the other hand," continued Ayloffe, "your lordship is prepared to pay the sum of seventy thousand pounds to the man who will impersonate your lordship in the house of M. Legros, merchant tailor of Paris, who will—in your name and person—claim the Legros girl as his wife, and go through the necessary civil and religious ceremonies that will ratify the original marriage; and, finally, who will undertake not to reveal his own identity to the tailor's daughter until you, my lord, will grant him leave. For these services," concluded Sir John with emphasis, "is your lordship prepared to pay the vast sum of seventy thousand pounds?"
"More than that," replied Stowmaries in an excited whisper, which rendered his voice hoarse and his tongue stiff and parched. "More than that and money down: fifty thousand pounds on that day that he signs and seals the bargain with me, and starts on his errand for Paris, and a further seventy thousand on the day that the tailor's daughter leaves her parents' home in his company. A hundred and twenty thousand pounds! mine honour! my life upon it. But where in the name of Hell will you find the man to take it?"
By way of an immediate reply, Sir John placed a warning finger to his mouth, then rose and beckoning to the other to follow him, he went to the door which divided the private parlour from the public Coffee Room, and throwing it open he pointed to the rowdy company who sat assembled each side of the oblong trestle table.
"Amongst that crowd," he whispered with an insinuating smile.
CHAPTER XI
Good-night, good sleep, good rest from sorrow
To these that shall not have good morrow.
—Swinburne.
At first when Sir John Ayloffe threw open the door of the public room, Stowmaries was only conscious of an almost Satanic din; he certainly could see nothing through the dense cloud of smoke which filled every corner of the long, narrow hall.
Gradually, however, his eyes, still dimmed from recent libations and acute excitement, became accustomed to this haze-covered gloom, whilst his ears distinguished isolated sounds, drunken songs, loud oaths or hoarse laughter from out the deafening roar which surged towards him like the noise of breakers against a rock.
A narrow deal table ran from end to end of the room, from the main door at the top to the small latticed window at the bottom. The floor was strewn with rushes on which sprawled recumbent figures in various stages of drunken sleep, in the very midst of a litter of debris, broken glasses, overthrown mugs, patches of spilt wine or ale, bones and remnants of pastry and of bread—all evil-smelling and unspeakably dirty. On the table itself the remnants of pies and cooked meats, and a forest of empty mugs and bottles. One by one the tallow candles which had been placed at intervals throughout the whole length of the table had thrown up their last flicker of feeble light, had spluttered their last with a hissing sound and finally died out in a column of grimy smoke.
There were but some half dozen or so left now, which threw uncertain yellow gleams through the thick veil of tobacco fumes, on the prostrate figures that sprawled across the table, on overthrown goblets and jugs, on all the unsavoury debris—remnants of the past orgy.
The rest of the room was in darkness, and through the gloom the figure of a young man, with flushed face and dark brown hair innocent of perruque, moved backwards and forwards to the rhythmic cadence of a boisterous chorus of song.
The draught from the badly-fastened window wafted the strips of cotton which hung in lieu of curtains, straight into the room, with a swishing, moaning sound around which—soft though it was—could be heard like a long drawn-out sigh of pain, in the pauses of lusty laughter and of ribald song.
The storm outside seemed to have ceased, for, as the curtains blew away from the window the pale, ghost-like streaks of moonbeams searched the darkness of that end of the room and found here a fold of satin tattered and frayed, there a broken paste buckle, or rusty sword hilt on which to play its weird gamut of faint and ghoulish rays.
The noise was incessant, merriment mixed with quarrelsome oaths, lively songs alternating with hoarse shouts. All those who were not snoring babbled incoherently, swore or sang; Irish brogue mingling with broad Yorkshire tones, round Scotch oaths striking against Gaelic ones, whilst from time to time, a noisome word loudly flung from end to end of the table like a filthy rag would rouse one of the sleepers and spur him to respond to the challenge with vile blasphemy.
At times the clink of a sword would cut sharply through the buzzing air, the beginnings of a quarrel, a volley of vituperations, a pewter mug or half-empty bottle thrown right across the table scattering its contents over tattered coats and already much-stained vests: then the hoarse admonitions of the peacemakers, the first refrain of a song by way of a diversion, more lively, more out of tune than before, and laughter and jests once more reigned supreme.
Stowmaries gazed on this scene, the while he still felt that somnolent feeling of being in a dream, enveloping his senses. He heard the noise and saw the figures swaying to and fro, moving on unsteady legs, in and out of the narrow circles of yellow light like gnomes dancing the figures of a saraband, in the anteroom of Hell.
The figure of the young man at the extreme end of the room fascinated him. He could not discern the face clearly, only as a flushed mask with the pale moonbeams touching the dark hair with their ghostly rays.
"'Tis your cousin Michael," whispered Ayloffe close to his ear.
Stowmaries gave a sudden start. He understood now why Sir John had shown him this scene, the picture of this rowdy crowd composed of the ne'er-do-well, unclassed profligates who had flooded the country ever since the Restoration, hurrying back to England from Flanders or from Spain, under the guise of Royalist loyalty which had suffered exile for the great cause, and was now eager and ready for reward.
Boisterous, unscrupulous, disrespecters of persons and of dignity, they traded on the people's avowed dislike of the canting Puritans who had ruled in England for so long. Jeering, mocking and carousing they filled London with their noise, the open scandal of their lives, the disgrace of their conduct.
By day they paraded the streets loudly singing licentious songs, dressed in the rags and tatters of cavalier accoutrements long since thrown away, seeking the peaceful citizen with the Puritan leanings, who chanced to find himself in their way and holding him up to ridicule, the butt of their uncontrolled merriment.
By night they filled the taverns and coffee houses of the city and only the small hours of the morning witnessed their final retirement into the small brothels of evil repute where alone they could obtain lodgings.
There were hundreds of these men about the London streets during the few years which followed the Restoration. The great plague had decimated them somewhat, the fire of 1666 had scattered some of them broadcast, but in this present year there were still a goodly number of them about. They were the terror of the night watchmen and the despair of the ill-organised and inefficient police-patrols, and rendered the lesser streets of the city well-nigh impassable to quiet citizens and to decent women.
And it was amongst these men that Michael Kestyon was most often to be found; shouting with them by day, drinking and gambling with them by night. Michael Kestyon, cousin to my lord of Stowmaries and like him descended from those who in mediæval days had writ their name largely on the pages of history: Michael, the ne'er-do-well, the wastrel, the profligate: Michael the idler who strove in such company to forget that he had been born a gentleman, and that he held a claim to the title and estates of Stowmaries which many thought was passing just.
CHAPTER XII
Oh, the strife
Of waves at the stone, some devil threw
In my life's mid-current thwarting God.
—Browning.
For