The Courtship of Morrice Buckler Part 46

"Wait!" I said, interrupting him.

There was a point I had long been anxious to resolve, and I thought I should never get so likely an opportunity for the question again.

"Was Count Lukstein betrothed at the time that he came to the Hotwells?"

"Most a.s.suredly," he replied, and I wondered greatly at the strange madness which should lead a man astray to chase a pretty face, when all the while he loved another, and was plighted to her.

Otto resumed his story.

"I told all that I knew: my master's anxiety concerning Sir Julian, his relief when I brought him the news. .h.i.ther that only a woman had visited the captive on the night before his execution, and his apparent fear of peril. My mistress broke open the gold case which you had left behind, and asked whether the likeness was the likeness of Sir Julian's visitor. I a.s.sured her it was not, but she was convinced that this Bristol pother was at the bottom of the trouble. We could find no trace of you beyond your footsteps in the snow, and the footsteps of the woman who was with you. I have often wondered how she climbed the Lukstein rock."

He paused as though expecting an answer. But I had no inclination to argue my innocence in that respect with one of Ilga's servants, and presently he continued:

"Well, a quiet tongue is wisdom where women are concerned. No one in the valley had seen you come; no one had seen you go. But my lady was set upon discovering the truth and punishing the a.s.sailant herself. So she said as little as she could to the neighbours, and the following spring took me with her to London."

"Where I promptly jumped into the trap," said I.

"You did that and more. You set the trap yourself before you jumped into it."

'Twas my own thought that he uttered, and I asked him how he came by it.

"I mean this. 'Twas my lady's hope to discover the original of the miniature, and so get at the man who was with her. But we had not to wait for that. You left something else behind you besides the miniature."

"I did," I replied. "I left a pair of spurs and a pistol, but I see not how they could serve you."

"The spurs were of little profit in our search. You have worn them since, it is true, but one pair of spurs is like another. For the pistol, however--that was another matter. It had the gunmaker's name upon the barrel, and also the name of the town where it was made."

"Leyden?" I exclaimed.

"That was the name--Leyden."

At last I understood. I recalled that evening when Elmscott presented me to Ilga, and how frankly I had spoken to her of my life.

"We journeyed to Leyden first of all," he resumed, "and sought out the gunmaker. But he did not remember selling the pistol, or, perhaps, would not--at all events, we got no help from him, and went on to London. In the beginning I believe Countess Lukstein was inclined to suspect Mr. Marston. You see he came from Bristol, and so completely did this search possess her that everything which concerned that city seemed to her to have some bearing upon her disaster. But she soon abandoned that idea, and--and--well, I know not why, but Mr. Marston left London for a time. Then you were brought to the house, and on your first visit you told her that your home was in c.u.mberland, where Sir Julian Harnwood lived; that you had been till recently a student at Leyden, and that there were few other English students there besides yourself. At first I think she did not seriously accuse you of Count Lukstein's death. It seemed little likely; you had not the look of it. I did not recognise you at all, and, further, my mistress herself inquired much of you concerning your actions, and you let slip no hint that could convict you."

I remembered what interest the Countess had seemed to take in my uneventful history, and how her questions had delighted me, flattering my vanity and lifting me to the topmasts of hope; and the irony of my recollections made me laugh aloud.

"Howbeit," he went on, paying no heed to my interruption--there was no great merriment in my laughter, and it may be that he understood--"Howbeit, her suspicions were alert, and then Mr. Marston came back to London. She learnt from him that you had pa.s.sed through London in a great hurry one night, and from Lord Culverton that the night was in September and that your destination was Bristol. I wanted to ride there and see what I could discover, but my mistress would not allow me. I don't know, but at that time I almost fancied she regretted her resolve, and would fain have let the matter lie."

'Twas at that time also, I remembered, that the Countess treated me so waywardly, and I coupled Otto's remark and my remembrance together, and set them aside as food for future pondering.

"Then she showed you the miniature. You faced it out and denied all knowledge of it So far so good. But that same morning you brought Lady Tracy into the house, and that was the ruin of you. Oh, I know," he went on as I sought to interrupt him, "I know! You faced that matter out too. You brought Lady Tracy to bear witness that you and she were never acquainted. 'Twas a cunning device and it deceived my mistress; but you did not take me into account. I opened the door to you, and I recognised Lady Tracy as the original of the miniature. Well, I looked at her carefully, wondering whether I could have made a mistake, whether it was she whom I had seen at the Bristol prison after all. I felt certain it was not, but all the same I kept thinking about it as I went upstairs to announce you. Lady Tracy was dark; the other woman, I remembered, fair and over-tall for a woman. So I went on comparing them, setting the two faces side by side in my mind. Well, when I came back again there were you and Lady Tracy standing side by side--the two faces that were side by side in my thoughts. The sunlight was full upon you both. Lord! I was cluttered out of my senses. I knew you at once. Height, face, everything fitted. I told my mistress immediately after you had gone. She would not believe it at first; but soon after she informed me that Lady Tracy had been betrothed to Sir Julian Harnwood. That night we visited your rooms, as I have told you."

