The Broad Highway by Jeffery Farnol (ebook reader with highlight function TXT) 📖

crown of the battered hat, seemed to undergo a change, as though a sudden, fierce anger had leapt into life, and been controlled, but by a strong effort.

“On my life and soul, now!” said he, falling back a step, and eyeing me with a vaguely unpleasant smile, “this is a most unexpected—a most unlooked for pleasure; it is I vow it is.”

“You flatter me,” said I.

“No, sir, no; to meet you again—some day—somewhere—alone—quite alone, sir, is a pleasure I have frequently dwelt upon, but never hoped to realize. As it is, sir, having, in my present condition, no chance of procuring better weapons than my fists, allow me to suggest that they are, none the less, entirely at your service; do me the infinite kindness to stand up.”

“Sir,” I answered, cutting a slice from the loaf, “you are the third person within the last forty-eight hours who has mistaken me for another; it really gets quite wearisome.”

“Mistaken you,” he broke in, and his smile grew suddenly bitter, “do you think it possible that I could ever mistake you?”

“I am sure of it!” said I. “Furthermore, pray do not disparage your fists, sir. A bout at fisticuffs never did a man any harm that I ever heard; a man’s fists are good, honest weapons supplied by a beneficent Providence—far better than your unnatural swords and murderous hair-triggers; at least, so I think, being, I trust, something of a philosopher. Still, in this instance, never having seen your face, or heard your voice until yesterday, I shall continue to sit here, and eat my bread and cheese, and if you are wise you will hasten to follow my so excellent example while there is any left, for, I warn you, I am mightily sharp set.”

“Come, come,” said he, advancing upon me threateningly, “enough of this foolery!”

“By all means,” said I, “sit down, like a sensible fellow, and tell me for whom you mistake me.”

“Sir, with all the pleasure in life!” said he, clenching his fists, and I saw his nostrils dilate suddenly. “I take you for the greatest rogue, the most gentlemanly rascal but one, in all England!”

“Yes,” said I, “and my name?”

“Sir Maurice Vibart!”

“Sir Maurice Vibart?” I sprang to my feet, staring at him in amazement. “Sir Maurice Vibart is my cousin,” said I.

And so we stood, for a long minute, immobile and silent, eyeing each other above the bread and cheese.

CHAPTER XIV

FURTHER CONCERNING THE GENTLEMAN IN THE BATTERED HAT

“Sir,” said my companion at last, lifting the battered hat, “I tender you my apology, and I shall be delighted to eat with you in the ditch, if you are in the same mind about it?”

“Then you believe me?”

“Indubitably, sir,” he answered with a faint smile; “had you indeed been Sir Maurice, either he or I, and most probably I, would be lying flat in the road, by this.”

So, without more ado, we sat down in the ditch together, side by side, and began to eat. And now I noticed that when he thought my eye was upon him, my companion ate with a due deliberation and nicety, and when he thought it was off, with a voracity that was painful to witness. And after we had eaten a while in silence, he turned to me with a sigh.

“This is very excellent cheese!” said he.

“The man from whom I bought it,” said I, “called it a noble cheese, I remember.”

“I never tasted one of a finer flavor!” said my companion.

“Hunger is a fine sauce,” said I, “and you are probably hungry?”

“Hungry!” he repeated, bolting a mouthful and knocking his hat over his eyes with a slap on its dusty crown. “Egad, Mr. Vibart! so would you be—so would any man be who has lived on anything he could beg, borrow, or steal, with an occasional meal of turnips—in the digging of which I am become astonishingly expert—and unripe blackberries, which latter I have proved to be a very trying diet in many ways—hungry, oh, damme!”

And after a while, when there nothing remained of loaf or cheese save a few scattered crumbs, my companion leaned back, and gave another sigh.

“Sir,” said he, with an airy wave of the hand, “in me you behold a highly promising young gentleman ruined by a most implacable enemy—himself, sir. In the first place you must know my name is Beverley—”

“Beverley?” I repeated.

“Beverley,” he nodded, “Peregrine Beverley, very much at your service —late of Beverley Place, Surrey, now of Nowhere-in-Particular.”

“Beverley,” said I again, “I have heard that name before.”

“It is highly probable, Mr. Vibart; a fool of that name—fortunate or unfortunate as you choose to classify him—lost houses, land, and money in a single night’s play. I am that fool, sir, though you have doubtless heard particulars ere now?”

“Not a word!” said I. Mr. Beverley glanced at me with a faint mingling of pity and surprise. “My life,” I explained, “has been altogether a studious one, with the not altogether unnatural result that I also am bound for Nowhere-in-Particular with just eight shillings and sixpence in my pocket.”

“And mine, as I tell you,” said he, “has been an altogether riotous one. Thus each of us, though by widely separate roads—you by the narrow and difficult path of Virtue, and I by the broad and easy road of Folly—have managed to find our way into this Howling Destitution, which we will call Nowhere-in-Particular. Then how does your path of Virtue better my road of Evil?”

“The point to be considered,” said I, “is not so much what we now are, but rather, what we have done, and may ultimately be, and do.”

“Well?” said he, turning to look at me.

