\eoman 
 Adventurer 
 
 Georde W Goudk
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 OF Miff. MHURY. 10 AKGfUS
 
 HIS BLADE RAN THROUGH BETWEEN MY COAT AND WAISTCOAT, AND 
 THE GUARD THUMPED SORE ON MY RIBS. THEN HE WAS MINE! 
 
 Drawn by D. C. Hutchison. 
 
 (See page 40.)
 
 The 
 Yeoman Adventurer 
 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons 
 New York and London 
 
 Cbc Knickerbocker press 
 1917
 
 Tbc faitcfcerbocfeer f>rcse, ticw Borfc
 
 TO 
 
 A. D. STEEL-MAITLAND, M.P. 
 
 IN GRATITUDE AND ADMIRATION 
 
 2129730
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. TACT 
 
 I. THE GREAT JACK . . . . i 
 
 II. THE SERGEANT OF DRAGOONS . . .8 
 
 III. MISTRESS MARGARET WAYNFLETE . .16 
 
 IV. OUR JOURNEY COMMENCES . . . 23 
 V. THE ANCIENT HIGH HOUSE . . . 32 
 
 VI. MY LORD BROCTON . . . . 44 
 
 VII. THE RESULTS OF LOSING MY VIRGIL . . 52 
 
 VIII. THE CONJURER'S CAP . . . .62 
 
 IX. MY CAREER AS A HIGHWAYMAN . . 73 
 
 X. SULTAN . . . . . "83 
 
 XI. IN WHICH I SLIP . . . . 97 
 
 XII. THE GUEST-ROOM OF THE " RISING SUNJ" . 106 
 
 XIII. PHARAOH'S KINE . . . . .118 
 
 XIV. "WAR HAS ITS RISKS" . . . . 134 
 XV. IN THE MOORLANDS . , , . 148 
 
 XVI. BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE , . 163 
 
 XVII. MY NEW HAT . . . . .179 
 
 XVIII. THE DOUBLE Six . . . . . 193 
 
 XIX. WHAT CAME OF FOPPERY . . , .211 
 
 XX. THE COUNCIL AT DERBY .... 226 
 
 XXI. MASTER FREAKE KNOWS AT LAST . . 242 
 
 XXII. A BROTHER OF THE LAMP . . . 257 
 
 XXIII. DONALD . . . . . .269 
 
 XXIV. MY LORD BROCTON PILES UP HIS ACCOUNT . 282 
 
 XXV. I SETTLE MY ACCOUNT WITH MY LORD BROCTON 303 
 
 XXVI. THE WAY OF A MAID WITH A MAN . 322 
 EPILOGUE : THE LITTLE JACK . 328
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 THE GREAT JACK 
 
 OUR Kate, Joe Braggs, and I all had a hand in the 
 beginning, and as great results grew in the end out of 
 the small events of that December morning, I will set 
 them down in order. 
 
 It began by my refusing point-blank to take Kate to the 
 vicar's to watch the soldiers march by. I loved the vicar, 
 the grave, sweet, childless old man who had been a second 
 father to me since the sad day which made my mother a 
 widow, and but for the soldiers nothing would have been 
 more agreeable than to spend the afternoon with the old man 
 and his books. But my heart would surely have broken 
 had I gone. A caged linnet is a sorry enough sight in a 
 withdrawing-room, but hang the cage on a tree in a sunlit 
 garden, with free birds twittering and flitting about it, and 
 you turn dull pain into shattering agony. The vicar's little 
 study, with the rows of books he had made me know and 
 love with some small measure of his own learning and passion, 
 was the perch and seed-bowl of my cage, the things in it, 
 after my sweet mother and saucy Kate, that made life 
 possible, but still part of the cage, and it would have maddened 
 me to hop and twitter there in sight of free men with arms 
 in their hands and careers in front of them. Jack Dobson 
 would march by, the sweetness of life for Kate little dreamed 
 she that I knew it but for me the bitterness of death. Jack 
 Dobson !' I liked Jack, but not clinquant in crimson and 
 gold, with spurs and sword clanking on the hard, frost-bitten 
 road. I laughed at the idea ; Jack Dobson, whom I had
 
 2 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 fought time and time again at school until I could lick him 
 as easily as I could look at him ; Jack Dobson, a jolly enough 
 lad, who fought cheerily even when he knew a sound thrashing 
 was in store for him, but all his brains were good for was to 
 stumble through Arma virumque cano, and then whisper, 
 " Noll, you can fire a gun and shoot a man, but how can you 
 sing 'em ? " And because his thin, shadowy, grasping father 
 was a man of much outward substance and burgess for the 
 ancient borough, Jack was cornet in my Lord Brocton's newly 
 raised regiment of dragoons, this day marching with other of 
 the Duke of Cumberland's troops from Lichfield to Stafford. 
 And for me, the pride of old Bloggs for Latin and of all 
 the lads for fighting, the most stirring deed of arms avail- 
 able was shooting rabbits. So, consuming inwardly with 
 thoughts of my hard fate, I refused to go to the vicar's. 
 Mother should go. For her it would be a real treat, and 
 Kate would be the better under her quiet, seeing eyes. 
 
 " Well then," said Kate, " grump at home over your 
 beastly Virgil." Mother, who understood as only mothers 
 can, said nothing, and prepared my favourite dishes for 
 dinner. 
 
 The meal over, and the house-place ' tidied,' which seldom 
 meant more than the harassing of a few stray specks of dust, 
 Kate in her best fripperies and mother in her churchgoing 
 gown started for the vicar's. I stood in the porch and watched 
 them across the cobbled yard and along the road till they 
 dropped out of sight beyond the bridge. 
 
 Then Kate's share of these introductory events became 
 manifest. Search high, search low, there was no sign of my 
 dear, dumpy Virgil, in yellowing parchment with red edges. 
 I found Kate's cookery-book, and would have flung it through 
 the window, but my eye caught the quaint inscription on the 
 fly-leaf, in her big, pot-hooky handwriting : 
 
 " KATHERINE WHEATMAN, her book, 
 
 God give her grease to lam to cook. 
 
 At the Hanyards. 
 
 Jul. 1739." 
 
 The simple words stung me like angry hornets. Our 
 red-headed Kate was no scholar, but at any rate her reading
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 3 
 
 was more useful in our little world than mine ; for this was 
 where she learned the artistry of the dainties and devices 
 Jack Dobson and I were so fond of. And if I did not soon 
 learn to do something well, even were it only how to farm 
 my five hundred acres to a profit, Kate's cooking would really 
 require the miraculous aid suggested in her unintentional 
 and, to me, biting epigram. I put the book down, and gave 
 over the hunt for my Virgil. It would probably be useless 
 in any case, since Kate had a cunning all her own, and had 
 surely bestowed it far beyond any searching of mine. I 
 contented myself with a fair reprisal, stowing a stray ribbon 
 of hers in my breeches' pocket, and sat down to smoke. My 
 pipe would not draw, and I smashed it in trying to make it. 
 
 The tall oak clock tick-tocked on in the house-place, and 
 Jane sang on at her churning in the dairy across the yard. 
 I sat gazing at the fire, where I could see nothing but Jack 
 Dobson in his martial grandeur, and I hated him for his 
 greatness, and despised myself for my pettiness. All the 
 same it was unendurable, and it was a relief to see Joe Braggs 
 tiptoeing carefully across the yard dairywards. The rascal 
 should have been patching a gap in the hedge of Ten-acres, 
 and here he was, foraging for a jug of ale. He could wheedle 
 Jane as easily as he could snare a rabbit, but I would scarify 
 him out of his five senses, the hulk. 
 
 The singing stopped, and then the churning, and five 
 minutes later I crept up to the kitchen door, which was 
 ajar. There was my lord Joe, a jug of ale in hand, his free 
 arm round Jane's neck. How endurable these two found 
 life at the Hanyards ! I caught a fragment of their gossip. 
 
 " Be there such things as rale quanes, Jin ? " 
 
 " Of course," she replied. " There's pictures of 'em in 
 one of Master Noll's books. Crowns on their yeds, too." 
 
 " There's one on 'em down 'tour house, Jin, but she 
 ain't got no crown. But bless thee, wench, I'd sooner kiss 
 thee than look at fifty quanes." 
 
 Jane yelped as I murdered an incipient kiss by knocking 
 the jug out of his hand across the kitchen, but in kicking 
 him out of doors I tripped over a bucket of water, and 
 about half a score fine dace flopped miserably on the wet 
 floor.
 
 4 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " Dunna carry on a' that'n, Master Noll," said Joe. " I 
 only com' up t'ouse to bring you them daceys." 
 
 " And what the devil do I want with them ? " said I 
 angrily. 
 
 Joe knew me. He said, " There's a jack as big as a 
 gate-post in that 'ole between the reeds along th' 'igh bonk." 
 
 He saw the cock of my eye, and went on : "I saw 'im 
 this mornin', an' 'card 'im. 'E made a splosh like a sack o' 
 taters droppin' of! the bridge. So I just copped 'e a few 
 daceys, thinkin' as you'd be sure to go after 'im." 
 
 " Put them in some fresh water, Joe, and you, Jane, fill 
 him another jug. I'll own up to Mistress Kate for smashing 
 the other." 
 
 I fetched my rod and tackle, picked up the bucket of 
 dace, and set off across the fields to the river. The bank 
 nearer the house, and about three hundred yards from it, 
 stood from two to six feet above the water, being lowest 
 where a brick bridge carried the road to the village. The 
 opposite bank was very low, and was fringed in summer 
 with great masses of reeds and bulrushes, now withered 
 down nearly to nothing, but still showing the pocket of deep 
 water where the jack had " sploshed like a sack o' taters." 
 It was opposite the highest part of our bank the Hanyards 
 was bounded by the river in this direction and the bridge 
 was about one hundred yards down-stream to my left. In a 
 few minutes a fine dace was swimming in the gap as merrily 
 as the tackle would let him. 
 
 For an hour or more I took short turns up and down the 
 bank, just far enough from the edge to keep my cork in view. 
 If the jack was there, he made no sign, and at length my 
 sportsman's eagerness began to flag, and my eye roamed 
 across the meadows to the church spire, under the shadow 
 of which life as I could never know it was lilting merrily 
 northwards. Here I was and here I should remain, like a 
 cabbage, till Death pulled me up by the roots. 
 
 Worthy Master Walton says that angling is the con- 
 templative man's recreation, and, having had in these later 
 years much to con over in my mind, I know that he is right. 
 But it is no occupation for a fuming man, and as I marched 
 up and down I forgot all about y cork, till, with a short
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 5 
 
 laugh that had the tail of a curse in it, I noted that a real 
 gaff was a silly weapon with which to cut down an imaginary 
 Highlander, and turned again to my angling. 
 
 And at that very moment a thing happened the like of 
 which I had never seen before, and have not since seen in 
 another ten years of fishing. My rod was jerked clean off 
 the bank, and careered away down-stream so fast that I had 
 to run hard to get level with it. Here was work indeed, 
 and at that joyous moment I would not have changed places 
 with Jack Dobson. Without ado, I jumped into the river, 
 waded out, recovered the butt of my rod, and struck. 
 
 " As big as a gate-post." Joe was right. As I struck, 
 the jack came to the surface. The great stretch of yellow 
 belly and the monstrous length of vicious snout made my 
 heart leap for joy. I would rather land him than command a 
 regiment. My rod bent to a sickle as I fought him, giving 
 him line and pulling in, again, again, and again. A dozen 
 times I saw the black bars on his shimmering back as he came 
 at me, evil in his red-rimmed eyes and danger in his cruel 
 teeth, but the stout tackle stood it out. Sweat poured off 
 my forehead though I was up to the waist in ice-cold water. 
 Inch by inch I fought my way to the bank, and then fought 
 on again to get close to the bridge, where I could scramble 
 out. 
 
 Probably I was half an hour in getting him there, but at 
 last, by giving him suddenly a dozen yards of loose line to go 
 at, I was able to climb on to the bank and check him before 
 he got across to the stumps of the reeds. But here I met with 
 disaster, for in climbing up I jerked the hook of my gaff out 
 of my collar, where I had put it for safety, and it fell into the 
 stream. 
 
 " Stick to the fish," said some one behind me, " and leave 
 the hook to me." 
 
 " Thanks," said I briefly, for I was scant of breath, and 
 continued the struggle. 
 
 A woman knelt on the bank, puUed the gaff in with a 
 riding whip, plunged down a shapely hand and recovered it. 
 Then she stood behind me, watching the fight. The jack, 
 big and strong as he was, began to tire, and soon I had him 
 making short, sharp spurts in the shallow water at our feet.
 
 6 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 My new ally stood quietly on the bank, holding the gaff 
 ready for the right moment. It came : a deft movement, a 
 good pull together, and the great jack curled and bounced on 
 the bank. 
 
 " Over thirty pounds if he's an ounce ! " I cried gleefully. 
 
 " Well done, fisherman ! " she said. " It was a splendid 
 sight. I've watched you all along. When you jumped into 
 the river, I thought you were going to drown yourself. You 
 had been walking up and down in a most desperate and 
 dejected fashion." 
 
 The raillery gave me courage to look into her eyes. I 
 wondered if they were black, but decided that they were not, 
 since her hair was the colour of wheat when it is ripening for 
 the sickle and the summer sun falls on it at eve. And I, who 
 am six feet in my socks, had hardly to lower my eyes to look 
 into hers. Her face was beautiful beyond all imagining of 
 mine. I had conjured up visions of Dido enthralled of 
 ^Eneas, of Cleopatra bending Antony to her whim. But 
 the conscious art of my day-dreams had wrought no such 
 marvel as here I saw in very flesh before me. I felt as one 
 who drinks deep of some rich and rare vintage, and wonders 
 why the gods have blessed him so. And further, as small 
 things jostle big things in the mind, I knew that this was 
 the real queen that had dazzled Joe Braggs. 
 
 " What do you call it ? " she said, looking down at the 
 fish. 
 
 " A jack, or pike, madam." 
 
 1 The tyrant of the watery plains,' as Mr. Pope calls him. 
 You've heard of Mr. Pope, the poet ? " She spoke as if ' No ' 
 was the inevitable answer. 
 
 " Strictly speaking, no, madam," said I gravely, " but I 
 have read his so-called poems." She frowned. " Horace 
 calls the jack," I continued, " lupus, the wolf-fish, as one 
 may say, and a very good name too. Doubtless madam has 
 heard of Horace." 
 
 My quip brought a glint into her eyes and a richer colour 
 to her cheek. " Yes, heard of him," she said, with a trace of 
 chagrin in her voice. " And now, O Nimrod of the watery 
 plains, how far is it to the village smithy ? " 
 
 " Just under a mile, madam."
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 7 
 
 " And how long does it take to shoe a horse ? " 
 
 " How many shoes, madam ? " 
 
 Again the glint in her eyes, and this time I saw some of 
 the blue in them. " One, sir," she said shortly. 
 
 " Ten to fifteen minutes, madam." 
 
 " He's a very long time," she said under her breath. 
 
 " The smith is probably very busy to-day." 
 
 " Busy ! Why so ? " 
 
 " The dragoons may have found him much work," said I, 
 merely my way of explaining the delay. But the words 
 stabbed her. She laid a hand on my arm and cried ^gaspingly, 
 " Dragoons ! What do you mean ? Quick ! " 
 
 " The Duke of Cumberland is marching north from Lich- 
 field against the Stuart, and Lord Brocton's dragoons are in 
 the village." 
 
 " Brocton ! O God ! Brocton ! My father is taken ! 
 And by Brocton ! " She spoke aloud in her agitation, and I 
 saw that she was cut to the quick. And I rejoiced, so strange 
 is the human heart, that it was Lord Brocton's name that 
 came in anguish off her tongue. Oh for one blow at the man 
 whose father had harried mine into an untimely grave ! 
 
 In sharp, frosty air sound travels far across the meadows 
 of the Hanyards. The hills that hem the valley to the west 
 perhaps act as a sounding board. Anyhow, further inquiry 
 as to her trouble was stopped by the rattle of distant hoofs. 
 We were standing now less than a dozen paces from the 
 bridge. A straggling hedge, on a low bank, crossed flush up 
 to the bridge by a stile, cut the field off from the road. I 
 rushed to the stile, and cautiously pushed my head through 
 near the ground. Half a mile of level road stretched to my 
 right towards the village, and along it, and now less than six 
 hundred yards away, a squad of dragoons was galloping 
 towards us. The hedge was thin and leafless, and there was 
 not cover enough for a rabbit. I ran back. 
 
 " Dragoons," said I. 
 
 " After me," she replied carelessly, and I saw that danger 
 for herself left her cold. 
 
 I kicked -the great jack motionless, flung him to the foot 
 of the bank under the hedge, and the rod after him, hurried 
 her up to the stile, leaped into the water, took her in my
 
 8 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 arms, and carried her undei the bridge. In less than a 
 minute after I stopped wading, the dragoons clattered 
 overhead. 
 
 Not an hour ago I had been aching for life and adventures, 
 and here I was, up to the loins in water, with a goddess in 
 my arms. Her right arm was round my neck, and her cheek 
 so near that I felt her sweet, warm breath fanning my own. 
 As the sounds died away, I turned and looked at her face, 
 and I had my reward. Her eyes told me that she thanked 
 and trusted me. 
 
 " Well done, fisherman ! " she said for the second time. 
 
 " You're heavier than the jack," replied I, hitching her 
 as far from the water as possible before wading back. A 
 minute later I put her down on the bank with tumbled, 
 yellow hair and face flaming red. I examined her critically, 
 and cried triumphantly, " Not a stitch wet 1 " 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THE SERGEANT OF DRAGOONS 
 
 I THREW the jack across my shoulder and we started for 
 the Hanyards. Madam offered no explanations, and I 
 made no inquiries. It was obvious to me that the 
 dragoons had gone on to the little hedge ale-house, a good, 
 long mile away, where the road from the village struck into 
 a roundabout road to Stafford. Here, in the " Bull and 
 Mouth," Mother Braggs ruled by day and Master Joe by 
 night, and here beyond a doubt the stranger lady had tarried 
 while her father had gone on with the horses to the nearest 
 smithy at Milford. 
 
 There was ample time to get to the Hanyards, but still, 
 for safety's sake, we kept behind hedges as far as possible. 
 She walked ahead, and I followed behind, water oozing out 
 of my boots and breeches at every step, and the jack's tail 
 flopping against my legs. Never had I gone home from 
 fishing with such prizes. What pleased me most was her
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 9 
 
 silence. It matched the trust in her eyes. Except for 
 brief instructions as to the direction, no word passed until 
 we gained the Hanyards from the rear, and I led her into 
 the house-place unobserved by anyone. 
 
 " There is little time to talk," I began. " The dragoons 
 are certain to come here, as this is the only house between 
 the inn and the village. Your father is, you fear, a prisoner, 
 and indeed it seems the only explanation of his absence. I 
 do not ask why. I gather that there is no purpose to be 
 served by your sharing his fate." 
 
 " Free, I may be able to help him. A prisoner, I 
 should . . ." She stepped, hesitating. 
 
 " My Lord Brocton ? " said I interrogatively. For the 
 second time her face burned, and I saw in it shame and 
 distress and fear. My lord was piling up a second account 
 with me, and for humbling tliis proud beauty he should one 
 day pay the price in full. 
 
 But it was time to act. I ran to the porch and roared 
 out, " Jane ! Jane ! Where are you ? Come here quick ! " 
 
 Jane came running in from the kitchen. She stopped 
 dead with surprise when she saw my companion, and could 
 not even cackle on about the jack. 
 
 " Now, Jane, do exactly what I say. Take this lady 
 upstairs and dress her as nearly like yourself as you can. 
 It's good you are much of a height. Pack her own clothes 
 carefully out of sight. Off, quick ! " 
 
 They disappeared upstairs, and I watched the yard gate 
 with eager eyes. No dragoons appeared, and in a short 
 time madam and Jane were back in the house-place. Jane 
 had done her work well. The great lady was now a fine 
 country serving-wench, her shapeliness obscured in a home- 
 spun gown that fitted only where it touched, her feet in huge, 
 rough boots, her yellow hair plastered back off her forehead 
 and bunched into one of Jane's ' granny caps,' and indeed 
 totally hidden by the large flap thereof, which in Jane's case 
 served the purpose of " keepin' the draf out'n 'er neck- 
 hole " when she was at work in the dairy. For my share of 
 disguising, I now rubbed together some ruddle and dry soil, 
 and the mixture gave a necessary touch of coarseness to her 
 hands. Altogether she was changed out of recognition,
 
 io THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 even if, which was not the case, any of her pursuers had 
 seen her previously. 
 
 " Jane," said I, " her name is Molly Brown. She has 
 served here two years. Her mother lives at Colwich. Have 
 you both got that ? " 
 
 " Molly Brown two years mother at Colwich," said 
 madam with a smile, and Jane repeated it after her. 
 
 " Now, Molly," said I, with an answering smile, " Jane 
 will start you churning. It's an easy job. You just turn 
 a handle till the butter comes. Do not flatter yourself that 
 you'll get any butter, but I'll forgive you that. And, having 
 learned from Jane how to pretend to do it, you need not 
 churn in earnest till the dragoons ride into the yard. Listen 
 to Jane, and you, Jane, for the next ten minutes, teach the 
 lady how to talk Staffordshire fashion." 
 
 " Rate y'are, Master Noll," said Jane, who was plainly 
 bursting with the importance of her task. 
 
 " First lesson, madam," said I. ' Rate y'are,' not 
 ' Right you are ! ' It was not Mr. Pope's manner of speech, 
 but it will suit your circumstances better. Off to the dairy, 
 and leave the dragoons to me ! " 
 
 " Rate y'are. Master Noll," said madam, and, our 
 anxieties notwithstanding, we both joined in Jane's rattle 
 of laughter. 
 
 They went off to the dairy, and I began my own pre- 
 parations. I displayed the great jack in full view on the 
 table, forestalling Kate's housewifely objections by disposing 
 him on an old coat of mine, so that he should not mess the 
 table. In the house-place he looked much finer and longer 
 than in the open air, and I gloated over him as he lay there. 
 I longed to change my clothes, not so much for comfort's 
 sake as to cut a better figure in her eyes ; but I dared not run 
 the risk of not being at hand when the dragoons arrived. I 
 drew a quart jug of ale, threw most of it away, got down 
 a horn drinking-cup, drank a little, spilled some down my 
 clothes, slopped some on the table, made up the fire, and sat 
 down to wait. It was now about half-past three, the straw- 
 coloured sun was perching on the hill- tops, and darkness would 
 soon be drawing on apace. 
 
 For perhaps a quarter of an hour I sat there, living over
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER n 
 
 again the precious minutes under the bridge, when the clatter 
 of hoofs awakened me to the realities of the situation. Peep- 
 ing cautiously past the edge of the blind, I saw the dragoons 
 there were six of them ride up to the gate. Sharp orders 
 rang out, and three of the men dismounted, including him 
 who had given the orders, and came up the yard. One stayed 
 at the gate to mind the horses, and the other two trotted off 
 on the scout round the fields near the farm. 
 
 I slipped back to my chair, and let my chin drop on my 
 chest, as if I were dozing in drink. 
 
 Some one said at the porch door, " In the King's name ! " 
 I took no notice, and they crowded, jingling and noisy, into 
 the porch. Again sharp commands were given ; the two men 
 grounded their arms with a clang on the stone floor of the 
 porch, and waited there. The man in command stepped 
 forward into the firelight and said crisply, " In the King's 
 name ! " 
 
 It was idle to pretend any longer. I raised my head and 
 blinked drunkenly at him. Then I filled the horn, sang 
 thickly and with beery gusto, " Here's a health unto His 
 Majesty," and said, " Fill up and drink, whoever you are, 
 and shut the door. It's damned cold." 
 
 He had little, red, ferrety eyes, and they looked fiercely 
 at me fiercely but not suspiciously, I thought. He waved 
 my hospitality aside, and said, " You are Oliver Wheatman? " 
 
 " Oliver Wheatman of the Hanyards, Esquire, at His 
 Majesty's service to command," I replied with great gravity, 
 and filled another horn of ale. I might pretend to be drunk, 
 but I could not, unfortunately, pretend to drink, and it was 
 strongish ale. He made a motion to stop me welcome proof 
 that he believed me tipsy in fact and said, " Master Wheat- 
 man, the less drunken you are, the better you will answer 
 my questions." 
 
 " Sir," said I, draining off the horn, " I can drink and 
 talk with any man living, and, drunk or sober, I only answer 
 the questions of my friends. So get a horn off the dresser 
 I'm a bit tired fill up, and tell me what you want. D'you 
 happen to be of my Lord Brocton's regiment ? " 
 
 " I am." 
 
 " Then you'll be as drunk as me before you've finished
 
 12 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 with the Hanyards. Our ale goes to the head most damn- 
 ably quick, let me tell you. You tell my dear old butty, 
 the worshipful Master Jack Dobson, that I've caught a jack 
 half as thick and more than half as long as himself. Here 
 it be. Fetch a horn, I tell you, and drink to me and the two 
 jacks Jack Dobson and this jack beauty here." 
 
 He was getting no nearer to the object of his visit, and, 
 perhaps thinking it would be. well to humour me, he fetched 
 a horn and tried our Hanyards ale. This gave me a chance 
 of taking stock of him. 
 
 He was a thin, wiry man of middle height and middle 
 age. Such a face I had never seen. The first sight of it 
 made me suck in my breath as if I had touched the edge 
 of a razor. The bridge half of his nose had gone, or he 
 had never had it, and the lower half was stuck like a dab 
 of putty midway between mouth and eyebrows. His 
 little, beady eyes were set in large, shallow sockets, giving 
 him an owl-like appearance. A mouth originally large 
 enough, and thickly lipped like a negro's, had been extended, 
 as it seemed, to his left ear by a savage sword slash which 
 had healed very badly. He had an air of mean, perky 
 intelligence, as of one of low rank and no breeding who 
 had for many years been accustomed to cringe to the great 
 and domineer over smaller fry than himself. Some sort 
 of military rank he had, judging by his stained and frayed 
 but once gaudy jacket. He carried a tuck of unusual length, 
 stretching along his left side from heel to armpit, and a 
 couple of pistols were stuck in his belt. 
 
 He put down the horn, smacked his lips, and began : 
 
 " Master Wheatman, I am searching for a Jacobite spy 
 a woman. We took her father up at the ' Barley Mow,' 
 and I learned from a man of yours that the daughter was 
 at his mother's ale-house down the road. She is not there, 
 and left to walk to meet her father, she said. She has cer- 
 tainly not done that, and I have called to see if she is hiding 
 here or hereabouts." 
 
 " By gad, we'll nab her if she is," said I heartily. " She's 
 not been through that gate in the last half-hour, for it takes 
 me that to drink yon jug dry, and I started with it full. 
 But I'll ask the maids. Mother and our Kate are at the
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 13 
 
 parson's yonder, gaping at you chaps. I dare say you saw 
 them." 
 
 " No," said he doubtingly. 
 
 One of the men stepped out of the porch, saluted, and, 
 being bidden to speak, informed his officer that he had seen 
 Lord Brocton and Mr. Cornet Dobson talking to two ladies. 
 
 " That'd be they," I said, and going with unsteady steps 
 to the door, I vigorously shouted, " Jin, Moll, Jin, Moll, 
 come here ! They're in the dairy," I added by way of 
 explanation. 
 
 The crucial moment came. Jane and ' Moll ' scurried 
 across the yard like rabbits, but stopped at the porch door 
 with well-simulated surprise at the sight of the dragoons. 
 
 " Gom, I thawt 'e'd set the house a-fire," said Jane 
 thankfully, addressing the company at large, and she bravely 
 bustled through and shrilled at me, "At it again, when 
 your mother's out ; y'd better get off to bed afore she comes 
 in. She'll drunk yer." 
 
 Jane's acting was so much better than mine that I 
 nearly lost my head at being thus crudely accused before 
 ' Moll/ but she went on remorselessly, addressing the 
 dragoon, " Dunna upset him for God's sake, Master Squaddy. 
 'E'm a hell-hound when 'e'm gotten a sup of beer in 'im." 
 
 " Don't trouble, my good girl. I'm used to his sort. 
 Leave him to me and answer my questions. The truth or 
 the jail, my girl." 
 
 " Yow," sniffed Jane, " he'd snap yow in two like a carrot. 
 Bed's best place for 'im. He's as wet as thatch with his 
 silly jacking." 
 
 " Jane," said I, " never mind me. I'm neither dry 
 enough nor drunk enough to go to bed yet. Captain here 
 wants to ask you and Moll some questions. Stop clacking 
 at me like a hen at a weasel and listen to him." 
 
 Jane went through the ordeal easily, appealing to ' Moll ' 
 for verification at every turn, and so cleverly that the latter 
 appeared to be as much under examination as herself. 
 Moreover, Jane stood square in the firelight, but so as to 
 keep ' Moll ' shouldered behind the chimney in comparative 
 gloom. They'd been churning all afternoon, the butter 
 was there to be seen, stacks of it ; nobody had been in or
 
 14 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 near the yard ; the gate had never clicked once, and nobody 
 could open it without being heard in the dairy. She over- 
 whelmed the dragoon with her demonstrations of the im- 
 possibility of anybody coming up the yard without her or 
 ' Moll ' knowing it. 
 
 " That's all right, Jane," said I, at length. " But she 
 could easily have got into the house or into the stables 
 without you or Moll seeing her. Let's all have a look for 
 her. Unless she's small enough to creep into a rat-hole, 
 we'll soon find her." 
 
 Sergeant Radford to give him his name and rank, 
 which I learned later from Jack Dobson agreed to this, 
 and in my joy at knowing that the ordeal was over, I was 
 on the point of forgetting that I was drunk till I caught 
 the clear eyes of madam fixed in warning on me. Jane 
 acted as leader to the two dragoons in overhauling the barns 
 and stabling, while ' Moll,' the sergeant, and I searched 
 the house as closely as if we were looking for a lost guinea. 
 Of course our efforts were futile, slow as we were so as not 
 to outpace my drunken footsteps, and careful as we were 
 so as to satisfy the keen eyes of the sergeant, who was very 
 evidently on no new job so far as he was concerned. ' Moll ' 
 too seemed jealous of Jane's laurels, and went thoroughly 
 into the business. She and the serjeant peeped together 
 under beds and into closets, and she laughed brazenly at 
 certain not very obscure hints of his as to the great services 
 I should render to the search-party if I kept my eye on the 
 house-place. She even said, " Master Noll, don't 'e think 
 as 'ow th' ale be gettin' flat downstairs ? It wunna be wuth 
 drinkin' if y' ain't sharp." 
 
 The result was, that in about half an hour a thoroughly 
 satisfied and rather tired assembly filled the house-place, 
 for the two scouts rode up to the porch with the news that 
 they, too, had found no trace of the fugitive. With the 
 sergeant's leave I sent the five dragoons into the kitchen with 
 the two maids to have a jug of ale apiece, while he stayed 
 with me in the house-place, to crack a bottle of wine. 
 
 I hoped, but in vain, that he would tell me news of the 
 stranger's father, but he was too wary for that, and I did not 
 dare to ask him. He made close inquiries as to the lie of the
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 15 
 
 land hereabouts, and I pointed out that there was a field- 
 path leading plainly to the village from the other side of the 
 bridge and coming out at an obscure stile at the back of the 
 " Barley Mow." The spy might have taken that and become 
 alarmed. She could then avoid the village by another plain 
 path, and so get ahead of the troops on the Stafford road. 
 
 " But what for ? Who's to help her there, Master 
 Wheatman ? " 
 
 " Ask me another, Captain," said I. " But a wise 
 woman would know where to find friends, and Stafford's 
 full of papishes, burn 'em ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 " There's Bulbrook and Pippin Pat and Ducky Bellows ; 
 there's old sack-face, the parson there, as good as a papist, 
 very near. You keep your eyes on those big houses in the 
 East Gate. As for me, look at that back and breast and good 
 broad-sword there. Damn me if I don't rub 'em up and 
 come and have a ding with 'em at these rebels. On Naseby 
 Field they were, Captain, long before your time and mine, 
 but they did good work against these same bloody Stuarts. 
 Crack t'other bottle, there's a good fellow. I'm dry with 
 talking and wet with fishing, and it'll do me good." 
 
 I pressed him to stay and ' have a good set to,' but he 
 refused, and after drinking enough to keep me dizzy for a 
 week, he nipped out and ordered his men to horse. I walked 
 to the gate with him. He thanked me for my help and good 
 cheer, and said it was quite clear that the spy was nowhere 
 in or near the Hanyards. I renewed my greetings to Cornet 
 Dobson and even sent my respects to his lordship. Off they 
 rode, and it was with a thankful heart that, remembering 
 my happy condition in time, I stumbled back up the yard 
 to the house-place, where madam and beaming Jane were 
 awaiting me.
 
 16 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 JANE had taken the lady back to the house-place and 
 was hovering around her, with little of the grace of a 
 maid-of-honour to be sure, but with a heartiness and 
 zeal that more than atoned for any lack of style. From 
 mother's withdra wing-room I fetched our chief household 
 god, a small ancient silver goblet, and, filling it with wine, 
 offered it to the stranger with what I supposed, no doubt 
 wrongly, to be a modish bow. She drank a little, and then, 
 at my urging, a little more. 
 
 " Madam," I said, " I think you do not need to be 
 ' Molly Brown ' any longer. Yon dragooner is quite certain 
 that you are not here, and we can safely take advantage of 
 his opinion. As for you, Jane, you've done splendidly, and 
 I heartily thank you." I re-filled the goblet and handed it 
 to Jane, saying, " Drink, Jane, to madam's good luck." 
 
 The honest girl blushed with joy at my words, and as for 
 drinking wine out of the famous silver goblet of the Han- 
 yards such a distinction, as she conceived it, was reward 
 enough for anything. 
 
 " Thanks are payment all too poor for what you have 
 done, sir," said madam, " and any words of mine would 
 make them poorer still. But, sir, I do thank you most 
 heartily. And you, too, Jane, have done me splendid service. 
 You are as brave and clever as you are bonny and pretty." 
 
 " Madam," said I, bowing low, " you are too kind to my 
 services, which have, indeed, been rather crudely performed." 
 
 " Not so," she replied, " but with shrewd, ready wit and 
 certain judgment. I cannot imagine myself in a tighter 
 corner than at the bridge, and your device had the effective 
 simplicity of genius. Your plan here was, to be sure, 
 commonplace, but it, too, required caution and good acting, 
 and you and Jane supplied both. It was nicer than popping 
 me into some musty priest's hole, though I expect this ancient 
 building has one."
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 17 
 
 I looked at the wall as half expecting the sword of Captain 
 Smite-and-spare-not Wheatman to rattle to the ground under 
 this awful insinuation. 
 
 " The only use our family has found for priests, madam," 
 I said, " has been, I fear, to hunt them like vermin. As a 
 Wheatman of the Hanyards, I'm afraid I'm a degenerate." 
 
 " You'll not even be that much longer if I keep you from 
 getting into some dry clothes. And, if Jane is willing, I 
 will make myself myself. I would fain be on." 
 
 With a sweet smile and a gracious curtsy, she followed 
 the ready Jane upstairs. 
 
 I removed all traces of what had taken place, and carried 
 my precious jack into the pantry, where I hung him in safety. 
 He should be set up by Master Whatcot of Stafford as a 
 trophy and memento in honour of this great day. I then 
 hurried off to my room to attend to my own appearance, 
 and indeed I needed it, for I was caked with mud up to my 
 knees and soaking wet up to my waist. For the first time 
 in my life I was grieved to the bone at the inadequacy of my 
 wardrobe, and even when I had donned my Sunday best my 
 appearance was undoubtedly villainous from the London 
 point of view. I feathered myself as finely as my resources 
 permitted, but it was a homely, uncouth yeoman that raced 
 downstairs and awaited her coming. I drew the curtains, 
 lit the candles, kicked the fire into a blaze, and built it up 
 with fresh logs. 
 
 It would be impossible for me to set down the hubbub 
 of thoughts and ideas that filled my mind. I had been 
 plunged into a new world, and floundered about in it pretty 
 hopelessly, I can tell you. The days of knight-errantry 
 had come over again, and chance, mightier even than King 
 Arthur, had commanded me to serve a sweet lady in distress. 
 But I had had no training, no preliminary squireship, in which 
 I could learn how things were done by watching brave and 
 accomplished knights do them. I had lived among the 
 parts of speech, not among the facts of life. I could hit a 
 bird on the wing, snare a rabbit, ride like a saddle, angle for 
 jack and trout, strike like a sledge-hammer, swim like a fish 
 and that was all. I knew, too, every turn and track and tree 
 for miles round ; and that might be something now, and
 
 i8 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 indeed, as will be seen, turned out my most precious accom- 
 plishment. Some people said I was as proud as Lucifer, 
 others that I was as meek as a mouse, and I once overheard 
 our Kate tell Priscilla Dobson, Jack's vinegary sister, that 
 both were right which confounded me, for our ' Copper 
 Nob,' as I used to call her, was a shrewd little woman. Still, 
 such as I was, the stranger lady should have me, an she 
 would, as her squire, to the last breath in my body. Only 
 let me get out of my cabbage-bed, only give me a man's work 
 to do, and T would ask for no more. Neither for love nor 
 for liking would I crave, but just for the work and the joy 
 of it. 
 
 The yard gate clicked, and a moment later mother and 
 Kate came in. 
 
 " Oh, Noll, it's been grand ! " burst out Kate. " I wish 
 you'd been there. There were hundreds upon hundreds of 
 soldiers, horse and foot, and guns and wagons without end. 
 Lord Brocton was there, and Sir Ralph Sneyd, who is just 
 a duck, and a nasty-looking major with his face all over 
 blotches. And they saw us, and crowded into the vicar's 
 to talk to us." 
 
 " And what about Jack Dobson ? " 
 
 " Oh, Oliver, what have you got your best clothes on for ? " 
 
 " Because I got wet through catching a great jack. But 
 never mind my best clothes. How did Jack look in his 
 uniform ? " 
 
 " A lot better than Lord Brocton, or anyone else there, 
 if you must know," she said, jerking the words at me, with her 
 cheeks near the colour of her hair. 
 
 " Can he talk sense yet ? " 
 
 " He talked like the modest gentleman he is," said my 
 mother, " and looked nearly as handsome as my own boy. 
 He sent his loving greetings to you, and would fain have come 
 to see you but his duties would not allow of it." 
 
 Of course my gibes at Jack were all purely foolish and 
 jealous, and, moreover, I could now afford to be truthful ; so 
 I said, " If Jack doesn't do better, as well as look better, 
 than my Lord Brocton, I'll thrash him soundly when he gets 
 back. But he will. He's a rare one is Master Jack, and by a 
 long chalk the pluckiest soul, boy or man, I've ever come
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 19 
 
 across. And he'll learn sense, of the sort he wants, as fast 
 as anybody when the time comes." 
 
 " Of course the lad will," said mother, taking off her long 
 cloak, and Kate, when mother turned to hang it on its accus- 
 tomed hook, gave a swift peck at my cheek with her lips, 
 and whispered, " You dear old Noll ! " 
 
 All this time I had been listening with strained ears for 
 footsteps on the stairs. Now I heard them, and waited 
 anxiously. The door opened, and Jane came in, upright 
 and important. She curtsyed to my mother, announced, 
 " Mistress Margaret Waynflete," and my goddess came into 
 the room. 
 
 Straight up to my mother she walked, a poor word to 
 describe her sweet and stately motion, et vera incessu patuit 
 dea, as the master has it, curtsied low and nobly to her 
 and said, " Mistress Wheatman, I am a stranger in distress, 
 and should have been in danger but for your son, who has 
 served me and saved me as only a brave and courteous gentle- 
 man could." 
 
 I had ever loved my mother dearly, but I loved her 
 proudly now, for the greatest dame in the land could not have 
 done better than this sweet, simple mother of mine. Without 
 surprise or hesitation, she took Mistress Waynflete's hands 
 in her own, and said, " Dear lady, anyone in distress is wel- 
 come here, and Oliver has done just as I would have him do. 
 And this is my daughter, Kate, who will share our anxiety 
 to help you." 
 
 And then I w?~ proud of our Kate, Kate with the red hair 
 and the milk-white face, the saucy eye and the shrewd 
 tongue, Kate with the tradesman's head and the heart of 
 gold. She shook madam warmly by the hand, and led her 
 to my great arm-chair in the ingle-nook as to a throne that 
 was hers of right. 
 
 Thus was Mistress Waynflete made welcome to the 
 Hanyards. 
 
 Mother and Kate took their accustomed seats on the 
 cosy settle beside the hearth. I sat on a three-legged stool 
 in front of the fire, and Jane flitted about as quietly as a 
 bat, laying the table for our evening meaL 
 
 Never had the house-place at the Hanyards looked so
 
 20 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 fair. The firelight danced on the black oak wainscot which 
 age and polishing had made like unto ebony, and the row 
 of pewter plates on the top shelf of the dresser glimmered 
 in their obscurity like a row of moons. Our special pride, 
 a spice-cupboard of solid mahogany, ages old, glowed red 
 across the room, and from the neighbouring wall the great 
 sword and back-and-breast with which Smite-and-spare-not 
 Wheatman, Captain of Horse, had done service at Naseby, 
 seemed to twinkle congratulations to me as one not un- 
 worthy of my name. Not an unsuitable frame, perhaps, 
 this ancient, goodly house-place, for the beautiful picture 
 now in it, on which I looked as often as I dared with furtive 
 eyes of admiration. 
 
 She told her story with simple directness. Her father's 
 name was Christopher Waynflete, a soldier by profession, 
 who had seen service in many parts of the Continent and had 
 attained the rank of Colonel in the Swedish army. Her 
 mother she had never known, for she had died when Mistress 
 Margaret was but a few months old, and her father had 
 maintained an unbroken reticence on the subject. Some 
 six months ago, Colonel Waynflete had returned to England 
 to settle, desiring to obtain some military employment, a 
 plan which his long service and professional knowledge seemed 
 to make feasible. In London he made the acquaintance of 
 the Earl of Ridgeley, to whom, indeed, he bore a letter of 
 introduction from a Swedish diplomat in Paris. Through 
 the Earl he had met Lord Brocton, the Earl's only son and 
 heir. The Colonel's hope of employment in the army had 
 not been realized, and this and certain other reasons, which 
 she did not specify, had embittered him against the Govern- 
 ment. Not having any real allegiance to King George, 
 whom he had never served, and who now refused his services, 
 he easily entered into the plans of certain influential Jacobites 
 in London whose acquaintance he had made. Three days 
 previously he had set out from London to join Prince Charles. 
 For certain reasons (again she did not give details) she was 
 unwilling to be separated from her father, at any rate not 
 until circumstances made it necessary for them to part, and 
 then the plan was that she should go to Chester, with which 
 city she was inclined to think her father had some old con-
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 21 
 
 nexion, and stay there with the wife of a certain cathedral 
 dignitary of secret but strong Jacobite inclinations. Colonel 
 Waynflete's connexion with the Jacobite cause had, natur- 
 ally, been kept secret, but she was almost certain that Lord 
 Brocton had discovered it through a certain spy and toady 
 of his, one Major Tixall. 
 
 " Pimples all over his face ? " broke in Kate. 
 
 " Yes," said Mistress Waynflete, with a little shudder. 
 
 " He was in the village this afternoon with Lord Brocton," 
 returned Kate. 
 
 " Peace, dear one," said mother, " our turn is coming. 
 Be as quiet as Oliver." 
 
 " Oliver, mother dear, hasn't seen Major Tixall, whose 
 face is enough to make an owl talk, let alone a magpie like 
 me." 
 
 Her right ear was near enough to me, the stool being 
 big and I bigger, so I pinched the pretty little pink shell, 
 and whispered in it, " Shut up, Kit, and think of Jack," 
 which effectually silenced her. 
 
 Mistress Waynflete had little more to tell. They had 
 travelled rapidly, avoiding Coventry and Lichfield, where 
 the royal forces had assembled, but bending west so as to 
 get by unfrequented roads to Stafford, and so on to the main 
 north road along which the Prince was now reported to be 
 marching. Just outside the " Bull and Mouth " her horse 
 had cast a shoe. Leaving her to rest in the ale-house, the 
 Colonel had gone on with the horses to the nearest smithy 
 at Milford. He was quite unaware of the northward move- 
 ment of troops from Lichfield, and was under the impression 
 that he was now well beyond the danger zone. We had heard 
 from the serjeant of his capture. 
 
 Kate, at mother's request, took up the tale here. The 
 road past the Hanyards to the village enters the main road 
 abruptly, and clumps of elms prevent anyone travelling 
 along it from seeing what is happening in the village. The 
 vicarage is opposite the smithy and the inn, and when mother 
 and Kate got there, only a few dragoons were about. They 
 watched .the Colonel ride up, leading his daughter's horse, 
 and saw him turn round at once and attempt to go back 
 as soon as he caught sight of the dragoons ; but a larger
 
 22 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 body, under the command of Major Tixall, cantered in at the 
 moment and, trapped between the two bodies, the Colonel 
 had been compelled to surrender. He was kept until my 
 Lord Brocton's arrival nearly an hour later, and had then 
 been sent on to Stafford under a strong guard. 
 
 This was the only fresh piece of information that was of 
 any importance. There is a jail at Stafford, and no doubt the 
 Colonel was by now lodged in it. 
 
 " I fear that my views, or at any rate my father's views, 
 make me a dangerous guest," said Mistress Waynflete, 
 " though your kindness has made me a welcome one." 
 
 " Madam," I said coldly, " the only politics I know is that 
 my Lord Brocton is fighting against the Stuart, and if by 
 fighting for the Stuart I can get in a fair blow at my Lord 
 Brocton, I fight for the Stuart." 
 
 " Oliver," said mother, " it is wrong I say nothing about 
 its wisdom to choose sides in such matters on grounds of 
 personal enmity." 
 
 " Lord Brocton's a beast," said Kate shortly. 
 
 Mistress Waynflete had turned a richer colour at the 
 mention of Brocton's name, but at Kate's words she became 
 scarlet, and for that I vowed I would knock him on the head 
 as ruthlessly as if he were a buck rabbit as soon as I got the 
 chance. 
 
 She recovered and continued her story, but as it only 
 concerned my share in the day's doings, it is unnecessary to 
 repeat it here. She told it, however, in such kind terms, 
 that I made an end to my discomfort by going to fetch the 
 great jack for mother and Kate to look at. When returning, 
 however, I could not help hearing Kate say to Mistress Wayn- 
 flete, " Without a ' by your leave ' ? " 
 
 " As indifferently as if I had been a bag of flour," was the 
 cool reply. And I had dithered like an aspen leaf ! 
 
 " I suppose he half drowned you ? " 
 
 " On the contrary, there was not a wet stitch on me." 
 
 " Oliver," added my mother, " has not many things to do 
 that are worth his doing, but what he finds he does well." 
 
 " Such as catching jack," said I, staggering in with my 
 heavy load. It was admired unstintingly, and was indeed 
 worthy of all praise.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 23 
 
 " Supper is ready, mam," said Jane ; " and Joe says he 
 knowed it wor as big as a gate-post." 
 
 " And where is Joe ? " 
 
 " In the kitchen, Master Noll." 
 
 " Give him a good supper, not much ale, and that small, 
 and tell him to stop there. I shall want him." Then, turn- 
 ing to Mistress Waynflete, I went on : " There's one way, and 
 only one, into Stafford that's perfectly safe to-night. Joe 
 and I will row you there. Now, mother, I'm hungrier than 
 the great jack ever was." 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 OUR JOURNEY COMMENCES 
 
 I HAVE already said that the river was the boundary of 
 the Hanyards on the side towards the village. About a 
 hundred yards above the pocket of deep water where the 
 jack had lain, I had built a little covered dock, and here I 
 kept a craft, half boat and half punt, which I used for my 
 fishing, and in which mother and Kate could lie on cushions 
 while I rowed them on the river on warm summer nights. 
 It was heavy and ungainly, but very comfortable, and as safe 
 as the ark. 
 
 Joe received the information that he was to row to 
 Stafford as cheerfully as an invitation to a jug of beer, and 
 went off whistling to get the boat ready. 
 
 Everything that care could suggest was done for Mistress 
 Waynflete's comfort. Jane carried down to the boat two 
 huge stone beer bottles, rilled with boiling water. Mother 
 insisted on madam taking her thick hooded cloak, shaped 
 like a fashionable domino, and covering her from head to 
 ankles. Kate slipped into my pocket a pint flask of her 
 extra special concoction of peppermint cordial, the best 
 possible companion on a night like this. Jane came back and 
 returned again laden with rugs and cushions, and soon reported 
 that the boat was ready.
 
 24 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 Mother and Kate, with Jane behind them, came to the 
 garden gate to bid us farewell. Little was said, for Mistress 
 Waynflete was too moved by their kindness to say much, 
 and I was too preoccupied. Madam kissed them all in turn 
 and murmured a good-bye. I kissed mother and Kate, and 
 they wished me a good voyage and a safe return. We turned 
 our faces riverward and started. 
 
 It was now nearly eight o'clock. The night was pitch- 
 dark, the sky star-studded and moonless. It was freezing 
 hard, the keen air stung our faces, the tiniest twig was 
 finger-thick with hoar-frost, and the grass crunched under 
 our feet at every step. I went ahead as guide, and in five 
 minutes we arrived at the dock, where Joe, the boat out, 
 cushioned and trim for the voyage, was vigorously slapping 
 his hands crosswise round his waist to keep them warm. 
 He held the boat up to the bank, I stepped in, handed in 
 Mistress Waynflete, bestowed her with all possible comfort, 
 settled by her side, and took the ropes. Then Joe, clambering 
 in, pushed off and the voyage began. 
 
 It was up-stream, but fortunately the current was gentle, 
 though there was a fair amount of water coming down. 
 There was, or rather would have been on an ordinary night, 
 no danger of discovery, since the river was half a mile from 
 the main road at our starting-place, and ran still farther 
 away from it for nearly two miles. Then came the one 
 possible danger-spot on such a night as this, with the road 
 occupied by troops on the march. A long bend in the 
 river took it so close to the road that the yard of a wayside 
 inn ran right down to the water. If we got safely past 
 this, all danger would be over till we ran sheer up to the 
 ruined wall of the town. The moon would not rise for two 
 hours, so there was ample time for our row of about five miles. 
 
 " I trust you are comfortable, madam ? " I said. 
 
 " Comfortable and warm and cosy," she replied. " But 
 for my fears for my father I should even be happy, for it 
 has never before been my lot, and I have wandered far 
 and wide over half Europe, to experience such and so much 
 kindness in one day from perfect strangers." 
 
 " I am, indeed, happy in my mother and sister. They 
 are pearls of great price."
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 25 
 
 " None better in all Staff ordsheer," said Joe. 
 
 " You have rendered me a greater service than you 
 know of, and I must not let you leave yourself out." To 
 hide a note of wistfulness in her voice, she added mischiev- 
 ously, ' Must I, Joe ? " 
 
 " Yow could find wus'n' Wheatman o' th' 'Anyards," 
 said Joe, with sturdy precision of praise. 
 
 " Is he really a hell-hound, Joe, when he's got a sup of 
 beer in him ? I've no clear notion what a hell-hound is, 
 but clearly it means something as bad, say, as a janissary 
 the worst animal I ever came across." 
 
 " Sup o' beer in 'im," snorted Joe contemptuously. 
 " He dunna really know what beer is, my lady. It's a 
 grand thing is beer, if y'll only tak' enough of it to do y' 
 good, but there's no vartue in half a pint of it. I've told 
 'im that lots of times. But it's God's truth, my lady, 'e 
 dunna want no beer, dunna Master Noll, to mak 'im 'it 
 like the kick of a 'oss. I on'y brought 'im a few daceys 
 up t'ouse this mawnin', an' " 
 
 " You row harder, Joe, and yawp less," said I, interrupting 
 him. " Between you and Jane I shan't have a rag of 
 character left." 
 
 " Sup o' beer in him," he growled, and spat loudly on 
 his hands. Joe looked at all men as potential customers 
 of the " Bull and Mouth," and judged them accordingly. 
 
 " I know the worst about you now, Master Wheatman, 
 and by way of providing you with a less embarrassing topic 
 of conversation, you might tell me what we shall do when 
 we get to Stafford." 
 
 " We are going to Marry-me-quick's." 
 
 She started so abruptly that I laughed outright, and 
 Joe rumbled like an overloaded wagon. I explained. 
 
 " We shall approach the town on the south side where 
 the wall comes down to the river. ' Marry-me-quick ' is 
 not, as you seem to suppose, a disagreeable process, but 
 an agreeable old woman who lives in a cottage which backs 
 on to the river. Every schoolboy in the town knows her 
 by that name, which is also the name of a kind of toffee 
 she makes, and by the sale of which she earns a modest 
 living. I cannot tell you how the name originated, but
 
 26 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 there it is. I went to the grammar school in the town, 
 and in my time I must have bought and consumed some 
 hundredweights of her ' marry-me-quick.' In her tiny 
 cottage you may rest in safety while I hunt up Jack Dobson 
 and learn what has been done with your father." 
 
 " An' if I'd got a shilling," said the irrepressible Joe, 
 " for every pat of butter I've taken owd Marry-me-quick, I'd 
 I'd " 
 
 He seemed lost for words, so I assisted him, and paid him 
 back at the same time, by saying, " Pluck up courage enough 
 to speak to Jane." 
 
 " That's rate, Master Noll." 
 
 " Is Jane so very fond of money, Joe ? " asked Mistress 
 Waynflete curiously. 
 
 " No," said Joe. " She ain't grasping, ain't Jin. She 
 told me t' nate, she c'd 'ave 'ad a mint of money if she'd 
 liked, but she wouldna tak' it. Said it would 'a' burnt 'er 
 fingers. ' More fool yow,' says I ; ' it'd 'a' soon gotten cowd 
 weather like this'n.' But Jin's all rate. Er'll never bre'k 
 'er arm at church door, wunna Jin." 
 
 I explained to Mistress Waynflete that a woman who 
 broke her arm at the church door was a housewifely maiden 
 who became a slatternly housewife after marriage. " There's 
 no fear of Jane doing that," she replied ; " she's as good as 
 the guineas she would not take." 
 
 For a space silence fell on us. All my attention was 
 required to keep the boat clear of the banks, for the little 
 river turned and twisted through its meadows like a hunted 
 hare. There was only the starlight to steer by, but I had 
 fished every yard of the river, and knew it so well that I gave 
 Joe a clear channel to row in. Not a sound jarred on the 
 rhythmic purr of the oars in the rowlocks and the gentle 
 lapping of the stream against the bow. This day had God 
 been very good to me. This was life as I would have it ; 
 work to do for brain and brawn, and a woman to do it for 
 who was worth the uttermost that was in me. Romance 
 had flushed the drab night of my life with a rosy dawn, and 
 my heart was lifted up within me. If it faded away, there 
 would at least be the memory of it. But it might not fade. 
 I was under no illusions as to the stiffness of my task. I
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 27 
 
 was matched against the powers that be, against my Lord 
 Brocton, whose ability to work this maiden ill was increased 
 a thousandfold by his military authority. I saw my way 
 into Stafford, and I saw no more, not even my way out of 
 it, and least of all my way out of it with the Colonel rescued 
 and restored to his daughter. Mistress Waynflete had been 
 so determined in her decision to follow her father that perhaps 
 she had some plan in mind. She said nothing if she had, and 
 if she had, it would, I supposed, depend on her woman's 
 power of influencing Brocton. The future was as black as 
 the outlook along the river, but I faced it eagerly. 
 
 She broke the silence : " The last boat I was in was a 
 gondola. It was on a perfect night in a Venetian June, the 
 sky a sapphire sprinkled with diamonds, the warm, scent- 
 laden air filled with murmurings and snatches of song. And 
 there was no danger." 
 
 " Romance, perchance," said I. 
 
 " You cannot have a one-sided romance. Romance is an 
 atmosphere breathed by two, not an emotion felt by one. 
 To be sure, he was the most appallingly in earnest lover woman 
 ever had. He wept for a kiss with his fingers twiddling on 
 the hilt of his stiletto. Dear heart, these Italians ! " 
 
 " I should like to meet his countship," said I energeti- 
 cally. 
 
 " Yes, he was a count, with a pedigree as long as the 
 Rialto, and he had not two silver piastres to rub against each 
 other. He was the handsomest man I have even seen. 
 Fortunately, we left Venice before he had quite decided that 
 it was time to dig his knife into me." 
 
 " You speak lightly of your danger, madam," I said 
 coldly. 
 
 " A hot-blooded Italian with a stiletto in his hand is a 
 much more desirable creature, let me tell you, than a cold- 
 blooded Englishman with the devil in his heart. That fiery 
 little count, conceited and poverty-stricken, did at any rate 
 pay me the compliment of thinking for at least a fortnight 
 that I was a patch of heaven fallen in his way, whereas to 
 your cold-livered English lord I am no more than an appe- 
 tizing dish." 
 
 She was not speaking lightly now, but with cold, concen-
 
 28 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 trated anger. I remembered the reticencies of her statement at 
 the Hanyards, and began to see dimly some of the connecting 
 links in her story. My Lord Brocton's character was well 
 enough known to be the subject of common talk at our 
 market ordinaries. My very manhood shamed me in the 
 presence of this queenly woman, marked down by a titled 
 blackguard as his quarry, and I sat still, fists tightly clenched 
 on the tiller-ropes, and said nothing, waiting for her to speak 
 again. 
 
 " I have seen to-day, Master Wheatman," she said, " a 
 sight I have never seen before a beautiful English maiden 
 growing up to womanhood in the calm and safety of an English 
 country home. You will be tempted, I know, to envy me 
 my wanderings, my experiences, my freedom, but, believe 
 me, I would rather be your sweet Kate in the quiet of the 
 Hanyards." 
 
 " It isn't as quiet as it might be when Jack's about," said 
 I, seeking to change the current of her thoughts. Then I had 
 to tell her all about Jack, and our boyish escapades and fight- 
 ings and friendings, and because I had earlier in the day 
 thought evil of dear Jack, I now could say nothing good 
 enough about him. 
 
 It was time to relieve Joe at the oars. At first he would 
 not agree, for, he said, he'd been " lagging a bit during the 
 day 'long o' them squaddies," and wanted to put in a day's 
 work. 
 
 " You will, before you've done, Joe, for you've got to 
 pull the boat back. So have a swig of beer and we'll change 
 over. And madam shall acknowledge the virtues of our 
 Kate's peppermint cordial." 
 
 Joe shipped his oars and reached out for his bottle of beer. 
 I got out the flask and said in a sing-song voice : " Take two 
 gallons of the best Hollands money can buy, and add thereto, 
 first, four pounds of choice Barbados sugar, and, secondly, 
 two bushels of freshly gathered leaves of the plant pepper- 
 mint. Steep together for a whole moon, stirring the con- 
 coction every four hours during the daytime, and as often 
 as you wake o' nights. Strain through a piece of linen, if 
 you've got one ; if not, do what our Kate did this year, use 
 a fair maiden's silk stocking. The result is a drink fit for the
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 29 
 
 gods, and, indeed, one which may even be offered to god- 
 desses. Drink, madam ! " 
 
 She was laughing merrily before I had finished. " Kate's 
 stocking sounds the most innocent ingredient in it, Master 
 Wheatman, but I must try her skill in brewing." 
 
 She did so, and pronounced it excellent but strong. I tried 
 it too, rather more copiously, I confess. Indeed, it was good, 
 but to me, I know, the charm of the cordial this time lay in 
 the thought of the rich red lips that had touched the flask 
 before mine. 
 
 Joe and I then changed places, and I kept hard at the 
 oars until we came to the reach which ran close up to the 
 " Why Not." Here Joe resumed the oars and I the ropes. 
 
 " This is the only danger-spot," I said. " Yonder are 
 the lights of the ale-house. On an ordinary night there 
 would be no one about, even if it mattered if there were, but 
 to-night, when it does matter, there are thousands of soldiers 
 on the march, and there is some risk of our being observed." 
 
 In another five minutes or so we heard faint snatches of 
 song and bursts of applause, and shouting and laughing. The 
 " Why Not " was now about a hundred yards ahead on our 
 left. On the right the bank was lined with willows which, 
 not having been pollarded for many years, stretched their 
 long, thin branches well over the river. I ran the boat as 
 far under them as I could. Joe pulled with short, soft 
 strokes, and we crept slowly along. For a minute the lighted 
 windows were obscured by the outhouses, and just as I caught 
 sight of them again, a door was flung open, and the jumble 
 of noises swelled into a roar of jeering laughter. A young 
 woman flew out, heedlessly and noisily as a flustered hen, 
 and a burly soldier lurched after her down the yard. At a 
 whisper, Joe shipped his oars, and I ran the boat right into 
 the bank. I grabbed in the dark for a hold-to, and luckily 
 seized the roots of a willow. At his end Joe did the same. 
 We hardly dared to breathe as we watched the doings on the 
 other bank. 
 
 Lust, of blood or worse, and the fear of it, were there. 
 The lighted windows and the open door made every move- 
 ment of the man and the girl clearly visible. No one followed 
 them. It was so ordinary an event to the company, perhaps
 
 30 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 that it was not worth while leaving mirth and beer to see the 
 issue. But all serious elements in their affair changed abruptly 
 and to our instant jeopardy. On the very edge of the water 
 the girl, knowing her whereabouts to an inch, turned cleverly. 
 The man, a stranger obviously, ran on and pitched clean and 
 far into the river, while she, laughing and triumphant, scuttled 
 back to the house. Her tale brought out at once a spurt of 
 men, yelling with joy, to watch the fun. Some of them had 
 snatched up lanterns and lighted candles, and they were 
 followed later by a fresh, older, shrieking woman who carried 
 a huge, burning brand plucked from the hearth. 
 
 Happily for us the river was shallow, for a couple of 
 strokes would have brought the man clean into us. The 
 shock of the icy water sobered him. He splashed and 
 spluttered to his feet, climbed up the bank like a giant water- 
 rat, and would have slunk towards the house ; but the rabble 
 were on him before he had taken a dozen paces, and tor- 
 mented him till he roared like a wounded bull. The woman 
 with the brand cried out on him with vile words that made 
 my face burn in the dark, and belaboured him about the head 
 with her blazing cudgel. At every blow a shower of sparks 
 flew out that drove his rollicking mates into a ring around 
 them at a safe distance away. The man must have been set 
 afire had he not been soused in the river beforehand. None 
 of his fellows tried to help him, just as before none had tried 
 to hinder him. It was his look out either way, and they 
 enjoyed his discomfituie with all the gusto of children. At 
 last the breathless woman and the cowed man came to a 
 parley, the result of which was that, with a whoop of " pots 
 round," they all crowded back into the ale-house, and we 
 were once more alone on the river. 
 
 " The ordeal by water and by fire," I said. " Push out, 
 Joe." 
 
 " Gom ! Owd Bess give 'im sock," he replied, and 
 levered the nose of the boat into midstream again. 
 
 Although there was no real need for it, the escape kept 
 us all quiet. I persuaded Mistress Waynflete to lie down, 
 so as to avoid the biting wind that was sweeping across the 
 river, and Joe and I by turns made such progress that in less 
 than an hour we drew up to the town meadow.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 31 
 
 The greatest caution was now necessary, since we saw 
 that the bridge leading into the town was thronged with 
 people, many carrying lanterns or torches. The town wall 
 ran parallel to the river, on our right, with a narrow fringe 
 of meadow between them. Here the wall was for the most 
 part tumbled into ruins, and in the gaps stood little cottages, 
 built in part of the stones that had once formed the wall. 
 In one of these lived little old Marry-me-quick, Mistress 
 Martha Tonks, to give her her christening name, and we ran 
 up to the bank level with her place without being observed 
 from the bridge, although it was only a few boat-lengths 
 distant. 
 
 I stepped cautiously out and tiptoed to her back window. 
 There the ancient maiden was, busily engaged in the manu- 
 facture of her staple, no doubt in anticipation of a greater 
 demand for it in these stirring days, when much extra money 
 would be passing around in the town, and many pennies 
 thereof would dribble into the pockets of the youngsters. 
 I lifted the latch and stepped in. She squeaked with affright 
 till she saw who it was, and then turned her note into a gurgle 
 of astonishment. 
 
 " Are you alone ? " I asked. She nodded. " Just a 
 minute then, and I'll be back again, with a visitor. Keep 
 quiet ! " 
 
 I returned to the boat, and as I was obliged to move 
 as stealthily as a cat, I could not help, as I approached, 
 hearing Joe say emphatically, " I wunna." I cursed him 
 silent, without troubling to ask what he was objecting to, 
 and handed Mistress Waynflete out. 
 
 " Now, Joe," I whispered, " off you go back ! The moon 
 will be up in a few minutes, and you ought to do it in an 
 hour. You can sit in the kitchen all to-morrow to make 
 up for this." 
 
 " Jin said 'er'd sit up for me," he said, and I was glad 
 he had such a good motive to keep him up to his hard task. 
 
 " Good-bye, Joe," said Mistress Waynflete, shaking the 
 good fellow 'warmly by the hand. " Give my loving remem- 
 brances to your mistresses and to Jane. Say how grateful 
 I am." 
 
 " Good-bye, my lady," he said simply, " and God bless
 
 32 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 you." So that only I could hear him, he added, "Tak' 
 good keer on 'er, Master Noll. Jin's awful sot on 'er, and 
 wunna luk at me if any 'arm 'appens 'er." 
 
 I gripped his hard hand, gave him my parting message 
 home, and then crouched and pushed the boat into and down 
 the stream. As I lifted my hand from her and she glided 
 into the blackness, I felt in my heart that the last link with 
 the old life was broken. Then, as I rose to my feet, a hand 
 was placed on my arm, and I tingled in every fibre at this 
 sweet link with the new life. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 THE ANCIENT HIGH HOUSE 
 
 I HAD found Mistress Tonks in her little back room, 
 where she manufactured marry-me-quick by day and 
 slept by night. Her cottage contained only one other 
 room, serving as shop and living room, and fronting on a 
 narrow lane which turned abruptly from the main street 
 at the bridge-end to follow the curve of the walls. By the 
 time I returned with Mistress Waynflete she had shuttered 
 the window of the shop, snuffed the candles, and stirred the 
 fire into a blaze. 
 
 Marry-me-quick was an ancient, wizened, little woman, 
 so small that she hardly escaped being a dwarf, hump- 
 backed, and inexpressibly ugly. In times not so long gone 
 by she would assuredly have burned as a witch, and many 
 supposed her to be in league with the evil one. But in 
 actual fact she was a cheery, voluble, and warm-hearted little 
 body, and one on whom I could rely to serve us in this 
 pinch. 
 
 " Mistress Tonks," I said, " I want you to shelter this 
 lady for the night." 
 
 " To be sure," chirped the little woman. " Luckily 
 I've kept the sojers off. Every house in the town is full of 
 'em, and the Mayor's at his wits' end to know how to stuff
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 33 
 
 'em all in. I should think a score of 'em have come here, 
 in ones, and twos, and threes ; and when I stood bold up 
 to them and said, ' Do you want any marry-me-quick ? ' 
 they were off like scared rabbits. A great, sweet lady like 
 you wouldn't think it, of course, but it's a godsend at times 
 for a lone woman when she's ugly enough to turn cream 
 sour, and somedeal crooked o' the body into the bargain." 
 
 " I shall certainly desire some marry-me-quick," said 
 Mistress Waynflete, deftly evading the awkward conclusion 
 of this speech, " for Master Wheatman has described it in 
 terms that make my mouth water. And though you do not 
 want to billet soldiers, you will, I know, befriend a soldier's 
 daughter." 
 
 " I should befriend the devil's dam, asking your lady- 
 ship's pardon, if Master Wheatman brought her here. I'm 
 a little, lone, ugly woman, but Master Noll always stood by 
 me. The lads, drat 'em, were for ever pinching Master 
 Dobson's bull's-eyes and gingerbread, and him mayor of 
 the town, though he's got lots grander than that since, but 
 they never pinched any marry-me-quick, not in Master 
 Noll's time. But he's gone now, and I'm not as nimble as 
 I used to be. Jesus help me, how he had used to fight ! He 
 used to put my heart in my mouth, coming in here all blood 
 and muck to wash himself afore he went home. But take 
 your things off and make yourself at home." 
 
 " I'm afraid you'll hear a too full and too true account 
 of me, madam, while I am away," said I. " Soldiers are 
 likely to call, but you can leave Mistress Tonks to deal with 
 them. Still, please discard your own jacket and hat, and 
 wear mother's domino. It's homely and country-like, and 
 you must pull the hood over your head, since, if your hair 
 has been described, and any soldier who calls has heard of it, 
 he will have to be blind not to notice it." 
 
 " Yes, it's dreadful stuff," she said, with amusing 
 meekness. 
 
 " So dreadful, madam," said I soberly, " that all England 
 cannot match it. Therefore you must hide it, lest it should 
 shock some poor soldier who comes seeking a billet and finds 
 it." 
 
 She took off her hat, preparing to do what I asked, and
 
 34 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 the wondrous yellow hair, coils upon coils of it, was revealed. 
 " Jesus help me," said little Marry-me-quick in a hushed 
 voice, " the back of her head looks like a harvest moon. 
 If the same God that made her ladyship made me, we shall 
 begin life in heaven with a row, that's all I've got to say." 
 
 I smiled at the quaint conceit of the little woman, which 
 lost its irreverence towards God in its reverence for His 
 handiwork. " Now mother Tonks," said I, " I leave this 
 lady in your charge for a tune while I go into the town to 
 see Master Dobson. I may be away some time, and you'll 
 get us some supper. Anything you have will do." 
 
 " Anything I have ? " she echoed scornfully. " I've got 
 one of them rabbits you sent me last market day by that 
 lozzicking Joe Braggs, but he's a good gorby is Joe " here 
 her voice softened, and madam smiled agreement " and 
 this frost has kept it as sweet as a nut. If you're not too 
 hungry to wait, I'll make you some rabbit-stew." 
 
 " Rabbit-stew ? I'll wait for that, and I'm sure Mistress 
 Waynflete will," said I. 
 
 " I'll live on marry-me-quick in the meantime," she 
 replied, laughing. 
 
 " I leave you then in good hands, and hope to come 
 back with cheerful news," I said, bowing low, and stepped 
 forth on my errand. 
 
 I turned to the left and fifty paces brought me into the 
 main street. A gun and a train of wagons were rumbling 
 over the bridge, convoyed by a handful of dragoons and a 
 riff-raff of noisy lads and lasses. Late and cold as it was, 
 the main street was thronged as on a fair day at noon. 
 Most of the shops, especially those that dealt in provisions, 
 were open and full of vociferous customers, while every ale- 
 house was a pandemonium. The street was choked with 
 townspeople and soldiery ; lanterns flickered and torches 
 flamed ; oath and jest, bravado and buffoonery, filled the air. 
 
 I pushed my way to the market-place. Here about a 
 dozen guns were parked, and at least a hundred horses 
 tethered. At each corner a huge fire cracked and roared. 
 The town hall was a blaze of light, and I heard from passers- 
 by that the mayor and council had been in session since 
 noon. The current rumour was that the Stuart, with fifty
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 35 
 
 thousand Highlanders, savages who disembowelled women 
 for sport and roasted children for food, had sacked Manchester 
 and was now marching south, with hell in his heart and 
 desolation in his train. If one-hundredth of it were true, 
 the worthy mayor had his work cut out, for the town was 
 so ill-found that it would have fallen to a bombardment of 
 turnips. 
 
 I took my stand on the town-hall steps to scan the scene 
 and collect my thoughts. And here I had the best of luck, 
 for who should come clanking down the steps but Jack 
 Dobson. I had no need to envy him now, having better work 
 on hand than his, but even if the mood of the midday had 
 been prevailing, it would have disappeared before his hearty 
 greeting 
 
 " Noll, by gad, Noll," he cried, wringing my hand 
 joyously. " I am glad to see you, bully-boy; I thought you 
 were sulking in your tent like like, you know his name, the 
 fellow old Bloggs was always yarning about." 
 
 " Iphigenia," said I. 
 
 " Was that the chap ? " he said cheerily. " And now I've 
 got you, come along to the house. I've more to tell you 
 than there is in all your silly old Virgil, and it's alive, man, 
 alive, alive. That's why it suits me. Come along, Noll. 
 Lord Brocton's supping and staying with dad, so's Sneyd, 
 and a lot more, and you'll hear all the news. Brocton's a 
 beast, and I'm glad I'm an officer, if it's only a cornet in his 
 rotten dragoons. There'll be one beast less in the world, I'm 
 thinking, before long." 
 
 " What's he done to upset you ? " 
 
 " I say, Noll," was his reply, " Kate did look sweet this 
 afternoon. I was glad to have her come and see me off 
 to the wars. I only had a few snatches of talk with her. 
 Brocton was for ever finding me something to do, rot him, 
 but she did look sweet." 
 
 " All right, if she did. Never mind our Kate." 
 
 " Never mind your Kate, you barbarian, you one-eyed 
 anthropa thingamy ! Oh, Noll, old friend " there was a catch 
 in his voice as he dragged me into the entry at the side of old 
 Comfit's shop, " she's your Kate now, but if I come back, I 
 want her to be my Kate. Don't breathe a word to her, Noll,
 
 36 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 unless I never come back, war has its risks, Noll, and I'm 
 going to take 'em all, but if I never come back, Noll, just tell 
 Kate that I loved her." 
 
 A plump of townspeople yelled their way past the entry, 
 and their torches lit up his fresh, boyish face, all alight with 
 the enthusiasms of war and love. I clasped his hand, and we 
 looked into each other's eyes. 
 
 " I'm glad to tell you, Noll." 
 
 " I'm glad to hear it, Jack. Come back, for Kate's sake." 
 
 The good fellow bubbled with joy at the meaning in my 
 words, and we continued our way up the entry, intending a 
 detour where we could talk in quiet, but before we had got 
 out of the glare of the torches, he stopped me, looked search- 
 in gly at me and said, " Old Noll, there's more in your head 
 now than Virgil." This confirmed my suspicion that Master 
 Jack Dobson was learning in his way more than I had learned 
 in mine. 
 
 " Fanning," said I. " Tell me why Brocton is a beast." 
 
 " He thinks every pretty woman a butterfly for his filthy 
 fingers to crush the beauty out of. But if he rolls his beast's 
 tongue round one name, either he or I will want that ferryman 
 chap. What's his name ? " 
 
 " Charon," said I, forgetting to tease him. 
 
 "That's him, Charon, I'm sure you're right this time. 
 I wasn't sure about the sulky old boy in the tent. I always 
 thought Iphi-something was the one that got his throat 
 Abram and Isaac sort of tale without any ram and thicket 
 at the end of it but of course you'll be right." 
 
 " And what sort of dragoons are you cornet of ? " I asked. 
 
 "They give me the bats, Noll. There's about two 
 hundred town-sweepings, not worth powder and shot, who 
 want tying on their horses, and hardly know butt from 
 bayonet, and there's another two hundred better men, got 
 together coming along, or in the country around Lichfield. 
 Sneyd, a rattling good fellow, and I have tossed for stations, 
 and when it comes to a battle he's to lead the yokels and I'm 
 to follow behind, kicking the scum of London into the firing- 
 line. Damn 'em. But I'll kick 'em right enough. Then 
 there's Major Tixall major, by gad a slinking cut-throat, 
 with a face the colour of pigs' liver. What he's majoring it
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 37 
 
 for, Brocton and the devil alone know. The only good thing 
 is we've got a first-rate drill sergeant. He's Brocton's toady, 
 and for that I don't like him, but he does know his business, I 
 must say that for him." 
 
