Chapter XI

THREE WHIMSICAL GENTLEMEN AND A BEAUTIFUL LADY.

Under the protection of the maid-servant, who was mature and fat, Dick Wetheral was allowed to slumber till the afternoon. He awoke entirely refreshed, and, after a curious look through his small window at the snow-covered little town with its picturesque church spire, he went down to the kitchen, and in a corner thereof he satisfied a prodigious appetite; upon which he felt himself in excellent physical condition. His slight flesh-wound, received at Quebec, had healed on his sea-voyage, thanks to the persistent health of his blood, and despite the badness of other circumstances.

He walked but twelve miles that day, arriving after nightfall at Liskeard, and lodging till morning at an inn near the handsome Gothic church of St. Martin. When he came to pay his bill he found it took all his money but a few pence, and thus he set forth, on the first day of the year 1776, bound eastward, with empty pockets, friendless in a strange and hostile land, with no fixed intention save the vague one of eventually returning to fight for his country, with no present plan save to keep moving on.

Not seeking food once during a journey of seventeen miles, he finally crossed the Tamer, from Cornwall into Devonshire, and arrived at Tavistock with less curiosity to view the vestiges of the tenth century abbey there, than to learn where his dinner was to come from. He had decided to beg, if necessary; he considered that his own people, as was the custom of his country, entertained freely every hungry or roofless man that came to their home in the wilderness, therefore some hospitality was due him from the world at large; and he reasoned that, being now among a hostile people, whose government was responsible for his present situation, he was morally entitled, without reproach, to whatever he could, in the name of charity, obtain from that people. Profiting by some of Tom MacAlister's related experiences, he had bethought himself, on the road, of certain possible methods of overcoming charity's coyness.

The first door at which he knocked, in Tavistock, was promptly shut in his face, by a man who blurted out something about rogues and vagabonds, and ere Dick's civil greeting was finished. At the next house a frowning old woman was equally inhospitable. But at the third, the cottage of a serge-weaver, the young girl who opened the door allowed her soft eyes to rest on Dick before making a move to close it, and Dick improved the moment to assure her that he was no common rogue and vagabond, but an honest teller of fortunes by cards, who saw already in her face the signs of a great surprise in her own immediate future. The girl opened the door wider, and Dick stepped in with such a courteous bow to the two other occupants of the room that they rose instinctively to receive him, blinded to his garb by his gentlemanly bearing. It was meal-time, and the family at table consisted of father, mother, and the girl who had opened the door.

Dick lost no time, but asked for a pack of cards, with such a smile, and so much as if the request were the most natural one possible, that the mother told the girl where the cards were, and the girl immediately brought them. Dick began by telling the fortune of the head of the house, who was so diverted with the prediction of a gift from a dark man, that Dick's invention was allowed full exercise regarding the future destiny of each member of the family. The mother then speaking of a dream she had recently had, Dick promptly offered to interpret it for her, and its meaning was so favorable that the interpreter was soon in the way to gorge himself with beef and ale. He then did some card tricks that Tom had taught him, and, perceiving that a pack of cards would thereafter be a useful implement to him, eventually won the cards themselves, on a bet as to the location of a certain one of them. Having found that his card tricks amused, he resolved to rely on them thereafter, and not to stoop again to fortune-telling, an old woman's business adopted by him for the once as most likely means of exciting the girl's curiosity.

He went from the weaver's house to the inn hard by the church of St. Eustache, and, obtaining a friendly reception by the conciliating manner and flattering air with which he accosted the servants, passed the afternoon in manipulating the cards, to the mystification of kitchen wenches, ostlers, and tipplers of low degree; winning a few sixpences from the last named in a fair game of skill. He thus earned a supper in a kitchen, and a bed in the stable-loft.

The next day he walked twenty-one miles, crossing Dartmoor Forest and the vast common, doing card tricks for a meal in a farmer's cottage at each one of two villages, and lodging for the night at Moreton Hampstead, where his procedure at the inn was in general similar to that at Tavistock.

