MY ADVENTURE AT THE “THREE CUPS.”
Secure of pursuit, and full of delight in the mare’s easy motion, I must
have travelled a good six miles before the moon rose. In the frosty
sky her rays sparkled cheerfully, and by them I saw on the holsters the
silver demi-bear that I knew to be the crest of the Killigrews, having
the fellow to it engraved on my sword-hilt. So now I was certain ’twas
Molly that I bestrode: and took occasion of the light to explore the
holsters and saddle flap.
Poor Anthony’s pistols were gone—filched, no doubt, by the Captain:
but you may guess my satisfaction, when on thrusting my hand deeper, I
touched a heap of coins, and found them to be gold.
’Twas certainly a rare bargain I had driven with Captain Settle. For
the five or six gold pieces I scatter’d on the road, I had won close
on thirty guineas, as I counted in the moonlight; not to speak of this
incomparable Molly. And I began to whistle gleefully, and taste the joke
over again and laugh to myself, as we cantered along with the north wind
at our backs.
All the same, I had no relish for riding thus till morning. For the
night was chill enough to search my very bones after the heat of the
late gallop: and, moreover, I knew nothing of the road, which at this
hour was quite deserted. So that, coming at length to a tall hill with a
black ridge of pine wood standing up against the moon like a fish’s fin,
I was glad enough to note below it, and at some distance from the trees,
a window brightly lit; and pushed forward in hope of entertainment.
The building was an inn, though a sorry one. Nor, save for the lighted
window, did it wear any grace of hospitality, but thrust out a bare
shoulder upon the road, and a sign that creaked overhead and look’d for
all the world like a gallows. Round this shoulder of the house, and into
the main yard (that turn’d churlishly toward the hillside), the wind
howled like a beast in pain. I climb’d off Molly, and pressing my hat
down on my head, struck a loud rat-tat on the door.
Curiously, it opened at once; and I saw a couple of men in the lighted
passage.
“Heard the mare’s heels on the road, Cap—. Hillo! What in the fiend’s
name is this?”
Said I: “If you are he that keeps this house, I want two things of
you—first, a civil tongue, and next a bed.”
“Ye’ll get neither, then.”
“Your sign says that you keep an inn.”
“Aye—the ‘Three Cups’: but we’re full.”
“Your manner of speech proves that to be a lie.”
I liked the fellow’s voice so little that ’tis odds I would have
re-mounted Molly and ridden away; but at this instant there floated down
the stairs and out through the drink-smelling passage a sound that made
me jump. ’Twas a girl’s voice singing——
“Hey nonni—nonni—no!
Men are fools that wish to die!
Is’t not fine to laugh and sing
When the bells of death do ring——”
There was no doubt upon it. The voice belonged to the young gentlewoman
I had met at Hungerford. I turned sharply toward the landlord, and was
met by another surprise. The second man, that till now had stood well
back in the shadow, was peering forward, and devouring Molly with his
gaze. ’Twas hard to read his features, but then and there I would have
wagered my life he was no other than Luke Settle’s comrade, Black Dick.
My mind was made up. “I’ll not ride a step further, to-night,” said I.
“Then bide there and freeze,” answer’d the landlord.
He was for slamming the door in my face, when the other caught him
by the arm and, pulling him a little back, whisper’d a word or two. I
guess’d what this meant, but resolved not to draw back; and presently
the landlord’s voice began again, betwixt surly and polite——
“Have ye too high a stomach to lie on straw?”
“Oho!” thought I to myself, “then I am to be kept for the mare’s sake,
but not admitted to the house:” and said aloud that I could put up with
a straw bed.
“Because there’s the stable loft at your service. As ye hear” (and in
fact the singing still went on, only now I heard a man’s voice joining
in the catch) “our house is full of company. But straw is clean bedding,
and the mare I’ll help to put in stall.”
“Agreed,” I said, “on one condition—that you send out a maid to me with
a cup of mulled sack: for this cold eats me alive.”
