Those were days of pack-saddles and pillions--days certainly not without
their state and display; but yet days in which persons were not valued
according to the precise mode of their dress or equipage, when hearts
were not appraised by the hat or gloves, nor the mind estimated by the
carriages or horses.
Man was considered far more abstractedly then than at present; and
although illustrious ancestors, great possessions, and hereditary claims
upon consideration, were allowed more weight than they now possess, yet
the minor circumstances of each individual,--the things that filled his
pocket, the dishes upon his table, the name of his tailor, or the club
that he belonged to,--were seldom, if ever, allowed to affect the
appreciation of his general character.
However that might be, it was an age, as we have said, of pack-saddles
and pillions; and no one, at any distance from the capital itself, would
have been the least ashamed to be seen with a lady or child mounted
behind him on the same horse, while he jogged easily onward on his
destined way.
It was thus that, about a quarter of an hour before nightfall, a, tall
powerful man was seen riding along through one of the north-western
counties of England, with a boy of about eight years of age mounted on a
pillion behind him, and steadying himself on the horse by an
affectionate embrace cast round the waist of his elder companion.
Lennard Sherbrooke--for the reader has already divined that this was no
other than the personage introduced to him in our first chapter--Lennard
Sherbrooke, then, was still heavily armed, but in other respects had
undergone a considerable change. The richly laced coat had given place
to a plain dark one of greenish brown; the large riding boots remained;
and the hat, though it kept its border of feathers, was divested of
every other ornament. There were pistols at the saddle-bow, which indeed
were very necessary in those days to every one who performed the
perilous and laborious duty of wandering along the King's Highway; and
in every other respect the appearance of Lennard Sherbrooke was well
calculated neither to attract cupidity nor invite attack.
About ten minutes after the period at which we have again introduced him
to our readers, the traveller and his young companion stopped at the
door of an old-fashioned inn, or rather at the porch thereof; for the
door itself, with a retiring modesty, stood at some distance back, while
an impudent little portico with carved oak pillars, of quaint but not
inelegant design, stood forth into the road, with steps leading down
from it to the sill of the sunk doorway. An ostler ran out to take the
horse, and helped the boy down tenderly and carefully. Sherbrooke
himself then dismounted, looked at his beast from head to foot, and then
ordering the ostler to give him some hay and water, he took the boy by
the hand and entered the house.
The ostler looked at the beast, which was tired, and then at the sky,
over which the first shades of evening were beginning to creep, thinking
as he did so that the stranger might quite as well put up his beast for
the night. In the meantime, however, Sherbrooke had given the boy into
the charge of the hostess, had bidden her prepare some supper for him,
and had intimated that he himself was going a little farther, but would
soon return to sleep at her hospitable dwelling. He ordered to be
brought in and given into her charge also a small portmanteau,--smaller
than that which he had taken with him into the boat,--and when all this
was done, he kissed the boy's forehead tenderly, and left him, mounting
once more his weary beast, and plodding slowly along upon his way.
It was a very sweet evening: the sun, half way down behind one of the
distant hills, seemed, like man's curiosity, to overlook unheeded all
the bright and beautiful things close to him, and to gaze with his eyes
of light full upon the objects further from him, through which the
wayfarer was bending his way. The line of undulating hills, the masses
of a long line of woodland, some deep valleys and dells, a small village
with its church and tower on an eminence, were all in deep blue shadow;
while, in the foreground, every bank and slope was glittering in yellow
sunshine, and a small river, that wound along through the flatter part
of the ground, seemed turned into gold by the great and glorious
alchymist, as he sunk to his rest.
The heart of the traveller who wandered there alone was ill, very ill at
ease. Happily for himself, as he was now circumstanced, the character of
Sherbrooke was a gay and buoyant one, not easily depressed, bearing the
load lightly; but still he could not but feel the difficulties, the
dangers, and the distresses of a situation, which, though shared in by
very many at that moment, was rather aggravated by such being the case,
and had but small alleviation even from hope.
In the first place, he had seen the cause to which he had attached
himself utterly ruined by the base irresolution of a weak monarch, who
had lost his crown by his tyranny, and who had failed to regain it by
his courage. In the next place, for his devotion to that cause, he was a
banished and an outlawed man, with his life at the mercy of any one who
chose to take it. In the next he was well nigh penniless, with the life
of another, dear, most dear to his heart, depending entirely upon his
exertions.
