Robert Louis Stevenson

St. Ives, Being the Adventures of a French Prisoner in England
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I believe I must have coloured.  'Madam,' said I, 'the notes are of
no importance; and your least pleasure ought certainly to be my
law.  You have felt, and you have been pleased to express, a doubt
of me.  I tear them up.'  Which you may be sure I did thoroughly.

'There's a good lad!' said the dragon, and immediately led the way
to the front lawn.

The brother and sister were both waiting us here, and, as well as I
could make out in the imperfect light, bore every appearance of
having passed through a rather cruel experience.  Ronald seemed
ashamed to so much as catch my eye in the presence of his aunt, and
was the picture of embarrassment.  As for Flora, she had scarce the
time to cast me one look before the dragon took her by the arm, and
began to march across the garden in the extreme first glimmer of
the dawn without exchanging speech.  Ronald and I followed in equal
silence.

There was a door in that same high wall on the top of which I had
sat perched no longer gone than yesterday morning.  This the old
lady set open with a key; and on the other side we were aware of a
rough-looking, thick-set man, leaning with his arms (through which
was passed a formidable staff) on a dry-stone dyke.  Him the old
lady immediately addressed.

'Sim,' said she, 'this is the young gentleman.'

Sim replied with an inarticulate grumble of sound, and a movement
of one arm and his head, which did duty for a salutation.

'Now, Mr. St. Ives,' said the old lady, 'it's high time for you to
be taking the road.  But first of all let me give the change of
your five-guinea bill.  Here are four pounds of it in British Linen
notes, and the balance in small silver, less sixpence.  Some charge
a shilling, I believe, but I have given you the benefit of the
doubt.  See and guide it with all the sense that you possess.'

'And here, Mr. St. Ives,' said Flora, speaking for the first time,
'is a plaid which you will find quite necessary on so rough a
journey.  I hope you will take it from the hands of a Scotch
friend,' she added, and her voice trembled.

'Genuine holly:  I cut it myself,' said Ronald, and gave me as good
a cudgel as a man could wish for in a row.

The formality of these gifts, and the waiting figure of the driver,
told me loudly that I must be gone.  I dropped on one knee and bade
farewell to the aunt, kissing her hand.  I did the like--but with
how different a passion!--to her niece; as for the boy, I took him
to my arms and embraced him with a cordiality that seemed to strike
him speechless.  'Farewell!' and 'Farewell!' I said.  'I shall
never forget my friends.  Keep me sometimes in memory.  Farewell!'
With that I turned my back and began to walk away; and had scarce
done so, when I heard the door in the high wall close behind me.
Of course this was the aunt's doing; and of course, if I know
anything of human character, she would not let me go without some
tart expressions.  I declare, even if I had heard them, I should
not have minded in the least, for I was quite persuaded that,
whatever admirers I might be leaving behind me in Swanston Cottage,
the aunt was not the least sincere.



CHAPTER X--THE DROVERS



It took me a little effort to come abreast of my new companion; for
though he walked with an ugly roll and no great appearance of
speed, he could cover the around at a good rate when he wanted to.
Each looked at the other:  I with natural curiosity, he with a
great appearance of distaste.  I have heard since that his heart
was entirely set against me; he had seen me kneel to the ladies,
and diagnosed me for a 'gesterin' eediot.'

'So, ye're for England, are ye?' said he.

I told him yes.

'Weel, there's waur places, I believe,' was his reply; and he
relapsed into a silence which was not broken during a quarter of an
hour of steady walking.

This interval brought us to the foot of a bare green valley, which
wound upwards and backwards among the hills.  A little stream came
down the midst and made a succession of clear pools; near by the
lowest of which I was aware of a drove of shaggy cattle, and a man
who seemed the very counterpart of Mr. Sim making a breakfast upon
bread and cheese.  This second drover (whose name proved to be
Candlish) rose on our approach.

'Here's a mannie that's to gang through with us,' said Sim.  'It
was the auld wife, Gilchrist, wanted it.'

'Aweel, aweel,' said the other; and presently, remembering his
manners, and looking on me with a solemn grin, 'A fine day!' says
he.

I agreed with him, and asked him how he did.

'Brawly,' was the reply; and without further civilities, the pair
proceeded to get the cattle under way.  This, as well as almost all
the herding, was the work of a pair of comely and intelligent dogs,
directed by Sim or Candlish in little more than monosyllables.
Presently we were ascending the side of the mountain by a rude
green track, whose presence I had not hitherto observed.  A
continual sound of munching and the crying of a great quantity of
moor birds accompanied our progress, which the deliberate pace and
perennial appetite of the cattle rendered wearisomely slow.  In the
midst my two conductors marched in a contented silence that I could
not but admire.  The more I looked at them, the more I was
impressed by their absurd resemblance to each other.  They were
dressed in the same coarse homespun, carried similar sticks, were
equally begrimed about the nose with snuff, and each wound in an
identical plaid of what is called the shepherd's tartan.  In a back
view they might be described as indistinguishable; and even from
the front they were much alike.  An incredible coincidence of
humours augmented the impression.  Thrice and four times I
attempted to pave the way for some exchange of thought, sentiment,
or--at the least of it--human words.  An Ay or an Nhm was the sole
return, and the topic died on the hill-side without echo.  I can
never deny that I was chagrined; and when, after a little more
walking, Sim turned towards me and offered me a ram's horn of
snuff, with the question 'Do ye use it?' I answered, with some
animation, 'Faith, sir, I would use pepper to introduce a little
cordiality.'  But even this sally failed to reach, or at least
failed to soften, my companions.

