Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (311 page)

Altogether the last hours of our tramp were infinitely the most agreeable to me, and I believe to all of us; and by the time we came to separate, there had grown up a certain familiarity and mutual esteem that made the parting harder.  It took place about four of the afternoon on a bare hillside from which I could see the ribbon of the great north road, henceforth to be my conductor.  I asked what was to pay.

‘Naething,’ replied Sim.

‘What in the name of folly is this?’ I exclaimed.  ‘You have led me, you have fed me, you have filled me full of whisky, and now you will take nothing!’

‘Ye see we indentit for that,’ replied Sim.

 ’Indented?’ I repeated; ‘what does the man mean?’

‘Mr. St. Ivy,’ said Sim, ‘this is a maitter entirely between Candlish and me and the auld wife, Gilchrist.  You had naething to say to it; weel, ye can have naething to do with it, then.’

‘My good man,’ said I, ‘I can allow myself to be placed in no such ridiculous position.  Mrs. Gilchrist is nothing to me, and I refuse to be her debtor.’

‘I dinna exac’ly see what way ye’re gaun to help it,’ observed my drover.

‘By paying you here and now,’ said I.

‘There’s aye twa to a bargain, Mr. St. Ives,’ said he.

‘You mean that you will not take it?’ said I.

‘There or thereabout,’ said he.  ‘Forbye, that it would set ye a heap better to keep your siller for them you awe it to.  Ye’re young, Mr. St. Ivy, and thoughtless; but it’s my belief that, wi’ care and circumspection, ye may yet do credit to yoursel’.  But just you bear this in mind: that him that
awes
siller should never
gie
siller.’

Well, what was there to say?  I accepted his rebuke, and bidding the pair farewell, set off alone upon my southward way.

‘Mr. St. Ivy,’ was the last word of Sim, ‘I was never muckle ta’en up in Englishry; but I think that I really ought to say that ye seem to me to have the makings of quite a decent lad.’

CHAPTER XI — THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

It chanced that as I went down the hill these last words of my friend the drover echoed not unfruitfully in my head.  I had never told these men the least particulars as to my race or fortune, as it was a part, and the best part, of their civility to ask no questions: yet they had dubbed me without hesitation English.  Some strangeness in the accent they had doubtless thus explained.  And it occurred to me, that if I could pass in Scotland for an Englishman, I might be able to reverse the process and pass in England for a Scot.  I thought, if I was pushed to it, I could make a struggle to imitate the brogue; after my experience with Candlish and Sim, I had a rich provision of outlandish words at my command; and I felt I could tell the tale of Tweedie’s dog so as to deceive a native.  At the same time, I was afraid my name of St. Ives was scarcely suitable; till I remembered there was a town so called in the province of Cornwall, thought I might yet be glad to claim it for my place of origin, and decided for a Cornish family and a Scots education.  For a trade, as I was equally ignorant of all, and as the most innocent might at any moment be the means of my exposure, it was best to pretend to none.  And I dubbed myself a young gentleman of a sufficient fortune and an idle, curious habit of mind, rambling the country at my own charges, in quest of health, information, and merry adventures.

At Newcastle, which was the first town I reached, I completed my preparations for the part, before going to the inn, by the purchase of a knapsack and a pair of leathern gaiters.  My plaid I continued to wear from sentiment.  It was warm, useful to sleep in if I were again benighted, and I had discovered it to be not unbecoming for a man of gallant carriage.  Thus equipped, I supported my character of the light-hearted pedestrian not amiss.  Surprise was indeed expressed that I should have selected such a season of the year; but I pleaded some delays of business, and smilingly claimed to be an eccentric.  The devil was in it, I would say, if any season of the year was not good enough for me; I was not made of sugar, I was no mollycoddle to be afraid of an ill-aired bed or a sprinkle of snow; and I would knock upon the table with my fist and call for t’other bottle, like the noisy and free-hearted young gentleman I was.  It was my policy (if I may so express myself) to talk much and say little.  At the inn tables, the country, the state of the roads, the business interest of those who sat down with me, and the course of public events, afforded me a considerable field in which I might discourse at large and still communicate no information about myself.  There was no one with less air of reticence; I plunged into my company up to the neck; and I had a long cock-and-bull story of an aunt of mine which must have convinced the most suspicious of my innocence.  ‘What!’ they would have said, ‘that young ass to be concealing anything!  Why, he has deafened me with an aunt of his until my head aches.  He only wants you should give him a line, and he would tell you his whole descent from Adam downward, and his whole private fortune to the last shilling.’ A responsible solid fellow was even so much moved by pity for my inexperience as to give me a word or two of good advice: that I was but a young man after all — I had at this time a deceptive air of youth that made me easily pass for one-and-twenty, and was, in the circumstances, worth a fortune — that the company at inns was very mingled, that I should do well to be more careful, and the like; to all which I made answer that I meant no harm myself and expected none from others, or the devil was in it.  ‘You are one of those d — -d prudent fellows that I could never abide with,’ said I.  ‘You are the kind of man that has a long head.  That’s all the world, my dear sir: the long-heads and the short-horns!  Now, I am a short-horn.’  ‘I doubt,’ says he, ‘that you will not go very far without getting sheared.’  I offered to bet with him on that, and he made off, shaking his head.

