CHAPTER XXXI: ELF-LAND
"Three ruffians seized me yestermorn, Alas! a maiden most forlorn;They choked my cries with wicked might, And bound me on a palfrey white."
S. T. COLERIDGE.
Yet after the night it was with more hope than despondency, Anne, inthe February morning, mounted en croupe behind Mr. Fellowes'sservant, that being decided on as the quickest mode of travelling.She saw the sunrise behind St. Catherine's Hill, and the gray mistsfilling the valley of the Itchen, and the towers of the Cathedraland College barely peeping beyond them. Would her life rise out ofthe mist?
Through hoar-frosted hedges, deeply crested with white, they rode,emerging by and by on downs, becoming dully green above, as the suntouched them, but white below. Suddenly, in passing a hollow,overhung by two or three yew-trees, they found themselves surroundedby masked horsemen. The servant on her horse was felled, sheherself snatched off and a kerchief covered her face, while she wascrying, "Oh sir, let me go! I am on business of life and death."
The covering was stuffed into her mouth, and she was borne alongsome little way; then there was a pause, and she freed herselfenough to say, "You shall have everything; only let me go;" and shefelt for the money with which Sir Philip had supplied her, and forthe watch given her by King James.
"We want you; nothing of yours," said a voice. "Don't be afraid.No one will hurt you; but we must have you along with us."
Therewith she was pinioned by two large hands, and a bandage wasmade fast over her eyes, and when she shrieked out, "Mr. Fellowes!Oh! where are you?" she was answered--
"No harm has been done to the parson. He will be free as soon asany one comes by. 'Tis you we want. Now, I give you fair notice,for we don't want to choke you; there's no one to hear a squall. Ifthere were, we should gag you, so you had best be quiet, and youshall suffer no hurt. Now then, by your leave, madam."
She was lifted on horseback again, and a belt passed round her andthe rider in front of her. Again she strove, in her natural voice,to plead that to stop her would imperil a man's life, and to implorefor release. "We know all that," she was told. It was not rudelysaid. The voice was not that of a clown; it was a gentleman'spronunciation, and this was in some ways more inexplicable andalarming. The horses were put in rapid motion; she heard thetrampling of many hoofs, and felt that they were on soft turf, andshe knew that for many miles round Winchester it was possible tokeep on the downs so as to avoid any inhabited place. She tried toguess, from the sense of sunshine that came through her bandage, inwhat direction she was being carried, and fancied it must besoutherly. On--on--on--still the turf. It seemed absolutelyendless. Time was not measurable under such circumstances, but shefancied noon must have more than passed, when the voice that hadbefore spoken said, "We halt in a moment, and shift you to anotherhorse, madam; but again I forewarn you that our comrades here haveno ears for you, and that cries and struggles will only make it theworse for you." Then came the sound as of harder ground and a stop--undertones, gruff and manly, could be heard, the peculiar noise ofhorses' drinking; and her captor came up this time on foot, saying,"Plaguy little to be had in this accursed hole; 'tis but the choicebetween stale beer and milk. Which will you prefer?"
She could not help accepting the milk, and she was taken down todrink it, and a hunch of coarse barley bread was given to her, withit the words, "I would offer you bacon, but it tastes as if Old Nickhad smoked it in his private furnace."
Such expressions were no proof that gentle blood was lacking, butwhose object could her abduction be--her, a penniless dependent?Could she have been seized by mistake for some heiress? In thatmoment's hope she asked, "Sir, do you know who I am--Anne Woodford,a poor, portionless maid, not--"
"I know perfectly well, madam," was the reply. "May I trouble youto permit me to mount you again?"
She was again placed behind one of the riders, and again fastened tohim, and off they went, on a rougher horse, on harder ground, and,as she thought, occasionally through brushwood. Again a space, toher illimitable, went by, and then came turf once more, and by andby what seemed to her the sound of the sea.
Another halt, another lifting down, but at once to be gathered upagain, and then a splashing through water. "Be careful," said thevoice. A hand, a gentleman's hand, took hers; her feet were onboards--on a boat; she was drawn down to sit on a low thwart.Putting her hand over, she felt the lapping of the water and tastedthat it was salt.
"Oh, sir, where are you taking me?" she asked, as the boat waspushed off.
"That you will know in due time," he answered.
Some more refreshment was offered her in a decided but notdiscourteous manner, and she partook of it, remembering thatexhaustion might add to her perils. She perceived that afterpushing off from shore sounds of eating and low gruff voices mingledwith the plash of oars. Commands seemed to be given in French, andthere were mutterings of some strange language. Darkness was comingon. What were they doing with her? And did Charles's fate hangupon hers?
