The Highwayman (Bailey)/Chapter XXX

You behold Mr. Waverton exhibiting a high impatience. He was alone in the best room of the "Peacock" at Islington, a well-looking place after its severe old oak fashion. Disordered food upon the table showed that Mr. Waverton had been trying to eat with little success. Mr. Waverton's hat upon one chair, his whip upon another, and his cloak tumbled inelegantly over a third proved that he was not himself. For he was born to treat his clothes with respect. Mr. Waverton would be jumping up to look out of the window, flounce down again in his chair to drink wine and stare with profound meaning at the table, start up and stride to the hearth and glower down at its emptiness—and repeat the motions in a different order. He must be theatrical even without an audience.

But he had some excuse for his uneasiness. It was the evening of his conversation with my Lord Sunderland, and that fiasco had stimulated him, you know, to a grand exploit. He was waiting for news of it.

The twilight darkened early. Mr. Waverton pushed the window open wider, and leaned out only to come in again in a hurry as if he were afraid of being seen. The room was close, and he wiped his large brow and flung himself down and drank. There was a dull sound of thunder rolling far away. In a little while came the beat of rain—slow, big drops. That was soon over. Then lightning stabbed into the room, and the storm broke.

Candles were brought to Mr. Waverton's petulant appeal, and an excited maid-servant bustled and blundered over clearing his table with pious invocations at each thunder-clap. She fretted Mr. Waverton, who admonished her and made her worse.

Upon him and her there came a man cloaked from heel to eye, streaming rain from every angle. He shook a shower from his hat. "Hell! What a night," says he, breathless. "Save you, squire!"

"Begone, girl! Begone, I say. Od's life, leave us, do you hear?" says Mr. Waverton, in much agitation.

"Bring us a noggin of rum, Sukey, darling," says the wet gentleman, dragging himself out of his sodden cloak. He flung it upon Mr. Waverton's.

"Run, girl!" says Mr. Waverton, in a terrible voice. "Go, you fool." He advanced upon her, and she stopped gaping, and got herself out with a great clatter of crockery.

"Od burn and blast it! I want it," says the wet gentleman, and collapsed into a chair. "I believe you, squire. I want it."

"What is the news with you?" Mr. Waverton said.

"Od's bones, ha' you got the megs? The megs, I say. Oh, rot you, the ready, the hundred guineas?"

"Is it done then?" Mr. Waverton's voice dropped.

"Out with the cole, burn you."

Mr. Waverton put a bag of money down on the table. The man snatched at it, tore it open, and began to count. "Is it done, Ned, I say?" Mr. Waverton cried.

Ned showed some broken teeth. "I believe you, by God. He has it. He's dead meat. Two irons through and through his guts."

Mr. Waverton flung back in his chair. "How then?" he said, in a low voice. "Ned—was it in fight? You brought him into a fight?" Ned went on counting the guineas, and sometimes tried one in his yellow teeth. "Oh, have done with that!" Mr. Waverton cried. "They come straight from my goldsmith, man. Tell me—you said you would force a fight on him. Did he—"

"Lay your life!" Ned grinned. "There was a fight, sure. Old Ben knows that, by God. Aye, aye, you're fond of fighting ain't you, squire?"

"I fight with gentlemen, sirrah," says Mr. Waverton. "For such base rogues as this fellow, I must provide otherwise."

"Provide my breeches!" says Ned coarsely, and swept up his money. "Where's that damned rum?"

"You may take it in the tap." Mr. Waverton rose. "Nay, she'll bring it. Nay, but, Ned—how did he take it?"

"Rot you, how would you take an iron in your gizzard?"

"He said nothing?"

"Now, stap me, do you think we waited for him to say his prayers?"

"Prayers!" says Mr. Waverton grandly, "They would little avail him."

"Well now, burn me, you're a saint yourself, ain't you?"

The rum arrived, and the servant, with frightened eyes upon the bedraggled Ned, went stumbling out of the room again. "You are impertinent, sirrah," says Mr. Waverton. "The fellow well deserved his end. I may tell you that I was advised to deal with him thus privately by a noble lord in high place."

