PRINCIPALLY TELLS HOW SIR MATTHEW JUKE WAS CAST AWAY UPON THE HEBRIDES
I awoke long before dawn on that memorable Wednesday which was to set a
term to my pleasant and not altogether idle life in the Combe. Yet
early as I had awakened, my father preceded me, and coming into my
attic chamber where I had always slept in the tower, sat down by my
bedside, fully dressed, while I was still rubbing the sleep out of my
eyes. What passed betwixt us in that still hour I may not recount, but
let it suffice that it left me weeping. There be words spoken
sometimes that have the effect and impress of a passage of time, so
potently do they dissever us from the past, leading us into a sudden
knowledge which by time only is generally acquired, and that painfully.
Such an experience it was mine to gain then, so that my boyish follies
and the ignorant counterfeits which make up a boy's wisdom fell away
the while my father discoursed gravely of this and that, and I
marvelled how I could ever have held such stock of vain opinions.
Alas! for my presumption, and alas! too, that opinions as vain may
beset a man full as closely as a boy; and follies the more indecent
that they be wrought without ignorance.
One thing I find it in my heart to speak of, because it exemplifies my
father's forbearance, though at a cost which he would well have spared.
My uncle's name having been made mention of between us, my thoughts
flew from him to the mother I had never known, and in a luckless hour I
demanded whether my father had not any picture of her, that I might
carry her image clear in my mind. His brow clouded as I begged this
favour, and rising from his seat, he went to the window, where he
seemed about to draw aside the shutters that closed it, but desisted.
I could have bitten my tongue out for my imprudence, but could think of
no words to recover or mitigate it and so sat still, gazing upon his
tall figure all dim in the twilight, and wishing for my life that he
would refuse my request.
But he did not. For with a strong motion he suddenly flung back the
shutters, letting in the grey light, and turned upon me with a smile.
"Why, that is a natural thing to desire, Denis," he said, "and one I
ought to have thought to do without your asking." He put his hand into
the bosom of his doublet as he spoke, so that I certainly knew he had
worn her picture all these years against his heart. He plucked out
presently a little case of green leather clasped with silver, and oval
in shape, and, having first detached it from the silver chain by which
it was secured, he laid it in my hands and straightway left the room.
'Twas a face very pale limned, in which there yet appeared each
minutest feature, hue, and lock of hair even, so ingeniously was all
done. Behind the face was a foil of plain blue to show it off; and so
exact and perfect as the thing was, it lay in my palm no bigger than a
crown piece. I examined it closely. There was a kind of pride in the
eyes which looked at you direct, and the eyebrows descended a little
inwards towards the nose, as one sees them sometimes in a man that
brooks not to be crossed, but seldom in a girl. Her mouth and chin
were small and shapely, yet otherwise of no particular account. I
judged it to be the picture of one that saw swiftly and without fear,
and moreover that the mere sight of things, and a quick apprehension of
them, determined her actions. Somehow so (methought) looked that
scrupulous Saint that doubted his Lord without proof of vision; whereat
calling to mind his tardy and so great repentance, I felt a catch of
hope that my mother repented likewise, and by her repentance was
justified.
My father entering then, I gave up the locket, which he took from me
quietly, saying it was by an Exeter youth that had since gone to Court
and painted many notable persons there; one N. Hillyard, whose father
had been High Sheriff of Exeter twenty years since, his mother being a
London woman named Laurence Wall, and that the lady's father had been a
goldsmith; moreover (which was singular) 'twas to one of the same
family (I think a son) that I was directed to present my letters of
exchange. The hour then drawing towards the time I was to meet with my
father's friend, and there being many things to be attended to, I
dressed hastily and was soon ready below, where I found my father
again, and Sprot, in the great hall, with my clothes and other
necessaries, which they bestowed in two or three deerskin wallets that
lay open on the floor. These were to go forward by the carrier, who
undertook to deliver them as far as to Devizes, whence I was to hire
such means of carriage as seemed advisable, whether by sumpter-beasts
or waggon, for the rest of my journey.
