place smacked either of narrow means or narrow souls. Even the kitchen,
of which he had a glimpse, was comfortless. To warm his blood Alastair
trotted across the park, and as he ran with his head low almost butted
into a horseman who was riding on one of the paths that converged on
the back courtyard. He pulled himself up in time, warned by the rider's
cry, and saw pass him a gentleman in a heavy fawn riding-coat, whose
hat was pulled down over his brows and showed little of his face. Two
sharp eyes flashed on him and then lifted, and a sharp nose, red with
the weather, projected over the high coat collar.
Alastair stared after him and reached certain conclusions. That was the
nose he had seen by the light of Edom's lantern the night he spent with
Kyd at the inn. That was the back he had observed yesterday afternoon
riding away from the Sleeping Deer. Thirdly and most important--and
though his evidence was scanty he had no doubt on the matter--the
gentleman was Sir John Norreys. My lady when she reached Brightwell
would find her husband.
_XI_ _Night at the Same: Two Visitors_
Four nights later Alastair was in his little bedroom at the Sleeping
Deer, dressing by the light of two home-made candles. He had been taken
to this inn by Midwinter because of the honesty of the landlord, who
lived only for trout-fishing, and the facilities of the rambling old
house for a discreet retirement. He was given an attic at the back
where the dwelling part of the building merged in a disused watermill
and granary. There was an entrance to it from the first floor, by way
of a store cupboard; another from the kitchen regions, and still a
third from the mill-house. Accordingly he was able to enter
unobtrusively at any hour of the day or night, and had the further
advantage that the mill-house road led directly to a covert of elders
and so to the hillside. His meals, when he was at home to partake of
them, were brought him by the landlord himself, who also would ascend
to smoke his pipe of an evening, and discuss the habits of Derbyshire
trout as compared with their northern kin.
Clad in his leather and frieze he had spent the days among the valleys
and along the great road. The snow had not melted, but it was bound in
the stricture of a mild frost, and all day a winter sun shone on the
soft white curves of the hills. It was weather to kindle the blood and
lift the heart, and Alastair found his journeys pleasant enough, though
so far fruitless. He had haunted Brightwell like a cattle-lifting
Macgregor looking down on a Lennox byre, and since few could teach him
woodcraft in hilly places, he had easily evaded the race of keepers and
foresters. Twice he had met the man whom he took to be Sir John
Norreys. The first time he had watched him from cover, setting out on
horseback by a track which ran from Brightwell to Dovedale--a man in a
furious hurry, with a twitching bridle-hand and a nervous eye. The
second time he met him full face on the high road, and seemed to be
recognised. Sir John half pulled up, thought better of it, and rode on
with one glance behind him. He had made certain inquiries in the
neighbourhood and learned that the tall gentleman in the fawn coat was
a newcomer and beyond doubt sojourned in Brightwell: but he had a
notion that in that vast decaying pile a man might lodge unbeknown to
the other dwellers. He was curious to discover if Sir John had yet
greeted his lady.
Four days ago she had departed in her coach, fresh horsed from
Brightwell, attended by Mr Johnson and Edom Lowrie. Since then he had
seen no sign of the party. The old house had swallowed them up, and
neither taking the air in the park nor riding on the highway had any
one of them emerged to the outer world. The mystery of the place grew
upon him, till he came to look on the bleak house lying in the
sparkling amphitheatre of hill as the enchanted castle of a fairy tale.
It held a princess and it held a secret--_the_ secret, he was
convinced, most vital to his Prince's cause. He need not scour the
country; in that one dwelling he could read the riddle.
On this, the fourth night of his reconnaissance, he returned to the inn
assured that the first part of his task was over. He must find some way
of entering Brightwell and growing familiar with the household, and his
head was busy with plans as he slipped into the mill-house in the early
dark, and climbed the dusty wooden ladder to the loft which gave on his
attic. In his bedroom stood the landlord.
"I heard ye come in by the mill," he said, "and I'm here because I've
news ye may like to hear. There's a famous gentleman coming here
to-night. Ye'll have heard o' General Oglethorpe, him that's been
fighting in Ameriky? He's coming to his supper, no less. His regiment
is lying down the vale, and an officer rides here this afternoon and
says the General will be to sup sharp at seven o'clock. After that he's
to meet a friend here and wants to be left quiet. He needs no bed, for
he's riding back to his camp when he's done his business. Now, what d'
ye make of that, sir?"
