Arrah Neil; or, Times of Old

by G. P. R. James

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  At the door of Captain Barecolt's room Nancy put the candle in hishand, and made him a low curtsey, which might be partly in answer tovarious civil speeches which the worthy and respectable gentleman hadaddressed to her as they went up-stairs, partly as a hint that she didnot intend to go any farther in his company; for to say the truth, thenose of the tall captain was not at all prepossessing in Nancy's eyes.

  "I want to speak de leetle vord vid you, my dear," said CaptainBarecolt, taking the candle.

  The girl, however, only dropped him another curtsey, replying, "Well,sir, what is it? Pray be quick, for missis will want me."

  "Tell me, my dear," said Barecolt, lowering his voice, "vat be datgentleman dat I see come in just now?--he who were vat you callteepsy?"

  "Oh, he is a lodger, sir," replied Nancy, turning round to go away.

  "Stop, stop!" said Barecolt: "answer me de oder leetle vord. Have hegot von young lady vid him?"

  "Yes, sir; no more," replied Nancy.

  "And in dis house?" asked Captain Barecolt.

  "Yes, sir," rejoined the girl again; "just in there: he locks the doorupon her, the old vermin!" she added, not at all approving such anabridgment of female liberty, and looking upon Mr. Dry as littlebetter than a Turk in the garb of a Calvinist.

  "Ah! he be de monstrous big rogue!" replied Barecolt. "I tought I seehim before; I know him, Nancee; I know him vell for one extravagantgreat tief."

  "He is not very extravagant here," answered the maid; "but I must go,sir, upon my word;" and, whisking round, she descended the stairs, atthe foot of which her mistress called her into the little parlour, andinquired what that man had been saying to her.

  "Oh, he was asking about the gentleman in the chamber, ma'am," wasNancy's reply; "and he says that he is an extravagant thief, that hehas seen him before, and knows him."

  Mrs. White looked at Mr. O'Donnell, and Mr. O'Donnell at Mrs. White,and then the landlady murmured, "He is not far wrong, I fancy;" towhich Mr. O'Donnell assented by a nod.

  In the mean while Captain Barecolt entered his bedchamber, set downthe candle, and stretched his long limbs upon a chair, after which hefell into a fit of thought, not gloomy, but profound. He was a man wholoved adventures, as the reader is aware, and he saw a wonderfulprovision of them before him, in which he hoped and expected to havean opportunity of developing many of those vast and importantqualities which he attributed to himself.

  Wit, courage, cunning, presence of mind, dexterity of action, togetherwith his wonderful powers of strategy, were all likely to have fullmeans of displaying themselves in the twofold enterprise of deliveringArrah Neil from the hands of Mr. Dry, of Longsoaken, and Lord Beverleyfrom the clutches of Sir John Hotham. He was well contented with whathe had done already. To have cheated a governor of Hull, to haveobtained his liberty in five minutes, to have passed for a Frenchman,to have cast off the companionship of the embarrassing Mr. Jenkins,were feats of no light merit in his eyes; and he now proposed to goon, step by step, till he had reached the climax of accomplishment;first using art, then daring, and crowning the whole by some brilliantdisplay of courage, which would immortalize him in the eyes of theroyalist party.

  After he had thus continued to think for about a quarter of an hour,and had arrived at the point of doubting whether he was in fact JuliusC[ae]sar or Alexander the Great, with some slight suspicion that hemight be neither, but Henry IV. of France instead, he opened the doorquietly, and, without taking the candle, advanced to the head of thestairs, where, bending down his head, he listened for a moment. Therewas a dull, heavy sound of people talking, however; and a man's voicewas heard, though the words he used could not be made out.

  "Ay, that d--d fellow is there still!" murmured Captain Barecolt: "ifhe does not go soon, I'll walk down and cut his throat." But, just ashe was turning to go back to his own room, he heard the door of thelittle parlour--which, as it closed with a pulley and weight,announced its movements by a prodigious rattle--give indications ofits being opened, and the voice of Mr. O'Donnell could bedistinguished, as he marched out, saying--

  "The first thing to be done, however, Mrs. White, is to get her out ofthis man's hands."

  Captain Barecolt waited till the Irishman's footsteps sounded nolonger in the hall, and then, walking downstairs, proceeded straightinto the little parlour, and, much to the astonishment of Mrs. White,seated himself before her, saying in good plain English--

  "I think so too, Mrs. White."

