บทที่ บทที่ 5 · Of the Man with the Drooping Lids

My mother and my father were sitting in their high-backed chairs on

either side of the empty fireplace when we arrived, he smoking his

evening pipe of Oronooko, and she working at her embroidery. The moment

that I opened the door the man whom I had brought stepped briskly in,

and bowing to the old people began to make glib excuses for the lateness

of his visit, and to explain the manner in which we had picked him up. I

could not help smiling at the utter amazement expressed upon my mother’s

face as she gazed at him, for the loss of his jack-boots exposed a pair

of interminable spindle-shanks which were in ludicrous contrast to the

baggy low country knee-breeches which surmounted them. His tunic was

made of coarse sad-coloured kersey stuff with flat new gilded brass

buttons, beneath which was a whitish callamanca vest edged with silver.

Round the neck of his coat was a broad white collar after the Dutch

fashion, out of which his long scraggy throat shot upwards with his

round head and bristle of hair balanced upon the top of it, like the

turnip on a stick at which we used to throw at the fairs. In this guise

he stood blinking and winking in the glare of light, and pattering out

his excuses with as many bows and scrapes as Sir Peter Witling in the

play. I was in the act of following him into the room, when Reuben

plucked at my sleeve to detain me.

‘Nay, I won’t come in with you, Micah,’ said he; ‘there’s mischief

likely to come of all this. My father may grumble over his beer jugs,

but he’s a Churchman and a Tantivy for all that. I’d best keep out of

it.’

‘You are right,’ I answered. ‘There is no need for you to meddle in the

business. Be mum as to all that you have heard.’

‘Mum as a mouse,’ said he, and pressing my hand turned away into the

darkness. When I returned to the sitting-room I found that my mother had

hurried into the kitchen, where the crackling of sticks showed that she

was busy in building a fire. Decimus Saxon was seated at the edge of

the iron-bound oak chest at the side of my father, and was watching him

keenly with his little twinkling eyes, while the old man was fixing

his horn glasses and breaking the seals of the packet which his strange

visitor had just handed to him.

I saw that when my father looked at the signature at the end of the

long, closely written letter he gave a whiff of surprise and sat

motionless for a moment or so staring at it. Then he turned to the

commencement and read it very carefully through, after which he turned

it over and read it again. Clearly it brought no unwelcome news, for his

eyes sparkled with joy when he looked up from his reading, and more than

once he laughed aloud. Finally he asked the man Saxon how it had come

into his possession, and whether he was aware of the contents.

‘Why, as to that,’ said the messenger, ‘it was handed to me by no less

a person than Dicky Rumbold himself, and in the presence of others whom

it’s not for me to name. As to the contents, your own sense will tell

you that I would scarce risk my neck by bearing a message without I

knew what the message was. I am no chicken at the trade, sir. Cartels,

_pronunciamientos_, challenges, flags of truce, and proposals for

waffenstillstands, as the Deutschers call it--they’ve all gone through

my hands, and never one, gone awry.’

‘Indeed!’ quoth my father. ‘You are yourself one of the faithful?’

‘I trust that I am one of those who are on the narrow and thorny track,’

said he, speaking through his nose, as was the habit of the extreme

sectaries.

‘A track upon which no prelate can guide us,’ said my father.

‘Where man is nought and the Lord is all,’ rejoined Saxon.

‘Good! good!’ cried my father. ‘Micah, you shall take this worthy man

to my room, and see that he hath dry linen, and my second-best suit of

Utrecht velvet. It may serve until his own are dried. My boots, too,

may perchance be useful--my riding ones of untanned leather. A hat with

silver braiding hangs above them in the cupboard. See that he lacks for

nothing which the house can furnish. Supper will be ready when he hath

changed his attire. I beg that you will go at once, good Master Saxon,

lest you take a chill.’

