The Scarlet Pimpernel (2 page)

"What?"

"No! The captain of the guard was that damned Englishman in disguise,
and everyone of his soldiers aristos!"

The crowd this time said nothing: the story certainly savoured of the
supernatural, and though the Republic had abolished God, it had not
quite succeeded in killing the fear of the supernatural in the hearts of
the people. Truly that Englishman must be the devil himself.

The sun was sinking low down in the west. Bibot prepared himself to
close the gates.

"EN AVANT The carts," he said.

Some dozen covered carts were drawn up in a row, ready to leave town,
in order to fetch the produce from the country close by, for market the
next morning. They were mostly well known to Bibot, as they went through
his gate twice every day on their way to and from the town. He spoke
to one or two of their drivers—mostly women—and was at great pains to
examine the inside of the carts.

"You never know," he would say, "and I'm not going to be caught like
that fool Grospierre."

The women who drove the carts usually spent their day on the Place de la
Greve, beneath the platform of the guillotine, knitting and gossiping,
whilst they watched the rows of tumbrils arriving with the victims the
Reign of Terror claimed every day. It was great fun to see the aristos
arriving for the reception of Madame la Guillotine, and the places close
by the platform were very much sought after. Bibot, during the day,
had been on duty on the Place. He recognized most of the old hats,
"tricotteuses," as they were called, who sat there and knitted, whilst
head after head fell beneath the knife, and they themselves got quite
bespattered with the blood of those cursed aristos.

"He! la mere!" said Bibot to one of these horrible hags, "what have you
got there?"

He had seen her earlier in the day, with her knitting and the whip of
her cart close beside her. Now she had fastened a row of curly locks to
the whip handle, all colours, from gold to silver, fair to dark, and she
stroked them with her huge, bony fingers as she laughed at Bibot.

"I made friends with Madame Guillotine's lover," she said with a coarse
laugh, "he cut these off for me from the heads as they rolled down. He
has promised me some more to-morrow, but I don't know if I shall be at
my usual place."

"Ah! how is that, la mere?" asked Bibot, who, hardened soldier that
he was, could not help shuddering at the awful loathsomeness of this
semblance of a woman, with her ghastly trophy on the handle of her whip.

"My grandson has got the small-pox," she said with a jerk of her thumb
towards the inside of her cart, "some say it's the plague! If it is, I
sha'n't be allowed to come into Paris to-morrow." At the first mention
of the word small-pox, Bibot had stepped hastily backwards, and when the
old hag spoke of the plague, he retreated from her as fast as he could.

"Curse you!" he muttered, whilst the whole crowd hastily avoided the
cart, leaving it standing all alone in the midst of the place.

The old hag laughed.

"Curse you, citoyen, for being a coward," she said. "Bah! what a man to
be afraid of sickness."

"MORBLEU! the plague!"

Everyone was awe-struck and silent, filled with horror for the loathsome
malady, the one thing which still had the power to arouse terror and
disgust in these savage, brutalised creatures.

"Get out with you and with your plague-stricken brood!" shouted Bibot,
hoarsely.

And with another rough laugh and coarse jest, the old hag whipped up her
lean nag and drove her cart out of the gate.

This incident had spoilt the afternoon. The people were terrified of
these two horrible curses, the two maladies which nothing could cure,
and which were the precursors of an awful and lonely death. They hung
about the barricades, silent and sullen for a while, eyeing one another
suspiciously, avoiding each other as if by instinct, lest the plague
lurked already in their midst. Presently, as in the case of Grospierre,
a captain of the guard appeared suddenly. But he was known to Bibot, and
there was no fear of his turning out to be a sly Englishman in disguise.

"A cart, . . ." he shouted breathlessly, even before he had reached the
gates.

"What cart?" asked Bibot, roughly.

"Driven by an old hag. . . . A covered cart . . ."

"There were a dozen . . ."

"An old hag who said her son had the plague?"

"Yes . . ."

"You have not let them go?"

"MORBLEU!" said Bibot, whose purple cheeks had suddenly become white
with fear.

"The cart contained the CI-DEVANT Comtesse de Tourney and her two
children, all of them traitors and condemned to death." "And their
driver?" muttered Bibot, as a superstitious shudder ran down his spine.

