Читать книгу Over the Hills - John Jeffery Farnol - Страница 12
ОглавлениеWHICH RECORDS A PORTENTOUS MEETING
I was roused by the quick, muffled tramp of galloping hoofs, and, glancing up, saw a horseman close upon me and turned to run; but, reining his horse violently, he sprang to earth and had me by the throat and a pistol beneath my ear all in a moment.
"Ha—Ancaster!" he exclaimed, "at last, by God! 'Tis London for you—'tis the block and bloody axe, ay, by——"
"No!" I gasped and stared up into the evil face of Sir Hector MacFarlane; then, sobbing with fear, I staggered free as he fell back to eye me over while I blenched from the pale fury of him.
"What—what fool's game is here?" he demanded, eyes wide and fierce, white teeth snapping, "what accursed mummery is this? Whence had ye these clothes?"
"Sir, I—I went a-bathing," I stammered, "a-bathing, sir, and when I came to dress me I—I found my own clothes were not and—these were——"
"What manner o' clothes were yours? Quick, fool, quick—in a word!"
"Old!" I answered, whereupon he took me by the throat again.
"Ha, will ye palter with me?" he cried, shaking me passionately. "Describe them, rogue, their sort—their colour, quick, I say!"
Forthwith I contrived to gasp forth some description of my vanished garments, whereupon he cuffed me for my trouble, bidding me begone for a pitiful knave. Now at this (and minding the beam of sun in the wood), my affright left me and I fronted him, never heeding his pistol.
"Hearkee, sir!" I began, "I tell you——" here, meeting his fierce look, I stopped, a little breathlessly.
"What, oaf, what?"
"Sir, you called me 'rogue'—so now——" again my voice failed; Sir Hector stamped impatient foot:
"Well, clod?" he demanded.
"Well, sir, you—are a damned rogue—and villainous knave also!"
His delicate nostrils expanded suddenly, the pistol quivered in his clutching, white fingers and for a moment his eyes glared into mine, then all at once he laughed softly.
"My poor boy," said he in his strangely sweet voice, "some day you may be worth a man's powder and shot—unless you are taken and die by the axe like so many o' your betters——"
"The axe!" cried I.
"Ay, or gibbet, my poor innocent. There are red-coats hereabout!"
"Sir—sir, what do you mean?"
"Those garments, fool! You are become a'scapegoat for a rebel, to be taken or shot down!"
So saying, he turned to his horse that cropped the grass hard by and sprang lightly to saddle. Now as I stared up at him horror-stricken and dismayed beyond words, he looked down at me and laughed.
"Poor innocent!" said he. "D'ye blink the axe already then, or is't the noose? Hearkee, fool, should the red-coats take you—ask for John Weir—Weir, mind—'tis a good plain, honest name easily remembered—John Weir. So may you live to die some other time and less quickly."
So saying, he laughed again, rammed pistol into holster, and spurring his mettled animal, galloped rapidly away, and left me propped against the gate, sick and faint with a new terror.
For these fine garments (that in my blind folly I had thought so becoming) I now loathed extremely, since their very splendour was a menace to my life and bitterly yearned I to be safe again in my own poor clothes; while Master Bragg's crab-tree staff, nay, prison itself, seemed of none account beside the chance of capture by the soldiers or the searing shock of a musket-ball.
Thus, terrified by my so conspicuous grandeur, and quaking to the musical jingle of my spurs, back crept I miserably into the woods, and there loosing off the spurs, lest they betray me to unseen ears, I buried them beneath a pile of leaves. Then I wandered on again (and very wretched) heedless of direction, since I knew not whither to go, often pausing breathless to listen for the tramp of feet while my eyes stared hither and thither for the gleam of musket-barrel or flash of scarlet cloth; and now all my prayer was:
"O God, keep me from the red-coats!"
