What every traveller sighs to find, was palatably furnished by the Green Dragon of Fallow-field——a famous inn, and a constellation of wandering coachmen. There pleasant smiles seasoned plenty, and the bill was gilded in a manner unknown to our days. Whoso drank of the ale of the Green Dragon kept in his memory a place apart for it. The secret that to give a warm welcome is the breath of life to an inn was one the Green Dragon boasted, even then, not to share with many Red Lions, or Cocks of the Morning, or Kings' Heads, or other fabulous monsters; and as if to show that when you are in the right track you are sure to be seconded, there was a friend of the Green Dragon, who, on a particular night of the year, caused its renown to enlarge to the dimensions of a miracle. But that, for the moment, is my secret. Evan and Jack were met in the passage by a chambermaid. Before either of them could speak, she had turned and fled, with the words:
"More coming!" which, with the addition of "My goodness me!" were echoed by the hostess in her recess. Hurried directions seemed to be consequent, and then the hostess sallied out, and said, with a curtsey:
"Please to stop in, gentlemen. This is the room, to-night."
Evan lifted his hat; and bowing, requested to know whether they could have a supper and beds.
"Beds, sir!" cried the hostess. "What am I to do for beds! Yes, beds indeed you may have, but bed-rooms——if you ask for them, it really is more than I can supply you with. I have given up my own. I sleep with my maid Jane tonight."
"Anything will do for us, madam," replied Evan, renewing his foreign courtesy. "But there is a poor young woman outside."
"Another!" the hostess instantly smiled down the inhospitable outcry.
"She," said Evan, "must have a room to herself. She is ill."
"Must is must, sir," returned the gracious hostess. "But I really haven't the means."
"Every one of them engaged, sir."
"Lord forbid, sir!" she exclaimed with the honest energy of a woman who knew her sex.
Evan bade Jack go and assist the waggoner to bring in the girl. Jack, who had been all the time pulling at his wristbands, and settling his coat-collar by the dim reflection of a window of the bar, departed, after, on his own authority, assuring the hostess that fever was not the young woman's malady, as she protested against admitting fever into her house, seeing that she had to consider her guests.
"We're open to all the world to-night, except fever," said the hostess. "Yes," she rejoined to Evan's order that the waggoner and his mate should be supplied with ale, "they shall have as much as they can drink," which is not a speech usual at inns, when one man gives an order for others, but Evan passed it by, and politely begged to be shown in to one of the gentlemen who had engaged bed-rooms.
"Oh! if you can persuade any of them, sir, I'm sure I've nothing to say," observed the hostess. "Pray don't ask me to stand by and back it, that's all."
Had Evan been familiar with the Green Dragon, he would have noticed that the landlady, its presiding genius, was stiffer than usual; the rosy smile was more constrained, as if a great host had to be embraced, and were trying it to the utmost stretch. There was, however, no asperity about her, and when she had led him to the door he was to enter to prefer his suit, and she had asked whether the young woman was quite common, and he had replied that he had picked her up on the road, and that she was certainly poor, the hostess said:
"I'm sure you're a very good gentleman, sir, and if I could spare your asking at all, I would."
With that she went back to encounter Mr. Raikes and his charge, and prime the waggoner and his mate.
A noise of laughter and talk was stilled gradually, as Evan made his bow into a spacious room, wherein, as the tops of pines are seen swimming on the morning mist, about a couple of dozen guests of divers conditions sat partially revealed through wavy clouds of tobacco-smoke. By their postures, which Evan's appearance by no means disconcerted, you read in a glance men who had been at ease for so many hours that they had no troubles in the world save the two ultimate perplexities of the British Sybarite, whose bed of roses is harassed by the pair of problems: first, what to do with his legs; secondly, how to imbibe liquor with the slightest possible derangement of those members subordinate to his upper structure. Of old the Sybarite complained. Not so our self-helpful islanders. Since they could not, now that work was done and jollity the game, take off their legs (a mechanical contrivance overlooked by Nature, who should have made Britons like the rest of her children in all things, if unable to suit us in all), they got away from them as far as they might, in fashions original or imitative: some by thrusting them out at full length; some by cramping them under their chairs: while some, taking refuge in a mental effort, forgot them, a process to be recommended if it did not involve occasional pangs of consciousness to the legs of their neighbours. We see in our cousins West of the great water, who are said to exaggerate our peculiarities, beings labouring under the same difficulty, and intent on its solution. As to the second problem: that of drinking without discomposure to the subservient limbs: the company present worked out this republican principle ingeniously, but in a manner beneath the attention of the Muse. Let Clio record that mugs and glasses, tobacco and pipes, were strewn upon the table. But if the guests had arrived at that stage when to reach the arm, or arrange the person, for a sip of good stuff, causes moral debates, and presents to the mind impediments equal to what would be raised in active men by the prospect of a great excursion, it is not to be wondered at that the presence of a stranger produced no immediate commotion. Two or three heads were half turned; such as faced him imperceptibly lifted their eyelids.
