第27章 CONTAINS MR. BROCK'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY, AND OTHER MATT

"Well, he was in disgrace, as you know, but he grew mighty fond of me, and--would you believe it?--nothing would satisfy him but presenting me at Court! Yes, to Her Sacred Majesty the Queen, and my Lady Marlborough, who was in high feather. Ay, truly, the sentinels on duty used to salute me as if I were Corporal John himself! I was on the high road to fortune. Charley Mordaunt used to call me Jack, and drink canary at my chambers; I used to make one at my Lord Treasurer's levee; I had even got Mr. Army-Secretary Walpole to take a hundred guineas as a compliment: and he had promised me a majority: when bad luck turned, and all my fine hopes were overthrown in a twinkling.

"You see, my dear, that after we had left that gaby, Galgenstein,--ha, ha--with a gag in his mouth, and twopence-halfpenny in his pocket, the honest Count was in the sorriest plight in the world; owing money here and there to tradesmen, a cool thousand to the Warwickshire Squire: and all this on eighty pounds a year! Well, for a little time the tradesmen held their hands;while the jolly Count moved heaven and earth to catch hold of his dear Corporal and his dear money-bags over again, and placarded every town from London to Liverpool with descriptions of my pretty person. The bird was flown, however,--the money clean gone,--and when there was no hope of regaining it, what did the creditors do but clap my gay gentleman into Shrewsbury gaol: where I wish he had rotted, for my part.

"But no such luck for honest Peter Brock, or Captain Wood, as he was in those days. One blessed Monday I went to wait on Mr. Secretary, and he squeezed my hand and whispered to me that I was to be Major of a regiment in Virginia--the very thing: for you see, my dear, Ididn't care about joining my Lord Duke in Flanders; being pretty well known to the army there. The Secretary squeezed my hand (it had a fifty-pound bill in it) and wished me joy, and called me Major, and bowed me out of his closet into the ante-room; and, as gay as may be, I went off to the 'Tilt-yard Coffee-house' in Whitehall, which is much frequented by gentlemen of our profession, where I bragged not a little of my good luck.

"Amongst the company were several of my acquaintance, and amongst them a gentleman I did not much care to see, look you! I saw a uniform that I knew--red and yellow facings--Cutts's, my dear; and the wearer of this was no other than his Excellency Gustavus Adolphus Maximilian, whom we all know of!

"He stared me full in the face, right into my eye (t'other one was patched, you know), and after standing stock-still with his mouth open, gave a step back, and then a step forward, and then screeched out, 'It's Brock!'

"'I beg your pardon, sir,' says I; 'did you speak to me?'

"'I'll SWEAR it's Brock,' cries Gal, as soon as he hears my voice, and laid hold of my cuff (a pretty bit of Mechlin as ever you saw, by the way).

"'Sirrah!' says I, drawing it back, and giving my Lord a little touch of the fist (just at the last button of the waistcoat, my dear,--a rare place if you wish to prevent a man from speaking too much: it sent him reeling to the other end of the room). 'Ruffian!'

says I. 'Dog!' says I. 'Insolent puppy and coxcomb! what do you mean by laying your hand on me?'

"'Faith, Major, you giv him his BILLYFUL,' roared out a long Irish unattached ensign, that I had treated with many a glass of Nantz at the tavern. And so, indeed, I had; for the wretch could not speak for some minutes, and all the officers stood laughing at him, as he writhed and wriggled hideously.

"'Gentlemen, this is a monstrous scandal,' says one officer. 'Men of rank and honour at fists like a parcel of carters!'

"'Men of honour!' says the Count, who had fetched up his breath by this time. (I made for the door, but Macshane held me and said, 'Major, you are not going to shirk him, sure?' Whereupon I gripped his hand and vowed I would have the dog's life.)"'Men of honour!' says the Count. 'I tell you the man is a deserter, a thief, and a swindler! He was my corporal, and ran away with a thou--'

"'Dog, you lie!' I roared out, and made another cut at him with my cane; but the gentlemen rushed between us.

"'O bluthanowns!' says honest Macshane, 'the lying scounthrel this fellow is! Gentlemen, I swear be me honour that Captain Wood was wounded at Barcelona; and that I saw him there; and that he and Iran away together at the battle of Almanza, and bad luck to us.'

"You see, my dear, that these Irish have the strongest imaginations in the world; and that I had actually persuaded poor Mac that he and I were friends in Spain. Everybody knew Mac, who was a character in his way, and believed him.

"'Strike a gentleman,' says I. 'I'll have your blood, I will.'

"'This instant,' says the Count, who was boiling with fury; 'and where you like.'

"'Montague House,' says I. 'Good,' says he. And off we went. In good time too, for the constables came in at the thought of such a disturbance, and wanted to take us in charge.

"But the gentlemen present, being military men, would not hear of this. Out came Mac's rapier, and that of half-a-dozen others; and the constables were then told to do their duty if they liked, or to take a crown-piece, and leave us to ourselves. Off they went; and presently, in a couple of coaches, the Count and his friends, I and mine, drove off to the fields behind Montague House. Oh that vile coffee-house! why did I enter it?

"We came to the ground. Honest Macshane was my second, and much disappointed because the second on the other side would not make a fight of it, and exchange a few passes with him; but he was an old major, a cool old hand, as brave as steel, and no fool. Well, the swords are measured, Galgenstein strips off his doublet, and I my handsome cut-velvet in like fashion. Galgenstein flings off his hat, and I handed mine over--the lace on it cost me twenty pounds.

I longed to be at him, for--curse him!--I hate him, and know that he has no chance with me at sword's-play.

"'You'll not fight in that periwig, sure?' says Macshane. 'Of course not,' says I, and took it off.