Ch. 8: A Committee-Man of 'The Terror'

We had been talking of the Georgian glories of our old-fashioned watering-
place, which now, with its substantial russet-red and dun brick buildings
in the style of the year eighteen hundred, looks like one side of a Soho
or Bloomsbury Street transported to the shore, and draws a smile from the
modern tourist who has no eye for solidity of build. The writer, quite a
youth, was present merely as a listener. The conversation proceeded from
general subjects to particular, until old Mrs. H--, whose memory was as
perfect at eighty as it had ever been in her life, interested us all by
the obvious fidelity with which she repeated a story many times related
to her by her mother when our aged friend was a girl--a domestic drama
much affecting the life of an acquaintance of her said parent, one
Mademoiselle V--, a teacher of French. The incidents occurred in the
town during the heyday of its fortunes, at the time of our brief peace
with France in 1802-3.

'I wrote it down in the shape of a story some years ago, just after my
mother's death,' said Mrs. H--. 'It is locked up in my desk there now.'

'Read it!' said we.

'No,' said she; 'the light is bad, and I can remember it well enough,
word for word, flourishes and all.' We could not be choosers in the
circumstances, and she began.

* * * * *

'There are two in it, of course, the man and the woman, and it was on an
evening in September that she first got to know him. There had not been
such a grand gathering on the Esplanade all the season. His Majesty King
George the Third was present, with all the princesses and royal dukes,
while upwards of three hundred of the general nobility and other persons
of distinction were also in the town at the time. Carriages and other
conveyances were arriving every minute from London and elsewhere; and
when among the rest a shabby stage-coach came in by a by-route along the
coast from Havenpool, and drew up at a second-rate tavern, it attracted
comparatively little notice.

'From this dusty vehicle a man alighted, left his small quantity of
luggage temporarily at the office, and walked along the street as if to
look for lodgings.

'He was about forty-five--possibly fifty--and wore a long coat of faded
superfine cloth, with a heavy collar, and a hunched-up neckcloth. He
seemed to desire obscurity.

'But the display appeared presently to strike him, and he asked of a
rustic he met in the street what was going on; his accent being that of
one to whom English pronunciation was difficult.

'The countryman looked at him with a slight surprise, and said, "King
Jarge is here and his royal Cwort."

'The stranger inquired if they were going to stay long.

'"Don't know,