Farm business held me from going over to Sandtoft for many days. Much of our land was too rich for the growing of corn—which was apt to spoil on the ground by its own rankness—and was sown with line year after year. This season it fell to my lot to meet the merchants, who came to buy our standing crops, and to show them hospitality. Having occasion to go to Crowle on this business, bargains concluded, I paid my respects to my relatives at the vicarage, little thinking of the reward awaiting my dutiful behaviour. As I entered the door, I heard my aunt cry out, "Frank! I know your step. Come this way." The voice came from the store-room, where I found the notable housewife, among the tubs and jars and boxes, from which she had so often produced dainty cakes and preserved fruits for the delight of my juvenile palate.
"At last you have remembered that you have an aunt!" said she, lifting her face to me. "I am busy now, but I will talk to you after dinner. I have company to-day."
"What company?" I asked.
"People you know, Mistress Goel and her father. What is there in that to make you open your eyes so wide?"
"I did not know of your acquaintance with them, that is all."
My aunt gave me to understand that the vicar had visited the strangers when they lodged at the White Hart, and invited them to the vicarage. She herself had taken a violent fondness for the daughter, and for the father a superb contempt.
"The man's daft, or he would not bring a girl to live in a hole like Sandtoft, where there is no other woman except her maid and the wives of mechanics and labourers, and the men are all boors and savages. The only excuse for such barbarity is that the man has lost his wits. But there's a Providence above, and the poor, dear child will have her recompense. There's a coronet at her feet, or soon will be."
"God in heaven! You cannot mean that you favour that beast, Sheffield!"
"No profane language here, Frank. Lord Sheffield is a changed man." Nothing could exceed my aunt's complacency as she gave me this assurance.
"Has he made proposal of marriage?" I asked.
"Not directly as yet; but he is quite open with me," and the good woman smiled loftily.
"Then he comes here?"
"He has been several times to hear your uncle discourse, who is satisfied that a work of grace has begun in his lordship's soul. But, bless me! I shall be late with dinner." And she began to bustle among her stores.
"When do your guests arrive?" I asked.
"They have been here since the day before yesterday. You will find them in the garden." So saying, she hurried off to the kitchen.
What Sheffield's game might be, I could not guess; but that he had some evil design in professing to be edified by the homilies of the simple clergyman, and in flattering his still simpler wife, there could be no doubt whatever.
The sight of Mistress Goel in a chair on the grass-plot under the shade of an old pear-tree drove away my gloomy surmisings. She rose to greet me in her pretty way of formal courtesy, and when she resumed her seat, I threw myself on the grass near her, and found her bright face lovelier than ever when looked at from that position.
"How long it is since I saw you!" said I. "I have been full of business which I might not leave, or I should have been to Sandtoft ere this."
"It is well that you have not," she answered. "Our men are furious. Almost every night a machine is broken, or something is stolen, or an attempt to fire the buildings is made. Four days ago, a barge came down the river too late to be unladen, and the man who kept watch on board was seized, gagged, and bound, and the boat was scuttled, with the man in it. It was done with such stealth that our men knew nothing of it until morning, although the sentinels had been at their posts all through the night."
"But I have nothing to do with midnight marauders," I growled.
"Our men do not know that. They have heard that you are one of the instigators of these doings."
"Is not my—my acquaintance with you a warrant that I am not an enemy?"
"No. I am sorry to confess that our acquaintance leads to our being suspected rather than to your absolution."
"Good heavens! Our Islonians have not a monopoly of barbarism, it would seem."
"Remember that our men are strangers in a strange land. They are plundered, harassed, threatened. Some of their comrades have been killed. The night attacks are so skilfully made as to lead them to think there must be a traitor within the camp. My father is in the habit of walking and watching late o' nights, and I have talked with one of the enemy. Most unhappily, Vermuijden is away, and it is uncertain when he will return. I was glad indeed to leave the settlement for a few days, and you will be wise not to come over at present."
"I have no inducement to visit the settlement while you are at the vicarage, which is a much more fitting abode for you than a hut at Sandtoft."
"So Mrs. Graves will have it, and in her kindness would detain me here I know not how long; but my place is with my father, and he is by agreement physician to the settlers. You are not to think that my father brought me thoughtlessly to Sandtoft."
How beautiful she looked as she bent forward, her face aglow with love and pride!
"He is not so much absorbed in science as to forget his care for his daughter. Oh no, indeed! He would have had me stay in Leyden, when he fled. He entreated, almost commanded me to go to the care of friends in Amsterdam, when he left Paris, and to remain there until he had a suitable home for me in England. But what is home? Do masons and carpenters make it? For me, it is where my father lives. My mother died in my seventh year, and my father did his utmost to make up my loss. His grief made him an old man before his time: his days were filled with labour, and the most learned and polished society in Europe made claim on his leisure, but nothing was allowed to interfere with his tender care of his little daughter. He continued his great love for his wife in his love for her motherless child. Pardon me that I say all this, but I could not bear that you should misconstrue my father."
I forgot to answer, looking up with pure delight into the beaming eyes. Surely, she cared something for me, unworthy as I was, since she wished that I should respect her father as he deserved. At length I replied softly—
"I count it great honour that you have told me."
But my new reverence for Doctor Goel was instantly in danger, for he came up to us, a cabbage-leaf in one hand and his magnifying-glass in the other, and pointed out something to his daughter in great excitement. He turned to me while she looked, and plunged into English, of which I reproduce the sense, not the exact words—
"Your great Bacon thought that caterpillars were engendered of dew and leaves by putrefaction. But it is not so. They come from eggs, laid by the butterfly. It is one more instance to confirm the theory that every living thing derives its being from a parent."
And the old gentleman rubbed his hands and smiled, as if he had found a diamond. 'Twas all I could do to refrain from laughing at this ado about some tiny caterpillars on a cabbage-leaf, but Mistress Goel seemed to enter into her father's pleasure, and, to my astonishment, said something to him in Latin, as if quoting a book, to which he replied by a long sentence in the same language. Then he returned to the harness-room, taking his precious cabbage-leaf with him.
