Читать книгу Henry Irving's Impressions of America - Joseph Hatton - Страница 28

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It was late before the Lotos-eaters parted, although London clubmen take more out of the night than is the habit with New-Yorkers. The raciness of the evening’s speeches was repeated in the stories that were told by the genial few, who sat and talked and smoked with their guest until Fifth avenue was as quiet and deserted as it was when a crowd of admiring friends went out to meet the “Britannic” a week previously. Apropos of an amusing anecdote, with a practical joke in it, which was related, I think, by Colonel Knox, the courteous honorary secretary of the club, Irving said, “I am not much of a hand at that kind of fun, but I remember an incident in which my old friend Toole, a Glasgow doctor, and myself were engaged that may amuse you. Some years ago we found ourselves with a holiday forced upon us by the church of Scotland. We utilized it by going out a short distance into the country and dining together at a famous roadside inn. The house was quite empty of guests, and we claimed the privilege of travellers, on our way to the next town, to sit over our dinner a trifle later than it was the custom to keep the bar open. The landlord was very civil, and we had an excellent dinner. The waiter who attended to our wants was a quaint old fellow—one of those rugged sort of serving-men with whom Sir Walter Scott has made us all so well acquainted. While he was respectful, he was, nevertheless, very talkative. He told us there had been of late many robberies in the neighborhood. The constabulary, he said, were quite out of their reckoning in regard to tracing the thieves. He wondered if the country was going back again to the coaching days when cracksmen and highwaymen had it all their own way in those parts. The old fellow was a little superstitious too, and a lover of the marvellous, as many of the country people who live outside great cities are apt to be.

“ ‘You seem a trifle hipped,’ I said; ‘take a glass of wine.’

“ ‘I am just a wee bit low,’ he said; ‘what wi’ the bad weather, the dull times’—

“ ‘And the robberies you’ve lately had about here,’ I suggested.

“ ‘Ah, weel, they’re nae calculated to raise one’s sperits. Good health to you, gentlemen!’

“We thanked him and I filled his glass again.

“ ‘This house,’ said Toole, ‘is rather a lonely place; you don’t have many guests staying here?’

“ ‘Not at this time o’ the year,’ he replied; ‘only just chance customers.’

“I filled his glass again before he went for the cheese. When he came back I took up a fork, and expressed some surprise that his master should, in these thieving days, entrust his guests with real silver plate.

“ ‘I dinna bring it oot for everybody,’ he replied; ‘but for a pairty o’ gentlemen like yoursels, it’s a defferent thing.’

“ ‘Is the salver there,’ asked Toole, taking up the running and pointing to the sideboard, ‘real silver?’

“ ‘Indeed it is, and all the plate aboot is silver, and I ken they dinna mak’ sich silver nowadays.’

“ ‘Bring us a little whiskey!—a pint in a decanter; a drop of the best,’ I said.

“Having planted the right kind of seed in his mind for the working of a little jest I had in my own, my companions and myself entered into a conspiracy against the peace of this harmless Scotchman. Invited to take a nip of whiskey, he readily complied, and just as readily took a seat. We drew him out about all the robberies and murders he could remember, and then deftly got from him the statement that his master had gone to bed, leaving up only himself, the bar-maid, and his wife. Presently the doctor looked at his watch, and said it would soon be time for us to go. ‘I think you had better get our bill, Sandy,’ I said, for by this time I was quite on familiar terms with him, and he with me. ‘You need not be in a hurry; let us have it in about a quarter of an hour,’ added Toole, somewhat mysteriously. ‘We are not quite ready to go yet.’

“ ‘Vary weel, and thank ye,’ he said, at the same time making us a bow which was quite a study of manner, combining independence and servility. He was a fine old fellow, straight as a poplar, but with a face full of wrinkles, and a characteristic gait that some people would call a mannerism.

“The moment he left the room each of us seized a piece of plate until we had cleared up every bit of silver in the room. We noted the exact places from which we took every piece; then we opened the window. It was a very dark night, but we had noticed that close by the window there were some thick shrubs. We put out the gas, but left alight two candles on the table, so that we could see from our hiding-place what Sandy’s face would look like when it should dawn upon him that we were a pack of thieves—perhaps part of the gang of swell mobsmen who had become the terror of the district.

“I shall never forget the bewildered expression of the poor fellow’s face as he stared at the empty room. Amazement gave place to fear, and fear to indignation, when he discovered that the silver had been carried off.

“ ‘Great heevens!’ he exclaimed. ‘Thieves! berglers! robbers! An’ if the rogues hae nae carried off the plate and gan awa’ wi’out payin’ their score into the bargain, my name is nae Sandy Blake!”

“He rushed to the open window and peered wildly out into the darkness.

“ ‘The scoundrels were just fooling me, like any softy.’

“Then he began to shout ‘Thieves!’ and ‘Murder!’ and ran off, as we hoped and expected he would, to alarm the house. We all crept back to the room, closed the window, drew down the blind, relighted the gas and our cigars, put each piece of silver back into its proper place, and sat down to wait for our bill. We could hear Sandy, at the top of his voice, telling the story of the robbery; and in a few minutes we heard, evidently the entire household, coming pell-mell to the dining-room. Then our door was flung open; but the crowd, instead of rushing in upon us, suddenly paused en masse, and Sandy exclaimed, ‘Great God! Weel, weel! Hae I just gane clean daft?’

“ ‘Come awa’, drunken foo’, come awa’!’ exclaimed the landlord, pulling Sandy and the rest back into the passage and shutting the door; but we could hear how both master and wife abused poor Sandy, who did nothing but call upon his Maker and declare, if he had to die that minute, when he went into the room it was empty of both guests and silver. He was told to go to bed and sleep off his drunk, and thank his stars that his long service saved him from instant dismissal.

“We rang the bell. The landlord himself answered it. We asked for an explanation of the hubbub. It was nothing, he said, only that his man had got drunk and made a fool of himself. Was that all, we asked. Well, yes, except that he was very sorry to have so disturbed us. To have all the house burst in upon us, we said, was such a strange proceeding, that we begged he would explain it. He said he did not like to do so. It was the first time Sandy had ever been known to get so drunk as to lose his senses, and all he could do was to express his regret that his servant had made a fool of himself; but he would not insult his guests by telling them how great an ass the fellow was. We coaxed him, however, to explain the entire business; and at last, with many apologies, he told us how the drunken fool had mistaken us for a pack of thieves, and swore we had run off without paying our bill and taken the plate with us. We humored the landlord for a time, and when he was at last in a genial temper we told him the true story, and he enjoyed the joke as well as any of us. Then we had him send for Sandy, who was so glad to discover that he had not lost his wits that a couple of sovereigns left him, at our departure, just as happy and contented a man as he was before making the acquaintance of ‘a parcel of actors,’ who are still regarded in some remote corners of Great Britain as the ‘rogues and vagabonds’ they are proclaimed in our ancient statute-books.”