GEORGE SHAW - The Complete Works

Alice looked, but could see neither Lord Worthington nor the cause of a subtle but perceptible change in Lydia, who said, quickly,

“He is probably coming to our train. Come to the waiting-room.” She walked swiftly along the platform as she spoke. Alice hurried after her; and they had but just got into the room, the door of which was close to the staircase which gave access to the platform, when a coarse din of men’s voices showed that a noisy party were ascending the steps. Presently a man emerged reeling, and at once began to execute a drunken dance, and to sing as well as his condition and musical faculty allowed. Lydia stood near the window of the room and watched in silence. Alice, following her example, recognized the drunken dancer as Mellish. He was followed by three men gayly attired and highly elated, but comparatively sober. After them came Cashel Byron, showily dressed in a velveteen coat, and tightly-fitting fawn-colored pantaloons that displayed the muscles of his legs. He also seemed quite sober; but he was dishevelled, and his left eye blinked frequently, the adjacent brow and cheek being much yellower than his natural complexion, which appeared to advantage on the right side of his face. Walking steadily to Mellish, who was now asking each of the bystanders in turn to come and drink at his expense, he seized him by the collar and sternly bade him cease making a fool of himself. Mellish tried to embrace him.

“My own boy,” he exclaimed, affectionately. “He’s my little nonpareil. Cashel Byron again’ the world at catch weight. Bob Mellish’s money—”

“You sot,” said Cashel, rolling him about until he was giddy as well as drunk, and then forcing him to sit down on a bench; “one would think you never saw a mill or won a bet in your life before.”

“Steady, Byron,” said one of the others. “Here’s his lordship.” Lord Worthington was coming up the stairs, apparently the most excited of the party.

“Fine man!” he cried, patting Cashel on the shoulder. “Splendid man! You have won a monkey for me to-day; and you shall have your share of it, old boy.”

“I trained him,” said Mellish, staggering forward again. “I trained him. You know me, my lord. You know Bob Mellish. A word with your lordship in c-confidence. You ask who knows how to make the beef go and the muscle come. You ask — I ask your lordship’s pard’n. What’ll your lordship take?”

“Take care, for Heaven’s sake!” exclaimed Lord Worthington, clutching at him as he reeled backward towards the line. “Don’t you see the train?”

“I know,” said Mellish, gravely. “I am all right; no man more so. I am Bob Mellish. You ask—”

“Here. Come out of this,” said one of the party, a powerful man with a scarred face and crushed nose, grasping Mellish and thrusting him into the train. “Y’ll ‘ave to clap a beefsteak on that ogle of yours, where you napped the Dutchman’s auctioneer, Byron. It’s got more yellow paint on it than y’ll like to show in church tomorrow.”

At this they all gave a roar of laughter, and entered a third-class carriage. Lydia and Alice had but just time to take their places in the train before it started.

“Eeally, I must say,” said Alice, “that if those were Mr. Cashel Byron’s and Lord Worthington’s associates, their tastes are very peculiar.”

“Yes,” said Lydia, almost grimly. “I am a fair linguist; but I did not understand a single sentence of their conversation, though I heard it all distinctly.”

“They were not gentlemen,” said Alice. “You say that no one can tell by a person’s appearance whether he is a gentleman or not; but surely you cannot think that those men are Lord Worthington’s equals.”

“I do not,” said Lydia. “They are ruffians; and Cashel Byron is the most unmistakable ruffian of them all.”

Alice, awestruck, did not venture to speak again until they left the train at Victoria. There was a crowd outside the carriage in which Cashel had travelled. They hastened past; but Lydia asked a guard whether anything was the matter. He replied that a drunken man, alighting from the train, had fallen down upon the rails, and that, had the carriage been in motion, he would have been killed. Lydia thanked her informant, and, as she turned from him, found Bashville standing before her, touching his hat. She had given him no instructions to attend. However, she accepted his presence as a matter of course, and inquired whether the carriage was there.

“No, madam,” replied Bashville. “The coachman had no orders.”

“Quite right. A hansom, if you please.” When he was gone she said to Alice, “Did you tell Bashville to meet us?”

“Oh, DEAR, no,” said Alice. “I should not think of doing such a thing.”

“Strange! However, he knows his duties better than I do; so I have no doubt that he has acted properly. He has been waiting all the afternoon, I suppose, poor fellow.”

“He has nothing else to do,” said Alice, carelessly. “Here he is. He has picked out a capital horse for us, too.”

Meanwhile, Mellish had been dragged from beneath the train and seated on the knee of one of his companions. He was in a stupor, and had a large lump on his brow. His eye was almost closed. The man with the crushed nose now showed himself an expert surgeon. While Cashel supported the patient on the knee of another man, and the rest of the party kept off the crowd by mingled persuasion and violence, he produced a lancet and summarily reduced the swelling by lancing it. He then dressed the puncture neatly with appliances for that purpose which he carried about him, and shouted in Mellish’s ear to rouse him. But the trainer only groaned, and let his head drop inert on his breast. More shouting was resorted to, but in vain. Cashel impatiently expressed an opinion that Mellish was shamming, and declared that he would not stand there to be fooled with all the evening.

“If he was my pal ‘stead o’ yours,” said the man with the broken nose, “I’d wake him up fast enough.”

“I’ll save you the trouble,” said Cashel, coolly stooping and seizing between his teeth the cartilage of the trainer’s ear.

“That’s the way to do it,” said the other, approvingly, as Mellish screamed and started to his feet. “Now, then. Up with you.”

He took Mellish’s right arm, Cashel took the left, and they brought him away between them without paying the least heed to his tears, his protestations that he was hurt, his plea that he was an old man, or his bitter demand as to where Cashel would have been at that moment without his care.

Lord Worthington had taken advantage of this accident to slip away from his travelling companions and drive alone to his lodgings in Jermyn Street. He was still greatly excited; and when his valet, an old retainer with whom he was on familiar terms, brought him a letter that had arrived during his absence, he asked him four times whether any one had called, and four times interrupted him by scraps of information about the splendid day he had had and the luck he was in.

“I bet five hundred even that it would be over in a quarter of an hour; and then I bet Byron two hundred and fifty to one that it wouldn’t. That’s the way to doit; eh, Bedford? Catch Cashel letting two hundred and fifty slip through his fingers! By George, though, he’s an artful card. At the end of fourteen minutes I thought my five hundred was corpsed. The Dutchman was full of fight; and Cashel suddenly turned weak and tried to back out of the rally. You should have seen the gleam in the Dutchman’s eye when he rushed in after him. He made cocksure of finishing him straight off.”

“Indeed, my lord. Dear me!”

“I should think so: I was taken in by it myself. It was only done to draw the poor devil. By George, Bedford, you should have seen the way Cashel put in his right. But you couldn’t have seen it; it was too quick. The Dutchman was asleep on the grass before he knew he’d been hit. Byron had collected fifteen pounds for him before he came to. His jaw must feel devilish queer after it. By Jove, Bedford, Cashel is a perfect wonder. I’d back him for every cent I possess against any man alive. He makes you feel proud of being an Englishman.”