"Curse you, what do you mean?"
De Rothan regarded him with infinite relish.
"What an honest soul! You really believe that Miss Durrell wanted me at the end of a rope, and you kneeling romantically at her feet?"
Jasper had nothing adequate to say.
"Nance led you on so cleverly. She sent you off with her blessing to Darvel's Wood. Dear, honest fool!"
"You need not tell me lies about Miss Durrell."
"I don't, sir, I don't. She was kind to you, was she not? When did the kindness begin? Ask yourself that. Was it not when you had blundered like a bumble-bee into our web and seemed likely to give us trouble? Of course Miss Nance was circumspect. She handled you very cunningly, Mr. Benham."
"You need not try to make me believe that."
"It would be impossible? Your vanity is too serene and confident? No woman would have the audacity to treat you like a fool, would she? No, of course not. It would be impossible. Mr. Jasper Benham is too dignified and important a person to be played with."
"Make the most of your tongue, sir."
"Really, you refresh me. When our Emperor is in London, I must present you to him as a unique young man without any sense of humour. You would amuse the Court. You will continue to amuse my dear Nance when she is a great lady of the Empire."
"Don't boast too soon."
"I may as well tell you some news. You will not gossip and spread it abroad. The noble Nelson has been chasing a wild goose instead of your Lady Hamilton. Villeneuve has tricked him. And in a week or two Villeneuve will be blowing your Brest ships out of the water. Then we shall come up Channel, and the Emperor will land in England. It will be a fine spectacle. I shall enjoy it."
"It may prove a very fine spectacle."
"Ah, you dear English—you think yourselves invincible. Are you better men than the Germans, the Austrians, or the Russians? Are your country bumpkins so valiant? Why, our Grand Army will devour you. Think of the American colonists, think of Burgoyne at Saratoga, and Cornwallis at Yorktown. We French have had two years of war. We have fought all Europe. We are veterans, and a nation of soldiers. We shall gallop over you, hunt you hither and thither with the bayonet."
Jasper lay down on his straw.
"It must be a pleasure to you to talk, Chevalier," he said.
Jasper Benham was reliable, and he believed in the reliability of those in whom he trusted. De Rothan's clever mockery might exasperate him, but it did not shake his faith in Nance.
Meanwhile at Stonehanger Nance was strengthening her hold upon her father. The economics of life would seem to be very delicately balanced so far as old men were concerned. They may retain their faculties in a state of fair efficiency so long as no abnormal event interferes with that sanity that is begotten of old habits. But this equilibrium may easily be disturbed, and an illness or a great sorrow may age an old man more in one month than in the ten previous years.
So it seemed to be with Anthony Durrell. The shock of the discovery of his schemes, and the violent ethical attack made upon him by Nance and Jeremy appeared to overthrow his normal self. There was a sudden slackening of all his fibres, both physical and mental. The emotional part of him, so long smothered and overlaid, broke to the surface as the intellect lost some of its ascendency. Then—he appeared to become conscious of the existence of his daughter.
Now Nance had one of those large natures that bears no malice, and is ready to give of its best when an estranged friend stretches out an appealing hand. Her father had become to her a weak and pathetic old man whom the rough virility of younger men shouldered into a corner. She could not be very sorry for Anthony Durrell without being very tender toward him.
For some days her father appeared puzzled by a new atmosphere that enveloped him. Like a man who had been very ill, he was content to sit and muse and stare at nothing in particular. He had led a very lonely life, and a selfish one, since the life of a fanatic and a dreamer is often very selfish. It was now that he felt defeated and feeble that Nance's nature flooded in upon his consciousness.
She would take his chair into the garden under the shade of one of the yews, fetch him the books he loved, read to him, talk to him, try to enter into his thoughts and prejudices. Durrell felt old emotions stirring in his heart. Some of the old gentleness came back. The harsh, thin lines melted out of his face.
The change in him was betrayed by the very way he looked at Nance, and by what he said to her one evening as they sat on the terrace and watched the sun go down. The sea seemed no longer a strip of ominous silver across which the immortal dragon of war should swim to scorch up this green island rich with its yellowing wheat and rolling woods. Durrell had drifted suddenly into the softer evening lights of fife.
He realised that the girl had had a hard and a lonely life.
"Nance, you must often have been very lonely here."
She looked at him in surprise, but with a kind of compassionate radiance.
"I have been less lonely these few days, father."
He seemed to reflect upon these words. And perhaps the warm beauty of the July evening helped the quiet drifting of his thoughts.
"In this life—we make many mistakes."
She nodded as though she understood.
"I used to believe in the efficacy of violence and fear. Curious, in a man of my habits. I have come to doubt whether the quieter forces are not more powerful."
She smiled at him.
"People do hate to be driven."
"To be sure."
"It is easier to persuade them, to play the Pied Piper to the world."
He glanced at her with eyes that asked, "Where did you learn this wisdom?"
And presently he began to speak of De Rothan. It was the first time that he had mentioned the Chevalier's name since his meeting with Jeremy Winter. The adventurer had come to rouse in Durrell a feeling of repulsion. He had allowed himself to realise what manner of man this was whom he had pretended to call friend.
Nance let him talk, even encouraging him to speak of Jasper Benham. Jeremy Winter's anxiety had been unable to convince her that this monstrous piece of kidnapping could be very serious. It was an insolent attempt to extort terms. That was what Nance believed, not knowing the abominable and wanton things of which a revengeful man is capable. De Rothan had not yet taken his change for that rolling in the ditch.
She tried to suggest to Durrell what he should do.
"If the Chevalier de Rothan comes here, father, try and show him how absurd this is. Jasper and Mr. Winter will let him leave the country. They will keep silent—for our sakes."
Durrell looked troubled. Since the change in him he distrusted De Rothan even more than Nance distrusted him.
"This is a difficult man to argue with."
"But what sense is there? Who really believes that the French will land?"
"My dear, I believed it a week ago."
"But not now——"
"It is possible. De Rothan believes it, or he would have been across the water many days ago."
She glanced at her father, and realised once more how weak he was. The one great motive that had inspired him had crumbled away. Even her own sympathy had helped to sap and to undermine his strength.
Every day Jeremy rode over. He was blunt, laconic, but very courteous to Anthony Durrell. There were things that troubled him at Rush Heath, namely, the soothing of Squire Christopher's violent and choleric curiosity. The old man was bedridden, but he fumed for Jasper. Jeremy had told lies, that Jasper was away on duty. The whole household had to be deceived, and Jack Bumpstead kept from gossiping.
