IN WHICH AN EGREMONT HAS THE HAPPINESS OF RETURNING TO HIS NATIVE
LAND--AND WHAT BEFELL HIM THERE
THE winter of 1695-96 was balmy and mild, and the smugglers--known
as “owlers”--between France and England were very lively. The great
ladies of London actually had the felicity of seeing, in the secrecy
of milliners’ back parlors, some dolls dressed in Paris, so as to show
the very latest fashions. Also, if one were very discreet and had much
money, certain French laces, silks, and perfumes could be bought on
the sly. Every smuggler did a good business that winter except one,
which lay sluggishly at anchor at a little fishing village near Calais,
during the whole month of January. Dark nights came, but the “owler”
moved not. The people in the little town thought the captain had lost
all enterprise, but it was none of their affair; smuggling was too
common for the movements of a single “owler” to excite remark in a
little fishing village.
At last, one night, two gentlemen arrived in a travelling-chaise. One
of them was a very tall man, with long, delicate fingers like the royal
house of Stuart, and he was evidently a soldier. He had with him,
however, no attendant. The other person’s status it was difficult to
discover, except in one particular--he was evidently a gentleman. He
had a very fresh complexion, a pleasant eye, and when he smiled there
were dimples in his cheek like a girl’s. He was plainly, even commonly
dressed, in old clothes, but was scrupulously neat; and he carried a
fiddle-case. Yet he was treated upon a footing of perfect equality by
the tall gentleman. The two ate together, and even slept together in
the one room which a fisherman’s family could spare them. Two days
after they arrived, came a vessel from England bringing despatches, and
that night, just as the moon was going down, the two gentlemen went
aboard the “owler,” her anchor was picked up, and her nose was turned
toward England.
They were barely three hours at sea when they were landed at Dover,
where they both took the London coach, but at different points. Nor did
the tall gentleman bow, when the younger one with the fresh face, and
the dimples, and the fiddle-case, mounted the top of the coach. Indeed,
his manners changed excessively, for he said angrily to the young man
who had slept in the same room with him the night before, “Have a care,
my man. You are crowding your betters.”
“I humbly beg pardon, sir,” replied the young man, touching his hat,
“but I am a stranger in these parts, and indeed, not much used to the
road anyhow.”
The two travelled all the way to London in company, and scarce
exchanged a word with each other. But at certain stages, when they
were for a time the only passengers, there was evidently intelligence
between them.
It was late at night before they reached the great, smoky city--wrapped
in blackness, a river dark as the Styx flowing sluggishly, and great
piles of buildings frowning down upon it. London after dark in 1696,
was a city of dreadful night. The stopping place of the coach was at
the Cock tavern in Bow Street.
The tall gentleman had a small portmanteau, which he himself handled,
to the disgust of the tavern porters. The younger man had a little bag,
such as might belong to a man who carried a fiddle-case. The porters
did not think it worth their while to offer their services to this
person.
The two departed from the inn without waiting for supper, the gentleman
merely saying he had engaged lodgings elsewhere, while the fiddler
alleged that he must look for a cheaper place to sleep. Although they
went in opposite directions, within fifteen minutes they were walking
up and down a narrow street together, in the shadow of a church porch.
“I hope, my Lord Duke,” said the younger man, who was Dicky Egremont,
“that you and Sir John Fenwick and the other gentlemen engaged in this
effort to restore the King will understand exactly how I am placed. My
services and my life are at the disposal of our rightful King; that I
consider the duty of a Christian and a loyal subject. Nay, more. As I
am a priest, and without domestic ties, my life is not to me what it
is to a layman,--to you, my Lord Duke, for example, with a young wife.
Therefore, if there be any extra hazardous duty, it is clear that I am
the man to take the risk. I am no hero, but I hope I am an honorable
man, and capable of doing my duty.”
“I have not the least doubt of it, Mr. Egremont,” replied Berwick,
warmly; “and your coming to England at this time, when there is a price
upon the head of every member of the Society of Jesus is proof enough
of your courage.”
“But I wish to say,” continued Dicky, “that I am here also to
administer the sacraments to those of our religion who have long been
deprived of them, especially the poorer people about Egremont. As long
as our family was in possession of the estate, the few poor families
who are of our religion were protected by the lords of the manor.
