REBECCA
AS though to drop connection with its predecessor and to start the
world afresh, the new year brought a change of weather. The wind,
which for some time had lain in the south-west, was veering round to
the east, and the sodden earth was drying herself rapidly. Rheumatism
was becoming a less general theme for conversation in Crishowell, and
people's clothes were again seen hanging out to dry in gardens.
Forlorn-looking strings, which had stretched nakedly from pole to
pole, now upheld smocks, petticoats, and well-patched trouser-legs,
whose active prancings in the breeze almost made the spectators' legs
leap in sympathy. Four or five old men, whose goings-out and
comings-in gauged the state of the barometer as accurately as if they
had been occupants of pasteboard "weather-houses," were to be met
about; and Bumpett, the pig-driver, whose excursions into foreign
parts a few miles away made him an authority on all matters, opined
that a frost was not far off. He also added that the roads would be
"crewell hard" by the Wye toll-gate, and that we "should see what we
should see." This information made the women look mysterious and snub
those of their sex who had not been observed in talk with the great
man; the men said less, though they smoked their pipes in a more
chastened manner.
Meanwhile, the storm which had been brewed over the Dipping-Pool fire
was ready to burst.
In a steep upland lane, about nine o'clock one evening, a little band
of horsemen was coming quietly down towards the valley. The high banks
crowned with ragged hazel on either hand and the darkness around (for
the moon was not due for an hour or so) made it difficult to
distinguish who or what they were. As gaps in the bank let in a little
extra illumination, and stars began to assert themselves over the
dispersing clouds, it could be seen that they were about twenty-five
in number, and that all, with one exception, wore masks. They were
fairly well mounted, and the strange person who kept a few yards ahead
of the rest rode an animal which any one, knowing even a little about
a horse, would have picked out at a glance. She was a liver-chestnut
mare just under sixteen hands, with a shoulder such as was rarely to
be found in the motley crowd of horseflesh at local fairs. Youth and a
trifle of inexperience were noticeable in her among the sober-stepping
and sturdy beasts following, and she mouthed her ring-snaffle as she
went. Her long bang tail swung at each stride, and her length of
pastern gave her pace an elasticity like that of a Spanish dancer.
But if the mare was a remarkable figure in the little procession, her
rider was immeasurably more so, being, apparently, the tallest female
who had ever sat in a saddle. Her long cloak and voluminous brown
skirt fell in a dark mass against the beast's sides, giving her figure
a seeming length and height double that of any of her companions. On
her head she wore a large sun-bonnet, tied securely over a shock of
hair which looked false even in the scant light; the lower part of her
face was muffled in her cloak, so that but little feature could be
seen. The strange woman rode astride, and, as an occasional puff of
wind lifted her skirt, it revealed leggings and boots; one lean, brown
hand on the rein was visible under the concealing drapery, and the
other carried a heavy thorn stick. From under the shock of hair looked
the eyes of Rhys Walters.
The whole company was formed of the same material which had met in the
inn kitchen the day after Christmas, with several additions and with
the exception of Johnny Watkins, whose heart had failed him at the
last moment, and of Charley Turnbull, who was nowhere to be seen.
Hosea Evans was there, unrecognizable in his black mask and cropped
whiskers, for he had parted with a portion of these adornments,
fearing that they might betray him. He had hesitated to shave
entirely, lest people should be too curious about his reasons for
doing so, and had merely trimmed them into less conspicuous limits
with the scissors.
Every one was armed in some fashion or another. Sticks were the
principal weapons, though two or three carried pitchforks, and one of
the more ambitious spirits displayed an antiquated horse-pistol which
he would have been sorely put about to fire. A few of Rebecca's
followers were afoot, and had brought with them a crowbar and a couple
of serviceable mallets. These went more slowly behind the horses.
The element of burlesque which pervaded the affair was not lost upon
Rhys, and it cooled him a little as he rode along, to think what a
ridiculous troop he was heading. His own garments, too, offended him
greatly, and he would have discarded them at the beginning, had he not
been sure that some one else would have put them on, and, with them,
assumed leadership of the band. He secretly determined to get rid of
them as best he might, when the night's work should begin.
