Now this is worshipful society.--_King John._
The room, into which Bertram now introduced himself, was spacious
beyond any thing that he had anticipated: but, spacious as it was, it
seemed barely sufficient for its different occupants. A large playbill,
hung in a very conspicuous situation, announced the play of Venice
Preserved for representation on that evening. It was now a good deal
after 10 o'clock, and the performance was over: but the Venetian
_Nobili_, in the dignified solemnity of their black dresses, were
scattered about the room in parties--or laying aside the costlier part
of their finery in a remote corner partly screened off from public
view, which had been allotted to them as a tiring room. Round about the
fire-place, in an elevated sort of _dais_ which had been railed off
into a bar, a canopy of smoke proclaimed that a festive party were
somewhere seated beneath it. On advancing a few steps further, Bertram
could distinguish their faces and arrangement. Close by the fire side
sate a huge Dutchman with a huge pipe, solemnly fixing his eyes upon
the pomp of clouds which he had created or was in the act of creating,
and apparently solacing himself with some vague images of
multiplication and division. His leaden eye showed that he was
completely rapt away from all that was passing about him: two critics
disputing at his right ear upon the relative pretensions of two
actresses,--two politicians disputing at his back on the Sinking Fund
and the Funds in general, as little disturbed his meditations as two
disputants before his face, viz. the landlord and the manager of the
theatrical company, who were sharply discussing some private point of
finance in their daily reckoning. The poor manager,--with his keen,
meagre, and anxious countenance, at this moment rendered doubly anxious
by the throes of an arithmetical computation,--seemed the antagonist
pole of the Dutchman: he was endeavouring, with little success, to
bring the night's receipts into something like a counterbalance to the
daily bill: this had just been presented by the landlord, who had
placed his bulky person immediately behind him, looked over his
shoulder, and having encircled him with his arms for the sake of
leaning with his knuckles upon the table, had fairly pinned in the poor
manager, who continued at intervals upon every perplexing interruption
from his antagonist to wheel round and face him like a stag at bay.
Nearer to Bertram sate a man, whose curved nose--black hair--ardent
looks--and sallow complexion, at once announced him as a Frenchman:
he was occupied in painting a portrait of one actress at the same
time that he was making complimentary grimaces to three others.
In the chimney-corner, and over against the Dutchman, was seated
an elderly man, of short thick-set person, dressed in a shabby grey
coat--boots--and a white hat. His features were not in themselves very
striking, but had been habitually composed to one intense expression of
dissatisfaction with all about him. Like the Dutchman he looked away
from the company towards the fire, and appeared to take no interest in
any thing which went on: but this in _him_ was mere affectation. The
Dutchman, as a child could see, was most sincerely indifferent to every
thing but the festoons of smoke which formed about him; nor ever seemed
to suffer in his peace of mind except when this aerial drapery was rent
or too much attenuated: then indeed he puffed with a perceptible
agitation, until he had reinstated the vapoury awning--which done he
immediately recovered his equanimity. But as to White Hat, by the
complexity of his man[oe]uvres for disguising his interest in the
conversation about him--by uniformly shifting his chair upon the
approximation of any other chair--and by the jealous anxiety with which
he affected to turn away his head if any person were talking near him,
he made it sufficiently evident that no one person in the room paid so
earnest an attention to what was passing as himself. _He_ also had
resorted to a pipe for the sake of expressing his abstraction from the
world about him; but how different were his short--uneasy--asthmatic
puffs from the floating pomp with which the Dutchman sent up his
voluminous exhalations! In his right hand he held a newspaper which he
appeared to be reading; sometimes glancing his eye over it, sometimes
dwelling upon the words as if he were spelling them; in general however
giving himself a great deal of trouble to impress upon all about him
that he took little or no interest in any thing he read.
