The Yeoman Adventurer

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Nathan Harris, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks, and the Onlind Distributed
Proofreading Team

The Yeoman Adventurer

By George Gough

To

A. D. Steel-Maitland, M.P.

In Gratitude and Admiration

CONTENTS

I. THE GREAT JACK

II. THE SERGEANT OF DRAGOONS

III. MISTRESS MARGARET WAYNFLETE

IV. OUR JOURNEY COMMENCES

V. THE ANCIENT HIGH HOUSE

VI. MY LORD BROCTON

VII. THE RESULTS OF LOSING MY VIRGIL

VIII. THE CONJURER'S CAP

IX. MY CAREER AS A HIGHWAYMAN

X. SULTAN

XI. IN WHICH I SLIP

XII. THE GUEST-ROOM OF THE "RISING SUN"

XIII. PHARAOH'S KINE

XIV. "WAR HAS ITS RISKS"

XV. IN THE MOORLANDS

XVI. BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE

XVII. MY NEW HAT

XVIII. THE DOUBLE SIX

XIX. WHAT CAME OF FOPPERY

XX. THE COUNCIL AT DERBY

XXI. MASTER FREAKE KNOWS AT LAST

XXII. A BROTHER OF THE LAMP

XXIII. DONALD

XXIV. MY LORD BROCTON PILES UP HIS ACCOUNT

XXV. I SETTLE MY ACCOUNT WITH MY LORD BROCTON

XXVI. THE WAY OF A MAID WITH A MAN

EPILOGUE: THE LITTLE JACK

CHAPTER I

THE GREAT JACK

Our Kate, Joe Braggs, and I all had a hand in the beginning, and as great
results grew in the end out of the small events of that December morning,
I will set them down in order.

It began by my refusing point-blank to take Kate to the vicar's to watch
the soldiers march by. I loved the vicar, the grave, sweet, childless old
man who had been a second father to me since the sad day which made my
mother a widow, and but for the soldiers nothing would have been more
agreeable than to spend the afternoon with the old man and his books. But
my heart would surely have broken had I gone. A caged linnet is a sorry
enough sight in a withdrawing-room, but hang the cage on a tree in a
sunlit garden, with free birds twittering and flitting about it, and you
turn dull pain into shattering agony. The vicar's little study, with the
rows of books he had made me know and love with some small measure of his
own learning and passion, was the perch and seed-bowl of my cage, the
things in it, after my sweet mother and saucy Kate, that made life
possible, but still part of the cage, and it would have maddened me to hop
and twitter there in sight of free men with arms in their hands and
careers in front of them. Jack Dobson would march by, the sweetness of
life for Kate--little dreamed she that I knew it--but for me the
bitterness of death. Jack Dobson! I liked Jack, but not clinquant in
crimson and gold, with spurs and sword clanking on the hard, frost-bitten
road. I laughed at the idea; Jack Dobson, whom I had fought time and time
again at school until I could lick him as easily as I could look at him;
Jack Dobson, a jolly enough lad, who fought cheerily even when he knew a
sound thrashing was in store for him, but all his brains were good for was
to stumble through _Arma virumque cano_, and then whisper, "Noll, you
can fire a gun and shoot a man, but how can you sing 'em?" And because his
thin, shadowy, grasping father was a man of much outward substance and
burgess for the ancient borough, Jack was cornet in my Lord Brocton's
newly raised regiment of dragoons, this day marching with other of the
Duke of Cumberland's troops from Lichfield to Stafford. And for me, the
pride of old Bloggs for Latin and of all the lads for fighting, the most
stirring deed of arms available was shooting rabbits. So, consuming
inwardly with thoughts of my hard fate, I refused to go to the vicar's.
Mother should go. For her it would be a real treat, and Kate would be the
better under her quiet, seeing eyes.

"Well then," said Kate, "grump at home over your beastly Virgil." Mother,
who understood as only mothers can, said nothing, and prepared my
favourite dishes for dinner.

