DESCRIBES THE ADVENTURES OF THE _TRUE BELIEVER_
One o’clock was striking as they rumbled into the ancient town of Dieppe
and pulled up before the posting-inn. Here Sir John, having paid and feed
his driver, was for ordering supper, but Sir Hector would have none of it.
“Come awa’, Johnnie,” he insisted, “an’ if ye’re hungry, I’ll find ye a
red herring—mebbe a couple. Come awa’!”
“A herring? How say you, Rose child?” questioned Sir John, but my lady
not troubling to answer, he tucked her hand within his arm and bade Sir
Hector lead on.
“Ha—but the girl, John—ye’ll no’ be for draggin’ the puir lassie awa’ wi’
ye tae sea—at midnight?”
“No, indeed, Hector; if she will not walk I must carry her. Howbeit, she
comes to share my herring!”
“O John!” sighed Sir Hector; “O Johnnie man, I’m fair amazed at ye!” And
shaking gloomy head he turned and strode on before.
Once out of the dim-lit innyard, darkness engulfed them, but Sir Hector
strode unhesitatingly; along narrow streets he led them, beneath the grim
shadow of frowning archways and buildings, through a maze of winding
alleys and ill-paved byways, turning sudden corners until, all at once,
they were treading firm sand and there met them a wind fresh and sweet
with the salt tang of the sea. Presently before them, vague in the gloom,
was a small bay or inlet with a jetty, and beyond this the dim bulk of
a ship, a very silent craft with never a glimmer of light from stem to
stern.
“John, bide ye here!” said Sir Hector softly, and strode forward, to
vanish in the dark; then rose a sweet, flute-like whistle rendering the
first bars of “Blue Bonnets over the Border,” which was answered, after a
little, by a hoarse voice in English:
“Be that your honour?”
“Aye, aye, Sharkie man, wi’ twa friends. Send the boat!”
“Nay, I be comin’ myself, sir!”
Followed a scrambling, scuffling sound, the dip of oars, creak of
rowlocks and a mutter of voices, then Sir Hector called softly:
“This way, John.”
With his companion’s hand in his, Sir John advanced cautiously until,
above the stones of the jetty, at his very feet, he visioned the dim
outline of a human head that admonished him thus:
“Gi’e’s a holt o’ the young ’ooman, sir, an’ easy it is!”
Here my lady manifested very decided unwillingness to be taken a “holt
of”, but was swung suddenly aloft in compelling arms, passed below to
other arms and safely deposited in the stern-sheets of a swaying boat;
then the others followed in turn, and they pushed off. Half a dozen
strokes brought them to the side of a fair-sized vessel, and very soon
my lady found herself set on deck, her hand securely tucked within Sir
John’s arm.
“Perfect!” he exclaimed, glancing aloft at dim-seen, raking masts. “But
wherefore all this stealth and secrecy, Hector?”
“Whisht, man! Wha’ gars ye tae say sic things o’ honest fusher-folk?
Ye’re aboard the _True Believer_, Johnnie lad, juist a bit fushin’-boat
out o’ Newhaven.”
“She’s something large and heavily sparred for a fishing-boat, isn’t she,
Hector?”
“Gude sakes, John, and wha’ d’ye ken o’ fushin’-boats whateffer?”
“The _True Believer_? ’Tis a strange name!”
“’Tis a graund, godly name, John, an’ she’s owned by a godly man, a man
as sings bass in the church choir, a worthy fushin’-body, as I ken fine.
Dinna fash ye’self, John lad; wi’ luck an’ a favourin’ wind we should be
ashore a little after dawn.”
“Why, then, this fishing-boat doth not fish to-night, Hector?”
“I’m no’ tellin’ ye she will.”
“But, Hector, if a fishing-boat fisheth not then fishing-boat she cannot
be except she fish for other than fish, and yet, so fishing, she fisheth
not truly, and truly can be no true fishing-boat——” But finding Sir
Hector had vanished, he drew his companion into a corner well screened
from the wind, and here, despite the dark, contrived a seat with canvas
and a coil of rope.