These were the most noticeable persons of the company to which Bertram
now advanced; taking care at the same time to call for wine in an
imposing tone of voice. At this sound the landlord wheeled suddenly
round, which fortunately set the poor manager at liberty. Both stared
at Bertram: the Frenchman looked up for a moment: even the White Hat,
being taken by surprise, made a half wheel on his chair; though
immediately reverting, not without some indignation at himself, to his
former position; in fact every soul in the room looked at Bertram
except the Dutchman. Silence ensued; and the landlord, after raising
and dropping his eyes alternately from Bertram's head to his foot,
demanded if he had a horse with him.
"No, I am on foot," replied Bertram.
"Very late time of night," the landlord muttered, "to be walking: pray,
which way do you come?"
"From the sea-side, where I was set ashore this evening about 5
o'clock."
After a little further cross-examination, the landlord appeared to be
satisfied; and directed "Jenny" to bring the wine; the buz of
conversation, which had been hushed during the landlord's colloquy with
the stranger, freshened again; and Bertram proceeded to take his seat
amongst the company.
It is affirmed by some philosophers that Timon of Athens himself, if,
on issuing from the darkness and cold of a fifteen miles' walk on a
frosty winter's night succeeding to a day of hardship and exposure, he
were suddenly to burst on a gay fire-side of human faces, lights, wine,
and laughter,--would inevitably forget his misanthropy for that
evening, and be glad to take his share in the conversation. Bertram was
probably so disposed; it was therefore unfortunate for him that he took
his seat by the side of the Dutchman.
"I perceive," said Bertram, "that you have had a play performed this
evening."
Without looking up from his pipe, Minheer replied--"Like enough! I was
told there were players here."
Nothing discouraged Bertram turned to his opposite neighbour, the White
Hat: "You, Sir, probably attended the performance?"
"_I?_" replied the indignant man, "_I_ trouble myself with such
fooleries, when the poor country is ruined and perishing for bread?"
"_Fooleries!_ Mr. Dulberry," exclaimed the manager, "what! Venice
Preserved?"
"Venice Preserved, or Venice Treacle; what care I? It's a play-book,
isn't it?--Here we are taxed already for the support of libraries,
museums, Herculanean manuscripts, Elgin marbles, and God knows what.
Very soon, I suppose government will assess us so much a head for the
theatres."
"Ah, poor Venice Preserved!" ejaculated the manager, sighing: "it has
always some enemy or other. In quiet times it is laid on the shelf.
Then comes some season of political ferment: the liberty boys kick up a
dust: the public voice calls for the play clamorously: the theatre
fills nightly: every allusion is caught at with rapture: and, as to the
actors, they may lie upon their oars; for, let them play as ill as they
choose, they are sure of applause for the sake of what they utter. But,
as often as ever this happens, in steps the government and forbids the
representation."
"Forbid the representation?" shrieked Mr. Dulberry; "forbid that
excellent play Venice Preserved? What! there's something in it against
government, is there? Oh! it's an admirable play. And how, now, how is
it they forbid it? Not by act of parliament, I dare swear: bad as
parliament is, they would hardly trust it to them. By an order in
council, I suppose? and Lord Londonderry sends a regiment of dragoons
into the pit, eh?"
"No, Mr. Dulberry: the Lord Chamberlain forbids it."
"The Lord Chamberlain? Worse and worse! And so it's the Lord
Chamberlain that sends the dragoons?--Chamberlain! why that's the man
that takes care of the government sheets and pillow-slips; the overseer
of the chambermaids. And he's to trample on the liberties of the
country and to put out the lights of the theatre, by the hoofs of
military despotism!--Oh fie! fie! poor old England!"
Partly from political indignation, and partly from some more personal
indignation at a little laughing which now arose in some quarter of the
room, the patriot returned hastily to the Courier, which he held in his
hand; and the conversation seemed likely to droop; when suddenly
Bertram's attention was drawn by a bright blaze of light; and, looking
up, he beheld his reforming neighbour, Mr. Dulberry, metamorphosed into
a pillar of salt. His mouth was wide open; the whites of his eyes were
raised to the ceiling; one hand was clenched; the other hung lifeless
by his side. The Courier had sunk with one end into the fire; a roaring
flame was springing up and enveloping the whole: and, before Mr.
