CHAPTER XX
HOW SIR JOHN PLEDGED HIS WORD: WITH SOME DESCRIPTION OF THE PROPERTIES OF SNUFF
The ancient town of Lewes was a-throng, its High Street full of cheery bustle. Here were squires and gentry in lace and velvet, farmers and yeomen in broadcloth and homespun, drovers and shepherds in smock-frocks and leggings; spurs jingled, whips cracked, staves and crooks wagged and flourished in salutation; horsemen and pedestrians jostled one another good-naturedly, exchanging news or shouting jovial greetings; wains and waggons creaked and rumbled, wheels rattled and hoofs stamped, a blithe riot of sounds, for it was market-day.
Now presently, down the hill from London, past the ancient church of St. Mary Westout, drove an elegant travelling-carriage, its panels resplendent with an escutcheon well known hereabouts, for, beholding it, all folk, both gentle and peasant, hasted to make way; so the blood-horses were reined up and the great chariot came to a stand before the portals of the ‘White Hart’ inn, whereupon it was surrounded by a crowd eager for sight of the grand personage whose rank and fame lifted him so high above the vulgar herd.
My Lord Sayle, being in a very black and evil humour, paid scant heed to the shy and somewhat perfunctory greeting accorded him by the spectators, but strode into the inn without deigning a glance right or left.
Forth hasted the bowing landlord to usher his distinguished guest to the best chamber; and my lord, scowling and mumchance, was about to mount the wide stairway when a young gentleman, descending in somewhat of a hurry, had the misfortune to jostle my Lord Sayle’s wounded arm, and was murmuring an apology when my lord interrupted him with a roar that, almost immediately, made them the centre of a curious, gaping crowd, the which served but to inflame my lord the more, and he raged until the place echoed of him.
“Damn ye, sir,” he ended, “if ye were a man instead of a whey-faced lad I’d give myself the joy of killing ye at the earliest moment!”
“Sir,” retorted the unfortunate young gentleman, becoming paler still, “I venture to regard myself as a man, none the less——”
“Ha, do ye, sir—do ye, indeed?” sneered my lord. “Tell him who I am, somebody!” This information being eagerly accorded, the young gentleman appeared to quail, and was about to speak when down the stair sped a young and beautiful woman.
“Jasper—O Jasper!” she cried; then, facing the company wide-eyed and pallid with terror, “Gentlemen,” she pleaded, “my Jasper meant no offence—none, indeed——”
“Then let him make suitable apology!” quoth my lord grimly.
“You hear, Jasper—you hear?”
“My lord,” said the pale young gentleman, his lips painfully a-tremble, “I’ll see you damned first!”
At this the lady screamed, the company murmured and my lord scowled.
“Sir,” quoth he, “have the goodness to send your card to me upstairs! In three weeks or a month, I shall call you to account for your ill-mannered temerity—and your blood be on your own head!” So saying, my Lord Sayle strode up the stair, leaving the unfortunate young gentleman to support his half-swooning companion into an adjacent chamber amid the sympathetic murmurs of the company.
It was now that a second carriage drew up before the inn, an extremely dusty vehicle this, and so very plain as to excite no more notice than did the slender, soberly clad person who lightly descended therefrom, a very ordinary-looking person indeed, except perhaps for a certain arrogant tilt of the chin and the brilliance of his long-lashed eyes.
Scarce had his foot touched pavement than he was greeted by a tall, square-shouldered man, extremely neat and precise as to attire, who escorted him forthwith into the inn.
“Well, Robert,” said Sir John—or rather, Mr. Derwent—when they had found a corner sufficiently sequestered, “I rejoice to be back; these few days of town ha’ sufficed. To your true man o’ sentiment, Rusticity hath a thousand charms, Bob. You agree, I think?”
“I do, sir.”
“Old Mr. Dumbrell, for instance. He is well, I trust, Robert, and——”
“They are, your honour!”
“And how go matters at High Dering?”
“Fairly quiet, sir.”
“You have persevered in the harassing tactics I suggested in regard to our Mr. Sturton?”
“With the utmost per-sistence, sir.”
“You quite understand that I—ha! I hear a woman weeping, surely?”
“Chamber in your rear, sir, door on your right,” answered Robert the Imperturbable; and he briefly recounted the incident of the unfortunate young gentleman.
“Perfect!” sighed Sir John. “Not vainly have I driven these weary miles in my Lord Sayle’s dust. Let us relieve the lady’s anxiety at once, Robert!” With a gentle, perfunctory rap, Sir John opened the door in question and beheld the unfortunate young gentleman on his knees beside the settle, striving vainly to comfort her who lay there in tearful misery.
“If he kills thee, Jasper—if he should kill thee!” she sobbed.
“Nay, dearest—beloved, he may not be so terrible as they say ... he may but wound me——” Here the young gentleman sprang to his feet as Sir John spoke.
“Pray, forgive this intrusion, but I come to quell this lady’s apprehensions, to bid her weep no more. For, sir, you cannot possibly fight my Lord Sayle——”
“But, sir—sir,” stammered the pale young gentleman, “I ... it seems I must. I have already accepted——”
“No matter, sir,” answered Sir John. “You cannot possibly cross steel with my Lord Sayle until I have had that pleasure, since mine is the prior claim, as I will instantly make apparent if you will trouble to step upstairs with me.”