But now, for near eight years they have been like sheep without a
shepherd. I do not think the danger for me very great. In one quarter
of Devonshire my name is a safeguard. I think no young gentleman in
that county was as great a favorite with the common people as my cousin
Roger. None of them would betray me, no matter how hot Protestants they
are. If you can communicate with Tom Hawkins the fiddler, at the house
of David Hodge, shoemaker, in the village of Egremont, you will find a
willing servant of the King.”
“I have the name in my pocket-book, and I will not forget you, Tom
Hawkins. And you have mine, Mr. Calthorpe, at the Globe tavern in
Hatton Garden. Good-bye. May God prosper you.”
“The same to you, my Lord Duke. Adieu.”
Dicky walked on in the darkness until he reached a place of
entertainment of the humbler class, a considerable distance from Bow
Street. A few tunes on his fiddle got him a bed and supper,--he had
money, but was wary of showing it,--and after playing for the revellers
for an hour, he was glad to tumble in to a flock bed and sleep,--the
sweetest sleep, he thought, he had had since he had left his native
country, now more than nine years before.
There was ever a flame of adventure in the blood of the Egremonts; for
Dicky, priest that he was, found himself perfectly happy when, next
morning, he trudged out of London toward the sweet country, with his
bag on his back, and his fiddle in his hand, albeit he was without
a place to lay his head, and it was death for him to be on English
soil. It was likewise felony to harbor a Jesuit; therefore Dicky had
privately resolved to learn to live out-of-doors, so as to jeopardize
as few lives as possible.
He walked on all that day, keeping the highroad to the southward, and
stopping at half a dozen houses of entertainment, where he made his
darling fiddle sing. He was careful to play only English tunes, or to
give English names to the French ones he played, for he had no mind to
let any one suspect that he was lately from France. While it was true
the body of the people at that time were groaning under the taxation
imposed by William’s wars, and were therefore extremely friendly to the
Jacobites, yet the superstitious fear of the Jesuits still prevailed.
Dicky Egremont, stout Englishman that he was, would have had short
shrift had his real calling been known.
It was mild for the season, and being out in God’s free air all day
was solid happiness to Dicky, who had been cooped up between walls,
with books chiefly for company, during nearly ten whole years. He was
so joyous in spirit that he wished to dance and sing as well as play.
As he walked along the highroad toward noonday, he saw, down a little
lane, some laborer’s cottages. A dozen bare-legged children were
playing before the doors. Dicky, who loved children, went toward them,
and smiling ran his bow across the strings of his violin. The children
stopped, awed for a moment, but when he began to play “Green Sleeves,”
and to sing the song as he played, they came about him in open-mouthed
delight. Then one little urchin was moved to dance, and Dicky, by way
of encouraging the others, began to do the most beautiful steps,
playing meanwhile. At that all the little ones fell to dancing, the
urchin who had opened the ball seizing the forepaws of a meek-looking
dog, and whirling him around madly. Dicky played faster and faster; his
fingers wandered into that favorite air he had so often played to Bess
Lukens’s singing, “Les Folies en Espagne.” The sweet, rippling music
brought the mothers to the cottage doors, who stopped from their daily
toil long enough to smile at the merry young fiddler, who had such
girlish dimples in his cheeks and who was dancing so gayly, stopping
sometimes to prod the impertinent urchin who danced with the dog, when
the poor animal was being whirled around too fast and barked piteously.
When the children stopped dancing, and sat down panting, Dicky stopped
playing, and only then. A woman came out and very civilly brought him
a bowl of milk and some brown bread. Dicky devoured both with the
greatest relish. Not all the dainties he had even seen in France tasted
like that English bread and milk; it was like that he used to have at
Egremont when he was a little lad.
Presently it was time to take the road again; for he was anxious to be
in Devonshire as quickly as possible. The children followed him to the
highroad, and after he had played them a parting tune he went upon his
way. He had scarcely gone a hundred yards, when the boy with the dog
came running after him.
“Here, sir,” he said; “my daddy has told me I must get rid of Bold; we
can’t feed ’im, and I’ll give ’im to you if you’ll take ’im.”
