THREE WHIMSICAL GENTLEMEN AND A BEAUTIFUL LADY.
Under the protection of the maid-servant, who was mature and fat, Dick
Wetheral was allowed to slumber till the afternoon. He awoke entirely
refreshed, and, after a curious look through his small window at the
snow-covered little town with its picturesque church spire, he went down
to the kitchen, and in a corner thereof he satisfied a prodigious
appetite; upon which he felt himself in excellent physical condition.
His slight flesh-wound, received at Quebec, had healed on his
sea-voyage, thanks to the persistent health of his blood, and despite
the badness of other circumstances.
He walked but twelve miles that day, arriving after nightfall at
Liskeard, and lodging till morning at an inn near the handsome Gothic
church of St. Martin. When he came to pay his bill he found it took all
his money but a few pence, and thus he set forth, on the first day of
the year 1776, bound eastward, with empty pockets, friendless in a
strange and hostile land, with no fixed intention save the vague one of
eventually returning to fight for his country, with no present plan save
to keep moving on.
Not seeking food once during a journey of seventeen miles, he finally
crossed the Tamer, from Cornwall into Devonshire, and arrived at
Tavistock with less curiosity to view the vestiges of the tenth century
abbey there, than to learn where his dinner was to come from. He had
decided to beg, if necessary; he considered that his own people, as was
the custom of his country, entertained freely every hungry or roofless
man that came to their home in the wilderness, therefore some
hospitality was due him from the world at large; and he reasoned that,
being now among a hostile people, whose government was responsible for
his present situation, he was morally entitled, without reproach, to
whatever he could, in the name of charity, obtain from that people.
Profiting by some of Tom MacAlister's related experiences, he had
bethought himself, on the road, of certain possible methods of
overcoming charity's coyness.
The first door at which he knocked, in Tavistock, was promptly shut in
his face, by a man who blurted out something about rogues and vagabonds,
and ere Dick's civil greeting was finished. At the next house a frowning
old woman was equally inhospitable. But at the third, the cottage of a
serge-weaver, the young girl who opened the door allowed her soft eyes
to rest on Dick before making a move to close it, and Dick improved the
moment to assure her that he was no common rogue and vagabond, but an
honest teller of fortunes by cards, who saw already in her face the
signs of a great surprise in her own immediate future. The girl opened
the door wider, and Dick stepped in with such a courteous bow to the two
other occupants of the room that they rose instinctively to receive him,
blinded to his garb by his gentlemanly bearing. It was meal-time, and
the family at table consisted of father, mother, and the girl who had
opened the door.
Dick lost no time, but asked for a pack of cards, with such a smile, and
so much as if the request were the most natural one possible, that the
mother told the girl where the cards were, and the girl immediately
brought them. Dick began by telling the fortune of the head of the
house, who was so diverted with the prediction of a gift from a dark
man, that Dick's invention was allowed full exercise regarding the
future destiny of each member of the family. The mother then speaking of
a dream she had recently had, Dick promptly offered to interpret it for
her, and its meaning was so favorable that the interpreter was soon in
the way to gorge himself with beef and ale. He then did some card tricks
that Tom had taught him, and, perceiving that a pack of cards would
thereafter be a useful implement to him, eventually won the cards
themselves, on a bet as to the location of a certain one of them. Having
found that his card tricks amused, he resolved to rely on them
thereafter, and not to stoop again to fortune-telling, an old woman's
business adopted by him for the once as most likely means of exciting
the girl's curiosity.
He went from the weaver's house to the inn hard by the church of St.
Eustache, and, obtaining a friendly reception by the conciliating manner
and flattering air with which he accosted the servants, passed the
afternoon in manipulating the cards, to the mystification of kitchen
wenches, ostlers, and tipplers of low degree; winning a few sixpences
from the last named in a fair game of skill. He thus earned a supper in
a kitchen, and a bed in the stable-loft.
The next day he walked twenty-one miles, crossing Dartmoor Forest and
the vast common, doing card tricks for a meal in a farmer's cottage at
each one of two villages, and lodging for the night at Moreton
Hampstead, where his procedure at the inn was in general similar to that
at Tavistock.
