The Yeoman Adventurer
comfort. Jane carried down to the boat two huge stone beer bottles, filled
with boiling water. Mother insisted on madam taking her thick hooded
cloak, shaped like a fashionable domino, and covering her from head to
ankles. Kate slipped into my pocket a pint flask of her extra special
concoction of peppermint cordial, the best possible companion on a night
like this. Jane came back and returned again laden with rugs and cushions,
and soon reported that the boat was ready.
Mother and Kate, with Jane behind them, came to the garden gate to bid us
farewell. Little was said, for Mistress Waynflete was too moved by their
kindness to say much, and I was too preoccupied. Madam kissed them all in
turn and murmured a good-bye. I kissed mother and Kate, and they wished me
a good voyage and a safe return. We turned our faces riverward and started.
It was now nearly eight o'clock. The night was pitch-dark, the sky
star-studded and moonless. It was freezing hard, the keen air stung our
faces, the tiniest twig was finger-thick with hoar-frost, and the grass
crunched under our feet at every step. I went ahead as guide, and in five
minutes we arrived at the dock, where Joe, the boat out, cushioned and
trim for the voyage, was vigorously slapping his hands crosswise round his
waist to keep them warm. He held the boat up to the bank, I stepped in,
handed in Mistress Waynflete, bestowed her with all possible comfort,
settled by her side, and took the ropes. Then Joe, clambering in, pushed
off and the voyage began.
It was up-stream, but fortunately the current was gentle, though there
was a fair amount of water coming down. There was, or rather would have
been on an ordinary night, no danger of discovery, since the river was
half a mile from the main road at our starting-place, and ran still
farther away from it for nearly two miles. Then came the one possible
danger-spot on such a night as this, with the road occupied by troops on
the march. A long bend in the river took it so close to the road that the
yard of a wayside inn ran right down to the water. If we got safely past
this, all danger would be over till we ran sheer up to the ruined wall of
the town. The moon would not rise for two hours, so there was ample time
for our row of about five miles.
"I trust you are comfortable, madam?" I said.
"Comfortable and warm and cosy," she replied. "But for my fears for my
father I should even be happy, for it has never before been my lot, and I
have wandered far and wide over half Europe, to experience such and so
much kindness in one day from perfect strangers."
"I am, indeed, happy in my mother and sister. They are pearls of great
price."
"None better in all Staffordsheer," said Joe.
"You have rendered me a greater service than you know of, and I must not
let you leave yourself out." To hide a note of wistfulness in her voice,
she added mischievously, "Must I, Joe?"
"Yow could find wus'n' Wheatman o' th' 'Anyards," said Joe, with sturdy
precision of praise.
"Is he really a hell-hound, Joe, when he's got a sup of beer in him? I've
no clear notion what a hell-hound is, but clearly it means something as
bad, say, as a janissary--the worst animal I ever came across."
"Sup o' beer in 'im," snorted Joe contemptuously. "He dunna really know
what beer is, my lady. It's a grand thing is beer, if y'll only tak'
enough of it to do y' good, but there's no vartue in half a pint of it.
I've told 'im that lots of times. But it's God's truth, my lady, 'e dunna
want no beer, dunna Master Noll, to mak 'im 'it like the kick of a 'oss. I
on'y brought 'im a few daceys up t'ouse this mawnin', an'--"
"You row harder, Joe, and yawp less," said I, interrupting him. "Between
you and Jane I shan't have a rag of character left."
"Sup o' beer in him," he growled, and spat loudly on his hands. Joe
looked at all men as potential customers of the "Bull and Mouth," and
judged them accordingly.
"I know the worst about you now, Master Wheatman, and by way of providing
you with a less embarrassing topic of conversation, you might tell me what
we shall do when we get to Stafford."
"We are going to Marry-me-quick's."
She started so abruptly that I laughed outright, and Joe rumbled like an
overloaded wagon. I explained.
"We shall approach the town on the south side where the wall comes down
to the river. 'Marry-me-quick' is not, as you seem to suppose, a
disagreeable process, but an agreeable old woman who lives in a cottage
which backs on to the river. Every schoolboy in the town knows her by that
name, which is also the name of a kind of toffee she makes, and by the
sale of which she earns a modest living. I cannot tell you how the name
originated, but there it is. I went to the grammar school in the town, and
in my time I must have bought and consumed some hundredweights of her
'marry-me-quick.' In her tiny cottage you may rest in safety while I hunt
up Jack Dobson and learn what has been done with your father."
"An' if I'd got a shilling," said the irrepressible Joe, "for every pat
of butter I've taken owd Marry-me-quick, I'd--I'd--"
He seemed lost for words, so I assisted him, and paid him back at the
same time, by saying, "Pluck up courage enough to speak to Jane."
"That's rate, Master Noll."
"Is Jane so very fond of money, Joe?" asked Mistress Waynflete curiously.
"No," said Joe. "She ain't grasping, ain't Jin. She told me t'nate, she
c'd 'ave 'ad a mint of money if she'd liked, but she wouldna tak' it. Said
it would 'a' burnt 'er fingers. 'More fool yow,' says I; 'it'd 'a' soon
gotten cowd weather like this'n.' But Jin's all rate. Er'll never bre'k
'er arm at church door, wunna Jin."
