THE parlour of the “Red Lion” was a room with a sanded floor, protected on the side next the door by wooden barriers with seats fixed into them, which acted the part at once of settles, and screens to keep out the draught. There was a bright fire which kept it in a blaze of ruddy light, outdoing the lamps, which were not remarkable for their brilliancy. This fire was the great attraction of the place. The very distant prospect of it, gleaming out into the night, warmed and cheered the passer-by. It was like a lantern ever so far down the river side, on which the back window, partially veiled with a bit of old red curtain which let the light shine through and added a tone of warmth the more, looked out. You saw this window from the Wyburgh Road, and from all the cold flats of the water-side. The poor women at the Smiddy-houses, which was the name of the hamlet to the west, thought it a snare of Satan, and compared it vindictively to the red glaring eye of some evil spirit lying in wait to devour the unwary. But unfortunately the men were not of that opinion. Old Isaac, who was on his way home when he encountered Harry, and who was perfectly sincere in his opinion that nothing could be worse for his young master than to go to such a place, felt, notwithstanding, in his own person a thrill of internal satisfaction when he saw that it was his duty to follow and watch over the young fellow. It was wrong—but it was exhilarating: instead of trudging another slow mile home, to get into the corner of one of those wooden settles and feel the glow of the generous fire, and imbibe slowly a glass of “summat,” and suck slowly at the tube of a long clay pipe, and make a remark once in five minutes to one of the neighbours, who each of them took an equally long time to produce an original observation—had all the delight of dissipation in it. Most strange of enjoyments! and yet an enjoyment it was. To Isaac’s eye Mr. Harry did not, by any means, get the same good out of it. He asked for “summat,” to be sure, like the others, but swallowed it as if it had been medicine; and, instead of reposing on the settle, sat with his head in his hands poring over an old local paper, or walked restlessly about the room, now looking out at the window, now penetrating into the bar; a disturbing influence, interfering fatally with the drowsy ease of the place. Isaac was a man who had a just confidence in his own power of setting things straight and giving good advice, and had boldly faced temptation in his own person in order to do a moral service to the young man, for whom he felt a certain responsibility. But having done so much, he could not but feel that the young sinner whom he had risked his soul for, should have enjoyed it more. All the influences about the fire, the rest, the pipe, the glass of “summat,” were adapted to produce a certain toleration and deadening of the moral sense. Still the “Red Lion” was wrong; Isaac knew that his missis gave forth no uncertain sound on this point, and, for himself, he was also of opinion that it was wrong; but there could be no doubt that it was pleasant. Mr. Harry, however, was not taking the good of it as a man fully aware of the attractions of the place ought to do, and this gave Isaac energy after a while to address certain remonstrances to him. He went so far as to get up at last out of that most desirable place in the corner of the settle near the fire. To abandon that was a piece of self-denial that proved his sincerity in the most striking way to himself, and could not fail, he thought, to overcome even the scepticism of his missis. “I got a fine warm corner just by t’ fire, wi’ a lean to my back and a table to hand, and aw as a mon could desire; but I oop, and I’s after Mr. Harry. ‘Mr. Harry,’ says I”—involuntarily this plea shaped itself in Isaac’s mind, as after much hesitation he rose. He took a long pipe from the table, not caring to give up his own, and put it in the corner to keep his place, though with many doubts of the efficacy of the proceeding; for how could it be expected that a new-comer, with the chill of the night upon him, would abstain from taking possession of the coveted place when protected only by so slight a sign of previous rights? “Keep an eye on t’ glass, will ye?” he said to his neighbour in the other corner—hoisting himself up with a suppressed groan. His clothes were hot to the touch with the intense glow of the fire; but a labouring man who has been at work in the cold all day can brave a great deal of warmth afterwards. Then he went up to Harry, who just then had thrown himself into a chair near the window, and tapped with his long pipe upon his arm.
“Mr. Harry—summat’s amiss more than ornary. Nobody blongin’ would approve to see ye here; but bein’ here, it’s expeckted as you’ll take the good on it—and you’re getting no good on’t, Mr. Harry. Lord bless ye, what’s gone wrong?”
“Nothing you can help me in, Isaac,” said the young man.
