The Young Duke Part 42

'Why did you not bring your wife with you?' asked the widow.

'And wouldn't I be very glad to? but she wouldn't come among strangers at once; and so I have got a letter, which she wrote for me, to put in the post, in case they are glad to see me, and then she will come on.'

'And you, I suppose, are not sorry to have a holiday?' said the Duke.

'Ayn't I, though? Ayn't I as low about leaving her as ever I was in my life; and so is the poor cretur. She won't eat a bit of victuals till I come back, I'll be sworn; not a bit, I'll be bound to say that; and myself, although I am an old soldier and served my king and country for five-and-twenty years, and so got knocked about, and used to anything, as it were, I don't know how it is, but I always feel queer whenever I am away from her. I shan't make a hearty meal till I see her. Somehow or other, when I am away from her, everything feels dry in the throat.'

'You are very fond of her, I see,' said the Duke.

'And ought I not to be? Didn't I ask her three times before she said _yes_? Those are the wives for wear, sir. None of the fruit that falls at a shaking for me! Hasn't she stuck by me in every climate, and in every land I was in? Not a fellow in the company had such a wife.

Wouldn't I throw myself off this coach this moment, to give her a moment's peace? That I would, though; d----me if I wouldn't.'

'Hush! hush!' said the widow; 'never swear. I am afraid you talk too much of your love,' she added, with a faint smile.

'Ah! you don't know my wife, ma'am. Are you married, sir?'

'I have not that happiness,' said the Duke.

'Well, there is nothing like it! but don't take the fruit that falls at a shake. But this, I suppose, is Selby?'

The marine took his departure, having stayed long enough to raise in the young Duke's mind curious feelings.

As he was plunged into reverie, and as the widow was silent, conversation was not resumed until the coach stopped for dinner.

'We stop here half-an-hour, gentlemen,' said the guard. 'Mrs. Burnet,'

he continued, to the widow, 'let me hand you out.'

They entered the parlour of the inn. The Duke, who was ignorant of the etiquette of the road, did not proceed to the discharge of his duties, as the youngest guest, with all the promptness desired by his fellow-travellers.

'Now, sir,' said an outside, 'I will thank you for a slice of that mutton, and will join you, if you have no objection in a bottle of sherry.'

'What you please, sir. May I have the pleasure of helping you, ma'am?'

After dinner the Duke took advantage of a vacant outside place.

Tom Rawlins was the model of a guard. Young, robust, and gay, he had a letter, a word, or a wink for all he met. All seasons were the same to him; night or day he was ever awake, and ever alive to all the interest of the road; now joining in conversation with a pa.s.senger, shrewd, sensible, and respectful; now exchanging a little elegant badinage with the coachman; now bowing to a pretty girl; now quizzing a pa.s.ser-by; he was off and on his seat in an instant, and, in the whiff of his cigar, would lock a wheel, or unlock a pa.s.senger.

From him the young Duke learned that his fellow-inside was Mr. Duncan Macmorrogh, senior, a writer at Edinburgh, and, of course, the father of the first man of the day. Tom Rawlins could not tell his Grace as much about the princ.i.p.al writer in 'The Screw and Lever Review' as we can; for Tom was no patron of our periodical literature, farther than a police report in the Publican's Journal. Young Duncan Macmorrogh was a limb of the law, who had just brought himself into notice by a series of articles in 'The Screw and Lever,' in which he had subjected the universe piecemeal to his critical a.n.a.lysis. Duncan Macmorrogh cut up the creation, and got a name. His attack upon mountains was most violent, and proved, by its personality, that he had come from the Lowlands. He demonstrated the inutility of all elevation, and declared that the Andes were the aristocracy of the globe. Rivers he rather patronised; but flowers he quite pulled to pieces, and proved them to be the most useless of existences. Duncan Macmorrogh informed us that we were quite wrong in supposing ourselves to be the miracle of creation.

On the contrary, he avowed that already there were various pieces of machinery of far more importance than man; and he had no doubt, in time, that a superior race would arise, got by a steam-engine on a spinning-jenny.

The other 'inside' was the widow of a former curate of a Northumbrian village. Some friend had obtained for her only child a clerkship in a public office, and for some time this idol of her heart had gone on prospering; but unfortunately, of late, Charles Burnet had got into a bad set, was now involved in a terrible sc.r.a.pe, and, as Tom Rawlins feared, must lose his situation and go to ruin.

'She was half distracted when she heard it first, poor creature! I have known her all my life, sir. Many the kind word and gla.s.s of ale I have had at her house, and that's what makes me feel for her, you see. I do what I can to make the journey easy to her, for it is a pull at her years. G.o.d bless her! there is not a better body in this world; that I will, say for her. When I was a boy, I used to be the playfellow in a manner with Charley Burnet: a gay lad, sir, as ever you'd wish to see in a summer's day, and the devil among the girls always, and that's been the ruin of him; and as open-a-hearted fellow as ever lived. D----me!

I'd walk to the land's end to save him, if it were only for his mother's sake, to say nothing of himself.'

'And can nothing be done?' asked the Duke.

'Why, you see, he is back in s. d.; and, to make it up, the poor body must sell her all, and he won't let her do it, and wrote a letter like a prince (No room, sir), as fine a letter as ever you read (Hilloa, there!

What! are you asleep?)--as ever you read on a summer's day. I didn't see it, but my mother told me it was as good as e'er a one of the old gentleman's sermons. "Mother," said he, "my sins be upon my own head. I can bear disgrace (How do, Mr. Wilkins?), but I cannot bear to see you a beggar!"'

