The Yeoman Adventurer
_See him? That's him! Killed his best friend! Wheatman of the Hanyards!
Never held his head up since! And hadn't ought to!_ The chatter of the
townsfolk crept into my ears between the hoof-beats, and made me sick and
dizzy.
It would not have happened but for the bladder-faced scoundrel ahead of
me, now creeping around like a loathsome insect to sting a man of ancient
name and fame, and I was eager to be at him again. Sultan, without more
urging, had made the furlongs fly in gallant style, and it was time to be
looking out for my landmarks. Nance had made me letter-perfect in them.
Here, on the right, was the woodward's cottage where the road began to run
downhill into a bottom dark with ancient elms: there, on my left, in an
open space among the boles, the moon showed up a worn, grey column which
marked the spot where, in the wild days of the Roses, a Parker Putwell had
slain a Blount in unfair fight for a light of love not worth the blood of
a rabbit. Nance had very earnestly told me the old, sad tale, to impress
the spot on my mind, for the long lane up to Ellerton Grange began in the
shadows just beyond the monument, and wound away up the slope to the
right. The road carried us up where the moon-light fell on meadows that
were almost lawns, and across them to a maze of buildings. A minute later,
I leaped off Sultan and hammered away at the studded oaken door of
Ellerton Grange.
No man came to my summons, and I sent a second volley of rat-tats echoing
through the house before I heard a shuffling of feet within and a drawing
of big bolts. The door crept open for a foot or so, and an old man's head,
with a lantern trembling over it, appeared in the gap.
"Who's there?" he quavered.
"Wheatman of the Hanyards," I answered; "but my name is nothing to the
purpose and my business is. I must see Sir James Blount."
"He's abed," said he, "hours ago!"
"Then fetch him out!"
The old man pushed his lantern close to my face and straightened himself
to take a fair look at me. He had sunken cheeks and toothless gums, and
hairless eyes with raw, red lids, and out of all question was some
ancient, rusty serving-man, tottery and slow, but quick-minded enough, and
of a dog-like faithfulness to the hand that fed him.
"Young and masterly," he muttered, "and o'er young to be so o'er
masterly. But I mind the day when I would 'a' raddled his bones with my
quarterstaff."
"I won't naysay it, grandad," I answered, seeking to humour him. "In your
time you've been a two-inch taller lad than I am. Not so big o' the chest,
though, grandad."
"Who're you grandadding? I was big enough o' the chest when I could neck
meat and drink enough to fill me out. Now!"
As he spoke he gripped a handful of the waistcoat that hung loosely about
him, and added, "Once it was a fair fit, my master. It's cold and late for
my old bones to be creaking about, but Trusty's the dog for the tail-end
of the hunt, and a Blount's a Blount and mun be served."
"Fetch him out!" I repeated. "I've ridden hard and far to serve him."
The ancient took another look at me and said to himself in a loud
whisper, after the manner of old and favoured serving-men, "A farmering
body all but his hat, and none o' your ride-by-nights."
"Fetch him out!" said I again, not for want of fresh words to say to the
candid old dodderer but to keep him to the point.
"Oh-aye," said he, and shuffled off.
He left me fuming, for his last mutteration, as he shook his lantern to
stir the flame up a bit, was, "Knows a true man when he sees one. More
used to a carving-knife than a sword, I'll be bound. What did he say?
Wheatman o' sommat! Reg'lar farmering name!"
I kicked the door wide open and watched the lantern bobbing along the
hall. The light made pale shimmerings on complete suits of mail hanging so
life-like on the high, bare, stone walls, that it seemed for all the world
as if the knights had been crucified there and, little by little, age
after age, had dropped to dust, leaving their warrior panoplies behind--empty
shells on the shore of time from which the life had dripped and
rotted. The old man toiled up the grand staircase at the far end of the
hall and turned to the right along a gallery. The friendly light
disappeared, leaving me darkling and alone. Sultan sniffed his way to the
door, pushed in his head and neck, and rubbed his nose against my breast
in all friendliness. I flung my arms round his neck and caressed him, and
in those anxious minutes in the doorway of Ellerton Grange he was comrade
and sweetheart to me, and comforted my spirit greatly.
Footsteps and a voice within made me turn my head. A man came at a run
down the stairs and along the hall. After him the old serving-man
hastened, lantern in hand, as best he could.
"Sir James Blount?" said I.
"The same," said he curtly and confusedly.
"I bring you a letter from a very exalted person, Sir James," I explained.
He took it from me much as he would have taken a bowl of poison. "The
light! The light! You slow old fool! The light!" he said, jerking the
words out as if his soul was in distress, and the ancient, barely half-way
down the hall, quickened his poor pace up to his master. He, tearing the
lantern out of the feeble hands, and rattling it down on a table, ripped
open the letter and devoured its contents.
The light of the lantern revealed the face of a man still young, but at
least a half-score years my elder. He had a thin-lipped, sensitive mouth,
a great arched nose, and quick, eager eyes. His mind was running like a
mill-race, and his fine face twitched and wreathed and wrinkled under the
stress of the flow. Another thing plain enough was that the old man had
lied when he said his master was abed, for he was fully and carefully
dressed and his wig had not in it a single displaced or unravelled curl.
