by John Buchan
They parted with elaborate courtesies, and looking back, Alastair saw what had five minutes before been an angry mob falling into rank under General Oglethorpe’s eye. He wondered what had become of Ben the Gypsy.
Flambury proved but a short two-hours’ journey. It was a large village with a broad street studded with ancient elm trees, and, as Alastair entered it, that street was thronged like a hiring fair. The noise of human voices, of fiddles and tabrets and of excited dogs, had greeted him half a mile off, like the rumour of a battlefield. Wondering at the cause of the din, he wondered more when he approached the houses and saw the transformation of the place. There were booths below the elm trees, protected from possible rain by awnings of sacking, where ribands and crockery and cheap knives were being vended. Men and women, clothed like mummers, danced under the November sky as if it had been May-day. Games of chance were in progress, fortunes were being spae’d, fairings of gingerbread bought, and, not least, horses sold to the accompaniment of shrill cries from stable boys and the whinnyings of startled colts and fillies. The sight gave Alastair a sense of security, for in such an assemblage a stranger would not be questioned. He asked a woman what the stir signified. “Lawk a mussy, where be you borned,” she said, “not to know ‘tis Flambury Feast-Day?”
The Dog and Gun was easy to find. Already the darkness was falling, and while the street was lit with tarry staves, the interior of the hostelry glowed with a hundred candles. The sign was undecipherable in the half light, but the name in irregular letters was inscribed above the ancient door. Alastair rode into a courtyard filled with chaises and farmers’ carts, and having with some difficulty found an ostler, stood over him while his horse was groomed, fed and watered. Then he turned to the house, remembering Mr Kyd’s recommendation to the landlord. If that recommendation could procure him some privacy in this visit, fortunate would have been his meeting with the laird of Greyhouses.
The landlord, discovered not without difficulty, was a lusty florid fellow, with a loud voice and a beery eye. He summoned the traveller into his own parlour, behind the tap-room, from which all day his bustling wife directed the affairs of the house. The place was a shrine of comfort, with a bright fire reflected in polished brass and in bottles of cordials and essences which shone like jewels. The wife at a long table was mixing bowl after bowl of spiced liquors, her face glowing like a moon, and her nose perpetually wrinkled in the task of sniffing odours to detect the moment when the brew was right. The husband placed a red-cushioned chair for Alastair, and played nervously with the strings of his apron. It occurred to the traveller that the man had greeted him as if he had been expected, and at this he wondered.
The name of Mr Kyd was a talisman that wrought mightily upon the host’s goodwill, but that goodwill was greater than his powers.
“Another time and the whole house would have been at your honour’s service,” he protested. “But to-day—” and he shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, you shall have a bed, though I have to lie myself on bare boards, but a private room is out of my power. We’ve but the three of them, and they’re all as throng as a bee-hive. There’s Tom Briggs in the Blue Room, celebrating the sale of his string of young horses — an ancient engagement, sir; and there’s the Codgers’ Supper in the Gents’ Attic, and in Shrewsbury there’s five pig dealers sleeping on chairs. That’s so, mother?”
“Six in Shrewsbury,” said the lady, “and there’s five waiting on the Attic, as soon as the Codgers have supped.”
“You see, sir, how I’m situated. You’ll have a good bed to yourself, but I fear I must ask you to sup in the bar parlour with the other gentry that’s here to-day. Unless your honour would prefer the kitchen?” he added hopefully.
Alastair, who had a vision of a company of drunken squirelings of an inquisitive turn, announced that he would greatly prefer the kitchen. The decision seemed to please the landlord.
“There’s a good fire and not above half a dozen for company at present. Warm yourself there, sir, and your supper will be ready before your feet are comforted. A dish of pullets and eggs, mutton chops, a prime ham, a good cut of beef, and the best of double Gloucester. What say you to that now? And for liquor a bowl of mother’s spiced October, with a bottle of old port to go with the cheese.”