In the morning he went on to Exeter, which--with its antique houses, its splendid cathedral of St. Peter flanked by the old bishop's palace, its ruined castle of West Saxon kings, its bustling High Street, its bridge across the Exe, and its busy quay--impressed Dick the more for its being the first large town of England to greet his eyes. He remained here many days, going from inn-yard to inn-yard, and, in the poorer quarters, from house to house; always with an address so polite and amiable that few resisted or distrusted him. His look and manner were so different from those of the common wayfarer or mountebank that he found he need stand in no fear of being dealt with as a vagrant. He added to his resources some of Tom's old conjuring feats, which he made new by means of the glib, humorous speeches he was soon able to rattle off. A cause of his prolonged stay at Exeter was the great snowfall and frost, which began January 7th, with a high eastern wind, froze the rivers, and put to shame all recollections of cold weather that dated since the memorable hard winter of 1739-40. Dick spent most of this time in entertaining snow-bound travellers of low degree, at the inns, receiving in payment now a meal, now a share of a bed, now a few small coins. There were nights, though, when he lodged outside, taking short naps in some sheltering angle of the cathedral, and rousing himself at intervals to stir his blood by walking.

On the 2d of February the wind changed and blew from the south. Waiting a few days more, so as to be less inconvenienced by the thaw, Dick started northward, passing through a beautiful country partly in sight of the Exe, dined at Collumpton, and proceeded in the afternoon to Wellington in Somersetshire, where he lay for the night in an open shed appertaining to the inn. The next morning, paying for breakfast with the last of the coins he had earned at Exeter, he went on to the sweet vale of Taunton Dean, and arrived penniless at the town of Taunton, where a singular thing befell him.

He had stopped to look into an inn-yard, to see whether the time was propitious for his obtaining the attention of servants and inferior guests, and thus for his paving the way to one of his unlicensed performances, when a post-chaise drove up and let out a richly dressed young gentleman, with a portmanteau and a gold-headed cane, but not attended by any private servant.

As he was about to enter the inn, this young gentleman, who was of a sedate and self-contained demeanor, stopped for a moment, regarded Dick with a sudden but civil interest, and half perceptibly smiled; he then passed in, while a menial shouldered his portmanteau and followed.

Dick knew at once the cause of the look of interest and of the smile. He was still pondering on it when, a few minutes later, the gentleman came out of the inn, greeted him with most kindly condescension, and said, in a quiet tone, while making sure by swift side-glances that no one overheard:

"My good man, I see you, too, have noticed how much we look like each other."

"In the face, yes," replied Dick; "but not as much in the clothes."

"Quite true," said the gentleman, with an appreciative smile. "I was just about to speak of that. As I looked at you and noticed the resemblance between us, I couldn't but think how different everything would be to me if I were the man in the smock-frock and you were the man in the velvet coat. And then an odd idea came into my head. Said I to myself, 'Why shouldn't I try the experiment, and see how it may be to travel a short way through the world in a smock-frock?' I'm given to whims, you see, and, moreover, it will be a droll thing for me to appear, clad like you, at the house where I'm expected to-night. Ha! How my lord will stare to see me come in! In fine, my good man, I propose that we shall exchange clothes, and go on our different ways!"

"You mean that, for the clothes I have on, you would give me those you wear now?" cried Dick, astonished and amused.

"Precisely, with the cane and snuff-box thrown into the bargain."

"But don't you know you can buy in five minutes a suit of clothes like mine, for a hundredth part of the worth of all you offer me?"

"Yes, I know that, of course. But, you see, it would attract attention, my buying such clothes--"

"Oh, for that matter, I can buy them for you."

"No, for then they would either be new, in which case my--ah--disguise would be easier seen through; or they would be second-hand, and then God knows who might have worn them in the past! Besides, I can afford to pay for my whims, and it pleases me to think that you, too, who resemble me so much, would have the benefit of my clothes, as I should have of yours. Come! Or, rather, wait till I pay in advance for my room, which I'll occupy but half an hour; then I'll take you to it; we can change immediately, and go forth to see how differently the world will look at us."

Convinced, at last, that it was no insane person by whom he should be profiting, Dick saw no reason for interposing further objections; indeed, those already put had been offered merely to satisfy his natural scruples against being on the better side of so uneven a bargain, for the idea of swaggering awhile in costly raiment had instantly attracted him. In less than an hour thereafter, he issued from the inn, fully clad as a gentleman, while his whimsical acquaintance, slinking out as unobserved as Dick had slunk in, tipped him a friendly farewell and made off in the opposite direction, shouldering the portmanteau as if he were a hired porter.