The meal over, and the house-place 'tidied,' which seldom meant more than
the harassing of a few stray specks of dust, Kate in her best fripperies
and mother in her churchgoing gown started for the vicar's. I stood in the
porch and watched them across the cobbled yard and along the road till
they dropped out of sight beyond the bridge.

Then Kate's share of these introductory events became manifest. Search
high, search low, there was no sign of my dear, dumpy Virgil, in yellowing
parchment with red edges. I found Kate's cookery-book, and would have
flung it through the window, but my eye caught the quaint inscription on
the fly-leaf, in her big, pot-hooky handwriting:

"KATHERINE WHEATMAN, her book,
God give her grease to larn to cook.

At the Hanyards.
Jul. 1739."

The simple words stung me like angry hornets. Our red-headed Kate was no
scholar, but at any rate her reading was more useful in our little world
than mine; for this was where she learned the artistry of the dainties and
devices Jack Dobson and I were so fond of. And if I did not soon learn to
do something well, even were it only how to farm my five hundred acres to
a profit, Kate's cooking would really require the miraculous aid suggested
in her unintentional and, to me, biting epigram. I put the book down, and
gave over the hunt for my Virgil. It would probably be useless in any
case, since Kate had a cunning all her own, and had surely bestowed it far
beyond any searching of mine. I contented myself with a fair reprisal,
stowing a stray ribbon of hers in my breeches' pocket, and sat down to
smoke. My pipe would not draw, and I smashed it in trying to make it.

The tall oak clock tick-tocked on in the house-place, and Jane sang on at
her churning in the dairy across the yard. I sat gazing at the fire, where
I could see nothing but Jack Dobson in his martial grandeur, and I hated
him for his greatness, and despised myself for my pettiness. All the same
it was unendurable, and it was a relief to see Joe Braggs tiptoeing
carefully across the yard dairywards. The rascal should have been patching
a gap in the hedge of Ten-acres, and here he was, foraging for a jug of
ale. He could wheedle Jane as easily as he could snare a rabbit, but I
would scarify him out of his five senses, the hulk.

The singing stopped, and then the churning, and five minutes later I
crept up to the kitchen door, which was ajar. There was my lord Joe, a jug
of ale in hand, his free arm round Jane's neck. How endurable these two
found life at the Hanyards! I caught a fragment of their gossip.

"Be there such things as rale quanes, Jin?"

"Of course," she replied. "There's pictures of 'em in one of Master
Noll's books. Crowns on their yeds, too."

"There's one on 'em down 'tour house, Jin, but she ain't got no crown.
But bless thee, wench, I'd sooner kiss thee than look at fifty quanes."

Jane yelped as I murdered an incipient kiss by knocking the jug out of
his hand across the kitchen, but in kicking him out of doors I tripped
over a bucket of water, and about half a score fine dace flopped miserably
on the wet floor.

"Dunna carry on a' that'n, Master Noll," said Joe. "I only com' up t'ouse
to bring you them daceys."

"And what the devil do I want with them?" said I angrily.

Joe knew me. He said, "There's a jack as big as a gate-post in that 'ole
between the reeds along th' 'igh bonk."

He saw the cock of my eye, and went on: "I saw 'im this mornin', an'
'eard 'im. 'E made a splosh like a sack o' taters droppin' off the bridge.
So I just copped 'e a few daceys, thinkin' as you'd be sure to go after
'im."

"Put them in some fresh water, Joe, and you, Jane, fill him another jug.
I'll own up to Mistress Kate for smashing the other."

