Thereupon he countermanded the justice's order with a certain easy air of authority that was natural to him, which carried more weight than all the assumption of the magistrate. This strange fellow, still chuckling, poured out a glass of wine from one of several bottles that adorned the table, and leaving his seat carried it over to me, despite the fact that he hobbled very badly with the gout. When he stood up he was wonderfully imposing, being more than six feet tall, with an appearance of perfect breeding and majesty, for all his profligate looks and his free, laughing, jovial, devil-may-care manners. As he offered me the glass of claret with a charming grace, I looked down at the cords that so tightly secured my wrists with an air of humorous deprecation.

"Here, hold this, and keep your long nose clear of the rim," says he, putting the wine into the hands of the astonished head-constable. He then drew a knife from his pocket, and without more ado cut off my fetters. As he did so an honest indignation seemed to run in him suddenly.

"What a dirty way to treat a gentleman!" he said. "But you must excuse these low fellows; they are not to blame. They have no discretion but simply to follow their calling. They only know a hog by his bristles."

"As a former custos rotulorum for the county of Wilts, none knows that better than I, sir. But I am vastly obliged to you, vastly obliged."

Thereupon I drank the glass he so kindly handed to me.

"My dear sir," says he, with another great laugh, "that was not the work of a tyro. There was a neatness and a deftness in the manner of it that must have cost you at least ten thousand liftings of the elbow to acquire. You are as good to drink with as to talk to. I'faith you must do me the honour of sitting at table, for you are a three-bottle man, or I have never seen one in the world."

You may be sure that I was nothing loth to accept an invitation that was as unexpected as it was desirable. The bewilderment of the justice, the constable and his men, and the poor gypsies too, was boundless as I briskly followed this extraordinary gentleman when he hobbled back to his chair, and promptly ensconced my disreputable self in one of the high-backed oaken seats of my forefathers, now so courteously placed at my disposal. While he proceeded to refill my glass and his own too, the scandalized magistrate very naturally expostulated in the most vehement manner.

"Why, Harry, God save us all!" he cried, "have you gone horn-mad? It is the most outrageous thing that ever was perpetrated. I vow and protest, Harry, that you are gone stark mad to bring a thief and a gypsy to my table to share your cups. It is unbearable, Harry, and 'fore God I will not have it. When this gets wind in the county they will deride me to death. Lord, I shall get struck off the justice-roll."

"Your petitioner will ever pray," says Harry, while simultaneously we raised the distraught justice's good claret to our lips.

Taking my cue from the familiarity of my entertainer, I threw aside restraint and adopted the attitude of a guest in lieu of the humbler one of a prisoner. Continuing to gaze about completely at my ease, says I, with that frank criticism that had been formerly so effective:

"Things are no longer what they were. This place hath deteriorated since I was in it last. The city creeps into the ancestral hall; cheesemongery obtrudes itself. Where formerly there were Old Masters and French Tales, there are now Bibles and bad prints. But I rejoice to see that some few of my ancestors are still faithful to their old-time haunt. My parents, my grand parents, my uncles, my cousins and my aunts, Vandycks, Lelys, and Knellers, and the devil knows who, are still assembled here, even to the replica of Sir Peter's picture of that nobleman, most illustrious of his race, who made a Commentary on the Analects of Confucius, the original of which I last saw in the shop of a Jew dealer the other day."

My singular acquaintance with the contents of his dining-room, evidently far more extensive than his own, was not without its effect on the justice.

"What is the meaning of all this, Harry?" he asked of my benefactor. "What is the fel – what is the man talking of? What does the man mean by his ancestors? Who ever heard such impudence, such effrontery?"

"Well, Tommie," says his frank friend, "I'll lay my last guinea that he hath more right to call them his ancestors than their present owner."

"A murrain take you," says the justice, more purple than before, for this was a stab in a tender place. "Will you never learn to control your infernally long tongue? And yet again must I ask you not to address me as Tommie when I am in the exercise of my high functions. Thomas if you like, or my full title would be still better on these occasions. The King would not have conferred it upon me, were it not designed for use, and that he desired I should profit by it."

His friend nearly choked himself with laughter long before the justice had come through this solemn homily. Indeed he could not recover his breath until he had poured himself out another glass of wine, and had refilled mine.

