Chapter 10
It was on one of those mornings, common in early spring, when the year,fickle and changeable in its youth like all other created things, isundecided whether to step backward into winter or forward into summer,and in its uncertainty inclines now to the one and now to the other, andnow to both at once--wooing summer in the sunshine, and lingering stillwith winter in the shade--it was, in short, on one of those mornings,when it is hot and cold, wet and dry, bright and lowering, sad andcheerful, withering and genial, in the compass of one short hour, thatold John Willet, who was dropping asleep over the copper boiler, wasroused by the sound of a horse's feet, and glancing out at window,beheld a traveller of goodly promise, checking his bridle at the Maypoledoor.
He was none of your flippant young fellows, who would call for a tankardof mulled ale, and make themselves as much at home as if they hadordered a hogshead of wine; none of your audacious young swaggerers, whowould even penetrate into the bar--that solemn sanctuary--and, smitingold John upon the back, inquire if there was never a pretty girl in thehouse, and where he hid his little chambermaids, with a hundred otherimpertinences of that nature; none of your free-and-easy companions, whowould scrape their boots upon the firedogs in the common room, andbe not at all particular on the subject of spittoons; none of yourunconscionable blades, requiring impossible chops, and taking unheard-ofpickles for granted. He was a staid, grave, placid gentleman, somethingpast the prime of life, yet upright in his carriage, for all that, andslim as a greyhound. He was well-mounted upon a sturdy chestnut cob, andhad the graceful seat of an experienced horseman; while his riding gear,though free from such fopperies as were then in vogue, was handsome andwell chosen. He wore a riding-coat of a somewhat brighter green thanmight have been expected to suit the taste of a gentleman of his years,with a short, black velvet cape, and laced pocket-holes and cuffs, allof a jaunty fashion; his linen, too, was of the finest kind, worked in arich pattern at the wrists and throat, and scrupulously white. Althoughhe seemed, judging from the mud he had picked up on the way, to havecome from London, his horse was as smooth and cool as his own iron-greyperiwig and pigtail. Neither man nor beast had turned a single hair; andsaving for his soiled skirts and spatter-dashes, this gentleman, withhis blooming face, white teeth, exactly-ordered dress, and perfectcalmness, might have come from making an elaborate and leisurely toilet,to sit for an equestrian portrait at old John Willet's gate.
It must not be supposed that John observed these several characteristicsby other than very slow degrees, or that he took in more than half a oneat a time, or that he even made up his mind upon that, without a greatdeal of very serious consideration. Indeed, if he had been distracted inthe first instance by questionings and orders, it would have taken himat the least a fortnight to have noted what is here set down; but ithappened that the gentleman, being struck with the old house, or withthe plump pigeons which were skimming and curtseying about it, or withthe tall maypole, on the top of which a weathercock, which had been outof order for fifteen years, performed a perpetual walk to the music ofits own creaking, sat for some little time looking round in silence.Hence John, standing with his hand upon the horse's bridle, andhis great eyes on the rider, and with nothing passing to divert histhoughts, had really got some of these little circumstances into hisbrain by the time he was called upon to speak.
'A quaint place this,' said the gentleman--and his voice was as rich ashis dress. 'Are you the landlord?'
'At your service, sir,' replied John Willet.
'You can give my horse good stabling, can you, and me an early dinner (Iam not particular what, so that it be cleanly served), and a decentroom of which there seems to be no lack in this great mansion,' said thestranger, again running his eyes over the exterior.
'You can have, sir,' returned John with a readiness quite surprising,'anything you please.'
'It's well I am easily satisfied,' returned the other with a smile,'or that might prove a hardy pledge, my friend.' And saying so, hedismounted, with the aid of the block before the door, in a twinkling.
