Such was the man I saw before me; on whose face, as if heaven purposed to warn his fellows against him, malignant passion and an insane vanity were so plainly stamped that party spirit must have gone to lengths, indeed, before it rendered men blind to his quality. His shambling gait seemed a fitting conveyance for a gaunt, stooping figure so awkward and uncouth that when he gave way to gesticulation it seemed to be moved by wires; yet, once he looked askance at you, face and figure were forgotten in the gleam of the eyes that, treacherous and cruel, leered at you from the penthouse of his huge, ill-fitting wig.
Nevertheless, I confess that, while I hated and loathed the man, he cowed me. His latest escape had intoxicated him, and astride on my table, or stalking the floor, he gave way to his vanity. Pouring out a flood of ribald threats and imaginings, he now hinted at the fate which had never failed to befall those who thwarted him; now he boasted of his cunning and his hundred intrigues, and now he touched, not obscurely, on some great design soon to be executed. His audacity, no less than his frankness, bewildered me; for if he did not tell me all, he told enough, were it true, to hang a man. Yet I soon found that he had method in his madness; for while I listened with a shamefaced air, hating him and meditating informing against him the moment I was freed from his presence, he turned on me with a hideous grin, and thrusting the muzzle of his pistol against my temple, swore with endless curses to slay me if I betrayed him.
"You will go to Brome to-morrow, as usual," he said. "The Whiggish old dotard, I could pluck out his inwards! And you will say not one word of Mr. Ferguson! For, mark me, sirrah Dick, alone or in company I shall be at your elbow, nor will all Cutts's guards avail to save you! Do you mark me? Then d---- you, down on your knees! Down on your knees, you white-livered dog, and swear by the Gospels you will tell no living soul by tongue or pen that you have seen me."
He pressed the cold steel muzzle to my temple and I knelt and swore. When it was done, he roared and jeered at me. "You see, I have my oath!" he cried, "as well as Little Hooknose! And no non-jurors! Now say 'Down with King William!'"
I said it.
"Louder! Louder!" he cried.
I could only comply.
p113HE PRESSED THE RING OF COLD STEEL
"Now, write it! Write it!" he continued, thrusting a piece of paper under my nose, and slapping his huge hand upon it. "I'll have it in black and white! Or write this--ha! ha! that will be better. Are you ready? Write, 'I hereby abjure my allegiance to Prince William.'"
"No," I said faintly, laying down the pen which I had taken up at his bidding. "I will not write it."
"Youwillwrite it!" he answered in a terrible tone. "And within a very few seconds. Write it at once, sirrah! 'I hereby abjure my allegiance to Prince William!'"
I wrote it with a shaking hand, after a glance at the pistol muzzle.
"And swear that I regard King James as my lawful sovereign. And I undertake to obey the rules of the St. Germain's Club, and to forward its interests. Good! Now sign it."
I did so.
"Date it," cried the tyrant; and when I had done so he snatched the paper from me and flourished it in the air, "There is my passport!" quoth he, with an exultant laugh. "When I am taken that will be taken, and when that is taken the worse for Mr. Richard Price if he is taken. He will taste of the hangman's lash. So! You are a clever fellow, Richard Price, but Robert Ferguson is your master, as he has been better men's!"
The man was so much in love with cruelty, that even when he had gained his point he could not bear to give up the pleasure of torturing me; and for half an hour he continued to flout and jeer at me, sometimes picturing my fate if the paper fell into the Secretary's hands, and sometimes threatening me with his pistol, and making sport of my alarm. At last, reluctantly, and after many warnings of what would happen to me if I informed, he took himself off; and I heard him go into the opposite rooms, and slam the door.
Be sure I was not long in securing mine after him! I was in a pitiable state of terror; shaking at thought of the man's return, and in an ague when I considered the power over me, which the paper I had signed gave him. I could hardly believe that, in so short a time, anything so dreadful had happened to me! Yet it were hard to say whether, with all my terror, I did not hate him more than I feared him; for though at one time my heart was water when I thought of betraying him, at another it glowed with rage and loathing, and to spite him, and to free myself from him, I would risk anything. And as I was not wanting in foresight, and could picture with little difficulty the slavery in which he would hold me from that day forward--and wherein his cruel spirit would delight--it was the latter mood that prevailed with me, and determined my action when morning came.
Reflecting that I could expect no mercy from him, but had little to fear from the Government, if I told my tale frankly, I determined at all risks to go to the Secretary. I would have done so, the moment I rose, the thought that at any moment he might burst in upon me keeping me in a cold sweat; but I was prudent enough to abide by my habits, and refrain from anticipating by a second the hour at which it was my custom to descend. I waited in the utmost trepidation, therefore, until half-past seven, when with a quaking heart, but a mind made up, I ventured down to the street.
It was barely light, but the coffee-houses were open, and between early customers to these, and barbers passing with their curling tongs, and milkmen and hawkers plying morning wares, and apprentices setting out their masters' goods, the ways were full and noisy; so that I had no reason to fear pursuit, and in the hubbub gained courage the farther I left my oppressor behind me. Nevertheless, I took the precaution of going first to Mr. Brome's, opposite St. Dunstan's; and passing in there, as was my daily custom, lingered a little in the entry. When by this ruse I had made assurance doubly sure, I slipped out, and went through the crowded Strand to Whitehall.
