their hiding-place, folded them carefully up, and strapped them to the
cash-box, which she wrapped in a cloak and placed the bundle in her
wardrobe, where a dark driving-cloak and hood hung from a peg. She was
conscious of feeling a little restless and excited, though hardly
uneasy.
"It is Adela's nonsense about being murdered in our beds, and all that,"
she said to herself; "I will go down and get a book, and not trouble
myself about those stories any more."
Everything was very quiet as Charlotte and her mother sat beside the
cheerful log fire with their books. The house was rather a rambling
building, having only one upper storey of rooms, and covering a good
deal of ground. The sounds from one part of the house did not easily
penetrate to another; and Charlotte had not heard anything to awaken any
uneasiness, when suddenly, hasty steps sounded outside the door, which
opened to admit of Peter, the butler, who had such a white, scared face,
that, instinctively, Charlotte jumped up and placed herself so that her
mother might not see the man's expression of terror.
As a matter of fact, Mrs. Honeyman, being engrossed in her book, did not
heed her daughter's movement, and, of course, had not heard the approach
of the servant.
"The pirates! the pirates!" cried Peter, in strangled tones. "My
mistress--my dear young mistress! Fly for your lives! They will murder
every one who tries to thwart them!"
"How many are there?" asked Charlotte breathlessly.
"Ten; nine are to go through the house and take everything. The tenth
guards the door. They say they will not hurt anybody who offers no
resistance; but they will shoot the first one of us who tries to save
his master's property!"
Charlotte's eyes flashed. Her spirit was rising within her; but she was
no reckless fool to adventure herself and others in a futile struggle.
"The men are armed, of course?"
"To the teeth, with knives and pistols and cutlasses."
"Then, Peter, we cannot tackle them ourselves. We must get your mistress
away at once. She must not even know what is happening in the house,
else I am not certain she would not face the whole pirate crew herself,
and defy and resist them. She must not run that risk. Be ready to follow
up what I shall say. I do not like to deceive; but we must stoop to
subterfuge for once."
Then, turning back into the room, she shouted to her mother--but rather
slurring over her words, and making many breaks.
"Mamma--mamma, you are wanted. Something terrible has happened. Mrs.
Fea--you must go there instantly. Please do not lose a moment. It may be
life or death. Peter will take you. Your cloak and over-shoes are yonder
in the lobby. That is the nearest way; and I will follow you quickly and
see what is the matter."
Now Mrs. Honeyman was the most notable nurse in all the island, and in
all cases of sudden emergency she was always sent for, and delighted to
go and show her kindliness and skill. She was on her feet in a moment
now, and hurried with Charlotte into a little lobby on the other side
of the room, where her walking things for the garden always hung, and
where a side-door led straight out into the garden on that side of the
house nearest to the Feas'. Peter caught up a cap and gave his arm to
his mistress, but bent an imploring glance upon Charlotte.
"Missy, Missy, you must come too. I cannot leave you."
"I will be after you directly. I have but to run up these stairs here to
my own room for something. Don't lose a moment. I shall overtake you.
But I have something I must secure first. Lose not a moment in
acquainting Mr. Fea with what has happened."
Mrs. Honeyman, was by this time unlocking the door, and Peter had no
choice but to follow his mistress. Charlotte, drawing a long breath of
relief in the consciousness that her mother was now safe, darted up the
little stairway to her own room, and already fancied that she heard
strange steps and voices in the house.
Her heart beat to suffocation in the thought that at any moment the
other door might be dashed open, and some ruffian suddenly come in and
snatch away her precious treasure. What a mercy it was that she had
thought of secreting it like this! Here it was under her hand. She was
already wrapped in her cloak; her precious package was in her arms, she
was about to run down the little stairs again, when, to her horror, she
heard rough voices in the parlour below, and the sound of oaths as the
men called one to another in their hasty search.
"'Tisn't here! There's nothing here worth laying hands on. They must
have hid it somewhere. Let's be off upstairs. Here's another staircase.
Let's see where that leads to!"
Charlotte darted back into her room again, and drew the little bolt
across it. But that would only give her a moment's respite, she knew.
