Читать книгу The Land of Bondage - John Bloundelle-Burton - Страница 9

So the funeral passed over Essex Bridge and by the French Church, on the steps of which there sat a boy who, on its approach, sprang to his feet and, from behind a pillar of the porch, fixed his eyes firmly on those who attended it.

A boy of between fifteen and sixteen years of age, tall and, thus, looking older, and clad partly in rags and partly in clothes too big for him. To be explicit, his hose was torn and mended and torn again, his shoes were burst and broken and his coat which, though threadbare was sound, hung down nearly to his feet and was roomy enough for a man of twenty, to whom indeed it had once belonged till given in charity to its present owner. By the boy's side there stood a big, burly man with a red, kindly face and a great fell of brown hair, himself dressed in the garb of a butcher, and with at the moment, as though he had but just left the block, his sharpening steel hanging at his side. Also, on the steps of the church were one or two gentlemen arrayed in their college gowns and caps, as if they too had strolled forth at the moment from Trinity and had happened upon the spot, while, around and under the stoops of the neighbouring houses, were gathered together several groups of beggars and ragamuffins and idle ne'er-do-wells.

And now you shall hear a strange thing, for, as the bier with its mean burden came close, so that the features of those who accompanied it might be plainly perceived through the fog, the butcher, turning to the lad dressed as a scarecrow, said, "My lord, stand forth and show thyself. Here come those who have put it about that you have been dead these two years, and who, if they had their will, would soon have you dead now. Show thyself therefore, I say, Lord St. Amande, and prove that thou art alive."

"Ay, ay, do," one of the collegians added. "If the news from London be true, thy uncle, Robert, has already proclaimed himself the new lord, and it is as well that the contrary should be proved."

Thus solemnly adjured, the boy did stand forth and, figure of fun though he looked, gazed fiercely on those who rode behind his father's coffin.

There were but three mourners--if such these ghouls could be called who followed the body to its last resting place, not with any desire to pay a tribute to the dead, but rather with the desire of satisfying themselves, and one other, their master, that it was indeed gone from the world for ever--two men mounted and a woman in a one-horse hackney coach.

All were evil-looking, yet she was the worst, and, as she peered forth from the window, the beggars all about groaned at her while the students regarded her with looks of contempt. She was the German woman who had come to Dublin when the late King had come to London, and was called Madame Baüer, and was now no longer young. That she may once have been comely is to be supposed, since the late Herr Baüer was said to have been a wealthy German gentleman who ruined himself for her--if, indeed, he had ever existed, which many doubted--and also since the dead man now going to his grave had formed a passion for her, while his usurping brother was actually said to be privately married to her. Yet of a certainty, she had no beauty now, her face being of a fiery red, due, it was whispered, to her love of strong waters; her great staring and protuberant eyes were of a watery blue-green hue, and her teeth were too prominent and more like those of an animal. And when the small crowd groaned at her and called her "painted Jezebel"--though she needed no paint, in truth--she gnashed those teeth at them as though she would have liked to tear and rend them ere she sank back into the carriage.

Of the men who followed the bier one was a pale cadaverous-looking person, with about him some remnants of good looks, his features being not ill-formed, though on his face, too, there were the signs of drinking and evil-living in the form of blotches and a red nose that looked more conspicuous because of the lividness of his skin. This man was Wolfe Considine, a gentleman by birth, and of an ancient Irish family, yet now no better than a hanger-on to Robert St. Amande; a creature who obeyed his orders as a dog obeys its master's orders, and who was so vile and perjured a wretch that for many years, when out of the reach of Lord St. Amande, he had allowed it to be hinted that he was in truth the father of that lord's son, and, if not that, had at least been much beloved by Lord St. Amande's wife. In obedience, perhaps, to his master's orders he wore now no signs of mourning but, instead, rode in a red coat much passemented with tarnished gold lace, as was the case with his hat, and with his demi-peaked saddle quilted with red plush, while the twitter-boned, broken-winded horse he bestrode gave, as well as his apparel, but few signs that his employer bestowed much care upon him. The man who paced beside him was liveried as a servant and rode a better horse, and was doubtless there in attendance on him and the woman in the coach.

Noticing the ominous and glowering looks of the beggars on the sidewalk as well as the contemptuous glances of the students standing by the steps of the French Church, Considine drew his horse nearer to the coach and spoke to the inmate thereof, saying:--

"I' faith, my lady, they seem to bear no good will to us judging by their booings and mutterings, for it cannot be to this poor dead thing that their growls are directed--he was beloved enough by them, at any rate, so long as he had a stiver in his purse with which to treat them to a bowl of hypsy or a mug of ale."

