Eugene Aram — Complete. Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон
re-appeared with a fresh supply of the October, and an assurance that the cold meat would speedily follow.
“I hope yourself and this gentleman will bear me company,” said the Traveller, passing the jug to the Corporal; and in a few moments, so well pleased grew the trio with each other, that the sound of their laughter came loud and frequent to the ears of the good housewife within.
The traveller now seemed to the Corporal and mine host a right jolly, good-humoured fellow. Not, however, that he bore a fair share in the conversation—he rather promoted the hilarity of his new acquaintances than led it. He laughed heartily at Peter’s jests, and the Corporal’s repartees; and the latter, by degrees, assuming the usual sway he bore in the circle of the village, contrived, before the viands were on the table, to monopolize the whole conversation.
The Traveller found in the repast a new excuse for silence. He ate with a most prodigious and most contagious appetite; and in a few seconds the knife and fork of the Corporal were as busily engaged as if he had only three minutes to spare between a march and a dinner.
“This is a pretty, retired spot,” quoth the Traveller, as at length he finished his repast, and threw himself back on his chair—a very pretty spot. Whose neat old-fashioned house was that I passed on the green, with the gable-ends and the flower-plots in front?
“Oh, the Squire’s,” answered Peter; “Squire Lester’s an excellent gentleman.”
“A rich man, I should think, for these parts; the best house I have seen for some miles,” said the Stranger carelessly.
“Rich—yes, he’s well to do; he does not live so as not to have money to lay by.”
“Any family?”
“Two daughters and a nephew.”
“And the nephew does not ruin him. Happy uncle! Mine was not so lucky,” said the Traveller.
“Sad fellows we soldiers in our young days!” observed the Corporal with a wink. “No, Squire Walter’s a good young man, a pride to his uncle!”
“So,” said the pedestrian, “they are not forced to keep up a large establishment and ruin themselves by a retinue of servants?—Corporal, the jug.”
“Nay!” said Peter, “Squire Lester’s gate is always open to the poor; but as for shew, he leaves that to my lord at the castle.”
“The castle, where’s that?”
“About six miles off, you’ve heard of my Lord—, I’ll swear.”
“Ah, to be sure, a courtier. But who else lives about here? I mean, who are the principal persons, barring the Corporal and yourself, Mr. Eelpry—I think our friend here calls you.”
“Dealtry, Peter Dealtry, Sir, is my name.—Why the most noticeable man, you must know, is a great scholard, a wonderfully learned man; there yonder, you may just catch a glimpse of the tall what-d’ye-call-it he has built out on the top of his house, that he may get nearer to the stars. He has got glasses by which I’ve heard that you may see the people in the moon walking on their heads; but I can’t say as I believe all I hear.”
“You are too sensible for that, I’m sure. But this scholar, I suppose, is not very rich; learning does not clothe men now-a-days—eh, Corporal?”
“And why should it? Zounds! can it teach a man how to defend his country? Old England wants soldiers, and be d—d to them! But the man’s well enough, I must own, civil, modest—”
“And not by no means a beggar,” added Peter; “he gave as much to the poor last winter as the Squire himself.”
“Indeed!” said the Stranger, “this scholar is rich then?”
“So, so; neither one nor t’other. But if he were as rich as my lord, he could not be more respected; the greatest folks in the country come in their carriages and four to see him. Lord bless you, there is not a name more talked on in the whole county than Eugene Aram.”
“What!” cried the Traveller, his countenance changing as he sprung from his seat; “what!—Aram!—did you say Aram? Great God! how strange!”
Peter, not a little startled by the abruptness and vehemence of his guest, stared at him with open mouth, and even the Corporal took his pipe involuntarily from his lips.
“What!” said the former, “you know him, do you? you’ve heard of him, eh?”
The Stranger did not reply, he seemed lost in a reverie; he muttered inaudible words between his teeth; now he strode two steps forward, clenching his hands; now smiled grimly; and then returning to his seat, threw himself on it, still in silence. The soldier and the clerk exchanged looks, and now outspake the Corporal.
“Rum tantrums! What the devil, did the man eat your grandmother?”
Roused perhaps by so pertinent and sensible a question, the Stranger lifted his head from his breast, and said with a forced smile, “You have done me, without knowing it, a great kindness, my friend. Eugene Aram was an early and intimate acquaintance of mine: we have not met for many years. I never guessed that he lived in these parts: indeed I did not know where he resided. I am truly glad to think I have lighted upon him thus unexpectedly.”
“What! you did not know where he lived? Well! I thought all the world knew that! Why, men from the univarsities have come all the way, merely to look at the spot.”
“Very likely,” returned the Stranger; “but I am not a learned man myself, and what is celebrity in one set is obscurity in another. Besides, I have never been in this part of the world before!”
Peter was about to reply, when he heard the shrill voice of his wife behind.
“Why don’t you rise, Mr. Lazyboots? Where are your eyes? Don’t you see the young ladies.”
Dealtry’s hat was off in an instant,—the stiff Corporal rose like a musquet; the Stranger would have kept his seat, but Dealtry gave him an admonitory tug by the collar; accordingly he rose, muttering a hasty oath, which certainly died on his lips when he saw the cause which had thus constrained him into courtesy.
Through a little gate close by Peter’s house Madeline and her sister had just passed on their evening walk, and with the kind familiarity for which they were both noted, they had stopped to salute the landlady of the Spotted Dog, as she now, her labours done, sat by the threshold, within hearing of the convivial group, and plaiting straw. The whole family of Lester were so beloved, that we question whether my Lord himself, as the great nobleman of the place was always called, (as if there were only one lord in the peerage,) would have obtained the same degree of respect that was always lavished upon them.
“Don’t let us disturb you, good people,” said Ellinor, as they now moved towards the boon companions, when her eye suddenly falling on the Stranger, she stopped short. There was something in his appearance, and especially in the expression of his countenance at that moment, which no one could have marked for the first time without apprehension and distrust: and it was so seldom that, in that retired spot, the young ladies encountered even one unfamiliar face, that the effect the stranger’s appearance might have produced on any one, might well be increased for them to a startling and painful degree. The Traveller saw at once the sensation he had created: his brow lowered; and the same unpleasing smile, or rather sneer, that we have noted before, distorted his lip, as he made with affected humility his obeisance.
“How!—a stranger!” said Madeline, sharing, though in a less degree, the feelings of her sister; and then, after a pause, she said, as she glanced over his garb, “not in distress, I hope.”
“No, Madam!” said the stranger, “if by distress is meant beggary. I am in all respects perhaps better than I seem.”
There was a