CHAPTER XV

THE ADVENTURE OF THE ATTORNEY'S CLERK

I have mentioned our usual course, which was to eat in inconsiderable

wayside hostelries, known to King. It was a dangerous business: we went

daily under fire to satisfy our appetite, and put our head in the lion's

mouth for a piece of bread. Sometimes, to minimise the risk, we would

all dismount before we came in view of the house, straggle in severally,

and give what orders we pleased, like disconnected strangers. In like

manner we departed, to find the cart at an appointed place, some half a

mile beyond. The Colonel and the Major had each a word or two of

English--God help their pronunciation! But they did well enough to order

a rasher and a pot or call a reckoning; and, to say truth, these

country-folks did not give themselves the pains, and had scarce the

knowledge, to be critical.

About nine or ten at night the pains of hunger and cold drove us to an

alehouse in the flats of Bedfordshire not far from Bedford itself. In

the inn kitchen was a long, lean, characteristic-looking fellow of

perhaps forty, dressed in black. He sat on a settle by the fireside,

smoking a long pipe, such as they call a yard of clay. His hat and wig

were hanged upon the knob behind him, his head as bald as a bladder of

lard, and his expression very shrewd, cantankerous and inquisitive. He

seemed to value himself above his company, to give himself the airs of a

man of the world among that rustic herd; which was often no more than

his due; being, as I afterwards discovered, an attorney's clerk. I took

upon myself the more ungrateful part of arriving last; and by the time I

entered on the scene the Major was already served at a side-table. Some

general conversation must have passed, and I smelled danger in the air.

The Major looked flustered, the attorney's clerk triumphant, and three

or four peasants in smock-frocks (who sat about the fire to play chorus)

had let their pipes go out.

"Give you good-evening, sir!" said the attorney's clerk to me.

"The same to you, sir," said I.

"I think this one will do," quoth the clerk to the yokels with a wink;

and then, as soon as I had given my order, "Pray, sir, whither are you

bound?" he added.

"Sir," said I, "I am not one of those who speak either of their business

or their destination in houses of public entertainment."

"A good answer," said he, "and an excellent principle.--Sir, do you

speak French?"

"Why, no, sir," said I. "A little Spanish, at your service."

"But you know the French accent, perhaps?" said the clerk.

"Well do I do that!" said I. "The French accent? Why, I believe I can

tell a Frenchman in ten words."

"Here is a puzzle for you, then!" he said. "I have no material doubt

myself, but some of these gentlemen are more backward. The lack of

education, you know. I make bold to say that a man cannot walk, cannot

hear, and cannot see, without the blessings of education."

He turned to the Major, whose food plainly stuck in his throat.

"Now, sir," pursued the clerk, "let me have the pleasure to hear your

voice again. Where are you going, did you say?"

"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, "O, 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 backdoor, 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 damn 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

greatcoat 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 greatcoat 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 turned, 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.

"O! 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.

"O, 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 he 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 hedge-sparrows."

"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 hedge-sparrows. 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 to-morrow, 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."