Patricia at the inn

by J. C. Snaith

The landlord did not know what name to put to it. Conscience it was not. He knew himself too intimately ever to bring such an accusation against the power of his understanding. Pity it was not. Fear it was not. It might be superstition, yet he hardly thought so. It was the oddest thing in life, and not the least disconcerting. It was his plain duty to himself to sell the King, and yet a vague scruple he was unable to define had the power to restrain him.

He reasoned with himself; he fought with himself. It was too monstrous that a chance which could never occur again could be allowed to slip by. Long ago had he made up his mind what to do in the case of the King’s coming to his inn. And here was the King upstairs; and here was he going over the well-trodden ground again, reviewing all his settled conclusions, when every minute was of the first importance. Any moment the King might turn his back on the “Sea Rover” forever. Yes, he would cast out the qualm that was debasing his mind. It was sapping all its vigorous faculties. But try as he might, he could not do so. It was ingrained in the very marrow of his brain.

Minute by minute his chances were ticking away. Had he only had the strength of purpose to permit Joseph to start on his errand, he would have been halfway there by now! The malady that was besetting him had never come upon him before. It was the most singular he had ever experienced, or even heard of. It had already caused him to act in a manner for him unparalleled. To keep Joseph back for no cause whatever was, the poor landlord considered, the act of a madman. It was so entirely opposed to reason; never before had he been blind to its dictates.

He called for his fifth glass of hot rum-and-water. By God! if he could not do it sober, he would do it drunk! To think that he was throwing away a fortune without the least reason for doing so! Again he got up and began to hobble unsteadily about the kitchen floor. He began to pant, to gasp; the sweat poured out of him, although the weather was still bitterly cold. Was he the master of his own mind, or was he not? That was what the whole thing amounted to. Had he lived to be sixty ere he put that question for the first time? But he would answer it.

Yes; he would answer it. He tossed off the sixth glass. The tremor was not quite so distinct in his brain. He felt a little stronger. He must stiffen every nerve of his resolution. Never mind the sweat shining on his forehead, his agitated breast, or his trembling flabby hands. He was slowly getting his teeth upon the bit; he was getting some control over this strange insanity.

The seventh glass, and he triumphed. It was a hard-won struggle; none harder. But at last, as the shadows of the wintry evening came stealing down the rocks, and Cicely lit the first candle, the struggle came to an end. Each individual nerve in Gamaliel’s body rioted within him; he was as unsubstantial as pulp; but at last his resolution was running clear and strong. The little flickering tremor that had a thousand times routed it and put it to shame was now dead. Hot rum-and-water had ultimately done its business. The crisis was past. He was master of himself after all.

In a voice so hoarse it resembled the croak of a raven, he summoned his son a second time.

“Joseph,” he said, “I want you to go now. Go speedily. Time presses; the business is very urgent. And when you come to Captain Culpeper, tell him to make all haste. It is now a little after four o’clock; at a little after eight he and his men should be at the door. Be a good lad now. Do not tarry an instant, and your old father’s fortune is made, likewise your own.”

Joseph listened to the low, excited utterance of the landlord in a purely mechanical manner. He was neither uplifted nor depressed; he was neither surprised nor disappointed. He took the sealed paper once more in his hands, and stepped out without a word into the sea-broken silence of the wintry evening. A little afterwards his horse was out of the stable, and he rode away.

The landlord still hobbled up and down the inn kitchen, until he heard the hoofs of the horse die away in the distance. He then sat down in his chair by the fireside for the first time for more than an hour. His head fell onto his chest. He was utterly worn out and overcome.