CHAPTER II
THE SERGEANT OF DRAGOONS
I threw the jack across my shoulder and we started for the Hanyards.Madam offered no explanations, and I made no inquiries. It was obvious tome that the dragoons had gone on to the little hedge ale-house, a good,long mile away, where the road from the village struck into a roundaboutroad to Stafford. Here, in the "Bull and Mouth," Mother Braggs ruled byday and Master Joe by night, and here beyond a doubt the stranger lady hadtarried while her father had gone on with the horses to the nearest smithyat Milford.
There was ample time to get to the Hanyards, but still, for safety'ssake, we kept behind hedges as far as possible. She walked ahead, and Ifollowed behind, water oozing out of my boots and breeches at every step,and the jack's tail flopping against my legs. Never had I gone home fromfishing with such prizes. What pleased me most was her silence. It matchedthe trust in her eyes. Except for brief instructions as to the direction,no word passed until we gained the Hanyards from the rear, and I led herinto the house-place unobserved by anyone.
"There is little time to talk," I began. "The dragoons are certain tocome here, as this is the only house between the inn and the village. Yourfather is, you fear, a prisoner, and indeed it seems the only explanationof his absence. I do not ask why. I gather that there is no purpose to beserved by your sharing his fate."
"Free, I may be able to help him. A prisoner, I should...." She stopped,hesitating.
"My Lord Brocton?" said I interrogatively. For the second time her faceburned, and I saw in it shame and distress and fear. My lord was piling upa second account with me, and for humbling this proud beauty he should oneday pay the price in full.
But it was time to act. I ran to the porch and roared out, "Jane! Jane!Where are you? Come here quick!"
Jane came running in from the kitchen. She stopped dead with surprisewhen she saw my companion, and could not even cackle on about the jack.
"Now, Jane, do exactly what I say. Take this lady upstairs and dress heras nearly like yourself as you can. It's good you are much of a height.Pack her own clothes carefully out of sight. Off, quick!"
They disappeared upstairs, and I watched the yard gate with eager eyes.No dragoons appeared, and in a short time madam and Jane were back in thehouse-place. Jane had done her work well. The great lady was now a finecountry serving-wench, her shapeliness obscured in a homespun gown thatfitted only where it touched, her feet in huge, rough boots, her yellowhair plastered back off her forehead and bunched into one of Jane's'granny caps,' and indeed totally hidden by the large flap thereof, whichin Jane's case served the purpose of "keepin' the draf out'n 'erneck-hole" when she was at work in the dairy. For my share of disguising,I now rubbed together some ruddle and dry soil, and the mixture gave anecessary touch of coarseness to her hands. Altogether she was changed outof recognition, even if, which was not the case, any of her pursuers hadseen her previously.
"Jane," said I, "her name is Molly Brown. She has served here two years.Her mother lives at Colwich. Have you both got that?"
"Molly Brown--two years--mother at Colwich," said madam with a smile, andJane repeated it after her.
"Now, Molly," said I, with an answering smile, "Jane will start youchurning. It's an easy job. You just turn a handle till the butter comes.Do not flatter yourself that you'll get any butter, but I'll forgive youthat. And, having learned from Jane how to pretend to do it, you need notchurn in earnest till the dragoons ride into the yard. Listen to Jane, andyou, Jane, for the next ten minutes, teach the lady how to talkStaffordshire fashion."
"Rate y'are, Master Noll," said Jane, who was plainly bursting with theimportance of her task.
"First lesson, madam," said I. "'Rate y'are,' not 'Right you are!' It wasnot Mr. Pope's manner of speech, but it will suit your circumstancesbetter. Off to the dairy, and leave the dragoons to me!"
"Rate y'are, Master Noll," said madam, and, our anxietiesnotwithstanding, we both joined in Jane's rattle of laughter.
They went off to the dairy, and I began my own preparations. I displayedthe great jack in full view on the table, forestalling Kate's housewifelyobjections by disposing him on an old coat of mine, so that he should notmess the table. In the house-place he looked much finer and longer than inthe open air, and I gloated over him as he lay there. I longed to changemy clothes, not so much for comfort's sake as to cut a better figure inher eyes; but I dared not run the risk of not being at hand when thedragoons arrived. I drew a quart jug of ale, threw most of it away, gotdown a horn drinking-cup, drank a little, spilled some down my clothes,slopped some on the table, made up the fire, and sat down to wait. It wasnow about half-past three, the straw-coloured sun was perching on thehill-tops, and darkness would soon be drawing on apace.