A little after, and when I had taken breakfast, we heard a noise of
horses in the forecourt, and knew it for Sir Matthew Juke, of
Roodwater, my companion, and his retinue. My father went at once to
the door and invited him in, but he would not dismount, he said,
thinking indeed 'twas already time to set forward. He spoke in a quick
petulant fashion and was (as I since discovered) in a considerable
trepidation upon certain rumours of thieves in the wild country betwixt
Taunton and Glastonbury, the which greatly daunted him. He wore a
cuirass over his doublet, and carried his sword loose in the scabbard,
while his men bore their pieces in their hands openly. A wain with his
goods in, that followed, had an especial guard; though they seemed to
be but mere patches spared from the farm, and I was assured, would have
dropped their calivers and fled at the first onslaught.
I was soon horsed, with a dozen hands to help, and a ring of women
beyond, admiring and weeping and bidding me God speed; to whom I
addressed myself, as I have said, with as much gratitude as little
modesty; being strangely excited by the circumstance and noise which
attended our departure. I had a pair of great pistols in the holsters
of my saddle which I could scarce forbear to flourish in either hand,
and the sword at my belt delighted me no less, it being the first I had
yet worn.
"'Tis the one you would have given to the cheat," my father had told me
as he tightened my belt-strap. "But give it to none now, Denis, nor
draw it not, save in defence of yourself (as I pray God you need draw
it seldom), and of such as, but for you, be defenceless."
At our parting, I bent at a sign, when he kissed me, and I him, and so
set forward with our train. A great shout followed us, and at the
hedge-end stood Simon Powell, his bonnet in his hand, which he waved as
we went by, crying out a deal of Welsh (having forgot the Queen's
English altogether, he told me afterwards), and in so shrill a voice as
set the knight's horse capering and himself in a rage of blasphemy.
We fell in with Mr. Jordan, whom I had almost feared had given over his
enterprise, some mile or so distant, at a smith's in a little village
we passed through, where he was having his armour eased about the
middle, and a basket hilt put upon his sword.
"Who is this fellow?" asked Sir Matthew testily, when I hailed and
accosted him.
"It is my old preceptor, sir," said I, "who is coming with us, if he
have your leave."
"Hast heard of any robbers by the way, Doctor?" inquired the knight at
that, and I saw he was marvellous glad of this increase in his
auxiliaries.
"I hear of nought else," replied the scholar sturdily, while the other
turned very pale. But continuing, the scholar said: "Seeing that in a
treatise I wrote awhile since and caused to be printed, there is a
notable paragraph hath been bodily seized upon by a beggarly student of
Leyden, and impudently exhibited to the world as his own. Heard you
ever such? Robbers quotha? How of my labour, and inquiry into the
nature of the lost digamma----"
"Hold!" cried Sir Matthew. "I see we talk athwart. This lost thing or
person of yours (for I understand no whit of what it may be) is nothing
to the purpose. I spoke of robbers on the highway, villains and
cutpurses."
"Of them I reck little," said Mr. Jordan coolly, "seeing I have no
purse to be cut."
"They are dangerous nevertheless," said the other loftily.
"For which reason you go sufficiently attended," muttered the scholar,
with a cursory eye backward upon the knight's warlike following; and
with that we all fell, although for different causes, into an uniform
silence. At length, being come to the top of a hill up which we had
ascended painfully for near the half of an hour, and especially the
waggons found it hard to overcome, we stood out upon an open and
circular piece of ground, bordered about by noble great beech trees,
but itself clear save for the sweet grass that covered it; and the turf
being dry and the air refreshing after our late labour, we were glad to
dismount there and rest awhile.
Sir Matthew ordered one of his men to fetch cooked meat and two bottles
of wine from the cart, and showed himself very generous in inviting us
to join him at this repast.
"I have always gone provided in these matters," he told us as we sat
together thus, "since I went upon my first voyage to the Baltic, being
but a boy then, although accounted a strong one." (I know not
wherefore; for he must ever have been little, and his back not above
two hands' breadth.) "Howbeit," he continued, "we had the ill luck to
be cast away upon the Hebrides, the weather being very tempestuous and
our ship not seaworthy; so that about the fourth day it broke in pieces
utterly. I held to a piece of the keel," he said, looking anxiously
from one to the other as his memory or invention helped him to these
particulars, "upon which, too, clung our purser, whom I did my best to
comfort in this our common and marvellous peril. How we got to shore I
never understood, but we did, although half dead, and the purser
raving."