Mr. Brome had a species of understanding with the Government; and on one occasion being ill, had made me his messenger to the Secretary's. I knew the place therefore, but none the less gave way to timidity when I saw the crowd of ushers, spies, tipstaves, and busybodies that hung about the door of the office, and took curious note of everyone who went in or out. My heart failed me at the sight, and I was already more than half inclined to go away, my business undone, when someone touched my sleeve, and I started and turned. A girl still in her teens, with a keen and pinched face, and a handkerchief neatly drawn over her head, handed a note to me.
"For me?" I asked.
"Yes," said she.
I took it on that and opened it, my hands shaking. But when I read the contents, which were these--"Mr. Robert Ferguson's respects to the Secretary, and he has to-day changed his lodging. He will to-morrow be pleased to supply the bearer's character"--I thought I should have fallen to the ground. Nor was my alarm the less for the reflection which immediately arose in my mind that the note had of necessity been written and despatched before I left Mr. Brome's door; and consequently before I had taken any step towards the execution of my design!
Still, what I held was but a piece of paper bearing a message from a man proscribed, who dared not show his face where I stood. A word to the doorkeepers and I might even now go in and lay my information. But the man's omniscience cowed my spirit, terrified me, and broke me down. Assured after this, that whatever I did or wherever I went he would know and be warned in time, and I gain by my information nothing but the name of a gull or a cheat, I turned from the door. Then seeing that the girl waited, "There is no answer," I said.
"Will you please to go to the gentleman?" quoth she.
My jaw dropped. "God forbid!" I said, beginning to tremble.
"I think you had better," said she.
And this time there was that in her voice roused doubts in me and made me waver--lest what I had done prove insufficient, and he betray me, though I refrained from informing. Sullenly, therefore, and after a moment's thought, I asked her where he was.
"I am not to tell you," she answered. "You can come with me if you please."
"Go on," I said.
She cast a sharp glance at the group about the office, then turned, and walking rapidly north by Charing Cross led me through St. Martin's Lane and Bedford Bury to Covent Garden. Skirting this, she threaded Hart Street and Red Lion Court, and crossing Drury Lane conducted me into Lincoln's Inn Fields, where she turned sharply to the left and through Ralph Court to the Turnstile. Seeing that she lingered here and from time to time looked back, I fancied that we were near our destination; but starting afresh, she led me along Holborn and through Staple Inn. Presently it struck me that we were near Bride Lane, and I cried "He is in my room?"
"Yes," she said gravely, and without explanation. "If he pleases you will find him there." And without more she signed to me to go on, and disappeared herself in the mouth of an alley by Green's Rents.
It did please him. When I entered with the air, doubtless, of a whipped hound, I found him sitting on my table swinging his legs and humming an air; and with so devilish a look of malice and triumph on his face as sent my heart into my boots. Notwithstanding, for a while it was his humour not to speak to me but to leer at me askance out of the corner of his eyes, and keep me on tenterhooks, expecting what he would say or do; and this he maintained until he had finished his tune, when with a grin he asked after his friend the Secretary.
"Was it Trumball you saw, or the new Duke?" said he; and when I did not answer he roared out an oath, and snatching up the pistol which lay on the table beside him, levelled it at me. "Answer, will you? Do you think that I am to speak twice to such uncovenanted dirt as you? Whom did you see?"
"No one," I stammered, trembling.
"And why not?" he cried. "And why not, you spawn of Satan?"
"I received your note," I said.
"Oh, you received my note!" he whimpered, dropping his voice and mocking my alarm. "Your lordship received my note, did you? And if you had not got my note, you would have informed, would you? You would have informed and sent me to the gallows, would you? Answer! Answer, or----"
"Yes!" I cried in an agony of terror; for he was bringing the pistol nearer and nearer to my face, while his finger toyed with the trigger, and at any moment might press it too sharply.
"So! And you tell me that to my face, do you?" he answered, eyeing me so truculently, that I held up my hands and backed to the door. "You dare tell me that, do you? Come here, sirrah!"
I hesitated.
"Come here!" he cried. "Or by ---- I will shoot you! For the last time, come here!"
I went nearer.
"Oh, but I would like to see you in the boot!" he said. "It would be the finest sight! It would not need a turn of the screw to make you cry out! And mind you," he continued, suddenly seizing my ear in his great hand, and twisting it until I screamed, "in a boot of some kind or other I shall have you--if you play me false! Do yon understand, eh? Do you understand, you sheep in wolf's clothing?"
"Yes!" I cried. "Yes, yes!" He had forced me to my knees, and brought his cruel sneering face close to mine.
"Very well. Then get up--if you have learned your lesson. You have had one proof that I know more than others. Do not seek another. But, umph--where have I seen you before. Master Trembler?"
I said humbly, my spirit quite broken, that I did not know.