'Halloa there! Hugh!' roared John. 'I ask your pardon, sir, for keepingyou standing in the porch; but my son has gone to town on business, andthe boy being, as I may say, of a kind of use to me, I'm rather putout when he's away. Hugh!--a dreadful idle vagrant fellow, sir, halfa gipsy, as I think--always sleeping in the sun in summer, and inthe straw in winter time, sir--Hugh! Dear Lord, to keep a gentlemana waiting here through him!--Hugh! I wish that chap was dead, I doindeed.'
'Possibly he is,' returned the other. 'I should think if he were living,he would have heard you by this time.'
'In his fits of laziness, he sleeps so desperate hard,' said thedistracted host, 'that if you were to fire off cannon-balls into hisears, it wouldn't wake him, sir.'
The guest made no remark upon this novel cure for drowsiness, and recipefor making people lively, but, with his hands clasped behind him, stoodin the porch, very much amused to see old John, with the bridle in hishand, wavering between a strong impulse to abandon the animal to hisfate, and a half disposition to lead him into the house, and shut him upin the parlour, while he waited on his master.
'Pillory the fellow, here he is at last!' cried John, in the very heightand zenith of his distress. 'Did you hear me a calling, villain?'
The figure he addressed made no answer, but putting his hand upon thesaddle, sprung into it at a bound, turned the horse's head towards thestable, and was gone in an instant.
'Brisk enough when he is awake,' said the guest.
'Brisk enough, sir!' replied John, looking at the place where the horsehad been, as if not yet understanding quite, what had become of him. 'Hemelts, I think. He goes like a drop of froth. You look at him, and therehe is. You look at him again, and--there he isn't.'
Having, in the absence of any more words, put this sudden climax to whathe had faintly intended should be a long explanation of the whole lifeand character of his man, the oracular John Willet led the gentleman uphis wide dismantled staircase into the Maypole's best apartment.
It was spacious enough in all conscience, occupying the whole depth ofthe house, and having at either end a great bay window, as large as manymodern rooms; in which some few panes of stained glass, emblazonedwith fragments of armorial bearings, though cracked, and patched, andshattered, yet remained; attesting, by their presence, that the formerowner had made the very light subservient to his state, and pressed thesun itself into his list of flatterers; bidding it, when it shone intohis chamber, reflect the badges of his ancient family, and take new huesand colours from their pride.
But those were old days, and now every little ray came and went as itwould; telling the plain, bare, searching truth. Although the best roomof the inn, it had the melancholy aspect of grandeur in decay, and wasmuch too vast for comfort. Rich rustling hangings, waving on the walls;and, better far, the rustling of youth and beauty's dress; the light ofwomen's eyes, outshining the tapers and their own rich jewels; the soundof gentle tongues, and music, and the tread of maiden feet, had oncebeen there, and filled it with delight. But they were gone, and withthem all its gladness. It was no longer a home; children were never bornand bred there; the fireside had become mercenary--a something to bebought and sold--a very courtezan: let who would die, or sit beside, orleave it, it was still the same--it missed nobody, cared for nobody,had equal warmth and smiles for all. God help the man whose heart everchanges with the world, as an old mansion when it becomes an inn!
No effort had been made to furnish this chilly waste, but before thebroad chimney a colony of chairs and tables had been planted on a squareof carpet, flanked by a ghostly screen, enriched with figures, grinningand grotesque. After lighting with his own hands the faggots which wereheaped upon the hearth, old John withdrew to hold grave council with hiscook, touching the stranger's entertainment; while the guest himself,seeing small comfort in the yet unkindled wood, opened a lattice in thedistant window, and basked in a sickly gleam of cold March sun.
L
eaving the window now and then, to rake the crackling logs together,or pace the echoing room from end to end, he closed it when the fire wasquite burnt up, and having wheeled the easiest chair into the warmestcorner, summoned John Willet.
'Sir,' said John.
He wanted pen, ink, and paper. There was an old standish on themantelshelf containing a dusty apology for all three. Having set thisbefore him, the landlord was retiring, when he motioned him to stay.
'There's a house not far from here,' said the guest when he had writtena few lines, 'which you call the Warren, I believe?'