  "Lord, sir! what do you mean?" asked the worthy landlady.

  "I mean, the first thing is, to get her out of this man's hands, Mrs.White. So now let me have some supper, and I will tell you all aboutit."

  "Dear me, sir! Why, this is very funny," replied the landlady, with anagitated smoothing of the table-cloth, and a tremulous arranging ofthe jugs and plates; "I didn't know that any one heard what thegentleman said."

  "But I did, though, Mrs. White," replied Barecolt, "loud words willalways catch long ears."

  "Why, Lord, sir, you speak as good English as I do!" said Mrs. White.

  "To be sure I do," answered Barecolt; "I should be a fool if I didn't.But now, my good lady, tell me if I can trust you; for, although myown life is a thing that I care nothing about, and is risked every daywherever it can be risked by shot and steel, in the breach and in thefield, there is much more to be perilled by anything like rashnessthan such a trifle as that. There's this young lady's safety andliberty, and I can tell you that there are a great many very highpeople who would give no light reward to those who would set her freefrom this base caitiff who has got her."

  "Dear me!" cried Mrs. White; "I wish I had known that before, for herehave we been talking of nothing else for the last hour, Mr. O'Donnelland I. Do you know who she is, sir?"

  "I know more than I choose to say, Mrs. White," replied Barecolt, whohad made it the first principle of his life, from soft childhood torubicund maturity, never to confess ignorance of anything, and who hadfrequently made a significant nod or a wise look pass for a wholevolume of information; "but what I ask you is, can I trust you, Mrs.White? can I trust to your zeal, fidelity, and discretion? as the Dukeof Montmorenci asked me, when he was about So take arms for thedeliverance of France from the tyranny of Richelieu. I made him a lowbow, Mrs. White, laid my hand upon my heart, and said, 'Perfectly,monseigneur;' rind if he had taken my advice, he would now have had ahead upon his shoulders."

  "Lord have mercy!" exclaimed Mrs. White, overpowered with the grandand tragic ideas which her strange guest presented to her imagination."Oh, dear me! yes, sir; you can trust to me perfectly, I assure you. Iwould risk my house and everything rather than not set the poor deargirl free from that nasty old puritanical creature. Why, this was thevery first house she came to after she came over from Ireland, thoughMr. O'Donnell says they went to Holland first to escape suspicion. Ay,and here her poor mother died."

  "Indeed!" said Captain Barecolt, drinking in all the tidings that heheard; "I did not know that this was the house, Mrs. White. However, Iam glad to hear it. A very good house it is, and capital wine. Youmust know, then, Mrs. White, since I can trust you fully, that I cameinto Hull for the express purpose of setting this young lady free, andrestoring her to her friends, Lord Walton and his sister."

  The worthy captain, as the reader will perceive, was never at a lossfor a lie, and indeed the habit of telling the exact truth had been solong abandoned, if ever it was possessed, that the worthy professor ofthe sword might have found no slight difficulty in avoiding everyshade of falsehood which his fertile imagination was continuallyoffering him to embellish his various narratives withal. He had noparticular object in deceiving Mrs. White, in regard to the real mode,manner, and object of his visit to Hull; but it was his generalpractice to begin by telling the lie first, and leaving the truth as asort of strong corps of reserve to fall back upon in case of need.

  "Dear me, sir!" cried Mrs. White; "why, Mr. Jenkins told me that yo
uwere a Frenchman who had come over to serve our poor good king againstthese parliamentary folks; that you had been taken prisoner, and nowoffer to serve the parliament."

  "All a lie, all a lie, Mrs. White," replied Captain Barecolt; "it iswonderful what lies people will tell when it is quite as easy to speakthe truth. However, in saying I was a Frenchman, he knew no better,poor silly man, for I pretended to be so in order to carry on myschemes the better. But as I see you are true to the royal cause, Iwill let you know I am an officer in the king's service, and have nointention whatever of being anything else. Neither must you suppose,Mrs. White, that I come here as a spy; for, although I hold that uponcertain occasions the office of spy may become honourable, yet it isnot one that I would willingly fill. So now, Mrs. White, as I saidbefore, let me have some supper, and then tell me what is to be donefor the deliverance of this young lady."

