The Yeoman Adventurer
precise. He reminded me of Joe Braggs, who could only whistle three tunes,
but whistled them like a lark.
Inskip brought me a rare dish of venison-pie and various other good
things, and laid out the table for me. I left Master Freake's side to eat
my supper and listen to their talk.
They made various false starts, followed by dead silences. It was clean
useless for Sir James to talk about his baby. Sir Griffith had had a long
family and so had exhausted the topic years ago, whilst Master Freake, a
bachelor, knew nothing about it. There had been a great flood in the
Welshman's valley in the autumn and he harangued upon it in style, and not
without gleams of native poetry, but Sir James had never seen a flood and
Master Freake had never been to Wales, so the flood soon dried up.
There was a silence for some minutes, busy minutes for me with an apple
tart that was sublime with some cream to it, and I was settling down to
the sweet content of the well-fed when Sir James broke out.
"Mr. Wheatman has brought me an invitation, hardly to be distinguished
from a command, to meet His Royal Highness at the Poles' place tomorrow."
The eager Welshman bounced on to his feet, raised his glass and said, "To
the Prince, God bless him." Sir James had to follow his example, though he
was in no mood for it, and it would have looked ill had I not joined in,
and moreover the wine was excellent.
"You will excuse me, gentlemen," said Master Freake. "I am not clear
which Royal Highness is referred to, and besides I have no politics."
"God bless him," bubbled the Welshman. "I shall join him when he has
crossed the Trent."
Again there was silence for a space.
"So the question is put, and I must give my answer," said Sir James,
breaking the stillness. "I must put my hand to the plough or draw back. I
must keep my word or break it. Can I be loyal to my father's creed and
also to my child's interests? I've got to be both if I can. If I can't be
both, which is to have the go-by? Fate has put me in a cleft stick, Master
Wheatman. On his death-bed my father handed on to me his place in the old
faith. He was a devoted adherent of the exiled House, the close friend and
associate of Honest Shippen, and even more intimately concerned than he in
the underground network of intrigue and preparation which was constantly
being woven, ruined, and re-woven up to his death ten years ago. He left
me poor and encumbered with debt, for he had been prodigal in his
sacrifices for the cause. It is a wonder that he died in his bed rather
than on the block, but he was as wary as he was zealous. For nine years I
lived here the life of a hermit, alone with my debts and my books. Then I
met a young girl"--his voice broke badly--"who became to me the
all-in-all of my life. By good fortune I also met Master Freake, who took
my affairs in hand for me and has helped me wisely and generously."
"For ten per cent, Oliver," interrupted Master Freake.
"Nonsense! Wisely and generously, I repeat," said Sir James warmly.
"For ten per cent on good security, I repeat," answered Master Freake
gravely.
"Damn your ten per cent!"
"Looks like it, and the security into the bargain!" said Master Freake
very quickly.
"Swounds! that's just it!" said Sir James. He rose and paced backwards
and forwards between me and the hearth. "A year ago, sir,"--he addressed
me in particular--"I should have shouted with joy at the summons to take
the place among the adherents of the cause which my father would have held
had he lived, and which it was his heart's wish on his death-bed that I
should take for him. The cause and the creed are nothing to me as such,
for I place no value on either. Your talk about the right divine of old
Mr. Melancholy, mumming and mimicking away there at Rome, makes me smile.
He's an old fool, that's the long and short of it. But a Blount's a Blount
after all. I owe something to my ancestors. My word to my father ought not
to be an empty breath. Yet here I am, with all the interests of life
pulling one way--wait till you've a boy five weeks old by a wife you'd be
cut in little pieces for, and you'll know, sir,--and a dead father and a
dead creed pulling the other. I knew what was coming, and I've talked
about it and thought about it till my head's like a bee-hive. Now, sir,
give me your advice!"
"I have joined the standard of your Prince," I said.
"Damme, sir, you mock me. That's not advice. That's torture."
"I have turned my back on the creed of my life and on every sound
instinct in me," I continued.
He stopped his walk and looked intently at me.
"I have ancestors whose memory I cherish, and I have torn up their work
as if it were a scrap of paper covered with a child's meaningless
scribble."
Sir James stepped up to the table, his fine face alive with emotion.
"For what?" he asked.
I rose and looked straight into his eyes.
"For a woman," I whispered, very low but very proudly.
Our hands met across the table in a hard grip.
"You have done well, sir!" he said. "I asked you to give me advice. You
have set me an example."
He sat down again, and looked hopefully at the fire and then moodily at
Master Freake.
"There is this unfortunate difference between Mr. Wheatman's case and
mine. I have, and he has not, given my plain word to a father."
"I admit that is a striking difference," said Master Freake. "I am no
Jesuit, however, and cannot decide cases of conscience. I deal with
business problems only, which are all cut and dry, legal and formal. When
I make a promise in the way of business I always keep it precisely and
punctually, for the penalty of failure to do so is a business man's
death--bankruptcy."
"There's such a thing as moral bankruptcy," said Sir James gloomily.
"Very likely," replied Master Freake.
"This is all nothing whatefer but words, words, words," said the
Welshman. "And words, my goot sirs, are indeed no goot whatefer. Sir
James's head is wrapped up in a mist of words, words, words, and indeed he
cannot see anything whatefer. I am not a man of words, and what you call
'em--broblems."