As Dick strutted along the busy street, glancing at the shop-windows, and in turn glanced at by more than one pair of demure eyes, he suddenly bethought himself that a gentleman in velvet and lace, with silk stockings and gold buckles, but without a penny in pocket or in prospect, was a somewhat anomalous personage. Moreover, the county towns and country villages were a field far less worth shining in as a gentleman than were certain fields he now began to think he might soon visit.

He therefore visited certain dealers in the town, and by dinner-time he was minus the gold-headed cane and a gold-mounted snuff-box, but was the richer by a plainer snuff-box; some changes of linen, underclothes, neck-cloths, and handkerchiefs; a bag in which to carry all his movables; and a suit of clothes. He chose the last with a view to the fit only, regardless of the fact that it was a gamekeeper's costume. At another inn than the one where he had met the stranger, Dick doffed his fine feathers, put on the gamekeeper's suit, and dined, paying for his dinner with some money he had over from the proceeds of the cane and snuff-box.

In the afternoon, carrying his bag of clothes slung by a stick over his shoulder, he left Taunton behind, presently abandoned the road that went northward to Bridgewater, and proceeded northeastward, traversing charming vales, and arriving at night at a village about half-way between Taunton and Glastonbury. His pack of cards earned his supper and bed, both in the house of a simple-minded blacksmith.

The next day he passed through Glastonbury, pausing to indulge his imagination before the ruined abbey in which Kings Arthur and Edgar were buried, as well as before the rotting cross in the town's centre, and before the Tor of St. Michael on the hill northeast. He fed nothing but his imagination at this place, and hastened on to Wells, where he stayed his stomach further while admiring the magnificent west front of the Gothic Cathedral, the high square tower and ornate exterior of St. Cuthbert's Church, and the other fine old buildings.

At the inn, he found, among other travellers, a party of lesser gentry on whose hands time hung heavily, their business being finished, but themselves being unwilling to set forth on a Friday. Dick soon ingratiated himself with these gentlemen, whose thick and empty heads were already astray with punch, wine, and ale; and he was made not only a sharer of their good cheer, but the sole occupant of the bed of one whom he tried to assist thither but who persisted in sleeping on the floor instead.

Leaving early the next morning, ere his benefactors were awake to eject him as some presuming plebeian who had availed himself of their drunkenness, Dick proceeded northeastward towards Bath, his eyes rejoicing in the beauty of the Mendip hills and the surrounding country.

When he had reached a spot where a short stretch of road before him had a delightfully secluded appearance, by reason of the trees that overarched it, and the varied slopes that rose gently on either hand, those on the left extending in a series of shapely hills to a far western horizon, he began to think of breakfast. A little way ahead, a vine-grown wall, broken by high gate-posts, marked the roadside boundary of a small, sloping park, belonging to a country-seat whose towers and chimneys rose among the trees some distance within. As Dick lay down his bag to rest, there came from a small door in the wall a gamekeeper, who immediately raised the fowling-piece he carried, and fired at a hawk that circled over a copse at Dick's right. The shot missed, and the gamekeeper reloaded. But when he was ready for a second shot, he shouldered his gun, evidently thinking the bird out of range, although it remained over the copse.

"I'll bring that bird down for you, if you let me," called out Dick, on the impulse of the moment, just as if he had been in his own country.

In reply, the gamekeeper stared in amazement. Dick repeated his offer. Then the gamekeeper found words, and wrathfully ordered Dick from the premises, calling him a vagabond, a poacher, and worse. Dick was about to close the fellow's mouth with a blow, when a loud voice, one that shifted between a bellow and a whine, came from the direction of the great gate:

"What's amiss, Perkins? Hold the damned rascal! I'll make a jailbird of him, that I will! What is it, Perkins? Highway robbery? I'll have him up, the next assizes!"

By this time, the speaker, having got out of a coach just as it was being driven through the gate, had come up to where Dick and the gamekeeper stood. He was a large, pot-bellied man, with coarse features, red face, and bloodshot eyes; a man of about forty, showing in his movements a disability due to a dissolute life, and dressed with a richness that did not avail to soften the impression of grossness he produced.