This was no half-awakened dreamer, but a man with the issues of his life
at stake.
He crushed the letter in his hand and paced up and down the hall,
muttering to himself. I turned and rubbed Sultan's nose to keep him quiet
and happy. The old servant took charge of the lantern again, and followed
his master up and down with his eyes.
"A year ago, yes! A year ago, yes!" I heard Sir James say. He quickened
his steps and the words came in jerks, mere nouns with verbs too big with
meaning for him to utter them. "A word! A dream! A dead faith! Yes,
father! The devil! Sweetheart!"
There is a great line in the Aeneid which I had tried in vain a hundred
times to translate. Three days agone I would have tilted at it once more
with all the untutored zeal of a verbalist. I should never need to try
again. There are some lines in the Master that life alone can translate.
_Sunt lachrymae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt._
After a turn or two in silence, Sir James broke off his pacing and came
to me.
"Sir," he said, "you will know enough to excuse my inattention to a
guest. I must make it up if I can. Give me the lantern and wait for us
here, Inskip. Come with me, sir, and stable your horse. Gad so, sir,"
holding up the lantern, "you ride the noblest animal I have ever seen.
Woa, ho, my beauty! All my men are abed, so we must do it ourselves, but,
by Heaven, it will be a pleasure, Master--what may I call you, sir?"
"Just the plain name of my fathers--Oliver Wheatman of the Hanyards."
"A good strong name, sir, though my fathers liked it not."
"And you, Sir James?"
"Frankly, it is a name which to me has ceased to be a symbol. A good
fellow can call himself 'Oliver' without setting my teeth on edge. I had a
grand foxhound once, and called him 'Noll,' just because he was grand. My
dear old father consulted a London doctor as to the state of my mind. It
made him anxious, you see! The great man said, gruffly enough, that I was
as sane as a jackdaw. Thereupon my dear dad, one of the best men that ever
lived, had the dog shot!"
He laughed, reminiscently rather than merrily, and was to my mind bent on
getting a grip on himself again. We made Sultan comfortable for the night,
and then Sir James courteously said it was high time to be attending to
me. He made no further indirect reference to the situation, until, as he
was leading me along the hall, he stopped opposite a great dim picture,
hanging between two sets of mail, and held the lantern high over his head
to give me a view of it. With a strange mixture of resentment and pathos,
he said, "A man's ancestors are sometimes a damned nuisance, sir!"
"They are indeed!" I replied. "There's one of mine shaking his fist at me
over the battlements of the New Jerusalem."
He laughed heartily, and, with Inskip trailing patiently behind us, led
me upstairs, and through the gallery into a long corridor, lit by lanterns
fixed in sconces on the walls. We stopped opposite a door, and he was
about to lead me in when another door farther along the corridor opened
and a lady came out. She was all in white with dark hair hanging loose
about her shoulders, and there was a something in her arms.
Down went the lantern with a bang, and Sir James flew like a hunted buck
along the corridor. He whipped his arms around the lady and kissed her
passionately, and then flung on his knees and held out his arms. She put
the something in white into them and there was a little puling cry.
"Married a year come Christmas," whispered old Inskip, "and the babby's
five weeks old to-morrow."
A serving-woman bustled out of another room, and the lady and child were
affectionately driven off to bed under her escort. Sir James came slowly
back.
"My wife and son, Mr. Wheatman," he said. "You must meet them to-morrow.
The young rascal cries out whenever I desecrate him with my touch. It
would have served him right to have christened him 'Oliver.'"
I laughed heartily, for he was fighting himself again by gibing at me. He
sent off the old man to scour the pantry for a supper for me, and then
pushed open the door and led me into the room.
For size and dignity, it was a room to take away the breath of a poor
yeoman. It seemed to me a Sabbath day's journey to the great blazing
hearth, where two men were sitting; the high white ceiling was moulded
into a wondrous design, with great carved pendants hanging from it like
icicles from the eaves of the Hanyards. Many bookcases ran half-way up the
walls round the greater part of the room, filled with stores of books such
as my heart had never dreamed of, great leather-bound folios by platoons,
and quartos by regiments. If I could get permission I would steal an hour
or two from sleep to eye them over, and as we walked towards the hearth I
got behind my host in my slowness and had to step up smartly to get level
with him to make my bow of introduction. I gasped with the shock as I
stepped into the arms of Master John Freake.
"My dear lad," he cried, "what luck! What luck! How are you? How are they?"
He made me sit down beside him, for here as elsewhere he was easily the
most important man present, though his bearing was ever quiet and modest.
He spoke of me to Sir James in warm and kindly phrases, and it soon became
manifest that his good word was a passport into my host's confidence and
regard. The three gentlemen filled their glasses and toasted me with grave
courtesy, and I easily slid out of the uneasy mood into which Inskip's
candour and my unaccustomed surroundings had driven me.
The third man present was a Welsh baronet, Sir Griffith Williams, a
far-away cousin and close friend of Sir Watkin Wynne, whose name I
remembered to have heard on the Colonel's lips at Leek. Sir Griffith was a
brisk, apple-cheeked man of forty or thereabouts, very fluent of speech in
somewhat uncertain English, with fewer ideas in his head than there are
pips in a codlin, but what there were of them singularly clear and