Tom Tufton's Travels Part 6

Tom stared his fill at the newcomer, who was attended by several of the habitues of the coffee house, and received their welcome with a languid grace and indifferent goodwill. He was speedily accommodated with the best seat in the room. Conversation was hushed to listen to his words; the most fragrant cup of coffee was brought to him by the beauty of the bar herself, and his orders were dispatched with a celerity which was lacking to any other customer.

Small wonder was it that Tom, gazing and marvelling, asked in a whisper of the man next him:

"Who is it?"

"Lord Claud, of course, you rustic cub," was the scornful reply, for politeness did not distinguish Tom's new friends. "Any fool about town could tell you that much."

"I know it is Lord Claud," answered Tom, somewhat nettled; "but who is Lord Claud? That is what I meant by my question."

Another laugh, not a whit less scornful, was the reply to this second query.

"He'll be a clever fellow who tells you that, young greengoose from the country!" was the answer, only that the words used were more offensive, and were followed by the usual garnishing of oaths and by blasphemous allusions to Melchisedec, from which Tom gathered that nothing was known to the world at large as to the parentage or descent of the man they called Lord Claud, and that this t.i.tle had been bestowed upon him rather as a nickname than because it was his by right.

The babble of talk, hushed at the entrance of the newcomer, began to rise again when he took up one of the journals, and appeared disposed for reading rather than conversation. Tom, unable to take his eyes off the elegant figure, still continued to ask questions respecting him, but was more puzzled than enlightened by the nature of the replies.

"There had been other Clauds before him," one of the men remarked.

Another added that it was easy to be rich when the king was made to pay toll.

Slippery Seal wished, with a laugh and an oath, that he were half as slippery as the great Lord Claud; and Bully Bullen remarked that if he could but get such a reputation for duelling, he would play the bully to better purpose than he did now.

This band of four were getting noisy and quarrelsome. They had been drinking steadily ever since they came in, and their cups of coffee had been tinctured by something much stronger. They were getting up their energies for their nightly prowls about the city, and thought it no bad start to bait young Tom first. Of course he had betrayed his ignorance and rusticity in a hundred little ways. Although he began to understand a little of what pa.s.sed around him in the interlarded speech of the day, he could not frame his tongue to any adequate imitation of it yet. He had learnt, alas, to swear in his old life; but there is a fashion even in oaths, and his were too rustic in form to pa.s.s muster here.

As the bully beaux got deeper in their cups, so did their baiting of young Tom increase in offensiveness and coa.r.s.eness. The hot flush of anger kept rising in the young man's face, and there were moments when a fight was imminent, which was perhaps what the aggressors desired. Harry was still in the outer room, or he would have interposed, for it was not a nice thing to be the b.u.t.t of a set of braggarts and bullies, and this fashion of drawing a young man into their clutches was by no means unusual.

Suddenly, as matters seemed to be getting ripe for some outbreak of fury on Tom's part, which might well lead to disastrous results, a sudden clear, resonant voice rose above the hubbub, and dominated all other tones by a peculiar property impossible to describe.

"Let that lad alone, you cowards!" spoke the voice, in tones of unmistakable authority. "Get out of this place, you swaggering bullies! Are we to have no peace even in this inner room, for your filibustering ways? Go and bl.u.s.ter out yonder, if bl.u.s.ter you must.

Speak a single word of insolence to me--" and here the blue eyes seemed to flash fire--"and I will have every one of you ducked in the Thames three times ere you take a step from hence! Now, will you go quietly?"

It was strange to see the change which came over these young rakes the moment that the clear, cold tones of Lord Claud's voice fell upon their ears. They stopped, they cringed, they looked one at the other, and then back at him, as a whipped dog looks at the master who rates him. Thirsty Thring, who had drunk the most deeply, and who was in consequence most filled with Dutch courage, ventured once to look as though he were about to resist, or to dispute the mandate of Lord Claud; but no sooner had he provoked that flash of the eyes, than he too was cringing more humbly than his fellows.

To the great amazement of Tom, they took up their hats, and slunk from the room like so many whipped curs. He heard them the next minute chartering a wherry to take them to the sh.o.r.e once more.

