"Oliver," she said, "you must let me have your coat for half an hour when we are settled in the town, so that I can mend it. The holes in it make me shiver every time I see them."
"You are very kind, madam," said I, still dusting away, lest she should see how my hand trembled.
"Oliver!"
She forced me to look at her now, she spoke so peremptorily, and when the blue eyes met mine they were so clear and intent that I feared she might read my secret.
"Smile!"
Smile! I was to smile, was I? And when our Kate got the news at the Hanyards, the smile would die out of her eyes for ever, for Jack, dear, splendid Jack, was the weft that had been woven into the warp of her being.
"I do not smile to order, madam," said I.
She flicked the mare sharply and cantered up to the level, whither Maclachlan raced after her with the speed of a hound.
On our way into the town a thing happened which greatly shook me, being, as I was, nothing in the world but a small farmer who had never seen the wars. At a point where the rough road cut across a fold in the moorlands we saw, half a mile to our right, a herd of cattle being lashed and chivvied away to the remoter crannies among the hills by a throng of sweating hinds and fanners. Had it happened our way, thought I broodily, Joe and I would be there among the like, saving our own stock from the marauders. Donald looked at them longingly, but our haste brooked no delay, and besides, as he put it to me later, "It's a puir town, but, after a' said, better than a wheen lousy cattle, for I've come by a fine pair o' progues for a twa-three bawbees."
Leek was as full of Highlanders as a wasp-cake is of maggots, and still they were swarming in. Donald and the clansmen, indifferent to the crush and hubbub, clave a way for us to the market-place, where, on the Colonel's advice, they were dismissed to beat for billets. I then took charge and led my companions across to the "Angel," where the throng was so dense that they might have been giving the ale away.
To get the horses stabled and baited was easy enough, for few of the Highlanders rode south, although it was different going north again. Then, leading my companions into the yard, I pushed into the inn and, by good hap, lighted on the host, nearly out of his five wits with trying to understand one word of English in a score of Gaelic.
"Hello, surry!" said I.
"Gom!" said he, "Staffordsheer at last."
"I've heard a lot about Leek ale," said I. "Draw me a mug of it!"
He brought it in a trice, and his face beamed with honest pride as he said, holding it up between my eyes and the light, "What do you think o' that for colour and nap? Damn my bones! None of your London rot-gut, master, but honest Staffordsheer ale. Damme, you can fairly chew the malt in it."
"I'll bet you a guinea I've drunk better," said I, with the aleyard at my lips.
"I'd bet on my own ale," said he, "if the 'Angel' was full of devils let alone petticoats. An', as between friends, y'r 'onour, win or lose, dunna tell my missus you've 'ad better ale than ourn."
I drank off his ale and said judiciously, "No, I haven't. That's the best ale I've ever drunk," and handed him his guinea.
"This'n's a bit of fat along with the lean," said he, spinning the guinea up in the air, and, countrywise, spitting on it for luck. "Be there owt I can do for y'r, sir? A gentleman as knows good ale when he drinks it shudna be neglected for a lot of bare-legged savages that 'anna as much judgment in beer as a sow 'as in draff." He leaned towards me and added in a whisper, "I'm giving 'em bouse I wudna wesh my mare's fetlocks in, an' they're neckin' it as if it was my rale October."
"It was thundery in the summer," said I gravely, whereat he grinned intelligently.
"Y'r 'onour's up to snuff," said he. "Be there owt I can do for y'r, sir?"
"Fetch the missus," said I, "and we'll talk."
The hostess came. Her cheeks were brown as her own ale, and we talked, nineteen to the dozen, for at least ten minutes.
In the end I snapped up the best parlour overlooking the square for Margaret's use, and bedrooms for each of us, paying a substantial bargain-penny, for Mistress Waynflete had handed me back the bag of gold Master Freake had given me. It would be necessary, I found, to oust two or three bare-knees who had marked them for their own, but that could easily be done, if, as was unlikely to be the case, they were sober enough at night to crawl bedwards. These arrangements made, I pushed out and fetched in Margaret, who was very grateful for what I had done, and went off to her room, while we three men took our stand on the bricked causeway and watched the doings in the square.
We saw two or three battalions swing into the square from the Macclesfield road, and the Colonel scanned them keenly, and, as I thought, anxiously. Even to my untrained eye they were a mixed lot; the bulk of them, to be sure, were stout, active, well-armed fighting men, who marched in fair order, six or eight abreast; but there were numbers of oldish men and boys among them, and many were but indifferently armed.
"What do you number all told?" asked the Colonel.
Maclachlan answered in French. There was now no mistaking the gravity in the Colonel's face, and he took snuff so thoughtfully that, for the first time, he forgot me.
"Excuse me, my dear lad," said he, recovering himself and thrusting out the box towards me. "I hope there's a tobacco-man in the town who sells right Strasburg. I'm running out, and rappee and Brazil are mere rubbish to the cultivated palate." Then, looking around the square, he added cheerily, "Quite a show for the townsmen!"
Just in front of us, standing on the edge of the gutter, was a little, ancient, distinguished dame, who had been watching the scene with quick, avid eyes. She turned her fierce, scornful face up to the Colonel, and said, "Yes, sir! You are right. It's a show, just a show, for the townsmen. Yet I remember that, thirty years ago, the fathers of these spiritless curs were as eager for the cause as is the eagle for his quarry."
"So, madam," said the Colonel very gently.
"So, indeed," she returned. "But now, in their accursed grubbing for money, they have rooted up every finer instinct, and they think only of their tradings in silks with the Court ladies of London. Better a fine gown sold to godless Caroline than a stout blow struck for God-anointed James."
She was beyond doubt a lady of quality, but fallen on poverty and now, worst of all to her, on evil, faithless days. As she stopped, short of breath with her sharp speaking, for she was very ancient, a mean lout of a man edged himself up against her to get a better position for watching the arrival of another body of clansmen. In a fierce access of rage she struck him with the ebony stick on which she leaned and, almost hissing the words at him, said, "Back to your buttons and your tassels, Thomas Ashley, and get grace by thinking on your worthy father!"
The man sidled off, and she continued, addressing the Colonel, "In the fifteen his father was one of us, and suffered worthily."
"For what, madam?" I asked.
"For the cause," she replied.
"For what particular service to the cause, madam?" I persisted.
"He was zealous against the schismatics, sir," she said boldly.
"Madam," was my reply, "if the zeal of any one of us, townsman or clansman, takes the same form this day, I shall certainly wring his neck. We can fight for Charles without burning chapels."
