The sky grew more heavily clouded as Bess and Jeffray neared the sea,
and the distant downs stood out with peculiar distinctness under the
ragged fringes of the wind-blown clouds. The two in the coach hardly so
much as heeded the darkening of the day, or the dishevelled clouds that
were shutting out the sun. They were still blessed by the preservation
of the morning, and by the thought that the sea would rock their
troubles to an end. The coach rolled fast over the flats, dust blowing
in clouds, and the windows rattling and banging with the wind. Jeffray
had shouted to the coachman not to spare his horseflesh, for there was
no knowing how far old Grimshaw’s doggedness might not take him.
He smiled, and looked glad when they neared the outskirts of the little
town, and could see the masts of the ships and fishing-boats rising in
the harbor. Even the banking of the clouds, and the gusts of wind that
beat about the coach, gave him no thought or trouble nor dulled the
ardor of the day.
“Bess, are you much of a sailor?”
She smiled at him and shook her head.
“How should I remember? It is so long ago. I am not afraid,” and her
eyes delighted him.
“We may have a rough passage.”
“I am used to storms—”
“God knows, dear, yes!” and he held her hand.
The coach drew up before an inn close to the quay, with a few sailors
lounging on the benches under the windows, and a weathered sign-board
bearing a rude painting of the “King Harry” creaking on its rusty hinges
above the door.
Jeffray sprang out of the coach and crossed the footway with his sword
under his arm. A few hairy and inquisitive faces were pressed against
the windows of the tap-room. Jeffray eyed them keenly, alive to the
possibilities of old Grimshaw’s malice. He looked round the tap-room as
he entered, scanning the sailors, who smoked their pipes and stared at
him in turn. He found the innkeeper coming down the dark passage from
the kitchen, a little man, bald, buckled, and white-aproned, with a red
wart in the middle of his forehead.
“Good-morning, landlord. I hear a brig is to sail for France to-day.”
The innkeeper bowed, rubbed his double chin, and pointed Jeffray to the
door of the parlor. The sound of voices came from the room, bluff with
the burliness of the sea.
“Captain George, of the _Sussex Queen_, is within, sir,” he said,
pushing open the door, and giving Jeffray a glimpse into the foggy
atmosphere of the room. Richard walked in.
“Thanks. Captain George, I believe?”
A big man in a blue coat and white breeches, with dirtier buckles on
still dirtier shoes, rose cumbrously from a leather-backed chair, and
held out a paw to the Squire of Rodenham. A second seafaring gentleman
occupied the oak settle, and spat rhythmically on the floor, while the
reek of tobacco battled with the abominable odor of stale beer.
“I’m Captain George, sir, to be sure.”
Jeffray took stock of the red-faced and loose-jointed seaman, and summed
him up as a sloven and a drunkard.
“You are sailing to-day for France, captain?”
“Well, sir, that’s as it may be,” and the courtier knocked out his pipe,
and spat into the empty grate.
“I desire passage for two, a lady and myself.”
Captain George’s mate had sidled to the window, and was peering like a
bird at the hurrying sky.
“Looks uncommon dirty,” he remarked, thrusting out his lower lip.
“It does, mate, to be sure,” and the master of the _Sussex Queen_
appeared to have made one of the discoveries of his life.
Jeffray showed impatience, and glanced at the sky in turn.
“Maybe the gentleman’s in a partic’lar hurry,” and the worthy at the
window looked profound as he saw Bess in the coach.
Captain George accepted the hint.
“To be sure; my cargo ain’t full, sir. I was just about thinking of
letting my boat lie another week in port.”
Jeffray understood the methods of these hard-mouthed men of the sea.
They were apt at a bargain, and ready to invent difficulties in order to
draw more gold. He fell back upon the desired argument, and consented to
be plundered in the interests of romance.
“I can pay you well, captain,” he said.
“To be sure,” came the inevitable response.
“You can fix your own passage-money, within reason.”
“Well, captain, I reckon that’s a gentleman’s offer,” and the seaman by
the window took snuff, and sneezed as though it were a joy to him.
Jeffray pulled out his purse and sat down before the black oak table.
“Then you will sail to-day?” he said.
“Well, maybe I will.”