Alastair was hungry enough to approve of the lot, and tired and cold enough to welcome the chance of a roaring kitchen hearth. In the great shadowy place, the rafters loaded with hams and the walls bright with warming-pans, there was only a handful of topers, since the business out-of-doors was still too engrossing. The landlord was as good as his word, and within half an hour the traveller was sitting down to a most substantial meal at the massive board. The hostess’s spiced October was delicate yet potent, the port thereafter — of which the host had a couple of glasses — a generous vintage. The young man at length drew his chair from the table to the fireside and stretched his legs to the blaze, replete and comfortable in body, and placid, if a little hazy, in mind. . . . Presently the leaping flames of the logs took odd shapes; the drone of voices from the corner became surf on a shore: he saw a fire on a beach and dark hills behind it, and heard the soft Gaelic of his kin. . . . His head nodded on his breast and he was sound asleep.
He woke to find an unpleasant warmth below his nose and to hear a cackle as of a thousand geese in his ears. Something bright and burning was close to his face. He shrank from it and at once sprawled on his back, his head bumping hard on the stone floor.
The shock thoroughly awakened him. As he sprang to his feet he saw a knot of flushed giggling faces. One of the group had been holding a red-hot poker to his face, while another had drawn away the chair from beneath him.
His first impulse was to buffet their heads, for no man is angrier than a sleeper rudely awakened. The kitchen was now crowded, and the company seemed to appreciate the efforts of the practical jokers, for there was a roar of applause and shouts of merriment. The jokers, who from their dress were hobbledehoy yeomen or small squires, were thus encouraged to continue, and, being apparently well on the way to drunkenness, were not disposed to consider risks. Two of them wore swords, but it was clear that the sword was not their weapon.
Alastair in a flaming passion had his hand on his blade, when his arm was touched from behind and a voice spoke. “Control your temper, sir, I beseech you. This business is premeditated. They seek to fasten a quarrel on you. Don’t look round. Smile and laugh with them.”
The voice was familiar though he could not put a name to it. A second glance at the company convinced him that the advice was sound and he forced himself to urbanity. He took his hand from his sword, rubbed his eyes like one newly awakened, and forced a parody of a smile.
“I have been asleep,” he stammered. “Forgive my inattention, gentlemen. You were saying . . . Ha ha! I see! A devilish good joke, sir. I dreamed I was a blacksmith and woke to believe I had fallen in the fire.”
The hobbledehoys were sober enough to be a little nonplussed at this reception of their pleasantry. They stood staring sheepishly, all but one who wore a mask and a nightcap, as if he had just come from a mumming show. To judge by his voice he seemed older than the rest.
“Tell us your dreams,” he said rudely. “From your talk in your sleep they should have been full of treason. Who may you be, sir?”
Alastair, at sight of a drawer’s face round the corner of the tap-room door, called for a bowl of punch.
“Who am I?” he said quietly. “A traveller who has acquired a noble thirst, which he would fain share with other good fellows.”
“Your name, my thirsty friend?”
“Why, they call me Watson — Andrew Watson, and my business is to serve his Grace of Queensberry, that most patriotic nobleman.” He spoke from a sudden fancy, rather than from any purpose; it was not likely that he could be controverted, for Mr Kyd was now posting into Wiltshire.
His questioner looked puzzled, but it was obvious that the name of a duke, and Queensberry at that, had made an impress
ion upon the company. The man spoke aside with a friend, and then left the kitchen. This was so clear a proof that there had been purpose in his baiting that Alastair could have found it in him to laugh at such clumsy conspirators. Somehow word had been sent of his coming, and there had been orders to entangle him; but the word had not been clear and his ill-wishers were still in doubt about his identity. It was his business in no way to enlighten them, but he would have given much to discover the informant.
He had forgotten about the mentor at his elbow. Turning suddenly, he was confronted with the queer figure of the tutor of Chastlecote, who was finishing a modest supper of bread and cheese at the main table. The man’s clothes were shabbier than ever, but his face and figure were more wholesome than at Cornbury. His cheeks had a faint weathering, his neck was less flaccid, and he held himself more squarely. As Alastair turned, he also swung round, his left hand playing a tattoo upon his knee. His eye was charged with confidences.
“We meet again,” he whispered. “Ever since we parted I have had a premonition of this encounter. I have much for your private ear.”