The woman in the hackney glanced at the beggars again with her cold, cruel eyes as he spoke, but ere she could reply, if indeed she intended to do so, she shrank back once more, seeing that from the crowd there was emerging an old woman, a hideous creature bent double with age, who leaned upon a stick and who shock as though with the palsy.

"What want you, hag?" asked Considine, while as he spoke he pricked the horse he rode with the spur, as though he would ride over her.

"To look upon the coffin of a gentleman," she answered, waving at the same time her crutch, or stick, so near to the animal's nostrils that it started back, almost unseating its rider. "To look upon the coffin of a gentleman, and not upon such scum as you and that thing there," pointing to the woman who had been addressed as "my lady."

"Proceed," called out Considine to the driver of the bier. "Why tarry you because of this woman. Proceed, I say."

But here a fresh interruption occurred, for, as he spoke, the butcher, motioning to the lad with him to remain where he was, descended the steps of the church and, coming forward, said in a masterful manner:--

"Nay! That shall you not do yet. Wolfe Considine, you must listen to me."

"To thee, rapscallion," said the other, looking down on him, yet noting his great frame as he did so. "To thee. Wherefore, pray, to thee? If you endeavour to stop this funeral the watch shall lay you by the heels, and my lady here shall hale you before a Justice for endeavouring to prevent the interment of her brother-in-law."

"'My lady! Her brother-in-law!'" repeated the butcher contemptuously, and glancing into the hackney carriage as he did so. "'My lady! Her brother-in-law!' Why, how can she be either?" and he smiled at the red-faced woman.

"You Irish dog," she said, now protruding her head from the window. "The law shall teach you how I am both, at the same time that it chastises you for your insolence. Let us pass, however."

"You shall not pass until you have heard me. Nay, Wolfe Considine, put not thy hand upon thy sword. There is no courage in thy craven heart to draw it. What! shall he who ran away from Oudenarde--thou knowest 'tis truth; I fought, not ran away, as a corporal there myself--threaten a brave and honest man with his sword? Nay, more, why should he wear one--? I' faith, I have a mind to take it from thee. Yet even that is not the worst, though the Duke did threaten to brand thy back if ever he clapt eyes on thee again."

Here the collegians, in spite of the halted bier with the dreary burden on it, burst into laughter, while Considine trembled with rage and was now white as a corpse himself.

"That, I say, is scarce the worst. You speak of the watch to me--you! Why! call them, call all the officers of the law and see which they shall arrest first. An honest man or a thief. Ay, a thief! I say a thief." He advanced closer to Considine as he spoke. "A thief, I say again."

"Vile wretch! the law shall punish you."

"Summon it, I tell you. Summon it. Then shall we see."

And now, changing his address, which had been up to this moment made to Considine alone, he turned half round to the crowd--which had much augmented since the altercation began and the stopping of the funeral had taken place--and addressing all assembled there, he said in a loud voice so that none but those who were stone deaf could fail to hear his words.

"Listen all you who to-day see the body of the late Lord St. Amande on its way to the grave, listen I say to the villainy of this creature, Wolfe Considine, the tool and minion of the man Robert St. Amande, who now claims to have succeeded to his honours. Hear also how far she,"---and he pointed his finger to the hackney carriage where the woman glowered out at him--"has aided both these scoundrels."

"By heavens, you shall suffer for this," exclaimed Considine, "to defame a peer is punishable with the hulks----"

"Tush," answered the other, "I defame no peer, for he is none. The true peer is Gerald St. Amande, the younger, now the Lord Viscount St. Amande since his father's death."

"Thou fool," bellowed Considine, "he is dead long since. 'Tis well known."

"Is it so? Well, let us see. But first answer me, Wolfe Considine, deserter from the colours of Her Majesty Queen Anne's 1st Royal Scots' Regiment, panderer and creature of the usurper Robert St. Amande, purloiner of the body of the present Lord St. Amande--said I not you were a thief?--instigator of murder to the villain, O'Rourke, who would have slain the child or, at least, have shipped him off a slave to the Virginian plantations; traducer of an honest lady's fame who, so far from favouring thee, would not have spat upon thee. Answer me, I say, and tell me if you would know that dead child again were you to set your eyes upon it?"

He hurled forth these accusations against the wretch shivering on his horse with so terrible a voice, accompanied by fierce looks, that the other could do naught but writhe under them and set to work to bawl loudly for the watch as he did so, and to offer a gibing beggar who stood near a crown to run and fetch them, which the beggar refused, so that at last the servant started to find them. But, meanwhile, the butcher again began:

"He is dead long since, is he? Well, we will see." Then beckoning to the lad in rags still standing on the steps of the French Church, he said, "Lord St. Amande, come hither and prove to this perjured villain that thou art no more dead than he who would have had thee so."

