Cue for Treason

by Trease Geoffrey

  Rub-a-dub, rub-a-dub…

  Into the scorching sunshine, then into green shade again, cool as a spring….

  Looking across the mere, we watched the landmarks creep behind us: Raven Crag, Fisher Crag, Launchy Gill – its cascades spilling down the green fellside like milk – Hause Point, Dob Gill.

  We didn't talk much for a time. We were too excited by the rhythm of the hoof-music and the wine-like air rushing into our nostrils and between our parted lips.

  There would soon, I thought, be a very different kind of ‘rub-a-dub' heard in the land. Real drums would throb in the market squares. This sun, which today was sparkling so beautifully and harmlessly on blue lake and white waterfall, would gleam then on cuirass and halberd, helmet and pike-point.

  If the Queen lived, all would be well. The rising would wither away as other rebellions had. If the Queen died, God alone knew what would happen. England would have lost the keystone which had held the kingdom together for more than a generation. We might go back to the days of the religious struggles, back to the civil strife between the great nobles which had wasted England in the Wars of the Roses. Back…? Yes, back. Whatever might be said about the old Queen – and I've come to realize in these latter years that she had many faults – at least she looked forward. England changed and grew under her hand, even though the growing pains brought many an agony. Many of the old county families hated her, and especially in the North, because she stood for the new ways and they for the old.

  ‘Have you any money?’ Kit asked very aptly, interrupting my thoughts.

  ‘No,’ I said, realizing with a shock that I hadn't a farthing. The money was with our pack-horses and merchandise, safe in Mr Bell's stable. The few pence I had carried with me were sunk, with my original clothes, in the middle of Ullswater.

  ‘I've twopence-halfpenny,’ Kit went on. ‘It's not a great sum to provision two people and two horses for a ride to London.’

  It wasn't. The position looked serious.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘if need be, we'd have to sell one of the horses. It would fetch a lot, with the lovely saddle too. Then you'd have to take the other horse and ride on. I – I'd manage somehow.’

  ‘The trouble with you is, you've led a too sheltered life,’ I told her. ‘Brought up as a lady, with no one ever to question who you were or if you were honest.’

  ‘What about the last year?’ she demanded indignantly.

  I ignored the interruption. ‘I'm just one of the common sort,’ I proceeded, ‘and I know that people are not going to buy animals of this quality from boys of our age. They'd be far more likely to lock us up as horse thieves.’

  Kit sighed. ‘I suppose you're right. We don't look very old or very respectable. But it does seem a shame.’ She jerked her thumb at the mass of Helvellyn walling us in on our left. ‘On the other side of all that, I own –’

  ‘I wish you wouldn't go on always about what you own,’ I said crossly. ‘You won't own it for years yet, till you're grown up, and it's no help to us now.’

  ‘No; but there are people living over that way who'd help me today if I knocked on their doors. They'd lend us enough to get to London, anyway.’

  ‘Well, you can no more take our horses over that mountain than we can turn and ride back to Lonsdale – which would do just as well. We've got to keep moving ahead. We'll manage somehow.’

  We had to slow to a walk, for the long pass of Dunmail Raise stretched in front of us, lifting the road between Seat Sandal and Steel Fell into Westmorland. In that nick of blue sky between the green hills they say that King Dunmail, the last King of Cumberland, was defeated and slain. But that was a long time ago, almost as long as the Romans.

  On the summit of the pass we reined in and dismounted to give the horses a much-needed breather.

  ‘No good riding them to death,’ I said, sounding more casual than I felt.

  ‘I should think not!’ she exclaimed indignantly, patting the roan gelding. ‘The darlings!’

  ‘We can't afford to ride hell-for-leather, because we've no chance of getting fresh horses. So we'll have to nurse these, and get every ounce out of them.’

  ‘Do you think we're being chased?’ She glanced back. We could see the road for miles, but there wasn't a speck on it. If the pursuit had already begun, we must have drawn away from it in these first miles.

  ‘We shall be chased,’ I said, ‘obviously. We're carrying in our heads information that means death to at least a dozen men. Do you think they'll let us go?’

