The Northern Iron Part 29

Maurice looked at his father in surprise. He could not recollect ever having heard before of his being tired or wanting rest.

"I shall sleep here in your bed, Maurice, so as to be at hand if Lord O'Neill wants me. You must go down to the public room of the inn or to the tap-room. You can get James, the groom, to keep you company if you like. You cannot go to bed to-night, you understand. You must sit by the fire till those roisterers have drunk themselves to sleep. James will keep you company, There will be sound sleep for many in this inn to-night, but none for poor Neal, who's down in some cellar, nor the sentry they post over him, nor for you, Maurice, nor for James. Maybe after all Neal won't be hanged in the morning. That's all I have to say to you, my son. A man in my position can't say more or do more. You understand?"

"I understand," said Maurice, "and, by G.o.d, they'll not hang----"

"Hush! hush! I don't want to listen to you. I'm tired. I want to go to sleep. Good night to you, Maurice."

With a curious half smile on his face Lord Dun-severic shook his son's hand. It appeared that he had the same kind of confidence in Maurice that Maurice had in him. Like father, like son. When these St. Clairs of Dunseveric wanted anything they generally got it in the end. And none of the race of them had ever been over-scrupulous in dealing with such obstacles as stood in their way, or particularly careful about what those glorified conventions that men call law might have to say about the methods by which they achieved their ends.

CHAPTER XIV

Men who have eaten sufficiently and drunk heavily are not anxious to admit into their company any one who has not dined, and whose last gla.s.s of wine was drunk the day before. The gentlemen in the public room of the Ma.s.sereene Arms were not, most of them, drunk when Maurice St. Clair came among them, but they were gay. Their hearts, to use a Scripture phrase, were made glad with wine. They were in the mood in which men crack jokes and laugh loud at jokes which would not pa.s.s muster before dinner. They were ready to sing out of time and tune or to applaud the songs of others without criticising them. But they were, with the exception of one or two, men of feeble capacity, sober enough to be conscious of the fact that they were liable to make fools of themselves, and to resent the intrusion of a cool-headed stranger.

They stared angrily at Maurice St. Clair. They said in audible tones things which showed him plainly that his presence was most unwelcome, but Maurice remained unabashed. He crossed the room and sat down on the window seat--the same seat from which Neal had watched the piper and the dancers a week or two before. He beckoned to the hara.s.sed and wearied girl who waited on the party.

"Get me," he said, "something to eat--anything. I do not mind what it is, and bring a cup of milk. Then send my groom to me."

"The gentleman," said a young squire, who had certainly crossed the undefined line which separates sobriety from drunkenness, "is going to drink milk. Now, what I want to know is this--has any gentleman a right to drink milk on an evening like this, after the glorious victory which we have won?"

"It's d.a.m.ned little you had to do with winning it," said an officer who sat beside him. "You can drink, but----"

"The man that says I can't drink lies," said the other. "No offence to you, Captain; no offence meant or taken. I give you a toast, and I propose that the milky gentleman in the window--the milk-and-water gentleman--drinks it along with us. Here's success to the loyalists and a long rope and short shrift to the rebelly croppies. Now, Mr.

Milk-and-Water----"

Maurice rose to his feet.

"I understand, gentlemen, that this is a public room in which any traveller may be supplied with what he calls for. I have no wish to push myself into your company. I trust that you will allow me to enjoy my own unmolested."

The intoxicated proposer of the toast laid his hand on his sword, bl.u.s.tered out an oath or two, and was pulled down again into his seat. There was good feeling enough left among the better cla.s.s of his companions to understand that a stranger should be treated with civility. There was sense enough among the rest to recognise that Maurice was not the kind of man whom it would be safe to bully. The girl returned and informed Maurice that his groom was in the kitchen, but refused to attend him.

Maurice rose and sought the man himself. The reason of the refusal was sufficiently obvious. The kitchen was full of troopers who had advanced much further on the way to absolute drunkenness than their officers.

James, Lord Dunseveric's groom, was decidedly the most drunken of the party, but Maurice wanted the man, and was prepared to take some trouble to reduce him to a condition of serviceableness again. He grasped him by the collar of the coat, and pushed him through the back door into the yard. A delighted stable boy worked the pump handle while Maurice held the groom under the stream of cold water. The cure was ineffective.

Maurice walked him up and down the yard for half an hour, and then put him under the pump again. The man remained obstinately drunk. Maurice flung him down in a corner of a stable and left him.

He returned to the room where the feasters sat, and looked in. The company had advanced rapidly since he had seen them last. The squire who had proposed the toast was under the table. Several others were lying back helplessly in their chairs. Those who could talk were talking loud and all together. The amount of liquor still to be consumed was considerable. Maurice smiled. These officers and gentlemen were little likely to interfere with anything he chose to do at midnight. He went out of doors and sat on the stone bench in front of the inn.

