The Complete Works of Stephen Crane (71 page)

“I’ll give him a piece of my boot; all that’s left of it,” growled Jem Bottles, scowling.

“You may take your will of him after he has put some embrocation on your bruises,” said I; and as I was speaking there came a timorous little knock at the door.

“Come in,” I cried, and after some hesitation the door opened, and there stood little Doctor Chord with a big bottle under his arm. I was glad there was no supper yet on the table, for if there had been I must have asked the little man to sit down with me, and that he would do without a second’s hesitation, so I could not rightly see him maltreated who had broken a crust with me.

He paid no attention to Jem or Paddy at first, but kept his cunning little eye on me.

“And where have you been to-day, O’Ruddy?” he asked.

“Oh,” said I, “I accompanied these two to the door in the wall, and when they got through I heard yells fit to make a hero out of a nigger; but you know how stout the bolts are and I couldn’t get to them, so I had just to go out of hearing of their bellowings. On the way back I happened to meet an old friend of mine, Father Donovan, and—”

Here Paddy, forgetting his good manners, shouted out:

“Thank God there’s a holy father in this hole of perdition; for I know I’m goin’ t’ die to-morrow at the latest.”

“Stop your nonsense,” said I. “You’ll have to hold on to life at least a day longer; for the good father is not coming here until two days are past. You’re more frightened than hurt, and the Doctor here has a lotion that will make you meet the priest as a friend and not as a last counsellor.”

“As I was saying, Doctor Chord, I met Father Donovan, and we strolled about the town, so that I have only now just come in. The father is a stranger in London, on a pilgrimage to Rome. And sure I had to show him the sights.”

“It was a kindly action of you,” said Doctor Chord, pulling the cork of the medicine-bottle. “Get those rags off,” he called to Paddy, “and I’ll rub you down as if you were the finest horse that ever followed the hounds.”

There was a great smell of medicine in the air as he lubricated Paddy over the bruised places; then Jem Bottles came under his hands, and either he was not so much hurt as Paddy was, or he made less fuss about it, for he glared at the Doctor all the time he was attending him, and said nothing.

It seemed an inhospitable thing to misuse a man who had acted the good Samaritan so arduously as the little Doctor with three quarters of his bottle gone, but as he slapped the cork in it again I stepped to the door and turned the key. Paddy was scowling now and then, and groaning now and again, when the cheerful Doctor said to him, as is the way with physicians when they wish to encourage a patient:

“Oh, you’re not hurt nearly as bad as you think you are. You’ll be a little sore and stiff in the morning, that’s all, and I’ll leave the bottle with you.”

“You’ve never rubbed me at all on the worst place,” said Paddy angrily.

“Where was that?” asked Doctor Chord, — and the words were hardly out of his mouth when Paddy hit him one in the right eye that sent him staggering across the room.

“There’s where I got the blow that knocked me down,” cried Paddy.

Doctor Chord threw a wild glance at the door, when Jem Bottles, with a little run and a lift of his foot, gave him one behind that caused the Doctor to turn a somersault.

“Take that, you thief,” said Jem; “and now you’ve something that neither of us got, because we kept our faces to the villains that set on us.”

Paddy made a rush, but I cried:

“Don’t touch the man when he’s down.”

“Sure,” says Paddy, “that’s when they all fell on me.”

“Never strike a man when he’s down,” I cried.

“Do ye mean to say we shouldn’t hit a man when he’s down?” asked Jem Bottles.

“You knew very well you shouldn’t,” I told him. “Sure you’ve been in the ring before now.”

“That I have,” shouted Bottles, pouncing on the unfortunate Doctor. He grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and flung him to his feet, then gave him a bat on the side of the head that sent him reeling up toward the ceiling again.

“That’s enough, Jem,” I cautioned him.

“I’m not only following the Doctor,” said Jem, “but I’m following the Doctor’s advice. He told us to take a little gentle exercise and it would allay the soreness.”