Lord Claud had taken up his paper again, but meeting Tom's bashful glance of mingled grat.i.tude and admiration, he remarked to him with a quiet smile:

"You are a stranger to London and its sons, lad; take this bit of advice from one who knows both well: Never let any man badger and insult you. Take no word from any; but return it with a blow or a sword thrust. Make your name feared--it is the surest road to success. Tavern and street brawls are taken little note of by the administrators of the law; but better a few weeks' discipline in Newgate, than to be the b.u.t.t and victim of a set of vulgar street swaggerers and swashbucklers such as those worthies we have just seen depart."

Tom had risen and had slowly approached Lord Claud. Now that the hour for the play had all but come, the room was thinning of its guests. He felt more courage to speak to this strange being, who seemed so great a personage.

"I thank you, sir, for sending them away. I will seek to follow your good counsel in the future."

And then, after a moment's hesitation, he added, "Sir, are there more than one Lord Claud in this great city of London?"

"Not that I am aware of," answered the other, with a lighting of the eyes. "Some would tell you that one was enough even for so vast a city and realm as this!"

"Because," continued Tom, "I was charged with a message for one Lord Claud, and I marvel that it can be your worshipful self, for he that sent it was a strange man to speak of himself as your master."

A laugh shone in the dark blue eyes of the other.

"In sooth I call no man my master," he answered lightly; "but tell me the name of him who sent this message, and I shall know if it be for me or not."

"He called himself Captain Jack," answered Tom, "and I met with him betwixt my home in Ess.e.x and this city. He was dwelling in the heart of the great Forest of Epping."

Upon Lord Claud's face there had come a look of vivid interest and pleasure; yet he laid a finger upon his lips, as though to caution Tom, who, indeed, had spoken in a tone too low to be heard by any one else.

"Any news of or from Captain Jack is right welcome in mine ears,"

he said; "but this is not the time or place in which to speak of such things. Come tomorrow morning early to my lodgings in the Mall--any man will direct you to them--and there we will speak at ease. Forget not--tomorrow morning by ten o' the clock, ere my levee has begun. I shall expect you. Farewell, good youth, and keep your distance with those gentlemen you have just left. They would like to spit you as a goose is spitted, but I would see you again ere that consummation be achieved!"

He nodded to Tom, and took up his paper again; and Tom, turning round, encountered the amazed glance of Harry, who had come in to find him, and discovered him in friendly converse with the greatest man of all the company.

"How now, Tom! But you have a mettlesome spirit after all, if you can sc.r.a.pe acquaintance with Lord Claud. I have been in his company many a time, but never a word has he vouchsafed to me. And are you invited to his lodgings? Surely my ears must have deceived me!"

"In sooth he asked me, but it is only to hear a message I chance to bear from an old friend of his. Harry, tell me who is this Lord Claud? Men seem to worship the ground he treads upon, and yet to fear him, too, more than a little."

It was after they had reached the streets again that Tom put this question, and Harry answered it by a knowing shake of the head.

"I should have the makings of a fortune in me," he answered, "if I could tell who Lord Claud was. There be many fine ladies, and curled darlings of fashion, who would give much to know that secret."

"But if he be a lord--"

"Ah, indeed--a wise 'if'! He is no more a lord than I am! That much I can tell you. But the name fits, and he wears it with a grace.

There be ladies in high places, too, who would not be averse to share it with him, and be my Lady Claud, even though no other name might be hers."

"But he is very rich; and rich men--"

"Rich!--ay, verily; and so should I be rich, if every time my purse was empty I helped myself to Her Majesty's gold, as it traversed the road from place to place!"

Tom stopped short as though he had been shot.

"A highwayman!" he gasped.

Harry bestowed upon him a sage glance and a mocking laugh.

"That is your word, not mine, my friend. Breathe it not before his lordship! But there be many who swear that he is none other than a grandson of the famous Claud Duval of olden days, and that he rolls in the wealth he has filched from royalty itself."

"And yet he lives like a prince, and all the world pays him court!"

"Oh yes--it is the way of the world; a successful villain is as much an idol as a successful general. The tide may turn. All high positions have their dangers. Remember nothing has ever been proved against him; but men think and whisper, though not in his presence.

Town talk may or may not be true; and the ladies like him none the less for the tales that circulate about him. But come now, no more questions, or we shall be late for the play!"

CHAPTER V. WITH LORD CLAUD.

Cale shook his head; but Tom was resolute. He had fallen under the spell of the so-called Lord Claud's personality--like many another before him--and whatever the upshot of the matter might be, he was going to accept the invitation accorded him, and visit that personage in his lodgings.

"Have a care, lad, have a care," advised the little perruquier.