To this he consented: and stepping back into a side room with the other
fellow, returned in a minute alone, and carrying a lantern which, in
spite of the moon, was needed to guide a stranger across that ruinous
yard. The flare, as we pick’d our way along, fell for a moment on
an open cart shed and, within, on the gilt panels of a coach that I
recogniz’d. In the stable, that stood at the far end of the court, I
was surprised to find half a dozen horses standing, ready saddled, and
munching their fill of oats. They were ungroom’d, and one or two in
a lather of sweat that on such a night was hard to account for. But I
asked no questions, and my companion vouchsafed no talk, though twice
I caught him regarding me curiously as I unbridled the mare in the
only vacant stall. Not a word pass’d as he took the lantern off the peg
again, and led the way up a ramshackle ladder to the loft above. He was
a fat, lumbering fellow, and made the old timbers creak. At the top he
set down the light, and pointed to a heap of straw in the corner.
“Yon’s your bed,” he growled; and before I could answer, was picking his
way down the ladder again.
I look’d about, and shiver’d. The eaves of my bedchamber were scarce on
speaking terms with the walls, and through a score of crannies at least
the wind poured and whistled, so that after shifting my truss of straw
a dozen times I found myself still the centre of a whirl of draught. The
candle-flame, too, was puffed this way and that inside the horn sheath.
I was losing patience when I heard footsteps below; the ladder creak’d,
and the red hair and broad shoulders of a chambermaid rose into view.
She carried a steaming mug in her hand, and mutter’d all the while in no
very choice talk.
The wench had a kind face, tho’; and a pair of eyes that did her more
credit than her tongue.
“And what’s to be my reward for this, I want to know?” she panted out,
resting her left palm on her hip.
“Why, a groat or two,” said I, “when it comes to the reckoning.”
“Lud!” she cried, “what a dull young man!”
“Dull?”
“Aye—to make me ask for a kiss in so many words:” and with the back of
her left hand she wiped her mouth for it frankly, while she held out the
mug in her right.
“Oh!” I said, “I beg your pardon, but my wits are frozen up, I think.
There’s two, for interest: and another if you tell me whom your master
entertains to-night, that I must be content with this crib.”
She took the kisses with composure and said—
“Well—to begin, there’s the gentlefolk that came this afternoon with
their own carriage and heathenish French servant: a cranky old grandee
and a daughter with more airs than a peacock: Sir Something-or-other
Killigew—Lord bless the boy!”
For I had dropp’d the mug and spilt the hot sack all about the straw,
where it trickled away with a fragrance reproachfully delicious.
“Now I beg your pardon a hundred times: but the chill is in my bones
worse than the ague;” and huddling my shoulders up, I counterfeited a
shivering fit with a truthfulness that surpris’d myself.
“Poor lad!”
“—And ’tis first hot and then cold all down my spine.”
“There, now!”
“-And goose flesh and flushes all over my body.”
“Dear heart-and to pass the night in this grave of a place!”
“—And by morning I shall be in a high fever: and oh! I feel I shall die
of it!”
“Don’t—don’t!” The honest girl’s eyes were full of tears. “I wonder,
now—” she began: and I waited, eager for her next words. “Sure,
master’s at cards in the parlor, and ’ll be drunk by midnight. Shalt
pass the night by the kitchen fire, if only thou make no noise.”
“But your mistress—what will she say?”
“Is in heaven these two years: and out of master’s speaking distance
forever. So blow out the light and follow me gently.”
Still feigning to shiver, I follow’d her down the ladder, and through
the stable into the open. The wind by this time had brought up some
heavy clouds, and mass’d them about the moon: but ’twas freezing hard,
nevertheless. The girl took me by the hand to guide me: for, save from
the one bright window in the upper floor, there was no light at all in
the yard. Clearly, she was in dread of her master’s anger, for we stole
across like ghosts, and once or twice she whisper’d a warning when my
toe kick’d against a loose cobble. But just as I seem’d to be walking
into a stone wall, she put out her hand, I heard the click of a latch,
and stood in a dark, narrow passage.
