Evan Harrington Part 20

'More coming!' which, with the addition of 'My goodness me!' were echoed by the hostess in her recess. Hurried directions seemed to be consequent, and then the hostess sallied out, and said, with a curtsey:

'Please to step in, gentlemen. This is the room, tonight.'

Evan lifted his hat; and bowing, requested to know whether they could have a supper and beds.

'Beds, Sir!' cried the hostess. 'What am I to do for beds! Yes, beds indeed you may have, but bed-rooms--if you ask for them, it really is more than I can supply you with. I have given up my own. I sleep with my maid Jane to-night.'

'Anything will do for us, madam,' replied Evan, renewing his foreign courtesy. 'But there is a poor young woman outside.'

'Another!' The hostess instantly smiled down her inhospitable outcry.

'She,' said Evan, 'must have a room to herself. She is ill.'

'Must is must, sir,' returned the gracious hostess. 'But I really haven't the means.'

'You have bed-rooms, madam?'

'Every one of them engaged, sir.'

'By ladies, madam?'

'Lord forbid, Sir!' she exclaimed with the honest energy of a woman who knew her s.e.x.

Evan bade Jack go and a.s.sist the waggoner to bring in the girl. Jack, who had been all the time pulling at his wristbands, and settling his coat-collar by the dim reflection of a window of the bar, departed, after, on his own authority, a.s.suring the hostess that fever was not the young woman's malady, as she protested against admitting fever into her house, seeing that she had to consider her guests.

'We're open to all the world to-night, except fever,' said the hostess.

'Yes,' she rejoined to Evan's order that the waggoner and his mate should be supplied with ale, 'they shall have as much as they can drink,' which is not a speech usual at inns, when one man gives an order for others, but Evan pa.s.sed it by, and politely begged to be shown in to one of the gentlemen who had engaged bedrooms.

'Oh! if you can persuade any of them, sir, I'm sure I've nothing to say,' observed the hostess. 'Pray, don't ask me to stand by and back it, that's all.'

Had Evan been familiar with the Green Dragon, he would have noticed that the landlady, its presiding genius, was stiffer than usual; the rosy smile was more constrained, as if a great host had to be embraced, and were trying it to the utmost stretch. There was, however, no asperity about her, and when she had led him to the door he was to enter to prefer his suit, and she had asked whether the young woman was quite common, and he had replied that he had picked her up on the road, and that she was certainly poor, the hostess said:

'I 'm sure you're a very good gentleman, sir, and if I could spare your asking at all, I would.'

With that she went back to encounter Mr. Raikes and his charge, and prime the waggoner and his mate.

A noise of laughter and talk was stilled gradually, as Evan made his bow into a s.p.a.cious room, wherein, as the tops of pines are seen swimming on the morning mist, about a couple of dozen guests of divers conditions sat partially revealed through wavy clouds of tobacco-smoke. By their postures, which Evan's appearance by no means disconcerted, you read in a glance men who had been at ease for so many hours that they had no troubles in the world save the two ultimate perplexities of the British Sybarite, whose bed of roses is hara.s.sed by the pair of problems: first, what to do with his legs; secondly, how to imbibe liquor with the slightest possible derangement of those members subordinate to his upper structure. Of old the Sybarite complained. Not so our self-helpful islanders. Since they could not, now that work was done and jollity the game, take off their legs, they got away from them as far as they might, in fas.h.i.+ons original or imitative: some by thrusting them out at full length; some by cramping them under their chairs: while some, taking refuge in a mental effort, forgot them, a process to be recommended if it did not involve occasional pangs of consciousness to the legs of their neighbours. We see in our cousins West of the great water, who are said to exaggerate our peculiarities, beings labouring under the same difficulty, and intent on its solution. As to the second problem: that of drinking without discomposure to the subservient limbs: the company present worked out this republican principle ingeniously, but in a manner beneath the attention of the Muse. Let Clio record that mugs and gla.s.ses, tobacco and pipes, were strewn upon the table. But if the guests had arrived at that stage when to reach the arm, or arrange the person, for a sip of good stuff, causes moral debates, and presents to the mind impediments equal to what would be raised in active men by the prospect of a great excursion, it is not to be wondered at that the presence of a stranger produced no immediate commotion. Two or three heads were half turned; such as faced him imperceptibly lifted their eyelids.