"Smite-and-spare-not would subscribe to that doctrine," said Margaret, thrusting her way gently between the Colonel and me, and hooking a hand round an arm of each of us. Putting her lips to my ear, she whispered merrily, "Push of pike and the Word," and then looked so winningly at me that the black shadow lifted, and I smiled back at her.
And now the craning of necks at the angle where the great road curved into the square, betokened something out of the ordinary, which turned out to be the arrival of the Prince's life-guards. They were splendid, well-mounted fellows, clothed in blue, faced with red, and scarlet waistcoats heavy with gold. With them were the leading chiefs of the army, and I heard Maclachlan reeling off their names and qualities in the Colonel's ear. The guard, in number some sixscore, formed three sides of a square and sat their horses, while one of the leaders proclaimed James and took possession of the town.
The cheers of the clansmen died away, only to be renewed more loudly and proudly when another column swept into the square. Here, indeed, were men apt for war and the battle, six abreast and a hundred files deep, with a dozen pipers piping their mightiest, and a great standard flinging to the breeze its proudTandem triumphans. At their head strode a tall young man, very comely and proper, with a frank, resolute, intelligent face. He was dressed in the Highland fashion, with a blue bonnet topped with a white rosette, a broad, blue ribbon over his right shoulder, and a star upon his breast. The thronging thousands of clansmen burst into thundering volleys of Gaelic yells, the waiting leaders bared their heads and bowed, and I knew it was the Prince.
After a short consultation with his intimate counsellors, Charles walked almost directly towards us, making, as it seemed, for the fine house that neighboured the "Angel."
Even the townsmen, as he approached, raised their hats and cheered a little, for he was on sight a man to be liked. When I hear sad tales of him now, I think of him as I saw him then, and as I knew him in those few stirring days when hope spurred him on, and the star of his destiny had not yet climbed to its zenith. I come of a stock that sets no value on princes, and I would not now lift a hand to snatch the Stuarts out of the grave they have dug for themselves, but it is due to him, and, above all, due to the chiefs and clansmen who followed and fought and died for him, to say that the Bonnie Charlie I knew was every inch of him a man and a prince to his finger-tips.
Maclachlan darted out and dropped on his knee before Charles, who, with kindly impatience, seized the shoulder-knot of his plaid, haled him to his feet, and plied him with a throng of questions. At some reply made by the young chief, Charles turned his eyes on us, and, easily picking out the Colonel, made for him with eager outstretched hands. For his part, the Colonel stepped clear of the crowd on the causeway and stood at the salute. He was, I thought, the most self-possessed person in the square, and, indeed, was taking a pinch of snuff as soon as the formality was over, while Margaret was red and white by turns, and I shook at the knees as if expecting the Prince, in the manner of old Bloggs, to call me out and thrash me soundly.
The joy of the Prince at being joined by Colonel Waynflete was overflowing.
"My Lord Murray has talked of you," I heard him say, "until I felt that you were the one man in England that mattered, and now here you are. I must tell Sheridan and all of them the good news."
He turned off and called to a group of men near him, and several of them came up and were made known to the Colonel. After more handshaking and chatting, the eager Prince caught the Colonel by the arm and was for dragging him off into the house destined for his lodging, but the Colonel in his turn resisted and led him towards Margaret.
"My daughter, sir," he said, briefly and proudly.
Off came the bonnet, and Charles bowed low and greeted her with very marked courtesy.
"Your prince, madam," he said, "but also your very humble servant. My Court is a small one, and you are as important and welcome an addition to it as is your distinguished father to my army. Swounds, Colonel," turning to him with a merry smile, "I shall put a flea in his lordship's ear when I see him at Derby. He never so much as mentioned your daughter. Man, one might as well talk of stars and forget Venus!"
"There is this excuse for him, sir," said the Colonel, very sedately, "that on the only occasion on which my Lord Murray saw her, which was at Turin in 1738, she was a whirlwind of arms and legs, long plaits and short petticoats."
"Whereas now she--but I will reserve my opinion for the shelter of a fan in a secluded corner at my next little Court." Then, very abruptly, fixing his eyes on me, all of a swither, with my milk-stained cap in my hand, "And whom have we here?"
Whereupon, strangely enough, forgetting all courtliness, Margaret, the Colonel, and Maclachlan fell over one another, so to speak, in telling the Prince who I was. For a few seconds there was a gabble of introductions, which made me feel hot and foolish.
"One at a time," laughed the Prince, "and, of course, Mistress Waynflete first."
"Your Royal Highness," said Margaret, "this is my splendid friend and gallant comrade, Oliver Wheatman."
"Enough, and more than enough, for a poor Prince Adventurer. Give me but the leavings of your friendship and comradeship, Master Wheatman, and I shall be beholden to you. And now, excuse us, madam, I have much to say to your father."
"Sir," said I, "I crave a little boon."
"You begin well," he said, and added, after a little laugh, "With all my heart."
"Here at hand," said I, "is an ancient lady who has faced this rough crowd and this bitter weather to see the Prince of her heart's desire. She is brave as a lion for you, but too modest to do more than stand and pray for you."
And then he did one of those princely things that made rough men willing to be cut down in swathes for him. He strode up to her and seized her trembling hands.
"Nay, kneel not, dear lady," he said, putting an arm around her to restrain her.
"God bless your Royal Highness, and give you victory," she said brokenly. "This is the hour I have prayed for daily these thirty years, and I thank God for giving us a Prince so worthy of an earthly throne. The Lord shall yet have mercy upon Jacob."
"I thank God," said Charles, "for giving me a friend like you."
His green plaid was looped up at his shoulder by a fine brooch, a cairngorm set in a silver rim. This he took off, and pinned it on the trembling woman's breast.
"Wear this from me and for me," he said, speaking with great feeling. Tears were standing in Margaret's eyes, there was a big lump in my throat, and the Colonel was wasting precious Strasburg on the cobbles in the square. When the Prince had pinned it there, he doffed his bonnet, bent gracefully down, kissed her on the lips, and so left her. The standers-by now cheered in earnest, and the ancient dame fell on her knees in prayer. When she rose she plucked her robe around her, safeguarding her royal gift in her withered hands, and was for timidly stealing away.
"Madam," said I, "I think you are alone."
"Yes, sir," she whispered.
I offered her my arm, saying, "Allow me to escort you to your home?"
The sharp eyes swept over me from my belt upward, and then, without a word, she placed her arm in mine. I looked around to bow to Margaret before starting, but she had disappeared.
We soon reached her house or, rather, cottage, which was in a street behind the west side of the square. She was too tottery, too dazzled, too afflated to speak on the way thither, but, at the door, when with a bow I was intending to leave her, she bade me, in a madam-like way that cut off debate or refusal, to enter with her.
Plain to the casual eye, it was the home of decayed gentility. Here would be refined eating of a dinner of herbs, solaced by talk of prideful yesterdays. You saw it in the few things that still kept their grip on the past: on the wall an old, black painting of a knight in ruff and quilted doubtlet; a pounce-box and a hawking-glove on the chimney-piece, and above it an oval scutcheon, with a golden eaglenaissantfrom afesse vert. And hope was ever new-born here, but it was the hope centred in the Virgin-Mother, posed in ivory over a woodenprie-Dieu. Nor did I feel that I had shifted from my familiar moorings as I bowed my head when she knelt in prayer.
"Madam," said I, when, with a happy face, she rose and turned and thanked me, "it is in your power to do me a great kindness."
"I shall, then, most surely do it."
"I ask you to pray for the soul of John Dobson."
"He was your friend?" she said gently.
"My friend from boyhood, madam, and this morning I slew him." There was silence for a space. Then she said, "I will pray daily for the soul of your friend, and for you that God will have mercy upon you and give you peace. We women, who can only pray, do not, I fear, realize how, for our men, the facts of life seem to make havoc of our creeds."
"You are right, madam," I said sombrely. "For me to-day there is no God in heaven."
"Yet the morrow cometh," she replied confidently. "It has come for me. My mind goes back to the time when the evil began that our glorious Prince is now uprooting. In eighty-eight, when I was a maid of some twenty Junes, not uncomely as I remember myself in my mirror, though not comparable with your sweet and splendid mistress, we, then the ancient Hardys of Hardywick, gave our all and lost our all for the cause. Yon scutcheon then hung in a noble hall. I have looked at it with pride and, God be thanked, without regret, during nearly sixty years of loneliness and poverty, but I shall die rich and friended in the possession of this."
She lifted the brooch to her lips and kissed it, and then, poor soul, broke into a fit of coughing that racked her thin frame. A comely serving-woman rushed in to her aid, and together we seated her near the fire and wrapped a shawl around her. She seemed as one who slept with half-shut eyes and dreamed.
"She's of'n tuk like this'n," whispered her woman. "As lively as a lass at a wedding for an hour maybe, and then dreamy and dead-like for hours at a stretch. She's seventy-six come June, but I dunna think she'll live to see it, and to be sure, God bless her, I shall be glad to see her broken heart at rest."
She put a smelling-bottle to her mistress's nose, and bathed the white lips with eau-de-Luce.
"I love her no end," she said simply.
It was time to go. I dropped on my knee and kissed the fair, thin, wrinkled hand. At the touch of my lips she spoke again:
"Good-bye, Harold, my beloved! The God of all good causes go with thee!"
She was back in the long-ago with her lover at her knee, sending him off to fight for the cause, and the ringless finger showed that he had never come back.
I stole out of the room with a mist in my eyes.
When I got on the corner by the Prince's lodging, the first thing that caught my eye was a calash drawn up in the middle of the square, with two very elegant ladies in it, and a sprig of a blackamoor in green breeches and yellow doublet at the horse's head. Margaret and Maclachlan were standing by, and a merry rattle of conversation was going on between them and the new-comers, though Margaret, her quick mind interested in the vivid scenes around, kept turning her head to sweep the square with her eyes.
I had always felt and, for the most part I trust, observed the difference between us, but it struck me now like a blow between the eyes. It was easy to see that Margaret, for all her grey domino, was the mistress of the gay, courtly group; easy, too, to catch the meaning of the eyes the stranger ladies made at one another as they noted with amusement the young Chief's infatuation. Well, he was there, and I was here, by right. I said so to myself very savagely, that there should be no mistake about it, but I must admit to a sour taste in my mouth as I pushed into a passing group of clansmen, and then dodged behind a clump of ammunition wagons, and so got into a side-alley unseen by those searching eyes.
I came to an ale-house where I managed very well, for all that it had its full share of clansmen stuffed into it, making a square meal of bread and cheese and cold bacon, washed down with excellent ale. I made a point of marking myself off as an Englishman by paying for my meal in the English fashion.
Sallying forth, and still avoiding the square, I roamed round the little town, distracting my mind by forcing an interest in what was going on. The Highlanders were happy, noisy, and full of confidence--not unjustly, for so far they had played ninepins with the Royal troops. Everywhere they were hard at it, sharpening dirks and claymores and furbishing muskets, and such of their talk as I could understand was all of battle imminent. In the churchyard I found a number of them practising shooting, with a grand old cross as a target. They had chipped it somewhat already. I cursed them roundly and then bargained it off at the price of a few shillings. They turned their attention, with hopeful grins, to the brass weathercock on the church tower, which I did not deem worth saving. Moreover, it was a better mark, and good shooting was to be encouraged.
I mooned around for an hour or so, very miserable. If my mind was idle a moment, I saw Jack's body lying in the dim-lit passage and the calash in the market-square.
Tired of watching the Highlanders, I suddenly struck out for the "Angel," intending to see how the horses were doing, a necessary task which I was to blame for neglecting so long. I was going at a great pace along by the shops on one side of the square and, in heedlessly passing a mercer's, had to skip aside to avoid a finely dressed lady coming out of the door, with the shopmaster, his nose nearly at his knees, bowing behind her. She was a stranger to me and, moreover, I had my eye on the spot where the calash had stood, so that, having clean avoided her, I was for striding on, but she said sharply, "What do you mean by such conduct, sir?"
I cannot remember any other occasion in my life when I have been so completely taken aback. The elegant lady who stood there, a quizzing smile on her face and a roguish twinkle in her eyes, was Margaret.
"I've waited and waited your honour's convenience till I could wait no longer," she said.
There was still the delightful mock anger in her voice, but the smile and twinkle changed their meaning, so to speak. At least I, who delighted to watch the varying shades of expression sweep over her exquisite face, thought so as I stood there, twizzling my cap in my hand, and feeling an utter fool.
"You cannot expect a perfect match in this light," she went on, plainly enjoying my discomfiture, "especially as I have had to carry the colour in my eye."
"No, madam," said I desperately, having to say something, but not having the faintest idea of what she was driving at.
"I disclaim all responsibility if it's a bungle. It will be your fault entirely. Your arm, sir!"
I offered her my arm, into which she slipped hers, jammed on my wretched hat, and together we made for the "Angel." Of course we must meet Maclachlan, to complete my misery I suppose, and he was keen on joining us, but Margaret disposed of him in a way that reminded me of Kate shooing a turkey off from her feeding chickens. Arrived at the "Angel," she led the way to her parlour overlooking the square, dragged me hurriedly to the window, and undid the packet. From it she took a patch of cloth and a hank of silk thread. These she first dabbed on my sleeve, and then flourished before my eyes.
"Quite a good match after all! Do they suit me, Oliver?"
She was dressed in a cinnamon-brown joseph, buttoned at the waist, and showing, above and below, an under-dress of supple woven material, creamy in colour and flowered in golden silk. A hat of a military cast, made of some short-napped fur and set off with a great white panache, half hid and half revealed her masses of yellow hair.
"You look perfect," I said emphatically.
"For my Prince," she replied softly. "Off with your coat, and let me show you what sort of a housewife I am."
I did as she bade me, and she doffed hat and joseph. She set me comfortably before the fire in an elbow-chair, and handed me a new pipe and a fresh paper of tobacco, and insisted on my smoking. Then, sitting almost at my feet in a squat rush-bottomed chair, with quaint bow legs and a back like a yard of ladder, she set to work on the holes Brocton's rapier had made in my coat.
I felt very cubbish as I sat feeding my soul on the picture she made as she bent over her stitchery. A rare hobbledehoy I was in my villainous coat, but what I looked like in my shirt-sleeves, good linen enough but home-made and with never a shred of cuff or ruff to them, was past imagining.
She was quite silent too, and though talk of any sort would have been distasteful to me then, for the picture was enough, I could not help remembering how she had rattled on with Maclachlan. Here was another cursed deficiency. My conversation was as country-like and poverty-stricken as my clothes. I had always ruled the roast at our market ordinaries, where I was looked upon as a bit of a fop and a miracle of learning, and even my farming was solemnly respected because I was so hard and ready a hitter. Here, in a parlour and with her, so beautiful that even her beautiful dress scarce attracted a passing glance, I was dull and ill at ease. The only thing I did, except to look at her, was to let my pipe out and light it again, time after time.
"The man in the shop told me," Margaret said, "that was the best tobacco that comes from the Americas."
"I should think it is," said I; "I've never smoked better."
"It gives you a lot of trouble," she answered, and stayed her stitching for a moment to look at me.
"Did you get some right Strasburg for the Colonel?" I asked.
"No. Is he running short?"
"Yes," said I.
"And no marvel, either. He puts his snuff-box under his pillow, and when I take him his chocolate of a morning, he takes a long, affectionate pinch, and then says, 'Good morrow, sweetheart!'"
I laughed, and then fell silent and wondered. While I had been loafing about the town, she had been attending to my small whims and needs.
And now, after a smart rap at the door, in flounced a sprightly, elegant lady, very gay and very certain of herself.
"What a charming, domestic picture!" she broke out. "I fear I intrude, Margaret dear, but I'm going to stay. The girl is bringing up the tea, and I'm positively dying for a cup and a sit-down. Of course this"--turning gaily round on me, standing there like a great gawk, volubly cursing my shirt-sleeves under my breath--"is the incomparable Oliver! Charmed to meet you, sir!"
I bowed, and Margaret said staidly, "Yes, my lady. This is Master Oliver Wheatman of the Hanyards. Oliver, I have the privilege of introducing you to the Lady Ogilvie."
I bent in the middle again and gabbled something. It was suitable to the occasion, I hope.
Lady Ogilvie eyed me up and down carefully, much as I should overlook a bullock I had a mind to buy.
"When Davie left me at Macclesfield I told him I'd be guid, and I will be guid, but I wish he hadn't asked me," she said. "Never mind! At Derby, when we meet again, my promise will be lapsed, and I shall flirt with you, sir, most furiously."
"Really, my lady," I replied, "my knowledge of the art of flirtation is merely rudimentary, but I always understood that it required two."
"Naturally," she retorted, "that's its great charm."
"I see my mistake now," said I, as if thoughtfully. Margaret sat with her needle poised for a stitch, and waited.
"You're learning already, you see! What is it?" said Lady Ogilvie.
"One and a bit would suffice when your ladyship was the one," I said boldly.
Margaret laughed and resumed the swift play of her needle.
"Indeed so, and I've struck sparks out of turnips in my time," she replied, with much complaisance. "There's a glisk of intelligence about ye now that was sair to seek when I came into the room. Men are like diamonds, you must know, Margaret darling, all the better for being cut and rubbed. I'll teach ye things, sir, at and after Derby, that is. Till then I'm to be verra guid."
The bringing in of the tea interrupted us. Over the cups, though Margaret stuck to her work, there was gay talk about the main business of the day--the supper and ball to come.
"The men will simply rave over you, dear," she said to Margaret. "There's only six of us, seven with you added, you see, for no town ladies wait on His Royal Highness nowadays, and I'm danced off my feet. Maclachlan will want you every time, and you'll be wise to have him as often as possible, for he dances like a fairy. Davie's none so bad, but Maclachlan is just grand. And the incomparable one," grimacing prettily at me, "will foot it trippingly by the look of him."
"I dance like a three-legged bear," said I, grim enough at having my defects brought home to me.
"Is it that you're telling me?" she replied. "Legs like yours and no music in them! Well, well, I'll take you in hand, that's flat. At Derby, of course."
"Now, Oliver, pray attend to the simpler matters that I deal with," said Margaret, cutting off the last needle of silk. "I've done the best I can for you. Come and appraise my work!"
She held the coat up by the collar, and I stepped forward and examined it.
"Marvellous!" said I. "It's as good as new."
Her ladyship screeched with laughter. "Oh, you courtier!" she said. "I never saw anything better done at the Tuileries. Look a foot higher, you rogue!"
Still even there the job was neatly and thoroughly done, and I thanked Margaret for it heartily. With my coat on, I brightened up, and indeed I had need to, for most of their talk was in and about a world of which I knew nothing. Thanks to Margaret's hints and half-lights, I did well enough.
There came a gentle rap at the door and then, without further ceremony, the Colonel bowed in a visitor. In the twilight at the door there was no seeing who the new-comer was, but as he stepped forward the full light revealed him. It was Prince Charles.
"Stir not, ladies, on your allegiance!" he said gaily. I rose, bowed him into my chair, and stood behind him.
"Oddsfish, as my great uncle used to say, I've come to save your life, Master Wheatman!"
"You need not trouble, sir," said I, "to save what is freely yours to throw away."
"Very well said, sir," he answered, "and I shall not forget it."
"Good lad, Oliver!" said the Colonel, dipping for his snuff-box.
"Still, I must prove my point!" said Charles, smiling merrily. "My Court consists of precisely seven ladies and an unlimited number of gentlemen, the latter, for the most part, fiery chiefs who slash off men's heads as if they were tops of thistles. Yet here are you, sir, keeping two of them all to yourself. And such a two! Lady Ogilvie, whose charms are without blemish--"
"Nay, sir," said I.
"May I pull his ears, Your Highness?" asked her ladyship tartly.
"You may," said Charles, "unless he proves his point. A Prince must be just, you know!"
"That's fair," said Margaret.
"Of course," retorted Lady Ogilvie. "He'll be right if he says I've an eye like an ox and a mouth like a frog."
"Save your ears, Master Wheatman!" said Charles, grinning at me. "What's the blemish?"
"Davie!" said I.
The Prince rocked with laughter, and her ladyship enjoyed it quite as fully.
"It's the smartest hit I've heard since I left Paris," said the Prince.
"Sir," said I, "be good enough to explain. Who is Davie?"
"Her ladyship's husband," he replied.
"Damme!" I ejaculated. "I thought he was only an ordinary Scotchman." Whereat everybody laughed.
"A most delightful interlude in a heavy day's work," said the Prince. "I am unfeignedly vexed, ladies, at having to rob you of so agreeable a cavalier, but I need Master Wheatman myself."
Half an hour later the Colonel stood with me at the town's end to give me my final instructions. I was on Sultan, with urgent letters in my pocket and important work on hand.
We took a pinch of snuff together very solemnly. Then he snapped his box, rubbed Sultan's velvet nose, shook my hand, said good-bye gruffly, and strode back townward. I cantered on into the open road and the night.
Here was what I had dreamed of. Here was the dearest wish of my heart gratified. I was twenty-three, and I had three-and-twenty's darling equipment--a magnificent horse, a pair of unerring pistols, a fine rapier, a pocket full of guineas, the memory of a woman's grace and beauty, and a tough job in hand. The only material thing I really wanted was a new hat, for yester morning's milk and subsequent bashings and bruisings had ruined my old one. I had not bothered about it as long as it had bobbed alongside the grey woollen hood of Margaret's domino, but, cheek by jowl with her new hat, it had become an offence, and must be remedied.
The black shadow flitted in and out of my mind. I was clean and clear of all blood-guiltiness. I had struck for Margaret as he would have struck for Kate. Fate had been too strong for us, but whatever penance life should lay upon me should be paid to the uttermost farthing. I had this comfort that, could Jack ride up to me now, there would be no change in him. There would be for me the old hearty hand-grip and the boyish, affectionate smile, just as when he had run in to me on the town-hall steps.
I had been commissioned by the Prince to do three things: first, to deliver a dispatch to my Lord George Murray, wherever I should find him, which would probably be at Ashbourne, twelve miles ahead along a good road; second, to carry a letter to Sir James Blount at his house called Ellerton Grange, somewhere near Uttoxeter; third, to make a wide circuit west and south of Derby, picking up all the information I could as to the feeling of the populace and the disposition of the enemy's forces, and to report on this to the Prince in person at Derby at six o'clock the following night. On this third commission the Prince and Colonel Waynflete had laid great stress. An independent and trustworthy report was, it appeared, of the utmost importance.
Finally, as a dependent commission arising out of the first of the duties imposed on me by the Prince, I bore a letter to my Lord Ogilvie from her ladyship. She had summoned me willy-nilly to her room privily.
"Tell Davie yonder that I'm very well and very, very guid," she said, as she handed me the letter.
"With infinite pleasure, my lady," I replied.
"It will be true, ye ken," she asserted, as if there was a corner for dubiety in her own mind regarding the matter.
"Solemnly and obviously true, my lady," I agreed.
"Oh, thou incomparable Oliver, I wish you were a lass," she said, lifting her merry, girlish face level with mine, and putting a hand on each of my shoulders.
"Why, my lady?" I said, straightening at her touch.
"Then you could give Davie this as well!" which said, she pecked lightly at me with her sweet lips and kissed me.
It had flustered me greatly, but she only laughed ringingly and delightsomely as I backed out of the room. And when, door-knob in hand, I made my last bow, she had wagged her finger at me for emphasis and said, "Dinna forget to tell Davie I'm very guid."
Good she was, as beaten gold, and she kept her spirits up to this high pitch to the very end. You can read in Mr. Volunteer Ray's history of the whole affair of the 'Forty-five' how, after Culloden, she was taken prisoner while dressing for the ball which was to crown the expected victory.
I smiled a young man's smile as I thought of it. Experience was writing some items on the credit side of my new account with life. I had met a winsome lady of title and she had kissed me. Margaret, behind my back and to a third party, had called me an "incomparable" something. What, I knew not,--"servant" probably, but I cared not what.
Mile after mile passed without incident of any kind until, at a second's notice, I rode into a ring of muskets which closed round me out of vacancy as if by magic. It was the outermost picket of the army at Ashbourne. I gave the parole, "Henry and Newcastle," and demanded a guide to my Lord George Murray's quarters. There came a Gaelic grunt out of the gloom; men and muskets disappeared, with the exception of a single clansman, who seized Sultan's bridle and led me into the town.
The General was quartered at the "Swan with Two Necks," a very respectable hostelry, where my first care was to have a cloth thrown over Sultan, and to order for him a bucket of warm small beer with three or four handfuls of oatmeal stirred into it. While this was adoing, and I was awaiting a summons to his lordship's presence, I took a nip of brandy in the public room of the inn, and over it amused myself by reading a crude fly-sheet nailed on the wall, offering a reward of fifty guineas to anyone giving information leading to the arrest of one Samuel Nixon, commonly called 'Swift Nicks,' a notorious highwayman, six feet high, of very genteel appearance, well-spoken, but a cruel, bloody ruffian with it all. The Highlander interrupted my reading by beckoning me to follow him. Upstairs we went, and he ushered me into a room where were two gentlemen seated on opposite sides of a table on which were a small map and two large glasses containing a yellowish liquid.
The younger of them was of much the same general appearance as Maclachlan, though by the look of him a simpler and sweeter man. The other, a middle-aged, domineering man with a powerful face, looked angrily at me as I handed him my dispatch.
He read it impatiently, threw it down beside the map, and said, "They're coming on to-night, Davie." Then, curtly to me, "Your name, sir?"
"Wheatman of the Hanyards."
"Hanyards? Humph! Are you an Irishman?"
"No, my lord. Not even a Scotchman!"
He glared at me, but his companion laughed, and said, "That's one under your short ribs, Geordie!"
"Damn the Irish!" cried Murray. "They're the ruination of the whole business, Davie, and ye know it."