One or two heavy blows would bring the door crashing inwards; and what
then? She could not fly out by the other one, down the main staircase,
without encountering the man on guard at the hall-door. The sight of her
precious package would be certain to attract their instant attention,
and they had threatened with death all who strove to resist their
project of robbery.
But if she were to give up the valuables? Then she might well escape.
They had no personal quarrel with her; and nobody had told her to
constitute herself the guard of the family property. For one brief
instant, Charlotte hesitated; then, with a snort of contempt at her own
cowardly thought, she dashed open the window, threw her precious package
down into the garden beneath, and herself vaulted lightly after it.
She had performed this feat occasionally before, in the days of her
tom-boy pranks with her brothers, but she had not often practised such a
leap of late, and the darkness made it more difficult. She was conscious
of a sharp thrill of pain in her foot as she reached the ground, but,
striving not to think of this, she caught up her bundle and fled; a
light instantly flashing from the window of the room she had quitted,
showed her that she had only just made her spring in time.
With a heart that thumped so loud in her ears as to deaden all other
sound, Charlotte sped onwards as fast as the injured foot would allow
over the rough ground that separated her home from that of her friends.
But, in a few moments, she was certain that she was pursued. She heard
angry, threatening voices in the garden behind her. Glancing back she
saw flashing lights, and through the still night air came the sound of
curses, which bespoke very real disappointment. Evidently, the men had
heard of the cash-box to be found in Mr. Honeyman's house, and were
enraged that it was not forthcoming.
"Somebody has taken it and made off!" cried a stentorian voice. "After
him, men!--scatter, and scour the place. He can't have got far! Blow out
his brains if he resists. That money I will have. I don't come all this
way on a fool's errand!"
[Illustration: Suddenly, close above her, the steps came to a dead stop.
_Page 145._]
Charlotte heard, and instantly was aware of flying footsteps in many
directions, some coming her way. What could she do? Try as she would her
progress was not rapid. The distance to the Feas' house, so short on
ordinary days, now seemed endless. There were no trees to give cover.
That windswept island was bare of any save stunted bushes, and even of
these there were none to serve her purpose. If the moon should shine out
she would instantly be seen. She was not certain that some of those
fierce shouts did not mean that she had been seen already.
Breathless and terrified, but still clutching her treasure tightly,
Charlotte made for a great hole in the bank that she had known from
childhood. Into this friendly, yawning chasm she crept, pushing her
bundle before her, and here she crouched in darkness, covered by the
folds of her sombre cloak, expecting almost moment by moment to feel a
rough hand pulling her forth, or the threat of a bullet through her
brain if she did not instantly give up her treasure.
Footsteps came nearer and nearer. She shrank closer and closer into her
hole. She felt her flesh creep as the ground shook beneath the heavy
tread; it was all she could do to keep from uttering a cry. The horror
of that approaching discovery was so very real to her.
Suddenly, close above her, the steps came to a dead stop. She had been
discovered! She knew she had! Her senses almost forsook her. It was a
moment that she never forgot. Then a voice spoke, a rough, raucous
voice:
"You'd best come back. It's no good staying here. They're coming out
from that other house with lights and servants. They've got wind of
something up, and the sooner we get off with what we've found the
better."
A sudden rebound of feeling made Charlotte almost cry aloud. And as she
strained her ears to hear, the heavy tread of feet shook the ground once
more, now in full retreat. A few minutes later, limping in her gait, her
face as white as death, her dress covered with sand, her hands still
grasping the bundle that held the treasure, Charlotte almost fell into
Mr. Fea's fatherly arms, and told him all her tale.
"I don't know what Mr. Honeyman will say when he hears how near his
little girl went to losing her life for the sake of some valuables," he
said, as he led her into the house; "but one thing I know: he will be
mighty proud of having such a heroine for a daughter."
"If he doesn't think I was only a little goose," panted Charlotte,
beginning to look like herself. "But, oh, I am glad those wretches have
not got the things! And are you sure they have hurt nobody?"
That was the end of Charlotte's personal exploit with the pirates; but
there were many exciting days to follow, for in trying to get their
vessel away quickly, they put out on a stormy night, and were driven
ashore in the bay called Calf Sound, not far from the houses of Mr.
