The Wayfarers

"I refer you, sir," says he, "to our worthy Boniface, our excellent Mr. Jim Grundy, for the panegyric of my character."

Upon this the innkeeper looked from one to the other of us with a great deal of unction, and involved his rosy countenance in such a number of nods and winks as conferred a great air of mystery on a simple question.

"Come, my good Grundy," says our companion, "inform the lady and gentleman who Mr. William Sadler is."

"They don't know who Mr. William Sadler is," says the landlord. "Who ever heard the like of it! He, he, he!"

Instead of giving us any precise information on this point, the landlord laughed and laughed again. Once or twice he seemed to brace himself to break the important news to us, yet on each occasion as he was about to open his mouth to do so, a fresh gust of mirth nearly choked him into a fit. Indeed, he was wholly incapable of getting farther than:

"Not know who Mr. Will Sadler is; well, I call that a good 'un."

And I suppose we might have still remained in ignorance of the identity of our companion to this hour, for apparently Mr. William Sadler was too proud to exhibit his claims to notoriety, and the innkeeper was physically incapable of doing so, had it not been for a whimsical occurrence that presently befell. Amity had been in a great measure restored, and we had nearly finished our supper in peace, having at the same time behaved very creditably by the wine and the victuals, when the landlord suddenly burst in upon us again with a very agitated face. "Oh, Mr. William," cries he to our friend, "whatever shall we do? A sheriff's posse is coming along, and I fear it is you they are seeking hot-foot. They will be here in a minute, and I do not see that you can possibly get out in time."

Words of this nature vastly interested us, you may be sure. We noted that despite the shaken condition of the landlord, Mr. Sadler was perfectly cool.

"Hold 'em as long as you can in talk," says he, "and I will play 'em my old trick. But, my dear fellow, let me beg of you to compose yourself a little. Such a face as you are wearing is enough to betray the cunningest knight in the country, and I must also crave the indulgence of my two friends here. I am sure their true sporting instincts, to say nothing of a professional fellow-feeling, will enable them to give me any small assistance I may be in need of."

While he was speaking in this singular manner, he was occupying himself in one no less remarkable. He casually produced a fresh wig from one of the huge pockets of the riding-coat that hung on the back of a chair near his elbow, and having shook it out, discarded the modest tie wig he was wearing in favour of this much grander one, which he placed on his head with absolute nicety and correctness. Having got as far as this, the landlord apprehended which line he was going to take. Armed with that knowledge, the host accordingly moved to the threshold to greet the sheriff's posse, whilst Mr. Sadler went on with his toilet. This consisted in attaching a grey beard to his chin, a pair of moustachios to his upper lip, and a formidable pair of horn spectacles to his eyes. All of these he produced from the same pocket as the wig. The consequence was a complete and effectual transformation; and had we not been witnesses of the process itself, we could not possibly have identified our companion of the previous moment in this venerable sage.

This strange play which was passing in front of our eyes was so bewildering that at first we could hardly realize what was taking place, or gauge the singular situation in which we found ourselves. But hearing the lusty demanding voices of the persons who even at that moment were at the threshold of the inn, the whole meaning of this odd matter suddenly flashed into my mind. Our elegant companion was a professional breaker of laws, a highwayman most probably, and the sheriff's men were hot on his track. Yet as I looked at the venerable figure before me, the embodiment of stately grace and honoured age, I could not forbear from laughing at him.

"An excellent jest," says he, in a voice that so utterly differed from his natural one as to bestow the last and crowning touch to his altered character. "But it is one that I have played so often in one form or another upon these and similar people that I begin to fear it may grow a little worn-out. However, I must trust to my proverbial luck, and your kind co-operation."

He had no time to say anything more before these unwelcome visitors came into the room with the landlord at their head.

"You can really take my word for it, gentlemen I assure you," he said positively, protesting, "I have seen no such person as you describe. Nor is it at all likely that my house, which has ever been famous for its high respectability, would harbour such a desperate ruffian. You say that His Majesty's mail has been stopped and tried this evening by Will Sadler not five miles off, and that booty exceeding four thousand pounds hath been taken. Lord defend us, gentlemen, whoever heard the like! It is incredible; can this be the eighteenth century?"

