by John Buchan
That second sleep wrought a cure. He woke from it with the wheel in his head almost stopped, and only a flicker of pain left above his brows. He was fully conscious now, and could search for his injury. This, apart from an aching shoulder and sundry bruises on his thighs, proved to be a deep cut on the left of his forehead, the blood from which had congealed into a big spongy clot. Cautiously he moved his head, and found that the action did not greatly pain him. He felt his arms and legs and they seemed to be unbroken. . . . Then, bit by bit, the recent past returned to him. He remembered nothing of the fight with Winfortune, but he remembered Winfortune’s fierce eyes, and he assumed that there had been a fight. His head was a witness.
He had got thus far — that Winfortune had struck him down. The next thing was to find out where he was. The purlieus of the Merry Mouth were his last memory from his former consciousness, and he concluded that he was somewhere in its back premises. The smell of the place assailed his nostrils again. It was not a tan-pit — or a lumber-room of old harness — or a charnel-house — though there was rottenness in the air. It was black dark, so sight gave him no aid. . . . Then, as he sat up, his hands touched something soft on the floor, and the impact seemed to send up stinking wafts. He had it — there were fleeces and hides all round him. This was a country of sheep and cattle, and at one time the tenant of the Merry Mouth may have done some farming. . . . His mind was now clear; he was in a loft or attic, at the back of the inn, a prisoner, but an unshackled prisoner.
He had no means of striking a light, and his watch had stopped. It must be long after midnight, for he believed that many hours had been passed in unconsciousness or sleep, but he could not tell whether it was now early morning or broad daylight. It might be far on towards noon, or even later, for, though he felt no hunger, that might be due to the nausea following his wound. The thought maddened him, for here was the day of the crisis, and he was a helpless log. It got him painfully to his feet, and set him groping round the place. If his eyes were useless he could at least use his hands.
Stumbling over bales of rotting sheepskins he found his way to a wall. The skins were heaped far up on it, and in his effort to reach it he was half suffocated by the stench. Feeling his way along he came to a blank space, and his fingers touched the jambs of a door. The door was a heavy thing, and it was securely locked. He ran his hand over it and reached one conclusion. He was not in any outhouse or attic, but in a principal room of the inn, for the edges of the panels were ornamented — he could feel the cup-and-ball pattern.
Beyond the door he found a wall at right angles where there were no skins. He groped along it and judged the length to be more than twenty feet, so the room must be an important one. In that wall there were two windows, each at some considerable height above the floor, and each shuttered heavily and bolted with huge transverse bars which fitted into sockets and were firmly locked. He tried to remember the look of the inn as he had seen it from the road. So far as his memory served him the windows on the ground floor had extended to within three feet of the ground, and on the first floor they had also been tall. This room was therefore not on the main front. It must be at the east or west end, and the windows must look down the road from Fenny Horton or over the oak grove.
These speculations were useless enough, but they served to keep his mind from raging at his complete futility. He had no weapon, not even a pocket-knife, with which he could assault door or window. He turned to the last wall and found it a blank space, though the floor was cumbered with old barrels and boxes. He had now explored all four walls, and a question suddenly occurred to him. There must be another door somewhere. If, as he believed, the door he had already found opened upon the garden or possibly upon a staircase, there must be another entrance, for a chamber so grandiose could not be a mere cul-de-sac. If there was a second door, it must be in the wall against which the skins were piled. It would probably be bolted like the others, but he must do something or go mad.
The first plunge into the skins brought back his nausea, and he had to sit on the floor and gasp till the fit passed. Never had he encountered so fiendish a stink, for at every movement of the pile an effluvia arose which took the breath from him. He persevered, and very slowly got sufficiently behind the skins to enable him to touch the panelling. . . . Suddenly his hands found a cornice, and he realised that here was a door, a narrower and shallower thing than the one he had just examined. He pressed it and found it unyielding. . . . Yes, but it might open inwards. Retching and half-blinded, he set himself to remove the hides in front of it.
