It Is Never Too Late to Mend Part 158

"You are short of cash, too; come to me--after the wedding, and I'll give you fifty pounds cash."

"You are very liberal, sir. I wish it was in a better cause."

"Now go home, and don't be a sneak and a fool--till after the wedding, or I will sell the bed from under your wife's back, and send you to the stone-jug. Be off."

Jefferies crept away, paralyzed in heart, and Meadows, standing up, called out in a rage: "Are there any more of you that hope to turn John Meadows? then come on, come a thousand strong, with the devil at your back--and then I'll beat you!" And for a moment the respectable man was almost grand; a man-rock standing braving earth and heaven.

"Hist! Mr. Meadows." He turned, and there was Crawley. "A word, sir.

Will Fielding is in the town, in such a pa.s.sion."

"Come to stop the wedding?"

"He was taking a gla.s.s of ale at the 'Toad and Pickax,' and you might hear him all over the yard."

"What is he going to do?"

"Sir, he has bought an uncommon heavy whip; he was showing it in the yard. 'This is for John Meadows' back,' said he, 'and I will give it him before the girl he has stolen from my brother. If she takes a dog instead of a man, it shall be a beaten dog,' says he."

Meadows rang the bell. "Harness the mare to the four-wheeled chaise. You know what to do, Crawley."

"Well, I can guess."

"But first get him told that I am always at Gra.s.smere at six o'clock."

"But you won't go there this evening, of course."

"Why not?"

"Aren't you afraid he--"

"Afraid of Will Fielding? Why, you have never looked at me. I do notice your eyes are always on the ground. Crawley, when I was eighteen, one evening (it was harvest home, and all the folk had drunk their wit and manners out) I found a farmer's wife in a lane, hemmed in by three great ignorant brutes that were for kissing her, or some nonsense, and she crying help and murder and ready to faint with fright. It was a decent woman, and a neighbor, so I interfered as thus: I knocked the first fellow senseless on his back with a blow before they knew of me, and then the three were two. I fought the two, giving and taking for full ten minutes, and then I got a chance and one went down. I put my foot on his neck and kept him down for all he could do, and over his body I fought the best man of the lot, and thrashed him so that his whole mug was like a ball of beetroot. When he was quite sick he ran one way, and t'other got up roaring and ran another, and they had to send a hurdle for No. 1. Dame Fielding gave me of her own accord what all the row was about, and more than one, and hearty ones, too, I a.s.sure you, and had me in to supper, and told her man, and he shook my hand a good one."

"Why, sir, you don't mean to say the woman you fought for was Mrs.

Fielding."

"But I tell you it was, and I had those two boys on my knee, two chubby toads, pulling at my curly hair--! why do I talk of these things? Oh, I remember, it was to show you I am not a man that can be bullied. I am a much better man than I was at eighteen. I won't be married in a black eye if I can help it. But, when I am once married, here I stand against all comers, and if you hear them grumble or threaten you, tell them that any Sunday afternoon, when there is nothing better to be done, I'll throw my cap into the ring and fight all the Fieldings that ever were pupped, one down another come on." Then turning quite cool and contemptuous all in a moment, he said, "These are words, and we have work on hand;" and, even as he spoke, he strode from the room pattered after by Crawley.

At six o'clock Meadows and Susan were walking arm in arm in the garden.

Presently they saw a man advancing toward them, with his right hand behind him. "Why, it is Will Fielding," cried Susan, "come to thank you."

"I think not, by the look of him," replied Meadows, coolly.

"Susan, will you be so good as to take your hand from that man's arm. I have got a word to say to him."

Susan did more than requested, seeing at once that mischief was coming.

She clung to William's right arm, and while he ground his teeth with ineffectual rage, for she was strong, as her s.e.x are strong, for half a minute, and to throw her off he must have been much rougher with her than he chose to be, three men came behind un.o.bserved by all but Meadows, and captured him on the old judgment. And, Crawley having represented him as a violent man, they literally laid the grasp of the law on him.

"But I have got the money to pay it," remonstrated William.

"Pay it, then."

"But my money is at home, give me two days. I'll write to my wife and she will send it me." The officers, with a coa.r.s.e laugh, told him he must come with them meantime.

Meadows whispered Susan: "I'll pay it for him to-morrow."

They took off William Fielding in Meadows' four-wheeled chaise.

"Where are they taking him, John?"

"To the county jail."

"Oh, don't let them take him there. Can you not trust him?"

"Yes."

"Then why not pay for him?"

"But I don't carry money in my pocket, and the bank is closed."

"How unfortunate!"

"Very! but I'll send it over to-morrow early, and we will have him out."

"Oh, yes, poor fellow! the very first thing in the morning."

"Yes! the first thing--after we are married."

Soon after this Meadows bade Susan affectionately farewell, and rode off to Newborough to buy his gloves and some presents for his bride. On the road he overtook William Fielding going to jail, leaned over his saddle as he cantered by, and said, "Mrs. Meadows will send the money in to free you in the morning," then on again as cool as a cuc.u.mber and cantered into the town before sunset, put up black Rachel at the King's Head, made his purchases, and back to the inn. As he sat in the bar-parlor drinking a gla.s.s of ale and chatting with the landlady, two travelers came into the pa.s.sage. They did not stop in it long, for one of them knew the house and led his companion into the coffee-room. But in that moment, by a flash of recognition, spite of their bronzed color and long beards, Meadows had seen who they were--George Fielding and Thomas Robinson.

Words could not paint in many pages what Meadows pa.s.sed through in a few seconds. His very body was one moment cold as ice, the next burning.

The coffee-room door was open--he dragged himself into the pa.s.sage, though each foot in turn seemed glued to the ground, and listened. He came back and sat down in the bar.

"Are they going to stay?" said the mistress to the waiter.

"Yes, to be called at five o'clock."

The bell rang. The waiter went and immediately returned. "Hot with,"

demanded the waiter, in a sharp, mechanical tone.

"Here, take my keys for the lump sugar," said the landlady, and she poured first the brandy and then the hot water into a tumbler, then went upstairs to see about the travelers' beds.

Meadows was left alone a few moments with the liquor. A sudden flash came to Meadows' eye, he put his hand hastily to his waistcoat-pocket, and then his eye brightened still more. Yes, it was there, he thought he had had the curiosity to keep it by him. He drew out the white lump Crawley had left on his table that night, and flung it into the gla.s.s just as the waiter returned with the sugar.

The waiter took the brandy and water into the coffee-room. Meadows sat still as a mouse, his brain boiling and bubbling--awestruck at what he had done, yet meditating worse.

The next time the waiter came in, "Waiter," said he, "one gla.s.s among two, that is short allowance."

"Oh! the big one is teetotal," replied the waiter.