MORE ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS.
CONCLUDING our compact in the quickest fashion, I went back to the
prisoner with the news. I chose to tell him simply that he was a free
man, and at liberty to go. No more; a very exact discretion being
needed to keep the arbitrary rogue apart from his heroic foibles. I was
also careful to announce his freedom in a tone of bald matter-of-fact,
as though the circumstance was the most natural in the world. Yet my
art was by no means equal to the work before it, as at the first word
the provoking fellow turned a sceptic’s eye upon me, and employed his
lips on a long and sustained whistle of amused amazement.
“Zooks, madam!” says he, laughing, “you ought to succeed, you know. You
possess a very considerable invention. But my soul, what a front you’ve
got to bring me tales of this kind!”
“Cease this,” says I, with an imperious gesture, “But go to your
chamber at once and change your attire, whilst I indite letters
commending you to the attention of some of my friends. Off now, ere the
Captain repents his clemency.”
However, his incredulity was not to be overcome in this way, and point
blank he declined to budge. He was good enough to frankly repeat that
he did not believe me. And to my credit be it written, I retained my
temper tolerably well. My natural disposition had, I think, a severer
schooling in my early intercourse with this intractable youth than
in all the rest of its career. Not without benefit, perhaps, but I
marvelled at the time, and do so still that this irksome discipline
should have been so equally supported.
To my stern demands and repeated protests he had only one answer to
return, and that not a whit politer than the one already mentioned.
“However, I’ll see the Captain,” says he, at last.
“Then do so, and be hanged to you!” cries I, my temper failing.
But immediately the hasty speech was uttered, I strove to recall it.
Beyond all he must not hear of my compact with our subtle enemy, the
Captain, for I was certain that should he do so he would not permit it
to take effect. Yet I was unable to stay him in his impetuous course,
and therefore followed on his heels to the library with the best grace
I could summon. At critical moments I could at least forewarn the
Captain with my frowns.
When I appeared the prisoner was already there, and had opened a raking
fire.
“Captain,” he said, with what I took to be a mocking gleam at me, “her
ladyship asserts that you have promised her my freedom. Be good enough
to tell me, is that so?”
“Her ladyship is perfectly correct,” he answered, and the mocking gleam
in his eye I also took to be directed at me.
The prisoner paused at this and turned half round that he might
regard our guilty faces together. I can never say whether it was
that my colour changed ever so slightly, whether the faintest shade
of compunction crossed the Captain’s face, or whether the rebel was
supernaturally endowed with wit, but suddenly his eyes were kindled
with sparkles, and he turned almost savagely on me:
“Madam,” he demanded, “what is the price that you are paying for this
privilege?”
The sharp question pinned me helpless. And I was forced to recognise
that evasion, if still expedient, was no longer possible. There was
that power in him that tore the truth out of me, even as at an earlier
time it had torn it out of Mrs. Emblem.
“I am to marry my dear friend, Captain Grantley,” I told him, coolly.
He turned to that gentleman for a confirmation. It was promptly
conveyed to him by means of a nod and a laugh.
“And you, sir, a subject of your King and a servant of his cause?” says
the prisoner, tauntingly.
The Captain got up, smiling through his teeth.
“If, sir,” says he, “you propose to preach a sermon on morality, I
shall be glad to reach the Bible down.”
“Oh, pray don’t trouble,” said the rebel, suavely. “As your own
conduct, sir, happens to be my text, the Bible, of course, can
contribute little to the occasion. Besides, sir, my opinion of you as a
man can be delivered in about half a dozen words. You are, sir, in my
opinion, a pretty, full-blooded blackguard, and I think, sir, that for
persons of your kidney hanging is a luxury.”
The Captain bent his head a little under these carefully planted blows.
But he remained wonderfully self-possessed and passionless.
“Thank you, puppy,” he replied, making a scarcely noticeable step the
nearer to his foe, “but I think that your opinion, however valuable, is
not at all required. Therefore, puppy, I shall have to teach you that
there are occasions when it were wiser to restrain it.”
And having uttered this in an absurdly calm and listless fashion the
Captain shot his fist out quicker than the eye could follow it, and ere
one might guess what had occurred, a horrid, heavy fall made the room
quake and set the furniture a rattling. Young Anthony was prone upon
the carpet with a faint streak of blood beginning to issue from his
neck.