The glitter of Jeffray’s guineas decided the issue, and Captain George
wiped his mouth, gathered up the money, and stuffed it into the leather
purse he wore buckled to his belt.
Opening the parlor door he bawled at the men who were lounging in the
tap-room, and ordered them to carry “my lord’s” baggage down to the
quay.
Jeffray, who had conceived no very high opinion of the captain of the
_Sussex Queen_, felt that his pistols were safe, and buckled on his
sword. It was not as though Captain George had to sail them to the
Indies. Sloven and drunkard that he seemed, the fellow could do no great
mischief in a day’s sail across the Channel. Yet even Jeffray, landsman
that he was, could not but mark the sinister spoiling of the weather as
he stood on the inn steps and caught a glimpse of the gray sea beyond
the harbor mouth. It was possible to judge by the faces of the sailors
who were hauling the boxes down from the top of the coach that they were
none too eager to leave the tap-room of the King Harry.
“Curse the old tub,” quoth one with silver earrings and a face like
leather, “a fine prize cruise for the cap’n if he can hold the old hulk
together between Beachy and Dieppe.”
“Dieppe, mate, Calais Roads, more like. What’s the young cockerel in
such a hurry for, eh?”
The man with the earrings jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the
direction of the coach.
“Pair of black eyes, mate. Running across the water, most probable, with
another gen’leman’s Susan.”
“The young fool!”
“Drat this box, it be made up o’ corners.”
Jeffray, who had caught nothing but the man’s mutterings and their surly
looks, went down the steps to help Bess from the coach. Her eyes were
sparkling with the excitement of it all, and the color had come back to
her cheeks. Captain George gave her a clumsy bow as she passed him on
the footway, and winked at Gladden behind his master’s back.
Jeffray took Bess into the parlor, where tobacco smoke still hung like a
sea-fog, dimming the air. He opened one of the lattices, as the landlord
brought in wine and glasses on a tray, a cold chicken, fruit, a great
white loaf of bread. He looked suspiciously at the gray sky as he laid
the table, the sign-board creaking and groaning on its hinges, the wind
whistling and sighing in the chimneys.
“Bad weather for summer, sir.”
Jeffray nodded, and poured out Bess a glass of wine.
“May I be wishing, sir, that the lady don’t mind a rough sea?”
Bess glanced at Richard, and smiled, without fear.
“I would rather go,” she said.
“The weather looks uncommon dirty.”
“True, landlord. What sort of sea-boat is the _Sussex Queen_?”
The innkeeper pursed up his lips, and stood with his hands folded under
his apron.
“Good as most, sir, I suppose,” he said. “Rather rickety in her spars, I
have heard. Perhaps the lady would be wishing to stay the night? We have
a good room up-stairs, and could make ye very comfortable.”
The insinuation was not without its charm, but Bess shook her head as
Jeffray questioned her with his eyes.
“No, I am not afraid,” she said.
“Thanks, landlord, I think we will slip across before the weather holds
us back.”
It was well past noon when Bess and Jeffray went down to the quay, and
found the _Sussex Queen_ moored close in with a gangway from the quay to
her quarter-deck. All Bess’s bridal-baggage had been hauled on board,
the new trunks filled with the rich stuffs, laces, and brocades that
Jeffray had bought for her at Lewes. Two boats’ crews of Newhaven men
were already getting out the hawsers to tow the _Sussex Queen_ into the
open sea. Jeffray took leave of Gladden, who had followed them from the
inn, and pressed some money into the old man’s hand.
“Good-bye, Gladden,” he said, joyous and untroubled, “you shall hear
from me in France. Mr. Wilson has my affairs in hand.”
“Good-bye, sir, good-bye. May you get safe across. I don’t like the look
of the weather—”
“Ah, we are not afraid of it, Gladden. Look to my father’s books. Mr.
Bitson, of Lincoln’s Inn, will see that certain moneys are paid to you
quarterly. I want the old house to look well for the day when we shall
return. Good-bye,” and he crossed the gangway.
Gladden stood watching, Jeffray’s money still in his palm, as the seamen
cast off the ropes and the Newhaven men tugged at their oars. The
hawsers tightened, and rose dripping above the water; the ship began to
glide from the quay, and to move towards the narrow vista of foam-ribbed
sea that showed beyond the harbor’s mouth.
