At the Sign of the Silver Flagon

"How fair and beautiful it is!" he murmured gratefully. "What is there in the world half so sweet as these dear old English lanes and fields?" He paused to reflect upon his question; and then, with the whimsically-serious air of one who was accustomed to commune with himself, exclaimed, "Nonsense, Gerald, nonsense! The world is full of sweet and beautiful places."

Gentle undulations of land, beautified by various colour, were before him; shadows of light passed over the landscape like waves, and stole from it the sadness which is ever an attribute of still life. There were farmyards in the distance, and sheep, with bells hung to their necks, trudging with patient gait to where the most tempting herbage lay. The sheep were at a great distance from the stranger, and by a curious trick of the fancy he listened to the tinkling of the bells, although it was impossible that the sound could reach him. Other sounds he could hear plainly: the cry of the woodpecker, and the more melodious note of the cuckoo, beautifully clear, notwithstanding its slightly plaintive ring.

"And full of sweet sounds, too," mused the stranger, pursuing the current of his thoughts; and added immediately, with the same whimsically-serious air, and as if in comical defence of a prejudice, "Certainly no birds sing like English birds."

"I beg your pardon."

The threads of their lives had met, never more to be unwoven, and the threads of other lives were presently to be joined to theirs, for weal or woe, as fate might determine. From this chance meeting rare combinations were to spring.

"I was remarking," said the stranger, turning to the gentleman who was standing by the stile, waiting to cross, "and not with justice, that no birds sing like English birds." The gentleman did not answer him, and then he comprehended that the words uttered by the gentleman had been used not in contradiction of his statement, but as a request that he would move aside. He descended from the stile with a courteous smile, and said, "I beg your pardon, I am sure, both for blocking up the road-way and for misunderstanding you; but I was so rapt in the beauty of the scene and in my own thoughts, that I misinterpreted the intention of your words. Notwithstanding which, I should like to have your opinion as to whether I am right or not."

The gentleman had bent his head in acknowledgment of the half apology, and when the stranger ceased speaking, was standing on the other side of the stile. The gentleman gazed at the stranger, and recognised at a glance that although he was commonly dressed his manners and speech were not those of a common person. To have proceeded on his way without a word would have been churlish; therefore he said, in a courteous tone:

"Right as to the birds?"

"Yes, as to the birds," replied the stranger, with vivacity.

"I cannot say; I have not travelled. Some of our best woodland singers are migratory. But I should say-although I am not in the least way an authority-that it would be no easy matter to find more melodious woods than our English woods."

"That is true; then I was right. Though whether I meant that English birds were or were not better singers than birds of other countries, it would puzzle me to say. But as to the English woods-they are the sweetest and fairest. There again! I have lain in the Australian woods, and my soul has been thrilled by their beauty. Yes, I was right. The world is full of sweet and beautiful places."

The gentleman smiled at these contradictory utterances, but the stranger's words could not have been more at variance with one another than were his speech and his attire. His words were scholarly, and his clothes were patched.

"You look and speak like an Englishman," said the gentleman.

"I am one."

"From your words I should judge that this part of England is strange to you."

"It is more than thirty years since I was last in Devonshire."

"That is a long time-you must find it changed somewhat."

"Somewhat."

While these words were being exchanged, their observance of each other, which had been slight at first, grew closer and more searching, and into their eyes stole a pondering look so curiously alike that one seemed to be a reflection of the other. But for the influence which this close observance exercised upon him, the gentleman would not have stopped to converse with an unknown man, and with one so far beneath him, from a worldly point of view. The stranger repeated thoughtfully:

"Yes, I find it somewhat changed."

"It is in the nature of things," said the gentleman, "to change as we grow older."

"Not so. I find it changed because I have changed. Old eyes and young eyes see the same things differently. Are the clouds less bright than they were when we were young? Are the flowers less beautiful? When Jacob courted Laban's daughters o' nights (how they must have laughed in their sleeves, if they wore them, at the old man's craft!) were the nights less lovely than the nights are now?"

The gentleman passed his hand lightly before his eyes, as if to clear away a vapour.

"I am corrected," he said, with the air of a man whose thoughts were travelling one road, while his words travelled another; "we sometimes say things without consideration."

