_AN ANCIENT INN._
A month had passed away since the scaffold had lost its victims at
Exeter, and although the agents of government had made every enquiry,
searched every suspicious nook, and each house supposed to belong to
malcontents, no trace of those who had been snatched from the hungry
jaws of tyranny when about to crush them, had rewarded the zealous and
obsequious spies.
Neither did the common people care to disguise their satisfaction,
although it must be owned there were those whom we have already called
“cannibals,” who grieved that so goodly a show had been spoilt at
the very crisis. The frequent executions, and sanguinary spectacles
which this paternal government had provided, like the shows of
the amphitheatre at an earlier age, had created a craving for the
excitement of witnessing bloodshed amongst certain morbid spirits, to
the destruction of all better feelings and human sympathies.
A month, and our scene is changed.
Upon the hilly ground which separates the counties of Devon and
Somerset, not many miles from Honiton, stood a lonely inn called
the “Robin Hood;” the traveller will search in vain for it now, but
there it stood in the days of which we write, on the main road, near
the summit of a long ascent. Many plantations of fir and pine were
thereabouts, and yielded that sweet scent, so favourable as we are told
to the health of the consumptive, and in front of the rambling house
the eye roamed down a rich valley, until, over the old tower of Colyton
Church, appeared a glimpse of the blue sea, set in a frame of delicious
purple and green, the green of woodland and the purple of heather.
In these days invalids would go to live in such a place, and tourists
would linger there for days, drinking in its sweet pine-scented
atmosphere, or gazing upon the dreamy scenery: but in _those_ times men
had but a faint appreciation of the beauties of nature, and the inn
knew only such guests as tarried but a day, save when snowed in, or
otherwise weather-bound.
It was a lovely evening during the week after All Saints’ Day--for
there are sometimes lovely days in November, when the last gleams of
autumn seem to shine upon the scene, when the golden foliage looks
richer than the duller tints of summer, and the leaves hail the rough
blasts which are close at hand, dressed in their richest garb of gold
and purple, ere they are blown away to die, like good vain people, who
would fain dress in their best for the closing scene of all.
The sun had gone down over the western ridge, in a flood of fiery
light, and the full moon poured her silvery beams over the scene, when
two riders came slowly up the long ascent, and drew bridle before the
porch.
“Canst give us a room to ourselves, landlord, to-night--both to sup and
sleep?”
“Thee must sit with thy neighbours and sup with them, but mayst have a
bed room all to your two selves.”
“Won’t money do it?”
“There isn’t time for Crooks the mason to build for you, if you laid
the money down for bricks and mortar: you should give us a month’s
notice.”
“Needs must then,” said the elder; “take the horses, my son. Is the
ostler at hand?”
“He will be here in a minute or two, if you are above looking to your
own beasts.”
“We should be poor farmers if we were,” said the elder. “Come, John, my
son, the stable is over this side, I see. What hour is your supper?”
“Curfew,” said the Boniface, “and you will find good company: a priest,
a lawyer, a leech, a youth who looks like a page, and my worthy self,
who have filled that chair for twenty years, to carve for you.”
“Could not be better, the very idea appetizes me; come, John, in with
the horses.”
Soon father and son joined the motley company in the great common room
of the inn, with its huge settles, its capacious hearth, and blazing
fire; the priest sat in a corner of the room conning his book of hours:
the leech (or doctor, as folk now call him,) talked to a rheumatic
countryman who shook with his ailments: the lawyer discussed some
recent statutes with a client who travelled with him to the approaching
assize at Exeter: and the page--
Well, he was a good-looking stalwart fellow, who bore his burden of
twenty years or so jauntily,--good-looking, but not prepossessing; he
had that particularly sharp and bright appearance a hair of reddish
hue often gives, and which was once esteemed an ornament, and sign of
high blood,[50] although silly people like to poke jokes at the wearer
now-a-days. Moreover, there was a sly expression about his face which
provoked mistrust; whether deservedly or not, the reader must judge by
his deeds.
This page, then, when the farmer and son entered the room, started,
then looked again, and an expression of surprise, not unmingled with
satisfaction, crossed his flexible features.
Gradually the talk lost its technical character, and became general;
once or twice it approached politics, but the great danger which then
attended political or religious discussions, wherein one incautious
word, as it had often done in fact, might cost a man his life, made
men very shy of expressing their opinions. The bluff hearty way in
which Englishmen of the Plantagenet period (in which time we include
the houses of York and Lancaster) expressed their honest opinions, was
gradually losing itself in a reserved and distrustful manner, which did
not improve the national character, once so frank and open.
And moreover, the political system, inaugurated by Cromwell, had filled
the country, as we have seen, with spies; so that men were chary of
expressing their opinions before strangers. Still they discussed, with
bated breath, the king’s failing health: the question whether the
Conservative party, under the Duke of Norfolk and Bishop Gardiner, with
its Catholic sympathies, or the Reforming party, with the Archbishop
at its head, would win the royal sympathy and hold the reins of power.
It was not then a question which held a majority in parliament, but
which party pleased the king.
The lawyer here made a diversion.
“Has any one heard aught of the fugitives who escaped rope and
quartering knife at Exeter?”
The red-haired page on hearing this gazed intently, with a very
malicious smile, upon the face of the farmer’s son.
“Why, no,” said the leech, who was travelling from Exeter to Wells;
“and yet they have made diligent search; but who can explore the wilds
of Dartmoor, where they are doubtless hidden?”
“Has no one been hung for that affair?” inquired the merchant. “Hemp is
going down in the market!”
