Shrewsbury Part 40

"Hist! Colonel Talbot!" he cried in a loud whisper; and leaning far over the stairs he held the light high with one hand and shaded his eyes with the other. "You know that we have the Tower?"

"The Tower?" I muttered, not understanding him.

"To be sure. Ailesbury has it in his hand. It will declare for us whenever he gets the word. But--you know it from him, I suppose?"

"From Lord Ailesbury?" I exclaimed in sheer surprise. "But he is a prisoner!"

Sir John winked. "Prisoner and master!" he muttered, nodding vigorously. "But there, I must not keep you. Good luck and _bon voyage_, M. le duc."

Which was the last I saw of him for that time. Nor did I ever see him again save on one occasion. That he was a violent and factious man, and a foe to the Protestant succession I do not deny; nor that some pa.s.sages in his life do him little credit, and the most bruited the least. But for all this, and though I was then even a stranger to him, I am fain to confess that as I stumbled down the stairs, and left the poor misguided gentleman alone in his mean room to pack up those plans for the extension of the old house that would never again own a Fenwick for its master, and so to set out on his dark journey, I felt as much pity for him, as loathing for the trickster who employed me.

And so far was this carried and so much influence had it with me that when we reached the room below and the landlord having left us to see to the horses, Smith in his joy at our success clapped me on the shoulder, I shrank from his hand as if it burned me; shrank, and burst into childish tears of rage. Naturally Smith, unable to comprehend, stared at me in astonishment. "Why, man," he cried, "what is the matter? What ails you?"

"You!" I said. "You, curse you."

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

And doubtless it was this outbreak, or rather the suspicion of me which it sowed in Smith's mind, that occasioned the sequel of our adventure; for when he had cursed me for a fool and had put on his cloak, being now ready to go out, he seemed to be in two minds about it; as if he dared neither leave me where I was, lest I should communicate with Sir John, nor take me with him on his immediate errand. More than once he went to the door, and eying me askance and sourly, came back; but in the end and after standing a while irresolute, biting his nails, he made up his mind, and curtly bade me follow him.

"Do you think that I am to saddle for you, you whelp?" he cried. "Be stirring! and have a care, or I shall bore that hole in you yet. Take that bag and go before me. By G----, I wish you were at the bottom of the nearest horse-pond!"

His words had the effect he intended, of bringing me to my senses; but they went farther. For in proportion as they cooled my temper they awakened my fears; and though I obeyed him abjectly, took up my bag and followed him, it was with a sudden and horrible distrust of his purpose. I saw that I had not only ceased to be of use to him, but was now in his way, and might be a danger to him, and the night--which enveloped us the moment we crossed the threshold and seemed the more dreary and forbidding for the ruddy light and comfort we left behind us--reminding me of the long dark miles I must ride by his side, each mile a terror to one and an opportunity to the other, I had much ado not to give way to instant panic there and then. However, for the time I controlled myself; and stumbling across the gloomy yard to the spot where a faint gleam of light indicated the door of the stables, I went in.

The landlord was saddling our horses; and a little cheered by the warmth of his lanthorn, I went to help him. Smith turned aside, as I thought, into the next stall. But Brown was sharper and more suspicious, and in a twinkling called to him l.u.s.tily, to know what he was doing. Getting no answer, "Devil take him," the landlord cried.

"He cannot keep from that horse! Here, you! What are you doing there?"

"Coming!" Smith answered; but even as he spoke I caught the smart click of iron falling on iron, and the horse in the distant stall moved sharply with a hurried clatter of hoofs on the stones. "Coming!"

Smith repeated. "What is the matter with you, man?"

"You had better come," the landlord answered savagely. "Or I shall fetch you. Here you!" this to me, "lead yours out, will you. I want to see your backs, and be quit of you!"