"Of course they are," he replied, "but that's no reason for telling it to an English loon who thinks less of a Scotchman than he does of a pickelt herring."
"That may be, my lord," said I to him, "but I think so well of one Scottish lady that I'm proud to be her humble courier." And I handed him his letter.
"Man! man!" he said ecstatically, as he ripped it open, "ye're welcome as sunshine in December. It's from Ishbel. God bless her pretty face!"
He read the letter eagerly and then thrust it into his bosom.
"I am, further," I went on, "entrusted with a message from her ladyship."
"God bless her! Out with it, man, out with it!"
"I was to inform you that she was very, very good," said I, soberly as a judge passing sentence.
"What do you think of that, Geordie Murray? Very, very guid! Eh, man, isn't she a monkey? God bless her!"
"I'll send the whole lot of 'em packing off back to Edinburgh," said Murray. "Women are a nuisance on a campaign. Your Ishbel, be hanged to her, wants a carriage all her own and another for her fineries."
"Ye ken a lot about soldiering, Geordie," retorted Ogilvie, "no man more, but ye ken less about soldiers than a lad of ten. At Gladsmuir I said to MacIntosh, 'Let's get the damn thing over, Sandy, and be back to breakfast wi' the leddies!' And we did."
"You did so," acknowledged Murray. "Now, Davie, take our courier out and feed him. I thank you, sir! You have ridden speedily. Your pace is faster than your tongue."
"My lord," said I, "although I am doing his Royal Highness such poor service as lies in me, I am not yet duly acting under his commission and authority."
"What of it?" he asked.
"Hence I am not an officer under your command, my lord!"
"Excellent logic! And the therefore, my beef-eating friend, is....?"
"That I would as lief knock your head off as look at you!"
"When you are an officer," cried he, "by gad, sir, I'll teach ye the manners of an officer. Till then, my birkie," rising and holding out his hand, "guid luck to ye!"
We shook hands heartily and so parted.
"He's a grand man is Geordie Murray," said Ogilvie, as he led me to another room across the landing. "Just a wee bit birsy, maybe, but these damned Irish have got his kail through the reek. They're o'ermuch on his spirits of late."
All his other talk was of his lady, though he looked well enough after me, and I made a good meal of the better half of a cold chicken, a cottage loaf, and a tankard of poor ale. Ashbourne is noted, say the wise in such matters, for the best malt and the poorest ale in England.
I am overmuch English, as is often the case with us who live in the very heart of England. The famous Mr. Johnson is a shire-fellow of mine, and very proud I am of it, and reckon it among the greatest events of my life that he has bullyragged me soundly for differing from him, and being right, about a line of Virgil he had misquoted in my hearing. Like Mr. Johnson, I love men and loathe dancing-masters, and these Scotsmen were men indeed, my Lord Ogilvie, as I came to know later, one of the choicest. He was a spare-built man, in years thirty or thereabouts, with a face all lines and angles, and dotted with pock-marks. For a lord, his purse was very bare of guineas, and nature had made up for it by giving him a belly full of pride. For him, the Highland line had been the boundary of the known world, so that his mind was a chequer-work of curious ignorance and knowledge.
From the first I liked him for his joy in his dainty lady. She was the daughter of a cadet of a distant branch of the famous Bobbing John's family, and had spent nearly all her life in France till, on a chance visit to Scotland, she had been snapped up by Ogilvie. They were a strangely matched pair, she from the gaysalonsof Paris, he from the misty mountains of the north; but mutual love had assorted them to admiration, for the heart of each was sound as a bell.
Between bites I answered questions as to how she had looked, what she'd said, done, and so forth.
"Was she wearing her brown riding-coat with the pretty wee shoulder capes?" he asked.
"No," said I, becoming more interested.
"Or her creamy dress with the gold flowers all over it?"
"No," said I again, smiling at my discoveries.
"She's keeping 'em for London," he explained. "Gosh, man! She will look divine in 'em."
"She won't," said I, clipping away at the sweet bits still hanging on the carcass of my chicken.
"It'll take your logic all its time to keep six inches o' cauld steel out of your brisket," he said very fiercely.
"Never had better chicken in my life," said I, watching him out of one eye--quite enough for any Scotsman.
"Damn the chicken!" he roared. "Why won't she?"
"Because she's given 'em away," I explained in my airiest tones.
"The blue blazes of hell!" gasped his lordship. "Given 'em away, and they cost me twenty pounds English! Given 'em away!" he whined, utterly lost for words, "given 'em away! The callack's clean dawpit. Twenty pounds good English money!"
"Nothing like enough!" said I. "You'll be sorry it wasn't two hundred."
Two hundred pounds English was, however, something too stupendous for his mind to grasp, and the gibe had no effect on him. While I finished my ale he chuntered away in his own Gaelic.
"I'll mak' it up in London," he said at length, "but it'll be the deil's own job."
"It will indeed," I agreed, and drained my tankard dry.
A look at my watch told me it was time to set about my second commission. Sultan was brought from the stable, fit as a fiddle and eager to be going. I examined my pistols, ran the tuck up and down in its scabbard, leaped on Sultan, and asked for the Uttoxeter road.
My Lord Ogilvie parted from me on the fairest terms, bringing me with his own hands a great stirrup-cup, or "dock-an-torus," as he called it.
"Man," said he, "I'm right glad to be acquent wi' ye. I was thinking I'd gang all the way to London without coming across a man worth fighting, much less friending, but I was in the wrang of it. Here's to ye!"
"My lord," said I, "you match your sweet lady. Both of you have been wondrous kind to a hard-hit man."
We gripped hands, saluted, and parted.
It was all but pitch-dark, and the moon was not due to rise for more than an hour, but the sky was clear and the stars were out in masses for company and guidance. Ellerton Grange was near Uttoxeter, and Uttoxeter was a sizeable townlet just inside my own county, and some fifteen miles from Ashbourne. The road was the usual cross-road, all of it bad and most of it vile. I left the going to Sultan, who did the best he could, like the gallant and experienced creature he was. There was nothing for me to do except to keep a good look out and the north star just behind my right hand.
My mind was busy going over all the memories of the last three days. I tried hard, but in vain, to skip the black part, the thought of which made me flinch as if the branding-iron was white-hot against my cheek. Mentally I saw double--Jack's red blood with one eye and Margaret's amber hair with the other. As I rode I fought memory with memory, mingling gall and honey, now mumbling broken prayers and now singing snatches of country love-songs, and so got on as best I could. In the journey of life a man pays for what he calls for. Life had given me what I wanted, and the price thereof had been death.
