For the first hour or two, as no one would be about so early, I thought
it safe to use the road. I put my best foot foremost, going up the great
steep combe, with Chard at my back.
The road was one of the loneliest I have ever trodden. It went winding
up among barren-looking combes which seemed little better than waste
land. There were few houses, so few that sometimes, on a bit of rising
ground, when the road lifted clear of the hedges, one had to look about
to see any dwelling of men. There was little cultivation, either. It was
nearly all waste, or scanty pasture. A few cows cropped by the wayside
near the lonely cottages. A few sheep wandered among the ferns. It was
a very desolate land to lie within so few miles of England's richest
valleys. I walked through it hurriedly, for I wished to get far from my
prison before my escape was discovered. No one was there to see me;
the lie of the valley below gave me my direction, roughly, but closely
enough. After about an hour of steady, fairly good walking, I pulled up
by a little tiny brook for breakfast. I ate quickly, then hurried on,
for I dared not waste time. I turned out of the narrow cart-tracks into
what seemed to be a highroad.
I dipped down a hollow, past a pond where geese were feeding, then
turned to a stiff steep hill, which never seemed to end for miles. The
country grew lonelier at every step; there were no houses there; only
a few rabbits tamely playing in the outskirts of the coverts. A jay
screamed in the clump of trees at the hill-top; it seemed the proper
kind of voice for a waste like that. Still further on, I sat down to
rest at the brink of the great descent, which led, as I guessed, as I
could almost see, to the plain where Taunton lay, waiting for the Duke's
army to garrison her. There were thick woods to my right at this point,
making cover so dense that no hounds would have tried to break through
it, no matter how strong a scent might lead them. It was here, as I sat
for a few minutes to rest, that a strange thing happened.
I was sitting at the moment with my back to the wood, looking over
the desolate country towards a tiny cottage far off on the side of the
combe. A big dog-fox came out of the cover from behind me, so quietly
that I did not hear him. He trotted past me in the road; I do not think
that he saw me till he was just opposite. Then he stopped to examine me,
as though he had never seen such a thing before. He was puzzled by me,
but he soon decided that I was not worth bothering about, for he made
no stay. He padded slowly on towards Chard, evidently well-pleased with
himself. Suddenly he stopped dead, with one pad lifted, a living image
of alert tension. He was alarmed by something coming along the road by
which I had come. He turned his head slightly, as though to make sure
with his best ear. Then with a single beautiful lollopping bound he
was over the hedge to safety, going in that exquisite curving rhythm of
movement which the fox has above all English animals. For a second, I
wondered what it was that had startled him. Then, with a quickness of
wit which would have done credit to an older mind, I realized that there
was danger coming on the road towards me, danger of men or of dogs,
since nothing else in this country frightens a fox. It flashed in upon
me that I must get out of sight at once; before that danger hove in view
of me. I gave a quick rush over the fence into the tangle, through which
I drove my way till I was snug in an open space under some yew trees,
surrounded on all sides by brambles. I shinned up one of the great yew
trees, till I could command a sight of the road, while lying hidden
myself in the profuse darkness of the foliage. Here I drew out my
pistol, ready for what might come. I suppose I had not been in my
hiding-place for more than thirty seconds, when over the brow of the
hill came Sir Travers Carew, at a full gallop, cheering on a couple of
hounds, who were hot on my scent. Aurelia rode after him, on her famous
chestnut mare. Behind her galloped two men, whom I had not seen before.
In an instant, they were swooped down to the place where the dog-fox had
passed. The hounds gave tongue when they smelt the rank scent of their
proper game; they were unused to boy-hunting. They did not hesitate an
instant, but swung off as wild as puppies over the hedge, after the fox.
The horsemen paused for a second, surprised at the sudden sharp turn;
but they followed the hounds' lead, popping over the fence most nimbly,
not waiting to look for my tracks in the banks of the hedge. They
streamed away after the fox, to whom I wished strong legs. I knew that
with two young hounds they would never catch him, but I hoped that he
would give them a good run before the sun killed the scent. I looked
at the sun, now gloriously bright over all the world, putting a bluish
glitter on to the shaking oak leaves of the wood. How came it that they
had discovered my flight so soon since it could not be more than six
o'clock, if as much? I wondered if it had been the old carter, who had
never really seen me. It might have been the old carter; but doubtless
he drummed for a good while on the door of the stable before anybody
heard him. Or it might have been one of the garden sentries. One of the
sentries might well have peeped in at the window of my room to make sure
that I was up to no pranks. He could have seen from the window that my
bed was empty. If he had noticed that, he could have unlocked my door to
make sure, after which it would not have taken more than a few minutes
to start after me. I learned afterwards that the sentry had alarmed the
house at a little before five o'clock. The carter, being only half-awake
when he came after me, suspected nothing till the other farm-hands came
for the horses, at about six o'clock, when, the key being gone, he had
to break the lock, vowing that the rattens had took his key from him in
the night. My disappearance puzzled everybody, because I had hidden my
tracks so carefully that no one noticed at first how the chimney bars
had been loosened. No one in that house knew of the secret room, so that
the general impression was that I had either squeezed myself through the
window, or blown myself out through the keyhole by art-magic. The hounds
had been laid along the road to Chard, with the result that they had hit
my trail after a few minutes of casting about.
Now that they were after me, I did not know what to do. I dared not
go on towards Taunton; for who knew how soon the squire would find his
error, by viewing the fox? He was too old a huntsman not to cast back
to where he had left the road, as soon as he learned that his hounds
had changed foxes. I concluded that I had better stay where I was,
throughout that day, carefully hidden in the yew-tree. In the evening
I might venture further if the coast seemed clear. It was easy to make
such a resolution; but not so easy to keep to it; for fifteen hours is a
long time for a boy to wait. I stayed quiet for some hours, but I heard
no more of my hunters. I learned later that they had gone from me, in
a wide circuit, to cut round upon the Taunton roads, so as to intercept
me, or to cause me to be intercepted in case I passed by those ways.
The hounds gave up after chasing the fox for three miles. The old squire
thought that they stopped because the sun had destroyed the scent. With
a little help from an animal I had beaten Aurelia once more. When I grew
weary of sitting up in the yew tree, clambered down, intending to push
on through the wood until I came to the end of it. It was mighty
thick cover to push through for the first half mile; then I came to a
cart-track, made by wood-cutters, which I followed till it took me out
of the wood into a wild kind of sheep-pasture. It was now fully nine
in the evening, but the country was so desolate it might have been
undiscovered land. I might have been its first settler, newly come there
from the seas. It taught me something of the terrors of war that day's
wandering towards Taunton. I realized all the men of these parts had
wandered away after the Duke, for the sake of the excitement, after
living lonely up there in the wilds. Their wives had followed the army
also. The while population (scanty as it was) had moved off to look for
something more stirring than had hitherto come to them. I wandered
on slowly, taking my time, getting my direction fairly clear from the
glimpses which I sometimes caught of the line of the highway. At a
little after noon I ate the last of my victuals near a spring. I rested
after my dinner, then pushed on again, till I had won to a little
spinney only four miles from Taunton, where my legs began to fail under
me.
I crept into the spinney, wondering if it contained some good shelter in
which I could sleep for the night. I found a sort of dry, high pitched
bank, with the grass all worn off it, which I thought would serve my
turn, if the rain held off. As for supper, I determined to shoot a
rabbit with my pistol. For drink, there was a plenty of small brooks
within half a mile of the little enclosure. After I had chosen my camp,
I was not very satisfied with it. The cover near by was none too thick.
So I moved off to another part where the bushes grew more closely
together. As I was walking leisurely along, I smelt a smell of something
cooking, I heard voices, I heard something clink, as though two tin cups
were being jangled. Before I could draw back, a man thrust through the
undergrowth, challenging me with a pistol. Two other men followed him,
talking in low, angry tones. They came all round me with very murderous
looks. They were the filthiest looking scarecrows ever seen out of a
wheat-field.
“Why,” said one of them, lowering his pistol, “it be the Duke's young
man, as we seed at Lyme.” They became more friendly at that; but still
they seemed uneasy, not very sure of my intentions.
“Where is the Duke?” I asked after a long awkward pause. “Is he at
Taunton?” They looked from one to the other with strange looks which I
did not understand.
“The Duke be at Bridgewater,” said one of them in a curious tone. “What
be you doing away from the Duke?”
“Why,” I said, “I was taken prisoner. I escaped this morning.”
“Yes?” they said with some show of eagerness. “Be there many soldiers
hereaway, after us?”
“No. Not many,” I said. “Are you coming from the Duke?”
“Yes,” said one of them, “we left en at Bridgewater. We have been having
enough of fighting for the crown. We been marching in mud up to our
knees. We been fighting behind hedges. We been retreating for the last
week. So now us be going home, if us can get there. Glad if we never
sees a fight again.”
“Well,” I said, “I must get to the Duke if I can. How far is it to
Bridgewater?”
