PERCY’S FIRST ADVENTURE AS A FREE AGENT.
It was a fine, picturesque outline of road on which the young outcast
found himself journeying, whither he neither knew nor cared. His heart
was full of enterprise and the unfledged valour of inexperience. He had
proceeded several miles, and the dusk of the evening was setting in,
when he observed a stage-coach crawling heavily up a hill, a little
ahead of him, and a tall, well-shaped man, walking alongside of it,
and gesticulating somewhat violently. Godolphin remarked him with some
curiosity; and the man, turning abruptly round, perceived, and in his
turn noticed very inquisitively, the person and aspect of the young
traveller.
“And how now?” said he, presently, and in an agreeable, though familiar
and unceremonious tone of voice; “whither are you bound this time of
day?”
“It is no business of yours, friend,” said the boy with the proud
petulance of his age; “mind what belongs to yourself.”
“You are sharp on me, young sir,” returned the other; “but it is our
business to be loquacious. Know, sir,”--and the stranger frowned--“that
we have ordered many a taller fellow than yourself to execution for a
much smaller insolence than you seem capable of.”
A laugh from the coach caused Godolphin to lift up his eyes, and he
saw the door of the vehicle half-open, as if for coolness, and an arch
female face looking down on him.
“You are merry on me, I see,” said Percy; “come out, and I’ll be even
with you, pretty one.”
The lady laughed yet more loudly at the premature gallantry of the
traveller; but the man, without heeding her, and laying his hand on
Percy’s shoulder, said--
“Pray, sir, do you live at B----?” naming the town they were now
approaching.
“Not I,” said Godolphin, freeing himself from the intrusion.
“You will, perhaps, sleep there?”
“Perhaps I shall.”
“You are too young to travel alone.”
“And you are too old to make such impertinent remarks,” retorted
Godolphin, reddening with anger.
“Faith, I like this spirit, my Hotspur,” said the stranger, coolly. “If
you are really going to put up for the night at B----, suppose we sup
together?”
“And who and what are you?” asked Percy, bluntly.
“Anything and everything! in other words, an actor!”
“And the young lady----?’
“Is our prima donna. In fact, except the driver, the coach holds none
but the ladies and gentlemen of our company. We have made an excellent
harvest at A----, and we are now on our way to the theatre at B----;
pretty theatre it is, too, and has been known to hold seventy-one pounds
eight shillings.” Here the actor fell into a reverie; and Percy, moving
nearer to the coach-door, glanced at the damsel, who returned the look
with a laugh which, though coquettish, was too low and musical to be
called cold.
“So that gentleman, so free and easy in his manners, is not your
husband?”
“Heaven forbid! Do you think I should be so gay if he were? But, pooh!
what can you know of married life? No!” she continued, with a pretty air
of mock dignity; “I am the Belvidera, the Calista, of the company; above
all control, all husbanding, and reaping thirty-three shillings a week.”
“But are you above lovers as well as husbands?” asked Percy with a
rakish air, borrowed from Saville.
“Bless the boy! No: but then my lovers must be at least as tall, and at
least as rich, and, I am afraid, at least as old, as myself.”
“Don’t frighten yourself, my dear,” returned Percy; “I was not about to
make love to you.”
“Were you not? Yes, you were, and you know it. But why will you not sup
with us?”
“Why not, indeed?” thought Percy, as the idea, thus more enticingly put
than it was at first, pressed upon him. “If _you_ ask me,” he said, “I
will.”
“I _do_ ask you, then,” said the actress; and here the hero of the
company turned abruptly round with a theatrical start, and exclaimed,
“To sup or not to sup? that is the question.”
“To sup, sir,” said Godolphin.
“Very well! I am glad to hear it. Had you not better mount and rest
yourself in the coach? You can take my place--I am studying a new part.
We have two miles farther to B---- yet.”
Percy accepted the invitation, and was soon by the side of the pretty
actress. The horses broke into a slow trot, and thus delighted with his
adventure, the son of the ascetic Godolphin, the pupil of the courtly
Saville, entered the town of B----, and commenced his first independent
campaign in the great world.