I stared at him. “That was so,” I said. Where had I seen some one — some one? My heart began to beat quickly.
He sneezed. “Of Wilmer’s Bluff?” he muttered. “Well, I think I should know him, Major, I b’lieve I know him. And he saved your life, sir, did he? He saved your life?”
We stared at one another. Haldane, summoned by a voice from the passage turned to leave the room. Webster laughed — evidently the man’s oddities were known to him and he saw nothing out of the common in his manner. “Gad, Craven! You look surprised,” he said with a chuckle. “But Mr. Burton has a vast deal of information. He knows what is passing as well as any man, by Gad! Well, I must be going. See you at dinner? You had better be going soon, for the Chief is coming back, and he likes to have the room to himself.”
Sharp as the shock had been, the moment of time that Webster’s words gained for me, helped me to collect myself. Before he was out of the room I spoke. “Yes, Mr. Burton,” I said, “we had better be going!”
His eyes questioned me.
“We’ll go to my quarters — in the first place,” I said.
He had still a hope I think that I had no more than suspicion in my mind — that I did not know; for he fenced with me, his eyes on my face. “In an hour, sir,” he said, “I can be at your service. Heartily at your service, sir.”
“In an hour,” I replied gravely, “it will be too late for either of us to be of service to the other. You know many things, Mr. Burton,” I continued, “but I know one thing. You will be wise to give me your arm and to come with me to my quarters at once. Will you go before me?”
I made way for him and followed him closely from the room and the house. Outside I saw Paton seated on one of the benches before the door. “Paton,” I said, “come with me. I want you.”
My tone surprised him, and reinforced by a glance at my face put him on the alert. He rose at once and joined us. By this time I had a pretty good notion what I should do, and when we had walked a few yards in silence, “Paton,” I said, “Mr. Burton is going to give me some information and we want no listeners and no interruption. I am going to take him to our quarters and I want you to keep the door below and to see that no one comes in or goes out while we are together. Do you understand?” Paton looked at me and looked at Burton and no doubt he saw that the thing, whatever it was, was serious. He whistled softly. “I understand!” he said. And then, “There is my man,” he added, “would you like him too?”
“Yes, I would,” I said. “Bid him be within call.” Burton maintained an easy silence as he moved beside me, and in this fashion, followed by Paton’s man who had fallen in at a sign from his master, we walked up the village street, threading the motley crowd of blacks and whites who thronged it. Soldiers, leaning against garden fences or lounging under the trees, saluted us as we passed. Sutlers’ carts went by in a long train. In an interval between two houses the drums were practicing. Here an awkward squad was at drill under a rough-tongued sergeant, whose cane was seldom idle, there a troop of the 14th Dragoons were drawn up awaiting their officer. A shower had fallen earlier in the day, but the sun had shone out and the lively scene, the white frame-houses, the bowering foliage around them, the bright uniforms, the movement, formed one of the cheerful interludes of war.
In other eyes than mine. For my part I walked through it, execrating, bitterly execrating it all — the sunshine, the leaves just touched by autumn, the fleecy sky — all! And fate. The mockery of it and the irony of it, overcame me. Of what moment are the bright hues of the trap to the wild creature that is caught in it?
However, lamentations must wait for another season. I had but a few moments, and I must act, not think. A very short walk brought us to Paton’s house in which he had secured for me the sole use of a liny attic, the only room above stairs in what was but a small cottage. On the threshold I turned to him. “You will keep the door,” I said. “No one is to be allowed to go in or out, Paton, until you see me. You understand? Has your man his side-arms?”
Paton looked askance at my companion. “I understand,” he said. “You may depend upon me, Major.”
“Now, Mr. Burton,” I said. “I will follow you, if you please. I think that we can soon despatch this matter.”
We went in. I pointed to the narrow staircase — it was little better than a ladder — and he went up before me. The room was a mere cock-loft lighted by a tiny square window on the level of my knee and looking to the rear. But it was private and we could just stand upright in the middle of the floor. I closed the door, and turned to him.