“No one _as yet_,” said the page, with a slight laugh, which sat
unamiably on one so young.
“Well, then,” said the lawyer, “some one will have to be.”
Again the page looked at the young farmer, who returned a broad stare
with the greatest apparent unconcern, and observed, in a broad Devonian
dialect, that “Dartmoor was a cranky place to hide in.”
The page looked puzzled.
Here “mine host” announced supper, and it soon smoked on the board: a
sucking-pig stewed in its own gravy, a saddle of mutton, a chine of
pork, a loin of beef, all well cooked and savoury; bread in plenty, but
no vegetables; salt, but no pepper or mustard; wooden platters, rude
abundance, but no luxury.
“Give me the roast beef of old England,” said our farmer, and stuck to
the joint.
The supper over, for we will not pursue the desultory conversation
which enlivened it, the guests betook themselves to their several
bed-chambers, which lay immediately beneath the high slanting roof, the
long garret being divided into chambers by partitions of board, each
with its dormer window.
Two truckle beds, in one of those chambers, which was central in its
position, accommodated the father and son, who were no sooner alone
than they became once more our old friends Sir Walter Trevannion and
Cuthbert, as the reader has doubtless long since surmised, on their
way to Glastonbury to fulfil the dying wishes of the last Abbot, ere
leaving England for ever, and travelling under assumed characters, for
reasons needless to mention.
“Cuthbert,” said his adopted parent, “we must follow different roads
to-morrow for the sake of greater security; you must travel through
Ilminster and Langport, I must take the southern road through Crewkerne
and Ilchester; those who look out for two travellers, corresponding to
the descriptions already advertized of our persons, will be less likely
to recognize either.”
Cuthbert looked very sad at this.
“_Must_ we _really_ separate, father?” he said; “there is danger, and
I would fain be nigh thee. I am young and vigorous, and might bear the
brunt. Listen, I recognized an old Glastonbury boy, a former Abbey
scholar, who was my especial enemy at school, and far worse than that,
he guided the men who took the sainted Abbot,--’twas that red-haired
page, his name is Nicholas Grabber, I think he knew and suspected me,
although I tried hard to stare him out of countenance.”
“All the more reason, my dear son, that we should separate, one at
least may arrive safely, and each has now the secret. Our lives are as
nothing in comparison with this duty; one day’s riding will suffice, if
we start about day-break, and at midnight we will meet in the Abbot’s
chamber; the moon will be full, and there will be none to disturb us
in the roofless desecrated pile; we can destroy those papers, and then
seek Lyme Regis, and your uncle’s bark--you feel sure we may trust him?”
“Quite sure; at least he loves me for his brother’s sake, my foster
father, Giles Hodge.”
“And we need not tell him any more than is necessary; it will be safer
for him. And now let me ask once more about the secret chamber, to make
quite sure I can master the door.”
“The rose, fourth in order from the door and the third from the ground.”
The good father took out his tablets, and made a note thereof.
“Now, dear Cuthbert, our Compline office, and then to rest. We must be
waking early.”
* * * * *
The sun rose brightly upon the old inn; it was a fresh, invigorating
morning, with a keen frosty air, just such as would invite one to ride,
walk, or run.
Cuthbert came out, his valise strapped on by a belt, and was ready
to mount; his reputed father had already gone, for he had the longer
journey, and Cuthbert was about to depart in turn.
He slipped a rose-noble into the hand of the ostler, whose face
brightened as he received this unexpected donation, which was hardly a
consistent or prudent one on Cuthbert’s part, at least in his assumed
character.
“Thee beest a gentleman, and dang’d if I don’t tell thee all: I knows
thee, I was in Exeter t’other day, when two folks were to have been
strapped and cut up.”
“You will not betray me, then?”
“Not I; ’twor a mortal shame to think of cutting such a likely lad,
like a pig to be stowed away in flitches; but I have a word more to
say, thee hast an enemy here, or at least he _was_ here.”
“Indeed, who was he?”
“Red-haired chap--foxey like. Was you two talking much after you went
to bed? if so, I hope you did not tell each other any secrets.”
“Why? pray tell me.”
“Because in next chamber slept red-haired chap--‘foxey’ I calls
him,--and as I was going by to my bed at the end of the passage, I seed
him through his door, which he had left ajar, with his ear as fast, as
if he were glued to the partition, where I knowed there was a little
hole.”
Cuthbert looked serious as he said, “And were we talking just then?”
“Yes, I heard summut about Ilminster and Langport, and some other
places; you were talking too loudly, and I don’t doubt ‘foxey’ heard it
all, too; beest thee going that way?”
“Yes, I must.”
“Can’t ye take another? He’s gone that ere way before thee, I saw him
start; he had a sword by his side, and may lurk in ambush for thee.”
“No, no,” thought Cuthbert, “it means _worse_ than that; he knows
about our meeting at midnight, and his plan will be to surprise both of
us, and the secret: Sir John may be at Glastonbury, and he would go to
him at once.”
“Good bye, and many thanks,” he said, aloud, “he has more need to fear
_me_ than I _him_. I _must_ catch him, he must never reach Glastonbury
before me, it would be utter hopeless ruin. Good bye, keep our secret
to yourself, and God bless you.”
And setting spurs to his horse, he rode off at a brisk trot.
FOOTNOTES
[50] At another time, persons so favoured were unfortunately looked
upon as special favourites of Satan, and suffered accordingly in the
judicial holocausts for supposed witchcraft and sorcery.