'Sare, I am go-ing to Lon-don,' said the Major.

I could have flung my plate at him to be such an ass, and to have
so little a gift of languages where that was the essential.

'What think ye of that?' said the clerk.  'Is that French enough?'

'Good God!' cried I, leaping up like one who should suddenly
perceive an acquaintance, 'is this you, Mr. Dubois?  Why, who would
have dreamed of encountering you so far from home?'  As I spoke, I
shook hands with the Major heartily; and turning to our tormentor,
'Oh, sir, you may be perfectly reassured!  This is a very honest
fellow, a late neighbour of mine in the city of Carlisle.'

I thought the attorney looked put out; I little knew the man!

'But he is French,' said he, 'for all that?'

'Ay, to be sure!' said I.  'A Frenchman of the emigration!  None of
your Buonaparte lot.  I will warrant his views of politics to be as
sound as your own.'

'What is a little strange,' said the clerk quietly, 'is that Mr.
Dubois should deny it.'

I got it fair in the face, and took it smiling; but the shock was
rude, and in the course of the next words I contrived to do what I
have rarely done, and make a slip in my English.  I kept my liberty
and life by my proficiency all these months, and for once that I
failed, it is not to be supposed that I would make a public
exhibition of the details.  Enough, that it was a very little
error, and one that might have passed ninety-nine times in a
hundred.  But my limb of the law was as swift to pick it up as
though he had been by trade a master of languages.

'Aha!' cries he; 'and you are French, too!  Your tongue bewrays
you.  Two Frenchmen coming into an alehouse, severally and
accidentally, not knowing each other, at ten of the clock at night,
in the middle of Bedfordshire?  No, sir, that shall not pass!  You
are all prisoners escaping, if you are nothing worse.  Consider
yourselves under arrest.  I have to trouble you for your papers.'

'Where is your warrant, if you come to that?' said I.  'My papers!
A likely thing that I would show my papers on the ipse dixit of an
unknown fellow in a hedge alehouse!'

'Would you resist the law?' says he.

'Not the law, sir!' said I.  'I hope I am too good a subject for
that.  But for a nameless fellow with a bald head and a pair of
gingham small-clothes, why certainly!  'Tis my birthright as an
Englishman.  Where's Magna Charta, else?'

'We will see about that,' says he; and then, addressing the
assistants, 'where does the constable live?'

'Lord love you, sir!' cried the landlord, 'what are you thinking
of?  The constable at past ten at night!  Why, he's abed and
asleep, and good and drunk two hours agone!'

'Ah that a' be!' came in chorus from the yokels.

The attorney's clerk was put to a stand.  He could not think of
force; there was little sign of martial ardour about the landlord,
and the peasants were indifferent--they only listened, and gaped,
and now scratched a head, and now would get a light to their pipes
from the embers on the hearth.  On the other hand, the Major and I
put a bold front on the business and defied him, not without some
ground of law.  In this state of matters he proposed I should go
along with him to one Squire Merton, a great man of the
neighbourhood, who was in the commission of the peace, the end of
his avenue but three lanes away.  I told him I would not stir a
foot for him if it were to save his soul.  Next he proposed I
should stay all night where I was, and the constable could see to
my affair in the morning, when he was sober.  I replied I should go
when and where I pleased; that we were lawful travellers in the
fear of God and the king, and I for one would suffer myself to be
stayed by nobody.  At the same time, I was thinking the matter had
lasted altogether too long, and I determined to bring it to an end
at once.

'See here,' said I, getting up, for till now I had remained
carelessly seated, 'there's only one way to decide a thing like
this--only one way that's right ENGLISH--and that's man to man.
Take off your coat, sir, and these gentlemen shall see fair play.'
At this there came a look in his eye that I could not mistake.  His
education had been neglected in one essential and eminently British
particular:  he could not box.  No more could I, you may say; but
then I had the more impudence--and I had made the proposal.

'He says I'm no Englishman, but the proof of the pudding is the
eating of it,' I continued.  And here I stripped my coat and fell
into the proper attitude, which was just about all I knew of this
barbarian art.  'Why, sir, you seem to me to hang back a little,'
said I.  'Come, I'll meet you; I'll give you an appetiser--though
hang me if I can understand the man that wants any enticement to
hold up his hands.'  I drew a bank-note out of my fob and tossed it
to the landlord.  'There are the stakes,' said I.  'I'll fight you
for first blood, since you seem to make so much work about it.  If
you tap my claret first, there are five guineas for you, and I'll
go with you to any squire you choose to mention.  If I tap yours,
you'll perhaps let on that I'm the better man, and allow me to go
about my lawful business at my own time and convenience, by God; is
that fair, my lads?' says I, appealing to the company.

'Ay, ay,' said the chorus of chawbacons; 'he can't say no fairer
nor that, he can't.  Take off thy coat master!'

The limb of the law was now on the wrong side of public opinion,
and, what heartened me to go on, the position was rapidly changing
in our favour.  Already the Major was paying his shot to the very
indifferent landlord, and I could see the white face of King at the
back-door, making signals of haste.

'Oho!' quoth my enemy, 'you are as full of doubles as a fox, are
you not?  But I see through you; I see through and through you.
You would change the venue, would you?'

'I may be transparent, sir,' says I, 'but if you'll do me the
favour to stand up, you'll find I can hit dam hard.'