By this about half a-dozen dirty, rain-soaked ruffians, comprising the sheriff's posse, had come into the room. And at the head of them, if you please, was that very despotic justice, the squire of the neighbouring parish, who that afternoon had clapt us in the stocks. His appearance certainly complicated matters a good deal, and was like to make them vastly more awkward for us. Yet the fellow at this time was in such an excited state of mind, due to the recent terrible event and his high sense of what he was pleased to call his public duty, that he gave neither Cynthia nor myself the slightest recognition. Indeed, he had most probably forgotten our recent encounter.

I had hardly on my side recognized the justice ere my decision was taken. It may be to my lasting discredit as a good citizen and true subject that I hardly so much as gave a thought to betraying the desperate fellow who was so completely delivered into our hands. One word from either of us, and his last exploit would have been perpetrated. But it would have called for a greater humanity or a less, sure I know not which, and a deeper instinct of the public weal than either of us appeared to possess, to deliver up Mr. Sadler in cold blood to the tender mercies of the law. Accordingly I took a bold course, perhaps as much to assist the disguise of our companion as to preserve our own impunity.

Swinging round on the justice and the inn-keeper, I exhibited a degree of excitement at the news by no means inferior to their own.

"Zounds!" I cried, "what are you saying, landlord? King's mail, four thousand pounds, villain escaped. Whenever did I hear the like? He must be pursued; we must leave no stone unturned. Do I understand that he is on these premises?"

The stress of my concern and the degree of authority I contrived to insinuate into it, stood me in good stead with the squire, who saw in me a person as law-abiding as himself. Indeed, the number of breathless questions I pestered him with concerning how the matter happened, when it happened, who could be made responsible for it, and what steps could be taken to prevent it happening again, all of which were so futile and worth so little, as presently suggested to the squire that he might conceivably be in the company of a brother justice.

"Are you in the commission, may I ask, sir?" says he.

"Aye, that I am, sir," says I, "for the county of Wilts. I never was more distressed by anything than the news of this grievous affair."

"Very pleased to meet you, sir," says the squire. "I am in the commission too, sir, and I quite agree with every word you have thought fit to utter. Every word, I do upon my word, sir."

It was remarkable how the fact that I was a justice of the peace as well as himself affected his demeanour. He developed a sudden affability towards me, and used a special tone in which to address me. He discovered such a respect for my opinion, showed so many marks of his consideration for me, and generally endeavoured to ingratiate himself into my esteem in a way that allowed it to be clearly understood that to his mind the office of a magistrate had lifted me at once out of the ruck of common men. I was one who, like himself, had been as it were initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries. My look, my lightest word, was to him of vastly more importance than even the business he had come upon. Indeed he was quite overjoyed to find himself in the society of a person who was of his own rank in life, and one with whom he might converse without imperilling his own uneasy dignity. It was delightful to observe how my presence unfitted him to pay the slightest attention to any one other than myself. He could hardly bring himself to address the innkeeper or his attendants in the presence of a brother magistrate. And to such an extent was he worked upon that even the business that had brought him thither paled into insignificance before so felicitous a meeting.

After a full five minutes had been spent on his affable reception of me, and he had repeated again and again how pleased and honoured he was to meet me; and he had asked me how long I had been in the commission, and had told me how long he had been in it, and how long his father had been in it before him; with other matters of the first importance, and all mightily pertinent to the robbery of the royal mail, one of his men had the temerity to make a suggestion.

"Begging your honour's pardon," says he, politely touching his hat, "but what does your honour think we had better do, seeing as how the man don't seem to be here?"

"Do," says the squire, taking him up angrily. "Burn me, was there ever such insolence? Are you not aware that I am at present engaged with your betters, and yet you have the damnable impertinence to ask me what you shall do."

"But the highwayman, if you please, your honour," says the other, who was rather a stubborn fellow.

