The Splendid Spur<br />Being Memoirs of the Adventures of Mr. John Marvel, a Servant of His Late Maj by Arthur Quiller-Couch (the giving tree read aloud .txt) 📖

resting her left palm on her hip.

“Why, a groat or two,” said I, “when it comes to the reckoning.”

“Lud!” she cried, “what a dull young man!”

“Dull?”

“Aye—to make me ask for a kiss in so many words:” and with the back of her left hand she wiped her mouth for it frankly, while she held out the mug in her right.

“Oh!” I said, “I beg your pardon, but my wits are frozen up, I think. There's two, for interest: and another if you tell me whom your master entertains to-night, that I must be content with this crib.”

She took the kisses with composure and said—-

“Well—to begin, there's the gentlefolk that came this afternoon with their own carriage and heathenish French servant: a cranky old grandee and a daughter with more airs than a peacock: Sir Something-or-other Killigew—Lord bless the boy!”

For I had dropp'd the mug and split the hot sack all about the straw, where it trickled away with a fragrance reproachfully delicious.

“Now I beg your pardon a hundred times: but the chill is in my bones worse than the ague;” and huddling my shoulders up, I counterfeited a shivering fit with a truthfulness that surpris'd myself.

“Poor lad!”

“—And 'tis first hot and then cold all down my spine.”

“There, now!”

“-And goose flesh and flushes all over my body.”

“Dear heart-and to pass the night in this grave of a place!”

“—And by morning I shall be in a high fever: and oh! I feel I shall die of it!”

“Don't—don't!” The honest girl's eyes were full of tears. “I wonder, now—” she began: and I waited, eager for her next words. “Sure, master's at cards in the parlor, and 'll be drunk by midnight. Shalt pass the night by the kitchen fire, if only thou make no noise.”

“But your mistress—what will she say?”

“Is in heaven these two years: and out of master's speaking distance forever. So blow out the light and follow me gently.”

Still feigning to shiver, I follow'd her down the ladder, and through the stable into the open. The wind by this time had brought up some heavy clouds, and mass'd them about the moon: but 'twas freezing hard, nevertheless. The girl took me by the hand to guide me: for, save from the one bright window in the upper floor, there was no light at all in the yard. Clearly, she was in dread of her master's anger, for we stole across like ghosts, and once or twice she whisper'd a warning when my toe kick'd against a loose cobble. But just as I seem'd to be walking into a stone wall, she put out her hand, I heard the click of a latch, and stood in a dark, narrow passage.

The passage led to a second door that open'd on a wide, stone-pav'd kitchen, lit by a cheerful fire, whereon a kettle hissed and bubbled as the vapor lifted the cover. Close by the chimney corner was a sort of trap, or buttery hatch, for pushing the hot dishes conveniently into the parlor on the other side of the wall. Besides this, for furniture, the room held a broad deal table, an oak dresser, a linen press, a rack with hams and strings of onions depending from it, a settle and a chair or two, with (for decoration) a dozen or so of ballad sheets stuck among the dish covers along the wall.

“Sit,” whisper'd the girl, “and make no noise, while I brew a rack-punch for the men-folk in the parlor.” She jerked her thumb toward the buttery hatch, where I had already caught the mur-mer of voices.

I took up a chair softly, and set it down between the hatch and the fireplace, so that while warming my knees I could catch any word spoken more than ordinary loud on the other side of the wall. The chambermaid stirr'd the fire briskly, and moved about singing as she fetch'd down bottles and glasses from the dresser——

“Lament ye maids an' darters For constant Sarah Ann, Who hang'd hersel' in her garters All for the love o' man, All for the—”

She was pausing, bottle in hand, to take the high note: but hush'd suddenly at the sound of the voices singing in the room upstairs—-

“Vivre en tout cas C'est le grand soulas Des honnetes gens!”

“That's the foreigners,” said the chambermaid, and went on with her ditty——

“All for the love of a souljer Who christening name was Jan.”

A volley of oaths sounded through the buttery hatch.

“—And that's the true-born Englishmen, as you may tell by their speech. 'Tis pretty company the master keeps, these days.”

She was continuing her song, when I held up a finger for silence. In fact, through the hatch my ear had caught a sentence that set me listening for more with a still heart.

“D—n the Captain,” the landlord's gruff voice was saying; “I warn'd 'n agen this fancy business when sober, cool-handed work was toward.”

“Settle's way from his cradle,” growl'd another; “and times enough I've told 'n: 'Cap'n,' says I, 'there's no sense o' proportions about ye.' A master mind, sirs, but 'a 'll be hang'd for a hen-roost, so sure as my name's Bill Widdicomb.”

“Ugly words-what a creeping influence has that same mention o' hanging!” piped a thinner voice.

“Hold thy complaints, Old Mortification,” put in a speaker that I recogniz'd for Black Dick; “sure the pretty maid upstairs is tender game. Hark how they sing!”

And indeed the threatened folk upstairs were singing their catch very choicely, with a girl's clear voice to lead them—-

“Comment dit papa —Margoton, ma mie?”

“Heathen language, to be sure,” said the thin voice again, as the chorus ceased: “thinks I to mysel' 'they be but Papisters,' an' my doubting mind is mightily reconcil'd to manslaughter.”

“I don't like beginning 'ithout the Cap'n,” observed Black Dick: “though I doubt something has miscarried. Else, how did that young spark ride in upon the mare?”

“An' that's what thy question should ha' been, Dick, with a pistol to his skull.”

“He'll keep till the morrow.”

“We'll give Settle half-an-hour more,” said the landlord: “Mary!” he push'd open the hatch, so that I had barely time to duck my head out of view, “fetch in the punch, girl. How did'st leave the young man i' the loft?'

“Asleep, or nearly,” answer'd Mary—

“Who hang'd hersel' in her gar-ters, All for the love o' man—”

“—Anon, anon, master: wait only till I get the kettle on the boil.”