At the door of Captain Barecolt's room Nancy put the candle in his
hand, and made him a low curtsey, which might be partly in answer to
various civil speeches which the worthy and respectable gentleman had
addressed to her as they went up-stairs, partly as a hint that she did
not intend to go any farther in his company; for to say the truth, the
nose of the tall captain was not at all prepossessing in Nancy's eyes.
"I want to speak de leetle vord vid you, my dear," said Captain
Barecolt, taking the candle.
The girl, however, only dropped him another curtsey, replying, "Well,
sir, what is it? Pray be quick, for missis will want me."
"Tell me, my dear," said Barecolt, lowering his voice, "vat be dat
gentleman dat I see come in just now?--he who were vat you call
teepsy?"
"Oh, he is a lodger, sir," replied Nancy, turning round to go away.
"Stop, stop!" said Barecolt: "answer me de oder leetle vord. Have he
got von young lady vid him?"
"Yes, sir; no more," replied Nancy.
"And in dis house?" asked Captain Barecolt.
"Yes, sir," rejoined the girl again; "just in there: he locks the door
upon her, the old vermin!" she added, not at all approving such an
abridgment of female liberty, and looking upon Mr. Dry as little
better than a Turk in the garb of a Calvinist.
"Ah! he be de monstrous big rogue!" replied Barecolt. "I tought I see
him before; I know him, Nancee; I know him vell for one extravagant
great tief."
"He is not very extravagant here," answered the maid; "but I must go,
sir, upon my word;" and, whisking round, she descended the stairs, at
the foot of which her mistress called her into the little parlour, and
inquired what that man had been saying to her.
"Oh, he was asking about the gentleman in the chamber, ma'am," was
Nancy's reply; "and he says that he is an extravagant thief, that he
has seen him before, and knows him."
Mrs. White looked at Mr. O'Donnell, and Mr. O'Donnell at Mrs. White,
and then the landlady murmured, "He is not far wrong, I fancy;" to
which Mr. O'Donnell assented by a nod.
In the mean while Captain Barecolt entered his bedchamber, set down
the candle, and stretched his long limbs upon a chair, after which he
fell into a fit of thought, not gloomy, but profound. He was a man who
loved adventures, as the reader is aware, and he saw a wonderful
provision of them before him, in which he hoped and expected to have
an opportunity of developing many of those vast and important
qualities which he attributed to himself.
Wit, courage, cunning, presence of mind, dexterity of action, together
with his wonderful powers of strategy, were all likely to have full
means of displaying themselves in the twofold enterprise of delivering
Arrah Neil from the hands of Mr. Dry, of Longsoaken, and Lord Beverley
from the clutches of Sir John Hotham. He was well contented with what
he had done already. To have cheated a governor of Hull, to have
obtained his liberty in five minutes, to have passed for a Frenchman,
to have cast off the companionship of the embarrassing Mr. Jenkins,
were feats of no light merit in his eyes; and he now proposed to go
on, step by step, till he had reached the climax of accomplishment;
first using art, then daring, and crowning the whole by some brilliant
display of courage, which would immortalize him in the eyes of the
royalist party.
After he had thus continued to think for about a quarter of an hour,
and had arrived at the point of doubting whether he was in fact Julius
C[ae]sar or Alexander the Great, with some slight suspicion that he
might be neither, but Henry IV. of France instead, he opened the door
quietly, and, without taking the candle, advanced to the head of the
stairs, where, bending down his head, he listened for a moment. There
was a dull, heavy sound of people talking, however; and a man's voice
was heard, though the words he used could not be made out.
"Ay, that d--d fellow is there still!" murmured Captain Barecolt: "if
he does not go soon, I'll walk down and cut his throat." But, just as
he was turning to go back to his own room, he heard the door of the
little parlour--which, as it closed with a pulley and weight,
announced its movements by a prodigious rattle--give indications of
its being opened, and the voice of Mr. O'Donnell could be
distinguished, as he marched out, saying--
"The first thing to be done, however, Mrs. White, is to get her out of
this man's hands."
Captain Barecolt waited till the Irishman's footsteps sounded no
longer in the hall, and then, walking downstairs, proceeded straight
into the little parlour, and, much to the astonishment of Mrs. White,
seated himself before her, saying in good plain English--
"I think so too, Mrs. White."
