The Yeoman Adventurer
Manchester and was now marching south, with hell in his heart and
desolation in his train. If one-hundredth of it were true, the worthy
mayor had his work cut out, for the town was so ill-found that it would
have fallen to a bombardment of turnips.
I took my stand on the town-hall steps to scan the scene and collect my
thoughts. And here I had the best of luck, for who should come clanking
down the steps but Jack Dobson. I had no need to envy him now, having
better work on hand than his, but even if the mood of the midday had been
prevailing, it would have disappeared before his hearty greeting.
"Noll, by gad, Noll," he cried, wringing my hand joyously. "I am glad to
see you, bully-boy; I thought you were sulking in your tent like--like,
you know his name, the fellow old Bloggs was always yarning about."
"Iphigenia," said I.
"Was that the chap?" he said cheerily. "And now I've got you, come along
to the house. I've more to tell you than there is in all your silly old
Virgil, and it's alive, man, alive, alive. That's why it suits me. Come
along, Noll. Lord Brocton's supping and staying with dad, so's Sneyd, and
a lot more, and you'll hear all the news. Brocton's a beast, and I'm glad
I'm an officer, if it's only a cornet in his rotten dragoons. There'll be
one beast less in the world, I'm thinking, before long."
"What's he done to upset you?"
"I say, Noll," was his reply, "Kate did look sweet this afternoon. I was
glad to have her come and see me off to the wars. I only had a few
snatches of talk with her. Brocton was for ever finding me something to
do, rot him, but she did look sweet."
"All right, if she did. Never mind our Kate."
"Never mind your Kate, you barbarian, you one-eyed anthropathingamy! Oh,
Noll, old friend"--there was a catch in his voice as he dragged me into
the entry at the side of old Comfit's shop,--"she's your Kate now, but if
I come back, I want her to be my Kate. Don't breathe a word to her, Noll,
unless I never come back,--war has its risks, Noll, and I'm going to take
'em all,--but if I never come back, Noll, just tell Kate that I loved her."
A plump of townspeople yelled their way past the entry, and their torches
lit up his fresh, boyish face, all alight with the enthusiasms of war and
love. I clasped his hand, and we looked into each other's eyes.
"I'm glad to tell you, Noll."
"I'm glad to hear it, Jack. Come back, for Kate's sake."
The good fellow bubbled with joy at the meaning in my words, and we
continued our way up the entry, intending a detour where we could talk in
quiet, but before we had got out of the glare of the torches, he stopped
me, looked searchingly at me and said, "Old Noll, there's more in your
head now than Virgil." This confirmed my suspicion that Master Jack Dobson
was learning in his way more than I had learned in mine.
"Farming," said I. "Tell me why Brocton is a beast."
"He thinks every pretty woman a butterfly for his filthy fingers to crush
the beauty out of. But if he rolls his beast's tongue round one name,
either he or I will want that ferryman chap. What's his name?"
"Charon," said I, forgetting to tease him.
"That's him, Charon, I'm sure you're right this time. I wasn't sure about
the sulky old boy in the tent. I always thought Iphi-something was the one
that got his throat--Abram and Isaac sort of tale without any ram and
thicket at the end of it--but of course you'll be right."
"And what sort of dragoons are you cornet of?" I asked.
"They give me the bats, Noll. There's about two hundred town-sweepings,
not worth powder and shot, who want tying on their horses, and hardly know
butt from bayonet, and there's another two hundred better men, got
together coming along, or in the country around Lichfield. Sneyd, a
rattling good fellow, and I have tossed for stations, and when it comes to
a battle he's to lead the yokels and I'm to follow behind, kicking the
scum of London into the firing-line. Damn 'em. But I'll kick 'em right
enough. Then there's Major Tixall--major, by gad--a slinking cut-throat,
with a face the colour of pigs' liver. What he's majoring it for, Brocton
and the devil alone know. The only good thing is we've got a first-rate
drill sergeant. He's Brocton's toady, and for that I don't like him, but
he does know his business, I must say that for him."
"Big-headed man, with a mouth slit up to his left ear?" said I, seizing
the welcome opportunity.
"How the deuce do you know?" asked Jack, astonished.
"He came searching the Hanyards this afternoon for a Jacobite spy, a
woman. But he didn't find her. She slipped through his fingers somehow. I
understood from big-mouth that you'd caught her father. What have you done
with him? Is he crow's meat yet?"
"No, for some reason or other, which is a mystery to me, Brocton sent him
on with the van."
"Here?"
"No, farther on. Their orders are to push into Stone to-day, and
Newcastle to-morrow. They ought to be in touch with the enemy there. Of
course it's not certain which way they'll come, and if they come this way,
Noll, mark you, we've made a mistake. We ought to have waited for 'em at
Milford. We could have blown 'em to bits from the top of the hills, long
before they could have got at us."
