Such a night ride as I have described, would have been impossible, or at least outrageously dangerous, a year or two later; when a horde of disbanded soldiers, dismissed from the colours by the Peace of Ryswick, took to the roads for a subsistence, and for a period, until they perished miserably, made even the purlieus of Kensington unsafe.
At the time of which I write we ran risk enough, as has been demonstrated; but the reasons which induced Smith to leave London at that hour, and under cover of darkness, may be conceived. Apparently they did not extend to the rest of the journey; for, after lying late at Rochester, we rode on by Sittingbourne to Feversham, and thence after a comfortable dinner, turned south by Badlesmere, and so towards Ashford, where we arrived a few minutes after nightfall.
Those who are acquainted with the Old Inn at the entrance into Ashford will remember that the yard and stables are as conspicuous for size and commodiousness as the house, a black and white building, a little withdrawn from the street, is strikingly marked by the lack of those advantages. I believe that the huge concourse thither of cattle-drovers at the season of the great fairs is the cause of this; those persons lying close themselves but needing space for their beasts. And at such times I can imagine that the roomyenceinte, and those long lines of buildings, may be cheerful enough.
But seen, as we saw them, when we rode in, by the last cold light of a dull evening, with nothing clear or plain save the roof ridge, and that black against a pale sky, they and the place looked infinitely dismal. Nor did any warmth of welcome, or cheerful greeting, such as even poor inns afford to all and sundry, amend the first impression of gloom and decay, which the house and its surroundings conveyed to the mind. On the contrary, not a soul was to be seen, and we had ridden half way across the yard, and Smith had twice called "House! House!" before anyone was aroused.
Then the upper half of a stable-door creaked open, and a man holding up a great horn lanthorn, peered out at us.
"Are you all asleep?" cried my companion. And when the man made no answer, but still continued to look at us, "What is in the house," he added, angrily, "that you stick out your death's head to frighten company? Is it lace or old Nantz? Or French goods? Any way, box it about and be done with it, and attend to us."
"Eight, master, right, I am coming," the man answered, suddenly rousing himself; and opening the lower half of the door, he came heavily out. "At your service," he said. "But we have little company."
"The times are bad?"
"Ay, they looked a bit better six months back."
"But nothing came of it?"
"No, worse luck."
"And all that is called for now--is common Hollands, I suppose?"
The fellow grinned. "Right," he said. "You have the hang of it, master."
My companion slid to the ground, and began to remove his pistols and saddlebag. "Still you have some guests, I suppose?" he said.
"Ay, one," the man answered, slowly, and I thought, reluctantly.
"Is he, by any chance, a man of the name of--but never mind his name," Smith said. "Is he a surgeon?"
The hostler or host--for he had the air of playing both parts--a big clumsy fellow, with immobile features and small eyes, looked at us thoughtfully and chewed a straw. "Well, may be," he said, at last. "I never asked him." And without more he took Smith's horse by the rein and lurched through the door into the stable; the lanthorn swinging in his hand as he did so, and faintly disclosing a long vista of empty stalls and darkling roof. As I followed, leading in my sorry mare, a horse in a distant stall whinnied loudly.
"That is his hack, I suppose," said Smith; and coolly taking up the lanthorn, which the other had that moment set down, he moved through the stable in the direction whence the sound had come.
The man of the house uttered something between an oath and a grunt of surprise; and letting fall the flap of the saddle which he had just raised that he might slacken the girths, he went after him. "Softly, master," he said, "every man to his----"
But Smith was already standing with the lanthorn held high, gazing at a handsomely-shaped chestnut horse that pricking its ears turned a gentle eye on us and whinnied again. "Umph, not so bad," my companion said. "His horse, I suppose?"
The man with the straw looked the animal over reflectively. At length with something between a grunt and a sigh, "He came on it," he said.
"He won't go on it in a hurry."
"Why not?" said the man, more quickly than he had yet spoken: and he looked from the horse to my companion with a hint of hostility.
"Have you no eyes?" Smith answered, roughly. "The off-fore has filled; the horse is as lame as a mumper!"
"Grammon!" cried the other, evidently stung. And then, "You know a deal about horses in London! And never saw one or a blade of green grass, maybe, until you came Kent way!"
"As you please," Smith said, indifferently. "But my business is not with the horse but the master. So take us in, my good friend, and give us supper, for I am famished. And afterwards, if you please, we will see him."
"That is as he pleases," the fellow answered sulkily. But he raised no second objection, and when we had littered down the horses he led the way into the house by a back door, and so along a passage and down a step or two, which landed us in a room with a sanded floor, a fire, and a show of warmth and comfort, as welcome as it was unexpected. Here he left us to remove our cloaks, and we presently heard him giving orders, and bustling the kitchen.
The floor of the room in which he had left us was sunk a little below the level of the road outside; and the ceiling being low and the window of greater width than height, and the mantel-shelf having for ornament a row of clean delft and pewter, I thought that no place had ever looked more snug and cosy. But whatever comfort I looked to derive from surroundings so much better than I had expected, was dashed by Smith's first words, who, as soon as we were alone came close to me under the pretence of unclasping my cloak, and in a low, guarded tone, and with a look of the grimmest, warned me to play my part.