"You will kill me of laughing, Tommie, one of these days," says he. "If it were not that your claret is as good as any for thirty miles round London, I would never come near you. How a man can keep such a good table and yet such a poor understanding is a thing I have never fathomed. But I protest you will certainly kill me if you do not amend your mind a little."

"Harry," says the justice sternly. "I can never understand how it is that a grandson of the Earl of Denbigh, and a person of undeniable family and descent, should have such ungenteel manners."

"Damn the Earl of Denbigh," says Harry, banging his fist on the table, "and you too, Tommie. You can no more keep that fly out of the ointment, than a pig can his snout out of the muck."

"What, sir," says I eagerly, "are you also cursed with a grandfather?"

"Aye, to be sure I am," says he. "Though I'll thank no man that names him. If it were not for my grandfather I could go to the devil in my own way."

"Why, my dear sir," says I, "never were there two such brothers in misfortune. Your case is the very counterpart of mine."

CHAPTER XII
I DISCOVER A GREAT AUTHOR WHERE I LEAST EXPECT TO FIND ONE

While all this was going forward very eloquent glances were repeatedly exchanged between the justice and the head-constable. They were both equally at a loss to know what to do in the matter. Their plain duty was to have me removed in custody. But this they could not very well do, seeing on what terms of intimacy I had already been placed. There must be a grave mistake somewhere. What it was they were too greatly puzzled to say, but the end of it all was that my fellow-prisoners were removed into the stables against the next morning, when they could be more conveniently taken to prison, whilst I for the nonce was allowed to remain seated at the table in the society of my whimsical friend.

Sir Thomas's composure had been so rudely shaken that for a long time he could hardly venture on another word. He sat watching us with a kind of stupefied horror, whilst we made short work of several bottles of his most excellent claret.

"The true Falernian," says my companion, smacking his lips. "I would that Roman fellow were here in the room of Tommie, who sits like a dead dog in a dry ditch. I have remarked it before, and I remark it again, that I can never understand how it is that a man who can keep such a full-bodied, generous wine in his cellar should yet keep such a lean, ill-liberal heart in his body. It is an internal paradox on which I break my brains anew. You would think that one would cry out upon the other, and that they could live together no better than a keg of gunpowder and a live coal. And how in the first place they ever came to be associated passes me. Ring the bell, Tommie, and tell 'em to bring us up another bottle a-piece."

While Sir Thomas did so with the mechanical meekness of one well accustomed to obey, says I:

"I think I can give you ease on this last matter, sir. Hath it never struck you that our host may have bought his cellar at the same shop that he bought his ancestors? It sticks in my mind that I have met both his forebears and his vintages before. Indeed, to come down to the details of this odd matter, I believe at the period of which I speak they may have had my name appended to them."

"Shrewdly said, sir," says my companion; and then going on to another matter which I had sedulously been leading up to, for I had come to the conclusion that my one chance of ultimate escape lay in betraying myself entirely, continued: "You begin to interest me vastly. I confess you are a man after my own heart. I like your talk, I like your manner, the colour of your eye, the cock of your old beak, i'faith, I like you altogether. You are the very perfect gentle guest; you abuse your host and drink his wine with the same impartial spirit. You bear the same relation to a gypsy as our club-footed Thomas does to the herald Mercury. No, no, my good sir, it will not do; ex ungue leonem."

"Your compliments charm me," says I, raising the glass to my lips again, "but I could have wished, sir, that you had not nosed out my incognito. It may be the source of a greater inconvenience than I care to think about, if it and I part company."

"The blame is entirely your own, sir," says the other. "Hercules should not try to hide behind an arbutus tree. But no man ever had aught to fear from me, unless that man was myself. To him, it is true, I have been a great enemy. Yet I'll swear on my life that even that poor unlucky young man whose name is proscribed in this morning's news-letter would never be a penny the worse for revealing himself to such a rough fellow as me. As for Tommie, I will answer for Tommie too. It is true that Tommie hath weaknesses, but they are on the surface mostly. If he can never forget that Nature had a hand in the fashioning of Sir T. Wheatley, Knight, and Justice of the Peace, and is in a sense a self-made man therefore, he nevertheless hath a very good heart. I can answer for Tommie as for myself."

