EVENTS OF WEDNESDAY: THE UNIVERSITY OF CRAMOND
I awoke to much diffidence, even to a feeling that might be called the
beginnings of panic, and lay for hours in my bed considering the
situation. Seek where I pleased, there was nothing to encourage me and
plenty to appal. They kept a close watch about the cottage; they had a
beast of a watch-dog--at least, unless I had settled it; and if I had, I
knew its bereaved master would only watch the more indefatigably for the
loss. In the pardonable ostentation of love I had given all the money I
could spare to Flora; I had thought it glorious that the hunted exile
should come down, like Jupiter, in a shower of gold, and pour thousands
in the lap of the beloved. Then I had in an hour of arrant folly buried
what remained to me in a bank in George Street. And now I must get back
the one or the other; and which? and how?
As I tossed in my bed, I could see three possible courses, all extremely
perilous. First, Rowley might have been mistaken; the bank might not be
watched; it might still be possible for him to draw the money on the
deposit receipt. Second, I might apply again to Robbie. Or, third, I
might dare everything, go to the Assembly Ball, and speak with Flora
under the eyes of all Edinburgh. This last alternative, involving as it
did the most horrid risks, and the delay of forty-eight hours, I did but
glance at with an averted head, and turned again to the consideration of
the others. It was the likeliest thing in the world that Robbie had been
warned to have no more to do with me. The whole policy of the Gilchrists
was in the hands of Chevenix; and I thought this was a precaution so
elementary that he was certain to have taken it. If he had not, of
course I was all right: Robbie would manage to communicate with Flora;
and by four o'clock I might be on the south road and, I was going to
say, a free man. Lastly, I must assure myself with my own eyes whether
the bank in George Street were beleaguered.
I called to Rowley and questioned him tightly as to the appearance of
the Bow Street officer.
"What sort of looking man is he, Rowley?" I asked, as I began to dress.
"Wot sort of a looking man he is?" repeated Rowley. "Well, I don't very
well know wot you would say, Mr. Anne. He ain't a beauty, any'ow."
"Is he tall?"
"Tall? Well, no, I shouldn't say _tall_, Mr. Anne."
"Well, then, is he short?"
"Short? No, I don't think I would say he was what you would call
_short_. No, not piticular short, sir."
"Then, I suppose, he must be about the middle height?"
"Well, you might say it, sir; but not remarkable so."
I smothered an oath.
"Is he clean-shaved?" I tried him again.
"Clean-shaved?" he repeated, with the same air of anxious candour.
"Good heaven, man, don't repeat my words like a parrot!" I cried. "Tell
me what the man was like: it is of the first importance that I should be
able to recognise him."
"I'm trying to, Mr. Anne. But _clean-shaved_? I don't seem to rightly
get hold of that p'int. Sometimes it might appear to me like as if he
was; and sometimes like as if he wasn't. No, it wouldn't surprise me now
if you was to tell me he 'ad a bit o' whisker."
"Was the man red-faced?" I roared, dwelling on each syllable.
"I don't think you need go for to get cross about it, Mr. Anne!" said
he. "I'm tellin' you every blessed thing I see! Red-faced? Well, no, not
as you would remark upon."
A dreadful calm fell upon me.
"Was he anywise pale?" I asked.
"Well, it don't seem to me as though he were. But I tell you truly, I
didn't take much heed to that."
"Did he look like a drinking man?"
"Well, no. If you please, sir, he looked more like an eating one."
"O, he was stout, was he?"
"No, sir. I couldn't go so far as that. No, he wasn't not to say
_stout_. If anything, lean rather."
I need not go on with the infuriating interview. It ended as it began,
except that Rowley was in tears, and that I had acquired one fact. The
man was drawn for me as being of any height you like to mention, and of
any degree of corpulence or leanness; clean-shaved or not, as the case
might be; the colour of his hair Rowley "could not take it upon himself
to put a name on"; that of his eyes he thought to have been blue--nay,
it was the one point on which he attained to a kind of tearful
certainty. "I'll take my davy on it," he asseverated. They proved to
have been as black as sloes, very little and very near together. So much
for the evidence of the artless! And the fact, or rather the facts,
acquired? Well, they had to do not with the person but with his
clothing. The man wore knee breeches and white stockings; his coat was
"some kind of a lightish colour--or betwixt that and dark"; and he wore
a "moleskin weskit." As if this were not enough, he presently hailed me
from my breakfast in a prodigious flutter, and showed me an honest and
rather venerable citizen passing in the Square.
"That's _him_, sir," he cried, "the very moral of him! Well, this one is
better dressed, and p'raps a trifler taller; and in the face he don't
favour him noways at all, sir. No, not when I come to look again, 'e
don't seem to favour him noways."
"Jackass!" said I, and I think the greatest stickler for manners will
admit the epithet to have been justified.
