The Yeoman Adventurer
got almost beyond his German in his rage. Asking for Margaret's
handkerchief, I tied it loosely round her mouth, my heart near to bursting
as I looked into her calm and patient face. Then I lay down flat and
wormed out into the room and, after a hard struggle, wrenched off one of
the rods which carried the rings of the bed-curtains. I remember that, as
I lay there, writhing and struggling, I counted the bullets, eleven of
them, as they spattered about me. However, I got back to Margaret's side
untouched, and poked and thrust and slashed to make a hole near her face
between straw and window-frame.
Our efforts were practically useless. The straw was cunningly fed from
below, and the pall of smoke was now so heavy and dense that the fringe of
it was settling down on Margaret's tower of yellow hair, and as I watched
the rate at which it was falling, I knew the end was coming. The Colonel
had worked with the energy of despair to tear down the vile enemy that was
killing us by inches, and now suddenly collapsed and fell like a log to
the floor. Margaret would have crawled to him, but I kept her by main
force against the wall while I wriggled out of my coat.
"We have one chance left, Margaret," said I. "Your father is only
overcome by the smoke--see, there's no sign of a wound about him--and his
fall is a godsend. Give me your other handkerchief and lie down flat, face
to the floor and close to the window, and listen for my next instructions."
She did so without a word. I wrapped my coat loosely about her head, and
before I could close it in the smoke cloud was settling down on her, even
as she lay. I was nearly done for, but she was safe for a few minutes.
Lying full length on the floor, under the window, I tied her handkerchief
to the end of the curtain-rod, thrust it through the straw, and waved it
about as vigorously as I could.
The sergeant's voice rang out. The firing ceased. The foul masses of
straw were removed. Then the scoundrel came forward and leered up at me.
"Do your terms hold good?" I shouted.
"Yes," he said.
"Colonel Waynflete and his daughter will be left at liberty to go their
way, if I surrender?"
"Yes," he said.
"Then in one minute I'll be with you," said I. Stepping inside the room,
I first of all pulled the Colonel to the window, tore loose the clothes
round his neck, and laid his head on the window-sill, in the good sweet
air. Then crawling to Margaret, I unwrapped the jacket, and said briefly,
"Force some of Kate's cordial down your father's throat. Goodbye!"
I returned to the window, clambered out, hung at arm's length, and
dropped to the ground. Striding up to the sergeant, I said carelessly,
"Your turn this time, sergeant. To-day to thee, to-morrow to me--it's
neater in the Latin but you wouldn't understand it--and all Brocton's
dragoons shan't save your ugly neck."
"Where the hell's your coat?" he demand fiercely.
A cool question, indeed, after trying to suffocate me, but it was never
answered. The air was on a sudden filled with the weirdest row I had ever
heard. It was as if all the ghosts in Hades had suddenly piped up at their
shrillest and ghostliest. This was followed by a splutter of musketry, and
this again by loud yells. Looking round I saw a swarm of strange figures
sweep into the yard, half women as to their dress, for they wore little
petticoats that barely reached their knees, but matchless fighting men as
to their behaviour. On they came, with the pace of hounds, the courage of
bucks, and the force of the tide.
It was the Highlanders.
The sergeant fled into and through the inn and, with the men from the
corridor, got clean away. Not a man else escaped. Half the dragoons on the
wagon were picked off like crows on a branch. The rest, and those in or
about the yard, got their lives and nothing else barring their breeches,
and that not for comeliness' sake but because they were useless. Every man
jack of them, in less than five minutes, looked like a half-plucked
cockerel, and their captors were wrangling like jackdaws about the plunder.
I glanced at the window. To my relief, the Colonel was already sitting
up, pumping the sweet air into his befouled lungs, and Margaret smiled
joyously and waved her hand to me. I was waving victoriously back to her
when my attention was forcibly diverted by two Highlanders, who collared
me, intent on reducing me to a state of nature plus my breeches. There was
no time to explain, neither would they have understood my explanation. One
of them, a son of Anak for height and bulk, already had his hands to my
pockets. Him I hit, as hard-won experience had taught me, and he fell all
of a heap. His fellow was struck with amazement at seeing such a great
beef of a man put out of action so easily, and stood gaping over him for a
while. Recovering himself, he snatched a long knife out of his sock and
made for me murderously, but I had meantime fished out a guinea and now
held it out to him. He took it with the eager curiosity of a child, looked
at it wonderingly, made out what it was, and then ran leaping and frisking
up and down the yard, holding it high over his head, and shouting, "Ta
ginny, ta ginny, ta bonny, gowd ginny!"
I was saved further trouble by the approach of one of the officers, or,
to speak with later knowledge, chiefs, of these wild warriors. He informed
me in excellent English that he had heard the firing, seen my parleying at
the window and my subsequent surrender, and desired to know the meaning of
it all.
"The gentleman at the window," I explained, "is Colonel Waynflete,
travelling to join Prince Charles. The lady is his daughter, and I am
their servant, by name Oliver Wheatman of the Hanyards. These King's men,
belonging to my Lord Brocton's regiment of dragoons, attacked us; we
refused to surrender, and the rascally sergeant in command smoked us out.
