AN ADDLED EGG
“Go ahead, Jack!” said the baronet, after they had crunched the frozen
snow in silence for a quarter of a mile. “See that everything is ready,
and secure a couple of berths in the ‘Weekly Dispatch,’ or whatever they
call that lumbering ‘Flying Post’ coach’s consort, for the whole trip.
I’ll be down directly.”
“For you and me, Sir George?” asked Slap-Jack, exhilarated by the
prospect of a voyage to London. “Deck passengers, both, if I may be so
bold? The fore-hold of a slaver’s a joke to them London coaches between
decks.”
“Do as you’re ordered,” answered his master, “and be smart about it. Keep
your tongue between your teeth, and wait at the ‘Hamilton Arms’ till I
come.”
Sir George was obviously disinclined for conversation, and Slap-Jack
hastened on forthwith, delighted to have an hour or two of leisure in his
favourite resort, for reasons which will hereafter appear.
No sooner was his servant out of sight than the baronet retraced
his steps, and took up a position under some yew-trees, so as to be
completely screened from observation. Hence he could watch the door
opening on his wife’s garden, and the windows of the gallery, already
lighted, which she must traverse to reach her own room.
It was a pitiful weakness, he thought, but it could do no harm just to
see her shadow pass once more for the last, last time!
Meanwhile Slap-Jack, arriving all in a glow at the “Hamilton Arms,” found
that hostelry in a great state of turmoil and confusion; the stables
were full of horses, the parlours were crowded with guests, even the bar
was thronged with comers and goers, most of whom had a compliment to
spare for mistress Alice. It was some minutes before she could find an
opportunity of speaking to him, but the whisper must have been ludicrous
as well as affectionate, for her sweetheart burst out laughing, and
exploded again at intervals, while he sat with Smoke-Jack over a cup of
ale in the tap.
The two shipmates adjourned presently to the stable, where they were
followed by Alice, with a lanthorn, an armful of waxed twine, and a large
needle, furnished by the elder seaman, such as is used for thrumming
sails.
Their occupation seemed to afford amusement, for they laughed so much as
greatly to endanger the secrecy enjoined by their feminine assistant, who
was so pleased with its progress that she returned to visit them more
than once from her avocations in the bar.
The press of company to-night at the “Hamilton Arms” consisted of a very
different class from the usual run of its customers; the horses in the
stable were well-bred, valuable animals, little inferior in quality to
Captain Bold’s bay mare herself; the guests, though plainly dressed,
were of a bearing that seemed at once to extinguish the captain’s claims
to consideration, and caused him to slink about in a very unassuming
manner till he had fortified his failing audacity with strong drink. They
threw silver to old Robin the ostler, and called for measures of claret
or burnt sack with an unostentatious liberality that denoted habits of
affluence, while their thoughtful faces and intellectual features seemed
strangely at variance with the interest they displayed in the projected
cock-fight, which was their ostensible cause of gathering. A match for
fifty broad pieces a side need scarcely have elicited such eager looks,
such anxious whispers, such restless, quivering gestures, above all, such
morbid anxiety for the latest news from the capital. They wore their
swords, in which there was nothing remarkable, but every man was also
provided with a brace of pistols, carried on his person, as though loth
to trust the insecurity of saddle-holsters.
Malletort walked about from one to the other like the presiding genius
of the commotion. For these he had a jest, for those a secret, for all a
word of encouragement, a smile of approval; and yet busy as he was, he
never took his eye off Florian, watching him as one watches a wild animal
caught in a snare too weak to insure its capture, and likely to break
with every struggle.
Without appearing to do so, he had counted over the guests and found
their number complete.
“Gentlemen,” said he, in a loud, open voice, “I have laid out pen and
ink in the Cedars, as my poor apartment is loftily entitled. If you will
honour me so far, I propose that we now adjourn to that chamber, and
there draw out the conditions of our match!”
Every man of them knew he had a halter round his neck, and the majority
were long past the flush of youth, yet they scuffled upstairs, and played
each other practical jokes, like schoolboys, as they shouldered through
the narrow doorway into the room.
Malletort, signing to Captain Bold, and taking Florian’s arm, brought up
the rear.
“How now, Mrs. Dodge?” he called out, as he crossed the threshold. “I
ordered a fire to be lighted. What have you been about?”
“Alice must be sent for! Alice had been told! Alice had forgotten! How
careless of Alice!” And Mrs. Dodge, in the presence of such eligible
customers, really felt much of the sorrow she expressed for her niece’s
thoughtlessness.
