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The Splendid Spur

A >> Arthur T. Quiller Couch >> The Splendid Spur



Produced by Karl Hagen, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.





[Illustration: "I loved thee so, boy Jack."]

THE SPLENDID SPUR

BEING MEMOIRS OF THE ADVENTURES OF MR. JOHN MARVEL,
A SERVANT OF HIS LATE MAJESTY KING CHARLES I., IN THE YEARS 1642-3:
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF:

Edited in Modern English by

Q
(ARTHUR T. QUILLER COUCH)

1897




TO

EDWARD GWYNNE EARDLEY-WILMOT.

_MY DEAR EDDIE,

Whatever view a story-teller may take of his business, 'tis happy
when he can think, "This book of mine will please such and such a
friend," and may set that friend's name after the title page. For
even if to please (as some are beginning to hold) should be no part
of his aim, at least 'twill always be a reward: and (in unworthier
moods) next to a Writer I would choose to be a Lamplighter, as the
only other that gets so cordial a "God bless him!" in the long
winter evenings.

To win such a welcome at such a time from a new friend or two would
be the happiest fortune for my tale. But to you I could wish it to
speak particularly, seeing that under the coat of_ JACK MARVEL
_beats the heart of your friend_

Q.

_Torquay, August 22d_, 1889.





INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

"Q."

A year or two ago it was observed that three writers were using the
curiously popular signature "Q." This was hardly less confusing than
that one writer should use three signatures (Grant Allen, Arbuthnot
Wilson, and Anon), but as none of the three was willing to try
another letter, they had to leave it to the public (whose decision
in such matters is final) to say who is Q to it. The public said,
Let him wear this proud letter who can win it, and for the present
at least it is in the possession of the author of "The Splendid
Spur" and "The Blue Pavilions." It would seem, too, as if it were
his "to keep," for "Q" is like the competition cups that are only
yours for a season, unless you manage to carry them three times in
succession. Mr. Quiller-Couch has been champion Q since 1890.

The interesting question is not so much, What has he done to be the
only prominent Q of these years, as Is he to be the Q of all time?
If so, he will do better work than he has yet done, though several
of his latest sketches--and one in particular--are of very uncommon
merit. Mr. Quiller-Couch is so unlike Mr. Kipling that one
immediately wants to compare them. They are both young, and they
have both shown such promise that it will be almost sad if neither
can write a book to live--as, of course, neither has done as yet. Mr.
Kipling is the more audacious, which is probably a matter of
training. He was brought up in India, where one's beard grows much
quicker than at Oxford, and where you not only become a man (and a
cynic) in a hurry, but see and hear strange things (and print them)
such as the youth of Oxford miss, or, becoming acquainted with,
would not dare insert in the local magazine of the moment. So Mr.
Kipling's first work betokened a knowledge of the world that is by
no means to be found in "Dead Man's Rock," the first book published
by Mr. Quiller-Couch. On the other hand, it cannot truly be said
that Mr. Kipling's latest work is stronger than his first, while the
other writer's growth is the most remarkable thing about him. It is
precisely the same Mr. Kipling who is now in the magazines that was
writing some years ago in India (and a rare good Mr. Kipling too),
but the Mr. Quiller-Couch of to-day is the Quiller-Couch of "Dead
Man's Rock" grown out of recognition. To compare their styles is
really to compare the men. Mr. Kipling's is the more startling, the
stronger (as yet), and the more mannered. Mark Twain, it appears,
said he reads Mr. Kipling for his style, which is really the same
thing as saying you read him for his books, though the American
seems only to have meant that he eats the beef because he likes the
salt. It is a journalistic style, aiming too constantly at sharp
effects, always succeeding in getting them. Sometimes this is
contrived at the expense of grammar, as when (a common trick with
the author) he ends a story with such a paragraph as "Which is
manifestly unfair." Mr. Quiller-Couch has never sinned in this way,
but his first style was somewhat turgid, even melodramatic, and,
compared with Mr. Kipling's, lacked distinction. From the beginning
Mr. Kipling had the genius for using the right word twice in three
times (Mr. Stevenson only misses it about once in twelve), while Mr.
Quiller-Couch not only used the wrong word, but weighted it with
adjectives. The charge, however, cannot be brought against him
to-day, for having begun by writing like a Mr. Haggard not quite
sure of himself (if one can imagine such a Mr. Haggard), and changing
to an obvious imitation of Mr. Stevenson, he seems now to have made a
style for himself. It is clear and careful, but not as yet strong
winged. Its distinctive feature is that it is curiously musical.

