The Complete Works of Stephen Crane (50 page)

“My beginning was without pretence,” said the highwayman. “Little Susan, daughter of Farmer Hants, was crossing the fields with a basket of eggs. I, a masked figure, sprang out at her from a thicket. I seized the basket. She screamed. There was a frightful tumult. But in the end I bore away this basket of eight eggs, creeping stealthily through the wood. The next day Farmer Hants met me. He had a long whip. There was a frightful tumult. But he little knew that he was laying with his whip the foundation of a career so illustrious. For a time I stole his sheep, but soon grew weary of this business. Once, after they had chased me almost to Bristol, I was so weary that I resolved to forego the thing entirely. Then I became a highwayman, whom you see before you. One of the ballads begins thus:

“What ho! the merry Jem!     Not a pint he gives for them.     All his—”

“Stop,” said I, “we’ll have it at Dame Bottles’s fireside. Hearing songs in the night air always makes me hoarse the next morning.”

“As you will,” he answered without heat. “We’re a’most there.”

Soon a lighted window of the highwayman’s humble home shone out in the darkness, and a moment later Jem Bottles was knocking at the door. It was immediately opened, and he stalked in with his blood-marks still upon his face. There was a great outcry in a feminine voice, and a large woman rushed forward and flung her arms about the highwayman.

“Oh, Jemmie, my son, my son!” she screamed, “whatever have they done to ye this time?”

“Silence, mother dear,” said Bottles. “’Tis nought but a wind-broken bough fallen on my head. Have you no manners? Do you not see the gentleman waiting to enter and warm himself?”

The woman turned upon me, alarmed, but fiery and defiant. After a moment’s scrutiny she demanded:

“Oh, ho, and the gentleman had nought to do of course with my Jem’s broken head?”

“’Tis a priest but newly arrived from his native island of Asia,” said Bottles piously; “and it ill beseems you, mother dear, to be haggling when you might be getting the holy man and I some supper.”

“True, Jemmie, my own,” responded Dame Bottles. “But there are so many rogues abroad that you must forgive your old mother if she grow often affrighted that her good Jemmie has been misled.” She turned to me. “Pardon, my good gentleman,” she said almost in tears. “Ye little know what it is to be the mother of a high-spirited boy.”

“I can truthfully say that I do not, Dame Bottles,” said I, with one of my father’s French bows. She was immensely pleased. Any woman may fall a victim to a limber, manly, and courteous bow.

Presently we sat down to a supper of plum-stew and bread. Bottles had washed the blood from his face and now resembled an honest man.

“You may think it strange, sir,” said Dame Bottles with some housewifely embarrassment, “that a highwayman of such distinction that he has had written of him in Bristol six ballads—”

“Seven,” said the highwayman.

“Seven in Bristol and in Bath two.”

“Three,” said the highwayman.

“And three in Bath,” continued the old woman. “You may think it strange, sir, that a highwayman of such distinction that he has had written of him in Bristol seven ballads, and in Bath three, is yet obliged to sit down to a supper of plum-stew and bread.”

“Where is the rest of that cheese I took on last Michaelmas?” demanded Bottles suddenly.

“Jemmie,” answered his mother with reproach, “you know you gave the last of it to the crippled shepherd over on the big hill.”

“So I did, mother dear,” assented the highwayman, “and I regret now that I let no less than three cheeses pass me on the highway because I thought we had plenty at home.”

“If you let anything pass on the road because you do not lack it at the moment, you will ultimately die of starvation, Jemmie dear,” quoth the mother. “How often have I told you?”

“Aye,” he answered somewhat irritably, “you also often have told me to take snuff-boxes.”

“And was I at fault,” she retorted, “because the cheating avarice of the merchants led them to make sinful, paltry snuff-boxes that were mere pictures of the good old gold and silver? Was it my mischief? Or was it the mischief of the plotting swineherds who now find it to their interest to deal in base and imitative metals?”

“Peace, my mother,” said the highwayman. “The gentleman here has not the same interest in snuff-boxes which moves us to loud speech.”

“True,” said Dame Bottles, “and I readily wish that my Jemmie had no reason to care if snuff-boxes were made from cabbage-leaves.”

I had been turning a scheme in my mind, and here I thought I saw my opportunity to introduce it. “Dame Bottles,” said I, “your words fit well with the plan which has brought me here to your house. Know you, then, that I am a nobleman—”

“Alack, poor Jemmie!” cried the woman, raising her hands.

“No,” said I, “I am not a nobleman rampant. I am a nobleman in trouble, and I need the services of your son, for which I will reward him with such richness that he will not care if they make snuff-boxes out of water or wind. I am in pursuit of a man—”

“The little black man,” cried the alert Bottles.

“And I want your son to ride with me to catch this thief. He need never pass through the shadow of the creeping, clanking tree. He will be on an honest hunt to recover a great property. Give him to me. Give him fourteen guineas from his store, and bid us mount his horses and away. Save your son!”

