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The MS. in a Red Box

by John A. Hamilton · English · Gutenberg #35778 · 478,689 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The MS. in a Red Box

Author: John A. Hamilton


        
Release date: April 6, 2011 [eBook #35778]
                Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35778

Credits: Produced by Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MS. IN A RED BOX ***




Produced by Al Haines









[Transcriber's note: the source book had no listed author, however, the
British Library catalog shows John Arthur Hamilton as the author.]





THE MS. IN

A RED BOX




LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD

NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY




_Cheap Edition_



BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. LTD., LONDON




THIS WORK IS DEDICATED

TO ITS UNKNOWN AUTHOR

BY THE PUBLISHER




ORIGINAL PUBLISHER'S NOTE

One day in April last a parcel was sent to the Bodley Head.  On being
opened it was found to contain a MS. in a red box, without any
accompanying letter, without title, author's name, or address.  For
some days it was not entered in the book of the firm kept for the
purpose of registering the receipt of MSS.; but, as no letter was
received, towards the end of the month it was recorded in pencil as
follows: "The MS. in a Red Box."  According to the usual course it was
then sent to the publisher's reader, who reported on it with
enthusiasm; meanwhile there had been no inquiry from the author, and
the publisher read it for himself, and fully endorsed the opinion of
his literary adviser.  After some discussion, the following
advertisement was inserted in the pages of _The Athenaeum_ and _The
Academy_:--


TO AUTHORS.

NOTICE.--If the Writer of a Historical Novel, without Title, Author's
Name, or Address, sent some weeks ago to the Bodley Head in a Red Box,
will communicate with the Publisher, he will hear of something to his
advantage.

JOHN LANE.

Vigo Street, London, W.


This gave rise to much comment in the press, and of course brought
several applications from authors of MSS. which had gone astray.

The publisher learnt, to his bewilderment, that MSS. of novels have a
tendency to wander irresponsibly in space, somewhat after the fashion
of comets.

Later on the publisher again advertised, stating that he would publish
the book on a certain day under the title of "The MS. in a Red Box,"
unless the author communicated with him before the advertised date.

For the selection of the title, the publisher is indebted to Mrs. W. K.
Clifford, Mrs. Ford of Pencarrow, Mrs. Wilberforce, Mr. I. N. Ford of
the _New York Tribune_, Mr. Henry Harland, Mr. W. J. Locke, and
Professor York Powell, as it happened that these seven all suggested
the same title on the same day; and the superstitious instinct of the
publisher was not proof against this consensus of opinion.

Mr. Ford is responsible for the cover, which represents the Red Box in
which the MS. originally reached the Bodley Head; but to the Hon. Mrs.
Anstruther is due the witty suggestion of adding the Della Robbia
plaque from the Florentine Foundling Hospital.

The author may, perhaps, ask why the publisher did not wait longer for
him to reveal himself.  The reason was that it appeared that the
interest aroused in this foundling romance, through the author's
modesty or carelessness, would be best maintained by publication while
the incidents were still fresh in the minds of the public.  The
publisher holds that what is the author's interest is also his.

With regard to the business side of this transaction, the publisher
will try to meet the author's demands in a spirit of fairness; but,
should there be any dispute arise, he, for his part, will be quite
willing to leave the decision with the President of the Society of
Authors, Mr. George Meredith, and the President of the Publishers'
Association, Mr. Charles James Longman, the prince of English
publishers.

For the author's protection, some slight changes have been made in the
MS., in no way, however, affecting the story, but of sufficient
importance to prevent any false claim from being successfully advanced.
The author's interests have been further safeguarded by "The MS. in a
Red Box" being copyrighted and published in the United States of
America.  The work has been seen through the press by Mr. Richard
Upton, of Jesus College, Cambridge.

Apart from the interest the publisher has had in reading the book, he
has to thank the author for relieving the tedium of ordinary
publishing, and, in addition, for providing him with the unique
experience of dedicating a book to its unknown author.

THE BODLEY HEAD




_The MS. in a RED BOX_



CHAPTER I

On the tenth of May in the year sixteen hundred and twenty-seven, I
rode from Temple Belwood to Crowle, as blithe and merry as any young
fellow in the world.  For one thing, the day was the finest of an early
season, the air sweet with spring odours and glad with pleasant sounds.
The laburnums and lilacs and hawthorn and the foreign chestnuts (in
blossom for the first time at Temple Belwood that year) were full of
bloom.  The hen-pheasants were whistling to their new-hatched broods;
the fresh-shorn sheep were answering the bleating of their lambs; trees
and bushes rang with the melody of small birds, and from the holms and
islets of marsh and mere came a din of quacking, clanging, and
chattering water-fowl, which distance mingled and softened into music.
But what a pother I make!  It was a fine spring day in Axholme.  The
great reason for gladness was that I had received good news--news of
hard won victory from my father, then in London.  For years the Isle
had been threatened with invasion by one Cornelius Vermuijden, a
Dutchman, who had induced the King to grant him authority to drain the
meres, embank and stop the rivers of the Isle, and transform the
country at his pleasure, regardless of the rights of the Isle Commoners
covenanted in the Deed of Earl Mowbray.  When the Dutchman had
completed his precious scheme, one third of the land reclaimed was to
become the property of the King, another to be Vermuijden's, and the
remaining third to be divided among the Commoners of the Isle, that is,
the land-owners.  This, without the consent of the land-owners, be it
understood, and in nowise considering the ruin certain to befall
hundreds of poorer folk, who lived by fishing, fowling, reed-cutting,
egg-gathering, and the like crafts of marshmen.

When the first rumour of the plan came to Axholme, it was theme for
laughter.  What man in his senses could believe that his Majesty would
empower a foreigner to lord it over two hundred and fifty square miles
of English soil, diverting rivers, cutting canals, turning pools and
lakes into boggy ground, and of necessity (so said shrewd men, who had
knowledge of such matters, and as indeed proved to be the case),
turning fruitful fields into marsh and swamp?  But consternation
quickly followed jesting, for the incredible thing was true.  His
Majesty had great need of money, and the Dutchman held command of
inexhaustible treasure, so the Isle was to be given over to his will.
Then gentle and simple alike turned to my father, Thomas Vavasour.
They knew his courage and capacity and his public mind.  Into his hands
they committed their cause, and he became "their Solicitor," as they
loved to call him, though he was no lawyer by profession, nor ever
received aught for his services.  He had been in London on this
business for some weeks, and now wrote to me that he had obtained a
judgment of the Court of Exchequer, confirming the rights of the Isle
Commoners, and finally quashing the scheme of invasion.  My father had
worsted the Dutchman--and his Majesty himself--and saved the Isle!  The
news would set the bells ringing in every steeple in Axholme; there
would be bonfires on every hill and mound, and feasting and merrymaking
in every manor house and farm and cottage.  I had been ready to caper
and shout when I read the letter, but I suddenly bethought me that the
announcement should be made by "the Solicitor" himself, and that if it
so pleased him, my coming of age that day week would be a fitting
occasion.  It was hard to keep the tidings to myself, but it appeared
right to me that my father, who had gained it, should publish his
victory.  In his letter he said nothing to guide me.  I determined to
take counsel of the Vicar of Crowle, my uncle by marriage with my
mother's sister.  But when I reached Crowle, it became doubtful whether
I should impart the great news even to Mr. Graves, who had a high sense
of his importance as the parson of a parish, and might be unable to
resist the temptation to be the first to announce the good news.  The
next day would be Sunday, I remembered.  To think of this awhile
longer, I turned my horse into a track, which wound up a little hill
that over-topped the town.  As soon as I gained the crown of the hill,
a tumult of angry shouts and the noise of barking dogs came to my ears,
and I rode down the track toward the spot from which the sounds arose.
A thick growth of trees hindered my view until I came to an open glade,
where a number of men and lads, perhaps two score, were gathered round
an old oak.  They seemed to be threatening some one.  As I drew nearer,
I saw a young and beautiful woman, seated on a root of the old tree,
her back against the trunk, and one arm partly folded in her cloak,
round the neck of a fawn, huddled closely to her.  The cloak had been
torn in two or three places, and through the rents showed the whiteness
of her arm stained with blood.  Her face was deathly pale, but her eyes
were bright and dauntless.

The fellows parted right and left as I rode up, and some of them seemed
half ashamed of themselves before I spoke.

"What devilry is this?" I shouted.  "You vile cowards!  To set your
dogs on a woman!"

A stout fellow, whose face bore many scars of old wounds, nicknamed
Stride-a-mile from his skill in stilt-walking, answered me boldly
enough--

"The devilry is none of ours.  The foreign woman has bewitched the
fawn, and won't give it up.  How could we hinder the dogs snapping at
her?"

"You lie, you rascal," I replied.  "The curs are harmless enough now
that you are not hissing them on."

Half a dozen mongrel hounds were whimpering and snarling and growling
round the lady, but not attempting to bite.

"Maybe I am a liar and a coward and a devil, Master Vavasour," said
Stride-a-mile; "but the fawn is ours, and we mean to have it.  We found
it and the doe yonder"--pointing to a carcase which lay on the ground
thirty yards off--"out of forest bounds, and we've chased it, and 'tis
ours."  The fellow looked round on his comrades, some of whom answered
the look by gripping cudgels, displaying their big knives, or setting
their crossbows.

Boiling with rage at what I deemed the fellow's insolence, and
forgetting the odds against me, and what might happen to the lady, if I
should be overborne, I raised my riding-whip, and touched Trueboy's
side with my heel, when an oldish man, whom I did not know, stepped
between me and Stride-a-mile, saying--

"A parley, squire.  'Twould be a bad day's work if harm came to you;
and venison isn't worth any man's life.  Maybe the lady will explain to
you why she wants the whole fawn.  It would go bad long before she
could eat it all.  If she would be satisfied with a haunch, now, we
won't say her nay."

Angry though I was, I could not forbear laughing that the lady should
be suspected of so inordinate desire of venison, but I knew no more
than the fat fellow himself what her reason was for keeping their game
from the rabble.  I looked at her inquiringly.

She spoke in a clear, sweet voice.  "When its mother fell, and the dogs
sprang upon her, the poor little creature ran straight to me, and its
dear, brown eyes said, 'Save me,' as well as eyes can speak.  How could
I be so cruel as to refuse its suppliant plea?"

As her own fawn-like eyes were lifted to me, I wished I could paint the
beautiful face as a picture of the Mother of Pity.

"Will the men take money for the fawn, if they wish to eat it?" she
asked, holding out a piece of gold between thumb and finger.

Most of the men brightened at the suggestion, but Stride-a-mile
answered--

"Who's to say 'tis good?  No foreign tokens for us.  For aught we know
'tis witches' money, and will turn to cinder."

"Oh, if that's your objection," said I, "here's a twenty-shilling
laurel," which I tossed to him.

The magic of money!  The sulky clowns were happy on the instant.  They
gave a cheer for the "young Squire of Belwood," and hurried off to pick
up the doe, and then, doubtless, to the ale-house.

Dismounting, I inquired whether the lady had friends at hand to whose
care I might take her.

"My father and I are lodging at the inn of the White Hart," she said,
rising to her feet, but immediately sinking again, with a little moan.
"I am afraid walking is out of my power," she said.  "My ankle is
disabled.  If you will do me the kindness to acquaint my father, Doctor
Goel, with my position, he will know what to do."

"Pardon me, but that would be waste of time, and time is precious," I
answered.  "Your hurts should be seen to without delay.  If you can
manage to sit my horse, I will lead him gently."

A faint smile crossed her face, drawn with pain though it was.

"I have never ridden a horse, and should probably fall; for, to tell
the truth, I have some fear that I may swoon."

She was so pale, and such a dimness had come into her eyes that I
feared so, too.

"Then we must needs ride double," said I, jumping into the saddle.  "I
will take you in front of me, and there will be no risk of your
falling."

"But the little deer," she cried.  "We cannot leave the poor little
beast."

I was ready to curse the "little beast," but there was no gainsaying
the lady, so I leaped down again, took up the fawn, and scrambling up
on the roots of the old oak, which was hollow, thrust it through a
great hole, and let it drop inside.

Regaining my saddle, I said, "The fawn will be safe, until we have
leisure to return.  Now for the White Hart."

With some difficulty, I drew the lady on to Trueboy's back, and putting
one arm round her waist, set off at a canter.  Happily, she did not
swoon, and in ten minutes we arrived at the inn, where the stout
hostess and Nancy the maid received the lady into their arms, and
carried her to an inner room, making a great outcry of pity and
astonishment, and asking twenty questions in a breath.  Committing
Trueboy to Mat the ostler, I followed, in time to catch a glimpse of
the lady laid on a squab, and of a tall, spare man of sixty or
thereabout bending over her.  Then the door was closed, and I seated
myself in the common room, and waited, while Mistress Hind and her maid
bustled about with jugs and basins of water, hot and cold, and towels
and clean rags, shaking their heads, and sighing and exclaiming after
the manner of their kind.  Growing impatient of the noise they made, I
walked out into the inn yard, and remembering that the fawn was still
in the wood, and that the lady would be concerned about the creature, I
despatched Mat with a handcart, rope, et cetera, to bring it to the inn.

When I re-entered the house, the old man came to the door of the inner
chamber, and making a sweeping bow, addressed me in French, signifying
that his daughter wished to have speech with me.  I returned his bow,
and followed into the room, where the lady lay, a little colour now in
her cheeks, and in her eyes a mirthful light.  I thought I had never
seen woman half so lovely, and I think so still.

"Be seated, sir, if you please," she said.  "I have yet to thank you
for your courage and kindness."

I interrupted her.  "Are the wounds likely to be healed soon?  Is there
no peril of lameness, or enduring mischief?" I asked, half turning to
her father.

"My father has little English," said she.  "Perhaps you speak French?"

I shook my head; for, though I knew something of the tongue, I much
preferred to converse through the charming interpreter.

"To set your mind at rest," she continued, with a glance bright and
warm as a sunbeam, "my father tells me that a few scars will be the
worst consequences of what he calls my folly--and the barbarism of your
countrymen."

"Barbarism, assuredly," I answered; "but it is to be said for them that
the fawn was their game, and they did not understand your behaviour.
You ran great risk by defending it.  Why did you not offer them money
for it?"

"Because the heart is quicker than the head."  Then she added archly,
"You were not much wiser.  It did not occur to you to buy our safety.
You were for fighting, one against fifty, with riding-whip against
bludgeons and crossbows and guns."

"Perhaps I was more foolish than valiant," said I.

"Nay, I meant no flout," answered the lady, and her eyes were dewy as
she looked at me.

"The fat old fellow must have the praise for our deliverance," I said.

"Not from me," smiled the lady.

The gratitude she so expressed drove me to say, hoping to divert her
mind--

"By this time, Mat will have brought your fawn."

"How kind of you to take such pains!  But _my_ fawn it is not, since
your money purchased it from the hunters."

"Honour me by acceptance of it, then."

"A trifle additional to my life.  With pleasure.  I did not understand
perfectly why the man would not take my coin.  Said he not something of
witchcraft?"

"Only an idle word.  The ruffian spoke in amazement that the fawn had
taken refuge at your feet."

"It was wonderful to me; the more so that I had never seen such a
creature in my life.  We have no deer in the Netherlands."

"You are from the Netherlands?"

"My father"--looking fondly and proudly toward the old man, who was
deep in a book--"until three years ago, was not the least famous
professor in the University of Leyden, the intimate friend of the great
Oldenbarneveldt, and of the renowned Van Groot."

"My good old tutor, Mr. Butharwick, will hasten to pay his respect to
Doctor Goel.  He calls Grotius the second and greater Erasmus,
lamp-bearer of learning, the glory of Europe, and I know not what
besides."

Mistress Goel turned to her father, and spoke to him in their own
tongue, mighty well pleased, as I guessed, to tell him that an admirer
of his friend lived so near.  The doctor drew himself up in his chair,
his wrinkled face transfigured by a radiant smile.  His daughter
continued--

"My father's enemies, envious of his learning and repute, laid
accusation against him of being privy to the conspiracy to murder
Prince Maurice.  He was thrown into prison at the same time as his
friend.  Not to prolong my tale to tedious length, he escaped to
France.  We left Paris three months ago for London, where he met an old
acquaintance, Vermuijden by name, who is about to begin great
drainage-works in this part of the country, as you probably know."

"He _was_ about to do so," I answered; "but the scheme has come to
nothing.  The highest court of law in England has made void the King's
grant to Vermuijden."

"A court of law has annulled a royal decree!" she exclaimed.

"It is even so," I replied.  "The laws of England are not to be
overridden at the King's will."

Hereupon followed much converse between father and daughter, of which I
made out no more than that they were greatly astonished and in doubt,
as if my news had deeply concerned themselves.

Their colloquy ended, Mistress Goel asked me many questions, prompted
by the doctor, respecting the rights of the Commoners and their
opposition to the drainage of the Isle, repeating my answers to her
father, who seemed much disquieted thereby.  Hitherto, he had believed
that the scheme met with favour from all the inhabitants, excepting
some few of the baser sort, and I gathered that he had invested money
in the purchase of shares in an undertaking which he supposed to be of
unquestioned public advantage, and likely to yield no small gain to the
participants.

His anxiety was somewhat relieved when he heard that the Commoners had
no rights in the King's Chace at Hatfield, which formed part of the
area under Vermuijden's plan.

Suddenly remembering that I had overstaid the limits of decorum and of
kindness, Mistress Goel suffering as she must be, I rose to take leave.

"You will not forget to bring your friend to see my father," said she,
flushing a little, or so I fancied.

As I withdrew into the common room, Lord Sheffield entered by the front
door, and gave order in his imperious style to the obsequious hostess
that his presence should be signified to Doctor Goel.  He and I
exchanged the distant bow of ceremony, for there was no love lost
between us two.  His ten-years younger brother, Edmund, and I had been
dear comrades until Edmund's death; and, indeed, my hatred of the elder
grew out of my love for the younger, to whom my Lord Sheffield behaved
ever with bitterness and cruelty.  Not caring to remain in the same
room with "my Lord Arrogancy," as we of the Isle were wont to call him,
I went out into the yard to bid Mat bring my horse, and, as Mat had
many questions to ask concerning the treatment of the fawn, some time
passed before Trueboy was led out of stable.  Just as I lifted foot to
stirrup, his lordship came out of the back door, toying with his sword.
It was one of his whims, or part of his cowardice, never to go unarmed.

"You have a good horse, Master Frank," said he.

I nodded, knowing that he had not come out to praise my horse.

"If you should want a purchaser for him, I would make you a bid," he
continued.

"I have no present purpose of selling him," I replied.

"No immediate purpose, but when your father has flung away his
patrimony in suits at law against the King, you may be glad to know of
a buyer, who will give you your price."

"When that event befalls, I will remember your lordship's promise."

"Do.  My friends, Doctor Goel and his fair daughter, tell me you have
been exceedingly kind in bribing a rabble crew to call off their dogs
from the lady.  Pray accept my thanks.  It will give you comfort to
know that she will not again be exposed to annoyance by the scoundrels
of the neighbourhood.  To-morrow they remove to our poor castle of
Butterwick."

I bowed an acknowledgment of his information, mounted, and rode away.
A heedless rider I was, leaving Trueboy to choose the manner of our
going.  I saw nothing but, now the pale face with steadfast look
confronting the threatening crowd, now the face aflush with tender
pity, now the arch-light in the brown eyes as she talked with me in the
room.  And this was one of our invaders!  A conquering invader, right
surely!  A Dutchwoman!  Nay, an angel!

How flowingly and trippingly she spoke our English tongue!  How
divinely she endured her pain!  How daintily she mingled raillery and
sweetness!  No such woman had ever lived on earth before.  And one day
she could call me Frank, and be my own.  Some foreboding that my father
and I might be divided by my love, I felt, but none the less determined
that she should be mine.  That sneering villain, Sheffield, had marked
her as his prey, but I had no fear of him.  She would know him for the
libertine and coward that he was.  Why had he told me that to-morrow
she would be removed to his father's house?  Ten to one, he lied to me,
perhaps that he might hinder me from going to the White Hart again.
Ha, ha, what a thrice sodden fool to think _that_!  Or it might be that
he had some other mischief in his head.  Whatever it might be, I would
be too strong for him.

For all the way I rode there rang in my ears to the sweetest tune, "You
will not forget to bring your friend to see my father."  No, I should
not forget.  To-morrow, early, I would bring my friend.

How long, long ago is it since that bright day of May?  And I remember
all I felt, and thought better than I remember yesterday.




CHAPTER II

On the morrow I appeared at breakfast in silken stockings, new doublet
and hose, new shoes, with roses and strings of the latest fashion,
Flemish ruff and cuffs, and cloak of tawny velvet.  My man, Luke
Barnby, stared at my gaudy apparel; and, when I bade him have Trueboy
and the old, white mare at the door within half an hour, and to bring
me my Milanese rapier, he answered surlily--

"Which 'tis the first time I've heard of otter-hunting with swords, or
in Sunday clothes."