When Alice did arrive to light the fire, her candle went out, her paper
refused to catch, her sticks to burn; altogether, she put off so much
time about the job, that, despite her good looks, the meeting lost
patience, and resolved to go to business at once; Captain Bold, who had
recovered his impudence, remarking that, “If what he heard from London
was true, some of them would have warm work enough now before all was
done!”
The captain seemed a privileged person: all eyes turned on him anxiously,
while several eager voices asked at once—
“What more have you heard?”
Bold looked to the Abbé for permission, and on a sign from the latter,
handed him a letter, which Malletort retained unopened in his hand.
Sensations of excitement, and even apprehension, now obviously pervaded
the assembly. Rumours had as usual mysteriously flown ahead of the real
intelligence they were about to learn, and men looked in each other’s
faces, for the encouragement they desired, in vain.
“Gentlemen,” said the Abbé, taking his place at the table, and motioning
the others to be seated, whilst he remained standing, “if I fail to
express myself as clearly as I should wish, I pray you attribute my
shortcomings to a foreign idiom, and an ignorance of your expressive
language, rather than to any doubt or hesitation existing in my own mind
as to our line of conduct in the present crisis. I will not conceal from
you—why should I conceal from you—nay, how _can_ I conceal from you, that
the moment of action has now arrived. I look around me, and I see on
every countenance but one expression, a noble and courageous anxiety to
begin.”
Murmurs of applause went through the apartment, while two or three voices
exclaimed, “Hear! hear!” “Well said!” “Go on!”
“Yes, gentlemen,” resumed the Abbé, “the moment has at last arrived, the
pear is ripe, and has dropped off the wall from its own weight. The first
shot, so to speak, has been fired by the enemy. It is the signal for
attack. Gentlemen, I have advices here, informing me that the Bishop of
Rochester has been arrested, and is now imprisoned in the Tower.”
His listeners rose to a man, some even seizing their hats, and drawing
the buckles of their sword-belts, as if under an irresistible impulse to
be off. One by one, however, they sat down again, with the same wistful
and even ludicrous expression of shame on the countenance of each, like a
pack of foxhounds that have been running hare.
The reaction did not escape Malletort, who was now in his element.
“I should have been unworthy of your confidence, gentlemen,” he
proceeded, with something of triumph in his tone, “had such a blow
as this fallen and found me unprepared. I was aware it had been
meditated, I was even aware that it had been resolved on, and although
the moment of execution could only be known to the government, I learned
enough yesterday to impress on me the policy of calling together this
influential meeting to-night. Our emissary, Captain Bold, here, will tell
you that the intelligence had only reached his colleague at the next post
two hours ago, though it travelled from London as fast as your English
horses can gallop and your English couriers can ride. It must be apparent
to every gentleman here that not another moment should be lost. My lord,
I will ask your lordship to read over the resolutions as revised and
agreed to at our last meeting.”
He bowed low to an elderly and aristocratic-looking personage, who,
taking a paper from the Abbé’s hands, proceeded somewhat nervously to
read aloud as follows:—
“Resolved—No. 1. That this Meeting do constitute itself a Committee of
Direction for the re-establishment of public safety, by authority of His
Majesty King James III., as authorised under his hand and seal.
“No. 2. That the noblemen and gentlemen whose signatures are attached to
the document annexed, do pledge themselves to act with zeal, secrecy, and
unanimity, for the furtherance of the sacred object declared above.
“No. 3. That for this purpose the oath be administered, jointly and
severally, as agreed.
“No. 4. That the person now officially in correspondence with His
Majesty’s well-wishers in Artois be appointed Secretary to the Committee,
with full powers, as detailed under the head of Secret Instructions for
Committee of Safety, No. 7.
“No. 5. That the Secretary be authorised in all cases of emergency to
call a meeting of the entire Committee at his discretion.”
His lordship here paused to take breath, and Malletort again struck in.
“By authority of that resolution, I have called you together to-night. I
cannot conceive it possible that there is present here one dissentient
to our great principle of immediate action. Immediate, because thus only
simultaneous. At the same time, if any nobleman or gentleman at this
table has a suggestion to make, let him now submit his views to the
meeting.”
Several heads were bent towards each other, and a good deal of
conversation took place in whispers, ere a stout, good-humoured looking
man, constituting himself a mouthpiece for the rest, observed bluntly—
“Tell us your plan, Mr. Secretary, and we’ll answer at once. Not one of
us is afraid of a leap in the dark, or we should scarcely be here now;
but there is no harm in taking a look whilst we can!”