I fetched my rod and tackle, picked up the bucket of dace, and set off
across the fields to the river. The bank nearer the house, and about three
hundred yards from it, stood from two to six feet above the water, being
lowest where a brick bridge carried the road to the village. The opposite
bank was very low, and was fringed in summer with great masses of reeds
and bulrushes, now withered down nearly to nothing, but still showing the
pocket of deep water where the jack had "sploshed like a sack o' taters."
It was opposite the highest part of our bank--the Hanyards was bounded by
the river in this direction--and the bridge was about one hundred yards
down-stream to my left. In a few minutes a fine dace was swimming in the
gap as merrily as the tackle would let him.

For an hour or more I took short turns up and down the bank, just far
enough from the edge to keep my cork in view. If the jack was there, he
made no sign, and at length my sportsman's eagerness began to flag, and my
eye roamed across the meadows to the church spire, under the shadow of
which life as I could never know it was lilting merrily northwards. Here I
was and here I should remain, like a cabbage, till Death pulled me up by
the roots.

Worthy Master Walton says that angling is the contemplative man's
recreation, and, having had in these later years much to con over in my
mind, I know that he is right. But it is no occupation for a fuming man,
and as I marched up and down I forgot all about my cork, till, with a
short laugh that had the tail of a curse in it, I noted that a real gaff
was a silly weapon with which to cut down an imaginary Highlander, and
turned again to my angling.

And at that very moment a thing happened the like of which I had never
seen before, and have not since seen in another ten years of fishing. My
rod was jerked clean off the bank, and careered away down-stream so fast
that I had to run hard to get level with it. Here was work indeed, and at
that joyous moment I would not have changed places with Jack Dobson.
Without ado, I jumped into the river, waded out, recovered the butt of my
rod, and struck.

"As big as a gate-post." Joe was right. As I struck, the jack came to the
surface. The great stretch of yellow belly and the monstrous length of
vicious snout made my heart leap for joy. I would rather land him than
command a regiment. My rod bent to a sickle as I fought him, giving him
line and pulling in, again, again, and again. A dozen times I saw the
black bars on his shimmering back as he came at me, evil in his red-rimmed
eyes and danger in his cruel teeth, but the stout tackle stood it out.
Sweat poured off my forehead though I was up to the waist in ice-cold
water. Inch by inch I fought my way to the bank, and then fought on again
to get close to the bridge, where I could scramble out.

Probably I was half an hour in getting him there, but at last, by giving
him suddenly a dozen yards of loose line to go at, I was able to climb on
to the bank and check him before he got across to the stumps of the reeds.
But here I met with disaster, for in climbing up I jerked the hook of my
gaff out of my collar, where I had put it for safety, and it fell into the
stream.

"Stick to the fish," said some one behind me, "and leave the hook to me."

"Thanks," said I briefly, for I was scant of breath, and continued the
struggle.

A woman knelt on the bank, pulled the gaff in with a riding whip, plunged
down a shapely hand and recovered it. Then she stood behind me, watching
the fight. The jack, big and strong as he was, began to tire, and soon I
had him making short, sharp spurts in the shallow water at our feet.

My new ally stood quietly on the bank, holding the gaff ready for the
right moment. It came: a deft movement, a good pull together, and the
great jack curled and bounced on the bank.

"Over thirty pounds if he's an ounce!" I cried gleefully.

"Well done, fisherman!" she said. "It was a splendid sight. I've watched
you all along. When you jumped into the river, I thought you were going to
drown yourself. You had been walking up and down in a most desperate and
dejected fashion."

The raillery gave me courage to look into her eyes. I wondered if they
were black, but decided that they were not, since her hair was the colour
of wheat when it is ripening for the sickle and the summer sun falls on it
at eve. And I, who am six feet in my socks, had hardly to lower my eyes to
look into hers. Her face was beautiful beyond all imagining of mine. I had
conjured up visions of Dido enthralled of Aeneas, of Cleopatra bending
Antony to her whim. But the conscious art of my day-dreams had wrought no
such marvel as here I saw in very flesh before me. I felt as one who
drinks deep of some rich and rare vintage, and wonders why the gods have
blessed him so. And further, as small things jostle big things in the
mind, I knew that this was the real queen that had dazzled Joe Braggs.