At this rate we came to the summit of a ridge, and saw the track
descend in front of us abruptly into a desert vale, about a league
in length, and closed at the farther end by no less barren
hilltops.  Upon this point of vantage Sim came to a halt, took off
his hat, and mopped his brow.

'Weel,' he said, 'here we're at the top o' Howden.'

'The top o' Howden, sure eneuch,' said Candlish.

'Mr. St. Ivey, are ye dry?' said the first.

'Now, really,' said I, 'is not this Satan reproving sin?'

'What ails ye, man?' said he.  'I'm offerin' ye a dram.'

'Oh, if it be anything to drink,' said I, 'I am as dry as my
neighbours.'

Whereupon Sim produced from the corner of his plaid a black bottle,
and we all drank and pledged each other.  I found these gentlemen
followed upon such occasions an invariable etiquette, which you may
be certain I made haste to imitate.  Each wiped his mouth with the
back of his left hand, held up the bottle in his right, remarked
with emphasis, 'Here's to ye!' and swallowed as much of the spirit
as his fancy prompted.  This little ceremony, which was the nearest
thing to manners I could perceive in either of my companions, was
repeated at becoming intervals, generally after an ascent.
Occasionally we shared a mouthful of ewe-milk cheese and an
inglorious form of bread, which I understood (but am far from
engaging my honour on the point) to be called 'shearer's bannock.'
And that may be said to have concluded our whole active intercourse
for the first day.

I had the more occasion to remark the extraordinarily desolate
nature of that country, through which the drove road continued,
hour after hour and even day after day, to wind.  A continual
succession of insignificant shaggy hills, divided by the course of
ten thousand brooks, through which we had to wade, or by the side
of which we encamped at night; infinite perspectives of heather,
infinite quantities of moorfowl; here and there, by a stream side,
small and pretty clumps of willows or the silver birch; here and
there, the ruins of ancient and inconsiderable fortresses--made the
unchanging characters of the scene.  Occasionally, but only in the
distance, we could perceive the smoke of a small town or of an
isolated farmhouse or cottage on the moors; more often, a flock of
sheep and its attendant shepherd, or a rude field of agriculture
perhaps not yet harvested.  With these alleviations, we might
almost be said to pass through an unbroken desert--sure, one of the
most impoverished in Europe; and when I recalled to mind that we
were yet but a few leagues from the chief city (where the law
courts sat every day with a press of business, soldiers garrisoned
the castle, and men of admitted parts were carrying on the practice
of letters and the investigations of science), it gave me a
singular view of that poor, barren, and yet illustrious country
through which I travelled.  Still more, perhaps, did it commend the
wisdom of Miss Gilchrist in sending me with these uncouth
companions and by this unfrequented path.

My itinerary is by no means clear to me; the names and distances I
never clearly knew, and have now wholly forgotten; and this is the
more to be regretted as there is no doubt that, in the course of
those days, I must have passed and camped among sites which have
been rendered illustrious by the pen of Walter Scott.  Nay, more, I
am of opinion that I was still more favoured by fortune, and have
actually met and spoken with that inimitable author.  Our encounter
was of a tall, stoutish, elderly gentleman, a little grizzled, and
of a rugged but cheerful and engaging countenance.  He sat on a
hill pony, wrapped in a plaid over his green coat, and was
accompanied by a horse-woman, his daughter, a young lady of the
most charming appearance.  They overtook us on a stretch of heath,
reined up as they came alongside, and accompanied us for perhaps a
quarter of an hour before they galloped off again across the
hillsides to our left.  Great was my amazement to find the
unconquerable Mr. Sim thaw immediately on the accost of this
strange gentleman, who hailed him with a ready familiarity,
proceeded at once to discuss with him the trade of droving and the
prices of cattle, and did not disdain to take a pinch from the
inevitable ram's horn.  Presently I was aware that the stranger's
eye was directed on myself; and there ensued a conversation, some
of which I could not help overhearing at the time, and the rest
have pieced together more or less plausibly from the report of Sim.

'Surely that must be an AMATEUR DROVER ye have gotten there?' the
gentleman seems to have asked.

Sim replied, I was a young gentleman that had a reason of his own
to travel privately.

'Well, well, ye must tell me nothing of that.  I am in the law, you
know, and tace is the Latin for a candle,' answered the gentleman.
'But I hope it's nothing bad.'

Sim told him it was no more than debt.

'Oh, Lord, if that be all!' cried the gentleman; and turning to
myself, 'Well, sir,' he added, 'I understand you are taking a tramp
through our forest here for the pleasure of the thing?'

'Why, yes, sir,' said I; 'and I must say I am very well
entertained.'

'I envy you,' said he.  'I have jogged many miles of it myself when
I was younger.  My youth lies buried about here under every
heather-bush, like the soul of the licentiate Lucius.  But you
should have a guide.  The pleasure of this country is much in the
legends, which grow as plentiful as blackberries.'  And directing
my attention to a little fragment of a broken wall no greater than
a tombstone, he told me for an example a story of its earlier
inhabitants.  Years after it chanced that I was one day diverting
myself with a Waverley Novel, when what should I come upon but the
identical narrative of my green-coated gentleman upon the moors!
In a moment the scene, the tones of his voice, his northern accent,
and the very aspect of the earth and sky and temperature of the
weather, flashed back into my mind with the reality of dreams.  The
unknown in the green-coat had been the Great Unknown!  I had met
Scott; I had heard a story from his lips; I should have been able
to write, to claim acquaintance, to tell him that his legend still
tingled in my ears.  But the discovery came too late, and the great
man had already succumbed under the load of his honours and
misfortunes.

