CHAPTER XVII.MORE ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS.
Concludingour compact in the quickest fashion, I went back to the prisoner with the news. I chose to tell him simply that he was a free man, and at liberty to go. No more; a very exact discretion being needed to keep the arbitrary rogue apart from his heroic foibles. I was also careful to announce his freedom in a tone of bald matter-of-fact, as though the circumstance was the most natural in the world. Yet my art was by no means equal to the work before it, as at the first word the provoking fellow turned a sceptic’s eye upon me, and employed his lips on a long and sustained whistle of amused amazement.
“Zooks, madam!” says he, laughing, “you ought to succeed, you know. You possess a very considerable invention. But my soul, what a front you’ve got to bring me tales of this kind!”
“Cease this,” says I, with an imperious gesture, “But go to your chamber at once and change your attire, whilst I indite letters commending you to the attention of some of my friends. Off now, ere the Captain repents his clemency.”
However, his incredulity was not to be overcome in this way, and point blank he declined to budge. He was good enough to frankly repeat that he did not believe me. And to my credit be it written, I retained my temper tolerably well. My natural disposition had, I think, a severer schooling in my early intercourse with this intractable youth than in all the rest of its career. Not without benefit, perhaps, but I marvelled at the time, and do so still that this irksome discipline should have been so equally supported.
To my stern demands and repeated protests he had only one answer to return, and that not a whit politer than the one already mentioned.
“However, I’ll see the Captain,” says he, at last.
“Then do so, and be hanged to you!” cries I, my temper failing.
But immediately the hasty speech was uttered, I strove to recall it. Beyond all he must not hear of my compact with our subtle enemy, the Captain, for I was certain that should he do so he would not permit it to take effect. Yet I was unable to stay him in his impetuous course, and therefore followed on his heels to the library with the best grace I could summon. At critical moments I could at least forewarn the Captain with my frowns.
When I appeared the prisoner was already there, and had opened a raking fire.
“Captain,” he said, with what I took to be a mocking gleam at me, “her ladyship asserts thatyou have promised her my freedom. Be good enough to tell me, is that so?”
“Her ladyship is perfectly correct,” he answered, and the mocking gleam in his eye I also took to be directed at me.
The prisoner paused at this and turned half round that he might regard our guilty faces together. I can never say whether it was that my colour changed ever so slightly, whether the faintest shade of compunction crossed the Captain’s face, or whether the rebel was supernaturally endowed with wit, but suddenly his eyes were kindled with sparkles, and he turned almost savagely on me:
“Madam,” he demanded, “what is the price that you are paying for this privilege?”
The sharp question pinned me helpless. And I was forced to recognise that evasion, if still expedient, was no longer possible. There was that power in him that tore the truth out of me, even as at an earlier time it had torn it out of Mrs. Emblem.
“I am to marry my dear friend, Captain Grantley,” I told him, coolly.
He turned to that gentleman for a confirmation. It was promptly conveyed to him by means of a nod and a laugh.
“And you, sir, a subject of your King and a servant of his cause?” says the prisoner, tauntingly.
The Captain got up, smiling through his teeth.
“If, sir,” says he, “you propose to preach a sermon on morality, I shall be glad to reach the Bible down.”
“Oh, pray don’t trouble,” said the rebel, suavely. “As your own conduct, sir, happens to be my text, the Bible, of course, can contribute little to the occasion. Besides, sir, my opinion of you as a man can be delivered in about half a dozen words. You are, sir, in my opinion, a pretty, full-blooded blackguard, and I think, sir, that for persons of your kidney hanging is a luxury.”
The Captain bent his head a little under these carefully planted blows. But he remained wonderfully self-possessed and passionless.
“Thank you, puppy,” he replied, making a scarcely noticeable step the nearer to his foe, “but I think that your opinion, however valuable, is not at all required. Therefore, puppy, I shall have to teach you that there are occasions when it were wiser to restrain it.”
