OF AN ODD PASSAGE IN THE MEADOW.
“FOR the love of God, my lad, don’t fire!” I cried to the rebel at the
pitch of the little voice that yet was left me.
They had now halted, and stood confronting one another very close in
the dewy grass of the open meadow, while the moon wrapped them in her
creepy light. For, perhaps, while one might count thirty they stood
apart with as little motion as the ghostly trees, in a tense and
straining silence. Again I cried:
“Oh, hold your fire, my lad!” more instantly than ever. And as I thus
implored him, I made a great effort to overtake and get between them.
But the matter was now gone utterly beyond any control of mine. They
gave me no more heed than I had been a tuft of grass. And whether
’twas that the sound of me behind him spurred the Captain to a fury,
or that he risked his life from calculation, sure, I can never say,
for, as I came up, without a word the Captain sprang and the prisoner
shot together. At the fierce crack of the pistol the Captain fell from
his full height upon the turf, and I recoiled from the report and felt
all at once the wet grass tickling my face; whereon a sudden darkness
filled my eyes, and I lost the sense of where I was. For some little
time I must have been insensible. But soon the blackness that pressed
upon my eyelids lifted somewhat, and the buzzing in my ears abated.
’Twas then that I found myself sitting in a most quaint fashion on the
grass, though the manner of my falling on that wet sward was a point
more than my knowledge. A comic figure I must have cut, and I believe
my earliest feeling was one of deep relief that there was but one
spectator of my plight--he the Captain, who to tell the truth was in
no prettier case. I was at first disposed to attribute my preposterous
state to the wrought condition of my nerves, and had half arrived at
the conclusion that even this pretext was insufficient for so extreme
a situation, when I grew dimly conscious that a sort of fiery pain was
throbbing in one shoulder. It was then I knew that I was hit. Meantime
poor Captain Grantley was striving hard to rise. Twice he tried and
twice he failed and fell back on the grass. The second time he groaned
an oath, for his eyes had fallen on the swift figure of the prisoner
fading in the dew.
“Dammy, Jimmy!” says he to himself, struggling for the third time
to regain his feet and failing. “It’s no go, my lad. You are taken
somewhere.”
Thereupon he sat up in the grass and began to whistle with grave
bravado an odd strain from the “Beggar’s Opera.” Then my merry
gentleman turned and looked at me. I also was sitting up in the grass,
perhaps a dozen yards away, and was in almost an identical posture to
himself, except that mine was a matter of the nerves and shoulder. But
if you could have found a more comic pair upon the surface of the earth
than we made just then, I should be glad to learn their whereabouts,
for to behold them would well repay a pilgrimage.
“Why, bless my soul, my Lady Barbara!” he cries in a tone of deep
concern, “do not tell me that you are taken too!”
“I fear I am,” says I, with a great desire to swoon, for my shoulder
was as hot and wet as possible.
“But not grievously, I hope,” says he.
“Sure I do not know,” I answered weakly. And sure I didn’t! For I felt
so utterly foreign at this moment to my usual confident and lively self
that I was not certain whether I was really caught at all, or whether
I was about to die. The Captain, however, was not to be satisfied with
this. With the aid of two hands and one knee he crawled towards me,
dragging his shattered member through the grass, as stiffly as a pole,
so that it seemed to trail after the remainder of his body in the
manner of a wounded snake. When he reached my side, though I think I
was very nearly dying for a little sympathy, he compelled me to extend
all that I was expending on myself to him. The moonlight, beating
fully on his face, showed it livid and drawn with pain.
“Why, my dear man,” says I, “what have you dragged yourself here to
do?” For seeing him in this extremity, I forgot all about my shoulder,
which really seemed to have had no more than one stroke from a whip
laid on it.
“To succour you,” says he, “if you will permit me?”
“Then I won’t,” says I, “for ’tis you that’s wanting aid.”
“Psha!” says he; “a mere scratch, my dearest lady.”