“But, sir ... I ... I don’t understand,” murmured the young gentleman. “Pray, whom have I the honour to address?”
“My name is Dering, sir, John Dering—at your service.”
“Dering!” exclaimed the young gentleman. “Sir John Dering of Dering?”
“Oh!” cried the lady, clasping trembling hands. “The duellist?”
Sir John bowed.
“And my name is Markham, sir——”
“Why, then, Mr. Markham, if you will accompany me upstairs——”
“Willingly, sir,” answered Mr. Markham.
“O Jasper!” cried the lady. “He ... you are not going to—fight?”
“No, no, dearest!”
“Madam,” said Sir John in his gentlest voice, “I pledge my word this gentleman shall not fight my Lord Sayle now or at any other time——”
“You—oh, you are sure, sir?”
“Upon my soul and honour, madam!”
“Then go, Jasper, if you must. But be not long or I shall swoon or run mad!”
“She ... my wife is ... is not ... very strong, sir,” stammered the young gentleman as they ascended the broad stair with the imperturbable Robert at their heels.
“And so very young, sir!” said Sir John sympathetically.
My Lord Sayle was at wine, supported by his two companions, Sir Roland Lingley and Major Orme, and surrounded by young bloods and country beaux who hearkened to his dicta eagerly and viewed with eyes of awesome envy this man who had flashed his terrible steel so often. My lord, used to such hero-worship, condescended to unbend, and was animadverting for their behoof upon the delicate point as to how and when and why to take up a quarrel, when he became aware of a stir at the door, of a quick, light footstep, of a holly-stick that with sudden, graceful twirl swept decanter and glasses crashing to the floor in splintered ruin, of a face delicately pale and lighted by a pair of long-lashed eyes that glared down at him, and of Sir John Dering’s high-pitched, drawling, hated voice:
“If there is any one present who feels himself in the very least affronted, I shall be most happy to accommodate him on the spot!” And, dropping the holly-stick, Sir John drew sword, before whose glitter the company drew back as one man.
“And who the devil might you be?” demanded a voice.
“My name, sirs, is John Dering, and I am here to tell Mr. Markham in your presence that he cannot fight my Lord Sayle since I have the prior claim, a claim I will forgo to no man breathing. I am here also to tell you, gentlemen of Sussex, that I stand solemnly pledged to drive my Lord Sayle out o’ the country or eventually kill him—whichsoever he desire, for——”
Here my Lord Sayle, who had remained like one entranced, staring up into the fiercely scornful eyes above him, succeeded in breaking the spell at last, and, roaring a savage curse, picked up the first thing to hand, which happened to be a snuff-box, and hurled it at his tormentor. But Sir John, ever watchful, avoided the missile, which, striking an inoffensive gentleman on the head, deluged him and those adjacent with snuff, a choking, blinding shower.
Hereupon, clapping perfumed handkerchief to nostrils, Sir John took up the holly-stick, slipped his hand within Mr. Markham’s arm and sped from the room, leaving wild tumult and uproar behind.
Upon the landing, while he paused to sheathe his sword, the imperturbable Robert took occasion to transfer the door-key from inside to out, and having locked the gasping, groaning, cursing sufferers securely in, followed his master downstairs.
“Sir, how——” gasped Mr. Markham between his sneezes. “Sir John, how may I ... a-tish ... express my depths of—gratitude?”
“By hastening back to her who will be growing anxious for you, sir——”
“Aye, I will—I will, sir!” cried Mr. Markham. “You see, sir, she ... I ... we are hoping ... expecting ... a-tisha! ... d’you understand, Sir John?”
“And give ye joy o’ the event, Mr. Markham. My heartiest congratulations and best ... asha!” Here Sir John sneezed violently in turn. “My best—aho—wishes for you and her and—it, sir!”
“Sir John,” quoth Mr. Markham, grasping his hand, “should it be ... a-tish! ... a boy, sir, one of his names, if you’ll permit, shall be ... a-hoosh! ... John, sir!”
“Mr. Markham, I ... I feel myself extreme ... shassho ... honoured, sir. My felicitations to your lady, and good-bye!”
“Robert,” quoth Sir John, when his sneezing had somewhat abated, “they seem to be making a confounded disturbance upstairs! What’s that hammering, I wonder?”
“Gentlemen a-trying to get out, I opine, sir!”
“To get out, Bob?”
“Precisely, sir. You see, I happened to lock ’em in, your honour.”
“Oh, did you, egad? Then we’d best be off and away before they break out. Are the horses ready?”
“All ready, sir—this way!”
So presently, having mounted in the yard, they rode off along the busy street and, winning clear of the traffic, set spurs to their spirited animals and had soon left the historic town of Lewes behind them. Yet often Sir John must turn to view this ancient town, seeming to drowse in the afternoon’s heat, its many-hued roofs of tile and thatch topped here and there by grey church spires; and over all the castle, with its embattled walls and towers, its mighty keep rising in grim majesty, hoary with age but glorious in decay.