Mistress Wilding Part 44

"Down, Jack," he said to the dog for the twentieth time, patting its sleek head. "Down, down!"

But still the dog bounded about him, barking wildly.

"Sh!" he hissed suddenly. Steps sounded in the hall. It was as he feared. The door was suddenly thrown open, and the grey morning light gleamed upon the long barrel of a musket. After it, bearing it, entered a white-haired old man.

He paused on the threshold, measuring the tall disordered stranger who stood there, his figure a black silhouette against the window by which he had entered.

"What seek you here, sir, in this house of desolation?" asked the voice of Mr. Wilding's old servant.

He answered but one word. "Walters!"

The musket dropped with a clatter from the old man's hands. He sank back against the doorpost and leaned there an instant; then, whimpering and laughing, he came tottering forward--his old legs failing him in this excess of unexpected joy--and sank on his knees to kiss his master's hand.

Wilding patted the old head, as he had patted the dog's a little while ago. He was oddly moved; there was a knot in his throat. No home-coming could well have been more desolate. And yet, what home-coming could have brought him such a torturing joy as was now his? Oh, it is good to be loved, if it be by no more than a dog and an old servant!

In a moment Walters was himself again. He was on his feet, scrutinizing Wilding's haggard face and disordered, filthy clothes. He broke into exclamations between dismay and reproach, but these Wilding interrupted to ask the old man how it happened that he had remained.

"My son John was a sergeant in the troop that quartered itself here, sir," Walters explained, "and so they left me alone. But even had it not been for that, I scarcely think they would have harmed an old man. They were brave fellows for all the mischief they did here, and they seemed to have little heart in the service of the Popish King. It was the officers drove them on to all this damage, and once they'd started--well, there were rogues amongst them saw a chance of plunder, and they took it. I have sought to put the place to rights; but they did some woeful, wanton mischief."

Wilding sighed. "It's little matter, perhaps, as the place is no longer mine.

"No... no longer yours, sir?"

"I'm an attainted outlaw, Walters," he explained. "They'll bestow it on some Popish time-server, unless King Monmouth can follow up by greater victories to-night's. Have you aught a man may eat or drink?"

Meat and wine, fresh linen and fresh garments did old Walters find him; and when he had washed, eaten, and drunk, Mr. Wilding wrapped himself in a dressing-gown and laid himself down to sleep on a settle in the library, his servant and his dog on guard.

Not above an hour, however, was he destined to enjoy his hard-earned rest. The light had grown, meanwhile, and from grey it had turned golden, the heralds of the sun being already in the east. In the distance the firing had died down to a mere occasional boom.

Suddenly old Walters raised his head to listen. The beat of hoofs was drawing rapidly near, so near that presently he rose in alarm, for a horseman was pounding up the avenue, had drawn rein at the main entrance.

Walters knit his brows in perplexity, and glanced at his master who slept on utterly worn out. A silent pause followed, lasting some minutes. Then it was the dog that rose with a growl, his coat bristling, and an instant later there came a sharp rapping at the hall door.

"Sh! Down, Jack!" whispered Walters, afraid of rousing Mr. Wilding. He tiptoed softly across the room, picked up his musket, and, calling the dog, went out, a great fear in his heart, but not for himself.

The rapping continued, growing every instant more urgent, so urgent that Walters was almost rea.s.sured. Here was no enemy, but surely some one in need. Walters opened at last, and Mr. Trenchard, grimy of face and hands, his hat shorn of its plumes, his clothes torn, staggered with an oath across the threshold.

"Walters!" he cried. "Thank G.o.d! I thought you'd be here, but I wasn't certain. Down, Jack!"

The hound was barking madly again, having recognized an old friend.

"Plague on the dog!" growled Walters. "He'll wake Mr. Wilding."

"Mr. Wilding?" said Trenchard, and checked midway across the hall. "Mr.

Wilding?"

"He arrived here a couple of hours ago, sir..."

"Wilding here? Oddsheart! I was more than well advised to come. Where is he, man?"

