The Yeoman Adventurer Part 20

she retorted, laughing up in his face.

"Chester? Why Chester?" demanded Master Freake, suddenly tense and vigilant.

"I need name no name, but a certain dignitary's lady there, one of our supporters, undertook to take her in charge while this affair was on,"

explained the Colonel.

Master Freake, it seemed to me, was disappointed with the explanation, and, knowing that what Margaret wanted was to have the rumour of her father's intended treachery blown to pieces by his own account, I said, "There's only one parson in England fit to look at Mistress Margaret, and he's sixty and married. Let me learn, I pray you, sir, the art of slipping out of the hands of a squad of dragoons on a road crowded with soldiery."

"If you think you are to hear a tale that will make you grip the arms of your chairs, you're in for a sad disappointment. Yesterday and through the night, they stuck to me as if Geordie had offered thirty thousand pounds for me, dead or alive, but this morning their hold on me slackened. They might have intended me to escape. I was put on a fresh horse, about the best they'd got; the dragoon in charge of me was three parts drunk when we started; we got mixed up in a crowd of foot retreating south, and separated from our main body, and finding myself alone on the road with one man, and him drunk, I just knocked him off his horse, and cleared off across the fields.

"I rode on until I got a sight of this town, and the main road into it, from a hill-top, and watched for an hour or so to see what was happening.

I knew by my pace that I was well ahead of my late escort, and seeing no signs of them, came on to this inn, and was enjoying a good dinner when I saw Sultan and Oliver on him. The rest you know. Not much of a tale. Madge has done better many a time."

"Do you really think the Captain intended you to escape?" It was Margaret who asked the question, looking intently at me as she spoke.

I looked from her to Master Freake and back again, meaning to remind her that I wanted no convincing, but she still kept her eyes on mine, her chin cupped in her long white hands, and I was glad of her insistence for I could look at her without offence. I thought the mellow fire-light made her look more beautiful than ever. The l.u.s.trous yellow hair shone like molten gold, and the dark blue eyes became a queenly purple.

"If it were done on purpose it was done cleverly," continued the Colonel, "for the chance which set me free came quite naturally. The horse I rode yesterday was wanted in the usual way by a trooper to whom it belonged, and where so many men were more or less drunk, the choice of my particular drunkard was certainly accidental. And, besides, what possible motive could there be in letting me escape? Brocton knows I'm an experienced soldier of great repute--I state plain facts--and am eagerly expected by the Prince and by my old companion-in-arms, Geordie Murray. They couldn't have planned it better if they had wished it, but it's absurd to say they wished it. There ought to be a cashiered captain and a half-flayed dragoon somewhere south of us. Damme, I merit that at least."

He bent over the hearth to relight his pipe. Master Freake smiled and rubbed his hands gently. Margaret's eyes blazed with triumph, and challenged me, still me, to share it. Woman-logic was clean beyond my poor wits. I was sick for action. These glorious interludes with Margaret gave me no chance. It was like setting me afire and asking me not to burn.

Thinking of the poor, half-flayed devil behind us, made me think of the sergeant, and I asked Master Freake, "Did you give the sergeant his papers and letter?"

"No," was the ready reply. "The papers dealt rather frankly with certain regimental accounts, and, since the sergeant is now very bitterly set against us, may be useful in my hands. I had a shrewd notion that the letter concerned the t.i.tle to certain lands as to which Lord Brocton and I are at odds, and on opening it I found to my satisfaction that I was right. With your permission, Oliver, I will keep it."

"By all means do so," said I, anxious to burn again, and turning back to Margaret. If this silent, capacious man, so great a stranger yet so clear a friend, had said that the letter was about a new edition of Virgil, I should have believed him, and also, I fear me, have been equally uninterested. Latin be d.a.m.ned!

"Something for you in Oliver's magic-hat," said Margaret smilingly to Master Freake. "He really must fetch something out for himself soon.

Staffordshire is by far the most delightful country I have ever been in.

Only one little day has gone by, and in that day Staffordshire has given me more and truer friends than Europe gave me in ten years. I shall cross its borders with regret. Shall we make the most of it while we have it and sleep here, dad?"

"Unless we're routed out," was his reply, "and I do not think we shall be, for the enemy have all cleared out of the town. c.u.mberland is, of course, doing the right thing. He had few men north of Stafford, and fewer still worth powder and shot. Where the Prince is I've no idea."

"Resting for the day at Macclesfield," said Master Freake, "and his plans are not certain, or, at least, not known. The Duke of Kingston has a small body of horse at Congleton and is watching his movements."

"Damme," the Colonel broke in, "I did not know we had enemies north of us. Are you sure?"

