the windless night. The latter stumbled often, for he seemed purblind,
but the other had no impulse to laugh, for toward this grotesque he had
conceived a curious respect. The man, like himself, was struggling
against fatted ease, striving to break a fence of prudence on behalf of
an honourable hazard.
Kyd's servant brought the horse, refreshed by a supper of oats, and it
was Alastair's arm which helped the unwieldy horseman to the saddle.
"God prosper you!" Alastair said, as he fitted a clumsy foot into a
stirrup.
The man woke to the consciousness of the other's presence.
"You wish me well, sir? Will you come with me? I desire a colleague,
for I am a sedentary man with no skill in travel."
"I only rest here for a night. I am a soldier on a mission which does
not permit of delay."
"Then God speed us both!" The strange fellow pulled off his hat like a
parson pronouncing benediction, before he lumbered into the dark of the
avenue.
Alastair turned to find Kyd behind him. He was exchanging jocularities
with his servant.
"Saw ye ever such a physiog, Edom?" he cried. "Dominies are getting
crouse, for the body was wanting my lord to up and ride with him like a
post-boy after some quean that's ta'en the jee. He's about as blate as
a Cameronian preacher. My lord was uncommon patient with him. D'you not
think so, Captain Maclean?"
"The man may be uncouth, but he has a stout heart and a very noble
spirit. I take off my hat to his fidelity."
The reply changed Mr Kyd's mood from scorn to a melting sentiment.
"Ay, but you're right. I hadn't thought of that. It's a noble-hearted
creature, and we would all be better if we were liker him. Courage, did
you say? The man with that habit of body, that jogs all day on a horse
for the sake of a woman that has done nothing but clout his lugs, is a
hero. I wish I had drunk his health."
_IV Mr Kyd of Greyhouses_
Next morning Alastair rode west, and for the better part of a fortnight
was beyond Severn. He met Sir Watkin at Wynnstay and Mr Savage in
Lanthony vale, and then penetrated to the Pembroke coast where he
conferred with fisherfolk and shy cloaked men who gave appointments by
the tide at nightfall. His task was no longer diplomacy, but the
ordinary intelligence service of war, and he was the happier inasmuch
as he the better understood it. If fortune favoured elsewhere, he had
made plans for a French landing in a friendly country-side to kindle
the West and take in flank the defences of London. Now, that errand
done, his duty was with all speed to get him back to the North.
On a sharp noon in the first week of November he recrossed Severn and
came into Worcestershire, having slept at Ludlow the night before. His
plan was to return as he had come, by the midlands and Northumberland,
for he knew the road and which inns were safe to lie at. Of the doings
of his Prince he had heard nothing, and he fretted every hour at the
lack of news. As a trained soldier with some experience of war, he
distrusted profoundly the military wisdom of Charles's advisers, and
feared daily to hear of some blunder which would cancel all that had
already been won.
He rode hard, hoping to sleep in Staffordshire and next day join the
road which he had travelled south three weeks before. An unobtrusive
passenger known to none, knowing none, he took little pains to scan the
visages of those he met. It was therefore with some surprise that, as
he sat in the tap-room of an ale-house at Chifney, he saw a face which
woke some recollection.
It was that of a tall, thin and very swarthy man who was engaged in
grating a nutmeg into a pot of mulled ale. His clothes had the shabby
finery of a broken-down gentleman, but the air of a minor stage-player
which they suggested was sharply contradicted by his face. That was
grave, strong almost to hardness, and with eyes that would have
dictated if they had not brooded. He gave Alastair good-day as he
entered, and then continued his occupation in such a way that the light
from the window fell very clearly upon his features. The purpose, which
involved a change of position, was so evident that Alastair's attention
was engaged, and he regarded him over the edge of his tankard.
The memory was baffling. France, London, Rome--he fitted nowhere. It
seemed a far-back recollection, and not a coincidence of his present
journey. Then the man raised his head, and his sad eyes looked for a
moment at the window. The gesture Alastair had seen before--very long
before--in Morvern. Into the picture swam other details: a ketch
anchored, a sea-loch, a seafarer who sang so that the heart broke, a
cluster of boys huddled on hot sand listening to a stranger's tales.
"The Spainneach!" he exclaimed.
The man looked up with a smile on his dark face and spoke in Gaelic.
"Welcome, heart's darling," he said--the endearment used long ago to
the child who swam out to the foreign ship for a prize of raisins. "I
have followed you for three days, and this morning was told of your
inquiries, divined your route, and took a short cut to meet you here."
