CHAPTER V
HOW DICK CHANGED SIDES
Dick, blowing out his lamp lest it should attract attention, led the wayup-stairs and along the corridor. In the brown chamber the rope had beenmade fast to the frame of an exceeding heavy and ancient bed. It had notbeen detached, and Dick, taking the coil to the window, began to lowerit slowly and cautiously into the darkness of the night. Joan stood by;but as the rope lengthened, and still Dick continued to pay it out,extreme fear began to conquer her resolution.
"Dick," she said, "is it so deep? I may not essay it. I shouldinfallibly fall, good Dick."
It was just at the delicate moment of the operations that she spoke.Dick started; the remainder of the coil slipped from his grasp, and theend fell with a splash into the moat. Instantly, from the battlementabove, the voice of a sentinel cried, "Who goes?"
"A murrain!" cried Dick. "We are paid now! Down with you--take therope."
"I cannot," she cried, recoiling.
"An ye cannot, no more can I," said Shelton. "How can I swim the moatwithout you? Do you desert me, then?"
"Dick," she gasped, "I cannot. The strength is gone from me."
"By the mass, then, we are all shent!" he shouted, stamping with hisfoot; and then, hearing steps, he ran to the room door and sought toclose it.
Before he could shoot the bolt, strong arms were thrusting it back uponhim from the other side. He struggled for a second; then, feelinghimself overpowered, ran back to the window. The girl had fallen againstthe wall in the embrasure of the window; she was more than halfinsensible; and when he tried to raise her in his arms, her body waslimp and unresponsive.
At the same moment the men who had forced the door against him laid holdupon him. The first he poniarded at a blow, and the others falling backfor a second in some disorder, he profited by the chance, bestrode thewindow-sill, seized the cord in both hands, and let his body slip.
The cord was knotted, which made it the easier to descend; but sofurious was Dick's hurry, and so small his experience of suchgymnastics, that he span round and round in mid-air like a criminal upona gibbet, and now beat his head, and now bruised his hands, against therugged stonework of the wall. The air roared in his ears; he saw thestars overhead, and the reflected stars below him in the moat, whirlinglike dead leaves before the tempest. And then he lost hold, and fell,and soused head over ears into the icy water.
When he came to the surface his hand encountered the rope, which, newlylightened of his weight, was swinging wildly to and fro. There was ared glow overhead, and looking up, he saw, by the light of severaltorches and a cresset full of burning coals, the battlements lined withfaces. He saw the men's eyes turning hither and thither in quest of him;but he was too far below, the light reached him not, and they looked invain.
And now he perceived that the rope was considerably too long, and hebegan to struggle as well as he could towards the other side of themoat, still keeping his head above water. In this way he got much morethan half-way over; indeed the bank was almost within reach, before therope began to draw him back by its own weight. Taking his courage inboth hands, he left go and made a leap for the trailing sprays of willowthat had already, that same evening, helped Sir Daniel's messenger toland. He went down, rose again, sank a second time, and then his handcaught a branch, and with the speed of thought he had dragged himselfinto the thick of the tree and clung there, dripping and panting, andstill half uncertain of his escape.
But all this had not been done without a considerable splashing, whichhad so far indicated his position to the men along the battlements.Arrows and quarrels fell thick around him in the darkness, thick likedriving hail; and suddenly a torch was thrown down--flared through theair in its swift passage--stuck for a moment on the edge of the bank,where it burned high and lit up its whole surroundings like abonfire--and then, in a good hour for Dick, slipped off, plumped intothe moat, and was instantly extinguished.
It had served its purpose. The marksmen had had time to see the willow,and Dick ensconced among its boughs; and though the lad instantly spranghigher up the bank, and ran for his life, he was yet not quick enough toescape a shot. An arrow struck him in the shoulder, another grazed hishead.
The pain of his wounds lent him wings; and he had no sooner got upon thelevel than he took to his heels and ran straight before him in the dark,without a thought for the direction of his flight.
For a few steps missiles followed him, but these soon ceased; and whenat length he came to a halt and looked behind, he was already a good wayfrom the Moat House, though he could still see the torches moving to andfro along its battlements.
He leaned against a tree, streaming with blood and water, bruised,wounded, alone, and unarmed. For all that, he had saved his life forthat bout; and though Joanna remained behind in the power of Sir Daniel,he neither blamed himself for an accident that it had been beyond hispower to prevent, nor did he augur any fatal consequences to the girlherself. Sir Daniel was cruel, but he was not likely to be cruel to ayoung gentlewoman who had other protectors, willing and able to bringhim to account. It was more probable he would make haste to marry her tosome friend of his own.
