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The Yeoman Adventurer

G >> George W. Gough >> The Yeoman Adventurer




And so into Meece, wondering if the fat host of the "Black Bull" would
recognize in the splendidly mounted horseman the dusty schoolboy of ten
years ago. There he was in the porch, grown intolerably fatter, talking to
my ancient gossip, Rupert Toms, the sexton, now heavily laden with years
and infirmities. I pricked on, having no time to spare for either prayer
or provender, since every moment was precious, though a tankard of double
October, mulled with spice and laced with brandy, would have been precious
too, for the matter of that.

At the tail of the village, where the curve of the road runs into the
straight again to climb the long hill, I came for a moment into touch with
my affair. A horseman was in sight, rattling down the slope, and I saw
that he was an officer, a keen-featured, middle-aged man, with the set
face of one who rides on urgent business. Yet he checked his horse when
near me, and cried curtly, "What news from Stafford?"

A word with him might be worth while, so I too pulled up and answered
very politely, "It's market-day."

"Damn the market! What news of the troops, sir? Is my Lord Brocton still
there?"

"I believe he is."

"Then damn my Lord Brocton! Did you chance to see him?"

"I had that honour late last night."

"Anything the matter with him?"

"He'd had enough," said I simply.

"That's what comes of shoving sprigs of your bottle-sucking nobility into
the service. Damn his nobility! There's another of them back yonder, as
much use as an old tup."

"If I detain you much longer," said I, with exaggerated sweetness,
"you'll be damning me."

"Nothing likelier. I damn everything and everybody that don't suit me.
That's why I'm captain at fifty instead of colonel at thirty. What of it?"

"Lord Brocton's nine miles off, and I'm not."

"Think I care? Damn you, too, and I'll fight you when we meet again. Like
a lark! Wish I'd time now. Good day, sir!"

He dug the rowels into his horse and was off. An earnest, choleric man
with his heart in his work, for which I liked him, even to his persistent
damning.

I put Sultan to the slope and he kept bravely at it till I eased him off
where the rise was steepest. My late encounter clearly meant that affairs
were ripening fast farther north, and it might also mean danger behind me
sooner than I had looked for. The blood danced in my veins at the prospect
of the adventures that awaited me. Ho, for life and work! Would it be long
before the blue eyes lanced me through and through again, as when I kissed
her hand among the trees by the roadside? I looked at the frosty sun and
judged that it was nigh on twenty-four hours since I had stood in the
porch and watched mother and Kate across the cobbles into the road
--twenty-four hours that had done more for me than the twenty-four years
that had gone before them, for they had given me a man's task, a man's
thoughts, the stirrings of a man's being, the beginning of a man's agony.

We were at the top now with the open country stretching for miles around
us. But the dale beneath, through which the main road ran a mile away to
the east, was thick with trees, and I could get no inkling of how things
were going. I strained my ears to listen, but no warning sound could I
hear. The countryside was still and calm as a frozen sea, and war and its
terrors seemed so impossible that for a. moment I felt as if it was only a
dream-life that I was living and that I must wake soon and hear Joe Braggs
trolling out his morning song in honour of Jane. But Sultan craned round
his shapely head as if to ask me why I was loitering in the cold, bleak
air; so with a cheery slap on his glossy neck, I gave him the reins and
away he went, with me spitting ghostly Broctons on the sergeant's tuck.
Through the skirts of the woodland he carried me, and then up again till
on the top of Clayton Bank I pulled him up a second time for another
survey of the situation.

The little town was now in full view a mile ahead, lying on the slope and
top of some rising ground. Across the meadows to my right, and now plainly
to be seen less than half a mile away, was the main road from Stone. Again
I was disappointed. A long, rude post-wagon, pulled by eight horses and
driven by a man on an active little nag, was groaning its way south; a
solitary horseman was ambling north--and that was all I could see.

What had happened to the Colonel? Were the dragoons in the town or not? I
dug my heels into Sultan's flanks and put him to it at his best, and in a
few minutes was on the outskirts of the town.

The town consists in the main of two streets. The High Street is simply
the town part of the main road from the south and Stone to Congleton and
the north--the line along which the Stuart Prince was marching. It
deserves its name, for it lies along the edge of the slope on which the
town lies. Parallel to it in the dip lies Lower Street, and the road I was
on curls past the end of this street and climbs gently to join the upper
road. I could thus get into the heart of the town through the poorer
quarter of it, and soon the kidney-stones of Lower Street rang under
Sultan's hoofs.

