CHAPTER XIV
"WAR HAS ITS RISKS"
I slept unsoundly and in snatches. Margaret was in the room beneath me,"dreaming in Italian," thought I, in unhappy imitation of her dainty gibeat her father. A problem was on my mind, and that was ever with me anenemy to sleep. I meant being the best of soldiers, and this that worriedme was a military problem. To be short, I could not help asking myself,"Were the dragoons from the south intended as a reinforcement to the horsefrom the north?" And somehow I could not think they were. As the top-dogspirit in me put it: "It was like sending Jack to reinforce me. _Quodest absurdum_."
Time the Explainer permits me to be frank. There was this other side tomy problem that I could not bring myself to be sure the Colonel's escapehad come merely by happy chance. He was no party to contriving it, of thatI never doubted, but it did look like a contrivance. We had been at the"Rising Sun" for six hours or more. Stone, the nearest head-quarters ofCumberland's forces, was only nine miles south of it, yet no attempt hadbeen made to follow the fugitive. No, thought I again, that's wrong. Weirwas sent on his track and actually found him. But this was as useless, soit seemed, as sending twenty dragoons, hundreds being available, toreinforce a thousand stout horse. There was no proportion between the endsproposed and the means adopted.
If the handful of dragoons were not a reinforcement, it was a pursuit ofus, and this posed another problem. Why had the pursuit been allowed toflag all the afternoon and evening, to be taken up again far on in thenight? What fresh fact, if any, had determined it? I could think of none,nor, on reflection, was one wanted, since both Master Freake and Jack hadlast night witnessed to the worn-out state of Brocton's horses.Consequently his dragoons would have been sent after the Colonel earlierhad they been fit. Their coming, when fit, proved their anxiety to retakehim. Therefore he was not allowed to escape, and the conclusion of myargument hit its major premise clean in the teeth.
"Oliver, my boy," said I to myself, "say a bit of Virgil and go to sleep.These matters are beyond you."
I picked on a passage and started mumbling it to myself. It was a luckyhit, for when I had in solemn whispers rolled off the great lines in thesixth Aeneid which foretell the work and glory of Rome, I thought of myLord Ridgeley, thiever by cunning process of law of most of my ancientpatrimony, and his blackguard son, my Lord Brocton, lustfully hunting theproud, gracious woman beneath, and I said grandiosely to myself, "Rome'sdestiny is thine too, Oliver Wheatman of the Hanyards, and these betitledscullions are the proud ones you shall war down."
The notion was so soothing that I fell asleep again.
I have leaped over uninteresting but by no means unimportant events. Wewere staying the night at a wayside hostel, called the "Red Bull,"situated at the point where a cross-road cut the main road. We were stillin Staffordshire, a matter on which Margaret had laughingly placed theutmost importance, though an urchin, standing by the rude signpost, couldhave flung a pebble into Cheshire. Houseroom was of the narrowest, and Iwas tucked away in the attics, in a room I had to crawl about intwo-double, walking upright being out of the question. It was the grown-updaughter's room, and she had been bundled out to make place for me, a factI did not learn till it was beyond need of remedy. The lass had a goodpleasant woman to mother, but her father, the host, was anill-conditioned, surly runt, whose only good point was a still tongue.
Margaret was in the room below, and her father next to her along a narrowgangway. From my attic I got down to this gangway by means of a staircasehardly to be told from a ladder. The gangway, just past the Colonel'sdoor, became a little landing whence three or four steps led down to alarger landing, from which one could mount up to the other andcorresponding half of the house or descend to the entrance hall with whichthe various rooms of the ground floor connected.
I awoke again in a dim dull dawn. Tired of these bouts of wakefulness Igot off the bed--for I was lying full-dressed even to my boots--and creptsoftly to the window. I would keep watch and ward for Margaret, as a trueknight oweth to do. Then, if my obscure misgivings were unfounded, Ishould at any rate have done my duty.
There had been a slight fall of snow, enough to cover the ground andbring everything up into sharp relief. My window was a dormant-window, itssill being about four feet from the eaves. I flung it open, careful not tomake a sound, pushed out head and shoulders, and took stock.