I pray you, sir, to run the wagon up to the window that I may hand them
down, since the door is heavily barricaded."
It was done immediately, and he and I ran up to the window together.
"You young dog," said the Colonel. "You surrendered after all."
"In strict accordance, sir, with military usage, I used my discretion as
commander of the party."
"Slids!" His grey eyes had the old laugh lurking in them already.
"Commander of the party?"
"There were only Mistress Margaret and I left," said I.
"And the peppermint cordial," put in Margaret.
So in sheer wantonness of joy we sought relief in bantering one another.
Then I introduced the chieftain, who had stood there silent and graceful,
a fine figure of a man, finely and naturally posed, and mutual compliments
and thanks passed between us. Yet in that first minute, with Margaret and
the Colonel perched on the sill, and the Highlander and I standing on the
sacks of barley, I saw another thing happen, for the big things of life
come into it with the swiftness of light and the inevitability of death. A
chieftain proudly climbed the wagon; a bond-servant humbly handed Margaret
down. As was fair and courteous, and suitable to my real position, I let
him do it, and aided the Colonel, who was as yet somewhat shaky. After
seeing him safe down, I rushed up again and recovered our weapons and my
coat. Down once more, I was getting into my coat when Margaret, who was
talking to the Highlander, looked at me and said quietly, "Pray, Master
Wheatman, fetch me the domino from my room!"
She said it simply and mistress-like, and of course I shot off to do her
bidding. I supposed, as I went, that it was the white snow all around that
had brought out the blue in her eyes so vividly.
In the inn I found the host, the lantern still dangling from his finger,
notwithstanding his greater woe, and his pleasant, placid wife weeping
bitterly. Of the original twenty guineas of the Major's, I now had only
four left, and these I thrust into her hand as I passed, and told her to
be comforted.
From my shooting the dragoon on the roof to my running upstairs for the
domino was in all not more than twenty minutes. I skipped over the man who
had fallen to my maiden sword. He was lying between the door of the
Colonel's room and that of Margaret's, and opposite one of the doors on
the other side of the passage. Darting into Margaret's room, I recovered
the domino.
I was only a moment, but in that moment some one opened the door in the
passage against which the man lay and so brought him into the light, and I
could not help taking a look at him.
My heart stopped with the horror of it; my whole being fell to pieces at
the agony of it. I remember running from it as from the gates of hell. I
remember reeling on the stairs. I remember a headlong fall. I remember no
more.
It was Jack.
CHAPTER XV
IN THE MOORLANDS
I was in bed, there was no doubt about that, and a strange sort of bed
too, for it moved lightly and deliciously through the keen, open air like
the magic carpet of the Eastern tale. The bedposts at my feet were most
curiously carved into life-like images of warriors, so life-like, indeed,
that when the one on the right turned its shaggy head and spoke to the one
on the left, I was not shocked and scarcely surprised. Bed it was,
however, for mother's soft, smooth hand was on my cheek, and under the
balm of its touch I went off to sleep again.
When my eyes opened again, the mists had cleared out of them and I was no
longer in the land of shadows. The carven bedposts were Highlanders; the
bed was a litter slung between four of them; the touch was hers. Somebody
spoke, the Highlanders came to a halt, and Margaret bent over me. Her face
was pale, grave, and anxious.
"Are you better, Oliver?" she whispered.
"As right as rain," I answered, pushing my new trouble behind me and
speaking stoutly because of the whiteness of her face.
"Try to sleep again. You've had a bad fall, and there's an ugly cut in
your skull."
"Indeed, I'll do no such thing," was my reply. "I don't want carrying
like a great baby, and I do want my breakfast. I'm as empty as a drum."
"Can you stand?"
"Sure of it, and also hop, skip, jump, and, above all, eat and drink with
any man alive. So, if you can make these men-women understand you, tell
them I'm very grateful, but I've had enough."
The four tousled warriors were easily made to understand what I wanted,
and, stout and strong as they were, welcomed the end of their labours with
broad grins of satisfaction. They lowered me to the ground, and
immediately Margaret's hands were outstretched to help me to my feet. But
for the black death between us, it would have been new life indeed to see
the colour and sunshine creeping back to her face, and to hear her
whispered "Thank God!"
My head was bumming and throbbing, but nothing to speak of. The gash was
behind and above my right ear, so I must have somersaulted down the
stairs. Margaret, as I learned later, had bathed and bandaged the wound,
and after my recovery of consciousness, it only gave me the happy trouble
of persuading Margaret that it gave me no trouble.
I stamped and shook myself experimentally, took a few strides, and jumped
once or twice, Margaret watching me as curiously and carefully as a hen
watches her first chicken.
"Do mind, Oliver!" she said. "It bled horribly, and you'll start it again."
"I believe I needed a blood-letting," said I.
"Should you ever need another," she said crisply, "I hope you'll take it
in the usual way. How did it happen?"
I had steeled myself for the inevitable question, and so answered
ruefully, "I must have tripped over the domino."
"If it were not your mother's I would never wear it again," she said,
plucking the skirt of it into her hand and shaking it as if it were a
naughty child. "I thought you would never come round. For nearly an hour,