Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  Behind the closed door the two haggard-faced women looked at one another. Mrs. Tyson had not left her bed for many days. But she had heard the knocking at the outer door and the answering growl of the dog chained under her window; and hoping, yet scarcely daring to expect, that the nightmare was over and her husband or her friends were at hand, she had dragged herself from the bed and opened the door as soon as the knocking sounded in turn at that.

  For days, indeed, one strand, and one only, had held the feeble, frightened woman to life; and that strand was the babe that lay beside her. The sheep will fight for its lamb, the wren for its fledglings. And Mrs. Tyson, if she had not fought, had for the babe’s sake borne and endured; and surrounded by the ruffians who had the house at their mercy, she had survived terrors that in other circumstances would have driven her mad.

  True, Bess had not ill-treated her. On the contrary, she had been almost kind to her. And lonely and ill, dependent on her for everything, the woman had lost much of her dread of the girl; though now and again, in sheer wantonness, Bess would play with her fears. Certain that the weak-willed creature would not dare to tell what she knew, Bess had boasted to her of Henrietta’s presence and her danger and her plight. When Henrietta, therefore, the moment the door was unfastened, flung herself into the room, and with frantic fingers helped to secure the door behind her, Mrs. Tyson was astonished indeed; but less astonished than alarmed. She was alarmed in truth, almost to swooning, and showed a face as white as paper.

  Luckily, Henrietta had resumed the wit and courage of which stupor had deprived her for a time. She had no longer Bess at her elbow to bid her do this or that. But she had Bess’s example and her own spirit. There was an instant of stricken silence, during which she and the woman looked fearfully into one another’s faces by the light of the poor dip that burned beside the gloomy tester. Then Henrietta took her part. She laid down the child, to which she had clung instinctively; and with a strength which surprised herself, she dragged a chest, that stood but a foot on one side of the opening, across the door. It would not withstand the men long, but it would check them. She looked doubtfully at the bed, but mistrusted her power to move it. And before she could do more, a sound reached them from an unexpected quarter, and struck at the root of her plans. For it came from the window; and so unexpectedly, that it flung them into one another’s arms.

  Mrs. Tyson screamed loudly. They clung to one another.

  “What is it? What is it?” Henrietta cried.

  Then she saw a spectral face pressed against the dark casement. A hand tapped repeatedly on a pane.

  Henrietta put Mrs. Tyson from her and approached the window. She discovered that the face was a woman’s face, and with fumbling fingers she slid aside the catch that secured the window.

  “Tell the missus not to be scared,” whispered an anxious voice. “Tell her it’s me! I got up the pear tree to see her, and I saw you. I knew that Bess was lying, and I thought I’d — I thought I’d just get up and see for myself!”

  “Thank God!” Henrietta cried, clinging to the sill in a passion of relief as she recognised the stolid-faced servant. “You know me?”

  “You’re the young lady that’s missing?” the woman answered, taking a securer hold of the window-frame, and bringing her head into the room. “I know you. I was thinking if I dared scare the missus, when I see you tumble in — I nigh tumbled down with surprise! I’ll go hot-foot and take the news, miss!”

  “No, no, I shall come!”

  “You let me go and fetch ‘em! I’ll bet, miss, I’ll be welcome. And do you bide quiet and safe. Now we know where you are, they’ll not harm you.”

  But Henrietta had heard a footstep on the stairs, and she was not going to bide quiet. She had no belief in her safety.

  “No,” she said resolutely. “I am coming. Can you take the child?”

  “Well, if you must, but — —”

  “I must! I must!”

  “Lord, you are frightened!” the woman muttered, looking at her face. And then, catching the infection, “Is’t as bad as that?” she said. “Ay, give me the child, then. And for the Lord’s sake, be quick, miss. This pear is as good as a ladder, and the dog knows me as well as its own folk!”

  “The child! The child!” Henrietta repeated. Again her ear had caught the sound of shuffling feet, and of whispering on the stairs. She carried the child, which seemed paralysed by fear, to the sill, and delivered it into the other’s arm.