Happily, the clang of the dinner-bell called us into the house, and saved me from uttering my opinion on the value of studying grubs. After dinner, during which nothing was said which needs record here, the vicar withdrew to his study, the doctor to the harness-room, where he smoked his pipe, my aunt to her room for her customary nap, so Mistress Goel and I strolled round the garden. Somehow, I was led on to talk of myself, a topic on which I was fluent, not to say vapouring. I confided to the lady the dubious state of the Vavasour fortunes, and spoke of retrieving them by the sword. I more than half hinted at my father's project for the relief of our estate, and of difference between him and me on that account. In fine, I was autobiographical, sentimental, braggart. The patient hearing, the gentle glance, the sweet smile on my companion's lips lured me on to talk as I had never talked before. Little did I dream that I was pouring out my boyish crudities to one of the most accomplished women of the Netherlands, the bosom friend of Tesselschade Visscher, a distinguished member of the brilliant circle who made the Visschersalonfamous throughout Europe. Happy in my ignorance, young bumpkin that I was, I babbled on, and she listened and answered as simply as any rustic damsel. I longed to tell her how I loved her, but held myself in check, remembering that I might be disinherited to-morrow, and what a poor heritage at best mine was like to be. Longed! I ached with longing. And when I thought of Sheffield, it was as though my head and heart would burst, so full I was with jealousy and rage. What I might have said, if we had been left alone awhile longer, I do not know, but my aunt came out to join us, and she stuck like a leech. I sauntered to the harness-room, where the doctor sat, smoking his pipe, and fell into talk with him. His English improved as we conversed, and I got the notion that he had once used the tongue with freedom. He asked questions about our farming, the trees and herbs in the fenny soil, the birds and beasts of our woods and marshes. He told me curious things of the weeds spread upon a rough table before him—some too marvellous for belief, but I kept my countenance. He had been seeking glow-worms, and I told him where they were to be found. I asked him questions concerning some things which had puzzled me, and received answers full and plain. He grew very friendly, and our talk lasted until supper-time.
That supper would have been a right pleasant meal but for one thing. The room was gay with vine-leaves, green boughs, and bunches of roses in jars and vases. Never had I seen it so gracefully decked, and I knew whose handiwork it was. My aunt had skill in providing, as the table bore witness, set out with well-cooked poultry, tench, salmon, plovers' eggs, dainty tarts, and amber-coloured ale and French and Spanish wine, but the adornment of the table and the room was new and strange. When the doctor and I entered the room, "my Lord Arrogance" stood at the other end, bending reverentially to listen to the vicar's talk, He made his bow to the doctor, and we took our seats—Sheffield at Mrs. Graves' right hand, Mistress Goel next him, the doctor and I on the other side of the table.
Sheffield talked with the Goels of Brederoo'sFarce of the Cow, and of some tragedy by Vondel. He applauded the genius and enterprise of Doctor Samuel Coster, and praised to the skies the Sisters Roemer Visscher. It was in listening to this conversation that I discovered how intimate Mistress Goel was with those learned and beautiful ladies. The playwrights and poets of Amsterdam and Leyden were quite unknown to me, and to the vicar and my aunt; but Sheffield contrived to interest Mrs. Graves by condescending to explain to her, and appealing to her taste and judgment, and he pleased his host by a sentence now and then in which he implied that these topics were far beneath the altitude of his sacred learning. I imagined that Sheffield designed to expose my clownish ignorance in contrast with his knowledge of the literature of the Netherlands; but his evident anxiety to keep the direction of the conversation in his own hands, and an exchange of glances between father and daughter, as if some remark of his tickled them to the point of laughter, made me aware that his lordship did but repeat a lesson with which he had been stuffed for the occasion. In a little time he had taken a good deal of wine, and then he did me the honour to become aware of my presence.
"I' faith," said he, "'tis uncourteous to Vavasour to talk only of divine poesy. Does line fetch a good price this year?"
The inquiry was addressed to me, but before I could answer, Mistress Goel shot me a question—
"What did you say was the motto of Sir William Vavasour?"
I had said nothing of a motto peculiar to this ancestor of mine, and could not at once see the drift of the query. Then I perceived that it was meant to stay the anger which had sent the hot blood into my face, and I answered her with the first jingle I could remember.
Soon after sunset thick clouds gathered, cutting short the twilight, and candles were brought in. Then my aunt prayed Mistress Goel to sing, and I learned what ineffable delight may be in music, for the singer had the art-concealing art, and sang as the thrushes and nightingales do. The old spinet became another instrument under the touch of her fingers. I sat entranced, listening to song after song, watching the singing with devouring eyes. To my wonder the songs were chiefly English, and some of them the simple ballads dear to peasant-folk. By-and-by Mrs. Graves asked for "that Spanish duetto," which she had heard Sheffield sing with her guest, and he condescended to gratify her. 'Twas a concert of crow and nightingale, but the fellow tugged at his collar, and stuck up his chin, and wriggled about, as if his performance had been the finest in the world.
During the last hour the low rumble of distant thunder had been heard, and just as the Spanish song ended, there came a flash of lightning, and a tremendous peal of thunder immediately followed, loud enough to be the crack of doom. My aunt began a great fuss about having no bed to offer me, and the necessity of my going home before the storm grew worse, and I was in a manner forced out of the house. So I made my adieux, promising the doctor some glow-worms in a day or two. As I bade Mistress Goel good night I thought her little hand trembled, and there was a look in the brown eyes which I chose to interpret as concern for my safety.
On first setting off, Trueboy was uneasy, the lightning becoming frequent and the thunder almost continuous, but a firm rein and a little soothing brought him to composure.
I have never seen lightning more splendid. At every flash a fire seemed to run along the ground before me, and the water on either side glared redly, while quite distant trees showed, or appeared to show, their every leaf. Near Hirst Priory, some cattle and horses, which had leaped the fences in their panic, were scampering to and fro on the causey like mad creatures, running great risk of bogging themselves in the swampy margins of the road. It would have been unneighbourly to pass on and leave Farmer Brewer's bestial to their fate, so I opened the gate of the drift, and then gathered and drove all I could see into their owner's grounds. It was slow and difficult work, the beasts being so wild with fear, and the only light that of the flashes which followed one another for some seconds without intermission, the succeeding darkness bringing me to a stand; but at length it was done. Then I battered and bawled at the door of the hind's cottage. He opened after some minutes, and stood quaking and shaking like a man in an ague-fit.
"O Lord! Be it you, Master Frank? I thought it was the devil come to fetch me. The Almighty's terrible angry, for sure."
I bade the man stick some bushes on the gate and the fences near, remaining to see that he obeyed, bantering him the while on his ridiculous fear that his sins had put the elements into such commotion. When he had finished the job, I rode slowly on, pondering a fact which I had noted in collecting the cattle, namely, that the waters of the marsh had risen, and encroached on the causeway here and there, although no rain had yet fallen. All at once, Trueboy started off at a great pace, and I became aware of hoof-beats behind me. I pulled him up, and he capered about a bit, for he was never willing to be passed on the road.
"Out of the way, there," shouted a voice, which I recognised as Sheffield's.
I turned in the saddle, and asked, "Is my lord so drunk as to need all the breadth of the causey?"
"Oh, it is you!" answered Sheffield. "You might as well have staid to see my leman give me the parting kiss, hanging on my neck, pressing her sweet lips to mine."
By this time we were riding side by side.
"Liar!" said I, and dealt him a blow across the face with my whip.
I drew rein, expecting that he would take instant revenge with sword or pistol, and ready enough for the encounter, though I had no weapon but the one I had used. But he did not strike. He said something which I could not understand, and I felt a crashing blow on the head. I remember thinking I had been struck by lightning. The next thing I knew was that I lay on the causey, dizzy and sick. By degrees, I found that my clothing was drenched, and supposed that the rain had come and soaked me while I lay unconscious. Then I perceived that Brewer's hind was stooping over me, and that he was dripping wet. Shortly afterwards, I came fully to myself, and heard the man's account of what had befallen me. Briefly, it was this: he had lingered at the gate a minute or two after I rode away, and saw two horsemen follow me. Thinking they might be highwaymen, he had plucked up courage to run after them, and came near enough to recognise by a flash that one of the men was Sheffield's gigantic black servant. Supposing me to be in no danger from him or his master, the man had turned toward his cottage again, when he heard a great splash, and a succession of lightning gleams showed him two men riding off, and my horse riderless. He hurried up, and found Trueboy, up to the chest in the water, trembling. The fellow had the wit to guess that the horse was trying to reach his master, so he waded cautiously forward, and found me lying two feet below the surface. My enemy had shown readiness and cleverness, assuredly. But for the presence of the one spectator, I should have drowned quietly, and it would have been supposed that the death was accidental.
"Now, Stubbs," said I, "you have made me your friend and debtor for life; but you must remember that if you say a word of this matter, you will make another sort of debtor, who will pay you quickly."
Stubbs vowed perpetual silence, and we parted, I to ride home, feeling extremely queer. The lightning still flashed, but at longer intervals, and before I had gone a hundred yards, there came a gust which tossed upward the tree branches and beat down the reeds, and the rain fell in streams. That was no matter to me, for I was as wet as man could be, but Trueboy misliked it, so the rest of our way we flew.
Luke burst into my room early next morning, to tell me that the waters were out to a height such as no one remembered. The Don, which had been turned by the Dutchmen into a channel connecting it with the Aire, had taken its old course with fury, flooding the western side of Crowle as with a second deluge. I jumped out of bed, almost forgetting the aching and soreness of my head and the stiffness of my limbs, for, if this account were true, the inhabitants of the Crowle vicarage were in jeopardy. Luke assured me that "'twas no manner of use to try to reach Crowle by riding, for t' causey was under water;" so after I had broken fast with a crust and a cup of small ale, I had out my boat, and taking Luke with me, set sail northward. The marsh had become a deep lake, and the low-lying fields in our neighbourhood were flooded, and here and there we came on the carcase of a sheep or a pig; but when we drew near to Crowle there was a sorry sight indeed. The cornfields on the slopes of Totlets had disappeared under muddy water, and several clay-built cottages had crumbled and fallen in. Some of the recent tenants were about in punts, gathering up what they could of their bits of furniture. From them we learned that no life had been lost there. The folk had been aroused by the barking and whining of a dog, and had taken refuge on higher ground, before the old walls fell in. As we came nearer to the town, the water was so cumbered with wreckage, that we let down the sail, and took to the oars, lest we should foul among the bundles of reeds, straw-stooks, empty casks, dead sheep and swine, hay rakes, pails, and other things innumerable, which were strewn on the surface of the water. Some of the more westerly houses were surrounded with water up to the lower windows, and at sight of us, the inhabitants, who were at the upper windows, set up a great cry for help. We shouted that we would come, or send to them, as soon as might be, our first concern being the vicarage. Passing Farmer Dowson's on our right, we saw him and his men, waist-deep in the water, staggering under bags of corn, carrying pigs in their arms, struggling with frightened horses, leading them to the higher ground behind the farmstead. The farmer hailed us, but only to relieve his soul by shouting a malediction on the Dutch. The water became shallower as we neared the church, for (as we discovered later) the first rush of the river had brought down an immense quantity of silt, which had been deposited in a bed sloping from the wall of the churchyard. To our surprise we found the depth at the gate of the vicarage not more than two feet. We moored our boat to the old oak, and with some difficulty, for the bottom was soft, made our way to the house, where we found the inmates in safety on the upper floor. My aunt was loud in lamentation over her goods and chattels and store of food. The vicar's most pressing care seemed to be a funeral, which had been arranged for this day. Doctor Goel was poring over a plan of the drainage, going again through calculations, which proved to his satisfaction that the channel cut for the Don was deep and wide enough to carry off its water into the Aire in any possible event, and that the embankment raised must infallibly resist whatever pressure could be brought against it. He was so perfectly certain that what had happened could not by any chance occur, that I was obliged to laugh in his face—and mightily offended him.
"You cannot suppose, doctor," said I, "that the Islonians have broken down the embankment for the pleasure of drowning themselves."