 " Big-headed man, with a mouth slit up to his left ear ? " 
 said I, seizing the welcome opportunity. 
 
 " How the deuce do you know ? " asked Jack, astonished. 
 
 " He came searching the Hanyards this afternoon for a 
 Jacobite spy, a woman. But he didn't find her. She slipped 
 through his fingers somehow. I understood from big-mouth 
 that you'd caught her father. What have you done with 
 him ? Is he crow's meat yet ? " 
 
 " No, for some reason or other, which is a mystery to 
 me, Brocton sent him on with the van." 
 
 " Here ? " 
 
 " No, farther on. Their orders are to push into Stone 
 to-day, and Newcastle to-morrow. They ought to be in 
 touch with the enemy there. Of course it's not certain 
 which way they'll come, and if they come this way, Noll, 
 mark you, we've made a mistake. We ought to have waited 
 for 'em at Milford. We could have blown 'em to bits from 
 the top of the hills, long before they could have got at us." 
 
 Our talk had brought us to an alley containing a side 
 entrance to Master Dobson's fine, old, timbered house, the 
 pride of the town and known there as the " Ancient High 
 House." It stood on the main street of the town, which 
 led from the bridge to the market-place. For a moment 
 I was undecided, since I had obtained the news that mattered 
 most, but I had only been out a short time, the rabbit-stew 
 would not be ready, Mistress Waynflete was safe and com- 
 fortable, and might prefer to be alone, it was possible that 
 I might learn something further and on these grounds 
 I decided that it would be well worth while to accept Jack's 
 invitation. I therefore followed him into the withdrawing- 
 room. Here I paid due courtesies to buxom Mistress Dobson 
 and Mistress Priscilla Dobson, Jack's oldest sister, a wasp- 
 waisted bundle of formalities, for ever curtsying and 
 coquetting, after the London mode as she fondly imagined. 
 My back fairly ached with answering bobs and bows before 
 we had drunk our part of a dish of tea, which Mistress
 
 38 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 Dobson had brewed wherewith to refresh herself after the 
 toils of hospitality, but at last I jerked my way out at 
 Jack's heels, and we climbed to the stately barrel-roofed 
 room where the great ones were assembled. 
 
 Horseshoe-wise round a mighty fire of logs, with a small 
 table covered with decanters and glasses between each pair, 
 some dozen men sat at their wine. There was, of course, 
 Master Dobson, his meagre body all a twitter with im- 
 portance, sitting in the centre of the bend, opposite the 
 fire, whence he could survey all his guests at once, and 
 urge them on with their carousing. 
 
 " My son returneth, my lord," he said, " with news 
 from the worshipful the Mayor, and he hath brought with 
 him a worthy yeoman, one Master Wheatman, who " 
 
 " Of the Hanyards, Esquire," said I in a testy whisper. 
 
 " Ha, yes," he corrected and compromised, " Master 
 Wheatman of the Hanyards, a loyal subject of His Gracious 
 Majesty." 
 
 " The best friend and hardest hitter in broad Stafford- 
 shire," added Jack heartily. 
 
 I stepped into the horseshoe and made a bow general 
 to the company, and a lower one for the benefit of my Lord 
 Brocton, who sat next to the hearth in pride of place and 
 comfort. Some years older than I, but not yet thirty, 
 handsome as a god carved by Phidias, but with drink and 
 devilment already marking him out for a damned soul, he 
 sat there, the idol of that lord-worshipping company. The 
 only vacant chair was on his left. It was Jack's place, 
 earned by his father's guineas, which had remained vacant 
 during his absence. The good lad, I record it with pride, 
 notwithstanding a forbidding glance from his father, 
 motioned me towards it, and fetched a glass and poured out 
 wine for me. As I was stepping forward his lordship was 
 good enough to address me. 
 
 " Ha, Master Wheatman of the Hanyards," there was 
 a sneer in his voice, " it is well I see thee on the right side, 
 or, by gad and His Gracious Majesty, we'd have that other 
 five hundred acres of yours." He tossed off a bumper of 
 wine and added, "Or a solatium, Master Wheatman, a 
 solatium."
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 39 
 
 I caught Jack's eye as I stepped right into the middle 
 of the group. To my astonishment it was glowing with 
 anger. Did he not think I could take care of myself ? 
 Really Jack was becoming mysterious, but I supposed 
 that as I was Kate's brother he was feeling unusually in- 
 terested in my welfare. For my own part I was quite 
 comfortable, and I replied easily, " As a matter of fact, my 
 lord, I have chosen my side expressly on account of the 
 well-known propensities of your lordship's family." 
 
 For a full minute nothing was heard in the room but 
 the cracking and sputtering of the fire. This was not be- 
 cause of what I had said, though no one present, and he 
 least of all, could be fool enough to misunderstand it, but 
 because of its effect on him. Then, as now, blood flowed 
 like water on far lighter occasions than this, and Brocton, 
 with all his faults, was a ready fighter. For once, however, 
 his fingers did not seek his sword hilt, but fumbled with his 
 empty glass, and his face went white as the ashes at his 
 feet. At length he recovered himself somewhat. 
 
 " The loyal propensities of my family are well known to 
 all men," he said. 
 
 " And its determination to profit by them," I retorted 
 coldly, and plumped me down at his side. 
 
 Right opposite me was the rector, a gross, sack-faced, 
 ignorant jolt-head, jowled like a pig and dew-lapped like an 
 ox. Nature had meant him for a butcher, but, being a by- 
 blow of a great house, a discerning patron had diverted him 
 bishopward. In a voice husky with feeling and wine, he said, 
 " Surely it is the part of a gracious king to reward such 
 faithful service as that of the noble Earl of Ridgeley and my 
 Lord Broctort." 
 
 " Decidedly, your reverence," I answered briskly, " and 
 of others too, and if, as seems likely, the Highlanders have 
 left a vacant deanery or two behind them, I hope your loyal 
 services and pastoral life will be suitably rewarded with 
 one." 
 
 Here Jack drew up another chair and I moved to make 
 more room, so that he could sit next to Brocton, to whom he 
 was soon detailing in eager whispers the result of his visit 
 to the town hall. The others took up the broken links of
 
 40 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 talk, and this gave me an opportunity of inspecting the 
 company. 
 
 There could be no doubt about the man on my left. His 
 vicious, pimply face manifested him Major Tixall, and 
 Mistress Margaret's shudder was easily accounted for. He 
 turned his shoulder to me and talked to another officer, 
 who, so far, was only in his apprenticeship at the same game. 
 Beyond were two other officers of a wholly different stamp, 
 and the one who smiled at me with his eyes I took to be Sir 
 Ralph Sneyd, a young Staffordshire baronet of high repute. 
 Then came Master Dobson, separating the military sheep 
 from the civilian goats. There was the Friday-faced clothier 
 and mercer, Master Allwood, strange company here since he 
 was the elder of a dissenting congregation in the town, and 
 therefore well separated from his reverence. The worthy 
 mercer's dissent did not extend, so rumour had it, to the 
 making of hard bargains, and doubtless he was for once 
 hob-nobbing with the great in respect of his long purse rather 
 than of his long prayers. Other townsmen, whose names 
 I did not know or cannot recall, separated deacon from 
 rector. 
 
 The last man in the company, sitting opposite to his 
 lordship, was a stranger, and by far the man best worth 
 looking at in the room. He had drawn back a little, either 
 out of the heat of the fire or to avoid his reverence's vinous 
 gossip as much as possible. Except that he was certainly 
 neither soldier nor parson, and probably not a lawyer, I could 
 make nothing of him. He had a massive head and a resolute 
 and intelligent face. He wore no wig and his hair was grey 
 and closely cropped. I judged him to be a man nearing sixty, 
 but he appeared strong and vigorous. He was dressed with 
 rich unostentation, in grey jacket and breeches, with a lighter 
 grey, silver-buttoned waistcoat, and stockings to match. 
 
 There was only one thing to be talked about in any 
 company in Stafford that night. What was going to happen ? 
 What of truth and substance was there in the rumours that 
 filled all mouths ? At Master Dobson's two currents of 
 opinion ran violently in opposite directions. The soldiers 
 on my left were of course certain that the Stuart Prince and 
 his Highland rabble would be driven back. The towns-
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 41 
 
 people opposite were equally impressed with the fact that so 
 far he had not been driven back but had carried all before 
 him. 
 
 Sir Ralph had been stoutly maintaining that the rebellion 
 was hopeless. " There's no getting away from it, Sir Ralph," 
 squeaked Master Dobson, summing up for the doubtful 
 townsmen ; " between the rebels and us this night there's 
 not thirty miles nor three hundred men, and you've so far 
 only got about two thousand men in Stafford. I'm as loyal 
 a man as any in England, but there's no getting away from 
 that." 
 
 " Nobody wants to get away from it, Master Dobson," 
 replied Sir Ralph. " Any body of men with arms in their 
 hands and the knack of using them, can march much farther 
 than the Highlanders have come, if no other body of armed 
 men stands in their way. The Stuart Prince's march will 
 come to an end just as soon as he is opposed, and we're here 
 to oppose him." 
 
 Master Dobson was still gloomy. " What sort of men 
 have you got ? Raw militia lads, young recruits, and newly 
 raised dragoons form at least half of your force in Stafford." 
 
 " Agreed," said Sir Ralph, " but we're rapidly licking 
 'em into shape, and the Duke will be after us to-morrow with 
 the regulars." 
 
 " My good Sir Ralph," put in the mercer, " fifty thousand 
 savage Highlanders will cut through Stafford as easily as if 
 it were a Cheshire cheese. I fear the worst." 
 
 " My worthy sir," said his lordship, and in his dulcet 
 tones I heard the tinkle of the mercer's guineas, " you need 
 fear nothing. Neither stick nor stone in Stafford will be 
 disturbed. We are at least strong enough to make good 
 terms." 
 
 " And Mistress Allwood," said the rector with a leer, 
 " will be spared the wastage of her charms on a ragged 
 Highlander." 
 
 The mercer's wife had all the charms of a withered apple, 
 but here was opening for discord, and our twittering host 
 staved it off by appealing to the stranger : " What do you 
 think, Master Freake, of the way things are going ? " 
 
 " I have not formed an opinion as to what is likely to
 
 42 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 happen here, good Master Dobson," he replied, " but, speak- 
 ing generally, I should feel much easier in mind if the Duke's 
 horses were not so utterly worn out." 
 
 There was a distinct note of patronage in the tone in 
 which this shrewd and sensible remark was uttered, nor was 
 this affected, I thought, but rather the natural manner of a 
 strong man speaking to a weak one. 
 
 " Egad, you're right there, sir," cried Jack. " Nineteen 
 out of twenty of them couldn't be flayed into doing another 
 five miles. I was over an hour getting them from Milford, 
 under five miles." 
 
 " The Highlanders would march it in less," replied Master 
 Freake, " and this is not a campaign, but a race." 
 
 " Where to ? " It was Brocton who spoke. 
 
 " London," was the prompt reply. " That's the heart of 
 England, my lord, and if Prince Charles gets into the heart 
 he need not be concerned over Wade marking time in the 
 heels or the Duke sprawling about in its belly." 
 
 " Your speech is light, Master Freake," said the rector 
 with drunken sense and gravity. " I trust it savoureth not 
 of treasonable hopes." 
 
 I turned during this absurd remark to glance at Brocton 
 to see what effect this excellent summary of the situation 
 had had on him. To my surprise I caught him looking so 
 meaningly at the pimple-faced Major, that I felt sure some- 
 thing was going to happen, and I was right. 
 
 " God rot the man," said the Major thickly. " Does he 
 say that I'm sprawling about in somebody's belly ? " He 
 staggered to his feet, hand on sword, and made to cross 
 to the stranger, shouting, " Damnation to you, I'll thrust 
 something into your belly ! " 
 
 Brocton, not in the least to my surprise, made no attempt 
 to interfere. Jack couldn't, for I was in the way. His 
 father began to splutter helplessly. I shot out my foot, 
 and swept the Major heavily to the floor. I plucked him up 
 by his collar as if he were a rabbit, and choked him till his 
 face was nearly black. Then I put him back in his chair, 
 where he sat huddled up and gasping. 
 
 " Sir," said I to him, with much politeness, " you are tired 
 by the exertions of the evening. But I like a man who
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 43 
 
 sticks up for his commander, and desire to have the honour 
 of drinking your health." And I toasted him complacently, 
 smiling the while into his little pig's eyes. 
 
 This terminated the trouble, which Master Freake had 
 watched with quiet amusement. For my own part I was 
 now anxious to go, for I was learning nothing. Accident 
 favoured me, for a servant came in and whispered something 
 to Brocton which took him out of the room. I seized the 
 opportunity to follow, declining to allow Jack to accompany 
 me, and wishing him good-bye and good luck. " Remember 
 about Kate," were his last words, whispered eagerly as he 
 loosed my hand and opened me the door. 
 
 Several rooms opened on the landing, and I noticed that 
 one door was ajar. As I passed the slit of light I caught sight 
 of the sergeant of dragoons, and stopped beyond the door to 
 listen. I heard Brocton's voice, and caught the words, 
 " Egad, I'll e'en try her. Take the best horse available. 
 There's no danger, but speed is everything." He dropped 
 his voice to a whisper and for a moment or two I caught 
 nothing. Then, raising his voice again, he said, " And now 
 for your prize." I heard him move to go, and darted ahead, 
 silent as a bat in a barn, and a moment later was in the 
 noisy street. There was nothing to keep me now, and a few 
 minutes later I quietly lifted Marry-me-quick's latch, stepped 
 into the room, and observed at once that Mistress Waynflete's 
 look imported news. 
 
 " Now, little mother," said I to Mistress Tonks, " supper's 
 the blessedest word I know." 
 
 " And the rabbit-stew's as good as done by now," she 
 said, and went into the back room to dish it up. 
 
 "The man with. the slit face has been," said Mistress 
 Waynflete composedly. " He came hunting for quarters, 
 but Mistress Tonks frightened him off. At any rate, he soon 
 left." 
 
 " Did he recognize you as ' Moll ' of the Hanyards ? " 
 
 " I'm quite sure that he did not. I turned my back the 
 moment he entered, and my hood was up. Moreover, I did 
 not speak a word. Mother Tonks said that I was staying 
 here for the night because my father's house was full of 
 soldiers. She couldn't and wouldn't, she said, have a soldier
 
 44 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 here for all the worshipful mayors in England. I was quite 
 amused at the way she talked him back to the door and 
 through it." 
 
 The little woman bustled in to ay the supper things. 
 She was bubbling over with elation. " It'll be another ten 
 or fifteen minutes, will the rabbit-stew. The lady will have 
 told you about ugly mug, Master Oliver. I got him out in 
 no time. His head was all mouth like a cod-fish. I'll soon 
 be back. I expect you're both hungry." 
 
 Off she bustled again, and we again settled down to our 
 talk. I was anxious to see if she could throw any light on 
 Brocton's dealing with her father. His conduct was to me 
 wholly inexplicable. Then, too, there was his obvious 
 understanding with Major Tixall in the matter of the latter's 
 attack on Master Freake. Who was this stranger and why 
 had he incurred Brocton's enmity ? Here was a whole 
 string of puzzles awaiting solution. But before I could start 
 the conversation we were again interrupted. The latch 
 clicked, the door opened, and in walked my Lord Brocton. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 MY LORD BROCTON 
 
 I WAS as new to a life of action as an hour-old duckling 
 is to water, and this ironical upset of all my plans 
 left me helpless. The very last man whom I wanted 
 to see Mistress Waynflete was here, his plumed hat sweeping 
 to the floor, triumph on his handsome face and in his 
 easy, languid tones. Indeed, more astonishing than his being 
 here, was his manner and bearing. At Master Dobson's, a 
 natural remark of mine had beaten all his wits -out of him. 
 Here his assurance was such that it puzzled me out of 
 action. 
 
 " My sergeant, madam," he began, " no mean judge, 
 since he has seen the reigning beauties of half the capitals of 
 Europe, told me to expect a prize, but it is the prize. Master
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 45 
 
 Wheatman, you are not, I am told, as good a judge of cattle 
 as Turnip Townshend, but you are, let me tell you, a better 
 one of women. I understand you know. Both acres and 
 solatium shall be mine in any event. And, dear Margaret, 
 though I do not understand what your haughtiness is doing 
 here alone with my farmer friend, I need hardly say that 
 your devoted servant greets you with all humility." 
 
 Again his hat curved in mockery through the air. He 
 replaced it on his head, drew his rapier, with quick turns of 
 his wrist swished the supple blade through the air till- it sang, 
 then flashed it out at me like the tongue of an adder, and 
 said, " Sit you still, Farmer Wheatman, sit you still. Move 
 but your hand and I spit you like a lark on a skewer. So, 
 little man, so ! " 
 
 The contempt in his words stirred the gall in my liver, 
 but I neither spoke nor shifted, and he continued, addressing 
 her, but with cold, amused eyes fixed on me, " You see, 
 sweet Margaret, how yokel blood means yokel mood. Your 
 turnip- knight freezes at the sight of steel." 
 
 In part at least he spoke truth. I had rarely seen a 
 naked sword, other than our time-worn and useless relic of 
 the doughty Smite-and-spare-not, and had never sat thus 
 at the point of one drawn in earnest on myself. It is easy 
 to blame me, and at the back of my own mind I was blaming 
 and cursing myself, as I sat helpless there. I was keen as 
 the blade he bore to help her, for here was her hour of utter- 
 most need, but I did not see that I should be capable of 
 much service" with a hole in my heart, and he had me at his 
 mercy beyond a doubt, so long as he had me in his eye. No, 
 galling as it was, there was nothing to do but to wait the 
 turn of events. Something might divert his attention. One 
 second was all I wanted, and I sat there praying for it and 
 ready for it. Meanwhile the scene, the talk, and she were 
 full of interest. 
 
 Marry-me-quick's cottage was no hovel, either for size 
 or appointments. Brocton was standing with his back to 
 a dresser. On his left was the outer door, and on his right, 
 between him and Mistress Waynflete, the door in the party 
 wall leading to the back room where the rabbit-stew was 
 now being dished up. Madam and I sat on opposite sides
 
 46 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 of the large hearth, a small round table, drawn close to the 
 fire for comfort and covered with the supper things, occupied 
 part of the space between us, but there was plenty of room 
 for action. When Brocton had stretched out his rapier 
 towards me in threat and command, the point was perhaps 
 three feet from my breast, and he could master my slightest 
 movement. 
 
 And Mistress Waynflete. At the bridge in the afternoon 
 I had noticed that while danger for her father had stirred 
 her heart to its dearest depth, danger for herself troubled 
 her not one whit. When I looked at her now there was no 
 fear in her face, which was calm as the face of a pictured 
 saint, but I saw questionings there and knew they were of 
 me. Plainly as if she spoke the words, her great blue eyes 
 were saying, " Am I leaning on a broken reed ? " As she 
 caught my look she turned to Brocton, and I gritted my teeth 
 and listened. 
 
 " So your lordship has found me ! " She spoke easily and 
 lightly. " How small the world must be since it cannot 
 find room for me to avoid you ! " 
 
 " Say rather, dear mistress, that my love draws me un- 
 erringly towards you." 
 
 " I thought I gathered that there was another motive for 
 your coming here to-night." 
 
 " Margaret, believe me, I am distraught," he said, not 
 wholly in mockery it seemed to me. 
 
 " So distraught, it seems, that you neglect your plainest 
 duty as an officer in order to corrupt, if you can, a supposed 
 country maiden, of whom you have heard by chance. His 
 Grace of Cumberland will be glad to hear of such devo- 
 tion." 
 
 " Won't you listen to me, Margaret ? You know I love 
 you." 
 
 " If you were offering me, my lord, the only kind of love 
 which an honourable man can offer, I should still refuse it. 
 Your reputation, character, and person are all equally dis- 
 agreeable to me, and that you should imagine that there is 
 even the smallest chance of your succeeding, is an insult for 
 which, were I a man, you should pay dearly." 
 
 " On the contrary, dear Margaret," he replied, in his most
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 47 
 
 silken tones, plainly shifting to more favourable ground, " I 
 fancy that the chance is by no means small." 
 
 " Your fancy does not interest me," was the cold reply. 
 
 " Every woman has her price, if I may adapt a phrase 
 of the late Sir Robert's, and I can pay yours. Excuse my 
 frankness, Margaret. It would be unpardonable if we were 
 not alone. Yon cattle-drover hardly counts as audience, 
 I fancy, for he is already as good as strung up as a rebel." 
 
 After a long silence, so long that I tried to find an ex- 
 planation of it, she said, " You refer to my father ? " There was 
 a quaver in her voice which all her bravery could not suppress. 
 
 " Exactly, Margaret, to your dear father." 
 
 " In times like this, no doubt, your conduct in arresting 
 him will pass for legal, but fortunately some evidence will be 
 required, and you have none. The fact is that in your loyal 
 zeal you have acted too soon." 
 
 " I thought your daughterly instincts would be aroused," 
 he answered, scoffing openly as he saw his advantage. " They 
 have lain dormant longer than I expected. Believe me, 
 Margaret, for my own purposes I have acted in the very nick 
 of time, and you will do well to drop your unfounded hopes 
 of the future. Your father's fate is certain if I act, for I can 
 call a witness you remember Major Tixall, a beery but 
 insinuating person whose evidence is enough to hang him 
 fifty times over. Whether or not I produce it depends, as I 
 say, on the depth of your affection for him." 
 
 " I shall know how to save my father, my lord, when the 
 time comes. Now, perhaps, having played your last card, 
 you will leave me." 
 
 " My dear Margaret," was the cool reply, " your innocence 
 amazes me. My last card ! Not at all, sweet queen. You 
 are my last card." 
 
 " I ? How so ? " 
 
 " You, too, are a rebel, if I choose to say the word, and a 
 dangerous one to boot. So here's your choice : come where 
 love awaits you or go where the gallows awaits you." 
 
 " And if I could so far forget my nature as to come where 
 love of your sort, the love of a mere brute beast, awaits me, 
 you would forget everything ? " 
 
 " Everything, Margaret."
 
 48 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " Your duty to your King included ? " 
 
 " Certainly. There's nothing I will not do, or leave 
 undone, at your behest for your fair sake." 
 
 " You flatter me, my lord, far above my poor deserts. 
 And now, if your lordship will excuse me," she arose at the 
 words, pale and determined as death, " I will e'en go and 
 give myself up to some responsible officer and acquaint him 
 with your conduct." 
 
 " He would not believe you, my sweet Margaret." 
 
 " You forget I have a witness, my lord." For the first 
 time during the conversation she looked across at me. 
 
 " He would not be there to witness, Margaret. Surely 
 you suppose that I am wise enough to prevent that move. 
 Keep on sitting still, Farmer Oliver. I'm glad, believe me, to 
 see you so interested. A difficult piece of virtue she is, to be 
 sure, and if you could only escape a hanging, which you will 
 not, you might have learned to-night a useful lesson in the 
 art of managing a woman. It's an art, sir, a great, a curious 
 art, and I flatter myself I am somewhat of a master therein." 
 
 All this time he had kept me in his eye, and the point of 
 his rapier was ready for my slightest move. It had grieved 
 me to the heart to hear him shame this noble woman so, 
 bargaining for her honour as lightly as a marketing house- 
 wife chaffers for a pullet. How she had felt it, I could judge 
 in part by the deathly paleness of her face, and the tight hold 
 she was keeping on herself. She dropped into her chair again 
 and buried her face in her hands. He only smiled as one who 
 presages a welcome triumph. I kept still and silent, never 
 moving my eyes from his, praying and waiting for my 
 second. 
 
 She raised her head and spoke again : " If I did not know 
 you, my lord, I would plead with you. Two men's li ves are 
 in my hands, you say, and there is " she paused " but one 
 way " another terrible pause " of saving them." 
 
 " You want me to throw in the cattle-drover ? " he asked 
 gaily. 
 
 " Yes," she replied, in a scarcely audible whisper. 
 
 " It's throwing in five hundred acres of land each of 
 which my father values at a Jew's eye, let me tell you, but, 
 egad, Margaret, you're not dear even at that Run away
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 49 
 
 home, Farmer Wheatman, and don't be fool enough to play 
 the rebel again." 
 
 I sat still and silent. Speech was useless, and action not 
 yet possible. That keen swordsman's eye must be diverted 
 somehow. There was a God in heaven, and the rabbit-stew 
 would be ready soon. It was useless to attempt to force 
 matters. And as for his taunts, well, he was but feathering 
 my arrows. So I sat on like a stone. 
 
 " Go, Master Wheatman," she urged faintly, but I did not 
 even turn to look at her. My heart was thumping on my 
 ribs, my nerves tingling, my muscles involuntarily tightening 
 for a spring. 
 
 " These yokels are so dull and lifeless, Margaret. He 
 cannot understand our impatience." Out of the corner of my 
 eye I saw her crimson to the roots of her hair at this vicious 
 insult. " Off, my man," he added to me, " or I'll prick 
 your bull's hide." He thrust out his rapier to give point to 
 the threat. Nothing moved me. My eyes were glued to his. 
 
 And now the door on his right hand opened, and little 
 Mistress Marry-me-quick appeared with our supper. She 
 saw the sword directed at the breast of the one man on earth 
 she loved with all the fervour of her honest, womanly heart. 
 The sight scattered her senses. With a nerve-racking 
 shriek she flopped heavily to the floor, and the rabbit-stew 
 flew from her hands and crashed loudly at his feet. It was 
 too much for his wine-sodden nerves. His eyes turned, his 
 body slackened, the point of his rapier flagged floorward. 
 God had given me my second. 
 
 I bounded at him, not straight, but somewhat to his left. 
 He recovered, but, anticipating a straight rush, thrust clean 
 out on the expected line of my leap. His blade ran through 
 between my coat and waistcoat, and the guard thumped 
 sore on my ribs. Then he was mine. 
 
 I struck hard on heart and belt and knocked the wind 
 out of his body. He sucked for breath like a drowning man. 
 Now he could not call for help, and I finished him off, quickly, 
 gladly, and smilingly. His twitching fingers fumbled at 
 his belt as if seeking a pistol. Finding none, he made no 
 further attempt to defend himself, and covered his face 
 with his arms to keep off my blows, but I struck him with 
 
 4
 
 50 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 such fierce strength on his unprotected temples that he 
 weakened and dropped them. His ghastly, bleeding face 
 turned upwards, his dazed eyes pleading for the mercy he 
 had denied her a moment ago. It was brute appealing 
 to brute in vain, and with one last blow on the chin that 
 drove his teeth together like the crack of a pistol and nearly 
 tore his head off his shoulders, I knocked him senseless to 
 the floor. 
 
 His rapier hung in the skirt of my coat, so close had I been 
 to sure and sudden death. I drew it out and tossed it to 
 the floor at his side. " I wish, madam," said I, reaching 
 out for mother's domino, " that we could have saved the 
 rabbit-stew." 
 
 "Is he dead ? " she whispered, with white lips, coming 
 forward and looking shudder! ngly down on him with troubled 
 eyes. 
 
 " No such luck," said I. " He may be round in five 
 minutes, but that's enough, though poor little Marry-me- 
 quick will have to be left to fend for herself." I helped 
 her into the domino, pulled the hood over the wonderful 
 hair, and seized my own hat. 
 
 " Now, Mistress Waynflete," said I, " the northern hall 
 of Staffordshire is before us, and the sooner some of it 
 is behind us the better." With these words I led her to 
 the door, which I closed carefully behind me, and into 
 the street. 
 
 A little explanation will make our subsequent movements 
 clearer. The eastern side of Stafford is roughly bow-shaped. 
 The main street is the straight string and the wood is the 
 curve of the wall, now mostly fallen down and in ruins, the 
 line of which was followed by the street we were in, and 
 only some fifty yards from the southern end of the string. 
 The marksman's thumb represents the market square, and 
 the arrow the line of the east gate street. 
 
 No cat in the town knew it better than I did, or could 
 travel it better in the dark. Indeed, our only danger now 
 came from the moon, but, fortunately, she had not yet 
 climbed very high. Mistress Waynflete placed her arm 
 in mine and we turned to the right, away from the still 
 noisy and crowded main street. We passed an ale-house
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 51 
 
 bursting with customers, the central figure among whom, 
 plainly visible from the street, was Pippin Pat, an Irishman 
 with so huge a head that he had become a celebrity under 
 this name for miles around. He had made himself rolling 
 drunk and, suitably to the occasion, had been made into a 
 Highlander by the simple process of robbing him of his 
 breeches and rubbing his head with ruddle. He was a 
 sorry sight enough, but, the main thing, he had attracted 
 an enormous company. I rejoiced to see him, for it meant 
 that the wicket of his master's tanyard, half a stone's throw 
 ahead, would be unbolted. This would save us a longish 
 detour and lessen the danger of being observed. 
 
 Arrived at the tanyard gate, I tried the wicket. It was 
 unbolted, as I had anticipated, and we were soon in the 
 quiet and obscurity of the tanyard. The far side of the 
 yard was separated by a low stone wall from the end of 
 a blind alley leading into Eastgate Street. I guided my 
 companion safely by the edges of the tan-pits, and on arriving 
 at the wall, I made no apology but lifted her on to it. As 
 she sat there a shaft of moonlight lit up her fine, brave face. 
 I feasted my eyes upon it for a moment, and then made 
 to leap over to assist her to the other side, but she stayed 
 me with a hand on each shoulder. 
 
 " I will go no farther, Master Wheatman," she said in a 
 low, troubled voice, " till you forgive me." 
 
 " Forgive you ? " I cried, astounded. " Forgive you ? 
 What for?" - 
 
 " For thinking meanly of you. I thought you were 
 afraid of Brocton. Not until that lion leap of yours did I 
 realize how cleverly and nobly you had sat there through 
 his insults, foreseeing the exact moment when you could 
 master him. My only explanation, I do not offer it as an 
 excuse, is that the utter beast in Brocton makes it hard 
 for me to think well of any man. Oh, believe me, I am 
 ashamed, confounded, and miserable. Say you forgive 
 me ! " 
 
 " Madam," I said laughingly, " the next time I play the 
 knight-errant, may God send me a less observant damsel. 
 There's nothing to forgive. The plain truth is that I was 
 frightened, a little bit. But I'm new to this sort of thing,
 
 52 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 and I hope to improve." Then, after a pause, I met her 
 eyes full with mine and added, " As we go on." 
 
 " Frightened," she said scornfully, " you frightened, 
 you who leaped unarmed on the best swordsman in London ? 
 No, don't mock me, Master Wheatman, forgive me." 
 
 " Of course I do, and thank you for your kind words. 
 And we've both got some one to forgive." 
 
 She smiled radiantly " Whom ? And what for ? " 
 
 I leaped over the wall, and put my arms around her to 
 lift her down. 
 
 " Marry-me-quick, for dropping the rabbit-stew." 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 THE RESULTS OF LOSING MY VIRGIL 
 
 WE slipped down the blind alley and came out in the 
 street leading to the East Gate . There was stil 1 great 
 plenty of people strolling up and down, for night had 
 not yet killed off the novelty and excitement caused by the 
 arrival of the army. The smaller houses were crowded 
 with soldiery, hob-nobbing with the folk on whom they were 
 billeted, and all were yelling out, " Let the cannakin clink ! " 
 and other rowdy ditties in the intervals of drinking. At the 
 East Gate itself, a fire blazed, and pickets warmed them- 
 selves round it, while along the street late-coming baggage 
 and ammunition wagons were trailing wearily. It was 
 idle to expect to pass unseen, so we plunged into the throng, 
 threaded through the wagons, and skirted leftward till we 
 arrived at a quieter street running down to the line of the wall. 
 Here every brick and stone was as a familiar friend, for 
 the little grammar school backed on to the wall at the very 
 spot where the main street led through the old north gate 
 of the town. Old Master Bloggs lived in a tiny house on 
 the side of the school away from the gate. There were the 
 candles flickering in the untidy den in which the old man 
 passed all his waking hours out of school-time, and there..
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 53 
 
 I doubted not, they would be guttering away if the High- 
 landers sacked the town. I led the way across the little 
 fore-court, paled off from the street by wooden railings, 
 gently opened the door, and walked in to the dark passage. 
 
 The study door was ajar, and we peeped in. There the 
 old, familiar figure was, eyesight feebler, shoulders rounder, 
 hair whiter, and clothing shabbier than of yore, crumpled 
 over a massive folio. He was reading aloud, in a mono- 
 tonous, squeaky half-pitch. Latin hexameters they were, 
 for even his voice could not hide all the music in them, and 
 as I listened it became clear that the old man had that night 
 been moved to select something appropriate to the occasion, 
 for he was going through the account of the fall of Troy in the 
 second /Eneid. 
 
 I put my fingers on my lips and crept on, followed by 
 Mistress Waynflete. In the little back room I whispered, 
 " My old school and schoolmaster. We will not disturb the 
 old man. Poor little Marry-me-quick may have to suffer 
 on our account, and old Bloggs shall at any rate have the 
 excuse of knowing nothing about us. He's happy enough 
 over the fall of Troy. Nothing that he can do can help us. 
 Let him be." 
 
 She nodded assent and I looked round. Opening a cup- 
 board, I found half a loaf of bread, a nipperkin of milk, and a 
 rind of cheese. " Eat," said I, " and think it's rabbit-stew." 
 I made her take all the milk, but shared the bread and cheese. 
 Troy went on falling steadily meanwhile, and when we had 
 finished our scanty nuncheon I once more led the way, and we 
 passed out into the little yard behind the schoolhouse, and 
 gained the playground, the outer boundary of which was the 
 town wall, here some twelve feet high and in a fair state of 
 preservation. Many generations of schoolboys had cut and 
 worn a series of big notches on each side of the wall, and by 
 long practice I could run up and down in a trice to fetch ball 
 or tipcat which had been knocked over. 
 
 From the bridge at the Hanyards onwards, Mistress 
 Waynflete had always acted promptly and exactly to my wish. 
 I felt a boor, and was in truth a boor, in comparison with her. 
 Brocton's ' yokel blood ' gibe had put murder into my 
 blows, but it had truth enough in it to make it rankle like a
 
 54 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 poisoned arrow. Yet here was this wonder-woman, trustful 
 as a child and meeker than a milkmaid. My work was new, 
 but at any rate I had sometimes dreamed that I could do a 
 man's work when I got my chance, and I had limbs of leather 
 and steel to do it with. My thoughts, however, were newer 
 still, and had no background of daydreams to stand against. 
 Moreover, things had gone with such a rush that I had had 
 no time to shake and sift them into order. At the foot of 
 that wall all I knew, and that but dimly, was that there were 
 thoughts that made a man's work the one thing worth living 
 for. 
 
 " Get your breath, madam," said I. " You want it all 
 now, and there's no need to hurry." 
 
 She leaned easily against the wall, and peered round 
 to make out her surroundings. The only result could be to 
 give her the impression that she was cooped up like a rat in a 
 trap, but with characteristic indifference for herself, she only 
 said : 
 
 " And this was your school ? " 
 
 " For many years, seven or more." 
 
 She was silent for a time and then went on. 
 
 " You have led a quiet life, Master Wheatman ? " 
 
 " Ha," thought I, " she's gauging my capacity to help 
 her," and added aloud, bitterly reminiscent, " The life of a 
 yokel, madam." 
 
 " You have read much ? " 
 
 " Yes, I'm fond of reading. It passes the long winter 
 nights." 
 
 " And no doubt you know by heart the merry gests of 
 Robin Hood and the admirable exploits of Claude Duval ? " 
 
 I felt her eyes on me in the dark, and longed for the sun 
 so that I could see the blue glint in them. 
 
 " No such rubbish, indeed," said I hotly. It was a slight 
 on Master Bloggs, droning away yonder at the fall of Troy, 
 not to say the sweet old vicar. 
 
 " What then ? " 
 
 " Livy and Caesar, and stuff like that, but mainly Virgil." 
 
 " Then it's very, very curious," she whispered emphati- 
 cally. 
 
 No doubt yokel blood ought not to run like wine under
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 55 
 
 the mighty pulse of Virgil, and I sourly asked, " What's 
 curious, madam ? Old Bloggs has nothing to teach except 
 Latin, and I happened to take to it. Why curious ? " 
 
 " Really, Master Wheatman, not curious ? Here we are 
 in a narrow yard at the foot of a high wall. I'm perfectly 
 certain that within five minutes I shall be whisked over to the 
 other side. And you got that out of Virgil ? " 
 
 " Straight out of Virgil, madam. Stafford was our Troy, 
 and this the wall thereof. I've got in and out thousands of 
 times." 
 
 She peered comically around the dark playground and 
 said gaily, " I see no wooden horse. There should be one, 
 I know. Master Dryden says so, and he knows all about 
 Virgil." 
 
 " Poof," said I. " If old Bloggs heard you, he'd tingle 
 to thrash you black and blue." 
 
 " He couldn't now I've got my breath again," she laughed. 
 
 "I'm glad of that. Let me explain. Here is a ladder 
 of notches in the wall, left and right alternately. Feel for 
 them." She did so, and I went on : " They are roughly 
 three feet apart on each side. I'll climb up first and assist 
 you up the last few. Your skirts will trouble you, I fear." 
 
 " Not much, for I'll turn them up." She promptly did 
 so, and fastened the edges round her waist. She also dis- 
 carded the long, cumbrous domino, and I took it from her. 
 
 " Watch me," said I, " and follow when I give the word. 
 I'll have a look round first." 
 
 Up I went, hand over hand, as easily as ever I had done 
 it. I crouched down on the top of the wall, which, fortu- 
 nately, lay in the shadow of the schoohouse. I saw in the 
 sky the reflected glare of a fire at the north gate, another 
 picket I supposed, but there were houses without the gate, 
 and these were dark and silent. There was no fear of our 
 being observed. 
 
 " Come ! " I whispered. 
 
 She started boldly and came up with cheering swiftness. 
 I spread the domino in readiness, then stretched down to 
 help her, and in another moment she was sitting the wall as 
 a saddle. 
 
 " Splendid, for a novice," I said.
 
 56 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " And a novice in skirts, short ones." 
 
 She went first down the other side, and I nearly pitched 
 headlong in assisting her as far down as possible. She 
 lowered her skirts while I followed and then I helped her into 
 the domino, rejoicing in the silken caress of her hair on my 
 hands as I arranged the hood, a pleasant piece of omciousness 
 for which I got thanks I did not deserve, and off we started. 
 
 Again she asked nothing as to what we were going to do 
 and whither we were bound. The blazing windows of a 
 comfortable inn might have been in sight for aught she cared 
 to all outward seeming. Yet here she was, close on mid- 
 night, in bitterly cold weather, stepping out into rough and 
 unknown country in company with a man she had only known 
 a few hours. 
 
 I went ahead and thought it over. For ten minutes we 
 picked our way in the deep shadow along the foot of the wall, 
 per opaca locorum, as the great weaver of words puts it, and 
 then I turned outwards into the open field and the clear 
 moonlight. Of her own accord she placed her arm in mine, 
 and we stepped it out bravely together. 
 
 " We are in unenclosed land here," I explained. " On 
 our right is a patch which varies between bog and marsh 
 and pool, according to the rains. The townsmen call it the 
 King's Pool, whatever state it is in. Just ahead, you can see 
 the line of it, is a little stream, the Pearl Brook. If it isn't 
 frozen over yet, I can easily carry you across, as it's not more 
 than six inches deep. The freemen of the Ancient Borough 
 yon little town has slumbered there nearly eight hundred 
 years have, by immemorial custom, the right of fishing in 
 the Pearl Brook with line and bent pin." 
 
 " They do not catch many thirty-pound jack, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Dear me, no. But it was here I learned to like fishing, 
 and I went on from minnows and jacksharps to pike." 
 
 " And wandering damsels," she interrupted, with a laugh 
 that sounded to me like the music of silver bells. A minute 
 later, on the edge of the brook, she said vexedly, " And it's 
 not frozen over." But I had already noticed that fact with 
 great elation. 
 
 " Not more than six inches, you say," she muttered, and 
 made to step in.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 57 
 
 " And if it were not so much as six barley-corns," I said, 
 " I would not suffer you to wade it. What am I for, pray 
 you, madam ? " 
 
 Without more ado, I lifted her once more in my arms 
 the fourth time that day and started. I cursed the narrow- 
 ness of the Pearl Brook. I could almost have hopped across 
 it, but by dawdling aslant the stream I had her sweet face 
 near mine in the moonlight, and my arms round her proud 
 body, for a couple of minutes. " Yokel blood or not," I 
 thought, "this is something my Lord Brocton will never 
 do." 
 
 A quarter of an hour later, after helping her up a short, 
 steep scarp, we stood and looked back on the little town. 
 Its roofs were bathed in moonlight, and the great church 
 tower stood out in grey against the blue-black sky. Patches 
 of dull, ruddy glow in the sky marked the sites of the picket- 
 fires, and there came to us, like the gibbering of ghosts in 
 the wind, the dying notes of the day's excitement. To our 
 left, bits of silver ribbon marked the twistings of the river, 
 and that darker line in the distant darkness was the hills 
 of my home and boyhood. At their feet was the Hanyards, 
 and Kate and mother. There was a little mist in my eyes, 
 and the eyes I turned and looked into were brimming with 
 tears. 
 
 " And now, Mistress Waynflete," said I, " let us on to 
 our inn." 
 
 " Our inn ! " she echoed, and there was dismay in her 
 voice. " Our inn, and I haven't a pennypiece. For safety, 
 I put my hat, my riding jacket, and my purse under the bed 
 at Marry-me-quick's, and the fight and hurry drove them 
 out of my mind completely." 
 
 " And I'm in the same case exactly," said I, and laughed 
 outright. I had little use for money at the Hanyards, least 
 of all in the pockets of my Sunday best, and not until she 
 told me her plight did I realize the fact that in the elation 
 of starting from home, I had forgotten that money might 
 be necessary. Though I laughed, I watched her closely. 
 Now she would break down. No woman's heart could stand 
 the shock. 
 
 " My possessions," she said, " are precisely two handker-
 
 58 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 chiefs, one of Madame du Font's washballs, and most of a 
 piece of the famous marry-me-quick." 
 
 I had been mistaken. She made no ado about our serious 
 situation, but spoke with a grave humour that fetched me 
 greatly. 
 
 " Quite a lengthy inventory," I replied. " My contribu- 
 tions to the common stock are " and I fumbled in my pockets 
 " item, one handkerchief ; item, a pocket-knife ; item, one 
 pipe and half a paper of tobacco ; item, one flask, two-thirds 
 full of Mistress Kate Wheatman's priceless peppermint 
 cordial, the sovereign remedy against fatigue, cold, care, and 
 the humours ; item, something unknown which has been 
 flopping against my hip and is, by the outward feel of it, 
 a thing to rejoice ove r , to wit, one of Kate's pasties." 
 
 I pushed my hand down for it, and then laughed louder 
 than ever, as I drew forth my dumpy little Virgil. 
 
 " Item," I concluded, " the works of the divine master, 
 P. Vergil ius Maro, hidden in my pocket by that mischievous 
 minx and monkey, Kate Wheatman of the Hanyards." And 
 I told the story. 
 
 " Then if Kate had not hidden your beloved Virgil, you 
 would not have gone fishing ? " 
 
 " I'm sure I shouldn't." 
 
 " Life turns on trifles, Master Wheatman, and to a pretty 
 girl's sisterly jest I owe everything that has happened since 
 I first saw you on the river bank." 
 
 " We owe it, madam," I corrected gently, and I turned 
 to go on, for I saw that she was moved and troubled at the 
 evil she thought she had brought on me. Evil ! I was 
 enjoying every breath I drew and every step I took, and 
 my heart was like a live coal in the midst of my 
 bosom. 
 
 " Have no fear, Mistress Margaret," said I cheerfully, 
 sweeping my hand out. " There's broad Staffordshire before 
 us, a goodly land full of meat and malt and money, and we'll 
 have our share of it." 
 
 " But you'll have to steal it for me." 
 
 " ' Convey the wise it call,' " I quoted. 
 
 " That's better," and she smiled up at me in the moon- 
 light. " Virgil puts you right above my poor wits, but say
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 59 
 
 you love Shakespeare too, and we shall have one of the great 
 things of life in common." 
 
 " I do, madam, but you must learn to rate things at their 
 true value. You speak French ? " 
 
 " Oh yes." 
 
 " And Italian ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And play the harpsichord ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Then, madam, I am a half -educated boor compared 
 with you, for I know none of these things. But though I 
 do not know the French or Italian for marry-me- quick, if 
 you will get it out of your pocket, I'll show you the Stafford- 
 shire for half of it." 
 
 We marched on gaily for another quarter of an hour, 
 eating the sweet morsel. Then I said, " Even an old traveller 
 and campaigner like you will be glad to learn that our inn 
 is at hand." 
 
 " Very glad, but I see no signs of it." 
 
 " Well, no," said I, " it's not exactly an inn, but just a 
 plain barn. You shall sleep soft and safe and warm, though, 
 and even if we had money and an inn was at hand, it would 
 be foolish to go there. Your case is hard, madam, and I 
 wish I could offer you better quarters." 
 
 Under the shelter of a round knoll clumped with pines, 
 lay an ancient farmhouse. We were approaching it from 
 the front, and its sheds and barns were at he rear. We 
 therefore turned into the field and fetched a cirtuit, and soon 
 stood at the gate leading into the farmyard. No one stirred, 
 not even a dog barked, as I softly opened the gate and crept, 
 followed by Mistress Waynflete, to the nearest building. I 
 pushed open the door, we entered a barn, and were safe for 
 the night. The moon shone through the open door, and I 
 saw that the barn was empty, probably because the year's 
 crops, as I knew to my sorrow, had been poor indeed in our 
 district. The fact that the barn was bare told in our favour, 
 as no farm hand would be likely to come near it should one 
 be stirring before us next morning. 
 
 A rick stood handy in the yard, and on going to it I found 
 that three or four dasses of hay had been carved out ready
 
 60 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 for removal to the stalls. I carried them to the shed, one 
 by one, and mighty hot I was by the time I dumped the last 
 on the barn floor. Starting off again, I poached around in 
 another shed, and was lucky enough to find a pile of empty 
 corn sacks. Spreading these three or four deep in the far 
 corner of the barn, I covered them thickly with hay, and 
 having reserved a sack on purpose, I stuffed it loosely with 
 hay to serve for a pillow. 
 
 All this busy time Mistress Waynflete stood on the moonlit 
 door-sill, silent as a mouse, and when I stole quietly up to 
 tell her all was ready, I saw that her hands were clasped in 
 front and her lips moved. I bared my head and waited, for 
 she had transformed this poor barn into a maiden's sanctuary. 
 
 She turned her face towards me. " Madam," said I, very 
 quietly, " your bed is ready, and you are tired out and dead 
 for sleep. Pray come ! " 
 
 Still silent, she stepped up and examined my rude handi- 
 work. Then she curled herself up on the hay, and I covered 
 her with more hay till she lay snug enough to keep out another 
 Great Frost. 
 
 " Good night, madam, and sweet sleep befall you," and 
 I was turning away. 
 
 " Ho ! " she said, " and pray where do you propose to 
 sleep ? " 
 
 " I shall nest under the rick-straddle." 
 
 " Sir," and her tone was almost unpleasant, " for the 
 modesty you attribute unto me, I thank you. For the 
 gratitude you decline to attribute unto me, I dislike you. 
 But pray give me credit for a little common sense. I shall 
 desire your services in the morning, and I do not want to 
 find you under a rick, frozen to a fossil." 
 
 " No, madam." 
 
 She sprang out of bed, tumbling the hay in all directions. 
 
 " Master Wheatman, I will not pretend to misunderstand 
 you, and indeed, I thank you, but you are going to put 
 your bed here," stamping her foot, " so that we can talk 
 without raising our voices. I am much more willing to 
 sleep in the same barn with you than in the same town with 
 my Lord Brocton. Where's your share of the sacks ? " 
 
 I did without sacks, but I fetched more chunks of hay,
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 61 
 
 and she helped me strew a bed for myself close up to her 
 own. I tucked her up once more, and then made myself 
 cosy. I was miserable lest I should snore. Yokels so often 
 do. Joe Braggs, for instance, would snore till the barn door 
 rattled. 
 
 I remembered the cordial, and we each had a good pull 
 at the flask. I felt for days the touch of her smooth, soft 
 fingers on mine as she took it. 
 
 " It certainly does warm you up," she said. " I feel all 
 aglow without and within." 
 
 " Then I may take it that you are comfortable ? " 
 
 "If it were not for two things, I should say this was a 
 boy-and-girl escapade of ours, every moment of which was 
 just pure enjoyment." 
 
 "Naturally you are uneasy about your father, but 
 I cannot think he will come to any immediate harm. 
 Why Brocton should send him north instead of south is, I 
 confess, a mystery, but to-morrow will solve it. And what 
 else makes you uneasy ? " 
 
 " You," she replied, very low and brief. 
 
 " I ? And pray, madam, what have I done to make you 
 uneasy ? " 
 
 " Met me." Still the same tone. 
 
 " I am not able to talk to you in the modish manner, 
 nor do I think you would wish me to try to ape my betters, 
 so I say plainly that our meeting has not made me uneasy. 
 Why then you ? " 
 
 " Had you not met me, you would now be asleep at the 
 Hanyards, a free and happy country gentleman. Instead 
 you are here, a suspect, a refugee, an outlaw, one tainted 
 with rebellion, the jail for certain if you are caught, and 
 then " 
 
 She broke off abruptly, and I think I heard a low 
 sob. 
 
 " And then ? " 
 
 " Perhaps the gibbet." 
 
 " It's true that the thieving craft is a curst craft for the 
 gallows, but to-morrow's trouble is like yesterday's dinner, 
 not worth thinking on. We are here, safe and comfortable. 
 Let that suffice. And to-day, so far from doing harm at
 
 62 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 which you must needs be uneasy, you have wrought a 
 miracle." 
 
 " Wrought a miracle ? What do you mean ? " 
 
 " You have found a cabbage, and made a man. Good 
 night, Mistress Waynflete." 
 
 " Good night, Master Wheatman." 
 
 I imitated the regular breathing of a tired, sleeping man. 
 In a few minutes it became clear that she was really asleep, 
 and I pretended no longer, but stretched out comfortably 
 in the fragrant hay and soon slept like a log. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 THE CONJURER'S CAP 
 
 I AWOKE between darkness and daylight. Mistress 
 Waynflete still slept peacefully and there was as yet 
 no need to rouse her. I had slept in my shoes, but now 
 I drew them off, lifted the bar of the door, and stole out to 
 look around. Not a soul was stirring about the farm, and 
 the only living creature in sight was a sleepy cock, which 
 scuttled off noisily at my approach. I entered a cowshed, 
 where a fine, patient cow turned a reproachful eye on me, as 
 if rebuking me for my too early visit. I cheerily clucked 
 and slapped her on to her hoofs, and then, failing to find any 
 sort of cup or can, punched my hat inside out and filled it 
 with warm foaming milk. With this spoil I hurried back 
 to our quarters. 
 
 I had to leave the door open, and this gave me light 
 enough to look more closely at my companion. She was 
 still sleeping, her face calmly content, and so had she slept 
 through the night, for the coverlet of hay was rising and 
 falling undisturbed on her breast. It was now time to wake 
 her, and, having no free hand, I knelt down to nudge her 
 with my elbow. As I did so, her face changed. A look of 
 concern came over it, then one of hesitation, then a sweet 
 smile, chasing each other as gleam chases gloom across the
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 63 
 
 meadows on an April day. She was dreaming, dreaming 
 pleasantly, and it was to a hard world that I awakened her. 
 
 At my second nudge she half-opened her eyes and mur- 
 mured, " It's very wide." Then my greeting aroused her 
 fully, and she blushed wondrous red and beautiful. 
 
 " Good morrow, Mistress Waynflete," said I. "I grieve 
 to disturb you, and, pray you, do not move too abruptly or 
 over goes the breakfast." 
 
 " Good morrow, Master Oliver," she replied. " I have 
 slept well. I feel as if I've quite enjoyed it. We do enjoy 
 sleep, I think, sometimes." 
 
 " Or the dreams it brings, madam." 
 
 She glanced quickly at me, as if afraid that I had the 
 power of reading dream-thoughts, and gaily said, "And 
 breakfast ready ! This is even better than the Paris fashion. 
 What is it ? More of dear Kate's cordial ? " 
 
 I did not know what the Paris fashion of breakfast was, 
 and she did not enlighten me. Anyhow, I, the yokel, had 
 improved on it, and that was something. 
 
 " A far better brewage, madam," I said, " but you must 
 pardon the Staffordshire fashion of serving it." 
 
 She sat up, took the cap, and drank heartily, the dawn 
 still in her eyes and cheeks, and masses of yellow hair tumbling 
 down from under her hood on throat and bosom. When she 
 handed back the cap, I could not forbear from saying, " You 
 look charming after your night's rest, and I profess that 
 tear of milk on the tip of your nose becomes you admirably." 
 With the rim of my cap at my lips, I added with mock 
 concern, " Have a care, Mistress Waynflete, or you'll rub 
 off tip as well as tear." 
 
 " I suppose you thought ' As a jewel of gold ' and the 
 rest of it," she said, squinting comically down to examine 
 her nose. 
 
 " Really, no, madam ; I thought of nothing so scandalous, 
 from the Bible though it be. I thought of of . . ." 
 
 " I'm all ears," she said archly. 
 
 " I'm a poor hand at turning compliments to ladies," 
 said I. 
 
 " On the contrary, you turn them admirably. See ! " 
 She held up my sopping cap, and laughed merrily.
 
 CH THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " It's rained for best," said I, " but it wffl do for market 
 days. And now, madam, it's cold enough to freeze askers, 
 as Joe Braggs says, and for toilet you must e'en be content 
 with first a shiver and then a shake. I will await you at 
 the yard gate, and pray close the door behind you. The 
 quicker the better." 
 
 She rejoined me in two or three minutes. I closed the 
 gate cautiously behind me, and we started our journey. 
 From the farm we got away quite unobserved, but I looked 
 behind me at every other step to make surer, till we turned 
 the top of the knoll, and it was with great relief that I saw 
 the chimney-pots sink out of sight. 
 
 For a time we walked along briskly and hi silence. So far 
 I had carried everything with a high hand and successfully, 
 but the cold grey of the morning began to creep into my 
 thoughts as I looked ahead over miles and miles of dreariness 
 and danger. Houses were few and far between ; every village 
 was a source of danger ; the high roads were closed to us 
 by our fear of the troops. Further, the object we had in 
 view was vague and unformed, if not impossible of achieve- 
 ment, for even if we arrived at the very place where Colonel 
 Waynflete was held prisoner, what could we do to help him ? 
 We should be safe from immediate need and danger if we 
 could reach the Prince's army, but where that was, and 
 which way it was travelling, were unknown to us. Certain 
 it was that between us and any real help ranged some thirty 
 miles of cold, bleak country packed with enemies for miles 
 ahead. And here we were, on foot, penniless and hungry. 
 I had longed for a man's work ; this was a regiment's. 
 
 A sidelong look at my companion drove all the mist 
 and frost out of my heart. Something about her made 
 me feel a sneak and a traitor even for harbouring such 
 thoughts. From the first she had asked for no help of mine. 
 I had forced it on her, or circumstances had forced me to 
 help her in helping myself, as when I cut our way from 
 Marry-me-quick's cottage. The more J was with her, the 
 better I began to understand Brocton's madness. It was 
 the madness of the mere brute in him to be sure, and a man 
 should kick the brute in him into its kennel, though he 
 cannot at times help hearing it whine. Her majestic beauty
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 65 
 
 had dazzled him as a flame dazzles a moth, but at this stage, 
 at any rate, it was not her beauty that made me her thrall. 
 That I could have withstood. Because she was so beautiful, 
 so stately, so compelling, she made no appeal to me. What 
 I mean is, that I did not fall in love with her at first sight, 
 simply because the mere stupidity of such a thing kept me 
 from doing it. Glow-worms do not fall in love with stars 
 or thistles with sycamores. She was something to be wor- 
 shipped, served at any cost, saved at any sacrifice, but not 
 loved. No, that was for some lucky one of her own class 
 and state, not for a simple squireling like me. Her comrade- 
 ship, her graciousness, her sweet equalizing of our positions, 
 were, I felt, just the simple, natural adornments of the 
 commanding modesty which was her spiritual garment. 
 
 Manlike, however, I had an evil streak in me, and thence, 
 later, came madness. In any company I must be top dog. 
 I had been head of the school, not because of any special 
 cleverness, but because I would burst rather than be second 
 to anybody in anything. I had fought and fought, at all 
 hazards, until not a boy in school or town dare come near 
 me. So now, since my Lord Brocton and many a lord 
 beside, I doubted not had failed, I must needs step in and 
 say. " I will please her, whether she like it or not" And so, 
 plain countryman as I was, I had done my work ungrudg- 
 ingly but not, I feared, too modestly, and since I could not 
 speak court-like, I had been over-masterful, and given her 
 mood for mood, and turned no cheek for her sweet smiting. 
 And as I had of old time licked every lad in Stafford, so now 
 neither Staffordshire nor all the King's men in it should turn 
 me back. Through she should go, and in safety and comfort, 
 so that when the time came for me to hand over my precious 
 charge to a worthier, she should say that the yokel had done 
 a man's work and done it gentlemanly. Therefore, when 
 Mistress Waynflete looked up to me from the bleak uplands 
 with serious, questioning eyes, I said, as calmly as if we were 
 pacing the garden at the Hanyards, with Kate and Jane 
 active in the kitchen behind us, " Ham and eggs for break- 
 fast ! " 
 
 " I don't see any," she said, in answering mood, scanning 
 the fields around us. " Not that that matters. I didn't
 
 66 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 see the steps, but they were there. You make me think, 
 Master Wheatman, of a Turk I saw in a booth at Vienna, 
 who drew rabbits and rose-bushes out of an empty hat. 
 Staffordshire is your conjurer's hat. And I do like ham 
 and eggs." 
 
 My assurance and her comfortable belief in it made us 
 both brighter, and we stepped out merrily. She gave me 
 an entertaining account of Vienna, where she had spent 
 some months, and which was then the great outpost of 
 Christendom against the Turk. When this talk had brought 
 us on to the field of Hopton Heath, I gave her the best 
 account I could of the battle there in the Civil War time, 
 and of the slaying of the Marquis of Northampton. And 
 this led me on to my pride of ancestry, and I told her of 
 Captain Smite-and-spare-not Wheatman, a tower of strength 
 to the Parliament in these parts, who fought here and later 
 on Naseby Field itself. Many tales I told of him that had 
 been handed down from one generation of us to another, 
 and how so greatly was he taken with his incomparable 
 lord-general that he had named his first-born son Oliver, 
 and ever since there had been an Oliver Wheatman of the 
 Hanyards. Then I told how one of these later Olivers, 
 which one a matter of no consequence, had written verses 
 and put them into the mouth of the doughty Smite-and-spare- 
 not, sitting his horse, stark and strong, at the head of his 
 men on Naseby Field, and gazing with grim, grey eyes 
 on the opening movements of the fight. And, nothing 
 loth, I trolled them out roundly across the meadows, till the 
 peewits screamed and a distant dog began to bay : 
 
 " Princelet and king, and mitre and ring, 
 
 Earl and baron and squire, 
 Oliver worries 'em, harries and flurries 'em, 
 
 With siege and slaughter and fire. 
 With the arm of the Flesh and the sword of the Spirit, 
 
 Push of pike and the Word, 
 Smiting and praying, and praising and slaying, 
 
 Oliver fights for the Lord. 
 With the sword He brought the work is wrought, 
 
 We finish here to-day. 
 When yon rags and remnants of Babylon 
 
 Are blown and battered away.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 67 
 
 Hurrah for the groans of 'em, soon shall the bones of 'em, 
 
 Steady! Hell-rakers at large, 
 Rot under the sod. Pass the word: ' God 
 
 Is our strength.' There goes Oliver. Charge!" 
 
 When I had done she applauded so that my face burned 
 until I was discommoded -and fell into her trap. 
 
 " I wish you'd written them, Master Wheatman." 
 
 " Well, I did," said I grumpily, not liking to be bereft 
 of any little glory in her eyes. 
 
 " What, you ? " Her eyebrows arched and her lips 
 curled. " You, oh, never. ' Smiting and praying ' ? ' The 
 arm of the Flesh and the sword of the Spirit.' ' She mouthed 
 the words deliciously. 
 
 " But, doubtless, when you see my Lord Brocton again, 
 you'll put in the Word and the praying." Here her sweet 
 voice trailed off into a dainty snuffle : " ' My dear lord, since 
 out of the mouths of babes and sucklings proceedeth 
 wisdom, hearken, I pray you, unto me, Oliver Wheatman, 
 to wit of the Hanyards, and amend ye your ways lest I hit 
 you over your cockscomb again, and very much harder than 
 before. Repent ye, my lord, for the hour is at hand, and if 
 you don't, I'll thump you into one of our Kate's blackberry 
 jellies.' And here endeth the goodly discourse of that 
 saintly rib-roaster, Master Hit-him-first-and-then-pray-for- 
 him Wheatman of the Hanyards." 
 
 It was simply glorious to be so tormented by this witch 
 with the dancing blue eyes. 
 
 " For this scandalous contempt of the Muses," said I 
 soberly, " I shall punish you by frizzling your share of the 
 ham to a cinder." 
 
 During my schoolboy days I had roamed the countryside 
 till I knew it as an open book, and this minute knowledge 
 was our salvation now. The immediate need was food, and 
 food obtained without price and without our being observed 
 by anyone. At seven o'clock on a hard winter morning in 
 open country, this seemed to require a miracle. As a matter 
 of fact, it was as easy as shelling peas. 
 
 Since crossing the heath we had been travelling nearer 
 to one of the main roads, that leading out of the east gate 
 to the town, and now we got our first glimpse of it lying
 
 68 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 like a broad, brown ribbon half-way down the slope of a 
 very steep hill. In the upper half, this hill was pretty well 
 wooded and the road cut clean through the wood, but between 
 us and the wood there lay the level crest of the hill, cut by 
 hedges into several fields, and crossed by a rough cart -track 
 leading past a roomy, one-storied cottage, grey-walled and 
 brown-thatched, and on through the wood into the main 
 road. The cottage, with its outbuildings, made a little 
 farmstead, and here lived Dick Doley and his wife Sal, who 
 did a little farming, but mainly lived by huckstering. To- 
 day was market-day at Stafford, and unless they had broken 
 the routine of half a lifetime, they would now be packing 
 their little cart with marketables and soon be off for the 
 town. They had neither chick nor child, lad-servant nor 
 lassie, and they would leave the cottage empty and at our 
 disposal. At this time of the day I could, of course, have 
 trusted both, but they were very human bodies, of a sort 
 to rejoice the business side of the heart of Joe Braggs, and 
 it was best not to give them the chance of blabbing later in 
 the day when, for a moral certainty, they would both be 
 market fresh. Besides, it was unfair to thrust myself on 
 the kindness of anyone. I had more than once wondered 
 what had happened to poor little Marry-me-quick. 
 
 I scrambled through the hedge and peeped down the 
 road. I was right. Dick and his wife were busy loading 
 up. So we waited behind the hedge till they had cleared 
 off, and indeed did not move till I saw them and their cart 
 pass along the road at the foot of the hill. 
 
 Time has not blurred the memory of a single detail of 
 our stay in this welcome house of refuge, but the telling of 
 what was moving and charming to me would, I fear, bore 
 others. There was a ham, two indeed, and flitches beside, 
 in the rack hanging from the ceiling, and there were eggs 
 three, to be precise in the larder, to which, by equal good 
 luck considering the time of the year, I added two more 
 by a raid into the hen-house. It was all natural and simple 
 enough, but Mistress Waynflete hailed their production 
 almost as amazedly as if I had indeed drawn them out of 
 my hat. But how I fetched and carried, chopped wood 
 and drew water, swept the floor and laid the table, fried
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 69 
 
 ham and boiled eggs, doing all these things with music in 
 my heart and a noisy song on my lips is everything to me 
 and nothing to my tale. 
 
 Mistress Waynflete had disappeared into one of the three 
 or four rooms of which the house consisted, to make herself 
 presentable, as she absurdly put it. When the table was 
 laid and the ham cooked, I halloed the news to her, and 
 rushed off to the shed to attend to my outward appear- 
 ance. I did want it, being indeed not far short of 
 filthy. 
 
 Perhaps I hurried unexpectedly. At any rate, on re- 
 turning I found Mistress Waynflete bending over something 
 on the hearth. Straightening herself hastily, and with a 
 pretty confusion, at my approach, she cried, " Oh, Master 
 Oliver, the ham was burning, and you threatened my share 
 of it, you know ! " 
 
 I could not reply. Down to her hips her rich amber 
 hair flowed like a bridal veil, and from amid a wealth of 
 snowy lace, fluttering on the orbed glory of perfect woman- 
 hood, her neck rose smooth and stately as a shaft of alabaster. 
 Her cheeks crimsoned with maiden shamefastness, but the 
 blue eyes met mine without a hint of maiden fear, and for 
 that thanks as well as reverence filled my heart as I bowed 
 to her. Maidenlike, she drew her golden veil more closely 
 over her bospm, and tripped back to finish her toilet, leaving 
 me amated and abashed by the vision I had beheld. I think 
 it was from that moment that my joy in my work began to 
 be mingled with the despair of my love. Certainly it was 
 a chastened Oliver Wheatman who placed a chair for her 
 when she came in again for breakfast, and helped her to the 
 good things a kindly fortune had provided. 
 
 It is my belief that each of us was secretly amused at 
 the steady zeal with which the other attacked the meal. We 
 wrangled over the odd egg, each insisting on the other having 
 it, she because I was strong, and needed it, I because I was 
 strong and could do without it, and finally adopted the usual 
 compromise. We had more than gone round the clock with 
 barely a mouthful, and we ate as those who know not where 
 the next meal's meat is to come from. Frankly, I, at any 
 rate, gave myself a fair margin before the pinch should come
 
 70 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 again, and Mistress Waynflete averred that she had never 
 in her life before eaten so much or so toothsomely. 
 
 Our meal over, I stacked the fire with fresh logs, asked 
 and obtained permission to smoke a pipe, and made my 
 sweet mistress cosy in the chimney-corner. Then we began 
 to take stock of our position. 
 
 " There's no good to come of hurrying," said I. " Here 
 we are both snug and safe, and your night's rest was but 
 short. Let us see where we stand." 
 
 I did not really believe that any amount of talking would 
 help much, but repose would do her good, and I had a big 
 idea running in and out of my mind. Our first difficulty, 
 food and rest, had been overcome, and I was bent on master- 
 ing the next. No amount of discussion gave us any key 
 to the one great mystery. When Brocton had captured 
 Colonel Waynflete at Milford, the obvious thing to do with 
 him was to send him prisoner to the Duke at Lichfield. 
 Though the Colonel carried no papers which made his purpose 
 clear, Brocton knew well what the object of his journey was, 
 and the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act put the Colonel 
 in his power. Or, he might have carried him before a justice 
 of the peace, his friend Master Dobson for choice, and had 
 him committed to the town jail. The course actually 
 taken, that of sending him ahead, under guard, in the very 
 van of the royal army, was to us utterly inexplicable. His 
 mad lust for Mistress Margaret explained the separation of 
 father and daughter. The thought did occur to me, though 
 I took great care not to hint at it, that he intended to make 
 away with the Colonel, and looked to finding tools among 
 his blackguardly dragoons and an opportunity when in 
 actual conflict with the Highlanders. I hesitated, however, 
 to believe that Brocton was such a villain as to commit an 
 unnecessary murder. The plan he had adopted had, any- 
 how, this advantage to us that, when we did come into 
 touch with the prisoner, our chances of assisting him were 
 far greater than if he were in jail in Stafford or Lichfield. 
 
 Whatever my lord's motives were, it was clear that he 
 was not acting in the plain, straight-dealing manner to be 
 expected of one in his position. There were other signs of 
 crookedness, slight but not without weight. I could under-
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 71 
 
 stand his joy on finding me at Marry-me-quick's. It meant 
 that I was a rebel, and as a loyal man, who had gone to 
 expenses to prove his loyalty, he might easily get the Han- 
 yards as a reward, and thus round off the family property 
 in our neighbourhood. His reference to a " solatium " 
 puzzled me, but it did not seem anything of consequence. 
 What had I but the Hanyards to solace him with ? A 
 more important puzzle had been his behaviour at Master 
 Dobson's. To find me on the royal side, as he then sup- 
 posed, and to hear my reason for it, had clean dazed him. 
 Then there was the look, a signal-look beyond a doubt, 
 which I had surprised him giving his bully, Major Pimple- 
 face, and which was followed by the latter's attempt to 
 embroil the stranger from London in a row. 
 
 " It is useless, Master Wheatman, to speculate further 
 on what Lord Brocton is doing," said my mistress at last. 
 " He has his ends. I am one of them. Another is, no doubt, 
 to fill his pockets, somehow or other. It was common talk 
 in town that he was head over ears in debt." 
 
 While we had talked and had rested, I had not been idle. 
 Dick Doley's roomy kitchen had two windows, one over- 
 looking the cart-track, and another the slope of the hill. 
 The hill was so made and the house so placed that from 
 this second window we could see the strip of road at the 
 bottom of the hill where it curved on to the level again. I 
 had kept a sharp look out on that bit, but had seen no one 
 pass along it either way as yet. 
 
 In one corner of the room Dick kept an ancient fowling- 
 piece, more of a tool of husbandry than a weapon, since his 
 only use for it was to scare birds. It was a heavy, unhandy 
 thing, with a brass barrel down which I could have dropped 
 a sizable duck egg, and round its thick-rimmed nozzle 
 some one had rudely graven, " Happy is he that escapeth me." 
 I fetched it out of its corner, and cleaned and oiled it. I 
 now loaded it, for powder-horn and shot-bag hung near it on 
 the wall, putting in a handful of the biggest sort of shot, 
 swan-shot as I should call them. During this task, Mistress 
 Waynflete watched me narrowly, but made no reference to it. 
 
 " Now," said I, " our main requisite is the stuff, the ready, 
 the rhino, the swag call it what you will. How do you
 
 72 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 fancy me as a knight of the road ? The first copper-faced 
 farmer I come across shall surely stand and deliver. Here's 
 an argument he cannot resist." 
 
 At last my scrutiny of the road was rewarded. A 
 solitary horseman came in sight from the direction of the 
 town. 
 
 " Mistress Waynflete," said I, picking up the fowling- 
 piece, " there's a traveller yonder coming from Stafford. 
 It will be well if I go and ask him a few questions." 
 
 She almost leaped at me, red anger flashing in her eyes 
 but her face white as milk. " Sir," she said, " you shall 
 not turn thief for me. I will not have it." 
 
 " Pray, madam," replied I huffily, " expound the moral 
 difference between stealing ham and stealing guineas. I'm 
 all for morality." 
 
 " I cannot, Master Wheatman, but you must not, shall 
 not go." She caught hold of my sleeve. " Say you won't ! 
 If you are found out it means ' 
 
 " I shall not be found out. You may take that for sure. 
 Think you that I cannot pluck yon chough without being 
 pinched ? It's no more robbery than our eating Dick's 
 ham and eggs. We are soldiers in enemy's country, and we 
 plunder by right of the known rules of war. As a concession 
 to your prejudices in favour of the jog-trot morality of 
 peace, I will e'en ask him whether he be for James or George, 
 and borrow or command his guineas in accordance with his 
 reply. Loose my sleeve, madam ! " 
 
 I loosened the grip of her fingers, and led her back to her 
 chair. " You overrate my danger, sweet mistress, and under 
 rate our need. Without money, we might as well lie under 
 the nearest hedge and leave Jack Frost to settle matters his 
 way, and a cold, nasty way it would be. Your guinea is a 
 good fighter, and we need his help. It must be done, and, 
 never fear, I'll carry it through safely." 
 
 So I left her, white hands grappling the arms of her chair, 
 and white face turned away from me.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 73 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 MY CAREER AS A HIGHWAYMAN 
 
 I LEFT the cottage from the rear and struck slantwise 
 across the fields to reach the shelter of the trees and 
 undergrowth that covered the slope down to the road. 
 I ran hard so as to shake irresolution out of my mind, for 
 I found myself half wishing that Mistress Waynflete had 
 pleaded with me at first instead of trying to thrust me out of 
 my plan. After all the highwayman's was hardly my calling 
 in life. So I ran hard, saying to myself that it must be done, 
 and the sooner it was over the better. Then I laughed. 
 With my rusty old birding-piece I was as ill-equipped for 
 highwaymanship as I was for farming with my Georgics. 
 " Stand and deliver," quoth I to myself, " or I'll double your 
 weight with swan-shot." Were the unknown horseman 
 a resolute man armed with a hair-trigger, I was as good as 
 done for. 
 
 Arrived in the shelter of the wood, I began picking my 
 way through the thick undergrowth towards the road. 
 Fallen branchlets snapped beneath my heedless feet and the 
 sounds rang in my ears like pistol-shots. A saucy robin 
 cocked his care-free eye on me from the top of a crab-tree, 
 and I could have envied him as I stumbled by. It was 
 perhaps fourscore yards through, and half-way I stopped 
 to listen. Yes, there came to my ear the slow trot-ot-ot 
 of hoofs on the hard road. I went on again until, through 
 the leafless tangle, I began to get glimpses of the highway. 
 My fate was dragging me on. In a month's time my 
 shrivelling carcase might be swinging in chains on the top 
 of Wes'on Bank, an ensample to evil-doers. The thought 
 made me shiver, and I jerked out a broken prayer that my 
 intended victim might turn out some fat, unarmed fanner, 
 as easy a prey as an over-fed gander. Then I cursed myself 
 for a fool. No man can mortgage past piety for present sin. 
 Who was I that I should be allowed to steal on good 
 security ?
 
 74 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 Trot-ot-ot. Trot-ot-ot. He was within easy shot now, 
 and I stopped to make sure of my rickety old weapon. A 
 dragoon's musket would not have needed such constant care. 
 " Life turns on trifles," said Mistress Waynflete. 
 
 In lifting my eyes from the priming to move on again, 
 something in the line of vision made me start. On my left, 
 less than a dozen paces from me, there lay on the ground, on 
 a clean patch beneath a conspicuously-forked hawthorn, a 
 man's jacket and plumed hat. 
 
 A lion playing with a lamb would not have given me 
 pause more abruptly. I stole silently up to them. They 
 were fine but somewhat faded garments, modish and even 
 foppish, and, so far as I could distinguish any peculiarity, 
 military in appearance, and evidently belonged to a person 
 of some quality. Nor had they been flung there in haste, 
 for the coat was neatly folded and the hat disposed carefully 
 on top of it. How long had they been there ? I picked up 
 the hat, and there was still the gloss of recent sweat on its 
 inside brim. 
 
 This, however, was no time for idle problems, a very 
 urgent one being on hand. Forward I crept to the side of 
 the road, and, lying flat down on the ground, pushed the 
 stock of my gun on to the short grass, and peeped cautiously 
 to my right down the hill. I was about thirty or forty yards 
 from a bend in the road, and had intended to be much less, 
 but my discovery and my confused, half-conscious thinking 
 about it, had deflected me a little from my course. 
 
