THE ROAD TO THE PORT
THEIR side of the earth turned, turned with ceaseless motion toward
the central orb. There grew a sense of the threshold of dawn, of the
chill and sunken furthest hour, when the need was great for the door
of light to open. The road they were upon was narrower, rougher, than
the highway, with more hills to climb. The four travelled as rapidly as
was possible, there being a goal to be reached before sunlight and the
world abroad. Gervaise and Lantern swung on without overmuch effort,
but the faces of Joan and Aderhold were drawn and the beads stood on
their foreheads. Behind them were long prison, scanty fare, bodily
hurt, broken strength. Their lips parted, their breath came gaspingly.
They went on from moment to moment, each step now a weariness, all
thought suspended, the whole being bent only on endurance, on measuring
the road that must be measured. They did not speak, though now and then
one turned eyes to the other.
Far off a cock crew and was answered by another. Vaguely the air
changed, the world paled, a steely light came into the east. Gervaise
looked at the two. “We’ll rest here until there’s colour in the sky.
We’ve come pretty fast.” There was a great stone by the road. Aderhold
and Joan sank upon it, lay outstretched, still as in the last sleep.
He had a wide cloak, she had none. He raised himself upon his hand and
spread over her the half of this. They lay with closed eyes, drinking
rest.
Far off and not so far, more cocks were crowing. In the eastern sky
the bars of grey turned purple, then into them came a faint red. The
birds were cheeping in the tree-tops. The mist veil over field and
meadow grew visible. Gervaise and Lantern, who had been seated with
their knees drawn up, arms upon knees and head upon arms, raised their
eyes, marked the red in the sky, and got to their feet. Gervaise went
and touched the two. “Time to go on! We’ve got to get hidden before
Curiosity’s had breakfast.”
They went on, the light strengthening, the air warming, a myriad small
sounds beginning. In less than a mile they came to a branching road,
rough and narrow. Gervaise leading, they entered this, followed it for
some distance, and left it for a half-obliterated cart track running
through woods. In turn they quitted the woods for a stubblefield,
plunged from this into a sunken lane, and so in the early sunlight came
before a small farmhouse, remote and lonely, couched and hidden between
wooded hills. “My granther’s brother’s house,” said Gervaise. “Stay
you all here while I go spy out the land.” They waited in the sunken
lane, the blue sky overhead. The wry-mouthed man busied himself with a
torn shoe. Joan and Aderhold knelt in a warm hollow of the bank, leaned
against the good earth.
“_Giles and John Allen_,” he said. “Do not forget the names.”
“No.... When I speak to you, am I to say, ‘Giles’?”
“Aye,—aye, John.”
“Do you think they will not know that I am a woman?”
He looked at her critically for the first time. “You have height and a
right frame. Your voice is deeper than most women’s. Now that your hair
is cut, I have seen youths with locks so worn and of that colour and
thickness. You are pale from prison and unhappiness, but the sun will
tan your cheeks. You have mind and will, and all that you do you do
with a just art. Discovery may come, but it need not come—”
Gervaise reappeared. “It’s all right! The old people will not blab, and
their two daughters and the ploughman have propitiously gone to a fair!
Now, Master Allen, and your brother, and good George Dragon—” They
moved toward the house. Gervaise jerked his thumb toward a barn that
showed beyond. “Good straw—good, warm, dusk corner to lie _perdu_ in,
back of the eaves! I’ll bring food, bread and milk. So you’ll have your
rest to-day, and to-night we’ll cover as many miles as may be.—This
way! We’ll not go through the house. Say we’re taken, I’d rather not
drag the good folk in more than ankle-deep.”
The barn was dim and wholesome-smelling. The piled straw in the loft
felt good beneath aching frames. They made with bundles of it a
chance-seeming barrier, behind which in a fragrant hollow they prepared
to rest. Close overhead was the brown roof that, beyond their niche,
sloped steeply upward a great distance. A square had been cut for light
and air; through it poured vagrant, scented breezes, and in and out
flew the swallows. The light was thick and brown; it would take keen
eyes to see aught but straw, rudely heaped. Gervaise brought a basket
filled with homely, country fare, and then a great jug of spring water.