"We go upstairs after supper, and in five minutes it will be done," he muttered. "Go through with it boldly, and in twenty-four hours you may be back in London. But fail or play me false, Mr. Price, and, by heaven, I put a ball through your head first, and my own afterwards. Do you mark me? Do you mark me, man?"
I whispered in abject nervousness--seeing that he was indeed in earnest--that I would do my best; and he handed me a ring which was doubtless the same that the Countess had given to her woman. It had a great dog cut cameo-wise on the stone, which I think was an opal; and it fitted my finger not ill. But I had no more than time to glance at it before the host and his wife, a pale, scared-looking woman, came in with some bacon and eggs and ale, and as one or other of them stayed with us while we ate, and watched us closely, nothing more passed. Smith talking indifferently to them, sometimes about the fruit harvest, and sometimes in cant phrases about the late plot, the arrest of Hunt at Dymchurch (who had been used to harbour people until they had crossed), how often Gill's ship came over, Mr. Birkenhead's many escapes, and the like. Probably the man and woman were testing Smith; but if so, he satisfied them, for when we had finished our meal, and he asked openly if Sir John would see us, they raised no objection, but the man, taking a light from the woman's hand, led the way up a low-browed staircase to a room over that in which we had supped. Here he knocked, and a voice bidding us enter. Smith went in, and I after him, my heart beating furiously.
The room, which resembled the one beneath it in being low in the ceiling, looked the lower for the gaunt height of its one occupant, who had risen, and stood in the middle of the floor to receive us. Thin and spare by nature, the meagre and rather poor-looking dress which he wore added to the singularity of his aspect. With a dry-as-dust complexion, and a three-days'-old beard, he had eyes light-coloured, quick-glancing, and sanguine, and notwithstanding the danger and uncertainty of his position, a fugitive in this wayside house, with a thousand guineas on his head--for I never doubted I was looking on Sir John Fenwick--his manner was at one moment arrogant and boastful, and at another dreamy. He had something of the air of a visionary; nor could any one be long in his company without discerning that here was the very man for our purpose; one to whom all his geese were swans, and a clasp of the hand, if it marched with his hopes and wishes, of as much value as a pledge signed and sealed.
All this taken for granted, it is to be confessed that at first sight of us, his face fell, and his chagrin was unmistakable. "It is you. Smith, is it," he said, with a sigh. "Well, well, and I thought it was Birkenhead. Brown said it was not, but I thought that it must be. It is not every one knows Birkenhead when he sees him."
"No, Sir John, that is true."
"However, I shall see him in the morning. I go on board at New Romney at four, and doubtless he will be with Gill. When we come back----"
"Ah, Sir John, times will be changed then!" Smith said.
"They will, sir, with this Dutch crew and their low beast of a master swept into the sea! And gentlemen in their homes again! I have been amusing myself even now," he continued, his eyes wandering to the table on which lay a litter of papers, an inkhorn, and two snuffy candles, "with plans for a new wing at Fenwick Hall, in the old style, I think, or possibly on the lines of the other house at Hexham. I am divided between the two. The Hall is the more commodious; the old Abbey has greater stateliness. However, I must put up my scripts now for I must be in the saddle in an hour. Have you commands for the other side of the water, Mr. Smith? If so I am at your service."
Smith answered with a little hesitation, "Certainly, my business has to do with that, Sir John." And he was proceeding to explain when the baronet, rubbing his hands in glee, cut him short.
"Ha! I thought so," he cried, beaming with satisfaction. "Faith, it is so with everyone. They are all of a tale. My service, and my respects, and my duty--all to go you know where; and it is 'Make it straight for me. Sir John,' and 'You will tell the King, Sir John?' and 'Answer for me as for yourself, Sir John!' all day long when they can come at me. Why, man, you know something, but you would be surprised what messages I am carrying over. And when people have not spoken they have told me as much by a look; and those the least likely. Men who ten years ago were as black Exclusionists as old Noll himself!"
"I can believe it, Sir John," said Smith with gravity, while I, who knew how the late conspiracy had united the whole country in King William's defence, so that the man who refused to sign the Common's Association to that end went in peril of violence, listened with as much bewilderment as I had felt three minutes before, on hearing how this same man, a fugitive and an outlaw, bound beyond seas, had been employing his time!
However, he was as far from guessing what was in my mind as he was from doubting Smith's sincerity; and encouraged by the latter's assent he continued: "It is parlous strange to me, Mr. Smith, how the drunken Dutch boor stands a day! Strange and passing strange! But it cannot last. It will not last out the year. These executions have opened men's eyes finely! And by Christmas we shall be back."
"A merry Christmas it will be," said Smith. "Heaven grant it. But you have not asked, Sir John, who it is I have with me."
At that and at a sign he made me, I let fall the collar of the cloak I was wearing; which, in obedience to his directions, I had hitherto kept high about my chin. Sir John, his eyes drawn to me, as much by my action as by Smith's words, stared at me a moment before his mouth opened wide in recognition and surprise. Then, "I--I am surely not mistaken!" he cried, advancing a step, while the colour rose in his sallow face. "It is--it certainly is----"
"Sir John," Smith cried in haste, and, he, too, advanced a step and raised a hand in warning, "this is Colonel Talbot! Colonel Talbot, mark you, sir; I am sure you understand me, and the reasons which make it impossible for any but Colonel Talbot to visit you here. He has done me the honour to accompany me. But, perhaps," he continued, checking himself with an air of deference, "it were more fitting I left you now."
