X
HOW A FORLORN HOPE CAME TO GRIEF
Although I could not hope to know the outcome of this desperate cast tospeed the warning to the over-mountain settlements--could never live toknow it, as I thought--I screened the candle and stood beside the openwindow, not to see or hear, but rather from the lack of sight or soundto gather some encouragement. For sure, I reasoned, if Margery'smessenger should fail to pass the sentries there would be clamor enoughto tell me of it.
So while the minutes of this safety-silence multiplied and there wasspace for sober after-thought, I fell to casting up the chances ofsuccess. Now that Margery was gone, and with her all the fine enthusiasmthat such devoted souls as hers do always radiate, it was plain enoughthat nothing less than a miracle could bring success. Tarleton's Legionwas made up of veterans schooled well in border warfare, and though thebivouac seemed but a camp of motionless figures fast manacled insleep--I could see them strewn like dead men round the smolderingfires--I made no doubt the sentries were alert and wakeful. How thenwas any messenger of Margery's to pass the lines, or, passing them, tocome at Jennifer, who by this time would be at Jennifer House, aprisoner in all but name?
Chewing such wormwood thoughts as these, I watched and listened whilethe measured minutes, circling slow on leaden wings, pecked at my heartin passing, and despair, cold like a winter fog, had chilled me to thebone. For now it came to me that while I would be saving life, mayhap Ihad been periling it again. There was small doubt that if the messengerwere taken with my letter, his life would pay the forfeit. And if thefear of death should make him tell who sent him and to whom he wassent,--I had been careful so to word the letter as to shield mycorrespondent,--both Margery and Dick would be involved.
'Tis worthy of remark how, building on the simplest supposition, weseldom prophesy aright. For all my fine-spun theories the manner of thething that happened was all unlike the forecast. Suddenly, and insilence, out of the ghostly shadows of the trees and into the wanmoonlight of the open space beneath my window, with neither shout norcrash of sentry-gun to give me warning, came three figures ridingabreast--a man in trooper trappings on either hand, and on the led horsesandwiched in between, a woman.
You may believe my heart went cold at the sight. I knew at once what shehad done--this fearless maid who would be loyal to her friend at anycost. Having no messenger she could trust--she knew it well when she hadpromised me--she had taken the errand upon herself, braving a hazardthat would have daunted many a man.
I thought the worst had surely now befallen, and wished a hundred timesthat I had died before it came to this. But there was worse in store.Her captors passed the word while yet I looked and choked with rage andgrief; and then the bivouac buzzed alive, and men came running, somewith arms and some with torches, these last to flash the light upon herand to jeer and laugh. At length--it seemed an age to me--an officerappeared to flog the rabble into order; then she was taken from herhorse and led into the house.
Anon the windows of the great fore-room flung bands of yellow torchlightout upon the lawn, and I knew that Tarleton's court was set again. Atthat the pains of hell gat hold upon me and I did pray as I had neverprayed before that God would grant me this one boon--to stand beside herin this time of trial; to give me tongue of eloquence to tell them allthat she was innocent; to give me breath to swear she knew not why shewent, or what the message was she carried.
Yours is a skeptic age, my dears, and you have learned to scoff atthings you do not understand. But, so long as I shall live, I mustbelieve that agonizing plea was answered. While yet the anguish of itwrung my soul there came a hasty trampling in the corridor, thesentry's challenge, and then a quick unbarring of the door. I turnedupon my heel to face a young ensign come with two men at his back totake me to the colonel.
They bound me well and strongly with many wrappings of stout cord beforethey led me down. Nor must you think me broken-spirited because I letthem. In any other cause but this I hope I should have fought to dieunmanacled; but now I suffered gladly this little, seeing I had made mydear lady suffer so greatly.
When we were come into the room below they let me stand beside her, as Ihad prayed God they might; and when I stole a glance at her I was fainto think my coming gave her courage and support. For you must know theplace was fair alive with men, and flaring light with torches; and theyhad never offered her a chair.