But my particular delight was to enlarge on politics and the war.  None damned the French like me; none was more bitter against the Americans.  And when the north-bound mail arrived, crowned with holly, and the coachman and guard hoarse with shouting victory, I went even so far as to entertain the company to a bowl of punch, which I compounded myself with no illiberal hand, and doled out to such sentiments as the following: —

‘Our glorious victory on the Nivelle’!  ‘Lord Wellington, God bless him! and may victory ever attend upon his arms!’ and, ‘Soult, poor devil! and may he catch it again to the same tune!’

Never was oratory more applauded to the echo — never any one was more of the popular man than I.  I promise you, we made a night of it.  Some of the company supported each other, with the assistance of boots, to their respective bedchambers, while the rest slept on the field of glory where we had left them; and at the breakfast table the next morning there was an extraordinary assemblage of red eyes and shaking fists.  I observed patriotism to burn much lower by daylight.  Let no one blame me for insensibility to the reverses of France!  God knows how my heart raged.  How I longed to fall on that herd of swine and knock their heads together in the moment of their revelry!  But you are to consider my own situation and its necessities; also a certain lightheartedness, eminently Gallic, which forms a leading trait in my character, and leads me to throw myself into new circumstances with the spirit of a schoolboy.  It is possible that I sometimes allowed this impish humour to carry me further than good taste approves: and I was certainly punished for it once.

This was in the episcopal city of Durham.  We sat down, a considerable company, to dinner, most of us fine old vatted English tories of that class which is often so enthusiastic as to be inarticulate.  I took and held the lead from the beginning; and, the talk having turned on the French in the Peninsula, I gave them authentic details (on the authority of a cousin of mine, an ensign) of certain cannibal orgies in Galicia, in which no less a person than General Caffarelli had taken a part.  I always disliked that commander, who once ordered me under arrest for insubordination; and it is possible that a spice of vengeance added to the rigour of my picture.  I have forgotten the details; no doubt they were high-coloured.  No doubt I rejoiced to fool these jolter-heads; and no doubt the sense of security that I drank from their dull, gasping faces encouraged me to proceed extremely far.  And for my sins, there was one silent little man at table who took my story at the true value.  It was from no sense of humour, to which he was quite dead.  It was from no particular intelligence, for he had not any.  The bond of sympathy, of all things in the world, had rendered him clairvoyant.

Dinner was no sooner done than I strolled forth into the streets with some design of viewing the cathedral; and the little man was silently at my heels.  A few doors from the inn, in a dark place of the street, I was aware of a touch on my arm, turned suddenly, and found him looking up at me with eyes pathetically bright.

‘I beg your pardon, sir; but that story of yours was particularly rich.  He — he!  Particularly racy,’ said he.  ‘I tell you, sir, I took you wholly!  I
smoked
you!  I believe you and I, sir, if we had a chance to talk, would find we had a good many opinions in common.  Here is the “Blue Bell,” a very comfortable place.  They draw good ale, sir.  Would you be so condescending as to share a pot with me?’

There was something so ambiguous and secret in the little man’s perpetual signalling, that I confess my curiosity was much aroused.  Blaming myself, even as I did so, for the indiscretion, I embraced his proposal, and we were soon face to face over a tankard of mulled ale.  He lowered his voice to the least attenuation of a whisper.

‘Here, sir,’ said he, ‘is to the Great Man.  I think you take me?  No?’  He leaned forward till our noses touched.  ‘Here is to the Emperor!’ said he.

