St. Ives, Being the Adventures of a French Prisoner in England Part 14

I have mentioned our usual course, which was to eat in inconsiderable wayside hostelries, known to King. It was a dangerous business; we went daily under fire to satisfy our appet.i.te, and put our head in the loin's mouth for a piece of bread. Sometimes, to minimise the risk, we would all dismount before we came in view of the house, straggle in severally, and give what orders we pleased, like disconnected strangers. In like manner we departed, to find the cart at an appointed place, some half a mile beyond. The Colonel and the Major had each a word or two of English-G.o.d help their p.r.o.nunciation! But they did well enough to order a rasher and a pot or call a reckoning; and, to say truth, these country folks did not give themselves the pains, and had scarce the knowledge, to be critical.

About nine or ten at night the pains of hunger and cold drove us to an alehouse in the flats of Bedfords.h.i.+re, not far from Bedford itself. In the inn kitchen was a long, lean, characteristic-looking fellow of perhaps forty, dressed in black. He sat on a settle by the fireside, smoking a long pipe, such as they call a yard of clay. His hat and wig were hanged upon the k.n.o.b behind him, his head as bald as a bladder of lard, and his expression very shrewd, cantankerous, and inquisitive. He seemed to value himself above his company, to give himself the airs of a man of the world among that rustic herd; which was often no more than his due; being, as I afterwards discovered, an attorney's clerk. I took upon myself the more ungrateful part of arriving last; and by the time I entered on the scene the Major was already served at a side table. Some general conversation must have pa.s.sed, and I smelled danger in the air. The Major looked fl.u.s.tered, the attorney's clerk triumphant, and three or four peasants in smock-frocks (who sat about the fire to play chorus) had let their pipes go out.

'Give you good evening, sir!' said the attorney's clerk to me.

'The same to you, sir,' said I.

'I think this one will do,' quoth the clerk to the yokels with a wink; and then, as soon as I had given my order, 'Pray, sir, whither are you bound?' he added.

'Sir,' said I, 'I am not one of those who speak either of their business or their destination in houses of public entertainment.'

'A good answer,' said he, 'and an excellent principle. Sir, do you speak French?'

'Why, no, sir,' said I. 'A little Spanish at your service.'

'But you know the French accent, perhaps?' said the clerk.

'Well do I do that!' said I. 'The French accent? Why, I believe I can tell a Frenchman in ten words.'

'Here is a puzzle for you, then!' he said. 'I have no material doubt myself, but some of these gentlemen are more backward. The lack of education, you know. I make bold to say that a man cannot walk, cannot hear, and cannot see, without the blessings of education.'

He turned to the Major, whose food plainly stuck in his throat.

'Now, sir,' pursued the clerk, 'let me have the pleasure to hear your voice again. Where are you going, did you say?'

'Sare, I am go-ing to Lon-don,' said the Major.

I could have flung my plate at him to be such an a.s.s, and to have so little a gift of languages where that was the essential.

'What think ye of that?' said the clerk. 'Is that French enough?'

'Good G.o.d!' cried I, leaping up like one who should suddenly perceive an acquaintance, 'is this you, Mr. Dubois? Why, who would have dreamed of encountering you so far from home?' As I spoke, I shook hands with the Major heartily; and turning to our tormentor, 'Oh, sir, you may be perfectly rea.s.sured! This is a very honest fellow, a late neighbour of mine in the city of Carlisle.'

I thought the attorney looked put out; I little knew the man!

'But he is French,' said he, 'for all that?'

'Ay, to be sure!' said I. 'A Frenchman of the emigration! None of your Buonaparte lot. I will warrant his views of politics to be as sound as your own.'

'What is a little strange,' said the clerk quietly, 'is that Mr. Dubois should deny it.'

I got it fair in the face, and took it smiling; but the shock was rude, and in the course of the next words I contrived to do what I have rarely done, and make a slip in my English. I kept my liberty and life by my proficiency all these months, and for once that I failed, it is not to be supposed that I would make a public exhibition of the details. Enough, that it was a very little error, and one that might have pa.s.sed ninety-nine times in a hundred. But my limb of the law was as swift to pick it up as though he had been by trade a master of languages.