For perhaps a quarter of an hour I sat there, living over again theprecious minutes under the bridge, when the clatter of hoofs awakened meto the realities of the situation. Peeping cautiously past the edge of theblind, I saw the dragoons--there were six of them--ride up to the gate.Sharp orders rang out, and three of the men dismounted, including him whohad given the orders, and came up the yard. One stayed at the gate to mindthe horses, and the other two trotted off on the scout round the fieldsnear the farm.
I slipped back to my chair, and let my chin drop on my chest, as if Iwere dozing in drink.
Some one said at the porch door, "In the King's name!" I took no notice,and they crowded, jingling and noisy, into the porch. Again sharp commandswere given; the two men grounded their arms with a clang on the stonefloor of the porch, and waited there. The man in command stepped forwardinto the firelight and said crisply, "In the King's name!"
It was idle to pretend any longer. I raised my head and blinked drunkenlyat him. Then I filled the horn, sang thickly and with beery gusto, "Here'sa health unto His Majesty," and said, "Fill up and drink, whoever you are,and shut the door. It's damned cold."
He had little, red, ferrety eyes, and they looked fiercely atme--fiercely but not suspiciously, I thought. He waved my hospitalityaside, and said, "You are Oliver Wheatman?"
"Oliver Wheatman of the Hanyards, Esquire, at His Majesty's service tocommand," I replied with great gravity, and filled another horn of ale. Imight pretend to be drunk, but I could not, unfortunately, pretend todrink, and it was strongish ale. He made a motion to stop me--welcomeproof that he believed me tipsy in fact--and said, "Master Wheatman, theless drunken you are, the better you will answer my questions."
"Sir," said I, draining off the horn, "I can drink and talk with any manliving, and, drunk or sober, I only answer the questions of my friends. Soget a horn off the dresser--I'm a bit tired--fill up, and tell me what youwant. D'you happen to be of my Lord Brocton's regiment?"
"I am."
"Then you'll be as drunk as me before you've finished with the Hanyards.Our ale goes to the head most damnably quick, let me tell you. You tell mydear old butty, the worshipful Master Jack Dobson, that I've caught a jackhalf as thick and more than half as long as himself. Here it be. Fetch ahorn, I tell you, and drink to me and the two jacks--Jack Dobson and thisjack beauty here."
He was getting no nearer to the object of his visit, and, perhapsthinking it would be well to humour me, he fetched a horn and tried ourHanyards ale. This gave me a chance of taking stock of him.
He was a thin, wiry man of middle height and middle age. Such a face Ihad never seen. The first sight of it made me suck in my breath as if Ihad touched the edge of a razor. The bridge half of his nose had gone, orhe had never had it, and the lower half was stuck like a dab of puttymidway between mouth and eyebrows. His little, beady eyes were set inlarge, shallow sockets, giving him an owl-like appearance. A mouthoriginally large enough, and thickly lipped like a negro's, had beenextended, as it seemed, to his left ear by a savage sword slash which hadhealed very badly. He had an air of mean, perky intelligence, as of one oflow rank and no breeding who had for many years been accustomed to cringeto the great and domineer over smaller fry than himself. Some sort ofmilitary
rank he had, judging by his stained and frayed but once gaudyjacket. He carried a tuck of unusual length, stretching along his leftside from heel to armpit, and a couple of pistols were stuck in his belt.
He put down the horn, smacked his lips, and began:
"Master Wheatman, I am searching for a Jacobite spy--a woman. We took herfather up at the 'Barley Mow,' and I learned from a man of yours that thedaughter was at his mother's ale-house down the road. She is not there,and left to walk to meet her father, she said. She has certainly not donethat, and I have called to see if she is hiding here or hereabouts."
"By gad, we'll nab her if she is," said I heartily. "She's not beenthrough that gate in the last half-hour, for it takes me that to drink yonjug dry, and I started with it full. But I'll ask the maids. Mother andour Kate are at the parson's yonder, gaping at you chaps. I dare say yousaw them."
"No," said he doubtingly.
One of the men stepped out of the porch, saluted, and, being bidden tospeak, informed his officer that he had seen Lord Brocton and Mr. CornetDobson talking to two ladies.
"That'd be they," I said, and going with unsteady steps to the door, Ivigorously shouted, "Jin, Moll, Jin, Moll, come here! They're in thedairy," I added by way of explanation.
The crucial moment came. Jane and 'Moll' scurried across the yard likerabbits, but stopped at the porch door with well-simulated surprise at thesight of the dragoons.
"Gom, I thawt 'e'd set the house a-fire," said Jane thankfully,addressing the company at large, and she bravely bustled through andshrilled at me, "At it again, when your mother's out; y'd better get offto bed afore she comes in. She'll drunk yer."
