St. Ronan's Well, page 39
In fact, the miserable guise of her new lodger now overcame the dame's curiosity to enquire after the fate of her earlier acquaintance, and she gave her instant and exclusive attention to Mr. Touchwood, with many exclamations, while aiding him to perform the task of ablution and abstersion. Her two fugitive handmaidens had by this time returned to the kitchen, and endeavoured to suppress a smuggled laugh at the recollection of their mistress's panic, by acting very officiously in Mr. Touchwood's service. By dint of washing and drying, the token of the sable stains was at length removed, and the veteran became, with some difficulty, satisfied that he had been more dirtied and frightened than hurt.
Tyrrel, in the meantime, stood looking on with wonder, imagining that he beheld in the features which emerged from a mask of mud, the countenance of an old friend. After the operation was ended, he could not help addressing himself to Mr. Touchwood, to demand whether he had not the pleasure to see a friend, to whom he had been obliged when at Smyrna, for some kindness respecting his money matters?
“Not worth speaking of—not worth speaking of,” said Touchwood, hastily. “Glad to see you, though—glad to see you.—Yes, here I am; you will find me the same good-natured old fool that I was at Smyrna—never look how I am to get in money again—always laying it out. Never mind—it was written in my forehead, as the Turk says.—I will go up now and change my dress—you will sup with me when I come back—Mrs. Dods will toss us up something—a brandered fowl will be best, Mrs. Dods, with some mushrooms, and get us a jug of mulled wine—plottie, as you call it—to put the recollection of the old Presbyterian's common sewer out of my head.”
So saying, up stairs marched the traveller to his own apartment, while Tyrrel, seizing upon a candle, was about to do the same.
“Mr. Touchwood is in the blue room, Mrs. Dods; I suppose I may take possession of the yellow one?”
“Suppose naething about the matter, Maister Francis Tirl, till ye tell me downright where ye have been a' this time, and whether ye hae been murdered or no?”
“I think you may be pretty well satisfied of that, Mrs. Dods?”
“Trot! and so I am in a sense; and yet it gars me grue to look upon ye, sae mony days and weeks it has been since I thought ye were rotten in the moulds. And now to see ye standing before me hale and feir, and crying for a bedroom like ither folk!”
“One would almost suppose, my good friend,” said Tyrrel, “that you were sorry at my having come alive again.”
“It's no for that,” replied Mrs. Dods, who was peculiarly ingenious in the mode of framing and stating what she conceived to be her grievances; “but is it no a queer thing for a decent man like yoursell, Maister Tirl, to be leaving your lodgings without a word spoken, and me put to a' these charges in seeking for your dead body, and very near taking my business out of honest Maister Bindloose's hands, because he kend the cantrips of the like of you better than I did?—And than they hae putten up an advertisement down at the Waal yonder, wi' a' their names at it, setting ye forth, Maister Francie, as are of the greatest blackguards unhanged; and wha, div ye think, is to keep ye in a creditable house, if that's the character ye get?”
“You may leave that to me, Mrs. Dods—I assure you that matter shall be put to rights to your satisfaction; and I think, so long as we have known each other, you may take my word that I am not undeserving the shelter of your roof for a single night, (I shall ask it no longer,) until my character is sufficiently cleared. It was for that purpose chiefly I came back again.”
“Came back again!” said Mrs. Dods.—“I profess ye made me start, Maister Tirl, and you looking sae pale, too.—But I think,” she added, straining after a joke, “if ye were a ghaist, seeing we are such auld acquaintance, ye wadna wish to spoil my custom, but would just walk decently up and down the auld castle wa's, or maybe down at the kirk yonder—there have been awfu' things done in that kirk and kirkyard—I whiles dinna like to look that way, Maister Francie.”
“I am much of your mind, mistress,” said Tyrrel, with a sigh; “and, indeed, I do in one resemble the apparitions you talk of; for, like them, and to as little purpose, I stalk about scenes where my happiness departed.—But I speak riddles to you, Mrs. Dods—the plain truth is, that I met with an accident on the day I last left your house, the effects of which detained me at some distance from St. Ronan's till this very day.”