 Trot-ot-ot. He would be in sight in a few seconds. 
 Trot-ot-ot, plainer than ever, and there he was. The 
 moment that he was in full view I made an astonishing 
 discovery, and saw an astonishing sight. 
 
 The discovery was that the solitary horseman, walking 
 his powerful grey with a slack rein, and lost in thought, was 
 Master Freake. 
 
 The sight was the rush of three men from their lurking- 
 places in the brushwood. Two of them were soldiers, and 
 Brocton's dragoons at that, a sample of the town-sweepings 
 Jack had complained of. One seized the reins, the other 
 held a carbine point-blank at the horseman's head. 
 
 These were plainly deserters or freebooters, acting after
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 75 
 
 their kind, and they had picked up a strange partner during 
 their foray. He wore a yokel's smock much too big for him, 
 and yet not big enough to hide his bespurred riding-boots. 
 On his head he had a dirty tapster's bonnet, and his face was 
 completely hidden by a rudely-cut crape vizard. This 
 singular person was evidently the leader of the gang. He 
 threatened Master Freake with a glittering, long-barrelled 
 pistol, and in gruff, curt tones ordered him to dismount on 
 pain of instant death. 
 
 Here was a strange overturn to be sure. Here again fate 
 had rudely upset my plans, and no fat purse would there be 
 for me in this coil. However, though I would have robbed 
 Master Freake willingly enough, my blood being up and he 
 a manifest Hanoverian, I was not going to see Brocton's 
 ruffians rob him, much less kill him. The purse must wait, 
 and when I took it for take it I must God would perchance 
 balance one thing against the other. 
 
 All that I had seen and thought took place in a mere 
 fraction of time, and even before Master Freake had pulled 
 up, I was creeping like a ferret from bush to bush to get 
 nearer. Then, just as in his quiet, measured tones he was 
 asking what they wanted, I burst out into the wood, shout- 
 ing, " Forward, my men, here the villains are ! " With the 
 words, I fired my handful of swan-shot clean into the group, 
 and then charged at them yelling, in boyish imitation of a 
 knight of old, " Happy is he that escapeth me." 
 
 The two dragoons instantly fled with yelps of pain and 
 terror, and the horse, squealing with fright, began to rear 
 and plunge madly about the road. Black Vizard turned on 
 me, his pistol rang out, and the bullet hissed by my ear. I 
 sprang at him with clubbed gun, and struck hard for his 
 head, but caught him on the neck as he too turned to flee. 
 He went down, spinning and sprawling, in the road, right 
 under the plunging horse. With a squeal that curdled my 
 blood, she rose in the air, kicking viciously. Her hoofs 
 came down with sickening thuds on the squirming man's 
 skull, cracking it like an egg-shell. His body twitched 
 once or twice, and then settled into the stillness of death. 
 
 I seized the horse's rein and soothed her. She let me pat 
 her neck and rub her nose, and soon stood quiet, her neck
 
 76 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 flecked with foam, her flanks reeking with sweat. Master 
 Freake, who had not spoken a word, dismounted, and I led 
 the mare into the wood and hitched her reins over a bough. 
 Then I returned to the man I had saved, and found him 
 looking calmly down on the man I had killed. The black 
 vizard was now soaking in a horrid pool of blood and brains. 
 I stooped, and with trembling fingers moved it aside and 
 revealed the features of the dead man. It was the pimple- 
 faced Major. 
 
 I turned to my intended victim, and found him looking 
 calmly and impassively at me. 
 
 " Master Wheatman of the Hanyards, unless I am mis- 
 taken," he said. 
 
 " Your servant, sir," said I, rather sourly. But for that 
 dead rascal at our feet I could beyond a doubt have plucked 
 him like a chough, and here I was, still penniless. 
 
 " Master Wheatman, I am not a man of many words, 
 but what I say I stand by. I am your very grateful debtor 
 for a very fine and courageous action. Three to one is long 
 odds, but you won with your brains, sir, as much as by 
 your bravery. Your shout was an excellent device, happily 
 thought on." 
 
 He held out his hand. I shook it heartily and then burst 
 out laughing, and laughed on till tears stood in my eyes. 
 And this was the end of my highwaymanship ! 
 
 " Since the danger is, thanks to you, over, Master Wheat- 
 man," he said, " I would e'en like to share your mirth if 
 I may." 
 
 " Sir," I replied, " I am laughing because I have saved 
 you from robbers." 
 
 " But why laugh ? " 
 
 " Because I set out ten minutes ago to rob you myself." 
 
 Master Freake gazed casually up and down the hill, and 
 then, fixing his quiet grey eyes on me, said whimsically, 
 " I am a man of peace, and unarmed ; the road is of a truth 
 very lonely, and I have considerable sums of money on me." 
 
 " Yes, I'm quite vexed. This fire-faced scoundrel has 
 upset my plans finely. I may not get as good a chance for 
 hours." 
 
 Now it was his turn to laugh. " Master Wheatman,"
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 77 
 
 he said, " you are not the stuff highwaymen are made of. 
 As you are in need of money, you need it for some good 
 purpose, and I shall " 
 
 He stopped short. As we stood, he was facing the wood 
 from which the robbers had burst on him, while I had my 
 back on it. As he stopped, his strong, calm face changed, 
 and his eyes were fixed on something in the wood. Wonder, 
 amazement, delight, awe not one, but all of these emotions 
 were visible in his face. He looked as one who sees a blessed 
 spirit. I turned. It was Margaret, leaning, pale and spent 
 and breathless, against the trunk of a tree, looking and 
 shuddering at the dread object in the road. 
 
 I bounded up to her and touched her on the arm. " All's 
 well, Mistress Waynflete," said I. "I am as yet no gallows- 
 bird." 
 
 " But " Her eyes were still staring wide on the 
 
 road, and she trembled violently, so I stepped between her 
 and the ghastly sight, and said, " Courage, dear lady. The 
 dead man is your father's worst enemy, Major Tixall, and 
 yon horse killed him, not I." 
 
 By this, Master Freake had come nearer to us, and I 
 turned to greet him. 
 
 " Madam," said I, " this is my friend, Master Freake, 
 whom I set out to rob." To him I added, " This is Mistress 
 Waynflete, whom I have the honour to serve." 
 
 He bared his head and bowed. " And whom I hope to 
 have the honour of serving too." 
 
 I looked at him curiously. All other emotions had 
 faded from his face now, but it was clear that her peerless 
 and now so helpless beauty had appealed home to him. 
 
 " Sir," she said, recovering herself with a great effort, 
 " I am pleased to make your acquaintance. And now," 
 speaking to me, " since you have given me a great fright 
 and made me behave like a milkmaid rather than a soldier's 
 daughter, perhaps you will tell me what has happened, and 
 how it " she looked over my shoulder " comes to be 
 lying there. I heard shots and shrieks that turned me to 
 stone. What has happened ? " 
 
 " Master Wheatman," said our new acquaintance, taking 
 my words out of my mouth, " is hardly likely to give you
 
 78 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 a reasonably correct account. Allow me to be the historian 
 of his fine conduct." He told the story with overmuch 
 kindness to me, and as he told it the colour came back to her 
 face, and she was herself again. While he was telling it. I 
 noticed for the first time, or rather for the first time gathered 
 its meaning, that she had run out after me without the 
 domino, and in the biting air she might easily catch a chill. 
 So while Master Freake was making a fine sprose about me, 
 much more applicable to Achilles or the Chevalier Bayard, 
 I slipped off and fetched the hat and coat. He was just 
 concluding his story on my return, and without interrupting 
 him, I clumsily thrust the hat on her head and flung the 
 coat over her shoulders. 
 
 " Master Freake," she said, in her sweetest bantering 
 tones, " my servant, as he absurdly calls himself, is really 
 an artist in helping people. I told him this morning that 
 his native shire was his conjurer's hat, when he fetched ham 
 and eggs out of it for poor hungry me. Now he observes 
 that I am coatless and a-cold, and lo, a hat is on my head 
 and a coat on my shoulders. It is marvellous and nothing 
 short of it. Nay, I shall shun him as one in league with the 
 powers of darkness if there's much more of it. If I be saved, 
 you remember Master Slender," this in a sly aside to me, 
 " I'll be saved by them that have the fear of God." 
 
 " Ingrate ! " I cried, half angry and yet wholly delighted ; 
 " what of marvel or devilment is there in picking up a hat 
 and coat one has found lying under a tree ? " 
 
 " Major Tixall's," said Master Freake. 
 
 " Ass that I am, of course they are. Steady, Mistress 
 Margaret, while I go through the pockets. The odds are 
 we shall find something useful in checkmating my Lord 
 Brocton." 
 
 In this I was wrong, for there was not a single scrap of 
 writing in any of them. I did, however, fish out two small 
 but heavy packets, wrapped in paper. They were easily 
 examined, and each contained a roll of ten guineas. 
 
 " The hire of the two rascals," explained Master Freake. 
 
 " Really, Mistress Margaret," said I, " there's something 
 in what you said just now. I do have his nether highness's 
 own luck. I came out for guineas, prepared to rob for them,
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 79 
 
 and here's twenty of the darlings lying ready for me to pick 
 up. Now we can go ahead in comfort." 
 
 Through all this talk I was turning over in my mind 
 what account, if any, we were to give Master Freake of our 
 being here. If I had had only myself to consider I should 
 have trusted him without hesitation. He was the sort of 
 man that inspires confidence, his grave, serene, intelligent 
 face having strength and steadfastness written in every line 
 of it. But I had Mistress Waynflete to consider, and if any 
 appeal was to be made for his assistance, she must make it. 
 I'm afraid that I hoped she wouldn't, since I was jealous of 
 any interference in my temporary responsibility for her 
 welfare. 
 
 " Master Freake," I said, " some account will, I suppose, 
 have to be given of yon ruffian's death. The two runaways 
 are scarcely likely to appear as witnesses, so, for Mistress 
 Waynflete's sake, I must ask you, should an explanation 
 become necessary, to conceal my share in the matter." 
 
 " The manner of his death is fortunately quite obvious, 
 and if it were not, any account I choose to give of it will 
 pass unquestioned." 
 
 " Then it will be easy for you, I hope, to forget me 
 when giving it. And now, madam, I think we must be 
 moving." 
 
 " Before you go," said Master Freake, " let me say again 
 that if I can help you, you have only to ask. You, Master 
 Wheatman, because your twofold signal service is some- 
 thing it would shame me for ever not to be allowed to return, 
 and you, madam, because," he paused, and the curious rapt 
 expression came over his face again, " because you are very 
 beautiful and need help. Your father's politics will make 
 no difficulty, so far as I am concerned." 
 
 " You know my father ? " she asked, surprised. 
 
 " Know of him. My Lord Brocton was boasting last 
 night of his capture and of other things," he lamely con- 
 cluded. 
 
 " Is he boasting this morning ? " I asked. 
 
 " I have not seen him," he said, " but Mistress Dobson 
 told me she thought he'd been rooks' -nesting and had fallen 
 off the poplar."
 
 8o 
 
 " I met him again," said I, " and did not like his con- 
 versation." 
 
 " Master Wheatman means," explained Mistress Wayn- 
 flete, " that he saved me from my Lord Brocton's clutches at 
 the imminent risk of his own life." She stretched out her 
 hands and touched the holes in my coat with her white, 
 slender fingers. " My lord's rapier made these," she said. 
 
 " An inch to the left, my friend," quoth Master Freake, 
 " and you'd have been as dead as mutton. His lordship, it 
 seems, is busily piling up a big account with both of us. 
 Well, in my own way, I'll make the rascal pay as dearly as 
 you have in yours. If you will be pleased to accept my 
 help, madam, I will do all I can for you. There are, fortu- 
 nately, other 1 means than carnal weapons of influencing such 
 persons as Lord Brocton." 
 
 " Like Master Wheatman, sir, you are too good to a poor 
 girl." She said it gratefully and humbly, and indeed so she 
 felt, but no man could listen to her meek words without 
 pride. 
 
 " I'm glad I turned footpad, in spite bf you," said I to 
 my dear mistress. 
 
 " I can never thank you enough," was the simple reply. 
 " It was wicked in me to accept the sacrifice, but in God's 
 good providence it was not made in vain." 
 
 " Then I come into the firm," said Master Freake 
 smilingly, and when, catching the meaning of his metaphor, 
 she smiled brightly back at him, and held out her hand, he 
 bowed over it formally, but very kindly, and kissed it. She 
 blushed prettily, and then, after a moment's hesitation, 
 stretching it out to me, said, " But I must not forget the 
 original partner." I took the splendid prize in my rough, 
 red, farmer's hand, and kissed it reverently. The touch of 
 my lips on her sweet, smooth flesh made me tremble, and I 
 knew the madness was creeping over me, but I gritted my 
 teeth, and our eyes met again. The blush had gone, but not 
 the smile. It was not now, however, the smile of a frank 
 maiden but of an inscrutable and dominating woman. I 
 knew the difference, for instinct is more than experience, 
 and I chilled into the yokel again and wondered. 
 
 " In one sense, at any rate," said Master Freake, " I am
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 81 
 
 the senior partner, and as such may, without presumption, 
 speak first. I must go on to Stone, but that will, I think, 
 be best for our purpose. As I view the situation, two things 
 are requisite, first that you, Master Wheatman, should get 
 Mistress Waynflete in advance of all the royal troops, and so 
 out of danger, and secondly that we should learn precisely 
 what has become of Colonel Waynflete." 
 
 " Exactly," I agreed. " The action of Lord Brocton in 
 sending the Colonel north instead of south, or at least of 
 lodging him in jail at Stafford, is inexplicable. True, his 
 plan separates father and daughter, which is what he wants, 
 but either of the other methods would have served equally 
 well for that." 
 
 Of course I said nothing of the other idea that was haunt- 
 ing my thoughts, the idea that Brocton was scheming to get 
 rid of the Colonel altogether. In his lust and anger he might 
 not stick at that, and any kind of encounter with the enemy 
 would serve his turn. The rascals under him were worthy 
 of their commander, a fact of which we had already ample 
 proof. 
 
 " It looks crooked, I confess," was his reply, " but there 
 is this to be said for it, that the Duke is following north along 
 with the bulk of his army, and, I hear, intends to make 
 Stone his head-quarters." 
 
 " That seems absurd," said I, " but of course he knows 
 best." 
 
 " The movements of the Prince's army are uncertain. 
 The plan of their leaders is never to say where the next halt 
 will be. They will be to-day, I know, in or near Maccles- 
 field, and I learn that it is possible they may turn off for 
 Wales, where they believe they will find many recruits. The 
 farther north the Duke can safely go, the better placed he 
 will be for checking them if they do that, and his advance 
 guard is posted at Newcastle. The question is, how are you 
 to get there first and without being taken ? " 
 
 " By travelling the by-roads," said I. " We'll go through 
 Eccleshall." 
 
 " How long will it take you to get there ? " he asked. 
 
 " About three hours," said I, "if Mistress Waynflete can 
 stand the pace." 
 6
 
 82 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " Very good," he replied. " I will join you there, and 
 do my best to get horses for you in the meantime, and bring 
 them along with me." 
 
 " That's splendid," said I, " but I'd rather we met out- 
 side the village. Not more than a mile and a half beyond 
 it on the Newcastle road there's a little wayside ale-house 
 called the ' Ring of Bells,' at the foot of a steep hill, with a 
 large pool ringed with pines, known as Cop Mere, in front of 
 it. It's a lonely place and will serve better. Small place as 
 Eccleshall is, I shall skirt round it, and so get to the ' Ring 
 of Bells.' You cannot miss it if you ride through the 
 village on the Newcastle road. Whoever' s there first will 
 await the other." 
 
 " Then in about three hours we'll meet at the ' Ring of 
 Bells,' and I hope I shall bring good news of 'the Colonel. 
 Believe me, dear lady, short of foul play on Brocton's 
 part, and we have no reason to suspect that, your father will 
 be all right. Plain John Freake is not without influence. 
 As for the ruffian lying dead in the road, think no more of 
 him." 
 
 So saying he unhitched his horse, led her into the road, 
 and mounted. He bowed and smiled, said cheerily, " A 
 pleasant walk to the ' Ring of Bells,' " and cantered off. 
 
 I stepped between madam and the dead man. " We've 
 found a good friend there, Mistress Waynflete. Now we'll 
 put the hat and coat as we found them, save for the guineas, 
 and go back to the cottage for your domino." 
 
 She gave them to me, and stepped out briskly towards 
 the cottage. I folded up the coat, put the hat on it. looked 
 again at the still, stiff horror in the road, soaking in its 
 own blood, and silently followed her.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 83 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 SULTAN 
 
 THE lie of the land was as follows : To get to the 
 " Ring of Bells," Master Freake would have to ride over 
 the hill to the main road at Weston, thence some six 
 miles north-west to Stone, thence another six or seven 
 miles south-west to the inn. Mistress Waynflete and I had a 
 stiff walk of about nine miles in front of us. For the first 
 three miles our way ran east by north, and then bent almost 
 due east to the ale-house. Our difficulty would come at 
 the bending point, for there we should have to cross the main 
 road from Stafford along which the troops would be filtering 
 north to get into touch with the Prince and his Highlanders. 
 If the Duke had heard of the supposed intention of the 
 Jacobites to turn off for Wales, he would, I imagined, send 
 a scouting party through Eccleshall to look out for them, 
 and we should, for the second time in our journey, be on 
 dangerous ground in the neighbourhood of that village. 
 The " Ring of Bells," however, lay north of that village, off 
 his obvious line of march in that direction, so that we stood 
 a good chance of passing unchecked to our goal, provided 
 that we got across the main road north in safety. Fortun- 
 ately, at the place where I intended to cross, it climbed over a 
 fairly steep hill, and we could, if need were, lie and watch 
 the road till it was safe to venture out. 
 
 It was ticklish work at the best and any break in our run 
 of luck might ruin us. How ticklish was vividly brought 
 home to me within a few minutes of our getting safe under 
 cover in the cottage. I had, of course, brought back the 
 birding-piece and, after once more helping in the blissful 
 task of getting Mistress Waynflete into the domino, bungling 
 as usual over arranging the hood because my fingers lost 
 control of themselves at the touch of her hair, I sat down 
 to reload it, intending to carry it with me. I had settled 
 matters with the absent gaffer, Doley, by putting one of my 
 guineas conspicuously on the table, and was just finishing
 
 84 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 my task when Mistress Waynflete, who had stepped to the 
 rear window and was looking back on the scene of my recent 
 exploit, suddenly called out, " Oliver ! Come here ! " 
 
 My heart leaped within me at that ' Oliver.' True, it 
 was the familiarity of one born to command, one who had 
 last night icily desired my services in the morning, and, 
 womanlike, knew that she could queen it over me as she 
 listed, but still, and this was the main thing, it was familiar 
 and friendly, and seemed to lift me a shade nearer to her. 
 
 " What is it, madam ? " I asked respectfully, and ran 
 toward her, but not so swiftly that I had not time to see the 
 blue eyes fixed hard on mine. For answer, she turned and 
 pointed down the hill, and there I saw the patch of brown 
 road covered with wagons and soldiers. In five minutes 
 they would come across the dead body of the Major. 
 
 " Good," said I indifferently, " they save me a guinea," 
 and I put the coin back in my pocket. The soldiers didn't 
 matter, but that look in her eyes did. 
 
 " Isn't that rather mean ? " For some reason she 
 spoke quite snappily. The soldiers clearly didn't matter to 
 her, and something else did. 
 
 " Which of the soldiers provided our breakfast, madam ? 
 We might as well leave a note asking them to pick us up at 
 the ' Ring of Bells.' And, madam, you can trust me to make 
 Dick Do ley content enough some day." 
 
 She smiled, with her characteristic touch of chagrin. I 
 liked her best so, for she never looked daintier. " With 
 a bit of luck, Master Wheatman," she said whimsically, 
 " there will surely come a time when you'll be wrong and I 
 right. Then, sir, look out for crowing. I've never been so 
 unlucky with a man in my life. But you'll slip some 
 day ! " 
 
 " Surely, madam," I said, and smiled, " and then I'll 
 abide your gloating. Now, pray you, let us be off. We've 
 hardly a minute to spare." 
 
 Without losing another second we started on our long 
 walk. It was now about ten of the clock. The sun was 
 shining cheerily, with power enough to melt the white 
 rime off every blackened twig it lit upon, and it was still so 
 cold that sharp walking was a keen delight.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 85 
 
 " Eight miles and more of it, Mistress Waynflete. I hope 
 you can stand the pace and the distance." 
 
 " I'm a soldier's daughter, not an alderman's," she 
 replied curtly. 
 
 The vicar was right. " Oliver," he said to me one day, 
 " what is the difference between the Hebrew Bible and a 
 woman ? " 
 
 " Sir," said I, gaping with astonishment, " I know not, 
 but of a truth it seems considerable." 
 
 " It is, Oliver," replied the sweet old scholar. " Man can 
 understand the one in a dozen years, if he try, but the other 
 not in a lifetime, strive he as earnestly as he may." 
 
 This fragment of my dear friend's talk came back to me 
 now as we walked in silence side by side. Out of the corner 
 of my eye I could see her sweet face set in earnest thinking, 
 her rich lips compressed, her speaking eyes fixed resolutely 
 ahead. Not having to trouble about finding the road, and 
 there being no sign of anyone, either enemy or neutral, 
 stirring on the countryside, I let her go on thinking, and set 
 myself the pleasant but impossible task of accounting to 
 myself for her mood. I went over all we had said and done 
 together that day, and at last, after perhaps half an hour 
 of unbroken silence, fell back on what seemed the only possible 
 explanation. She was thinking of her father. But why 
 that suspicion of asperity on her face ? Was this explanation 
 correct ? 
 
 The vicar was right. She suddenly slipped her hand 
 round my arm, looking at me with laughing lips and dancing 
 eyes, and said, " Isn't it splendid to be alive on a day like 
 this ? " 
 
 " Yes, indeed it is," I replied, " but from your looks and 
 your long silence, I should hardly have judged that you 
 were thinking so." 
 
 " You. have been taking stock of me, sir ! " 
 
 " Certainly I have been wondering why you were so 
 silent, and looked so ... grave." 
 
 " Be honest and fear not, Master Wheatman. You were 
 not going to say ' grave.' ' 
 
 " At the expense of many whippings from old Bloggs, 
 I learned to be precise in the use of words."
 
 86 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " I know, hence you were not going to say ' grave.' " 
 
 " You will allow me to choose my own words, madam." 
 
 " Certainly, so long as you choose the right ones." 
 
 She unhooked her hand, and we walked a minute or two 
 without another word, she frowning, and I fuming. Then 
 she said wistfully, " Why did you think I was cross ? " 
 
 " I feared I had offended you," said I hastily and 
 innocently. 
 
 She laughed long and merrily. " Old Bloggs taught you 
 the silly rigmarole you men call logic, but he didn't teach 
 you woman's logic, that's plain. Don't you see what I've 
 made you do, Master Wheatman ? " 
 
 " Not yet, Mistress Waynflete." 
 
 " Poof, slow-coach ! I've made you admit that you 
 were going to say ' cross ' but altered it, too late, to ' grave.' ' 
 
 " You outrun me with your nimble and practised wit," 
 said I, smiling. 
 
 " And when did you offend me, think you ? " 
 
 " I answered you rather roughly when you took me up 
 about the guinea." 
 
 " Oh, then ? Not at all. You snibbed me, but I richly 
 deserved it." 
 
 Another silence. 
 
 " Well ? " she said. " Go on ! I say I richly deserved 
 it. Go on ! " 
 
 " Go on where ? " I asked testily. " You're not expecting 
 me to say you didn't, are you ? " 
 
 " No, I'm not," she said, " but it was good practice 
 trying to make you." So saying, she slipped her hand under 
 my arm again, and we stepped it out together. 
 
 The current of her thoughts now ran and glittered in 
 the opposite direction. She made me for the moment her 
 intimate, lifting up the veil over her past life, and giving me 
 peeps and vistas of her wanderings and experiences. She 
 jested and gibed. She sang little snatches of song in some 
 foreign tongue. " You're sure you don't understand 
 Italian ? " she demanded, stopping short half-way through a 
 bar, and quizzing me with her eyes, now blue as sapphires 
 in the bright sunshine. 
 
 " Not a word of it," said I.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 87 
 
 " A grave disadvantage," she said airily. " It's the only 
 language one can love in." And off she struck again. 
 
 Now she sang something soothing and sad, with a wistful 
 lilt in it that died into a low wail. It needed no Italian to 
 be understood, for it was written in the language of human 
 experience. A woman's heart throbbed in the lilt and broke 
 in the wail. 
 
 This sweet interval of intimacy verging on friendship 
 was ended by our close approach to the main road. We 
 had been travelling, heedless of roads and tracks, across a 
 champaign country, and the slope up to the top of Yarlet 
 Bank now lay before us. I led the way, skulking behind 
 such poor cover as the gaunt hedgerows provided, and, when 
 only a hundred paces from the top, I asked her to crouch 
 down, awaiting my signal to advance, while I crept forward 
 on my hands and knees to the edge of the road which here 
 climbed the brow of the hill through a deep cutting, along 
 either margin of which ran a straggling hedge. 
 
 To my relief, the road down the hill, both to right and 
 left, was completely deserted. I joyfully waved my arm to 
 Mistress Waynflete, who was soon by my side, looking down 
 the road. To the right we could see for nearly a mile. On 
 the left our view was cut short by a bend, and I walked 
 a score of yards in that direction and shinned up a stout 
 sapling. Our luck was absolute. Not a soldier, not a living 
 soul, was in sight. 
 
 " We might have had to skulk here for hours, waiting for 
 an opportunity to cross unseen," said I, on rejoining her, 
 " but our gods above are victorious, and we share their 
 victory. So now for the ' Ring of Bells.' There's a gate 
 at the bottom of the hill. Come along, Mistress Waynflete ! " 
 
 She followed me down the hedge-side. I turned once or 
 twice to look at her, carefully pretending that it was only 
 to see how she was getting on. The last time I thus stole 
 another memory of her splendid presence we were only a few 
 paces from the gate, and when my reluctant eyes turned 
 again to their rightful work, they looked straight into a pair 
 of fishy eyes set in a face as blank and ugly as a bladder of 
 lard. 
 
 Face and eyes belonged to a big. sleek, sly man, perched
 
 88 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 on the top bar of the gate. He had a notebook in his hand 
 in which he had been entering some jottings. He suspended 
 his writing to examine us, picking his nasty, yellow teeth 
 meanwhile with the point of his pencil. His horse was 
 hitched to the post on the Stoneward side of the gate, where 
 the stile was. He was well enough dressed, and, as far as I 
 could see, unarmed. 
 
 It was a most exasperating thing to have pitched into 
 him, whoever and whatever he was, and indeed I much dis- 
 liked the look of him, and would gladly have knocked him on 
 the head. True, travellers were not rare on this road, since 
 it was part of the great highway from London to Chester, 
 and the little thoroughfare town of Stone, some three miles 
 ahead, had a noted posthouse. However, I kept, or tried 
 to keep, my feelings out of my face and voice, and accosted 
 him cheerily. 
 
 " Good day, friend ! What may be the price of fat 
 beeves in Stafford market to-day ? " 
 
 " Dearer than men's heads will be at the town gates 
 after the next assizes," he replied, stroking his notebook 
 and grinning evilly. 
 
 " You'll never light on a Scotsman, dead or alive, that's 
 worth as much as a Staffordshire heifer," said I, leading the 
 way past him to the stile, over which I handed Mistress 
 Margaret into the road. 
 
 " They won't all be Scotsmen, my friend," he replied, 
 still stroking his notebook. 
 
 " No ? " said I, eager at heart to knock him off his 
 perch. 
 
 " Nor men," he added, leering at Margaret. 
 
 " Come along, Sal," said I to her laughingly, " before 
 the good gentleman jots you down a Jacobite." 
 
 So we left him, and when, fifty paces down the road, I 
 looked back at him, he was jotting in his notebook again. 
 
 " I think he knows something about us," said I. 
 
 " Very likely," she replied calmly. " I've seen him 
 once before in London, talking to Major Tixall. Who could 
 forget a face like that ? " 
 
 " He's uglier than the big-mouthed dragoon." 
 
 " The dragoon was at any rate a soldier."
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 89 
 
 " And the worst of soldiers has, no doubt, some savour 
 of grace in him." 
 
 " Quite so," she retorted. " His calling makes it neces- 
 sary." 
 
 " And, so reasoning, you would say, I suppose, that the 
 best of fanners was to seek in the higher reaches of manli- 
 ness." 
 
 " Have I not told you, Master Oliver, that between man's 
 logic and woman's logic there's a great gulf fixed ? " 
 
 " Minds are minds," said I. 
 
 " And hearts are hearts," replied she, and so shut me up 
 to my thinking again. 
 
 We turned into a cart -track on our left leading in the 
 direction of Eccleshall. As we turned I saw that Bladder- 
 face had mounted his horse and was coming on toward Stone. 
 There was no doubt that we should be pursued from that 
 quarter before long, and I grew heavy with anxiety as I saw 
 how hardly we were being pressed. The encounter had not, 
 however, disturbed Mistress Waynflete. On the contrary, 
 she became gayer than ever, so gay that, fool-like, I got quite 
 vexed at it, for it was clear that something had relieved her 
 anxiety, and I knew it was nothing that I had done. I 
 worried over it, and at last hit on the explanation. She 
 was rejoicing in the help of the new partner. 
 
 " What do you make of Master Freake ? " said I boorishly, 
 cutting short a lightsome trill, more Italian maybe. 
 
 " Make of what ? " said she lightly. 
 
 " Master Freake." 
 
 " Forgive me, Master Wheatman," she replied, " but I 
 didn't take you as quickly as I ought to have done. I like 
 the look of him. How pretty, pluck them for me." 
 
 I stopped to gather the spray of brilliant vermilion 
 berries she fancied, saying meanwhile, " I wonder what he 
 is ? Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, or what ? " 
 
 She seemed much more concerned with her berries, which 
 she praised rapturously, and placed carefully in the bosom 
 of her riding-dress before replying. 
 
 " He's no doubt a grave and prosperous citizen of London. 
 I've seen many such, and he looks sworn brother to worthy 
 Alderman Heathcoat. Moreover, he talks merchantlike."
 
 90 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 It seemed pretty certain that she had hit the right nail 
 on the head. Her explanation fitted his account of the 
 large sums he was carrying and his stay with and hold over 
 Jack's father. True, Staffordshire seemed the wrong place 
 for such a man. Both he and his money would have been 
 far safer in Change Alley. If her explanation was acute and 
 probable, her manner of making it had convinced me that 
 my explanation of her gaiety was wrong. Of him she cer- 
 tainly had not been thinking. Then there was only one 
 thing left to account for it. What makes a maid as merry 
 as a grig ? Didn't our Kate sing all morning when Jack 
 was coming in the afternoon ? 
 
 It was no concern of mine, and as a man sometimes makes 
 his right hand play his left hand at chess, so I now made 
 stern Oliver lecture paltering Wheatman, but without doing 
 him much good. Naturally all this made me a poor com- 
 panion on the road, and for a long time Mistress Waynflete 
 bore with me patiently. Then she turned from her tra-la-la-ing 
 to waken me up, roundly declaring that I was bored with her 
 company ; and I had no defence, ridiculous as the charge was. 
 
 " I've sung every song I know, and sung them my best, 
 too, and you've never once praised me. You'll have to 
 learn, you know, Master Oliver, to smile at a lady even when 
 you really want to smack her. What do you do ? You 
 just write on your face as plainly as this " and here her 
 dainty finger toured her face, ending up where the tear of 
 milk had trembled " S-M-A-C-K." I roared aloud, she did 
 it so frankly and mirthfully. What a treasury of moods she 
 was ! She had stepped across our house-place like a queen, 
 she had fronted that devil, Brocton, like a goddess, and now 
 she was larking like a schoolmaid. 
 
 Long as the way was, we seemed to me to be getting over 
 the ground too rapidly. Mistress Waynflete did not tire, and 
 did full credit to her father's soldiership. We circled round 
 the red-tiled roofs of Eccleshall, and at length took shelter 
 in the pines that ringed the great pool. Across the mere 
 lay the road, and on the far side of the road from us was the 
 " Ring of Bells," standing well back, with a little green in front, 
 in the centre of which a huge post carried a board bearing 
 the rudely painted sign of the ale-house.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 91 
 
 I scouted ahead, dodging from tree to tree along the edge 
 of the mere, in order to keep out of view of anyone moving 
 on the road. Over against the ale-house I crept still more 
 warily through the wood to the edge of the road. There 
 was no one moving in or about the ramshackle little place, 
 but there was one unexpected thing in sight which gave me 
 pause. Hitched by the reins to a staple in the signpost was 
 the finest horse I had ever set eyes on, a slender, sinewy 
 stallion, champing on his bit and pawing nervously on the 
 stone-hard ground. 
 
 Here was the shadow of a new trouble, though, indeed, 
 there was nothing to be surprised at, seeing that the country- 
 side far and near was buzzing with enemy activities. A rat 
 in a barn might as justly complain of being tickled by straws 
 as I of jostling into difficulties. The horse without betokened 
 a rider within, and probably some one in the Duke's horse. 
 I beckoned Mistress Waynflete, and by signs indicated that 
 extreme caution was necessary. During the moments I was 
 awaiting her I examined the birding-piece to make sure it 
 was in order. Caution, however, she flung to the winds, for 
 the moment she set eyes on the horse she joyously shouted 
 ' Sultan ' and made a wild, happy dash to cross the road. 
 
 I stopped her sternly, and in a brief whisper asked, 
 " Who's Sultan ? " 
 
 " Father's horse." 
 
 " We do not know for sure that your father is in the inn 
 because his horse is outside, and by your leave, madam, we'll 
 make sure first. Keep right behind yon thick tree, and await 
 my return." 
 
 She looked calmly at me, but even before she could glide 
 off, there came from the ale-house an appalling volley of 
 oaths and curses. It was a man's voice, yelling in agonized 
 blasphemy, and a woman's shrill treble floated on the surface 
 of the stream of virulence. 
 
 I caught Mistress Waynflete's wrist and steadied her. 
 " Not your father, apparently ? " I said in a cool voice, 
 though my head was whirling a bit under the strain. 
 " Here," I went on, fetching a fistful out of my pocket, 
 " are some guineas. Follow me, unhitch the horse, and if I 
 shout to you to be off, mount him from yon horse- trough,
 
 93 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 and away like lightning. That's the road to .Eccleshall, 
 along which Master Freake is bound to come." 
 
 I thrust the guineas into her hand, gripped my weapon, 
 slipped out of the pines and across the road, circled the horse, 
 and made to peep round the jamb of the open door into the 
 guest-room of the ale-house. As I did so, the man yelled, 
 " God damn, I'm on fire ! " and the woman shrieked back, 
 " Burn, you foul devil, burn, and be damned ! " 
 
 This was enough, and I burst in on a spectacle, strange, 
 serious, on the point of becoming terrible, and yet almost 
 laughable. In the middle of the room, a stout, shock-headed, 
 red-elbowed woman stood, a pikel in her strong outstretched 
 hands. The sergeant of dragoons, with his back to a roaring 
 fire, was pinned against the hearthstead by the pitchfork, the 
 tines of which were stuck in the oak lintel of the chimney- 
 piece, so that a ring of steel encircled his throat like the 
 neckhole of a pillory, and held him there helpless and roast- 
 ing. When I first caught sight of him he was making a 
 frenzied attempt to wrench the prongs out, but, finding it 
 hopeless, drew his tuck, and lashed out at the woman. She 
 calmly shifted out of reach along the handle of the fork. 
 He then hacked fiercely but without much effect on the 
 wooden handle, and finally, in his despair and agony, poised 
 the tuck and cast it at her javelin-fashion. The woman, 
 cooler than he in both senses of the term, dodged it easily. 
 How she had contrived to pin him in such a helpless manner, 
 I could not imagine. The motive was obvious. A little 
 girl lay writhing and sobbing on the floor amid the fragments 
 of a broken mug and a scattering of copper and silver coins. 
 
 " You've got him safe enough, mother," said I, " and 
 it's no good cooking him since you can't eat him." 
 
 " Be yow another stinking robber, like this'n ? " she 
 demanded. The epithet was as apt as it was vigorous, for 
 the stink of singeing cloth made me sniff. " If y'be," she 
 went on, " I'll shove' im in the fire and set about yow." 
 
 " Not a bit of it, mother. I've come to help you, but 
 shift him along a bit out of the heat, and then we'll settle 
 what to do with him." To him I added, " Understand, 
 sergeant, any attempt to fight or fly, and your neck will be 
 wrung like a cockerel's." Then laying down my gun I
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 93 
 
 pulled out the tines and shifted him along the lintel till he 
 was out of danger. The woman, whose fierce determination 
 never faltered, jammed the pikel in again and kept him 
 trapped. 
 
 I went to the door and saw Mistress Waynflete standing 
 by Sultan's head, and the proud beauty arching his neck 
 in his joy at finding his mistress near him. I beckoned 
 her. 
 
 " An old acquaintance, in a fix. Come in ! " said I, and 
 introduced her to the strange scene. " The sergeant, madam," 
 I went on, " and he has been plucked like a brand from the 
 burning." She took in the scene, judged what had happened, 
 and then gathered up the child, who had ceased crying out 
 of curiosity, and mothered the little one so sweetly that the 
 red-elbowed woman cried out hearty thanks. 
 
 In brief the story, as collected later from the mother and 
 child, was that the sergeant had ridden up and asked for a 
 meal. After he had had some bread and cheese and ale, he 
 had taken advantage of the alewife's absence to ask the 
 child where mother kept her money, and, receiving no answer, 
 had twisted the poor little one's arm until in her terror and 
 agony she had told him of the secret hole in the chimney 
 where the money was kept in a coarse brown mug. The 
 child's cry had brought the mother running back with the 
 pikel, snatched up on the way, and she, taking him at un- 
 awares with the mug in his hand, had darted at him and 
 luckily caught him round the neck, and pinned him against 
 the fireplace as I had found him. Let him go she dared not, 
 for she was alone except for the child, and but for my arrival 
 he would have roasted right enough till he was helpless. 
 As it was the skirts of his coat were smouldering, and he had 
 only just escaped serious injury. In fact, although smarting 
 sore, he was so little damaged that after tearing away the 
 burnt tails, he collected himself and tried to bam me. 
 
 " Master Wheatman," he began, " I call upon you in 
 the King's name to aid and assist me. This woman's tale 
 is all a lie. The mug was on the chimney-top for anyone to 
 see, and I only took it down to examine it, being struck 
 with its appearance." 
 
 " Also in the King's name, Master Sergeant," was my
 
 04 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 reply, " I propose to have you handed over to the nearest 
 justice as a rogue and vagabond." 
 
 " And you shall explain why you are here with your 
 I should have strangled him if his foul tongue had wagged 
 one word of insult, and he saw it in my eyes. He stopped, 
 and his face showed that he had discovered the secret. 
 
 " The sergeant recognizes you again, Molly," said I 
 lightly. 
 
 " Bammed and beaten by a damned yokel ? " he burst 
 out. " Ten thousand devils ! Where were my eyes yester- 
 day ? " In his anger he began to strain at his steel cravat. 
 
 " Virgil for ever ! The first town we come to I'll buy 
 me a Latin grammar," said Margaret to me, with a low ripple 
 of laughter. 
 
 " How'd on, fool," said the alewife to the sergeant. " Yow 
 wunna be wuth hangin' if y' carry on a this'n." 
 
 " If you don't loose me, you old bitch," he shouted, 
 " I'll see you hanged ! Loose me, for your neck's sake ! 
 These people are Jacobites ! " 
 
 " Gom, I dunna know what that be, but I wish Stafford- 
 sheer was full on 'em. 'Tinna any good chokin' y'rsen, I 
 shanna let go." 
 
 This method of keeping him, however, rendered the 
 alewife useless, so I took her place, and bade her fetch the 
 longest and toughest rope she'd got. She brought me a 
 beauty and with it I trussed the sergeant, tying him securely 
 into a heavy, clumsy chair, and leaving him as helpless as 
 a fowl ready for roasting. Then a thought struck me and 
 I went through his pockets. His very stillness made me 
 careful in my search, but I found only some old bills for 
 fodder and other military papers, and a heavily sealed letter 
 addressed " To His ROYAL HIGHNESS." I was not quite 
 Jacobite enough to make me willing to steal a dispatch 
 addressed to the Royal Duke, and I should have thrust it 
 and the oddments of paper back again but for the rattle of 
 hoofs outside. It was probably Master Freake, and I was 
 particularly anxious that the sergeant should not see him, 
 so I rushed out with all the papers in my hand to forestall 
 him. 
 
 Hurrying outside I saw Master Freake hitching his horse
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 95 
 
 to the signpost, and Mistress Waynflete already talking to 
 him eagerly. When I got up he delivered his news briefly 
 and to the point, and bad news it was. 
 
 He had learned in Stone that the Colonel had again been 
 taken on ahead towards Newcastle in charge of a troop of 
 Brocton's dragoons under the command of Captain Rigby, 
 " last night's table companion of the dead Major," he 
 explained. 
 
 " Whatever for ? " asked Mistress Waynflete. 
 
 Master Freake said nothing, but his eyes were troubled, 
 and I knew there was something he would fain conceal. 
 
 " Whatever for ? " she repeated. " Could you learn of 
 no reason ? " 
 
 " I was told," he answered slowly, " that Colonel Wayn- 
 flete's knowledge and assistance would be invaluable to the 
 royal troops." 
 
 " Told that my father had turned traitor ! Is that what 
 you mean, sir ? " Scorn too great for anger covered her 
 face, veiling its sweetness as with a fiery cloud. 
 
 " That is the plain English of what I was told, I must 
 admit." Here was the grave, businesslike nature of the 
 man, plainly posing awkward questions that had to be 
 answered. 
 
 " It's a wicked lie ! " she burst out. She turned her face 
 proudly to look into mine, and I saw that her eyes were 
 filled with tears. 
 
 " Naturally, madam," said I. 
 
 " My father's honour is mine, Master Wheatman, and I 
 am your debtor for another splendid courtesy." 
 
 " I argue from the flower to the tree. Man's logic, and 
 therefore necessarily imperfect, you would say, but for once 
 I stick to it." I spoke lightly and reminiscently, so as to 
 chase the gloom from her mind, and she was immediately 
 herself again. 
 
 Master Freake continued his story, which went from bad 
 to worse. As I had expected, Bladderface had ridden into 
 Stone, and the result of his communication to Captain Rigby 
 had been that orders were issued for our pursuit, and Master 
 Freake had left the town not very far in advance of the 
 squad of horse sent on our track. He had thus been unable
 
 96 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 to procure horses for us, but at Eccleshall he had managed 
 to obtain a pillion for Margaret's use behind him. 
 
 This was awkward indeed, for though Master Freake had 
 ridden hard, the pursuit could not be very far behind, and if, 
 as was almost certain, the dragoons turned up at the " Ring of 
 Bells," the sergeant would be set free, and be after us like 
 a mad bull. There was, however, a margin of time available, 
 and therefore I put this problem out of my mind, and attended 
 only to the urgent one of the Colonel's position. 
 
 To me there was only one explanation possible. This 
 continual shifting of the Colonel, ever under the charge of 
 those rascally dragoons, commanded now by a man whose 
 familiarity with Tixall was an evil augury, meant one thing 
 only. Soon, perhaps within an hour or two, there would 
 be fighting, and under cover of that a stab in the back or a 
 bullet in the head would clear the Colonel out of Brocton's 
 path for ever. 
 
 " Take these papers, Master Freake," said I. " Mistress 
 Waynflete will tell you what has happened here, and you 
 can give them back to their owner if you choose. But do 
 not, I beg you, on any account let the rascal inside see or 
 hear you." 
 
 I raced indoors, seized the sergeant's tuck and took his 
 baldrick from him, heedless of his vile threats. I left him 
 there, choking with foulness, unhitched Sultan, sprang into 
 the saddle, and cantered up to my friends. 
 
 " Now, Mistress Margaret," I said, " describe your father 
 so that I shall know him when I see him." 
 
 She sketched his portrait in broad, clear outlines, and 
 I fixed the description point by point in my memory. 
 
 " That's the road to Newcastle," said I, pointing along 
 the edge of the mere, " and it's fairly straight and good. 
 Follow me there as quickly as you can, and inquire for me at 
 the ' Rising Sun.' I'll have news of the Colonel, if not the 
 Colonel himself, when we meet again." 
 
 I bowed to Margaret, dug my heels into Sultan, and was 
 of! like a flash.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 97 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 IN WHICH I SLIP 
 
 SULTAN was a horse for a man, long and regular in 
 his stride, perfect in action, quick to obey, cat-like 
 at need. I might have ridden him from the day on 
 which the blacksmith drank his colt-ale, for we understood 
 each other exactly, and I was as comfortable on his back 
 as in my bed at the Hanyards. In the open road at the 
 mere-end, he settled down into a steady, loping trot, and I 
 was free to think matters out to the music of his hoof-beats 
 on the road. 
 
 It was only eight or nine miles into Newcastle, and as the 
 dragoons would travel slowly and warily there was just a 
 chance that I should be there first. Further, it was wholly 
 unlikely that I should be interfered with, since the only 
 two enemies who knew I was aiding Mistress Margaret were 
 helpless in my rear Brocton at Stafford, and the sergeant 
 in the " Ring of Bells." I was unknown in the town, not 
 having been there since my schooldays, and then only on 
 rare occasions, as a visit to the town meant a thirty-mile 
 walk in one day. 
 
 Plan-making was futile. Everything would depend upon 
 chance, but if chance threw me into touch with the Colonel, 
 it should go hard if I did not free him somehow or other. 
 The most splendid thing would be if I could free him before 
 Margaret overtook me at the " Rising Sun." True, I had only 
 an hour or so to spare, but now strange things happened in 
 an hour of my life, and this great luck might be mine. Then 
 would come my rich and rare reward the light in her deep, 
 blue eyes and the tremulous thanks on her ripe, red lips. 
 
 And then a thought smote me like a blow between the eyes, 
 so that I dizzied a moment, and the day grew grey and the 
 outlook blank. The finding of the Colonel meant the losing 
 of Margaret. Father and daughter reunited, my work would 
 be done ; the day of the hireling would be accomplished. 
 Need for me there would be none. The old life would again 
 7
 
 98 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 claim me, justly claim me too, for was I not, though all 
 unworthily and unprofitably, the only son of my sweet 
 mother, and she a widow. I could see her in the house- 
 place at the Hanyards, her calm eyes fixed in sorrow on my 
 empty chair. A man shall leave father and mother, yes, for 
 one particular cause, but the only son of a widowed mother 
 for no cause whatsoever. Christ, I said to myself, would 
 not have raised the young man of Nain merely to get married. 
 
 Still there was the work, and I spurned my gloomy 
 thoughts and turned to think of it. And first I took stock 
 of my means of offence. There were loaded pistols in the 
 holsters, fine long weapons with polished walnut stocks 
 inlaid with silver lacery and the initials ' C.W.', the Colonel's 
 without a doubt. At the saddle-bow there hung a sizeable 
 leathern pouch, and this I found to contain a good supply of 
 charges. I was a sure shot, and I tried my skill on a gate 
 as Sultan flew by, splintering the latch at which I aimed 
 to a nicety, the well-trained horse taking no more notice 
 of the shot than of a wink at a passing market-wench. So 
 far so good. Then there was the sergeant's tuck, and I 
 shouted with a schoolboy's glee at having for the first time 
 in my life a sword at my side. Of how to use it I knew 
 nothing, unless many bouts at single-stick with Jack should 
 be some sort of apprenticeship in swordcraft. I practised 
 pulling it out, and then, imitating Brocton, made the forty- 
 inch blade twist and tang in the air, which pleased me greatly. 
 I felt quite a Cavalier now, and said within myself that old 
 Smite-and-spare-not's bones should soon be rustling in their 
 grave with envy. 
 
 And so into Meece, wondering if the fat host of the " Black 
 Bull" would recognize in the splendidly mounted horseman 
 the dusty schoolboy of ten years ago. There he was in the 
 porch, grown intolerably fatter, talking to my ancient gossip, 
 Rupert Toms, the sexton, now heavily laden with years and 
 infirmities. I pricked on, having no time to spare for either 
 prayer or provender, since every moment was precious, 
 though a tankard of double October, mulled with spice and 
 laced with brandy, would have been precious too, for the 
 matter of that. 
 
 At the tail of the village, where the curve of the road
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 99 
 
 runs into the straight again to climb the long hill, I came 
 for a moment into touch with my affair. A horseman was 
 in sight, rattling down the slope, and I saw that he was an 
 officer, a keen-featured, middle-aged man, with the set face 
 of one who rides on urgent business. Yet he checked his 
 horse when near me, and cried curtly, " What news from 
 Stafford ? " 
 
 A word with him might be worth while, so I too pulled 
 up and answered very politely, " It's market-day." 
 
 " Damn the market ! What news of the troops, sir ? Is 
 my Lord Brocton still there ? " 
 
 " I believe he is." 
 
 " Then damn my Lord Brocton ! Did you chance to see 
 him? " 
 
 " I had that honour late last night." 
 
 " Anything the matter with him ? " 
 
 " He'd had enough," said I simply. 
 
 " That's what comes of shoving sprigs of your bottle- 
 sucking nobility into the service. Damn his nobility ! 
 There's another of them back yonder, as much use as an 
 old tup." 
 
 " If I detain you much longer," said I, with exaggerated 
 sweetness, " you'll be damning me." 
 
 " Nothing likelier. I damn everything and everybody 
 that don't suit me. That's why I'm captain at fifty instead 
 of colonel at thirty. What of it ? " 
 
 " Lord Brocton's nine miles off, and I'm not." 
 
 " Think I care ? Damn you, too, and I'll fight you 
 when we meet again. Like a lark ! Wish I'd time now. 
 Good day, sir ! " 
 
 He dug the rowels into his horse and was off. An earnest, 
 choleric man with his heart in his work, for which I liked him, 
 even to his persistent damning. 
 
 I put Sultan to the slope and he kept bravely at it till 
 I eased, him off where the rise was steepest. My late 
 encounter clearly meant that affairs were ripening fast 
 farther north, and it might also mean danger behind me 
 sooner than I had looked for. The blood danced in my veins 
 at the prospect of the adventures that awaited me. Ho, 
 for life and work 1 Would it be long before the blue eyes
 
 ioo THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 lanced me through and through again, as when I kissed her 
 hand among the trees by the roadside ? I looked at the 
 frosty sun and judged that it was nigh on twenty-four hours 
 since I had stood in the porch and watched mother and 
 Kate across the cobbles into the road twenty-four hours 
 that had done more for me than the twenty-four years 
 that had gone before them, for they had given me a man's 
 task, a man's thoughts, the stirrings of a man's being, the 
 beginning of a man's agony. 
 
 We were at the top now with the open country stretch- 
 ing for miles around us. But the dale beneath, through 
 which the main road ran a mile away to the east, was thick 
 with trees, and I could get no inkling of how things were 
 going. I strained my ears to listen, but no warning sound 
 could I hear. The countryside was still and calm as a 
 frozen sea, and war and its terrors seemed so impossible 
 that for a moment I felt as if it was only a dream-life that I 
 was living and that I must wake soon and hear Joe Braggs 
 trolling out his morning song in honour of Jane. But 
 Sultan craned round his shapely head as if to ask me why I 
 was loitering in the cold, bleak air ; so with a cheery slap on 
 his glossy neck, I gave him the reins and away he went, with 
 me spitting ghostly Broctons on the sergeant's tuck. Through 
 the skirts of the woodland he carried me, and then up again 
 till on the top of Clayton Bank I pulled him up a second 
 time for another survey of the situation. 
 
 The little town was now in full view a mile ahead, lying 
 on the slope and top of some rising ground. Across the 
 meadows to my right, and now plainly to be seen less than 
 half a mile away, was the main road from Stone. Again 
 I was disappointed. A long, rude post-wagon, pulled by 
 eight horses and driven by a man on an active little nag, 
 was groaning its way south ; a solitary horseman was 
 ambling north and that was all I could see. 
 
 What had happened to the Colonel ? Were the dragoons 
 in the town or not ? I dug my heels into Sultan's flanks 
 and put him to it at his best, and in a few minutes was on 
 the outskirts of the town. 
 
 The town consists in the main of two streets. The High 
 Street is simply the town part of the main road from the
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 101 
 
 south and Stone to Congleton and the north the line along 
 which the Stuart Prince was marching. It deserves its name, 
 for it lies along the edge of the slope on which the town lies. 
 Parallel to it in the dip lies Lower Street, and the road I 
 was on curls past the end of this street and climbs gently 
 to join the upper road. I could thus get into the heart of 
 the town through the poorer quarter of it, and soon the 
 kidney-stones of Lower Street rang under Sultan's hoofs. 
 
 The stir and noise of Stafford was completely absent. 
 The townspeople, mainly hatters by trade, were plying their 
 craft indoors as if no enemy were at their gate. In fact, as 
 I learned afterwards, there was no fuss and much fun and 
 good business when the Highlanders actually came on the 
 scene. The farther a town was from them the more it 
 funked them, which was, as everybody knows now, truest of 
 all of London. As I turned up the lane by St. Giles', the 
 church bells chimed two. Past the church in the corner 
 between the lane and the High Street was the " Rising Sun." 
 Once Sultan was safe in its stables I could set about getting 
 news of the Colonel before Margaret and Master Freake 
 arrived. 
 
 It was stiff work up the last thirty yards, and Sultan 
 shook himself together after it when he drew out on the 
 level High Street. Here were throngs of people and some 
 signs of trouble toward. In particular I noticed the town 
 fathers in their black gowns of office, and, most conspicuous 
 of all, the crimson and fur of his worship. I judged they 
 were coming from a council meeting in the town hall, which 
 stood in the middle of the wide High Street. There was 
 much high debate, wagging of fingers and smiting of fist in 
 palm, but no approach to the tumult and terror of yester- 
 night. The Mayor stood for a moment confabbing at the 
 door of a grocery, and then shot into it. I saw him struggling 
 out of his gown as he disappeared, and thence inferred that 
 the chief burgess was a grocer in private life. 
 
 So much I saw before pulling Sultan round to pass under 
 the archway leading into the yard of the " Rising Sun." I dis- 
 mounted and called for an ostler. No man appearing, I was 
 about to lead Sultan farther down the yard towards the 
 stables when there was a scurry of feet behind me as if the
 
 102 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 whole ostler-tribe of the " Rising Sun " was hastening to my 
 assistance. I turned round rattily to find myself looking 
 into the barrel of a pistol, while three or four men pounced 
 on me and pinned me against the wall. 
 
 " Damn ye, horse-thief, for the black of a bean I'd blow 
 your brains out," said Colonel Waynflete. " Stick tight, 
 lads ; and you, good host, fetch along Master Mayor and the 
 constable, and have me the scoundrel laid by the heels. If 
 this were only my commandery on the Rhine ! I'd strappado 
 you and then hang you within the next half-hour. My bonny 
 Sultan ! How are you, my precious ? " 
 
 When a raw youth leaves farming for knight-erranting 
 he must expect sharp turns and rough tumbles, but surely 
 Fate and Fortune were overdoing it now. It was the Colonel 
 beyond doubt, and Margaret had limned him to the life. 
 The hawk-eyes, the hook nose, the leathery skin, the orange- 
 tawny campaign-wig with the grizzled hair peeping under 
 the rim of it, the tall, thin, supple figure, all were there. And 
 if I had been in any doubt of it, Sultan would have settled 
 the matter, for his pleasure at finding his master was de- 
 lightful to witness. 
 
 In hot blood I did not mind a pistol, and in the coldest 
 blood I could easily have kicked loose from the men who 
 had got hold of me. But Margaret kept my limbs idle and 
 my mouth shut. There was no real danger, for that matter, 
 unless Margaret and Master Freake failed to turn up at the 
 " Rising Sun," and there was no reason to suppose they would 
 fail. The Colonel gave me no chance to speak to him 
 privately, and to speak to him publicly might upset his 
 plans. How he had got here a free man, what strange turn 
 things had taken in his favour, I could not imagine. Margaret 
 would be here in an hour and put matters right, so for her 
 sake it would be best and easiest to say nothing. I simply 
 made up my mind that the varlet on my right, whose dirty 
 claws and beery breath were sickening me, should have the 
 direst of drubbings before the day was out. 
 
 Mine host bustled off for the Mayor, and, the news having 
 gone around, the yard was filled with people watching the 
 fun and making a mocking-stock of me. The Colonel saw 
 Sultan off to be groomed and baited, and then, without so
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 103 
 
 much as a look at me, went into the inn and sat down to his 
 interrupted meal. I could see him plainly through the 
 window, and hugely admired his coolness. The maids 
 clustered around to have a peep at me. Such as were old 
 and ugly declared off-hand that I was indisputably ripe for 
 the gallows, but a younger one with saucy eyes and cherry- 
 red cheeks blew a kiss, and called out to beery breath to deal 
 gentlier with me. He moved a little in turning to grin at 
 her, and I shot my knee into his wind and doubled him up 
 on the ground. A stouter lad took his place, but his breath 
 was sweet and I gained much in comfort by the change. 
 
 The situation had the saving grace of humour. For 
 twenty-four hours I had been on the stretch to save Colonel 
 Waynflete from his enemies. To do it I had left mother and 
 sister, and home and lands. To do it I had come out openly 
 on the side of rebellion and treason. The sword had been 
 at my breast, and the wind of a bullet had stirred the hair 
 of my head. I might have spared my pains. All this 
 pother of mine was over the man sitting yonder, heartily 
 enjoying his dinner. All my heroics had ended in my being 
 arrested as a horse-thief. 
 
 I closed my eyes. Picture after picture came before me 
 of Margaret in her changing moods and her unchanging 
 beauty. Gad ! How cheaply I had bought this gallery of 
 precious memories ! 
 
 A throng of lads crowding noisily under the archway 
 heralded the approach of the dignitaries. First came the 
 town beadle, a pompous little fellow who wore a laced brown 
 greatcoat many sizes too large for him, and carried a cudgel 
 of office thick as his own arm, and surmounted by a brass 
 crown the size of a baby's head. His office enabled him 
 to be brave on the cheap, so by dint of digging his weapon 
 into the ribs of all and sundry, they being, as he expressed 
 it, too thick on the clod, he cleared a path for the grocer- 
 mayor, who had gotten himself again into his scarlet gown. 
 His worship was gawky, flustered, and uncertain, and listened 
 like a scared rabbit to mine host, a man of much talk, who 
 explained proudly what was to be done. 
 
 " This is 'im, y'r worship," he said. " A dirty 'oss-thief 
 as badly wants 'anging. Copped in the act, y'r worship, of
 
 104 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 riding into this 'ere yard o' mine, as big as bull-beef, sitting 
 on the very 'oss 'e'd stolen from his lordship 'ere." 
 
 His lordship was the Colonel, who had leisurely left his 
 meal again to settle my hash. I can see him now as he stood 
 on the step of the inn-door, carefully flicking a stray crumb 
 or two from his waistcoat, and taking the measure of the 
 man he had to bamboozle, with clear, amused, grey eyes. 
 
 " The Mayor of the town, I think," he said softly. 
 
 " Yes, your honour," said the good man surreptitiously 
 wiping something, probably sugar, off his hands on the 
 lining of his gown. 
 
 " And his beadle, your lordship," added the host, and the 
 under-strapper inside the greatcoat saluted the Colonel with 
 a flourish of his tipstaff. 
 
 " I am Colonel Waynflete," he answered in level measured 
 tones, " riding on important business of His Majesty's, and my 
 horse was stolen at an inn, some miles back, beyond Stafford. 
 But for the kindness of my Lord Brocton in providing me 
 with another, His Gracious Majesty's affairs would have 
 been badly disarranged. This fellow came riding in on my 
 horse, Sultan, a few minutes ago and I ordered his arrest. 
 He is now in your worship's hands. I leave him there with 
 confidence, merely remarking, on the warrant of many 
 years' observation in such matters, that he will require a 
 stout rope." 
 
 He nodded to his dithering worship, and marched back 
 slowly and calmly to his dinner. 
 
 " This beats cock-fighting," said mine host admiringly. 
 He spread himself, happy and conspicuous as a torn-tit on a 
 round of beef, and the crowd, pleasantly anticipating mugs of 
 beer later on, urged the Mayor to be up and doing. 
 
 " What have you to say for yourself ? " said his grocer- 
 ship to me, with a dim and belated idea, perhaps, that I 
 might be interested in the proceedings. 
 
 " The beadle's coat is much too large for him," said I. 
 
 " Yes, yes," he replied hurriedly. " Samson Salt was a 
 big man and had only had the coat three years when he 
 died, and we couldn't afford a new one for Timothy. Dear 
 me, but this isn't a council meeting, and what's the beadle's 
 coat got to do with horse-stealing ? "
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 105 
 
 " As much as I have," I replied gravely. 
 
 " Yow've 'ad enough, my lad," said the host, " to last 
 y'r the rest of y'r life. The next 'oss you rides '11 be foaled 
 of an acorn. Let Timothy put him in clink, Master Mayor, 
 and come and have a noggin of the real thing. Gom, I'm 
 that dry my belly'll be thinking my throat's cut." 
 
 " Arrest this man, Timothy Tomkins, and put him in jail 
 till I can take due order for his trial." 
 
 Timothy turned up the sleeves of his coat, and arrested 
 me by placing his hand on my arm, and flourishing the brass 
 crown in my face. 
 
 " Don't hurt me, Timothy," I said. " I'll come like a 
 lamb, and I'll go slow lest you should tumble over the tail 
 of your coat." 
 
 " If you say another word about the blasted coat I'll split 
 your head open," was his angry reply. It was evidently a 
 sore topic with him and a familiar one with his frugal towns- 
 men, for some man in the crowd cried out, " 'Tinna big enough 
 for the missis, be it, Timothy ? " And while the peppery 
 little beadle's eyes were searching the japer out, another 
 added, " More's the pity, for 'er's a bit of a light-skirt." 
 At this there was a roar of laughter, so I saved the frenzied 
 officer further trouble by saying, " Come along, Timothy. 
 Let's go to jail." - 
 
 On the Mayor's orders, mine host despoiled me of the 
 sergeant's tuck, and Timothy marched me off to the jail, 
 the rabble following, as full of chatter as a nest of magpies. 
 The jail was a small stone building, standing, like the town 
 hall, in the middle of the street. Arrived there, Timothy 
 thrust me into an ill-lit dirty hole below the level of the 
 street, locked the door behind me, and left me to my reflec- 
 tions. 
 
 The only furniture of the den was a rude bench. A nap 
 would do me good, so, after a good pull at Kate's precious 
 cordial, T curled up on the bench and in a few minutes was 
 sound asleep. And in my sleep I dreamed that two blue 
 stars were twinkling at me through a golden cloud.
 
 io6 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 THE GUEST-ROOM OF THE " RISING SUN " 
 
 A WISP of cloud, a long trail of shimmering gold, broke 
 loose, swept with the touch of softest silk across my 
 cheek, and half awakened me. I was lazily and 
 sleepily regretting that such caresses only came in dreams, 
 when I was brought sharply back to full life by a ripple of 
 hearty laughter. 
 
 " Gloat on ! " said I complacently. 
 
 " I knew you'd slip some time or other. Gloat ! Of 
 course I shall gloat." And she laughed again. I should 
 have borne it easily enough, coming from her, under any 
 circumstances, but there was one circumstance which made 
 it a pure joy. The white hands were busy with her unruly 
 yellow hair, and I was so far gone foolward that I was in 
 some sort hopeful that they were imprisoning the wisp of 
 golden cloud that had awakened me. I bitterly regretted 
 that I was not as nimble at waking as Jack. He would be 
 sleeping like a leg of mutton one second and, at the touch 
 of a feather, as wide awake as a weasel the next. I took 
 time it was the Latin rubbish cumbering my brain, he 
 used to say or I might have made sure. 
 
 Mistress Margaret was perched on the edge of my bench. 
 She seemed in no hurry to move, and I could not get up till 
 she did, so I lay still, cradling my head in my hands, and 
 looked contentedly at her. It was now so gloomy that I 
 had evidently been asleep some time. 
 
 " I knew you'd slip," she repeated with great zest. " All 
 men do. And I'm glad you slipped, for it proved you human. 
 I was getting quite overawed by the terrible precision with 
 which you did exactly the right thing at exactly the right 
 time. It made me feel so very small and inferior, and no 
 woman likes that. It's not nice." 
 
 " Or natural," said I. 
 
 " I see you're unmistakably awake, sir ! " was the tart 
 reply. She rose and took short turns up and down the cell.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 107 
 
 and went on : " But why slip into jail, Master Wheatman ? 
 Why did you not tell father who you were and what you 
 had done for me ? " 
 
 " And so prove at once to the authorities in the town that 
 he was not what he pretended to be ! " 
 
 " Ho ! " she said, and stopped short. 
 
 " Our idea was, I think, to free the Colonel, if we 
 could." 
 
 " Yes." She was not gloating now, but wondering. 
 
 " Well, madam, I found him free, and the only advantage 
 I can see in your plan is, that I should have had him as a 
 companion in jail. Whereas now I've mended my night's 
 sleep with a refreshing nap, and Master Freake has so lucidly 
 explained things to the Mayor that Timothy of the long coat 
 is kicking his heels at the top of the stairs, and wondering 
 how much longer you're going to be. Shall we once more 
 breathe the upper air, as Virgil would put it ? This hole is 
 as bad as a corner in his under- world." 
 
 " And I laughed at you for slipping, Master Wheatman ! 
 I shall never dare to look you in the face again." 
 
 " Don't you believe it, madam," said I airily, leading the 
 way to the steps. " I've heard Copper Nob say the same 
 thing scores of times." 
 
 " Who's Copper Nob ? " 
 
 The question came like the crack of a whip, and I was 
 glad the familiar phrase had slipped out unawares and 
 diverted her. 
 
 " Our Kate," I explained. 
 
 " Oh indeed, sir ! A more beautiful head of hair no 
 woman in this land possesses, and you glibly call her ' Copper 
 Nob.' Doubtless you have selected some nice expressive 
 name for me ! " 
 
 " I shouldn't dare ! " I protested hotly. 
 
 " Why not ? You do it for her, brazenly and wantonly." 
 
 " Yes, madam, but she's my sister." 
 
 " How does that assure me ? " 
 
 " A man's sister isn't a woman," said I, and went ahead 
 and pushed open the door. There, sure enough, was Timothy, 
 looking very uncertain and rueful. The little man's com- 
 plaisance had given me the greatest wonder of my life
 
 io8 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 Margaret's silent watching over me as I lay asleep, and I 
 gave him a guinea with much gladness. 
 
 " The coat's too big for you, Timothy, and it's no good 
 denying it. I'll speak to his worship about a new one of 
 the right length." 
 
 " Thank yer, sir," he said, grinning oafishly as he pouched 
 the guinea. " I'd rather have a new coat than a new missus, 
 and, swelp me bob, I want both." 
 
 Margaret joined me, and we at once made our way to 
 the "Rising Sun." Work for the day was over, and the street 
 was now getting thronged and noisy. Many curious looks 
 were bent on us, but no one dared to interfere with a man 
 of my evil reputation, a horse-thief being the last thing in 
 desperadoes. We had only a few yards to go, but my mistress 
 apprised me in sweet whisperings that Master Freake's 
 explanation was that Sultan had been innocently obtained 
 from the real thief, that I was his servant, and, not knowing 
 of the horse deal, had loyally kept silent lest I should make 
 mischief a happy and reasonably truthful rendering of the 
 real facts. 
 
 " After his private talk with Master Mayor," she added, 
 " that worthy man's knees were as hard worked as the hinges 
 of an ale-house door." 
 
 " The poor cringeling is but a grocer," said I, as we turned 
 in under the archway of the " Rising Sun." The host saw us 
 through the kitchen window, and ran out to usher us in with 
 the assurance of a brass weathercock. 
 
 " Sommat like a jail delivery, eh, y'r 'onour ? Gom, if I 
 wudna pinch fifty 'osses to be fetched out o' clink by such a 
 bonny lady, begging your ladyship's pardon." 
 
 " She shall fetch you out," said I sourly, " when you're 
 jailed for not stealing." 
 
 " His honour's commands are a law unto his handmaiden," 
 said Margaret demurely and icily, addressing him, but aiming 
 point-blank at me. Her shot blew me clean out of the water, 
 and I stood there guggling like a born idiot. " Curse you, 
 will you never get out of your yokel's ways ? " said I to 
 myself. It was as if I had said to the sergeant, speaking of 
 Jane, "She shall draw you a mug of beer." I was clean 
 nonplussed, and felt as uncomfortable as a boiling crawfish.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 109 
 
 but fortunately rattle-pate came to my aid and drowned my 
 confusion in a flood of words. 
 
 " And all he said, y'r ladyship, was that Timothy's coat 
 was too big for 'im. Gom, it beat cock-fighting, it did. 
 Swelp me bob it did. I never saw a man so staggered as the 
 Mayor, but he's got over it fine, and gone 'ome, good man, 
 with a crick in his back and near on a pint of my best brandy 
 in his belly. When these 'ere wild Highland rappers and 
 renders come, he's just primed up to make 'em a grand speech 
 at bridge yonder, and if that dunna frighten 'em off, nuthin' 
 wull, and my cellars will be as ill filled with beer as Timothy's 
 coat is with brawn. I'm getting the best supper on the 
 Chester road for yer, y'r honour, and that'll make you feel 
 as bold as sixpence among sixpenn'orth o' coppers. But come 
 along, y'r ladyship. The Colonel's upstairs. Follow me ! " 
 
 Words ran out of him like ale out of a stunned barrel. 
 He clacked on incessantly on the way upstairs, and clacked 
 as boldly as ever as he ushered us into the room, where the 
 Colonel was awaiting us alone. 
 
 " 'Ere 'e is, y'r lordship," he said gustily. " 'Ere's the 
 nobby gentleman as didna steal yer 'oss. But yow'd best 
 keep yer eye on 'im, on my say so. He'll pinch sommat o' 
 yow'n yet afore 'e's done." 
 
 The Colonel, who was toasting his toes at a roaring fire, 
 rose as I followed Margaret towards him. He made me a 
 precise and formal bow, which I imitated farmer fashion. 
 " This is Master Oliver Wheatman of the Hanyards, father," 
 said Margaret, in so low a tone that the host, lingering, hand 
 on door-knob, nearly a dozen paces behind us, could not 
 have heard her. 
 
 " Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir," he said, re- 
 peating his bow. 
 
 " The honour is mine, sir," I replied, repeating mine, and 
 wondering the while if I ever should learn to bend like a 
 willow instead of a jointed doll. 
 
 " Nay, I protest, sir." This suavely to me ; then, stepping 
 sharply towards the host, he stormed, " Damn ye, man, get 
 on the landlord's side of the door, or I'll rout it down around 
 your lazy ears. Slids ! I've shot an innkepeer for less in 
 the Rhineland."
 
 no THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " Them 'ere furriners " began the host, but the 
 
 Colonel swamped him with something of which I could make 
 out nothing except that it was a fairly successful attempt to 
 talk and sneeze at the same time. It finished off the host, 
 who retired, beaten with his own weapon. The victor, 
 waiting till the door was closed, tiptoed up to it and listened 
 carefully. 
 
 " A rather interesting feature about dad," whispered 
 Margaret with mischief in her eyes, " is that when he's angry 
 he curses in French, and when he's mad he execrates in 
 German." 
 
 " Neatly rounding off his daughter's accomplishments," 
 said I. 
 
 " And how, sir ? " 
 
 " Who gibes in English and loves in Italian." 
 
 She stabbed me with her eyes, and said, " Your services 
 give you no privileges, sir." 
 
 " I know that, madam, but my yokelship does." 
 
 I spoke lightly, keeping the bitterness of my heart out 
 of my voice, though it had surged up into my speech. I may 
 have been mistaken, misled by the nickering fire-light, but 
 the anger seemed to melt out of her eyes. 
 
 The return of the Colonel ended our cut-and-thrust. 
 
 " Soldiering," he said, " is nine-tenths caution and one- 
 tenth devilment. Yon glavering idiot has long ears to 
 match his long tongue. And now, sir, let me greet you as I 
 should." 
 
 He seized my hand, shook it warmly, and continued, 
 " A father's thanks, Master Wheatman, for your kindness 
 to my Margaret. Anon she shall tell me the whole story, 
 but I know already that you are a gallant gentleman whom 
 I shall have the honour of turning into a fine soldier, and 
 neither angel, man, nor devil could make you fairer requital." 
 
 Praise and promise were far beyond any desert or hope of 
 mine, but I said boldly, " I am no gentleman, but just a 
 plain, few-acred yeoman, who has tried to serve your 
 daughter " 
 
 " Tried ? " he snorted. " Tried, indeed ! I've been soldier- 
 ing man and boy these forty odd years, and, slids, I've 
 never known better work." He ran me up and down with
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER in 
 
 his eyes and, turning to Margaret, continued, " By the 
 beard of the prophet, Madge, Master Oliver Wheatman of 
 the Hanyards is a vast improvement on the Baron." 
 
 Margaret blushed daintily and hastily covered his mouth 
 with her fingers. 
 
 " You dare, dad, and I won't kiss you good night." 
 
 " Damme," he said, freeing himself and grinning at me 
 with delight. " This is rank mutiny. Prithee note, Master 
 Wheatman, the prepare-to-receive-cavalry look in her eye ! 
 The last time I lost her was at Hanover, and she rejoined 
 me, if you please, at Dresden." 
 
 " Magdeburg, you libellous old father," said Margaret, 
 pouting. 
 
 "So it was," he said heartily, conceding the point. 
 " Escorted by, or escorting, I was never clear which, a fat 
 German baron nearly five feet high, who begged me to 
 horsewhip her into marrying him." 
 
 " You shot him ? " said I, so very energetically that 
 Margaret's pout turned into a smile. 
 
 " Dear me, no," he said, pretending to yawn. " I left 
 him to Madge, poor fellow ! I hope you've given her every 
 satisfaction, Master Wheatman." 
 
 " That he hasn't," said Margaret briskly. " He's spent 
 far too much time putting me in what he considers my 
 proper place." 
 
 " My friend," said he to me gravely, " you're in for a 
 dog's life." 
 
 " You're right about the life, dad, but wrong about the 
 dog. Good-bye till supper, you nasty ripper-up of your 
 daughter's character ! " 
 
 So saying, she kissed him on each cheek, smiled at me, 
 and left us. 
 
 " I'd like to sluice the jail feeling off myself," said I to 
 the Colonel. 
 
 " Right," he replied, looking at his watch. " You've 
 just half an hour. I find England irksomely restful and 
 law-abiding after the Continent, but I'm glad of it for once. 
 I should be damnably vexed if I'd hanged you, and Madge 
 wouldn't have liked it either." 
 
 He had a grave voice, like a judge's, and a quick, pert
 
 H2 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 eye, like a jackdaw's. Outwardly he was as unlike Margaret 
 as the haft of a pike is unlike a lily, but I already saw her 
 spirit in him. 
 
 " Sir," said I, " when I am fortified by a good supper, I 
 will venture to indicate my preferences on the subject." 
 
 He took out his snuff-box, tapped it carefully, opened it, 
 and held it out to me. 
 