  ‘They can't catch us – not when we've got these whirlwinds to ride.’

  ‘You're not as bright as usual, Kit. Whirlwinds tire – this sort – and we can't change them. But suppose Mr Armthwaite, or Sir Philip more likely, if he's escaped with a whole skin from my dad and the rest of them… suppose he's starting out after us. He's got money, he's got a name. He can pick up fresh horses in every town if he wants to.’

  ‘And wear us down?’

  ‘Possibly. Three hundred miles is a long way. Cheer up, though. Changing horses wastes time. If these beauties have any staying power, and if we treat them properly, we may be able to keep in front.’

  I spoke as cheerfully as I could, but for the life of me I failed to see how we could treat them properly on twopence-halfpenny, even if we ourselves lived on air.

  ‘Just a moment,’ said Kit. She was exploring my saddlebag. ‘Here's a bit of luck, anyhow. Mr Armthwaite must have been planning a long ride this morning.’ She fished out a bundle tied up in a white napkin. ‘Here, Pete. Oat cakes! Cheese! Half a cold chicken! And – I say, a flagon of wine!’

  ‘We'll keep that for emergencies.’ It looked to me as if there were likely to be plenty of those, anyhow.

  Kit hadn't finished her discoveries. ‘Lend me your knife,’ she exclaimed. ‘I can feel something stitched into the lining.’

  ‘Papers?’ I asked hopefully.

  ‘No. Something a dashed sight more useful!’ she retorted. ‘Look – money!’ She held up a gold coin between finger and thumb. I saw the three lilies and the rose supporting them.

  ‘I say! A rose-noble! Any more like that?’

  ‘Don't be greedy, boy. Nineteen shillings and sixpence – that'll help us on a bit!’

  I don't know whether Mr Armthwaite carried that coin stitched into the lining as a sort of financial reserve, in case he found himself short when on a journey, or whether, like so many people, he believed that a rose-noble possessed special powers to ward off witchcraft. What I do feel certain of is that it could never have brought him better luck than it did to us. Nineteen and six – or nineteen and eightpence-halfpenny, as Kit reminded me – might not be a great fortune, but it would buy us all the food we wanted for ourselves and our four-footed companions.

  I felt quite happy again when we remounted and cantered down the Westmorland side of the pass. Little Grasmere looked placid and reassuring under the afternoon sun; even the fantastic rocks of Helm Crag had put off their usual savagery, and the one shaped like a couchant lion looked a sleepy, friendly sort of animal.

  Clop-clop… clop-clop…

  On past reedy Rydal Water, through Ambleside village, to the head of Windermere….

  We passed other travellers occasionally, and they stared to see such shabby boys so magnificently horsed. We had our tale ready if they challenged us. We were stable-lads, delivering the horses for our master. The master's name and address we varied as the miles unrolled behind us.

  When we saw our first strangers approaching, I thought of turning aside into a convenient spinney, and letting them go by without seeing us, in case they should meet our enemies farther back on the road. But, as we immediately realized, this would involve a great waste of time, and if we did it for one passer-by, we should have to do it for all. Mr Armthwaite must know perfectly well that we had taken the road to London, and there was no purpose in concealment.

  ‘What if we went right off the road, though,’ Kit suggested, ‘and hid our
selves for the rest of today, and let them ride by, and miss us?’

  ‘That sounds all right,' I said slowly, ‘though I don't know whether we can afford to mark time for half a day.’

  ‘No, it's no good,’ she agreed. ‘For another reason it'd be too dangerous. If we let them get ahead, they'll spread the story they're looking for two young horse thieves. When we move on behind them, we'll find the whole population on the lookout for us.’

  And, she might have added, the conspirators liable to ride round the corner at any moment, on their way back to pick up the trail again. It wasn't likely they'd hurry on, mile after mile, once they stopped meeting people who'd seen us. The luck was against us in this – we were easy to remember, and no one on the road would have any doubt whether he'd seen us ride by or not.

  All the same, Kit's suggestion set our minds working, and soon led to another idea.