"No?" he answered, staring at me with his face puckered up. "Yet somewhere I have. And some day I shall call it to mind. In the meantime--remember that you are my slave, my dog, my turnspit, to fetch or carry, cry or be merry at my will. You will sleep or wake, go or come as I bid you. And so long as you do that--Richard Price, you shall live. But on the day you play me false, or whisper my name to living soul--on that day, or within the week, you will hang! Do you hear, hang, you Erastian dog! Hang, and be carrion: with Ayloffe, and many another good man, that would stint me, and take no warning!"
Alas, the secret subjection into which I fell from that day onwards, to a man who knew neither pity nor scruple--and wielded his power with the greater enjoyment and the less remorse for the piquant contrast it afforded to his position, as a proscribed and hunted traitor, in hiding for his life--exceeded all the anticipations of it which I had entertained. Having his favourite lodging in the rooms opposite mine, he was ready, when the cruel humour seized him, to sally forth and mock and torment me; while the privacy of his movements and the number of his disguises (whence it arose that I never knew until I saw him whether he was there or not) kept me in a state of suspense and misery well nigh intolerable. Yet such was the spell of fear under which he had contrived to lay me--he being a violent and dangerous man and I no soldier--and so crafty were the means, no less than the art, by which he gradually wound a chain about me, that in spite of my hatred I found resistance vain; and for a long time, and until adeus ex machinâ, as the ancients say, appeared on the scene, saw no resource but to bear the yoke and do his bidding.
He had one principal mode of strengthening his hold upon me; which stood the higher in his favour, as besides effecting that object and rendering me serviceable, it amused him with the spectacle of my alarms. This consisted in the employing me in his treasonable designs: as by sending me with letters and messages to Sam's Coffeehouse, or to the Dog in Drury Lane, or to more private places where the Jacobites congregated; by making me a go-between to arrange meetings with those of his kidney who dared not stir abroad in daylight, and came and went between London and the coast of France under cover of night; or lastly, by using me to drop treasonable papers in the streets, or fetch the same from the secret press, in a court off St. James's, where they were printed.
He took especial delight in imposing this last task upon me, and in depicting, when I returned fresh from performing it, the penalties to which I had rendered myself liable. It may occur to some that when I passed through the streets with such papers in my hands I had an easy way out of my troubles; and could at any moment by conveying the letters to the Secretary's office procure the tyrant's arrest, and my own freedom. But besides the fact that his frequent change of lodging, his excellent information, and the legion of spies who served him, rendered it doubtful whether with the best will in the world the messengers would find him where I had left him, he frequently boasted--and the boast, if unfounded, added to my distrust of all with whom I came into contact--that the very tipsters and officers were in his pay, and that Cutts himself dared not arrest him! Besides, I more than suspected that often the letters he gave me were blank, and the errands harmless: and that the one and the other were feigned only for the purpose of trying me, or out of pure cruelty--to the end that when I returned he might describe with gusto the process of hanging, drawing, and quartering, and gloat over the horror with which I listened to his relation; a practice which he carried to such an extent as more than once to reduce me to tears of rage and anguish.
Such was my life at home, where if my tyrant was not always at my elbow I was every hour obnoxious to his appearance; for early in our connection he forbade me to lock my door. Abroad I was scarcely more easy, seeing that, besides an impression I had that wherever I went I was dogged, there was scarcely an item of news which it fell to my lot to record that did not throw me into a panic. One day it would be Mr. Bear arrested on a charge of high treason, and in possession of I knew not what compromising letters: another, the suicide in the Temple of a gentleman to whom I myself had a week earlier taken a letter, and who had in my presence let fall expressions which led me to think him in the same evil case with me. Another day it would be an announcement that the Government had discovered a new Conspiracy; or that letters going for France had been seized in Romney Marshes; or that the Lancashire witnesses were speaking more candidly; or that Dr. Oates had been taken up and held to bail for a misdemeanour. All these and many other rumours punished me in turn; and filling my mind with the keenest apprehensions, must in a short time have rendered my life intolerable.
As it was, Mr. Brome, within a month, saw so great a change in me that he would have me take a holiday; advising me to go afield either to my relations, or to some village on the Lea, to which neighbourhood Mr. Izaak Walton's book had given a reputation exceeding its deserts. He reinforced the advice with a gift of two guineas, that I might spend the month royally; then in a great hurry added an injunction that I should not waste the money. But I did worse; for I had the simple folly to tell the whole by way of protest and bitter complaint to my other master; who first with a grin took from me the two guineas, and then made himself merry over the increased time I could now place at his disposal.
"And it is timely, Dick, it is timely," he said with ugly pleasantry. "For, the good cause, the cause you love so dearly, Dick, is prospering. Another month and you and I know what will happen. Ha! ha! we know. In the meantime, work while it is day, Dick. Put your hand to the plough and look not back. If all were as forward as you, our necks would be in little peril, and we might see a rope without thinking of a cart."
"Curse you!" I cried, almost beside myself between disappointment, and the rage into which his fiendish teasing threw me. "Cannot you keep your tongue off that? Is it not enough that you----"
"Have taught me to limp!" quoth he winking hideously. "Here's to Louis, James, Mary, and the Prince--L. I. M. P., my lad! Oh, we can talk the deealect. We have had good teachers."
