The King's Highway Part 19

"I will do my best, my lord," replied Wilton, "and trust I shall be successful. Perhaps I may have more cause for antic.i.p.ating a fortunate result than even your grace, as I have means of instantly ascertaining whether the persons to whom you have alluded have any share in this matter or not; means which I must beg leave to keep secret, but which I shall not fail to employ at once."

"Oh, I was sure," replied the Duke, "that if there was a man in England could do it, you would be the person. I know your activity and your courage too well, not to have every confidence in you."

The coachman had received orders to drive quick; and the hour of nine was just striking on the bell of an old clock at Chelsea when the carriage drove into the court-yard. Wilton sprang out after the Duke; but he did not enter the house.

"I will but go to make some inquiries," he said, "and join your grace in half an hour. I may learn something to-night, and under these circ.u.mstances it is right to lose no time. I should be well pleased, however, to have a cloak, if one of your grace's servants could bring me either a common riding cloak or a roquelaure."

One was immediately procured; and, somewhat to the surprise and admiration of the Duke, who was, as the reader may have perceived, one of those people that are expressively denominated SLOW MEN, he set off instantly to pursue his search, animated by feelings which had now acquired even a deeper interest than ever, and by hopes of the extraordinary circ.u.mstances in which he was placed proving the means of attaining an object well worth the exertion of every energy and every thought.

It was a fine frosty night, with the stars twinkling over head, but no moon, so that his way amongst the narrow lanes which surrounded Beaufort House at that time, was not very easily found. As he walked on, he heard a sharp whistle before him, but it produced nothing, though he proposed to himself to stand upon the defensive, judging from one or two little signs and symptoms which he had seen, that the Green Dragon might protect under the shadow of its wings many persons of a far more fierce and dangerous description than it had itself proved, either as an adversary of St. George, or as an inhabitant of the marshes near Wantley.

He walked on fast, and a glimmering light in the direction from which he had heard the sound proceed at length led him to the hospitable door of the Green Dragon. One sign of hospitality, indeed, it wanted. It stood not open for the entrance of every one who sought admission; and a precautionary minute or two was suffered to pa.s.s before Wilton obtained one glance of the interior.

At length, however, a small iron bolt, which prevented any impertinent intrusion into the penetralia of the Green Dragon, was drawn back, and the l.u.s.ty form of the landlord made its appearance in the pa.s.sage. He instantly recognised Wilton, whose person, indeed, was not very easily forgotten; and laying his finger on the side of his nose, with a look of much sagacity, he led Wilton into a little room which seemed to be his own peculiar abode.

"The Colonel is out, sir," he said, as soon as the door was closed; "and there are things going on I do not much like."

Wilton's mind, full of the thought of Lady Laura, instantly connected the landlord's words with the fact of her disappearance, but refrained from asking any direct question regarding the lady. "Indeed, landlord,"

he said, "I am sorry to hear that. What has happened?"

"Why, sir," answered the landlord, "nothing particular; but only I wish the Colonel was here--that is all. I do not like to see tampering with a gentleman's friends. You understand, sir--I wish the Colonel was here."

"But, landlord," said Wilton, "can he not be found? I wish he were here, too, and if you know where he is, I might seek him. I have something important to say to him."

"Bless you, sir," replied the landlord, "he's half-way to Rochester by this time. He went well nigh two hours ago, and he is not a man to lose time by the way. You'll not see him before to-morrow night, and then, may be, it will be too late. I'd tell you, sir, upon my life," he continued, "if you could find him, for he bade me always do so; but you will not meet with him on this side of Gravesend till to-morrow night, when he will most likely be at the Nag's Head in St. James's Street about the present blessed hour. I've known him a long time now, sir, and I will say I never saw such another gentleman ON THE WAY, though there is Mr. Byerly and many others that are all very gentlemanlike--but bless you, sir, they do it nothing like the Colonel, so I do not wish him to be wronged."

"Of course not," answered Wilton; "but tell me, landlord, had he heard of this unfortunate business of the lady being carried off, before he went?"

"Lord bless you, no, sir," replied the man--"I only heard of it myself an hour ago. But one of our people was talking with a waterman just above there, and he said that there was a covered barge--like a gentleman's barge--came down at a great rate, about six o'clock; and he vowed that he heard somebody moaning and crying in it; but likely that is not true, for he never said a word till after he heard of the Duke's young lady having been whipped up."