“The exercise you’re taking will not allay the soreness on the Doctor’s part. Stop it, Jem! Now leave him alone, Paddy; he’s had enough to remember you by, and to learn that the way of the traitor is the rocky road to Dublin. Come now, Doctor, the door is open; get out into the passage as quick as you can, and I hope you have another bottle of that excellent lotion at home.”

The threatening attitude of both Jem and Paddy seemed to paralyse the little man with fear, and he lay on the boards glaring up at them with terror in his eyes.

“I’m holding the door open for you,” said I, “and remember I may not be able to hold Paddy and Jem as easily as I hold the door; so make your escape before they get into action again.”

Doctor Chord rolled himself over quickly, but, not daring to get on his feet, trotted out into the passage like a big dog on his hands and knees; and just then a waiter, coming up with a tray and not counting on this sudden apparition in the hallway, fell over him; and if it were not for my customary agility and presence of mind in grasping the broad metal server, a good part of my supper would have been on the floor. The waiter luckily leaned forward when he found himself falling, holding the tray high over his head, and so, seizing it, I saved the situation and the supper.

“What are ye grovelling down there for, ye drunken beast?” shouted the angry waiter, as he came down with a thud. “Why don’t you walk on your two feet like a Christian?”

Doctor Chord took the hint and his departure, running along the passage and stumbling down the stairway like a man demented. When he got down into the courtyard he shook his fist at my window and swore he would have the law of us; but I never saw the little man again, although Paddy and Jem were destined to meet him once more, as I shall tell later on.

The supper being now laid, I fell at it and I dis-remember having ever enjoyed a meal more in my life. I sent Paddy and Jem to their quarters with food and a bottle of good wine to keep them company, and I think they deserved it, for they said the lotion the Doctor had put on the outside of them was stinging, so they thought there should be something in the inside to counteract the inconvenience.

I went to sleep the moment I touched the pillow, and dreamed I was in the most umbrageous lover’s walk that ever was, overhung with green branches through which the sunlight flickered, and closed in with shrubbery. There I chased a flying nymph that always just eluded me, laughing at me over her shoulder and putting her finger to her lips, and at last, when I caught her, it turned out to be Doctor Chord, whereupon I threw him indignantly into the bushes, and then saw to my dismay it was the Countess. She began giving her opinion of me so vigorously that I awoke and found it broad daylight.

After a comforting and sustaining breakfast I sent for Paddy and Jem, both of whom came in limping.

“Are you no better this morning?” I asked them.

“Troth, we’re worse,” said Paddy with a most dismal look on his face.

“I’m sorry to hear it,” said I; “but I think the trouble will wear off to-day if you lie snug and quiet in the inn. Here’s this bottle of embrocation, or what is left of it, so you may take it with you and divide it fairly between you, remembering that one good rub deserves another, and that our chief duty on this earth is to help our fellow man; and as there’s nothing like easy employment for making a man forget his tribulations, Jem will rub Paddy, and Paddy will rub Jem, and thus, God blessing you both, you will pass the time to your mutual benefit.”

“Yer honour,” sniffed Jem Bottles, “I like your own prescriptions better than Doctor Chord’s. I have but small faith in the liniment; the bottle of wine you gave us last night — and I wish it had been as double as it made us see — was far better for our trouble than this stuff.”

“I doubt it, Jem,” said I, “for you’re worse this morning than you were last night; so I’ll change the treatment and go back to Doctor Chord’s remedy, for sure the Doctor is a physician held in high esteem by the nobility of London. But you’re welcome to a double mug of beer at my expense, only see that you don’t take too much of that.”

“Yer honour,” said Jem, “it’s only when we’re sober that we fall upon affliction. We had not a drop to drink yesterday morning, and see what happened us.”