“Hegh, sirs, and ye were sparing of your trouble, that wadna write a bit line, or send a bit message!—Ye might hae thought folk wad hae been vexed eneugh about ye, forby undertaking journeys, and hiring folk to seek for your dead body.”
“I shall willingly pay all reasonable charges which my disappearance may have occasioned,” answered her guest; “and I assure you, once for all, that my remaining for some time quiet at Marchthorn, arose partly from illness, and partly from business of a very pressing and particular nature.”
“At Marchthorn!” exclaimed Dame Dods, “heard ever man the like o' that!—And where did ye put up in Marchthorn, an ane may mak' bauld to speer?”
“At the Black Bull,” replied Tyrrel.
“Ay, that's auld Tam Lowrie's—a very decent man, Thamas—and a douce creditable house—nane of your flisk-ma-hoys—I am glad ye made choice of sic gude quarters, neighbour; for I am beginning to think ye are but a queer ane—ye look as if butter wadna melt in your mouth, but I sall warrant cheese no choke ye.—But I'll thank ye to gang your ways into the parlour, for I am no like to get muckle mair out o' ye, it's like; and ye are standing here just in the gate, when we hae the supper to dish.”
Tyrrel, glad to be released from the examination to which his landlady's curiosity had without ceremony subjected him, walked into the parlour, where he was presently joined by Mr. Touchwood, newly attired, and in high spirits.
“Here comes our supper!” he exclaimed.—“Sit ye down, and let us see what Mrs. Dods has done for us.—I profess, mistress, your plottie is excellent, ever since I taught you to mix the spices in the right proportion.”
“I am glad the plottie pleases ye, sir—but I think I kend gay weel how to make it before I saw your honour—Maister Tirl can tell that, for mony a browst of it I hae brewed lang syne for him and the callant Valentine Bulmer.”
This ill-timed observation extorted a groan from Tyrrel; but the traveller, running on with his own recollections, did not appear to notice his emotion.
“You are a conceited old woman,” said Mr. Touchwood; “how the devil should any one know how to mix spices so well as he who has been where they grow?—I have seen the sun ripening nutmegs and cloves, and here, it can hardly fill a peasecod, by Jupiter. Ah, Tyrrel, the merry nights we have had at Smyrna!—Gad, I think the gammon and the good wine taste all the better in a land where folks hold them to be sinful indulgences—Gad, I believe many a good Moslem is of the same opinion—that same prohibition of their prophet's gives a flavour to the ham, and a relish to the Cyprus.—Do you remember old Cogia Hassein, with his green turban?—I once played him a trick, and put a pint of brandy into his sherbet. Egad, the old fellow took care never to discover the cheat until he had got to the bottom of the flagon, and then he strokes his long white beard, and says, ‘Ullah Kerim,’—that is, ‘Heaven is merciful,’ Mrs. Dods, Mr. Tyrrel knows the meaning of it.—Ullah Kerim, says he, after he had drunk about a gallon of brandy-punch!—Ullah Kerim, says the hypocritical old rogue, as if he had done the finest thing in the world!”
“And what for no? What for shouldna the honest man say a blessing after his drap punch?” demanded Mrs. Dods; “it was better, I ween, than blasting, and blawing, and swearing, as if folks shouldna be thankful for the creature comforts.”
“Well said, old Dame Dods,” replied the traveller; “that is a right hostess's maxim, and worthy of Mrs. Quickly herself. Here is to thee, and I pray ye to pledge me before ye leave the room.”
“Troth, I'll pledge naebody the night, Maister Touchwood; for, what wi' the upcast and terror that I got a wee while syne, and what wi' the bit taste that I behoved to take of the plottie while I was making it, my head is sair eneugh distressed the night already.—Maister Tirl, the yellow room is ready for ye when ye like; and, gentlemen, as the morn is the Sabbath, I canna be keeping the servant queans out of their beds to wait on ye ony langer, for they will mak it an excuse for lying till aught o'clock on the Lord's day. So, when your plottie is done, I'll be muckle obliged to ye to light the bedroom candles, and put out the double moulds, and e'en show yoursells to your beds; for douce folks, sic as the like of you, should set an example by ordinary.—And so, gude-night to ye baith.”