"What do you call it?" she said, looking down at the fish.

"A jack, or pike, madam."

"'The tyrant of the watery plains,' as Mr. Pope calls him. You've heard
of Mr. Pope, the poet?" She spoke as if 'No' was the inevitable answer.

"Strictly speaking, no, madam," said I gravely, "but I have read his
so-called poems." She frowned. "Horace calls the jack," I continued,
"_lupus_, the wolf-fish, as one may say, and a very good name too.
Doubtless madam has heard of Horace."

My quip brought a glint into her eyes and a richer colour to her cheek.
"Yes, heard of him," she said, with a trace of chagrin in her voice. "And
now, O Nimrod of the watery plains, how far is it to the village smithy?"

"Just under a mile, madam."

"And how long does it take to shoe a horse?"

"How many shoes, madam?"

Again the glint in her eyes, and this time I saw some of the blue in
them. "One, sir," she said shortly.

"Ten to fifteen minutes, madam."

"He's a very long time," she said under her breath.

"The smith is probably very busy to-day."

"Busy! Why so?"

"The dragoons may have found him much work," said I, merely my way of
explaining the delay. But the words stabbed her. She laid a hand on my arm
and cried gaspingly, "Dragoons! What do you mean? Quick!"

"The Duke of Cumberland is marching north from Lichfield against the
Stuart, and Lord Brocton's dragoons are in the village."

"Brocton! O God! Brocton! My father is taken! And by Brocton!" She spoke
aloud in her agitation, and I saw that she was cut to the quick. And I
rejoiced, so strange is the human heart, that it was Lord Brocton's name
that came in anguish off her tongue. Oh for one blow at the man whose
father had harried mine into an untimely grave!

In sharp, frosty air sound travels far across the meadows of the
Hanyards. The hills that hem the valley to the west perhaps act as a
sounding board. Anyhow, further inquiry as to her trouble was stopped by
the rattle of distant hoofs. We were standing now less than a dozen paces
from the bridge. A straggling hedge, on a low bank, crossed flush up to
the bridge by a stile, cut the field off from the road. I rushed to the
stile, and cautiously pushed my head through near the ground. Half a mile
of level road stretched to my right towards the village, and along it, and
now less than six hundred yards away, a squad of dragoons was galloping
towards us. The hedge was thin and leafless, and there was not cover
enough for a rabbit. I ran back. "Dragoons," said I.

"After me," she replied carelessly, and I saw that danger for herself
left her cold.

I kicked the great jack motionless, flung him to the foot of the bank
under the hedge, and the rod after him, hurried her up to the stile,
leaped into the water, took her in my arms, and carried her under the
bridge. In less than a minute after I stopped wading, the dragoons
clattered overhead.

Not an hour ago I had been aching for life and adventures, and here I
was, up to the loins in water, with a goddess in my arms. Her right arm
was round my neck, and her cheek so near that I felt her sweet, warm
breath fanning my own. As the sounds died away, I turned and looked at her
face, and I had my reward. Her eyes told me that she thanked and trusted
me.

"Well done, fisherman!" she said for the second time.

"You're heavier than the jack," replied I, hitching her as far from the
water as possible before wading back. A minute later I put her down on the
bank with tumbled, yellow hair and face flaming red. I examined her
critically, and cried triumphantly, "Not a stitch wet!"

CHAPTER II

THE SERGEANT OF DRAGOONS

I threw the jack across my shoulder and we started for the Hanyards.
Madam offered no explanations, and I made no inquiries. It was obvious to
me that the dragoons had gone on to the little hedge ale-house, a good,
long mile away, where the road from the village struck into a roundabout
road to Stafford. Here, in the "Bull and Mouth," Mother Braggs ruled by
day and Master Joe by night, and here beyond a doubt the stranger lady had
tarried while her father had gone on with the horses to the nearest smithy
at Milford.