Dicky was charmed. A dog--an English dog! He had not owned one since he
left England. And a dog would go excellently well with his disguise
and would be a friend as well. As for Bold himself, there was nothing
imposing about him but his name. Dicky concluded that Bold had not been
used to the society of gentlemen; all the same, never was dog more
gratefully received.
“Thank you, my little man; and here is a shilling for you. I’ll be good
to the dog; that you may depend upon.”
The boy looked at the shilling which Dicky put in his hand, and then,
appalled at such munificence, fled away without another word.
Dicky whistled to Bold, who came and licked his hand, and the two
instantly agreed upon eternal friendship. But as Dicky walked briskly
along, richer by a friend and companion, he bethought himself of his
behavior and began to see that he had been singularly imprudent, and
his escape from detection was due wholly to the ignorance of his
audience. First, he should not have played “Les Folies en Espagne.”
Then his dancing had comprised some foreign steps which might have
instantly aroused suspicion; and he had so far departed from his
assumed character that he had given money, instead of asking it.
However, a miss was as good as a mile; and like most men of courage,
Dicky troubled himself little about dangers as soon as they were past.
A few days of walking brought him into the Devon country. He had not up
to that time dared to make known his character as a priest, but once
in Devonshire, he was on familiar ground. He knew the few Catholic
families in the county, and he had rightly said the Egremonts had
friends enough in that county to protect him, Jesuit though he be.
[Illustration: DICKY WHISTLED TO BOLD, WHO CAME AND LICKED HIS HAND]
His first stop was at the house of a Catholic gentleman near Exeter.
Here he remained for two weeks in hiding, celebrating mass, instructing
and baptizing many adult persons. Although there was danger in having
it known that he was in England, it got bruited abroad among the
well-wishers of King James; and many persons of Jacobite principles,
Protestants as well as Catholics, visited him in secret to know how
matters were at St. Germains. The prospects of an uprising in England
were glowing. The people objected to the clipped money, which the Whig
government had forced upon them, and they demanded to know what had
become of the vast sums raised by ruinous taxation. Parliament was
forced to prove itself. The speaker of the House of Commons, Sir John
Trevor, was convicted of having accepted a bribe, and was expelled
from the House. The East India Company was found to have spent fifty
thousand pounds, of which ten thousand went into the pocket of William
of Orange. He had made a grant of five sixths of the county of Denbigh,
the ancient domain of the Prince of Wales, to his Dutch favorite
Bentinck. The Parliament obliged him to recall the grant. He had given
Lady Orkney a good slice of Ireland; that too the rude “parliament men”
as William called them, roughly and coarsely compelled him to restore.
They would have done worse, had not William wisely prorogued them.
Meanwhile all these things, especially the forcing foreigners to
disgorge the estates of English and Irish gentlemen, were full of
encouragement to all the friends of the Egremonts. Dicky discovered it
was true that Hugo Egremont, alias Stein, had been unable to alienate
an acre of Egremont, much as he desired to do so,--and he was so
generally hated and despised in the county, it was said, that he was
applying for a permanent foreign appointment; he stood in great favor
with the court party.
There was very great activity among the Jacobites assembled in London,
and it was desired by the friends of King James in Devonshire to
communicate with them. Who so well fitted as this young Egremont, who
was quite unknown outside his native county?
Two expeditions to and from London did Dicky and Bold make,--Dicky each
time with papers in his pockets enough to have hanged a hundred men. He
steadfastly declined to know their contents.
“For, in case I am stopped, I wish to say that I do not know what these
letters refer to, nor the names of the persons writing them. That they
are meant to help toward the restoration of our lawful King, I know,
and never will deny.”
After the second of these journeys, when the Jacobites only needed
the word to rise, a thunderbolt fell from the sky. Sir John Fenwick
was arrested, and with him Sir John Friend, General Rookwood, and
many other gentlemen of condition, all implicated in a plot to abduct
William of Orange. One gentleman, known as Mr. Calthorpe, escaped.
There was some doubt about his identity, but it was noted that he had
long, slender hands, with delicate fingers, like the Stuarts. Dicky
Egremont and some others knew who this gentleman was.