CHAPTER IX
THE COURT IS CLOSED
As I was walking all alane
I heard twa corbies making a mane
The tane unto the tither say:
‘Where sail we gang and dine to-day?’
‘Ye’ll sit on his white hause-bane
And I’ll pick out his bonnie blue een,
Wi’ ae lock o’ his gowden hair
We’ll theek our nest when it grows bare.’
ANON.
“We had better speak low, Mr. Burton,” I said. “I will be as short as I can. You know the position as well as I do, and that if I do my duty the result will be a long rope and a short shrift before night.”
He looked about him, and drawing forward his ample skirts, he took with much calmness — but I suspected that he was not as cool as he looked — a seat on my bed. “Have you not made a mistake, Major?” he drawled.
“No,” I answered. “I have made no mistake, I understand many things now that were dark to me before; what your daughter feared, and why she kept you apart from me, and — and the enemy’s knowledge of our plans, Mr. Burton.”
He shrugged his shoulders, and made no farther attempt to baffle me or to deny his identity. He sat, a little hunched up on the low bed with his hands in his pockets; and he looked at me, quizzically. Certainly, he was a man of great courage. “Well,” he said, “we’re in trouble, sir. It has come to that. Poor Con always said that it would, and that if I took you in I should pay for it. Good Lord, if she saw us now! But, as it turns out, the shoe is on the other foot, Major. It is you who will have to pay for it. I saved your life, and you cannot give me up. You cannot do it, my friend!”
I confess that his answer and his impudence confounded me and roused in me an anger which I could hardly control. How I execrated alike the ill luck that had brought my rescuers to the Bluff and the impulse that had led them to wait for a last stirrup-cup — and so to find me! How above all I cursed the chance that had put it into the Chief’s head to seek my advice that morning — that morning of all mornings — before the news of my return had gone abroad!
Even for the man before me I was concerned; he had saved my life, he had treated me well, and he had done both in the face of strong temptation to do otherwise. But I was not so much concerned for him as for Constantia. Poor Constantia! The picture that rose before me, of the girl, of her love for her father, of her anxiety, of the Bluff, of all, rent my heart.
“How long have you been doing this?” I asked harshly. My voice sounded in my own ears like another man’s.
He raised his eyebrows. He did not answer. He left the burden on me.
“You won’t say anything?”
“Only that I saved your life, Major,” he replied quaintly. “I’ve done my stint, it is for you to do yours. You can’t give me up.”
He leaned back, his hands clasped about his knees, his eyes smiling. Apparently he experienced no doubt, no anxiety, no alarm; only some faint amusement. But probably behind the mask, which practice had made to sit easily on him, fear was working as in other men; probably he felt the halter not far from his neck. For when I did not answer, “You’ve not brought me here for nothing, I suppose?” he said, speaking in a sharper tone.
I had no difficulty in finding an answer to that. “No,” I said with the bitterness I had so far repressed. “No, if you must know, I have brought you here, to sink myself something lower than you! T
o pay the bill which I owe for my life with my honor! Oh, its a damned fine pass, sir, you’ve brought me to!” I continued savagely. “To soil hands that I’ve kept clean so far, and dirty a name—”
“Stop!” he cried. He was on his feet in a moment, a changed man, sharp, eager, angry. “Lower than me, you say? By G — d, let there be no mistake, Major! If you think I’m ashamed of the work I am doing, I am not! And I’ll not let it be said that I am! I am proud of it! I am doing work that not one in ten thousand could do or dare do. Plenty will shoot off guns and face death in hot blood — it’s a boy’s task. But to face death in cold blood, and daily and hourly without rest or respite; to know that the halter may enter with every man who comes into the room, with every letter that is laid on the table, with a dropped word or a careless look. To know that it’s waiting for you outside every house you leave. To face that, day and night, week in week out — that needs nerve! That calls for courage, I say it, sir, who know! And what is the upshot?” He swelled himself out. “Where others strike blows, I win battles!”
