Janice Meredith Part 6

For a moment the servant stood with a slight smile on his face at the contradiction; then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he entered the public room of the tavern. Within the air was so thick with pipes in full blast, and the light of the two dips was so feeble, that he halted in order to distinguish the dozen figures of the occupants, all of whom gave him instant attention.

"Ar want landlord," he said, after a pause.

"Here I be," responded a man sitting at a small table in the corner, with two half-emptied gla.s.ses and a bowl of arrack punch before him. Opposite to mine host was a thick-set man of about forty, attired in a brown suit and heavy top-boots, both of which bore the signs of recent travel.

The servant skirted the group at the large table in the centre of the room, and taking from his pocket a guinea, laid it on the table. "Canst 'e give change for thiccy?" he asked.

"I vum!" cried the landlord, as he picked up the coin and rang it on the table. "'T ain't often we git sight o' goold here.

How much do yer want fer it?"

"Why, twenty-one s.h.i.+llings," replied the servant, with some surprise in his voice.

"I'll givit you dirty-two," spoke up a Jewish-looking man at the big table, hurriedly pulling out his pouch and counting down a batch of very soiled money from it, which he held out to the servant just as the landlord, too, tendered him some equally ragged bills.

"Trust Opper to give a s.h.i.+lling less than its worth," jeered one of the drinkers.

"Bai thiccy money, Bagby?" questioned Charles, looking suspiciously at both tenders.

"Not much," answered Bagby from the group about the large table, not one of whom had missed a word of the foregoing conversation. "'T is shaved beef,"--a joke which called forth not a little laughter from his companions.

"Will it buy a razor?" asked Fownes, quickly, turning to the lawyer with a smile.

"Keep it a week and 't will shave you itself," retorted the joker, and this allusion to the steady depreciation of the colony paper money called forth another laugh.

"Then 't is not blunt?" responded Charles, but no one save the traveller at the small table caught the play on words, the c.o.c.kney cant term for money being unfamiliar to American ears. He smiled, and then studied the bond-servant with more interest than he had hitherto shown.

Meanwhile, at the first mention of razor, the Jew had left the room, and he now returned, carrying a great pack, which he placed upon the table.

"Sir," he said, in an accent which proved his appearance did not belie his race, while beginning to unstrap the bundle, "I haf von be-utiful razor, uf der besd--" but here his speech was interrupted by a roar of laughter.

"You've a sharper to deal with now," laughed the joker, and another called, "Now ye'll need no razor ter be shaved."

"Chentlemen, chentlemen," protested the peddler, "haf n't I always dealt fair mit you?" He fumbled in his half-opened pack, and shoving three razors out of sight, he produced a fourth, which he held out to the servant. "Dot iss only dree s.h.i.+llings, und it iss der besd of steel."

"You can trust Opper to know pretty much everything 'bout steals," sneered Bagby, who was clearly the local wit. "It 's been his business for twenty years."

"I want a sharp razor, not a razor sharp," said Charles, good-naturedly, while taking the instrument and trying its edge with his finger.

"What business hez a bond-servant tew spend money fer a razor?" demanded the tavern-keeper, for nothing then so marked the distinction between the well-bred and the unbred as the smooth faces of the one and the hairy faces of the other.

"Hasn't he a throat to cut?" demanded one of the group, "an' hasn't a covenant man reason to cut it?"

"More likes he's goin' a sparkin'," suggested one of the idlers.

"The gal up ter the squire's holds herself pooty high an'

mighty, but like as not she's as plaguey fond of bundling with a good-looking man on the sly as most wenches."

"If she 's set on that, I'm her man," remarked Bagby.

"Bundling?" questioned the covenant servant. "What 's that?"

The question only produced a roar of laughter at his ignorance, during which the traveller turned to the publican and asked:--

"Who is this hind?"

"'T is a new bond-servant o' Squire Meredith's, who I hearn is no smouch on horses. Folks think he's a b.l.o.o.d.y-back who 's took French leave."