The stir and noise of Stafford was completely absent. The townspeople,
mainly hatters by trade, were plying their craft indoors as if no enemy
were at their gate. In fact, as I learned afterwards, there was no fuss
and much fun and good business when the Highlanders actually came on the
scene. The farther a town was from them the more it funked them, which
was, as everybody knows now, truest of all of London. As I turned up the
lane by St. Giles', the church bells chimed two. Past the church in the
corner between the lane and the High Street was the "Rising Sun." Once
Sultan was safe in its stables I could set about getting news of the
Colonel before Margaret and Master Freake arrived.

It was stiff work up the last thirty yards, and Sultan shook himself
together after it when he drew out on the level High Street. Here were
throngs of people and some signs of trouble toward. In particular I
noticed the town fathers in their black gowns of office, and, most
conspicuous of all, the crimson and fur of his worship. I judged they were
coming from a council meeting in the town hall, which stood in the middle
of the wide High Street. There was much high debate, wagging of fingers
and smiting of fist in palm, but no approach to the tumult and terror of
yesternight. The Mayor stood for a moment confabbing at the door of a
grocery, and then shot into it. I saw him struggling out of his gown as he
disappeared, and thence inferred that the chief burgess was a grocer in
private life.

So much I saw before pulling Sultan round to pass under the archway
leading into the yard of the "Rising Sun." I dismounted and called for an
ostler. No man appearing, I was about to lead Sultan farther down the yard
towards the stables when there was a scurry of feet behind me as if the
whole ostler-tribe of the "Rising Sun" was hastening to my assistance. I
turned round rattily to find myself looking into the barrel of a pistol,
while three or four men pounced on me and pinned me against the wall.

"Damn ye, horse-thief, for the black of a bean I'd blow your brains out,"
said Colonel Waynflete. "Stick tight, lads; and you, good host, fetch
along Master Mayor and the constable, and have me the scoundrel laid by
the heels. If this were only my commandery on the Rhine! I'd strappado you
and then hang you within the next half-hour. My bonny Sultan! How are you,
my precious?"

When a raw youth leaves farming for knight-erranting he must expect sharp
turns and rough tumbles, but surely Fate and Fortune were overdoing it
now. It was the Colonel beyond doubt, and Margaret had limned him to the
life. The hawk-eyes, the hook nose, the leathery skin, the orange-tawny
campaign-wig with the grizzled hair peeping under the rim of it, the tall,
thin, supple figure, all were there. And if I had been in any doubt of it,
Sultan would have settled the matter, for his pleasure at finding his
master was delightful to witness.

In hot blood I did not mind a pistol, and in the coldest blood I could
easily have kicked loose from the men who had got hold of me. But Margaret
kept my limbs idle and my mouth shut. There was no real danger, for that
matter, unless Margaret and Master Freake failed to turn up at the "Rising
Sun," and there was no reason to suppose they would fail. The Colonel gave
me no chance to speak to him privately, and to speak to him publicly might
upset his plans. How he had got here a free man, what strange turn things
had taken in his favour, I could not imagine. Margaret would be here in an
hour and put matters right, so for her sake it would be best and easiest
to say nothing. I simply made up my mind that the varlet on my right,
whose dirty claws and beery breath were sickening me, should have the
direst of drubbings before the day was out.

Mine host bustled off for the Mayor, and, the news having gone around,
the yard was filled with people watching the fun and making a
mocking-stock of me. The Colonel saw Sultan off to be groomed and baited,
and then, without so much as a look at me, went into the inn and sat down
to his interrupted meal. I could see him plainly through the window, and
hugely admired his coolness. The maids clustered around to have a peep at
me. Such as were old and ugly declared off-hand that I was indisputably
ripe for the gallows, but a younger one with saucy eyes and cherry-red
cheeks blew a kiss, and called out to beery breath to deal gentlier with
me. He moved a little in turning to grin at her, and I shot my knee into
his wind and doubled him up on the ground. A stouter lad took his place,
but his breath was sweet and I gained much in comfort by the change.

The situation had the saving grace of humour. For twenty-four hours I had
been on the stretch to save Colonel Waynflete from his enemies. To do it I
had left mother and sister, and home and lands. To do it I had come out
openly on the side of rebellion and treason. The sword had been at my
breast, and the wind of a bullet had stirred the hair of my head. I might
have spared my pains. All this pother of mine was over the man sitting
yonder, heartily enjoying his dinner. All my heroics had ended in my being
arrested as a horse-thief.

I closed my eyes. Picture after picture came before me of Margaret in her
changing moods and her unchanging beauty. Gad! How cheaply I had bought
this gallery of precious memories!