The failure of the expected uprising was a disappointment to Dicky
Egremont, as to all the other friends of King James. But he had come
to England upon other work. It was to preach, to pray, to administer
the sacraments to the poor,--for it was toward these unfortunate
children of the common Father that Dicky Egremont yearned. Truly, the
Egremonts had ever been well liked by the humble people. It was with
joy, therefore, that he left the house of his friend, near Exeter, to
go among the poor and despised of men; but on the very day that he
proposed to go in secret to Egremont, news was brought from London that
among the persons indicted for an attempt to murder William of Orange,
was one Richard Egremont, known to be a Jesuit priest in disguise, who
had been active in the matter from the start. Dicky at once disappeared
from the neighborhood of Exeter, but within a week was apprehended,
together with Bold, his dog, in the village of Egremont, and taken
in chains, as became a villain, and would-be regicide, to London, to
be tried for his life. And for the second time an Egremont stood in
the prisoners’ dock, accused of a capital crime against the person of
William of Orange.
The affair for which eleven gentlemen were tried, and nine convicted,
was so very like the former one, in which Roger Egremont had been
engaged, that it seemed as if the young Jesuit was convicted on
evidence offered in his cousin’s case. It was the same story,--a
plot to kidnap William of Orange. Only, the statements of the two
kinsmen were entirely different. It was well remembered that Roger had
coolly avowed his intention, and when asked, in tones of horror, if
he contemplated murder, remarked that in a _mêlée_ with pistols and
swords, it would not be surprising if some one got hurt, and for his
part, had the Prince of Orange refused to submit, he would have had it
out with him, and one or the other might have been killed.
Dicky Egremont, on the contrary, swore that he knew nothing of the
plot, and was not in the confidence of the conspirators; but that he
knew it was a movement for the restoration of King James, and as such
he willingly assisted in transmitting information. This was enough,
even without his frank avowal that he belonged to the Society of Jesus.
It was not even necessary to stretch a point, as in the case of Sir
John Fenwick, in whose case but one witness could be found to convict
him, instead of the two which the law required. This was promptly
remedied by a bill of attainder, and, as his counsel urged, “the whole
force of parliament was used to take away the life of a man whom the
laws of his country could not condemn.” The prisoners were confined
in Newgate gaol. Bold, with an intelligence far beyond his plebeian
and mongrel breed, managed to follow his master even to Newgate. The
poor animal was so ugly and worthless--except the faithful heart of
him--that he was worth no man’s stealing.
The first acquaintance Bold made, after sneaking into Newgate, was
Diggory Hutchinson, Bess Lukens’s old admirer. Diggory remembered
something about the Jesuit gentleman’s dog having followed him, and on
taking Bold to Dicky’s cell, the two companions met with such a rapture
of friendship that Diggory’s heart--not a bad one--was touched.
“I can’t let you have him sir,” he said to Dicky, “but I’ll keep him,
and fetch him to see you once a day--till--till--” till Dicky was
convicted and hanged, was in Diggory’s mind.
Dicky was charmed at the idea of having his dog with him, even for an
hour a day, and thanked Diggory most gratefully. Diggory remembered the
last Egremont who had inhabited Newgate, and reminded Dicky of it when
he brought the prisoner his gaol fare and his dog, on the first day of
his imprisonment.
Dicky, on this announcement, was disposed to regard Diggory as more of
a friend than ever.
“Do you remember my cousin Roger? Well, they were forced to put him out
of gaol; perhaps they will do the same with me,” he said, smiling. The
dreadful position in which he found himself had not taken the ruddy
color out of his face, nor the laughing light from his eye.
Diggory shook his head; he knew more of the fate which might befall
a prisoner in Newgate than Dicky did. It might be thought that a
prison turnkey must in time lose all human feeling. Not so. Diggory
Hutchinson, whose heart was not bad, performed his duties with the same
exactness, and in the same spirit, that the head master of a school
does.
After a time he grew sufficiently intimate with Dicky to ask, in a
stuttering voice, and with something as near a blush as his complexion
would allow,--
“Did you ever hear, sir, or see, a lass by--by--the name o’
Lukens?--Bess Lukens; as some said, followed Mr. Roger Egremont to
France.”