Wilton obtained easily the name and address of the waterman, and finding that there was no chance whatever of gaining any further intelligence of Green, or any means of communicating with him at an earlier period than the following night, he took his leave of the good host, and rose to depart. The landlord, however, stopped him for a moment.

"Stay a bit, Master Brown," he said. "You see, I rather think there are one or two gentlemen in the lane waiting just to talk a word with my good Lord Peterborough, who is likely to pa.s.s by; and as the Colonel told me that you were not just in that way of business yourself, you had better take the boy with you."

"No, indeed," replied Wilton, somewhat bitterly, "I am not exactly, as you say, in that way of business myself. I am being taught to rob on a larger scale."

"Oh, sir!" exclaimed the landlord, not at all understanding Wilton's allusion to his political pursuits, "all these gentlemen keep the highway a horseback too. This foot-padding is only done just for a bit of amus.e.m.e.nt, and because the Colonel is out of the way. He would be very angry if he knew it.--But I did not know you were upon the road at all, sir."

"No, no," replied Wilton, smiling, "I was only joking, my good friend.

The sort of robbery I meant was aiding kings and ministers to rob and cheat each other."

"Ay, ay, sir!" said the landlord, now entering into his meaning, and taking as a good joke what Wilton had really spoken in sadness--"you should have called it miching, sir--miching on a great scale. Well, that's worse than t'other. Give me the King's Highway, I say! only I'm too fat and pursy now."

This said, he went and called a little boy well trained in bearing foaming pots from place to place, who soon conducted Wilton back in safety to the house of the Duke, and then undertook to send up the waterman with all speed. By this time the Messenger from the Earl of Byerdale had arrived; but although the good gentlemen called Messengers, in those days, exercised many of the functions of a Bow-street officer, and possessed all the keen and cunning sagacity of that two-legged race of ferrets, neither he nor Wilton could elicit any farther information from the waterman than that which had been already obtained.

"I think, sir, I think, your grace," said the Messenger, bowing low to the statesman's secretary, and still lower to the Duke, "I think that we must give the business up for to-night, for we shall make no more of it. To-morrow morning, as early as you please, Mr. Brown, I shall be ready to go down the river with you, and I think we had better have this young man's boat, as he saw the barge which he thinks took the young lady away. Hark ye, my man," he continued, addressing the waterman, "you've seen fifty guineas, haven't you?"

"Why, never in my own hand, your honour," replied the man, with a grin.

"Well, then, you'll see them in your hand, and your own money too, if by your information we find out this young lady; so go away now, and try to discover any one of your comrades who knows something of the matter, and come with a wherry to the Duke's stairs to-morrow morning as soon as it is daylight."

"Ay, ay, we'll find her, sir, I'll bet something," said the man; and with this speech, the only consolatory one which had yet been made by any of the party, he left them. The Messenger having now done all that he thought sufficient, retired comfortably to repose, shaking from his mind at once all recollection of a business in which his heart took no part. Nothing on earth marks more distinctly that the Spirit or the Soul, with all its fine sensibilities and qualities, both of suffering and acting, is of distinct being from the mere Intellect, which is, in fact, but the soul's prime minister, than the manner in which two people of equal powers of mind will act in circ.u.mstances where the welfare of a third person, dear to the one, and not dear to the other, is concerned. A sense of what is right, some accidental duty, or mere common philanthropy, may often cause the one to exert all his powers with the utmost activity to obtain the object in view; but the moment that he has done all that seems possible, the soul tells the mind to throw off the burden for the time; and, casting away all thought of the matter, he lays himself down comfortably to sleep and forgetfulness. The other, however, in whose bosom some more deep interest exists, pursues the object also by every means that can be suggested; but when all is done, and the mind is wearied, the soul does not suffer the intellect to repose, but, still engaged in the pursuit, calls the mind to labour with anxious thought, even though that thought may be employed in vain.

For some hours after the Messenger was sound asleep, and had forgotten the whole transaction in the arms of slumber, Wilton sat conversing with the Duke, and endeavouring to draw from him even the smallest particulars of all that had taken place during the last few days, with the hope of discovering some probable cause for the event.