I had clean forgotten the big otter hunt!  This spring the otters were
more numerous than any man remembered them, and they were making havoc
among the salmon in Trent.  This was the day appointed for the meet at
Temple Belwood, when all Belton and Beltoft were to assemble and make a
great riddance of the vermin.  And I, the host and master of the hunt,
had clean forgotten the business!  To fail to be at my post would raise
an outcry among our neighbours, and might bring me severe censure from
my father, but to postpone the visit to Doctor and Mistress Goel was
not to be thought of.  I had my doubts whether the young lady could be
removed so soon as Sheffield had threatened; but there was a chance
that it might happen, and then farewell to the hope of seeing her for
Heaven only knew how long.  That was unendurable, so I wrote a few
lines to a neighbour, begging him to assume my place, and not to spare
the Temple ale or wine-cellar.

"Hark ye, Luke," said I; "put this into the hands of Squire Mell, of
Beltoft, with haste.  Mr. Butharwick and I have pressing business at
Crowle."

When Mr. Butharwick and I sat down to breakfast, he to his usual mess
of hot barley-water, sweetened with sugar and thickened with bread--he
having no stomach of a morning for steak and ale, and marrow-pudding he
abhorred--I saw that he had something on his mind, and was in no such
jovial humour as last evening, when he had been joyous in prospect of
meeting a scholar and a friend of his idolized Grotius.  At last he
broke silence with--

"Frank, it will be wise to defer this visit to Crowle.  The town is
ruled by Scorpio, and in thy horoscope Scorpio was occupied by Mars in
affliction.  To-day a malefic is transiting the place of Mars."

"Terms of art are thrown away on me," I answered.  "Who should know
that so well as you?"

"Crowle is always unlucky for you," said Mr. Butharwick.

"Truly, my horse once fell there, and once I came to disgrace for
snoring under a sermon by Uncle Graves; but other mischance I cannot
remember.  Yet I have gone thither--how many? say, a thousand times."

"Do not jest with the Heavens, boy," said Mr. Butharwick, sternly.

And, indeed, at any other time I should have been far from jesting, for
my tutor was marvellously skilled in astrology, but this day the
longing to see Mistress Goel's bright face made me defiant of the
stars.  Mindful, however, that my good tutor had been rereading my
horoscope, and anew consulting the heavens on my behalf, I replied--

"Pardon me, but the worst luck that could befall me at Crowle to-day
would be to find that Doctor Goel and his daughter had left the place
before we arrived.  And we are to keep our word, are we not, though the
stars be never so unfavourable?"

In the end Mr. Butharwick was persuaded much against his will to
countenance our going, but not until I had put on my topaz ring, and
engaged to use the prayer appointed for Times of War and Tumult.
Assuredly, no prince of the blood had ever more fonder faithful
counsellor than I in my tutor, but I chafed much at his delay and over
great precaution.

The old mare was covered with foam when we drew rein at the inn door,
and her rider fain to be out of saddle, for Mr. Butharwick was no keen
horseman.  The hostess led us into her best room, where the doctor
received us with distant stateliness, and his daughter with sweet
courtesy.  After introduction of Mr. Butharwick I left the clerkly men
to entertain themselves, which they were well able to do, having Latin
for their common tongue, and, as it seemed by the noise they made, an
infinite deal to say to each other.

I had thought Mistress Goel lovely when she was in pain and disarray,
and her form partly hidden by the long cloak she wore on our first
meeting; but now, wearing a gown which fitted her slim body closely to
the waist, with her shining brown hair neatly coiled and folded, and in
ease and gaiety of heart, as her pleasant smiling showed, I
thought--no, I did not think, I was overcome with love and felt that
all the high fantastic words and deeds of lovers, at which I had
laughed hitherto, were too tame for the height of my passion and
worship.  When I found my tongue, I asked particularly of her health.

"My hurts are healed, or will soon be healed," she assured me.  "Leyden
is famous for its leechcraft, and my father is--or was--the best
physician there.  We go to-day to Castle Mulgrave."

"But you cannot ride so far," I objected.

"We are to be carried in a litter, which the earl sends for us."

The old nobleman had, I then remembered, a litter in which he was
conveyed about the Isle when gout forbade horsemanship.

"You know the earl?" I asked.

"He did us the honour to pay us some attention, when we were in London."

I wondered what might underlie this, for the earl was one of the
proudest men in England, and not likely to care for the sorrows of an
exiled doctor.

"Did you make the acquaintance of Lord Sheffield in town?" I asked.

"Yes; he had the condescension to be our cicerone there."

The tone in which Mistress Goel pronounced the word "condescension" had
soothing for my jealousy.

"How long do you remain at Castle Mulgrave?" I asked.

"I do not know; perhaps until Mynherr Vermuijden appears.  We go
because Lord Sheffield has alarmed my father, warning him of danger in
our continuing here.  And our hostess is relieved of some strange
uneasiness by our going."

My mind was filled with apprehension, which I could not express.  That
Sheffield should do an act of pure kindness was incredible.  His foul
pursuit of beauty was a byword in the Isle, and there were fathers,
brothers, and lovers, who were held back from murderous revenge only by
terror of the old earl, who had long been President of the Council of
the North, and consequently held unlimited authority over the common
people of Axholme.  Even that fear might not have restrained some, but
Sheffield, as I have said, always went armed and attended, and had a
host of spies in his pay.  But how could I speak of Sheffield's
vileness to this maiden shining in her purity?

The door flew open, and Dame Hind announced: "His lordship, my lord
Sheffield."  From the plumes in his beaver, fastened with glistering
stones, to his riding boots, richly lined with lace, he was dressed
with splendour.  The courtly grace with which he doffed his hat and
bowed filled me with envy.  When he had saluted Mistress Goel and her
father, he told them that the litter awaited their pleasure, and then
greeted me with affected surprise.

"I' faith, Master Frank, I took you for some London gallant.  One is
used to meet you ready for the chase.  Vavasour is a mighty hunter, you
must know," said he to Mistress Goel.  "He hath no fellow in the art of
cutting a stag's throat, or spearing an otter."

Noting the slight shudder of disgust, which he had caused by so
artfully discommending me, he went on--

"In the Netherlands you have pastimes more refined than our English
sports.  I say 'our,' though I take no pleasure in them."

"It is true you are no hunter, but you are a skilful trapper, my lord:
cunning in bait and lure and bird-call," I answered.

One glance at Sheffield's face, white with rage, showed Mistress Goel
that more was meant than met the ear.  She stepped back nearer to the
two old men, who were so deep in some question of learning that they
were loth to part, and oblivious of every thing but their disputation.

"You cowardly cur," said Sheffield.  "You know that you are safe from
horse-whip in this presence."

"Safe from horse-whip anywhere in your hand, unless you had four or
five to help you."

Threat and defiance passed in whisper almost, but our looks were fierce
enough, as we stood close together, eyes pretty nearly level, for
Sheffield had not more than an inch advantage over my five feet ten.
He was the first to recover himself, saying--

"Your ill-timed jests would provoke a Stoic."

Then he turned to Doctor Goel, who had suddenly become aware that he
detained his lordship and his train unseemlily, and a movement was
made.  Not until the lady and her father were in the litter, borne on
the shoulders of four stout fellows in the Mulgrave livery, and the
escort mounted and ready to set off, had I speech with Mistress Goel,
and that no more than formal leave-taking, save that when her little
hand lay for a moment in my big paw, I touched it lightly with my lips.
She withdrew it quickly, but I saw no displeasure in her eyes.
Sheffield put his blackamoor in charge of the litter and its
attendants, and promising to overtake the party speedily, rode with two
of his men in the opposite direction.

Mr. Butharwick and I re-entered the inn, a dull hole now, that had been
lately so bright, and called for a cup of wine, which Dame Hind brought
us, and, setting hands on hips, gave vent to her feelings.

"The ease it is to my mind that they are gone, nobody knows.  No more
foreign mounseers and madams for the White Hart.  Good English meat
they wouldn't have; but she makes a mess with eggs and scraps--pudding
you couldn't call it.  And he gathers dandelion and dock-cress and
goosefoot, and the like o' that, which she cooks 'em, or he mixes 'em
wi' oil, and eats 'em raw.  It turned my stomach to see it.  And their
manners wasn't English.  Too civil by half.  'If you please,' and 'May
I trouble you?' and 'Would you be so good?' whenever she wanted
anything.  Didn't grumble or make a fuss about the reckoning--that I
will say for her.  Then their jabber-jabber between themselves!  It
give me the creeps to hear 'em.  Such a clat as he made wi' dirt, and
stones, and weeds, and rubbish, which schoolmaster says wizards and
witches always do; and he had a big book full of gipsy-marks, which
young madam called his brewing Bible; and, believe me or believe me
not, he read it back'ards way, as 'tis well beknown witches do read the
Lord's Prayer so, when they want to raise the devil.  Schoolmaster he
says they are both deep in witchcraft, and young madam worse than the
old mounseer, for all her prettiness and her smooth-spoken ways.  And
certain sure it is that she gave Mat something to drink that cured him
of the ague quicker than ever he was cured afore."

As soon as Dame Hind paused for breath, Mr. Butharwick reproved her.
Doctor Goel, he assured her, was a man of great learning, of perfect
integrity, and the intimate friend of the best and greatest man in the
world.

I broke in, hotly indignant that Mistress Goel should be accused of so
foul a crime.  We might have spared our breath, for the hostess replied
by shaking her head sorrowfully, and declaring her assurance that we
were both bewitched.  So saying, she swung out of the room, and left us
to our wine.  I had tried to remove the suspicion of the woman, gross
and ignorant though she was, fearing that her tongue might work
mischief, and now began to pluck some comfort out of the removal of my
lady to Castle Mulgrave, where she would be in safety from the fury of
folk always ruthless against one believed to be guilty of witchcraft.

It is no wonder that the people should be fierce against those who ally
themselves with the enemy of mankind, but their terror often blinds
them to evident tokens of innocence, and I cannot but be afraid that
many persons have suffered torture and death who were falsely accused
of the monstrous wickedness.  Perhaps I have been led to think so only
because the crime was laid to the charge of one so pure and kind as
Mistress Goel.

Before the day of my coming of age the Isle was in great commotion, for
a large fleet had sailed up the Don, bringing an army of Walloons and
Dutchmen with stores of timber, and tools, and weapons, and machines
unknown to us Islonians.  The invaders had their headquarters at
Sandtoft, where Vermuijden set about the building of houses and the
erection of fortifications, keeping relays of workmen busy day and
night.  How to reconcile these doings with the letter received from my
father I could not in the least understand, but I took credit to myself
for keeping silence concerning the decision of the court in my father's
favour.  That was far from being my father's opinion, when he arrived
on the Friday evening, and learned that Vermuijden had already begun
his operations.

"Thou foolish lad!" he broke out.  "Should'st have ridden through the
whole Isle, and set every hamlet aglow with bonfires and shouting for
joy.  And would'st have done it but for scraping acquaintance with that
old rascal and his daughter at the White Hart.  Hast lost thy five
wits?  What devil possessed thee to miss the otter-hunt, and to annoy
our neighbours and shame thy father?  Befriending the refugee,
conspirator, assassin, when should'st have been heartening our people!
And that dotard Butharwick with thee!  He shall pack out of my house."

This explosion astounded me, for my father, though of warm temper in
private (in public no man had more self-control), did not often use
such fiery language to me; but I answered sulkily--

"I am sorry to have angered you, sir, by what I supposed was
discretion."

"Discretion!" he almost shouted.  "Would that you had the smallest
tincture of the quality!  Is it discreet, think you, to parley with the
enemy of your father and your country, betraying God only knows what to
the sly old Dutchman?"

"A most inoffensive old gentleman," I answered.  "A simple scholar, who
has been duped by Vermuijden."

My father laughed bitterly.  "You simpleton!  Does Mulgrave make much
of 'simple scholars' and entertain them?"

As I believed, Earl Mulgrave cared little or nothing about Doctor Goel,
while Sheffield, I felt sure, cared much about the doctor's daughter,
but this was not the time to offer my father an explanation, which
would bring in the name of Mistress Goel, so I left him to digest his
wrath, and sought Mr. Butharwick.  I found him in much affliction, for
to hurt or offend his friend and patron was very grievous to him.  He
blamed himself alone for all the mischief, and he reminded me that my
father had had a weary sojourn in London, and after infinite trouble
and pains had won his cause, only to find on his return home that all
his labour and expenditure had been rendered null and void.

"What wonder, Frank," said the good old soul, "that thy father should
be angry, even if not quite justly angry, that nothing has been made
known of his triumph in the courts?  What wonder that he should be
incensed at our making friends with those who, he believes, are in the
counsel of his enemies, and whom he has seen caressed by the crafty
earl?  We are in fault, or rather, I am in fault, for I ought to have
guided thee more wisely.  I, at least, ought to have been sure that the
stars of heaven cannot lie."

This womanish babble did not soothe my ruffled temper, as I told Mr.
Butharwick, rudely enough.  My father had treated me with indignity and
injustice, and I did well to be angry.  So I went for a stroll in the
park, seeking consolation in solitary communion with Nature, where it
has seldom failed me.  Nor did it fail me now.  Sauntering under the
dense shadows of the old trees, or out in the dim stillness of the open
sward, startling browsing or drowsing beasts, which showed as dusky
shapes for a moment, and then vanished in the dark, I grew quiet; and
when I gained the highest ground and saw the low moon and her long
reflection on the broad expanse of water, I was filled with confidence
that my own prospect was as bright and boundless as the scene on which
I looked.

I turned at the sound of footsteps, and recognised my father.

"The cool night air is good for hot heads, young or old," he said.  And
we walked homeward together.




CHAPTER III

My good comrade, Dick Portington, was the first of our guests to arrive
at Temple on the 28th of May, and he brought me as birthday gift a gun
such as I had not before seen, the cock containing a flint, which, as
it fell, struck sparks from the cover of the pan, and at the same
moment forced back the cover so that the sparks flew on the priming.
The action was far quicker than that of the matchlock, and much surer
than the wheel-lock guns which I had hitherto handled, and I had great
pleasure in it, and a brace of pistols made after the same pattern.

"'Tis the rarest present, Dick," I said, "but you shame me.  Another
gift!  And I have never given you anything."

"Say nothing of that, man," answered he.  "I am older than thou, and
the squire is free with his money.  I have what I want for the asking.
Besides, to-day you come to riches, and may spend and give as you like."

Dick's allusion was to an understanding between my father and me, that
when I came of age certain properties in Beltoft, which were part of my
mother's dower, should be made over to me.  I had freely spoken of this
to my friend, and in truth, looked forward eagerly to the enjoyment of
means of my own, for my father had allowed me less money than men of
his rank were accustomed to allow their sons.  He was no niggard in
providing me things suitable to our station, but I had never much money
in my purse, so that I held aloof from companionship with other young
fellows except Dick, who knew my plight, and often listened to my talk
of the brave doings which were to follow my possession of an estate of
some ninety pounds a year.  To-day we had scant opportunity for
conversation, as our humbler neighbours came early, with full intent to
enjoy merry pastimes and good cheer; nor were the gentry and farmers
late, since all were keenly expectant of news and advice from their
"Solicitor."  Ladies and gentlemen on horseback, a few ladies who
preferred dignity in a jolting coach to ease in the saddle, farmers'
wives on pillion behind their husbands, labourers, marshmen, and
fowlers, with their women-folk, afoot, made the spacious park a lively
scene.  Our stables were soon filled, and many horses had to be
tethered in the paddock.  By good luck, the day was cloudless, and the
wind soft, almost still.

Our guests betook them to various sports until dinner-time.  The great
bowling-green was crowded with jostling, laughing bowlers; the archery
ground afforded amusement to many competitors, for our Islonians are
skilful in the use of the long-bow and cross-bow; parties were gathered
for cricket, balloon, quoits, nine-pins, and leaping the bar.  Some of
the lads and lasses began at once to trip it to fiddle and pipe and
tabour.  Many of the older folk were content to stand or sit and watch
a set of morris dancers, or filled the booth where a company of
strolling players performed a blood-curdling tragedy and a
side-splitting farce well within the hour.  A group surrounded Bet
Boswell, a gypsy lass, whom our Beltonians knew from the long stay
which her tribe had made with us, and more than one young farmer had
fallen over head and ears in love with her.  She was a tall, lithe
creature, boldly handsome, with that roguish look in her dark eyes
which passes away with the coming of Love.  To-day she told fortunes by
the palm and with the crystal.  As Dick and I joined the group, the
moonstruck gaping of some of the rustics proved that Bet was doing her
business skilfully.

"Here be young squire," said one.  "Tell him his fortune."

The rest echoed the fellow, and falling in with their humour, I said--

"Come then, Bess.  Let me hear my fate;" offering her sixpence.

"Not now," she answered, refusing the coin with a wave of her hand.
"Your destiny trembles in the balance to-day."

"How so, oracular sybil?" I asked, laughing, but a little impressed by
the gravity of her look and tone.

"Before you sleep, you will lose a fortune, and be offered another,"
she said.

"How I can lose what I have not, I do not understand," I replied; "but
of a certainty I shall take one, if it be offered me."

"If you are wise, you will," said Bess, and turned from me as having no
more to say.

At the instant, the ringing of a bell and blowing of a horn called
those of our guests to dinner who were to take their repast under tents
and awnings in the park, and I joined my father to make the round of
the tables, where huge joints of beef and mutton, piles of Trent salmon
and larded capons, and the like substantial viands, were rapidly
disappearing, washed down with copious draughts of strong October, to
which were added for the yeomen farmers brandy, wine, mead, and aqua
vitae.

When we had seen that all were faring merrily, and had nodded and
smiled acknowledgment of the cheers for "the Solicitor," and for "the
heir of Temple Belwood," we joined the company assembling in the hall,
and thence with proper ceremony to the ancient dining-room.  There the
talk ran on Vermuijden and his doings much more than on the rightful
hero of the day, and voices rose and tongues wagged faster and faster
as the men's glasses were replenished with wine of Burgundy, or
Bourdeaux, or Champaign, and the women sipped hock and Bacharach and
sherris.

My left-hand neighbour at table was Mistress Emma Ryther, a buxom girl,
with great ox-eyes that never changed.  She was accounted one of the
beauties of the Isle, and indeed as a piece of flesh and blood she was
pretty enough.  I scarcely knew whether I liked or misliked her, for
her manner to me seemed to betoken that she expected me to whistle, and
was ready to come.  Perhaps there would have been no more than a
toss-up between liking and misliking, since I had that conceit in my
head, if I had never seen the divine beauty which shines from the soul.
Having seen that, Mistress Ryther was to me but a well-painted figure
in porcelain.  While she babbled nothings to me, I wondered that I
could ever have thought otherwise of her than I did to-day.  Some
perception of my state of mind she showed by saying tartly: "Your head
is as full of the Dutch as everybody's."

When dessert was spread, to my astonishment, Mr. Ryther rose to propose
the toast of the day.  He was not an old friend, or a person of
consideration.  Some dozen years ago he had been so lucky as to inherit
unexpected wealth, and ever since he had devoted himself to increasing
his riches, chiefly by lending money on mortgage, and taking every
legal advantage of the necessitous borrower.  He was a biggish fellow,
with a loud voice and pompous manner, and a great hooked nose, which my
fingers itched to pull for his impudence.  My impatience grew as he
went on to speak, lauding my father's public spirit and generosity,
taking a tone as if he were the equal of Thomas Vavasour.  When he
began to talk of me my blood boiled, for he enumerated my good points
as though I had been a horse, and he had the selling of me.  He wound
up by saying that he looked forward to the festivities to come, when
the heir of Temple Belwood should bring a beautiful and well-dowered
bride to this ancient house.  I could have hurled a decanter at the
greasy forehead, which he wiped with infinite complacency.  I stammered
through as much as I could remember of the little speech which I had
conned for the occasion, saying as little as might be of the proposer.
The ladies withdrew, and the real business of the day began.  My father
rose to give an account of his proceedings in London, which need not be
set down here, as I have put it on record elsewhere.  He ended by
saying: "The highest court of law in this country has given judgment
against Vermuijden, but he continues his illegal action.  Persons near
to his Majesty have assured the Dutchman of royal protection, and dare
to set the King's prerogative above the law.  That assertion of
prerogative is baseless, and I confidently expect that it will be soon
withdrawn.  Parliament is at this moment, as you know, taking steps to
remove an injurious adviser from the position of authority which he has
shamelessly abused.  On the removal of the Duke of Buckingham from the
counsels of his Majesty, there will doubtless be a change of policy on
the part of a nobleman, our neighbour, who has hitherto upheld the
Dutchmen in their invasion of our Isle, and the law will prevail.  We
must not forget that Vermuijden believes that he is in his right, nor
that he has paid a very large sum of money for his supposed rights in
our soil.  We must proceed with strict legality, or we shall put
ourselves in the wrong.  Allow me to make a personal appeal to every
gentleman in this room.  I have given my time and, strength and means
freely to your service, and I beg that my efforts may not be frustrated
by resort to violence of any kind.  Let us adhere to the lawful course,
and we shall most assuredly be successful in the end."

As my father sat down there was some applause, and a few gentlemen
shouted, "Long life to our Solicitor;" but murmurs were heard in
several quarters, and Squire Portington, of Thorne, rose to speak.

