A Day's Ride Part 15

"Take five, sir,--five," said he, laying a ponderous silver watch on the table as he spoke, and pointing to the minute-hand.

"Really, sir," said I, stung by the peremptory and dictatorial tone he a.s.sumed, "I have yet to learn that intercourse between gentlemen is to be regulated by clockwork, not to say that I have to inquire by what right you ask me for this explanation."

"One minute gone," said he, solemnly.

"I don't care if there were fifty," said I, pa.s.sionately. "I disclaim all pretension of a perfect stranger to obtrude himself upon me, and by the mere a.s.sumption of a pompous manner and an imposing air, to inquire into my private affairs."

"There are two!" said he, with the same solemnity.

"Who is Mr. Jopplyn,--what is he to me?" cried I, in increased excitement, "that he presents himself in my apartment like a commissary of police? Do you imagine, sir, because I am a young man, that this--this--impertinence "--Lord, what a gulp it cost me!--"is to pa.s.s unpunished? Do you fancy that a red beard and a heavy walking-cane are to strike terror into me? You may think, perhaps, that I am unarmed--"

"Three!" said he, with a bang of his stick on the floor that made me actually jump with the stick.

"Leave the room, sir," said I; "it is my pleasure to be alone,--the apartment is mine,--I am the proprietor here. A very little sense of delicacy, a very small amount of good breeding, might show you, that when a gentleman declines to receive company, when he shows himself indisposed to the society of strangers--"

"One minute more, now," said he, in a low growl; while he proceeded to b.u.t.ton up his coat to the neck, and make preparation for some coming event.

My heart was in my mouth; I gave a glance at the window; it was the third story, and a leap out would have been fatal. What would I not have given for one of those weapons I had so proudly proclaimed myself possessed of! There was not even a poker in the room. I made a spring at the bell-rope, and before he could interpose, gave one pull that, though it brought down the cord, resounded through the whole house.

"Time is up, Porringer," said he, slowly, as he replaced the watch in his pocket, and grasped his murderous-looking cane.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 132]

There was a large table in the room, and I intrenched myself at once behind this, armed with a light cane chair, while I screamed murder in every language I could command. Failing to reach me across the table, my a.s.sailant tried to dodge me by false starts, now at this side, now at that. Though a large fleshy man, he was not inactive, and it required all my quickness to escape him. These manoeuvres being unsuccessful, he very quickly placed a chair beside the table and mounted upon it. I now hurled my chair at him; he warded off the blow and rushed on; with one spring I bounded under the table, reappearing at the opposite side just as he had reached mine. These tactics we now pursued for several minutes, when my enemy suddenly changed his attack, and, descending from the table, he turned it on edge; the effort required strength. I seized the moment and reached the door; I tore it open in some fas.h.i.+on, gained the stairs, the court, the streets, and ran ever onward with the wildness of one possessed with no time for thought, nor any knowledge to guide; I turned left and right, choosing only the narrowest lanes that presented themselves, and at last came to a dead halt at an open drawbridge, where a crowd stood waiting to pa.s.s.

"How is this? What's all the hurry for? Where are you running this fas.h.i.+on?" cried a well-known voice. I turned, and saw the skipper of the packet.

"Are you armed? Can you defend me?" cried I, in terror; "or shall I leap in and swim for it?"

"I'll stand by you. Don't be afraid, man," said he, drawing my arm within his; "no one shall harm you. Were they robbers?"

"No, worse,--a.s.sa.s.sins!" said I, gulping, for I was heartily ashamed of my terror, and determined to show "cause why" in the plural.

"Come in here, and have a gla.s.s of something," said he, turning into a little cabaret, with whose penetralia he seemed not unfamiliar. "You 're all safe here," said he, as he closed the door of a little room. "Let's hear all about it, though I half guess the story already."

I had no difficulty in perceiving, from my companion's manner, that he believed some sudden shock had shaken my faculties, and that my intellects were for the time deranged; nor was it very easy for me to a.s.sume sufficient calm to disabuse him of his error, and a.s.sert my own perfect coherency. "You have been out for a lark," said he, laughingly.

"I see it all. You have been at one of those tea-gardens and got into a row with some stout Fleming. All the young English go through that sort of thing. Ain't I right?"

"Never more mistaken in your life, Captain. My conduct since I landed would not discredit a canon of St. Paul's. In fact, all my habits, my tastes, my instincts, are averse to every sort of junketing. I am essentially retiring, sensitive, And, if you will, over-fastidious in my choice of a.s.sociates. My story is simply this." My reader will readily excuse my repeating what is already known to him. It is enough if I say that the captain, although anything rather than mirthful, held his hand several times over his face, and once laughed out loudly and boisterously.

"You don't say it was Christy Jopplyn, do you?" said he, at last. "You don't tell me it was Jopplyn?"

"The fellow called himself Jopplyn, but I know nothing of him beyond that."

"Why, he's mad jealous about that wife of his; that little woman with the corkscrew curls, and the s...o...b..tic face, that came over with us.

