CHAPTER IV.
AND MEET. I CROSS TO ENGLAND AND HAVE A STRANGE ADVENTURE ON THE WAY.
For the steward rode with me, though I barely remarked his presenceuntil we had ridden some ten miles. Then, however, I called him to myside.
"I bade you wait at Paris for my return," I said, and I reined in myhorse. He followed my example, but with so evident a disappointmentthat I forgave him his disobedience on the instant.
"You left no word, sir, as to the date of your return, or where Ishould look for you," he explained, readily enough.
"Besides," I added, with a laugh, "I ride to Bar-le-Duc, is it notso?" and I allowed him to continue with me, bethinking me at the sametime that I might inform myself the sooner concerning Blackladies andthe politics of the county. Upon these points he gave me information,which inclined me in his favour. The northern counties, as far southas Derbyshire, were so much tinder. It needed but a spark to set themablaze from one coast to the other. I was ready to listen to as muchtalk of that kind as he could pour into my ears, and indeed he did notstint me of it; so that, liking his story, I began in a short while tolike the man who told it, and to hold myself lucky that I waspossessed of a steward whose wishes so jumped with his service.
He had been born on the estate, he told me, some thirty years since,and had been reared there, though, thanks to the kindness of his latemaster, my uncle, he had received a better schooling than his fatherbefore him. He spoke, indeed, very correctly for a servant, but with abroadish accent and a clipping of his _the's_, as the natives of thatdistrict are used to do. But for my part I never got the tang of it,and so make no effort to reproduce it here. He was called LeonardAshlock.
In his company I journeyed, then, the fifty-eight leagues toBar-le-Duc, where I seemed all at once to have come into my owncountry without the trouble of crossing over seas. For as I rodethrough the narrow streets, it was the English tongue that I heardspoken on every side, though more often with a Scotch or an Irishaccent. But the one whom I came to seek I did not find. The Chevalier,they told me, had gone to Commercy. So to Commercy we travelledeastwards after him for another eight leagues or so, and arrived theretowards the close of the afternoon on the next day.
We rode straight to the Toison D'or, the chief inn of the town, andwhile I was dismounting in the courtyard, I noticed a carriage, whichwas ranged, all dirtied and muddy, against an angle of the wall. Istepped over and examined it. There was a crest upon the panels.
I turned to the ostler.
"When did the carriage come?"
"This morning."
"And monsieur?"
"He is within, I think."
I ran up the steps into the house and fell plump against a girl whowas carrying some glasses and a jug upon a tray. She gave a littlescream; the tray struck me on the chest; there was jingle of brokenglass, and a jugful of claret was streaming down my breeches andsoaking about my knees.
"Monsieur is in?" I asked.
"Stupid!" she said, with a stamp of the foot.
"Monsieur is in?" I asked again.
"Booby," says she, and caught me a swinging box on the ears.
"I beg your pardon," said I, and I ran up the stairs. A footman stoodbeside the door on the landing, and I knew the man.
"Ah," said I, "he is here."
The footman advanced a step towards me.
"My lord is busy."
"He will see me."
"I have the strictest orders, sir."
I pushed past the fellow and hammered at the door. It was thrown openfrom the inside, and Lord Bolingbroke stood anxiously in the door.
"Good morning," said I, airily. "It is a roundabout journey, this ofyours to Dauphine;" and while he stared and frowned at me I steppedpast him into the room. In the window opposite there stood a man withhis back towards me--a man of a slender and graceful figure, plainlydressed in a suit of black velvet. He turned hastily as I stumbledacross the threshold, and in a twinkling I knew what I had done. Therewas no mistaking the long, melancholic features, the gentle aspect oflong-suffering. His race was figured in the mould of his lineaments,and the sad history of his race was written in his eyes.
I dropped upon my knees.
"Your Majesty," I stammered out; and again, "your Majesty."
He took a step eagerly towards me. I felt the claret trickling down mylegs.
"You bring pressing news," he exclaimed; and then he checked himselfand his voice dropped to despondency. "But it will be bad news. Not adoubt of that! 'Tis always bad news that comes in such hurry;" and heturned to Bolingbroke with the saddest laugh. "Bad news, my lord, I'llwarrant."
"Nay, your Majesty," I answered, "I bring no news at all;" and Iglanced helplessly at Bolingbroke, who, having closed the door, nowstood on one side, midway between King James and myself. How I enviedhim his easy bearing! And envying him thus I became the more confused.
"It is a kinsman of mine," he said, in some perplexity--"Mr. LawrenceClavering, and a devoted servant of your Majesty."
"A kinsman of yours," said the King, affably. "That makes him doublywelcome."
And then the most ridiculous thing occurred, though I perceivednothing of its humour at the time. For of a sudden the King gave astart.