Crishowell village was in the centre of a loop which the Brecon road
made round it, and when the first few lights it contained at that hour
were visible in front, the party turned into the fields, avoiding its
vicinity and straggling along by hedges and by such cover as was
available. The highway lay like a grey ribbon in the starlight, and
they had the good fortune to cross it without meeting a human being;
only a prowling fox sneaked up one of the ditches as they passed. They
then entered the lane which opened before them, and, down it, made for
the other side of the loop, for there, just at its end, stood the
toll.
At a bend of the way, Walters ran into a rider who was coming to meet
them, and the sudden stop which this caused in the narrow place had
the effect of bringing every one smartly up against his predecessor's
tail. As the new-comer was caught sight of by the huddled-up pack, a
loud laugh burst from all and made the empty lane ring.
"Be quiet," cried Rhys angrily, under his breath. "You fools! can't
you keep from waking the whole place with your noise? Good God! what
sort of a tom-fool have we here?"
Before the astonished young man stood a travesty of himself, dress,
dark cloak, sun-bonnet, and all, the only additions being a mask and a
white woollen comforter, one end of which hung down over a substantial
back. The rotund cheeks of its wearer swelled out the bonnet, the
strings of which were drawn almost to suffocation. The voice of
Charley Turnbull escaped, with apparent difficulty, from these
surroundings.
Since the evening at the Dipping-Pool, Turnbull had been in a state of
the most cruel and poignant distress. Steven's remark had brought home
to him, too late, the truth that women's clothes would be a more
effectual disguise than all the masks and mufflers in the world; with
keen vexation he realized that he had overlooked that. The police's
likelihood to pursue the ringleader at all costs was nothing to him,
for he was a man of few ideas, and liable, when he had one, to make
the most of it, to the exclusion of all others. That sentence,
"Woman's clothing be a fine protection," rang in his ears from morning
till night, and, what was worse, from night till morning.
As the days rolled on his agony increased. Often he was on the verge
of breaking out of the project altogether, but thoughts of the jeers
which would assail him robbed him even of the courage to do that.
Finally, he came upon a plan to meet his difficulties, the result of
which now brought him face to face with Rebecca and thus attired.
"Here I am, Mr. Walters, sir," he began, "and I hope you won't take it
ill o' me that I be come lookin' so like yourself. You see, it were
this way. I says to myself, I says----"
"Come on, come on," interrupted Rhys, "we must be moving. And be quiet
behind there, if you can. We are getting near the road."
"I says to myself," went on Turnbull, keeping abreast of the mare's
walk at the risk of being jogged to pieces, "there's Mrs. Walters, I
says, a God-fearing lady as ever stepped. What would she do if aught
was to happen to you, sir? Ah, Master Rhys, we must think o' them at
home. So then, I thought this way--if there be two of us, them as be
after us won't know who to get hold on, they won't indeed. So you
see----"
"Yes, yes, I understand," exclaimed the other, exasperated beyond
bearing; "for God's sake, get behind and let me be. We're pretty nigh
in sight of the lane's end."
A little way down the Brecon road, not more than a couple of furlongs
off, rose the dark mass of the toll-house, its slates here and there
catching the starlight. Indistinct black bars could be seen crossing
the highway; above them burned the steady flame of the toll-gate
light.
It was perfectly still, and not a footstep was to be heard coming or
going as Rhys pulled up. Several of the men, small farmers
principally, crowded round; their hearts were in the matter, and their
eager faces looked steadfastly towards him through the fog of horses'
breath which the fast-approaching frost was making. To them the matter
was sober earnest, and they meant to see it through to the end; the
burlesque view of it occurred to them not at all. Those with the
mallets and crowbar pressed up.
"Give me a stone, Price."
One of the men picked up a flint. Rhys took it and turned in his
saddle; he was getting excited himself. "Come after me down the
grass," he said, "and when you see the light go out, fall to."
They cantered down the roadside to within a few yards of the
toll-house, and paused.
Then they saw Rebecca's cloaked arm go up, a stone whizzed through the
air, there was a smash of splintering glass, and the light went out.
* * * * * *
At the same time another little body of horse and foot was gathered in
no very patient frame of mind a couple of miles off. The Wye toll-gate
in Llangarth stood at the beginning of the great bridge spanning the
river on the north side of the town, and, as it had been rumoured that
Rebecca was to make her descent upon that place, all the police
available were waiting there on foot as well as about twenty horsemen
picked from the flower of the Hereford yeomanry.
The latter were cooling their heels in the courtyard of the Bull Inn,
which stood a little back from the street, while the police hung in a
group round the side door of that establishment, some member of the
force now and then moving off to look up the road for sign of the
approaching rioters or for anything to break the monotony of their
vigil. For six nights now they had been assembled in the same place
with no more exciting termination than being marched to the Police
Station and dismissed in the early morning, and they were getting
heartily tired of the experience. An occasional stamp from a horse or
a long-drawn yawn from one of the men was heard above the soft steady
roar of the Wye, which was shallow below the bridge and purred like a
contented animal over the shingle. The landlady looked out of a back
window on her way to bed, holding her hand before the tallow-candle
she carried. The light shone red through her fingers as she glanced
out upon the gallant figure of Harry Fenton, whose smart uniform
showed plainly in the glow streaming from the inn door upon the yard.
It was the first time she had ever seen him, as Waterchurch lay some
way off, and he had been much from home of late years.
Quarter to ten sounded from Llangarth Church, and a sergeant of police
went to have another look up the quiet street. Harry gave his horse to
the man next him to hold and strolled after him, the landlady at the
window admiring the clank of his sword and the attractive jingle he
made as he went.
As the two men stood at the corner, the silence of the street was
broken by an uneven clattering, and a boy, much out of breath and
weighted by an extremely heavy pair of country boots, came rushing
towards them over the cobbles. Harry caught him as he was about to
pass the courtyard. The boy tried to speak, but for want of breath was
obliged to desist.
"Who is he?" asked Harry of the sergeant.
The policeman took him by the shoulder and turned him round as
unceremoniously as if he had been a spinning-top, displaying the
purple face of a boy about eleven years old.
"You're Howell Seaborne, as works for the parson of Crishowell, aren't
you?" said the man. "Howlie, they call him, sir."
"Ya'as a' be. Can't you leave oi alone, 'stead o' shoikin' that woy?"
"Wait a minute, give him breath," said young Fenton.
The boy turned a pair of light, prominent eyes on the speaker, and, at
the same time, saw his uniform and the soldiers in the yard. He thrust
a grimy forefinger towards them.
"It's them oi be come for!" he exclaimed, as he regained his wind. "Oi
were down in Crishowell Loine, doin' no 'arm, and oi see them
comin'--comin' all of a string wi' sticks an' guns----"
"But who? What?"
"Fifty men roiding an' a great woman."
"When? Where?" cried Harry, catching hold of him much more roughly
than the sergeant had done.
"Yew're 'urtin' me, sir," whined the boy. "Oi shan't tell nothin' till
yew leave go."
Fenton took away his hand with a gesture of irritation. "Come on, no
nonsense," he said, "tell me at once, where were you?"
"Down in the loine by Crishowell. They be all gone down to the goite
on the Brecon road; an' oi've been runnin' fit to burst to fetch the
soljers. It's Rebecca, it is."
In two minutes the yeomanry were dashing out of the court, the police
holding by the soldiers' stirrups, meaning to keep up with them as
long as they could, and to drop off when the pace should become too
much for them. The boy flattened himself against the wall as they went
by. When they were round the corner, he tied up a loose bootlace and
looked about him. Then he went to a pump which stood on one side and
jerked the handle; a stream of water flowed out as he put his head
underneath and let it run copiously over his face. He had large front
teeth and a retreating chin, and, in the cascade, he looked not unlike
a drowning rabbit. When he had finished, he snuffled two or three
times, rubbed his countenance with his coat-sleeve, and set out from
the Bull yard at a steady jog-trot. How he could run at all in the
boots he wore was a mystery, but long practice, no doubt, had made it
possible.
When the soldiers had turned along the road to Brecon and got clear of
the town, the police had, one by one, succumbed to the pace and might
be seen upon the highway in threes and fours, stepping out as best
they might.