"No," I said hurriedly, repeating the lesson I had learned by rote, and in which Smith had not failed to practice me a dozen times that day. "I am here to one end only--to ask Sir John Fenwick to do Colonel Talbot a kindness; to take this ring and convey it with my service and duty--whither he is going."
p321SIR JOHN ... STARED AT ME A MOMENT
"Oh, but this is extraordinary!" Sir John cried, lifting his hands and eyes in a kind of ecstasy. "This is a dispensation! A providence! But, my lord," he continued with rapture, "there is one more step you may take, one more effort you may make. Be the restorer, the Monk of this generation! So ripe is the pear that were you to ride through the City to-morrow, and proclaim our rightful sovereign, not a citizen but would bless you, not a soldier but would throw down his pike! The Blues are with us to a man, and enraged besides at Keyes's execution. And the rest of the army--do you dream that they see Dutch colonels promoted and Dutch soldiers overpaid, and do not resent it? I tell you, my lord--your Grace, I should say, for doubtless the King will confirm it."
"Sir John," I said hastily, assuming an anger I did not feel. "You mistake me. I am Colonel Talbot and no other. And I am here not to listen to plans or make suggestions, but to request a favour at your hands. Be good enough to convey that ring with my service whither you are going."
"And that is all?" he cried reproachfully. "You will say no more?"
"That is all, sir," I answered; and then catching Smith's eye, I added, "Save this. You may add that, when the time comes, I shall know what to do, and I shall do it."
This time, sobered by my words and manner, he took in silence the ring I proffered; but having glanced at it, gave way to a second burst of rapture and Jubilation, more selfish and personal than the first, but not less hearty. "This will be the best news Lord Middleton has had for a twelvemonth!" he cried gleefully. "And that I should succeed where I am told that he failed! Gad! I am the proudest man in England, your Grace--Colonel Talbot, I mean. We will pound Melfort and that faction with this! We will pound them to powder! He has wasted half a million and not got such an adherent! Good Lord, I shall not rest now until I am across with the news."
"Nor I--until Colonel Talbot is on the road again," said Smith, intervening deftly. "At the best this is no very safe place for him."
"That is true," said Sir John, with ready consideration. "And I should be riding within the half-hour. But to Romney. You, I suppose, return to London?"
"To London," I said, mechanically.
"Direct?" said he, with deference.
"As directly as we dare," Smith answered; and with the word moved to the door and opened it. On which I bowed and was for going out; perhaps with a little awkwardness. But Sir John, too deeply impressed by the honour I had done him to let me retire so lamely, started forward, and snatching up a candle, would hold the door and light me; bending his long back, and calling to Brown to look to us--to look to us! Nor was this all; for when I halted half way down the stairs, and turned, feeling that such courtesy demanded some acknowledgement or at least a word of thanks, he took the word out of my mouth.
"Hist! Colonel Talbot!" he cried in a loud whisper; and leaning far over the stairs he held the light high with one hand and shaded his eyes with the other. "You know that we have the Tower?"
"The Tower?" I muttered, not understanding him.
"To be sure. Ailesbury has it in his hand. It will declare for us whenever he gets the word. But--you know it from him, I suppose?"
"From Lord Ailesbury?" I exclaimed in sheer surprise. "But he is a prisoner!"
Sir John winked. "Prisoner and master!" he muttered, nodding vigorously. "But there, I must not keep you. Good luck andbon voyage, M. le duc."
Which was the last I saw of him for that time. Nor did I ever see him again save on one occasion. That he was a violent and factious man, and a foe to the Protestant succession I do not deny; nor that some passages in his life do him little credit, and the most bruited the least. But for all this, and though I was then even a stranger to him, I am fain to confess that as I stumbled down the stairs, and left the poor misguided gentleman alone in his mean room to pack up those plans for the extension of the old house that would never again own a Fenwick for its master, and so to set out on his dark journey, I felt as much pity for him, as loathing for the trickster who employed me. And so far was this carried and so much influence had it with me that when we reached the room below and the landlord having left us to see to the horses, Smith in his joy at our success clapped me on the shoulder, I shrank from his hand as if it burned me; shrank, and burst into childish tears of rage. Naturally Smith, unable to comprehend, stared at me in astonishment. "Why, man," he cried, "what is the matter? What ails you?"
"You!" I said. "You, curse you."
And doubtless it was this outbreak, or rather the suspicion of me which it sowed in Smith's mind, that occasioned the sequel of our adventure; for when he had cursed me for a fool and had put on his cloak, being now ready to go out, he seemed to be in two minds about it; as if he dared neither leave me where I was, lest I should communicate with Sir John, nor take me with him on his immediate errand. More than once he went to the door, and eying me askance and sourly, came back; but in the end and after standing a while irresolute, biting his nails, he made up his mind, and curtly bade me follow him.
"Do you think that I am to saddle for you, you whelp?" he cried. "Be stirring! and have a care, or I shall bore that hole in you yet. Take that bag and go before me. By G----, I wish you were at the bottom of the nearest horse-pond!"
