Eugene Aram Part 21

"Dr Sr, Yours faithy,

"Peter Grindlescrew Hales.

"P.S. You know perhs yt poor Jno Courtd, your uncle's mo intime friend, lives in..., the town in which your servt will drop ye bride. He is much alter'd,--poor Jno!"

"Altered! alteration then seems the fashion with my uncle's friends!"

thought Walter, as he rang for the Corporal, and consigned to his charge the unsightly parcel.

"It is to be carried twenty-one miles at the request of the gentleman we met last night,--a most sensible man, Bunting."

"Augh--whaugh,--your honour!" grunted the Corporal, thrusting the bridle very discontentedly into his pocket, where it annoyed him the whole journey, by incessantly getting between his seat of leather and his seat of honour. It is a comfort to the inexperienced, when one man of the world smarts from the sagacity of another; we resign ourselves more willingly to our fate. Our travellers resumed their journey, and in a few minutes, from the cause we have before a.s.signed, the Corporal became thoroughly out of humour.

"Pray, Bunting," said Walter, calling his attendant to his side, "do you feel sure that the man we met yesterday at the alehouse, is the same you saw at Gra.s.sdale some months ago?"

"d.a.m.n it!" cried the Corporal quickly, and clapping his hand behind.

"How, Sir!"

"Beg pardon, your honour--slip tongue, but this confounded parcel!--augh--bother!"

"Why don't you carry it in your hand?"

"'Tis so ungainsome, and be d--d to it; and how can I hold parcel and pull in this beast, which requires two hands; his mouth's as hard as a brickbat,--augh!"

"You have not answered my question yet?"

"Beg pardon, your honour. Yes, certain sure the man's the same; phiz not to be mistaken."

"It is strange," said Walter, musing, "that Aram should know a man, who, if not a highwayman as we suspected, is at least of rugged manner and disreputable appearance; it is strange too, that Aram always avoided recurring to the acquaintance, though he confessed it." With this he broke into a trot, and the Corporal into an oath.

They arrived by noon, at the little town specified by Sir Peter, and in their way to the inn (for Walter resolved to rest there), pa.s.sed by the saddler's house. It so chanced that Master Holwell was an adept in his craft, and that a newly-invented hunting-saddle at the window caught Walter's notice. The artful saddler persuaded the young traveller to dismount and look at "the most convenientest and handsomest saddle what ever was seed;" and the Corporal having lost no time in getting rid of his enc.u.mbrance, Walter dismissed him to the inn with the horses, and after purchasing the saddle, in exchange for his own, he sauntered into the shop to look at a new snaffle. A gentleman's servant was in the shop at the time, bargaining for a riding whip; and the s...o...b..y, among others, shewed him a large old-fashioned one, with a tarnished silver handle. Grooms have no taste for antiquity, and in spite of the silverhandle, the servant pushed it aside with some contempt. Some jest he uttered at the time, chanced to attract Walter's notice to the whip; he took it up carelessly, and perceived with great surprise that it bore his own crest, a bittern, on the handle. He examined it now with attention, and underneath the crest were the letters G. L., his father's initials.

"How long have you had this whip?" said he to the saddler, concealing the emotion, which this token of his lost parent naturally excited.

"Oh, a nation long time, Sir," replied Mr. Holwell; "it is a queer old thing, but really is not amiss, if the silver was scrubbed up a bit, and a new lash put on; you may have it a bargain, Sir, if so be you have taken a fancy to it."

"Can you at all recollect how you came by it," said Walter, earnestly; "the fact is that I see by the crest and initials, that it belonged to a person whom I have some interest in discovering."

"Why let me see," said the saddler, scratching the tip of his right ear, "'tis so long ago sin I had it, I quite forgets how I came by it."

"Oh, is it that whip, John?" said the wife, who had been attracted from the back parlour by the sight of the handsome young stranger. "Don't you remember, it's a many year ago, a gentleman who pa.s.sed a day with Squire Courtland, when he first come to settle here, called and left the whip to have a new thong put to it. But I fancies he forgot it, Sir, (turning to Walter,) for he never called for it again; and the Squire's people said as how he was a gone into Yorkshire; so there the whip's been ever sin. I remembers it, Sir, 'cause I kept it in the little parlour nearly a year, to be in the way like."

"Ah! I thinks I do remember it now," said Master Holwell. "I should think it's a matter of twelve yearn ago. I suppose I may sell it without fear of the gentleman's claiming it again."

"Not more than twelve years!" said Walter, anxiously, for it was some seventeen years since his father had been last heard of by his family.

"Why it may be thirteen, Sir, or so, more or less, I can't say exactly."

"More likely fourteen!" said the Dame, "it can't be much more, Sir, we have only been a married fifteen year come next Christmas! But my old man here, is ten years older nor I."

