Part 10 (1/2)
”I got no change but 'arf-a-crown, if that's any use,” answered the charmed Sam.
”Nothing smaller? Still,” suggested Mr. Mortimer quickly, ”I could bring back the change.”
”Yes, do.”
”It will please Arabella, too. In point of fact, during the whole of our married life I have made it a rule never to absent myself from her side without bringing back some trifling gift. Women--as you will understand one of these days--set a value on these _pet.i.ts soins_; and somewhere in the neighbourhood of the iron bridge a tinsmith's should not be hard to find . . . Ah, thanks, my dear fellow--thanks inexpressibly! Absurd of me, of course; but you cannot think what a load you have taken off my mind.”
Sam unhitched one of a number of hauling tackles hanging against the wall, and led forth his horse--a st.u.r.dy old grey, by name Jubilee.
Casting the tackle carelessly on the animal's back, he handed Mr.
Mortimer the headstall rope, and left him, to return two minutes later with the saucepan he had promised.
”She must use this one for the time,” he explained. ”And afterwards yours will come as a surprise.”
”It must be so, I suppose,” a.s.sented Mr. Mortimer, but after a pause, and reluctantly, averting his eyes from the accursed thing.
To spare him, Sam hurried across to deliver it to the lady, who awaited them in the doorway: and thus approaching he became aware that she was making mysterious signals. He glanced behind him. Plainly the signals were not directed at her husband, who had halted to stoop and pa.s.s a hand over old Jubilee's near hind pastern, and in a manner almost more than professional. Sam advanced, in some wonder. Mrs. Mortimer reached down a shapely hand for the pan-handle, leaned as she did so, and murmured--
”You will not lend money to Stanislas? He is apt, when the world goes ill with him, to seek distraction, to behave unconventionally. It is not a question of drowning his cares, for the least little drop acting upon his artistic temperament--”
But at this moment her husband, having concluded his inspection of the grey, called out to be given a leg-up, and Sam hurried back to oblige.
”Thank you. Time was, Smiles, when with hand laid lightly on the crupper, I could have vaulted.”
Overcome by these reminiscences, Mr. Mortimer let his chin sink, his legs dangle, and rode forward a pace or two in the cla.s.sical att.i.tude of the Last Survivor from Cabul; but anon looked up with set jaw and resolution in his eye, took a grip with his knees, and challenged--
”Give a man a horse he can ride, Give a man a boat he can sail, And his something or other--I forget the exact expression-- On sea nor sh.o.r.e shall fail!”
--”Fling wide the gate, Smiles!” He was now the Das.h.i.+ng Cavalier, life-sized. ”Take care of yourself, poppet!”
He gave his bridle-rein a shake (so to speak), turned, blew a kiss to his spouse, dug heel and jogged forth chanting--
”_Tirra tirra_ by the river Sang Sir Lancelot!”
CHAPTER VI.
MR. MORTIMER'S ADVENTURE.
”_Old mole! canst work i' the earth so fast?_”--HAMLET
All the way along the ca.n.a.l bank Mr. Mortimer continued to carol.
Mercurial man! Like all actors he loved applause, but unlike the most of them he was capable of supplying it when the public failed; and this knack of being his own best audience had lifted him, before now, out of quite a number of Sloughs of Despond and carried him forward singing.
He had left care behind him in Mr. Hucks's yard, and so much of n.o.ble melancholy as he kept (for the sake of artistic effect) took a tincture from the sunset bronzing the smoke-laden sky and gilding the unlovely waterway. Like the sunset, Mr. Mortimer's mood was serene and golden.
His breast, expanding, heaved off all petty constricting worries, ”like Samson his green wythes”: they fell from him as he rode, and as he rode he chanted--
”The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves And flamed upon the brazen greaves Of bold Sir Lancelot . . .”
Old Jubilee--if, like John Gilpin's horse, he wondered more and more-- was a philosophical beast and knew his business. Abreast of the boat, beside the angle of the Orphanage wall, he halted for his rider to alight, and began to nose for herbage among the nettles. Nor did he betray surprise when Mr. Mortimer, after a glance down the towpath towards the iron bridge and the tram-lights pa.s.sing there, walked off and left him to browse.