The Yeoman Adventurer
account of the affray at the inn. My capture was exceedingly popular, and
they gloated to my face over the doom in store for me, wrangling like
rooks as to the likeliest spot for my gibbet. The majority fixed it at the
Copt Oak, where, as they reminded me with shrill curses, I had murdered
poor old Bet o' th' Brew'us for a shilling and sixpence. It was a relief
to hear the host shout to Master Wicks, "Yon's th' Squire's!"
We trooped up to a fair stone house of ancient date with a turret at the
tip of each wing. My luck was clean out. The Squire was not yet back home
from hunting, for he went out with the hounds every day the scent would
lie. He had ridden far, or was belated, or his horse had foundered, and
there was no telling, said his ruddy old butler, when he would be back. So
the villagers were driven off like cattle, Sultan was stabled, and we five
were accommodated in the great hall, for the host and the ostler stayed on
the ground that so dangerous a villain as Swift Nicks wanted a strong
guard. They put me under the great chimney and sat round me, in a half
circle, each man with a loaded pistol in one hand and a jug of ale in the
other. The Squire's lady came in and stood afar off examining me, and I
saw that she was in deadly fear of me, handcuffed and guarded as I was.
Over an hour crawled by, taking with it my last chance of getting into
Derby, with my task accomplished, by six o'clock. What would Margaret
think of me? Her obvious pride in the honour the Prince had conferred upon
me by selecting me as his personal helper, had been a great delight to me,
and now I had failed him and disquieted her. The thought made me rage, and
I gave my captors black looks worthy of any tobie-man on the King's
highway.
At last relief came in the shape of the Squire's youngest son, a stout
lad of some twelve years old, who raced in, rod in hand, and made up to me
without a trace of fear. He was in trouble about his rod, having snapped
the top joint in unhandily dealing with a fine chub. After some wrangling,
I got my hands freed, and set about splicing the joint.
"They do say," said I mockingly, "as how Swift Nicks is a good hand at
splicing fishing-rods."
"I never 'eerd tell of that'n," said the stolid ostler.
"Are you really Swift Nicks, sir?" asked the lad, looking steadily at me
with frank, innocent eyes.
"No more than you are Jonathan Wild or Prester John, my son," I answered.
"Then who are you?" he persisted.
"I'm a poor splicer of fishing-rods. I get my living by riding about the
country on a fine horse, with one pair of pistols in my holsters and
another pair in my pocket, looking for nice little boys with broken
fishing-rods, and mending 'em--the rods, not the boys--so that father
never finds it out and the rod's better than ever it was. How big was the
chub?"
"That big!" said he, holding his hands about two feet apart.
"The great advantage, my son, of having your rod mended by me is that
ever afterwards you'll be able to tell a chub from a whale."
"Sir," said he proudly, "a Chartley never lies."
"Of course," said I, "it's hard to say exactly how big a fish is when
you've missed him. So your name's Chartley. Is this Chartley Towers?"
"It is," said he, with a taking boyish pride ringing in his voice. "We
are the Chartleys of Chartley Towers. We go back to Edward the Third."
Did ever man enjoy such fat luck as mine? I had been as hard beset as a
nut in the nutcrackers. To prove that I was not Swift Nicks I should have
to prove that I was Oliver Wheatman. The Bow Street runner would see to
that, for, as Swift Nicks, I was worth fifty guineas to him, a sum of
money for which he would have hanged half the parish without a twinge.
Cross or pile, I should lose the toss. Drive away the cart! Such had been
my thoughts, and now a lad's young pride had snatched me out of danger. I
grew quite merry over the splicing, and told young Chartley all about my
fight with the great jack.
The job was near on finished when there was a rattle of hoofs without,
and, a minute later, the door was flung open and in swept a torrent of
yapping foxhounds, followed by a big, hearty, noisy man in jack-boots and
a brown scratch bob-wig.
"Dinner! Dinner!" he shouted to his wife, who came in to meet him. "The
best run o' the year, lass! Thirty miles before he earthed, the dogs
running breast-high every yard of it, and the very devil of a dig-out!
There was only me and parson and young Bob Eld o' Seighford in at the
death. Dinner, dinner, my lass! I could eat the side of a house. Hallo,
damme! What art doing here, Jack Grattidge?"
The question was put to the host, who was shuffling down the hall to meet
him. The Squire slashed the dogs silent with his half-hunter to catch the
reply.
"Please, y'r honour," said the host, "we've copped Swift Nicks."
"By G--! You a'nt!"
"We 'an," declared the host.
"Hurrah!" roared the Squire. "That's news! I owe you a guinea for it,
Jack."
He clumped up to the hearth, crying out as he came, "Show me the black,
bloody scoundrel! I'd crawl to London on my hands and knees to watch him
turned off."
Seeing me engaged in the innocent task of mending his lad's fishing-rod,
with the lad himself at my knees intent on the work, he took Mr. Wicks for
the highwayman, and cursed and swore at him hard enough to rive an
oak-tree. He was, indeed, so hot and heady that it was some minutes before
his mistake could be brought home to him. By the time he realized that the
man mending the rod was Swift Nicks, he had fired off all his powder, and
only stared at me with wide-open eyes.
"I suppose," said I, very politely, "that, as you've been hunting, the
chestnut is still on the hob."
"I'm damned!" says he, and flops down into his elbow-chair.