Presently, after giving us a cigar apiece, Scott bade us farewell
and disappeared with his daughter over the hills.  And when I
applied to Sim for information, his answer of 'The Shirra, man!
A'body kens the Shirra!' told me, unfortunately, nothing.

A more considerable adventure falls to be related.  We were now
near the border.  We had travelled for long upon the track beaten
and browsed by a million herds, our predecessors, and had seen no
vestige of that traffic which had created it.  It was early in the
morning when we at last perceived, drawing near to the drove road,
but still at a distance of about half a league, a second caravan,
similar to but larger than our own.  The liveliest excitement was
at once exhibited by both my comrades.  They climbed hillocks, they
studied the approaching drove from under their hand, they consulted
each other with an appearance of alarm that seemed to me
extraordinary.  I had learned by this time that their stand-oft
manners implied, at least, no active enmity; and I made bold to ask
them what was wrong.

'Bad yins,' was Sim's emphatic answer.

All day the dogs were kept unsparingly on the alert, and the drove
pushed forward at a very unusual and seemingly unwelcome speed.
All day Sim and Candlish, with a more than ordinary expenditure
both of snuff and of words, continued to debate the position.  It
seems that they had recognised two of our neighbours on the road--
one Faa, and another by the name of Gillies.  Whether there was an
old feud between them still unsettled I could never learn; but Sim
and Candlish were prepared for every degree of fraud or violence at
their hands.  Candlish repeatedly congratulated himself on having
left 'the watch at home with the mistress'; and Sim perpetually
brandished his cudgel, and cursed his ill-fortune that it should be
sprung.

'I willna care a damn to gie the daashed scoon'rel a fair clout wi'
it,' he said.  'The daashed thing micht come sindry in ma hand.'

'Well, gentlemen,' said I, 'suppose they do come on, I think we can
give a very good account of them.'  And I made my piece of holly,
Ronald's gift, the value of which I now appreciated, sing about my
head.

'Ay, man?  Are ye stench?' inquired Sim, with a gleam of approval
in his wooden countenance.

The same evening, somewhat wearied with our day-long expedition, we
encamped on a little verdant mound, from the midst of which there
welled a spring of clear water scarce great enough to wash the
hands in.  We had made our meal and lain down, but were not yet
asleep, when a growl from one of the collies set us on the alert.
All three sat up, and on a second impulse all lay down again, but
now with our cudgels ready.  A man must be an alien and an outlaw,
an old soldier and a young man in the bargain, to take adventure
easily.  With no idea as to the rights of the quarrel or the
probable consequences of the encounter, I was as ready to take part
with my two drovers, as ever to fall in line on the morning of a
battle.  Presently there leaped three men out of the heather; we
had scarce time to get to our feet before we were assailed; and in
a moment each one of us was engaged with an adversary whom the
deepening twilight scarce permitted him to see.  How the battle
sped in other quarters I am in no position to describe.  The rogue
that fell to my share was exceedingly agile and expert with his
weapon; had and held me at a disadvantage from the first assault;
forced me to give ground continually, and at last, in mere self-
defence, to let him have the point.  It struck him in the throat,
and he went down like a ninepin and moved no more.

It seemed this was the signal for the engagement to be
discontinued.  The other combatants separated at once; our foes
were suffered, without molestation, to lift up and bear away their
fallen comrade; so that I perceived this sort of war to be not
wholly without laws of chivalry, and perhaps rather to partake of
the character of a tournament than of a battle a outrance.  There
was no doubt, at least, that I was supposed to have pushed the
affair too seriously.  Our friends the enemy removed their wounded
companion with undisguised consternation; and they were no sooner
over the top of the brae, than Sim and Candlish roused up their
wearied drove and set forth on a night march.

'I'm thinking Faa's unco bad,' said the one.

'Ay,' said the other, 'he lookit dooms gash.'

'He did that,' said the first.

And their weary silence fell upon them again.

Presently Sim turned to me.  'Ye're unco ready with the stick,'
said he.

'Too ready, I'm afraid,' said I.  'I am afraid Mr. Faa (if that be
his name) has got his gruel.'

'Weel, I wouldnae wonder,' replied Sim.

'And what is likely to happen?' I inquired.

'Aweel,' said Sim, snuffing profoundly, 'if I were to offer an
opeenion, it would not be conscientious.  For the plain fac' is,
Mr. St. Ivy, that I div not ken.  We have had crackit heids--and
rowth of them--ere now; and we have had a broken leg or maybe twa;
and the like of that we drover bodies make a kind of a practice
like to keep among oursel's.  But a corp we have none of us ever
had to deal with, and I could set nae leemit to what Gillies micht
consider proper in the affair.  Forbye that, he would be in raither
a hobble himsel', if he was to gang hame wantin' Faa.  Folk are
awfu' throng with their questions, and parteecularly when they're
no wantit.'

'That's a fac',' said Candlish.

I considered this prospect ruefully; and then making the best of
it, 'Upon all which accounts,' said I, 'the best will be to get
across the border and there separate.  If you are troubled, you can
very truly put the blame upon your late companion; and if I am
pursued, I must just try to keep out of the way.'

'Mr. St. Ivy,' said Sim, with something resembling enthusiasm, 'no'
a word mair!  I have met in wi' mony kinds o' gentry ere now; I hae
seen o' them that was the tae thing, and I hae seen o' them that
was the tither; but the wale of a gentleman like you I have no sae
very frequently seen the bate of.'