Now that was not the truth, for the man was in such agony that he could
scarcely speak. Yet I thought his courage admirable. Here it was I made
an attempt to rise on my own account, and with far better success than
he. But so soon as I stood up, my head reeled and swayed and nearly
brought me to the grass again.
I think it must have been the presence of the Captain that saved me
from fainting on the spot. But having once fought down that supreme
desire, my strength unaccountably returned, and I determined to set
forth straightway to the house to procure assistance for the Captain,
who was still sitting on the turf as helpless as a baby.
“I beg of you,” says he, observing me to be already fit for travel, “to
instruct one of your people to call my men at once.”
“By my faith, no,” says I, “that poor lad must have as much start of
you and your men as possible. Captain, you forget that I am a rebel.”
“Under your pardon I do not,” says he, whilst a groan rose to his lips.
“And would that I might dissemble it, for this may prove a very awkward
business.”
’Twas a smothered threat of course, but I smiled at it demurely.
However, my present plan to assist the prisoner’s escape was unluckily
doomed to a frustration. A sentry had been dispatched from the house
to relieve the one on guard at the stable door. Finding him asleep and
the prisoner gone, he had repaired to his comrades, and then to the
Captain’s room with a report of the occurrence. That bird was also
flown. Thereupon the whole house was put in a commotion, somewhere on
the stroke of four of the wintry morning, and the soldiers issued forth
in a body to seek high and low the rebel and their officer. Three of
them were now bearing down upon us in the meadow. In a word they were
advised of their commander’s accident and the necessity for haste.
Therefore summoning their fellows they promptly unhinged one of the
hurdles of the park and bore the Captain on it to his chamber. And as
soon as they had done this, they got to horse, and galloped hotly in
pursuit of the fleeing rebel, who had something less than two hours
start upon them.
“We shall see him brought back before the day is out!” said the
Captain, confidently; “for he hath never a friend nor a horse hereby,
nor a penny to procure them.”
Meantime I was in a panic of alarm on my own account. To a woman of
the mode a pair of unblemished shoulders are highly requisite when she
repairs to Vauxhall, the playhouse, or the King’s levee. No sooner did
the fear oppress me that one of them was permanently mutilated than
I discarded my vapidity and went like the wind from the meadow to my
chamber to resolve the matter to the test. I cannot possibly convey to
you the distresses of hope and fear I suffered on that journey. I never
felt my wound at all now, and was hardly conscious of my weariness.
Thus in a surprising little time I was running up the staircase to
my chamber. Emblem was toasting her toes at the hearth, and was very
properly asleep and dreaming of white satin. My vigorous entrance woke
her, though.
“Come, wench, bestir yourself!” cries I, in my fever of alarm, “and
find me the lowest-necked evening bodice I have got. Now, out with it
at once and dress me in it, or, ’pon my soul! you shall not have that
satin gown I promised you.”
At the mention of the gown she flew to a wardrobe and produced the
necessary article with a palpitating suddenness; whilst I threw off my
cloak and ordered Mrs. Polly to remove the present bloodied bodice that
I wore, heedless of wounds and other mortal things of that sort.
“Blood! oh, it’s blood, my lady!” cries Mrs. Polly Emblem; and her
frightened face was mottled white and red, the very pattern of my
linen, with the gory spots upon it. “Oh, you are hurt, my lady! You are
dreadfully hurt, I’m certain!”
“Never you mind that,” says I with a very Spartan air; “but just put
me in that bodice, and tell me, for your life, whether ’twill conceal
this wound or whether ’twill not. For if it doth expose the scar,” I
announced in a manner highly tragical, while the tears gathered in my
eyes, “the reign of my Lady Barbarity is over.”
“Even if it does,” says Emblem, “we may powder and enamel it, my lady.”
“Psha!” cries I, “there is all the difference in the world betwixt a
scar and a bad complexion. Art can never obliterate a scar.” And here
I began to bite my handkerchief in pieces, being no longer able to
contain myself.
