Rookwood. A Romance By W. HARRISON AINSWORTH

“I trust so, indeed,” said Titus, with emotion; “and as to repeating a syllable of what I have just said, devil a word more will I utter on the subject. My lips shall be shut and sealed, as close as one of Mr. Coates’s bonds, for ever and a day: but I thought it just right to make you acquainted with the circumstances. And now, having dismissed the bad for ever, I am ready to speak of Sir Piers’s good qualities, and not few they were. What was there becoming a gentleman that he couldn’t do, I’d like to know? Couldn’t he hunt as well as ever a one in the county? and hadn’t he as good a pack of hounds? Couldn’t he shoot as well, and fish as well, and drink as well, or better—only he couldn’t carry his wine, which was his misfortune, not his fault. And wasn’t he always ready to ask a friend to dinner with him, and didn’t he give him a good dinner when he came, barring the cross-cups afterwards? And hadn’t he everything agreeable about him, except his wife, which was a great drawback? And with all his peculiarities and humours, wasn’t he as kind-hearted a man as needs be? and an Irishman at the core? And so, if he weren’t dead, I’d say long life to him. But as he is, there’s peace to his memory!”

At this juncture a knocking was heard at the door, which someone without had vainly tried to open. Titus rose to unclose it, ushering in an individual known at the hall as Jack Palmer.

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CHAPTER IX

AN ENGLISH ADVENTURER

JACK PALMER was a good-humoured, good-looking man, with immense bushy, red whiskers, a freckled, florid complexion, and sandy hair, rather inclined to scantiness towards the scalp of the head, which garnished the nape of his neck with a ruff of crisp little curls, like the ring on a monk’s shaven crown. Notwithstanding this tendency to baldness, Jack could not be more than thirty, though his looks were some five years in advance. His face was one of those inexplicable countenances, which appear to be proper to a peculiar class of men—a regular Newmarket physiognomy—compounded chiefly of cunning and assurance; not low cunning, nor vulgar assurance, but crafty sporting subtlety, careless as to results, indifferent to obstacles, ever on the alert for the main chance, game and turf all over, eager, yet easy, keen, yet quiet. He was somewhat showily dressed, in such wise that he looked half like a fine gentleman of that day, half like a jockey of our own. His nether man appeared in well-fitting, well-worn buckskins, and boots with tops, not unconscious of the saddle; while the airy extravagance of his broad-skirted, sky-blue riding coat, the richness of his vest (the pockets of which were beautifully exuberant, according to the mode of 1737), the smart luxuriance of his shirt-frill, and a certain curious taste in the size and style of his buttons, proclaimed that, in his own esteem at least, his person did not appear altogether unworthy of decoration; nor, in justice to Jack, can we allow that he was in error. He was a model of a man for five feet ten; square, compact, capitally built in every particular, excepting that his legs were slightly imbowed, which defect probably arose from his being almost constantly on horseback; a sort of exercise in which Jack greatly delighted, and was accounted a superb rider. It was, indeed, his daring horsemanship, upon one particular occasion, when he had outstripped a whole field, that had procured him the honour of an invitation to Rookwood. Who he was, or whence he came, was a question not easily answered—Jack, himself, evading all solution to the enquiry. Sir Piers never troubled his head about the matter; he was a “d—d good fellow—rode devilish well, and stood on no sort of ceremony”; that was enough for him. Nobody else knew anything about him, save that he was a capital judge of horseflesh, kept a famous black mare, and attended every hunt in the West Riding—that he could sing a good song, was a choice companion, and could drink three bottles without feeling the worse for them.