Kitabı oku: «The Wayfarers», sayfa 8
CHAPTER X
WE ARE BESET BY A HEAVY MISFORTUNE
It was about sundown now. We had not so much as a penny to purchase a loaf of bread. Night was coming on; there were no friends to whom we might recommend ourselves; and at least two parties of persons were engaged in hunting us down in that vicinity. To set against these inconveniences we had only our liberty and our comradeship; and although our bellies were like to go empty, and our heads unpillowed that night, and for full many a weary one to come, we did not rail against our lot. We were as free as the air and could defy the polite conventions. Lest we should fall in again with Mr. Waring and our papa, or less dangerously with Mr. Jeremy, we decided to forsake the high road and its publicity, and take to the fields. All ways were alike to us; north, south, east, and west, it did not matter.
We had not gone far across the country when the twilight overtook us. We did not view it with the least apprehension, however. The night promised to be so mild, and we were so warmly found against it with our cloaks and thick clothes, that another evening couch in a barn or a cowhouse would not greatly daunt us. Indeed we had already made up our minds to this, unless Providence should throw a more luxurious one in our path. In the event this proved to be the case, for after awhile our wanderings brought us to a kind of common, across which smoke was seen to be rising. It came from a fire of sticks as we presently found, and on coming to it, we discovered ourselves in the midst of a gypsy encampment.
Four or five persons of a dirty, ragged and uncouth sort, were busying themselves about the fire in various ways. One was tending it with fuel, another was adjusting a great cooking-pot that sat in the midst of the embers, a third was cleaning a clasp-knife with a piece of rag and a tuft of grass, a fourth had two parts of a flute in his hand and was striving to fix them together; an old woman sat staring into the blaze with her hands on her knees, smoking a pipe; and a young woman, by no means destitute of a swarthy beauty, sat beside her with a child at her breast.
The reception we met with at the hands of these simple strange people was at first reserved and suspicious to a degree. One of the men addressed us in a barbarous tongue, the like of which I have neither heard before nor since. I could not make a word out of it. Showing plainly that we were at a loss in this language, the man translated it into good if a trifle rustic English:
"What do you want?" says he roughly.
"Leave to sit down by your cheerful fire a little," I replied. They were in no hurry to extend this permission to us, but by the time that Cynthia with excellent tact had greatly admired the babe in its mother's arms, and I, who amongst my accomplishments pride myself as being somewhat of an amateur of the flute, had pieced that instrument together, for its owner did not appear to understand much about it, and had been at pains to make ourselves agreeable to our company in several ways, their gruff reserve grew sensibly less. And shortly, so much did our addresses have their effect, that we found ourselves seated around the fire, with a pleasant odour of cookery tickling our noses. For after all bread and cheese and ale, although excellent in themselves to be sure, do not form a very enduring diet.
By the time the meal was ready the moon had risen. Sitting in the midst of these strange gypsy people, beside a bright fire that threw up its flames to the open fields, and clothed trees and hedges and the sky itself with a vagueness and mystery that we had never noticed in them before, we became possessed with a sense of the weirdness of the shapes about us. They made the folk we had come amongst seem more singular than they might otherwise have appeared. However, the meal we presently partook of in their company did much to alleviate this feeling of strangeness. When the lid was taken off the hissing cauldron, and platters, spoons and knives were produced, the circle about the fire was increased by the arrival of other gypsies of various ages and both sexes.
As their guests, they had the courtesy to serve us first. From the pot was produced a hot and grateful mess, that to persons with appetites sharpened to the degree that ours were, was deliriously palatable. It appeared to consist of fowls, mutton, hares, onions, and potatoes, and probably other meats and vegetables not so easy to detect. We were also given some excellent ale in a great horn tumbler, and a hunch of barley bread apiece. We feasted indeed on the liberal fare, and were fain to pay a second visit to the cauldron.