The colonel stood apart, the center of a group of officers, andFalconnet was with him. Hovering on the edges of the group, as if afraidto show themselves too boldly in such a coil, were Gilbert Stair andthat smooth parchment-visaged knave, his factor. The while they thrustme forth to take my place at Margery's side, the good old priest cameand would have joined us; but they would not suffer him.
So we two stood alone together as we had stood before; but now my lady'seyes were downcast, and her lips and cheeks were pale. Yet she was morebeautiful than I had ever seen her--so beautiful that I would swearthe sum of all the precious gifts in God's great universe might beexpressed for me in this; that I might die to save her from this shameand agony.
When my guards had thrust me forward, the colonel made short work of ourfresh offense.
"'Twas a dastard's trick, my Captain--this tangling of the lady in yourtreason," he began. "How did you get your speech with her?"
"That is none of your affair, Colonel Tarleton," I retorted boldly,thinking that with such a man the shortest word were ever the best. "YetI may say that the lady knew not what she did, nor why. As for mygetting speech with her, she was not any way to blame. I tampered withyour sentry."
"By God, you lie!" was his comment on this. "She might have tamperedwith the guard and so got leave to keep a midnight tryst with you, butnot you." And then to my poor frighted love: "Have you no shame,Mistress Margery Stair?"
Now I have said that she was changeful as any child or April sky, butnever had I seen her pass from mood to mood as she did then. One momentshe stood a woman tremulous and tearful as any woman caught in desperatedeed; the next she became a goddess vilified, and if her look had been adagger I think her flashing eyes had killed him where he stood.
"You've found a way to make me speak, sir, and I wish you joy of it.'Twas I who bribed your sentry, and I did go to Captain Ireton's room."
The colonel laughed and shot a gibe sharp at my enemy.
"How is this, Sir Francis. Did I not tell you you had thrust an inch orso too high? By God, sir, I think you will come over-late, if ever youdo come at all. This captain-emeritus hath forestalled you beautifully."
As more than once before in this eventful night, the air went flamingred before my eyes and helpless wrath came uppermost. I saw no way toclear her, and had there been the plainest way, dumb rage would stillhave held me tongue-tied. So I could only mop and mow and stammer, and,when the words were found, make shift to blunder out that such anaccusation did the lady grievous wrong; that she had come attended andat my beseeching, to take a message from a dying man to one who was hisfriend.
For my pains I had a brutal laugh in payment; a laugh that, startingwith the colonel, went the rounds in jeering grins of incredulity. Andon the heels of it the colonel swore afresh, cursing me for a clumsyliar.
"A likely story, that!" he scoffed. "Next you will say she knew not whatthis message was."
"I said it once. She knew not what the message was, nor why I sent it."
I felt her eyes upon me as I spoke, and turned to find them full oftearful pleading. "Oh, tell the truth!" she whispered. "Don't you see?He has the letter!"
I looked, and sure enough he held it in his hand; and then I understoodthe flash of irony in the sloe-black eyes of him.
"You lie clumsily, Captain Ireton, though it is a gentlemanly lie anddoes you honor. But we have trapped you fairly and you may as well makea clean breast of it. Your mistress knew very well what you would haveher do, and since she is your mistress, went to do it."
While he was speaking I had a thought white-hot from some forge-fire of
inspiration--a thought to tip an arrow of conviction and set itquivering in the mark. I would not stop to measure it; to look aside ather or any other lest one brief glance apart should send the arrowwavering from its course. So I looked the colonel boldly in the eye anddrew the bow and sped the shaft.
"You think no other than a mistress would have done this, ColonelTarleton--that it was done for love? Well, so it was; but with the lovethere went a duty."
"A duty, say you? How is that?"
I bowed as best I might, being so tightly bound; then fixed his eyeagain.
"You had forgot that honor is not wholly dead, sir. This lady is mywife."
The Master of Appleby Page 12