have us
go into her Cherry room in that pickle, to soil her best furniture and
disgrace her house, and bade the fellow carry us into the kitchen to
take off our cloaks and change our boots for slip-shoes, adding that if
we had any respect for ourselves, we should trim our hair and wash the
grime off our faces. So we enter the kitchen, nothing loath, where a
couple of pullets browning on the spit, kettles bubbling on the fire,
and a pasty drawing from the oven, filled the air with delicious odours
that nearly drove us mad for envy; and to think that these good things
were to tempt the appetite of some one who never hungered, while we,
famishing for want, had not even a crust to appease our cravings! But it
was some comfort to plunge our blue, numbed fingers into a tub of hot
water and feel the life blood creeping back into our hearts. The paint
we had put on our cheeks the night before was streaked all over our
faces by the snow, so that we did look the veriest scarecrows
imaginable; but after washing our heads well and stroking our hair into
order with a comb Mistress Cook lent us, we looked not so bad. And thus
changed, and with dry shoes to our feet, we at length went upstairs, all
full of wondering expectation, and were led into the Cherry room, which
seemed to us a very palace, being lit with half a dozen candles (and
they of wax) and filled with a warm glow by the blazing logs on the
hearth reflected in the cherry hangings. And there in the midst was a
table laid for supper with a wondrous white cloth, glasses to drink
from, and silver forks all set out most bravely.
"His worship will be down ere long," says the drawer, and with that he
makes a pretence of building up the fire, being warned thereto very like
by the landlady, with an eye to the safety of her silver.
"Can you tell me his worship's name, friend?" I whispered, my mind
turning at once to his worship of Tottenham Cross.
"Not I, were you to pay me," says he. "'Tis that outlandish and
uncommon. But for sure he is some great foreign grandee."
He could tell us no more, so we stood there all together, wondering,
till presently the door opens, and a tall, lean gentleman enters, with a
high front, very finely dressed in linen stockings, a long-waisted coat,
and embroidered waistcoat, and rich lace at his cuffs and throat. He
wore no peruke, but his own hair, cut quite close to his head, with a
pointed beard and a pair of long moustachios twisting up almost to his
ears; but his appearance was the more striking by reason of his beard
and moustachios being quite black, while the hair on his head was white
as silver. He had dark brows also, that overhung very rich black eyes;
his nose was long and hooked, and his skin, which was of a very dark
complexion, was closely lined with wrinkles about the eyes, while a deep
furrow lay betwixt his brows. He carried his head very high, and was
majestic and gracious in all his movements, not one of which (as it
seemed to me) was made but of forethought and purpose. I should say his
age was about sixty, though his step and carriage were of a younger man.
To my eyes he appeared a very handsome and a pleasing, amiable
gentleman. But, Lord, what can you conclude of a man at a single glance,
when every line in his face (of which he had a score and more) has each
its history of varying passions, known only to himself, and secret
phases of his life!
He saluted us with a most noble bow, and dismissed the drawer with a
word in an undertone. Then turning again to us, he said: "I had the
pleasure of seeing you act last night, and dance," he adds with a slight
inclination of his head to Moll. "Naturally, I wish to be better
acquainted with you. Will it please you to dine with me?"
I could not have been more dumbfounded had an angel asked me to step
into heaven; but Dawson was quick enough to say something.
"That will we," cries he, "and God bless your worship for taking pity on
us, for I doubt not you have heard of our troubles."
The other bowed his head and set a chair at the end of the table for
Moll, which she took with a pretty curtsey, but saying never a word, for
glee did seem to choke us all. And being seated, she cast her eyes on
the bread hungrily, as if she would fain begin at once, but she had the
good manners to restrain herself. Then his worship (as we called him),
having shown us the chairs on either side, seated himself last of all,
at the head of the table, facing our Moll, whom whenever he might
without discourtesy, he regarded with most scrutinising glances from
first to last. Then the door flinging open, two drawers brought in those
same fat pullets we had seen browning before the fire, and also the
pasty, with abundance of other good cheer, at which Moll, with a little
cry of delight, whispers to me:
"'Tis like a dream. Do speak to me, Kit, or I must think 'twill all fade
away presently and leave us in the snow."
Then I, finding my tongue, begged his worship would pardon us if our
manners were more uncouth than the society to which he was accustomed.
"Nay," says Dawson, "Your worship will like us none the worse, I
warrant, for seeing what we are and aping none."
Finding himself thus beworshipped on both hands, our good friend says:
"You may call me Señor. I am a Spaniard. Don Sanchez del Castillo de
Castelaña." And then to turn the subject, he adds: "I have seen you play
twice."
