borders of Stafford and Shropshire, where he halted for a crust and a
jug of ale. The place was so crowded that he judged it was market day,
and the one inn had a press about its door like the visiting hours at a
debtors' prison. He despaired of forcing an entrance, so commissioned
an obliging loafer to fetch him a tankard, while he dismounted, hitched
his bridle to the signpost, and seated himself at the end of a bench
which ran along the inn's frontage.
The ale was long in coming, and Alastair had leisure to observe his
neighbours. They were a remarkable crowd. Not villagers clearly, for
the orthodox inhabitants might be observed going about their
avocations, with many curious glances at the strangers. They were all
sizes and shapes, and in every variety of dress from fustian to camlet,
but all were youngish and sturdily built, and most a trifle
dilapidated. The four men who sat on the bench beside him seemed like
gamekeepers out of employ, and were obviously a little drunk. In the
throng at the door there were horse-boys and labourers and better-clad
hobbledehoys who might have been the sons of yeomen. A raffish young
gentleman with a greyhound and with a cock of his hat broken was
engaged in an altercation with an elderly fellow who had a sheaf of
papers and had mounted a pair of horn spectacles to read them. Through
the open window of the tap-room floated scraps of argument in a dozen
varieties of dialect.
Alastair rubbed his eyes. Something in the sight was familiar. He had
seen it in Morvern, in the Isles, in a dozen parts of France and Spain,
when country fellows were recruited for foreign armies. But such things
could not be in England, where the foreign recruiter was forbidden. Nor
could it be enlistment for the English regiments, for where were the
bright uniforms and the tuck of drums? The elderly man with the papers
was beyond doubt a soldier, but he had the dress of an attorney's
clerk. There was some queer business afoot here, and Alastair set
himself to probe it.
His neighbour on the bench did not understand his question. But the
raffish young man with the greyhound heard it, and turned sharply to
the speaker. A glance at Alastair made his voice civil.
"Matter!" he exclaimed. "The matter, sir, is that I and some two-score
honest men have been grossly deceived. We are of Oglethorpe's, enlisted
to fight the Spaniard in the Americas. And now there is word that we
are to be drafted to General Wade, as if we were not
gentleman-venturers but so many ham-handed common soldiers. Hark, sir!"
From within the inn came a clatter of falling dishes and high voices.
"That will be Black Benjamin warming to work," said the young man,
proffering a pewter snuff-box in which there remained a few grains of
rappee. "He is striving in there with the Quartermaster-Sergeant while
I seek to convince Methody Sam here of the deceitfulness of his ways."
The elderly man, referred to as Methody Sam, put his spectacles in his
pocket, and revealed a mahogany face lit by two bloodshot blue eyes. At
the sight of Alastair he held himself at attention, for some instinct
in him discerned the soldier.
"I ain't denyin' it's a melancholy business, sir," he said, "and
vexatious to them poor fellows. They was recruited by Gen'ral
Oglethorpe under special permission from His Majesty, God bless 'im,
for the dooty of keeping the Spaniards out of His Majesty's territory
of Georgia in Ameriky, for which purpose they 'as signed on for two
years, journeys there and back included, at the pay of one shilling per
lawful day, and all vittles and clothing provided 'andsome. But now 'Is
Majesty thinks better on it, and is minded to let Georgia slip and send
them lads to General Wade to fight the Scotch. It's a 'ard pill to
swallow, I ain't denyin' it, but orders is orders, and I 'ave them
express this morning from Gen'ral Oglethorpe, who is a-breakin' the
news to the Shropshire Companies."
One of the drunkards on the bench broke into a flood of oaths which
caused Methody Sam to box his ears. "Ye was enlisted for a pious and
honourable dooty, and though that dooty may be changed the terms of
enlistment is the same. No foul mouth is permitted 'ere, my lad."
The young gentleman with the greyhound was listening eagerly to what
was going on indoors. "Benjamin's getting his dander up," he observed.
"Soon there will be bloody combs going. Hi! Benjy!" he shouted. "Come
out and let's do the job fair and foursquare in the open. It's a high
and holy mutiny."
