Tom Tufton's Travels by Evelyn Everett-Green (good short books .txt) 📖

now perfuming the gloves, and giving just the jaunty cock to his master's hat which best suited its shape.

"Now, gentlemen, I will bid you farewell for the present," said Lord Claud. "I and my friend have business of our own. We may meet again at the play ere long. Off with you each to his own favourite tavern. For my part, I have other fish to fry today."

With that he swept them a fine bow, and the room cleared as if by magic. It was one of this man's arts that he could rid himself of the buzzing crowd by one look or gesture when he had the mind. Valet and perruquier followed the retreating guests, and Lord Claud drew a breath of relief.

"There, honest Tom; we are well rid of the chattering magpies--screaming peacocks were the better word, or painted popinjays. Now to business; for I must keep a steady head and quiet hours today. Are you anything of a swordsman, my friend?"

"I was accounted a good enough fighter in my own village," answered Tom; "but everything here is so different. My methods may be useless against the skill of men trained in a different school."

"We will put that to the test, and that quickly," said Lord Claud; and forthwith he led his companion out of the house and through several unfamiliar streets, till he reached a building rather larger than its surrounding neighbours, into which he walked with the air of one well used to the place.

First they passed through a large hall, the floor of which was thickly sprinkled with sawdust; but, without pausing, Lord Claud mounted a staircase in the corner, and led Tom into a large upper room, the walls of which were adorned by rapiers with buttons at the end, where a man was sitting polishing the foils and humming a tune to himself. He rose instantly upon seeing Lord Claud, and made a deep bow.

"I have come to try a bout at sword play with a friend of mine," explained the latter, stripping off his coat, and signing to Tom to do the same. "Give us two well-matched weapons; for we have none too much time to spare measuring and comparing."

Tom's blood quickened at the feel of the rapier in his hand. He had always loved these encounters with the sword, whether in play or earnest. He had not lacked training of a certain rude sort, and his wrist was strong and supple, his eye wary and keen; moreover, he had length of reach and strength of muscle. After the first bout Lord Claud gave him an approving nod, and, looking at the man who stood by, remarked:

"There is the making of a fine swordsman in the lad, is there not, when he has learnt more finesse and quickness?"

"The gentleman does well," answered the man, with a shrewd glance at Tom's tall and well-knit frame. "He may be worsted in a sham fight, but, methinks, in sober earnest he would be an ugly customer to meet."

In the next bout Lord Claud showed his antagonist some of the dexterous feats of rapid sword play, with the result that Tom was rather hard pressed; but for all that he did not lose his head, and soon began to master the tricks of attack and defence, the quick lunge and the quick recovery which perplexed him at first; and in the next bout he showed so much skill and address that his opponent and the onlooker alike applauded.

"Very good, Tom, very good," said Lord Claud. "You will make a notable swordsman one of these days. Now I shall leave you here for an hour with worthy Captain Raikes, and he will give you a lesson in fencing which you will not fail to profit by. After that I will come back for you, and take you elsewhere.

"Captain Raikes, I have a little affair on hand tomorrow morning. I would fain try a pass with you, to see that my hand has lost nothing of its cunning."

"Not much fear of that, my lord," answered the master of the place, as he took the rapier from Tom; and the next minute the youth from the country stood in silent admiration and amaze, whilst the two blades crossed and flashed, and twined and clashed, with a precision and masterly deftness which aroused his keen delight and envy. To become a proficient like that would be something worth living for; and his quick eyes studied the movements and methods of the two adversaries, till he felt he had begun to have some little notion of the tricks by which such results were attained.

When Lord Claud came back to fetch him, at the end of the stipulated hour, it was to find young Tom without coat, vest, or peruke, and bathed in perspiration; but so keenly interested in the new science, that it was all his comrade could do to drag him away.

"Egad, Tom, but you will make a pretty swordsman one of these days! Captain Raikes says he has never had a more promising pupil. You have winded him as well as yourself. But all that exertion must have given you an appetite. We will to Pontac's and refresh ourselves; and when you have cooled down, I will take you to see a man as great in his way as Captain Raikes with the foils. Oh yes, you can come again at your leisure for another lesson. But I have no fears for you, tomorrow, even now. Whatever may betide, you are no child with the sword."

The coffee house to which Lord Claud now conducted him was a much finer and more select place than the Folly, and Tom was much interested in the fine company there, all of whom welcomed Lord Claud heartily, and seemed to desire to draw him into talk.

Although dressed in the height of the fashion, and not without their fopperies and extravagances, the company here interested itself less with private scandal than with public affairs, and there was much talk of the war abroad, and of the return of the Duke of Marlborough, which it was now thought would take place before long.

