Shrewsbury: A Romance

True, as soon as the half-muddled brains of the company took in the fact that the door was open, and a stranger standing on the threshold-which they were not quick to discern owing to the cloud of tobacco-smoke that filled the room-nine-tenths quavered off into silence and gaped at me; that proportion of the company having still the sense to recognise the risk they were running, and to apprehend that judgment had taken them in the act. Two men in particular, older than the rest-the one a fat, infirm fellow with a pallid face and the air of a rich citizen, the other a peevish, red-eyed atomy in a green fur-lined coat-were of this party. They had not, I think, been of the happiest before, seated in the midst of that crew; but now, sinking back in their high-backed chairs, they stared at me as if I carried death in my face. A neighbour of theirs, however, went beyond them; for, with a howl that the Secretary was on them and the officers were below, he kicked over his chair and dashed for a window, pausing only when he had thrown it up.

But with all this the recklessness of some was evident: for while I stood, uncertain to whom to speak, one of the more drunken staggered from his seat, and giving a shrill view-halloa that might have been heard in Bedford House, made towards me with a cup in his hand.

"Drink!" he cried, with a hiccough as he forced it upon me. "Drink! To the squeezing of the Rotten Orange! Drink, man, or you are no friend of ours, but a snivelling, sneaking, white-faced son of a Dutchman like your master! So drink, and-Eh, what is it? What is the matter?"

CHAPTER XIX

It was no small thing could enlighten that brain clouded by the fumes of drink and conceit; but the silence, perfect and clothing panic-a silence that had set in with his first word, and a panic that had grown with a whisper passed round the table-came home to him at last. "What is it? What is the matter?" he cried, with a silly drunken laugh. And he turned to look.

No one answered; but he saw the sight which I had already seen-his fellows fallen from him, and huddled on the farther side of the table, as sheep huddle from the sheep-dog; some pale, cross-eyed, and with lips drawn back, seeking softly in their cloaks for weapons; others standing irresolute, or leaning against the wall, shaking and unnerved.

Cooled, but not sobered by the sight, he turned to me again. "Won't he drink the toast?" he maundered, in an uncertain voice. "Why-why not, I'd like to know. Eh? Why not?" he repeated; and staggered.

At that someone in the crowd laughed hysterically; and this breaking the spell, a second found his voice. "Gad! It is not the man!" the latter cried with a rattling oath. "It is all right! I swear it is! Here you, speak, fool!" he went on to me. "What do you here?"

"This for Mr. Wilkins," I answered, holding out my note.

I meant no jest, but the words supplied the signal for such a roar of laughter as well-nigh lifted the roof. The men were still between drunk and sober; and in the rebound of their relief staggered and clung to one another, and bent this way and that in a paroxysm of convulsive mirth. Vainly one or two, less heady than their fellows, essayed to stay a tumult that promised to rouse the watchmen; it was not until after a considerable interval-nor until the more drunken had laughed their fill, and I had asked myself a hundred times if these were men to be trusted with secrets and others' necks-that the man with the white handkerchief, who had just entered, gained silence and a hearing. This done, however, he rated his fellows with the utmost anger and contempt; the two elderly gentlemen whom I have mentioned, adding their quavering, passionate remonstrances to his. But as in this kind of association there can be little discipline, and those are most forward who have least to lose, the hotheads only looked silly for a moment, and the next were calling for more liquor.

"Not a bottle!" said he of the white handkerchief, "Nom de dieu, not a bottle!"

"Come, Captain, we are not on service now," quoth one.

"Aren't you?" said he, looking darkly at them.

"No, not we!" cried the other recklessly, "and what is more, we will have no 'Regiment du Roi' regulations here! Is not a gentleman to have a second bottle if he wants one?"

"It is twelve o'clock," replied the Captain. "For the love of Heaven, man, wait till this business is over; and then drink until you burst, if you please! For me, I am going to bed."

"But who is this-lord! I don't know what to call him!" the fellow retorted, turning to me with a half-drunken gesture. "This Gentleman Dancing Master?"

"A messenger from the old Fox: Mr. – Taylor, I think he calls himself?" and the officer turned to me.

"Yes," said I.

"Well, you may go. Tell the gentleman who sent you that Wilkins got his note, and will bear the matter in mind."

I said I would; and was going with that, and never more glad than to be out of that company. But the fellow who had asked who I was, and who, being thwarted of his drink, was out of temper, called rudely to know where I got my wig, and who rigged me out like a lord; swearing that Ferguson's service must be a d-d deal better than the one he was in, and the pay higher than a poor trooper's.

This gave the cue to the man who had before forced the drink on me; who, still having the cup in his hand, thrust himself in my way, and forcing the liquor on me so violently that he spilled some over my coat, vowed that though all the Scotch colonels in the world barred the way, I should drink his toast, or he would skewer me.

"To Saturday's work! A straight eye and a firm hand!" he cried. "Drink man, drink! For a hunting we will go, and a hunting we will go! And if we don't flush the game at Turnham Green, call me a bungler!"

I heard one of the elder men protest, with something between a curse and a groan, that the fool would proclaim it at Charing Cross next; but, thinking only to be gone (and the man being so drunk that it was evident resistance would but render him more obstinate, and imperil my skin), I took the cup and drank, and gave it back to him. By that time two or three of the more prudent-if any in that company could be called prudent-had risen and joined us; who when he would have given another toast, forced him away, scolding him soundly for a leaky chatterer, and a fool who would ruin all with the drink.