In the morning he went on to Exeter, which--with its antique houses, its
splendid cathedral of St. Peter flanked by the old bishop's palace, its
ruined castle of West Saxon kings, its bustling High Street, its bridge
across the Exe, and its busy quay--impressed Dick the more for its being
the first large town of England to greet his eyes. He remained here
many days, going from inn-yard to inn-yard, and, in the poorer quarters,
from house to house; always with an address so polite and amiable that
few resisted or distrusted him. His look and manner were so different
from those of the common wayfarer or mountebank that he found he need
stand in no fear of being dealt with as a vagrant. He added to his
resources some of Tom's old conjuring feats, which he made new by means
of the glib, humorous speeches he was soon able to rattle off. A cause
of his prolonged stay at Exeter was the great snowfall and frost, which
began January 7th, with a high eastern wind, froze the rivers, and put
to shame all recollections of cold weather that dated since the
memorable hard winter of 1739-40. Dick spent most of this time in
entertaining snow-bound travellers of low degree, at the inns, receiving
in payment now a meal, now a share of a bed, now a few small coins.
There were nights, though, when he lodged outside, taking short naps in
some sheltering angle of the cathedral, and rousing himself at intervals
to stir his blood by walking.
On the 2d of February the wind changed and blew from the south. Waiting
a few days more, so as to be less inconvenienced by the thaw, Dick
started northward, passing through a beautiful country partly in sight
of the Exe, dined at Collumpton, and proceeded in the afternoon to
Wellington in Somersetshire, where he lay for the night in an open shed
appertaining to the inn. The next morning, paying for breakfast with the
last of the coins he had earned at Exeter, he went on to the sweet vale
of Taunton Dean, and arrived penniless at the town of Taunton, where a
singular thing befell him.
He had stopped to look into an inn-yard, to see whether the time was
propitious for his obtaining the attention of servants and inferior
guests, and thus for his paving the way to one of his unlicensed
performances, when a post-chaise drove up and let out a richly dressed
young gentleman, with a portmanteau and a gold-headed cane, but not
attended by any private servant.
As he was about to enter the inn, this young gentleman, who was of a
sedate and self-contained demeanor, stopped for a moment, regarded Dick
with a sudden but civil interest, and half perceptibly smiled; he then
passed in, while a menial shouldered his portmanteau and followed.
Dick knew at once the cause of the look of interest and of the smile. He
was still pondering on it when, a few minutes later, the gentleman came
out of the inn, greeted him with most kindly condescension, and said, in
a quiet tone, while making sure by swift side-glances that no one
overheard:
"My good man, I see you, too, have noticed how much we look like each
other."
"In the face, yes," replied Dick; "but not as much in the clothes."
"Quite true," said the gentleman, with an appreciative smile. "I was
just about to speak of that. As I looked at you and noticed the
resemblance between us, I couldn't but think how different everything
would be to me if I were the man in the smock-frock and you were the man
in the velvet coat. And then an odd idea came into my head. Said I to
myself, 'Why shouldn't I try the experiment, and see how it may be to
travel a short way through the world in a smock-frock?' I'm given to
whims, you see, and, moreover, it will be a droll thing for me to
appear, clad like you, at the house where I'm expected to-night. Ha! How
my lord will stare to see me come in! In fine, my good man, I propose
that we shall exchange clothes, and go on our different ways!"
"You mean that, for the clothes I have on, you would give me those you
wear now?" cried Dick, astonished and amused.
"Precisely, with the cane and snuff-box thrown into the bargain."
"But don't you know you can buy in five minutes a suit of clothes like
mine, for a hundredth part of the worth of all you offer me?"
"Yes, I know that, of course. But, you see, it would attract attention,
my buying such clothes--"
"Oh, for that matter, I can buy them for you."
"No, for then they would either be new, in which case my--ah--disguise
would be easier seen through; or they would be second-hand, and then God
knows who might have worn them in the past! Besides, I can afford to pay
for my whims, and it pleases me to think that you, too, who resemble me
so much, would have the benefit of my clothes, as I should have of
yours. Come! Or, rather, wait till I pay in advance for my room, which
I'll occupy but half an hour; then I'll take you to it; we can change
immediately, and go forth to see how differently the world will look at
us."
Convinced, at last, that it was no insane person by whom he should be
profiting, Dick saw no reason for interposing further objections;
indeed, those already put had been offered merely to satisfy his natural
scruples against being on the better side of so uneven a bargain, for
the idea of swaggering awhile in costly raiment had instantly attracted
him. In less than an hour thereafter, he issued from the inn, fully clad
as a gentleman, while his whimsical acquaintance, slinking out as
unobserved as Dick had slunk in, tipped him a friendly farewell and made
off in the opposite direction, shouldering the portmanteau as if he were
a hired porter.