 " You have begun well, sir. I hear you are a great 
 scholar, Latin and all that, quite pat. Damme, sir, those 
 ancients understood things. They knew how to honour the 
 gods, for they made soldiers of 'em and set 'em fighting in 
 the clouds. There's divinity for you ! You've got twenty- 
 eight minutes." 
 
 I laughed and left him. 
 
 The room in which my introduction to the Colonel had 
 taken place was immediately over the archway. Its window 
 opened on to a balcony which, supported on thick oak balks, 
 stood over the causeway of the street ; its door was in a 
 passage leading from one wing of the house to the other, and 
 ' in the passage were three leaded lattice-windows of greenish 
 glass, plentifully sprinkled with blobs and nodes, giving on 
 the long inn-yard. The room was thus admirably situated 
 for people in our precarious position, having a look-out back 
 and front, and a way of escape right and left. 
 
 The cherry-cheeked lass who had thrown me the kiss 
 was tripping past the door as I opened it. She told me that 
 she had been attending on ' 'er ladyship,' and willingly 
 led me to a bedroom and brought me thither the things 
 I needed for my sluicing, among them a passable razor 
 and a huckaback fit to fetch the hide off a horse. 
 
 " Give me now the kiss you threw me," said I, as she 
 was turning to leave. 
 
 " Nay, sir," she said. " You're not in trouble now, and 
 dunna need it." 
 
 " Lassie," said I, " that's a right womanly reply, and 
 here's something to buy a ribbon with that shall be worthy 
 of you." And I gave her one of the dead Major's guineas. 
 
 " Thank yer, sir," she said. " And besides there's no 
 need for you to be kissing the likes of me." 
 
 " You're a sweetly pretty lassie," said I.
 
 ' THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 113 
 
 " Y' dunna want to be gawpin' around after pennies 
 when there's guineas to be picked up," she replied, with a 
 toss of her head. " Struth, I wish at times I wasna quite 
 so pretty. There's some men, bless you, I know one myself, 
 such fools that they think a pretty wench doesna want 
 kissin'. But, sartin sure, there's never been the like of 'er 
 ladyship in Newcastle in my time. I'll 'ave a ribbon on 
 Sunday as near the colour and shine of 'er ladyship's hair 
 as money can buy, and Sail '11 wish 'er'd never been born. 
 I'll Sim 'er." 
 
 With this terrible threat she flounced out of the room, 
 and I laughed and wondered who and what ' Sim ' was. 
 A decent fellow and a good tradesman, I hoped, and wished 
 him pluck and luck. 
 
 While I was tidying myself up, my mind was busy with 
 the strange tangle things were got into. The mysterious 
 Master Freake, after turning the Mayor into his pliant tool, 
 had apparently disappeared. The Colonel had not breathed 
 a word of explanation, and seemed to feel so secure that 
 he was dawdling in the town as if no enemy were at hand. 
 Of the state of affairs in the town itself I knew nothing. 
 The one clear thing was that I had got my neck right into 
 the noose, and Brocton could, and would, pull tight at the first 
 opportunity. What did all this matter ? What did any 
 untoward event or result matter ? I was going to be a 
 soldier, and, after the fashion of love-lorn Cherry-Cheeks, I 
 said to myself, " I'll Jack him ! " I was going to be near 
 Margaret, and, so rejoicing, bethought me of the hapless 
 Roman's " Infelix* properas ultima nosse mala." And what 
 did that matter either ? I rubbed myself the colour of a 
 love-apple, humming the while old-time ditties long since 
 driven out of my head by the Latin rubbish. Jack was right. 
 Of course it was rubbish. " Latin be damned," said I 
 gleefully. " Nothing counts but life and love." 
 
 There was more than a pinch of swagger in me as I 
 made my way back to the passage overlooking the yard. 
 Arrived there, I cautiously opened the nearest lattice and 
 peered out. The inn-yard was dark and silent, and I was 
 on the point of closing the window when I heard the clatter 
 of hoofs on the stone-paving under the archway. A moment 
 8
 
 H4 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 later a man on foot came in sight, and was followed into the 
 yard by two men on horseback, one of them in charge of a 
 led horse. 
 
 At once all was bustle. Ostlers ran up with lanterns, and 
 the host came forward, candle in hand and a multitude of 
 words on his tongue, to order things aright. 
 
 The man afoot was Master Freake, and it was clear that 
 the riders w<jre men of his, for I heard him a^k them if they 
 were quite clear as to their instructions, and both answered 
 respectfully that they were. I could see they wore swords 
 and that their horses were splendid, powerful animals, not 
 much inferior to Sultan himself. Who and what was this 
 man " plain John Freake," as he called himself, who 
 carried large sums of money, domineered over self-important 
 burgesses and mayors, who was served by such well- 
 appointed horsemen, whom Master Dobson, a parliament 
 man, feared, and my Lord Brocton had thought it worth 
 while to attempt to put out of the way ? 
 
 It was a riddle I could not read, but as I stood there, 
 peering round the half-open lattice at the scene below, 
 I was happier than ever I had been in my life. " Poor old 
 Jack," said I to myself, " sweating and swearing over your 
 riff-raff dragooners, and here am I, who envied you yester- 
 morn, on the top rung of life." 
 
 " We shall get it if we're late," said Mistress Margaret 
 playfully in my ear. " Not because dad worries whether he 
 eats or not, but because he's so strong on mil-it-ary dis-cip- 
 line." I write the words so, as a poor, paper imitation of 
 the mincing gait she could put into her speech, which was 
 ever one of her delightfulnesses. " You'd have been the 
 better," she went on, " for a bringing-up on a troop-sergeant's 
 switch. See what it's done for me ! " 
 
 So she challenged me to admire her, and indeed I think 
 that the witch was verily bent on casting a spell over me. 
 No words can paint her as she stood in the dim-lit passage, 
 the infinite sum of womanhood, peerless in every grace and 
 gift ; not now the tense, proud Margaret of the quick rebuke 
 and the shattering sarcasm, but the mirthful, trustful, grate- 
 ful companion of our boy-and-girl escapade. 
 
 " I think you're right, madam," said I. " Bloggs, dear
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 115 
 
 old chap, flogged the meaning of Virgil into me, but I wish 
 he had flogged in some of the meaning of life along with it. 
 I feel as helpless as Saul would have felt with David's sling 
 and stones." 
 
 " Are you as one fighting a Goliath ? " 
 
 " I am," said I, not able now to speak lightly, and not 
 daring to look at her. Could any enterprise be more hopeless 
 than the one my heart, against all the strivings of sense and 
 reason, was beginning to set me ? Through the open lattice 
 I watched the flicker of lanterns in the yard, where the 
 horses were being upped and whoaed stablewards. 
 
 " You will favour me, sir, with your escort into supper," 
 said Margaret. 
 
 This brought me to myself with a jerk. I closed the 
 lattice, offered her my arm, and we walked towards the 
 guest-room where the Colonel was awaiting us. 
 
 " I think you'd better revise your knowledge of the 
 Scriptures, Master Oliver," said she very quietly as I led her 
 into the room. 
 
 " In what respect, Mistress Margaret ? " 
 
 " You seem to have an imperfect recollection of the way 
 in which Goliath met his death. It's idle to say we're late, 
 dad, when supper's not yet served." 
 
 He exploded into words I did not understand. " It's 
 all right, only French," whispered Margaret mischievously. 
 " It means ' name of a dog.' I could swear better myself." 
 
 "That's right," stormed the Colonel. "As fast as I 
 curse soldiering into one ear of him, you coax it out of the 
 other ! I'll be thankful when you're under Mother Patterson's 
 wing in Chester." 
 
 The coming of Cherry-Cheeks and one of the hard-favoured 
 maids with the supper, followed by our host with the wine, 
 followed in turn by Master Freake, put an end to my first 
 lesson in soldiering and the imprecatory wealth of continental 
 languages, and straightway the host slopped over with 
 apologies for the delay in serving the supper. 
 
 " Things are a bit upset in the town, y' mun know," he 
 said, " and every wench in the ' Rising Sun ' 'as been a devil 
 unknobbed all day. This red-faced hussy here, when 'er 
 was wanted to set the table, was off to see if that spindle-
 
 n6 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 shanked Sim across at the Mayor's was safe and sound. 
 And besides, my lady and y'r 'onours, the famous steak-and- 
 kidney puddin' o' the ' Rising Sun ' must be boiled to a bubble 
 or it's dummacked. If one got spiled, the news 'ud run 
 down to Chester and up to London in no time, and the ' Red 
 Lion ' 'ud get all my customers. His Grace of Kingston 
 put up at the ' Red Lion ' in all innocence until his worship, 
 for old friendship's sake and a bottle of brandy, 'ticed 'im 
 over 'ere to one of my puddin's. 'E started an inch off the 
 table and ate till 'e touched, as we say in Staffordsheer, and 
 then sent for 'is baggage, and 'as lain 'ere ever since in the 
 great bedchamber over y'r yeds, an' I'm thinking to call 
 it the Duke's Room an' charge sixpence extra for it. It's 
 worth another sixpence to sleep in the same bed as a duke's 
 slep* in. If it ain't, by gom, I'd like to know what he is for. 
 Damn if y'r can tell by lukkin' at 'im." 
 
 What I have for convenience' sake set down here as a 
 continuous speech addressed to us all, was really a series of 
 remarks addressed to whichever of us appeared for the 
 moment to be listening, and broken by commands, scoldings, 
 and threats addressed to the women. The tail-end of his 
 remarks made me cock my ear, for it indicated that we were 
 at the centre of the danger zone. 
 
 " If I were you," interposed Master Freake at last, " I'd 
 coax Prince Charlie to sleep in it and then charge a shilling 
 extra. A prince, and my dislike of his ways doesn't unprince 
 him, is surely worth twice as much as a duke." 
 
 " Swelp me bob," cried the delighted host, slapping his 
 thigh in high glee, " that 'ud be better than a murder. It's 
 wunnerful how a murder 'elps a 'ouse. Tek the ' Quiet 
 Woman ' o' Madeley. There was a murder there, and a 
 damn poor thing of a murder it was, nothing but a fudge- 
 mounter cuttin' a besom-filer's throat ; poor wench, 'er lived 
 up on th' Higherland yonder, and I'll bet it was wuth 
 two-and-twenty barrel of beer to owd Wat. A murder's 
 clean providential to a pub " 
 
 " Damn, get out," vociferated the Colonel, " or I'll 
 provide the murder and you the corpse." 
 
 The meal, be it said, was thoroughly good in every way. 
 I'm not the man to despise my belly, and I don't hold with
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 117 
 
 those that do. There are better things in life than steak- 
 and-kidney puddings, but my experience is they want a lot 
 of finding. The Colonel would not hear of .ny talk about 
 our affairs till supper was over. " I dare say you're all agog 
 to know what I've been doing and what we are going to do," 
 he said to me. " That's because you're a youngster at 
 everything and a mere infant-in-arms at soldiering. When 
 you've had a month's campaigning you'll know that the 
 only things really worth bothering about are supper and bed." 
 
 To my great content he immediately fell head over heels 
 into argument with Master Freake, something about bounties 
 on herring busses, if I remember aright, and Margaret and I 
 were left to each other, and a rare treat I had in hearing her 
 lively talk and watching her glowing beauty. 
 
 At last, with almost a sigh of satisfaction, and then with a 
 mischief-glint in her eyes, she said, " The pudding has been 
 very good, but I prefer ham and eggs, provided that the right 
 person cooks them." 
 
 " I should agree," I replied, " with one other proviso." 
 
 " To wit," said she, with a glass of wine half-way to her 
 lips. 
 
 " That the right person saves them from frizzling to a 
 cinder." 
 
 She sipped her wine steadily, and then, leaning forward 
 till the radiance of her yellow hair made me quiver, she 
 whispered calmly, " Oliver, you're a brute." 
 
 " Nay, madam," said I, " only a yokel." 
 
 She looked at me again as she had looked at me when I 
 had kissed her hand beneath the hawthorns. 
 
 " Hello, there," broke in the Colonel, addressing himself 
 to me, " who was right about the dog's life ? " 
 
 " I was, of course," said Margaret promptly. 
 
 The host was rung for, his supper praised to his heart's 
 content, the table cleared, and a dish of tea ordered for 
 Margaret. Bethinking me of the sergeant's tuck, which 
 might be useful, I asked the host to bring it up, and he did so. 
 
 When we were again left to ourselves, the Colonel took 
 the sword, and examined it with his skilful eyes and practised 
 hands. 
 
 " Somewhat heavy," said he, " but well balanced and
 
 u8 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 well made, and of the truest steel. Are you a swordsman, 
 Master Wheatman ? " 
 
 " I never had one in my hand in my life till to-day," 
 was my reply. 
 
 " Gird him for the wars, Margaret," said he. " So 
 much of the ancient rules and customs of chivalry as can be 
 observed in these mechanic days shall, by us at any rate, be 
 observed. In strict law you ought to have spent a night in 
 prayer and fasting, but your loyal service to Margaret is a 
 good equivalent. To labour is to pray, say the parsons, and, 
 my lad, always remember in your soldiering that a so- 
 minded man can offer up a powerful prayer between pull of 
 trigger and flash of priming. Kneel, Oliver, and in God's 
 sight you shall be more truly knighted than any capering 
 and chattering of German Geordie's can contrive." 
 
 And so, in the guest-room of the " Rising Sun," I knelt 
 to my sweet mistress, and, before God and in the presence 
 of Christopher Waynflete, Colonel of Horse in the service 
 of the King of Sweden, and John Freake, citizen of London, 
 Margaret, gravely and serenely beautiful, touched my 
 shoulder with the sword and then girded it upon me. 
 
 " Sirs," she said, addressing her father and Master 
 Freake, " the accolade has never been given to a worthier." 
 Then, bending swiftly as a swallow dips in its flight over the 
 meadows, she whispered emphatically in my ears, " Yokel 
 it no more 1 " 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 PHARAOH'S KINE 
 
 " A ND now to business," said Master Freake. 
 
 /-\ " To pleasure, sir," said the Colonel. " Business 
 -* ^- is over." 
 
 He was leisurely filling his pipe, an example which 
 Margaret, with a smile and a nod, gave me permission to 
 follow. 
 
 " Tell us how you escaped," said Margaret. " Master
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 119 
 
 Wheatman cannot too soon begin to learn the tricks of the 
 trade. Sorry, dad," bending to kiss his hand ; " you needn't 
 look at me in German. I mean rudiments of the profession." 
 
 " A woman who calls soldiering a trade ought to be 
 forcibly married to a parson," said the Colonel passionately. 
 
 " There'll be a reasonable quantity of parsons to choose 
 from at Chester," she retorted, laughing up in his face. 
 
 " Chester ? Why Chester ? " demanded Master Freake, 
 suddenly tense and vigilant. 
 
 " I need name no name, but a certain dignitary's lady 
 there, one of our supporters, undertook to take her in charge 
 while this affair was on," explained the Colonel. 
 
 Master Freake, it seemed to me, was disappointed with 
 the explanation, and, knowing that what Margaret wanted 
 was to have the rumour of her father's intended treachery 
 blown to pieces by his own account, I said, " There's only 
 one parson in England fit to look at Mistress Margaret, and 
 he's sixty and married. Let me learn, I pray you, sir, 
 the art of slipping out of the hands of a squad of dragoons 
 on a road crowded with soldiery." 
 
 " If you think you are to hear a tale that will make you 
 grip the arms of your chairs, you're in for a sad disappoint- 
 ment. Yesterday and through the night, they stuck to me 
 as if Geoi'die had offered thirty thousand pounds for me, dead 
 or alive, but this morning their hold on me slackened. They 
 might have intended me to escape. I was put on a fresh 
 horse, about the best they'd got ; the dragoon in charge of 
 me was three parts drunk* when we started ; we got mixed 
 up in a crowd of foot retreating south, and separated from 
 our main body, and finding myself alone on the road with 
 one man, and him drunk, I just knocked him off his horse, 
 and cleared off across the fields. 
 
 " I rode on until I got a sight of this town, and the main 
 road into it, from a hill-top, and watched for an hour or so 
 to see what was happening. I knew by my pace that I was 
 well ahead of my late escort, and seeing no signs of them, 
 came on to this inn, and was enjoying a good dinner when I 
 saw Sultan and Oliver on him. The rest you know. Not 
 much of a tale. Madge has done better many a time." 
 
 " Do you really think the Captain intended you to
 
 120 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 escape ? " It was Margaret who asked the question, looking 
 intently at me as she spoke. 
 
 I looked from her to Master Freake and back again, 
 meaning to remind her that I wanted no convincing, but she 
 still kept her eyes on mine, her chin cupped in her long white 
 hands, and I was glad of her insistence for I could look at 
 her without offence. I thought the mellow fire-light made 
 her look more beautiful than ever. The lustrous yellow 
 hair shone like molten gold, and the dark blue eyes became 
 a queenly purple. 
 
 "If it were done on purpose it was done cleverly," con- 
 tinued the Colonel, " for the chance which set me free came 
 quite naturally. The horse I rode yesterday was wanted 
 in the usual way by a trooper to whom it belonged, and 
 where so many men were more or less drunk, the choice of 
 my particular drunkard was certainly accidental. And, 
 besides, what possible motive could there be in letting me 
 escape ? Brocton knows I'm an experienced soldier of 
 great repute I state plain facts and am eagerly expected 
 by the Prince and by my old companion-in-arms, Geordie 
 Murray. They couldn't have planned it better if they had 
 wished it, but it's absurd to say they wished it. There 
 ought to be a cashiered captain and a half -flayed dragoon 
 somewhere south of us. Damme, I merit that at least." 
 
 He bent over the hearth to relight his pipe. Master 
 Freake smiled and rubbed his hands gently. Margaret's eyes 
 blazed with triumph, and challenged me, still me, to share it. 
 Woman-logic was clean beyond my poor wits. I was sick 
 for action. These glorious interludes with Margaret gave 
 me no chance. It was like setting me afire and asking me 
 not to burn. 
 
 Thinking of the poor, half-flayed devil behind us, made 
 me think of the sergeant, and I asked Master Freake, " Did 
 you give the sergeant his papers and letter ? " 
 
 " No," was the ready reply. " The papers dealt rather 
 frankly with certain regimental accounts, and, since the 
 sergeant is now very bitterly set against us, may be useful 
 in my hands. I had a shrewd notion that the letter con- 
 cerned the title to certain lands as to which Lord Brocton 
 and I are at odds, and on opening it I found to my satis-
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 121 
 
 faction that I was right. With your permission, Oliver. I 
 will keep it." 
 
 " By all means do so," said I, anxious to burn again, and 
 turning back to Margaret. If this silent, capacious man, so 
 great a stranger yet so clear a friend, had said that the letter 
 was about a new edition of Virgil, I should have believed him, 
 and also, I fear me, have been equally uninterested. Latin 
 be damned ! 
 
 " Something for you in Oliver's magic-hat," said Margaret 
 smilingly to Master Freake. " He really must fetch some- 
 thing out for himself soon. Staffordshire is by far the most 
 delightful country I have ever been in. Only one little day 
 has gone by, and in that day Staffordshire has given me 
 more and truer friends than Europe gave me in ten years. I 
 shall cross its borders with regret. Shall we make the most 
 of it while we have it and sleep here, dad ? " 
 
 " Unless we're routed out," was his reply, " and I do not 
 think we shall be, for the enemy have all cleared out of the 
 town. Cumberland is, of course, doing the right thing. He 
 had few men north of Stafford, and fewer still worth powder 
 and shot. Where the Prince is I've no idea." 
 
 " Resting for the day at Macclesfield," said Master 
 Freake, " and his plans are not certain, or, at least, not 
 known. The Duke of Kingston has a small body of horse 
 at Congleton and is watching his movements." 
 
 " Damme," the Colonel broke in, " I did not know we 
 had enemies north of us. Are you sure ? " 
 
 " Certain. One of my men reported the facts to me just 
 before supper." 
 
 " It's awkward, or rather will be awkward if anyone who 
 knows me turns up. That rascally landlord of ours must 
 have known where Kingston was, but amid all his talk he 
 never told me that. Damme, somebody's got hold of him. 
 Still, you can't take the bull by the horns till his nose is 
 slobbering your waistcoat, so pass the wine, Oliver." 
 
 He refilled his glass and then, leisurely and with his eyes 
 dreamily fixed on the fire, loaded his pipe with a new charge 
 of tobacco, and went on smoking. 
 
 " Are you a Jacobite ? " suddenly asked Margaret, 
 looking inquiringly at Master Freake.
 
 122 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " Dear me, no, Mistress Margaret," was the frank reply. 
 " But you need not curl those sweet lips of yours, for neither 
 am I a Hanoverian." 
 
 " Then what are you ? " she asked again, with the same 
 uncompromising directness. 
 
 " A Freakeiteian," said he with a smile. 
 
 "It puzzles me," was her brief comment. 
 
 " Let me explain," said he simply. " A Jacobite wants 
 Charles to win ; a Hanoverian wants George to win ; a 
 Freakeiteian wants to know who is going to win." 
 
 By this time Margaret was no more puzzled than I was. 
 Yesterday when I stood on the river-bank watching my cork, 
 I cared not a rap whether George or Charles won, and that 
 was an understandable position ; but why a man should be 
 spending money in handfuls, and roughing it in the wilds of 
 Staffordshire, merely in order to know who was going to win, 
 was beyond my poor wits. 
 
 " You do not understand ? " he said. 
 
 " No," said Margaret and I together. 
 
 The Colonel took no notice. He was puffing away at 
 his pipe, long-drawn-out, solemn puffs, and gazing at the 
 fire in a brown study. 
 
 " Well, Margaret and Oliver," said Master Freake, " this 
 is no time to be giving you lessons in the way the great world 
 wags that neither knows nor cares of outs and ins and party 
 shufflings, but is busy with rents and crops, and incomings 
 and outgoings, and debts and credits, and wivings and 
 thrivings. But, believe me, in being anxious to know who is 
 going to win, I am as plainly and simply doing my duty as 
 is the Colonel who is going to do his best to help his Prince 
 to win. I am one, and, I thank God, not the least, of that 
 great race of men who are destined to mould a mightier 
 England than the sword could ever carve the merchant 
 of London whose nod is his bond." 
 
 He spoke with simple dignity and his word was estab- 
 lished. I had trusted him on sight. " His nod was his 
 bond." You saw it in the man's clear, steady eyes and knew 
 it by the set of his firm, square chin. After a warning glance 
 at the silent Colonel, he leaned forward, and Margaret bent 
 to meet him.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 123 
 
 " If Charles loses," he murmured, " many heads will be 
 smitten from their shoulders." 
 
 The colour left her cheeks instantly and tears welled 
 forth from her eyes. 
 
 " But not the Colonel's," he whispered. 
 
 I was watching her with the eye of a hawk. A smile 
 dawned on the white face, the sad eyes began to lose their 
 gloom, and my fool of a heart began to flutter. 
 
 Yet once more he whispered, " And not Oliver's." 
 
 She leaned farther forward still and kissed him. 
 
 And it was just at that moment that the door opened 
 smartly and Cherry-Cheeks put her sweet head round it 
 and swiftly and peremptorily beckoned me outside. 
 
 Margaret laughed. 
 
 In the dim passage, Cherry- Cheeks caught my hand 
 afrrightedly and babbled, " Oh, sir, there's the ugliest beast 
 you ever saw spying on her ladyship. Take your boots 
 off, sir, and creep after me ! " 
 
 I tugged them off and we started. Along the passage 
 she flew and upstairs into the corresponding passage above. 
 Here, outside the Duke's room, she stopped and whispered, 
 " He'll think I'm that bitch Sal. Hide behind me ! " 
 
 She opened the door and stole into the room with me in 
 tow, holding her skirt and crouching down nearly to the 
 floor. 
 
 She was somewhat broad in the beam, like a Dutch hoy, 
 and all I could see was a dull glimmer somewhere ahead in 
 the darkness. 
 
 " Ssss-h, damn ye," said the beast fiercely. " Stand 
 still ! " 
 
 Cherry-Cheeks took care not to stop till near the light, 
 and then, with wonderful ready wit, put her right hand on 
 her hip and I peeped through between arm and waist. 
 
 Full length on his belly lay the man from Yarlet Bank. 
 There was a small spy-hole in the floor, on the edge of the 
 hearth, and he had his right ear against it, which was lucky, 
 for it kept his face turned from me. The notebook lay open 
 on the floor near a guttering tallow candle in an iron candle- 
 stick, and the stump of pencil was clenched in his dirty 
 yellow teeth.
 
 124 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 I threw my handkerchief on the floor, took my fat little 
 Virgil in my left hand, and crept out to him. When near on 
 top of him, I gripped him round the nape of the neck, digging 
 my fingers in his flabby throat, and he went slimy with 
 fright like a great, fat lob-worm. I swooped down on him 
 with my full weight, and pinned him to the floor. His big 
 mouth opened as he fought for breath, and I clapped the 
 Virgil hard and far into it, tying it tight in with my handker- 
 chief, and gagging him effectually. 
 
 I looked up and found, to my relief, that Cherry-Cheeks, 
 like a sensible girl, had crept out of the room, and her share 
 in the affair was never even suspected. 
 
 Drawing my tuck, I touched the back of his neck 
 with the point. He flinched and squirmed, great drops of 
 sweat larded his nasty face, and I knew the fear of death 
 and hell was in his marrow. 
 
 " Do exactly what I say," I whispered, " or through it 
 goes. Understand ? " 
 
 He could hardly nod his ugly head for the trembling of 
 his body, and I fairly dithered as I knelt on him. I made 
 him rise, and then caught hold of the skirt of his coat. Hold- 
 ing him by it at arm's length, I stuck my point to his neck 
 again, and said, " Forward." 
 
 I marched him downstairs and along the passage. There 
 was great risk of being met by some one, and it was the most 
 anxious time I had had since the affair with the sergeant in 
 the house-place at the Hanyards. Oddly enough, as I 
 drove him along, the thought came to me of the bygone 
 days when Jack and I had played horses just like this at 
 the Hanyards, and when my prisoner stuck a trifle at the 
 door of the guest-room, I growled at him, " Come up ! " 
 It was a strange trick of the mind. To me he was just play- 
 horse Jack dawdling to look at ten-year-old Kate feeding 
 her chickens. 
 
 I got him in unseen without and unnoticed within, for the 
 Colonel and Master Freake were again at their arguments of 
 state, hammer and tongs, and they minded the click of the 
 door behind them no more than the crack of a spark at their 
 feet. Indeed the Colonel said " Pish ! " with great vehemence, 
 and Master Freake's " My dear sir! " had a shake of pepper
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 125 
 
 in it. As for me, I like a man who, when he gets into a 
 thing, gets into it up to the neck. 
 
 Margaret added to my amusement, for as I pricked my 
 prisoner on into the fire-light, and peeped over his shoulder, 
 he being a good six inches shorter than I, madam leaned 
 forward and became absorbed in the high debate. 
 
 " I beg to report, sir," said I, as indifferently as I could 
 manage to speak, " the capture of a spy." 
 
 " Hang him at daybreak," said the Colonel, without 
 so much as looking at him. " Pish, man, the trade in 
 
 salted herrings is no more a nursery of seamen than I'm 
 
 Damme, what's this, Oliver ? Damme, it's Weir. Your 
 servant, Mister Weir, and I shall vastly relish seeing you 
 strung up." 
 
 I gave a brief account of where and how I had found 
 him, making no mention of our helpful girl friend, but 
 pointing out that he had co-scoundrels at work for him in 
 the inn. 
 
 " Another good piece of work, Oliver," said the Colonel. 
 " I like the way you use your available material. I've seen 
 many things used as gags, but not a book before ; yet it 
 makes a very good one. Keeps him quiet as a stone 
 and withal leaves him free to lick up a few crumbs of 
 learning." 
 
 Margaret had not looked at me yet, and indeed seemed 
 bent on keeping her face, heightened in colour by the warmth 
 and glow of the fire, turned away from me. Now a rather 
 big matter had come into my mind, so I said urgently, " Name 
 of a dog," and thus shook her into looking at me. Where- 
 upon, I pointed first to Mr. Freake, then to the spy, and 
 wagged my head sagely. Her quick mind saw at once that 
 I was afraid that our friend would be compromised if we 
 were not careful. She promptly said something to her 
 father in an unknown tongue, and by the cock of his eye 
 I knew he'd taken the point. 
 
 " My good friend," he said, " pray step over to his worship 
 the Mayor and ask him to come over and commit this rascally 
 spy to the town jail. Say, I beg, that I am grieved to have 
 to disturb him, but His Majesty's servants must ever be at 
 the disposal of His Majesty's affairs."
 
 126 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 I grinned behind the spy's back at this masterly way of 
 getting George's servant to do James's work. Master 
 Freake started at once, and, stepping with him to the door, 
 I whispered, " Give us fifteen minutes." 
 
 " Right ! " he whispered back again. " Look in your 
 holsters ! " 
 
 As soon as he had gone, the Colonel ordered me to guard 
 the door, and this gave me the chance of putting on my 
 boots again. The Colonel, cutting off with his sword a good 
 length of bell rope, made a swift and most workmanlike job 
 of tying the spy into a knot. He then opened the window, 
 and, Margaret taking my place meanwhile, he and I cautiously 
 bundled Weir on to the balcony, shut down the window, and 
 left him safe and silent. 
 
 " Be in the porch in ten minutes, Margaret, ready to 
 start. Oliver, get the horses there ready in that time. You 
 ride the troop-horse, and Freake has provided a mare 
 for Margaret. Quick's the work and sharp's the 
 motion ! " 
 
 Margaret and I started together to carry out our orders. 
 Once in the passage we had to go different ways, and I 
 bowed and was going mine without a word, when she put 
 her hand on my arm and stayed me. 
 
 " I'm sorry you've lost your Virgil," she said. 
 
 I wondered, as already so many times I had wondered, 
 at the somersaults of feeling she was capable of. Where was 
 now the Margaret of the short, disdainful laugh ? Not 
 here, in the twilight between the bright room and the black 
 yard. Here was a subtle, mysterious Margaret, half regret 
 and half caprice, with one thought in her eyes and another 
 on her lips. 
 
 " So am I, madam. I wish it had been Kate's cookery- 
 book." 
 
 She would have mastered me had I stayed another 
 second. I bowed again and left her. 
 
 And this is, perhaps, the best place to say that I did not 
 lose my Virgil after all. Here it is on the table as I write, still 
 the dearest of all my books. On each side of the healing 
 an irregular curve of teeth-marks cuts into the yellowing 
 parchment. Dear, brave Cherry-Cheeks sent it home by the
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 127 
 
 i 
 
 hands of a vagrom pedlar, laboriously and exactly writing 
 on the package the inscription she found on the fly leaf : 
 
 OLIVBJL WHEATMAN, Esquire, 
 of the Hanyards, 
 
 Staffordshire, 
 jf.tatis cmnt 13 
 
 I routed out ostlers, and by dint of a judicious blend of 
 cursings and bribings had the horses ready under the arch- 
 way in time. Margaret was there waiting, with our pretty 
 maid fluttering around her. The Colonel was within, settling 
 with the word-warrior host. I helped Margaret into the 
 saddle and led her horse into the street, turning its head 
 northward. In a moment, her father clattered alter her on 
 Sultan. I went back to smile farewell to Cherry -Cheeks 
 and deal out my bribes, but was after them before they had 
 trotted a stone's throw. 
 
 They were cantering towards the bridge by which the 
 high street of the town crosses a tiny streamlet and again 
 becomes the high road to the north-west. It was only a 
 pistol-shot from the portico of the " Rising Sun " to the 
 hither side of the bridge, where a group of townsmen were 
 collected round a man with a lantern. We had ridden forth 
 into a strangely quiet town, but before I was half-way to 
 the bridge, and not yet settled down to my saddle, loud 
 shrieks rang out behind me. Looking back, I saw a woman 
 leaning forth, candle in hand, from the Duke's bedroom 
 window. She waved her light and yelled as one distraught. 
 There was no mistaking what had happened. Sal, the sour- 
 faced hussy who wanted me hanged, had learned the fate 
 of the spy. Folks rushed from all quarters to see what was 
 the matter. The sooner we were well out of it the better, 
 and I pricked on to overtake the Colonel and Margaret. 
 
 I was near on them at the bridge, where the gossips had 
 lined up to watch them pass. Timothy was there, thankful 
 for once, I thought, of his long coat, while the man who 
 held the lantern was the man to whom I owed a drubbing. 
 I wondered what he was doing there with a lantern, for it 
 was a brilliant moonlight night, and, since he made to run 
 townwards as soon as he saw who was passing, I felt in my
 
 128 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 bones that he meant mischief and was probably in league 
 with the spy. I turned my horse at him before he was cleai 
 of the bridge and tumbled him back headlong on Timothy, 
 who yelled the most astonishing yell I ever heard, snatched 
 the lantern out of Beery Breath's unresisting fingers, and 
 with it smashed into him with such a fury that he beat him 
 to his knees. 
 
 I laughed, for the man had got his drubbing after all, 
 through me if not by me. As for the other townies, they 
 enjoyed it like a play. 
 
 " Gom ! " said one. " He's trod on Tim's gammy toe." 
 
 " Damn if he don't turn on 'is missus when 'er does that," 
 said another. 
 
 The Colonel and Margaret were looking back when I 
 drew level. 
 
 " Anything the matter ? " he asked. 
 
 " The spy is discovered, sir," I said. 
 
 " Does that mean harm to Master Freake ? " inquired 
 Margaret. 
 
 " Not it," replied the Colonel. " He's got the Mayor in 
 his pocket. Do you know this country, Oliver ? " 
 
 " No, sir," was my answer. " Only in broad outline. 
 This is the main road to Chester, and away on our right is 
 an open country running up into roughish moorland and 
 hills. Leek lies that way on the Derby road to London. 
 The country to our left I know nothing about." 
 
 " Then we'll stick to the main road as long as possible 
 and stop at the first inn after all danger-spots are behind 
 us. Sorry to turn you out, Madge, but it was impossible 
 to stop once Weir found us out, since Kingston and his men 
 might have turned up at any moment, and then we should 
 have been done for. All we have to do is to get north of 
 him. From the south we have nothing to fear now. Broc- 
 ton's dragoons would have turned up hours ago if there was 
 any intention of trying to recapture me. Freake had sent 
 one of his men down the road to give us time to clear off if 
 Brocton did pursue. That was why I was content to stay 
 on at the inn." 
 
 " Weir knows who you are, sir, I take it ? " said I. 
 
 " Exactly. He's a notorious Government spy, and is
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 129 
 
 busy here worming into our local plans. There are plenty 
 of the honest party hereabouts, and especially over to the 
 west there in Wales." 
 
 " Are we still in Staffordshire, Master Wheatman ? " 
 asked Margaret. 
 
 " Oh yes, for quite a distance ahead," I replied. 
 
 " The spirit of prophecy is upon me, gentlemen," she said 
 merrily. " Our Staffordshire luck is not yet out, and this 
 time it's Master Wheatman's turn." 
 
 " Well, then, Master Wheatman shall ride ahead and 
 scout for it. About thirty yards, Oliver. Keep your horse 
 well in hand, and be all eyes and ears. Damn this moon ! 
 It picks us out like three crows on a field of snow, and this 
 infernal road's as straight and level as a plank. Ride in any 
 available shadow ! " 
 
 I went ahead and set them an easy pace. Work had 
 begun again, the work of my heart's desire, and all along 
 the Chester road there was no blither spirit than mine that 
 night. I was astride a flaming sorrel, no match for Sultan, 
 but still a good sound horse. He knew I was his master and 
 so I made him a friend, patting his neck, crooning to him, 
 and giving him a lick of sugar out of my hand. The danger 
 we were in was like wine to my heart. Enemies ahead and 
 enemies behind, and this bare, bleak, moon-smitten road 
 between. Now and again, for remembrance' sake and the 
 joy of it, I cocked my ear to pick out the patter of Margaret's 
 mare from the heavier, longer strides of Sultan. Yes, there 
 she was, doubtless murmuring Italian love-ditties to her 
 
 happy inmost self and thinking of Pshaw ! This was 
 
 romancing, and another's romance at that, and it deadened 
 me against my will, while here was a man's work to do. So 
 I turned to it and lived. 
 
 I examined the holsters, according to Master Freake's 
 orders. I found a pair of pistols which, even in the pale 
 moonlight, looked what they indeed were handsome, 
 accurate weapons, the best work of the best gunsmith in 
 London. I was the equal of most men with the pistol, and 
 usually had, indeed, a capital pair at the Hanyards, but 
 Jack had taken them off with him on his dragooning. Over 
 and above the pistols and their ammunition I found a sizeable
 
 130 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 leathern bag, and the feel of it to my fingers showed that it 
 was chock-full of money. When I did turn it out next "day, 
 I found near on sixty pounds, mostly in guineas and half- 
 guineas, and a note : 
 
 " Dear lad, this town is very bare of guineas and many of 
 them are lighter than the law alloweth, but you shall have 
 more as occasion offers. Your friend, J. F." 
 
 I turned to the road again with a merrier heart than ever, 
 for I thought, as Smite-and-spare-not would have thought 
 before me, that the very handiwork of God Himself was 
 here displayed, in that the seemingly most untoward events 
 of our journey had been turned into means of strength and 
 assurance. Had I, as I ought to have done, brought money 
 of my own from the Hanyards, I should never have started 
 highwayman, and so never have met Master Freake on 
 Wes'on Bank." 
 
 Three miles or more we made in this manner, and I had 
 heard nothing more alarming than the hoot of an owl from 
 an ivy-crusted elm. Some distance back the road had 
 climbed slightly for a space, then fallen into the level again, 
 and now ran, open and unhedged, across the bleaky top of 
 a barren upland. I chirruped to the sorrel and gave him 
 another lick of sugar to comfort him. A moment later, 
 I knew by the forward cock of his ears and the swift up-shake 
 of his head that something was in the wind, and strained my 
 own ears to listen, for there was nothing of note visible ahead 
 or around. 
 
 From far ahead came the faint rattle of hoofs on the hard 
 road. I pulled up, and, a moment later, Margaret and the 
 Colonel stopped beside me. 
 
 " What is it ? " asked the latter. 
 
 " Horse coming this way, sir," was my reply. The 
 sounds were already plainer. For a full minute he listened 
 carefully. " A good number of them, and making a smart 
 pace," he said. " It can only be Kingston's advance guard 
 falling back. Most likely the van of the Highlanders has 
 
 beaten up their quarters. Once past them we shall be 
 
 Hello ! Slids ! What's that ? Reinforcements r Egad. 
 Oliver, we're between the hammer and the anvil." 
 
 He turned his head round sharply and so did Margaret
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 131 
 
 and I. From behind us came again the unmistakable 
 rattle of a body of horse. We were trapped completely. 
 
 " This is damned annoying," said the Colonel. He looked 
 casually around, as indifferently as he would have looked 
 round the guest-room of the " Rising Sun," and added, 
 " Follow me, and ride as if the devil were at your tail." 
 
 He turned off into the bare, flat country, and we after 
 him. How we rode ! He was making for a little group of 
 trees, some dozen wind-sown pines, stuck like a forlorn 
 picket in enemy country a stone's-throw from the road. 
 We got there in a bunch, for there was no time for Sultan's 
 pace to count. 
 
 " Damn the moon ! " he said, and dismounted. " But this 
 is better than nothing. Take off Margaret's saddle, Oliver." 
 
 I got down, and assisted Margaret to dismount. She 
 thanked me, briefly and smilingly, as unperturbed as the 
 gaunt pine beneath which she stood. 
 
 The Colonel and I changed the saddles, and in a few 
 seconds Margaret was on Sultan. I asked him in vain to 
 take the sorrel and leave the mare to me, for she was getting 
 restive, and the Colonel was not quite so able as I was with 
 a strange horse. I insisted, however, in taking off my coat 
 and wrapping it about the mare's head, and, being thus 
 blanketed, she gave us no further trouble. By the Colonel's 
 orders, Margaret, on Sultan, took her place between us, 
 heading for the open country, while he and I turned to the 
 road. The thin, straggling pine-branches cast but little 
 shadow, and I knew it was next to impossible for us to pass 
 unnoticed. 
 
 " Now, Madge," said the Colonel, "it's bound to come 
 to a fight. As soon as the fun begins, off you go like the 
 wind into this bog-hole in front of you, and in five minutes 
 you'll be out of danger. Make a detour round to the road 
 again, keep the moon behind your back, and push on to the 
 nearest inn. Oliver and I will join you there, if so God 
 wills. If we don't, you're on the Chester road. Have you 
 your money still ? " 
 
 " Yes, dad." 
 
 " You understand, Madge ? " 
 
 " Quite clearly."
 
 132 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " Then kiss me, sweetheart." 
 
 She kissed him without a word, and turned to look good- 
 bye to me. For a moment I went all aquiver with emotion. 
 This wonderful new life of mine had at times to be lived in 
 the outskirts and suburbs of death. Fortunately, a thought 
 came into my head, and I tugged out the leathern bag and 
 thrust it into her hand. 
 
 " Don't leave that under the bed," said I, and, being 
 very bold, as one may be with death at one's door, I drew 
 her gloved hand, with the bag in it, towards me, and kissed 
 it. She said nothing to me, but the light in her eyes was 
 like moonlight on the dancing surface of a mountain spring. 
 
 " Look to your pistols, Oliver," ordered the Colonel 
 briefly and crisply. " See your tuck slips easy in the scabbard. 
 Another minute will decide. You and I can easily give 
 Madge all the start Sultan requires." 
 
 " Easily, sir," I answered stoutly. 
 
 " Good lad ! " said the Colonel. 
 
 And Margaret, leaning across until her lips were near my 
 cheek as I bent to see what she wanted, said, for the third 
 time, " Well done, fisherman ! " I laughed lightly and was 
 glad, for was not this calm, brave, splendid woman thinking 
 of how we two had met ? 
 
 From the first cock of the sorrel's ears to this so character- 
 istic remark of Margaret's could not have been five minutes, 
 and now, although owing to the downward slope to our left 
 I have mentioned, and its corresponding slope to the right, 
 neither body was yet in sight, they were so nearly on us that 
 differences between them became obvious. The southern 
 troup was small, was not travelling beyond a smart trot, 
 and was, so far as the men were concerned, absolutely quiet. 
 The body from the north was large, was forcing a hot gallop, 
 and much noise and shouting came from the troopers. 
 
 It was plain that we were in for it. The men from 
 Newcastle were no doubt coming north as a reinforcement, 
 but it was absurd to suppose that they had not been told 
 of our doings and of our escape northwards. They had not 
 overtaken us, and we must be on the road somewhere. The 
 men from the north had not met us. Never since the world 
 began had two and two been easier to put together. There
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 133 
 
 was only one place for us to be in and this was it. A short 
 parley, a glance our way, and an overwhelming force would 
 dash at the picket of pines. 
 
 The bare road lay there in the moonlight, half a mile of 
 it in clear view on either hand. The two bodies came in 
 sight within a few seconds of each other, and the Colonel 
 snapped his fingers and chuckled. 
 
 From the north a wild rush of spurring, flogging, shouting, 
 cursing horsemen, about a hundred of them. No order, 
 no discipline, no soldiership nothing but mad haste and 
 madder fear. 
 
 The mare began to plunge, and the Colonel, leaping off, 
 nearly strangled her in the coat. The sorrel got uneasy 
 but gave me no real trouble. Sultan took not the slightest 
 notice of the din behind him, and leisurely cropped the 
 tough bussocks of grass at his feet. 
 
 I looked to the road again. The southern body was 
 small, not more than a score, compact, riding smartly but 
 with military order and precision. The man at their head, 
 the officer in command, no doubt, spurred on and began to 
 shout at the oncoming northerners. He might as well have 
 spoken fair words to an avalanche, and the men behind 
 him began to waver and most of them pulled up. It was 
 useless. The torrent swept into them and bore them back- 
 ward, tumbling some of them over, men and horses together, 
 but incorporating most of them in its own madness. In less 
 than five minutes the last batch of dragooners had cursed 
 and spurred themselves out of sight, and the bright moon 
 shone down on a road once more bare and white save for a 
 few scattered patches of black. 
 
 The Colonel uncovered the mare's head and nuzzled her. 
 All he said was, but that very gleefully, " Geordie, my 
 boy, I'll be routing you out of St. James's within the fort- 
 night. I'll learn you to neglect the King of Sweden's 
 Colonels ! Damme, Oliver, it made me think of Pharaoh's 
 kine one lot eating the other up. Now, sweetheart my 
 Madge, we'll have your pretty eyes a-bye-bye in no time." 
 
 " I never saw anything so funny in my life," said Margaret. 
 " On with your coat, Oliver, before you take cold." 
 
 From all of which I learned to take, as they did, the
 
 134 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 fat with the lean in soldiering, and not to care a brass farthing 
 tthich it was. Still, I was as yet so young at the game, that, 
 though I was careful to swagger it out and say nothing, I did 
 wonder why the body from the south was so smalL 
 
 And I wonder as I write whether it was or was not the 
 mistake of my life merely to wonder then. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 " WAR HAS ITS RISKS " 
 
 I SLEPT unsoundly and in snatches. Margaret was in 
 the room beneath me, " dreaming in Italian," thought I, 
 in unhappy imitation of her dainty gibe at her father. 
 A problem was on my mind, and that was ever with me an 
 enemy to sleep. I meant being the best of soldiers, and this 
 that worried me was a military problem. To be short, I 
 could not help asking myself, " Were the dragoons from 
 the south intended as a reinforcement to the horse from the 
 north ? " And somehow I could not think they were. As 
 the top-dog spirit in me put it : " It was like sending Jack 
 to reinforce me. Quod est absurdum." 
 
 Time the Explainer permits me to be frank. There was 
 this other side to my problem that I could not bring myself 
 to be sure the Colonel's escape had come merely by happy 
 chance. He was no party to contriving it, of that I never 
 doubted, but it did look like a contrivance. We had been 
 at the " Rising Sun " for six hours or more. Stone, the 
 nearest head-quarters of Cumberland's forces, was only nine 
 miles south of it, yet no attempt had been made to follow 
 the fugitive. No, thought I again, that's wrong. Weir 
 was sent on his track and actually found him. But this was 
 as useless, so it seemed, as sending twenty dragoons, hundreds 
 being available, to reinforce a thousand stout horse. There 
 was no proportion between the ends proposed and the means 
 adopted. 
 
 If the handful of dragoons were not a reinforcement, it
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 135 
 
 was a pursuit of us, and this posed another problem. Why 
 had the pursuit been allowed to flag all the afternoon and 
 evening, to be taken up again far on in the night ? What 
 fresh fact, if any, had determined it ? I could think of 
 none, nor, on reflection, was one wanted, since both Master 
 Freake and Jack had last night witnessed to the worn-out 
 state of Brocton's horses. Consequently his dragoons would 
 have been sent after the Colonel earlier had they been fit. 
 Their coming, when fit, proved their anxiety to retake him. 
 Therefore he was not allowed to escape, and the conclu- 
 sion of my argument hit its major premise clean in the 
 teeth. 
 
 " Oliver, my boy," said I to myself, " say a bit of Virgil 
 and go to sleep. These matters are beyond you." 
 
 I picked on a passage and started mumbling it to myself. 
 It was a lucky hit, for when I had in solemn whispers rolled 
 off the great lines in the sixth ^Eneid which foretell the 
 work and glory of Rome, I thought of my Lord Ridgeley, 
 thiever by cunning process of law of most of my ancient 
 patrimony, and his blackguard son, my Lord Brocton, lust- 
 fully hunting the proud, gracious woman beneath, and I 
 said grandiosely to myself, " Rome's destiny is thine too, 
 Oliver Wheatman of the Hanyards, and these betitled 
 scullions are the proud ones you shall war down/' 
 
 The notion was so soothing that I fell asleep again. 
 
 I have leaped over uninteresting but by no means unim- 
 portant events. We were staying the night at a wayside 
 hostel, called the " Red Bull," situated at the point where 
 a cross-road cut the main road. We were still in Stafford- 
 shire, a matter on which Margaret had laughingly placed 
 the utmost importance, though an urchin, standing by the 
 rude signpost, could have flung a pebble into Cheshire. 
 Houseroom was of the narrowest, and I was tucked away in 
 the attics, in a room I had to crawl about in two-double, 
 walking upright being out of the question. It was the grown- 
 up daughter's room, and she had been bundled out to make 
 place for me, a fact I did not learn till it was beyond need of 
 remedy. The lass had a good pleasant woman to mother, 
 but her father, the host, was an ill-conditioned, surly runt, 
 whose only good point was a still tongue.
 
 136 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 Margaret was in the room below, and her father next to 
 her along a narrow gangway. From my attic I got down 
 to this gangway by means of a staircase hardly to be told 
 from a ladder. The gangway, just past the Colonel's door, 
 became a little landing whence three or four steps led down 
 to a larger landing, from which one could mount up to the 
 other and corresponding half of the house or descend to the 
 entrance hall with which the various rooms of the ground 
 floor connected. 
 
 I awoke again in a dim dull dawn. Tired of these bouts 
 of wakefulness I got off the bed for I was lying full-dressed 
 even to my boots and crept softly to the window. I would 
 keep watch and ward for Margaret, as a true knight oweth 
 to do. Then, if my obscure misgivings were unfounded, I 
 should at any rate have done my duty. 
 
 There had been a slight fall of snow, enough to cover 
 the ground and bring everything up into sharp relief. My 
 window was a dormant-window, its sill being about four feet 
 from the eaves. I flung it open, careful not to make a 
 sound, pushed out head and shoulders, and took stock. 
 
 I dipped my fingers in the snow and found tin re was near 
 an inch of it. The " Red Bull " stood bark from the road, and 
 on each side of the inn proper, outhouses and stables jutted 
 out to the wayside. Drawn up under a hovel on the left 
 was a huge wagon piled with sacks, probably of barley 
 bound for Leek, a town renowned for its ale. 
 
 Without was silence and stillness, as of the grave, and it 
 was nipping cold, but my mind was happily busy, having so 
 many delicious moments to live over again. If by some 
 unhappy chance I never saw her again and lived to be a 
 hundred, I should nevei tire of my memories. She had as 
 many facets as Mr. Pitt's diamond, as many tones as the 
 great organ in Lichfield Cathedral. To know her had en- 
 riched my life and opened my mind. What Pro pert ius had 
 said of Ms Cynthia, I repeated to myself of my Margaret, 
 Ingenium nobis ipsa pudla est. ' My ' Margaret ! Well, it 
 did her no harm for me to think it, and, after all, the sly, 
 silly babblings of my under-self could be shouted down by 
 the stern voice of common sense. 
 
 Here, under the stress of a new force, my thoughts flew
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 137 
 
 off at a tangent, and I said to myself, " Bravo, Romeo ! 
 You shall find me a rare Juliet." 
 
 I had, indeed, much ado to keep from laughing aloud, as 
 my situation was delicious, not to say delicate. For, on a 
 sudden, noiselessly as the beat of a bat's wing, two feet of 
 ladder had shot up above the eaves, and even now an ardent 
 lover was hasting aloft, dreaming of lispings and kissings to 
 come. I mustn't frighten him too soon or too much or he'd 
 drop off, but as soon as he was fairly on the slope he should 
 sip the sweetness of lips of steel. So I crept back, got a 
 pistol, and stood to the left of the window. 
 
 I waited till his body darkened the room and then took 
 a furtive look at him. It was no village lover climbing up 
 at peep of dawn to greet his lass. It was one of Brocton's 
 dragoons, one of the five who had been at the Hanyards. 
 
 In a twink I shot him. Without a word, he slithered 
 down the tiles, leaving a mush of blood-red snow. His right 
 leg slipped aslant .bet ween two rungs of the ladder, and his 
 body, checked in its fall, swung round and dangled over the 
 eaves. 
 
 In the room was a large oaken clothes chest. I dragged 
 it to the light, tilted it on end, and jammed it into the gable 
 of the window, which, luckily, it fitted completely, and so 
 blocked any further attack from the roof. Snatching up my 
 weapons, I tumbled down the ladder, only to hear the heavy 
 tramping of feet upstairs. Standing by Margaret's door, I 
 waited until the head and shoulders of the first man came in 
 sight. He carried a lantern, and its yellow rays lit up for 
 me the ugly face of the sergeant of dragoons. I fired my 
 second pistol at him, crashing the lantern to pieces. Down 
 he went, whether hit or not I did not know. In the darkness 
 I heard the rush of a second man who came on so fearlessly 
 and fast that he was far into the passage before I met him 
 with a fierce thrust of my rapier. I thrilled with the zeal 
 of old Smite-and-spare-not as, for the first time, I felt the 
 point of my rapier in a man's body, and drove it home with 
 a yell. Down he went too, with a gurgle of blood in his 
 throat, and Margaret, coming out of her room, stumbled 
 over his body as she raced after me along the passage. 
 
 The Colonel was at the stair-head before me, but there
 
 138 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 was, for the moment, no work for him. The enemy had 
 tumbled noisily downstairs into the hall, and were collecting 
 their scattered wits after their first rout. To my regret, the 
 raucous cursings of the sergeant showed that he had not 
 been killed and apparently not even hit. 
 
 " God damn ye ! " he yelled. " Ten of you driven back 
 like sheep by a raw youth. I'll settle with ye for it. Think 
 I picked ye out of the stews and stink-holes of London to 
 stand this ? There isn't one of ye with the guts of a louse. 
 I'll take the skin off the ribs of you for this, damn ye, and 
 most of your pimp's flesh along with it ! " 
 
 " What sort of guts was it brought yow tumblin' down so 
 quick ? " put in the surly voice of the landlord. " Yow 
 cudna 'a come any faster if yer blasted yed 'ad been blown 
 to bits instead of my lantern." 
 
 Some of the men laughed at this, whereon the sergeant 
 blasphemed enough to make a devil from hell shiver. He 
 cowed the dragoons, but the innkeeper only growled, " A 
 three-bob lantern blown to bits ! Fork out three bob ! ' 
 
 " I'll have him if I have to blow the house to bits ! " 
 vociferated the sergeant. 
 
 " Fork out three bob ! " repeated the host. 
 
 Not a word had passed between us on the stair-head, and 
 now, at the sound of preparations for a fresh assault, the 
 Colonel took each of us by the arm and led us into his room. 
 
 " The stair-head cannot be held against fire from the 
 opposite landing," he whispered. 
 
 When inside, he locked the door, and I helped him pile 
 the bed on end behind it, heaping all the other furniture 
 against the bed-frame to hold the mattress and bedding up 
 against the door. Margaret, at a brief word of command, 
 had meanwhile kept watch through the window. 
 
 " That's a fair defence," he said contentedly. " What 
 are these devils ? " 
 
 " Brocton's dragoons," said I. " I've settled two of 
 them, one on the roof and one in the passage." 
 
 " Good lad ! Ten of 'em would be long odds in the 
 open ; here we ought to have the laugh of them. Load 
 your pistols ! Damme, it's a bit chilly. Fortunately 
 there's some warm work ahead."
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 139 
 
 He stamped up and down the room, swishing his arms 
 round his body, and stopping every now and again to make 
 some trifling change in our hurriedly contrived barricade. 
 Margaret stood by quietly at the window, and when I had 
 reloaded my pistols, I joined her there. 
 
 The ladder had been shifted and now lay along in the 
 snow. There, too, lay the body of the dragoon I had shot, 
 crumpled up in his death-agony. A brood of owls were 
 clucking and cluttering about under the hovel, and there, 
 too, leaning against the rear wheel of the wain, were a 
 lumpish wagoner and our surly host. The one was stolidly 
 smoking, the other was holding the battered lantern out at 
 arm's length, and I could, as it were, see him growling to 
 the lout at his side, " 'Ew's to fork out for this'n ? " A girl 
 went towards them from the house, circling, with averted 
 head, far round the dead dragoon, bearing them from the 
 kitchen a smoking jug of ale. 
 
 " In England," said Margaret, " snow adds the charm of 
 peace and purity to the countryside. There's never, I 
 should think, enough of it to give the sense of utter desola- 
 tion and deadness that it gives one in Russia." 
 
 " It's so uncertain with us," was my reply. " I've 
 known a whole winter without a snowflake, and I've walked 
 knee-deep in it in May." 
 
 The Colonel stopped his marching and swishing and came 
 to the window. 
 
 " Don't bother, Madge," said he. " We'U pull through. 
 Hallo, I didn't see yon wagon last night." 
 
 He took out his snuff-box and, hearing the noise of the 
 enemy in the corridor, walked with it in his hand across to 
 the door. He tapped his box with accustomed preciseness, 
 but I, a step behind, having lingered for a last look into 
 Margaret's eyes, heard him mutter, " Damn the wagon ! " 
 
 " Ho, there within, in the King's name," shouted the 
 sergeant. 
 
 " Ho, there without, in the devil's name," mimicked the 
 Colonel. 
 
 " I want speech with Colonel Waynflete," shouted the 
 sergeant. 
 
 " Then, seeing that Colonel Waynflete cannot at the
 
 140 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 moment give himself the pleasure of slitting your ruffian's 
 throat, you may speak on," was the reply. 
 
 " You and your daughter may proceed on your way 
 unharmed if you surrender. It's only Wheatman the 
 farmer, now with you, that I want." 
 
 He could be heard all over the room to the last syllable, 
 and Margaret quickly left her place at the window and came 
 towards us, but the Colonel in a stern wLisper ordered her 
 back. " How dare you leave your post ! Watch that 
 wagon ! " She crimsoned and returned. 
 
 " If Master Freake were here, Oliver, I think he would 
 remark that there was no market for colonels to-day," said 
 her father to me with a wry smile. He gave the lid of his 
 snuff-box a final tap, opened it, and held it out to me. In the 
 sense of the term known to fashionable London, he was not 
 a good-looking man, but as he stood there, waiting gravely 
 while I took my pinch, he had the irresistible charm of the 
 highest manliness. 
 
 " Do you agree, Colonel ? " bawled the sergeant. 
 
 " I do not," he shouted, and took his snuff with great 
 relish. 
 
 " By God," and now the sergeant roared like a wounded 
 bull, " I'll have you all in ten minutes." Then, as an after- 
 thought, he added, " Here, I say, you Wheatman, do you 
 agree ? " 
 
 " Certainly," said I, " I'll come at once." And I should 
 have gone, there and then, but for the Colonel, who, as I 
 laid a hand on the nearest piece of our barricade, promptly 
 said, " I've only one way with deserters," and levelled a 
 pistol at my head. 
 
 " For Margaret's sake, sir," I pleaded in low tones. 
 " Let me go ! " She had flown like a bird across to us, and 
 so heard me. 
 
 " I had hoped you thought better of me, Master 
 Wheatman," she said coldly, and went back to her watching. 
 
 The sergeant heard, or at least understood, what had 
 been said in the room. We heard him say, " You know 
 your job. Fifty guineas for Wheatman, dead or alive. 
 Any man who touches the girl will be flogged bare to the 
 bones." Then we heard him walk off along the corridor.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 141 
 
 The dragoons without made no attempt on the door, 
 and we joined Margaret at the window. Hardly had we got 
 there when half a dozen dragoons dashed out of the porch 
 and ran for the road. The Colonel flung the window open 
 and emptied both his pistols at them, but they zigzagged 
 like hares and the shots appeared to be thrown away. In 
 the road they halted, formed a line in open order, and levelled 
 their carbines at the window. All three of us moved aside, 
 the Colonel tugging Margaret with him to the right while I 
 hopped to the left. 
 
 " Take it easy, Oliver," he said very good-humouredly. 
 " Until they think of the wagon we're safe enough on this 
 side. These walls would almost stand up to a carronade." 
 
 With a clash the first bullet came through the window and 
 knocked a huge splinter off a bedpost. There were six shots 
 without, and six bullets spattered in a small area opposite. 
 
 " That's quite good shooting," said the Colonel. " Much 
 better than I expected from such poor stuff." 
 
 I told him what Jack had said about the mixed quality 
 of Brocton's dragoons. These good shots, I explained, 
 were picked men off the Ridgeley estates, probably game- 
 keepers and bailiffs. 
 
 " Very like," he said. " They're used to shooting but 
 not to fighting. Rabbits are more in their line." 
 
 There was no stir in the passage, and I wondered what 
 the job was these men had in hand. The fusillade at the 
 window was kept up unceasingly, generally in single shots, 
 sometimes in twos and threes. The barricade took on a 
 ragged appearance. I occupied my mind in thoughts of 
 Margaret. She was in the corner, beyond her father. 
 
 The bullets had by now nearly cleared the window of 
 glass, fragments of which covered the floor of the room. 
 Through the cracking and spluttering we at last heard the 
 noise of a wagon moving. The Colonel and I leaped up 
 and peered round the edge of the window. It was being 
 pulled by two horses, and was shifted till it was exactly 
 opposite the window, and to my surprise some twelve feet 
 distant. The sacks made a firm platform level with the 
 window-sill. Flush with the window it would have made 
 an admirable means of attack, but why the space between ?
 
 142 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 While the wagon was being put in position, there was a 
 cessation of firing. We saw the six dragoons from the road 
 climbing on to the wagon, while as many again joined them 
 from the inn. The Colonel said, " Now's our chance ! " 
 and fired carefully. One man, who was poised on the rear 
 wheel, fell into the road and hopped round to the back of 
 the wagon holding his right foot in his hand ; another, 
 already mounted, sprawled full length on the sacks. 
 
 " That's the way," he said, with much satisfaction, and 
 stepped aside to reload. " See if you can improve on it." 
 
 By this, under orders from the sergeant, two or three 
 dragoons were creeping under the wagon to fire from behind 
 the wheels. I dropped a man standing at the horses' heads 
 and then, in the nick of time and on second thoughts, made 
 sure of the mare and hit her in the neck. She squealed, 
 kicked, and plunged, and the other horse sharing her fears, 
 they began to drag the wagon off. The sergeant and two 
 or three men leaped at them and managed to quiet them, and 
 then took them out of the traces to save further trouble of the 
 sort. The Colonel, meanwhile, having reloaded, brought 
 down another dragoon with one shot, and ripped open a 
 sack with another. It was barley. 
 
 For perhaps a minute the window had been as safe as 
 her corner, and Margaret had been quietly watching the 
 scene. Now, with seven or eight men lying on the top of 
 the sacks, with a stout row of them piled in front as a bulwark, 
 it was time for us to run to cover again. This time, of her 
 own accord, she came my side, and nestled beyond me in 
 the nook between the wall and my body. 
 
 The men in the passage still made no sign. 
 
 " Slids, Oliver," said the Colonel, " I can't see this ugly 
 devil's game yet, but, whatever it is, you came near to spoiling 
 it. Damme, it was a good idea to pepper the horse. Curse 
 me ! Where were my fifty years of soldiering that I couldn't 
 think of it ? " 
 
 " I suppose it conies from my being " 
 
 The sweetest and whitest fingers in the world closed my 
 mouth, and Margaret, thinking that I was on the verge of 
 backsliding, whispered in my ear, "The readiest - witted 
 gentleman in England."
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 143 
 
 I tingled with the joy of her touch, and turned to her 
 so that I might go on into the coming fight with her last 
 shade of emotion burnt into my memory. A stream of 
 lead poured through the window, but the spluttering of 
 bullets on the walls of the room had no more effect on me 
 than the pattering of hailstones. 
 
 " May I finish my sentence, madam ? " 
 
 " Not as you intended, sir." 
 
 " I can't go back on old Bloggs' teaching, madam." 
 
 She pouted and frowned, both at once, and the Colonel 
 bawled through the noise of the fusillade, " Being what ? " 
 
 " Fond of Virgil," roared I back again. 
 
 Margaret laughed. Could a nightingale laugh, it would 
 laugh as Margaret laughed then. 
 
 Before the music of it died away the sergeant showed 
 his hand, and death at its grizzliest grinned through the 
 window. A great mass of damp, smouldering straw, lifted 
 on pikels, was thrust into the window-frame, filling it com- 
 pletely, and thick wreaths of dense, foul smoke eddied into 
 the room, while through the straw the rain of bullets poured 
 on, smashing and splintering on walls and ceiling, door and 
 barricade. 
 
 The Colonel slashed and poked at the straw with h.s 
 rapier. Telling Margaret to crouch on the floor, I crawled on 
 my belly and fetched the bed-staff, which stood in its accus- 
 tomed corner of the chimney-piece. It made a much more 
 serviceable tool for the job, and I flung it across to the 
 Colonel, who seized it and worked it like a blackamoor till 
 he was almost the colour of one, and had, to judge by his 
 voice and demeanour, got almost beyond his German in 
 his rage. Asking for Margaret's handkerchief, I tied it 
 loosely round her mouth, my heart near to bursting as I 
 looked into her calm and patient face. Then I lay down 
 flat and wormed out into the room and, after a hard struggle, 
 wrenched off one of the rods which carried the rings of the 
 bed-curtains. I remember that, as I lay there, writhing 
 and struggling, I counted the bullets, eleven of them, as 
 they spattered about me. However, I got back to Margaret's 
 side untouched, and poked and thrust and slashed to make 
 a hole near her face between straw and window-frame.
 
 144 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 Our efforts were practically useless. The straw was 
 cunningly fed from below, and the pall of smoke was now 
 so heavy and dense that the fringe of it was settling down on 
 Margaret's tower of yellow hair, and as I watched the rate 
 at which it was falling, I knew the end was coming. The 
 Colonel had worked with the energy of despair to tear down 
 the vile enemy that was killing us by inches, and now suddenly 
 collapsed and fell like a log to the floor. Margaret would 
 have crawled to him, but I kept her by main force against 
 the wall while I wriggled out of my coat. 
 
 " We have one chance left, Margaret," said I. " Your 
 father is only overcome by the smoke see, there's no sign 
 of a wound about him and his fall is a godsend. Give me 
 your other handkerchief and lie down flat, face to the floor 
 and close to the window, and listen tor my next instructions." 
 
 She did so without a word. I wrapped my coat loosely 
 about her head, and before I could close it in the smoke 
 cloud was settling down on her, even as she lay. I was 
 nearly done for, but she was safe for a few minutes. Lying 
 lull length on the floor, under the window, I tied her handker- 
 chief to the end of the curtain-rod, thrust it through the 
 straw, and waved it about as vigorously as I could. 
 
 The sergeant's voice rang out. The firing ceased. The 
 foul masses of straw were removed. Then the scoundrel 
 came forward and leered up at me. 
 
 " Do your terms hold good ? " I shouted. 
 
 " Yes," he said. 
 
 " Colonel Waynflete and his daughter will be left at 
 liberty to go their way, if I surrender ? " 
 
 " Yes," he said. 
 
 " Then in one minute I'll be with you," said I. Stepping 
 inside the room, I first of all pulled the Colonel to the window, 
 tore loose the clothes round his neck, and laid his head on 
 the window-sill, in the good sweet air. Then crawling to 
 Margaret, I unwrapped the jacket, and said briefly, " Force 
 some of Kate's cordial down your father's throat. Good- 
 bye ! " 
 
 I returned to the window, clambered out, hung at arm's 
 length, and dropped to the ground. Striding up to the 
 sergeant, I said carelessly, " Your turn this time, sergeant.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 145 
 
 To-day to thee, to-morrow to me it's neater in the Latin 
 but you wouldn't understand it and all Brocton's dragoons 
 shan't save your ugly neck." 
 
 " Where the hell's your coat ? " he demand fiercely. 
 
 A cool question, indeed, after trying to suffocate me, 
 but it was never answered. The air was on a sudden filled 
 with the weirdest row I had ever heard. It was as if all 
 the ghosts in Hades had suddenly piped up at their shrillest 
 and ghostliest. This was followed by a splutter of musketry, 
 and this again by loud yells. Looking round I saw a swarm 
 of strange figures sweep into the yard, half women as to 
 their dress, for they wore little petticoats that barely reached 
 theii knees, but matchless fighting men as to their behaviour. 
 On they came, with the pace of hounds, the courage of bucks, 
 and the force of the tide. 
 
 It was the Highlanders. 
 
 The sergeant fled into and through the inn and, with the 
 men from the corridor, got clean away. Not a man else 
 escaped. Half the dragoons on the wagon were picked off 
 like crows on a branch. The rest, and those in or about the 
 yard, got their lives and nothing else barring their breeches, 
 and that not for comeliness' sake but because they were 
 useless. Every man jack of them, in less than five minutes, 
 looked like a half-plucked cockerel, and their captors were 
 wrangling like jackdaws about the plunder. 
 
 I glanced at the window. To my relief, the Colonel was 
 already sitting up, pumping the sweet air into his befouled 
 lungs, and Margaret smiled joyously and waved her hand to 
 me. I was waving victoriously back to her when my attention 
 was forcibly diverted by two Highlanders, who collared me, 
 intent on reducing me to a state of nature plus my breeches. 
 There was no time to explain, neither would they have under- 
 stood my explanation. One of them, a son of Anak for 
 height and bulk, already had his hands to my pockets. Him 
 I hit, as hard -won experience had taught me, and he fell all 
 of a heap. His fellow was struck with amazement at seeing 
 such a great beef of a man put out of action so easily, and 
 stood gaping over him for a while. Recovering himself, he 
 snatched a long knife out of his sock and made for me 
 murderously, but I had meantime fished out a guinea and
 
 146 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 now held it out to him. He took it with the eager curiosity 
 of a child, looked at it wonderingly, made out what it was, 
 and then ran leaping and frisking up and down the yard, 
 holding it high over his head, and shouting, " Ta ginny, ta 
 ginny, ta bonny, gowd ginny ! " 
 
 I was saved further trouble by the approach of one of 
 the officers, or, to speak with later knowledge, chiefs, of these 
 wild warriors. He informed me in excellent English that 
 he had heard the firing, seen my parleying at the window 
 and my subsequent surrender, and desired to know the 
 meaning of it all. 
 
 " The gentleman at the window," I explained, " is Colonel 
 Waynflete, travelling to join Prince Charles. The lady is his 
 daughter, and I am their servant, by name Oliver Wheatman 
 of the Hanyards. These King's men, belonging to my Lord 
 Brocton's regiment of dragoons, attacked us ; we refused to 
 surrender, and the rascally sergeant in command smoked us 
 out. I pray you, sir, to run the wagon up to the window 
 that I may hand them down, since the door is heavily bar- 
 ricaded." 
 
 It was done immediately, and he and I ran up to the 
 window together. 
 
 " You young dog," said the Colonel. " You surrendered 
 after all." 
 
 " In strict accordance, sir, with military usage, I used 
 my discretion as commander of the party." 
 
 " Slids ! " His grey eyes had the old laugh lurking in 
 them already. " Commander of the party ? " 
 
 " There were only Mistress Margaret and I left," said I. 
 
 " And the peppermint cordial," put in Margaret. 
 
 So in sheer wantonness of joy we sought relief in banter- 
 ing one another. Then I introduced the chieftain, who had 
 stood there silent and graceful, a fine figure of a man, finely 
 and naturally posed, and mutual compliments and thanks 
 passed between us. Yet in that first minute, with Margaret 
 and the Colonel perched on the sill, and the Highlander and 
 I standing on the sacks of barley, I saw another thing 
 happen, for the big things of life come into it with the swift- 
 ness of light and the inevitability of death. A chieftain 
 proudly climbed the wagon ; a bond-servant humbly
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 147 
 
 handed Margaret down. As was fair and courteous, and 
 suitable to my real position, I let him do it, and aided the 
 Colonel, who was as yet somewhat shaky. After seeing him 
 safe down, I rushed up again and recovered our weapons 
 and my coat. Down once more, I was getting into my coat 
 when Margaret, who was talking to the Highlander, looked 
 at me and said quietly, " Pray, Master Wheatman, fetch me 
 the domino from my room ! " 
 
 She said it simply and mistress-like, and of course I shot 
 off to do her bidding. I supposed, as I went, that it was the 
 white snow all around that had brought out the blue in her 
 eyes so vividly. 
 
 In the inn I found the host, the lantern still dangling 
 from his finger, notwithstanding his greater woe, and his 
 pleasant, placid wife weeping bitterly. Of the original 
 twenty guineas of the Major's, I now had only four left, and 
 these I thrust into her hand as I passed, and told her to be 
 comforted. 
 
 From my shooting the dragoon on the roof to my running 
 upstairs for the domino was in all not more than twenty 
 minutes. I skipped over the man who had fallen to my 
 maiden sword. He was lying between the door of the 
 Colonel's room and that of Margaret's, and opposite one of 
 the doors on the other side of the passage. Darting into 
 Margaret's room, I recovered the domino. 
 
 I was only a moment, but in that moment some one 
 opened the door in the passage against which the man lay 
 and so brought him into the light, and I could not help taking 
 a look at him. 
 
 My heart stopped with the horror of it ; my whole being 
 fell to pieces at the agony of it. I remember running from 
 it as from the gates of hell. I remember reeling on the stairs. 
 I remember a headlong fall. I remember no more. 
 
 It was Jack.
 
 148 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 IN THE MOORLANDS 
 
 I WAS in bed, there was no doubt about that, and a 
 strange sort of bed too, for it moved lightly and 
 deliciously through the keen, open air like the magic 
 carpet of the Eastern tale. The bedposts at my feet were 
 most curiously carved into life-like images of warriors, so 
 life-like, indeed, that when the one on the right turned its 
 shaggy head and spoke to the one on the left, I was not 
 shocked and scarcely surprised. Bed it was, however, for 
 mother's soft, smooth hand was on my cheek, and under the 
 balm of its touch I went off to sleep again. 
 
 When my eyes opened again, the mists had cleared out 
 of them and I was no longer in the land of shadows. The 
 carven bedposts were Highlanders ; the bed was a litter 
 slung between four of them ; the touch was hers. Somebody 
 spoke, the Highlanders came to a halt, and Margaret bent 
 over me. Her face was pale, grave, and anxious. 
 
 " Are you better, Oliver ? " she whispered. 
 
 " As right as rain," I answered, pushing my new trouble 
 behind me and speaking stoutly because of the whiteness of 
 her face. 
 
 " Try to sleep again. You've had a bad fall, and there's 
 an ugly cut in your skull." 
 
 " Indeed, I'll do no such thing," was my reply. " I 
 don't want carrying like a great baby, and I do want my 
 breakfast. I'm as empty as a drum." 
 
 " Can you stand ? " 
 
 " Sure of it, and also hop, skip, jump, and, above all, 
 eat and drink with any man alive. So, if you can make these 
 men-women understand you, tell them I'm very grateful, 
 but I've had enough." 
 
 The four tousled warriors were easily made to understand 
 what I wanted, and, stout and strong as they were, welcomed 
 the end of their labours with broad grins of satisfaction. 
 They lowered me to the ground, and immediately Margaret's
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 149 
 
 hands were outstretched to help me to my feet. But for the 
 black death between us, it would have been new life indeed 
 to see the colour and sunshine creeping back to her face, and 
 to hear her whispered " Thank God ! " 
 
 My head was bumming and throbbing, but nothing to 
 speak of. The gash was behind and above my right ear, so 
 I must have somersaulted down the stairs. Margaret, as I 
 learned later, had bathed and bandaged the wound, and, 
 after my recovery of consciousness, it only gave me the happy 
 trouble of persuading Margaret that it gave me no trouble. 
 
 I stamped and shook myself experimentally, took a few 
 strides, and jumped once or twice, Margaret watching me as 
 curiously and carefully as a hen watches her first chicken. 
 
 " Do mind, Oliver ! " she said. " It bled horribly, and 
 you'll start it again." 
 
 " I believe I needed a blood-letting," said I. 
 