There was no answer, but presently the throng at the door began to fan
outward under pressure from within. A crowd of rough fellows tumbled
out, and at their tail a gypsy-looking youth with a green bandana round
his head, dragging a small man, who had the air of having once been in
authority. Alastair recognised the second of the two non-commissioned
officers, but while one had protested against oaths the other was
filling the air with a lurid assortment. This other had his hands tied
with a kerchief, and a cord fastening the joined palms to his knees, so
that he presented a ridiculous appearance of a man at his prayers.
"Why hain't ye trussed up Methody?" the gypsy shouted to the owner of
the greyhound.
The sergeant cast an appealing eye on Alastair. There seemed to be no
arms in the crowd, except a cudgel or two and the gypsy's whinger. It
was an appeal which the young man's tradition could not refuse.
"Have patience, gentlemen," he cried. "I cannot have you prejudging the
case. Forward with your prisoner, but first untie these bonds. Quick."
The gypsy opened his mouth in an insolent refusal, when he saw
something in the horseman's eye which changed his mind. Also he noted
his pistols, and his light travelling sword.
"That's maybe fair," he grunted, and with his knife slit his prisoner's
bonds.
"Now, out with your grievances."
The gypsy could talk, and a very damning indictment he made of it. "We
was 'listed for overseas, with good chance of prize money, and a
nobleman's freedom. And now we're bidden stop at home as if we was
lousy lobsters that took the King's money to trick the gallows. Is that
fair and English, my sweet pretty gentleman? We're to march to-morrow
against the naked Highlanders that cut out a man's bowels with scythes,
and feed their dogs with his meat. Is that the kind of fighting you was
dreaming of, my precious boys? No, says you, and we'll be damned, says
you, if we'll be diddled. Back we goes to our pretty homes, but with a
luckpenny in our pocket for our wasted time and our sad disappointment.
Them sergeants has the money, and we'll hold them upside down by the
heels till we shake it out of them."
Methody Sam replied, looking at Alastair. "It's crool 'ard, but orders
is orders. Them folks enlisted to do the King's commands and if 'Is
Majesty 'appens to change 'is mind, it's no business o' theirs or mine.
The money me and Bill 'as is Government money, and if they force it
from us they'll be apprehended and 'anged as common robbers. I want to
save their poor innocent souls from 'anging felony."
The crowd showed no desire for salvation. There was a surge towards the
two men and the gypsy's hand would have been on the throat of Methody
Sam had not Alastair struck it up. The smaller of the two
non-commissioned officers was chafing his wrists, which his recent
bonds had abraded, and lamenting that he had left his pistols at home.
"What made you come here with money and nothing to guard it?" Alastair
asked.
"The General's orders, sir. But it was different when we was temptin'
them with Ameriky and the Spaniards' gold. Now we'll need a file o'
loaded muskets to get 'em a step on the road. Ay, sir, we'll be
fort'nate if by supper time they've not all scattered like a wisp o'
snipes, takin' with 'em 'Is Majesty's guineas."
"Keep beside me!" Alastair whispered. A sudden rush would have swept
the little man off, had not Methody Sam plucked him back.
"Better yield quiet," said the gypsy. "We don't want no blood-lettin',
but we're boys as is not to be played with. Out with the guineas, tear
up the rolls, and the two of ye may go to Hell for all we care."
"What are you going to do?" Alastair asked his neighbours.
The little man looked bleakly at the crowd. "There don't seem much of a
chance, but we're bound to put up a fight, seein' we're in charge of
'Is Majesty's property. That your notion, Sam?"
The Methody signified his assent by a cheerful groan.
"Then I'm with you," said Alastair. "To the inn wall? We must get our
backs protected."
The suddenness of the movement and the glint of Alastair's sword opened
a way for the three to a re-entrant angle of the inn, where their
flanks and rear were safe from attack. Alastair raised his voice.
"Gentlemen," he said, "as a soldier I cannot permit mutiny. You will
not touch a penny of His Majesty's money, and you will wait here on
General Oglethorpe's orders. If he sees fit to disband you, good and
well; if not, you march as he commands."
Even as he spoke inward laughter consumed him. He, a follower of the
Prince, was taking pains that certain troops should reach Wade, the
Prince's enemy. Yet he could not act otherwise, for the camaraderie of
his profession constrained him.