As this was said in the tone of one who knew the fact, and asked thequestion as a thing of course, John contented himself with nodding hishead in the affirmative; at the same time taking one hand out of hispockets to cough behind, and then putting it in again.
'I want this note'--said the guest, glancing on what he had written, andfolding it, 'conveyed there without loss of time, and an answer broughtback here. Have you a messenger at hand?'
John was thoughtful for a minute or thereabouts, and then said Yes.
'Let me see him,' said the guest.
This was disconcerting; for Joe being out, and Hugh engaged in rubbingdown the chestnut cob, he designed sending on the errand, Barnaby, whohad just then arrived in one of his rambles, and who, so that he thoughthimself employed on a grave and serious business, would go anywhere.
'Why the truth is,' said John after a long pause, 'that the person who'dgo quickest, is a sort of natural, as one may say, sir; and though quickof foot, and as much to be trusted as the post itself, he's not good attalking, being touched and flighty, sir.'
'You don't,' said the guest, raising his eyes to John's fat face, 'youdon't mean--what's the fellow's name--you don't mean Barnaby?'
'Yes, I do,' returned the landlord, his features turning quiteexpressive with surprise.
'How comes he to be here?' inquired the guest, leaning back in hischair; speaking in the bland, even tone, from which he never varied; andwith the same soft, courteous, never-changing smile upon his face. 'Isaw him in London last night.'
'He's, for ever, here one hour, and there the next,' returned old John,after the usual pause to get the question in his mind. 'Sometimes hewalks, and sometimes runs. He's known along the road by everybody, andsometimes comes here in a cart or chaise, and sometimes riding double.He comes and goes, through wind, rain, snow, and hail, and on thedarkest nights. Nothing hurts HIM.'
'He goes often to the Warren, does he not?' said the guest carelessly.'I seem to remember his mother telling me something to that effectyesterday. But I was not attending to the good woman much.'
'You're right, sir,' John made answer, 'he does. His father, sir, wasmurdered in that house.'
'So I have heard,' returned the guest, taking a gold toothpick from hispocket with the same sweet smile. 'A very disagreeable circumstance forthe family.'
'Very,' said John with a puzzled look, as if it occurred to him, dimlyand afar off, that this might by possibility be a cool way of treatingthe subject.
'All the circumstances after a murder,' said the guest soliloquising,'must be dreadfully unpleasant--so much bustle and disturbance--norepose--a constant dwelling upon one subject--and the running in andout, and up and down stairs, intolerable. I wouldn't have such a thinghappen to anybody I was nearly interested in, on any account. 'Twouldbe enough to wear one's life out.--You were going to say, friend--' headded, turning to John again.
'Only that Mrs Rudge lives on a little pension from the family, and thatBarnaby's as free of the house as any cat or dog about it,' answeredJohn. 'Shall he do your errand, sir?'
'Oh yes,' replied the guest. 'Oh certainly. Let him do it by all means.Please to bring him here that I may charge him to be quick. If heobjects to come you may tell him it's Mr Chester. He will remember myname, I dare say.'
John was so very much astonished to find who his visitor was, that hecould express no astonishment at all, by looks or otherwise, but leftthe room as if he were in the most placid and imperturbable of allpossible conditions. It has been reported that when he got downstairs,he looked steadily at the boiler for ten minutes by the clock, and allthat time never once left off shaking his head; for which statementthere would seem to be some ground of truth and feasibility, inasmuchas that interval of time did certainly elapse, before he returned withBarnaby to the guest's apartment.
'Come hither, lad,' said Mr Chester. 'You know Mr Geoffrey Haredale?'
Barnaby laughed, and looked at the landlord as though he would say,'You hear him?' John, who was greatly shocked at this breach of decorum,clapped his finger to his nose, and shook his head in mute remonstrance.
'He knows him, sir,' said John, frowning aside at Barnaby, 'as well asyou or I do.'
'I haven't the pleasure of much acquaintance with the gentleman,'returned his guest. 'YOU may have. Limit the comparison to yourself, myfriend.'
