III
Even now, hardly had mine hosts conversation with his favoured customers assumed a more domestic turn, than a loud clatter on the cobblestones outside, a jingle and a rattle, shouts, laughter and bustle, announced the arrival of guests who were privileged to make as much noise as they pleased.
Mr. Jellyband ran to the door, shouted for Sally at the top of his voice with a “Here’s my lord Hastings!” to add spur to Sally’s hustle. Politics were forgotten for the nonce, arguments set aside, in the excitement of welcoming the quality.
Three young gallants in travelling clothes, smart of appearance and debonair of mien, were ushering a party of strangers—three ladies and two men—into the hospitable porch of The Fisherman’s Rest. The little party had walked across from the inner harbour, where the graceful masts of an elegant schooner lately arrived in port were seen gently swaying against the delicately coloured afternoon sky. Three or four sailors from the schooner were carrying luggage, which they deposited in the hall of the inn, then touched their forelocks in response to a pleasant smile and nod from the young lords.
“This way, my lord,” Master Jellyband reiterated with jovial obsequiousness. “Everything is ready. This way! Hey, Sallee!” he called again; and Sally, hot, excited, blushing, came tripping over from the kitchen, wiping her hot plump palms against her apron in anticipation of shaking hands with their lordships.
“Since Mr. Waite isn’t anywhere about,” my lord Hastings said gaily, as he put a bold arm round Mistress Sally’s dainty waist, “I’ll e’en have a kiss, my pretty one.”
“And I, too, by gad, for old sake’s sake!” Lord Tony asserted, and planked a hearty kiss on mistress Sally’s dimpled cheek.
“At your service, my lords, at your service!” Master Jellyband rejoined, laughing. Then added more soberly: “Now then, Sally, show the ladies up into the blue room, the while their lordships ’ave a first shake down in the coffee-room. This way, gentlemen—your lordships—this way!”
The strangers in the meanwhile had stood by, wide-eyed and somewhat bewildered in face of this exuberant hilarity which was so unlike what they had pictured to themselves of dull, fog-ridden England—so unlike, too, the dreary moroseness which of late had replaced the erstwhile lighthearted gaiety of their own countrymen. The porch and the narrow hall of The Fisherman’s Rest appeared to them seething with vitality. Everyone was talking, nobody seemed to listen; everyone was merry, and everyone knew everybody else and was pleased to meet them. Sonorous laughter echoed from end to end along the solid beams, black and shiny with age. It all seemed so homely, so happy. The deference paid to the young gallants and to them as strangers by the sailors and the innkeeper was so genuine and hearty without the slightest sign of servility, that those five people who had left behind them so much class-hatred, enmity and cruelty in their own country, felt an unaccountable tightening of the heart, a few hot tears rise to their eyes, partly of joy, but partly too of regret.