'Which is a point, if you will observe, that I had never called in
question,' said he.  'Why, you ignorant clowns,' he proceeded,
addressing the company, 'can't you see the fellow's gulling you
before your eyes?  Can't you see that he has changed the point upon
me?  I say he's a French prisoner, and he answers that he can box!
What has that to do with it?  I would not wonder but what he can
dance, too--they're all dancing masters over there.  I say, and I
stick to it, that he's a Frenchy.  He says he isn't.  Well then,
let him out with his papers, if he has them!  If he had, would he
not show them?  If he had, would he not jump at the idea of going
to Squire Merton, a man you all know?  Now, you are all plain,
straightforward Bedfordshire men, and I wouldn't ask a better lot
to appeal to.  You're not the kind to be talked over with any
French gammon, and he's plenty of that.  But let me tell him, he
can take his pigs to another market; they'll never do here; they'll
never go down in Bedfordshire.  Why! look at the man!  Look at his
feet!  Has anybody got a foot in the room like that?  See how he
stands! do any of you fellows stand like that?  Does the landlord,
there?  Why, he has Frenchman wrote all over him, as big as a sign-
post!'

This was all very well; and in a different scene I might even have
been gratified by his remarks; but I saw clearly, if I were to
allow him to talk, he might turn the tables on me altogether.  He
might not be much of a hand at boxing; but I was much mistaken, or
he had studied forensic eloquence in a good school.  In this
predicament I could think of nothing more ingenious than to burst
out of the house, under the pretext of an ungovernable rage.  It
was certainly not very ingenious--it was elementary, but I had no
choice.

'You white-livered dog!' I broke out.  'Do you dare to tell me
you're an Englishman, and won't fight?  But I'll stand no more of
this!  I leave this place, where I've been insulted!  Here! what's
to pay?  Pay yourself!' I went on, offering the landlord a handful
of silver, 'and give me back my bank-note!'

The landlord, following his usual policy of obliging everybody,
offered no opposition to my design.  The position of my adversary
was now thoroughly bad.  He had lost my two companions.  He was on
the point of losing me also.  There was plainly no hope of arousing
the company to help; and watching him with a corner of my eye, I
saw him hesitate for a moment.  The next, he had taken down his hat
and his wig, which was of black horsehair; and I saw him draw from
behind the settle a vast hooded great-coat and a small valise.
'The devil!' thought I:  'is the rascal going to follow me?'

I was scarce clear of the inn before the limb of the law was at my
heels.  I saw his face plain in the moonlight; and the most
resolute purpose showed in it, along with an unmoved composure.  A
chill went over me.  'This is no common adventure,' thinks I to
myself.  'You have got hold of a man of character, St. Ives!  A
bite-hard, a bull-dog, a weasel is on your trail; and how are you
to throw him off?'  Who was he?  By some of his expressions I
judged he was a hanger-on of courts.  But in what character had he
followed the assizes?  As a simple spectator, as a lawyer's clerk,
as a criminal himself, or--last and worst supposition--as a Bow-
street 'runner'?

The cart would wait for me, perhaps, half a mile down our onward
road, which I was already following.  And I told myself that in a
few minutes' walking, Bow-street runner or not, I should have him
at my mercy.  And then reflection came to me in time.  Of all
things, one was out of the question.  Upon no account must this
obtrusive fellow see the cart.  Until I had killed or shook him
off, I was quite divorced from my companions--alone, in the midst
of England, on a frosty by-way leading whither I knew not, with a
sleuth-hound at my heels, and never a friend but the holly-stick!

We came at the same time to a crossing of lanes.  The branch to the
left was overhung with trees, deeply sunken and dark.  Not a ray of
moonlight penetrated its recesses; and I took it at a venture.  The
wretch followed my example in silence; and for some time we
crunched together over frozen pools without a word.  Then he found
his voice, with a chuckle.

'This is not the way to Mr. Merton's,' said he.

'No?' said I. 'It is mine, however.'

'And therefore mine,' said he.

Again we fell silent; and we may thus have covered half a mile
before the lane, taking a sudden turn, brought us forth again into
the moonshine.  With his hooded great-coat on his back, his valise
in his hand, his black wig adjusted, and footing it on the ice with
a sort of sober doggedness of manner, my enemy was changed almost
beyond recognition:  changed in everything but a certain dry,
polemical, pedantic air, that spoke of a sedentary occupation and
high stools.  I observed, too, that his valise was heavy; and,
putting this and that together, hit upon a plan.

'A seasonable night, sir,' said I.  'What do you say to a bit of
running?  The frost has me by the toes.'

'With all the pleasure in life,' says he.

His voice seemed well assured, which pleased me little.  However,
there was nothing else to try, except violence, for which it would
always be too soon.  I took to my heels accordingly, he after me;
and for some time the slapping of our feet on the hard road might
have been heard a mile away.  He had started a pace behind me, and
he finished in the same position.  For all his extra years and the
weight of his valise, he had not lost a hair's breadth.  The devil
might race him for me--I had enough of it!

And, besides, to run so fast was contrary to my interests.  We
could not run long without arriving somewhere.  At any moment we
might turn a corner and find ourselves at the lodge-gate of some
Squire Merton, in the midst of a village whose constable was sober,
or in the hands of a patrol.  There was no help for it--I must
finish with him on the spot, as long as it was possible.  I looked
about me, and the place seemed suitable; never a light, never a
house--nothing but stubble-fields, fallows, and a few stunted
trees.  I stopped and eyed him in the moonlight with an angry
stare.

'Enough of this foolery!' said I.

He had tamed, and now faced me full, very pale, but with no sign of
shrinking.

'I am quite of your opinion,' said he.  'You have tried me at the
running; you can try me next at the high jump.  It will be all the
same.  It must end the one way.'

I made my holly whistle about my head.

'I believe you know what way!' said I.  'We are alone, it is night,
and I am wholly resolved.  Are you not frightened?'

'No,' he said, 'not in the smallest.  I do not box, sir; but I am
not a coward, as you may have supposed.  Perhaps it will simplify
our relations if I tell you at the outset that I walk armed.'