"But he has first to go to Berlin, to cajole the King of Prussia to send help to Italy, to the Duke of Savoy," cried one of the company, who seemed best informed on military matters. "It will take a good one to wring eight thousand soldiers out of His Majesty of Prussia, but if any man can do it, it will be Johnny Churchill! I remember him even when we were boys together. He had a tongue that would flatter the nose off your face, if you did but listen to him! A voice of silver, and a hand of iron--those are the gifts which have made the fortunes of my Lord of Marlborough."

"Ay, an iron hand for keeping money when once the fingers have closed upon it!" laughed one.

"And a wife who rules the Queen, and is bent upon making her husband the greatest man in the kingdom--though she will always keep the upper hand of her lord, you will see. Marlborough, whom no combination of military prowess can daunt, trembles and turns pale before the frown of his wife!"

"Yet it is not fear but love which makes him tremble," said another. "Although their children are grown to adolescence, he loves her yet as dotingly as ever youthful swain loves the Phyllis of his boyhood's amours!"

"That is nothing to sneer at," remarked Lord Claud, speaking for the first time. "Rather should we thank Heaven, in these days of profligacy and vice, that we have a Queen upon the throne who loves her husband faithfully and well, and a general, victorious in arms, who would gladly lay down his victor's laurels for the joy of living in peaceful obscurity at the side of his wife!"

Nobody laughed at Lord Claud's speech, though it would have provoked mirth if another had given utterance to the sentiment. The talk went on, however, in the same vein, and Tom listened in silence, trying to digest as much as he could of the news of the day.

Lord Claud did not remain long; and when they were in the street together, Tom asked him of the great Duke, and what had been said of him. Was he really treacherous and false, loving money above all else, and careless of the good of the realm, so long as he built up his own fortunes securely?

"The Duke's career is not without its black spots," answered Lord Claud. "It is known by all that he deserted the late King James the Second; but there were reasons solid and sound for that. The darkest passage in his life is his intrigues against His Majesty King William, for which he was disgraced for some time. But for all that his genius is marvellous, and I am very sure he is loyal to the core to good Queen Anne; albeit a man who will not openly ally himself with either Whig or Tory faction must expect to make enemies in many quarters."

"And does he indeed love money so well?"

"Second to his wife, or men do him great injustice. But though they laugh and sneer at him, I misdoubt me if he loves wealth better than his traducers; only he keeps a firmer grip upon it, having indeed no taste for vulgar dissipation. Why, even as a youth he was mighty prudent."

Here Lord Claud began to laugh, as though tickled by some memory; and on being questioned further, he told Tom the tale.

"You must know that John Churchill was a marvellous pretty fellow, with just the same languid grace of bearing that he has kept all his life; and of which you may judge the effect yourself, good Tom, ere many weeks be passed. He was a youth about the court of Charles the Second, and the Duchess of Cleveland took notice of the handsome, witty lad, and sometimes had him in her rooms to amuse her. Once they so chanced to be there together, when the steps of the King were heard approaching; and as His Majesty was like to think evil of a matter where no evil was, the Duchess was sore put to it, and looked so affrighted, that young Churchill gallantly sprang from the window, at the risk of breaking his leg if not his neck. The Duchess sent him a present of five thousand pounds the next day; and what does the lad do? Most of his sort would have squandered it at play in a week; but Johnny Churchill was of a different kidney. He goes and purchases with it an annuity; so that come what may, he may never be left quite destitute in his old age!"

And Lord Claud again burst into a hearty laugh, in which Tom now joined.

They were now approaching a narrow street hard by the Haymarket, and his companion knocked at a lowly door, which was opened by a sombre-looking man in a shabby suit of clothes.

"Is your master within?" asked Lord Claud, who seemed known to all the world; and the next minute he was striding up the stairs, two steps at a time; Tom following, and marvelling much at the darkness of the humble abode, and at Lord Claud's purpose in coming.

A door on the second floor was thrown open, and Lord Claud stepped gaily in.

"Ha, Master Addison," he cried, "I have come to offer to you my tardy congratulations for that yet more tardy recognition of merit which has been your portion at last! And so the great ones of the land have been forced to come beseeching in person? Ha! ha! that is very good. And may my friend here--young Esquire Tufton, of Gablethorpe, in the county of Essex--have the privilege of hearing some of those wonderful lines which are to take the country by storm? Come, Master Addison, you know that I am a lover of good metre and fine sentiment. The words must needs be tingling in your ears, and lying hot upon your tongue. Let us hear the roll of them, and I warrant that all London town shall soon be in a ferment to hear them, too!"

The man of letters was attired in a neat but poor suit of clothes, and his surroundings were humble and even sordid; but his face was neither peevish nor careworn, but wore an expression of dignified contentment and scholarly repose. The walls of his lodging were lined with bookcases, upon which many a volume was stacked. Poor he had been for long, but he had not been in the straits that many men of letters were reduced to in those days. On his desk were strewn pages of manuscript verse which caught the eyes of the visitors at once.

"By my halidome! if that be not the poem itself!"

"The rough copy alone, the rough copy," said Addison, who was walking up and down the