Yet in spite of terrors and anxieties, she was so much worn out asto doze long enough to lose count of time, till she was awakened bythe rocking and tossing of the boat and loud peremptory commands.She became for the first time in her life miserable with sea-sickness, for how long it was impossible to tell, and the pitchingof the boat became so violent that when she found herself bound toone of the seats she was conscious of little but a longing to beallowed to go to the bottom in peace, except that some great cause--she could hardly in her bewildered wretchedness recollect what--forbade her to die till her mission was over.
There were loud peremptory orders, oaths, sea phrases, in French andEnglish, sometimes in that unknown tongue. Something expressed thata light was directing to a landing-place, but reaching it wasdoubtful.
"Unbind her eyes," said a voice; "let her shift for herself."
"Better not."
There followed a fresh upheaval, as if the boat were perpendicular;a sudden sinking, some one fell over and bruised her; anotherfrightful rising and falling, then smoothness; the rope that heldher fast undone; the keel grating; hands apparently dragging up theboat. She was lifted out like a doll, carried apparently throughwater over shingle. Light again made itself visible; she was in ahouse, set down on a chair, in the warmth of fire, amid a buzz ofvoices, which lulled as the bandage was untied and removed. Hereyes were so dazzled, her head so giddy, her senses so faint, thateverything swam round her, and there that strange vision recurred.Peregrine Oakshott was before her. She closed her eyes again, asshe lay back in the chair.
"Take this; you will be better." A glass was at her lips, and sheswallowed some hot drink, which revived her so that she opened hereyes again, and by the lights in an apparently richly curtainedroom, she again beheld that figure standing by her, the glass in hishand.
"Oh!" she gasped. "Are you alive?"
The answer was to raise her still gloved hand with substantialfingers to a pair of lips.
"Then--then--he is safe! Thank God!" she murmured, and shut hereyes again, dizzy and overcome, unable even to analyse herconviction that all would be well, and that in some manner he hadcome to her rescue.
"Where am I?" she murmured dreamily. "In Elf-land?"
"Yes; come to be Queen of it."
The words blended with her confused fancies. Indeed she was hardlyfully conscious of anything, except that a woman's hands were abouther, and that she was taken into another room, where her drenchedclothes were removed, and she was placed in a warm, narrow bed,where some more warm nourishment was put into her mouth with aspoon, after which she sank into a sleep of utter exhaustion. Thatsleep lasted long. There was a sensation of the rocking of theboat, and of aching limbs, through great part of the time; alsothere seemed to be a continual roaring and thundering around her,and such strange misty visions, that when she finally awoke, after along interval of deeper and sounder slumber, she was incapable ofseparating the fact from the dream, more especially as head andlimbs
were still heavy, weary, and battered. The strange roaringstill sounded, and sometimes seemed to shake the bed. Twilight wascoming in at a curtained window, and showed a tiny chamber, withrafters overhead and thatch, a chest, a chair, and table. There wasa pallet on the floor, and Anne suspected that she had been wakenedby the rising of its occupant. Her watch was on the chair by herside, but it had not been wound, and the dim light did not increase,so that there was no guessing the time; and as the remembrance ofher dreadful adventures made themselves clear, she realised withexceeding terror that she must be a prisoner, while the evening'sapparition relegated itself to the world of dreams.
Being kidnapped to be sent to the plantations was the dread of thosedays. But if such were the case, what would become of Charles? Inthe alarm of that thought she sat up in bed and prepared to rise,but could nowhere see her clothes, only the little cloth bag oftoilet necessaries that she had taken with her.
At that moment, however, the woman came in with a steaming cup ofchocolate in her hand and some of the garments over her arm. Shewas a stout, weather-beaten, kindly-looking woman with a high whitecap, gold earrings, black short petticoat, and many-coloured apron."Monsieur veut savoir si mademoiselle va bien?" said she in slowcareful French, and when questions in that language were eagerlypoured out, she shook her head, and said, "Ne comprends pas." She,however, brought in the rest of the clothes, warm water, and alight, so that Anne rose and dressed, exceedingly perplexed, andwondering whether she could be in a ship, for the sounds seemed tosay so, and there was no corresponding motion. Could she be inFrance? Certainly the voyage had seemed interminable, but she didnot think it _could_ have been long enough for that, nor that anyperson in his senses would try to cross in an open boat in suchweather. She looked at the window, a tiny slip of glass, too thickto show anything but what seemed to be a dark wall rising near athand. Alas! she was certainly a prisoner! In whose hands? Withwhat intent? How would it affect that other prisoner at Winchester?Was that vision of last night substantial or the work of herexhausted brain? What could she do? It was well for her that shecould believe in the might of prayer.