Quick as lightning I made a feint at his head; as quickly he gave
ground, and at the same time I saw a pistol glitter in his hand.

'No more of that, Mr. French-Prisoner!' he said.  'It will do me no
good to have your death at my door.'

'Faith, nor me either!' said I; and I lowered my stick and
considered the man, not without a twinkle of admiration.  'You
see,' I said, 'there is one consideration that you appear to
overlook:  there are a great many chances that your pistol may miss
fire.'

'I have a pair,' he returned.  'Never travel without a brace of
barkers.'

'I make you my compliment,' said I.  'You are able to take care of
yourself, and that is a good trait.  But, my good man! let us look
at this matter dispassionately.  You are not a coward, and no more
am I; we are both men of excellent sense; I have good reason,
whatever it may be, to keep my concerns to myself and to walk
alone.  Now I put it to you pointedly, am I likely to stand it?  Am
I likely to put up with your continued and--excuse me--highly
impudent ingerence into my private affairs?'

'Another French word,' says he composedly.

'Oh! damn your French words!' cried I.  'You seem to be a Frenchman
yourself!'

'I have had many opportunities by which I have profited,' he
explained.  'Few men are better acquainted with the similarities
and differences, whether of idiom or accent, of the two languages.'

'You are a pompous fellow, too!' said I.

'Oh, I can make distinctions, sir,' says he.  'I can talk with
Bedfordshire peasants; and I can express myself becomingly, I hope,
in the company of a gentleman of education like yourself.'

'If you set up to be a gentleman--' I began.

'Pardon me,' he interrupted:  'I make no such claim.  I only see
the nobility and gentry in the way of business.  I am quite a plain
person.'

'For the Lord's sake,' I exclaimed, 'set my mind at rest upon one
point.  In the name of mystery, who and what are you?'

'I have no cause to be ashamed of my name, sir,' said he, 'nor yet
my trade.  I am Thomas Dudgeon, at your service, clerk to Mr.
Daniel Romaine, solicitor of London; High Holborn is our address,
sir.'

It was only by the ecstasy of the relief that I knew how horribly I
had been frightened.  I flung my stick on the road.

'Romaine?' I cried.  'Daniel Romaine?  An old hunks with a red face
and a big head, and got up like a Quaker?  My dear friend, to my
arms!'

'Keep back, I say!' said Dudgeon weakly.

I would not listen to him.  With the end of my own alarm, I felt as
if I must infallibly be at the end of all dangers likewise; as if
the pistol that he held in one hand were no more to be feared than
the valise that he carried with the other, and now put up like a
barrier against my advance.

'Keep back, or I declare I will fire,' he was crying.  'Have a
care, for God's sake!  My pistol--'

He might scream as be pleased.  Willy nilly, I folded him to my
breast, I pressed him there, I kissed his ugly mug as it had never
been kissed before and would never be kissed again; and in the
doing so knocked his wig awry and his hat off.  He bleated in my
embrace; so bleats the sheep in the arms of the butcher.  The whole
thing, on looking back, appears incomparably reckless and absurd; I
no better than a madman for offering to advance on Dudgeon, and he
no better than a fool for not shooting me while I was about it.
But all's well that ends well; or, as the people in these days kept
singing and whistling on the streets:-


'There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft
And looks out for the life of poor Jack.'


'There!' said I, releasing him a little, but still keeping my hands
on his shoulders, 'je vous ai bel et bien embrasse--and, as you
would say, there is another French word.'  With his wig over one
eye, he looked incredibly rueful and put out.  'Cheer up, Dudgeon;
the ordeal is over, you shall be embraced no more.  But do, first
of all, for God's-sake, put away your pistol; you handle it as if
you were a cockatrice; some time or other, depend upon it, it will
certainly go off.  Here is your hat.  No, let me put it on square,
and the wig before it.  Never suffer any stress of circumstances to
come between you and the duty you owe to yourself.  If you have
nobody else to dress for, dress for God!


'Put your wig straight
On your bald pate,
Keep your chin scraped,
And your figure draped.


Can you match me that?  The whole duty of man in a quatrain!  And
remark, I do not set up to be a professional bard; these are the
outpourings of a dilettante.'

'But, my dear sir!' he exclaimed.

'But, my dear sir!' I echoed, 'I will allow no man to interrupt the
flow of my ideas.  Give me your opinion on my quatrain, or I vow we
shall have a quarrel of it.'

'Certainly you are quite an original,' he said.

'Quite,' said I; 'and I believe I have my counterpart before me.'

'Well, for a choice,' says he, smiling, 'and whether for sense or
poetry, give me


'"Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow:
The rest is all but leather and prunello."'


'Oh, but that's not fair--that's Pope!  It's not original, Dudgeon.
Understand me,' said I, wringing his breast-button, 'the first duty
of all poetry is to be mine, sir--mine.  Inspiration now swells in
my bosom, because--to tell you the plain truth, and descend a
little in style--I am devilish relieved at the turn things have
taken.  So, I dare say, are you yourself, Dudgeon, if you would
only allow it.  And a propos, let me ask you a home question.
Between friends, have you ever fired that pistol?'

'Why, yes, sir,' he replied.  'Twice--at hedgesparrows.'

'And you would have fired at me, you bloody-minded man?' I cried.

'If you go to that, you seemed mighty reckless with your stick,'
said Dudgeon.

'Did I indeed?  Well, well, 'tis all past history; ancient as King
Pharamond--which is another French word, if you cared to accumulate
more evidence,' says I.  'But happily we are now the best of
friends, and have all our interests in common.'