His words had the effect he intended, of bringing me to my senses; but they went farther. For in proportion as they cooled my temper they awakened my fears; and though I obeyed him abjectly, took up my bag and followed him, it was with a sudden and horrible distrust of his purpose. I saw that I had not only ceased to be of use to him, but was now in his way, and might be a danger to him, and the night--which enveloped us the moment we crossed the threshold and seemed the more dreary and forbidding for the ruddy light and comfort we left behind us--reminding me of the long dark miles I must ride by his side, each mile a terror to one and an opportunity to the other, I had much ado not to give way to instant panic there and then. However, for the time I controlled myself; and stumbling across the gloomy yard to the spot where a faint gleam of light indicated the door of the stables, I went in.
The landlord was saddling our horses; and a little cheered by the warmth of his lanthorn, I went to help him. Smith turned aside, as I thought, into the next stall. But Brown was sharper and more suspicious, and in a twinkling called to him lustily, to know what he was doing. Getting no answer, "Devil take him," the landlord cried. "He cannot keep from that horse! Here, you! What are you doing there?"
"Coming!" Smith answered; but even as he spoke I caught the smart click of iron falling on iron, and the horse in the distant stall moved sharply with a hurried clatter of hoofs on the stones. "Coming!" Smith repeated. "What is the matter with you, man?"
"You had better come," the landlord answered savagely. "Or I shall fetch you. Here you!" this to me, "lead yours out, will you. I want to see your backs, and be quit of you!"
I took my horse by the bridle, and led it out of the stable, while Brown went to bit the other. And so, being alone outside, and the moon rising at the moment over the roof of the house and showing me the open gates at the end of the yard, the impulse to escape from Smith while I had the opportunity came on me with overpowering force. Better acquainted than the landlord with the villain's plans I had not a doubt that at that very moment he was laming Sir John's horse for the purpose of detaining him; and the cold-blooded treachery of this act, filling me with as much terror on my own account--who might be the next victim--as hatred of the perpetrator, I climbed softly to my saddle, and began to walk my horse towards the gates. Doubtless Smith was too busy, cloaking his own movements, to be observant of mine. I reached the gates unnoticed, and turning instinctively from London--in which direction I fancied that he would be sure to pursue me--I kicked my mare first into a quick walk, then into a cautious trot, finally into a canter. The beast, though far from speedy, was fresh from its corn; it took hold of the bit, shied at a chance light in a cotter's window, and went faster and faster, its ears pricked forward. In a minute we had left Ashford behind us, and were clattering through the moonlight. With one hand on the pommel and the other holding the shortened reins I urged the mare on with all the pressure of my legs; and albeit I trembled, now at some late-seen obstacle, which proved to be only the shadow of a tree, thrown across the road, and now at the steepness of a descent that appeared suddenly before me, I never faltered, but uphill and downhill drove in my heels, and with fear behind me, rode in the night as I had never before dared to ride in the daylight.
I had known nothing like it since the summer day twelve years before when I had fled across the Hertfordshire meadows on my feet. The sweat ran down me, I stooped in the saddle out of pure weakness; if the horse pricked its ears forward I spread mine backward listening for sounds of pursuit. But such a speed could not be long maintained, and when we had gone, as I judged, two miles, the mare began to flag, and the canter became a trot. Still for another mile I urged her on, until feeling her labour under me, and foreseeing that I must ride far, I had the thought to turn into the first lane to which I came, and there wait in the shadow of a tree until Smith, if he followed, should pass.
I did this, sprang down, and standing by my panting horse, in a marshy hollow, some two hundred paces from the road, listened intently, for twenty minutes, it may be, but they seemed to be hours to me. After the life I had been leading in London, this loneliness in the night in a strange and wild place, and with a relentless enemy on my track, appalled my very soul. I was hot and yet I shivered, and started at the least sound. The scream of a curlew daunted me, the rustling of the rushes and sedge shook me, and when a sad wail, as of a multitude of lost souls passed overhead, I cowered almost to my knees. Yet, inasmuch as these sounds, doleful and dreary as they were, were all I heard, and the night air brought no trampling of distant hoofs to my ear, I had reason to be thankful, and more than thankful; and my mare having by this time got her wind again, I led her back to the road, climbed into the saddle and plodded on steadily; deriving a wonderful relief and confidence from the thought that Smith had followed me London-wards.
Moreover, I had conceived a sort of horror of the loneliness of the waste country-side, and to keep the highway was willing to run some risk. I took it that the road I was travelling must bring me to Romney, and for a good hour and a half, I jogged with a loose rein through the gloom, the way becoming ever flatter and wetter, the wind more chill and salt, and the night darker, the moon being constantly overcast by clouds. In that marshy district are few hamlets or farms, and those of the smallest, and very sparsely scattered. Once or twice I heard the bark of a distant sheep dog, and once far to the left I saw a tiny light and had the idea of making for it. But the reflection that a dozen great ditches, each wide enough and deep enough to smother my horse, might lie between me and the house, availed to keep me in the road; the more as I now felt sure from the saltness of the night air that Romney and the sea were at no great distance in front of me. Presently indeed, I made out in front of me two moving lights, that I took to be those of ships riding at anchor, and my weary mare quickened her pace as if she smelt the stable and the hayrack.