"Oh, the highwayman," says the squire. "How dare you intrude a person of that low character when I am engaged with a brother magistrate? Let the highwayman go to the devil too."

"In short," says I, reading the squire's disposition, "you can all go to the devil, the sooner the better. Do you think the meeting of two gentlemen can be disturbed by such a petty matter? I am about to ask the honour of the company of my brother justice over a bottle. Landlord, have the goodness to bring up some more of your excellent Burgundy, and also do us the service of sending these dirty rascals about their business. There are no highwaymen here, and if there were, do you suppose that gentlemen are to be put to inconvenience by them?"

Hereupon the squire, finding himself received in such high favour, hastened to second my proposal. The posse was sent packing into the wind and rain to continue the pursuit of Mr. William Sadler, although they evidently had not the least idea as to which direction he might be in; whilst the magistrate proposed to take his ease in his inn, in the society of the very rogue his men had gone forth to seek.

The host soon returned with the wine, and we settled ourselves to good-fellowship. To judge by the sly satisfaction that appeared at intervals in Mr. Sadler's venerable countenance, he was very well pleased with the arrangement; whilst I am sure the squire was vastly so. As for Cynthia and myself, I think we both had some share in this satisfaction also. We figured to ourselves the eventuality of being able to repay this numscull fellow in his own coin, by putting upon him some of the indignity he had been so prompt to put upon us that afternoon.

In a person of a better capacity it might have been a matter of surprise that we should have gone unrecognized. But this squire was but a poor apology of a fellow, with probably as many wits as a rabbit, and as great a discernment as a mole. And in my case there may have been some little excuse, for after all one man is very much like another, and differs not so much in his appearance as in his circumstances. In the parlour of a tavern it is as easy to pass for a justice of the peace as it is in the stocks to pass for a rogue. Perhaps in Cynthia's case an even better excuse could be found for him. Instead of a dejected and bedraggled creature (madam hath twice already blotted this sentence out!) trudging at the side of a forlorn musicianer that blew the flute, here was a very different person. Her muddy cloak had been discarded to disclose a very tolerable travelling attire beneath, which, laced as it was, could pass very well in the country for the first fashion. Besides, in some impalpable feminine way, by some cunning trick of the sex, she had added here and there a touch to her hair and her person, till she shone forth as fair and trim in the glow of the fire and the candles as Herrick's Julia. She was no longer the wandering female (saving her presence!), but the lady of quality, holding her court of three. The brightness of the place was communicated to her cheeks and her eyes. The dainty malice, the grave insolence, the superb disdain, the assurance and yet the solicitude of fashion wedded to beauty, youth to breeding, was a sufficient masque to the draggle-tailed little creature of the afternoon. If it may be said of men that they are the victims of their circumstances, and cut their figure in the world according to them, how much more truly may the same be said of women, for are they not chameleons that receive their hue from their surroundings?

Being completely confident that we ran no risk of discovery from any exercise the squire might make of his natural faculties, I had no compunction about introducing Mrs. Cynthia and Mr. Sadler, that the feast of reason and the flow of soul might be unimpeded. Thoroughly alive to the whimsicality of the passages that were like to ensue from such ill-assorted company sitting down together, I mischievously determined to give the thing a more extravagant touch if possible, by sailing as near to the truth as I could. Therefore, fully aware of the delicious savour of the whole affair, Mrs. Cynthia was presented as my wife, the Countess of Tiverton, and our friend Mr. Sadler, the highwayman and lord knows what besides, as her ladyship's choleric papa, his grace of Salop.

Never, I vow, was a man so overcome with the society in which he found himself as this rustical clown of a justice. Having plainly been used to no better all his life than that of his pigs, his sheep, his cows, his horses, the village beadle, and the worthies of the village ale-house, he had no higher sense of rendering what he conceived was due to our superior dignity, than they had in rendering the same to his. His bows, his smirks, his grimaces, his gross flatteries, would have excited our pity had he deserved any. They were so grotesque that even Mr. Sadler grinned through his great beard.

