CHAPTER L
CAPTAIN BOLD
I have mentioned that Slap-Jack, too, while he rode perforce so rapidly homewards, was pursued by a black Care of his own, waiting for a momentary halt to leap up behind. Even with a foretopman, though, perhaps, no swain ought to have a better chance, the course of true love does not always run smooth. There was a pebble now ruffling Slap-Jack’s amatory stream, and that pebble was known at the “Hamilton Arms” as Captain Bold.
He might have had a score of other designations in a score of other places; in fact, he was just the sort of gentleman whom one name would suffice less than one shirt; but here, at least, he was welcomed, and, to a certain extent, trusted under that title.
Now Captain Bold, if he ever disguised himself for the many expeditions in which he boasted to have been engaged, must have done considerable violence to his feelings by suppressing the three peculiarities for which he was most conspicuous, and in which he seemed to take the greatest pride. These specialities were the Captain’s red nose, his falsetto voice, and his bay mare. The first he warmed and comforted with generous potations at all hours, for though not a deep, he was a frequent drinker; the second, he exercised continually in warbling lyrics tending to the subversion of morals—in shrieking out oaths denoting a fertile imagination, with a cultivated talent for cursing—and in narrating interminable stories over his cups, of which his own triumphs in love and war formed the groundwork; the third—he was never tired of riding to and fro over the moor, of going to visit in the stable, or of glorifying in the tap-room for the edification of all comers, expatiating on her shape, her qualities, her speed, her mettle, and her queer temper, amenable to no authority but his own.
The captain’s first acquaintance with Mrs. Dodge dated some two months back, when he entered the hostelry one stormy evening, and swaggered about the stable-yard and premises as if thoroughly familiar with the place. This did not astonish the landlady, who, herself a late arrival, concluded he was some old customer of her predecessor’s; but, hazarding that natural supposition to an ancient ostler, who had been at the “Hamilton Arms” from a boy, and never slept out of the stable since he could remember, she was a little surprised to learn old Robin had no recollection whatever of the captain, though he was perfectly well acquainted with the mare. That remarkable animal had been fed and dressed over by his own hands, he declared, only last winter, and was then the property of a Quaker from the East Riding, a respectable-looking gentleman as ever he clapped eyes on—warm, no doubt, for the mare was in first-rate condition, and her master paid him from a purse full of broad pieces—a wet Quaker, old Robin thought, by reason of his smelling so strong of brandy when he mounted before daylight in the morning.
Mrs. Dodge, conversing with her guest of the wonderful mare, mentioned her old servant’s reminiscences.
“Right!” exclaimed the captain, with his accustomed flourish—“right as my glove! or, I should say, my dear madam, right as your own bodice! A Quaker—very true! A man about my own size, with a—well, a prominent nose. Pale, flaxen-haired; would have been a good-looking chap with a little more colouring; and respectable—most respectable! Oh, yes! that’s the Quaker I bought her of and a good bargain I made. We’ll drink the Quaker’s health, if you please. A very good bargain!”
And the captain laughed heartily, though Mrs. Dodge could not, for the life of her, see the point of his jest.
But, while she reprobated his profane conversation, and entertained no very profound respect for his general character, the captain was yet a welcome guest in Mrs. Dodge’s sanctum. His anecdotes were so lively—his talk was so fluent—he took off his glass with so gallant a flourish to her own and her niece’s health, paying them, at the same time, such extravagant compliments of the newest town mode—that it was impossible to damp this genial spirit with an austerity which must have been assumed, or rebukes uttered by lips endeavouring to repress a smile.