Honeyman and Mr. Fea. There, after much effort and some little
stratagem, the crew was finally captured, and Gow met his richly
deserved fate and perished on the gallows.
MARY BRIDGES
"Eleanor! Sister! There be days when I know not how to bear it. I feel
that I shall do something desperate."
"Nay, hush, Mary! hush! why shouldst thou speak so wildly? We must be
patient! Things will not always be so black!"
"Patience, patience! I am sick to death of the word! We have borne with
these odious men about the house, till sometimes I feel that I can bear
it no longer. And now that our father hath gone, and Robert with him, I
feel that the house is scarce a safe place for our mother or ourselves."
"Come, come, Mary, thou dost go something too far!"
"I trow not. Those bloody, hateful men of Kirke's, what do they care how
they frighten or annoy those who are forced for a time to shelter them?
The maid servants dare never be alone for an instant. They never know
but that one of those half-tipsy fellows will not come lurching in upon
them. And listen, 'twas only just now that I met one of them, smelling
so vilely of beer and spirits that it made me sick to go near him,
wandering up the stairs into our part of the house; and when I bid him
begone to his own quarters, what thinkest thou the wretch did?"
"He did not hurt thee?" quoth Eleanor, with sudden solicitude.
The eyes of the younger girl flashed fire.
"Had he laid a finger upon me, methinks I would have slain him as he
stood!" she cried.
"Oh, hush, Mary! hush! hush!" pleaded Eleanor. "It is not good in these
times to speak such rash words."
"A pretty pass things have come to if sisters may not speak freely
together in their own home!" flashed out Mary, whose quick temper was
easily aroused, and whose pent up indignation of weeks was coming upon
her like a flood. "No, the creature did not dare lay hands upon me. I
gave him a look--that was enough; but he vowed with many a vile oath
that he would kiss me ere he did my bidding. If I had shown one mite of
fear, Eleanor, I verily believe that he would have been as good as his
word."
The fair Eleanor shivered with a sense of keen disgust. She had not her
sister's courage and readiness and masterful looks and ways. Suppose she
had met one of these men upon the stairs, and he had spoken thus to
her, would she have been able to escape the hated salute? It turned her
sick to think of it--albeit in those days kisses were given and received
much more commonly than has since become the fashion between men and
women, youths and maidens. Mary read her sister's thoughts, and cried
out:
"Yes, yes, that is how I feel! Suppose it had been thou! Suppose insult
were offered to thee,--or to our mother,--who is there to defend you?
Oh, why was I not born a boy that I could set these surly knaves in
their place? Robert should not have gone and left us, when our father
was called hence too. It is not right or fitting; and with all these
fearful things going on around us. It is enough to make one turn against
the King, when he makes use of such vile instruments!"
"Oh, hush, Mary! hush! have a care! It is not safe to talk in that
reckless fashion. Who knows but that there may be some meddling spy
prowling about? And they say men and women are sent to prison and to
death for such small offences now."
"Ah, yes, it is the cruelty, the horrid cruelty we see perpetrated on
every hand that makes me so desperate. Think of that man Kirke, feasting
and laughing on the balcony overlooking the place where his victims were
being hanged and dismembered! think of it, Eleanor! and calling for
music for them to 'dance to' when their poor bodies twitched and swayed
on the gibbets; eating and drinking and making merry when human lives
were passing from the world in all that agony and shame!"
"Thou shouldst not listen to such stories, Mary, it does no good; and it
does but make life seem unbearable sometimes."
"And then, after Sedgemoor!" cried Mary, without heeding; "I heard
another thing of him there. Did they tell it thee too, Eleanor? There
was a man about to die--without trial--without condemnation--just strung
up as so many were on the trees by the moor's edge, at the bidding of
that man of blood! He was one of many; and the bystanders said that he
was the fleetest runner of any on the country side, and could run with a
galloping horse. Colonel Kirke asked him if that were true; and he said
he had done it. Kirke asked if he would like to do it again to save his
life; and he caught eagerly at the proffered hope. He ran with the
horse, he kept up the whole course, he returned breathless, exhausted,
but full of hope of the promise of life, and what does that monster of
cruelty and injustice do?--just has him swung up with the rest, ere the
poor wretch can find breath to plead for the promised pardon! Oh, it
makes my blood boil--it makes my blood boil! I have been loyal to the
King's cause all this while; but how can we help loathing and despising
a monarch who will use such tools as that?"