Dulberry returned to his self-possession, the newspaper with all its
world of history and prophecy was reduced to ashes.
"Mr. Dulberry! for God's sake, Mr. Dulberry! what's the matter?"
exclaimed the company on all sides. "Has Bolivar beaten the royalists?
Is the Austrian loan repaid? or what is it, for the love of heaven?"
"What is it, gentlemen? a thing to make your ears tingle! the
Manchester massacres were a trifle to it. An Englishman----Oh Lord!
gentlemen, it's all over with the habeas corpus act----an Englishman
has been arrested by the emissaries of government after he had quitted
the kingdom."
"What government? the French government?"
"No, gentlemen, by the English government: arrested out of the kingdom:
think of that, gentlemen!"
"But where, where?" exclaimed several voices: "in France?"
"Why yes, I think I may say in France: for he was going to France; and
he had actually put off in a boat from the Isle of Wight, and was three
hundred yards from shore, on his way towards a French ship, which he
was going to board."
"Oh come, Mr. Dulberry," said some of the company, laughing, "but
that's England, however: as far as an English cannonball will reach,
and a little farther too in the opinion of some jurists, the four seas
are English property: England's domain; her manor; her park; and she
has a right to set up turnpike gates if she pleases."
"By no means, gentlemen, by no means; Blackstone says that, to
constitute possession, there must go two things--the act of possessing,
and the will to possess. So also no doubt of a man's domicile: to make
this bar my domicile, I must not only _be_ here; but secondly, I must
_will_ to be here. Now this man willed to be in France; and England was
no longer his domicile. And where a man is not, there he ought not by
law to be arrested."
This pretty piece of subtilty was received by most of the company with
a smile; but as Mr. Dulberry remarked that some little murmuring arose,
which announced that some of his auditors were impressed with what he
had said, he seized his opportunity, jumped upon his chair, flourished
his white hat, and briefly harangued the company.
"Gentlemen," said he, "we all know that ministers have sealed this
country against all unhappy foreigners, and have tarnished the old
English character for generous hospitality by their cursed alien bill.
This we knew before: but now comes a fresh assault on liberty. Not only
must we look on and see nets and lines set all round our once
hospitable shores to catch the unhappy fugitives from continental
tyranny; but at length, it seems, ministers are to be allowed to throw
out their grappling hooks after English fugitives from the tyranny of
Lord Londonderry. If a man runs to the North Pole, I suppose Lord
Londonderry and Ally[1] Croaker will soon be after them: and _that_, by
the way, is the meaning of all these polar voyages.--I see that even
the ministerial gentlemen present cast down their eyes and look
ashamed. No man has a word to say in defence. What I propose therefore
is, that we all unite in an address to the king--testifying our
abhorrence of this last act which has made the cup of our afflictions
run over, and begging that his majesty would dissolve the present
administration, and form a new one on a more patriotic basis."
"But, Mr. Dulberry, who is it that has been arrested?" cried many of
the company.
"That's nothing to the purpose, gentlemen: the man's an Englishman; and
that's enough, I hope."
"But how if he should turn out to be an English lunatic escaped from
his keepers?" said a cynical looking man in the corner.
A laugh followed, and a general cry of--, "Name! name!"
Not to forfeit his hold upon the public attention, Mr. Dulberry found
himself obliged to relax the rigor of his principles, and to descend
from the universal character of Englishman to so impertinent a
consideration as the character of the individual.--"His name,
gentlemen, is Edward Nicholas."
"Nicholas! Edward Nicholas!" said a number of voices at once: "what
_our_ Nicholas?"
"As to _that_, I know not: he was described in the Courier as a bold
adventurer: many honourable traits were recited of his conduct; and in
particular I remember it was said that he had fought on the side of
liberty in South America, and had once commanded a sloop of war--as a
commissioned officer--under Artigas."