"He is wounded, my lord," he cries. "He shall have my surgeon toattend to him. Tell Edgar; he is below. Bid him hurry!" and he came alittle nearer towards me, as though with his own hands he would helpme to rise. "You were hurt on your journey hither. How long--how longmust blood be the price of loyalty to me and mine?"
The poignant sadness of his voice redoubled my confusion.
"Quick!" cried the King. "The poor lad will swoon." And, indeed, I wasvery near to swooning, but it was from sheer humiliation. I glancedabout me, wishing the floor would open. But it was the door thatopened, and Lord Bolingbroke opened it. I jumped to my feet to stophim.
"Your Majesty," I exclaimed, "it is no wound I would to my soul thatit were!"
"No wound!" said the King, drawing back and bending his brows at me ina frown.
"What is it, then, Lawrence?" asked Bolingbroke as he closed the door.
I looked down at my white buckskin breeches, with the red patchesspreading over them.
"It is," said I, "a jugful of claret."
No one spoke for a little, and I noticed the King's face grew yetsterner and more cold. He was, in fact, like so many men of a reserveddisposition, very sensitive to the least hint of ridicule upon alloccasions, and particularly so when he had been betrayed into theexpression of any feeling.
"Your Majesty," I faltered out ruefully, "the Rector of the JesuitCollege in Paris warned me before I set out, of the dangers whichspring from overmuch zeal, and this is the second proof of his wisdomthat I have had to-day. For now I have offended your Majesty bystumbling impertinently into your presence; and before, the maid boxedmy ears in the passage for upsetting her claret."
The speech was lucky enough to win my pardon. For Bolingbroke began tolaugh, and in a moment or two the King's face relaxed, and he joinedin with him.
"But we have yet to know," said he, "the reason of your haste."
I explained how that, having come into an inheritance, I had riddenoff to Bar-le-Duc, to put it at his disposal, and from Bar-le-Duc toCommercy; and how, on the sight of Lord Bolingbroke's carriage in thecourtyard, I had rushed into his presence, without a thought that hemight be closeted with the King. I noticed that at the mention ofBlackladies the King and Bolingbroke exchanged a glance. But neitherinterrupted me in my explanation.
"You give me, at all events, a proof of your devotion to yourkinsman," said the King; "and I am fain to take that as a guaranteethat you are no less devoted to myself."
"Nay," interposed Lord Bolingbroke; "your Majesty credits me with whatbelongs to yourself. For I doubt if Lawrence would have shown sucheagerness for my company had he found me in the Dauphine instead ofin Lorraine."
The King nodded abstractedly,
and sat him down at the table, which waslittered over with papers, and finally seized upon a couple ofletters, which he read through, comparing them one with the other.
"You can give me, then, information concerning Cumberland," he said,changing to a tone sharp and precise; and he proceeded to put to me aquestion or two concerning the numbers of his adherents and thestrength of their adhesion.
"Your Majesty," I replied, "my news is all hearsay. For thisinheritance has come to me unexpected and unsought The last year Ihave lived in Paris."
He drummed with his fingers upon the table, like one disappointed.
"You know nothing, then, of the county?"
"I have never so much as set foot in it. I was born in Shropshire."
"Then, your Majesty," Lord Bolingbroke interrupted, "neither is heknown there. There is an advantage in that which counterbalances hislack of information."
The King raised his eyes to my face, and looked at me doubtfully, witha pinching of the lips.
"He is young for the business," he said, "and one may perhapsthink"--he smiled as he added the word--"precipitate."
My hopes, which had risen with a bound at the hint that some specialservice might be required of me, sank like a pebble in a pool. Icudgelled my brains for some excuse, my recollections for someachievement, however slight, which might outweigh my indiscretion. ButI had not a single deed to my name: and what excuse could acquit me ofa hot-headed thoughtlessness? I remained perforce silent and abashed;and it was in every way fortunate that I did, for my Lord Bolingbroketactfully put forward the one argument that could serve my turn. Saidhe quite simply--
"His grandfather fell at Naseby, his father in the siege of Deny, andwith those two lives, twice were the fortunes of the family lost."
The King rose from his table and came over to me. He laid a hand uponmy shoulder.
"And so your father died for mine," he said, and there was somethingnew, something more personal in the kindliness of his accent, asthough my father's death raised me from a unit in the aggregate of hisservants into the station of a friend; "and your grandfather for mygrandfather."
"Your Majesty sees that it is a privilege which I inherit," I replied.From the tail of my eye I saw my kinsman smiling appreciation of thereply.
"Lawrence has the makings of a courtier, your Majesty," said he, witha laugh.
"Nay," I interrupted hotly, "this is honest truth. Let the King proveme!"