"Either because they sound well, or because they seem to savour of wisdom. That comes from our vanity. When men grow as old as we are, they often ape the philosopher. The lark changes into an owl. They try to shape their words so that they may sound like proverbs."

"They utter one occasionally, perhaps."

"Perhaps," said the stranger in a tone of dubious assent; "but the odds are heavy against it. Even if they do, what then?"

"Proverbs are good and useful utterances," observed the gentleman, adding, in unconscious illustration of the stranger's words, "nuts of wisdom."

The stranger laughed scornfully. "A proverb on proverbs! Nuts of wisdom indeed!"

"Are they not?"

"No; the proverb holds a false position in language. It is used invariably in a general sense, whereas it has only a special application for the time being; then, having served its purpose, loses its value, and should be laid aside until another special circumstance calls for it."

"It would be difficult to establish that."

"Most easy. I will prove it in a practical way. Repeat a proverb-any one that occurs to you; the more familiar the better-and I will mate it with another, equally familiar, which gives it the lie."

The gentleman might have accepted the challenge, but that a labourer, approaching them from his side of the stile, seemed to remind him that he was losing dignity in conversing with one who wore patched clothes, and who was unknown to him. Bidding the stranger "Good day," and slightly bending his head in acknowledgment of the labourer's deferential bow, he walked slowly away.

CHAPTER III

CUSTOS ROTULORUM

As the labourer crossed the stile, the stranger accosted him.

"Hodge!"

"Who be Hodge?" quoth the labourer uncivilly, but disposed for conversation and argument. "You-in a collective sense."

"Then ye've gotten the sow by the wrong ear."

"Supposing I have gotten a sow at all," said the stranger complacently. "Will you present to me the right ear?"

Not understanding the nature of the request, the man continued playing on the same string.

"Hodge bain't my name!"

And grinned with the triumph of a philosopher. "What may be your name, then, my most veracious hair-splitter?"

"I be no splitter. Who be ye a-callin' names? As for my name, that I'll keep to myself." Saying which, the labourer fastened a loose button with an air of determination.

With a chuckle, the stranger replied, "Like yourself, O tiller of the soil! – for such you are, I opine, and, as such, the noblest work of God-like yourself, I am but a poor player, who struts and frets his hour upon the stage."

"Eh! a player I was thinking ye didn't look like a worker! I know en when I see en;" and the labourer grinned again at his own wit.

"But 'tis not of ourselves I wish to speak," said the stranger in a tone which he purposely made grandiloquent; "tis of another-of the gentleman to whom you doffed your cap, and who has just left us."

"What do you want of en!" demanded the labourer, in a sharp tone, cocking his ears like a terrier.

"His name."

"Eh! More names! D'ye come down here to rob us of en? But there be no harm a-tellin' of ye. It may be a warnin' to ye. 'A's name be Mister Weston."

All the stranger's light manner was gone.

"Weston!" he cried, seizing the man's arm.

The labourer shook himself free, and in a severe tone corrected the stranger.

"Mister Weston, I told ye."

"I ask your and Mr. Weston's pardon. A well-to-do man this Mr. Weston?"

The labourer scanned the stranger's clothes; the mental result was not favourable.

"That be his business, 'a b'lieve," he said suspiciously.

Apparently in an absent mood, the stranger drew from his pocket a handful of articles, among which were a short pipe, a tobacco-pouch, and some money. Somewhat ostentatiously he picked out a few silver and copper pieces, and held them loosely in his left hand. The labourer, who was about to slouch away, altered his mind, and lingered patiently.

"Good cider about here, my man?" asked the stranger.

"That there be," replied the labourer, drawing the back of his hand across his mouth. "The best in the county."

"I passed an old-fashioned hostelry-more like a gentleman's house than an hotel-about half a mile from this spot-" the stranger paused.

"Up along there," said the labourer, pointing with his finger.

"Yes; in that direction."

"With a bit o' garden round en?" volunteered the labourer.

"Ay, with a garden round it."

"And a swing gate before en-"

"'Tis so. And a swing gate opening into the garden. Apple-trees before the house-"

"Standing back from the road the house be?" said the labourer, moving his lips as one might do preparatory to the imbibing of a deep draught of the best cider in the county.