"Oh! the same, the same!" exclaimed the greater part of the company:
"our Nicholas, sure enough: but what mad trick has he been playing
now?"
The patriot was evidently uneasy, and reluctant to answer this
question. Being pressed however on all sides, he replied--"I don't
know, gentlemen, that he has been playing any tricks: the Courier
pretends that he is charged with some knowledge of the Cato-street
affair; treason, or misprision of treason, as they call it in their
d---d treasury jargon."
"Oh! Cato-street? Is _that_ it?" cried the whole room with one voice,
"then we'll have no addresses for him: no, no! we'll not address his
Majesty for a Cato-street conspirator."
"But, gentlemen," said the disconcerted patriot--"But gentlemen, I
say----"
"Mr. Dulberry, it won't do," interrupted a grave-looking tradesman:
"Attack the ministers as much as you will. Let every man attack them.
It's all fair. And I dare say they deserve it: for I'm not the man to
think any of them saints. But let's hear it all in the old English way;
all fair and above board: no foul play: no stabbing of unarmed men: set
Junius upon them--set Cato upon them--set Publicola upon them in the
newspapers. But no slipping into men's friendly meetings! no cutting
throats by the fire-side! No Venice conspirators in England."
"Friendly meetings! and fire-sides!" said Dulberry; "why, God bless me,
how you varnish the matter! To hear _you_ talk,--one would suppose
these ministers of ours were so many lambs, and met for nothing but to
kiss and sing psalms. I tell you, they never meet but to plot against
us and our liberties. And as to conspirators, if you come to _that_, I
know of none except at Lord Harrowby's. _You_ say there was a
conspiracy of Cato-street against Grosvenor-square: _I_ say--No: there
was a conspiracy of Grosvenor-square against Cato-street."
This view of the case seemed so new and original to the company, that
a general laugh followed; and the reformer, finding that he was no
longer accompanied by the sympathy of his audience, sate down in
dudgeon--muttering something about "lacqueys of Lord Londonderry." The
politician being silenced, an opening was now allowed for a subject far
more interesting to the majority of those who were present, and to many
more in this part of Wales.
"And so Nicholas is taken at last?" said Mr. Bloodingstone a butcher:
"Well, now that's what I could never have thought--that Nicholas should
let himself be taken as quietly as a lamb. Bless your hearts, on all
this coast there's not a creek or a cranny big enough for a field-mouse
but he knew it: and all the way from Barmouth to Carnarvon I'll be
sworn there's not a man on the Preventive Service, simple or gentle,
but Nicholas has had his neck under his foot at one time or another."
"Aye, Mr. Bloodinsgtone," replied the landlord: "but a Bow-street
officer with his staff is like Joshua the son of Nun; he can make the
sun and moon stand still. So _that's_ not the thing I wonder at. What
surprizes me is--that a man like Nicholas should ever meddle with these
politics and politicians, that get nothing for their pains but bloody
heads and a trifle of fame that would never pay for one glass of good
whiskey punch. What! Nicholas was a man of sense; and a d---d long head
he had of his own. And, if he would but have been quiet and have gone
on in a regular way, he might have been a rich man by this time: for he
had credit for evermore with the merchants in Amsterdam and Antwerp;
and with some others too that I'll say nothing about."
"Was this Nicholas then settled in business at this place?" asked the
Frenchman.
A smile appeared on the major part of the faces present; and the
landlord answered with a loud laugh--"Settled! my God! I would be glad
to see the place where Nicholas was ever settled for twenty-four hours
together. No, bless you! Nicholas was no settler. And there's some folk
will say that he never sate down in his life: but that's not true; for
I've seen him sit many a time in that very arm-chair where the young
gentleman is now sitting:" here he pointed to Bertram who felt somewhat
uneasy at the very marked attention which was at this moment directed
on him by the company. The landlord however took no notice, but
proceeded in his answer: "No, Nicholas was no settler: and just as
little can I call him a man in business. He was a sort of agent, you
see, in other people's business; and a d---d dangerous sort of business
too; and I suppose there's never been his match in that way since the
time of Owen Owalys. However we'll say nothing about all that: he
stocked the whole country with cheap brandies and other little matters.