"Gentlemen," said he, "law and order are all very well, but what about
our property?  A hundred acres of my best land is under water now
through the tomfoolery of these damned Dutchmen.  If they go on,
they'll drown me and my nearest neighbours out and out.  Mighty small
consolation it will be to us, if some fine day this Vermuijden has to
bow to the law.  That won't give us back our farms and our houses.  The
Law is on our side, but force has the upper hand of the Law.  As for
Parliament making an end of Buckingham, for anything I can see, he is
just as likely to make an end of Parliament.  Do you know that the
Dutchman swears he has full power to hang anybody who resists him, and
has set up a gallows at Sandtoft?  It is a fact, gentlemen.  We have
tasted Prerogative in demand for money which Parliament refused to
vote.  Prerogative means----"

The gentlemen on either side of Squire Portington dragged him down to
his seat, but the squire shook himself free, and got on his legs again.

"My neighbours here are afraid that I shall be brought before the
Council of the North for talking treason, and bring them into trouble
for listening to it.  I didn't suppose that there were any damned spies
and informers here.  I was saying that the law can't do anything to
save us from ruin.  So much the worse for the law.  But I'm not going
to sit quiet while the Dutchmen drown my land and me.  My motto is
'Liberty and Property.'  If the gentlemen here, or half of 'em, will
join me, we'll send Vermuijden three days' notice to quit our land.  Of
course, he won't take it, but that's his affair.  After the three days
have expired, we'll go with five hundred stout fellows, and drive the
beggars out, kill every man who resists, hang Vermuijden on his own
gallows, and sweep the Isle clean of the invaders.  That's my way.  We
will talk of law and order when we have made sure of our liberty and
property."

All the young men present, and a number of their elders, rose to their
feet, and shouted, "That's sense!  Liberty and property!  Three Cheers
for Squire Portington!  Send the Dutchmen to the devil!  Hang
Vermuijden on his own gallows!  There's Scripture for it.  Hurrah!"

These and similar cries made a deafening hubbub.  Filled with wine, and
stirred by Portington's harangue, our guests forgot decorum entirely,
and made such a tumult as encouraged the common sort to crowd about the
doorway, and add their voices to the cheers for "Liberty and Property"
and the cry of "Down with the Dutch."

Conspicuous among the intruders was Boswell, the father of the girl
above mentioned, a notorious poacher, and worse.  He had edged far into
the room and struck me as being all eyes and ears.  I sprang to my
feet, and bade the rabble clear out, which they did pretty quickly.  My
father seized the opportunity afforded by the slight lull which
followed to dissuade his friends from violence; declaring that if there
was not good prospect of remedy by lawful means within three months, he
himself would lead in defence of our just and legal rights by the
strong hand.

The pledge was hailed with loud shouts of approval and the draining of
many glasses in his honour; but there ensued a great buzz of talk,
during which men left their seats to be within earshot of this or that
speaker, so that the company broke up into separate knots, some
listening to the one they took for an oracle, others talking all at
once, and hearkening only to the sound of their own voices.  There was
an end of all orderly counsel for that time.

Late in the evening, when the festivities were over, and the guests
departed, my father explained that the reason why he had not handed me
the deeds of the Beltoft land was that he had been compelled to
mortgage it, owing to his outlay in defence of the rights of the Isle
Commoners.  I answered that I thought it hard my little property should
have been chosen to bear the costs of litigation; some other portion of
the estate might have borne them.  Whereupon my father amazed and
confounded me by saying that more than half the lands of Temple Belwood
were already mortgaged.  For some time I was dumb with astonishment,
and stood staring.  At length I burst out--

"Why should our estate bear all the cost of these proceedings?  Surely
every Commoner ought to pay his share."

"Thou art somewhat hasty, Frank," my father replied, "to call Temple
Belwood _our_ estate.  If I chose to spend in defence of the rights of
the Islonians, my son has no authority to call me to account."

"Is it your pleasure," I asked, "that I should go to the plough-tail
to-morrow?"

"Don't talk like a fool, boy."

"I became a man to-day, sir."

"Discretion limps behind old Father Time, it seems."

I suppressed the easy retort, and my father continued--

"If you have not your father's public mind, I am sorry; but your
private interests are safe enough, and Temple Belwood will be yours
without encumbrance on a single acre."

Again I was amazed and mute.

"Ryther is engaged to return the deeds to you on the day you wed his
daughter."

Now I understood mysteries; Ryther's insolence at dinner, for one, and
his daughter's manner, for another.  My father had squandered money in
a business which was no more his than that of any gentleman in the
Isle, assured that all damage to the estate would be repaired by this
absurd covenant of marriage.  The Vavasour patrimony was lost, and all
the ceremony and merrymaking of the day had been in honour of the heir
of--Nothing.

The state of things was maddening and yet laughable, and laughter would
have its way.  I shook with it.

"What in the world is there to laugh at?" shouted my father.

"God knows, I don't," I answered, still laughing.

It was my father's turn to be astonished.  He gazed doubtfully at me
until my fit was over.  Then he said--

"You have taken too much wine.  We will speak of this business when
sleep has sobered you."  And he went off to bed.

I was coward enough to be glad of the respite, foreseeing that my
father's grief and anger would be hard to bear, when he knew that I
would wed no woman on earth but Anna Goel.




CHAPTER IV

I could not now set down all that passed between my father and me on
the marriage, which he designed for me; nor would I, if I could, for I
said much that even to-day makes my ears burn to remember, and he some
things which are better forgotten.  I believe he was the hotter with me
that he did not in his heart like the alliance which he proposed, and
was obliged to do violence to his own feelings in urging it upon me.
We ended in anger, and were estranged the one from the other.  For some
time we did not feel the full painfulness of this, by reason of my
father's occupation with the affairs of the Isle, which took him much
abroad, and brought many visitors and messengers to Temple Belwood when
he was at home.

While he was busied with these matters, I haunted the neighbourhood of
Castle Mulgrave in hope of chance encounter with Mistress Goel.  The
distance between the two houses was not much more than three miles.
Sometimes I rowed my boat down the Nolffdyke, and so into Trent, when I
hoisted sail, and beat up and down the river on the look-out for the
earl's pleasure barge.  At other times I rode by the causey which
crossed the marsh extending from Beltoft to the Butterwick ferry, and
scoured the roads and lanes on the other side of the river.  My quest
brought me but one glimpse of my lady.  Once, as I gained a slight
eminence on the eastern bank, I saw her with a party entering the
courtyard of the castle--on horseback!  She had learned to ride since I
had last spoken with her, and I ground my teeth thinking of who had
taught her, and of the mounting and dismounting, and all the occasions
which the tutor had to touch hand and foot, even it might be to take
her in his arms.  How I hated Sheffield!  And, for the time, I almost
hated Mistress Goel, too.

The day after this maddening sight, Dick Portington came to Temple with
news which at another time would have mightily stirred me.  Hatfield
Chace was to be disparked.  The deer were to be driven and caught, to
be taken away and distributed in other of the royal forests.  When the
Chace had been cleared, Vermuijden might fell timber, drain off the
waters, and allot the land.

"No more winding of the horn, no more following of the deer, my boy,"
said Dick.  "We ought to see the last stag hunt in Hatfield.  And there
may be other sport besides the driving of the deer.  So come along."

"What manner of sport?" I asked.

"You know how many of our fellows in Thorne and Crowle reckon the Chace
as much their domain as the King's.  They are not over well-pleased to
lose their venison, or their pastime.  Moonlight nights will be dull
when there's no more stalking of the King's game, or chance to warm
one's blood in a fight with his keepers."

"You speak feelingly, Dick," said I, laughing.

"Ay, that do I," he answered.  "But the fowlers and fishers take it
worse than I do.  A fat buck once in a while is worth much to a poor
man.  There will be sullen faces looking on to-day."

"But the foresters will be too strong for assault," I replied.

"May be so.  But hark you, boy, Vermuijden and some of his people are
to meet a party from old Mulligrubs' to-day at the Crown, the more
fools they."

This news set my pulse going.  What so likely as that Doctor Goel and
his daughter would be present at a meeting between the earl (whom it
was Dick's whim to misname Mulligrubs) and the Dutch leader?  And if
there should be trouble brewing, the more reason that a friend should
be at hand.  So I answered--

"Have with you, then!"

But there was not a horse in the stable at the time, except the old
white mare.  Luke had ridden Trueboy to Haxey, and the rest were
galloping on my father's errands.  When I said so to Dick, he answered--

"Why wait for a horse?  Get stilts for us both, and we'll cross the
marsh to Messic Mere, and take one of Holmes's boats.  With this wind
we can fly up Idle as fast we could ride round."

So we did.  Walking to Belshaw, we mounted our stilts there, and were
quickly across the fen.  The long, dry weather had made it passable for
those who knew the shallows and the lie of the ridges, if they had
skill with the stilts, and few Islonians had more than Portington and
I.  We took boat at Holmes's, and then sped up the river merrily, Dick
with the sheet in his hand, I steering.  It was right pleasant going,
with the wind rustling and whistling among the reeds on either bank,
the water hissing and rippling from the prow, as we wound along narrow
lanes of water, and out into wide spaces where the fowls, startled by
our coming, made off, flapping and screaming, or scuttled in among the
sedges and bulrushes.  One never has the feeling of being away and
apart from the rest of the world, I think, quite so much anywhere else
as in lonely water-ways, and we two sat silently enjoying the quiet of
the scene for a while.  At length Dick spoke--

"D'ye know, Frank, that it is part of Vermuijden's scheme to stop the
Idle?"

"I don't take," I answered.

"He plans to cut off the river at the Nottingham border--has begun
cutting the drain which is to turn the water into Trent."

"Is he empowered to pull down churches that he may use the stones to
embank his drains?" I asked; for to me it appeared sacrilege to dry up
our rivers and streams.

"Doubtless he might do that, if he would pay money enough into the
empty exchequer," replied Dick; "and for a trifle more he might have
royal authority to dig up our ancestors' bones, and burn them for the
lime he could get out of 'em."

Before we reached Tudworth, Squire Portington's place, a noise in the
distance told us that the driving of the deer had begun; and, as soon
as might be, we were in the saddle and on our way into the forest,
guided by the sound of shouting men and barking dogs.  For some time we
rode on, neither meeting nor seeing any one.  The course of the drivers
seemed to be winding away from us.  Suddenly, as we emerged from the
shadow of a thickish grove, we saw in the open before us a doe and her
fawn standing in a stream, drinking.  Behind them were some of the
finest oaks in the Chace, magnificent in the splendour of mid-June
foliage.  My friend drew rein, and cursed all Dutchmen with a vehemence
that might have provoked laughter from a cooler companion.

"Think of it, Frank," he said.  "Not a buck to be left!  These trees to
be cut down!  No more music of hound and horn!"

How long Dick might have cursed and lamented, I know not, but for the
coming of a verderer, who told us that the beaters had orders to drive
toward Thorne Mere, and that we had best ride in that direction, if we
desired to see the taking of the deer.  So we hastened northward
instead of following the army of keepers, and made for the rising
ground above the mere, where we found a great crowd of gentle and
simple already gathered.

In a short time an immense herd burst from the covert of the wood,
followed by a multitude of men and dogs.  Nearly all the deer took to
the water, and then were pursued by a hundred or more boats.  A few
took refuge on islets here and there, and some swam right across the
mere, but far the greatest number huddled together, terrified and
exhausted, in water up to their necks.  The fellows in the boats
surrounded the little forest of horns, and some ventured amongst them,
and tying a strong, long rope to their heads, dragged them to land, and
bundled them into carts, or tethered them for ease of driving whither
they were to be handed over to the keepers of other forests.  To me it
was a sorry sight, and one of which I soon tired.  So, leaving Dick
with some of his cronies, and a promise to meet at the Crown in a
couple of hours' time, I made my way at once to the inn, in hope to
glean some knowledge from the people there of the company expected.

Turning a sharp corner of the lane pretty quickly, I almost ran over a
lady coming along the causey in the opposite direction.  As I drew up,
I perceived that it was Mistress Goel.  There was a little difficulty
in forcing my steed into the wide ditch; but that done, I dismounted,
and made my salutation, saying something of my pleasure in meeting her.

"My pleasure was somewhat dashed by fear of being knocked down," said
she.  "Is it customary in this country for horsemen to keep the path,
and drive foot passengers into the ditch?"

"Your riding-master must have taught you so much," I answered.

"And how come you to know I have had lessons?"

"By seeing how well you ride."

The lady made me a little bow.  I thought I read a question in her
eyes, but it did not pass her lips.

"May I accompany you to--wherever you are going?" I inquired.

"I shall be glad of your guidance.  I came out to breathe the air only.
There is an hour to be passed before we leave, and the inn is crowded
and noisy."

During that hour I learned several things, which I will set down
briefly.  It had been reported at Castle Mulgrave that my father had
vowed to expel the Dutch by force, that a quantity of new firearms had
been bought and stored at Temple for the purpose, and that an attack on
the settlement was to take place immediately.  The earl had informed
the King of this (supposed) state of affairs, and had received promise
of indemnity for any action he might see fit to take in defence of the
foreigners, and been empowered to arrest, imprison, or to question
suspected persons.  Doctor Goel had been warned of the danger of
removal to Sandtoft, but had preferred, for some reason not given to
me, to run the risk rather than prolong his stay at the castle.  As the
doctor proved unmovable on this point, the earl had ordered an armed
escort to attend him and his daughter to Thorne, and had advised
Vermuijden to bring a strong company to meet them.

Here was much food for reflection, but the pressing business was to
prevent mischief now and here.  Was it purely by forgetfulness, I
wondered, that the earl had appointed to-day, when hundreds of the
Islonians were present for the driving of the deer, and might be
provoked to riot by seeing a body of foreigners bearing arms.

On our way back to the Crown, Mistress Goel asked--

"Could you persuade your father to meet Mynherr Vermuijden?  Surely
they two, desiring only what is just and right, might come to a good
understanding.  There are those who seek to inflame the trouble, I
know, and I tremble to think of what may come.  Could you persuade Mr.
Vavasour?"

I laughed, rather bitterly.  "Unluckily, my father would not listen to
me."

"I gathered from what you told me that you were as happy as father and
son can be."

"So we were, but there is division between us now."

"Not on our account, I hope!"

"Nay, it is but a family quarrel of an ancient pattern."

No more passed, for we were at the inn; a long, low house, with a green
in front, where some scores of men sat or sprawled, drinking ale and
loud in talk, but keeping a watchful eye on the doings at the tavern.
Two dozen men, or thereabout, in the Mulgrave colours, armed with
muskets and cutlasses, stood near the porch; an equal number of
Dutchmen, pistols in belt and gun in hand, sat on empty barrels, pails
turned bottom upward, hen-coops, anything.  The Islonians on the green
were for the most part unarmed, except for the staff and big knife,
without which our men never stir from home, but here and there a
cross-bow was to be seen.  Within the house, at one of the open
windows, sat several young fellows of my acquaintance, Dick Portington
among them, merry over their wine.  No likelihood of disturbance,
thought I, the crowd being in good humour, and the Mulgrave retinue and
the Dutch having such advantage in the matter of weapons.  But as
Mistress Goel disappeared within the doorway, and I turned to lead my
horse to the stable, two of the earl's men happened to put down their
guns, leaning them against the wall.  In a twinkling, Dick reached out
of the window, and seized them.  "Ale or wine, gentlemen?" he asked, as
if he were a tapster.  And full in sight of the crowd he emptied a
tankard into the muzzles, and handed the weapons out again.  "Any other
gentleman want a barrelful?" he inquired.  A roar of laughter came from
the green.  One of the two men drew pistol from belt, and made as if to
fire at Dick, but I, being just behind him, knocked up his elbow, and
the pistol flew out of his hand without hurt.  Another roar from the
spectators filled the air.  Some of the Mulgrave men threw themselves
on me, gripping me by the arms, and one struck me in the face.  Then I,
who had been so intent on prudence and peace-making, lost my wits,
swung myself free from my captors, and knocked down the man who had
struck me.  A pretty scuffle ensued.  Dick and others sprang out of the
window, and came to my help with no weapons, but clenched fists and a
riding whip or two.  For a minute or so the struggle went on at close
quarters, so that the earl's men could not use their weapons with
effect, and their comrades, outside the mellay, could not strike or
fire without risk of killing or maiming their own men; but at the
words, "Shoot, you dolts, shoot," spoken by some one I did not see,
several pieces were discharged.  Will Staniforth, who was close to me,
fell, blood pouring from his neck.  I knelt to support him, but he was
past help.  The bullet had ploughed a horrible gash upward, and entered
the brain.  There was a gurgle in his throat, a shudder went through
his whole body, and he was dead.  When I rose from my knees, three of
my friends had muskets in their hands, Dick Portington being one.  The
earl's retainers had formed a half circle in front of us, their pieces
levelled.

"Yield yourselves, prisoners," said their chief, "or we fire."  Dick
answered by a shot which brought the speaker to the ground, and a sort
of madness came over me.  I saw everything through a red haze, and
cared for nothing but to avenge our dead companion.  I sprang on the
nearest of the enemy, tore his musket out of his grasp, and clubbed it,
smiting with all my strength.  As he fell, I shouted "One," and made
for the next, who gave back a little, and fired wild.  "Two," I yelled,
as my butt crashed on his head.  The third man toward whom I rushed,
threw his musket down and ran.  I glanced round, and saw that every one
of our party had possessed himself of a musket, and was using it in the
same fashion.  The enemy had no time to reload; six of their fellows
were disabled, including their leader; they had no stomach for more
fighting hand to hand, and so, though they were more than two to one,
they turned tail and ran for their lives.  But being clumsy rascals,
they had small chance of escape from us by that means, and were glad to
obey the order which Dick bellowed as we chased them, to throw down
their weapons.  Guns, pistols, cutlasses, all were discarded.  Even
then, I still pursued until Portington laid hold of me.

"Poor devils are unarmed, Frank.  Let 'em go," he said.

At that, I came to my senses, and turned back with the rest.  We met a
number of the men who had come from the green to pick up the spoils of
war.

"Fine fellows you are," said Dick to some of them, "to stand and look
on while your neighbours are maltreated."

"As far as I can see, squire," answered a fat fellow (the same
mentioned in the first chapter), "you were able to take care of
yourselves, and you must excuse poor men, who don't want to go to the
gallows or the Virginia plantations.  For the like of us 'tis a hanging
matter.  For all that, some of the jassups would have run their necks
into a halter, if I hadn't insensed 'em."

"Much thanks to you," replied Dick, laughing at the man's cool
impudence.

"Besides, your honour," said the fellow in a lower tone, "it behoved
some one to keep an eye on the Dutchmen."

"Ah! the Dutchmen.  I' faith, I had forgotten them.  And what came of
your watch, my man?"

"Almost as soon as the fray began, the pretty Dutchwoman came to the
window behind 'em, and talked with the big fellow, who seems to be in
command.  I crept near, but they jabbered in their own tongue.  All I
could make out was that she repeated 'Fermoyden' three or four times
and seemed to be laying down the law to the big chap.  Then off she
flew, like a bird, and my Lord Sheffield came out of the house in a
hurry (it was when young Squire Vavasour was cracking skulls like
walnuts) and he ordered the Dutchmen to go to the help of his men, but
the big captain shook his head, and either did not understand or
pretended that he didn't.  My lord stamped with rage, and made his
meaning plain by signs; but the other wouldn't budge, and repeated
'Fermoyden.'  Fermoyden hasn't come yet, and they are waiting for him."

"What do you make of this, Frank?  You came to the tavern with the
lady."

"That the lady had the wit to charge the Dutch captain not to aid the
Mulgrave men, but to refuse under the plea that he must have
Vermuijden's authority for interfering in a quarrel which was none of
his."

"By Jove, it looks uncommonly like that; and if so, some of us have to
thank the lady that we are alive."

Of that I had no manner of doubt.  While Dick's ill-timed jest and my
hot-headed fury at a blow had brought about a broil which had cost
Staniforth's life, and some others, Mistress Goel had prevented
conflict between the Dutch and our Islonian crowd.  As we turned the
corner of the tavern (the pursuit had led us along a heathery track to
the rear of it) we met Sheffield and his blackamoor, mounted, and bound
apparently for Castle Mulgrave.  He drew rein, and snarled--

"Treason and murder are merry sport, doubtless, but it ends in hanging,
drawing, and quartering."

Now I knew whose was the voice which said "Shoot, dolts, shoot;" and
the feeling which the knowledge stirred in me must have been plain in
my face, for Dick linked his arm in mine, and drew me on, saying, loud
enough for Sheffield to hear--

"Let the beaten dog yelp."

We bade the tavern-keeper, who met us at his door, provide food and
drink, for some of us had not eaten since early morning; and I went in
search of water to cleanse myself from blood and dust, not wishing
Mistress Goel to see me in my filthy plight.  In truth, I shrank from
meeting her, for now that my fury and strength were spent, I was
ashamed of my blustering rage.  But it so chanced as I went to the pump
that Mistress Goel overtook me, going to the barn with a basket.  At
the sound of her light, gliding step, I turned, and she paled at sight
of me.

"You are sorely wounded, I fear," she said.  "Come to my father, who is
in the barn."

"I have nothing worse than a few bruises and scratches," I answered.
"For that I have to thank you; your quick wit and kindness have saved
several lives to-day."

"I did no more than keep my own people from meddling in strife, which
did not concern them; but how you know of it passes my comprehension."

I explained, and then asked what her father did in the barn.

"He is busy repairing heads you have damaged," she replied.

