cried, "and a good one, for John is a generous host. Hey, Bobadilla!"
An old woman answered his cry and proceeded to lay on the table plates
and glasses, a platter of bread and the end of a cheese. Presently she
came back with a great dish of frizzling eggs and fried ham. The gypsy
lifted the jug of ale from the fireside, and drew in a chair to the
board.
"Mammy will feed her pretty chick," he said, "for the chick's claws are
too dangerous to loose."
Alastair's heart had ceased fluttering, and an immense composure had
settled upon him. He had even an appetite, and was able to swallow the
portion of eggs and ham which the gypsy conveyed to his mouth on the
end of his knife. The ale was most welcome, for his thirst was fierce,
and the warmth and the spice of it recalled his bodily strength. By now
he was recovering a manlier resolution. He was a soldier and had faced
death often, though never in so gruesome a form. If it were the end, so
let it be, but he would not abandon hope while breath was in his body.
He even forced himself to a laugh.
"Tell me of this Journeyman John," he asked. "What house is this that
he lurks behind?"
"A poor farm called Pennycross, with no neighbour nearer than six
miles. Goody Lugg is the farmer, a worthy widow who looks after a cow
and a dozen wethers and leaves the care of John to Ben and his friends.
Mighty convenient fellow is John to keep in a neighbourhood. If a girl
would be quit of a love-child or a wife of a stepson they come to Ben
to do their business. Ay, pretty sir, and John has had dainty meat.
Listen," and he thrust his face close to Alastair. "I have done a job
or two for Lord Dash and Lord Mash--naming no names, as being against
my sworn oath--when they were in trouble with petticoats no longer
wanted. And before my time there was the young heir of Crokover--you've
heard that tale. Ay, ay, the Journeyman does his work swift and clean
and lasting and keeps mum!"
"Who paid you to bring me here?"
The gypsy grinned cunningly. "Since I swore no oaths and you'll never
live to peach, you shall hear. Down in Brightwell live two grey
she-corbies. 'Twas them gave Ben the office."
"No other?"
"No other except a red-faced Scot that rides the roads like a packman.
Him I have not seen for weeks, but the corbies in Brightwell work to
his bidding. All three love the bright yellow gold."
"Sir John Norreys had a part in it?"
"Nay, nay, pretty sir. Sir John, brave gentleman, was privy to your
capture and imprisonment, but he knows nothing of this night's work. He
is too young and raw for so rare a thing as my John."
"You are paid well, I fancy. What if I were to pay you better to let me
go?"
"What you have is already mine," said the gypsy.
"A large sum will be brought you in twelve hours if you will let me
send a message, and as proof of good faith I will remain here in your
power till it is paid."
The gypsy's eye glittered with what was not greed.
"Though you filled my hat with guineas, my darling, I would not let you
go. John is hungry, for it is long since he tasted proper meat, and I
have promised him that to-night he shall sup. I have whispered it in
his great ear, and he has purred happily like a cat. Think you I would
disappoint John? Do not fear, pretty sir. It is midwinter and the world
is cold, and full of hard folks and wan cheeks and pinched bellies. But
down with John there is deep sleep and it is sunny and warm, for the
fires of Hell burn next door. Nay, nay, John is not the Devil, but only
a cousin on the spindle side."
In spite of his resolution Alastair felt his blood chilling as the
gypsy babbled. Hope had grown very faint, for what could he do,
manacled as he was, in a struggle against a lithe and powerful madman,
who could call in the other companions of the night to help him? The
undercurrent of sound seemed to be growing louder, and the wooden
partition shook a little with the reverberation. How many minutes would
pass before he was falling into that pit of echoing darkness!
"When does John sup?" he asked.
"When he calls for supper," was the answer. "At a certain hour each
night the noise of his grinding becomes louder. Hark, it is beginning
now. In less than half an hour he will speak. . . . You have a ring
on your finger, a pretty ring--give it to Ben that it may remind him of
a happy night and a sweet gentleman."
"Why do you ask for it when I am in your power, and it is yours for the
taking?"
"Because a thing gifted is better than a thing taken. Plunder a man
must sell, but a gift he can wear. If I had a dead man's hat on my head
took from his body, it would be crying out in my ears, but if he had
kindly given it me, it would fit well and hold its peace. I want that
ring that I may wear it and kiss it and call to mind my darling dear."