  The sill of the window was barely ten feet from the ground, and an old pear tree, spread-eagled against the wall, formed a natural ladder. The dog, which had been chained under the window to guard against egress, knew the woman and did no more than stand below and wag its tail. In two minutes Henrietta was safe on the ground, had taken the child from the other’s arms, and was ready for flight.

  But the servant would not leave until she had made sure that her mistress had strength to close the window. That done, she turned to Henrietta.

  “Now come!” she said. “And don’t spare yourself, miss, for if they catch us after this they’ll for certain cut our throats!”

  Henrietta had no need of the spur, and at their best pace the two fled down the paddock, the servant-wench holding Henrietta by the elbow and impelling her. The moon had risen, and Mrs. Tyson, poor, terrified, trembling woman, watching them from the window, could follow them down the pale meadow, and even discern the dark line of the rivulet, along the bank of which they passed, and here and there a patch of higher herbage, or a solitary boulder left in the middle of the turf for a scratching-post. Perhaps she made, in leaning forward, some noise which irritated the dog; or perhaps the moonlight annoyed it. At any rate, it began to bay.

  By that time, however, Henrietta and her companion had gained the shadow of the trees at the upper end of the wooded gorge through which the stream escaped. They stood there a brief while to take breath, and the woman offered to carry the child. But Henrietta, though she felt that her strength was uncertain, though she experienced an odd giddiness, was unwilling to resign her charge. And after a pause they started to descend the winding path which followed the stream, and often crossed and re-crossed it.

  They stumbled along as fast as they could. But this was not very fast. For not only was it dark in the covert, but the track was beset with projecting roots, and overhead branches hung low and scraped their faces. More than once startled by a rabbit, or the gurgle of the falling water, they stopped to listen, fancying that they were pursued. Still they went fast enough to feel ultimate safety certain; and Henrietta, as she held an end of the other’s petticoat between her fingers and followed patiently, bade herself bear up a little longer and it would be over. It would soon be over, and she — she would put his child in his arms. It would soon be over, and she would be able to sink down upon her bed and rest. For she was very weary — and odd. Very, unaccountably weary. When she stumbled or her foot found the descent longer than she expected, she staggered and swayed on her feet.

  But, “We shall soon be safe! We shall soon be safe!” she told herself. “And the child!”

  Meanwhile they had passed the darkest part of the little ravine. They had passed the place where the waterfalls made the descent most arduous. They could even see below them a piece of the road lying white in the moonlight.

  On a sudden Henrietta stopped.

  “You must take the child,” she faltered, in a tone that startled her companion. “I can’t carry — it any farther.”

  “I’ll take it. You should have given it me before!” the woman scolded. “That’s better. Quiet, my lad. I’ll not hurt you!” For the child, silent hitherto, had begun to whimper. “Now, miss,” she continued sharply, “bear up! It’s but a little way farther.”

  “I don’t think — I can,” Henrietta said. The crisis over, she felt her strength ebbing away in the strangest fashion. She swayed, and had to cling to a tree for support. “You must go on — without me,” she stammered.

  “I’ll not go
on without you,” the woman answered. She was loath to leave the girl helpless in the wood, where it was possible that she might still come to harm. “You come down to the road, miss. Pluck up! Pluck up! It’s but a step!”

  And partly by words, partly by means of a vigorous arm, the good creature got the girl to the bottom of the wood, and by a last effort, half lifted, half dragged her over the stile which closed the gap in the wall. But once in the road, Henrietta seemed scarcely conscious where she was. She tottered, and the moment the woman took her hands from her, she sank down against the wall.

  “Leave me! Leave me!” she muttered, with a last exertion of sense. “And take the child! I’m — giddy. Only giddy! I shall be better in a minute.” Then, “I think — I think I am fainting.”

  “I think you are,” the woman answered drily. She stooped over her. “Poor thing!” she said. “There’s no knowing what has happened to her! But she’ll freeze as she is!”

  And whipping off her thick drugget shawl — they made such shawls in Kendal — she wrapped it about the girl, snatched up the child, and set off running and walking along the road. The Low Wood Inn lay not more than four furlongs away, and she counted on returning in twenty minutes.

