Shrewsbury: A Romance

by Stanley John Weyman

  CHAPTER VIII

  That saying, though a small thing, and a foolish one, brought my statehome to me; and, moreover, filled me with so grisly a foreboding ofthe gibbet, that henceforth I gave my treacherous mistress no morethought than she deserved--which was little; but I became wholly takenup with my own fate, and especially with the recollection of a man,whom I had once seen, pitched and hanging in chains, at Much HadhamCrossroads. The horrible spectacle he had become, ten days dead, grewon my mind, until I grovelled and sweated in a green terror, and thatnot so much at the prospect of death--though this sent me hot and coldin the same instant--as of the harsh rope about my neck, and thesacking bands, and the dreadful apparatus, and the grinning loathsomething I must become.

  Near swooning at these thoughts, I sank huddled into the chair; andwas presently plucked up by the constable's assistant, who, seeing mystate, came forward, and though he was naturally a coarse fellow,strove to hearten me, saying that there was always hope until the cartmoved, and that many a man cast for death was drinking the King'shealth in the Plantations. With an oath or two and in a loud voice.

  On that a last flicker of pride came to my aid, and trying to meet hiseye I muttered that it was not that; that I was not afraid, and thatat worst I should be burned in the hand.

  "To be sure!" he said nodding, and looking at me curiously. "To besure. It is well to be a scholar!"

  I was athirst, however, to get some further and better assurance fromhim; and fixing my eyes on his face, I asked hoarsely, "You think thatit is certain? You think there is no doubt?"

  "Certain sure, my Toby!" he answered. But I saw that, as he movedaway, he winked to his comrade, and I heard the latter ask him softly,as he took his seat again, "Is't so? Will the lad cheat the hangman?"

  "Not he!" was the reply, uttered in a whisper--but terror sharpened myears. "There was so long a list at the last Assizes, and half of them_legit_, that it was given out they would override it this time, andmake examples. And ten to one he will swing, Ben."

  "But is it the law?"

  I did not hear the answer for the drumming in my ears and the dreadfulconfusion in my brain; which were such that I was not aware of theconstable's entrance or of anything that happened after that, until Ifound myself in the road climbing clumsily on the back of a pony, inthe middle of a throng of staring curious faces. My feet being securedunder the beast's belly--at which some gave a hand, while others stoodoff, whispering and looking strangely at me--the constable mountedhimself, and shouting to his wife that he should take me on toHertford gaol, and should not be back until late, led me out of thecrowd, Mr. D---- and Mr. Jenkins bringing up the rear. The last I sawof the school the boys were hanging out of the windows to see me go;and Mrs. D---- was standing in the doorway, and unappeased by mymisery, was shrilly denouncing me--hands and tongue, all going--to agroup of her gossips.

  Our road took us past the Rose Inn, and through a great part of thetown, but no impression of either remains with me, my onlyrecollection being of the sunshine that lay over the country, and ofthe happiness that all creation, all living things, save my doomedself, enjoyed. The bitterness of the thought that yesterday I had beenas these, free to move and live and breathe, caused great tears toroll down my cheeks; but my companions, whose thoughts had alreadygone forward to the Steward's Room at Sir Winston's, and theentertainment they expected there, took little notice of me; and lessafter the porter at the lodge told them that there were grand doingsat the house, and a great company, including a lord, come unexpectedlyfrom London.

  "I don't think ye'll be welcome," the porter added, looking curiouslyat me.

  "Justice's business," the constable replied sturdily. "The King mustbe served."

  "Ay, that is what you all say when you've something to gain by it,"the porter retorted; and went in.

  THE CONSTABLE LED ME OUT OF THE CROWD]

  All which I heard idly; not supposing that it meant to me thedifference between life and death, fortune and misery; or that in thecompany come unexpectedly from London lurked my salvation. If I dwelton the news at all it was only as it might affect me by adding to theshame I felt. But in this I deceived myself; for when the ordeal ofwaiting in the servants' hall--where the maids pitied me and wouldhave fed me if I could have eaten--was over, and we were ushered intothe parlour in which Sir Winston, who had newly risen from dinner,would see us, we found only one gentleman with him.