"Dead Man's Rock" is a capital sensational story to be read and at
once forgotten. It was followed by "The Astonishing History of Troy
Town," which was humorous, and proved that the author owed a debt to
Dickens. But it was not sufficiently humorous to be remarkable for
its humor, and it will go hand in hand with "Dead Man's Rock" to
oblivion. Until "The Splendid Spur" appeared Mr. Quiller-Couch had
done little to suggest that an artist had joined the ranks of the
story-tellers. It is not in anyway a great work, but it was among
the best dozen novels of its year, and as the production of a new
writer it was one of the most notable. About the same time was
published another historical romance of the second class (for to
nothing short of Sir Walter shall we give a first-class in this
department), "Micah Clarke," by Mr. Conan Doyle. It was as
inevitable that the two books should be compared as that he who
enjoyed the one should enjoy the other. In one respect "Micah
Clarke" is the better story. It contains one character, a soldier of
fortune, who is more memorable than any single figure in "The
Splendid Spur." This, however, is effected at a cost, for this man
is the book. It contains, indeed, two young fellows, one of them a
John Ridd, but no Diana Vernon would blow a kiss to either. Both
stories are weak in pathos, despite Joan, but there are a score of
humorous situations in "The Splendid Spur" that one could not forget
if he would--which he would not--as, for instance, where hero and
heroine are hidden in barrels in a ship, and hero cries through his
bunghole, "Wilt marry me, sweetheart?" to which heroine replies,
"Must get out of this cask first." Better still is the scene in
which Captain Billy expatiates, with a mop and a bucket, on the
merits of his crew. But the passages are for reading, not for
hearing about. Of the characters, this same Captain Billy is not the
worst, but perhaps the best is Joan, Mr. Quiller-Couch's first
successful picture of a girl. A capital eccentric figure is killed
(some good things are squandered in this book) just when we are
beginning to find him a genuine novelty. Anything that is ready to
leap into danger seems to be thought good enough for the hero of a
fighting romance, so that Jack Marvel will pass (though Delia, as is
right and proper, is worth two of him, despite her coming-on
disposition). The villain is a failure, and the plot poor.
Nevertheless there are some ingenious complications in it. Jack's
escape by means of the hangman's rope, which was to send him out of
the world in a few hours, is a fine rollicking bit of sensation.
Where Mr. Quiller-Couch and Mr. Conan Doyle both fail as compared
with the great master of romance is in the introduction of
historical figures and episodes. Scott would have been a great man
if he had written no novel but "The Abbott" (one of his second best),
and no part of "The Abbott" but the scene in which Mary signs away
her crown. Mr. Quiller-Couch almost entirely avoids such attempts,
and even Mr. Conan Doyle only dips into them timidly. There is, one
has been told, a theory that the romancist has no right to picture
history in this way. But he makes his rights when he does it as
Scott did it.

Since "The Splendid Spur," Mr. Quiller-Couch has published nothing
in book form which can be considered an advance on his best novel,
but there have appeared by him a number of short Cornish sketches,
which are perhaps best considered as experiments. They are
perilously slight, and where they are successful one remembers them
as sweet dreams or like a bar of music. All aim at this effect, so
that many should not be taken at a time, and some (as was to be
expected with such delicate work) miss their mark. It might be said
that in several of these melodies Mr. Quiller-Couch has been writing
the same thing again and again, determined to succeed absolutely, if
not this time then the next, and if not the next time then the time
after. In one case he has succeeded absolutely. "The Small People,"
is a prose "Song of the Shirt." To my mind this is a rare piece of
work, and the biggest thing for its size that has been done in
English fiction for some years.