When he came to mention the "poor unlucky young man," I suppose I must have winced or blinked a little, or he was a marvellously subtle and keen observer, for after looking into my eyes, he slapped his hand on his thigh, and cried:

"By God, can it be? Surely it is too whimsical, too fantastical. These things do not happen outside the story books."

"Such a coincidence is a little after the manner of Tom Jones, to be sure, sir," says I.

I suppose it was the word "story books" that led to my mentioning that immortal novel which at that moment held all the town in a spell of wonder and delight. But no sooner had I uttered the magic name of Tom Jones than I thought I saw my companion's flushed face flush deeper than ever, and at the same instant my mind was assailed with a dozen points of recognition. In a flash I jumped to the conclusion that I was being entertained by the author of that inimitable work. For a moment we sat regarding one another with the frankest amusement. Then my companion took up his glass, and lifting it slowly to his lips, says:

"Lord Tiverton."

Thereupon I followed his polite example; and when the glass was at my lips, says I:

"Mr. Henry Fielding."

Upon that we fell a-laughing wildly, and wrung one another warmly by the hand. Now that the murder was out we grew closer in good-fellowship. Had we not shown proofs of an admirable sagacity in our previous respect for one another? The magistrate, however, was aghast. No sooner was he acquainted with my name than he was beset with his manifest duty as a justice of the peace.

"As you are a refugee from the law, my lord," says he, looking anxiously at me and then at Fielding, "I fear that I have no alternative other than to hand you over to the proper authorities. You see, as one holding his Majesty's commission of the peace for this county, I am precluded from giving way to any private feelings I might entertain in the matter, but must do my plain and obvious duty, however it be opposed to the dictates of my heart."

The dignity and the rather florid effect of this speech, which I will do Sir Thomas the justice of saying was very well meant, was utterly spoiled by Mr. Fielding's reception of it.

"Come down off the high horse, Tommie, if you love me," says he. "Be damned to the dictates of your heart and your duty too. Do strive to be natural, Tommie; if you would but be content to be natural I would suffer you gladly, for at bottom you are as good a fellow as I know. But when you get on these magisterial airs of yours a common mortal cannot touch you with a six-foot pole."

"That is all very well, Harry," says Sir Thomas, "but you forget my responsibilities."

"There you go again," says Fielding. "Be damned to your responsibilities. Come and drink a glass of good claret with us and forget yourself, your office, your dignity, your wig, your knighthood, and your laced coat for a brief five minutes. Perpend, Tommie, perpend; and for the nonce consent to be a human being."

"Would you have me, then," says the magistrate, "sit down with a man in my own house, knowing him to be a great criminal? How can I possibly entertain such a person? Were I to do so I should be altogether unworthy of the high trust that hath been reposed in me."

Mr. Fielding scratched his wig.

"A very moral sentiment," says he, "but all the morality in the world is not worth a penn'orth of humanity."

"Sir," says I warmly, "I am grateful to you. You can scarcely know how an example such as yours helps a drowning man to keep his head above the flood that is like to overwhelm him. But I think I owe it to myself to lessen the weight of Sir Thomas's responsibilities, by assuring you that I am innocent of the horrid crime with which I am charged. The poor fellow came by his end in a fair fight; and therefore if you can only overlook the sums I owe my creditors, you may relieve your scruples."

"I am more than glad of these assurances," says the justice. "A great load is taken off my mind."

"On the contrary," says Mr. Fielding, "they make not a farthingworth of difference to me. I care not if you are the most long-suffering peer that ever went to the dogs, or if you are the greatest villain that ever tried to dodge the gallows. What's the odds? You are a proper enough fellow for all rational purposes. Certainly I would not choose to meet Mr. Jack Sheppard in a lonely lane on a dark night, but I would as willingly drink a bottle with a lad of his mettle just as well as with another. If a man shall bear himself gallantly at table, with a merry courage and a kindling eye, who am I that shall ask uncivil questions of him?"