"Sh, sir! He's asleep in the library. You'll wake him, you'll wake him!"

But Trenchard never paused. He crossed the hall at a bound, and flung wide the library door. "Anthony!" he shouted. "Anthony!" And in the background Walters cursed him for a fool. Wilding leapt to his feet, awake and startled.

"Wha... Nick!"

"Oons!" roared Nick. "You're choicely found. I came to send to Bridgwater for you. We must away at once, man."

"How--away? I thought you were in the fight, Nick."

"And don't I look as if I had been?"

"But then...

"The fight is fought and lost; there's an end to the garboil. Monmouth is in full flight with what's left him of his horse. When I quitted the field, he was riding hard for Polden Hill." He dropped into a chair, his accents grim and despairing, his eyes haggard.

"Lost?" gasped Wilding, and his conscience p.r.i.c.ked him for a moment, remembering how much it had been his fault--however indirectly--that Feversham had been forewarned. "But how lost?" he cried a moment later.

"Ask Grey," snapped Trenchard. "Ask his craven, numskulled lordship. He had as good a hand in losing it as any. Oh, it was all most infernally mishandled, as has been everything in this ill-starred rising. Grey sent back G.o.dfrey, the guide, and attempted in the dark to find his own way across the rhine. He missed the ford. What else could the fool have hoped? And when he was discovered and Dunbarton's guns began to play on us--h.e.l.l and fire! we ran as if Sedgemoor had been a race-course.

"The rest was but the natural sequel. The foot, seeing our confusion, broke. They were rallied again; broke again; and again were rallied; but all too late. The enemy was up, and with that d.a.m.ned ditch between us there was no getting to close quarters with them. Had Grey ridden round, and sought to turn their flank, things might have been--O G.o.d!--they would have been entirely different. I did suggest it. But for my pains Grey threatened to pistol me if I presumed to instruct him in his duty.

I would to Heaven I had pistolled him where he stood."

Walters, at gaze in the doorway, listened to the bitter tirade. Wilding, on the settle, sat silent a moment, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands, his eyes set and grim as Trenchard's own. Then he mastered himself, and waved a hand towards the table where stood food and wine.

"Eat and drink, Nick," he said, "and we'll discuss what's to be done."

"It'll need little discussing," was Nick's savage answer as he rose and went to pour himself a cup of wine. "There's but one course open to us --instant flight. I am for Minehead to join Hewling's horse, which went there yesterday for guns. We might seize a ship somewhere on the coast, and thus get out of this infernal country of mine."

They discussed the matter in spite of Trenchard's having said that there was nothing to discuss, and in the end Wilding agreed to go with him.

What choice had he? But first he must go to Bridgwater to rea.s.sure his wife.

"To Bridgwater?" blazed Trenchard, in a pa.s.sion at the folly of the suggestion. "You're clearly mad! All the King's forces will be there in an hour or two."

"No matter," said Wilding, "I must go. I am dead already, as it happens." And he related his singular adventure in Feversham's camp last night.

Trenchard heard him in amazement. If any suspicion crossed his mind that his friend's love affairs had had anything to do with rousing Feversham prematurely, he showed no sign of it. But he shook his head at Wilding's insistence that he must first go to Lupton House.

"Shalt send a message, Anthony. Walters will find some one to bear it.

But you must not go yourself."

In the end Mr. Trenchard prevailed upon him to adopt this course, however reluctant he might be. Thereafter they proceeded to make their preparations. There were still a couple of nags in the stables, in spite of the visitation of the militia, and Walters was able to find fresh clothes for Mr. Trenchard above-stairs.

A half-hour later they were ready to set out on this forlorn hope of escape; the horses were at the door, and Mr. Wilding was in the act of drawing on the fresh pair of boots which Walters had fetched him.

Suddenly he paused, his foot in the leg of his right boot, and sat bemused a moment.

Trenchard, watching him, waxed impatient. "What ails you now?" he croaked.