Oh! you did not see her aboard, you went below at once, I remember; but there was, she, in her black ugly, and her old c.r.a.pe shawl--"

"In mourning?"

"Yes. Always in mourning. She never wears anything else, though Christy goes about in colors, and not particular as to the tint, either."

There came a cold perspiration over me as I heard these words, and perceived that my proffer of devotion had been addressed to a married woman, and the wife of the "most jealous man in Europe."

"And who is this Jopplyn?" asked I, haughtily, and in all the proud confidence of my present security.

"He's a railway contractor,--a shrewd sort of fellow, with plenty of money, and a good head on his shoulders; sensible on every point except his Jealousy."

"The man must be an idiot," said I, indignantly, "to rush indiscriminately about the world with accusations of this kind. Who wants to supplant him? Who seeks to rob him of the affections of his wife?"

"That's all very well and very specious," said he, gravely; "but if men will deliberately set themselves down at a writing-table, hammering their brains for fine sentiments, and toiling to find grand expressions for their pa.s.sion, it does not require that a husband should be as jealous as Christy Jopplyn to take it badly. I don't think I'm a rash or a hasty man, but I know what I 'd do in such a circ.u.mstance."

"And pray, what would _you_ do?" said I, half impertinently.

"I 'd just say,4 Look here, young gent, is this balderdash here your hand? Well, now, eat your words. Yes, eat them. I mean what I say. Eat up that letter, seal and all, or, by my oath, I 'll break every bone in your skin!'"

"It is exactly what I intend," cried a voice, hoa.r.s.e with pa.s.sion; and Jopplyn himself sprang into the room, and dashed at me.

The skipper was a most powerful man, but it required all his strength, and not very gingerly exercised either, to hold off my enraged adversary. "Will you be quiet, Christy?" cried he, holding him by the throat "Will you just be quiet for one instant, or must I knock you down?"

"Do! do! by all means," muttered I; for I thought if he were once on the ground, I could finish him off with a large pewter measure that stood on the table.

With a rough shake the skipper had at last convinced the other that resistance was useless, and induced him to consent to a parley.

"Let him only tell you" said he, "what he has told me, Christy."

"Don't strike, but hear me," cried I; and safe in my stockade behind the skipper, I recounted my mistake.

"And _you_ believe all this?" asked Jopplyn of the skipper, when I had finished.

"Believe it,--I should think I do! I have known him since he was a child that high, and I 'll answer for his good conduct and behavior."

Heaven bless you for that bail bond, though endorsed in a lie, honest s.h.i.+p-captain! and I only hope I may live to requite you for it.

Jopplyn was appeased; but it was the suppressed wrath of a brown bear rather than the vanquished anger of a man. He had booked himself for something cruel, and he was miserable to be balked. Nor was I myself--I shame to own it--an emblem of perfect forgiveness. I know nothing harder than for a const.i.tutionally timid man of weak proportions to forgive the bullying superiority of brute force. It is about the greatest trial human forgiveness can be subjected to; so that when Jopplyn, in a vulgar spirit of reconciliation, proposed that we should go and dine with him that day, I declined the invitation with a frigid politeness.

"I wish I could persuade you to change your plans," said he, "and let Mrs. J. and myself see you at six."

"I believe I can answer for him that it is impossible," broke in the skipper; while he added in a whisper, "They never _can_ afford any delay; they have to put on the steam at high pressure from one end of Europe to t' other."

What could he possibly mean by imputing such haste to my movements, and who were "they" with whom he thus a.s.sociated me? I would have given worlds to ask, but the presence of Jopplyn prevented me, and so I could simply a.s.sent with a sort of foolish laugh, and a muttered "Very true,--quite correct."

"Indeed, how you manage to be here now, I can scarcely imagine,"

continued the skipper. "The last of yours that went through this took a roll of bread and a cold chicken with him into the train, rather than halt to eat his supper,--but I conclude _you_ know best."

What confounded mystification was pa.s.sing through his marine intellects I could not fathom. To what guild or brotherhood of impetuous travellers had he ascribed me? Why should I not "take mine ease in mine inn"?

All this was very tantalizing and irritating, and pleading a pressing engagement, I took leave of them both, and returned to the hotel.

I was in need of rest and a little composure. The incident of the morning had jarred my nerves and disconcerted me much. But a few hours ago, and life had seemed to me like a flowery meadow, through which, without path or track, one might ramble at will; now it rather presented the aspect of a vulgar kitchen-garden, fenced in, and divided, and part.i.tioned off, with only a few very stony alleys to walk in. "This boasted civilization of ours," exclaimed I, "what is it but sn.o.bbery?

Our cla.s.s distinctions, our artificial intercourses, our hypocritical professions, our deference for externals,--are they not the flimsiest pretences that ever were fas.h.i.+oned? Why has no man the courage to make short work of these, and see the world as it really is? Why has not some one gone forth, the apostle of frankness and plain speaking, the same to prince as to peasant? What I would like would be a ramble through the less visited parts of Europe,--countries in which civilization slants in just as the rays of a setting sun steal into a forest at evening.