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 anintolerable period, although I suppose actually the time was less thanan hour, when we passed through the gates of a great house. When theporter came out of his lodge to let us through, and held his lanternagainst the iron-work, I observed that the device of the family wroughttherein had a strangely familiar appearance. There was something aboutthe porter too that awoke all sorts of remote recollections in my mind.As we went along the paths, even the situation of the trees thatskirted them added to this impression. And when we came at last on tothe lawn, and the house itself was clearly exposed in the moonlight, acry of surprise almost escaped my lips, for the place had once been myown.
It was a house in which a great part of my boyhood had been spent, andone that I had inherited at my father's death. It was but a littlewhile that it remained in my hands, however, for one night, having lostmuch more than I cared about over a game of piquet, I think it was, ina desperate attempt to retrieve my fortunes, I staked this precioushouse upon the cards and lost it also, to a fellow as reckless asmyself. It is impossible to say, therefore, what my emotions were atthis my strange return to the home of my childhood, and the seat formany a generation of those whose name I bore. But I think that thefirst moment of recognition over, my tendency was towards laughter, forcould anything have been more comical than that I should be brought insuch a company, and on such a charge, to this of all the places in theworld?
Even the fellow who replied to the summons on the great hall-door, Iremembered nearly as well as my own father, for I ought to tell youthat servants, furniture and plate had passed over with the property.We were kept waiting without whilst the head-constable or chief officeramong our captors went in to confer with the magistrate. In the end itwas decided that we should be brought before the justice in person. Hewas said to have been a prime mover in the matter from the first, andwas highly incensed against the unfortunate gypsies.
"We could not have come to a worse place," said my friend theflute-player, who stood beside me. "This is the house of Sir ThomasWheatley, a hard man, and the biggest enemy to us poor folk of any oneabout. If his name and interest count for anything, we shall all of usinfallibly be hanged."
There were eight of us prisoners, and we were presently led into SirThomas's presence. When we were brought into the fine dining-room thatI knew so well, every inch of which was so familiar to me, in whichevery object of vertu and article of furniture was a thing so wellrecollected that even in this predicament I could not refrain fromregarding them with pride and affection, how can I indicate the floodof emotions that surged in my head? After all, a man in the depths ofhis 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 cheeksand the somewhat puffed appearance of his body. He was a middling sortof man in every way; middling in his stature, in his mind and in hischaracter, and more especially so, as we were to discover, in histhoughts and ideas. He affected the very nicest style of the squire inhis dress, was highly formal in his deportment; and he sat playingcards with another fellow, apparently not so much for the amusement ofhimself or the entertainment of his friend, but rather as one whofollowed a dignified occupation in a dignified way. In his every word,gesture and motion he had an indescribable air of one sitting for hispicture. He was in a towering rage, it is true, but it was a rage thatappeared not to spring from the heat of his blood, for he was of thatlethargic habit, which does not rise to heats of any sort. He was in atowering rage, because it was expected of one of his position andsentiments to be in one at such a time. Therefore, when we poorprisoners had been ranged along the wall, he put down his cards withgreat deliberation, slowly wheeled his chair round towards us, puttogether 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 mostrichly merit a hanging. And a hanging you shall get if there is anylaw 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 hopeyou are mightily ashamed of yourselves, you wicked, blackamoorvillains."
"Can you not see that they are, good Tommie?" says the man with whom hewas playing at cards. "They are as ashamed as the devil was when hesinged the hairs on his tail through overheating his parlour."
The solemn justice was somewhat shocked at this piece of levity. Hefrowned at his companion, and coughed to cover his annoyance. The manwho had spoken to this disconcerting tenor appeared rather a singularfellow. It was difficult to say who or what he might be. Of a rathermassive frame, he had a countenance that recommended him to thecurious. His features were large and bold, with an aquiline nose, adevil of a chin, and a short upper lip. His face shone with wassailand intemperate excess; there was a deal of sensuality in it, and morethan a suggestion of coarseness, but it was for none of these thingsthat it was remarkable. There was something besides that was bafflingand indescribable to a degree, that drew one's attention to it againand again. It was a face of marvellous humorous animation, with themockery of a devil and the candour of a saint. It was as prodigal ofwit as it was of appetite; of majesty and mischief; of impudence andnobility. It was the face of a poet and a sot. Here, apparently, wasa great heart, a humane spirit overlaid with flesh and infirmities. Ithink I was never so arrested by a countenance before, and certainlynever more puzzled by one.