“Ay,” I cried — he had more to say, had I let him go on— “but sometimes you lose, and this time you have lost. And having lost, you look to me to pay! You look to me, sir! You take the honor, d — n you, and you leave me the dishonor! But by G — d, if it were not for your daughter,”
“Ah!” he said, low-voiced and attentive.
“You should pay your losings this time, though you saved my life twice over!”
“Oh, oh!” he said in the same low voice. He sat back on the bed again, and stared at me, as if he saw a different man before him. After a pause, “Well,” he said, “I was a fool, Major, to blow my trumpet, and ruffle your temper. If I wanted to put my head in your folks’ noose, that was the way to do it. But every mother dotes on her own booby. Well, you’ll hear no more singing from me. I’m silent!”
“When I think,” I cried, “of your boasts of what you have done!”
“Don’t think of them,” he answered. “Set me dawn for a fool, Major, and let it rest there. Or think of the Bluff and Con. She’s a good girl, and fond of her father and — well, you know how it is with us.”
I was able to collect myself within a minute or two, and— “Mark me,” I said firmly, “I will give you up, Wilmer, I will give you up still, if you depart one jot from what I tell you. You will remain in this room for twenty-four hours. By that time Major Wemyss will have done his work, and as the time of the attack has been advanced by a night, what you may have communicated to your people should not change the issue. To-morrow I will release you, and give you two hours start. You will be wise to avail yourself of it, for at the end of that time I shall see Lord Rawdon, make a clean breast of it, and take the consequences. I shall be dismissed, and if I get my deserts I shall be shot; in any case my name will be disgraced. But if I am not to give you up, there is no other way out of the pit in which you have caught me.”
He thought for a moment. Then “I will give you,” he said, “my word if you like, Craven, not to pass on any more—”
“What, a spy’s word?” I cried — and very foolish it was of me to say it. But the man had brought so much evil on me that I longed to wound him. “No! I’ll have no truck with you and no bargain, Captain Wilmer. It shall be as I have said, exactly as I have said,” I repeated, “or I call in the nearest guard. That is plain speaking.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “As you please, my friend,” he said. “But why not open Rawdon’s eyes as to me — when I’m gone? and say no more?”
“And leave myself in your power?” I cried. “No! I tell you I will make no bargain with you and have no truck! That way traitors are made!”
“I will swear if you like, Major—”
“No,” I replied angrily, “if I do this, I will pay for it.”
He shrugged his shoulders once more. “Well! it’s your difficulty,” he said dryly, relapsing into his earlier manner. “And it is for you to get out of it.”
“Yes,” I said, “and I shall get out of it in my own way and on my own terms.”
He did not answer and I turned to go, but I cast my eyes round the place, before I left him. A glance was enough to assure me that a man of his size could not pass through the window, while there was no other way from the room except through the guarded door. I went down to Paton. I must secure his help for I had still something to do.
Naturally a lively soul, he was agog with curiosity, which the trouble in my face did not lessen. “What is the trouble, Major?” he asked, taking my arm, and drawing me apart. “And where’s old Snuff and Sneeze?”
“He’s in my room and he’s going to stay there,” I said. Then I told him a part of the truth; that I had a clue to a spy, a man in the camp at this moment. I added that I believed Burton also knew the man and might be tempted to warn him, if he were free to do so. That if Burton attempted to leave the house, therefore, he must be arrested; but that I aimed at avoiding this if possible, as I did not wish to estrange the man. “I leave you on guard,” I said. “I depend on you, Paton.”
“But I’m on duty, Major,” he objected, “in an hour.”
“I shall be back in half an hour,” I explained. “After that I will be answerable.”
“Very good,” he rejoined. “But you know what you are doing? You have no doubt I suppose? Burton has the Chief’s ear, and Webster believes in him and makes much of him. There’ll be the deuce of a fracas if he’s arrested and there’s nothing in it.”
