“He has had something else to think about,” the man answered drily. “And so would you, master, with his leg!”
Smith swore again, and sat gloomily silent.
“He says if you can stead it off for twenty-four hours,” the man continued, “he will arrange that — —”
“No names,” Smith cried sharply, interrupting him.
“Well, that — someone shall take his place and do the job.”
Smith did not answer for a time, but at length in a curt, incisive tone, “Tell him, yes,” he said. “I will see to it. And you — keep a still tongue, will you? You were going with him, I suppose?”
“Ay.”
“And you will come with the other?”
“May be. And if not I shall not blab.”
Smith by a nod showed that the man had taken his meaning; after which, bidding him good-night, he pricked up his horse. “Come on,” he said, addressing me with impatience. “I thought to have had companions, and so ridden more securely. But we must make the best of it.”
Heaven knows that I too would have liked companions, and took the road again dolefully enough. Nor was that the worst of it; Smith, in speaking to the stranger, had mentioned Fairholt. Now, I knew the name, and knew the man to be one of the messengers attached to the Secretary’s office, one whose business it was to execute warrants and arrest political prisoners. But what had Smith, riding to a secret interview with a man outlawed and in hiding, to do with messengers? With Fairholt?
And then, as if this were not enough to disturb me with a view of treachery, black as gulf seen by traveller through a rift in the mist — if this glimpse, I say, were not enough, how was I going to reconcile Smith’s statement that he had expected companions with his first cry, uttered in wrath and surprise — that Fairholt ought to be by this time — well, at some distant point?
In fine, I was so far from being persuaded that Smith had expected company, that I gravely suspected that he had made quite other arrangements; arrangements of the most perfidious character. And as the horses’ hoofs rang monotonously on the hard road, and we rose and fell in the saddle, and I peered forward into the gloom, fearing all things and doubting all things, for certain I feared and doubted nothing so much as I did the dark and secret man beside me; whose scheming brain, spinning plot within plot, each darker and more involved than the other, kept all my ingenuity at a stretch to overtake the final end and purpose he had at heart.
Indeed, I despair of conveying to others how gravely this sombre companionship and more sombre uncertainty aggravated the terrors of a journey, that at the best of times must have been little to my taste. To the common risks of the road, deserted at that hour by all save cutpurses and rogues, was added a suspicion, as much more harassing than these, as unseen dangers ever surpass the known. It was in vain that I strove to divert my mind from the figure by my side; neither the bleak heath above Greenwich — whence we looked back at the reddish haze that canopied London, and forward to where the Thames marshes stretched eastward under night — nor the gibbet on Dartford Brent, where a body hung in chains, poisoning the air, nor the light that shone dim and solitary, far to the left, across the river, and puzzled me until he told me that it was Tilbury — neither of these things, I say, though they occupied my thoughts by turns and for a moment, had power to drive him from my mind, or divert my fears to dangers more apparent. And in this mood, now glancing askance at him, and now moving uneasily under his gaze, I might have ridden to Rochester if my ear had not caught — I think when we were two or three miles short of the city — the sound of a horse trotting fast on the road behind us.
At first it followed so faintly on the breeze that I doubted, thinking it might be either the echo of our hoofs, or a pulse beating in my ears. Then, on a hard piece of ground, it declared itself unmistakably; and again as suddenly it died away.
At that I spoke involuntarily. “He has stopped,” I said.
Smith laughed in his teeth. “He is crossing the wet bottom, fool — by the creek,” he said.
And before I could answer him the dull sound of a horse galloping fast, but moving on the turf that ran alongside the road, proved him to be right. “Draw up!” he whispered in something of a hurry, and then, as I hesitated, “Do you hear?” he continued, sharply seizing my rein. “What do you fear? Do you think that night birds prey on night birds?”
Whatever I feared, I feared him more: and turning my horse, I sat shivering. For notwithstanding his confident words I saw that he was handling his holster; and I knew that he was drawing a pistol; and it was well the suspense was short. Before I had time for many qualms, the horseman, a dark figure, lurched on us through the gloom, pulled his horse on to its haunches, and, with raised hand, cried to us to deliver.