And having uttered this in an absurdly calm and listless fashion the Captain shot his fist out quicker than the eye could follow it, and ere one might guess what had occurred, a horrid, heavy fall made the room quake and set the furniture a rattling. Young Anthony was prone upon the carpet with a faint streak of blood beginning to issue from his neck.
In an instant was I bending over him, and crying in my anguish:
“Oh, my dear lad, you are not hurt!”
At first he did not speak, being partly dazed with the concussion of his fall, but before I could repeat the question, behold! he was on his feet and springingat the Captain with the ardour of a lion. His enemy was wary though, and prepared in every particular for this onslaught. Armed with his crutch he received the charge full upon that weapon, with farther disastrous consequences to the youth, who straightway met the carpet for the second time. ’Twas then that I did intervene. I ran between these combatants, and dared them on pain of unutterable penalties to exchange another blow.
“Confound you, Bab!” exclaimed the bleeding and breathless rebel. “Confound you for a Spoilsport! Why don’t you let me pound your gentle husband to a jelly!”
“What, pound my gentle husband?” says I, “a pretty wife I’d be, I’m thinking.”
For an instant this way of looking at the matter administered a check to his impetuosity, and by its aid I took occasion to beseech:
“My lad, if you care for your life at all, go while the door is open to you. Another blow will close it; aye, perhaps another word. Go, I implore you.”
“No,” says he, doggedly, “for the finest woman in all England I will not go. Things have gone too far. Would you have me leave you at the mercy of this nice gentleman? Let me kill him first, and then we will talk about it.”
He was quite cool now, and in full possession of the arrogant decision that seemed such an embellishment to his character. Therefore he stepped tothe windows at the far end of the apartment, pulled aside the curtains, and looked into the night. Immediately the white moonlight fell upon the deeper pallor of his face.
“See,” says he, turning to his enemy, “there’s light enough outside to settle our little controversy. Swords or pistols, sir?”
“Boots,” says the Captain, amiably; “I don’t fight with boys; I usually kick them.”
“Well, sir,” says the lad, “my situation is peculiar. I am your prisoner, and at liberty on parole, but I ask you as a gentleman whether it is likely that I shall swallow the insults of a private person! What is your opinion, madam?”
This was intended for diplomacy. It was plain that he wished me to induce the Captain to fight, but the risks of that course appeared too terrible by far for me to seize the opportunity.
“Save your neck first,” was my answer, “then settle your private quarrels.”
“And you, madam, are you prepared to purchase my liberty with your own?” says he.
“I believe so,” says I, with an air of high indifference. “You foolish boy, do you think it matters one farthing to a woman whom she marries, so long as she is but able to marry someone? Now be a good lad, doff those petticoats, wipe the blood from your neck where the Captain’s ring hath scratched you, and start for the south without another word.”
“No,” says he, “for that is the very last courseI propose to take. You shall never sacrifice yourself for me.”
“Sacrifice!” cries I; “La! the complimentary creature. ’Twill be a pleasure, I can promise you. Why, Captain, dear, we are to have a right merry time together, are we not?”
“Yes, a right merry time,” says the Captain, grimly.
“Oh, indeed,” says Mr. Anthony. “Ah, well, I am glad to hear you say so. For I’ll confess that I’ve had my doubts about it. Only I’m thinking that when his Majesty grows cognisant of this he may seek to mar the happiness of one of you at least.”
“Depend upon it, sir,” I retorted, stoutly, “that he will not hear of it.”
I continued to be so insistent on his immediate flight, and at the same time my determined attitude was so well served by the grim passiveness of the Captain, that in the end compliance seemed to be the young rebel’s only and inevitable course. And, to my great relief, this was the one he ultimately took.
“Well,” he exclaimed at last, “it’s plain that argument cannot avail.”
“Not a little bit, sir,” I cheerily agreed.
“Then,” says he, “I’ll go and change these clothes, while you write those letters to your friends.”
“You will find your masculine attire,” I said, with a sly twinkle for the Captain, “up the chimneyin your chamber, tied up in a cloth. When the search was done we took them there from the wardrobe of my lord.”
“I am hoping that the soot has not penetrated ’em,” says he, making the most comic mouth.