  The two stood at the farther end of a long narrow room, in the bay ofa large window, that, open to the ground, permitted a view of coolsward and yew hedges. That they had had companions, lately withdrawn,was clear; and this, not only from the length of the table, which,bestrewn with plates and glasses and half-empty flagons, stretched upthe room from us to them, but from two chairs, thrown down in thehurry of rising, and six or seven others thrust back, haphazard,against the panels. In the side of the room were four tall straightwindows that allowed the sunshine to fall in regular bars on thetable; and these, displaying here a little pool of spilled claret, andthere a broken tobacco pipe, the ash still smouldering, gave a touchof grimness to the luxurious disorder.

  The same incongruity was to be observed in the appearance of the elderand stouter of the two men; who had hung his periwig on the back of achair, and showed a bald head and flushed face that agreed very illwith his laced cravat and embroidered coat. Standing with his feetapart and his arm outstretched, he was not immediately aware of ourentrance; but continued to address his companion in words that werecoherent, yet betrayed how he had been employed.

  "Crop-eared knaves, my lord, half of them, and I one!" he cried, as wecame to a halt a little within the door, to await his pleasure--I withshaking knees and sinking heart. "And ready to become the same againif the times call for it. For why? Because it was only so we couldkeep or get, my lord. And martyrs have been few in my time, thoughfools plenty."

  "I should be sorry to deny the last, Sir Winston," his companionanswered, smiling; for whom at the moment, blind bat as I was, I hadno eyes, seeing in him only a noble youth, handsomely dressed andperiwigged, and two, or it might be three years older than myself;whereas I hung on the Justice's nod. "But here is your case," theyoung man continued, turning to me, and speaking in a pleasant voice.

  "And a hard case one of them is," the Justice answered jollily, as heturned to us, and singled out the constable. "That is you, Dyson!" hecontinued, "one of those of whom I have been telling you, my lord. Apsalm-singer in the troubles, sergeant in Lord Grey's regiment, aroundhead, and ran away, with better men than himself, at CropredyBridge. To-day he damns a Whig, and goes to bed drunk everytwenty-ninth of May."

  "Having a good example, your honour!" the constable answered grinning.

  "Ay, to be sure. And why don't you follow it also?" Sir Winstoncontinued, turning to the schoolmaster. "But crop-eared you were andcrop-eared you are; one of Shaftesbury's brisk boys, my lord! Andought to be fined for a ranter every Monday morning, if all had theirdeserts!"

  "Then I am afraid that your theory does not apply to him, SirWinston," the young man said with a smile. "Here is one martyralready; and if one martyr, why not many?"

  "Martyr?" the Justice answered, with half-a-dozen oaths. "He? No oneless! He goes to church as you and I do, and does not smart to thetune of a penny! It is true he pulls a solemn face and abhorsmince-pies and plum-porridge. But why? Because he keeps a school, andthe righteous, or what are left of them, who are just such hypocritesas himself, resort unto his company with boys and guineas! Resort untohis company, eh, D---?" the Justice repeated gleefully, addressing theschoolmaster. "That is the phrase, isn't it? Oh, I have choppedScripture with old Noll in my time. And so it pays, do you see, mylord? When it does not, he'll damn the Whigs and turn Tantivy orAbhorrer, or something that does. And so it is with all; they areloyal. Never were Englishmen more loyal; but to what are they loyal?Themselves, my lord!"

  "Yet there are Whigs who do not keep schools," the young lord said,after a hearty
laugh.

  "Ay, my lord, and why?" Sir Winston answered, in high good humour,"because we are all trimmers to the wind, but some trim too late, andsome too soon. And those are your Whigs. Never you turn Whig, my lord,whatever you do, or you will die in a Dutch garret like TonyShiftsbury! And if anyone could have made Whiggery pay nowadays,clever Anthony would have. Here's his health, but I doubt he is inhell, these eight months."

