by J. C. Snaith
CHAPTER VI
CONTAINS A FEW TRITE UTTERANCES ON THE GENTLE PASSION
We had to wait a minute for the hot water and fresh towels which ourhost had had the forethought to order for us. These were presentlybrought by a strapping servant lass, whose ill-repressed grins provedthat she had been a spectator of these incidents. While we waited, thegood man's apologies for his wife were truly comic. He chivalrouslymade it clear to us that her defects sprang from the very excess ofexcellencies in her character.
"A notable good woman," says he, while her voice continued to shrill upthe stairs. "A fine, honest, energetic woman--a woman in a thousand.Always strivin', savin', and cleanin' she is, the very model of what ahousewife should be. If she's got a fault, it is her over-anxiousness.She will look on the dark side of things; and she's that dreadfulsuspicious, all in the interest of her household, that if a stranger isseen with his head over the fence, she can't sleep for a week after it,being so certain in her mind that the hayricks are going to be fired,the stock taken, the farmstead broken into, and our throats cut as welie in bed. But I know you'll overlook it; she don't mean nothing byit, as you can see with half an eye. She's a rare good woman as ivverI see; it's only her worritin' frettishness for the welfare o' thefarm; you do understand that, don't you?"
"Perfectly," we said together, an assurance that relieved the good manmightily.
"You know, what upsets her most," says he, "is that I can't put a nameto ye. For myself, although I came by you promiscuous like at theonset, I likes you and I believes in you. I think you're the rightsort, only a bit down in the world. But of course she don't know that.She's not seen you use your ten commandments, young man; and she don'tknow what pretty little ways your nice little wife 'ave." Cynthiablushed such a brilliant colour at this complimentary reference thatthe farmer paused to chuckle. "Begs your pardon, I'm sure, my dear,"says he, "if I've put my big foot in it. Not his wife. Well, well, Ithinks none the worse o' 'im for that, I don't; but if I was you Iwould not let the mistress know it. Her virtue makes her thatdisagreeable sometimes as you wouldn't believe. Now if you can give mea name by which I can introjuice you by, fair and square, as though youwas friends o' mine, it'll make things easier, do you see, when we sitsdown to breakfast."
"Well," says I, "since you ask it of us, this lady is the Lady CynthiaCarew, daughter to the Duke of Salop, and you can call me the Earl ofTiverton."
Instead of betraying any surprise at finding us in the possession ofdignities which, to say the least, he could not have expected us toenjoy, the farmer betrayed not a whit of it, but broke into a fit oflaughter and clapped me upon the shoulder.
"Oh, if it comes to that," says he, "you can call me the Cham ofTartary and my old missis the Queen of Sheba."
Nor would he, in spite of the solemn assurances that I rather delightedto give him, be convinced of our true condition.
"No, my lad," says he, still laughing at the humour of it, "you may bepretty handy with your mauleys, and I would be the last to be denyingthat, but you're no more the pattern of a nobleman than I am. Youshould try this game on with a greener chap than me. You must notthink because I'm a plain farmer that I can't recognize the realslap-up nobility when I meets them. Now if you allowed yourself to besome sturdy vagabond that's too idle to work for his livelihood, or astrolling actor that is a peddling along the country with hispuppet-show, or an incorrigible rogue that's lately out of the stocksfor robbing hen-roosts, and was lying last night in my cowhouse to takemore than his lodging, I wouldn't disbelieve you. But an earl!--no,you've overshot the mark a bit, my lad. Say a bart now--be satisfiedwith just a blessed bart--and we'll let it pass at that."
"No, rat me if I will," says I, pretending to be angry. "I'll have myearldom, or I'll have nothing at all."
"But surely a bart's good enough for anybody," says the farmer, fullyentering, as he supposed, into the humour of the thing. "Why, Iwouldn't mind being a bart mysen. Come, let it go at a bart, my lad.Yes, I'll pass you at a bart out of respect for your fisticuffs, butbetween you and me I don't think my old mis'ess will."
"No," says I, "'od's blood! I will not be a bart as you call it. Iwill be the Right Honourable Anthony Gervas John Plowden-Pleydell,Fifth Earl of Tiverton, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter,or I will be nothing at all."
"Very well, then," says the farmer perfunctorily, "since that is yourhumour, we'll have it at that. But wait till I announce your title tomy old mis'ess, and hear what she's got to say about it. And thislittle wench--pretty little wench, I'll allow--she's daughter to mylord the Duke of who?"
"To my lord the Duke of Salop," says I, importantly, dwelling on eachsyllable of her title for the jest's sake, "and you can call her myLady Cynthia Mary Jane Carew."