It was the King who laughed now, and he patted my shoulder with aquite paternal air, though, in truth, he was not so many years olderthan myself.
"Well," he said, "why not? He is a hawk of the right nest. Why not?"and he turned him again to Bolingbroke. "As you say, he is not knownin Cumberland, and there is, besides, a very natural reason for hispresence in the county." He stood looking me over for a second, andthen went back abruptly to his papers on the table. "But I would youcould give me reliable news as to those parts."
"News I can give your Majesty," I answered, "though whether it isreliable or not I cannot take it upon oath to say. But the man whopassed it to me was the steward of Blackladies, and he spoke in thatspirit wherein I would have all men speak." And I told him all thatAshlock had recounted to me.
"Oh," said the King, when I had ended, and he made the suggestioneagerly to Bolingbroke. "Perhaps it were best, then, that I shouldland upon the coast of Cumberland in England. What say you?"
I saw Bolingbroke's eyebrows lift ever so slightly.
"I thought," he answered, with the merest touch of irony in his tone,"that your Majesty had determined some half an hour since to land atMontrose?"
"I know," said the King, with something of petulance; "but these lateradvices may prove our best guide."
"But are they true?" said Bolingbroke, spreading out his hands.
"They tally with the report of Mr. Rookley," said the King.
I started at the mention of the name, and the King remarked themovement. He looked towards me, then again at the letter in his hand,which was written in a round and clumsy character. I caught sight of aword in that letter, and I remembered it afterwards, because itchanced to be misspelt.
"Oh," said he, "Mr. Jervas Rookley signs himself of Blackladies? Ifancied that the name was familiar to me, when first you uttered it."
I repeated all that Ashlock had related to me concerning the man, andhow I was to hold his estate in trust for him until the King came tohis throne.
"We will see to it," said he, "that Mr. Clavering shall not be theloser."
I felt the blood rush into my face.
"It was with no thought of that kind that I spoke," I declaredearnestly. "I pray your Majesty to believe me."
But Lord Bolingbroke broke in upon my protestations.
"This steward is with you at Commercy? Then, if it please yourMajesty, I would advise that we see the man here, and question himclosely face to face. For Mr. Jervas Rookley----" And he filled thegap of words with a shrug of significance.
"You distrust him?" asked the King; "yet it appears his loyalty hascost him an estate."
"It is that perplexes me; for I know these country gentlemen," and hisvoice sharpened to the bitterest sneer. "At night, over their cups,they are all for King James; then they consult their pillows, and inthe sober morning they are all for King George. Oh, I know them! Asore head makes a world of difference in their politics."
The words seemed to me hot and quick, with all the memories of hisdefeated labours during those last six years of Queen Anne's reign,and I fancied the King himself was inclined to discount their value onthat account.
"Yet," he urged, "these letters speak in no uncertain terms."
"They speak only of a disposition towards your Majesty," rejoined hisminister. "It is a very tender, delicate, and unsatisfactory thing, adisposition. What we would have is their resolve. Are they resolved todrive on with vigour, if matters tend to a revolution? Will theysupport the revolution with advantage, if it spins out to a war? It ison these points your Majesty needs to be informed; and it is on thesepoints they keep so discreet a silence. We ask them for their plan, asMarshall Berwick asked them time out of mind, and we get the sameanswer that he received. How many troops will his most ChristianMajesty land? How many stands of arms? how many thousand crowns? Notone word of a definite design; not one word of a precise statement oftheir resources."
He walked about the room as he spoke, with every mark ofdiscouragement in his gestures and expression, while the King listenedto him in an uneasy impatience, as though he was rather irritated thanimpressed by Bolingbroke's doubts.
"Very well," said the King, tapping his foot on the floor, "we willexamine Mr. Clavering's steward;" and he bade me go and fetch Ashlockinto the room. But search as I might, nowhere could I find a trace ofhim. He had stayed no more than five minutes in the house, the peopleof the inn informed me. I hurried to the stables, thinking perchanceto find him there. I questioned the ostlers, the drawers, even thewench who had boxed my ears. No one had knowledge of his whereabouts,and since it would be an idle business to go hunting for him throughthe unfamiliar streets of Commercy, I left a sharp word that he shouldcome up the moment he returned, and so got me back chapfallen to LordBolingbroke's apartment.
The King's secretary, Mr. Edgar, was now in the room, gatheringtogether the papers which overspread the table.
"It is no great matter," said the King, when I explained how that Ihad failed in my search, "for I doubt me that I could have heard himout. Besides, Mr. Clavering, I have had some talk concerning you withyour kinsman here, and since your inheritance and your journey hitherfit so aptly with our needs, it were a pity to miss the occasion."
