The Castle Inn | Page 7

to tell the gentlemen he could not
sleep for the noise. After that it is not known just what happened, but
the party had him in and gave him wine; and whether he went then and
returned again when the company were gone is a question. Any way, he

was found in the morning, cold and dead at the foot of the stairs, and
his neck broken. It is said by some a trap was laid for him on the
staircase. And if it was,' the man continued, after a pause, his true
feeling finding sudden vent, 'it is a black shame that the law does not
punish it! But the coroner brought it in an accident.'
Sir George shrugged his shoulders. Then, moved by curiosity and a
desire to learn something about the girl, 'His daughter takes it hardly,'
he said.
The man grunted. 'Ah,' he said, 'maybe she has need to. Your honour
does not come from him?'
'From Whom? I come from no one.'
'To be sure, sir, I was forgetting. But, seeing you with her--but there,
you are a stranger.'
Soane would have liked to ask him his meaning, but felt that he had
condescended enough. He bade the man a curt good-night, therefore,
and turning away passed quickly into St. Aldate's Street. Thence it was
but a step to the Mitre, where he found his baggage and servant
awaiting him.
In those days distinctions of dress were still clear and unmistakable.
Between the peruke--often forty guineas' worth--the tie-wig, the scratch,
and the man who went content with a little powder, the intervals were
measurable. Ruffles cost five pounds a pair; and velvets and silks, cut
probably in Paris, were morning wear. Moreover, the dress of the man
who lost or won his thousand in a night at Almack's, and was equally
well known at Madame du Deffand's in Paris and at Holland House,
differed as much from the dress of the ordinary well-to-do gentleman as
that again differed from the lawyer's or the doctor's. The Mitre,
therefore, saw in Sir George a very fine gentleman indeed, set him
down to an excellent supper in its best room, and promised a
post-chaise-and-four for the following morning--all with much bowing
and scraping, and much mention of my lord to whose house he would
post. For in those days, if a fine gentleman was a very fine gentleman, a

peer was also a peer. Quite recently they had ventured to hang one; but
with apologies, a landau-and-six, and a silken halter.
Sir George would not have had the least pretension to be the glass of
fashion and the mould of form, which St. James's Street considered him,
if he had failed to give a large share of his thoughts while he supped to
the beautiful woman he had quitted. He knew very well what steps
Lord March or Tom Hervey would take, were either in his place; and
though he had no greater taste for an irregular life than became a man
in his station who was neither a Methodist nor Lord Dartmouth, he
allowed his thoughts to dwell, perhaps longer than was prudent, on the
girl's perfections, and on what might have been were his heart a little
harder, or the not over-rigid rule which he observed a trifle less
stringent. The father was dead. The girl was poor: probably her ideal of
a gallant was a College beau, in second-hand lace and stained linen,
drunk on ale in the forenoon. Was it likely that the fortress would hold
out long, or that the maiden's heart would prove to be more obdurate
than Danäe's?
Soane, considering these things and his self-denial, grew irritable over
his Chambertin. He pictured Lord March's friend, the Rena, and found
this girl immeasurably before her. He painted the sensation she would
make and the fashion he could give her, and vowed that she was a
Gunning with sense and wit added; to sum up all, he blamed himself
for a saint and a Scipio. Then, late as it was, he sent for the landlord,
and to get rid of his thoughts, or in pursuance of them, inquired of that
worthy if Mr. Thomasson was in residence at Pembroke.
'Yes, Sir George, he is,' the landlord answered; and asked if he should
send for his reverence.
'No,' Soane commanded. 'If there is a chair to be had, I will go to him.'
'There is one below, at your honour's service. And the men are waiting.'
So Sir George, with the landlord, lighting him and his man attending
with his cloak, descended the stairs in state, entered the sedan, and was
carried off to Pembroke.

CHAPTER III
TUTOR AND PUPILS--OLD STYLE
Doctor Samuel Johnson, of Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, had at this
time some name in the