I dipped my fingers in the snow and found there was near an inch of it.The "Red Bull" stood back from the road, and on each side of the innproper, outhouses and stables jutted out to the wayside. Drawn up under ahovel on the left was a huge wagon piled with sacks, probably of barleybound for Leek, a town renowned for its ale.
Without was silence and stillness, as of the grave, and it was nippingcold, but my mind was happily busy, having so many delicious moments tolive over again. If by some unhappy chance I never saw her again and livedto be a hundred, I should never tire of my memories. She had as manyfacets as Mr. Pitt's diamond, as many tones as the great organ inLichfield Cathedral. To know her had enriched my life and opened my mind.What Propertius had said of his Cynthia, I repeated to myself of myMargaret, _Ingenium nobis ipsa puella est_. 'My' Margaret! Well, itdid her no harm for me to think it, and, after all, the sly, sillybabblings of my under-self could be shouted down by the stern voice ofcommon sense.
Here, under the stress of a new force, my thoughts flew off at a tangent,and I said to myself, "Bravo, Romeo! You shall find me a rare Juliet."
I had, indeed, much ado to keep from laughing aloud, as my situation wasdelicious, not to say delicate. For, on a sudden, noiselessly as the beatof a bat's wing, two feet of ladder had shot up above the eaves, and evennow an ardent lover was hasting aloft, dreaming of lispings and kissingsto come. I mustn't frighten him too soon or too much or he'd drop off, butas soon as he was fairly on the slope he should sip the sweetness of lipsof steel. So I crept back, got a pistol, and stood to the left of thewindow.
I waited till his body darkened the room and then took a furtive look athim. It was no village lover climbing up at peep of dawn to greet hislass. It was one of Brocton's dragoons, one of the five who had been atthe Hanyards.
In a twink I shot him. Without a word, he slithered down the tiles,leaving a mush of blood-red snow. His right leg slipped aslant between tworungs of the ladder, and his body, checked in its fall, swung round anddangled over the eaves.
In the room was a large oaken clothes chest. I dragged it to the light,tilted it on end, and jammed it into the gable of the window, which,luckily, it fitted completely, and so blocked any further attack from theroof. Snatching up my weapons, I tumbled down the ladder, only to hear theheavy tramping of feet upstairs. Standing by Margaret's door, I waiteduntil the head and shoulders of the first man came in sight. He carried alantern, and its yellow rays lit up for me the ugly face of the sergeantof dragoons. I fired my second pistol at him, crashing the lantern topieces. Down he went, whether hit or not I did not know. In the darkness Iheard the rush of a second man who came on so fearlessly and fast that hewas far into the passage before I met him with a fierce thrust of myrapier. I thrilled with the zeal of old Smite-and-spare-not as, for thefirst time, I felt the point of my rapier in a man's body, and drove ithome with a yell. Down he went too, with a gurgle of blood in his throat,and Margaret, coming out of her room, stumbled over his body as she racedafter me along the passage.
The Colonel was at the stair-head before me, but there was, for themoment, no work for him. The enemy had tumbled noisily downstairs into thehall, and were collecting their scattered wits after their first rout. Tomy regret, the raucous cursings of the sergeant showed that he had notbeen killed and apparently not even hit.
"God damn ye!" he yelled. "Ten of you driven back like sheep by a rawyouth. I'll settle with ye for it. Think I picked ye out of the stews andstink-holes of London to stand this? There isn't one of ye with the gutsof a louse. I'll take the skin off the ribs of you for this, damn ye, andmost of your pimp's flesh along with it!"
"
What sort of guts was it brought yow tumblin' down so quick?" put in thesurly voice of the landlord. "Yow cudna 'a come any faster if yer blastedyed 'ad been blown to bits instead of my lantern."
Some of the men laughed at this, whereon the sergeant blasphemed enoughto make a devil from hell shiver. He cowed the dragoons, but the innkeeperonly growled, "A three-bob lantern blown to bits! Fork out three bob!"
"I'll have him if I have to blow the house to bits!" vociferated thesergeant.
"Fork out three bob!" repeated the host.
Not a word had passed between us on the stair-head, and now, at the soundof preparations for a fresh assault, the Colonel took each of us by thearm and led us into his room.