“And no nonsense!” he added sharply. “Or a brace of balls will soon — —”
Smith laughed. “Box it about!” he cried.
“Hallo!” the stranger answered, taking a lower tone; and he peered at us, bending down over his horse’s neck. “Who are you, in fly-by-night?”
“A box-it-about!” my companion answered with tartness. “That is enough for you. So good-night. And I wish you better luck next time.”
“But — —”
“St!” Smith answered, cutting him short. “I am going to my father, and the less said about it the better.”
“So? Well, give him my love, then.” And backing his horse, the stranger bade us good-night, and with a curse on his bad fortune turned and rode off. Smith saw him go, and then wheeling we took the road again.
Safely, however, as we had emerged from this encounter, and far as it went towards proving that we bore a talisman against the ordinary perils of travellers, it was not of a kind to reassure a law-abiding man. To be hung as the accomplice of footpads and high-tobys was a scarcely better fate than to be robbed and wounded by them, and I was heartily glad when we found ourselves in the outskirts of Rochester, and stopping at a house of call outside the sleeping city, roused a drowsy hostler, and late as the hour was, gained entrance and a welcome.
I confess, that safe in these comfortable quarters, on a sanded hearth, before a rekindled fire, with lights, and food, and ale at my elbow, and a bed in prospect, I found my apprehensions and misgivings less hard to bear than on the dark road above Tilbury flats. I began to think less of the body creaking in its irons on the gibbet above Dartford, and more of the chances of ultimate safety. And Smith growing civil, if not genial, I went on to count the hours that must elapse, before, our miserable mission accomplished, I should see London again. After all, why should I not see London again? What was to prevent me? Where lay the hindrance? In three days, in three days we should be back. So I told myself; and looking up quickly met Smith’s eyes brooding gloomily on me.
CHAPTER XXXVII
Such a night ride as I have described, would have been impossible, or at least outrageously dangerous, a year or two later; when a horde of disbanded soldiers, dismissed from the colours by the Peace of Ryswick, took to the roads for a subsistence, and for a period, until they perished miserably, made even the purlieus of Kensington unsafe.
At the time of which I write we ran risk enough, as has been demonstrated; but the reasons which induced Smith to leave London at that hour, and under cover of darkness, may be conceived. Apparently they did not extend to the rest of the journey; for, after lying late at Rochester, we rode on by Sittingbourne to Feversham, and thence after a comfortable dinner, turned south by Badlesmere, and so towards Ashford, where we arrived a few minutes after nightfall.
Those who are acquainted with the Old Inn at the entrance into Ashford will remember that the yard and stables are as conspicuous for size and commodiousness as the house, a black and white building, a little withdrawn from the street, is strikingly marked by the lack of those advantages. I believe that the huge concourse thither of cattle-drovers at the season of the great fairs is the cause of this; those persons lying close themselves but needing space for their b
easts. And at such times I can imagine that the roomy enceinte, and those long lines of buildings, may be cheerful enough.
But seen, as we saw them, when we rode in, by the last cold light of a dull evening, with nothing clear or plain save the roof ridge, and that black against a pale sky, they and the place looked infinitely dismal. Nor did any warmth of welcome, or cheerful greeting, such as even poor inns afford to all and sundry, amend the first impression of gloom and decay, which the house and its surroundings conveyed to the mind. On the contrary, not a soul was to be seen, and we had ridden half way across the yard, and Smith had twice called “House! House!” before anyone was aroused.
Then the upper half of a stable-door creaked open, and a man holding up a great horn lanthorn, peered out at us.
“Are you all asleep?” cried my companion. And when the man made no answer, but still continued to look at us, “What is in the house,” he added, angrily, “that you stick out your death’s head to frighten company? Is it lace or old Nantz? Or French goods? Any way, box it about and be done with it, and attend to us.”