"Where does he sup?" Alastair asked.
"In the Brown Room, the one my lady had."
"When he arrives pray give him a message from me. Say that one who had
the happiness to oblige him a week back is in the house, and will do
himself the honour of waiting on him if he will name the hour. Is that
clear? Now fetch me some hot water, for I must make a toilet."
He got rid of his soaked clothes and assumed his old habit--chocolate
coat and green velvet waistcoat, stockings and buckled shoes, and a
tie-wig new dressed by the landlord. The exposure of the past days had
darkened his skin, and it was a hard-bitten face that looked back at
him from the cracked mirror. Before completing his toilet he lay down
on the truckle bed and stared at the ceiling. Oglethorpe was friendly
to him, and might give him news of moment--he had the name himself of a
Jacobite or at any rate of a lukewarm Hanoverian. But the man the
General was to meet? He had no doubt it was Sir John and he chuckled at
the chance which Fortune had offered him.
As he lay his thoughts roamed wide but always returned to one centre,
the Brown Room at the inn. But it was not Oglethorpe or Sir John that
he saw there, but a slim girl with eyes now ardent, now laughing, now
misty, and a voice that stammered adorably and sang "Diana" like a
linnet. Sometimes he saw Brightwell and its chilly hall, but he saw no
human personage other than the girl, a little forlorn and lost now, but
still happy and dreaming. . . . He pulled himself up sharply. For
the first time in his life a woman's face was filling the eye of his
mind--he, the scorner of trivialities whose whole being was dedicate to
a manly ambition! He felt irritated and a little ashamed, and began
laboriously to examine himself to prove his resolution. Now in the very
crisis of his fate he could least afford a whimsy.
The landlord disturbed him when he had become drowsy.
"The gentleman is here--General Oglethorpe. I give him your message,
and he says, pleasant-like, 'I can guess who the gentleman is. Tell him
that my gratitude is not exhausted and that I will be happy if he will
add to his obligations by giving me his company at supper.' Ye'd better
hasten, sir, for supper is being dished up."
Alastair followed the landlord through the cobwebby back regions of the
store-room and out to the gallery at the head of the stairs whence the
Brown Room opened. He noticed that the dusky corridor was brightly lit
just opposite the room door because of the lamps in the hall below
which shone up a side passage. This glow also revealed in full detail
the map which he had studied on his first night there. As he glanced at
it, the two great roads from the north seemed to stand out like blood,
and Brightwell, a blood-red name, to be the toll-house to shut or open
them.
The Brown Room was bright with candles and firelight, and warming his
back at the hearth stood a tall man in military undress. He was of a
strong harsh aquiline cast of countenance; his skin was somewhat sallow
from the hot countries he had dwelt in, but he carried his forty-odd
years lightly, and, to Alastair's soldier eye, would be a serious
antagonist with whatever weapon of hand or brain. His face relaxed at
the sight of the young man and he held out his hand.
"I am overjoyed to see you again, Mr Maclean. . . . Nay, I never
forget a name or a face . . . I do not ask your business here, nor
will I permit you to ask mine, save in so far as all the world knows
it. I have my regiment billeted at Marlock, and am on my way across
England to Hull, there to join General Wade. In that there is no
secret, for every old woman on Trent side proclaims it. . . . Let us
fall to, sir, for I am plaguily hungry with the frosty air, and this
house has a name for cookery."
General Oglethorpe proved himself a trencherman of the calibre of Mr
Samuel Johnson; that is to say, he ate heartily of
everything--beefsteak pie, roast sirloin, sheep's tongues, cranberry
tarts and a London bag-pudding--and drank a bottle of claret, a quart
of ale, and the better part of a bottle of Madeira. But unlike Mr
Johnson he did not become garrulous, nor did the iron restraint of his
demeanour relax. The board was cleared and he proceeded to brew a dish
of punch, mixing the several ingredients of limes, rum, white sugar and
hot water with the meticulosity of an alchemist. Then he produced from
a flat silver box which he carried in his waistcoat pocket a number of
thin brown sticks, which he offered to his companion.