I could have burst into tears. "Some day you'll be caught!" I cried.
"Well?" he said with a grin. "And what then?"
"You'll be hanged! Hanged!" I cried furiously. "And God grant I may be there to see."
"You will that," he answered with composure. "Make your mind easy, my man, for, trust me, if I am in the first cart, you'll be in the second. That is my security, friend Dick. If I go, you go. Who carried to Mr. Warmaky's chambers the letters from France, I would like to know? And who---- But the cause!" he continued, breaking off, "the cause! To business, and no more havers. Here's work for you. You shall go, do you hear me, Richard, to Covent Garden to the Piazza there, in half an hour's time. It will be full dark then. You will see there a fine gentleman walking up and down, taking his tobacco, with a white handkerchief hanging from his pocket. You will give him that note, and say 'Roberts and Guiney are good men'--d'ye take it? 'Roberts and Guiney are good men,' say that, and no more, and come back to me."
I answered at first, being in a rage, and not liking this errand better than others I had done for him, that I would not--I would not, though he killed me. But he had a way with him that I could not long resist; and he presently cowed me, and sent me off.
I had so far fallen into his sneaking habits that though it was dark night when I started, I went the farthest way round by Holborn, and the new fashionable quarter, Soho; and passing through King's Square itself, and before the late Duke of Monmouth's house--the sight of which did not lessen my distaste for my errand--I entered Covent Garden by James Street, which comes into the square between the two Piazzas. At the corner, I had to turn into the roadway to avoid a party of roisterers who had just issued from the Nag's Head coffee-house and were roaring for a coach; and being in the kennel, and observing under the Piazza and before the taverns more lights and link-boys than I liked, I continued along the gutter, dirty as it was (and always is in the neighbourhood of the market), until I was half-way across the square, where I could turn and reconnoitre at my leisure. Here for a moment, running my eye along the Piazza, which had its usual fringe of flower girls and mumpers, swearing porters and hackney coaches, I thought my man with the white handkerchief had not come; but shifting my gaze to the Little Piazza, which was darker and less frequented, I presently espied him walking to and fro under cover, with a cane in his hand and the air of a gentleman who had supped and was looking out for a pretty girl. He was a tall, stout man, wearing a large black peruke and a lace cravat and ruffles; and he carried a steel-hilted sword, and had somehow the bearing of one who had seen service abroad.
Satisfied that he was the person I wanted, I went to him; but stepping up to him a little hastily, I gave him a start, I suppose, for he backed from me and laid his hand on his hilt, rapping out an oath. However, a clearer view reassured him, and he cocked his hat, and swore at me again but in a different tone. "Sir," said he very rudely, "another time give a gentleman a wider berth, unless you want his cane about your shoulders!"
For answer I merely pulled out the note I had and held it towards him, being accustomed to such errands and anxious only to do this one, and begone; the more as under the Great Piazza a number of persons were loitering, and among them link-boys and chairmen and the like who notice everything.
However he made no movement to take the letter, but only said, "For me?"
"Yes," I answered.
"From whom?" said he, roughly.
"You will learn that inside," I said. "I was bidden only to say that Roberts and Guiney are good men."
"Ha!" he exclaimed, "why did you not say that before?" and at that took the letter. On which, having done my part and not liking the neighbourhood, I was for going, and had actually made a half turn, when a man slighter than the first and taller, came out of the shadow behind him, and standing by his side, touched his hat to me. I stopped.
"Good evening, my lord," he said, addressing me with ceremony, and a sort of dignity. "I little thought to see you here on this business. It is the best news I have had myself or have had to give to others this many a day. It shall be well represented, and the risk you run. And whatever be thought on this side, believe me, at St. Germain's----"
"Hush!" cried the first man, interrupting him at that, and rather sharply. I think he had been too much surprised to speak before. "You are too hasty, sir," he continued. "There must be a mistake here. The gentleman to whom you are speaking----"
"There is no mistake. This gentleman and I are well acquainted," the other responded coolly, and in the tone of a man who knows what he is doing. And then to me, and with a different air, "My lord, you may not wish to say your name aloud; that I can understand, and this is no very safe place for either of us. But if we could meet somewhere, say at----"
"Hush, sir," the man with the handkerchief cried, and this time almost angrily. "Thereisa mistake here, and in a moment you will say too much, if you have not said it already. This gentleman--if he is a gentleman--brings a letter from R. F., and is no more of a lord, I'll be sworn, than I am!"
"From R. F.?"
"Yes; and therefore if he is the person you think him---- But come, sir," he continued, eyeing me angrily, "whatisyour name? End this."
I did not wish to tell him, yet liked less to refuse. So I lied, and on the spur of the moment said, "Charles Taylor," that being the name of a man who lived below me.
The taller man struck one hand into the other. "There! Charles!" he cried, and looked at me smiling. "I have an eye for faces, and if you are not----"
"Nay, sir, I pray, be quiet," the man with the white handkerchief remonstrated. "Or if you are so certain----" and then he looked hard at me and frowned as if he began to feel a doubt. "Step this way and tell me what you think. This gentleman will doubtless excuse us, and wait a moment, whether he be whom you think him or not."