“Do you arrest him if he leaves the house,” I said, “and leave it to me to explain. I don’t think he will, and as long as he remains upstairs let him be. That’s clear, is it not?”
He allowed that it was, and with a heavy heart I left him in charge and went on my errand.
I suppose that there were the same splashes of red among the trees, where the King’s uniform peeped through the foliage, the same men lounging about, the same squads practicing the Norfolk discipline, the same rack of thin clouds passing across the sunshine, the same drum playing the Retreat and the Tattoo, or the plaintive notes of Roslyn Castle. But I neither saw nor heard any of these things. My whole mind was bent on finding my lord and getting an express — no matter on what excuse — sent after Wemyss to warn him, and to put him on his guard. An orderly on a swift horse might still by hard riding overtake him; and such a message as “the enemy expect you to-morrow night, but do not expect you to-night — have a care” might avail. At worst it would relieve my conscience, at the same time that it lessened the heavy weight of responsibility that crushed me.
I should then have done all that I could, and nearly all that could be done, were the truth known.
But my lord was not at Headquarters, nor could they say where he was; and when I sought Webster, who had his lodgings at a tavern, a hundred yards farther down the road, he, too, was away. He had gone to visit the outposts eastward. Time was passing, Wemyss had a start of two hours, and was himself riding express; every moment that I lost made it more doubtful if he could be overtaken. With a groan I gave up the idea, and, turning about, I made the best of my way back towards Paton’s quarters.
Fifty yards short of the house whom should I meet but Haybittle, red-faced, grey-haired, and dogged, his green uniform shabby with hard usage. He was riding up the street with an orderly behind him, and when he saw me, he pulled his horse across the road and hailed me with a grin. “Major,” he said, “What’s this? There’s a young woman of the name of Simms hunting you like a wild cat. It’s easy to see what it is she has against you! Come, I didn’t think it of you — really I didn’t, Major! A man of your—”
“Pooh!” I cried, “it’s her husband that she wishes to hear of.” —
“Oh, of course, it’s always the husband is the trouble!” he laughed. “You are right there!”
“Well, come on,” I answered irritably, “I want to hear about the woman, but I cannot stop now. Come to Paton’s and tell me what she said. He’s waiting for me, and he’s next for d
uty. I am late as it is!”
I pushed on, and Haybittle turned his horse and followed at my heels. Over my shoulder, “I wish you’d seen that Quaker fellow, Burton, a minute ago,” he said. “Lord, he was a figure, Major! He’d borrowed a troop-horse, he told me, and it had tripped over a tent-rope in the lines and given him a fall. His stock was torn—”
I turned on the man so sharply, that his horse had much ado not to knock me down. “What?” I cried. “You met Burton — now?”
“Two minutes ago. He was riding express for—”
“Riding?”
“To be sure, riding towards Mobley’s Meeting House, and sharp, too! Why, what is it, man? You look as if you had seen a bailiff!”
I did not doubt. In a moment I knew. Though the house stood only twenty paces from us and Paton was at the door, I did not go in to see. A wave of anger, fierce, unreasoning, irresistible swept me away — and yet had I reasoned what else could I have done? I seized Haybittle’s rein with my free hand. “Then follow him!” I cried, pointing the way with my crippled arm. “After him! Ride like fury, man! He’s a spy! After him! Stop him, or shoot him!”
Haybittle stared at me as if I had gone mad. “Do you mean it?” he asked. “Are you sure, Major? Quite sure?” He held his cane suspended in the air.
“Go, man, go!” I cried, wildly excited. “My order! Follow him, follow him! Fishdam is his point! Turn all after him that you meet. A spy! Shout it before you as you go!”
“A spy?” Haybittle yelled. “D — n him, we’ll catch him!” His cane fell, his horse leapt off at a galop. The orderly followed, his knee abreast of the Captain’s crupper. Two troopers of the Fourteenth who were passing, heard the cry, turned their horses, and spurred after them. With a loud View Halloo the four pounded away down the road, spreading the alarm before them, as they rode.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 624