Eugene Aram — Complete

“Safe—ay! indeed, Jock, I hope so too. Has all been quiet here this last night or two?”

“Whish, Sir!” whispered my host, jerking his thumb back towards the house; “there be two ugly customers within I does not know: they have got famous good horses, and are drinking hard. I can’t say as I knows any thing agen ‘em, but I think your honours had better be jogging.”

“Aha! thank ye, Jock, thank ye. Never mind the hay now,” said Sir Peter, pulling away the reluctant mouth of his nag; and turning to Walter, “Come, Sir, let us move on. Why, zounds! where is that servant of yours?”

Walter now perceived, with great vexation, that the Corporal had disappeared within the alehouse; and looking through the casement, on which the ruddy light of the fire played cheerily, he saw the man of the world lifting a little measure of “the pure creature” to his lips; and close by the hearth, at a small, round table, covered with glasses, pipes, he beheld two men eyeing the tall Corporal very wistfully, and of no prepossessing appearance themselves. One, indeed, as the fire played full on his countenance, was a person of singularly rugged and sinister features; and this man, he now remarked, was addressing himself with a grim smile to the Corporal, who, setting down his little “noggin,” regarded him with a stare, which appeared to Walter to denote recognition. This survey was the operation of a moment; for Sir Peter took it upon himself to despatch the landlord into the house, to order forth the unseasonable carouser; and presently the Corporal stalked out, and having solemnly remounted, the whole trio set onward in a brisk trot. As soon as they were without sight of the ale-house, the Corporal brought the aquiline profile of his gaunt steed on a level with his master’s horse.

“Augh, Sir!” said he, with more than his usual energy of utterance, “I see’d him!”

“Him! whom?”

“Man with ugly face what drank at Peter Dealtry’s, and knew Master Aram,—knew him in a crack,—sure he’s a Tartar!”

“What! does your servant recognize one of those suspicious fellows whom Jock warned us against?” cried Sir Peter, pricking up his ears.

“So it seems, Sir,” said Walter: “he saw him once before, many miles hence; but I fancy he knows nothing really to his prejudice.”

“Augh!” cried the Corporal; “he’s d—d ugly any how!”

“That’s a tall fellow of yours,” said Sir Peter, jerking up his chin with that peculiar motion common to the brief in stature, when they are covetous of elongation. “He looks military:—has he been in the army? Ay, I thought so; one of the King of Prussia’s grenadiers, I suppose? Faith, I hear hoofs behind!”

“Hem!” cried the Corporal, again coming alongside of his master. “Beg pardon, Sir—served in the 42nd—nothing like regular line—stragglers always cut off—had rather not straggle just now—enemy behind!”

Walter looked back, and saw two men approaching them at a hand-gallop. “We are a match at least for them, Sir,” said he, to his new acquaintance.

“I am devilish glad I met you,” was Sir Peter’s rather selfish reply.

“‘Tis he! ‘tis the devil!” grunted the Corporal, as the two men now gained their side and pulled up; and Walter recognised the faces he had marked in the ale-house.

“Your servant, gentlemen,” quoth the uglier of the two; “you ride fast—”

“And ready;—bother—baugh!” chimed in the Corporal, plucking a gigantic pistol from his holster, without any farther ceremony.

“Glad to hear it, Sir!” said the hard-featured Stranger, nothing dashed. “But I can tell you a secret!”

“What’s that—augh?” said the Corporal, cocking his pistol.

“Whoever hurts you, friend, cheats the gallows!” replied the stranger, laughing, and spurring on his horse, to be out of reach of any practical answer with which the Corporal might favour him. But Bunting was a prudent man, and not apt to be choleric.

“Bother!” said he, and dropped his pistol, as the other stranger followed his ill-favoured comrade.

“You see we are too strong for them!” cried Sir Peter, gaily; “evidently highwaymen! How very fortunate that I should have fallen in with you!”

A shower of rain now began to fall. Sir Peter looked serious—he halted abruptly—unbuckled his cloak, which had been strapped before his saddle—wrapped himself up in it—buried his face in the collar—muffled his chin with a red handkerchief, which he took out of his pocket, and then turning to Walter, he said to him, “What! no cloak, Sir? no wrapper even? Upon my soul I am very sorry I have not another handkerchief to lend you!”