"It is warmish," said the stranger, with a look of sly enjoyment. "Yes, standing back from the road the house is."

"That be the Silver Flagon."

The stranger leaped off the stile with a sudden cry.

"A day of wonders!" he exclaimed. "Providence must have led me in this direction." A sad and tender reminiscence brought the tears to his eyes. "The Silver Flagon! The dear, old Silver Flagon. And the proprietor's name is Rowe, an old man and a gentleman!"

"That 'a be-as wold a man as ye, 'a should say. A rare fine place 'tis."

"It looks it." The stranger's eyes glittered with joy.

"Too fine for the likes of-" ("we," he was about to say, but the sight of the stranger's money caused a correction) – "me. 'A can get rare fine cider in another place."

"Doubtless." The stranger could scarcely restrain his excitement. "But to come back to what we were speaking of just now" – (rattling the money in his hand) – "this Mr. Weston- By the way, though, let us give him his full name; Mr. Richard Weston, of course."

"Ay, that be his name."

The labourer would have used the word "full," but that it stood in his mind for "foolish."

"I was asking-a well-to-do man, Mr. Weston?"

"Well-to-do!" exclaimed the labourer, thirstily. "They say he have no end o' money."

"Highly respected, no doubt?"

"That 'a be," replied the labourer, becoming very parched indeed. "If ye'll stand atop the stile, ye'll see the chimneys of his house. 'Tis a rare fine house."

The stranger stood upon the top bar of the stile, and gazed in the indicated direction. "I see them, and I make my obeisance to them." Saying which he doffed his hat, and bowed with a curiously-fantastic tenderness. He quite forgot the labourer, who was standing by his side, greedily and humbly expectant, but a cough and a kick at the stile recalled him to himself. He turned, and, with a negligent nod and a half smile at the labourer, dropped the money carelessly into his pocket, and proceeded to charge his pipe.

A minute or two passed in silence; then the labourer coughed again, and scraped his foot, and shifted his body restlessly; but the stranger puffed at his pipe calmly, and did not appear to notice him, although really he was enjoying the man's discomfiture. The labourer went through a certain mental process. First, he was mystified, and his mind was clouded; then a glimmer of light broke into the clouds, and a dim suspicion stole upon him that he had been beaten into civility by a trick. With a sense of helplessness, and of submission to the superior cunning by which he had been conquered, he was about to move away, when the passing of his tongue over his lips made him ireful and vindicative. A thought struck him, and he proceeded to give it expression.

"'A say!" he cried, in his uncivillist tone.

The stranger removed his pipe from his lips, and raised his eyes towards the man.

"Ah! you have an idea, evidently. Stand, then, and deliver!"

The man started back, having some notion of the meaning of the words; he clapped his hand on his trousers-pocket, to protect three half-pence and-his idea.

"Don't be alarmed," said the stranger; "nothing of that sort was in my mind. Proceed, my friend."

"No friend o' yours, that 'a know of," retorted the labourer. "You'd best take care!"

"I will endeavour to do so."

The labourer searched his mind for a colloquial stone with which to smite his foe. He found one.

"Ye don't look too respectable."

"You deserve a reward for your perspicacity," said the stranger, much amused-and the labourer, at the unfamiliar word, started again-"if not for your civility. You have a keener scent than our friend-I beg your pardon once more-than Mr. Weston."

"Well, take care, then. He be a justice."

"A little one or a big one, my man? A frog or an ox? For there are justices and justices."

"A big un. Take care!" This iteration appeared to assuage his thirst.

"Custos rotulorum, eh?"

"'A thought you was no good-cussin' and swearin'. 'A've a good mind-"

"I hope so, I'm sure. May it long remain uncontaminated!"

"'A've a good mind to go and tell en."

"You've a good mind to go and tell him you've a good mind?" queried the stranger, in a quiet bantering tone.

"To tell en ye're up to no good; seeking to know all about en-whether he be rich and where he lives. Danged if I don't b'lieve ye're one o' them London chaps come down along here wi' designs!"

"A peripatetic architect," said the stranger, laughing heartily. "Thank you for the compliment, my rustic sage. I am nothing so dignified as that, believe me. But allow me to correct you. You yourself volunteered the information as to the whereabouts of Mr. Weston's house; the information may be useful to me."

