Evan Harrington. Complete

‘Good evening, sir,’ said one who sat as chairman, with a decisive nod.

‘Good night, ain’t it?’ a jolly-looking old fellow queried of the speaker, in an under-voice.

‘Gad, you don’t expect me to be wishing the gentleman good-bye, do you?’ retorted the former.

‘Ha! ha! No, to be sure,’ answered the old boy; and the remark was variously uttered, that ‘Good night,’ by a caprice of our language, did sound like it.

‘Good evening’s “How d’ ye do?”—“How are ye?” Good night’s “Be off, and be blowed to you,”’ observed an interpreter with a positive mind; and another, whose intelligence was not so clear, but whose perceptions had seized the point, exclaimed: ‘I never says it when I hails a chap; but, dash my buttons, if I mightn’t ‘a done, one day or another! Queer!’

The chairman, warmed by his joke, added, with a sharp wink: ‘Ay; it would be queer, if you hailed “Good night” in the middle of the day!’ and this among a company soaked in ripe ale, could not fail to run the electric circle, and persuaded several to change their positions; in the rumble of which, Evan’s reply, if he had made any, was lost. Few, however, were there who could think of him, and ponder on that glimpse of fun, at the same time; and he would have been passed over, had not the chairman said: ‘Take a seat, sir; make yourself comfortable.’

‘Before I have that pleasure,’ replied Evan, ‘I—’

‘I see where ‘tis,’ burst out the old boy who had previously superinduced a diversion: ‘he’s going to ax if he can’t have a bed!’

A roar of laughter, and ‘Don’t you remember this day last year?’ followed the cunning guess. For awhile explication was impossible; and Evan coloured, and smiled, and waited for them.

‘I was going to ask—’

‘Said so!’ shouted the old boy, gleefully.

‘—one of the gentlemen who has engaged a bed-room to do me the extreme favour to step aside with me, and allow me a moment’s speech with him.’

Long faces were drawn, and odd stares were directed toward him, in reply.

‘I see where ‘tis’; the old boy thumped his knee. ‘Ain’t it now? Speak up, sir! There’s a lady in the case?’

‘I may tell you thus much,’ answered Evan, ‘that it is an unfortunate young woman, very ill, who needs rest and quiet.’

‘Didn’t I say so?’ shouted the old boy.

But this time, though his jolly red jowl turned all round to demand a confirmation, it was not generally considered that he had divined so correctly. Between a lady and an unfortunate young woman, there seemed to be a strong distinction, in the minds of the company.

The chairman was the most affected by the communication. His bushy eyebrows frowned at Evan, and he began tugging at the brass buttons of his coat, like one preparing to arm for a conflict.

‘Speak out, sir, if you please,’ he said. ‘Above board—no asides—no taking advantages. You want me to give up my bed-room for the use of your young woman, sir?’

Evan replied quietly: ‘She is a stranger to me; and if you could see her, sir, and know her situation, I think she would move your pity.’

‘I don’t doubt it, sir—I don’t doubt it,’ returned the chairman. ‘They all move our pity. That’s how they get over us. She has diddled you, and she would diddle me, and diddle us all-diddle the devil, I dare say, when her time comes. I don’t doubt it, sir.’

To confront a vehement old gentleman, sitting as president in an assembly of satellites, requires command of countenance, and Evan was not browbeaten: he held him, and the whole room, from where he stood, under a serene and serious eye, for his feelings were too deeply stirred on behalf of the girl to let him think of himself. That question of hers, ‘What are you going to do with me?’ implying such helplessness and trust, was still sharp on his nerves.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I humbly beg your pardon for disturbing you as I do.’

But with a sudden idea that a general address on behalf of a particular demand must necessarily fail, he let his eyes rest on one there, whose face was neither stupid nor repellent, and who, though he did not look up, had an attentive, thoughtful cast about the mouth.

‘May I entreat a word apart with you, sir?’

Evan was not mistaken in the index he had perused. The gentleman seemed to feel that he was selected from the company, and slightly raising his head, carelessly replied: ‘My bed is entirely at your disposal,’ resuming his contemplative pose.

On the point of thanking him, Evan advanced a step, when up started the irascible chairman.

‘I don’t permit it! I won’t allow it!’ And before Evan could ask his reasons, he had rung the bell, muttering: ‘They follow us to our inns, now, the baggages! They must harry us at our inns! We can’t have peace and quiet at our inns!—’

In a state of combustion, he cried out to the waiter:

‘Here, Mark, this gentleman has brought in a dirty wench: pack her up to my bed-room, and lock her in lock her in, and bring down the key.’

Agreeably deceived in the old gentleman’s intentions, Evan could not refrain from joining the murmured hilarity created by the conclusion of his order. The latter glared at him, and added: ‘Now, sir, you’ve done your worst. Sit down, and be merry.’