The old woman burst into tears. “Sir,” she answered, “I know little of you, but, as near as I can see in the light of this one candle, you are a hangel. Take my boy! Treat him as you would your own stepson, and if snuff-boxes ever get better I will let you both hear of it.”

Less than an hour later Jem Bottles and I were off for Bath, riding two very good horses.

Now my whole mind was really bent on finding my black Forister, but yet, as Jem Bottles and I rode toward Bath, I thought of a cloaked figure and a pair of shining eyes, and it seemed to me that I recalled the curve of sweet, proud lips. I knew that I should be thinking of my papers, my future; but a quick perversity made me dwell for a long trotting time in a dream of feminine excellence, in a dream of feminine beauty which was both ascetic and deeply sensuous. I know hardly how to say that two eyes, a vision of lips, a conception of a figure, should properly move me as I bounced along the road with Jem Bottles. But it is certain that it came upon me. The eyes of the daughter of the great Earl of Westport had put in chains the redoubtable O’Ruddy. It was true. It was clear. I admitted it to myself. The admission caused a number of reflections to occur in my mind, and the chief of these was that I was a misfortunate wretch.

Jem Bottles recalled me to the immediate business.

“’Tis the lights of Bath, sir,” he said, “and if it please you, sir, I shall await you under yonder tree, since the wretched balladists have rendered me so well known in the town that I dare not venture in it for fear of a popular welcome from the people who have no snuff-boxes whatever.”

“I will go and listen to the ballads,” I replied, “and in the mean time do you await me here under that tree.”

So saying I galloped into Bath, my soul sharp to find Forister and to take him by the neck and strangle out of him those papers which were my sole reasons for living. But the landlord of the best inn met me with an unmistakable frankness.

“Mr. Forister?” said he. “Yes, your lordship, but Mr. Forister is gone back to Bristol.”

I was so pleased with his calling me “your lordship” that I hesitated a moment. But I was recalled to sense by the thought that although Jem Bottles and I had fifteen guineas between us, he had fourteen and I had the one. Thanking the landlord I galloped out of Bath.

Bottles was awaiting me under the tree. “To Bristol,” I cried. “Our chase lies toward Bristol. He has doubled back.”

“’Twas while we were at supper,” said Bottles, as he cantered up to my shoulder. “I might have had two trials at him if I had not had the honour of meeting your worship. I warrant you, sir, he would not have escaped me twice.”

“Think of his crack in your skull, and be content,” I replied. “And in the mean time ride for Bristol.”

Within five miles of Bristol we came upon a wayside inn in which there was progressing a great commotion. Lights flashed from window to window, and we could hear women howling. To my great surprise Bottles at once became hugely excited.

“Damme, sir,” he shouted, “my sweetheart is a chambermaid here, and if she be hurted I will know it.”

He spurred valiantly forward, and, after futilely calling to him to check his career, I followed. He leaped from his horse at the door of the inn and bounced into the place, pistol in hand. I was too confused to understand much, but it seemed to my ears that his entrance was hailed with a roar of relief and joy. A stable-boy, fearfully anxious, grasped my bridle, crying, “Go in, sir, in God’s name. They will be killing each other.” Thinking that, whatever betide, it was proper to be at the back of my friend Bottles, I too sprang from my horse and popped into the inn.

A more unexpected sight never met my experienced gaze. A fat landlady, mark you, was sobbing in the arms of my villainous friend, and a pretty maid was clinging to his arm and screaming. At the same time there were about him a dozen people of both sexes who were yelling, —

“Oh, pray, Master Bottles! Good Master Bottles, do stop them. One is a great Afric chief, red as a fire, and the other is Satan, Satan himself! Oh, pray, good Master Bottles, stop them!”

My fine highwayman was puffed out like a poisoned frog. I had no thought that he could be so grand.

“What is this disturbance?” he demanded in a bass voice.

“O good Master Bottles,” clamoured the people. “Satan wishes to kill the Red Giant, who has Satan barred in the best room in the inn. And they make frightful destruction of chairs and tables. Bid them cease, O good Master Bottles!”

From overhead we could hear the sound of blows upon wood mingled with threatening talk.

“Stand aside,” said the highwayman in a great gruff voice which made me marvel at him. He unhesitatingly dumped the swooning form of the landlady into another pair of arms, shook off the pretty maid, and moved sublimely upon the foot of the stairs amid exclamations of joy, wonder, admiration, even reverence.

But the voice of an unseen person hailed suddenly from the head of the stairs.

“And if ye have not said enough masses for your heathen soul,” remarked the voice, “you would be better mustering the neighbours this instant to go to church for you and bid them do the best they can in a short time. You will never be coming downstairs if you once come up.”

Bottles hesitated; the company shuddered out: “’Tis the Red Giant.”

