There was no dissenting voice. The interpretation was accepted.
‘And here’s another thing about time,’ said Mykelborne, ‘and a tarrible strange thing, and a pretty thing, and a brave scholarly piece of work though I says ut. Listen here, neighbours. Mark my words and use your minds. Sometimes tis five o’claack, and sometimes tis six o’claack. Did you ever give thought to that, neighbours?’ He savoured his subtlety with a tender smile, and struggled carefully to his feet. With the instinct of the artist he knew that this was the right moment for departure. He would step from the peak of his triumph into the night, leaving his audience dazzled. He steered a jerky zig-zag course towards the door, and turned with his hand on the latch to say his parting word. ‘There be food for thought in that, my friends. Rich toothsome food. Food and drink and merry tomorrow we die, as Postle Paul said.’
With Mykelborne gone, the others began to think of moving. It had wanted but his example to set their thoughts towards home and bed. The talk seemed over, the money was spent, the genial spirit of Coachy Timms was away visiting the borderlands of sleep. One after another, but in a swift series, they rose, muttered their farewells, and filed into the street, leaving Bailey alone with his thoughts, his two strange guests, and Coachy, who sat quiet and still and with eyes closed but in an upright posture curiously at variance with, the idea of sleep. Bailey, staring down at the old man, wondered for a moment whether to rouse him and send him on his way. But a harsh voice calling for wine set him hurrying about his proper business.
‘Coming, sir. Coming.’
‘Do you keep wine in this house, landlord?’ asked our gentleman, with the air of a judge who has made up his mind to hang the prisoner no matter what he may answer.
‘Yes, your honour. Whatever your honour pleases.’
‘Indeed!’ The eyebrows went up, and the eyes widened. ‘I little thought to find it so.’
‘Tis my duty and privilege, your honour, to supply Squire Marden’s table from time to time. Now Squire has a liking for Mountain, your honour. A smooth and delicate drop of liquor is Mountain, which I would venture to recommend as well for its cheerful influence on the mind as for the refined pleasure which, quod bene notandum, it offers to the palate of a gentleman of taste.’
‘Ah,’ said the stranger, with a sneer, ‘you are a scholar, I find.’
‘No, sir. That I would not venture to claim, sir. Well, since it pleases you to insist, perhaps I am a little in that line, though my poor learning has been a-rusting these many years.
‘And a poet too, by Jupiter! Faith, you are a very paragon of innkeepers. Harkee, my dear love,’ roared the stranger, turning to his lady, ‘we’re lodged luckily tonight, with a landlord who talks Greek one minute and poetry the next. But that don’t quench our thirst, my good fellow. Your own was quenched an hour or more ago, I fancy, hey?’ With this last question the stranger flashed at him a piercing glance, as though something of consequence depended on his answer. But Bailey, intoxicated less by the little he had drunk than by the pleasure of being noticed, was not to be discouraged by sharpness. His spirit soared; he was in a mood to be discreetly merry, being conscious of the bright eyes of a young woman, and already transported to a time when he himself, with a little more luck and a spice of gallantry in his making, might have won just such a beauty for his own. He could not but notice that she was a personable and elegant creature, very genteel in her dress, very modest in her manners, and yet, he was fain to admit, with something of boldness as well as shyness in her, an enchanting mixture; for at times her eyes would sparkle saucily, her red lips pout as though to tempt a man to kissing, and at other times, when the gentleman was roaring his loudest and proudest, she would gaze with a wonder that was half fear, and let her mouth fall childishly open like any country wench. She sat very quiet, and, but for an occasional small laugh such as a less partial observer than Bailey might have called a giggle, and but for saying at intervals ‘La, sir, I wonder at you!’, she seemed content to let her eyes do her speaking, which they did very effectively, working considerable pleasant havoc in Mr Bailey’s heart.
‘I may not deny, sir,’ said he, ‘that I have quaffed somewhat in my day of the Pierian springs, but in the matter of strong waters of the more carnal sort and kind I acquit myself of immoderation. Innkeeper I am, as your honour has wittily said. Which is to say I keep an inn, and quis custodiet ipsos custodes, as the poet Juvenal inquires. And the answer to that, sir, if I may make bold to formulate it, is that tis your good self, and your like, who by your distinguished patronage of my humble house keep me alive and my inn standing.’
The stranger stared with scornful astonishment for a moment. Then he burst out laughing, and laughed his fill. ‘Devil take your pedantry,’ he said, recovering speech. ‘Go fetch me a bottle of your best sack. And see here, my good fellow. Since you’re so sociable, you may share it with us and give us the benefit of your learned conversation.’
In a very few minutes, for the innkeeper could move quickly when he chose, the bottle was broached and the conversation in full career. ‘I’ll wager you could tell a good story, had you a mind to,’ said the stranger, waxing civil. ‘Tis very evident that you’re no ordinary man. You’re a man that’s seen better fortunes, or I’m no judge of men. I’m eager to hear how you came to your present station, from what, I make no doubt, was a position of no little elegance and refinement.’ The gratified landlord was as eager to tell as his guest to hear; but the story, despite this common hunger for it, was subjected to a series of small delays. For first, it seemed, the stranger must be told something of the neighbourhood to which his travels had mysteriously brought him. Which was the nearest big town? Was Dyking Common accounted safe for a gentleman to cross on horseback? This Mr Root, the Glatting magistrate, was he a man of substance and spirit who could be relied upon to do his duty? Was Mr Marden of the Fee a brisk fellow? And, finally, since the lady was nervous of her safety, the gentleman her brother wished to be assured that she need have no anxiety while under this roof. ‘I hope you have honest servants about you, landlord, and can handle a pistol with credit. For myself, I carry no firearms. Foolish perhaps. Reckless, my friends tell me. But that’s my way,’ said he jauntily. ‘And, to be plain with you, I have something in my custody at this moment that would be worth a man’s risking his neck for.’
Mr Bailey stared his admiration. ‘Indeed, sir, but you had best be careful in such parts as these, I can answer for my own household, and this is an honest godfearing village enough, this Marden Fee. But twas no great distance from here, not above twenty mile, that yon terrifying fellow Jim Dander was at his villainous work.’
‘Say no more, my friend,’ said the stranger, ‘or you’ll send my poor sister into ten thousand vapours. Come, fill up, fill up. And then for your story.’
Mr Bailey willingly complied. ‘You hit the mark, sir,’ said he, ‘when you hint that I have seen better fortunes than could be guessed from my present circumstances. Eheu fugaces labuntur anni. Though in sooth I was my own enemy and proved so. My father was a gentleman and a man of substance. He designed to make a parson of me, but for this reason and for that I found myself at eighteen years of age acting as usher in a school for the sons of gentlemen. I was a young man of sufficient parts to entertain without impropriety the ambition of becoming headmaster; and I am persuaded that such would indeed have been my destiny had not the ardour of my temperament led me to commit an indiscretion which my respect for your lady sister forbids that I should more particularly describe. Thank you, sir. The merest sip. Your very good health, madam. Ah, the follies of youth, how small they seem in retrospect, how easily forgiven! But my father took a stern view of this misdemeanour . . .’