Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/323

 310 old—I mourn him yet living. The presence of crape on him signifies—he ne’er shall have a gloss again! Nay, more—for thus doth veritable sorrow serve us—it conceals one or two striking defects, my friend! I say, my family would be rather astonished to see me in this travesty—in this most strange attire, eh?”

The latter sentence was uttered indirectly for the benefit of the landlady, who now stood smiling in the room, wishing them good morning, and hoping they had slept well. She handed to Evan his purse, telling him she had taken it last night, thinking it safer for the time being in her pocket; and that the chairman of the feast paid for all in the Green Dragon up to twelve that day, he having been born between the hours, and liking to make certain: and that every year he did the same; and was a seemingly rough old gentleman, but as soft-hearted as a chicken. His name must positively not be inquired, she said; to be thankful to him was to depart, asking no questions.

“And with a dart in the bosom from those eyes—those eyes!” cried Jack, shaking his head at the landlady’s resistless charms.

“I hope you was not one of the gentlemen who came and disturbed us last night, sir?” she turned on him sharply.

Jack dallied with the imputation, but denied his guilt.

“No; it wasn’t your voice,” continued the landlady. “A parcel of young puppies, calling themselves gentlemen! I know him. It’s that young Mr. Laxley: and he the nephew of a Bishop, and one of the Honourables! And then the poor gals get the blame. I call it a shame, I do. There’s that poor young creature up-stairs—somebody’s victim she is: and nobody’s to suffer but herself, the little fool!”

“Yes,” said Jack. “Ah! we regret these things in after life!” and he looked as if he had many gentlemanly burdens of the kind on his conscience.

“It’s a wonder, to my mind,” remarked the landlady, when she had placidly surveyed Mr. Raikes, “how young gals can let some of you men-folk mislead ’em.”

“It is a wonder,” said Jack; “but pray don’t be pathetic, ma’am—I can’t stand it.”

The landlady turned from him huffily, and addressed Evan: “The old gentleman is gone, sir. He slept on a chair, breakfasted, and was off before eight. He left word, as the child was born on his birthnight, he’d provide for it, and pay the mother’s bill, unless you claimed the right. I’m afraid he suspected—what I never, never—no! but by what I’ve seen of you—never will believe. For you, I’d say, must be a gentleman, whatever your company. She asks one favour of you, sir:—for you to go and let her speak to you once before you go away for good. She’s asleep now, and mustn’t be disturbed. Will you do it, by and by? Please to comfort the poor creature, sir.”

Evan consented. I am afraid also it was the landlady’s flattering speech made him, without reckoning his means, add that the young mother and her child must be considered under his care, and their expenses charged to him. The landlady was obliged to think him a wealthy as well as a noble youth, and admiringly curtsied.

Mr. John Raikes and Mr. Evan Harrington then strolled into the air, and through a long court-yard, with brewhouse and dairy on each side, and a pleasant smell of baking bread, and dogs winking in the sun, cats at the corners of doors, satisfied with life, and turkeys parading, and fowls, strutting cocks, that overset the dignity of Mr. Raikes by awakening his imitative propensities. Certain white-capped women, who were washing in a tub, laughed, and one observed: “He’s for all the world like the little bantam cock stickin’ ’self up in a crow against the Spaniar’.” And this, and the landlady’s marked deference to Evan, induced Mr. Raikes contemptuously to glance at our national blindness to the true diamond, and worship of the mere plumes in which a person is dressed.

“Strip a man of them—they don’t know you,” said Jack, despondently.

“You ought to carry about your baby-linen, stamped ‘gentleman born, ” said Evan.

Jack returned: “It’s all very well for you to joke, but—” his tardy delicacy stopped him.

They passed a pretty flower-garden, and entering a smooth-shorn meadow, beheld the downs beautifully clear under sunlight and slowly-sailing images of cloud. At the foot of the downs, on a plain of grass, stood a white booth topped by a flag, which signalled that on that spot Fallowfield and Beckley were contending.

“A singular old gentleman! A very singular old gentleman, that!” Jack observed, following an idea that had been occupying him. “We did wrong to miss him. We ought to have waylaid him in the morning. Never miss a chance, Harrington.”

“What chance?” Evan inquired.

“Those old gentlemen are very odd,” Jack pursued: “very strange. He wouldn’t have judged me by my attire. Admetus’ flocks I guard, yet am a god! Dress is nothing to those old cocks. He’s an eccentric. I know it; I can see it. He’s a corrective of Cudford, who is abhorrent to my soul. To give you an instance, now, of what those old boys will do—I remember my father taking me, when I was quite a youngster, to a tavern he frequented, and we met one night just such an old fellow as this; and the waiter told us afterwards that he noticed me particularly. He thought me a very remarkable boy—predicted great things. For some reason or other my father never took me there again. I remember our having a Welsh rarebit there for supper, and when the waiter last night mentioned a rarebit, ’gad, he started up before me. I gave chase into my early youth. However, my father never took me to meet the old fellow again. I believe it lost me a fortune.”

Evan’s thoughts were leaping to the cricket-field, or he would have condoled with Mr. Raikes for a loss that evidently afflicted him still, and of which he was doubtless frequently reminded on occasions when, in a bad hat, he gazed on a glittering company from afar.

“Shall we go over and look at them?” Evan asked, after watching the distant scene wistfully.