They ate and drank, and then set watches—one to watch while the others
slept. Humphrey Lantern took the first.
Rest was sweet, sleep was sweet.... Joan woke sometime in the early
afternoon. There in a hollow of his own sat Gervaise, succeeded to
Lantern’s watch. He sat, blue-eyed and meditative, chewing a straw.
Lantern sprawled at a little distance, in sleep back, perhaps, in
the old wars. Nearer lay Aderhold, his arm thrown across his eyes,
profoundly sleeping. At first Joan was bewildered and did not know
where she was; then the whole surged back. She lay quite still, and
memory painted for her picture after picture.
Presently Gervaise, glancing her way, saw that her eyes were open.
He nodded to her and crept over the straw until they were close
neighbours, when he seated himself Turk fashion and asked if she had
slept.
She laughed. “Unless I was dead, I was asleep.”
“He has not moved. Prison life’s a hard life, and then I understand
that before that he was up day and night with the plague.... Well, and
what do you think of the wide world before you?”
“Is it so wide?”
“That’s as you take it. It’s as wide as your vision, your taste, and
your hearing.”
“I do not wish to be hanged.... It used to come and gather round me
when I slept, there in the dungeon, in the prison. First the place
grew large, and then it filled with people,—I could feel them in the
dark,—and then I knew where the gallows was, and hands that burned me
and bruised me put a rope around my neck, and in the dark the people
began to laugh and curse. And then I woke up, and my hands and arms
were cold and wet, and I said, ‘So it will be, and so the rope will
feel, and so they will laugh!’... Over and over.... But it did not come
to me here, though I was asleep. I do not believe that they will take
us now.”
“Do you believe in witches and black men and Satan and his country?”
“I used to. Isn’t every little child taught it? It’s hard to rub out
what they taught you when you were a child. But do I believe it now?”
She laughed with a bitter mirth. “My oath, on anything you please,
that I do not believe it now! I believe that some folk have more good
than bad in them, and a few have far more good than bad. And that some
folk have more bad than good in them, and a few have far more bad than
good. And that most folk are pretty evenly mixed, and that now one
having walks forth and now another. But that we are all folk.”
“That presents well enough,” said Gervaise, “my manner of thinking. But
then I have lived long with Sir Richard.”
They fell silent. A bird flew in at the window. The pleasant, drowsy
scent of the hay was about them, the sun-shot dusk, the murmur of the
wind across the opening. “Is your watch nearly over,” asked Joan, “and
were you going to wake him next? I am awake already, so give it to me.”
“Nay, nay,” said Gervaise; “neither to you nor to him! I’ll sit here
for another two hours and think of the flowers I might have grown. Then
Lantern will take it again. You two are to get your rest.—I like well
enough to converse with you, but my advice is to shut your eyes and go
back to sleep.”
Joan smiled at him and obeyed. She shut her grey eyes, and in two
minutes was back at the fountain of rest for overwrought folk. She
slept, slept, and Aderhold slept. When they waked the sun was hanging
low in the west. They waked at a touch from Gervaise. “Best all of us
open our eyes and pull our senses together! I hear the two daughters
and the ploughman, and maybe company with them, coming back from the
fair.”
There were heard, indeed, from the lane, not far away, voices talking
freely and all together. Lantern crept to the window and with care
looked forth. He came back. “Country folk—five or six, and merry from
the fair.” The voices reached the farmhouse, entered it, and became
muffled. The sun dropped behind the hills.
Twilight was not far advanced when there sounded a footstep in the barn
below the hayloft. The four, still before, now lay hardly breathing.
The footstep approached the loft, halted beside the ladder that led
up. “Gervaise” said a quavering, anxious voice. “Granther’s brother,”
murmured Gervaise, and crept cautiously to the edge of the loft.
Presently he disappeared down the ladder, and the three, crouched
where the roof was lowest, heard a muted colloquy below. The farmer’s
voice sounded alarmed and querulous, Gervaise’s soothing. At last they
ceased to talk, and the old man’s slow and discontented step was heard
to leave the barn. Gervaise came up the ladder and crawled over the
straw to the escaped prisoners and runaway gaoler. The loft was now
in darkness, only the square window glimmered yet, framing a sky from
which the gold had not quite faded.
