CHAPTER XXII

CHARACTER AND ACQUIREMENTS OF MR. ROWLEY

I am not certain that I had ever really appreciated before that hour the

extreme peril of the adventure on which I was embarked. The sight of my

cousin, the look of his face--so handsome, so jovial at the first sight,

and branded with so much malignity as you saw it on the second--with his

hyperbolical curls in order, with his neckcloth tied as if for the

conquests of love, setting forth (as I had no doubt in the world he was

doing) to clap the Bow Street runners on my trail, and cover England

with handbills, each dangerous as a loaded musket, convinced me for the

first time that the affair was no less serious than death. I believe it

came to a near touch whether I should not turn the horses' heads at the

next stage and make directly for the coast. But I was now in the

position of a man who should have thrown his gage into the den of lions;

or, better still, like one who should have quarrelled overnight under

the influence of wine, and now, at daylight, in a cold winter's morning,

and humbly sober, must make good his words. It is not that I thought any

the less, or any the less warmly, of Flora. But, as I smoked a grim

segar that morning in a corner of the chaise, no doubt I considered, in

the first place, that the letter-post had been invented, and admitted

privately to myself, in the second, that it would have been highly

possible to write her on a piece of paper, seal it, and send it skimming

by the mail, instead of going personally into these egregious dangers,

and through a country that I beheld crowded with gibbets and Bow Street

officers. As for Sim and Candlish, I doubt if they crossed my mind.

At the "Green Dragon" Rowley was waiting on the doorsteps with the

luggage, and really was bursting with unpalatable conversation.

"Who do you think we've 'ad 'ere, sir?" he began breathlessly, as the

chaise drove off. "Red Breasts"; and he nodded his head portentously.

"Red Breasts?" I repeated, for I stupidly did not understand at the

moment an expression I had often heard.

"Ah!" said he. "Red weskits. Runners. Bow Street runners. Two on 'em,

and one was Lavender himself! I hear the other say quite plain, 'Now,

Mr. Lavender, _if_ you're ready.' They was breakfasting as nigh me as I

am to that post-boy. They're all right; they ain't after us. It's a

forger; and I didn't send them off on a false scent--O no! I thought

there was no use in having them over our way; so I give them 'very

valuable information,' Mr. Lavender said, and tipped me a tizzy for

myself; and they're off to Luton. They showed me the 'andcuffs, too--the

other one did--and he clicked the dratted things on my wrist; and I tell

you I believe I nearly went off in a swound! There's something so

beastly in the feel of them! Begging your pardon, Mr. Anne," he added,

with one of his delicious changes from the character of the confidential

schoolboy into that of the trained, respectful servant.

Well, I must not be proud! I cannot say I found the subject of handcuffs

to my fancy; and it was with more asperity than was needful that I

reproved him for the slip about the name.

"Yes, Mr. Ramornie," says he, touching his hat. "Begging your pardon,

Mr. Ramornie. But I've been very piticular, sir, up to now; and you may

trust me to be very piticular in the future. It were only a slip, sir."

"My good boy," said I, with the most imposing severity, "there must be

no slips. Be so good as to remember that my life is at stake."

I did not embrace the occasion of telling him how many I had made

myself. It is my principle that an officer must never be wrong. I have

seen two divisions beating their brains out for a fortnight against a

worthless and quite impregnable castle in a pass: I knew we were only

doing it for discipline, because the General had said so at first, and

had not yet found any way out of his own words; and I highly admired his

force of character, and throughout these operations thought my life

exposed in a very good cause. With fools and children, which included

Rowley, the necessity was even greater. I proposed to myself to be

infallible; and even when he expressed some wonder at the purchase of

the claret-coloured chaise, I put him promptly in his place. In our

situation, I told him, everything had to be sacrificed to appearances;

doubtless, in a hired chaise, we should have had more freedom, but look

at the dignity! I was so positive, that I had sometimes almost convinced

myself. Not for long, you may be certain! This detestable conveyance

always appeared to me to be laden with Bow Street officers, and to have

a placard upon the back of it publishing my name and crimes. If I had

paid seventy pounds to get the thing, I should not have stuck at seven

hundred to be safely rid of it.