That task must have occupied him the better part of an hour, for the foul air and his wound seemed to have taken the pith from his arms. But he wrought steadily, for he had an odd illogical feeling that some hope might lie this way, that the fates which had thus far been kind to him would not leave him in the lurch. Especially he had the mystical belief that he was destined to meet Cranmer, and he could not meet Cranmer if he were caught like a rat in a stopped hole. His expectation grew so high that, when he had cleared the skins and made a passage to the door, he had to stop and take a grip on his nerves. His heart was behaving like a gate in a high wind, and he tried to steady himself with a prayer before he touched the handle.
The door was not locked — that was plain. The pile of hides had been considered sufficient to block it. But while the handle turned it would not open, though it gave ever so little, for the grime of ages had clogged its hinges. Nanty wrestled and strove till the sweat ran into his eyes. Three times he stopped to rest, and three times returned to the struggle. Then a sliver of wood seemed to crack at the top, and the thing swung back on him.
He listened with anxious ears, for the opening had been noisy, but he might have been in a cavern for all the sound there was. Before him there was the same black darkness, but by stretching his arms he found that he was in a corridor. . . . Suddenly a tiny spear of light shot out — a slender line close to the ground, and a star twinkled at the level of his waist. Someone had lit a light in a room in the corridor.
From that moment dated the resurgence of Nanty’s courage. Hitherto he had been battling like a cornered animal, but now he was human again. A sponge seemed to wipe the film from his mind, and the energy of youth flowed back to his limbs. He was wary now, and resolute to face anything, for was not the way made miraculously plain before him? In that room was someone whom God purposed that he should meet. He tiptoed stealthily along the bare boards towards the door.
There was no sound from within. He turned the handle gently and peered inside. The light was ghostly, and he saw that it came from a big lamp with a green shade which stood on a dressing-table. That lamp must have been lit only a minute before, but the lighter had disappeared — gone out by the other door. The room was a bedroom, for there was an old-fashioned four-poster with dark damask curtains, and the table on which the lamp stood was a dressing-table. The windows were uncurtained and heavily shuttered. There were other articles of furniture — a big Dutch armoire, a chair or two, a couch, and in a corner a tall needlework screen. Once this had been a principal guest-chamber, for the plaster ceiling was delicately wrought, and inlaid with painted medallions now black with dirt.
The silent room with its eerie green light had the effect of checking Nanty’s new ardour. He stood perplexed, listening for some clue, but no sound from the outer world came through the thick shutters. Outside it might be any hour — high noon, afternoon, evening — but here it was a timeless dusk, like some country under the sea. Nanty shivered, for it seemed a stage set and lit for any evil.
Suddenly there was sound — someone was approaching the other door, someone with heavy feet. Nanty slipped behind the needlework screen, and put his eye to a hole in it. He was less frightened now, for soon there must be a call to action.
A man entered, carrying a saddle-bag which he flung on the bed, a big rough fellow with the air of the hills rather than of the fens — perhaps the man Sloan from Hungrygrain. He stood sideways in the doorw
ay to let someone pass him. That someone was a woman.
She wore a short riding-habit and ill-cleaned boots, a bodice of some white stuff, and a loose green coat. On her head was a little tricorne hat, which might have been coquettish, had it not been pathetic. For the woman’s air when she found herself alone was one of utter weariness and dejection, as if solitude at last gave her the chance of doffing a cruel mask. She pulled off her hat and flung it beside the saddle-bag, but she did not go to the mirror on the dressing-table to arrange her hair. Instead she dropped on the couch, and lay back with her head resting on one of the arms and her eyes closed. Nanty from behind the screen saw her face in profile against the damask bed-curtains, and it was the face of a child tired beyond endurance, too tired to rest, almost too tired to breathe. Her cheeks had no longer the clear healthy pallor that he had seen on the hills, but were pale as a death-mask. Her limbs sprawled in an extreme listlessness. She might have been dead but for the slow rise and fall of her bodice.
