When the Saturday evening arrived, Aubrey made a very careful toilet, and set forth for the Strand. It was a long walk, for the Earl of Oxford lived in the City, near Bishopsgate. Aubrey was rather elated at the idea of making the acquaintance of Sir Josceline Percy and Sir Edward Bushell. He was concerned at the family disgrace, as he foolishly considered it, of Hans’s connection with the mercer, and extremely desirous to attain knighthood for himself. The way to do that, he thought, was to get into society. Here was an opening which might conduct him to those Elysian fields—and at the gate stood his grandmother, trying to wave him away. He would not be deprived of his privileges by the foolish fancies of an old woman. What did old women know of the world? Aubrey was not aware that sixty years before, that very grandmother, then young Lettice Eden, had thought exactly the same thing of those who stood in her way to the same visionary Paradise.
Temple Bar was just left behind him, and the Duck was near, when to Aubrey’s surprise, and not by any means to his satisfaction, a hand was laid upon his shoulder.
“Hans! you here?”
“Truly so. Where look you I should be an half-hour after closing time?”
This was a most awkward contretemps. How should Hans be got rid of before the Duck was reached?
“You are on your way to the White Bear,” said Hans, in the tone of one who states an incontrovertible fact, “Have with you.”
Aubrey privately wished Hans in the Arctic Sea or the torrid zone, or anywhere out of the Strand for that afternoon. And as if to render his discomfiture more complete, here came Mr Winter and Tom Rookwood, arm in arm, just as they reached Mrs More’s door. What on earth was to be done?
Mr Thomas Rookwood, whose brain was as sharp as a needle, guessed the situation in a moment, and with much amusement, from a glance at Aubrey’s face. He, of course, at once recognised Hans, and was at least as well aware as either that Hans represented the forces of law and order, and subordination to lawful authority, while Aubrey stood as the representative of the grand principle that every man should do what is right in his own eyes. A few low-toned words to Mr Winter preceded a doffing of both the plumed hats, and the greeting from Tom Rookwood as they passed, of—
“Good even to you both. Charming weather!”
A scarcely perceptible wink of Tom’s left eye was designed to show Aubrey that his position was understood, and action taken upon it. Aubrey saw and comprehended the gesture. Hans saw it also, but did not comprehend it except as a sign of some private understanding between the two. They walked on together, Aubrey engaged in vexed meditation as to how he was to get rid of Hans. But Hans had no intention of allowing himself to be dismissed. He began to talk, and Aubrey had to answer, and could not satisfy himself what course to pursue, till he found himself at the door of the White Bear.