"Your Majesty," I cried, and I felt my heart swell and leap within me,and my head spin with exultation. Here was the very thing of which Ihad dreamed hopelessly so often during those weary months at Paris,letting my fancies dally with it as with some bright and charmingfairy tale, and, lo! it had come true. It had come true! The wordsmade a silent music at my heart, and
animated all my blood. It hadcome true! and then, of a sudden, there shot through me, chilling meto the centre, the rector's warning, and the forebodings that hadflowed from it. Did this mission, which the King assigned to me,harbinger the hour of trial? Should I fail when it came? I set myteeth and clenched the nails into the palms of my hands. My whole bodycried No! No! but underneath I seemed to hear a voice, very low, verypersistent, speaking with full knowledge, and it said Yes! Yes!
"Then this will be your charge," continued the King, recalling me tomyself. "You will journey with all speed to London, and bear with youa letter in my hand to the Duke of Ormond, at Richmond," and he pausedupon the words. "It must pass from your hand into the Duke's. You willthen go north to your estate, and collect knowledge for our use as towhat help we may expect from Cumberland, and, so far as you cangather, from the counties adjoining. Lord Bolingbroke will inform youmore of the particulars. Your errand, of course, you will keepsecret--locked up from all--from our supporters, no less than from ouropponents. It would be of detriment to us if they came to think thatwe distrusted them. Nor do we--it is their judgment, not theirloyalty, about which we wish to be assured. We think, therefore, thatit would be prudent in you to make no parade of your convictions. Hearboth sides like one that holds the balance evenly. For, if you takeone side openly, you will hear from our friends just what we hear sofar away as Bar-le-Duc; and so God speed you!" and he held out hishand to me, and I kissed it. Then Mr. Edgar opened the door, and theKing walked to it. He was already across the threshold, when hestopped and turned back, pulling a silver medal from his fob.
"This," said he, "is the fac-simile of that medal which the Duchess ofGordon presented to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh, seven yearsback," and he gave it into my hand. "It may serve to keep me in yourheart and memories. Moreover, a day may come when it will be necessaryfor you to convince our friends in the North, on whose side you stand;and this will help you to the end. For there is no other copy."
I knelt down and kissed the medal reverently. On the one side wasstruck the head of King James--very true and life-like--with the words"cujus est;" on the other a picture of the British Islands, with thismotto inscribed beneath it, "Reddite."
"It is a text," I said, and indistinctly enough, for that simple word"Reddite," so charged was it with a sad and pitiful significance,brought the tears welling to my throat "It is a text I would haveevery man in England preach from."
"You will act on it," said the King; and I flattered myself with thethought that I noted something of a veritable tenderness in his accent"You will act on it; that is better;" and so he went out of the room.
Lord Bolingbroke closed the door, flung himself into a chair, andyawned prodigiously.
"Lawrence," he said, "I am very thirsty."
A bottle of Rhenish wine was standing on a sideboard at one end of theroom. He went over and opened it, and filled two glasses.
"Let us drink," said he, and handed one to me "Let us drink toourselves," and he raised the glass to his lips.
"Nay," I cried, "to the King first"
"Very well, to the King first, if you will, and to ourselves next.What matters the toast, so long as we drink it?" and he drained hisglass to the bottom. I followed his example.
"Now to ourselves," said he; and he filled them again. "It is a goodfashion," he continued, in a musing tone, "that of drinking to theKing. For so one drinks double, and never a word can be said againstit." I noticed, however, that he drank triple and quadruple before hehad come to an end. Then he looked at my breeches and laughed.
"And so the wench boxed your ears," he said, and, becoming quiteserious, he took me by the arm. "Lawrence, let's drink to her!"
"I should reel in my saddle if I did," said I, drawing back.
"Then don't sit in it!" he replied. "Let's drink to her several times,and then we'll go to bed."
"I trust to go to bed a good twenty miles from Commercy."
He shook his head at me.
"Lawrence, it is plain that you are new to the service of kings."
"You have a letter for me," said I.
"To the Duke of Ormond," and he looked at me in surprise. "You mean tostart to-night?"
"Yes."
"Very well," and he sat himself down to the table, transformed in asecond to a cool man of business. "The letter is in the chevalier'shand"--he drew it from his pocket as he spoke--"and there are manyships in the Channel. You had best charter a boat at Dunkirk, thesmaller the better, and set sail at night-fall, so that you may strikethe Downs before sunrise." Thereupon he proceeded to instruct me as tothe precise details concerning which I was to inform myself inCumberland--such as the number of troops they could put into thefield, and how competent they were to face well-drilled anddisciplined squadrons, their weapons, the least assistance from Francethey would hazard the rising upon, and such-like matters. Then he roseand prepared to accompany me downstairs. I was still holding the medalin my hand, and now and again fingering it, as a man will what heholds most precious. "And, Lawrence," he said, "I would hide themedal, even from yourself, if that be possible. You may find it a verydangerous gift before you have done."