I was as uneasy and as unwilling to stay as could be; but the man's tone was resolute, and I saw that he was not a man to cross; so with an ill grace I consented, and the two drawing aside together into the deeper shadow under the Piazza, began to confer. This left me to kick my heels impatiently, and watch out of the corner of my eye the loiterers under the other Piazza, to learn if any observed us. Fortunately they were taken up with a quarrel which had just broken out between two hackney coachmen, and though a man came near me, bringing a woman, he had no eyes for me, and, calling a sedan-chair, went away again almost immediately.
I was so engrossed with watching on that side and taking everyone who looked towards me for an informer, that it was with a kind of shock that I found my two friends had grown in the course of their conference to three; nor had I more than discovered this before the new comer left the other two and sauntered up to me. "Oh, ah," he said carelessly, "and who do you say that you----" and there he stopped, staring in my face. And then, "By heavens, it is!" he cried.
By this time I was something astonished, and more amazed; and answered with spirit--though he was a hard-bitten man, with the look of a soldier or gamester, to whom ordinarily I should have given the wall--that I was merely a messenger, and knew nothing of the matter on which I was there, nor for whom they took me.
His face, which for a second or more had blazed with excitement, fell suddenly; and when I had done speaking, he laughed.
"Don't you?" he said.
"No," said I. "Not a groat!"
"So it seems," he said again, as if that settled the matter. "Well, then what is your name?"
"Charles Taylor," I answered.
"And you come from that old rogue Ferg--R. F., I mean?"
"Yes."
"Well then you can go back to him," he said, dismissing me with a nod. "Or wait. Did you know that gentleman, my friend?"
"Which?" said I.
"The tall one."
"Not from Adam," I said.
"Good! Then there is no need you should know him," he answered coolly. "So, go. And do you tell that old fox to lie close. He was never in anything yet but he spoiled it. Tell him to lie close, and keep his bragging tongue quiet if he can. And now be off. I will explain to the gentlemen."
I needed no second bidding, but before the words were well out of his mouth, had crossed the square, to the market side, where there were no lights; thence skirting the garden of Bedford House, I made my way into the Strand, and home by a pretty direct route. The farther I left the men behind me, however, the higher rose my curiosity; so that by the time I reached Bride Lane, and had climbed the stairs to my garret, I was agape to know more, and for once in my life, was glad to find the old plotter in my room. Nor was it without satisfaction, that to his eager question, "You gave the note to the gentleman?" I answered shortly that I had given it to three.
"To three?" he exclaimed, starting up in a sudden fury. "You d----d cur, if you have betrayed me! What do you mean?"
"Only that I did what you told me," I answered sullenly; at which he sat down again. "I gave it to the gentleman; but he had two with him----"
"The more to hang him," he sneered, quickly recovering himself. "And what did he say?"
"Very little. Nothing that I remember. But the two with him----"
"Ay?"
"One of them said, 'Tell the old fox'--or the rogue, for he called you both--'to lie close!' And he added," I continued, spite giving me courage, "that you had hitherto spoiled everything you had been in, Mr. Ferguson."
At that I do not think that I ever saw a man in such a rage. Fortunately he did not turn it on me; but for two or three minutes he cursed and swore, bit things and foamed at the mouth, trampled on his wig and raged up and down, like nothing so much as a madman; while the imprecations he uttered against his enemies were so horrible I feared to stay with him. At length it seemed to occur to him that the man who could send such a message to him, Ferguson, the great Ferguson, the Ferguson with a thousand guineas on his head, must be a very great man indeed: which while it consoled him in some measure, excited his curiosity in another and inordinate degree. He hastened to put to me a number of questions, as, what were the two like? And did the one pay the other respect? And how were they dressed? And had either a ribbon or a star? And though in answer I could tell him no more than that the youngest was extremely tall and slight, under thirty, and of an easy carriage and bearing, and in appearance the leader, it was enough for him; he presently cried out that he had it, and slapped his thigh. "Gad! It is Jamie Churchill!" he cried. "It's Berwick, stop my vitals! He had a villainous French accent, had he not?"
"Something of the kind," I answered. Adding with as much of a sneer as I dared, "If it was not a Scotch one, sir."
He took the gibe and scowled at me--he spoke always like a Sawney, and could never pass for English; but in his pleasure at the discovery he had made he let the word pass. "See, man!" he said, "there are fine times coming! It is like Monmouth's day over again. I'll warrant Hunt's, down in the Marshes, is like a penny ferry with their coming over. The fat is fairly in the fire now, and if we do not singe little Hooknose's wig for him, I'll hang for it! He is a better man than his father, is Jamie; ay, the very same figure of a man that his cold-blooded, grease-your-boots, and sell-you-for-a-groat uncle, John Churchill, was at his age! So Jamie is over! Well, well: and if we knew precisely where he was and where he lies nights--there are two ways about it! Ye-es! Ye-es!" And the old rogue, falling first into a drawl and then into silence, looked at me slyly, and, unless I was mistaken, began to ruminate on a new treason; rubbing now one calf and now the other, and now dressing his ragged wig with his fingers, as he continued to smile at his wicked thoughts; so that, as he sat there, one leg over the other knee, he was the veriest baldheaded Judas to be conceived. In the meantime I watched him and hated him, and, I thought, read him.