"Aye, Señor, and I should have known you again if by nothing but this
piece of generosity," replies Dawson, with his cheek full of pasty, "for
I remember both times you set down a piece and would take no change."
Don Sanchez hunched his shoulders cavalierly, as if such trifles were
nought to him; but indeed throughout his manner was most high and noble.
And now, being fairly settled down to our repast, we said no more of any
moment that I can recall to mind till we had done (which was not until
nought remained of the pullets and the pasty but a few bones and the
bare dish), and we were drawn round the fire at Don Sanchez's
invitation. Then the drawers, having cleared the tables, brought up a
huge bowl of hot spiced wine, a dish of tobacco, and some pipes. The Don
then offered us to smoke some cigarros, but we, not understanding them,
took instead our homely pipes, and each with a beaker of hot wine to his
hand sat roasting before the fire, scarce saying a word, the Don being
silent because his humour was of the reflective grave kind (with all his
courtesies he never smiled, as if such demonstrations were unbecoming to
his dignity), and we from repletion and a feeling of wondrous
contentment and repose. And another thing served to keep us still, which
was that our Moll, sitting beside her father, almost at once fell
asleep, her head lying against his shoulder as he sat with his arm about
her waist. As at the table, Don Sanchez had seated himself where he
could best observe her, and now he scarcely once took his eyes off her,
which were half closed as if in speculation. At length, taking the
cigarro from his lips, he says softly to Jack Dawson, so as not to
arouse Moll:
"Your daughter."
Jack nods for an answer, and looking down on her face with pride and
tenderness, he put back with the stem of his pipe a little curl that had
strayed over her eyes. She was not amiss for looks thus, with her long
eyelashes lying like a fringe upon her cheeks, her lips open, showing
her good white teeth, and the glow of the firelight upon her face; but
her attitude and the innocent, happy expression of her features made up
a picture which seemed to me mighty pretty.
"Where is her mother?" asks Don Sanchez, presently; and Dawson, without
taking his eyes from Moll's face, lifts his pipe upwards, while his big
thick lips fell a-trembling. Maybe, he was thinking of his poor Betty as
he looked at the child's face.
"Has she no other relatives?" asks the Don, in the same quiet tone; and
Jack shakes his head, still looking down, and answers lowly:
"Only me."
Then after another pause the Don asks:
"What will become of her?"
And that thought also must have been in Jack Dawson's mind; for without
seeming surprised by the question, which appeared a strange one, he
answers reverently, but with a shake in his hoarse voice, "Almighty God
knows."
This stilled us all for the moment, and then Don Sanchez, seeing that
these reflections threw a gloom upon us, turned to me, sitting next him,
and asked if I would give him some account of my history, whereupon I
briefly told him how three years ago Jack Dawson had lifted me out of
the mire, and how since then we had lived in brotherhood. "And," says I
in conclusion, "we will continue with the favour of Providence to live
so, sharing good and ill fortune alike to the end, so much we do love
one another."
To this Jack Dawson nods assent.
"And your other fellow,--what of him?" asked Don Sanchez.
I replied that Ned Herring was but a fair-weather friend, who had joined
fortunes with us to get out of London and escape the Plague, and how
having robbed us, we were like never to see his face again.
"And well for him if we do not," cries Dawson, rousing up; "for by the
Lord, if I clap eyes on him, though it be a score of years hence, he
shan't escape the most horrid beating ever man outlived!"
The Don nodded his satisfaction at this, and then Moll, awaking with the
sudden outburst of her father's voice, gives first a gape, then a
shiver, and looking about her with an air of wonder, smiles as her eye
fell on the Don. Whereon, still as solemn as any judge, he pulls the
bell, and the maid, coming to the room with a rushlight, he bids her
take the poor weary child to bed, and the best there is in the house,
which I think did delight Dawson not less than his Moll to hear.
Then Moll gives her father a kiss, and me another according to her wont,
and drops a civil curtsey to Don Sanchez.
"Give me thy hand, child," says he; and having it, he lifts it to his
lips and kisses it as if she had been the finest lady in the land.
She being gone, the Don calls for a second bowl of spiced wine, and we,
mightily pleased at the prospect of another half-hour of comfort,
stretch our legs out afresh before the fire. Then Don Sanchez, lighting
another cigarro, and setting his chair towards us, says as he takes his
knee up betwixt his long, thin fingers:
"Now let us come to the heart of this business and understand one
another clearly."