I took my horse by the bridle, and led it out of the stable, while Brown went to bit the other. And so, being alone outside, and the moon rising at the moment over the roof of the house and showing me the open gates at the end of the yard, the impulse to escape from Smith while I had the opportunity came on me with overpowering force. Better acquainted than the landlord with the villain's plans I had not a doubt that at that very moment he was laming Sir John's horse for the purpose of detaining him; and the cold-blooded treachery of this act, filling me with as much terror on my own account--who might be the next victim--as hatred of the perpetrator, I climbed softly to my saddle, and began to walk my horse towards the gates. Doubtless Smith was too busy, cloaking his own movements, to be observant of mine. I reached the gates unnoticed, and turning instinctively from London--in which direction I fancied that he would be sure to pursue me--I kicked my mare first into a quick walk, then into a cautious trot, finally into a canter. The beast, though far from speedy, was fresh from its corn; it took hold of the bit, shied at a chance light in a cotter's window, and went faster and faster, its ears p.r.i.c.ked forward. In a minute we had left Ashford behind us, and were clattering through the moonlight. With one hand on the pommel and the other holding the shortened reins I urged the mare on with all the pressure of my legs; and albeit I trembled, now at some late-seen obstacle, which proved to be only the shadow of a tree, thrown across the road, and now at the steepness of a descent that appeared suddenly before me, I never faltered, but uphill and downhill drove in my heels, and with fear behind me, rode in the night as I had never before dared to ride in the daylight.

I had known nothing like it since the summer day twelve years before when I had fled across the Hertfordshire meadows on my feet. The sweat ran down me, I stooped in the saddle out of pure weakness; if the horse p.r.i.c.ked its ears forward I spread mine backward listening for sounds of pursuit. But such a speed could not be long maintained, and when we had gone, as I judged, two miles, the mare began to flag, and the canter became a trot. Still for another mile I urged her on, until feeling her labour under me, and foreseeing that I must ride far, I had the thought to turn into the first lane to which I came, and there wait in the shadow of a tree until Smith, if he followed, should pa.s.s.

I did this, sprang down, and standing by my panting horse, in a marshy hollow, some two hundred paces from the road, listened intently, for twenty minutes, it may be, but they seemed to be hours to me. After the life I had been leading in London, this loneliness in the night in a strange and wild place, and with a relentless enemy on my track, appalled my very soul. I was hot and yet I shivered, and started at the least sound. The scream of a curlew daunted me, the rustling of the rushes and sedge shook me, and when a sad wail, as of a mult.i.tude of lost souls pa.s.sed overhead, I cowered almost to my knees. Yet, inasmuch as these sounds, doleful and dreary as they were, were all I heard, and the night air brought no trampling of distant hoofs to my ear, I had reason to be thankful, and more than thankful; and my mare having by this time got her wind again, I led her back to the road, climbed into the saddle and plodded on steadily; deriving a wonderful relief and confidence from the thought that Smith had followed me London-wards.

Moreover, I had conceived a sort of horror of the loneliness of the waste country-side, and to keep the highway was willing to run some risk. I took it that the road I was travelling must bring me to Romney, and for a good hour and a half, I jogged with a loose rein through the gloom, the way becoming ever flatter and wetter, the wind more chill and salt, and the night darker, the moon being constantly overcast by clouds. In that marshy district are few hamlets or farms, and those of the smallest, and very spa.r.s.ely scattered. Once or twice I heard the bark of a distant sheep dog, and once far to the left I saw a tiny light and had the idea of making for it. But the reflection that a dozen great ditches, each wide enough and deep enough to smother my horse, might lie between me and the house, availed to keep me in the road; the more as I now felt sure from the saltness of the night air that Romney and the sea were at no great distance in front of me. Presently indeed, I made out in front of me two moving lights, that I took to be those of ships riding at anchor, and my weary mare quickened her pace as if she smelt the stable and the hayrack.