A throng of lads crowding noisily under the archway heralded the approach
of the dignitaries. First came the town beadle, a pompous little fellow
who wore a laced brown greatcoat many sizes too large for him, and carried
a cudgel of office thick as his own arm, and surmounted by a brass crown
the size of a baby's head. His office enabled him to be brave on the
cheap, so by dint of digging his weapon into the ribs of all and sundry,
they being, as he expressed it, too thick on the clod, he cleared a path
for the grocer-mayor, who had gotten himself again into his scarlet gown.
His worship was gawky, flustered, and uncertain, and listened like a
scared rabbit to mine host, a man of much talk, who explained proudly what
was to be done.

"This is 'im, y'r worship," he said. "A dirty 'oss-thief as badly wants
'anging. Copped in the act, y'r worship, of riding into this 'ere yard o'
mine, as big as bull-beef, sitting on the very 'oss 'e'd stolen from his
lordship 'ere."

His lordship was the Colonel, who had leisurely left his meal again to
settle my hash. I can see him now as he stood on the step of the inn-door,
carefully flicking a stray crumb or two from his waistcoat, and taking the
measure of the man he had to bamboozle, with clear, amused, grey eyes.

"The Mayor of the town, I think," he said softly.

"Yes, your honour," said the good man surreptitiously wiping something,
probably sugar, off his hands on the lining of his gown.

"And his beadle, your lordship," added the host, and the under-strapper
inside the greatcoat saluted the Colonel with a flourish of his tipstaff.

"I am Colonel Waynflete," he answered in level measured tones, "riding on
important business of His Majesty's, and my horse was stolen at an inn,
some miles back, beyond Stafford. But for the kindness of my Lord Brocton
in providing me with another, His Gracious Majesty's affairs would have
been badly disarranged. This fellow came riding in on my horse, Sultan, a
few minutes ago and I ordered his arrest. He is now in your worship's
hands. I leave him there with confidence, merely remarking, on the warrant
of many years' observation in such matters, that he will require a stout
rope."

He nodded to his dithering worship, and marched back slowly and calmly to
his dinner.

"This beats cock-fighting," said mine host admiringly. He spread himself,
happy and conspicuous as a tom-tit on a round of beef, and the crowd,
pleasantly anticipating mugs of beer later on, urged the Mayor to be up
and doing.

"What have you to say for yourself?" said his grocer-ship to me, with a
dim and belated idea, perhaps, that I might be interested in the
proceedings.

"The beadle's coat is much too large for him," said I.

"Yes, yes," he replied hurriedly. "Samson Salt was a big man and had only
had the coat three years when he died, and we couldn't afford a new one
for Timothy. Dear me, but this isn't a council meeting, and what's the
beadle's coat got to do with horse-stealing?"

"As much as I have," I replied gravely.

"Yow've 'ad enough, my lad," said the host, "to last y'r the rest of y'r
life. The next 'oss you rides'll be foaled of an acorn. Let Timothy put
him in clink, Master Mayor, and come and have a noggin of the real thing.
Gom, I'm that dry my belly'll be thinking my throat's cut."

"Arrest this man, Timothy Tomkins, and put him in jail till I can take
due order for his trial."

Timothy turned up the sleeves of his coat, and arrested me by placing his
hand on my arm, and flourishing the brass crown in my face.

"Don't hurt me, Timothy," I said. "I'll come like a lamb, and I'll go
slow lest you should tumble over the tail of your coat."

"If you say another word about the blasted coat I'll split your head
open," was his angry reply. It was evidently a sore topic with him and a
familiar one with his frugal townsmen, for some man in the crowd cried
out, "'Tinna big enough for the missis, be it, Timothy?" And while the
peppery little beadle's eyes were searching the japer out, another added,
"More's the pity, for 'er's a bit of a light-skirt." At this there was a
roar of laughter, so I saved the frenzied officer further trouble by
saying, "Come along, Timothy. Let's go to jail."

On the Mayor's orders, mine host despoiled me of the sergeant's tuck, and
Timothy marched me off to the jail, the rabble following, as full of
chatter as a nest of magpies. The jail was a small stone building,
standing, like the town hall, in the middle of the street. Arrived there,
Timothy thrust me into an ill-lit dirty hole below the level of the
street, locked the door behind me, and left me to my reflections.

The only furniture of the den was a rude bench. A nap would do me good,
so, after a good pull at Kate's precious cordial, I curled up on the bench
and in a few minutes was sound asleep. And in my sleep I dreamed that two
blue stars were twinkling at me through a golden cloud.