And if the chaise was a danger, what an anxiety was the despatch-box and

its golden cargo! I had never had a care but to draw my pay and spend

it; I had lived happily in the regiment, as in my father's house, fed by

the great Emperor's commissariat as by ubiquitous doves of Elijah--or,

my faith! if anything went wrong with the commissariat, helping myself

with the best grace in the world from the next peasant! And now I began

to feel at the same time the burthen of riches and the fear of

destitution. There were ten thousand pounds in the despatch-box, but I

reckoned in French money, and had two hundred and fifty thousand

agonies; I kept it under my hand all day, I dreamed of it at night. In

the inns, I was afraid to go to dinner and afraid to go to sleep. When I

walked up a hill I durst not leave the doors of the claret-coloured

chaise. Sometimes I would change the disposition of the funds: there

were days when I carried as much as five or six thousand pounds on my

own person, and only the residue continued to voyage in the

treasure-chest--days when I bulked all over like my cousin, crackled to

a touch with bank paper, and had my pockets weighed to bursting-point

with sovereigns. And there were other days when I wearied of the

thing--or grew ashamed of it--and put all the money back where it had

come from: there let it take its chance, like better people! In short, I

set Rowley a poor example of consistency, and, in philosophy, none at

all.

Little he cared! All was one to him so long as he was amused, and I

never knew any one amused more easily. He was thrillingly interested in

life, travel, and his own melodramatic position. All day he would be

looking from the chaise windows with ebullitions of gratified curiosity,

that were sometimes justified and sometimes not, and that (taken

altogether) it occasionally wearied me to be obliged to share. I can

look at horses, and I can look at trees too, although not fond of it.

But why should I look at a lame horse, or a tree that was like the

letter Y? What exhilaration could I feel in viewing a cottage that was

the same colour as "the second from the miller's" in some place where I

had never been, and of which I had not previously heard? I am ashamed to

complain, but there were moments when my juvenile and confidential

friend weighed heavy on my hands. His cackle was indeed almost

continuous, but it was never unamiable. He showed an amiable curiosity

when he was asking questions; an amiable guilelessness when he was

conferring information. And both he did largely. I am in a position to

write the biographies of Mr. Rowley, Mr. Rowley's father and mother, his

Aunt Eliza, and the miller's dog; and nothing but pity for the reader

and some misgivings as to the law of copyright prevail on me to withhold

them.

A general design to mould himself upon my example became early

apparent, and I had not the heart to check it. He began to mimic my

carriage; he acquired, with servile accuracy, a little manner I had of

shrugging the shoulders; and I may say it was by observing it in him

that I first discovered it in myself. One day it came out by chance that

I was of the Catholic religion. He became plunged in thought, at which I

was gently glad. Then suddenly--

"Odd-rabbit it! I'll be Catholic too!" he broke out. "You must teach me

it, Mr. Anne--I mean, Ramornie."

I dissuaded him: alleging that he would find me very imperfectly

informed as to the grounds and doctrines of the Church, and that, after

all, in the matter of religions, it was a very poor idea to change. "Of

course, my Church is the best," said I; "but that is not the reason why

I belong to it; I belong to it because it was the faith of my house. I

wish to take my chances with my own people, and so should you. If it is

a question of going to hell, go to hell like a gentleman with your

ancestors."

"Well, it wasn't that," he admitted. "I don't know that I was exactly

thinking of hell. Then there's the inquisition, too. That's rather a

cawker, you know."

"And I don't believe you were thinking of anything in the world," said

I--which put a period to his respectable conversion.

He consoled himself by playing for a while on a cheap flageolet, which

was one of his diversions, and to which I owed many intervals of peace.

