‘Yours faithfully,
‘ESKDALE.
‘Spring Gardens, Wednesday morning.’
It is just where the street is most crowded, where it narrows, and losing the name of Cheapside, takes that of the Poultry, that the last of a series of stoppages occurred; a stoppage which, at the end of ten minutes, lost its inert character of mere obstruction, and developed into the livelier qualities of the row. There were oaths, contradictions, menaces: ‘No, you sha’n’t; Yes, I will; No, I didn’t; Yes, you did; No, you haven’t; Yes, I have;’ the lashing of a whip, the interference of a policeman, a crash, a scream. Tan-cred looked out of the window of his brougham. He saw a chariot in distress, a chariot such as would have become an Ondine by the waters of the Serpentine, and the very last sort of equipage that you could expect to see smashed in the Poultry. It was really breaking a butterfly upon a wheel to crush its delicate springs, and crack its dark brown panels, soil its dainty hammer-cloth, and endanger the lives of its young coachman in a flaxen wig, and its two tall footmen in short coats, worthy of Cinderella.
The scream, too, came from a fair owner, who was surrounded by clamorous carmen and city marshals, and who, in an unknown land, was afraid she might be put in a city compter, because the people in the city had destroyed her beautiful chariot. Tan-cred let himself out of his brougham, and not without difficulty contrived, through the narrow and crowded passage formed by the two lines, to reach the chariot, which was coming the contrary way to him. Some ruthless officials were persuading a beautiful woman to leave her carriage, the wheel of which was broken. ‘But where am I to go?’ she exclaimed. ‘Icannot walk. I will not leave my carriage until you bring me some conveyance. You ought to punish these people, who have quite ruined my chariot.’
‘They say it was your coachman’s fault; we have nothing to do with that; besides, you know who they are. Their employers’ name is on the cart, Brown, Bugsby, and Co., Limehouse. You can have your redress against Brown, Bugsby, and Co., Lime-house, if your coachman is not in fault; but you cannot stop up the way, and you had better get out, and let the carriage be removed to the Steel-yard.’
‘What am I to do?’ exclaimed the lady with a tearful eye and agitated face.
‘I have a carriage at hand,’ said Tancred, who at this moment reached her, ‘and it is quite at your service.’
The lady cast her beautiful eyes, with an expression of astonishment she could not conceal, at the distinguished youth who thus suddenly appeared in the midst of insolent carmen, brutal policemen, and all the cynical amateurs of a mob. Public opinion in the Poultry was against her; her coachman’s wig had excited derision; the footmen had given themselves airs; there was a strong feeling against the shortcoats. As for the lady, though at first awed by her beauty and magnificence, they rebelled against the authority of her manner. Besides, she was not alone. There was a gentleman with her, who wore moustaches, and had taken a part in the proceedings at first, by addressing the carmen in French. This was too much, and the mob declared he was Don Carlos.
‘You are too good,’ said the lady, with a sweet expression.