'You go a little too fast, if you'll excuse me, Mr. -:  I do not
know your name, that I am aware,' said Dudgeon.

'No, to be sure!' said I.  'Never heard of it!'

'A word of explanation--' he began.

'No, Dudgeon!' I interrupted.  'Be practical; I know what you want,
and the name of it is supper.  Rien ne creuse comme l'emotion.  I
am hungry myself, and yet I am more accustomed to warlike
palpitations than you, who are but a hunter of hedgesparrows.  Let
me look at your face critically:  your bill of fare is three slices
of cold rare roast beef, a Welsh rabbit, a pot of stout, and a
glass or two of sound tawny port, old in bottle--the right milk of
Englishmen.'  Methought there seemed a brightening in his eye and a
melting about his mouth at this enumeration.

'The night is young,' I continued; 'not much past eleven, for a
wager.  Where can we find a good inn?  And remark that I say GOOD,
for the port must be up to the occasion--not a headache in a pipe
of it.'

'Really, sir,' he said, smiling a little, 'you have a way of
carrying things--'

'Will nothing make you stick to the subject?' I cried; 'you have
the most irrelevant mind!  How do you expect to rise in your
profession?  The inn?'

'Well, I will say you are a facetious gentleman!' said he.  'You
must have your way, I see.  We are not three miles from Bedford by
this very road.'

'Done!' cried I.  'Bedford be it!'

I tucked his arm under mine, possessed myself of the valise, and
walked him off unresisting.  Presently we came to an open piece of
country lying a thought downhill.  The road was smooth and free of
ice, the moonshine thin and bright over the meadows and the
leafless trees.  I was now honestly done with the purgatory of the
covered cart; I was close to my great-uncle's; I had no more fear
of Mr. Dudgeon; which were all grounds enough for jollity.  And I
was aware, besides, of us two as of a pair of tiny and solitary
dolls under the vast frosty cupola of the midnight; the rooms
decked, the moon burnished, the least of the stars lighted, the
floor swept and waxed, and nothing wanting but for the band to
strike up and the dancing to begin.  In the exhilaration of my
heart I took the music on myself -


'Merrily danced the Quaker's wife,
And merrily danced the Quaker.'


I broke into that animated and appropriate air, clapped my arm
about Dudgeon's waist, and away down the hill at a dancing step!
He hung back a little at the start, but the impulse of the tune,
the night, and my example, were not to be resisted.  A man made of
putty must have danced, and even Dudgeon showed himself to be a
human being.  Higher and higher were the capers that we cut; the
moon repeated in shadow our antic footsteps and gestures; and it
came over my mind of a sudden--really like balm--what appearance of
man I was dancing with, what a long bilious countenance he had
shown under his shaven pate, and what a world of trouble the rascal
had given me in the immediate past.

Presently we began to see the lights of Bedford.  My Puritanic
companion stopped and disengaged himself.

'This is a trifle infra dig., sir, is it not?' said he.  'A party
might suppose we had been drinking.'

'And so you shall be, Dudgeon,' said I.  'You shall not only be
drinking, you old hypocrite, but you shall be drunk--dead drunk,
sir--and the boots shall put you to bed!  We'll warn him when we go
in.  Never neglect a precaution; never put off till to-morrow what
you can do to-day!'

But he had no more frivolity to complain of.  We finished our stage
and came to the inn-door with decorum, to find the house still
alight and in a bustle with many late arrivals; to give our orders
with a prompt severity which ensured obedience, and to be served
soon after at a side-table, close to the fire and in a blaze of
candle-light, with such a meal as I had been dreaming of for days
past.  For days, you are to remember, I had been skulking in the
covered cart, a prey to cold, hunger, and an accumulation of
discomforts that might have daunted the most brave; and the white
table napery, the bright crystal, the reverberation of the fire,
the red curtains, the Turkey carpet, the portraits on the coffee-
room wall, the placid faces of the two or three late guests who
were silently prolonging the pleasures of digestion, and (last, but
not by any means least) a glass of an excellent light dry port, put
me in a humour only to be described as heavenly.  The thought of
the Colonel, of how he would have enjoyed this snug room and
roaring fire, and of his cold grave in the wood by Market Bosworth,
lingered on my palate, amari aliquid, like an after-taste, but was
not able--I say it with shame--entirely to dispel my self-
complacency.  After all, in this world every dog hangs by its own
tail.  I was a free adventurer, who had just brought to a
successful end--or, at least, within view of it--an adventure very
difficult and alarming; and I looked across at Mr. Dudgeon, as the
port rose to his cheeks, and a smile, that was semi-confidential
and a trifle foolish, began to play upon his leathery features, not
only with composure, but with a suspicion of kindness.  The rascal
had been brave, a quality for which I would value the devil; and if
he had been pertinacious in the beginning, he had more than made up
for it before the end.

'And now, Dudgeon, to explain,' I began.  'I know your master, he
knows me, and he knows and approves of my errand.  So much I may
tell you, that I am on my way to Amersham Place.'

'Oho!' quoth Dudgeon, 'I begin to see.'

'I am heartily glad of it,' said I, passing the bottle, 'because
that is about all I can tell you.  You must take my word for the
remainder.  Either believe me or don't.  If you don't, let's take a
chaise; you can carry me to-morrow to High Holborn, and confront me
with Mr. Romaine; the result of which will be to set your mind at
rest--and to make the holiest disorder in your master's plans.  If
I judge you aright (for I find you a shrewd fellow), this will not
be at all to your mind.  You know what a subordinate gets by
officiousness; if I can trust my memory, old Romaine has not at all
the face that I should care to see in anger; and I venture to
predict surprising results upon your weekly salary--if you are paid
by the week, that is.  In short, let me go free, and 'tis an end of
the matter; take me to London, and 'tis only a beginning--and, by
my opinion, a beginning of troubles.  You can take your choice.'

