STARVECROW FARM
By STANLEY J. WEYMAN.
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New York: Longmans, Green, and Co.
STARVECROW
FARM
BY
STANLEY J. WEYMAN
_Author of “A Gentleman of France” “The Abbess of Vlaye,”
“Count Hannibal,” “The Castle Inn,” “The Red
Cockade,” “Under the Red Robe,” etc., etc_.
_ILLUSTRATED_
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
LONDON AND BOMBAY
1905
Copyright, 1904, by
STANLEY J. WEYMAN
_All rights reserved_
Contents
CHAPTER I. Across the Quicksands.
CHAPTER II. A Red Waistcoat.
CHAPTER III. A Wedding Morning.
CHAPTER IV. Two to One.
CHAPTER V. A Jezebel.
CHAPTER VI. The Inquiry.
CHAPTER VII. Captain Anthony Clyne.
CHAPTER VIII. Starvecrow Farm.
CHAPTER IX. Punishment.
CHAPTER X. Henrietta in Naxos.
CHAPTER XI. Captain Clyne’s Plan.
CHAPTER XII. The Old Love.
CHAPTER XIII. A Jealous Woman.
CHAPTER XIV. The Letter.
CHAPTER XV. The Answer.
CHAPTER XVI. A Night Adventure.
CHAPTER XVII. The Edge of the Storm.
CHAPTER XVIII. Mr. Joseph Nadin.
CHAPTER XIX. At the Farm.
CHAPTER XX. Proof Positive.
CHAPTER XXI. Cousin Meets Cousin.
CHAPTER XXII. Mr. Sutton’s New Rôle.
CHAPTER XXIII. In Kendal Gaol.
CHAPTER XXIV. The Rôle Continued.
CHAPTER XXV. Prison Experiences.
CHAPTER XXVI. A Reconciliation.
CHAPTER XXVII. Bishop Caught Napping.
CHAPTER XXVIII. The Golden Ship.
CHAPTER XXIX. The Dark Maid.
CHAPTER XXX. Bess’s Triumph.
CHAPTER XXXI. A Strange Bedroom.
CHAPTER XXXII. The Search.
CHAPTER XXXIII. The Smugglers’ Oven.
CHAPTER XXXIV. In Tyson’s Kitchen.
CHAPTER XXXV. Through The Wood.
CHAPTER XXXVI. Two of a Race.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
They paid off the Guide under the walls of the old Priory Church at
Cartmel.
“I give you a last chance,” he said.
He neither cared nor saw who it was whom he had jostled.
The face was Stewart’s!
... he touched his brow with his whip handle.
... every head was uncovered as Clyne . . . rode to the door.
In ten minutes the road twinkled with lights.
She was leaning against the side of the window.
STARVECROW FARM
CHAPTER I
ACROSS THE QUICKSANDS
A head appeared at either window of the postchaise. Henrietta looked
forward. Her lover looked back.
The postchaise had nearly cleared the sands. Behind it the low line of
Lancashire coast was fading from sight. Before it the long green hill
of Cartmel had risen so high and drawn so near as to hide the Furness
fells. On the left, seaward, a waste of sullen shallows and quaking
sands still stretched to infinity—a thing to shudder at. But the savage
head of Warton Crag, that for a full hour had guarded the travellers’
right, had given place to the gentler outlines of Armside Knot. The
dreaded Lancashire Channels had been passed in safety, and the mounted
guide, whose task it was to lead wayfarers over these syrtes, and who
enjoyed as guerdon the life-rent of a snug farm under Cark, no longer
eyed the west with anxiety, but plashed in stolid silence towards his
evening meal.
And all was well. But the margin of safety had not been large—the
postboys’ boots still dripped, and the floor of the carriage was damp.
Seaward the pale line of the tide, which would presently sweep in one
foaming wave across the flat, and in an instant cover it half a foot
deep, was fretting abreast the point. Ten minutes later had been too
late; and the face of Henrietta’s lover, whom a few hours and a Scotch
minister were to make her husband, betrayed his knowledge of the fact.
He looked backward and westward over the dreary flat; and fascinated,
seized, possessed by the scene, he shuddered—perhaps at his own
thoughts. He would fain have bidden the postboys hasten, but he was
ashamed to give the order before her. Halfway across he had set down
the uneasiness he could not hide to the fear of pursuit, to the fear of
separation. But he could no longer do this; for it was plain to a child
that neither horse nor man would cross Cartmel sands until the tide
that was beginning to run had ebbed again.