"Dom'd if I don't then," says he. "And here come the clean clouts andthe warm water. Here, Jenny, put them down there for his lordship andher ladyship. And we'll leave his lordship and her ladyship to dotheir dressing, and then they'll please condescend to honour our humblemeal. Now, then, my girl, off with you below; and how dare you havethe impertinence to stand grinning there like a Cheshire cat, before mylord and my lady, too!"
With a great guffaw for the honour of his own wit, the farmer left usto our much-needed toilets. The reflections with which we made themwould have served a philosopher of the kidney of my grandfather, forinstance, for a monstrous fine homily on the true value of rank andtitle. What were they worth when enclosed in a suit of homespun? Theyrequired all the appurtenances with which they are hedged about in thepublic mind to be of any value whatever. It seemed that a lord derivedthe consideration of the world from his silk stockings and the congeesof his servants--not from any intrinsic merits within himself; and itwas with this trite reflection that I looked in the hand-glass, andsmiled in something of a cynical manner at the unredeemed villainy ofthe countenance that I found there. A lively scrubbing did a littlefor it, it is true, but that could not obliterate the traces of myrecent bout with the farmer, nor the growth of beard upon my chin, norenhance the rude, ill-fitting clothes in which my friend the Jew had,as it seemed, so effectually disguised me. Cynthia, however, who hadthe true feminine ingenuity in these matters, having washed her faceand trimmed up her curls a little--Lord knows how!--contrived to make avery much better appearance in the role of the duke's daughter thanever I was like to do in that of the noble wearer of the Order of theGarter. When we were sufficiently furbished to think of going down tothat delicious meal, in which the greater part of our thoughts werecentred, says I as we descended:
"Remember now, we are under no alias whatever. I am my lord, and youare my lady."
"But surely," says Cynthia, who in so many ways had the true feminineimperviousness to the whimsicality of things, "is this not the veryheight of imprudency? If we leave evidences behind us at every placeat which we tarry we shall be certainly taken in three days."
"Rest content," says I, "they will never inquire in out-of-the-wayplaces of this sort. In dangerous places we can still be incognito.But do you not see the cream of this affair is that our real names arethe best disguises we can wish to have? We are far less likely to berecognized by them than any we might adopt."
It was with this conviction that we came in to breakfast, andconfronted the farmer and his wife. Determined to play up to my part,I bowed to the farmer's wife with a most sweeping air, as though shewere a woman of the first fashion, and I made her as gracious a speechas I could possibly make. There were a thousand apologies in it, and agreat many compliments to her, her husband, her kitchen, and moresincerely, the hot meal we were dying to partake of. I did it with allthe breeding I could summon, and to see such ceremony issuing from socommon not to say low a person, dumbfounded the good wife socompletely, that even her powers of speech forsook her. She blinked,and nodded her head, and fidgeted this way and that; and when littleCynthia, taking her cue from me, curtsied to her with the best grace ofa lady-in-waiting to her most gracious Majesty, as
indeed the naughtymiss was destined to be, the poor goodwife was so taken by confusionthat she trod on the cat, and the cat I doubt not would have knockedover the dish of bacon on the hearth in its fright, had not I, inanticipation of some such disaster, very gallantly interposed betweenthem.
The farmer himself, although equally at a loss to reconcile our mannerswith our appearance and presence in that place, was evidently too muchof a lover of his joke to let the occasion pass.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you, wife," says he, "that these are a lady andgentleman of the first nobility. You would run on so when they firstcame in that you gave me no chance of saying who they were. Just tellthe mis'ess, my lord, who your lordship and her ladyship may be, for Idomm'd if I don't forget."
This I did with a good deal of unction, for seeing what a comic effectour manners had had on the good woman, our names in all probabilitywould have one still more singular. This proved to be the case, for nosooner had I, with much apologetic modesty for the circumstances whichhad impelled me to it, played the herald to my fair companion andmyself, than our hostess became the victim of an even more remarkablenervousness, and grew as apologetic on her part as she had beencross-grained before.
"La," says she, "I can never forgive my husband for not having told me.To think you should honour us by sitting down in our humblefarm-kitchen to our humble fare, and you should be treated so unseemly!But it is so like my husband not to have told me. La, will yourlordship have ale, or does your lordship prefer to take a littleclaret-wine of a morning? We have it, although it is not on the table.Jenny, go this minute and fetch the claret-wine for his lordship."