  ‘I'll tell you what,’ I said, as we swung away from Windermere and mounted the low fells which sprawled across the road to Kendal.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We needn't take the obvious road to London.’

  ‘But – is there another?’

  ‘Not this side of England,’ I said, with a grin. She caught on at once.

  ‘You mean the Great North Road? You mean –’

  ‘Yes. Turn off when no one's looking and go slap across the Yorkshire fells. It'll be hard going and we may take a bit of time over it, not knowing the short cuts, but once we're over those tops, lass, we'll be down the dales in a brace of shakes, and down the Great North Road like a lightning flash!’

  ‘Oh, grand, Pete! While they're inquiring for us in Lancashire, we'll be half-way down the other side of England!’

  ‘We'll hope so,’ I said cautiously.

  22. Virgin Mine

  IF there are two words together which have still power, after all these years, to strike a cold chill into my heart, those words are ‘Virgin Mine’.

  It was some little way after Kendal that we swung eastwards off the high road, choosing a deeply rutted track which looked as though it were little used save by the wagons of the district. Just before turning off, we stopped some wool merchants and asked how far it was to the next town, just on the off-chance that our question would reach other ears and mislead their owners. Then, after a careful glance before and behind, to make sure that there was no one within view to see us leave the road, we cantered off along the track. Miles away we could see the long wave of the Yorkshire fells, green-gold in the full blaze of the late afternoon.

  We were lucky. We passed neither house nor man for nearly three miles, and then it was only a deaf old man sitting sideways on a cart-horse. We knew he was deaf because he asked us if we had seen a black dog, and we had to bawl in his hairy ear before we could make him realize that we hadn't, and didn't want to.

  ‘Oo-ah,’ he said amiably and rolled forward on his nag. We met no one else for a couple of miles. This was just what we wanted – lonely by-roads where there was nobody to note our passing.

  ‘Shall we stop and eat this chicken?’ I suggested.

  Kit looked back over her shoulder – we'd got into the habit – but, of course, the lane behind us was as empty as usual. ‘No; let's push on a bit.’

  ‘Well, I'm ravenous. I'm going to eat something as I go.’ I tore off the leg of the chicken and offered it to her. We ambled on with reins slack on our horses' necks, picking chicken-bones with teeth and fingers.

  We should have to stop some time, if only for the sake of the horses. I was watching them as anxiously as a mother watches a sick baby. If one of them went lame or got saddle-galled, it would be a calamity. Even a cast shoe, in this lonely country where smiths were few, might mean a serious delay. My idea was to keep steadily on, without pushing the beasts beyond their powers. Then, if our enemies did put in an unexpected appearance at some later stage of the journey, our horses would still be in reasonably good condition and able to put on a spurt.

  It was for their sakes that we decided to spend the night comfortably indoors, instead of snatching a few hours' sleep on the fell.

  We came, towards sunset, to a tiny inn, high up on a shoulder of the mountains. It was, a woman warned us before we reached it, the last house we could hope to see before we landed far down in the Yorkshire dales on the other side. Ten miles, or maybe fifteen, she said, and from the tone of her voice it might have been fifteen hundred. The other side of the mountain was another world to her, as strange and remote as Africa and the Indies are to us. I think she thought us mad to be taking our horses over there, especially over such a stony pack-horse trail, but she evidently assumed that we weren't quite mad enough to make the crossing after sunset. ‘You'll be staying the night at the Wool Pack,’ she said in her downright Lancashire way; and Kit, rubbing herself tenderly where she felt tired of horses, said: ‘Ay, mam, we'll not be going farther tonight.’

  I don't suppose the stables at the Wool Pack had ever harboured two such magnificent creatures as ours. The ale-wife's husband, himself a farmer, came to gape while we groomed them and made them comfortable for the night. We spun the yarn we'd prepared – that we were delivering them to Sir Somebody Somebody at York. We chose York because we were very hazy about the towns lying opposite to us behind the wall of mountains, and we felt that most Yorkshire roads would lead sooner or later to that city. Our host was a friendly, helpful soul, and told us the landmarks to look out for the next day. When we got over the ridgeline there would be a choice of two dales for the descent. The left-hand one would lead us more directly towards York. We made a private mental note to follow the right-hand one, which would clearly veer more to the south. He also warned us against quaking bogs and chasms in the limestone. We assured him most politely that we had no intention of falling into either.

