The Yeoman Adventurer
tines of which were stuck in the oak lintel of the chimney-piece, so that
a ring of steel encircled his throat like the neckhole of a pillory, and
held him there helpless and roasting. When I first caught sight of him he
was making a frenzied attempt to wrench the prongs out, but, finding it
hopeless, drew his tuck, and lashed out at the woman. She calmly shifted
out of reach along the handle of the fork. He then hacked fiercely but
without much effect on the wooden handle, and finally, in his despair and
agony, poised the tuck and cast it at her javelin-fashion. The woman,
cooler than he in both senses of the term, dodged it easily. How she had
contrived to pin him in such a helpless manner, I could not imagine. The
motive was obvious. A little girl lay writhing and sobbing on the floor
amid the fragments of a broken mug and a scattering of copper and silver
coins.
"You've got him safe enough, mother," said I, "and it's no good cooking
him since you can't eat him."
"Be yow another stinking robber, like this'n?" she demanded. The epithet
was as apt as it was vigorous, for the stink of singeing cloth made me
sniff. "If y'be," she went on, "I'll shove' im in the fire and set about
yow."
"Not a bit of it, mother. I've come to help you, but shift him along a
bit out of the heat, and then we'll settle what to do with him." To him I
added, "Understand, sergeant, any attempt to fight or fly, and your neck
will be wrung like a cockerel's." Then laying down my gun I pulled out the
tines and shifted him along the lintel till he was out of danger. The
woman, whose fierce determination never faltered, jammed the pikel in
again and kept him trapped.
I went to the door and saw Mistress Waynflete standing by Sultan's head,
and the proud beauty arching his neck in his joy at finding his mistress
near him. I beckoned her.
"An old acquaintance, in a fix. Come in!" said I, and introduced her to
the strange scene. "The sergeant, madam," I went on, "and he has been
plucked like a brand from the burning." She took in the scene, judged what
had happened, and then gathered up the child, who had ceased crying out of
curiosity, and mothered the little one so sweetly that the red-elbowed
woman cried out hearty thanks.
In brief the story, as collected later from the mother and child, was
that the sergeant had ridden up and asked for a meal. After he had had
some bread and cheese and ale, he had taken advantage of the alewife's
absence to ask the child where mother kept her money, and, receiving no
answer, had twisted the poor little one's arm until in her terror and
agony she had told him of the secret hole in the chimney where the money
was kept in a coarse brown mug. The child's cry had brought the mother
running back with the pikel, snatched up on the way, and she, taking him
at unawares with the mug in his hand, had darted at him and luckily caught
him round the neck, and pinned him against the fireplace as I had found
him. Let him go she dared not, for she was alone except for the child, and
but for my arrival he would have roasted right enough till he was
helpless. As it was the skirts of his coat were smouldering, and he had
only just escaped serious injury. In fact, although smarting sore, he was
so little damaged that after tearing away the burnt tails, he collected
himself and tried to bam me.
"Master Wheatman," he began, "I call upon you in the King's name to aid
and assist me. This woman's tale is all a lie. The mug was on the
chimney-top for anyone to see, and I only took it down to examine it,
being struck with its appearance."
"Also in the King's name, Master Sergeant," was my reply, "I propose to
have you handed over to the nearest justice as a rogue and vagabond."
"And you shall explain why you are here with your--" I should have
strangled him if his foul tongue had wagged one word of insult, and he saw
it in my eyes. He stopped, and his face showed that he had discovered the
secret.
"The sergeant recognizes you again, Molly," said I lightly.
"Bammed and beaten by a damned yokel?" he burst out. "Ten thousand
devils! Where were my eyes yesterday?" In his anger he began to strain at
his steel cravat.
"Virgil for ever! The first town we come to I'll buy me a Latin grammar,"
said Margaret to me, with a low ripple of laughter.
"How'd on, fool," said the alewife to the sergeant. "Yow wunna be wuth
hangin' if y' carry on a this'n."
"If you don't loose me, you old bitch," he shouted, "I'll see you hanged!
Loose me, for your neck's sake! These people are Jacobites!"
"Gom, I dunna know what that be, but I wish Stafford-sheer was full on
'em. 'Tinna any good chokin' y'rsen, I shanna let go."
This method of keeping him, however, rendered the alewife useless, so I
took her place, and bade her fetch the longest and toughest rope she'd
got. She brought me a beauty and with it I trussed the sergeant, tying him
securely into a heavy, clumsy chair, and leaving him as helpless as a fowl
ready for roasting. Then a thought struck me and I went through his
pockets. His very stillness made me careful in my search, but I found only
some old bills for fodder and other military papers, and a heavily sealed
letter addressed "To HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS." I was not quite Jacobite enough
to make me willing to steal a dispatch addressed to the Royal Duke, and I
should have thrust it and the oddments of paper back again but for the
rattle of hoofs outside. It was probably Master Freake, and I was
particularly anxious that the sergeant should not see him, so I rushed out
with all the papers in my hand to forestall him.
Hurrying outside I saw Master Freake hitching his horse to the signpost,
and Mistress Waynflete already talking to him eagerly. When I got up he
delivered his news briefly and to the point, and bad news it was.