These sketches have been called experiments. They show (as his books
scarcely show) that Mr. Quiller-Couch can feel. They suggest that he
may be able to do for Cornwall what Mr. Hardy has done for Dorset--
though the methods of the two writers are as unlike as their
counties. But that can only be if in filling his notebook with these
little comedies and tragedies Mr. Quiller-Couch is preparing for
more sustained efforts.

"Our hope and heart is with thee
We will stand and mark."

J. M. BARRIE.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER

I. THE BOWLING-GREEN OF THE "CROWN"

II. THE YOUNG MAN IN THE CLOAK OF AMBER SATIN

III. I FIND MYSELF IN A TAVERN BRAWL; AND BARELY ESCAPE

IV. I TAKE THE ROAD

V. MY ADVENTURE AT THE "THREE CUPS"

VI. THE FLIGHT IN THE PINE WOOD

VII. I FIND A COMRADE

VIII. I LOSE THE KING'S LETTER; AND AM CARRIED TO BRISTOL

IX I BREAK OUT OF PRISON

X. CAPTAIN POTTERY AND CAPTAIN SETTLE

XI. I RIDE DOWN INTO TEMPLE; AND AM WELL TREATED THERE

XII. HOW JOAN SAVED THE ARMY OF THE WEST; AND SAW THE FIGHT ON
BRADDOCK DOWN

XIII. I BUY A LOOKING GLASS AT BODMIN FAIR; AND MEET WITH MR.
HANNIBAL TINGCOMB

XIV. I DO NO GOOD IN THE HOUSE OF GLEYS

XV. I LEAVE JOAN AND RIDE TO THE WARS

XVI. THE BATTLE OF STAMFORD HEATH

XVII. I MEET WITH A HAPPY ADVENTURE BY BURNING OF A GREEN LIGHT

XVIII. JOAN DOES ME HER LAST SERVICE

XIX THE ADVENTURE OF THE HEARSE

XX. THE ADVENTURE OF THE LEDGE; AND HOW I SHOOK HANDS WITH MY
COMRADE



THE SPLENDID SPUR.

CHAPTER I.

THE BOWLING-GREEN OF THE "CROWN."


He that has jilted the Muse, forsaking her gentle pipe to follow
the drum and trumpet, shall fruitlessly besiege her again when the
time comes to sit at home and write down his adventures. 'Tis her
revenge, as I am extremely sensible: and methinks she is the harder
to me, upon reflection how near I came to being her lifelong servant,
as you are to hear.

'Twas on November 29th, Ao. 1642--a clear, frosty day--that the King,
with the Prince of Wales (newly recovered of the measles), the
Princes Rupert and Maurice, and a great company of lords and
gentlemen, horse and foot, came marching back to us from Reading. I
was a scholar of Trinity College in Oxford at that time, and may
begin my history at three o'clock on the same afternoon, when going
(as my custom was) to Mr. Rob. Drury for my fencing lesson, I found
his lodgings empty.

They stood at the corner of Ship Street, as you turn into the Corn
Market--a low wainscoted chamber, ill-lighted but commodious. "He is
off to see the show," thought I as I looked about me; and finding an
easy cushion in the window, sat down to await him. Where presently,
being tired out (for I had been carrying a halberd all day with the
scholars' troop in Magdalen College Grove), and in despite of the
open lattice, I fell sound asleep.

It must have been an hour after that I awoke with a chill (as was
natural), and was stretching out a hand to pull the window close,
but suddenly sat down again and fell to watching instead.

