They pa.s.sed out of the courtyard and down the street towards the Three Crowns. Beneath the sign of that inn there lounged a knot of officers wearing the flesh-coloured facings of the Buffs, and within a young baritone voice was uplifted and trolling, to the accompaniment of clinking gla.s.ses, a song of Mr. Shirley"s:
You virgins that did late despair To keep your wealth from cruel men, Tie up in silk your careless hair: Soft Peace is come again!...
There was one sitting-room but no bedroom to be had at the Three Crowns. So they ordered up a dinner which they could not touch, but sat over in silence for two weary hours, drinking very much more burgundy than they were aware of. Captain Jemmy, taking up three bottles one after another and finding them all empty, ordered up three more, and drew his chair up to the hearth, where he sat kicking the oaken logs viciously with his long legs. The little hunchback stared out on the falling night, rang for candles, and began to pace the room like a caged beast.
Before midnight Captain Runacles was drunk. Six fresh bottles stood on the table. The man was a cask. Even in the warm firelight his face was pale as a sheet, and his lips worked continually.
Captain Barker still walked up and down, but his thin legs would not always move in a straight line. His eyes glared like two globes of green fire, and he began to knock against the furniture. Few men can wait helplessly and come out of it with credit. Every time Captain John hit himself against the furniture Captain Jemmy cursed him.
Tie up in silk your careless hair; Soft Peace is come again!
-Sang the little man, in a rasping voice. "Your careless hair," he hiccoughed; "your careless hair, Meg!"
Then he sat down on the floor and laughed to himself softly, rocking his distorted body to and fro.
"Bah!" said his friend, without looking round. "You"re drunk." And he poured out more burgundy. He was outrageously drunk himself, but it only affected his temper, not his wits.
"Meg," he said, "will live. What"s more, she"ll live to marry me."
"She won"t. She"ll die. Hist! there"s a star falling outside."
He picked himself up and crawled upon the window-seat, clutching at the red curtains to keep his footing.
"Jemmy, she"ll die! What was it that old fool said to-day? The door"s closing on us both. To think of our marching up, just now, with those two letters; and the very sun in heaven cracking his cheeks with laughter at us-us two poor scarecrows making love thirty years after the time!"
His wry head dropped forward on his chest.
After this the two kept silence. The rest of the house had long since gone to rest, and the sound of m.u.f.fled snoring alone marked the time as it pa.s.sed, except when Captain Jemmy, catching up another oak log, drove it into the fire with his heel; or out in the street the watch went by, chanting the hour; or a tipsy shouting broke out in some distant street, or the noise of dogs challenging each other from their kennels across the sleeping town.
A shudder of light ran across the heavens, and over against the window Captain Barker saw the east grow pale. For some while the stars had been blotted out and light showers had fallen at intervals. Heavy clouds were banked across the river, behind Shotley; and the roofs began to glisten as they took the dawn.
Footsteps sounded on the roadway outside. He pushed open the window and looked out. Doctor Beckerleg was coming up the street, his hat pushed back and his neckcloth loosened as he respired the morning air.
The footsteps paused underneath, by the inn door; but the little Captain leant back in the window-seat without making a sign. He had seen the Doctor"s face. Before the fire Captain Jemmy brooded, with chin on breast, hands grasping the chair-rail and long legs stretched out, one on each side of the hearth. The knocking below did not rouse him from this posture, nor the creaking of feet on the stairs.
Doctor Beckerleg stood in the doorway and for a moment contemplated the scene-the empty bottles, the unsnuffed candles guttering down upon the table, and the grey faces of both drunken men. Then he turned and whispered a word to the drawer, who had hurried out of bed to admit him and now stood behind his shoulder. The fellow shuffled downstairs.
Captain Barker struggled with a question that was dried up in his throat. Before he could get it out the Doctor shook his head.
"She is dead," he announced, very gravely and simply.
The hunchback shivered. Captain Runacles neither spoke nor stirred in his chair.
"A man-child was born at two o"clock. He is alive: his mother died two hours later."
Captain Barker shivered again, plucked aimlessly at a rosette in the window-cushion, and stole a quick glance at his comrade"s back. Then, putting a finger to his lip, he slid down to the floor and lurched across to the Doctor.
"She was left penniless?" he whispered.
"That, or almost that, "tis said," replied Dr. Beckerleg in the same key, though the question obviously surprised him. "Her father left his money to the town, as all know-"
"Yes, yes; I knew that. Her husband-"
"Hadn"t a penny-piece, I believe: p.a.w.ned her own mother"s jewels and gambled "em away; thereupon left her, as a dog his cleaned bone."
The little man laid a hand on his collar, and as the doctor stooped whispered low and rapidly in his ear.
Their colloquy was interrupted.
"I"ll adopt that child!" said Captain Runacles from the hearth. He spoke aloud, but without turning his head.
Captain Barker hopped round, as if a pin were stuck into him.
"You!-adopt Meg"s boy!"
"I said that."
"But you won"t."
"I shall."
"I"m sorry to disappoint you, Jemmy; but I intend to adopt him myself."
"I know it. You were whispering as much to the Doctor there."
"You have a little girl already."
"Precisely. That"s where the difference comes in. This one, you"ll note, is a boy."
"A child of your own!"
"But not of Meg"s."
Captain Runacles turned in his chair as he said this, and, reaching a hand back to the table, drained the last bottle of burgundy into his gla.s.s. His face was white as a sheet and his jaw set like iron. "But not of Meg"s," he repeated, lifting the gla.s.s and nodding over it at the pair.
His friend swayed into a chair and sat facing him, his chin but just above the table and his green eyes glaring like an owl"s.
"Jemmy Runacles, I adopt that boy!"
"You"re cursedly obstinate, Jack."
"Having adopted him, I shall at once quit my profession and devote the residue of my life to his education. For a year or two-that is, until he reaches an age susceptible of tuition-I shall mature a scheme of discipline, which-"
"My dear sir," the Doctor interposed, "surely all this is somewhat precipitate."
"Not at all. My resolution was taken the instant you entered the room."