"I do not know that," he snapped. "They are stupid enough."
Remembering how the water had gradually accumulated before the coming of the great rain, I believed that neither the drain for the turning of the Don, nor that for the conveyance of the surface water had been large enough for its purpose, but I did not offer my wisdom to the doctor just then.
Mistress Goel asked many questions, and wept and wrung her hands to hear of the distress of the people, but she was quickly her calm self again, entering into talk of what had best be done for them. My first notion had been to collect as many boats as were to be had, and to go to bring the folk from the outlying farms and cottages to Crowle.
"But you need not do that," said she, "unless there is danger of a house giving way. The water is subsiding."
"How do you know?" I asked.
"By a mark I made on the staircase wall at five o'clock this morning. The water has sunk three inches since then."
I said something in praise of her self-possession in a time of alarm, but she urged me to the present work.
"The poor people out in the flood," said she, "will have little or nothing to eat. Their food will be spoiled, and they will have no means of procuring fresh supplies. That is the first thing to be thought of. And the mere sight of a friendly face will do them much good. Will it not be best to load your boat with a stock of such provisions as are to be had, and to send some one of influence round the town to urge others to follow you?"
To this I agreed, and, after some further talk, I turned to go. As I stepped into the water at the foot of the stairs, she called to me from the landing—
"Oh, Frank, don't forget milk for the children."
I looked up, and saw her face burning. "I will not forget," I answered, and out I strode with the music lingering in my ears.
Old men and women still tell the tale of the great flood, and part of the tale is how the "young squire" of Temple did feats of rowing, lifting, and carrying in helping the folk. If I was bold and active beyond the ordinary on that day, and I think I was, the secret is that I had heard my name for the first time from the lips of my love, and seen her blush to use it.
It is no affair of mine to repeat the chimney-corner story. It suffices to say that I and Luke and a dozen willing fellows worked our hardest until dark, visiting every farmstead and every hovel which remained standing on the lower levels.
A score cottages right on the bank of the river, occupied by labourers and marshmen and their families, had been swept clean away, with what destruction of life could not then be known. The farmers' losses were terribly heavy. The havoc done among horses and cattle was considerable, and hundreds of swine and thousands of sheep had been drowned. Stacks were overthrown and spoiled, and the standing crops were ruined.
How the men cursed the Dutch! Their threats of vengeance made me wish that Mistress Goel and her father were safely out of Crowle. For our Islonians are not fellows who ease their minds with a curse, and then think no more of it, but of that slow, stubborn kind, which smoulders first and does not flame until the end. I assured them that their "Solicitor" would demand compensation for their losses. I argued that this disaster might have so much good in it as to justify my father's resistance to the Vermuijden scheme, and oblige the King and his advisers to hear reason. But I met with bitter and scornful laughter for the most part.
One man said, "'Taint no sort of use to talk so, Mester Frank. Your father is a real gentleman, but he's no match for the Dutch devils. We didn't ought to ha' listened to his peaceable kind of discoursing. Squire Portington's is the way to deal with robbers and murderers like Vermuijden and his gang."
Pretty nearly all were of the same mind, and I returned to the vicarage dispirited and apprehensive, and so weary and spent and heavy with sleep, that I crept off and tumbled into bed, too tired even to talk with Mistress Goel.
Most unexpectedly, the vicar requested me to remain a few days at his house. Hitherto, we had had little to say to each other; he never had much to say to any one. I had disliked him from my early childhood, when I got the impression that he was bound in parchment like one of his folios, and that the back of his head had been chopped off. His days were passed among those folios, and Mr. Butharwick spoke with respect of his learning, but what good came of it I never knew. He preached sermons of an inordinate length, and totally incomprehensible to me, and, as I judged, to his parishioners generally, who composed themselves for slumber when they heard the text. My aunt attended to all the affairs of the parish, and always inspected the parson before he left the house, to see that he was decently clad, and had his handkerchief in his pocket.
The calamitous flood aroused him to the everyday life around him, not all at once, but slowly. He entered into the sorrows of his bereaved parishioners especially, of whom there were many. One Coggan, a small farmer, had been found dead in the water at the foot of a ladder descending from his bedroom. Another man, a somewhat drunken fellow, had been overtaken by the flood, while sleeping off his drink on the kitchen floor. An old man, whose people had left him alone for the night, had been caught and overwhelmed in the act of opening his door, apparently. The child of Ducker, the blacksmith, had been ailing for a day or two, but on the night of the inundation had fallen asleep on a couch, and slept so peacefully that the mother would not disturb its slumber, but covered it up as it lay, and went to bed. She found it drowned in the morning. Besides these cases in the town itself, numerous bodies were recovered in the neighbourhood of the cottages on the banks of the Don and elsewhere. In these circumstances, many appeals were made to the vicar for guidance, help, and consolation. The sexton lost his wits, poor man, and there were difficulties in making preparation for the decent interment of so many bodies, as well as difficulties as to who would guarantee payment for this and that. We were hard put to it to find a messenger to go for the coroner, every man's hands were so full of his own, or his master's business. Consequently, the vicar impressed me into service, and gave everything into my charge. I must do him the justice to acknowledge that he was diligent in attending to his spiritual duties, and generous with his purse. The painful and somewhat horrible details are no necessary part of my narrative, and so I leave them; but, as may be supposed, I was fully occupied for several days.
There was an hour every evening which made up, and more than made up, for all the weariness and trouble of the day, when Mistress Goel talked awhile with me, or sang to me. Our talk was mainly of the one engrossing subject, and there could be no quiet, private chat at such a time; but to see her and to hear her voice was enough to make me happy for the present.
Luke made me somewhat uneasy by telling me that he had overheard conversation at the White Hart, and elsewhere, to the effect that Doctor and Mistress Goel had come over to Crowle "to charm the water." Dame Hind had had much to say of the certainty of their being in commerce with the devil, and some of her guests swore to put an end to the witches at the first opportunity. Although I did not think these threats very serious, and had perfect confidence in my own ability to protect my friends, being in high favour with the Crowle folk, I contrived to restrain them from going beyond the vicarage grounds, except when I could accompany them. Luke was exceedingly afraid, but as he had always a keen nose for scent of danger, his fears did not excite mine.
On the third evening of my stay, Sheffield was announced. He met me without a trace of confusion.
"Ha, Vavasour!" he said. "Give you joy of coming to life again."
"Thanks—much thanks," I replied.
"Coming to life again!" cried my aunt. "What do you mean, my lord?"
"Has he told you nothing? When last I saw him, on the night of the thunderstorm, he was struck by lightning."
"Struck by lightning!" my aunt echoed.
"Yes; I overtook him on the road, and we got into some sort of quarrel, about what I don't remember, for, to confess the truth, I was too drunk. We were riding side by side, jabbering angrily, when I saw a ball of fire flashing down. It struck Vavasour, and he fell from his horse. I am ashamed to say that I was so dazed and terrified that I rode off as fast as I could, and left him to his fate."
Being pressed to give my account, I said, "I did not see the flash which knocked me down, and I can tell you no more, except that I found myself in bed next morning, little the worse."
My aunt gave me a scolding (with tears in her eyes) for my reticence, and was touchingly grateful to Sheffield for informing her of the peril I had been in. Doctor Goel's interest was in the meteor, and he asked so many questions about the size and shape and colour of it, the degree of its brightness, the length of time it was visible, and so forth, that Sheffield got himself into a coil of contradictions, and then excused them on the ground that he was very drunk at the time.
"By Bacchus," said the doctor, "you must have been."
One person kept silence, but her bright eyes were observant of Sheffield and me. Doctor Goel turned to me, and endeavoured to extract some account of my feelings, but I stuck to it that I could tell nothing more. Sheffield took himself off, declining my aunt's invitation to stay supper.
Mistress Goel hinted a desire for a walk, and I, being eager enough, stood ready to accompany her. While she put on her hat and wrap, I waited in the hall, and Luke, who was never far from my elbow at this time, came to me with my pistols.
"You may need 'em," said he, in a low voice. "I've seen some ugly fellows about this evening."
I laughed, but took them, and the belt which Luke had not forgotten, and armed myself besides with a tough ash-stick, which I reckoned the best weapon a man could carry.
We took the path winding upward through the wood to Crown Hill, the moon, now nearly full, shining intermittently through scudding clouds into our faces.
"I want to ask about the attempt made on your life the other evening," my companion said abruptly. "Oh!" she continued, "I know the tale about a thunderbolt is altogether false. You were struck down from behind, and left for dead. Your assailant cannot understand how it is you are alive, so he makes up a story as a defence for himself, perhaps, or, more probably, to provoke you to say something which may clear up what is mysterious to him. And you saw the design, and would not betray the secret."
"This is wizardry!" I said, staring.
"Oh dear, no! it is ordinary woman's wit, enlightened by the looks which passed between you and your enemy."
I granted that she had rightly discerned, but said nothing of what followed the knock-down blow.
"You are determined to keep secret the manner of your rescue?" she asked.
"At present, yes," I answered.
"Doubtless you have good reason. But there is another matter on which I wished to speak with you. Do you allow that there is such a virtue as prudence? If so, is it prudent to expose yourself to an enemy—a powerful, crafty, unscrupulous enemy?"
Then I burst out, "Do you bid me run away from him? Because——"
"Stay one moment," said she. "Surely prudent avoidance and cowardly flight are not the same thing."
"There is too much of a family likeness for me to distinguish between them," said I.
"So I feared," she answered. "What is the noise we hear?"
It was the noise of a crowd—hurrying feet, hoarse shouts. It came rapidly near. The mob was coming up the hill. Now I could hear distinctly "foreign witch," "Dutch devil," and other cries of a fouler kind. Unmistakably we were pursued. On the crest of the hill stood an old windmill, which might shelter us, and thither I hurried Mistress Goel. The door was padlocked, but one strong kick crashed it open. Pushing my companion inside, I took up the door, laid it across the entrance, dragged a few sacks of corn against it, and had a tolerable barricade; not a moment too soon, for the mob was upon us, with a yell of disappointed rage at sight of the obstacle in their way.
"Can you load a pistol?" I asked Mistress Goel.
"Yes," she answered.
I detached powder-horn and shot-bag from my belt, and passed them to her.
"I will throw my pistol into your lap, if I have to fire; reload it and give it to me, keeping well behind me," I ordered.
By this time the crowd had gathered in front of the mill. Luckily we were in shadow, and the moonlight was full on them. For half a minute they halted, and a murmur of talk among the leaders was the only sound. Then one of them stepped forward.
"One stride nearer, and I fire," I said quietly.
"Nobody wants to hurt you, Measter Frank," the fellow said. "Give up the witch, that's all we ask."
"There's no witch here," I answered. "There is a lady, the guest of your vicar; woe betide you if she comes to harm at your hands! But you will have to murder me before you lay finger on her."
"She be a witch, and brought the water on us; Nancy Isle knows it for sartain sure," replied the spokesman.
(This Nancy Isle was a poor creature in her dotage, but still held in repute as a "wise woman.")
"She gave Mat, hostler, stuff that cured his ague in no time," shouted a voice. "Has a charm to tame wild things," cried another. "Doth wash all over in cold water every morning, which would kill any Christian; Lisabeth, maid at the vicarage, told me herself," bawled another. "She makes hell-broth of galls and toadstools and caterpillars. I've seen the old devil agathering 'em for her," said another. "On with you, you cowards," shrieked a female voice. "Are you feared of one man, and him bewitched? She killed my innocent babe, and I'll tear her eyes out." And Ducker's wife came forward with a rush, three men following.
I shot the first of them through the shoulder, and he fell; I brought the butt of the pistol down heavily on one hand of the woman, who was clawing at the barrier like a wild cat, which sent her howling. The other two men came on slowly enough to give me time to toss the pistol into my companion's lap, and to cower for an upward blow with the fist. I struck one of them under the chin, and he went backward insensible; but the second got half over the door before I could deal with him. With some shame, though I was fighting for more than life, I gave him a kick in the "wind," which settled him for a while. So far I had splendid luck, and the enemy were a bit cowed, but if they came on in a body, I must be overborne by sheer weight. Their pluck was not sufficient for that just now; they began to throw stones, which was not a bad move, seeing that I was bound to guard the doorway. I received a tremendous blow on the jaw. Then followed a lull, which ended in one of the crowd calling to me—
"We don't want to kill thee, young squire."
