THE PART HORATIO PLAYED

The bailiff’s business was quickly settled.  I heard the heavy doors close at our backs, and drew a deep draught of the air God has made for all His creatures alike.  Both the captain and I turned to the windows to wave a farewell to the sad ones we were leaving behind, who gathered about the bars for a last view of us, for strange as it may seem, the mere sight of happiness is often a pleasure for those who are sad.  A coach in private arms and livery was in waiting, surrounded by a crowd.  They made a lane for us to pass, and stared at the young lady of queenly beauty coming out of the sponging-house until the coachman snapped his whip in their faces and the footman jostled them back.  When we were got in, Dolly and I on the back seat, Comyn told the man to go to Mr. Manners’s.

“Oh, no!” I cried, scarce knowing what I said; “no, not there!” For the thought of entering the house in Arlington Street was unbearable.

Both Comyn and Dorothy gazed at me in astonishment.

“And pray, Richard, why not’?” she asked.  “Have not your old friends the right to receive you.”

It was my Lord who saved me, for I was in agony what to say.

“He is still proud, and won’t go to Arlington Street dressed like a bargeman.  He must needs plume, Miss Manners.”

I glanced anxiously at Dorothy, and saw that she was neither satisfied nor appeased.  Well I remembered every turn of her head, and every curve of her lip!  In the meantime we were off through Cursitor Street at a gallop, nearly causing the death of a ragged urchin at the corner of Chancery Lane.  I had forgotten my eagerness to know whence they had heard of my plight, when some words from Comyn aroused me.

“The carriage is Mr. Horace Walpole’s, Richard.  He has taken a great fancy to you.”

“But I have never so much as clapped eyes upon him!” I exclaimed in perplexity.

“How about his honour with whom you supped at Windsor? how about the landlord you spun by the neck?  You should have heard the company laugh when Horry told us that!  And Miss Dolly cried out that she was sure it must be Richard, and none other.  Is it not so, Miss Manners?”

“Really, my Lord, I can’t remember,” replied Dolly, looking out of the coach window.  “Who put those frightful skulls upon Temple Bar?”

Then the mystery of their coming was clear to me, and the superior gentleman at the Castle Inn had been the fashionable dabbler in arts and letters and architecture of Strawberry Hill, of whom I remembered having heard Dr. Courtenay speak, Horace Walpole.  But I was then far too concerned about Dorothy to listen to more.  Her face was still turned away from me, and she was silent.  I could have cut out my tongue for my blunder.  Presently, when we were nearly out of the Strand, she turned upon me abruptly.

“We have not yet heard, Richard,” she said, “how you got into such a predicament.”