It was to be remarked that our entertainers were much better disposed toward us after supper than before. Their suspicion and reserve melted more and more, and instead of using the Romany language, ordered their conversation in ours, that we might take some profit of their intercourse. They all showed this amenable disposition with the exception of the old crone, who had supped only on tobacco, preferring her pipe to the lustier fare of the cauldron. She would have none of us. We could clearly see the expression of her lowering, tawny face, since she sat opposite to us, full in the glare of the fire. This indifference to us was more than passive. We discerned with some uneasiness that it amounted to positive dislike. She would stare at us whole minutes together, while a concentrated malignity came into her already sufficiently ugly face. She would then mutter incoherently under her breath. Once she spat venomously into the fire. At last, after staring at us longer and more resentfully than usual, she clutched a fellow who sat beside her fiercely by the arm. She talked to him with great energy, and ended with something that sounded of the nature of an imprecation. As she did so she shook her finger at our faces. Whatever her communication was, the man was much discomposed by it. He nodded, infused a certain malignity too in the look with which he regarded us, and then addressed several of his companions very much in the manner that the old woman had addressed him.
Cynthia, who had observed these signs as keenly as I had, grew alarmed. Nor was this unreasonable in her, for such were the weight of the old crone's objections to us, whatever their nature, that before long they had spread to the whole community. Thus we soon found ourselves in the unpleasant position of being the cynosure of all their eyes, the objects at which their fingers were wagged, and against whom their passionate talk was directed. But we suffered from the additional misfortune of being unable to understand a single word, and were thus quite at a loss to know wherein we had offended. It was the man with the flute who presently enlightened us. Probably his devotion to music, one of the liberal arts, gave him a more humane cast than his brethren. Indeed at this moment he alone seemed friendly towards us.
"Old Goody does not like the set o' ye," says he. "You will bring ill-luck upon us wandering folk, she thinks."
"What does she object to in us?"
"Nay," says he, "that is more than I can say. She is as full of prediction, whimsies, and foreboding as a dog-fox is of cunning. She has lived a long while, d'ye see, and can read the signs. She has forseen many a corpse, by looking at the moon. Many's the man-child she's brought into the world. And only last year when she heard the wind soughing through the branches, she told not only the day but the very hour that Jerry Boswell came to be hanged."
This sinister reference did nothing to ease us. Looking around, the cunning and superstition that was everywhere about us took a direr significance. As their resentment in no wise abated, it struck us that we should do well to resume our way. But the man with the flute assured us that we were under no necessity, for since we had sat at meat with them, the mischief, if any, was already done. He said besides that his people were the civillest in the world, and whatever their fear of us, they would be the last to visit their dislike upon us. As the fire was so bright and genial, and our present position, despite any little inconveniences that might arise therefrom, was so much more to be desired than any other we were likely to lie in that night, we were seduced to remain. It may have been against our better judgment that we took this course, or like the gypsies themselves, we may have had an instinct of something impending, for in the end we were to rue it bitterly.
Our friend with the flute, doubtless to compose the minds of his more nervous brethren, began a strange sort of melody. It was played not very well to be sure, but they gave an alert attention to it that furnished an instance of the power of music on untutored minds. Presently one of the women broke into a song to match the air. It was in the gypsy language, and though sung in a low crooning voice and a primitive fashion, it was by no means unpleasing, whilst its weird character was highly appropriate to the place in which it was performed. The rude audience was vastly soothed by it too; their fierce looks grew softer; and soon they fell to regarding the music entirely instead of Cynthia and myself.
When the flute-player had given his melody, he politely handed the instrument to me, with the request that if I had any skill in the art I should give one also. Being as I have said an amateur of the flute, and being like all other amateurs as I have observed, never in any situation averse to display my poor aptitude, I struck up a ranting air from the Beggar's Opera. I was surprised to find how excellent the instrument was, and was therefore able to enter into the performance as much for my own gratification as for theirs. When I had finished I was agreeably surprised to find how warmly my efforts were received. The former player wrung my hand, and, strange as it may appear, many eyes shone about me with pleasure and admiration. Nothing would content them but I must play again. Mightily pleased with my success, as every person who seeks the approbation of the public invariably is, I needed no second invitation, but ventured on a more ambitious piece. With many a spring and trill and roulade I ranted it into their ears. They followed me with rapt attention, and again and again would have me play. How long I continued to do so I do not know. For seeing the singular pleasure they took from it, I should have been a churl indeed not to gratify such hospitable and simple people. Therefore I poured out all the tunes I knew for their behoof.