But it was not told, for the leader of the hobbledehoys, the fellow with the mask and nightcap, was again in the kitchen. It looked as if he had been given instructions by someone, for he shouted, as a man does when he is uncertain of himself and would keep up his courage.
“Gentlefolk all, there are vipers among us tonight. This man who calls himself a duke’s agent, and the hedge schoolmaster at his elbow. They are naught but lousy Jacobites and ‘tis our business as good Englishmen to strip and search them.”
The others of his party cried out in assent, and there was a measure of support from the company at large. But before a man could stir the tutor spoke.
“Bad law!” he said. “I and, for all I know, the other gentleman are inoffensive travellers moving on our lawful business. You cannot lay hand on us without a warrant from a justice. But, sirs, I am not one to quibble about legality. This fellow has insulted me grossly and shall here and now be brought to repentance. Put up your hands, you rogue.”
The tutor had suddenly become a fearsome figure. He had risen from his chair, struggled out of his coat, and, blowing like a bull, was advancing across the floor on his adversary, his great doubled fists held up close to his eyes. The other gave ground.
“I do not fight with scum,” he growled. But as the tutor pressed on him, his hand went to his sword.
He was not permitted to draw it. “You will fight with the natural weapon of Englishmen,” his assailant cried, and caught the sword strap and broke it, so that the weapon clattered into a corner and its wearer spun round like a top. The big man seemed to have the strength of a bull. “Put up your hands,” he cried again, “or take a coward’s drubbing.”
The company was now in high excitement, and its sympathies were mainly against the challenged. Seeing this, he made a virtue of necessity, doubled his fists, ducked and got in a blow on the tutor’s brisket. The latter had no skill, but immense reach and strength and the uttermost resolution. He simply beat down the other’s guard, reckless of the blows he received, and presently dealt him such a clout that he measured his length on the floor, whence he rose sick and limping and departed on the arm of a friend. The victor, his cheeks mottled red and grey and his breath whistling like the wind in a chimney, returned amid acclamation to the fireside, where he accepted a glass of Alastair’s punch.
For a moment the haggardness was wiped from the man’s face, and it shone with complacence. His eyes shot jovial but martial glances at the company.
“We have proved our innocence,” he whispered to Alastair. “Had you used sword or pistol you would have been deemed spy and foreigner, but a bout of fisticuffs is the warrant of the true-born Englishman.”
CHAPTER VI. Introduces the Runaway Lady
Alastair stole a glance at his neighbour’s face and found it changed from their first meeting. It had lost its dumb misery and — for the moment — its grey pallor. Now it was flushed, ardent, curiously formidable, and, joined with the heavy broad shoulders, gave an impression of truculent strength.
“I love to bandy such civilities,” said the combatant. “I was taught to use my hands by my uncle Andrew, who used to keep the ring at Smithfields. We praise the arts of peace, but the keenest pleasure of mankind is in battles. You, sir, follow the profession of arms. Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier.”
He helped himself to the remainder of the bowl of punch, which he gulped down noisily. Alastair was in two minds about his new acquaintance. The man’s simplicity and courage and honest friendliness went to his heart, but he was at a loss in which rank of society to place him. Mr Johnson spoke with a queer provincial accent — to him friend was “freend” and a shire a “sheer” — and his manners were those of a yokel, save that they seemed to spring from a natural singularity rather than from a narrow experience, for at moments he had a fine dignity, and his diction was metropolitan if his pronunciation was rustic. The more the young man looked at the weak heavy-lidded eyes and the massive face, the more he fell under their spell. The appearance was like a Moorish palace — outside, a bleak wall which had yet a promise of a treasure-house within.
“What of your errand?” he asked. “When we last parted you were in quest of a runaway lady.”
“My quest has prospered, though I have foundered a good horse over it, and when I have paid for this night’s lodging, shall have only a quarter-guinea to take me back to Chastlecote. Why, sir, since you are kind enough to interest yourself in this affair, you shall be told of it. Miss Grevel is duly and lawfully wed and is now my lady Norreys. Sir John has gone north on what he considers to be his duty. He is, as you are aware, a partisan of the young Prince. My lady stays behind; indeed she is lodged not a mile from this inn in the house of her mother’s brother, Mr Thicknesse.”