"Good evening, sir," said one who sat as chairman, with a decisive nod.
"Good night, ain't it?" a jolly-looking old fellow queried of the speaker, in an under-voice. "'Gad, you don't expect me to be wishing the gentleman good-bye, do you?" retorted the former.
"Ha! ha! No, to be sure," answered the old boy; and the remark was variously uttered, that "Good night," by a caprice of our language, did sound like it.
"Good evening's 'How d'ye do?'——'How are ye?' Good night's 'Be off, and be blowed to you,'" observed an interpreter with a positive mind; and another, whose intelligence was not so clear, but whose perceptions had seized the point, exclaimed: "I never says it when I hails a chap; but, dash my buttons, if I mightn't 'a done, one day or another! Queer!"
The chairman, warmed by his joke, added, with a sharp wink: "Ay; it would be queer, if you hailed 'Good night' in the middle of the day!" and this among a company soaked in ripe ale, could not fail to run the electric circle, and persuaded several to change their positions; in the rumble of which, Evan's reply, if he made any, was lost. Few, however, were there who could think of him, and ponder on that glimpse of fun, at the same time; and he would have been passed over, had not the chairman said: "Take a seat, sir; make yourself comfortable."
"Before I have that pleasure," replied Evan, "I——"
"I see where 'tis," burst out the old boy who had previously superinduced a diversion: "he's going to ax if he can't have a bed!"
A roar of laughter, and "Don't you remember this day last year?" followed the cunning guess. For awhile explication was impossible; and Evan coloured, and smiled, and waited for them.
"Said so!" shouted the old boy, gleefully.
"——one of the gentlemen who has engaged a bed-room to do me the extreme favour to step aside with me, and allow me a moment's speech with him."
Long faces were drawn, and odd stares were directed towards him, in reply.
"I see where 'tis;" the old boy thumped his knee. "Ain't it now? Speak up, sir! There's a lady in the case?"
"I may tell you thus much," answered Evan, "that it is an unfortunate young woman, very ill, who needs rest and quiet."
"Didn't I say so?" shouted the old boy.
But this time, though his jolly red jowl turned all round to demand a confirmation, it was not generally considered that he had divined so correctly. Between a lady and an unfortunate young woman, there seemed to be a strong distinction, in the minds of the company.
The chairman was the most affected by the communication. His bushy eyebrows frowned at Evan, and he began tugging at the brass buttons of his coat, like one preparing to arm for a conflict.
"Speak out, sir, if you please," he said. "Above board——no asides——no taking advantages. You want me to give up my bed-room for the use of your young woman, sir?"
Evan replied quietly: "She is a stranger to me; and if you could see her, sir, and know her situation, I think she would move your pity."
"I don't doubt it, sir——I don't doubt it," returned the chairman. "They all move our pity. That's how they get over us. She has diddled you, and she would diddle me, and diddle us all——diddle the devil, I dare say, when her time comes. I don't doubt it, sir."
To confront a vehement old gentleman, sitting as president in an assembly of satellites, requires some command of countenance, and Evan was not browbeaten: he held him, and the whole room, from where he stood, under a serene and serious eye, for his feelings were too deeply stirred on behalf of the girl to let him think of himself. That question of hers, "What are you going to do with me?" implying such helplessness and trust, was still sharp on his nerves.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I humbly beg your pardon for disturbing you as I do."
But with a sudden idea that a general address on behalf of a particular demand must necessarily fail, he let his eyes rest on one there, whose face was neither stupid nor repellent, and who, though he did not look up, had an attentive, thoughtful cast about the mouth.
"May I entreat a word apart with you, sir?"
Evan was not mistaken in the index he had perused. The gentleman seemed to feel that he was selected from the company, and, slightly raising his head, carelessly replied: "My bed is entirely at your disposal," resuming his contemplative pose.