“Maybe no; but aw the same, maybe ay. I’ve put mysel’ in the way of harm to be of service to you, Mr. Harry. I hope it’ll no be counted again’ me. I’ve done what I donno do, not once in a three months. Not as there’s much harm to be got here; but it’s exciting, that’s what it is—carries a man off his feet that isn’t just settled and knows what he’s doing. And when you made a sacrifice for a friend,” said Isaac, with a wave of his pipe, “you donno like to think as it’s to be no use.”
All this time the drone of the slow rural talk was going on, now and then with an equally slow chuckle of laughter; a pipe waved occasionally to help out a more than usually difficult delivery; a glass set down with a little noise in the fervour of an address accomplished; a low tranquil hum, provocative of slumber than excitement one would have said; but Isaac thought otherwise. At a table in the room a few card-players were gathering. And somebody with a new newspaper full of novel information—the last was more than a week old—had just come in. The young fellow, gloomy behind backs, and his Mentor, who was so kindly devoting himself to his service, were losing all that was going on. To make a little moral slip like this, and yet lose all the advantage of it, was distracting.
“Come, come, Mr. Harry,” Isaac said, probing him in the shoulder with his pipe, partly encouraging, partly threatening, “out with it, man; or else let it a be and take your pleasure—take your pleasure, bein’ here. It’s not a place I’d bid you come—far from it. It’s running your head into temptation, that’s the truth; but Lord bless us, bein’ in for’t take the good on’t—that’s what I say.”
The man with the paper was hovering about Isaac’s seat; but he was not so habituated to extremes of temperature as Isaac. “No, no,” he said with a chuckle, “I’m not a-going to roast yet a bit. Maybbe that’ll come after; but I dunno who’d make a cinder of hissel’ as long as he can help it. No, no, I’ll keep my distance; it’s like the fiery furnace in the Bible—that’s what it’s like.”
“It’s none too warm for me,” said the man at the other corner of the fire—and then they all laughed, though why it would be hard to say. Isaac watched this little episode at a distance, his eyes following his inclinations, which were all with the humours of the “company.” He chuckled, too, in a kind of regretful echo of their laughter; but he was relieved to see that his place was still kept for him. He turned again to Harry with that sense of losing all the fun, which made him vehement. “Mr. Harry,” he said, “bein’ here, take your pleasure a bit! It don’t do no more harm to be lively like, when you’re here, than to be i’ th’ dumps. It’s again’ my principles; and it’ll be moor again’ me when the missis comes to hear on’t—but, gosh! when a man is here——”
“You think he might as well get tipsy when he’s about it? I am much obliged to you for your advice, but I don’t think I’ll take it, Isaac,” said Harry. “Mind yourself, my old man, or there’s no telling what the missis may say.”
“That’s all your fun, Mr. Harry,” said Isaac with dignity; “there’s some you might say that to; but I’m a moral man, and always was. You never heard nought of the sort o’ Isaac Oliver. Coming here as I’ve told ye is not a thing I hold wi’—short o’ a strong reason like the present—short o’ plucking a brand out o’ t’ burning like I’m doing now, you’ll not catch me night nor day, heat nor cold, in a public. I pass the door,” Isaac said with pride, “ten times in a week or more, but who e’er sees me turn in ’cept for a strong occasion like the present? Nay, nay, if you were outside I’d go on my knees to ye to bide outside; but I say again, master, bein’ here, why, it’s best to conduct yourself as if you were here. What is the good o’ looking as if ye were at t’kirk? You’re not at t’kirk, that’s the fac’. Bein’ here,” he continued, slowly waving his pipe in the air, and giving himself over to his oratorical impulse. “Bein’ here——”
“Isaac—t’auld maister as you call him—is he at home?”
This sudden interruption was very startling. Isaac had drunk little; but there was a sort of imaginative intoxication abroad in the genial atmosphere of the “Red Lion,” and he was infected with the drowsy conviviality of the place, to which half shut eyes and a sleepy complacency seemed habitual. This sudden question was like a douche of cold water in his face. He stopped short in his speech with a sort of gasp, and stared at his companion.
“Ay, master—he’s at home,” said Isaac, slowly; but being a prudent Northcountryman he was sorry for this admission as soon as he had made it; “if he haven’t started again,” he added, cautiously. “Now and again he’ll start off——”
“That’s nonsense,” said Harry, sharply. “I hope I know his ways as well as you do. I’ll go and see him to-morrow and have it out.”