"Will you try my cigarros, sir? It is a habit which I contracted in
Georgia, and I find them mighty comforting to a campaigner. . . .
You journey northward, Mr Maclean, but you make slow progress." He
smiled with a quizzical kindliness which stripped the martinet's cloak
from him and left only benevolence.
Alastair smiled back. "I journey slowly for I have had mischances. But
I must mend my pace, for I am still far from my home, and my time of
leave passes quick."
"From the French King's service?"
"From the French King's service."
"You are aware that there are certain rumours of war in this land?"
"I heard gossip to that effect in Paris."
General Oglethorpe laughed. "I can guess where your sympathies lie, Mr
Maclean. Your name, your birthplace and your profession are signposts
to them."
"I too have heard tales from which I could hazard a guess at General
Oglethorpe's sentiments," said Alastair.
"Tut, tut, sir. I bear His Majesty's commission and am embarked in His
Majesty's service."
"I could name some in the same case--and with the same sympathies."
The other's brows had descended and he was staring in the fire like a
perplexed bird of prey.
"I do not altogether deny it. I have been a Member of Parliament for
years and I have never concealed my views on politics, sir. I regret
that England ever lost her natural and rightful line of kings. I have
no love for Ministers with their courting of this neighbour, and
baiting of that, and bleeding the commonalty of England for their crazy
foreign wars. I detest and abhor the cabal of greedy bloodsuckers that
call themselves Whigs. I am a Tory, sir, I serve the ancient
constitution of this realm, I love and reverence its Church, and I hold
this mongering of novelties an invention of the Devil. But--and it is a
potent _but_--I cannot wish that this attempt of the Chevalier should
succeed. I must with all my soul hope that it fail and do my best to
ensure that failure."
"Your conclusion scarcely accords with your premises, sir."
"More than may at first sight appear. What has a young man bred abroad
in a vapid Court, and suckled into Papistry, to say to the people of
England?"
"His church is the same as mine, sir. But he is no bigot, and has sworn
to grant to all beliefs that full tolerance which England has denied to
his."
"It is not enough. He is the young gallant, a figure from an old
chivalrous world. Oh, I do not deny his attraction; I do not doubt that
he can charm men's hearts. But, sir, there is a new temper in the land.
You have heard of the people they call Methodists--humble folk, humble
servants of Almighty God, who carry the Gospel to dark places at the
expense of revilings and buffetings and persecutions. I have had them
with me in Georgia, and they fight like Cromwell's Ironsides, they are
tender and merciful and brave, and they preach a hope for the vilest.
With them is the key of the new England, for they bring healing to the
souls of the people. . . . What can your fairy Prince say to the
poor and the hungry?"
General Oglethorpe's eye was lit with a fervour which softened the
rigour of his face into something infinitely gentle. Alastair had no
words to answer so strange a plea.
"But--but King George is no more of that way of thinking than my
Prince," he stammered.
The other nodded. "I am not arguing on behalf of his present Majesty. I
plead for the English people and I want no change, least of all the
violent change of revolution, unless it be to their benefit. A mere
transfer of monarchs will do small good to them, and it will bring
needless suffering to the innocent. Therefore, I, James Oglethorpe, who
am reputed a Jacobite, will do my utmost to nip this rising in the bud
and confine it to the barbarous parts of the North. In the service of
my country I will pretermit no effort to keep England neutral in the
quarrel, for it is in England's participation that the danger lies."
Alastair deemed it wise not to answer, but, as he regarded this man who
was now his declared opponent, he felt the satisfaction of a fighter
who faces an honourable foe. Here was one whose hand he could clasp
before he crossed swords.
"I am no Englishman," he said, "and therefore I am remote from this
particular controversy."
The other's eye burned with a fanatic's heat. "I will fight like a
tiger for England against all who would do her hurt. God forgive them,
but there are many on my side whose hearts are like rotten eggs. They
are carrion crows who flock wherever there is blood and pain. In times
of civil strife, sir, the base can make money. Had you travelled north
by Chester you would have passed through a land of fat pastures and
spreading parks and snug manors, and had you asked the name of the
fortunate owner you would have been told Sir Robert Grosvenor. You know
the name? A worthy gentleman and somewhat of your way of thinking. Now
Sir Robert's mother was an heiress and all the faubourgs of London
between St James' and Kensington village were her fortune. Whence came
that fortune, think you, to enrich the honest knights of Cheshire?