Whatever Mr. Henry Fielding's philosophy, and it seemed to have a savour of that of the late eminent Sir John Falstaff, Knight, he was a fine merry companion, who asked no better of the hour and the company in which he sat than that they should consort with his humour. After a while his wit, his gallant spirits, and his brave bearing before the bottle did not fail of their effect upon the justice too. That staid and pompous fellow resisted them for a time, but as first one and then another bottle was numbered among the slain, and our tongues grew looser as our brains grew warm, he fell at last from his high estate and was seduced into a course that ill consisted with his sentiments. When he had accepted several glasses from Mr. Fielding's own fair hands he began to grow rather thicker in his speech, weighed his words less, and showed several signs of having departed from his usual habit.

"You can see," says Mr. Fielding, winking at me, "that our gallant Tommie hath been nurtured on cinnamon-water and Dr. Akenside's sermons. I should say that four glasses are about the limit of him; five, and he goes over the verge."

Although both Mr. Fielding and I had already accommodated a far greater quantity than the magistrate, we had served such a much longer apprenticeship to this business (the shame is our own) that whereas we were scarcely conscious as yet of what we had drunk, the square-toed Sir Thomas was already hanging out his evidences. Now no sooner did I observe this disposition in him than I was taken with a scheme by which my poor fellow-prisoners incarcerated in the stables outside were to profit. Whatever my shortcomings, I would never have it said of me that I left a friend in the lurch. These poor gypsies had given us of their hospitality; that in itself therefore was enough of a reason why I should endeavour to spare them a hanging. Therefore I suggested the matter to my companion.

"Do you think, sir," says I, "that we can get our good magistrate drunk enough to be worked on to give the order for the release of my poor friends the gypsies? It is like to go very hard with them, I fear, unless we can find some such way as this to aid them."

"It is very well thought on," says this truly humane fellow, without so much as pausing to consider the matter. "Leave this jocund old justicer to me, and I'll answer for it that the king's enemies shall get a free pardon. Now then, Tommie, by your leave I'll name a toast. We will drink to Law and Order. Fill up, Tommie, and no heel-taps."

So thoroughly did Mr. Fielding enter into this plan, that very soon Sir Thomas began to babble in his talk with a most unwonted levity, and even essayed to sing a song. With such assiduity was he plied, that he presently advanced stage by stage, until my companion considered him to be sufficiently primed for this business. Thereon Fielding rang the bell and ordered the head-constable, who with his men was keeping guard over the premises, to be brought to him. When that worthy presented himself, Mr. Fielding says with an inimitable glib audacity:

"Sir Thomas, after much weighing of the merits of this case, hath come to the conclusion that the evidence is not sufficient to send these prisoners for trial. He is sensibly fearful of some miscarriage of justice, the more particularly as one of their number that you brought before him hath turned out on an examination to be anything but what he was represented. Therefore Sir Thomas bids me to inform you that he hath decided to remit these charges. And he would have you release these people at once, that they may go about their business. And when you have done this, you are to take your men to the kitchen, where they are to have a good supper of beef and ale, and they can then repair to their homes. And at least this course, this somewhat extreme course I may say, that Sir Thomas hath decided on will save you all from a long and weary vigil in the night air."

However surprised the head-constable was at this unexpected turn of events, he was by no means disposed to cavil at it, since the only way in which the fate of the gypsies could affect himself was the one that Mr. Fielding had so adroitly indicated. Not so the scandalized justice. Fuddled as he was, he had enough wit left to apprehend what was going forward. But he had not enough, however, to interpose his authority in a way that was at all likely to take effect. At all his thick and nearly inarticulate protests, his friend Mr. Fielding kept hushing and soothing him down, with highly eloquent and imploring gestures.

"Oh lord, Tommie," he would say, "I pray you have a care. Here am I trying to conceal the fact that you are abominably drunk, and yet you will flaunt it and advertise it, before the servants too. Think of your own dignity, Tommie, I beseech you."

Whereon the head-constable would rub his coat-sleeve across his face to conceal his laughter. Sir Thomas would grunt and wriggle and writhe his tipsy protests, and his friend, Mr. Fielding, with the oddest mingling of sorrow, amusement, and solemnity, apparently struggled to put the best face he could on the justice's scandalous behaviour.