"Well," thought Dick, "between then and now I will find me the means tobring that traitor under; for I think, by the mass, that I be nowabsolved from any gratitude or obligation; and when war is open, thereis a fair chance for all."
In the meanwhile, here he was in a sore plight.
For some little way farther he struggled forward through the forest; butwhat with the pain of his wounds, the darkness of the night, and theextreme uneasiness and confusion of his mind, he soon became equallyunable to guide himself or to continue to push through the closeundergrowth, and he was fain at length to sit down and lean his backagainst a tree.
When he awoke from something betwixt sleep and swooning, the grey of themorning had begun to take the place of night. A little chilly breeze wasbustling among the trees, and as he still sat staring before him, onlyhalf awake, he became aware of something dark that swung to and froamong the branches, some hundred yards in front of him. The progressivebrightening of the day and the return of his own senses at last enabledhim to recognise the object. It was a man hanging from the bough of atall oak. His head had fallen forward on his breast; but at everystronger puff of wind his body span round and round, and his legs andarms tossed, like some ridiculous plaything.
Dick clambered to his feet, and, staggering and leaning on thetree-trunks as he went, drew near to this grim object.
The bough was perhaps twenty feet above the ground, and the poor fellowhad been drawn up so high by his executioners that his boots swung clearabove Dick's reach; and as his hood had been drawn over his face, it wasimpossible to recognise the man.
Dick looked about him right and left; and at last he perceived that theother end of the cord had been made fast to the trunk of a littlehawthorn which grew, thick with blossom, under the lofty arcade of theoak. With his dagger, which alone remained to him of all his arms, youngShelton severed the rope, and instantly, with a dead thump, the corpsefell in a heap upon the ground.
Dick raised the hood; it was Throgmorton, Sir Daniel's messenger. He hadnot gone far upon his errand. A paper, which had apparently escaped thenotice of the men of the Black Arrow, stuck from the bosom of hisdoublet, and Dick, pulling it forth, found it was Sir Daniel's letter toLord Wensleydale.
"Come," thought he, "if the world changes yet again, I may have here thewherewithal to shame Sir Daniel--nay, and perchance to bring him to theblock."
And he put the paper in his own bosom, said a prayer over the dead man,and set forth again through the woods.
His fatigue and weakness increased; his ears sang, his steps faltered,his mind at intervals failed him, so low had he been brought by loss ofblood. Doubtless he made many deviations from his true path, but at lasthe came out upon the highroad, not very far from Tunstall hamlet.
A rough voice bid him stand.
"Stand?" repeated Dick. "By the mass, b
ut I am nearer falling."
And he suited the action to the word, and fell all his length upon theroad.
Two men came forth out of the thicket, each in green forest jerkin, eachwith long-bow and quiver and short sword.
"Why, Lawless," said the younger of the two, "it is young Shelton."
"Ay, this will be as good as bread to John Amend-All," returned theother. "Though, faith, he hath been to the wars. Here is a tear in hisscalp that must 'a' cost him many a good ounce of blood."
"And here," added Greensheve, "is a hole in his shoulder that must havepricked him well. Who hath done this, think ye? If it be one of ours, hemay all to prayer; Ellis will give him a short shrift and a long rope."
"Up with the cub," said Lawless. "Clap him on my back."
And then, when Dick had been hoisted to his shoulders, and he had takenthe lad's arms about his neck, and got a firm hold of him, the ex-GreyFriar added:
"Keep ye the post, brother Greensheve. I will on with him by myself."
So Greensheve returned to his ambush on the wayside, and Lawless trudgeddown the hill, whistling as he went, with Dick, still in a dead faint,comfortably settled on his shoulders.
The sun rose as he came out of the skirts of the wood and saw Tunstallhamlet straggling up the opposite hill. All seemed quiet, but a strongpost of some half a score of archers lay close by the bridge on eitherside of the road, and, as soon as they perceived Lawless with hisburthen, began to bestir themselves and set arrow to string likevigilant sentries.
"Who goes?" cried the man in command.
"Will Lawless, by the rood--ye know me as well as your own hand,"returned the outlaw, contemptuously.
"Give the word, Lawless," returned the other.