And Henrietta looked forward. The dull grey line of coast, quickly
passing into the invisible, on which she turned her back, stood for her
past; the sun-kissed peaks and blue distances of Furness, which her
fancy still mirrored, though the Cartmel shore now hid them, stood for
the future. To those heights, beautified by haze and distance, her
heart went out, finding in them the true image of the coming life, the
true foretype of those joys, tender and mysterious, to which she was
hastening. The past, which she was abandoning, she knew: a cold home in
the house of an unfeeling sister-in-law and a brother who when he was
not hunting was tipsy—that, and the prospect of an unlovely marriage
with a man who—horror!—had had one wife already, stood for the past.
The future she did not know; but hope painted it from her brightest
palette, and the girl’s eyes filled, her lips quivered, her heart
strained towards the sympathy and love that were henceforth to be
hers—towards the happiness which she had set out to seek, and that now
for certain could not escape her. As the postchaise lumbered heavily up
the rough-paved groyne that led from the sands she shook from head to
foot. At last her feet were set upon the land beautiful. And save for
the compact which her self-respect had imposed upon her companion, she
must have given way, she must have opened all her heart, thrown herself
upon his breast and wept tears of tender anticipation.
She controlled herself. As it happened, they drew in their heads at the
same time, and his eyes—they were handsome eyes—met hers.
“Dearest!” he said.
“We are safe now?”
“Safe from pursuit. But I am not safe.”
“Not safe?”
“From your cruelty.”
His voice was velvet; and he sought to take her hand.
But she withheld it.
“No, sir,” she said, though her look was tender. “Remember our compact.
You are quite sure that they will pursue us along the great road?”
“Yes, as far as Kendal. There they will learn that we are not before
them—that we have somewhere turned aside. And they will turn back.”
“But suppose that they drive on to Carlisle—where we rejoin the north
road.”
“They will not,” he replied confidently. He had regained the plausible
air which he had lost while the terror of the sands was upon him. “And
if you fear that,” he continued, “there is the other plan, and I think
the better one. To-morrow at noon the packet leaves Whitehaven for
Scotland, The wind is fair, and by six in the afternoon we may be
ashore, and an hour later you will be mine!” And again he sought to
draw her into his arms.
But she repelled him.
“In either case,” she said, her brow slightly puckered, “we must halt
to-night at the inn of which you spoke.”
“The inn on Windermere—yes. And we can decide there, sweet, whether we
go by land or sea; whether we will rejoin the north road at Carlisle or
cross from Whitehaven to”—he hesitated an instant—“to Dumfries.”
She was romantic to the pitch of a day which valued sensibility more
highly than sense, and which had begun to read the poetry of Byron
without ceasing to read the _Mysteries of Udolpho_; and she was
courageous to the point of folly. Even now laughter gleamed under her
long lashes, and the bubblings of irresponsible youth were never very
far from her lips. Still, with much folly, with vast recklessness and
an infinitude of ignorance, she was yet no fool—though a hundred times
a day she said foolish things. In the present circumstances respect for
herself rather than distrust of her lover taught her that she stood on
slippery ways and instilled a measure of sobriety.
“At the inn,” she said, “you will put me in charge of the landlady.”
And looking through the window, she carolled a verse of a song as
irrelevant as snow in summer.
“But——” he paused.
“There is a landlady, I suppose?”
“Yes, but——”
“You will do what I say to-day,” she replied firmly—and now the fine
curves of her lips were pressed together, and she hummed no more—“if
you wish me to obey you to-morrow.”
“Dearest, you know——”
But she cut him short. “Please to say that it shall be so,” she said.
He swore that he would obey her then and always. And bursting again
into song as the carriage climbed the hill, she flung from her the mood
that had for a moment possessed her, and was a child again. She made
gay faces at him, each more tantalising than the other; gave him look
for look, each more tender than the other; and with the tips of her
dainty fingers blew him kisses in exchange for his. Her helmet-shaped
bonnet, with its huge plume of feathers, lay in her lap. The heavy
coils of her fair, almost flaxen, hair were given to view, and under
the fire of his flatteries the delicacy of colouring—for pallor it
could scarcely be called—which so often accompanies very light hair,
and was the sole defect of her beauty, gave place to blushes that fired
his blood.
But he knew something of her spirit. He knew that she had it in her to
turn back even now. He knew that he might cajole, but could never
browbeat her. And he restrained himself the more easily, as, in spite
of the passion and eloquence—some called it vapouring—which made him a
hero where thousands listened, he gave her credit for the stronger
nature. He held her childishness, her frivolity, her _naïveté_, in
contempt. Yet he could not shake off his fear of what she might do—when
she knew.