But Jeremy had not been able to stand wholly alone. He had been compelled to take Parson Goffin into his confidence, and by that peppery gentleman's advice he had enlarged the circle of trust still further. Certain of Jasper's friends were told the truth. They met at Goffin's, and held a council of war. The situation seemed absurd, even in its gravity. A Sussex gentleman kidnapped and held as a hostage in his own county by a French spy.
Jeremy told Nance all that he had to tell.
"We are having De Rothan's place watched, night and day. They are burning charcoal in a wood half a mile from the house, and one or two fellows have joined the charcoal-burners. If we could only collar De Rothan and his rogues, but they are cunning. They go out singly, and the fellow Gaston is always in the house."
He smiled grimly over the affair.
"Of course—a night attack would be the thing, after we had laid De Rothan by the heels. But there's the risk; I don't like taking it. The scoundrel still rides about as though he were in France. That makes me feel that he means business, and means to let us know it. He dares us to interfere."
"But can nothing be done?"
"I have an idea. I will tell it to you in a day or two."
Jeremy had not exaggerated when he had said that De Rothan rode about the country as though he had nothing whatever to fear. His audacity carried him even into some of the country houses round about, and Jeremy himself met him in Hastings, riding along the High Street with a groom at his heels. He bowed to Jeremy and took off his hat.
"Good day to you, sir. I can assure you, in passing, that our mutual friend is very well."
"Damn your cheek," said Jeremy.
And De Rothan laughed in his face.
Some days elapsed before the Chevalier appeared again at Stonehanger. He had more desire to see Nance than to warn her father, for Durrell was becoming a negligible quantity now that the crisis was at hand. De Rothan was not the man to waste time upon a thing that was no longer of any use. He had made many shrewd guesses, but he had yet to learn that Nance herself was arrayed against him.
He found Durrell alone under one of the yews on the terrace. He had been reading and had fallen asleep with the book open across his knees. He woke with a start when De Rothan touched him, dropped the book, and looked up at the Frenchman with a narrowing and mistrustful stare.
"I had no notion you were here, sir. I have not been asleep more than five minutes."
He was confused, flurried, and De Rothan had quick eyes. He caught the restless antagonism in the other's manner. Durrell was a little afraid.
De Rothan sat down on the terrace wall, studying Durrell with cynical and amused eyes.
"So they have been frightening you, have they? Poor friend—poor comrade!"
Durrell moved restlessly in his chair. He had foreseen this meeting and had prepared himself for it, yet De Rothan's flippant scorn held him at a disadvantage.
"I have decided to abandon this enterprise——"
"Did they dangle a rope under your nose? Alas, we have not the blood of the martyrs in us! That little black-chinned bully has been here with his tongue and his pistols. He tried his bombast with me, but I had the adder's head under my heel."
Durrell's face twitched irritably.
"I have not been frightened from my purpose. But I see certain things as I did not see them before."
"A convenient conscience, eh!"
"I cannot share your methods."
"Indeed! That overwhelms me."
He looked at Durrell with amused contempt.
"So you know that I have compelled Mr. Jasper Benham to be my guest? And yet you cannot appreciate what a desperate piece of cleverness it was. A little man comes and storms at you, and instead of holding loyal to me, you throw up your arms and surrender."
"I have refused to accept your methods."
"Because of a wonderful new affection for this cub of a Sussex squire? Thunder! I wish you had your girl's courage, and not the heart of a sheep."
Durrell's eyes began to glitter in his white face.
"It is because of Nance that I have seen fit to renounce you and your cleverness."
"You overwhelm me! How much does your daughter know?"
"Everything."
"Oh, come, now, come!"
"I said everything."
"And she does not despise you for playing the coward—calling out when the shoe begins to pinch?"
De Rothan's insolence roused Durrell to a thin and austere dignity.
"Sir, do you think that my daughter admires your idea of honour any more than I do? Her sympathies are with this young man, concerning whom you saw fit to tell me many lies."
"Ah—is that so!"
"I have said it. I do not ask your leave to tell the truth."
De Rothan's face seemed to sharpen and to harden its outlines. He looked at Durrell out of half-closed eyes.
"Let us be frank. Am I to understand that this calf that I have tied up in a stall is particularly precious to your daughter?"
"I refuse to deal in such terms."
"The devil take all our little nicenesses! Do you mean to tell me that Nance cares one farthing whether that round-headed young oaf——"
"My daughter is not for your discussion."
De Rothan laughed, but it was the laughter of a man whose self-love felt savage.
"What a pretty little romance I have been feeding! That I should have rubbed this young fool on the raw, while sweet Nance pitied him."
Durrell's fingers kept up an agitated rapping on the arms of the chair.
"If you have any sense of honour, De Rothan——"
"Honour! I am packed full of honour. My marrow tingles with it. But you, Sir Pantaloon, do not understand."
"You are right. I do not understand."
"No, who could expect it. You desert me to play the fond father. It is very laughable. As if you could not have played the fond father and kept all your ambitions! Well, Mr. Anthony Durrell, I think there is nothing left for you but to sit here and wait to see the Emperor land."
"I believe less, sir, in the Emperor than I did."
"A pity! Yet we shall recover from your sudden scepticism. No doubt you will be happier with your books."
De Rothan rose, and stood looking over Stonehanger Common. His long mouth curled, and his nostrils were contemptuous. Durrell watched him uneasily, resentfully, still tapping the chair-rails with his fingers.
"You will release Mr. Benham."
De Rothan turned on him sharply.
"Pardon me—am I so soft a fool! I am not a man who turns back, or who shirks the holding of an advantage. I have some respect for my own neck, though I no longer look to you to respect it."
Durrell nodded solemnly.
"No good can come of it. As for this house——"
"Shut the door on me quickly. Lock me out in a great hurry, Mr. Durrell. I will wish you good morning."
He marched off across the grass, swaggering with stiff shoulders, and smiling a queer, sidelong smile up at Nance's window. David Barfoot was holding his horse in the yard. De Rothan glanced at him as though there were some sudden significance in the thought that the man was deaf.
"Do you sleep well in summer, Mr. David?"
Barfoot stared back at him and said nothing.
In the lane, close to the yew-tree where Jasper had been shot, De Rothan came right upon Nance and Jeremy Winter. They were climbing the hill side by side, Jeremy leading his horse by the bridle. The meeting roused a quick crackle of complex enmities. De Rothan stiffened in the saddle, and raised his hat to Nance.