"Now, Heaven lighten thee, thou great fool," replied Lawless. "Did I nottell it thee myself? But ye are all mad for this playing at soldiers.When I am in the greenwood, give me greenwood ways; and my word for thistide is: 'A fig for all mock soldiery!'"
"Lawless, ye but show an ill example; give us the word, fool jester,"said the commander of the post.
"And if I had forgotten it?" asked the other.
"An ye had forgotten it--as I know y' 'ave not--by the mass, I wouldclap an arrow into your big body," returned the first.
"Nay, an y'are so ill a jester," said Lawless, "ye shall have your wordfor me. 'Duckworth and Shelton' is the word; and here, to theillustration, is Shelton on my shoulders, and to Duckworth do I carryhim."
"Pass, Lawless," said the sentry.
"And where is John?" asked the Grey Friar.
"He holdeth a court, by the mass, and taketh rents as to the mannerborn!" cried another of the company.
So it proved. When Lawless got as far up the village as the little inn,he found Ellis Duckworth surrounded by Sir Daniel's tenants, and, by theright of his good company of archers, coolly taking rents, and givingwritten receipts in return for them. By the faces of the tenants, it wasplain how little this proceeding pleased them; for they argued veryrightly that they would simply have to pay them twice.
As soon as he knew what had brought Lawless, Ellis dismissed theremainder of the tenants, and, with every mark of interest andapprehension, conducted Dick into an inner chamber of the inn. There thelad's hurts were looked to; and he was recalled, by simple remedies, toconsciousness.
"Dear lad," said Ellis, pressing his hand, "y'are in a friend's handsthat loved your father, and loves you for his sake. Rest ye a littlequietly, for ye are somewhat out of case. Then shall ye tell me yourstory, and betwixt the two of us we shall find a remedy for all."
A little later in the day, and after Dick had awakened from acomfortable slumber to find himself still very weak, but clearer in mindand easier in body, Ellis returned, and sitting down by the bedside,begged him, in the name of his father, to relate the circumstance of hisescape from Tunstall Moat House. There was something in the strength ofDuckworth's frame, in the honesty of his brown face, in the clearnessand shrewdness of his eyes, that moved Dick to obey him; and from firstto last the lad told him the story of his two days' adventures.
"Well," said Ellis, when he had done, "see what the kind saints havedone for you, Dick Shelton, not alone to save your body in so numerousand deadly perils, but to bring you into my hands that have no dearerwish than to assist your father's son. Be but true to me--and I seey'are true--and betwixt you and me, we shall bring that false-hearttraitor to the death."
"Will ye assault the house?" asked Dick.
"I were mad, indeed, to think of it," returned Ellis. "He hath too muchpower; his men gather to him; those that gave me the slip last night,and by the mass came in so handily for you--those have made him safe.Nay, Dick, to the contrary, thou and I and my brave bowmen, we must allslip from this forest speedily, and leave Sir Daniel free."
"My mind misgiveth me for Jack," said the lad.
"For Jack!" repeated Duckworth. "O, I see, for the wench! Nay, Dick, Ipromise you, if there come talk of any marriage we shall act at once;till then, or till the time is ripe, we shall all disappear, even likeshadows at morning; Sir Daniel shall look east and west, and see noneenemies; he shall think, by the mass, that he hath dreamed awhile, andhath now awakened in his bed. But our four eyes, Dick, shall follow himright close, and our four hands--so help us all the army of thesaints!--shall bring that traitor low!"
* * * * *
Two days later Sir Daniel's garrison had grown to such a strength thathe ventured on a sally, and at the head of some two-score horsemen,pushed without opposition as far as Tunstall hamlet. Not an arrow flew,not a man stirred in the thicket; the bridge was no longer guarded, butstood open to all comers; and as Sir Daniel crossed it, he saw thevillagers looking timidly from their doors.
Presently one of them, taking heart of grace, came forward, and with thelowliest salutations, presented a letter to the knight.
His face darkened as he read the contents. It ran thus:
_To the most untrue and cruel gentylman, Sir Daniel Brackley, Knyght, These:_
I fynde ye were untrue and unkynd fro the first. Ye have my father's blood upon your hands; let be, it will not wasshe. Some day ye shall perish by my procurement, so much I let you to wytte; and I let you to wytte farther, that if ye seek to wed to any other the gentylwoman, Mistresse Joan Sedley, whom that I am bound upon a great oath to wed myself, the blow will be very swift. The first step therinne will be thy first step to the grave.
RIC. SHELTON.
BOOK III
MY LORD FOXHAM
The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses Page 15