The Duke, however, though disposed to be communicative towards Wilton on most subjects, showed a shyness of approaching anything connected with the meeting in Leadenhall-street.

It was evident, indeed, that all his suspicions turned upon Sir John Fenwick, and he admitted that a violent quarrel had occurred after the meeting; but he showed so evident an inclination to avoid entering into the subject farther, that Wilton in common delicacy could not press him. Finding it in vain to seek any more information in that quarter, Wilton at length retired to rest, but sleep came not near his eyelids. He now lay revolving all that had occurred, endeavouring to extract from the little that was really known some light, however faint, to lead to farther discovery. In the darkness of the night, imagination, too, came in, and pictured a thousand vague but horrible probabilities regarding the fate of the beautiful girl with whom he had so lately walked in sweet companions.h.i.+p on the very terrace from which it appeared that she had been violently taken away. Fancy had wide range to roam, both in regard to the objects of those who had carried her off, to the place whither they had borne her, and to the probability of ever recovering her or not. But Fancy stopped not there--she suggested doubts to Wilton's mind as to the fact of her having been carried off at all. The terrible apprehension that she might, by some accident, have fallen into the river returned upon him. The feet-marks upon the gravel, he thought, might very naturally have been produced by the servants in their first search; and it was not at all improbable that some one of them, thinking that his young mistress had fallen into the water, might have placed his foot upon the gunwale of the barge to lean forward for a clearer view of the river under the terrace.

As he thought of all these things, and tortured his heart with apprehensions, the conviction came upon the mind of Wilton, that, notwithstanding every difference of station, and the utter hopelessness of love in his case, Laura had become far, far dearer to him than any other being upon earth; had produced in his bosom sensations such as he had never known before; sensations which were first discovered fully in that hour of pain and anxiety, and which, alas! promised but anguish and disappointment for the years to come.

There was, nevertheless, something fascinating in the conviction, which, once admitted, he would not willingly have parted with; and it gradually led his thoughts to what Lord Sherbrooke had told him concerning his own fate and family. That information, indeed, brought him but little hope in the present case, though we should speak falsely were we to a.s.sert that it brought him no hope. The gleam was faint, and doubting that it would last, he tried voluntarily to extinguish it in his own heart. He called to mind how many there were, whose families, engaged in the late troubles during the reigns of Charles and James, had never been able to raise themselves again, but had sunk into obscurity, and died in poverty and exile. He recollected how many of them and of their children had been driven to betake themselves to the lowest, and even the most criminal courses; and he bethought him, that if he were the child of any of these, he might think himself but too fortunate in having obtained an inferior station which gave him competence at least. The cloud might never be cleared away from his fate; and he recollected, that even if it were so, there was but little if any chance of his obtaining, with every advantage, that which he had learned to desire even without hope. He knew that the Duke was a proud man, proud of his family, proud of his wealth, proud of his daughter, proud of his rank, and that he had judged it even a very great condescension to consent to a marriage between his daughter and the son of the Earl of Byerdale, a n.o.bleman of immense wealth, vast influence, most ancient family, and one who, from his power in the counsels of his sovereign, might, in fact, be considered the prime minister of the day. He knew, I say, that the Duke had considered his consent as a very great condescension; and he had remarked that very night, that Laura's father, even in the midst of his grief and anxiety, had made the Earl feel, by his whole tone and manner, that in the opinion of the Duke of Gaveston there was a vast distinction between himself and the Earl of Byerdale. What chance was there, then, he asked himself, for one without any advantages, even were the happiest explanation to be given to the mystery of his own early history?

Thus pa.s.sed the night, but before daylight on the following morning he was up and dressed; and, accompanied by the Messenger, he went down the river with two watermen; both of whom declared that they had seen the covered barge pa.s.s down at the very hour of Lady Laura's disappearance, and had heard sounds as if from the voice of a person in distress.

We shall not follow Wilton minutely on his search, as not a little of our tale remains to be told. Suffice it to say, that from Chelsea to Woolwich he made inquiries at every wharf and stairs, examined every boat in the least like that which had been seen, and spoke with every waterman whom he judged likely to give information; but all in vain.

At that time almost every n.o.bleman and gentleman in London, as well as all merchants, who possessed any ready means of access to the Thames, had each a private stairs down to the river, with his barge, which was neither more nor less than a large covered boat, somewhat resembling a Venetian gondola, but much more roomy and comfortable.