“By my faith,” said Touchwood, as she withdrew, “our dame turns as obstinate as a Pacha with three tails!—We have her gracious permission to finish our mug, however; so here is to your health once more, Mr. Tyrrel, wishing you a hearty welcome to your own country.”
“I thank you, Mr. Touchwood,” answered Tyrrel; “and I return you the same good wishes, with, as I sincerely hope, a much greater chance of their being realized.—You relieved me, sir, at a time when the villainy of an agent, prompted, as I have reason to think, by an active and powerful enemy, occasioned my being, for a time, pressed for funds.—I made remittances to the Ragion you dealt with, to acquit myself at least of the pecuniary part of my obligation; but the bills were returned, because, it was stated, you had left Smyrna.”
“Very true—very true—left Smyrna, and here I am in Scotland—as for the bills, we will speak of them another time—something due for picking me out of the gutter.”
“I shall make no deduction on that account,” said Tyrrel, smiling, though in no jocose mood; “and I beg you not to mistake me. The circumstances of embarrassment, under which you found me at Smyrna, were merely temporary—I am most able and willing to pay my debt; and, let me add, I am most desirous to do so.”
“Another time—another time,” said Mr. Touchwood—“time enough before us, Mr. Tyrrel—besides, at Smyrna, you talked of a lawsuit—law is a lick-penny, Mr. Tyrrel—no counsellor like the pound in purse.”
“For my lawsuit,” said Tyrrel, “I am fully provided.”
“But have you good advice?—Have you good advice?” said Touchwood; “answer me that.”
“I have advised with my lawyers,” answered Tyrrel, internally vexed to find that his friend was much disposed to make his generosity upon the former occasion a pretext for prying farther into his affairs now than he thought polite or convenient.
“With your counsel learned in the law—eh, my dear boy? But the advice you should take is of some travelled friend, well acquainted with mankind and the world—some one that has lived double your years, and is maybe looking out for some bare young fellow that he may do a little good to—one that might be willing to help you farther than I can pretend to guess—for, as to your lawyer, you get just your guinea's worth from him—not even so much as the baker's bargain, thirteen to the dozen.”
“I think I should not trouble myself to go far in search of a friend such as you describe,” said Tyrrel, who could not affect to misunderstand the senior's drift, “when I was near Mr. Peregrine Touchwood; but the truth is, my affairs are at present so much complicated with those of others, whose secrets I have no right to communicate, that I cannot have the advantage of consulting you, or any other friend. It is possible I may be soon obliged to lay aside this reserve, and vindicate myself before the whole public. I will not fail, when that time shall arrive, to take an early opportunity of confidential communication with you.”
“That is right—confidential is the word—No person ever made a confidant of me who repented it—Think what the Pacha might have made of it, had he taken my advice, and cut through the Isthmus of Suez.—Turk and Christian, men of all tongues and countries, used to consult old Touchwood, from the building of a mosque down to the settling of an agio.—But come—Good-night—good-night.”
So saying, he took up his bedroom light, and extinguished one of those which stood on the table, nodded to Tyrrel to discharge his share of the duty imposed by Mrs. Dods with the same punctuality, and they withdrew to their several apartments, entertaining very different sentiments of each other.
“A troublesome, inquisitive old gentleman,” said Tyrrel to himself; “I remember him narrowly escaping the bastinado at Smyrna, for thrusting his advice on the Turkish cadi—and then I lie under a considerable obligation to him, giving him a sort of right to annoy me—Well, I must parry his impertinence as I can.”
“A shy cock this Frank Tyrrel,” thought the traveller; “a very complete dodger!—But no matter—I shall wind him, were he to double like a fox—I am resolved to make his matters my own, and if I cannot carry him through, I know not who can.”
Having formed this philanthropic resolution, Mr. Touchwood threw himself into bed, which luckily declined exactly at the right angle, and, full of self-complacency, consigned himself to slumber.
CHAPTER X.
MEDIATION.
————So, begone!
We will not now be troubled with reply;
We offer fair, take it advisedly.
King Henry IV. Part I.