'And that is soon taken,' said he.  'Go to Amersham tomorrow, or go
to the devil if you prefer--I wash my hands of you and the whole
transaction.  No, you don't find me putting my head in between
Romaine and a client!  A good man of business, sir, but hard as
millstone grit.  I might get the sack, and I shouldn't wonder!
But, it's a pity, too,' he added, and sighed, shook his head, and
took his glass off sadly.

'That reminds me,' said I.  'I have a great curiosity, and you can
satisfy it.  Why were you so forward to meddle with poor Mr.
Dubois?  Why did you transfer your attentions to me?  And
generally, what induced you to make yourself such a nuisance?'

He blushed deeply.

'Why, sir,' says he, 'there is such a thing as patriotism, I hope.'



CHAPTER XVI--THE HOME-COMING OF MR. ROWLEY'S VISCOUNT



By eight the next morning Dudgeon and I had made our parting.  By
that time we had grown to be extremely familiar; and I would very
willingly have kept him by me, and even carried him to Amersham
Place.  But it appeared he was due at the public-house where we had
met, on some affairs of my great-uncle the Count, who had an
outlying estate in that part of the shire.  If Dudgeon had had his
way the night before, I should have been arrested on my uncle's
land and by my uncle's agent, a culmination of ill-luck.

A little after noon I started, in a hired chaise, by way of
Dunstable.  The mere mention of the name Amersham Place made every
one supple and smiling.  It was plainly a great house, and my uncle
lived there in style.  The fame of it rose as we approached, like a
chain of mountains; at Bedford they touched their caps, but in
Dunstable they crawled upon their bellies.  I thought the landlady
would have kissed me; such a flutter of cordiality, such smiles,
such affectionate attentions were called forth, and the good lady
bustled on my service in such a pother of ringlets and with such a
jingling of keys.  'You're probably expected, sir, at the Place?  I
do trust you may 'ave better accounts of his lordship's 'elth, sir.
We understood that his lordship, Mosha de Carwell, was main bad.
Ha, sir, we shall all feel his loss, poor, dear, noble gentleman;
and I'm sure nobody more polite!  They do say, sir, his wealth is
enormous, and before the Revolution, quite a prince in his own
country!  But I beg your pardon, sir; 'ow I do run on, to be sure;
and doubtless all beknown to you already!  For you do resemble the
family, sir.  I should have known you anywheres by the likeness to
the dear viscount.  Ha, poor gentleman, he must 'ave a 'eavy 'eart
these days.'

In the same place I saw out of the inn-windows a man-servant
passing in the livery of my house, which you are to think I had
never before seen worn, or not that I could remember.  I had often
enough, indeed, pictured myself advanced to be a Marshal, a Duke of
the Empire, a Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, and some other
kickshaws of the kind, with a perfect rout of flunkeys correctly
dressed in my own colours.  But it is one thing to imagine, and
another to see; it would be one thing to have these liveries in a
house of my own in Paris--it was quite another to find them
flaunting in the heart of hostile England; and I fear I should have
made a fool of myself, if the man had not been on the other side of
the street, and I at a one-pane window.  There was something
illusory in this transplantation of the wealth and honours of a
family, a thing by its nature so deeply rooted in the soil;
something ghostly in this sense of home-coming so far from home.

From Dunstable I rolled away into a crescendo of similar
impressions.  There are certainly few things to be compared with
these castles, or rather country seats, of the English nobility and
gentry; nor anything at all to equal the servility of the
population that dwells in their neighbourhood.  Though I was but
driving in a hired chaise, word of my destination seemed to have
gone abroad, and the women curtseyed and the men louted to me by
the wayside.  As I came near, I began to appreciate the roots of
this widespread respect.  The look of my uncle's park wall, even
from the outside, had something of a princely character; and when I
came in view of the house itself, a sort of madness of vicarious
vain-glory struck me dumb and kept me staring.  It was about the
size of the Tuileries.  It faced due north; and the last rays of
the sun, that was setting like a red-hot shot amidst a tumultuous
gathering of snow clouds, were reflected on the endless rows of
windows.  A portico of Doric columns adorned the front, and would
have done honour to a temple.  The servant who received me at the
door was civil to a fault--I had almost said, to offence; and the
hall to which he admitted me through a pair of glass doors was
warmed and already partly lighted by a liberal chimney heaped with
the roots of beeches.

'Vicomte Anne de St. Yves,' said I, in answer to the man's
question; whereupon he bowed before me lower still, and stepping
upon one side introduced me to the truly awful presence of the
major-domo.  I have seen many dignitaries in my time, but none who
quite equalled this eminent being; who was good enough to answer to
the unassuming name of Dawson.  From him I learned that my uncle
was extremely low, a doctor in close attendance, Mr. Romaine
expected at any moment, and that my cousin, the Vicomte de St.
Yves, had been sent for the same morning.

'It was a sudden seizure, then?' I asked.

Well, he would scarcely go as far as that.  It was a decline, a
fading away, sir; but he was certainly took bad the day before, had
sent for Mr. Romaine, and the major-domo had taken it on himself a
little later to send word to the Viscount.  'It seemed to me, my
lord,' said he, 'as if this was a time when all the fambly should
be called together.'

I approved him with my lips, but not in my heart.  Dawson was
plainly in the interests of my cousin.

'And when can I expect to see my great-uncle, the Count?' said I.

In the evening, I was told; in the meantime he would show me to my
room, which had been long prepared for me, and I should be expected
to dine in about an hour with the doctor, if my lordship had no
objections.

My lordship had not the faintest.

