Paul Clifford — Complete
the advantages she derives from you, partly from familiarity (to say
nothing of your good qualities). For my part, I think domesticity
goes so far that I believe a woman always inclined to be
affectionate to a man whom she has once seen in his nightcap.
However, you should come to town; my poor brother's recent death
allows us to see no one,--the coast will be clear from rivals; grief
has softened my niece's heart; in a word, you could not have a
better opportunity. Come!
“By the way, you say one of the reasons which made you think ill of
this Captain Clifford was your impression that in the figure of one
of his comrades you recognized something that appeared to you to
resemble one of the fellows who robbed you a few months ago. I
understand that at this moment the police are in active pursuit of
three most accomplished robbers; nor should I be at all surprised if
in this very Clifford were to be found the leader of the gang,
namely, the notorious Lovett. I hear that the said leader is a
clever and a handsome fellow, of a gentlemanlike address, and that
his general associates are two men of the exact stamp of the
worthies you have so amusingly described to me. I heard this
yesterday from Nabbem, the police-officer with whom I once scraped
acquaintance on a trial; and in my grudge against your rival, I
hinted at my suspicion that he, Captain Clifford, might not
impossibly prove this Rinaldo Rinaldini of the roads. Nabbem caught
at my hint at once; so that, if it be founded on a true guess, I may
flatter my conscience as well as my friendship by the hope that I
have had some hand in hanging this Adonis of my niece's. Whether my
guess be true or not, Nabbem says he is sure of this Lovett; for one
of his gang has promised to betray him. Hang these aspiring dogs!
I thought treachery was confined to politics; and that thought makes
me turn to public matters, in which all people are turning with the
most edifying celerity....”
Sir William Brandon's epistle found Mauleverer in a fitting mood for
Lucy and for London. Our worthy peer had been not a little chagrined by
Lucy's sudden departure from Bath; and while in doubt whether or not
to follow her, the papers had informed him of the squire's death.
Mauleverer, being then fully aware of the impossibility of immediately
urging his suit, endeavoured, like the true philosopher he was, to
reconcile himself to his hope deferred. Few people were more easily
susceptible of consolation than Lord Mauleverer. He found an agreeable
lady, of a face more unfaded than her reputation, to whom he intrusted
the care of relieving his leisure moments from ennui; and being a lively
woman, the confidante discharged the trust with great satisfaction to
Lord Mauleverer, for the space of a fortnight, so that he naturally
began to feel his love for Lucy gradually wearing away, by absence and
other ties; but just as the triumph of time over passion was growing
decisive, the lady left Bath in company with a tall guardsman, and
Mauleverer received Brandon's letter. These two events recalled our
excellent lover to a sense of his allegiance; and there being now
at Bath no particular attraction to counterbalance the ardour of his
affection, Lord Mauleverer ordered the horses to his carriage, and
attended only by his valet, set out for London.
Nothing, perhaps, could convey a better portrait of the world's spoiled
darling than a sight of Lord Mauleverer's thin, fastidious
features, peering forth through the closed window of his luxurious
travelling-chariot; the rest of the outer man being carefully enveloped
in furs, half-a-dozen novels strewing the seat of the carriage, and a
lean French dog, exceedingly like its master, sniffing in vain for the
fresh air, which, to the imagination of Mauleverer, was peopled with
all sorts of asthmas and catarrhs! Mauleverer got out of his carriage at
Salisbury, to stretch his limbs, and to amuse himself with a cutlet.
Our nobleman was well known on the roads; and as nobody could be more
affable, he was equally popular. The officious landlord bustled into the
room, to wait himself upon his lordship and to tell all the news of the
place.
“Well, Mr. Cheerly,” said Mauleverer, bestowing a penetrating glance on
his cutlet, “the bad times, I see, have not ruined your cook.”
“Indeed, my lord, your lordship is very good, and the times, indeed, are
very bad,--very bad indeed. Is there enough gravy? Perhaps your lordship
will try the pickled onions?”
“The what? Onions!--oh! ah! nothing can be better; but I never touch
them. So, are the roads good?”
“Your lordship has, I hope, found them good to Salisbury?”
“Ah! I believe so. Oh! to be sure, excellent to Salisbury. But how are
they to London? We have had wet weather lately, I think!”
“No, my lord. Here the weather has been dry as a bone.”
“Or a cutlet!” muttered Mauleverer; and the host continued,--
“As for the roads themselves, my lord, so far as the roads are
concerned, they are pretty good, my lord; but I can't say as how there
is not something about them that might be mended.”
“By no means improbable! You mean the inns and the turnpikes?” rejoined
Mauleverer.
“Your lordship is pleased to be facetious; no! I meant something worse
than them.”
“What! the cooks?”
“No, my lord, the highwaymen!”
“The highwaymen! indeed?” said Mauleverer, anxiously; for he had with
him a case of diamonds, which at that time were on grand occasions often
the ornaments of a gentleman's dress, in the shape of buttons, buckles,
etc. He had also a tolerably large sum of ready money about him,--a
blessing he had lately begun to find very rare. “By the way, the rascals
robbed me before on this very road. My pistols shall be loaded this
time. Mr. Cheerly, you had better order the horses; one may as well
escape the nightfall.”