As Dick strutted along the busy street, glancing at the shop-windows,
and in turn glanced at by more than one pair of demure eyes, he suddenly
bethought himself that a gentleman in velvet and lace, with silk
stockings and gold buckles, but without a penny in pocket or in
prospect, was a somewhat anomalous personage. Moreover, the county towns
and country villages were a field far less worth shining in as a
gentleman than were certain fields he now began to think he might soon
visit.
He therefore visited certain dealers in the town, and by dinner-time he
was minus the gold-headed cane and a gold-mounted snuff-box, but was the
richer by a plainer snuff-box; some changes of linen, underclothes,
neck-cloths, and handkerchiefs; a bag in which to carry all his
movables; and a suit of clothes. He chose the last with a view to the
fit only, regardless of the fact that it was a gamekeeper's costume. At
another inn than the one where he had met the stranger, Dick doffed his
fine feathers, put on the gamekeeper's suit, and dined, paying for his
dinner with some money he had over from the proceeds of the cane and
snuff-box.
In the afternoon, carrying his bag of clothes slung by a stick over his
shoulder, he left Taunton behind, presently abandoned the road that went
northward to Bridgewater, and proceeded northeastward, traversing
charming vales, and arriving at night at a village about half-way
between Taunton and Glastonbury. His pack of cards earned his supper and
bed, both in the house of a simple-minded blacksmith.
The next day he passed through Glastonbury, pausing to indulge his
imagination before the ruined abbey in which Kings Arthur and Edgar were
buried, as well as before the rotting cross in the town's centre, and
before the Tor of St. Michael on the hill northeast. He fed nothing but
his imagination at this place, and hastened on to Wells, where he stayed
his stomach further while admiring the magnificent west front of the
Gothic Cathedral, the high square tower and ornate exterior of St.
Cuthbert's Church, and the other fine old buildings.
At the inn, he found, among other travellers, a party of lesser gentry
on whose hands time hung heavily, their business being finished, but
themselves being unwilling to set forth on a Friday. Dick soon
ingratiated himself with these gentlemen, whose thick and empty heads
were already astray with punch, wine, and ale; and he was made not only
a sharer of their good cheer, but the sole occupant of the bed of one
whom he tried to assist thither but who persisted in sleeping on the
floor instead.
Leaving early the next morning, ere his benefactors were awake to eject
him as some presuming plebeian who had availed himself of their
drunkenness, Dick proceeded northeastward towards Bath, his eyes
rejoicing in the beauty of the Mendip hills and the surrounding country.
When he had reached a spot where a short stretch of road before him had
a delightfully secluded appearance, by reason of the trees that
overarched it, and the varied slopes that rose gently on either hand,
those on the left extending in a series of shapely hills to a far
western horizon, he began to think of breakfast. A little way ahead, a
vine-grown wall, broken by high gate-posts, marked the roadside boundary
of a small, sloping park, belonging to a country-seat whose towers and
chimneys rose among the trees some distance within. As Dick lay down his
bag to rest, there came from a small door in the wall a gamekeeper, who
immediately raised the fowling-piece he carried, and fired at a hawk
that circled over a copse at Dick's right. The shot missed, and the
gamekeeper reloaded. But when he was ready for a second shot, he
shouldered his gun, evidently thinking the bird out of range, although
it remained over the copse.
"I'll bring that bird down for you, if you let me," called out Dick, on
the impulse of the moment, just as if he had been in his own country.
In reply, the gamekeeper stared in amazement. Dick repeated his offer.
Then the gamekeeper found words, and wrathfully ordered Dick from the
premises, calling him a vagabond, a poacher, and worse. Dick was about
to close the fellow's mouth with a blow, when a loud voice, one that
shifted between a bellow and a whine, came from the direction of the
great gate:
"What's amiss, Perkins? Hold the damned rascal! I'll make a jailbird of
him, that I will! What is it, Perkins? Highway robbery? I'll have him
up, the next assizes!"
By this time, the speaker, having got out of a coach just as it was
being driven through the gate, had come up to where Dick and the
gamekeeper stood. He was a large, pot-bellied man, with coarse features,
red face, and bloodshot eyes; a man of about forty, showing in his
movements a disability due to a dissolute life, and dressed with a
richness that did not avail to soften the impression of grossness he
produced.