 " Should you ever need another," she said crisply, " I 
 hope you'll take it in the usual way. How did it happen ? " 
 
 I had steeled myself for the inevitable question, and so 
 answered ruefully, " I must have tripped over the domino." 
 
 " If it were not your mother's I would never wear it 
 again," she said, plucking the skirt of it into her hand and 
 shaking it as if it were a naughty child. " I thought you 
 would never come round. For nearly an hour, I should 
 think, you looked stone-dead. Then you just opened your 
 eyes, but closed them before I dared speak, and lay so at 
 least another hour. You have given me such a fright, sir, 
 that, now you are up and about again, I'm beginning to feel 
 I have a grievance against you." 
 
 " I'm sorry, madam," said I, very soberly. 
 
 " Now you're laughing at me, sir," was the brisk reply. 
 
 The word made me shiver. " Laughing " over Jack's 
 body ! Margaret was in her stride back to her mistress-ship 
 again yet her eye changed instantly with her mood when 
 she saw me wince. Indeed, her mind flashed after my mind 
 like a hawk after a pigeon, but I dodged the trouble by looking 
 casually around to examine our whereabouts. 
 
 We were following a track down a dip in an open moor- 
 land. Across the shallow valley, and climbing the slope 
 ahead of us, was another small body of Highlanders, whom I
 
 150 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 took to be our scouting party. The sun was a dim blob in 
 the sky, and I saw from its position that our direction was 
 easterly. A joyous hail from behind made me spin round, 
 whereupon I saw the Colonel on Sultan and the young Chief 
 on the sorrel turning the brow behind us. It took them 
 a few minutes to trot down to us, and before they reached us 
 four more wild warriors, our rear-guard apparently, came in 
 view. One of them was my son of Anak, astride Margaret's 
 mare, and so looking more gigantesque than ever. 
 
 " Good morning, commander ! " was the Colonel's 
 greeting. " Slids ! But I'm glad to see you on your feet 
 again. How's the head ? " 
 
 " It still bumbles a bit," said I. " but, truth to tell, I'm 
 thinking more of my breakfast than my head. I'm as empty 
 as a drum." 
 
 " It's a guid prognostick to feel hungry after sic a crack 
 o' the head," said the chieftain, smiling, and I thought with 
 a twinge what a handsome, wholesome sight he made. 
 
 " I'm another drum," said the Colonel, " but deuce take 
 me, Oliver, if I know how we're to be filled. Madge would 
 have us start off with you at once, quite rightly too, and 
 we'd neither bite nor sup before we took the road." 
 
 " And where were you taking me ? " cried I. 
 
 " To the doctor's," explained the Colonel. " There's 
 one in a village tucked away somewhere among these hills, 
 and we've a lad on ahead to guide us. Colonel Ker, who 
 commands the Highlanders who rescued us, gave us our 
 friend here, Captain Maclachlan in the Prince's army, and a 
 great chieftain among his own people " here the chief and 
 I bowed to one another " and a dozen or so of his stout 
 men as an escort. Two plaids were knitted into a litter, 
 a log of a man named Wheatman was bundled into it, and 
 off we started breakfast less, as I said before." 
 
 " I'm very grateful to you, Mistress Margaret," said I. 
 
 " Don't be silly ! " she answered very sharply. " It is 
 no praise to tell me I acted with common decency. And you 
 weren't bundled in ! " 
 
 " I was not praising you, madam," I retorted, quick as 
 ever to return like for like. " I was thanking you, and I 
 venture, with respect, to thank you again."
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 151 
 
 " Bother old Bloggs ! " she said, suddenly all of a glow. 
 
 " Bloggs ? Who's Bloggs ? " asked the Colonel, plainly 
 snjoying the fun. 
 
 " A rascally schoolmaster," she explained, " who flogged 
 Oliver into a precision of speech which I find most trying. 
 But I must not miscall the dear old man, for I stole his 
 supper." 
 
 " I wish he'd flogged him into precision on a staircase," 
 said the Colonel. " Damme, I am hungry." 
 
 " I'm thinking there'll be a dub of water in the bottom 
 yonder," said the chieftain, " and Mistress Waynflete shall, 
 if she will, take her first meal Highland fashion." 
 
 As I firmly declined to be carried another yard, the 
 Highlanders unmade my litter and resumed their plaids. 
 In the trough of the valley we found a streamlet of clear 
 sweet water, and our repast consisted of a handful of oatmeal, 
 of which every clansman carried a supply in a linen bag, 
 stirred in a horn of water. It was not our Staffordshire 
 notion of a breakfast, but it was better than nothing. 
 
 " Water-brose is a guid enough thing at a pinch," said 
 Maclachlan to Margaret, " guid enough to take a big loon 
 like yon Donald to London and back." 
 
 Donald, it appeared, liked an addition to it, notwith- 
 standing his chief's praise of it, for he was taking a long pull 
 from a leather bottle. This, he explained, was usquebaugh, 
 " ta watter of life," and the spice of poetry in the description 
 tempted the Colonel and me to try a dram. The Colonel 
 probably had had worse drink in his time, but even he 
 made no comment. I would almost as lief have had a blank 
 charge fired into my mouth. 
 
 While we all took our brose, and Maclachlan squired 
 Margaret, the Colonel told me how it had happened that 
 the Highlanders chanced to come to our rescue in the very 
 nick of time. My own trouble is to get my tale straight and 
 simple, and I have no intention of making a hard task harder 
 by trying to interweave with the threads of my own story 
 a poor history of these important days. Mr. Volunteer Ray 
 saw much more of these things than ever I did, and the 
 curious reader may turn to his fat, little, brown volume for 
 particulars. He was on the other side, and is too partial
 
 152 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 for a perfect historiographer, but the account of things is 
 there, and reasonably well done too. But as what happened 
 to Margaret, the Colonel, and me, happened because of the 
 campaign of the rival armies, I must boil down what the 
 Colonel told me if I am to make my tale clear. The Colonel, 
 to his credit, as I think, was so enthusiastic over all matters 
 military that he was rather long-winded in his account, and, 
 in like fashion with our housewifely Kate, it behoves me, so 
 to speak, to make a jar of jelly out of a pan of fruit, which 
 is easier done with crab-apples than words. 
 
 According to the Colonel, one of the master maxims of 
 the military art is, "Find out what the enemy thinks you 
 are going to do, and then don't do it." My Lord George 
 Murray, the Prince's chief adviser in military matters, had 
 acted on this plan, and had given the go-by to the Duke 
 of Cumberland in grand style. At Macclesfield, the traveller 
 to London had choice of two high roads, one through Leek 
 and Derby, and the other through Congleton and Stafford. 
 Leaving the Prince at Macclesfield with the bulk of his men, 
 Murray had pushed with a big force as far as Congleton on 
 the Stafford road, and the news of his advance had made 
 Cumberland withdraw all his northerly outposts to his 
 head-quarters at Stone. It was the last body of horse, routed 
 out of Congleton, which we had watched from the pines last 
 night, racing in fear and disorder back to the main of their 
 army. Before daybreak Murray had sent on a force of 
 Highlanders under Colonel Ker towards Newcastle, to main- 
 tain the illusion that the Stafford road was the one the 
 Prince would take, and the vanguard of this force, under 
 Maclachlan, had saved us at the " Red Bull." Murray 
 himself was marching from Congleton across country to 
 Leek, while the Prince was marching thither also from 
 Macclesfield. Murray would be there first, and did not 
 mean to wait for the Prince, but to push on as far as possible 
 towards Derby. We, too, were bound for Leek, where we 
 should be safe at last, and the end of the Colonel's explana- 
 tion came, not because he had said all he could have said, 
 but because Donald was yelling to the clansmen in prepara- 
 tion for our retaking the road. 
 
 Maclachlan accepted with alacrity an offer I made to go
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 153 
 
 ahead and join our advance. He ordered Donald to accom- 
 pany me, giving as his reason : " For he kens the English 
 fine when the spirit of understanding is on him, and ye'li 
 easy get it on him by raxing him a crack in the wame, same 
 as ye did back yonder at the yill-house." 
 
 The Highlander maintained the expression of a wooden 
 doll throughout this explanation, but, as I leaped hard after 
 him across the brook, I overtook a grin on his face that 
 promised well for my future entertainment. 
 
 " She pe recovert," he said. " Tat was a foine shump." 
 
 Before I could reply Margaret was upon us. 
 
 " The mare is quite frisky. She thinks me a mere 
 fardello after Donald. You're sure you're all right, Oliver ? " 
 
 " So near right, madam, that I beg you not to worry 
 about me further," said I. 
 
 " Worry about you or worry you ? " 
 
 It hurt me to have her go so chilly all of a sudden, but I 
 replied frankly, " Both. It does indeed worry me to have 
 you breakfastless in these wilds through my doings." 
 
 " Yes," she said, smiling down on me, " I ken fine the 
 distinction between water-brose and ham and eggs. " 
 
 " We are still in Staffordshire," I said cheerily, " and I'll 
 go ahead and see what I can do for you. Now, Donald, your 
 best foot first ! " 
 
 He and I started ahead again, leaving her waiting for 
 the rest of the party, detained by some explanation on the 
 Colonel's part of the military aspects of the lie of the land. 
 
 " There's a wheen foine leddies wi' ta Prince, Got bless 
 him," said Donald, " but when yon carline gets amangst 
 'em she'll pe like a muircock amangst a thrang o' craws. 
 She'll ding 'em a'." 
 
 I expected that Donald would cherish ill will to me for 
 my blow, but in this I was wrong. So far from bearing me a 
 grudge, he quite obviously liked me for it. He had a fist, 
 or nief, as he called it, nearly as big as a leg of lamb, and 
 almost the first thing he did when we were alone was to hold 
 it out, huge, dirty, and hairy, and put it alongside mine. He 
 scratched his rough head in his perplexity. 
 
 " At Gladsmuir," he said, " 'er nainsell did take ten 
 Southron loons wi' 'er own hant, wi' nobody to help 'er,
 
 154 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 an' now one callant had dinged 'er clean senseless wi' nothin' 
 but a bairn's nief." 
 
 " It wasn't clean fighting, Donald," said I. " Nothing 
 but a sort of trick. If you were to hit me fair and square I 
 should snap in two like a carrot. Tell me how you captured 
 the ten men ! " 
 
 It was a longish story, at any rate as he told it, in quaint 
 uncertain English, intermixed with spates of his own Gaelic 
 as he got excited over the account of his prowess. One of 
 them was an officer, and Donald finished up by ferreting out 
 of his meal-bag a magnificent gold watch, lawful prize from 
 his point of view, taken out of the officer's fob. 
 
 " Ta tarn t'ing was alife when I raxed 'er out of 'is poke," 
 he said, "but 'er went dead sune after. She can 'ave 'er 
 for a shillin'." 
 
 He had no idea, nor could I make him understand, what 
 it was and what purpose it served. When it had run down 
 for want of winding, to his simple mind it had ' died.' He 
 pushed it into my hand as indifferently as if it had been a 
 turnip, and I promised to pay him at Leek, for my pockets 
 were empty again and Margaret had the bag. 
 
 "'Er nainsell wad rather 'ave a new pair o' progues," 
 said he. " And what for does anybody want a thing tat 
 goes dead to tell ta time wi' ? T'ere's ta sun and ta stars, 
 tat never go dead." 
 
 As we walked rapidly we overtook our party soon after 
 settling the matter of the watch. The plough-lad who had 
 been pressed as guide told me we were near the road to Leek, 
 and I let him return. We dropped down to a rough road 
 running our way, and a mile or so along it the roofs of a village 
 came in sight, and we halted till the main body came up. 
 
 " What is it, Oliver ? " asked the Colonel 
 
 " Breakfast, sir," said I. 
 
 We marched into the village in military array. At our 
 head strode Donald, stout of heart and mighty of hand, with 
 two pipers skirling away at his heels, and the clansmen 
 stepping it out bravely two abreast behind them. Margaret 
 came next, with me at her mare's head, and the Colonel and 
 Maclachlan brought up the rear. 
 
 Our arrival created as much stir as an earthquake. The
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 155 
 
 Highlanders, in twos and threes, swarmed into the houses and 
 ordered their unwilling hosts to prepare them a meal. That 
 it was war I was engaged in was, for the first time, brought 
 clearly home to me when I saw a fearsome Highlander, with 
 claymore, dirk, and loaded musket, posted at each end of the 
 village. A touch of ordinary human nature was, however, 
 added, when the children, fearless and happy in their ignor- 
 ance, sidled up to the sentries and stared at them as eagerly 
 as if they had been war-painted Indians in a travelling show. 
 
 At first, we, the gentry for short, intended to seek accom- 
 modation in the inn, poor and shabby though it looked, and 
 Donald was ordered thither to give instructions. The Colonel 
 and the chieftain rode along the village to observe how things 
 were going, and this left Margaret and me together, and 
 spectators of a delightful little passage. For as Donald 
 approached the inn-door, the hostess, a sharp-nosed, vixenish 
 woman, charged at him with a very dirty besom and routed 
 him completely. Truth to tell, Donald, who had the sound, 
 sweet nature of a child, had all the natural child's indifference 
 to dirt, but even he, long-suffering in such matters as he was, 
 had to stop to scrape the filth out of his eyes. This gave me 
 the chance of making peace, and I went up and explained 
 that we should pay for everything like ordinary travellers, 
 good money for good fare. 
 
 " Oh aye ! " she said. 
 
 " Jonnock ! " said I. 
 
 " You're a Stafford chap," she asserted. 
 
 " I am," I agreed, " and I'll see you done well by." 
 
 That settled her, and Donald was settled too, for his 
 immediate wants were satisfied by a large glass of brandy, 
 and those more remote by a bucket of water and a towel. 
 
 " Gom ! " said the virile little woman to me, " a wesh'll 
 do him no harm. I've got the biggest gorby of a mon," 
 she went on, " between Mow Cop and the Cocklow o' Leek. 
 He's gone trapesing off, with our young Ted on his shoulders, 
 to see yow chaps march into Leek. There's about a dozen 
 on 'em gone, as brisk as if they were goin' to Stoke wakes. 
 Fine fools they'll lukken when they comes whom to-nate." 
 
 As it happened, the " Dun Cow " was after all left to Donald 
 and the pipers. When I rejoined Margaret, she said, " Pray
 
 156 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 help me down, Oliver, and we'll find the doctor, and have 
 him dress your head. And, once out of Donald-'s sight, I'll 
 have the laugh that's nearly killing me to keep under." 
 
 I helped her down, and said, " Never mind doctor ! That 
 fine old church yonder must be well worth looking into." 
 
 " You will mind, sir," she flashed. She beckoned to 
 Donald to take charge of her mare, and then waylaid a 
 passing girl, running from one sentry to the other, and got 
 her to show us the doctor's. 
 
 So we started thither, and as we went she said, " Really, 
 Oliver, you are inconsiderate at times." 
 
 " Nonsense," said I. " It's my head." 
 
 I was angry, not at her words, for I knew she did not 
 mean them, but at my inability to see what the fascinating 
 jade was driving at. 
 
 " Inconsiderate," she repeated firmly. " You'd be 
 content to be introduced to the Prince with a great swathe 
 of dirty, blood-stained linen round your head, regardless of 
 how it reflected on me." 
 
 " Reflected on you ? " I echoed blankly. 
 
 " Yes. We shouldn't match. I suppose dear old Bloggs 
 was a bachelor ? " 
 
 " He was," said I, resigning the contest in despair. 
 
 The doctor lived in a fair-sized stick-and- wattle house. 
 He was a dapper little man, with a cleverish, weakling cast 
 of face, and was all on the jump with the turn things had 
 taken. He had just opened the door to us, and was eyeing 
 us uncertainly, when the Colonel and the Chief, returning on 
 foot from their inspection, having left their horses to be 
 baited under the watchful eye of a Highlander, stopped 
 beside us. 
 
 " Are you the doctor ? " asked Margaret promptly, as if 
 to forestall any backing out on my part. If I could have 
 joyed at anything, I should have been overjoyed at her 
 keenness in having me seen to. 
 
 " Yes," he said, but very softly. 
 
 " Then please attend to this gentleman's wound," she 
 said. 
 
 " Is he a rebel ? " he asked, so loudly that he might have 
 been talking to some one across the street, and instinctively
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 157 
 
 I turned round. There, sure enough, was the parson, a 
 pasty, pursy, mean-looking rogue, coming across to see what 
 was doing. 
 
 " It's his head I want you to attend to," retorted 
 Margaret, " not his politics." 
 
 " I doctor no rebels," said he, louder than ever. 
 
 " Man," intervened Maclachlan, taking a pistol from his 
 belt, and emphasizing his words by gently tapping its barrel 
 on the palm of his hand, " if in ten minutes yon head isn't 
 doctored to pairfection, it's your own sel' will be beyond all 
 the doctoring in England." 
 
 " It's against all law," said the doctor. 
 
 " I'm the law in this clachan to-day," said Maclachlan 
 simply, still tapping away with his pistol. Hearing the 
 parson behind, he turned round and added drily, " And the 
 gospel." Hereupon the parson's face took on the appearance 
 of ill-made, ill-risen dough, and he turned and slipped off 
 with creeping, noiseless steps, like a cat. 
 
 " Come in," whispered the doctor. 
 
 " Ye're a man o' sense," said Maclachlan, and pushed his 
 pistol back into his belt. 
 
 We all passed into the hall, and the doctor made the door 
 carefully. 
 
 " That damned pudding-face is a Whig," said he, " and 
 so, of course, he's a Justice. The Squire's a Whig, and he's 
 a Justice. Here am I, well-reputed in the faculty, and my 
 wife coming of the Parker Putwells, one of the rare old county 
 stocks none of your newfangled button-men and turnip- 
 growers and I'm no Justice, because I'm a Church-and- 
 King man of the old school." 
 
 " They went out of fashion with flaxen bobs," said I. 
 
 " Come on, my tousled macaroni ! " said he. " There's 
 nothing the matter with the inside of your head at any 
 rate, though the outside looks as if you'd been arguing with 
 the parish bull." 
 
 " This is a verra fine house," said Maclachlan slowly 
 and slily. 
 
 " A mere dog-kennel," said the doctor, " considering 
 she's a Parker Putwell." 
 
 " And I'm thinking," said Maclachlan, very thoughtfully
 
 158 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " that there'll be some guid victuals in the pantry and, 
 mayhap, a gay wheen bottles of right liquor in the cellar." 
 
 " Oh aye ! " said he, taken aback. 
 
 " Then I'm thinking we'll e'en have breakfast here and 
 try their merits. And if it's a guid ane, I'll see you a Justice, 
 whatever that may be, when the King enjoys his own again. 
 A Maclachlan has spoken it." 
 
 Thedoctor went to an inner door and bawled, " Euphemia," 
 and a discontented wisp of a woman answered his call. 
 
 " Madam and gentlemen, my wife, Mistress Snooks, 
 born a Parker Putwell. Mistress Snooks, like me, will bow 
 to your will with pleasure, nor will you mislike her table, 
 I assure you. Now, my buck, let's see to this crack in your 
 head." 
 
 He took me into his druggery, unwrapped the bandage, 
 and examined my wound. 
 
 "So ho ! " said he, "a right good sock on the head. 
 How did it happen ? " 
 
 I told him. 
 
 " It's lucky for you, my buck," he said, " that you've 
 got a baby's flesh and a tup's skull, and some one had the 
 sense to wash the cut clean as soon as it was done." 
 
 He set to work and made a good job of it, with a pledget 
 of lint and strips of plaister, and meanwhile I speculated 
 as to why, in all these bottles and jars and gallipots, neither 
 nature nor art could contrive to store a drug magistral for 
 the blow that had riven my heart asunder. 
 
 " That's better than two yards stripped off a wench's 
 smock," he said at last. " And a damnably fine smock too, 
 you lucky rascal." 
 
 He twittered a snatch of ribaldry that made my foot 
 twitch in my boot. Behind his back, I pocketed the priceless 
 relic, dank and red with my unworthy blood, and followed 
 him back to the company. 
 
 We made a longish stay, and fared well at his table. 
 The doctor was a good enough fellow in himself, but his wife, 
 a salt, domineering woman, lived in the light of the Parker 
 Putwells, and he, poor devil, in the shadow they cast. He 
 was playing a double game too, for whenever the red- 
 elbowed serving- wench came into the room, he roared his
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 159 
 
 dissent from our lawlessness, and drank to the King with 
 his glass over the water-bottle as soon as she went out. 
 Once when she brought us a rare dish of calvered roach and, 
 with wenchlike curiosity, lingered to pick up a crumb or two 
 of gossip, we had a snap of comedy, for, in his play-acting, 
 he would take none till Maclachlan, to keep up the farce, 
 thrust a pistol at his head and forced him. Whereupon the 
 maid, in plucky fashion, threw a cottage loaf at Maclachlan 
 and took him fairly in the chest. The doctor, to his credit, 
 rose to protect her, but she braved it out. She would, she 
 averred, lend the thingamy] ig a better petticoat than the 
 one he'd got on. " If he mun wear 'em," she added, " he 
 mought wear 'em long enough to be dacent." The doctor 
 bustled her out at last, palpitating but triumphant. 
 
 Maclachlan had sprung up like a wild cat when the missile 
 hit him. Luckily he was flustered by the bouncing of the 
 loaf on the table and off again clean into Margaret's lap, or 
 the ready trigger would surely have been drawn in earnest. 
 Then Margaret promptly took the edge off his anger by saying 
 with menacing sweetness, " I'm sorry the fun has gone 
 further than was desirable, but I will not have the girl blamed 
 for what was in her a brave deed, nor suffer any unpleasant- 
 ness here on account of it. Pray be seated." 
 
 This ended the matter, and Maclachlan, with a wry smile, 
 settled down again to his fish. 
 
 " It was a verra guid thing after a' said," he explained, 
 " that it wasna my mouth, for it was an unco' ding. I'm 
 half hungry yet, and, to be sure, breakfast and broillerie gang 
 ill together." 
 
 It was well said, and Margaret rewarded him with a smile 
 and engaged him in merry conversation. The Colonel, who 
 had kept silent during the trouble, now plied the doctor with 
 questions about the surrounding country. 
 
 " It's a poor biding-place for a Parker Putwell," he replied. 
 " If there's a drearier or lonelier stretch in England than the 
 moorlands of Leek, I would not care to see it. I go miles 
 on end about it to visit my sick folk, and mostly in a day's 
 riding I see nobody but a stray shepherd, a flash pedlar 
 twanning his way across country with his gewgaws, and now 
 and then a weaver scouring the outlying cottages for yarn."
 
 160 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 When the meal was over Maclachlan insisted on paying 
 for it, and bestowed a shilling on the loaf-thrower. In theory, 
 I found, the clansmen paid for what they had, and Donald, 
 being quartermaster to the party, was very busy discharging 
 his obligations up and down the village. The only cause of 
 dissatisfaction, but that not a slight one, was his Scots mode 
 of reckoning, in which a pint was near on half a gallon, while 
 his shilling was a beggarly penny. It always took a whirl of 
 his dirk and a storm of Gaelic to convince a cottager of his 
 accuracy, but he got through at last, and we reformed our 
 order of march and started for Leek. 
 
 This time I took the sorrel and Maclachlan marched 
 beside Margaret on her mare, for the Colonel wanted to give 
 me an account, derived from the young Chief, of the Prince's 
 marchings and victories. The Highlanders being astonishing 
 foot-folk, and the Colonel being full of analogies and digres- 
 sions, the tower of Leek church came in sight before we had 
 got the Prince out of Edinburgh. 
 
 A halt was called to discuss what was to be done. The 
 Colonel dismounted, and we followed his example. Margaret, 
 I noticed, coloured slightly as Maclachlan lifted her down. 
 She had been as cool and unfluttered as a marble image when 
 she lay in my arms. Maclachlan was for marching on into 
 the town, and the doubt on the Colonel's face rather nettled 
 him. 
 
 " The considerable town of Manchester," he said, " was 
 entered, and in part seized, by one Scots sergeant and his 
 drummer. Of a certainty near a score of Maclachlans can 
 intake yon little clachan." 
 
 " Of a certainty," retorted the Colonel, " Margaret and 
 one of your pipers would be enough if we only had the towns- 
 people to consider. There's no game much easier than 
 walking into a lion's den when the lion isn't there, but it's 
 pure foolishness to play the game till you're sure he's not at 
 home." 
 
 " Lion ! What's to do here wi' lions f " asked Mac- 
 lachlan. 
 
 " As I'm only a volunteer," answered the Colonel, " and 
 not yet a man of authority under the Prince's commission, 
 which you are, I must ask your leave to explain that our
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 161 
 
 getting into Leek is a military problem. I grant ye it's a 
 little problem, since it wouldn't matter a pinch of snuff if we 
 marched in and every one of us was promptly hanged in the 
 market-place. But I undertook to make Oliver here a 
 soldier, and, damme, what you want to do isn't soldiership, 
 and he'll only learn soldiership by mastering the little prob- 
 lems first." 
 
 " Like sums at school," said I, whereat Margaret laughed 
 aloud. 
 
 " Damme, you young rascal," stormed the Colonel, " if 
 I'd got my commission in my pocket, I'd put you under 
 arrest for impertinence." 
 
 " With great respect, sir," I answered, " I beg to say that 
 I understand that, at a council of war, the youngest officer 
 gives his opinion first." 
 
 " That's bowled you over, dad," said Margaret cheerfully. 
 
 " Damme, I'll bowl you off to Chester to-night," he re- 
 torted. " As sure as a gun's a gun, you'll ruin Oliver. Stop 
 grinning like an ape, sir, at that jade's tricks, and listen to me." 
 
 " I'm thinking, sir," said Maclachlan, " that in my 
 present responsible position I would greatly value your 
 observations on the matter in hand." 
 
 This was a clever remark so far as the Colonel was con- 
 cerned, for he would have talked to a viper about soldiering, 
 but Maclachlan did not see, and I did, the delicate little 
 mouth that Margaret made. 
 
 " My observations are simply these," said the Colonel : 
 " We do not know where Murray is, we do not know where 
 the Prince is, and we do not know where the Duke of Devon- 
 shire is. Any one of them may be in Leek." 
 
 " And who may be the Duke of Devonshire ? " asked the 
 chief. "I've never heard of him." 
 
 " One of Geordie's dandiprats, who has got together a big 
 force of militia at Derby, and who, if he's any pluck, may have 
 forestalled us all by marching to Leek." 
 
 " It's sair awkward," said Maclachlan, completely taken 
 aback by the news. 
 
 " It is so," said the Colonel, " and seeing that Oliver 
 knows the rules and procedures of courts martial, he shall 
 deliver his judgment first." 
 ii
 
 162 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " Sir," said I, bowing low, " I would, with respect, 
 suggest . . ." 
 
 I got no further, for Donald, who was within a yard of my 
 elbow, suddenly bounded into the air and let off a most 
 astonishing yell. Then he ran up and down, like a foxhound 
 after a lost scent, gabbling away in Gaelic. The clansmen 
 put their hands to their ears, and their ears to the wind, 
 listening intently, whereon Donald ceased his capering and 
 chattering, and called out to us, " Ta pipes ! Ta Prunce ! 
 Ta pipes ! Ta Prunce ! " 
 
 " Whist, ye auld fule," said the chief. " Ye're enough 
 to deafen a clap of thunder." 
 
 " I'm telling it ye, ta pipes ! ta Prunce ! " he babbled, 
 and then fell still, and we all listened. 
 
 The clansmen must have had ears like the bucks of their 
 own mountains. I could hear nothing but the soft sough 
 of the breeze as it swept o'er the rank grass of the moorlands, 
 but they, Maclachlan as madly as any of them, yelled their 
 slogan, and the pipers filled their bags and blew fit to burst. 
 Like was calling to like across the wilds. 
 
 Margaret glowed with enthusiasm, and the Colonel's eyes 
 sparkled as he handed me the box for the customary pinch 
 a courtesy, I found by later experience, he conferred on 
 very few. Indeed, in my new trouble, the kindness and 
 affection of the Colonel were becoming my best stand-by. 
 
 " The great game's afoot, Oliver," he said. 
 
 " And we'll play it to the end, sir." 
 
 " Good lad," said he. 
 
 " Donald, ye auld skaicher," said Maclachlan, " get your 
 bairns agait. The Maclachlans are going to be last, where 
 they should be first, at the intaking of a town, but the Prince, 
 God bless him, will think me balm in Gilead when he sees 
 the reinforcements I bring." 
 
 He was in high feather, and it interested me to watch in 
 another the tonic effect of Margaret's presence. I took no 
 advantage of my capacity as her body-servant, but leaped 
 into my saddle and sat the sorrel like a wooden image as he 
 dodged about to get her horsed again and ready for the road. 
 He was, indeed, fit to serve a queen ; the Highland fashion 
 marvellously well set off the clean, strong lines of his body,
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 163 
 
 and the single eagle's feather in his bonnet was the right 
 sign to be waving over him. The top-dog spirit was fast 
 oozing out of me, and I sat there sourly dusting the skirts 
 of my poor country-tailor-made coat. 
 
 The men were lined up on the rough moorland track. 
 Donald at their head, and the two pipers filling their bags 
 and fingering their chanters behind him. Maclachlan took 
 Margaret's rein and began to lead her mare up the slope 
 of the path, but the Colonel called to him and diverted his 
 attention, and she stopped beside me. 
 
 " Oliver," she said, " you must let me have your coat for 
 half an hour when we are settled in the town, so that I can 
 mend it. The holes in it make me shiver every time I see 
 them." 
 
 " You are very kind, madam," said I, still dusting away, 
 lest she should see how my hand trembled. 
 
 " Oliver ! " 
 
 She forced me to look at her now, she spoke so peremp- 
 torily, and when the blue eyes met mine they were so clear 
 and intent that I feared she might read my secret. 
 
 " Smile ! " 
 
 Smile ! I was to smile, was I ? And when our Kate got 
 the news at the Hanyards, the smile would die out of her 
 eyes for ever, for Jack, dear, splendid Jack, was the weft 
 that had been woven into the warp of her being. 
 
 " I do not smile to order, madam," said I. 
 
 She flicked the mare sharply and cantered up to the 
 level, whither Maclachlan raced after her with the speed of 
 a hound. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE 
 
 ON our way into the town a thing happened which 
 greatly shook me, being, as I was, nothing in the 
 world but a small farmer who had never seen the 
 wars. At a point where the rough road cut across a fold in
 
 164 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 the moorlands we saw, half a mile to our right, a herd of cattle 
 being lashed and chivvied away to the remoter crannies 
 among the hills by a throng of sweating hinds and farmers. 
 Had it happened our way, thought I broodily, Joe and I 
 would be there among the like, saving our own stock from 
 the marauders. Donald looked at them longingly, but our 
 haste brooked no delay, and besides, as he put it to me later, 
 " It's a puir town, but, after a' said, better than a wheen 
 lousy cattle, for I've come by a fine pair o' progues for a 
 twa-three bawbees." 
 
 Leek was as full of Highlanders as a wasp-cake is of 
 maggots, and still they were swarming in. Donald and the 
 clansmen, indifferent to the crush and hubbub, clave a way 
 for us to the market-place, where, on the Colonel's advice, 
 they were dismissed to beat for billets. I then took charge 
 and led my companions across to the " Angel," where the 
 throng was so dense that they might have been giving the ale 
 away. 
 
 To get the horses stabled and baited was easy enough, 
 for few of the Highlanders rode south, although it was 
 different going north again. Then, leading my companions 
 into the yard. I pushed into the inn and, by good hap, lighted 
 on the host, nearly out of his five wits with trying to under- 
 stand one word of English in a score of Gaelic. 
 
 " Hello, surry ! " said I. 
 
 " Com ! " said he, " Staffordsheer at last." 
 
 " I've heard a lot about Leek ale," said I. " Draw me 
 a mug of it ! " 
 
 He brought it in a trice, and his face beamed with honest 
 pride as he said, holding it up between my eyes and the 
 light, " What do you think o' that for colour and nap ? 
 Damn my bones ! None of your London rot-gut, master, 
 but honest Staffordsheer ale. Damme, you can fairly chew 
 the malt in it." 
 
 " I'll bet you a guinea I've drunk better," said I, with 
 the aleyard at my lips. 
 
 " I'd bet on my own ale," said he, " if the ' Angel ' was 
 full of devils let alone petticoats. An', as between friends, 
 y'r 'onour, win or lose, dunna tell my missus you've 'ad 
 better ale than ourn."
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 165 
 
 I drank off his ale and said judiciously, " No, I haven't. 
 That's the best ale I've ever drunk," and handed him his 
 guinea. 
 
 " This'n's a bit of fat along with the lean," said he, spinning 
 the guinea up in the air, and, countrywise, spitting on it 
 for luck. " Be there owt I can do for y'r, sir ? A gentleman 
 as knows good ale when he drinks it shudna be neglected 
 for a lot of bare-legged savages that 'anna as much judgment 
 in beer as a sow 'as in draff." He leaned towards me and 
 added in a whisper, " I'm giving ? em bouse I wudna wesh 
 my mare's fetlocks in, an' they're neckin' it as if it was my 
 rale October." 
 
 " It was thundery in the summer," said I gravely, whereat 
 he grinned intelligently. 
 
 " Y'r 'onour's up to snuff," said he. " Be there owt I 
 can do for y'r, sir ? " . 
 
 " Fetch the missus," said I, " and we'll talk." 
 
 The hostess came. Her cheeks were brown as her own ale, 
 and we talked, nineteen to the dozen, for at least ten minutes. 
 
 In the end I snapped up the best parlour overlooking the 
 square for Margaret's use, and bedrooms for each of us, 
 paying a substantial bargain-penny, for Mistress Waynflete 
 had handed me back the bag of gold Master Freake had 
 given me. It would be necessary, I found, to oust two or 
 three bare-knees who had marked them for their own, but 
 that could easily be done, if, as was unlikely to be the case, 
 they were sober enough at night to crawl bedwards. These 
 arrangements made, I pushed out and fetched in Margaret, 
 who was very grateful for what I had done, and went off 
 to her room, while we three men took our stand on the 
 bricked causeway and watched the doings in the square. 
 
 We saw two or three battalions swing into the square 
 from the Macclesfield road, and the Colonel scanned them 
 keenly, and, as I thought, anxiously. Even to my untrained 
 eye they were a mixed lot ; the bulk of them, to be sure, 
 were stout, active, well-armed fighting men, who marched 
 in fair order, six or eight abreast ; but there were numbers 
 of oldish men and boys among them, and many were but 
 indifferently armed. 
 
 " What do you number all told ? " asked the Colonel
 
 x66 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 Maclachlan answered in French. There was now no 
 mistaking the gravity in the Colonel's face, and he took 
 snuff so thoughtfully that, for the first time, he forgot me. 
 
 " Excuse me, my dear lad," said he, recovering himself 
 and thrusting out the box towards me. " I hope there's a 
 tobacco-man in the town who sells right Strasburg. I'm 
 running out, and rappee and Brazil are mere rubbish to the 
 cultivated palate." Then, looking around the square, he 
 added cheerily, " Quite a show for the townsmen ! " 
 
 Just in front of us, standing on the edge of the gutter, 
 was a little, ancient, distinguished dame, who had been 
 watching the scene with quick, avid eyes. She turned her 
 fierce, scornful face up to the Colonel, and said, " Yes, sir ! 
 You are right. It's a show, just a show, for the townsmen. 
 Yet I remember that, thirty years ago, the fathers of these 
 spiritless curs were as eager for the cause as is the eagle for 
 his quarry." 
 
 " So, madam," said the Colonel very gently. 
 
 " So, indeed," she returned. " But now, in their accursed 
 grubbing for money, they have rooted up every finer instinct, 
 and they think only of their tradings in silks with the Court 
 ladies of London. Better a fine gown sold to godless Caroline 
 than a stout blow struck for God-anointed James." 
 
 She was beyond doubt a lady of quality, but fallen on 
 poverty and now, worst of all to her, on evil, faithless days. 
 As she stopped, short of breath with her sharp speaking, 
 for she was very ancient, a mean lout of a man edged himself 
 up against her to get a better position for watching the 
 arrival of another body of clansmen. In a fierce access of 
 rage she struck him with the ebony stick on which she leaned 
 and, almost hissing the words at him, said, " Back to your 
 buttons and your tassels, Thomas Ashley, and get grace by 
 thinking on your worthy father ! " 
 
 The man sidled off, and she continued, addressing the 
 Colonel, " In the fifteen his father was one of us, and suffered 
 worthily." 
 
 " For what, madam ? " I asked. 
 
 " For the cause," she replied. 
 
 " For what particular service to the cause, madam ? " I 
 persisted.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 167 
 
 " He was zealous against the schismatics, sir," she said 
 boldly. 
 
 " Madam," was my reply, " if the zeal of any one of us, 
 townsman or clansman, takes the same form this day, I shall 
 certainly wring his neck. We can fight for Charles without 
 burning chapels." 
 
 " Smite-and-spare-not would subscribe to that doctrine," 
 said Margaret, thrusting her way gently between the Colonel 
 and me, and hooking a hand round an arm of each of us. 
 Putting her lips to my ear, she whispered merrily, " Push 
 of pike and the Word," and then looked so winningly at me 
 that the black shadow lifted, and I smiled back at her. 
 
 And now the craning of necks at the angle where the great 
 road curved into the square, betokened something out of the 
 ordinary, which turned out to be the arrival of the Prince's 
 life-guards. They were splendid, well-mounted fellows, 
 clothed in blue, faced with red, and scarlet waistcoats heavy 
 with gold. With them were the leading chiefs of the army, 
 and I heard Maclachlan reeling off their names and qualities 
 in the Colonel's ear. The guard, in number some sixscore, 
 formed three sides of a square and sat their horses, while 
 one of the leaders proclaimed James and took possession 
 of the town. 
 
 The cheers of the clansmen died away, only to be renewed 
 more loudly and proudly when another column swept into 
 the square. Here, indeed, were men apt for war and the 
 battle, six abreast and a hundred files deep, with a dozen 
 pipers piping their mightiest, and a great standard flinging 
 to the breeze its proud Tandem triumphans. At their head 
 strode a tall young man, very comely and proper, with a 
 frank, resolute, intelligent face. He was dressed in the 
 Highland fashion, with a blue bonnet topped with a white 
 rosette, a broad, blue ribbon over his right shoulder, and 
 a star upon his breast. The thronging thousands of clans- 
 men burst into thundering volleys of Gaelic yells, the waiting 
 leaders bared their heads and bowed, and I knew it was the 
 Prince. 
 
 After a short consultation with his intimate counsellors, 
 Charles walked almost directly towards us, making, as it 
 seemed, for the fine house that neighboured the " Angel."
 
 J68 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 Even the townsmen, as he approached, raised their hats 
 and cheered a little, for he was on sight a man to be liked. 
 When I hear sad tales of him now, I think of him as I saw him 
 then, and as I knew him in those few stirring days when hope 
 spurred him on, and the star of his destiny had not yet 
 climbed to its zenith. I come of a stock that sets no value 
 on princes, and I would not now lift a hand to snatch the 
 Stuarts out of the grave they have dug for themselves, 
 but it is due to him, and, above all, due to the chiefs and 
 clansmen who followed and fought and died for him, to say 
 that the Bonnie Charlie I knew was every inch of him a man 
 and a prince to his finger-tips. 
 
 Maclachlan darted out and dropped on his knee before 
 Charles, who, with kindly impatience, seized the shoulder- 
 knot of his plaid, haled him to his feet, and plied him with 
 a throng of questions. At some reply made by the young 
 chief, Charles turned his eyes on us, and, easily picking out 
 the Colonel, made for him with eager outstretched hands. 
 For his part, the Colonel stepped clear of the crowd on the 
 causeway and stood at the salute. He was, I thought, the 
 most self-possessed person in the square, and, indeed, was 
 taking a pinch of snuff as soon as the formality was over, 
 while Margaret was red and white by turns, and I shook at 
 the knees as if expecting the Prince, in the manner of old 
 Bloggs, to call me out and thrash me soundly. 
 
 The joy of the Prince at being joined by Colonel Wayn- 
 flete was overflowing. 
 
 " My Lord Murray has talked of you," I heard him say, 
 " until I felt that you were the one man in England that 
 mattered, and now here you are. I must tell Sheridan and 
 all of them the good news." 
 
 He turned off and called to a group of men near him, and 
 several of them came up and were made known to the Colonel 
 After more handshaking and chatting, the eager Prince 
 caught the Colonel by the arm and was for dragging him off 
 into the house destined for his lodging, but the Colonel in his 
 turn resisted and led him towards Margaret. 
 
 " My daughter, sir," he said, briefly and proudly. 
 
 Off came the bonnet, and Charles bowed low and greeted 
 her with very marked courtesy.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 169 
 
 " Your prince, madam," he said, " but also your very 
 humble servant. My Court is a small one, and you are 
 as important and welcome an addition to it as is your 
 distinguished father to my army. Swounds, Colonel," 
 turning to him with a merry smile, " I shall put a flea in his 
 lordship's ear when I see him at Derby. He never so much 
 as mentioned your daughter. Man, one might as well talk 
 of stars and forget Venus ! " 
 
 " There is this excuse for him, sir," said the Colonel, 
 very sedately, " that on the only occasion on which my Lord 
 Murray saw her, which was at Turin in 1738, she was a 
 whirlwind of arms and legs, long plaits and short petti- 
 coats." 
 
 " Whereas now she but I will reserve my opinion for 
 
 the shelter of a fan in a secluded corner at my next little 
 Court." Then, very abruptly, fixing his eyes on me, all of a 
 swither, with my milk-stained cap in my hand, " And whom 
 have we here ? " 
 
 Whereupon, strangely enough, forgetting all courtliness, 
 Margaret, the Colonel, and Maclachlan fell over one another, 
 so to speak, in telling the Prince who I was. For a few 
 seconds there was a gabble of introductions, which made me 
 feel hot and foolish. 
 
 " One at a time," laughed the Prince, " and, of course, 
 Mistress Waynflete first." 
 
 " Your Royal Highness," said Margaret, " this is my 
 splendid friend and gallant comrade, Oliver Wheatman." 
 
 " Enough, and more than enough, for a poor Prince 
 Adventurer. Give me but the leavings of your friendship 
 and comradeship, Master Wheatman, and I shall be be- 
 holden to you. And now, excuse us, madam, I have much 
 to say to your father." 
 
 " Sir," said I, " I crave a little boon." 
 
 " You begin well," he said, and added, after a little laugh, 
 " With aU my heart." 
 
 " Here at hand," said I, " is an ancient lady who has 
 faced this rough crowd and this bitter weather to see the 
 Prince of her heart's desire. She is brave as a lion for you, 
 but too modest to do more than stand and pray for you." 
 
 And then he did one of those princely things that made
 
 170 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 rough men willing to be cut down in swathes for him. He 
 strode up to her and seized her trembling hands. 
 
 " Nay, kneel not, dear lady," he said, putting an arm 
 around her to restrain her. 
 
 " God bless your Royal Highness, and give you victory," 
 she said brokenly. " This is the hour I have prayed for daily 
 these thirty years, and I thank God for giving us a Prince 
 so worthy of an earthly throne. The Lord shall yet have 
 mercy upon Jacob." 
 
 " I thank God," said Charles, " for giving me a friend 
 like you." 
 
 His green plaid was looped up at his shoulder by a fine 
 brooch, a cairngorm set in a silver rim. This he took off, 
 and pinned it on the trembling woman's breast. 
 
 " Wear this from me and for me," he said, speaking with 
 great feeling. Tears were standing in Margaret's eyes, there 
 was a big lump in my throat, and the Colonel was wasting 
 precious Strasburg on the cobbles in the square. When the 
 Prince had pinned it there, he doffed his bonnet, bent grace- 
 fully down, kissed her on the lips, and so left her. The 
 standers-by now cheered in earnest, and the ancient dame 
 fell on her knees in prayer. When she rose she plucked 
 her robe around her, safeguarding her royal gift in her 
 withered hands, and was for timidly stealing away. 
 
 " Madam," said I, " I think you are alone." 
 
 " Yes, sir," she whispered. 
 
 I offered her my arm, saying, " Allow me to escort you to 
 your home ? " 
 
 The sharp eyes swept over me from my belt upward, and 
 then, without a word, she placed her arm in mine. I looked 
 around to bow to Margaret before starting, but she had dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 We soon reached her house or, rather, cottage, which was 
 in a street behind the west side of the square. She was too 
 tottery, too dazzled, too afflated to speak on the way thither, 
 but, at the door, when with a bow I was intending to leave 
 her, she bade me, in a madam-like way that cut off debate or 
 refusal, to enter with her. 
 
 Plain to the casual eye, it was the home of decayed 
 gentility. Here would be refined eating of a dinner of herbs,
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 171 
 
 solaced by talk of prideful yesterdays. You saw it in the 
 few things that still kept their grip on the past : on the wall 
 an old, black painting of a knight in ruff and quilted doubtlet ; 
 a pounce-box and a hawking-glove on the chimney-piece, 
 and above it an oval scutcheon, with a golden eagle naissant 
 from a fesse vert. And hope was ever new-born here, but it 
 was the hope centred in the Virgin-Mother, posed in ivory 
 over a wooden prie-Dieu. Nor did I feel that I had shifted 
 from my familiar moorings as I bowed my head when she 
 knelt in prayer. 
 
 " Madam," said I, when, with a happy face, she rose and 
 turned and thanked me, " it is in your power to do me a great 
 kindness." 
 
 " I shall, then, most surely do it." 
 
 " I ask you to pray for the soul of John Dobson." 
 
 " He was your friend ? " she said gently. 
 
 " My friend from boyhood, madam, and this morning 
 I slew him." 
 
 There was silence for a space. Then she said, " I will 
 pray daily for the soul of your friend, and for you that God 
 will have mercy upon you and give you peace. We women, 
 who can only pray, do not, I fear, realize how, for our men, 
 the facts of life seem to make havoc of our creeds." 
 
 " You are right, madam," I said sombrely. " For me 
 to-day there is no God in heaven." 
 
 " Yet the morrow cometh," she replied confidently. " It 
 has come for me. My mind goes back to the time when the 
 evil began that our glorious Prince is now uprooting. In 
 eighty-eight, when I was a maid of some twenty Junes, not 
 uncomely as I remember myself in my mirror, though not 
 comparable with your sweet and splendid mistress, we, then 
 the ancient Hardys of Hardywick, gave our all and lost our 
 all for the cause. Yon scutcheon then hung in a noble hall. 
 I have looked at it with pride and, God be thanked, without 
 regret, during nearly sixty years of loneliness and poverty, 
 but I shall die rich and friended in the possession of this." 
 
 She lifted the brooch to her lips and kissed it, and then, 
 poor soul, broke into a fit of coughing that racked her thin 
 frame. A comely serving-woman rushed in to her aid, and 
 together we seated her near the fire and wrapped a shawl
 
 172 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 around her. She seemed as one who slept with half-shut 
 eyes and dreamed. 
 
 " She's of n tuk like this'n," whispered her woman. " As 
 lively as a lass at a wedding for an hour maybe, and then 
 dreamy and dead-like for hours at a stretch. She's seventy- 
 six come June, but I dunna think she'll live to see it, and 
 to be sure, God bless her, I shall be glad to see her broken 
 heart at rest." 
 
 She put a smelling-bottle to her mistress's nose, and 
 bathed the white lips with eau-de-Luce. 
 
 " I love her no end," she said simply. 
 
 It was time to go. I dropped on my knee and kissed the 
 fair, thin, wrinkled hand. At the touch of my lips she spoke 
 again : 
 
 " Good-bye, Harold, my beloved ! The God of all good 
 causes go with thee ! " 
 
 She was back in the long-ago with her lover at her knee, 
 sending him off to fight for the cause, and the ringless finger 
 showed that he had never come back. 
 
 I stole out of the room with a mist in my eyes. 
 
 When I got on the corner by the Prince's lodging, the 
 first thing that caught my eye was a calash drawn up in the 
 middle of the square, with two very elegant ladies in it, and 
 a sprig of a blackamoor in green breeches and yellow doublet 
 at the horse's head. Margaret and Maclachlan were standing 
 by, and a merry rattle of conversation was going on between 
 them and the new-comers, though Margaret, her quick mind 
 interested in the vivid scenes around, kept turning her head 
 to sweep the square with her eyes. 
 
 I had always felt and, for the most part I trust, observed 
 the difference between us, but it struck me now like a blow 
 between the eyes. It was easy to see that Margaret, for all 
 her grey domino, was the mistress of the gay, courtly group ; 
 easy, too, to catch the meaning of the eyes the stranger 
 ladies made at one another as they noted with amusement 
 the young Chief's infatuation. Well, he was there, and I was 
 here, by right. I said so to myself very savagely, that there 
 should be no mistake about it, but I must admit to a sour 
 taste in my mouth as I pushed into a passing group of clans- 
 men, and then dodged behind a clump of ammunition wagons.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 173 
 
 and so got into a side-alley unseen by those searching 
 eyes. 
 
 I came to an ale-house where I managed very well, for all 
 that it had its full share of clansmen stuffed into it, making 
 a square meal of bread and cheese and cold bacon, washed 
 down with excellent ale. I made a point of marking myself 
 off as an Englishman by paying for my meal in the English 
 fashion. 
 
 Sallying forth, and still avoiding the square, I roamed 
 round the little town, distracting my mind by forcing an 
 interest in what was going on. The Highlanders were happy, 
 noisy, and full of confidence not unjustly, for so far they 
 had played ninepins with the Royal troops. Everywhere 
 they were hard at it, sharpening dirks and claymores and 
 furbishing muskets, and such of their talk as I could under- 
 stand was all of battle imminent. In the churchyard I 
 found a number of them practising shooting, with a grand 
 old cross as a target. They had chipped it somewhat already. 
 I cursed them roundly and then bargained it off at the price 
 of a few shillings. They turned their attention, with hopeful 
 grins, to the brass weathercock on the church tower, which 
 I did not deem worth saving. Moreover, it was a better 
 mark, and good shooting was to be encouraged. 
 
 I mooned around for an hour or so, very miserable. If 
 my mind was idle a moment, I saw Jack's body lying in the 
 dim-lit passage and the calash in the market-square. 
 
 Tired of watching the Highlanders, I suddenly struck 
 out for the " Angel," intending to see how the horses were 
 doing, a necessary task which I was to blame for neglecting 
 so long. I was going at a great pace along by the shops on 
 one side of the square and, in heedlessly passing a mercer's, 
 had to skip aside to avoid a finely dressed lady coming out 
 of the door, with the shopmaster, his nose nearly at his 
 knees, bowing behind her. She was a stranger to me and, 
 moreover, I had my eye on the spot where the calash had 
 stood, so that, having clean avoided her, I was for striding 
 on, but she said sharply, " What do you mean by such 
 conduct, sir ? " 
 
 I cannot remember any other occasion in my life when 
 I have been so completely taken aback. The elegant lady
 
 174 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 who stood there, a quizzing smile on her face and a roguish 
 twinkle in her eyes, was Margaret. 
 
 " I've waited and waited your honour's convenience till 
 I could wait no longer," she said. 
 
 There was still the delightful mock anger in her voice, 
 but the smile and twinkle changed their meaning, so to 
 speak. At least I, who delighted to watch the varying 
 shades of expression sweep over her exquisite face, thought 
 so as I stood there, twizzling my cap in my hand, and feeling 
 an utter fool. 
 
 " You cannot expect a perfect match in this light," 
 she went on, plainly enjoying my discomfiture, " especially 
 as I have had to carry the colour in my eye." 
 
 " No, madam," said I desperately, having to say some- 
 thing, but not having the faintest idea of what she was 
 driving at. 
 
 " I disclaim all responsibility if it's a bungle. It will 
 be your fault entirely. Your arm, sir ! " 
 
 I offered her my arm, into which she slipped hers, 
 jammed on my wretched hat, and together we made for the 
 " Angel." Of course we must meet Maclachlan, to com- 
 plete my misery I suppose, and he was keen on joining us, 
 but Margaret disposed of him in a way that reminded me of 
 Kate shooing a turkey off from her feeding chickens. Arrived 
 at the " Angel," she led the way to her parlour overlooking 
 the square, dragged me hurriedly to the window, and 
 undid the packet. From it she took a patch of cloth and a 
 hank of silk thread. These she first dabbed on my sleeve, 
 and then flourished before my eyes. 
 
 " Quite a good match after all ! Do they suit me, 
 Oliver ? " 
 
 She was dressed in a cinnamon-brown Joseph, buttoned 
 at the waist, and showing, above and below, an under-dress 
 of supple woven material, creamy in colour and flowered in 
 golden silk. A hat of a military cast, made of some short- 
 napped fur and set off with a great white panache, half hid 
 and half revealed her masses of yellow hair. 
 
 " You look perfect," I said emphatically. 
 
 " For my Prince," she replied softly. " Off with your 
 coat, and let me show you what sort of a housewife I am."
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 175 
 
 I did as she bade me, and she doffed hat and Joseph. She 
 set me comfortably before the fire in an elbow-chair, and 
 handed me a new pipe and a fresh paper of tobacco, and 
 insisted on my smoking. Then, sitting almost at my feet 
 in a squat rush-bottomed chair, with quaint bow legs and a 
 back like a yard of ladder, she set to work on the holes 
 Erocton's rapier had made in my coat. 
 
 I felt very cubbish as I sat feeding my soul on the picture 
 she made as she bent over her stitchery. A rare hobbledehoy 
 I was in my villainous coat, but what I looked like in my 
 shirt-sleeves, good linen enough but home-made and with 
 never a shred of cuff or ruff to them, was past imagining. 
 
 She was quite silent too, and though talk of any sort 
 would have been distasteful to me then, for the picture was 
 enough, I could not help remembering how she had rattled 
 on with Maclachlan. Here was 'another cursed deficiency. 
 My conversation was as country-like and poverty-stricken 
 as my clothes. I had always ruled the roast at our market 
 ordinaries, where I was looked upon as a bit of a fop and 
 a miracle of learning, and even my farming was solemnly 
 respected because I was so hard and ready a hitter. Here, 
 in a parlour and with her, so beautiful that even her beautiful 
 dress scarce attracted a passing glance, I was dull and ill 
 at ease. The only thing I did, except to look at her, was to 
 let my pipe out and light it again, time after time. 
 
 " The man in the shop told me," Margaret said, " that 
 was the best tobacco that comes from the Americas." 
 
 " I should think it is," said I ; " I've never smoked 
 better." 
 
 " It gives you a lot of trouble," she answered, and stayed 
 her stitching for a moment to look at me. 
 
 " Did you get some right Strasburg for the Colonel ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 "No. Is he running short ? " 
 
 " Yes," said I. 
 
 " And no marvel, either. He puts his snuff-box under 
 his pillow, and when I take him his chocolate of a morning, 
 he takes a long, affectionate pinch, and then says, ' Good 
 morrow, sweetheart ! ' " 
 
 I laughed, and then fell silent and wondered. While I
 
 176 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 had been loafing about the town, she had been attending to 
 my small whims and needs. 
 
 And now, after a smart rap at the door, in flounced a 
 sprightly, elegant lady, very gay and very certain of herself. 
 
 " What a charming, domestic picture ! " she broke out. 
 " I fear I intrude, Margaret dear, but I'm going to stay. 
 The girl is bringing up the tea, and I'm positively dying for 
 a cup and a sit-down. Of course this " turning gaily round 
 on me, standing there like a great gawk, volubly cursing my 
 shirt-sleeves under my breath " is the incomparable Oliver ! 
 Charmed to meet you, sir ! " 
 
 I bowed, and Margaret said staidly, " Yes, my lady. 
 This is Master Oliver Wheatman of the Hanyards. Oliver, 
 I have the privilege of introducing you to the Lady Ogilvie." 
 
 I bent in the middle again and gabbled something. It 
 was suitable to the occasion, I hope. 
 
 Lady Ogilvie eyed me up and down carefully, much as 
 I should overlook a bullock I had a mind to buy. 
 
 " When Davie left me at Macclesfield I told him I'd be 
 guid, and I will be guid, but I wish he hadn't asked me," 
 she said. " Never mind ! At Derby, when we meet again, 
 my promise will be lapsed, and I shall flirt with you, sir, 
 most furiously." , 
 
 " Really, my lady," I replied, " my knowledge of the art 
 of flirtation is merely rudimentary, but I always understood 
 that it required two." 
 
 " Naturally," she retorted, " that's its great charm." 
 
 " I see my mistake now," said I, as if thoughtfully. 
 Margaret sat with her needle poised for a stitch, and waited. 
 
 " You're learning already, you see ! What is it ? " said 
 Lady Ogilvie. 
 
 " One and a bit would suffice when your ladyship was the 
 one," I said boldly. 
 
 Margaret laughed and resumed the swift play of her 
 needle. 
 
 " Indeed so, and I've struck sparks out of turnips in my 
 time," she replied, with much complaisance. " There's a 
 glisk of intelligence about ye now that was sair to seek when 
 I came into the room. Men are like diamonds, you must 
 know, Margaret darling, all the better for being cut and
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 177 
 
 rubbed. I'll teach ye things, sir, at and after Derby, that is. 
 Till then I'm to be verra guid." 
 
 The bringing in of the tea interrupted us. Over the cups, 
 though Margaret stuck to her work, there was gay talk about 
 the main business of the day the supper and ball to come. 
 
 " The men will simply rave over you, dear," she said to 
 Margaret. " There's only six of us, seven with you added, 
 you see, for no town ladies wait on His Royal Highness 
 nowadays, and I'm danced off my feet. Maclachlan will 
 want you every time, and you'll be wise to have him as often 
 as possible, for he dances like a fairy. Davie's none so bad, 
 but Maclachlan is just grand. And the incomparable one," 
 grimacing prettily at me, " will foot it trippingly by the 
 look of him." 
 
 " I dance like a three-legged bear," said I, grim enough 
 at having my defects brought home to me. 
 
 " Is it that you're telling me ? " she replied. " Legs 
 like yours and no music in them ! Well, well, I'll take you 
 in hand, that's flat. At Derby, of course." 
 
 " Now, Oliver, pray attend to the simpler matters that 
 I deal with," said Margaret, cutting off the last needle of 
 silk. " I've done the best I can for you. Come and appraise 
 my work ! " 
 
 She held the coat up by the collar, and I stepped forward 
 and examined it. 
 
 " Marvellous ! " said I. " It's as good as new." 
 
 Her ladyship screeched with laughter. " Oh, you courtier ! " 
 she said. " I never saw anything better done at the Tuileries. 
 Look a foot higher, you rogue ! " 
 
 Still even there the job was neatly and thoroughly done, 
 and I thanked Margaret for it heartily. With my coat on, 
 I brightened up, and indeed I had need to, for most of their 
 talk was in and about a world of which I knew nothing. 
 Thanks to Margaret's hints and half-lights, I did well 
 enough. 
 
 There came a gentle rap at the door and then, without 
 further ceremony, the Colonel bowed in a visitor. In the 
 twilight at the door there was no seeing who the new-comer 
 was, but as he stepped forward the full light revealed him. 
 It was Prince Charles.
 
 ry8 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " Stir not, ladies, on your allegiance ! " he said gaily. 
 I rose, bowed him into my chair, and stood behind him. 
 
 " Oddsfish, as my great uncle used to say, I've come to 
 save your life, Master Wheatman ! " 
 
 " You need not trouble, sir," said I, "to save what is 
 freely yours to throw away." 
 
 " Very well said, sir," he answered, " and I shall not 
 forget it." 
 
 " Good lad, Oliver ! " said the Colonel, dipping for his 
 snuff-box. 
 
 " Still, I must prove my point ! " said Charles, smiling 
 merrily. " My Court consists of precisely seven ladies and 
 an unlimited number of gentlemen, the latter, for the most 
 part, fiery chiefs who slash off men's heads as if they were tops 
 of thistles. Yet here are you, sir, keeping two of them all 
 to yourself. And such a two ! Lady Ogilvie, whose charms 
 are without blemish " 
 
 " Nay, sir," said I. 
 
 " May I pull his ears, Your Highness ? " asked her lady- 
 ship tartly. 
 
 " You may," said Charles, " unless he proves his point. 
 A Prince must be just, you know ! " 
 
 " That's fair," said Margaret. 
 
 " Of course," retorted Lady Ogilvie. " He'll be right 
 if he says I've an eye like an ox and a mouth like a 
 frog." 
 
 " Save your ears, Master Wheatman ! " said Charles, 
 grinning at me. " What's the blemish ? " 
 
 " Davie ! " said I. 
 
 The Prince rocked with laughter, and her ladyship en- 
 joyed it quite as fully. 
 
 " It's the smartest hit I've heard since I left Paris," said 
 the Prince. 
 
 " Sir," said I, " be good enough to explain. Who is 
 Davie ? " 
 
 " Her ladyship's husband," he replied. 
 
 " Damme ! " I ejaculated. " I thought he was only an 
 ordinary Scotchman." Whereat everybody laughed. 
 
 " A most delightful interlude in a heavy day's work," 
 said the Prince. " I am unfeignedly vexed, ladies, at having
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 179 
 
 to rob you of so agreeable a cavalier, but I need Master 
 Wheatman myself." 
 
 
 
 Half an hour later the Colonel stood with me at the town's 
 end to give me my final instructions. I was on Sultan, with 
 urgent letters in my pocket and important work on hand. 
 
 We took a pinch of snuff together very solemnly. Then he 
 snapped his box, rubbed Sultan's velvet nose, shook my 
 hand, said good-bye gruffly, and strode back townward. I 
 cantered on into the open road and the night. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 MY NEW HAT 
 
 HERE was what I had dreamed of. Here was the 
 dearest wish of my heart gratified. I was twenty- 
 three, and I had three-and-twenty's darling equipment 
 a magnificent horse, a pair of unerring pistols, a fine rapier, 
 a pocket full of guineas, the memory of a woman's grace and 
 beauty, and a tough job in hand. The only material thing 
 I really wanted was a new hat, for yester morning's milk 
 and subsequent bashings and bruisings had ruined my old 
 one. I had not bothered about it as long as it had bobbed 
 alongside the grey woollen hood of Margaret's domino, but, 
 cheek by jowl with her new hat, it had become an offence, 
 and must be remedied. 
 
 The black shadow flitted in and out of my mind. I was 
 clean and clear of all blood-guiltiness. I had struck for 
 Margaret as he would have struck for Kate. Fate had been 
 too strong for us, but whatever penance life should lay 
 upon me should be paid to the uttermost farthing. I had 
 this comfort that, could Jack ride up to me now, there would 
 be no change in him. There would be for me the old hearty 
 hand-grip and the boyish, affectionate smile, just as when he 
 had run in to me on the town-hall steps. 
 
 I had been commissioned by the Prince to do three things :
 
 i8o THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 first, to deliver a dispatch to my Lord George Murray, wherever 
 I should find him, which would probably be at Ashbourne, 
 twelve miles ahead along a good road ; second, to carry a 
 letter to Sir James Blount at his house called Ellerton Grange, 
 somewhere near Uttoxeter ; third, to make a wide circuit 
 west and south of Derby, picking up all the information I 
 could as to the feeling of the populace and the disposition of 
 the enemy's forces, and to report on this to the Prince in 
 person at Derby at six o'clock the following night. On this 
 third commission the Prince and Colonel Waynflete had laid 
 great stress. An independent and trustworthy report was, 
 it appeared, of the utmost importance. 
 
 Finally, as a dependent commission arising out of the 
 first of the duties imposed on me by the Prince, I bore a 
 letter to my Lord Ogilvie from her ladyship. She had 
 summoned me willy-nilly to her room privily. 
 
 " Tell Davie yonder that I'm very well and very, very 
 guid," she said, as she handed me the letter. 
 
 " With infinite pleasure, my lady," I replied. 
 
 " It will be true, ye ken," she asserted, as if there was a 
 corner for dubiety in her own mind regarding the matter. 
 
 " Solemnly and obviously true, my lady," I agreed. 
 
 " Oh, thou incomparable Oliver, I wish you were a lass," 
 she said, lifting her merry, girlish face level with mine, and 
 putting a hand on each of my shoulders. 
 
 " Why, my lady ? " I said, straightening at her touch. 
 
 " Then you could give Davie this as well ! " which said, 
 she pecked lightly at me with her sweet lips and kissed me. 
 
 It had flustered me greatly, but she only laughed ringingly 
 and delightsomely as I backed out of the room. And when, 
 door-knob in hand, I made my last bow, she had wagged her 
 finger at me for emphasis and said, " Dinna forget to tell 
 Davie I'm very guid." 
 
 Good she was, as beaten gold, and she kept her spirits up 
 to this high pitch to the very end. You can read in Mr. 
 Volunteer Ray's history of the whole affair of the ' Forty-five ' 
 how, after Culloden, she was taken prisoner while dressing 
 for the ball which was to crown the expected victory. 
 
 I smiled a young man's smile as I thought of it. Experi- 
 ence was writing some items on the credit side of my new
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 181 
 
 account with life. I had met a winsome lady of title and she 
 had kissed me. Margaret, behind my back and to a third 
 party, had called me an " incomparable " something. What, 
 I knew not, " servant " probably, but I cared not what. 
 
 Mile after mile passed without incident of any kind until, 
 at a second's notice, I rode into a ring of muskets which 
 closed round me out of vacancy as if by magic. It was the 
 outermost picket of the army at Ashbourne. I gave the 
 parole, " Henry and Newcastle," and demanded a guide to 
 my Lord George Murray's quarters. There came a Gaelic 
 grunt out of the gloom ; men and muskets disappeared, with 
 the exception of a single clansman, who seized Sultan's bridle 
 and led me into the town. 
 
 The General was quartered at the " Swan with Two Necks," 
 a very respectable hostelry, where my first care was to have 
 a cloth thrown over Sultan, and to order for him a bucket 
 of warm small beer with three or four handfuls of oatmeal 
 stirred into it. While this was adoing, and I was awaiting 
 a summons to his lordship's presence, I took a nip of brandy 
 in the public room of the inn, and over it amused myself by 
 reading a crude fly-sheet nailed on the wall, offering a reward 
 of fifty guineas to anyone giving information leading to the 
 arrest of one Samuel Nixon, commonly called ' Swift Nicks,' 
 a notorious highwayman, six feet high, of very genteel ap- 
 pearance, well-spoken, but a cruel, bloody ruffian with it all. 
 The Highlander interrupted my reading by beckoning me 
 to follow him. Upstairs we went, and he ushered me into a 
 room where were two gentlemen seated on opposite sides of a 
 table on which were a small map and two large glasses con- 
 taining a yellowish liquid. 
 
 The younger of them was of much the same general 
 appearance as Maclachlan, though by the look of him a 
 simpler and sweeter man. The other, a middle-aged, domi- 
 neering man with a powerful face, looked angrily at me as I 
 handed him my dispatch. 
 
 He read it impatiently, threw it down beside the map, 
 and said, " They're coming on to-night, Davie." Then, 
 curtly to me, " Your name, sir ? " 
 
 " Wheatman of the Hanyards." 
 
 " Hanyards ? Humph ! Are you an Irishman ? "
 
 182 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " No, my lord. Not even a Scotchman ! " 
 
 He glared at me, but his companion laughed, and said, 
 " That's one under your short ribs, Geordie ! " 
 
 " Damn the Irish ! " cried Murray. " They're the 
 ruination of the whole business, Davie, and ye know it." 
 
 " Of course they are," he replied, " but that's no reason 
 for telling it to an English loon who thinks less of a Scotchman 
 than he does of a pickelt herring." 
 
 " That may be, my lord," said I to him, " but I think so 
 well of one Scottish lady that I'm proud to be her humble 
 courier." And I handed him his letter. 
 
 " Man ! man ! " he said ecstatically, as he ripped it 
 open, " ye're welcome as sunshine in December. It's from 
 Ishbel. God bless her pretty face ! " 
 
 He read the letter eagerly and then thrust it into his 
 bosom. 
 
 " I am, further," I went on, " entrusted with a message 
 from her ladyship." 
 
 " God bless her ! Out with it, man, out with it ! " 
 
 " I was to inform you that she was very, very good,' 
 said I, soberly as a judge passing sentence. 
 
 " What do you think of that, Geordie Murray ? Very, 
 very guid ! Eh, man, isn't she a monkey ? God bless her ! " 
 
 "I'll send the whole lot of 'em packing off back to Edin- 
 burgh," said Murray. " Women are a nuisance on a cam- 
 paign. Your Ishbel, be hanged to her, wants a carriage all 
 her own and another for her fineries." 
 
 " Ye ken a lot about soldiering, Geordie," retorted 
 Ogilvie, " no man more, but ye ken less about soldiers than 
 a lad of ten. At Gladsmuir I said to Macintosh, ' Let's get 
 the damn thing over, Sandy, and be back to breakfast wi' 
 the leddies ! ' And we did." 
 
 " You did so," acknowledged Murray. " Now, Davie, 
 take our courier out and feed him. I thank you, sir 1 
 You have ridden speedily. Your pace is faster than your 
 tongue." 
 
 " My lord," said I, " although I am doing his Royal 
 Highness such poor service as lies in me, I am not yet duly 
 acting under his commission and authority." 
 
 " What of it ? " he asked.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 183 
 
 " Hence I am not an officer under your command, my 
 lord ! " 
 
 " Excellent logic ! And the therefore, my beef-eating 
 friend, is . . . ? " 
 
 " That I would as lief knock your head off as look at 
 you ! " 
 
 " When you are an officer," cried he, " by gad, sir, I'll 
 teach ye the manners of an officer. Till then, my birkie," 
 rising and holding out his hand, " guid luck to ye ! " 
 
 We shook hands heartily and so parted. 
 
 " He's a grand man is Geordie Murray," said Ogilvie, 
 as he led me to another room across the landing. " Just 
 a wee bit birsy, maybe, but these damned Irish have got 
 his kail through the reek. They're o'ermuch on his spirits 
 of late." 
 
 All his other talk was of his lady, though he looked well 
 enough after me, and I made a good meal of the better half 
 of a cold chicken, a cottage loaf, and a tankard of poor ale. 
 Ashbourne is noted, say the wise in such matters, for the 
 best malt and the poorest ale in England. 
 
 I am overmuch English, as is often the case with us who 
 live in the very heart of England. The famous Mr. Johnson 
 is a shire-fellow of mine, and very proud I am of it, and 
 reckon it among the greatest events of my life that he has 
 bullyragged me soundly for differing from him, and being 
 right, about a line of Virgil he had misquoted in my hearing. 
 Like Mr. Johnson, I love men and loathe dancing-masters, 
 and these Scotsmen were men indeed, my Lord Ogilvie, as 
 I came to know later, one of the choicest. He was a spare- 
 built man, in years thirty or thereabouts, with a face all 
 lines and angles, and dotted with pock-marks. For a lord, his 
 purse was very bare of guineas, and nature had made up for 
 it by giving him a belly full of pride. For him, the Highland 
 line had been the boundary of the known world, so that his 
 mind was a chequer-work of curious ignorance and knowledge. 
 
 From the first I liked him for his joy in his dainty lady, 
 She was the daughter of a cadet of a distant branch of the 
 famous Bobbing John's family, and had spent nearly all 
 her life in France till, on a chance visit to Scotland, she had 
 been snapped up by Ogilvie. They were a strangely matched
 
 184 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 pair, she from the gay salons of Paris, he from the misty 
 mountains of the north ; but mutual love had assorted 
 them to admiration, for the heart of each was sound as a 
 bell. 
 
 Between bites I answered questions as to how she had 
 looked, what she'd said, done, and so forth. 
 
 " Was she wearing her brown riding-coat with the pretty 
 wee shoulder capes ? " he asked. 
 
 " No," said I, becoming more interested. 
 
 " Or her creamy dress with the gold flowers all over it ? " 
 
 " No," said I again, smiling at my discoveries. 
 
 " She's keeping 'em for London," he explained. " Gosh, 
 man ! She will look divine in 'em." 
 
 " She won't," said I, clipping away at the sweet bits still 
 hanging on the carcass of my chicken. 
 
 " It'll take your logic all its time to keep six inches o' 
 cauld steel out of your brisket," he said very fiercely. 
 
 " Never had better chicken in my life," said I, watching 
 him out of one eye quite enough for any Scotsman. 
 
 " Damn the chicken ! " he roared. " Why won't she ? " 
 
 " Because she's given 'em away," I explained in my 
 airiest tones. 
 
 " The blue blazes of hell ! " gasped his lordship. " Given 
 'em away, and they cost me twenty pounds English ! Given 
 'em away ! " he whined, utterly lost for words, " given 'em 
 away ! The callack's clean dawpit. Twenty pounds good 
 English money ! " 
 
 " Nothing like enough ! " said I. " You'll be sorry it 
 wasn't two hundred." 
 
 Two hundred pounds English was, however, something 
 too stupendous for his mind to grasp, and the gibe had no 
 effect on him. While I finished my ale he chuntered away 
 in his own Gaelic. 
 
 " I'll mak' it up in London," he said at length, " but 
 it'll be the deil's own job." 
 
 " It will indeed," I agreed, and drained my tankard 
 dry. 
 
 A look at my watch told me it was time to set about 
 my second commission. Sultan was brought from the 
 stable, fit as a fiddle and eager to be going. I examined
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 185 
 
 my pistols, ran the tuck up and down in its scabbard, leaped 
 on Sultan, and asked for the Uttoxeter road. 
 
 My Lord Ogilvie parted from me on the fairest terms, 
 bringing me with his own hands a great stirrup-cup, or "dock- 
 an-torus," as he called it. 
 
 " Man," said he, " I'm right glad to be acquent wi' ye. I 
 was thinking I'd gang all the way to London without coming 
 across a man worth fighting, much less friending, but I was 
 in the wrang of it. Here's to ye ! " 
 
 " My lord," said I, " you match your sweet lady. Both 
 of you have been wondrous kind to a hard-hit man." 
 
 We gripped hands, saluted, and parted. 
 
 It was all but pitch-dark, and the moon was not due to 
 rise for more than an hour, but the sky was clear and the 
 stars were out in masses for company and guidance. Ellerton 
 Grange was near Uttoxeter, and Uttoxeter was a sizeable 
 townlet just inside my own county, and some fifteen miles 
 from Ashbourne. The road was the usual cross-road, all of 
 it bad and most of it vile. I left the going to Sultan, who did 
 the best he could, like the gallant and experienced creature 
 he was. There was nothing for me to do except to keep a 
 good look out and the north star just behind my right 
 hand. 
 
 My mind was busy going oyer all the memories of the 
 last three days. I tried hard, but in vain, to skip the black 
 part, the thought of which made me flinch as if the branding- 
 iron was white-hot against my cheek. Mentally I saw 
 double Jack's red blood with one eye and Margaret's amber 
 hair with the other. As I rode I fought memory with memory, 
 mingling gall and honey, now mumbling broken prayers and 
 now singing snatches of country love-songs, and so got on 
 as best I could. In the journey of life a man pays for what 
 he calls for. Life had given me what I wanted, and the 
 price thereof had been death. 
 
 Not only was the night dark but the countryside was 
 empty. I rode past dim outlines of houses and through 
 vague, dreamlike villages without seeing a soul or hearing a 
 sound. Once I saw a light ahead by the roadside, but out 
 it went as the rattle of Sultan's hoofs told of my coming. It 
 was no wonder, for these poor folk were living between two
 
 186 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 armies and wanted neither, friend nor foe. For them it was 
 only a choice between the upper and the nether millstone. 
 At last I came to a wayside ale-house where lights were 
 showing. I rode up, dismounted, ran the reins over the 
 catch of the shutter, and went in. 
 