"A deserter, heigh?" said the traveller, once more looking at the man, who was now exchanging with the peddler the three-s.h.i.+lling note for the razor. He waited till the trade had been consummated, and then suddenly said aloud, in a sharp, decisive way, "Attention! To the left--dress!

Fownes' body suddenly stiffened itself, his hands dropped to.

his sides, and his head turned quickly to the left. For a second he held this position, then as suddenly relaxing himself, he turned and eyed the giver of the order.

"So ho I my man. It seems ye have carried Brown Bess,"

said the traveller, giving the slang term for the musket.

Flushed in face, Fownes wheeled on the man hotly, while the whole room waited his reply in silence. "Thou liest!" he a.s.serted.

"Thou varlet!" cried the man so insulted, flus.h.i.+ng in turn, as he sprang to his feet and caught up from the table a heavy riding-whip.

As he did so, the bond-servant's right hand went to his hip, as if instinctively seeking something there. The traveller's eyes followed the impulsive gesture, even while he, too, made a motion more instinctive than conscious, by stepping backward, as if to avoid something. This motion he checked, and said--

"No. Bond-servants don't wear bayonets."

Again the colour sprang to Fownes' face, and his lips parted as if an angry retort were ready. But instead of uttering it, he turned and started to leave the room.

"Ay," cried the traveller, "run, while there 's time, deserter."

Fownes faced about in the doorway, with a smile on his face not pleasant to see, it was at once so contemptuous and so lowering. Yet when he spoke there was an amused, almost merry note in his voice, as if he were enjoying something.

"Ar bain't no more deserter than thou baist spy," he retorted, as he left the tavern and went to where his horse was tethered. Unfastening him, he stood for a moment stroking the animal's nose.

"Joggles," he confided, "I fear, despite the praise the fair ones gave of my impersonation of 'The Fas.h.i.+onable Lover,'

that I am not so good an actor as either Garrick or Barry. I forget, and I lose my temper. So, a bond-servant should cut his throat," he continued, as he swung lightly into the saddle.

"I fear 't is the only way I can go undiscovered. Fool that I was to do it in a moment of pa.s.sion. Five years of slavery!"

Then he laughed. "But then I'd never have seen her! Egad, if she could be painted as she looked to-day by Reynolds or Gainsborough, 'twould set more than my blood glowing!

There's a prize, Joggles! Beauty, wealth, and freedom, all in one. She'd be worth a tilt, too, if for nothing but the sport of it. We'll shave, make a dandy of ourselves, old man--"

Then the servant paused--"and, like a fool, be recognised by some fellow like Clowes--what does he here?--but for my beard, and that he'd scarce expect to meet Charles--" Fownes checked himself, scowling. "Charles Nothing, a poor son of a gun of a bond-servant. Have done with such idiot schemes, man," he admonished. "For what did you run, if 't was not to bury yourself? And now you 'd risk all for a petticoat."

Taking from his pocket the razor, he threw it into the bushes that lined the road, saying as he did so, "Good-by, gentility."

VI MEN ARE DECEIVERS EVER

The departure of the bond-servant, leaving the sting of innuendo behind him, had turned all eyes toward the traveller, and Bagby but voiced the curiosity of the roomful when he inquired, "What did Fownes call you spy for?"

"Nay, man, he called me not that," denied the stranger, "unless he meant to call himself a deserter as well. Landlord, a bowl of swizzle for the company! Gentlemen, I am Lincolns.h.i.+re born and bred. My name is John Evatt, and I am travelling through the country to find a likely settling place for six solid farmers, of whom I am one. Whom did you say was yon rogue's master?"

"Squire Meredith," informed mine host, now occupied in combining the rum, spruce beer, and sugar at the large table.

"And what sort of man is he?" asked Evatt, bringing his gla.s.s from the small table and taking his seat among the rest.