He spoke with so solemn a warning as even then did something to sobermy enthusiasm.
"It was a wise word that the Chevalier spoke when he bade you bewarehow you sided openly with the Jacks."
"Oh!" said I, as the thought struck me. "It was you, then, thatprompted that advice--and for my sake."
"Not altogether."
"But in the main, for my sake."
"Lawrence," said he, leaning across the table, with his eyes fixedupon my face and his voice lowered to a whisper, "I misdoubt me, butthis is a fool's business we're embarked upon. You heard theChevalier. He has no fixed design," and he brought his hand down uponthe table with a dunch. "One day he will land at Montrose, the next inDevonshire, the next in Cumberland, and, God knows, but the mostlikely place of all is the Tower steps."
"No!" I cried. "I'll not believe that. He has you to help him now."
Bolingbroke smiled, but shook his head.
"He has six other ministers besides myself, with Fanny Oglethorpe andOlive Trant at the head, and all of them have more power than I. Hewill concert a plan with me, and the hour after give a contrary orderbehind my back. It was the same when Berwick had the disposing of hisaffairs. No, Lawrence, I would have you be prudent, very prudent."
He came down the stairs with me and stood in the courtyard repeatingever the same advice, the while I mounted my horse. Of my steward Istill could see no sign, and, leaving another direction that he shouldfollow with all speed, I rode off towards the village of Isoncour,where Ashlock caught me up some two hours after I came there. I ratedhim pretty soundly, being much contraried by the melancholyforebodings of Lord Bolingbroke.
Ashlock made his excuses, however, very submissively, saying that hehad dined at an ordinary in the town, and thereafter, being muchfatigued with the hurry of our travelling, had fallen fast asleep. AndI, bethinking me that, in spite of his gloomy forecast, LordBolingbroke would none the less serve the King with unremittingvigour, began to take heart again, and so pardoned Leonard Ashlock.
We came then to Dunkirk in the space of four days, and I was much putto it how I should get safely over into England with the King'sletter. For the English warships were ever on the watch for the King'semissaries, and one of them, a sloop, was riding not so far out infull view of Dunkirk. In this difficulty Ashlock was of the greatestservice to me, discovering qualities which I should never havesuspicioned in him. For, espying a little pinnace drawn up on thebeach, he said:
"The two of us could sail that across, sir."
"No doubt," said I, "if one of us could steer a course and the otherhandle the sails."
"I can do the first, sir, by myself, and the second with your help,"he replied.
I went down the sands to the boat, and discovering to whom it belongedfrom a bystander, sought the owner out and forthwith bought it at hisown price. F
or thus we need confide our business to no one, butwaiting quietly till nightfall, we might slip past the big ship undercover of the dark. And this we did, launching the boat and bending thesails by the light of a lantern, which we kept as nearly as we couldever turned towards the land. The moon was in its fourth quarter andnot yet risen when we started, so that the night, though not so blackas we could wish, was still dark enough for our purpose. We hadbesides the lights from the port-holes of the warship to guide us,which gleamed pure and bright across the water like a triple row ofcandles upon an altar. We ran cautiously, therefore, for some distanceto the west close under the shadow of the coast, and then fetching awide compass about the ship, set our course straight for England. Itwas a light boat we were in, rigged with a lug-sail and a jib, and weslipped along under a fine reaching wind that heeled us over till thethwart was but an inch from the froth of the water.
"If only the wind hold!" said Ashlock, with a glance at the sail, andthere was a lively ring of exultation in his voice. And, indeed, itwas an inspiriting business this flight of ours across the Channel, orat all events this part of it I lay forward in the bows with a greatcoat atop of me, and my face upturned to the spacious skies, whichwere strewn with a gold-dust of stars and jewelled with the planets.The wind blew out of the night sharp and clean, the waves bubbled andtinkled against the planks as the prow split them into a white fire,and we sped across that broad floor of the sea as if licensed to anillimitable course. Now and again the lights of a ship would rise tothe right or left, glimmer for a little like an ocean will-o'-the-wispand vanish; now and again we would drive past a little fleet offishing-smacks lying to for the night with never so much as a candlealight amongst them all, and only the stars, as it were, entangledamongst their bare poles and rigging; and, after a little, the moonrose.
I thought of my crib in the Rue St Antoine and the months ofconfinement there as of something intolerable. The wide freedom of thesea became an image of the life I was entering upon. I felt the brinelike a leaven in my blood. And then of a sudden the sail flapped aboveme like the wing of a great bat, the strenuous motion of the pinnaceceased, and we were floating idly upon an even keel.