The gypsy seized the hand and peered at the ring, a heavy jasper cut
with the crest of Morvern, a tower embattled.
"Set free my hands, then, and I will give it you," said Alastair.
The gypsy grinned cunningly. "And risk your strong fingers at my
throat, my pretty one. Nay, nay. Just say the words, 'I gift my ring
freely and lovingly to Gypsy Ben,' and hark to the service I will do
you. With my own hand I will cut your pretty throat, and save you the
cruel fall down, down into the darkness. Most gentlemen fear that more
than death. 'Tis unfair to the Journeyman, for he's no raven that can
put up with dead carrion, but a peregrine who kills what he eats. But
for this once he will pardon his servant Ben. Say the words, gentleman
dear. See, it is getting very close on supper time and John is crying
out."
He lifted his hand, an eldritch and evil figure, and sure enough the
noise of the grinding had risen till it was like a storm in the night.
The wooden partition and the windows at the far side of the room
rattled violently and the whole place, roof, walls and rafters,
shuddered. In a tumult a small sound pitched in a different key will
sometimes make itself heard, and on Alastair's ear there fell something
like a human voice. It may have been fancy, but, though he had
abandoned hope, it encouraged him to play for time.
"I do not fear the darkness," he said, "or death in the darkness. But
it is a notion of my family to die in the daylight. I will gladly speak
the words which gift you the ring if you will let me live till dawn. It
cannot be far distant."
The gypsy took from his fob a vast old silver watch. "Nay, sir, not
till daybreak, which is still four hours distant. But John shall wait
for one half-hour on his supper, and he cannot complain, for he will
have the killing of it himself. Take your pleasure, then, for thirty
minutes by this clock which Ben had of the Miller of Bryston before he
was hanged at Derby. What shall we do to make the moments go merrily?
Shall Ben sing to you, who soon will be singing with angels?"
The gypsy was on his feet now, his face twitching with excitement and
his eyes like two coals. He skipped on the table and cut a step.
"You shall see the Gallows Jig, darling mine, which goes to the tune of
'Fairladies.'"
With grace and skill he threaded his way among the dishes on the stout
oaken board, showing a lightness of foot amazing in one wearing heavy
riding-boots.
"Bravo," cried Alastair. "If I were unshackled I would give you the
sword-dance as we dance it in the Highlands." If the maniac could be
absorbed in dance and song he might forget the passage of time. Somehow
the young man believed that with daylight he would have a chance of
salvation.
The gypsy leaped from the table, and took a long pull at the ale jug.
"Sing in turn or sing in chorus," he cried. "Raise a ditty, precious
gentleman."
Alastair's dry throat produced a stave of Desportes--a love song which
he had last heard at a _fête champêtre_ at Fontainebleau. The gypsy
approved and bellowed a drinking catch. Then to Alastair's surprise he
lowered his voice and sang very sweetly and truly the song of "Diana."
The delicate air, with the fragrance of the wildwood in it, pierced
Alastair like a sword. He remembered it as Midwinter had sung it--as
Claudia Norreys had crooned it, one foot beating time by the hearth and
the glow of firelight on her slim body. It roused in him a new daring
and a passionate desire to live. He saw, by a glance at the watch which
lay on the table, that the half-hour had already been exceeded.
"Nobly sung," he cried. "Where got you that song?"
"Once I heard a pretty lady chant it as she walked in a garden. And I
have heard children sing it far away from here--and long, long ago."
The man's craziness had ebbed a little, and he was staring into the
fire. Alastair, determined that he should not look at the watch, coaxed
him to sing again, and praised his music, and, when he did not respond,
himself sang--for this new mood had brought back his voice--a gypsy lay
of his own land, a catch of the wandering Macadams that trail up and
down the sea-coast. Gentle and soothing it was, with fairy music in it,
which the Good Folk pipe round the sheilings on the July eves. Ben beat
time to it with his hand, and after it sang "Colin on a summer day"
with a chorus that imitated very prettily a tabor
accompaniment. . . . Alastair's glance at the watch told him that
more than an hour had passed, and he realised, too, that the noise of
the Journeyman was dying down.
"Your turn," said the gypsy, who had let his legs sprawl toward the
fire, and seemed like one about to go to sleep.