CHAPTER XIII
I FIND OUT CYNTHIA: CYNTHIA FINDS OUT ME

It was in this agreeable fashion that my unlucky friends obtained their release. The justice was in no condition to cope with Mr. Fielding's peremptory ways; and the constable, seeing and caring nothing beyond the advantage to his own personal comfort, was not at all disposed to wait until the magistrate was in a better condition to express his opinions and good pleasure. Thus he bowed to Sir Thomas whilst that inarticulate gentleman was still wrestling with his thick speech, assured him his will should be obeyed, and that he would see to it that his officers made a good supper in the kitchen, and took his departure without any reluctance whatever.

"So much for that matter," says Mr. Fielding, highly pleased with the success of his own ingenuity. "We have robbed the gallows of eight good necks and true, which is, I think, a pretty liberal evening's work. Yet as this is a night for good works, let us spend it fittingly. Ring the bell, Tommie, ring the bell. The last of these bottles died a full two minutes ago."

Unfortunately Sir Thomas was in no condition at this stage to comply with such a request, and Mr. Fielding had perforce to perform that office himself. A fresh relay of wine was brought, and our glasses were filled up again. Sitting here in the midst of these insidious allurements, well found in all bodily comfort and good companionship, it needed but a corresponding ease of mind to be as perfectly content as Mr. Fielding himself. I had been most providentially delivered from a very real and immediate peril, had contributed to the saving of eight poor people from the gallows, and had exchanged the cold night for a far happier sanctuary; but with all this, I was nearly at the verge of despair. Where was Cynthia? What had happened to that poor child, and how could we hope to come together again! Neither of us knew in which direction the other had gone; and to search for each other in that dark night was clearly impossible, seeing how complete was our ignorance of the neighbouring country.

In my distraught state I mentioned my unhappy case to Mr. Fielding. He, with the sanguine temper that seemed to be so strangely characteristic of him, pooh-poohed my fears, and swore that all would come right by the morning.

"I will wager you the last guinea I have got in the world," says he, "which by the way I borrowed from Tommie to bear me back to Fleet Street to-morrow, that you will see her pretty face in this parlour before you are prepared to leave it. Why, man, if she hath any wit at all she will remain with the gypsies until they discover whither you have been taken, and then she will come to Tommie with a mighty long tale and a mighty heart-moving countenance. I suppose it is that my wit runs wonderfully clear to-night, for I confess I can see the whole course of this matter as plain as the back of my hand."

Mr. Fielding declared his opinions with such an energy, that in spite of myself I half subscribed to them. Indeed, as he pointed out, nothing could be done by repining. But as he followed up this last sage reflection in a manner peculiarly his own, no less than by the opening of a new bottle, I am not sure that the occasion itself was not the source of his wisdom. "Vino diffigiunt mordaces curæ," says he, "an old, old tag, but a monstrous good one. Come, my dear fellow, do not spoil the excellent impression you have already made. I am sure to mump and moan is not in you; besides, you would be the last to have yourself numbered among the Tommies of the world, the half-bottle men. You are capable to bear me company for many an hour yet. Come, let us grapple with melancholy and put him to sleep."

I was in such a state of maudlin misery by this, thanks to the wine I had already drunk, and my dubious speculation in regard to Cynthia, that I soon fell a-prey to Mr. Fielding's importuning. That lusty full-blooded fellow was not to be denied. As I accepted glass after glass of the insidious liquor from his hands, I felt my resolution weaken as of old, and that same sense of large content and utter heedlessness of the morrow steal upon me. As my brain grew hotter and heavier and less capable of thinking and doing, Cynthia's absence grew less poignant to it, and my own situation of the moment more perfectly acceptable. It was truly Elysian to sit in this warm room and in this mellow society, after having been without a roof to one's head and in such peril for so many hours. The sense of abandoning oneself by slow degrees and against one's proper judgment to this forbidden pleasure, was fraught with a delight that it is only in the power of the illicit to bestow. At the same time that I knew Mr. Fielding's point of view was specious and worthless, vide the teachings of a bitter experience, I could hardly find it in my heart to resist his wit, the compliment of his good-fellowship, his whole-hearted gaiety. He was such a lovable spirit that he would have seduced the first of the Pharisees to hang with him at Tyburn, for the sake of the companionship. It would have taken sterner stuff than was ever in me to deny or resist him.