 In the low, untidy room I found a man and a woman, 
 bent over a miserable fire, with their backs to a table whereon 
 were set out mug and platter and other things useful for a 
 meal. They rose to greet me, and their faces told me that 
 they were expecting some one and supposed that I was he. 
 When they saw their mistake, the woman stepped smartly 
 in front of the man and said, " Lord, sir, how you frighted 
 us ! What can I get for your worship ? " 
 
 " A mug of good mulled ale," said I. " Give me good 
 mulled ale and a little information, and you shall have a 
 crown for your pains." 
 
 I spoke pleasantly, having no need, as a mere passer-by, 
 to do otherwise, but if I had been obliged to have dealings 
 with them, I should have begun by distrusting them out- 
 right. The man was of the common sort of ale-house keeper, 
 ugly, beery, and stupid, and old enough to be the father of 
 his wife, as I call her on account of the wedding ring on her 
 ringer. She was, for the place and post, a complete surprise, 
 being a jaunty, townish, garish woman, dressed in decayed 
 finery. He would have slit my throat for a groat, she for a 
 grudge. They looked that sort. 
 
 The woman went into another room, beyond the little 
 bar where the drinkables were stored, to get the spices for 
 the mulling, and the man shuffled grumpily after her. 
 Hanging on the wall behind the bar was a fly-sheet, the very 
 same I had read in the " Swan with Two Necks " at Ashbourne. 
 " Swift Nicks " was a much-wanted gentleman, and evidently 
 a tobie-man with a wide range of activities. Out of mere 
 vacancy of mind I walked near to read the fly-sheet again, 
 and, by a curious chance, among the drone of words from 
 the other room, the only one my quick ear could pick out 
 distinctly was " Nicks." 
 
 This made me wary, and when the woman came out and 
 busied herself at the fire, and called me to see what a prime 
 mull she was brewing, I stood over her, to all intent watching
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 187 
 
 the process but ready for anything. And not without need, 
 for her dirty husband crept softly out after her, thinking to 
 catch me unawares. I flashed at him like a jack at a minnow, 
 wrenched a wretched old blunderbuss out of his hands, and 
 with the butt of it knocked him sprawling back into the other 
 room. 
 
 The prime muller merely cackled with false laughter 
 and went on with her mulling. I fetched him in by the scruff 
 of the neck, stood him up against the bar, and said, " I 
 think you're in for the soundest thrashing you've ever had 
 in your life." 
 
 " Sarves yer right, sawney," said the woman. " Plase 
 let him off, sir. He thought yow was Swift Nicks." 
 
 " Yow bitch ! " he growled. " Yow set me on ! " 
 
 " Yow'm a ligger ! " she retorted. " I towd yow the 
 gen'leman was nowt like Swift Nicks." 
 
 " How do you know that ? " I asked. 
 
 " By the print," was the quick reply. " It tells yow all 
 about him." 
 
 I fetched the fly-sheet down, held it out to her, and said 
 sharply, " Read it to me ! " 
 
 I thought this would clean beat her, but she said, simply 
 enough, " I canna rade it mysen, but I've heard it read lots 
 o' times." 
 
 " Have you heard it read ? " I asked the man. 
 
 " Lots o' times," he echoed surlily, and I saw the woman's 
 fingers twitch as if she longed to furrow his ugly face with 
 her nails. 
 
 " Then why didn't you know ? " 
 
 I spoke to him but turned sharp on the woman, and saw 
 hell in her face. She was almost too quick for me, and 
 answered fawningly, " The thought o' the money made a fool 
 on 'im, sir. Plase let him off. I've mulled th' ale prime for 
 her honour." 
 
 This was true and I enjoyed it greatly. I sent the man 
 out to rub Sultan down while she prepared for him under my 
 eyes a warm drench of ale and meal. 
 
 " Be y'r honour going far ? " she asked. 
 
 " That depends how far it is to Ellerton Grange. Do you 
 know it ? "
 
 i88 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " Oh aye, y'r honour. Sir James Blount lives there. 
 It's three miles out'n Tutcheter on the Burton road." 
 
 " Is it a straight road to Uttoxeter ? " 
 
 " Half a mile on yow'll come to a fork. Tek the road 
 on the right and just ride after y'r nose. Fetch the drench, 
 Bob ! " 
 
 She carried it off well, but I felt there was a deep strain 
 of roguery in her. Still, willing to part on a lighter note, I 
 gave her the crown, saying, " You deserve a better trade." 
 
 " It's none so bad," she said. 
 
 " And a better husband." 
 
 " Oddones ! D'ye think . . ." 
 
 She stopped abruptly, plainly caught out for the first 
 time. 
 
 A minute later I was off again. At the fork Sultan made 
 for the left, and I had to pull him sharply to the right. The 
 road got steadily worse, but Orion was clear in view ahead of 
 me, dropping down behind Uttoxeter, and I pushed on. If a 
 man is to turn back because of a bad road, he'll not travel far 
 in the Shires. Soon, however, there was no road at all, and I 
 was plump in open country. Sultan stopped and sniffed, 
 and then turned his head round as if to tell me, what I 
 already felt was the truth, that I had been an ass for not 
 leaving it to him. 
 
 " So ho ! Sultan ! " said I, patting his warm neck. " I 
 deserve all you say, my beauty ! I've put you in for a nice 
 job." 
 
 The right road must lie somewhere to my left. I 
 turned him that way and he walked on suspicious and sniffing. 
 Fortunately the moon had risen, and the Jezebel's lie would 
 only cost me a trifling delay. She would have lied with a 
 purpose, and I puzzled myself in trying to reason it out. In 
 a few minutes we came to the side of a spinney with a low 
 wall of rough stones cutting it off from the field. I was 
 intently looking ahead, when on a sudden Sultan swerved so 
 powerfully that I rocked in the saddle. I wouldn't have 
 touched him with the spur, short of utter necessity, for a 
 fistful of guineas, and I soothed him, and then turned to look 
 for what had upset him. 
 
 To be candid I swerved myself. Most of us in these days
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 189 
 
 are pleased to laugh at superstitions, provided we are in good 
 company round a roaring fire. I was here alone in a lonely 
 field, at nine of the clock on a winter night, and there, flitter- 
 ing and gliding through the spinney was a something in white. 
 Virgil believed in ghosts, and so did Joe Braggs, and I, by 
 oft reading the one and listening to the other, had preserved 
 an open mind. Apparently Sultan had his doubts, for he 
 shivered and whinnied. 
 
 I pulled his head round away from the ghost, drew out 
 a pistol, and watched the unchancy thing's movements. It 
 was evidently meant for me, for it made a slight turn and 
 came straight towards me. Then my man's logic, as Margaret 
 twittingly called it, came to my aid. Gloomy as it was, I 
 saw the outlines of some steps by which the low wall could 
 be crossed, and ghosts, both my authorities being in agree- 
 ment on this, were independent of such purely human con- 
 trivances. So, waiting till the ghost was climbing down on 
 my side, I said sternly, " Stop, or I fire ! " Whereon it 
 heaved a great sob and tumbled full length to the ground. 
 
 I jumped down, slipped the reins over Sultan's head, and 
 pulled him up to the spot. The ghost was a well-grown girl, 
 dressed in nothing but a white night-gown, for I could see 
 her bare feet beyond the hem of it. 
 
 " Don't be afraid, dear," said I soothingly, for she was 
 dumb and half dead with fright. " What can I do for you ? 
 Say it, and it's done. Come now, be brave ! " 
 
 She sat up, leaning on her right hand, and turned her 
 pallid, quivering face up to mine. 
 
 " Robbers, sir ! " she gasped. " They're murdering 
 father and mother. For God's sake, sir, go and stop 
 them." 
 
 " Of course," I replied cheerfully, slipping off my jacket. 
 " Come on, my brave lass ! " 
 
 I helped the lass to her feet, put her into my jacket, 
 jumped into the saddle, and lifted her astride behind me. 
 
 " Clip me tight ! Which way ? " 
 
 " Round the spinney first, sir ! " 
 
 Off we went, and this time I touched Sultan with the spur 
 and he flew along. Round the spinney ; slantways across 
 a field ; up and over a gate, the girl clinging to me like a
 
 190 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 leech ; down a lane ; up and over another gate ; and then 
 the girl's shaking right arm was thrust over my shoulder. 
 
 " There's th' ouse ! O', God, if we anna in time ! " 
 
 " How many are there ? " 
 
 " Two, sir." 
 
 I pulled Sultan up at the farmyard gate, helped her down, 
 and jumped after her. Hitching the horse, we started across 
 the yard. 
 
 Luckily the low-down moon was on the far side of the 
 house, and we could run softly up in the pitch dark. As I 
 write I feel that brave girl's hard grip of my hand as we 
 raced on. At a half-open door we halted ; she loosed hold 
 of me, and I tiptoed on alone. From within I heard the 
 crash of one pot and then another on the brick floor of the 
 kitchen, as the villain, searching for hidden money, smashed 
 them to the ground. Bitten to the vitals by his want of 
 success, he yelled, " I'll burn the sow's eye out ! That'll 
 open her mouth." 
 
 With wrath flaming in my heart I stepped into the door- 
 way leading to the kitchen. My eyes lit on a poor woman 
 bound hard and fast in a chair, and a masked beast, his big 
 white teeth showing through lips thrust wide apart in a grin 
 of hellish rage, approaching a red-hot poker towards her 
 face. I shot him, and he tumbled into a squirming heap. 
 The other villain raced for dear life through the open front 
 door. My second bullet got him on the very threshold, for 
 he yelped and sprang into the air like a stricken buck, but 
 he held on. I e'en let him go, not daring to leave the unkilled 
 scoundrel on the floor, for he had a regular battery of pistols 
 in his belt. The girl was already untying her mother, and 
 her father, bound and gagged in his chair in the ingle-nook, 
 could bide a while. So I plucked the pistols out, there were 
 six of them, and rattled them down on the table. The man 
 was bleeding like a stuck pig, and his purpling face and 
 heaving throat showed that he was choking. As I destined 
 him for the gallows, I picked him up, flung him face down 
 on the table, and thumped him violently in the back, where- 
 upon he coughed up a tooth. My bullet had stripped out 
 all his grinning front teeth clean and clear, just as our Kate's 
 dainty thumb strips the row of peas out of a peascod. Once
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 191 
 
 the tooth was up he was not greatly hurt, and, holding one 
 of his own pistols to his head, I bade him unstrap the farmer. 
 As soon as the latter was free, I ordered him to strap the 
 robber to a kitchen chair, which he did very thoroughly. 
 The instant this job was done, he leaped to fondle and hearten 
 his wife. She kissed him back and, without a word, feebly 
 pointed to me, whereupon he turned and thanked me. 
 
 " Thank your brave daughter," said I, and then he 
 jumped at her and hugged her in his big arms, blubbing out, 
 " My bonny, bonny Nance ! " 
 
 At my wish he lit a lantern, and we went out and stabled 
 Sultan. We went back through the kitchen to make a 
 search of the front of the house. A pretty sight awaited me 
 within doors. The good wife was sipping at a cup of parsnip 
 wine, and the girl was again wearing nothing but her night- 
 dress. With crimson face and downcast eyes, she stood 
 there holding my coat out. 
 
 " Hallo, ghostie ! " said I, smiling at her. " You want 
 to frighten me again, do you ? " 
 
 Too confused to say a word, she lackeyed me into my 
 coat and then ran upstairs. To cut short her mother's 
 tearful thanks, I led the way to the door, and we started our 
 examination. 
 
 Some two yards from the door-sill the feeble rays of the 
 lantern were reflected from something on the ground. To 
 my great satisfaction it was fair booty to me, nothing less 
 than my closest need, a rare good hat made of the finest 
 beaver. The band was buckled with gold, and there was 
 a taking and surely very fashionable cock to the brim. I 
 sent my old one spinning into the blackness and clapped my 
 new treasure on my head. Now I could walk side by side 
 with Margaret and not be ashamed, at any rate not of my 
 hat. 
 
 " The rogue jerked it off when 1 winged him," said I. 
 
 " Gom ! He did jump, that's sartin," said the farmer, 
 whose name, I ought to say, I had learned was Job 
 Lousely. 
 
 It was quite a step down to the road, and we made no 
 further discovery till we got to the gate. Here it was his 
 turn to be lucky, for there was an excellent nag hitched to
 
 192 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 a rail. It was on Job's ground and he gave it a home in his 
 stable. 
 
 " It'll mak up for the crockery," he said, with great 
 delight. 
 
 Back in the kitchen we found Nance fully dressed and 
 busy laying a meal on the table. She was so taken aback 
 when I declared I was not hungry and couldn't stay if I 
 had been, that, to save her distress, I had a bite and a sup 
 of ale, while Job fetched Sultan round to the door. She 
 was a sweet, comely maiden, and it did my heart good to 
 see her put a horn of ale to the bleeding lips of the robber. 
 He drank ravenously, like a dog after a hard run. He was 
 where he deserved to be, with his feet in the short, straight 
 path to the gallows, and I pitied him not. Nance did, and 
 it's good for the world that women are made that way. 
 
 " How far is it to Ellerton Grange ? " I asked Job, who 
 came in to tell me Sultan was ready. 
 
 " A matter of six miles, sir. Three from here to Tutcheter, 
 and three more on to the Grange." 
 
 " How funny, father," interposed Nance. " This is the 
 second time to-night a gentleman has asked the road to 
 Ellerton Grange." 
 
 It would hardly have struck Job as funny if it had been 
 the twenty-second, but Nance was quick and shrewd. 
 
 " Ho ! Ho ! " said I. " Tell me about it, little woman ! " 
 
 " I was wishing my Jim good night at the gate, just 
 before father came home, when a man riding by pulled up 
 and asked the road to Ellerton Grange." 
 
 " Did you make him out, Nance ? " I asked. 
 
 " Not much of him, sir, but the moon shone on his face 
 when he took his hat off to wipe his forehead, and it looked 
 for all the world like an addled duck-egg." 
 
 " Well put, Nance," said I, laughing. " First time I saw 
 that face I thought it was like a bladder of lard." 
 
 " You know him, sir ? " 
 
 " I think I do, Nance, and I must be after him." 
 
 Out of the robber's string of pistols I selected a pair for 
 myself. They were lawful prize, and equal in quality to 
 those Master Freake had given me, so that the rascal had 
 probably stolen them. I saw that all the others were loaded,
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 193 
 
 and advised Job to watch him all night and to lift him, 
 chair and all, into a cart the next morning and drive him off 
 to the nearest Justice. 
 
 Job and his wife renewed their thanks when I was in the 
 saddle. Nance insisted on coming to open the gate, and 
 on the way there she gave me full and careful directions as 
 to the way to Tutcheter and thence to the Grange. 
 
 She swung the gate open and let me through. Then she 
 came to my sword side and held up her face to be kissed. 
 
 " Good-bye, ghostie ! " 
 
 " Good-bye, sir ! God bless you ! " 
 
 Kissing and blessing were reward enough for my service, 
 and I rode on lighter at heart for them. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 THE DOUBLE SIX 
 
 THE time had not been wasted. I had had a stirring 
 experience and got a hint of dangers and uncertainties 
 ahead. Moreover, and on this I plumed myself most, 
 I had acquired a handsome hat. It was a trifle roomy, but 
 a wisp of paper tucked within the inside rim would remedy 
 that defect. The moon was getting higher and brighter, 
 and I pulled my new treasure off again and again to admire 
 it. It had belonged to a rascal with an excellent taste in 
 hats. I was very content with it, and looked forward eagerly 
 to catching the glint in Margaret's eyes when she saw it. 
 After all it behoved me to look well in her presence, and I 
 regretted that the rogue had not shed his coat and breeches 
 as well. No doubt they were equally modish and becoming, 
 and would have set me up finely, though all the tailors 
 in London town couldn't make me a match for Maclachlan. 
 A man has to be born to fine clothes, like a bird to fine 
 feathers, before he looks well in them. The thought made 
 me rueful. I jammed my hat on fiercely, and slapped 
 Sultan into a longer stride. 
 
 13
 
 194 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 The man ahead of me was, out of question, the Govern 
 ment spy, Weir. It was now a full day and more since I had 
 crammed my Virgil into his maw, and he had had time to 
 get into these parts. Thirty years before there had been 
 much feeling for the honest party hereabouts, and among 
 the gentry along the border of the shires there would be 
 some in whose hearts the old flame still flickered. Indeed, 
 my own errand proved so much, and a noser-out like Weir 
 would be well employed in rooting up fragments of gossip 
 over the bottle and memories of beery confidences at market 
 ordinaries sunken straws which showed the back-washes 
 of opinion beneath the placid surface flow of our rural life. 
 I dug my fingers into my thigh and imagined I was wringing 
 the rascal's greasy neck, and the feeling did me good. 
 
 I began to ride past scattered houses and then between 
 rows of cottages. Sultan was tiring a little, but, being an 
 experienced horse, pricked up at the sight and cantered 
 down the dead main street of the town. The shadows of 
 the houses on my left ended in an irregular line on the cobbled 
 causeway on my right. Near the town end I came on an 
 exception to the black-and-white stillness of the houses 
 an inn on my right ablaze with light and full of noise. A 
 merry liquorish company it held, some quarrelling, some 
 rowdily disputatious, and a few stentors trying to drown 
 the rest by roaring a tipsy catch. I pulled Sultan towards 
 the verge of the shadows to see if I could make anything 
 out, and he, supposing, no doubt, that I was guiding him 
 towards bait and stable, made a half-turn towards the portico 
 that ran on pillars along the face of the inn. I checked him 
 at once, but, in that trice of time, a man leaped from behind 
 a pillar, laid one hand on the pommel of my saddle, and 
 raised the other in warning. He was a little man, and in 
 his eagerness he stood on tiptoe and whispered, " Ride on, 
 Master Wheatman ! One second may cost you dear ! " 
 
 Even as he spoke, some movement within startled him, 
 and he leaped back into the shadow before I could question 
 him. 
 
 I urged Sultan onward, and once out of footfall of the 
 inn, pricked him into a gallop. Out of the town he fled, 
 past the end of the Stafford road, along which two hours
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 195 
 
 of Sultan's best would bring me to the Hanyards and mother 
 and Kate, and I kept him at it for a full two miles before I 
 gave him a breather and settled down to think out what it 
 meant. 
 
 I did not know the man from Adam, but he had me and 
 my name quite pat. He was obviously a friend, for his 
 bearing and his warning alike bespoke his goodwill towards 
 me. He must be waiting there for some purpose, and he must 
 have seen me somewhere and learned enough about me to 
 know from what source danger to me was certain to come. 
 In this case it was plain that the danger was within the inn. 
 The carousers might be, nay, almost certainly were, soldiers, 
 though there had been none in the town when Job Lousely 
 had left it less than two hours ago. The news of my escapade 
 might well have leaked into Stafford by now ; I was very 
 well known in the town, and the stranger might be some 
 Stafford chap benighted at Uttoxeter after his business at 
 the market. As I say, I did not know the man, but he might 
 very well know me ; he was, perhaps, some old schoolfellow, 
 grown out of recollection by moonlight, and still willing to 
 serve an old butty. This seemed the likeliest solution of 
 the difficulty, and it made me very sad. The news about 
 Jack would be whispered round by now, and I could never 
 walk the old streets again without seeing nods and shudders 
 everywhere. See him ? That's him ! Killed his best friend ! 
 Wheatman of the Hanyards ! Never held his head up since ! 
 And hadn't ought to ! The chatter of the townsfolk crept 
 into my ears between the hoof -beats, and made me sick and 
 dizzy. 
 
 It would not have happened but for the bladder-faced 
 scoundrel ahead of me, now creeping around like a loathsome 
 insect to sting a man of ancient name and fame, and I was 
 eager to be at him again. Sultan, without more urging, had 
 made the furlongs fly in gallant style, and it was time to be 
 looking out for my landmarks. Nance had made me letter- 
 perfect in them. Here, on the right, was the woodward's 
 cottage where the road began to run downhill into a bottom 
 dark with ancient elms : there, on my left, in an open space 
 among the boles, the moon showed up a worn, grey column 
 which marked the spot where, in the wild days of the Roses,
 
 iq6 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 a Parker Putwell had slain a Blount in unfair fight for a light 
 of-love not worth the blood of a rabbit. Nance had very 
 earnestly told me the old, sad tale, to impress the spot on my 
 mind, for the long lane up to Ellerton Grange began in the 
 shadows just beyond the monument, and wound away up the 
 slope to the right. The road carried us up where the moon- 
 light fell on meadows that were almost lawns, and across 
 them to a maze of buildings. A minute later, I leaped 
 off Sultan and hammered away at the studded oaken door of 
 Ellerton Grange. 
 
 No man came to my summons, and I sent a second volley 
 of rat-tats echoing through the house before I heard a shuffling 
 of feet within and a drawing of big bolts. The door crept 
 open for a foot or so, and an old man's head, with a lantern 
 trembling over it, appeared in the gap. 
 
 " Who's there ? " he quavered. 
 
 " Wheatman of the Hanyards," I answered ; " but my 
 name is nothing to the purpose and my business is. I must 
 see Sir James Blount." 
 
 " He's abed," said he, " hours ago ! " 
 
 " Then fetch him out ! " 
 
 The old man pushed his lantern close to my face and 
 straightened himself to take a fair look at me. He had 
 sunken cheeks and toothless gums, and hairless eyes with 
 raw, red lids, and out of all question was some ancient, rusty 
 serving-man, tottery and slow, but quick-minded enough, 
 and of a dog-like faithfulness to the hand that fed him. 
 
 "Young and masterly," he muttered, " and o'er young 
 to be so o'er masterly. But I mind the day when I would 
 'a' raddled his bones with my quart erstaff." 
 
 " I won't naysay it, grandad," I answered, seeking to 
 humour him. " In your time you've been a two-inch 
 taller lad than I am. Not so big o' the chest, though, 
 grandad." 
 
 " Who're you grandadding ? I was big enough o' the 
 chest when I could neck meat and drink enough to fill me 
 out: Now ! " 
 
 As he spoke he gripped a handful of the waistcoat that 
 hung loosely about him, and added, " Once it was a fair fit, 
 my master. It's cold and late for my old bones to be creaking
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 197 
 
 about, but Trusty's the dog for the tail-end of the hunt, and 
 a Blount's a Blount and mun be served." 
 
 " Fetch him out ! " I repeated. " I've ridden hard and 
 far to serve him." 
 
 The ancient took another look at me and said to himself 
 in a loud whisper, after the manner of old and favoured 
 serving-men, " A farmering body all but his hat, and none 
 o' your ride-by-nights." 
 
 " Fetch him out ! " said I again, not for want of fresh words 
 to say to the candid old dodderer but to keep him to the point. 
 
 " Oh-aye," said he, and shuffled off. 
 
 He left me fuming, for his last mutteration, as he shook 
 his lantern to stir the flame up a bit, was, " Knows a true 
 man when he sees one. More used to a carving-knife than 
 a sword, I'll be bound. What did he say ? Wheatman o' 
 sommat ! Reg'lar farmering name ! " 
 
 I kicked the door wide open and watched the lantern 
 bobbing along the hall. The light made pale shimmerings 
 on complete suits of mail hanging so life-like on the high, 
 bare, stone walls, that it seemed for all the world as if the 
 knights had been crucified there and, little by little, age after 
 age, had dropped to dust, leaving their warrior panoplies 
 behind empty shells on the shore of time from which the 
 life had dripped and rotted. The old man toiled up the 
 grand staircase at the far end of the hah 1 and turned to 
 the right along a gallery. The friendly light disappeared, 
 leaving me darkling and alone. Sultan sniffed his way to 
 the door, pushed in his head and neck, and rubbed his nose 
 against my breast in all friendliness. I flung my arms round 
 his neck and caressed him, and in those anxious minutes in 
 the doorway of Ellerton Grange he was comrade and sweet- 
 heart to me, and comforted my spirit greatly. 
 
 Footsteps and a voice within made me turn my head. A 
 man came at a run down the stairs and along the hall. After 
 him the old serving-man hastened, lantern in hand, as best 
 he could. 
 
 " Sir James Blount ? " said I. 
 
 " The same," said he curtly and confusedly. 
 
 " I bring you a letter from a very exalted person, Sir 
 James," I explained.
 
 198 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 He took it from me much as he would have taken a bowl 
 of poison. " The light ! The light ! You slow old fool ! 
 The light ! " he said, jerking the words out as if his soul 
 was in distress, and the ancient, barely half-way down the 
 hall, quickened his poor pace up to his master. He, tearing 
 the lantern out of the feeble hands, and rattling it down on a 
 table, ripped open the letter and devoured its contents. 
 
 The light of the lantern revealed the face of a man still 
 young, but at least a half-score years my elder. He had a 
 thin-lipped, sensitive mouth, a great arched nose, and quick, 
 eager eyes. His mind was running like a mill-race, and his 
 fine face twitched and wreathed and wrinkled under the 
 stress of the flow. Another thing plain enough was that the 
 old man had lied when he said his master was abed, for he was 
 fully and carefully dressed and his wig had not in it a single 
 displaced or unravelled curl. This was no half-awakened 
 dreamer, but a man with the issues of his life at stake. 
 
 He crushed the letter in his hand and paced up and down 
 the hall, muttering to himself. I turned and rubbed Sultan's 
 nose to keep him quiet and happy. The old servant took 
 charge of the lantern again, and followed his master up and 
 down with his eyes. 
 
 " A year ago, yes ! A year ago, yes ! " I heard Sir James 
 say. He quickened his steps and the words came in jerks, 
 mere nouns with verbs too big with meaning for him to 
 utter them. " A word ! A dream ! A dead faith ! Yes, 
 father ! The devil ! Sweetheart ! " 
 
 There is a great line in the JEneid which I had tried in 
 vain a hundred times to translate. Three days agone I 
 would have tilted at it once more with all the untutored zeal 
 of a verbalist. I should never need to try again. There are 
 some lines in the Master that life alone can translate. Sunt 
 lachrymae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt. 
 
 After a turn or two in silence, Sir James broke off his 
 pacing and came to me. 
 
 " Sir," he said, " you will know enough to excuse my 
 inattention to a guest. I must make it up if I can. Give me 
 the lantern and wait for us here, Inskip. Come with me, sir, 
 and stable your horse. Gad so, sir," holding up the lantern, 
 " you ride the noblest animal I have ever seen. Woa, ho,
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 199 
 
 my beauty ! All my men are abed, so we must do it our- 
 selves, but, by Heaven, it will be a pleasure, Master what 
 may I call you, sir ? " 
 
 " Just the plain name of my fathers Oliver Wheatman 
 of the Hanyards." 
 
 " A good strong name, sir, though my fathers liked it 
 not." 
 
 " And you, Sir James ? " 
 
 " Frankly, it is a name which to me has ceased to be a 
 symbol. A good fellow can call himself ' Oliver ' without 
 setting my teeth on edge. I had a grand foxhound once, and 
 called him ' Noll,' just because he was grand. My dear old 
 father consulted a London doctor as to the state of my mind. 
 It made him anxious, you see ! The great man said, gruffly 
 enough, that I was as sane as a jackdaw. Thereupon my 
 dear dad, one of the best men that ever lived, had the dog 
 shot ! " 
 
 He laughed, reminiscently rather than merrily; and was to 
 my mind bent on getting a grip on himself again. We made 
 Sultan comfortable for the night, and then Sir James 
 courteously said it was high time to be attending to me. 
 He made no further indirect reference to the situation, until, 
 as he was leading me along the hall, he stopped opposite a 
 great dim picture, hanging between two sets of mail, and 
 held the lantern high over his head to give me a view of it. 
 With a strange mixture of resentment and pathos, he said, 
 " A man's ancestors are sometimes a damned nuisance, 
 sir ! " 
 
 " They are indeed ! " I replied. " There's one of mine 
 shaking his fist at me over the battlements of the New 
 Jerusalem." 
 
 He laughed heartily, and, with Inskip trailing patiently 
 behind us, led me upstairs, and through the gallery into a 
 long corridor, lit by lanterns fixed in sconces on the walls. 
 We stopped opposite a door, and he was about to lead me 
 in when another door farther along the corridor opened and 
 a lady came out. She was all in white with dark hair hanging 
 loose about her shoulders, and there was a something in her 
 arms. 
 
 Down went the lantern with a bang, and Sir James flew
 
 200 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 like a hunted buck along the corridor. He whipped his 
 arms around the lady and kissed her passionately, and then 
 flung on his knees and held out his arms. She put the some- 
 thing in white into them and there was a little puling 
 cry. 
 
 " Married a year come Christmas," whispered old Inskip, 
 " and the babby's five weeks old to-morrow." 
 
 A serving-woman bustled out of another room, and the 
 lady and child were affectionately driven off to bed under 
 her escort. Sir James came slowly back. 
 
 " My wife and son, Mr. Wheatman," he said. " You 
 must meet them to-morrow. The young rascal cries out 
 whenever I desecrate him with my touch. It would have 
 served him right to have christened him ' Oliver.' ' 
 
 I laughed heartily, for he was fighting himself again by 
 gibing at me. He sent off the old man to scour the pantry 
 for a supper for me, and then pushed open the door and led 
 me into the room. 
 
 For size and dignity, it was a room to take away the 
 breath of a poor yeoman. It seemed to me a Sabbath day's 
 journey to the great blazing hearth, where two men were 
 sitting ; the high white ceiling was moulded into a wondrous 
 design, with great carved pendants hanging from it like 
 icicles from the eaves of the Hanyards. Many bookcases 
 ran half-way up the walls round the greater part of the room, 
 filled with stores of books such as my heart had never dreamed 
 of, great leather-bound folios by platoons, and quartos by 
 regiments. If I could get permission I would steal an hour 
 or two from sleep to eye them over, and as we walked towards 
 the hearth I got behind my host in my slowness and had to 
 step up smartly to get level with him to make my bow of 
 introduction. I gasped with the shock as I stepped into the 
 arms of Master John Freake. 
 
 " My dear lad," he cried, " what luck ! What luck ! 
 How are you ? How are they ? " 
 
 He made me sit down beside him, for here as elsewhere 
 he was easily the most important man present, though his 
 bearing was ever quiet and modest. He spoke of me to Sir 
 James in warm and kindly phrases, and it soon became 
 manifest that his good word was a passport into my host's
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 201 
 
 confidence and regard. The three gentlemen filled their 
 glasses and toasted me with grave courtesy, and I easily slid 
 out of the uneasy mood into which Inskip's candour and my 
 unaccustomed surroundings had driven me. 
 
 The third man present was a Welsh baronet, Sir Griffith 
 Williams, a far-away cousin and close friend of Sir Watkin 
 Wynne, whose name I remembered to have heard on the 
 Colonel's lips at Leek. Sir Griffith was a brisk, apple-cheeked 
 man of forty or thereabouts, very fluent of speech in some- 
 what uncertain English, with fewer ideas in his head than 
 there are pips in a codlin, but what there were of them 
 singularly clear and precise. He reminded me of Joe Braggs, 
 who could only whistle three tunes, but whistled them like 
 a lark. 
 
 Inskip brought me a rare dish of venison-pie and various 
 other good things, and laid out the table for me. I left 
 Master Freake's side to eat my supper and listen to their 
 talk. 
 
 They made various false starts, followed by dead silences. 
 It was clean useless for Sir James to talk about his baby. 
 Sir Griffith had had a long family and so had exhausted the 
 topic years ago, whilst Master Freake, a bachelor, knew 
 nothing about it. There had been a great flood in the Welsh- 
 man's valley in the autumn and he harangued upon it in 
 style, and not without gleams of native poetry, but Sir James 
 had never seen a flood and Master Freake had never been 
 to Wales, so the flood soon dried up. 
 
 There was a silence for some minutes, busy minutes for 
 me with an apple tart that was sublime with some cream to 
 it, and I was settling down to the sweet content of the well-fed 
 when Sir James broke out. 
 
 " Mr. Wheatman has brought me an invitation, hardly 
 to be distinguished from a command, to meet His Royal 
 Highness at the Poles' place to-morrow." 
 
 The eager Welshman bounced on to his feet, raised his 
 glass and said, " To the Prince, God bless him." Sir James 
 had to follow his example, though he was in no mood for it, 
 and it would have looked ill had I not joined in, and moreover 
 the wine was excellent. 
 
 " You will excuse me, gentlemen," said Master Freake.
 
 202 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " I am not clear which Royal Highness is referred to, and 
 besides I have no politics." 
 
 " God bless him," bubbled the Welshman. " I shall join 
 him when he has crossed the Trent." 
 
 Again there was silence for a space. 
 
 " So the question is put, and I must give my answer," 
 said Sir James, breaking the stillness. " I must put my 
 hand to the plough or draw back. I must keep my word or 
 break it. Can I be loyal to my father's creed and also to 
 my child's interests ? I've got to be both if I can. If I 
 can't be both, which is to have the go-by ? Fate has put 
 me in a cleft stick, Master Wheatman. On his death-bed 
 my father handed on to me his place in the old faith. He 
 was a devoted adherent of the exiled House, the close friend 
 and associate of Honest Shippen, and even more intimately 
 concerned than he in the underground network of intrigue 
 and preparation which was constantly being woven, ruined, 
 and re-woven up to his death ten years ago. He left me poor 
 and encumbered with debt, for he had been prodigal in his 
 sacrifices for the cause. It is a wonder that he died in his 
 bed rather than on the block, but he was as wary as he was 
 zealous. For nine years I lived here the life of a hermit, 
 alone with my debts and my books. Then I met a young 
 girl " his voice broke badly " who became to me the all- 
 in-all of my life. By good fortune I also met Master Freake, 
 who took my affairs in hand for me and has helped me wisely 
 and generously." 
 
 " For ten per cent, Oliver," interrupted Master Freake. 
 
 " Nonsense ! Wisely and generously, I repeat," said Sir 
 James warmly. 
 
 " For ten per cent on good security, I repeat," answered 
 Master Freake gravely. 
 
 " Damn your ten per cent ! " 
 
 " Looks like it, and the security into the bargain ! " 
 said Master Freake very quickly. 
 
 " Swounds ! that's just it ! " said Sir James. He rose 
 and paced backwards and forwards between me and the 
 hearth. " A year ago, sir," he addressed me in .particular 
 " I should have shouted with joy at the summons to take the 
 place among the adherents of the cause which my father
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 203 
 
 would have held had he lived, and which it was his heart's 
 wish on his death- bed that I should take for him. The 
 cause and the creed are nothing to me as such, for I place 
 no value on either. Your talk about the right divine of old 
 Mr. Melancholy, mumming and mimicking away there at 
 Rome, makes me smile. He's an old fool, that's the long and 
 short of it. But a Blount's a Blount after all. I owe some- 
 thing to my ancestors. My word to my father ought not to 
 be an empty breath. Yet here I am, with all the interests 
 of life pulling one way wait till you've a boy five weeks 
 old by a wife you'd be cut in little pieces for, and you'll know, 
 sir, and a dead father and a dead creed pulling the other. 
 I knew what was coming, and I've talked about it and 
 thought about it till my head's like a bee-hive. Now, sir, 
 give me your advice ! " 
 
 " I have joined the standard of your Prince," I said. 
 
 " Damme, sir, you mock me. That's not advice. That's 
 torture." 
 
 " I have turned my back on the creed of my life and on 
 every sound instinct in me," I continued. 
 
 He stopped his walk and looked intently at me. 
 
 " I have ancestors whose memory I cherish, and I have 
 torn up their work as if it were a scrap of paper covered with 
 a child's meaningless scribble." 
 
 Sir James stepped up to the table, his fine face alive with 
 emotion. 
 
 " For what ? " he asked. 
 
 I rose and looked straight into his eyes. 
 
 " For a woman," I whispered, very low but very proudly. 
 
 Our hands met across the table in a hard grip. 
 
 " You have done well, sir ! " he said. " I asked you to 
 give me advice. You have set me an example." 
 
 He sat down again, and looked hopefully at the fire and 
 then moodily at Master Freake. 
 
 " There is this unfortunate difference between Mr. Wheat- 
 man's case and mine. I have, and he has not, given my 
 plain word to a father." 
 
 " I admit that is a striking difference," said Master 
 Freake. " I am no Jesuit, however, and cannot decide cases 
 of conscience. I deal with business problems only, which
 
 204 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 are all cat and dry, legal and formal. When I make a 
 promise in the way of business I always keep it precisely 
 and punctually, for the penalty of failure to do so is a business 
 man's death bankruptcy." 
 
 " There's such a thing as moral bankruptcy," said Sir 
 James gloomily. 
 
 " Very likely," replied Master Freake. 
 
 " This is all nothing whatefer but words, words, words." 
 said the Welshman. " And words, my goot sirs, are indeed 
 no goot whatefer. Sir James's head is wrapped up in a mist 
 of words, words, words, and indeed he cannot see anything 
 whatefer. I am not a man of words, and what you call 
 'em broblems." 
 
 " Very good," said I. 
 
 " Indeed it is goot," said he. " To hell with your words 
 and your broblems. They are of no use whatefer, whatefer. 
 Our good friend, Sir James, is up to his neck in broblems like 
 a man in a bog, and he cannot move. Now I have not your 
 broblems. To hell with your broblems. My Cousin Wynne 
 is full of 'em, and he's still gaping up at the cloud on Snowdon, 
 while I'm here, ready. I say plain : if the Prince cross 
 south of the Trent I will join him." 
 
 " Why the Trent ? " said I. 
 
 " It is my mark. It is my way of knowing what I will do. 
 It is all so simple. Indeed I am a simple man, not a broblem 
 in my brain, none whatefer, I tell you plain. It is as this so. 
 If the Prince cross the Trent, say I to myself, well and goot. 
 He do his share. It is time for me to do mine. It is better 
 indeed, I tell you plain, to have it settled by a simple thing 
 like the Trent than to have it all muddled up by your 
 broblems. I can sing you off my ancestors by dozens, right 
 back to the standard-bearer of the great Llewellyn, but 
 they're all dead, and indeed I'm not going to poke about 
 among their bones to find out what to do. I look at your 
 pretty river, and I wait." 
 
 Sir James had looked at him during this harangue with 
 unconcealed impatience. 
 
 " I sent a letter to Chartley of Chartley Towers," he said, 
 " one of us, and a strong one by all accounts. At any rate, 
 my father always reckoned him as such. So I asked him
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 205 
 
 guardedly what he thought, and his reply was, ' The chest- 
 nut is on the hob. I am waiting to see whether it jumps into 
 the fire or into the fender.' I cannot decide by appealing 
 to rivers or nuts. There's much more in it than that." 
 
 Fate snatched the problem out of his hands. Without a 
 tap, without a word, the door of the room was flung open, 
 and a dozen troopers filed swiftly and silently in, and covered 
 us with their carbines. An officer, sword in hand, pushed 
 through a gap in their line and stepped half a dozen paces 
 towards us. He saluted us ceremoniously with his sword 
 and said, " In the King's name ! " Behind the line a man 
 in citizen clothes hovered uncertainly, and dim as the light 
 was I made him out only too plainly. It was the Govern- 
 ment spy, Weir. My goose was cooked. I had played for 
 life's highest stake, and thrown amb's ace. It was good-bye 
 to Margaret. 
 
 The Welshman stuck to his chair, stolid as his native 
 hills. Master Freake, whose back was to the new-comers, 
 made a swift half turn, and then he, too, settled down again 
 as indifferently as if the interruption had only been old 
 Inskip with the bedward candles. Blount leaped to his 
 feet, livid with rage, and strode up to the officer. 
 
 " My Lord Tiverton, what does this intrusion mean ? " he 
 demanded. 
 
 " It means," was the composed reply, " that if any one of 
 you makes the slightest attempt to resist, he will be shot 
 out of hand. Close up, lads, and cover your men ! " 
 
 The order was obeyed briskly and exactly. The three on 
 the left of the line attended to me, and I sat there, toying 
 with a wine-glass for appearance' sake, though the three 
 brown barrels levelled straight and steady at my head made 
 my heart rattle like a stone in a can. These were none of 
 Brocton's untrained grey-coats, but precise, disciplined 
 veterans in blue tunics and mitre-shaped hats, white breeches 
 and high boots, belted, buttoned, and bepouched. It was 
 almost a compliment to be shot by such tall fellows. 
 
 Seeing we were all harmless, the officer dropped his military 
 preciseness as if it were an ill-fitting garment. He was the 
 daintiest, handsomest wisp of a man I had ever set eyes on, 
 and looked for all the world like an exquisite figure in Dresden
 
 206 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 china come to life. He could not have had much soldiering 
 the air and aroma of the London salon still hung closely 
 around him and he was so very self-possessed that he 
 was play-acting half his time, doing everything with a grace 
 and relish that were highly diverting. It took all my pride 
 in my new hat out of me to see this desirable little picture 
 of a man. 
 
 " I assure you, my dear Sir James," he said, " that it's 
 a damned annoying thing to me to have to act so unhand- 
 somely. Stap me ! I shouldn't like it myself, but law's 
 law and duty's duty, and so on, you know the old tale, 
 and I'm obleeged to do it." 
 
 He opened his snuff-box and offered it to Sir James, 
 who brusquely waved it aside, saying, " Your explanation, 
 if you please, my lord ! " 
 
 " Damme, don't be peevish ! Smoke the Venus in the 
 lid ? Isn't she a sparkler ? Wish I'd lived in the times 
 when ladies lay about on seashores like it ! I hate these 
 damned crinolines. Saw Somerset in 'em in the Pantiles. 
 Could have pushed her over and trundled her like a barrel." 
 
 " My lord," reiterated Blount, " I await your explana- 
 tion." 
 
 / " Boot's on the other leg," he chirped. " A'nt I pouched 
 you all cleverly, stap me, seeing the ink on my commission's 
 hardly dry ? Didn't think it was in me ! " 
 
 " I will take the authority of your commission as suffi- 
 cient, my lord, the times being what they are. But will 
 you be good enough to tell me why you come ? " 
 
 " Gadso ! Certainly ! There's a dirty rascal in pewter 
 buttons behind there come here, sir, and let Sir James see 
 your ugly face ! who says you're a disloyal person, a traitor, 
 and so forth. I don't believe him. I wouldn't crack a flea 
 on his unsupported testimony, but he's in the know of things, 
 and showed me a commission from Mr. Secretary, calling 
 on His Majesty's liege subjects, etc., you know the run of 
 it, and I was bound to look into it. Charges are charges, 
 stap me if they a'nt. Don't come too near, pig's eyes ! 
 Out with your tale ! " 
 
 His lordship plainly disliked the whole business, and 
 it was a very awkward thing for Sir James that I was here,
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 207 
 
 a circumstantial piece of evidence against him. I looked 
 straight into Weir's eyes as he came forward, ungainly and 
 uncertainly, smiling half his dirty teeth bare, and mopping 
 his yellowy face with a dirty handkerchief. To my astonish- 
 ment he made not a single sign of recognition. I was his 
 trump card, and he left me unplayed. 
 
 " Sir James is a known Jacobite, my lord ! " he quavered. 
 
 " Quite right, Mr. Weir, and if you propose to keep me 
 out of bed these cold nights calling on known Jacobites, 
 stap my vitals, Mr. Weir, if I don't have you flung into a 
 pond with a brick tied round your sweaty neck like an 
 unwanted pup. Anything else ? " 
 
 " This is a Jacobite plot, my lord. There's scheming 
 and plotting against our gracious lord the King agoing on 
 here, my lord." 
 
 " I'll e'en have a closer look at 'em. Plots are damned 
 interesting things, stap me if they a'nt, and I'm glad to see 
 one. Here's a likely young fellow," striding up and examin- 
 ing me. " His is a plot in a meat-pie, it seems. There was 
 one in a meal-tub once, I remember, so the meat-pie does 
 look mighty suspicious, Mr. Weir. We're getting on. And 
 here's a plotter toasting his toes. Not an intelligent member 
 of the cabal. Stap me, if he a'nt asleep ! I must circum- 
 ambulate and have a quiz at him." 
 
 He walked gaily in his play-acting way round Master 
 Freake's chair on to the hearth and then turned and took 
 a peep at him. As soon as he had done so he gave a great 
 shout, and then, recovering himself, burst into a roar of 
 laughter. He clapped his hands on his knees and fairly 
 swayed with merriment. Master Freake looked at him with 
 a sedate half-smile, and said, " How d'ye do, my lord ? " 
 
 " Very well, thankee ! " cried his lordship gaily, too 
 gaily. " Damme ! It's the funniest thing that's happened 
 since Noah came out of the Ark. Come here, spy ! Mean 
 to tell me this is a Jacobite ? " 
 
 As the spy crept near, Master Freake stood up, wheeled 
 round on him smartly, and said, " How d'ye do, Turnditch ? " 
 
 " Stap me ! " cried his lordship. " His name's Weir ! " 
 
 " He will know me better if I call him Turnditch," said 
 Master Freake icily.
 
 208 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 He spoke unmistakable truth. I could see the shadow 
 of the gallows fall across the man's face. What stiffening 
 there was in him oozed out, and he stood there wriggling 
 in an agony of apprehension, like a worm in a chicken's 
 l>eak. Master Freake knew him to the bottom of his muddy 
 soul. My Lord Tiverton was a man of another mould, but 
 he too was in the hands of his master. Plain John Freake, 
 citizen of London, had taken a hand in this game of fate, 
 and had thrown double six. 
 
 This noble room had seen the agonizings and rejoicings 
 of a dozen generations of the sons of men, but nothing to 
 surpass this scene in living interest. They come back to 
 me now the line of blue-and-white troopers, still with 
 levelled carbines ; the stolid Welshman, as indifferent as 
 Snowdon ; the dapper nobleman, still polished and light- 
 some, no longer play-acting but rather vaguely anxious ; 
 the high-minded troubled Jacobite, fear for his wife and 
 babe gnawing at his heart ; the spy, Weir or Turnditch, 
 with the noose he had made for another drawn round his 
 own neck ; Master John Freake, the quiet, Quakerlike 
 merchant, whose power was rooted deep in those far haunts 
 of the world's trade, so that we were here shadowed and 
 protected by the uttermost branches thereof. Last of all 
 I remember myself, with my heart thrumming good-morrow 
 to Margaret. 
 
 " Come now, Houndsditch, or Turndish, or whatever it 
 is," said his lordship. " Precisely what have you to say ? " 
 
 The poor devil had nothing to say. He was aflame to 
 be off and out of Master Freake' s eyesight. He choked up 
 something about mistakes, and zeal, and forgiveness. 
 
 " That's enough ! Out you go, the whole damn lot of 
 you ! " cried my lord. These not being familiar military 
 words of command, the men stuck there like skittles. 
 " Ground arms, or whatever it is ! " he continued. " About 
 turn ! Quick march ! " 
 
 Their sergeant took charge of them and they filed out. 
 Sir James followed them and became their host, routing 
 out servants to wait on them. 
 
 As soon as the door was closed on Sir James, his lordship 
 hastened to Master Freake's side, and entered into low and
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 209 
 
 earnest conversation with him. I walked across to the 
 folios, hoping to find amongst them an editio princeps of 
 Virgil, but was recalled by a loud " Oliver " from Master 
 Freake. 
 
 " Oliver," he said, when I reached his chair, " I should 
 like you to know the most noble the Marquess of 
 Tiverton ! " 
 
 I bowed, and his lordship bowed in reply, and said light 
 and pleasant things about our meeting. Then, vowing he 
 was monstrous hungry, he tackled the venison pasty, summon- 
 ing me to sit opposite him. 
 
 " Gadso ! I am sharp-set," he said, and indeed he ate 
 with the zeal of a plough-lad. He pushed me over his 
 snuff-box, which nearly made me sneeze before I took the 
 snuff. 
 
 " It really is a masterpiece," he said, in a pause between 
 pasty and pie. " I shall never hear the last of it at the 
 ' Cocoa Tree ' and White's. Stap me, I shan't want to ! 
 It's too good. The tale will keep my memory green when 
 that old mummy, Newcastle, is dust at last." 
 
 " What tale ? " said I. 
 
 " D'ye know why, a month ago, I badgered Newcastle 
 into getting me a company in the Blues ? " 
 
 " Not the faintest idea ! " 
 
 He leaned across the table and, from under cover of me, 
 nodded towards Master Freake, now talking with the Welsh- 
 man. " To get out of his way ! " he whispered. 
 
 I looked incredulous, whereupon his lordship tapped his 
 pocket significantly. 
 
 " He's a damned good fellow. He gave me another six 
 months without a murmur. Wish I'd known ! There'd 
 have been no campaigning for me. I prefer the Mall ! " 
 
 So he said now, yet he was as steady as a wall and as bold 
 as a lion at Culloden. He came of a great stock, and greatness 
 was natural to him. The play-acting and gaming was only 
 the fringe that Society had tacked on to him. It lessoned 
 me finely to see him when Sir James came back into the room. 
 Tiverton knew the position by instinct. 
 
 " Sir James," he said, " I crave a word with you." 
 
 " At your service, my lord." 
 
 14
 
 210 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " I will be frank," continued his lordship. " I ask no 
 questions. I make no inferences. I simply point out that 
 the spy fell to pieces because he found Mr. Freake here." 
 
 " I observed so much, my lord ! " 
 
 " I don't know why," said the Marquess dubiously. 
 
 " I could hang him at the next assizes," interrupted 
 Master Freake. 
 
 " I see. He doesn't want to be hanged, of course. No 
 one does. It's a perfectly natural feeling. So he crumpled 
 up at the prospect." 
 
 " Yes, my lord," said Sir James. 
 
 " I allowed him to crumple up, and I took full advantage 
 of the fact. You saw so much ? " 
 
 " I did." 
 
 " Now, Sir James, you, as a Blount, that is, as a man 
 bearing an honoured name, are under the strictest obligation 
 to me to see that I can say, if my conduct is challenged, that I 
 saw nothing here because there was nothing to see. I have 
 put myself absolutely in your power, Sir James. Whoever 
 else joins the Prince, you must not, or you take my head along 
 with you." 
 
 It was well and truly said, and there was no posing about 
 it. Sir James Blount's problem was settled. He taught 
 me something too, for all he did was to put out his hand. 
 
 " There's an end of Tundish ! " said Tiverton, grasping 
 it firmly. " And it's the best end too, for the Highland army 
 hasn't a snowball's chance in hell." 
 
 He turned at once to banter me on my indifference to 
 art, seeing that I had sniffed at a miniature by one of the most 
 famous artists at the French Court. I let him rattle on, for 
 my eye was on Sir James, who was rolling something in his 
 hands. A moment later the Prince's letter went up in a 
 tongue of flame and burnt along with it the Jacobitism of the 
 Blounts. 
 
 A knock at the door interrupted his lordship's valuation 
 of art and artists of the French school, and his sergeant 
 entered to say that his men were in the saddle. 
 
 " Campaigning be damned ! " said his captain wearily. 
 
 " Beg pardon, my lord," added the sergeant, " but Mr. 
 What's-his-name has cut off."
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 211 
 
 " Good riddance. He's gone back to his crony at the 
 ' Black Swan.' ' 
 
 " Yes, my lord. T'other's a sergeant in my Lord Brocton's 
 dragoons." 
 
 " Ah, I saw they were hob-and-nob together. A fellow 
 with a ditch in his face you could lay a finger in ! " 
 
 Fortunately for me, the Marquess was busy with a last 
 glass of wine. Here was ill news with a vengeance. I had 
 got out of the smoke into the smother. 
 
 " My lord," said Master Freake, " there is a man of mine, 
 one Dot Gibson, at the ' Black Swan,' and I shall be greatly 
 beholden to you if you will let your sergeant carry him a 
 note of instructions from me." 
 
 " Stap me ! I'll take it myself," cried his lordship 
 heartily. 
 
 Master Freake went to a table to write the note. I knew 
 now who it was that had given me the warning. My lord 
 pocketed the note and we all crept quietly down to the main 
 door to see him off. The guards made a gallant show in the 
 brilliant moonlight, and Master Freake, taking my arm, 
 dragged me out to watch them canter across the stretch 
 of meadow, and drop out of sight down the hill. 
 
 " Sleep in peace, Oliver," he said. " Dot Gibson will give 
 us early news of the movements of the enemy." 
 
 Then we strolled back, talking of the Colonel and Margaret. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 WHAT CAME OF FOPPERY 
 
 IT was eight by the clock next morning before I set 
 about my third commission. To begin with, the 
 bed pulled, and small wonder, since I had not slept 
 in a bed since leaving home. Then I took my fill of the 
 books, finding among them no less a prize than the editio 
 princeps of Virgil, printed at Rome in 1469, which it was 
 hard to let go. Next there was Baby Blount to be waited
 
 212 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 upon, and his mother, a pretty, appealing lady, with the 
 glory of motherhood about her like a fairy garment. Part 
 of the ceremonial was the putting of Master Blount into my 
 arms, which was done very gingerly, with abundant cautions 
 and precautions against my crushing or dropping him. He 
 had a skin like white satin and a silvery down on his charming 
 little head. Altogether I thought him a most desirable 
 possession for a man to have, and wished he was mine, par- 
 ticularly when, to his father's outspoken chagrin, instead 
 of puling he stared steadily at me with big blue eyes and 
 smiled. 
 
 " Precious ikkle ducksy-wucksy," said his mother. 
 
 " Ugly ikkle monkey-wonkey," cried his father. " Why 
 the deuce can't he smile at me ? " 
 
 " Try him ! " said I, handing him over to Sir James, 
 glad to be free of the responsibility. 
 
 Baby Blount looked at his father and smiled again, and 
 it was a revelation to me of the deepest and finest feelings of 
 a man's heart to see how ravished Sir James was with this 
 first smile of his baby boy's. 
 
 " It's you that's changed, James, not our little darling," 
 said his wife. " He'll always smile at a face as happy as 
 yours is this morning." 
 
 I lingered through these delightful moments over an old 
 book and a new baby with an easy conscience, for Master 
 Freake had brought me news which made my third task 
 much easier. I had not told him what I had in hand to do, 
 thinking it unfair to force the knowledge on him, but he 
 must have made a good guess at it, for he came to tell me 
 that the latest news from Stone was that the Duke was 
 moving south again at top speed, with the intention of 
 getting between the Prince and London if he could. He 
 told me further that Charles had joined Murray at Ashbourne 
 in the small hours, and that their reunited forces had started 
 out for Derby. In all these important matters he was, as is 
 obvious enough now, fully and exactly informed, and I ex- 
 pressed my admiration of his thoroughness. 
 
 " Business, my dear Oliver, nothing but business. Some 
 great man of old time has said ' Knowledge is power.' I'm 
 expanding that a little to fit these modern days. That's all."
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 213 
 
 " How does the maxim run now, sir ? " 
 
 " Knowledge is money and money is power," said he, 
 with a dry smile. 
 
 Then, as to matters small in themselves but of more 
 immediate concern to me, he told me that his man, Dot 
 Gibson, had reported that the spy, Weir, had at an early 
 hour ridden off towards Stafford, while the sergeant of 
 dragoons was still lurking at the " Black Swan." There had 
 been long consultations between them as if they were acting 
 in concert. 
 
 This was likely to be the case. It was a noteworthy 
 fact that the spy had seen me, and had had an opportunity 
 of denouncing me, before Master Freake had bowled him 
 over. There was, therefore, reason to suppose that he 
 would in any case have remained silent about me the one 
 man against whom his evidence was overwhelming. The 
 sergeant of dragoons would, of course, be only too glad to 
 see me out of action, dead for choice, but in jail as a useful 
 alternative, yet the opportunity of putting me there had 
 been let slip. I could not, try how I would, work out any 
 reasonable explanation of their conduct. 
 
 I bade good-bye to the Grange, going off with a pressing 
 invitation in my ears to return as soon as possible. Master 
 Freake walked at my saddle till we were out of earshot of 
 the group in the open doorway. 
 
 " We meet again at Derby, Oliver," he said, holding 
 out his hand. 
 
 " That's good news, sir. I shall be there by six o'clock 
 to-night." 
 
 " Keep a good look out for the sergeant. He and his 
 precious master mean to have you if they can. They've a 
 heavy score against you, lad." 
 
 " It will be heavier before the account's settled, 
 ir." 
 
 " You shall have your tilt at 'em, Oliver. You'll enjoy 
 it, and I've no fear as to the result. But take care ! Ride 
 in the middle of the road, and keep your eye on every 
 bush. Brocton has half a regiment of thorough-paced 
 blackguards at his service and will compass hell itself to 
 fetch you down. What about money ? "
 
 214 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " I've plenty and to spare," I answered, " thanks to 
 your generous loan." 
 
 " No loan, lad, but my first contribution to the expenses 
 of what shall we say for safety ? Your tour. How will 
 that do ? " 
 
 " Nay, sir " 
 
 " Yea, Oliver, and no more said. My favourite rate is 
 ten per cent. You've let me off with a paltry two." 
 
 " I do not like joking in money matters, sir." 
 
 " John Freake joking in money matters ? " said he, 
 smiling. " Tell it not when you get to town, Oliver, or 
 you'll be the ruin of a hard-won reputation. I sent you 
 sixty guineas odd." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Which is, to be precise, slightly less than two per cent 
 of what you saved me when you snatched me out of the 
 dirty grip of Brocton's rascals. I had a good thick slice 
 of his lordship's patrimony in my pocket. Off you go, lad ! 
 Sultan is impatient at my trifling. So ho ! You beauty ! 
 Good-bye ! " 
 
 " Good-bye, sir ! " I cried heartily, swinging my new 
 hat in a grand bow. 
 
 At three o'clock in the afternoon, having ridden hard 
 and far without bite or sup, I came out in a little hamlet 
 huddled about the great London road where it ran along the 
 hem of a forest, and drew rein before the " Seven Stars." I 
 was to be in presence with my report at six o'clock, and, as 
 Derby was only fifteen miles off and the road one of the best, 
 there was ample time for Sultan and me to take the rest and 
 refreshment we both stood in need of. 
 
 I was, too, in need of quiet and leisure to get my report 
 straightened out in my mind ready for delivery. The large- 
 ness and looseness of my commission left everything to my 
 discretion, with the vexatious result that I had discovered 
 nothing. I had, indeed, carried out my orders. I had 
 been so far west of Derby that I had seen the famous spires 
 of Lichfield cutting into the sky like three lance-heads, 
 and had learned on abundant and trustworthy evidence 
 that the Duke's forces there were leaving for the south,
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 215 
 
 under orders to march with all speed to their original camp 
 at Merriden Heath. This squared exactly with Master 
 Freake's news, and was all the stock of positive information 
 I had got together. 
 
 Of the kind of news the Prince would best like to hear 
 there was none. Of preparations to join him, none. Of 
 open well-wishers to his cause, none. The time when the 
 Stuart banner could rally a host around it had gone beyond 
 recall. There was no violent feeling the other way. People 
 simply did not care. The old watchwords were powerless. 
 The old quarrel had been revived in a world that had for- 
 gotten it, and would not be reminded of it. It was Charles 
 and his Highlanders against George and his regiments, 
 and as the latter were sure to win, nobody bothered. It is 
 the strange but exact truth that the only sign I discovered 
 of the great event in progress, was to come across a group 
 of four respectable men of the middle station in life bargain- 
 ing with an innkeeper for the hire of a chaise, in which 
 they meant to drive to watch the Highlanders march by. 
 They were very keen to bate him a shilling, and as indifferent 
 as four oysters to the issues at stake. 
 
 Riding into the inn-yard, I shouted to the host to get me 
 his best dinner, and, while it was preparing, I overlooked 
 the grooming and baiting of Sultan. I left him comfortable 
 and content, and strolled indoors to look after my own needs. 
 
 Though on the London road, and only fifteen miles from 
 the scene of action, the inn was quiet. I learned from the 
 host that a courier had galloped through an hour before, 
 spurring southwards, and cried out from the saddle that the 
 bare-legs were only five miles from Derby when he left. 
 Earlier in the day a cart had driven through loaded up with 
 the gowns of the town dignitaries, " going to Leicester to 
 be done up," explained the host, delighted with his own 
 shrewdness. 
 
 A hunger-bitten traveller with a good dinner in front of 
 him commonly pays no attention for the time being to any- 
 thing else. I found two men in the guest-room, and, after 
 a civil greeting, which made one of them open his eyes and 
 mouth very uncivilly, I sat down to eat, very content with 
 the fare set before me.
 
 2i 6 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 As my hunger steadily abated before a steady attack on 
 a cold roast sirloin of most commendable quality, I began 
 to take more interest in the two men. In fact, more interest 
 in them was forced on me by the beginnings of a pretty 
 quarrel between them, and by the time I had got to the 
 cheese, they, utterly regardless of my presence, were at it 
 hammer and tongs. The row was about a horse-deal lately 
 passed between them, and there are few things men can 
 quarrel about more easily or more vigorously. The yokel 
 who had gaped at me, had been cheated by his companion, 
 and was accordingly resentful. 
 
 Two men more at odds in outward appearance could not 
 easily have been found. The gaper was plain country, a 
 big, bulky man, with a paunch that, as he sat, sagged nearly 
 to his knees, a triple chin, and a nose with a knobly end, in 
 shape and colour like an overripe strawberry. His com- 
 panion was a little fellow, lean and sharp-cut, with a head 
 like a ferret's. We country-siders know your Londoner. 
 Many an hour I had sat under the clump of elms at the 
 lane-end and watched the travellers. Hence, doubtless, 
 my taste in fashionable head-gear, like this of mine, lately 
 belonging to Swift Nicks, now disposed carefully on the table 
 at my side. I would have wagered it against Joe Braggs' 
 frowsy old milking-cap that the little man was a Londoner. 
 
 Little as he was, his cold, calculating anger overbore his 
 antagonist, who was no great hand at stating his case, good 
 as it was. 
 
 " The landlord knows me and knows the gelding," said 
 the little man. " You know less about horses than a Mile 
 End tapster. Fetch him in, and let him decide. I suppose 
 you rode him ! " 
 
 " What a God's name, d'ye think I bought him for, Mr. 
 Wicks ? To look at ? " 
 
 " By the look of you I should think you bought him as a 
 present for a baby. Sixteen stone six if you're an ounce, 
 and riding a two-year-old ! Damme, no wonder he throws 
 out curbs ! Fetch the landlord, I tell ye ! " 
 
 Out burst the fat man in a great fury, and in a minute or 
 two came back with the landlord and an ostler. Then the 
 wrangle became hotter and more amusing than ever.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 217 
 
 Finally, the little man, losing all patience, drew a pistol, 
 whereon the big man ran backwards, shrieking " Murder ! " 
 Not heeding where he was going, he tumbled up against my 
 table, and jammed it hard against my midriff. 
 
 I attempted to rise but was too late. The fat man 
 seized my wrists, the landlord and the ostler ran round, and 
 pinned me to the chair, and the little man held the barrel of 
 the pistol to my forehead. 
 
 " Good afternoon, Mr. Swift Nicks ! " said he. 
 
 I dare say my liver was turning the colour of chalk, but, 
 though I'm too easily frightened, I'm always too proud to 
 show it, which has unjustly got me the character of being a 
 brave man. 
 
 " Good afternoon, Mr. Too-swift Wicks ! " I retorted. 
 
 " What d'ye mean ? " he asked, plainly disconcerted. 
 
 " I mean," said I, " that the zeal of your office hath 
 eaten you up." 
 
 " What the hell does he mean ? " he asked, appealing to 
 the company. 
 
 " Damn my bones if I know," answered the host. " I've 
 'eerd parson say sommat like it in church a Sundays. He's 
 one of these 'ere silly scholards." 
 
 " They do say as how Swift Nicks is a scholard," put in 
 the ostler wisely. 
 
 " There's no time for chattering," said I. " Take me at 
 once before a justice. That's the law, and you know it. I 
 warn you that any delay will be dangerous. My cocksure 
 friend here is already in for actions for assault, battery, 
 slander, false imprisonment, and the Lord knows what. 
 My gad, sir, I'll give you a roasting at the assizes. Take me 
 off at once to the nearest magistrate. I'll have the law on 
 you before another hour's out." 
 
 My energy flustered the Londoner, who had sense enough 
 to know the peril of his being wrong, but the fat man, dull 
 as an ox, cheered him on. 
 
 " He's Swift Nicks right enough, Master Wicks," he said. 
 " Pocket full of pistols, four on 'em ; a chap of the right 
 size, a matter of six feet odd ; hereabouts, where he is known 
 to be ; speaks like a gentleman ; and, damme, I saw Swift 
 Nicks myself with my own eyes not two yards off, and
 
 218 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 that's Swift Nicks' hat or I'm a Dutchman; I know'd it 
 again the minute he walked into the room." 
 
 " Damn the hat ! " cried I heartily enough, but feeling 
 very crestfallen at this telling piece of evidence against me. 
 
 The little man snatched it up and looked carefully at the 
 inside of it, a thing I had never done, being wrapped up in 
 its outside. 
 
 " There y'are ! " he cried triumphantly. " ' S. N. His 
 hat.' What more d'ye want ? " 
 
 " I want the nearest magistrate," cried I. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Wicks," said the fat man, " he can easily 
 have what he wants. It's only a matter o' two mile to the 
 Squire's." 
 
 " Squire'll welly go off 'is yed," remarked the host. " He's 
 that sot on seeing Swift Nicks swing." 
 
 " Then he'll very likely go bail for Mr. Wicks," said I. 
 
 " Will he ? " said Mr. Wicks sourly. 
 
 " If he don't," I retorted, " you'll spend the night in 
 Leicester jail." 
 
 " They do say as 'ow Swift Nicks is a rare plucked 'un," 
 said the ostler. 
 
 " Then they're liars," said I. 
 
 I was handcuffed and put on Sultan, with my feet roped 
 together under his belly. Then we started off, and the 
 whole village, which had dozed in peace with the Highlanders 
 only five hours off, turned out gaily and joyously to see 
 Swift Nicks. The landlord left his guests, and the ostler 
 his horses, to go with us, and at least a score of villagers, 
 mostly women, joined in and made a regular pomp of it. 
 Once or twice we met a man who cried, " What's up ? " 
 and at the response, " Swift Nicks," he added himself to 
 the procession and was regaled, as he trudged along, with 
 an account of the affray at the inn. My capture was ex- 
 ceedingly popular, and they gloated to my face over the 
 doom in store for me, wrangling like rooks as to the likeliest 
 spot for my gibbet. The majority fixed it at the Copt Oak, 
 where, as they reminded me with shrill curses, I had murdered 
 poor old Bet o' th' Brew'us for a shilling and sixpence. It 
 was a relief to hear the host shout to Master Wicks, " Yon's 
 th' Squire's 1 "
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 219 
 
 We trooped up to a fair stone house of ancient date with 
 a turret at the tip of each wing. My luck was clean out. 
 The Squire was not yet back home from hunting, for he went 
 out with the hounds every day the scent would lie. He 
 had ridden far, or was belated, or his horse had foundered, 
 and there was no telling, said his ruddy old butler, when he 
 would be back. So the villagers were driven off like cattle, 
 Sultan was stabled, and we five were accommodated in the 
 great hall, for the host and the ostler stayed on the ground 
 that so dangerous a villain as Swift Nicks wanted a strong 
 guard. They put me under the great chimney and sat. 
 round me, in a half circle, each man with a loaded pistol 
 in one hand and a jug of ale in the other. The Squire's lady 
 came in and stood afar off examining me, and I saw that 
 she was in deadly fear of me, handcuffed and guarded as I 
 was. 
 
 Over an hour crawled by, taking with it my last chance 
 of getting into Derby, with my task accomplished, by six 
 o'clock. What would Margaret think of me ? Her obvious 
 pride in the honour the Prince had conferred upon me by 
 selecting me as his personal helper, had been a great delight 
 to me, and now I had failed him and disquieted her. The 
 thought made me rage, and I gave my captors black looks 
 worthy of any tobie-man on the King's highway. 
 
 At last relief came in the shape of the Squire's youngest 
 son, a stout lad of some twelve years old, who raced in, rod 
 in hand, and made up to me without a trace of fear. He 
 was in trouble about his rod, having snapped the top 
 joint in unhandily dealing with a fine chub. After some 
 wrangling, I got my hands freed, and set about splicing the 
 joint. 
 
 " They do say," said I mockingly, " as how Swift Nicks 
 is a good hand at splicing fishing-rods." 
 
 " I never 'eerd tell of that'n," said the stolid ostler. 
 
 " Are you really Swift Nicks, sir ? " asked the lad, looking 
 steadily at me with frank, innocent eyes. 
 
 " No more than you are Jonathan Wild or Prester John, 
 my son," I answered. 
 
 " Then who are you ? " he persisted. 
 
 " I'm a poor splicer of fishing-rods. I get my living
 
 220 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 by riding about the country on a fine horse, with one pair 
 of pistols in my holsters and another pair in my pocket, 
 looking for nice little boys with broken fishing-rods, and 
 mending 'em the rods, not the boys so that father never 
 finds it out and the rod's better than ever it was. How big 
 was the chub ? " 
 
 " That big ! " said he, holding his hands about two feet 
 apart. 
 
 " The great advantage, my son, of having your rod 
 mended by me is that ever afterwards you'll be able to tell 
 a chub from a whale." 
 
 " Sir," said he proudly, " a Chartley never lies." 
 
 " Of course," said I, " it's hard to say exactly how big a 
 fish is when you've missed him. So your name's Chartley. 
 Is this Chartley Towers ? " 
 
 " It is," said he, with a taking boyish pride ringing in 
 his voice. " We are the Chartleys of Chartley Towers. We 
 go back to Edward the Third." 
 
 Did ever man enjoy such fat luck as mine ? I had been as 
 hard beset as a nut in the nutcrackers. To prove that I was 
 not Swift Nicks I should have to prove that I was Oliver 
 Wheatman. The Bow Street runner would see to that, for, 
 as Swift Nicks, I was worth fifty guineas to him, a sum of 
 money for which he would have hanged half the parish 
 without a twinge. Cross or pile, I should lose the toss. 
 Drive away the cart ! Such had been my thoughts, and now 
 a lad's young pride had snatched me out of danger. I grew 
 quite merry over the splicing, and told young Chartley 
 all about my fight with the great jack. 
 
 The job was near on finished when there was a rattle of 
 hoofs without, and, a minute later, the door was flung open 
 and in swept a torrent of yapping foxhounds, followed by 
 a big, hearty, noisy man in jack-boots and a brown scratch 
 bob- wig. 
 
 " Dinner ! Dinner ! " he shouted to his wife, who came 
 in to meet him. " The best run o' the year, lass ! Thirty 
 miles before he earthed, the dogs running breast-high every 
 yard of it, and the very devil of a dig-out ! There was only 
 me and parson and young Bob Eld o' Seighford in at the 
 death. Dinner, dinner, my lass ! I could eat the side of
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 221 
 
 a house. Hallo, damme ! What art doing here. Jack 
 Grattidge ? " 
 
 The question was put to the host, who was shuffling down 
 the hall to meet him. The Squire slashed the dogs silent 
 with his half -hunter to catch the reply. 
 
 " Please, y*r honour," said the host, " we've copped 
 Swift Nicks." 
 
 By G ! You a'nt ! " 
 
 " We "an," declared the host. 
 
 " Hurrah ! " roared the Squire. " That's news ! I owe 
 you a guinea for it, Jack." 
 
 He clumped up to the hearth, crying out as he came, 
 " Show me the black, bloody scoundrel ! I'd crawl to 
 London on my hands and knees to watch him turned off." 
 
 Seeing me engaged in the innocent task of mending his 
 lad's fishing-rod, with the lad himself at my knees intent on 
 the work, he took Mr. Wicks for the highwayman, and 
 cursed and swore at him hard enough to rive an oak-tree. 
 He was, indeed, so hot and heady that it was some minutes 
 before his mistake could be brought home to him. By the 
 time he realized that the man mending the rod was Swift 
 Nicks, he had fired off all his powder, and only stared at me 
 with wide-open eyes. 
 
 " I suppose," said I, very politely, " that, as you've been 
 hunting, the chestnut is still on the hob." 
 
 " I'm damned ! " says he, and flops down into his elbow- 
 chair. 
 
 In the end we made a treaty, to Mr. Wicks' great disgust, 
 who saw the guineas slipping through his ringers. Nor was 
 the Squire less aggrieved at first, for clearly it was to him a 
 matter of high concern to nail Swift Nicks. 
 
 " What's it matter to us here who's got a crown on his 
 head in London ? " he said. " London-folk care nothing 
 for us, and we care nothing for them. But Swift Nicks 
 does matter. We want him hung. No man about here 
 with any sense bothers about your politics except at election- 
 times, when politics means a belly full of beer and a fist full 
 of guineas for every damned tinker and tallow-chandler in 
 Leicester. But you, or that bloody villain Swift Nicks,
 
 222 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 if you a'nt him, keep us sweating-cold o' nights. To hell 
 with your politics ! Hang me Swift Nicks ! " 
 
 The terms of our treaty were that I was to remain peace- 
 ably and make a night of it, giving my word to majce no 
 attempt to escape or harm anyone. In the meantime, and 
 at my proper charges, a post was to be sent to fetch Nance 
 Lousely and her father to give evidence on my behalf. 
 
 " DEAR GHOSTIE," I wrote to her, "I am in great danger 
 because a red-nosed man vows I am Swift Nicks. I want 
 you and your father to come and prove he's an ass. If you 
 don't I am to be hung on a gibbet at a place called the 
 Copt Oak, and I can't abide gibbets, for they are cold and 
 draughty. So come at once, my brave Nance ! Your friend, 
 
 " O. W." 
 
 A groom was fetched and I told him how to get to Job 
 Lousely's. He was well mounted from the Squire's stables 
 and set off. However quickly he did his business, it would 
 be many hours before he could be back. So I settled down 
 to make a night of it. 
 
 There was nothing original in the Squire's way of making 
 a night of it. The parson who had been in at the death 
 and who, during the settlement of my affair, had been busy 
 in the stables, now joined us at dinner. He was but lately 
 come from Cambridge, at which seat of learning the chief 
 books appeared to be Bracken's Farriery and Gibson on the 
 Diseases of Horses, with Hoyle's Whist as lighter reading for 
 leisured hours. He was a hard rider, a hard swearer, and a 
 hard drinker, and, after being double japanned, as he called 
 it, by a friendly bishop, had been pitchforked by the Squire 
 into a neighbouring parish of three hundred a year in order 
 that the Squire's dogs and hounds, and the game and poachers 
 on the estate, might have the benefit of his ministrations. 
 He had, however, sense enough to buy good sermons. " At 
 any rate the women tell me they're good," explained the 
 Squire. " I can't say for myself, for Joe's a reasonable cock, 
 and always shuts up as soon as I wake up." 
 
 The Bow Street runner, Mr. Wicks, and the red-nosed 
 petty constable of the hundred, who answered to the name 
 of Pinkie Yates, were of the party. I ate little and drank
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 223 
 
 less, but the others emptied the bottles at a great pace and 
 were soon hot with drink. One brew, which the huntsmen 
 quaffed with much zest, I insisted, out of regard for my 
 stomach, on passing round untouched, though the men of 
 law took their share like heroes, and, I doubt not, thought 
 they were for once hob-nobbing with the gods. The manner 
 of it was thus. The parson drew from his pocket a leg of the 
 fox they had killed that day, and, stinking, filthy, and bloody 
 as it was, squeezed and stirred it in a four-handled tyg of 
 claret. In this evil compound the Squire solemnly gave us 
 the huntsman's toast : 
 
 " Horses sound, Dogs hearty, 
 Earth's stopped, and Foxes plenty." 
 