For five minutes after that I plodded on in the happy belief that my journey was as good as over, and I saved; and I let my mind dwell on shelter and safety, and a bed and food and the like, all awaiting me, as I fancied, in the patch of low gloom before me where my fancy pictured the sleeping town. Then on a sudden, my ear caught the dull beat of a horse's hoofs on the road behind me; and my heart standing still with terror, I plucked at my reins, and stood to listen. Ay, and it was no fancy; a moment satisfied me of that. Thud-thud, thud-thud, and then squash-squash, squish-squish! a horse was coming up behind me; and not only behind me, but hard upon me--within less than a hundred paces of me. The soft wet road had smothered the sound up to the last moment.
The rider was so close to me indeed, and I was so much taken by surprise that the moon sailing at that instant into a clear sky, showed me to him before I could set my horse going; and, as I started, whipping and spurring desperately, I heard the man shout. That was enough for me; plunging recklessly forward along the wet, boggy road, I flogged my horse into a jaded canter, and leaning low in the saddle in mortal fear of a bullet, closed my eyes to the dangers that lay ahead, and thought only of escape from that which followed on my heels.
Suddenly, and while I was still kicking and urging on my horse, before the first flush of fear had left me, I heard a crash and a cry behind me; but I did not dare at the moment to look back. I only leaned the lower, and clung the more tightly to my horse's mane and still pressed on. By-and-by, however, hearing nothing, it flashed on me that I was riding alone, that I was no longer pursued; and a little later taking courage to draw rein and look back wearily, I found that I could see nothing, nor hear any sound save the heavy panting of my own horse. I had escaped. I had escaped and was alone on the marsh. But as I soon satisfied myself, I was no longer on the causeway along which I had been travelling when the man surprised me. The wind which had then met me was now on my right cheek; the lights for which I had been heading were no longer visible. The track, too, when I moved cautiously forward, seemed more wet and rough; after that it needed little to convince me that I had strayed from the highway, probably at the point where my pursuer had fallen.
This, since I dared not return by the way I had come, terribly perplexed me. I dismounted, and wet and shivering stood by my horse, which hung its head, and restlessly lifted its feet by turns as if it already felt the engulfing power of the moss. Peering out every way I saw nothing but gloom and mist, the dark waste and unknown depths of the marsh. It was a situation to try the stoutest, nor did it need the mournful sough of the wind as it swept the flats, or the strange gurgling noises that from time to time rose from the sloughs about me to add the last touch of fear and melancholy to the scene.
Though, for my own part, I sank in no farther than my ankles, the horse by its restlessness evinced a strong sense of danger, and I dared not stand still. But as clouds had again obscured the moon and the darkness was absolute, to advance seemed as dangerous as to remain. However, in fear that the horse, if I stood where I was, would break loose from me, I led it forward cautiously: and then the track growing no worse but rather better, and the beast seeming to gain confidence as it proceeded, I presently took courage to remount again, and dropping the reins allowed it to carry me whither it would. This it did slowly and with infinite caution, smelling rather than feeling the way, and often stopping to try a doubtful spot. Observing how wonderfully the instinct of the beast aided it, and remembering that I had once been told that horses feared nothing so much as to be smoored (as the fenmen call it), and would not willingly run that risk, I gained confidence myself; which the event justified, for by-and-by I caught the dull sound of sea-waves booming on a beach, and a few minutes afterwards discerned in the sky before me the first faint streaks of dawn.
Heaven knows how welcome it was to me! I was wet, weary and shivering with cold and with the aguish air of that dreary place; which is so unwholesome that I am told the natives take drugs to stave off the fever, as others do ale and wine. But at the sight I pricked up, and the horse too; and we moved on briskly; and presently by the help of the growing light, and through a grey mist which trebled the size of all objects, I saw a huge wall or bank loom across my path. I was close to it when I discerned it; and I had no more than time to despair of surmounting it, before the horse was already clambering up it. Scrambling and slipping among the stones, in a minute or so and with a great clatter we gained the summit; and saw below and before us the smooth milky surface of the sea lifting lazily under the fog.
So seen it had a strangely weird and pallid aspect, as of a dead sea, viewed in dreams: and I stood a moment to breathe my horse and admire the spectacle; nor did I fail to thank God that I was out of that dreary and treacherous place. Then, considering my future movements and not knowing which way I ought to take--to right or left along the beach--to gain the more quickly help and shelter, I was reining my mare down the sea side of the bank when a welcome sound caught my ear. It was a man's voice giving an order. I halted and peered through the sea-haze; and by-and-by I made out a boat, lying beached at the edge of the tide, some hundred and fifty yards to my left. There were men standing in it, I could not see how many; and more were in the act of pushing it off the strand. Their voices came to me with singular clearness; but the words were unintelligible.
