The Yeoman Adventurer
look at him would be worth while, so I spurred after them. The clatter I
made had the desired effect. At the top of the slope, wrap-rascal turned
round. It was Weir, the Government spy. He squealed to his companion, who
looked back in turn. My heart leaped fiercely at the sight of his seamed
leathery face and dab-of-putty nose. It was the sergeant of dragoons.
Down the slope they raced, with me after them full tilt, proud as a
peacock to be driving two men headlong before me, and one of them an old
campaigner. It was my undoing. The road was lined with straggling hedges,
and a long pistol shot ahead, a cross-track cut it. The sergeant was
giving orders to the spy as they rode, and at the crossway the sergeant,
shouting, "Shoot low!" turned sharp to the left while the spy made for the
right.
It was a pretty trick, for it put me between two fires. I was on the
spy's pistol hand as he turned, and he let fly at me, not out of
calculated bravery, as his face plainly showed, but in a flurry of
despair. The motive behind a shot, however, does not matter. It's the
bullet that counts, and his got me just above the left elbow. I was up in
my stirrups, aiming at the sergeant, who was pulling his horse round to be
at me. I saw splinters fly from a bough to his right.
I had not looked to the spy. Now a shot rang out down the lane on his
side. It was followed by a piercing shriek, and this by another shot. In
between the shots, the serjeant wheeled round, and raced off down the lane
for dear life, spurring and flogging like a maniac. It was useless to
follow. My rein hand had lost its grip, my arm felt aflame, and blood was
already dripping fast from my helpless fingers.
Looking down the lane, I saw Weir lying in the road, and a strange
horseman climbing down from his saddle. I rode up to him.
"How d'ye do?" he said affably. "Sorry I could not get the other chap for
you, but I meant having Turnditch. The dirty rascal has sent his last lad
to the gallows. Faugh! I could spit on his carrion."
A glance to the road showed that he was right. The spy's blank, yellow
face was turned upwards; his eyes, with the horror of hell still in them,
stared wide-open at the sky. Just above his right eyebrow there was a hole
I could have put my finger in.
"Damn my silly eyes!" cried the stranger. "You're winged, sir, and badly.
It must be seen to at once."
He helped me down, took off my coat and waistcoat, and turned up my
shirt-sleeve, doing all this deftly and almost womanly.
"Hurrah! Missed the bone and gone clear through! Put you right in no
time! Plug down your finger there, sir, while I cut a stick. That's
excellent. You won't mind if I keep you while I reload my barkers? The
safe side, you know!"
With his handkerchief and my own, and a length of hazel for a tourniquet,
he bound up the wound, and with much skill, for he at once reduced the
flow of blood to a mere trickle. While he was busy over me, I took stock
of him.
He was a man of about my own age and height, but slimmer and wirier. His
features were rather irregular, but an intelligent, humorous look atoned
for this defect, and his bright grey eyes were the quickest I have ever
seen. Though an utter stranger, there was a puzzling familiarity about
him, and I tried hard to recall which of my acquaintance featured him. His
horse, now cropping at the roadside, was a splendid brown blood mare, the
best horse, barring Sultan, I had seen for many a day. The last thing I
noted was that the man was singularly well dressed.
"That's patched you up till you can get to a regular doctor. There's a
first-class man at Stockport, opposite the west door of the church,
Bamford by name. You can't miss his place, and he'll pocket his fee like a
wise man ind ask no questions."
"You've done very well, sir," said I. "The blood has almost ceased to
flow. I'm greatly beholden to you."
"Say no more!" he cried earnestly. "It's a boon you've conferred on me,
if you only knew it. _Nemo repente turpissimus_, as we say."
"_Video proboque_, as we also say," I countered, smiling.
"Oddones! A brother of the lamp!" he cried, laughing shortly, and
suddenly sobering. "I must be on. Sorry to leave you, sir, but I think
you're all right. Take care, however. I was touched myself t'other day,
and the damned hole in my ribs still bleeds if I exert myself too much."
"You should surely be in bed, if there's a hole in your ribs."
"In bed!" he sniffed. "I took to bed, egad, and nearly got pinched. Now
I've no need for exertion. In this gap between the Highlanders, I'm as
snug as a flea in a blanket."
After helping me into my clothes and on to my horse, he strolled up to
the dead man.
"Well, Turnditch," he said, "you know everything now, or nothing." Then,
dropping lightly on his knee, he turned gaily to me, and said, "Always
plunder the Egyptian, dead or alive."
He rifled the spy's pockets with the easy indifference of an expert,
singing as he turned them out:
"The priest calls the lawyer a cheat;
The lawyer beknaves the divine;
And the statesman because he's so great,
Thinks his trade is as honest as mine."
He stopped his singing and, tossing a well-stuffed leather bag up and
down in his hand, said, "There's really no objection to virtue when the
jade is not her own reward. Chunk! chunk! There's alchemy for you! Half an
ounce of lead into half a pound of gold!"
He stowed the bag in his pocket, jumped on his mare, and together we
walked our horses to the turnpike, where we halted side by side, our
horses' heads to their respective destinations.
"Sir," said I, holding out my hand, "I am greatly in your debt. My name
is Oliver Wheatman, of the Hanyards, Staffordshire. May I have the
pleasure of learning yours?"