"The rascal had the impudence of offering to shoot that hawk, sir," said the gamekeeper, looking wroth at the outrage.

"What hawk?" queried the threatening gentleman, looking, and presently sighting the only one in view. "That hawk? Odd's life! If the rogue can shoot that hawk at this distance, I'm his humble servant, that I am! And let him only speak, and the place of under-keeper shall be his, damn me twice over if it sha'n't! D'ye hear that, rascal?"

Philosophically ignoring the last word, Dick replied, "If Mr. Perkins will hand me the gun, I'll show you how we shoot in" (he was going to say "America," but checked himself) "the county I came from."

"Give him the gun, Perkins, give him the gun!" ordered the gentleman, eagerly, responding to anything that appealed to his love of shooting, and already preparing to jeer in case of Dick's failure.

Dick took the gun, aimed carefully, fired; the bird fell into the copse. Whereupon the gentleman, forgetting former threats, impulsively applauded, pronounced Dick a marvel, and, taking it from his garb that he was a gamekeeper, began a brief catechising that resulted in Dick's being forthwith installed as Mr. Perkins's assistant, in a lodge at the farther end of Mr. Bullcott's woods,--for Bullcott was the name of the country squire whose favor Dick's marksmanship had so quickly won. Dick's face, and the straight account of himself that he had invented on the spot, served in lieu of a written "character" with the impulsive and unthinking Squire Bullcott; as subsequently his adaptiveness, quickness of perception, and conciliating manner enabled him to acquire Perkins's tolerance, and to learn the duties of his post so soon that no one discovered he had never filled a similar one before.

In this situation Dick spent the rest of February, all of March, and great part of April; having little company other than that of Perkins and the dogs; rarely seeing his master, who made frequent journeys from home; and not once beholding the Squire's wife, who, said Perkins, was usually ailing and mostly kept her room. He might have had the smiles of any of the maid-servants of Bullcott Hall, but he would never accept amatory favors from low sources as a supposed equal, though he might willingly enough, in his own proper character of gentleman, condescend on occasion to kiss a handsome wench.

One sweet, blossomy day in April, while following the course of a little rivulet, Dick emerged from the woods to a field at whose farther end was a barn, before which stood a large wagon whence a party of strolling players were moving their accessories into the building, for the purpose of giving a series of performances there. By the brookside, at a place hidden from her fellow Thespians by some bushes, knelt one of the women of the company, a rather pretty girl, washing clothes. Standing near this girl, with his back towards Dick, was a man who seemed, from his attitude and gestures, to be pressing on her some sort of invitation, which she apparently chose to ignore. This man presently stooped by her side, and made to put his arms around her, whereupon she gave him a vigorous slap in the face with the wet undergarment she then held.

The man persisting in his attempt to embrace her, and the girl resisting without fear but with repugnance, Dick ran forward, cuffed the man on the side of the head, and announced the intention of throwing him into the brook if he did not immediately let go the lady. The man let go, but only in order to spring to his feet and turn, with clenched fists, upon Dick, disclosing to the latter the furious face of Squire Bullcott.

The Squire, whose wrath instantly doubled upon his seeing that his interfering assailant was his own under gamekeeper, could only roar, sputter, and whine, incoherently, and look as if about to explode. He was deterred from instantly laying hands on Dick by the attitude of defence into which the latter had promptly thrown himself. When Mr. Bullcott had used up his breath in calling Dick vile names, and threatening him with everything from a cudgel to a gibbet, Dick explained that he could not stand by and see any man force his caresses on a lady against her will.

"Lady!" bellowed the Squire. "Why, she's a miserable ---- of a vagabond play-actress! Why, you fool, I'll warrant she can't begin to count the men who have had her!"

"I don't stand up for the woman's virtue," said Dick. "I know nothing about that." He perceived that a man who would ever testify with due effect to the virtue of a good woman, must not assert, by oath or blows, a belief in that of a bad or doubtful woman. "But every woman has the right to say who sha'n't have her favors," he went on, "and that girl was resolved you shouldn't have hers!"

"Well, by God, we'll see! I'll have the whole rabble locked up, I will! They shan't give any of their nasty plays where I have jurisdiction! I'll drive them off, and you, too! No, I won't, I'll have you up at the assizes. I'll see you hanged for murderous assault; that I will!"

