Читать книгу Over the Hills - John Jeffery Farnol - Страница 6

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Hardly was he gone than I cast myself down amid the underbrush, crushed with such extravagant and overwhelming sense of loneliness as I had never felt, no not in all the years of my miserable and desolate boyhood, for this man (and he so grand and heroical!) had looked and spoken as a friend, had even uttered comfortable things of my so hateful red hair and lack of size; and, because kindness and friendship were blessings all unknown in my experience, I fell to a passion of tears, bitterly weeping and lamenting my miserable estate, like the poor, solitary creature I was.

Thus forlornly sobbing lay I, bedewing the grass with my tears, until roused suddenly by a hoarse, warning shout, followed, almost immediately, by the loud report of a musket and then the wood was full of tumultuous stir, a snapping of twigs, shouts, cries and a fury of trampling feet. Sick with apprehension, and scarce knowing what I did, I cowered amid the leaves, listening fearfully to the sound of desperate fight in those leafy glooms beyond.

... They dragged him out into the moonlight, four great soldiers, and, having bound his arms, marched him off, laughing and cursing together, their white cross-belts agleam and bayonets twinkling to the moon.

When they were gone some distance I got me afoot but, being much shaken by the brutality and suddenness of it all, was fain to lean against a tree, peering about me in a marvellous perturbation of spirit; thus I chanced to espy something that winked at me from the grass within the wood, and, coming thither, saw this for my gentleman's basket-hilt sword. Glancing fearfully about, I took up the weapon, finding it play very light in my grasp for all its size; and having wielded it, I held it that the moonbeams made a glitter on the long, broad blade. Now as I stared watching this deadly sparkle, I trembled no longer, my sick fears were forgotten, a new strength nerved me, and I raised my head, teeth clenched in sudden purpose so desperate bold indeed as filled me with marvellous astonishment at myself; and all this (as I do think) by the mere feel of this glittering sword.

Then, stripping off my threadbare jacket, I lapped it about the bright steel lest its gleam betray me, and set off in pursuit of the red-coats. Very stealthily ran I, yet at speed, until I had gained the friendly shelter of a hedge whence I might watch the soldiers; six of them now I counted, marching with the prisoner in their midst.

Thus came they into the village at last, and I heard their heavy tread echoing loud in the cobbled street until, reaching the inn, they halted with ring and clatter of grounded muskets. And now was the roll of a drum, loud voices in sharp question, and instant answer, and the prisoner was marched to the yard behind the inn.

By this, the drowsy village was astir, lights gleamed, doors and casements opened, voices called, and the street began to fill with newly-waked folk.

As for me, I turned aside down a narrow lane or twitten, whence I might reach the inn yard and here, espying a great country wain in remote corner, I crept beneath this and crouched there, peering betwixt the wheel-spokes at a certain lighted window of the inn through which I espied much coming and going of scarlet coats, and where, as I suppose, they examined their prisoner.

After some lapse of time a door opened and forth stepped Master Fry, the landlord, bearing a lanthorn, and after him the prisoner, guarded, and though he walked with head bravely aloft, his face showed ghastly pale in the bright moonlight.

"This way, sirs!" quoth Master Fry. "The villain shall lie safe enough I'll warrant me; my barn be stout and strong, sirs."

Now at this my heart leapt, for what reason you shall presently see.

They trooped past my hiding place, and so near that I could see the very epaulettes on the officers' shoulders, and catch all they said:

"The poor devil made a good run for it!" said one.

"And will make a delicate corpse!" said another.

And so they passed: and I, bethinking me of this "delicate corpse," shivered again and clutched the sword closer to me. Presently, having locked up their captive and set a guard upon him, back tramped soldiers and officers to their quarters, the street became again deserted, doors and windows were shut, the whole village grew dark and silent and sank once more to slumber.

But there lay I beneath the market wagon, hearkening to the heavy tramp and occasional mutter of voices where the sentinels kept their watch about the great barn that stood in Master Fry's rick-yard and backing upon the narrow twitten I have mentioned.

Now it so fortuned that this very barn had long been a favourite haunt and hiding place of mine, on high-days and holidays, since, having no friends, I had been wont to steal hither with some book for company, and here, safe hid among the hay, to read until the light failed: for the which purpose, and that I might come and go unseen, I had contrived a secret entrance, in that dark corner which abutted on the twitten, and this a fissure in the worn masonry screened from sight by a great pile of rotting hop-poles. Thus, despite the prisoner's situation, I had some hope I might succeed in my desperate purpose.

The moon, riding high, made the world wellnigh bright as day, and much I yearned for some beneficent cloud to veil her too-radiant splendour, but she swam serene in a clear immensity, while I crouched listening to the monotonous tramp of the sentinels, until I was pretty sure there were three of them. This put me at my wits' end, for, what with these three soldiers and the moon so bright, how was I to come at my secret entrance into the barn?

