The Scarlet Pimpernel (3 page)

The superiority of this wisdom was so incontestable that for the moment
Mr. Jellyband was not ready with his usual flow of argument.

"It do seem more like April than September, don't it?" continued Mr.
Hempseed, dolefully, as a shower of raindrops fell with a sizzle upon
the fire.

"Aye! that it do," assented the worth host, "but then what can you
'xpect, Mr. 'Empseed, I says, with sich a government as we've got?"

Mr. Hempseed shook his head with an infinity of wisdom, tempered
by deeply-rooted mistrust of the British climate and the British
Government.

"I don't 'xpect nothing, Mr. Jellyband," he said. "Pore folks like us is
of no account up there in Lunnon, I knows that, and it's not often as I
do complain. But when it comes to sich wet weather in September, and all
me fruit a-rottin' and a-dying' like the 'Guptian mother's first born,
and doin' no more good than they did, pore dears, save a lot more Jews,
pedlars and sich, with their oranges and sich like foreign ungodly
fruit, which nobody'd buy if English apples and pears was nicely
swelled. As the Scriptures say—"

"That's quite right, Mr. 'Empseed," retorted Jellyband, "and as I says,
what can you 'xpect? There's all them Frenchy devils over the Channel
yonder a-murderin' their king and nobility, and Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox
and Mr. Burke a-fightin' and a-wranglin' between them, if we Englishmen
should 'low them to go on in their ungodly way. 'Let 'em murder!' says
Mr. Pitt. 'Stop 'em!' says Mr. Burke."

"And let 'em murder, says I, and be demmed to 'em." said Mr. Hempseed,
emphatically, for he had but little liking for his friend Jellyband's
political arguments, wherein he always got out of his depth, and had but
little chance for displaying those pearls of wisdom which had earned for
him so high a reputation in the neighbourhood and so many free tankards
of ale at "The Fisherman's Rest."

"Let 'em murder," he repeated again, "but don't lets 'ave sich rain in
September, for that is agin the law and the Scriptures which says—"

"Lud! Mr. 'Arry, 'ow you made me jump!"

It was unfortunate for Sally and her flirtation that this remark of
hers should have occurred at the precise moment when Mr. Hempseed
was collecting his breath, in order to deliver himself one of those
Scriptural utterances which made him famous, for it brought down upon
her pretty head the full flood of her father's wrath.

"Now then, Sally, me girl, now then!" he said, trying to force a
frown upon his good-humoured face, "stop that fooling with them young
jackanapes and get on with the work."

"The work's gettin' on all ri', father."

But Mr. Jellyband was peremptory. He had other views for his buxom
daughter, his only child, who would in God's good time become the owner
of "The Fisherman's Rest," than to see her married to one of these young
fellows who earned but a precarious livelihood with their net.

"Did ye hear me speak, me girl?" he said in that quiet tone, which no
one inside the inn dared to disobey. "Get on with my Lord Tony's supper,
for, if it ain't the best we can do, and 'e not satisfied, see what
you'll get, that's all."

Reluctantly Sally obeyed.

"Is you 'xpecting special guests then to-night, Mr. Jellyband?" asked
Jimmy Pitkin, in a loyal attempt to divert his host's attention from the
circumstances connected with Sally's exit from the room.

"Aye! that I be," replied Jellyband, "friends of my Lord Tony hisself.
Dukes and duchesses from over the water yonder, whom the young lord and
his friend, Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, and other young noblemen have helped
out of the clutches of them murderin' devils."

But this was too much for Mr. Hempseed's querulous philosophy.

"Lud!" he said, "what do they do that for, I wonder? I don't 'old not
with interferin' in other folks' ways. As the Scriptures say—"

"Maybe, Mr. 'Empseed," interrupted Jellyband, with biting sarcasm, "as
you're a personal friend of Mr. Pitt, and as you says along with Mr.
Fox: 'Let 'em murder!' says you."

"Pardon me, Mr. Jellyband," feebly protested Mr. Hempseed, "I dunno as I
ever did."

But Mr. Jellyband had at last succeeded in getting upon his favourite
hobby-horse, and had no intention of dismounting in any hurry.

"Or maybe you've made friends with some of them French chaps 'oo they
do say have come over here o' purpose to make us Englishmen agree with
their murderin' ways."