There was ample time to get to the Hanyards, but still, for safety's
sake, we kept behind hedges as far as possible. She walked ahead, and I
followed behind, water oozing out of my boots and breeches at every step,
and the jack's tail flopping against my legs. Never had I gone home from
fishing with such prizes. What pleased me most was her silence. It matched
the trust in her eyes. Except for brief instructions as to the direction,
no word passed until we gained the Hanyards from the rear, and I led her
into the house-place unobserved by anyone.

"There is little time to talk," I began. "The dragoons are certain to
come here, as this is the only house between the inn and the village. Your
father is, you fear, a prisoner, and indeed it seems the only explanation
of his absence. I do not ask why. I gather that there is no purpose to be
served by your sharing his fate."

"Free, I may be able to help him. A prisoner, I should...." She stopped,
hesitating.

"My Lord Brocton?" said I interrogatively. For the second time her face
burned, and I saw in it shame and distress and fear. My lord was piling up
a second account with me, and for humbling this proud beauty he should one
day pay the price in full.

But it was time to act. I ran to the porch and roared out, "Jane! Jane!
Where are you? Come here quick!"

Jane came running in from the kitchen. She stopped dead with surprise
when she saw my companion, and could not even cackle on about the jack.

"Now, Jane, do exactly what I say. Take this lady upstairs and dress her
as nearly like yourself as you can. It's good you are much of a height.
Pack her own clothes carefully out of sight. Off, quick!"

They disappeared upstairs, and I watched the yard gate with eager eyes.
No dragoons appeared, and in a short time madam and Jane were back in the
house-place. Jane had done her work well. The great lady was now a fine
country serving-wench, her shapeliness obscured in a homespun gown that
fitted only where it touched, her feet in huge, rough boots, her yellow
hair plastered back off her forehead and bunched into one of Jane's
'granny caps,' and indeed totally hidden by the large flap thereof, which
in Jane's case served the purpose of "keepin' the draf out'n 'er
neck-hole" when she was at work in the dairy. For my share of disguising,
I now rubbed together some ruddle and dry soil, and the mixture gave a
necessary touch of coarseness to her hands. Altogether she was changed out
of recognition, even if, which was not the case, any of her pursuers had
seen her previously.

"Jane," said I, "her name is Molly Brown. She has served here two years.
Her mother lives at Colwich. Have you both got that?"

"Molly Brown--two years--mother at Colwich," said madam with a smile, and
Jane repeated it after her.

"Now, Molly," said I, with an answering smile, "Jane will start you
churning. It's an easy job. You just turn a handle till the butter comes.
Do not flatter yourself that you'll get any butter, but I'll forgive you
that. And, having learned from Jane how to pretend to do it, you need not
churn in earnest till the dragoons ride into the yard. Listen to Jane, and
you, Jane, for the next ten minutes, teach the lady how to talk
Staffordshire fashion."

"Rate y'are, Master Noll," said Jane, who was plainly bursting with the
importance of her task.

"First lesson, madam," said I. "'Rate y'are,' not 'Right you are!' It was
not Mr. Pope's manner of speech, but it will suit your circumstances
better. Off to the dairy, and leave the dragoons to me!"

"Rate y'are, Master Noll," said madam, and, our anxieties
notwithstanding, we both joined in Jane's rattle of laughter.

They went off to the dairy, and I began my own preparations. I displayed
the great jack in full view on the table, forestalling Kate's housewifely
objections by disposing him on an old coat of mine, so that he should not
mess the table. In the house-place he looked much finer and longer than in
the open air, and I gloated over him as he lay there. I longed to change
my clothes, not so much for comfort's sake as to cut a better figure in
her eyes; but I dared not run the risk of not being at hand when the
dragoons arrived. I drew a quart jug of ale, threw most of it away, got
down a horn drinking-cup, drank a little, spilled some down my clothes,
slopped some on the table, made up the fire, and sat down to wait. It was
now about half-past three, the straw-coloured sun was perching on the
hill-tops, and darkness would soon be drawing on apace.