Our night march was accordingly pursued with unremitting diligence.
The stars paled, the east whitened, and we were still, both dogs
and men, toiling after the wearied cattle.  Again and again Sim and
Candlish lamented the necessity:  it was 'fair ruin on the
bestial,' they declared; but the thought of a judge and a scaffold
hunted them ever forward.  I myself was not so much to be pitied.
All that night, and during the whole of the little that remained
before us of our conjunct journey, I enjoyed a new pleasure, the
reward of my prowess, in the now loosened tongue of Mr. Sim.
Candlish was still obdurately taciturn:  it was the man's nature;
but Sim, having finally appraised and approved me, displayed
without reticence a rather garrulous habit of mind and a pretty
talent for narration.  The pair were old and close companions, co-
existing in these endless moors in a brotherhood of silence such as
I have heard attributed to the trappers of the west.  It seems
absurd to mention love in connection with so ugly and snuffy a
couple; at least, their trust was absolute; and they entertained a
surprising admiration for each other's qualities; Candlish
exclaiming that Sim was 'grand company!' and Sim frequently
assuring me in an aside that for 'a rale, auld, stench bitch, there
was nae the bate of Candlish in braid Scotland.'  The two dogs
appeared to be entirely included in this family compact, and I
remarked that their exploits and traits of character were
constantly and minutely observed by the two masters.  Dog stories
particularly abounded with them; and not only the dogs of the
present but those of the past contributed their quota.  'But that
was naething,' Sim would begin:  'there was a herd in Manar, they
ca'd him Tweedie--ye'll mind Tweedie, Can'lish?'  'Fine, that!'
said Candlish.  'Aweel, Tweedie had a dog--'  The story I have
forgotten; I dare say it was dull, and I suspect it was not true;
but indeed, my travels with the drove rendered me indulgent, and
perhaps even credulous, in the matter of dog stories.  Beautiful,
indefatigable beings! as I saw them at the end of a long day's
journey frisking, barking, bounding, striking attitudes, slanting a
bushy tail, manifestly playing to the spectator's eye, manifestly
rejoicing in their grace and beauty--and turned to observe Sim and
Candlish unornamentally plodding in the rear with the plaids about
their bowed shoulders and the drop at their snuffy nose--I thought
I would rather claim kinship with the dogs than with the men!  My
sympathy was unreturned; in their eyes I was a creature light as
air; and they would scarce spare me the time for a perfunctory
caress or perhaps a hasty lap of the wet tongue, ere they were back
again in sedulous attendance on those dingy deities, their masters-
-and their masters, as like as not, damning their stupidity.

Altogether the last hours of our tramp were infinitely the most
agreeable to me, and I believe to all of us; and by the time we
came to separate, there had grown up a certain familiarity and
mutual esteem that made the parting harder.  It took place about
four of the afternoon on a bare hillside from which I could see the
ribbon of the great north road, henceforth to be my conductor.  I
asked what was to pay.

'Naething,' replied Sim.

'What in the name of folly is this?' I exclaimed.  'You have led
me, you have fed me, you have filled me full of whisky, and now you
will take nothing!'

'Ye see we indentit for that,' replied Sim.

 'Indented?' I repeated; 'what does the man mean?'

'Mr. St. Ivy,' said Sim, 'this is a maitter entirely between
Candlish and me and the auld wife, Gilchrist.  You had naething to
say to it; weel, ye can have naething to do with it, then.'

'My good man,' said I, 'I can allow myself to be placed in no such
ridiculous position.  Mrs. Gilchrist is nothing to me, and I refuse
to be her debtor.'

'I dinna exac'ly see what way ye're gaun to help it,' observed my
drover.

'By paying you here and now,' said I.

'There's aye twa to a bargain, Mr. St. Ives,' said he.

'You mean that you will not take it?' said I.

'There or thereabout,' said he.  'Forbye, that it would set ye a
heap better to keep your siller for them you awe it to.  Ye're
young, Mr. St. Ivy, and thoughtless; but it's my belief that, wi'
care and circumspection, ye may yet do credit to yoursel'.  But
just you bear this in mind:  that him that AWES siller should never
GIE siller.'

Well, what was there to say?  I accepted his rebuke, and bidding
the pair farewell, set off alone upon my southward way.

'Mr. St. Ivy,' was the last word of Sim, 'I was never muckle ta'en
up in Englishry; but I think that I really ought to say that ye
seem to me to have the makings of quite a decent lad.'



CHAPTER XI--THE GREAT NORTH ROAD



It chanced that as I went down the hill these last words of my
friend the drover echoed not unfruitfully in my head.  I had never
told these men the least particulars as to my race or fortune, as
it was a part, and the best part, of their civility to ask no
questions:  yet they had dubbed me without hesitation English.
Some strangeness in the accent they had doubtless thus explained.
And it occurred to me, that if I could pass in Scotland for an
Englishman, I might be able to reverse the process and pass in
England for a Scot.  I thought, if I was pushed to it, I could make
a struggle to imitate the brogue; after my experience with Candlish
and Sim, I had a rich provision of outlandish words at my command;
and I felt I could tell the tale of Tweedie's dog so as to deceive
a native.  At the same time, I was afraid my name of St. Ives was
scarcely suitable; till I remembered there was a town so called in
the province of Cornwall, thought I might yet be glad to claim it
for my place of origin, and decided for a Cornish family and a
Scots education.  For a trade, as I was equally ignorant of all,
and as the most innocent might at any moment be the means of my
exposure, it was best to pretend to none.  And I dubbed myself a
young gentleman of a sufficient fortune and an idle, curious habit
of mind, rambling the country at my own charges, in quest of
health, information, and merry adventures.