The picture had filled out. Alastair remembered the swarthy foreigner
who came yearly at the tail of the harvest to enlist young men for the
armies of Spain or France or the Emperor--who did not brag or bribe or
unduly gild the prospect, but who, less by his tongue than by his eyes,
drew the Morvern youth to wars from which few returned. An honest man,
his father had named this Spainneach, but as secret in his ways as the
woodcock blown shoreward by the October gales.
"You have a message for me?" he asked, thinking of Cornbury.
"A message--but from a quarter no weightier than my own head. You have
been over long in the South, Sir Sandy." The name had been the title
given by his boyish comrades to their leader, and its use by this grave
man brought to the chance meeting something of the intimacy of home.
"That's my own notion," he replied. "But I am now by way of curing the
fault."
"Then ride fast, and ride by the shortest road. There's sore need of
you up beyond."
"You have news," Alastair cried eagerly. "Has his Highness marched yet?"
"This very day he has passed the Border."
"How--by what route--in what strength?"
"No great increase. He looks for that on the road."
"Then he goes by Carlisle?"
The Spaniard nodded. "And Wade lies at Newcastle," he said.
Alastair brought down his fist on the board so hard that the ale lipped
from the other's tankard.
"The Devil take such blundering! Now he has the enemy on his
unprotected flank, when he might have destroyed him and won that
victory on English soil which is the key to all things. Wade is old and
doited, but he will soon have Cumberland behind him. Who counselled
this foolishness? Not his Highness, I'll warrant."
The Spaniard shrugged his shoulders. "No. His Highness would have made
a bee-line for Newcastle. But his captains put their faith in
Lancashire, and would have the honest men of North England in their
ranks before they risked a battle. They picture them as waiting, each
with a thousand armed followers, till the first tartans are south of
Shap, and then rushing to the standard."
Alastair, his brows dark with irritation, strode up and down the floor.
"The fools have it the wrong way round. England will not rise to fight
a battle, but only when a battle has been won. Wade at Newcastle was a
sovran chance--and we have missed it. Blind! Blind! You are right, my
friend. Not a second must I lose in pushing north to join my Prince.
There are no trained soldiers with him save Lord George, and he had no
more than a boyish year in the Royals. . . . You say he travels by
Shap?"
The Spaniard nodded. "And your course, Sir Sandy, must be through West
England. Ride for Preston, which all Scots invasions must pass.
Whitchurch--Tarporley--Warrington are your stages. See, I will make you
a plan."
On the dust of a barrel he traced the route, while Alastair did up the
straps of his coat and drew on his riding gloves. His horse was
brought, the lawing paid, and as the young man mounted the other stood
by his stirrup.
"Where do you go?" Alastair asked.
"Northward, like swallows in spring. But not yet awhile. I have still
errands in these parts."
An ostler inspected the horse's shoes, and Alastair sat whistling
impatiently through his teeth. The tune which came to him was
Midwinter's catch of "The Naked Men." The Spaniard started at the
sound, and long after Alastair had moved off stood staring after him
down the road. Then he turned to the house, his own lips shaping the
same air, and cast a glance at the signboard. It showed a red dragon
marvellously rampant on a field of green, and beneath was painted a
rude device of an open eye.
The chill misty noontide changed presently to a chillier drizzle, and
then to a persistent downfall. Alastair's eagerness was perforce
checked by the weather, for he had much ado to grope his way in the
maze of grassy lanes and woodland paths. Scarcely a soul was
about--only a dripping labourer at a gate, and a cadger with
pack-horses struggling towards the next change-house. He felt the
solitude and languor of the rainy world, and at the same time his bones
were on fire to make better speed, for suddenly the space between him
and the North seemed to have lengthened intolerably. The flat meadows
were hideously foreign; he longed for a sight of hill or heath to tell
him that he was nearing the North and the army of his Prince. He cursed
the errand that had brought him to this friendless land, far from his
proper trade of war.
The November dusk fell soon, and wet greyness gave place to wet mirk.
There was no moon, and to continue was to risk a lost road and a
foundered horse. So, curbing his impatience, he resolved to lie the
night at the first hostelry, and be on the move next day before the
dawn.
The mist thickened, and it seemed an interminable time before he found
a halting-place. The patch of road appeared to be uninhabited, without
the shabbiest beerhouse to cheer it. Alastair's patience was wearing
very thin, and his appetite had waxed to hunger, before the sound of
hooves and the speech of men told him that he was not left solitary on
the globe. A tiny twinkle of light shone ahead, rayed by the falling
rain, and, shrouded and deadened by the fog, came human voices.
He appeared to be at a cross-roads, where the lane he had been
following intersected a more considerable highway, for he blundered
against a tall signpost. Then, steering for the light, he all but
collided with a traveller on horseback, who was engaged in talk with
someone on foot. The horseman was on the point of starting, and the
light, which was a lantern in the hand of a man on foot, gave Alastair
a faint hurried impression of a tall young man muffled in a
fawn-coloured riding-coat, with a sharp nose and a harsh drawling
voice. The colloquy was interrupted by his advent, the horseman moved
into the rain, and the man with the lantern swung it up in some
confusion. Alastair saw what he took for an ostler--a short fellow with
a comically ugly face and teeth that projected like the eaves of a
house.
"Is this an inn, friend?" he asked.
The voice which replied was familiar.
"It's a kind of a public, but the yill's sma' and wersh, and there's
mair mice than aits in the mangers. Still and on, it's better than
outbye this nicht. Is your honour to lie here?"
The man took two steps back and pushed open the inn door, so that a
flood of light emerged, and made a half-moon on the cobbles. Now
Alastair recognised the lantern-bearer.
"You are Mr Kyd's servant?" he said.
"E'en so. And my maister's in bye, waitin' on his supper. He'll be
blithe to see ye, sir. See and I'll tak your horse and bed him weel.
Awa in wi' ye and get warm, and I'll bring your mails."
Alastair pushed open the first door he saw and found a room smoky with
a new-lit fire, and by a table, which had been spread with the
rudiments of a meal, the massive figure of Mr Nicholas Kyd.
Mr Kyd's first look was one of suspicion and his second of resentment;
then, as the sun clears away storm clouds, benevolence and good
fellowship beamed from his face.
"God, but I'm in luck the day. Here's an old friend arrived in time to
share my supper. Come in by the fire, sir, and no a word till you're
warmed and fed. You behold me labouring to make up for the
defeeciencies of this hostler wife with some contrivances of my own. An
old campaigner like Nicol Kyd doesna travel the roads without sundry
small delicacies in his saddle-bags, for in some of these English
hedge-inns a merciful man wouldna kennel his dog."
He was enjoying himself hugely. A gallon measure full of ale was before
him, and this he was assiduously doctoring with various packets taken
from a travelling-case that stood on a chair. "Small and sour," he
muttered as he tasted it with a ladle. "But here's a pinch of soda to
correct its acidity, and a nieve-full of powdered ginger-root to
prevent colic. Drunk hot with a toast and that yill will no ken itself."
He poured the stuff into a mulling pot, and turned his attention to the
edibles. "Here's a wersh cheese," he cried, "but a spice of anchovy
will give it kitchen. I never travel without these tasty wee fishes,
Captain Maclean. I've set the wife to make kail, for she had no meat in
the house but a shank-end of beef. But I've the better part of a ham
here, and a string of pig's sausages, which I take it is the English
equivalent of a haggis. Faith, you and me will no fare that ill. Sit
you down, sir, if your legs are dry, for I hear the kail coming.
There's no wine in the place, but I'll contrive a brew of punch to make
up for it."
The hostess, her round face afire from her labours in the kitchen,
flung open the door, and a slatternly wench brought in a steaming
tureen of broth. More candles were lit, logs were laid on the fire, and
the mean room took on an air of rough comfort. After the sombre
afternoon Alastair surrendered himself gladly to his good fortune, and
filled a tankard of the doctored ale, which he found very palatable.
The soup warmed his blood and, having eaten nothing since morning, he
showed himself a good trencherman. Mr Kyd in the intervals of
satisfying his own appetite beamed upon his companion, hospitably happy
at being able to provide such entertainment.
"It's a thing I love," he said, "to pass a night in an inn with a
friend and a bottle. Coming out of the darkness to a warm fire and a
good meal fair ravishes my heart, and the more if it's unexpected.
That's your case at this moment, Captain Maclean, and you may thank the
Almighty that you're not supping off fat bacon and stinking beer. A
lucky meeting for you. Now I wonder at what hostel _Menelaus_ and
_Alcinous_ could have foregathered. Maybe, the pair of them went to
visit Ulysses in Ithaca and shoot his paitricks. But it's no likely."
"How did _Menelaus_ prosper at Badminton?" Alastair asked.