"Then it's worth more than a hundred megs."

"You have your pay, I believe. I am satisfied with you."

"Damn your airs," says Ned, but something awed by this parade. "Well, I must quit."

"It is better," Mr. Waverton agreed.

"Oh! There was a letter for my gentleman at his tavern. We pouched that while we were waiting for him. D'ye care for it? It's a pretty, tender thing. I reckon it's cheap for another five pieces."

"You are a scoundrel," said Mr. Waverton, and tossed another guinea on the table.

"Pot to you," says Ned, but slapped down the letter. "Well, I'll march. Maybe you'll have some more in my way. I won't forget you, squire," and out he went.

Mr. Waverton, left alone, fingered the letter contemptuously. His great mind was indeed possessed by thoughts of victory. He had hated Harry rarely with the chief count in his enmity that Harry was a low fellow, hireling, menial. He could have borne defeat with some grace, he might even have sought no revenge for being made ridiculous, if the offender had been of a higher station than his own. But such insolence from a pauper! The fellow must needs be crushed like an insect. Only such ignominious extinction could satisfy Mr. Waverton's dignity. He inclined to despise himself for a shadow of human concern about the manner of Harry's death. Faith, it was an extravagance of chivalry to desire that the rogue should have had a chance to fight—that generous chivalry which had ever been his bane. He felt nothing but exultation at the issue. The wretched creature had been properly punished—stamped out by knaves of his own class in a vulgar street brawl—a dirty hole-and-corner end. Egad, my lord was very right. These petty, shabby knaves should be dealt with privately. Mr. Waverton found revenge very sweet.

So Mr. Harry Boyce had gone to his account, and Alison was happily delivered. Dear child! Mr. Waverton felt a pleasant warmth of heroism steal over him, felt himself a knight-errant rescuing his lady from the powers of darkness. Dear Alison! She was free now. To be sure, she need not be told the manner of the deliverance. That would be an outrage on her delicacy. Enough for her that the cunning wretch who had cozened her was dead, and she a happy widow. She had but to show a pretty penitence, and Mr. Waverton proposed to be magnanimous. The prospect much pleased him. He saw himself grandly accepting her; permitting her to be very tender; wittily, but with a touch of magnificence, restraining her from too much humility….

He came out of this golden dream in the end, and was conscious again of the letter, and sneered at it. A nasty, infected thing, to be sure, damp and filthy from Ned's handling. What was it the fellow said? A tender composition? Pah, some blowsy paramour of the knave Boyce. But, perhaps it would be well that Alison should know the fellow had paramours in his own class. She ought to be made to feel how low she had sunk by yielding to him.

Mr. Waverton opened the letter and saw Alison's writing:

",—I desire that you would come to me at Highgate. I have to-day heard from Geoffrey Waverton what you must instantly know. And the truth is, I cannot be content till I speak with you. But I would not have you come for this my asking. Pray, believe it is urgent for us both that we meet, and I do require it of you, not desiring of you what you may have no mind to, but to be honest with you, and lest that should befall which I hope you would not have me bear.

"A."

Mr. Waverton read with swelling eyes.

It was a little while before the meaning came home to him. He was never quick. Then (a sin to which he was not prone) he used oaths. The treacherous, besotted woman! She was still craving for her shabby lover, then. She offered a fair face to her too generous, too faithful Mr. Waverton, only to obtain his confidence and betray him again. Egad, she was too base. Rotten at the very heart of her. Why, some women must lust after a low, common fellow, as dogs after dirt. So she would have saved her Boyce from his master's punishment? Mr. Waverton laughed. She would have had him back in her arms again? Mr. Waverton continued to laugh.

But faith, she went too far when she tried to trick Mr. Waverton a second time. Much she had gained by her treachery. Her fine husband was out of her reach now. It would be a pleasure to advise her of his death. Nay, faith, a duty. The miserable creature had been saved from herself. She must be shown that—oh delicately, with something of a cold grandeur, a touch of irony maybe, but always in a lofty manner as became one who moved upon heights far above her grovelling soul. Mr. Waverton, for all his high irony, rode back home through the dregs of the storm very furiously.