“Amen to that!” says I; “and now be off, sir.”
With that dismissal he left the library for his sleeping chamber, whilst I, craving the due permission of the Captain, sat down at the writing table before pen and paper, and set about my part of the transaction.
The best portion of an hour passed in the scratching of the quill with intervals of perilous desultory talk. I was in the most hateful frame of mind. Its alternate flutterings of hope and fear were very irksome. The lad seemed to be playing fair, and yet I knew that nothing was more unreasonable to expect, of a character like his, than that he should be content to leave me in the lurch, when that very night he had had so clear an indication of my feelings. And yet, I reflected, the shadow of the scaffold is powerful indeed. Poor wretch, torn betwixt the vigorous animal’s love of life, and instincts of a higher kind! I weighed the matter with such a singular mingling of emotions, that I felt I should detest young Anthony if he left me to my fate, and yet should curse him for his folly if he refused his proffered freedom. During that hour of suspense the devil enjoyed himself, I think. Ten times I dismissed the matter by an energetic usage of the quill, yet ten times did it return upon me, withnow and then a quiet jibe of my smiling enemy’s thrown in to bear it company.
After dashing off several letters in this savage manner, I looked up to consult the timepiece. It was five minutes short of three o’clock of the morning, and I began to grow impatient for the fugitive’s departure. The dawn would be here all too soon, and with it many perils. Each instant of delay was begrudged him by my mind’s inquietude. Soon, however, I heard footsteps in the hall, but the first feelings of relief that these occasioned were changed immediately into those of profound dismay. For there was a sound of voices too. A second later the door was opened, and thereupon the sight that met my eyes nearly made me swoon. Two persons entered. The first was the prisoner, in his masculine attire; the second, sparsely clad in a shirt, breeches, and stockings, hurriedly put on, was of all persons Corporal Flickers. I can never forget the rage and horror I endured, while the Corporal, who appeared by no means wholly awake, crammed his knuckles into his eyes to rub out the remains of his sleep, and protect them against the lamp glare. At first the two soldiers were too amazed to say a word; I was too afflicted; and the prisoner alone seemed able to break the oppressive silence.
“Bab,” says he, “you must forgive me for this, but you would persevere in your headlong folly, and I had to thwart you somehow. I could never have allowed you to pay the grievous price you had intended.”
“What do you mean?” I cried. “Do not tell me that you have delivered yourself voluntarily into the hands of your enemies!”
He hung his head in silence before the indignation of my glance.
“Ingrate,” I cried, “thus to thwart and to betray me.”
“The price was too great,” he said, doggedly, but the fear in his eyes was unmistakable. Meantime, Corporal Flickers had found his tongue, and was now engaged in giving the peculiar history of the capture to his commander.
“It’s God’s truth, sir, that that’s the rebel,” he began, in a tone that implied that he was trying hard to set all his own doubts at rest upon that point. Rubbing his eyes with renewed vigour, he repeated: “Yes, sir, that’s ’im, I’ll take my solemn oath. But it’s passing funny how I took ’im. I was asleep in my room and a-dreamin’ of my Mary, when I feels a hand quite sudding like upon my arm. At that I cocks up my eyes, and sees a light afore me, and a man’s figger a-bending across my bed. Like blue blazes, sir, I leaps to my feet, for I sees it is the rebel, and I takes ’im by ’is throat. But he was the most accommodatin’ rebel that you ever saw, for he stood quiet as a mouse, and says that I had done exactly what he had wakened me to do, for he was tired of being hunted for his life, and would I bring him straight to you, sir. I told ’im I would an’ all, and I done it lively, as you can see, sir, for I only stayed to put my breeches and myshirt on. But atween you an’ me, sir, though we’re all assembled here, sir, and a-talking as natural as ninepence as it were, it won’t surprise me much, sir, if I wakes up in the matter of half an hour and finds that I’m asleep, for everything seems that outrageous like that the more I think on it the less I can understand it. For what I asks is this: Is that the rebel that I see afore me or is it ’is counterfeit presentiment? And anyhow, sir, since that business o’ the woods I can’t be sure of ’im at all, sir, for in my opinion he’s a bit of a soopernatural as it were.”