In an instant was I bending over him, and crying in my anguish:
“Oh, my dear lad, you are not hurt!”
At first he did not speak, being partly dazed with the concussion of
his fall, but before I could repeat the question, behold! he was on his
feet and springing at the Captain with the ardour of a lion. His enemy
was wary though, and prepared in every particular for this onslaught.
Armed with his crutch he received the charge full upon that weapon,
with farther disastrous consequences to the youth, who straightway
met the carpet for the second time. ’Twas then that I did intervene.
I ran between these combatants, and dared them on pain of unutterable
penalties to exchange another blow.
“Confound you, Bab!” exclaimed the bleeding and breathless rebel.
“Confound you for a Spoilsport! Why don’t you let me pound your gentle
husband to a jelly!”
“What, pound my gentle husband?” says I, “a pretty wife I’d be, I’m
thinking.”
For an instant this way of looking at the matter administered a check
to his impetuosity, and by its aid I took occasion to beseech:
“My lad, if you care for your life at all, go while the door is open
to you. Another blow will close it; aye, perhaps another word. Go, I
implore you.”
“No,” says he, doggedly, “for the finest woman in all England I will
not go. Things have gone too far. Would you have me leave you at the
mercy of this nice gentleman? Let me kill him first, and then we will
talk about it.”
He was quite cool now, and in full possession of the arrogant decision
that seemed such an embellishment to his character. Therefore he
stepped to the windows at the far end of the apartment, pulled
aside the curtains, and looked into the night. Immediately the white
moonlight fell upon the deeper pallor of his face.
“See,” says he, turning to his enemy, “there’s light enough outside to
settle our little controversy. Swords or pistols, sir?”
“Boots,” says the Captain, amiably; “I don’t fight with boys; I usually
kick them.”
“Well, sir,” says the lad, “my situation is peculiar. I am your
prisoner, and at liberty on parole, but I ask you as a gentleman
whether it is likely that I shall swallow the insults of a private
person! What is your opinion, madam?”
This was intended for diplomacy. It was plain that he wished me to
induce the Captain to fight, but the risks of that course appeared too
terrible by far for me to seize the opportunity.
“Save your neck first,” was my answer, “then settle your private
quarrels.”
“And you, madam, are you prepared to purchase my liberty with your
own?” says he.
“I believe so,” says I, with an air of high indifference. “You foolish
boy, do you think it matters one farthing to a woman whom she marries,
so long as she is but able to marry someone? Now be a good lad, doff
those petticoats, wipe the blood from your neck where the Captain’s
ring hath scratched you, and start for the south without another word.”
“No,” says he, “for that is the very last course I propose to take.
You shall never sacrifice yourself for me.”
“Sacrifice!” cries I; “La! the complimentary creature. ’Twill be a
pleasure, I can promise you. Why, Captain, dear, we are to have a right
merry time together, are we not?”
“Yes, a right merry time,” says the Captain, grimly.
“Oh, indeed,” says Mr. Anthony. “Ah, well, I am glad to hear you
say so. For I’ll confess that I’ve had my doubts about it. Only I’m
thinking that when his Majesty grows cognisant of this he may seek to
mar the happiness of one of you at least.”
“Depend upon it, sir,” I retorted, stoutly, “that he will not hear of
it.”
I continued to be so insistent on his immediate flight, and at the same
time my determined attitude was so well served by the grim passiveness
of the Captain, that in the end compliance seemed to be the young
rebel’s only and inevitable course. And, to my great relief, this was
the one he ultimately took.
“Well,” he exclaimed at last, “it’s plain that argument cannot avail.”
“Not a little bit, sir,” I cheerily agreed.
“Then,” says he, “I’ll go and change these clothes, while you write
those letters to your friends.”
“You will find your masculine attire,” I said, with a sly twinkle for
the Captain, “up the chimney in your chamber, tied up in a cloth. When
the search was done we took them there from the wardrobe of my lord.”
“I am hoping that the soot has not penetrated ’em,” says he, making the
most comic mouth.
“Amen to that!” says I; “and now be off, sir.”