She did not look at him, but beyond him, and her face was white frost. Jeremy bit his lip. There were so many things that he desired to say and do.
De Rothan smiled in his face as he passed him.
"Good day to you, sir; I may tell our friend that he has a kind relative who sees that his shoes are kept warm."
"Tell him what you please. It won't matter. Liars are easily known."
"How you would like to argue with me! But I am content with my present advantages. Good day."
De Rothan rode on, savagely amused. The varied experiences of life had not made him magnanimous, or tolerant, and cynic that he was he loved himself like a spoiled and passionate boy. He could not forgive the snatching away of a thing that he himself desired, his overweening egotism ruffing itself over the insult.
The most cynical of men are often the worst sensualists, and anything that balks their appetite rouses the wrath of the animal in them. De Rothan's hatred of Jasper Benham was natural enough in itself. He had been meddled with and humiliated by this young man, and De Rothan had no sentimentality when the stiff-haired anger of a dog was on him. Man of the world that he was, his cynicism could not save his vanity from being exasperated by the affair between Nance and Jasper Benham. He might call it a pinafore romance, and sneer at the crude preferences of a young girl. His self-love became an angry, snarling, dangerous thing, the more dangerous because it was clever and could sneer.
"Why not?"
His sullen face gleamed under the light of sudden suggestive thought. Why not, indeed? There were many ways of humiliating and hurting a man besides slashing him with a whip.
He roused his horse to a canter, brisked up by the delightful maliciousness of this new inspiration. He swaggered in the saddle and assumed a flamboyant jauntiness in passing a coach full of women on the Hastings road. The preposterous simplicity of the idea made him laugh, the sly noiseless laughter of a bon viveur enjoying a suggestive story.
"Bravo for the villain! What a queer mix-up of characters we mortals be! The philosopher crushing the wasp that has stung him. It is the nature of wasps to sting, therefore a philosopher should not be angry. But there is a joy in the crushing. And to see the sick black mug of that little fencing-master! It would be worth it even for that."
De Rothan rode home in great good humour. He left his horse with François, and went straight to the attic where Jasper was imprisoned. Gaston opened the door.
Jasper was lying on his straw in the corner, his face turned to the wall. He sat up when De Rothan entered, his hair over his eyes, a fine stubble on his upper lip and chin. A man's dignity is apt to go to pieces under such conditions, showing how greatly he is the slave of his comb and his razor.
De Rothan eyed him whimsically.
"Very good, Mr. Benham, very good indeed. Work just a little more straw into your hair. It would be sacrilege to have you washed and barbered."
He gloated, opening his chest, and forcing back his shoulders. Jasper looked at him stubbornly.
"If it is a question which dog is the dirtier——"
"My good young man, I am a Pharisee of the Pharisees. I make clean the outside of the cup. Women prefer it. Gaston, come down with me. Presently you may show Mr. Benham himself in a mirror."
Gaston followed De Rothan to the panelled dining-room. Master and man were in a good humour with one another.
"Bring the sherry and glasses, Gaston. If you can manage to make our friend up yonder look a little dirtier and more like an unclean lunatic I shall be gratified."
He poured out two glasses of wine.
"I expect more visitors, Gaston, my friend. Have two bedrooms got ready, and see that the locks of the doors are in order."
"More visitors, sir!"
"We are to fetch them to-night, Gaston. I shall want you and François with me. Jean can stay with the gentleman. He is a surly lad, is Jean. Tell him to cuff Mr. Benham on the mouth if he tries to talk to him. And have the horses ready at ten."
Nance was awakened that night by the sound of some one walking on the stone-paved path below her window. She sat up in bed with a fluttering of the heart, wondering whether the footsteps were the footsteps of her father, or whether Jeremy had ridden over late with news.
She was about to slip out of bed when she heard voices on the terrace. There appeared to be several men talking together in undertones. Then came the crash of glass being broken, as though they were battering in one of the lower windows.
Nance went cold, her heart drumming, her ears straining to catch the slightest sound. The smashing of glass had ceased. She heard the voices again, and then a thud as of a man leaping from a window-sill into one of the lower rooms.
She told herself that these must be thieves. There was little to steal in Stonehanger, but even this thought was not altogether comforting. She knew that some of the country-folk were little better than savages, and that acts of brutal and even wanton violence were by no means uncommon. Some of the wild tales she had heard flashed vividly across her consciousness.
What should she do? Try and join her father? Or would it be better to lie still and wait, and even pretend to be asleep? She was still shivering with indecision when she heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs.
They came up slowly, steadily, with no attempt at concealment. Nance could see streaks of light showing under her door. The man, whoever he was, carried a lantern or a candle.
She held her breath when the footsteps turned aside at the landing and came toward her door. They paused there, and she knew that the man would be standing within four feet of her bed. With the door open he could reach in and almost touch her.
Her heart leapt at the sound of a knock, and she had to moisten her lips before she could speak.
"Who's there?"
"Have nothing to fear. It is the Chevalier de Rothan."
For the moment she felt an irrational rush of gratitude and relief. She could have embraced the man; he seemed so much less terrible than some low gipsy or rough footpad. The mere physical fear was appeased for the moment, but it was to be followed by a dread that was more spiritual and refined.
"The Chevalier de Rothan?"
"Your very good friend—in spite of many prejudices. Miss Nance, I am here to secure you and your father. Will you wake him, or shall I?"
She swung her feet out of the bed, and sat with her arms wrapped round her.
"But what does this mean? Breaking into the house?"
"It means that I am shrewder than you think. I insist upon befriending you, on placing you somewhere where you will be safe. I must beg you to rise and dress."
"But still—I do not understand. What right——?"
"It is not necessary that you should understand. I hold myself responsible. You and Mr. Durrell are coming back with me to my house. I mistrust your friends. That is sufficient."
There was a confident irony about his masterfulness. She could picture him standing there with those hard Irish eyes of his smiling at the door. Her wits groped hither and thither in the darkness, searching for motives. One thing she realised very vividly, that De Rothan was in a temper that would not wait to argue.
"But this is ridiculous! You cannot compel us in this way——"
He brushed her words aside.
"I do not explain. In half an hour we leave Stonehanger. You will go with me, if I have to break down your door and wrap you up in blankets. I do not desire to use force, so spare me the necessity."
Nance was still groping for his motives, but a fresh drift of thought obscured the main issue. Out of it emerged a clear spark, shining in the thick of her bewilderment, the thought that she would be under the same roof as Jasper Benham, and that she might be able to help Jeremy in his plans for a release.