[Illustration: ] They paid off the Guide under the walls of the old
Priory Church at Cartmel
They paid off the guide under the walls of the old priory church at
Cartmel, with the children of the village crowding about the doors of
the chaise; then with a fresh team they started up the valley that
leads to the foot of Windermere lake. But now the November day was
beginning to draw in. The fell on their right took gloomier shape; on
their left a brook sopped its way through low marsh-covered fields; and
here and there the leafless limbs of trees pointed to the grey. And
first one and then the other, with the shrill cries of moor-birds in
their ears, and the fading landscape before their eyes, fell silent.
Then, had they been as other lovers, had she stood more safely, or he
been single-hearted, he had taken her in his arms and held her close,
and comforted her, and the dusk within had been but the frame and
set-off to their love.
But as it was he feared to make overtures, and they sat each in a
corner until, in sheer dread of the effect which reflection might have
on her, he asked her if she feared pursuit; adding, “Depend upon it,
darling, you need not; Sir Charles will not give a thought to this
road.”
She drummed thoughtfully with her fingers on the pane.
“I am not afraid of my brother,” she said.
“Then of whom?”
“Of Anthony,” she answered, and corrected herself hurriedly—“of Captain
Clyne, I mean. He will think of this road.”
“But he will not have had the news before noon,” Stewart answered. “It
is eighteen miles from your brother’s to the Old Hall. And besides, I
thought that he did not love you.”
“He does not,” she rejoined, “but he loves himself. He loves his pride.
And this will hit both—hard! I am not quite sure,” she continued very
slowly and thoughtfully, “that I am not a little sorry for him. He made
so certain, you see. He thought all arranged. A week to-day was the day
fixed, and—yes,” impetuously, “I am sorry for him, though I hated him
yesterday.”
Stewart was silent a moment.
“I hate him to-day,” he said.
“Why?”
His eyes sparkled.
“I hate all his kind,” he said. “They are hard as stones, stiff as
oaks, cruel as—as their own laws! A man is no man to them, unless he is
of”—he paused almost imperceptibly—“our class! A law is no law to them
unless they administer it! They see men die of starvation at their
gates, but all is right, all is just, all is for the best, as long as
they govern!”
“I don’t think you know him,” she said, somewhat stiffly.
“Oh, I know him!”
“But——”
“Oh, I know him!” he repeated, the faint note of protest in her voice
serving to excite him. “He was at Manchester. There were a hundred
thousand men out of work—starving, seeing their wives starve, seeing
their children starve. And they came to Manchester and met. And he was
there, and he was one of those who signed the order for the soldiers to
ride them down—men, women, and children, without arms, and packed so
closely that they could not flee!”
“Well,” she said pertly, “you would not have us all murdered in our
beds?”
He opened his mouth, and he shut it again. He knew that he had been a
fool. He knew that he had gone near to betraying himself. She was
nineteen, and thoughtless; she had been bred in the class he hated; she
had never heard any political doctrines save those which that class,
the governing class, held; and though twice or thrice he had essayed
faintly to imbue her with his notions of liberty and equality and
fraternity, and had pictured her with the red cap of freedom perched on
her flaxen head, the only liberty in which he had been able to interest
her had been her own!
By-and-by, in different conditions, she might be more amenable, should
he then think it worth while to convert her. For the present his
eloquence was stayed in midstream. Yet he could not be altogether
silent, for he was a man to whom words were very dear.
“Well,” he said in a lower tone, “there is something in that, sweet.
But I know worse of him than that. You may think it right to transport
a man for seven years for poaching a hare——”
“They should not poach,” she said lightly, “and they would not be
transported!”
“But you will think differently of flogging a man to death!”
Her face flushed.
“I don’t believe it!” she cried.
“On his ship in Plymouth Harbour they will tell you differently.”
“I don’t believe it!” she replied, with passion. And then, “How horrid
you are!” she continued. “And it is nearly dark! Why do you talk of
such things? You are jealous of him—that is what you are!”
He saw the wisdom of sliding back into their old relations, and he
seized the opportunity her words offered.
“Yes,” he murmured, “I am jealous of him. And why not? I am jealous of
the wind that caresses your cheek, of the carpet that feels your tread,
of the star that peeps in at your window! I am jealous of all who come
near you, or speak to you, or look at you!”