"Perhaps he does not know," faltered Eleanor.
"Not know!" echoed Mary, in scorn. "It is because he knows all too well
their temper that he sends them here! Hast heard what men are whispering
now?--that soon there will be an assize in the west to try all those who
have been concerned in this rebellion; and they say that His Majesty
will choose for the judge the most cruel, the most notoriously evil, the
most passionate and ungoverned of all the judges on the bench, and that
his name is Jeffreys. And people say if once he come hither, no man in
Taunton, nor in the west country will ever forget his coming. We shall
have such a deluge of blood as has never run in England before."
"Oh, Mary, what fearful tales thou dost get hold of!"
"They are fearful; but they are true. That is what makes them so
terrible," answered Mary. "Oh, how I hate and detest cruelty and lust of
blood! Art thou not glad, Eleanor, that even Kirke himself could not
cozen or threaten any Taunton man into acting as executioner to those
poor wretches taken on the field of Sedgemoor? They had to send to
Exeter or elsewhere to get a man to do that bloody work. Fancy cutting
the poor wretches down ere they were quite dead, and cutting out their
hearts, and flinging them on the fire, whilst the Colonel made merry at
his window, and the music drowned the curses of the crowd and the cries
of the victims or their friends! Methinks we have gone back to the days
of the Druids and their human sacrifices. Oh, how can the King permit
it? It is enough to drive the whole nation to hate him!"
"And yet we do not want a usurper to rule over us, even if the lawful
King be such an one as His Majesty is now. Thou art not foolish enough
to wish that the Duke of Monmouth had been victorious, Mary?"
"N-no, I suppose not! I love not usurpers; and our father hath always
averred that it is an open question whether the Duke is the son of the
late King Charles. No man seems able to say for certain what is his
parentage, albeit he was treated like a son; and there be those who
swear that the King did marry his mother in secret, and that he is
rightful heir to the crown."
"Mary, Mary, thou dost not believe all those foolish stories that thou
hast heard passing about? Men are always ready to believe that which
they desire to believe. But the Duke of Monmouth, if the late King's son
at all, has no claim upon the crown. Had it been otherwise he would have
been acknowledged as heir; for every man likes his son to reign in his
place. Our father thinks that the Duke is the son of one of the Sydneys;
he says he is so strangely like him; and the King never called him son,
though he was so fond of him, except when he presumed too far."
"Oh, I know, I know," answered Mary restlessly, "I have heard it all
argued a thousand times over. No, I do not want the Duke of Monmouth or
any other pretender; but I long for a King who can show mercy and
kindness and generosity; not a man full of the most bitter and
vindictive spite, who chooses as his tools and instruments those to whom
cruelty is a delight!"
It was no wonder that Mary Bridges' soul was stirred within her at this
time. She was the second daughter of Sir Ralph Bridges, of Bishop's
Hull, near Taunton, and when she was a young girl of some fourteen
summers, the whole district was stirred into violent excitement and
violent emotion by the sharp outbreak of rebellion under the Duke of
Monmouth.
The unpopularity of James II. was on the increase in those places where
the Protestant faith had its strongholds. It was openly asserted that
the King was a professed Romanist now, and that, in time, the whole
constitution of the country would be undermined by him, and that
persecutions of a terrible kind would break out under his rule.
The Duke of Monmouth came as the champion of the Protestant faith; and
hundreds who would not, in calmer moments, have admitted his claim, or
have thought it right for a moment to support one whose birth was so
very doubtful, were carried away by religious enthusiasm, and let
themselves be easily persuaded that this young man was the champion of
the faith; and that, be he who he might, he was a heaven-sent messenger
for the truth.
