Chapter V. Of the Man with the Drooping Lids
My mother and my father were sitting in their high-backed chairs oneither side of the empty fireplace when we arrived, he smoking hisevening pipe of Oronooko, and she working at her embroidery. The momentthat I opened the door the man whom I had brought stepped briskly in,and bowing to the old people began to make glib excuses for the latenessof his visit, and to explain the manner in which we had picked him up. Icould not help smiling at the utter amazement expressed upon my mother'sface as she gazed at him, for the loss of his jack-boots exposed a pairof interminable spindle-shanks which were in ludicrous contrast to thebaggy low country knee-breeches which surmounted them. His tunic wasmade of coarse sad-coloured kersey stuff with flat new gilded brassbuttons, beneath which was a whitish callamanca vest edged with silver.Round the neck of his coat was a broad white collar after the Dutchfashion, out of which his long scraggy throat shot upwards with hisround head and bristle of hair balanced upon the top of it, like theturnip on a stick at which we used to throw at the fairs. In this guisehe stood blinking and winking in the glare of light, and pattering outhis excuses with as many bows and scrapes as Sir Peter Witling in theplay. I was in the act of following him into the room, when Reubenplucked at my sleeve to detain me.
'Nay, I won't come in with you, Micah,' said he; 'there's mischieflikely to come of all this. My father may grumble over his beer jugs,but he's a Churchman and a Tantivy for all that. I'd best keep out ofit.'
'You are right,' I answered. 'There is no need for you to meddle in thebusiness. Be mum as to all that you have heard.'
'Mum as a mouse,' said he, and pressing my hand turned away into thedarkness. When I returned to the sitting-room I found that my mother hadhurried into the kitchen, where the crackling of sticks showed that shewas busy in building a fire. Decimus Saxon was seated at the edge ofthe iron-bound oak chest at the side of my father, and was watching himkeenly with his little twinkling eyes, while the old man was fixinghis horn glasses and breaking the seals of the packet which his strangevisitor had just handed to him.
I saw that when my father looked at the signature at the end of thelong, closely written letter he gave a whiff of surprise and satmotionless for a moment or so staring at it. Then he turned to thecommencement and read it very carefully through, after which he turnedit over and read it again. Clearly it brought no unwelcome news, for hiseyes sparkled with joy when he looked up from his reading, and more thanonce he laughed aloud. Finally he asked the man Saxon how it had comeinto his possession, and whether he was aware of the contents.
'Why, as to that,' said the messenger, 'it was handed to me by no lessa person than Dicky Rumbold himself, and in the presence of others whomit's not for me to name. As to the contents, your own sense will tellyou that I would scarce risk my neck by bearing a message without Iknew what the message was. I am no chicken at the trade, sir. Cartels,_pronunciamientos_, challenges, flags of truce, and proposals forwaffenstillstands, as the Deutschers call it--they've all gone throughmy hands, and never one, gone awry.'
'Indeed!' quoth my father. 'You are yourself one of the faithful?'
'I trust that I am one of those who are on the narrow and thorny track,'said he, speaking through his nose, as was the habit of the extremesectaries.
'A track upon which no prelate can guide us,' said my father.
'Where man is nought and the Lord is all,' rejoined Saxon.
'Good! good!' cried my father. 'Micah, you shall take this worthy manto my room, and see that he hath dry linen, and my second-best suit ofUtrecht velvet. It may serve until his own are dried. My boots, too,may perchance be useful--my riding ones of untanned leather. A hat withsilver braiding hangs above them in the cupboard. See that he lacks fornothing which the house can furnish. Supper will be ready when he hathchanged his attire. I beg that you will go at once, good Master Saxon,lest you take a chill.'
