What Will He Do With It? (Belford)/Book 10/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII.
Jasper Losely, on quitting his father, spent his last coins in payment for his horse's food, and on fiery drink for himself. In haste he mounted—in haste he spurred on to London; not even pence for the toll-bars. Where he found the gates open, he dashed through them headlong; where closed, as the night advanced, he forced his horse across the fields, over hedge and ditch—more than once the animal falling with him—more than once thrown from the saddle; for, while a most daring, he was not a very practiced rider; but it was not easy to break bones so strong, and though bruised and dizzy he continued his fierce way. At morning his horse was thoroughly exhausted, and at the first village he reached after sunrise he left the poor beast at an inn, and succeeded in borrowing of the landlord £1 on the pawn of the horse thus left as hostage. Resolved to husband this sum, he performed the rest of his journey on foot. He reached London at night, and went straight to Cutts's lodging. Cutts was, however, in the club-room of those dark associates against whom Losely had been warned. Oblivious of his solemn promise to Arabella, Jasper startled the revelers as he stalked into the room, and toward the chair of honor at the far end of it, on which he had been accustomed to lord it over the fell groups he had treated out of Poole's purse. One of the biggest and most redoubted of the Black Family was now in that seat of dignity, and, refusing surlily to yield it at Jasper's rude summons, was seized by the scuff of the neck, and literally hurled on the table in front, coming down with clatter and crash among mugs and glasses. Jasper seated himself coolly, while the hubbub began to swell—and roared for drink. An old man, who served as drawer to these cavaliers, went out to obey the order; and when he was gone, those near the door swung across it a heavy bar. Wrath against the domineering intruder was gathering, and waited but the moment to explode. Jasper, turning round his bloodshot eyes, saw Cutts within a few chairs of him, seeking to shrink out of sight.
"Cutts, come hither!" cried he, imperiously.
Cutts did not stir.
"Throw me that cur this way—you who sit next him!"
"Don't, don't; his mad fit is on him; he will murder me—murder me, who have helped and saved you all so often. Stand by me!"
"We will," said both his neighbors, the one groping for his case-knife, the other for his revolver.
"Do you fear I should lop your ears, dog!" cried Jasper, "for shrinking from my side with your tail between your legs? Pooh! I scorn to waste force on a thing so small. After all, I am glad you left me; I did not want you. You will find your horse at an inn in the village of . I will pay for its hire whenever we meet again. Meanwhile, find another master—I discharge you. Mille tonnères! why does that weasel-faced snail not bring me the brandy? By your leave," and he appropriated to himself the brimming glass of his next neighbor. Thus refreshed, he glanced round through the reek of tobacco smoke; saw the man he had dislodged, and who, rather amazed than stunned by his fall, had kept silence on rising, and was now ominously interchanging muttered words with two of his comrades, who were also on their legs. Jasper turned from him contemptuously; with increasing contempt in his hard, fierce sneer, noted the lowering frowns on either side the Pandemonium; and it was only with an angry flash from his eyes that he marked, on closing his survey, the bar dropped across the door, and two forms, knife in hand, stationed at the threshold.
"Aha! my jolly companions," said he, then, "you do right to bar the door. Prudent families can't settle their quarrels too snugly among themselves. I am come here on purpose to give you all a proper scolding; and if some of you don't hang your heads for shame before I have done, youll die more game than I think for, whenever you come to the last Drop!"
He rose as he thus spoke, folding his sinewy arms across his wide chest. Most of the men had risen too—some, however, remained seated. There might be eighteen or twenty men in all. Every eye was fixed on him, and many a hand was on a deadly weapon.
"Scum of the earth!" burst forth Jasper, with voice like a roll of thunder, "I stooped to come among you—I shared among you my money. Was any one of you too poor to pay up his club fee—to buy a draught of Forgetfulness—I said, 'Brother, take!' Did brawl break out in your jollities—were knives drawn—a throat in danger—this right hand struck down the uproar, crushed back the coward murder. If I did not join in your rogueries, it was because they were sneaking and pitiful. I came as your Patron, not as your Pal; I did not meddle with your secrets—did not touch your plunder. I owed you nothing. Offal that you are! to me you owed drink, and meat, and goodfellowship. I gave you mirth, and I gave you Law; and in return ye laid a plot among you to get rid of me—how, ye white-livered scoundrels? Oho! not by those fists, and knives, and bludgeons. All your pigeon breasts clubbed together had not manhood for that. But to palm off upon me some dastardly deed of your own, by snares and scraps of false evidence—false oaths, too, no doubt—to smuggle me off to the hangman. That was your precious contrivance. Once again I am here; but this once only. What for?—why, to laugh at, and spit at, and spurn you. And if one man among you has in him an ounce of man's blood, let him show me the traitors who planned the pitiful project, and be they a dozen, they shall carry the mark of this hand till their carcasses go to the surgeon's scalpel."