'Aha!' cries he; 'and you are French, too! Your tongue bewrays you. Two Frenchmen coming into an alehouse, severally and accidentally, not knowing each other, at ten of the clock at night, in the middle of Bedfords.h.i.+re? No, sir, that shall not pa.s.s! You are all prisoners escaping, if you are nothing worse. Consider yourselves under arrest. I have to trouble you for your papers.'

'Where is your warrant, if you come to that?' said I. 'My papers! A likely thing that I would show my papers on the ipse dixit of an unknown fellow in a hedge alehouse!'

'Would you resist the law?' says he.

'Not the law, sir!' said I. 'I hope I am too good a subject for that. But for a nameless fellow with a bald head and a pair of gingham small-clothes, why certainly! 'Tis my birthright as an Englishman. Where's Magna Charta, else?'

'We will see about that,' says he; and then, addressing the a.s.sistants, 'where does the constable live?'

'Lord love you, sir!' cried the landlord, 'what are you thinking of? The constable at past ten at night! Why, he's abed and asleep, and good and drunk two hours agone!'

'Ah that a' be!' came in chorus from the yokels.

The attorney's clerk was put to a stand. He could not think of force; there was little sign of martial ardour about the landlord, and the peasants were indifferent-they only listened, and gaped, and now scratched a head, and now would get a light to their pipes from the embers on the hearth. On the other hand, the Major and I put a bold front on the business and defied him, not without some ground of law. In this state of matters he proposed I should go along with him to one Squire Merton, a great man of the neighbourhood, who was in the commission of the peace, the end of his avenue but three lanes away. I told him I would not stir a foot for him if it were to save his soul. Next he proposed I should stay all night where I was, and the constable could see to my affair in the morning, when he was sober. I replied I should go when and where I pleased; that we were lawful travellers in the fear of G.o.d and the king, and I for one would suffer myself to be stayed by n.o.body. At the same time, I was thinking the matter had lasted altogether too long, and I determined to bring it to an end at once.

'See here,' said I, getting up, for till now I had remained carelessly seated, 'there's only one way to decide a thing like this-only one way that's right English-and that's man to man. Take off your coat, sir, and these gentlemen shall see fair play.' At this there came a look in his eye that I could not mistake. His education had been neglected in one essential and eminently British particular: he could not box. No more could I, you may say; but then I had the more impudence-and I had made the proposal.

'He says I'm no Englishman, but the proof of the pudding is the eating of it,' I continued. And here I stripped my coat and fell into the proper att.i.tude, which was just about all I knew of this barbarian art. 'Why, sir, you seem to me to hang back a little,' said I. 'Come, I'll meet you; I'll give you an appetiser-though hang me if I can understand the man that wants any enticement to hold up his hands.' I drew a bank-note out of my fob and tossed it to the landlord. 'There are the stakes,' said I. 'I'll fight you for first blood, since you seem to make so much work about it. If you tap my claret first, there are five guineas for you, and I'll go with you to any squire you choose to mention. If I tap yours, you'll perhaps let on that I'm the better man, and allow me to go about my lawful business at my own time and convenience, by G.o.d; is that fair, my lads?' says I, appealing to the company.

'Ay, ay,' said the chorus of chawbacons; 'he can't say no fairer nor that, he can't. Take off thy coat master!'

The limb of the law was now on the wrong side of public opinion, and, what heartened me to go on, the position was rapidly changing in our favour. Already the Major was paying his shot to the very indifferent landlord, and I could see the white face of King at the back-door, making signals of haste.

'Oho!' quoth my enemy, 'you are as full of doubles as a fox, are you not? But I see through you; I see through and through you. You would change the venue, would you?'

'I may be transparent, sir,' says I, 'but if you'll do me the favour to stand up, you'll find I can hit dam hard.'