Little did we reck however of the calamity that was about to befall us. The old woman, it is true, had had a premonition of something impending. Had it been concerned with the effect as well as the cause much might have been spared us. As it was, no catastrophe could have come more swiftly, unexpectedly, or completely. I was still in the height of my music, and the group around the fire were absorbed in it wholly, when this unhappy interruption came. Without a sound of warning a dozen forms or more suddenly sprang into being out of a ditch hard by, and rushed into our midst. By the light of the moon we could observe enough of them as they came to see that they were armed with formidable staves, and clearly meant mischief.
We had only just time to spring to our feet before they were upon us. What their business was we did not stay to inquire; indeed, it was soon evident that my friends, the gypsies, were only too intimately acquainted with it. Without passing a word they resisted this onslaught with all the vigour they could summon. One or two ran into the tents close at hand to procure weapons of defence; others produced their knives; whilst the old crone, who along among the gypsy women was not barefooted snatched off one of her boots and brandished it fiercely. As for Cynthia and I, we were so taken aback by this strange situation that we did not know what course to pursue. We had neither art nor part in this quarrel whatever its nature. Besides, we were weaponless and utterly at a loss to understand whether submission or resistance might serve us the better.
The aggressors, whatever their impetuosity, stopped short at first of actual violence. Seeing the uncompromising attitude of the gypsies, the foremost man, a fine strapping fellow as ever I saw, halted a few yards off, put up his hand to speak, and said with a great air of authority:
"Now, you Egyptians, let me give you a word of advice before we come to blows. You have no chance at all. You are outnumbered by three to one, and whatever blood is shed, will be to your hurt. Whatever polls are broken will not save any man Jack of you a hanging. I summon you to put down your weapons, and the women shall go free. But I arrest every man of you in the name of the High Sheriff for stealing sheep."
The reply of the sheep-stealers was brief enough in all conscience.
"Take that!" cried the old woman, flinging her boot at the speaker's head.
It was the signal for the battle to begin. My friend the flute-player followed up the boot by hitting the spokesman of the law full in the face with his fist. Thereon blows fell thick and fast and furious on every side. The Sheriff's men closed up, nor did the gypsies budge an inch. Without a weapon of any sort, as I was, I had to bear my part perforce, since there was no opportunity to explain that I was neither a gypsy nor a stealer of sheep. But even had it offered, I could never have embraced it. Just as a man may be known by the company he keeps, he is at the same time laid under the obligation to defend his friends.
My first care, of course, was for Cynthia. As the Sheriff's men were not likely to molest her should she run away out of reach of harm, I insisted on her doing so. I had to be firm with her too, since she was by no means disposed to separate from me in this pass. She would either have me come with her or she would stay where she was. The first alternative was impracticable even had I wished to embrace it. The enemy were all about us by now, and I should not have been permitted to go; and the second put her personal safety into such a jeopardy that I had to be very stern. Thereon she unwillingly complied.
No sooner had she gone than I slipped the flute in my pocket and prepared to take a hand in the defence. As I had no other weapons I had to employ my hands. Had the conditions been equal I could have wished no better. But they were little likely to prevail against superior numbers, armed with staves. Indeed, from the first, submission would have been the wiser course for us all, as the gypsies were at such a disadvantage that they had no chance. Yet blows were dealt with mighty goodwill on both sides; sometimes the upholders of the law went down, but more often the breakers of it. Presently two fellows with cudgels in their hands made lo seize me by the collar, whereon I dealt the most assiduous of the twain so shrewd a crack on the point of the jawbone as laid him low. The other fellow came at me furiously with his stave, and I had barely time to whisk my head aside and so get it clear of the blow that was aimed at it. I was hastening to follow up this delicate attention with a few of my own, when a third adversary unseen came behind me, and gave me such a tap at the side of the head as brought me to the ground bleeding and half insensible.
