Читать книгу The Dark Frigate - Charles Boardman Hawes - Страница 7

Table of Contents

There was not a cloud in the sky at dawn. Cocks crowed lustily, near and loud or far and faint. The blue light grew stronger and revealed the sleeping village and the rambling old inn and the great stable, where the horses stood in their stalls and pulled at the hay and pease in the racks or moved uneasily about. The stars became dim and disappeared. The rosy east turned to gold and the dark hills turned to blue and the village stirred from its sleep.

The master of the inn came down, rubbing his eyes and yawning, to the great room where one of the maids, bedraggled with sleep, was brushing the hearth and another was clearing a table at which two village roysterers had sat late. The master was in an evil temper, but for the moment there was no fault to be found with the maids, so he left them without a word and went through the long passage to the kitchen.

Seeing there a candle, which had burned to a pool of tallow, still guttering faintly in its socket, he cried out at the waste and reached to douse the feeble flame, then stopped in anger, for in a chair by the table, on which he had rested his head and arms, the little boy sat fast asleep.

"Hollo!" the master bawled.

Up started the little boy, awake on the instant and his eyes wide with fear.

"What in the fiend's name hast thou been up to, this night?" quoth the master in a fierce bellow.

The little boy burst into tears. "He'll have nought to do with him," he wailed. "'Twas a long way and fearful dark but I went it, every step, and ferreted him out and gave him the message; and he swore most wickedly and bade me tell the man go to a place I don't like to name, and bade me tell Nell Entick he took it ill of her to traffic with such as that brother of his."

"Ah-ha!" cried the host, belting his breeches tighter. "Most shrewdly do I suspect there have been strange doings hereabouts. Where's Nell Entick? Nell Entick, I say, Nell Entick!" His voice went through the house like thunder. The sashes rattled and the little boy quaked.

Down came the hostess and in came the maids—all but Nell Entick.

"Nell Entick! Where's Nell Entick, I say! Fiend take the wench—where's Nell Entick?"

Then in came the sleepy hostlers, and the coachman, his livery all awry from his haste—but not Nell Entick. For Nell Entick, a-tremble with well-founded apprehensions, having gone late to bed and slept heavily, had risen just after the host, had followed him down the passage and, after listening at the door until she made sure her worst fears were realized, had darted back along the passage and out through the inn yard to the stable where as loudly as she dared, but not loudly enough to rouse the weary sleepers above, she was calling, "Martin! Martin! Awake, I say, or they'll all be upon thee! Martin, awake!"

The host in fury seized the little boy by the ear and dragged him shrieking across the table. "Now, sirrah," quoth he, "of whom mak'st thou this squalling and squealing? A stick laid to thy bum will doubtless go far to keep thy soul from burning."

"Unhand me!" he squalled. "She'll kill me, an I tell."

"An thou tellest not, thou slubbering noddy, I'll slice thee into collops of veal." And still holding the unhappy child by the ear, the host, making a ferocious face, reached for a long and sharp knife.

"I'll tell—I'll tell—'Tis the two men that slept in the hay."

"Ha! The hounds are in cry."

And with that the host released his victim and dashed, knife in hand, out the kitchen door. The household trailed at his heels. The sleeping guests woke in their chambers and faces appeared at curtained windows.

Nell Entick fled from the stable as he came roaring, but seeing her not, he mounted the ladder and plunged into the hay with wild thrusts of his knife in all directions. "Hollo! Hollo!" he yelled. "At 'em, dogs, at 'em!" And the two sleepers in the far corner of the mow, as the household had done before them, started wide awake.

For the second time since they had met, Martin, crouching in the hay, crossed himself, then shot a scared glance at Phil. Martin was white round the lips and his hands were shaking like the palsy. "Said he aught of hanging?" he whispered. But Philip Marsham was then in no mood to heed his chance companion, whose bubble of bluster he had seen pricked three times.

What had occurred was plain enough and the two were cornered like rats; but Phil got up on his toes, shielded from sight by a mound of hay, and squatting low, got in his arms as much of the hay as he could grasp.