The sight gave me pause: and for a moment I stood reconnoitring the men. To advance or not was the question, and I was still debating it, and striving to deduce something from the men's appearance, when something, I never knew what--perhaps some noise ill-apprehended--led me to turn aside my head. Whatever the cause of the movement, it apprised me of something little suspected. Not fifty paces behind me I saw the figure of a giant horseman looming out of the mist. He was advancing along the summit of the sea-wall below which I stood; hence I saw him before he made me out: and this gave me the start and the advantage. I had time to take in the thing, and seize my horse by the head, and move eight or ten paces towards the boat before he took the cue. Then on neither side was there any concealment. With a cry, a yell rather, the mere sound of which flung me into a panic, the man urged his horse down the bank shouting fiercely to me to stand; I in utter terror spurred mine across the beach towards the men I had seen.
I have said that I had some sixty yards of start, and two hundred or so to cross, to reach the boat; but the horses were scarcely able to trot; a yard was a furlong; and the sand swallowing up the sound of hoofs, it was a veritable race of ghosts, of phantoms, labouring through the mist across the flat, with the oily Stygian sea lapping the shore beside us. He cried out in the most violent fashion, now bidding me stay and now bidding the men stop me. And for all I know they might be in his pay, or at best be some of the reckless desperadoes who on that coast live by owling and worse practices. But they were my only hope and I too cried to them; and with joy I saw them put in again--they had before got afloat. Believing Smith to be gaining, I cried pitifully to them to save me, and then my horse stumbling, I flung myself from the saddle, and plunged through the sand towards them. At that, two sprang out to meet me and caught me under my arms; and in a moment, amid a jargon of cries in a foreign tongue whipped me over the side into the boat. Then they pushed it off and leaped in themselves, wet to the thighs; and as my pursuer came lurching down the beach, a pistol drawn in his hand, a couple of powerful strokes drove the boat through the light surf. Waving frantically he yelled to the men to wait, and rode to his boot-soles into the water; but with a jeering laugh and a volley of foreign words the sailors pulled the faster and the faster, and the mist lying thick on the water, and the boat sitting low, in half a minute we lost the last glimpse of him and his passion, and rode outward on a grey boundless sea.
I should have been less than a man had I not thanked God for my escape. But it is in the sap of a tree to run upward in the spring, and in the blood of a man to live in the present and future, the past going for little; and I had not crouched two minutes on the thwart before the steady lurch of the boat outwards and seawards fixed my attention. From this to asking myself by what chance I had been saved, and who were the men who sat round me--and evinced no more curiosity about me than if they had been sent to the spot purely and simply to rescue me--was but a step.
I took it, scanned them stealthily, and was far from reassured; the sea-garb was then new to me, and these wearers of it were the wildest of their class. The fog which enfolded us magnified their clumsy shoulders and great knitted night-caps and the tarry ringlets that hung in festoons about their scarred and tanned faces. The huge gnarled hands that swung to and fro with the oars were no more like human flesh than the sea-boots which the men wore, drawn high on their thighs. They had rings in their ears, and from all came a reek of tobacco, and salt-fish, and strange oaths; nor did it need the addition of the hanger and pistol which each wore in his belt to inform me that I had fallen once again among fierce and desperate men.
Dismayed by all I saw, it yet surprised me that no one questioned me. He who sat in the stern of the boat, and seemed to be in command, had a whistle continually at his lips, and his eyes on the curtain of haze before us; but if the tiller and navigation of the boat took up his thoughts, there were others. These, however, were content to pull on in silence, eyeing me with dull brutish stares, until the fog lifting disclosed on a sudden the hull of a tall ship looming high beside us. A shrill piping came from it--a sound I had heard before, but taken to be the scream of a sea-bird; and this, as we drew up, was followed by a hail. The man by my side let his whistle fall that he might answer--which he did, in French. A moment later our boat grated against the heaving timbers, and I, looking up through the raw morning air, saw a man in a boat-cloak spring on the bulwarks and wave his hat.
"Welcome!" he cried, lustily. "And God save the King! A near thing they tell me, sir. But come on board, come on board, and we shall see Dunquerque the sooner. Up with you, Sir John, if you please, and let us be gone with the fog, and no heel-taps!"
Then, without another word, I knew what had happened; I knew why the boat which had picked me up, had been waiting on the beach at that hour; and as I rose to my feet on the seat, and clutched the rope ladder which the sailors threw down to me, my knees knocked together; for I foresaw what I had to expect. But the deck was surer ground for debate or explanation than the cockle-shell wherein I sat, and which tossed and ducked under me, threatening every moment to upset my stomach; and I went up giddily, grasped the bulwark, and, aided by half-a-dozen grinning seamen, night-capped and ringletted, I sprang down on the deck.
The man in the boat-cloak received me with a clumsy bow, and shook my hand. "Give you joy, Sir John!" he said. "Glad to see you, sir. I began to fear that you were taken! A little more, and I must have left you. But all's well that ends well, and--your pardon one moment."
With that he broke off, and shouted half-a-dozen orders in French and English and French to the sailors; and in a moment the capstan, as I afterwards heard it called, was creaking round, and there was a hurry of feet, first to one side and then to the other, and a great shouting and a hauling at ropes. The ship heeled over so suddenly that if I had not caught at the rail I must have lost my footing, and for an instant the green seas seemed to swell up on a level with the slanting deck as if they would swallow us bodily. Instead, the sloop, still heeling over, began to gather way, and presently was hissing through the water, piling the white surf before it, only to pour it foaming to either side. The haze, like a moving curtain, began to glide by us; and looking straight ahead I saw a yellow glare that told of the sun rising over the French dunes.