With which, the girl having already fled to her comrades, and voices being heard to approach, the worthy magistrate plunged into cover of the woods in one direction, while Dick sought similar concealment in another.

Knowing that time had come to resume his travels, Dick hastened to his lodge, and there, the better to avoid arrest on the Squire's order, he put on the fine suit given him by the strange gentleman at Taunton. With all his other clothes in his bag, he then started for the road. As he was passing through the woods, he first heard and then saw Mr. Perkins leading towards the abandoned lodge a pair of ugly fellows armed with bludgeons. Unseen by this party, Dick made a detour that led him eventually to the road, but to a part thereof that necessitated his passing the great gate of the Hall in order to continue his journey northward.

As he was musing on the peculiar appearance he must make in the road, that of a gaily dressed gentleman travelling afoot and carrying a bag, he saw Squire Bullcott come forth on horseback, attended by two stalwart, raw-looking servants. The Squire stared at him, in bewilderment, a moment, then cried out to his servants:

"'Tis the very same! The same damned rogue! I know the rascal in spite of his clothes! Stop him, Curry, and hold him fast! Down off your horses, both of you, or he'll get safe away!"

"I dare you to stop me now!" cried Dick, going straight up to Bullcott and looking him in the face. "I'm a gentleman, and one of your betters, though I did amuse myself by playing gamekeeper to an ignorant brute!"

The Squire glared for a moment in speechless fury, and then, gathering breath and saliva, spat with great force in Dick's face.

The two servants were now dismounted. Mr. Bullcott, enraged to the point of preferring immediate revenge rather than the slow operation of the law, ordered them to use their whips on Dick. They fell upon him together, at the moment when he was blinded by the handkerchief with which he had instantly begun to cleanse his visage of Bullcott's disgusting marks.

Maddened by the blows that rained upon his face, neck, arms, and wrists, Dick struck out wildly at his brawny assailants. At a certain violent rush on his part, they fell back. The Squire seized that moment as an opportune one for riding his horse at Dick, and the latter, leaping aside to avoid the heavy hoofs, tripped on a stone and fell flat in the road, knocking the breath out of his body.

Bullcott now, leaning from his horse, wielded his own whip on Dick's head and back, accompanying the castigation with vengeful oaths and vile epithets. Then, ordering his men to bestow each a final kick on the prostrate body, the worthy gentleman rode off about his business, which, it eventually appeared, was to cause the ejection of the strolling players from the barn before which their merry-andrew had already begun to collect a crowd around his wagon.

Kicked into insensibility, Dick was at last abandoned by the two servants, and he lay in the road until, fifteen minutes later, there came up from the direction of Wells a post-chaise, from which a hearty-looking young gentleman, having ordered the postilion to stop, got out for the sole purpose of examining the prostrate body in the way. He stooped beside Dick, called his valet to bring some brandy, and gently raised Dick's head.

"Who is it?" murmured Dick, summoned out of a wild and painful dream, and resting his blue eyes on the rubicund, cheerful, somewhat impudent face of the young gentleman.

"Who is it?" repeated the latter, blithely. "That's a good one! Here's a gentleman who has fallen among thieves and been left half dead, and the first thing he wants of the Good Samaritan is to know who the Good Samaritan is! Swallow this brandy, sir, and the Good Samaritan will introduce himself."

"You are certainly the Good Samaritan," moaned Dick, after a reviving gulp from the flask held by the valet; "but I haven't fallen among thieves. I fell in only with the most damned boorish scoundrel that ever disgraced the name of gentleman, and I swear I won't rest till I've paid him back what he and his rascal menials did me here, blow for blow, and kick for kick."

"Quite right!" said the other, gaily. "But, in the meantime, what is to be done for you? Can I take you to your house? Do you live hereabouts?"

"No, my home is--quite--far--away," replied Dick, relapsing into a dreamy condition.

The other gently shook him back to full consciousness. "Then where may I take you? Whither were you bound? Towards Bath?"

"Yes, towards Bath," said Dick, on a moment's impulse.

"Well, by George, that's fortunate! You shall be my travelling companion the rest of the way. You don't seem to have your own coach at hand, or any of your servants."

"You are right. I have no coach at hand--or any servants. I have only the bag in the ditch yonder. You are very kind! I don't like to intrude."