On the point of thanking him, Evan advanced a step, when up started the irascible chairman.
"I don't permit it! I won't allow it!" And before Evan could ask his reasons, he had rung the bell, muttering: "They follow us to our inns, now, the baggages! They must harry us at our inns! We can't have peace and quiet at our inns!"
In a state of combustion, he cried out to the waiter: "Here, Mark, this gentleman has brought in a dirty wench: pack her up to my bed-room, and lock her in: lock her in, and bring down the key."
Agreeably deceived in the old gentleman's intentions, Evan could not refrain from joining the murmured hilarity created by the conclusion of his order. The latter glared at him, and added: "Now, sir, you've done your worst. Sit down, and be merry."
Replying that he had a friend outside, and would not fail to accept the invitation, Evan retired. He was met by the hostess with the reproachful declaration on her lips, that she was a widow woman, wise in appearances, and that he had brought into her house that night work she did not expect, or bargain for. Rather (since I must speak truth of my gentleman) to silence her on the subject, and save his ears, than to propitiate her favour towards the girl, Evan drew out his constitutionally lean purse, and dropped it in her hand, praying her to put every expense incurred to his charge. She exclaimed: "If Dr. Pillie has his full sleep this night, I shall be astonished;" and Evan hastily led Jack into the passage to impart to him, that the extent of his resources was reduced to three shillings and a few pence. Jack made a wry face, but regained his equanimity, saying; "Well, we can't be knights of chivalry and aldermen too. The thing was never known. Let me see. I've almost forgotten how to reckon. Beds, a shilling a piece——the rest for provender. To-morrow we die. That's a consolation to the stumped! Come along, Harrington; let us look like men who have had pounds is their pockets!"
Mr. Raikes assumed the braver features of this representation, and marched into the room without taking off his hat, which was a part of his confidence in company. He took his seat at a small table, and began to whistle. His demeanour signified: "I am equal to any of you." His thoughts were; "How shall I prove it upon three shillings?"
"I see you're in mourning as well as myself, Jack," said Evan, calling attention to his hat.
Mr. Raikes did not displace it, as he replied, "Yes," with the pre-occupied air of a man who would be weeping the past had he not to study the present.
Eyes were on him, he could feel. It appeared to him that the company awaited his proceedings; why they should he did not consider; but the sense of it led him to stalk with affected gravity to the bell, which he rang consequentially; and, telling Evan to leave the ordering to him, sat erect, and scanned the measure and quality of the stuff in the glasses.
"Mind you never mention about my applying to old Cudford," he whispered to Evan, hurriedly. "Shouldn't like it known, you know——one's family!——Here, waiter!"
Mark, the waiter, scudded past, and stopped before the chairman to say: "If you please, sir, the gentlemen up-stairs send their compliments, and will be happy to accept."
"Ha!" was the answer. "Thought better of it, have they! Lay for three more, then. Pretty nearly ready?"
"It will be another twenty minutes, sir."
"Oh, attend to that gentleman, then."
Mark presented himself to the service of Mr. Raikes.
"R-r-r-r——a——" commenced Jack, "what have you got——a——that you can give a gentleman for supper, waiter?"
"Receive the gentleman's orders!" shouted the chairman to a mute interrogation from Mark, who capitulated spontaneously:
"Cold veal, cold beef, cold duck, cold——"
"Stop!" cried Mr. Raikes, "It's summer, I know; but cold, cold, cold!——really! And cold duck! Cold duck and old peas, I suppose! I don't want to come the epicure exactly, in the country. One must take what one can get, I know that. But some nice little bit to captivate the appetite?"
Mr. Raikes shook his head with melancholy.
"Can you let us have some Maintenon cutlets, waiter?——or Soubise?——I ask for some dressing, that's all——something to make a man eat." He repeated to Evan: "Maintenon? Soubise?" whispering: "Anything will do!"
"I think you had better order bread and cheese," said Evan, meaningly, in the same tone.
"You think, on the whole, you prefer Soubise?" cried Jack. "Very well. But can we have it? These out-of-the-way places——we must be modest! Now, I'll wager you don't know how to make an omelette here, waiter? Plain English cookery, of course!"
"Our cook has made 'em, sir," said Mark.
"Oh, that's quite enough!" returned Jack. "Oh, dear me! Has made an omelette! That doesn't by any means sound cheerful."