"Lord, sir! what do you mean?" asked the worthy landlady.
"I mean, the first thing is, to get her out of this man's hands, Mrs.
White. So now let me have some supper, and I will tell you all about
it."
"Dear me, sir! Why, this is very funny," replied the landlady, with an
agitated smoothing of the table-cloth, and a tremulous arranging of
the jugs and plates; "I didn't know that any one heard what the
gentleman said."
"But I did, though, Mrs. White," replied Barecolt, "loud words will
always catch long ears."
"Why, Lord, sir, you speak as good English as I do!" said Mrs. White.
"To be sure I do," answered Barecolt; "I should be a fool if I didn't.
But now, my good lady, tell me if I can trust you; for, although my
own life is a thing that I care nothing about, and is risked every day
wherever it can be risked by shot and steel, in the breach and in the
field, there is much more to be perilled by anything like rashness
than such a trifle as that. There's this young lady's safety and
liberty, and I can tell you that there are a great many very high
people who would give no light reward to those who would set her free
from this base caitiff who has got her."
"Dear me!" cried Mrs. White; "I wish I had known that before, for here
have we been talking of nothing else for the last hour, Mr. O'Donnell
and I. Do you know who she is, sir?"
"I know more than I choose to say, Mrs. White," replied Barecolt, who
had made it the first principle of his life, from soft childhood to
rubicund maturity, never to confess ignorance of anything, and who had
frequently made a significant nod or a wise look pass for a whole
volume of information; "but what I ask you is, can I trust you, Mrs.
White? can I trust to your zeal, fidelity, and discretion? as the Duke
of Montmorenci asked me, when he was about So take arms for the
deliverance of France from the tyranny of Richelieu. I made him a low
bow, Mrs. White, laid my hand upon my heart, and said, 'Perfectly,
monseigneur;' rind if he had taken my advice, he would now have had a
head upon his shoulders."
"Lord have mercy!" exclaimed Mrs. White, overpowered with the grand
and tragic ideas which her strange guest presented to her imagination.
"Oh, dear me! yes, sir; you can trust to me perfectly, I assure you. I
would risk my house and everything rather than not set the poor dear
girl free from that nasty old puritanical creature. Why, this was the
very first house she came to after she came over from Ireland, though
Mr. O'Donnell says they went to Holland first to escape suspicion. Ay,
and here her poor mother died."
"Indeed!" said Captain Barecolt, drinking in all the tidings that he
heard; "I did not know that this was the house, Mrs. White. However, I
am glad to hear it. A very good house it is, and capital wine. You
must know, then, Mrs. White, since I can trust you fully, that I came
into Hull for the express purpose of setting this young lady free, and
restoring her to her friends, Lord Walton and his sister."
The worthy captain, as the reader will perceive, was never at a loss
for a lie, and indeed the habit of telling the exact truth had been so
long abandoned, if ever it was possessed, that the worthy professor of
the sword might have found no slight difficulty in avoiding every
shade of falsehood which his fertile imagination was continually
offering him to embellish his various narratives withal. He had no
particular object in deceiving Mrs. White, in regard to the real mode,
manner, and object of his visit to Hull; but it was his general
practice to begin by telling the lie first, and leaving the truth as a
sort of strong corps of reserve to fall back upon in case of need.
"Dear me, sir!" cried Mrs. White; "why, Mr. Jenkins told me that you
were a Frenchman who had come over to serve our poor good king against
these parliamentary folks; that you had been taken prisoner, and now
offer to serve the parliament."
"All a lie, all a lie, Mrs. White," replied Captain Barecolt; "it is
wonderful what lies people will tell when it is quite as easy to speak
the truth. However, in saying I was a Frenchman, he knew no better,
poor silly man, for I pretended to be so in order to carry on my
schemes the better. But as I see you are true to the royal cause, I
will let you know I am an officer in the king's service, and have no
intention whatever of being anything else. Neither must you suppose,
Mrs. White, that I come here as a spy; for, although I hold that upon
certain occasions the office of spy may become honourable, yet it is
not one that I would willingly fill. So now, Mrs. White, as I said
before, let me have some supper, and then tell me what is to be done
for the deliverance of this young lady."