A murmur of applause denoted the concurrence of the majority in this
prudent remark, and Malletort, still with his eye on Florian, rose once
more to address them.
“I need not recapitulate to this meeting, and especially to you, Sir
Rupert (saluting the last speaker), all the details set forth in those
secret instructions of which each man present has a copy. The invasion
from the Continent will take place on the appointed day, but with this
additional assurance of success, that three thousand Irish troops are
promised from a quarter on which we can implicitly rely. His lordship
here, as you are aware, following the instincts of his illustrious
line, assumes the post of honour and the post of danger amongst us in
the north, by placing himself at the head of a loyal and enthusiastic
multitude, only waiting his signal to take up arms. You, Sir Rupert, have
pledged yourself and your dalesmen to overawe the Whigs and Puritans of
the east. Other gentlemen, now listening to me, are prepared to bring
their several troops of an irregular, but highly efficient cavalry, into
the field. To you, who are all intimately acquainted with our military
dispositions, I need not insist on the certainty of success. Let each man
read over his secret instructions and judge for himself. But gentlemen,
the scheme of a campaign on a grand scale is not all with which we
have to occupy ourselves. Something more than a military triumph,
something more than a victorious battle is indispensable to our complete
success. And I need not remind you that there is no compromise between
complete success and irremediable disaster. It is an unavoidable choice
between St James’s Palace and Temple Bar. I now come to the germ of the
undertaking—the essence of the whole movement—the keystone of that
bridge we must all pass over to reach the wished-for shore. I allude to
the suppression of the Usurper and the fall of the House of Hanover.”
A stir, almost a shudder, went through the assemblage. Men looked
askance at the papers on the table, the buckles of their sword-belts,
the spur-leathers on their boots, anything rather than betray to their
neighbours either too eager an apprehension of the Abbé’s meaning, or
too cold an approval of his object. He was speaking high treason with a
vengeance, and the one might place them in too dangerous a prominence,
while the other might draw down the equally dangerous mistrust of their
fellow-conspirators. Malletort knew well what was passing in his hearers’
minds, but he never expected to get the iron hotter than it was to-night,
and he struck at it with his whole force.
“The arrangements for our great blow,” said he, “have been confided to
a few zealous loyalists, with whose plans, as your Secretary, I have
been made acquainted. In five days from the present, King George, as he
is still called, returns to Kensington. He will arrive at the palace
about dusk. What do I say? He will never arrive there at all! Captain
Bold here, whom I have had the honour to present to this meeting, has
organised a small body of his old comrades, men of tried bravery and
broken fortunes, who are pledged to possess themselves of the Usurper’s
person. His guard will be easily overpowered, for it will be outnumbered
three to one. The titular Prince of Wales and his children will at the
same time be made prisoners, and the chief officers of state secured,
if possible without bloodshed. Such a bold stroke, combined with a
simultaneous rising here in the north, cannot but insure success. It is
for you, gentlemen, to assemble your followers, to hold yourselves in
readiness, and trusting implicitly to the co-operation of your friends in
London, to declare on the same day for His Majesty King James III.!”
The enthusiasm Malletort contrived to fling into his last sentence caught
like wildfire.
“Long live James the Third!”—“Down with the Whigs!” exclaimed several of
his listeners; and Sir Rupert flung his hat to the low ceiling ere he
placed it on his head, as if preparing to depart; but the tall figure of
the elderly nobleman, as he rose from his chair, seemed to dominate the
tumult, and every syllable was distinctly audible, while he inquired,
gravely—
“Can this be accomplished without violence to the person of him whom we
deem a Usurper?”
Only the narrowest observers could have detected the sneer round
Malletort’s mouth, while he replied—
“Certainly, my lord!—certainly! With as little personal violence as is
possible when armed men are fighting round a king in the dark! My lord,
if you please, we will now pass on to a few trifling matters of finance,
after which I need detain the meeting no longer.”
The meeting, as usual, was only too happy to be dissolved. In less than
ten minutes hats and cloaks were assumed, reckonings paid, horses led out
from the stable, and riders, with anxious hearts, diverging by twos and
threes on their homeward tracks.
There was no question, however, about the cock-fight which was supposed
to have called these gentlemen together.
Malletort, Florian, and Captain Bold remained in the Cedars. The two
priests seemed anxious, thoughtful, and preoccupied; but the Captain’s
eye twinkled with sly glances of triumphant vanity, and he appeared
extremely self-satisfied, though a little fidgety, and anxious for his
employer to leave the room.