'Good evening, sir,' said one who sat as chairman, with a decisive nod.

'Good night, ain't it?' a jolly-looking old fellow queried of the speaker, in an under-voice.

'Gad, you don't expect me to be wis.h.i.+ng the gentleman good-bye, do you?'

retorted the former.

'Ha! ha! No, to be sure,' answered the old boy; and the remark was variously uttered, that 'Good night,' by a caprice of our language, did sound like it.

'Good evening's "How d' ye do?"--"How are ye?" Good night's "Be off, and be blowed to you,"' observed an interpreter with a positive mind; and another, whose intelligence was not so clear, but whose perceptions had seized the point, exclaimed: 'I never says it when I hails a chap; but, dash my b.u.t.tons, if I mightn't 'a done, one day or another! Queer!'

The chairman, warmed by his joke, added, with a sharp wink: 'Ay; it would be queer, if you hailed "Good night" in the middle of the day!'

and this among a company soaked in ripe ale, could not fail to run the electric circle, and persuaded several to change their positions; in the rumble of which, Evan's reply, if he had made any, was lost. Few, however, were there who could think of him, and ponder on that glimpse of fun, at the same time; and he would have been pa.s.sed over, had not the chairman said: 'Take a seat, sir; make yourself comfortable.'

'Before I have that pleasure,' replied Evan, 'I--'

'I see where 'tis,' burst out the old boy who had previously superinduced a diversion: 'he's going to ax if he can't have a bed!'

A roar of laughter, and 'Don't you remember this day last year?'

followed the cunning guess. For awhile explication was impossible; and Evan coloured, and smiled, and waited for them.

'I was going to ask--'

'Said so!' shouted the old boy, gleefully.

'--one of the gentlemen who has engaged a bed-room to do me the extreme favour to step aside with me, and allow me a moment's speech with him.'

Long faces were drawn, and odd stares were directed toward him, in reply.

'I see where 'tis'; the old boy thumped his knee. 'Ain't it now? Speak up, sir! There's a lady in the case?'

'I may tell you thus much,' answered Evan, 'that it is an unfortunate young woman, very ill, who needs rest and quiet.'

'Didn't I say so?' shouted the old boy.

But this time, though his jolly red jowl turned all round to demand a confirmation, it was not generally considered that he had divined so correctly. Between a lady and an unfortunate young woman, there seemed to be a strong distinction, in the minds of the company.

The chairman was the most affected by the communication. His bushy eyebrows frowned at Evan, and he began tugging at the bra.s.s b.u.t.tons of his coat, like one preparing to arm for a conflict.

'Speak out, sir, if you please,' he said. 'Above board--no asides--no taking advantages. You want me to give up my bed-room for the use of your young woman, sir?'

Evan replied quietly: 'She is a stranger to me; and if you could see her, sir, and know her situation, I think she would move your pity.'

'I don't doubt it, sir--I don't doubt it,' returned the chairman. 'They all move our pity. That's how they get over us. She has diddled you, and she would diddle me, and diddle us all-diddle the devil, I dare say, when her time comes. I don't doubt it, sir.'

To confront a vehement old gentleman, sitting as president in an a.s.sembly of satellites, requires command of countenance, and Evan was not browbeaten: he held him, and the whole room, from where he stood, under a serene and serious eye, for his feelings were too deeply stirred on behalf of the girl to let him think of himself. That question of hers, 'What are you going to do with me?' implying such helplessness and trust, was still sharp on his nerves.

'Gentlemen,' he said, 'I humbly beg your pardon for disturbing you as I do.'

But with a sudden idea that a general address on behalf of a particular demand must necessarily fail, he let his eyes rest on one there, whose face was neither stupid nor repellent, and who, though he did not look up, had an attentive, thoughtful cast about the mouth.

'May I entreat a word apart with you, sir?'

Evan was not mistaken in the index he had perused. The gentleman seemed to feel that he was selected from the company, and slightly raising his head, carelessly replied: 'My bed is entirely at your disposal,'

resuming his contemplative pose.

On the point of thanking him, Evan advanced a step, when up started the irascible chairman.

'I don't permit it! I won't allow it!' And before Evan could ask his reasons, he had rung the bell, muttering: 'They follow us to our inns, now, the baggages! They must harry us at our inns! We can't have peace and quiet at our inns!--'

In a state of combustion, he cried out to the waiter: