"Three ruffians seized me yestermorn,
Alas! a maiden most forlorn;
They choked my cries with wicked might,
And bound me on a palfrey white."
S. T. COLERIDGE.
Yet after the night it was with more hope than despondency, Anne, in
the February morning, mounted en croupe behind Mr. Fellowes's
servant, that being decided on as the quickest mode of travelling.
She saw the sunrise behind St. Catherine's Hill, and the gray mists
filling the valley of the Itchen, and the towers of the Cathedral
and College barely peeping beyond them. Would her life rise out of
the mist?
Through hoar-frosted hedges, deeply crested with white, they rode,
emerging by and by on downs, becoming dully green above, as the sun
touched them, but white below. Suddenly, in passing a hollow,
overhung by two or three yew-trees, they found themselves surrounded
by masked horsemen. The servant on her horse was felled, she
herself snatched off and a kerchief covered her face, while she was
crying, "Oh sir, let me go! I am on business of life and death."
The covering was stuffed into her mouth, and she was borne along
some little way; then there was a pause, and she freed herself
enough to say, "You shall have everything; only let me go;" and she
felt for the money with which Sir Philip had supplied her, and for
the watch given her by King James.
"We want you; nothing of yours," said a voice. "Don't be afraid.
No one will hurt you; but we must have you along with us."
Therewith she was pinioned by two large hands, and a bandage was
made fast over her eyes, and when she shrieked out, "Mr. Fellowes!
Oh! where are you?" she was answered--
"No harm has been done to the parson. He will be free as soon as
any one comes by. 'Tis you we want. Now, I give you fair notice,
for we don't want to choke you; there's no one to hear a squall. If
there were, we should gag you, so you had best be quiet, and you
shall suffer no hurt. Now then, by your leave, madam."
She was lifted on horseback again, and a belt passed round her and
the rider in front of her. Again she strove, in her natural voice,
to plead that to stop her would imperil a man's life, and to implore
for release. "We know all that," she was told. It was not rudely
said. The voice was not that of a clown; it was a gentleman's
pronunciation, and this was in some ways more inexplicable and
alarming. The horses were put in rapid motion; she heard the
trampling of many hoofs, and felt that they were on soft turf, and
she knew that for many miles round Winchester it was possible to
keep on the downs so as to avoid any inhabited place. She tried to
guess, from the sense of sunshine that came through her bandage, in
what direction she was being carried, and fancied it must be
southerly. On--on--on--still the turf. It seemed absolutely
endless. Time was not measurable under such circumstances, but she
fancied noon must have more than passed, when the voice that had
before spoken said, "We halt in a moment, and shift you to another
horse, madam; but again I forewarn you that our comrades here have
no ears for you, and that cries and struggles will only make it the
worse for you." Then came the sound as of harder ground and a stop--
undertones, gruff and manly, could be heard, the peculiar noise of
horses' drinking; and her captor came up this time on foot, saying,
"Plaguy little to be had in this accursed hole; 'tis but the choice
between stale beer and milk. Which will you prefer?"
She could not help accepting the milk, and she was taken down to
drink it, and a hunch of coarse barley bread was given to her, with
it the words, "I would offer you bacon, but it tastes as if Old Nick
had smoked it in his private furnace."
Such expressions were no proof that gentle blood was lacking, but
whose object could her abduction be--her, a penniless dependent?
Could she have been seized by mistake for some heiress? In that
moment's hope she asked, "Sir, do you know who I am--Anne Woodford,
a poor, portionless maid, not--"
"I know perfectly well, madam," was the reply. "May I trouble you
to permit me to mount you again?"
She was again placed behind one of the riders, and again fastened to
him, and off they went, on a rougher horse, on harder ground, and,
as she thought, occasionally through brushwood. Again a space, to
her illimitable, went by, and then came turf once more, and by and
by what seemed to her the sound of the sea.
Another halt, another lifting down, but at once to be gathered up
again, and then a splashing through water. "Be careful," said the
voice. A hand, a gentleman's hand, took hers; her feet were on
boards--on a boat; she was drawn down to sit on a low thwart.
Putting her hand over, she felt the lapping of the water and tasted
that it was salt.
"Oh, sir, where are you taking me?" she asked, as the boat was
pushed off.
"That you will know in due time," he answered.
Some more refreshment was offered her in a decided but not
discourteous manner, and she partook of it, remembering that
exhaustion might add to her perils. She perceived that after
pushing off from shore sounds of eating and low gruff voices mingled
with the plash of oars. Commands seemed to be given in French, and
there were mutterings of some strange language. Darkness was coming
on. What were they doing with her? And did Charles's fate hang
upon hers?
Yet in spite of terrors and anxieties, she was so much worn out as
to doze long enough to lose count of time, till she was awakened by
the rocking and tossing of the boat and loud peremptory commands.
She became for the first time in her life miserable with sea-
sickness, for how long it was impossible to tell, and the pitching
of the boat became so violent that when she found herself bound to
one of the seats she was conscious of little but a longing to be
allowed to go to the bottom in peace, except that some great cause--
she could hardly in her bewildered wretchedness recollect what--
forbade her to die till her mission was over.
There were loud peremptory orders, oaths, sea phrases, in French and
English, sometimes in that unknown tongue. Something expressed that
a light was directing to a landing-place, but reaching it was
doubtful.
"Unbind her eyes," said a voice; "let her shift for herself."
"Better not."
There followed a fresh upheaval, as if the boat were perpendicular;
a sudden sinking, some one fell over and bruised her; another
frightful rising and falling, then smoothness; the rope that held
her fast undone; the keel grating; hands apparently dragging up the
boat. She was lifted out like a doll, carried apparently through
water over shingle. Light again made itself visible; she was in a
house, set down on a chair, in the warmth of fire, amid a buzz of
voices, which lulled as the bandage was untied and removed. Her
eyes were so dazzled, her head so giddy, her senses so faint, that
everything swam round her, and there that strange vision recurred.
Peregrine Oakshott was before her. She closed her eyes again, as
she lay back in the chair.
"Take this; you will be better." A glass was at her lips, and she
swallowed some hot drink, which revived her so that she opened her
eyes again, and by the lights in an apparently richly curtained
room, she again beheld that figure standing by her, the glass in his
hand.
"Oh!" she gasped. "Are you alive?"
The answer was to raise her still gloved hand with substantial
fingers to a pair of lips.
"Then--then--he is safe! Thank God!" she murmured, and shut her
eyes again, dizzy and overcome, unable even to analyse her
conviction that all would be well, and that in some manner he had
come to her rescue.
"Where am I?" she murmured dreamily. "In Elf-land?"
"Yes; come to be Queen of it."
The words blended with her confused fancies. Indeed she was hardly
fully conscious of anything, except that a woman's hands were about
her, and that she was taken into another room, where her drenched
clothes were removed, and she was placed in a warm, narrow bed,
where some more warm nourishment was put into her mouth with a
spoon, after which she sank into a sleep of utter exhaustion. That
sleep lasted long. There was a sensation of the rocking of the
boat, and of aching limbs, through great part of the time; also
there seemed to be a continual roaring and thundering around her,
and such strange misty visions, that when she finally awoke, after a
long interval of deeper and sounder slumber, she was incapable of
separating the fact from the dream, more especially as head and
limbs were still heavy, weary, and battered. The strange roaring
still sounded, and sometimes seemed to shake the bed. Twilight was
coming in at a curtained window, and showed a tiny chamber, with
rafters overhead and thatch, a chest, a chair, and table. There was
a pallet on the floor, and Anne suspected that she had been wakened
by the rising of its occupant. Her watch was on the chair by her
side, but it had not been wound, and the dim light did not increase,
so that there was no guessing the time; and as the remembrance of
her dreadful adventures made themselves clear, she realised with
exceeding terror that she must be a prisoner, while the evening's
apparition relegated itself to the world of dreams.
Being kidnapped to be sent to the plantations was the dread of those
days. But if such were the case, what would become of Charles? In
the alarm of that thought she sat up in bed and prepared to rise,
but could nowhere see her clothes, only the little cloth bag of
toilet necessaries that she had taken with her.
At that moment, however, the woman came in with a steaming cup of
chocolate in her hand and some of the garments over her arm. She
was a stout, weather-beaten, kindly-looking woman with a high white
cap, gold earrings, black short petticoat, and many-coloured apron.
"Monsieur veut savoir si mademoiselle va bien?" said she in slow
careful French, and when questions in that language were eagerly
poured out, she shook her head, and said, "Ne comprends pas." She,
however, brought in the rest of the clothes, warm water, and a
light, so that Anne rose and dressed, exceedingly perplexed, and
wondering whether she could be in a ship, for the sounds seemed to
say so, and there was no corresponding motion. Could she be in
France? Certainly the voyage had seemed interminable, but she did
not think it _could_ have been long enough for that, nor that any
person in his senses would try to cross in an open boat in such
weather. She looked at the window, a tiny slip of glass, too thick
to show anything but what seemed to be a dark wall rising near at
hand. Alas! she was certainly a prisoner! In whose hands? With
what intent? How would it affect that other prisoner at Winchester?
Was that vision of last night substantial or the work of her
exhausted brain? What could she do? It was well for her that she
could believe in the might of prayer.