‘There is but one thing that we have omitted,’ said our visitor,

solemnly rising up from his chair and clasping his long nervous hands

together. ‘Let us delay no longer to send up a word of praise to the

Almighty for His manifold blessings, and for the mercy wherewith He

plucked me and my letters out of the deep, even as Jonah was saved from

the violence of the wicked ones who hurled him overboard, and it may be

fired falconets at him, though we are not so informed in Holy Writ. Let

us pray, my friends!’ Then in a high-toned chanting voice he offered up

a long prayer of thanksgiving, winding up with a petition for grace and

enlightenment for the house and all its inmates. Having concluded by a

sonorous amen, he at last suffered himself to be led upstairs; while

my mother, who had slipped in and listened with much edification to his

words, hurried away to prepare him a bumper of green usquebaugh with ten

drops of Daffy’s Elixir therein, which was her sovereign recipe against

the effects of a soaking. There was no event in life, from a christening

to a marriage, but had some appropriate food or drink in my mother’s

vocabulary, and no ailment for which she had not some pleasant cure in

her well-stocked cupboards.

Master Decimus Saxon in my father’s black Utrecht velvet and untanned

riding boots looked a very different man to the bedraggled castaway who

had crawled like a conger eel into our fishing-boat. It seemed as if he

had cast off his manner with his raiment, for he behaved to my mother

during supper with an air of demure gallantry which sat upon him better

than the pert and flippant carriage which he had shown towards us in the

boat. Truth to say, if he was now more reserved, there was a very good

reason for it, for he played such havoc amongst the eatables that there

was little time for talk. At last, after passing from the round of cold

beef to a capon pasty, and topping up with a two-pound perch, washed

down by a great jug of ale, he smiled upon us all and told us that his

fleshly necessities were satisfied for the nonce. ‘It is my rule,’ he

remarked, ‘to obey the wise precept which advises a man to rise from

table feeling that he could yet eat as much as he has partaken of.’

‘I gather from your words, sir, that you have yourself seen hard

service,’ my father remarked when the board had been cleared and my

mother had retired for the night.

‘I am an old fighting man,’ our visitor answered, screwing his pipe

together, ‘a lean old dog of the hold-fast breed. This body of mine

bears the mark of many a cut and slash received for the most part in

the service of the Protestant faith, though some few were caught for the

sake of Christendom in general when warring against the Turk. There is

blood of mine, sir, Spotted all over the map of Europe. Some of it, I

confess, was spilled in no public cause, but for the protection of mine

own honour in the private duello or holmgang, as it was called among the

nations of the north. It is necessary that a cavaliero of fortune, being

for the greater part a stranger in a strange land, should be somewhat

nice in matters of the sort, since he stands, as it were, as the

representative of his country, whose good name should be more dear to

him than his own.’

‘Your weapon on such occasions was, I suppose, the sword?’ my father

asked, shifting uneasily in his seat, as he would do when his old

instincts were waking up.

‘Broadsword, rapier, Toledo, spontoon, battle-axe, pike or half-pike,

morgenstiern, and halbert. I speak with all due modesty, but with

backsword, sword and dagger, sword and buckler, single falchion, case of

falchions, or any other such exercise, I will hold mine own against any

man that ever wore neat’s leather, save only my elder brother Quartus.’

‘By my faith,’ said my father with his eyes shining, ‘were I twenty

years younger I should have at you! My backsword play hath been thought

well of by stout men of war. God forgive me that my heart should still

turn to such vanities.’

‘I have heard godly men speak well of it,’ remarked Saxon. ‘Master

Richard Rumbold himself spake of your deeds of arms to the Duke of

Argyle. Was there not a Scotsman, one Storr or Stour?’

‘Ay, ay! Storr of Drumlithie. I cut him nigh to the saddle-bow in a

skirmish on the eve of Dunbar. So Dicky Rumbold had not forgotten it,

eh? He was a hard one both at praying and at fighting. We have ridden

knee to knee in the field, and we have sought truth together in the

chamber. So, Dick will be in harness once again! He could not be still

if a blow were to be struck for the trampled faith. If the tide of war

set in this direction, I too--who knows? who knows?’

‘And here is a stout man-at-arms,’ said Saxon, passing his hand down my

arm.’ He hath thew and sinew, and can use proud words too upon occasion,

as I have good cause to know, even in our short acquaintance. Might it

not be that he too should strike in this quarrel?’

‘We shall discuss it,’ my father answered, looking thoughtfully at me

from under his heavy brows. ‘But I pray you, friend Saxon, to give us

some further account upon these matters. My son Micah, as I understand,

hath picked you out of the waves. How came you there?’

