The Yeoman Adventurer
letter concerned the title to certain lands as to which Lord Brocton and I
are at odds, and on opening it I found to my satisfaction that I was
right. With your permission, Oliver, I will keep it."
"By all means do so," said I, anxious to burn again, and turning back to
Margaret. If this silent, capacious man, so great a stranger yet so clear
a friend, had said that the letter was about a new edition of Virgil, I
should have believed him, and also, I fear me, have been equally
uninterested. Latin be damned!
"Something for you in Oliver's magic-hat," said Margaret smilingly to
Master Freake. "He really must fetch something out for himself soon.
Staffordshire is by far the most delightful country I have ever been in.
Only one little day has gone by, and in that day Staffordshire has given
me more and truer friends than Europe gave me in ten years. I shall cross
its borders with regret. Shall we make the most of it while we have it and
sleep here, dad?"
"Unless we're routed out," was his reply, "and I do not think we shall
be, for the enemy have all cleared out of the town. Cumberland is, of
course, doing the right thing. He had few men north of Stafford, and fewer
still worth powder and shot. Where the Prince is I've no idea."
"Resting for the day at Macclesfield," said Master Freake, "and his plans
are not certain, or, at least, not known. The Duke of Kingston has a small
body of horse at Congleton and is watching his movements."
"Damme," the Colonel broke in, "I did not know we had enemies north of
us. Are you sure?"
"Certain. One of my men reported the facts to me just before supper."
"It's awkward, or rather will be awkward if anyone who knows me turns up.
That rascally landlord of ours must have known where Kingston was, but
amid all his talk he never told me that. Damme, somebody's got hold of
him. Still, you can't take the bull by the horns till his nose is
slobbering your waistcoat, so pass the wine, Oliver."
He refilled his glass and then, leisurely and with his eyes dreamily
fixed on the fire, loaded his pipe with a new charge of tobacco, and went
on smoking.
"Are you a Jacobite?" suddenly asked Margaret, looking inquiringly at
Master Freake.
"Dear me, no, Mistress Margaret," was the frank reply. "But you need not
curl those sweet lips of yours, for neither am I a Hanoverian."
"Then what are you?" she asked again, with the same uncompromising
directness.
"A Freakeiteian," said he with a smile.
"It puzzles me," was her brief comment.
"Let me explain," said he simply. "A Jacobite wants Charles to win; a
Hanoverian wants George to win; a Freakeiteian wants to know who is going
to win."
By this time Margaret was no more puzzled than I was. Yesterday when I
stood on the river-bank watching my cork, I cared not a rap whether George
or Charles won, and that was an understandable position; but why a man
should be spending money in handfuls, and roughing it in the wilds of
Staffordshire, merely in order to know who was going to win, was beyond my
poor wits.
"You do not understand?" he said.
"No," said Margaret and I together.
The Colonel took no notice. He was puffing away at his pipe,
long-drawn-out, solemn puffs, and gazing at the fire in a brown study.
"Well, Margaret and Oliver," said Master Freake, "this is no time to be
giving you lessons in the way the great world wags that neither knows nor
cares of outs and ins and party shufflings, but is busy with rents and
crops, and incomings and outgoings, and debts and credits, and wivings and
thrivings. But, believe me, in being anxious to know who is going to win,
I am as plainly and simply doing my duty as is the Colonel who is going to
do his best to help his Prince to win. I am one, and, I thank God, not the
least, of that great race of men who are destined to mould a mightier
England than the sword could ever carve--the merchant of London whose nod
is his bond."
He spoke with simple dignity and his word was established. I had trusted
him on sight. "His nod was his bond." You saw it in the man's clear,
steady eyes and knew it by the set of his firm, square chin. After a
warning glance at the silent Colonel, he leaned forward, and Margaret bent
to meet him.
"If Charles loses," he murmured, "many heads will be smitten from their
shoulders."
The colour left her cheeks instantly and tears welled forth from her eyes.
"But not the Colonel's," he whispered.
I was watching her with the eye of a hawk. A smile dawned on the white
face, the sad eyes began to lose their gloom, and my fool of a heart began
to flutter.
Yet once more he whispered, "And not Oliver's."
She leaned farther forward still and kissed him.
And it was just at that moment that the door opened smartly and
Cherry-Cheeks put her sweet head round it and swiftly and peremptorily
beckoned me outside.
Margaret laughed.
In the dim passage, Cherry-Cheeks caught my hand affrightedly and
babbled, "Oh, sir, there's the ugliest beast you ever saw spying on her
ladyship. Take your boots off, sir, and creep after me!"
I tugged them off and we started. Along the passage she flew and upstairs
into the corresponding passage above. Here, outside the Duke's room, she
stopped and whispered, "He'll think I'm that bitch Sal. Hide behind me!"
She opened the door and stole into the room with me in tow, holding her
skirt and crouching down nearly to the floor.
She was somewhat broad in the beam, like a Dutch hoy, and all I could see
was a dull glimmer somewhere ahead in the darkness.
"Ssss-h, damn ye," said the beast fiercely. "Stand still!"
Cherry-Cheeks took care not to stop till near the light, and then, with
wonderful ready wit, put her right hand on her hip and I peeped through
between arm and waist.