Before I could make any attempt to gather myself again, a pair of knees were in the middle of my chest, and a strong hand half choked the life out of my throat. I was in no condition to kick or struggle much; but whatever the philosophy of my temper in the piping times of peace, devil a bit did I exercise of it now. Bleeding and breathless as I was, I resisted with what was in the circumstances an absurd tenacity; and it was some little time, after a great display of energy on both sides that two or three of my enemies ultimately secured me, bound my hands and raised me to my feet. And I hope the reader will observe that I again insist that it took two or three persons to conclude this unfortunate business, as it did to inaugurate it. I know not what vain glory it is in a man that makes him so punctilious in matters of this sort.
By the time I had been overcome and raised on to my feet in fetters, the affair was almost decided. There could be but one ending; and very soon the unfortunate gypsies were all of them captive too, with cords round their wrists, and most of them bloody of bearing. No time was lost in marching us away to the nearest magistrate. There seemed about a score of armed men to take the custody of us. In the haste with which everything was carried out, in the uncertain moonlight, and in the dull vague condition of mind that the shock of events, to name only one cause, had induced, I had not the smallest opportunity of taking farewell of Cynthia. Nor had she any means of approaching me, seeing how sedulously we were guarded, and how promptly we were marched away.
The whole thing was begun and ended so swiftly that this very grandiloquent and self-important quill-pen hath made, I find, an incomparably greater business of it than ever it was in itself. It can never bring its dignity down to the subordinate office of the relation of a plain piece of history, but is all for the frills and the trimmings. Do not be deceived into thinking, therefore, that this country brawl was as great as the battle of Marathon. But at least, at the time the consequences were to me very poignant. As we were dragged along over the stubble and through the moonlight, we knew not whither, I was more stunned by my evil fortune than by the blow I had come by in the argument, notwithstanding that as I walked the blood trickled in a thin warm stream on to my coat. For a person in my circumstances to fall into the hands of the law in a hedge scuffle in an alien quarrel, was about as scurvy an accident as could possibly happen. I was truly between the devil and the deep sea. To clear myself of the charge of being a gypsy and a sheep-stealer, I should be compelled to expose my identity, and in doing so should but fall out of the frying-pan into the fire.
There was another side to the matter, equally black. Whatever would happen to Cynthia? Was she not left utterly destitute, without a friend, in a foreign country? Even in the extreme unlikelihood of my regaining my freedom, neither of us would know where to seek the other, and thus at a time when it was so imperative that we should be together, we should be wrenched apart. Look at the case as I might, I could derive no crumb of comfort from it.
It was in a great depression of spirit then that I was haled, weak, bleeding, and encumbered along the country lanes to meet my fate. What it was likely to be I did not exactly know, but look at the matter how I would, there seemed to be but one natural ending to it. I was parted from my poor little wife, doubtless for ever; and if I did not come to the gallows for murder or stealing sheep, I must perforce end my days in a debtor's prison.
CHAPTER XI
I COME A PRISONER TO A FAMILIAR HOUSE, AND FIND STRANGE COMPANY
We had marched along for what seemed to me in my unhappy state an intolerable period, although I suppose actually the time was less than an hour, when we passed through the gates of a great house. When the porter came out of his lodge to let us through, and held his lantern against the iron-work, I observed that the device of the family wrought therein had a strangely familiar appearance. There was something about the porter too that awoke all sorts of remote recollections in my mind. As we went along the paths, even the situation of the trees that skirted them added to this impression. And when we came at last on to the lawn, and the house itself was clearly exposed in the moonlight, a cry of surprise almost escaped my lips, for the place had once been my own.