"Since which time," said Mr. Jordan, pausing in the conveyance to his
mouth of a great piece of a fowl's wing, "you have, as you say, gone
provided against the repetition of such accidents, even upon the dry
land."
"And wisely, sir, as I think," added Sir Matthew.
"Was there then no food to be had in Scotland?" asked Mr. Jordan simply.
"Not where we landed, in the Hebrides," replied the knight tartly. "As
to the rest of that country I know nothing, save that 'tis a poor
starved foggy place, and the people savage, half naked and inclining to
Presbytery, which is a form of religion I abhor, and to any that
professeth the same I am ready to prove it wholly erroneous and false."
The knight's tale seeming likely to digress into theology, we ended our
dinner hastily without more words; albeit from time to time later, it
was evident that Sir Matthew's thoughts were still upon shipping and
the sea; so that scarce an accident we met with but he found in it
occasion for casting us naked on the Hebrides, or drowning us in the
Baltic.
We had halted, I say, upon a considerable eminence, and the ground
falling away in our front very steeply, the view thence was of an
unparalleled breadth and variety. For stretched at our very feet, as
it seemed, lay a fair and fertile champaign diversified here and there
with woodland and open heath. Beyond the vale rose the wild and
untracked downs all dark and clouded; and to the left hand (as we
stood) the bar of the Quantock Hills. Surely a man must travel far who
would behold a land more pleasant than this sweet vale of Taunton; nay,
were he to do so, as indeed the exiled Israelites found pleasanter
waters in Babylon than they had left in Jewry, yet must he needs (as
they did) weep at the remembrance of it; for there is no beauty
ascendeth to the height of that a man's own country hath--I mean at
least if it be the West Country, as mine is.
We continued our progress, going through two or three hamlets where the
old folk and children stood about the doors to watch us pass, for we
were a notable spectacle, and Sir Matthew Juke a stern figure in the
van; travelling thus without any great fatigue, for we kept at a foot's
pace on account of the waggon, and of Mr. Jordan also, who had no
horse. I frequently besought him to ride my own mare, but he would not
until we were within sight of the great belfry tower of St. Mary's
Church in Taunton, when he consented, being indeed pretty faint by
that, and thanked me handsomely out of AEsop.
In Taunton we dined, and there too I hired a beast for the scholar
because (to speak the truth) I could not bear to be parted any longer
from my holsters with the new pistols in. No adventure befell us
worthy recording, or rather nothing of such magnitude as Sir Matthew's
shipwreck which I have above set down, until we reached Glastonbury,
where we were to lie that night.
On the morrow we departed early, observing still the same order, save
that we rode more closely before the baggage upon a persistent report
in the inn of a horrid robbery with murder on the Frome road: which
town lay in our way to Devizes. Even the Baltic dried up at this, and
we kept a pretty close look-out as we crossed the flat marsh lands
thereabout; and once Juke shot off his piece suddenly upon some alarm,
but with so trembling and ill an aim that Mr. Jordan's high crowned hat
(that he still wore) was riddled through the brim, and a verse of
Ovid's which was in his mouth, cut off smartly at the caesura. Matter
of ridicule though this were, I had been alert to note some other
circumstance of more gravity (as I conceived) though I spoke not of it
then; the cause of my anxiety being indeed too near for open conference
thereupon. For I had, by accident, observed certain becks and glances
to pass between two of the fellows of our guard; the one of whom, a
pikeman (by name Warren), trudged beside the cart wherein were laid up
the knight's goods, and his fellow in the plot (to call it as I feared
it) was the elder of the two horsemen that wore the knight's livery and
were particularly engaged in his defence. After two or three such
furtive signals run up, as it were, and answered betwixt these twain, I
could be in no further doubt of their purpose, but studied what to do,
should they fall upon us suddenly. That their main design was to seize
upon the contents of the waggon that was by all supposed valuable, I
made sure; but what I could not yet guess was the degree of complicity
or indifference in which the rest of our company stood towards the
projected assault. I conceived them to be chiefly cowards, however,
and resolved therefore, if I might, to enlist their aid upon the first
advantage: for cowards ever succeed to the party that rises dominant,
and protest their loyalty loudest when 'tis most to be questioned.