With that dismissal he left the library for his sleeping chamber,
whilst I, craving the due permission of the Captain, sat down at the
writing table before pen and paper, and set about my part of the
transaction.
The best portion of an hour passed in the scratching of the quill with
intervals of perilous desultory talk. I was in the most hateful frame
of mind. Its alternate flutterings of hope and fear were very irksome.
The lad seemed to be playing fair, and yet I knew that nothing was more
unreasonable to expect, of a character like his, than that he should be
content to leave me in the lurch, when that very night he had had so
clear an indication of my feelings. And yet, I reflected, the shadow of
the scaffold is powerful indeed. Poor wretch, torn betwixt the vigorous
animal’s love of life, and instincts of a higher kind! I weighed the
matter with such a singular mingling of emotions, that I felt I should
detest young Anthony if he left me to my fate, and yet should curse him
for his folly if he refused his proffered freedom. During that hour of
suspense the devil enjoyed himself, I think. Ten times I dismissed the
matter by an energetic usage of the quill, yet ten times did it return
upon me, with now and then a quiet jibe of my smiling enemy’s thrown
in to bear it company.
After dashing off several letters in this savage manner, I looked
up to consult the timepiece. It was five minutes short of three
o’clock of the morning, and I began to grow impatient for the
fugitive’s departure. The dawn would be here all too soon, and with
it many perils. Each instant of delay was begrudged him by my mind’s
inquietude. Soon, however, I heard footsteps in the hall, but the first
feelings of relief that these occasioned were changed immediately
into those of profound dismay. For there was a sound of voices too.
A second later the door was opened, and thereupon the sight that met
my eyes nearly made me swoon. Two persons entered. The first was the
prisoner, in his masculine attire; the second, sparsely clad in a
shirt, breeches, and stockings, hurriedly put on, was of all persons
Corporal Flickers. I can never forget the rage and horror I endured,
while the Corporal, who appeared by no means wholly awake, crammed his
knuckles into his eyes to rub out the remains of his sleep, and protect
them against the lamp glare. At first the two soldiers were too amazed
to say a word; I was too afflicted; and the prisoner alone seemed able
to break the oppressive silence.
“Bab,” says he, “you must forgive me for this, but you would persevere
in your headlong folly, and I had to thwart you somehow. I could never
have allowed you to pay the grievous price you had intended.”
“What do you mean?” I cried. “Do not tell me that you have delivered
yourself voluntarily into the hands of your enemies!”
He hung his head in silence before the indignation of my glance.
“Ingrate,” I cried, “thus to thwart and to betray me.”
“The price was too great,” he said, doggedly, but the fear in his eyes
was unmistakable. Meantime, Corporal Flickers had found his tongue, and
was now engaged in giving the peculiar history of the capture to his
commander.
“It’s God’s truth, sir, that that’s the rebel,” he began, in a tone
that implied that he was trying hard to set all his own doubts at rest
upon that point. Rubbing his eyes with renewed vigour, he repeated:
“Yes, sir, that’s ’im, I’ll take my solemn oath. But it’s passing funny
how I took ’im. I was asleep in my room and a-dreamin’ of my Mary, when
I feels a hand quite sudding like upon my arm. At that I cocks up my
eyes, and sees a light afore me, and a man’s figger a-bending across my
bed. Like blue blazes, sir, I leaps to my feet, for I sees it is the
rebel, and I takes ’im by ’is throat. But he was the most accommodatin’
rebel that you ever saw, for he stood quiet as a mouse, and says that
I had done exactly what he had wakened me to do, for he was tired of
being hunted for his life, and would I bring him straight to you, sir.
I told ’im I would an’ all, and I done it lively, as you can see, sir,
for I only stayed to put my breeches and my shirt on. But atween you
an’ me, sir, though we’re all assembled here, sir, and a-talking as
natural as ninepence as it were, it won’t surprise me much, sir, if I
wakes up in the matter of half an hour and finds that I’m asleep, for
everything seems that outrageous like that the more I think on it the
less I can understand it. For what I asks is this: Is that the rebel
that I see afore me or is it ’is counterfeit presentiment? And anyhow,
sir, since that business o’ the woods I can’t be sure of ’im at all,
sir, for in my opinion he’s a bit of a soopernatural as it were.”