The landlord too fell in very sagaciously with the whole thing. Whatever opinion he might entertain on his own part of our figure in the world, the fact that we had been admitted to the friendship of Mr. Sadler was a sufficient guarantee of his not going unrequited. Armed with this assurance he produced some really excellent wine in liberal quantities, and furnished us with the fullest meed of his respectful service; though it is gravely to be doubted whether he considered we had any better right to enjoy our titles than had Mr. Sadler. But I will go bail for the justice, who rejoiced in the name of Hodgkin, that no such doubts invaded his mind. He was simply happy. His wildest dreams were realized. His loftiest ambitions were fulfilled. Was he not hobnobbing with the great at their own table on terms of perfect equality? He never addressed any of us without bringing in our titles somehow, either as the prologue or the epilogue of what he had to say, sometimes as both, and in the middle too. And just as a duke is a personage of more consideration than an earl, even if he be a justice of the peace, or a countess if she be young and fair, so did our squire, after he had felt his way a bit, had drunk a glass or two and got used to such unaccustomed company, direct the main of his attention to his grace of Salop. Indeed such advances did he presently make in the good esteem of that venerable nobleman that he was fain to direct nearly the whole of his discourse to him. He played him, and ogled him, your grace'd him this, and your grace'd him that, until he felt he had ingratiated himself into the highest favour. And having attained to this good fortune, he could hardly bring himself to so much as look at Cynthia and me. As in the case of his rustics and the inn-keeper, we, as it were, presently discovered him engaged with our betters; and he clearly hoped we should understand that to be the case.

CHAPTER XVIII

CONTAINS A PANEGYRIC ON THE GENTLE PASSION

It was truly a novel kind of amusement to enjoy the patronage of such a clodhopper; but it was one infinitely rich in the comic. The highwayman fell in exactly with the spirit of this comedy. He seemed to take an almost diabolical pleasure in causing this pitiful specimen of human nature to reveal the weakness and sterility of his mind. And I fear that this pleasure was communicated to Cynthia and myself. Could we have forgotten the persecution endured at the hands of the fellow that afternoon, we must have found it in our hearts to pity him in his fool's paradise. But with the sense of our late indignities yet abiding within us, we followed the course of the play with the keenness and zest of the leading actor in it. It was our revenge, and a very ample and satisfying one we felt it to be, although in the tameness of print it may not appear to possess the solid satisfaction of one administered with a cudgel or a pair of resolute fists.

When at last the squire proposed to depart, he vowed that never had he spent an evening with such profit and enjoyment. It far exceeded, he was good enough to say, the memorable one he had once had the honour to pass in the society of Colonel Musket of Barker's Hill. He swore he would cherish the memory of it to his last day; and having humbly thanked his grace for his condescension and his affability; and having given a curt nod to Cynthia and myself, since the boon companion of a duke is surely entitled to dispense his patronage, our justice stumbled out into the rainy night, with more good wine in him than he deserved, and certainly more than he could decently carry.

"Ships, pegs, coos and 'osses," says the highwayman, breaking out into laughter as soon as our guest had lurched into the rain. "Let a man live with them long enough, and they shall reduce his wit and understanding to the level of their own. Was there ever such a pitiful cheese of a fellow in the world before? If it were not such a foul night, and I lay less snug in my corner, I would go after him, drub him soundly, and fling him into the kennel. But at least we have had an entertainment, and I have thought well to exact a ransom of him for his own."

Here to our surprise our strange companion pulled forth a purse which a few minutes since had been the squire's. The justice had been seated next the venerable duke, and had paid for the high privilege. Besides, is it not an axiom among the great that they never condescend unless they are in need of a service, or can get something by their condescension? His grace's exaction was the latter. Neither Cynthia nor I could find it in our hearts to blame the highwayman for his trick. Nay, I do not know that in one sense we were not secretly glad that a tangible and material punishment had been inflicted upon the fellow. When the purse was opened it was found to contain the sum of nineteen pounds and a few odd shillings. The highwayman, after a careful mental calculation, doled the money out into three heaps of equal value, and having slipped one portion, some six pounds twelve shillings, into his fob, pushed the two remaining portions over to us, insisting that in this adventure it was share and share alike.

