They listened, with conscious grins of innocence, to the talk at the
tables, being a little comforted to hear many questions, but no
certain answers. The soldiers, it seems, being asked, could or would
give no answer but that they had orders to make a camp. Fair ladies,
smiling on private men, could get no other reply. It might be only for
practice. It might be that the French were expected. Mr. Wogan
heartily wished that they were, but nobody was expected, so far as he
knew, save these same ragged regiments of his countrymen with the
Duke. And, lo! a welcome was being got ready for them. As for the
regiment that had been tampered with in the Tower, they were pitching
tents in the Park. The two gentlemen, who had been conversing on faro
and Newmarket, and laying each other fantastic odds, arose and walked
eastwards.
'I think the air of the waterside would be wholesome,' remarked Mr.
Tyrell.
'I have to see a friend,' said Mr. Wogan, and they shook hands and
parted.
'You will warn the Crow to be on the wing?' said Wogan over his
shoulder, and the other nodded. Mr. Wogan could not but smile to think
of the Crow winging an unsteady flight across the Channel. He managed
to steer across, after all, thanks to Tyrell. Then Wogan read Lady
Oxford's _billet_ again, and he walked to Bury Street.
He knocked, and the door was opened by Mrs. Barnes.
'Mr. Johnson at home?'
'It would appear, Mr. Hilton, that I did not give satisfaction,' said
Mrs. Barnes, whose aspect was of a severity.
'Give satisfaction?'
'Mr. Kelly has thought to better himself, and if he prefers
bed-fellows such as shall be nameless, and the coals disappearing, and
his letters pryed into, and if he thinks that I ever mention my
gentlemen's affairs...!'
Here Mrs. Barnes threw her apron over her head, but gulps of
lamentation escaped aloud, though her emotion was veiled like that of
the Greek gentleman in the picture.
Mr. Wogan was not unpractised in the art of consoling Mrs. Barnes. He
led her within, she was slowly induced to unshroud her pleasing
features, and, at last, revealed the strange circumstance that Kelly
had left her rooms two days before without giving in any sound
justifying plea for this treason. Mr. Wogan, who was well aware of
Mrs. Barnes's curiosity and the fluency of her tongue, was in no doubt
as to the cause which had led the Parson to leave her, and thought the
step in this posture of their affairs altogether prudent.
'But he will return,' he reassured her. 'What!--you know Mr. Johnson,
he will never desert you.'
'So he said. He would come back in a month, and paid in advance to
reserve the rooms, but it would seem that I do not give satisfaction.
And here's all his letters to all manner of names. Look at them! Look
at them! And how many of them are signed Ugus? Oh, I know what that
will end in, and I'm just going to send the girl round with them--'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account