Sir John Constantine Part 4

"We must have witnesses," said my father, "Have you a clergyman in this den?"

"To be sure we have. The chaplain, we call him Figg--Jonathan Figg's his name; the Reverend Jonathan Figg, B.A., of Sydney Suss.e.x College, Cambridge; a good fellow and a moderately hard drinker. He spends the best part of his morning marrying up thieves and sailors to trulls; but he's usually leaving church about this time, if a messenger can catch him before he's off to breakfast with 'em.

Half an hour hence he'll be too drunk to sign his name."

"Prosper"--my father swung round on me--"run you down to Billy and take him off to search for this clergyman. If on your way you meet with your uncle and Mr. Knox, say that we shall require them, too, as witnesses."

I ran down to the courtyard, but no Billy could I see; only the dejected groups of prisoners, and among them the one I had marked before, still fiercely striding, and still, at the wall, returning upon his track. I hurried out to the gate, and there, to my amazement, found Billy in the clutches of a strapping impudent wench and surrounded by a ring of turnkeys, who were splitting their sides with laughter.

"I won't!" he was crying. "I'm a married man, I tell 'ee, and the father of twelve!"

"Oh, Billy!" I cried, aghast at the lie.

"There was no other way, lad. For the Lord's sake fetch Squire to deliver me?"

Before I could answer or ask what was happening, the damsel rounded on me.

"Boy," she demanded, "is this man deceiving me?"

"As for that, ma'am," I answered, "I cannot say. But that he's a bachelor I believe; and that he hates women I have his word over and over."

"Then he shall marry me or fight me," she answered very coolly, and began to strip off her short bodice.

"There's twelve o'clock," announced one of the turnkeys, as the first stroke sounded from the clock above us over the prison gateway. "Too late to be married to-day; so a fight it is."

"A ring! a ring!" cried the others.

I looked in Billy's face, and in all my life (as I have since often reminded him) I never saw a man worse scared. The woman had actually thrown off her jacket and stood up in a loose under-bodice that left her arms free--and exceedingly red and brawny arms they were.

How he had come into this plight I could guess as little as what the issue was like to be, when in the gateway there appeared my uncle and Mr. Knox, and close at their heels a rabble of men and women arm-in-arm, headed by a red-nosed clergyman with an immense white favour pinned to his breast.

"Hey? What's to do--what's to do!" inquired Mr. Knox.

The clergyman thrust past him with a "Pardon me, sir," and addressed the woman. "What's the matter, Nan? Is the bridegroom fighting shy?"

"Please your reverence, he tells me he's the father of twelve."

"H'm." The priest c.o.c.ked his head on one side. "You find that an impediment?"

"_And_ a married man, your reverence."

"Then he has the laughing side of you, this time," said his reverence, promptly, and took snuff. "Tut, tut, woman--down with your fists, b.u.t.ton up your bodice, and take disappointment with a better grace. Come, no nonsense, or you'll start me asking what's become of the last man I married ye to."

"Sir," interposed my uncle, "I know not the head or tail of this quarrel. But this man Priske is my brother's servant, and if he told the lady what she alleges, for the credit of the family I must correct him. In sober truth he's a bachelor, and no more the father of twelve than I am."

This address, delivered with entire simplicity, set the whole company gasping. Most of all it seemed to astonish the woman, who could not be expected to know that my uncle's chivalry accepted all her s.e.x, the lowest with the highest, in the image in which G.o.d made it and without defacement.

The priest was the first to recover himself. "My good sir," said he, "your man may be the father of twelve or the father of lies; but I'll not marry him after stroke of noon, for that's my rule. Moreover"-- he swept a hand towards the bridal party behind him--"these turtles have invited me to eat roast duck and green peas with 'em, and I hate my gravy cold."

"Ay, sir?" asked my uncle. "Do you tell me that folks marry and give in marriage within this dreadful place?"

"Now and then, sir; and in the liberties and purlieus thereof with a proclivity that would astonish you; which, since I cannot hinder it, I sanctify. My name is Figg, sir--Jonathan Figg; and my office, Chaplain of the Fleet."

"And if it please you, sir," I put in, "my father has sent me in search of you, to beg that you will come to him at once."

"And you have heard me say, young sir, that I marry no man after stroke of noon; no, nor will visit him sick unless he be in _articulo mortis_."

"But my father neither wants to be married, sir, nor is he sick at all. I believe it is some matter of witnessing an oath."

"Hath he better than roast duck and green peas to offer, hey? No?