"The stair-head cannot be held against fire from the opposite landing,"he whispered.
When inside, he locked the door, and I helped him pile the bed on endbehind it, heaping all the other furniture against the bed-frame to holdthe mattress and bedding up against the door. Margaret, at a brief word ofcommand, had meanwhile kept watch through the window.
"That's a fair defence," he said contentedly. "What are these devils?"
"Brocton's dragoons," said I. "I've settled two of them, one on the roofand one in the passage."
"Good lad! Ten of 'em would be long odds in the open; here we ought tohave the laugh of them. Load your pistols! Damme, it's a bit chilly.Fortunately there's some warm work ahead."
He stamped up and down the room, swishing his arms round his body, andstopping every now and again to make some trifling change in our hurriedlycontrived barricade. Margaret stood by quietly at the window, and when Ihad reloaded my pistols, I joined her there.
The ladder had been shifted and now lay along in the snow. There, too,lay the body of the dragoon I had shot, crumpled up in his death-agony. Abrood of owls were clucking and cluttering about under the hovel, andthere, too, leaning against the rear wheel of the wain, were a lumpishwagoner and our surly host. The one was stolidly smoking, the other washolding the battered lantern out at arm's length, and I could, as it were,see him growling to the lout at his side, "'Ew's to fork out for this'n?"A girl went towards them from the house, circling, with averted head, farround the dead dragoon, bearing them from the kitchen a smoking jug of ale.
"In England," said Margaret, "snow adds the charm of peace and purity tothe countryside. There's never, I should think, enough of it to give thesense of utter desolation and deadness that it gives one in Russia."
"It's so uncertain with us," was my reply. "I've known a whole winterwithout a snowflake, and I've walked knee-deep in it in May."
The Colonel stopped his marching and swishing and came to the window.
"Don't bother, Madge," said he. "We'll pull through. Hallo, I didn't seeyon wagon last night."
He took out his snuff-box and, hearing the noise of the enemy in thecorridor, walked with it in his hand across to the door. He tapped his boxwith accustomed preciseness, but I, a step behind, having lingered for alast look into Margaret's eyes, heard him mutter, "Damn the wagon!"
"Ho, there within, in the King's name," shouted the sergeant.
"Ho, there without, in the devil's name," mimicked the Colonel.
"I want speech with Colonel Waynflete," shouted the sergeant.
"Then, seeing that Colonel Waynflete cannot at the moment give himselfthe pleasure of slitting your ruffian's throat, you may speak on," was thereply.
"You and your daughter may proceed on your way unharmed if you surrender.It's only Wheatman the farmer, now with you, that I want."
He could be heard all over the room to the last syllable, and Margaretquickly left her place at the window and came towards us, but the Colonelin a stern whisper ordered her back. "How dare you leave your post! Watchthat wagon!" She crimsoned and returned.
"If Master Freake were here, Oliver, I think he would remark that therewas no market for colonels to-day," said her father to me with a wrysmile. He gave the lid of his snuff-box a final tap, opened it, and heldit out to me. In the sense of the term known to fashionable London, he wasnot a good-looking man, but as he stood there, waiting gravely while Itook my pinch, he had the irresistible charm of the highest manliness.
"Do you agree, Colonel?" bawled the sergeant.
"I do not," he shouted, and took his snuff with great relish.
"By God," and now the sergeant roared like a wounded bull, "I'll have youall in ten minutes." Then, as an afterthought, he added, "Here, I say, youWheatman, do you agree?"
"Certainly," said I, "I'll come at once." And I should have gone, thereand then, but for the Colonel, who, as I laid a hand on the nearest pieceof our barricade, promptly said, "I've only one way with deserters," andlevelled a pistol at my head.
"For Margaret's sake, sir," I pleaded in low tones. "Let me go!" She hadflown like a bird across to us, and so heard me.
"I had hoped you thought better of me, Master Wheatman," she said coldly,and went back to her watching.
The sergeant heard, or at least understood, what had been said in theroom. We heard him say, "You know your job. Fifty guineas for Wheatman,dead or alive. Any man who touches the girl will be flogged bare to thebones." Then we heard him walk off along the corridor.