'At the same time,' I said, 'I have had an accident:  I have
unhappily lost my baggage, and am here in what I stand in.  I don't
know if the doctor be a formalist, but it is quite impossible I
should appear at table as I ought.'

He begged me to be under no anxiety.  'We have been long expecting
you,' said he.  'All is ready.'

Such I found to be the truth.  A great room had been prepared for
me; through the mullioned windows the last flicker of the winter
sunset interchanged with the reverberation of a royal fire; the bed
was open, a suit of evening clothes was airing before the blaze,
and from the far corner a boy came forward with deprecatory smiles.
The dream in which I had been moving seemed to have reached its
pitch.  I might have quitted this house and room only the night
before; it was my own place that I had come to; and for the first
time in my life I understood the force of the words home and
welcome.

'This will be all as you would want, sir?' said Mr. Dawson.  'This
'ere boy, Rowley, we place entirely at your disposition.  'E's not
exactly a trained vallet, but Mossho Powl, the Viscount's
gentleman, 'ave give him the benefick of a few lessons, and it is
'oped that he may give sitisfection.  Hanythink that you may
require, if you will be so good as to mention the same to Rowley, I
will make it my business myself, sir, to see you sitisfied.'

So saying, the eminent and already detested Mr. Dawson took his
departure, and I was left alone with Rowley.  A man who may be said
to have wakened to consciousness in the prison of the Abbaye, among
those ever graceful and ever tragic figures of the brave and fair,
awaiting the hour of the guillotine and denuded of every comfort, I
had never known the luxuries or the amenities of my rank in life.
To be attended on by servants I had only been accustomed to in
inns.  My toilet had long been military, to a moment, at the note
of a bugle, too often at a ditch-side.  And it need not be wondered
at if I looked on my new valet with a certain diffidence.  But I
remembered that if he was my first experience of a valet, I was his
first trial as a master.  Cheered by which consideration, I
demanded my bath in a style of good assurance.  There was a
bathroom contiguous; in an incredibly short space of time the hot
water was ready; and soon after, arrayed in a shawl dressing-gown,
and in a luxury of contentment and comfort, I was reclined in an
easy-chair before the mirror, while Rowley, with a mixture of pride
and anxiety which I could well understand, laid out his razors.

'Hey, Rowley?' I asked, not quite resigned to go under fire with
such an inexperienced commander.  'It's all right, is it?  You feel
pretty sure of your weapons?'

'Yes, my lord,' he replied.  'It's all right, I assure your
lordship.'

'I beg your pardon, Mr. Rowley, 'but for the sake of shortness,
would you mind not belording me in private?' said I.  'It will do
very well if you call me Mr. Anne.  It is the way of my country, as
I dare say you know.'

Mr. Rowley looked blank.

'But you're just as much a Viscount as Mr. Powl's, are you not?' he
said.

'As Mr. Powl's Viscount?' said I, laughing.  'Oh, keep your mind
easy, Mr. Rowley's is every bit as good.  Only, you see, as I am of
the younger line, I bear my Christian name along with the title.
Alain is the Viscount; I am the Viscount Anne.  And in giving me
the name of Mr. Anne, I assure you you will be quite regular.'

'Yes, Mr. Anne,' said the docile youth.  'But about the shaving,
sir, you need be under no alarm.  Mr. Powl says I 'ave excellent
dispositions.'

'Mr. Powl?' said I.  'That doesn't seem to me very like a French
name.'

'No, sir, indeed, my lord,' said he, with a burst of confidence.
'No, indeed, Mr. Anne, and it do not surely.  I should say now, it
was more like Mr. Pole.'

'And Mr. Powl is the Viscount's man?'

'Yes, Mr. Anne,' said he.  'He 'ave a hard billet, he do.  The
Viscount is a very particular gentleman.  I don't think as you'll
be, Mr. Anne?' he added, with a confidential smile in the mirror.

He was about sixteen, well set up, with a pleasant, merry, freckled
face, and a pair of dancing eyes.  There was an air at once
deprecatory and insinuating about the rascal that I thought I
recognised.  There came to me from my own boyhood memories of
certain passionate admirations long passed away, and the objects of
them long ago discredited or dead.  I remembered how anxious I had
been to serve those fleeting heroes, how readily I told myself I
would have died for THEM, how much greater and handsomer than life
they had appeared.  And looking in the mirror, it seemed to me that
I read the face of Rowley, like an echo or a ghost, by the light of
my own youth.  I have always contended (somewhat against the
opinion of my friends) that I am first of all an economist; and the
last thing that I would care to throw away is that very valuable
piece of property--a boy's hero-worship.

'Why,' said I, 'you shave like an angel, Mr. Rowley!'

'Thank you, my lord,' says he.  'Mr. Powl had no fear of me. You
may be sure, sir, I should never 'ave had this berth if I 'adn't
'ave been up to Dick.  We been expecting of you this month back.
My eye!  I never see such preparations.  Every day the fires has
been kep' up, the bed made, and all!  As soon as it was known you
were coming, sir, I got the appointment; and I've been up and down
since then like a Jack-in-the-box.  A wheel couldn't sound in the
avenue but what I was at the window!  I've had a many
disappointments; but to-night, as soon as you stepped out of the
shay, I knew it was my--it was you.  Oh, you had been expected!
Why, when I go down to supper, I'll be the 'ero of the servants'
'all:  the 'ole of the staff is that curious!'

'Well,' said I, 'I hope you may be able to give a fair account of
me--sober, steady, industrious, good-tempered, and with a first-
rate character from my last place?'