'Twas the fortune of an ancient scrivener who bought up forfeited lands
from Cromwell's Government, bought cheap, and sold most profitably at
his leisure. There are other fortunes to-day waiting for the skilled
broker of fines and attainders. But to make the profit there must be a
forfeiture, and for the forfeiture there must be first the treason.
Therefore it is in the interest of base men to manufacture rebels, to
encourage simple folk to take blindly some irrevocable and fatal step.
Do you follow me?"
Alastair nodded automatically. He saw as in a long vista a chain of
infamies and the name to them was Sir John Norreys.
"The scoundrels must be in the confidence of both sides," Oglethorpe
went on. "With their victims they are honest Jacobites, but next day
they are closeted with Mr Pelham in Whitehall. They will draw a poor
innocent so far that he will lose his estate, but they will prevent his
loss being of service to the Prince."
The man had risen and strode about the room, a formidable figure of
wrath, with his jaw set sternly and his eyes hard.
"Do you know my purpose, Mr Maclean? So far as the Almighty permits me,
I will save the pigeon from the crow. The pigeon will be hindered from
meddling in matters of Government, his estate will be saved to him, and
the crow, please God, will be plucked. Do you commend my policy?"
"It is the conduct of an honest gentleman, sir, and though I may not
share your politics I would hope to share your friendship."
Oglethorpe's face relaxed into the convivial kindliness it had shown at
supper.
"Then two friends and honourable opponents will shake hands and bid
farewell. You will be for bed, sir, and I must return presently to my
regiment."
But as the young man left the room the General seemed in no hurry to
call for his horse. He flung another log on the fire, and stood by the
hearth with his brows knit in meditation.
Alastair retired to his bedroom but did not undress. His brain was
dazzled with new light, and he saw all the events of the past weeks in
a new and awful perspective. This man Norreys was the traitor, the
_agent provocateur_ who lured honest clodpoles to their doom and
pocketed his commission on their ruin. That was what Sir Christopher
Lacy had said at Cornbury--the man cared only for gain. But he must be
a rogue of vast accomplishments, for he had deceived a proud lady, and
he had won the confidence of a shrewd Scots lawyer. It was Kyd's
beguilement that staggered him. He, a sagacious man of affairs, had
used a traitor as an agent for the most precious news--news which
instead of going straight to the Prince would be transferred to the
enemy and used for honest men's undoing. General Oglethorpe would
prevent the fellow from making his foul profit; it was the business of
Alastair Maclean to stamp the breath from him, to rid the Prince's
cause of a menace and the world of a villain.
He mused on this strange thing, England, which was like a spell on
sober minds. Midwinter had told of Old England like a lover of his
mistress, and here was this battered traveller, this Oglethorpe,
thrilling to the same fervour. That was something he had not met
before. He had been trained to love his family and clan and the hills
of his home, and a Prince who summed up centuries of wandering loyalty.
But his devotion had been for the little, intimate things, and not for
matters large and impersonal like a country or a people. He felt
himself suddenly and in very truth a stranger and alone. The Prince,
the chiefs, the army--they were all of them strangers here. How could
they ask for loyalty from what they so little understood?
The reflection pained him and he put it from him and turned to his
immediate business. Kicking off his shoes, he tiptoed back through the
store-cupboard and into the long corridor, at the end of which he saw
the bright reflection from the hall lamp falling on the map and the
Brown Room door. He listened, but there was no sound except a faint
clatter from far away in the direction of the kitchen, where presumably
the General's servant waited on his master's orders. He stole to the
door of the Brown Room for a second, and played the eavesdropper. Yes,
there were voices within, a low voice speaking fast, and another
replying in monosyllables. He had no wish to overhear them, so he crept
back to the store-room door, where he was securely hid. Thence he could
see all that he wanted, in the patch of light by the map.
He did not wait long. The door opened, and a figure was illumined for
one instant in profile before it turned to descend the stairs. It was a
tall man in a long riding-coat which he had unbuttoned in the warmth of
the room. He bowed his head a little as one does when one walks
stealthily, and his lips were tightly pursed. But where was the sharp
nose like a pen, and the pale complexion of Sir John? This man had a
skin like red sandstone, a short blunt nose and a jovial mouth. He cast
one glance at the map, and then went softly down the staircase.
