House of Torment Part 13

The mare raised her head, her mouth full of long sweet gra.s.s, and she looked at him with mild, brown eyes.

He rose from the stile, put his hand within his doublet, and pulled out a little crucifix of ebony, with a Christ of gold nailed to it.

He kissed it, and then, singularly heartened and resolute in mind, he mounted again, seeing, as he did so, that his men were coming up behind.

He waited till they were near and then trotted off, and in an hour came to the outskirts of Chelmsford town.

It was now more than two hours after noon, and he halted with his men at the "Tun," the princ.i.p.al inn of the place, and adjacent to a brewery of red brick, where the famous Chelmsford ale--no less celebrated then than now--was brewed.

He rode into the courtyard of the inn, and the ostlers came hurrying up and took his horse away, while he went into the ordinary and sat down before a great round of beef.

The landlord, seeing a gentleman of quality, bustled in and carved for him--a pottle-bellied, voluble man, with something eminently kindly and human in his eye.

"From the Court, sir, I do not doubt?" he said.

Johnnie nodded.

"If I mistake not, you are one of the gentlemen who rode with the Sheriff and Dr. Rowland Taylor this morning?"

"That was I," Johnnie answered, looking keenly at the man.

"I would have wagered it was, sir. We saw the party go by early. Is the Doctor dead, sir?"

Johnnie nodded once more.

"And a very right and proper thing it is," the landlord continued, "that such should die the death."

"And why think you that, landlord?" Johnnie asked.

The landlord scratched his head, looking doubtfully at his guest.

"It is not for me to say, sir," he replied, after a moment's hesitation.

"I am but a tradesman, and have no concern with affairs of State. I am a child in these things, but doubtless what was done was done very well."

Johnnie pushed away the pewter plate in front of him. "My man," he said, "you can speak freely to me. What think you in truth?"

The landlord stared at him for a moment, and then suddenly sat down at the table.

"I don't know, sir," he said, "who or what you may be. As thou art from the Court, thou art a good Catholic doubtless, or wouldst not be there, but you have an honest face, and I will tell you what I think. Under King Hal I gat me to church, and profited well thereby in that reign, for the abbey being broke up, and the friars dispersed, there was no more free beer for any rogue or masterless man to get from the b.u.t.tery, aye, and others of this town with property, and well-liked men, who would drink the monks' brew free rather than pay for mine own. So, G.o.d bless King Henry, I say, who brought much custom to mine inn, being a wise prince. And now, look you, I go to Ma.s.s, and custom diminisheth not at all. I have had this inn for thirty years, my father before me for fifty; and in this inn, sir, I mean to die. It is nothing to me whether bread and wine are but bread and wine, or whether they be That which all must now believe. I am but a simple man, and let wiser than I decide, keeping always with those who must certainly know better than I.

Meanwhile I shall sell my beer and bring up my family as an honest man should do--G.o.d's death! What is that?"

He started from his chair as Johnnie did likewise, for even as the man spoke a most horrid and untoward noise filled all the air.

Both men rushed to the bulging window of leaded gla.s.s, which looked out into the High Street.

There was a huge shouting, a frightful stamp and clatter as of feet and horses' hooves upon the stones, but above all there came a shrill, snarling, neighing noise, ululating with a ferocity that was not human, a vibration of rage, which was like nothing Commendone had ever heard before.

"Jesus! But what is this?" Johnnie cried, flinging open the cas.e.m.e.nt, his face suddenly white with fear--so utterly outside all experience was the dreadful screeching, which now seemed a thousand times louder.

He peered out into the street and saw people rushing to the doors and windows of all the houses opposite, with faces as white and startled as his own. He looked to the right, for it was from there the pealing horror of sound was coming, but he could see nothing, because less than twenty yards away the High Street made a sudden turn at right angles towards the Market Place.

"It is some devil, certes," the landlord panted. "Apollyon must have just such a voice. What----"

The words died away upon his lips, and in a moment the two men and all the other watchers in the street knew what had happened.

With a furious stamping of hooves, round the corner of an old timbered house, leaping from the ground in ungovernable fury, and in that leaping advancing but very slowly, came a huge stallion, black as a coal, its eyes red with malice, its ears laid back over its head, the huge bull-like neck erect, and smeared with foam and blood.

Commendone had never seen such a monster; indeed, there were but few of them in England at that time--the product of Lanarkshire mares crossed with the fierce Flanders stallions, only just then introduced into England by that Earl of Arran who had been a suitor for the hand of the Princess Elizabeth.

The thing seemed hardly horse, but malignant demon rather, and with a cold chill at their hearts the landlord and his guest saw that the stallion gripped a man by one arm and shoulder, a man that was no more a man, but a limp bundle of clothes, and shook him as a terrier shakes a rat.

The b.l.o.o.d.y and evil eyes glared round on every side as the great creature heaved itself into the air, the long "feather" of silky hair about its fetlocks waving like the pennons of lances. There was a dreadful sense of _display_. The stallion was consciously and wickedly performing, showing what it could do in its strength of hatred--evil, sentient, malign.

It tossed the wretched man up into the air, and flung him lifeless and broken at its fore feet. And then, horror upon horror, it began to pound him, smashing, breaking, and treading out what little life remained, with an action the more dreadful and alarming in that it was one absolutely alien to the usual habits of the horse.

It stopped at last, stiffened all over, its long, wicked head stretched out like that of a pointing dog, while its eyes roved round as if in search of a new victim.

There was a dead silence in the street.

Then Johnnie saw a short, thick-set man, with a big head and a brown face, come out from the archway opposite, where he had been standing in amazement, into the full street, facing the silent, waiting beast.

Something stabbed the young man's heart strangely. It was not fear for the man; it was quite distinct from the breathless excitement and sickening wonder of the moment.

Johnnie had seen this man before.

With slow, very slow, but resolute and determined steps, the man drew nearer to the stallion.

He was within four yards of it, when it threw up its head and opened its mouth wide, showing the great glistening yellow teeth, the purple lips curling away from them, in a rictus of malignity. From the open mouth, covered with blood and foam, once more came the frightful cry, the mad challenge.

Even as that happened, the man, who carried a stout stick of ash such as drovers used, leapt at the beast and struck it full and fair upon the muzzle, a blow so swift, and so hefty withal, that the ash-plant snapped in twain and flew up into the air.

The next thing happened very swiftly. The man, who had a short cloak upon his arm, threw it over the stallion's head with a sudden movement.

There was a white flash in the sunshine, as his short knife left his belt, and with one fierce blow plunged deep into the lower portion of the stallion's neck just above the great roll of fat and muscle which arched down towards the chest.

Then, with both hands at the handle of the knife, the man pulled it upwards, leaning back as he did so, and putting all his strength into what he did, cutting through the living veins and trachea as a butcher cuts meat.

There was a dreadful scream, which changed upon an instant to a cough, a fountain of dark blood, and the monster staggered and fell over upon its side with a crash.

A minute afterwards Commendone was out in the High Street mingling with the excited crowd of townspeople.

He touched the st.u.r.dy brown-faced man upon the shoulder.

"Come into the inn," he said. "I have somewhat to say to you, John Hull."

CHAPTER IV