"Wheesht, man! We'll get in the condiments for the punch and steek the
door before we talk."
The landlady brought coarse sugar in a canister and half a dozen
lemons, and placed a bubbling kettle on the hob. Mr Kyd carefully
closed the door behind her and turned the key. With immense care and a
gusto which now and then revealed itself in a verse of song, he poured
the sugar into a great blue bowl, squeezed the lemons over it with his
strong fingers, and added boiling water, with the quantities of each
most nicely calculated. Then from a silver-mounted case-bottle he
poured the approved modicum of whisky ("the real thing, Captain
Maclean, that you'll no find south of the Highland line") and sniffed
affectionately at the fragrant steam. He tasted the brew, gave it his
benediction, and filled Alastair's rummer. Then he lit one of the
church-wardens which the landlady had supplied, stretched his legs to
the blaze, and heaved a prodigious sigh.
"If I shut my eyes I could believe I was at Greyhouses. That's my
but-and-ben in the Lammermuirs, sir. It's a queer thing, but I can
never stir from home without the sorest kind of homesickness. I was
never meant for this gangrel job. . . . But if I open that window it
will no be a burn in the howe and the peesweeps that I'll hear, but
just the weariful soughing of English trees. . . . There's a lot of
the bairn in me, Captain Maclean."
The pleasant apathy induced by food and warmth was passing from
Alastair's mind, and he felt anew the restlessness which the Spaniard's
news had kindled. He was not in a mood for Mr Kyd's sentiment.
"You will soon enough be in the North, I take it," he said.
"Not till the New Year, for my sins. I'm the Duke's doer, and I must be
back at Amesbury to see to the plantings."
"And the mission of _Menelaus_?"
"Over for a time. My report went north a week syne by a sure hand."
"Successful?"
Mr Kyd pursed his lips. "So-so." He looked sharply towards door and
window. "Beaufort is with us--on conditions. And you?"
"I am inclined to be cheerful. We shall not lack the English grandees,
provided we in the North play the game right."
"Ay. That's gospel. You mean a victory in England."
Alastair nodded. "Therefore _Alcinous_ has done with Phaeacia and
returns to the Prince as fast as horse will carry him. But what does
_Menelaus_ in these parts? You are far away from Badminton and farther
from Amesbury."
"I had a kind of bye-errand up this way. Now I'm on my road south
again."
"Has the Cause friends hereabouts? I saw a horseman at the door in talk
with your servant."
Mr Kyd looked up quickly. "I heard tell of none. What was he like?"
"I saw only a face in the mist--a high collar and a very sharp nose."
The other shook his head. "It beats me, unless it was some forwandered
traveller that speired the road from Edom. I've seen no kenned face for
a week, except"--and he broke into a loud guffaw--"except yon daft
dominie we met at Cornbury--the man that wanted us all to mount and
chase a runaway lassie. I passed him on the road yestereen mounted like
a cadger and groaning like an auld wife."
Mr Kyd's scornful reference to the tutor of Chastlecote slightly
weakened in Alastair the friendliness which his geniality had inspired.
"It will be well for us if we are as eager in our duties as that poor
creature," he said dryly. "I must be off early to-morrow and not spare
horseflesh till I see the Standard."
"Ay, you maun lose no time. See, and I'll make you a list of
post-houses, where you can command decent cattle. It is the fruit of an
uncommon ripe experience. Keep well to the east, for there's poor roads
and worse beasts this side of the Peak."
"That was the road I came, but now I must take a different airt. I had
news to-day--disquieting news. The Prince is over the Border."
Mr Kyd was on his feet, his chair scraping hard on the stone floor, and
the glasses rattling on the shaken table.
"I've heard nothing of it. Man, what kind of news reaches you and not
me?"
"It is true all the same. I had it from one who came long ago to
Morvern and knows my clan. This day His Highness crossed Liddel."
"Liddel!" Mr Kyd almost screamed. "Then he goes by Carlisle. But Wade's
at Newcastle."
"That is precisely the damnable folly of it. He is forgoing his chance
of an immediate victory over a dotard--and a victory in England. God,
sir, His Highness has been ill advised. You see now why I ride north
hell-for-leather. I am a soldier of some experience and few of the
Prince's advisers have seen a campaign. My presence may prevent a more
fatal error."