Our talk had brought us to an alley containing a side entrance to Master
Dobson's fine, old, timbered house, the pride of the town and known there
as the "Ancient High House." It stood on the main street of the town,
which led from the bridge to the market-place. For a moment I was
undecided, since I had obtained the news that mattered most, but I had
only been out a short time, the rabbit-stew would not be ready, Mistress
Waynflete was safe and comfortable, and might prefer to be alone, it was
possible that I might learn something further--and on these grounds I
decided that it would be well worth while to accept Jack's invitation. I
therefore followed him into the withdrawing-room. Here I paid due
courtesies to buxom Mistress Dobson and Mistress Priscilla Dobson, Jack's
oldest sister, a wasp-waisted bundle of formalities, for ever curtsying
and coquetting, after the London mode as she fondly imagined. My back
fairly ached with answering bobs and bows before we had drunk our part of
a dish of tea, which Mistress Dobson had brewed wherewith to refresh
herself after the toils of hospitality, but at last I jerked my way out at
Jack's heels, and we climbed to the stately barrel-roofed room where the
great ones were assembled.
Horseshoe-wise round a mighty fire of logs, with a small table covered
with decanters and glasses between each pair, some dozen men sat at their
wine. There was, of course, Master Dobson, his meagre body all a twitter
with importance, sitting in the centre of the bend, opposite the fire,
whence he could survey all his guests at once, and urge them on with their
carousing.
"My son returneth, my lord," he said, "with news from the worshipful the
Mayor, and he hath brought with him a worthy yeoman, one Master Wheatman,
who--"
"Of the Hanyards, Esquire," said I in a testy whisper.
"Ha, yes," he corrected and compromised, "Master Wheatman of the
Hanyards, a loyal subject of His Gracious Majesty."
"The best friend and hardest hitter in broad Staffordshire," added Jack
heartily.
I stepped into the horseshoe and made a bow general to the company, and a
lower one for the benefit of my Lord Brocton, who sat next to the hearth
in pride of place and comfort. Some years older than I, but not yet
thirty, handsome as a god carved by Phidias, but with drink and devilment
already marking him out for a damned soul, he sat there, the idol of that
lord-worshipping company. The only vacant chair was on his left. It was
Jack's place, earned by his father's guineas, which had remained vacant
during his absence. The good lad, I record it with pride, notwithstanding
a forbidding glance from his father, motioned me towards it, and fetched a
glass and poured out wine for me. As I was stepping forward his lordship
was good enough to address me.
"Ha, Master Wheatman of the Hanyards,"--there was a sneer in his voice,--"it
is well I see thee on the right side, or, by gad and His Gracious
Majesty, we'd have that other five hundred acres of yours." He tossed off
a bumper of wine and added, "Or a solatium, Master Wheatman, a solatium."
I caught Jack's eye as I stepped right into the middle of the group. To
my astonishment it was glowing with anger. Did he not think I could take
care of myself? Really Jack was becoming mysterious, but I supposed that
as I was Kate's brother he was feeling unusually interested in my welfare.
For my own part I was quite comfortable, and I replied easily, "As a
matter of fact, my lord, I have chosen my side expressly on account of the
well-known propensities of your lordship's family."
For a full minute nothing was heard in the room but the cracking and
sputtering of the fire. This was not because of what I had said, though no
one present, and he least of all, could be fool enough to misunderstand
it, but because of its effect on him. Then, as now, blood flowed like
water on far lighter occasions than this, and Brocton, with all his
faults, was a ready fighter. For once, however, his fingers did not seek
his sword hilt, but fumbled with his empty glass, and his face went white
as the ashes at his feet. At length he recovered himself somewhat.
"The loyal propensities of my family are well known to all men," he said.
"And its determination to profit by them," I retorted coldly, and plumped
me down at his side.
Right opposite me was the rector, a gross, sack-faced, ignorant
jolt-head, jowled like a pig and dew-lapped like an ox. Nature had meant
him for a butcher, but, being a by-blow of a great house, a discerning
patron had diverted him bishopward. In a voice husky with feeling and
wine, he said, "Surely it is the part of a gracious king to reward such
faithful service as that of the noble Earl of Ridgeley and my Lord
Brocton."
"Decidedly, your reverence," I answered briskly, "and of others too, and
if, as seems likely, the Highlanders have left a vacant deanery or two
behind them, I hope your loyal services and pastoral life will be suitably
rewarded with one."
Here Jack drew up another chair and I moved to make more room, so that he
could sit next to Brocton, to whom he was soon detailing in eager whispers
the result of his visit to the town hall. The others took up the broken
links of talk, and this gave me an opportunity of inspecting the company.
There could be no doubt about the man on my left. His vicious, pimply
face manifested him Major Tixall, and Mistress Margaret's shudder was
easily accounted for. He turned his shoulder to me and talked to another
officer, who, so far, was only in his apprenticeship at the same game.
Beyond were two other officers of a wholly different stamp, and the one
who smiled at me with his eyes I took to be Sir Ralph Sneyd, a young
Staffordshire baronet of high repute. Then came Master Dobson, separating
the military sheep from the civilian goats. There was the Friday-faced
clothier and mercer, Master Allwood, strange company here since he was the
elder of a dissenting congregation in the town, and therefore well
separated from his reverence. The worthy mercer's dissent did not extend,
so rumour had it, to the making of hard bargains, and doubtless he was for
once hob-nobbing with the great in respect of his long purse rather than
of his long prayers. Other townsmen, whose names I did not know or cannot
recall, separated deacon from rector.
The last man in the company, sitting opposite to his lordship, was a
stranger, and by far the man best worth looking at in the room. He had
drawn back a little, either out of the heat of the fire or to avoid his