 The parson then hiccoughed a song for which he should 
 have been put in the stocks, after which Mr. Wicks, with 
 three empty bottles and three knives to stand for the gallows, 
 gave us a vivid account of the turnmg-off of the famous 
 Captain Suck Ensor, who kicked and twitched for ten 
 minutes before his own claimed him. 
 
 It was five o'clock next morning before my courier re- 
 turned with Nance Lousely and her father. I had gone to 
 sleep in the Squire's elbow-chair before the hall fire, with 
 the zealous thief-takers in attendance, turn and turn about, 
 as sentries over me, fifty guineas being well worth guard- 
 ing. The butler watched at the door, wakefully anxious to 
 earn the crown I had promised him. The noise he made in 
 unchaining and unbolting the door awakened me, and it 
 warmed my heart to see Nance standing timidly just inside 
 the hall, her hand in her father's, till she spied me, when she 
 broke away and ran up to me. 
 
 " You knew I'd come, sir, didn't you?" she said, appealing 
 to me more with her pretty anxious face than by her words. 
 
 " Of course, ghostie ! " I replied promptly. 
 
 "Thank you, sir!" she said, with evident relief. At a 
 trace of doubt in my words or face, she would have broken 
 down. 
 
 " Don't be a goose, ghostie," said I. " Sit down and get 
 warm ! And how are you. Job ? Much obliged to you 
 both."
 
 224 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " We'n ridden main hard to get here, sir. Your mon 
 didna get four 'ouse afore one o'clock, an' we wor on the 
 way afore ha'f-past. Gom ! We wor that'n. Our Nance 
 nearly bust. Gom, she did that'n." 
 
 " Your Nance is a darling," said I, stroking her disordered 
 hair. 
 
 At my request backed by a promise to turn the crown 
 into half a guinea, the butler got them some breakfast. 
 Fortunately the Squire and the parson were due at a duck- 
 shooting ten miles off by seven o'clock, and so were stirring 
 early. My matter was soon settled. The Squire sat magis- 
 terially in his elbow-chair, and Nance and her father told 
 their tale, precisely as I had told it before them. It cleared 
 me and made the thief-catchers look mightily confused and 
 sheepish, and very relieved they were when, as a politic way 
 of staving off awkward questions, I grandly accepted their 
 apologies. 
 
 " I knew you weren't Swift Nicks," said the Squire, 
 " when I saw you mending my lad's fishing-rod. Damme, 
 we'll get him though, before we've done." 
 
 He invited me to join him at breakfast, where we were 
 alone for the first time. 
 
 "Is it into the fire or into the fender ? " he asked 
 meaningly. 
 
 I was ready for him and, stopping with the carving knife 
 half-way through a fine ham I was slicing, said, as if amazed, 
 " Is what into the fire or into the fender ? " 
 
 " The chestnut," said he. 
 
 " The chestnut ! " I retorted. 
 
 " Well, well ! I don't blame you for your caution, sir. 
 Sir James Blount sounded me and I know you know my 
 reply. Whether fire or fender will make no difference to me, 
 and I wouldn't miss to-day's duck-shoot to make it either." 
 
 " I hope there'll be plenty of birds, and strong on the 
 wing," said I. 
 
 This ended all the talk that passed between us on the 
 great event that had so strangely brought us together. He, 
 the squire of half a dozen villages, went duck-shooting while 
 the destiny of England was being settled just outside his 
 own door.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 225 
 
 For the second time Nance walked a space by my side 
 to wish me good-bye. 
 
 " Nance, my sweet lass," said I, pulling Sultan up, " do 
 you know that dirty little ale-house near your home ? " 
 
 " Where the painted woman lives, sir ? " 
 
 " That very place ! Now Swift Nicks is hiding there. 
 Go back and tell the Squire you can find Swift Nicks for him, 
 and they'll fill your pinner with guineas. You'll kiss me for 
 a pinnerfull of guineas, won't you ? " 
 
 " No, sir," said she very decidedly. 
 
 " Then kiss me, Nance, because, though we shall never 
 meet again, we've helped one another when we did meet." 
 
 She put her foot on mine, and I lifted her up in my arms 
 and kissed her red young lips and tear-stained cheeks. 
 
 " Good-bye, Nance ! " 
 
 " Good-bye, sir. God bless you ! " 
 
 At a bend in the road I turned to look at her again. She 
 was standing there, looking after me, and waved her bonnet 
 in farewell. I took off my hat and waved back, and then she 
 was gone from sight. 
 
 " She's a good girl is Nance," said I aloud, " and you, 
 curse you, are the cause of all my troubles " this to my 
 new hat. My foppery had cost me dear. What would the 
 Prince say to my failure ? What would Margaret say ? 
 There would once more be questionings in her eyes, and the 
 shadow of doubt on her face. 
 
 " Curse you ! " I said again to the hat, and then, with a 
 swift, strong sweep of my arm, sent it spinning into a brook. 
 
 Sultan showed his points. He did ten miles in fifty 
 minutes by my watch, accurate timing and counting from 
 one milestone to another. 
 
 At last the broad Trent came in sight and I rattled over 
 Swarkston bridge, only to be pulled up on the other side by 
 a strong post of Highlanders. My luck still held, however, 
 for Donald was amongst them, and, on his explaining who I 
 was, the chief in command let me pass. 
 
 Donald trotted by my side for half a mile to give me all 
 the news. The Prince had lain all night at Derby in the 
 Earl of Exeter's house. There had been many rumours 
 and wranglings among the chiefs at night, a council of war 
 
 '5
 
 226 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 was fixed for this morning, and no one knew what it was 
 all about. There had been great doings overnight in the 
 town, and he, Donald, had stood guard at the Prince's 
 lodging. 
 
 " She dinged 'em a', as I tell't ye she would," he said. 
 " Losh, man, it was a grand sight to see her an' the bonny 
 Maclachlan gliding ower ta flure in ta dancin'. They were 
 like twa gowden eagles gliding in the air ower a ben wi' ta 
 sun shinin' on it. Losh, man, I tell it ye, they're a bonny, 
 bonny pair, Got pless 'em." 
 
 " Good-bye, Donald ! I'll push on. Damn Swift Nicks ! " 
 I cried, and gave Sultan such a dig in the flanks that he shot 
 ahead like an arrow from a bow. I was sorry immediately, 
 but it was more than I could stand. 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 THE COUNCIL AT DERBY 
 
 IT was a relief to get into the chock-full streets of the 
 town, where thinking was impossible and good round 
 cursing indispensable. Even with its aid in clearing a 
 course for him, Sultan tumbled over a brace of Highlanders, 
 two of a swarm of Maclachlans and Macdonalds who were 
 disputing possession of a cutler's shop on the corner of Bag 
 Street. After their native fashion, they immediately sus- 
 pended their quarrel to unite against a common foe, but on a 
 Maclachlan recognizing me as a friend, went at one another 
 again with infinite zest, and I saw them hard at it as I turned 
 into the market-square. 
 
 Our meagre collection of cannon had been packed here 
 with their appendancies, and I was threading my way 
 through them to the far side of the square, where stands 
 Exeter House, and was within a flick of a pebble of it, 
 when the Colonel ran out, bareheaded and eager, and came 
 up to me. 
 
 " You young dog ! What's happened ? " said he.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 227 
 
 " I've lost my hat, sir," I replied. 
 
 " Lost your Damme ! I'll have you court- 
 
 martialled yet before I've done with you. Off you come ! 
 Hello, my precious. Hitch him to the tail of yon wagon 
 and come along. The Prince saw you from the window. 
 Steady, my beauty ! Come along, Noll ! Fancy a town 
 the size of this and not a damned pinch of Strasburg 
 in it ! " 
 
 I hurried after him through the hall and up the stairs. 
 Something big was in hand beyond a doubt, for hall and 
 stairs were thronged with groups of Highland leaders, and 
 in one set, somewhat apart, I saw Murray and Ogilvie. The 
 Colonel took no notice of the curious looks that were cast 
 upon us, particularly me, but, after a word with the chief 
 on duty, ushered me unceremoniously into the presence. 
 
 Charles was taking short turns up and down near the 
 hearth, but stopped as I bowed before him. 
 
 " You've failed me ! " he said bitterly. 
 
 " I have carried out your Royal Highness's commands 
 exactly, though, to my deep regret, not punctually, but 
 every hour I am late has been spent under arrest. In riding 
 on your business, sir, I have ridden up to the foot of the 
 gallows." 
 
 I spoke quietly but crisply, for I would not be girded 
 at unjustly, no, not by a prince. He took my meaning, 
 and answered generously, " As I knew you would, Master 
 Wheatman, if need were." 
 
 The noble panelled room in which we were was set out 
 with a long table and many chairs. At the head of the table 
 a mean-looking man was busily writing. At the window 
 two other men stood in earnest conversation, and these, as 
 I learned later, were the Irishmen, Sir Thomas Sheridan and 
 Colonel O'Sullivan. 
 
 " Leave your dispatch, Mr. Secretary, and come hither. 
 And you, too, gentlemen ! " said Charles. 
 
 So, with the Prince sitting near the fire and the four 
 leaders ranged behind him, I stood and told my tale, cutting 
 out all that was meaningless from their point of view. As I 
 had expected, there was no mistaking its effect on him. I 
 had indeed, come back empty-handed. Yet he pulled
 
 228 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 himself together and said lightly, " Well, gentlemen, if the 
 men of the Midlands are not for me, they are certainly not 
 against me." 
 
 " That is a strong point in your favour, sir," said 
 O'Sullivan. 
 
 " When I've thrashed the Duke and got into London," 
 said Charles, buoyed up at once by any straw of comfort, 
 " they'll be round me like wasps round a honey-pot. I 
 wasn't clear last night, but Master Wheatman has decided 
 me. I ride into London in Highland dress." 
 
 " I applaud the decision of Your Royal Highness," said 
 the foxy secretary. "It is a merited compliment to your 
 brave clansmen." He afterwards ratted and so helped to 
 hang some of the best of them. 
 
 " Now for your dispatch to the Marquis," said Charles, 
 going towards the secretary's papers. " There's time to 
 look at it before Murray and his supports arrive." 
 O'Sullivan walked softly to one of the windows overlooking 
 the square, and we followed him. 
 
 " Faith, Colonel," said he. " The game's up if we go 
 on." 
 
 " It is," said the Colonel, tapping at his box. " Damn 
 this rappee, Oliver. I'd as lief sniff at sawdust." 
 
 " But if the Prince wants to go on, I back him up," 
 added O'Sullivan. 
 
 " So do I," said Sir Thomas. 
 
 " So do I," echoed the Colonel, " but, damme, I shall tell 
 him the precise truth about the military aspect of the situa- 
 tion. One's my duty as a soldier just as much as the other. 
 I haven't the least objection to dying, but be damned if I 
 want my reputation to die with me. The most you can say 
 of rappee, Oliver, is that it's better than nothing." 
 
 " That's just what I've been thinking, sir," said I, with 
 equal gravity, " about my old hat." 
 
 " You're keeping that story for Margaret," you young 
 dog, but she's bound to tell me. I was out of bed till two 
 o'clock this morning, listening to her clatter about getting 
 married quick, and walls of Troy, and ham and eggs. She 
 nearly prated the top of my head off, and did not kiss me 
 good-night till I'd told her for the seventeenth time that
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 229 
 
 there was no need to worry about you. Seventeen times " 
 a vigorous sniff and a merry twinkle " I counted 'em." 
 
 It was obvious nonsense, but it pained me. 
 
 " It was very kind of her, sir," I said at last. 
 
 " Humph ! " said he, and turned to talk with the Irish- 
 men. I kept a sharp look out on the square below, hoping 
 for a glimpse of Margaret, paying no heed to the earnest con- 
 versation buzzing in my ear. Princes and dominions, and 
 marches and battles, were nothing to me as I stood there 
 fighting for mastery over myself. 
 
 I was pulled back from these slippery tracks of thought 
 by the Colonel, who gripped my arm and whispered, " Here 
 they come, Oliver." 
 
 I looked to the door and saw the chiefs filing into the room, 
 led by Murray, with the greater ones immediately behind 
 him and the others in due degree, till the room was fairly 
 crowded. Charles continued his colloguing with Mr. Secre- 
 tary while they disposed themselves according to their rank 
 in council, though the Duke of Perth was pleased to take 
 his stand on the hearth among some of the smaller sort. Sir 
 Thomas Sheridan and Colonel O'Sullivan left us and seated 
 themselves nearer the Prince, and when they had done so, 
 and while there was still some noisy settling down to be 
 done, I whispered to the Colonel, " Oughtn't I to go out 
 now, sir ? " 
 
 " I'm for going on to London," said he, grinning at me 
 with his eyes, though he kept the face of a wooden image. 
 " And first thing we do, Oliver, we'll lead a desperate attack, 
 you and I, on a tobacco-man's. Damme ! There's wagon- 
 loads of Strasburg in London ! " 
 
 " Suppose I start off now, sir, and mark down one or two 
 of the primest." 
 
 " Suppose you stay where you are, lad," he replied. 
 "You're here by rights : first, because the Prince asked 
 ye here and has not dismissed you, and you never leave the 
 presence of royalty till royalty kicks you out ; secondly " 
 pausing to take a pinch of rappee that would have lifted 
 the roof of my head off " because you can't have less sense 
 than some of these chatterers. Council of war ! Mob of 
 parliament-men ! "
 
 230 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 Thus it came about that, thanks to Swift Nicks, I was 
 present at the great council which was to decide the fate of 
 the Stuarts. I pushed behind the Colonel, so that I could 
 now and again steal a peep for Margaret. Just at the last 
 minute, with Charles lifting his eyes up to begin, the door 
 opened again to admit Maclachlan, red with the haste he had 
 been making. It made me grit my teeth to see him, for I 
 knew why he was so hot. He had been fluttering around 
 Margaret, and so had lost count of time. Then I stopped 
 my gritting and started grinning. Much Margaret would 
 think of a man who neglected his soldiering to dangle at her 
 apron-strings ! 
 
 His Royal Highness, after his usual habit, opened the 
 Council by stating his own opinion. 
 
 " I have called you together, gentlemen," he said, " to 
 consider our next step. The question is : Shall we march 
 west, cut the Duke's forces in two, and so beat him, or, shall 
 we take advantage of the fact that we are nearer London 
 than he is, press on, and take possession of the Capital ? 
 I am 'strongly for the second plan." 
 
 " Damme, sir ! Well put ! " said the Colonel under his 
 breath. And indeed it was so well put that the chiefs looked 
 rather hopelessly at one another, for this was by no means 
 the alternative that they had in mind. It was to them, as 
 soon appeared, no choice between south and west that they 
 had come to discuss, but the much more important choice 
 between south and north. For a minute or two there was a 
 muttering of Gaelic, which the Prince did not understand, 
 at any rate, so far as the words were concerned. Then Lord 
 George Murray rose, bowed profoundly to the Prince, and 
 began the case for the chiefs. 
 
 " The Duke of Cumberland," he said, " was that night 
 at Stafford with an army of ten thousand foot and two thou- 
 sand horse. Mr. Wade was coming by hard marches down 
 the east road and could easily get between His Royal High- 
 ness's army and Scotland. They had authentic news that 
 an army was being encamped on the north of London. If, 
 then, they marched to London they would have two armies 
 in their rear and one in front of them, and, high as he rated 
 the valour and prowess of the army he had the honour,
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 231 
 
 nnder His Royal Highness, of commanding, it was vain to 
 suppose that they could defeat three armies each at least 
 twice as numerous as they. None of the advantages on 
 which they had relied when they agreed to enter England 
 had been realized. They had received no accession of 
 strength worth considering from the English Jacobites ; 
 the population were not friendly but at all times surly and 
 neutral, and on all possible occasions openly hostile ; the 
 promised French invasion had not even been attempted. 
 Scotland they had won for His Majesty and could and should 
 keep it for him. To do this required them to return with 
 all speed and with undiminished forces. On all these grounds 
 he, and those for whom he spoke, implored His Royal High- 
 ness to return thither and consolidate his forces for a fresh 
 attempt under more favourable conditions." 
 
 His lordship had spoken calmly and with no outward 
 sign of feeling except that, as he got toward the end of his 
 speech and his drift became open and manifest, his voice 
 gained more and more emphasis as he saw the undisguised 
 impatience and growing anger of Charles. The Prince paid 
 no courteous attention to the arguments of his chief military 
 adviser, but shot eager glances round the ring of faces, and 
 particularly at His Grace of Perth, who was visibly flattered 
 by this mute appeal. The Colonel, who noted all this by-play, 
 was nettled by the Prince's indifference to military authority, 
 and whispered, " Well done, Geordie Murray 1 Right as a 
 trivet ! " 
 
 The speech done, the Prince struck his clenched fist on 
 the table and said, " I am for marching on London." 
 
 It was plain, however, that the chiefs were against him 
 almost to a man." Murray was clearly in the right, and his 
 military skill and experience gave him great authority. As 
 yet there was no open murmuring against the Prince ; nothing 
 but manifest determination not to be won over by his cajoleries 
 or threats. 
 
 " Why should we not go on ? " demanded the Prince 
 passionately. " Here we are, masters of the heart of Eng- 
 land. A quick, bold stroke, and London is ours The game 
 is in our hands." 
 
 " Game ? " cried a rugged, headstrong chief, Macdonald
 
 232 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 of Glencoc. " The game's up, sir, thanks to these beer- 
 swilling English friends of your house, who are Jacobites 
 only round a cosy fire with mugs in their hands." 
 
 " They are only awaiting an earnest of victory," said 
 Charles. 
 
 " Waiting for us to do the work," said Glencoe bitterly, 
 " and then blithe they'll be to hansel the profits. We can 
 gang back to Scotland as quick as we like when we've ance 
 got London for 'em ! " 
 
 There was a growl of assent from the chiefs, but silence 
 fell again when the venerable Tullibardine, too racked with 
 gout to stand, took up the word. 
 
 He spoke as one who had grown old and weary and poor 
 in the service of the exiled House. The conditions of success, 
 he said, had always been the same : the Highland adherents 
 of His Majesty could never hope to be more than the centre 
 around which the real sources of strength, English support 
 and French aid, might gather ; and these had failed now as 
 they had failed in '15. " I dare not," he concluded, " lift 
 my voice to urge men to take risks which I am too feeble to 
 share." 
 
 Charles put up a stout fight, but it was no use. Chief 
 after chief had his say, and then said it again and again. 
 Maclachlan shifted from his place near the door to the corner 
 of the hearth and, after whispering a while with the Duke 
 of Perth, confusedly gave his opinion in favour of going back. 
 
 He was no sort of a speaker, being ill at ease, and plainly 
 occupied in rummaging about in his mind. Having wits, 
 however, he stumbled on a new line of argument. 
 
 " Then, sir," he said, " there is the great port of Glasgow 
 to be taken in. There's more ready wealth there than in 
 any other town in Scotland, and its moneys, public and 
 peculiar, will give you the means of raising a great army for 
 the spring." 
 
 " Any port in a storm," said the Prince, scowling at 
 him. 
 
 Being a Stuart, Charles did not realize that every one of 
 these chiefs was a king-in-little, accustomed to unfettered 
 independence of action. There were curious contrasts in 
 him, for he was as blundering and incapable in dealing with
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 233 
 
 an assembly as he was sure and brilliant in dealing with a 
 man by himself. 
 
 Feeling began to run high. One of the chiefs jerked 
 himself on to his feet and harangued the Prince like a master 
 rating an apprentice. He was almost as long and thin as 
 one of Jane's line-props, and had high, jutting cheek-bones 
 and jaws that snapped on the ends of his sentences like a rat- 
 trap. 
 
 " I'm for gaein' back while the road's open behint us," 
 he said. "If we dinna, and I get back at a', which is 
 dootfu', I shall gae back wi' barely a dozen loons to my tail, 
 an' the Cawmbells, be damned to every man o' the name, 
 will ride on my back for the rest of my days." 
 
 " Ye 're in the right of it, Strowan," said my Lord Ogilvie. 
 " There's too few of us for this work, but a little peat will 
 boil a little pot. Let us gang back and raddle the Glasgow 
 bodies. Ye hae my advice, sir ! " 
 
 Here the Prince, to my mind, made a fatal mistake. He 
 had begun by trying to carry matters merely by the weight 
 of his royal authority. This was ever his plan in council, 
 and as long as things went well it served, since the chiefs, 
 looking forward as they then did to ultimate triumph, were 
 not willing to risk his displeasure by standing out against 
 him. Now that they were in a tight corner this cock would 
 fight no longer, and he made matters worse by appealing to 
 the Irishman, O'Sullivan, for his opinion. He briefly gave 
 it in favour of going on. 
 
 One tale will hold till another's told. O'Sullivan had 
 a great reputation as a master of the irregular mode of 
 fighting, which must be adopted by an army composed, 
 like ours, of untrained men not equipped according to the 
 rules and requirements of soldiership. But my Lord George 
 Murray was ready for him. 
 
 " Great as Colonel O'Sullivan 's reputation is, sir," he 
 said sweetly, " we have with us in Colonel Waynflete another 
 soldier of great distinction. His views would be welcome, 
 sir." 
 
 " Yes, indeed," said the Prince eagerly. 
 
 " For myself, sir," said the Colonel, snuff-box open in 
 hand, for he had been surprised with the rappee between
 
 234 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 his fingers, " I am ready to go on. I came to serve your 
 Royal Highness, and I serve my commander as he chooses, 
 not as I would choose myself. But when you ask me as to 
 the military result of going on, I tell you frankly, as becomes 
 a soldier of experience asked in Council to deliver his 
 opinion, that it is idle to expect this present force to get to 
 London. As you get nearer London, sir, the country becomes 
 of a kind which your army could not successfully operate 
 in. It would be confined to roads lined with hedges and 
 passing through many defendable towns and villages. 
 Your short, powerful charges would be out of the question. 
 The English as a whole fight well, no men better ; we can't 
 rationally expect all of them to run off at a Highland yell, 
 and with the country in their favour and London behind 
 them, a source of constant fresh supplies to them, we should 
 be wiped out in detail. Your Royal Highness wishes to 
 go on, and therefore I am willing to go on, but your Royal 
 Highness cannot capture London with the force at your 
 disposal." 
 
 He finished and took his snuff with zest, seeing that it 
 was still rappee, and handed me the box with great com- 
 posure. 
 
 In all they talked and wrangled for three hours, and I got 
 very tired of it all and spent my time looking through the 
 window for Margaret. There would be no profit in setting 
 down more of what was said. Indeed, no fresh point was 
 raised until the Prince argued vehemently in favour of 
 turning off for Wales, where his adherents were supposed to 
 be very strong. 
 
 This produced a fresh crop of speeches, all on one note 
 the necessity of starting back for Scotland. 
 
 The Duke of Perth had been silent so far. He had stood 
 on the hearth, near the fire, the warmth of which he stood 
 greatly in need of, being slight and weakly. He had turned 
 his eyes from one speaker to another as the debate went on, 
 and had gently rubbed the back of his head against the 
 panelling, as if to stimulate thought. The speech of Colonel 
 Waynflete plainly had a great effect on him, and I could see 
 that he was making up his mind, for he continued the gentle 
 rubbing of his head but took no note of the wrangling and
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 235 
 
 jangling about the Welsh project. The storm lulled, for 
 it had blown itself out. Everything sayable had been said 
 times out of number. 
 
 " I am for marching back at once," he declared in a loud 
 voice. 
 
 I was heartily sorry for the Prince. In his mind's eye 
 he had seen himself in the palace of his fathers with a nation 
 repentant at his feet. He did not know England, no Stuart 
 ever did, or he would have known that the wave of chivalry 
 that had carried him so far was bound to spend itself on the 
 indifferent English as a wave spends itself on the indifferent 
 sands. Yet it was hard to go back, hard to know that he had 
 done so much more than his grandfather in '89 or his father in 
 '15, and done it in vain. His standard was proudly flaunt- 
 ing in the heart of England over the grave of his cause. 
 
 But he died well. " Rather than go back," he cried, " I 
 would wish to be twenty feet under ground ! " 
 
 With a wave of his hand he dismissed the Council. 
 
 " Slip out and look after Sultan," whispered the Colonel. 
 " I am aide-de-camp to the Prince and cannot come. Take 
 him to the " Bald-Faced Stag " in the Irongate, to your right 
 across the Square. You should find Margaret there, and 
 Mr. Freake." 
 
 I was edging out in the tail of the procession when 
 Mr. Secretary, moved thereto by the Prince, sidled up to me, 
 his sly eyes overrunning the outgoing chiefs as he came. 
 He laid his hand on my arm, which gave me the creeps, 
 and said, " His Royal Highness would speak with you, 
 sir." 
 
 He sidled back again with me behind him, wondering 
 how far one fair kick would lift him. I stood stiff and 
 awkward before the Prince, who, however, addressed the 
 Colonel. 
 
 " Your speech was a shrewd blow to me, Colonel. Nay, 
 don't protest ! You did a soldier's duty by me in Council 
 as you will do it in battle. I ask no more." 
 
 " And I shall do no less, sir," said the Colonel. 
 
 " Well, give me a pinch of snuff, and I'll ask your advice 
 on another military point." 
 
 This was the straight way to the Colonel's heart, taking
 
 236 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 snuff and talking soldiership being to him the twin boons of 
 life. 
 
 Charles took his rappee thoughtfully and then said, 
 " What is the best way of dealing with a solid body of the 
 enemy with inferior forces ? " 
 
 " Split 'em up and smash 'em in detail, sir." 
 
 " What d'ye say to that, Tom Sheridan ? " asked Charles. 
 
 " The oracle of Delphi could not have spoken better, 
 sir," replied Sir Thomas. 
 
 " Damn your oracle of Delphi, you old rascal," cried the 
 Prince, with great good-humour. " That's a crumb of the 
 mouldy bread of learning you used to cram down my throat 
 in the old days. It makes Master Wheatman writhe to hear 
 it. The only advantage I ever got out of being a Prince was 
 that old Tom here never dared thrash me for gulping up his 
 rubbish." 
 
 " Master Wheatman knows Latin enough to stock a couple 
 of bishops, sir," said the Colonel. 
 
 " The devil he does ! " said Charles admiringly. " He'll 
 come in handy for writing me a letter to His Holiness." 
 
 " It's not such bad stuff as all that, sir," said I, glad of 
 a chance of saying something, for I had been hurt to the 
 quick by talk that reminded me of how I had quizzed Jack's 
 classics in Old Comfit's entry. 
 
 " To come back to the Colonel's advice," said Charles. 
 " I've split 'em up and now I'm going to smash 'em in detail. 
 We're not going back, sirs, if I can help it. Master Wheat- 
 man," and here he naturally and unaffectedly took on a 
 princely tone " we appoint you our assistant aide-de-camp, 
 and desire your attendance on our person during the day, 
 under the more immediate authority of our excellent friend, 
 Colonel Waynflete." 
 
 At a sign from the Colonel, which I was lucky enough to 
 see the meaning of, I dropped on my knee before the Prince. 
 
 " Thank you, Master Wheatman," said Charles, in his 
 ordinary frank way, when I rose. " You're worth a hundred 
 rats like young Maclachlan." 
 
 I coloured, partly with the praise and partly because I 
 was wondering how many Smite-and-spare-nots I was worth. 
 
 I was then closely questioned about the lie of the land
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 237 
 
 to the south of Stafford and Derby. After a long consulta- 
 tion, the Prince dismissed me, with a gracious invitation to 
 be one of the Royal party at dinner, promising me, with a sly 
 smile, that the company should be to my liking. 
 
 The Colonel and I withdrew. In the corridor he put me 
 in charge of an upper servant of the household, and went to 
 see to Sultan. 
 
 My new acquaintance was an elderly man of a solemn, 
 soapy aspect, set off by a sober black livery and a neat wig. 
 He took me up to a bedroom, and saw to my comfort. 
 
 " William, or whatever it is," I began. 
 
 " William it is, sir," said he. 
 
 " Do I look like an assistant aide-de-camp to a prince ? " 
 
 He took stock of me, from my dirty boots to my bare 
 head, and then said solemnly, " No, sir ! " 
 
 " William," said I, " but that's precisely what I am." 
 
 " Yes, sir," he replied. 
 
 " Therefore this is precisely your opportunity, William." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said he. 
 
 " William," I went on insinuatingly, " I think you could, 
 knowing this house so intimately as you do, make me look 
 something like an assistant aide-de-camp to a prince. It's a 
 tough job, William, but you'll do it. I can see it in your 
 eye. By virtue of the power adherent to the assistant aide- 
 de-camp of a prince, we hereby authorize you to do all things 
 that may be necessary for the accomplishment of our purpose, 
 and, when your task is over, you will, by a curious coinci- 
 dence, find five guineas under yon candlestick. Life, William, 
 is full of coincidences." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " But not as full of guineas, William, as it should be. 
 Set to work ! " 
 
 Instead of going he stood there, gently washing his hands 
 with imaginary soap and water, and finally said, " You will 
 of course, sir, be very angry if I do not do as you bid me." 
 
 " I shall, William," said I, lathering away at my chin. 
 
 " I may take it, sir, that you'll blow my brains out if I 
 don't." 
 
 " Blow your Oh, I see ! Certainly ! " said I, tailing 
 
 off from astonishment into understanding.
 
 238 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 The quiet humour of the man was delightful. I fetched 
 a pistol out of my pocket and added gravely, " William, 
 unless I am, in appearance as well as in fact, a prince's 
 assistant aide-de-camp in half an hour, I'll blow your brains 
 out. Now clear out, while I have a bath ! " 
 
 " Thankee, sir. It'll be all right now. My lord is, I 
 should say, just of a size with your honour." 
 
 William was an artist and fitted me out with the nothing- 
 too-much of exact taste. There were garments by the score 
 that would have made a popinja5' of me, but he knew better, 
 and turned a sober young yeoman into a sober young gentle- 
 men, and there's no harder task, as I have frequently observed 
 since. 
 
 " Sir," said he at length, stepping back a few paces to 
 con me over, "in any other man I should deplore the obstinacy 
 excuse my plainness, sir which declines to wear a wig, 
 but the general result, the tout ensemble, as my lord would 
 put it, is agreeable." 
 
 " William," I replied, " you err through ignorance 
 excuse my plainness, William. The best Wheatman of the 
 Hanyards that ever lived would have burned at the stake 
 rather than wear a wig. I've done most of the other things 
 he would have burned for, but I'll stick by him to this extent 
 that I'll be damned if I'll wear a wig." 
 
 I never have, and it is no small measure due to me that 
 the wearing of wigs is being left to lawyers and doctors, 
 who, I understand, find it pays to look old and old-fashioned. 
 
 " Quite so, sir ! A very proper sentiment," said William, 
 with his eye on the candlestick. " It's family pride that 
 keeps the great families agoing, sir, and they're the back- 
 bone of the Constitution, sir ! " 
 
 After this high sentence, as I was ready to go, he gravely 
 escorted me to the door and bowed me out. I dropped my 
 ear to the keyhole and heard the chink of the guineas. 
 William clearly had a very pretty appreciation of the best 
 means of keeping himself agoing. A suaver, defter rascal I 
 have never set eyes on. 
 
 I had already so much of soldiership as to know that it is 
 well to master the ins and outs and roundabouts of a strange 
 house. If an emergency comes it may be the best guide to
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 239 
 
 action. " Know your ground and win your fight," the 
 Colonel used to say, and it's as true of a house as of a 
 province. So I walked softly and watchfully about, and 
 in doing so had turned sharp to the right to gain a view of 
 the river and the gardens, when I came on the Lady Ogilvie. 
 She was kneeling on a cushioned settle, resting her chin in 
 her hands, and her elbows on the high back of the seat. 
 
 She turned to see who it was. Her face was clouded 
 over, but the sun of her smile broke through in a flash, 
 and she darted joyously at me. 
 
 " It's the incomparable one ! " she cried, bubbling over 
 with merriment. " Nay, I vow, it's the still more incom- 
 parable one. Losh, man, and ye look bonny ! I'm telling 
 it ye, and I've seen more bonny men than you've seen 
 bullocks. Sit down and tell me where you've been and 
 what you've done. Davie says you tell't him I was very, 
 very guid. And so I am," she ended complacently, " and 
 if any man says the differ . . ." 
 
 " He'll do well to keep out of Davie's road and mine," 
 I cut in, as I was building up the cushions into a soft corner 
 for her. 
 
 " You're an unco' guid lad," she said, wriggling into 
 her nest, " an' if it werena for some one I ken I'd gie ye 
 anither kiss." 
 
 I willingly admit that I wished Davie far enough, for 
 she was a very dainty lady, with a mouth like an open 
 rose-bud. 
 
 We had a long talk, for I told her all about my doings 
 with ghost, thieves, thief-catchers, and baby Blount. She 
 enjoyed it to the top of her bent. Then, when I had come 
 to the end of my tale, she sobered all of a sudden, and said, 
 " Oliver, what's going to happen to us ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said I. 
 
 " There's something in the wind I dinna like. Davie's 
 a' for ganging back. We women ought never to have 
 come. Davie can think o' naething but me. As if I mattered 
 a tup's head, the silly gomeril, bless him ! Now there's 
 your Maclachlan. He'd go to London if it was full o' deevils 
 to fetch a stay-lace for Margaret, but he's a' for the home- 
 ward gait too ! "
 
 240 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " The best military opinion is that it is hopeless to go 
 on," said I. 
 
 " And I dinna think it's much better to gae back, 
 laddie. It's a retreat. Ca' it what you like, you can mak' 
 nae ither thing of it, and these Highland bodies, ance they 
 retreat, will break to bits. Naething will keep the main of 
 'em taegither, ance they cross the Highland line again. 
 Sae it's a black look out, Oliver, but I dinna mind ane 
 wee bit. If I'd no been a Jacobite, I'd never hae met my 
 Davie yonder. He's worth it a', is Davie." 
 
 " It's a hard task for any man to be worthy of your 
 ladyship," said I, " but Davie's worthy if any man is." 
 
 " And Davie reckons you're fine," she replied, smiling. 
 " Margaret pit him doon for three dances, and sat in a 
 corner with him through 'em a'. I wonder the incom- 
 parable one's lugs " I knew what she meant because she 
 pinched one " arena burnt off his head. You should 
 hae seen Maclachlan ranting and raving like an auld doited 
 tup 1 " 
 
 "It is pleasant to learn that Mistress Waynflete is so 
 interested in my doings," said I, with as much coolness 
 and aloofness as I could muster. I would at least keep 
 my foolishness on my own side of my teeth. 
 
 " Unco pleasant, I hae nae doot," was her dry comment. 
 And she set her red lips aslant as if she were swallowing 
 vinegar. 
 
 I remembered my new function, and looked at my watch. 
 I had long overrun the hour the Colonel had given me. 
 
 " Your ladyship will pardon me," said I, springing up, 
 " but I'm overdue for duty." 
 
 " Duty ? " 
 
 " Yes. His Royal Highness has appointed me assistant 
 aide-de-camp to himself." 
 
 I spoke with much impressiveness but, to my chagrin, 
 instead of the congratulations that were my due on such 
 an occasion, she looked concerned and almost angry, and 
 cried, " The very deil's in it ! " 
 
 " I am sorry your ladyship is displeased," I said coldly. 
 Scot clings to Scot, and she did not like it. 
 
 " Displeased, ye daft gomeril ! " she retorted. " And
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 241 
 
 I suppose you'll be pleased, and Margaret will shout for 
 joy, if ye get a dirk in your assistant aide-de-camp's ribs 
 ane o' these fine nights. Just understand ance for a', my 
 friend, that a Highlander kills a man wi' as little compunc- 
 tion as an Englishman squashes a beetle. There's nane 
 o' your law-and-order bodies beyont the Highland line." 
 
 " Nothing but common murderers ! " said I hotly. " I 
 have heard much of the virtues of the Highlanders of late, 
 but this surprises me." 
 
 " Hoots ! Murderers ? " she cried. " No such silly 
 Saxon whimsies. They've got as many virtues as any 
 Englisher that ever snivelled prayer and shortened yard- 
 stick. Murderers ! Hoots, my mannie ! Just removers of 
 difficulties ! " 
 
 So she turned it off with a jest in her pretty way, and 
 got up and jigged along the corridor with me after her, 
 longing to jig it with her, but hobbled by my new dignity. 
 I had no clear notion of an assistant aide-de-camp's duties, 
 but felt that they required a certain solemnity of manner 
 inconsistent with her ladyship's grasshopper ways. 
 
 In the end, she dancing and I lumbering along, we came 
 on a cheerful group collected in the corridor below. There 
 was the Prince, the Duke of Perth, the Lord Ogilvie, the 
 two Irishmen, Mr. Secretary, the Colonel, a strange lady or 
 two, and Margaret. 
 
 " I thought your ladyship was lost," said Charles, smiling. 
 
 " On the contrary, sir," she retorted, " I was found." 
 
 " The usual explanation," he commented lightly. 
 
 " A most unusual explanation, sir," she countered deftly, 
 " for Mr. Wheatman has been explaining how it came to 
 pass that he kissed a ghost." 
 
 " I never said any such thing," cried I, vexed to the 
 bone. 
 
 " It wasna necessary," she said airily. 
 
 " Was it the ghost of a lady ? " asked the Duke, who had 
 been greatly amused by the dialogue. 
 
 " The question could only be asked," said Charles, 
 " by one who has not the advantage of knowing Master 
 Wheatman." 
 
 He laid a hand on my arm and drew me nearer. " My 
 16
 
 242 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 lord Duke," he went on, " I present to you the latest ad- 
 dition to my army, Mr. Oliver Wheatman of the Hanyards, 
 the first-fruit, I am convinced, of a rich harvest from the 
 gentry of his shire." 
 
 It was no plan of mine to cry stinking fish to a Prince who 
 had engentried me in such distinguished company. " I'll 
 have two blue stars and a jack in my coat-armour," thought 
 I, as I bowed to the Duke, who made himself singularly 
 graceful. 
 
 There was now a general movement down the corridor, 
 headed by the Prince with one of the unknown ladies on his 
 arm. There was no other formal pairing though Lady 
 Ogilvie deftly snapped up the Duke as he was coming for 
 Margaret, and thus left her to me. 
 
 She let the last pair get a yard or two ahead of us, and 
 then looked at me, her eyes full of laughter, curtsied, and 
 said, " Good morrow, Sir Kiss-the-ghost ! " 
 
 " Good morrow, madam," said I stoutly. 
 
 She put her arm in mine and, as we moved off, whispered 
 mockingly, " Sensible ghost 1 " 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 MASTER FREAKE KNOWS AT LAST 
 
 DINNER was a success from the Prince's point of 
 view. The Duke was completely won over to the 
 idea of our going on, and even the Lord Ogilvie at 
 one time wavered before the Prince's onslaught. The Irish- 
 men were strongly in favour of it, and Mr. Secretary, when 
 thawed by wine, grew expansive over its advantages. I in- 
 cline to think that the rascal had ratted already, and was 
 anxious to get all he could out of the Government by leading 
 the Prince into a trap. Trap it would have been, as Culloden 
 plainly showed. Against English regular soldiers, resolutely 
 led, the Highlanders would work no more miracles. 
 
 So for a space the chatter and laughter went on. Charles
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 243 
 
 was already in St. James's, and the ladies were already 
 queening it in the new Court over the renegade beauties of 
 the old one. Even Margaret caught some of the enthusiasm, 
 so that I whispered to her, " You beat our Kate at counting 
 your unhatched chickens." 
 
 Whereat she sobered all of a sudden, and whispered, 
 " Maybe you are right, Oliver ! " 
 
 " I hope for your sake they are true prophets," I said. 
 " I should dearly like to see you a marchioness before I go 
 back to my farming." 
 
 " That's one of the chickens I've not counted," she said. 
 
 She looked at me very steadily, and then turned and 
 plunged into the stream of conversation flowing around her. 
 
 Her father had steered clear of all awkward topics, taking 
 for granted that we were going on. Charles got less cautious 
 as he got surer, and moreover, as I could not but observe, he 
 was mellowing somewhat under the brandy he was drinking. 
 Princes commonly have no judgment of men, having never 
 the need of noting their humours in order to mould them to 
 their will. So now Charles bluntly attacked the Colonel 
 again on the military aspect of the situation, which was 
 merely butting against a stone wall. 
 
 "You must remember, Colonel," he said, "that my 
 Highlanders have driven the English soldiery before them 
 like sheep. They wiped out an army of them at Gladsmuir 
 in less than fifteen minutes, and only lost thirty men killed in 
 doing it." 
 
 " Sir," said the Colonel, " give me one thousand English 
 soldiers for a week and I'll pit them against any thousand 
 Highlanders you like to bring against 'em." 
 
 " Then it's a good job you're on my side," said Charles. 
 
 " It is indeed, sir," said the Colonel, very quietly, " and 
 under favour, sir, you will be well advised to have your 
 troops exercised in the best ways of charging men who don't 
 mean to run from them. There's no military science 
 wanted to beat men who run away from you as soon as you 
 attack. As I understand it, your Highlander fires his piece 
 from a good distance, throws it away, and then rushes to the 
 attack. If the enemy stands, he catches the bayonet of the 
 man in front of him in his leather shield, where it sticks, and
 
 244 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 so has him at mercy, and through you go like a knife through 
 a cheese." 
 
 " That's just how it's done, Colonel," said Charles merrily. 
 
 " Well, sir, that's just how it wouldn't be done if I was in 
 command against you." 
 
 There was neither eating nor drinking going on now, 
 except that the Prince poured out his third glass of brandy. 
 Everybody was intent on the dialogue. Ogilvie, his hand 
 clasping his wife's under the skirt of the napery, looked 
 so intently at the Colonel that his face was like a figure in a 
 Euclid book. 
 
 " How would you stop it, sir ? " 
 
 It was Mr. Secretary who spoke, for Charles was sipping 
 at his brandy. 
 
 " We're all friends here ? " said the Colonel brusquely. 
 
 " All loyal to the last drop of our blood," replied Mr. 
 Secretary fervently. 
 
 " I dare say," was the Colonel's dry comment, " but it's 
 much more important at times to be loyal to the last wag of 
 your tongue." 
 
 " Then I only answer, as in the presence of God, for my- 
 self," said he piously. 
 
 " Leaving God to look after Mr. Secretary," said Charles, 
 banging his empty glass on the table. " I'll answer for the 
 rest. So get on with your plan, Colonel." 
 
 " His Royal Highness has selected the easier task," 
 whispered Margaret in my ear. 
 
 " Well, sir," began the Colonel, " I should say to my 
 men : ' When the Highlanders charge, take no notice of the 
 man who is coming straight at you. Keep your eye on his 
 left-hand man, who is coming at your right-hand man. Don't 
 fire at him till you can see the whites of his eyes, and if you 
 don't bring him down with the bullet, have at him and thrust 
 your bayonet into his right ribs. There's no buckler there, 
 and his right arm will be up to strike. The man coming at 
 you will be attended to in the same way by your left-hand 
 man.' After a week's practice in that little trick, sir, I should 
 face any charge your Highlanders liked to make, and would 
 bet a thousand guineas to this pinch of rappee poor stuff 
 *s it is on stopping 'em dead in their tracks."
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 245 
 
 " By gad ! and so you would, sir ! " said my Lord Ogilvie 
 
 explosively. 
 
 " It sounds feasible," said old Sir Thomas, " but fortun- 
 ately Colonel Waynflete is with us, and can teach us new 
 tricks." 
 
 " Of course he can," said Charles. " What do you say, 
 Master Wheatman ? You know him." 
 
 " That old poachers make the best gamekeepers, sir," 
 I answered. 
 
 " Nom de chien," cried the Colonel, twirling fiercely round 
 on me. Margaret, who sat between us, laughingly pretended 
 to protect me from him, and he thrust his snuff-box across 
 at me. 
 
 The Prince rose, and, followed by Murray, left the room. 
 We all stood gossiping together. Ogilvie and O' Sullivan 
 talked very earnestly about the Colonel's trick. His Grace 
 of Perth ogled Margaret off towards the window on pretence 
 of showing her some sight of interest in the square. 
 
 " Did they leave him in the lurch ? " twittered a voice 
 mockingly in my ear. It was my lady Ogilvie. 
 
 " It must be nice to be with a duke," said I, very glum and 
 miserable again all of a sudden. 
 
 " It's a great deal nicer to be with a man," she answered. 
 " Come and help me throw crumbs to the pretty wee birdies 
 in the garden." 
 
 In his attempt to ' smash 'em in detail ' the Prince was 
 acute enough to use the Colonel, and condescending enough 
 to use me, as supporters. The unrivalled military skill 
 which the Colonel would devote to the winning of London 
 was dwelt upon until even the Colonel, in no wise inclined 
 to under-estimate it, got restive, and snuffed and pshawed 
 with great vigour. I, of course, was the early, strong-winged 
 swallow that announced the nights of laggards behind. 
 
 There were some dozen chiefs of considerable position 
 in the Prince's army, and he tackled them one by one, and 
 tried to argue them into his way of thinking. Some he sent 
 for to his lodging ; others he visited in theirs a special 
 but wasted mark of distinction. On the whole they would 
 not budge. They were courteous and respectful, for they 
 were gentlemen, and he was their Prince, but their minds
 
 246 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 were made up and they would not surrender their wills to his. 
 Mostly, in their talk, they simply chewed over again the 
 morning's cud. 
 
 Mr. Secretary went off as envoy to fetch the chiefs to 
 Exeter House, where the Prince received them in his little 
 private chamber overlooking the gardens. He would stand, 
 silent and moody, glowering out of the window, with the 
 Colonel and me standing silent and thoughtful behind him. 
 I felt keenly for him, for he was indeed a gracious, likeable 
 young fellow, born to purple poverty and a shadowy prince- 
 dom, and now, as he thought, with the reality of wealth and 
 power snatched out of his grasp. 
 
 " If we go back," said he, turning his eyes on me, so that 
 I saw how life and light had quite gone out of them, " it's all 
 over with my House." 
 
 " I hope not, sir," said I. 
 
 " I know it is," he cried bitterly, almost rudely. " All 
 over with us and all over with me. If we go on, I shall at 
 the worst go to my grave strong and sweet. If we go 
 back " 
 
 He paused and looked moodily out of the window. I 
 think now, as I picture him to myself standing there, that 
 he knew himself well enough to know what was coming. For 
 another picture of him comes to my mind, as I saw him in 
 Rome many years later, and shuddered as I saw him. 
 
 He turned and smiled at me, as one smiles who sips sour 
 wine. 
 
 " If we go back, friend Wheatman, I shall just rot into 
 it." 
 
 He spoke truth. I saw him rotting. 
 
 And then, because he had more stuff in him than any 
 other royal Stuart that ever lived, he turned round, proud 
 and princely, as the door opened and in came Mr. Secretary 
 with Macdonald of Glencoe, a short-horned bull of a 
 man. 
 
 " And when was it," said he, rapping the words out like 
 hammer-strokes on an anvil, " that the Macdonalds got 
 feart ? " 
 
 The Chief pulled up short, hit clean and hard between 
 the eyes.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 247 
 
 " Ye'll never see a feart Macdonald," he said, " if ye live 
 to be as auld as Ben Nevis." 
 
 " Ye're in the wrong, Glencoe," said Charles. " I 
 saw one this morning, and he was frightened of the 
 English." 
 
 "I'll gie ye the lie o' that," roared Glencoe, " if I hae to 
 scrat my way into London wi' ma nails." 
 
 " I'll be glad of the lie from you on those terms," replied 
 Charles calmly, " and you shall ride into London at my right 
 hand while I take my words back." 
 
 The Prince went to a table and filled a silver-gilt tass 
 with brandy. He sipped it and then, handing it to the Chief, 
 said, " We'll share the same glass to-day, Glencoe, as a pledge 
 that we'll share the same victory to-morrow." 
 
 I did not like his brandy-drinking, but he did it well this 
 time. As I have said, he was at his best in dealing with a 
 single man face to face. It is only the rarest and finest 
 spirits that can dominate a crowd. 
 
 At a sign from the Prince the Colonel and I escorted the 
 Chief to the door, bestowing on him, as was due and politic, 
 every courtesy. He looked like a man who, after days of 
 doubt, had newly found himself. 
 
 " We've got him ! " cried Charles gleefully as the door 
 closed behind him. " Now, gentlemen, I crave your attend- 
 ance on a progress round the town. Mr. Wheatman, bear 
 our compliments to my Lord Elcho, and bid him call out some 
 score or so of our guards to escort us." 
 
 We made a gallant show as we walked the streets of 
 Derby in the early grey of that December evening. Ahead 
 of us went a dozen dismounted life-guards to clear the cause- 
 ways. Then followed Mr. Secretary with a brace or two of 
 town notables unwillingly yoked to the task of giving an 
 appearance of local support ; then followed the Prince, be- 
 tween O' Sullivan and the Colonel, with young Clanranald and 
 me at their heels ; and another dozen life-guards in the rear. 
 As we passed along the causeways, a score or so of mounted 
 guards, with Lord Elcho at their head, kept level with us in 
 the roadways. Volleys of slogans greeted us wherever we 
 went, for the town was full to bursting of the clansmen. The 
 townsmen crowded to doors and windows to watch us pass.
 
 248 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 The Prince doffed to them every other yard, but he and all 
 of us were mere curiosities to most of them. 
 
 The progress was stayed at the " White Horse " in Sadler- 
 gate, and the Prince, with us, his immediate attendants, 
 turned into the inn-yard, with its long uneven lines of stables 
 and coach-houses, all packed with Camerons. At the news 
 of the Prince's coming they trooped out, yelling lustily. 
 Some sort of order was formed, and the Prince walked up and 
 down among the swaying, uncouth masses, with a cheery 
 smile on his face, and with now and again a phrase of their 
 own Gaelic on his lips. 
 
 " The men are keen enough," he said to the Colonel 
 apart. " Let us go within and see what mood young Lochiel 
 is in now." 
 
 Lochiel, ' young ' only by way of distinztion from a 
 Lochiel still older, wanted no digging out, for, the news 
 having been carried to him, he ran out bareheaded and 
 breathless. He was, in fact, a middle-aged gentleman, 
 broody and melancholy at times, as these men of the moun- 
 tains are apt to be when they've got brains. At the Council 
 he had been silently set on going back. 
 
 " Your men are in fine fettle, Lochiel," said Charles, " and 
 as keen as their claymores to be at it." 
 
 " They dinnae see the hoodie-craws gathering for the 
 feast," said Lochiel sombrely. 
 
 " They see the battle won and the spoils of victory, after 
 the usual way with the Camerons," replied the Prince. 
 
 " They havenae the gift of far-seeing," said the Chief, 
 gloomily proud of his own prophetic powers. 
 
 Charles started impatiently, and there would have been a 
 wrangle but for the Colonel. 
 
 " Sir," said he, addressing the Prince, " you will forgive 
 an old campaigner for being a stickler for the rules and 
 procedures of military operations. An inn-yard, with 
 soldiery around and townsfolk gaping through doors and 
 windows, is no place for a council of war. The gentleman is 
 pleased to dream, of birds, as I gather. Let him back to 
 the fireside and dream of them in peace." 
 
 Without another word the Prince turned on his heel and 
 strode out of the yard. I attended him at first, but missed
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 249 
 
 the Colonel, and turned back to him, for Lochiel was all a 
 Highlander, seer one minute and savage the next. Indeed, 
 I found him, all his moodiness gone, as mad as a hatter. 
 
 " I'll hae the heart's blood o' ye for this, prince or no 
 prince," he bawled at the Colonel, who, precisely as I ex- 
 pected, was seizing the welcome opportunity of having a 
 pinch of snuff. 
 
 " Good lad ! " said he, holding out the box, as indifferent 
 to the crowding Camerons as if they were sheep. " Make 
 it pigeons next time, Mr. Lochiel. Damme, Oliver, this 
 rappee gets unendurable." 
 
 His coolness took Lochiel off the boil, and he and I passed 
 out without another word into Sadler-gate and hurried after 
 the Prince. We found the progress somewhat ragged, and, 
 as we were only a few yards from the corner of Rotten Row, 
 which forms the side of the square opposite Exeter House, 
 it was, I suppose, hardly worth while to trim it into shape 
 again. In those few yards, however, an incident much more 
 to my liking occurred, for just as we turned round the leading 
 file of the rear of guards, we found that the Prince had again 
 halted, in the light of a shop-window, and this time it was 
 to talk to Margaret, who was standing there with Master 
 Freake. 
 
 It was a large shop with two well-stocked bow-windows. 
 The doorway between them, and half the inwards of the shop, 
 were filled with the shop master, his apprentices, and 
 customers, crowding and craning to get a sight of the Prince. 
 Over the door was a shield-shaped sign, bearing the Derby 
 ram for cognizance, and the legend, " Martin Moyle, Grocer 
 and Italian Warehouseman." I noted it then, because the 
 word ' Italian ' carried me back to Margaret's tirra-lirring, 
 and I note it down now because, having looked at it, my eyes 
 ranged over the heads of the gapers in the doorway to where 
 Maclachlan, on the fringe of the group, was dodging about 
 to find a place where he could see Margaret without being 
 seen by the Prince. 
 
 Master Freake was talking with the Prince as com- 
 posedly as if they had been friends of old standing. We 
 had missed the beginning of their talk, but it was plain that 
 Charles had expected a recruit and was disappointed.
 
 250 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " And why do you stand aside from us both ? " he asked. 
 
 " Sir," said the sedate merchant, " I am not interested in 
 making kings." 
 
 " What then ? " 
 
 " Kingdoms, sir." 
 
 " Kingdoms ! " cried the Prince. 
 
 " Kingdoms ! " reiterated Master Freake, with pride and 
 emphasis. " But for me, and men like me, this country would 
 be a waste not worth fighting for." 
 
 The Prince looked with astonishment at the calm, solid 
 man who made this strange announcement. After a minute's 
 reflection, he said, " Mr. Freake, I would talk with you in 
 private, if you will." 
 
 " With pleasure, sir," replied Master Freake. 
 
 " And, naturally, Mistress Waynflete will not be cruel," 
 continued the Prince, offering his arm. 
 
 Margaret took it, and the procession moved on again. 
 Master Freake linked his arm in mine, and we walked on 
 together. 
 
 " You've had adventures, I hear, since we parted, 
 Oliver." 
 
 " I fell into the claws of poetic justice," I answered, 
 " and, having failed as a real highwayman, nearly hanged 
 as an imaginary one." 
 
 He laughed. " Well, keep out of the sergeant's claws. 
 He's only five miles off with a brace of his dragoons, but 
 little Dot is watching him. The time to deal with him is 
 not yet. Wait till his lordship of Brocton joins him. What 
 do you think of the Prince ? " 
 
 " I would not have believed a prince could be so likeable, 
 sir." 
 
 " I am, and shall remain, a mere observer," he said, " a 
 mere tracker-down of ten per cent on good security, but I 
 don't mind admitting that, prince for prince, I prefer this 
 young gentleman to the fat. snuffy, waddling, little drill- 
 sergeant he's trying to displace." 
 
 " You know the King, sir ! " 
 
 " Well, and I know his weak spot, too, which is more 
 important for our purposes. If His Gracious Majesty went 
 to bed to-night with as many guineas in his pocket as that "
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 251 
 
 he jingled his loose coin vigorously " he'd sleep in his 
 breeches." 
 
 On the way to Exeter House the Prince recovered his 
 high spirits, and even kept us waiting in the hall while he 
 continued some lightsome argument Margaret had led him 
 into. At last he broke it off, laughing. 
 
 " Mr. Freake will think me an idle princeling for this, 
 madam," he said. " For your offence in thus hindering our 
 matters of state we commit you to ward, and straightly 
 charge our loyal subject, Master Wheatman, to hold you 
 safe in keeping till after supper, when we will undertake to 
 show you that our Highland reel can be as graceful as your 
 Italian fandango." 
 
 So, in great good humour, he went off with the Colonel 
 and Master Freake. 
 
 " Your aide-de-camp's commission runs so far, I trust," 
 said Margaret demurely, "as to permit me to choose my 
 own cell." 
 
 " I think that might be allowed, madam," I replied, with 
 answerable gravity, " but of course I must sit outside the 
 door and keep strict watch over you." 
 
 " You would, I suppose, feel surer of me if you sat inside 
 the door ? " 
 
 " Naturally, madam." 
 
 " Then come along ! I must know all that's knowable 
 about that ghost. ' I never said any such thing,' quoth 
 he ! You're the cleverest man with your tongue I ever met, 
 Oliver. And with what a pretty heat he said it ! Just as, 
 beyond a doubt, he did it with that pretty way he has." 
 
 If words were tones, and smiles, and eye-flashes, and 
 lip-curlings, I could tell you not only what Margaret said 
 but how she said it, and how, in saying it, she made mad 
 sweet music ring within me. 
 
 We were out in the square again now, threading our 
 way among people I hardly saw for being so wrapt up in her. 
 
 " Was she a pretty ghost ? " 
 
 " Very," said I decidedly. 
 
 " How old was she ? " 
 
 " Eighteen, or thereabouts." 
 
 " Eighteen ! Oh, dear ! I never dreamed it was as bad
 
 252 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 as that. I think kiss-giving and kissable ghosts over thirteen 
 ought not to be allowed. Eighteen ! It's a clear incitement 
 to suicide ! " 
 
 I was laughing at her whimsical sally when one particular 
 item in the crowd demanded attention, for it obtrusively 
 barred our way. It was Maclachlan, once again hot and red 
 with haste, waving a small package he had in his hand. 
 
 " Ye left me, Mistress Margaret," he said. " I've been 
 searching high and low for ye." 
 
 " And I'm glad you've found me, for I see you've got me 
 the olives. You are indeed kind, Mr. Maclachlan." 
 
 " Ye left me ! " he repeated passionately. 
 
 " That's true," she said lightly. " I forgot all about 
 you till I saw a hand with an obvious bottle of olives dangling 
 from it." 
 
 Now this was not Margaret, or at least it was another 
 strange side of her. With me she had been almost absurdly 
 grateful for such little services as I had rendered. I had 
 got her eggs, as he had got her olives, but I and my eggs 
 had not been received like this. I looked from one to the 
 other curiously. She was cool and smiling, as befitted some 
 small social occasion. He was just as clearly throbbing with 
 passion. He, the Maclachlan, had been neglected, and 
 neglected for me ! I wondered why Margaret did not tell 
 him that the Prince had commanded her company. That 
 should have satisfied even him ; but no, she left him in his 
 error, and merely took the olives out of his hand, saying, 
 " I hope they'll be fresh, though it's hardly to be expected 
 in a little town in the middle of England." 
 
 Maclachlan had paid not the slightest attention to me 
 and, while ready enough to deal with him, I paid none to 
 him, and began to think him somewhat of an ass to be 
 standing in the market-place of Derby airing his passions. 
 Fortunately, perhaps, Lord George Murray, striding by 
 towards Exeter House, caught sight of us and stopped 
 abruptly. 
 
 " Ha' ye made a' right at the bridge yonder, Maclach- 
 lan ? " 
 
 Tho young Chief's face supplied the answer. 
 
 " Ye havenae ! " stormed Murray. " By gad, sir,"
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 253 
 
 lugging out his watch, " if you don't, in two hours from 
 now, report all arrangements made, I'll hae ye shot by a 
 squad of the Manchester ragabushes. Aff wi' ye, ye 
 jawthering young fule ! " 
 
 Maclachlan went off without so much as a bow to 
 Margaret. 
 
 " Have you taken out your commission, sir ? " said 
 Murray to me, snapping the words out as though he would 
 have them shear my head off. 
 
 " I have, my lord," I answered, forestalling the words 
 with a correct military salute. 
 
 " Then what the blazes are you doing here ? " 
 
 " My lord," I answered firmly, " by the direct commission 
 of His Royal Highness, given to me personally, 1 am 
 escorting this lady to jail." 
 
 " Then I'll forgive ye ! " he retorted, and his strong 
 face lost all its anger and found the wraith of a smile. 
 " Dinnae be too hard on the lassie ! She's ane of the right 
 sort." 
 
 He returned my salute, bowed courteously to Margaret, 
 and strode on. 
 
 " Good lad ! " said Margaret, happily mimicking her 
 father. " You shall have some of the olives in a minute 
 or two." 
 
 " Olives seem to me precisely the right thing for us," 
 said I. 
 
 " And why, sir ? " 
 
 It was very curious to me to see how, in her speech to 
 me, she whipped about from the familiar " Oliver " to the 
 stately " Sir." There was always a reason for it, and I 
 would have given much to know it. 
 
 " Your olives come from Italy, and I have been thinking 
 of your Italian count." 
 
 " So have I," she said very soberly, and never said 
 another word till we were safe and quiet in her day-room 
 at the " Bald-Faced Stag." 
 
 For over two hours I had Margaret to myself, and we 
 were as happy and companionable as we had been in Dick 
 Doley's cottage. And at this I marvelled. Our Kate was 
 the only woman I had to judge by, and when our Kate
 
 254 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 got into her very best Sunday gown she got into her tantrums 
 along with it, and poor Jack, what with awe of her finery 
 and anxiety lest he should anger the minx, commonly had 
 a thorny time of it. With Margaret it was just the opposite. 
 When we got in, she excused herself and went off to her 
 own room, coming back, after a weary time, in such a glory 
 of silks and satins that I blinked my eyes before her dazzle- 
 ments. What made it worse was that there was a comb 
 as she called it, though I should in my ignorance have 
 thought it some rich and rare work in filigree belonging 
 to an empress which, owing to the smallness of her mirror 
 and the poor light, she could not get to sit perfectly in its 
 golden cushion, and I was bidden to put it where and as it 
 ought to be. I was a long time over the task, in part because 
 I was really clumsy, but mainly because I was in no hurry. 
 I got it right at last, and even ventured, very craftily and 
 lightly, to kiss it as it lay there. 
 
 " It's quite right now," said I. 
 
 " At last ! I'm afraid it's been a trouble to you. Now, 
 Oliver, open the bottle of olives, and, while we eat them, 
 tell me all about the ghost." 
 
 Many a time in the hard days that came to me later, 
 I refreshed my soul by thinking those happy hours over 
 again. They are part of me, but no part of my story, and 
 I make no record of them here. We had long talks, with 
 long silences between them, as can only happen with very 
 real friends who are company for one another without a 
 clatter of words. 
 
 A't last this golden time came to an end, for in walked 
 the Colonel and Master Freake to supper. 
 
 " I am thankful," said the Colonel to Margaret. " Murray 
 told me you'd been taken to jail." 
 
 " You heard the news with great content, I suppose," 
 said Margaret. 
 
 " I did, because " He stopped to frown into the 
 
 snuff-box. 
 
 " Because of what ? Pray observe, gentlemen, what an 
 affectionate father I have ! " 
 
 " Because he also told me the name of your jailer ! " 
 
 " You don't deserve to have a daughter," declared
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 255 
 
 Margaret, with such a pretence of vehemence that her cheeks, 
 between and beneath her coils of yellow hair, blazed like two 
 poppies in a wheat-shook. 
 
 " I've made up for it by deserving something even better, 
 and that's a good supper. Pull the bell, Oliver ! " 
 
 Arrived in the great chamber at Exeter House, we found 
 Charles making his last stand. Feeling ran riot ; there was 
 little regard for the regentship of the Prince ; true to itself 
 to the end, the Stuart cause was dying in a babel of broken 
 counsels. 
 
 The ladies of the party were collected, uncertain and dis- 
 quieted, on the hearth, where Margaret joined them, while 
 the Colonel and I made our way and stood behind the 
 Prince. 
 
 " His Grace of Perth desires to go on," said Charles. 
 " So does Glencoe. So do my faithful Irish friends. Your 
 men, as you well know, expect to go on. To get them to go 
 back, you must start in the dead of night and lie to them, 
 telling them they are going on. Only you, their chiefs and 
 fathers, want to go back." 
 
 " To hell with the Irish ! " cried one from the back- 
 ground. " They're no' worth the dad of a bonnet." 
 
 " It's no matter to them," said another man by him. 
 " They've neither haid nor maid to lose." 
 
 This fetched O' Sullivan to his feet in a tearing rage. 
 "We've got lives to lose," he cried, "and. by G , we're 
 not afraid to lose 'em ! " 
 
 At this the yelling must have been heard in the square, 
 and the gesticulating and grimacing would have been amusing 
 on a less serious occasion. At last, in a lull in the gale, the 
 Colonel, addressing the Prince, curtly demanded, " Who is 
 the chief military commander of your army, sir ? " 
 
 " My Lord George Murray," answered Charles bitterly. 
 
 " Then it's time your commander commanded. This 
 spells disaster whether we go on or go back." 
 
 " It's the plain truth you're telling, Colonel Waynflete," 
 said Lord Ogilvie loudly. In an undertone I heard him 
 say, " Oot wi' it, Geordie ! " 
 
 When Murray arose, everybody knew the finishing touch
 
 256 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 was to be put to the business, and a strained silence fell on 
 the assembly. 
 
 " I have advised ye to go back, sir," he said, " because, 
 in the complete absence of the support we were led to expect, 
 it is foolish to go on. Your Royal Highness wants to go on, 
 and there's not a man here who does not honour you for your 
 courage. Now, sir, I will go on, and so shall every man here 
 I can command or influence, if those who hae tell't ye behind 
 my back that they think we ought to go on will put their 
 opinion down in writing and subscribe their names to it, 
 here and now. One condition more, sir. That writing, so 
 subscribed, shall be sent by a sure hand direct from this 
 town to His Majesty in Rome, so that he may judge each man 
 justly." 
 
 " I agree," said Charles eagerly. " Pen and paper, Mr. 
 Secretary ! " 
 
 It at once became clear, however, that Murray had taken 
 the measure of the men he had to deal with. 
 
 " Why make flesh of one and fish of another ? " asked 
 O' Sullivan, and old Sir Thomas nodded approval of the 
 question. 
 
 " The decision should be the decision of the Council," 
 said the Duke of Perth. 
 
 " Will ye write your names to it, or will ye not ? " 
 demanded Murray. 
 
 No one spoke. 
 
 " That settles it, sir," said Murray. " But I desire you, 
 Mr. Secretary, to make a note of my offer and its recep- 
 tion." 
 
 " Have your way ! " said Charles, in sullen anger. " But 
 it settles another thing for ye. I call no more councils." 
 
 He turned and strode out of the room. The Stuart 
 cause was in its coffin, and it only remained for us to give 
 it a fair burial. 
 
 When the door closed behind the Prince, the Colonel 
 whispered in my ear, " Slip off and tell Freake ! " 
 
 I did the journey at a lun, and found Master Freake 
 sitting, quietly meditative, but booted and spurred for his 
 journey. 
 
 " Well, Oliver ? "
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 257 
 
 " We go back to-night." 
 
 In five minutes I was standing in the Ironmarket at his 
 grey mare's head. 
 
 " I'm not deserting you, lad," said he, gripping my hand 
 heartily. 
 
 " Of course not, sir. Good-bye, and good luck ! " 
 
 " My love to Margaret. Look out for the sergeant. 
 Good-bye ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 A BROTHER OF THE LAMP 
 
 TWO days afterwards, towards six o'clock on a bitter 
 evening, I rode wearily into Leek. I was having a 
 hard apprenticeship in soldiering under a master who 
 had no idea of sparing either me or himself. For the Colonel 
 had accepted the post of second, under Murray, in command 
 of our rear-guard, and had made it a condition of accept- 
 ance that I should be with him. Some thirty Highlanders, 
 mostly Macdonalds, picked dare-devils, had been mounted 
 and turned into dragooners, and I, thanks to the Colonel, had 
 been made Captain over them. 
 
 " The lad's no experience, but he's got sense," he said to 
 my lord George Murray. 
 
 " I ken him weel aneugh," said his lordship. " He 
 threatened to knock my head off. D'ye ca' that sense, Kit 
 Waynflete ? " 
 
 " Since your head's still on your shoulders," said the 
 Colonel, fumbling for his snuff, "I do. He knocked Mac- 
 lachlan's Donald into a log of timber, and, damme, I hardly 
 saw his hand move." 
 
 " That's only a trick, sir," I protested. 
 
 " Weel, Captain Wheatman," said Murray, " keep your 
 ugly English tricks to y'rsel. Mind ye, colonel or no 
 colonel, I'll break ye first chance ye gie me." 
 
 Maclachan was, I must say, very obliging and compli-
 
 258 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 mentary over my promotion. He gave me Donald to be 
 my sergeant and personal servant, finding him, how I knew 
 not, a horse strong enough to carry him easily. 
 
 " It is ferra guid," said Donald to his chief. " Er shall pe 
 lookit to as if her were ma mither's own son." 
 
 To me, Captain Wheatman, clinking about in the corridor 
 waiting for the Colonel, comes William, suave and confi- 
 dential as ever. 
 
 " Well, William, said I. " Any more coincidences ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir," said he, and began his hand-washing. 
 
 " You'll die a rich man, William." 
 
 " No, sir. This particular coincidence made me the 
 poorer by, I should say," suspending his washing to calculate, 
 " some five shillings." 
 
 " The devil it did ! How was that ? " 
 
 " Your honour's clothes that you left behind, sir, when 
 you were transmuted, as my lord would say were stolen." 
 
 " And you value them at five shillings ! I ought to 
 crack your head for you." 
 
 " Yes, sir. Cast-offs sells very cheap, sir. But the 
 coincidence, sir ! I've not really come to that yet." 
 
 " Go on, William ! You interest me deeply." 
 
 " I found them, sir, at the bottom of the garden, torn to 
 rags, sir ! " 
 
 " And sold 'em for fivepence ! Eh, thrifty William ? " 
 
 " Sixpence, to be exact, sir ! " 
 
 The Colonel rushed me off, but I found time to give the 
 rascal a crown, which put him sixpence in pocket. A servant 
 ought to have his vails, and, besides, William's concern 
 amused me a good crown's worth. 
 
 This was late on in the night after the final decision to 
 go back, and since then I had been scouting miles behind the 
 main body of our rear-guard, so as to make sure that the 
 Duke's horse were not on our track. I had slept by driblets 
 as opportunity offered. Now, my purpose accomplished, 
 I was looking forward to supper and bed, having left a patrol 
 of fresh men some six miles back to watch the southern road. 
 
 There was one thing in my mind, however, that must be 
 attended to first. I must see Mistress Hardy of Hardiwick. 
 My heart ached for her, for I knew how sorely she would feel
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 259 
 
 the retreat of the Prince. Moreover, the clansmen were not 
 likely to discriminate between her and other townsfolk, and 
 I would save her from disturbance. So, jumping off the 
 sorrel, and giving him in charge to one of my men, I started 
 for the little cottage. I was turning the corner out of the 
 square when some one, running lightly behind me, placed a 
 hand on my arm and detained me. It was Margaret. 
 
 " You've no need to trouble, Oliver," she said. " I've 
 kept a room for you at the ' Angel.' ' 
 
 " Thank you," I replied. " You are very kind, madam." 
 
 " Poof ! Come along ! You're so tired that you can 
 hardly keep your eyes open to look at me. Come along, 
 sir ! " She was merrily pulling at my arm as she spoke. 
 " I don't want to be obliged to return you every service, you 
 know, sir ! " 
 
 " No, madam ! Certainly not." 
 
 " No, indeed, sir ! I'm not going to put you to bed, 
 except as the very last resource." 
 
 " Fortunately, madam, I'm a long way from needing 
 that. In a few minutes I shall gladly take advantage of 
 your care for me. First, however, I must see to our old 
 friend to whom the Prince gave the brooch." 
 
 " We'll go together ! " said Margaret, putting her arm 
 in mine. 
 
 The cottage was dark and silent, welcome proof that 
 she was undisturbed. I knocked gently, and, after a short 
 delay, the door opened, and her woman appeared, candle 
 in hand. 
 
 " I knew you'd come, sir," she said simply. " And this 
 is your lady ! Come in ! " 
 
 Candle in hand, she paced ahead of us to the door of the 
 room, and then stood aside, erect and solemn, to let us pass 
 in. I looked at her closely. The worried, anxious look on 
 her comely face had gone, and she was subdued, calm, and 
 happy. 
 
 " Thank God ! " she whispered. " She's at peace ! " 
 
 I stepped ahead of Margaret into the fine old room, with 
 its pleasant memorials of ancientry. There they were, just 
 as I had seen them scutcheon, portrait, glove, and pounce- 
 box. There was no change in them ; they were the abiding
 
 260 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 elements on which a strong soul had kept itself strong. But 
 change there was. At the prie-Dieu, kneeling in a rapture 
 before the Virgin Mother, was a solemn, black-robed priest. 
 A narrow white bed was in the room. Two large candles 
 burned steadily at its head, two at the foot ; and on the 
 bed, the linen turned down to reveal the thin, frail hands 
 crossed below the Prince's brooch, lay the still, white form 
 of our lady of the square. God had taken her to Himself. 
 Death had caught her with a welcoming smile on her face, 
 and, in pity and ruth, had left it there. 
 
 The Hardys of Hardiwick had given their last gift to the 
 cause. 
 
 Tears were streaming down Margaret's cheeks. With 
 shaking hands she removed her hat and, kneeling down at 
 the bedside, clasped her hands in prayer. 
 
 " She talked no end about you, sir," whispered the 
 serving- woman, " and about the beautiful lady with you. 
 That standing in the cold square to see the Prince was the 
 death of her. She would have her bed put down here, sir. 
 She wanted to die here, with the old shield in her eyes, for 
 she was proud of h.er blood, as well she might be." 
 
 " Yes," I whispered back. " She was the last of a great 
 race." 
 
 " Aye, sir. She was that. She was a bit moithered in 
 her mind, dear heart, just afore she went. The last words 
 she said were a prayer for his soul, her sweetheart you 
 know, sir, that she lost sixty years ago, just as I'd heard 
 her pray thousands of times. But, poor thing, she got his 
 name wrong. She called him ' John.' ' 
 
 Choking, I threw myself on my knees beside Margaret, 
 and prayed and fought, and fought and prayed again. Here, 
 before me, I saw Death in the only shape in which it can give 
 no sorrow sinless age that had gently glided into immor- 
 tality ; and, with equal vision, I saw the black passage . . . 
 and the still twisted thing lying there in a patch of gloom 
 . . . my friend, gone in the pride of his youth . . . his life 
 spilt out in anger and agony . . . and by me. Then the 
 innocent hand of her for whom, though all unwittingly, I 
 had done this thing, crept on to my shoulder, and I turned 
 to look at her.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 261 
 
 " Thank God we came, Oliver ! " she whispered. 
 
 Before we could rise, the black-robed priest lifted his 
 tall, gaunt frame slowly from the firie-Dieu. Standing on 
 the opposite side of the bed he raised his hands in blessing. 
 
 " Our sister is with God," he said, his deep voice vibrant 
 with emotion. " My children, you are, as I think, those who 
 were much in her prayers at the last. I know not who you 
 are, but, in her memory and in God's name, I give you in 
 this life His Peace, and in the life to come the assurance of 
 His Everlasting Blessedness. Amen." 
 
 He ceased. Gravely, and in a solemn silence, he knelt 
 again at the prie-Dieu. We rose. First Margaret, and 
 then I, kissed the Prince's brooch and the folded hands, and 
 then stole out of the room. We were too awe-stricken to 
 speak, or even to look at each other, but, as we went, she 
 placed her hand in mine. 
 