Although this was said with the same easy affability, and the samesmile, John felt himself put down, and laying the indignity at Barnaby'sdoor, determined to kick his raven, on the very first opportunity.
'Give that,' said the guest, who had by this time sealed the note, andwho beckoned his messenger towards him as he spoke, 'into Mr Haredale'sown hands. Wait for an answer, and bring it back to me here. If youshould find that Mr Haredale is engaged just now, tell him--can heremember a message, landlord?'
'When he chooses, sir,' replied John. 'He won't forget this one.'
'How are you sure of that?'
John merely pointed to him as he stood with his head bent forward, andhis earnest gaze fixed closely on his questioner's face; and noddedsagely.
'Tell him then, Barnaby, should he be engaged,' said Mr Chester, 'thatI shall be glad to wait his convenience here, and to see him (if he willcall) at any time this evening.--At the worst I can have a bed here,Willet, I suppose?'
Old John, immensely flattered by the personal notoriety implied in thisfamiliar form of address, answered, with something like a knowing look,'I should believe you could, sir,' and was turning over in his mindvarious forms of eulogium, with the view of selecting one appropriate tothe qualities of his best bed, when his ideas were put to flight by MrChester giving Barnaby the letter, and bidding him make all speed away.
'Speed!' said Barnaby, folding the little packet in his breast, 'Speed!If you want to see hurry and mystery, come here. Here!'
With that, he put his hand, very much to John Willet's horror, on theguest's fine broadcloth sleeve, and led him stealthily to the backwindow.
'Look down there,' he said softly; 'do you mark how they whisper in eachother's ears; then dance and leap, to make believe they are in sport?Do you see how they stop for a moment, when they think there is no onelooking, and mutter among themselves again; and then how they roll andgambol, delighted with the mischief they've been plotting? Look at'em now. See how they whirl and plunge. And now they stop again, andwhisper, cautiously together--little thinking, mind, how often I havelain upon the grass and watched them. I say what is it that they plotand hatch? Do you know?'
'They are only clothes,' returned the guest, 'such as we wear; hangingon those lines to dry, and fluttering in the wind.'
'Clothes!' echoed Barnaby, looking close into his face, and fallingquickly back. 'Ha ha! Why, how much better to be silly, than as wiseas you! You don't see shadowy people there, like those that live insleep--not you. Nor eyes in the knotted panes of glass, nor swift ghostswhen it blows hard, nor do you hear voices in the air, nor see menstalking in the sky--not you! I lead a merrier life than you, with allyour cleverness. You're the dull men. We're the bright ones. Ha! ha!I'll not change with you, clever as you are,--not I!'
With that, he waved his hat above his head, and darted off.
'A strange creature, upon my word!' said the guest, pulling out ahandsome box, and taking a pinch of snuff.
'He wants imagination,' said Mr Willet, very slowly, and after a longsilence; 'that's what he wants. I've tried to instil it
into him, manyand many's the time; but'--John added this in confidence--'he an't madefor it; that's the fact.'
To record that Mr Chester smiled at John's remark would be little to thepurpose, for he preserved the same conciliatory and pleasant look at alltimes. He drew his chair nearer to the fire though, as a kind of hintthat he would prefer to be alone, and John, having no reasonable excusefor remaining, left him to himself.
Very thoughtful old John Willet was, while the dinner was preparing; andif his brain were ever less clear at one time than another, it is butreasonable to suppose that he addled it in no slight degree by shakinghis head so much that day. That Mr Chester, between whom and MrHaredale, it was notorious to all the neighbourhood, a deep and bitteranimosity existed, should come down there for the sole purpose, as itseemed, of seeing him, and should choose the Maypole for their placeof meeting, and should send to him express, were stumbling blocks Johncould not overcome. The only resource he had, was to consult the boiler,and wait impatiently for Barnaby's return.