Bawling curses and thrusting this way and that with his knife, the host came steadily nearer. He passed the mound. He saw the two. Knife in hand he plunged at them over the hay, with a yell of triumph. But his footing was none of the best, and as he came, Phil rose with a great armful of hay to receive the knife-thrust and sprang at him.

Thus thrown off his balance, the man fell and the lad, catching his wrist and dexterously twisting it, removed the knife from his hand and flung it into the darkest corner of the great mow.

"Help! Treason! Murder! Thieves!"

With his hand on the host's throat, Phil shoved him deeper in the hay and held him at his mercy, but Martin was already scrambling over the mow, and with a last thrust Phil left the blinded and choking host to dig himself out at his leisure and followed, dirk in hand. As the two leaped down on the stable floor, the flashing dirk bought them passage to the rear, whither they fled apace, and out the door and away.

They passed Nell Entick at the gate, her hands clasped in terror, who cried to Martin, "He'll have nought of you. Hard words were all he sent."

To Phil she said nothing but her glance held him, and he whispered, "I will come back and marry you."

She smiled.

"You will wait for me?" he whispered, and kissed her.

She nodded and he kissed her again ere he fled after Martin.

When they had left the village behind them they stopped to breathe and rest.

Leaning against a tree, Martin mopped the sweat from his brow. "Had I but a sword," he cried, "I'd ha' given them theme for thought, the scurvy knaves!"

"It seems thy brother, of whom we were to have got so much, bears thee little love." And Phil smiled.

For this Martin returned him an oath, and sat upon a stone.

On the left lay the village whence they had come, and, though the sun was not yet up, the spire of the church and the thatched roofs of the cottages were very clearly to be seen in the pure morning air. Smoke was rising from chimneys and small sounds of awakening life came out to the vagabonds on the lonely road, as from the woods at their back came the shrill, loud laugh of the yaffle, and from the marsh before them, the croaking of many frogs.

Martin's shifty eyes ranged from the cows standing about the straw rack in a distant barton in the east to a great wooded park on a hill in the west. "I will not go hungry," he cried with an oath, "because it is his humour to deny me. We shall see what we shall see."

He rose and turned west and with Phil at his heels he came presently to the great park they had seen from a distance.

"We shall see what we shall see."

With that he left the road and following a copse beside a meadow entered the wood, where the two buried themselves deep in the shade of the great trees. The sun was up now and the birds were fluttering and clamouring high overhead, but to the motion and clamour of small birds they gave no heed. From his pocket Martin drew a bit of strong thread, then, looking about, he wagged his head and pushed through the undergrowth. "Hare or pheasant, I care not which. Here we shall spread our net—here—and here." Whereupon he pulled down a twig and knotted the thread and formed a noose with his fingers. "Here puss shall run," he continued, "and here, God willing, we shall eat."

Having thus set his snare, he left it, and sulkily, for the sun was getting up in the sky and they had come far without breaking their fast. So Phil followed him and they lay on a bank, with an open vale before them where yellow daffodils were in full bloom, and nursed their hunger.

After a while Martin slipped away deftly but returned with a face darker than he took, and though he went three times to the snare and scarcely stirred a leaf,—which spoke more of experience in such lawless sports than some books might have told,—each time his face, when he returned, was longer than before.

"A man must eat," he said at last, "and here in his own bailiwick and warren will I eat to spite him. Yea, and leave guts and fur to puzzle him. But there's another way, quicker and surer, though not so safe."

So they went together over a hill and down a glade to a meadow.

"Do thou," he whispered, "lie here in wait."

With a club in his hand and a few stones in his pocket he circled through the thicket, and having in his manner of knowing his business and of commanding the hunt, resumed his old bravado, he now made a great show of courage and resourcefulness; but Phil, having flung himself down at full length by the meadow, smiled to hear him puffing through the wood.

Off in the wood wings fluttered and Martin murmured under his breath. Presently a stone rapped against a tree-trunk and again there was the sound of wings.