The dragoons without made no attempt on the door, and we joined Margaretat the window. Hardly had we got there when half a dozen dragoons dashedout of the porch and ran for the road. The Colonel flung the window openand emptied both his pistols at them, but they zigzagged like hares andthe shots appeared to be thrown away. In the road they halted, formed aline in open order, and levelled their carbines at the window. All threeof us moved aside, the Colonel tugging Margaret with him to the rightwhile I hopped to the left.
"Take it easy, Oliver," he said very good-humouredly. "Until they thinkof the wagon we're safe enough on this side. These walls would almoststand up to a carronade."
With a clash the first bullet came through the window and knocked a hugesplinter off a bedpost. There were six shots without, and six bulletsspattered in a small area opposite.
"That's quite good shooting," said the Colonel. "Much better than Iexpected from such poor stuff."
I told him what Jack had said about the mixed quality of Brocton'sdragoons. These good shots, I explained, were picked men off the Ridgeleyestates, probably gamekeepers and bailiffs.
"Very like," he said. "They're used to shooting but not to fighting.Rabbits are more in their line."
There was no stir in the passage, and I wondered what the job was thesemen had in hand. The fusillade at the window was kept up unceasingly,generally in single shots, sometimes in twos and threes. The barricadetook on a ragged appearance. I occupied my mind in thoughts of Margaret.She was in the corner, beyond her father.
The bullets had by now nearly cleared the window of glass, fragments ofwhich covered the floor of the room. Through the cracking and splutteringwe at last heard the noise of a wagon moving. The Colonel and I leaped upand peered round the edge of the window. It was being pulled by twohorses, and was shifted till it was exactly opposite the window, and to mysurprise some twelve feet distant. The sacks made a firm platform levelwith the window-sill. Flush with the window it would have made anadmirable means of attack, but why the space between?
While the wagon was being put in position, there was a cessation offiring. We saw the six dragoons from the road climbing on to the wagon,while as many again joined them from the inn. The Colonel said, "Now's ourchance!" and fired carefully. One man, who was poised on the rear wheel,fell into the road and hopped round to the back of the wagon holding hisright foot in his hand; another, already mounted, sprawled full length onthe sacks.
"That's the way," he said, with much satisfaction, and stepped aside toreload. "See if you can improve on it."
By this, under orders from the sergeant, two or three dragoons werecreeping under the wagon to fire from behind the wheels. I dropped a manstanding at the horses' heads and then, in the nick of time and on secondthoughts, made sure of the mare and hit her in the ne
ck. She squealed,kicked, and plunged, and the other horse sharing her fears, they began todrag the wagon off. The sergeant and two or three men leaped at them andmanaged to quiet them, and then took them out of the traces to savefurther trouble of the sort. The Colonel, meanwhile, having reloaded,brought down another dragoon with one shot, and ripped open a sack withanother. It was barley.
For perhaps a minute the window had been as safe as her corner, andMargaret had been quietly watching the scene. Now, with seven or eight menlying on the top of the sacks, with a stout row of them piled in front asa bulwark, it was time for us to run to cover again. This time, of her ownaccord, she came my side, and nestled beyond me in the nook between thewall and my body.
The men in the passage still made no sign.
"Slids, Oliver," said the Colonel, "I can't see this ugly devil's gameyet, but, whatever it is, you came near to spoiling it. Damme, it was agood idea to pepper the horse. Curse me! Where were my fifty years ofsoldiering that I couldn't think of it?"
"I suppose it comes from my being--"
The sweetest and whitest fingers in the world closed my mouth, andMargaret, thinking that I was on the verge of backsliding, whispered in myear, "The readiest-witted gentleman in England."
I tingled with the joy of her touch, and turned to her so that I might goon into the coming fight with her last shade of emotion burnt into mymemory. A stream of lead poured through the window, but the spluttering ofbullets on the walls of the room had no more effect on me than thepattering of hailstones.
"May I finish my sentence, madam?"
"Not as you intended, sir."
"I can't go back on old Bloggs' teaching, madam."
She pouted and frowned, both at once, and the Colonel bawled through thenoise of the fusillade, "Being what?"
"Fond of Virgil," roared I back again.
