Barrington Volume Ii Part 28

"I have been half over the town after you this morning, General," said Withering, as he entered; "and your son, too, could make nothing of your absence. He is in the carriage at the door now, not knowing whether he ought to come up."

"I 'll soon rea.s.sure him on that score," said Barrington, as he left the room, and hastened downstairs with the step of one that defied the march of time.

CHAPTER XVII. MEET COMPANIONs.h.i.+P

In a very modest chamber of a house in one of the streets which lead from the Strand to the Thames, two persons sat at supper. It is no time for lengthened introductions, and I must present Captain Duff Brown very hurriedly to my reader, as he confronted his friend Stapylton at table.

The Captain was a jovial-looking, full-whiskered, somewhat corpulent man, with a ready reply, a ready laugh, and a hand readier than either, whether the weapon wielded was a billiard-cue or a pistol.

The board before them was covered with oysters and oyster-sh.e.l.ls, porter in its pewter, a square-shaped decanter of gin, and a bundle of cigars.

The cloth was dirty, the knives unclean, and the candles ill-matched and of tallow; but the guests did not seem to have bestowed much attention to these demerits, but ate and drank like men who enjoyed their fare.

"The best country in Europe,--the best in the world,--I call England for a fellow who knows life," cried the Captain. "There is nothing you cannot do; nothing you cannot have in it."

"With eight thousand a year, perhaps," said Stapylton, sarcastically.

"No need of anything like it. Does any man want a better supper than we have had to-night? What better could he have? And the whole cost not over five, or at most six s.h.i.+llings for the pair of us."

"You may talk till you are hoa.r.s.e, Duff, but I'll not stay in it When once I have settled these two or three matters I have told you of, I'll start for--I don't much care whither. I'll go to Persia, or perhaps to the Yankees."

"_I_ always keep America for the finis.h.!.+" said the other. "It is to the rest of the world what the copper h.e.l.l is to Crockford's,--the last refuge when one walks in broken boots and in low company. But tell me, what have you done to-day; where did you go after we parted?"

"I went to the Horse Guards, and saw Blanchard,--pompous old humbug that he is. I told him that I had made up my mind to sell out; that I intended to take service in a foreign army,--he hates foreigners,--and begged he would expedite my affairs with his Royal Highness, as my arrangements could not admit of delay."

"And he told you that there was an official routine, out of which no officer need presume to expect his business could travel?"

"He told me no such thing. He flatly said, 'Your case is already before the Commander-in-Chief, Major Stapylton, and you may rely on it there will be no needless delay in dealing with it."

"That was a threat, I take it."

"Of course it was a threat; and I only said, 'It will be the first instance of the kind, then, in the department,' and left him."

"Where to, after that?"

"I next went to Gregory's, the magistrate of police. I wanted to see the informations the black fellow swore to; and as I knew a son of Gregory's in the Carbiniers, I thought I could manage it; but bad luck would have it that the old fellow should have in his hands some unsettled bills with my indors.e.m.e.nts on them,--fact; Gregory and I used to do a little that way once,--and he almost got a fit when he heard my name."

"Tried back after that, eh?"

"Went on to Renshaw's and won fifty pounds at hazard, took Blake's odds on Diadem, and booked myself for a berth in the Boulogne steamer, which leaves at two this morning."

"You secured a pa.s.sport for me, did n't you?"

"No. You'll have to come as my servant. The Emba.s.sy fellows were all strangers to me, and said they would not give a separate pa.s.sport without seeing the bearer."

"All right. I don't dislike the second cabin, nor the ladies'-maids.

What about the pistols?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: 508]

"They are yonder under the great-coat. Renshaw lent them. They are not very good, he says, and one of them hangs a little in the fire."

"They 'll be better than the old Irishman's, that's certain. You may swear that his tools were in use early in the last century."

"And himself, too; that's the worst of it all. I wish it was not a fellow that might be my grandfather."

"I don't know. I rather suspect, if I was given to compunctions, I'd have less of them for shaking down the rotten ripe fruit than the blossom."

"And he 's a fine old fellow, too," said Stapylton, half sadly.

"Why didn't you tell him to drop in this evening and have a little _ecarte?_"

For a while Stapylton leaned his head on his hand moodily, and said nothing.

"Cheer up, man! Taste that Hollands. I never mixed better," said Brown.

"I begin to regret now, Duff, that I did n't take your advice."

"And run away with her?"

"Yes, it would have been the right course, after all!"

"I knew it. I always said it. I told you over and over again what would happen if you went to work in orderly fas.h.i.+on. They 'd at once say, 'Who are your people,--where are they,--what have they?' Now, let a man be as inventive as Daniel Defoe himself, there will always slip out some flaw or other about a name, or a date,--dates are the very devil! But when you have once carried her off, what can they do but compromise?"

"She would never have consented."

"I 'd not have asked her. I 'd have given her the benefit of the customs of the land she lived in, and made it a regular abduction. Paddy somebody and Terence something else are always ready to risk their necks for a pint of whiskey and a breach of the laws."

"I don't think I could have brought myself to it."

"_I_ could, I promise you."

"And there 's an end of a man after such a thing."

"Yes, if he fails. If he's overtaken and thrashed, I grant you he not only loses the game, but gets the cards in his face, besides. But why fail? n.o.body fails when he wants to win,--when he determines to win.

When I shot De Courcy at Asterabad--"

"Don't bring up that affair, at least, as one of precedent, Duff. I neither desire to be tried for a capital felony, nor to have committed one."

"Capital fiddlesticks! As if men did not fight duels every day of the week; the difference between guilt and innocence being that one fellow's hand shook, and the other's was steady. De Courcy would have 'dropped'

me, if I'd have Jet him."

"And so _you_ would have carried her off, Master Duff?" said Stapylton, slowly.

"Yes; if she had the pot of money you speak of, and no Lord Chancellor for a guardian. I 'd have made the thing sure at once."

"The money she will and must have; so much is certain."