“It’s boot and saddle, sound horn and away!” he said in a sober
whisper. “We had not been gone two hours when some officious fool
must seek the heart’s ease of Lantern’s company! No Lantern to be
found—all dark! No new turnkey to be found either. Whereupon they
waken an authority, and he’s inspired to open dungeon doors and look
within! Hue and cry! Town first, but with the morning light men
a-horseback on all roads.—They had it all at the fair—brought it
all home. County’s afire to bring the wild beasts back. Country for
as many miles as necessary will be scoured clean as a prize pannikin.
Reward for capture, living or dead;—bands out to earn it. All manner
penalties for any who harbour. The goodman here put two and two
together,—matched four with four,—and at the first chance, while
they’re all at supper, comes shivering out to warn us off. Granther’s
brother’ll not tell, but travel it is!—Humphrey Lantern, you take the
basket with what food’s left. We’ll need it. Toss the straw together so
’twill not show the lair. We’ll just wait till that last light goes.”
They waited, felt their way to the ladder and down it, then out of the
barn. Voices were noisy in the house a stone’s throw away. A woman
came to the open door and stood looking out. When she had turned away,
they entered the lane and followed it until it set them in the wood
track they had left in the morning. Here they paused to consider their
course. In that direction so many miles, as the crow flew, lay the
port. Return to the road they had left at dawn, strive to keep upon it
at least through the night, and so make certainly the greatest speed
toward their goal? Night-time, and ordinarily there would be none or
little travel through the night, and that little easily hidden from.
But to-night the road might be most perilous; harrow and rake might be
dragging along it. Nevertheless they decided for the road.
It was now utterly dark. They saw nothing, heard nothing, but the small
continuous voice of the hot, dry night. They were rested; to Joan and
Aderhold especially there seemed to have come anew youth and strength.
They walked steadily, with a swinging step, and the country fell behind
them and the sea grew nearer. They spoke only at long intervals and
then in whispers.
“Luck’s with us,” offered Gervaise. “I’d almost rather see it more
chequered! Very Smooth always has a mocking look in her eyes.”
Lantern growled in his throat. “I haven’t had much smooth in _my_ life.
It owes me a little smooth.”
The moon rose. It showed them on either hand a rolling country, and
before them a village. The road ran through this; therefore, for the
time being, they would leave the road. They crept through a hedge
and found themselves in a rough and broken field. Crossing this they
pierced a small wood and dipped down to a stream murmuring past a
mill. The great wheel rose before them, the moon making pearls of the
dripping water. The stream had a footbridge. They hesitated, but all
was dark and silent. They crossed, and as they stepped upon the beaten
earth on the farther side, two dogs sprang upon them from the shadow
of the mill. They came barking furiously—the refugees snatched what
stick or stone they could reach and beat them back. One was cowardly
and stood off and barked, but the other, a great black beast, sprang
upon the first in his path. It chanced to be Joan. She caught him by
his own throat before he could reach hers, but he was fierce and strong
and tore from her grasp. His teeth met in the cloth of her jerkin, he
dragged her to the ground. Aderhold’s hands were at his throat, choking
his jaws open, pushing him backward. Over the physician’s bent shoulder
Lantern’s arm rose and fell, the moon making the dagger gleam. The dog
loosened his grip, howled, and gave back with a slashed and bleeding
muzzle.
Out of a hut, built beside the mill, came a man’s voice, roughly
threatening. “Who’s there? Who’s there? Ill-meaning folk take warning!”
As they did not answer, the owner of the voice burst from the hut and
came toward them, shouting to the dogs to hold fast and swinging a
great thorn stick. The moon showed a half-dressed, stout rustic, bold
enough but dull of wit, and still heavy, besides, with sleep. Behind
him came a half-grown boy.
“Call off your dogs!” cried Gervaise. “We are seamen ashore, making
from the port to the town of —--. They told us there was a village
hereabouts, and we kept on walking after night, thinking to come
to it. But we think it’s bewitched and walks as we walk. Call your
dogs off! We’re harmless men, used to the sea and crossing a strange
country. Put us right, friend, and thank you kindly!”
