RISKS
AT last the tall gentleman turned to his friends. Everell saw Georgiana
disappear into the coach with the older ladies; saw the two gentlemen
spring into the chaise, after casting doles to the yard servants; saw
the two maids established upon outside seats, the valets mounted, the
postilion up before the chaise, the coachman gather his reins and whip;
saw the procession move off, with Caleb at the head to show the way, the
coach next, the chaise following, and the trim London lackey riding
behind all the rest. Everell followed as far as to the door, where still
stood Roughwood. The coach had already turned down the High Street.
“She’s gone,” said he. “But not far—only to Foxwell Court.”
“Pray, where and what is Foxwell Court?” asked Roughwood, leading him by
the arm into the parlour.
“I know not, but ’tis easily learned.”
“No doubt, but we shall do better to restrain our curiosity. I trust we
shall have nothing more to excite it—or to tempt you to mingle
unnecessarily in miscellaneous crowds from inn kitchens.”
“My dear Will,” cried Everell, “my going among that crowd was a stroke
of heaven-sent luck. I received a most valuable warning—and from her,
too! Think of it, those sweet lips, those heavenly eyes, that—”
“Warning? What do you mean?”
Everell told him.
“H’m!” said Roughwood. “That explains her maid’s conduct. Somebody had
described you to the maid—somebody now up-stairs.”
“Yes, and the maid no sooner tells her of it than she takes the first
opportunity to put us on our guard, at the risk even of her good name.
What divine compassion! What—”
“And the somebody up-stairs? No doubt your acquaintance of yesterday.
Why, he may chance upon us at any moment, and give the alarm. And, if he
has mentioned you to the maid, why not to a whole kitchenful of people?
’Tis high time indeed we were out of this place. How slow they are with
the horses! We should be in another county by sunset.”
“Ay, dear Will, _you_ should—and must.”
“_I_ should? _We_ should. Here are the horses at last. Come.” Roughwood
seized the cloak-bags.
“Nay, Will, I—I will follow a little later,” said Everell, taking his
own piece of luggage.
“Later? Are you mad?—Come, come, no nonsense, Charles. You will go with
me, of course.”
“From this inn, certainly. But from this neighbourhood not for a—day or
two. I mention it now, so that the boy need hear no discussion between
us. I will ride with you a mile or so, then take my own way afoot. The
boy, of course, must keep his horses together.—I will follow you, I say:
I can find your man Budge. Let his house be our rendezvous,—I can find
it from your description,—and of course I will appear thereabouts only
at night. Instruct him to be on the watch for me. If he can sail before
I arrive, make good your own escape, and bid him expect me on his
return. That is all, I think; and now to horse.”
“But, my dear lad,—my dear, dear lad,—what folly is this? Hear reason;
you must be guided by me. You know not what you would risk—”
“No more than I’ve risked before now, and for no such cause, either.
’Tis settled, Will, I intend to stay hereabouts till I’ve seen that
young lady again. Come, the boy is waiting with the horses. ’Tis you now
that delays our going.”
“Charles, listen to me!—Rash! foolish! mad!”
“No.—I said you should hear when I saw the right face, Will. I declare
I’ve seen it—and must see it again, whatever be the cost or the
consequence.”
In another minute they were on horseback, moving down the High Street.
The coach and chaise had started in the same direction, but were now out
of sight. Everell hoped to come nearly up to them, that he might see
where they left the highroad. But even after he had cleared the town and
beheld a straight stretch of road far ahead, he found no sign of the
vehicles in which he was interested. He inferred that they must have
turned off through one of the streets of the town, which was indeed the
case.
Meanwhile, Roughwood, full of sadness and misgiving, had kept up his
usual vigilance so far as to watch their guide for possible signs of
having heard any such talk at the inn as had enabled the maid Prudence
to identify Everell. But the boy did not regard either of the gentlemen
at all suspiciously; he showed no curiosity or interest, and Roughwood
was assured that, if Everell’s enemy had spoken of them at the inn, this
lad had not been a listener. Such, as the reader knows, was the case,
for Mr. Filson had thus far confided his story to nobody in the house
but Prudence, and she had excluded herself from the conversation of the
kitchen under a sense of affront, until summoned by her mistress.
Georgiana, upon hearing the cause of her alarm at the sight of the young
stranger, had put the girl under the strictest commands of secrecy, and
had kept her in attendance afterward, quietly returning to Foxwell and
his friends as they were making ready to depart.
While he still rode with his friend, Everell allowed no mention of his
resolve or of Foxwell Court to escape him, for he knew that the guide,
whom Roughwood would dismiss at the end of that stage, would be
returning with the horses, and might be interrogated by their enemy, who
by that time would probably have learned of their short stay at the inn.