The power of the armed over the unarmed was in that moment notably
exemplified. There was grumbling, a curse or two, and sullen faces, but
no attempt was made to rush that corner where stood an active young man
with an ugly sword. The mob swayed and muttered, the gypsy went off on
an errand behind the inn, one of the drunkards lurched forward as if to
attack and fell prone. A stone or two was thrown, but Alastair showed
his pistols, and that form of assault was dropped. The crowd became
stagnant, but it did not disperse.
"I must get on to Flambury," Alastair told his neighbours. "I cannot
wait all day here. There is nothing for it but that you go with me. My
pistols will get us a passage to my horse yonder, and we can ride and
tie."
The plan was never put into action. For at the moment from a window
over their heads descended a shower of red-hot embers. All three leaped
forward to avoid a scorching and so moved outside the protecting side
wall. Then, neatly and suddenly, the little man called Bill was plucked
up and hustled into the crowd. Alastair could not fire or draw upon a
circle of gaping faces. He looked furiously to his right, when a cry on
his left warned him that the Methody also had gone.
But him he could follow, for he saw the boots of him being dragged
inside the inn door. Clearing his way with his sword, he rushed
thither, stumbling over the greyhound and with a kick sending it
flying. There were three steps to the door, and as he mounted them he
obtained a view over the heads of the mob and down the village street.
He saw his horse still peacefully tethered to the signpost, and beyond
it there came into view a mounted troop clattering up the cobbles.
The door yielded to his foot and he received in his arms the Methody,
who seemed to have made his escape from his captors. "They've got Bill
in the cellar," he gasped. "It's that Gypsy Ben." And then he was
stricken dumb at something which he saw below Alastair's armpits.
The crowd had scattered and its soberer members now clustered in small
knots with a desperate effort at nonchalance. Opposite the inn door
horsemen had halted, and the leader, a tall man with the black military
cockade in his hat, was looking sternly at the group, till his eye
caught the Methody. "Ha! Sewell," he cried, and the Methody, stricken
into a ramrod, stood erect before him.
"These are recruits of ours?" he asked. "You have explained to them the
new orders?"
"Sir," said the ramrod, raising his voice so that all could hear, "I
have explained, as in dooty bound, and I 'ave to report that, though
naturally disappointed, they bows to orders, all but a gypsy
rapscallion, of whom we be well quit. I 'ave likewise to report that
Bill and me 'as been much assisted by this gentleman you sees before
you, without whom things might 'ave gone ugly."
The tall soldier's eyes turned towards Alastair and he bowed.
"I am in your debt, sir. General Oglethorpe is much beholden to you."
"Nay, sir, as a soldier who chanced upon a difficult situation I had no
choice but to lend my poor aid."
The General proffered his snuff-box. "Of which regiment?"
"Of none English. My service has been outside my country, on the
continent of Europe. I am born a poor Scottish gentleman, sir, whose
sword is his livelihood. They call me Maclean."
General Oglethorpe looked up quickly. "A most honourable livelihood. I
too have carried my sword abroad--to the Americas, as you may have
heard. I was returning thither, but I have been intercepted for service
in the North. Will you dine with me, sir? I should esteem your company."
"Nay, I must be on the road," said Alastair. "Already I have delayed
too long. I admire your raw material, sir, but I do not covet your task
of shaping it to the purposes of war."
The General smiled sourly. "In Georgia they would have been good
soldiers in a fortnight. Here in England they will be still raw after a
year's campaigning."
They parted with elaborate courtesies, and looking back, Alastair saw
what had five minutes before been an angry mob falling into rank under
General Oglethorpe's eye. He wondered what had become of Ben the Gypsy.
Flambury proved but a short two-hours' journey. It was a large village
with a broad street studded with ancient elm trees, and, as Alastair
entered it, that street was thronged like a hiring fair. The noise of
human voices, of fiddles and tabrets and of excited dogs, had greeted
him half a mile off, like the rumour of a battlefield. Wondering at the
cause of the din, he wondered more when he approached the houses and
saw the transformation of the place. There were booths below the elm
trees, protected from possible rain by awnings of sacking, where
ribands and crockery and cheap knives were being vended. Men and women,
clothed like mummers, danced under the November sky as if it had been
May-day. Games of chance were in progress, fortunes were being spae'd,
fairings of gingerbread bought, and, not least, horses sold to the
accompaniment of shrill cries from stable boys and the whinnyings of
startled colts and fillies. The sight gave Alastair a sense of
security, for in such an assemblage a stranger would not be questioned.
