Chapter 339: The shooting incident

Chapter 336 The Shooting Incident
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Irving. Perhaps I shouldn’t say so, for I knew the name Washington Irving long before I met you, and your Journal of Sight and Sound is very interestingly written.”

Arthur greeted Owen with a smile on his face.

Although this was not the first American he knew, Washington Irving was obviously much more famous in Britain than Samuel Colt.

Both Blackwood, which Disraeli hated with a passion, and The Gentleman’s Magazine, which represented London’s tastes, had once produced feature articles on this representative of American literature.

Both Sir Walter Scott, the leading light of English historical literature, and Coleridge, the representative of the Lakeside school, have praised the works of Washington Irving.

Even the University of Oxford came to rub his nose in it by awarding him an honorary Doctor of Laws degree, symbolizing Oxford’s highest honor.

Of course, the reason why Owen was so popular was that his articles were well-written on the one hand, and on the other hand, it was due to the fact that the strong ‘nostalgia for the past’ tendency he showed in his works resonated with these people.

Both Scott and Coleridge were notoriously conservative men of letters.

And Oxford University, which gave Owen his degree, is the home of British conservatism.

Although Mr. Owen did not make his views explicit, it was evident in every corner of his words that he always insisted that democracy in the United States was not a true advancement of civilization, but rather a degradation of mankind.

In his view, every step towards democracy in the United States is at the same time a step towards the abyss of destruction.

In the era of democracy that politicians promised their voters, there was no paradise full of milk and honey; only a group of demagogues, speculators, and profiteers guarding the gates of paradise.

Irving was surprised to find that since the United States had moved away from England to a democratic republic, the American people had not paid less taxes to the government, but more than they had under the King.

In order to satirize this, he said in his “Notes on a Novel”, through the mouth of a fictional character, that he and the world around him were as absurd as if they were under a spell, and that he had never imagined that he was living in a chaotic world in which right and wrong were upside down and ludicrous. The so-called revolution in the name of equality and freedom was, in the end, just a new stage for sickeningly ambitious people.

The ignorant and blindly obedient people will only end up as tools for the politicians’ profit-seeking, like a wild donkey with an apple on a leash in front of its eyes; the food seems to be posed so close that it seems that two more steps forward and it will get what it wants. But alas, the donkeys never get anything other than the whip.

In addition to looking at the American system of government with disdain, Owen scoffed at the ‘God bless the United States of America’ ‘God gave Americans the natural and legal right to own land in the Americas’ argument.

He called America’s political party battles ‘the most delightful burlesque in history, even better than that acted in the New York theaters’, alluded to the mayor of New York and U.S. President Thomas Jefferson in An Outer History of New York, and cited the massacre of Indians by Dutch colonists to imply that the westward movement initiated by Jefferson was not as progressive as he made it sound. Instead of civilization and enlightenment, what Americans brought to the West was war, exploitation, disease, and slaughter.

Not only that, but he often shades America’s original founding stock – the group of Puritans exiled to North America by Britain.

In Irving’s writing, the Puritans who inhabited New England were cynics and persecutors, a group dedicated to killing heretics and burning witches in their early years, and whose descendants have not only preserved this destructive tradition, but also, by sheer strength of numbers, have continued to pursue a policy of religious persecution in the name of freedom of religion in the region.

It can be said that since the founding of the United States of America, the three major sensitive issues, the Revolution, the Puritans and the Indians have let Irving touch all over.

If Irving had only satirized these, he obviously would not have been elevated to his present position.

After all, although Britain looked at the North American colonial rebels uncomfortable, but insulting the French is obviously more energetic than insulting the bunch of uneducated rednecks.

In 1815, because of the repeated touching of American sensitivities, so had to daily in newspapers and magazines and opponents of the war of words Mr. Owen finally tired of this key political life, he in line with the purpose of not here to stay in their own place decisively run to Britain to relax.

And after coming to Britain, his mood is obviously also much calmer.