He had no plan in his head for the rescue of Neal Ward, only he was quite determined to accomplish it somehow before morning. He did not even know where his friend was imprisoned, or how he was guarded. His father had spoken of a cellar somewhere in the inn. He supposed that foe would sooner or later be able to find it, overpower the sentry, and set Neal free. In the meanwhile, he had nothing to do but wait.

He felt a touch on his shoulder, and looked round to see the girl, the inn servant, standing beside him.

"You're the gentleman," she whispered, "that was speaking till the young man here the morn--the young man that I give the basket to, that is a friend o' Jemmy Hope's?"

Maurice recollected the incident very well.

"He's here the now," whispered the girl again. "He's down in the wine cellar, and the door's locked on him, and there's a man with a gun forninst the door, and, the Lord save us, it's goin' to hang him they are."

"Will you show me where the cellar is?" said Maurice.

"Ay, will I no? I'll be checked sore by the master, but I'll show you, I will."

The girl led him down a long pa.s.sage, which was nearly dark, opened a door, and showed him a flight of stone steps.

"There's three doors," she said. "It's the one at the end forninst you that's the cellar door. Are ye going down? It's venturesome ye are.

Whisht, then, and go canny, and dinna go ayont the bottom of the steps."

Maurice went cautiously. When he reached the bottom of the steps he saw before him a long pa.s.sage, stone-flagged, low-roofed, narrow. From an iron hook at the far end hung a lamp. Beyond it stood a sentry, one of Captain Twinely's yeomen. The man was awake and alert. There was no sign of drunkenness about him. He was well armed. The light from the lamp was dim and feeble at Maurice's end of the pa.s.sage, but it shone brightly enough for a s.p.a.ce in front of the sentry. Maurice saw that it would be impossible to approach the man unseen, impossible to steal on him or rush at him without having a shot fired which would startle every one in the inn. He crept up the stairs again. The girl was waiting for him.

"Is the door of the cellar locked?" he asked.

"Ay, it is, I fetched the last bottles of wine out mysel', and I saw them put the man in--sore draggled he was, and looking like a body in a dwam. The master locked the door himsef, and the captain took the keys off with him. But there's no harm in that. There's another key that the mistress used to have afore she died, the creature. It's in a drawer in the master's room, but it's easy got at."

"Get it for me," said Maurice.

He looked into the public room again. The revel was far advanced now.

It was nearly midnight, and only three or four of the most seasoned drinkers survived. Even they, as Maurice saw, were in no position to a.s.sert themselves, or to understand anything that was going on. A few minutes later even these veterans felt that they had had enough.

Supporting each other, reeling against tables and chairs, they staggered upstairs to their beds. The greater part of the merry company lay on the floor in att.i.tudes which were neither dignified nor comfortable, and snored. The rest of the inn was silent. From outside came the steady tramp of the soldiers who patrolled the town, and from far off their challenges to the sentries on watch at the ends of the streets.

The girl came back to Maurice with the key in her hand.

"I got it," she said. "The master's c.o.c.ked up sleepin' by the kitchen fire. There was a man in his bed, or maybe twa, but I didna wake them."

"Come back to me in half an hour," said Maurice, "I may want your help.

And listen, my la.s.s, if you stand by me to-night I'll see you safe afterwards. You shan't want for a handful of silver or a bran new gown."

"I want none of your siller nor your gowns," said the girl. "I'll lend ye a han' because you're a friend of the lad that's the friend of Jemmy Hope."

At about half-past twelve the sentry who stood in front of Neal's cellar heard some one descend the stairs into the pa.s.sage with shuffling steps.

A slatternly girl with shoes so down at the heel that they clattered on the stone flags every time she lifted her feet, approached him. She rubbed her eyes and yawned like one lately wakened out of sleep. She carried a lantern in her hand.

"What do you want here?" said the man.

"The master sent me, sir, with another lamp. He was afeard the yin ye had would be out again the morn. There isna that much oil in it."

"Your master's civil," said the man. "I've no fancy for standing sentry here in the dark. He's a civil man, and I'll speak a good word for him to-morrow to the captain. I hope you're a civil wench like the man you serve."

"Ay, amn't I after fetchin' the lamp till ye?"

"And a kiss along with it," said the soldier. "Come now, you needn't be coy, there's none to see you."

He put his arms round her waist and pulled her towards him.

"Mind now, mind, will ye, have you neither sense nor shame? Ye'll have the lamp spilt and the house in a blaze this minute."

She escaped from him, and, standing on tip-toe, reached the lamp which hung from the roof and put it on the ground. The soldier caught her again, and this time succeeded in kissing her.