Micah Clarke<br />His Statement as made to his three grandchildren Joseph, Gervas and Reuben During, Arthur Conan Doyle [self help books to read txt] 📗

in peace and quietness. This favour was due, I think, to a little sly manoeuvring and a few whispered words from Saxon, who amongst other accomplishments which he had picked up during his chequered career had a pleasing knack of establishing friendly relations with the fair sex, irrespective of age, size, or character. Gentle and simple, Church and Dissent, Whig and Tory, if they did but wear a petticoat our comrade never failed, in spite of his fifty years, to make his way into their good graces by the help of his voluble tongue mid assured manner.

‘We are your grateful servants, mistress,’ said he, when the smoking joint and the batter pudding had been placed upon the table. ‘We have robbed you of your room. Will you not honour us so far as to sit down with us and share our repast?’

‘Nay, kind sir,’ said the portly dame, much flattered by the proposal; ‘it is not for me to sit with gentles like yourselves.’

‘Beauty has a claim which persons of quality, and above all cavalieros of the sword, are the first to acknowledge,’ cried Saxon, with his little twinkling eyes fixed in admiration upon her buxom countenance. ‘Nay, by my troth, you shall not leave us. I shall lock the door first. If you will not eat, you shall at least drink a cup of Alicant with me.’

‘Nay, sir, it is too much honour,’ cried Dame Hobson, with a simper. ‘I shall go down into the cellars and bring a flask of the best.’

‘Nay, by my manhood, you shall not,’ said Saxon, springing up from his seat. ‘What are all these infernal lazy drawers here for if you are to descend to menial offices?’ Handing the widow to a chair he clanked away into the tap-room, where we heard him swearing at the men-servants, and cursing them for a droning set of rascals who had taken advantage of the angelic goodness of their mistress and her incomparable sweetness of temper.

‘Here is the wine, fair mistress,’ said he, returning presently with a bottle in either hand. ‘Let me fill your glass. Ha! it flows clear and yellow like a prime vintage. These rogues can stir their limbs when they find that there is a man to command them.’

‘Would that there were ever such,’ said the widow meaningly, with a languishing look at our companion. ‘Here is to you, sir—and to ye, too, young sirs,’ she added, sipping at her wine. ‘May there be a speedy end to the insurrection, for I judge, from your gallant equipment, that ye be serving the King.’

‘His business takes us to the West,’ said Reuben, ‘and we have every reason to hope that there will be a speedy end to the insurrection.’

‘Aye, aye, though blood will be shed first,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘They tell me that the rebels are as many as seven thousand, and that they swear to give an’ take no quarter, the murderous villains! Alas! how any gentleman can fall to such bloody work when he might have a clean honourable occupation, such as innkeeping or the like, is more than my poor mind can understand. There is a sad difference betwixt the man who lieth on the cold ground, not knowing how long it may be before he is three feet deep in it, and he who passeth his nights upon a warm feather bed, with mayhap a cellar beneath it stocked with even such wines as we are now drinking.’ She again looked hard at Saxon as she spoke, while Reuben and I nudged each other beneath the table.

‘This business hath doubtless increased your trade, fair mistress,’ quoth Saxon.

‘Aye, and in the way that payeth best,’ said she. ‘The few kilderkins of beer which are drunk by the common folk make little difference one way or the other. But now, when we have lieutenants of counties, officers, mayors, and gentry spurring it for very life down the highways, I have sold more of my rare old wines in three days than ever I did before in a calendar month. It is not ale, or strong waters, I promise you, that those gentles drink, but Priniac, Languedoc, Tent, Muscadine, Chiante, and Tokay—never a flask under the half-guinea.’

‘So indeed!’ quoth Saxon thoughtfully. ‘A snug home and a steady income.’

‘Would that my poor Peter had lived to share it with me,’ said Dame Hobson, laying down her glass, and rubbing her eyes with a corner of her kerchief. ‘He was a good man, poor soul, though in very truth and between friends he did at last become as broad and as thick as one of his own puncheons. All well, the heart is the thing! Marry come up! if a woman were ever to wait until her own fancy came her way, there would be more maids than mothers in the land.’

‘Prythee, good dame, how runs your own fancy?’ asked Reuben mischievously.

‘Not in the direction of fat, young man,’ she answered smartly, with a merry glance at our plump companion.

‘She has hit you there, Reuben,’ said I.

‘I would have no pert young springald,’ she continued, ‘but one who hath knowledge of the world, and ripe experience. Tall he should be, and of sinewy build, free of speech that he might lighten the weary hours, and help entertain the gentles when they crack a flagon of wine. Of business habits he must be, too, forsooth, for is there not a busy hostel and two hundred good pounds a year to pass through his fingers? If Jane Hobson is to be led to the altar again it must be by such a man as this.’

Saxon had listened with much attention to the widow’s words, and had just opened his mouth to make some reply to her when a clattering and bustle outside announced the arrival of some traveller. Our hostess drank off her wine and pricked up her ears, but when a loud authoritative voice was heard in the passage, demanding a private room and a draught of sack, her call to duty overcame her private concerns, and she bustled off with a few words of apology to take the measure of the new-comer.

‘Body o’ me, lads!’ quoth Decimus Saxon the moment that she disappeared, ‘ye can see how the land lies. I have half a mind to let Monmouth carve his own road, and to pitch my tent in this quiet English township.’

‘Your tent, indeed!’ cried Reuben; ‘it is a brave tent that is furnished with cellars of such wine as we are drinking. And as to the quiet, my illustrious, if you take up your residence here I’ll warrant that the quiet soon comes to an end.’

‘You have seen the woman,’ said Saxon, with his brow all in a wrinkle with thought. ‘She hath much to commend her. A man must look to himself. Two hundred pounds a year are not to be picked off the roadside every June morning. It is not princely, but it is something for an old soldier of fortune who hath been in the wars for five-and-thirty years, and foresees the time when his limbs will grow stiff in his harness. What sayeth our learned Fleming—“an mulier—” but what in the name of the devil have we here?’

Our companion’s ejaculation was called forth by a noise as of a slight scuffle outside the door, with a smothered ‘Oh, sir!’ and ‘What will the maids think?’ The contest was terminated by the door being opened, and Dame Hobson re-entering the room with her face in a glow, and a slim young