Meanwhile the appearance of my landlady added a great load of anxiety
to what I already suffered. It was plain that she had not slept; equally
plain that she had wept copiously. She sighed, she groaned, she drew in
her breath, she shook her head, as she waited on table. In short, she
seemed in so precarious a state, like a petard three times charged with
hysteria, that I did not dare to address her; and stole out of the house
on tiptoe, and actually ran downstairs, in the fear that she might call
me back. It was plain that this degree of tension could not last long.
It was my first care to go to George Street, which I reached (by good
luck) as a boy was taking down the bank shutters. A man was conversing
with him; he had white stockings and a moleskin waistcoat, and was as
ill-looking a rogue as you would want to see in a day's journey. This
seemed to agree fairly well with Rowley's _signalement_: he had declared
emphatically (if you remember), and had stuck to it besides, that the
companion of the great Lavender was no beauty.
Thence I made my way to Mr. Robbie's, where I rang the bell. A servant
answered the summons, and told me the lawyer was engaged, as I had half
expected.
"Wha shall I say was callin'?" she pursued: and when I had told her "Mr.
Ducie," "I think this'll be for you, then?" she added, and handed me a
letter from the hall table. It ran:--
"DEAR MR. DUCIE,
"My single advice to you is to leave _quam primum_ for the
South.--Yours,
T. ROBBIE."
That was short and sweet. It emphatically extinguished hope in one
direction. No more was to be gotten of Robbie; and I wondered, from my
heart, how much had been told him. Not too much, I hoped, for I liked
the lawyer who had thus deserted me, and I placed a certain reliance in
the discretion of Chevenix. He would not be merciful; on the other hand,
I did not think he would be cruel without cause.
It was my next affair to go back along George Street, and assure myself
whether the man in the moleskin vest was still on guard. There was no
sign of him on the pavement. Spying the door of a common stair nearly
opposite the bank, I took it in my head that this would be a good point
of observation, crossed the street, entered with a businesslike air, and
fell immediately against the man in the moleskin vest. I stopped and
apologised to him; he replied in an unmistakable English accent, thus
putting the matter almost beyond doubt. After this encounter I must, of
course, ascend to the top story, ring the bell of a suite of apartments,
inquire for Mr. Vavasour, learn (with no great surprise) that he did not
live there, come down again and, again politely saluting the man from
Bow Street, make my escape at last into the street.
I was now driven back upon the Assembly Ball. Robbie had failed me. The
bank was watched; it would never do to risk Rowley in that
neighbourhood. All I could do was to wait until the morrow evening, and
present myself at the Assembly, let it end as it might. But I must say I
came to this decision with a good deal of genuine fright; and here I
came for the first time to one of those places where my courage stuck. I
do not mean that my courage boggled and made a bit of a bother over it,
as it did over the escape from the Castle; I mean, stuck, like a stopped
watch, or a dead man. Certainly I would go to the ball; certainly I must
see this morning about my clothes. That was all decided. But the most of
the shops were on the other side of the valley, in the Old Town; and it
was now my strange discovery that I was physically unable to cross the
North Bridge! It was as though a precipice had stood between us, or the
deep sea had intervened. Nearer to the Castle my legs refused to bear
me.
I told myself this was mere superstition; I made wagers with myself--and
gained them; I went down on the esplanade of Princes Street, walked and
stood there, alone and conspicuous, looking across the garden at the old
grey bastions of the fortress, where all these troubles had begun. I
cocked my hat, set my hand on my hip, and swaggered on the pavement,
confronting detection. And I found I could do all this with a sense of
exhilaration that was not unpleasing, and with a certain _cranerie_ of
manner that raised me in my own esteem. And yet there was one thing I
could not bring my mind to face up to, or my limbs to execute; and that
was to cross the valley into the Old Town. It seemed to me I must be
arrested immediately if I had done so; I must go straight into the
twilight of a prison cell, and pass straight thence to the gross and
final embraces of the nightcap and the halter. And yet it was from no
reasoned fear of the consequences that I could not go. I was unable. My
horse balked, and there was an end!
My nerve was gone: here was a discovery for a man in such imminent
peril, set down to so desperate a game, which I could only hope to win
by continual luck and unflagging effrontery! The strain had been too
long continued, and my nerve was gone. I fell into what they call panic
fear, as I have seen soldiers do on the alarm of a night attack, and
turned out of Princes Street at random as though the devil were at my
heels. In St. Andrew Square, I remember vaguely hearing some one call
out. I paid no heed, but pressed on blindly. A moment after, a hand fell
heavily on my shoulder, and I thought I had fainted. Certainly the world
went black about me for some seconds; and when that spasm passed I found
myself standing face to face with the "cheerful extravagant," in what
sort of disarray I really dare not imagine, dead white at least, shaking
like an aspen, and mowing at the man with speechless lips. And this was
the soldier of Napoleon, and the gentleman who intended going next night
to an Assembly Ball! I am the more particular in telling of my
breakdown, because it was my only experience of the sort; and it is a
good tale for officers. I will allow no man to call me coward; I have
made my proofs; few men more. And yet I (come of the best blood in
France and inured to danger from a child) did, for some ten or twenty
minutes, make this hideous exhibition of myself on the streets of the
New Town of Edinburgh.