"Ay," said I, "Marston told her of his sister's betrothal in Covent Garden."

'Twas indeed at the very time that the Countess was tracing that diagram in the gravel.

"The visit to your rooms convinced Countess Lukstein."

"No doubt," said I, and I explained to him how she had traced the diagram, and my mention of the date which had given her the clue to my Horace.

"But that's not all," he laughed. "'Tis true that my mistress knew that she had seen that same plan somewhere. 'Tis true your mention of the date told her where. But the plan which my lady drew on the gravel was different from yours in one respect. It lacked the line which showed your way of ascent, the line which stood for the rib of rock."

"Well?"

"Well, you added that line yourself while you were talking."

"I did!" I exclaimed.

I could not credit it; but then I recollected how Ilga had suddenly stooped forward and obliterated the diagram with a sweep of her stick.

"Ay, Otto!" I said. "You spoke truth indeed. I set the traps myself."

"The next morning we started for Bristol. We drove to the 'Thatched House Tavern,' and with the help of a few coins wormed the truth from the chambermaid. She had told me before that a man had stayed at the inn on that particular night and I had no doubt who was the man. We knew the story; we merely needed her to confirm it."

With that he laid his pipe aside, and was for settling to sleep. But I had one more question to ask him.

"When Lord Elmscott came to find me at Countess Lukstein's apartments, he was informed I was not there, and the door of the room in which I lay was locked."

"We intended to convey you out of the country ourselves," he laughed, "and that very night. 'Twould indeed have saved much trouble had Lord Elmscott been delayed an hour or so upon the road. A boat was in waiting for us on the river."

'Twas long before I could follow Otto's example and compose myself to sleep. Using his narrative as a commentary, I read over and over again my memories of those weeks in London, and each time I felt yet more convinced that this deed had been brought home to me through no cunning of the Countess, through no great folly of mine, but simply because Providence had so willed it. As Otto said, I had set the traps myself, and bethinking me of this, I recalled a phrase which I had spoken to Count Lukstein. "I can fight you," I had said, "but I can't fight your wife." In what a strange way had the remark come true!

The next morning Otto departed from the hollow, and fearing lest he might presently despatch two other of Countess Lukstein's servants to fill up the complement of my guards, I determined to make my effort at enlargement that very night. I took my axe boldly from the corner of the room when the time came for me to mount to the loft. The peasants scowled but said nothing, and 'twas with a very great relief that I understood Otto had been as good as his word. It had been my habit of late to secrete about me at each meal some fragment of my portion of bread, so that I had now a good number of such morsels hidden away among the leaves of my bed. These I gathered together, and fastened inside my shirt, and then sat me down, with such patience as I might, to wait until the peasants beneath me were sound asleep. The delay would have been more endurable had there been some window or opening in the loft. But to sit there in the darkness, never knowing but what the sky was clouding over and a storm gathering upon the heights, 'twas the quintessence of suspense, and it wrought in me like a fever.

I allowed two hours, as near as I could guess, to elapse, and then, working quietly with my axe, I cut a hole through the thatch at the corner most distant from the room of my gaolers, and dropped some twelve feet on to the ground. There was no moon to light me but the sparkle of innumerable stars, and the night was black in the valley and purple about the cheerless hills. Cautiously I made my way over the gra.s.s towards the ridge, taking the air into my lungs with an exquisite enjoyment like one that has long been cooped in a sick-room.

Whimsically enough, I thought not at all of the dangers which were like to beset me, but rather of Ilga in her Castle of Lukstein; and walking forwards in the lonely quiet, I wondered whether at that moment she was asleep.

The ridge, as I had hoped, was entirely compacted of earth and stones.

'Twas thrown up to a considerable height above the ice, and resembled a great earthwork raised for defence, such as I have seen since about the walls of Londonderry. I was able to walk along the crest for some way with no more peril than was occasioned by the darkness and the narrow limits of my path, and taking to some rocks which jutted out from the snow, about two hours after daybreak, I reached the top of the hill at noon. To my great delight I perceived that I stood, as it were, upon a neck of the mountain. To my left the Wildthurm rose in a sweeping line of ice, ever higher and higher towards the peak; to my right it terminated in a ridge of rocks which again rose upwards, and circled about the head of the ravine. I had nothing to do but to descend; so I lay down to rest myself for a while, and take my last look at Captivity Hollow and the hut wherein I had been imprisoned.

