Philip Feltram
The new guest was now in the hall of the George, and Doctor Torvey could
hear him talking with Mr. Turnbull. Being himself one of the dignitaries
of Golden Friars, the Doctor, having regard to first impressions, did
not care to be seen in his post of observation; and closing the door
gently, returned to his chair by the fire, and in an under-tone informed
his cronies that there was a new arrival in the George, and he could not
hear, but would not wonder if he were taking a private room; and he
seemed to have trunks enough to build a church with.
"Don't be too sure we haven't Sir Bale on board," said Amerald, who
would have followed his crony the Doctor to the door--for never was
retired naval hero of a village more curious than he--were it not that
his wooden leg made a distinct pounding on the floor that was inimical,
as experience had taught him, to mystery.
"That can't be," answered the Doctor; "Charley Twyne knows everything
about it, and has a letter every second day; and there's no chance of
Sir Bale before the tenth; this is a tourist, you'll find. I don't know
what the d---l keeps Turnbull; he knows well enough we are all naturally
willing to hear who it is."
"Well, he won't trouble us here, I bet ye;" and catching deaf Mr.
Hollar's eye, the Captain nodded, and pointed to the little table beside
him, and made a gesture imitative of the rattling of a dice-box; at
which that quiet old gentleman also nodded sunnily; and up got the
Captain and conveyed the backgammon-box to the table, near Hollar's
elbow, and the two worthies were soon sinc-ducing and catre-acing, with
the pleasant clatter that accompanies that ancient game. Hollar had
thrown sizes and made his double point, and the honest Captain, who
could stand many things better than Hollar's throwing such throws so
early in the evening, cursed his opponent's luck and sneered at his
play, and called the company to witness, with a distinctness which a
stranger to smiling Hollar's deafness would have thought hardly civil;
and just at this moment the door opened, and Richard Turnbull showed his
new guest into the room, and ushered him to a vacant seat near the other
corner of the table before the fire.
The stranger advanced slowly and shyly, with something a little
deprecatory in his air, to which a lathy figure, a slight stoop, and a
very gentle and even heartbroken look in his pale long face, gave a more
marked character of shrinking and timidity.
He thanked the landlord aside, as it were, and took his seat with a
furtive glance round, as if he had no right to come in and intrude upon
the happiness of these honest gentlemen.
He saw the Captain scanning him from under his shaggy grey eyebrows
while he was pretending to look only at his game; and the Doctor was
able to recount to Mrs. Torvey when he went home every article of the
stranger's dress.
It was odd and melancholy as his peaked face.
He had come into the room with a short black cloak on, and a rather tall
foreign felt hat, and a pair of shiny leather gaiters or leggings on his
thin legs; and altogether presented a general resemblance to the
conventional figure of Guy Fawkes.
Not one of the company assembled knew the appearance of the Baronet. The
Doctor and old Mr. Peers remembered something of his looks; and
certainly they had no likeness, but the reverse, to those presented by
the new-comer. The Baronet, as now described by people who had chanced
to see him, was a dark man, not above the middle size, and with a
certain decision in his air and talk; whereas this person was tall,
pale, and in air and manner feeble. So this broken trader in the world's
commerce, with whom all seemed to have gone wrong, could not possibly be
he.
Presently, in one of his stealthy glances, the Doctor's eye encountered
that of the stranger, who was by this time drinking his tea--a thin and
feminine liquor little used in that room.
The stranger did not seem put out; and the Doctor, interpreting his look
as a permission to converse, cleared his voice, and said urbanely,
"We have had a little frost by night, down here, sir, and a little fire
is no great harm--it is rather pleasant, don't you think?"
The stranger bowed acquiescence with a transient wintry smile, and
looked gratefully on the fire.
"This place is a good deal admired, sir, and people come a good way to
see it; you have been here perhaps before?"
"Many years ago."
Here was another pause.
"Places change imperceptibly--in detail, at least--a good deal," said
the Doctor, making an effort to keep up a conversation that plainly
would not go on of itself; "and people too; population shifts--there's
an old fellow, sir, they call _Death_."
"And an old fellow they call the _Doctor_, that helps him," threw in the
Captain humorously, allowing his attention to get entangled in the
conversation, and treating them to one of his tempestuous ha-ha-ha's.
"We are expecting the return of a gentleman who would be a very leading
member of our little society down here," said the Doctor, not noticing
the Captain's joke. "I mean Sir Bale Mardykes. Mardykes Hall is a pretty
object from the water, sir, and a very fine old place."
The melancholy stranger bowed slightly, but rather in courtesy to the
relator, it seemed, than that the Doctor's lore interested him much.
"And on the opposite side of the lake," continued Doctor Torvey, "there
is a building that contrasts very well with it--the old house of the
Feltrams--quite a ruin now, at the mouth of the glen--Cloostedd House, a
very picturesque object."
"Exactly opposite," said the stranger dreamily, but whether in the tone
of acquiescence or interrogatory, the Doctor could not be quite sure.
"That was one of our great families down here that has disappeared. It
has dwindled down to nothing."
"Duce ace," remarked Mr. Hollar, who was attending to his game.
"While others have mounted more suddenly and amazingly still," observed
gentle Mr. Peers, who was great upon county genealogies.
"Sizes!" thundered the Captain, thumping the table with an oath of
disgust.
"And Snakes Island is a very pretty object; they say there used to be
snakes there," said the Doctor, enlightening the visitor.
"Ah! that's a mistake," said the dejected guest, making his first
original observation. "It should be spelt _Snaiks_. In the old papers it
is called Sen-aiks Island from the seven oaks that grew in a clump
there."
"Hey? that's very curious, egad! I daresay," said the Doctor, set right
thus by the stranger, and eyeing him curiously.
"Very true, sir," observed Mr. Peers; "three of those oaks, though, two
of them little better than stumps, are there still; and Clewson of
Heckleston has an old document----"
Here, unhappily, the landlord entered the room in a fuss, and walking up
to the stranger, said, "The chaise is at the door, Mr. Feltram, and the
trunks up, sir."
Mr. Feltram rose quietly and took out his purse, and said,
"I suppose I had better pay at the bar?"
"As you like best, sir," said Richard Turnbull.
Mr. Feltram bowed all round to the gentlemen, who smiled, ducked or
waved their hands; and the Doctor fussily followed him to the hall-door,
and welcomed him back to Golden Friars--there was real kindness in this
welcome--and proffered his broad brown hand, which Mr. Feltram took; and
then he plunged into his chaise, and the door being shut, away he
glided, chaise, horses, and driver, like shadows, by the margin of the
moonlighted lake, towards Mardykes Hall.
And after a few minutes' stand upon the steps, looking along the shadowy
track of the chaise, they returned to the glow of the room, in which a
pleasant perfume of punch still prevailed; and beside Mr. Philip
Feltram's deserted tea-things, the host of the George enlightened his
guests by communicating freely the little he had picked up. The
principal fact he had to tell was, that Sir Bale adhered strictly to his
original plan, and was to arrive on the tenth. A few days would bring
them to that, and the nine-days wonder run its course and lose its
interest. But in the meantime, all Golden Friars was anxious to see what
Sir Bale Mardykes was like.