Patricia at the inn

by J. C. Snaith

“Don’t let ’em touch me,” the rider said in a whisper of querulous anguish. “Tell ’em to keep off.”

Amid a few groans and a few curses, the unhappy traveller was half led, half borne within on the shoulder of his wife.

“Oh, the poor gentleman!” exclaimed the servant-maid, setting the best chair near the fire and placing a soft pillow upon it. She then ran to procure an armful of fresh logs, while Joseph took the horses to the stable. The stricken man was put by the hearth, and his wife, distressed and fatigued as she was, tended him with an unremitting diligence. She took off his hat, wet cloak and gloves, and then knelt down before him to chafe his cold hands with her own even colder, and talked to him as she did so in little soothing affectionate phrases, as a mother might to a child.

Meantime the landlord was busy indeed. He hobbled about the kitchen with his gout as though the hour was three at noon instead of three of the night—now for a cup, now for a spoon, now for a stoup of the hissing liquor, steaming and vapouring in the bowl. Mine host had brewed a posset, strong, hot, searching, fit for a prince! Ha! and who knew that royal lips were not about to imbibe it. The thought was ever present in Master Hooker’s heart. Be very sure his eye was never an instant from his guests.

The lady, it is true, still wore her vizard, thereby balking his curiosity in the main particular; in her tender solicitude for her lord, she had forgot to doff her dripping cloak; she was bedraggled, weary, unkempt, chilled to the blood; but were she presently to be revealed a princess, the shrewd Gamaliel would be able to say without impropriety that from the first he had guessed so much. He knew high breeding when he saw it; he flattered himself that naught could conceal it from him. He had not seen a feature, a jewel; she had hardly given him three words; his knowledge of her attire was confined to a hood, a riding-cloak, and a mask; but there it was, the hallmark, the indescribable strange grace that misfortune could not tarnish, nor distresses hide.

As for the man, her husband with the querulous eyes and the countenance twisted with pain, there was not a button of his coat that the landlord had not already by heart. A most handsome fellow, in the very heyday of his youth. Yet he looked so pale and worn, that it seemed as if the first puff of wind might extinguish the life of him, as it would a candle-flame. He had a singular delicacy of feature, designed for sweetness and urbanity. But his face was robbed of something of its peculiar beauty by an expression of peevish arrogance, aggravated perhaps by his imminent condition, but probably sufficient at any time to mar a countenance wonderfully fair. A high spirit seemed to preside behind it, a chafing, impatient, overleaping spirit, that hated being harnessed to a maimed body. And below the resentful anguish of the young man’s face was a permanent look of weariness and disillusion that one might expect to see in that of a person who had drunk the cup of life to the very dregs until his lips revolted from its bitterness. Yet the landlord, whose scrutiny missed not a detail, could see that he was of the quality of his veiled companion. He was one accustomed to the service and the homage of his fellows; one who would not be slow to exact it, either. Still his exquisite fair curls clustering round his neck, and his blue eyes, if their insolence, their anger, and their pain could be forgotten, lent him the appearance of an angel—a soiled, ruffled, complaining angel, who, finding itself on earth, wished to be elsewhere.

His condition was certainly dire. He could hardly speak; and as he lay back on his pillow, sobbing for breath after each effort to do so, his impatient rage would have been ludicrous had it not been a thing to pity. The woman continued to chafe his hands till a little warmth crept in them, then rose from her knees to procure and arrange more cushions for him. Presently, the landlord came with the steaming tankard. The lady took one sip of it carefully, to assure herself that it was not too hot for the lips of her companion. She held it for him while he applied his mouth. He withdrew it instantly, with a splutter.

“God scald you, landlord!” he said, in a hoarse, weak voice, “you have burnt my mouth.”

“There—there, mine own,” said the lady, caressing his curls. “Drink freely. It will not hurt you, indeed; nay, it will give you ease.”

Having settled the sufferer in some degree of comfort, she asked the landlord to lead her to the stable.