Decimus Saxon puffed at his pipe for a minute or more in silence, as one

who is marshalling facts each in its due order.

‘It came about in this wise,’ he said at last. ‘When John of Poland

chased the Turk from the gates of Vienna, peace broke out in the

Principalities, and many a wandering cavaliero like myself found his

occupation gone. There was no war waging save only some petty Italian

skirmish, in which a soldier could scarce expect to reap either dollars

or repute, so I wandered across the Continent, much cast down at the

strange peace which prevailed in every quarter. At last, however, on

reaching the Lowlands, I chanced to hear that the _Providence_, owned

and commanded by my two brothers, Nonus and Quartus, was about to start

from Amsterdam for an adventure to the Guinea coast. I proposed to them

that I should join them, and was accordingly taken into partnership on

condition that I paid one-third of the cost of the cargo. While waiting

at the port I chanced to come across some of the exiles, who, having

heard of my devotion to the Protestant cause, brought me to the Duke and

to Master Rumbold, who committed these letters to my charge. This makes

it clear how they came into my possession.’

‘But not how you and they came into the water,’ my father suggested.

‘Why, that was but the veriest chance,’ the adventurer answered with

some little confusion of manner. ‘It was the _fortuna belli_, or more

properly _pacis_. I had asked my brothers to put into Portsmouth that I

might get rid of these letters, on which they replied in a boorish and

unmannerly fashion that they were still waiting for the thousand guineas

which represented my share of the venture. To this I answered with

brotherly familiarity that it was a small thing, and should be paid

for out of the profits of our enterprise. Their reply was I that I had

promised to pay the money down, and that money down they must have. I

then proceeded to prove, both by the Aristotelian and by the Platonic

or deductive method, that having no guineas in my possession it was

impossible for me to produce a thousand of them, at the same time

pointing out that the association of an honest man in the business was

in itself an ample return for the money, since their own reputations had

been somewhat blown on. I further offered in the same frank and friendly

spirit to meet either of them with sword or with pistol, a proposal

which should have satisfied any honour-loving Cavaliero. Their base

mercantile souls prompted them, however, to catch up two muskets, one of

which Nonus discharged at me, and it is likely that Quartus would have

followed suit had I not plucked the gun from his hand and unloaded it to

prevent further mischief. In unloading it I fear that one of the slugs

blew a hole in brother Nonus. Seeing that there was a chance of further

disagreements aboard the vessel, I at once decided to leave her, in

doing which I was forced to kick off my beautiful jack-boots, which were

said by Vanseddars himself to be he finest pair that ever went out of

his shop, square-toed, double-soled--alas! alas!’

‘Strange that you should have been picked up by the son of the very man

to whom you had a letter.’

‘The working of Providence,’ Saxon answered. ‘I have two-and-twenty

other letters which must all be delivered by hand. If you will permit me

to use your house for a while, I shall make it my headquarters.’

‘Use it as though it were your own,’ said my father.

‘Your most grateful servant, sir,’ he cried, jumping up and bowing

with his hand over his heart. ‘This is indeed a haven of rest after the

ungodly and profane company of my brothers. Shall we then put up a hymn,

and retire from the business of the day?’

My father willingly agreed, and we sang ‘Oh, happy land!’ after which

our visitor followed me to his room, bearing with him the unfinished

bottle of usquebaugh which my mother had left on the table. He took it

with him, he explained, as a precaution against Persian ague, contracted

while battling against the Ottoman, and liable to recur at strange

moments. I left him in our best spare bedroom, and returned to my

father, who was still seated, heavy with thought, in his old corner.

‘What think you of my find, Dad?’ I asked.

‘A man of parts and of piety,’ he answered; ‘but in truth he has brought

me news so much after my heart, that he could not be unwelcome were he

the Pope of Rome.’

‘What news, then?’

‘This, this!’ he cried joyously, plucking the letter out of his bosom.

‘I will read it to you, lad. Nay, perhaps I had best sleep the night

upon it, and read it to-morrow when our heads are clearer. May the Lord

guide my path, and confound the tyrant! Pray for light, boy, for my life

and yours may be equally at stake.’