Richard Carvel Part 30

The captain demanded a room. But mine host had turned his back, when suddenly a thought must have struck him, for he wheeled again.

"Stay," he cried, glancing suspiciously at the sky-blue frock; "if you are Mr. Dyson's courier, I have reserved a suite."

This same John Paul, who was like iron with mob and mutiny, was pitiably helpless before such a prop of the aristocracy. He flew into a rage, and rated the landlord in Scotch and English, and I was fain to put my tongue in my cheek and turn my back that my laughter might not anger him the more.

And so I came face to face with another smile, behind a spying-gla.s.s,--a smile so cynical and unpleasant withal that my own was smothered. A tall and thin gentleman, who had come out of the inn without a hat, was surveying the dispute with a keen delight. He was past the middle age.

His clothes bore that mark which distinguishes his world from the other, but his features were so striking as to hold my attention unwittingly.

After a while he withdrew his gla.s.s, cast one look at me which might have meant anything, and spoke up.

"Pray, my good Goble, why all this fol-de-rol about admitting a gentleman to your house?"

I scarce know which was the more astonished, the landlord, John Paul, or I. Goble bowed at the speaker.

"A gentleman, your honour!" he gasped. "Your honour is joking again.

Surely this trumpery Scotchman in Jews' finery is no gentleman, nor the longsh.o.r.e lout he has got with him. They may go to the 'Swan.'"

"Jews' finery!" shouted the captain, with his fingers on his sword.

But the stranger held up a hand deprecatingly.

"'Pon my oath, Goble, I gave you credit for more penetration," he drawled; "you may be right about the Scotchman, but your longsh.o.r.e lout has had both birth and breeding, or I know nothing."

John Paul, who was in the act of bowing to the speaker, remained petrified with his hand upon his heart, entirely discomfited. The landlord forsook him instantly for me, then stole a glance at his guest to test his seriousness, and looked at my face to see how greatly it were at variance with my clothes. The temptation to lay hands on the cringing little toadeater grew too strong for me, and I picked him up by the scruff of the collar,--he was all skin and bones,--and spun him round like a corpse upon a gibbet, while he cried mercy in a voice to wake the dead. The slim gentleman under the sign laughed until he held his sides, with a heartiness that jarred upon me. It did not seem to fit him.

"By Hercules and Vulcan," he cried, when at last I had set the landlord down, "what an arm and back the lad has! He must have the best in the house, Goble, and sup with me."

Goble pulled himself together.

"And he is your honour's friend," he began, with a scowl.

"Ay, he is my friend, I tell you," retorted the important personage, impatiently.

The innkeeper, sulky, half-satisfied, yet fearing to offend, welcomed us with what grace he could muster, and we were shown to "The Fox and the Grapes," a large room in the rear of the house.

John Paul had not spoken since the slim gentleman had drawn the distinction between us, and I knew that the affront was rankling in his breast. He cast himself into a chair with such an air of dejection as made me pity him from my heart. But I had no consolation to offer. His first words, far from being the torrent of protest I looked for, almost startled me into laughter.

"He can be nothing less than a duke," said the captain. "Ah, Richard, see what it is to be a gentleman!"

"Fiddlesticks! I had rather own your powers than the best t.i.tle in England," I retorted sharply.

He shook his head sorrowfully, which made me wonder the more that a man of his ability should be unhappy without this one bauble attainment.

"I shall begin to believe the philosophers have the right of it," he remarked presently. "Have you ever read anything of Monsieur Rousseau's, Richard?"

The words were scarce out of his mouth when we heard a loud rap on the door, which I opened to discover a Swiss fellow in a private livery, come to say that his master begged the young gentleman would sup with him. The man stood immovable while he delivered this message, and put an impudent emphasis upon the gentleman.

"Say to your master, whoever he may be," I replied, in some heat at the man's sneer, "that I am travelling with Captain Paul. That any invitation to me must include him."

The lackey stood astounded at my answer, as though he had not heard aright. Then he retired with less a.s.surance than he had come, and John Paul sprang to his feet and laid his hands upon my shoulders, as was his wont when affected. He reproached himself for having misjudged me, and added a deal more that I have forgotten.

"And to think," he cried, "that you have forgone supping with a n.o.bleman on my account!"

"Pish, captain, 'tis no great denial. His Lordship--if Lordship he is--is stranded in an inn, overcome with ennui, and must be amused. That is all."

Nevertheless I think the good captain was distinctly disappointed, not alone because I gave up what in his opinion was a great advantage, but likewise because I could have regaled him on my return with an account of the meal. For it must be borne in mind, my dears, that those days are not these, nor that country this one. And in judging Captain Paul it must be remembered that rank inspired a vast respect when King George came to the throne. It can never be said of John Paul that he lacked either independence or spirit. But a n.o.bleman was a n.o.bleman then.

So when presently the gentleman himself appeared smiling at our door, which his servant had left open, we both of us rose up in astonishment and bowed very respectfully, and my face burned at the thought of the message I had sent him. For, after all, the captain was but twenty-one and I nineteen, and the distinguished unknown at least fifty. He took a pinch of snuff and brushed his waistcoat before he spoke.

"Egad," said he, with good nature, looking up at me, "Mohammed was a philosopher, and so am I, and come to the mountain. 'Tis worth crossing an inn in these times to see a young man whose strength has not been wasted upon foppery. May I ask your name, sir?"

