A STORY OF THE WAR OF 1812 BETWEEN AMERICA AND ENGLAND.
BY JAMES BARNES.
CHAPTER XIV.
A BEGGAR A-HORSEBACK.
I knew, however, that I was in Gloucestershire; and from a sign-post, pointing the way I came the night gone, I learned that I had passed the towns of Thornbery and Slimbridge. I was cogitating over how to get a bit to eat when something happened that put even hunger out of my head—I heard the tooting of a horn! Turning about, I saw the coach coming up a little hill, swinging along at a good pace, with the leaders in a gallop.
The boldest course was the best, so I leaned against a stone post that had cut in it "Eight miles to Hardwick," and waited for the mail to come up. The driver, a ruddy-faced individual in a multitude of cloaks and a wide beaver, caught my intention.
"Are ye off to Gloucester, lad?" he cried, drawing up.
"Ay," I answered. "Hold up there, and I'll take a passage."
There were but three beside the guard on top, and I clambered over the wheel up to the front seat before the coach had lost its headway. I feared most dreadfully that the driver would begin to question me at once, but, thank the powers, he did not. Keeping up a continuous clicking sound against his teeth, and gracefully flourishing the long-lashed whip, and catching the leaders now and again with the end of it most cleverly, he drove ahead without speaking.
Now all the time I was wondering how I was going to pay the fare, when the red-faced man made this matter smooth sailing.
"'E better get off before we get into the town, laad," he said, "then we won't ask noo fare o' ye."
"Thanks, very much," I said.
"Not a bit, not a bit," he returned. "A soldier on a spree wants all 'e can spend, eh?"
I nodded, and for an hour we drove on in silence. For a long time there had been visible a great square tower rising above the stretches of vineyards, corn-lands, and gardens. The country was interspersed with rich pastures in which fat, broad-backed sheep were grazing. How I drank in all the sights and sounds, craning my neck and straining my eyes and ears! Beautiful residences of the aristocracy, with wide-spreading parks, were frequent on each side of the highway, and soon scattered houses overgrowing with vines proclaimed that we were on the outskirts of the town. That the tower that was in sight belonged to some great church was very plain, but I feared to ask about it. The driver pulled up his horses, and understanding him to mean that my ride was over, I descended, after an expression of my gratitude.
The coach was barely out of sight when I saw ahead of me the swinging sign-board of an inn. My desire to feed was so strong that I fished out the gold piece from my catch-all, and determined to purchase a breakfast if it took the last penny.
Walking up to the entrance to the "Moon and Starfish," I went inside the tap-room, and found that the people of the inn were up and stirring. Calling for the landlord, I seated myself at a table by the window, and a flood of self-conceit came over me so that I almost gibbered with delight.
In a few minutes a bowl of coffee was at my elbow, a thick fat chop decked in greens was putting strength into my blood and spirits as it disappeared, my jaws worked to a little tune of my own composing, and I cared little for the future—the present was good and given to enjoy! But soon I was to be on a very different tack, for with a clatter and clanking I recognized the approach of the people I most dreaded to meet—the men who fight his Majesty's wars and eat his victuals. Five soldiers entered from outside. They were petty officers, with stripes on their arms, bright red coats with puffs at their shoulders, strings of bright buttons, pipe-clayed cross-belts, and black gaiters.
They may have been handsome to look at, but to me they were five living horrors. With a chill feeling coming over my chest and shoulders, I pretended closer attention to my meal. I knew they were looking at me, but they entered the next compartment and called for ale and spirits. When the landlord came I overheard the conversation.
"I don't know who the young man is," said the host of the inn, as if in reply to a question. "He came off the coach, I take it."
"He's an officer," observed another.
"You're wrong," said a third. "Where are his shoulder-knots?"
"I observed him close," put in the second speaker, "and, ecod! it strikes me he is part officer and part private. It's the uniform of the Somersetshire Foot-guard. I know it."
I was almost choking in my efforts to bolt a great bit of mutton, but from the tail of my eye I saw that two heads were thrust about the corner, and they were piping me off. So I turned my back and looked out of the window. There came a laugh in a minute, and some whispering in which I caught the words "curling-tongs and the barber," probably in allusion to my great need of both.
Now I am honestly very sorry that I never paid the landlord for that good meal of his, but I acted on an impulse that more than like saved me from total discomforture. I was taken aback fore and aft, completely staggered with the idea that their curiosity would pass bounds, and they would begin to sift me. The window was wide open, and the sward on the outside came to within two feet of the sill. Making no noise, I crawled out of it headforemost, and walking quickly across the court-yard, I dodged behind a row of stables, and crept along beneath a line of hedge; and this time I did not take the big hat with me, but left it mounting guard over the remains of my meal.