CHAPTER XII

THE GUEST-ROOM OF THE "RISING SUN"


A wisp of cloud, a long trail of shimmering gold, broke loose, swept with
the touch of softest silk across my cheek, and half awakened me. I was
lazily and sleepily regretting that such caresses only came in dreams,
when I was brought sharply back to full life by a ripple of hearty
laughter.

"Gloat on!" said I complacently.

"I knew you'd slip some time or other. Gloat! Of course I shall gloat."
And she laughed again. I should have borne it easily enough, coming from
her, under any circumstances, but there was one circumstance which made it
a pure joy. The white hands were busy with her unruly yellow hair, and I
was so far gone foolward that I was in some sort hopeful that they were
imprisoning the wisp of golden cloud that had awakened me. I bitterly
regretted that I was not as nimble at waking as Jack. He would be sleeping
like a leg of mutton one second and, at the touch of a feather, as wide
awake as a weasel the next. I took time--it was the Latin rubbish
cumbering my brain, he used to say--or I might have made sure.

Mistress Margaret was perched on the edge of my bench. She seemed in no
hurry to move, and I could not get up till she did, so I lay still,
cradling my head in my hands, and looked contentedly at her. It was now so
gloomy that I had evidently been asleep some time.

"I knew you'd slip," she repeated with great zest. "All men do. And I'm
glad you slipped, for it proved you human. I was getting quite overawed by
the terrible precision with which you did exactly the right thing at
exactly the right time. It made me feel so very small and inferior, and no
woman likes that. It's not nice."

"Or natural," said I.

"I see you're unmistakably awake, sir!" was the tart reply. She rose and
took short turns up and down the cell and went on: "But why slip into
jail, Master Wheatman? Why did you not tell father who you were and what
you had done for me?"

"And so prove at once to the authorities in the town that he was not what
he pretended to be!"

"Ho!" she said, and stopped short.

"Our idea was, I think, to free the Colonel, if we could."

"Yes." She was not gloating now, but wondering.

"Well, madam, I found him free, and the only advantage I can see in your
plan is, that I should have had him as a companion in jail. Whereas now
I've mended my night's sleep with a refreshing nap, and Master Freake has
so lucidly explained things to the Mayor that Timothy of the long coat is
kicking his heels at the top of the stairs, and wondering how much longer
you're going to be. Shall we once more breathe the upper air, as Virgil
would put it? This hole is as bad as a corner in his under-world."

"And I laughed at you for slipping, Master Wheatman! I shall never dare
to look you in the face again."

"Don't you believe it, madam," said I airily, leading the way to the
steps. "I've heard Copper Nob say the same thing scores of times."

"Who's Copper Nob?"

The question came like the crack of a whip, and I was glad the familiar
phrase had slipped out unawares and diverted her.

"Our Kate," I explained.

"Oh indeed, sir! A more beautiful head of hair no woman in this land
possesses, and you glibly call her 'Copper Nob.' Doubtless you have
selected some nice expressive name for me!"

"I shouldn't dare!" I protested hotly.

"Why not? You do it for her, brazenly and wantonly."

"Yes, madam, but she's my sister."

"How does that assure me?"

"A man's sister isn't a woman," said I, and went ahead and pushed open
the door. There, sure enough, was Timothy, looking very uncertain and
rueful. The little man's complaisance had given me the greatest wonder of
my life--Margaret's silent watching over me as I lay asleep, and I gave
him a guinea with much gladness.

"The coat's too big for you, Timothy, and it's no good denying it. I'll
speak to his worship about a new one of the right length."

"Thank yer, sir," he said, grinning oafishly as he pouched the guinea.
"I'd rather have a new coat than a new missus, and, swelp me bob, I want
both."

Margaret joined me, and we at once made our way to the "Rising Sun." Work
for the day was over, and the street was now getting thronged and noisy.
Many curious looks were bent on us, but no one dared to interfere with a
man of my evil reputation, a horse-thief being the last thing in
desperadoes. We had only a few yards to go, but my mistress apprised me in
sweet whisperings that Master Freake's explanation was that Sultan had
been innocently obtained from the real thief, that I was his servant, and,
not knowing of the horse deal, had loyally kept silent lest I should make
mischief--a happy and reasonably truthful rendering of the real facts.

"After his private talk with Master Mayor," she added, "that worthy man's
knees were as hard worked as the hinges of an ale-house door."