The heart of the traveller, then, was ill, very ill at ease, but yet the
calm of that evening's sunshine had a sweet and tranquillizing effect.
There is a mirror--there is certainly a moral mirror in our hearts,
which reflects the images of the things around us; and every change that
comes over nature's face is mingled sweetly, though too often unnoticed,
with the thoughts and feelings called forth by other things. The effect
of that calm evening upon Lennard Sherbrooke was not to produce the
wild, bright, visionary dreams and expectations which seem the peculiar
offspring of the glowing morning, or of the bright and risen day; but it
was the counterpart, the image, the reflection of that evening scene
itself to which it gave rise in his heart. He felt tranquillized, he
felt more resolute, more capable of enduring. Grief and anxiety subsided
into melancholy and resolution, and the sweet influence of the hour had
also an effect beyond: it made him pause upon the memories of his past
life, upon many a scene of idle profligacy, revel, and riot,--of talents
cast away and opportunity neglected,--of fortune spent and bright hopes
blasted,--and of all the great advantages which he had once possessed
utterly lost and gone, with the exception of a kind and generous heart:
a jewel, indeed, but one which in this world, alas! can but too seldom
be turned to the advantage of the possessor.
On these things he pondered, and a sweet and ennobling regret came upon
him that it should be so--a regret which might have gone on to sincere
repentance, to firm amendment, to the retrieval of fortunes, to an utter
change of destiny, had the circumstances of the times, or any friendly
voice and helping hand, led his mind on upon that path wherein it had
already taken the first step, and had opened out before him a way of
retrieval, instead of forcing him onward down the hill of destruction.
But, alas! those were not times when the opportunity of doing better was
likely to be allowed to him; nor were circumstances destined to change
his course. His destiny, like that of many Jacobites of the day, was but
to be from ruin to ruin; and let it be remembered, that the character
and history of Lennard Sherbrooke are not ideal, but are copied
faithfully from a true but sad history of a life in those times.
All natural affections sweeten and purify the human heart. Like
everything else given us immediately from God, their natural tendency is
to wage war against all that is evil within us; and every single thought
of amendment and improvement, every regret for the past, every better
hope for the future, was connected with the thought of the beautiful boy
he had left behind at the inn; and elevated by his love for a being in
the bright purity of youth, he thought of him and his situation again
and again; and often as he did so, the intensity of his own feelings
made him murmur forth half audible words all relating to the boy, or to
the person he was then about to seek, for the purpose of interesting him
in the poor youth's fate.
"I will tell him all and everything," he said, thus murmuring to himself
as he went on: "he may drive me forth if he will; but surely, surely, he
will protect and do something for the boy. What, though there have been
faults committed and wrong done, he cannot be so hard-hearted as to let
the poor child starve, or be brought up as I can alone bring him up."
Such was still the conclusion to which he seemed to come; and at length
when the sun had completely gone down, and at the distance of about
three miles from the inn, he paused before a large pair of wooden gates,
consisting of two rows of square bars of painted wood placed close
together, with a thick heavy rail at the top and bottom, while two
wooden obelisks, with their steeple-shaped summits, formed the gate
posts. Opening the gates, as one well familiar with the lock, he now
entered the smaller road which led from them through the fields towards
a wood upon the top of the hill. At first the way was uninteresting
enough, and the faint remains of twilight only served to show some
square fields within their hedge-rows cut in the most prim and
undeviating lines around. The wayfarer rode on, through that part of the
scene, with his eyes bent down in deep thought; but when he came to the
wood; and, following the path--which, now kept with high neatness and
propriety, wound in and out amongst the trees, and then sweeping gently
round the shoulder of the hill, exposed a beautiful deer park--he had
before his eyes a fine Elizabethan house, rising grey upon a little
eminence at the distance of some four or five hundred yards,--it seemed
that some old remembrance, some agitating vision of the days gone by,
came over the horseman's mind. He pulled in his rein, clasped his hands
together, and gazed around with a look of sad and painful recognition.
