IN WHICH I MEET A DOWN-AT-HEELS GENTLEMAN
I awoke uncomfortably warm, to find the high-risen sun pouring his
dazzling beams full upon me while, hard by, the Tinker's fire yet
smouldered; up I started to rub my eyes and stare about me upon the
unfamiliar scene. Birds piped and chirped merrily amid the leaves
above and around, a rabbit sat to watch me inquisitively, but
otherwise I was alone, for the Tinker had vanished and his tent with
him.
Now as I sat, feeling strangely lonely and disconsolate, I espied a
bulbous parcel lying in reach and, opening this, found it to contain a
small loaf, three slices of bacon and a piece of cheese, together with
a folded paper whereon I deciphered these words inscribed in painfully
neat characters.
YOUNG SIR:
What is one thing at night is another in the morning, so I have gone
my way and taken my course appointed. If you should wish to meet me
again, which would be strange, I think, you shall hear of me at the
White Hart nigh to Sevenoaks, or the Chequers at Tonbridge or from
mostly any of the padding kind, since the high road is my home and has
been long. I am glad you liked my verses, I have more I could have
read you and I think better of yours than you think I thought, though
you have taken Lord Byron for your model I think and he is only a poet
when he forgets to be a fine gentleman. May you prosper, young sir,
and find your manhood which I reckon is none so far to seek. And this
is the true desire of me.
Jeremiah Jarvis.
Tinker and occasionally literary cove.
I have left you some breakfast also fire to cook same, eat hearty. You
will find a frying-pan in a cleft of the tree we slept under.
Thereupon, being much more hungry than was my wont, I came to the tree
in question and presently found a roomy cleft where was the
frying-pan, sure enough. And now, having made up the fire, I set about
cooking my breakfast for the first time in my life and found it no
great business, turning the rashers this way and that in the pan until
what with their delectable sight and smell, my hunger grew to a
voracious desire that amazed me by its intensity. So, placing the
frying-pan on the grass between my knees, I began to eat with the aid
of my penknife and a hunch of crusty bread, and never in all my days
enjoyed anything more.
In due time, the bacon being despatched together with the greater part
of the loaf and cheese, I lay propped against the tree, blinking in
the sun and drowsily content. But this blissful aftermath was
presently marred by haunting memories of tea, coffee and creamy
chocolate until at last, roused by an insistent and ever-growing
thirst, I arose, minded to seek some means of assuaging this appetite.
Thus, having scrubbed out the frying-pan with a handful of bracken, I
restored it to the tree and set out. After some little while I came on
a brook bubbling pleasantly amid mossy stones and yet, though it
looked sweet and clean enough, I could not bring myself to drink of
it, being too proud-stomached, and must go wandering on, plagued by my
thirst, until, chancing on the same brook or another, I could resist
no longer, and stretching myself full-length upon the bank I stooped
to the murmurous water and drank my fill and found it none so ill,
although a little brackish.
As the day advanced, the cool wind died away so that what with the
heat and this unwonted exercise I grew distressed and was about to
cast myself down in the shade of a hedge, when I espied a small tavern
bowered in trees some little distance along the road, very pleasant to
see, and hasted thitherward accordingly. I was yet some distance away
when I became aware that something untoward was afoot, for, borne to
my ears, came a sound of excited voices, dominated all at once by one
deep and hoarse and loud in virtuous indignation.
"Drunk me beer, I tell 'ee--every drop! Drunk me beer at one gullup so
quick's a flash--the 'eartless ruffin!"
Hereupon rose an answering chorus.
"Throw 'im out! Duck 'im! Gi'e 'un one for 'isself!"
Reaching the tavern, I halted on the threshold of a low, wide chamber,
floored with red tiles and furnished with oaken tables and benches,
where I beheld some half-dozen angry country-fellows grouped about a
solitary individual who fronted them in very desperate and determined
manner, his back to the wall; an extremely down-at-heels gentleman
this, who yet cocked his hat and glared about him with an air of
polite ferocity.
