The Man in Black: An Historical Novel of the Days of Queen Anne

by G. P. R. James

  CHAPTER XXXI.

  Marlow was soon on horseback, and riding on to the country town. Buthe had lingered longer with Emily than he imagined, and the daydeclined visibly as he rode along.

  "The business hours are over," he thought; "bankers and lawyers willhave abandoned the money-getting and mischief-making toils of the day;and I must stay at the inn till to-morrow."

  He had been riding fast; but he now drew in his rein, and suffered hishorse to walk. The sun was setting gloriously, and the rich, rosylight, diffused through the air, gave every thing an aspect of warmth,and richness, and cheerfulness. But Marlow's heart was any thing butgay. Whether it was that the scenes which he had passed through inLondon, his visits to a prison, his dealings with hard official men,the toiling, moiling crowds that had surrounded him; the wearisome,eternal, yet ever-changing struggle of life displayed in the streetsand houses of a capital, the infinite varieties of selfishness, andfolly, and vice, and crime, had depressed his spirits, or that hishealth had somewhat suffered in consequence of anxious waiting forevents in the foul air of the metropolis, I cannot tell. But certain,he was sadder than was usual with him. His was a spirit strong andactive, naturally disposed to bright views and happy hopes, too firmto be easily depressed, too elastic to be long kept down. But yet, ashe rode along, there was a sort of feeling of apprehension upon hismind that oppressed him mightily. He revolved all that had latelypassed. He compared the state of Mr. Hastings' family, as it actuallywas, with what it had been when he first knew it, and there seemed tobe a strange mystery in the change. It had then been all happiness andprosperity with that household; a calm, grave, thoughtful, but happyfather and husband; a bright, amiable, affectionate mother and wife; adaughter, to his mind the image of every thing that was sweet, andgentle, and tender--of every thing that was gay, and sparkling, andcheerful; full of light and life, and fancy, and hope. Now, there wasa father in prison, deprived of his greatest share of worldlyprosperity, cast down from his station in society, gloomy, desponding,suspicious, and, as it seemed to him, hardly sane: a mother,irritable, capricious, peevish, yielding to calamity, and lying on abed of sickness, while the bright angel of his love remained to nurse,and tend, and soothe the one parent, with a heart torn and bleedingfor the distresses of the other. "What have they done to merit allthis?" he asked himself. "What fault, what crime have they committedto draw down such sorrows on their heads? None--none whatever. Theirlives had been spent in kindly acts and good deeds; they had followedthe precepts of the religion they professed; their lives had beenspent in doing service to their fellow-creatures, and making all happyaround them."

  Then again, on the other hand, he saw the coarse, and the low, and thebase, and the licentious prosperous and successful, rising on theruins of the pure and the true. Wily schemes and villanous intriguesobtaining every advantage, and honesty of purpose and rectitude ofaction frustrated and cast down.

  Marlow was no unbeliever--he was not even inclined to skepticism--buthis mind labored, not without humility and reverence, to see how itcould reconcile such facts with the goodness and providence of God.

  "He makes the sun shine upon the just and the unjust, we are told,"said Marlow to himself; "but here the sun seems to shine upon theunjust alone, and clouds and tempests hang about the just. It is verystrange, and even discouraging; and yet, all that we see of thesestrange, unaccountable dispensations may teach us lessons forhereafter--may give us the grandest confirmation of the grandesttruth. There must be another world, in which these things will be madeequal--a world where the wicked cease from troubling, and the wearyare at rest. We only see in part, and the part we do not see must bethe part which will reconcile all the seeming contradictions betweenthe justice and goodness of God and the course of this mortal life."

