THE FUGITIVE
It was March, 1585, and but a few weeks remained to Brion before
starting on the great adventure. All his and Clerivault’s preparations
were made, and they only awaited the signal to join the fleet at
Plymouth, and launch upon whatever destiny the unknown might have in
store for them. Some anxiety may have been his: misgivings, none. He
was now twenty-six--the age of fully matured strength and reason and
the fearless confidence that goes with both--and ripe manhood in him
peremptorily demanded its employment and enlargement in scenes of
vigorous action. His sole concern lay in thus temporarily abandoning
his Uncle to the possible perils of an agitated time; but, as to that,
having confessed his fears to Raleigh, he had found some reassurance
in his friend’s promise to have a watch kept on the district, and any
sinister symptoms appearing therein at once reported to him, when they
should be drastically dealt with. That undertaking, and the confidence
he felt in the stalwart fidelity of the household remaining, had to be
his sufficient guarantees in the question of the untoward coming to
threaten.
He would have liked, from that one point of view, to leave Clerivault
behind; only his pledge was given. Moreover, to insist, would have
wounded that excellent’s feelings beyond cure. Clerivault, while still
retaining his grateful attachment to, and sorrowful belief in, his old
master, had yet come to regard as the crowning expression of his
allegiance his devotion to the younger trust committed to him. He was
dedicated body and soul to the service of the nephew, and to be
separated from him, or considered inessential to his welfare in any
way, would have killed his very heart. Wherefore the outrage was not
even to be considered; and Nol porter must take his place in
personally attending on the recluse--a task for which at least that
great creature’s physical strength fitted him, inasmuch as his Honour,
the wreck of a great man himself, was often in need, owing to his
enfeebled capacities and shattered constitution, of the support and
assistance which only strong arms could afford him.
As to Quentin Bagott himself, he was little more than a cypher in the
business, wanting his nephew to go, and not wanting him; now dwelling
on the eternal loneliness to which he was condemned, now implying a
sort of furtive glee in the prospect of that loneliness being
intensified. He did not know his own mind--as, indeed, how should he,
that feeble remnant of the force that once had been, and, such as it
had become, devoted to fears and superstitions? No one looking upon
him in these days but must have felt the tragedy of that ruined
intellect. It mourned from the brilliant eyes, set in the wasted and
degraded features, about which the black hair that hung in neglected
strands was still without a touch of gray in it; it drooped in the
apathetic shoulders, yielded at last, and unresisting, to the burden
of fatality; it spoke in the blurred, disjointed voice, which was like
that of a sleeper only half awakened. Now and again, in instants of
rare provocation, a ray of the old brilliancy would flash out; but for
the most part the man’s faculties were hopelessly obscured, and he
would sit for long hours together in a blank preoccupation, staring,
as it might be, into a baffling fog, where moving shadows that never
materialized shrunk, and expanded, and intensified, and again faded
into nebulous blots.
If during these years, so inoperative, and so barren in their
prospect, a thought which seemed to tremble near the verge of treason
to himself had come now and again into Brion’s mind, who can wonder at
it. It was a thought of a little house in far-away Clapham, and of a
figure going always cheerfully and capably about its business there.
He had seen Alse once again during his second visit to London, and had
pleasantly renewed in her an impression as of something very wholesome
and fragrant, like a garden herb, and as such associating itself with
perfumed thoughts in homely ways. To uproot so sweet a plant from
under that old church wall, and transport it to these unproductive
solitudes--what a difference it might make, to him, to all, to the
whole atmosphere of the place! It was at least a pleasant fancy to
indulge; and could even be supported by some arguments--a little
specious. The girl would, he believed, be glad to come. Was he
justified, in that case, in sacrificing her happiness to a vain ideal?
Again, had he the moral right to waste himself on a profitless
abstraction? Every mortal man held his affections in trust for some
mortal woman, so that to maintain oneself celibate for a dream’s sake
was to rob not one but two natures of their just fulfilment. Supposing
he were to decide to be done, for once and for all, with that old dead
illusion, and to accept the living gift the gods had offered him? Let
him, for amusement’s sake, just consider that possibility. Clerivault,
he knew very well, would, for one, be delighted. But then Clerivault
knew nothing of the other----
The other--O, the other! Only to think of her was to banish every
lesser thought. Was this the value of his deathless fidelity? His,
yes; but what of hers? Ah, time enough to turn away from that dear
illusion when its falseness should be a proven thing!
He had reached, maybe, that period in his reflections when Raleigh’s
summons to London came; and at once everything else, comfortable
visions, specious arguments, soft and amorous fancies, were swept
aside and forgotten in the excitement of the approaching adventure.
His soul was too greatly occupied to be patient any longer of such
minor distractions.
Nor was it different when he returned. He lived for the coming voyage,
and was bent only on one purpose--to make, by constant vigorous
exercise, the interval between now and then appear as short as
possible.