She durst not go beyond her door, for she heard men's tones,
suppressed and gruff, but presently there was a knock, and wonder of
wonders, she beheld Hans, black Hans, showing all his white teeth in
a broad grin, and telling her that Missee Anne's breakfast was
ready. The curtain that overhung the door was drawn back, and she
passed into another small room, with a fire on the open hearth, and
a lamp hung from a beam, the walls all round covered with carpets or
stuffs of thick glowing colours, so that it was like the inside of a
tent. And in the midst, without doubt, stood Peregrine Oakshott, in
such a dress as was usually worn by gentlemen in the morning--a
loose wrapping coat, though with fine lace cuffs and cravat, all,
like the shoes and silk stockings, worn with his peculiar
daintiness, and, as was usual when full-bottomed wigs were the rule
in grande tenue, its place supplied by a silken cap. This was olive
green with a crimson tassel, which had assumed exactly the
characteristic one-sided Riquet-with-a-tuft aspect. For the rest,
these years seemed to have made the slight form slighter and more
wiry, and the face keener, more sallow, and more marked.
He bowed low with the foreign courtesy which used to be so offensive
to his contemporaries, and offered a delicate, beringed hand to lead
the young lady to the little table, where grilled fowl and rolls,
both showing the cookery of Hans, were prepared for her.
"I hope you rested well, and have an appetite this morning."
"Sir, what does it all mean? Where am I?" asked Anne, drawing
herself up with the native dignity that she felt to be her defence.
"In Elf-land," he said, with a smile, as he heaped her plate.
"Speak in earnest," she entreated. "I cannot eat till I understand.
It is no time for trifling! Life and death hang on my reaching
London! If you saved me from those men, let me go free."
"No one can move at present," he said. "See here."
He drew back a curtain, opened first one door and then another, and
she saw sheets of driving rain, and rising, roaring waves, with surf
which came beating in on the force of such a fearful gust of wind
that Peregrine hastily shut the door, not without difficulty.
"Nobody can stir at present," he said, as they came into the warm
bright room again. "It is a frightful tempest, the worst known here
for years, they say. The dead-lights, as they call them, have been
put in, or the windows would be driven in. Come and taste Hans's
work; you know it of old. Will you drink tea? Do you remember how
your mother came to teach mine to brew it, and how she forgave me
for being graceless enough to squirt at her?"
There was something so gentle and reassuring in the demeanour of
this strange being that Anne, convinced of the utter hopelessness of
confronting the storm, as well as of the need of gathering strength,
allowed herself to be placed in a chair, and to partake of the food
set before her, and the tea, which was served without milk, in an
exquisite dragon china cup, but with a saucer that did not match it.
"We don't get our sets perfect," said Peregrine, with a smile, who
was waiting on her as if she were a princess.
"I entreat you to tell me where we are!" said Anne. "Not in
France?"
"No, not in France! I wish we were."
"Then--can this be the Island?"
"Yes, the Island it is," said Peregrine, both speaking as South
Hants folk; "this is the strange cave or chasm called Black Gang
Chine."
"Black Gang! Oh! the highwaymen, the pirates! You have saved me
from them. Were they going to send me to the plantations?"
"You need have no fears. No one shall touch you, or hurt you. You
shall see no one save by your own consent, my queen."
"And when this storm is passed--Oh!" as a more fearful roar and dash
sounded as if the waves were about to sweep away their frail
shelter--"you will come with me and save Mr. Archfield's life? You
cannot know--"
"I know," he interrupted; "but why should I be solicitous for his
life? That I am here now is no thanks to him, and why should I give
up mine for the sake of him who meant to make an end of me?"
"You little know how he repented. And your own life? What do you
mean?"
"People don't haunt the Black Gang Chine when their lives are secure
from Dutch Bill," he answered. "Don't be terrified, my queen;
though I cannot lay claim, like Prospero, to having raised this
storm by my art magic, yet it perforce gives me time to make you
understand who and what I am, and how I have recovered my better
angel to give her no mean nor desperate career. It will be better
thus than with the suddenness with which I might have had to act."
A new alarm seized upon Anne as to his possible intentions, but she
would not forestall what she so much apprehended, and, sensible that
self-control alone could guard her, since escape at present was
clearly impossible, she resigned herself to sit opposite to him by
the ample hearth of what she perceived to be a fisherman's hut, thus
fitted up luxuriously with, it might be feared, the spoils of the
sea.
The story was a long one, and not by any means told consecutively or
without interruption, and all the time those eyes were upon her, one
yellow the other green, with the effect she knew so well of old in
childish days, of repulsion yet compulsion, of terror yet
attraction, as if irresistibly binding a reluctant will. Several
times Peregrine was called off to speak to some one outside the
door, and at noon he begged permission for his friends to dine with
them, saying that there was no other place where the dinner could be
taken to them comfortably in this storm.