The Amateur Gentleman Part 1

The Amateur Gentleman.

by Jeffery Farnol.

CHAPTER I

IN WHICH BABNABAS KNOCKS DOWN HIS FATHER, THOUGH AS DUTIFULLY AS MAY BE

John Barty, ex-champion of England and landlord of the "Coursing Hound," sat screwed round in his chair with his eyes yet turned to the door that had closed after the departing lawyer fully five minutes ago, and his eyes were wide and blank, and his mouth (grim and close-lipped as a rule) gaped, becoming aware of which, he closed it with a snap, and pa.s.sed a great knotted fist across his brow.

"Barnabas," said he slowly, "I beant asleep an' dreaming be I, Barnabas?"

"No, father!"

"But--seven--'undred--thousand--pound. It were seven--'undred thousand pound, weren't it, Barnabas?"

"Yes, father!"

"Seven--'undred--thou--! No! I can't believe it, Barnabas my bye."

"Neither can I, father," said Barnabas, still staring down at the papers which littered the table before him.

"Nor I aren't a-going to try to believe it, Barnabas."

"And yet--here it is, all written down in black and white, and you heard what Mr. Crabtree said?"

"Ah,--I heered, but arter all Crabtree's only a lawyer--though a good un as lawyers go, always been honest an' square wi'

me--leastways I 've never caught him trying to bamboozle John Barty yet--an' what the eye don't ob-serve the heart don't grieve, Barnabas my bye, an' there y'are. But seven 'undred thousand pound is coming it a bit too strong--if he'd ha' knocked off a few 'undred thousand I could ha' took it easier Barnabas, but, as it is--no, Barnabas!"

"It's a great fortune!" said Barnabas in the same repressed tone and with his eyes still intent.

"Fortun'," repeated the father, "fortun'--it's fetched me one in the ribs--low, Barnabas, low!--it's took my wind an' I'm a-hanging on to the ropes, lad. Why, Lord love me! I never thought as your uncle Tom 'ad it in him to keep hisself from starving, let alone make a fortun'!

My scapegrace brother Tom--poor Tom as sailed away in a emigrant s.h.i.+p (which is a un-common bad kind of a s.h.i.+p to sail in--so I've heered, Barnabas) an' now, to think as he went an' made all that fortun'--away off in Jamaiky--out o' vegetables."

"And lucky speculation, father--!"

"Now, Barnabas," exclaimed his father, beginning to rasp his fingers to and fro across his great, square, shaven chin, "why argufy? Your uncle Tom was a planter--very well! Why is a man a planter--because he plants things, an' what should a man plant but vegetables? So Barnabas, vegetables I says, an' vegetables I abide by, now an'

hereafter. Seven 'undred thousand pound all made in Jamaiky--out o'

vegetables--an' there y' are!"

Here John Barty paused and sat with his chin 'twixt finger and thumb in expectation of his son's rejoinder, but finding him silent, he presently continued:

"Now what astonishes an' fetches me a leveller as fair doubles me up is--why should my brother Tom leave all this money to a young hop o'

me thumb like you, Barnabas? you, as he never see but once and you then a infant (and large for your age) in your blessed mother's arms, Barnabas, a-kicking an' a-squaring away wi' your little pink fists as proper as ever I seen inside the Ring or out. Ah, Barnabas!"

sighed his father shaking his head at him, "you was a promising infant, likewise a promising bye; me an' Natty Bell had great hopes of ye, Barnabas; if you'd been governed by me and Natty Bell you might ha' done us all proud in the Prize Ring. You was cut out for the 'Fancy.' Why, Lord! you might even ha' come to be Champion o'

England in time--you 're the very spit o' what I was when I beat the Fighting Quaker at Dartford thirty years ago."

"But you see, father--"

"That was why me an' Natty Bell took you in hand--learned you all we knowed o' the game--an' there aren't a fighting man in all England as knows so much about the n.o.ble Art as me an' Natty Bell."

"But father--"

"If you 'd only followed your nat'ral gifts, Barnabas, I say you might ha' been Champion of England to-day, wi' Markisses an' Lords an' Earls proud to shake your hand--if you'd only been ruled by Natty Bell an' me, I'm disappointed in ye, Barnabas--an' so's Natty Bell."

"I'm sorry, father--but as I told you--"

"Still Barnabas, what ain't to be, ain't--an' what is, is. Some is born wi' a nat'ral love o' the 'Fancy' an' gift for the game, like me an' Natty Bell--an' some wi' a love for reading out o' books an'

a-cyphering into books--like you: though a reader an' a writer generally has a hard time on it an' dies poor--which, arter all, is only nat'ral--an' there y' are!"