"Thanks," I replied. "I am not much killed so far."
"We don't want to kill thee. Give up the witch, and we'll swim her. If she sinks, we'll go away. If she floats, thou'lt leave her. We can't say fairer nor that."
"Now listen to me," I answered. "You can have any one tried by proper course of law for witchcraft. If you take the law into your own hands, I shall kill some of you, and the rest will be hanged for killing me."
They replied by a volley of stones, and a furious rush. A stone struck Mistress Goel, and she sank to the floor. I could do nothing for her, save push her with my foot as far back from the door as I could reach, for the men were on me, shouting, and brandishing sticks and knives. I stepped back, counting on their jamming themselves together in the opening, which they did, coming on pell-mell. Attempting no kind of guard, I stood to crack intruding heads. A knife was thrown, and stuck in my left shoulder, whether in cloth or flesh, I knew not. My good ash-plant struck three heads down, and my boot smashed a face at a corner. Then the fellows drew off a little, dragging their fallen comrades with them, but still facing the doorway; so I whipped out pistol, and shot one of them in the leg. That sent them out of range.
"Hand me the pistol," said my companion, rather faintly.
"Thank God!" I ejaculated, but I could not leave my post to see her.
Some of the men were talking loudly, and pointing; others ran off in various directions. Shortly, they returned, carrying dead branches and heaps of straw. They made for the other side of the mill, keeping well out of pistol shot. Plainly they meant to set the mill on fire and burn us out. It would blaze quickly, for it was slightly built, and the timber old and dry, and I feared that the place would be too hot for us long before a large number of people were drawn to the spot; but our best plan was to stay where we were as long as might be possible. The bulk of our enemies now sat on the ground to await the result of the fire. I might have broken a hole through the mill wall, but our safety—such as it was—depended on there being only one opening to guard. So, keeping one eye on the enemy, I looked at Mistress Goel's hurt. It was a gash over the eye, and had bled copiously, but the bleeding had ceased. She insisted on cutting open my sleeve, from which the knife had fallen, after sticking there some time, and found a deepish cut, and my sleeve soaked with blood. She bound up the wound with a strip from her dress. Now we heard a great crackling and roaring outside. The fire had taken hold.
"Frank," said Mistress Goel, and my heart thrilled at the word and the tone. "Frank, promise that you will kill me rather than let me fall into their hands. I would ask for a pistol to do it myself, but you may have need of them. Promise me, by all that is most sacred to you."
"I promise you that you shall not be taken alive, by the most sacred of all things to me—my love for you."
The heat of the mill grew stifling. Snaky flames came through the cracks and crevices, and hissed upward.
"We must try for life," I said, and pulled away the sacks and the door.
The enemy awaited us. All at once, they turned the other way, and the head constable rode into view, followed by a posse of young men, some on horseback, some on foot. Then the crowd fled a dozen ways, and I carried my fainting lady into the midst of a group of cheering, laughing friends.
The task of answering the hundred and one questions of our rescuers fell upon Mistress Goel, for I could not speak distinctly, my cheek and lips being so swollen. Two of my friends hoisted me upon their shoulders, in spite of my growling resistance, while other two made "a chair" for her with their arms and sticks, and we were carried with shouting to the vicarage, terrifying the good folk there no little by the noise. When my aunt saw Mistress Goel's blood-stained face and my puffed cheek, she fell to laughing and crying in a breath, and cried out that I was the most reckless fellow in the world, and not to be trusted with the care of a lady. The doctor clasped his daughter to his breast, and then held her off to examine her hurt, and turned to glare at me fiercely, as if I had done the mischief. Oddly enough it was the vicar who called for sponge and water, bandages, plaister, and the like; recommended the doctor to lose no time in attending to our wounds; imposed silence on the dozen who were babbling all at once, and, in short, put us into order.
Luke told how he had followed us, being in some fear that we might be attacked, but he had been astonished by the number of the crowd, which had gathered so quickly, and appeared to be under the direction of a man, who was a stranger to him. He saw us take refuge in the old mill, and then thought it better to call a party to our aid than to come single-handed. Accordingly, he had set off to give the alarm to the young fellows who had worked with us on the day after the flood, and, by great good luck, found the chief constable of the wapentake at supper in one of the houses at which he called. The rest of the story may be understood without the tedium of further words by me. During Luke's recital, Doctor Goel had attended to his daughter's hurt, and now gave me his care. My cut in the shoulder he pronounced unimportant, but shook his head over the injury to my jaw. At present, he could do little but bind a wet rag about my face, and give me a wash for the mouth, with a caution to swallow none of it. Meanwhile, my friends, on Mistress Goel's report, were making me out to be a hero, and there I sat with a swelled face, rolling a liquid in my mouth which made me wince, and unable to say a word. It struck me as so queer a fix for a hero to be in that I laughed, spurting out some of the doctor's stuff, and gulping some of it down, but the coughing fit and the pain which followed effectually cured me of inclination to further laughter.
The chief constable deemed it advisable to set a watch over the vicarage for the night, himself remaining in command.
"There is no telling to what lengths the rabble may go, when they have got suspicion of witchcraft into their heads," said he; "and, in my judgment, it would be wise for Doctor and Mistress Goel to take shelter among their own people at Sandtoft as soon as may be."
We were not disturbed during the night, and that happened on the morrow which, for a time at least, put our affairs into the shade. We received a visit from a Royal Commissioner, who caused public proclamation, with beat of drum, that all well-disposed persons and good subjects were to wait on him in the course of the next three days in the Court-room at the White Hart, where the Manor Court was usually held, there to prove their loyalty to the throne by loans, benevolences, free gifts of money, and tender of service to his Majesty. This personage appeared at the vicarage early in the day, attended by a file of musketeers, I happened to be with the vicar in a room where he transacted such parish business as he could not depute to my aunt, when a pot-bellied man swaggered in, with what he meant for an air of dignity, but which in reality was a consciousness of the musketeers outside. After curt salutation, he took a seat, and opened by saying—
"You received instructions from the archbishop to preach to your flock on the duty of contributing to the royal exchequer, so preparing them for my visit. You thought it sufficient to read the letter from the pulpit. Explain your disobedience."