With my first available breath I begged his pardon. I was of an
extremely nervous disposition, recently increased by late hours; I could
not bear the slightest start.
He seemed much concerned. "You must be in a devil of a state!" said he;
"though of course it was my fault--damnably silly, vulgar sort of thing
to do! A thousand apologies! But you really must be run down; you should
consult a medico. My dear sir, a hair of the dog that bit you is clearly
indicated. A touch of Blue Ruin, now? Or, come: it's early, but is man
the slave of hours? what do you say to a chop and a bottle in Dumbreck's
Hotel?"
I refused all false comfort; but when he went on to remind me that this
was the day when the University of Cramond met; and to propose a
five-mile walk into the country and a dinner in the company of young
asses like himself, I began to think otherwise. I had to wait until
to-morrow evening, at any rate; this might serve as well as anything
else to bridge the dreary hours. The country was the very place for me:
and walking is an excellent sedative for the nerves. Remembering poor
Rowley, feigning a cold in our lodgings and immediately under the guns
of the formidable and now doubtful Bethiah, I asked if I might bring my
servant. "Poor devil! it is dull for him," I explained.
"The merciful man is merciful to his ass," observed my sententious
friend. "Bring him, by all means!
"'The harp, his sole remaining joy,
Was carried by an orphan boy';
and I have no doubt the orphan boy can get some cold victuals in the
kitchen, while the Senatus dines."
Accordingly, being now quite recovered from my unmanly condition, except
that nothing could yet induce me to cross the North Bridge, I arranged
for my ball dress at a shop in Leith Street, where I was not served ill,
cut out Rowley from his seclusion, and was ready along with him at the
trysting-place, the corner of Duke Street and York Place, by a little
after two. The University was represented in force: eleven persons,
including ourselves, Byfield the aeronaut, and the tall lad, Forbes,
whom I had met on the Sunday morning, bedewed with tallow, at the
"Hunters' Tryst." I was introduced; and we set off by way of Newhaven
and the sea-beach; at first through pleasant country roads, and
afterwards along a succession of bays of a fairylike prettiness, to our
destination--Cramond on the Almond--a little hamlet on a little river,
embowered in woods, and looking forth over a great flat of quicksand to
where a little islet stood planted in the sea. It was miniature scenery,
but charming of its kind. The air of this good winter afternoon was
bracing, but not cold. All the way my companions were skylarking,
jesting, and making puns, and I felt as if a load had been taken off my
lungs and spirits, and skylarked with the best of them.
Byfield I observed, because I had heard of him before, and seen his
advertisements, not at all because I was disposed to feel interest in
the man. He was dark and bilious and very silent; frigid in his manners,
but burning internally with a great fire of excitement; and he was so
good as to bestow a good deal of his company and conversation (such as
it was) upon myself, who was not in the least grateful. If I had known
how I was to be connected with him in the immediate future, I might have
taken more pains.
In the hamlet of Cramond there is a hostelry of no very promising
appearance, and here a room had been prepared for us, and we sat down to
table.
"Here you will find no guttling or gormandising, no turtle or
nightingales' tongues," said the extravagant, whose name, by the way,
was Dalmahoy. "The device, sir, of the University of Cramond is Plain
Living and High Drinking."
Grace was said by the Professor of Divinity, in a macaronic Latin, which
I could by no means follow, only I could hear it rhymed, and I guessed
it to be more witty than reverent. After which the _Senatus Academicus_
sat down to rough plenty in the shape of rizzar'd haddocks and mustard,
a sheep's head, a haggis, and other delicacies of Scotland. The dinner
was washed down with brown stout in bottle, and as soon as the cloth was
removed, glasses, boiling water, sugar, and whisky were set out for the
manufacture of toddy. I played a good knife and fork, did not shun the
bowl, and took part, so far as I was able, in the continual fire of
pleasantry with which the meal was seasoned. Greatly daring, I ventured,
before all these Scotsmen, to tell Sim's Tale of Tweedie's dog; and I
was held to have done such extraordinary justice to the dialect, "for a
Southron," that I was immediately voted into the Chair of Scots, and
became, from that moment, a full member of the University of Cramond. A
little after, I found myself entertaining them with a song; and a little
after--perhaps a little in consequence--it occurred to me that I had had
enough, and would be very well inspired to take French leave. It was not
difficult to manage, for it was nobody's business to observe my
movements, and conviviality had banished suspicion.