The window look'd down, at the height of ten feet or so, upon a
bowling-green at the back of the "Crown" Tavern (kept by John
Davenant, in the Corn Market), and across it to a rambling wing of
the same inn; the fourth side--that to my left--being but an old
wall, with a broad sycamore growing against it. 'Twas already
twilight; and in the dark'ning house, over the green, was now one
casement brightly lit, the curtains undrawn, and within a company of
noisy drinkers round a table. They were gaming, as was easily told
by their clicking of the dice and frequent oaths: and anon the
bellow of some tipsy chorus would come across. 'Twas one of these
catches, I dare say, that woke me: only just now my eyes were bent,
not toward the singers, but on the still lawn between us.

The sycamore, I have hinted, was a broad tree, and must, in summer,
have borne a goodly load of leaves: but now, in November, these were
strewn thick over the green, and nothing left but stiff, naked
boughs. Beneath it lay a crack'd bowl or two on the rank turf, and
against the trunk a garden bench rested, I suppose for the
convenience of the players. On this a man was now seated.

He was reading in a little book; and this first jogged my curiosity:
for 'twas unnatural a man should read print at this dim hour, or, if
he had a mind to try, should choose a cold bowling-green for his
purpose. Yet he seemed to study his volume very attentively, but
with a sharp look, now and then, toward the lighted window, as if
the revellers disturb'd him. His back was partly turn'd to me; and
what with this and the growing dusk, I could but make a guess at his
face: but a plenty of silver hair fell over his fur collar, and his
shoulders were bent a great deal. I judged him between fifty and
sixty. For the rest, he wore a dark, simple suit, very straitly cut,
with an ample furr'd cloak, and a hat rather tall, after the fashion
of the last reign.

Now, why the man's behavior so engaged me, I don't know: but at the
end of half an hour I was still watching him. By this, 'twas near
dark, bitter cold, and his pretence to read mere fondness: yet he
persevered--though with longer glances at the casement above, where
the din at times was fit to wake the dead.

And now one of the dicers upsets his chair with a curse, and gets on
his feet. Looking up, I saw his features for a moment--a slight,
pretty boy, scarce above eighteen, with fair curls and flush'd
cheeks like a girl's. It made me admire to see him in this ring of
purple, villainous faces. 'Twas evident he was a young gentleman of
quality, as well by his bearing as his handsome cloak of amber satin
barr'd with black. "I think the devil's in these dice!" I heard him
crying, and a pretty hubbub all about him: but presently the drawer
enters with more wine, and he sits down quietly to a fresh game.

As soon as 'twas started, one of the crew, that had been playing but
was now dropp'd out, lounges up from his seat, and coming to the
casement pushes it open for fresh air. He was one that till now had
sat in full view--a tall bully, with a gross pimpled nose; and led
the catches in a bull's voice. The rest of the players paid no heed
to his rising; and very soon his shoulders hid them, as he lean'd
out, drawing in the cold breath.

During the late racket I had forgot for a while my friend under the
sycamore, but now, looking that way, to my astonishment I saw him
risen from his bench and stealing across to the house opposite. I
say "stealing," for he kept all the way to the darker shadow of the
wall, and besides had a curious trailing motion with his left foot
as though the ankle of it had been wrung or badly hurt.

As soon as he was come beneath the window he stopped and called
softly--

"Hist!"

The bully gave a start and look'd down. I could tell by this motion
he did not look to find anyone in the bowling-green at that hour.
Indeed he had been watching the shaft of light thrown past him by
the room behind, and now moved so as to let it fall on the man that
addressed him.

The other stands close under the window, as if to avoid this, and
calls again--

"Hist!" says he, and beckons with a finger.

The man at the window still held his tongue (I suppose because those
in the room would hear him if he spoke), and so for a while the two
men studied one another in silence, as if considering their next
moves.

After a bit, however, the bully lifted a hand, and turning back into
the lighted room, walks up to one of the players, speaks a word or
two and disappears.

I sat up on the window seat, where till now I had been crouching for
fear the shaft of light should betray me, and presently (as I was
expecting) heard the latch of the back perch gently lifted, and
spied the heavy form of the bully coming softly over the grass.