According to his own words, unlike most people, his taste has always been ‘like the old and hate the new’. In London, he was finally able to get away from the lack of historical heritage of the United States of America, away from the foul air of New York’s vulgarity, and devote himself to the study of the ancient arts of Europe.

Compared to the two-faced American literati that Colt hated so much, Irving’s greatest strength lay in the fact that he was a man of both words and deeds.

Since moving to Europe fifteen years ago, Irving has entered a period of high production, and he is passionate about depicting the ancient customs of the countryside, attempting to use these traditions and cultures to glimpse the landscapes of the past.

The celebration of the pastoral life and the mourning of those rural landscapes that have disappeared in the age of industrialization naturally struck a chord with the mainstream of British poetry and the clergy, who shared this sentiment.

With these people as his backing, Owen’s fame in Britain and even in the whole of Europe naturally rose as fast as the stock in Arthur’s hand.

What’s even more compelling is that when those Americans who used to yell at Irving found out that this guy actually had such a big reputation in old Europe, they actually immediately began to adapt themselves to the camp, and transformed into Irving’s staunch supporters.

Owen’s identity naturally from the malicious denigration of the American Revolution traitor, tampering with the facts of the British spies, received the Indian black gold of the corrupt officials, into the pride of the people of the United States of America, the new image of the United States of America in Europe spokesman, half of North American literature, American literature, issued a deafening Declaration of Independence, from the New York of Herodotus.

Whenever other American writers try to remind the American people that only four of the works in the collection of the father of American literature are about the United States, they are immediately drowned in the angry mouths of the American people and are asked if they are not jealous of Irving’s achievements and do not want to see the American literature to be recognized by Europe.

And the U.S. government, after seeing Irving’s great achievements, also rushed to rub the heat and hastened to close the distance with the anti-government elements.

First they put Irving in the U.S. Embassy in Spain, and within a few years they promoted him to Secretary of the Embassy in England.

And Irving’s job within the embassy was actually quite simple; he could continue to write his book, and he didn’t have to clock in from nine to five. The only thing the American ambassador asked of him was that when he came across banquets and important occasions, Owen would agree to attend them with him.

After all, for the ambassador, there are really not many things that the United States can show off to outsiders, and Owen happens to be one of them.

Putting aside Owen’s fondness for cursing the United States, standing in the banquet hall was always considered to be an honor for the United States, wasn’t it?
If Irving is sick one day, the ambassador’s heart is really empty, no matter where he goes in London, he feels shorter than others.

Arthur looked at the face of the American people in front of him, the first look gave him a good impression, is a white middle-aged handsome man.

Although the attributes of Keymaster were rather annoying, the head of the secret police didn’t mind widening his jurisdiction to the other side of the Atlantic, given the fact that he was already surrounded by three anti-government elements from Germany and France, respectively.

Owen was also looking Arthur up and down, but what Arthur didn’t expect was that the other party addressed him in a somewhat special way, “Arthur Hastings, and with that, the author of the Hastings Mysteries – Mr. Arthur Sigma.”

Arthur raised one eyebrow and asked with a smile, “How did you know about this?”

Owen took off his hat and placed it on the table, “The Englishman has been quite a hit in London lately, so I was thinking about giving you the UK distribution rights for my new book, Alhambra. For this reason, I made a special trip to your editorial office in Fleet Street the other day and had a brief chat with your editor, Mr. Tennyson.

He told me that The Englishman was definitely willing to distribute the work, but that he alone couldn’t make the call, and that he would have to wait for a few shareholders to come back from overseas before he could formalize it. So it was from him that I asked where you were going and who you really were. But to be honest, the fact that Sigma is Hastings doesn’t surprise me at all. Who can write a detective novel so realistically if they haven’t personally investigated the case? I’m not going to lie to you, but a while back I received a letter from a young friend who had supposedly picked up a second-hand copy of The Cockney somewhere, and so launched into a poor imitation of you. But with all due respect, he writes badly.”

The Red Devil, who had just gotten up, stretched out in his nightcap with satisfaction, “Not bad, Arthur! Which ungrateful fellow has actually started imitating our writing style?”