  And Sir Winston, going to the table, filled and drank off a bumper ofclaret. Then he filled again. "The King--God bless him--is not verywell, I hear," said he, winking at the young lord. "So I will give youanother toast. His Highness's health, and confusion to all who wouldexclude him! And now what is this business, Dyson? Who is the lad?What has he been doing?"

  The constable began to explain; but before he had uttered many words,the baronet, whose last draught had more than a little fuddled him,cut him short. "Oh, come to me to-morrow!" he said. "Or stay! You arein the Commission for the county, my lord?"

  "I am, but I have not acted," the young man answered.

  "Rot it, man, but you shall act now! Burglary, is it? Broke andentered, eh? Then that is a hanging matter, and a young hound shouldbe blooded. I am off! My lord will do it, Dyson. My lord will do it."

  With which the Justice lurched out of the window so quickly, not tosay unsteadily, that he was gone before his companion couldremonstrate. The young lord, thus abandoned, looked at first at anonplus, and seemed for a while more than half-inclined to follow.But changing his mind, and curious, I am willing to believe, to hearthe case of a prisoner so much out of the common as I must haveappeared to him, he turned to us, and adopting a certain stateliness,which came easily to him, young as he was, he told the constable hewould hear him.

  Then it was that, hanging for my life on the nods and words ofintelligence that from time to time fell from him, and whereby helifted the constable out of the slough of verbiage in which hefloundered, I dared again to hope; and noting with eyes sharpened byterror the cast of his serious handsome features, and the curves ofhis mouth, sensitive as a woman's yet wondrously under control, saw aprospect of life. For a time indeed I had nothing more substantial onwhich to build than such signs, so damning seemed the tale thatbranded me as taken in the act and on the scene of my crimes. But whenthe young peer, after eyeing me gravely and pitifully, asked if theyhad found the money on me, and the constable answered, "No," and mylord retorted, "Then where was it?" and got no answer; and again whenhe enquired as to the lock on the door and the height of the window,and who had aided me to enter, and learned that a girl was suspectedand no one else--then I felt the blood beat hotly in my head, and amist come before my eyes.

  "Who is his accomplice? Pooh; there must be one!" he said.

  "The girl, may it pleasure your lordship," the constable answered.

  "The girl? Then why should she leave him to be taken? How did heenter?"

  "By a ladder, it is supposed, my lord."

  "It is supposed?"

  "Yes, my lord."

  "But ladder or no ladder, why did she leave him?"

  The constable scratched his head.

  "Perhaps they were surprised, please your lordship," he ventured atlast.

  "But the boy was found in the room at seven, dolt. And the sun is upbefore four. What was he doing all those hours? Surprised, pooh!"

  "Well, I don't know as to that, your worship," the man answeredsturdily; "but only that the prisoner was found in the room, in whichhe had not ought to be, and the money was gone from the room where ithad ought to be!"

  "And the bureau was broken open," Mr. D---- cried eagerly. "And whatis more, he has never denied it, my lord! Never."

  At that and at sight of the change that came over my judge's face thehope that had risen in me died suddenly; and I saw again the grimprospect of the prison and the gibbet; and to be led from one to theother, dumb, one of a drove, unregarded. And, it coming upon mestrongly that in a moment it would be too late, I found my voice andcried to him, "Oh, my lord, save me!" I cried. "Help me! For the sakeof God, help me!"

  Whether my words moved him or he had not yet given up my case, helooked at me attentively, and with a shade as of recollection on hisface. Then he asked quietly what I was.

  "Usher in a school, my lord," someone answered.

  "Poor devil!" he exclaimed. And then, to the others, "Here, you!Withdraw a little to the passage, if you please. I would speak withhim alone."

  The constable opened his mouth to demur; but the young gentleman wouldnot suffer it; saying with a fine air that there was no resisting,"Pooh, man, I am Lord Shrewsbury. I will be responsible for him." Andwith that he got them out of the room.