“A man may change his ways,” said Isaac, oracularly. “Now and again he’ll start off—givin’ no notice,” he added, with gradual touches of invention; “restless like—old folks do get restless, and nobody can deny that.” Then he paused, shuffling and embarrassed. “I wouldn’t, Master Harry, if I was you,” he added, in a lower tone and with great earnestness. “I wouldn’t, Master Harry, if I was you. T’auld master’s a droll un. He’s fonder of you than e’er another; but he’ll never be drove—what he’s going to do he’ll do right straight away. He’ll not be asked. How do I know as you’re going to ask him for aught? I donno, and that’s the truth; but I wouldn’t if I was you. Hev patience, just hev a bit of patience, and ye’ll get it all. But he’ll never do what he’s bid to do. You was always his pet, bein’ named for him, and so on. He’ll leave you all he’s got if you’ll hev patience; but ask him and he’ll not give a penny, not for the best reasons in all the world.”
“Who said I wanted a penny from him?” said the young man, piqued. “You are too fond of guessing, Isaac, my good fellow—you go too far.”
Isaac made no immediate reply. He knocked out the ashes of his pipe carefully against the window-ledge. “I’m maybe good at guessing,” he said at length, slowly, with a grave countenance, “and maybe no. But I’m your friend, Master Harry, and I ken t’ auld master. Them that meddles with him does it at their peril. Don’t you go near him, that’s my advice. You’ll hev it all, every penny, if you’ll hev a little patience. He’s nearer eighty nor seventy, and he canno’ last for evermore.”
“Patience!” cried Harry, tilting back his chair against the wall. It was all very well for the elder people to have patience, for Uncle Henry, perhaps, who had nothing but Death to wait for that always comes too soon. But young Harry with life waiting for him, and advancement, and all that youth can give—youth that only comes once, and lasts but a little while; for him it was a very different matter. And his heart was hot with passion against his father, and against fate, which seemed to shut him in. He was too much excited to keep his voice under control as he had been doing. “Patience!” he cried. “Pah! if that’s all, you can keep your advice to yourself.”
This sounded something like a quarrel, and the “Red Lion” was too warm and drowsy and comfortable to like the idea of a quarrel. The people about looked dimly round from amid the smoke; and a good-humoured person at the card-table was amiable enough to put himself in the breach. “Nay, nay, my young gentleman,” he said; “patience, bless you’s for them that can’t play at nought else. Take a hand at cribbage, that’s your sort. Whist if ye like, that’s all the fashion; but to my mind cribbage is the game——”
“Ay, ay, master, a grand game,” said two or three together, wagging their beards in civil backing up of the first speaker, who stood smiling at the table, running the cards through his hands like a stream of water. They all looked vaguely at Harry with a general look of invitation and goodwill in their eyes. The atmosphere of the “Red Lion” was against all strenuous action. The warmth which was so cheerful and bright made them all drowsy. They sat and blinked at it with pleasure and peacefulness, purring softly in the pervading warmth. What had young Harry to do in such a sleepy place? He let his chair come down to the floor with a noise that made the convives jump, and laughed, chiefly at himself. “Come along, then,” he said; “I’ll take a hand since there’s nothing else to do.”
So rapid were the young man’s movements that Isaac, not so impetuous, was left, standing in the same spot looking at the chair now standing composedly on its four legs for a minute after Harry had taken his place at the card-table. Isaac was astonished, but he was relieved as well. He came back slowly to the corner of the settle, looking at his pipe with an air of remonstrance, but gradually feeling his cares relax, and the pleasure of coming back to the company. “I’m bound to say,” was his first utterance, as he put himself once more into the corner and stretched his legs in front of the fire, “as people couldn’t behave more honourable. I never expected to get my own place again.”
“Sommat oop?” asked his neighbour on the settle, with a thrust of his elbow towards Harry. Isaac thrust up his shoulders to his ears, and shook his head.
“There’s always summat oop,” said Isaac, oracularly, “as long as there’s lads at home.”
