Part 21 (1/2)
He fell back against the pedestal of a leaden effigy of Julius Caesar and plucked his dressing-gown about him with fumbling bewildered hands. Was the whole British Army pouring into his peaceful park?
What had he done to bring down on his head the sportive mockery of heaven, and at such a moment?
But in the act of collapsing he looked across the bal.u.s.trade and saw the Major's face suddenly lose its colour. Then in an instant he understood and pulled himself together.
”Hey? A hunt breakfast, is it?” he inquired sardonically, and turned to welcome the approaching troop. ”Good morning, gentlemen! You have come to draw my covers? Then let me suggest your beginning with the plantation yonder to the right, where I can promise you good sport.”
It was unneighbourly; an action remembered against Sir Felix to the close of his life, as it deserved to be. He himself admitted later that he had given way to momentary choler, and made what amends he could by largess to the victims and their families. But it was long before he recovered his place in our esteem. Indeed, he never wholly recovered it: since of many dire consequences there was one, unforeseen at the time, which proved to be irreparable. Over the immediate consequences let me drop the curtain. _Male, male feriati Troes!_ . . . As a man at daybreak takes a bag and, going into the woods, gathers mushrooms, so the Dragoons gathered the men of Troy.
. . . Mercifully the most of them were unconscious.
Even less heart have I to dwell on the return of the merrymakers:
”But now, ye shepherd la.s.ses, who shall lead Your wandering troops, or sing your virelays?”
Sure no forlorner procession ever pa.s.sed down Troy river than this, awhile so jocund, mute now, irresponsive to the morning's smile, the cuckoo's blithe challenge from the cliff. To the Major, seated in the stern sheets of the leading boat, no one dared to speak.
They supposed his pecuniary loss to be heavier than it actually was-- since the Dragoons had after all surprised but a portion of the cargo, and the leafy woods of Pentethy yet concealed many scores of tubs of _eau-de-vie_; but they knew that he brooded over no pecuniary loss. He had been outraged, betrayed as a neighbour, as a military commander, and again as a father of his people; wounded in the house of his friends; scourged with ridicule in the very seat of his dignity. Maidens, inconsolable for lovers s.n.a.t.c.hed from them and now bound for Bodmin Gaol, hushed their sorrow and wiped their tears by stealth, abashed before those tragic eyes which, fixed on the river reach ahead, travelled beyond all petty private woe to meet the end of all things with a tearless stare.
So they returned, drew to the quays, and disembarked, unwitting yet of worse discoveries awaiting them.
In the hospital Gunner Sobey, having dived into bed, with great presence of mind fell asleep. The Vicar had fled the town by the North, or Pa.s.sage, Gate, and was by this time devouring a country walk in long strides, heedless whither they led him, vainly endeavouring to compose his thoughts and readjust his prophecies in the light of the morning's events--a process which from time to time compelled him to halt and hold his head between both hands.
The Major had slammed his front door, locked himself in his room, and would give audience to no one.
It was in vain that the inhabitants besieged his porch, demanding to know if the town were bewitched. Who had gutted their shops?
Why the causeways swam with strong liquor? How the churchyard came to be full of cattle? What hand had fired Farmer Elford's ricks?
In short, what in the world had happened, and what was to be done?
They came contritely, conscious of their undeserving; but to each and all Scipio, from the head of the steps, returned the same answer.
His master was indisposed.
Troy, ordinarily a busy town, did no business at all that day.
Tradesmen and workmen in small groups at every street-corner discussed a mystery--or rather a series of mysteries--with which, as they well knew, one man alone was competent to grapple. To his good offices they had forfeited all right. Nevertheless, a crowd hung about all day in front of the Mayor's house, nor dispersed until long after nightfall. At eight o'clock next morning they rea.s.sembled, word having flown through the town that Dr. Hansombody and Lawyer Chinn had been summoned soon after daybreak to a private conference.
At eight-thirty the Vicar arrived and entered the house, Scipio admitting him with ceremony and at once shutting the door behind him with an elaborate show of caution.
But at a quarter to ten precisely the door opened again and the great man himself stood on the threshold. He wore civilian dress, and carried a three-caped travelling cloak on his left arm. His right hand grasped a valise. The sight of the crowd for a moment seemed to discompose him. He drew back a pace and then, advancing, cleared his throat.
”My friends,” said he, ”I am bound on a journey. Your consciences will tell you if I deserved yesterday's indignity, and how far you might have obviated it. But I have communed with myself and decided to overlook all personal offence. It is enough that certain of our fellow-townsmen are in durance, and I go to release them. In short, I travel to-day to Plymouth to seek the best legal advice for their defence. In my absence I commit the good behaviour of Troy to your keeping, one and all.”
You, who have read how, when Nelson left Portsmouth for death and victory, the throng pressed after him down the beach in tears, and ran into the water for a last grasp of his hand, conceive with what emotion we lined up and escorted our hero to the ferry; through what tears we watched him from the Pa.s.sage Slip as he waved back from the boat tiding him over to the farther sh.o.r.e, where at length Boutigo's Van--”The Eclipse,” Troy to Torpoint, No Smoking Inside--received and bore him from our straining eyes.
CHAPTER XII.
A COLD DOUCHE ON A HOT FIT.
There lived at Plymouth, in a neat house at the back of the Hoe, and not far from the Citadel, a certain Mr. Basket, a retired haberdasher of Cheapside, upon whom the Major could count for a hospitable welcome. The two had been friends--cronies almost--in their London days; dining together daily at the same cook-shop, and as regularly sharing after dinner a bottle of port to the health of King George and Mr. Pitt. Nor, since their almost simultaneous retreat from the capital, had they allowed distance to diminish their mutual regard.
They frequently corresponded, and their letters included many a playful challenge to test one another's West Country hospitality.
Now while the Major had (to put it mildly) but exchanged one sphere of activity for another, Mr. Basket, a married man, embraced the repose of a contemplative life; cultivating a small garden and taking his wife twice a week to the theatre, of which he was a devotee.