"Richard Carvel," I answered, much put aback.

"Ah, Carvel," he repeated; "I know three or four of that name. Perhaps you are Robert Carvel's son, of Yorkshire. But what the devil do you do in such clothes? I was resolved to have you though I am forced to take a dozen watchet-blue mountebanks in the bargain."

"Sir, I warn you not to insult my friend," I cried, in a temper again.

"There, there, not so loud, I beg you," said he, with a gesture. "Hot as pounded pepper,--but all things are the better for a touch of it. I had no intention of insulting the worthy man, I give my word. I must have my joke, sir. No harm meant." And he nodded at John Paul, who looked as if he would sink through the floor. "Robert Carvel is as testy as the devil with the gout, and you are not unlike him in feature."

"He is no relation of mine," I replied, undecided whether to laugh or be angry. And then I added, for I was very young, "I am an American, and heir to Carvel Hall in Maryland."

"Lord, lord, I might have known," exclaimed he. "Once I had the honour of dining with your Dr. Franklin, from Pennsylvania. He dresses for all the world like you, only worse, and wears a hat I would not be caught under at Bagnigge Wells, were I so imprudent as to go there."

"Dr. Franklin has weightier matters than hats to occupy him, sir," I retorted. For I was determined to hold my own.

He made a French gesture, a shrug of his thin shoulders, which caused me to suspect he was not always so good-natured.

"Dr. Franklin would better have stuck to his newspaper, my young friend," said he. "But I like your appearance too well to quarrel with you, and we'll have no politics before eating. Come, gentlemen, come!

Let us see what Goble has left after his shaking."

He struck off with something of a painful gait, which he explained was from the gout. And presently we arrived at his parlour, where supper was set out for us. I had not tasted its equal since I left Maryland. We sat down to a capon stuffed with eggs, and dainty sausages, and hot rolls, such as we had at home; and a wine which had cobwebbed and mellowed under the Castle Inn for better than twenty years. The personage did not drink wine. He sent his servant to quarrel with Goble because he had not been given iced water. While he was tapping on the table I took occasion to observe him. His was a physiognomy to strike the stranger, not by reason of its n.o.bility, but because of its oddity. He had a prodigious length of face, the nose long in proportion, but not prominent. The eyes were dark, very bright, and wide apart, with little eyebrows dabbed over them at a slanting angle. The thin-lipped mouth rather pursed up, which made his smile the contradiction it was. In short, my dears, while I do not lay claim to the reading of character, it required no great astuteness to perceive the scholar, the man of the world, and the ascetic--and all affected. His conversation bore out the summary. It astonished us. It encircled the earth, embraced history and letters since the world began. And added to all this, he had a thousand anecdotes on his tongue's tip. His words he chose with too great a nicety; his sentences were of a foreign formation, twisted around; and his stories were ill.u.s.trated with French gesticulations. He threw in quotations galore, in Latin, and French, and English, until the captain began casting me odd, uncomfortable looks, as though he wished himself well out of the entertainment. Indeed, poor John Paul's perturbation amused me more than the gentleman's anecdotes. To be ill at ease is discouraging to any one, but it was peculiarly fatal with the captain.

This arch-aristocrat dazzled him. When he attempted to follow in the same vein he would get lost. And his really considerable learning counted for nothing. He reached the height of his mortification when the slim gentleman dropped his eyelids and began to yawn. I was wickedly delighted. He could not have been better met. Another such encounter, and I would warrant the captain's illusions concerning the gentry to go up in smoke. Then he might come to some notion of his own true powers.

As for me, I enjoyed the supper which our host had insisted upon our partaking, drank his wine, and paid him very little attention.

"May I make so bold as to ask, sir, whether you are a patron of literature?" said the captain, at length.

"A very poor patron, my dear man," was the answer. "Merely a humble worshipper at the shrine. And I might say that I partake of its benefits as much as a gentleman may. And yet," he added, with a laugh and a cough, "those silly newspapers and magazines insist on calling me a literary man."

"And now that you have indulged in a question, and the claret is coming on," said he, "perhaps you will tell me something of yourself, Mr.

Carvel, and of your friend, Captain Paul. And how you come to be so far from home." And he settled himself comfortably to listen, as a man who has bought his right to an opera box.

Here was my chance. And I resolved that if I did not further enlighten John Paul, it would be no fault of mine.

"Sir," I replied, in as dry a monotone as I could a.s.sume, "I was kidnapped by the connivance of some unscrupulous persons in my colony, who had designs upon my grandfather's fortune. I was taken abroad in a slaver and carried down to the Caribbean seas, when I soon discovered that the captain and his crew were nothing less than pirates. For one day all hands got into a beastly state of drunkenness, and the captain raised the skull and cross-bones, which he had handy in his chest. I was forced to climb the main rigging in order to escape being hacked to pieces."

He sat bolt upright, those little eyebrows of his gone up full half an inch, and he raised his thin hands with an air of incredulity. John Paul was no less astonished at my little ruse.

"Holy Saint Clement!" exclaimed our host; "pirates! This begins to have a flavour indeed. And yet you do not seem to be a lad with an imagination. Egad, Mr. Carvel, I had put you down for one who might say, with Alceste: 'Etre franc et sincere est mon plus grand talent.' But pray go on, sir. You have but to call for pen and ink to rival Mr.