“And that’s true,” said another, who took the opportunity to illustrate the statement by a long and tedious story, which had been simmering in him all the evening. After this the place relapsed into its usual aspect. The two or three men about the fire basking in the warmth listened with a mild interest to the slow current of the tale, and supplemented it by anecdotes of their own of a like tedious and inconsequent kind. But nobody was bored; the talkers were pleased with themselves, and the listeners did their part very steadily, not troubled by any idea of dulness. Isaac, sitting well up in his corner, so warm that his corduroy almost burned him when he laid his hand accidentally upon it, felt for his part that if it had not been well understood to be the very doorway and vestibule of another place, the parlour of the “Red Lion” would be a kind of little Paradise. Perhaps it was the terribly wicked and risky character of the enjoyment which gave its humdrum drowsiness so great a charm. As the evening got on the drowse increased; one or two even fell half asleep in their seats, and a reflective air stole on the “coompany.” The gentleman who had the ear of the house prosed on, taking a minute’s rest between every two words; but nobody budged. An alarmed thought of the missis did indeed now and then come over Isaac’s mind, but he was too tranquil, too comfortable, too warm to take such a decisive step as would be necessary to raise himself from the embrace of the settle and get under weigh. All this time, however, there was a little stir at the card-table, which pleased the audience round. When there was any special success, they would pause in their anecdotes and listen, with drowsy smiles. This gave a sort of rollicking character, which would otherwise have been wanting to it, to the placid gaiety. One of the quiet drinkers now and then nudged his neighbour, and asked him what he thought the stakes were. “As much as would be a fortin for you or me,” Isaac said, and there was a flutter of respectful admiration. Perhaps Isaac knew that he was exaggerating. He did it for the honour of the family, of which he was through his master a kind of relation. It was in character with the wild immorality of an evening in the Red Lion that the young men should be playing for high stakes; and this idea made the others enjoy themselves still more. When they came out, the misty whiteness of the atmosphere had cleared off a little, and consolidated itself into dark shadows in all the corners, and a flood of faint moonlight dimly marking the gray fells and the dark treeless country, with its dim lines of dykes and square grey limestone houses. Harry Joscelyn was one of the last to leave; he stood upon the bridge for some time talking with young Selwyn, with whom he had been playing. Isaac thought it was for his own confusion that the young man lingered. The sentiments likely to be entertained by the Missis became more and more clear to Isaac with every step he took after he was forced to get up from his comfortable corner in the settle. But he was still warm without and within, his corduroys keeping the heat of the fire even to the touch after their long baking, and his heart kept up by the strengthened influence of all that he had swallowed. It confused his head a little too, making it drowsy but kindly. It was through a faint little steam as of “summat” warm, dispensing its odours liberally into the air, that he seemed in imagination to see his own door, and the wrathful countenance that would look out from it; but the cold outside made this picture a great deal clearer by degrees, though it did not clear his faculties. His partial obfuscation however did not make him less sensible of his duty towards his master’s godson. He had sacrificed himself, he had incurred all those expressions of the missis’s feelings, which were already prophetically sounding in his ears, for Harry’s sake—and he could not go away now without another word. “As well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb,” he said to himself, when the others went clattering over the bridge and along the branching ways with their heavy boots, almost all of them feeling a good deal of alarm about the sentiments of the missis; but as Isaac lingered in the cold moonlight kicking his heels, the uneasiness grew with every moment that passed. She would hear old Jack Smethurst stumble down the way to his cottage, and she would prepare a still sharper rod in pickle for Isaac later still. “As well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb,” he repeated to himself. How those young fellows did talk! and what could they have to talk about after spending all the blessed night playing their games. Ah! devil’s books those cards were, beguiling folks on and on. Isaac fell half asleep, leaning against a corner in the shadow of the “Red Lion.” The lights were already out in that deserted place. There would be no gleam from the window to keep him a little cheery as he plodded down the waterside. And what a clatter these young fellows made! What could they have to talk about? He leaned against the wall and let his head droop on his breast, and for a minute or two Isaac was blissfully unconscious of everything; but at the end of that time he came to himself suddenly, and felt that his corduroys had got quite cold, and that it was very chilly, that the young men were still talking, and that he had begun to shiver. It was cruelty to keep him there, kicking his heels. All the village seemed so still, no lights anywhere, and the landlord of the “Red Lion” turning the key in the door before he mounted up the creaking stairs to bed. The creaking of these stairs went to Isaac’s heart, and the idea of being up later than the landlord of the tavern, the abode of dissipation, of which the whole valley entertained a wholesome distrust—to be out too, at that terrible hour, and still to have a mile to walk, and a talk at the end of it, all for one unruly young fellow that would stand and jabber there with young Selwyn, whom he could see quite easily to-morrow if he pleased. “He’s drunk, that’s it,” Isaac, half asleep, chilled, frightened, and remorseful, and glad to think the worst he could of Mr. Harry, said to himself. And then there was an unexpected aggravation; all at once when he had got his back comfortable at a new angle of the wall, lo! the two shook hands, and went off in a moment, one to the right hand, the other to the left, without any warning to Isaac. He had to pull himself up with a start, and the trouble he had to get himself into motion was as great as if he had been a cranky steam-engine, one of those things (he reflected, muddled, but all the more ingenious) where you have to turn a wheel here and touch a spring there—while all the while Mr. Harry’s steps were audible, young and light, skimming along the road ahead of him. He had to call after him, waking all the echoes, and making the most portentous noise as he lumbered along in his heavy boots, doing what he could to run. Luckily Harry heard him and stopped, just as he came to the cross roads. “Who is that calling me?” he said.