The ensuing minute was one of the most awful of my life. It seemed
as though Emblem--trembling wretch!--would never get that bodice on;
but, to do her justice in this affair, and to act kindly towards her
character, I must admit that she betrayed a very proper instinct in
this matter. That is to say, she was as desperately seized as ever was
her mistress with the fear that my peerless shoulders were torn in such
a fashion that a low dress would be inadequate to hide their mutilation.
Happily, the pistol-ball had simply run along the skin and had slit it
open for an inch or two, quite low down in the shoulder-blade--a mere
scratch, in fact, that let out very little blood. Thus we managed to
get one garment off and the other on, both easily and painlessly. Then
’twas that Emblem clapped her hands, and gave a cry of joy.
“It covers it, your la’ship, by a full two inches,” she exclaimed.
“You are sure of that?” cries I, in a tremor of excitement. “There must
be no mistake about it, now. Bring me a mirror here that I may see it
for myself.”
This she did, and, though the disturbed wound was smarting horribly,
I paid no attention to it until I was assured that its position was
even as Mrs. Polly Emblem said. To describe the relief that my mind
immediately experienced would be impossible.
“Lord, that’s lovely!” cries I, and fervently kissed the cheek of Mrs.
Polly to express my gratitude to good old Lady Fortune, who, I am
sure, kind soul! must in her time have been a woman of the mode! But
then it was that the stress of the night returned; all my weaknesses
concertedly attacked me, and the pangs of my wound (though the wound
was but the faintest scratch) were so aggravated by them that it
appeared as if my flesh were being nipped by a hundred red-hot pincers.
I sobbed out:
“Quick with a cordial, Emblem, for I feel that I must swoon!”
And faith! no sooner had I said this than I swooned in deadly earnest.
I was restored in good time, though, and, having had my shoulder
bathed and a plaster put upon it, I was got to bed, and slept
profoundly till some time after two o’clock of the afternoon.
When I opened my eyes I saw that the room was darkened, and that
anxious Mrs. Polly, Doctor Paradise (physician-in-ordinary to all the
county families about), and no less a person than my Aunt, the dowager,
were sitting in a row beside the bed, and looking at me solemnly.
“Good evening to you, doctor,” says I, feeling perfectly restored by so
sound a slumber, “or is it afternoon? or is it morning? But I daresay
you propose to make a case of this.”
“Well, madam,” says the twinkling, old, and snuffy rogue, “you are
suffering from shock, and a contused and lacerated shoulder. Therefore
I prescribe rest and quiet, and would recommend that you keep your bed
for at least a week.”
“Then I must be pretty bad,” says I.
“True, true, dear Lady Barbara,” says he, insinuatingly, “although, if
I may presume to say so, I think ‘pretty bad’ is an expression scarce
adequate to your condition.”
“Eh, what?” says I.
“Of course, my dear lady,” he explained, with wicked emphasis, “it is
the condition of your corporal body that I refer to.” And the sly old
villain smiled and bowed in a very disconcerting manner.
Now it does you not a tittle of service anyway to chop dialectics with
your doctor. He knows everything about your way of life; your past,
your future, and your present state, and he can pepper you with phrases
that seem as harmless as the alphabet, if you look at them from the
point of view of a physician. Yet if the world chooses to place its own
construction on them, it would not feel tempted to mistake one for an
archangel. In short, your doctor is not the person you should lead into
a discourse in the presence of your Aunt.
“Then I must keep my bed for at least a week?” says I.
“I should strongly advise it,” says old Paradise.
“Indeed you would, sir,” says I, sweetly; “then, Emblem, fetch me my
spotted taffety. For I propose to instantly get up.”