"I dunno what you mean, Mr. Jellyband," suggested Mr. Hempseed, "all I
know is—"

"All
I
know is," loudly asserted mine host, "that there was my friend
Peppercorn, 'oo owns the 'Blue-Faced Boar,' an' as true and loyal an
Englishman as you'd see in the land. And now look at 'im!—'E made
friends with some o' them frog-eaters, 'obnobbed with them just as if
they was Englishmen, and not just a lot of immoral, Godforsaking furrin'
spies. Well! and what happened? Peppercorn 'e now ups and talks of
revolutions, and liberty, and down with the aristocrats, just like Mr.
'Empseed over 'ere!"

"Pardon me, Mr. Jellyband," again interposed Mr. Hempseed feebly, "I
dunno as I ever did—"

Mr. Jellyband had appealed to the company in general, who were
listening awe-struck and open-mouthed at the recital of Mr. Peppercorn's
defalcations. At one table two customers—gentlemen apparently by their
clothes—had pushed aside their half-finished game of dominoes, and had
been listening for some time, and evidently with much amusement at
Mr. Jellyband's international opinions. One of them now, with a quiet,
sarcastic smile still lurking round the corners of his mobile mouth,
turned towards the centre of the room where Mr. Jellyband was standing.

"You seem to think, mine honest friend," he said quietly, "that these
Frenchmen,—spies I think you called them—are mighty clever fellows
to have made mincemeat so to speak of your friend Mr. Peppercorn's
opinions. How did they accomplish that now, think you?"

"Lud! sir, I suppose they talked 'im over. Those Frenchies, I've 'eard
it said, 'ave got the gift of gab—and Mr. 'Empseed 'ere will tell you
'ow it is that they just twist some people round their little finger
like."

"Indeed, and is that so, Mr. Hempseed?" inquired the stranger politely.

"Nay, sir!" replied Mr. Hempseed, much irritated, "I dunno as I can give
you the information you require."

"Faith, then," said the stranger, "let us hope, my worthy host, that
these clever spies will not succeed in upsetting your extremely loyal
opinions."

But this was too much for Mr. Jellyband's pleasant equanimity. He burst
into an uproarious fit of laughter, which was soon echoed by those who
happened to be in his debt.

"Hahaha! hohoho! hehehe!" He laughed in every key, did my worthy host,
and laughed until his sided ached, and his eyes streamed. "At me!
hark at that! Did ye 'ear 'im say that they'd be upsettin' my
opinions?—Eh?—Lud love you, sir, but you do say some queer things."

"Well, Mr. Jellyband," said Mr. Hempseed, sententiously, "you know what
the Scriptures say: 'Let 'im 'oo stands take 'eed lest 'e fall.'"

"But then hark'ee Mr. 'Empseed," retorted Jellyband, still holding his
sides with laughter, "the Scriptures didn't know me. Why, I wouldn't so
much as drink a glass of ale with one o' them murderin' Frenchmen, and
nothin' 'd make me change my opinions. Why! I've 'eard it said that them
frog-eaters can't even speak the King's English, so, of course, if any
of 'em tried to speak their God-forsaken lingo to me, why, I should spot
them directly, see!—and forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes."

"Aye! my honest friend," assented the stranger cheerfully, "I see that
you are much too sharp, and a match for any twenty Frenchmen, and here's
to your very good health, my worthy host, if you'll do me the honour to
finish this bottle of mine with me."

"I am sure you're very polite, sir," said Mr. Jellyband, wiping his eyes
which were still streaming with the abundance of his laughter, "and I
don't mind if I do."

The stranger poured out a couple of tankards full of wine, and having
offered one to mine host, he took the other himself.

"Loyal Englishmen as we all are," he said, whilst the same humorous
smile played round the corners of his thin lips—"loyal as we are, we
must admit that this at least is one good thing which comes to us from
France."

"Aye! we'll none of us deny that, sir," assented mine host.

"And here's to the best landlord in England, our worthy host, Mr.
Jellyband," said the stranger in a loud tone of voice.

"Hi, hip, hurrah!" retorted the whole company present. Then there was a
loud clapping of hands, and mugs and tankards made a rattling music
upon the tables to the accompaniment of loud laughter at nothing in
particular, and of Mr. Jellyband's muttered exclamations:

"Just fancy ME bein' talked over by any God-forsaken
furriner!—What?—Lud love you, sir, but you do say some queer things."