"The rascal had the impudence of offering to shoot that hawk, sir," said
the gamekeeper, looking wroth at the outrage.
"What hawk?" queried the threatening gentleman, looking, and presently
sighting the only one in view. "That hawk? Odd's life! If the rogue can
shoot that hawk at this distance, I'm his humble servant, that I am! And
let him only speak, and the place of under-keeper shall be his, damn me
twice over if it sha'n't! D'ye hear that, rascal?"
Philosophically ignoring the last word, Dick replied, "If Mr. Perkins
will hand me the gun, I'll show you how we shoot in" (he was going to
say "America," but checked himself) "the county I came from."
"Give him the gun, Perkins, give him the gun!" ordered the gentleman,
eagerly, responding to anything that appealed to his love of shooting,
and already preparing to jeer in case of Dick's failure.
Dick took the gun, aimed carefully, fired; the bird fell into the copse.
Whereupon the gentleman, forgetting former threats, impulsively
applauded, pronounced Dick a marvel, and, taking it from his garb that
he was a gamekeeper, began a brief catechising that resulted in Dick's
being forthwith installed as Mr. Perkins's assistant, in a lodge at the
farther end of Mr. Bullcott's woods,--for Bullcott was the name of the
country squire whose favor Dick's marksmanship had so quickly won.
Dick's face, and the straight account of himself that he had invented on
the spot, served in lieu of a written "character" with the impulsive and
unthinking Squire Bullcott; as subsequently his adaptiveness, quickness
of perception, and conciliating manner enabled him to acquire Perkins's
tolerance, and to learn the duties of his post so soon that no one
discovered he had never filled a similar one before.
In this situation Dick spent the rest of February, all of March, and
great part of April; having little company other than that of Perkins
and the dogs; rarely seeing his master, who made frequent journeys from
home; and not once beholding the Squire's wife, who, said Perkins, was
usually ailing and mostly kept her room. He might have had the smiles of
any of the maid-servants of Bullcott Hall, but he would never accept
amatory favors from low sources as a supposed equal, though he might
willingly enough, in his own proper character of gentleman, condescend
on occasion to kiss a handsome wench.
One sweet, blossomy day in April, while following the course of a little
rivulet, Dick emerged from the woods to a field at whose farther end was
a barn, before which stood a large wagon whence a party of strolling
players were moving their accessories into the building, for the purpose
of giving a series of performances there. By the brookside, at a place
hidden from her fellow Thespians by some bushes, knelt one of the women
of the company, a rather pretty girl, washing clothes. Standing near
this girl, with his back towards Dick, was a man who seemed, from his
attitude and gestures, to be pressing on her some sort of invitation,
which she apparently chose to ignore. This man presently stooped by her
side, and made to put his arms around her, whereupon she gave him a
vigorous slap in the face with the wet undergarment she then held.
The man persisting in his attempt to embrace her, and the girl
resisting without fear but with repugnance, Dick ran forward, cuffed the
man on the side of the head, and announced the intention of throwing him
into the brook if he did not immediately let go the lady. The man let
go, but only in order to spring to his feet and turn, with clenched
fists, upon Dick, disclosing to the latter the furious face of Squire
Bullcott.
The Squire, whose wrath instantly doubled upon his seeing that his
interfering assailant was his own under gamekeeper, could only roar,
sputter, and whine, incoherently, and look as if about to explode. He
was deterred from instantly laying hands on Dick by the attitude of
defence into which the latter had promptly thrown himself. When Mr.
Bullcott had used up his breath in calling Dick vile names, and
threatening him with everything from a cudgel to a gibbet, Dick
explained that he could not stand by and see any man force his caresses
on a lady against her will.
"Lady!" bellowed the Squire. "Why, she's a miserable ---- of a vagabond
play-actress! Why, you fool, I'll warrant she can't begin to count the
men who have had her!"
"I don't stand up for the woman's virtue," said Dick. "I know nothing
about that." He perceived that a man who would ever testify with due
effect to the virtue of a good woman, must not assert, by oath or
blows, a belief in that of a bad or doubtful woman. "But every woman has
the right to say who sha'n't have her favors," he went on, "and that
girl was resolved you shouldn't have hers!"
"Well, by God, we'll see! I'll have the whole rabble locked up, I will!
They shan't give any of their nasty plays where I have jurisdiction!
I'll drive them off, and you, too! No, I won't, I'll have you up at the
assizes. I'll see you hanged for murderous assault; that I will!"