When he first produced it, in the joints, from his pocket, he had the

duplicity to ask me if I played upon it. I answered, no; and he put the

instrument away with a sigh and the remark that he had thought I might.

For some while he resisted the unspeakable temptation, his fingers

visibly itching and twittering about his pocket, even his interest in

the landscape and in sporadic anecdote entirely lost. Presently the pipe

was in his hands again; he fitted, unfitted, refitted, and played upon

it in dumb show for some time.

"I play it myself a little," says he.

"Do you?" said I, and yawned.

And then he broke down.

"Mr. Ramornie, if you please, would it disturb you, sir, if I was to

play a chune?" he pleaded. And from that hour, the tootling of the

flageolet cheered our way.

He was particularly keen on the details of battles, single combats,

incidents of scouting parties, and the like. These he would make haste

to cap with some of the exploits of Wallace, the only hero with whom he

had the least acquaintance. His enthusiasm was genuine and pretty. When

he learned we were going to Scotland, "Well, then," he broke out, "I'll

see where Wallace lived!" And presently after, he fell to moralising.

"It's a strange thing, sir," he began, "that I seem somehow to have

always the wrong sow by the ear. I'm English after all, and I glory in

it. My eye! don't I, though! Let some of your Frenchies come over here

to invade, and you'll see whether or not. O yes, I'm English to the

backbone, I am. And yet look at me! I got hold of this 'ere William

Wallace and took to him right off; I never heard of such a man before!

And then you came along, and I took to you. And both the two of you were

my born enemies! I--I beg your pardon, Mr. Ramornie, but would you mind

it very much if you didn't go for to do anything against England"--he

brought the word out suddenly, like something hot--"when I was along of

you?"

I was more affected than I can tell.

"Rowley," I said, "you need have no fear. By how much I love my own

honour, by so much I will take care to protect yours. We are but

fraternising at the outposts, as soldiers do. When the bugle calls, my

boy, we must face each other, one for England, one for France, and may

God defend the right!"

So I spoke at the moment; but for all my brave airs, the boy had wounded

me in a vital quarter. His words continued to ring in my hearing. There

was no remission all day of my remorseful thoughts; and that night (when

we lay at Lichfield, I believe) there was no sleep for me in my bed. I

put out the candle and lay down with a good resolution; and in a moment

all was light about me like a theatre, and I saw myself upon the stage

of it playing ignoble parts. I remembered France and my Emperor, now

depending on the arbitrament of war, bent down, fighting on their knees

and with their teeth against so many and such various assailants. And I

burned with shame to be here in England, cherishing an English fortune,

pursuing an English mistress, and not there, to handle a musket in my

native fields, and to manure them with my body if I fell. I remembered

that I belonged to France. All my fathers had fought for her, and some

had died; the voice in my throat, the sight of my eyes, the tears that

now sprang there, the whole man of me, was fashioned of French earth and

born of a French mother; I had been tended and caressed by a succession

of the daughters of France, the fairest, the most ill-starred; I had

fought and conquered shoulder to shoulder with her sons. A soldier, a

noble, of the proudest and bravest race in Europe, it had been left to

the prattle of a hobbledehoy lackey in an English chaise to recall me to

the consciousness of duty.

When I saw how it was I did not lose time in indecision. The old

classical conflict of love and honour being once fairly before me, it

did not cost me a thought. I was a Saint-Yves de Keroual; and I decided

to strike off on the morrow for Wakefield and Burchell Fenn, and embark,

as soon as it should be morally possible, for the succour of my

downtrodden fatherland and my beleaguered Emperor. Pursuant on this

resolve, I leaped from bed, made a light, and as the watchman was crying

half-past two in the dark streets of Lichfield, sat down to pen a letter

of farewell to Flora. And then--whether it was the sudden chill of the

night, whether it came by association of ideas from the remembrance of

Swanston Cottage, I know not, but there appeared before me--to the

barking of sheep-dogs--a couple of snuffy and shambling figures, each

wrapped in a plaid, each armed with a rude staff; and I was immediately

bowed down to have forgotten them so long, and of late to have thought

of them so cavalierly.