"Two at least are beyond repair, even by his skill," said I.

"Not so," she laughed.  "Either your arm is not so terribly strong as
it seemed, or Lincolnshire skulls are thicker than ordinary, for my
father has good hope of both the men you struck down."

"Thank God!" I said devoutly.  "My brutish rage has not killed the
rascals."

"Oh! but it was not brutish," cried Mistress Goel, with sparkling eyes;
"you sought to avert violence.  And that you were roused to great and
dreadful wrath by seeing your friend shamefully and traitorously shot
down is not brutish.  Oh no, another word must be used for that."

How little I knew of woman's ways!  I had feared that I had lowered
myself in the lady's esteem for ever, and here she stood, looking up at
me with dewy eyes, and speaking as if I had done some noble deed.

It would have pleased me well, if our talk might have been continued,
but Mistress Goel had to hasten to her father's help, and I returned to
my comrades, after having removed the stains of battle, so far as
washing might do it.  We were not merry over our eating and drinking,
for in a room near lay the body of our friend.  It was agreed that four
of us should accompany the men who bore the remains to Staniforth Hall,
and that the other four should ride with the Dutch to Newflete, where
they had left their barge.  It fell to my lot to be one of the latter
company, but small good came of it to me.  Doctor Goel walked on one
side of the horse which his daughter rode, and the big Dutchman on the
other, so I had little converse with her.  At parting, her hand lay in
mine for a second, and I took some comfort from the kindness in her
eyes as she said good night.

When I came to Durkness Crooke, intending to cross the river there, no
boat was to be found, and I must needs ride on the river bank to the
Crowle Ferry.  I went slowly, for my nag was a sorry steed, hired at
the Crown, Portington's horse having scampered off to his own stable
during the tumult.  By the time I passed Beggar's Tree, the evening had
grown dusk, and I was startled by a moan from some one half hidden
under a champ of birch.  It was Bess Boswell, who had sprained her
ankle, and begged me to send some of her tribe, whose encampment lay on
my road to Temple Belwood, to convey her home.  I dismounted, and
helped her to my saddle, which she sat man-fashion.

For some time we went on in silence, which the gipsy girl broke by
saying--

"My warning came true on your birthday."

"Save your fortune-telling mystery for the bumpkins at the next fair,
Bess."

"Anyhow, I knew what you did not--the mortgages and the contract
between the squire and Ryther."

"True."

"And I can tell you much more that you do not know.  You go in peril of
your life.  Lord Sheffield will stick at nothing to remove you.  False
swearing, or poison, or a stab in the back, or a shot out of the reeds,
all's one to him and his creatures.  The slug which killed your friend
to-day was meant for you."

"Are you in Lord Sheffield's counsels, Bess?" I asked.

"I know as much as if I was, and more," she replied.  "Would that you
could be persuaded for your good."

"How then?"

"To go away for two or three months, anywhere out of the Isle."

"And how would that advantage me?"

"If you stay, you will lose your inheritance, your freedom, and may be
your life.  If you go, you will save them all."

"You talk in riddles, Bess."

"I say all I dare.  Most likely, I shall be beaten to-night for talking
with you."

"Beaten?"

"Yes; for I have had the luck to keep you from harm.  A man was hidden
in the reeds to shoot you, and he couldn't be sure of getting away
unseen, because I was with you.  Besides, the horse has been between
you and him."

"Bess!"

She leaped lightly to the ground.  "There's nothing amiss with my
ankle," she said.  "But I knew I could get a hearing, if I cheated you
into putting me on your horse.  Now ride on as fast as you can, and do
listen to advice.  Go away soon, and until you leave the Isle, have
pistol in holster, and sword at your side, and a trusty man behind you."

She slipped through an opening in the hedge, and sped across the fields
in the direction of the encampment of her folk.




CHAPTER V

On arriving at Temple, I hastened to bed, and for two hours or more
slept the heavy sleep of extreme weariness, but then awoke in pain and
burning thirst.  On getting out of bed, I found myself stiff and sore,
and somewhat light-headed; so, after a draught of water, tumbled into
bed again to watch for the morning in great uneasiness and impatience.
At length the dawn appeared, and not long afterwards Luke entered my
chamber, and made much ado about my condition, and that of my clothing,
rent in places, and stiffened with blood, which he naturally supposed
to be my own.  His uplifted voice aroused Mr. Butharwick, who came to
my room, and I was compelled to submit to an examination, which
revealed more bruises and slight wounds than I had been aware of.  As I
had some fever upon me, my tutor and my servant took a high and mighty
tone, declaring that I must keep my bed, and drink febrifuges; and I
only escaped blood-letting because Luke had got it into his noddle that
I had already lost at least a gallon.  When once Luke got anything into
his head, no other man could get it out again.  In rising to prove that
their solicitude was needless, a touch of giddiness laid me on my back,
after which they had their way with me--they and the housekeeper, who
boasted great skill in the compounding of broths of bitter herbs and
seldom had the chance to exercise her art in our healthy house.

So this day I spent in bed, having my tutor for company, my father
being away on some business of his solicitorship, and having (for once)
left no clerkly task for Mr. Butharwick.  My old friend was in no way
surprised by the things which I had heard from Mistress Goel.

"Your father knows what has been reported to the earl, and is
beforehand informed of every step which his lordship takes.  The
'Solicitor' has trusty spies in the earl's own household.  For example,
he knows that a troop of soldiers would have been ordered here ere now
to search for arms, but that they could not reach Temple, either from
Hull or Doncaster, without our being advertised by the marshmen."

For my part, I had no confidence in "spies," who might play a game of
their own, but I held my tongue.  Mr. Butharwick had infinite faith in
my father's ability, and it was not for me to shake it.

Mr. Butharwick lay under great apprehension as to what might be the
upshot of the skirmish at Thorne, fearing I might be summoned to appear
before the President of Council on the charge of assaulting those who
were, in a manner, the officers of his Majesty, but took refuge in the
certainty of our knowing the purposes of the earl in time for me to
hide until my father should return, I thought his fears on that score
groundless.  A Vavasour could not be condemned without trial, and an
open trial would be dangerous to Sheffield.  As it was, the death of
Will Staniforth might be laid to his charge.

Three days later, I received a letter from Staniforth's father, begging
me to come to him.  Though I dreaded to witness the grief of an old
man, infirm, and now bereaved of his only child, I set about going.
The water had risen in the marsh since Dick and I crossed, and I meant
to pole over in a punt from Belshaw to Messic Mere, whence a sailing
boat would carry me to Staniforth in two, or at most, three hours.  And
Sandtoft lay in my way.

I took Luke with me, or, as I should rather say, Luke went with me, for
he gave me to understand that in future he did not intend me to go
about alone, in which he was strongly upheld by Mr. Butharwick.  Not
that I opposed his going, for the words of the gipsy girl had an
influence with me, and I even carried gun and pistol, albeit there was
small likelihood we should meet with an enemy on our voyage.

Here I am put in mind by a critic (the kindest in the world) that
Axholme is greatly changed from what it was at the time of which I
write, and that I ought, for the better understanding of my readers, to
give a more particular account than I have hitherto done of the nature
of the country in my youth.  The fault is plain, but not the remedy,
since I am unskilled in description.  The best I can do is to prefix a
map, one glance at which will show more than pages of my writing could.
As to the journey to Staniforth, I may say that the space between
Belshaw and Messic Mere was sometimes land, sometimes water, and more
often a mixture of both.  In dry seasons, swine could pick up some feed
there, and, now and then, a venturesome cottager turned out a cow,
keeping watch lest it should be bogged.  In winter, eels were to be
caught and ducks shot there.  Clumps of birch, small oak, poplar, and
alder grew here and there on "holmes" of gravel or sand.  Long rows of
reeds marked channels always filled with water; ling and gorse, in
spots, flourished on the drier mounds and ridges.

On this day, as I have said, there was abundant water (though the month
was June, and the summer had been almost rainless), which we supposed
to be due to heavy showers further south, swelling the rivers Trent and
Idle.

Luke took the pole, and pushed quickly across to the mere, where we
changed into a sailing boat, and went gaily to Sandtoft, then an oblong
island about four furlongs by two, or, roughly, some eighty acres in
extent, surrounded by the Idle.  Leaving Luke in the boat, I scrambled
up the bank, which sloped steeply, and was palisaded at top to the
height of six feet.  I pulled myself up and looked over, and had
scarcely done so when a bullet whizzed over my head, and I saw the man
who had fired it reloading as he came nearer to the fence, and others
swarming out of a shed like angry bees out of a hive.  Thinking it
might be as dangerous to retreat as to advance, I drew myself up and
tumbled, rather than jumped, down inside the palisade, and walked
toward the sentinel, calling out, "A friend," which did not hinder his
shooting a second time.  Happily, he was no marksman.  Being quite
ignorant of Dutch, I continued to announce myself as a friend in
English, German, and French.  When we came within arm's length, two of
the men collared me, and one asked in a sort of French what my business
was.  My answer so far satisfied them that they let go their hold, and
conducted me to Doctor Goel's abode.

On the way I admired the diligence and skill which had reared a Dutch
town in so short a time.  A wide street of substantial houses, mainly
built of wood, it is true, ran from west to east, and at either end of
the street there were workshops, storehouses, and what I took to be an
arsenal.  As I afterwards learned, a good deal of the material had been
brought over ready shaped, needing only to be put together on the spot.
Some acres of ground were covered with pumps, wind-mills, sluice-gates,
carts, in sections or complete, and machines and parts of machines of
which I could not guess the use or purpose.  One thing I saw certainly.
The men who had embarked in this enterprise would not lightly abandon
it.  They had precise and definite plans, and they had expended vast
sums of money.  The settlement was fortified as for a siege, and there
were several pieces of artillery.  In an open space stood the gallows,
and near by a pole from which flew the Dutch flag, surmounted by the
royal standard of England.  To drive these people out of the Isle would
require an army, and a general.  As for judicial sentences, I
remembered that it was a legal maxim that possession was nine points of
the law.  Looking round on the evidences of the king's authority, and
of the wealth at the disposal of Vermuijden, and of the determination
of the settlers, it came home to me that my father was losing his
labour and spending money in vain.  And yet I rejoiced to think that
Mistress Goel was likely to remain in the Isle.  It did not occur to me
that I might be banished from it.

My guards led me to the doctor's house, where we found him seated at a
table on which were spread a handful of feathers, a piece of
fish--smelling stale--bits of touchwood, and other rubbish.  As we
entered the room, he laid down a queer shaped lens, through which he
had been gazing at some of these things, and greeted me cordially.  He
and the men held a short parley, and they turned to go, when I begged
the doctor (in very bad French) to assure them of the harmlessness of
my man Luke, lest they should take it into their heads to shoot the
poor fellow.  After further talk with them, the doctor informed me that
one of the men had a little English, and had promised to certify Luke
that all was well with me.  The doctor and I talked in a heavy fashion,
bad French on my side, broken English on his, for a few minutes, when
Mistress Goel appeared.  She had not tarried to don her finest
clothing, as is the wont of so many damsels, but came in household
garb, her round, white arms bare to the elbow, her head covered by some
kind of hood, which, however, she threw back as she entered the room,
her fair face flushed as by her work, but a smile of welcome in her
eyes--more beautiful than ever in her homely neatness.  In the course
of our chat, she told me that the watchmen were on the alert, because
last night some bold fellows had scaled the palisade, broken some
costly machinery, and endeavoured to set fire to the buildings.
Vermuijden's lieutenant had given strict command to shoot every
intruder who did not enter by the gates, of which it seemed there were
two.

"Is it that you wear chain-mail under your clothing, or a scapulary
blest by the Pope or witch's charm," she asked, "that you court danger
as if you loved it?"

I was much too slow-witted to give the right answer, and blundered
something about being preoccupied with the pleasure of seeing her.  But
_Ay di mi_!  I forget that what I recall with delight will not interest
the reader.

When I rose to take my leave, and Mistress Goel heard whither I was
bound, she inquired whether we had food with us in the boat.  On
hearing that we had none, she insisted on supplying us, "For the poor
father will be overcome with sorrow, and never think of your hunger,"
she said.  As I would not stay to take a meal with them, she retired to
the kitchen, and came back cloaked, with basket in hand, followed by
her maid, who carried another.  Declaring that she would show me the
gate, so that I need not rush on bullets when next I came, she led the
way to a point about a hundred yards further round the bend of the
river.  I hailed Luke, who came up and received the baskets with looks
of wonder.  Mistress Goel commended Martha's pastry to our attention,
and with "Bon voyage!" she left us.

As we fell to our luncheon, I asked Luke what had passed between him
and the Dutchman who had engaged to assure him of my safety.

"'A leaned o'er fence, and 'a says, 'Icy Ingliss!  Allride.  Got-tam'
I stared at un like a stuck pig, and 'a says again, 'Allride, Got-tam,'
and grinned from ear to ear, so I knew he meant it friendly."

When we had ended our meal, Luke said, "Master Frank, I've heard cook
say as foreigners can't make pastry."

"I dare say; what of that?"

"Why, it's a thundering lie; that's what it is, a thundering lie!  I
never ate such eel-pie in all my days.  And ain't she spanking?"

"Who is spanking?  Cook?"

"No, no; that Martha.  'Tis a nice, comfortable name.  And what a pie
it was!"

Luke's eyes were half closed, as if he were deep in meditation.  At
Staniforth, forgetful of his self-imposed duty of keeping guard over
me, he would have remained dreaming in the boat if I had not reminded
him of his duty.

The servant who admitted me whispered, "Master is very bad to-day, sir,
but he will see you."

The old man sat bent forward over a turf fire, though the day was hot.
The room was almost unbearably close to me.  I had seen him not more
than twice or thrice before, for he shrank from exposing his
decrepitude to general view.  Some years ago he had been thrown over
his horse's head, and, in our country phrase, his back had been broken,
that is, he had sustained an injury to the spine, which had deprived
him of the use of his lower limbs.  He was a pitiable object, cowering,
almost bent double, over the fire; his long, white hair hanging about
his shoulders, his beard reaching nearly to his knees, his yellow face
puckered with a thousand wrinkles.  But there was a fierce light in the
eyes as he turned toward me and said--

"Hast done right to come, young Vavasour.  Look at his grave."

He pointed to the window, from which I saw a newly made mound in the
middle of a field of grass.  Then, as if he answered a question, he
said--

"No, the parson didn't gabble lies over him.  We put his body into the
ground without parson's lies."  Then the old man repeated scornfully,
"'We give Thee hearty thanks, for that it hath pleased Thee to deliver
this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world.'  It might
be said for me, but not for him, my strong, handsome boy, who ought to
have lived sixty years.  But I prayed, young Vavasour--I prayed for
death and damnation on his murderer."

The strength and fire with which the feeble old man hurled out the last
words were terrible.  Then his tone changed.

"The best son that ever lived he was.  Up with the lark, all over the
farm before breakfast, seldom taking his pleasure with his mates.
Gentle as a woman!  No woman would ha' been half so gentle with a
peevish old man, often mad with pain.  Why should the Lord take the
prop of my age, the one joy of a broken-backed cripple?  The Lord
didn't take him, you'll say.  No; but He let the devil do it.  If I
could but have his murderer here!  Oh, that I might grip him by the
throat!"

The father stretched out his arms, the trembling hands clenched, as if
they grasped the neck of the man he hated.  Still I said nothing.  What
could I say?

"He loved thee, Frank.  He made me jealous at times with his talk of
thee.  Said how brave thou wert, how warm-hearted, what a good
sportsman, what a gallant gentleman, what a true, staunch friend!  And
thou led'st him to his death.  It was thy quarrel he died in.  He was
no brawler."

"That is true," I said; "he lost his life through coming to my rescue."

"He did not lose his life," the old man screamed; "his life was
taken--foully, treacherously taken, and his blood cries for vengeance.
Wilt be a man and avenge him?"  His eyes glittered as he asked the
question.

"You cannot think of asking me to pledge myself to do murder," I
answered.

"Murder! who talks of murder?" he rejoined.  "If it were any other man
than the son of my Lord President, I could have him hanged.  But what
poor man dare give evidence against him?  Curse him.  What lawyer in
the isle or county will undertake my case?  When justice is not to be
had by the law, we have a right to take it.  If God or devil would give
me the use of my limbs, but for a single day, I would take it."

The passion of the old man lent him strength, and he drew himself up,
almost erect, a fearsome sight.

But in a moment he drooped again, and moaned, and I sat silent beside
him.

Then rousing himself he said, "Hast milk in thy veins instead of blood?
Canst not hate the man who killed thy friend--not man to man in honest
fight, but by a dastard word to his villains?"

"God knows I hate him only too well," I replied.

"Dost, Frank, dost?  God bless thee for that.  Meet him, taunt him,
make him draw on thee, shoot at thee; force a quarrel on him somehow,
and kill him! kill him!--kill him as slowly as thou canst, so it be
sure."

He put his trembling hand on my knee, and thrust his face near to mine,
his eyes blazing under their bushes of dead-white hair.

"Swear it, Frank," he begged.  "Swear it, and I shall die happy.
Happy!" he groaned, in mockery of his own word.  "Nay, don't speak
yet," he said.  "Listen to me.  Thy father is wasting his patrimony on
law and lawyers.  'Twill do no good.  When did it ever do good to spend
money so?  But don't let that trouble thee.  If thou'lt be a son to me
so far as to do justice on the man that murdered Will, the Grange shall
be thine, and many a good mortgage besides.  Shalt be a rich man, young
Vavasour."

Up to this point, I confess that the old man had been so near gaining
the ascendancy over me, that I might have made him some sort of promise
of vengeance on his enemy, but this offer broke the fascination.

"Your grief has maddened you, Mr. Staniforth, or you would not bribe me
to do murder."

He tore his long hair with rage, and moaned--

"Fool that I was not to remember thy pride and vanity of the Vavasour
breed.  Some men are vain, and some are proud, but Vavasours are both.
Thou wilt not avenge the murder of thy friend, who died for thee--for
thee, dost hear?  Thou wilt not help his heart-broken old father,
because he spoke of leaving his land to thee?  Then go and the devil go
with thee.  May an old man's curse cling to thee all the days of thy
life."

He shook with rage, and spoke with a choked voice, foaming at the lip,
so that I dreaded lest he should fall into a fit and die.  I hurried
out of the room, and bade the servant, who met me in the hall, hasten
to aid her master.  Calling Luke to follow me, I sped down to the
river.  What a change to be out in the pure air, under the blue sky,
hearing the twitter of the swallows far above, seeing green fields
where cattle grazed, and the river rippling in the sunshine!  And how
miserable to feel that I, who had the freedom of the beautiful earth,
and abounding life in me, could do nothing for the sorrow-crazed father
of my dead friend!




CHAPTER VI

Farm business held me from going over to Sandtoft for many days.  Much
of our land was too rich for the growing of corn--which was apt to
spoil on the ground by its own rankness--and was sown with line year
after year.  This season it fell to my lot to meet the merchants, who
came to buy our standing crops, and to show them hospitality.  Having
occasion to go to Crowle on this business, bargains concluded, I paid
my respects to my relatives at the vicarage, little thinking of the
reward awaiting my dutiful behaviour.  As I entered the door, I heard
my aunt cry out, "Frank!  I know your step.  Come this way."  The voice
came from the store-room, where I found the notable housewife, among
the tubs and jars and boxes, from which she had so often produced
dainty cakes and preserved fruits for the delight of my juvenile palate.

"At last you have remembered that you have an aunt!" said she, lifting
her face to me.  "I am busy now, but I will talk to you after dinner.
I have company to-day."

"What company?" I asked.

"People you know, Mistress Goel and her father.  What is there in that
to make you open your eyes so wide?"

"I did not know of your acquaintance with them, that is all."

My aunt gave me to understand that the vicar had visited the strangers
when they lodged at the White Hart, and invited them to the vicarage.
She herself had taken a violent fondness for the daughter, and for the
father a superb contempt.

"The man's daft, or he would not bring a girl to live in a hole like
Sandtoft, where there is no other woman except her maid and the wives
of mechanics and labourers, and the men are all boors and savages.  The
only excuse for such barbarity is that the man has lost his wits.  But
there's a Providence above, and the poor, dear child will have her
recompense.  There's a coronet at her feet, or soon will be."

"God in heaven!  You cannot mean that you favour that beast, Sheffield!"

"No profane language here, Frank.  Lord Sheffield is a changed man."
Nothing could exceed my aunt's complacency as she gave me this
assurance.

"Has he made proposal of marriage?" I asked.

"Not directly as yet; but he is quite open with me," and the good woman
smiled loftily.

"Then he comes here?"

"He has been several times to hear your uncle discourse, who is
satisfied that a work of grace has begun in his lordship's soul.  But,
bless me!  I shall be late with dinner."  And she began to bustle among
her stores.

"When do your guests arrive?" I asked.

"They have been here since the day before yesterday.  You will find
them in the garden."  So saying, she hurried off to the kitchen.

What Sheffield's game might be, I could not guess; but that he had some
evil design in professing to be edified by the homilies of the simple
clergyman, and in flattering his still simpler wife, there could be no
doubt whatever.

The sight of Mistress Goel in a chair on the grass-plot under the shade
of an old pear-tree drove away my gloomy surmisings.  She rose to greet
me in her pretty way of formal courtesy, and when she resumed her seat,
I threw myself on the grass near her, and found her bright face
lovelier than ever when looked at from that position.