'Poor fellow!'

'Ay! sir, as good-a-hearted fellow as ever you'd wish to meet!'

'Is he involved to a great extent, think you?'

'Oh! a long figure, sir (I say, Betty, I've got a letter for you from your sweetheart), a very long figure, sir (Here, take it!); I should be sorry (Don't blush; no message?)--I should be sorry to take two hundred pounds to pay it. No, I wouldn't take two hundred pounds, that I wouldn't (I say, Jacob, stop at old Bag Smith's).'

Night came on, and the Duke resumed his inside place. Mr. Macmorrogh went to sleep over his son's article; and the Duke feigned slumber, though he was only indulging in reverie. He opened his eyes, and a light, which they pa.s.sed, revealed the countenance of the widow. Tears were stealing down her face.

'I have no mother; I have no one to weep for me,' thought the Duke; 'and yet, if I had been in this youth's station, my career probably would have been as fatal. Let me a.s.sist her. Alas! how I have misused my power, when, even to do this slight deed, I am obliged to hesitate, and consider whether it be practicable.'

The coach again stopped for a quarter of an hour. The Duke had, in consideration of the indefinite period of his visit, supplied himself amply with money on repairing to Dacre. Besides his purse, which was well stored for the road, he had somewhat more than three hundred pounds in his notebook. He took advantage of their tarrying, to inclose it and its contents in a sheet of paper with these lines:

'An unknown friend requests Mrs. Burnet to accept this token of his sympathy with suffering virtue.'

Determined to find some means to put this in her possession before their parting, he resumed his place. The Scotchman now prepared for his night's repose. He produced a pillow for his back, a bag for his feet, and a cap for his head. These, and a gla.s.s of brandy-and-water, in time produced a due effect, and he was soon fast asleep. Even to the widow, night brought some solace. The Duke alone found no repose. Unused to travelling in public conveyances at night, and unprovided with any of the ingenious expedients of a mail coach adventurer, he felt all the inconveniences of an inexperienced traveller. The seat was unendurably hard, his back ached, his head whirled, the confounded sherry, slight as was his portion, had made him feverish, and he felt at once excited and exhausted. He was sad, too; very depressed. Alone, and no longer surrounded with that splendour which had hitherto made solitude precious, life seemed stripped of all its enn.o.bling spirit. His energy vanished. He repented his rashness; and the impulse of the previous night, which had gathered fresh power from the dewy moon, vanished. He felt alone, and without a friend, and night pa.s.sed without a moment's slumber, watching the driving clouds.

The last fifteen miles seemed longer than the whole journey. At St.

Alban's he got out, took a cup of coffee with Tom Rawlins, and, although the morning was raw, again seated himself by his side. In the first gloomy little suburb Mrs. Burnet got out. The Duke sent Rawlins after her with the parcel, with peremptory instructions to leave it. He watched the widow protesting it was not hers, his faithful emissary appealing to the direction, and with delight he observed it left in her hands. They rattled into London, stopped in Lombard Street, reached Holborn, entered an archway; the coachman threw the whip and reins from his now careless hands. The Duke bade farewell to Tom Rawlins, and was shown to a bed.

CHAPTER VIII.

_The Duke Makes a Speech_

THE return of morning had in some degree dissipated the gloom that had settled on the young Duke during the night. Sound and light made him feel less forlorn, and for a moment his soul again responded to his high purpose. But now he was to seek necessary repose. In vain. His heated frame and anxious mind were alike restless. He turned, he tossed in his bed, but he could not banish from his ear the whirling sound of his late conveyance, the snore of Mr. Macmorrogh, and the voice of Tom Rawlins.

He kept dwelling on every petty incident of his journey, and repeating in his mind every petty saying. His determination to slumber made him even less sleepy. Conscious that repose was absolutely necessary to the performance of his task, and dreading that the boon was now unattainable, he became each moment more feverish and more nervous; a crowd of half-formed ideas and images flitted over his heated brain.

Failure, misery, May Dacre, Tom Rawlins, boiled beef, Mrs. Burnet, the aristocracy, mountains and the marine, and the tower of St. Alban's cathedral, hurried along in infinite confusion. But there is nothing like experience. In a state of distraction, he remembered the hopeless but refreshing sleep he had gained after his fatal adventure at Brighton. He jumped out of bed, and threw himself on the floor, and in a few minutes, from the same cause, his excited senses subsided into slumber.

He awoke; the sun was shining through his rough shutter. It was noon. He jumped up, rang the bell, and asked for a bath. The chambermaid did not seem exactly to comprehend his meaning, but said she would speak to the waiter. He was the first gentleman who ever had asked for a bath at the Dragon with Two Tails. The waiter informed him that he might get a bath, he believed, at the Hum-mums. The Duke dressed, and to the Hummums he then took his way. As he was leaving the yard, he was followed by an ostler, who, in a voice musically hoa.r.s.e, thus addressed him:

'Have you seen missis, sir?'

'Do you mean me? No, I have not seen your missis;' and the Duke proceeded.

'Sir, sir,' said the ostler, running after him, 'I think you said you had not seen missis?'

'You think right,' said the Duke, astonished; and again he walked on.

'Sir, sir,' said the pursuing ostler, 'I don't think you have got any luggage?'

'Oh! I beg your pardon,' said the Duke; 'I see it. I am in your debt; but I meant to return.'

'No doubt on't, sir; but when gemmen don't have no luggage, they sees missis before they go, sir.'