With which, the girl having already fled to her comrades, and voices
being heard to approach, the worthy magistrate plunged into cover of the
woods in one direction, while Dick sought similar concealment in
another.
Knowing that time had come to resume his travels, Dick hastened to his
lodge, and there, the better to avoid arrest on the Squire's order, he
put on the fine suit given him by the strange gentleman at Taunton. With
all his other clothes in his bag, he then started for the road. As he
was passing through the woods, he first heard and then saw Mr. Perkins
leading towards the abandoned lodge a pair of ugly fellows armed with
bludgeons. Unseen by this party, Dick made a detour that led him
eventually to the road, but to a part thereof that necessitated his
passing the great gate of the Hall in order to continue his journey
northward.
As he was musing on the peculiar appearance he must make in the road,
that of a gaily dressed gentleman travelling afoot and carrying a bag,
he saw Squire Bullcott come forth on horseback, attended by two
stalwart, raw-looking servants. The Squire stared at him, in
bewilderment, a moment, then cried out to his servants:
"'Tis the very same! The same damned rogue! I know the rascal in spite
of his clothes! Stop him, Curry, and hold him fast! Down off your
horses, both of you, or he'll get safe away!"
"I dare you to stop me now!" cried Dick, going straight up to Bullcott
and looking him in the face. "I'm a gentleman, and one of your betters,
though I did amuse myself by playing gamekeeper to an ignorant brute!"
The Squire glared for a moment in speechless fury, and then, gathering
breath and saliva, spat with great force in Dick's face.
The two servants were now dismounted. Mr. Bullcott, enraged to the point
of preferring immediate revenge rather than the slow operation of the
law, ordered them to use their whips on Dick. They fell upon him
together, at the moment when he was blinded by the handkerchief with
which he had instantly begun to cleanse his visage of Bullcott's
disgusting marks.
Maddened by the blows that rained upon his face, neck, arms, and
wrists, Dick struck out wildly at his brawny assailants. At a certain
violent rush on his part, they fell back. The Squire seized that moment
as an opportune one for riding his horse at Dick, and the latter,
leaping aside to avoid the heavy hoofs, tripped on a stone and fell flat
in the road, knocking the breath out of his body.
Bullcott now, leaning from his horse, wielded his own whip on Dick's
head and back, accompanying the castigation with vengeful oaths and vile
epithets. Then, ordering his men to bestow each a final kick on the
prostrate body, the worthy gentleman rode off about his business, which,
it eventually appeared, was to cause the ejection of the strolling
players from the barn before which their merry-andrew had already begun
to collect a crowd around his wagon.
Kicked into insensibility, Dick was at last abandoned by the two
servants, and he lay in the road until, fifteen minutes later, there
came up from the direction of Wells a post-chaise, from which a
hearty-looking young gentleman, having ordered the postilion to stop,
got out for the sole purpose of examining the prostrate body in the way.
He stooped beside Dick, called his valet to bring some brandy, and
gently raised Dick's head.
"Who is it?" murmured Dick, summoned out of a wild and painful dream,
and resting his blue eyes on the rubicund, cheerful, somewhat impudent
face of the young gentleman.
"Who is it?" repeated the latter, blithely. "That's a good one! Here's a
gentleman who has fallen among thieves and been left half dead, and the
first thing he wants of the Good Samaritan is to know who the Good
Samaritan is! Swallow this brandy, sir, and the Good Samaritan will
introduce himself."
"You are certainly the Good Samaritan," moaned Dick, after a reviving
gulp from the flask held by the valet; "but I haven't fallen among
thieves. I fell in only with the most damned boorish scoundrel that ever
disgraced the name of gentleman, and I swear I won't rest till I've paid
him back what he and his rascal menials did me here, blow for blow, and
kick for kick."
"Quite right!" said the other, gaily. "But, in the meantime, what is to
be done for you? Can I take you to your house? Do you live hereabouts?"
"No, my home is--quite--far--away," replied Dick, relapsing into a
dreamy condition.
The other gently shook him back to full consciousness. "Then where may I
take you? Whither were you bound? Towards Bath?"
"Yes, towards Bath," said Dick, on a moment's impulse.
"Well, by George, that's fortunate! You shall be my travelling
companion the rest of the way. You don't seem to have your own coach at
hand, or any of your servants."
"You are right. I have no coach at hand--or any servants. I have only
the bag in the ditch yonder. You are very kind! I don't like to
intrude."