“What have you done to Holdfast? He’s frighted and bleeding.”
“He pulled one of us down and nothing else served to make him loosen
grip. ’Twill heal and no harm done!”
But a controversy gathered in the eyes of the miller’s man. “That dog’s
worth all the ’gyptians and vagrants and seamen between here and London
town! If you think you’re going round murdering dogs—”
“I think,” said Gervaise, “that I’ve in my pouch a crown piece which
I got of a gentleman for a parrokeet and an Indian pipe. Let’s see if
’t won’t salve that muzzle.” He drew it forth and turned it to and fro
in the moonlight. “Ask the dog. Hark’ee! He says, ‘Take it, and let
harmless sailor folk pass!’” He slid it into the peasant’s hand, who
stood looking down upon it with a dawning grin. “Cross this bridge,”
asked Gervaise, “and we’ll be in the path to the village?”
“Aye, aye,” answered the fellow. “If you be harmful folk, let them find
it out there!—Be you sure this piece is good? You ben’t coiners or
passers?”
“We ben’t,” said Gervaise. “The piece is as good as the new breeches it
will buy.”
They recrossed the bridge, stepping from it into the wood already
traversed. The boy’s shrill voice came to them from across the stream.
“Father, father! They’re four, and ’twas four the man told us broke
gaol! They ben’t sailors—they be the witches!” His voice took a
bewildered tone. “Only one of them was a woman—and they’re going
toward the town—”
“What I be going to do,” answered the man, “is to go up t’ the house
and waken miller—”
The dogs were still barking. The boy’s voice rose shriller and
shriller. “I know they’re witches! They had glowing eyes and they were
taller than people—”
The four plunged more deeply into the wood. The confused sound died
behind them. They went up the stream a mile, came upon a track that ran
down to stepping-stones, crossed the water for the second time, and
once more faced seaward; then after a time turned at right angles and
so struck the road again, the village well passed. But the détour had
cost them heavily in time. Moreover, even in the night-time, there grew
a feeling of folk aware, of movement, a fear of eyes, of a sudden shout
of arrest.... They heard behind them a trampling of horses’ hoofs,
together with voices. There was just time to break into a friendly
thicket by the roadside, and crouch there among the hazel stems, out of
the moonlight. There came by a party of men, some a-horseback, some on
foot.
“Four,” said one distinctly.
“Shall we beat that thicket?”
“They couldn’t have gotten this far.”
“I’ll ride through it to make sure—”
Man and horse came into the thicket. They passed within ten feet of
the four lying flat, but touched them not and saw them not.... When
all were gone the sorcerer and the witch and their companions came
forth and again pressed seaward. The dawn appeared, the sky unearthly
cold and remote behind the clean black line of the earth. It showed
a homeless country for them. With the first grey gleam there began a
traffic upon the road. They were passed in the dimness by a pedlar with
his pack, a drover with sheep. They saw coming a string of carts, and
they left the road again, this time for good. They lay now amid heather
upon a moor, and in the pale, uncertain light considered their course.
The miles were not many now before them, but they were dangerous miles.
They decided at last to break company and, two and two, to strive for
the port. Say that, so they arrived there, then would they come as well
to an inner ring of dangers.... But they all strove for cheer, or grim
or bright, and Gervaise appointed for rendezvous an obscure small inn
called The Moon, down by the harbour’s edge. It was kept by a man known
to Sir Richard. Get to The Moon, whisper a word or two which Gervaise
now furnished, and the rest would probably go well. The problem was to
get there.
It was also to decide, if they divided, who would go with whom.
Gervaise looked at Aderhold. “Will you, sir, take Humphrey Lantern, and
Joan go with me?” There was a silence, then Aderhold spoke, “You have
proved yourself the best of guides and guards. But life has taught me,
too, to watch for dangers and in some measure has given me skill. And
she and I are the heinous ones and the desperate.” He turned his eyes
to Joan. “Shall we not keep together?”
She nodded. “Very good.... The sky is growing red.”