The descent, however, was not so easy a matter as I believed it would be. For some distance, it is true, I could walk without much difficulty, kicking a sort of staircase in the snow with my feet; but after a while the incline became steeper, and, moreover, was inlaid with strips of ice, wherein I had to cut holes with my hatchet before I could secure a footing. Indeed, I doubt whether I should have come safe off from this adventure but for the many crags and rocks which studded the slope. By keeping close to these, however, I was able to get solid hold for my hands, the while I stepped upon the treacherous ice. Towards the foot of the mountain, moreover, the ice was split with great gashes and chasms, so deep that I could see no bottom to them, but only an azure haze; and I was often compelled to make long circuits before I could discover a pa.s.sage. Once or twice, besides, when the ground seemed perfectly firm, I slipped a leg through the crust and felt it touch nothing; and taking warning from these accidents, I proceeded henceforth more cautiously, tapping the snow in front of me with the hatchet at each step.

These hindrances did so delay me that I was still upon the mountain when night fell, and not daring to continue this perilous journey in the dark, I crept under the shelter of a rock, and so lay shivering until the morning. However, I bethought me of my loft and its thatch-roof, and contrasting it with the open sky, pa.s.sed the night pleasantly enough. I had still enough of my bread left over to serve me for breakfast in the morning, and since there was no water to be got, I made shift to moisten my throat by sucking lumps of ice. Late that afternoon I came down into a desolate valley, and felt the green turf once more spring beneath my feet. 'Twas closing in very dark and black. In front of me I could see the rain stretched across the hills like a diaphanous veil, shot here and there by a stray thread of sunlight; while behind, the heights of the Wildthurm were hidden by a white crawling mist. Looking at this mist, I could not but be sensible of the dangers from which I had escaped, and with a heart full of grat.i.tude I knelt down and thanked G.o.d for that He had reached out His hand above me to save my life.

For many days I journeyed among these upland valleys, pa.s.sing from hut to hut and from ravine to ravine, moving ever westwards from Lukstein, and descended finally into the high-road close to the village of Nauders. Thence I proceeded along the Inn Thal to Innspruck, earning my food each day by cutting wood into logs at the various taverns, or by some such service; and as for lodging, 'twas no great hardship to sleep in the fields at this season of the year. At Innspruck, however, whither I came in the first days of July, I was sore put to it to find employment, which should keep me from starving until such time as I could receive letters of credit from England. My first thought was to obtain the position of usher or master in one of the many schools and colleges of the town. But wherever I applied they only laughed in my face, and unceremoniously closed the door upon my entreaties. Nor, indeed, could I wonder at their behaviour, for what with my torn peasant's clothes, my bare, scarred knees, and my face, which was burnt to the colour of a ripe apple, I looked the most unlikely tutor that ever ruined a boy's education. At one school--'twas the last at which I sought employment--the master informed me that he "did his own whipping," and wandering thence in a great despondency of spirit, I came into the Neustadt, which is the princ.i.p.al street of the town.

There I chanced to espy the sign of a fencing-master, and realising what little profit I was like to make of such rusty book-learning as I still retained, I crossed the road and proffered him the a.s.sistance of my services. At the onset he was inclined to treat my offer with no less hilarity than the schoolmasters had shown; but being now at my wits' end, I persisted, and perhaps vaunted my skill more than befitted a gentleman. 'Twas, I think, chiefly to disprove my words, and so rid himself of me, that he bade me take a foil and stand on guard. In the first bout, however, I was lucky enough to secure the advantage, as also in the second. In a fl.u.s.ter of anger he insisted that I should engage upon a third, and thereupon I deemed it prudent to allow him to get the better of me, though not by so much as would give him the right to accuse me of a lack of skill. The ruse was entirely successful; for he was so delighted with his success that he hired me straightway as his lieutenant, and was pleased to compliment me upon my mastery of the weapon; not but what he declared I had many faults in the matter of style, which I might correct under his tuition.

In this occupation I remained for some three months. I wrote a letter immediately to Jack Larke, but received no answer whatsoever. Each week, however, I put by a certain sum out of my wages until I had acc.u.mulated sufficient to carry me, if I practised economy, to England. In the beginning of September, then, I gave up my position; a pupil, on hearing of my purposed journey, most generously presented me with a horse, which I accepted as a loan, and one fine morning I mounted on to the animal's back and rode out towards the gates of the town.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE LAST.

Now the road which I chose led past the Hofgarten, a great open s.p.a.ce of lawns and shrubberies which had been enclosed and presented to the town by Leopold, the late Archduke of Styria. Opposite to the gates of this garden stood the "Black Stag," at that time the princ.i.p.al inn, and I noticed ahead of me four or five mounted men waiting at the door. Drawing nearer I perceived that these men wore the livery of Countess Lukstein.