He took my hand, looked at me intently, with his grey eyes very
thoughtful and steady, and then said quietly, "Samuel Nixon, Bachelor of
Arts, sometime Demy of Magdalen College, Oxford."
"Commonly called 'Swift Nicks,'" I added, smiling.
"Right first time," he cried gleefully, and shot off like an arrow
towards Manchester.
So Nance Lousely had not got her pinnerfull of guineas after all.
CHAPTER XXIII
DONALD
I got my wound in the early forenoon of December the 10th. About eight
o'clock on the night of the 17th I sat down in a deserted shepherd's hut
to the meal Donald had got ready for me. The week had been in one respect
a blank, for I had not seen Margaret. In every other respect it had been
laborious, strenuous, and exciting, and we had just seen the end of the
toughest job so far. We, meaning my dragoons and myself, were on the top
of Shap. Some ammunition wagons had broken down on the upward climb,
bunging up the road at its stiffest bit and delaying us for hours. His
lordship and the Colonel, with the infantry of the rear-guard, were in
Shap village a mile or two ahead. The Prince was still farther on,
probably in Penrith.
The delay was dangerous. Our army had rested one full day at Preston and
another at Lancaster. Even at Preston the Colonel and I, with my dragoons,
had barely ridden out of the town when a strong body of enemy horse rode
in from the east, sent by Wade to reinforce the Duke. Our margin of safety
was being cut down daily. We should have to fight before long, and I was
posted here, on the top of Shap, to see that no surprise was sprung upon
us.
The shieling, as Donald called it, was about a hundred yards past the
highest point of the road, where a picket was on the watch. Across the
road was a bit of a dip, and here my dragoons were making themselves
comfortable round a roaring fire, fuel for which was provided by the
smashed-up carcass of a derelict wagon. The country was as bare as a
bird's tail, but by a slice of great good luck one of them had shot a
stray sheep on the way up, and the air was thick with the smell of singed
mutton.
Here I must say of my dragoons that they were men I loved to command.
After twelve days' work of a sort to knock up an elephant they were as
fresh as daisies. Donald they all feared, and as Donald, for my behoof,
made no bones about telling them how the laddie's nief, sma' as it lookit,
'ad dinged 'im, Donald, oot o' his seven senses, they feared me. I think
they even liked me. Anyhow, I never had an ugly look or a glum word from
one of them. Some people express surprise at the splendid Highland
regiments now, thanks to Mr. Pitt's politic genius, serving in our army.
It is no surprise to me who have commanded a body of clansmen for a
fortnight in the back-end of a retreat.
Donald was a very jewel of a man. He was servant, sergeant, nurse, and
companion, and unbeatable in all capacities. My wound had given me more
trouble than I expected, even though Mr. Bamford had told me that one of
the larger arteries was injured. Once or twice since, as occasion served,
a doctor had dressed it, but it was Donald's incessant care that did most
for it. I still wore my left arm in a sling.
He had made me a fire of wood and turfs; given me roast mutton, a slice
of cheese sprinkled with oatmeal, and good bread to eat, and a pint of
milk laced with whisky to drink. Refinements which he would have scouted
for himself in any place, he had taken thought to provide for me in these
wilds--a pewter plate and a silver beaker, both stolen. The only
furnishing in the hut was a squat log, almost the size of a butcher's
block, which served as a table. For seat, Donald rigged up half the
tail-board of the wagon across two heaps of turfs. He completed his work
by producing a tallow candle stuck in a dab of clay by way of candlestick.
Donald had left me to my food and gone over to the camp to get his own. I
made a nourishable meal and then sat down before the fire to smoke and
think.
I had not seen Margaret since Leek, and had not been alone with her
since, her hand in mine, we had crept out of the gracious presence of the
dead. And I had got into a mood in which I felt that it was well I did not
see her. Some day I should have to do without her altogether, and this was
a chance of learning how to do it.
Though I had not seen her, I had heard of her. While our army stayed the
day in Lancaster I had been watching the road within sight of the spires
of Preston, wondering why the Duke's horse, after their accession of
strength, did not come after us. The Marquess of Tiverton has since told
me that the Duke had been kept a day at Preston by rumours of a French
landing on the south coast. Being far behind, I had ridden through
Lancaster without drawing rein, but in the main street a stranger--one of
us, however, as his white cockade showed--had stepped up to my saddle and
handed me a letter. It was plainly of a woman's writing, and I burned to
think that it was Margaret's hand that had penned the direction to "Oliver
Wheatman, Esquire, Captain of Dragoons in the army of His Royal Highness
the Prince Regent." I tore it open, and found it was from the Lady
Ogilvie. She would understand and forgive if she could ever know how
disappointed I was.
It had been written that morning before leaving the town, and bore traces
of hasty composition. It ran as follows:--
"SIR,--This is to let ye know, dear Oliver, that I'm sure M. has got a
bee in his bonnet. I'm thinking that some one we know has tell't him she
will hae no trokings with him in the way he wants. I dinna ken for
certain, mark ye, but they were taegither last night, and this morning
he's not hanging round to pit us in ye carriage, as he ordinarily does,
and she is pale and quiet, and says she wishes her father was at hand, and
I like it not, dear Oliver. I call you dear Oliver because y'are such a
guid laddie, just as I'm a guid girl. Davie tell't me how you stood up and