"Why do you propose to hang these gentlemen, Tommie?" says thiswhimsical fellow, with a mockery in his eyes and a curl of the lip thatmade the justice more uncomfortable than ever. "Have they picked a fewhazel-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 itscourse. Even if it could overlook the rape of the mutton, it couldnever condone the colour of their hair. _Lex citius tolerare vultprivatum damnum quam publicum malum_. There you are as pat andpragmatical as Marcus Tullius Cicero. I tell you, Tommie, the worldlost a great lawyer when I became a hackney writer."
While this was going forward I had collected a few of my wits and haddetermined on the course to pursue. Unless by hook or by crook I couldseize these precious moments prior to our committal to prison in whichto 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, andonce before a judge I must prove myself to be the one before I couldprove I was not the other. Therefore I boldly seized the occasion.
"I beg your worship's pardon," says I, humbly; "but surely you will notcommit a man without evidence? And there is not a tittle of evidenceagainst me. I am neither a gypsy nor a sheep-stealer."
I was several times interrupted in the course of this little address byone of our custodians, who continued to pluck at my sleeve, andenjoined me in audible whispers to hold my impertinent tongue. Thejustice was astounded by my audacity in daring to address him, and grewas red and pompous as a turkey-cock.
"How dare you, fellow, talk to me?" says he. "If I had the power Iwould 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 ofHector; ye speak like Priam's son. How dare the fellow ask to hear theevidence when you have had the magnanimity to commit him without it?Does he forget too that when innocence ceases to suffer it will nolonger 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 toohigh and mighty to imperil his preconceived opinions by entering intothe merits of the matter. He was too lofty to a
rgue; too swollen withself-esteem to be affronted with facts. All persons who were broughtbefore him must be guilty of some crime or other, otherwise they wouldnot have come there; and he held that he had discharged his office withcredit to himself and with profit to his country when he hadimpartially committed them to gaol. I soon came to the conclusiontherefore that it would be impossible to prevail on a man of this mouldwith a simple relation of the case, or expect to meet with anysuggestion of justice at his hands. I must try a more uncompromisingmethod; and that an exceedingly bold one. I must prove to him beyondall doubt that I was far other than an ignorant gypsy, taking the riskof the revelation of my true identity, and any consequences that mightensue. For that matter if I must go to gaol, I might just as well gothere in the role of the defaulting nobleman as in that of thelarcenous vagabond.
Disregarding all attempts on the part of the officers of the law torestrain me, I gazed about the spacious apartment with the air I mighthave worn had it still belonged to me, and says: "The old place is justas it was, I see. But, my good Sir Thomas, it grieves me to observethat you have put your fat aunt by the side of a Rubens; and that youhave not scrupled to set a pompous citizen in a tie-wig, who, to judgeby a certain consanguinity of expression and countenance, was theillustrous man your father and a cheesemonger at that, cheek by jowlwith one of Vandyck's gentlemen."
The justice was too incensed by this audacious speech to find wordswith which to reply to it. He spluttered and stuttered himself to theverge of an apoplexy. His friend took it far otherwise, however.
"A hit, a palpable hit," says he, laughing heartily. "I never heard aripe thought better expressed. And, damn it, Tommie, you deserve ittoo. Your fat aunt, and your illustrious father the cheesemonger in atie-wig, ha, ha, ha! Our friend of the black eye and the bloodycountenance 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 isso monstrous good that I vow and I protest he must drink a glass ofclaret."
Thereupon he countermanded the justice's order with a certain easy airof authority that was natural to him, which carried more weight thanall the assumption of the magistrate. This strange fellow, stillchuckling, poured out a glass of wine from one of several bottles thatadorned the table, and leaving his seat carried it over to me, despitethe fact that he hobbled very badly with the gout. When he stood up hewas wonderfully imposing, being more than six feet tall, with anappearance of perfect breeding and majesty, for all his profligatelooks and his free, laughing, jovial, devil-may-care manners. As heoffered me the glass of claret with a charming grace, I looked down atthe cords that so tightly secured my wrists with an air of humorousdeprecation.
"Here, hold this, and keep your long nose clear of the rim," says he,putting the wine into the hands of the astonished head-constable. Hethen drew a knife from his pocket, and without more ado cut off myfetters. As he did so an honest indignation seemed to run in himsuddenly.