Because I was a boy, I suppose, but at all events very impudently, my
conspirators took small pains to hide their deliberations from my eyes,
having first assured themselves that neither Juke nor the scholar had
any cognizance of their doings. And this disdain of me it was that
brought matters to a head; for I could no longer brook it, but,
wheeling my horse about, I faced them both, and drawing a pistol from
my holster shouted: "Halt, sirs! here be traitors amongst us."
I never saw men so immediately fall into confusion as did all of them,
but chiefly the rearward, that, every man of them, fled hither and
thither with little squealing pitiful cries; some running beneath the
waggon or behind it; others leaping off the causeway amidst the fenny
ooze and peat-bogs that it wends through in these parts, where they
were fain to shelter themselves in the grasses and filthy holes that
everywhere there abound. I caught a sight of Sir Matthew, on the
instant, exceedingly white, and his sword half drawn; but he then
losing a stirrup (as he told me afterwards he did) was borne from the
conflict unwillingly a great way down the road ere he could recover
himself. Only the younger serving man, whose name was Jenning, and Mr.
Jordan, retained their courages, and both came at once to my
assistance, which in truth was not too soon. For the footman (that is
the villain with the pike) ran in under my guard and dealt me a keen
thrust into the thigh which sore troubled although it did not unhorse
me. I returned upon him with my pistol, discharging it close to his
body, and hurt him in the shoulder, as I knew, because he dropped his
pike and clapped his hand there, grinning at me the while like a dog.
Just then I heard the click of a snaphance, and perceived that the
caliver that Jenning carried had hung fire; and following upon this, a
great laughter from the elder man, whose name was Day, a hard-favoured
fellow, having a wicked pursed mouth and little dull green eyes.
"Shouldst 'a looked to thy priming, Master Jenning," he called out
mockingly; by which I saw that he had tampered with the poor man's
piece while we lay at the inn in Glastonbury; and this much said, he
raised his own piece and fired directly at him, who fell at once all
huddled upon his horse's neck, stark dead. Before I could draw forth
my second pistol, Mr. Jordan had rid forward very boldly, though armed
but with his antique broadsword, and laid about him with good swinging
blows, the one of which happening upon his opponent's mare, it cut into
her cheek with a great gash, at the same time bursting the rein and
headstall, to the end she was quite unmanageable, and despite of Day's
furious restraint (who, to do him credit, would have continued the
contest, two to one), charged away at a great pace, carrying him with
her along the road until they were fairly out of sight.
When I had satisfied myself that the villain would certainly not
return, I drew my sword and looked about for his companion, the
pikeman, whom I had wounded; but whether he had crept into the
concealment of the high bog grass, as the most part of the guard had
done, or else had gone backward down the road, I could not get any
certainty; and Sir Matthew who now rode up said he had not gone that
way, else he would assuredly have met and slain him, which, seeing that
the man was disabled, is likely; and so I gave over the search.
It cost us some pains to rally our forces, but in the end we did, Mr.
Jordan persuading them very cogently with his great sword wherever he
found them: he having groped for the digamma in stranger places, he
said, and worn away the better part of his life in the prosecution of
things more hard to come by than this, our bog-shotten escort.
We reverently bestowed the body of poor Jenning upon the stuff in the
waggon, and with heavy hearts (though not without some thrill of
victory in mine) set onward again towards Frome and Devizes, which last
place the knight was now in a fever to attain to before sundown.
"I think I have not been in such jeopardy," he said, "since I suffered
shipwreck off the barren coast of the Hebrides, as I related to you
yesterday."
"The dangers would be about upon an equality," quoth Mr. Jordan.
Nothing occurred to renew our fears nor to cause us to assume a posture
of defence for the remainder of our passage; the only accident any way
memorable being that through some mischance we got into the town of
Devizes at the wrong end of it, and were diligently proceeding quite
contrary to our purposed direction before we discovered our error. I
set this down because I have so done since also (in spite of clear
information received), and have therefore cause to regard Devizes as
something extraordinary in the approaches thereto, although Sir
Matthew, to whom I spoke of it, said that such divergences were common
enough at sea, where a man might set his course for the Baltic and
fetch up off the Hebrides, or indeed the devil knew where.