“A gentleman like you hasn’t got any business to go to flash kens, nor to hobnob with bridle-culls neither!” said Chirk severely. “If find me you must, take the Ecclesfield road out o’ Sheffield, till you come to a boozing-ken called the Ram’s Head, and say to the buffer, The Whit be burnt!”
“Much obliged to you! I won’t forget!”
“I don’t know as I’m so very pleased to know that!” retorted Chirk. He wheeled Mollie round, and said over his shoulder: “And whatever you do, don’t call for a glass of beer! Arms and legs is all they keep there—no body!”
Chapter 13
FINDING that Ben’s services were not required, that day, either by the innkeeper or by Huggate, John left him in charge of the pike, midway through the morning, and walked down the road to the village. He was desirous of obtaining news of Gabriel Stogumber; and it was with satisfaction that he learned from Sopworthy that that sturdy gentleman was keeping his bed.
“It’s a queer set-out, so it is!” said the landlord, pushing a tankard of his nappy ale towards the Captain. “He tells me as he was pounced on last night by a couple o’ foot-scamperers, but whatever would such be hopeful of prigging on this road? That’s what has me fair humdudgeoned! The like has never happened, not in all the years I’ve lived here!” He perceived a splash of spilt ale on the counter, and wiped it carefully. “Asked me all manner of questions about you, he did, Mr. Staple. ’Course, there was naught I could tell him, excepting you was a kinsman of Brean’s—which I done! But what I would like to know, sir,—me being a man as likes to keep on the windy side o’ the law—what kind of a queer cove is this Stogumber?”
The Captain was spared the necessity of answering this question by the sudden irruption into the tap of Mr. Nathaniel Coate, who had ridden into Crowford from the Manor, and now stormed into the Blue Boar, demanding the landlord in stentorian accents. His fancy had prompted him to sport a striped toilinette waistcoat under a coat of corbeau-cloth, and this combination, worn, as it was, with breeches of Angola cloth and hunting-boots with white tops, so powerfully affected the Captain that for a full minute he sat with his tankard halfway to his mouth, and his gaze riveted upon the astonishing vision. He felt stunned, and looked quite as stupid as he would have wished. Mr. Coate, who had looked rather narrowly at him, upon first entering the tap, seemed to be reassured by the fixed stare. “Well, hempseed!” he said. “Take care your eyes don’t fall out of their sockets! Did you never see a gentleman before?”
“I never see a gentleman like you afore,” drawled the Captain. He shook his head, and took a pull at his ale. “As fine as fivepence, you be!” he said, in the tone of one who had beheld a marvel.
Mr. Coate turned a contemptuous shoulder to him, and addressed himself to the landlord. “What a clodpole! I suppose that in these benighted parts you never see anyone who is up to the knocker!”
The landlord, who had listened with a wooden countenance to the Captain’s sudden illiteracy, followed a lead of which he heartily approved, and replied: “No, sir. Never! I disremember when I saw Squire himself in such toggery. Slap up to the echo, I make no doubt! And what can I do for you, sir?”