Far-seeing men, however, and men who knew something of the true
character and the past history of the Duke, were not so easily carried
away by the enthusiasm of the moment. Even had his claim been sounder,
he was not the man to push the enterprise to a successful issue. His
first burst of success, which had raised the hopes of his followers, and
had occasioned a certain alarm and uneasiness in the minds of his
opposers, had quickly been followed by a succession of reverses, and on
the field of Sedgemoor the hopes of the Duke and his adherents met with
a final overthrow.
Sir Ralph Bridges had been one of those who had watched the course of
the rebellion with keen interest, and had thrown his influence upon the
side of law and order. He had upheld the lawful King throughout, and had
done good service in keeping order in his own immediate neighbourhood.
But now that the revolt was at an end, and that the proportions to which
it had swelled had not been very great, it seemed to Sir Ralph and to
others as though clemency and consideration might be meted out to the
victims of the ill-timed movement; and he had been greatly scandalised
and shocked by the fury shown by Colonel Kirke and his men--his "Lambs"
as they had been named in fierce derision--for the heartless brutality
of their conduct.
It was, in fact, this indignation on the part of Sir Ralph which had
caused him to leave his home somewhat suddenly, and before the
withdrawal of the King's soldiers, billeted upon his house, in order
that he might post to town with all possible speed, and join with other
influential persons interested in the matter in seeking to win over the
King, through his ministers and advisers, to a milder and less
vindictive policy in dealing with the many persons now under arrest for
having been concerned in the rebellion. He had gone with some
reluctance; but it was told him by Kirke himself that the soldiers would
very shortly be removed from his house, and he had taken his son with
him as a precautionary measure; for he was a hot-headed youth, rather of
Mary's disposition, and the father was afraid that the lad would get
into trouble if he were not there to look after him; his disgust against
the atrocities of "Kirke's Lambs" being almost as great as was Mary's.
It was from her brother she had learned most of the more ghastly tales
of which her mind was full. Eleanor and her mother shrank from hearing
such terrible things; but Mary seemed consumed by that fearful curiosity
that longs, and yet hates, to know.
The very next day, to the immense relief of Lady Bridges, who, though
ever a dignified and self-contained woman, was one of a nervous
temperament, the order came from Colonel Kirke that the soldiers were to
depart from Bishop's Hull. Great was the satisfaction of the household
and its mistress; but equal was the disgust of the men. They had had a
fat time of plenty in this house where everything they demanded was
accorded by its mistress, who, since the departure of her lord, had
found it easier to give than withhold, although Mary's heart often
burned with anger at hearing the insolent demands of the brutal fellows,
who seemed to her to drink and carouse from morning till night. They had
been away during the time of the battle; but they were soon back again,
more swaggering, more insolent, more insupportable than ever; and, in
the absence of Sir Ralph, there seemed no end to their exactions.
The order which came was that they were to depart upon the morrow; and
it was fervently hoped that they would take themselves off at break of
day; but this was an idea which never seemed to enter their heads. They
called for more wine and beer than ever; sat drinking and dicing in the
buttery hall, as though that was their only occupation in life; and when
asked when they were going to take themselves off, replied only with
curses and foul abuse.
So insolent and intolerable did they become at last, that even Lady
Bridges' wrath was stirred within her. She and her daughters and
household had been dining as usual in the upper hall; and when the noise
from below at last became overpowering, she bid her house-steward go and
send the men away, saying that they should have nothing more from her
larder or brew-house, that their Colonel had recalled them, and they had
no longer any right to be there.
Mary clasped her hands together in delight at hearing this message. The
tables in the hall were now cleared. The servants had dispersed save a
few who were setting the place in order, Lady Bridges and her daughters
were standing upon the daïs where was the upper table, when suddenly
several drunken soldiers came lurching towards them in a state of such
anger and intoxication as made them fearful and repulsive objects.
They were swearing and cursing after the foul fashion of the day; and
though sober enough to see the ladies and make straight towards them,
they were not sober enough to choose their words, and continued to pour
out vile and insulting threats and abuse.
Lady Bridges, trembling in every limb, sank down in her chair, giving
hasty and terrified glances round her to see if help were near, and yet
mortally afraid of doing anything that could be construed by spiteful
misrepresentation into a charge of treason. The King's soldiers were the
King's servants. And who knew what power they might not have?