Then tell him he may come and witness _my_ oath, that I'll see him first to Jericho."

"Whereby, if I mistake not," said Mr. Knox, quietly, "your pocket will continue light of two guineas; and I may add, from what I know of Sir John Constantine, that he is quite capable, if he receive such an answer, of having your blood in a bottle."

"'Sir John Constantine?' did I hear you say. _Sir_ John Constantine?'" queried the Reverend Mr. Figg, with a complete change of manner. "That's _quite_ another thing! Anything to oblige Sir John Constantine, I'm sure--"

"Do you know him?" asked my uncle.

"Well--er--no; I can't honestly declare that I _know_ him; but, of course, one knows _of_ him--that is to say, I understand him to be a gentleman of t.i.tle; a knight at least."

"Yes," my uncle answered, "he is at least that. What a very extraordinary person!" he added in a wondering aside.

Oddly enough, as we were leaving, I heard the woman Nan say pretty much the same of my uncle. She added that she had a great mind to kiss him.

We found my father and the prisoner seated with the bottle between them on the rickety liquor-stained table. Yet--as I remember the scene now--not all the squalor of the room could efface or diminish the majesty of their two figures. They sat like two tall old kings, eye to eye, not friends, or reconciled only in this last and lonely hour by meditation on man's common fate. If I cannot make you understand this, what follows will seem to you absurd, though indeed at the time it was not so.

My father rose as we entered. "Here is the boy returned," said he; "and here are the witnesses."

The prisoner rose also. "I did not catch his name, or else I have forgotten it," he said, fixing his eyes on me and motioning me to step forward; which I did. His eyes--which before had seemed to me s.h.i.+fty--were straight now and commanding, yet benevolent.

"His name is Prosper; in full, John Prosper Camilio Paleologus.

Never more than one of us wears the surname of Constantine, and he not until he succeeds as head of our house."

"One name is enough for a king." The prisoner motioned again with his hand. "Kneel, boy," my father commanded, and I knelt.

"I ask you, gentlemen," said the prisoner, facing them and lifting his voice, "to hear and remember what I shall say; to witness and remember what I shall do; and by signature to attest what I shall presently write. I say, then, that I, Theodore, was on the fifteenth of April, twenty years ago, by the united voice of the people of Corsica, made King of that island and placed in possession of its revenues and chief dignities. I declare, as G.o.d may punish me if I lie, that by no act of mine or of my people of Corsica has that election been annulled, forfeited, or invalidated; that its revenues are to-day rightfully mine to receive and bequeath, as its dignities are to-day rightfully mine to enjoy or abdicate to an heir of my own choosing. I declare further that, failing male issue of my own body, I resign herewith and abdicate both rank and revenue in favour of this boy, Prosper Paleologus, son of Constantine, and heir in descent of Constantine last Emperor of Constantinople. I lay my hands on him in your presence and bless him. In your presence I raise him and salute him on both cheeks, naming him my son of choice and my successor, Prosper I., King of the Commonwealth of Corsica. I call on you all to attest this act with your names, and all necessary writings confirming it; and I beseech you all to pray with me that he may come to the full inheritance of his kingdom, and thrive therein as he shall justly and righteously administer it. G.o.d save King Prosper!"

At the conclusion of this speech, admirably delivered, I--standing with bent head as he had raised me, and with both cheeks tingling from his salutation--heard my father's voice say sonorously, "Amen!"

and another--I think the parson's--break into something like a chuckle. But my uncle must have put out a hand threatening his weasand, for the sound very suddenly gave place to silence; and the next voice I heard was Mr. Knox's.

"May I suggest that we seat ourselves and examine the papers?" said Mr. Knox.

"One moment." King Theodore stepped to the cupboard and drew out a bundle in a blue-and-white checked kerchief, and a smaller one in brown paper. The kerchief, having been laid on the table and unwrapped, disclosed a fantastic piece of ironwork in the shape of a crown, set with stones of which the preciousness was concealed by a plentiful layer of dust. He lifted this, set it on my head for a moment, and, replacing it on the table, took up the brown-paper parcel.

"This," said he, "contains the Great Seal. To whose keeping "--he turned to my father--"am I to entrust them, Sir John?"

My father nodded towards Billy Priske, who stepped forward and tucked both parcels under his arm, while Mr. Knox spread his papers on the table.

We walked back to our lodgings that afternoon, with Billy Priske behind us bearing in his pocket the Great Seal and under his arm, in a checked kerchief, the Iron Crown of Corsica.