Of course we could not bring ourselves to accept of our friend's somewhat embarrassing generosity. But the sight of such a fortune to people in our penurious state, who had already partaken of much more than they could pay for, was temptation indeed. Although we refused the gifts with the same courtesy with which they were offered, I fear that our eyes shone with a singular lust, and our minds rebelled as we did so. The highwayman himself was astonished by our scruples.

"My dear friends," says he. "I confess I have never observed such reluctancy in persons of your kidney before. You baffle me. I cannot hold it to be generosity in you, since there can be little doubt that William Sadler makes a fatter living than you do with all your talents. Why then should you refuse a gift from a brother of your calling? And it cannot be pride either, for if we come down to plain terms it is not a gift at all. By all those unwritten laws that obtain amongst the brethren of our profession, you are each honourably entitled to take a share with me. Come, my friends, pocket the affront and let no more be said."

The highwayman's high sense of right and wrong in regard to those he was pleased to call "the brethren of our profession" was really touching. Nothing in the first place could convince him that we were not in that sense his brethren, and that we did not earn our livelihood by his uncompromising methods. We had entered the inn by the aid of false protestations; we had ordered a meal that he was sure we had no means of paying for; we had connived at the escape of a desperate malefactor, and had committed a gross fraud on a justice of the peace; therefore he had every good reason to stand firm in his estimate of our character. To my rejoinder that we hoped he would not pursue the matter, as we were anything but what we appeared to be, and were debarred by circumstances that had recently befallen us from publishing our true condition to him or to any one else, he replied with laughter of the most immoderate sort.

"Rat me," says he, "this is no new tale. I wonder how many times in a twelvemonth it does duty at Old Bailey! But I do not like to be baffled by anybody, and I must say your behaviour is inexplicable. It is Quixotic, my friends, it is Quixotic. I cannot possibly let it pass. I must beg you to accept these small monies as a token of my gratitude."

He had the devil for his advocate too. It truly was Quixotic. It was wealth untold to persons in our condition; persons condemned to blow the flute from place to place for a livelihood. We were reminded of nights in the rain; of empty bellies; of fainting limbs; of rags, misery and mud, and the hundred other ills that attend on a bitter poverty. We had sevenpence in our pockets with which to discharge a score that would be reckoned in pounds. What wonder that we felt our resolution falter before the lure that was laid before us? Together, however, we prevailed where one of us singly might have given way.

The highwayman vented his perplexity in various ways. He put forth a dozen theories that would cover our irreconcilable conduct. But all of them were equally wide of the mark. To all sources but the true one did he trace our demeanour. That we were striving to be as honest as our circumstances would permit, never entered his head. And when at last we gave him a cordial good-night prior to retiring to the chamber that had been prepared for us, he was fain to acknowledge that he was never so completely beaten by anything as by our behaviour.

"Smart you are, the pair of you," says he, "there's no manner of use in denying that. But I'm damned if I can make head or tail of you. Never heard of such a thing in my life as two pads on the road refusing their share of the booty. But I like you none the less. You are a well-favoured well-mannered pair, with rare good heads on your shoulders. I'faith you are endowed with a most excellent presence. You are bound to succeed in the line you have adopted; but if you are not above taking a piece of advice from one who hath had a pretty long apprenticeship on the road, you will dress a trifle better. Clothes go for a great deal. A lord in rags counts for less than a postilion in ruffles and a laced coat. You will not forget now; it is sure to mean such and such a sum per annum to you. And harkee, here's a proposal. I've got such a fancy for you both, that if you like to take up with me, we will do the country in company and share the profits; and this I may tell you is an offer not to be blinked at, when it is made by William Sadler. Little madam there shall be the decoy, and you and I, my lad, shall lift the blunt and generally attend to the practical matters. Come now, I can't speak fairer; what do you say!"