"Oh, I cannot, I will not believe it of such a dear fine gentleman!" says she.
The next morning found us heavy of heart. In what manner we could meet the landlord's charges we did not know. Although we were both too proud to say so, I am sure we should have been greatly thankful could we have had our share of the highwayman's booty to comfort us. After all it was a queer kind of scruple that preferred to rob the innkeeper rather than the squire. For it was plain that he, poor fellow, must go unpaid. Honesty, I take it, is largely a question of terms; and why we should hold it to be more venial to rob the one than the other I cannot tell. We breakfasted over the hard problem of what to do. We had no other course, we decided, than to persevere in the original fiction of our misfortunes on the road at the hands of a highwayman, and defer the settlement of the landlord's account against the time when our affairs had assumed a more prosperous shape.
As it happened, our misgivings and searchings of conscience were in vain. The highwayman, who had ridden away in the small hours of the morning, had insisted unknown to us in giving at least some token of his gratitude. He had discharged our score and his own in a handsome manner, the innkeeper said. Perchance it was he held that our host merited some sort of reward for his behaviour too; and he doubtless held in the shrewd opinion he had formed of our condition, that it was little enough he was likely to receive at our hands.
In this fortunate manner we were able to go forth into the world again. Our hunger and weariness had been amply refreshed and our debts paid. We did not pause to consider that these happy contingencies had been brought about by the very means that we had so loftily disdained. It was the squire's purse after all that had paid our charges. Honesty, as I have said, is largely a question of terms.
To the downpour of the night had succeeded a sullen morning. The lowering sky promised more misery to follow. The air was wet with mists; the trees dripped incessantly; every blade of grass shone with the dankness that clung to it, and the state of the deep-rutted, rude, uneven roads was terrible. But even all these things together, and the fact that we had to plough our way, step by step, slowly through seas of mud could not entirely depress our spirits. We felt ourselves in the society of one another, to be in spite of everything, invincible in our common courage, unconquerable in our common resolution. The one sustained the other in these adventures.
"My prettiness," says I, "it is under embarrassing conditions such as these that we should endeavour to sustain ourselves with a few tender, amorous passages of love. I think I will pay you a compliment or two upon your beauty, if you will give me but a minute's time in which to rack my mind to find them."
"For your pretty speeches to be sincere, sir," says Cynthia, "they should be quite spontaneous."
"Here is one," says I. "The sunshine of your countenance lights up the morning's gloom."
"A common enough figure, I confess," says she, "which a hundred poets have better exprest."
"Here is another, then," says I, undaunted. "The solace of your companionship sweetens the bitter miles."