"You do? What was your name, then?" said Tom, who recognised the woman's Berkshire accent beneath its coat of c.o.c.kneyism.

"Never you mind: I'm no credit to it, so I'll let it be. But come in, for the old county's sake. Can't offer you a chair, he's p.a.w.ned 'em all.

Pleasant old place it was down there, when I was a young girl; they say it's grow'd a grand place now, wi' a railroad. I think many times I'd like to go down and die there." She spoke in a rough, sullen, careless tone, as if life-weary.

"My good woman," said Major Campbell, a little impatiently, "can you find your husband for us?"

"Why then?" asked she sharply, her suspicion seeming to return.

"If he will answer a few questions, I will give him five shillings. If he can find out for me what I want, I will give him five pounds."

"Shouldn't I do as well? If you gi' it he, it's little out of it I shall see, but he coming home tipsy when it's spent. Ah, dear! it was a sad day for me when I first fell in with they play-goers!"

"Why should she not do it as well?" said Thurnall. "Mrs. Barker, do you know anything of a person named Briggs--John Briggs, the apothecary's son, at Whitbury?"

She laughed a harsh bitter laugh.

"Know he? yes, and too much reason. That was where it all begun, along of that play-going of he's and my master's."

"Have you seen him lately?" asked Campbell, eagerly.

"I seen 'un? I'd hit this water over the fellow, and all his play-acting merryandrews, if ever he sot a foot here!"

"But have you heard of him?"

"Ees--" said she carelessly; "he's round here now, I heard my master say, about the 'Delphy, with my master: a drinking, I suppose. No good, I'll warrant."

"My good woman," said Campbell, panting for breath, "bring me face to face with that man, and I'll put a five-pound note in your hand there and then."

"Five pounds is a sight to me: but it's a sight more than the sight of he's worth," said she suspiciously again.

"That's the gentleman's concern," said Tom. "The money's yours. I suppose you know the worth of it by now?"

"Ees, none better. But I don't want he to get hold of it; he's made away with enough already;" and she began to think.

"Curiously impa.s.sive people, we Wess.e.x worthies, when we are a little ground down with trouble. You must give her time, and she will do our work. She wants the money, but she is long past being excited at the prospect of it."

"What's that you're whispering?" asked she sharply.

Campbell stamped with impatience.

"You don't trust us yet, eh?--then, there!" and he took five sovereigns from his pocket, and tossed them on the table. "There's your money! I trust you to do the work, as you've been paid beforehand."

She caught up the gold, rang every piece on the table to see if it was sound; and then--

"Sally, you go down with these gentlemen to the Jonson's Head, and if he ben't there, go to the Fighting c.o.c.ks; and if he ben't there, go to the Duke of Wellington; and tell he there's two gentlemen has heard of his poetry, and wants to hear 'un excite. And then you give he a gla.s.s of liquor, and praise up his nonsense, and he'll tell you all he knows, and a sight more. Gi' un plenty to drink. It'll be a saving and a charity, for if he don't get it out of you, he will out of me."

And she returned doggedly to her washing.

"Can't I do anything for you?" asked Tom, whose heart always yearned over a Berkshire soul. "I have plenty of friends down at Whitbury still."

"More than I have. No, sir," said she sadly, and with the first touch of sweetness they had yet heard in her voice. "I've cured my own bacon, and I must eat it. There's none down there minds me, but them that would be ashamed of me. And I couldn't go without he, and they wouldn't take he in; so I must just bide." And she went on washing.

"G.o.d help her!" said Campbell, as he went downstairs.

"Misery breeds that temper, and only misery, in our people. I can show you as thorough gentlemen and ladies, people round Whitbury, living on ten shillings a week, as you will show me in Belgravia living on five thousand a year."

"I don't doubt it," said Campbell.... "So 'she couldn't go without he,'

drunken dog as he is! Thus it is with them all the world over."

"So much the worse for them," said Tom cynically, "and for the men too.

They make fools of us first with our over-fondness of them; and then they let us make fools of ourselves with their over-fondness of us."

"I fancy sometimes that they were all meant to be the mates of angels, and stooped to men as a _pis aller_; reversing the old story of the sons of heaven and the daughters of men."

"And accounting for the present degeneracy. When the sons of heaven married the daughters of men, their offspring were giants and men of renown. Now the sons of men marry the daughters of heaven, and the offspring is Wiggle, Waggle, Windbag, and Redtape."

They visited one public-house after another, till the girl found for them the man they wanted, a shabby, sodden-visaged fellow, with a would-be jaunty air of conscious shrewdness and vanity, who stood before the bar, his thumbs in his armholes, and laying down the law to a group of coster-boys, for want of a better audience.

The girl, after sundry plucks at his coat-tail, stopped him in the midst of his oration, and explained her errand somewhat fearfully.

Mr. Barker bent down his head on one side, to signify that he was absorbed in attention to her news; and then drawing himself up once more, lifted his greasy hat high in air, bowed to the very floor, and broke forth:--

"Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors: A man of war, and eke a man of peace-- That is, if you come peaceful; and if not, Have we not Hiren here?"

And the fellow put himself into a fresh att.i.tude.

"We come in peace, my good sir," said Tom; "first to listen to your talented effusions, and next for a little private conversation on a subject on which--" but Mr. Barker interrupted,--

"To listen, and to drink? The muse is dry, And Pegasus doth thirst for Hippocrene, And fain would paint--imbibe the vulgar call-- Or hot or cold, or long or short--Attendant!"

The bar girl, who knew his humour, came forward.

"Gla.s.ses all round--these n.o.ble knights will pay-- Of hottest hot, and stiffest stiff. Thou mark'st me?

Now to your quest!"

And he faced round with a third att.i.tude.

"Do you know Mr. Briggs?" asked the straightforward Major. He rolled his eyes to every quarter of the seventh sphere, clapped his hand upon his heart, and a.s.sumed an expression of angelic grat.i.tude:--

"My benefactor! Were the world a waste, A thistle-waste, a.s.s-nibbled, goldfinch-pecked, And all the men and women merely a.s.ses, I still could lay this hand upon this heart, And cry, 'Not yet alone! I know a man-- A man Jove-fronted, and Hyperion-curled-- A gushing, flushing, blushing human heart!'"

"As sure as you live, sir," said Tom, "if you won't talk honest prose, I won't pay for the brandy and water."

"Base is the slave who pays, and baser prose-- Hang uninspired patter! 'Tis in verse That angels praise, and fiends in Limbo curse."

"And a.s.ses bray, I think," said Tom, in despair. "Do you know where Mr.

Briggs is now?"

"And why the devil do you want to know?