CHAPTER XXII
AN ECLOGUE WHICH DEMONSTRATES THE PASTORAL SIMPLICITY OF CORYDON AND STREPHON
WOGAN has told already how Kelly came out of the house in Queen's Square, how he led the way to the glade, so convenient for the occasion, and how he dismissed his friend. George has since declared that he never was more tossed up and down in his mind than during that trifle of a promenade. Here was the Colonel that had insulted him, and wished nothing, more or less, than to cut his clerical throat. And here was Kelly, that must make friends with his enemy, if he was to save his honour, and the reputation, such as it was, of the woman whom he had once loved. It was a quandary. If Kelly began by showing a flag of truce, the Colonel, as like as not, would fire on it by way of a kick or cuff, and then a friendly turn to the conversation would be totally out of the possible. Had Kelly been six inches taller than he was and a perfect master of his weapon, he might have trusted to the chance of disarming the Colonel and then proposing a cartel, but unhappily it was the Elector's officer who possessed these advantages. Thus Kelly could think of nothing except to get rid of Mr. Wogan's presence as a witness of the explanation. He succeeded in that, and then marched back to the Colonel, who had stood aside while George conversed with his friend.
Kelly waited, as the wiser part, till the Colonel should show his hand. But the Colonel also waited, and there the two gentlemen stood speechless, just out of thrust of each other, while every convenience in nature called on them to begin.
At last the Colonel cleared his throat and said, 'Reverend Mr. Lace-Merchant, I am somewhat at a loss as to how I should deal with you.'
'Faith, it is my own case,' thought George to himself, but all he uttered was, 'Gallant Mr. Drill-Sergeant, the case seems clear enough. You trod on my foot, and,' said George, as he let his cloak slip from his shoulders to the ground, 'you invited me to take a walk; what circumstance now befogs your intellects?'
Kelly's instincts, naturally good, though dimmed a trifle by a learned education and a clerical training, showed him but that one way out of the wood.
'Several circumstances combine, sir. Thus, I do not want to save the hangman a job. Again, my respect for your cloth forbids me to draw sword on you, and rather prompts to a public battooning tomorrow in St. James's. I therefore do but wait to favour you with this warning, which is more than a trafficker of your kidney deserves.'
'Truth, sir, if you wait to cane me till to-morrow, I have every reason to believe that you may wait a lifetime. As to cloth, mine is as honourable as ever a German usurper's livery.'
This did not promise a friendly conclusion, but George was ever honourably ready to support the honour of his gown, and he confesses that, at this moment, he somewhat lost sight of his main object.
The Colonel stepped forward with uplifted cane, a trifle of tortoise-shell and amber, in his hand.
George drew back one pace and folded his arms on his breast. His eyes, which are of an uncommon bright blue, were fixed on the Colonel's.
'You will find, sir, if you advance one foot, that I do not stand kick or cuff. You are dealing with one who knows his weapon' (no experience could cure George of this delusion), 'and who does not value his life at a straw. Moreover, you began a parley for which I did not ask, though I desired it, and I have to tell you that your honour is involved in continuing this conversation in quite another key.'
George stepped forward the pace he had withdrawn, and clasped his hands behind his back, watching the Colonel narrowly.
There was something in his voice, more in his eyes. The Colonel had seen fire, and knew a brave man when he met one. He threw down his cane and Kelly reckoned that the worst of his task was over.
'You may compel me to fight,' George went on, 'and I never went to a feast with a better stomach, but first I have certain words that must be spoken to you.'
'You cannot intend to escape by promising a discovery?'
'Sir, I do not take you for a Messenger or a Minister. One or both I can find without much seeking, and, for that sufficient reason, before they lay hands on me I absolutely demand to speak to you on a matter closely touching your own honour, which, as I have never heard it impeached, I therefore sincerely profess my desire to trust.'
'You are pleased to be complimentary, but I know not how my honour can be concerned with a Jacobite trafficker and his treasons.'
'I make you this promise, that, if you do thus utterly refuse to listen for five minutes, I will give you every satisfaction at the sword's point, or, by God! will compel you to take it, as you have been pleased to introduce battoons into a conversation between gentlemen. And if, when you have heard me, you remain dissatisfied, again I will give you a lesson with sharps. You see that we are not likely to be interrupted, and that I am perfectly cool. This is a matter to each of us of more than life or death.'
'I do see that you desire to pique my curiosity for the sake of some advantage which I am unable to perceive. Perhaps you expect your friends on the scene?'