The passage led to a second door that open’d on a wide, stone-pav’d
kitchen, lit by a cheerful fire, whereon a kettle hissed and bubbled as
the vapor lifted the cover. Close by the chimney corner was a sort of
trap, or buttery hatch, for pushing the hot dishes conveniently into the
parlor on the other side of the wall. Besides this, for furniture, the
room held a broad deal table, an oak dresser, a linen press, a rack with
hams and strings of onions depending from it, a settle and a chair or
two, with (for decoration) a dozen or so of ballad sheets stuck among
the dish covers along the wall.
“Sit,” whisper’d the girl, “and make no noise, while I brew a rack-punch
for the men-folk in the parlor.” She jerked her thumb toward the buttery
hatch, where I had already caught the mur-mer of voices.
I took up a chair softly, and set it down between the hatch and the
fireplace, so that while warming my knees I could catch any word spoken
more than ordinary loud on the other side of the wall. The chambermaid
stirr’d the fire briskly, and moved about singing as she fetch’d down
bottles and glasses from the dresser——
“Lament ye maids an’ darters
For constant Sarah Ann,
Who hang’d hersel’ in her garters
All for the love o’ man,
All for the—”
She was pausing, bottle in hand, to take the high note: but hush’d
suddenly at the sound of the voices singing in the room upstairs—
“Vivre en tout cas
C’est le grand soulas
Des honnetes gens!”
“That’s the foreigners,” said the chambermaid, and went on with her
ditty——
“All for the love of a souljer
Who christening name was Jan.”
A volley of oaths sounded through the buttery hatch.
“—And that’s the true-born Englishmen, as you may tell by their speech.
’Tis pretty company the master keeps, these days.”
She was continuing her song, when I held up a finger for silence.
In fact, through the hatch my ear had caught a sentence that set me
listening for more with a still heart.
“D—n the Captain,” the landlord’s gruff voice was saying; “I warn’d ’n
agen this fancy business when sober, cool-handed work was toward.”
“Settle’s way from his cradle,” growl’d another; “and times enough I’ve
told ’n: ‘Cap’n,’ says I, ‘there’s no sense o’ proportions about ye.’ A
master mind, sirs, but ’a ’ll be hang’d for a hen-roost, so sure as my
name’s Bill Widdicomb.”
“Ugly words-what a creeping influence has that same mention o’ hanging!”
piped a thinner voice.
“Hold thy complaints, Old Mortification,” put in a speaker that I
recogniz’d for Black Dick; “sure the pretty maid upstairs is tender
game. Hark how they sing!”
And indeed the threatened folk upstairs were singing their catch very
choicely, with a girl’s clear voice to lead them—
“Comment dit papa
—Margoton, ma mie?”
“Heathen language, to be sure,” said the thin voice again, as the chorus
ceased: “thinks I to mysel’ ‘they be but Papisters,’ an’ my doubting
mind is mightily reconcil’d to manslaughter.”
“I don’t like beginning ’ithout the Cap’n,” observed Black Dick: “though
I doubt something has miscarried. Else, how did that young spark ride in
upon the mare?”
“An’ that’s what thy question should ha’ been, Dick, with a pistol to
his skull.”
“He’ll keep till the morrow.”
“We’ll give Settle half-an-hour more,” said the landlord: “Mary!” he
push’d open the hatch, so that I had barely time to duck my head out of
view, “fetch in the punch, girl. How did’st leave the young man i’ the
loft?’
“Asleep, or nearly,” answer’d Mary—
“Who hang’d hersel’ in her gar-ters,
All for the love o’ man—”
“—Anon, anon, master: wait only till I get the kettle on the boil.”
The hatch was slipp’d to again. I stood up and made a step toward the
girl.