An unlucky inspiration came to the young man. He broke into the song of
"The Naked Men" and he let his voice ring out so that the thing might
have been heard outside the dwelling. For a moment the gypsy did not
seem to hear; then he frowned, as if an unpleasant memory were aroused;
then suddenly he woke to full consciousness.
"Hell and damnation!" he cried. "What warlock taught you that? Stop the
cursed thing," and he struck the singer in the face.
Then his eye saw the watch, and his ear caught the cessation of the
Journeyman's grinding. His madness flared up again, he forgot all about
the ring, and he leaped upon the prisoner like a wild-cat. He dragged
him, helpless as he was, from the settle and flung him across the
table, sending the remains of supper crashing to the floor. Then he
left him, rushed to the wooden partition, and tore it apart. From the
black pit thus revealed a thin grey vapour seemed to ascend, and the
noise was like the snarling of hounds in kennel.
"John is hungry," he cried. "I have kept you waiting, my darling, but
your meat is ready," and he was back clutching his prisoner's middle.
The despair and apathy of the earlier hours had gone, and Alastair
steeled himself to fight for his life. The gypsy's strength was always
respectable and now his mania made it prepotent. The young man managed
to get his manacled ankles crooked in a leg of the table, but they were
plucked away with a dislocating wrench. His head grated on the floor as
he was dragged towards the pit. And then he saw a chance, for the rope
that bound his wrists caught in a staple fixed in the floor, apparently
to make an anchorage for a chain that had worked an ancient windlass.
The gypsy pulled savagely, but the good hemp held, and he was forced to
drop the body and examine the obstacle. Alastair noted that beyond the
pit was a naked dripping wall of cliff, and that the space between the
edge and the walls of the shed inclined downward, so that anything that
once reached that slope would be easily rolled into the abyss. Death
was very near him and yet he could not despair. He lifted up his voice
in a great shout for help. A thousand echoes rang in the pit, and
following on them came the gypsy's crazy cackle.
"Do not fear, pretty darling. John's arms are soft bedding," and he
dragged him over the lip of stone beyond which the slope ran to the
darkness.
Once again by a miracle his foot caught. This time it was only a snag
of rock, but it had a rough edge to it, and by the mercy of God, the
bonds at his ankles had been already frayed. The gypsy, who had him by
the shoulders and arms, tugged frantically, and the friction of the
stone's edge severed the last strands. Suddenly Alastair found his
ankles free, and with a desperate scramble tried to rise. But his feet
were cramped and numb and he could not find a stand. A tug from the
gypsy brought him to the very edge of the abyss. But the incident had
wakened hope, and once again he made the vault ring with a cry for help.
It was answered. The dim place suddenly blazed with light, and there
was a sound of men's voices. For an instant the gypsy loosed his hold
to stare, and then with a scream resumed his efforts. But in that
instant Alastair's feet had found on the very brink a crack of stone,
which enabled him to brace his legs and resist. The thing was trivial
and he could not hold out long, but the purchase was sufficient to
prevent that last heave from hurling him into the void.
The gypsy seemed suddenly to change his mind. He let the young man's
shoulders drop, so that he fell huddled by the edge, plucked the long
shagreen-handled knife from his belt and struck at his neck. But the
blow never fell. For in the same fraction of time something bright
quivered through the air, and struck deep in his throat. The man
gurgled, then grew limp like a sack, and dropped back on the ground.
Then with a feeble clawing at the air he rolled over the brink, struck
the side twice, and dropped till the noise of his fall was lost in the
moaning of the measureless deep.
Alastair lay sick and trembling, not daring to move, for his heels were
overhanging the void. A hand seized him, a strong hand; and though he
cried out in terror it dragged him up the slope and into the
room. . . . The intense glare stabbed his eyes and he had the same
choking nausea as when he had been felled in the hut. Then he came
suddenly out of the fit of horror and saw himself on the settle, ready
to weep from weariness, but sane again and master of himself.
A dark friendly face was looking down at him.
"You may travel the world's roads for a hundred years," said the
Spainneach, "and never be nearer death. I warned you, Sir Sandy. You
have been overlong in the South."
_XIV_ _Duchess Kitty on the Road_
Five hours' sleep were not enough to rest his body, but they were all
that his unquiet mind would permit. He woke to a sense of great
weariness combined with a feverish impulse to drive himself to the last
limits of his strength. His limbs were desperately stiff, and at his
first attempt to rise he rolled over. A bed had been made for him in
the attic of the farm, and the view from the window showed only the
benty shoulder of a hill. Slowly the doings of the night came back to
him; from the bowels of the earth he seemed to hear the mutterings of
Journeyman John, and he crawled down the trap-ladder in a fret to
escape from the place of horror.