"Certain. One of my men reported the facts to me just before supper."

"It's awkward, or rather will be awkward if anyone who knows me turns up.

That rascally landlord of ours must have known where Kingston was, but amid all his talk he never told me that. Damme, somebody's got hold of him. Still, you can't take the bull by the horns till his nose is s...o...b..ring your waistcoat, so pa.s.s the wine, Oliver."

He refilled his gla.s.s and then, leisurely and with his eyes dreamily fixed on the fire, loaded his pipe with a new charge of tobacco, and went on smoking.

"Are you a Jacobite?" suddenly asked Margaret, looking inquiringly at Master Freake.

"Dear me, no, Mistress Margaret," was the frank reply. "But you need not curl those sweet lips of yours, for neither am I a Hanoverian."

"Then what are you?" she asked again, with the same uncompromising directness.

"A Freakeiteian," said he with a smile.

"It puzzles me," was her brief comment.

"Let me explain," said he simply. "A Jacobite wants Charles to win; a Hanoverian wants George to win; a Freakeiteian wants to know who is going to win."

By this time Margaret was no more puzzled than I was. Yesterday when I stood on the river-bank watching my cork, I cared not a rap whether George or Charles won, and that was an understandable position; but why a man should be spending money in handfuls, and roughing it in the wilds of Staffordshire, merely in order to know who was going to win, was beyond my poor wits.

"You do not understand?" he said.

"No," said Margaret and I together.

The Colonel took no notice. He was puffing away at his pipe, long-drawn-out, solemn puffs, and gazing at the fire in a brown study.

"Well, Margaret and Oliver," said Master Freake, "this is no time to be giving you lessons in the way the great world wags that neither knows nor cares of outs and ins and party shufflings, but is busy with rents and crops, and incomings and outgoings, and debts and credits, and wivings and thrivings. But, believe me, in being anxious to know who is going to win, I am as plainly and simply doing my duty as is the Colonel who is going to do his best to help his Prince to win. I am one, and, I thank G.o.d, not the least, of that great race of men who are destined to mould a mightier England than the sword could ever carve--the merchant of London whose nod is his bond."

He spoke with simple dignity and his word was established. I had trusted him on sight. "His nod was his bond." You saw it in the man's clear, steady eyes and knew it by the set of his firm, square chin. After a warning glance at the silent Colonel, he leaned forward, and Margaret bent to meet him.

"If Charles loses," he murmured, "many heads will be smitten from their shoulders."

The colour left her cheeks instantly and tears welled forth from her eyes.

"But not the Colonel's," he whispered.

I was watching her with the eye of a hawk. A smile dawned on the white face, the sad eyes began to lose their gloom, and my fool of a heart began to flutter.

Yet once more he whispered, "And not Oliver's."

She leaned farther forward still and kissed him.

And it was just at that moment that the door opened smartly and Cherry-Cheeks put her sweet head round it and swiftly and peremptorily beckoned me outside.

Margaret laughed.

In the dim pa.s.sage, Cherry-Cheeks caught my hand affrightedly and babbled, "Oh, sir, there's the ugliest beast you ever saw spying on her ladyship. Take your boots off, sir, and creep after me!"

I tugged them off and we started. Along the pa.s.sage she flew and upstairs into the corresponding pa.s.sage above. Here, outside the Duke's room, she stopped and whispered, "He'll think I'm that b.i.t.c.h Sal. Hide behind me!"

She opened the door and stole into the room with me in tow, holding her skirt and crouching down nearly to the floor.

She was somewhat broad in the beam, like a Dutch hoy, and all I could see was a dull glimmer somewhere ahead in the darkness.

"Ssss-h, d.a.m.n ye," said the beast fiercely. "Stand still!"

Cherry-Cheeks took care not to stop till near the light, and then, with wonderful ready wit, put her right hand on her hip and I peeped through between arm and waist.

Full length on his belly lay the man from Yarlet Bank. There was a small spy-hole in the floor, on the edge of the hearth, and he had his right ear against it, which was lucky, for it kept his face turned from me. The notebook lay open on the floor near a guttering tallow candle in an iron candlestick, and the stump of pencil was clenched in his dirty yellow teeth.

I threw my handkerchief on the floor, took my fat little Virgil in my left hand, and crept out to him. When near on top of him, I gripped him round the nape of the neck, digging my fingers in his flabby throat, and he went slimy with fright like a great, fat lob-worm. I swooped down on him with my full weight, and pinned him to the floor. His big mouth opened as he fought for breath, and I clapped the Virgil hard and far into it, tying it tight in with my handkerchief, and gagging him effectually.