“You are quite right, Corporal,” I interposed. “He’s a supernatural
fool.”
All this time the chieftest actor in this play, the Captain, had not
said a word beyond a little hollow praise of the Corporal’s sagacity
and promptitude. Seen under the lamp his face presented the most
ghastly and piteous appearance. False to his cause, false to himself,
the dupe of his own passion, the slave of his own weakness, I began
to conceive a great compassion for him, and a horror of my own
callousness. As for the rebel, now that his headstrong folly had robbed
him of his last chance of escape, all hope became abandoned. It was as
much as ever I could do to prevent my anger and sorrow mastering my
spirit and giving way to a flood of passionate tears. All our strivings
to end miserably thus! It was only the severest discipline that
could allow me to endure it defiantly. And yet though his own wilful
act was to drag him to an ignominious death, I could but reverence
his character the more deeply for its natural courage. The wretched
fellow’s audacious strength had forged yet another bond about my heart.
Presently the Captain dismissed the Corporal, and thereby held himself
responsible for his prisoner’s safe keeping.
“I can also bid you good-night, madam, or, rather, good-morning,” the
Captain says. “The day has been most arduous for you, and I am sure you
need some recuperation.”
“You are very kind,” says I.
Knowing that all was hopeless now, and that neither prayers nor tears
could prevail against the prisoner’s scruples, I decided to retire.
“You will not be gone for some hours yet,” I said as I opened the door.
“One of us may,” the Captain said.
Had I been in a brighter frame of mind I should have perhaps heeded
this mysterious speech more closely, and found in it a prophecy of
that which followed. But I went dismally to bed without thinking of
its import. Despite the extremity of the hour, I found Emblem the
picture of woe, sitting beside the fire in my chamber. Her customary
smiling prettiness was faded with weeping; she hung her head, and rose
on my entrance with a peculiar frightened air. Clasping her hands, she
whispered:
“They’ve ta’en him, my lady.”
“And a very right thing, too,” says I.
“But will they not carry him to London to be hanged?” she asked,
seeking for hope where hope was not.
“I am trusting so,” says I, so cheerfully that my tears began to flow.
I soon came to the conclusion that my mood forbade repose, and
therefore, instead of undressing and attempting to obtain a
much-to-be-desired sleep, I dismissed poor Emblem, cast a cloak round
my shoulders, took a chair by the hearth, and settled there for the
remainder of the night, to doze, to think, and to repine.
However, this plan did not answer. It only induced a sickening course
of meditation that was less endurable than the foulest nightmare. No
matter what my posture, my agonies of mind grew unsupportable, and
at last I cast the cloak off wearily, got up, and began to pace the
chamber. It was while I was thus wrestling with my pains that I heard
the far silence of the house disturbed by the closing of doors below.
By the weight of the sounds and the jangling of the chains I presumed
them to be those of the great hall, and as my window commanded the
whole frontage of lawn and gravel sweep, I promptly pulled aside the
curtains. Lanterns were twinkling immediately below, and by their aid
and that of the clear-shining moon I was able to read the identity
of two persons issuing from the house. They were the Captain and his
prisoner, walking side by side across the lawn in a south-westerly
direction. They were heading for the open meadows, and appeared
perfectly amicable and to be talking in low tones; but the briskness
of their pace and their air of strung activity proclaimed that they
had some definite end in view. For the moment I had not the remotest
notion what this end could be, but while I stood at gaze and musing to
discover it, a horrible idea crept into my brain. Surely nothing could
be more unnatural than two sworn enemies working harmoniously together
towards a common end, if that end was peace? But was it peace? In a
convulsion of alarm I recalled the incidents of that hateful night,
and amongst them was the calculated blow which surely the prisoner was
the last man in the world to take with meekness. I then remembered the
Captain’s prophetic “One of us may,” and at once attached to it a most
sinister significance. Having reached this dark conclusion, my first
desire was to defeat their wicked purposes. I cloaked myself at once
for another night excursion, and having done so stole down the stairs
as formerly, opened the great hall door with wondrous care, then peered
ahead to discern the course of the receding lanterns.