“Rose,” said he, as they sat side by side, “it seems that some time
to-morrow we shall have reached our journey’s end and must say good-bye.
Shall you miss me, child ... grieve a little?”
For a moment she was silent, and when she answered her tone was primly
demure.
“Oh yes, sir, and indeed I shall, for your honour’s been mortal kind, I’m
sure!”
“Ha’ done with your play-acting, girl!” said he so sharply that she
started and would have risen, but his grip on her arm restrained her.
“Play-acting?” she repeated in altered voice. “How, sir? D’ye think——”
“’Tis no matter, child,” he answered lightly; “my thoughts are my own.
But for a little space I would have you your best, most worthy self.
To-morrow we part and may meet again but rarely ... if ever. Shall you
bear in your mind a kindly memory of me, Rose?”
“Yes,” she answered gravely.
“When you shall hear wild tales of the ‘Wicked Dering,’ will you think of
him as ... as he is now ... a man perchance a little better than he is
painted?”
“Yes,” she answered again, conscious of his dejected attitude though
she saw his face but a pale blur in the gloom. “And will your honour be
returning to Paris?”
“No, child.”
“To London?”
“Nor London. I intend to live in the country for awhile.”
“Then why can’t your honour see me now an’ then?” Here she was aware that
he had lifted his head and turned to peer at her.
“I shall be very ... busy,” he answered, with a strange pause between the
two words.
“And will your honour have time to miss me?”
“Heaven knows it, child!” he answered, leaning nearer.
“And shall you be—always busy, sir?” she questioned softly, swaying
towards him until, despite the darkness, he could behold all the witchery
of her look. “Shall you think of me sometimes?”
“Often, Rose ... as the most wonderful ... of—serving-maids!” he
answered, turning suddenly away.
“How wonderful?” she demanded.
“Vastly wonderful, child.”
“What d’you mean by wonderful?”
“Just—wonderful; you fill me with wonder.”
“What of, pray?”
“Yourself.”
“Why?”
“Heavens, child! Just because you are a woman and possess a mind
feminine, which is the wonder of wonders since ’tis beyond the
understanding of man or woman. As saith the song:
‘The mind of a woman can never be known,
You never can tell it aright.
Shall I tell you the reason?—She knows not her own,
It changes so often ere night.
’Twould puzzle Apollo
Her whimsies to follow,
His oracle would be a jest.
At first she’ll prove kind,
Then quickly you’ll find
She’ll change like the wind,
And often abuses
The man that she chooses;
And what she refuses,
Loves best!’
And there y’have it, child!”
“Oh, indeed, sir! But when a woman makes up her mind to hate she can be
fiercely determined as any man——”
“Aye—until she remembers she’s a woman!”
“And what then, sir?”
“Then, child, she becometh truly dangerous!” he answered. “Now here’s
you, my Rose, a sweet, simple, country maid that talks like Aspasia,
Sophonisba, Pallas Athene and the Three Wise Women of Hunsdon—or Hogsden,
or whatever it was—all rolled into one. Yet, child, thou couldst never
truly hate, thine eyes are too gentle, thy lips too tenderly full,
thyself too generously formed——”
“Meaning ‘buxom,’ I s’pose?”
“Juno-like, let us say.”
“Pray, sir,” she inquired, after another pause, “if your honour marries
your enemy—the great lady——”
“When I marry her, child!”
“When your honour marries her—if she doth not wed another—will your
honour still think of poor Rose?”
“My honour will, indeed!”
“Then ’twill be wicked and dishonourable in your honour.”
“But very natural! For indeed I think my honour might learn to love thee,
child, could we but find thee a soul.”
“Love?” she repeated a little scornfully. “Could Sir John Dering love any
but Sir John Dering?”
“’S heart, child, your speech improves very marvellously at times; and
let me perish, Rose, but you have an air that matches extreme ill with
your homespun!”
“I ... I ha’n’t lived always i’ the country, sir!” she retorted.
“And despite the mild innocence o’ thy look, thou hast a temper and a
tongue, Rose.”
“I’d be a poor, helpless creature without ’em, sir.”