I was extremely embarrassed, and, in spite of the creature’s innocent appearance, more than half alarmed.  I thought him too ingenious, and, indeed, too daring for a spy.  Yet if he were honest he must be a man of extraordinary indiscretion, and therefore very unfit to be encouraged by an escaped prisoner.  I took a half course, accordingly — accepted his toast in silence, and drank it without enthusiasm.

He proceeded to abound in the praises of Napoleon, such as I had never heard in France, or at least only on the lips of officials paid to offer them.

‘And this Caffarelli, now,’ he pursued: ‘he is a splendid fellow, too, is he not?  I have not heard vastly much of him myself.  No details, sir — no details!  We labour under huge difficulties here as to unbiassed information.’

‘I believe I have heard the same complaint in other countries,’ I could not help remarking.  ‘But as to Caffarelli, he is neither lame nor blind, he has two legs and a nose in the middle of his face.  And I care as much about him as you care for the dead body of Mr. Perceval!’

He studied me with glowing eyes.

‘You cannot deceive me!’ he cried.  ‘You have served under him.  You are a Frenchman!  I hold by the hand, at last, one of that noble race, the pioneers of the glorious principles of liberty and brotherhood.  Hush!  No, it is all right.  I thought there had been somebody at the door.  In this wretched, enslaved country we dare not even call our souls our own.  The spy and the hangman, sir — the spy and the hangman!  And yet there is a candle burning, too.  The good leaven is working, sir — working underneath.  Even in this town there are a few brave spirits, who meet every Wednesday.  You must stay over a day or so, and join us.  We do not use this house.  Another, and a quieter.  They draw fine ale, however — fair, mild ale.  You will find yourself among friends, among brothers.  You will hear some very daring sentiments expressed!’ he cried, expanding his small chest.  ‘Monarchy, Christianity — all the trappings of a bloated past — the Free Confraternity of Durham and Tyneside deride.’

Here was a devil of a prospect for a gentleman whose whole design was to avoid observation!  The Free Confraternity had no charms for me; daring sentiments were no part of my baggage; and I tried, instead, a little cold water.

‘You seem to forget, sir, that my Emperor has re-established Christianity,’ I observed.

‘Ah, sir, but that was policy!’ he exclaimed.  ‘You do not understand Napoleon.  I have followed his whole career.  I can explain his policy from first to last.  Now for instance in the Peninsula, on which you were so very amusing, if you will come to a friend’s house who has a map of Spain, I can make the whole course of the war quite clear to you, I venture to say, in half an hour.’

This was intolerable.  Of the two extremes, I found I preferred the British tory; and, making an appointment for the morrow, I pleaded sudden headache, escaped to the inn, packed my knapsack, and fled, about nine at night, from this accursed neighbourhood.  It was cold, starry, and clear, and the road dry, with a touch of frost.  For all that, I had not the smallest intention to make a long stage of it; and about ten o’clock, spying on the right-hand side of the way the lighted windows of an alehouse, I determined to bait there for the night.

It was against my principle, which was to frequent only the dearest inns; and the misadventure that befell me was sufficient to make me more particular in the future.  A large company was assembled in the parlour, which was heavy with clouds of tobacco smoke, and brightly lighted up by a roaring fire of coal.  Hard by the chimney stood a vacant chair in what I thought an enviable situation, whether for warmth or the pleasure of society; and I was about to take it, when the nearest of the company stopped me with his hand.

‘Beg thy pardon, sir,’ said he; ‘but that there chair belongs to a British soldier.’

A chorus of voices enforced and explained.  It was one of Lord Wellington’s heroes.  He had been wounded under Rowland Hill.  He was Colbourne’s right-hand man.  In short, this favoured individual appeared to have served with every separate corps, and under every individual general in the Peninsula.  Of course I apologised.  I had not known.  The devil was in it if a soldier had not a right to the best in England.  And with that sentiment, which was loudly applauded, I found a corner of a bench, and awaited, with some hopes of entertainment, the return of the hero.  He proved, of course, to be a private soldier.  I say of course, because no officer could possibly enjoy such heights of popularity.  He had been wounded before San Sebastian, and still wore his arm in a sling.  What was a great deal worse for him, every member of the company had been plying him with drink.  His honest yokel’s countenance blazed as if with fever, his eyes were glazed and looked the two ways, and his feet stumbled as, amidst a murmur of applause, he returned to the midst of his admirers.