Whatever the scheme in his mind, however, and whether he was, as I expected, as ready to sell the Duke of Berwick as to plot with him, he said no more to me on the subject; but presently went to his own room. Thus left, I thought it high time to consider where I stood, being all of a tremble and twitter with what I had heard and seen; and I tossed through the night, fearfully sounding the depths in which I found myself, and striving to gain strength to battle with the stream that day by day was forcing me farther and farther from the land. I was no boy or fool, unaware of the danger of being mixed up with great men and great names; rather the ten years during which I had followed public affairs had presented me with only too many examples of the iron pot and clay pitcher. When, therefore, I slept at last, late in the evening, it was to dream of the sledge and Tyburn road and the Ordinary--who bore in my dream a marvellous likeness to Mr. Brome--and a wall of faces that lined the way and never ceased from St. Giles's Pound to the Edgeware Road.
Such a dream, taken with my night's thoughts, left me eager to put in execution a plan I had more than once considered; which was to give up all, to fly from London, and hiding myself in some quiet place under another name, to live as I best might until Ferguson's capture, or a change in the state of affairs freed me from danger. At a distance from him I might even gain courage to inform against him; but this I left for future decision, the main thing now being to pack my clothes, secure about me the money I had saved, which amounted to thirty guineas, and escape from the town on foot or in a stage-wagon without any of his myrmidons being the wiser.
To adopt this course was to lose Mr. Brome's friendship and the livelihood which his employment provided; but such was the fear I had conceived of Ferguson's schemes and the perils they involved that I scarcely hesitated. Before noon, an hour which I thought least open to suspicion, I had engaged a porter and bidden him wait below, had made all my other arrangements, and in five minutes I should have been safe in the streets with my face set towards Kensington--when, at the last moment, there came a tap at my door and a voice asked if I was in.
It was not an hour at which Ferguson had ever troubled me, and trusting to this I had not been careful to hide the signs of removal which my room presented. For a moment I hung over my trunk, panic-stricken; then the door opened, and admitted the girl who had intervened once before--I mean at the door of the Secretary's office--and whom I had since noticed, but not often, going in at the opposite rooms.
She curtseyed demurely, standing in the doorway, and said that Mr. Smith--which was one of the names by which Ferguson went--had sent her to me with a message.
"Yes," I said, forcing myself to speak.
"Would you please to wait on him this evening at eight," she answered. "He wishes to speak with you."
"Yes," I said again, helplessly assenting; and there was an end of my fine evasion. I took it for a warning, and my clothes from my mail; and going down paid the porter a groat, and received in return a dozen porter's oaths. And so dismissed him and my plan together.
It must be confessed that after that it was with a sore shrinking and foreboding of punishment I prepared to obey Mr. Ferguson's summons, and at the hour he had fixed knocked at his door. Hitherto he had always come to me; and even so and on my own ground I had suffered enough at his hands. What I had to expect, therefore, when entirely in his power I failed to guess, but on that account felt only the greater apprehension; so that it was with relief I recognised, firstly, as soon as I crossed the threshold, a peculiar neatness and cleanliness in the rooms, as if Ferguson at home were something different from Ferguson abroad; and secondly, that he was not alone, but entertained a visitor.
Neither of these things, to be sure, altered his bearing towards me, or took from the brutality with which it was his humour to address me; but as his opening words announced that the visitor's business lay with me, they relieved me from my worst apprehension--namely, that I was to be called to account for the steps I had taken to escape; at the same time that they amused me with the hope of better treatment, since no man could deal with me worse than he had.
"This is your man!" the plotter cried, lying back in his chair and pointing to me with the pipe he was smoking. "Never was such a brave conspirator! Name a rope and he will sweat! For my part, I wish you joy of him. Here, you, sirrah," he continued, addressing me, "this gentleman wishes to speak to you, and, mind you, you will do what he tells you, or----"
But at that the gentleman cut him short with a deprecating gesture. "Softly, Mr. Ferguson, softly!" he said, and rose and bowed to me. Then I saw that he was the last comer of the three I had met in Covent Garden; and the one who had dismissed me. "You go too fast," he went on, smiling, "and give our friend here a wrong impression of me. Mr. Taylor, I----"
But it was Ferguson's turn to take him up, which he did with a boisterous laugh. "Ho! Taylor! Taylor!" he cried in derision. "No more Taylor than I am haberdasher! The man's name----"
"Is whatever he pleases," the stranger struck in, with another bow. "I neither ask it nor seek to know it. Such things between gentlemen and in these times are neither here nor there. It is enough and perhaps too much that I came to ask you to do me a favour and a service, Mr. Taylor, both of which are in your power."