"Very good," said I.
"Indeed it is goot," said he. "To hell with your words and your broblems.
They are of no use whatefer, whatefer. Our good friend, Sir James, is up
to his neck in broblems like a man in a bog, and he cannot move. Now I
have not your broblems. To hell with your broblems. My Cousin Wynne is
full of 'em, and he's still gaping up at the cloud on Snowdon, while I'm
here, ready. I say plain: if the Prince cross south of the Trent I will
join him."
"Why the Trent?" said I.
"It is my mark. It is my way of knowing what I will do. It is all so
simple. Indeed I am a simple man, not a broblem in my brain, none
whatefer, I tell you plain. It is as this--so. If the Prince cross the
Trent, say I to myself, well and goot. He do his share. It is time for me
to do mine. It is better indeed, I tell you plain, to have it settled by a
simple thing like the Trent than to have it all muddled up by your
broblems. I can sing you off my ancestors by dozens, right back to the
standard-bearer of the great Llewellyn, but they're all dead, and indeed
I'm not going to poke about among their bones to find out what to do. I
look at your pretty river, and I wait."
Sir James had looked at him during this harangue with unconcealed
impatience.
"I sent a letter to Chartley of Chartley Towers," he said, "one of us,
and a strong one by all accounts. At any rate, my father always reckoned
him as such. So I asked him guardedly what he thought, and his reply was,
'The chestnut is on the hob. I am waiting to see whether it jumps into the
fire or into the fender.' I cannot decide by appealing to rivers or nuts.
There's much more in it than that."
Fate snatched the problem out of his hands. Without a tap, without a
word, the door of the room was flung open, and a dozen troopers filed
swiftly and silently in, and covered us with their carbines. An officer,
sword in hand, pushed through a gap in their line and stepped half a dozen
paces towards us. He saluted us ceremoniously with his sword and said, "In
the King's name!" Behind the line a man in citizen clothes hovered
uncertainly, and dim as the light was I made him out only too plainly. It
was the Government spy, Weir. My goose was cooked. I had played for life's
highest stake, and thrown amb's ace. It was good-bye to Margaret.
The Welshman stuck to his chair, stolid as his native hills. Master
Freake, whose back was to the new-comers, made a swift half turn, and then
he, too, settled down again as indifferently as if the interruption had
only been old Inskip with the bedward candles. Blount leaped to his feet,
livid with rage, and strode up to the officer.
"My Lord Tiverton, what does this intrusion mean?" he demanded.
"It means," was the composed reply, "that if any one of you makes the
slightest attempt to resist, he will be shot out of hand. Close up, lads,
and cover your men!"
The order was obeyed briskly and exactly. The three on the left of the
line attended to me, and I sat there, toying with a wine-glass for
appearance sake, though the three brown barrels levelled straight and
steady at my head made my heart rattle like a stone in a can. These were
none of Brocton's untrained grey-coats, but precise, disciplined veterans
in blue tunics and mitre-shaped hats, white breeches and high boots,
belted, buttoned, and bepouched. It was almost a compliment to be shot by
such tall fellows.
Seeing we were all harmless, the officer dropped his military preciseness
as if it were an ill-fitting garment. He was the daintiest, handsomest
wisp of a man I had ever set eyes on, and looked for all the world like an
exquisite figure in Dresden china come to life. He could not have had much
soldiering--the air and aroma of the London _salon_ still hung
closely around him--and he was so very self-possessed that he was
play-acting half his time, doing everything with a grace and relish that
were highly diverting. It took all my pride in my new hat out of me to see
this desirable little picture of a man.
"I assure you, my dear Sir James," he said, "that it's a damned annoying
thing to me to have to act so unhandsomely. Stap me! I shouldn't like it
myself, but law's law and duty's duty, and so on, you know the old tale,
and I'm obleeged to do it."
He opened his snuff-box and offered it to Sir James, who brusquely waved
it aside, saying, "Your explanation, if you please, my lord!"
"Damme, don't be peevish! Smoke the Venus in the lid? Isn't she a
sparkler? Wish I'd lived in the times when ladies lay about on seashores
like it! I hate these damned crinolines. Saw Somerset in 'em in the
Pantiles. Could have pushed her over and trundled her like a barrel."
"My lord," reiterated Blount, "I await your explanation."
"Boot's on the other leg," he chirped. "A'nt I pouched you all cleverly,
stap me, seeing the ink on my commission's hardly dry? Didn't think it was
in me!"
"I will take the authority of your commission as sufficient, my lord, the
times being what they are. But will you be good enough to tell me why you
come?"
"Gadso! Certainly! There's a dirty rascal in pewter buttons behind there--come
here, sir, and let Sir James see your ugly face!--who says you're a
disloyal person, a traitor, and so forth. I don't believe him. I wouldn't
crack a flea on his unsupported testimony, but he's in the know of things,
and showed me a commission from Mr. Secretary, calling on His Majesty's
liege subjects, etc., you know the run of it, and I was bound to look into
it. Charges are charges, stap me if they a'nt. Don't come too near, pig's
eyes! Out with your tale!"
His lordship plainly disliked the whole business, and it was a very