Not only was the night dark but the countryside was empty. I rode past dim outlines of houses and through vague, dreamlike villages without seeing a soul or hearing a sound. Once I saw a light ahead by the roadside, but out it went as the rattle of Sultan's hoofs told of my coming. It was no wonder, for these poor folk were living between two armies and wanted neither, friend nor foe. For them it was only a choice between the upper and the nether millstone. At last I came to a wayside ale-house where lights were showing. I rode up, dismounted, ran the reins over the catch of the shutter, and went in.
In the low, untidy room I found a man and a woman, bent over a miserable fire, with their backs to a table whereon were set out mug and platter and other things useful for a meal. They rose to greet me, and their faces told me that they were expecting some one and supposed that I was he. When they saw their mistake, the woman stepped smartly in front of the man and said, "Lord, sir, how you frighted us! What can I get for your worship?"
"A mug of good mulled ale," said I. "Give me good mulled ale and a little information, and you shall have a crown for your pains."
I spoke pleasantly, having no need, as a mere passer-by, to do otherwise, but if I had been obliged to have dealings with them, I should have begun by distrusting them outright. The man was of the common sort of ale-house keeper, ugly, beery, and stupid, and old enough to be the father of his wife, as I call her on account of the wedding ring on her finger. She was, for the place and post, a complete surprise, being a jaunty, townish, garish woman, dressed in decayed finery. He would have slit my throat for a groat, she for a grudge. They looked that sort.
The woman went into another room, beyond the little bar where the drinkables were stored, to get the spices for the mulling, and the man shuffled grumpily after her. Hanging on the wall behind the bar was a fly-sheet, the very same I had read in the "Swan with Two Necks" at Ashbourne.
"Swift Nicks" was a much-wanted gentleman, and evidently a tobie-man with a wide range of activities. Out of mere vacancy of mind I walked near to read the fly-sheet again, and, by a curious chance, among the drone of words from the other room, the only one my quick ear could pick out distinctly was "Nicks."
This made me wary, and when the woman came out and busied herself at the fire, and called me to see what a prime mull she was brewing, I stood over her, to all intent watching the process but ready for anything. And not without need, for her dirty husband crept softly out after her, thinking to catch me unawares. I flashed at him like a jack at a minnow, wrenched a wretched old blunderbuss out of his hands, and with the butt of it knocked him sprawling back into the other room.
The prime muller merely cackled with false laughter and went on with her mulling. I fetched him in by the scruff of the neck, stood him up against the bar, and said, "I think you're in for the soundest thrashing you've ever had in your life."
"Sarves yer right, sawney," said the woman. "Plase let him off, sir. He thought yow was Swift Nicks."
"Yow bitch!" he growled. "Yow set me on!"
"Yow'm a ligger!" she retorted. "I towd yow the gen'leman was nowt like Swift Nicks."
"How do you know that?" I asked.
"By the print," was the quick reply. "It tells yow all about him."
I fetched the fly-sheet down, held it out to her, and said sharply, "Read it to me!"
I thought this would clean beat her, but she said, simply enough, "I canna rade it mysen, but I've heard it read lots o' times."
"Have you heard it read?" I asked the man.
"Lots o' times," he echoed surlily, and I saw the woman's fingers twitch as if she longed to furrow his ugly face with her nails.
"Then why didn't you know?"
I spoke to him but turned sharp on the woman, and saw hell in her face. She was almost too quick for me, and answered fawningly, "The thought o' the money made a fool on 'im, sir. Plase let him off. I've mulled th' ale prime for her honour."
This was true and I enjoyed it greatly. I sent the man out to rub Sultan down while she prepared for him under my eyes a warm drench of ale and meal.
"Be y'r honour going far?" she asked.
"That depends how far it is to Ellerton Grange. Do you know it?"
"Oh aye, y'r honour. Sir James Blount lives there. It's three miles out'n Tutcheter on the Burton road."
"Is it a straight road to Uttoxeter?"
"Half a mile on yow'll come to a fork. Tek the road on the right and just ride after y'r nose. Fetch the drench, Bob!"
She carried it off well, but I felt there was a deep strain of roguery in her. Still, willing to part on a lighter note, I gave her the crown, saying, "You deserve a better trade."
"It's none so bad," she said.
"And a better husband."
"Oddones! D'ye think...."
She stopped abruptly, plainly caught out for the first time.
A minute later I was off again. At the fork Sultan made for the left, and I had to pull him sharply to the right. The road got steadily worse, but Orion was clear in view ahead of me, dropping down behind Uttoxeter, and I pushed on. If a man is to turn back because of a bad road, he'll not travel far in the Shires. Soon, however, there was no road at all, and I was plump in open country. Sultan stopped and sniffed, and then turned his head round as if to tell me, what I already felt was the truth, that I had been an ass for not leaving it to him.
"So ho! Sultan!" said I, patting his warm neck. "I deserve all you say, my beauty! I've put you in for a nice job."
The right road must lie somewhere to my left. I turned him that way and he walked on suspicious and sniffing. Fortunately the moon had risen, and the Jezebel's lie would only cost me a trifling delay. She would have lied with a purpose, and I puzzled myself in trying to reason it out. In a few minutes we came to the side of a spinney with a low wall of rough stones cutting it off from the field. I was intently looking ahead, when on a sudden Sultan swerved so powerfully that I rocked in the saddle. I wouldn't have touched him with the spur, short of utter necessity, for a fistful of guineas, and I soothed him, and then turned to look for what had upset him.
To be candid I swerved myself. Most of us in these days are pleased to laugh at superstitions, provided we are in good company round a roaring fire. I was here alone in a lonely field, at nine of the clock on a winter night, and there, flittering and gliding through the spinney was a something in white. Virgil believed in ghosts, and so did Joe Braggs, and I, by oft reading the one and listening to the other, had preserved an open mind. Apparently Sultan had his doubts, for he shivered and whinnied.
I pulled his head round away from the ghost, drew out a pistol, and watched the unchancy thing's movements. It was evidently meant for me, for it made a slight turn and came straight towards me. Then my man's logic, as Margaret twittingly called it, came to my aid. Gloomy as it was, I saw the outlines of some steps by which the low wall could be crossed, and ghosts, both my authorities being in agreement on this, were independent of such purely human contrivances. So, waiting till the ghost was climbing down on my side, I said sternly, "Stop, or I fire!" Whereon it heaved a great sob and tumbled full length to the ground.
I jumped down, slipped the reins over Sultan's head, and pulled him up to the spot. The ghost was a well-grown girl, dressed in nothing but a white night-gown, for I could see her bare feet beyond the hem of it.