I explained to Mistress Waynflete that a woman who broke her arm at the
church door was a housewifely maiden who became a slatternly housewife
after marriage. "There's no fear of Jane doing that," she replied; "she's
as good as the guineas she would not take."
For a space silence fell on us. All my attention was required to keep the
boat clear of the banks, for the little river turned and twisted through
its meadows like a hunted hare. There was only the starlight to steer by,
but I had fished every yard of the river, and knew it so well that I gave
Joe a clear channel to row in. Not a sound jarred on the rhythmic purr of
the oars in the rowlocks and the gentle lapping of the stream against the
bow. This day had God been very good to me. This was life as I would have
it; work to do for brain and brawn, and a woman to do it for who was worth
the uttermost that was in me. Romance had flushed the drab night of my
life with a rosy dawn, and my heart was lifted up within me. If it faded
away, there would at least be the memory of it. But it might not fade. I
was under no illusions as to the stiffness of my task. I was matched
against the powers that be, against my Lord Brocton, whose ability to work
this maiden ill was increased a thousandfold by his military authority. I
saw my way into Stafford, and I saw no more, not even my way out of it,
and least of all my way out of it with the Colonel rescued and restored to
his daughter. Mistress Waynflete had been so determined in her decision to
follow her father that perhaps she had some plan in mind. She said nothing
if she had, and if she had, it would, I supposed, depend on her woman's
power of influencing Brocton. The future was as black as the outlook along
the river, but I faced it eagerly.
She broke the silence: "The last boat I was in was a gondola. It was on a
perfect night in a Venetian June, the sky a sapphire sprinkled with
diamonds, the warm, scent-laden air filled with murmurings and snatches of
song. And there was no danger."
"Romance, perchance," said I.
"You cannot have a one-sided romance. Romance is an atmosphere breathed
by two, not an emotion felt by one. To be sure, he was the most
appallingly in earnest lover woman ever had. He wept for a kiss with his
fingers twiddling on the hilt of his stiletto. Dear heart, these Italians!"
"I should like to meet his countship," said I energetically.
"Yes, he was a count, with a pedigree as long as the Rialto, and he had
not two silver piastres to rub against each other. He was the handsomest
man I have even seen. Fortunately, we left Venice before he had quite
decided that it was time to dig his knife into me."
"You speak lightly of your danger, madam," I said coldly.
"A hot-blooded Italian with a stiletto in his hand is a much more
desirable creature, let me tell you, than a cold-blooded Englishman with
the devil in his heart. That fiery little count, conceited and
poverty-stricken, did at any rate pay me the compliment of thinking for at
least a fortnight that I was a patch of heaven fallen in his way, whereas
to your cold-livered English lord I am no more than an appetizing dish."
She was not speaking lightly now, but with cold, concentrated anger. I
remembered the reticencies of her statement at the Hanyards, and began to
see dimly some of the connecting links in her story. My Lord Brocton's
character was well enough known to be the subject of common talk at our
market ordinaries. My very manhood shamed me in the presence of this
queenly woman, marked down by a titled blackguard as his quarry, and I sat
still, fists tightly clenched on the tiller-ropes, and said nothing,
waiting for her to speak again.
"I have seen to-day, Master Wheatman," she said, "a sight I have never
seen before--a beautiful English maiden growing up to womanhood in the
calm and safety of an English country home. You will be tempted, I know,
to envy me my wanderings, my experiences, my freedom, but, believe me, I
would rather be your sweet Kate in the quiet of the Hanyards."
"It isn't as quiet as it might be when Jack's about," said I, seeking to
change the current of her thoughts. Then I had to tell her all about Jack,
and our boyish escapades and fightings and friendings, and because I had
earlier in the day though evil of dear Jack, I now could say nothing good
enough about him.
It was time to relieve Joe at the oars. At first he would not agree, for,
he said, he'd been "lagging a bit during the day 'long o' them squaddies,"
and wanted to put in a day's work.
"You will, before you've done, Joe, for you've got to pull the boat back.
So have a swig of beer and we'll change over. And madam shall acknowledge
the virtues of our Kate's peppermint cordial."
Joe shipped his oars and reached out for his bottle of beer. I got out
the flask and said in a sing-song voice: "Take two gallons of the best
Hollands money can buy, and add thereto, first, four pounds of choice
Barbados sugar, and, secondly, two bushels of freshly gathered leaves of
the plant peppermint. Steep together for a whole moon, stirring the
concoction every four hours during the daytime, and as often as you wake
o' nights. Strain through a piece of linen, if you've got one; if not, do
what our Kate did this year, use a fair maiden's silk stocking. The result
is a drink fit for the gods, and, indeed, one which may even be offered to
goddesses. Drink, madam!"
She was laughing merrily before I had finished. "Kate's stocking sounds
the most innocent ingredient in it, Master Wheatman, but I must try her
skill in brewing."
She did so, and pronounced it excellent but strong. I tried it too,
rather more copiously, I confess. Indeed, it was good, but to me, I know,
the charm of the cordial this time lay in the thought of the rich red lips
that had touched the flask before mine.
Joe and I then changed places, and I kept hard at the oars until we came
to the reach which ran close up to the "Why Not." Here Joe resumed the
oars and I the ropes.
"This is the only danger-spot," I said. "Yonder are the lights of the