I was debating this question and hearkening to the tramp of these three sentinels when I sat up suddenly, wondering fearfully why now I could hear but one. At last, with infinite caution, I ventured from beneath the wagon and crept where I might peep into the twitten, and recoiled panic-struck, for within a yard of me stood a soldier who leaned upon his musket, puffed at his pipe and stared up at the moon.

"Ain't married are ye comrade?" he enquired. I started—for a moment I had some wild notion he was addressing me; then:

"Not me. Gimme a suck o' your pipe!" answered a growling voice, and peering, I saw a second man, whose broad back was planted against that pile of hop-poles which (as I have written) masked my secret entrance to the barn.

"I never," quoth soldier Number One, "I never see that there horb so bright afore, and——"

"You never see what afore?"

"Horb, comrade, above there!"

"Horb, d'ye call it?"

"Ah, horb—poetic for——"

"Oh, gimme a suck o' your pipe!" growled Soldier Number Two.

"Why then tak' it, comrade, but draw gentle! I never see that there bright horb but I don't wish I was a farmer."

"O! Why?"

"Because I should be asleep in bed 'stead o' looking at it now."

Thus they talked while I, utterly dismayed, cowered in the shadow, miserably afraid and pretty well hopeless; and then my gaze lighted upon a broken pitchfork, and, moved by swift impulse, I took it up and, whirling it with all my strength, sent it hurtling aloft, to fall clattering loudly upon the roof of the barn, whence it thudded to the paved yard beyond.

"Did ye hear that, comrade?" inquired a voice in the twitten, and I distinguished the sharp click of cocked musket.

"Ay for sure, Tom, I ain't deaf!" And a second musket clicked.

"Well, wot was it, comrade?"

"Burn me! 'Ow should I know? Ask Will. Come on and be ready!" And then I heard the jingle of their accoutrements as they ran to join their comrade in the rick-yard. Staying for no more, I scurried into the twitten, wriggled in behind the hop-poles and, diving into the hole, like rabbit into burrow, crawled in among the hay, and so lay, trembling and breathless, in the fragrant gloom of the barn, and all so still and silent that I could hear the murmur and muttering of the soldiers in the yard outside. And then:

"Wha's yon? Who is it?" whispered a voice at no great distance.

"Hush, sir! 'Tis only me."

"Eh, is it Adam? Ma bonnie, braw wee man!"

"Listen!" I whispered and instantly buried myself in the hay, for hands were fumbling at the door, I heard the key turn and, making a spy-hole in the hay, saw the three soldiers enter, one bearing a lanthorn, by whose light they examined the prisoner very narrowly.

"Ah, my good fellows," says he, cheerily, in his careful English, "if ye'll hae the kindness to but loosen these cords a trifle I shall sleep the better——"

"'E be fast enough!" said the foremost soldier. "Whoever throwed that there brooms-tail, it weren't him, that's sure!"

And away they went, locking the door behind them.

"Whisht, Adam ... are ye there, lad?"

"Here, sir!" I answered creeping to him. "And I've brought your sword——"

"Eh, eh—hae ye gotten Andrew? Oho, bonnie lad! Cut me these cursed bonds and tak' heed ye don't slice me, for Andrew's unco' sharp!" And so, fumbling in the darkness, I contrived to cut away the ropes that bound him, and next moment was fast in his arms, kindly arms that yet crushed me in painful embrace while his big hands patted me wondrous tenderly for all their size, but all he said (and this in whisper) was:

"Red hair for ever!" And when we had lain hearkening a while and all very silent about us: "Now then, young Adam," says he, "show me how ye got in."

"Nay, sir, 'tis how you shall get out, for 'tis very strait and narrow."

"Losh, man," he exclaimed, cheerily, "I'd thank ye for chance at a knot-hole! And faith," says he, when I had brought him thither, "'tis no sae much larger, I'm thinking! Howandever, gang first and watch, I'll contrive somehow wi' Andrew to aid me."

So, wriggling forth into the moonlight, screened behind the hop-poles, I peeped and listened and sweated in a very agony of fear for the moon seemed brighter than ever now, and the soldiers' tramp the louder; once, indeed, one of them came marching up the twitten and paused so near our hiding-place that I could smell the reek of the pipe he was smoking ere he wheeled and went marching back again.

"Now!" I whispered; ensued a desperate scuffling, a hoarse panting and the fugitive lay grovelling beside me; and next moment we were afoot and running for our lives. Turning into the street we sped on, silently as possible, and keeping in the shadows as much as we might until we were clear of the village and the dusty high road stretched before us white beneath the moon. But the King's highway was not for us poor fugitives, so, turning in full career, I leapt a stile and took to the fields, running my best, nor did I pause until I had reached the friendly shelter of the woods; here my companion halted to fetch his breath:

"Oh, lad," says he, clapping me on the shoulder, "Oh, young Adam, ye're an unco' bonnie runner!" Now at this I bowed my head lest he see how my eyes had filled, for praise was new to me and such words from him (and he man so heroical) were very precious:

"Where now, sir?" I enquired.