“You are quite right, Corporal,” I interposed. “He’s a supernatural fool.”
All this time the chieftest actor in this play, the Captain, had not said a word beyond a little hollow praise of the Corporal’s sagacity and promptitude. Seen under the lamp his face presented the most ghastly and piteous appearance. False to his cause, false to himself, the dupe of his own passion, the slave of his own weakness, I began to conceive a great compassion for him, and a horror of my own callousness. As for the rebel, now that his headstrong folly had robbed him of his last chance of escape, all hope became abandoned. It was as much as ever I could do to prevent my anger and sorrow mastering my spirit and giving way to a flood of passionate tears. All our strivings to end miserably thus! It was only the severest discipline that could allow me to endure it defiantly. And yet though his own wilful act was to drag him to anignominious death, I could but reverence his character the more deeply for its natural courage. The wretched fellow’s audacious strength had forged yet another bond about my heart.
Presently the Captain dismissed the Corporal, and thereby held himself responsible for his prisoner’s safe keeping.
“I can also bid you good-night, madam, or, rather, good-morning,” the Captain says. “The day has been most arduous for you, and I am sure you need some recuperation.”
“You are very kind,” says I.
Knowing that all was hopeless now, and that neither prayers nor tears could prevail against the prisoner’s scruples, I decided to retire.
“You will not be gone for some hours yet,” I said as I opened the door.
“One of us may,” the Captain said.
Had I been in a brighter frame of mind I should have perhaps heeded this mysterious speech more closely, and found in it a prophecy of that which followed. But I went dismally to bed without thinking of its import. Despite the extremity of the hour, I found Emblem the picture of woe, sitting beside the fire in my chamber. Her customary smiling prettiness was faded with weeping; she hung her head, and rose on my entrance with a peculiar frightened air. Clasping her hands, she whispered:
“They’ve ta’en him, my lady.”
“And a very right thing, too,” says I.
“But will they not carry him to London to behanged?” she asked, seeking for hope where hope was not.
“I am trusting so,” says I, so cheerfully that my tears began to flow.
I soon came to the conclusion that my mood forbade repose, and therefore, instead of undressing and attempting to obtain a much-to-be-desired sleep, I dismissed poor Emblem, cast a cloak round my shoulders, took a chair by the hearth, and settled there for the remainder of the night, to doze, to think, and to repine.
However, this plan did not answer. It only induced a sickening course of meditation that was less endurable than the foulest nightmare. No matter what my posture, my agonies of mind grew unsupportable, and at last I cast the cloak off wearily, got up, and began to pace the chamber. It was while I was thus wrestling with my pains that I heard the far silence of the house disturbed by the closing of doors below. By the weight of the sounds and the jangling of the chains I presumed them to be those of the great hall, and as my window commanded the whole frontage of lawn and gravel sweep, I promptly pulled aside the curtains. Lanterns were twinkling immediately below, and by their aid and that of the clear-shining moon I was able to read the identity of two persons issuing from the house. They were the Captain and his prisoner, walking side by side across the lawn in a south-westerly direction. They were heading for the open meadows, and appeared perfectly amicableand to be talking in low tones; but the briskness of their pace and their air of strung activity proclaimed that they had some definite end in view. For the moment I had not the remotest notion what this end could be, but while I stood at gaze and musing to discover it, a horrible idea crept into my brain. Surely nothing could be more unnatural than two sworn enemies working harmoniously together towards a common end, if that end was peace? But was it peace? In a convulsion of alarm I recalled the incidents of that hateful night, and amongst them was the calculated blow which surely the prisoner was the last man in the world to take with meekness. I then remembered the Captain’s prophetic “One of us may,” and at once attached to it a most sinister significance. Having reached this dark conclusion, my first desire was to defeat their wicked purposes. I cloaked myself at once for another night excursion, and having done so stole down the stairs as formerly, opened the great hall door with wondrous care, then peered ahead to discern the course of the receding lanterns.