The riders kept to the grass as Rhys had done, partly to muffle the
sound of hoofs, and partly because the roads were fast hardening, and
in some places had become actually slippery. The little wind there was
was beginning to sting their ears, and the stars above to flash in the
frost. The clouds had rolled completely off and lay in a dark bank
along the western horizon; the night got gradually lighter. Harry and
a senior officer rode a little ahead, neither saying a word to the
other; their eyes were fixed on the stretch of road in front, and they
breathed hard. Far behind, the constables pressed along with that
hopeless feeling in their legs which the sight of retreating horses
creates. Last of all toiled Howlie Seaborne in his big boots.
As Harry and his companion came round a slight bend, a sound, which,
so far, had been but an unintelligible vibration, struck on their ears
with meaning. The blows of heavy mallets were distinct, though the
wind went from them to the dark mass which surged and swayed over the
road in front. Lights were flashing from the toll-house, and the
voices of men rose and fell above the noise of struggling hoofs. The
two officers took their horses by the heads and drove in their spurs.
"Fenton," said the elder man as they separated a few minutes later, in
the midst of the mob, "whatever we do, let us get Rebecca."
By the time the yeomanry arrived, the little crowd which had seen Rhys
put out the light had swelled considerably, and people, hearing the
noise, had rushed from neighbouring cottages, catching up pitchforks
or any weapons they could lay hands upon. A brisk fight was in full
swing; Rhys' blood was up, and he had torn off the sun-bonnet and his
voluminous garments and turned his high coat collar up over the lower
part of his face. The false hair, which had been so securely fastened
that it had refused to come off with his headgear, hung low over his
eyes, giving him a wild appearance which fitted his violent gestures
and the tumultuous scene around him.
When Harry came up and saw him in the thick of the struggle, never for
one moment did he suspect that the rebel before him was the man who
had ridden with him through the mist scarcely a week before. As his
friend's injunction about Rebecca reached him he looked eagerly around
for some likeness to a female figure, but could see no trace of any
such person, Charley Turnbull having, as the fight increased,
ensconced himself safely behind an outhouse, where he stood unseen but
ready to fly at any moment.
The rioters had been so much taken up with their work, and the turmoil
had been so great, that it was as though a bolt were falling on them
from heaven when they saw the yeomanry coming. Five or six of the
mounted assailants had been forming a protection for those who were
engaged in breaking up the gate with their tools, and among these was
Rhys, with Hosea beside him. As their opponents charged at them and
tried to dislodge them with their pitchforks, he leaned down from the
young mare's back and dealt sounding blows right and left. Blood was
running from a wound in his knee, but he cared nothing for that, for
the rage for fight was in his heart as he laid about him, the mare
plunging now and then and forcing back the press before her.
Among those who were valiantly protecting the toll was Mary Vaughan's
father, the toll-keeper, a tall white-haired old man, whose great
height and flowing beard made him a central figure in the mob. He had
stood in front of his gate until overpowering numbers had forced him
from his place, and now was charging bravely at Walters and his
followers. Suddenly a cry rose from the defenders, "The soldiers! The
soldiers!" and Rhys saw his men waver for a moment at the sound. "One
more," he shouted to those with the mallets. "Down with the gate!"
There was now only one post left standing, and the insurgents turned
upon it at his cry for a last blow before they should scatter in front
of the impending yeomanry and take to the country. The toll-keeper,
dropping his pitchfork, threw himself like a game old bull-dog upon
Rhys' foot and tried to drag him from the saddle. Hosea gave a shout
as Rhys turned round. The two men's arms whirled simultaneously in the
air, and two violent blows descended upon Vaughan; as Rhys struck out,
a lump of mud and stone whizzed sharply in his face, and his stick
came down upon the toll-keeper's shoulder. Evans' blow struck him full
on his grey head, and, with a groan, the old man fell, as he had
stood, at the foot of his shattered gate-post.
Hosea saw what he had done and was seized with terror, but his native
cunning did not desert him; the advantage of Rhys' near presence was
plain. "Oh, Mr. Walters, you have killed him," he cried loudly.
It was all the work of a moment. Rhys dashed the mud from his eyes and
saw the senseless heap on the ground before him; and behind, two or
three yeomen who were fighting their way towards him. With an oath, he
sprang desperately through the mob and turned the mare's head straight
for the Black Mountain.