"How long it is since I saw you!" said I.  "I have been full of
business which I might not leave, or I should have been to Sandtoft ere
this."

"It is well that you have not," she answered.  "Our men are furious.
Almost every night a machine is broken, or something is stolen, or an
attempt to fire the buildings is made.  Four days ago, a barge came
down the river too late to be unladen, and the man who kept watch on
board was seized, gagged, and bound, and the boat was scuttled, with
the man in it.  It was done with such stealth that our men knew nothing
of it until morning, although the sentinels had been at their posts all
through the night."

"But I have nothing to do with midnight marauders," I growled.

"Our men do not know that.  They have heard that you are one of the
instigators of these doings."

"Is not my--my acquaintance with you a warrant that I am not an enemy?"

"No.  I am sorry to confess that our acquaintance leads to our being
suspected rather than to your absolution."

"Good heavens!  Our Islonians have not a monopoly of barbarism, it
would seem."

"Remember that our men are strangers in a strange land.  They are
plundered, harassed, threatened.  Some of their comrades have been
killed.  The night attacks are so skilfully made as to lead them to
think there must be a traitor within the camp.  My father is in the
habit of walking and watching late o' nights, and I have talked with
one of the enemy.  Most unhappily, Vermuijden is away, and it is
uncertain when he will return.  I was glad indeed to leave the
settlement for a few days, and you will be wise not to come over at
present."

"I have no inducement to visit the settlement while you are at the
vicarage, which is a much more fitting abode for you than a hut at
Sandtoft."

"So Mrs. Graves will have it, and in her kindness would detain me here
I know not how long; but my place is with my father, and he is by
agreement physician to the settlers.  You are not to think that my
father brought me thoughtlessly to Sandtoft."

How beautiful she looked as she bent forward, her face aglow with love
and pride!

"He is not so much absorbed in science as to forget his care for his
daughter.  Oh no, indeed!  He would have had me stay in Leyden, when he
fled.  He entreated, almost commanded me to go to the care of friends
in Amsterdam, when he left Paris, and to remain there until he had a
suitable home for me in England.  But what is home?  Do masons and
carpenters make it?  For me, it is where my father lives.  My mother
died in my seventh year, and my father did his utmost to make up my
loss.  His grief made him an old man before his time: his days were
filled with labour, and the most learned and polished society in Europe
made claim on his leisure, but nothing was allowed to interfere with
his tender care of his little daughter.  He continued his great love
for his wife in his love for her motherless child.  Pardon me that I
say all this, but I could not bear that you should misconstrue my
father."

I forgot to answer, looking up with pure delight into the beaming eyes.
Surely, she cared something for me, unworthy as I was, since she wished
that I should respect her father as he deserved.  At length I replied
softly--

"I count it great honour that you have told me."

But my new reverence for Doctor Goel was instantly in danger, for he
came up to us, a cabbage-leaf in one hand and his magnifying-glass in
the other, and pointed out something to his daughter in great
excitement.  He turned to me while she looked, and plunged into
English, of which I reproduce the sense, not the exact words--

"Your great Bacon thought that caterpillars were engendered of dew and
leaves by putrefaction.  But it is not so.  They come from eggs, laid
by the butterfly.  It is one more instance to confirm the theory that
every living thing derives its being from a parent."

And the old gentleman rubbed his hands and smiled, as if he had found a
diamond.  'Twas all I could do to refrain from laughing at this ado
about some tiny caterpillars on a cabbage-leaf, but Mistress Goel
seemed to enter into her father's pleasure, and, to my astonishment,
said something to him in Latin, as if quoting a book, to which he
replied by a long sentence in the same language.  Then he returned to
the harness-room, taking his precious cabbage-leaf with him.

Happily, the clang of the dinner-bell called us into the house, and
saved me from uttering my opinion on the value of studying grubs.
After dinner, during which nothing was said which needs record here,
the vicar withdrew to his study, the doctor to the harness-room, where
he smoked his pipe, my aunt to her room for her customary nap, so
Mistress Goel and I strolled round the garden.  Somehow, I was led on
to talk of myself, a topic on which I was fluent, not to say vapouring.
I confided to the lady the dubious state of the Vavasour fortunes, and
spoke of retrieving them by the sword.  I more than half hinted at my
father's project for the relief of our estate, and of difference
between him and me on that account.  In fine, I was autobiographical,
sentimental, braggart.  The patient hearing, the gentle glance, the
sweet smile on my companion's lips lured me on to talk as I had never
talked before.  Little did I dream that I was pouring out my boyish
crudities to one of the most accomplished women of the Netherlands, the
bosom friend of Tesselschade Visscher, a distinguished member of the
brilliant circle who made the Visscher _salon_ famous throughout
Europe.  Happy in my ignorance, young bumpkin that I was, I babbled on,
and she listened and answered as simply as any rustic damsel.  I longed
to tell her how I loved her, but held myself in check, remembering that
I might be disinherited to-morrow, and what a poor heritage at best
mine was like to be.  Longed!  I ached with longing.  And when I
thought of Sheffield, it was as though my head and heart would burst,
so full I was with jealousy and rage.  What I might have said, if we
had been left alone awhile longer, I do not know, but my aunt came out
to join us, and she stuck like a leech.  I sauntered to the
harness-room, where the doctor sat, smoking his pipe, and fell into
talk with him.  His English improved as we conversed, and I got the
notion that he had once used the tongue with freedom.  He asked
questions about our farming, the trees and herbs in the fenny soil, the
birds and beasts of our woods and marshes.  He told me curious things
of the weeds spread upon a rough table before him--some too marvellous
for belief, but I kept my countenance.  He had been seeking glow-worms,
and I told him where they were to be found.  I asked him questions
concerning some things which had puzzled me, and received answers full
and plain.  He grew very friendly, and our talk lasted until
supper-time.

That supper would have been a right pleasant meal but for one thing.
The room was gay with vine-leaves, green boughs, and bunches of roses
in jars and vases.  Never had I seen it so gracefully decked, and I
knew whose handiwork it was.  My aunt had skill in providing, as the
table bore witness, set out with well-cooked poultry, tench, salmon,
plovers' eggs, dainty tarts, and amber-coloured ale and French and
Spanish wine, but the adornment of the table and the room was new and
strange.  When the doctor and I entered the room, "my Lord Arrogance"
stood at the other end, bending reverentially to listen to the vicar's
talk, He made his bow to the doctor, and we took our seats--Sheffield
at Mrs. Graves' right hand, Mistress Goel next him, the doctor and I on
the other side of the table.

Sheffield talked with the Goels of Brederoo's _Farce of the Cow_, and
of some tragedy by Vondel.  He applauded the genius and enterprise of
Doctor Samuel Coster, and praised to the skies the Sisters Roemer
Visscher.  It was in listening to this conversation that I discovered
how intimate Mistress Goel was with those learned and beautiful ladies.
The playwrights and poets of Amsterdam and Leyden were quite unknown to
me, and to the vicar and my aunt; but Sheffield contrived to interest
Mrs. Graves by condescending to explain to her, and appealing to her
taste and judgment, and he pleased his host by a sentence now and then
in which he implied that these topics were far beneath the altitude of
his sacred learning.  I imagined that Sheffield designed to expose my
clownish ignorance in contrast with his knowledge of the literature of
the Netherlands; but his evident anxiety to keep the direction of the
conversation in his own hands, and an exchange of glances between
father and daughter, as if some remark of his tickled them to the point
of laughter, made me aware that his lordship did but repeat a lesson
with which he had been stuffed for the occasion.  In a little time he
had taken a good deal of wine, and then he did me the honour to become
aware of my presence.

"I' faith," said he, "'tis uncourteous to Vavasour to talk only of
divine poesy.  Does line fetch a good price this year?"

The inquiry was addressed to me, but before I could answer, Mistress
Goel shot me a question--

"What did you say was the motto of Sir William Vavasour?"

I had said nothing of a motto peculiar to this ancestor of mine, and
could not at once see the drift of the query.  Then I perceived that it
was meant to stay the anger which had sent the hot blood into my face,
and I answered her with the first jingle I could remember.

Soon after sunset thick clouds gathered, cutting short the twilight,
and candles were brought in.  Then my aunt prayed Mistress Goel to
sing, and I learned what ineffable delight may be in music, for the
singer had the art-concealing art, and sang as the thrushes and
nightingales do.  The old spinet became another instrument under the
touch of her fingers.  I sat entranced, listening to song after song,
watching the singing with devouring eyes.  To my wonder the songs were
chiefly English, and some of them the simple ballads dear to
peasant-folk.  By-and-by Mrs. Graves asked for "that Spanish duetto,"
which she had heard Sheffield sing with her guest, and he condescended
to gratify her.  'Twas a concert of crow and nightingale, but the
fellow tugged at his collar, and stuck up his chin, and wriggled about,
as if his performance had been the finest in the world.

During the last hour the low rumble of distant thunder had been heard,
and just as the Spanish song ended, there came a flash of lightning,
and a tremendous peal of thunder immediately followed, loud enough to
be the crack of doom.  My aunt began a great fuss about having no bed
to offer me, and the necessity of my going home before the storm grew
worse, and I was in a manner forced out of the house.  So I made my
adieux, promising the doctor some glow-worms in a day or two.  As I
bade Mistress Goel good night I thought her little hand trembled, and
there was a look in the brown eyes which I chose to interpret as
concern for my safety.

On first setting off, Trueboy was uneasy, the lightning becoming
frequent and the thunder almost continuous, but a firm rein and a
little soothing brought him to composure.

I have never seen lightning more splendid.  At every flash a fire
seemed to run along the ground before me, and the water on either side
glared redly, while quite distant trees showed, or appeared to show,
their every leaf.  Near Hirst Priory, some cattle and horses, which had
leaped the fences in their panic, were scampering to and fro on the
causey like mad creatures, running great risk of bogging themselves in
the swampy margins of the road.  It would have been unneighbourly to
pass on and leave Farmer Brewer's bestial to their fate, so I opened
the gate of the drift, and then gathered and drove all I could see into
their owner's grounds.  It was slow and difficult work, the beasts
being so wild with fear, and the only light that of the flashes which
followed one another for some seconds without intermission, the
succeeding darkness bringing me to a stand; but at length it was done.
Then I battered and bawled at the door of the hind's cottage.  He
opened after some minutes, and stood quaking and shaking like a man in
an ague-fit.

"O Lord!  Be it you, Master Frank?  I thought it was the devil come to
fetch me.  The Almighty's terrible angry, for sure."

I bade the man stick some bushes on the gate and the fences near,
remaining to see that he obeyed, bantering him the while on his
ridiculous fear that his sins had put the elements into such commotion.
When he had finished the job, I rode slowly on, pondering a fact which
I had noted in collecting the cattle, namely, that the waters of the
marsh had risen, and encroached on the causeway here and there,
although no rain had yet fallen.  All at once, Trueboy started off at a
great pace, and I became aware of hoof-beats behind me.  I pulled him
up, and he capered about a bit, for he was never willing to be passed
on the road.

"Out of the way, there," shouted a voice, which I recognised as
Sheffield's.

I turned in the saddle, and asked, "Is my lord so drunk as to need all
the breadth of the causey?"

"Oh, it is you!" answered Sheffield.  "You might as well have staid to
see my leman give me the parting kiss, hanging on my neck, pressing her
sweet lips to mine."

By this time we were riding side by side.

"Liar!" said I, and dealt him a blow across the face with my whip.

I drew rein, expecting that he would take instant revenge with sword or
pistol, and ready enough for the encounter, though I had no weapon but
the one I had used.  But he did not strike.  He said something which I
could not understand, and I felt a crashing blow on the head.  I
remember thinking I had been struck by lightning.  The next thing I
knew was that I lay on the causey, dizzy and sick.  By degrees, I found
that my clothing was drenched, and supposed that the rain had come and
soaked me while I lay unconscious.  Then I perceived that Brewer's hind
was stooping over me, and that he was dripping wet.  Shortly
afterwards, I came fully to myself, and heard the man's account of what
had befallen me.  Briefly, it was this: he had lingered at the gate a
minute or two after I rode away, and saw two horsemen follow me.
Thinking they might be highwaymen, he had plucked up courage to run
after them, and came near enough to recognise by a flash that one of
the men was Sheffield's gigantic black servant.  Supposing me to be in
no danger from him or his master, the man had turned toward his cottage
again, when he heard a great splash, and a succession of lightning
gleams showed him two men riding off, and my horse riderless.  He
hurried up, and found Trueboy, up to the chest in the water, trembling.
The fellow had the wit to guess that the horse was trying to reach his
master, so he waded cautiously forward, and found me lying two feet
below the surface.  My enemy had shown readiness and cleverness,
assuredly.  But for the presence of the one spectator, I should have
drowned quietly, and it would have been supposed that the death was
accidental.

"Now, Stubbs," said I, "you have made me your friend and debtor for
life; but you must remember that if you say a word of this matter, you
will make another sort of debtor, who will pay you quickly."

Stubbs vowed perpetual silence, and we parted, I to ride home, feeling
extremely queer.  The lightning still flashed, but at longer intervals,
and before I had gone a hundred yards, there came a gust which tossed
upward the tree branches and beat down the reeds, and the rain fell in
streams.  That was no matter to me, for I was as wet as man could be,
but Trueboy misliked it, so the rest of our way we flew.




CHAPTER VII

Luke burst into my room early next morning, to tell me that the waters
were out to a height such as no one remembered.  The Don, which had
been turned by the Dutchmen into a channel connecting it with the Aire,
had taken its old course with fury, flooding the western side of Crowle
as with a second deluge.  I jumped out of bed, almost forgetting the
aching and soreness of my head and the stiffness of my limbs, for, if
this account were true, the inhabitants of the Crowle vicarage were in
jeopardy.  Luke assured me that "'twas no manner of use to try to reach
Crowle by riding, for t' causey was under water;" so after I had broken
fast with a crust and a cup of small ale, I had out my boat, and taking
Luke with me, set sail northward.  The marsh had become a deep lake,
and the low-lying fields in our neighbourhood were flooded, and here
and there we came on the carcase of a sheep or a pig; but when we drew
near to Crowle there was a sorry sight indeed.  The cornfields on the
slopes of Totlets had disappeared under muddy water, and several
clay-built cottages had crumbled and fallen in.  Some of the recent
tenants were about in punts, gathering up what they could of their bits
of furniture.  From them we learned that no life had been lost there.
The folk had been aroused by the barking and whining of a dog, and had
taken refuge on higher ground, before the old walls fell in.  As we
came nearer to the town, the water was so cumbered with wreckage, that
we let down the sail, and took to the oars, lest we should foul among
the bundles of reeds, straw-stooks, empty casks, dead sheep and swine,
hay rakes, pails, and other things innumerable, which were strewn on
the surface of the water.  Some of the more westerly houses were
surrounded with water up to the lower windows, and at sight of us, the
inhabitants, who were at the upper windows, set up a great cry for
help.  We shouted that we would come, or send to them, as soon as might
be, our first concern being the vicarage.  Passing Farmer Dowson's on
our right, we saw him and his men, waist-deep in the water, staggering
under bags of corn, carrying pigs in their arms, struggling with
frightened horses, leading them to the higher ground behind the
farmstead.  The farmer hailed us, but only to relieve his soul by
shouting a malediction on the Dutch.  The water became shallower as we
neared the church, for (as we discovered later) the first rush of the
river had brought down an immense quantity of silt, which had been
deposited in a bed sloping from the wall of the churchyard.  To our
surprise we found the depth at the gate of the vicarage not more than
two feet.  We moored our boat to the old oak, and with some difficulty,
for the bottom was soft, made our way to the house, where we found the
inmates in safety on the upper floor.  My aunt was loud in lamentation
over her goods and chattels and store of food.  The vicar's most
pressing care seemed to be a funeral, which had been arranged for this
day.  Doctor Goel was poring over a plan of the drainage, going again
through calculations, which proved to his satisfaction that the channel
cut for the Don was deep and wide enough to carry off its water into
the Aire in any possible event, and that the embankment raised must
infallibly resist whatever pressure could be brought against it.  He
was so perfectly certain that what had happened could not by any chance
occur, that I was obliged to laugh in his face--and mightily offended
him.

"You cannot suppose, doctor," said I, "that the Islonians have broken
down the embankment for the pleasure of drowning themselves."

"I do not know that," he snapped.  "They are stupid enough."

Remembering how the water had gradually accumulated before the coming
of the great rain, I believed that neither the drain for the turning of
the Don, nor that for the conveyance of the surface water had been
large enough for its purpose, but I did not offer my wisdom to the
doctor just then.

Mistress Goel asked many questions, and wept and wrung her hands to
hear of the distress of the people, but she was quickly her calm self
again, entering into talk of what had best be done for them.  My first
notion had been to collect as many boats as were to be had, and to go
to bring the folk from the outlying farms and cottages to Crowle.

"But you need not do that," said she, "unless there is danger of a
house giving way.  The water is subsiding."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"By a mark I made on the staircase wall at five o'clock this morning.
The water has sunk three inches since then."

I said something in praise of her self-possession in a time of alarm,
but she urged me to the present work.

"The poor people out in the flood," said she, "will have little or
nothing to eat.  Their food will be spoiled, and they will have no
means of procuring fresh supplies.  That is the first thing to be
thought of.  And the mere sight of a friendly face will do them much
good.  Will it not be best to load your boat with a stock of such
provisions as are to be had, and to send some one of influence round
the town to urge others to follow you?"

To this I agreed, and, after some further talk, I turned to go.  As I
stepped into the water at the foot of the stairs, she called to me from
the landing--

"Oh, Frank, don't forget milk for the children."

I looked up, and saw her face burning.  "I will not forget," I
answered, and out I strode with the music lingering in my ears.

Old men and women still tell the tale of the great flood, and part of
the tale is how the "young squire" of Temple did feats of rowing,
lifting, and carrying in helping the folk.  If I was bold and active
beyond the ordinary on that day, and I think I was, the secret is that
I had heard my name for the first time from the lips of my love, and
seen her blush to use it.

It is no affair of mine to repeat the chimney-corner story.  It
suffices to say that I and Luke and a dozen willing fellows worked our
hardest until dark, visiting every farmstead and every hovel which
remained standing on the lower levels.

A score cottages right on the bank of the river, occupied by labourers
and marshmen and their families, had been swept clean away, with what
destruction of life could not then be known.  The farmers' losses were
terribly heavy.  The havoc done among horses and cattle was
considerable, and hundreds of swine and thousands of sheep had been
drowned.  Stacks were overthrown and spoiled, and the standing crops
were ruined.

How the men cursed the Dutch!  Their threats of vengeance made me wish
that Mistress Goel and her father were safely out of Crowle.  For our
Islonians are not fellows who ease their minds with a curse, and then
think no more of it, but of that slow, stubborn kind, which smoulders
first and does not flame until the end.  I assured them that their
"Solicitor" would demand compensation for their losses.  I argued that
this disaster might have so much good in it as to justify my father's
resistance to the Vermuijden scheme, and oblige the King and his
advisers to hear reason.  But I met with bitter and scornful laughter
for the most part.

One man said, "'Taint no sort of use to talk so, Mester Frank.  Your
father is a real gentleman, but he's no match for the Dutch devils.  We
didn't ought to ha' listened to his peaceable kind of discoursing.
Squire Portington's is the way to deal with robbers and murderers like
Vermuijden and his gang."

Pretty nearly all were of the same mind, and I returned to the vicarage
dispirited and apprehensive, and so weary and spent and heavy with
sleep, that I crept off and tumbled into bed, too tired even to talk
with Mistress Goel.

Most unexpectedly, the vicar requested me to remain a few days at his
house.  Hitherto, we had had little to say to each other; he never had
much to say to any one.  I had disliked him from my early childhood,
when I got the impression that he was bound in parchment like one of
his folios, and that the back of his head had been chopped off.  His
days were passed among those folios, and Mr. Butharwick spoke with
respect of his learning, but what good came of it I never knew.  He
preached sermons of an inordinate length, and totally incomprehensible
to me, and, as I judged, to his parishioners generally, who composed
themselves for slumber when they heard the text.  My aunt attended to
all the affairs of the parish, and always inspected the parson before
he left the house, to see that he was decently clad, and had his
handkerchief in his pocket.

The calamitous flood aroused him to the everyday life around him, not
all at once, but slowly.  He entered into the sorrows of his bereaved
parishioners especially, of whom there were many.  One Coggan, a small
farmer, had been found dead in the water at the foot of a ladder
descending from his bedroom.  Another man, a somewhat drunken fellow,
had been overtaken by the flood, while sleeping off his drink on the
kitchen floor.  An old man, whose people had left him alone for the
night, had been caught and overwhelmed in the act of opening his door,
apparently.  The child of Ducker, the blacksmith, had been ailing for a
day or two, but on the night of the inundation had fallen asleep on a
couch, and slept so peacefully that the mother would not disturb its
slumber, but covered it up as it lay, and went to bed.  She found it
drowned in the morning.  Besides these cases in the town itself,
numerous bodies were recovered in the neighbourhood of the cottages on
the banks of the Don and elsewhere.  In these circumstances, many
appeals were made to the vicar for guidance, help, and consolation.
The sexton lost his wits, poor man, and there were difficulties in
making preparation for the decent interment of so many bodies, as well
as difficulties as to who would guarantee payment for this and that.
We were hard put to it to find a messenger to go for the coroner, every
man's hands were so full of his own, or his master's business.
Consequently, the vicar impressed me into service, and gave everything
into my charge.  I must do him the justice to acknowledge that he was
diligent in attending to his spiritual duties, and generous with his
purse.  The painful and somewhat horrible details are no necessary part
of my narrative, and so I leave them; but, as may be supposed, I was
fully occupied for several days.