"SACRE TONNERRE," said the captain, "but it is feared that it was that
accursed Englishman himself—the Scarlet Pimpernel."

In the kitchen Sally was extremely busy—saucepans and frying-pans were
standing in rows on the gigantic hearth, the huge stock-pot stood in
a corner, and the jack turned with slow deliberation, and presented
alternately to the glow every side of a noble sirloin of beef. The two
little kitchen-maids bustled around, eager to help, hot and panting,
with cotton sleeves well tucked up above the dimpled elbows, and
giggling over some private jokes of their own, whenever Miss Sally's
back was turned for a moment. And old Jemima, stolid in temper and
solid in bulk, kept up a long and subdued grumble, while she stirred the
stock-pot methodically over the fire.

"What ho! Sally!" came in cheerful if none too melodious accents from
the coffee-room close by.

"Lud bless my soul!" exclaimed Sally, with a good-humoured laugh, "what
be they all wanting now, I wonder!"

"Beer, of course," grumbled Jemima, "you don't 'xpect Jimmy Pitkin to
'ave done with one tankard, do ye?"

"Mr. 'Arry, 'e looked uncommon thirsty too," simpered Martha, one of
the little kitchen-maids; and her beady black eyes twinkled as they met
those of her companion, whereupon both started on a round of short and
suppressed giggles.

Sally looked cross for a moment, and thoughtfully rubbed her hands
against her shapely hips; her palms were itching, evidently, to come in
contact with Martha's rosy cheeks—but inherent good-humour prevailed,
and with a pout and a shrug of the shoulders, she turned her attention
to the fried potatoes.

"What ho, Sally! hey, Sally!"

And a chorus of pewter mugs, tapped with impatient hands against the oak
tables of the coffee-room, accompanied the shouts for mine host's buxom
daughter.

"Sally!" shouted a more persistent voice, "are ye goin' to be all night
with that there beer?"

"I do think father might get the beer for them," muttered Sally,
as Jemima, stolidly and without further comment, took a couple of
foam-crowned jugs from the shelf, and began filling a number of pewter
tankards with some of that home-brewed ale for which "The Fisherman's
Rest" had been famous since that days of King Charles. "'E knows 'ow
busy we are in 'ere."

"Your father is too busy discussing politics with Mr. 'Empseed to worry
'isself about you and the kitchen," grumbled Jemima under her breath.

Sally had gone to the small mirror which hung in a corner of the
kitchen, and was hastily smoothing her hair and setting her frilled cap
at its most becoming angle over her dark curls; then she took up
the tankards by their handles, three in each strong, brown hand, and
laughing, grumbling, blushing, carried them through into the coffee
room.

There, there was certainly no sign of that bustle and activity which
kept four women busy and hot in the glowing kitchen beyond.

The coffee-room of "The Fisherman's Rest" is a show place now at the
beginning of the twentieth century. At the end of the eighteenth, in the
year of grace 1792, it had not yet gained the notoriety and importance
which a hundred additional years and the craze of the age have since
bestowed upon it. Yet it was an old place, even then, for the oak
rafters and beams were already black with age—as were the panelled
seats, with their tall backs, and the long polished tables between,
on which innumerable pewter tankards had left fantastic patterns of
many-sized rings. In the leaded window, high up, a row of pots of
scarlet geraniums and blue larkspur gave the bright note of colour
against the dull background of the oak.

That Mr. Jellyband, landlord of "The Fisherman's Reef" at Dover, was
a prosperous man, was of course clear to the most casual observer. The
pewter on the fine old dressers, the brass above the gigantic hearth,
shone like silver and gold—the red-tiled floor was as brilliant as the
scarlet geranium on the window sill—this meant that his servants were
good and plentiful, that the custom was constant, and of that order
which necessitated the keeping up of the coffee-room to a high standard
of elegance and order.

As Sally came in, laughing through her frowns, and displaying a row
of dazzling white teeth, she was greeted with shouts and chorus of
applause.

"Why, here's Sally! What ho, Sally! Hurrah for pretty Sally!"

"I thought you'd grown deaf in that kitchen of yours," muttered Jimmy
Pitkin, as he passed the back of his hand across his very dry lips.

