The Smuggler: A Tale. Volumes I-III. G. P. R. James
and take up your abode at a single man's house, while Sir Edward goes and charms the ladies."
"I cannot come with him, I am afraid," replied the young gentleman, "for I must remain with the regiment some time; but I will willingly accept your invitation, and join him in a week or two."
"Oh you're in the same regiment, are you?" asked Mr. Croyland; "it's not a whole regiment of elder sons, I hope?"
"Oh no," answered the other, "I have the still greater misfortune of being an only son; and the greater one still, of being an orphan."
"And may I know your style and denomination?" said Mr. Croyland.
"Oh, Osborn, Osborn!" cried Sir Edward Digby, before his friend could speak, "Captain Osborn of the ---- Dragoons."
"I will put that down in my note-book," rejoined the old gentleman. "The best friend I ever had was named Osborn. He couldn't be your father, though, for he had no children, poor fellow! and was never married, which was the only blessing Heaven ever granted him, except a good heart and a well-regulated mind. His sister married my old schoolfellow, Leyton--but that's a bad story, and a sad story, though now it's an old story, too."
"Indeed!" said Sir Edward Digby; "I'm fond of old stories if they are good ones."
"But, I told you this was a bad one, Sir Ned," rejoined the old gentleman sharply; "and as my brother behaved very ill to poor Leyton, the less we say of it the better. The truth is," he continued, for he was one of those who always refuse to tell a story, and tell it after all, "Leyton was rector of a living which was in my brother's gift. He was only to hold it, however, till my youngest nephew was of age to take it; but when the boy died--as they both did sooner or later--Leyton held the living on, and thought it was his own, till one day there came a quarrel between him and my brother, and then Robert brought forward his letter promising to resign when called upon, and drove him out. I wasn't here then; but I have heard all about it since, and a bad affair it was. It should not have happened if I had been here, for Bob has a shrewd eye to the nabob's money, as well he may, seeing that he's----but that's no business of mine. If he chooses to dribble through his fortune, Heaven knows how, I've nothing to do with it! The two poor girls will suffer."
"What, your brother has two fair daughters then, has he?" demanded Sir Edward Digby. "I suppose it is under the artillery of their glances I am first to pass; for, doubtless, you know I am going to your brother's."
"Oh, yes, I know--I know all about it!" replied Mr. Croyland. "They tell me everything as in duty bound--that's to say, everything they don't wish to conceal. But I'm consulted like an oracle upon all things unimportant; for he that was kicked out with a sixpence into the wide world, has grown a wonderful great man since the sixpence has multiplied itself. As to your having to pass under the artillery of the girls' glances, however, you must take care of yourself; for you might stand a less dangerous fire, I can tell you, even in a field of battle. But I'll give you one warning for your safeguard. You may make love to little Zara as long as you like--think of the fools calling her Zara! Though she'll play a pretty game of picquet with you, you may chance to win it; but you must not dangle after Edith, or you will burn your fingers. She'll not have you, if you were twenty baronets, and twenty majors of Dragoons into the bargain. She has got some of the fancies of the old uncle about her, and is determined to die an old maid, I can see."
"Oh, the difficulty of the enterprise would only be a soldier's reason for undertaking it!" said Sir Edward Digby.
"It wont do--it wont do;" answered Mr. Croyland, laughing; "you may think yourself very captivating, very conquering, quite a look-and-die man, as all you people in red jackets fancy yourselves, but it will be all lost labour with Edith, I can tell you."
"You excite all the martial ardour in my soul!" exclaimed Digby, with a gay smile; "and if she be not forty, hump-backed, or one eyed, by the fates you shall see what you shall see."
"Forty!" cried Mr. Croyland; "why she's but two-and-twenty, man!--a great deal straighter than that crouching wench in white marble they call the 'Venus de Medici,' and with a pair of eyes, that, on my life, I think would have made me forswear celibacy, if I had found such looking at me, any time before I reached fifty!"
"Do you hear that, Osborn?" cried Sir Edward Digby. "Here's a fine field for an adventurous spirit. I shall have the start of you, my friend; and in the wilds of Kent, what may not be done in ten days or a fortnight?"
His companion only answered by a melancholy smile; and the conversation went on between the old gentleman and the young baronet till they reached the small town of Lenham, where they stopped again to dine. There, however, Mr. Croyland drew Sir Edward Digby aside, and inquired in a low tone, "Is your friend in love?--He looks mighty melancholy."
"I believe he is," replied Digby. "Love's the only thing that can make a man melancholy; and when one comes to consider all the attractions of a squaw of the Chippeway Indians, it is no wonder that my friend is in such a hopeless case."
The old gentleman poked him with his finger, and shook his head with a laugh, saying--"You are a wag, young gentleman--you are a wag; but it would be a great deal more reasonable, let me tell you, to fall in love with a Chippeway squaw, in her feathers and wampam, than with one of these made-up madams, all paint and satin, and tawdry bits of embroidery. In the one case you might know something of what your love is like; in the other, I defy you to know anything about her; and, nine times out of ten, what, a man marries is little better than a bale of tow and whalebone, covered over with the excrement of a silkworm. Man's a strange animal; and one of the strangest of all his proceedings is, that of covering up his own natural skin with all manner of contrivances derived from every bird, beast, fish, and vegetable, that happens to come in his way. If he wants warmth, he goes and robs a sheep of its great coat; he beats the unfortunate grass of the field, till he leaves nothing but shreds, to make himself a shirt; he skins a beaver, to cover his head; and, if he wants to be exceedingly fine, he pulls the tail of an ostrich, and sticks the feather in his hat. He's the universal mountebank, depend upon it, playing his antics for the amusement of creation, and leaving nothing half so ridiculous as himself."
Thus saying, he turned round again, and joined Captain Osborn, in whom, perhaps, he took a greater interest than even in his livelier companion. It might be that the associations called up by the name were pleasant to him, or it might be that there was something in his face that interested him, for certainly that face was one which seemed to become each moment more handsome as one grew familiar with it.
When, after dinner, they re-entered the vehicle, and rolled away once more along the high road, Captain Osborn took a greater share in the conversation than he had previously done; and remarking that Mr. Croyland had put, as a condition, upon his invitation to Sir Edward, that he should not be a smuggler, he went on to observe, "You seem to have a great objection to those gentry, my dear sir; and yet I understand your county is full of them."
"Full of them!" exclaimed Mr. Croyland--"it is running over with them. They drop down into Sussex, out into Essex, over into Surrey; the vermin are more numerous than rats in an old barn. Not that, when a fellow is poor, and wants money, and can get it by no other means,--not that I think very hard of him when he takes to a life of risk and adventure, where his neck is not worth sixpence, and his gain is bought by the sweat of his brow. But your gentleman smuggler is my abomination--your fellow that risks little but an exchequer process, and gains ten times what the others do, without their labour or their danger. Give me your bold, brave fellow, who declares war and fights it out. There's some spirit in him."
"Gentlemen smugglers!" said Osborn; "that seems to me to be a strange sort of anomaly. I was not aware that there were such things."
"Pooh! the country is full of them," cried Mr. Croyland. "It is not here that the peasant treads upon the kybe of the peer; but the smuggler treads upon the country gentlemen. Many a merchant who never made a hundred pounds by fair trade, makes thousands and hundreds of thousands by cheating the Customs. There is not a man in this part of the country who does not dabble in the traffic more or less. I've no doubt all my brandied cherries are steeped in stuff that never paid duty; and if you don't smuggle yourself, your servants do it for you. But I'll tell you all about it," and he proceeded