Jack was successful in the effect he intended to produce on the company. The greater number of the sons of Britain present gazed at him with the respectful antagonism peculiar to them when they hear foreign words, the familiarity with which appears to imply wealth and distinction.
"Chippolata pudding, of course, is out of the question," he resumed. "Fish one can't ask for. Vain were the call! A composition of eggs, flour, and butter we dare not trust. What are we to do?"
Before Evan could again recommend bread and cheese, the chairman had asked Mr. Raikes whether he really liked cutlets for supper; and, upon Jack replying that they were a favourite dish, sung out to Mark: "Cutlets for two!" and in an instant Mark had left the room, and the friends found themselves staring at one another.
"There's three shillings at a blow!" hissed Jack, now taking off his hat, as if to free his distressed mind.
Evan, red in the face, reproached him for his folly. Jack comforted him with the assurance that they were in for it, and might as well comport themselves with dignity till the time for payment.
"I shall do nothing of the sort," said Evan, getting up to summon Mark afresh. "I shall sup on bread and cheese."
"My lord! my lord!" cried Jack, laying hold of his arm, and appearing to forget some private necessity for an incognito.
"Well," he added, as the bell rang, "perhaps at this late hour we ought to consider the house. We should bear in mind that a cook, however divine in bounties, is mortal, like the rest of us. We are not at Trianon. I'm not the Abbé Dubois, nor you the Duc d'Orleans. Since they won't let us cook for ourselves, which I hold that all born, gentlemen are bound to be able to do, we'll e'en content ourselves with modest fare."
"My good Jack," said Evan, less discreetly than it pleased his friend to hear, "haven't you done playing at 'lords' yet? It was fun when we were boys at school. But, let me tell you, you don't look a bit like a lord."
"I'm the son of a gentleman," returned Jack, angrily.
"I'm sorry to find yourself compelled to tell everybody of it," said Evan, touched by a nettle.
"But what's the use of singing small before these fellows?" Jack inquired.
The chairman was doubled in his seat with laughter. Among a portion of the guests there had been a return to common talk, and one had observed that he could not get that "Good Evening," and "Good Night," out of his head: which had caused a friend to explain the meaning of these terms of salutation to him: while another, of a philosophic turn, pursued the theme: "Ye see, when we meets, we makes a night of it. So, when we parts, it's Good Night——natural! ain't it?" A proposition assented to, and considerably dilated on; but whether he was laughing at that, or what had aroused the fit, the chairman did not say. Evan countermanded the cutlets, and substituted an order for bread and cheese, Jack adding, with the nod of a patron to the waiter:
"We think——since it's late——we won't give you the trouble to-night. We'll try the effect of bread and cheese for once in a way. Nothing like new sensations!"
At this the chairman fell right forward, grasping the arms of his chair, and shouting.
Jack unconsciously put on his hat, for when you have not the key to current laughter——and especially when you are acting a part, and acting it, as you think, with admirable truth to nature——it has a hostile sound, and suggests devilries.
The lighter music of mirth had succeeded the chairman's big bursts, by the time the bread and cheese appeared.
In the rear of the provision came three young gentlemen, of whom the foremost lumped in, singing to one behind him,——"And you shall have little Rosey!"
They were clad in cricketing costume, and exhibited the health and manners of youthful Englishmen of station. Frolicsome young bulls bursting on an assemblage of sheep, they might be compared to. The chairman welcomed them a trifle snubbingly. The colour mounted to the cheeks of Mr. Raikes as he made incision in the cheese, under their eyes, knitting his brows fearfully, as if at hard work.
"What a place!" he muttered. "Nothing but bread and cheese! Well! We must make the best of it. Content ourselves with beer, too! A drink corrupted into a likeness of wine! Due to our Teutonic ancestry, no doubt. Let fancy beguile us!" And Mr. Raikes, with a grand air of good-nature, and the lofty mind that makes the best of difficulties, offered Evan a morsel of cheese, saying: "We dispense with soup. We commence with the entrées. May I press a patty upon you."
"Thank you," said Evan, smiling, and holding out his plate.
"Yes, yes; I understand you," continued Mr. Raikes. "We eat, and eke we swear. We'll be avenged for this. In the interim let sweet fancy beguile us!"
Before helping himself, a thought appeared to strike him. He got up hastily, and summoned Mark afresh.
"R-r-r-r——a——what are the wines here, waiter?" he demanded to know.