* * * * *
In the end we made a treaty, to Mr. Wicks' great disgust, who saw the
guineas slipping through his fingers. Nor was the Squire less aggrieved at
first, for clearly it was to him a matter of high concern to nail Swift
Nicks.
"What's it matter to us here who's got a crown on his head in London?" he
said. "London-folk care nothing for us, and we care nothing for them. But
Swift Nicks does matter. We want him hung. No man about here with any
sense bothers about your politics except at election-times, when politics
means a belly full of beer and a fist full of guineas for every damned
tinker and tallow-chandler in Leicester. But you, or that bloody villain
Swift Nicks, if you a'nt him, keep us sweating-cold o' nights. To hell
with your politics! Hang me Swift Nicks!"
The terms of our treaty were that I was to remain peaceably and make a
night of it, giving my word to make no attempt to escape or harm anyone.
In the meantime, and at my proper charges, a post was to be sent to fetch
Nance Lousely and her father to give evidence on my behalf.
"DEAR GHOSTIE,"--I wrote to her,--"I am in great danger because a
red-nosed man vows I am Swift Nicks. I want you and your father to come
and prove he's an ass. If you don't I am to be hung on a gibbet at a place
called the Copt Oak, and I can't abide gibbets, for they are cold and
draughty. So come at once, my brave Nance!--Your friend,
"O. W."
A groom was fetched and I told him how to get to Job Lousely's. He was
well mounted from the Squire's stables and set off. However quickly he did
his business, it would be many hours before he could be back. So I settled
down to make a night of it.
There was nothing original in the Squire's way of making a night of it.
The parson who had been in at the death and who, during the settlement of
my affair, had been busy in the stables, now joined us at dinner. He was
but lately come from Cambridge, at which seat of learning the chief books
appeared to be Bracken's _Farriery_ and Gibson on the _Diseases of
Horses_, with Hoyle's _Whist_ as lighter reading for leisured
hours. He was a hard rider, a hard swearer, and a hard drinker, and, after
being double japanned, as he called it, by a friendly bishop, had been
pitchforked by the Squire into a neighbouring parish of three hundred a
year in order that the Squire's dogs and hounds, and the game and poachers
on the estate, might have the benefit of his ministrations. He had,
however, sense enough to buy good sermons. "At any rate the women tell me
they're good," explained the Squire. "I can't say for myself, for Joe's a
reasonable cock, and always shuts up as soon as I wake up."
The Bow Street runner, Mr. Wicks, and the red-nosed petty constable of
the hundred, who answered to the name of Pinkie Yates, were of the party.
I ate little and drank less, but the others emptied the bottles at a
great pace and were soon hot with drink. One brew, which the huntsmen
quaffed with much zest, I insisted, out of regard for my stomach, on
passing round untouched, though the men of law took their share like
heroes, and, I doubt not, thought they were for once hob-nobbing with the
gods. The manner of it was thus. The parson drew from his pocket a leg of
the fox they had killed that day, and, stinking, filthy, and bloody as it
was, squeezed and stirred it in a four-handled tyg of claret. In this evil
compound the Squire solemnly gave us the huntsman's toast:
"_Horses sound. Dogs hearty,
Earth's stopped, and Foxes plenty_."
The parson then hiccoughed a song for which he should have been put in
the stocks, after which Mr. Wicks, with three empty bottles and three
knives to stand for the gallows, gave us a vivid account of the
turning-off of the famous Captain Suck Ensor, who kicked and twitched for
ten minutes before his own claimed him.
It was five o'clock next morning before my courier returned with Nance
Lousely and her father. I had gone to sleep in the Squire's elbow-chair
before the hall fire, with the zealous thief-takers in attendance, turn
and turn about, as sentries over me, fifty guineas being well worth
guarding. The butler watched at the door, wakefully anxious to earn the
crown I had promised him. The noise he made in unchaining and unbolting
the door awakened me, and it warmed my heart to see Nance standing timidly
just inside the hall, her hand in her father's, till she spied me, when
she broke away and ran up to me.
"You knew I'd come, sir, didn't you?" she said, appealing to me more with
her pretty anxious face than by her words.
"Of course, ghostie!" I replied promptly.
"Thank you, sir!" she said, with evident relief. At a trace of doubt in
my words or face, she would have broken down.
"Don't be a goose, ghostie," said I. "Sit down and get warm! And how are
you. Job? Much obliged to you both."
"We'n ridden main hard to get here, sir. Your mon didna get t'our 'ouse
afore one o'clock, an' we wor on the way afore ha'f-past. Gom! We wor
that'n. Our Nance nearly bust. Gom, she did that'n."
"Your Nance is a darling," said I, stroking her disordered hair.
At my request backed by a promise to turn the crown into half a guinea,
the butler got them some breakfast. Fortunately the Squire and the parson
were due at a duck-shooting ten miles off by seven o'clock, and so were
stirring early. My matter was soon settled. The Squire sat magisterially
in his elbow-chair, and Nance and her father told their tale, precisely as
I had told it before them. It cleared me and made the thief-catchers look
mightily confused and sheepish, and very relieved they were when, as a
politic way of staving off awkward questions, I grandly accepted their
apologies.
"I knew you weren't Swift Nicks," said the Squire, "when I saw you
mending my lad's fishing-rod. Damme, we'll get him though, before we've
done."
He invited me to join him at breakfast, where we were alone for the first
time.
"Is it into the fire or into the fender?" he asked meaningly.