But Barnaby delayed beyond all precedent. The visitor's dinner wasserved, removed, his wine was set, the fire replenished, the hearthclean swept; the light waned without, it grew dusk, became quite dark,and still no Barnaby appeared. Yet, though John Willet was full ofwonder and misgiving, his guest sat cross-legged in the easy-chair, toall appearance as little ruffled in his thoughts as in his dress--thesame calm, easy, cool gentleman, without a care or thought beyond hisgolden toothpick.
'Barnaby's late,' John ventured to observe, as he placed a pair oftarnished candlesticks, some three feet high, upon the table, andsnuffed the lights they held.
'He is rather so,' replied the guest, sipping his wine. 'He will not bemuch longer, I dare say.'
John coughed and raked the fire together.
'As your roads bear no very good character, if I may judge from my son'smishap, though,' said Mr Chester, 'and as I have no fancy to be knockedon the head--which is not only disconcerting at the moment, but placesone, besides, in a ridiculous position with respect to the people whochance to pick one up--I shall stop here to-night. I think you said youhad a bed to spare.'
'Such a bed, sir,' returned John Willet; 'ay, such a bed as few, evenof the gentry's houses, own. A fixter here, sir. I've heard say thatbedstead is nigh two hundred years of age. Your noble son--a fine younggentleman--slept in it last, sir, half a year ago.'
'Upon my life, a recommendation!' said the guest, shrugging hisshoulders and wheeling his chair nearer to the fire. 'See that it bewell aired, Mr Willet, and let a blazing fire be lighted there at once.This house is something damp and chilly.'
John raked the faggots up again, more from habit than presence of mind,or any reference to this remark, and was about to withdraw, when abounding step was heard upon the stair, and Barnaby came panting in.
'He'll have his foot in the stirrup in an hour's time,' he cried,advancing. 'He has been riding hard all day--has just come home--butwill be in the saddle again as soon as he has eat and drank, to meet hisloving friend.'
'Was that his message?' asked the visitor, looking up, but without thesmallest discomposure--or at least without the show of any.
'All but the last words,' Barnaby rejoined. 'He meant those. I saw that,in his face.'
'This for your pains,' said the other, putting money in his hand, andglancing at him steadfastly.'This for your pains, sharp Barnaby.'
'For Grip, and me, and Hugh, to share among us,' he rejoined, puttingit up, and nodding, as he counted it on his fingers. 'Grip one, me two,Hugh three; the dog, the goat, the cats--well, we shall spend it prettysoon, I warn you. Stay.--Look. Do you wise men see nothing there, now?'
He bent eagerly down on one knee, and gazed intently at the smoke, whichwas rolling up the chimney in a thick black cloud. John Willet, whoappeared to consider himself particularly and chiefly referred to underthe term wise men, looked that way likewise, and with great solidity offeature.
'Now, where do they go to, when they spring so fast up there,' askedBarnaby; 'eh? Why do they tread so closely on each other's heels, andwhy are they always in a hurry--which is what you blame me for, when Ionly take pattern by these busy folk about me? More of 'em! catching toeach other's skirts; and as fast as they go, others come! What a merrydance it is! I would that Grip and I could frisk like that!'
'What has he in that basket at his back?' asked the guest after a fewmoments, during which Barnaby was still bending down to look higher upthe chimney, and earnestly watching the smoke.
'In this?' he answered, jumping up, before John Willet couldreply--shaking it as he spoke, and stooping his head to listen. 'Inthis! What is there here? Tell him!'
'A devil, a devil, a devil!' cried a hoarse voice.
'Here's money!' said Barnaby, chinking it in his hand, 'money for atreat, Grip!'
'Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!' replied the raven, 'keep up your spirits.Never say die. Bow, wow, wow!'
Mr Willet, who appeared to entertain strong doubts whether a customer ina laced coat and fine linen could be supposed to have any acquaintanceeven with the existence of such unpolite gentry as the bird claimedto belong to, took Barnaby off at this juncture, with the view ofpreventing any other improper declarations, and quitted the room withhis very best bow.