Mr Kyd's face was a strange study. Officially it was drawn into lines
of tragic melancholy, but there seemed to be satisfaction, even
jubilation, behind the despair, and the voice could not escape a tremor
of pleased excitement. Alastair, whose life at the French court had
made him quick to judge the _nuances_ of feeling, noted this apparent
contradiction, and set it down to the eagerness of loyalty which hears
at last that the Rubicon is crossed.
"They will march through Lancashire," said Mr Kyd, "and look to recruit
the gentry. If so, they're a sturdier breed up yonder than on the Welsh
Marches----" He hesitated. "I wonder if you're right in posting off to
the North? Does this news not make a differ? What about Cornbury and
Sir Watkin? Will the casting of the die not make up their minds for
them? Faith, I think I'll take another look in at Badminton."
Alastair saw in the other's face only an earnest friendliness.
"No, no," he cried. "Nothing avails but the English victory. We must
make certain of that. But do you, Mr Kyd, press the grandees of the
Marches, while I prevent fools and schoolboys from over-riding the
natural good sense of our Prince."
Mr Kyd had recovered his composure, and insisted on filling the rummer
again for a toast to fortune. The lines about his eyes were grave, but
jollity lurked in the corners of his mouth.
"Then you'll take the west side of England and make for Warrington? Ay,
that's your quickest road. I'll draw you an _itinerarium_, for I whiles
travel that gait." He scribbled a list on a leaf from a pocket-book and
flung it to Alastair. "The morn's night you lie at Flambury, and the
third night you'll be in Chester."
"Flambury," Alastair exclaimed. "That takes me too far eastward."
"No, no. In this country the straight road's apt to be the long road.
There's good going to Flambury, and the turnpike on to Whitchurch.
You'll lie there at the Dog and Gun, and if you speak my name to the
landlord you'll get the best in his house. . . . Man, I envy you,
for you'll be among our own folk in a week. My heart goes with you, and
here's to a quick journey."
Alastair was staring into the fire, and turned more suddenly than the
other anticipated. Mr Kyd's face was in an instant all rosy goodwill,
but for just that one second he was taken by surprise, and something
furtive and haggard looked from his eyes. This something Alastair
caught, and, as he snuggled between the inn blankets, the memory of it
faintly clouded his thoughts, like a breath on a mirror.
_V_ _Chance-Medley_
In his dreams Alastair was persistently conscious of Mr Kyd's face,
which hung like a great sun in that dim landscape. Fresh-coloured and
smiling at one moment, it would change suddenly to a thing peaked and
hunted, with aversion and fear looking out of narrow eyes. And it mixed
itself oddly with another face, a pale face framed in a high coat
collar, and adorned with a very sharp nose. It may have been the supper
or it may have been the exceeding hardness of the bed, but his sleep
was troubled, and he woke with that sense of having toiled furiously
which is the consequence of nightmare. He had forgotten the details of
his dreams, but one legacy remained from them--a picture of that
sharp-nosed face, and the memory of Mr Kyd's open countenance as he had
surprised it for one second the night before. As he dressed the
recollection paled, and presently he laughed at it, for the Mr Kyd who
now presented himself to his memory was so honest and generous and
steadfast that the other picture seemed too grotesque even for a
caricature.
On descending to breakfast he found, though the day was yet early, that
his companion had been up and gone a good hour before. Had he left a
message? The landlady said no. What road had he taken? The answer was a
reference to a dozen unknown place names, for countryfolk identify a
road by the nearest villages it serves. Mr Kyd's energy roused his
emulation. He breakfasted hastily, and twenty minutes later was on the
road.
The mist had cleared, and a still November morn opened mild and grey
over a flat landscape. The road ran through acres of unkempt woodlands
where spindlewood and briars glowed above russet bracken, and then over
long ridges of lea and fallow, where glimpses were to be had of many
miles of smoky-brown forest, with now and then a slender wedge of
church steeple cutting the low soft skies. Alastair hoped to get a
fresh horse at Flambury which would carry him to Chester, and as his
present beast had come far, he could not press it for all his
impatience. So as he jogged through the morning his thoughts had
leisure to wander, and to his surprise he found his mind enjoying an
unexpected peace. He was very near the brink of the torrent; let him
make the most of these last yards of solid land. The stormy October had
hastened the coming of winter, and the autumn scents had in most places
yielded to the strong clean fragrance of a bare world. It was the smell
he loved, whether he met it in Morvern among the December mosses, or on
the downs of Picardy, or in English fields. At other times one smelled
herbage and flowers and trees; in winter one savoured the essential
elements of water and earth.