  This train pursued him till he reached the town, and put up his horseat the inn. By that time it was quite dark, and he had tasted nothingsince early in the morning. He therefore ordered supper, and thelandlord, by whom he was now well known--a good, old, honest, countrylandlord of the olden time--brought in the meal himself, and waited onhis guest at table. It was so much the custom of gentlemen, in thosedays, to order wine whenever they stopped at an inn--it was lookedupon so much as a matter of course that this should be done for thegood of the house--that the landlord, without any direct commands tothat effect, brought in a bottle of his very best old sherry, always afavorite wine with the English people, though now hardly to be got,and placed it by the side of his guest. Marlow was by habit no drinkerof much wine. He avoided, as much as in him lay, the deep potationsthen almost universal in England; but, not without an object, he thatnight gave in to a custom which was very common in England then, andfor many years afterwards, and requested the landlord, after the mealwas over, to sit down, and help him with his bottle.

  "You'll need another bottle, if I once begin, Master Marlow," said thejolly landlord, who was a wag in his way.

  Marlow nodded his head significantly, as if he were prepared for theinfliction, replying quietly, "Under the influence of your good chat,Mr. Cherrydew, I can bear it, I think."

  "Well, that's hearty," said the landlord, drawing a chair sideways tothe table; for his vast rotundity prevented him from approaching itfull front. "Here's to your very good health, sir, and may you neverdrink worse wine, sit in a colder room, or have a sadder companion."

  Now I have said that Marlow did not invite the landlord to join him,without an object. That object was to obtain information, and it hadstruck him even while the trout, which formed the first dish at hissupper, was being placed on the table, that he might be able, ifwilling, to afford it.

  Landlords in England at that time--I mean, of course, in countrytowns--were very different in many respects, and of a different classfrom what they are at present. In the first place, they were not finegentlemen: in the next place, they were not discharged valets dechambre, or butlers, who, having cheated their masters handsomely, andperhaps laid them under contribution in many ways, retire to enjoy thefat things at their ease in their native town. Then, again, they wereon terms of familiar intercourse with two or three classes, completelyseparate and distinct from each other--a sort of connecting linkbetween them. At their door the justice of the peace, the knight ofthe shire, the great man of the neighborhood, dismounted from hishorse, and had his chat with mine host. There came the village lawyerwhen he had gained a cause, or won a large fee, or had been paid along bill, to indulge in his pint of sherry, and gossipped, as hedrank it, of all the affairs of his clients. There sneaked in theDoctor to get his glass of eau de vie, or plague water, or aquamirabilis, or strong spirits, in short of any other denomination, andtell little dirty anecdotes of his cases, and his patients. There thealderman, the wealthy shop-keeper, and the small proprietor, or thelarge farmer, came to take his cheerful cup on Saturdays or onmarket-day. But, besides these, the inn was the resort, thoughapproached by another door, of a lower and a poorer class, with whomthe landlord was still upon as good terms as with the others. Thewagoner, the carter, the lawyer's and the banker's clerk, the shopman,the porter even, all came there; and it mattered not to Mr. Cherrydewor his confraternity, whether it was a bowl of punch, a draught ofale, a glass of spirits, or a bottle of old wine that his guestsdemanded; he was civil, and familiar, and chatty with them all.

  Thus under the rosy and radiant face of Mr. Cherrydew, and in thatgood, round, fat head, was probably accumulated a greater mass ofinformation, regarding the neighborhood in which he lived, and allthat went on therein, than in any other head, in the whole town, andthe only difficulty was to extract that part of the store which waswanted.

  Marlow knew that it would not do to approach the principal subject ofinquiry rashly; for Mr. Cherrydew, like most of his craft, wassomewhat cautious, and would have shut himself up in silent reserve,or enveloped himself in intangible ambiguities, if he had knownthat his guest had any distinct and important object in hisquestions--having a notion that a landlord should be perfectlycosmopolitan in all hi
s feelings and his actions, and should nevercommit himself in such a manner as to offend any one who was, hadbeen, or might be his guest. He was fond of gossip, it is true,loved a jest, and was not at all blind to the ridiculous in theactions of his neighbors; but habitual caution was in continualstruggle with his merry, tattling disposition, and he was generallyconsidered a very safe man.

  Marlow, therefore, began at a great distance, saying, "I have justcome down from London, Mr. Cherrydew, and rode over, thinking that Ishould arrive in time to catch my lawyer in his office."