"Nonsense, my dear sir! 'Tis I who have intruded on your slumbers here.
You'll be company for me on the journey. 'Fore gad, I was dead of ennui,
for some one to talk to, when we came upon you! Get the gentleman's bag,
Wilkins. I must say, sir, your own servant must be a rascal, to have
dropped your things and ridden off as he did, when you were attacked."
Dick saw no reason to correct the impression produced, by his clothes
and other circumstances, on the cordial young gentleman, and he silently
let himself be helped into the chaise, which, his bag having been stowed
away and his rescuers having got in, at once started off towards Bath.
Dick gave no more account of himself, beyond announcing his name and the
fact that he had recently come from travels abroad, than to say that he
had been attacked by the servants of a gentleman whose motive was
personal revenge, and left as the Good Samaritan had found him. The Good
Samaritan turned out to be Lord George Winston, who was given to
letting his private coaches and horses lie idle, and to travelling in
his present modest fashion, in order that he might encounter the more
amusing people and incidents. He was now hastening, in quest of society,
back from his Devonshire estate, whither he had recently hastened in
quest of solitude. He was an exceedingly good-natured, self-satisfied,
talkative youth, one of those happily constituted persons who are not
even their own enemies. Yet he was a man of exceeding animation and wit,
as he showed by countless little jests with which he enlivened the talk
he rattled off to Dick on the journey.
Dick allowed most of the conversation to his lordship, which
circumstance made so agreeable an impression on the latter, that, on
learning Dick had no engagements, he gave an imperative invitation to be
his guest in Bath for a few days, and afterward to bear him company to
London. Dick, philosophically accepting, thus saw his immediate future
paved with roses in advance, ere the increasing bustle of converging
roads, the sound of the Avon flowing beneath its bridge, and the sight
of many roofs and towers told him he was entering the most populous and
fashionable pleasure resort in England.
It was late in the afternoon, when they drove into Bath. The chaise
rattled through the fine streets of splendid stone houses, its own noise
mingling with that of grand coaches and other conveyances. On every
side were finely dressed people, strutting with an air of consequence,
while Dick got a glimpse of a fair face, more or less genuine in color,
in many a carriage and chair. The chaise let out its passengers at the
Three Tuns, where Lord George engaged rooms for the night, and where
Dick carefully repaired all damage to his person and attire, donned
fresh linen, had his hair powdered by a man whom Lord George had caused
to be summoned, dined with his gay companion, and sauntered forth afoot
with him at evening, glowing with the newly stimulated love of pleasure.
At the door of the Pelican Inn, Lord George introduced Dick to a pompous
but good-natured little gentleman named Boswell, who greeted my lord
obsequiously but tarried only so long as to mention that he was on his
way to meet Doctor Johnson at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Thrale.
"Does he mean the great Doctor Johnson, the author?" asked Dick, looking
back after him with curiosity.
"Yes," said Lord George; "he is a harmless, conceited Scotchman that
comes to town a few weeks every year and follows at the heels of
Johnson, who treats him as if he were the spaniel he is. 'Tis amusing to
consort now and then with those writing fellows, if you can endure their
vanity. As for Johnson, he says a good thing sometimes, and might be
good company but for his sweating and grunting, his dirty linen and his
beastly way of eating, and his desire of doing all the talking himself."
They went to the Assembly Rooms, where his lordship introduced Dick to
numerous people of both sexes and then sat down to cards; while Dick
looked on, or walked about among the promenaders, the gay talkers, and
the chatting tea-drinkers, and thought he was in a kind of paradise.
The next day Lord George moved with his guest to a floor in a fine house
on the South Parade, where there was comparative quiet from the noise of
wheels. There established, Dick, as he listened to the bells of the
Abbey church,--which sound carried to him a mental vision of the
venerable Cathedral itself, with its fine western front and its
countless windows,--resolved that he would ever after wear the clothes
of a gentleman, as his birth and mind entitled him to do; that his
future way should lie amidst fine surroundings; that he should
thereafter contrive to sip only of the honey of this world.