There was an hour every evening which made up, and more than made up,
for all the weariness and trouble of the day, when Mistress Goel talked
awhile with me, or sang to me.  Our talk was mainly of the one
engrossing subject, and there could be no quiet, private chat at such a
time; but to see her and to hear her voice was enough to make me happy
for the present.

Luke made me somewhat uneasy by telling me that he had overheard
conversation at the White Hart, and elsewhere, to the effect that
Doctor and Mistress Goel had come over to Crowle "to charm the water."
Dame Hind had had much to say of the certainty of their being in
commerce with the devil, and some of her guests swore to put an end to
the witches at the first opportunity.  Although I did not think these
threats very serious, and had perfect confidence in my own ability to
protect my friends, being in high favour with the Crowle folk, I
contrived to restrain them from going beyond the vicarage grounds,
except when I could accompany them.  Luke was exceedingly afraid, but
as he had always a keen nose for scent of danger, his fears did not
excite mine.

On the third evening of my stay, Sheffield was announced.  He met me
without a trace of confusion.

"Ha, Vavasour!" he said.  "Give you joy of coming to life again."

"Thanks--much thanks," I replied.

"Coming to life again!" cried my aunt.  "What do you mean, my lord?"

"Has he told you nothing?  When last I saw him, on the night of the
thunderstorm, he was struck by lightning."

"Struck by lightning!" my aunt echoed.

"Yes; I overtook him on the road, and we got into some sort of quarrel,
about what I don't remember, for, to confess the truth, I was too
drunk.  We were riding side by side, jabbering angrily, when I saw a
ball of fire flashing down.  It struck Vavasour, and he fell from his
horse.  I am ashamed to say that I was so dazed and terrified that I
rode off as fast as I could, and left him to his fate."

Being pressed to give my account, I said, "I did not see the flash
which knocked me down, and I can tell you no more, except that I found
myself in bed next morning, little the worse."

My aunt gave me a scolding (with tears in her eyes) for my reticence,
and was touchingly grateful to Sheffield for informing her of the peril
I had been in.  Doctor Goel's interest was in the meteor, and he asked
so many questions about the size and shape and colour of it, the degree
of its brightness, the length of time it was visible, and so forth,
that Sheffield got himself into a coil of contradictions, and then
excused them on the ground that he was very drunk at the time.

"By Bacchus," said the doctor, "you must have been."

One person kept silence, but her bright eyes were observant of
Sheffield and me.  Doctor Goel turned to me, and endeavoured to extract
some account of my feelings, but I stuck to it that I could tell
nothing more.  Sheffield took himself off, declining my aunt's
invitation to stay supper.

Mistress Goel hinted a desire for a walk, and I, being eager enough,
stood ready to accompany her.  While she put on her hat and wrap, I
waited in the hall, and Luke, who was never far from my elbow at this
time, came to me with my pistols.

"You may need 'em," said he, in a low voice.  "I've seen some ugly
fellows about this evening."

I laughed, but took them, and the belt which Luke had not forgotten,
and armed myself besides with a tough ash-stick, which I reckoned the
best weapon a man could carry.

We took the path winding upward through the wood to Crown Hill, the
moon, now nearly full, shining intermittently through scudding clouds
into our faces.

"I want to ask about the attempt made on your life the other evening,"
my companion said abruptly.  "Oh!" she continued, "I know the tale
about a thunderbolt is altogether false.  You were struck down from
behind, and left for dead.  Your assailant cannot understand how it is
you are alive, so he makes up a story as a defence for himself,
perhaps, or, more probably, to provoke you to say something which may
clear up what is mysterious to him.  And you saw the design, and would
not betray the secret."

"This is wizardry!" I said, staring.

"Oh dear, no! it is ordinary woman's wit, enlightened by the looks
which passed between you and your enemy."

I granted that she had rightly discerned, but said nothing of what
followed the knock-down blow.

"You are determined to keep secret the manner of your rescue?" she
asked.

"At present, yes," I answered.

"Doubtless you have good reason.  But there is another matter on which
I wished to speak with you.  Do you allow that there is such a virtue
as prudence?  If so, is it prudent to expose yourself to an enemy--a
powerful, crafty, unscrupulous enemy?"

Then I burst out, "Do you bid me run away from him?  Because----"

"Stay one moment," said she.  "Surely prudent avoidance and cowardly
flight are not the same thing."

"There is too much of a family likeness for me to distinguish between
them," said I.

"So I feared," she answered.  "What is the noise we hear?"

It was the noise of a crowd--hurrying feet, hoarse shouts.  It came
rapidly near.  The mob was coming up the hill.  Now I could hear
distinctly "foreign witch," "Dutch devil," and other cries of a fouler
kind.  Unmistakably we were pursued.  On the crest of the hill stood an
old windmill, which might shelter us, and thither I hurried Mistress
Goel.  The door was padlocked, but one strong kick crashed it open.
Pushing my companion inside, I took up the door, laid it across the
entrance, dragged a few sacks of corn against it, and had a tolerable
barricade; not a moment too soon, for the mob was upon us, with a yell
of disappointed rage at sight of the obstacle in their way.

"Can you load a pistol?" I asked Mistress Goel.

"Yes," she answered.

I detached powder-horn and shot-bag from my belt, and passed them to
her.

"I will throw my pistol into your lap, if I have to fire; reload it and
give it to me, keeping well behind me," I ordered.

By this time the crowd had gathered in front of the mill.  Luckily we
were in shadow, and the moonlight was full on them.  For half a minute
they halted, and a murmur of talk among the leaders was the only sound.
Then one of them stepped forward.

"One stride nearer, and I fire," I said quietly.

"Nobody wants to hurt you, Measter Frank," the fellow said.  "Give up
the witch, that's all we ask."

"There's no witch here," I answered.  "There is a lady, the guest of
your vicar; woe betide you if she comes to harm at your hands!  But you
will have to murder me before you lay finger on her."

"She be a witch, and brought the water on us; Nancy Isle knows it for
sartain sure," replied the spokesman.

(This Nancy Isle was a poor creature in her dotage, but still held in
repute as a "wise woman.")

"She gave Mat, hostler, stuff that cured his ague in no time," shouted
a voice.  "Has a charm to tame wild things," cried another.  "Doth wash
all over in cold water every morning, which would kill any Christian;
Lisabeth, maid at the vicarage, told me herself," bawled another.  "She
makes hell-broth of galls and toadstools and caterpillars.  I've seen
the old devil agathering 'em for her," said another.  "On with you, you
cowards," shrieked a female voice.  "Are you feared of one man, and him
bewitched?  She killed my innocent babe, and I'll tear her eyes out."
And Ducker's wife came forward with a rush, three men following.

I shot the first of them through the shoulder, and he fell; I brought
the butt of the pistol down heavily on one hand of the woman, who was
clawing at the barrier like a wild cat, which sent her howling.  The
other two men came on slowly enough to give me time to toss the pistol
into my companion's lap, and to cower for an upward blow with the fist.
I struck one of them under the chin, and he went backward insensible;
but the second got half over the door before I could deal with him.
With some shame, though I was fighting for more than life, I gave him a
kick in the "wind," which settled him for a while.  So far I had
splendid luck, and the enemy were a bit cowed, but if they came on in a
body, I must be overborne by sheer weight.  Their pluck was not
sufficient for that just now; they began to throw stones, which was not
a bad move, seeing that I was bound to guard the doorway.  I received a
tremendous blow on the jaw.  Then followed a lull, which ended in one
of the crowd calling to me--

"We don't want to kill thee, young squire."

"Thanks," I replied.  "I am not much killed so far."

"We don't want to kill thee.  Give up the witch, and we'll swim her.
If she sinks, we'll go away.  If she floats, thou'lt leave her.  We
can't say fairer nor that."

"Now listen to me," I answered.  "You can have any one tried by proper
course of law for witchcraft.  If you take the law into your own hands,
I shall kill some of you, and the rest will be hanged for killing me."

They replied by a volley of stones, and a furious rush.  A stone struck
Mistress Goel, and she sank to the floor.  I could do nothing for her,
save push her with my foot as far back from the door as I could reach,
for the men were on me, shouting, and brandishing sticks and knives.  I
stepped back, counting on their jamming themselves together in the
opening, which they did, coming on pell-mell.  Attempting no kind of
guard, I stood to crack intruding heads.  A knife was thrown, and stuck
in my left shoulder, whether in cloth or flesh, I knew not.  My good
ash-plant struck three heads down, and my boot smashed a face at a
corner.  Then the fellows drew off a little, dragging their fallen
comrades with them, but still facing the doorway; so I whipped out
pistol, and shot one of them in the leg.  That sent them out of range.

"Hand me the pistol," said my companion, rather faintly.

"Thank God!" I ejaculated, but I could not leave my post to see her.

Some of the men were talking loudly, and pointing; others ran off in
various directions.  Shortly, they returned, carrying dead branches and
heaps of straw.  They made for the other side of the mill, keeping well
out of pistol shot.  Plainly they meant to set the mill on fire and
burn us out.  It would blaze quickly, for it was slightly built, and
the timber old and dry, and I feared that the place would be too hot
for us long before a large number of people were drawn to the spot; but
our best plan was to stay where we were as long as might be possible.
The bulk of our enemies now sat on the ground to await the result of
the fire.  I might have broken a hole through the mill wall, but our
safety--such as it was--depended on there being only one opening to
guard.  So, keeping one eye on the enemy, I looked at Mistress Goel's
hurt.  It was a gash over the eye, and had bled copiously, but the
bleeding had ceased.  She insisted on cutting open my sleeve, from
which the knife had fallen, after sticking there some time, and found a
deepish cut, and my sleeve soaked with blood.  She bound up the wound
with a strip from her dress.  Now we heard a great crackling and
roaring outside.  The fire had taken hold.

"Frank," said Mistress Goel, and my heart thrilled at the word and the
tone.  "Frank, promise that you will kill me rather than let me fall
into their hands.  I would ask for a pistol to do it myself, but you
may have need of them.  Promise me, by all that is most sacred to you."

"I promise you that you shall not be taken alive, by the most sacred of
all things to me--my love for you."

The heat of the mill grew stifling.  Snaky flames came through the
cracks and crevices, and hissed upward.

"We must try for life," I said, and pulled away the sacks and the door.

The enemy awaited us.  All at once, they turned the other way, and the
head constable rode into view, followed by a posse of young men, some
on horseback, some on foot.  Then the crowd fled a dozen ways, and I
carried my fainting lady into the midst of a group of cheering,
laughing friends.




CHAPTER VIII

The task of answering the hundred and one questions of our rescuers
fell upon Mistress Goel, for I could not speak distinctly, my cheek and
lips being so swollen.  Two of my friends hoisted me upon their
shoulders, in spite of my growling resistance, while other two made "a
chair" for her with their arms and sticks, and we were carried with
shouting to the vicarage, terrifying the good folk there no little by
the noise.  When my aunt saw Mistress Goel's blood-stained face and my
puffed cheek, she fell to laughing and crying in a breath, and cried
out that I was the most reckless fellow in the world, and not to be
trusted with the care of a lady.  The doctor clasped his daughter to
his breast, and then held her off to examine her hurt, and turned to
glare at me fiercely, as if I had done the mischief.  Oddly enough it
was the vicar who called for sponge and water, bandages, plaister, and
the like; recommended the doctor to lose no time in attending to our
wounds; imposed silence on the dozen who were babbling all at once,
and, in short, put us into order.

Luke told how he had followed us, being in some fear that we might be
attacked, but he had been astonished by the number of the crowd, which
had gathered so quickly, and appeared to be under the direction of a
man, who was a stranger to him.  He saw us take refuge in the old mill,
and then thought it better to call a party to our aid than to come
single-handed.  Accordingly, he had set off to give the alarm to the
young fellows who had worked with us on the day after the flood, and,
by great good luck, found the chief constable of the wapentake at
supper in one of the houses at which he called.  The rest of the story
may be understood without the tedium of further words by me.  During
Luke's recital, Doctor Goel had attended to his daughter's hurt, and
now gave me his care.  My cut in the shoulder he pronounced
unimportant, but shook his head over the injury to my jaw.  At present,
he could do little but bind a wet rag about my face, and give me a wash
for the mouth, with a caution to swallow none of it.  Meanwhile, my
friends, on Mistress Goel's report, were making me out to be a hero,
and there I sat with a swelled face, rolling a liquid in my mouth which
made me wince, and unable to say a word.  It struck me as so queer a
fix for a hero to be in that I laughed, spurting out some of the
doctor's stuff, and gulping some of it down, but the coughing fit and
the pain which followed effectually cured me of inclination to further
laughter.

The chief constable deemed it advisable to set a watch over the
vicarage for the night, himself remaining in command.

"There is no telling to what lengths the rabble may go, when they have
got suspicion of witchcraft into their heads," said he; "and, in my
judgment, it would be wise for Doctor and Mistress Goel to take shelter
among their own people at Sandtoft as soon as may be."

We were not disturbed during the night, and that happened on the morrow
which, for a time at least, put our affairs into the shade.  We
received a visit from a Royal Commissioner, who caused public
proclamation, with beat of drum, that all well-disposed persons and
good subjects were to wait on him in the course of the next three days
in the Court-room at the White Hart, where the Manor Court was usually
held, there to prove their loyalty to the throne by loans,
benevolences, free gifts of money, and tender of service to his
Majesty.  This personage appeared at the vicarage early in the day,
attended by a file of musketeers, I happened to be with the vicar in a
room where he transacted such parish business as he could not depute to
my aunt, when a pot-bellied man swaggered in, with what he meant for an
air of dignity, but which in reality was a consciousness of the
musketeers outside.  After curt salutation, he took a seat, and opened
by saying--

"You received instructions from the archbishop to preach to your flock
on the duty of contributing to the royal exchequer, so preparing them
for my visit.  You thought it sufficient to read the letter from the
pulpit.  Explain your disobedience."

Something of the old Adam still lived in the clergyman, and flashed
from his eyes.

"By what authority do you----" he began.

But the other broke out--

"Authority! authority, quotha!  Authority enough to send a bishop to
jail, if he gave me occasion."

At this point I did an exceedingly prudent action.  The commissioner
held his neck awry, and my hands itched to give it a twist right round,
so I walked out of the room and a temptation which might become too
strong for me.  From prudence to policy is but one step.  The next
thing I did was to send Luke out to the musketeers with strong ale,
bidding him stay to learn how they liked the brew, and anything else
they chose to tell him.  They told him a good deal.  The commissioner
had a list of the gentry and farmers in the neighbourhood, and against
each name the amount to be demanded.  He had another list of poorer
folk, including the names of young men who might be impressed for
service in the army or navy, unless they, or their relatives, were
ready to buy a discharge.  There did not appear to be any limit to the
powers of this bashaw.  Before his entry into the Isle he had sent
several gentlemen to prison for refusing to pay his demand in full.
Some reputed misers of low degree, who had pleaded poverty, he had tied
up by the thumbs.  Incredible sums had been extorted from poor old
women by threatening to take away their sons.

Fellows who had been "insolent" to his Majesty's representative, had
been shipped off to the plantations.  The corporal had favoured Luke
with the opinion that the King would get so much money by this
collection as to put him above the need to ask Parliament for another
shilling.

The pot-bellied man left the vicarage soon after I received this
account, taking with him fifty pounds, and the vicar retired to his
study, perhaps for prayer.

In the course of the morning Mr. Butharwick came over to see me,
bringing a summons from the commissioner, requiring my father's
attendance at the White Hart, so about one o'clock I joined the company
assembled there.  The commissioner, Tunstall by name, as we learned
from the reading of his warrant under the Great Seal, which he allowed
some of the gentlemen to inspect, sat at a table, with a scribe on his
left hand, four or five of his musketeers standing behind him.  There
were seats for the men of rank and condition, but two-thirds of the
floor were filled by a standing crowd.  After the reading of the
warrant, Tunstall made a long pompous speech, setting forth the
necessities of the King, the duty of his subjects, and the trouble
caused in the realm by factious and treasonable persons, who had abused
their privileges and his Majesty's leniency by contriving to delay the
voting of supplies, urgently required for the defence of the kingdom,
and the dignity of the Crown.  The short of it was the king wanted
money badly, and we were to find it, or the consequences would be
disagreeable.  The commissioner looked at his papers, and then said
that the first name on his list was that of George Stovin of Totlets,
assessed at five hundred pounds.  Squire Stovin rose, and spoke--

"It is not for me to judge of his Majesty's requirements, or to give an
opinion as to the propriety of this unwonted way of meeting them, but
only to say that the demand made on the gentry and farmers of
Crowle--and on the gentry and farmers of Axholme generally--is to the
last degree ill-timed.  Hundreds of acres in various parts of the Isle,
which last year bore heavy crops, are reduced to swamp by the action of
foreign invaders, who are under his Majesty's protection.  In this part
of the Isle, many of us have been brought within a little of beggary.
I myself have had the cottages in which my labourers lived swept away,
and most of my barns and outbuildings.  Scores of my sheep have been
drowned--my crops are lost.  It is monstrous to ask me to give money to
the King.  I want compensation from the King."

There followed a loud rumble of assent to Squire Stovin's speech.  As
soon as it ceased, the commissioner gave some order in a low voice to
the corporal, and then said--

"That treasonable talk will cost thee more than five hundred pounds,
thou impudent rebel.  I allow thee one hour to send and get what may be
wanted for a sojourn in Lincoln castle."

At the word, a musketeer seized the squire, and tied his hands behind
him.  A growl of angry voices was heard all over the room, and, a
tumult might have happened, but, at some signal which I did not
perceive, a score musketeers entered by the door behind the assemblage.

Squire Stovin called out: "Will some friend be kind enough to go to
tell Mrs. Stovin I am going a journey, and want my portmanteau?"

"No man quits the room except by my permission," bawled the
commissioner, as a number of gentlemen turned to do the squire's errand.

Daft Jack, the town idiot, shambled forward from the rear to the table.

"May be your worship's honour will give me leave to go," he said; "but
I should like to give the poor King ninepence."  And with that the fool
laid the coin on the table.

The commissioner, mindful of the chuckling sound of laughter, threw the
piece back to poor Jack, bidding him begone about his business.

The fellow made a gesture of amazement, and then repocketed his money,
and shambled off to the other end of the room, talking to himself in
his high falsetto voice the while--

"'Tis a long way to Lincoln, and ferries to cross, and nasty bits of
road, and footpads and highwaymen about.  I wish the squire may get
there safely, poor man."

A faint smile at Daft Jack's concern for the prisoner's safe arrival,
crossed the commissioner's face.  He evidently did not suspect Daft
Jack's real intent.  Then he called out--

"See you bring the prisoner's portmanteau straight to me, d'ye hear,
fool?"

"Yes, yes, your honour," answered Jack.

"James Tankersley, wheelwright," the clerk read out, and the
wheelwright stepped forward, well known as a poor, but industrious man,
the sole support of an aged mother and his sisters, two sickly women.

"Hast the honour to be chosen to serve his Majesty, Tankersley,"
grinned the commissioner.

"Would ask nothing better, your worship, but my poor old mother and my
misters depend on me for their bread."

"That's no affair of mine, man.  The day after to-morrow you march with
me.  If you skulk, you'll be shot as a deserter, that's all."

The big fellow trembled like a leaf in the wind.

"Oh! your honour," he cried, in a choking voice, "have pity on us.
'Twill kill my mother."

"Stop your snivelling!" shouted the commissioner, "or I'll have you
strapped up and flogged.  If you're a damned coward, pay me ten pounds
for a discharge."

"Ten pounds!" cried the poor fellow; "I haven't a pound in the world,
and half the wood in the yard isn't paid for."

Farmer Brewer came to the front, and said: "I will buy his discharge."

"God bless you, Mr. Brewer," said the wheelwright.

"Brewer?  Have we that name on the list?" asked the commissioner of his
clerk.

Then the two of them rummaged among their papers, but seemed to have no
record of the farmer's existence.  At length the commissioner looked up
and said--

"A man who has ten pounds to spare for another must be well to pass,
Mr. Brewer.  Fifty pounds for the King will be no burdensome demand."

A murmur went round the room, for the farmer had lost heavily in the
flood, and everybody knew that he had never prospered greatly.
Something to this effect, Brewer began to plead, but was cut short.

"I am not here to argue, my man, but to collect money.  If you are
obstinate, I have the means at hand to persuade you feelingly.  Bring
the sixty pounds by three o'clock, or you will learn what they are.
Corporal, pass this man out."