'You may observe that I began by dismissing the only friend I have in this town. Do you, perhaps, suspect that Mr. Nicholas Wogan needs, or has gone to procure, assistance?'
'I confess that I know that gentleman too well for any such suspicions.'
'Then, sir, remember that the Roman says noscitur a sociis, and reflect that I am a friend of Mr. Wogan's, who must stand sponsor, as you do not know me, for my honesty. Moreover,' said George, working round by a risky way to his point, 'had I wished to escape I could, instead of socking you, have sneaked off t'other way. You observed that I remained some minutes with a lady to-night after you and the rest of her company had withdrawn?'
'It is very like your impudence to remind me of that among other provocations! I am not concerned in your merchant's business of brocades.'
'But, indeed, with your pardon, you are concerned in the highest degree, and that is just the point I would bring you to consider.'
'I tire of your mysteries, sir,' he said, shrugging his shoulders. 'Speak on, and be brief.'
'On these brocades turns the question whether the honour of a lady, which you are bound to cherish, shall be the laughing-stock of the town. Sir, in a word, you, and you only, can save that person; need I say more?'
'Did she send you with this message to save your own skin?'
'That is past saving, except by a miracle, which I am in no situation to expect will be wrought for me. Understand me, sir, I am out of hope of earthly salvation. I have nothing to gain, nothing to look for from man. I make you freely acquainted with that position of my affairs, which are purely desperate. And the person of whom we speak looks to you as her sole hope in the world. She sends you this, take it, I know not the contents, the seal, as you perceive, being unbroken.'
'This looks more serious,' said the Colonel, taking the sealed note which Kelly handed to him.
He pored over the letter, holding it up to the moonlight. 'Do as the bearer bids you, if you would have me live,' he read; then, with a bitter laugh, he tore the note into the smallest shreds, and was about to dash them down on the grass.
'Hold, sir,' Kelly said; 'preserve them till you can burn them. Or—I have myself swallowed the like before now.'
The Colonel stared, and put the fragments into his pocket-book.
'Well,' he said, 'I am hearing you.'
'I thank you, sir; you will grant that I did not wrong you in trusting your generosity. If I am a free man to-morrow, or even to-night after this business is done, I shall have the honour of meeting you, wherever you are pleased to appoint. For my cloth have no scruple, I never was more than half a parson.'
'Sir, I shall treat you as you may merit. And now for your commands, which, it seems, I am in a manner under the necessity to obey.'
'You see this key, sir,' said Kelly, offering that of one of his strong boxes, 'take it, go to my lodgings, which, by a miracle, are in the same house as your own. Enter my parlour, 'tis on the ground floor; open the small iron strong box which this key fits, and burn all the—brocades which you find there.'
'This is a most ingenious stroke of the theatre! I am to burn, I perceive, all the papers, or brocades as you call them, which damn you for a Jacobite plotter! It is not badly contrived, sir, but you have come to the wrong agent I am acquainted with the ingenious works of the French playwrights.'
'Sir, you compel me, against my will, to be more plain with you than I desire. It is your own fault if I give you concern. On opening the coffer you may satisfy yourself of the hand of the writer, which cannot but be familiar to you. Moreover, the letters of the person for whom we are concerned are addressed (that you may not make the error which you apprehend) to one Strephon—not a cant name of a political plot.'
'She called you—Strephon?'
'She was so kind.'
'And I was Corydon,' groaned the Colonel between his teeth.
'Arcades ambo!' said George. 'But now 'tis the hour of a third shepherd! Lycidas, perhaps, le plus heureux des trois. Oh, Colonel, be easy, we are both yesterday's roses, or, rather, I am the rose of the day before yesterday.'
'And it is for this woman—'
'Ay, it is just for this woman that you are to risk your commission, for a risk there may be, and I my life, for I could get away from this place. You perceive that we have no alternative?'
'What must be, must,' he said, after some moments of thought; 'but what if I find the Messengers already in possession of your effects?'
'In that case I must depend solely on your own management and invention. But I may say that gold will do much, nay, everything with such fellows, and your position, moreover, as a trusted officer of your King's, will enable you to satisfy men not very eminent for scruples.'
'Gold! I have not a guinea, thanks to the cards, not a stiver in my rooms to-night. The cards took all.'
'Here, at least,' cried George, 'I can offer some kind of proof of my honesty, and even be of service. I am poor, Heaven knows, but there are my winnings, easily enough to corrupt four Messengers. Use the money; I have friends who will not let me starve in the Tower. Nay, delicacy is purely foolish. I insist that you take it.'