It was a house in which a great part of my boyhood had been spent, and one that I had inherited at my father's death. It was but a little while that it remained in my hands, however, for one night, having lost much more than I cared about over a game of piquet, I think it was, in a desperate attempt to retrieve my fortunes, I staked this precious house upon the cards and lost it also, to a fellow as reckless as myself. It is impossible to say, therefore, what my emotions were at this my strange return to the home of my childhood, and the seat for many a generation of those whose name I bore. But I think that the first moment of recognition over, my tendency was towards laughter, for could anything have been more comical than that I should be brought in such a company, and on such a charge, to this of all the places in the world?
Even the fellow who replied to the summons on the great hall-door, I remembered nearly as well as my own father, for I ought to tell you that servants, furniture and plate had passed over with the property. We were kept waiting without whilst the head-constable or chief officer among our captors went in to confer with the magistrate. In the end it was decided that we should be brought before the justice in person. He was said to have been a prime mover in the matter from the first, and was highly incensed against the unfortunate gypsies.
"We could not have come to a worse place," said my friend the flute-player, who stood beside me. "This is the house of Sir Thomas Wheatley, a hard man, and the biggest enemy to us poor folk of any one about. If his name and interest count for anything, we shall all of us infallibly be hanged."
There were eight of us prisoners, and we were presently led into Sir Thomas's presence. When we were brought into the fine dining-room that I knew so well, every inch of which was so familiar to me, in which every object of vertu and article of furniture was a thing so well recollected that even in this predicament I could not refrain from regarding them with pride and affection, how can I indicate the flood of emotions that surged in my head? After all, a man in the depths of his abandonment is something more than a piece of wood.
The justice was a common type of person enough; a man in middle life, who doubtless lived well and drank much, to judge by his purple cheeks and the somewhat puffed appearance of his body. He was a middling sort of man in every way; middling in his stature, in his mind and in his character, and more especially so, as we were to discover, in his thoughts and ideas. He affected the very nicest style of the squire in his dress, was highly formal in his deportment; and he sat playing cards with another fellow, apparently not so much for the amusement of himself or the entertainment of his friend, but rather as one who followed a dignified occupation in a dignified way. In his every word, gesture and motion he had an indescribable air of one sitting for his picture. He was in a towering rage, it is true, but it was a rage that appeared not to spring from the heat of his blood, for he was of that lethargic habit, which does not rise to heats of any sort. He was in a towering rage, because it was expected of one of his position and sentiments to be in one at such a time. Therefore, when we poor prisoners had been ranged along the wall, he put down his cards with great deliberation, slowly wheeled his chair round towards us, put together his thumbs, and looked us all over with a noble indignation.
"Soh!" says the justice, counting us carefully. "One, two, three – eight of you fairly taken; eight cut-throat rogues that most richly merit a hanging. And a hanging you shall get if there is any law left in the country. I will commit you at once, so help me I will! Fetch me pen and ink somebody, and I'll fill in the mittimus. I hope you are mightily ashamed of yourselves, you wicked, blackamoor villains."
"Can you not see that they are, good Tommie?" says the man with whom he was playing at cards. "They are as ashamed as the devil was when he singed the hairs on his tail through overheating his parlour."
The solemn justice was somewhat shocked at this piece of levity. He frowned at his companion, and coughed to cover his annoyance. The man who had spoken to this disconcerting tenor appeared rather a singular fellow. It was difficult to say who or what he might be. Of a rather massive frame, he had a countenance that recommended him to the curious. His features were large and bold, with an aquiline nose, a devil of a chin, and a short upper lip. His face shone with wassail and intemperate excess; there was a deal of sensuality in it, and more than a suggestion of coarseness, but it was for none of these things that it was remarkable. There was something besides that was baffling and indescribable to a degree, that drew one's attention to it again and again. It was a face of marvellous humorous animation, with the mockery of a devil and the candour of a saint. It was as prodigal of wit as it was of appetite; of majesty and mischief; of impudence and nobility. It was the face of a poet and a sot. Here, apparently, was a great heart, a humane spirit overlaid with flesh and infirmities. I think I was never so arrested by a countenance before, and certainly never more puzzled by one.