I got easily forth of the chamber, which reverberated with the voices of
these merry and learned gentlemen, and breathed a long breath. I had
passed an agreeable afternoon and evening, and I had apparently escaped
scot-free. Alas! when I looked into the kitchen, there was my monkey,
drunk as a lord, toppling on the edge of the dresser, and performing on
the flageolet to an audience of the house lasses and some neighbouring
ploughmen.
I routed him promptly from his perch, stuck his hat on, put his
instrument in his pocket, and set off with him for Edinburgh.
His limbs were of paper, his mind quite in abeyance; I must uphold and
guide him, prevent his frantic dives, and set him continually on his
legs again. At first he sang wildly, with occasional outbursts of
causeless laughter. Gradually an inarticulate melancholy succeeded; he
wept gently at times; would stop in the middle of the road, say firmly,
"No, no, no," and then fall on his back; or else address me solemnly as
"M'lord" and fall on his face by way of variety. I am afraid I was not
always so gentle with the little pig as I might have been, but really
the position was unbearable. We made no headway at all, and I suppose we
were scarce gotten a mile away from Cramond, when the whole _Senatus
Academicus_ was heard hailing, and doubling the pace to overtake us.
Some of them were fairly presentable; and they were all Christian
martyrs compared to Rowley; but they were in a frolicsome and rollicking
humour that promised danger as we approached the town. They sang songs,
they ran races, they fenced with their walking-sticks and umbrellas;
and, in spite of this violent exercise, the fun grew only the more
extravagant with the miles they traversed. Their drunkenness was
deep-seated and permanent, like fire in a peat; or rather--to be quite
just to them--it was not so much to be called drunkenness at all, as the
effect of youth and high spirits--a fine night, and the night young, a
good road under foot, and the world before you!
I had left them once somewhat unceremoniously; I could not attempt it a
second time; and, burthened as I was with Mr. Rowley, I was really glad
of assistance. But I saw the lamps of Edinburgh draw near on their
hill-top with a good deal of uneasiness, which increased, after we had
entered the lighted streets, to positive alarm. All the passers-by were
addressed, some of them by name. A worthy man was stopped by Forbes.
"Sir," said he, "in the name of the Senatus of the University of
Cramond, I confer upon you the degree of LL.D.," and with the words he
bonneted him. Conceive the predicament of St. Ives, committed to the
society of these outrageous youths, in a town where the police and his
cousin were both looking for him! So far we had pursued our way
unmolested, although raising a clamour fit to wake the dead; but at
last, in Abercromby Place, I believe--at least it was a crescent of
highly respectable houses fronting on a garden--Byfield and I, having
fallen somewhat in the rear with Rowley, came to a simultaneous halt.
Our ruffians were beginning to wrench off bells and door-plates!
"O, I say!" says Byfield, "this is too much of a good thing! Confound
it, I'm a respectable man--a public character, by George! I can't afford
to get taken up by the police."
"My own case exactly," said I.
"Here, let's bilk them," said he.
And we turned back and took our way down hill again.
It was none too soon: voices and alarm bells sounded; watchmen here and
there began to spring their rattles; it was plain the University of
Cramond would soon be at blows with the police of Edinburgh! Byfield and
I, running the semi-inanimate Rowley before us, made good despatch, and
did not stop till we were several streets away, and the hubbub was
already softened by distance.
"Well, sir," said he, "we are well out of that! Did ever any one see
such a pack of young barbarians?"
"We are properly punished, Mr. Byfield; we had no business there," I
replied.
"No, indeed, sir, you may well say that! Outrageous! And my ascension
announced for Friday, you know!" cried the aeronaut. "A pretty scandal!
Byfield the aeronaut at the police-court! Tut-tut! Will you be able to
get your rascal home, sir? Allow me to offer you my card. I am staying
at Walker and Poole's Hotel, sir, where I should be pleased to see you."
"The pleasure would be mutual, sir," said I, but I must say my heart was
not in my words, and as I watched Mr. Byfield departing I desired
nothing less than to pursue the acquaintance.
One more ordeal remained for me to pass. I carried my senseless load
upstairs to our lodging, and was admitted by the landlady in a tall
white nightcap and with an expression singularly grim. She lighted us
into the sitting-room; where, when I had seated Rowley in a chair, she
dropped me a cast-iron curtsy. I smelt gunpowder on the woman. Her voice
tottered with emotion.
"I give ye nottice, Mr. Ducie," said she. "Dacent folks' houses...."
And at that apparently temper cut off her utterance, and she took
herself off without more words.
I looked about me at the room, the goggling Rowley, the extinguished
fire; my mind reviewed the laughable incidents of the day and night; and
I laughed out loud to myself--lonely and cheerless laughter!...
[_At this point the Author's_ MS. _breaks off: what follows is the work
of_ MR. A.T. QUILLER-COUCH.]