“Eight, master, right, I am coming,” the man answered, suddenly rousing himself; and opening the lower half of the door, he came heavily out. “At your service,” he said. “But we have little company.”
“The times are bad?”
“Ay, they looked a bit better six months back.”
“But nothing came of it?”
“No, worse luck.”
“And all that is called for now — is common Hollands, I suppose?”
The fellow grinned. “Right,” he said. “You have the hang of it, master.”
My companion slid to the ground, and began to remove his pistols and saddlebag. “Still you have some guests, I suppose?” he said.
“Ay, one,” the man answered, slowly, and I thought, reluctantly.
“Is he, by any chance, a man of the name of — but never mind his name,” Smith said. “Is he a surgeon?”
The hostler or host — for he had the air of playing both parts — a big clumsy fellow, with immobile features and small eyes, looked at us thoughtfully and chewed a straw. “Well, may be,” he said, at last. “I never asked him.” And without more he took Smith’s horse by the rein and lurched through the door into the stable; the lanthorn swinging in his hand as he did so, and faintly disclosing a long vista of empty stalls and darkling roof. As I followed, leading in my sorry mare, a horse in a distant stall whinnied loudly.
“That is his hack, I suppose,” said Smith; and coolly taking up the lanthorn, which the other had that moment set down, he moved through the stable in the direction whence the sound had come.
The man of the house uttered something between an oath and a grunt of surprise; and letting fall the flap of the saddle which he had just raised that he might slacken the girths, he went after him. “Softly, master,” he said, “every man to his — —”
But Smith was already standing with the lanthorn held high, gazing at a handsomely-shaped chestnut horse that pricking its ears turned a gentle eye on us and whinnied again. “Umph, not so bad,” my companion said. “His horse, I suppose?”
The man with the straw looked the animal over reflectively. At length with something between a grunt and a sigh, “He came on it,” he said.
“He won’t go on it in a hurry.”
“Why not?” said the man, more quickly than he had yet spoken: and he looked from the horse to my companion with a hint of hostility.
“Have you no eyes?” Smith answered, roughly. “The off-fore has filled; the horse is as lame as a mumper!”
“Grammon!” cried the other, evidently stung. And then, “You know a deal about horses in London! And never saw one or a blade of green grass, maybe, until you came Kent way!”
“As you please,” Smith said, indifferently. “But my business is not with the horse but the master. So take us in, my good friend, and give us supper, for I am famished. And afterwards, if you please, we will see him.”
“That is as he pleases,” the fellow answered sulkily. But he raised no second objection, and when we had littered down the horses he led the way into the house by a back door, and so along a passage and down a step or two, which landed us in a room with a sanded floor, a fire, and a show of warmth and comfort, as welcome as it was unexpected. Here he left us to remove our cloaks, and we presently heard him giving orders, and bustling the kitchen.
The floor of the room in which he had left us was sunk a little below the level of the road outside; and the ceiling being low and the window of greater width than height, and the mantel-shelf having for ornament a row of clean delft and pewter, I thought that no place had ever looked more snug and cosy. But whatever comfort I looked to derive from surroundings so much better than I had expected, was dashed by Smith’s first words, who, as soon as we were alone came close to me under the pretence of unclasping my cloak, and in a low, guarded tone, and with a look of the grimmest, warned me to play my part.
“We go upstairs after supper, and in five minutes it will be done,” he muttered. “Go through with it boldly, and in twenty-four hours you may be back in London. But fail or play me false, Mr. Price, and, by heaven, I put a ball through your head first, and my own afterwards. Do you mark me? Do you mark me, man?”