  "That is all over now, sir, for the night," replied the landlord. "Inthis, two-legged foxes differ from others: they go to their holes atsunset, just when other foxes go out to walk. They divide the worldbetween them, Master Marlow; the one preys by day, the other bynight.--Well, I should like to see Lunnun. It must be a grand place,sir, though somewhat of a bad one. Why, what a number of executions Ihave read of there lately, and then, this Sir John Fenwick's business.Why, he changed horses here, going to dine with Sir Philip, as I shallcall him to the end of my days. Ah, poor gentleman, he has been ingreat trouble! But I suppose, from what I hear, he'll get clear now?"

  "Beyond all doubt," said Marlow; "the Government have no case againsthim. But you say very true, Mr. Cherrydew, there has been a sad numberof executions in London--seven and twenty people hanged, at differenttimes, while I was there."

  "And the town no better," said Mr. Cherrydew.

  "By the way," said Marlow, "were you not one of the jury at the trialof that fellow, Tom Cutter?--Fill your glass, Mr. Cherrydew."

  "Thank you, sir.--Yes I was, to be sure," answered the landlord; "andI'll tell you the funniest thing in the world that happened the secondday. Lord bless you, sir, I was foreman,--and on the first day thejudge suffered the case to go on till his dinner was quite cold, andwe were all half starved; but he saw that he could not hang him thatnight, at all events--here's to your health, sir!--so he adjourned theCourt, and called for a constable, and ordered all of us, poor devils,to be locked up tight in Jones's public-house till the next day; forthe jury room is so small, that there is not standing-room for morethan three such as me. Well, the other men did not much like it,though I did not care,--for I had my boots full of ham, and abrandy-bottle in my breeches-pocket. One of them asked the judge, forall his great black eyebrows, if he could'nt go on that night; but hislordship answered, with a snort like a cart horse, and told us to holdour tongues, and mind our own business, and only to take care and keepourselves together. Well, sir, we had to walk up the hill, you know,and there was the constable following us with his staff in his hand;so I had compassion on my poor fellow-sufferers, and I whispered,first to one, then to another, that this sort of jog would never do,but I would manage to tell them how to have a good night's rest. Yousee, says I, here's but one constable to thirteen people, so when youget to the cross-roads, let every man take up his legs and run, eachhis own way. He can but catch one, and the slowest runner will havethe chance. Now, I was the fattest of them all, you see, so that everyone of them thought that I should be the man. Well, sir, they followedmy advice; but it's a different thing to give advice, and take it. Nosooner did we get to the cross-roads, than they scattered like a heapof dust in the wind, some down the roads and lanes, some over thestyles and gates, some through the hedges. Little Sninkum, the tailor,stuck in the hedge by the way, and was the man caught, for he wasafraid of his broadcloth; but I stood stock still, with a look ofmarvellous astonishment, crying out, 'For God's sake catch them,constable, or what will my lord say to you and me?' Off the poor devilset in a moment, one man to catch twelve, all over the face of thecountry. He thought he was sure enough of me; but what did I do I why,as soon as he was gone, I waddled home to my own house, and got mywife to put me to bed up-stairs, and pass me for my grandfather. Well,sir, that's not the best of it yet. We were all in Court next day atthe right hour, and snug in the jury-box before the judge came in; butI have a notion he had heard something of the matter. He looked mightyhard at Sninkum, whose face was all scratched to pieces, and openinghis mouth with a pop, like the drawing of a cork, he said, 'Why, man,you look as if you and your brethren had been fighting!' and then helooked as hard at me, and roared, 'I hope, gentlemen, you have keptyourselves together?' Thereupon, I laid my two hands upon my stomach,sir,--it weighs a hundred and a half, if it were cut off to-morrow, asI know to my cost, who carry it--and I answered quite, respectful, 'Ican't answer for the other gentlemen, my lord, but I'll swear I'vekept myself together.' You should have heard how the Court rang withthe people laughing, while I remained as grave as a judge, and muchgraver than the one who was there; for I thought he would have burstbefore he was done, and a fine mess that would have made."