In the kitchen the Spainneach was cooking eggs in a pan, smiling and
crooning to himself as if the morning and the world were good. He put
Alastair in a chair and fed him tenderly, beating up an egg in a cup
with French brandy.
"Have that for your morning's draught, Sir Sandy," he said. "You are
with your friends now, so let your anxieties sleep."
"They cannot," said the young man. "I have lost weeks of precious time.
My grief! but I have been the broken reed to lean on! And the Prince is
in this very shire."
"To-night he will lie in Derby. Lord George Murray has led a column in
advance to Congleton and the Duke of Kingston has fled back to
Lichfield. His Grace of Newcastle has sent offers to the Prince. All
goes well, heart's darling. Your friends have given Cumberland the slip
and are on the straight road to London."
The news stirred his languid blood.
"But the West," he cried. "What news of the West--of Barrymore and Sir
Watkin and Beaufort? There is the rub." And with the speaking of the
words the whole story of the past weeks unrolled itself clear and he
dropped his head into his hands and groaned. Then he staggered to his
feet.
"There is a man reaches Brightwell this day. He must be seized--him and
his papers." Swiftly he told the story of Kyd. "Let me lay hands on him
and I will extort the truth though I have to roast him naked, and that
truth the Prince must have before a man of us sleep. It is the magic
key that will unlock St James's. Have you men to lend me?"
The Spainneach smiled. "Last night they tracked you, as few men in
England could, and they were here to overpower the rascaldom that held
the door. Now they are scattered, but I have a call to pipe them back
like curlews. The Spoonbills are at your back, Sir Sandy."
"Then for God's sake let us be going," Alastair cried. "Have you a
horse for me, for my legs are like broomshanks?"
"Two are saddled and waiting outbye. But first I have a little errand
to fulfil, which the Master charged on me."
From a shed he brought armfuls of hay and straw and piled them in a
corner where the joists of the roof came low and the thatch could be
reached by a man's hand. Into the dry mass he flung a smouldering sod
from the fire. As Alastair, stiffly feeling his stirrups, passed
between the dry-stone gateposts, he heard a roaring behind him, and,
turning, saw flames licking the roof.
"Presently Journeyman John will lie bare to the heavens," said the
Spainneach, "and the wayfaring man, though a fool, will understand.
Brightwell is your goal, Sir Sandy? 'Tis fifteen moorland miles."
"First let us go to the Sleeping Deer," was the answer. "I have a beard
weeks old, and my costume is not my own. Please God, this day I am
going into good society and have a high duty to perform, so I would be
decently attired."
The Spainneach laughed. "Still your old self. You were always for the
thing done in order. But for this Kyd of yours--he comes to Brightwell
to-day, and may depart again, before you take order with him. It is
desirable that he be detained?"
"By God, he shall never go," cried Alastair.
"The Spoonbills do not fight, but they can make a hedge about a man,
and they can bring us news of him."
So at a grey cottage in the winding of a glen the Spainneach turned
aside, telling Alastair that he would overtake him, and when he caught
him up his face was content. "Mr Kyd will not enter Brightwell unknown
to us," he said, "and he will assuredly not leave it."
The day had been bright in the morning, but ere they descended from the
high moors to the wider valleys the wind had veered to the north, and a
cold mist had blown up, which seemed a precursor of storm. Rain fell
heavily and then cleared, leaving a windy sky patched with blue and
ruffled with sleet blasts. The tonic weather did much to refresh
Alastair's body, and to add fuel, if that were possible, to the fire in
his brain. He knew that he was living and moving solely on the passion
in his spirit, for his limbs were fit only for blankets and sleep. When
his horse stumbled or leaned on the bit he realised that the strength
had gone out of his arms. But his mind amazed him by its ardour of
resolution, as if all the anxieties of the past week had been fused
into one white-hot fury. . . . So far the Prince had not failed, and
these forced marches which would place him between Cumberland and the
capital were surely proof of undivided counsels. Perhaps he had news of
the West after all. There was his own letter to Lochiel--but in that he
had promised proofs at Derby, and this day the Prince would be in Derby
and would not find him.