Something of the old Adam still lived in the clergyman, and flashed from his eyes.
"By what authority do you——" he began.
But the other broke out—
"Authority! authority, quotha! Authority enough to send a bishop to jail, if he gave me occasion."
At this point I did an exceedingly prudent action. The commissioner held his neck awry, and my hands itched to give it a twist right round, so I walked out of the room and a temptation which might become too strong for me. From prudence to policy is but one step. The next thing I did was to send Luke out to the musketeers with strong ale, bidding him stay to learn how they liked the brew, and anything else they chose to tell him. They told him a good deal. The commissioner had a list of the gentry and farmers in the neighbourhood, and against each name the amount to be demanded. He had another list of poorer folk, including the names of young men who might be impressed for service in the army or navy, unless they, or their relatives, were ready to buy a discharge. There did not appear to be any limit to the powers of this bashaw. Before his entry into the Isle he had sent several gentlemen to prison for refusing to pay his demand in full. Some reputed misers of low degree, who had pleaded poverty, he had tied up by the thumbs. Incredible sums had been extorted from poor old women by threatening to take away their sons.
Fellows who had been "insolent" to his Majesty's representative, had been shipped off to the plantations. The corporal had favoured Luke with the opinion that the King would get so much money by this collection as to put him above the need to ask Parliament for another shilling.
The pot-bellied man left the vicarage soon after I received this account, taking with him fifty pounds, and the vicar retired to his study, perhaps for prayer.
In the course of the morning Mr. Butharwick came over to see me, bringing a summons from the commissioner, requiring my father's attendance at the White Hart, so about one o'clock I joined the company assembled there. The commissioner, Tunstall by name, as we learned from the reading of his warrant under the Great Seal, which he allowed some of the gentlemen to inspect, sat at a table, with a scribe on his left hand, four or five of his musketeers standing behind him. There were seats for the men of rank and condition, but two-thirds of the floor were filled by a standing crowd. After the reading of the warrant, Tunstall made a long pompous speech, setting forth the necessities of the King, the duty of his subjects, and the trouble caused in the realm by factious and treasonable persons, who had abused their privileges and his Majesty's leniency by contriving to delay the voting of supplies, urgently required for the defence of the kingdom, and the dignity of the Crown. The short of it was the king wanted money badly, and we were to find it, or the consequences would be disagreeable. The commissioner looked at his papers, and then said that the first name on his list was that of George Stovin of Totlets, assessed at five hundred pounds. Squire Stovin rose, and spoke—
"It is not for me to judge of his Majesty's requirements, or to give an opinion as to the propriety of this unwonted way of meeting them, but only to say that the demand made on the gentry and farmers of Crowle—and on the gentry and farmers of Axholme generally—is to the last degree ill-timed. Hundreds of acres in various parts of the Isle, which last year bore heavy crops, are reduced to swamp by the action of foreign invaders, who are under his Majesty's protection. In this part of the Isle, many of us have been brought within a little of beggary. I myself have had the cottages in which my labourers lived swept away, and most of my barns and outbuildings. Scores of my sheep have been drowned—my crops are lost. It is monstrous to ask me to give money to the King. I want compensation from the King."
There followed a loud rumble of assent to Squire Stovin's speech. As soon as it ceased, the commissioner gave some order in a low voice to the corporal, and then said—
"That treasonable talk will cost thee more than five hundred pounds, thou impudent rebel. I allow thee one hour to send and get what may be wanted for a sojourn in Lincoln castle."
At the word, a musketeer seized the squire, and tied his hands behind him. A growl of angry voices was heard all over the room, and, a tumult might have happened, but, at some signal which I did not perceive, a score musketeers entered by the door behind the assemblage.
Squire Stovin called out: "Will some friend be kind enough to go to tell Mrs. Stovin I am going a journey, and want my portmanteau?"
"No man quits the room except by my permission," bawled the commissioner, as a number of gentlemen turned to do the squire's errand.
Daft Jack, the town idiot, shambled forward from the rear to the table.
"May be your worship's honour will give me leave to go," he said; "but I should like to give the poor King ninepence." And with that the fool laid the coin on the table.
The commissioner, mindful of the chuckling sound of laughter, threw the piece back to poor Jack, bidding him begone about his business.
The fellow made a gesture of amazement, and then repocketed his money, and shambled off to the other end of the room, talking to himself in his high falsetto voice the while—
"'Tis a long way to Lincoln, and ferries to cross, and nasty bits of road, and footpads and highwaymen about. I wish the squire may get there safely, poor man."
A faint smile at Daft Jack's concern for the prisoner's safe arrival, crossed the commissioner's face. He evidently did not suspect Daft Jack's real intent. Then he called out—
"See you bring the prisoner's portmanteau straight to me, d'ye hear, fool?"
"Yes, yes, your honour," answered Jack.
"James Tankersley, wheelwright," the clerk read out, and the wheelwright stepped forward, well known as a poor, but industrious man, the sole support of an aged mother and his sisters, two sickly women.
"Hast the honour to be chosen to serve his Majesty, Tankersley," grinned the commissioner.
"Would ask nothing better, your worship, but my poor old mother and my misters depend on me for their bread."
"That's no affair of mine, man. The day after to-morrow you march with me. If you skulk, you'll be shot as a deserter, that's all."
The big fellow trembled like a leaf in the wind.
"Oh! your honour," he cried, in a choking voice, "have pity on us. 'Twill kill my mother."
"Stop your snivelling!" shouted the commissioner, "or I'll have you strapped up and flogged. If you're a damned coward, pay me ten pounds for a discharge."
"Ten pounds!" cried the poor fellow; "I haven't a pound in the world, and half the wood in the yard isn't paid for."