“It would have made no differ,” I said, “if you had been as tipsy as the Earl himself is when dinner’s over. Trust in Providence, Jem, and rub hard with the liniment, and you’ll be a new man by the morrow morn.”

With this I took my papers and the letter of introduction, and set out as brave as you please to find the Temple, which I thought would be a sort of a church, but which I found to be a most sober and respectable place very difficult for a stranger to find his way about in. But at last I came to the place where Mr. Josiah Brooks dispensed the law for a consideration to ignorant spalpeens like myself, that was less familiar with the head that had a gray wig on than with cracking heads by help of a good shillelah that didn’t know what a wig was. As it was earlier in the morning than Mr. Brooks’s usual hour I had to sit kicking my heels in a dismal panelled anteroom till the great lawyer came in. He was a smooth-faced serious-looking man, rather elderly, and he passed through the anteroom without so much as casting a look at me, and was followed by a melancholy man in rusty black who had told me to take a chair, holding in his hand the letter Lady Mary had written. After a short time the man came out again, and, treating me with more deference than when he bade me be seated, asked me kindly if I would step this way and Mr. Brooks would see me.

“You are Mr. O’Ruddy, I take it,” he said in a tone which I think he thought was affable.

“I am.”

“Have you brought with you the papers referred to in this letter?”

“I have.”

And with that I slammed them down on the table before him. He untied the bundle and sorted out the different documents, apparently placing them in their right order. After this he adjusted his glasses more to his liking and glanced over the papers rapidly until he came to one that was smaller than the rest, and this he read through twice very carefully. Then he piled them up together at his right hand very neatly, for he seemed to have a habit of old maid’s precision about him. He removed his glasses and looked across the table at me.

“Are you the son of the O’Ruddy here mentioned?”

“I am.”

“His eldest son?”

“His only son.”

“You can prove that, I suppose?”

“Troth, it was never disputed.”

“I mean there would be no difficulty in getting legal and documentary proof.”

“I think not, for my father said after my first fight, that it might be questioned whether I was my mother’s son or no, — there was no doubt that I was his.”

The legal man drew down his brows at this, but made no comment as, in tones that betrayed little interest in the affair, he demanded:

“Why did your father not claim this property during his lifetime?”

“Well, you see, Mr. Brooks, my father was an honest man, and he never pretended the property was his. From what I remember of his conversation on the subject the Earl and him was in a tight place after a battle in France, and it was thought they would both be made prisoners. The Earl had his deeds with him, and if he were caught the enemy would demand a large ransom for him, for these would show him to be a man of property. So he made the estate over to my father, and my father ran the risk of being captured and taken for the Earl of Westport. Now that I have been made happy by the acquaintance of his lordship, I’m thinking that if my father had fallen into the hands of the enemy he might have remained there till this day without the Earl raising a hand to help him. Nobody in England would have disputed the Earl’s ownership of his own place, which I understand has been in his family for hundreds of years, so they might very well have got on without the deeds, as in fact they have done. That’s all I know about it.”

“Then, sir,” said Mr. Brooks, “do you intend to contest the ownership of the property on the strength of these documents?”

“I do,” said I firmly.

“Very well. You must leave them with me for a few days until I get opinion upon them. I may say I have grave doubts of your succeeding in such litigation unless you can prove that your father gave reasonable consideration for the property made over to him.”

“Troth, he’d no consideration to give except his own freedom and the loan of a pair of breeches, and it seems that the Earl never troubled his head whether he gave the first-named or not. He might have given his life for all the thanks his son got from my Lord of Westport.”

“From a rapid glance at these instruments I can see that they may be of great value to his lordship, but I doubt their being of any value at all to you; in fact you might find the tables turned upon you, and be put in the position of a fraudulent claimant or a levier of blackmail.”