"Don't be afraid, dear," said I soothingly, for she was dumb and half dead with fright. "What can I do for you? Say it, and it's done. Come now, be brave!"
She sat up, leaning on her right hand, and turned her pallid, quivering face up to mine.
"Robbers, sir!" she gasped. "They're murdering father and mother. For God's sake, sir, go and stop them."
"Of course," I replied cheerfully, slipping off my jacket. "Come on, my brave lass!"
I helped the lass to her feet, put her into my jacket, jumped into the saddle, and lifted her astride behind me.
"Clip me tight! Which way?"
"Round the spinney first, sir!"
Off we went, and this time I touched Sultan with the spur and he flew along. Round the spinney; slantways across a field; up and over a gate, the girl clinging to me like a leech; down a lane; up and over another gate; and then the girl's shaking right arm was thrust over my shoulder.
"There's th' ouse! 0', God, if we anna in time!"
"How many are there?"
"Two, sir."
I pulled Sultan up at the farmyard gate, helped her down, and jumped after her. Hitching the horse, we started across the yard.
Luckily the low-down moon was on the far side of the house, and we could run softly up in the pitch dark. As I write I feel that brave girl's hard grip of my hand as we raced on. At a half-open door we halted; she loosed hold of me, and I tiptoed on alone. From within I heard the crash of one pot and then another on the brick floor of the kitchen, as the villain, searching for hidden money, smashed them to the ground. Bitten to the vitals by his want of success, he yelled, "I'll burn the sow's eye out! That'll open her mouth."
With wrath flaming in my heart I stepped into the doorway leading to the kitchen. My eyes lit on a poor woman bound hard and fast in a chair, and a masked beast, his big white teeth showing through lips thrust wide apart in a grin of hellish rage, approaching a red-hot poker towards her face. I shot him, and he tumbled into a squirming heap. The other villain raced for dear life through the open front door. My second bullet got him on the very threshold, for he yelped and sprang into the air like a stricken buck, but he held on. I e'en let him go, not daring to leave the unkilled scoundrel on the floor, for he had a regular battery of pistols in his belt. The girl was already untying her mother, and her father, bound and gagged in his chair in the ingle-nook, could bide a while. So I plucked the pistols out, there were six of them, and rattled them down on the table. The man was bleeding like a stuck pig, and his purpling face and heaving throat showed that he was choking. As I destined him for the gallows, I picked him up, flung him face down on the table, and thumped him violently in the back, whereupon he coughed up a tooth. My bullet had stripped out all his grinning front teeth clean and clear, just as our Kate's dainty thumb strips the row of peas out of a peascod. Once the tooth was up he was not greatly hurt, and, holding one of his own pistols to his head, I bade him unstrap the farmer. As soon as the latter was free, I ordered him to strap the robber to a kitchen chair, which he did very thoroughly. The instant this job was done, he leaped to fondle and hearten his wife. She kissed him back and, without a word, feebly pointed to me, whereupon he turned and thanked me.
"Thank your brave daughter," said I, and then he jumped at her and hugged her in his big arms, blubbing out, "My bonny, bonny Nance!"
At my wish he lit a lantern, and we went out and stabled Sultan. We went back through the kitchen to make a search of the front of the house. A pretty sight awaited me within doors. The good wife was sipping at a cup of parsnip wine, and the girl was again wearing nothing but her nightdress. With crimson face and downcast eyes, she stood there holding my coat out.
"Hallo, ghostie!" said I, smiling at her. "You want to frighten me again, do you?"
Too confused to say a word, she lackeyed me into my coat and then ran upstairs. To cut short her mother's tearful thanks, I led the way to the door, and we started our examination.
Some two yards from the door-sill the feeble rays of the lantern were reflected from something on the ground. To my great satisfaction it was fair booty to me, nothing less than my closest need, a rare good hat made of the finest beaver. The band was buckled with gold, and there was a taking and surely very fashionable cock to the brim. I sent my old one spinning into the blackness and clapped my new treasure on my head. Now I could walk side by side with Margaret and not be ashamed, at any rate not of my hat.
"The rogue jerked it off when I winged him," said I.
"Gom! He did jump, that's sartin," said the farmer, whose name, I ought to say, I had learned was Job Lousely.
It was quite a step down to the road, and we made no further discovery till we got to the gate. Here it was his turn to be lucky, for there was an excellent nag hitched to a rail. It was on Job's ground and he gave it a home in his stable.
"It'll mak up for the crockery," he said, with great delight.
Back in the kitchen we found Nance fully dressed and busy laying a meal on the table. She was so taken aback when I declared I was not hungry and couldn't stay if I had been, that, to save her distress, I had a bite and a sup of ale, while Job fetched Sultan round to the door. She was a sweet, comely maiden, and it did my heart good to see her put a horn of ale to the bleeding lips of the robber. He drank ravenously, like a dog after a hard run. He was where he deserved to be, with his feet in the short, straight path to the gallows, and I pitied him not. Nance did, and it's good for the world that women are made that way.
"How far is it to Ellerton Grange?" I asked Job, who came in to tell me Sultan was ready.
"A matter of six miles, sir. Three from here to Tutcheter, and three more on to the Grange."
"How funny, father," interposed Nance. "This is the second time tonight a gentleman has asked the road to Ellerton Grange."
It would hardly have struck Job as funny if it had been the twenty-second, but Nance was quick and shrewd.
"Ho! Ho!" said I. "Tell me about it, little woman!"
"I was wishing my Jim good night at the gate, just before father came home, when a man riding by pulled up and asked the road to Ellerton Grange."
"Did you make him out, Nance?" I asked.
"Not much of him, sir, but the moon shone on his face when he took his hat off to wipe his forehead, and it looked for all the world like an addled duck-egg."
"Well put, Nance," said I, laughing. "First time I saw that face I thought it was like a bladder of lard."
"You know him, sir?"
"I think I do, Nance, and I must be after him."
Out of the robber's string of pistols I selected a pair for myself. They were lawful prize, and equal in quality to those Master Freake had given me, so that the rascal had probably stolen them. I saw that all the others were loaded, and advised Job to watch him all night and to lift him, chair and all, into a cart the next morning and drive him off to the nearest Justice.
Job and his wife renewed their thanks when I was in the saddle. Nance insisted on coming to open the gate, and on the way there she gave me full and careful directions as to the way to Tutcheter and thence to the Grange.
She swung the gate open and let me through. Then she came to my sword side and held up her face to be kissed.
"Good-bye, ghostie!"
"Good-bye, sir! God bless you!"
Kissing and blessing were reward enough for my service, and I rode on lighter at heart for them.