"What a dirty way to treat a gentleman!" he said. "But you must excusethese low fellows; they are not to blame. They have no discretion butsimply to follow their calling. They only know a hog by his bristles."
"As a former _custos rotulorum_ for the county of Wilts, none knowsthat better than I, sir. But I am vastly obliged to you, vastlyobliged."
Thereupon I drank the glass he so kindly handed to me.
"My dear sir," says he, with another great laugh, "that was not thework of a tyro. There was a neatness and a deftness in the manner ofit that must have cost you at least ten thousand liftings of the elbowto acquire. You are as good to drink with as to talk to. I'faith youmust do me the honour of sitting at table, for you are a three-bottleman, or I have never seen one in the world."
You may be sure that I was nothing loth to accept an invitation thatwas as unexpected as it was desirable. The bewilderment of thejustice, the constable and his men, and the poor gypsies too, wasboundless as I briskly followed this extraordinary gentleman when hehobbled back to his chair, and promptly ensconced my disreputable selfin one of the high-backed oaken seats of my forefathers, now socourteously placed at my disposal. While he proceeded to refill myglass and his own too, the scandalized magistrate very naturallyexpostulated in the most vehement manner.
"Why, Harry, God save us all!" he cried, "have you gone horn-mad? Itis the most outrageous thing that ever was perpetrated. I vow andprotest, Harry, that you are gone stark mad to bring a thief and agypsy to my table to share your cups. It is unbearable, Harry, and'fore God I will not have it. When this gets wind in the county theywill deride me to death. Lord, I shall get struck off thejustice-roll."
"Your petitioner will ever pray," says Harry, while simultaneously weraised the distraught justice's good claret to our lips.
Taking my cue from the familiarity of my entertainer, I threw asiderestraint and adopted the attitude of a guest in lieu of the humblerone of a prisoner. Continuing to gaze about completely at my ease,says I, with that frank criticism that had been formerly so effective:
"Things are no longer what they were. This place hath deterioratedsince I was in it last. The city creeps into the ancestral hall;cheesemongery obtrudes itself. Where formerly there were Old Mastersand French Tales, there are now Bibles and bad prints. But I rejoiceto see that some few of my ancestors are still faithful to theirold-time haunt. My parents, my grand parents, my uncles, my cousinsand my aunts, Vandycks, Lelys, and Knellers, and the devil knows who,are still assembled here, even to the replica of Sir Peter's picture ofthat nobleman, most illustrious of his race, who made a Commentary onthe _Analects of Confucius_, the original of which I last saw in theshop of a Jew dealer the other day."
My singular acquaintance with the contents of his dining-room,evidently far more extensive than his own, was not without its effecton the justice.
"What is the meaning of all this, Harry?" he asked of my benefactor."What is the fel----what is the man talking of? What does the man meanby his ancestors? Who ever heard such impudence, such effrontery?"
"Well, Tommie," says his frank friend, "I'll lay my last guinea that hehath more right to call them his ancestors than their present owner."
"A murrain take you," says the justice, more purple than before, forthis was a stab in a tender place. "Will you never learn to controlyour infernally long tongue? And yet again must I ask you not toaddress me as Tommie when I am in the exercise of my high functions.Thomas if you like, or my full title would be still better on theseoccasions. The King would not have conferred it upon me, were it notdesigned for use, and that he desired I should profit by it."
His friend nearly choked himself with laughter long before the justicehad come through this solemn homily. Indeed he could not recover hisbreath until he had poured himself out another glass of wine, and hadrefilled mine.
"You will kill me of laughing, Tommie, one of these days," says he."If it were not that your claret is as good as any for thirty milesround London, I would never come near you. How a man can keep such agood table and yet such a poor understanding is a thing I have neverfathomed. But I protest you will certainly kill me if you do not amendyour mind a little."
"Harry," says the justice sternly. "I can never understand how it isthat a grandson of the Earl of Denbigh, and a person of undeniablefamily and descent, should have such ungenteel manners."
"Damn the Earl of Denbigh," says Harry, banging his fist on the table,"and you too, Tommie. You can no more keep that fly out of theointment, than a pig can his snout out of the muck."
"What, sir," says I eagerly, "are you also cursed with a grandfather?"
"Aye, to be sure I am," says he. "Though I'll thank no man that nameshim. If it were not for my grandfather I could go to the devil in myown way."
"Why, my dear sir," says I, "never were there two such brothers inmisfortune. Your case is the very counterpart of mine."