For five minutes after that I plodded on in the happy belief that my journey was as good as over, and I saved; and I let my mind dwell on shelter and safety, and a bed and food and the like, all awaiting me, as I fancied, in the patch of low gloom before me where my fancy pictured the sleeping town. Then on a sudden, my ear caught the dull beat of a horse's hoofs on the road behind me; and my heart standing still with terror, I plucked at my reins, and stood to listen. Ay, and it was no fancy; a moment satisfied me of that. Thud-thud, thud-thud, and then squash-squash, squish-squish! a horse was coming up behind me; and not only behind me, but hard upon me--within less than a hundred paces of me. The soft wet road had smothered the sound up to the last moment.

The rider was so close to me indeed, and I was so much taken by surprise that the moon sailing at that instant into a clear sky, showed me to him before I could set my horse going; and, as I started, whipping and spurring desperately, I heard the man shout. That was enough for me; plunging recklessly forward along the wet, boggy road, I flogged my horse into a jaded canter, and leaning low in the saddle in mortal fear of a bullet, closed my eyes to the dangers that lay ahead, and thought only of escape from that which followed on my heels.

Suddenly, and while I was still kicking and urging on my horse, before the first flush of fear had left me, I heard a crash and a cry behind me; but I did not dare at the moment to look back. I only leaned the lower, and clung the more tightly to my horse's mane and still pressed on. By-and-by, however, hearing nothing, it flashed on me that I was riding alone, that I was no longer pursued; and a little later taking courage to draw rein and look back wearily, I found that I could see nothing, nor hear any sound save the heavy panting of my own horse. I had escaped. I had escaped and was alone on the marsh. But as I soon satisfied myself, I was no longer on the causeway along which I had been travelling when the man surprised me. The wind which had then met me was now on my right cheek; the lights for which I had been heading were no longer visible. The track, too, when I moved cautiously forward, seemed more wet and rough; after that it needed little to convince me that I had strayed from the highway, probably at the point where my pursuer had fallen.

This, since I dared not return by the way I had come, terribly perplexed me. I dismounted, and wet and shivering stood by my horse, which hung its head, and restlessly lifted its feet by turns as if it already felt the engulfing power of the moss. Peering out every way I saw nothing but gloom and mist, the dark waste and unknown depths of the marsh. It was a situation to try the stoutest, nor did it need the mournful sough of the wind as it swept the flats, or the strange gurgling noises that from time to time rose from the sloughs about me to add the last touch of fear and melancholy to the scene.

Though, for my own part, I sank in no farther than my ankles, the horse by its restlessness evinced a strong sense of danger, and I dared not stand still. But as clouds had again obscured the moon and the darkness was absolute, to advance seemed as dangerous as to remain. However, in fear that the horse, if I stood where I was, would break loose from me, I led it forward cautiously: and then the track growing no worse but rather better, and the beast seeming to gain confidence as it proceeded, I presently took courage to remount again, and dropping the reins allowed it to carry me whither it would. This it did slowly and with infinite caution, smelling rather than feeling the way, and often stopping to try a doubtful spot. Observing how wonderfully the instinct of the beast aided it, and remembering that I had once been told that horses feared nothing so much as to be smoored (as the fenmen call it), and would not willingly run that risk, I gained confidence myself; which the event justified, for by-and-by I caught the dull sound of sea-waves booming on a beach, and a few minutes afterwards discerned in the sky before me the first faint streaks of dawn.

Heaven knows how welcome it was to me! I was wet, weary and shivering with cold and with the aguish air of that dreary place; which is so unwholesome that I am told the natives take drugs to stave off the fever, as others do ale and wine. But at the sight I p.r.i.c.ked up, and the horse too; and we moved on briskly; and presently by the help of the growing light, and through a grey mist which trebled the size of all objects, I saw a huge wall or bank loom across my path. I was close to it when I discerned it; and I had no more than time to despair of surmounting it, before the horse was already clambering up it. Scrambling and slipping among the stones, in a minute or so and with a great clatter we gained the summit; and saw below and before us the smooth milky surface of the sea lifting lazily under the fog.

