In Clives Command | Page 6

a crude painting of a table and four seated figures, a king, a parson, a soldier, and a farmer. Beneath the group, in a rough scrawl, were the words--
Rule all: Pray all: Fight all: Pay all.
As Desmond drew nearer to the inn, there came to him along the silent road the sound of singing. This was somewhat unusual at such an hour, for folk went early to bed, and the inn was too far from the town to have attracted waifs and strays from the crowd. What was still more unusual, the tones were not the rough, forced, vagrant tones of tipsy farmers; they were of a single voice, light, musical, and true. Desmond's curiosity was flicked, and he hastened his step, guessing from the clearness of the sound that the windows were open and the singer in full view.
The singing ceased abruptly just as he reached the inn. But the windows stood indeed wide open, and from the safe darkness of the road he could see clearly, by the light of four candles on the high mantel shelf, the whole interior of the inn parlor. It held four persons. One lay back in a chair near the fire, his legs outstretched, his chin on his breast, his open lips shaking as he snored. It was Tummus Biles, the tranter, who had driven a tall stranger from Chester to the present spot, and whose indignation at being miscalled Jehu had only been appeased by a quart of strong ale. On the other side of the fireplace, curled up on a settle, and also asleep, lay the black boy, Scipio Africanus. Desmond noted these two figures in passing; his gaze fastened upon the remaining two, who sat at a corner of the table, a tankard in front of each.
One of the two was Job Grinsell, landlord of the inn, a man with a red nose, loose mouth, and shifty eyes--not a pleasant fellow to look at, and regarded vaguely as a bad character. He had once been head gamekeeper to Sir Willoughby Stokes, the squire, whose service he had left suddenly and in manifest disgrace. His companion was the stranger, the negro boy's master, the man whose odd appearance and manner of talk had already set Desmond's curiosity a-buzzing. It was clear that he must be the singer, for Job Grinsell had a voice like a saw, and Tummus Biles knew no music save the squeak of his cartwheels. It surprised Desmond to find the stranger already on the most friendly, to all appearance, indeed, confidential terms with the landlord.
"Hale, did you say?" he heard Grinsell ask. "Ay, hale as you an' me, an' like to last another twenty year, rot him."
"But the gout takes him, you said--nodosa podagra, as my friend Ovid would say?"
"Ay, but I've knowed a man live forty year win the gout. And he dunna believe in doctor's dosin'; he goes to Buxton to drink the weeters when he bin madded wi' the pain, an' comes back sound fur six month."
"Restored to his dear neighbors and friends--caris propinquis--"
"Hang me, but I wish you'd speak plain English an' not pepper your talk win outlandish jabber."
"Patience, Job; why, man, you belie your name. Come, you must humor an old friend; that's what comes of education, you see; my head is stuffed with odds and ends that annoy my friends, while you can't read, nor write, nor cipher beyond keeping your score. Lucky Job!"
Desmond turned away. The two men's conversation was none of his business; and he suspected from the stranger's manner that he had been drinking freely. He had stepped barely a dozen paces when he heard the voice again break into song. He halted and wheeled about; the tune was catching, and now he distinguished some of the words--
Says Billy Norris, Masulipatam, To Governor Pitt: "D'ye know who I am, D'ye know who I am, I AM, I AM? Sir William Norris, Masulipatam." Says Governor Pitt, Fort George, Madras: "I know what you are--"
Again the song broke off; the singer addressed a question to Grinsell. Desmond waited a moment; he felt an odd eagerness to know what Governor Pitt was; but hearing now only the drone of talking, he once more turned his face homeward. His curiosity was livelier than ever as to the identity of this newcomer, who addressed the landlord as he might his own familiar friend.
And what had the stranger to do with Sir Willoughby Stokes? For it was Sir Willoughby that suffered from the gout; he it was that went every autumn and spring to Buxton; he was away at this present time, but would shortly return to receive his Michaelmas rents. The stranger had not the air of a husbandman; but there was a vacant farm on the estate; perhaps he had come