Here John Barty paused to take up the tankard of ale at his elbow, and pursed up his lips to blow off the foam, but in that moment, observing his son about to speak, he immediately set down the ale untasted and continued:

"Not as I quarrels wi' your reading and writing, Barnabas, no, and because why? Because reading and writing is apt to be useful now an'

then, and because it were a promise--as I made--to--your mother.

When--your mother were alive, Barnabas, she used to keep all my accounts for me. She likewise larned me to spell my own name wi' a capital G for John, an' a capital B for Barty, an' when she died, Barnabas (being a infant, you don't remember), but when she died, lad!

I was that lost--that broke an' helpless, that all the fight were took out o' me, and it's a wonder I didn't throw up the sponge altogether. Ah! an' it's likely I should ha' done but for Natty Bell."

"Yes, father--"

"No man ever 'ad a better friend than Natty Bell--Ah! yes, though I did beat him out o' the Champions.h.i.+p which come very nigh breaking his heart at the time, Barnabas; but--as I says to him that day as they carried him out of the ring--it was arter the ninety-seventh round, d' ye see, Barnabas--'what is to be, is, Natty Bell,' I says, 'an' what ain't, ain't. It were ordained,' I says, 'as I should be Champion o' England,' I says--'an' as you an' me should be friends--now an' hereafter,' I says--an' right good friends we have been, as you know, Barnabas."

"Indeed, yes, father," said Barnabas, with another vain attempt to stem his father's volubility.

"But your mother, Barnabas, your mother, G.o.d rest her sweet soul!--your mother weren't like me--no nor Natty Bell--she were away up over me an' the likes o' me--a wonderful scholard she were, an'--when she died, Barnabas--" here the ex-champion's voice grew uncertain and his steady gaze wavered--sought the sanded floor--the raftered ceiling--wandered down the wall and eventually fixed upon the bell-mouthed blunderbuss that hung above the mantel, "when she died," he continued, "she made me promise as you should be taught to read an' cypher--an' taught I've had you according--for a promise is a promise, Barnabas--an' there y' are."

"For which I can never be sufficiently grateful, both to her--and to you!" said Barnabas, who sat with his chin propped upon his hand, gazing through the open lattice to where the broad white road wound away betwixt blooming hedges, growing ever narrower till it vanished over the brow of a distant hill. "Not as I holds wi' eddication myself, Barnabas, as you know," pursued his father, "but that's why you was sent to school, that's why me an' Natty Bell sat by quiet an' watched ye at your books. Sometimes when I've seen you a-stooping your back over your reading, or cramping your fist round a pen, Barnabas, why--I've took it hard, Barnabas, hard, I'll not deny--But Natty Bell has minded me as it was her wish and so--why--there y' are."

It was seldom his father mentioned to Barnabas the mother whose face he had never seen, upon which rare occasions John Barty's deep voice was wont to take on a hoa.r.s.er note, and his blue eyes, that were usually so steady, would go wandering off until they fixed themselves on some remote object. Thus he sat now, leaning back in his elbow chair, gazing in rapt attention at the bell-mouthed blunderbuss above the mantel, while his son, chin on fist, stared always and ever to where the road dipped, and vanished over the hill--leading on and on to London, and the great world beyond.

"She died, Barnabas--just twenty-one years ago--buried at Maidstone where you were born. Twenty-one years is a longish time, lad, but memory's longer, an' deeper,--an' stronger than time, arter all, an'

I know that her memory will go wi' me--all along the way--d' ye see lad: and so Barnabas," said John Barty lowering his gaze to his son's face, "so Barnabas, there y' are."

"Yes, father!" nodded Barnabas, still intent upon the road.

"And now I come to your uncle Tom--an' speaking of him--Barnabas my lad,--what are ye going to do wi' all this money?"

Barnabas turned from the window and met his father's eye.

"Do with it," he began, "why first of all--"

"Because," pursued his father, "we might buy the 'White Hart'--t' other side o' Sevenoaks,--to be sure you're over young to have any say in the matter--still arter all the money's yours, Barnabas--what d' ye say to the 'White Hart'?"

"A very good house!" nodded Barnabas, stealing a glance at the road again--"but--"

"To be sure there's the 'Running Horse,'" said his father, "just beyond Purley on the Brighton Road--a coaching-house, wi' plenty o'

custom, what d' ye think o' the 'Running Horse'?"

"Any one you choose, father, but--"