So things went on, man after man being bullied and threatened, and sent
off to scrape money according to the commissioner's assessment.  The
proceedings were exciting enough at the time, but they would be
wearisome to narrate.  They were interrupted by Daft Jack's return, in
less than the hour allotted, with the squire's portmanteau, which he
dumped down with a bang just inside the room, saying as he sat down on
the floor with his back against the door, mopping his face, "I can't
carry it a step furder; take it to his honour, one of you."  At a nod
from the corporal, one of his men went forward with it, and placed it
on the table.  The clerk opened it for the inspection of his chief,
when with a humming and buzzing noise which filled the room, a swarm of
angry wasps rushed out.  What happened then I cannot describe.  I saw
the commissioner and his clerk striking, dancing, in a frenzy, through
a darting haze of furious insects.

Looking the other way, I saw a mass of hunched backs and bent heads,
helter skelter to the door.  Exit thus was too slow for my fancy, with
a cloud of wasps round my head, so I jumped from the only window which
opened door-wise.  It was a good long drop to the ground, but several
active men followed me.  We found Squire Stovin in saddle in front of
the inn, his feet tied under the horse's belly, his guards mounted on
each side, and a big crowd gathered round them, hustling and jostling
one another in a manner that boded no good to the troopers, most of the
men having their poles in their hands.  Mischief would have begun
before now, but for Mr. Stovin's authority with the fellows.  Shortly,
the corporal came out to say that the commissioner being unable to give
the instructions for which the men were waiting, he would take the
responsibility of setting the squire free on parole.  Mr. Stovin
readily gave it; his bonds were removed, and a mob escorted him home,
huzzaing until they were hoarse.  Host Hind told me that Tunstall and
his clerk were fearfully stung, and in no small danger.  "His head's
near as big as his belly," said Hind of the commissioner.  About him I
had no concern, but much about poor Jack, who would be horribly
punished, doubtless, if he were caught.  And, besides, I felt some
curiosity.  I found Jack in his one-roomed hovel at the south end of
the town, with a quantity of articles spread out on the clay floor: a
pair of cleat boards, a leather bottle, a whittle, coils of wire and
band, a ball of worsted string, fish-hooks, corks, cross-bow, a few
cakes of black bread, and other things, some of which he was in process
of transferring to his many and capacious pockets.

"I'm going to my hunting-lodge on Thorne moors," said he, with perfect
gravity.

"A little money may be of use," I said, tendering some.

"No, thank you, Mester Frank," he replied.  "I'm not likely to want
any.  There's a plenty of hares, rabbits, moor-fowl, fish, eggs on my
estate."

Jack's confidence was well grounded, I knew, as he had the utmost skill
in placing a snare for a rabbit, snickling a pike, or luring a bird
within shot.

"Do you mind telling me how you came to put a wasp's nest into the
squire's portmanteau, Jack?"

"All a mistake through being deep in thought, Mester Frank."

"How so?"

"Coming down the drive, I see a wasp-hole in the bank.  And I wanted
wasp-grub for bait.  So I clodded the hole, and pulled the nest out,
you see."

"But you didn't want live wasps, Jack."

"Live wasps are very good for dibbing, Mester Frank, if you know how to
handle 'em.  But, being deep in thought, I put the nest into Squire's
porkmankle instead of into my handkerchief.  And I forgot the nest when
I put the porkmankle down, and give it a shake, through being so deep
in thought."

"But what were you thinking about so deeply?"

"Tryin to puzzle it out why the pot-bellied man called me a fool."

And Jack looked as if the question still perplexed him.

"Fool, or no fool, Jack, you have done what none of the rest of us had
the wit or pluck to do.  But he will kill you, if ever he gets well
enough to do it."

"If I live till he kills me, I shall be a very old man," Jack replied,
with immense scornfulness.

He had now stowed away his properties, some in his pockets, and some in
a sack, which he slung over his shoulder, and stood ready for flight.
We shook hands, and he said--

"Luke Barnby knows the way to my lodge."

Desirous as I was to return to the vicarage, it took me a long time to
do so, for everybody was in the main street, talking and laughing over
the sudden break-up of the meeting summoned by the commissioner.  Here
I met one who had not been present, and wished to hear my account of
the affair; there another, who had been present, and wanted to go over
it again.  A knot of young fellows dragged me into the White Hart,
where they drank Daft Jack's health, and the health of the man who had
"put him up to the trick."  For no reason they had given me the credit
of the device, nor did my plain denial quite remove their belief that I
had a hand in the business.  At last I got away from them, and found
all quiet at the vicarage.

It had been agreed to act on the suggestion of the chief constable the
following day, and he had engaged to protect the house during the
night.  Anna, as I had come to name her to myself, had recovered from
the shock of the previous evening, and looked charming even with a
cross of plaister on her brow.  After I had told the true and full
story of Daft Jack's achievement, the doctor and the parson prosed
alternately, the one describing all the venomous insects known to man,
I should think; the other giving instances from history, sacred and
profane, of their intervention in human affairs, and seeming to have
pleasure in recounting the torture inflicted on an unlucky wight, whose
name I forget, by an enemy who had him smeared with honey, and exposed
to the stings of bees and wasps.  The vicar was too good a Christian to
rejoice in the sufferings of the commissioner, but I am sure he got
some kind of consolation in the very particular description which he
made of the torments of the other man.

Anna was unusually silent, which I hoped might be due to the same
thought as kept me so, that of the parting to come on the morrow.  I
noted with secret delight that the songs she chose, when she went to
the spinet at my request, were tinged with a sweet melancholy, which
might be that of love.




CHAPTER IX

"I asked you to come out with me because there is something I must say
before you return to Sandtoft."  So I feebly began, as we paced the
garden, now somewhat cleared of the mire and refuse brought by the
flood, a few flowers lifting their heads to the July sun.  "I told you
the other night I loved you.  I might never have dared to say it, but
for the fear that I should not have another chance.  Mistress
Goel--Anna--do you, can you love me?"

She lifted her noble face a little, gave me a look which I could not
understand, and then the eyelids drooped, as she answered with
trembling lips--

"It would be only too easy to love you, Frank, but I am
bound--betrothed already.  Have patience with me, while I tell you my
miserable story."  She sat down, and I beside her, heavy-hearted.

"Years ago, my father and his dearest friend, Cornelius Vliet, agreed
upon a marriage between me and his friend's only son.  I shrank from
the thought of it, and begged my father to allow me to refuse; but he
laughed at what he took to be girlish perversity.  He could not believe
I had a repugnance against a young man, who was reckoned handsome,
well-bred, brave, the heir to a large fortune.  And, indeed, I could
say nothing against Sebastian, but only that I had the strongest
dislike to be married to him, or to any man.  My father so far yielded
as to defer the matter awhile.  Then he was seized and thrown into
prison, and we knew his doom would be death, or lifelong imprisonment.
Sebastian came to me, and offered to secure my father's escape--on one
condition.  I gave him my promise, and he fulfilled his own by lavish
bribery, and, I must acknowledge, at the risk of his own liberty,
perhaps his life.  He accompanied us to Paris.  There I saw and heard
much more of his manner of living than I had known at home, and it was
fearful and loathsome to me.  My father assured me young men were no
worse for--what was so offensive to me.  I cannot tell you how dreadful
I felt it to be to fail in duty and love toward my father, and to be so
ungrateful to Sebastian for my father's life and freedom, but I could
not keep my plighted word.  I vowed that I would not be married until
Sebastian changed his course.  He did not upbraid or taunt me, or argue
with me, but disappeared.  For some months we have heard nothing of
him.  I supposed he had been disgusted with what he must think my
ingratitude and fickleness; but yesterday my father received a letter
from him, saying he has given up drinking and dicing and all evil ways,
and is coming to claim his bride.  He has decided to join Vermuijden,
and to share our exile, and will quickly follow his letter.  My father
is delighted.  Forgive me, Frank, that I have not avoided you.  I am
guilty, I know.  Forgive me."

I had been on the point to interrupt the story a dozen times; but
seeing how hard Anna found the telling of it, I would not make it
harder.  Now I burst out.  "Forgive her!  Forgive the sun for shining,
the flowers for blooming!"  I told her how sorely my heart ached for
her, but she must bear up bravely still.  I would not hear of duty to
her father in regard to this marriage.  I declared that a promise so
extorted could not bind her.  To try to keep it would be to sin against
herself, against the man, against her father, who must be made wretched
by it in the end, against me, against love, against God.  I told her I
was sure she loved me a little, and I would never give her up.  She was
_mine_, and should be mine as long as she or I lived.  Where the words
came from I did not know, for I am commonly slow of speech, but they
came hot and swift, and Anna looked up at me, as I stood over her (my
feelings had raised me to my feet) smiling through swimming eyes, and
said tremulously--

"You masterful Frank!  I could almost believe you; but oh! it cannot
be."

She rose to her feet in a sudden agitation.  "Here is Sebastian!" she
exclaimed, and I turned and saw him, accompanied by Doctor Goel,
approaching us.  After greeting had passed between Anna and him, the
doctor said something by way of introduction, and Vliet and I bowed, he
looking as black as a thundercloud, and I, doubtless, equally so.  I
think he knew me his rival at first glance, and hated me accordingly.
How heartily I detested him there are no words to express.

He was a fairly well-made man two or three inches below my height, with
cold, bluish-grey eyes, rather closely set, a big mouth, thick-lipped,
a low forehead, and cheeks somewhat bloated.  That he had turned to
sober and cleanly living I did not believe, or that he ever would, and
my unbelief was warming to the heart.  Having no part in the Dutch
conversation, I left the three, and returned to the house, where I
heard that Vermuijden was again at Sandtoft, and had sent Sebastian
Vliet in command of six of his men to escort Doctor Goel and his
daughter thither, with request that they would come with speed.

Within the hour the party was ready to set off, two of the Dutchmen
carrying the baggage (except certain small boxes, which the doctor
would not entrust to other hands), and the other three men with
muskets, cutlasses, and pistols, going in front.  Then came the doctor
and Vliet, Anna and I last.  As the landing-place, where they had left
their boat in charge of one of their number, was not more than half a
mile away, I hastened to take up the thread of our previous talk, but
was baulked of my intent.  At a spot where three roads met we
encountered a crowd "riding the stang."  At the head of the procession
strode a fellow blowing a horn; then a dozen others, beating pans and
kettles with pokers and iron spoons; a bagpiper made a noise like pigs
in a storm; a ragged rascal, sitting a donkey, carried a pole on which
dangled a woman's smock.  After this standard bearer followed an old
horse, bestridden by a grinning woman, who held an enormous ladle, with
which she merrily belaboured her husband, who rode behind her, his face
turned to the horse's tail, pretending to work at a distaff.  Two lads
marched behind the couple on horseback, bearing a pole, on which rode a
third, thumping a pan, and repeating--

  "With a ran, tan, tan,
  On my old tin can,
  Mrs. Mooley and her good man,
  She banged him, she banged him,
  For spending a penny when he stood in need.
  She up with a three-footed stool;
  She struck him so hard, and cut him so deep,
  Till the blood ran down like a new-stuck sheep."


A shouting, jeering rabble accompanied the cavalcade, making uproar
with marrow-bones and cleavers, tongs, gridirons, and kettles, and
'some half-score of barking and yelping curs swelled the din.  A
prominent figure in the rout was Ducker's wife, who had gone crazy
through the loss of her child.  She skipped and screamed and laughed,
now here, now there, almost as much the object of amusement to the mob
as the henpecked husband and his shrew of a wife.

If the mad woman caught sight of Anna there would be trouble, I felt
sure; so I pushed on, hoping to avoid touch with the crowd, who would
most likely turn by the road we had come, to make the circuit of the
town.  But the spectacle had some attraction for Vliet, who stood to
see the crowd go by, saying with a laugh, "Ah! justitia de los
cornudos!" from which I surmised he had seen the riding of the stang in
Spain.

I asked Anna to urge the five Dutchmen forward, the boat being yet some
four hundred yards away.  As I feared, some of the mob stopped to stare
at Vliet in his foreign costume, and this led to Ducker's wife
perceiving Anna and me.  She raised the cry, "Witches! witches!" and
the crowd took it up instantly.  I saw the vixen leap down from her
charger to join the blacksmith's wife in the leadership of the gang,
which followed us pell-mell.  Then I ran for the boat, half carrying
Anna, who at first hung back, imploring me to go to her father's
rescue.  As he had six men well armed to defend him--for the Dutchmen
had faced about and behaved manfully, the two who had borne the baggage
pitching it into the reed-bed that bordered the road, and taking to
their weapons--I attended to nothing but Anna's safety.  I had put her
into the boat, and made the man understand that he must push out into
the stream, and take shelter under the reeds, when the rest of our
party came up, the mob at their heels, brandishing their pokers,
gridirons, cleavers, and what not, encouraging one another with shouts
of "The witch!  Tear her to scotticks!" and savage curses.

With great coolness and quickness, the Dutchmen took in the condition
of things, and faced the angry rabble, and two of them fired.  Whether
any one was hurt, I could not see, but the yelling mob was not even
checked.  On they came furiously, and for some minutes we were engaged
in a confused hand-to-hand struggle, which would have ended, most
likely, in our being forced into the river by sheer weight of numbers,
but for a pistol-shot fired into the rear of the crowd, which took them
by surprise, and scattered them a little.  This gave the Dutchmen the
chance to use their muskets, and as one of the leaders of the mob fell,
the rest were somewhat daunted, and drew off a few yards.  Then Luke
ran from behind them, and took his stand by me.  He it was who had
fired the shot which saved us, having followed me with my pistols.  In
this lull of the storm, I tried to persuade the folk to go away; but I
had scarcely begun to speak, when one of the men took a stride forward
and hurled a gridiron at my head, which happily flew wide, for I leaped
on him in the act, snatching him up, and tossing him into the reed-bed.
But he had given the others a lead which they were quick to follow; all
sorts of missiles hurtled about us, and one of the musketeers was
struck and fell backwards into the river.  We could do nothing for him,
because another shower of knives, pots, and stones flew about us, and
our assailants came on with a rush.  I gave Vliet a hint, though I knew
not whether he understood English.  He nodded, and spoke to his men.
When the foremost of the crowd were right upon us, we drew apart
swiftly, Vliet and three of the Dutchmen on one side, I and Luke and
one of the Dutchmen on the other.  The pressure of those behind sent
five or six of the leaders headlong into the river, and we threw or
thrust several more after them.  The rest took fright, and ran like so
many rabbits.  I believe the discovery that the "witch" had vanished
had as much to do with their panic as the loss of their boldest
spirits, who were floundering in the water.  As the rabble fled, I
perceived that blood was spouting from my right wrist, and my strength
going with it.  I asked Luke to tie my handkerchief tightly round it,
but that did no good; the handkerchief was a soaked rag in no time, and
the blood still pouring.  Luke in great alarm called for Doctor Goel,
who came and ripped up my coat and shirt-sleeves, and placing a bit of
wood on my arm some distance above the elbow, fastened it there with a
bandage torn from my shirt.  This marvellously staunched the bleeding,
but I became queerly drowsy, and sat on the ground, overcome with
languor.  The doctor went from me to look at two fellows, dead, or
badly wounded, who lay in the road.

The Dutchmen were chasing the men in the river, firing now and then,
but everything was dreamlike to me, until I heard a light footstep
behind me, which I knew was Anna's.  Before I could turn round, I saw a
movement in the reeds, and then a face, the mad woman's face, glaring
at me, or at some one behind me.  The next instant she sprang from her
hiding-place, knife in hand, and I, now roused from my stupor, rose to
seize her.  I caught her in my arms, but she bore me to the ground.
She writhed and twisted; she clasped her hands round my neck, trying to
strangle me; she bit my bare shoulder; but I had just sense and
strength enough to hold her fast until I heard Luke say--

"Let go, Measter Frank--let go; I have her safe, and you're bleeding to
death."

The next thing I knew was that the vicar stood near in his old gown,
and he and everybody looked so solemn that I got the notion this was a
funeral company, and I the person they meant to bury.

"You mustn't," I whispered.  "I'm not dead."

Wine was produced in some mysterious way, and Anna held the horn to my
lips.  The draught revived me greatly, and they told me what had passed
during my fainting fit.  As soon as the crazy woman had been secured,
Luke had run to the vicarage for wine, and had ordered the sexton to
bring the bier as the handiest means of conveyance.  The vicar had
followed.  The doctor had attended to my wounds, and given instructions
for their future treatment, and now Vliet was impatient to be gone.  So
we said our adieux, and Anna's right hand lay for a moment in my left,
and my lips touched it.  Then the boat moved off, and I was carried to
the vicarage.




CHAPTER X

No one cares to read of sickness and pain (unless it may be those whose
business it is to cure them), but I am in a manner compelled to say
something of my wounds, else my story later on would be hardly
understood.  The cut in my wrist caused me much trouble by the third
day, so much that I could scarcely forbear from ripping off the
bandage.  By-and-by the pain in my hand was almost intolerable.  The
hurts in my shoulder were painful too.  The earlier wound broke out
again, and the bite inflamed greatly, and a kind of fever came upon me,
so that I grew light-headed at times, and hardly knew where I was, or
what I said.  When I was myself again, I fumed and chafed at my weak
and helpless condition, and sometimes grew frightened lest the bite of
the mad woman might communicate madness.  I could not comprehend my own
irritability and want of self-command.  The servants enraged me by
stealing in and out of my room so softly, and by speaking in sharp
whispers which went to my brain like stiletto thrusts.  Good Mr.
Butharwick, who nursed me with nigh unsleeping care, nearly drove me
crazy by bidding me not to think of subjects which disturbed me, and by
talking of matters that in nowise concerned me.  He had made some
astounding discovery about the children of Israel, and how their
destiny was written in the sky, as also were the future of the true
Church and the doom of Antichrist.  Everything could be made plain to
one who read the Bible and knew astrology, and my good tutor appeared
to think I might be soothed by hearing these mysteries expounded.  I
refrain from blasphemous language about the Holy Scriptures, but I said
things about the stars and star-gazing which hurt Mr. Butharwick
grievously.

Dick Portington watched with me one night, and in my intervals of
relief from pain, he told me how the commissioner had been carried away
more dead than alive, but vowing vengeance on those who had caused his
sufferings.  Of fights between the Dutch and the Islonians he had much
to tell; how the men of Haxey had driven off Vermuijden's men, thrown
down their embankments, filled up the drains, burned carts and tools,
and utterly destroyed their works in the south of the Isle; how an
attack had been made on Sandtoft and repelled, some of the assailants
falling into the hands of the Dutch, who had flogged them within an
inch of their lives, and then turned them loose to shift as best they
could, threatening worse punishment to the next batch of captives.
This was done by order of the new commandant, Vliet, who was in high
esteem with the Dutchmen on account of his boldness and cunning.
Vermuijden had gone away to oversee another operation in Bedfordshire,
leaving Vliet in full authority.

For the next two days I was in high fever, and my guardians refused to
give Dick another opportunity of conversing with me.  Luke was my best
nurse and companion in these days, for my stolid man was in love, and
in love with Martha, Anna's maid.  They contrived to meet somehow,
whenever I gave him permission to cross to Sandtoft, which I was never
loath to do.  If he had asked leave to go seven times a week, I should
not have said him nay.  In fact, losing count of time as I sometimes
did, by reason of weakness and wandering of mind, I would ask him if he
meant to go to-day, and he would answer, "Lord love you, Measter Frank,
an' 'twere but yesterday I fared across."  Through Luke I heard of my
love, and she sent me messages, and gave him directions about the
treatment of my hurts and as to my diet, Luke it was who told me that
her mother was an English woman, the daughter of a London merchant, who
had gone into exile for conscience sake.  Martha also was of English
parentage, the child of a servant who had accompanied the family to the
Netherlands.  "Which accounts for her pastry-making," added Luke.
Through Luke I heard that Vliet pressed his suit with ardour, Doctor
Goel seconding him; but that I had a friend at court in the maid, who
was a humble friend rather than a common servant, and hated Sebastian
with a perfect hatred.  I was surprised and perplexed to hear Sheffield
had visited Sandtoft, and struck up a friendship with Vliet.  This I
could not understand, and it disquieted me.

At the end of a fortnight I could go about a little, but the wounds in
the shoulder did not properly heal, and I recovered strength but slowly.

One day as I sat out on the lawn in front of the house, Luke near me,
busied in cleaning a gun, an old woman, with a tattered shawl over her
head and a basket on her arm, came feebly up the drive, now and then
coughing asthmatically.  In a wheezing voice she begged to be allowed
to show me the contents of her basket.  Luke gave her his stool, which
she accepted with profuse gratitude, and then asked for a drink of
water.

"Bring her a cordial, Luke," I said, as he went off to the kitchen.

As soon as he was out of hearing, the old woman said in Bess Boswell's
voice.

"Send him away again when he returns.  I must have a private word with
you."

Sure enough, now I looked narrowly at her, I recognised the eyes, but
the rest of the face was that of an aged woman.

"What is the meaning of this mummery, Bess?" I asked.

"Have you forgotten what I told you?  It is dangerous for me to be seen
speaking to you," she replied.

"No; but I can't for the life of me understand the danger," said I.

"Certainly you can't; but that does not alter the fact," answered she,
in a tone rather scornful of my sagacity, I thought.

Luke came toward us with the cordial at this point, and I bade him
leave us awhile, as the poor body had something to tell me of her
affairs.  He withdrew out of earshot, but remained within sight of us.