To which obvious fact the stranger heartily assented. It was certainly
a preposterous suggestion that anyone could ever upset Mr. Jellyband's
firmly-rooted opinions anent the utter worthlessness of the inhabitants
of the whole continent of Europe.

Feeling in every part of England certainly ran very high at this time
against the French and their doings. Smugglers and legitimate traders
between the French and the English coasts brought snatches of news from
over the water, which made every honest Englishman's blood boil, and
made him long to have "a good go" at those murderers, who had imprisoned
their king and all his family, subjected the queen and the royal
children to every species of indignity, and were even now loudly
demanding the blood of the whole Bourbon family and of every one of its
adherents.

The execution of the Princesse de Lamballe, Marie Antoinette's young
and charming friend, had filled every one in England with unspeakable
horror, the daily execution of scores of royalists of good family, whose
only sin was their aristocratic name, seemed to cry for vengeance to the
whole of civilised Europe.

Yet, with all that, no one dared to interfere. Burke had exhausted all
his eloquence in trying to induce the British Government to fight the
revolutionary government of France, but Mr. Pitt, with characteristic
prudence, did not feel that this country was fit yet to embark
on another arduous and costly war. It was for Austria to take the
initiative; Austria, whose fairest daughter was even now a dethroned
queen, imprisoned and insulted by a howling mob; surely 'twas not—so
argued Mr. Fox—for the whole of England to take up arms, because one
set of Frenchmen chose to murder another.

As for Mr. Jellyband and his fellow John Bulls, though they looked
upon all foreigners with withering contempt, they were royalist and
anti-revolutionists to a man, and at this present moment were furious
with Pitt for his caution and moderation, although they naturally
understood nothing of the diplomatic reasons which guided that great
man's policy.

By now Sally came running back, very excited and very eager. The joyous
company in the coffee-room had heard nothing of the noise outside, but
she had spied a dripping horse and rider who had stopped at the door
of "The Fisherman's Rest," and while the stable boy ran forward to take
charge of the horse, pretty Miss Sally went to the front door to greet
the welcome visitor. "I think I see'd my Lord Antony's horse out in the
yard, father," she said, as she ran across the coffee-room.

But already the door had been thrown open from outside, and the next
moment an arm, covered in drab cloth and dripping with the heavy rain,
was round pretty Sally's waist, while a hearty voice echoed along the
polished rafters of the coffee-room.

"Aye, and bless your brown eyes for being so sharp, my pretty Sally,"
said the man who had just entered, whilst worthy Mr. Jellyband came
bustling forward, eager, alert and fussy, as became the advent of one of
the most favoured guests of his hostel.

"Lud, I protest, Sally," added Lord Antony, as he deposited a kiss on
Miss Sally's blooming cheeks, "but you are growing prettier and prettier
every time I see you—and my honest friend, Jellyband here, have hard
work to keep the fellows off that slim waist of yours. What say you, Mr.
Waite?"

Mr. Waite—torn between his respect for my lord and his dislike of that
particular type of joke—only replied with a doubtful grunt.

Lord Antony Dewhurst, one of the sons of the Duke of Exeter, was in
those days a very perfect type of a young English gentlemen—tall, well
set-up, broad of shoulders and merry of face, his laughter rang loudly
wherever he went. A good sportsman, a lively companion, a courteous,
well-bred man of the world, with not too much brains to spoil his
temper, he was a universal favourite in London drawing-rooms or in the
coffee-rooms of village inns. At "The Fisherman's Rest" everyone knew
him—for he was fond of a trip across to France, and always spent a
night under worthy Mr. Jellyband's roof on his way there or back.

He nodded to Waite, Pitkin and the others as he at last released Sally's
waist, and crossed over to the hearth to warm and dry himself: as he did
so, he cast a quick, somewhat suspicious glance at the two strangers,
who had quietly resumed their game of dominoes, and for a moment a look
of deep earnestness, even of anxiety, clouded his jovial young face.

But only for a moment; the next he turned to Mr. Hempseed, who was
respectfully touching his forelock.

"Well, Mr. Hempseed, and how is the fruit?"

"Badly, my lord, badly," replied Mr. Hempseed, dolefully, "but what
can you 'xpect with this 'ere government favourin' them rascals over in
France, who would murder their king and all their nobility."

"Odd's life!" retorted Lord Antony; "so they would, honest Hempseed,—at
least those they can get hold of, worse luck! But we have got some
friends coming here to-night, who at any rate have evaded their
clutches."