Freed from his importunities, I waited for no second permission; but got me out and down the stairs. At the foot of which the landlord's scared face and the waiting, watching eyes of the drawers and servants, who still lingered there, listening, put the last touch to the picture of madness and recklessness I had witnessed above. Here were informers and evidences ready to hand and more than enough, if the beggars in the street, and the orange girls, and night walkers who prowled the market were not sufficient, to bring home to its authors the treason they bawled and shouted overhead.

The thought that such rogues should endanger my neck, and good, honest men's necks, made my blood run cold and hot at once; hot, when I thought of their folly, cold, when I recalled Mr. Ashton executed in '90 for carrying treasonable letters, or Anderton, betrayed, and done to death for printing the like. I could understand Ferguson's methods; they had reason in them, and if I hated them and loathed them, they were not so very dangerous. For he had disguises and many names and lodgings, and lurked from one to another under cover of night; and if he sowed treason, he sowed it stealthily and in darkness, with all the adjuncts which prudence and tradition dictated; he boasted to those only whom he had in his power, and used the like instruments. But the outbreak of noisy, rampant, reckless rebellion which I had witnessed-and which it seemed to me must be known to all London within twenty-four hours-filled me with panic. It so put me beside myself, that when the girl who had employed me on that errand met me in the street, I cursed her and would have passed her; being unable to say another word, lest I should weep. But she turned with me, and keeping pace with me asked me continually what it was; and getting no answer, by-and-by caught my arm, and forced me to stand in the passage beyond Bedford House and close to the Strand. Here she repeated her question so fiercely-asking me besides if I were mad, and the like-and showed herself such a termagant, that I had no option but to answer her.

"Mad?" I cried, passionately. "Aye, I am mad-to have anything to do with such as you."

"But what is it? What has happened?" she persisted, peering at me; and so barring the way that I could not pass.

"Could you not hear?"

"I could hear that they were drinking," she answered. "I knew that, and therefore I thought that you should go to them."

"And run the risk?"

"Well, you are a man," she answered coolly.

At that I stood so taken aback-for she spoke it with meaning and a sort of sting-that for a minute I did not answer her. Then, "Is not a man's life as much to him, as a woman's is to her?" I said with indignation.

"A man's!" she replied. "Aye, but not a mouse's! I will tell you what, Mr. Taylor, or Mr. Price, or whatever your name is-"

"Call me what you like!" I said. "Only let me go!"

"Then I will call you Mr. Craven!" she retorted bitterly. "Or Mr. Daw in Peacock's feathers. And let you go. Go, go, you coward! Go, you craven!"

It was not the most gracious permission, and stung me; but I took it sullenly, and getting away from her went down the passage towards the Strand, leaving her there; not gladly, although to go had been all I had asked a moment before. No man, indeed, could have more firmly resolved to wrench himself from the grasp of the gang whose tool this little spitfire was; nor to a man bred to peaceful pursuits (as I had been) and flung into such an imbroglio as this-wherein to dance on nothing seemed to be the alternative whichever way I looked-was it a matter of so much consequence to be called coward by a child, that I must hesitate for that. Add to this, that the place and time, a dingy passage on a dark night with rain falling and a chill wind blowing, and none abroad but such as honest men would avoid, were not incentives to rashness or adventure.

And yet-and yet when it came to going, nullis vestigiis retrorsum, as the Latins say, I proved to be either too much or too little of a man, these arguments notwithstanding; too little of a man to weigh reason justly against pride, or too much of a man to hear with philosophy a girl's taunt. When I had gone fifty yards, therefore, I halted; and then in a moment, went back. Not slowly, however, but in a gust of irritation; so that for a very little I could have struck the girl for the puling face and helplessness that gave her an advantage over me. I found her in the same place, and asked her roughly what she wanted.

"A man," she said.

"Well," I answered sullenly, "what is it?"

"Have I found one? that is the question," she retorted keenly. And at that again, I could have had it in my heart to strike her across her scornful face. "My uncle is at least a man."

"He is a bad one, curse him!" I cried in a fury.

She looked at me coolly. "That is better," she said. "If your deeds were of a piece with your words you would be no man's slave. His least of all, Mr. Price!"

"You talk finely," I said, my passion cooling, as I began to read a covert meaning in her tone and words, and that she would be at something. "It comes well from you, who do his errands day and night!"

"Or find someone to do them," she answered with derision.

"Well, after this you will have to find someone else," I cried, warming again.

"Ah, if you would keep your word!" she cried in a different tone, clapping her hands softly, and peering at me. "If you would keep your word."

Seeing more clearly than ever that she would be at something, and wishing to know what it was, "Try me," I said. "What do you mean?"

"It is plain," she answered, "what I mean. Carry no more messages! Be sneak and spy no longer! Cease to put your head in a noose to serve rogues' ends! Have done, man, with cringing and fawning, and trembling at big words. Break off with these villains who hold you, put a hundred miles between you and them, and be yourself! Be a man!"

"Why, do you mean your uncle?" I cried, vastly surprised.

"Why not?" she said.