"Since you are ready to use force, I do not see how we are to resist you."
"Sweet Nance, roughness is very far from my desire."
"I will be ready."
She might have seen him smiling at her surrender. He could keep step with her motives, and visualise her girl's plans even before she had conceived them.
"Then I will leave you to wake your father."
"Yes."
"I shall wait for you in the hall."
Nance dressed, and went to her father's room. She had to wake him and to tell him what had happened. Durrell, in the thick of his contemptuous amazement at De Rothan's audacity, absolutely refused to leave Stonehanger.
"But, father, what are we to do? We are in the man's power."
"Refuse to do anything."
He persisted in remaining in bed, and Nance had to leave him, and go down alone into the hall. A lantern stood on the oak chair by the door, and De Rothan was standing with his back to it. He came forward gallantly when he saw Nance upon the stairs.
"Nance, you will forgive these highwayman's methods. I cannot help myself. It is for the best."
He would have taken her hand, but she held aloof, pausing upon one of the lower steps. His elaborate courtesy repelled her. It was artificial. The half-amused and half-triumphant glint in his eyes betrayed the real man.
"Father refuses to leave the house."
"I am sorry. I shall have to persuade him. You will pardon me."
She barred the way.
"No—no roughness; he is an old man."
"You misjudge me; I am not a cut-throat. A few gentle words will serve."
He turned, picked up the lantern, and came back toward the stairs. His eyes were fixed upon Nance's eyes, and he smiled as he passed her.
"Why will you not do me justice?"
His voice caressed her, and she shrank aside, as though from physical contact. For the moment a great dread of the man made her wild to escape, but she steadied herself and remained true to her purpose.
De Rothan walked into Anthony Durrell's room and held the lantern over the bed.
"Get up, sir, get up. When I offer you my hospitality are you childish enough to refuse it?"
"I refuse to leave this house."
"Is that so? Then I shall have to take your daughter and leave you behind."
Durrell started up in bed, vehement and scornful.
"You are an abominable rogue, De Rothan."
"No, sir, I play to make my point. Are you coming with us, or must Nance and I go alone?"
Durrell rose and began to dress.
Nance was sitting in the half-lit hall. She could see a man standing in the stone parlour with a lantern in his hand. He was watching her through the open doorway as though he had been left on guard. Nance was wondering whether it was possible for her to get at David Barfoot and leave some message with him for Jeremy Winter. She racked her brains for some ruse, some excuse.
Why should she not try being boldly frank, and challenge interference? She rose and walked toward the passage leading into the kitchen, only to become conscious of some live thing filling the darkness. She recoiled. Another man was on guard there. She had almost felt his breath upon her face.
"Pardon, madame, there ees no way heer."
She returned to the hall in time to see the light of De Rothan's lantern coming down the stairs. He radiated a triumphant tranquillity, and smiled at her with whimsical satisfaction.
"Mr. Durrell accepts my hospitality."
"You were able to persuade him?"
"With ease."
In twenty minutes they were in the yard, and De Rothan's men unfastening the horses. De Rothan had suffered Nance to go up and pack a small valise. He waited for her and for Anthony Durrell, and bowed them out into the yard. They had brought two spare mounts, a quiet old nag for Anthony Durrell, and De Rothan's favourite mare Étoile for Nance.
He hung near to Nance, overshadowing her with his presence.
"We have improvised a saddle for you. Étoile is very quiet. Let me help you up."
"Thank you—I can——"
"Pardon me, you cannot."
His confident courtesy dominated her, and she did not care to bicker with him.
"Step into my hand. So."
He lifted her up into the seat that was half pannier, half saddle. Gaston and François had hoisted Durrell on to the old horse. De Rothan mounted his own, drew up beside Nance, and took Étoile's bridle. They rode out under the hollies and laurels and across the little stone bridge into the lane.
It was a fine night, splendid with stars. The world was black and silent and breathing in its sleep to the faint drift of a light sea breeze. The air was fresh and dewy. On Stonehanger Common a wood of birch trees with their delicate fingers caressed the stars.
De Rothan drew deep breaths.
"A southern night, and full of the smell of adventure. Has the desire to wander at will over the world ever come to you?"
She mistrusted the intimacy of his mood, and his nearness to her. Moreover, her thoughts were working against him, planning and scheming perpetually.
"I am so very sleepy."
She felt that he was looking at her.
"Poor Nance, poor girl. You shall go to bed, and not be worried."
He was silent a moment, and she hated him because he seemed so confident.
"Mr. Benham will be asleep. But to-morrow we shall have a stupendous surprise for him. Yes, you shall see him. He will be overwhelmed."
She kept a white and stark reserve.
"You do not thank me! Am I not the kindest of friends? You will find me even more sympathetic than the little fencing-master with the black jowl. Besides, I have the fly in amber, and he has not."
Nance yawned behind her hand.
"You have a wonderful imagination, Chevalier."
He leaned over and stroked the mare's neck.
"Étoile, you are carrying the Queen of Hearts to-night. She is very proud, my child. She twists her mouth at your master."
It was two in the morning when they reached the Brick House. There were candles burning and supper set out in the oak dining-room. De Rothan was grandiloquent and gracious. He bowed them in as though he put the whole house at their service.
Durrell was morose and bitter, and Nance tired. Neither wine nor food was welcome. Distraught and restless, they avoided each other's eyes.
De Rothan called for candles.
"Mr. Durrell, I will show you and your daughter to your rooms."
Their rooms were on the first floor, but not next to one another. De Rothan gave Nance her candle and threw open the door for her.
"Good night, Miss Nance. There is a little bell within. Ring it if you should desire anything."
He turned back to show Anthony Durrell to his room.
Nance was standing looking about her at the mahogany furniture, the gay chintzes, the carved low-post bed. She put the candle down, opened the window, and looked out. Garden ground seemed to lie some fifteen feet below; it was all black, but she saw something that glimmered like water. She was still standing there when she heard the key turned in the lock of her door. Footsteps died away down the passage. She realised that she was a prisoner.
It was still early when Tom Stook came lumbering on his long shanks to Rush Heath Hall. He asked for Mr. Jeremy, and Jeremy came out to him on the grass before the house.
"He have gone and stole the young leddy and her father."
"What, man, what?"
"They be at t' Brick House. De Rothan brought 'en back from Stonehanger two hours after midnight."
Jeremy swore a big oath.
"Caught napping—by God!"