'Which is a point, if you will observe, that I had never called in question,' said he. 'Why, you ignorant clowns,' he proceeded, addressing the company, 'can't you see the fellow's gulling you before your eyes? Can't you see that he has changed the point upon me? I say he's a French prisoner, and he answers that he can box! What has that to do with it? I would not wonder but what he can dance, too-they're all dancing masters over there. I say, and I stick to it, that he's a Frenchy. He says he isn't. Well then, let him out with his papers, if he has them! If he had, would he not show them? If he had, would he not jump at the idea of going to Squire Merton, a man you all know? Now, you are all plain, straightforward Bedfords.h.i.+re men, and I wouldn't ask a better lot to appeal to. You're not the kind to be talked over with any French gammon, and he's plenty of that. But let me tell him, he can take his pigs to another market; they'll never do here; they'll never go down in Bedfords.h.i.+re. Why! look at the man! Look at his feet! Has anybody got a foot in the room like that? See how he stands! do any of you fellows stand like that? Does the landlord, there? Why, he has Frenchman wrote all over him, as big as a sign-post!'

This was all very well; and in a different scene I might even have been gratified by his remarks; but I saw clearly, if I were to allow him to talk, he might turn the tables on me altogether. He might not be much of a hand at boxing; but I was much mistaken, or he had studied forensic eloquence in a good school. In this predicament I could think of nothing more ingenious than to burst out of the house, under the pretext of an ungovernable rage. It was certainly not very ingenious-it was elementary, but I had no choice.

'You white-livered dog!' I broke out. 'Do you dare to tell me you're an Englishman, and won't fight? But I'll stand no more of this! I leave this place, where I've been insulted! Here! what's to pay? Pay yourself!' I went on, offering the landlord a handful of silver, 'and give me back my bank-note!'

The landlord, following his usual policy of obliging everybody, offered no opposition to my design. The position of my adversary was now thoroughly bad. He had lost my two companions. He was on the point of losing me also. There was plainly no hope of arousing the company to help; and watching him with a corner of my eye, I saw him hesitate for a moment. The next, he had taken down his hat and his wig, which was of black horsehair; and I saw him draw from behind the settle a vast hooded great-coat and a small valise. 'The devil!' thought I: 'is the rascal going to follow me?'

I was scarce clear of the inn before the limb of the law was at my heels. I saw his face plain in the moonlight; and the most resolute purpose showed in it, along with an unmoved composure. A chill went over me. 'This is no common adventure,' thinks I to myself. 'You have got hold of a man of character, St. Ives! A bite-hard, a bull-dog, a weasel is on your trail; and how are you to throw him off?' Who was he? By some of his expressions I judged he was a hanger-on of courts. But in what character had he followed the a.s.sizes? As a simple spectator, as a lawyer's clerk, as a criminal himself, or-last and worst supposition-as a Bow-street 'runner'?

The cart would wait for me, perhaps, half a mile down our onward road, which I was already following. And I told myself that in a few minutes' walking, Bow-street runner or not, I should have him at my mercy. And then reflection came to me in time. Of all things, one was out of the question. Upon no account must this obtrusive fellow see the cart. Until I had killed or shook him off, I was quite divorced from my companions-alone, in the midst of England, on a frosty by-way leading whither I knew not, with a sleuth-hound at my heels, and never a friend but the holly-stick!

We came at the same time to a crossing of lanes. The branch to the left was overhung with trees, deeply sunken and dark. Not a ray of moonlight penetrated its recesses; and I took it at a venture. The wretch followed my example in silence; and for some time we crunched together over frozen pools without a word. Then he found his voice, with a chuckle.

'This is not the way to Mr. Merton's,' said he.

'No?' said I. 'It is mine, however.'

'And therefore mine,' said he.

Again we fell silent; and we may thus have covered half a mile before the lane, taking a sudden turn, brought us forth again into the moons.h.i.+ne. With his hooded great-coat on his back, his valise in his hand, his black wig adjusted, and footing it on the ice with a sort of sober doggedness of manner, my enemy was changed almost beyond recognition: changed in everything but a certain dry, polemical, pedantic air, that spoke of a sedentary occupation and high stools. I observed, too, that his valise was heavy; and, putting this and that together, hit upon a plan.

'A seasonable night, sir,' said I. 'What do you say to a bit of running? The frost has me by the toes.'

'With all the pleasure in life,' says he.

His voice seemed well a.s.sured, which pleased me little. However, there was nothing else to try, except violence, for which it would always be too soon. I took to my heels accordingly, he after me; and for some time the slapping of our feet on the hard road might have been heard a mile away. He had started a pace behind me, and he finished in the same position. For all his extra years and the weight of his valise, he had not lost a hair's breadth. The devil might race him for me-I had enough of it!