Now I really should like to have heard what the redcoats said, and I fear that the landlord could not have been complimentary.
The hedge that I was following ran up to a high wall, on the other side of which was evidently one of the parks of a nobleman or an aristocrat. By dint of scratching and hauling and sheer strength, I struggled over the top and came down on a level stretch of lawn, dotted about with handsome beech-trees, and farther on edged by a noble line of oaks. No one was in sight, and driven by a nameless dread, I started running. A great pheasant scurried across my path and tore up into the air with a whir, making me shy to one side, like a runaway horse. I kept up my speed but a few hundred yards, however, when the idea came to me that this would never do at all. So I threw myself down at the foot of a tree and tried to compose my ideas.
Off to the right, beyond a low hedge covered with wall-flowers, was a field of springing corn (wheat we call it in our country), and lording it over this green domain, with its arms outstretched, was a ragged scarecrow. I think my next move was something that proves me far from imbecile. Leaping the hedge, I tore off my bright red coat and white breeches (the cloak, I had forgotten to say, I had left at the hedge early in the morning), and then, with mighty little on, I crawled, Indian fashion, towards the silent guardian of the fields.
Oh, they were very ragged indeed were his majesty's habiliments, but there were enough of them to cover me, even if I did show bare at the knees and elbows, and hurriedly I hung them on, and taking the flapping hat from off the straw-stuffed head, I was the scarecrow come to life! I had hidden the uniform under some handfuls of leaves and grass; and now to get out of the park and reach the road, where, by my appearance, I rightfully belonged.
The wall on the inside was so high and so well built that I could not reach the top, but as I went along I came to a little gate that unlocked by thrusting back a bolt. I opened it, and found myself in the kitchen-garden of a neat white cottage. Disdaining to make reply to the hail of a buxom young woman who thrust her head out of the window, and who inquired my business in a peremptory tone, I hobbled out into the road.
I did not stop at the inn this time, but slid past it on the opposite side, and five minutes' walk brought me nearer to the heart of the town. Passing a number of people, who gave me a wide berth, and keeping straight ahead, I came to a square, or better, the meeting-place of four thoroughfares crossing at right angles.
Not far away rose the great square tower that I had noticed early in the morning. It was so high and so massive that I walked toward it to obtain a better view, and stopped in astonishment before one of the greatest cathedrals in England.
There was a service of some kind going on, and the sound of a great organ wafted out on the air. I stood there listening for some moments, leaning against the iron railing. As the door was open, I was tempted to go in and pass the gates, but here I halted in fear. A slight tall man, with his white hair trimmed in a bygone fashion, and a black coat buttoned up to his white stock, was walking up a side path; he raised his eyes from the ground, and bending forward, stood there in an expectant attitude looking at me. Whatever he took me for I do not know.
"Repent, son, and return," he said, in a soothing tone. I had feared that he was going to upbraid me for my presence, but his next movement deprived me of that idea entirely. "Here, take this," he said; "and God bless you and direct you."
As he spoke he extended his hand, with a piece of silver in it, toward me. A sense of pride in that, so far in my life, I had asked alms of no one almost tempted me to refuse it, but fearing that he might put me to questions, I took it, mumbled some thanks, and hurried out into the sunshine.
I am sure that if he had been an American I should never have escaped without telling a story of some sort, but the English are of a less curious temper than we are, and if they interfere in other people's business on the outside world, they have a talent for minding their own at home, and to this I testify readily.
My clothes were so disreputable that I determined to spend part of the shilling in procuring the means of mending them. So I entered a little shop down the street, and purchased thread and needles. With these in my pocket, I set out immediately looking for a place to hide whilst at work.
Taking the wide road that led to the north, I followed it, and passing by a common on which some lads were playing cricket, I came to an inn, much larger than the one I had stopped at in the morning, surrounded by a court-yard with sheds and stables. A number of large carts and vans were resting here, and crawling over the tail-board of one that had a great canvas top, I took off my clothes and began my tailoring.
When it was finished I was in less danger of coming to pieces, and despite what I had eaten, my stomach told me it was past the midday-meal hour.
Now where I was to go I did not have the least idea, and my heart went down like a lead.
But, en avant! There was no sense in tarrying. As I went to go out of the court-yard to take up my aimless walking, a tall chaise in which were two finely dressed gentlemen drove in at the entrance. I had to jump from under the horse's feet. Some of the inn servants, who had paid no attention to me, ran out from the stables at the sound of the wheels, and in the doorway of the house appeared a slender man, with powdered hair, who greeted the other two with a graceful salutation. There was a trace of courtliness in it that was handsome, but my heart gave a bound as I turned to watch them curiously. They were speaking French. Not the French that I had heard lately in the prison, but the French that my mother had taught me and that my uncle spoke.
