John Snaith - The Wayfarers

"Ods sputterkins!" she cried. "What a taking you have put me in! I am all of a twitter. Whose brains have you spilt? Not your own, I'll warrant me, for you never had any. Give me a kiss now, and get me some ratafia to compose me, and we'll let it pass."

"Cynthia," I gasped, but giving her the first of these requisites, "how came you here, in heaven's name?

"Ratafia!" she cried, "ratafia, or I perish."

"There's never a drop in the place," says I. "No, nor cherry-brandy, nor aromatic vinegar neither."

"Another kiss then," says Cynthia, pressing her white cheek against me, and casting her arms about my neck.

I led her within and set her down on the couch. She bore all the evidences of having made a long journey. So far from being dressed in the modishness that was wont to charm St. James's Park, she was covered by a long, dun-coloured cloak, wore a country hat, if I'm a judge of 'em, in which the feathers were crumpled; her shoes were muddy, and she carried a strange look of fear and uneasiness that I had never seen about her before. I procured a clean glass and filled it with wine from the last bottle and made her drain it, for she looked so pale and overborne.

"Now," says I, "how came you here? and what brings you?"

"Oh, Jack," says she, "I am run away." She suddenly broke forth into a flood of tears.

"The devil you are!" says I.

"Yes," says she, sobbing as though her heart would break, "and I'm not sorry neither."

"You wouldn't confess it an you were," says I.

"No, I wouldn't," she sobbed.

I must admit that the sight of the sweet chit was the one thing in all the world that had the power to please me at that hour, yet there was not a thing that could have happened to leave me in so sore a case. Here had my prettiness come and thrown herself on my protection – on the protection of a man utterly ruined, whom the law was already dogging for his liberty, if not his life. In sooth I must send her back again. It was no sort of a reception, especially when one fell to consider the heroical fashion of her coming to me. But what else was one to do? I was at my last gasp, without so much as a guinea, or a roof for my head, since to stay in that house was to court arrest, nor had I a friend in the world to whom I would dare to recommend her.

"Cynthia," says I, "I dote upon the sight of you; I am filled with joy to see you sitting there, but – but – "

How could I tell the child!

"But – but?" She sobbed no more. Mopping her tears, she crumpled the sopping handkerchief in her little fist, sat perfectly upright in her seat, and stared so straight at me that I felt the blood hum in my ears.

"But – but!" says I again – devil take me if I could tell her.

"But – but?" says she on her part; and it was wonderful to see her blue eyes come open and her proud lips spring together like the snap of a watch-case.

"Well, Cynthia, dear, it is simply this," says I, going headlong into it. "You find me a ruined gamester, without a friend or a guinea in the world, who even at this moment is being hunted for his debts, and, if I dared say it to you, something worse. Now there is but one way out of it. You cannot stay here; there is not a friend to whom I may confide you; child, you must go back to your father."

Instead of growing red, the colour that shone I am sure in my face, she grew as pale as snow, and her eyes sparkled with a grim beauty that discomposed me more than it charmed me. She rose from the couch, lifted her chin out of her white throat, and kicked the kings and queens and knaves on the carpet in all directions.

"Never," she cried. "I will not go back to my father. I said I would not marry this Mr. Waring; whereon my lord said he would lock me in my room until I was of another mind. And he did lock me in it; and I broke out of it; and I will not go back, no, not if I must subsist on crusts picked from the kennel, and the clothes rot off my body, and I sleep o' nights in a dry ditch or the porch of a church."

"Faith!" says I, "that's well spoke, monstrous well spoke."

"I hate this Mr. Waring," says the little fury. "May I be crost in love, if I do not."

"And if I do not too," says I, "may my heart smoke in purgatory. But come tell me, is it for himself you hate him, or is it for love of me?"

"A plague take all catechisms," says she. "But I will tell you for another kiss."

I think two persons in love could never have been in a worse plight than Cynthia and I. There seemed no course open to us, other than to flee together, we knew not whither. Before even this could be considered, however, we had to find the means.

"What money have you left in your poke?" I asked her.

"Twelvepence exactly and a halfpenny over."

I whistled long and shrill. "Which is twelve-pence exactly and a halfpenny more than there is in mine. At nine o'clock this morning I staked my all, including three periwigs, nine pairs of silk breeches, stockings, five cambric brocaded waistcoats, silver-buckled shoes, sword, duelling pistols, house and furniture, the Odes of Horace, and my man-cook – staked 'em on the queen of hearts and lost 'em. Think on it, my pretty – lost 'em on the queen of hearts."

"I care not for that," says Cynthia. "I will not go back, and so you must make the best of me."

"But, child, what can I do when I'm taken?"

"You must not be taken."

"In that case," says I, "the only chance we have is to get away from here at once, furnished with the clothes we stand in, and the sum of twelve-pence halfpenny."

Having come to this odd resolve, it behoved us to lose no time. But whither we should go, neither of us knew. North, south, east, or west, one latitude was as good as another. We should be equally served in each. As for the means at our disposal, we had the sum of twelve-pence halfpenny sterling. I am sure that much the same thoughts were uppermost in the minds of us both, for the moment I looked at little Cynthia sitting on the couch with a tight mouth and ratter quizzical eyes, I broke forth into a shout of laughter, which she returned so promptly that it became a question as to whom the honour of the first peal belonged.

In the midst of this pleasantry I walked to the door of the room and locked it again. I had no mind to be taken unawares by the enemy; and provided I was not, François' example had shown that a way of escape was always open.

"Now, my dear," says I, "we have no time to lose; let us be putting our few affairs in order. Look round this despoiled chamber, and tell me if you observe any article in it that could be turned into money at a pawnshop, or is likely otherwise to serve us on our journey. I am sorry to say that every object of vertu that I ever possessed upon which we might at a pinch have raised a seven-shilling piece has already been called upon to perform that office. There is one exception even to these, it is true, but that cannot help us now, and I rejoice to think so. For five minutes before your arrival I gave away to a connoisseur, a dilettante, a lover of the beautiful, Sir Godfrey Kneller's picture of my famous grandfather. I think I could never have held up my head again had I given up that eminent nobleman to the ignoble usages I have suggested. I foresaw this calamity; let me take the credit therefore of its aversion."

"You gave it away without receiving a farthing for it!" cries Cynthia aghast. "Oh, what a folly, Jack! Had we it now we could make thirty shillings of it at any dealer's."

"I know, I know!" says I triumphantly, "I grant that; therefore do you not more clearly see how finely I have acted by my grandfather?"

"Burn me if I do," says Cynthia. "Jack, what a fool thou art! For I see never a thing of value left in the place; or stay, we might put that pair of old iron pistols in a case and raise a loaf of bread on them. I suppose that on the floor is the one with which you tried to take your life, and as the one other's cocked, I suppose that's loaded too."