And so I'll say nothing against his way of doing business; though I
reckon we mustn't praise it, except in a corner."
"You must understand, Monsieur," said a voice from behind, "that this
Nicholas set up an opposition trade against the government; and
undersold it, so that government lost all its trade in this part of the
country: for which reason government is jealous of him, and can't abide
him.--But, landlord, it seems you knew this Nicholas?"
"I knew him in a manner: but how? I knew him, and I knew him not.
Scores of times he has sate in this bar, and I never knew it to be him
until after he was gone. Sometimes he would come dressed like an old
beggar, and slink into a corner; sometimes like a labouring man, and
argue with me for the value of a halfpenny; other times I have known
him come like a lord, and make his guineas fly about like so much dust.
And once--egad! I can't help laughing--he came in the uniform of a
dragoon officer, and he would needs cudgel me for letting Nicholas
escape. He got me by the throat: I sung out for my very life:
Jenny--she ran for the constables: the neighbours came flocking in:
Alderman Gravesand brought all his _posse comitatus_ down, for he was
then on the look-out for Nicholas at the town's end: and, would you
believe it? by that time all was settled the whole party of the
smugglers, bag and baggage, was clean through the town, and ten miles
on the road to Ap Gauvon. And all this at noon-day."
"Well, landlord, and what said Nicholas when you saw him next?"
"The next time I saw him, gentlemen, was in my own bar; and dressed in
one of my own wigs, jacket, and apron. Gad, I never was so frightened
in the whole course of my life. I had just walked a mile out of town to
our parson's; and, as I was coming back, a man shot by me like an
arrow: but, as quick as he was, says I to myself,--That's Nicholas!
And sure enough many minutes had'nt passed before up comes a great
company of men, and asks me which way Nicholas had gone. I thought to
myself--These'll be the Blazer's men of the revenue service, that's
stationed off Caernarvon. So I did'nt trouble myself to give 'em much
of an answer, and away they pelted after him in full cry. Well,
gentlemen,--before I got home, both hare and hounds (as it happened)
had turned into my bar. And, if you'll believe me, the first man I
clapt my eyes on as I came into my own house--egad, I thought it was
myself or my own ghost."
"And if this had been in the Scotch Highlands now, landlord, you would
have been sure of being in your coffin before the year was out."
"Why I know not for that, Sir: but it's not lucky in any country for a
man to see his own likeness walking about: and I'll not deny but I was
a little startled; and I sate me down amongst the Blazer's men, and
could not speak a word. And says he to me--(but he turned his face
rather away)--'Good man, did you call for whiskey?' And I could have
sworn to the voice for my own amongst a thousand: But, when he served
me the whiskey, I looked hard at him; and I saw it was Nicholas. But I
had'nt the heart to betray him: and I says to him--'Landlord, how are
you? and how goes business?'--'Business?' says he, 'we've business for
evermore; I'm run off my feet with business.' And sure enough he took
sixpence of me in my own bar; and fifteen shillings of the revenue men
for smuggled brandy. And whilst they were drinking, out he slips--and
whips away at the north gate by the very same road they had all come;
and two minutes after the lieutenant and his company were off, as if
the devil drove 'em, to the south."
"This extraordinary talent for personating every age and character,"
said the manager, "he learned (or improved however) whilst he was
in my troop. He was the best actor I ever had: nothing came amiss to
him--Richard the Third, or Aguecheek; Shylock or Pistol--Romeo or the
Apothecary--Hamlet or the Cock[2]: for by the way he once took it into
his head to play the Cock in the first scene of Hamlet; and he crowed
in so very superior a style that the oldest cock in the neighbourhood
was taken in, and got to answering him; and the crowing spread from one
farm-house to another till all the cocks in Carnarvonshire were
crowing."
"Ha! ha! ha! Mr. Manager, and what said the audience to this?"