"Tae the coast—the sea-shore. Whisht d'ye ken a sma' fushin'-village they ca' East Bourne?"

"Very well, sir," I answered eagerly. "This way!"

Across country I led him, avoiding highway and bye-roads, along desolate ways and field-paths and through lonely woods, until at last we climbed the steep ascent of Firle Beacon, and from that eminence saw the countryside stretch below us wide and dim and mysterious beneath the moon, away to the dark forest of Battle, Pevensey Level and a vague, distant sheen that was the sea.

And now, as we trudged high above sleeping hamlet and village, my companion questioned kindly of myself:

"So art a foundling, young Adam?"

"Yes, sir, 'neath a hedge—they took me from the arms of my dead mother."

"My puir, wee man! 'Tis dooms bad hearin', yon!" says he, patting me gently on my weather-beaten cap, "whatever o't ye bear yerself wi' an air, Adam, and talk like ane o' the quality."

"I have been schooled, sir, thanks to Squire Masterton's lady, but, alas, she is dead, God bless her! And now I am bound to Master Bragg, a hard man, sir, and merciless in especial to such as do lie in his power or be poor and friendless."

"Humph—hum!" quoth my companion, a sound this betwixt a snort, sigh and groan, the which I thought very strange, whereafter we went a great while in silence, my gentleman seeming lost in thought and I not daring to interrupt.

"Adam," says he, halting suddenly, "in twa-three hours 'twill be dawn, and here's you and me maun twine, yet first——"

"Twine, sir?" I questioned, chilled by sudden fear.

"Part, lad, gang our several ways."

"Part, sir?" I repeated, and, forgetting all but my bitter disappointment, I caught his arm and shook it in a very passion of entreaty. "Oh, Mr. McLeod," I gasped, "pray ... pray take me with you ... don't leave me again ... Let me be your servant ... only take me," and here my voice was choked by sobs that shook me with their violence.

Now hereupon he glanced at me askance 'neath puckered brows, then stared up at the moon and round about him in lost sort of fashion.

"Lookee, Adam," says he, clapping an arm about me, "I'm a man running for his life, in jeopardy o' the noose, the axe and dismembering-block, y' ken." Here he related, and very particularly, the obscene horrors of a traitor's doom, until my very soul grew sick, and I appalled, to learn how much more of evil was in the world and cruelty in man than I, in my ignorance, had ever dreamed.

"So, Adam, it maun be good-bye. But dinna greet, laddie, dinna greet, 'tis a world o' partings, specially o' late. I hae parted wi' divers guid friends, braw gentlemen all, and mony on 'em too young for death, but some lie over the Border at Preston and Sherriffmuir and others wae's me, their bonny heids will be falling 'neath the bluidy axe and stuck atop o' Temple Bar back yon in London town—ay, as mine would, like as not, but for thee, young Adam. So now dry your een, laddie, cock your bonnet and——"

"Will you take me, sir—oh will you—pray?"

"Nay, 'tis impossible!"

"Then—good-bye!" And, sobbing, I turned and sped upon my desolate way. But presently I heard him call, and, turning eagerly, saw him hurrying after me with great strides.

"Bide a wee, young Adam!" says he, gripping my arm, "'Tis mighty service ye did me the night, and words be puir things ... and so ... so ye'll juist tak' this!" And into my hand he thrust the guinea.

"No, sir, no!" cries I, thrusting it back at him. "Ah, indeed and indeed I want no payment for what I did."

"Nay, but, Adam ... laddie ... what for will ye no——"

"Will you take me with you, sir?"

"Alack, young Adam, 'tis impossible!"

"Then neither will I take your money!" cried I and tossed it at his feet.

"Save 's a'!" he gasped, and stood staring from the coin to me and back again, rubbing his touzled head the while, as very much put out. "Adam," quoth he, at last, "'tis in my mind there's unco' guid blood in ye. I like your pride, fine—ay I do—though 'tis sinfu' shame tae spurn sae muckle guid money, 'tis wanton, 'tis waefu', and I'm fair amazed at ye."

"If you would but suffer me to go with you——" I began; then, seeing how he frowned and shook his head, I turned and ran from him, choking with grief. But even so, I must needs presently turn for a last look, and thus beheld him stooped in the act of picking up the fallen guinea.

So, in the chill of dawn, came I to my master's house and, clambering up the ivy-stems to my gloomy little chamber, got me to my wretched bed.