It had been the purpose of Tyrrel, by rising and breakfasting early, to avoid again meeting Mr. Touchwood, having upon his hands a matter in which that officious gentleman's interference was likely to prove troublesome. His character, he was aware, had been assailed at the Spa in the most public manner, and in the most public manner he was resolved to demand redress, conscious that whatever other important concerns had brought him to Scotland, must necessarily be postponed to the vindication of his honour. He was determined, for this purpose, to go down to the rooms when the company was assembled at the breakfast hour, and had just taken his hat to set out, when he was interrupted by Mrs. Dods, who, announcing “a gentleman that was speering for him,” ushered into the chamber a very fashionable young man in a military surtout, covered with silk lace and fur, and wearing a foraging-cap; a dress now too familiar to be distinguished, but which at that time was used only by geniuses of a superior order. The stranger was neither handsome nor plain, but had in his appearance a good deal of pretension, and the cool easy superiority which belongs to high breeding. On his part, he surveyed Tyrrel; and, as his appearance differed, perhaps, from that for which the exterior of the Cleikum Inn had prepared him, he abated something of the air with which he had entered the room, and politely announced himself as Captain Jekyl, of the —— Guards, (presenting, at the same time, his ticket.)
“He presumed he spoke to Mr. Martigny?”
“To Mr. Francis Tyrrel, sir,” replied Tyrrel, drawing himself up—“Martigny was my mother's name—I have never borne it.”
“I am not here for the purpose of disputing that point, Mr. Tyrrel, though I am not entitled to admit what my principal's information leads him to doubt.”
“Your principal, I presume, is Sir Bingo Binks?” said Tyrrel. “I have not forgotten that there is an unfortunate affair between us.”
“I have not the honour to know Sir Bingo Binks,” said Captain Jekyl. “I come on the part of the Earl of Etherington.”
Tyrrel stood silent for a moment, and then said, “I am at a loss to know what the gentleman who calls himself Earl of Etherington can have to say to me, through the medium of such a messenger as yourself, Captain Jekyl. I should have supposed that, considering our unhappy relationship, and the terms on which we stand towards each other, the lawyers were the fitter negotiators between us.”
“Sir,” said Captain Jekyl, “you are misunderstanding my errand. I am come on no message of hostile import from Lord Etherington—I am aware of the connexion betwixt you, which would render such an office altogether contradictory to common sense and the laws of nature; and I assure you, I would lay down my life rather than be concerned in an affair so unnatural. I would act, if possible, as a mediator betwixt you.”
They had hitherto remained standing. Mr. Tyrrel now offered his guest a seat; and, having assumed one himself, he broke the awkward pause which ensued by observing, “I should be happy, after experiencing such a long course of injustice and persecution from your friend, to learn, even at this late period, Captain Jekyl, any thing which can make me think better, either of him, or of his purpose towards me and towards others.”
“Mr. Tyrrel,” said Captain Jekyl, “you must allow me to speak with candour. There is too great a stake betwixt your brother and you to permit you to be friends; but I do not see it is necessary that you should therefore be mortal enemies.”
“I am not my brother's enemy, Captain Jekyl,” said Tyrrel—“I have never been so—His friend I cannot be, and he knows but too well the insurmountable barrier which his own conduct has placed between us.”
“I am aware,” said Captain Jekyl, slowly and expressively, “generally, at least, of the particulars of your unfortunate disagreement.”
“If so,” said Tyrrel, colouring, “you must be also aware with what extreme pain I feel myself compelled to enter on such a subject with a total stranger—a stranger, too, the friend and confidant of one who——But I will not hurt your feelings, Captain Jekyl, but rather endeavour to suppress my own. In one word, I beg to be favoured with the import of your communication, as I am obliged to go down to the Spa this morning, in order to put to rights some matters there which concern me nearly.”
“If you mean the cause of your absence from an appointment with Sir Bingo Binks,” said Captain Jekyl, “the matter has been already completely explained. I pulled down the offensive placard with my own hand, and rendered myself responsible for your honour to any one who should presume to hold it in future doubt.”
“Sir,” said Tyrrel, very much surprised, “I am obliged to you for your intention, the more so as I am ignorant how I have merited such interference. It is not, however, quite satisfactory to me, because I am accustomed to be the guardian of my own honour.”