At the end of a minute or two, however, he recovered himself, rode on to
the front of the house we have mentioned, and dismounting from his
horse, pulled the bell-rope which action was instantly followed by a
long peal heard from within.
"It sounds cold and empty," said the wayfarer to himself, "like my
reception, and perhaps my hopes."
No answer was made for some time; and though the sounds had been loud
enough, as the traveller's ears bore witness, yet they required to be
repeated before any one came to ask his pleasure.
"This is very strange!" he said, as he applied his hand to the bell-rope
again. "He must have grown miserly, as they say, indeed. Why I remember
a dozen servants crowding into this porch at the first sound of a
horse's feet."
A short time after, some steps were heard within; bolts and bars were
carefully withdrawn, and an old man in a white jacket, with a lantern in
his hand, opened the heavy oaken door, and gazed upon the stranger.
"Where is the Earl of Byerdale?" demanded the horseman, in apparent
surprise. "Is he not at home?"
The old man gazed at him for a moment from head to foot, without
replying, and then answered slowly and somewhat bitterly, "Yes, he is at
home--at his long home, from which he'll never move again! Why, he has
been dead and buried this fortnight."
"Indeed!" cried the traveller, putting his hand to his head, with an air
of surprise, and what we may call dismay; "indeed! and who has
discharged the servants and shut up the house?"
"Those who have a right to do it," replied the old man, sharply; "for my
lord was not such a fool as to leave his property to be spent, and his
place mismanaged, by two scape-graces whom he knew well enough."
As he spoke, without farther ceremony he shut the door in the stranger's
face, and then returned to his own abode in the back part of the house,
chuckling as he went, and murmuring to himself, "I think I have paid him
now for throwing me into the horsepond, for just telling a little bit of
a lie about Ellen, the laundry maid. He thought I had forgotten him! Ha!
ha! ha!"
The traveller stood confounded; but he made no observation, he uttered
no word, he seemed too much accustomed to meet the announcement of fresh
misfortune to suffer it to drive him from the strong-hold of silence.
Sweeter or gentler feelings might have done it: he might have been
tempted to speak aloud in calm meditation and thought, either gloomy or
joyful; but his heart, when wrung and broken by the last hard grasp of
fate, like the wolf at his death, was dumb.
He remained for full two minutes, however, beneath the porch, motionless
and silent; then springing on his horse's back, he urged him somewhat
rapidly up the slope. Ere he had reached the top, either from
remembering that the beast was weary, or from some change in his own
feelings, he slackened his pace, and gave himself up to meditation
again. The first agony of the blow that he had received was now over,
and once again he not only reasoned with himself calmly, but expressed
some of his conclusions in a murmur.
"What!" he said, "a peer without a penny! the name attainted, too, and
all lands and property declared forfeit! No, no! it will never do! Years
may bring better times!--Who knows? the attainder may be reversed; new
fortunes may be gained or made! The right dies not, though it may
slumber; exists, though it be not enforced. A peer without a penny! no,
no!--far better a beggar with half a crown!"
Thus saying he rode on, passed through the wood we have mentioned,--the
dull meadows, and the wooden gates; and entering the high road, was
proceeding towards the inn, when an event occurred which effected a
considerable change in his plans and purposes.
It was by this time one of those dark nights, the most propitious that
can be imagined for such little adventures as rendered at one time the
place called Gad's Hill famous alike in story and in song. It wasn't
that the night was cloudy, for, to say sooth, it was a fine night, and
manifold small stars were twinkling in the sky; but the moon, the sweet
moon, was at that time in her infancy, a babe of not two days old, so
that the light she afforded to her wandering companions through the
fields of space was of course not likely to be much. The stars twinkled,
as we have said, but they gave no light to the road; and on either side
there were sundry brakes, and lanes, and hedges, and groups of trees
which were sufficiently shady and latitant in the mid-day, and which
certainly were impervious to any ray of light then above the horizon.
The mind of Lennard Sherbrooke, however, was far too busy about other
things to think of dangers on the King's Highway. His purse was
certainly well armoured against robbery; and the defence was on the
inside and not on the out; so that--had he thought on the matter at all,
which he did not do--he might very probably have thought, in his light
recklessness, he wished he might meet with a highwayman, in order to try
whether he could not rob better than be robbed.