Margaret laughed. Could a nightingale laugh, it would laugh as Margaretlaughed then.
Before the music of it died away the sergeant showed his hand, and deathat its grizzliest grinned through the window. A great mass of damp,smouldering straw, lifted on pikels, was thrust into the window-frame,filling it completely, and thick wreaths of dense, foul smoke eddied intothe room, while through the straw the rain of bullets poured on, smashingand splintering on walls and ceiling, door and barricade.
The Colonel slashed and poked at the straw with his rapier. TellingMargaret to crouch on the floor, I crawled on my belly and fetched thebed-staff, which stood in its accustomed corner of the chimney-piece. Itmade a much more serviceable tool for the job, and I flung it across tothe Colonel, who seized it and worked it like a blackamoor till he wasalmost the colour of one, and had, to judge by his voice and demeanour,got almost beyond his German in his rage. Asking for Margaret'shandkerchief, I tied it loosely round her mouth, my heart near to burstingas I looked into her calm and patient face. Then I lay down flat andwormed out into the room and, after a hard struggle, wrenched off one ofthe rods which carried the rings of the bed-curtains. I remember that, asI lay there, writhing and struggling, I counted the bullets, eleven ofthem, as they spattered about me. However, I got back to Margaret's sideuntouched, and poked and thrust and slashed to make a hole near her facebetween straw and window-frame.
Our efforts were practically useless. The straw was cunningly fed frombelow, and the pall of smoke was now so heavy and dense that the fringe ofit was settling down on Margaret's tower of yellow hair, and as I watchedthe rate at which it was falling, I knew the end was coming. The Colonelhad worked with the energy of despair to tear down the vile enemy that waskilling us by inches, and now suddenly collapsed and fell like a log tothe floor. Margaret would have crawled to him, but I kept her by mainforce against the wall while I wriggled out of my coat.
"We have one chance left, Margaret," said I. "Your father is onlyovercome by the smoke--see, there's no sign of a wound about him--and hisfall is a godsend. Give me your other handkerchief and lie down flat, faceto the floor and close to the window, and listen for my next instructions."
She did so without a word. I wrapped my coat loosely about her head, andbefore I could close it in the smoke cloud was settling down on her, evenas she lay. I was nearly done for, but she was safe for a few minutes.Lying full length on the floor, under the window, I tied her handkerchiefto the end of the curtain-rod, thrust it through the straw, and waved itabout as vigorously as I could.
The sergeant's voice rang out. The firing ceased. The foul masses ofstraw were removed. Then the scoundrel came forward and leered up at me.
"Do your terms hold good?" I shouted.
"Yes," he said.
"Colonel Waynflete and his daughter will be left at liberty to go theirway, if I surrender?"
"Yes," he said.
"Then in one minute I'll be with you," said I. Stepping inside the room,I first of all pulled the Colonel to the window, tore loose the clothesround his neck, and laid his head on the window-sill, in the good sweetair. Then crawling to Margaret, I unwrapped the jacket, and said briefly,"Force some of Kate's cordial down your father's throat. Goodbye!"
I returned to the window, clambered out, hung at arm's length, anddropped to the ground. Striding up to the sergeant, I said carelessly,"Your turn this time, sergeant. To-day to thee, to-morrow to me--it'sneater in the Latin but you wouldn't understand it--and all Brocton'sdragoons shan't save your ugly neck."
"Where the hell's your coat?" he demand fiercely.
A cool question, indeed, after trying to suffocate me, but it was neveranswered. The air was on a sudden filled with the weirdest row I had everheard. It was as if all the ghosts in Hades had suddenly piped up at theirshrillest and ghostliest. This was followed by a splutter of musketry, andthis again by loud yells. Looking round I saw a swarm of strange figuressweep into the yard, half women as to their dress, for they wore littlepetticoats that barely reached their knees, but matchless fighting men asto their behaviour. On they came, with the pace of hounds, the courage ofbucks, and the force of the tide.
It was the Highlanders.
The sergeant fled into and through the inn and, with the men from thecorridor, got clean away. Not a man else escaped. Half the dragoons on thewagon were picked off like crows on a branch. The rest, and those in orabout the yard, got their lives and nothing else barring their breeches,and that not for comeliness' sake but because they were useless. Every manjack of them, in less than five minutes, looked like a half-pluckedcockerel, and their captors were wrangling like jackdaws about the plunder.