Thus the inquiries of Wilton and the Messenger occupied a considerable s.p.a.ce of time, and the day was far spent when they turned again at Woolwich, and began to row up the stream. Wilton, on his part, felt inclined to land, and, hiring a horse, to proceed to the Duke's house with greater rapidity--but the Messenger shook his head, saying, "No, no, sir: that wont do. We must go through the same work all over again up the river. There's quite a different set of people at the water-side in the morning and in the evening. We are much more likely to hear tidings this afternoon than we were in the early part of the day."

Wilton saw the justice of the man's remark, and acquiesced readily.

But he did so only to procure for himself, as it turned out, a bitter and painful addition to the apprehensions which already tormented him. In pa.s.sing London bridge, one of the heavy barges used in the conveyance of merchandise was seen moored at a little distance below the bridge, and in the neighbourhood of the fall. A great number of men were in her, rolling up various ropes and grappling irons, while a personage dressed as one of the city officers appeared at their head. Ile was directing them at the moment to unmoor the barge, and bring her to one of the wharfs again; but the boatmen of Wilton's boat, without any orders, immediately rowed up to the barge, and the Messenger inquired what the officer and his comrades were about.

The officer, who seemed to know him, replied at once, "Why, Mr.

Arden, we are dragging here to see if we can get hold of the boat or any of the bodies that went down last night."

"Ay, Smith," replied the Messenger, "what boat was that? I haven't heard of it."

"Why, some stupid fools," replied the officer, "dropping down the river in a barge about half-past eight last night, tried to shoot the arch at half tide, struck the pier, got broadside on at the fall, and of course capsized and went down. If it had been a wherry, the boat would have floated, but being a covered barge, and all the windows shut, she went down in a minute, and there she sticks; but we can't well tell where, though I saw the whole thing happen with my own eyes."

"Did you see who was in the barge?" demanded the Messenger.

"I saw there were three men in her," the officer replied, "but I couldn't see their faces or the colour of their clothes, for it was very dark; and if it had not been for the two great lamps at the jeweller's on the bridge, I should not have seen so much as I did. We are going home now, for we have not light to see; but we got up one of the bodies, drifted down nearly half a mile on the Southwark side there."

"Was it a man or a woman?" demanded Wilton, eagerly.

"A man, sir," replied the officer. "It turns out to be Jones, the waterman by Fulham."

Wilton did not speak for a moment, and the Messenger was struck, and silent likewise. When they recovered a little, however, they explained to the officer briefly the object of their search upon the river, and he was easily induced to continue dragging at the spot where he thought the boat had disappeared. He was unsuccessful, however; and, after labouring for about half an hour, the total failure of light compelled them to desist without any farther discovery. Wilton then landed with the Messenger; and with his brain feeling as if on fire, and a heart wrung with grief, he rode back, as soon as horses could be procured, to carry the sad tidings which he had obtained to Laura's father.

CHAPTER XX.

A spirit--though rather of a better kind than that which drags too many of our unfortunate countrymen into the abodes of wickedness and corruption, now called Gin Pal--es, so liberally provided for them in the metropolis--abodes licensed and patronised by the government for the temptation of the lower orders of the populace to commit and harden themselves in the great besetting vice of this country--a spirit, I say, of a better kind than this, drags me into a house of public entertainment, called the Nag's Head, in St. James's Street.

The Nag's Head, in St. James's Street!!!

Now, though n.o.body would be in the least surprised to have read or heard of the Nag's Head in the Borough, yet there is probably not a single reader who will see this collocation of the "Nag's Head" with "St. James's Street" without an exclamation, or at least a feeling of surprise, at it being possible there should ever have been such a thing in St. James's Street at all--that is to say, not a nag's head, either horsically or hobbyhorsically speaking, but tavernistically; for be it known to all men, that the Nag's Head here mentioned was an inn or tavern actually in the very middle of the royal and fas.h.i.+onable street called St. James's. One might write a whole chapter upon the variations and mutations of the names of inns, and inquire curiously whether their modification in various places and at various times depends merely upon fas.h.i.+on, or whether it is produced by some really existing but latent sympathy between peculiar names, as applied to inns, and particular circ.u.mstances, affecting localities, times, seasons, and national character.