Complete Works of Stephen Crane

by Stephen Crane

  “Now, by the Old Head of Kinsale, little man,” said I, “what do you mean by that remark and that motion of the head? What’s wrong with the plan?”

  “The plan’s a good one, as I have said,” reiterated the Doctor. But I saw there was something on his mind, and told him so, urging him to be out with it.

  “Do you think,” said I, “that Lady Mary will be in church with her father and mother?”

  “I do not,” muttered the Doctor, cautiously bringing his voice down to a whisper; “but I want to warn you that there’s danger here in this room while you’re lurking around my Earl’s palace.”

  “How can danger harm me here when I am somewhere else?” I asked.

  A very mysterious manner fell upon the little man, and he glanced, one after the other, at the four corners of the room, as if he heard a mouse moving and wanted to detect it. Then he looked sternly at the door, and I thought he was going to peer up the chimney, but instead he leaned across the table and said huskily, —

  “The papers!”

  “What papers?” I asked, astonished.

  “Your thoughts are so intent on the young lady that you forget everything else. Have you no recollection of the papers the Earl of Westport is so anxious to put himself in possession of?”

  I leaned back in my chair and gazed steadily at Chord; but his eyes would not bring themselves to meet mine, and so he made some pother about filling up his cup again, with the neck of the bottle trembling on the edge, as if its teeth were chattering.

  Now my father used to say when a man is afraid to meet your eye, be prepared to have him meet your fist. I disremembered saying anything to the Doctor about these same papers, which, truth to tell, I had given but little thought to recently, with other things of more importance to crowd them out of mind.

  “How come you to know anything about the papers?” I said at last.

  “Oh, your memory is clean leaving you!” cried the little Doctor, as if the cup of wine he drank had brought back his courage to him. “You told me all about the papers when we were in Kensington Gardens.”

  “If I did,” says I, “then I must have further informed you that I gave them as a present to Lady Mary herself. Surely I told you that?”

  “You told me that, of course; but I thought you said they had come back into your possession again. If I’m wrong, it’s no matter at all, and there’s nothing to be said about them. I’m merely speaking to you by way of a friend, and I thought if you had the papers here in your room it was very unsafe to leave them unprotected by yourself or some one you can trust. I was just speaking as your well-wisher, for I don’t want to hear you crying you are robbed, and us at our wit’s end not getting either the thief or the booty.”

  He spoke with great candour and good humour, and the only thing that made me suspicious at first was that for the life of me I could not ever remember mentioning the papers to him, yet it was very likely that I did; for, as my father used to say, an Irishman talks more than the recording angel can set down in his busiest day, and therefore it is lucky that everything he says is not held against him. It seemed to me that we talked more of scandal than of papers in the park, but still I might be mistaken.

  “Very good, Doctor,” I cried, genially. “The papers it is, and, true for you, the Earl would like to get his old claws on them. Have you any suggestions to make?”

  “Well, it seems to me, O’Ruddy, that if the Earl got wind of them it would be the easiest thing in the world to have your apartment rifled during your absence.”

  “That is true enough,” I agreed, “so what would you do about the papers if you were in my boots?”

  “If I had a friend I could trust,” said Doctor Chord slowly, “I would give the papers to him and tell him to take good care of them.”

  “But why not carry them about in my own pocket?” I asked.

  “It seemed to me they were not any too safe last time they were there,” said the Doctor, pleasantly enough. “You see, O’Ruddy, you’re a marked man if once the Earl gets wind of your being in town. To carry the papers about on your own person would be the unsafest thing you could do, ensuring you a stab in the back, so that little use you’d have for the papers ever after. I have no desire to be mixed further in your affairs than I am at the present moment, but nevertheless I could easily take charge of the packet for you; then you would know where it was.”

  “But would I be sure to know where you were?” said I, my first suspicion of him returning to me.

  The little Doctor laughed.

  “I am always very easily found,” he said; “but when I offered to take the papers it was merely in case a stranger like yourself should not have a faster friend beside him than I am. If you have any such, then I advise you to give custody of the papers to him.”

  “I have no real friend in London that I know of,” said I, “but Paddy.”

  “The very thing,” cried the Doctor, joyously, at once putting to rest all my doubts concerning him. “The very thing. I would give the papers to Paddy and tell him to protect them with his life. I’m sure he’ll do it, and you’ll know where to find both them and him when you want them. But to go away from the ‘Pig and Turnip’ right across to the other end of the town, taking your two servants with you, leaving nobody to guard papers that are of importance to you, strikes me as the height of folly. I’ll just fill up another cup, and so bid you good-night, and good luck for the morrow.”

  And with that the little man drained the bottle, taking his leave with great effusion, and begging my pardon for even so much as mentioning the papers, saying they had been on his mind for the last day or two, and, feeling friendly toward me, he wished to warn me not to leave them carelessly about.