Then the lad by the meadow heard a stone rip through the leaves and strike with a soft thud, whereupon something fell heavily and thrashed about in the undergrowth, and Martin cried out joyously.

He had no more than appeared, holding high a fine cock-pheasant, with the cry, "Here's meat that will eat well," when there was a great noise of heavy feet in the copse behind him, and whirling about in exceeding haste, he flung the pheasant full in the face of the keeper and bolted like a startled filly. Thereupon scrambling to his feet, Phil must needs burst out laughing at the wild look of terror Martin wore, though the keeper was even then upon him and though he himself was of no mind to run. He lightly stepped aside as the keeper rushed at him, and darting back to where Martin had dropped his cudgel, snatched it up and turned, cudgel in hand. He was aware of a flash of colour in the wood, and the sound of voices, but he had no leisure to look ere the keeper was again at him, when for the first time he saw that the keeper was the selfsame red-faced countryman who had brought the gun to Moll Stevens's alehouse by the Thames—that it was Jamie Barwick.

Now the keeper Barwick was at the same moment aware of something familiar about his antagonist, but not until he was at him a second time in full tilt did he recollect where and when he had last seen him. He then stopped short, so great was his amazement, but resumed his attack with redoubled fury. His stick crashed against the cudgel and broke, and ducking a smart rap, he dived at Phil's knees.

To this, Phil made effective reply by dropping the cudgel and dodging past the keeper to catch him round the waist from behind (for his arms, exceeding long though they were, were just long enough to encompass comfortably the man's great belly), and the lad's iron clutch about the fellow's middle sorely distressed him. As they swayed back and forth the keeper suddenly seized Phil's head over his own shoulder and rose and bent forward, lifting Phil from the ground bodily; then he flung himself upon his back and might have killed the lad by the fall, had Phil not barely wriggled from under him.

Both were on their feet in haste, but though the keeper was breathing the harder, Philip Marsham, having come far without food, was the weaker, and as Barwick charged again, Phil laid hands on his dirk, but thought better of it. Then Barwick struck from the shoulder and Phil, seizing his wrist, lightly turned and crouched and drew the man just beyond his balance so that his own great weight pitched him over the lad's head. It is a deft throw and gives a heavy fall, but Phil had not the strength to rise at the moment of pitching his antagonist,—which will send a man flying twice his length,—so Barwick, instead of taking such a tumble as breaks bones, landed on his face and scraped his nose on the ground.

He rose with blood and mud smearing his face and with his drawn knife in his hand; and Philip Marsham, his eyes showing like black coals set in his stark white face, yielded not a step, but snatched out his dirk to give as good as he got.

Then, as they shifted ground and fenced for an opening, a booming "Holla! Holla!" came down to them.

They stopped and looked toward the source of the summons, but Phil, a shade the slower to return to his antagonist, saw out of the corner of his eye that Barwick was coming at him. He leaped back and with his arm knocked aside Barwick's blow.

"Holla, I say! Ha' done, ha' done! That, Barwick, was a foul trick. Another like that, and I'll turn you out."

A crestfallen man was Barwick then, who made out to stammer, "Yea, Sir John—yea, Sir John, but a poacher—'e's a poacher, Sir John, and a poacher—"

"A foul trick is a foul trick."

The speaker wore a scarlet cloak overlaid with silver lace, and his iron-grey hair crept in curls from under a broad hat. His face, when he looked at Barwick, was such that Barwick stepped quietly back and held his tongue. The man had Martin by the collar (his sleek impudence had melted into a vast melancholy), and there stood behind them a little way up the bank, Phil now saw, a lady no older than Phil himself, who watched the group with calm, dark eyes and stood above them all like a queen.

"Throw down those knives," the knight ordered, for it took no divining to perceive that here was Sir John Bristol in the flesh. "Thrust them, points into the ground. Good! Now have on, and God speed the better man."

To Philip Marsham, who could have expected prison at the very least, this fair chance to fight his own battle came as a reprieve; and though he very well knew that he must win the fight at once or go down from sheer weakness and want of food, his eyes danced.