He laughed an embarrassed laugh.  'Your hair curls beautiful,' he
said, by way of changing the subject.  'The Viscount's the boy for
curls, though; and the richness of it is, Mr. Powl tells me his
don't curl no more than that much twine--by nature.  Gettin' old,
the Viscount is.  He 'AVE gone the pace, 'aven't 'e, sir?'

'The fact is,' said I, 'that I know very little about him.  Our
family has been much divided, and I have been a soldier from a
child.'

'A soldier, Mr. Anne, sir?' cried Rowley, with a sudden feverish
animation.  'Was you ever wounded?'

It is contrary to my principles to discourage admiration for
myself; and, slipping back the shoulder of the dressing-gown, I
silently exhibited the scar which I had received in Edinburgh
Castle.  He looked at it with awe.

'Ah, well!' he continued, 'there's where the difference comes in!
It's in the training.  The other Viscount have been horse-racing,
and dicing, and carrying on all his life.  All right enough, no
doubt; but what I do say is, that it don't lead to nothink.
Whereas--'

'Whereas Mr. Rowley's?' I put in.

'My Viscount?' said he.  'Well, sir, I DID say it; and now that
I've seen you, I say it again!'

I could not refrain from smiling at this outburst, and the rascal
caught me in the mirror and smiled to me again.

'I'd say it again, Mr. Hanne,' he said.  'I know which side my
bread's buttered.  I know when a gen'leman's a gen'leman.  Mr. Powl
can go to Putney with his one!  Beg your pardon, Mr. Anne, for
being so familiar,' said he, blushing suddenly scarlet.  'I was
especially warned against it by Mr. Powl.'

'Discipline before all,' said I.  'Follow your front-rank man.

With that, we began to turn our attention to the clothes.  I was
amazed to find them fit so well:  not a la diable, in the haphazard
manner of a soldier's uniform or a ready-made suit; but with
nicety, as a trained artist might rejoice to make them for a
favourite subject.

''Tis extraordinary,' cried I:  'these things fit me perfectly.'

'Indeed, Mr. Anne, you two be very much of a shape,' said Rowley.

'Who?  What two?' said I.

'The Viscount,' he said.

'Damnation!  Have I the man's clothes on me, too?' cried I.

But Rowley hastened to reassure me.  On the first word of my
coming, the Count had put the matter of my wardrobe in the hands of
his own and my cousin's tailors; and on the rumour of our
resemblance, my clothes had been made to Alain's measure.

'But they were all made for you express, Mr. Anne.  You may be
certain the Count would never do nothing by 'alf:  fires kep'
burning; the finest of clothes ordered, I'm sure, and a body-
servant being trained a-purpose.'

'Well,' said I, 'it's a good fire, and a good set-out of clothes;
and what a valet, Mr. Rowley!  And there's one thing to be said for
my cousin--I mean for Mr. Powl's Viscount--he has a very fair
figure.'

'Oh, don't you be took in, Mr. Anne,' quoth the faithless Rowley:
'he has to be hyked into a pair of stays to get them things on!'

'Come, come, Mr. Rowley,' said I, 'this is telling tales out of
school!  Do not you be deceived.  The greatest men of antiquity,
including Caesar and Hannibal and Pope Joan, may have been very
glad, at my time of life or Alain's, to follow his example.  'Tis a
misfortune common to all; and really,' said I, bowing to myself
before the mirror like one who should dance the minuet, 'when the
result is so successful as this, who would do anything but
applaud?'

My toilet concluded, I marched on to fresh surprises.  My chamber,
my new valet and my new clothes had been beyond hope:  the dinner,
the soup, the whole bill of fare was a revelation of the powers
there are in man.  I had not supposed it lay in the genius of any
cook to create, out of common beef and mutton, things so different
and dainty.  The wine was of a piece, the doctor a most agreeable
companion; nor could I help reflecting on the prospect that all
this wealth, comfort and handsome profusion might still very
possibly become mine.  Here were a change indeed, from the common
soldier and the camp kettle, the prisoner and his prison rations,
the fugitive and the horrors of the covered cart!



CHAPTER XVII--THE DESPATCH-BOX



The doctor had scarce finished his meal before he hastened with an
apology to attend upon his patient; and almost immediately after I
was myself summoned and ushered up the great staircase and along
interminable corridors to the bedside of my great-uncle the Count.
You are to think that up to the present moment I had not set eyes
on this formidable personage, only on the evidences of his wealth
and kindness.  You are to think besides that I had heard him
miscalled and abused from my earliest childhood up.  The first of
the emigres could never expect a good word in the society in which
my father moved.  Even yet the reports I received were of a
doubtful nature; even Romaine had drawn of him no very amiable
portrait; and as I was ushered into the room, it was a critical eye
that I cast on my great-uncle.  He lay propped on pillows in a
little cot no greater than a camp-bed, not visibly breathing.  He
was about eighty years of age, and looked it; not that his face was
much lined, but all the blood and colour seemed to have faded from
his body, and even his eyes, which last he kept usually closed as
though the light distressed him.  There was an unspeakable degree
of slyness in his expression, which kept me ill at ease; he seemed
to lie there with his arms folded, like a spider waiting for prey.
His speech was very deliberate and courteous, but scarce louder
than a sigh.

'I bid you welcome, Monsieur le Vicomte Anne,' said he, looking at
me hard with his pale eyes, but not moving on his pillows.  'I have
sent for you, and I thank you for the obliging expedition you have
shown.  It is my misfortune that I cannot rise to receive you.  I
trust you have been reasonably well entertained?'

'Monsieur mon oncle,' I said, bowing very low, 'I am come at the
summons of the head of my family.'

'It is well,' he said.  'Be seated.  I should be glad to hear some
news--if that can be called news that is already twenty years old--
of how I have the pleasure to see you here.'

