Shrewsbury: A Romance

The woman was at her side in a moment. "Yes, madam!"

"I suppose that there is no danger of a contretemps," she said, stirring restlessly in her chair. "Sir John will get away? They will not take him, and find the ring on him-and learn whose it is?"

On that, if I had been quick, and had had both wits and courage at command, I should have thrown myself at her feet; and so I might have opened her eyes. But I wavered, and before I had found heart to do it, the waiting-woman, smooth and watchful, was in the breach.

"Ashford, my lady, is only three hours' riding from Dymchurch in the Marsh," she said, "where the boat waits for him to-morrow night. Sir John is well mounted, and it will be odd, if, after baffling pursuit for months, he should be taken in that time."

"Yes, yes!" my lady said querulously. "Let him go! Let him go! Though you are a fool to boot. A man is taken or not taken in less than three hours. Even now, if that contrary devil of a son of mine had not argued with me, and argued with me to-day-but, let him go! Let him go!"

The woman lost no time in taking her at her word, and hurrying me out; not by the main entrance through which I had come in, but by the little side door, leading to the dingy closet at the head of the private staircase. In the closet a bright, unshaded lamp burned on the dusty table, and beside it stood Matthew Smith, wearing a cloak, riding-boots, and a great flapped hat. He looked eagerly at the woman, his eyes shining in the glare of the lamp; but he did not speak until she had closed the door behind her. Then, "Is it right?" he whispered.

She nodded.

"You have got the ring?"

She gave it to him with a smile of triumph.

He looked at it, and with a grim face slipped it into his pocket. "Good," he said, "and now, my friend, the sooner we are away, the better."

But my gorge rose. On the table beside him, in the full glare of the lamp, lay a cloak and holsters, a mask, sword, and riding-whip. I knew what these objects meant, and for whom they were prepared; and at the prospect of the plunge into the dark night, of the journey, and the perils of the unknown road, I cried out that I would not go! I would not go! And I tried to force my way back into the Countess's room-with what intention heaven knows.

But Smith whipped between me and the door. "You fool!" he said, pushing me back. "Are you mad? Or don't you know me yet?" "I know you too well!" I cried, beside myself with rage, and with apprehensions of the plunge on the brink of which I stood. "You have cursed me from the first day I saw you at Ware! You have been the curse of my life! You, and that Jezebel!"

"Are you mad?" he said again; and threatened me with his hand.

But she came a step nearer to me, and peered at me; and after one look took the lamp from the table and held it to my face. "At Ware?" she said. "At Ware?" And then, putting the lamp back on the table, she fell to laughing. "He is right!" she said. "I know him now. But you told me that his name was Taylor."

"Taylor?" he said wrathfully. "So it is; and Price, and half a dozen other names, for all I know. What does it matter what his name is?"

"Oh, it matters very much," she said, affecting to ogle me in an exaggerated fashion. "He is an old flame of mine. His face always brought something to my mind-but I thought that it was his likeness to the Duke."

He cursed her old flames, and the Duke. And then, "What does it mean?" he said. "Who is he?"

"He is the lad we left at Ware-in the old woman's room," she answered, her voice sinking, and growing almost soft. "Lord! it seems so long ago, it might have happened in another life! You remember him. Matt? You saw him with me at The Rose one night? The first night I saw you?"

He looked at me, long and strangely. "And what does it mean?" he said at last, scowling between wonder and suspicion.

She shrugged her shoulders. "Sais pas!" she answered. "Ask him!"

"You ruined me once!" I cried. "And he saved me! And now you would have me ruin him. You are devils, you are! Devils! But I defy you!"

He did not answer, but continued to stare at me; as if he discerned or suspected that there was more in this than appeared on the surface. At length the woman laughed, and he turned to her, rage in his face. "I see nothing to laugh at," he said.

"But I do!" she answered pertly. "You three all mixed up! It would make a cat laugh my lad."

He cursed her. "Have done with that!" he said fiercely. "And say, what is to be done?"

"Done?" she answered briskly, and in a tone of genuine surprise. "Why, that which was to be done. What difference does this make?"

But he looked at her, pondering darkly, as if it did make a difference. I suppose that somewhere, deep down in his nature, there lurked a grain of superstition, which found in this singular coincidence, this sudden stringing together of persons long parted, an evil omen. Or it may be that he had still some scrap of conscience left, that, seared and deadened as it was, stirred and started at this strange upheaval of an old crime. At any rate, "I don't know," he growled at last. "I don't like it, and that is flat. There is some practice in this."