However, as I have said, he thought not of the subject at all. His own
situation, and that of the boy Wilton, occupied him entirely; and it was
not till the noise of a horse's feet coming rapidly behind him sounded
close at his shoulder, that he turned to see by whom he had been
overtaken.
All that Sherbrooke could perceive was, that it was a man mounted on a
remarkably fine horse, riding with ease and grace, and bearing
altogether the appearance of a gentleman.
"Pray, sir," said the stranger, "can you tell me how far I am from the
inn called the Buck's Horns, and whether this is the direct road
thither?"
"The inn is about two miles on," replied Sherbrooke, "on the left-hand
side of the way, and you cannot miss it, for there is no other house for
five miles."
"Only two miles!" said the stranger; "then there is no use of my riding
so fast, risking to break my neck, and my horse's knees."
Sherbrooke said nothing, but rode on quietly, while the stranger, still
reining in his horse, pursued the high road by the traveller's side.
"It is a very dark night," said the stranger, after a minute or two's
silence.
"A very dark night, indeed!" replied Sherbrooke, and the conversation
again ended there.
"Well," said the stranger, after two or three minutes more had passed,
"as my conversation seems disagreeable to you, sir, I shall ride on."
"Goodnight, sir," replied Sherbrooke, and the other appeared to put
spurs to his horse. At the first step, however, he seized the
traveller's rein, uttering a whistle: two more horsemen instantly darted
out from one side of the road, and in an instant the well-known words,
"Stand and deliver!" were audibly pronounced in the ears of the
traveller.
Now it is a very different thing, and a much more difficult thing, to
deal in such a sort with three gentlemen of the road, than with one; but
nevertheless, as we have before shown, Lennard Sherbrooke was a stout
man, nor was he at all a faint-hearted one. A pistol was instantly out
of one of the holsters, pointed, and fired, and one of his assailants
rolled over upon the ground, horse and man together. His heavy sword was
free from the sheath the moment after; and exclaiming, "Now there's but
two of you, I can manage you," he pushed on his horse against the man
who had seized his bridle, aiming a very unpleasant sort of oblique cut
at the worthy personage's head, which, had it taken effect, would
probably have left him with a considerable portion less of skull than
that with which he entered into the conflict.
Three things, however, happened almost simultaneously, which gave a new
aspect altogether to affairs. The man upon Sherbrooke's left hand fired
a pistol at his head, but missed him in the darkness of night. At the
same moment the other man at whom he was aiming the blow, and who being
nearer to him of course saw better, parried it successfully, but
abstained from returning it, exclaiming, "By Heavens! I believe it is
Leonard Sherbrooke!"
"If you had asked me," replied Sherbrooke, "I would have told you that
long ago: pray who are you?"
"I am Frank Bryerly," replied the man: "hold your hands, hold your hands
every one, and let us see what mischief's done! Dick Harrison, I
believe, is down. Devilish unfortunate, Sherbrooke, that you did not
speak."
"Speak!" returned Sherbrooke, "what should I speak for? these are not
times for speaking over much."
"I am not hurt, I am not hurt!" cried the man called Harrison; "but hang
him, I believe he has killed my horse, and the horse had well nigh
killed me, for he reared and went over with me at the shot:--get up,
brute, get up!" and he kicked the horse in the side to make him rise. Up
started the beast upon his feet in a moment, trembling in every limb,
but still apparently not much hurt; and upon examination it proved that
the ball had struck him in the fleshy part of the shoulder, producing a
long, but not a deep wound, and probably causing the animal to rear by
the pain it had occasioned.
As soon as this was explained satisfactorily, a somewhat curious scene
was presented, by Leonard Sherbrooke standing in the midst of his
assailants, and shaking hands with two of them as old friends, while the
third was presented to him with all the form and ceremony of a new
introduction. But such things, alas! were not uncommon in those days;
and gentlemen of high birth and education have been known to take to the
King's Highway--not like Prince Hal, for sport, but for a mouthful of
bread.
"Why, Frank," said Sherbrooke, addressing the one who had seized his
horse's rein, "how is this, my good fellow?"