With a queer flutter of the heart Alastair recognised Mr Nicholas Kyd.
_XII_ _The Hut in the Oak Shaw_
The sinking at the heart disappeared long before Alastair reached his
attic, and was replaced by a violent heat of anger. He lit a candle,
for the dark irked him, and sat on his bed with his face as scarlet as
if it had been buffeted. He felt his temples throb and a hot dryness at
the back of his throat. For the moment thoughts of the dire peril to
the Cause were swallowed up in natural fury at a rogue.
Blind fool that he had been! All the steps were now bitterly clear in
his bedraggled Odyssey. At Cornbury Kyd had been sowing tares in my
lord's mind--not in partnership with the Duchess Kitty, of that he was
assured--he did not believe that that vivacious lady, Whig as she might
be, was a partner of his villainy. From the first encounter at the
roadside inn the man had dogged him; perhaps that meeting had been
premeditated. The scene at Flambury, the accusing mummer in Squire
Thicknesse's Justice Room, the well-informed warrant, Ben the Gypsy and
his treachery--all were the doing of the pawky Lammermuir laird.
General Oglethorpe would use his services but prevent his getting his
reward; but there were others less scrupulous, and anyhow these
services spelled death to the Prince's fortunes. . . . A second
Grosvenor fortune would be achieved! No, by God, it should not, if
Alastair Maclean were left another six months alive!
Sir John Norreys was the man's tool, and the news from the West passed
through him to Kingston and Wade, and Ligonier and Cumberland, and Mr
Pelham in London. Mr Pelham doubtless had taken steps. He would arrest
the levy in the West before it had grown dangerous; and the fines and
forfeitures of broken loyalists would go to enrich the Exchequer and Mr
Nicholas Kyd of Greyhouses. . . . He had lost his dislike of Sir
John. That huckstering baronet was only an instrument in the hand of a
cleverer knave.
But why was Kyd here, when he had sent Edom to Brightwell with the news
that he was not to be looked for before the close of the month? He did
not believe that Edom had lied, so either there was a deeper game
afoot, or Kyd had changed his plans. He thought the latter, for even
rogues were the sport of circumstance. Some news had reached him of
surpassing importance and he had posted all that way to see Oglethorpe,
who, as a former Jacobite, would be the more readily believed by the
Government when he acted against his former friends.
It stood to reason that Kyd would visit Brightwell, to see Norreys, to
instruct his servant--some errand or other, even if he returned next
day to the South. Brightwell was the Philippi of the campaign, the
place of meetings, or why had Norreys been sent there? Even now the
laird's ruddy visage and the baronet's lean jaw might be close together
in some damnable machination. . . . And the lady, the poor lady. At
the thought of her Alastair clenched his hands, and shut his eyes tight
to kill the pain in them. That poor nymph, that dainty innocence in
such a den of satyrs!
And then, oddly enough, his mood changed to a happier one as the
picture of Claudia Norreys brightened on the screen of his memory.
Please God, she was cut off now for ever from the man she called
husband. Her eyes must soon be opened, and he pictured her loathing,
her horror of disgust. There were other thoughts at the back of his
mind, which he choked down, for this was no time for pretty fancies.
But it comforted him to think that he was fighting for the happiness of
the girl who sang "Diana."
He slept little and at dawn was up and dressed in his frieze and
leather, his coarse stockings and his hob-nailed shoes. The frost was
passing, and a mild south wind blew up the vale, softening the snow
crust and sending runnels of water down the hollows and eaves of the
great drifts. Alastair found the landlord breakfasting in the
dog-kennel he called his room.
"I am going to Brightwell," he told him, "and may be absent for days.
Expect me back when you see me. Keep my room locked, and leave the key
as before in the crack below the broken axle-hole of the mill." Then he
stepped out-of-doors, where the milkers were just opening the byres,
and soon was on the hillside with his face to the High Peak.
He crossed the high road and looked at the tracks. There was one fresh
and clear, that of a man in heavy boots plodding towards the inn. There
were faint hoof marks also, but they seemed to be old. He reflected
that the thaw could not have begun till after midnight, and that if Kyd
had ridden this road his horse's track would have shown no more than
the others of yesterday.