Jeremy sent Tom Stook back to lie in Yew-Tree Wood and watch De Rothan's house. He himself snapped up a brisk breakfast, mounted his horse, and rode straight to Stonehanger.
Here he found David Barfoot in mighty perplexity and distress, and looking like an old man who had been robbed of all his savings in the night. The whole matter was a mystery to him, especially the smashed window in the parlour. He nearly danced before Jeremy, and began to shout the news at him.
"Kidnapped or murdered, sir, and me asleep like a pig!"
Winter had learned to speak so that David could understand him. It was a question of very distinct lip movements, deliberation, and the use of simple and familiar words.
"Kidnapped they have been, David, but not murdered. The Chevalier de Rothan is guilty of this."
"The tarrifying villain! He be'unt fur doing Miss Nance any wrong?"
"He had better not, David. We have got to see to that."
"God bless me—sure."
"I want you to help."
"I'll take my holly cudgel, and crack t' Frenchman's head."
Jeremy smiled grimly. He liked that kind of wrath.
"Hold up, David, that would not do at all. We have got a rotten plank to walk on and if we are too heavy it may break and let us down. Listen to me now. I have got something to trust you with."
Winter told him the truth about Stonehanger, and also how De Rothan held Jasper Benham a prisoner. David's eyes grew more and more astonished as he picked up these amazing facts from Jeremy's lips.
"Mr. Durrell in wid t' French! Bother my bones—I'm fair beat!"
"He's in with them no longer, David. We have got to outwit this rogue of a Frenchman. I want you to help us."
"Sure."
"I want you to go to the Brick House. Be as innocent as a lamb, and try to get a few words with your mistress. Tell her I know what has happened, that De Rothan's house is being watched, and that if she can help us from the inside, so much the better. Ask her to tell you which is the window of her room, and that three blinks of a candle or a lantern at night will stand for a signal."
David scratched his beard.
"Maybe they'll not be fur letting me see her."
"That's certain. You have got to fox them if you can."
"Sure."
"You'll find me at the Queen's Head, Sedlescombe."
"I'll lock up t' house and go this very hour."
David, like many a quiet and rather dour old man, had had his adventures as a youngster. Orchard-raiding, smuggling, poaching, had all come easily, and he had retained that primitive rustic cunning that is never wholly lost despite a bent back and the Bible. Jeremy had told him of the charcoal-burners in Yew-Tree Wood and of Tom Stook lying in ambush like a great lean hound. David knew Tom Stook, and Tom Stook knew David. They were dogs who had poached and ratted together.
David made for Yew-Tree Wood that morning, and found Tom Stook lying along the limb of an oak with a bottle under his chin, for it was July and hot weather. They gave and received explanations, grinning solemnly at each other under the shade of the trees.
"De Rothan be gone Guestling way."
"Sure?"
"I saw him go out on his nag. To get a word wid t' lady—be that it?"
"Ay."
"It be'unt safe to whack in and fight 'em. Mr. Winter he be sly. I've seed her at her window."
"Have ye?"
"At t' back o' t' house. Sure, Dave, ain't Farmer Cross's bull bruk out o' t' meadow, gored Will Gray, and come rampin' down yonder?"
David looked at Tom Stook and grinned. It was amazing how well he could hear the vernacular on occasions.
"Sine—and t' beast be blood mad!"
"We be after him."
"Runnin' five mile!"
"And t' brute be tarrifyin' t' whole country——"
"Sure."
"We seed him go down into t' Brick House meadows."
They cut hazel-sticks and started off on this yokel's game, running heavily and clumsily after the fashion of hobnailed countrymen. They made straight toward the Brick House, scrambling through hedges, flourishing their sticks, and shouting to imaginary comrades.
"He be down yonder, Dave."
"Sure."
"I saw him break into t' garden."
They pounded on, sweating, shouting, flourishing their sticks. A head appeared at an upper window, and then disappeared. David and Tom Stook blundered through into the Brick House garden. A man came running round the corner of the house, a pistol in his pocket, and his hand on the butt thereof.
Stook bawled at him.
"T' mad bull, man, have ye seen him?"
The Frenchman stared, watchful and suspicious.
"I see no bull."
Stook carried it through. He looked broiled and boisterous, the heated hero of a five-mile run.
"He bruk through t' hedge here. He be blood mad."
He blundered on, and the Frenchman seemed caught by his hairy and vigorous enthusiasm. They ran round the house together, David remaining behind. He had seen someone come to an upper window.
"Miss Nance, we be after ye——"
Nance was looking down at him.
"David! Oh, be careful!"
"I know, miss. Mr. Winter has his eyes open. Be that your window?"
She nodded.
"There is a great cistern full of water under it, David. I thought I might have let myself down."
He stole up, and glimpsed a big brick tank into which all the rain-water was guttered from the roof. Trying it with his hazel stick he found he could not reach the bottom. And it was directly under Nance's window.
"Drat 'em. Don't ye fear, Miss Nance, we be on the watch. Three glints of a lantern on t' hillside or three glints o' t' candle in your window will serve as a signal."
"Yes, David."
"I'd better be after that there bull!"
He ran on and overtook Tom Stook and the Frenchman who were on the edge of the paddock. Stook was scratching a hot head and looking puzzled.
"Damn t' beast, Dave. He be gone along t' bottom. I could have swore be bruk into t' garden."
"Get on then, man——"
"I be that dry——"
"God badger t' drink. He'll be goring some other body. Run, Tom, run."
They ran, breathing hard, and pounding the grass with their heavy boots. The Frenchman stood and stared. They were just lumbering, red-faced yokels so far as he was concerned, and he believed contemptuously in the existence of the bull. The bovine seriousness, and especially Tom Stook's thirst, had convinced him of their stolid, sweating sincerity.
No more was heard of the mad bull, though Jasper had heard the shouts of the two men as they ran down through the fields. The window had been jammed by Gaston's broad figure. Then Gaston had hurried away, locking the door after him.
De Rothan had been to Rye, and since there were folk of French extraction in Rye town, and money was as useful there as anywhere, De Rothan had long ago been able to assure himself of a friend or two among the smuggling, seafaring folk. De Rothan had discovered a man who would have sold King George and both Houses of Parliament for a bag of guineas. The man who served him was the working owner of a fishing boat, and one of the most noisy of the Rye patriots. His boat had even been used as one of the coast patrols between Rye and Hastings, so that the fellow was in a position to be very useful to De Rothan.