  After he left I thought a good deal about what the Doctor had said, and I wondered at myself that I had ever misdoubted him; for, although he was a man given greatly to talk, yet he had been exceedingly friendly with me from the very first night I had met him, and I thought shame of myself that I was losing trust in my fellow man here in this great city of London, because in Ireland we trust each other entirely; and indeed we are under some compulsion in that same matter, for there is so little money about that if you do not take a man’s word now and then there’s nothing else for you to take.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  I slept well that night, and it was broad daylight when I awoke. A most beautiful morning it seemed to me, and just the time for a lonely stroll in the beautiful gardens, so long as there was some one with you that you thought a great deal of. I made a good breakfast, and then took out the papers and placed them on the table before me. They were all safe so far. I could not comprehend how the Earl would know anything of my being in London, unless, indeed, he caught sight of me walking in his own gardens with his own daughter, and then, belike, he was so jealous a man that he would maybe come to the conclusion I was in London as well as himself.

  After breakfast Paddy and Jem came in, looking as bold as Blarney Castle; and when I eyed them both I saw that neither one nor the other was a fit custodian for papers that might make the proudest Earl in England a poor man or a rich man, depending which way they went. So I put the documents in my own pocket without more ado, and gave up my thoughts to a pleasanter subject. I changed my mind about a disguise, and put on my back the best clothes that I had to wear. I wished I had the new suits I had been measured for, but the spalpeen of a tailor would not let me have them unless I paid him some of the money they cost. When I came to think over it I saw that Strammers would surely never recognize me as a gay spark of fashion when he had merely seen me once before, torn and ragged, coming down from a tree on top of his blunderbuss. So I instructed Paddy to say that he and Jem were servants of the best master in the world, who was a great lover of gardens; that he was of immense generosity, and if Strammers allowed him to come into the gardens by the little door he would be a richer man when the door was opened than he would be if he kept it shut. I had been long enough in London to learn the golden m
ethod of persuasion; any how I could not bring myself to the chance of meeting with my lady, and me dressed worse than one of her own servants.

  We were all in the lane when the church bells ceased to ring, and if any one had seen us he would simply have met a comely young Irish gentleman taking the air of a Sunday morning with two faithful servants at his heels. I allowed something like ten impatient minutes to crawl past me, and then, as the lane was clear and every one for the church within its walls, I tipped a nod to Paddy, and he, with Jem by his side, tapped lightly at the door, while I stood behind the trunk of the tree up which I had climbed before. There was no sign of Doctor Chord in the vicinity, and for that I was thankful, because up to the last moment I feared the little man could not help intruding himself on what was somebody else’s business.

  The door was opened with some caution, letting Paddy and Jem enter; then it was closed, and I heard the bolts shot into their places. But I was speedily to hear more than bolts that Sunday morning. There was a sound of thumping sticks, and I heard a yell that might well have penetrated to the “Pig and Turnip” itself, although it was miles away. I knew Paddy’s cry, and next there came some good English cursing from Jem Bottles, while a shrill voice called out: —

  “Catch the red-haired one; he’s the villain we want!”

  In the midst of various exclamations, maledictions, and other constructions of speech, mingled, I thought, with laughter, I flung my shoulder against the door, but I might as well have tried to batter down the wall itself. The door was as firm as Macgillicuddy Reeks. I know when I am beat as well as the next man, and, losing no more time there, I ran as fast as I could along the wall, out of the lane, and so to the front of the house. The main entrance was protected by great gates of wrought iron, which were opened on occasion by a man in a little cubby of a cabin that stood for a porter’s lodge. The man wasn’t there, and the gates were locked; but part of one of the huge wings of wrought iron was a little gate that stood ajar. This I pushed open, and, unmolested, stepped inside.

  The trees and shrubbery hid from me the scene that was taking place inside the little wooden door. I dashed through the underbrush and came to the edge of a broad lawn, and there was going on as fine a scrimmage as any man could wish to see. Jem Bottles had his back against the wooden door, and was laying about him with a stout stick; half a dozen tall fellows in livery making a great show of attack, but keeping well out of range of his weapon. Poor Paddy had the broad of his back on the turf, and it looked like they were trying to tear the clothes off him, for another half-dozen were on top of him; but I can say this in his favour, Paddy was using his big feet and doing great execution with them. Every now and then he planted a boot in the well-fed front of a footman or under-gardener, and sent him flying. The whole household seemed to be present, and one could hardly believe there was such a mob in a single mansion. The Earl of Westport was there, and who stood beside him but that little villain, Doctor Chord.

  But it was the Countess herself that was directing operations. She had an ebony stick in her hands, and when Paddy kicked one of her underlings the vigorous old lady smote the overturned servant to make him to the fray again. It was an exciting scene, and Donnybrook was nothing to it. Their backs were all toward me, and I was just bubbling with joy to think what a surprise I was about to give them, — for I drew my sword and had a yell of defiance on my lips, — when a cry that nobody paid the least attention to turned my mind in another direction entirely.

  One of the first-floor windows was open, and over the sill leaned Lady Mary herself, her face aflush with anger.

  “Father! Mother!” she cried. “Are not you ashamed of yourselves, making this commotion on a Sunday morning? Call the servants away from there! Let the two poor men go! Oh, shame, shame upon you.”

  She wrung her hands, but, as I was saying, nobody paid the slightest heed to her, and I doubt if any of them heard her, for Paddy was not keeping silence by any manner of means. He was taking the worst of all the blows that fell on him in a vigorous outcry.