I looked towards Ashlock; he sat motionless in the stern with thetiller in his hand and the moonlight white upon his face. Then he tooka turn about the tiller with a rope, glanced along the boat with hisbody bent as though he was looking forward beneath the sail, and camelightly stepping across the benches towards the bows. I lay still andwatched him in a lazy contentment. Midway betwixt bow and stern hestopped and busied himself with tightening a stay; then again hecrouched down and looked forwards, but this time it seemed to me thathe was not looking out beyond the bowsprit, but rather into the bowsto the spot where I lay huddled under my coat in the shadow of thethwart I could see his face quite plainly, and it appeared to me tohave changed, in some way to have narrowed. It may have been a fancy,it may have been the moonlight upon his face, but his eyes seemed toglisten at me from out a countenance suddenly made trivial by cunning.
After a second he crept forward again, and I noticed how lightly--howvery lightly he stepped. Would he stop at the mast, I asked myself?Was his business the tightening of a sheet even as he had tightenedthe stay? He stooped beneath the sail and still crept forward, runninghis hand along the top of the gunwale as he came; and it broke upon meas something new that he and I were alone in mid-channel, cabinedwithin the planks of a little boat, he the servant,--but whoseservant?--I not so much the master as the master's substitute andtripper-up.
I felt for my sword, but I remembered that I had loosed it from mybelt when we had put to sea. From the spot where I lay I could see thescabbard shining by the tiller. At all events, Ashlock had not broughtit with him. I watched him without a movement as he approached, butunderneath the coat, every nerve and muscle in my body was braced tothe tightness of a cord.
He bent over me, holding his breath, it seemed; his hands came forwardhovering above my chest, but they held no weapon; his face sank out ofthe moonlight, dropped beneath the gunwale lower and lower down uponmine. Meanwhile I watched him, looking straight into his eyes. Hisface was but a few inches from mine when he drew back with a littlequivering cry--it was, indeed, more of a startled in-drawing of thebreath than a cry--and crouched on his hams by my side. Still I didnot move, and again his face came forward over mine, very slowly, verycautiously, and down to where I lay in the dark, with my eyes openwatching his. I could endure the suspense no longer.
"What is it, Ashlock?" I asked quietly, and in asking the questionthat moment, made a very great mistake, the importance whereof I didnot discover until long afterwards.
Ashlock sprang back as though I had struck him in the face, I raisedmyself on one elbow and thrust the other outside the covering.
"I could not tell, sir, whether you waked or slept," he said; and Ithought his voice trembled a little.
"I was awake, Ashlock. What is it?"
"The wind has shifted, sir," and now he answered confidently enough,"and blows dead in our teeth. We must needs tack if we are to reachthe coast by daybreak."
"Well?"
"I cannot do it, sir, without your help. It needs two to tack if yousail with a lug-sail."
And that I found to be true. For the sail being what is called asquare-sail with a gaff along the top of it, each time the pinnacewent about it was necessary to lower it, and hoist it again on theother side of the mast. The which it fell to me to do, while Ashlockguided the tiller. So that I knew there was good reason for his wakingme. However, I had little time for speculation upon the matter one wayor another, since we sailed into a mist shortly afterwards, and wereon the stretch, both eyes and ears, lest we should be run down by somevessel, or ever we could see it.
I was much exercised, too, what with the stars being hid, and ourconstant going about, whether Ashlock would be able to keep the boatin a course towards England. I need not, however, have troubled myhead upon that score, for it was as though he had some sixth sensewhich found its occasion upon the sea, and when the day broke and themist rolled down and massed itself upon the water, we were within fivemiles of the white cliffs with Dover Castle upon our starboard bow.The mist, I should say, was at that time about chin high, for standingup in the boat we looked across a grey driving floor, above which thesmaller vessels only showed their masts.
"Shall I run her into the harbour?" asked Ashlock, and he turned theboat's head towards land.
"No!" I cried vehemently. For now that we were come within sight ofEngland the letter that I carried began to burn in my pocket, and Ifelt the surest conviction that if we disembarked at Dover, we shouldbe surrounded, catechised, and finally searched, upon the ground of atell-tale face, which face would assuredly be mine. "No!" I said; "letus take advantage of the mist, and creep along the coast till we findsome inlet where we can beach the boat."
This we did, and running now with a freer sail, we came in little morethan an hour to a cove some four or five miles to the north-east ofDover, the cliffs breaking off very sharp at each side with a line ofthin rocks jutting out at the south corner, and the walls of the covesteep all round and thickly wooded as low as we could see. Towardsthis cove we pointed, intending to run in there and abandon the boatBut when we were within half a mile of land the sun blazed out in thesky and the fog shredded like so much gauze burnt up in a fire. It wasa fortunate thing for us that we had come no nearer to the shore. Forthere, low down on the beach, and but a yard or two from the water'sedge, on a tiny strip of level ground, were four little cottages withthe British ensign afloat. Ashlock rapped out an oath and thrust thetiller across to its further limit, meaning to go about and run backout of sight of the cove.