  “Ay, in twenty minutes!” she muttered, and then, saving her breath, she kept on steadily along the moonlit road, soothing the child with a word when it was necessary. In a very brief time she was out of sight.

  For a while all was still as death. Then favoured by the recumbent position, Henrietta began to recover; and presently, but not until some minutes had elapsed, she came to herself.

  She sighed deeply, and gazing upward at the dark sky, with its twinkling stars, she wondered how she came to be in such a strange place; but without any desire to rise, or any wish to solve the riddle. A second sigh as deep as the first lifted the oppression from her breast; and with returning strength she wondered what was the long dark line that bounded her vision. Was it, could it be, the head-board of her bed? Or the tester?

  It was, in fact, the wall that bounded the wood, but she was not able to take that in. And though the nipping air, blowing freely on her face, was doing its best to refresh her, and she was beginning to grope in her memory for the past, it needed a sound, a voice, to restore to her, not her powers, but her consciousness. The event soon happened. Two men drew near, talking in low fierce tones. At first, lying there as in a dream, she heard without understanding; and then, still powerless under the spell, she heard and understood.

  “Why didn’t you,” Lunt’s voice growled hoarsely, “loose the dog, as I told you? We’d have had her by now.”

  “Ay, and have had the country about our ears, too,” Giles answered angrily.

  “And shan’t we have it about our ears when that vixen has told her tale?” the other cried. “I swear my neck aches now!”

  “She couldn’t carry the brat far, nor fast.”

  “No, but — what’s that?” There was alarm in Lunt’s tone.

  “Only the lad following us,” Giles answered. “He’s brought the lanthorn.”

  Perhaps the three separated then: perhaps not. She could not rise to see. She was paralysed. She lay as in a nightmare, and was conscious only of the yellow gleam of the lanthorn as it quartered the ground this way and that, and came nearer and nearer. At last the man who carried it was close to her; on the other side of the wall. He raised the lanthorn above his head, and looked over the wall. By evil chance, the light focussed itself upon her.

  She knew that she was discovered. And her terror was the greater because she knew that the man who held the lanthorn was the gipsy — whom she feared the most of all. But she was not capable of motion or of resistance; and though he held the light steadily on her, and for a few seconds she saw in the side-glow his dark features gleaming down at her, she lay fascinated. She waited for him to proclaim his discovery.

  He shut off the light abruptly.

  “So — ho! back!” he cried. “She’s not this way! Maybe she’s in the bushes above!”

  “This way?”

  “Ay!”

  “Then, burn you, why don’t you bring the light, instead of talking?” Lunt retorted. And from the sound he appeared to be kicking the nearer bushes, and probing them with a stick.

  The gipsy answered impudently, and the three, blaming one another, moved off up the wood.

  “You should have brought the dog,” one cried.

  “Oh, curse the dog!” was the answer. “I tell you she can’t be far off! She can’t have come as low as this.” The light was thrown hither and thither. “She’s somewhere among the bushes. We’ll hap on her by-and-by.”

  “And s’help me when we do,” Lunt answered, “I’ll — —”

  And then, mercifully, the voices grew indistinct. The flicker of the lanthorn was lost among the trees. With wonder and stupefaction Henrietta found herself alone, found herself faint, gasping, scarcely sensible — but safe! Safe!

  She could not understand the why or the wherefore of her escape, and she had not energy to try to fathom it. She lay a few seconds to rest and clear her head, and then she thought that she would try to rise. She was on her knees, and was supporting herself with one hand against the cold, rough surface of the wall, when every fibre in her cried suddenly, Alarm! Alarm! He was coming back. Yes, he was coming back, leaping and running, bursting his way through the undergrowth. And she understood. He had led the others away and he was coming back — alone!

  She fell back feeling deadly faint. Then she tried to rise, but she could not, and she screamed. She screamed hoarsely once and again, and, oh, joy! even as the gipsy clambered over the stile, sprang into the road and came to seize her, and all her being arose in revolt against him, a voice answered her, feet came racing up the road, a man appeared, she was no longer alone.

