Part 8 (2/2)
Mr. ”Mishrush” seemed not a little relieved at nearing company after his lonely walk; triumphant, too, at having guided me hither so cunningly. He lifted his nimble cudgel in the air and waved it conceitedly to and fro in time to the song that rose beyond the window. ”Fau'ow er Wur'!--Fau'ow er Wur'!” he cried delightedly again and again in my ear, eager apparently for my approval. So we stood, then, beneath the starless sky, listening to the rich _choragium_ of the ”World's End.” They sang in unison, sang with a kind of forlorn heat and enthusiasm. And when the song was ended, and the roar of applause over, Night, like a darkened water whelmed silently in, engulfed it to the echo:
Follow the World-- She bursts the grape, And dandles man In her green lap; She moulds her Creature From the clay, And crumbles him To dust away: Follow the World!
One Draught, one Feast, One Wench, one Tomb; And thou must straight To ashes come: Drink, eat, and sleep; Why fret and pine?
Death can but s.n.a.t.c.h What ne'er was thine: Follow the World!
It died away, I say, and an ostler softly appeared out of the shadow.
Into his charge, then, I surrendered Rosinante, and followed my inarticulate acquaintance into the noise and heat and l.u.s.tre of the Inn.
It was a numerous company there a.s.sembled. But their voices fell to a man on the entry of a stranger. They scrutinised me, not uncivilly, but closely, seeking my badge, as it were by which to recognise and judge me ever after.
Mr. Mistrust, as I presently discovered my guide's name indeed to be, was volubly explaining how I came into his company. They listened intently to what, so far as I could gather, might be Houyhnhnmish or Double-Dutch. And then, as if to show me to my place forthwith, a great fleshy fellow that sat close beside the hearth this summer evening continued in a loud voice the conversation I had interrupted.
Whereupon Mr. Mistrust with no little confidence commended me in dumb show to the landlady of the Inn, a Mrs. Nature, if I understood him aright. This person was still comely, though of uncertain age, wore cherry ribbons, smiled rather vacantly from vague, wonderful, indescribable eyes that seemed to change colour, like the chameleon, according to that they dwelt on.
I am afraid, as much to my amus.e.m.e.nt as wonder, I discovered that this landlady of so much apparent _bonhomie_ was a deaf-mute. If victuals, or drink, or bed were required, one must chalk it down on a little slate she carried at her girdle for the purpose. Indeed, the absence of two of her three chief senses had marvellously sharpened the remaining one. Her eyes were on all, vaguely dwelling, lightly gone, inscrutable, strangely fascinating. She moved easily and soundlessly (as fat women may), and I doubt if ever mug or pot of any of that talkative throng remained long empty, except at the tippler's reiterated request.
She laid before me an excellent supper on a little table somewhat removed beside a curtained window. And while I ate I watched, and listened, not at all displeased with my entertainment.
The room in which we sat was low-ceiled and cheerful, but rather close after the rainy night-air. Gay pictures beautified the walls.
Here a bottle, a cheese, grapes, a hare, a goblet--in a clear brown light that made the guest's mouth water to admire. Here a fine gentleman toasting a simpering chambermaid. Above the chimney-piece a bloated old man in vineleaves that might be Silenus. And over against the door of the parlour what I took to be a picture of Potiphar's wife, she looked out of the paint so bold and beauteous and craftily. Birds and fishes in cases stared gla.s.sily,--owl and kestrel, jack and eel and gudgeon. All was clean and comfortable as a hospitable inn can be.
But they who frequented it interested me much more--as various and animated a gathering as any I have seen. Yet in some peculiar manner they seemed one and all not to the last t.i.ttle quite of this world.
They were, so to speak, more earthy, too definite, too true to the mould, like figures in a bleak, bright light viewed out of darkness.
Certainly not one of them was at first blush prepossessing. Yet who finds much amiss with the fox at last, though all he seems to have be cunning?
Near beside me, however, sat retired a man a little younger and more at his ease than most of the many there, and as busy with his eyes and ears as I. His name, I learned presently, was Reverie; and from him I gathered not a little information regarding the persons who talked and sipped around us.
He told me at whiles that his house was not in the village, but in a valley some few miles distant across the meadows; that he sat out these bouts of argument and slander for the sheer delight he had in gathering the myriad strands of that strange rope Opinion; that he lived (heart, soul, and hope) well-nigh alone; that he deeply mistrusted this place, and the company we were in, yet not for its mistress's sake, who was at least faithful to her instincts, candid to the candid, made no favourites, and, eventually, compelled order. He told me also that if friends he had, he deemed it wiser not to name them, since the least sibilant of the sound of the voice incites to treachery; and in conclusion, that of all men he was acquainted with, one at least never failed to right his humour; and that one was yonder flabby, pallid fellow with the velvet collar to his coat, and the rings on his fingers, and the gold hair, named Pliable, who sat beside Mr. Stubborn on the settle by the fire.
When, then, I had finished my supper, I drew in my chair a little closer to Mr. Reverie's and, having scribbled my wants on the Landlady's slate, turned my attention to the talk.
At the moment when I first began to listen attentively they seemed to be in heated dispute concerning the personal property of a certain Mr.
Christian, who was either dead or had inexplicably disappeared. Mr.
Obstinate, I gathered, had taken as his right this Christian's ”easy-chair”; a gentleman named Smoothman most of his other goods for a debt; while a Parson Decorum had appropriated as heretical his books and various peculiar MSS.
But there now remained in question a trifling sum of money which a Mr.
Liar loudly demanded in payment of an ”affair of honour.” This, however, he seemed little likely to obtain, seeing that an elderly uncle by marriage of Christian's, whose name was Office, was as eager and affable and frank about the sum as he was bent on keeping it; and rattled the contents of his breeches' pocket in sheer bravado of his means to go to law for it.
”He left a bare pittance, the merest pittance,” he said. ”What could there be of any account? Christian despised money, professed to despise it. That alone would prove my wretched nephew queer in the head--despised _money_!
”Tush, friend!” cried Obstinate from his corner. ”Whether the money is yours, or neighbour Liar's--and it is as likely as not neither's--that talk about despising money's what but a silly lie? 'Twas all sour grapes--sour grapes. He had cunning enough for envy, and pride enough for shame; and at last there was naught but cunning left wherewith to patch up a clout for him and his shame to be gone in. I watched him set out on his pestilent pilgrimage, crazed and stubborn, and not a groat to call his own.”
<script>