On the other hand, Everell devoted some conversation to the purpose of
deceiving the boy as to his reasons and intentions in leaving his friend
and his saddle as he was about to do. Observing a house among some trees
upon a hill, he pointed it out to Roughwood as the residence of a friend
whom he meant to surprise with a brief visit. Having spoken to this
effect, as if the matter had been previously understood between them, he
added that, in order to make the surprise complete, he would approach
the house on foot among the trees, and would therefore take leave of
Roughwood, for the time, in the road. He could depend upon the gentleman
he was about to visit to furnish him with conveyance to the next town,
whence he would follow Roughwood by post-horse. This much having been
said in the guide’s hearing, Everell pulled up his horse, and, Roughwood
doing likewise, the two fugitives held a whispered conference upon the
details of their next reunion.
To the last, Roughwood tried, by voice and look, to dissuade his comrade
from this rash and sudden deviation from their original plans, but
vainly. They made a redivision of their money, for each in his heart
felt that some time must elapse ere they should—if ever—be fellow
travellers again. Then Everell slid from his horse, slung his cloak-bag
over his shoulder, gave a quick pressure of his friend’s hand, and a
whispered “God speed you, dear lad!” in exchange for a silent and
protesting farewell in the other’s clouding eyes; and stood alone in the
highway. He waited till the horses disappeared with a last wave of
Roughwood’s hand, around a turning: he then faced directly about, and
set off with long and rapid strides.
His pace very soon brought him back to the town he had so recently left.
Instead of going as far as to their former inn, he sought out one of
humbler appearance, near the beginning of the street. Here he left his
cloak-bag, for already in his brief walk he had experienced the stares
of wonder naturally drawn by a gentleman who carried at the same time a
sword at his side and a cloak-bag at his shoulder. He went into a
barber’s shop, where, as he had used his razor that morning, and very
little sign of beard had become visible in the meantime, his order for
shaving created in the barber’s mind an impression that he must be an
extremely luxurious gentleman in spite of his threadbare
clothes,—probably a lord in misfortune. Everell easily set the barber
talking about all the estates in the neighbourhood, and thus, without
seeming to have more design in regard to Foxwell Court than to a dozen
other places, elicited the information that that house was eight miles
away on the road to Burndale.
Returning to the inn where he had left his bag, he told the landlord he
was bound for Burndale, and had made up his mind to accomplish part of
the journey that afternoon, in order to arrive there betimes the next
day. He bargained for a horse and guide to take him seven or eight miles
on the way, and leave him at some place where he could pass the night
and obtain conveyance on to Burndale in the morning. In this way,
without mentioning Foxwell Court, he contrived that he should be set
down in its vicinity and yet have it supposed that his destination was
far beyond.
He had so far trusted to luck and his quickness of sight to avoid
confrontation with the enemy who, as he could not doubt, was close
enough at hand. But he breathed a sigh of relief when he at last rode
out of the town in the direction of Burndale: he believed that, whatever
inquiries might be made upon the discovery that he had passed through
the town, his traces were sufficiently confused, one set leading
southward after his friend, and the other leading to Burndale, a good
distance beyond Foxwell Court. So he rode forward with his new guide, in
as great security of mind as he had enjoyed in months.
The road lay at first between fields, and here and there great trees
stretched their boughs shelteringly over it. Sometimes green banks rose
on one hand or both, and at a certain place a stream joined the road and
went singing along in its company for half a mile. Then the way emerged
upon an open common, which undulated on one side in rounded waves of
heather till the purple mass met the gray sky, and on the other side to
the border of a wood. But presently Everell was again in cultivated
country, with stone farm-buildings set now and then upon lawny slopes
among the fields.
One great house, of which the chimneys rose in the midst of trees, and
which was to be approached by a driveway of some hundreds of yards from
a gate and lodge at the roadside, held Everell’s attention for a moment.
The guide volunteered the information that this was Thornby Hall.
Everell repeated the name carelessly, looked a second time, and thought
no more of it. Had he been able to foresee the future, he would have
given the place a longer inspection.
Two or three miles more brought them to a village. The guide said that
here was the only public-house of entertainment in the near
neighbourhood, and that if he went farther he was in danger of getting
benighted on his return. Nothing could have suited Everell’s own plan
better than this clear hint. He dissembled his content, however, and put
on a frown of disappointment as he gazed at the mere ale-house—a low and
longish building whose unevenness of line betokened its antiquity—before
which the boy had drawn up. Everell feigned a reluctant yielding to
necessity; dismounted peevishly, and showed a petulant resignation in
asking the rustic-looking landlord who appeared at the door if a decent
room was to be had for the night.