"Welcome, Monsieur de Brissac!" exclaimed the tall man in the doorway, "and welcome, Monsieur le Marquis."
"De Brissac!—Monsieur le Marquis!" How natural this name and the title seemed to me; and then it all came back—"Gabriel Montclair de Brissac, Marquis de Neuville, friend of my grandfather, le Marquis de Brienne." I remembered that my uncle had made me learn this in the long list of stupid names. There were two sons, Georges Lucien and Guy Léon de Brissac. The latter and his father had both lost their heads on the guillotine on the same day that my grandfather had lost his. Somehow the idea that there might be some help come to me from a man who bore the name of de Brissac crossed my brain, and I turned back into the court-yard.
The servants had led away the horse, and seated at a window were the three fine-looking gentlemen. I watched them for a few minutes, not knowing what to do. I could not hear the sound of their voices, although the window was open, so I came nearer. The shortest of the three, who had been addressed as "Monsieur le Marquis," was talking, and gesticulating with his jewelled hand.
"Yes, yes. We will see the lilies again, my friends," he said in French. "Give this usurper time enough and the rope, and he will hang himself—a trite but true saying, my friends."
All at once one of them looked out of the window and saw me standing close to. I felt as if I had to do something to account for my presence, and an idea suggested to me by my meeting a singing beggar-woman on the streets in the morning was put into immediate practice; why, except for the connection of thought, I should have chosen the song I did I know not, but it was a fortunate circumstance. I struck out into a little chansonnette, something in the nature of a serenade, that I had heard my uncle trill in his high-pitched voice—a song that may have been a favorite with the gallants of King Louis's court.
I did not look in at the window as I sang, but cast my eyes upward in apparent oblivion to my surroundings. As I began the third stanza (something about roses and hearts, I remember) I was interrupted by approaching foot-steps.
A COMMANDING VOICE EXCLAIMED FROM THE WINDOW, "BRING THAT LAD IN HERE, SOME ONE."
My singing had attracted the attention of several people in the court-yard, and a hostler was hurrying up with the evident intention of sending me to the rightabout. But if that was what he meant to do, he had to give it over, for a commanding voice in English, without the trace of an accent, exclaimed from the window,
"Bring that lad in here, some one."
Before I knew it, I was following one of the servants through a passageway, and was ushered into the presence of the three men seated at the table.
"Where could he have learned that song?" one of them was saying. The short man was humming the air.
"Who are you and what is your name?" questioned the large gentleman with the powdered hair, who evidently was in authority, speaking in French.
"Jean Amédée de Brienne," I said, taking the name by which I had been known for the past few months, only giving it, of course, a pronunciation somewhat different.
"De Brienne!" exclaimed the youngest gentleman, starting. "Where do you come from?"
"From America, monsieur; but just now from the prison at Stapleton, whence I have escaped by a good chance."
I noticed that they were looking at one another in incredulity, so I spoke on, led by I know not what:
"Have I not the honor of addressing Monsieur George Lucien de Brissac, son of the Marquis de Neuville?"
"I am the Marquis de Neuville," exclaimed the youngest, starting to his feet. "My father is dead."
"And my grandfather perished on the scaffold with him and with your brother Guy," I said, calmly.
The effect of this speech was wonderful. The other two men sprang up, and the taller shut the window suddenly and drew the curtain.
Monsieur de Brissac was for hurrying toward me with both hands outstretched, when he was restrained.
"Hold! Hold!" said the eldest. "Let us ask more questions. What was your grandfather's name, my young friend?"
I gave it, and the whole of my family tree, so far as I could remember it, on my mother's side. Then in a few words I told of my sailing on a privateer, my capture and imprisonment. Before I had finished Monsieur de Brissac had come close to me.
"Embrassez-moi!" he said, and despite my rags he threw his arms around my neck.
In turn the other two did likewise, and the elder man kissed me on the forehead, after the manner of my uncle. Tears were in his eyes, and relieved from the great strain under which I had been laboring, I broke down altogether, and sinking into a chair, I wept, rocking myself to and fro. "Oh, God be thanked!" I cried over and over.
As soon as I recovered myself I saw that they had placed before me wine and meat, and were refraining from asking further questions until I should have refreshed myself. But the words which were whispered in my ear seemed to shut all fear behind me. "Courage; you are with friends. We will not desert you," told me to trust.