He ceased. Though each was now hustling the other toward him, and the whole pack of miscreants was closing up, like hounds round a wild boar at bay, the only one who gave audible tongue was that thin splinter of life called Cutts!
"Look you, General Jas, it was all a mistake your ever coming here. You were a fine fellow once, particularly in the French way of doing business—large prizes and lots of row. That don't suit us; we are quiet Englishmen. You brag of beating and bullying the gentlemen who admit you among them, and of not sharing their plans or risks; but that sort of thing is quite out of order—no precedent for it. How do we know that you are not a spy, or could not be made one, since you say you owe us nothing, and hold us in such scorn? Truth is, we are all sick of you. You say you only come this once: very well, you have spun your yarn—now go. That's all we want; go in peace, and never trouble us again. Gentlemen, I move that General Jas be expelled this club, and requested to withdraw."
"I second it," said the man whom Jasper had flung on the table.
"Those who are in favor of the resolution hold up their hands; all—carried unanimously, General Jas is expelled."
"Expel me!" said Jasper, who, in the mean while, swaying to and fro his brawny bulk, had cleared the space round him, and stood resting his hands on the heavy arm-chair from which he had risen.
A hostile and simultaneous movement of the group brought four or five of the foremost on him. Up rose the chair on which Jasper had leaned—up it rose in his right hand, and two of the assailants fell as falls an ox to the butcher's blow. With his left hand he wrenched a knife from a third of the foes, and thus armed with blade and buckler, he sprang on the table, towering over all. Before him was the man with the revolver, a genteeler outlaw than the rest—ticket-of-leave man, who had been transported for forgery. "Shall I shoot him?" whispered this knave to Cutts. Cutts drew back the hesitating arm. "No; the noise! bludgeons safer." Pounce, as Cutts whispered—pounce as a hawk on its quarry, darted Jasper's swoop on the Forger, and the next moment, flinging the chair in the faces of those who were now swarming up the table, Jasper was armed with the revolver, which he had clutched from its startled owner, and its six barrels threatened death, right and left, beside and before and around him, as he turned from face to face. Instantly there fell a hush—instantly the assault paused. Every one felt that there no faltering would make the hand tremble or the ball swerve. Wherever Jasper turned, the foes recoiled. He laughed with audacious mockery as he surveyed the recreants.
"Down with your arms, each of you—down that knife, down that bludgeon! That's well. Down yours—there; yours—yours. What, all down! Pile them here on the table at my feet. Dogs, what do you fear?—death? The first who refuses dies."
Mute and servile as a repentant Legion to a Cæsar's order, the knaves piled their weapons.
"Unbar the door, you two. You, orator Cutts, go in front; light a candle; open the street-door. So—so—so. Who will treat me with a parting cup—to your healths? Thank you, Sir. Fall back there; stand back—along the wall—each of you. Line my way. Ho, ho!—you harm me—you daunt me—you—you! Stop—I have a resolution to propose. Hear it, and cheer. 'That this meeting rescinds the resolution for the expulsion of General Jasper, and entreats him humbly to remain, the pride and ornament of the club!' Those who are for that resolution, hold up their hands—as many as are against it, theirs. Carried unanimously. Gentlemen, I thank you—proudest day of my life—but I'll see you hanged first; and till that sight diverts me—gentlemen, your health!"
Descending from his eminence, he passed slowly down the room unscathed, unmenaced, and, with a low mocking bow at the threshold, strode along the passage to the street-door. There, seeing Cutts with the light in his hand, he uncocked the pistol, striking off the caps, and giving it to his quondam associate, said, "Return that to its owner, with my compliments. One word—speak truth, and fear nothing. Did you send help to Darrell?"
"No; I swear it."
"I am sorry for it. I should like to have owed so trusty a friend that one favor. Go back to your pals. Understand now why I scorned to work with such rotten tools."
"A wonderful fellow, indeed!" muttered Cutts, as his eye followed the receding form of the triumphant bravo. "All London might look to itself if he had more solid brains and less liquid fire in them."