  It was the chaplain, panting and horrified. He had been the first to be alarmed by the woman’s tale, and running out of the house unarmed and hatless he had come in time, in the nick of time! Across her lifeless body, for at last she had swooned quite away, the gipsy and he looked at one another by the light of the moon. And without warning, without a word said, the gipsy came at him like a wildcat, a knife in his hand. Sutton saw the gleam of the weapon, and the gleam of the man’s savage eyes, but he held his ground gallantly. With a yell for help he let the man close with him, and, more by luck than skill, he parried the blow which the other had dealt him with the knife. But the gipsy, finding his arm clutched and held, struck his enemy with his left fist a heavy blow between the eyes. The poor chaplain fell stunned and breathless.

  The gipsy stood over him an instant to see if he would rise. But he did not move; and the man turned to the girl, who lay insensible beside the wall. He stooped to raise her, with the intention of putting her over the wall. But in the act he heard a shout, and he lifted his head to listen, supposing that his comrades had got wind of the skirmish.

  It was not his comrades; for despairing of retaking the girl, they had hurried back to the house to attend to their own safety. He stooped again; but this time he heard the patter of footsteps coming up the road, and a man came in sight in the moonlight. With every passion roused, and determined, since he had risked so much, that he would not be balked, the gipsy lifted the girl none the less, and had raised her almost to the level of the top of the wall, when the man shouted anew. Perforce the ruffian let the girl down again, and with a snarl of rage turned and faced the newcomer with his knife.

  But Clyne — for it was he — had not come unarmed. For many days he had not gone so much as a step unarmed. And the stranger’s attitude as he let the girl fall, and the gleam of his knife, were enough. The man rushed at him, as he had rushed at the chaplain, with the ferocity of a wild beast. But Clyne met him with a burst of flame and shot, and then with a second shot; and the gipsy whirled round with a muffled cry and fell — at first it seemed backwards. But when he reached the ground he lay limp and doubled up with his face to his knees, and one arm under him.


  Clyne, with the smoking pistol in his hand, bent over him, ready, if he moved, to beat out his brains. But there was no need of that third blow, which he would have given with hearty good-will. And he turned to the girl. Something, perhaps the pistol-shot, had brought her to herself. She had raised herself against the wall, and holding it, was looking wildly about her; not at the dead man, nor at the chaplain, who stirred and groaned. But at Clyne. And when he approached her she threw herself on his breast and clung to him.

  “Oh, don’t let me go! Oh, don’t let me go!” she cried.

  He tried to soothe her, he tried to pacify her; keeping himself between her and the prostrate man.

  “I won’t,” he said. “I won’t. You are quite safe. You are quite safe.”

  He had fired with a hand as steady as a rock, but his voice shook now.

  “Oh, don’t let me go!” she repeated hysterically. “Oh, don’t let me go!”

  “You are safe! you are safe!” he assured her, holding her more closely, and yet more closely to him.

  And when Bishop and Long Tom Gilson, and three or four others, came up at a run, breathing fire and slaughter, he was still supporting her; and she was crying to him, in a voice that went to the men’s hearts, “Not to let her go! Not to let her go!”

  Alas, too, that was the sight which met the poor chaplain’s swimming gaze when he came to himself, and, groaning, felt the bump between his eyes — the bump which he had got in her defence.

  CHAPTER XXXVI

  TWO OF A RACE

  It was Thursday, and three days had passed since the Sunday, the day of many happenings, which had cleared up the mystery and restored Henrietta to Mrs. Gilson’s care. The frost still held, the air was brisk and clear. The Langdale Pikes lifted themselves sharp and glittering from the line of grey screes that run southward to Wetherlamb and the Coniston Mountain. A light air blew down the lake, ruffling the open water, and bedecking the leafless woods on Wray Point with a fringe of white breakers. The morning was a perfect winter morning, the sky of that cloudless, but not over-deep blue, which portends a long and steady frost. Horses’ hoofs rang loud on the road; and rooks gathered where they had passed. Men who stopped to talk hit their palms together or swung their arms. The larger and wiser birds had started betimes for salt water and the mussel preserves on the Cartmel Sands.