“Certainly, my lord, certainly.--Jem, the horses immediately!--Your
lordship will have another cutlet?”
“Not a morsel!”
“A tart?”
“A dev--! not for the world!”
“Bring the cheese, John!”
“Much obliged to you, Mr. Cheerly, but I have dined; and if I have not
done justice to your good cheer, thank yourself and the highwaymen.
Where do these highwaymen attack one?”
“Why, my lord, the neighbourhood of Reading is, I believe, the worst
part; but they are very troublesome all the way to Salthill.”
“Damnation! the very neighbourhood in which the knaves robbed me before!
You may well call them troublesome! Why the deuce don't the police clear
the country of such a movable species of trouble?”
“Indeed, my lord, I don't know; but they say as how Captain Lovett, the
famous robber, be one of the set; and nobody can catch him, I fear!”
“Because, I suppose, the dog has the sense to bribe as well as bully.
What is the general number of these ruffians?”
“Why, my lord, sometimes one, sometimes two, but seldom more than
three.”
Mauleverer drew himself up. “My dear diamonds and my pretty purse!”
thought he; “I may save you yet!”
“Have you been long plagued with the fellows?” he asked, after a pause,
as he was paying his bill.
“Why, my lord, we have and we have not. I fancy as how they have a sort
of a haunt near Reading, for sometimes they are intolerable just about
there, and sometimes they are quiet for months together! For instance,
my lord, we thought them all gone some time ago; but lately they have
regularly stopped every one, though I hear as how they have cleared no
great booty as yet.”
Here the waiter announced the horses, and Mauleverer slowly re-entered
his carriage, among the bows and smiles of the charmed spirits of the
hostelry.
During the daylight Mauleverer, who was naturally of a gallant and
fearless temper, thought no more of the highwaymen,--a species of danger
so common at that time that men almost considered it disgraceful to
suffer the dread of it to be a cause of delay on the road. Travellers
seldom deemed it best to lose time in order to save money; and they
carried with them a stout heart and a brace of pistols, instead of
sleeping all night on the road. Mauleverer, rather a preux chevalier,
was precisely of this order of wayfarers; and a night at an inn, when
it was possible to avoid it, was to him, as to most rich Englishmen, a
tedious torture zealously to be shunned. It never, therefore, entered
into the head of our excellent nobleman, despite his experience, that
his diamonds and his purse might be saved from all danger if he
would consent to deposit them, with his own person, at some place of
hospitable reception; nor, indeed, was it till he was within a stage of
Reading, and the twilight had entirely closed in, that he troubled
his head much on the matter. But while the horses were putting to, he
summoned the postboys to him; and after regarding their countenances
with the eye of a man accustomed to read physiognomies, he thus
eloquently addressed them,--
“Gentlemen, I am informed that there is some danger of being robbed
between this town and Salthill. Now, I beg to inform you that I think it
next to impossible for four horses, properly directed, to be stopped
by less than four men. To that number I shall probably yield; to a less
number I shall most assuredly give nothing but bullets. You understand
me?”
The post-boys grinned, touched their hats; and Mauleverer slowly
continued,--
“If, therefore,--mark me!--one, two, or three men stop your horses, and
I find that the use of your whips and spurs are ineffectual in
releasing the animals from the hold of the robbers, I intend with these
pistols--you observe them!---to shoot at the gentlemen who detain you;
but as, though I am generally a dead shot, my eyesight wavers a little
in the dark, I think it very possible that I may have the misfortune to
shoot you, gentlemen, instead of the robbers! You see the rascals will
be close by you, sufficiently so to put you in jeopardy, unless indeed
you knock them down with the but-end of your whips. I merely mention
this, that you may be prepared. Should such a mistake occur, you need
not be uneasy beforehand, for I will take every possible care of your
widows; should it not, and should we reach Salthill in safety, I intend
to testify my sense of the excellence of your driving by a present
of ten guineas apiece! Gentlemen, I have done with you. I give you my
honour that I am serious in what I have said to you. Do me the favour to
mount.”
Mauleverer then called his favourite servant, who sat in the dickey in
front (rumble-tumbles not being then in use). “Smoothson,” said he, “the
last time we were attacked on this very road, you behaved damnably. See
that you do better this time, or it may be the worse for you. You have
pistols to-night about you, eh? Well, that's right! And you are sure
they're loaded? Very well! Now, then, if we are stopped, don't lose a
moment. Jump down, and fire one of your pistols at the first robber.
Keep the other for a sure aim. One shot is to intimidate, the second to
slay. You comprehend? My pistols are in excellent order, I suppose. Lend
me the ramrod. So, so! No trick this time!”
“They would kill a fly, my lord, provided your lordship fired straight
upon it.”
“I do not doubt you,” said Mauleverer; “light the lanterns, and tell the
postboys to drive on.”
It was a frosty and tolerably clear night. The dusk of the twilight had
melted away beneath the moon which had just risen, and the hoary rime
glittered from the bushes and the sward, breaking into a thousand
diamonds as it caught the rays of the stars. On went the horses briskly,
their breath steaming against the fresh air, and their hoofs sounding