“And I would be having one more word with you,” continued the unseen person. “I have him here, and here I keep him. ’Tis not me that wants the little black rogue, what with his hammering on the door and his calling me out of my name. ’Tis no work that I like, and I would lever go in and put my heel in his face. But I was told to catch a little black man, and I have him, and him I will keep. ’Tis not me that wished to come here and catch little black men for anybody; but here I am in this foreign country, catching little black men, and I will have no interference.”

But here I gave a great call of recognition.

“Paddy!”

I saw the whole thing. This wild-headed Paddy, whom I had told to catch me a little black man, had followed after me toward Bath and somehow managed to barricade in a room the very first man he saw who was small and black. At first I wished to laugh; an instant later I was furious.

“Paddy,” I thundered; “come down out of that now! What would you be doing? Come down out of that now!”

The reply was sulky, but unmistakably from Paddy. Most of it was mumbled.

“Sure I’ve gone and caught as little and as black a man as is in the whole world, and was keeping the scoundrel here safe, and along he comes and tells me to come down out of that now with no more gratitude than if he had given me a gold goose. And yet I fought a duel for him and managed everything so finely that he came away well enough to box me on the ear, which was mere hilarity and means nothing between friends.”

Jem Bottles was still halted on the stair. He and all the others had listened to Paddy’s speeches in a blank amazement which had much superstition in it.

“Shall I go up, sir?” he asked, not eagerly.

“No,” said I. “Leave me to deal with it. I fear a great mistake. Give me ten minutes, and I promise to empty the inn of all uproar.”

A murmur of admiration arose, and as the sound leaped about my ears I moved casually and indifferently up against Paddy. It was a grand scene.

“Paddy,” I whispered as soon as I had reached a place on the stairs safe from the ears of the people below. “Paddy, you have made a great blunder. You have the wrong man.”

“’Tis unlikely,” replied Paddy with scorn. “You wait until you see him, and if he is not little and black, then—”

“Yes, yes,” said I hastily, “but it was not any little black man at all which I wanted. It was a particular little black man.”

“But,” said the ruffian brightly, “it would be possible this one will serve your end. He’s little and he’s black.”

At this moment the voice of the captive came intoning through the door of a chamber.

“When I am free I will first cut out your liver and have it grilled, and feed it to you as you are dying.”

Paddy had stepped forward and placed his lips within about six inches of one of the panels.

“Come now, be easy!” he said. “You know well that if you should do as you say, I would beat your head that it would have the looks of a pudding fallen from a high window, and that’s the truth.”

“Open the door, rascal,” called the captive, “and we shall see.”

“I will be opening no doors,” retorted Paddy indignantly. “Remain quiet, you little black devil, or, by the mass, I’ll—”

“I’ll slice your heart into pieces of paper,” thundered Paddy’s prisoner, kicking and pounding.

By this time I was ready to interfere. “Paddy,” said I, catching him by the shoulder, “you have the wrong man. Leave it to me; mind you, leave it to me.”

“He’s that small and black you’d think—” he began dejectedly, but I cut him short.

Jem Bottles, unable to endure the suspense, had come up from below. He was still bristling and blustering, as if all the maids were remarking him.

“And why does this fine gentleman kick and pound on the door?” he demanded in a gruff voice loud enough to be heard in all appreciative parts of the inn. “I’ll have him out and slit his nose.”

The thunder on the door ceased, and the captive observed:

“Ha! another scoundrel! If my ears do not play me false, there are now three waiting for me to kick them to the hangman.”

Restraining Paddy and Bottles, who each wished to reply in heroic verse to this sally, I stepped to the door.

“Sir,” said I civilly, “I fear a great blunder has been done. I—”

“Why,” said the captive with a sneer, “’tis the Irishman! ’Tis the king of the Irelands. Open the door, pig.”

My elation knew no bounds.

“Paddy,” cried I, “you have the right little black man.” But there was no time for celebration. I must first answer my enemy. “You will remember that I kicked you once,” said I, “and if you have a memory as long as my finger be careful I do not kick you again, else even people as far away as the French will think you are a meteor. But I would not be bandying words at long range. Paddy, unbar the door.”

“If I can,” muttered Paddy, fumbling with a lot of machinery so ingenious that it would require a great lack of knowledge to thoroughly understand it. In the mean time we could hear Forister move away from the door, and by the sound of a leisurely scrape of a chair on the floor I judge he had taken his seat somewhere near the centre of the room. Bottles was handling his pistol and regarding me.

“Yes,” said I, “if he fires, do you pepper him fairly. Otherwise await my orders. Paddy, you slug, unbar the door.”

“If I am able,” said Paddy, still muttering and fumbling with his contrivances. He had no sooner mouthed the words than the door flew open as if by magic, and we discovered a room bright with the light of a fire and candles. Forister was seated negligently at a table in the centre of the room. His legs were crossed, but his naked sword lay on the table at his hand. He had the first word, because I was amazed, almost stunned, by the precipitous opening of the door.