CHAPTER
A LITERARY DISCUSSION IN WHICH A CRITIC, NOT FOR THE FIRST TIME, TURNS THE TABLES UPON AN AUTHOR
KELLY frowned at Wogan, enjoining silence by a shake of the head. Her ladyship was still too discomposed to speak; she drew her breath in quick gasps; her colour still came fitfully and went. The only person entirely at ease in that company was the disconcerting stranger, and even behind his smiling mask of a face one was somehow aware of sleeping fires; and underneath the suave tones of his voice one somehow felt that there ran an implacable passion.
'Upon my word,' said he, 'I find myself for a wonder in the most desirable company. A revered clergyman, a fighting captain, a lady worthy of her quality, and a poet.' He tapped the Virgil as he spoke, and it fell open between his hands. His speech had been uttered with a provocative politeness, and since no one responded to the provocation, he continued in the same strain. 'The story of Dido'—the book was open at the soiled pages—'and all spluttered with tears.'
'It has lain open in the dew since yesterday,' interrupted Wogan.
'Tears no less because the night has shed them,' he replied; 'and indeed it is a sad story, though not all true as the poet relates it. For Dido had a gout-ridden husband hidden discreetly away in a dark corner of the Palace, and Æneas was no more than an army chaplain, though he gave himself out for a general.'
Kelly flushed at the words, and took half a step towards the speaker of them.
'It is very true, Mr. Kelly. A chaplain, my soul upon it, a chaplain. Didn't he invoke his religion when he was tired of the lady, and so sail away with a clear conscience? A very parsonical fellow, Mr. Kelly. O infelix Dido! he burst out, 'that met with an army chaplain, and so became food for worms before her time!'
He shut up the book with a bang, and, as ill-luck would have it, Mr. Wogan's poem peeped out from the covers as if in answer to his knock.
'Oho,' says he, 'another poet,' and he read out the dedication.
'Strephon to his Smilinda running barefoot in a gale of wind.'
Kelly laughed aloud, and a faint smile flickered for the space of a second about Lady Oxford's lips. Wogan felt his cheeks grow red, but constrained himself to a like silence with his companions. His opportunity would come later; meanwhile some knowledge was needed of who the stranger was.
'A pretty conceit,' resumed the latter, 'though consumption in its effects. Will the author pardon me?'
He took the sheet of paper in his hand, dropped the Virgil carelessly on the grass, and read out the verses with an absolute gravity which mocked at them more completely than any ridicule would have done. 'It breaks off,' he added, 'most appropriately just when the gentleman claims the lady's obedience. There is generally a break at that point. "At least, that is what I expect,"' he quoted. Then he looked at each of his two adversaries. For adversaries his language and their faces alike proved them to be. 'Now which is Strephon?' he asked, with an insinuating smile, as he calmly put the verses in his pocket. 'Is it the revered clergyman or the fighting captain?'
Kelly's face flushed darkly.
'The revered clergyman,' he broke in, and his voice shook a little, 'would be happy to be reminded of the occasion which brought him the honour of your acquaintance.'
'A sermon,' replied the stranger. 'I was much moved by a sermon which you preached in Dublin upon the text of "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's."'
Mr. Kelly could not deny that he had preached that sermon; and for all he knew the stranger might well have been among his audience. He contented himself accordingly with a bow. So Wogan stepped in.
'And the fighting captain,' he said, with a courtesy of manner no whit inferior to his questioner's, 'would be glad to know when he ever clapped eyes upon your honour's face, if you please.'
'Never,' answered the other with a bow. 'Captain Nicholas Wogan never in his life saw the faces of those who fought behind him. He had eyes only for the enemy.'
Now, Mr. Wogan had fought upon more than one field of which he thought it imprudent to speak. So he copied the Parson's example and bowed.
'Does her ladyship also wish to be reminded of the particulars of our acquaintance?' said the stranger, turning now to Lady Oxford. There was just a tremor, a hint of passion discernible in his voice as he put the question. Both Wogan and Kelly had been waiting for it, had restrained themselves to silence in the expectation of it. For only let the outburst come, and the man's design would of a surety tumble out on the top. Lady Oxford, however, suddenly interposed and prevented it. It may be that she, too, had caught the threatening tremble of his words, and dreaded the outburst as heartily as the others desired it. At all events, she rose from the bench as though some necessity had spurred her to self-possession.