The landlord, a drowsy little old man, who was too dull, too
humble-minded, or too philosophical to resent any doubt of the
excellence of his house, replied that the best room was at his honour’s
service. Whereupon Everell, for the hearing of his guide, inquired
urgently about the possibility of getting a horse in the morning to
carry him to Burndale. Being assured on this point, also, Everell
dismissed the guide, and had his single piece of baggage taken into his
room, which proved to be not merely the best room, but the only room,
properly so-called, in addition to the long apartment which served as
kitchen, bar, living-room of the family, and general clubroom of the
village; the chambers up-stairs being mere lofts under the roof.
Everell ordered a supper of bacon and eggs, which were cooked by the
landlord’s fat, middle-aged daughter, and served by the old man himself.
Turning quite reconciled to his accommodations as soon as his guide had
left the scene, Everell drew the host into conversation, and, as the old
fellow proved to be an amiable and honest soul, even in the matter of
his charges, the traveller was shortly in possession of as many facts,
legends, and reports concerning the gentry of this and adjacent parishes
as his host had accumulated in years. All this information went through
Everell’s mind as through a sieve, with the exception of the
circumstance that the old red-brick place, with the ivy and the gables,
crowning the slope at the right, with a park behind it, which old
red-brick place his honour would have seen had he ridden a little
farther on, and would see when he rode that way in the morning, was
Foxwell Court. This piece of news did not come out till Everell had
finished his meal, and he might have learned a vast deal about the
Foxwells, for the old man’s face brightened as if at the opening of a
fresh and copious subject; but the young gentleman, with his usual
precipitancy, rose and declared his intention of stretching his legs.
Though he had cautiously refrained from being the first to mention
Foxwell Court, he no sooner knew where it was, and how near, than he
felt himself drawn as by enchantment in its direction.
As he stepped out upon the green space before the inn, a post-chaise
came rattling by at a round speed. It was empty, and Everell recognized
it as the one which had accompanied the coach from the inn yard that
day: it was now returning from Foxwell Court, as it ought to have been
doing sooner. The postilion, no doubt, had wasted time in the
sociability of the servants’ hall, and was now making his horses fly to
avoid belatement. He stared a moment at Everell, and was gone. Thinking
nothing of this meeting, so brief and casual, Everell walked rapidly off
toward Foxwell Court.
The sun had come out toward evening, and now shone bright on the
weathercock and spire of the parish church that stood embowered some
distance from the road, on Everett’s left, as he proceeded. A short walk
brought him to the end of the village street of low gray cottages in
their small gardens. Thence a little bridge bore him across a stream
that came murmuring down through a large field from the wooded land
Northward. Looking ahead on that side of the road, he perceived the
curved gables of an old house of time-dulled brick partly clad in ivy.
It stood rather proudly at the top of a broad slope and against a
background of woods or park, its upper windows ablaze with the sunlight.
The lower part of the building was hidden by the walls of a forecourt
and by a dilapidated-looking gate-house which dominated them. At the
near end of the mansion appeared a shapeless remnant of broken tower and
wing, ruinous and abandoned: from these ruins a wall extended to the
verge of a slight precipice and, there turning at a right angle, ran
back to the wood. Over the top of this wall were visible the signs of a
neglected garden or orchard.
The further, or Western, end of the house was flanked by trees and
greenery, but the slope of rich green turf which descended in one long
and gentle swell from the forecourt to the road was clear lawn. This
great convex space of green was separated from the adjacent fields, and
from the road, by a rude hedge of briar. Everell, having gazed a few
moments from the bridge, walked on along the road, intending, if
possible, to describe the circuit of the house at a respectful distance
before attempting any near approach. He came to the barred opening in
the hedge through which the private road led from the highway to the
gate-house of the forecourt, but he let only his eyes travel up the
curving way. As the hedge grew on lower ground beyond the roadside
ditch, Everell had the house in full sight while he was passing. He came
at length to where the hedge turned for its ascent, and here he found
that a narrow lane ran between it and the field adjoining.
He was speedily over the barred gate that shut this lane from the road.
Ascending toward the park behind the house, he frequently lost sight of
the latter by reason of the height of the hedge, which was, moreover,
accompanied on that side by a line of oaks. As it came to the level of
the forecourt, the hedge was interrupted by a gate. Looking across the
bars of this, Everell could see not only the house but, nearer to him,
stables and other outbuildings skilfully concealed by shrubbery and
trees. His observation from the gateway being rewarded by nothing to the
purpose, and that he might make the most use of the remaining light,
Everell went on through the lane toward the park, to which he now saw it
gave access. Passing the trees which prevented his view of the Western
end of the house, he came abreast of a terrace which lay between the
North front and the park, and which he could see across the hedge when
he stood on tiptoe. A few more steps, and a vault over a five-barred
gate, took him into the park itself, from the shades of which—for it was
not kept clear of small growth, and offered plentiful covert of bush and
bracken and other brush—he gazed upon the house as he turned and
strolled Eastward.