“It’s not blackmail I’m going to levy at all,” cried I, “but the whitest of white mail. I have not the slightest intention of going into the courts of law; but, to tell you the plain truth about it, Lady Mary and me are going to get married in spite of all the Earls that ever drank, or all the Countesses that ever scolded. Now this dear girl has a great confidence in you, and she has sent me to you to find what’s best to be done. I want nothing of this property at all. Sure I’ve estates enough of my own in Ireland, and a good castle forby, save that the roof leaks a little in places; but a bundle of straw will soon set that to rights, only old Patsy is so lazy through not getting his money regular. Now it struck me that if I went boldly to Brede Castle, or whatever it is, and took possession of it, there would first be the finest scrimmage any man ever saw outside of Ireland, and after that his lordship the Earl would say to me, —

“‘O’Ruddy, my boy, my limbs are sore; can’t we crack a bottle instead of our heads over this, and make a compromise?’

“‘Earl of Westport,’ I’ll say to him, ‘a bottle will be but the beginning of it. We’ll sit down at a table and settle this debate in ten minutes if you’re reasonable.’

“He’ll not be reasonable, of course, but you see what I have in my mind.”

“Brede Place,” said the lawyer slowly, “is not exactly a castle, but it’s a very strong house and might be held by a dozen determined men against an army.”

“Then once let me get legally inside, and I’ll hold it till the Earl gets more sense in his head than is there at the present moment.”

“Possession,” said Mr. Brooks, “is nine points of the law.”

“It is with a woman,” said I, thinking of something else.

“It is with an estate,” answered Josiah severely.

“True for you,” I admitted, coming back to the point at issue, for it was curious, in spite of the importance of the interview, how my mind kept wandering away to a locked room in the Earl of Westport’s house, and to a shady path that ran around the edge of his garden.

“I intend to get possession of the Brede estate if I have to crack the crown of every man at present upon it. But I am an Irishman, and therefore a person of peace, and I wish to crack the crowns in accordance with the law of England, so I come to you for directions how it should be done.”

“It is not my place,” said Brooks, looking very sour, “to counsel a man to break either heads or the law. In fact it is altogether illegal to assault another unless you are in danger of your own life.”

“The blessing of all the Saints be upon you,” said I, “yet, ever since I set foot in this land, coming across the boiling seas, entirely to do a kindness to the Earl of Westport, I have gone about in fear of my life.”

“You have surely not been assaulted?” demanded Mr. Brooks, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

“Assaulted, is it? I have been set upon in every manner that is possible for a peace-lover to be interfered with. To tell you the truth, no longer ago than yesterday morning, as quiet and decent a Sunday as ever came down on London, my two innocent servants, garrulous creatures that wouldn’t hurt a fly, were lured into the high walled garden of the Earl of Westport to see the flowers which both of them love, and there they were pounced upon by the whole body-guard of my lord the Earl, while himself and his quiet-mannered Countess were there to urge them on. Doctor Chord, a little snobbish creature, basking in the smiles of their noble countenances, stood by and gave medical advice showing where best to hit the poor innocent unfortunates that had fallen into their hands.”

“Tut, tut!” said Josiah Brooks, his face frowning like a storm-cloud over the hills of Donegal. “If such is indeed the case, an action would lie—”

“Oh, well and as far as that goes, so would Doctor Chord, and all the rest that was there. My poor lads lie now, bruised and sore, in the upper rooms of the stable at the ‘Pig and Turnip.’ They want no more action, I can tell you, nor lying either.”

“You can prove, then,” said the lawyer, “that you have suffered violence from the outset.”

“Indeed and I could.”

“Well, well, we must look into the matter. You recite a most curious accumulation of offences, each of which bears a serious penalty according to the law of England. But there is another matter mentioned in Lady Mary’s letter which is even more grave than any yet alluded to.”

“And what is that?” I asked in surprise.

“She says that she wishes to have advanced to you, upon the security of these papers, five hundred golden guineas.”

“Do you tell me that now?” I cried with delight. “Sure I have always said that Mary was the most sensible girl within the boundaries of this realm.”