  Then the stable-door was made fast, with one of his best dogs inside to give warning against horse thieves, and we went into the kitchen. The ale-wife was as friendly as her spouse. I think it tickled both of them to be entertaining two such ‘young gentlemen’, as they insisted on calling us.

  We fairly blew ourselves out with that supper. I specially remember the ham, which in these parts is pig-meat, not mutton, as it usually is with us in Cumber-land. There was a wonderful hot-pot, and a cheese as good as Mother could have made, only different, because the cheese of every valley has its own flavour, which a well-travelled man can guess with his eyes shut.

  There were no other people staying in the Wool Pack that night – their guest-room was seldom used, I imagine, and then chiefly by small traders using the pack-horse trail – but in the course of the evening a number of men dropped in for their pints of ale. It was wonderful where they all came from, for there was no village near the Wool Pack, only a handful of cottages broadcast over the moor.

  Shaggy, unkempt folk they were. There was a shepherd sitting in one corner with a great tankard which he sipped at slowly, never speaking to anyone. Finally he stood up, grunted something inaudible, and pushed his way out. He was more like an animal than a man.

  ‘They get like that,’ whispered the ale-wife, noticing my stare. ‘Out on the hills alone, day after day, with no one to speak to, sometimes for a week at a time. They almost forget how to speak.’

  Some of the men had grimy faces, with white staring eyeballs. Others, who had made some attempt to clean themselves, had greyish skins pitted with fine blue points.

  ‘Miners,’ said the ale-wife behind her hand. ‘We've a lot of them hereabouts. It's the flying coal-dust gives them that pock-marked look.’

  I noticed then how, if there was no vacant stool or settle, they squatted contentedly on their heels, with backs against the wall; and when they stood up they all had the same stooping shoulders. They got like that, I guessed, through working in the low tunnels which they drive into the banks of peat to reach the coal which lies just below the surface.

  Virgin Mine… ‘Take the left-hand trail just beyond Virgin Mine….’ That was what the man told us. I su
ppose it was called that in honour of the Queen. It was the colliery where these men worked, and I heard the name often on their lips that night. It held no terrors for me then. It was a friendly, pretty name, pointing our way across the mountains to the comparative safety of the Great North Road.

  We slept soundly that night, and would have slept far into the morning if the ale-wife hadn't roused us, faithful to the instructions we'd given her, at the first peep of dawn above the moor. We breakfasted quickly on porridge and mutton, paid our reckoning with the rose-noble, and rode off, our saddle-bags well packed with food for the journey.

  ‘Remember,’ she called after us from the low doorway, ‘look out for Virgin Mine!’

  It was a grey morning. The early scarlet had soon faded from the eastern sky, and massive clouds were piled up to hide the sun. It was fine, though. The pack-horse road was a mere ribbon of peaty mud, worming its way past mounds of heather and reedy, scummy pools. We had to go in single file, which made talking almost impossible, apart from occasional remarks shouted over my shoulder and snatched away again by the wind.

  A sinister spot, if ever there was one. I sometimes wondered afterwards if Shakespeare thought of it, as we had pictured it to him when he wrote of that heath in Macbeth. It wouldn't have surprised me at all if we had met three witches, though morning isn't usually the time for witches to be about.

  It was lucky we didn't meet any, for we'd changed our rose-noble, and I don't think a mixed handful of silver and copper is any protection against the evil eye.

  It wasn't very long before we saw the colliery lying in a hollow of the moor, just aside from the track. Small black openings yawned in the hillside, and now and again you'd see a half-naked, grimy creature creep in or out, for all the world like a beetle at its hole. The coal came out in baskets, and they loaded it on sledges to be dragged down into the dales. Two men were digging on the surface itself, for here the coal measure came slanting right up, with only the thinnest covering of soil above it.