'No, Mr. Scrope,' she said calmly, 'I do not wish to be reminded of our acquaintance either in particular or in general. It was a slight thing at its warmest, and I thank God none of my seeking. Mr. Kelly, will you give me your arm to the house?'
The stranger for a second was plainly staggered by her words. Kelly cast a glance at Wogan which the 'fighting captain' very well understood, offered his arm to Lady Oxford, and before the stranger recovered himself, the pair were up the steps and proceeding down the avenue.
'A slight thing!' muttered Mr. Scrope in a sort of stupor. 'God, what's a strong thing, then?' and at that the passion broke out of him. 'It's the Parson now, is it?' he cried. 'Indeed, Mr. Wogan, a parson is very much like a cat. Whether he throws his cassock over the wall, or no, it is still the same sly, soft-footed, velvety creature, with a keen eye for a soft lap to make his bed in,' and with an oath he started at a run after Kelly. Wogan, however, ran too, and he ran the faster. He got first to the steps, sprang to the top of them, and turned about, just as Mr. Scrope reached the bottom.
'Wait a bit, my friend!' said Wogan.
'Let me go, if you please,' said Mr. Scrope, mounting the lowest step.
'You and I must have a little talk first.'
'It will be talk of a kind uncommon disagreeable to you,' said Mr. Scrope hotly, and he mounted the second step.
Wogan laughed gleefully.
'Why, that's just the way I would have you speak,' said he. Mr. Scrope stopped, looked over Wogan from head to foot, and then glanced past him up the avenue.
'I have no quarrel with you, Mr. Wogan,' he said politely, and took the third step.
'And have you not?' asked Wogan. 'I'm thinking, on the contrary, that you took exception to my poetry.'
'Was the poetry yours? Indeed, I did not guess that,' he replied. 'But the greatest of men may yet be poor poets.'
'In this case you're mightily mistaken,' cried Wogan, and he stamped his foot and threw out his chest. 'I am my poetry.'
Mr. Scrope squinted up the avenue under Wogan's arm.
'Damn!' said he.
Wogan turned round; Parson Kelly and her ladyship were just passing through the window into the house. Wogan laughed, but a trifle too soon. For as he still stood turned away and looking down the avenue, Mr. Scrope took the last three steps at a bound, and sprang past him. Luckily as he sprang he hit against Wogan's shoulder, and so swung him round the quicker. Wogan just caught the man's elbow, jerked him back, got both his arms coiled about his body, lifted him off his feet, and flattened him up against his chest. Mr. Scrope struggled against the pressure; he was lithe and slippery like a fish, and his muscles gave and tightened like a steel spring. Wogan gripped him the closer, pinioning his arms to his side. In a little Scrope began to pant, and a little after to perspire; then the veins ridged upon his face, and his eyes opened and shut convulsively.
'Have you had enough, do you think?' asked Wogan; 'or shall I fall on you? But you may take my word for it, whatever you think of my love-poems, that I never yet fell on any man but something broke inside of him.'
Mr. Scrope was not in that condition which would enable him to articulate, but he seemed to gasp an assent, and Wogan put him down. He staggered backwards towards the house for a yard or two, leaned against one of the trees, and then, taking out his handkerchief, wiped his forehead; at the same time he walked towards the house, but with the manner of a man who is dizzy, and knows nothing of his direction.
'Stop!' cried Wogan.
Scrope stooped, and turned back carelessly, as though he had not heard the command. Indeed, he seemed even to have forgotten why he was out of breath.
'Mr. Wogan,' he said, 'I do not quite understand. It seems you write love-poems to her ladyship, and yet encourage the Parson to court her.'
Wogan was not to be drawn into any explanation.
'Let us leave her ladyship entirely out of the question. There's the value of my poetry to be argued out.'
Mr. Scrope bowed, and they walked down the steps side by side, and through the opening in the hedge. A path led through the trees, and they followed it until they came to an open space of sward. Wogan measured it across with his stride.