The two young gentlemen went early to the pump-room; took the hot water
bath in a great tank overlooked by the pump-room windows, in company
with other perspiring folk, who did not look at their best,--
particularly the ladies in their brown linen jackets and petticoats and
their chip hats with handkerchiefs affixed. Then, having dressed and
partaken of the water served by the pumper in the bar, Lord George and
Dick--or rather Mr. Wetheral, for he had now determined to complete the
transformation that his change of clothes had begun--strolled on the
North Parade; after which his lordship played a game of billiards with
an acquaintance he met, while Dick stole away in quest of a certain kind
of shop. This excursion was fruitful, and when Mr. Wetheral rejoined his
friend at the Coffee House his shoes had silver buckles instead of gold
ones, and a small quantity of coin rattled in his previously silent
pocket. For Dick, having watched the cards awhile on the preceding
night, had made up his mind to try a fling at fortune, himself.
Accordingly, when they went to the Rooms that night, it was Mr. Wetheral
that played, and Lord George that sought diversion otherwise, joining
the dancers, for this was one of the two weekly ball-nights. Wetheral
had beginner's luck, of course, and when he retired to bed at twelve his
pockets jingled with an effect almost as pleasant to his ears as that of
the Abbey bells, and he saw himself prospectively the possessor of some
splendid house in the Circus or in Prince's Row.
He imagined, of course, a lovely sharer of the contemplated splendor,
but this fancy did not take a permanent shape in his mind's eye;
sometimes it wore the face of Catherine de St. Valier; then this image
gave way to a kind of collective impression of the many pretty faces he
had already seen in Bath. For so great a change had come in his
surroundings and desires, that Catherine and her snowy Quebec had faded
into a far past and seemed at an immeasurable distance. Reproach him not
too severely! He was nineteen, in England, in spring, as if freshly born
into a new world that appeared all pleasure and beauty; moreover, the
past five months had been so crowded with events and changes that they
trailed out behind him like years instead of months.
His luck at cards continuing, and with it his determination to move
thereafter in polite life, Mr. Wetheral set about acquiring certain
accomplishments necessary to his purpose. There was a fop among Lord
George's acquaintance, given to telling laughable stories, partly in
French. Of this gentleman's Coffee House audience, Dick was the only one
who could not laugh uproariously at these Gallic passages. He thereupon
resolved to learn French, as well as to acquire the more fashionable
styles of dancing, and to improve what rudiments of fencing had been
imparted to him by old Tom MacAlister. Thus he invested a good part of
his nightly winnings in clandestine lessons, taken while Lord George was
making visits, or off with some pleasure-seeking party to Spring
Gardens, or elsewhere engaged.
Wetheral supplemented his French and fencing lessons with private
practice in his rooms, or in some solitary part of the grove by the
Avon, or of King's Mead Fields, or elsewhere. His natural readiness and
his fierce application soon enabled him to read and write easy French
passably well; but when he came to speak in that language to the foppish
little master of ceremonies at the Rooms, he brought confusion on
himself. He made a better show at dancing, though; and a few trials of
the foils with Lord George, on a rainy day, displayed a promise of early
ability to handle a sword in the approved fashion.
One evening in the second week of May, Lord George announced his wish of
starting for London on the morrow, as the fashionable season at Bath
would soon be over. Dick had no sorrow at this, for he had resolved to
continue in London his present way of life, by means of the cards and by
whatever other resources he might find at hand. He was quite ready for
fresh fields, as long as they were of the flowery kind. Desiring,
though, a last survey of the field he was about to leave, Dick sallied
forth alone that night for the Rooms, Lord George having to remain at
his lodgings to write some letters he had postponed to the last moment.
Just as Mr. Wetheral was entering the ballroom, during a cessation of
dancing, and was felicitating himself on the flattering salutations he
got from acquaintances obtained through Lord George,--and several of
these greetings came with melting smiles from fair faces,--he heard a
voice at his side cry out:
"Why, by God, 'tis the rascal gamekeeper masquerading as a gentleman!"
Dick recognized the voice, now bellow and now whimper, ere even he
turned, like a man shot, and saw the face. At sight of the gross,
insolent visage of Squire Bullcott, the memory of the horse-whipping
drove away every other consideration, and Dick, thinking only of
revenge, not of his own possible discomfiture, replied, hotly:
"So 'tis you, Bully Bullcott! I intended to return and pay off my score,
but kind Providence has saved me the trouble by sending you to Bath.
Wait until I meet you in the street, sir!"
"What, you dog!" cried the Squire, whose corpulent body was dressed as
if it were the elegant figure of a beau of twenty-five. "Why, hear the
cur talk, will you that! The low, dirty, mongrel cur, that came starving
along the road, with tongue hanging out and ne'er a kennel to sleep in;
and that I took in and made a gamekeeper of! How in the name of God he
ever came by those clothes he has on, I know not. But you sha'n't play
any of your tricks here, you impostor! I denounce this rascal,
gentlemen! He's not what he pretends to be!"