“As to my capacity for loving, I think I might love as well and truly
as most, aye, even to the forgetting of John Dering. For, hid within
John Dering I am conscious of a soul, Rose, a soul so very much greater
than John Dering that ’tis great marvel John Dering is not greater than
John Dering, seeing John Dering is the outward though very imperfect
manifestation of John Dering’s soul—a soul that will live and love and go
marching on when poor John Dering is dust. And, look you! True love being
not passion of the flesh but virtue o’ the soul, ’tis therefore sure that
I, John Dering, shall some day love with a love exceeding great, a love
as imperishable as John Dering’s soul. How think you, my——” Here Sir
John, chancing to lift his gaze, descried amidst the pervading gloom a
solid, round object that projected itself immediately above him from the
roof of the deck-house behind; and, reaching up suddenly, he grasped a
shock of coarse hair.
“Aha!” he exclaimed, and gave the dim head a shake; whereupon came a
groping hand to rend and smite, a hand that shrank and vanished at the
threatening click of Sir John’s ready pistol.
“Who are you, rascal?” demanded Sir John.
“Nobody ... only me!” quavered a voice in hoarse, wheedling tones. “So
put up your wepping, sir!”
“What are you after?”
“Nothin’, sir ... only a-layin’ by till all ’ands is turned up. So don’t
go shooting of a innocent wictim, sir.”
“What d’ye mean by eavesdropping?”
“No sech thing, y’r honour ... no, never in my life, sir. So away wi’
your wepping.”
“What’s your name, rogue?”
“Jonas, y’r honour, Jonas Skag, as honest a innocent as ever trod plank.
So if y’r honour will put up y’r wepping and leggo my ’air kindly, I’ll
be obleeged to your honour ’umbly.”
Sir John loosed the wheedling Jonas with a final shake, uncocked and
re-pocketed his pistol, and looked round to find his companion had risen.
“The rogue disturbed us,” he sighed, “which is pity, for I was but
warming to my theme. When I am upon the soul, and especially my own, I
grow well-nigh lyrical. Let us sit down again and continue.”
“Nay, I’m a-cold!” she answered, drawing her cloak. “Hark! I think theym
getting ready to sail.”
All about them was a hushed stir, a murmurous whispering, a thud of
quick, soft feet, a flitting to and fro of dim forms, the faint sound of
well-greased blocks and rousing-gear, the scarce-heard rattle of a chain,
as the great yards rose slowly into the gloom above, and the anchor was
hove.
“Yes,” answered Sir John, “we are stealing away to sea, and never surely
was it quieter done! Come, let us go forward and watch!”
Now it chanced that as they went she tripped suddenly, fell against him,
and then he had her in his arms. Passive she lay in his clasp, her face
upturned to his, and, dark though it was, he saw the lure of those parted
lips so near his own, the down-sweeping lashes, felt all the urge and
coquetry of her.
“O Rose of love!” he murmured. “Were I any other than John Dering and
thou any other than—thyself! O Innocence!” And uttering a strange,
harsh laugh, he set her upon her feet. “Stand up, Rose, stand up!” he
commanded. “And a heaven’s name be more wary o’ thy going. Come!” But she
neither stirred nor spoke. “I might have kissed thee and—did not!” said
he. “And for this, being very woman, thou’rt like to hate me more than
ever. Is’t not so?”
But, giving utterance to an inarticulate exclamation, she turned swiftly
and left him.
As he stood looking after her, he was presently aware of a gigantic form
looming beside him.
“Aha!” sighed he, slipping his hand within Sir Hector’s arm. “Pray
now resolve me this riddle, friend, namely and to wit: Why doth this
‘True-believing’ fishing-boat steal forth so silently a-fishing? Is it,
think ye, that she may surprise the fish and take ’em in their sleep?”
“Havers, Johnnie man, dinna fash me wi’ sic fule questions,” answered Sir
Hector. “B’my soul, I believe yo’ve fush on y’r brain, whateffer!”
“Mayhap, Hector, but I’ve one or two other things as well,” sighed Sir
John, drawing his cloak against the freshening breeze.