The Yeoman Adventurer
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.