Captain Barecolt had risen wonderfully in the estimation of Mrs. White
during the last five minutes; and, such is the effect of our mental
affections upon our corporeal faculties, that she began to think him
by no means so ugly a man as he had at first appeared: his nose
reduced itself into very tolerable and seemly proportions in her eyes,
the redness thereof became nothing more than a pleasant glow, and his
tall figure and somewhat long, ungainly limbs acquired an air of
dignity and command which Mrs. White thought very striking.
Bustling about, then, she prepared to supply him with the comfortable
things of this life with great good-will, and was struck with
considerable admiration at the vigour and pertinacity with which he
assailed the viands placed before him. She was obliged, indeed, to
call to Nancy to bring a fresh supply; but Captain Barecolt made a
significant sign, by laying his finger on the side of his nose, which
organ might be considered indeed as a sort of telegraph erected by
nature with a view to such signals; and he afterwards reminded her, in
a low voice, that his incognito must be kept up with all others but
herself.
"You are the only confidante I shall make in the town of Hull," he
added: "one confederate is quite sufficient for a man of genius, and
to everybody else I am de same Capitaine Jereval dat came over from
France to help de king, but be now villing to help de parliament."
"Lawk, sir, how well you do it!" said the landlady; "but I think you
are very right not to tell any one but me; for they are a sad, prying,
gossiping race in the town of Hull, and you might soon have your
secret blown over the place. But as to poor Miss Arrah, sir, I really
do not know what is to be done. I can see very well that Mr. O'Donnell
knows more about her than he chooses to say; and I can find that it
was through him that the poor lady, her mother, held her
communications with Ireland. He won't tell me who she is, though, nor
what was her father's name, nor her mother's either, though I tried to
pump him as hard as I could. Perhaps you, sir, may be able to tell
me."
"There Is such a thing as discretion, Mrs. White," said Captain
Barecolt, with a sagacious air; but, suspecting that Mrs. White had
some doubts regarding him and his knowledge of Arrah, and was only
trying to ascertain how far his information respecting her really
extended, he added, "I suppose the young lady is in bed by this time;
but I should be glad, Mrs. White, if you would take the first
opportunity of telling her, that one of the gentlemen who accompanied
Lord Walton from Bishop's Merton is now in Hull, and will not quit the
place without setting her free."
"Oh, bless you, sir! I dare say she is not in bed," answered Mrs.
White; "and if she be, I should not mind waking her to tell her such
good news as that. I'll go directly," she continued, shaking her bunch
of keys significantly. "The old hunx locks the door and takes away the
key, and then gets as drunk as a beast, so that she might starve for
that matter, but I can always get in notwithstanding."
"Ay, ay!" answered Barecolt; "a landlady is nothing without her
pass-key, so run and make use of it, there's a dear woman; and if the
young lady is up I will go and see her now. If she is not, it must be
to-morrow morning."
Mrs. White was absent for about five minutes, during which time
Captain Barecolt continued his attack upon the cold beef, so that, by
the time the worthy landlady returned, the vast sirloin looked as if a
mammoth had been feeding on it.
"Oh, dear sir!" said Mrs. White, "she is so glad to hear that you are
here! and she would fain get up and go away with you this very night,
but I told her that couldn't be, for the gates are closed and locked."
"Locks are nothing to me, Mrs. White," replied the captain, with a
sublime look; "and gates disappear before my hand as if they were made
of pasteboard. Did I not, with a single petard, blow open the Porte
Nantoise of Ancenis, which weighed three tons weight, and took two men
to move it on its hinges?"
"Lord ha' mercy, sir!" exclaimed Mrs. White; "why, you are as bad as
Samson."
"A great deal worse," replied the captain; "but, however, I could not
go to-night, for there's other business to be done first."
"Oh ay, yes, sir," she said: "to get the papers; for I do not know
whether you are aware that that old puritanical wretch has got all the
papers and things out of poor Sergeant Neil's cottage--at least we
think so; and I don't doubt in the least that all about poor Miss
Arrah is to be found there."
"Nor I either, Mrs. White," answered Barecolt; "but can I see the
young lady to-night, or must I wait till tomorrow?"
"She will be up in a few minutes, sir," replied the worthy landlady.
"She would not hear of waiting, though I told her I could easily get
the old man out of the way tomorrow by sending him a wild-goose chase
after Hugh O'Donnell."
"Well, then," said Barecolt, "you go and see when she is ready, and in
the mean time I'll finish my supper."