  Serious as his thoughts were, Marlow could not refrain from smiling;but he did not forget his object, and remarked, "There were effortsmade to save that scoundrel, and the present Sir John Hastingscertainly did his best for his friend."

  "Call him John Ayliffe, sir, call him John Ayliffe," said the host."Here's to you, sir,--he's never called any thing else here."

  "I wonder," said Marlow, musingly, "if there was any relationshipbetween this Tom Cutter and John Ayliffe's mother?"

  "Not a pin's point of it, sir," replied the landlord. "They were justtwo bad fellows together; that was the connection between them, andnothing else."

  "Well, John stood by his friend, at all events," said Marlow; "thoughwhere he got the money to pay the lawyers in that case, or in his suitagainst Sir Philip, is a marvel to me."

  Mine host winked his eye knowingly, and gave a short laugh.

  That did not entirely suit Marlow's purpose, and he added in a musingtone, "I know that he wanted to borrow ten pounds two or three monthsbefore, but was refused, because he had not repaid what he hadborrowed of the same party, previously."

  "Ay, ay, sir," said the landlord; "there are secrets in all things. Hegot money, and money enough, somehow, just about that time. He has notrepaid it yet, either, but he has given a mortgage, I hear, for theamount; and if he don't mortgage his own carcase for it too, I am verymuch mistaken, before he has done."

  "Mortgage his own carcase! I do not understand what you mean," repliedMarlow. "I am sure I would not give a shilling for that piece ofearth."

  "A pretty widow lady, not a hundred miles off, may think differently,"replied the landlord, grinning again, and filling his glass once more.

  "Ah, ha," said Marlow, trying to laugh likewise; "so you think sheadvanced the money, do you?"

  "I am quite sure of it, sir," said Mr. Cherrydew, nodding his headprofoundly. "I did not witness the mortgage, but I know one who did."

  "What! Shanks' clerk, I suppose," said Marlow.

  "No, sir, no," replied the landlord; "Shanks did not draw themortgage, either; for he was lawyer to both parties, and Mrs. Hazletondidn't like that;--O, she's cute enough!"

  "I think you must be mistaken," said Marlow, in a decided tone; "forMrs. Hazleton assured me, when there was a question between herselfand me, that she was not nearly as rich as she was supposed, and thatif the law should award me back rents, it would ruin her."

  "Gammon, sir!" replied the landlord, who had now imbibed a sufficientquantity of wine, in addition to sundry potations during the day. "Ishould not have thought you a man to be so easily hooked, Mr. Marlow;but if you will ask the clerk of Doubledoo and Kay, who was down here,staying three or four days about business, you'll find that sheadvanced every penny, and got a mortgage for upwards of five thousandpounds;--but I think we had better have that other bottle, sir?"

  "By all means," said Marlow, and Mr. Cherrydew rolled away to fetchit.

  "By the way, what was that clerk's name you mentioned?"

  "Sims, sir, Sims," said the landlord, drawing the cork; and thensetting down the bottle on the table, he added, with a look of greatcontempt, "he's the leetlest little man you ever saw, sir, not so tallas my girl Dolly, and with no more stomach than a currycomb, a sort ofcross breed between a monke
y and a penknife. He's as full of fun asthe one, too, and as sharp as the other. He will hold a prodigiousquantity of punch, though, small as he is. I could not fancy where heput it all, it must have gone into his shoes."

  "Come, come, Mr. Cherrydew," said Marlow, laughing, "do not speakdisrespectfully of thin people--I am not very fat myself."

  "Lord bless you, sir, you are quite a fine, personable man; and intime, with a few butts, you would be as fine a man as I am."

  Marlow devoutly hoped not, but he begged Mr. Cherrydew to sit downagain, and do his best to help him through the wine he had brought;and out of that bottle came a great many things which Marlow wantedmuch more than the good sherry which it contained.