I looked up from my plate (truly I had been well fed for a vagabond this day), and found my new friends in consultation. I caught the word "clothes," and looking down at myself, I reddened. I was mad to tear the horrid rags from me. Monsieur de Brissac, as I shall call him, as it was he that afterwards became my patron, saw that I had finished the meal, and giving me a smile and a bow, came nearer. He was a very handsome man, of about seven-and-thirty, with a fine figure, and a well-turned leg that showed to the best advantage in his black small-clothes, for he also followed a fashion a little different from the English of that time. But of this I shall speak at greater length farther on.
"Monsieur de Brienne," he said, "I would like to ask you something of your father."
"He is dead," I answered.
And at this, God forgive me, I saw that I had deceived them all into thinking that I was my uncle's son, instead of his nephew. Now I reasoned if I should tell them my remarkable story, and proclaim that I did not know my father's name, and was all in a fog in regard to that of my mother, even although I knew so much about the past family history, I would put a sorry climax to a very good beginning. I regretted deeply that I should have to let them keep on in the error; but I spoke the truth, and I did not know it at the time.
"Monsieur de Brienne is dead?" repeated Monsieur de Brissac.
I sighed. "Alas!"
"He was a strange man, and they say the best swordsman at court—un vrai galant."
"There could be no better," I answered. "He taught me all I know."
The gentlemen smiled at this, but the next question that was asked me by the Marquis de Senez caused me to start.
"Your mother was—"
"Named Hurdiss," I put in. "She was very beautiful, but died in America, in the city of Baltimore, when I was but a child."
"Did your uncle leave no property? They say he took with him to America a large amount."
"I have this," I replied, producing the last of the buttons that had adorned the homespun coat that I wore at Marshwood. "All of my property was consumed at a fire—everything," I concluded. "I am left without a son, a relative, or a friend."
The gentlemen handed the button around.
"It is true. I remember that crest well," said the tall man. "And I remember well, also, your grandfather's beautiful daughters—twins, they were, and great favorites, as children, with the King."
"Yes," put in M. de Brissac; "and they married, after taking refuge here in England, one the Duke de B—— and the other the Comte de B——."[1]
The short nobleman here spoke, musingly:
"After their husbands' deaths they went to America, to seek their brother, probably, but they met with sad misfortune. Now I remember hearing something—"
My heart gave a great bound! Was I on the point of finding out my real name, and who I was by right and law?
"Yes," I said, quickly; "tell me."
"One of them was drowned in a shipwreck," Monsieur le Marquis continued. "Sad, sad, alas! and the other married some nobody, and went to reside in the wilderness."
I rather resented this, for I yet cherished the memory of him who had carried me on his shoulder, but I said nothing.
"Hortense and Hélène, those were the names," said the tall man.
"It was la belle Hélène who lost her life by drowning," said Monsieur le Marquis.
"Pardon me," put in Monsieur de Brissac; "it was Hortense, I am quite certain."
Here again arose the uncertainty.
"Who was it, monsieur, that married the English sea-captain?" I asked.
"Ah, was that it?" returned the tall man. "I did not know, nor have I any recollection of having heard which one of the ladies made this mésalliance."
The other gentlemen had come to no conclusion, and thus I found out nothing, after all. This was about the sum total of the talking we did at our first meeting, although it gives no idea of the time we were at it, and I was soon led away by the tall man, whose name, like the others, had the "de" of nobility, and was called de la Remy. I had caught the idea already that he was the landlord of the inn, and such was the fact. Indeed, a great many of the émigrés in England at this time were engaged in far less remunerative employments, and some had all they could do to put food into their mouths. Well, when I had taken a bath I was much refreshed; indeed, I could scarcely imagine that I was the same youth who had been halting along the road-side, ignorant of his whereabouts and careless as to his destination a few hours before.
As may be perceived (at least I should think the fact was evident enough), I had ceased to think of myself as a boy. It was only at times that my age would assert itself in a manner that led me to indulge in prankishness and skylarking. Thus when the hair-dresser came to my room, shown up by one of the inn servants, I pretended not to understand English, and, in consequence, they spoke openly before me. So I found out not a little. In the first place, I learned that Monsieur de Brissac and the Marquis de Senez (a Spanish title, I judge), were supposed to be very wealthy, and that I had been taken by the inn people for the private servant of the former, who had lost his way when ill some time previously, and had but now found his master. But of the more important thing, that I learned more by guesswork than from what was told me, I shall devote some space, but not now.
That night as I lay in a comfortable bed, after bidding my friends a good-night, I reasoned over the situation. I had been engaged as private secretary to the Marquis de Neuville (M. de Brissac), and would start for London with him on the morrow. There was but one regret, and that was the deception in regard to my name.