"Gentlemen," said Dick, to the crowd that had quickly assembled, "there
are many of you here who know me--"
"If there be," said Bullcott, cutting Dick's speech short, "how long
have you known him? Hey? And is there any gentleman here that doesn't
know me?" From the manner in which the Squire glared around, and that of
the gentlemen who amiably nodded in confirmation, it was plain that
Squire Bullcott was a very well-known person at Bath; and from other
tokens it was equally plain that Dick's acquaintances were mentally
recalling that the time since they had first met him was indeed short.
"The fellow is a gamekeeper, I say! A common servant, that I paid wages
to, a month ago, and that my footmen drove off my place, as they shall
drive him out of these Rooms now!" Whereat he strode through the crowd,
which opened for him with the deference due to wealth, and at the door
he called out to his servants, who were waiting with his coach.
Before Mr. Wetheral, who looked in perplexity from one acquaintance to
another, and saw each man fall slightly back or look aside, could arrive
at any course of action, he found himself face to face with the two
low-browed fellows who had obeyed the Squire's behest on a former
memorable occasion. Ere he was fully sensible of their intention, he was
grasped at neck and arm, and the next instant he was being hustled
swiftly to the street. Resisting blindly, and as the nether part of his
person came considerably in the rear in this rapid exit, he made a
ludicrous appearance, as he knew from the shout of laughter that
followed him,--laughter in which, to his unutterable chagrin, the voices
of the ladies mingled, for they had pushed forward among the gentlemen
who had first hastened to the scene.
Once outside, Dick's two burly captors flung him forward into the
street, where he landed on all fours in mire and refuse.
A crowd of servants and rabble quickly gathered around, shouting with
glee. Dick's mood, when he rose, bruised and soiled, was to return and
do battle with the whole assembly in the Rooms. But he knew the futility
of such heroic measures, and that the present was no time in which to
seek retaliation. He contented himself, therefore, with what effective
lunges were necessary in order to break through the street crowd. Having
achieved a passage in one fierce dash, he ran on, at a pace that soon
ended pursuit, until he reached his lodgings. There he made himself
presentable before joining Lord George, to whom he said nothing of the
night's occurrence.
Their early departure, the next morning, alone prevented his lordship
from hearing the news that was now all over Bath; and Dick felt a
decided relief when he saw the city receding in the morning sunshine
while the post-chaise they had taken was bowling merrily towards
Wiltshire. An uneventful day, diversified by many stops for refreshment,
brought them late in the afternoon to Marlboro, where Dick had time,
before nightfall, to ascend by the winding path the famous mount, and to
meditate in the grotto where Thomson had composed "The Seasons," as well
as to stroll through the charming grounds stretching at the rear of the
inn to the Kennet.
As the Bath stage-coach for London drove up, Dick looked furtively from
the inn window to see if it should let out any of those who had
witnessed his humiliation the previous night. Lord George, glancing from
the same window, suddenly exclaimed, "Egad, there's a fine woman!"
Following his lordship's gaze, Dick beheld a slender and graceful lady
emerging from a private coach. Her face, round, soft, childlike, with
clear and gentle blue eyes, instantly captivated Dick. He watched her
while she gave hasty directions to her coachman, and while she stepped
quickly and with downcast look, as if wishing to avoid observation, to
the inn. She was accompanied by another lady, also quite handsome, but
of a somewhat severe and defiant countenance.
Having entered the inn, the two ladies were seen no more while Dick and
Lord George remained at Marlboro, although these candid admirers of
beauty delayed their departure thence till the next day was far
advanced. With sighs of disappointment, they then resumed their journey,
and passed through the forest and on to Hungerford, where they dined and
tarried awhile in the vain hope that yet the lady of the private coach
might overtake them.
Continuing in disappointment, they proceeded into Berkshire and along
the pleasant Kennet to Speenhamland, which, as all the world knows, is
but the northern part of Newbury, the Kennet flowing between under a
stone bridge. They had no sooner made themselves comfortable in the last
two available rooms at the Pelican Inn, than Wetheral happened to look
out into the corridor and see, accidentally glancing from the opposite
chamber at the same moment, the beautiful lady of the private coach.