The Duke's Sweetheart: A Romance. Dowling Richard

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СКАЧАТЬ was an ugly smash," said the carriage-builder. "Nearly killed the Duke."

      "What Duke?" asked Cheyne, with great interest.

      "The Duke of Shropshire. See the arms on the other panel. He had a very narrow escape. The pole went slap through the door, and when the 'bus-driver threw his horses on their haunches the pole made a plunge up, and just barely missed the chin of the Duke."

      "By Jove, I am very sorry for poor Regi."

      "Who's Regi? the 'bus-driver? Is the 'bus-driver a friend of yours?"

      "No, my dear friend, but the Duke, Reginald Francis Henry Cheyne, seventh Duke of Shropshire. He is a most particular friend of mine. The other day-let me see, how long ago is it? A fortnight? Well, say eighteen days ago, I had a letter from him asking me to go down to Silverview and stay a week or ten days with him. But, Whiteshaw, although it was excessively kind of his grace, you see, I tell you in confidence, I can't afford to go to such places. I am really only a poor man, although people will say the other thing, and it runs away with an awful lot of money to go to such places."

      "I daresay it does. But I thought the Duke of Shropshire was a queer kind of moody man, who never had anyone at his house?" said the carriage-builder maliciously.

      "You are quite right. He lives the life of a recluse. But he now and then will see an old friend. You must know he has rather a fancy for the stories I write-no accounting for tastes, you know-and when I go to him he always insists on my reading my manuscripts to him before they go to the printer. Very flattering, you know."

      "But he never lives ashore. He is nearly always in his yacht with his son the Marquis of Southwold."

      "Of course. It is aboard ship I always read to Regi and Southwold. Reading is all very well in the day, but I tell you it is no little difficulty to read by the light of a swinging lamp when a ship is lying at anchor and rolling. Where did this accident happen, Whiteshaw?"

      "In Piccadilly, at noon."

      "By Jove, it must be this smash I saw. I was just passing along, but took little or no notice, as at the time I was explaining some matters of court etiquette to Lady Evelina de Lacy, who is to be presented this year."

      "It has never struck me before, Cheyne, that your name is the same as that of the Shropshire family. Can it be that you are related to it?"

      "No, no. It is merely a coincidence. The name is not uncommon. My father was a poor gentleman, with no pretensions to blood-connection with a ducal house. Good-day, Whiteshaw."

      "Good-day, Cheyne," cried out the carriage-builder; adding mentally: "There goes the greatest and the most harmless liar in London."

      CHAPTER III.

      A VILLAGE STORY

      Anerly is one of the smallest villages in Devonshire. It, in fact, does not rise to the dignity of a village, but is called one, rather out of objection to use the more unfamiliar word hamlet than its own particular claims. Such as it is, it stands at cross-roads, and although the resident population is small, many wayfarers of all degrees pass through it by day, not a few of whom draw up at the Beagle Inn-the only one in the place-to taste the cider, for which that house is famous all through the district. In Anerly there is a theory that a good-sized lump of bread and a good-sized piece of cheese and a pint of The Beagle cider form a repast at which the Emperor of China's nose would cease to turn up.

      In dwelling thus on the cider, it must not be supposed other things at The Beagle were not of good quality. As a matter of fact, The Beagle prided itself on keeping nothing which was not of the very first quality. But the cider was what capped the climax, and gave a tone to the whole. In addition to the excellence of the cider, The Beagle had another great attraction: it was very favourably situated, and there was no window or door of it from which you could not see a quiet, soothing little landscape.

      Whoever built the inn, in the time of the Stuarts, knew what he was about, and set the face of the house towards the prettiest landscape of all. As the men of Anerly sat smoking their long pipes and drinking their incomparable cider in front of The Beagle on summer evenings, they had before them a long stretch of winding and descending road, bordered at irregular intervals with fine elms and beeches. To the left lay a quiet valley, the lowest line of which was marked by a broad stream. To the right a hill thinly wooded, sloped upward to where the gaunt naked trunks of the pines stood out sharply against the darkening sky. Halfway down the winding road lay the small village church. Nothing could be more peaceful or soothing than the view from the front of The Beagle on a warm June night.

      Half-a-dozen of the better-off men of the village met every evening at The Beagle. When the weather was wet they had their pipes and their cider in the front parlour, where the flash of the great fire on the ruddy sand strewn on the floor made one feel warm on entering. On warm nights, the men sat outside under a roof supported by pillars and trellis, up which climbed clematis and jasmine.

      This June evening happening to be warm, the men were all seated out of doors under the verandah. As a rule, the conversation on such occasions was neither animated nor sustained. The clerk and sexton of the church, a wheelwright by trade, was by courtesy supposed to be the brain-carrier of the party; but he being a man of extremely few words, it seemed as though the weight of intelligence was against conversation. It was well known there were subjects on which Stephen Goolby could be interested. Any mention of Napoleon I. made him fire up with most unpatriotic ardour in favour of the Corsican. Upon the mention of the name of the Man of Destiny, Stephen Goolby would double up his fist and, smiting the table a mighty blow, cry out:

      "The greatest general of this or of any other age was Napoleon Bonaparte. I tell you what it is, sir: if Napoleon put his foot on this country, with an army at his heels, there wouldn't be a man of us alive now, and English would be as much a dead language as Latin or Greek or double Dutch."

      Upon a suggestion from someone that the Corsican met his match at Waterloo, Stephen Goolby would cry out:

      "His match, sir, his match! Why, sir, answer me this, if you can: Weren't the Allies beaten when the Prussians came up? Answer me that, if you can; but I think you'll find it a stiff one. Look here, sir, if the battle was won by the Allies when the Prussians came up, what made old Wellington go about the camp all the day, thumping his chest, and saying, 'For the love of Heaven, send me night or the Prussians'? Tell me, what did he mean by that? I tell you, sir, only them Prussians came up then, every man Jack of us would be a Frenchman now, and instead of answering the service down there in good English 'Amens,' they'd be parleyvooing, so that neither you, sir, nor I would have comfort or peace."

      It so happened on the June night referred to, there was exceptional reason for the exercise of the gifts which it had pleased Providence to bestow on Stephen Goolby. Edward Graham, a young landscape painter, on a walking and sketching tour through Devonshire, had arrived at Anerly that night, put up at The Beagle, and now made one of the party under the verandah.

      Upon an occasion such as the present-that is, when there was company-Goolby having made the allusion to Anerly church, it became the duty of one of the regular company to suggest that Stephen Goolby had a story to tell in connection with that church and a great temptation which befell him. This having been done, Stephen Goolby refilled his pipe, put his head carefully on one side, so as to open the valves of his memory, and spoke:

      "I won't do myself or anyone else hurt if I say I am close up to sixty-five years of age. I am strong and hearty still, I thank God, and can do a fair day's work, though I'm not so brisk as I was once.

      "For seven-and-thirty years I have been clerk and sexton to Anerly Church; and the thing that lies in my memory now took place when I was about СКАЧАТЬ