"All ri'! all ri'!" laughed Sally, as she deposited the freshly-filled
tankards upon the tables, "why, what a 'urry to be sure! And is your
gran'mother a-dyin' an' you wantin' to see the pore soul afore she'm
gone! I never see'd such a mighty rushin'" A chorus of good-humoured
laughter greeted this witticism, which gave the company there present
food for many jokes, for some considerable time. Sally now seemed in
less of a hurry to get back to her pots and pans. A young man with
fair curly hair, and eager, bright blue eyes, was engaging most of her
attention and the whole of her time, whilst broad witticisms anent Jimmy
Pitkin's fictitious grandmother flew from mouth to mouth, mixed with
heavy puffs of pungent tobacco smoke.

Facing the hearth, his legs wide apart, a long clay pipe in his
mouth, stood mine host himself, worthy Mr. Jellyband, landlord of
"The Fisherman's Rest," as his father had before him, aye, and his
grandfather and great-grandfather too, for that matter. Portly in build,
jovial in countenance and somewhat bald of pate, Mr. Jellyband was
indeed a typical rural John Bull of those days—the days when our
prejudiced insularity was at its height, when to an Englishman, be he
lord, yeoman, or peasant, the whole of the continent of Europe was a den
of immorality and the rest of the world an unexploited land of savages
and cannibals.

There he stood, mine worthy host, firm and well set up on his limbs,
smoking his long churchwarden and caring nothing for nobody at home, and
despising everybody abroad. He wore the typical scarlet waistcoat, with
shiny brass buttons, the corduroy breeches, and grey worsted stockings
and smart buckled shoes, that characterised every self-respecting
innkeeper in Great Britain in these days—and while pretty, motherless
Sally had need of four pairs of brown hands to do all the work that
fell on her shapely shoulders, worthy Jellyband discussed the affairs of
nations with his most privileged guests.

The coffee-room indeed, lighted by two well-polished lamps, which hung
from the raftered ceiling, looked cheerful and cosy in the extreme.
Through the dense clouds of tobacco smoke that hung about in every
corner, the faces of Mr. Jellyband's customers appeared red and pleasant
to look at, and on good terms with themselves, their host and all the
world; from every side of the room loud guffaws accompanied pleasant,
if not highly intellectual, conversation—while Sally's repeated giggles
testified to the good use Mr. Harry Waite was making of the short time
she seemed inclined to spare him.

They were mostly fisher-folk who patronised Mr. Jellyband's coffee-room,
but fishermen are known to be very thirsty people; the salt which they
breathe in, when they are on the sea, accounts for their parched throats
when on shore, but "The Fisherman's Rest" was something more than a
rendezvous for these humble folk. The London and Dover coach started
from the hostel daily, and passengers who had come across the Channel,
and those who started for the "grand tour," all became acquainted with
Mr. Jellyband, his French wines and his home-brewed ales.

It was towards the close of September, 1792, and the weather which had
been brilliant and hot throughout the month had suddenly broken up; for
two days torrents of rain had deluged the south of England, doing its
level best to ruin what chances the apples and pears and late plums had
of becoming really fine, self-respecting fruit. Even now it was beating
against the leaded windows, and tumbling down the chimney, making the
cheerful wood fire sizzle in the hearth.

"Lud! did you ever see such a wet September, Mr. Jellyband?" asked Mr.
Hempseed.

He sat in one of the seats inside the hearth, did Mr. Hempseed, for he
was an authority and important personage not only at "The Fisherman's
Rest," where Mr. Jellyband always made a special selection of him as a
foil for political arguments, but throughout the neighborhood, where
his learning and notably his knowledge of the Scriptures was held in
the most profound awe and respect. With one hand buried in the capacious
pockets of his corduroys underneath his elaborately-worked, well-worn
smock, the other holding his long clay pipe, Mr. Hempseed sat there
looking dejectedly across the room at the rivulets of moisture which
trickled down the window panes.

"No," replied Mr. Jellyband, sententiously, "I dunno, Mr. 'Empseed, as I
ever did. An' I've been in these parts nigh on sixty years."

"Aye! you wouldn't rec'llect the first three years of them sixty, Mr.
Jellyband," quietly interposed Mr. Hempseed. "I dunno as I ever see'd an
infant take much note of the weather, leastways not in these parts, an'
I
've lived 'ere nigh on seventy-five years, Mr. Jellyband."