"May en! Danged if I don't go and tell en!"

The stranger stood aside to allow the labourer to cross the stile.

"Come after me if ye dare!" cried the labourer.

"I dare do all that may become a man," replied the stranger; and also crossing the stile, he leisurely followed the labourer, who took care to keep at a fair distance.

They had not to walk far. Round another bend in the lane, where it broadened unexpectedly, and where great tufts of feather-grass were swinging their fairy bells over a brook, they came upon Mr. Weston resting himself. He turned towards them at their approach. The labourer took off his cap, and pawed the ground servilely with his left foot; and then found himself in a difficulty. He had not the wit to lead up to the attack gently, and with the consciousness upon him of the stranger's superior flow of speech, he felt himself at a disadvantage. If the stranger would speak first, he could take up his words; but the stranger stood provokingly calm and silent.

"Well," said Mr. Weston.

The sense of injury under which the man laboured gave him courage.

"This chap here," he blurted out, with a back scrape of his right foot, "be up to no good, your honour."

Mr. Weston looked at the stranger, and waited for farther explanation.

"'A be a London chap come down along here wi' designs. 'A don't deny en. 'A be cravin' all sorts of questions about your honour. 'A wanted to know whether your honour was rich, where your honour's house be, and how much money your honour keeps in it. I conceived it my duty to come along and tell your honour."

"O most mendacious Hodge!" exclaimed the stranger, shaking his head in sad and smiling reproof.

"That be the way 'a's been talkin' all the time; and swearin' and cussin' as well, and callin' your honour a frog. When 'a'd drawed out o' me that your honour was a justice, 'a cussed and rotted your honour."

"Custos rotulorum," said the stranger.

"They be the words-cussin' and rottin', your honour!"

CHAPTER IV

IT WAS JUST SUCH A DAY AS THIS; AND THE AIR WAS SWEET, AND LIFE WAS SWEET

Mr. Weston smiled, and the stranger smiled also. These smiles were like question and answer, and appeared to be given and accepted as a satisfactory defence to the labourer's accusations. At the same time there stole into Mr. Weston's eyes the same curiously pondering look which had dwelt in them when he and the stranger were first conversing.

"It cannot be," he answered.

"Why not?" asked the stranger. "More wonderful things have happened."

Suddenly he cast aside his nonchalant air, and said earnestly:

"Look into the brook."

As though compelled by an influence he had no power to withstand, Mr. Weston gazed into the brook, and saw reflected there his own face and the face of the stranger who was bending over the water by his side. Their backs were turned towards the labourer, who, not doubting the stranger's sinister designs, prepared himself for any emergency by spitting on his hands and smoothing his side-locks. He was aware of the responsible position he occupied, and he settled with himself that in the event of the stranger pushing Mr. Weston into the water, the first thing for him to do would be to run away and cry, "Fire!"

"Take my hand," the stranger said, in a sad sweet tone. They joined hands, and the hand-clasp was reflected in the brook. "Why cannot it be? It is not always that the words which make a friendship are as intangible as the shadowy semblance of it which we see before us. Words are not all air-spoken, forgotten, lost for ever. Why cannot it be? Here we two old men stand, looking into the past; it might really be so. How many years ago was it-forty? – that two young men stood beside a brook as we stand now, looking into the future?" Mr. Weston's hand tightened upon that of his companion. "They loved each other then-do they love each other now! I can answer for one. They were friends in the best meaning of the word-are they friends now? Thirty odd years have past. It was just such a day as this; and the air was sweet and life was sweet. Do you remember?"

They raised their faces to each other; their lips quivered; their eyes were suffused with tears.

"Gerald!"

"Richard!"

"It is like a dream," said Mr. Weston, with his hand to his eyes.

In the meanwhile the labourer stood dumbfoundered at the strange turn the scene had taken; the word "Fire" hung upon his tongue, and he swallowed it disgustedly. He had wit enough to perceive that he had made a deplorable mistake, and he was about to slink away, hoping not to be noticed, when the stranger's voice arrested his steps.

"Well, my friend!" he said, with sly twinkles.