"Nonsense, my dear sir! 'Tis I who have intruded on your slumbers here. You'll be company for me on the journey. 'Fore gad, I was dead of ennui, for some one to talk to, when we came upon you! Get the gentleman's bag, Wilkins. I must say, sir, your own servant must be a rascal, to have dropped your things and ridden off as he did, when you were attacked."

Dick saw no reason to correct the impression produced, by his clothes and other circumstances, on the cordial young gentleman, and he silently let himself be helped into the chaise, which, his bag having been stowed away and his rescuers having got in, at once started off towards Bath.

Dick gave no more account of himself, beyond announcing his name and the fact that he had recently come from travels abroad, than to say that he had been attacked by the servants of a gentleman whose motive was personal revenge, and left as the Good Samaritan had found him. The Good Samaritan turned out to be Lord George Winston, who was given to letting his private coaches and horses lie idle, and to travelling in his present modest fashion, in order that he might encounter the more amusing people and incidents. He was now hastening, in quest of society, back from his Devonshire estate, whither he had recently hastened in quest of solitude. He was an exceedingly good-natured, self-satisfied, talkative youth, one of those happily constituted persons who are not even their own enemies. Yet he was a man of exceeding animation and wit, as he showed by countless little jests with which he enlivened the talk he rattled off to Dick on the journey.

Dick allowed most of the conversation to his lordship, which circumstance made so agreeable an impression on the latter, that, on learning Dick had no engagements, he gave an imperative invitation to be his guest in Bath for a few days, and afterward to bear him company to London. Dick, philosophically accepting, thus saw his immediate future paved with roses in advance, ere the increasing bustle of converging roads, the sound of the Avon flowing beneath its bridge, and the sight of many roofs and towers told him he was entering the most populous and fashionable pleasure resort in England.

It was late in the afternoon, when they drove into Bath. The chaise rattled through the fine streets of splendid stone houses, its own noise mingling with that of grand coaches and other conveyances. On every side were finely dressed people, strutting with an air of consequence, while Dick got a glimpse of a fair face, more or less genuine in color, in many a carriage and chair. The chaise let out its passengers at the Three Tuns, where Lord George engaged rooms for the night, and where Dick carefully repaired all damage to his person and attire, donned fresh linen, had his hair powdered by a man whom Lord George had caused to be summoned, dined with his gay companion, and sauntered forth afoot with him at evening, glowing with the newly stimulated love of pleasure.

At the door of the Pelican Inn, Lord George introduced Dick to a pompous but good-natured little gentleman named Boswell, who greeted my lord obsequiously but tarried only so long as to mention that he was on his way to meet Doctor Johnson at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Thrale.

"Does he mean the great Doctor Johnson, the author?" asked Dick, looking back after him with curiosity.

"Yes," said Lord George; "he is a harmless, conceited Scotchman that comes to town a few weeks every year and follows at the heels of Johnson, who treats him as if he were the spaniel he is. 'Tis amusing to consort now and then with those writing fellows, if you can endure their vanity. As for Johnson, he says a good thing sometimes, and might be good company but for his sweating and grunting, his dirty linen and his beastly way of eating, and his desire of doing all the talking himself."

They went to the Assembly Rooms, where his lordship introduced Dick to numerous people of both sexes and then sat down to cards; while Dick looked on, or walked about among the promenaders, the gay talkers, and the chatting tea-drinkers, and thought he was in a kind of paradise.

The next day Lord George moved with his guest to a floor in a fine house on the South Parade, where there was comparative quiet from the noise of wheels. There established, Dick, as he listened to the bells of the Abbey church,--which sound carried to him a mental vision of the venerable Cathedral itself, with its fine western front and its countless windows,--resolved that he would ever after wear the clothes of a gentleman, as his birth and mind entitled him to do; that his future way should lie amidst fine surroundings; that he should thereafter contrive to sip only of the honey of this world.