The knight's frown darkened, observing that Barwick appeared to have got his fill, and he smote the ground with his staff. Then Barwick turned and Philip Marsham went in upon him like a ray of light. Three times he threw the big man, by sheer skill and knowledge, for the other by his own weight hindered himself, but after the third time the world went white and the lad fell.

He sat up shortly and looked into Sir John's face.

"'Tis the lack of food," he stammered, "or I'd out-last him as well as out-wrestle him."

Sir John was laughing mightily. "You gave him full measure, and thank God you are fresh from a fast or I'd ha' lost a keeper. As for food, we shall remedy that lack. Two things I have to say: one to you, Barwick. You attempted a foul trick. I'll have none such in my service. If it happens again, you go. And as for you, you white-livered cur, that would leave a boy to a beating and never turn a hand to save him, I'll even take you in hand myself."

And with that, Sir John flung back his cloak and raising his staff with one hand while with the other he kept hold of Martin's coat-collar, he thrashed the man till he bellowed and blubbered—till his coat was split and his shirt was bloody and his head was broken and his legs were all welts and bruises.

"Help! Help! O Holy Mary! Saints in Heaven! Help! O Jamie, Jamie, Jamie! O sir! Kind sir! let me go! Let me go!"

Sir John flung him away with a last whistling stroke of the great staff. "That," said he, "for cowardice."

And Jamie Barwick, having already forgotten his own rebuke, was broadly smiling.

Sir John turned then and looked Philip Marsham in the eye. "It was a good fight," he said, and smiled. "Courage and honour will carry a man far."

He then looked away across his wide acres to the distant village. For a while he was lost in revery and the others waited for him, but he came to himself with a start and turned brusquely, though not unkindly, to Philip Marsham.

"Come now, begone, you vagabond cockerel! If a farm is robbed from here to the Channel, or a hundred miles the other way, I'll rear the county upon your track and scour the countryside from the Severn to the Thames. I'll publish the tale of you the country over and see you hanged when they net you."

He stood there looking very fierce as he spoke, but there was a laugh in his eyes, and when Phil turned to go, he flung the lad a silver coin.

Phil saw the gesture and picked the money from the air, for he was quick with his fingers, but before he caught it Sir John seemed to have forgotten him; for he bent his head and walked away with his eyes on the ground. There was something in the knight's manner that stung the lad, who looked at the coin in his hand and almost as quick as thought hurled it back at Sir John.

"How now?" cried Sir John, turning about.

"I'll take no money that is thrown me," Phil replied.

"So!" Sir John stood looking at him. "I have a liking for thee," he said, and smiled. But he then, it seemed, again forgot that there was such a lad, for he once more bent his head and walked away with the lady who had stood above them in the wood.

As for Phil, he did not so lightly forget Sir John. He watched him until he had fixed in his mind every line of his tall, broad figure, every gesture of his hand and every toss of his head. He then walked off, and when he turned to look back a last time Sir John was gone.

"What was that he said of hanging?" Martin whispered.

The fellow's face was so white and his lips and his bruises were so blue that Phil laughed at him before his eyes, who thereupon lost his temper and snarled, "It's all well enough to take things lightly, you who got no beating; but hanging is no laughing matter."

He then looked cautiously around and ran back the way they had come. When he returned he held between thumb and forefinger the silver coin Phil had thrown back at the burly knight. Martin bought food with it and Phil, though he thought it would have choked him, helped him eat it; and so they survived the day.

"That keeper, Barwick," Martin said that evening as the two tramped west along the highway, "is my brother, and an ungrateful wretch he is."

"I knew he was your brother," Phil said. But he was not thinking of Martin or his brother. He was thinking of the old knight in the scarlet cloak so bravely decked with silver lace. There was only one man Philip Marsham had ever known, who had such a rough, just, heavy-handed humour as Sir John Bristol or any such indomitable sense of fair play, and that man was Phil's dead father.