De Rothan and the Rye man had met as though by chance on the flats between Rye and Winchelsea. They had stopped and gossiped under a thorn-tree by one of the dikes, De Rothan on his horse, concealed by no attempt at concealment. The Rye man had gone home with gold pieces tied up in a red handkerchief, and De Rothan had ridden back by way of Guestling and Westfield to the Brick House.
He was told of the incident of the mad bull, and smiled over it. None of De Rothan's French servants knew that David Barfoot had seized a chance of speaking to Nance Durrell.
Dinner was laid for three, and De Rothan, with the keys of the two bedrooms in his pocket, went up to release his two guests and to bring them down to dine. He opened Durrell's door and found the scholar reading by the window.
"Mr. Anthony, I consider your safety to be so important that I have taken the liberty of keeping your door locked. We will conduct your daughter down to dinner."
Durrell said nothing. He put his book aside, and joined De Rothan in the gallery outside Nance's door.
"Miss Nance, your father and I wait for you to dine with us."
They descended to the panelled room. The man François waited at table, Nance and her father sitting opposite each other, De Rothan taking the head. The conversation was largely a monologue on his part, a pretence at making an ambiguous situation seem natural and honest.
"I cannot help wishing that Mr. Benham were with us; the party would be complete. But Mr. Benham is disinclined to leave his room. He even seemed angry when I told him that you were here."
Nance stared at the bowl of roses in front of her. Anthony Durrell glanced slantwise at De Rothan. His enmity was austere and solemn.
"I may eat your food, Chevalier, but I do not touch your hypocrisy."
"That is a fanatical and rather illogical temper. You do not like my wine, sir, and yet you drink it!"
"I eat to live, but I do not live to lie."
His angry sententiousness amused De Rothan.
"Leave the little moral problems at the bottom of your glass, Mr. Anthony. Why, a month ago you were not so particular. Besides, François here understands English. We need not hang our prejudices out to dry before our servants."
The rest of the meal dragged through in silence. Nance, sitting with downcast eyes, heard De Rothan proposing a walk in the garden.
"I must find you some sweet corner, Miss Nance, where you can dabble your hands among flowers. I am not forgetting that you may like to take a posy up to Mr. Benham."
His ironical good humour troubled her. The garden was a garden of clipped yews, brick paths, and rank green grass, but Nance and her father were distraught and restless, moving and speaking as though under compulsion. Nance had a vague hope that Jeremy might leap up from somewhere, and that De Rothan's cunningly balanced house of cards might come tumbling about his head. But he seemed gay and debonair, inspired by a mischievous and cynical courtesy that bubbled over into playfulness.
"Will you not gather some flowers for Mr. Benham?"
Nance was too much in earnest to be able to match his flippant irony.
"No? You will not? And yet in half an hour or so we are going to pay this youngster a visit. It was a promise, was it not? I always keep my promises."
His voice made Nance afraid, it was so callous and so confident.
"When shall I see Mr. Benham?"
"Now, if you like."
She gave De Rothan a puzzled and mistrustful look. What was he trying to bring about? What were his motives?
"As you please."
"Come, then. Mr. Durrell, we will leave you for a few minutes."
Durrell looked fixedly at De Rothan.
"Chevalier——"
De Rothan guessed what his thoughts were and what he wished to say. He bowed to the father, and then to Nance.
"Sir, your whole attitude is one of unjustified distrust. I love my friends—if I hate my enemies. Miss Nance is far safer in my house than if she were at Stonehanger."
Durrell blinked self-consciously under frowning eyebrows.
"I wish to take you at your word, De Rothan."
"Follow your inclinations, my good friend. Miss Nance, are you afraid to follow me into my own house?"
She looked at him steadily, feeling that it was necessary that she should show no fear.
"No."
"That is good. Come."
She was struck by the intent, shrewd, but half-mocking look he gave her.
De Rothan led Nance to the attic story of the Brick House, talking all the while with a gay and railing vivacity that sharpened the edge of her feeling of suspense.
"Mr. Benham is so valuable to me that I have to lodge him high up near the gods. You may find him a little moody. It seems, too, that a certain display of dirt and disorder helps him to maintain an attitude of resentment and independence. Have you ever heard of pride refusing soap and water?"
She felt that there was an abominable cleverness about this man that might succeed in turning her finer instincts into ridicule. It was the old trick of throwing some evil-smelling stuff over a man's coat just as he was about to meet the woman of his desire. It might be contemptible and sordid, but the taint lingered and offended the senses.
They, passed along the gallery and stopped before a stout oak door. De Rothan knocked gently.
The man Gaston was within, and he appeared to fling the door open with studied suddenness, showing Jasper Benham sprawling on his bed of straw. He was asleep and snoring, head hanging back over a rough bolster stuffed with straw, his face flaccid and vacant, his shirt open at the throat. That one glimpse of him was a shock to Nance. De Rothan had come near persuading her to be disgusted.
Gaston went out, closing the door, while De Rothan walked across to Jasper and stood looking down at him with pleased vindictiveness.
"Mr. Benham—sir, wake up; here is a lady to see you. You see how he sleeps, Miss Nance, this fat young Sussex ox. Wake up, sir, wake up."
He touched Jasper with his foot, and Jasper woke up, snarling.
"Curse you! Let me alone!"
"Mr. Benham, here is a friend to see you."
Jasper sat up and caught sight of Nance. His face showed utter astonishment, nor was it lovely to look upon with its sprouting beard, uncombed hair, and streakings of dirt. His irons made a ridiculous jangling. There was much in the picture to provoke laughter and pity.
"Mr. Benham, do you not recognise the lady?"
Jasper did not look at De Rothan. The sudden heat of his angry humiliation was too bitter and too fierce in him. His eyes fixed themselves on Nance's shoes; nor had he a word to say.
"Come, Mr. Benham, come—are you not pleased?"
There was a sneer in De Rothan's voice, and it stung Nance to the quick. A sudden great pity carried her away. Jasper was humbled before her and before his enemy, and this shame of his transfigured all that was uncouth and ridiculous. It was she who felt humiliated and sneered at.
She turned on De Rothan.
"I understand now. I did not understand before."
He shrugged his shoulders, but the scorn and anger in her eyes stung him.
"My child, this is what we call romance. You do not seem to appreciate the opportunities I am giving you. No mere humdrum, thread-and-needle experiences——"
She regarded him steadily, thoughtfully, and then turned to Jasper.
"It sounds so empty to say that I am sorry."
Her voice made him look up. It seemed to uplift his courage and his pride, and to rescue him from the foolish squalor of his surroundings.