Now, I would not have my readers prejudiced, and so may tell them
this was the first time in my life I had played the eavesdropper.
That I did so now I can never be glad enough, but 'tis true,
nevertheless, my conscience pricked me; and I was even making a
motion to withdraw when that occurred which would have fixed any
man's attention, whether he wish'd it or no.

The bully must have closed the door behind him but carelessly, for
hardly could he take a dozen steps when it opened again with a
scuffle, and the large house dog belonging to the "Crown" flew at
his heels with a vicious snarl and snap of the teeth.

'Twas enough to scare the coolest. But the fellow turn'd as if shot,
and before he could snap again, had gripped him fairly by the throat.
The struggle that follow'd I could barely see, but I heard the
horrible sounds of it--the hard, short breathing of the man, the
hoarse rage working in the dog's throat--and it turned me sick. The
dog--a mastiff--was fighting now to pull loose, and the pair swayed
this way and that in the dusk, panting and murderous.

I was almost shouting aloud--feeling as though 'twere my own throat
thus gripp'd--when the end came. The man had his legs planted well
apart.

I saw his shoulders heave up and bend as he tightened the pressure
of his fingers; then came a moment's dead silence, then a hideous
gurgle, and the mastiff dropped back, his hind legs trailing limp.

The bully held him so for a full minute, peering close to make sure
he was dead, and then without loosening his hold, dragged him across
the grass under my window. By the sycamore he halted, but only to
shift his hands a little; and so, swaying on his hips, sent the
carcase with a heave over the wall. I heard it drop with a thud on
the far side.

During this fierce wrestle--which must have lasted about two
minutes--the clatter and shouting of the company above had gone on
without a break; and all this while the man with the white hair had
rested quietly on one side, watching. But now he steps up to where
the bully stood mopping his face (for all the coolness of the
evening), and, with a finger between the leaves of his book, bows
very politely.

"You handled that dog, sir, choicely well," says he, in a thin voice
that seemed to have a chuckle hidden in it somewhere.

The other ceased mopping to get a good look at him.

"But sure," he went on, "'twas hard on the poor cur, that had never
heard of Captain Lucius Higgs--"

I thought the bully would have had him by the windpipe and pitched
him after the mastiff, so fiercely he turn'd at the sound of this
name. But the old gentleman skipped back quite nimbly and held up a
finger.

"I'm a man of peace. If another title suits you better--"

"Where the devil got you that name?" growled the bully, and had half
a mind to come on again, but the other put in briskly--

"I'm on a plain errand of business. No need, as you hint, to mention
names; and therefore let me present myself as Mr. Z. The residue of
the alphabet is at your service to pick and choose from."

"My name is Luke Settle," said the big man hoarsely (but whether
this was his natural voice or no I could not tell).

"Let us say 'Mr. X.' I prefer it."

The old gentleman, as he said this, popped his head on one side,
laid the forefinger of his right hand across the book, and seem'd to
be considering.

"Why did you throttle that dog a minute ago?" he asked sharply.

"Why, to save my skin," answers the fellow, a bit puzzled.

"Would you have done it for fifty pounds?"

"Aye, or half that."

"And how if it had been a _puppy_, Mr. X?"

Now all this from my hiding I had heard very clearly, for they stood
right under me in the dusk. But as the old gentleman paused to let
his question sink in, and the bully to catch the drift of it before
answering, one of the dicers above struck up to sing a catch----

"With a hey, trolly-lolly! a leg to the Devil,
And answer him civil, and off with your cap:
Sing--Hey, trolly-lolly! Good-morrow, Sir Evil,
We've finished the tap,
And, saving your worship, we care not a rap!"

While this din continued, the stranger held up one forefinger again,
as if beseeching silence, the other remaining still between the
pages of his book.

"Pretty boys!" he said, as the noise died away; "pretty boys! 'Tis
easily seen they have a bird to pluck."

"He's none of my plucking."

"And if he were, why not? Sure you've picked a feather or two before
now in the Low Countries--hey?"