"The sail, sir!" he cried in great excitement, "Oh! damn it, sir, thesail!"
I sprang to the mast, loosed the sheets, lowered the sail, and ofcourse must needs in my hurry get the spar entangled amongst the staysa foot above the thwart. Ashlock rose in a passion, and leaving thetiller to shift for itself, came
leaping towards me.
"There, there, sir," he sneered, "leave it to me!" and losing at oncehis air of deference, he was for wresting rather than taking the sparout of my hands. "Did ever man see?" he exclaimed. "O Lord, did everman see----"
"Such a fool-master and such a clever servant," said I, finishing thesentence for him. But the words were hardly out of my mouth when I letgo of the spar. He staggered back, holding the one end of it in hishands, the other caught me a crack in the joint at the knees, and thenext moment I was sprawling on my back at the bottom of the boat. Iheard Ashlock mutter, "Lord send us less pride and a ha'porth ofcommon sense," the while he busied himself with getting the sail intoposition, and then he turned to me.
"You'll find, sir, the Preventive men will make little differencebetween master and servant when they discover the pretty letter youare carrying."
"The Preventive men!" I cried, scrambling to my feet.
"Ay, sir, the Preventive men," said he with a glance at the beach.
Now Ashlock was standing with his back to me bowsprit, whereas I facedhim, and looking across his shoulder, I saw a sheer face of whitecliff, topped with a thatch of grass, glide, as it were, behind him. Iturned me about. The boat was swinging round with the tide now that ithad neither sail nor a hand at the rudder to direct it. Before, it hadbeen pointing for the beach midway in the cove; now it was heading forthe rocks at the south corner of the bay; and each moment it movedfaster, as I could judge from the increasing noise of the ripple atthe bows. I jumped across the benches to the rudder.
"Hoist the sail!" I said in a low, quick command.
Ashlock looked from me to the rocks.
"The tide is running round the corner like a mill-race," said he,doubtfully, and he made a movement as though he would take my place.
"Hoist the sail!" said I, and he obeyed, and again prepared to comeastern.
"No, stay where you are," I ordered sharply. He looked at me sharply,shrugged his shoulders, and sat him down by the mast. I brought theboat's head up until the wind against which we had been tacking wasdirectly astern of us, and the tiller kicked in my hand as we drovethrough the water. We were now within the line of rocks, and I sawAshlock give a start as he noticed the point I was making.
"You must round the corner of the reef, sir," he cried.
"We have no time for that. The tide runs in shore. There's a gap inthe reef; we'll make for the gap."
The gap was, in fact, in a bee-line with the tip of the bowsprit. Ihad wind and tide to quicken my speed, and I felt the boat leap andpulse beneath me like a live thing. Ashlock looked at me in surprise,and then gave a little pleased laugh, as though my action chimed inwith his nature.
Doubtless the plan was foolhardy enough; but the day was clear, and wewere within full sight of the cottages upon the beach. More, our boatwas the only boat in this secluded bay. I thought, indeed, only of thelatter point, and not at all of the narrowness of the passage, andmaybe it was that very oblivion which kept my hand steady. Soengrossed was I, in truth, in my one idea, that I could not forbearfrom glancing backwards now and then in a mortal dread, lest I shouldsee the sun flash upon the disc of a perspective glass or mark a boatsplash out through the surf into the sea. Upon one such occasion Iheard Ashlock rise to his feet with a muttered "God save us!" and asecond later we grazed past a tooth of chalky rock some half a footbelow the surface.
"Sit down!" I cried sharply, for the fellow obscured my vision. Hedropped into his seat; I bent forward, peering out beneath the sail.We were within twenty yards of the gap in the reef, and the waterconverging on it from right and left, foamless and oily like a rapidin the Severn. The boat gave a great spring, and then slid with aswift, easy motion like a sledge. I heard the waves burst over therocks and patter back upon the sea; I felt the spray whipping myforehead; and then the cliffs fell away from my eyes and closed upbehind my back. Ashlock lowered the sail and dropped the kedge fromthe bows. We were floating in still water, just round the point andclose in to shore under the shadow of an overhanging cliff.
"Now, Ashlock!" said I, "you can come astern."
He came reluctantly, and in his coming began to babble an apology forthe disrespect he had shown me. I cut him short at the outset of it.
"I am not concerned with your insolence," I said. "It is too small athing. I am willing to believe, moreover, that you were hurried intoit through devotion to a higher master than myself. I have forgottenit. But how came you to think that I carried a letter?"