It was a final effort at dignity and rejection of the status to which, as he presumed, the sight of a gentleman, or the son of one, pasturing on plain cheese, degraded him. It was also Jack's way of repelling the tone of insolent superiority in the bearing of the three young cricketers.
"What are the wines in this establishment?" he repeated peremptorily, for Mark stood smoothing his mouth, as if he would have enjoyed the liberty of a grin.
"Ah——the old story," returned Mr. Raikes. "Dear! dear! dear!"
"Perhaps, sir," insinuated Mark, "you mean foreign wines?"
"None of your infamous home-concoctions, waiter. Port! I believe there's no Port in the country, except in half-a-dozen private cellars——of which I know three. I do mean foreign wines."
Now Mark had served in a good family, and in a London hotel. He cleared his throat, and mutely begging the attention of the chairman, thus volubly started: "Foreign wines, sir, yes! Rhine wines! we have Rudesham; we have Maregbrun; we have Steenbug——Joehannisbug——Libefromil——Asmyhaus, and several others. Claret!——we have Lafitte; we have Margaw; we have Rose;——'Fitte——Margaw——Rose——Julia——Bodo. At your disposal, sir."
Jack, with a fiery face, blinked wildly under the torrent of vintages.
Evan answered his plaintive look: "I shall drink ale."
"Then I suppose I must do the same," said Jack, with a miserable sense of defeat and provoked humiliation. "Thank you, waiter, it goes better with cheese. A pint of ale."
"Yes, sir," said Mark, scorning to stop and enjoy his victory.
Heaving a sad "Heigho!" and not daring to glance at the buzzing company, Mr. Raikes cut a huge bit of crust off the loaf, and was preparing to encounter it. The melancholy voracity in his aspect was changed in a minute to surprise, for the chairman had started out of a fit of compressed merriment to arrest his hand.
"Let me offer you vengeance on the spot, sir."
"How?" cried Jack, angrily; "enigmas?"
The chairman entreated Evan to desist from the cheese; and, pulling out his watch, thundered: "Time!"
The company generally jumped on their legs; and, in the midst of a hum of talk and laughter, the chairman informed Evan and Jack, that he invited them cordially to a supper up-stairs, and would be pleased if they would partake of it, and in a great rage if they would not.
"Sir," said Jack, by this time quite recovered, "the alternative decides me. The alternative is one I should so deeply grieve to witness, that, in short, I——a——give in my personal adhesion, with thanks."
"You are not accustomed to this poor fare, sir," remarked the chairman.
"You have aptly divined the fact, sir," said Jack; "nor I, nor this, my friend. The truth is, that where cometh cheese, and nothing precedeth it, there is, to the cultivated intelligence, the sense of a hiatus which may promote digestion, but totally at the expense of satisfaction. Man, by such means, is sunk below the level of the ruminating animal. He cheweth——"
The stentorian announcement of supper interrupted Mr. Raikes; and the latter gentleman, to whom glibness stood for greatness of manner, very well content with the effect he conceived he had produced on the company, set about persuading Evan to join the feast. For several reasons, Evan would have preferred to avoid it. He was wretched, inclined to enjoy a fit of youthful misanthropy; Jack's dramatic impersonation of the lord had disgusted him; and bread and cheese symbolled his condition. The chairman, catching indications of reluctance, stooped forward, and said: "Sir! must I put it as a positive favour?"
"Pray, do not," replied Evan, and relinquished the table with a bow.
The door was open, and the company of jolly yeomen, tradesmen, farmers, and the like, had become intent on observing all the ceremonies of precedence: not one would broaden his back on the other; and there was bowing, and scraping, and grimacing, till Farmer Broadmead was hailed aloud, and the old boy stepped forth, and was summarily pushed through: the chairman calling from the rear, "Hulloa! no names to-night!" to which was answered lustily: "All right, Mr. Tom!" and the speaker was reproved with, "There you go! at it again!" and out and up they hustled.
The chairman said quietly to Evan, as they were ascending the stairs: "We don't have names to-night: may as well drop titles." Which presented no peculiar meaning to Evan's mind, and he smiled the usual smile.
To Jack, at the door of the supper-room, the chairman repeated the same; and Jack, with extreme affability and alacrity of abnegation, rejoined, "Oh, certainly!"
No wonder that he rubbed his hands with more delight than aristocrats and people with gentlemanly connections are in the habit of betraying at the prospect of refection, for the release from bread and cheese was rendered overpoweringly glorious, in his eyes, by the bountiful contrast exhibited on the board before him.