“I know her well,” cried Dicky, “and a better girl never lived. She
did, in truth, go to France; but she did not follow my cousin or any
other man there.” And then he gave Diggory a rosy description of Bess’s
condition and success.
Diggory went away very thoughtful.
Within two weeks the trial of the conspirators began, and among the
nine men convicted was “Richard Egremont, some time of the parish of
Egremont and county of Devon, by profession a popish priest and of
the Jesuit order.” Sir John Fenwick was sentenced to be beheaded,
but Richard Egremont, Sir John Friend, and Sir William Perkins,--the
last two wealthy London merchants,--were sentenced to be hanged, to
be cut down while still alive, to be quartered, and their heads and
dismembered bodies to be displayed at Temple Bar.
This sentence was pronounced in Westminster Hall, at dusk on a spring
evening. It was received in silence. When the young priest rose,
however, in spite of their grotesque fear of his order, a wave of
pity swept over the assembled audience. He was so young and boyish
looking,--he had never looked his twenty-six years less than at that
moment. Having listened with perfect composure to his sentence, the
young priest asked permission to speak. Chief Justice Holt, noted for
his mildness toward prisoners, and who had, seven years before, ordered
the chains struck from the limbs of Roger Egremont, readily gave
permission, saying,--
“A man in your condition, sir, should ever be allowed to make such
justification as he can, no matter how clearly he may have transgressed
the laws of the land.”
“I humbly thank your lordship,” replied Dicky; “I desire only to say,
on the word of a priest, a gentleman, and an Egremont, that those who
turned King’s evidence, and swore that I was concerned in any scheme to
murder, swore falsely. But that I did all I could, which was but the
carrying of some letters back and forth, to assist in the restoration
of King James, I own; nor have I any apologies to make. And I shall
suffer death cheerfully, my conscience being clear.”
The prisoners were at once removed, to be hanged the next day but
one. Dicky, handcuffed to a constable, like his fellow-prisoners,
was led down the gloomy stairs, between lines of curious persons;
some denouncing him, others pitying his youth and supposed misguided
conduct. Arrived at the great door leading into the street, he was put
into a hackney coach, with another constable on the other side of him.
The night had fallen, and with it had come a death-like fog, which
wrapped the great city. The coachman could but feel his way along the
dismal streets, faintly lighted at a few points by oil lamps. Dicky was
perfectly composed and cheerful, and was talking of Egremont with the
constable to whom he was handcuffed, when suddenly a scuffling of hoofs
was heard, the coach started off violently, rocking from side to side,
cries arose,--the horses had bolted.
“Keep cool, sir,” said the man on his left to Dicky; to which Dicky
replied, smiling,--
“Keep cool yourself, my man. I am to die on the day after to-morrow,
anyhow; surely there is no occasion for me to be alarmed.”
The horses were now tearing along the stony street. At a sharp turn
there was a cry, and a dark object whirled from the box on to the
ground. It was the coachman. The horses, now quite free from restraint,
rushed on madly, and the next thing came a shock, a crash, shrieks,
the trampling of many horses; the hackney coach had dashed full into
a chariot and six, with several gentlemen inside of it. Dicky felt a
violent blow on the head, a sudden wrench, a falling to the ground.
There was a plunging of horses, groans and cries of pain, many persons
running together, some one calling for a lantern. In the midst of it
he felt himself free from his companion. He scrambled to his feet and
staggered instinctively out of the _mêlée_. He found himself leaning
against the corner of a wall. There was much confusion; one person in
the chariot was killed, and one of the constables was shrieking with
pain. Dicky recognized the man’s voice. A crowd had collected in two
minutes; and then the cry arose,--
“Where is the prisoner?”
That one word restored to Dicky Egremont his strength and his senses.
He turned instantly, and fled through the darkness.
He ran until he was breathless, and then, stopping for a moment to
listen, heard not a step behind him, and looking before him he saw that
he was on the very brink of the black river. Looming up before him
were ghostly hulks and shadowy masts and spars of ships, with lanterns
twinkling feebly. He looked about him, and seeing not a soul in sight,
fell upon his knees, crying,--
“I thank Thee, O my Father, for Thy protection so far; but if Thou hast
ordained that I should suffer death for Thy sake, I ardently accept Thy
will.”