"Why, just like everything else in the world," replied the other in a
gay tone. "I'm at the down end of the great see-saw, Sherbrooke, that's
all. When last you knew me, I was a gay Templer, in not bad practice,
bamboozling the juries, deafening the judges, making love to every woman
I met, ruining the tavern-keepers, and astounding the watch and the
chairman. In short, Sherbrooke, very much like yourself."
"Exactly, Frank," replied Sherbrooke, "my own history within a letter or
so: we were always called the counterparts, you know; but what became of
you after I left you, a year and a half ago, when this Dutch skipper
first came over to usurp his father-in-law's throne?"
"Why, I did not take it quite so hotly as you did," replied the other;
"but I remained for some time after the King was gone, till I heard he
had come back to Ireland; then, of course, I went to join him, fared
with the rest, lost everything, and here I am--after having been a
Templer, and then a captain in the king's guards--doing the honours of
the King's Highway."
"Stupidly enough," replied Lennard Sherbrooke; "for here the first thing
that you do is to attack a man who is just as likely to take as to give,
and ask for a man's money who has but a guinea and a shilling in all the
world."
"I am but raw at the trade, I confess," replied the other, "and we are
none of us much more learned. The truth is, we were only practising upon
you, Sherbrooke, we expect a much better prize to-morrow; but what say
you, if your condition be such, why not come and take a turn upon the
road with us? It is the most honourable trade going now-a-days. Treason
and treachery, indeed, carry off the honours at court; but there are so
many traitors of one gang or another, that betraying one's friend is
become a vulgar calling. Take a turn with us on the road, man! take a
turn with us on the road!"
"Upon my soul," replied Sherbrooke, "I think the plan not a bad one; I
believe if I had met you alone, Frank, I should have tried to rob you."
"Don't call it rob," replied Frank Bryerly, "call it soliciting from, or
relieving. But it is a bargain, Sherbrooke, isn't it?"
Lennard Sherbrooke paused and thought for a moment, with the scattered
remains of better feelings, like some gallant party of a defeated army
trying still to rally and resist against the overpowering force of
adverse circumstances. He thought, in that short moment, of what other
course he could follow; he turned his eyes to the east and the west, to
the north and the south, for the chance of one gleam of hope, for the
prospect of any opening to escape. It was in vain, his last hope had
been trampled out that night. He had not even money to fly, and seek, on
some other shore, the means of support and existence. He had but
sufficient to support himself and his horse, and the poor boy, for three
or four more days. Imagination pictured that poor boy's bright
countenance, looking up to him for food and help, and finding none, and
grasping Bryerly's hand, he said, in a low voice, "It is a bargain.
Where and how shall I join you?"
"Oh!" replied the other, "we three are up at Mudicot's inn, about four
miles there: you had better turn your horse and go back with us."
"No," replied Sherbrooke, "I have some matters to settle at the little
inn down there: all that I have in the world is there, and that, Heaven
knows, is little enough; I will join you to-morrow."
"Sherbrooke," said Bryerly, drawing him a little on one side and
speaking low, "I am a rich man, you know: I have got ten guineas in my
pocket: you must share them with me."
Pride had already said "No!" but Bryerly insisted, saying, "You can pay
me in a day or two."
Sherbrooke thought of the boy again, and accepted the money; and then
bidding his companions adieu for the time, he left them and returned to
the inn.
The poor boy, wearied out, had once more fallen asleep where he sat, and
Sherbrooke, causing him to be put to bed, remained busily writing till a
late hour at night. He then folded up and sealed carefully that which he
had written, together with a number of little articles which he drew
forth from the portmanteau; he then wrote some long directions on the
back of the packet, and placing the whole once more in the portmanteau,
in a place where it was sure to be seen, if any inquisitive eye examined
the contents of the receptacle, he turned the key and retired to rest.
The whole of the following day he passed in playing with and amusing
little Wilton; and so much childish gaiety was there in his demeanour,
that the man seemed as young as the child. Towards evening, however, he
again ordered his horse to be brought out; and, having paid the landlady
for their accommodation up to that time, he again left the boy in her
charge and put his foot in the stirrup. He had kissed him several times
before he did so; but a sort of yearning of the heart seemed to come
over him, and turning back again to the door of the inn, he once more
pressed him to his heart, ere he departed.