He spoke with a politeness which went far to win me, and the farther for the contrast it afforded to Ferguson's violence. With his appearance I was not so greatly taken; finding in it, though he was dressed well enough, clearer signs of recklessness than of discretion, and plainer evidences of hard living than of charity or study. But perhaps the prayer of such a man, when he stoops to pray, is the more powerful. At any rate I was already half gained, when I answered; asking him timidly what I could do for him.
"Pay a call with me," said he lightly. "Neither more than that, nor less."
I asked him on whom we were to call.
"On a lady," he answered, "who lives at the other end of the town."
"But can I be of any service?" I said, feebly struggling against the inevitable.
"You can," he answered. "Of great service."
"Devil a bit!" said Ferguson testily, and stared derision at me out of a cloud of smoke. It occurred to me then that he was not quite sober, and further that he was no more in the secret of the service than I was. "Devil a bit!" said he again, and more offensively.
"You will let me judge of that," said the gentleman, and he turned to the table. "Will you mind changing the clothes you wear for these?" he said to me with a pleasant air. On which I saw that he had on the table by his hand a suit of fine silk velvet clothes, and surmounted by a grand dress peruque, with a laced steinkirk and ruffles to match. "Pardon the impertinence," he continued, shrugging his shoulders as if the matter were a very slight one, while I stared in amazement at this new turn. "It is only that I think you will aid me the better in these. And after all, what is a change of clothes?"
Naturally I looked at the things in wonder. I had never worn clothes of the kind. "Do you want me to put them on?" I said.
"Yes," he answered, smiling. "Will you do it on the faith that it will serve me, and trust to me to explain later?"
"If there is no danger in--in the business," I said reluctantly, "I suppose I must." As a fact, whatever he asked me, with Ferguson beside him, I should have to do, so great was my fear of that man.
"There is no danger," he replied. "I will answer for it. I shall accompany you and return with you."
On that, and though I did not comprehend in the least degree what was required of me, I consented, and took the clothes at the stranger's bidding into the next room, where I put off mine and put these on; and presently, seeing myself in a little square of glass that hung against the wall, scarcely knew myself in a grand suit of blue velvet slashed and laced with pearl-colour, a dress peruque and lace ruffles and cravat. Being unable to tie the cravat, I went back into the room with it in my hand; where I found not only the two I had left but the girl who had summoned me that morning. The two men greeted the change in me with oaths of surprise; the girl, who stood in the background, with an open-eyed stare; but for a moment and until the stranger had tied the cravat for me, nothing was said that I understood. Then Mr. Ferguson getting up and walking round me with a candle, gazing at me from top to toe, the other asked him in a voice of some amusement if he knew now who I was.
"A daw in jay's feathers!" said he, scornfully.
"And you do not know him?"
"Not I--except for the silly fool he is!"
"Then you do not know--well, someone you ought to know!" the stranger answered dryly. "You are getting old, Mr. Ferguson."
My master cursed his impudence.
"I am afraid that you do not keep abreast of the rising generation," the other continued, coolly eyeing the rage his words excited. "And for your Shaftesburys, and Monmouths, and Ludlows, and the old gang, they don't count for much now. You must look about you, Mr. Ferguson; you must look about you and open your eyes, and learn new tricks, or before you know it you will find yourself on the shelf."
It would be difficult to exaggerate the fury into which this threw my master; he raved, stamped, and swore, and finally, having recourse to his old trick, tore off his wig, flung it on the ground, and stamped on it. "There!" he cried, with horrible imprecations, the more horrible for the bald ugliness of the man, "and that is what I will do to you--by-and-by, Mr. Smith. On the shelf, am I? And need new tricks? Hark you, sir, I am not so much on the shelf that I cannot spoil your game, whatever it is. And G-- d-- me but I will!"
Mr. Smith, listening, cool and dark-faced, shrugged his shoulders; but for all his seeming indifference, kept a wary eye on the plotter. "Tut--tut, Mr. Ferguson, you are angry with me," he said. "And say things you do not mean. Besides, you don't know----"
"Know?" the other shrieked.
"Just so, know what my game is."
"I know this!" Ferguson retorted, dropping his voice on a sudden to a baleful whisper, "Who is here, and where he lies, Mr. Smith. And----"
"So do Tom, Dick, and Harry," the other answered, shrugging his shoulders contemptuously; and then to me, "Mr. Taylor," he continued with politeness, "I think we will be going. Light the door, my dear. That is it. I have a coach below, and--good-night, Mr. Ferguson, good-night to you. I'll tell Sir George I have seen you. And do you think over my advice."
At that my master broke out afresh, cursing the other's impudence, and frantically swearing to be even with him; but I lost what he said, in a sudden consternation that seized me, as I crossed the threshold; a kind of shiver, which came over me at the prospect of the night, and the dark coach ride, and the uncertainty of this new adventure. The lights in the room, and Mr. Smith's politeness, had given me a courage which the dark staircase dissipated; and but for the hold which my new employer, perhaps unconsciously, laid on my arm, I think I should have stood back and refused to go. Under his gentle compulsion, however, I went down and took my seat in the coach that awaited us; and my companion following me and closing the door, someone unseen raised the steps, and in a moment we were jolting out of Bride Lane, and turned in the direction of the Strand.