“It’s me, Mr. Harry. Lord bless ye, stop a moment. I’ve got a—word to say—Mr. Harry,” cried Isaac, panting. “Is that a way to keep your friends easy in their minds, to stand aw that time i’ the’ dark at the dead hour o’ th’ night, jabbering nonsense with another as ill as yourself? How are ye to give an account for this night, if there were no more? and leading others into an ill gate. What would t’ auld maister say,—or your missis if ye’d got a missis?”
“Poor old Isaac!” said Harry, laughing; “so that’s what you’re thinking of. I haven’t got a missis. I am thankful. It is you that have got to be lectured to-night. Tell her it was all my fault.”
Isaac seemed to take no notice of this contemptuous recommendation. He stuck himself against the wall that bordered the road, as a precautionary measure against fatigue and sleep, and the effect of the not extravagant potations in which he had been indulging. “I want to say—a serious word to ye. I have got something to say.”
“Then say it and make haste,” Harry cried, “don’t you feel how cold it is, and the moon will set directly? I want to get home to bed.”
“Oh-h,” cried old Isaac: “as if I wasn’t colder and worrider than the like of you; and more burdened with a nervousness—like—what you might call a nervousness for—the walk at the dead o’ t’night and sich like. But I’ve got a word to say. Mr. Harry, you’ll no go near t’auld master? Try anybody but him. I’ve set my heart on’t that you should get his money at the end, and so you will if you’ll hev patience, just hev a little patience; but don’t ye go asking money of him now; don’t you do it, Mr. Harry, and spoil aw—”
“You old ——,” here Harry paused; “is this all you stopped me for? Well, you mean well, Isaac. Go home to bed, and let’s hope the missis will not tear all the hair out of your head.”
“I scorn aw that,” said Isaac with a wave of his hand, though his teeth chattered. “I winna take the trouble to give it a denial; nay, nay, settle your ain affairs atween you and her when ye hev got a missis o’ your ain; I can manage mine,” he said with a little rueful sigh and contraction of his breast. He thought he could see her looking out from the cottage door, and his very soul trembled. “Me, I can manage mine,” he repeated, then added, “but, Mr. Harry, come back to the right question. Hev a little patience; if it was to get me a beatin’ (and she has not the strength for that) I must say it afore we part. Let him be; hev a little patience. If it was my last breath I could give you no different advice.”
Harry paused a moment between offence and gratitude. Then he suddenly gripped Isaac’s hand, “You mean me well,” he said, “and I’ll take your advice, Isaac. Here, lad, you’ve always been a friend, wish me good luck and good-night.”
“And that I do from the bottom of my heart, Mr. Harry. But gang no more to the ‘Red Lion;’ it leads you into many a temptation. Good luck, to ye, my young gentleman, wherever you may go—so long as you’re no going to Wyburgh to fright t’auld master out of his wits.”
“And good night, Isaac, and I wish you well through with the missis,” cried Harry with a laugh, as he went on waving his hand. Isaac stood for a moment looking after him as his alert young figure went off into the distance; then he sighed a sigh, “I wish you well, my lad, if I should never see you again,” he said, with a perturbation which referred to his own troubled mind rather than Harry’s prospects; and so turned his face, alarmed yet sustained by conscious virtue, to his own house.