"`You ain't much of a 'and at a description, Bill,' said the man behind me.`Mr Shorter, it's like this.We've got to see this man Hawker tonight.Maybe 'e'll kiss us all and 'ave up the champagne when 'e sees us.Maybe on the other 'and--'e won't.Maybe 'e'll be dead when we goes away.Maybe not.But we've got to see 'im.Now as you know, 'e shuts 'isself up and never opens the door to a soul;only you don't know why and we does.The only one as can ever get at 'im is 'is mother.Well, it's a confounded funny coincidence,'
he said, accenting the penultimate, `it's a very unusual piece of good luck, but you're 'is mother.'
"`When first I saw 'er picture,' said the man Bill, shaking his head in a ruminant manner, `when I first saw it I said--old Shorter.Those were my exact words--old Shorter.'
"`What do you mean, you wild creatures?' I gasped.`What am I to do?'
"`That's easy said, your 'oldness,' said the man with the revolver, good-humouredly; `you've got to put on those clothes,' and he pointed to a poke-bonnet and a heap of female clothes in the corner of the room.
"I will not dwell, Mr Swinburne, upon the details of what followed.
I had no choice.I could not fight five men, to say nothing of a loaded pistol.In five minutes, sir, the Vicar of Chuntsey was dressed as an old woman--as somebody else's mother, if you please--and was dragged out of the house to take part in a crime.
"It was already late in the afternoon, and the nights of winter were closing in fast.On a dark road, in a blowing wind, we set out towards the lonely house of Colonel Hawker, perhaps the queerest cortege that ever straggled up that or any other road.To every human eye, in every external, we were six very respectable old ladies of small means, in black dresses and refined but antiquated bonnets; and we were really five criminals and a clergyman.
"I will cut a long story short.My brain was whirling like a windmill as I walked, trying to think of some manner of escape.To cry out, so long as we were far from houses, would be suicidal, for it would be easy for the ruffians to knife me or to gag me and fling me into a ditch.On the other hand, to attempt to stop strangers and explain the situation was impossible, because of the frantic folly of the situation itself.Long before I had persuaded the chance postman or carrier of so absurd a story, my companions would certainly have got off themselves, and in all probability would have carried me off, as a friend of theirs who had the misfortune to be mad or drunk.The last thought, however, was an inspiration; though a very terrible one.Had it come to this, that the Vicar of Chuntsey must pretend to be mad or drunk? It had come to this.
"I walked along with the rest up the deserted road, imitating and keeping pace, as far as I could, with their rapid and yet lady-like step, until at length I saw a lamp-post and a policeman standing under it.I had made up my mind.Until we reached them we were all equally demure and silent and swift.When we reached them Isuddenly flung myself against the railings and roared out: `Hooray!
Hooray! Hooray! Rule Britannia! Get your 'air cut.Hoop-la! Boo!'
It was a condition of no little novelty for a man in my position.
"The constable instantly flashed his lantern on me, or the draggled, drunken old woman that was my travesty.`Now then, mum,'
he began gruffly.
"`Come along quiet, or I'll eat your heart,' cried Sam in my ear hoarsely.`Stop, or I'll flay you.' It was frightful to hear the words and see the neatly shawled old spinster who whispered them.
"I yelled, and yelled--I was in for it now.I screamed comic refrains that vulgar young men had sung, to my regret, at our village concerts; I rolled to and fro like a ninepin about to fall.
"`If you can't get your friend on quiet, ladies,' said the policeman, `I shall have to take 'er up.Drunk and disorderly she is right enough.'
"I redoubled my efforts.I had not been brought up to this sort of thing; but I believe I eclipsed myself.Words that I did not know Ihad ever heard of seemed to come pouring out of my open mouth.
"`When we get you past,' whispered Bill, `you'll howl louder;you'll howl louder when we're burning your feet off.'
"I screamed in my terror those awful songs of joy.In all the nightmares that men have ever dreamed, there has never been anything so blighting and horrible as the faces of those five men, looking out of their poke-bonnets; the figures of district visitors with the faces of devils.I cannot think there is anything so heart-breaking in hell.
"For a sickening instant I thought that the bustle of my companions and the perfect respectability of all our dresses would overcome the policeman and induce him to let us pass.He wavered, so far as one can describe anything so solid as a policeman as wavering.Ilurched suddenly forward and ran my head into his chest, calling out (if I remember correctly), `Oh, crikey, blimey, Bill.' It was at that moment that I remembered most dearly that I was the Vicar of Chuntsey, in Essex.
"My desperate coup saved me.The policeman had me hard by the back of the neck.
"`You come along with me,' he began, but Bill cut in with his perfect imitation of a lady's finnicking voice.
"`Oh, pray, constable, don't make a disturbance with our poor friend.We will get her quietly home.She does drink too much, but she is quite a lady--only eccentric.'
"`She butted me in the stomach,' said the policeman briefly.
"`Eccentricities of genius,' said Sam earnestly.
"`Pray let me take her home,' reiterated Bill, in the resumed character of Miss James, `she wants looking after.' `She does,'
said the policeman, `but I'll look after her.'
"`That's no good,' cried Bill feverishly.`She wants her friends.
She wants a particular medicine we've got.'
"`Yes,' assented Miss Mowbray, with excitement, `no other medicine any good, constable.Complaint quite unique.'
"`I'm all righ'.Cutchy, cutchy, coo!' remarked, to his eternal shame, the Vicar of Chuntsey.