At Newcastle, which was the first town I reached, I completed my
preparations for the part, before going to the inn, by the purchase
of a knapsack and a pair of leathern gaiters.  My plaid I continued
to wear from sentiment.  It was warm, useful to sleep in if I were
again benighted, and I had discovered it to be not unbecoming for a
man of gallant carriage.  Thus equipped, I supported my character
of the light-hearted pedestrian not amiss.  Surprise was indeed
expressed that I should have selected such a season of the year;
but I pleaded some delays of business, and smilingly claimed to be
an eccentric.  The devil was in it, I would say, if any season of
the year was not good enough for me; I was not made of sugar, I was
no mollycoddle to be afraid of an ill-aired bed or a sprinkle of
snow; and I would knock upon the table with my fist and call for
t'other bottle, like the noisy and free-hearted young gentleman I
was.  It was my policy (if I may so express myself) to talk much
and say little.  At the inn tables, the country, the state of the
roads, the business interest of those who sat down with me, and the
course of public events, afforded me a considerable field in which
I might discourse at large and still communicate no information
about myself.  There was no one with less air of reticence; I
plunged into my company up to the neck; and I had a long cock-and-
bull story of an aunt of mine which must have convinced the most
suspicious of my innocence.  'What!' they would have said, 'that
young ass to be concealing anything!  Why, he has deafened me with
an aunt of his until my head aches.  He only wants you should give
him a line, and he would tell you his whole descent from Adam
downward, and his whole private fortune to the last shilling.' A
responsible solid fellow was even so much moved by pity for my
inexperience as to give me a word or two of good advice:  that I
was but a young man after all--I had at this time a deceptive air
of youth that made me easily pass for one-and-twenty, and was, in
the circumstances, worth a fortune--that the company at inns was
very mingled, that I should do well to be more careful, and the
like; to all which I made answer that I meant no harm myself and
expected none from others, or the devil was in it.  'You are one of
those d-d prudent fellows that I could never abide with,' said I.
'You are the kind of man that has a long head.  That's all the
world, my dear sir:  the long-heads and the short-horns!  Now, I am
a short-horn.'  'I doubt,' says he, 'that you will not go very far
without getting sheared.'  I offered to bet with him on that, and
he made off, shaking his head.

But my particular delight was to enlarge on politics and the war.
None damned the French like me; none was more bitter against the
Americans.  And when the north-bound mail arrived, crowned with
holly, and the coachman and guard hoarse with shouting victory, I
went even so far as to entertain the company to a bowl of punch,
which I compounded myself with no illiberal hand, and doled out to
such sentiments as the following:-

'Our glorious victory on the Nivelle'!  'Lord Wellington, God bless
him! and may victory ever attend upon his arms!' and, 'Soult, poor
devil! and may he catch it again to the same tune!'

Never was oratory more applauded to the echo--never any one was
more of the popular man than I.  I promise you, we made a night of
it.  Some of the company supported each other, with the assistance
of boots, to their respective bedchambers, while the rest slept on
the field of glory where we had left them; and at the breakfast
table the next morning there was an extraordinary assemblage of red
eyes and shaking fists.  I observed patriotism to burn much lower
by daylight.  Let no one blame me for insensibility to the reverses
of France!  God knows how my heart raged.  How I longed to fall on
that herd of swine and knock their heads together in the moment of
their revelry!  But you are to consider my own situation and its
necessities; also a certain lightheartedness, eminently Gallic,
which forms a leading trait in my character, and leads me to throw
myself into new circumstances with the spirit of a schoolboy.  It
is possible that I sometimes allowed this impish humour to carry me
further than good taste approves:  and I was certainly punished for
it once.

This was in the episcopal city of Durham.  We sat down, a
considerable company, to dinner, most of us fine old vatted English
tories of that class which is often so enthusiastic as to be
inarticulate.  I took and held the lead from the beginning; and,
the talk having turned on the French in the Peninsula, I gave them
authentic details (on the authority of a cousin of mine, an ensign)
of certain cannibal orgies in Galicia, in which no less a person
than General Caffarelli had taken a part.  I always disliked that
commander, who once ordered me under arrest for insubordination;
and it is possible that a spice of vengeance added to the rigour of
my picture.  I have forgotten the details; no doubt they were high-
coloured.  No doubt I rejoiced to fool these jolter-heads; and no
doubt the sense of security that I drank from their dull, gasping
faces encouraged me to proceed extremely far.  And for my sins,
there was one silent little man at table who took my story at the
true value.  It was from no sense of humour, to which he was quite
dead.  It was from no particular intelligence, for he had not any.
The bond of sympathy, of all things in the world, had rendered him
clairvoyant.

Dinner was no sooner done than I strolled forth into the streets
with some design of viewing the cathedral; and the little man was
silently at my heels.  A few doors from the inn, in a dark place of
the street, I was aware of a touch on my arm, turned suddenly, and
found him looking up at me with eyes pathetically bright.

'I beg your pardon, sir; but that story of yours was particularly
rich.  He--he!  Particularly racy,' said he.  'I tell you, sir, I
took you wholly!  I SMOKED you!  I believe you and I, sir, if we
had a chance to talk, would find we had a good many opinions in
common.  Here is the "Blue Bell," a very comfortable place.  They
draw good ale, sir.  Would you be so condescending as to share a
pot with me?'