'A very fitting place for the argument, I think,' he said, and took off his coat.
'What? In Smilinda's garden?' asked Scrope easily. 'Within view of Smilinda's windows? Surely the common road would be the more convenient place.'
'Why, and that's true,' answered Wogan. 'It would have been an outrage.'
'No,' said Scrope, 'merely a flaw in the argument. This is the nearest way. At least, I think so,' and he turned off at an angle, passed through a shrubbery, and came out opposite a little postern-gate in the garden-wall.
'You know the grounds well,' said Wogan.
'It is my first visit,' replied Scrope, with a trace of bitterness, 'but I have been told enough of them to know my way.'
He stepped forward and opened the gate. Outside in the road stood a travelling chaise with a pair of horses harnessed to it.
'There is no one within view,' said Wogan. The road ran to right and left empty as far as the eye could reach; in front stretched the empty fields.
'No one,' said Mr. Scrope, and he looked up to the sky.
'Well, I would as lief take my last look at the sunlight as at anything else, and I doubt not it is the same with you.'
Wogan, in spite of himself, began to entertain a certain liking for the man. He had accepted each stroke of ill-fortune—his discomfiture at Lady Oxford's hands, the grapple on the steps, and now this duel—without disputation. Moreover Wogan was wondering whether or no the man had some real grievance against her ladyship and what motive brought him, in what expectation, in his chaise to Brampton Bryan. He felt indeed a certain compunction for his behaviour, and he said doubtfully,
'Mr. Scrope, you and I might have been very good friends in other circumstances.'
'I doubt it very much, Mr. Wogan.' Scrope shook his head and smiled. 'Your poetry would always have come between us. I would really sooner die than praise it.'
He looked up and down the road as he spoke, and then made an almost imperceptible nod at his coachman.
'That field opposite will do, I think,' Scrope said, and advanced from the doorway to the side of his chaise as though he was looking for something. It was certainly not his sword; Wogan now thinks it was his pistols. Wogan felt his liking increase and was inclined to put the encounter off for a little. It was for this reason that he stepped forward and passed an arm through Scrope's just as the latter had set a foot on the step of the chaise, no doubt to search the better for what he needed.
'Now what's amiss with the poem?' asked Wogan in a friendly way.
'It is altogether too inconsequent,' replied Scrope with a sudden irritation for which Wogan was at a loss to account.
'But my dear man,' said he, 'it was not intended for a syllogism.'
Scrope took his foot off the step and turned to Wogan as though a new thought had sprung into his brain.
'Mr. Wogan,' he said, 'I shall have all the pleasure imaginable in pointing out the faults to you if you care to listen and have the leisure. Then if you kill me afterwards, why I shall have done you some slight service and perhaps the world a greater. If I kill you, on the other hand, why there's so much time wasted, it is true, but I am in no hurry.'
There was no escape from the duel; that Wogan knew. Mr. Scrope had insulted the Parson, Lady Oxford, and himself; he was aware besides that the Parson and Wogan, both of them at the best suspected characters, were visiting the Earl of Oxford; and he had, whether it was justified or no, a hot resentment against the Parson. He might, since he knew so much, know also more, as, for instance, the names under which the Parson and Wogan were hiding themselves. It would not in any case need a very shrewd guess to hit upon their business, and if Mr. Scrope got back safe to London, why he might make himself confoundedly unpleasant. Wogan ran through these arguments in his mind, and was brought to the conclusion that he must most infallibly kill Mr. Scrope; but at the same time a little of his company meanwhile could do no harm.
'Nor I,' replied Wogan accordingly. 'I shall be delighted to confute your opinions.'
Mr. Scrope bowed; it seemed as though his face lighted up for a moment.
'There is no reason why we should stand in the road,' he said, 'when we can sit in the chaise.'
'Very true,' answered Wogan.
Scrope mounted into the chaise. Wogan followed upon his heels. They sat down side by side, and Scrope pulled out the verses from his pocket. He read the dedication once more:
'Strephon to Smilinda running barefoot over the grass in a gale of wind.'