It seemed that our hostess having got over the first shock of ouridentity, proposed to match our breeding with some of her own. Shebegan to use a high clipping tone that she evidently kept for company,and became so assiduous in the attentions she paid us, and so heedfulof our wants, that we profited vastly by her credulity, if that is theright name to apply to it. Her husband, however, was not so lightly tobe imposed upon, as he was at pains to show. At every polite effortput forward by his wife, he counteracted it by a wink or a cough, or achuckle, or a snigger. And he put the handles to our names in such avoice of banter as greatly distressed his wife, who continued tooverpower us with her civilities. At last, says she:
"Your lordship and your ladyship must really excuse my husband. He isa very good honest man to be sure," here she sank her voice to amysterious whisper, "but he is a little vulgar and low-bred in thesethings, although," with a still lower voice and more mystery, "I wouldnot have him hear me say it for the world. You see he is not come ofso good a family as I am. His folk were a little vulgar and low-bredtoo, and people said at the time that for all his farm and his prizeheifers it was the last thing to be expected that a person like mewould ever marry him. Ah, well, I suppose it is always a mistake tomarry out of one's station, although to be sure no one could have akinder, better husband. But your lordship and your ladyship follow me,do you not? He almost makes me blush for his manners, that he do."
"My dear madam," says I, "I am sure we both feel for you from thebottom of our hearts, and understand the occasion perfectly."
And could there have been a prettier comedy? First we had had thehusband apologizing for the wife, and now we had the wife apologizingfor the husband. Lord knows whether she allowed us to be what we wereor not, but she certainly entertained us to a royal breakfast. Twofamished people never sat down to a finer meal in this world than theone we partook of. And when we left our honest but wonderfullyill-assorted host and hostess, about nine of the clock in the morningto continue on our way, we were most handsomely fortified in mind andbody.
As we passed from the farmyard and struck into the fields the sun wasshowing handsomely, and the thrushes were singing their lusty notes.It was as fine a spring morning as the heart could desire. Thevirginal airs played on our faces; the birds called to one another fromhedge to tree; the little lambs frisked among the white daisies in themeads, as hand-in-hand we took our way again. We still had no clearidea as to whither we were going. But we were mightily contentwherever our way might lead. The sense we had of our liberty was asomething we had never tasted before. Had we not cast off the trammelsof the world? We could begin life again; and be whom we chose. Wewere a pair of unknown persons, moving among unknown people in unknownplaces. Every hour we passed in these solitudes of nature hadsomething of the glamour of romance invested in it. For we did notknow how our next meal would be come by, or what would be the nextshelter for our weary heads when nightfall overtook us. But we carednot. We were in the crisp, free, open air, snuffing the sunshine, andtrampling across a carpet of flowers over hill and dale, while thespring birds sang.
I think we were too desperately happy to talk much. Cynthia wasradiant, and as light of foot and heart as the birds that called to usfrom the green hedges. The words of an appropriate ballad were on herlips:
When Strephon wooed his Chloe dear, All in the springtime of the year.
And I took the infection of her spirits also, I was sensible, ere wehad walked a mile, of a frank, jovial, devil-may-care lightheartedness,not so fresh and buoyant as my little one's perhaps, since I had liveda little longer, had therefore had the brightness of my youth moreoverlaid with the rust of the world, and had a greater weight ofresponsibility, more particularly for her, upon my shoulders. It waslittle I felt it, however. For suddenly as we walked in these sweetfields, an idea was born in my mind that banished everything except thethrill of joy it brought.
"My prettiness," says I, "we could not wish for a perfecter weddingmorning."
"That we could not," says she, so promptly that it struck me she hadbeen expecting some such suggestion from me. Her blushes wereadorable, it is true, but I believe they were more a matter of instinctthan the offspring of any particular commotion in her bosom.
"Wilt marry me, pretty one," says I, "at the first church we come to,that hath a snug parsonage sitting in honeysuckle beside it?"
"Ay, that I will," says she, cocking up her thin with an archness ofinvitation that was not to be denied.
I suppose it was that the adventures we had already had together hadgiven us the most perfect understanding of one another. There was afeeling of proprietorship between us; and had not each given upeverything in life for the other's sake?
"My dear," says I, feeling that a little sentiment would not come amissthis rare spring morning, "I hope you have realized what I have tooffer you. I have but my blasted reputation, my destitute condition,my debts, my crimes, my prostituted name. This is all the estate thata very humble, constant heart is endowed with."
"They will serve," says Cynthia simply. "If you were the wickedest manin England, and by your own account you are not far removed from thatstate, it would be the same. It is not for what you be that I likeyou; it is for what I think you to be."
"If it comes to that," says I, "I don't suppose it is me at all youcare for. It is not myself you are in love with, nor my virtues, normy vices, nor my hair, my eyes, my clothes, my understanding, noranything that is mine. You are at that romantical instant of yourwomanhood when you have fallen in love with the name of love. Ifinstead of a man I were a tame white mouse, or a bob-tailed rabbit, ora bull-calf you would invest me with all the pretty fancies that arerunning in your head, so that the reflection in your mind would yet bethe one that you most wished to see. But a truce to philosophy, let usto church."
Cynthia was so evidently of my mind in this last particular that shelaughed, and resumed the singing of her ballad, as we strode out thebrisker for our intercourse.