There was something so ambiguous and secret in the little man's
perpetual signalling, that I confess my curiosity was much aroused.
Blaming myself, even as I did so, for the indiscretion, I embraced
his proposal, and we were soon face to face over a tankard of
mulled ale.  He lowered his voice to the least attenuation of a
whisper.

'Here, sir,' said he, 'is to the Great Man.  I think you take me?
No?'  He leaned forward till our noses touched.  'Here is to the
Emperor!' said he.

I was extremely embarrassed, and, in spite of the creature's
innocent appearance, more than half alarmed.  I thought him too
ingenious, and, indeed, too daring for a spy.  Yet if he were
honest he must be a man of extraordinary indiscretion, and
therefore very unfit to be encouraged by an escaped prisoner.  I
took a half course, accordingly--accepted his toast in silence, and
drank it without enthusiasm.

He proceeded to abound in the praises of Napoleon, such as I had
never heard in France, or at least only on the lips of officials
paid to offer them.

'And this Caffarelli, now,' he pursued:  'he is a splendid fellow,
too, is he not?  I have not heard vastly much of him myself.  No
details, sir--no details!  We labour under huge difficulties here
as to unbiassed information.'

'I believe I have heard the same complaint in other countries,' I
could not help remarking.  'But as to Caffarelli, he is neither
lame nor blind, he has two legs and a nose in the middle of his
face.  And I care as much about him as you care for the dead body
of Mr. Perceval!'

He studied me with glowing eyes.

'You cannot deceive me!' he cried.  'You have served under him.
You are a Frenchman!  I hold by the hand, at last, one of that
noble race, the pioneers of the glorious principles of liberty and
brotherhood.  Hush!  No, it is all right.  I thought there had been
somebody at the door.  In this wretched, enslaved country we dare
not even call our souls our own.  The spy and the hangman, sir--the
spy and the hangman!  And yet there is a candle burning, too.  The
good leaven is working, sir--working underneath.  Even in this town
there are a few brave spirits, who meet every Wednesday.  You must
stay over a day or so, and join us.  We do not use this house.
Another, and a quieter.  They draw fine ale, however--fair, mild
ale.  You will find yourself among friends, among brothers.  You
will hear some very daring sentiments expressed!' he cried,
expanding his small chest.  'Monarchy, Christianity--all the
trappings of a bloated past--the Free Confraternity of Durham and
Tyneside deride.'

Here was a devil of a prospect for a gentleman whose whole design
was to avoid observation!  The Free Confraternity had no charms for
me; daring sentiments were no part of my baggage; and I tried,
instead, a little cold water.

'You seem to forget, sir, that my Emperor has re-established
Christianity,' I observed.

'Ah, sir, but that was policy!' he exclaimed.  'You do not
understand Napoleon.  I have followed his whole career.  I can
explain his policy from first to last.  Now for instance in the
Peninsula, on which you were so very amusing, if you will come to a
friend's house who has a map of Spain, I can make the whole course
of the war quite clear to you, I venture to say, in half an hour.'

This was intolerable.  Of the two extremes, I found I preferred the
British tory; and, making an appointment for the morrow, I pleaded
sudden headache, escaped to the inn, packed my knapsack, and fled,
about nine at night, from this accursed neighbourhood.  It was
cold, starry, and clear, and the road dry, with a touch of frost.
For all that, I had not the smallest intention to make a long stage
of it; and about ten o'clock, spying on the right-hand side of the
way the lighted windows of an alehouse, I determined to bait there
for the night.

It was against my principle, which was to frequent only the dearest
inns; and the misadventure that befell me was sufficient to make me
more particular in the future.  A large company was assembled in
the parlour, which was heavy with clouds of tobacco smoke, and
brightly lighted up by a roaring fire of coal.  Hard by the chimney
stood a vacant chair in what I thought an enviable situation,
whether for warmth or the pleasure of society; and I was about to
take it, when the nearest of the company stopped me with his hand.

'Beg thy pardon, sir,' said he; 'but that there chair belongs to a
British soldier.'

A chorus of voices enforced and explained.  It was one of Lord
Wellington's heroes.  He had been wounded under Rowland Hill.  He
was Colbourne's right-hand man.  In short, this favoured individual
appeared to have served with every separate corps, and under every
individual general in the Peninsula.  Of course I apologised.  I
had not known.  The devil was in it if a soldier had not a right to
the best in England.  And with that sentiment, which was loudly
applauded, I found a corner of a bench, and awaited, with some
hopes of entertainment, the return of the hero.  He proved, of
course, to be a private soldier.  I say of course, because no
officer could possibly enjoy such heights of popularity.  He had
been wounded before San Sebastian, and still wore his arm in a
sling.  What was a great deal worse for him, every member of the
company had been plying him with drink.  His honest yokel's
countenance blazed as if with fever, his eyes were glazed and
looked the two ways, and his feet stumbled as, amidst a murmur of
applause, he returned to the midst of his admirers.

Two minutes afterwards I was again posting in the dark along the
highway; to explain which sudden movement of retreat I must trouble
the reader with a reminiscence of my services.