“Then you are easier in mind about the business?”
“I am easier in mind. The marriage was performed as decently as was possible for a thing so hastily contrived. He has behaved to the lady in all respects with courtesy and consideration, and he has shown the strength of his principles by departing at once to the camp of his Prince. I am disposed to think better of his character than I had been encouraged to by rumour. And, sir, there is one thing that admits of no shadow of doubt. The lady is most deeply in love.”
“You have seen her?”
“This very day. She carries her head as if she wore a crown on it, and her eyes are as happy as a child’s. I did not venture to present myself, for if she guessed that I had followed her she would have laid a whip over my back.” He stopped to laugh, with affection in his eyes. “She has done it before, sir, for ‘tis a high-spirited lady. So I bribed a keeper with sixpence to allow me to watch from a covert, as she took her midday walk. She moved like Flora, and she sang as she moved. That is happiness, said I to myself, and whatever the faults of the man who is its cause, ‘twould be sacrilege to mar it. So I slipped off, thanking my Maker that out of seeming ill the dear child had won this blessedness.”
Mr Johnson ceased to drum on the table or waggle his foot, and fell into an abstraction, his body at peace, his eyes fixed on the fire in a pleasant dream. The company in the kitchen had thinned to half a dozen, and out-of-doors the din of the fair seemed to be dying down. Alastair was growing drowsy, and he too fell to staring at the flames and seeing pictures in their depths. Suddenly a hand was laid on his elbow and, turning with a start, he found a lean little man on the form behind him.
“Be ‘ee the Dook’s man?” a cracked voice whispered.
Alastair puzzled, till he remembered that an hour back he had claimed to be Queensberry’s agent. So he nodded.
The little man thrust a packet into his hands.
“This be for ‘ee,” he said, and was departing, when Alastair plucked his arm.
“From whom?” he asked.
“I worn’t to say, but ‘ee knows.” Then he thrust forward a toothless
mouth to the other’s ear. “From Brother Gilly,” he whispered.
“And to whom were you sent?”
“To ‘ee. To the Dook’s man at the Dog and Gun. I wor to ask at the landlord, but ‘e ain’t forthcoming, and one I knows and trusts points me to ‘ee.”
Alastair realised that he was mistaken for Mr Nicholas Kyd, now posting south; and, since the two were on the same business, he felt justified in acting as Mr Kyd’s deputy. He pocketed the package and gave the messenger a shilling. At that moment Mr Johnson came out of his reverie. His brow was clouded.
“At my lord Cornbury’s house there was a tall man with a florid face. He treated me with little politeness and laughed out of season. He had a servant, too, a rough Scot who attended to my horse. I have seen that servant in these parts.”
Alastair woke to a lively interest. Then he remembered that Mr Kyd had told him of a glimpse he had had of the tutor of Chastlecote. Johnson had seen the man Edom before he had started south.
His thoughts turned to the packet. There could be no chance of overtaking Mr Kyd, whose correspondent was so culpably in arrears. The thing might be the common business of the Queensberry estates, in which case it would be forwarded when he found an occasion. But on the other hand it might be business of Menelaus, business of urgent import to which Alastair could attend. . . . He debated the matter with himself for a little, and then broke the seal.
The packet had several inclosures. One was in a cypher to which he had not the key. Another was a long list of names, much contracted, with figures in three columns set against each. The third riveted his eyes, so that he had no ear for the noises of the inn or the occasional remarks of his companion.
It was a statement, signed by the word Tekel and indorsed with the name of Mene — a statement of forces guaranteed from Wales and the Welsh Marches. There could be no doubt about its purport. There was Sir Watkin’s levy and the day and the hour it would be ready to march; that was a test case which proved the document authentic, for Alastair himself had discussed provisionally these very details a week ago at Wynnstay. There were other levies in money and men against the names of Cotton, Herbert, Savage, Wynne, Lloyd, Powell. Some of the figures were queried, some explicit and certified. There was a note about Beaufort, promising an exact account within two days, which would be sent to Oxford. Apparently the correspondent called Gilly, whoever he might be, knew of Kyd’s journey southward, but assumed that he had not yet started. At the end were three lines of gibberish — a cypher obviously.