Captain George had taken Bess to the state cabin under the poop, a dark
den of a place whose stern windows gave a last view of the little town
and the green flats that stretched beyond. Jeffray stayed with her a
moment, and then went on deck, to find the _Sussex Queen_ gliding out
from the harbor’s mouth. Captain George was standing on the
quarter-deck, trumpet in hand. The boatswain’s whistle piped, and the
men went swarming up the rigging to loose the sails, and give the ship
her wings for France.
Bess joined Jeffray on the quarter-deck, with her old scarlet cloak
about her, and the hood turned forward over her coal-black hair. They
stood close together, looking at the stretch of gray and white-maned
sea. It was cheerless and threatening, a wild waste of waters tossing
under a sullen sky. The sails were bellying out above, and the bluff
bows of the brig began to plunge and buffet with the waves. Soon the
Newhaven men dropped the tow-ropes, and pulled back to harbor with a
faint cheer. The whistling breeze, the creaking and straining of the
cordage, the salt spume flying with the wind, even these could not chill
the hearts of the two who watched the white shores dwindling beyond the
waves. They stood close to the bulwarks, Bess with her cloak wrapped
round her and Jeffray’s arm about her body. England was sinking into the
north, and the cliffs grew gray and ghostly under the hurrying sky.
Bess turned and looked into Jeffray’s eyes, wondering whether there was
any sadness for him in this going forth into the unknown. He seemed to
guess what was in her heart, and holding her close to him, gazed back
towards England with a quiet smile.
“Bess, I am thinking that you are safe with me at last.”
“Isaac cannot follow us over the sea.”
“No, we are rid of the past. And you are not afraid?”
“No, I am very happy.”
He buttoned the red cloak close about her throat, for the wind was keen
and the scud flying.
“Take a last look at England for some years,” he said.
Peter Gladden and the Rodenham servants were still drinking and
gossiping at the Royal Harry, when Isaac Grimshaw came limping down the
street, with the brim of his battered beaver flapping over his face, and
his holly stick tapping the stones. He looked worn out and weary, yet
spiteful to the last stride. Isaac saw the Rodenham coach waiting
outside the inn, and his face flushed almost boyishly, as though Bess
and her lover were still within reach of his pistol’s snout. Slinking
past the Royal Harry and meeting the full fluster of the wind, he made
for the quay where a few fishermen were idling before the warehouses.
Isaac hailed a tall fellow in heavy sea-boots and a filthy smock, and
stood leaning on his stick, and looking back at the inn with the great
coach waiting in the roadway.
“Good-day, mate; fresh breeze this. Any shipping moving?”
The man in the smock leaned against a windlass as though for a gossip,
and then cocked his head towards the sea.
“_Sussex Queen_, Cap’n George, sailed an hour ago.”
“Any passengers, mate?”
“Lady and gen’leman, came in the coach yonder. Took a lot o’ stuff
aboard.”
Isaac leaned heavily on his stick for a moment, one hand fumbling at the
butts of the pistols under his coat. The fellow in the smock stared at
him, and then went on talking, beating one heavy boot on the stone
paving of the quay.
“Damned rough weather comin’. Rather be ashore meself than out in the
Channel with this sou’wester.”
Isaac nodded, yet did not follow what the fellow said.
“You look cold, father; have a nip at the Royal Harry. What—” He
stopped open-mouthed, for Isaac had turned, and was limping away towards
the town. The sailor watched him curiously, thinking the old man in his
dotage, and that he had wasted his pity on such a crab-apple. He saw
Isaac cross the roadway and disappear up an alley that led towards the
low cliffs above the beach.
Old Grimshaw’s body seemed like a dry leaf quivering in the wind as he
forced his way forward against the growing gale. A haze of rain was
drifting over the sea, yet far beyond the gray fringe thereof the vague
whiteness of a sail showed above the foam. Isaac, breathless and half
fainting, leaned upon his stick, and stared out over the waste of
waters. The rain came beating on him, and the wind flicked the wet brim
of his hat into his face. But still he stood there like some inexorable
harbinger of evil, and cursed Bess and the ship that carried her towards
the shores of France.