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 postboy. 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 awhile 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! Oh, 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 (which 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; and 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 St.-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 twopence 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!