The labourer scratched his head penitentially; the expression in his face conveyed an unmistakable appeal to the stranger not to hit a man when he was down.

"Dense is no word to express the condition of the rustic mind," said the stranger, with a full enjoyment of his victory. "There is but one way of imparting intelligence to it." He took a small piece of silver from his pocket, and the labourer's eyes followed the motion of his hand, and the labourer's lips grew parched again. "There, my friend; drink Mr. Weston's health in the best cider in the county."

The labourer took to his heels, and slouched off, rarely mystified.

"Custos rotulorum!" cried the stranger after him; and at those dread words the labourer took to his heels, and was soon out of sight.

Left to themselves, the two old men, who had been friends when they were young, gazed at each other in silent wonder at this strange and unexpected reunion. They said but little at first; words were slow a-coming.

"Did you know I was here?" asked Mr. Weston.

"I had no suspicion of it."

"It will be a long time before I get over the surprise of this meeting, Gerald," said Mr. Weston; "I scarcely thought we should ever meet again in this world."

"We speculated on the after-life when we were boys," answered Gerald; "but whenever I thought of you, you were not dead to me. I believed, as I hoped, that you lived and were prosperous."

"You thought of me, then? I am glad to know that. Gerald, I am truly pleased to see you."

"Not more than I am to see you."

"And you have really thought of me often; but you were always faithful."

"You have obtruded yourself upon me in the midst of the strangest scenes. There have been times, of course, when the affairs of life were most pressing, that you have not been present to my mind; but you have come back to me invariably, and sometimes in strangely-familiar connection with circumstances of which you could not possibly have had any knowledge, not knowing where I was, or what path of life I was pursuing."

"The same old Gerald," said Mr. Weston, pressing his friend's hand with affection; "and the same old way of talking."

"Not quite clear, eh? You used to say, 'Say that again, Gerald;' but you understand me now?"

"Perfectly."

Gerald laughed, and Mr. Weston laughed with him, without apparent cause, as he had often done in the time gone by. But there was something contagious in Gerald's laugh, and, indeed, in his whole manner; especially when he was serious, as he was now, he seemed to possess the power of compelling his friend to be of his humour.

"Perfectly, you say! Well, but I scarcely understand myself. That is so always with me when I generalise."

"It used to be so with you in the old days-or you used to say it was."

"When I specialise, I can make the thing clearer, so I will specialise now. Once being in Australia-"

"Ah, you have much to tell me!"

"I am working with two mates on the goldfields-working from sunrise to sunset, in the hope of catching a golden reef, following a will-o'-the-wisp deeper and deeper into the bowels of the earth, and never catching it, mind you. Being down a hundred and forty feet, we-my mates and I-are misled by a thin vein of quartz that takes a horizontal direction, and we resolve to drive a tunnel in its direction. There is a theory among the miners that these thin veins must lead to the reef itself, bearing the same relation to the prize they work for as the veins in the human body bear to the heart. One day I am alone in this tunnel, where no glimpse of daylight can be seen. Two candles throw a dim light around. I am a hundred and forty feet below the surface of the earth, and but for the human aid at the top of the claim, I am completely cut off from the world, for we are the only workers on this hill. In my eager hunt after gold I have not thought of you for many months. Suddenly, as I am working with my short pick, sitting on the floor of the tunnel-for there is not room to stand upright-a stone drops from above into a little pool of water which has gathered at the bottom of the shaft, and as the sound of the plash falls upon my ear, your image comes to my mind in connection with a time when we stood side by side dropping stones into a stream. Now I have made my meaning clear to myself."

"You have made it very clear to me."

"Tell me: when I have been in your mind, in what way have I presented myself? As I was?"

"Always as you were, Gerald-with your bright eyes and brown curly hair-"

"That is it. Not with white hair, as ours is now. I have thought of you in the same way. Memory does not reason. So that it really is something of a shock to come upon each other after so long an interval, and after so great a change."

They fell into silence. Tender memories were stirred to life, and visions of scenes in which they had played prominent parts rose before them. Old as they were, romance was not dead in their hearts. But suddenly, as they traced the current of their early lives, they gazed at each other with sad meaning. Each knew instinctively that the thoughts of the other had halted at a certain momentous epoch in their careers.