Jane's acting was so much better than mine that I nearly lost my head atbeing thus crudely accused before 'Moll,' but she went on remorselessly,addressing the dragoon, "Dunna upset him for God's sake, Master Squaddy.'E'm a hell-hound when 'e'm gotten a sup of beer in'im."
"Don't trouble, my good girl. I'm used to his sort. Leave him to me andanswer my questions. The truth or the jail, my girl."
"Yow," sniffed Jane, "he'd snap yow in two like a carrot. Bed's bestplace for 'im. He's as wet as thatch with his silly jacking."
"Jane," said I, "never mind me. I'm neither dry enough nor drunk enoughto go to bed yet. Captain here wants to ask you and Moll some questions.Stop clacking at me like a hen at a weasel and listen to him."
Jane went through the ordeal easily, appealing to 'Moll' for verificationat every turn, and so cleverly that the latter appeared to be as muchunder examination as herself. Moreover, Jane stood square in thefirelight, but so as to keep 'Moll' shouldered behind the chimney incomparative gloom. They'd been churning all afternoon, the butter wasthere to be seen, stacks of it; nobody had been in or near the yard; thegate had never clicked once, and nobody could open it without being heardin the dairy. She overwhelmed the dragoon with her demonstrations of theimpossibility of anybody coming up the yard without her or 'Moll' knowingit.
"That's all right, Jane," said I, at length. "But she could easily havegot into the house or into the stables without you or Moll seeing her.Let's all have a look for her. Unless she's small enough to creep into arat-hole, we'll soon find her."
Sergeant Radford--to give him his name and rank, which I learned laterfrom Jack Dobson--agreed to this, and in my joy at knowing that the ordealwas over, I was on the point of forgetting that I was drunk till I caughtthe clear eyes of madam fixed in warning on me. Jane acted as leader tothe two dragoons in overhauling the barns and stabling, while 'Moll,' thesergeant, and I searched the house as closely as if we were looking for alost guinea. Of course our efforts were futile, slow as we were so as notto outpace my drunken footsteps, and careful as we were so as to satisfythe keen eyes of the sergeant, who was very evidently on no new job so faras he was concerned. 'Moll' too seemed jealous of Jane's laurels, and wentthoroughly into the business. She and the serjeant peeped together underbeds and into closets, and she laughed brazenly at certain not veryobscure hints of his as to the great services I should render to thesearch-party if I kept my eye on the house-place. She even said, "MasterNoll, don't 'e think as 'ow th' ale be gettin' flat downstairs? It wunnabe wuth drinkin' if y'ain't sharp."
The result was, that in about half an hour a thoroughly satisfied andrather tired assembly filled the house-place, for the two scouts rode upto the porch with the news that they, too, had found no trace of thefugitive. With the sergeant's leave I sent the five dragoons into thekitchen with the two maids to have a jug of ale apiece, while he stayedwith me in the house-place, to crack a bottle of wine.
I hoped, but in vain, that he would tell me news of the stranger'sfather, but he was too wary for that, and I did not dare to ask him. Hemade close inquiries as to the lie of the land hereabouts, and I pointedout that there was a field-path leading plainly to the village from theother side of the bridge and coming out at an obscure stile at the back ofthe "Barley Mow." The spy might have taken that and become alarmed. Shecould then avoid the village by another plain path, and so get ahead ofthe troops on the Stafford road.
"But what for? Who's to help her there, Master Wheatman?"
"Ask me another, Captain," said I. "But a wise woman would know where tofind friends, and Stafford's full of papishes, burn 'em!"
"Ah!"
"There's Bulbrook and Pippin Pat and Ducky Bellows; there's oldsack-face, the parson there, as good as a papist, very near. You keep youreyes on those big houses in the East Gate. As for me, look at that backand breast and good broad-sword there. Damn me if I don't rub 'em up andcome and have a ding with 'em at these rebels. On Naseby Field they were,Captain, long before your time and mine, but they did good work againstthese same bloody Stuarts. Crack t'other bottle, there's a good fellow.I'm dry with talking and wet with fishing, and it'll do me good."
I pressed him to stay and 'have a good set to,' but he refused, and afterdrinking enough to keep me dizzy for a week, he nipped out and ordered hismen to horse. I walked to the gate with him. He thanked me for my help andgood cheer, and said it was quite clear that the spy was nowhere in ornear the Hanyards. I renewed my greetings to Cornet Dobson and even sentmy respects to his lordship. Off they rode, and it was with a thankfulheart that, remembering my happy condition in time, I stumbled back up theyard to the house-place, where madam and beaming Jane were awaiting me.