'Let me point out,' said he, 'that you have made the lady run barefoot at the very time when she would be most certain to put on her shoes and stockings. And that error vitiates the whole poem. For the wind is severe, you will notice. So when she reprimands the storm, she should really reprimand herself for her inconceivable folly.'
'But Smilinda has no shoes and stockings at all in the poem,' replied Wogan triumphantly.
'That hardly betters the matter,' returned Scrope. 'For in that case her feet might be bare but they would certainly not be snowy.'
He stooped down as he spoke and drew from under the seat a bottle of wine, which he opened.
'This,' he said, 'may help us to consider the poem in a more charitable light.'
He gave Wogan the bottle to hold, and stooping once more fetched out a couple of glasses. Then he held one in each hand.
'Now will you fill them?' he said. Wogan poured out the wine and while pouring it:
'Two glasses?' he remarked. 'It seems you came prepared for the conversation.'
Scrope raised his eyes quickly to Wogan's face, and dropped them again to the glasses.
'One might easily have been broken,' he explained.
They leaned back in the chaise, each with a glass in his hand.
'It is to your taste, I hope,' said Scrope courteously.
Wogan smacked his lips in contentment.
'Lord Oxford has no better in his cellars.'
'I may agree without boastfulness. It is indeed Florence of a rare vintage, which I was at some pains to procure.' He laughed with a spice of savagery and resumed the consideration of Wogan's verses.
'You seem to me to have missed the opportunity afforded by your gale of wind. A true poet would surely have made great play with the lady's petticoats.'
'Smilinda had none,' again replied Wogan in triumph, and he emptied his glass.
'No shoes and stockings and no petticoats,' said he in a shocked voice. 'It is well you wrote a poem about her instead of painting her portrait,' and he filled Wogan's glass again, and added a little to his own, which was no more than half empty.
'Don't you comprehend, my friend,' exclaimed Wogan, 'that Smilinda's a nymph, an ancient Roman nymph?'
'Oh, she's a nymph!'
'Yes, and so wears no clothes but a sort of linsey-wolsey garment kirtled up to her knees.'
'Well, let that pass. But here's a line I view with profound discontent. "The grass will all its prickles hide." Thistles have prickles, Mr. Wogan, but the grass has blades like you and me; only, unlike you and me, it has no scabbards to sheathe them in.'
'Well,' said Wogan, 'but that's very wittily said,' and he laughed and chuckled.
'It is not bad, upon my faith,' replied Scrope. 'Let us drink to it in full glasses.'
He emptied the bottle into Wogan's glass and tossed it into the road.
'Now here's something more. The wind, you observe, makes lutestrings of Smilinda's hair.'
'There is little fault to be discovered in that image, I fancy,' said Wogan, lifting his glass to his lips with a smile.
'It is a whimsical image,' replied Scrope. 'It is as much as to call her hair catgut.'
Wogan was startled by the criticism. He sat up and scratched his nose.
'Well, I had not thought of that,' he said. He was somewhat crestfallen, and he looked to his glass for consolation. The glass was empty; he looked on to the road where the empty bottle rolled in the dust.
'I have its fellow,' said Scrope, interpreting Wogan's glance. He produced a second bottle from the same place. The second bottle brought them to the end of the verse. There was, however, a little discussion over the last line, and a third bottle was broached to assist.
'"At least that is what I expect." It is a very vile line, Mr. Wogan.'
'It is, perhaps, not so good as the others,' Wogan admitted. 'But you must blame the necessities of rhyming.'
'But the art of the poet is to conceal such necessities,' answered Scrope. 'And observe, Mr. Wogan, you sacrifice a great deal here to get an accurate rhyme, but in the remaining two lines of the next verse you do not trouble your head about a rhyme at all.'
'Oh, let me see that!' said Wogan, holding out a hand for the paper. He had clean forgotten by this time what those two lines described.
'Allegiance, Mr. Wogan,' said Scrope, politely handing him the verses, 'is no rhyme to obedience.'
'Allegiance—obedience—obedience—allegiance,' repeated Wogan as clearly as he could. 'Nay, I think it's a very good rhyme.'