He asked a woman what the stir signified. "Lawk a mussy, where be you
borned," she said, "not to know 'tis Flambury Feast-Day?"
The Dog and Gun was easy to find. Already the darkness was falling, and
while the street was lit with tarry staves, the interior of the
hostelry glowed with a hundred candles. The sign was undecipherable in
the half light, but the name in irregular letters was inscribed above
the ancient door. Alastair rode into a courtyard filled with chaises
and farmers' carts, and having with some difficulty found an ostler,
stood over him while his horse was groomed, fed and watered. Then he
turned to the house, remembering Mr Kyd's recommendation to the
landlord. If that recommendation could procure him some privacy in this
visit, fortunate would have been his meeting with the laird of
Greyhouses.
The landlord, discovered not without difficulty, was a lusty florid
fellow, with a loud voice and a beery eye. He summoned the traveller
into his own parlour, behind the tap-room, from which all day his
bustling wife directed the affairs of the house. The place was a shrine
of comfort, with a bright fire reflected in polished brass and in
bottles of cordials and essences which shone like jewels. The wife at a
long table was mixing bowl after bowl of spiced liquors, her face
glowing like a moon, and her nose perpetually wrinkled in the task of
sniffing odours to detect the moment when the brew was right. The
husband placed a red-cushioned chair for Alastair, and played nervously
with the strings of his apron. It occurred to the traveller that the
man had greeted him as if he had been expected, and at this he wondered.
The name of Mr Kyd was a talisman that wrought mightily upon the host's
goodwill, but that good-will was greater than his powers.
"Another time and the whole house would have been at your honour's
service," he protested. "But to-day----" and he shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, you shall have a bed, though I have to lie myself on bare boards,
but a private room is out of my power. We've but the three of them, and
they're all as throng as a bee-hive. There's Tom Briggs in the Blue
Room, celebrating the sale of his string of young horses--an ancient
engagement, sir; and there's the Codgers' Supper in the Gents' Attic,
and in Shrewsbury there's five pig dealers sleeping on chairs. That's
so, mother?"
"Six in Shrewsbury," said the lady, "and there's five waiting on the
Attic, as soon as the Codgers have supped."
"You see, sir, how I'm situated. You'll have a good bed to yourself,
but I fear I must ask you to sup in the bar parlour with the other
gentry that's here to-day. Unless your honour would prefer the
kitchen?" he added hopefully.
Alastair, who had a vision of a company of drunken squirelings of an
inquisitive turn, announced that he would greatly prefer the kitchen.
The decision seemed to please the landlord.
"There's a good fire and not above half a dozen for company at present.
Warm yourself there, sir, and your supper will be ready before your
feet are comforted. A dish of pullets and eggs, mutton chops, a prime
ham, a good cut of beef, and the best of double Gloucester. What say
you to that now? And for liquor a bowl of mother's spiced October, with
a bottle of old port to go with the cheese."
Alastair was hungry enough to approve of the lot, and tired and cold
enough to welcome the chance of a roaring kitchen hearth. In the great
shadowy place, the rafters loaded with hams and the walls bright with
warming-pans, there was only a handful of topers, since the business
out-of-doors was still too engrossing. The landlord was as good as his
word, and within half an hour the traveller was sitting down to a most
substantial meal at the massive board. The hostess's spiced October was
delicate yet potent, the port thereafter--of which the host had a
couple of glasses--a generous vintage. The young man at length drew his
chair from the table to the fireside and stretched his legs to the
blaze, replete and comfortable in body, and placid, if a little hazy,
in mind. . . . Presently the leaping flames of the logs took odd
shapes; the drone of voices from the corner became surf on a shore: he
saw a fire on a beach and dark hills behind it, and heard the soft
Gaelic of his kin. . . . His head nodded on his breast and he was
sound asleep.
He woke to find an unpleasant warmth below his nose and to hear a
cackle as of a thousand geese in his ears. Something bright and burning
was close to his face. He shrank from it and at once sprawled on his
back, his head bumping hard on the stone floor.
The shock thoroughly awakened him. As he sprang to his feet he saw a
knot of flushed giggling faces. One of the group had been holding a
red-hot poker to his face, while another had drawn away the chair from
beneath him.