"Why do you propose to hang these gentlemen, Tommie?" says this whimsical fellow, with a mockery in his eyes and a curl of the lip that made the justice more uncomfortable than ever. "Have they picked a few hazel-twigs off your honour's footpaths?"
"Oh lord, Harry, I pray you be a little serious," says the justice. "These are gypsies and sheep-stealers; villains and rascals all."
"They are beyond our prayers then," says Harry. "The law must take its course. Even if it could overlook the rape of the mutton, it could never condone the colour of their hair. Lex citius tolerare vult privatum damnum quam publicum malum. There you are as pat and pragmatical as Marcus Tullius Cicero. I tell you, Tommie, the world lost a great lawyer when I became a hackney writer."
While this was going forward I had collected a few of my wits and had determined on the course to pursue. Unless by hook or by crook I could seize these precious moments prior to our committal to prison in which to put myself right or regain my freedom, all chance would be gone. Jack Tiverton was as dear to the law as a sheep-stealing gypsy, and once before a judge I must prove myself to be the one before I could prove I was not the other. Therefore I boldly seized the occasion.
"I beg your worship's pardon," says I, humbly; "but surely you will not commit a man without evidence? And there is not a tittle of evidence against me. I am neither a gypsy nor a sheep-stealer."
I was several times interrupted in the course of this little address by one of our custodians, who continued to pluck at my sleeve, and enjoined me in audible whispers to hold my impertinent tongue. The justice was astounded by my audacity in daring to address him, and grew as red and pompous as a turkey-cock.
"How dare you, fellow, talk to me?" says he. "If I had the power I would commit you twice over for your insolent presumption, yes I would, so help me."
"Yes, Tommie, you would, so help you," says his friend. "The spirit of Hector; ye speak like Priam's son. How dare the fellow ask to hear the evidence when you have had the magnanimity to commit him without it? Does he forget too that when innocence ceases to suffer it will no longer be the highest wisdom to be a rogue?"
I was likely to profit nothing by these protestations of my innocence. This justice was evidently of the worst type of magistrate. He was too high and mighty to imperil his preconceived opinions by entering into the merits of the matter. He was too lofty to argue; too swollen with self-esteem to be affronted with facts. All persons who were brought before him must be guilty of some crime or other, otherwise they would not have come there; and he held that he had discharged his office with credit to himself and with profit to his country when he had impartially committed them to gaol. I soon came to the conclusion therefore that it would be impossible to prevail on a man of this mould with a simple relation of the case, or expect to meet with any suggestion of justice at his hands. I must try a more uncompromising method; and that an exceedingly bold one. I must prove to him beyond all doubt that I was far other than an ignorant gypsy, taking the risk of the revelation of my true identity, and any consequences that might ensue. For that matter if I must go to gaol, I might just as well go there in the role of the defaulting nobleman as in that of the larcenous vagabond.
Disregarding all attempts on the part of the officers of the law to restrain me, I gazed about the spacious apartment with the air I might have worn had it still belonged to me, and says: "The old place is just as it was, I see. But, my good Sir Thomas, it grieves me to observe that you have put your fat aunt by the side of a Rubens; and that you have not scrupled to set a pompous citizen in a tie-wig, who, to judge by a certain consanguinity of expression and countenance, was the illustrous man your father and a cheesemonger at that, cheek by jowl with one of Vandyck's gentlemen."
The justice was too incensed by this audacious speech to find words with which to reply to it. He spluttered and stuttered himself to the verge of an apoplexy. His friend took it far otherwise, however.
"A hit, a palpable hit," says he, laughing heartily. "I never heard a ripe thought better expressed. And, damn it, Tommie, you deserve it too. Your fat aunt, and your illustrious father the cheesemonger in a tie-wig, ha, ha, ha! Our friend of the black eye and the bloody countenance is an amateur of the arts, a lover of the beautiful."
"Remove the prisoners out of my presence," says the justice in a fury.
"No, no, Tommie," says his companion, "you go too fast. Our friend is so monstrous good that I vow and I protest he must drink a glass of claret."