The two young gentlemen went early to the pump-room; took the hot water bath in a great tank overlooked by the pump-room windows, in company with other perspiring folk, who did not look at their best,-- particularly the ladies in their brown linen jackets and petticoats and their chip hats with handkerchiefs affixed. Then, having dressed and partaken of the water served by the pumper in the bar, Lord George and Dick--or rather Mr. Wetheral, for he had now determined to complete the transformation that his change of clothes had begun--strolled on the North Parade; after which his lordship played a game of billiards with an acquaintance he met, while Dick stole away in quest of a certain kind of shop. This excursion was fruitful, and when Mr. Wetheral rejoined his friend at the Coffee House his shoes had silver buckles instead of gold ones, and a small quantity of coin rattled in his previously silent pocket. For Dick, having watched the cards awhile on the preceding night, had made up his mind to try a fling at fortune, himself.

Accordingly, when they went to the Rooms that night, it was Mr. Wetheral that played, and Lord George that sought diversion otherwise, joining the dancers, for this was one of the two weekly ball-nights. Wetheral had beginner's luck, of course, and when he retired to bed at twelve his pockets jingled with an effect almost as pleasant to his ears as that of the Abbey bells, and he saw himself prospectively the possessor of some splendid house in the Circus or in Prince's Row.

He imagined, of course, a lovely sharer of the contemplated splendor, but this fancy did not take a permanent shape in his mind's eye; sometimes it wore the face of Catherine de St. Valier; then this image gave way to a kind of collective impression of the many pretty faces he had already seen in Bath. For so great a change had come in his surroundings and desires, that Catherine and her snowy Quebec had faded into a far past and seemed at an immeasurable distance. Reproach him not too severely! He was nineteen, in England, in spring, as if freshly born into a new world that appeared all pleasure and beauty; moreover, the past five months had been so crowded with events and changes that they trailed out behind him like years instead of months.

His luck at cards continuing, and with it his determination to move thereafter in polite life, Mr. Wetheral set about acquiring certain accomplishments necessary to his purpose. There was a fop among Lord George's acquaintance, given to telling laughable stories, partly in French. Of this gentleman's Coffee House audience, Dick was the only one who could not laugh uproariously at these Gallic passages. He thereupon resolved to learn French, as well as to acquire the more fashionable styles of dancing, and to improve what rudiments of fencing had been imparted to him by old Tom MacAlister. Thus he invested a good part of his nightly winnings in clandestine lessons, taken while Lord George was making visits, or off with some pleasure-seeking party to Spring Gardens, or elsewhere engaged.

Wetheral supplemented his French and fencing lessons with private practice in his rooms, or in some solitary part of the grove by the Avon, or of King's Mead Fields, or elsewhere. His natural readiness and his fierce application soon enabled him to read and write easy French passably well; but when he came to speak in that language to the foppish little master of ceremonies at the Rooms, he brought confusion on himself. He made a better show at dancing, though; and a few trials of the foils with Lord George, on a rainy day, displayed a promise of early ability to handle a sword in the approved fashion.

One evening in the second week of May, Lord George announced his wish of starting for London on the morrow, as the fashionable season at Bath would soon be over. Dick had no sorrow at this, for he had resolved to continue in London his present way of life, by means of the cards and by whatever other resources he might find at hand. He was quite ready for fresh fields, as long as they were of the flowery kind. Desiring, though, a last survey of the field he was about to leave, Dick sallied forth alone that night for the Rooms, Lord George having to remain at his lodgings to write some letters he had postponed to the last moment.

Just as Mr. Wetheral was entering the ballroom, during a cessation of dancing, and was felicitating himself on the flattering salutations he got from acquaintances obtained through Lord George,--and several of these greetings came with melting smiles from fair faces,--he heard a voice at his side cry out:

"Why, by God, 'tis the rascal gamekeeper masquerading as a gentleman!"

Dick recognized the voice, now bellow and now whimper, ere even he turned, like a man shot, and saw the face. At sight of the gross, insolent visage of Squire Bullcott, the memory of the horse-whipping drove away every other consideration, and Dick, thinking only of revenge, not of his own possible discomfiture, replied, hotly:

"So 'tis you, Bully Bullcott! I intended to return and pay off my score, but kind Providence has saved me the trouble by sending you to Bath. Wait until I meet you in the street, sir!"