And to the indignation of my Aunt, the dowager, who regarded the whole
tribe of doctors as religiously as the Brahmins do their sacred bull,
I suddenly renounced the sheets, sat on the margin of the bed, and
bade Emblem draw my stockings on. In my experience this hath proved
the exactest mode of routing the whole infernal faculty. Do not argue
with them, for their whole art consists in contriving new and elegant
diseases for persons of an uncompromising health. Therefore at this
moment my Aunt, with a shake of her wintry curls at me, invited the
doctor to a dish of tea downstairs, and a game of cribbage afterwards.
Thus before my second stocking was drawn on they had departed, but
had left behind volumes of horrid prophecies of blood poisoning, high
fever, and five-and-twenty other things.
“Now lock the door, my Emblem,” says I, cheerfully, “and tell me every
bit of news.”
“If I were you, my lady,” Emblem says, “I would get back to bed this
instant and grow very ill indeed. For Captain Grantley is drawing a
complaint up in this matter, and thinks that upon the strength of it
the Government will feel compelled to arrest you for high treason and
send you to the Tower.
“High what?” cries I, “send me to the where? Why, upon my soul! did any
man ever speak such nonsense in his natural! As though the Government
would do anything of the kind. ’Twas but a piece of mischief. I meant
no harm. I’m certain I never wished to hurt the Captain, who, by the
way, is much cleverer and braver than I had supposed. ’Twas but a piece
of fun, I say. And if the poor lad did escape, well, he was a very
pretty lad, and I am certainly not sorry. Arrest me! Send me to the
Tower! Pah! the Government will do nothing of the kind. Why, Emblem,
what is it that I’ve done.”
“Sure I don’t know, my lady,” says the faithful creature, beginning to
whimper like a child; “you have done nothing very wicked as I can see.
Of course he was a prisoner, but then there is lots of other prisoners,
and plenty as big as he, and bigger if it comes to that.”
“Why, of course there is, you silly goose,” says I.
“And you never meant that the Captain should be hurt, my lady?”
“I would not have hurt him for the world,” says I. “Now, dry your eyes,
my girl. The Government hath no more of a case against me than it hath
against the Pope of Rome. And even if it had, it is too well bred to
dare to prefer it against Bab Gossiter; besides, it is not as though
there was any malice in the thing. And as you say, a prisoner more or a
prisoner less doth matter not a little bit.”
“But,” says the foolish Emblem, weeping more than ever, “my lord is
very much concerned at the Captain’s disposition. Why, my lady, I heard
him say not an hour ago that there is nothing to be done, and that the
consequences must be faced.”
“Consequences!” laughed I. “That comes of being a politician. Oh,
these statesmen and prime ministers, with their grave faces. Why, if
a chairman so much as puts his foot on a poodle dog in Mincing Lane,
they talk of it in whispers and discuss its bearing on what they
call the ‘situation.’ Or if a washerwoman presents her husband with
a pair of healthy twins at Charing there’s a meeting of the Council
to see whether that fact hath altered the aspect of affairs. And it’s
the nation this, and the nation that; and they talk as mysterious as
Jesuits with their interminable Whigs and their pestilential Tories
whom nobody understands and nobody cares a farthing for. Send me
to the Tower! A set of politicians, no handsomer than clergymen and
nothing like so humorous. La! Emblem, I would like to see ’em do it!”
I was both angry and amused at this idea, and got into my clothes as
quickly as I could, for I was now on fire to go and see the Earl. The
notion was really too absurd.
“How is the Captain now?” I inquired, while I dressed.
“His knee is shattered dreadfully,” the maid replied, “and he will not
be able to leave this house for many weeks.”
“That is good news,” said I, complacently. “He will be able to amuse me
during these long winter evenings. But tell me, Emblem, is that poor
prisoner lad reta’en? The Captain swore that his soldiers would retake
him in an hour or two.”
“They have not returned yet,” Emblem answered.
“Excellent!” cried I; “that’s made my shoulder better.”
And I fell to dancing up and down the chamber in the effervescence of
my mood.