I lay one night with the out-pickets in Castile.  We were in close
touch with the enemy; the usual orders had been issued against
smoking, fires, and talk, and both armies lay as quiet as mice,
when I saw the English sentinel opposite making a signal by holding
up his musket.  I repeated it, and we both crept together in the
dry bed of a stream, which made the demarcation of the armies.  It
was wine he wanted, of which we had a good provision, and the
English had quite run out.  He gave me the money, and I, as was the
custom, left him my firelock in pledge, and set off for the
canteen.  When I returned with a skin of wine, behold, it had
pleased some uneasy devil of an English officer to withdraw the
outposts!  Here was a situation with a vengeance, and I looked for
nothing but ridicule in the present and punishment in the future.
Doubtless our officers winked pretty hard at this interchange of
courtesies, but doubtless it would be impossible to wink at so
gross a fault, or rather so pitiable a misadventure as mine; and
you are to conceive me wandering in the plains of Castile,
benighted, charged with a wine-skin for which I had no use, and
with no knowledge whatever of the whereabouts of my musket, beyond
that it was somewhere in my Lord Wellington's army.  But my
Englishman was either a very honest fellow, or else extremely
thirsty, and at last contrived to advertise me of his new position.
Now, the English sentry in Castile, and the wounded hero in the
Durham public-house, were one and the same person; and if he had
been a little less drunk, or myself less lively in getting away,
the travels of M. St. Ives might have come to an untimely end.

I suppose this woke me up; it stirred in me besides a spirit of
opposition, and in spite of cold, darkness, the highwaymen and the
footpads, I determined to walk right on till breakfast-time:  a
happy resolution, which enabled me to observe one of those traits
of manners which at once depict a country and condemn it.  It was
near midnight when I saw, a great way ahead of me, the light of
many torches; presently after, the sound of wheels reached me, and
the slow tread of feet, and soon I had joined myself to the rear of
a sordid, silent, and lugubrious procession, such as we see in
dreams.  Close on a hundred persons marched by torchlight in
unbroken silence; in their midst a cart, and in the cart, on an
inclined platform, the dead body of a man--the centre-piece of this
solemnity, the hero whose obsequies we were come forth at this
unusual hour to celebrate.  It was but a plain, dingy old fellow of
fifty or sixty, his throat cut, his shirt turned over as though to
show the wound.  Blue trousers and brown socks completed his
attire, if we can talk so of the dead.  He had a horrid look of a
waxwork.  In the tossing of the lights he seemed to make faces and
mouths at us, to frown, and to be at times upon the point of
speech.  The cart, with this shabby and tragic freight, and
surrounded by its silent escort and bright torches, continued for
some distance to creak along the high-road, and I to follow it in
amazement, which was soon exchanged for horror.  At the corner of a
lane the procession stopped, and, as the torches ranged themselves
along the hedgerow-side, I became aware of a grave dug in the midst
of the thoroughfare, and a provision of quicklime piled in the
ditch.  The cart was backed to the margin, the body slung off the
platform and dumped into the grave with an irreverent roughness.  A
sharpened stake had hitherto served it for a pillow.  It was now
withdrawn, held in its place by several volunteers, and a fellow
with a heavy mallet (the sound of which still haunts me at night)
drove it home through the bosom of the corpse.  The hole was filled
with quicklime, and the bystanders, as if relieved of some
oppression, broke at once into a sound of whispered speech.

My shirt stuck to me, my heart had almost ceased beating, and I
found my tongue with difficulty.

'I beg your pardon,' I gasped to a neighbour, 'what is this? what
has he done? is it allowed?'

'Why, where do you come from?' replied the man.

'I am a traveller, sir,' said I, 'and a total stranger in this part
of the country.  I had lost my way when I saw your torches, and
came by chance on this--this incredible scene.  Who was the man?'

'A suicide,' said he.  'Ay, he was a bad one, was Johnnie Green.'

It appeared this was a wretch who had committed many barbarous
murders, and being at last upon the point of discovery fell of his
own hand.  And the nightmare at the crossroads was the regular
punishment, according to the laws of England, for an act which the
Romans honoured as a virtue!  Whenever an Englishman begins to
prate of civilisation (as, indeed, it's a defect they are rather
prone to), I hear the measured blows of a mallet, see the
bystanders crowd with torches about the grave, smile a little to
myself in conscious superiority--and take a thimbleful of brandy
for the stomach's sake.

I believe it must have been at my next stage, for I remember going
to bed extremely early, that I came to the model of a good old-
fashioned English inn, and was attended on by the picture of a
pretty chambermaid.  We had a good many pleasant passages as she
waited table or warmed my bed for me with a devil of a brass
warming pan, fully larger than herself; and as she was no less pert
than she was pretty, she may be said to have given rather better
than she took.  I cannot tell why (unless it were for the sake of
her saucy eyes), but I made her my confidante, told her I was
attached to a young lady in Scotland, and received the
encouragement of her sympathy, mingled and connected with a fair
amount of rustic wit.  While I slept the down-mail stopped for
supper; it chanced that one of the passengers left behind a copy of
the EDINBURGH COURANT, and the next morning my pretty chambermaid
set the paper before me at breakfast, with the remark that there
was some news from my lady-love.  I took it eagerly, hoping to find
some further word of our escape, in which I was disappointed; and I
was about to lay it down, when my eye fell on a paragraph
immediately concerning me.  Faa was in hospital, grievously sick,
and warrants were out for the arrest of Sim and Candlish.  These
two men had shown themselves very loyal to me.  This trouble
emerging, the least I could do was to be guided by a similar
loyalty to them.  Suppose my visit to my uncle crowned with some
success, and my finances re-established, I determined I should
immediately return to Edinburgh, put their case in the hands of a
good lawyer, and await events.  So my mind was very lightly made up
to what proved a mighty serious matter.  Candlish and Sim were all
very well in their way, and I do sincerely trust I should have been
at some pains to help them, had there been nothing else.  But in
truth my heart and my eyes were set on quite another matter, and I
received the news of their tribulation almost with joy.  That is
never a bad wind that blows where we want to go, and you may be
sure there was nothing unwelcome in a circumstance that carried me
back to Edinburgh and Flora.  From that hour I began to indulge
myself with the making of imaginary scenes and interviews, in which
I confounded the aunt, flattered Ronald, and now in the witty, now
in the sentimental manner, declared my love and received the
assurance of its return.  By means of this exercise my resolution
daily grew stronger, until at last I had piled together such a mass
of obstinacy as it would have taken a cataclysm of nature to
subvert.