I glanced at the window. To my relief, the Colonel was already sittingup, pumping the sweet air into his befouled lungs, and Margaret smiledjoyously and waved her hand to me. I was waving victoriously back to herwhen my attention was forcibly diverted by two Highlanders, who collaredme, intent on reducing me to a state of nature plus my breeches. There wasno time to explain, neither would they have understood my explanation. Oneof them, a son of Anak for height and bulk, already had his hands to mypockets. Him I hit, as hard-won experience had taught me, and he fell allof a heap. His fellow was struck with amazement at seeing such a greatbeef of a man put out of action so easily, and stood gaping over him for awhile. Recovering himself, he snatched a long knife out of his sock andmade for me murderously, but I had meantime fished out a guinea and nowheld it out to him. He took it with the eager curiosity of a child, lookedat it wonderingly, made out what it was, and then ran leaping and friskingup and down the yard, holding it high over his head, and shouting, "Taginny, ta ginny, ta bonny, gowd ginny!"
I was saved further trouble by the approach of one of the officers, or,to speak with later knowledge, chiefs, of these wild warriors. He informedme in excellent English that he had heard the firing, seen my parleying atthe window and my subsequent surrender, and desired to know the meaning ofit all.
"The gentleman at the window," I explained, "is Colonel Waynflete,travelling to join Prince Charles. The lady is his daughter, and I amtheir servant, by name Oliver Wheatman of the Hanyards. These King's men,belongi
ng to my Lord Brocton's regiment of dragoons, attacked us; werefused to surrender, and the rascally sergeant in command smoked us out.I pray you, sir, to run the wagon up to the window that I may hand themdown, since the door is heavily barricaded."
It was done immediately, and he and I ran up to the window together.
"You young dog," said the Colonel. "You surrendered after all."
"In strict accordance, sir, with military usage, I used my discretion ascommander of the party."
"Slids!" His grey eyes had the old laugh lurking in them already."Commander of the party?"
"There were only Mistress Margaret and I left," said I.
"And the peppermint cordial," put in Margaret.
So in sheer wantonness of joy we sought relief in bantering one another.Then I introduced the chieftain, who had stood there silent and graceful,a fine figure of a man, finely and naturally posed, and mutual complimentsand thanks passed between us. Yet in that first minute, with Margaret andthe Colonel perched on the sill, and the Highlander and I standing on thesacks of barley, I saw another thing happen, for the big things of lifecome into it with the swiftness of light and the inevitability of death. Achieftain proudly climbed the wagon; a bond-servant humbly handed Margaretdown. As was fair and courteous, and suitable to my real position, I lethim do it, and aided the Colonel, who was as yet somewhat shaky. Afterseeing him safe down, I rushed up again and recovered our weapons and mycoat. Down once more, I was getting into my coat when Margaret, who wastalking to the Highlander, looked at me and said quietly, "Pray, MasterWheatman, fetch me the domino from my room!"
She said it simply and mistress-like, and of course I shot off to do herbidding. I supposed, as I went, that it was the white snow all around thathad brought out the blue in her eyes so vividly.
In the inn I found the host, the lantern still dangling from his finger,notwithstanding his greater woe, and his pleasant, placid wife weepingbitterly. Of the original twenty guineas of the Major's, I now had onlyfour left, and these I thrust into her hand as I passed, and told her tobe comforted.
From my shooting the dragoon on the roof to my running upstairs for thedomino was in all not more than twenty minutes. I skipped over the man whohad fallen to my maiden sword. He was lying between the door of theColonel's room and that of Margaret's, and opposite one of the doors onthe other side of the passage. Darting into Margaret's room, I recoveredthe domino.
I was only a moment, but in that moment some one opened the door in thepassage against which the man lay and so brought him into the light, and Icould not help taking a look at him.
My heart stopped with the horror of it; my whole being fell to pieces atthe agony of it. I remember running from it as from the gates of hell. Iremember reeling on the stairs. I remember a headlong fall. I remember nomore.
It was Jack.