"There is a fool in it," she answered naïvely. "And there are like to be two!"

I thought to back him up, and I braced myself against the wall, to which I had retired. "I won't go!" I said doggedly. "I will call for help in the streets, first!"

"You will do as you are told," she answered coolly. "And you," she continued to Smith in a voice of stinging scorn, "are you going to give it up now, when all is safe? Will you stand to my lord as this poor silly fellow stands to you? Have you waited for years for your revenge-to move aside now? Why, my G-d! the Duke is worth ten of you. He is a man, at any rate. He is-"

"Peace, girl," he cried, with I know not what of menace in his tone.

"Then, will you go?"

"Yes, I will go!" he answered between his teeth. "But by heaven, you slut, if ill comes of it, I will wring your neck! I will, so help me heaven! You shall deceive no other man! If there is practice of yours in this, if this tool is here by your connivance-"

"He is not!" she answered. "Be satisfied."

Apparently he was satisfied, for he drew a deep breath, and stood silent. She turned to me. "Get ready," she said sharply.

"No," I muttered, summoning all my resolution. "I shall not go. I-I have not-"

Smith turned to me, and the refusal died on my lips. The struggle with the woman had roused the man's passions; and I read in his eyes such a glare of ferocity as chilled my blood and unstrung my knees. Nor was that all; for when I went, trembling, to take the cloak, "One moment," he said grimly, "not so fast, my friend. Let us understand one another before we start. Mr. Price or Mr. Taylor or whatever your name is, take note, do you hear me, of three things? One, that the business we are on is life or death. Do you grasp that?"

I muttered a shuddering assent.

"Secondly," he continued, with the same gruesome civility, "my hand will never be more than six inches from the butt of a pistol, until I see this home again. Do you grasp that?"

I nodded.

"Thirdly, at the least sign of treachery or disobedience on your part, I blow out your brains first, and my own afterwards, if that be necessary. Do you grasp that?"

I nodded.

"That is especially well," he said. "Because the last item is important to you. On the other hand, Mr. Price, play honest John with me, and in forty-eight hours you shall be back in your master's house, free and safe; and I shall trouble you no more. Do you understand that?"

I said I did; my teeth chattering, and my eyes seeking to evade his.

"Then, now, yon may get into those things," he said. "And do you ride when I bid you, and halt when I bid you, and speak when I say speak, and be silent when I say be silent-do those four things, I say, and you will die in your bed. They are all I ask."

I stooped, shaking all over, to take up the boots. "Heart up, pretty!" cried the woman, with an odd laugh that broke off short with a sort of quaver. "It is clear that you are not born to be hanged. And for the rest-"

"Peace, peace, wench," said Smith impatiently. "And dress him."

CHAPTER XXXVI

It wanted two hours of midnight on a fine night when we two rode over London Bridge, and through a gap in the houses saw the river flowing below, a ripple of silver framed in blackness, and so cold to the eye that involuntarily I shivered; feeling a return of all the vague fears and apprehensions which, originally awakened by the prospect of the journey, had been set at rest for the time by the awe in which I held my companion. I began to recall a dozen stories of footpads and highwaymen, outrage and robbery, which I had read, and found but cold comfort in the reflection that the Kent Road, from the amount of traffic that used it, was accounted one of the safest in England. It was not wonderful, that with nerves so disordered, I went in front of danger; or that when-opposite the Marshalsea, where the chain crosses the road, near the entrance to White Horse Yard-a man came suddenly out of a passage and caught hold of my companion's rein, I cried out, and all but turned my horse to fly.

Smith himself appeared to be taken off his guard; for, after bidding me beware what I did, he called with the same harshness to the man to release the rein, or take the consequences.

"Oh, I am all right," the fellow answered roughly, peering at him through the darkness. "You are Mr. Smith?"

"Well?"

"Fairholt sent me-to stop you."

"Fairholt!"

"Ay, he is here."

"Here?" my companion cried, in a tone of rage and surprise. "What the-! Why, he should be-you know where, by this time!"

"Ay, but his horse threw him this morning, and he is lying at the White Horse here, with a broken leg!"

Smith cursed the absent man for a fool. "I wish he had broken his neck!" he said savagely. And then, after an interval, "Has he sent anybody?"

"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 beasts. 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.