"Don't worry about me, Nance. It comes of my own conceit. But why are you here?"
Her eyes shone angrily.
"Because, like you, I have been kidnapped."
"You, too!"
"Yes, and I know everything."
Jasper met De Rothan's eyes, and De Rothan smiled at him.
"If circumstances admitted it, my dear young people, I would leave you alone together. But——"
Nance ignored him.
"Jasper, it makes me burn with anger——"
His eyes no longer shirked hers, and even his grime and his uncouthness heightened the tragic note that she persisted in hearing.
"I treated our friend here as a gentleman. It was foolish of me. Chevalier, I never ought to have let you out of that ditch."
De Rothan jerked a laugh, and Nance's eyes flashed to Jasper's. They said, "Well done, throw your scorn in his face."
He showed her his chained wrists.
"Pretty things, these, as the result of an affair of honour. Do you know, Nance, he had his men hidden in Darvel's Wood to pelt me with stones so that I should not hurt him."
She gave a dry little laugh, and glanced at De Rothan.
"That was very brave and honourable."
His sudden arrogance showed that he was growing out of patience with their scorn.
"Miss Nance, you have not the sense yet to know men, and the ways of men. If you were only five years older, and if you had been married to Mr. Benham here for five years, I should have had more hope of you. Still, it may be good for you both to remember that I am the man in power."
Jasper eyed him meaningly.
"You can be as insolent to me as you please, but——"
"Mr. Benham, let us have no fool's bellowing. I say what I please, even to a woman. I have brought you two together to see how weak in the head my poor Nance here might, be. It is a bad case, but I shall cure her. Gaston, you can come in."
The man entered, smothering a grin.
"Now, my most sweet lady——"
He shepherded Nance out with a sweep of the arm, but she went slowly, holding her pride aloof, and giving Jasper a look that he could treasure.
Nance went to her room, De Rothan following her to the door, and bowing as she entered. She heard the key turned in the lock, and then De Rothan's footsteps dying away down the stairs.
Nance went to the window, and, leaning her elbows on the sill, looked across toward the oak wood on the hill to the west of the house. What was De Rothan's ultimate desire with regard to her, and did he believe in the crushing of England by Napoleon's army of invasion? Supposing this should happen, what would become of them all? She saw not only herself, but Jasper and her father at the mercy of a man who would be in a position to satisfy any vindictive whim or passion.
Nance had travelled beyond mere amazement. Incredible things had happened, and were happening. Even the seemingly quiet life that her father had led all these years had been but the fitting-out of the ship of adventure. Monotony indeed! The prudish stolidity of English life! And yet there were people who lived as though all the world was a comfortable breakfast-table, little people who dabbled with their teaspoons, and for whom time was spaced out by a change of underclothing and the donning of a Sunday hat.
Nance kept asking herself, "What is Jeremy Winter doing?" For Jeremy seemed their one hope, the one man capable of dealing with this devil of a Frenchman. She knew that Jeremy had to be sly and cautious, yet this very cautiousness had begun to try her patience. She wanted things to happen, quickly and even violently. She wanted Jasper freed, and De Rothan confounded. The suspense would be intolerable, with this man holding her at his mercy.
Meanwhile De Rothan had rejoined Durrell in the garden—Durrell, whose face carried an expression of resentful bewilderment. He was so little of a man of action that he was still gaping at the events of the previous night. The whole adventure would be over and done with before he had decided what part he ought to play.
De Rothan twitted him maliciously.
"Come, come, friend Durrell, put away that grieved look. I have all these people in the hollow of my hand, and for the glory of La Belle France, and Liberty. A month ago you would have been patting me on the shoulder."
Durrell looked at him with an old man's thin distrust.
"Yes, but what are your plans?"
"Why, to pick up some of these fine English estates, to live as one of the grandees of the Empire, to marry and found a family!"
"That is all very magnificent, but——"
"Men of courage are ready to meet the 'buts' of life. A general has his line of retreat as well as his line of advance. You will not object to joining me if I have to return to France!"
"What do you mean?"
"If we are foiled I shall not leave you behind to be hanged. I am too good a comrade. I shall take you and Nance back with me to France."
Durrell stood open-mouthed, staring, and De Rothan smiled at his amazed face.
"The idea surprises you! You are struck by it, eh?"
"De Rothan, I have had enough of this monstrous fooling."
"Will it be fooling if I marry your daughter?"
"Sir?"
"Save your emotions."
"You think you can marry Nance!"
"There are three reasons why I should marry her. Because I desire to, because she does not desire me to, and because Mr. Jasper Benham will be struck across the face. Motives indeed! Our motives in life are curiously complex. I love complexities, entanglements, quarrels. Am I a man for a tame hare? Psst! Durrell, if a woman provokes me I like her all the better."
Durrell stared at him in impotent indignation.
"You are beyond me, De Rothan, and yet not beyond me."
"Indeed, I should not have to go far! What time is it? I think I shall have to request you to be locked up in your room."
That night Nance watched at her window, sitting there in the darkness with a cloak over her shoulders. She had heard De Rothan pass along the gallery, pause outside her door, and then walk on toward his room. When the dusk fell she had managed to push an oak chest against the door so that no one could force their way in without waking her if she were asleep.
The house seemed very silent, and the summer night was a noiseless glitter of stars. Now and again she heard the faint splashing of water as frogs leapt in the great rain-water cistern below her window.
It was past midnight when Nance saw a glimmer out in the woods on the opposite hillside. It moved to and fro three times, and then disappeared. Nance had brought a tinder-box with her, and a candle stood on the little table at her elbow. It took her some time to get a light, but she managed it and moved the candle to and fro three times across the window. Then she blew it out and sat down to wait.
A quarter of an hour passed before she heard a faint splash in the water below. She leaned out of the window and stared down into the darkness, to see nothing but vague outlines and an uncertain glimmering of water. Then something moved, close to the wall. A whisper came up to her out of the darkness.
"Nance——"
She leaned out and curved her hands about her mouth as though to confine her voice and throw it down to the man below.
"Who is it?"
"Jeremy."
She shivered with excitement.
"Oh, I'm glad, so glad."
"Not too fast, child. Where is Jasper? Do you know anything?"
"They have him in irons in one of the attics."
"Irons! Damn them!"
"I am locked into my room and father into his. A man seems to sleep in the same attic as Jasper."
Jeremy was silent a moment.
"Cunning rogues. Ssh! Nance, could you let down a cord or anything, a couple of sheets tied together?"
"Are you coming in?"