“Are you really?”—in a tone of childish delight. “As jealous as that?”
He swore it with many phrases.
“And you will be so always?” she sighed softly, leaning towards him.
“Always—Alan?”
“To eternity!” he answered. And emboldened by her melting mood, he
would have taken her hand, and perhaps more than her hand, but at that
moment the lights of the inn at Newby Bridge flashed on them suddenly,
the roar of the water as it rushed over the weirs surprised their ears,
the postboys cracked their whips, and the carriage bounded and rattled
over the steep pitch of the narrow bridge. A second or two later it
came to a stand before the inn amid a crowd of helpers and stable lads,
whose lanthorns dazzled the travellers’ eyes.
They stayed only to change horses, then were away again. But the halt
sufficed to cool his courage; and as they pounded on monotonously
through the night, the darkness and the dim distances of river and
lake—for they were approaching the shores of Windermere—produced their
natural effect on Henrietta’s feelings. She had been travelling since
early morning cooped and cramped within the narrow chaise; she had
spent the previous night in a fever of suspense and restlessness. Now,
though slowly, the gloom, the dark outlines of the woods, and that
sense of loneliness which seizes upon all who are flung for the first
time among strange surroundings, began to tell upon the spirits even of
nineteen. She did not admit the fact to herself—she would have died
before she confessed it to another; but disillusion had begun its
subtle task.
Here were all the things for which she had panted—the dear, delightful
things of which she had dreamed: the whirl of the postchaise through
the night, the crack of the whips, the cries of the postboys, the
lighted inns, the dripping woods, the fear of pursuit, the presence of
her lover! And already they were growing flat. Already the savour was
escaping from them. There were tears in her heart, tears very near her
eyes.
He could have taken her hand then, and more than her hand. For suddenly
she recognised, with a feeling nearer terror than her flighty nature
had ever experienced before, her complete dependence on him. Henceforth
love, comfort, kindness, companionship—all must come from him. She had
flung from her every stay but his, every hand but his. He was become
her all, her world. And could she trust him? Not only with her
honour—she never dreamed of doubting that—but could she trust him
afterwards? To be kind to her, to be good to her, to be generous to
her? Thoughtless, inexperienced, giddy as she was, Henrietta trembled.
A pitiful sob rose in her throat. It needed but little, very little,
and she had cast herself in abandonment on her lover’s breast and there
wept out her fears and her doubts.
But he had also his anxieties, and he let the moment pass by him
unmarked. He had reasons, other and more urgent than those he had given
her, for taking this road and for staying the night in a place whence
Whitehaven and Carlisle were equally accessible; and those reasons had
seemed good enough in the day when the fear of pursuit had swayed him.
They seemed less pertinent now. He began to wish that he had taken
another road, pursued another course. And he was deep in a brown study,
in which love had no part, when an exclamation, at once of surprise and
admiration, recalled him to the present.
They had topped a bare shoulder and come suddenly in sight of Lake
Windermere. The moon had not long risen above the hills on their right,
the water lay on their left; below them stretched a long pale mirror,
whose borrowed light, passing over the dark woods which framed it,
faintly lit and explored the stupendous fells and mountains that rose
beyond. To Stewart it was no unfamiliar or noteworthy sight; and his
eyes, after a passing glance of approval, turned to the road below them
and marked with secret anxiety the spot where two or three lights
indicated their halting-place.
But to Henrietta the sight, as unexpected as it was beautiful, appealed
in a manner never to be forgotten. She held her breath, and slowly her
eyes filled. Half subdued by fatigue and darkness, half awake to the
dangers and possibilities of her situation, she was in the mood most
fit to be moved by the tender melancholy of the scene. She was feeling
a craving for something—for something to comfort her, for something to
reassure her, for something on which to lean in the absence of all the
common things of life: and there broke on her the mystic beauty of this
moonlit lake, and it melted her. Her heart, hitherto untouched, awoke.
The compact which she had made with her lover stood for naught. The
tears running down her face, she turned to him, she held out her hands
to him.
“Kiss me!” she murmured. “And say—say you will be good to me! I have
only you now!—only you!—only you!”
He caught her in his arms and kissed her rapturously; and the embrace
was ardent enough to send the scarlet surging to her temples, to set
her heart throbbing. But the chaise was in the very act of drawing up
at the door of the inn; and it may be doubted if he tasted the full
sweetness of the occasion. A face looked in at the carriage window, on
the side farther from the lake appeared a bowing landlord, a voice
inquired, “Horses on?” The postchaise stopped.