"You have seen His Highness?" he asked the Spainneach.
"At Manchester, for a brief minute, surrounded by white cockades."
"How did he look?"
"Sad and reflective--like a man who has staked much against odds and
does not greatly hope."
It was the picture he had made in his own mind. But by Heaven he would
change it, and bring a sparkle again to those eyes and the flush of
hope to that noble brow. . . . For weeks no news could have reached
the camp from the West, for Kyd would have passed it to Norreys and
Norreys to one of the Whig Dukes in Nottinghamshire, and if the levies
had marched from Wales the Government had had ample warning to
intercept them. . . . Probably they had not started, for Kyd could
no doubt counterfeit orders from the Prince. But the point was that
they were there--men, armed men, and money--ready and eager for the
field. His thoughts were drawing to a point now, and he realised what
had been the vague fear that so long had tormented him. It was that the
Prince would lose heart--nay, not he, but his Council, and instead of
striking for St James's, fall back to a defensive war inside the
Scottish Border. That way lay destruction, slow or speedy--with England
unconverted and France uncommitted. But the bold road, the true road,
would bring France and England to their side, and strike terror to the
heart of their already perplexed enemy. Tower Hill or St James's! Would
to God he was now by the Prince's side, instead of Lord George with his
slow Atholl drawl, or the Secretary Murray, fussy and spluttering and
chicken-hearted, or the Teagues, whose boldness was that of kerns and
only made the others more cautious. At the thought of his Prince's
haggard face he groaned aloud.
But, please God, it was still in his power to find the remedy, and by
evening the peril might be past. He spurred his horse at the thought,
and, since the beasts were fresh and they were now on the good turf of
the vales, the miles flew fast, and they rode out of sleet showers into
sun. To his surprise he found that his attitude to Kyd had changed. He
loathed the man and longed to crush him, but it was as a vile creeping
thing and not as a personal enemy. But against Sir John Norreys he felt
a furious hatred. The thing was illogical--to hate a tool rather than
the principal, the more as Norreys had done him no personal ill, while
Kyd had connived at his death. But had the two been on the sward before
him with drawn swords he could have left the laird of Grey houses to
the Spainneach and taken the baronet for himself. Why? His heart
inexorably gave the answer. The man was the husband of the russet lady;
to her ears he had lied, and with his lies drawn a moan of pity from
her gentle lips. For Sir John Norreys, Alastair reserved a peculiar
vengeance. Kyd might fall to a file of the Prince's muskets, but
Norreys must die before the cold point of his own steel. And then
. . . ? Claudia would be a free woman--sorrowful, disillusioned,
shamefaced, but still a child with the world before her, a white page
on which love could yet write a happy tale.
They skirted the little hill on which Alastair had stood with
Midwinter, and came to the high road and the door of the Sleeping Deer.
There was now no need of back stairs, and Alastair, giving up his horse
to an ostler, boldly entered the hall and made for the landlord's
sanctum. But an elegant travelling trunk caught his eye, its leather
bearing the blazon of a crowned heart, and by the fire a lackey in a
red-and-blue livery was warming himself. A glance through the open door
of the stable-yard revealed more red and blue, and a fine coach which
three stable-boys were washing. The landlord was not in his room, but
in the kitchen, superintending the slicing of hams, the plucking of
pullets and the spicing of great tankards of ale. At the sight of
Alastair he started, called another to take his place at the table and
beckoned him out-of-doors.
"I'm joyful to see ye again, for I feared ye had come by foul play.
That Scotch serving-man was here seeking ye more than once,
and"--lowering his voice--"word came from the Spoonbills, and you not
here to answer, and me not knowing where in hell or Derbyshire ye had
got to. Ye've happened on a rare to-do at the Sleeping Deer. Her right
honourable Grace, the Duchess of Queensberry, has come here to lie the
night, before journeying down into the West country. She has been at
Chatsworth, but the gentles is all a-fleeing south now, for fear of the
wild Highlandmen. Duke William himself escorted her here, and that
pretty lad, his eldest son, the Lord Hartington, and dinner is ordered
for three, and my wife's like to fire the roof with perplexity. Ye'll
be for your old room, doubtless. It's been kept tidy against your
return, and I'll see that a bite of dinner is sent up to ye, when Her
Grace is served."