“Man of the world—baugh!” grunted the Corporal, and his heart quite warmed to the stranger he had at first taken for a robber.

“And now, Sir,” said Sir Peter, patting his nag, and pulling up his cloak-collar still higher, “let us go gently; there is no occasion for hurry. Why distress our horses?—”

“Really, Sir,” said Walter, smiling, “though I have a great regard for my horse, I have some for myself; and I should rather like to be out of this rain as soon as possible.”

“Oh, ah! you have no cloak. I forgot that; to be sure—to be sure, let us trot on, gently—though—gently. Well, Sir, as I was saying, horses are not so swift as they were. The breed is bought up by the French! I remember once, Johnny Courtland and I, after dining at my house, till the champagne had played the dancing-master to our brains, mounted our horses, and rode twenty miles for a cool thousand the winner. I lost it, Sir, by a hair’s breadth; but I lost it on purpose; it would have half ruined Johnny Courtland to have paid me, and he had that delicacy, Sir,—he had that delicacy, that he would not have suffered me to refuse taking his money,—so what could I do, but lose on purpose? You see I had no alternative!”

“Pray, Sir,” said Walter, charmed and astonished at so rare an instance of the generosity of human friendships—“Pray, Sir, did I not hear you called Sir Peter, by the landlord of the little inn? can it be, since you speak so familiarly of Mr. Courtland, that I have the honour to address Sir Peter Hales?”

“Indeed that is my name,” replied the gentleman, with some surprise in his voice. “But I have never had the honour of seeing you before.”

“Perhaps my name is not unfamiliar to you,” said Walter. “And among my papers I have a letter addressed to you from my uncle Rowland Lester.

“God bless me!” cried Sir Peter, “What Rowy!—well, indeed I am overjoyed to hear of him. So you are his nephew? Pray tell me all about him, a wild, gay, rollicking fellow still, eh?” Always fencing, sa—sa! or playing at billiards, or hot in a steeple chace; there was not a jollier, better-humoured fellow in the world than Rowy Lester.

“You forget, Sir Peter,” said Walter, laughing at a description so unlike his sober and steady uncle, “that some years have passed since the time you speak of.”

“Ah, and so there have,” replied Sir Peter; “and what does your uncle say of me?”

“That, when he knew you, you were generosity, frankness, hospitality itself.”

“Humph, humph!” said Sir Peter, looking extremely disconcerted, a confusion which Walter imputed solely to modesty. “I was hairbrained foolish fellow then, quite a boy, quite a boy; but bless me, it rains sharply, and you have no cloak. But we are close on the town now. An excellent inn is the ‘Duke of Cumberland’s Head,’ you will have charming accommodation there.”

“What, Sir Peter, you know this part of the country well!”

“Pretty well, pretty well; indeed I live near, that is to say not very far from, the town. This turn, if you please. We separate here. I have brought you a little out of your way—not above a mile or two—for fear the robbers should attack me if I was left alone. I had quite forgot you had no cloak. That’s your road—this mine. Aha! so Rowy Lester is still alive and hearty, the same excellent, wild fellow, no doubt. Give my kindest remembrance to him when you write. Adieu, Sir.”

This latter speech having been delivered during a halt, the Corporal had heard it: he grinned delightedly as he touched his hat to Sir Peter, who now trotted off, and muttered to his young master:—

“Most sensible man, that, Sir!”

CHAPTER VI.

SIR PETER DISPLAYED.—ONE MAN OF THE WORLD SUFFERS FROM

ANOTHER.—THE INCIDENT OF THE BRIDLE BEGETS THE INCIDENT OF

THE SADDLE; THE INCIDENT OF THE SADDLE BEGETS THE INCIDENT OF

THE WHIP; THE INCIDENT OF THE WHIP BEGETS WHAT THE READER MUST

READ TO SEE

Nihil est aliud magnum quam multa minuta.

    —Vetus Auctor.

[Nor is their anything that hath so great a power as the aggregate of small things.]

“And so,” said Walter, the next morning to the head waiter, who was busied about their preparations for breakfast; “and so, Sir Peter Hales, you say, lives within a mile of the town?”

“Scarcely a mile, Sir,—black or green? you passed the turn to his house last night;—Sir, the eggs are quite fresh this morning. This inn belongs to Sir Peter.”