  Captain Barecolt had risen wonderfully in the estimation of Mrs. Whiteduring the last five minutes; and, such is the effect of our mentalaffections upon our corporeal faculties, that she began to think himby no means so ugly a man as he had at first appeared: his nosereduced itself into very tolerable and seemly proportions in her eyes,the redness thereof became nothing more than a pleasant glow, and histall figure and somewhat long, ungainly limbs acquired an air ofdignity and command which Mrs. White thought very striking.

  Bustling about, then, she prepared to supply him with the comfortablethings of this life with great good-will, and was struck withconsiderable admiration at the vigour and pertinacity with which heassailed the viands placed before him. She was obliged, indeed, tocall to Nancy to bring a fresh supply; but Captain Barecolt made asignificant sign, by laying his finger on the side of his nose, whichorgan might be considered indeed as a sort of telegraph erected bynature with a view to such signals; and he afterwards reminded her, ina low voice, that his incognito must be kept up with all others butherself.

  "You are the only confidante I shall make in the town of Hull," headded: "one confederate is quite sufficient for a man of genius, andto everybody else I am de same Capitaine Jereval dat came over fromFrance to help de king, but be now villing to help de parliament."

  "Lawk, sir, how well you do it!" said the landlady; "but I think youare very right not to tell any one but me; for they are a sad, prying,gossiping race in the town of Hull, and you might soon have yoursecret blown over the place. But as to poor Miss Arrah, sir, I reallydo not know what is to be done. I can see very well that Mr. O'Donnellknows more about her than he chooses to say; and I can find that itwas through him that the poor lady, her mother, held hercommunications with Ireland. He won't tell me who she is, though, norwhat was her father's name, nor her mother's either, though I tried topump him as hard as I could. Perhaps you, sir, may be able to tellme."

  "There Is such a thing as discretion, Mrs. White," said CaptainBarecolt, with a sagacious air; but, suspecting that Mrs. White hadsome doubts regarding him and his knowledge of Arrah, and was onlytrying to ascertain how far his information respecting her reallyextended, he added, "I suppose the young lady is in bed by this time;but I should be glad, Mrs. White, if you would take the firstopportunity of telling her, that one of the gentlemen who accompaniedLord Walton from Bishop's Merton is now in Hull, and will not quit theplace without setting her free."

  "Oh, bless you, sir! I dare say she is not in bed," answered Mrs.White; "and if she be, I should not mind waking her to tell her suchgood news as that. I'll go directly," she continued, shaking her bunchof keys significantly. "The old hunx locks the door and takes away thekey, and then gets as drunk as a beast, so that she might starve forthat matter, but I can always get in notwithstanding."

  "Ay, ay!" answered Barecolt; "a landlady is nothing without herpass-key, so run and make use of it, there's a dear woman; and if theyoung lady is up I will go and see her now. If she is not, it must beto-morrow morning."

  Mrs. White was absent for about five minutes, during which timeCaptain Barecolt continued his attack upon the cold beef, so that, bythe time the worthy landlady returned, the vast sirloin looked as if amammoth had been feeding on it.

  "Oh, dear sir!" said Mrs. White, "she is so glad to hear that you arehere! and she would fain get up and go away with you this very night,but I told her that couldn't be, for the gates are closed and locked."

  "Locks are nothing to me, Mrs. White," replied the captain, with asublime look; "and gates disappear before my hand as if they were madeof pasteboard. Did I not, with a single petard, blow open the PorteNantoise of Ancenis, which weighed three tons weight, and took two mento move it on its hinges?"

  "Lord ha' mercy, sir!" exclaimed Mrs. White; "why, you are as bad asSamson."

  "A great deal worse," replied the captain; "but, however, I could notgo to-night, for there's other business to be done first."

  "Oh ay, yes, sir," she said: "to get the papers; for I do not knowwhether you are aware that that old puritanical wretch has got all thepapers and things out of poor Sergeant Neil's cottage--at least wethink so; and I don't doubt in the least that all about poor MissArrah is to be found there."

  "Nor I either, Mrs. White," answered Barecolt; "but can I see theyoung lady to-night, or must I wait till tomorrow?"

  "She will be up in a few minutes, sir," replied the worthy landlady."She would not hear of waiting, though I told her I could easily getthe old man out of the way tomorrow by sending him a wild-goose chaseafter Hugh O'Donnell."

  "Well, then," said Barecolt, "you go and see when she is ready, and inthe mean time I'll finish my supper."