“Matter of fifteen mile,” they said, after a short debate. “You'll never
get there tonight. Nor perhaps tomorrow, since we hear the soldiers be a
coming.”
“I'll get some of the way tonight,” I said; but my heart sank at the
thought; for I was tired out.
“No, young master,” said one of the men kindly, “you stop with us for
tonight. Come to supper with us. Us 'ave rabbits on the fire.” Their
fortnight of war had given them a touch of that comradeship which
camp-life always gives. They took me with them to their camp-fire, where
they fed me on a wonderful mess of rabbits boiled with herbs. The men
had bread. One of them had cider. Our feast there was most pleasant; or
would have been, had not the talk of these deserters been so melancholy.
They were flying to their homes like hunted animals, after a fortnight
of misery which had altered their faces forever. They had been
in battle; they had retreated through mud; they had seen all the
ill-fortune of war. They did all that they could to keep me from my
purpose; but I had made up my mind to rejoin my master; I was not to be
moved. Before settling down to sleep for the night I helped the men to
set wires for rabbits, an art which I had not understood till then,
but highly useful to a lad so fated to adventurous living as myself. We
slept in various parts of the spinney, wherever there was good shelter;
but we were all so full of jangling nerves that our sleep was most
uneasy. We woke very early, visited our wires, then breakfasted heartily
on the night's take. The men insisted on giving me a day's provision
to take with me, which I took, though grudgingly, for they had none too
much for themselves, poor fellows. Just before we parted I wrote a note
to Sir Travers, on a leaf of my pocketbook. “Dear Sir Travers,” I wrote,
“These men are well-known to me as honest subjects. They have had great
troubles on their road. I hope that you will help them to get home.
Please remember me very kindly to your niece.” After folding this
very neatly I gave the precious piece of impudence to one of the men.
“There,” I said, “if you are stopped, insist on being carried before Sir
Travers. He knows me. I am sure that he will help you as far as he
can.” For this the men thanked me humbly. I learned, too, that it was of
service to them. It saved them all from arrest later in the same day.
Having bidden my hosts farewell, I wandered on, keeping pretty well in
cover. I saw a patrol of the King's dragoons in one of the roads near
which I walked. The nets were fast closing in on my master: there were
soldiers coming upon him from every quarter save the west, which was
blocked too, as it happened, by ships of war in the Channel. This
particular patrol of dragoons caught sight of me. I saw a soldier
looking over a gate at me; but as I was only a boy, seemingly out for
birdsnests, he did not challenge me, so that by noon I was safe in
Taunton. I have no clear memory of Taunton, except that it was full of
people, mostly women. There were little crowds in the streets, little
crowds of women, surrounding muddy, tired men who had come in from the
Duke. People were going about in a hurried, aimless way which showed
that they were scared. Many houses were shut up. Many men were working
on the city walls, trying to make the place defensible. If ever a town
had the fear of death upon it that town was Taunton, then. As far as I
could make out it was not the actual war that it feared; though that
it feared pretty strongly, as the looks on the women's faces showed. It
feared that the Duke's army would come back to camp there, to eat them
all up, every penny, every blade of corn, like an army of locusts.
Sometimes, while I was there, men galloped in with news, generally
false, like most warmews, but eagerly sought for by those who even now
saw their husbands shot dead in ranks by the fierce red-coats under
their drunken Dutch general. Sometimes the news was that the army was
pressing in to cut off the Duke from Taunton; that the dragoons were
shooting people on the road; that they were going to root out the whole
population without mercy. At another time news came that Monmouth was
marching in to music, determined to hold Taunton till the town was a
heap of cinders. Then one, bloody with his spurred horse's gore, cried
aloud that the King was dead, shot in the heart by one of his brother's
servants. Then another came calling all to prayer. All this uproar
caused a hurrying from one crowd to another. Here a man preached
fervently to a crowd of enthusiasts. Here men ran from a prayer-meeting
to crowd about a messenger. Bells jangled from the churches; the noise
of the picks never ceased in the trenches; the taverns were full; the
streets swarmed; the public places were now thronged, now suddenly
empty. Here came the aldermen in their robes, scared faces among the
scarlet, followed by a mob praying for news, asking in frenzy for
something certain, however terrible. There several in a body clamoured
at a citizen's door in the like fever of doubt. There was enough agony
of mind in Taunton that day to furnish out any company of tragedians.
We English, an emotional people by nature, are best when the blow has
fallen. We bear neither doubt nor rapture wisely. Our strength is shown
in troublous times in which other people give way to despair.