"And the gentleman, you say, was at Mr. Courtland's."

"Yes, Sir, that I'm sure of," replied the intelligent Mrs. Holwell; "they said he had come lately from Ingee."

Walter now despairing of hearing more, purchased the whip; and blessing the worldly wisdom of Sir Peter Hales, that had thus thrown him on a clue, which, however faint and distant, he resolved to follow up, he inquired the way to Squire Courtland's, and proceeded thither at once.

CHAPTER VII.

WALTER VISITS ANOTHER OF HIS UNCLE'S FRIENDS.--MR. COURTLAND'S STRANGE COMPLAINT.--WALTER LEARNS NEWS OF HIS FATHER, WHICH SURPRISES HIM.--THE CHANGE IN HIS DESTINATION.

G.o.d's my life, did you ever hear the like, what a strange man is this!

What you have possessed me withall, I'll discharge it amply.

--Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour.

Mr. Courtland's house was surrounded by a high wall, and stood at the outskirts of the town. A little wooden door buried deep within the wall, seemed the only entrance. At this Walter paused, and after twice applying to the bell, a footman of a peculiarly grave and sanctimonious appearance, opened the door.

In reply to Walter's inquiries, he informed him that Mr. Courtland was very unwell, and never saw "Company."--Walter, however, producing from his pocket-book the introductory letter given him by his father, slipped it into the servant's hand, accompanied by half a crown, and begged to be announced as a gentleman on very particular business.

"Well, Sir, you can step in," said the servant, giving way; "but my master is very poorly, very poorly indeed."

"Indeed, I am sorry to hear it: has he been long so?"

"Going on for ten--years, sir!" replied the servant, with great gravity; and opening the door of the house which stood within a few paces of the wall, on a singularly flat and bare gra.s.s-plot, he showed him into a room, and left him alone.

The first thing that struck Walter in this apartment, was its remarkable lightness. Though not large, it had no less than seven windows. Two sides of the wall, seemed indeed all window! Nor were these admittants of the celestial beam-shaded by any blind or curtain,--

"The gaudy, babbling, and remorseless day"

made itself thoroughly at home in this airy chamber. Nevertheless, though so light, it seemed to Walter any thing but cheerful. The sun had blistered and discoloured the painting of the wainscot, originally of a pale sea-green; there was little furniture in the apartment; one table in the centre, some half a dozen chairs, and a very small Turkey-carpet, which did not cover one tenth part of the clean, cold, smooth, oak boards, const.i.tuted all the goods and chattels visible in the room. But what particularly added effect to the bareness of all within, was the singular and laborious bareness of all without. From each of these seven windows, nothing but a forlorn green flat of some extent was to be seen; there was not a tree, or a shrub, or a flower in the whole expanse, although by several stumps of trees near the house, Walter perceived that the place had not always been so dest.i.tute of vegetable life.

While he was yet looking upon this singular baldness of scene, the servant re-entered with his master's compliments, and a message that he should be happy to see any relation of Mr. Lester.

Walter accordingly followed the footman into an apartment possessing exactly the same peculiarities as the former one; viz. a most disproportionate plurality of windows, a commodious scantiness of furniture, and a prospect without, that seemed as if the house had been built on the middle of Salisbury plain.

Mr. Courtland, himself a stout man, and still preserving the rosy hues and comely features, though certainly not the same hilarious expression, which Lester had attributed to him, sat in a large chair, close by the centre window, which was open. He rose and shook Walter by the hand with great cordiality.

"Sir, I am delighted to see you! How is your worthy uncle? I only wish he were with you--you dine with me of course. Thomas, tell the cook to add a tongue and chicken to the roast beef--no,--young gentleman, I will have no excuse; sit down, sit down; pray come near the window; do you not find it dreadfully close? not a breath of air? This house is so choked up; don't you find it so, eh? Ah, I see, you can scarcely gasp."

"My dear Sir, you are mistaken; I am rather cold, on the contrary: nor did I ever in my life see a more airy house than yours."

"I try to make it so, Sir, but I can't succeed; if you had seen what it was, when I first bought it! a garden here, Sir; a copse there; a wilderness, G.o.d wot! at the back: and a row of chesnut trees in the front! You may conceive the consequence, Sir; I had not been long here, not two years, before my health was gone, Sir, gone--the d--d vegetable life sucked it out of me. The trees kept away all the air--I was nearly suffocated, without, at first, guessing the cause. But at length, though not till I had been withering away for five years, I discovered the origin of my malady. I went to work, Sir; I plucked up the cursed garden, I cut down the infernal chesnuts, I made a bowling green of the diabolical wilderness, but I fear it is too late. I am dying by inches,--have been dying ever since. The malaria has effectually tainted my const.i.tution."

Here Mr. Courtland heaved a deep sigh, and shook his head with a most gloomy expression of countenance.