Then, rising to his feet, he walked rapidly on, keeping close to the
river bank. He met few persons, and those he easily concealed himself
from in the dense and overhanging fog.
He became conscious of pain in his left wrist, and realized that it
was badly wrenched and skinned where it had been dragged through the
handcuff. But there was no blood to betray him. He pulled the sleeve
of his body-coat down over it, and walked on. When he had gone, he
judged, at least three miles down the river, he stopped. There were
still vessels to be seen, but they were not thickly clustered as
higher up. There were some houses scattered about,--one of them, a
small, tumble-down place, quite uninhabited, with its door wide open.
He entered it, closed the door as well as he could, looked about him
and saw that the decaying windows were fast, and then, after giving
thanks, he lay down upon the bare floor, and in two minutes had fallen
into that sweet sleep which had ever been the portion of his brave and
innocent spirit.
He did not waken until he heard, in the far distance, the chiming of
a church clock at nine o’clock in the morning. It was still dark; the
fog lay black and heavy over city and river. He peered out of a broken
window and saw that he was in a lonely place, with no houses very near.
He was ravenously hungry, but he dared not go forth for food.
He spent the day in alternately watching and sleeping. He had neither
money, food, nor weapon--was ever fugitive worse provided for flight?
Yet his courage did not falter. Truly, there was no cowardice in the
Egremont blood.
Toward night of this first day, hunger drove him forth. There were a
few scattered houses with cultivated fields along the river bank, and
one of these tilled spots was a turnip field. Dicky made for this field
in the half darkness, and ate his fill and crammed his pockets with
turnips. Then he ran back as fast as his legs would carry him to the
deserted house.
In all the waking hours since he had found himself without handcuffs,
his mind had been working on the problem of escape. The river before
him seemed the only natural and feasible highroad for him. There were
many vessels moving about, and at anchor. In particular, there lay,
immediately in front of the deserted house, a heavy lugger, such as was
used in those days for voyaging between England and the continent. And
balancing his slender chances for escape, Dicky thought if he could get
on board that vessel it might be well for him. They were always ready
to ship a likely young man. Dicky was well-made and active, though
short; only, he knew nothing of a sailor’s work, and his injured wrist
might betray him.
With this plan in view, Dicky lay down on the bare floor and slept
easily and soundly that second night. Luckily, the weather was
extremely mild, and the discipline he had known at Clermont and at
Paris--to live on meagre fare, to lie on a hard bed, to rise before
daylight--stood him in good stead.
He waked at five o’clock, the hour at which he had always been
accustomed to rise while at the seminary. The first thought which had
occurred to him was that it was the day on which the nine Jacobite
gentlemen with whom he had been tried would mount the scaffold. Dicky
Egremont wondered at the providence of God which had suffered him
alone of them all to escape; him to whom death would be less bitter
than to men who left families behind them, whose estates were likely
to be sequestrated, their children certain to sink into poverty. Dicky
Egremont would have reckoned himself the happiest man on earth could
he have exchanged places with any one of those unfortunate gentlemen,
and would have gone cheerfully to his death to have spared an agonized
wife and weeping children the loss of a husband and father. But God had
decreed otherwise; and Dicky, falling upon his knees, prayed long and
earnestly for his unfortunate fellow-prisoners, who were to suffer that
day.
As soon as it was light he glanced out and saw the lugger still lying
at anchor, with no signs of leaving. He spent that second day in
prayer, and having but one means of mortification, he ate no turnips
that day, and so went fasting.
The day grew foggy, and it was not until the stars were out in the
evening that he saw any indications of leaving. Then a boat passed back
and forth from the shore, and presently, coming shoreward, stopped as
if waiting for some one. And in the dusky April evening, Dicky saw a
figure, evidently a seafaring man, walking toward the place where the
boat waited.
Dicky surmised that this man was the skipper, and going out of the
house, made for him and accosted him boldly but civilly.
“Sir,” he said, “are you in want of hands on your vessel?”
“I always am,” replied the captain; and then, his practised eye seeing
that Dicky was a gentleman, he asked, “What straits have brought you
to this pass?” At the very first word the skipper spoke, Dicky’s heart
bounded with joy. The Devonshire burr ran through all his speech.