"In half a pig's whisper," said he, squaring his arms belligerently,
"in half a pig's whisper or less, blood will flow, gore will gush and
spatter--" Here, chancing to catch sight of me in the doorway, he
flourished off his hat, a miserably sorry-looking object, and bowed
profoundly. "Aha, Sir Oswald," quoth he, "you arrive most aptly--in
the very nick, the moment, the absolute tick! If you have a mind to
see a little delicate fibbing, some scientific bruising as taught by
the famous Natty Bell, foot and fist-work as exhibited by Glorious
John, Jem Belcher and--"
"'E swallowed all my beer, 'e did, sir!" exclaimed a red-faced man in
gaiters and smock-frock, "in one gullup--so quick no 'and could stay
the deed! Stole me beer an' can't deny it--"
"No, by heaven!" exclaimed the down-at-heels gentleman. "I drank the
fellow's beer, every drop--could have drunk more. Our fat and furious
friend labours under a delusion, for to drink good beer with a man out
of that man's own pot is surely a mark of high esteem--"
"Dang your 'steem!" cried the stout fellow, flourishing his empty
tankard threateningly. "A chap as thieves a chap's beer is a chap as
can't be no chap's friend! 'Ow about it, you chaps?" quoth he,
appealing to his fellows. "Shall us let a chap thieve a chap's beer
an' not kick that chap out where that chap belongs--'ow about it?"
Whereupon came the answering chorus:
"Aye, Sim, go for 'im, lad--we'm wi' 'ee! Pitch 'im out! Duck 'im in
th' 'orsepond!"
At this juncture spake one I deemed to be the landlord, a gloomy being
who drooped above a small bar in one corner.
"Do as ye will, neighbours all, do as ye will--only don't break
nothink--them as breaks, pays!"
"One moment, please!" said I, stepping forward. "If the gentleman
committed the solecism complained of, it was, I am sure, not so much a
wish to offend as an error of judgment--"
"Admirably expressed, sir!" exclaimed the gentleman in question. "And
suffer me to add--the exigencies of fortune and circumstance!"
"Therefore," I continued, returning the gentleman's polite bow, "I
shall be happy to make such restitution on his behalf as I may."
At this there fell a strange silence during which every eye was fixed
on me in somewhat disconcerting fashion, feet shuffled, heads were
scratched.
"Ax your pardon, sir--" said the red-faced man at last, rasping shaven
chin with tankard rim, "but if you could manage to talk a little less
furrin'--more plain English-like?"
"I mean I will buy more beer for you--and any one else who--"
"D'ye hear that, landlord?" cried a voice. "The genelman do mean pots
all round!"
"Do ye mean that same, sir?" enquired the landlord, glooming and
doubtful.
"I will pay for as many pots as they can drink, for good-fellowship's
sake," said I, and laid down a coin.
"Spoken like a true sportsman, sir!" exclaimed the down-at-heels
gentleman. "Sir Oswald, permit me to bring to your notice one
Anthony--myself, once blooming gayest of the gay, now, alas! a faded
blossom, cankered, sir, blighted, yet not to be trodden upon with
impunity and always your most obliged, humble servant!" Here he paused
to lift the brimming tankard the gloomy landlord had just set before
him and bow to me across the creamy foam. "Sir Oswald, your health!"
said he. "And may heaven preserve you from these three fatal
F's--fathers, friends and females!" Having said which, he drank
thirstily and thereafter sat frowning down at his broken boots beneath
the brim of his woebegone hat, apparently lost in bitter thought. And
beholding him thus, his flippancy forgotten, his air of dashing
ferocity laid aside, I saw he was pale and thin and haggard and much
younger than I had thought. Suddenly, chancing to meet my eye, his
pale cheeks flushed painfully, then, squaring his drooping shoulders,
he smote his hat more over one eye than ever, nodded gaily, sprang
lightly to his feet and gripped at the table to steady himself.