The man who had received me, and who seemed to be the master, returned to my side. "We are under way, sir," he said, "and I am glad of it. But you will like to see Mr. Birkenhead? He would have met you, but the sea-colic took him as he lay on the swell outside Dunquerque whistling for a wind. He gets it badly one time, and one time he is as hearty as you are. He is better this morning, but he is ill enough."
I muttered that I would see him by-and-by, when he was better. That I would lie down a little, and----
"Oh! I have got a bunk for you in his cabin," the master answered briskly. "I thought you would want to talk State secrets. Follow me, if you please, and look to your sea-legs, sir."
He led the way to a hatch or trap-door, and raising it began to descend. Not daring to refuse I followed him, down a steep ladder into the dark bowels of the ship, the reek of tar and bilge-water, cheese and old rum, growing stronger with every foot we descended. At the bottom of the ladder he pushed aside a sliding panel, and signed me to pass through the opening. I obeyed, and found myself in a sort of dog-hole--as it seemed to me who knew nothing of ships' cabins--lighted only by a span-wide round window, so dark, therefore, that I stood a moment groping, and so close and foul-smelling that my gorge rose.
Out of the gloom came a groan as of a sick sheep. "Here is Sir John, safe and sound!" cried the master in his sea tones. "There is good medicine for you, Mr. Birkenhead." And he peered into the darkness.
The only answer was a second groan. "Do you hear, sir?" the captain repeated. "Sir John is here."
A voice feebly yet unmistakably d----d Sir John and the captain.
The master chuckled hoarsely. "Set a frigate behind us with a noose flying at the yard-arm, and there is no man like him!" he said. "None, Sir John; and I have carried him across seventy times and over, sick and well, he should know the road from the Marsh to Southwark if any man does. But let him be for the present, and do you lie down in the bunk above him, and I will bring you some Nantz and a crust. When he is better, he will be as glad to see you as if you were his brother."
I obeyed, and fortified by the strong waters he brought me, was glad to lie down, and under cover of darkness consider my position and what chance I had of extricating myself from it. For the time, and probably until we reached Dunquerque, I was safe; but what would happen when Birkenhead--the man whom the Jacobites called the Royal Post, and who doubtless knew Sir John Fenwick by sight--what would happen, I say, when he roused himself, and found that he had not only taken off the wrong man but left Sir John to his fate? Would he not be certain to visit the mischance on my head? Or if I escaped his hands, what must I expect, a stranger, ashore in a foreign land with little money, and no language at my command? I shuddered at the prospect; yet shuddered more at the thought of Birkenhead's anger; so that presently all my fore-looking resolved itself into a strenuous effort to put off the evil day, and prolong by lying still and quiet the sleep into which he appeared to have fallen.
He lay so close to me, divided only by the one board on which I reclined, that all the noises of the ship--the creaking of the timbers, the wash of the seas as they foamed along the quarter, and the banging of blocks and ropes--noises that never ceased, failed to cover the sound of his breathing. And this nearness to me, taken with the fact that I could not see him, so tormented me with doubt whether he was awake or asleep, was recovering or growing worse, that more than once I raised my head and listened until my neck ached. In the twilight of the cabin I could see his cloak swaying lazily on a hook; on another hung a belt with pistols, that slid this way and that with the swing of the vessel. And presently watching these and listening to the regularity of his breathing, I laid my head down and did the last thing I proposed to do or should have thought possible; for I fell asleep.
I awoke with a man's hand on my shoulder; and sat up with a start of alarm, a man's voice in my ear. The floor of the cabin slanted no longer, the cloak and swordbelt hang motionless on the wall; and in place of the sullen plash of the waves and the ceaseless creaking of joists and knees, that had before filled the inwards of the ship, a medley of shouts and cries, as shrill as they were unintelligible, filled the pauses of the windlass. These things were, and I took them in and drew the inference, that we were in harbour; but mechanically, for it seemed, at the moment, that such wits as terror left me were in the grasp of the man who shook me and swore at me by turns; and whose short hair--for he was wigless--fairly bristled with rage and perplexity.
"You! Who the devil areyou?" he cried, frantically. "What witchcraft is this? Here, Gill! Gill! Do you hear, you tarry pudding-head? Who is this you have put in my cabin? And where is Fenwick? Where----"
"Where is Sir John?" cried a voice somewhat distant, as if the speaker stooped to the hatchway. "He is there, Mr. Birkenhead. I set him there myself. And between gentlemen, such words as those, Mr. Birkenhead----"
"As what?" cried the man who held me.
"As tarry. But never mind; between friends----"
"Friends be hanged!" cried my assailant with violence. "Who is this fool? That is what I asked. And you, have you no tongue?" he continued, glaring at me. "Who are you, and where is Sir John Fenwick?"
Before I could answer, the master, who had descended, crowded himself into the doorway. "That is Sir John," he said, sulkily. "I thought that you----"
"This, Sir John?" the other exclaimed.
"Ay, to be sure."