I whispered in abject nervousness — seeing that he was indeed in earnest — that I would do my best; and he handed me a ring which was doubtless the same that the Countess had given to her woman. It had a great dog cut cameo-wise on the stone, which I think was an opal; and it fitted my finger not ill. But I had no more than time to glance at it before the host and his wife, a pale, scared-looking woman, came in with some bacon and eggs and ale, and as one or other of them stayed with us while we ate, and watched us closely, nothing more passed. Smith talking indifferently to them, sometimes about the fruit harvest, and sometimes in cant phrases about the late plot, the arrest of Hunt at Dymchurch (who had been used to harbour people until they had crossed), how often Gill’s ship came over, Mr. Birkenhead’s many escapes, and the like. Probably the man and woman were testing Smith; but if so, he satisfied them, for when we had finished our meal, and he asked openly if Sir John would see us, they raised no objection, but the man, taking a light from the woman’s hand, led the way up a low-browed staircase to a room over that in which we had supped. Here he knocked, and a voice bidding us enter. Smith went in, and I after him, my heart beating furiously.
The room, which resembled the one beneath it in being low in the ceiling, looked the lower for the gaunt height of its one occupant, who had risen, and stood in the middle of the floor to receive us. Thin and spare by nature, the meagre and rather poor-looking dress which he wore added to the singularity of his aspect. With a dry-as-dust complexion, and a three-days’-old beard, he had eyes light-coloured, quick-glancing, and sanguine, and notwithstanding the danger and uncertainty of his position, a fugitive in this wayside house, with a thousand guineas on his head — for I never doubted I was looking on Sir John Fenwick — his manner was at one moment arrogant and boastful, and at another dreamy. He had something of the air of a visionary; nor could any one be long in his company without discerning that here was the very man for our purpose; one to whom all his geese were swans, and a clasp of the hand, if it marched with his hopes and wishes, of as much value as a pledge signed and sealed.
All this taken for granted, it is to be confessed that at first sight of us, his face fell, and his chagrin was unmistakable. “It is you. Smith, is it,” he said, with a sigh. “Well, well, and I thought it was Birkenhead. Brown said it was not, but I thought that it must be. It is not every one knows Birkenhead when he sees him.”
“No, Sir John, that is true.”
“However, I shall see him in the morning. I go on board at New Romney at four, and doubtless he will be with Gill. When we come back — —”
“Ah, Sir John, times will be changed then!” Smith said.
“They will, sir, with this Dutch crew and their low beast of a mas
ter swept into the sea! And gentlemen in their homes again! I have been amusing myself even now,” he continued, his eyes wandering to the table on which lay a litter of papers, an inkhorn, and two snuffy candles, “with plans for a new wing at Fenwick Hall, in the old style, I think, or possibly on the lines of the other house at Hexham. I am divided between the two. The Hall is the more commodious; the old Abbey has greater stateliness. However, I must put up my scripts now for I must be in the saddle in an hour. Have you commands for the other side of the water, Mr. Smith? If so I am at your service.”
Smith answered with a little hesitation, “Certainly, my business has to do with that, Sir John.” And he was proceeding to explain when the baronet, rubbing his hands in glee, cut him short.
“Ha! I thought so,” he cried, beaming with satisfaction. “Faith, it is so with everyone. They are all of a tale. My service, and my respects, and my duty — all to go you know where; and it is ‘Make it straight for me. Sir John,’ and ‘You will tell the King, Sir John?’ and ‘Answer for me as for yourself, Sir John!’ all day long when they can come at me. Why, man, you know something, but you would be surprised what messages I am carrying over. And when people have not spoken they have told me as much by a look; and those the least likely. Men who ten years ago were as black Exclusionists as old Noll himself!”
“I can believe it, Sir John,” said Smith with gravity, while I, who knew how the late conspiracy had united the whole country in King William’s defence, so that the man who refused to sign the Common’s Association to that end went in peril of violence, listened with as much bewilderment as I had felt three minutes before, on hearing how this same man, a fugitive and an outlaw, bound beyond seas, had been employing his time!
However, he was as far from guessing what was in my mind as he was from doubting Smith’s sincerity; and encouraged by the latter’s assent he continued: “It is parlous strange to me, Mr. Smith, how the drunken Dutch boor stands a day! Strange and passing strange! But it cannot last. It will not last out the year. These executions have opened men’s eyes finely! And by Christmas we shall be back.”
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 285