“For my own achievements, hitherto,” I continued, “I have won the High Jump, and Throwing the Hammer, also translated the works of Quintilian, with the Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter, and the Life, Lives, and Memoirs of the Seigneur de Brantome, which last, as you are probably aware, has never before been done into the English.”

“Ha!” exclaimed Mr. Beverley, sitting up suddenly, with his ill-used hat very much over one eye, “there we have it! Whoever heard of Old Quin—What’s-his-name, or cared, except, perhaps, a few bald-headed bookworms and withered litterateurs? While you were dreaming of life, and reading the lives of other fellows, I was living it. In my career, episodically brief though it was, I have met and talked with all the wits, and celebrated men, have drunk good wine, and worshipped beautiful women, Mr. Vibart.”

“And what has it all taught you?” said I.

“That there are an infernal number of rogues and rascals in the world, for one thing—and that is worth knowing.”

“Yes,” said I.

“That, though money can buy anything, from the love of a woman to the death of an enemy, it can only be spent once—and that is worth knowing also.”

“Yes,” said I.

“And that I am a most preposterous ass!—and that last, look you, is more valuable than all the others. Solomon, I think, says something about a wise man being truly wise who knoweth himself a fool, doesn’t he?”

“Something of the sort.”

“Then,” said he, flinging his hat down upon the grass beside him, “what argument can you advance in favor of your ‘Narrow and Thorny’?”

“The sum of eight shillings and sixpence, a loaf of bread, and a slice of noble cheese, now no more,” said I.

“Egad!” said he, looking at me from the corners of his blue eyes, “the argument is unanswerable, more especially the cheese part, against which I’d say nothing, even if I could.” Having remarked which, he lay flat on his back again, staring up at the leaves, and the calm serenity of the sky beyond, while I filled my negro-head pipe from my paper of tobacco, and forthwith began to smoke.

And, presently, as I sat alternately watching the blue wreaths of my pipe and the bedraggled figure extended beside me, he suddenly rolled over on his arm, and so lay, watching me.

“On my soul!” he exclaimed at length, “it is positively marvellous.”

“What is?” I inquired.

“The resemblance between you and your famous cousin.”

“It would appear so,” said I, shrugging my shoulders, “though, personally, I was unaware of this fact up till now.”

“Do I understand that you have never seen Sir Maurice Vibart, never seen ‘Buck’ Vibart?”

“Never!” said I.

“Too much occupied—in keeping to the Narrow and Thorny, I suppose? Your cousin’s is the Broad and Flowery, with a vengeance.”

“So I understand,” said I.

“Nevertheless, the resemblance between you, both in face and figure, is positively astounding! With the sole exception that he wears hair upon his face, and is of a ruddy complexion, while you are pale, and smooth smooth-cheeked as as a boy—”

“Or yourself!” said I.

“Ah—exactly!” he answered, and passed his fingers across his chin tentatively, and fell again to staring lazily up into the sky. “Do you happen to know anything about that most remarkable species of the ‘genus homo’ calling themselves ‘Bucks,’ or ‘Corinthians’?” he inquired, after a while.

“Very little,” said I, “and that, only by hearsay.”

“Well, up to six months ago, I was one of them, Mr. Vibart, until Fortune, and I think now, wisely, decreed it otherwise.” And herewith, lying upon his back, looking up through the quivering green of leaves, he told mad tales of a reckless Prince, of the placid Brummel, of the “Dashing” Vibart, the brilliant Sheridan, of Fox, and Grattan, and many others, whose names are now a byword one way or the other. He recounted a story of wild prodigality, of drunken midnight orgies, of days and nights over the cards, of wine, women, and horses. But, lastly and very reverently, he spoke of a woman, of her love, and faith, and deathless trust. “Of course,” he ended, “I might have starved very comfortably, and much quicker, in London, but when my time comes, I prefer to do my dying beneath some green hedge, or in the shelter of some friendly rick, with the cool, clean wind upon my face. Besides— She loved the country.”

“Then there are some women who can’t be bought?” said I, looking at his glistening eyes.

“Mr. Vibart,” said he, “so far as I know, there are two—the Lady Helen Dunstan and the ‘Glorious’ Sefton.”

“The Lady Sophia Sefton of Cambourne?” said I.

“And—the Lady Helen Dunstan,” he repeated.

“Do you know the Lady Sophia Sefton?”

“I have had the honor of dancing with her frequently,” he answered.

“And is she so beautiful as they say?”

“She is the handsomest woman in London, one of your black-browed, deep-eyed goddesses, tall, and gracious, and most nobly shaped; though, sir, for my own part, I prefer less fire and ice—and more gentle beauty.”

“As, for instance, the Lady Helen Dunstan?” said I.

“Exactly!” nodded Mr. Beverley.

“Referring to the Lady Sophia Sefton,” I pursued, “she is a reigning toast, I believe?”

“Gad, yes! her worshippers are legion, and chief among them his Royal Highness, and your cousin, Sir Maurice, who has actually had the temerity to enter the field as the Prince’s avowed rival; no one but ‘Buck’ Vibart could be so madly rash!”

“A most fortunate lady!” said I.

“Mr. Vibart!” exclaimed my companion, cocking his battered hat and regarding me with a smouldering eye, “Mr. Vibart, I object to your tone; the