"E'gad, sir," said he, laughing, "they brew uncommonly strong ale in
these parts, it seems!"
"Yes!" said I, well knowing it was not this had so shaken him or
caused his hands to quiver as he leaned. "I was thinking," I
continued, "that with such ale a crust of bread and cheese might not
be amiss?"
"Cheese!" he exclaimed fiercely. "Sir--I--I detest cheese!" But as he
spoke I noticed his nearest hand had clenched itself into a quivering
fist.
"Why, indeed," said I, furtively watching that telltale hand, "I
myself should prefer a slice of roast beef--or a rasher of ham--"
"Ham!" he murmured softly as if to himself--and then in the same tone,
"Sir, I never eat ham, it is an abom--"
"'Am, sir?" sighed the gloomy landlord at this juncture, "if you
gentleman was a-thinking of 'am, I've as fine a gammon as was ever
smoked, leastways so my missus do say, so if you'm minded for a
rasher or so--cut thick--an' say 'arf a dozen eggs--why, say the word,
sir."
"The word is 'yes'--if this gentleman will honour me with his
company," said I. Hereupon the down-at-heels gentleman shook his head,
scowled into his tankard, sighed, and, meeting my eye, broke into a
wry smile.
"With all the pleasure in life, sir!" said he.
Thus in a little while we were seated in a small, clean room with the
ham and eggs smoking on a dish between us, whence emanated a savour
most delectable.
"It smells very appetising!" said I, taking up knife and fork.
"So much so," said he, "so very much so, that before I accept more of
your hospitality, it is as well you should know whom you would
honour--" here I paused and stared down at the ham and eggs. "Sir, I
am a thief!" Here I let fall the knife. "Three nights since, sir," he
continued in the same passionless voice, "I broke into a farmhouse and
stole a loaf and a piece of cheese. I should have stolen more but that
I was interrupted and pursued. I lost the cheese clambering over a
wall, the last of the loaf I finished yesterday morning, since when I
have subsisted on air and an occasional mangel-wurzel--"
"Then surely it is time you ate something more substantial--this ham
seems excellent and--"
"God love you, Sir Oswald--you're a trump!" he exclaimed and sitting
down, fell to upon the food I had set before him.
"It is good ham!" said I.
"Sublime!" he answered, and seeing with what fervour he addressed
himself to the viands, I troubled him with no further speech until,
his plate empty, he leaned back in his chair and vented a sigh of
blissful and utter content.
"For that--" he began haltingly, his voice a little hoarse, "for--your
hospitality--accept the thanks of a starving wretch!"
"And my name is not Oswald!" said I.
"Of course not, but it answered very well with the fellows
outside--nothing like a high-sounding name or title to awe your
British rustic. And now," said he, with an expression half-whimsical,
half-rueful, as he picked up his woebegone hat, "having by your
courtesy eaten and drunk my fill, I will do my best to repay you by
ridding you of my company."
"I was christened Peregrine," said I, reaching over to refill his
tankard. Now at this he stood mute a space, and very still, only he
fumbled nervously with his hat and I heard his breath catch oddly,
wherefore I kept my gaze bent upon the jug in my hand.
"Sir," said he at last, speaking as with an effort, "when I stole the
bread and cheese, I would have stolen--anything that had chanced in my
reach--money--jewels--anything. I was mad and desperate with hunger.
And yet many a poor rogue in the same circumstances did no more and
their bodies dangle in chains on the highway. I have even contemplated
turning footpad--"
"I think," said I, "you told me your name was Anthony--well, if you
are going on, I will come with you, if I may."
"You will trust yourself--with me--in these solitary byways!"
"Of course," said I, rising, "because, in spite of everything, you are
a gentleman!"
At this he turned very abruptly and strode to the latticed casement,
while I, having summoned the landlord, paid the reckoning. Then,
bidding the company good-day, we set forth together.