Full length on his belly lay the man from Yarlet Bank. There was a small
spy-hole in the floor, on the edge of the hearth, and he had his right ear
against it, which was lucky, for it kept his face turned from me. The
notebook lay open on the floor near a guttering tallow candle in an iron
candlestick, and the stump of pencil was clenched in his dirty yellow
teeth.
I threw my handkerchief on the floor, took my fat little Virgil in my
left hand, and crept out to him. When near on top of him, I gripped him
round the nape of the neck, digging my fingers in his flabby throat, and
he went slimy with fright like a great, fat lob-worm. I swooped down on
him with my full weight, and pinned him to the floor. His big mouth opened
as he fought for breath, and I clapped the Virgil hard and far into it,
tying it tight in with my handkerchief, and gagging him effectually.
I looked up and found, to my relief, that Cherry-Cheeks, like a sensible
girl, had crept out of the room, and her share in the affair was never
even suspected.
Drawing my tuck, I touched the back of his neck with the point. He
flinched and squirmed, great drops of sweat larded his nasty face, and I
knew the fear of death and hell was in his marrow.
"Do exactly what I say," I whispered, "or through it goes. Understand?"
He could hardly nod his ugly head for the trembling of his body, and I
fairly dithered as I knelt on him. I made him rise, and then caught hold
of the skirt of his coat. Holding him by it at arm's length, I stuck my
point to his neck again, and said, "Forward."
I marched him downstairs and along the passage. There was great risk of
being met by some one, and it was the most anxious time I had had since
the affair with the sergeant in the house-place at the Hanyards. Oddly
enough, as I drove him along, the thought came to me of the bygone days
when Jack and I had played horses just like this at the Hanyards, and when
my prisoner stuck a trifle at the door of the guest-room, I growled at
him, "Come up!" It was a strange trick of the mind. To me he was just
play-horse Jack dawdling to look at ten-year-old Kate feeding her
chickens.
I got him in unseen without and unnoticed within, for the Colonel and
Master Freake were again at their arguments of state, hammer and tongs,
and they minded the click of the door behind them no more than the crack
of a spark at their feet. Indeed the Colonel said "Pish!" with great
vehemence, and Master Freake's "My dear sir!" had a shake of pepper in it.
As for me, I like a man who, when he gets into a thing, gets into it up to
the neck.
Margaret added to my amusement, for as I pricked my prisoner on into the
fire-light, and peeped over his shoulder, he being a good six inches
shorter than I, madam leaned forward and became absorbed in the high
debate.
"I beg to report, sir," said I, as indifferently as I could manage to
speak, "the capture of a spy."
"Hang him at daybreak," said the Colonel, without so much as looking at
him. "Pish, man, the trade in salted herrings is no more a nursery of
seamen than I'm--Damme, what's this, Oliver? Damme, it's Weir. Your
servant, Mister Weir, and I shall vastly relish seeing you strung up."
I gave a brief account of where and how I had found him, making no
mention of our helpful girl friend, but pointing out that he had
co-scoundrels at work for him in the inn.
"Another good piece of work, Oliver," said the Colonel. "I like the way
you use your available material. I've seen many things used as gags, but
not a book before; yet it makes a very good one. Keeps him quiet as a
stone and withal leaves him free to lick up a few crumbs of learning."
Margaret had not looked at me yet, and indeed seemed bent on keeping her
face, heightened in colour by the warmth and glow of the fire, turned away
from me. Now a rather big matter had come into my mind, so I said
urgently, "Name of a dog," and thus shook her into looking at me.
Whereupon, I pointed first to Mr. Freake, then to the spy, and wagged my
head sagely. Her quick mind saw at once that I was afraid that our friend
would be compromised if we were not careful. She promptly said something
to her father in an unknown tongue, and by the cock of his eye I knew he'd
taken the point.
"My good friend," he said, "pray step over to his worship the Mayor and
ask him to come over and commit this rascally spy to the town jail. Say, I
beg, that I am grieved to have to disturb him, but His Majesty's servants
must ever be at the disposal of His Majesty's affairs."
I grinned behind the spy's back at this masterly way of getting George's
servant to do James's work. Master Freake started at once, and, stepping
with him to the door, I whispered, "Give us fifteen minutes."
"Right!" he whispered back again. "Look in your holsters!"
As soon as he had gone, the Colonel ordered me to guard the door, and
this gave me the chance of putting on my boots again. The Colonel, cutting
off with his sword a good length of bell rope, made a swift and most
workmanlike job of tying the spy into a knot. He then opened the window,
and, Margaret taking my place meanwhile, he and I cautiously bundled Weir
on to the balcony, shut down the window, and left him safe and silent.
"Be in the porch in ten minutes, Margaret, ready to start. Oliver, get
the horses there ready in that time. You ride the troop-horse, and Freake
has provided a mare for Margaret. Quick's the work and sharp's the motion!"
Margaret and I started together to carry out our orders. Once in the
passage we had to go different ways, and I bowed and was going mine
without a word, when she put her hand on my arm and stayed me.
"I'm sorry you've lost your Virgil," she said.
I wondered, as already so many times I had wondered, at the somersaults
of feeling she was capable of. Where was now the Margaret of the short,
disdainful laugh? Not here, in the twilight between the bright room and
the black yard. Here was a subtle, mysterious Margaret, half regret and