The balustrade of the terrace was broken here and there; and the mansion
itself, where the ivy allowed its surface to be seen, was weather-worn
and unrepaired. Yet, by virtue of its design and situation, the house
had a magnificence. This, however, did not much affect Everell at the
time, sensitive though he was to such impressions. What concerned him
was, that he saw no face at any window, nor heard any voice from any
part of the mansion except below stairs.
To complete the circuit of the place, in quest of any discovery to aid
his purpose, he walked on till he came to a deep, thick-wooded glen that
cut into the park from the grounds about the ruined Eastern end of the
house. Through this ran the stream which, subsequently traversing the
great field between the house and the village, crossed under the bridge.
Everell turned along the crest of the glen-side, and thus in a few steps
emerged, through a gate in the stone wall, upon the wild garden or
orchard, of which he had seen signs from the road. It was a neglected
place, evidently not now resorted to. Steps descended to it from the
terrace, yet it was not so much lower but that Everell could glance
along the terrace and the North front of the house. He leaned against a
vacant stone pedestal to rest and consider.
The sun had set, and, far beyond the length of the terrace, the
undulating fields and moorland, and the distant darkening mountains, was
a sky of red and gold. But Everell had eyes for nothing but the old
mansion, which was to him a case holding the loveliest jewel he had ever
beheld. As the dusk came on, light appeared at some of the lower
windows; a few notes of laughter and other vocal sounds gave evidence of
life. But nobody came forth. Everell dared not hope to catch a glimpse
of the admired one that evening. He was at last sensible that night had
fallen. All the colour had gone out of the West, and stars had appeared.
He would have moved, to warm himself by walking, but that two of the
upper windows began to glow. Were they _her_ windows? He watched with a
beating heart, stilling even the sound of his breath. But several
minutes passed without any manifestation even of a shadow momentarily
darkening the panes. The light vanished. No doubt she had gone to bed,
fatigued with the journey of the day. Certainly they must be her
windows, for the others of the party were less likely to retire so
early. Everell heaved a sigh, and threw a kiss at the windows. Of a
sudden he was uncomfortably chilly: he bestirred himself, wished he had
thought of bringing his cloak, and started off, as much upon a feeling
that he could better meditate a course of procedure while walking as
upon the impulse to set his blood in motion. But so far was he from any
desire of going back to his inn that, without much conscious choice in
the matter, he took a quite different direction, and followed the top of
the glen-side into the park.
He had been moving at a rapid pace for several minutes before he gave
any heed to his whereabouts. He had been guided safely among bush,
bracken, and the great trunks of the trees by that unconscious
observation for which in those days there was no better name than
instinct. He now saw—for in many places the trees were not too close
together for the admission of some light from stars and sky—that he had
penetrated a good distance into the park, and had left the course of the
glen. As he stood gazing into the gloom, wondering how accurately he
could retrace his steps, he heard the loud crack of a gun, fired
seemingly about two furlongs away.
“Poachers,” said he, after a moment’s thought.
He stepped forward to the edge of an open place, which sloped down
gradually to a stream—doubtless the same that threaded the glen, or a
tributary. Beyond this water the corresponding ascent was clear of trees
for perhaps a hundred yards. Down that side of the glade a dark figure
was approaching so swiftly, and in such manner else, that Everell knew
it as that of a man running for his life. There is a difference so
pronounced as to be plain even in twilight and afar between the attitude
of a man who runs in pursuit, and that of a man who runs from pursuit;
and again, in either case, between that of one who runs in accordance
with, and that of one who runs in opposition to, the law.
Having no desire to interfere with a rogue who had just fired at, or
been fired at by, somebody’s gamekeeper, or at best had taken a
forbidden shot at somebody’s game, Everell concealed himself among some
bracken of a man’s height. He waited a few minutes, hoping to be
informed by his ears when the man should have passed. But he heard
neither footfall nor panting, nor any noise of pursuit.
Supposing that the fellow had changed his course at the stream, Everell
stepped out from the bracken. He was just in time to confront a broad
figure striding toward him. Ere Everell thought of self-defence, the
newcomer uttered an ejaculation, and sprang aside with something
upraised in the air. The next thing that Everell knew—for one rarely
feels a knock-down blow on the head from such an instrument as the
butt-end of a gun—he was lying among the bracken from which he had
recently come forth.
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