'Yes,' said I to the chambermaid, 'here is news of my lady-love
indeed, and very good news too.'

All that day, in the teeth of a keen winter wind, I hugged myself
in my plaid, and it was as though her arms were flung around me.



CHAPTER XII--I FOLLOW A COVERED CART NEARLY TO MY DESTINATION



At last I began to draw near, by reasonable stages, to the
neighbourhood of Wakefield; and the name of Mr. Burchell Fenn came
to the top in my memory.  This was the gentleman (the reader may
remember) who made a trade of forwarding the escape of French
prisoners.  How he did so:  whether he had a sign-board, Escapes
forwarded, apply within; what he charged for his services, or
whether they were gratuitous and charitable, were all matters of
which I was at once ignorant and extremely curious.  Thanks to my
proficiency in English, and Mr. Romaine's bank-notes, I was getting
on swimmingly without him; but the trouble was that I could not be
easy till I had come to the bottom of these mysteries, and it was
my difficulty that I knew nothing of him beyond the name.  I knew
not his trade beyond that of Forwarder of Escapes--whether he lived
in town or country, whether he were rich or poor, nor by what kind
of address I was to gain his confidence.  It would have a very bad
appearance to go along the highwayside asking after a man of whom I
could give so scanty an account; and I should look like a fool,
indeed, if I were to present myself at his door and find the police
in occupation!  The interest of the conundrum, however, tempted me,
and I turned aside from my direct road to pass by Wakefield; kept
my ears pricked, as I went, for any mention of his name, and relied
for the rest on my good fortune.  If Luck (who must certainly be
feminine) favoured me as far as to throw me in the man's way, I
should owe the lady a candle; if not, I could very readily console
myself.  In this experimental humour, and with so little to help
me, it was a miracle that I should have brought my enterprise to a
good end; and there are several saints in the calendar who might be
happy to exchange with St. Ives!

I had slept that night in a good inn at Wakefield, made my
breakfast by candle-light with the passengers of an up-coach, and
set off in a very ill temper with myself and my surroundings.  It
was still early; the air raw and cold; the sun low, and soon to
disappear under a vast canopy of rain-clouds that had begun to
assemble in the north-west, and from that quarter invaded the whole
width of the heaven.  Already the rain fell in crystal rods;
already the whole face of the country sounded with the discharge of
drains and ditches; and I looked forward to a day of downpour and
the hell of wet clothes, in which particular I am as dainty as a
cat.  At a corner of the road, and by the last glint of the
drowning sun, I spied a covered cart, of a kind that I thought I
had never seen before, preceding me at the foot's pace of jaded
horses.  Anything is interesting to a pedestrian that can help him
to forget the miseries of a day of rain; and I bettered my pace and
gradually overtook the vehicle.

The nearer I came, the more it puzzled me.  It was much such a cart
as I am told the calico printers use, mounted on two wheels, and
furnished with a seat in front for the driver.  The interior closed
with a door, and was of a bigness to contain a good load of calico,
or (at a pinch and if it were necessary) four or five persons.
But, indeed, if human beings were meant to travel there, they had
my pity!  They must travel in the dark, for there was no sign of a
window; and they would be shaken all the way like a phial of
doctor's stuff, for the cart was not only ungainly to look at--it
was besides very imperfectly balanced on the one pair of wheels,
and pitched unconscionably.  Altogether, if I had any glancing idea
that the cart was really a carriage, I had soon dismissed it; but I
was still inquisitive as to what it should contain, and where it
had come from.  Wheels and horses were splashed with many different
colours of mud, as though they had come far and across a
considerable diversity of country.  The driver continually and
vainly plied his whip.  It seemed to follow they had made a long,
perhaps an all-night, stage; and that the driver, at that early
hour of a little after eight in the morning, already felt himself
belated.  I looked for the name of the proprietor on the shaft, and
started outright.  Fortune had favoured the careless:  it was
Burchell Fenn!

'A wet morning, my man,' said I.

The driver, a loutish fellow, shock-headed and turnip-faced,
returned not a word to my salutation, but savagely flogged his
horses.  The tired animals, who could scarce put the one foot
before the other, paid no attention to his cruelty; and I continued
without effort to maintain my position alongside, smiling to myself
at the futility of his attempts, and at the same time pricked with
curiosity as to why he made them.  I made no such formidable a
figure as that a man should flee when I accosted him; and my
conscience not being entirely clear, I was more accustomed to be
uneasy myself than to see others timid.  Presently he desisted, and
put back his whip in the holster with the air of a man vanquished.

'So you would run away from me?' said I.  'Come, come, that's not
English.'

'Beg pardon, master:  no offence meant,' he said, touching his hat.

'And none taken!' cried I.  'All I desire is a little gaiety by the
way.'

I understood him to say he didn't 'take with gaiety.'

'Then I will try you with something else,' said I.  'Oh, I can be
all things to all men, like the apostle!  I dare to say I have
travelled with heavier fellows than you in my time, and done
famously well with them.  Are you going home?'
                
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