“You are a Devonshire man, I see,” said Dicky, coolly; “so am I. Take
me aboard and I will tell you that which will make you willing to let
me work my passage to wherever you are bound.”
“You are right; I am Devon born and bred,” replied the skipper. “We
sail with the tide for Antwerp. Where is your passage money?”
“Do you think I would have asked to earn my passage had I money in my
pocket? My friend, I am a gentleman of your own county. If you take me
to Antwerp, I give you the word of a gentleman that you shall have,
within a month, the best rate you ever had for a passenger in your
life.”
The skipper motioned him into the boat. Arrived on board, he dared not
ask for anything to eat in spite of the hunger that gnawed him like a
wolf. He waited, therefore, with such patience as he could, while the
anchor was hove; and, a fresh breeze rising, in half an hour they were
moving slowly down the river, stealing past mansions and farmsteads and
low-lying houses, by the faint gleam of the stars.
When they were well on their way, the captain leaving the deck for a
few minutes, supper was served in a stuffy little cabin by a ragged
cabin boy. By that time Dicky was too faint to eat ravenously.
“I have seen that to-day,” said the skipper, “which might spoil
any man’s supper. I have seen the heads and quarters of two London
citizens, Sir John Friend and Sir William Perkins nailed up at Temple
Bar. They were hanged to-day.”
“God rest their souls,” said Dicky after a moment. And catching the
man’s eye fixed on him meaningly, he saw that he was known. He turned
up his sleeve and showing his bruised arm, said,--
“I am Richard Egremont, who was to have been hanged this day, but God
willed it otherwise. I am of that Devonshire family which has seen its
estates given to bastards and strangers, and we have been forced to eat
the bread of exile for more than seven years. Now give me up, if you
choose.”
“I do not choose,” replied the man, after a moment. “Not all of us in
England like our new King and our new taxes. I be no Papist, but I will
betray no gentleman because he is a Papist or even a Popish priest. And
though I be not often in late years in Devon, yet, I have heard of Mr.
Roger Egremont being turned out for his father’s by-blow, and a shame I
think it. So eat and sleep in peace, Mr. Egremont, and when I return to
England I’ll swear I never saw or heard of you.”
“I thank you for an honest man, worthy of Devon--the best county in our
England, the best people--”
“They have not treated you and your trade over well,” dryly remarked
the skipper.
“They are blinded by prejudice and have been evilly taught things
about us which are not true; but we English in the Society of Jesus
fight for the privilege of coming here, albeit we risk our necks by it;
and I tell you, my friend, though I be glad to get out of England now,
I propose to return some day, and having escaped with my life once, I
shall make that a claim to come again. And now tell me the mournful
story of those unhappy gentlemen who died under the hangman’s hands
to-day.”
The skipper told the story with that calm brutality with which a common
mind, however good, relates horrors. He spared not one detail of the
hanging or quartering.
“There was much murmuring on the part of the crowd, and it was openly
said that the reason the King is so hot after Sir John Fenwick, who is
not yet apprehended, and for whose conviction the whole power of the
crown was used, when it was found impossible to convict him under the
law, is because Sir John laughed at the King’s being beaten by the old
hunchback, as he called Marshal Luxembourg, in the Low Counties. The
gentlemen who suffered to-day all died bravely, and called the people
to witness that they died for their King.”
Dicky remained silent for some time, and then, rising, said,
“I must have a last glimpse of my country. Though she drives me away
from her, like a cruel mother, yet will I love her,--and will take no
other for a step-mother.”
He went on deck, and remained as long as he could catch a glimpse of
the shadowy shores, past which they glided. Then, kneeling down, he
prayed earnestly for his country, and a part of his prayer was that he
might soon return.
Within two days they made Antwerp. Dicky was not suffered to land
without money, and when the skipper pressed half a dozen gold-pieces
upon him, Dicky, with that strange loyalty which an exile always feels
for the land from which he has been driven forth, said, with tears in
his eyes,--
“There are not in the world such good hearts and open purses as in
Devonshire.”
* * * * *
One afternoon, about a month afterward, Bess Lukens determined to
hire a coach, and take the air. Not that she had ever learned to
enjoy herself in a coach, or that the motion ever failed to turn her
brilliant complexion into a sickly green, and to make her feel a
horrible coach-sickness which is only a trifle less than seasickness.