Nanty slipped from behind the screen. Not for one moment could he eavesdrop on this tragic figure. For a second he stood looking down at the heavy, closed eyelids. Then, “Mrs Cranmer,” he whispered. “Mrs Cranmer! Gabriel!”
Her eyes opened as if she were hearing voices in a dream. He spoke again, for he had got a glimpse of his own appearance in the mirror, and knew that he was no pretty sight, his forehead foul with congealed blood, his coat torn, face and hands black as a collier’s, and his hair in wild disorder. She would think him a maniac unless reassured by his voice.
“Gabriel,” he said gently. “Don’t be afraid. . . . I’m here to help you. You remember . . . the hills above Yonderdale.”
Her eyes were not startled — they were beyond the surprise of fear, and that in itself was the most tragic proof of her suffering. But for a moment they were mystified. Then it seemed as if a light flickered in their darkness. She sat up, and her hand flew to her hair.
“You are the Scotch professor? Mr Lammas? Oh, what cruel fate has brought you here.”
“I have followed you. You spoke the words ‘Merry Mouth’ to me, and you wrote them on a paper for another. I sought for the place, as I was bound to do, and by the mercy of God I have found it.”
She put her hands over her eyes.
“I am to blame,” she moaned. “I am born to bring ill to my friends. Oh, why did you follow me? Why did I speak those foolish words?”
Her dejection was a goad to Nanty’s spirit. For this little lonely figure he felt such an uprush of tenderness that it wrought on his head like wine. No more the leaden compulsion of duty for him, but the swift spur of youth and love.
“There’s one friend of yours who wouldn’t for worlds be elsewhere. I’ve had a weary time getting to you,” and he told briefly of his journey. Life came into her face, but at the mention of Winfortune it clouded again.
“He thinks you are his prisoner in the room of the sheepskins? Any moment he may look for you there, and if he finds you gone he will . . . But no, he is away for the present — I saw him when we arrived — my husband sent him on an errand to see that the roads were guarded. . . . We have a short breathing-space in which to plan your escape.”
“Not mine,” said Nanty. “Yours, Mrs Cranmer. If we can get you out of here there is a house nearby with friends in it, kind women who will take care of you—”
“You do not understand,” she said wearily. “I cannot go out of this place. I fear that you cannot, but for me it is beyond hope. I am the centre-piece in their game. This day, as you know, is a holiday in all the countryside. To-night, and I think for most of to-morrow, it will be as empty of life as a grave. We have come from Overy, where my husband has done what he wished. He is here, and Winfortune and Sloan, and Vallance has brought his Londoners, and the roads are watched, and the place is a fortified castle. To-night, as I told you, my cousin will arrive at my summons, and unless God works a miracle he will not go away. What can you do to help me, except share in my danger? You are weaker than the mouse with the caged lion.”
“You have forgotten the fable,” said Nanty briskly, “for the mouse released the lion. I have not come all this long road to fail you. There are others besides me, for there are three stout fellows at Overy, and there are two more that I sent off forty hours ago to guide them here. Any moment they may arrive, and your fortified castle will have its resolute besiegers. One of those at Overy is Harry Belses.”
“Harry,” she cried — and her eyes had the same troubled maternal look that he had noted in them when he had first mentioned Belses’ name on the hill. “Oh, I thought that Harry was safe out of my troubles. Who is with him?”
“Sir Turnour Wyse — the man who challenged him, and who has now transferred his wrath to your husband. I had rather not be the one who offended Sir Turnour Wyse.”
She scarcely listened. “Harry at Overy!” she repeated. “He will see Mollison . . . and Benjamin. . . . We often talked of Overy. . . . Oh, Heaven send that he be not in time.”
“Heaven send that he be. I think, madam, that you underrate the devotion of your friends. Harry has but the one thought, and that is to be at your side, for your own salvation and to frustrate your husband. When he and the others arrive they will blow this infamous plot into fine dust. They have still ample time. I do not know the hour of the day, for I have been living in the dark, but it cannot yet be the afternoon.”