One afternoon, in late February of the New Year, he had gone out
riding on the moors, rather to work off an excess of animal spirits
than for any attraction the day offered, for it was bleak and cold,
with a shrill wind blowing in from the sea. He was alone, and had
ridden eastward to within sight of Highweek church, standing up
solitary and austere from the folds of the shivering hills, when,
turning into a narrow gulch between two rocky slopes, he saw a
pedestrian coming towards him from the direction of Newton Bushel and
the head of the Teign estuary. The figure, the moment it sighted him,
stopped, and made a hurried movement as if to turn and retreat, but,
thinking better of it, or recognising the hopelessness of the attempt,
continued its advance, and slowly approached the spot where he had
reined in, waiting the explanation of so suspicious an action. As the
stranger drew near, walking, it seemed, with considerable difficulty,
Brion had leisure to study his aspect, and to wonder over certain
details of it. He appeared a man of about forty, of mean stature, but
blunt and strong, and he was dressed like a simple citizen in a suit
of plain black, with no more decoration about it than was exhibited in
a pair of epauletted shoulders. His close-cropt scalp was hatless, and
underneath appeared a serious, beardless face, possessed of a very
prim, dry, dogmatic expression, and, in odd contrast, curious hot
brown eyes, the pupils of which were not black but tawny, and ringed
at their circumferences with a brighter russet. But all this no more
than indicated itself, as it were, through a veil of disorder, for his
features were grim white and drawn with suffering, his clothes
streaked and soiled, and his whole appearance suggestive of some
recent conflict in which he had been violently worsted. Having made up
his mind, he came limping resolutely on, and never hesitated until he
reached the horseman, to whom, without an instant’s pause, he made his
desperate appeal:--
‘I am being hunted for my life, Sir: I have done no wrong: for God’s
sake, if you are a Christian man, help me to escape.’
A moment Brion sat looking at him: it was not in his heart to deny a
fellow-creature in such straits, and appearing so spent and broken. He
was not of those, moreover, who in an emergency argue before they act.
With a curt word he slipped his left foot out of the stirrup, and bent
over. ‘Mount behind,’ said he, and as the fugitive struggled
exhaustedly to heave himself to the horse’s crupper, fetched a strong
hand under his armpit and helped him into place. ‘Now,’ said he, ‘hold
on to my belt,’ and with a tap of his heel to his good steed’s belly,
they were off.
‘Whither?’ he said over his shoulder, presently slowing down; and the
breathless voice answered in his ear: ‘Whithersoever, so it lead to
where they cannot find me.’
‘You wish to hide?’
‘O! indeed I do.’
‘Listen to me,’ said Brion: ‘I can hide you, an you will, where none
will dream to look. But it is a drear uncanny place, and without
comfort to one in your condition.’
‘Will it not serve a broken man to die in? I ask but rest and peace.’
‘Well, hold on again. I will take you there.’
‘“But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was.” I can
say no more now, Sir, than God bless you. You shall hear all
presently.’
They sped on again, without another word between them. If Brion had a
suspicion, he kept it to himself. His present fierce joy lay in
circumventing brutality. Moreover he foresaw a certain distraction
here to help him through the weary time of waiting. He went a wild
roundabout way in order to avoid the chance of casual meetings, the
bitter weather aiding him, and struck the ilex copse without having
encountered a soul. Driving between the trees, he dismounted, first
bidding the other hold firm by the saddle, while he tethered his horse
to a branch, and afterwards helped him to the ground.
‘Now,’ said he, ‘if they, whoever they be, are after you, despatch
must be the word.’
The man stood very weak. Brion put an arm about him--observing as he
did so that his clothes were stiff and sodden, as if with half-dried
sea-water--and supported him through the wood. In all these years,
since that day of poignant memory, he had never once retraversed this
road to the old well-house. But Sentiment must yield to Urgency. The
natural bridge still spanned the moat, and they crossed it
together--painfully and with difficulty on the stranger’s part; but,
with his escort’s strong help, the journey was made at last, and the
well-house reached. Once within, Brion lost no time, but, by aid of
what daylight entered, found his way to the familiar contrivance, and
laid bare the subterranean opening. Descending, then, he helped the
other down after him, and, reaching the little stone-lined chamber,
laid his own riding-cloak on the ground and the wounded man on it.
‘Now,’ said he: ‘so far’s so well. But I must e’en shut you away and
leave you thus till I have withdrawn that evidence of my steed in the
copse. Which having done, I will return with due caution, and bring
you what comforts I can compass on the instant. Will that serve you?’
The strange eyes looked up at him in the wan twilight. They were full
of weary pain; but, even tempering it, a ghost of fathomless
curiosity.
‘I thank you from my heart,’ said their owner. ‘Will you first, in one
word, tell me where I am?’
‘You are in the old well-house of the Moated Grange, a manor belonging
to my uncle, Master Quentin Bagott. The secret of this chamber is
known only to me, who discovered it by chance. You are as safe here as
in a fortress--or safer, since ignorance and superstition hold it more
inviolate than would locks and bolts.’
And with that he went, unconscious of the emotion his words had
awakened in the stranger’s breast. He recrossed the moat, regained and
remounted his horse, and going round to the main entrance, rode into
the courtyard with as matter-of-fact an air as if nothing untoward lay
upon his mind.
Now his next business was to forage without attracting undue
observation. But, as to that, having a general way with him the least
tolerant of any inquisitiveness as to the motives of his actions, he
might appropriate whatever he pleased, and for whatever mysterious
purpose, without fear of exciting comment, other than such as might
privately turn upon another of the young master’s inscrutable fancies.
So, going very coolly about it, he provided himself with bread and
meat, a flagon of good Malmsey, a packet of tapers with materials for
making a fire, a heavy horse-cloth from the stable, and, from an
outhouse, with a spare brazier stuffed with lumps of charcoal: armed
with all of which commodities, he made his way into the garden,
leaving behind him an impression that he was bent on one of those
solitary gipsy picnics to which on fine evenings he had more than once
been drawn.
It was nearing dusk as Brion, loaded as he was, disappeared among the
ilexes.