'Oh!' exclaimed Scrope in a sudden comprehension. 'If you tell me the verses are conceived in the Irish dialect, I have not another word to say.'
Now Mr. Wogan, as a rule, was a little touchy on the subject of his accent. But at this moment he had the better part of three bottles of admirable Florence wine under his belt and was so disposed to see great humour in any remark. He grew uproarious over Mr. Scrope's witticism.
'Sure, but that's the most delicate jest I have heard for months,' he cried. 'Conceived in the Irish dialect! Ho! Ho! I must tell it at the Cocoa Tree—though it hits at me,' and he stood up in the chaise. 'Obedience—allegiance.' Mr. Scrope steadied him by the elbow. 'Faith, Mr. Scrope, but you and I must have another crack one of these days.' He put a foot out on the step of the chaise. 'I love a man that has some warmth in his merriment—and some warmth in his bottle too.' He stepped out of the chaise on to the ground. 'The best Florence I have tasted—the best joke I have heard—the Irish dialect. Ha, ha!' and he waved a hand at Scrope. Scrope called quickly to the coachman; the next instant the chaise started off at a gallop.
Wogan was left standing in the road, shouting his laughter. When the coach chaise was some thirty yards away, however, his laughter stopped completely. He rubbed his hand once or twice over his bemused forehead.
'Stop!' he yelled suddenly, and began to run after the chaise. Scrope stood up and spoke to the driver. The horses slackened their pace until Wogan got within twenty yards of it. Then Scrope spoke again, and the coachman drove the horses just as fast as Wogan was running.
'You have forgotten something, my friend,' cries Wogan.
'And what's that?' asked Scrope pleasantly, leaning over the back of the chaise.
'You have forgotten the duel.'
'No,' shouted Scrope with a grimace. 'It is you that forgot that.'
'Ah, you cheese-curd!—you white-livered coward!' cried Wogan, 'and I taking you for a fine man—equal to myself—you chalky cheese-curd!' He quickened his pace; Scrope called to the coachman; the coachman whipped up his horses. 'Oh wait a bit till I come up with you. I'll eat you in your clothes.'
Wogan bounded along the road, screaming out every vile epithet he could lay his tongue to in the heat of the moment. His hat and wig fell off on the road; he did not stop, but ran on bareheaded.
'But listen, the enamoured air
Makes lutestrings of thy locks so fair,'
quoted Scrope, rubbing his hands with delight. Wogan's fury redoubled, he stripped off his coat and ran till the road grew dizzy and the air flashed sparks at him. But the chaise kept ever at the same distance. With this interval of twenty yards between them, chaise and Wogan dashed through the tiny street of Brampton Bryan. A horde of little boys tumbled out of the doors and ran at Wogan's heels. The more he cursed and raved, the more the little boys shouted and yelled. Scrope in the chaise shook with laughter, clapped his hands as if in commendation of Wogan's powers, and encouraged him to greater efforts. They passed out of the village; the children gave up the pursuit, and sent a few parting stones after Wogan's back; in front stretched the open road. Wogan ran half a mile further, but he was too heavily handicapped with his three bottles of wine, and Scrope's horses were fresh. He shouted out one last oath, and then in a final spasm of fury sat down by the roadside, stripped off his shoe, and springing into the middle of the road, hurled it with all his might at the retreating chaise. The shoe struck the top of the hood, balanced there for a moment, and bounced over on to the seat. Scrope took it up and waved it above his head.
'The grass will all its prickles hide,
Nor harm thy snowy feet and bare.'
The driver plied his whip; the chaise whirled out of sight in a cloud of dust; and the disconsolate Wogan hobbled back to Brampton Bryan with what secrecy he could.
Mr. Scrope was on his way with the road to London open, were he disposed to follow it. Mr. Wogan seemed to see his chaise flashing through the turnpikes, and his sallow cheeks taking on an eager colour as the miles were heaped behind him.
He knew that Mr. Kelly and Nicholas Wogan were at Lord Oxford's house at Brampton Bryan. He knew enough, therefore, to throw some disorder on the Chevalier's affairs were he disposed to publish his news. But not in that way did he take, at this time, his revenge upon the Parson.