"Your man is quicker of apprehension than you," she said.  "He doesn't
know me, and he doesn't trust me.  He is loading his gun, and keeping a
watchful eye on me; a good servant, that.  I wish you would take a leaf
out of his book, and be on your guard against strangers.  Two months
ago I begged you to go away out of the Isle, and it is by the most
wonderful luck you are alive to-day."

"I have been in danger once or twice; I do know so much."

Bess waved her hand loftily.

"I do not speak of mobs and crazy women; your enemies are much more
formidable."

"Come now, Bess, drop this mysterious style, and tell a plain tale, if
you have one.  You mean that Sheffield owes me a grudge, and won't
stick at trifles to pay it.  I know that as well as you, and I am not
shaking in my shoes about it."

Bess laughed.  "One of your worst enemies is your confidence in bodily
strength and pluck.  Lord Sheffield is not blessed with the sharpest
wits in the world, though he is more than your match in craftiness, but
he has the help of a man as cunning as the devil."

"Do you mean the Dutchman, Vliet?" I asked.

Bess laughed again.  "The Dutchman is a bulldog, and, if you are
prudent, you will not go near his kennel.  But you have to be on your
guard against one who can intrigue.  Let me tell you there are sworn
accusations now at Castle Mulgrave that Daft Jack was your tool, and if
the poor fellow is caught he will be made to confess that he was."

"But it is a lie!" I exclaimed.

"I wonder how many lies have been confessed on the rack," retorted
Bess.  "There is a charge against you--waiting for something to
strengthen the case--of having resisted the King's authority at Thorne,
and inciting others to do so.  At the same time it is being whispered
about among the common sort that you are a traitor to the Islonian
cause, and to your father.  The Dutch are told that you are their
secret enemy, the instigator of the attacks made on them."

"But these stories are contradictory, the one of the other!"

"What does that matter?  The effect of them is that you are looked upon
with hate and disgust all round.  You were in great favour with the
people just after the Crowle flood, but they are in a different mind
to-day.  Tales are told of you in every alehouse which would be
laughable, if they were not believed.  All this is done on the chance
that your enemy may be saved the trouble of your taking off; he is
prepared to act himself, if they don't."

"But what motive can he have?" I asked, incredulously.

"To get money," she answered.

"Who is the man?"

"Before I tell you, I must have your word never to betray me--never to
tell any one else, directly or indirectly."

"I give it you."

"The man is my father."

I laughed now.  "Lord Bozzy," "cheating Bozzy," the gipsy rascal, whose
feats and pranks were a perpetual and relishing jest all over the Isle!
It was ridiculous to consider him in the light of a malignant, subtle
enemy.

Bess gave me a contemptuous smile.  "Do you happen to know that he has
stolen a horse, and sold it afterwards to the man from whom he had
stolen it?  Did you ever hear of his being entertained as an honoured
guest at the house of a magistrate, who had condemned him to the stocks
a day or two before?  Have you heard of his passing for a clergyman,
London merchant, French traveller, and a dozen other characters, among
people who knew him well, or thought they did?  And if he can take in
every dull-witted squire in the Isle just for mirth and play, what do
you suppose he can't do, when he is to gain a fortune by doing it?"

On reflection, I admitted to myself that contempt for Boswell might be
foolish, and passed at once to suspicion.  What if this girl had been
employed to frighten me away?  Her I did not suspect, but might she not
have been allowed to hear this and that, in the hope that she would
inform me, and so I might be driven out of the Isle?  A fine fellow I
should be to run for my life, because a wench cried Bugaboo!

"Well, Bess, I am infinitely obliged to you," I said; "but I am not
likely to take to flight.  If you are good enough to warn me of any
scheme you may hear of, I shall be forearmed."

"Do you suppose my father imparts his plans to me, or any one?  I may
guess his design by some direction he gives; I may divine a purpose by
watching him closely.  He doesn't talk of doing a thing, he does it."

It was curious to see the sort of pride she had in the man whose plans
she was endeavouring to thwart, pride mingled with fear.

We sat a little while in silence.  Then Bess got up to go.

"You will not heed my warning?  Oh, you are bewitched, or you would not
lose house and land, scorn a fair damsel, who would be your loving,
faithful wife, break your father's heart, risk your life, all for--an
outlandish woman!"

"I believe you honest, Bess," I rejoined; "but is all this of your own
motion?"

"And who should prompt me?" she asked.

"Nay, that I cannot guess."

"Nor ever will."  And away she went without another word.

A day or two later, my father returned, looking worn and aged, so that
my heart ached to see the change.  He, on his part, was deeply
concerned to find me weak and ailing, and sent Luke to Doncaster with a
letter to a physician there, forbidding him to return until he could
bring the doctor.  When he heard that my wounds had been got in
defending the Goels, he refrained from speech, but his looks were of
sorrow and anger both.

Late in the evening he gave to Mr. Butharwick and me an account of what
he had done to get the decision of the judges put in force against
Vermuijden, but all in vain.  At length he determined to appeal to the
King himself, whose will made null and void the sentence of the law.
He bribed some of his Majesty's attendants heavily, but could not for a
long time obtain audience.  The King was in such anxiety and excitement
about the Queen's French servants, of whom he greatly desired to be
rid, and to have them sent back to their own country, that he could
think or hear of nothing else, unless it were of some means of laying
hands on money, which he wanted sorely.  So the courtiers and servants
said.  Nevertheless, my father followed the King, who was exceedingly
restless, from one place to another, seeking a favourable occasion, and
at last found it in a village near Cambridge.  One of the King's
gentlemen, who had taken my father's money, came to him at his lodging,
reporting his Majesty to be in better humour that evening, having had
from his Grace of Buckingham a letter which satisfied him the mounseers
would soon be packed off to France.  Seeing him in this temper, the
gentleman had presented my father's petition, which the King had read,
and then signified that the petitioner might be admitted to his chamber.

"But as soon as I came into the King's presence," said my father, "I
knew, by the scowl on his face, my plea had no chance of success.  He
did not condescend to speak to me until he had told his people I was
from Lincolnshire, which Henry VIII. had declared the most disloyal
county in England, which condemnation was justified in his own
experience.  And of this rebellious county, the worst part was the Isle
of Axholme, where one of his commissioners had been vilely used of
late.  Then he went on to say that in his care for his subjects in that
barbarous corner of his dominions, he had authorized a scheme for
reclaiming many acres of soil now under water, and, pointing to me, he
said, 'This fellow has dared to defy his King by opposing our gracious
purpose, setting forth I know not what legal quibbles in the courts of
law; and when he fails in his rebellious design, actually has the
audacity to approach us in person.'  Then he tore up the paper and
threw it into the fire, and turned to me, saying, 'Go to the devil, and
thank your stars you are not helped thither by a sword through your
body.'  Whereupon I was jostled out of the sacred presence."

After Mr. Butharwick had retired, my father opened out to me on the
state of our affairs, and in a strain altogether new.  The change was
so great as to make me afraid of I hardly knew what.  He, who was used
to speak and act with so much resolution and masterfulness, now
lamented his unwisdom in taking upon him the burdensome charge of the
"solicitorship," and accused himself of wronging me thereby.  I could
scarcely believe my ears, and doubted whether I was awake or dreaming.

"I had confidence that a just cause must prevail in England, but I
ought to have perceived that everything is changed in this country.  A
King, who despises the rights of his people in general, and flouts his
Parliament, cannot be hindered of his will with a few landowners and
poor folk in Axholme, when he is in dire straits for money, and can get
it by trampling us underfoot.  In my foolish confidence I have done a
great wrong by encumbering the estate so heavily."

I knew not how to answer; babbled something about doing our utmost to
repair the mischief.

"Happily, it is possible to do that," he replied.  "There is no doubt
that Mistress Ryther and her father will welcome you as a suitor for
her hand in marriage.  You may not be inclined for matrimony just at
present, and there is no hurry, but you should lose no time in asking
the lady's promise.  That obtained, all our troubles are at an end.
And as soon as you are wedded I will go abroad, taking Butharwick with
me, leaving the bride to queen it here.  When I return, a house in
Beltoft will suffice for me.

"Unfortunately, I cannot ask Mistress Ryther to marry me," I answered,
"because I love another lady with every fibre of my body and every
thought of my heart."

My father smiled.  "You think so, Frank; and it is partly my fault.  I
ought to have turned you loose in town, sent you on the grand tour,
given you a chance to prove how often we can be in love, and how
quickly out of it again.  'Tis a malady incident to youth, a passing
fever; but while the delirium lasts, we see and converse with angels.
Change of air is a cure for it."

How I threw scorn on this scorn of love, how I protested and vowed my
love could not die, may be imagined by a lover, and no other would care
to read such matter.

My father replied, with an indulgent smile, "Yes, yes, my son, I know.
But you must see that marriage with the Dutch girl is out of the
question.  You have nothing to marry on.  If you refuse Mistress
Ryther, you are a landless, penniless man.  Even if it were otherwise,
how can you wed the daughter of a fellow who broke prison and fled his
country, sooner than take his trial for conspiracy to murder his
Prince?  A pretty family connection for the master of Temple Belwood!
You might as well propose to marry a gipsy; better indeed, for your own
people would not burn the house over your head for that, as they
certainly would, if you took a wife from the camp of the Dutch
invaders.  Besides, the girl is mated already--or as good as
mated--with a rascal who was drummed out of King Christian's army for
cheating at dice.  You see I have taken some pains to inform myself
about your Fancy and her associates."

"And who is your informant, may I ask?"

"A Frenchman, Chavatte by name, a gentleman and a man of affairs, who
came over with Vermuijden, putting much money into the business.  I met
with him at Cambridge, where he was seeking Vermuijden, as I was
seeking the Lord's Anointed.  He has withdrawn from the company for
good reasons.  For one thing, he is convinced that the plan for the
drainage is fatally defective, and Vermuijden will not hear of
alteration.  Then he has discovered that the King has sold what never
belonged to him, and has no mind to be a receiver of stolen goods, nor
does he expect that the rightful owners will ever submit to the
robbery.  And he has the strongest distaste to Vermuijden's lieutenant
and deputy.  He is trying to recover some of his money, and will
shortly go home.  You will be inclined to consider him a man of sense,
for he admires Mistress Goel's beauty, and applauds her devotion to her
father, whom he regards as lunatic, most especially because he desires
to give her in marriage to this Vliet.  'But he finds favour with the
incomprehensible sex,' Chavatte added, with his French shrug of the
shoulders."

I did not speak for some time.  A horrible doubt had crept into my
mind.  Suppose Anna's filial piety should overcome her repugnance to
Sebastian Vliet.  Suppose the fellow had reformed his conduct.  Suppose
he succeeded in gaining her consent.  If Anna were lost to me, what
mattered it to me whether I married Mistress Ryther, or a gipsy, or a
blackamoor?  If I could redeem the dear old place, and make my father
happy, was it not my duty to do so?  Always supposing that Anna could
not, or would not be my wife.  It was the first time I had given way to
despondency, and even now I do not understand what it was that plunged
me into gloom.

One thing only was clear to me, that I must see Anna without delay, and
learn whether I was to be blessed or miserable for the whole of my
life.  I could not keep before myself that I had nothing to offer for
her acceptance, or that her father might treat the offer with ridicule.
I could think of nothing but the necessity to see Anna, and hear the
word which should decide my fate.  My father said nothing to interrupt
my meditations.  Since he had been away from home, he had formed the
habit of smoking, and he now lighted his pipe and puffed silently.
When he had finished his pipe and knocked out the ashes, he said--

"I will not press you for an answer to-night; but it is to be
remembered that handsome young women, who have heaps of money, are not
as plentiful as blackberries in September."

"I will give you an answer to-morrow evening," I replied; but did not
say anything of my intention to go to Sandtoft in the morning, for I
felt certain my father would oppose it strongly.  Indeed, what with the
lightness of my head and the heaviness of my heart, it took me some
time to get upstairs and to bed.  Luke, who was accustomed to help me,
was away, and it occurred to me that if I missed him to-night, I should
miss him much more to-morrow.




CHAPTER XI

As I was about to turn in to bed, I perceived a red glare in the sky
westward, and feared it meant trouble at Sandtoft, so I lay long awake;
but at length weariness overpowered me, and I slept for some hours.  I
awoke early, and, having dressed in a slow, fumbling way--my arm being
more than usually painful--I walked out as if I sought the morning air,
taking care to give no inkling of my purpose to the servants, who were
already astir.

At that time of the year, the middle of August, there was choice of
three modes of crossing the fen.  One might pick one's way on stilts,
or with cleat-boards, but in my present weakness I dared not adventure
either method.  The third course was to take boat at Belshaw, on a
winding stream, which in the end joined the Idle a mile or so above
Sandtoft.  Luke had told me that the Idle was flowing again since the
destruction of Vermuijden's work in the south of the Isle, so I chose
the easiest, if slowest, manner of going; but when I reached the little
inn at Belshaw, there was no boat to be had.  Dame Drury told me their
boat was at the carpenter's under repair, and the flat-bottomed punt
Drury had taken out, meaning to try for half-duck and snipe, which had
begun to appear in the fen.  There was nothing for me but to await his
return, which would be early or late, according to his luck in fowling.

While the dame got ready a breakfast for me, she chanced to make
mention of her husband's cousin, who had lain at their house for a
year, crippled with a kind of palsy.  Half in curiosity, half in
compassion, I questioned her, and learned that he was about thirty
years of age, that he had inherited a moderate property on the death of
his father thirteen years ago, and had gone out to see the world,
seeking knowledge and adventure in many countries.  Some twelve months
before this time he had arrived in London, intending to visit his
friends in the Isle, and then to go to Virginia to join Captain John
Smith (who was a distant kinsman of the Drurys); but he had been
suddenly struck down by a mysterious disease, and now lay helpless in
an upper room.  On my asking whether the poor fellow would welcome a
visitor, she went to inquire, while I took my meal, and came back with
the message that he would be very glad to receive me.

At first sight my heart warmed to him, though what was the secret of
his charm for me I do not know.  Do we ever know what it is which draws
us toward another?  He had a handsome face, but his eyes only were
remarkable.  The broad brow was crowned with clusters of dark hair;
mouth and chin were hidden under moustachios and beard, but the eyes
glowed.  There was witchery in his smile, as he extended his thin hand,
saying--

"This is a day to be marked with a white stone.  I have often heard of
you, but little expected ever to see you in my den."

I gripped the hand, with a choking in my throat to see such a man a
prisoner, and said--

"If I had known, I would have come earlier."

"I thank Dame Fortune that you have come now," said he.

He had made his poor little room a wonderful place.  On the walls were
many sketches, pencilled from memory chiefly, as I came to know
afterwards, full of life and spirit.  Quaint drawings, the expression
of his humorous fancy, there were also.  A few well-thumbed books in
several languages stood at his bed's head.  On the table lay papers
covered with mathematical studies.  He followed my glance, and said--

"The hours are not so leaden-footed as you might fear.  With books and
pencil and a questioning habit of mind, one need not be idle."

"But accustomed to liberty and travel----" I began.

"And, therefore, with store of remembrances," he interrupted.  "I used
to roam the field and browse; now I lie and chew the cud.  You may
laugh when I tell you that my worst plague is the perpetual swarm of
flies.  At times their buzzing and their touch nearly madden me.  The
idlest, foulest, most impudent and vilest things on earth, no wonder
the Bible ascribes their creation to Beelzebub.  You don't happen to
know what is the proper sacrifice to offer him?  I should make it, if
he would be favourable to me, and remove his creatures from me."

"The dame would prepare you a paper to catch them."

"Don't speak of it!  She did, and the horror of it abides with me.  But
one thing I learned therefrom.  The priests are wrong with their
doctrine of everlasting torment.  Why, I could not endure the miserable
struggles of the most loathsome and detestable and worthless insects.
_A fortiori_."

"Questions of divinity are beyond me," I said, laughing.

"Whereas questions of all sorts are my occupation," he answered.

Then the conversation turned on his travels, and he talked of men and
things in nearly all the countries of Europe.  He seemed to have made
friends wherever he had been, and had something to say of the virtues
of every people.  He had seen with his own eyes and judged for himself,
and spoke with a delightful freshness.  Many a droll prank he had
played in his desire to see things from the inside, here to get into a
mosque, there to penetrate into a brigand's cave, and he told his
escapades briefly and lightly, as I had never heard man speak before in
my life.  Despite my longing to be away to Sandtoft, the time passed
quickly in his company, and we took our luncheon together pleasantly.
But when two o'clock, three o'clock struck, and Drury did not appear, I
grew restless and uneasy, and made some excuse for going out.

"As you will," said he; "but if you want only a vent for your
impatience, pace about, and swear a little.  It is long since I have
had the pleasure to watch a lover."

"And who tells you I am one?"

He laughed as I have never heard another man laugh, softly, musically.

"Oh, my friend, the name is writ all over you.  A blind beggar's card
is not so readable.  Sighs, fits of silence, eager hearkening for means
of flight--a dozen signs make it plain.  And besides, what could take a
wounded man, still ailing no little, across the fen to Sandtoft, of all
places in the world--but Love, the strongest of the most ancient gods,
venerable as Chaos and Mother Earth and the Nether Deep?"

"You speak like a votary," said I.

"Ay, of the god; not, like you, of the priestess.  The deity is one;
his ministrants are many."

To me this was a jangling and jarring note, but there came to my ears
the sound of Dame Drury's voice in grumbling welcome of her husband, so
I bade my new friend "Good day," and hurried downstairs.

I had difficulty in getting the loan of the punt.  Drury had this,
that, and the other to do to-morrow.  There was "a plenty of fowl"
about, which would fetch good prices so early in the season, and he
distrusted my assurance of return that evening; and even hinted doubt
of ever seeing the punt or me again, if he allowed me to take it to
Sandtoft, where "the Dutchees are as mad as bees when their skep has
been upset."  "Would he sell it outright?" I asked, impatient of the
waste of time in wrangling.  No; he wouldn't do that, because the price
of the punt would not cover the loss of time while a new one was being
put together.  "Take any price you please," said I, and at five o'clock
stepped into the punt, and began to pole down stream.  I could not ply
two poles by reason of the weakness of my right arm, so I got forward
but slowly.  Several times I was compelled to use both arms to the
single pole where the water was very shallow, or the weeds grew rank;
and heavy work I found it, so heavy that after an hour's toil, I was
taken with a kind of swimming in the head, and lay down in the bottom
of the punt to rest awhile.  I know not whether I fell asleep or
fainted, but when I came out of slumber or swoon, the light had faded,
and a gentle shower was falling.  I suppose the rain on my face awoke
me.  I pushed on, but so feebly that darkness overtook me before I
reached Sandtoft, for the thickening rainclouds cut off the twilight.
When I came to the settlement I got out at the first convenient spot
for landing, and, having moored the punt, walked slowly and cautiously
along the bank to find the gate.  Suddenly a lantern flashed in my
face, and my arms were seized from behind and pinioned.  My captors
hurried me forward, exchanging a few words in their own language, but
saying nothing to me.

Shortly, I was thrust into a bare room, lighted by a lamp slung from a
hook in the planking overhead, where Vliet and three others sat,
smoking, round a table, on which stood two or three square bottles,
several glasses, and a pitcher of water.  The closeness of the room
with the reek of tobacco and odour of Schiedam was choking and
sickening, and all things began to go round; but I pulled myself
together by strong effort of will, for something warned me that I must
have my wits about me here.  While Vliet and the others talked in
Dutch, one of the men loosed my bonds, and on looking down I saw my
right hand was red, and then felt a slow trickling down the arm.  Now I
understood my faintness.  My wound had broken out again, and loss of
blood had weakened me.

The man who had cut the cord which tied my arms now searched me, as if
he supposed I had weapons hidden under my clothing.  In so doing, he
stripped off my coat, and finding my shirt sleeve soaked in blood,
looked in my face narrowly, and then made some remark to Vliet, which
caused him to take the lantern from one of the men and poke it against
my nose.  He sat down after the inspection, and laughed until his face
grew purple.  Then he poured out a huge glassful of spirit, half of
which he took down at a gulp, and laughed again.  When his fit was
over, I said--

"You recognise me, I believe, Mynherr Vliet?"

He could speak English, I found, though abominably, and with a drunken
stutter.

"Oh yes, mister--devil take your name!  I know you."

"You cannot suppose that I came to Sandtoft with any ill intent."

"By heaven and hell, but I can suppose it, and be sure of it.  Thousand
devils, yes.  You are a spy, a traitor, a Judas."

Then he turned to his men, gabbling fast them in Dutch, finally issuing
an order to one of the men, which he went out to execute.

"These hurts got in defending your people should certify you, M.
Vliet," I said, pointing t my shoulder.

"Ah! you are crafty, Mister-Judas.  You fight a little in the daylight
for us, that you may plot against us in the dark.  You designing devil!"

Although I knew, looking at Vliet's countenance, in which raging hatred
was no less visible than drunkenness, that there was but a step between
me and death, I could not refrain from smiling at the character he gave
me.

"You laugh!  You will look very funny when you are hanged!" he said.

"Be sure of this," I said, speaking slowly, and as plainly as I could,
if perchance some of the Dutchmen, might have English enough to take my
meaning: "if you hang me, you will be hanged, and every man who aids
you."

I saw by the look of one of the fellows that 

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