Farmer Brewer came to the front, and said: "I will buy his discharge."
"God bless you, Mr. Brewer," said the wheelwright.
"Brewer? Have we that name on the list?" asked the commissioner of his clerk.
Then the two of them rummaged among their papers, but seemed to have no record of the farmer's existence. At length the commissioner looked up and said—
"A man who has ten pounds to spare for another must be well to pass, Mr. Brewer. Fifty pounds for the King will be no burdensome demand."
A murmur went round the room, for the farmer had lost heavily in the flood, and everybody knew that he had never prospered greatly. Something to this effect, Brewer began to plead, but was cut short.
"I am not here to argue, my man, but to collect money. If you are obstinate, I have the means at hand to persuade you feelingly. Bring the sixty pounds by three o'clock, or you will learn what they are. Corporal, pass this man out."
So things went on, man after man being bullied and threatened, and sent off to scrape money according to the commissioner's assessment. The proceedings were exciting enough at the time, but they would be wearisome to narrate. They were interrupted by Daft Jack's return, in less than the hour allotted, with the squire's portmanteau, which he dumped down with a bang just inside the room, saying as he sat down on the floor with his back against the door, mopping his face, "I can't carry it a step furder; take it to his honour, one of you." At a nod from the corporal, one of his men went forward with it, and placed it on the table. The clerk opened it for the inspection of his chief, when with a humming and buzzing noise which filled the room, a swarm of angry wasps rushed out. What happened then I cannot describe. I saw the commissioner and his clerk striking, dancing, in a frenzy, through a darting haze of furious insects.
Looking the other way, I saw a mass of hunched backs and bent heads, helter skelter to the door. Exit thus was too slow for my fancy, with a cloud of wasps round my head, so I jumped from the only window which opened door-wise. It was a good long drop to the ground, but several active men followed me. We found Squire Stovin in saddle in front of the inn, his feet tied under the horse's belly, his guards mounted on each side, and a big crowd gathered round them, hustling and jostling one another in a manner that boded no good to the troopers, most of the men having their poles in their hands. Mischief would have begun before now, but for Mr. Stovin's authority with the fellows. Shortly, the corporal came out to say that the commissioner being unable to give the instructions for which the men were waiting, he would take the responsibility of setting the squire free on parole. Mr. Stovin readily gave it; his bonds were removed, and a mob escorted him home, huzzaing until they were hoarse. Host Hind told me that Tunstall and his clerk were fearfully stung, and in no small danger. "His head's near as big as his belly," said Hind of the commissioner. About him I had no concern, but much about poor Jack, who would be horribly punished, doubtless, if he were caught. And, besides, I felt some curiosity. I found Jack in his one-roomed hovel at the south end of the town, with a quantity of articles spread out on the clay floor: a pair of cleat boards, a leather bottle, a whittle, coils of wire and band, a ball of worsted string, fish-hooks, corks, cross-bow, a few cakes of black bread, and other things, some of which he was in process of transferring to his many and capacious pockets.
"I'm going to my hunting-lodge on Thorne moors," said he, with perfect gravity.
"A little money may be of use," I said, tendering some.
"No, thank you, Mester Frank," he replied. "I'm not likely to want any. There's a plenty of hares, rabbits, moor-fowl, fish, eggs on my estate."
Jack's confidence was well grounded, I knew, as he had the utmost skill in placing a snare for a rabbit, snickling a pike, or luring a bird within shot.
"Do you mind telling me how you came to put a wasp's nest into the squire's portmanteau, Jack?"
"All a mistake through being deep in thought, Mester Frank."
"How so?"
"Coming down the drive, I see a wasp-hole in the bank. And I wanted wasp-grub for bait. So I clodded the hole, and pulled the nest out, you see."
"But you didn't want live wasps, Jack."
"Live wasps are very good for dibbing, Mester Frank, if you know how to handle 'em. But, being deep in thought, I put the nest into Squire's porkmankle instead of into my handkerchief. And I forgot the nest when I put the porkmankle down, and give it a shake, through being so deep in thought."
"But what were you thinking about so deeply?"
"Tryin to puzzle it out why the pot-bellied man called me a fool."
And Jack looked as if the question still perplexed him.
"Fool, or no fool, Jack, you have done what none of the rest of us had the wit or pluck to do. But he will kill you, if ever he gets well enough to do it."
"If I live till he kills me, I shall be a very old man," Jack replied, with immense scornfulness.
He had now stowed away his properties, some in his pockets, and some in a sack, which he slung over his shoulder, and stood ready for flight. We shook hands, and he said—
"Luke Barnby knows the way to my lodge."
Desirous as I was to return to the vicarage, it took me a long time to do so, for everybody was in the main street, talking and laughing over the sudden break-up of the meeting summoned by the commissioner. Here I met one who had not been present, and wished to hear my account of the affair; there another, who had been present, and wanted to go over it again. A knot of young fellows dragged me into the White Hart, where they drank Daft Jack's health, and the health of the man who had "put him up to the trick." For no reason they had given me the credit of the device, nor did my plain denial quite remove their belief that I had a hand in the business. At last I got away from them, and found all quiet at the vicarage.
It had been agreed to act on the suggestion of the chief constable the following day, and he had engaged to protect the house during the night. Anna, as I had come to name her to myself, had recovered from the shock of the previous evening, and looked charming even with a cross of plaister on her brow. After I had told the true and full story of Daft Jack's achievement, the doctor and the parson prosed alternately, the one describing all the venomous insects known to man, I should think; the other giving instances from history, sacred and profane, of their intervention in human affairs, and seeming to have pleasure in recounting the torture inflicted on an unlucky wight, whose name I forget, by an enemy who had him smeared with honey, and exposed to the stings of bees and wasps. The vicar was too good a Christian to rejoice in the sufferings of the commissioner, but I am sure he got some kind of consolation in the very particular description which he made of the torments of the other man.
Anna was unusually silent, which I hoped might be due to the same thought as kept me so, that of the parting to come on the morrow. I noted with secret delight that the songs she chose, when she went to the spinet at my request, were tinged with a sweet melancholy, which might be that of love.