"The poor cringeling is but a grocer," said I, as we turned in under the
archway of the "Rising Sun." The host saw us through the kitchen window,
and ran out to usher us in with the assurance of a brass weathercock.

"Sommat like a jail delivery, eh, y'r 'onour? Gom, if I wudna pinch fifty
'osses to be fetched out o' clink by such a bonny lady, begging your
ladyship's pardon."

"She shall fetch you out," said I sourly, "when you're jailed for not
stealing."

"His honour's commands are a law unto his handmaiden," said Margaret
demurely and icily, addressing him, but aiming point-blank at me. Her shot
blew me clean out of the water, and I stood there guggling like a born
idiot. "Curse you, will you never get out of your yokel's ways?" said I to
myself. It was as if I had said to the sergeant, speaking of Jane, "She
shall draw you a mug of beer." I was clean nonplussed, and felt as
uncomfortable as a boiling crawfish, but fortunately rattle-pate came to
my aid and drowned my confusion in a flood of words.

"And all he said, y'r ladyship, was that Timothy's coat was too big for
'im. Gom, it beat cock-fighting, it did. Swelp me bob it did. I never saw
a man so staggered as the Mayor, but he's got over it fine, and gone 'ome,
good man, with a crick in his back and near on a pint of my best brandy in
his belly. When these 'ere wild Highland rappers and renders come, he's
just primed up to make 'em a grand speech at bridge yonder, and if that
dunna frighten 'em off, nuthin' wull, and my cellars will be as ill filled
with beer as Timothy's coat is with brawn. I'm getting the best supper on
the Chester road for yer, y'r honour, and that'll mike you feel as bold as
sixpence among sixpenn'orth o' coppers. But come along, y'r ladyship. The
Colonel's upstairs. Follow me!"

Words ran out of him like ale out of a stunned barrel. He clacked on
incessantly on the way upstairs, and clacked as boldly as ever as he
ushered us into the room, where the Colonel was awaiting us alone.

"'Ere 'e is, y'r lordship," he said gustily. "'Ere's the nobby gentleman
as didna steal yer 'oss. But yow'd best keep yer eye on 'im, on my say so.
He'll pinch sommat o' yow'n yet afore 'e's done."

The Colonel, who was toasting his toes at a roaring fire, rose as I
followed Margaret towards him. He made me a precise and formal bow, which
I imitated farmer fashion. "This is Master Oliver Wheatman of the
Hanyards, father," said Margaret, in so low a tone that the host,
lingering, hand on door-knob, nearly a dozen paces behind us, could not
have heard her.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir," he said, repeating his bow.

"The honour is mine, sir," I replied, repeating mine, and wondering the
while if I ever should learn to bend like a willow instead of a jointed
doll.

"Nay, I protest, sir." This suavely to me; then, stepping sharply towards
the host, he stormed, "Damn ye, man, get on the landlord's side of the
door, or I'll rout it down around your lazy ears. Slids! I've shot an
innkepeer for less in the Rhineland."

"Them 'ere furriners--" began the host, but the Colonel swamped him with
something of which I could make out nothing except that it was a fairly
successful attempt to talk and sneeze at the same time. It finished off
the host, who retired, beaten with his own weapon. The victor, waiting
till the door was closed, tiptoed up to it and listened carefully.

"A rather interesting feature about dad," whispered Margaret with
mischief in her eyes, "is that when he's angry he curses in French, and
when he's mad he execrates in German."

"Neatly rounding off his daughter's accomplishments," said I.

"And how, sir?"

"Who gibes in English and loves in Italian."

She stabbed me with her eyes, and said, "Your services give you no
privileges, sir."

"I know that, madam, but my yokelship does."

I spoke lightly, keeping the bitterness of my heart out of my voice,
though it had surged up into my speech. I may have been mistaken, misled
by the flickering fire-light, but the anger seemed to melt out of her eyes.

The return of the Colonel ended our cut-and-thrust.

"Soldiering," he said, "is nine-tenths caution and one-tenth devilment.
Yon glavering idiot has long ears to match his long tongue. And now, sir,
let me greet you as I should."

He seized my hand, shook it warmly, and continued, "A father's thanks,
Master Wheatman, for your kindness to my Margaret. Anon she shall tell me
the whole story, but I know already that you are a gallant gentleman whom
I shall have the honour of turning into a fine soldier, and neither angel,
man, nor devil could make you fairer requital."

Praise and promise were far beyond any desert or hope of mine, but I said
boldly, "I am no gentleman, but just a plain, few-acred yeoman, who has
tried to serve your daughter--"

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