For perhaps a quarter of an hour I sat there, living over again the
precious minutes under the bridge, when the clatter of hoofs awakened me
to the realities of the situation. Peeping cautiously past the edge of the
blind, I saw the dragoons--there were six of them--ride up to the gate.
Sharp orders rang out, and three of the men dismounted, including him who
had given the orders, and came up the yard. One stayed at the gate to mind
the horses, and the other two trotted off on the scout round the fields
near the farm.

I slipped back to my chair, and let my chin drop on my chest, as if I
were dozing in drink.

Some one said at the porch door, "In the King's name!" I took no notice,
and they crowded, jingling and noisy, into the porch. Again sharp commands
were given; the two men grounded their arms with a clang on the stone
floor of the porch, and waited there. The man in command stepped forward
into the firelight and said crisply, "In the King's name!"

It was idle to pretend any longer. I raised my head and blinked drunkenly
at him. Then I filled the horn, sang thickly and with beery gusto, "Here's
a health unto His Majesty," and said, "Fill up and drink, whoever you are,
and shut the door. It's damned cold."

He had little, red, ferrety eyes, and they looked fiercely at me
--fiercely but not suspiciously, I thought. He waved my hospitality
aside, and said, "You are Oliver Wheatman?"

"Oliver Wheatman of the Hanyards, Esquire, at His Majesty's service to
command," I replied with great gravity, and filled another horn of ale. I
might pretend to be drunk, but I could not, unfortunately, pretend to
drink, and it was strongish ale. He made a motion to stop me--welcome
proof that he believed me tipsy in fact--and said, "Master Wheatman, the
less drunken you are, the better you will answer my questions."

"Sir," said I, draining off the horn, "I can drink and talk with any man
living, and, drunk or sober, I only answer the questions of my friends. So
get a horn off the dresser--I'm a bit tired--fill up, and tell me what you
want. D'you happen to be of my Lord Brocton's regiment?"

"I am."

"Then you'll be as drunk as me before you've finished with the Hanyards.
Our ale goes to the head most damnably quick, let me tell you. You tell my
dear old butty, the worshipful Master Jack Dobson, that I've caught a jack
half as thick and more than half as long as himself. Here it be. Fetch a
horn, I tell you, and drink to me and the two jacks--Jack Dobson and this
jack beauty here."

He was getting no nearer to the object of his visit, and, perhaps
thinking it would be well to humour me, he fetched a horn and tried our
Hanyards ale. This gave me a chance of taking stock of him.

He was a thin, wiry man of middle height and middle age. Such a face I
had never seen. The first sight of it made me suck in my breath as if I
had touched the edge of a razor. The bridge half of his nose had gone, or
he had never had it, and the lower half was stuck like a dab of putty
midway between mouth and eyebrows. His little, beady eyes were set in
large, shallow sockets, giving him an owl-like appearance. A mouth
originally large enough, and thickly lipped like a negro's, had been
extended, as it seemed, to his left ear by a savage sword slash which had
healed very badly. He had an air of mean, perky intelligence, as of one of
low rank and no breeding who had for many years been accustomed to cringe
to the great and domineer over smaller fry than himself. Some sort of
military rank he had, judging by his stained and frayed but once gaudy
jacket. He carried a tuck of unusual length, stretching along his left
side from heel to armpit, and a couple of pistols were stuck in his belt.

He put down the horn, smacked his lips, and began:

"Master Wheatman, I am searching for a Jacobite spy--a woman. We took her
father up at the 'Barley Mow,' and I learned from a man of yours that the
daughter was at his mother's ale-house down the road. She is not there,
and left to walk to meet her father, she said. She has certainly not done
that, and I have called to see if she is hiding here or hereabouts."

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