She durst not go beyond her door, for she heard men's tones,suppressed and gruff, but presently there was a knock, and wonder ofwonders, she beheld Hans, black Hans, showing all his white teeth ina broad grin, and telling her that Missee Anne's breakfast wasready. The curtain that overhung the door was drawn back, and shepassed into another small room, with a fire on the open hearth, anda lamp hung from a beam, the walls all round covered with carpets orstuffs of thick glowing colours, so that it was like the inside of atent. And in the midst, without doubt, stood Peregrine Oakshott, insuch a dress as was usually worn by gentlemen in the morning--aloose wrapping coat, though with fine lace cuffs and cravat, all,like the shoes and silk stockings, worn with his peculiardaintiness, and, as was usual when full-bottomed wigs were the rulein grande tenue, its place supplied by a silken cap. This was olivegreen with a crimson tassel, which had assumed exactly thecharacteristic one-sided Riquet-with-a-tuft aspect. For the rest,these years seemed to have made the slight form slighter and morewiry, and the face keener, more sallow, and more marked.
He bowed low with the foreign courtesy which used to be so offensiveto his contemporaries, and offered a delicate, beringed hand to leadthe young lady to the little table, where grilled fowl and rolls,both showing the cookery of Hans, were prepared for her.
"I hope you rested well, and have an appetite this morning."
"Sir, what does it all mean? Where am I?" asked Anne, drawingherself up with the native dignity that she felt to be her defence.
"In Elf-land," he said, with a smile, as he heaped her plate.
"Speak in earnest," she entreated. "I cannot eat till I understand.It is no time for trifling! Life and death hang on my reachingLondon! If you saved me from those men, let me go free."
"No one can move at present," he said. "See here."
He drew back a curtain, opened first one door and then another, andshe saw sheets of driving rain, and rising, roaring waves, with surfwhich came beating in on the force of such a fearful gust of windthat Peregrine hastily shut the door, not without difficulty."Nobody can stir at present," he said, as they came into the warmbright room again. "It is a frightful tempest, the worst known herefor years, they say. The dead-lights, as they call them, have beenput in, or the windows would be driven in. Come and taste Hans'swork; you know it of old. Will you drink tea? Do you remember howyour mother came to teach mine to brew it, and how she forgave mefor being graceless enough to squirt at her?"
There was something so gentle and reassuring in the demeanour ofthis strange being that Anne, convinced of the utter hopelessness ofconfronting the storm, as well as of the need of gathering strength,allowed herself to be placed in a chair, and to partake of the foodset before her, and the tea, which was served without milk, in anexquisite dragon china cup, but with a saucer that did not match it.
"We don't get our sets perfect," said Peregrine, with a smile, whowas waiting on her as if she were a princess.
"I entreat you to tell me where we are!" said Anne. "Not inFrance?"
"No, not in France! I wish we were."
"Then--can this be the Island?"
"Yes, the Island it is," said Peregrine, both speaking as SouthHants folk; "this is the strange cave or chasm called Black GangChine."
"Black Gang! Oh! the highwaymen, the pirates! You have saved mefrom them. Were they going to send me to the plantations?"
"You need have no fears. No one shall touch you, or hurt you. Youshall see no one save by your own consent, my queen."
"And when this storm is passed--Oh!" as a more fearful roar and dashsounded as if the waves were about to sweep away their frailshelter--"you will come with me and save Mr. Archfield's life? Youcannot know--"
"I know," he interrupted; "but why should I be solicitous for hislife? That I am here now is no thanks to him, and why should I giveup mine for the sake of him who meant to make an end of me?"
"You little know how he repented. And your own life? What do youmean?"
"People don't haunt the Black Gang Chine when their lives are securefrom Dutch Bill," he answered. "Don't be terrified, my queen;though I cannot lay claim, like Prospero, to having raised thisstorm by my art magic, yet it perforce gives me time to make youunderstand who and what I am, and how I have recovered my betterangel to give her no mean nor desperate career. It will be betterthus than with the suddenness with which I might have had to act."
A new alarm seized upon Anne as to his possible intentions, but shewould not forestall what she so much apprehended, and, sensible thatself-control alone could guard her, since escape at present wasclearly impossible, she resigned herself to sit opposite to him bythe ample hearth of what she perceived to be a fisherman's hut, thusfitted up luxuriously with, it might be feared, the spoils of thesea.
The story was a long one, and not by any means told consecutively orwithout interruption, and all the time those eyes were upon her, oneyellow the other green, with the effect she knew so well of old inchildish days, of repulsion yet compulsion, of terror yetattraction, as if irresistibly binding a reluctant will. Severaltimes Peregrine was called off to speak to some one outside thedoor, and at noon he begged permission for his friends to dine withthem, saying that there was no other place where the dinner could betaken to them comfortably in this storm.