"What said the audience? Why they encored him--pit, boxes, and gallery:
and the ghost was obliged to come on again, that he might be crowed off
again. But all this was when he was a boy of 17: for he soon got tired
of the stage."
"Aye, he grows tired of every thing," said some of the company: "and by
this time, I'll be bound for it, he's grown tired of smuggling: and, if
it be true that he has had any thing to do with Thistlewood, that's the
reason."
"No," said another, "that's _not_ the reason; tired of smuggling, I
dare say he was; for a man, like Nicholas, could never have liked it
for any thing but its active life, and its danger and its difficulties.
But, if any thing has brought him connected with Cato-street, it is
love."
"Love! what love for Lord Londonderry?"
"No, no, you guess what I mean; there are few in this room but know
pretty well what I mean; love for a young lady in the neighbourhood."
"Miss Walladmor, I suppose?"
"Hush! hush!" said the landlord,--"let us name no names."
"Well! no matter for the name: but we all know that love had turned his
brain: he was desperate; and for this last year and a half it's
notorious that he has been as mad as a March hare."
"Nicholas in love!" said Mr. Bloodingstone, "well, now that sounds as
comical to me as if I should say, that my bull-dog Towser was in love
with a bull."
"Why, God bless my soul! haven't the Rotterdam merchants turned him out
of their service for that very reason? I know it to be a fact that, no
farther back than last February, when one of them was promising him 400
guineas if he'd do this and that,--'Damn your guineas!' says he, 'if it
were not for a fairer face than ever I saw on a guinea, I would never
set foot in Wales again.' And he raved at such a rate about the young
lady, that all the owners began to be shy of him: and the end of it
was, that Captain le----what's his name?--has been put in his room."
"Captain Jackson you mean," said the landlord, "for that's his real
name; aye, it's true enough that Jackson has now got the command."
"Well, but mad or not mad, what became of Nicholas after the Bow-street
officers had laid hold of him? Mr. Dulberry, you had the paper: what
became of him? Clapt into a post-chaise for London, eh?"
"No, sir: with all their plots, it seems government couldn't make
sure of catching him on the Cato-street business: witnesses couldn't
be bought, or juries couldn't be packed, I suppose: and so they've
sent him to this part of the country; and he's to take his trial at
Dolgelly or Carnarvon for some old affairs, God knows what, with the
Custom-house or the Blazer."
"God bless me!" exclaimed almost every man in the room, "so then we
shall see Edward Nicholas once more; and I'll walk fifty miles rather
than miss the sight. And which way does he come, Mr. Dulberry?"
"By sea, gentlemen; they shipped him on board the steam-packet Halcyon;
and God, in his mercy, grant that this cursed instrument of despotic
power may blow up and deliver so good a patriot from their snares!"
"The Halcyon!" exclaimed Bertram, with a vehemence proportioned to his
sudden surprise and the interest which by this time he felt in the
subject of the conversation--"The Halcyon! Why then, Mr. Dulberry, your
prayer is granted: for the Halcyon blew up two days ago in St. George's
Channel; somewhere, I believe, off the Isle of Anglesea: _I_ was one of
the passengers; and, to the best of my belief, all on board have
perished--except myself."
In Lloyd's coffee-house, or other places of great resort in London,
when a placard is exhibited reporting any important news, the
restlessness of public impatience seems often as though it would extort
an answer to its further curiosity from the inanimate pillar or post to
which the placard is affixed: it may be supposed how much more liable
to such importunity is the bearer of a placard that happens to be no
stone pillar but a living man. Bertram was pressed upon from all sides
for his narrative of the catastrophe, which he gave in substance as the
reader has already heard it. Of Nicholas, whom he now understood to
have been his fellow-passenger, he knew nothing: that some state
prisoner, of extraordinary character, was on board--he had indeed
casually heard; but had seen nothing of him to his own knowledge; and
if he were under hatches and in irons, there was no room to doubt that
he must have been amongst those who were most sure to have perished.
