CHAPTER XVIII
CONTAINS A PANEGYRIC ON THE GENTLE PASSION
It was truly a novel kind of amusement to enjoy the patronage of such a clodhopper; but it was one infinitely rich in the comic. The highwayman fell in exactly with the spirit of this comedy. He seemed to take an almost diabolical pleasure in causing this pitiful specimen of human nature to reveal the weakness and sterility of his mind. And I fear that this pleasure was communicated to Cynthia and myself. Could we have forgotten the persecution endured at the hands of the fellow that afternoon, we must have found it in our hearts to pity him in his fool's paradise. But with the sense of our late indignities yet abiding within us, we followed the course of the play with the keenness and zest of the leading actor in it. It was our revenge, and a very ample and satisfying one we felt it to be, although in the tameness of print it may not appear to possess the solid satisfaction of one administered with a cudgel or a pair of resolute fists.
When at last the squire proposed to depart, he vowed that never had he spent an evening with such profit and enjoyment. It far exceeded, he was good enough to say, the memorable one he had once had the honour to pass in the society of Colonel Musket of Barker's Hill. He swore he would cherish the memory of it to his last day; and having humbly thanked his grace for his condescension and his affability; and having given a curt nod to Cynthia and myself, since the boon companion of a duke is surely entitled to dispense his patronage, our justice stumbled out into the rainy night, with more good wine in him than he deserved, and certainly more than he could decently carry.
"Ships, pegs, coos and 'osses," says the highwayman, breaking out into laughter as soon as our guest had lurched into the rain. "Let a man live with them long enough, and they shall reduce his wit and understanding to the level of their own. Was there ever such a pitiful cheese of a fellow in the world before? If it were not such a foul night, and I lay less snug in my corner, I would go after him, drub him soundly, and fling him into the kennel. But at least we have had an entertainment, and I have thought well to exact a ransom of him for his own."
Here to our surprise our strange companion pulled forth a purse which a few minutes since had been the squire's. The justice had been seated next the venerable duke, and had paid for the high privilege. Besides, is it not an axiom among the great that they never condescend unless they are in need of a service, or can get something by their condescension? His grace's exaction was the latter. Neither Cynthia nor I could find it in our hearts to blame the highwayman for his trick. Nay, I do not know that in one sense we were not secretly glad that a tangible and material punishment had been inflicted upon the fellow. When the purse was opened it was found to contain the sum of nineteen pounds and a few odd shillings. The highwayman, after a careful mental calculation, doled the money out into three heaps of equal value, and having slipped one portion, some six pounds twelve shillings, into his fob, pushed the two remaining portions over to us, insisting that in this adventure it was share and share alike.
Of course we could not bring ourselves to accept of our friend's somewhat embarrassing generosity. But the sight of such a fortune to people in our penurious state, who had already partaken of much more than they could pay for, was temptation indeed. Although we refused the gifts with the same courtesy with which they were offered, I fear that our eyes shone with a singular lust, and our minds rebelled as we did so. The highwayman himself was astonished by our scruples.
"My dear friends," says he. "I confess I have never observed such reluctancy in persons of your kidney before. You baffle me. I cannot hold it to be generosity in you, since there can be little doubt that William Sadler makes a fatter living than you do with all your talents. Why then should you refuse a gift from a brother of your calling? And it cannot be pride either, for if we come down to plain terms it is not a gift at all. By all those unwritten laws that obtain amongst the brethren of our profession, you are each honourably entitled to take a share with me. Come, my friends, pocket the affront and let no more be said."
The highwayman's high sense of right and wrong in regard to those he was pleased to call "the brethren of our profession" was really touching. Nothing in the first place could convince him that we were not in that sense his brethren, and that we did not earn our livelihood by his uncompromising methods. We had entered the inn by the aid of false protestations; we had ordered a meal that he was sure we had no means of paying for; we had connived at the escape of a desperate malefactor, and had committed a gross fraud on a justice of the peace; therefore he had every good reason to stand firm in his estimate of our character. To my rejoinder that we hoped he would not pursue the matter, as we were anything but what we appeared to be, and were debarred by circumstances that had recently befallen us from publishing our true condition to him or to any one else, he replied with laughter of the most immoderate sort.
"Rat me," says he, "this is no new tale. I wonder how many times in a twelvemonth it does duty at Old Bailey! But I do not like to be baffled by anybody, and I must say your behaviour is inexplicable. It is Quixotic, my friends, it is Quixotic. I cannot possibly let it pass. I must beg you to accept these small monies as a token of my gratitude."