'There is but one thing that we have omitted,' said our visitor,solemnly rising up from his chair and clasping his long nervous handstogether. 'Let us delay no longer to send up a word of praise to theAlmighty for His manifold blessings, and for the mercy wherewith Heplucked me and my letters out of the deep, even as Jonah was saved fromthe violence of the wicked ones who hurled him overboard, and it may befired falconets at him, though we are not so informed in Holy Writ. Letus pray, my friends!' Then in a high-toned chanting voice he offered upa long prayer of thanksgiving, winding up with a petition for grace andenlightenment for the house and all its inmates. Having concluded by asonorous amen, he at last suffered himself to be led upstairs; whilemy mother, who had slipped in and listened with much edification to hiswords, hurried away to prepare him a bumper of green usquebaugh with tendrops of Daffy's Elixir therein, which was her sovereign recipe againstthe effects of a soaking. There was no event in life, from a christeningto a marriage, but had some appropriate food or drink in my mother'svocabulary, and no ailment for which she had not some pleasant cure inher well-stocked cupboards.
Master Decimus Saxon in my father's black Utrecht velvet and untannedriding boots looked a very different man to the bedraggled castaway whohad crawled like a conger eel into our fishing-boat. It seemed as if hehad cast off his manner with his raiment, for he behaved to my motherduring supper with an air of demure gallantry which sat upon him betterthan the pert and flippant carriage which he had shown towards us in theboat. Truth to say, if he was now more reserved, there was a very goodreason for it, for he played such havoc amongst the eatables that therewas little time for talk. At last, after passing from the round of coldbeef to a capon pasty, and topping up with a two-pound perch, washeddown by a great jug of ale, he smiled upon us all and told us that hisfleshly necessities were satisfied for the nonce. 'It is my rule,' heremarked, 'to obey the wise precept which advises a man to rise fromtable feeling that he could yet eat as much as he has partaken of.'
'I gather from your words, sir, that you have yourself seen hardservice,' my father remarked when the board had been cleared and mymother had retired for the night.
'I am an old fighting man,' our visitor answered, screwing his pipetogether, 'a lean old dog of the hold-fast breed. This body of minebears the mark of many a cut and slash received for the most part inthe service of the Protestant faith, though some few were caught for thesake of Christendom in general when warring against the Turk. There isblood of mine, sir, Spotted all over the map of Europe. Some of it, Iconfess, was spilled in no public cause, but for the protection of mineown honour in the private duello or holmgang, as it was called among thenations of the north. It is necessary that a cavaliero of fortune, beingfor the greater part a stranger in a strange land, should be somewhatnice in matters of the sort, since he stands, as it were, as therepresentative of his country, whose good name should be more dear tohim than his own.'
'Your weapon on such occasions was, I suppose, the sword?' my fatherasked, shifting uneasily in his seat, as he would do when his oldinstincts were waking up.
'Broadsword, rapier, Toledo, spontoon, battle-axe, pike or half-pike,morgenstiern, and halbert. I speak with all due modesty, but withbacksword, sword and dagger, sword and buckler, single falchion, case offalchions, or any other such exercise, I will hold mine own against anyman that ever wore neat's leather, save only my elder brother Quartus.'
'By my faith,' said my father with his eyes shining, 'were I twentyyears younger I should have at you! My backsword play hath been thoughtwell of by stout men of war. God forgive me that my heart should stillturn to such vanities.'
'I have heard godly men speak well of it,' remarked Saxon. 'MasterRichard Rumbold himself spake of your deeds of arms to the Duke ofArgyle. Was there not a Scotsman, one Storr or Stour?'
'Ay, ay! Storr of Drumlithie. I cut him nigh to the saddle-bow in askirmish on the eve of Dunbar. So Dicky Rumbold had not forgotten it,eh? He was a hard one both at praying and at fighting. We have riddenknee to knee in the field, and we have sought truth together in thechamber. So, Dick will be in harness onc
e again! He could not be stillif a blow were to be struck for the trampled faith. If the tide of warset in this direction, I too--who knows? who knows?'
'And here is a stout man-at-arms,' said Saxon, passing his hand down myarm.' He hath thew and sinew, and can use proud words too upon occasion,as I have good cause to know, even in our short acquaintance. Might itnot be that he too should strike in this quarrel?'
'We shall discuss it,' my father answered, looking thoughtfully at mefrom under his heavy brows. 'But I pray you, friend Saxon, to give ussome further account upon these matters. My son Micah, as I understand,hath picked you out of the waves. How came you there?'