So seen it had a strangely weird and pallid aspect, as of a dead sea, viewed in dreams: and I stood a moment to breathe my horse and admire the spectacle; nor did I fail to thank G.o.d that I was out of that dreary and treacherous place. Then, considering my future movements and not knowing which way I ought to take--to right or left along the beach--to gain the more quickly help and shelter, I was reining my mare down the sea side of the bank when a welcome sound caught my ear.

It was a man's voice giving an order. I halted and peered through the sea-haze; and by-and-by I made out a boat, lying beached at the edge of the tide, some hundred and fifty yards to my left. There were men standing in it, I could not see how many; and more were in the act of pushing it off the strand. Their voices came to me with singular clearness; but the words were unintelligible.

The sight gave me pause: and for a moment I stood reconnoitring the men. To advance or not was the question, and I was still debating it, and striving to deduce something from the men's appearance, when something, I never knew what--perhaps some noise ill-apprehended--led me to turn aside my head. Whatever the cause of the movement, it apprised me of something little suspected. Not fifty paces behind me I saw the figure of a giant horseman looming out of the mist. He was advancing along the summit of the sea-wall below which I stood; hence I saw him before he made me out: and this gave me the start and the advantage. I had time to take in the thing, and seize my horse by the head, and move eight or ten paces towards the boat before he took the cue. Then on neither side was there any concealment. With a cry, a yell rather, the mere sound of which flung me into a panic, the man urged his horse down the bank shouting fiercely to me to stand; I in utter terror spurred mine across the beach towards the men I had seen.

I have said that I had some sixty yards of start, and two hundred or so to cross, to reach the boat; but the horses were scarcely able to trot; a yard was a furlong; and the sand swallowing up the sound of hoofs, it was a veritable race of ghosts, of phantoms, labouring through the mist across the flat, with the oily Stygian sea lapping the sh.o.r.e beside us. He cried out in the most violent fashion, now bidding me stay and now bidding the men stop me. And for all I know they might be in his pay, or at best be some of the reckless desperadoes who on that coast live by owling and worse practices. But they were my only hope and I too cried to them; and with joy I saw them put in again--they had before got afloat. Believing Smith to be gaining, I cried pitifully to them to save me, and then my horse stumbling, I flung myself from the saddle, and plunged through the sand towards them. At that, two sprang out to meet me and caught me under my arms; and in a moment, amid a jargon of cries in a foreign tongue whipped me over the side into the boat. Then they pushed it off and leaped in themselves, wet to the thighs; and as my pursuer came lurching down the beach, a pistol drawn in his hand, a couple of powerful strokes drove the boat through the light surf. Waving frantically he yelled to the men to wait, and rode to his boot-soles into the water; but with a jeering laugh and a volley of foreign words the sailors pulled the faster and the faster, and the mist lying thick on the water, and the boat sitting low, in half a minute we lost the last glimpse of him and his pa.s.sion, and rode outward on a grey boundless sea.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

I should have been less than a man had I not thanked G.o.d for my escape. But it is in the sap of a tree to run upward in the spring, and in the blood of a man to live in the present and future, the past going for little; and I had not crouched two minutes on the thwart before the steady lurch of the boat outwards and seawards fixed my attention. From this to asking myself by what chance I had been saved, and who were the men who sat round me--and evinced no more curiosity about me than if they had been sent to the spot purely and simply to rescue me--was but a step.

I took it, scanned them stealthily, and was far from rea.s.sured; the sea-garb was then new to me, and these wearers of it were the wildest of their cla.s.s. The fog which enfolded us magnified their clumsy shoulders and great knitted night-caps and the tarry ringlets that hung in festoons about their scarred and tanned faces. The huge gnarled hands that swung to and fro with the oars were no more like human flesh than the sea-boots which the men wore, drawn high on their thighs. They had rings in their ears, and from all came a reek of tobacco, and salt-fish, and strange oaths; nor did it need the addition of the hanger and pistol which each wore in his belt to inform me that I had fallen once again among fierce and desperate men.

Dismayed by all I saw, it yet surprised me that no one questioned me.