Slowly, therefore, I descended--for I who write these lines was that most unhappy child, Lord St. Amande, as perhaps you who read them may have guessed--and slowly in my tatters I went down and stood by him who had succoured me, and fixed my eyes on that most dreadful villain, Wolfe Considine.

Now, the effect upon him was wonderful to witness, for verily I thought he would have had a fit and fallen from his horse. His eyes seemed to be starting forth from his head, his cadaverous face became empurpled, his hands twitched, and all the while he muttered, "Alive! Alive! yet O'Rourke swore that he was safe at the bottom of the Liffey--the traitor! Alive!"

He spoke so low and muttered so hoarsely to himself that I have ever doubted if any other but I and Oliver Quin, the butcher, heard his self-condemnatory words--by which he most plainly acknowledged his guilt and the part he had played in endeavouring to get me made away with. But, ere he could say more, he received support from the woman, Baüer, or "Madam," as she was generally called, who, descending now from her hackney carriage, thrust aside the beggars around it and advanced towards me.

That she was a woman of courage need not be doubted, for, although these miserable gutter-birds had hitherto been jeering at her to even such an extent as remarking on the redness of her face and the probable cause thereof, she at this time awed them by her manner. Her eyes flaming, her great white teeth gleaming like those of a hunted wolf as it turns to tear its pursuers, she thrust them all aside (she being big and of masculine proportions) and exclaiming, "Out you wretches, away you kennel dogs, stand back, I say, you Irish curs," made her way to me.

"Let me see," she said, seizing me roughly by the collar, "the brat who is to be palmed upon us as the dead child. Let me see him." And then, as she gazed in my face, she burst into a loud, strident laugh, while in her harsh voice and her German accent (which she had always) she exclaimed, "So this is the beggar's brat who is to be thrust in before us as a son of this dead lord," pointing to my father's coffin--"this thing of rags and filth. Man," she said, turning suddenly upon Quin, "man, know you the punishment awarded those who falsely endeavour for their own evil ends to deprive rightful inheritors of what is theirs? You shall so suffer for this vile imposture that you had better have been slain at Oudenarde--of which you boast so freely--than ever have lived to see to-day."

"With the respect due to such as you, Madam Baüer----"

"Fellow, I am the Viscountess St. Amande."

"Nay. Nay! Even though you be Robert St. Amande's wife--as most people doubt"--she struck at him with her hand as he said this, which blow he avoided easily, so that she over-reached herself and nearly fell, at which the crowd jeered--"even then you are not Lady St. Amande. There is but one, this poor lad's mother, now sick in England but safe from your evil attempts. And, Madam Baüer, it is more meet that I should ask if you know what is the punishment of such malefactors as those who endeavour for their own evil ends to deprive rightful inheritors of what is theirs?"

"The imposition shall not go unpunished, this boy shall indeed be sent to the plantations and, with him, you, you ruffian. I will myself seek out the King sooner than he shall escape."

But here there stepped forth one of the collegians who had been near me all through this most strange scene, a grave and pious youth of twenty years of age--'twas his coat I was wearing--who said:

"By your favour, madam, it is impossible that the boy should be punished. I am from New Ross in the County of Wexford myself,"---both she and Considine started at this---"where his father dwelt much. I have known the lad from his birth, as a child myself I took part in the festivities--alas! terrible debaucheries and drinkings!--which this poor dead lord caused to be made in honour of his birth. I have known him all his life, and that he is the present Lord St. Amande none can doubt. Added to which, madam, there must be fully five hundred people in Ireland, including his pastors and teachers, to say nothing of those in England, who can equally speak for him."

"It is a lie," Considine shouted, having now regained something of his courage, "It is a lie. I, too, knew the lad who was son to Lord St. Amande, and he is dead and this brat is not he."

"Mr. Considine," said the young student, his pale face reddening, "I am intended for the Ministry, but being not yet ordained no man may insult me with impunity, nor doubt my word. Much less such a foul braggart as you, therefore, unless you ask my pardon on the moment I will pull you down from off that horse and force you to beg it of me in the mud at my feet." And he advanced towards Considine with his arm outstretched to carry out his threat.

But that person being never disposed to fight with anyone, instantly taking off his hat said:

"Sir, my words were ill chosen. I ask your pardon for them. I should have said that I feared, as I still do, that you are grievously mistaken."