"No, no, not this time. Listen. Do you know what opium is?"
"Yes."
"Then let down a line. Here's a packet of poppy-powder."
Nance went to the bed, stripped the sheets off, tied them together, and let the rope out of the window. The lower end dangled itself in the water of the cistern.
"Jerk it to one side——"
She tried several times before Jeremy managed to catch the wet sheet on the end of a stick. He fastened the packet to the dry part of the sheet.
"Right, Nance. Do you think you can manage to get this stuff into the wine—De Rothan's wine?"
"I'll try. Would it kill him?"
"No, there's not enough for that. If we could get him drugged, we could deal with the others. Try the trick to-morrow evening. We shall be on the watch in the wood. If you succeed, signal with your candle."
Nance had pulled up the sheets, and had the packet in her hands.
"Is there no other way, Jeremy?"
"We will try this. Are you afraid?"
"Yes—and no. No—not for Jasper's sake."
"Good. No more risks to-night. And, Nance?"
"Yes."
"If anything bad should happen, call, shout, someone will be within hearing. We should break in and chance the rest. See?"
"Yes."
"Good night, child."
"Good night, Jeremy, good night."
Parson Goffin came cantering up to Rush Heath House, his face radiant, his nag's coat shining with sweat. The parson's face glowed, and he was in magnificent good humour. Bumpers of exultation, and of far stronger drink, had been tossed down the throats of many Sussex worthies that morning. The powder on his coat and waistcoat showed that Mr. Goffin had been taking snuff with feverish exhilaration.
He pulled up in front of the house, waving his hat, and shouting.
"Hallo, there, Squire—Jeremy—three cheers for old England."
Squire Kit was asleep, but Jeremy came out like a boy out of school.
"Hallo, hallo, what news?"
"Villeneuve has been caught and plucked. Hoorah, sir, hoorah, no damned French fleet in the Channel."
"By George, Goffin!"
"The news had just come into Rye. I was in Hastings early, but, good Lord, one never hears anything but old women's gossip in Hastings! Calder fell in with Villeneuve off Ferrol. He had fifteen ships to twenty, but he went in and hammered at him. No great victory, sir, but he has kept Villeneuve from Brest and from the Channel."
Jeremy snapped his fingers.
"Sing old Rose, and burn the bellows! Good, by George—for England."
"Villeneuve got away into Ferrol, but he's there, sir, and not off Boulogne. And some of them are cursing Calder for not doing better. Why, damn 'em, he has stopped the Frenchman's rush. It's all up with him for a dash on the Straits of Dover. And I'll wager that Nelson is not very far from the coast of Spain."
He blew, perspired, and exulted.
"A drink, Jeremy, my man, my pulpit for a drink. Here's to old England!"
"Pots will have a busy day. Hi, Jack, Sue, Marjorie, here—all of you—run, now, fill up the brown jugs. The French have had one on the nose, and are stopping to think it over! Run, you beggars, kisses all round for the wenches. Toss the brown ale down and be merry."
Jeremy took the news and a jug of ale to Squire Christopher.
"Villeneuve has been headed out of the Channel, sir."
"Murder my soul, Jerry, news—that's news. Let all the apothecaries go to blazes. Give me a drink, man; the jug will do. Here's to the roast beef. We'll soon have lad Jasper home, eh?"
Jeremy kept a stolid face.
"Count on that, Kit; we'll soon have the lad home."
But he went down to join Goffin, with a grim mouth and thoughtful eyes.
"This is good for the country, Goffin, but over yonder it may mean something dangerous. And here is Kit calling out for the lad——"
Goffin emptied his mug for the third time.
"The game is up for the scoundrel. He knows it by now."
"Yes. He hears things quickly enough, but you don't know this sort of man, Goffin. You have never come across the breed. I have. A bit of Irish and a bit of French, and a kind of pleasant cynical villainy thrown in. He is the stage rogue off the stage—to the last insolent cock of the rapier. Yet he's no mere actor man in a black doublet and a plumed hat. He'd pistol you before you could say pat, if it were worth his while to do it."
"The linen sounds too dirty, Jeremy! He will make off across the water."
"Yes, and take the girl with him. And perhaps stick a knife into Jasper before he goes."
"Poof, sir, you make the man a monster. I'll not believe it. Your adventures in Spain——"
Jeremy smiled a rather hard smile.
"Good sir, tell me, I have seen the savage, and the passionate side of life—I have. Blood and steel! Good Lord, Goffin; these things are real; they aren't bits of wood and cups of cheap wine. Men lust, and stab, and shoot. They do; I assure you. I suppose it has been so peaceful over the water——"
Goffin grunted.
"Well, what are we wasting precious time for, sir?"
"Ask the impossible monster! I am not going to waste time. I am going to get our men together and draw a leaguer about De Rothan's place. We shall use craft if we can. It will be safer for the girl and for Jasper."
Jeremy was in the saddle before the day was half an hour older. He knew that the news of Villeneuve's defeat would be serious news to De Rothan, and that it would go far toward making him a desperate man. The climax that he had schemed and waited for had vanished. There might still be a vague chance of Villeneuve sailing out of Ferrol and trying to fight his way into the Channel, but Jeremy, unlike the scaremongers, was well content with things as they were. Villeneuve had not shown himself to be the man for a great enterprise. The haunting and inexorable genius of Nelson dogged him, casting a premonition of disaster over the Frenchman's mind.
Jeremy rode out to gather in Jasper's friends. He called up John Steyning, of Catsfield, and young Parsloe, of the "Black Horse," and told each of them to bring two or three sturdy men. The meeting-place was to be the "Queen's Head" Inn at Sedlescombe. They were to gather there unostentatiously, as though it were a matter of chance. Jeremy himself rode on to Hastings. He had an old friend quartered there as surgeon to the troops, Surgeon Stott, a one-eyed, bronze-headed vulture of a man, fierce of beak and skinny of neck, and with language enough to satisfy Satan. But Stott was a shrewd and steady surgeon with a quick hand and a cool head. He could keep his mouth shut, and bring down a partridge with a pistol-bullet.
Stott was an oddity, and Jeremy found him in a little back room of one of the Hastings inns, brewing a bowl of punch. He was tasting the stuff, with the ladle under his hooked nose, when Jeremy entered.
"What, Jeremy—you devil!"
"Punch at this time of day! Empty it out of the window, sir. I am taking you out on an adventure."
"A fight, eh? I'm game. Instruments or pistols, or both? By George, sir, I feel in a mood to cut off ten legs in as many minutes."