It was not long before the justice was so overcome by the contents of his cellar that he drooped his head on the table and straightway fell fast asleep. Mr. Fielding, who was himself so seasoned that his face hardly shone as yet, laughed, and says with a kind of kingly pity:

"What a penny-halfpenny haberdasher of a man it is! C'est un vrai épicier. Strip him of his paunch, his purse, and his knighthood, and there remains one who hath no more parts than a Presbyterian. If I were old Sir John, I would undertake to make a better man out of a cheese paring. It is a pretty behaviour in him, when we are sitting at this table, bearing ourselves so gallantly before his claret. But after all, I would prefer that his honour should speak with his nose rather than with his mouth. Both organs are equally witty; and we are under no obligation to answer his lustiest performances in that style."

It was not long before I began to feel some inklings of a disposition to imitate Sir Thomas. Fortunately Mr. Fielding did not observe it in me; and he on his side was so brisk and jovial-hearted that he easily found enough of conversation for us both. And he was so prolific that I am sure he would have been the last to notice it. My bosom was no longer torn with the same pain when my thoughts reverted to Cynthia. My wits were so deadened that I had a sort of sweet sorrow instead; the sorrow whose expression is an amiable snuffling melancholy, and a tender reflection on the days that are past. I was fast sinking into the depths of this maudlin condition, when a diversion occurred that mercifully kept me from it, even as my mind tottered on the brink. A servant entered with the information that a woman was at the hall door demanding to see the justice on a most particular business. In an instant a great possibility possessed me completely, and startled me out of the bibulous lassitude that was creeping upon me.

"What kind of a woman?" I asked eagerly, "A very beautiful woman, a most adorably beautiful woman, with the voice of a nightingale and as dainty in her carriage as, as – Fielding, an you love me, give me a simile – as dainty as – "

"The swift Camilla," says he instantly, "the virgin Volscian queen, as she in the crude language of the crookbacked Twickenham bard. If you were not so drunk I would give it you in Virgil's eleganter tongue."

'Flies o'er th' unbending corn, or skims along the main,'

"I don't know what the female's like in her carriage," says the fellow, regarding us both with a very natural bewilderment, "for she's not come in no carriage, do you see. She's come afoot. But she's a shortish wench, with a pert tongue, and she's a-crying like fun."

Prosaic as this description was, and sensibly differing as it did from the one I had furnished, I was sure that the female was no other than Cynthia. That there could be other shortish wenches in the world with pert tongues, who were capable of crying like fun, never entered my head. It may have been that I had so continually brooded on her fate, or the guilt of my conscience was so keen as to lead me to this conclusion on such slender grounds. Relieved as I was, I yet had some twinges of contrition. Despite my heavy-witted state I was fully alive to it, and mightily uneasy as to the figure I must make in her eyes.

"A pretty kettle of fish," says I, "that I should be as drunk – "

"As a lord," suggested Mr. Fielding.

"As drunk as a lord on our wedding-day. I pray you have pity on my state, sir, and help me out as much as you can."

"My dear fellow," says Mr. Fielding, "this is no sort of talk. It is unworthy of you. Why, nothing could have been better contrived, sir. Can anything be more commendable than that a man should begin as he means to go on. One cannot begin too soon to bring up one's wife properly."

"Poor little toad," says I. "When she sees me like this I am sure she will weep more bitterly."

"Hath she never seen you drunk before?" says Fielding.

"Never," says I.

"It is time she did then," says he. "But after all, as it is your wedding-day there may be some little reason for your perturbation. She is still the first woman in Christendom, I suppose, and you are still the true prince. It can contribute nothing to the welfare of either for you to be seen at such little advantage. Get thee behind the screen there and leave this to me."

Having still enough wit to be fully aware of my unfortunate condition; and being at the same time assailed with many pangs for having so callously sat down to my ease before the bottle, whilst I was seemingly content to allow her to roam the night to find me, I felt truly shamefaced and hangdog. I was but too ready therefore to embrace any proposal that might alleviate my position. Certainly Mr. Fielding had a much better command of himself than I had, and was therefore much more fitted to receive her. Besides, I was so deeply imbued with my desperate case that I counted on his ready wit to shield me from an exposure.