“How many are they?” I ask’d, jerking a finger in the direction of the
parlor.
“A dozen all but one.”
“Where is the foreign guests’ room?”
“Left hand, on the first landing.”
“The staircase?”
“Just outside the door.”
“Then sing—go on singing for your life.”
“But—”
“Sing!”
“Dear heart, they’ll murder thee! Oh! for pity’s sake, let go my
wrist—
“‘Lament, ye maids an’ darters—’”
I stole to the door and peep’d out. A lantern hung in the passage, and
showed the staircase directly in front of me. I stay’d for a moment
to pull off my boots, and, holding them in my left hand, crept up the
stairs. In the kitchen, the girl was singing and clattering the glasses
together. Behind the door, at the head of the stairs, I heard voices
talking. I slipp’d on my boots again and tapp’d on the panel.
“Come in!”
Let me try to describe that on which my eyes rested as I push’d the door
wide. ’Twas a long room, wainscoted half up the wall in some dark wood,
and in daytime lit by one window only, which now was hung with red
curtains. By the fireplace, where a brisk wood fire was crackling,
lean’d the young gentlewoman I had met at Hungerford, who, as she now
turn’d her eyes upon me, ceas’d fingering the guitar or mandoline that
she held against her waist, and raised her pretty head not without
curiosity.
But ’twas on the table in the centre of the chamber that my gaze
settled; and on two men beside it, of whom I must speak more
particularly.
The elder, who sat in a high-back’d chair, was a little, frail, deform’d
gentleman of about fifty, dress’d very richly in dark velvet and furs,
and wore on his head a velvet skullcap, round which his white hair stuck
up like a ferret’s. But the oddest thing about him was a complexion
that any maid of sixteen would give her ears for—of a pink and white
so transparent that it seem’d a soft light must be glowing beneath his
skin. On either cheek bone this delicate coloring centred in a deeper
flush. This is as much as I need say about his appearance, except that
his eyes were very bright and sharp, and his chin stuck out like a
vicious mule’s.
The table before him was cover’d with bottles and flasks, in the middle
of which stood a silver lamp burning, and over it a silver saucepan that
sent up a rare fragrance as the liquid within it simmer’d and bubbled.
So eager was the old gentleman in watching the progress of his mixture,
that he merely glanc’d up at my entrance, and then, holding up a hand
for silence, turn’d his eyes on the saucepan again.
The second man was the broad-shouldered lackey I had seen riding behind
the coach: and now stood over the saucepan with a twisted flask in his
hand, from which he pour’d a red syrup very gingerly, drop by drop, with
the tail of his eye turn’d on his master’s face, that he might know when
to cease.
Now it may be that my entrance upset this experiment in strong drinks.
At any rate, I had scarce come to a stand about three paces inside the
door, when the little old gentleman bounces up in a fury, kicks over his
chair, hurls the nearest bottles to right and left, and sends the silver
saucepan spinning across the table to my very feet, where it scalded me
clean through the boot, and made me hop for pain.
“Spoil’d—spoil’d!” he scream’d: “drench’d in filthy liquor, when it
should have breath’d but a taste!”
And, to my amazement, he sprang on the strapping servant like a
wild-cat, and began to beat, cuff, and belabor him with all the strength
of his puny limbs.
’Twas like a scene out of Bedlam. Yet all the while the girl lean’d
quietly against the mantelshelf, and softly touched the strings of her
instrument; while the servant took the rain of blows and slaps as
though ’twere a summer shower, grinning all over his face, and making no
resistance at all.
Then, as I stood dumb with perplexity, the old gentleman let go his hold
of the fellow’s hair, and, dropping on the floor, began to roll about in
a fit of coughing, the like of which no man can imagine. ’Twas hideous.
He bark’d, and writhed, and bark’d again, till the disorder seem’d to
search and rack every innermost inch of his small frame. And in the
intervals of coughing his exclamations were terrible to listen to.
“He’s dying!” I cried; and ran forward to help.