"What, you dog!" cried the Squire, whose corpulent body was dressed as if it were the elegant figure of a beau of twenty-five. "Why, hear the cur talk, will you that! The low, dirty, mongrel cur, that came starving along the road, with tongue hanging out and ne'er a kennel to sleep in; and that I took in and made a gamekeeper of! How in the name of God he ever came by those clothes he has on, I know not. But you sha'n't play any of your tricks here, you impostor! I denounce this rascal, gentlemen! He's not what he pretends to be!"

"Gentlemen," said Dick, to the crowd that had quickly assembled, "there are many of you here who know me--"

"If there be," said Bullcott, cutting Dick's speech short, "how long have you known him? Hey? And is there any gentleman here that doesn't know me?" From the manner in which the Squire glared around, and that of the gentlemen who amiably nodded in confirmation, it was plain that Squire Bullcott was a very well-known person at Bath; and from other tokens it was equally plain that Dick's acquaintances were mentally recalling that the time since they had first met him was indeed short. "The fellow is a gamekeeper, I say! A common servant, that I paid wages to, a month ago, and that my footmen drove off my place, as they shall drive him out of these Rooms now!" Whereat he strode through the crowd, which opened for him with the deference due to wealth, and at the door he called out to his servants, who were waiting with his coach.

Before Mr. Wetheral, who looked in perplexity from one acquaintance to another, and saw each man fall slightly back or look aside, could arrive at any course of action, he found himself face to face with the two low-browed fellows who had obeyed the Squire's behest on a former memorable occasion. Ere he was fully sensible of their intention, he was grasped at neck and arm, and the next instant he was being hustled swiftly to the street. Resisting blindly, and as the nether part of his person came considerably in the rear in this rapid exit, he made a ludicrous appearance, as he knew from the shout of laughter that followed him,--laughter in which, to his unutterable chagrin, the voices of the ladies mingled, for they had pushed forward among the gentlemen who had first hastened to the scene.

Once outside, Dick's two burly captors flung him forward into the street, where he landed on all fours in mire and refuse.

A crowd of servants and rabble quickly gathered around, shouting with glee. Dick's mood, when he rose, bruised and soiled, was to return and do battle with the whole assembly in the Rooms. But he knew the futility of such heroic measures, and that the present was no time in which to seek retaliation. He contented himself, therefore, with what effective lunges were necessary in order to break through the street crowd. Having achieved a passage in one fierce dash, he ran on, at a pace that soon ended pursuit, until he reached his lodgings. There he made himself presentable before joining Lord George, to whom he said nothing of the night's occurrence.

Their early departure, the next morning, alone prevented his lordship from hearing the news that was now all over Bath; and Dick felt a decided relief when he saw the city receding in the morning sunshine while the post-chaise they had taken was bowling merrily towards Wiltshire. An uneventful day, diversified by many stops for refreshment, brought them late in the afternoon to Marlboro, where Dick had time, before nightfall, to ascend by the winding path the famous mount, and to meditate in the grotto where Thomson had composed "The Seasons," as well as to stroll through the charming grounds stretching at the rear of the inn to the Kennet.

As the Bath stage-coach for London drove up, Dick looked furtively from the inn window to see if it should let out any of those who had witnessed his humiliation the previous night. Lord George, glancing from the same window, suddenly exclaimed, "Egad, there's a fine woman!"

Following his lordship's gaze, Dick beheld a slender and graceful lady emerging from a private coach. Her face, round, soft, childlike, with clear and gentle blue eyes, instantly captivated Dick. He watched her while she gave hasty directions to her coachman, and while she stepped quickly and with downcast look, as if wishing to avoid observation, to the inn. She was accompanied by another lady, also quite handsome, but of a somewhat severe and defiant countenance.

Having entered the inn, the two ladies were seen no more while Dick and Lord George remained at Marlboro, although these candid admirers of beauty delayed their departure thence till the next day was far advanced. With sighs of disappointment, they then resumed their journey, and passed through the forest and on to Hungerford, where they dined and tarried awhile in the vain hope that yet the lady of the private coach might overtake them.

Continuing in disappointment, they proceeded into Berkshire and along the pleasant Kennet to Speenhamland, which, as all the world knows, is but the northern part of Newbury, the Kennet flowing between under a stone bridge. They had no sooner made themselves comfortable in the last two available rooms at the Pelican Inn, than Wetheral happened to look out into the corridor and see, accidentally glancing from the opposite chamber at the same moment, the beautiful lady of the private coach.