He had learned in Stone that the Colonel had again been taken on ahead
towards Newcastle in charge of a troop of Brocton's dragoons under the
command of Captain Rigby, "last night's table companion of the dead
Major," he explained.
"Whatever for?" asked Mistress Waynflete.
Master Freake said nothing, but his eyes were troubled, and I knew there
was something he would fain conceal.
"Whatever for?" she repeated. "Could you learn of no reason?"
"I was told," he answered slowly, "that Colonel Waynflete's knowledge and
assistance would be invaluable to the royal troops."
"Told that my father had turned traitor! Is that what you mean, sir?"
Scorn too great for anger covered her face, veiling its sweetness as with
a fiery cloud.
"That is the plain English of what I was told, I must admit." Here was
the grave, businesslike nature of the man, plainly posing awkward
questions that had to be answered.
"It's a wicked lie!" she burst out. She turned her face proudly to look
into mine, and I saw that her eyes were filled with tears.
"Naturally, madam," said I.
"My father's honour is mine, Master Wheatman, and I am your debtor for
another splendid courtesy."
"I argue from the flower to the tree. Man's logic, and therefore
necessarily imperfect, you would say, but for once I stick to it." I spoke
lightly and reminiscently, so as to chase the gloom from her mind, and she
was immediately herself again.
Master Freake continued his story, which went from bad to worse. As I had
expected, Bladderface had ridden into Stone, and the result of his
communication to Captain Rigby had been that orders were issued for our
pursuit, and Master Freake had left the town not very far in advance of
the squad of horse sent on our track. He had thus been unable to procure
horses for us, but at Eccleshall he had managed to obtain a pillion for
Margaret's use behind him.
This was awkward indeed, for though Master Freake had ridden hard, the
pursuit could not be very far behind, and if, as was almost certain, the
dragoons turned up at the "Ring of Bells," the sergeant would be set free,
and be after us like a mad bull. There was, however, a margin of time
available, and therefore I put this problem out of my mind, and attended
only to the urgent one of the Colonel's position.
To me there was only one explanation possible. This continual shifting of
the Colonel, ever under the charge of those rascally dragoons, commanded
now by a man whose familiarity with Tixall was an evil augury, meant one
thing only. Soon, perhaps within an hour or two, there would be fighting,
and under cover of that a stab in the back or a bullet in the head would
clear the Colonel out of Brocton's path for ever.
"Take these papers, Master Freake," said I. "Mistress Waynflete will tell
you what has happened here, and you can give them back to their owner if
you choose. But do not, I beg you, on any account let the rascal inside
see or hear you."
I raced indoors, seized the sergeant's tuck and took his baldrick from
him, heedless of his vile threats. I left him there, choking with
foulness, unhitched Sultan, sprang into the saddle, and cantered up to my
friends.
"Now, Mistress Margaret," I said, "describe your father so that I shall
know him when I see him."
She sketched his portrait in broad, clear outlines, and I fixed the
description point by point in my memory.
"That's the road to Newcastle," said I, pointing along the edge of the
mere, "and it's fairly straight and good. Follow me there as quickly as
you can, and inquire for me at the 'Rising Sun.' I'll have news of the
Colonel, if not the Colonel himself, when we meet again."
I bowed to Margaret, dug my heels into Sultan, and was off like a flash.
CHAPTER XI
IN WHICH I SLIP
Sultan was a horse for a man, long and regular in his stride, perfect in
action, quick to obey, cat-like at need. I might have ridden him from the
day on which the blacksmith drank his colt-ale, for we understood each
other exactly, and I was as comfortable on his back as in my bed at the
Hanyards. In the open road at the mere-end, he settled down into a steady,
loping trot, and I was free to think matters out to the music of his
hoof-beats on the road.
It was only eight or nine miles into Newcastle, and as the dragoons would
travel slowly and warily there was just a chance that I should be there
first. Further, it was wholly unlikely that I should be interfered with,
since the only two enemies who knew I was aiding Mistress Margaret were
helpless in my rear--Brocton at Stafford, and the sergeant in the "Ring of
Bells." I was unknown in the town, not having been there since my
schooldays, and then only on rare occasions, as a visit to the town meant
a thirty-mile walk in one day.
Plan-making was futile. Everything would depend upon chance, but if
chance threw me into touch with the Colonel, it should go hard if I did
not free him somehow or other. The most splendid thing would be if I could
free him before Margaret overtook me at the "Rising Sun." True, I had only
an hour or so to spare, but now strange things happened in an hour of my
life, and this great luck might be mine. Then would come my rich and rare
reward--the light in her deep, blue eyes and the tremulous thanks on her
ripe, red lips.
And then a thought smote me like a blow between the eyes, so that I
dizzied a moment, and the day grew grey and the outlook blank. The finding
of the Colonel meant the losing of Margaret. Father and daughter reunited,
my work would be done; the day of the hireling would be accomplished. Need
for me there would be none. The old life would again claim me, justly
claim me too, for was I not, though all unworthily and unprofitably, the
only son of my sweet mother, and she a widow. I could see her in the
house-place at the Hanyards, her calm eyes fixed in sorrow on my empty
chair. _A man shall leave father and mother_, yes, for one particular