Replying that he had a friend outside, and would not fail to accept the invitation, Evan retired. He was met by the hostess with the reproachful declaration on her lips, that she was a widow woman, wise in appearances, and that he had brought into her house that night work she did not expect, or bargain for. Rather (since I must speak truth of my gentleman) to silence her on the subject, and save his ears, than to propitiate her favour towards the girl, Evan drew out his constitutionally lean purse, and dropped it in her hand, praying her to put every expense incurred to his charge. She exclaimed:

‘If Dr. Pillie has his full sleep this night, I shall be astonished’; and Evan hastily led Jack into the passage to impart to him, that the extent of his resources was reduced to the smallest of sums in shillings.

‘I can beat my friend at that reckoning,’ said Mr. Raikes; and they entered the room.

Eyes were on him. This had ever the effect of causing him to swell to monstrous proportions in the histrionic line. Asking the waiter carelessly for some light supper dish, he suggested the various French, with ‘not that?’ and the affable naming of another. ‘Nor that? Dear me, we shall have to sup on chops, I believe!’

Evan saw the chairman scrutinizing Raikes, much as he himself might have done, and he said: ‘Bread and cheese for me.’

Raikes exclaimed: ‘Really? Well, my lord, you lead, and your taste is mine!’

A second waiter scudded past, and stopped before the chairman to say: ‘If you please, sir, the gentlemen upstairs send their compliments, and will be happy to accept.’

‘Ha!’ was the answer. ‘Thought better of it, have they! Lay for three more, then. Five more, I guess.’ He glanced at the pair of intruders.

Among a portion of the guests there had been a return to common talk, and one had observed that he could not get that ‘Good Evening,’ and ‘Good Night,’ out of his head which had caused a friend to explain the meaning of these terms of salutation to him: while another, of a philosophic turn, pursued the theme: ‘You see, when we meets, we makes a night of it. So, when we parts, it’s Good Night—natural! ain’t it?’ A proposition assented to, and considerably dilated on; but whether he was laughing at that, or what had aroused the fit, the chairman did not say.

Gentle chuckles had succeeded his laughter by the time the bread and cheese appeared.

In the rear of the provision came three young gentlemen, of whom the foremost lumped in, singing to one behind him, ‘And you shall have little Rosey!’

They were clad in cricketing costume, and exhibited the health and manners of youthful Englishmen of station. Frolicsome young bulls bursting on an assemblage of sheep, they might be compared to. The chairman welcomed them a trifle snubbingly. The colour mounted to the cheeks of Mr. Raikes as he made incision in the cheese, under their eyes, knitting his brows fearfully, as if at hard work.

The chairman entreated Evan to desist from the cheese; and, pulling out his watch, thundered: ‘Time!’

The company generally jumped on their legs; and, in the midst of a hum of talk and laughter, he informed Evan and Jack, that he invited them cordially to a supper up-stairs, and would be pleased if they would partake of it, and in a great rage if they would not.

Raikes was for condescending to accept.

Evan sprang up and cried: ‘Gladly, sir,’ and gladly would he have cast his cockney schoolmate to the winds, in the presence of these young cricketers; for he had a prognostication.

The door was open, and the company of jolly yeomen, tradesmen, farmers, and the like, had become intent on observing all the ceremonies of precedence: not one would broaden his back on the other; and there was bowing, and scraping, and grimacing, till Farmer Broadmead was hailed aloud, and the old boy stepped forth, and was summarily pushed through: the chairman calling from the rear, ‘Hulloa! no names to-night!’ to which was answered lustily: ‘All right, Mr. Tom!’ and the speaker was reproved with, ‘There you go! at it again!’ and out and up they hustled.

The chairman said quietly to Evan, as they were ascending the stairs: ‘We don’t have names to-night; may as well drop titles.’ Which presented no peculiar meaning to Evan’s mind, and he smiled the usual smile.

To Raikes, at the door of the supper-room, the chairman repeated the same; and with extreme affability and alacrity of abnegation, the other rejoined, ‘Oh, certainly!’

No wonder that he rubbed his hands with more delight than aristocrats and people with gentlemanly connections are in the habit of betraying at the prospect of refection, for the release from bread and cheese was rendered overpoweringly glorious, in his eyes, by the bountiful contrast exhibited on the board before him.

CHAPTER XII. IN WHICH ALE IS SHOWN TO HAVE ONE QUALITY OF WINE

To proclaim that yon ribs of beef and yonder ruddy Britons have met, is to furnish matter for an hour’s comfortable meditation.

Digest the fact. Here the Fates have put their seal to something Nature clearly devised. It was intended; and it has come to pass. A thing has come to pass which we feel to be right! The machinery of the world, then, is not entirely dislocated: there is harmony, on one point, among the mysterious powers who have to do with us.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.