We will pass over the Rabelaisian adventures of the night, which, amusing enough, are too robust for these pages; and will proceed to the next day’s journey. Before they started, Weazel had proved himself the arrant coward and braggart which the reader has already perceived him to be; but, notwithstanding this exposure, he entertained the company in the wagon with accounts of his valour: how he had once knocked down a soldier who had made game of him; had tweaked a drawer by the nose who had found fault with his picking his teeth with a fork; and had, moreover, challenged a cheesemonger who had had the presumption to be his rival.
For five days they travelled in this manner. On the sixth day, when they were about to sit down to dinner, the innkeeper came and told them that three gentlemen, just arrived, had ordered the meal to be sent to their apartment, although told that it had been bespoken by the passengers in the wagon,—to which information they had replied: “The passengers in the wagon might be d—d; their betters must be served before them; they supposed it would be no hardship on such travellers to dine on bread and cheese for one day.”
This was a great disappointment to them all, and they laid their heads together to remedy it, Miss Jenny observing that Captain Weazel, being a soldier by profession, ought to protect them. The captain adroitly excused himself by saying that he would not, for all the world, be known to have travelled in a wagon; swearing, at the same time, that, could he appear with honour, they should eat his sword sooner than his provision. On this declaration, Miss Jenny, snatching his weapon, drew it and ran immediately into the kitchen, where she threatened to put the cook to death if he did not immediately send the victuals into their room. The noise she made brought the three strangers down, one of whom no sooner perceived her than he cried, “Ha! Jenny Ramper! what brought thee hither?”
“My dear Jack Rattle,” she replied, running into his arms, “is it you? Then Weazel may go whistle for a dinner—I shall dine with you.”
They consented with joy to this proposal; and the others were on the point of being reduced to a very uncomfortable meal, when Joey, the wagoner, understanding the whole affair, entered the kitchen with a pitchfork in his hand, and swore he would be the death of any man who should pretend to seize the victuals prepared for the wagon. On this, the three strangers drew their swords, and, being joined by their servants, bloodshed seemed imminent; when the landlord, interposing, offered to part with his own dinner, for the sake of peace; which proposal was accepted and all ended happily.
When the journey was resumed in the afternoon, Roderick chose to walk some distance beside the wagoner, a merry, good-natured fellow, who informed him that Miss Jenny was a common girl of the town, who, falling in company with a recruiting officer who had carried her down in the stage-coach from London to Newcastle, was obliged to return, as her companion was now in prison for debt. Weazel had been a valet-de-chambre to my Lord Fizzle while he lived separate from his lady; but on their reconciliation she insisted on Weazel’s being turned off, as well as the woman who had lived with him: when his lordship, to get rid of them both with a good grace, proposed that Weazel should marry his mistress, when he would procure a commission in the army for him.
Roderick and the wagoner both had a profound contempt for Weazel, and resolved to put his courage to the test by alarming the passengers with the cry of “a highwayman” as soon as a horseman should appear. It was dusk when a man on horseback approached them. Joey gave the alarm, and a general consternation arose; Strap leaping out of the wagon and hiding himself behind a hedge; the usurer exclaiming dolefully and rustling about in the straw, as though hiding something; Mrs. Weazel wringing her hands and crying; and the captain pretending to snore.
This latter artifice did not succeed with Miss Jenny, who shook him by the shoulder and bawled out: “’Sdeath! captain, is this a time to snore when we are going to be robbed? Get up, for shame, and behave like a soldier and man of honour.”
Weazel pretended to be in a great passion for being disturbed, and swore he would have his nap out if all the highwaymen in England surrounded him. “What are you afraid of?” continued he; at the same time trembling with such agitation that the whole vehicle shook.
“Plague on your pitiful soul!” exclaimed Miss Jenny; “you are as arrant a poltroon as was ever drummed out of a regiment. Stop the wagon, Joey, and if I have rhetoric enough, the thief shall not only take your purse, but your skin also.”