But she considered it due to her altered position, she being now a
regularly engaged singer at the King’s Opera, under the Abbé d’Albret;
and also as a mark of respectability, as well as prosperity. Her old
friend Mamma Mazet, now grown very feeble, was asked to accompany her,
but the old lady having declined, Bess, set forth alone in the coach;
she wore a silk sack, and a hat with feathers in it. She drove out of
Paris, and for a mile or two along that beautifully paved road which
led to Versailles. There was sure to be much good company seen on this
road, and on this joyous May afternoon there were coaches, chaises,
and cavaliers in plenty. Bess had some acquaintances in this gay
throng. Her beauty and her voice had made her well known in that idle
society, which concerned itself chiefly with personal affairs. But the
reputation she had acquired and which she carefully fostered of never
having a civil word in return for a compliment from a gentleman, kept
her from being over popular. The afternoon was bright and balmy, and
the motion of the coach affecting her less than usual, she remained
out until nearly sunset. Returning by way of the unfinished gate of
St. Martin, she caught sight of a familiar figure sitting on a pile of
rubbish left by the builders. It was Richard Egremont,--but looking so
ill that Bess was alarmed when she saw him. His usually round, fresh
face was haggard, and his short and somewhat stocky figure was but skin
and bone. When Bess saw him she stopped the coach, and called out to
him joyfully. Dicky, however, made no reply, but looked at her with
strange, lack-lustre eyes. Bess, jumping out of the coach, went up to
him and caught his hand,--it was burning with fever.
“Why, Mr. Egremont!” she cried; “how glad I am to see you back again,
and alive! We were in great misery here for some weeks, knowing you to
have been caught, and thinking you would be hanged. But the good God
saved your life.”
“I think,” said Dicky, with a look of wandering in his eyes, “that I
did wrong to return. I am going back to England to-morrow. I was very
well treated while I was there,--not in prison a day--not a day. If I
had but my fiddle now--”
Bess looked at him hard, then catching him by his arm proceeded to drag
him toward the coach.
“What are you going to do with me?” feebly asked Dicky.
“Take you home, put you to bed, and send for an apothecary,” replied
Bess, literally shoving him into the coach.
“But--but--my superiors--” he faltered vaguely; to which Bess made a
brief and comprehensive reply.
“Drat your superiors!” she said. “Drive home, coachman, as quickly as
you can.”
Bess was as good as her word. Papa Mazet was not at home, but Mamma
Mazet assisted Bess in undressing Dicky and putting him to bed; and
when the apothecary came, he looked very solemn indeed, and said that
the young gentleman might recover, and he might not. And this he said
every day for six weeks, when Dicky lay raving with fever, or stupid
from its effects.
On a certain calm, bright June morning he waked up quite himself. The
birds were singing in the trees, in the old garden back of the house,
on which his windows opened. He thought at first they were singing “Les
Folies en Espagne,” but presently perceived they were not. And by his
bedside sat Bess Lukens, as fresh as a rose; toil and sleeplessness
left no mark upon her strong frame. Dicky, gathering his wits together,
and surmising all that had happened since that faint remembrance of
Bess carrying him off by force, said, in a weak voice, but oh, how full
of gratitude and affection,--
“Bess Lukens, how good art thou to me--and to all the Egremonts! God
bless thee!”
He had never called her Bess before, and his simple words went to the
very heart of her. That she, Red Bess, the gaoler’s girl, should have
the proud Egremonts acknowledge her goodness to them! It pleased her
honest and simple heart more than any praise on earth, except--well,
Roger’s was always excepted. So she answered, patting his thin hand,
and calling him Dicky for the first time,--
“Thou art a good lad, Dicky Egremont; I care not if thou art a popish
priest,”--at which Dicky laughed feebly,--“and I hope you will have
sense enough to keep out of England, where you will surely be hanged
if you venture again.” A gleam of light appeared in Dicky’s sunken eyes.
“I shall return to England as soon as I am allowed,” he said; “and as
for hanging--’tis not a painful death, I believe. An English hangman is
sure to do the job properly.”