All that he could certainly report of the final sequel to his own
share in the adventure--was that, since his eyes had opened on
shore, they had rested on no countenance which he remembered to
have seen on board the Halcyon. It is needless to say that a mixed
expression of wonder, deep interest in the events, and compassion
for the unfortunate sufferers, accompanied Bertram's narrative. The
narrator himself was the object of a mingled sympathy of condolence and
congratulation--blended however with an air of keen examination
directed to his features (now that they were brought nearer to the
observers and under a steadier light) which had once before distressed
him in the course of the evening, and for which he could find no
satisfactory explanation. The prevailing sentiment, which arose at the
end of the account, was a lively regret that the near prospect of
seeing Edward Nicholas again--so suddenly opened upon them--should have
been so suddenly overcast. Nevertheless, such was the general
confidence in his good fortune and his unrivalled resources in presence
of mind and bodily activity--that considerable odds were offered by
many of the company that Nicholas, who had outlived so many desperate
storms, both by sea and land, in all climates of the world, would yet
be heard of again.
For any of these feelings or considerations Mr. Dulberry had no
leisure: the moral, which he drew from this, as from all other events
great or small--sad or merry, was exclusively civic and full of
patriotic spleen:--"So then," said he, "you see what sort of ships
government choose for transporting their state prisoners?"
"But, good God, Mr. Dulberry, you can hardly suppose that the boiler of
the Halcyon was in the pay of my Lord Londonderry?"
"The boiler!--No: but where was the engineer that _should_ have been
in his pay? Didn't Mr. Bennett propose a year or two ago, that no
steam-packet should be lawfully turned off the stocks before it was
thoroughly examined by a state engineer? Didn't----"
But here supper was announced, a summons welcome in itself, and at this
moment doubly so as putting a stop to the reformer. Even that person
condescended to be pleased on the former consideration, though
reasonably incensed on the other; and he advanced to the table in a
continued ejaculation of inarticulate grunts--a sort of equivocal
language in which he designed to convey alike his approbation of supper
and displeasure at the interruption.
Bertram took his seat with the rest of the party; but sought an early
opportunity of withdrawing himself from a scene of convivial merriment,
in which his previous fatigues had by this time wholly disqualified him
for sharing with any cordiality. Wearily he followed the person who
conducted him to his bedchamber: but, spite of his sleepiness and
exhaustion, he was roused to a slight shock of something like terror,
by a little incident which occurred on the way:--in one of the
galleries, through which they passed, a man was standing at the further
end: he was apparently in the act of admitting himself into a bedroom:
but something, which embarrassed him about the lock or the key,
detained him until they advanced near enough to throw the light of a
candle full upon his profile. It was the profile of a face tanned into
a gypsey complexion, and for so young a face--weather-beaten, thin, and
wasted; but otherwise of Grecian beauty of outline; and, as far as
could be judged from so hasty and oblique a glance, remarkably
expressive and dignified. The man did not look round or take any other
notice of them, as they advanced: and the attendant either had not, or
affected not to have, any knowledge of his person: but Bertram felt a
bewildering remembrance, as if suddenly snatched and recovered from a
dream, of the same features seen under circumstances of some profounder
interest. He labored anxiously to recollect in what situation and when;
but the events of the last few days had so agitated and bewildered his
mind, that he labored in vain; and, the more he thought, the more he
entangled himself in a web of perplexity. From this and all other
perplexities, however, he was speedily liberated by the sound sleep
which seized him the moment he had laid his head on the pillow.
FOOTNOTES TO "CHAPTER VI.":
[Footnote 1: A joke upon an Irish accentuation of Mr. Croker's, the
Secretary to the Admiralty. In his _Talavera_ he accentuated the word
Ally _Hibernice_, with the accent on the first syllable. On which Mr.
Southey playfully called him _Ally Croaker_.]
[Footnote 2: A joke borrowed from ----, by whom it was applied to a
better man than himself; one of the most extraordinary men of genius in
this age, and whose life has been more romantic than that of Edward
Nicholas.]