"I'll tell you what," interrupts the big man, "next time you crack
one of your death's-head jokes, over the wall you go after the dog.
What's to prevent it?"

"Why, this," answers the old fellow, cheerfully. "There's money to
be made by doing no such thing. And I don't carry it all about with
me. So, as 'tis late, we'd best talk business at once."

They moved away toward the seat under the sycamore, and now their
words reached me no longer--only the low murmur of their voices or
(to be correct) of the elder man's: for the other only spoke now and
then, to put a question, as it seemed. Presently I heard an oath
rapped out and saw the bully start up. "Hush, man!" cried the other,
and "hark-ye now--"; so he sat down again. Their very forms were
lost within the shadow. I, myself, was cold enough by this time and
had a cramp in one leg--but lay still, nevertheless. And after
awhile they stood up together, and came pacing across the bowling-
green, side by side, the older man trailing his foot painfully to
keep step. You may be sure I strain'd my ears.

"--besides the pay," the stranger was saying, "there's all you can
win of this young fool, Anthony, and all you find on the pair, which
I'll wager--"

They passed out of hearing, but turned soon, and came back again.
The big man was speaking this time.

"I'll be shot if I know what game _you're_ playing in this."

The elder chuckled softly. "I'll be shot if I mean you to," said he.

And this was the last I heard. For now there came a clattering at
the door behind me, and Mr. Robert Drury reeled in, hiccuping a
maudlin ballad about "_Tib and young Colin, one fine day, beneath
the haycock shade-a_," &c., &c., and cursing to find his fire
gone out, and all in darkness. Liquor was ever his master, and to-
day the King's health had been a fair excuse. He did not spy me, but
the roar of his ballad had startled the two men outside, and so,
while he was stumbling over chairs, and groping for a tinder-box, I
slipp'd out in the darkness, and downstairs into the street.




CHAPTER II.

THE YOUNG MAN IN THE CLOAK OF AMBER SATIN,

Guess, any of you, if these events disturbed my rest that night.
'Twas four o'clock before I dropp'd asleep in my bed in Trinity, and
my last thoughts were still busy with the words I had heard. Nor, on
the morrow, did it fair any better with me: so that, at rhetoric
lecture, our president--Dr. Ralph Kettle--took me by the ears before
the whole class. He was the fiercer upon me as being older than the
gross of my fellow-scholars, and (as he thought) the more restless
under discipline. "A tutor'd adolescence," he would say, "is a fair
grace before meat," and had his hourglass enlarged to point the
moral for us. But even a rhetoric lecture must have an end, and so,
tossing my gown to the porter, I set off at last for Magdalen Bridge,
where the new barricado was building, along the Physic Garden, in
front of East Gate.

The day was dull and low'ring, though my wits were too busy to heed
the sky; but scarcely was I past the small gate in the city wall
when a brisk shower of hail and sleet drove me to shelter in the Pig
Market ( or _Proscholium_) before the Divinity School. 'Tis an
ample vaulted passage, as I dare say you know; and here I found a
great company of people already driven by the same cause.

To describe them fully 'twould be necessary to paint the whole state
of our city in those distracted times, which I have neither wit nor
time for. But here, to-day, along with many doctors and scholars,
were walking courtiers, troopers, mountebanks, cut-purses,
astrologers, rogues and gamesters; together with many of the first
ladies and gentlemen of England, as the Prince Maurice, the lords
Andover, Digby and Colepepper, my lady Thynne, Mistress Fanshawe, Mr.
Secretary Nicholas, the famous Dr. Harvey, arm-in-arm with my lord
Falkland (whose boots were splash'd with mud, he having ridden over
from his house at Great Tew), and many such, all mix'd in this
incredible tag-rag. Mistress Fanshawe, as I remember, was playing on
a lute, which she carried always slung about her shoulders: and
close beside her, a fellow impudently puffing his specific against
the _morbus campestris_, which already had begun to invade us.

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