"As much Sir John as you are the warming-pan!" Birkenhead retorted; and released me with so much violence that my head rapped against the panels. "This, Sir John Fenwick?" And then, "Oh, man, man, you have destroyed me," he cried. "Where is my reputation now? You have left the real Simon Pure to be taken, and brought off this--this--you booby, you grinning ape, who are you?"
Trembling, I told him my name.
"And Sir John?" he said. "Where is he?"
"I left him at Ashford," I muttered.
"It is a lie!" he cried in a voice that thrilled me to the marrow. "You did not leave him at Ashford! He was with you on the beach--he was with you and you deserted him! You left him to be taken, and saved yourself. You wretch! You Judas!"
God knows by what intuition he spoke. For me, I swear that it was not until that moment, not until he had put the possibility into words that I knew--ay, knew, for that was the only word, so certain was I after the event--that the man who had ridden down the beach and called vainly on the sailors to wait, the man from whom we had rowed away laughing, taking with us his last hope of life, was not Matthew Smith, but Sir John Fenwick!Now, things which should have opened my eyes then, and had not, came back to me. I recalled how tall and gaunt the rider had looked through the haze, and a something novel in his voice, and plaintive in his tone. True, I had heard the click-clack of Smith's horse's shoes as clearly as I ever heard anything in my life; but if Sir John, alarmed by the sound of my hasty departure, and fearing treachery, had sallied out, and leaping on the first horse he found, had ridden after me, then all was clear.
I saw that, and cowered before the men's accusing eyes: so that they had been more than Solomons had they taken my sudden disorder for aught but guilt--guilt brought home. For Birkenhead, his rage was terrible. He seized me by the throat, and disregarding my pitiful pleas that I had not known, I had not known, he dragged me from the berth, and made as if he would choke me there and then with his naked hands. Instead, however, he suddenly loosed me. "Faugh," he cried; "I will not dirty my hands with you! That such as you--youshould be a man's death!You!But you shall not escape. Gill, up with him! Up with him and to the yard-arm. String him up! He shall swing before he is an hour older!"
"In Dunquerque harbour?" said the other.
"Why not?"
"Why not?" said the master. "Because, Mr. Birkenhead, I serve a Kingde jureand notde facto. That is why not. And if you want another reason----"
"Well?"
"I am not aware that His Majesty has raised you to the Bench," the master answered sturdily.
"Oh, you have turned sea-lawyer, have you?"
"Law is law," said the shipmaster. "England, or France, or the high seas."
"And owling is owling!" the other retorted with passion. "And smuggling, smuggling! You are a fine man to talk! If you will not hang him--as they will hang Fenwick, so help me, never doubt it!--what will you do with him?"
"Give my men a bag of sand apiece, and let him run the gauntlet," the captain answered, with a phlegm that froze me. "Trust me, sir, they will not leave much of a balance owing."
It was terrible to see how Birkenhead, vain, choleric and maddened by disappointment, jumped at the cruel suggestion. For me, I shrank into the bunk into the farthest corner, and cried for mercy; I might as well have cried to the winds. I was hauled out, the word passed up, and despite my desperate struggles, prayers and threats--the latter not unmingled with the name of Shrewsbury, which did but harden them--I was dragged to the foot of the ladder. Thence I was carried on deck, where, half-dead with fear and powerless in the hands of three stout seamen, I met none but grinning faces and looks of cruel anticipation. Few need to be told with what zest the common herd flock to a scene of cruel sport, how hard are their bosoms, how fiendish the pleasure which all but the most humane and thoughtful take in helpless suffering. Small was the chance that my pleas of innocence and appeals for a hearing would gain attention. All was ready, the men bared their arms and licked their lips, and in a moment I must have been set for the baiting.
But in certain circumstances the extremity of fear is another name for the extremity of daring; and the master, at this last moment going to range the crew in two lines, and one of the sailors who had me in charge releasing me for an instant, that he might arm himself with a sand-bag, I saw my opportunity. With a desperate swing I wrenched myself from the grasp of the other men. That done, a single bound carried me to the plank which joined the deck to the shore. I flew across it, swift as the wind; and as the whole crew seeing what had happened broke from their stations and with yells and whoops of glee took up the chase, I sprang on shore. Bursting recklessly through the fringe of idlers whom the arrival of the ship had brought to the water's edge, I sped across the open wharf, threaded a labyrinth of bales and casks, and darted up the first lane to which I came.
Fear gave me wings, and I left the wharf a score of yards ahead of my pursuers. But the seamen, who had taken up the chase with the gusto of boys let loose from school, made up for the lack of speed by whooping like demons; and the English among them halloing "Stop Thief!" and the others some French words alike in import, the alarm went abreast of me. Fortunately the lane was almost deserted, and I easily evaded the halfhearted efforts to stop me, which one or two made. It seemed that I should for the present get away. But at the last moment, at the head of the lane fate waited for me: an old woman standing in a doorway--and who made, as I came up, as if she was afraid of me--flung a bucket after me. It fell in front of me, I trod on the edge and fell with a shriek of pain.
Before I could rise or speak, the foremost of the sailors came up and struck me on the head with a sand-bag; and the others as they arrived rained blows on me without mercy. I managed to utter a cry, then instinctively covered my head with my arms. They belaboured me until they were tired and I almost senseless; when, thinking me dead, they went off whistling, and I crawled into the nearest doorway and fainted away.