His first impulse was to buffet their heads, for no man is angrier than
a sleeper rudely awakened. The kitchen was now crowded, and the company
seemed to appreciate the efforts of the practical jokers, for there was
a roar of applause and shouts of merriment. The jokers, who from their
dress were hobbledehoy yeomen or small squires, were thus encouraged to
continue, and, being apparently well on the way to drunkenness, were
not disposed to consider risks. Two of them wore swords, but it was
clear that the sword was not their weapon.
Alastair in a flaming passion had his hand on his blade, when his arm
was touched from behind and a voice spoke. "Control your temper, sir, I
beseech you. This business is premeditated. They seek to fasten a
quarrel on you. Don't look round. Smile and laugh with them."
The voice was familiar though he could not put a name to it. A second
glance at the company convinced him that the advice was sound and he
forced himself to urbanity. He took his hand from his sword, rubbed his
eyes like one newly awakened, and forced a parody of a smile.
"I have been asleep," he stammered. "Forgive my inattention, gentlemen.
You were saying . . . Ha ha! I see! A devilish good joke, sir. I
dreamed I was a blacksmith and woke to believe I had fallen in the
fire."
The hobbledehoys were sober enough to be a little nonplussed at this
reception of their pleasantry. They stood staring sheepishly, all but
one who wore a mask and a nightcap, as if he had just come from a
mumming show. To judge by his voice he seemed older than the rest.
"Tell us your dreams," he said rudely. "From your talk in your sleep
they should have been full of treason. Who may you be, sir?"
Alastair, at sight of a drawer's face round the corner of the tap-room
door, called for a bowl of punch.
"Who am I?" he said quietly. "A traveller who has acquired a noble
thirst, which he would fain share with other good fellows."
"Your name, my thirsty friend?"
"Why, they call me Watson--Andrew Watson, and my business is to serve
his Grace of Queensberry, that most patriotic nobleman." He spoke from
a sudden fancy, rather than from any purpose; it was not likely that he
could be controverted, for Mr Kyd was now posting into Wiltshire.
His questioner looked puzzled, but it was obvious that the name of a
duke, and Queensberry at that, had made an impression upon the company.
The man spoke aside with a friend, and then left the kitchen. This was
so clear a proof that there had been purpose in his baiting that
Alastair could have found it in him to laugh at such clumsy
conspirators. Somehow word had been sent of his coming, and there had
been orders to entangle him; but the word had not been clear and his
ill-wishers were still in doubt about his identity. It was his business
in no way to enlighten them, but he would have given much to discover
the informant.
He had forgotten about the mentor at his elbow. Turning suddenly, he
was confronted with the queer figure of the tutor of Chastlecote, who
was finishing a modest supper of bread and cheese at the main table.
The man's clothes were shabbier than ever, but his face and figure were
more wholesome than at Cornbury. His cheeks had a faint weathering, his
neck was less flaccid, and he held himself more squarely. As Alastair
turned, he also swung round, his left hand playing a tattoo upon his
knee. His eye was charged with confidences.
"We meet again," he whispered. "Ever since we parted I have had a
premonition of this encounter. I have much for your private ear."
But it was not told, for the leader of the hobbledehoys, the fellow
with the mask and nightcap, was again in the kitchen. It looked as if
he had been given instructions by someone, for he shouted, as a man
does when he is uncertain of himself and would keep up his courage.
"Gentlefolk all, there are vipers among us to-night. This man who calls
himself a duke's agent, and the hedge schoolmaster at his elbow. They
are naught but lousy Jacobites and 'tis our business as good Englishmen
to strip and search them."
The others of his party cried out in assent, and there was a measure of
support from the company at large. But before a man could stir the
tutor spoke.
"Bad law!" he said. "I and, for all I know, the other gentleman are
inoffensive travellers moving on our lawful business. You cannot lay
hand on us without a warrant from a justice. But, sirs, I am not one to
quibble about legality. This fellow has insulted me grossly and shall
here and now be brought to repentance. Put up your hands, you rogue."
The tutor had suddenly become a fearsome figure. He had risen from his
chair, struggled out of his coat, and, blowing like a bull, was
advancing across the floor on his adversary, his great doubled fists
held up close to his eyes. The other gave ground.
"I do not fight with scum," he growled. But as the tutor pressed on
him, his hand went to his sword.