Sure enough, there was my errand! As a private person I was neither

French nor English; I was something else first; a loyal gentleman, an

honest man. Sim and Candlish must not be left to pay the penalty of my

unfortunate blow. They held my honour tacitly pledged to succour them;

and it is a sort of stoical refinement entirely foreign to my nature to

set the political obligation above the personal and private. If France

fell in the interval for the lack of Anne de Saint-Yves, fall she must!

But I was both surprised and humiliated to have had so plain a duty

bound upon me for so long--and for so long to have neglected and

forgotten it. I think any brave man will understand me when I say that I

went to bed and to sleep with a conscience very much relieved, and woke

again in the morning with a light heart. The very danger of the

enterprise reassured me; to save Sim and Candlish (suppose the worst to

come to the worst) it would be necessary for me to declare myself in a

court of justice, with consequences which I did not dare to dwell upon;

it could never be said that I had chosen the cheap and the easy--only

that in a very perplexing competition of duties I had risked my life for

the most immediate.

We resumed the journey with more diligence: thenceforward posted day and

night; did not halt beyond what was necessary for meals; and the

postillions were excited by gratuities, after the habit of my cousin

Alain. For two-pence I could have gone farther and taken four horses; so

extreme was my haste, running as I was before the terrors of an awakened

conscience. But I feared to be conspicuous. Even as it was, we attracted

only too much attention, with our pair and that white elephant, the

seventy-pounds-worth of claret-coloured chaise.

Meanwhile I was ashamed to look Rowley in the face. The young shaver had

contrived to put me wholly in the wrong; he had cost me a night's rest

and a severe and healthful humiliation; and I was grateful and

embarrassed in his society. This would never do; it was contrary to all

my ideas of discipline; if the officer has to blush before the private,

or the master before the servant, nothing is left to hope for but

discharge or death. I hit upon the idea of teaching him French; and

accordingly, from Lichfield, I became the distracted master, and he the

scholar--how shall I say? indefatigable, but uninspired. His interest

never flagged. He would hear the same word twenty times with profound

refreshment, mispronounce it in several different ways, and forget it

again with magical celerity. Say it happened to be _stirrup_. "No, I

don't seem to remember that word, Mr. Anne," he would say: "it don't

seem to stick to me, that word don't." And then, when I had told it him

again, "_Etrier!_" he would cry. "To be sure! I had it on the tip of my

tongue. _Eterier!_" (going wrong already, as if by a fatal instinct).

"What will I remember it by, now? Why, _interior_, to be sure! I'll

remember it by its being something that ain't in the interior of a

horse." And when next I had occasion to ask him the French for stirrup,

it was a toss-up whether he had forgotten all about it, or gave me

_exterior_ for an answer. He was never a hair discouraged. He seemed to

consider that he was covering the ground at a normal rate. He came up

smiling day after day. "Now, sir, shall we do our French?" he would say;

and I would put questions, and elicit copious commentary and

explanation, but never the shadow of an answer. My hands fell to my

sides; I could have wept to hear him. When I reflected that he had as

yet learned nothing, and what a vast deal more there was for him to

learn, the period of these lessons seemed to unroll before me vast as

eternity, and I saw myself a teacher of a hundred, and Rowley a pupil of

ninety, still hammering on the rudiments! The wretched boy, I should

say, was quite unspoiled by the inevitable familiarities of the journey.

He turned out at each stage the pink of serving-lads, deft, civil,

prompt, attentive, touching his hat like an automaton, raising the

status of Mr. Ramornie in the eyes of all the inn by his smiling

service, and seeming capable of anything in the world but the one thing

I had chosen--learning French!