Decimus Saxon puffed at his pipe for a minute or more in silence, as onewho is marshalling facts each in its due order.
'It came about in this wise,' he said at last. 'When John of Polandchased the Turk from the gates of Vienna, peace broke out in thePrincipalities, and many a wandering cavaliero like myself found hisoccupation gone. There was no war waging save only some petty Italianskirmish, in which a soldier could scarce expect to reap either dollarsor repute, so I wandered across the Continent, much cast down at thestrange peace which prevailed in every quarter. At last, however, onreaching the Lowlands, I chanced to hear that the _Providence_, ownedand commanded by my two brothers, Nonus and Quartus, was about to startfrom Amsterdam for an adventure to the Guinea coast. I proposed to themthat I should join them, and was accordingly taken into partnership oncondition that I paid one-third of the cost of the cargo. While waitingat the port I chanced to come across some of the exiles, who, havingheard of my devotion to the Protestant cause, brought me to the Duke andto Master Rumbold, who committed these letters to my charge. This makesit clear how they came into my possession.'
'But not how you and they came into the water,' my father suggested.
'Why, that was but the veriest chance,' the adventurer answered withsome little confusion of manner. 'It was the _fortuna belli_, or moreproperly _pacis_. I had asked my brothers to put into Portsmouth that Imight get rid of these letters, on which they replied in a boorish andunmannerly fashion that they were still waiting for the thousand guineaswhich represented my share of the venture. To this I answered withbrotherly familiarity that it was a small thing, and should be paidfor out of the profits of our enterprise. Their reply was I that I hadpromised to pay the money down, and that money down they must have. Ithen proceeded to prove, both by the Aristotelian and by the Platonicor deductive method, that having no guineas in my possession it wasimpossible for me to produce a thousand of them, at the same timepointing out that the association of an honest man in the business wasin itself an ample return for the money, since their own reputations hadbeen somewhat blown on. I further offered in the same frank and friendlyspirit to meet either of them with sword or with pistol, a proposalwhich should have satisfied any honour-loving Cavaliero. Their basemercantile souls prompted them, however, to catch up two muskets, one ofwhich Nonus discharged at me, and it is likely that Quartus would havefollowed suit had I not plucked the gun from his hand and unloaded it toprevent further mischief. In unloading it I fear that one of the slugsblew a hole in brother Nonus. Seeing that there was a chance of furtherdisagreements aboard the vessel, I at once decided to leave her, indoing which I was forced to kick off my beautiful jack-boots, which weresaid by Vanseddars himself to be he finest pair that ever went out ofhis shop, square-toed, double-soled--alas! alas!'
'Strange that you should have been picked up by the son of the very manto whom you had a letter.'
'The working of Providence,' Saxon answered. 'I have two-and-twentyother letters which must all be delivered by hand. If you will permit meto use your house for a while, I shall make it my headquarters.'
'Use it as though it were your own,' said my father.
'Your most grateful servant, sir,' he cried, jumping up and bowingwith his hand over his heart. 'This is indeed a haven of rest after theungodly and profane company of my brothers. Shall we then put up a hymn,and retire from the business of the day?'
My father willingly agreed, and we sang 'Oh, happy land!' after whichour visitor followed me to his room, bearing with him the unfinishedbottle of usquebaugh which my mother had left on the table. He took itwith him, he explained, as a precaution against Persian ague, contractedwhile battling against the Ottoman, and liable to recur at strangemoments. I left him in our best spare bedroom, and returned to myfather, who was still seated, heavy with thought, in his old corner.
'What think you of my find, Dad?' I asked.
'A man of parts and of piety,' he answered; 'but in truth he has broughtme news so much after my heart, that he could not be unwelcome were hethe Pope of Rome.'
'What news, then?'
'This, this!' he cried joyously, plucking the letter out of his bosom.'I will read it to you, lad. Nay, perhaps I had best sleep the nightupon it, and read it to-morrow when our heads are clearer. May the Lordguide my path, and confound the tyrant! Pray for light, boy, for my lifeand yours may be equally at stake.'