By the coldness of his address, not more than by the nature of the
times that he bade me recall, I was plunged in melancholy.  I felt
myself surrounded as with deserts of friendlessness, and the
delight of my welcome was turned to ashes in my mouth.

'That is soon told, monseigneur,' said I.  'I understand that I
need tell you nothing of the end of my unhappy parents?  It is only
the story of the lost dog.'

'You are right.  I am sufficiently informed of that deplorable
affair; it is painful to me.  My nephew, your father, was a man who
would not be advised,' said he.  'Tell me, if you please, simply of
yourself.'

'I am afraid I must run the risk of harrowing your sensibility in
the beginning,' said I, with a bitter smile, 'because my story
begins at the foot of the guillotine.  When the list came out that
night, and her name was there, I was already old enough, not in
years but in sad experience, to understand the extent of my
misfortune.  She--'  I paused.  'Enough that she arranged with a
friend, Madame de Chasserades, that she should take charge of me,
and by the favour of our jailers I was suffered to remain in the
shelter of the Abbaye.  That was my only refuge; there was no
corner of France that I could rest the sole of my foot upon except
the prison.  Monsieur le Comte, you are as well aware as I can be
what kind of a life that was, and how swiftly death smote in that
society.  I did not wait long before the name of Madame de
Chasserades succeeded to that of my mother on the list.  She passed
me on to Madame de Noytot; she, in her turn, to Mademoiselle de
Braye; and there were others.  I was the one thing permanent; they
were all transient as clouds; a day or two of their care, and then
came the last farewell and--somewhere far off in that roaring Paris
that surrounded us--the bloody scene.  I was the cherished one, the
last comfort, of these dying women.  I have been in pitched fights,
my lord, and I never knew such courage.  It was all done smiling,
in the tone of good society; belle maman was the name I was taught
to give to each; and for a day or two the new "pretty mamma" would
make much of me, show me off, teach me the minuet, and to say my
prayers; and then, with a tender embrace, would go the way of her
predecessors, smiling.  There were some that wept too.  There was a
childhood!  All the time Monsieur de Culemberg kept his eye on me,
and would have had me out of the Abbaye and in his own protection,
but my "pretty mammas" one after another resisted the idea.  Where
could I be safer? they argued; and what was to become of them
without the darling of the prison?  Well, it was soon shown how
safe I was!  The dreadful day of the massacre came; the prison was
overrun; none paid attention to me, not even the last of my "pretty
mammas," for she had met another fate.  I was wandering distracted,
when I was found by some one in the interests of Monsieur de
Culemberg.  I understand he was sent on purpose; I believe, in
order to reach the interior of the prison, he had set his hand to
nameless barbarities:  such was the price paid for my worthless,
whimpering little life!  He gave me his hand; it was wet, and mine
was reddened; he led me unresisting.  I remember but the one
circumstance of my flight--it was my last view of my last pretty
mamma.  Shall I describe it to you?' I asked the Count, with a
sudden fierceness.

'Avoid unpleasant details,' observed my great-uncle gently.

At these words a sudden peace fell upon me.  I had been angry with
the man before; I had not sought to spare him; and now, in a
moment, I saw that there was nothing to spare.  Whether from
natural heartlessness or extreme old age, the soul was not at home;
and my benefactor, who had kept the fire lit in my room for a month
past--my only relative except Alain, whom I knew already to be a
hired spy--had trodden out the last sparks of hope and interest.

'Certainly,' said I; 'and, indeed, the day for them is nearly over.
I was taken to Monsieur de Culemberg's,--I presume, sir, that you
know the Abbe de Culemberg?'

He indicated assent without opening his eyes.

'He was a very brave and a very learned man--'

'And a very holy one,' said my uncle civilly.

'And a very holy one, as you observe,' I continued.  'He did an
infinity of good, and through all the Terror kept himself from the
guillotine.  He brought me up, and gave me such education as I
have.  It was in his house in the country at Dammarie, near Melun,
that I made the acquaintance of your agent, Mr. Vicary, who lay
there in hiding, only to fall a victim at the last to a gang of
chauffeurs.'

'That poor Mr. Vicary!' observed my uncle.  'He had been many times
in my interests to France, and this was his first failure.  Quel
charmant homme, n'est-ce pas?'

'Infinitely so,' said I.  'But I would not willingly detain you any
further with a story, the details of which it must naturally be
more or less unpleasant for you to hear.  Suffice it that, by M. de
Culemberg's own advice, I said farewell at eighteen to that kind
preceptor and his books, and entered the service of France; and
have since then carried arms in such a manner as not to disgrace my
family.'

'You narrate well; vous aves la voix chaude,' said my uncle,
turning on his pillows as if to study me.  'I have a very good
account of you by Monsieur de Mauseant, whom you helped in Spain.
And you had some education from the Abbe de Culemberg, a man of a
good house?  Yes, you will do very well.  You have a good manner
and a handsome person, which hurts nothing.  We are all handsome in
the family; even I myself, I have had my successes, the memories of
which still charm me.  It is my intention, my nephew, to make of
you my heir.  I am not very well content with my other nephew,
Monsieur le Vicomte:  he has not been respectful, which is the
flattery due to age.  And there are other matters.'

I was half tempted to throw back in his face that inheritance so
coldly offered.  At the same time I had to consider that he was an
old man, and, after all, my relation; and that I was a poor one, in
considerable straits, with a hope at heart which that inheritance
might yet enable me to realise.  Nor could I forget that, however
icy his manners, he had behaved to me from the first with the
extreme of liberality and--I was about to write, kindness, but the
word, in that connection, would not come.  I really owed the man
some measure of gratitude, which it would be an ill manner to repay
if I were to insult him on his deathbed.