More than this I could not distinguish with all my curiosity, and look out as I might; for Mr. Smith muttering something I did not catch, drew the curtain over the window on my side, and, for the other, interposed himself so continually and skilfully between it and my eyes, that the coach turning two or three corners, in a few minutes I was quite ignorant where we were, or whether we still held a westward direction. A hundred notions of footpads, abductions, Mr. Thynne, and the like passed through my mind while the coach rumbled on, and rumbled on, and rumbled on endlessly; nor was the fact that we appeared to avoid the business parts of the town, and chose unlighted ways, calculated to steady my nerves. At length, and while I still debated whether I wished this suspense at an end, or feared more what was to follow, the coach stopped with a jerk, which almost threw me out of my seat.
"We are there," said my companion, who had been some time silent. "I must trouble you to descend, Mr. Taylor. And have no fears. The matter in hand is very simple. Only be good enough to follow me closely, and quickly."
And without releasing my arm he hurried me out of the coach, and through a door in a wall. This admitted us only to a garden; and that so dark, and so completely obscured by high walls and the branches of trees, which showed faintly overhead, feathering against the sky, that but for the guidance of his hand, I must have stood, unable to proceed. Such an overture was far from abating my fears; nor had I expected this sudden plunge into a solitude, which seemed the more chilling, as we stood in London, and had a little while before passed from the hum of the Strand. I tried to consider where we could be, and the possibilities of retreat; but my conductor left me little room for indecision. Still holding my arm, he led me down a walk, and to a door, which opened as we approached. A flood of light poured out and fell on the pale green of the surrounding trees; the next moment I stood in a small, bare lobby or ante-room, and heard the door chained behind me.
My eyes dazzled by a lamp, I saw no more at first than that the person who held it, and had admitted us, was a woman. But on her setting down the lamp, and proceeding to look me up and down deliberately, the while Mr. Smith stood by, as if he had brought me for this and no other, I took uneasy note of her. She appeared to be verging on forty but was still handsome after a coarse and full-blown fashion, with lips over-full and cheeks too red; her dark hair still kept its colour, and the remains of a great vivacity still lurked in her gloomy eyes. Her dress, of an untidy richness worn and tarnished, and ill-fastened at the neck, was no mean match for her face; and led me to think her--and therein I was right--the waiting-woman of some great lady. Perhaps I should, if let alone, have come something nearer the truth than this, and quite home; but Mr. Smith cut short my observations by falling upon her in a tone of anger, "Hang it, madam, if you are not satisfied," he cried, "I can only tell you----"
"Who said I was not satisfied?" she answered, still surveying me with the utmost coolness. "But----"
"But what?"
"I cannot help thinking---- What is your name, sir, if you please?" This to me.
"Taylor," I said.
"Taylor? Taylor?" She repeated the name as if uncertain. "I remember no Taylor; and yet----"
"You remember? You remember? You know very well whom you remember!" Mr. Smith cried, impatiently. "It is the likeness you are thinking of! Why, it is as plain, woman, as the nose on his face. It is so plain that if I had brought him in by the front door----"
"And kept his mouth shut!" She interposed.
"No one would have been the wiser."
"Well," she said, grudgingly, and eyeing me with her head aside, "it is near enough."
"It is the thing!" he cried, with an oath.
"As a Chelsea orange is a China orange!" she answered, contemptuously.
At that he looked at her in a sort of dark fury, precisely, so it seemed to me, as Ferguson had looked at him an hour before. "By heaven, you vixen," he cried in the end, surprise and rage contending in his tone, "I believe you love him still!"
Her back being towards me I did not see her face, but the venom in her tone when she answered, made my blood creep. "Well," she said, slowly, "and if I do? Much good may it do him!"
Ambiguous as were the words--but not the tone--the man shrugged his shoulders. "Then what are we waiting for?" he asked, irritably.
"Madam's pleasure," she answered. And I could see that she loved to baulk him. However, her pleasure was, this time, short-lived, for at that moment a little bell tinkled in a distant room, and she took up the lamp. "Come," she said. "And do you, sir," she continued, turning to me and speaking sharply, "hold up your head and look as if you could cut your own food. You are going to see an old woman. Do you think that she will eat you?"
I let the gibe pass, and wondering of whom and what it was she reminded me, whenever she spoke, I followed her up a short dark flight of stairs to a second ante-room, or closet, situate, as far as I could judge, over the other. It was hung with dull, faded tapestry and smelled close, as if seldom used and more seldom aired. Setting down the lamp on a little side-table whereon a crumpled domino, a couple of masks, and an empty perfume bottle already lay, she bade us in a low voice wait for her and be silent; and enforcing the last order by placing her finger on her lip, she glided quietly out through a door so skilfully masked by the tapestry as to seem one of the walls.
Left alone with Mr. Smith, who seated himself on the table, I had leisure to take note of the closet. Remarking that the wall at one end was partly hidden by a couple of curtains, between which a bare bracket stood out from the wall, I concluded that the place had been a secret oratory and had witnessed many a clandestine mass. I might have carried my observations farther; but they were cut short at this point by the return of the woman, who nodding, in silence, held the door open for us to pass.