Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/301

288 woman’s malady, as she protested against admitting fever into her house, seeing that she had to consider her guests.

“We’re open to all the world to-night, except fever,” said the hostess. “Yes,” she rejoined to Evan’s order that the waggoner and his mate should be supplied with ale, “they shall have as much as they can drink,” which is not a speech usual at inns, when one man gives an order for others, but Evan passed it by, and politely begged to be shown in to one of the gentlemen who had engaged bed-rooms.

“Oh! if you can persuade any of them, sir, I’m sure I’ve nothing to say,” observed the hostess. “Pray don’t ask me to stand by and back it, that’s all.”

Had Evan been familiar with the Green Dragon, he would have noticed that the landlady, its presiding genius, was stiffer than usual; the rosy smile was more constrained, as if a great host had to be embraced, and were trying it to the utmost stretch. There was, however, no asperity about her, and when she had led him to the door he was to enter to prefer his suit, and she had asked whether the young woman was quite common, and he had replied that he had picked her up on the road, and that she was certainly poor, the hostess said:

“I’m sure you’re a very good gentleman, sir, and if I could spare your asking at all, I would.”

With that she went back to encounter Mr. Raikes and his charge, and prime the waggoner and his mate.

A noise of laughter and talk was stilled gradually, as Evan made his bow into a spacious room, wherein, as the tops of pines are seen swimming on the morning mist, about a couple of dozen guests of divers conditions sat partially revealed through wavy clouds of tobacco-smoke. By their postures, which Evan’s appearance by no means disconcerted, you read in a glance men who had been at ease for so many hours that they had no troubles in the world save the two ultimate perplexities of the British Sybarite, whose bed of roses is harassed by the pair of problems: first, what to do with his legs: secondly, how to imbibe liquor with the slightest possible derangement of those members subordinate to his upper structure. Of old the Sybarite complained. Not so our self-helpful islanders. Since they could not, now that work was done, and jollity the game, take off their legs (a mechanical contrivance overlooked by Nature, who should have made Britons like the rest of her children in all things, if unable to suit us in all), they got away from them as far as they might, in fashions original or imitative: some by thrusting them out at full length; some by cramping them under their chairs: while some, taking refuge in a mental effort, forgot them, a process to be recommended if it did not involve occasional pangs of consciousness to the legs of their neighbours. We see in our cousins West of the great water, who are said to exaggerate our peculiarities, beings labouring under the same difficulty, and intent on its solution. As to the second problem: that of drinking without discomposure to the subservient limbs: the company present worked out this republican principle ingeniously, but in a manner beneath the attention of the Muse. Let Clio record that mugs and glasses, tobacco and pipes, were strewn upon the table. But if the guests had arrived at that stage when to reach the arm, or arrange the person, for a sip of good stuff, causes moral debates, and presents to the mind impediments equal to what would be raised in active men by the prospect of a great excursion, it is not to be wondered at that the presence of a stranger produced no immediate commotion. Two or three heads were half-turned; such as faced him imperceptibly lifted their eyelids.

“Good evening, sir,” said one who sat as chairman, with a decisive nod.

“Good night, ain’t it?” a jolly-looking old fellow queried of the speaker, in an under-voice.

’Gad, you don’t expect me to be wishing the gentleman good-bye, do you?” retorted the former.

“Ha! ha! No, to be sure,” answered the old boy; and the remark was variously uttered, that “Good night,” by a caprice of our language, did sound like it.

“Good evening’s ‘How d’ye do?’—‘How are ye?’ Good night’s ‘Be off, and be blowed to you, ” observed an interpreter with a positive mind; and another, whose intelligence was not so clear, but whose perceptions had seized the point, exclaimed: “I never says it when I hails a chap; but, dash my buttons, if I mightn’t ’a done, one day or another! Queer!”

The chairman, warmed by his joke, added, with a sharp wink: “Ay; it would be queer, if you hailed ‘Good night’ in the middle of the day!” and this among a company soaked in ripe ale, could not fail to run the electric circle, and persuaded several to change their positions; in the rumble of which, Evan’s reply, if he made any, was lost. Few, however, were there who could think of him, and ponder on that glimpse of fun, at the same time; and he would have been passed over, had not the chairman said: “Take a seat, sir: make yourself comfortable.”

“Before I have that pleasure,” replied Evan, “I—”

“I see where ’tis,” burst out the old boy who had previously superinduced a diversion: “he’s going to ax if he can’t have a bed!”

A roar of laughter, and “Don’t you remember this day last year?” followed the cunning guess. For a-while explication was impossible; and Evan coloured, and smiled, and waited for them.

“I was going to ask—”

“Said so!” shouted the old boy, gleefully.

“—one of the gentlemen who has engaged a bed-room to do me the extreme favour to step aside with me, and allow me a moment’s speech with him.”

Long faces were drawn, and odd stares were directed towards him, in reply.

“I see where ’tis;” the old boy thumped his knee. “Ain’t it now? Speak up, sir! There’s a lady in the case?”

“I may tell you thus much,” answered Evan, “that it is an unfortunate young woman, very ill, who needs rest and quiet.”