The servant pick’d up the chair, and together we set him in it. By
degrees the violence of the cough abated, and he lay back, livid in the
face, with his eyes closed, and his hands clutching the knobs of the
chair. I turn’d to the girl. She had neither spoken nor stirr’d, but now
came forward, and calmly ask’d my business.
“I think,” said I, “that your name is Killigrew?”
“I am Delia Killigrew, and this is my father, Sir Deakin.”
“Now on his way to visit his estates in Cornwall?”
She nodded.
“Then I have to warn you that your lives are in danger.” And, gently as
possible, I told her what I had seen and heard downstairs. In the middle
of my tale, the servant stepp’d to the door, and return’d quietly. There
was no lock on the inside. After a minute he went across, and drew the
red curtains. The window had a grating within, of iron bars as thick as
a man’s thumb, strongly clamp’d in the stonework, and not four inches
apart. Clearly, he was a man of few words; for, returning, he merely
pull’d out his sword, and waited for the end of my tale.
The girl, also, did not interrupt me, but listen’d in silence. As I
ceas’d, she said——
“Is this all you know?”
“No,” answer’d I, “it is not. But the rest I promise to tell you if we
escape from this place alive. Will this content you?”
She turn’d to the servant, who nodded. Whereupon she held out her hand
very cordially.
“Sir, listen: we are travelers bound for Cornwall, as you know, and
have some small possessions, that will poorly reward the greed of these
violent men. Nevertheless, we should be hurrying on our journey did we
not await my brother Anthony, who was to have ridden from Oxford to join
us here, but has been delayed, doubtless on the King’s business——”
She broke off, as I started: for below I heard the main door open, and
Captain Settle’s voice in the passage. The arch villain had return’d.
“Mistress Delia,” I said hurriedly, “the twelfth man has enter’d the
house, and unless we consider our plans at once, all’s up with us.”
“Tush!” said the old gentleman in the chair, who (it seems) had heard
all, and now sat up brisk as ever. “I, for my part shall mix another
glass, and leave it all to Jacques. Come, sit by me, sir, and you shall
see some pretty play. Why, Jacques is the neatest rogue with a small
sword in all France!”
“Sir,” I put in, “they are a round dozen in all, and your life at
present is not worth a penny’s purchase.”
“That’s a lie! ’Tis worth this bowl before me, that, with or without
you, I mean to empty. What a fool thing is youth! Sir, you must be a
dying man like myself to taste life properly.” And, as I am a truthful
man, he struck up quavering merrily—
“Hey, nonni—nonni—no!
Men are fools that wish to die!
Is’t not fine to laugh and sing
When the bells of death do ring?
Is’t not fine to drown in wine,
And turn upon the toe,
And sing, hey—nonni—no?
Hey, nonni—nonni—”
“—Come and sit, sir, nor spoil sport. You are too raw, I’ll wager, to
be of any help; and boggling I detest.”
“Indeed, sir,” I broke in, now thoroughly anger’d, “I can use the small
sword as well as another.”
“Tush! Try him, Jacques.”
Jacques, still wearing a stolid face, brought his weapon to the guard.
Stung to the quick, I wheel’d round, and made a lunge or two, that he
put aside as easily as though I were a babe. And then—I know not how it
happened, but my sword slipp’d like ice out of my grasp, and went flying
across the room. Jacques, sedately as on a matter of business, stepp’d
to pick it up, while the old gentleman chuckled.
I was hot and asham’d, and a score of bitter words sprang to my
tongue-tip, when the Frenchman, as he rose from stooping, caught my eye,
and beckon’d me across to him.
He was white as death, and pointed to the hilt of my sword and the
demi-bear engrav’d thereon.
“He is dead,” I whisper’d: “hush!—turn your face aside—killed by those
same dogs that are now below.”
I heard a sob in the true fellow’s throat. But on the instant it was
drown’d by the sound of a door opening and the tramp of feet on the
stairs.