Arthur just smiled at his words and asked, “Is that so? I originally thought that the fact that you brought me a work today was enough of a surprise. I didn’t realize that there were other gains, do you still have the letter from that little friend?”

Owen shook his head slightly, “I keep it, but I’m keeping it in London. And you probably wouldn’t want to read that, just the whim of an ordinary American boy. Although he lived and studied in London for a few years when he was a kid, he’s since moved back to live in Virginia. Scotland Yard hadn’t even been established when he was in London, and he even learned what uniforms police officers wore from your work, let alone writing about detectives investigating crimes.”

Hearing him say that, Arthur couldn’t help but ask, “Why does it sound like you knew him quite well? Did you know each other from a long time ago?”

Owen was a little thirsty from talking and was about to drink something to wet his throat, but when he looked down at the table in front of him there was actually coffee on the table, he frowned and pushed the coffee aside, taking out an empty cup from the tea tray and pouring some tea for himself.

“Sort of, I’ve known him for some years. He came to Scotland first in 1815, and I came to Liverpool in 1815. After that, the boy and I bumped into each other in London. The boy had been fond of writing poetry, and having read a few lines of Byron’s love-poems, he wanted to imitate his handwriting. I said he had no talent for it, but he would not believe me, and was as hard-tempered as a mule.

Later on, perhaps because he had encountered too many obstacles in writing poetry, he came to his senses a little. But when he wrote to me, he still refused to give in, saying something like: ‘I’ve long since ceased to regard Byron as a model, and nowadays it’s detective fiction that’s in fashion. For the sake of our friendship of so many years, I would be grateful if you would kindly forward this manuscript of The Murders in Bond Street to the editorial office of The Cockney for me, and by the way, tell Mr. Arthur Sigma that the creator of this work is a fan of his, Edgar Allan Poe.'”

Arthur’s fingertips tapped the desktop, “Really? Edgar Allan Poe? That’s a big name! Now I’m going to have to read his manuscript.”

Owen took a sip of his tea and waved his hand back and forth, “Mr. Hastings, while I agree that the boy is getting a little cocky, you’re going too far with the sarcasm.”

Arthur shook his head in a serious manner, “No, Mr. Owen, I’m not joking with you. I’m telling the truth about all this, and I’m really interested in this fan of mine’s work. The Cockney is not like Blackwood, we have always been committed to discovering young authors. You, as the father of American literature, can’t kill the hope of American literature in the cradle, can you?”

Owen put down his teacup and commented, “It’s true that Arthur Sigma, talking like you walk, is everywhere with a pinch of salt. I can kind of see why ‘Blackwood’ hates ‘The Englishman’ with a passion, and the literary criticism you guys publish against ‘Blackwood’ every other day smells the same way. But it’s all right for you to say that Blackwood’s is not a good literary paper, why do you have to satirize their editor, Mr. Wallace, as a trifler?”

Arthur regretted, “Mr. Owen, that’s where your misunderstanding comes in. Most of the literary criticism is the work of Mr. Disraeli. Of course, Mr. Dumas occasionally writes a couple of pieces on the spur of the moment to see what’s going on. None of this concerns me; after all, I’ve never had a black book uncovered by Blackwood, much less a manuscript rejected by Mr. Wallace.”

“All right. That’s enough literary business for now.”

Owen spoke, “In fact, I didn’t just come to see you today to discuss publishing matters, I mainly wanted to ask if Liverpool currently has any merchant ships out of the harbor to the U.S. If so, I’d like to book a ticket.”

Arthur asked, “Buy a ticket? This kind of thing shouldn’t be a crime to come all the way to Liverpool, right? There are so many routes from London, there should be quite a few ships going to America! I even bought one to Boston last year. Only then, due to various reasons, I was unable to make the trip in the end.”

“To Boston? Last year?” Owen spoke up, “Then your little fan was really unfortunate, he almost got to meet his idol. Last year, he had only just been discharged from the harbor force in Boston, and this year he’s already gone to West Point.”