  “Murther! murther!” he shouted. “Let me on me feet, an’ I’ll knock yez all into the middle of county Clare.”

  No one, however, took advantage of this generous offer, but they kept as clear as they could of his miscellaneous feet, and the Countess poked him in the ribs with the point of her ebony stick whenever she wasn’t laying it over the backs of her servants.

  Now, no man can ever say that I was a laggard when a good old-fashioned contest was going on, and the less indolence was observable on my own part when friends of mine were engaged in the fray. Sure I was always eager enough, even when it was a stranger’s debate, and I wonder what my father would think of me now, to see me veer from the straight course of battle and thrust my unstruck sword once more into its scabbard. It was the face in the window that made me forget friend and foe alike. Lady Mary was the only member of the household that was not on the lawn, and was protesting unheard against the violence to two poor men who were there because they had been invited to come by the under-gardener.

  I saw in the twinkling of an eye that the house had been deserted on the first outcry. Doors were left wide open for the whole world to enter. I dodged behind the trees, scuttled up the gravelled driveway, leaped the stone steps three at a time, and before you could say “Ballymuggins” I was in the most superb hall in which I ever set my foot. It was a square house with the stairway in the middle. I kept in my mind’s eye the direction of the window in which Lady Mary had appeared. Quick as a bog-trotter responds to an invitation to drink, I mounted that grand stairway, turned to my right, and came to a door opposite which I surmised was the window through which Lady Mary was leaning. Against this door I rapped my knuckles, and speedily I heard the sweet voice of the most charming girl in all the world demand with something like consternation in its tones, —

  “Who is there?”

  “It’s me, Lady Mary!” said I. “The O’Ruddy, who begs the privilege of a word with you.”

  I heard the slam of a window being shut, then the sound of a light step across the floor, and after that she said with a catch in her voice, —

  “I’ll be pleased you should come in, Mr. O’Ruddy.”

  I tried the door, but found it locked.

  “How can I come in, Lady Mary,” says I, “if you’ve got bolts held against me?”

  “There are no bolts,” said Lady Mary; “the key should be on the outside. I am locked in. Look for the key and open the door.”

  Was ever a more delightful sentence spoken to a man? My heart was in my throat with joy. I glanced down, and there, sure enough, stuck the key. I turned it at once, then pulled it out of the lock and opened the door.

  “Lady Mary,” says I, “with your permission, it seems to me a door should be locked from the inside.”

  With that I thrust the key through the far side of the door, closed it, and locked it. Then I turned round to face her.

  The room, it was plain to be seen, was the parlour of a lady, — a boudoir, as they call it in France, a word that my father was very fond of using, having caught it when he was on the campaign in that delightful country. The boudoir was full of confections and charming little dainties in the way of lace, and easy chairs, and bookcases, and little writing-desks, and a work-basket here and there; but the finest ornament it possessed was the girl who now stood in the middle of the floor with a frown on her brow that was most becoming. Yes, there was a frown on her brow, although I expected a smile on her lips because of the cordial invitation she had given me to come in.

  It would seem to either you or me that if a lady suffered the indignity of being locked in her room, just as if she was a child of six years old, she would welcome with joy the person who came and released her. Now, my father, who was the wisest man since Solomon, — and indeed, as I listened to him, I’ve often thought that Solomon was overpraised, — my father used to say there was no mystery at all about women. “You just think,” he would say, “of what a sensible
man would do on a certain occasion; then configure out in your mind the very opposite, and that’s what a woman will do.” A man who had been imprisoned would have held out his hand and have said, “God bless you, O’Ruddy; but I’m glad to see you.” And here stood this fine lady in the middle of her room, looking at me as if I were the dirt beneath her feet, and had forced my way into her presence, instead of being invited like a man of honour to enter.

  “Well, Mr. O’Ruddy,” she said, throwing back her head, haughty-like, “Why do you stand dallying in a lady’s bower when your followers are being beaten on the lawn outside?”

  I cannot give you Lady Mary’s exact words, for I was so astonished at their utterance; but I give you a very good purport of them.

  “Is it the beating of my men?” I said. “Troth, that’s what I pay them for. And whoever gives them a good drubbing saves me the trouble. I saw they had Paddy down on the turf, but he’s a son of the ould sod, and little he’ll mind being thrown on his mother. But if it’s Jem Bottles you’re anxious about, truth to tell I’m more sorry for those that come within range of his stick than for Jem with his back to the wall. Bottles can take care of himself in any company, for he’s a highwayman in an excellent way of business.”

  I always like to mention anything that’s in favour of a man, and so I told her what profession Bottles followed. She gave a toss of her head, and gave me a look that had something like contempt in it, which was far from being pleasant to endure. Then she began walking up and down the room, and it was plain to see that my Lady was far from being pleased with me.

  “Poor fellows! Poor faithful fellows! That’s what comes of having a fool for a master.”

  “Indeed, your ladyship,” said I, drawing myself up to my full height, which wasn’t so very much short of the door itself, “there are worse things than blows from a good honest cudgel. You might better say, ‘This is what comes to a master with two fools for servants.’”