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第53章

st. ives-第53章

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dogs … a couple of snuffy and shambling figures; each wrapped in a 

plaid; each armed with a rude staff; and I was immediately bowed 

down to have forgotten them so long; and of late to have thought of 

them so cavalierly。



Sure enough there was my errand!  As a private person I was neither 

French nor English; I was something else first: a loyal gentleman; 

an honest man。  Sim and Candlish must not be left to pay the 

penalty of my unfortunate blow。  They held my honour tacitly 

pledged to succour them; and it is a sort of stoical refinement 

entirely foreign to my nature to set the political obligation above 

the personal and private。  If France fell in the interval for the 

lack of Anne de St。…Yves; fall she must!  But I was both surprised 

and humiliated to have had so plain a duty bound upon me for so 

long … and for so long to have neglected and forgotten it。  I think 

any brave man will understand me when I say that I went to bed and 

to sleep with a conscience very much relieved; and woke again in 

the morning with a light heart。  The very danger of the enterprise 

reassured me: to save Sim and Candlish (suppose the worst to come 

to the worst) it would be necessary for me to declare myself in a 

court of justice; with consequences which I did not dare to dwell 

upon; it could never be said that I had chosen the cheap and the 

easy … only that in a very perplexing competition of duties I had 

risked my life for the most immediate。



We resumed the journey with more diligence: thenceforward posted 

day and night; did not halt beyond what was necessary for meals; 

and the postillions were excited by gratuities; after the habit of 

my cousin Alain。  For twopence I could have gone farther and taken 

four horses; so extreme was my haste; running as I was before the 

terrors of an awakened conscience。  But I feared to be conspicuous。  

Even as it was; we attracted only too much attention; with our pair 

and that white elephant; the seventy…pounds…worth of claret…

coloured chaise。



Meanwhile I was ashamed to look Rowley in the face。  The young 

shaver had contrived to put me wholly in the wrong; he had cost me 

a night's rest and a severe and healthful humiliation; and I was 

grateful and embarrassed in his society。  This would never do; it 

was contrary to all my ideas of discipline; if the officer has to 

blush before the private; or the master before the servant; nothing 

is left to hope for but discharge or death。  I hit upon the idea of 

teaching him French; and accordingly; from Lichfield; I became the 

distracted master; and he the scholar … how shall I say? 

indefatigable; but uninspired。  His interest never flagged。  He 

would hear the same word twenty times with profound refreshment; 

mispronounce it in several different ways; and forget it again with 

magical celerity。  Say it happened to be STIRRUP。  'No; I don't 

seem to remember that word; Mr。 Anne;' he would say: 'it don't seem 

to stick to me; that word don't。'  And then; when I had told it him 

again; 'ETRIER!' he would cry。  'To be sure!  I had it on the tip 

of my tongue。  ETERIER!' (going wrong already; as if by a fatal 

instinct)。  'What will I remember it by; now?  Why; INTERIOR; to be 

sure!  I'll remember it by its being something that ain't in the 

interior of a horse。'  And when next I had occasion to ask him the 

French for stirrup; it was a toss…up whether he had forgotten all 

about it; or gave me EXTERIOR for an answer。  He was never a hair 

discouraged。  He seemed to consider that he was covering the ground 

at a normal rate。  He came up smiling day after day。  'Now; sir; 

shall we do our French?' he would say; and I would put questions; 

and elicit copious commentary and explanation; but never the shadow 

of an answer。  My hands fell to my sides; I could have wept to hear 

him。  When I reflected that he had as yet learned nothing; and what 

a vast deal more there was for him to learn; the period of these 

lessons seemed to unroll before me vast as eternity; and I saw 

myself a teacher of a hundred; and Rowley a pupil of ninety; still 

hammering on the rudiments!  The wretched boy; I should say; was 

quite unspoiled by the inevitable familiarities of the journey。  He 

turned out at each stage the pink of serving…lads; deft; civil; 

prompt; attentive; touching his hat like an automaton; raising the 

status of Mr。 Ramornie in the eyes of all the inn by his smiling 

service; and seeming capable of anything in the world but the one 

thing I had chosen … learning French!









CHAPTER XXIII … THE ADVENTURE OF THE RUNAWAY COUPLE





THE country had for some time back been changing in character。  By 

a thousand indications I could judge that I was again drawing near 

to Scotland。  I saw it written in the face of the hills; in the 

growth of the trees; and in the glint of the waterbrooks that kept 

the high…road company。  It might have occurred to me; also; that I 

was; at the same time; approaching a place of some fame in Britain 

… Gretna Green。  Over these same leagues of road … which Rowley and 

I now traversed in the claret…coloured chaise; to the note of the 

flageolet and the French lesson … how many pairs of lovers had gone 

bowling northwards to the music of sixteen scampering horseshoes; 

and how many irate persons; parents; uncles; guardians; evicted 

rivals; had come tearing after; clapping the frequent red face to 

the chaise…window; lavishly shedding their gold about the post…

houses; sedulously loading and re…loading; as they went; their 

avenging pistols!  But I doubt if I had thought of it at all; 

before a wayside hazard swept me into the thick of an adventure of 

this nature; and I found myself playing providence with other 

people's lives; to my own admiration at the moment … and 

subsequently to my own brief but passionate regret。



At rather an ugly corner of an uphill reach I came on the wreck of 

a chaise lying on one side in the ditch; a man and a woman in 

animated discourse in the middle of the road; and the two 

postillions; each with his pair of horses; looking on and laughing 

from the saddle。



'Morning breezes! here's a smash!' cried Rowley; pocketing his 

flageolet in the middle of the TIGHT LITTLE ISLAND。



I was perhaps more conscious of the moral smash than the physical … 

more alive to broken hearts than to broken chaises; for; as plain 

as the sun at morning; there was a screw loose in this runaway 

match。  It is always a bad sign when the lower classes laugh: their 

taste in humour is both poor and sinister; and for a man; running 

the posts with four horses; presumably with open pockets; and in 

the company of the most entrancing little creature conceivable; to 

have come down so far as to be laughed at by his own postillions; 

was only to be explained on the double hypothesis; that he was a 

fool and no gentleman。



I have said they were man and woman。  I should have said man and 

child。  She was certainly not more than seventeen; pretty as an 

angel; just plump enough to damn a saint; and dressed in various 

shades of blue; from her stockings to her saucy cap; in a kind of 

taking gamut; the top note of which she flung me in a beam from her 

too appreciative eye。  There was no doubt about the case: I saw it 

all。  From a boarding…school; a black…board; a piano; and 

Clementi's SONATINAS; the child had made a rash adventure upon life 

in the company of a half…bred hawbuck; and she was already not only 

regretting it; but expressing her regret with point and pungency。



As I alighted they both paused with that unmistakable air of being 

interrupted in a scene。  I uncovered to the lady and placed my 

services at their disposal。



It was the man who answered。  'There's no use in shamming; sir;' 

said he。  'This lady and I have run away; and her father's after 

us: road to Gretna; sir。  And here have these nincompoops spilt us 


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