He who sat in the stern of the boat, and seemed to be in command, had a whistle continually at his lips, and his eyes on the curtain of haze before us; but if the tiller and navigation of the boat took up his thoughts, there were others. These, however, were content to pull on in silence, eyeing me with dull brutish stares, until the fog lifting disclosed on a sudden the hull of a tall ship looming high beside us.

A shrill piping came from it--a sound I had heard before, but taken to be the scream of a sea-bird; and this, as we drew up, was followed by a hail. The man by my side let his whistle fall that he might answer--which he did, in French. A moment later our boat grated against the heaving timbers, and I, looking up through the raw morning air, saw a man in a boat-cloak spring on the bulwarks and wave his hat.

"Welcome!" he cried, l.u.s.tily. "And G.o.d save the King! A near thing they tell me, sir. But come on board, come on board, and we shall see Dunquerque the sooner. Up with you, Sir John, if you please, and let us be gone with the fog, and no heel-taps!"

Then, without another word, I knew what had happened; I knew why the boat which had picked me up, had been waiting on the beach at that hour; and as I rose to my feet on the seat, and clutched the rope ladder which the sailors threw down to me, my knees knocked together; for I foresaw what I had to expect. But the deck was surer ground for debate or explanation than the c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l wherein I sat, and which tossed and ducked under me, threatening every moment to upset my stomach; and I went up giddily, grasped the bulwark, and, aided by half-a-dozen grinning seamen, night-capped and ringletted, I sprang down on the deck.

The man in the boat-cloak received me with a clumsy bow, and shook my hand. "Give you joy, Sir John!" he said. "Glad to see you, sir. I began to fear that you were taken! A little more, and I must have left you. But all's well that ends well, and--your pardon one moment."

With that he broke off, and shouted half-a-dozen orders in French and English and French to the sailors; and in a moment the capstan, as I afterwards heard it called, was creaking round, and there was a hurry of feet, first to one side and then to the other, and a great shouting and a hauling at ropes. The ship heeled over so suddenly that if I had not caught at the rail I must have lost my footing, and for an instant the green seas seemed to swell up on a level with the slanting deck as if they would swallow us bodily. Instead, the sloop, still heeling over, began to gather way, and presently was hissing through the water, piling the white surf before it, only to pour it foaming to either side. The haze, like a moving curtain, began to glide by us; and looking straight ahead I saw a yellow glare that told of the sun rising over the French dunes.

The man who had received me, and who seemed to be the master, returned to my side. "We are under way, sir," he said, "and I am glad of it.

But you will like to see Mr. Birkenhead? He would have met you, but the sea-colic took him as he lay on the swell outside Dunquerque whistling for a wind. He gets it badly one time, and one time he is as hearty as you are. He is better this morning, but he is ill enough."

I muttered that I would see him by-and-by, when he was better. That I would lie down a little, and----

"Oh! I have got a bunk for you in his cabin," the master answered briskly. "I thought you would want to talk State secrets. Follow me, if you please, and look to your sea-legs, sir."

He led the way to a hatch or trap-door, and raising it began to descend. Not daring to refuse I followed him, down a steep ladder into the dark bowels of the ship, the reek of tar and bilge-water, cheese and old rum, growing stronger with every foot we descended. At the bottom of the ladder he pushed aside a sliding panel, and signed me to pa.s.s through the opening. I obeyed, and found myself in a sort of dog-hole--as it seemed to me who knew nothing of ships'

cabins--lighted only by a span-wide round window, so dark, therefore, that I stood a moment groping, and so close and foul-smelling that my gorge rose.

Out of the gloom came a groan as of a sick sheep. "Here is Sir John, safe and sound!" cried the master in his sea tones. "There is good medicine for you, Mr. Birkenhead." And he peered into the darkness.

The only answer was a second groan. "Do you hear, sir?" the captain repeated. "Sir John is here."

A voice feebly yet unmistakably d----d Sir John and the captain.