'Mr. Johnson,' the Colonel said, 'you are a very extraordinary man.'
'Sir, I am an Irishman,' said George.
'I will not say that I never met one like you, but I hope, after all accounts are settled between us, to have the advantage of your acquaintance. Sir, au revoir.'
'I shall be with you, sir, in ten minutes after your arrival in your lodgings, whether the coast be clear or not. But let me attend you across the Park, as far as the corner of Pall Mall Street.'
If Kelly was an Irishman, Montague was an Englishman, and Kelly was well enough acquainted with that nation to know that the last proof given of his disinterestedness was by much the most powerful he could have used. He reflected again on the Devil's own luck of Smilinda that night, for if the cards had gone contrary to her and George he could not have produced this demonstration of his loyalty, nor could he very well have invited the Colonel to pay the piper out of his own pocket.
The Colonel also walked silently, turning about in his mind all the aspects of this affair.
'I understand,' he said, 'that you are upon honour not to involve me in tampering with anything disaffected? You will take no advantage whatever that may give me the air of being concerned, to shelter yourself or your party?'
'You have my word for it, sir. Your honour, next to that in which we are equally concerned, is now my foremost consideration.'
He nodded, then sighed, as one not very well satisfied.
'Things may come to wear a very suspicious complexion, but I must risk a little; the worse the luck. Mr. Johnson, neither of us has been very wise in the beginnings of this business.'
'I came to that conclusion rather earlier than you, sir, and on very good evidence.'
'No doubt,' growled Montague, and he muttered once or twice, 'Strephon, Corydon—Corydon, Strephon.' Then he turned unexpectedly to Kelly. 'You mentioned these letters as I was leaving the room, and I noticed that her ladyship grew white. She kept you, she knew then of the danger you were in and has just informed you of it. Now, how came she to have so particular a knowledge of your danger?'
Mr. Kelly did not answer a question which boded no good for Lady Oxford. 'She had grounds of resentment against you in a certain ballad.'
Kelly seized at the chance of diverting Montague from his suspicions, and showed how the ballad was aimed at him no less than at her ladyship, and, without giving the Colonel time to interrupt,
'Here I must bid you au revoir, sir,' he said, 'for some ten minutes, time enough for you to do what is needed, if, as I hope, you are not disturbed. The Messengers, I conceive, will be lurking for me in Ryder Street outside our common door; they will not think of preventing you from entering, and before I arrive, whatever befalls me, our common interest will be secured.'
'You are determined to follow?'
'What else can I do? I must know the end of this affair of the brocades. It is not wholly impossible that the Messengers have wearied of waiting, and think to take me abed to-morrow. When you have done what you know, you will leave my room, and I, if I am not taken, have some arrangements of my own to make. That, I presume, is not a breach of my engagement with you?'
'Certainly not, sir. When I have left your room I am in no sense responsible for your actions. I wish you good fortune.'
While they thus walked and were sad enough, they came within ear-shot of Wogan, who, at that moment, was declaiming Mr. Pope's Night piece to Mr. Scrope, who was in the Canal.
What conversation passed between the four gentlemen Wogan has already told, and he has mentioned how the Colonel went away, and how, after using pains to prevent Mr. Scrope from catching a cold, he himself withdrew to court slumber, and left Mr. Kelly alone in the moonlight.
Mr. Kelly did not remain in the open, but lay perdu on the shadowy side of the grove. Concealing himself from any chance of a rencounter, he allotted a space of twelve minutes by his watch, and time never paced more tardy with him in all his life. There was in his favour but the one chance that the Messengers might choose to take him abed in the early morning, when the streets would be empty. At this moment St. James's Street was full of chairs and noises; night-rakers were abroad, and the Messengers, who are not very popular, might fear a rescue by the rabble. On this chance Kelly fixed his hopes, for if he could but be alone for ten minutes in his lodgings, he and his friends would have little to fear from any evidence in his possession.
If the Colonel succeeded, Lady Oxford, and, with her ladyship, George's honour, were safe. If, by an especial miracle of heaven, George could have a few minutes alone in his room, the Cause and the faithful of the Cause would be safe. The Colonel, Kelly hoped, could hardly fail to do his part of the work; he would enter his own rooms unchallenged, his uniform and well-known face must secure him as much as that, and the Epistles of Smilinda would lie in ashes.
So he hoped, but nothing occurred as he anticipated.