“You are mistaken,” she said. “When I came here it was after four o’clock. Soon it will be twilight. We have but an hour or two’s grace.”
“God bless my soul! Then we must be up and doing. There is no way out by the road I came, for the outer door is locked and would resist a battering-ram. What lies that way?” And he pointed to the door by which she had entered.
“My husband,” she cried. “Any moment he may come for me. Hist! There he is. Quick, behind the screen.”
It was not Cranmer, but Winfortune, and he entered softly as if he had come on a private errand. He seemed embarrassed, too, and he took his hat from his head with an effort at courtesy. He stood with his back against the door, his long dark face like green bronze in the light of the lamp.
“The master will not be here for a bittie,” he said. “I want a word with you, my lady, before he comes. There’ll be rough work to-night, and rougher to follow. I’ve no ill will to you, for you’ve always treated me honest, so I make bold to say something in your ear.”
He hushed his voice to a whisper.
“Master is sending you north — with Sloan. Things will be done to-night, as you maybe guess, which won’t make the country healthy for some of us. Lucky we’ve got our bolt-holes waiting. But you, my lady, will be in the worst pickle, for you’re the decoy to draw the chase.”
He lowered his voice still further, and, leaning forward, spoke in her ear.
“You can’t get away, for you aren’t meant to get away. Sloan will ride cunning and save his own bacon, but you will be ta’en. It’s not for me to question the master’s plans, but here is one I cannot like. You’re young, and there’s some would call you bonny, and you’ve always been kind to Gibbie Winfortune, which is not as common a thing as it should be. So I’ve come here with a word for you. You’ll ride through Huntingdon and bait at the Dun Cow. There you must give Sloan the slip and get to the house of Goody Twynham in Church Row. It’ll be the dark o’ the morning, but hers is a door that never shuts. Give her this writing from me, and she’ll take you in and hide you so that all the King’s army would never find you. It’ll be coarse fare and coarser lodging, but you can bide safe with her till you get word to your friends.”
He handed her a letter folded and sealed with a blob of green wax.
“That’s the best I can do for you, my lady,” he said, “and the master must never hear of it. I’m off, with a God bless you.”
There were tears in Gabriel’s eyes when the door had closed on him. She looked at the letter which had no superscription, and, as Nanty came out from behind the scr
een, put it in her bosom. “I did not know,” she said, “that Winfortune had a kindness for me, and now I know it too late. Had I known sooner he might have helped me, for I did not dare to turn to any at Hungrygrain.”
“There are elements of decency in the man,” said Nanty, “which may stand him in good stead in the next world, but will scarcely save his neck in this. Have no fear — you are not going to Huntingdon, and will not need Goody Twynham’s ministrations. Here, in this place, an end will be set to your tribulations.”
Nanty’s voice matched his words. He had got a sudden uplift of spirit which made it needless to counterfeit cheerfulness. This pale woman woke in him an utter certainty and a desperate valour.
She shook her head. “Your friends will not arrive in time. Overy is a long journey, and they may not be at Overy. What if wind and tide have delayed them? We travelled with relays of horses and we did not linger, and yet we have but new come, though we started yesterday evening and rode through the night.”
“Then I must do the business myself,” said Nanty.
She looked at him with wonder in her eyes, but no hope, and that nettled him.
“What can you do, my brave friend?” she asked. “You are a scholar and a man of God, and you have not been bred to struggle with ruffians.”
“Nevertheless, I am young, and strong, and God will show me a way.”
“You are unarmed among armed men.”
“I have my right hand, and an exercised body.”
Suddenly her face flushed, and her eyes, which had been open and fearful, clouded and looked down.
“I am armed,” she said. “That is my one hope.”
From a leather hand-bag she took a pistol.
“I have schemed and lied for this. It is loaded and primed and ready, and I too am ready. There is only one way. Innocent blood can only be saved by the shedding of guilty.”