"Your hand, sir," he replied readily, "was ever at your pocket on theroad if we galloped--on the sea if we passed a ship."
It was truth that he said--every word of it--and it caused me no smallhumiliation. For here was I entrusted with a mission of someconsequence, and I had betrayed a portion of my business at theoutset.
"There is another thing," I continued sharply. "How comes it that you,Cumberland-born and Cumberland-bred, have so much knowledge of thesea?"
I looked at him steadily as I spoke, and I saw his face change, butnot to any expression of suspicion or alarm. Rather it softened in amanner that surprised me; a look, tender and almost dreamy, came intohis eyes, a regretful smile flickered on his lips. It was as thoughthe soul and spirit of a poet peeped out at you from a busy, practicalcountenance.
"I should have been a sailor," he said, in a low, musing voice. "Allmy life I have longed for that one thing. The very wind in thebranches for me does no more than copy the moan of the surf. But myparents would not have it so, and I live inland, restless,unsatisfied, like a man kept out of his own." He checked himselfhastily, and continued in a flurry, for no reason which I couldcomprehend, "Still, I made such use as I could of the opportunitiesthat presented. At Whitehaven and at Workington I learnt the handlingof a boat."
"But," I interrupted him, "this is not the first time you have sailedfrom Dunkirk to England."
"No, sir," he answered, and his face hardened at my questioning. Itwas as though a lid had been slammed down upon an open box. "I havecrossed more than once with young Mr. Rookley."
"That will do," I said; and he drew a breath of relief.
The explanation, I assured myself, was feasible enough, but--but--Icould not get from before my eyes the vision of him creepingstealthily from the tiller to the bows. As he lay sleeping just whereI had lain--for all that day we remained hidden within the cliffs--Isaw him continually stoop beneath the sail; I saw his face sink out ofthe moonlight down and down to mine, and his hands hover above mybreast. And with that a light flashed in on me. He knew of the letterI was carrying! He knew of the pocket I carried it in! I sat staringat him dumfounded. Was this the link? Was he playing me false?
"If I had only closed my eyes!" I cried, and in my perturbation Icried the words aloud.
Ashlock woke up with a start.
"What is it, sir?" he asked, in a whisper. "The Preventive men?" andthe eagerness of his voice gave the lie to my suspicion. Yes, Ireasoned, he had shown an anxiety equal with my own to escape fromtheir clutches, was showing it now, and his anxiety was due to thisvery knowledge that I had the letter in my possession. I relapsed intoperplexity, and in a little my fears took another and engrossingshape. Doubtless it was Ashlock's startled whisper set my thoughtsparticularly that way, and from minute to minute I lay expecting thePreventive men to row round the point and discover us. There was nopossible escape for us if they did. The more I searched and searchedthe cliffs, the more clearly I saw how impossible they were to scale.It would, I think, have made the strain and tension of this waitingmore tolerable had I been able to reach some point whence I couldcommand a view of the bay, though it would have served no other end.But that too was denied to me. I lay the livelong day the impatienthanger-on of chance. No sound came to me but the ceaseless lapping ofthe waves beneath me, the ceaseless screaming of the gulls above myhead, in a single monotonous note, sharp and clean like the noise thata large pebble makes hopping over ice. To add to my discomfort, we hadno water in the boat, nothing, indeed, but a few
hard biscuits, whichserved to choke us. And the sun was pitiless all day in a shadowlesssky. The very colour of the sky seemed to have faded so that it curvedover our heads, rather grey than blue, hot and hard--a cap of steel.
However, the day wore to sunset in the end, and the Preventive men hadnot come. We set sail as soon as it was dark, and coasting along,landed shortly after two in the morning, at a spot in the Downs a fewmiles from Deal. Thence, after setting our pinnace adrift, we madewhat haste we could to London.
Ah me! that ride through the night to London! I remember it as if Ihad ridden along that road yesterday. It was so long since I had beenin England. I remember the homely little inn at which we roused agrumbling landlord and hired our horses. His very grumbles were musicto my ears. I laughed at them, I remember, with such enjoyment that wehad much ado to persuade him to part with the horses at all, and itwas because of his grumbles that I paid him double what he asked. Iremember, too, the hedgerows a-glimmer with wild-roses as with so manypale stars. To ride ever between hedgerows! It seemed the ultimate ofhappiness. And the larks in the early morning--never since have Iheard larks sing so sweetly as they sang that morning over the Kentishmeadows. We passed a little whitewashed church, I remember, with itsmossy gravestones nestling in deep grass about its walls. Well, well,this is Avignon, and my old bones, I take it, will sleep just aseasily under Avignon soil.