Arthur chuckled, “A military cadet? Looks like he’ll have a good future. Although I don’t know what the status of military officers is in the United States, in Britain, military officers are the mainstream choice for noble sons to build their careers. Although going into politics is not bad, it’s still too difficult to stand out from the crowd of talented people.”

Owen sniffed and shrugged his shoulders, “Unfortunately, only people with the most despicable personalities work in politics in the United States; decent people aren’t supposed to make a living out of extortion, deception, and bragging. As for the military, they charge into battle for this bunch of ambitious people, so they’re obviously even dumber. But your little fan is lucky, he was court-martialed earlier this year for writing poems satirizing his instructors and deliberately missing classes, and was finally discharged from the military.”

Arthur asked, “So you’re in a hurry to get back to the States to comfort him?”

“That’s not true, just …… some job transfers.”

Owen spoke, “They think I’m doing a good job at the embassy, so they’re planning to transfer me to a position at the Foreign Office. In British parlance, I’m pestling my way forward on the slippery pole, and yes, I’ve been promoted. The U.S. Foreign Office would like me to return home to report by February 1832, but because of the cholera, ships in London are now under quarantine and very tightly regulated. So when I learned that you were on duty in Liverpool, I wondered if I could take my chances here. If I can’t get through here, then I’ll have to fend for myself.”

“Then you are in luck.” Arthur spoke up, “As far as I know, Schweyer & Sons has a ship that will soon complete quarantine and be ready to leave the harbor. The beauty of it is that they specialize in running West Indian routes, so you may have to make a layover at one of the islands in the Caribbean before you can get back to the States.”

Owen mulled it over for a moment, “That doesn’t sound too bad, much better than nothing. But can I take the liberty of asking you, can you be sure exactly when that ship will leave port?”

“It should be just recently.” Arthur took out his pocket watch and glanced at it, “At this hour, the port authority should be at work as well. If you don’t mind, you can come with me to the port authority. They’ve always been in charge of the quarantine.”

Owen got up and put on his hat and thanked them, “Many thanks, Mr. Hastings.”

With that said, he didn’t forget to fumble a key out of his pocket and place it on the desk.

Arthur looked down at it, “This?”

“The key to my rented house in London, the address of which I have given to Mr. Tennyson. If you can’t make it in time, you can pick up your manuscripts there directly, second drawer on the right hand side after you enter the door, where I keep the little fan letters. The rent I pay until April of this year, so you can just pick up your things before then.”

Hearing this, Arthur got up and put on his hat as well, and he smiled, “I can see that you are indeed in quite a hurry. In that case, we won’t waste any more time. The carriage is downstairs, let’s go there now.”

Arthur accompanied Owen as he thumped down the stairs, and just as he exited the lobby of the inn, a carriage sent by the town hall was parked in front of the door.

Louis and the others who were chatting near the carriage saw him coming, they also stubbed out their pipes and said at the top of their voices, “Rest time is over, it’s time to work!”

Arthur pulled open the door and was about to get into the car, when he glanced at the rest of his eyes and realized that there were still a few carriages parked at the street corner.

He winked at Sheriff Charles Field, who was leaning against the carriage, and the other party immediately understood and replied, “Those cars are all staring at us, and it’s unclear who is ordering them. But presumably it’s the same places, the Liverpool Association, the Town Council, the Customs Department or something. If you don’t like it, I’ll go and talk to them later.”

Arthur glanced at the cars and shook his head, “Forget it, follow them if you like, I have nothing to hide from them.”

With his riding boots on the pedals of the carriages, Arthur held onto the door handle and was about to go up when, suddenly, a gunshot rang out in his ear.

Immediately afterward, it was as if something had slipped past his ear, and only a thud was heard, and a small hole was instantly drilled in the wooden lamp-post that stood beside him, with splinters of wood bursting out and sparks of fire flying in all directions.

Immediately after that, there was a crowd of people screaming and fleeing in all directions with roars of anger.

“Shots have been fired! Protect Mr. Hastings!”

(End of chapter)