 Weary days, full of hard riding and scouting, passed 
 before I saw Margaret again. I was always in the rear, 
 generally far in the rear, while she and the other ladies were, 
 very properly, kept well ahead. She now rode in the calash 
 with Lady Ogilvie, the two being inseparable, and Mac- 
 lachlan was with them. My work was hard and anxious 
 but it kept me from thinking overmuch. I put all my soul 
 into it so that it should. 
 
 " The lad does very well, as I told you he would," said 
 the Colonel to Murray one night when I rode in to make my 
 report. 
 
 " I see no signs of my chance of breaking him," said his 
 lordship grimly, but he would have me sup with him that 
 night, and was very unbending and helpful. 
 
 There is nothing I need say about this stage of the retreat. 
 It was well managed, and is, I am told, a very creditable 
 piece of soldiership. It does not belong to my story but to 
 history, to which I leave it. 
 
 Things did happen, however, that do concern me. The 
 first was laughable though vexatious. This was the manner 
 of it. 
 
 While the Prince was making the stage from Macclesfield 
 to Manchester, and Murray and the Colonel were in force a 
 few miles in his rear, I had to keep the country behind them
 
 262 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 well observed. I had one patrol within sight of Maccles- 
 field, and others stretching out along an edge of upland 
 country running westward to the next main road. I spent 
 the night in a little wayside ale-house, and was having my 
 breakfast next morning when I was disturbed by a succession 
 of yells from without. 
 
 I ran into the yard and there was Donald, the rough head 
 of one of my dragoons in each hand, banging them together, 
 varying his bangs with kicks at any accessible spot, and 
 shrieking at them in Gaelic, while they shrieked back and 
 wriggled to escape. He stopped when he saw me, but still 
 held them by the pow. 
 
 " What's it all about, Donald ? " I asked. 
 
 " The loons ! It's Glencoe 'erself sail hang 'em," he said 
 breathlessly. 
 
 " What for ? Out with it, Donald ! " 
 
 " Yes, you gomeril " shoving one of the men sprawling 
 into the stable " oot wi' it ! Bring your tarn rogues 
 wark 'ere ! " 
 
 The man came sheepishly out with my saddle, cut and 
 ripped and gutted till it wasn't worth a sou. 
 
 Strict and stern inquiry threw little light on the matter. 
 I had my own suspicions, namely, of two licorous raffatags 
 in the so-called Manchester regiment, whom I had hand- 
 somely kicked out of a roadside cottage where they were for 
 behaving after their kind. They had been seen prowling 
 about the curtilage of the ale-house the night before. 
 
 I went back to my breakfast. For a few hours I had to 
 make shift with the saddle of one of my dragoons, but, after 
 a short halt later on, Donald brought out the sorrel with a 
 fine, and nearly new, saddle. 
 
 " Tat's petter," said he. " 'Er sail ride foine now." 
 
 " This cost you a twa-three bawbees, I'll be bound," I 
 remarked. 
 
 Donald grinned intelligently and I made no closer inquiry. 
 The good fellow made me uncomfortable, for he would have 
 slit the throat of the greatest squire along the road to get 
 me a shoe-lace. 
 
 Early next morning his lordship sent me ahead into 
 Manchester with a dispatch for the Prince, who had spent
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 263 
 
 the night there. It was a welcome task, for it would, I hoped, 
 give me at least a sight of Margaret. Instead of this sweet 
 meat, however, I got sour sauce. 
 
 When I got there our army was beginning its onward 
 march, and there were thousands of people about to watch 
 the clansmen fall in, and little disguise they made of their 
 feelings. As it happened, when I rode into the square, 
 Ogilvie's large regiment was lining up, and he left it in charge 
 of his major to come and talk to me. 
 
 " I'm wishing you'd come half an hour ago," he began. 
 " Ishbel would ha' given much to see you, and so wad some 
 one else, I'm thinking." 
 
 " Have the ladies started already ? " I asked, with painful 
 carelessness. 
 
 " Losh, man, Maclachlan has 'em up and away the morn 
 in fine style. He's getting a very attentive chiel is Mac- 
 lachlan, and I wonder ma Ishbel disna like him better than 
 she does. There's too damn few of us to be spitting and 
 sparring among ourselves." 
 
 " This is so, my lord," I said. 
 
 " I'm just plain Davie to ma friends," he said simply. 
 '* I'm no exactly a man after God's ain heart, like my Bible 
 namesake, but I hae no speeritual pride where a guid man's 
 concernit. and it ill becomes men who are in the same boat, 
 and that only a cockle-shell thing, to be swapping off court 
 terms wi' ane anither. They're aff, an' we mun step it out. 
 An' I'm no really a lord." 
 
 " I want the Prince's lodging, Davie," I explained, as we 
 walked on the causeway level with the head of his column. 
 
 " We march past it, an' I'll drop ye there. The young 
 man takes it verra ill. The heart's clean melted oot of him. 
 An' sma' wonder ! See the sour, mum bodies in this town ! 
 When we came down there were bonfires an' bell-ringings, 
 an' cheerings, an' mostly every windie wi' a lit candle, may- 
 be twa-three, in it. The leddies, an' they're nae bad-lookin' 
 lassies either, had bunches o' plaid ribbons in their bosoms 
 an' this I hae from Maclachlan plaid gairters to their 
 stockings." 
 
 In such talk we spent the way to the Prince's lodging, 
 where I charged him to carry my greetings to the ladies. He
 
 264 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 wrung my hand in parting and, his major having halted the 
 regiment, stepped proudly to the head of his men. I stood 
 on the edge of the causeway, drew my sword, and stood at 
 the salute, according to the courtesy of the wars. He re- 
 turned the honour in like soldierly fashion, rapped out a 
 command, and so passed on into the hungry North. It was 
 the last I was to see of Davie, commonly called the Lord 
 Ogilvie. 
 
 To my astonishment the Prince was not yet risen, and it 
 was some time before he came to me in his day-room, where 
 I was awaiting him. I rose and bowed as he entered, and 
 gave him the dispatch. 
 
 " Curse your foul English weather, Captain Wheatman. 
 It's getting into my bones." 
 
 This was, I fancy, only his way of excusing to me the nip 
 of brandy he was pouring out. 
 
 " That's better ! " he said, putting down the empty glass. 
 " I have something to thank France for after all." He 
 laughed at his own poor joke, but there was no ring of merri- 
 ment in his laughter, and added, " Now for what my runaway 
 general has to say." 
 
 He read the letter impatiently and sneeringly. " I 
 suppose Mr. Secretary must write something back," was his 
 comment. " It doesn't matter much what, since we're 
 running away as fast as our legs can carry us. Any fool, or 
 rogue, or Murray can run away." 
 
 He paced up and down the room with long angry strides, 
 muttering words I did not understand. Suddenly he stopped, 
 and turned on me with the smiling, princely face of the greater 
 Charles I knew and liked. 
 
 " Curse me for an ingrate ! I am heartily obliged to you, 
 Captain Wheatman, for your pains. My lord speaks of you 
 in high terms of praise. And I must not keep you. Murray 
 must have his answer. Come with me, and Mr. Secretary 
 shall take it down while I have my breakfast." 
 
 I followed him out and along a passage with doors on 
 either side, outside one of which stood a servant or sentry, 
 who had eyed me furtively on my coming inward. When 
 he saw the Prince, he opened the door and thrust in his head, 
 to announce our visit. He was clumsy, too, and, keeping his
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 265 
 
 head round the edge of the door too long, bumped into the 
 Prince, who rapped out an oath and flung him aside. As I 
 followed Charles in, I caught a glimpse of the back of a man 
 in a heavy mulberry wrap-rascal, guarded with tarnished 
 silver braid at the cuffs and pockets, who was hastily leaving 
 the Secretary's room by an inner door. 
 
 " Ha ! " said Charles sneeringly. " More plots and 
 politics ! If I could be schemed into a crown, you'd be the 
 man to do it." 
 
 " I must be acquent wi' what gaes on in the toun, your 
 Royal Highness, an' ma man yonder's a rare ferret, but I 
 didna think him worthy to be in the presence, sae I just 
 bundled him oot." 
 
 " All your plotting and contrivings will not do you as 
 much good as a glass of brandy. The climate's getting at 
 you." 
 
 Indeed Mr. Secretary was all of a shake, and looked in a 
 scared manner from the Prince to me and back again. 
 
 " It's naething but a little queasiness, such as we elder, 
 bookish men are apt to get by ower-much application. Your 
 Royal Highness is gracious to note my little ailments," said 
 he smoothly. He had recovered already. 
 
 " Try brandy ! " said Charles. " It settles the stomach 
 fine. Well, come and take down a reply to this while I have 
 some breakfast ! " 
 
 The queasiness seemed to return, for Mr. Secretary was 
 slow, captious, and argumentative, though the matter of the 
 dispatch was only as to where the army should halt for a 
 day's rest. At last Preston was decided on, and the dispatch 
 written accordingly. I bowed myself out, jumped on the 
 sorrel, and started for the Stockport road. 
 
 Our rear was closer up than usual this morning. Man- 
 chester, being a considerable town, was not to be cleared of 
 our main of troops until the first column of the rear was in 
 the southern skirts of the town. Outside the Prince's 
 lodging, his escort of life-guards was now drawn up. As I 
 rode along the edge of the market-square the Camerons were 
 massing, and the streets adjacent were seething with clans- 
 men. 
 
 I put the sorrel to it and was soon out in the low open
 
 266 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 country. After cantering a mile or so, I caught sight of 
 two horsemen, well ahead of me, riding south at a round 
 gallop. One of them wore a big mulberry wrap-rascal. 
 It is no uncommon garment to see along a turnpike on a 
 biting December day, but, ten minutes later, after they 
 dropped to a walk to ease their horses up a slope, I saw the 
 silver guarding round the pockets. 
 
 If this were the man I had seen hurrying out of Mr. 
 Secretary's room, a look at him would be worth while, so 
 I spurred after them. The clatter I made had the desired 
 effect. At the top of the slope, wrap-rascal turned round. 
 It was Weir, the Government spy. He squealed to his 
 companion, who looked back in turn. My heart leaped 
 fiercely at the sight of his seamed leathery face and dab-of- 
 putty nose. It was the sergeant of dragoons. 
 
 Down the slope they raced, with me after them full 
 tilt, proud as a peacock to be driving two men headlong 
 before me, and one of them an old campaigner. It was 
 my undoing. The road was lined with straggling hedges, 
 and a long pistol shot ahead, a cross-track cut it. The 
 sergeant was giving orders to the spy as they rode, and 
 at the crossway the sergeant, shouting, " Shoot low ! " 
 turned sharp to the left while the spy made for the right. 
 
 It was a pretty trick, for it put me between two fires. 
 I was on the spy's pistol hand as he turned, and he let fly 
 at me, not out of calculated bravery, as his face plainly 
 showed, but in a flurry of despair. The motive behind a 
 shot, however, does not matter. It's the bullet that counts, 
 and his got me just above the left elbow. I was up in my 
 stirrups, aiming at the sergeant, who was pulling his horse 
 round to be at me. I saw splinters fly from a bough to 
 his right. 
 
 I had not looked to the spy. Now a shot rang out down 
 the lane on his side. It was followed by a piercing shriek, 
 and this by another shot. In between the shots, the 
 serjeant wheeled round, and raced off down the lane for 
 dear life, spurring and flogging like a maniac. It was 
 useless to follow. My rein hand had lost its grip, my arm 
 felt aflame, and blood was already dripping fast from my 
 helpless fingers.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 267 
 
 Looking down the lane, I saw Weir lying in the road, 
 and a strange horseman climbing down from his saddle. 
 I rode up to him. 
 
 " How d'ye do ?" he said affably. " Sorry I could not 
 get the other chap for you, but I meant having Turnditch. 
 The dirty rascal has sent his last lad to the gallows. Faugh ! 
 I could spit on his carrion." 
 
 A glance to the road showed that he was right. The 
 spy's blank, yellow face was turned upwards ; his eyes, 
 with the horror of hell still in them, stared wide-open at 
 the sky. Just above his right eyebrow there was a hole 
 I could have put my finger in. 
 
 " Damn my silly eyes ! " cried the stranger. " You're 
 winged, sir, and badly. It must be seen to at once." 
 
 He helped me down, took off my coat and waistcoat, 
 and turned up my shirt-sleeve, doing all this deftly and 
 almost womanly. 
 
 " Hurrah ! Missed the bone and gone clear through ! 
 Put you right in no time ! Plug down your finger there, 
 sir, while I cut a stick. That's excellent. You won't mind 
 if I keep you while I reload my barkers ? The safe side, 
 you know ! " 
 
 With his handkerchief and my own, and a length of. 
 hazel for a tourniquet, he bound up the wound, and with 
 much skill, for he at once reduced the flow of blood to a 
 mere trickle. While he was busy over me, I took stock of 
 him. 
 
 He was a man of about my own age and height, but 
 slimmer and wirier. His features were rather irregular, 
 but an intelligent, humorous look atoned for this defect, 
 and his bright grey eyes were the quickest I have ever seen. 
 Though an utter stranger, there was a puzzling familiarity 
 about him, and I tried hard to recall which of my acquaintance 
 featured him. His horse, now cropping at the roadside, 
 was a splendid brown blood mare, the best horse, barring 
 Sultan, I had seen for many a day. The last thing I noted 
 was that the man was singularly well dressed. 
 
 " That's patched you up till you can get to a regular 
 doctor. There's a first-class man at Stockport, opposite 
 the west door of the church, Bamford by name. You can't
 
 268 
 
 miss his place, and he'll pocket his fee like a wise man ind 
 ask no questions." 
 
 " You've done very well, sir," said I. " The blood has 
 almost ceased to flow. I'm greatly beholden to you." 
 
 " Say no more ! " he cried earnestly. " It's a boon 
 you've conferred on me, if you only knew it. Nemo repente 
 turpissimus, as we say." 
 
 " Video proboque, as we also say," I countered, smiling. 
 
 " Oddones ! A brother of the lamp ! " he cried, laughing 
 shortly, and suddenly sobering. " I must be on. Sorry to 
 leave you, sir, but I think you're all right. Take care, how- 
 ever. I was touched myself t'other day, and the damned 
 hole in my ribs still bleeds if I exert myself too much." 
 
 " You should surely be in bed, if there's a hole in your 
 ribs." 
 
 " In bed ! " he sniffed. " I took to bed, egad, and nearly 
 got pinched. Now I've no need for exertion. In this gap 
 between the Highlanders, I'm as snug as a flea in a blanket." 
 
 After helping me into my clothes and on to my horse, he 
 strolled up to the dead man. 
 
 " Well, Turnditch," he said, " you know everything now, 
 or nothing." Then, dropping lightly on his knee, he turned 
 gaily to me, and said, " Always plunder the Egyptian, dead 
 or alive." 
 
 He rifled the spy's pockets with the easy indifference of 
 an expert, singing as he turned them out : 
 
 "The priest calls the lawyer a cheat; 
 The lawyer beknaves the d : vine ; 
 And the statesman because he's so great, 
 Thinks his trade is as honest as mine." 
 
 He stopped his singing and, tossing a well-stuffed leather 
 bag up and down in his hand, said, " There's really no 
 objection to virtue when the jade is not her own reward. 
 Chunk ! chunk ! There's alchemy for you ! Half an 
 ounce of lead into half a pound of gold ! " 
 
 He stowed the bag in his pocket, jumped on his mare, 
 and together we walked our horses to the turnpike, where 
 we halted side by side, our horses' heads to their respective 
 destinations.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 269 
 
 " Sir," said I, holding out my hand, " I am greatly in 
 your debt. My name is Oliver Wheatman, of the Hanyards, 
 Staffordshire. May I have the pleasure of learning yours ? " 
 
 He took my hand, looked at me intently, with his grey 
 eyes very thoughtful and steady, and then said quietly, 
 " Samuel Nixon, Bachelor of Arts, sometime Demy of 
 Magdalen College, Oxford." 
 
 " Commonly called ' Swift Nicks,' " I added, smiling. 
 
 " Right first time," he cried gleefully, and shot off like 
 an arrow towards Manchester. 
 
 So Nance Lousely had not got her pinnerfull of guineas 
 after all. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 DONALD 
 
 I GOT my wound in the early forenoon of December the 
 loth. About eight o'clock on the night of the lyth I sat 
 down in a deserted shepherd's hut to the meal Donald 
 had got ready for me. The week had been in one respect a 
 blank, for I had not seen Margaret. In every other respect 
 it had been laborious, strenuous, and exciting, and we had 
 just seen the end of the toughest job so far. We, meaning 
 my dragoons and myself, were on the top of Shap. Some 
 ammunition wagons had broken down on the upward 
 climb, bunging up the road at its stiffest bit and delaying us 
 for hours. His lordship and the Colonel, with the infantry 
 of the rear-guard, were in Shap village a mile or two ahead. 
 The Prince was still farther on, probably in Penrith. 
 
 The delay was dangerous. Our army had rested one full 
 day at Preston and another at Lancaster. Even at Preston 
 the Colonel and I, with my dragoons, had barely ridden out 
 of the town when a strong body of enemy horse rode in from 
 the east, sent by Wade to reinforce the Duke. Our margin 
 of safety was being cut down daily. We should have to fight 
 before long, and I was posted here, on the top of Shap, to 
 see that no surprise was sprung upon us.
 
 270 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 The shieling, as Donald called it, was about a hundred 
 yards past the highest point of the road, where a picket was 
 on the watch. Across the road was a bit of a dip, and here 
 my dragoons were making themselves comfortable round a 
 roaring fire, fuel for which was provided by the smashed-up 
 carcass of a derelict wagon. The country was as bare as a 
 bird's tail, but by a slice of great good luck one of them 
 had shot a stray sheep on the way up, and the air was thick 
 with the smell of singed mutton. 
 
 Here I must say of my dragoons that they were men I 
 loved to command. After twelve days' work of a sort to 
 knock up an elephant they were as fresh as daisies. Donald 
 they all feared, and as Donald, for my behoof, made no bones 
 about telling them how the laddie's nief , sma' as it lookit, 'ad 
 dinged 'im, Donald, oot o' his seven senses, they feared me. 
 I think they even liked me. Anyhow, I never had an ugly 
 look or a glum word from one of them. Some people express 
 surprise at the splendid Highland regiments now, thanks 
 to Mr. Pitt's politic genius, serving in our army. It is no 
 surprise to me who have commanded a body of clansmen for 
 a fortnight in the back-end of a retreat. 
 
 Donald was a very jewel of a man. He was servant, 
 sergeant, nurse, and companion, and unbeatable in all 
 capacities. My wound had given me more trouble than I 
 expected, even though Mr. Bamford had told me that one 
 of the larger arteries was injured. Once or twice since, as 
 occasion served, a doctor had dressed it, but it was Donald's 
 incessant care that did most for it. I still wore my left 
 arm in a sling. 
 
 He had made me a fire of wood and turfs ; given me roast 
 mutton, a slice of cheese sprinkled with oatmeal, and good 
 bread to eat, and a pint of milk laced with whisky to drink. 
 Refinements which he would have scouted for himself in any 
 place, he had taken thought to provide for me in these wilds 
 a pewter plate and a silver beaker, both stolen. The only 
 furnishing in the hut was a squat log, almost the size of a 
 butcher's block, which served as a table. For seat, Donald 
 rigged up half the tail-board of the wagon across two heaps 
 of turfs. He completed his work by producing a tallow candle 
 stuck in a dab of clay by way of candlestick.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 271 
 
 Donald had left me to my food and gone over to the camp 
 to get his own. I made a nourishable meal and then sat 
 down before the fire to smoke and think. 
 
 I had not seen Margaret since Leek, and had not been 
 alone with her since, her hand in mine, we had crept out of the 
 gracious presence of the dead. And I had got into a mood in 
 which I felt that it was well I did not see her. Some day I 
 should have to do without her altogether, and this was a 
 chance of learning how to do it. 
 
 Though I had not seen her, I had heard of her. While 
 our army stayed the day in Lancaster I had been watching 
 the road within sight of the spires of Preston, wondering why 
 the Duke's horse, after their accession of strength, did not 
 come after us. The Marquess of Tiverton has since told me 
 that the Duke had been kept a day at Preston by rumours of 
 a French landing on the south coast. Being far behind, I 
 had ridden through Lancaster without drawing rein, but in 
 the main street a stranger one of us, however, as his white 
 cockade showed had stepped up to my saddle and handed me 
 a letter. It was plainly of a woman's writing, and I burned 
 to think that it was Margaret's hand that had penned the 
 direction to " Oliver Wheatman, Esquire, Captain of Dragoons 
 in the army of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent." I 
 tore it open, and found it was from the Lady Ogilvie. She 
 would understand and forgive if she could ever know how 
 disappointed I was. 
 
 It had been written that morning before leaving the town, 
 and bore traces of hasty composition. It ran as follows : 
 
 " SIR, This is to let ye know, dear Oliver, that I'm sure 
 M. has got a bee in his bonnet. I'm thinking that some one 
 we know has tell't him she will hae no trokings with him in 
 the way he wants. I dinna ken for certain, mark ye, but 
 they were taegither last night, and this morning he's not hang- 
 ing round to pit us in ye carriage, as he ordinarily does, and 
 she is pale and quiet, and says she wishes her father was at 
 hand, and I like it not, dear Oliver. I call you dear Oliver 
 because y'are such a guid laddie, just as I'm a guid girl. 
 Davie tell't me how you stood up and saluted him, and I 
 was glad I'd kissed ye ance upon a time, though it was only
 
 272 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 to plague ye. Remember what I tell't ye about the?^ High- 
 land boddys. M. is like all the rest of 'em, and moreover the 
 Prince made ye his aide-de-camp, and it was to have been 
 him, tho' he didna mind at the first because it left him free 
 to be courting his leddy, but noo he'll hae it rankling in his 
 heart like poison. And keep your eye on that chiel, Donald. 
 He's foster-brother to M., and wad stick his dirk in the Prince 
 himself if M. tell't him to. They're not bad boddys, but 
 that's how they are. She says naething about ye, and that's 
 a guid sign, I'm thinking. I wish ye knew the French instead 
 of that silly Lattin, for then I cud write ye a propper letter 
 wi' nice words in it, but she says ye'll hae to learn Italian 
 first to suit her, but that's only her daffery. Excuse this 
 ill- writ note, for the paper is bad and I'm no sure o' my English 
 when it's guid. Your obedient servant and loving guid friend, 
 
 " ISHBEL OGILVIE " 
 
 I pulled the dab of mud close to my elbow and read it 
 again. In part it was plain enough. That Maclachlan was 
 madly in love with Margaret had become almost a matter of 
 common gossip. My Lord George Murray had hinted at it 
 more than once, as he had at my displacing the young Chief 
 in the Prince's favour. Maclachlan was son and heir to a 
 chief of considerable power and reputation. That he should 
 fall in love with Margaret was natural, and had she fallen in 
 love with him I should not have been surprised. Even after 
 the event, I still say that he was a fine, upstanding man, 
 delightful to look on, and, so far as I knew, worthy of any 
 woman, even of such a one as Margaret. But the heart is 
 master not servant, and cannot be commanded. She loved 
 him not and there was an end of it. 
 
 Next, Lady Ogilvie hinted at danger to me from him. 
 Well, if he wanted a fight, a fight he should have. There's 
 no Englishman living thinks more of Scotsmen than I do, 
 but I have never thought enough of the best Scot breathing 
 to run away from him. As for Donald, unless I was an idiot 
 and he a better actor than Mr. Garrick, he would far sooner 
 have driven his dirk into himself than into me. That matter 
 could rest. There would be no fighting that night, and I 
 never put on my breeches till it's time to get up.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 273 
 
 Where her ladyship was wrong was in supposing, as 
 clearly she did, that Margaret's love affairs interested m& 
 otherwise than as being Margaret's. I loved her, loved her 
 dearly, all the more dearly because hopelessly. I had no 
 qualifications which would enable me to speak my love. At 
 my best nothing but a poor yeoman, I was now not even that, 
 I was a declared rebel in a rebellion that had failed. And 
 if I had had every qualification that rank and wealth could 
 give me, it would still have been the same. Between her and 
 me was the dead body of my friend and the widowed heart 
 of my sister. 
 
 I was meditatively refilling my pipe when I heard Donald's 
 voice without, raised in earnest explanation. 
 
 " An' if I didna think it wass auld Nick comin' for me afore 
 rna reetfu' time, may I never drink anither drap whisky as 
 lang as I live." 
 
 Some one laughed at the explanation, and Donald, 
 still explaining, pushed open the door and mado way for 
 Margaret, who, before I could rise, was glowering over me, 
 in the delightful way she had, girlish pretence just dashed 
 with womanly earnest. 
 
 " I shall never forgive you, nor father, nor Donald, nor 
 anybody else. And you're not to move, sir ! " 
 
 " I'm sorry, madam," said I. 
 
 " You always are. It's your favourite mood. You live 
 on sorrow," she said, pelting me with the terse, sharp sen- 
 tences. Then, for I twitched at her telling me I lived on 
 sorrow, she melted at once, and said, " Oh, Oliver, I'm so 
 sorry. Why did you not send for me and let me nurse 
 it better ? Surely that was my right as well as my 
 duty." 
 
 There was no contenting her till she had seen and dressed 
 my wound. She had brought lint and linen with her, some 
 kind of balsam which nearly made me glad she had not had 
 the daily dressing of my arm, and even a basin and a huge 
 bottle of clear spring water, which were brought in from the 
 calash by Bimbo, Lady Ogilvie's little black coachman. 
 The hut looked like a surgery, and Donald and Bimbo got 
 mixed up in the most laughable way in dodging about to 
 wait on her. 
 18
 
 274 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " Com' oot of it ! " said Donald desperately, unwinding 
 tlie little black out of his plaid for the second time. 
 
 " You one big elephant in pekkaloats ! " he retorted, 
 grinning bare his big white teeth. " You tread on Bimbo, 
 Bimbo go squash." 
 
 " How does it ft. 1 now ? " asked Margaret, when her task 
 was over. 
 
 " I shall be able to clout Donald with it in the morning," 
 I answered. 
 
 " Tat's petter," said he, grinning with delight. " I'm 
 thinkin' I'd suner be dinged wi' 'er again than see 'er hinging 
 there daein' naethin'." 
 
 He took Bimbo off to the camp-fire and left us alone. We 
 wrangled about the seating accommodation of the hut, for 
 the cart-tail was but short, and I wanted her to have it to 
 herself. She flouted the idea, and in the end we shared it, 
 and I minded its shortness no longer. She would fill my pipe 
 for me, and held a burning splinter to the bowl while I got 
 it going. Over her doctoring she had been very pale and 
 quiet. Now she got her colour back in the light and warmth 
 of the fire, but she quietened down again as soon as I was 
 smoking in comfort. 
 
 She told me briefly that she had stayed in Shap to see her 
 father. Lady Ogilvie had insisted on her keeping the calash, 
 so that she could come on in comfort in the morning. From 
 her father she had learned of my wound, and had come on at 
 once to see for herself how I was. She would start back for 
 Shap shortly, where she was to stay the night with her 
 father. 
 
 She told me this and then leaned forward, cupping her 
 chin in her hands, and went quiet again. 
 
 I was glad of her silence, glad that she was hiding her 
 face from me, for I needed to pull myself together. That 
 something had happened was clear, and, whatever it was, 
 it had struck home. In some way of deep concernment 
 there was a new Margaret by my side, but in another way 
 it was the old familiar Margaret as well, for she was wearing 
 mother's long grey domino. She had unclasped it so that it 
 now hung loosely on her, and flung back the hood so that the 
 firelight made lambent flickerings in her hair.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 275 
 
 " I have not seen you for twelve days, "she said at last. 
 
 " No, madam." 
 
 " Have you been neglecting me, sir ? " Just a touch of 
 vigour was in her voice, but she still gazed at the fire. 
 
 " You are a soldier's daughter, not an alderman's," I said 
 quietly, and the retort brought her head round with a jerk. 
 
 " And how does that excuse your neglect ? " 
 
 " By giving you the chance of ascertaining from your 
 father whether my military duties have left me any oppor- 
 tunity of neglecting you," I answered steadily. As usual 
 with me, since I could not woo, I would be master where I 
 could. It was a source of mean delight to me. 
 
 "More logic," she said briefly, and turned to the fire 
 again. 
 
 Apparently she tested the logic in her mind and came to the 
 conclusion that it was sound. She got up, threw some wood 
 on the fire, thrusting me back playfully when I tried to 
 forestall her, and then said merrily, " What do you think 
 dad said to-night ? " 
 
 " It would take hours to guess, I expect, so tell me at 
 once, since I see it hipped you." 
 
 " It did," she said with playful emphasis. " I fear I've 
 not trained him up as fathers should be trained, for he coolly 
 told me that if I had not had the misfortune to be a girl, I 
 might perhaps have turned out as good a lad as you." 
 
 " Misfortune ! " I echoed almost angrily. 
 
 " The exact word," she replied. 
 
 " Misfortune ! To be the most beautiful woman in 
 England, with the world at your feet he calls that a mis- 
 fortune ? " 
 
 I spoke energetically as the occasion demanded, being, 
 moreover, glad of an outlet. Before I had finished, however, 
 she was back in her old position, with her face hidden from 
 me by her hands. She puzzled me more than ever, for, after 
 a long silence, she burst out, " Not my world, Oliver ! " 
 
 The phrase shot up like a spout of lava from some deep 
 centre of molten thought. I pitied and loved her, but I was 
 helpless. To make a diversion I looked at my watch and 
 luckily it was the time when the picket at the top should be 
 changed, so I went to the door and opened it. A splendid
 
 276 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 blare of piping came in from the camp-fire as I did so, and 
 Margaret tripped to the door to listen. 
 
 " Who is it ? " she asked. 
 
 " Donald," said I. "He's one of the great masters of 
 the pipes. I believe in the tale of Amphion and the walls of 
 Thebes now, for this afternoon I saw Donald pipe some 
 broken-down wagons out of the road." 
 
 I went across to see to the change of picket, and when I got 
 back into the hut I saw that the tension was over. I relit 
 my pipe, sat down again at her side, and started a rapid 
 series of questions as to what she had seen and heard during 
 the retreat. Try how I would, nay, try as we would, we 
 did not get back to our old footing. We were afraid of 
 silences, and skipped from topic to topic at breakneck speed. 
 We two who had sauntered together in the sunlight, now 
 stumbled along in a mist. 
 
 At last she said she must be going, and I went out and 
 shouted to Donald to get Bimbo and the calash ready, and 
 four men as an escort. When I got back to her, she arose, 
 somewhat wearily, and I put the domino on fully and fitted 
 the hood round her head. 
 
 " You see I've gone back to the domino, Oliver," she 
 said. 
 
 " It's the very thing for a cold night and a dirty road," 
 I replied cheerfully, stepping in front of her, a couple of 
 paces off, to take my last look at her in the light. 
 
 " I have never met a man who understands so much 
 about women as you do," she said. 
 
 " Thank you, madam," I cried boisterously, and bowed 
 so as to avoid her eyes. But when I was upright again, 
 they caught mine once more, and something in them made 
 me tremble. 
 
 " Or so little," she whispered, and she was pitifully white 
 and miserable. . 
 
 If it had not been for what I saw between us there, on 
 the floor of crazed and trampled mud, I should have flung 
 my arms around her. But I could not step over that. 
 
 " Ta carrish iss ready," cried Donald from the door-sill. 
 
 I packed her snugly in the calash and started two dragoons 
 ahead. Bimbo clucked to his horse and was off. I walked
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 277 
 
 a hundred yards by the side of the carriage till it was time 
 to whistle for the other dragoons to start. Then I made 
 Bimbo pull up. 
 
 The young moon was battling with great stacks of clouds, 
 but just at that moment won a brief victory, and gave me 
 a clear view of Margaret. She put out her hand, which she 
 had not yet gloved, and I took it in mine, bowed my head 
 over it, and kissed it. 
 
 " Good night, Oliver," she whispered. 
 
 " Good night, Margaret," I replied, and whistled shrilly 
 to hide my emotions. Something sent her away with her 
 eyes ashine and her face glorious with a smile. 
 
 The dragoons clattered by, and I stood for a few minutes 
 staring downhill. And so little. Not my world. And so 
 little. Not my world. The words rang in my ears like a 
 peal of bells. Then, by one of the odd tricks the mind 
 plays us, I remembered that I had left the Hanyards for the 
 work's sake, and that my love for Margaret could only be 
 justified to myself the only one who could ever know it 
 by my work. Over the black top there, down in the blacker 
 valley, was the enemy, her enemy, nibbling up the space 
 between us as a rabbit nibbles up a lettuce leaf. I closed 
 my mind to the maddening chime, and started forthright to 
 visit my picket. 
 
 The road was flush with the bare windswept summit. 
 The crumpled ground was matted with coarse grass, almost 
 too poor for sheep-feed. The camp-fire still blazed ; near 
 it a bagpipe crooned ; now and again a horse shook in its 
 harness. The moon whipped out for a moment, and then it 
 was pitch dark again. 
 
 As I stepped it out there was a rush at me from the 
 grass, behind and to my left. Down I dropped full length, 
 and a man shot over me and sprawled in the road, but he 
 was quick and lithe as a cat, and was up before me, for my 
 slung arm disadvantaged me. I could just see his sword 
 poised for a cut as he fairly pounced on me. I dived out- 
 ward as he jumped, and he missed me, but before I could get 
 behind him he was round and at me again like a fury. 1 
 was weaponless and crippled, but if I could once get past 
 his sword, it would be all over with him. The pace vas s-
 
 278 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 hot, and my mind was so bent on the work, that I did not 
 call for aid. At last I tricked him, for in jumping aside I 
 flung my hat hard in his face, and in a flash had my right 
 hand at his throat. He jabbed at me with his left, and I 
 twisted round to his right side, pressing his sword-arm 
 against his body, and digging my fingers into his windpipe. 
 I heard his sword drop, and felt him feeling for a pistol. He 
 was as hard as a nail, and I began to dream that he would get 
 me before I had choked him. 
 
 Donald ended the matter. He, doglike in his fidelity, 
 came striding down the road after me. The moon outpaced 
 the clouds again. He saw us at our death-grips, and came 
 on with a rush and a yell. He drove his dirk into the nape 
 of the man's neck and twisted the blade in its ghastly socket. 
 A sharp, sickening click and the man dropped out of my 
 fingers like a stone. The moon went in again, and hid the 
 evil thing from us. 
 
 " Pe she hurtit ? " asked Donald anxiously. 
 
 " Not a scratch ! " I replied. 
 
 " Tat's goot ! Carry 'er up to the fire," he added to 
 three or four men who had run up on hearing his yell. " She's 
 English and, maybe, she sail hae fine pickins on 'er." 
 
 He stooped down, careless of a dead man as of a dead 
 buck, and stropped his dirk clean and dry on the man's 
 breeches. Then the men, equally indifferent, picked up the 
 body and started off. 
 
 " D'ye ken wha the chiel is ? " asked Donald, as we walked 
 after them. 
 
 " A certain sergeant of dragoons, or one of his men," I 
 answered. 
 
 " He winna fash ye ony more," said he. " Tat's a fine 
 way of mine, when I can get behint a mon. I've killt mony 
 a stot like it, shoost t' keep in the way of it." And he 
 stabbed the air, twisted his wrist, and clicked delightedly. 
 
 The men dumped the body near the fire. One of them 
 stooped down and was for putting his hand in the man's 
 pocket, but drew it back as if he had thrust it by mischance 
 into the flames. 
 
 Then I knew. 
 
 I have heard a mare squeal in a burning stable, but I
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 279 
 
 have never heard agony in sound as I heard it there, on the 
 top of Shap, when Donald flung himself across the dead body 
 of his chief and foster-brother. 
 
 There is one tender memory of this distressing scene. 
 Neither by look, word, nor tone did Donald attach blame or 
 responsibility to me. He recovered himself in a few minutes, 
 and then stood up, and gave a brief command in Gaelic. 
 Four awe-struck men spread a plaid on the ground, placed 
 the dead body on it, and carried it into the hut. Donald, 
 gravely silent, took the pipes from the man who had been 
 playing, and followed them. I bared my head and went 
 after him miserably. 
 
 Madachlan's body lay on the floor of the hut. The eyes 
 were wide open, but on his fine composed face there was no 
 trace of the agony and passion in which he had gone before 
 his God. It was as if, in that last terrible second, some vision 
 of beauty had swept his soul dean. I knelt down and 
 reverently closed the staring eyes. 
 
 " Donald," said I, when I arose, " I would to God that 
 you had killed me instead." 
 
 " It's weird," said he solemnly, " and weird mun hae 
 way." 
 
 I looked at him closely. That he was struck to the heart 
 was plain to see, but, the first uprush of grief over, he had 
 become sober, steadfast, almost business-like, as if he had 
 something great in hand to do, and would be doing it. 
 
 He took the candle, now only the length of my ring- 
 finger, and stuck it on the narrow window-ledge. Again he 
 spoke to the men in Gaelic, and they moved out of the hut 
 Turning to me, he said, " Com in when ta licht gaes oot ! " 
 
 He had the right to be alone with his dead. I wrung his 
 hand and left him. When I looked back from the doorway, 
 he was filling his bag with wind, but stopped to say, " Weird 
 mun hae way." And as he said it he smiled. 
 
 I crossed the road to the edge of the dip. More wood had 
 been piled on the fire, which now blazed cheerfully. Most 
 of the men lay asleep in their plaids, but a few stood guard 
 over the horses, and the men who had carried the body into 
 the hut were squatting on the grass by the roadside. I took 
 my stand near them, and looked and listened.
 
 28o THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 The terrible similarity of Donald's case to mine appalled 
 me. Each of us, in saving another, had struck down in the 
 darkness a man near and dear to him. Two good men and 
 true had gone when the lust of life is sweetest and the will 
 to live strongest. I, who three weeks ago had never seen 
 human life taken, had taken it, and seen it taken, as if men 
 were of no more account than cattle. Between the house- 
 place of the Hanyards and the top of Shap, Death had become 
 my familiar. 
 
 For Maclachlan I' had nothing but pity. He had thought 
 that I stood between him and Margaret. Clearly he had 
 learned of her coming back to me, and the thought had 
 maddened him. He had disguised himself as an English- 
 man and come after me, and this was the end of it. 
 
 These were my thoughts as I watched the flickering flame 
 dropping nearer and nearer to the window-ledge, and listened 
 to the pipes. Donald was inspired. He and the pipes were 
 one. In his hands they became a living thing. What he 
 felt, they felt. They wept as he wept, they gloried as he 
 gloried, they triumphed as he triumphed. 
 
 He began with a murmur of grief that grew into a wail, 
 became a passionate tempest, and died into a prolonged sob. 
 Then he changed his note as memory wandered backward. 
 The music became tenderly reminiscent, subduedly cheerful. 
 They were again boys together at their play, youthful hunt- 
 ers swinging over the mountains after the red deer ; young 
 men with the maidens ; warriors on their first foray. The 
 threads of life ran in and out through the pattern of sounds 
 he was weaving, and the older days of fighting and victories 
 followed as I listened. There was hurrying, marching, 
 charging ; the groan of defeat ; the mad slogan of final 
 victory. 
 
 " He's fechtin' the Macleans noo," cried out one of the 
 men, who had some English, and the others chattered 
 vigorously for a minute in their own Gaelic. 
 
 The candle was now guttering on the window-ledge. 
 These glories over, Donald came hard up against the end of 
 them all the Chief dead at his feet, slain by his own hand. 
 For a time he faltered, playing only in little, melancholy 
 snatches. Then he got surer, and the music began to come
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 281 
 
 in blasts. He was seeing his way, learning what it all meant 
 to him and the Maclachlans. Weird mun hae way. Destiny 
 must work itself out. We children of a day are helpless 
 before it. 
 
 The flame fell to a golden bead as the music grew in 
 strength and purpose. There was a burst of light, a peal 
 of triumph, and the music and the flame went out together. 
 
 Across the road I raced, threw open the door, and rushed 
 in. Everything was dark and still. 
 
 " Donald ! " I called passionately. 
 
 There was no reply. I crept on tip-toe to the fire and 
 kicked the embers into a flame. 
 
 Donald was lying dead across the dead body of his Chief, 
 his dirk buried to the hilt in his own heart. 
 
 At daybreak we buried them side by side in one grave 
 on the top of Shap, their feet pointing northward to their 
 own mountains. When the last clod had been replaced, 
 and a great boulder reverently carried up to mark the spot, 
 I turned, covered my head, and prepared to go, but the 
 men stood on. I looked back. They were loath to go. 
 Something that should be done, had been left undone. 
 
 I divined what they had in mind, turned back, bared my 
 head as they uncovered, and repeated the Lord's Prayer 
 aloud. 
 
 I am thankful to this day to those men whom fools and 
 bigots call savages. They taught me to pray again. 
 
 " Man Captain," said the one who had English, as we 
 walked away in a body, " ye wad mak' a gran' meenister." 
 
 I could not withhold a smile, but before I could reply 
 there was a scattered rattle of shots from the dip. Looking 
 around, I saw a body of enemy horse on the lower hill across 
 the valley to my left. 
 
 We were overtaken. We should have to fight.
 
 282 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 ON the tenth day of my captivity, hope glimmered 
 for the first time. When a man has been penned up 
 in a dull room for ten days, with half-a-hundred- 
 weight of rusty iron shackling his wrists and ankles, with 
 poor food, and little of it at that, to eat, he can extract com- 
 fort out of a trifle. 
 
 In my case the trifle was a smile, her first smile in ten 
 days. So far she had been as sulky as she was shapeless, 
 bringing me my poor meals either without saying a word or, 
 at best, snapping me up and saying that I got far better 
 treatment than a rebel deserved. 
 
 She never told me her name, and I never learned it from 
 any other source, so ' she ' she must remain for me and my 
 tale. She was perhaps thirty, perhaps five feet high, the 
 shape of a black pudding, with stony, rather than ugly, 
 features, and cruel, cat-like eyes. I hated her handsomely 
 till she smiled at me. 
 
 She was, I suppose, my jailer's daughter, or servant, or 
 something of the sort. I never knew, and my ignorance does 
 not matter. She brought me my food, spake or spake not, 
 according to the degree of vileness in her prevailing humour, 
 and went off, leaving me to my thoughts and my painful 
 shamblings round my prison-chamber. 
 
 My ignorance was limitless. I was a prisoner, and my 
 prison was a room in a sizable farm-house with thick stone 
 walls. Where the house was I had no idea other than that it 
 could not be far from the place where I was taken, which, 
 again, could not be far from the town of Penrith. There 
 was one window in my cell, the sill of which was as high 
 from the ground as my chin when standing upright. But I 
 never stood upright, being jammed into a cross made of good, 
 solid iron, foul with rust, and having bracelets at the tips for 
 my ankles and wrists. It kept me a foot short of my full 
 stretch. I could get my eye to the edge of the window and
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 283 
 
 no farther, and then I saw much sky and a little desolate 
 moorland running up into a gauntly-wooded hill country. 
 
 I spent my waking hours thinking of Margaret and the 
 others dreaming of her. Now was my chance to learn to do 
 without her altogether. It would not be for long. I was in 
 the Duke's clutches, and he would not let me go till my head 
 rolled off my shoulders. Had I been free and with her, we 
 should have been farther apart than before by the width 
 of Donald's grave. But here, parted for ever, with the block 
 or the gallows just ahead of me, there was no bar to my 
 lonely love. Time and time again she was so near to me, so 
 vividly present to my imagination, that I stretched out my 
 arms to grasp her. The shackles clanked, and I cursed 
 myself for a fool, but I never cured myself of the habit. 
 
 Because this is the dreariest time of my life, I have 
 plumped right into the middle of it to get it over. And, in- 
 deed, there is little worth the telling between the top of Shap 
 and her smile. I was in jail because I was no soldier. That, 
 apparently, should go without saying, and if I had come to 
 grief over some piece of important soldier-craft, no one would 
 have been surprised and I should not have been to blame. It 
 galls me, however, to have to confess that I was very pro- 
 perly caught, jailed, and ironed for not knowing what a 
 dragoon was. A man ought to know that after being captain 
 of a troop of the best for a fortnight, but I didn't. Being all 
 for logic, the least useful thing in life, I had arrived at the con- 
 clusion that a soldier on horseback is a horse-soldier. So he 
 is, except when he's a dragoon, as I found to my cost. If 
 the bold Turnus or Mr. Pink-of-Propriety JEne&s had hit 
 upon the dragoon idea, I should have known all about it, 
 because it would have been in Virgil. Even the Master has 
 his deficiencies. 
 
 My Lord George Murray elected to fight at Clifton, a 
 defendable place between Shap and Penrith. Just south of 
 the bridge the road ran off the moor into the outskirts of the 
 village, with a stone wall on one side and a high edge on the 
 other. The enclosures on either side were packed with clans- 
 men, and our wings stretched beyond on to the moor, here 
 dissected into poor fields by straggling hedges. 
 
 The Colonel, the happiest man in England that day, had
 
 284 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 posted me across the road, right out on the moor, ready to 
 gallop back at once with news of the enemy's approach. It 
 was now quite dark, except when the moon rode free of the 
 dense blotches of clouds that filled the sky. In one such 
 glimpse of light, I caught sight of several bodies of horse on 
 the moor to the east of the road. The regiment nearest to 
 me wheeled to the left, and trotted obliquely across the road. 
 Its direction made its purpose clear. It was feeling its way 
 across our front to our flank on the west of the village. I 
 rode back at once to report. 
 
 " Good lad ! " said the Colonel, offering me his snuff-box. 
 " It's just what we want 'em to do. Go where there's a 
 bellyful for you ! Fine soldiering that ! The fool duke 
 ought to pound us out into the open with his guns. Hope 
 5'ou'll enjoy your first fight, Oliver ! It's a glorious game. 
 Pity of it is the counters are so costly. Good luck, my dear 
 lad ! " 
 
 I went back to my men whom I had left in the covered 
 way between the wall and the hedge. It being clear that the 
 exact whereabouts of the regiment I had particularly ob- 
 served was of great consequence, I rode out again with a 
 couple of men, at the request of one of the chiefs, to see if I 
 could make out what was happening. There was no trace of 
 it. It should by now have been visible on my right, the 
 moon being out again, but there was not a single trace of it. 
 I could see the line of one hedge and beyond that another. 
 The other regiments had not advanced and this one had dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 Perplexed, I halted my men, pulled the sorrel's head 
 round and cantered slowly towards the nearer hedge. Then 
 I learned that dragoons are horse-soldiers who fight on foot, 
 behind hedges for choice. Half a dozen carbines rang out, 
 the sorrel rolled over, and though I escaped the bullets and 
 jumped clear of my horse, I was pounced on by a body of 
 men and pulled ignobly through the hedge. I did every- 
 thing doable, but they swarmed over me like ants, bore me 
 down by weight of numbers, and sat on me. 
 
 " It's him right enough," I heard one of them say. " Fetch 
 the sergeant ! There's a bit of fat in this, lads ! " 
 
 A minute later, I was hauled on to my feet. A seared
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 285 
 
 face, with a dab-of-putty nose on it, leered delightedly into 
 mine. 
 
 " Got you, by G ! " he said. 
 
 I had been captured by Brocton's dragoons. Now we 
 should come to points. 
 
 Without another word to me, and after a savage in- 
 junction to the men to see I did not escape on peril of their 
 lives, he went off and fetched his lordship. They came 
 running back together as if the greatest event imaginable had 
 happened. 
 
 " Ha ! Master Wheatman," cried my lord very happily, 
 " this is indeed a sight for sore eyes." 
 
 " To be sure," said I, " your lordship's were pretty bad 
 the last time I saw them." 
 
 He made no retort, being indeed too excited to notice 
 pin-pricks, but ordered the sergeant to take me to the rear 
 under a strong guard. " Make sure of him ! " he cried, and 
 added in a lower tone, as I moved off under the combined pull 
 and push of my captors, " Make sure of it." He then went 
 off to his own place in the line. 
 
 The sergeant did not come with us, and I had been tugged 
 nearly to the second hedge before he overtook us. To my 
 astonishment he was carrying my saddle on his head, where, 
 in the dim light, it looked like a gigantic bonnet. He swore 
 at the men for loitering, and on we went to the second hedge. 
 We struck it at a point where there was neither gate nor gap, 
 but the dragoons bashed it down with their carbines and 
 trampled it down with their boots, and so made a way. 
 
 Two of the men were through, and I was being hauled 
 through, when there was a spattering of shots from behind. 
 Over the noise a stentorian voice called out " Claymores ! " 
 It was the Highland warcry, and, with reverberating yells, 
 the clansmen poured out of the nearer enclosure to attack the 
 dragoons lining the hedge. 
 
 The sergeant drew his sword, and, as we raced on again, 
 struck viciously with the flat of it at his men to make them 
 run faster. A queer figure he cut in the moonlight as he 
 raced along, swearing and slashing, with the skirts of the 
 saddle flapping against his lean ribs. At last we got out 
 on a poor road lined with trees and turned south alon^ ii .
 
 286 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 There was urgent need for him to haste now, for Brocton's 
 dragoons had been cut out of their cover and were being 
 pushed back to the hedge we had just left. The sergeant 
 halted a moment to take stock of the situation, and then we 
 hurried on again. Every time he struck a man for lazy 
 running, the man in his turn paid me with punch or kick. 
 After a mile or so, the avenue made an abrupt turn to the 
 east and brought us out on the main road in the rear of the 
 Duke's army. 
 
 The moon showed us a little cottage, standing off from the 
 road in a poor plot of ground. The sergeant led the way up 
 to it, turned the cottager and his family out of it into a shed, 
 and set two men without as sentries. He then made the 
 others strip me to the skin and examined every shred of 
 clothing, ripping out the linings and even cutting my boots 
 to pieces. Finding nothing, he flung me the rags to put on 
 again, and then cut the saddle to pieces and searched that. 
 I knew now why William had so nearly lost his vail and 
 Donald had been obliged to steal me another saddle. The 
 sergeant wanted the letter and papers I had taken from 
 him at the " Ring of Bells." He was so keen that he omitted 
 to pouch any of my belongings, and I retained my money, 
 Donald's watch, and the priceless strip of bloodstained linen. 
 My tuck and pistols were naturally taken from me on my 
 capture. 
 
 " Any luck ? " I asked quizzingly, when he at last gave 
 over the search. 
 
 Too furious or too cautious to reply, he brutally kicked a 
 dragoon whom he caught smiling. 
 
 After a miserable drag of some two hours, a fresh dragoon 
 came with a message, whereon the sergeant conducted me to 
 the presence of the Duke, who was quartered in a large house 
 in the village. The Lord Brocton, the Lord Mark Kerr, and 
 other officers were with him, and also several ladies who would 
 have been more at home in Vauxhall. For a minute or two 
 I was unheeded, and the sergeant could hardly keep himself 
 sufficiently stiff and awkward. His Grace was in the sourest 
 of humours for, as the talk showed, he had been beaten. 
 The claymores had taken the conceit out of him finely. He 
 finished the subject with a string of oaths and then made an
 
 THE YEOMAN -AD VENTURER 287 
 
 unprintable inquiry of Brocton concerning me. The ladies 
 tittered profusely, and the most powdery one vowed that 
 His Grace was a great wag. In further proof of this he 
 snatched a feather near a yard long out of her pompom, and 
 fanned himself with it while he examined me. 
 
 This ducal waggishness gave me time to observe that the 
 sergeant's uneasiness was icy coldness in comparison with 
 his lordship's. He was uncertain of speech ; his face was 
 the colour of pea-soup ; he looked anxiously, almost 
 affrightedly, at me. He grew plainly more comfortable as 
 the Duke failed to get any information out of me beyond the 
 fact that the weather was cold. Finally, when the sergeant 
 was ordered to keep me at his peril till such time as I could 
 be lodged in Carlisle jail, Brocton greedily tossed off a bumper 
 of wine and laughed aloud at some vulgar sally from a lady 
 in a green paduasoy. On leaving I bowed to the Duke. He 
 was a vigorous, able man with the manners and morals of a 
 bull. 
 
 Brocton followed the sergeant out. There was a con- 
 sultation between them of which I heard nothing, but the 
 result was that the sergeant picked up a man as guide who 
 was waiting at the front door, obviously for the purpose, and 
 took me through and beyond the village to a house on the 
 roadside. The place was of fair size, built of rough slabs 
 of stone, and evidently a farm-house. The owner was a 
 lumpish, ungainly fellow, astonishingly bow-legged. He 
 had a little yapping dog, which jumped backwards and for- 
 wards between his knees like a trick-dog through a hoop. 
 
 Preparations had been made for my coming, "by his 
 lordship," as the fanner blabbed out. I was taken upstairs 
 to a back room, ironed, in the way I have described, by the 
 parish constable, who had been prayed in aid for the job, and 
 locked in in the dark. I heard a sentry posted without the 
 door and another beneath the window. It was some con- 
 solation, and I needed all I could get, to know I was so prized. 
 There was a rough bed in the room. I tumbled on it, won- 
 dered for a few minutes what Margaret would be thinking of 
 it all, and then went to sleep. 
 
 Next morning I made her acquaintance to this extent 
 that she brought me a jug of thin ale, a lump of horse-bread.
 
 288 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 and a slab of cheese. Her looks froze my affability, but she 
 does not become important till she smiled, and I need say no 
 more about her at present. 
 
 I saw no other person till nightfall of the third day, when 
 the door opened and the little dog hopped through his accus- 
 tomed gap into the room, and was followed by his master 
 carrying a lighted tallow candle in a rusty iron candlestick. 
 This imported something unusual, as I was not allowed a 
 light, and it turned out to be a visit from my Lord Brocton. 
 He ordered the sentry to follow the farmer downstairs, and 
 examined the door carefully to see if it was closed thoroughly. 
 I sat on the -edge of the bed and hummed a brisk air with a 
 fine pretence of indifference. 
 
 He sat down on the one chair there was, placed his hat on 
 the table, and said, " I am sorry to see you in this place and 
 condition, Mr. Wheatman." 
 
 " Thank you," said I. 
 
 " Of course you know there's only one end of it." 
 
 " Yes," I replied, and hummed a stave of " Lillibullero." 
 
 He leaned forward and said impressively, " The gibbet, 
 Mr. Wheatman ! " 
 
 " Draughty places ! " said I, smiling, as I thought of 
 Nance Lousely. " I can feel the wind whistling through my 
 bones." 
 
 " You are pleased to be facetious, sir. It does credit, I 
 must say, to your nerves." 
 
 " You are pleased to be sympathetic, my lord," I riposted, 
 " whereby you do no credit to my common sense." 
 
 He took short breaths and then reflected a minute or two, 
 during which I clinked a soft tattoo with my iron wristlets, 
 and eyed him joyously. He was there a free lordling, I 
 was here & chained rebel, but I had him set. 
 
 " I have a proposal to make to you, Mr. Wheatman," he 
 said at length. 
 
 " I am indeed honoured, but be careful, my lord ! It's 
 not in the least likely, I fear, to be a proposal which you 
 would like the sentry beneath the window to overhear." 
 
 " You are plain and blunt," he said, leaning forward 
 and speaking in a low tone, " and I will be the same. Return 
 me all the papers you took from my sergeant at the ' Ring of
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 289 
 
 Bells,' and I will see that you escape and get clear of the 
 country." 
 
 " The different personal ends for which you are anxious 
 to turn traitor seem innumerable, my lord ! " 
 
 He met the taunt as if it had been a flip with a straw, 
 and only said, " Is it a bargain ? " 
 
 " It is not," I replied emphatically. 
 
 If his life rather than his lands had depended on the 
 recovery of the letter he could not have been more eager. 
 For a long time he pleaded and wrestled with me ; arguing, 
 bullying, imploring, threatening, turn and turn about, but 
 to no result. I would not go back on my casual word to 
 Master Freake. The letter was important to him, and he 
 would save Margaret and the Colonel, and me too, when 
 the inevitable hour of need should come at last. Money 
 was power, and lands were more than money. Acres meant 
 votes, and with votes at your command you had ministers 
 at your beck. I was sure of Master Freake. Why bother 
 about my lord Brocton ? 
 
 At last he played his last card. " You shall have the 
 Upper Hanyards back again, Master Wheatman," he 
 quavered. 
 
 The rascal earl, his father, had juggled more than a 
 thousand acres of the Hanyards away from my father by 
 some musty process of law and a venal bench. The reference 
 angered me, and I cried loudly, " You shall not have it back 
 at any price ! " 
 
 He looked at the window, and paled as he thought of the 
 sentinel ears without. Then he went off, vomiting curses. 
 
 That day week, she brought me a shepherd's pie for 
 dinner, very well made too, and a mug of ale not wholly 
 unworthy of the name. She put them down, looked at me 
 in a measure womanly, and smiled. It was a root of promise 
 and fruit would follow. Any change would be welcome. 
 I was ragged, dirty, galled, cramped, and bearded with a 
 red stubble. She called me ' Carrots ' in derision. 
 
 I was right. At evening she brought me up a dish of 
 tea, and when I lifted it off the table to take a drink of it, 
 there was beneath it a paper folded letter-fashion. 
 
 I steadied myself, drank my tea with only moderate 
 
 19
 
 290 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 haste, and then cautiously palmed my treasure and walked 
 to the window. Standing with my back to the door, so 
 that the sentry, who was given to popping his head in to 
 have a look at me, could not catch me unawares, I opened 
 the paper. It was a letter. It was written by a woman. 
 The woman was Margaret. 
 
 " You will be taken to-morrow to Carlisle. On the 
 way friends will rescue you and bring you to me. Fear 
 nothing, say nothing, and all will be well. Till to-morrow, 
 dear Oliver. Destroy this. MARG. W." 
 
 It went hard against the grain to destroy this precious 
 missive. I hid in the corner, and kissed it ravenously a 
 hundred times. How straight and true the pen had ploughed 
 its way across the paper ! It was just such writing as I 
 had expected of her, the resolute escription of her sweet, 
 resolute self. Nor was the problem of destroying it easy 
 to solve, since I had no fire, and there was no sure hiding- 
 place accessible to my manacled hands. I mastered the 
 difficulty heroically by eating the letter with my bread 
 and butter. 
 
 It was even harder to pretend to be dull and sluggish 
 with such a whirl of happy thoughts in my mind. I was 
 her " dear Oliver," dear enough to make her risk her own 
 life in saving mine. That she would plan wisely and execute 
 swiftly, there was no shadow of doubt. This time to- 
 morrow we should be together again. 
 
 The night dragged through at last, and the first glimmer 
 of dawn found me alert and hopeful. She brought my usual 
 breakfast at the usual time, and smiled again, but put her 
 finger on her lips to warn me to be silent and careful. 
 
 She went downstairs, and left to myself again, I grew 
 furious to think that Margaret would see me so, a regular 
 wild man of the woods quantum mutatus ab illo Hectare. 
 But my ravings ceased at the sound of preparations without. 
 My room was at the back of the house, but I heard the 
 noise of wheels, and hoof-beats, and the harsh swearing of 
 the sergeant. By and by he came noisily upstairs, burst 
 into my room, and curtly ordered me downstairs.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 291 
 
 Blithely I followed him. Try how I would I could not 
 hide my joy, and, seeing that he noted it, I said in explana- 
 tion, " Anything for a change, sergeant ! " 
 
 " You'll wish yourself back here soon enough, blast 
 ye ! " he growled. " We'll stretch your neck for you till 
 your eyes drop out, you swine ! " 
 
 " You dear, good, Christian soul ! " I simpered. 
 
 For answer, he kicked me savagely, and then bundled 
 me downstairs, out of the house, and into the road. Here 
 a two-horsed coach was in waiting, with two dragoons and 
 a corporal in front and two more behind. One of the rear 
 men was holding a horse, and to my annoyance the sergeant 
 got into the coach after me, bawled out a command, and 
 off our party started. 
 
 I stumbled into a corner and sat huddled up, straining 
 my eyes ahead to catch what was to come. Margaret's 
 information was clearly correct. We took the road north, 
 passed through Penrith without a halt, and out again, still 
 on the turnpike, proof that Carlisle was to be our destination. 
 The city was obviously now in the Duke's power. 
 
 Mile after mile we covered apace, and at every curve and 
 cross-road I peered ahead and around with my heart in my 
 mouth. One point in my favour was the desolate nature 
 of the country, exactly fitted for such a stratagem as was 
 in hand. On the right the gloomy sky was blotted out by 
 jagged masses of gloomier hills. On the left the country 
 varied between flat and upland, but was hardly less uninviting. 
 
 " Where d'ye think y're going ? " asked the sergeant, 
 joggling me with his spurred heel to make me look at him. 
 
 " No idea," said I. 
 
 " Blast ye. I wish y'had," he growled viciously, and I 
 turned away to smile. 
 
 We passed through a village littered with the Duke's 
 baggage wagons and pretty full of soldiery. This chilled 
 my spirit somewhat, for it looked as if we were about to 
 run into the rear of the Royal army. Outside the village, 
 however, we again had the road to ourselves, and a mile 
 farther on dropped to a walk to climb a long slant of road. 
 
 Whenever the road curved my way I had seen the corporal 
 and his two men riding from fifty to a hundred yards
 
 292 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 ahead of us. Not very far up the slope we came on a farm- 
 stead lying flush on the roadside. In the yard were some 
 thirty head of shaggy black cattle, of the northern kind 
 seldom seen in our parts and therefore attractive to a farmer's 
 eye. A farm-hand leaning over the gate had some noisy 
 gossip with the dragoons as they passed, and bawled his 
 news to a group of men sitting at meat under a hovel. It 
 was a poor enough place to support so many men, for the 
 farm wife, who came to her kitchen door to see what the 
 clatter was about, was of no better seeming than a yokel's 
 wife with us. My eyes were on her curiously when the man 
 on the gate skipped off and flung it open right across the 
 muzzles of our horses. 
 
 In the tick of a clock the whole scene changed. The 
 men under the hovel rushed out, fell on the cattle, thrashed 
 them mercilessly with great battoons, yelled at them like 
 maniacs, and drove them in a shoving, bellowing, maddened 
 mass into the road, which here had a stone wall on the side 
 opposite the farm. When the torrent was fairly going, two 
 of the supposed yokels snatched up carbines, climbed on to 
 the hovel, and opened fire on the dragoons in our rear. 
 
 The master hand of the Colonel was in this beyond a 
 doubt. With a loud curse, the sergeant, who was on the 
 side away from the farm, opened the door and was for 
 leaping out. He bethought himself and half turned, one 
 hand on the door and one foot on the step, to look an evil 
 inquiry at me. That half-turn was his undoing. Part of 
 the living, struggling torrent of cattle was shoved round 
 our way and came sweeping by. One beast brushed the 
 door open even as he glared at me and tumbled him out- 
 wards. As he twisted in his fall another drove her sharp 
 horns clean into him, and shook and twirled him off again 
 like a terrier playing with a rat. The rearguard turned tail 
 and fled. The vanguard had simply been swept off the 
 scene, and I saw them spurring up the slope with the cattle 
 surging after them. The plan had been thought out to a 
 nicety and had worked to perfection. I was free, free for 
 Margaret. I sat down again dizzied and happy. 
 
 My rescuers took no notice of me but ran down the road 
 n a body and stood round the sergeant. After some excited
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 293 
 
 talk they carried him back, called on me to aid, and rammed 
 him into the coach, where he lay huddled on the seat in front 
 of me. Without so much as a word to me, the commander 
 pulled our driver off the box, ordered a man up in his place, 
 climbed after him, and said briefly, " Go like the devil ! " 
 
 The carriage turned up a rough lane which ran eastward 
 out of the high road opposite the farm, leaving most of my 
 rescuers standing uncertain in a group. The driver cut his 
 horses savagely with his whip, and we went at a hard gallop. 
 The jolting tumbled me about in the coach, and I had hard 
 work, shackled as I was, to keep the sergeant on the seat. 
 He was still alive, though so hideously injured that death 
 could only be a question of minutes. Where we were going 
 and why they were carrying him along with us, were questions 
 it was useless to bother about. Margaret would explain 
 everything when we met. I could make little of the men 
 who had rescued me. They were clearly not farm-hands, 
 for they were well armed, the guns I had seen looked to me 
 to be military carbines, and they had carried through their 
 business briskly and intelligently, 
 
 I heard the men on the box talking, but their speech was 
 only about the road and the speed. The country got rougher 
 and wilder ; the distant hills were losing their clear-cut, 
 rolling outlines, and becoming neighbours and obstacles. 
 The horses were thrashed unmercifully, but at times even the 
 well-plied whip could get no more than a crawl out of them. 
 
 The sergeant's end was at hand. He rallied, as men 
 commonly do before they put foot in the black river, and 
 looked at me unrecognizingly. He closed his eyes again, and 
 began to writhe and mutter strange words. Suddenly he 
 cried plainly, " Curse the swine ! Another wedge, ye damned 
 chicken-heart ! " He looked at me again, and this time 
 made out who I was, and cursed loathsomely in his dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 " D'ye know where y're going ? " he ended, leering 
 wickedly. 
 
 " No," said I. 
 
 " Blast ye ! I wish ye did ! " He gurgled this almost 
 jocosely, as if it were a pet bit of humour. 
 
 " Do you know where you are going ? " I asked solemnly.
 
 294 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " To hell," he cried, and, after a spout of blood that 
 spattered me as I leaned over him, went. 
 
 The carriage stopped and, before I could rise to see why, 
 the door was opened and some one without said politely, 
 " This is indeed a pleasure, Master Wheatman 1 " 
 
 It was my lord Brocton. 
 
 
 
 It would be foolish to pretend that I was not bitten to the 
 bone, and I can only hope that I did not give outward ex- 
 pression to a tithe of the chagrin and dismay that possessed 
 me. Being commanded to do so, I got out of the coach 
 without a word and looked around. 
 
 The rough road along which we had been travelling ran 
 on through a slit in the hills. Where we stood a bridle-path 
 parted from it at a sharp angle and made its way over the 
 lower skirts of the hill country. It was a desolate, dreary 
 spot where, as I suspected, the king's writ ran not and where, 
 therefore, a man might be done to death with all conveniency. 
 Master Freake would be useless to me now, and my chiefest 
 enemy had me at his will. 
 
 There was no delay. A long cloak was put over me, so 
 disposed as to hide my fetters, and I was lifted on a spare 
 horse led by one of the new-comers. The skill with which the 
 affair had been planned was shown by the fact that this 
 horse, to accommodate my shackled legs, had been saddled 
 as for a lady. 
 
 " You know exactly what to do ? " asked his lordship of 
 the men on the coach. 
 
 " Yes, my lord," said one of them, " but what about " 
 
 He finished the sentence by a jerk of his thumb towards the 
 dead sergeant. 
 
 " Leave him there ! Egad, Master Wheatman, is not that 
 a touch of the real artist ? " 
 
 " The key of these things is in his breeches' pocket," said 
 I, speaking for the first time, and waggling my fetters as I 
 did so. 
 
 " Get it out, Tomlins ! " 
 
 The man who had asked the question climbed down and 
 obeyed the order with the callousness of a dog nosing a dead 
 rabbit. Then our parties separated. The coach continued
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 295 
 
 along the main road, if so it may be called, and we took to the 
 track. I looked curiously after the coach, wondering where 
 it was bound, and with what object. 
 
 " More art," said his lordship. " A coach is a seeable, 
 trackable thing, and it will throw everybody off the scent. 
 I'm glad the ruffian's dead. He was overmuch wise in my 
 affairs." 
 
 As we rode on into the interminable wastes, he rallied 
 me gleefully, but soon tired of my moroseness. 
 
 " His arrival will make an affecting picture," he said 
 mockingly to his men. He was feverishly excited, and must 
 boast to some one. " No pliant damsel to rush into his 
 longing arms ! He is to be embraced though, my masters, 
 if need be." 
 
 What this obscure threat might portend, I could not see, 
 but it chimed in with the delirious cruelty of the dead ser- 
 geant. Threats for the future mattered not, the present 
 being so unendurable. A man in Brocton's position must be 
 hard put to it to turn traitor in this strange fashion. He had 
 " rescued " me with his own men, and, lord or no lord, he 
 would hang for it were it once known to a lover of the gibbet 
 like the Duke's Grace of Cumberland. What on earth was 
 the letter about ? Master Freake had definitely said lands, 
 and therefore lands it must be, though nothing less than 
 the whole Ridgeley estates could be in question. The 
 thousand and more acres of the Upper Hanyards, sweet 
 meadows stretching a mile along the river and a sitatch of the 
 chase at its wildest and loveliest, the prize that had fallen 
 to the rascal earl in the great lawsuit, had been promised me 
 as readily as a pinch of snuff. I gloated over the revenge I was 
 winning for my race, a race rooted in those darling Hanyards 
 a century before the Ridgeleys were heard of, for the first 
 earl, the grandfather of the old rogue, started as an obscure 
 pimp to Charles the Second, and was enriched and ennobled 
 for his assiduity. 
 
 But no familiary pride could cheer me for long. The 
 dead landscape around chilled me. The chiefest misery 
 was to remember the hope with which I had started that 
 morning. Margaret was the fancied end of my journey, 
 and the real end was this ! I had to bite my lips till I felt
 
 296 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 the trickle of blood in the stubble on my chin to keep back 
 unmanly revilings. 
 
 At last we came out on what was by comparison a made 
 road, and now his lordship grew plainly anxious and haggard. 
 We rode madly along it, so that, riding shackled and woman- 
 fashion, I had hard work to keep my seat. Brocton's head 
 was incessantly on the turn to see if we were observed, but 
 his luck was absolute. We saw no one on the road, and, 
 after a hard stretch, we turned up a gully to our left and were 
 once more buried among the hills. 
 
 After much turning and twisting we came in sight of a 
 small house of grey stone which, from its appearance and 
 situation, I judged to be some gentleman's shooting lodge. 
 We cut across the valley, on one slope of which it stood, and 
 I caught a glimpse of cottage roofs beyond it. We worked 
 round to the rear of the house, and, in a favouring clump of 
 trees, his lordship called a halt. The horses were tethered, 
 and I was lifted down, and the rings round my ankles were 
 unlocked. The mer took one each, and carried their carbines 
 in their free hands. Brocton drew his rapier, and said, 
 " Forward ! Make a sound, show the slightest sign of resist- 
 ance, and I run you through." 
 
 There was no sense in disobeying, and I accommodated 
 myself to his design, which was clearly to get into the house 
 unobserved from without. In this he was successful, or at 
 any rate I saw no one during our crawl from one point of 
 vantage to another up to the back entrance. Now his 
 lordship skipped gaily from behind me and opened the door. 
 He stepped softly in, and I was pushed after him by his 
 dragoons. 
 
 " ' Friends will rescue you and bring you to me,' " he 
 quoted, jeering me. " There's no Margaret for you, Farmer 
 Wheatman. I shall have her yet ! " Then, beast as he 
 was, while the men kept me back, nearly tearing my arms 
 out of their sockets, he stuck the point of his rapier over my 
 heart and babbled half-delirious beastliness. 
 
 We were in a big, bare kitchen, the other door of which was 
 closed. There was no sign of anyone about, and Brocton, 
 still with his sword ready for me, bawled out, " Where are 
 you, you old hag ? "
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 297 
 
 The door opened at once. Brocton dropped his sword 
 in his fright and I clapped my foot on it. The two men 
 fled like rabbits. Familiar as the picture is to my mind, 
 it is hard to find words to fit this crowning moment of my 
 adventures. 
 
 Margaret walked into the room. 
 
 For a second she was minded to rush at me, but thought 
 better of it, and walked up to his lordship. She towered 
 over his limp, cringing figure, and said coldly, " You are 
 too poor a cur to be struck by a woman or I would strike 
 you." 
 
 She was not alone. Master Freake was now wringing 
 my shackled hands delightedly, and a little, deft man, whom 
 I knew on sight to be Dot Gibson, was searching his un- 
 resisting lordship's pockets for the key of the irons. A minute 
 later he banged them on the floor and said, " And how do you 
 find yourself, sir ? " 
 
 There's no more to be said about Brocton. He was as 
 good as dead for the remainder of the business, and no one 
 heeded him any more than if he had been a loathsome 
 insect that a man's foot had trodden on. And what killed 
 him was the presence of a third man, a perfect stranger to 
 me. He was an old-looking rather than an old man, with 
 rheumy eyes that looked through narrow slits, and a big 
 unshapely nose ; the skin of his face was brown and crinkled 
 like a dried-up bladder ; his whole appearance as a man was 
 mean and paltry. What distinction he had was given him 
 by gorgeous clothing and the attendance of a pompous ass 
 in a flaming livery. Yet Brocton dared not look at him 
 again, as he shuffled forward on his man's ann to speak to 
 Master Freake. 
 
 " Mr. Freake," he piped, laying an imploring hand on the 
 merchant's arm, " you will not be too hard on my foolish 
 son ? " 
 
 It was the old rascal Earl of Ridgeley. I had not seen 
 him since the trial, when I was but a lad. In the meantime 
 vice had eaten out of him such manliness as had ever been in 
 him. Rascaldom was still stamped on him, but he was now 
 in a state of abject terror. He and his son were indeed, as 
 Jane puts it to this day, two to a pair.
 
 298 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " Your lordships will be pleased to wait on me in the room 
 yonder," said Master Freake, in his grave, decisive way, 
 " and I will tell you my will on the matter." 
 
 He bowed ironically towards the door. Their unlordly 
 lordships went off together, and he followed and closed the 
 door behind him. Dot sensibly hustled off the lackey, and 
 so we were alone together. 
 
 As ever, I had my full reward. She turned to me, took 
 my hands in hers, and whispered, " My splendid Oliver ! " 
 
 " What, madam ? " said I, laughing lest I should do 
 otherwise and most unbecomingly. " In a red beard ? " 
 
 " You look like a Cossack ! " she declared, laughing in 
 her turn. 
 
 So, in the way we had, we kept ourselves at arm's length 
 from each other and dropped at once into our old footing. 
 
 Then, bit by bit, and unwillingly, and mainly in answers 
 to my questions, she told a tale that made my heart bound 
 within me. This is the mere skeleton of it, for I have no skill 
 to give body and soul to such devotion. 
 
 The Colonel brought the news of my capture by Brocton, 
 pieced together from the stories of my men, who got back 
 unhurt, and of one of Brocton's dragoons who was luckily 
 taken prisoner in order to be questioned. Margaret had 
 immediately started on horseback for London, with one 
 English servant in attendance, going by Appleby to evade 
 the Duke's army, and across the mountains to Darlington. 
 There she had travelled flying post down the great north 
 road, getting to London in five days thirteen hours after her 
 start from Penrith. 
 
 Master Freake had started back with her within five hours 
 of her arrival. They travelled post through Leicester and 
 Derby, and then on over ground that was familiar. No 
 wonder I had thought her near, since she had passed within 
 fifty paces of me as I shambled about dreaming of her. Part 
 of the five hours' delay in London was taken up by a visit paid 
 by Master Freake to the Earl of Ridgeley. He had gone forth 
 stern and resolute. What had happened she did not know, 
 but as they sped north the Earl sped north a mile behind 
 them, as if they were dragging him along by his heart-strings. 
 At Carlisle, now in the hands of the Duke, they drew blank,
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 299 
 
 for Brocton was unaccountably absent from military duty. 
 Fortunately Margaret, from the window of her room, saw 
 the sergeant ride by. Dot was sent on his track and learned 
 that Brocton was here, the house being a hunting-lodge 
 belonging to a crony of his who was an officer in the Cumber- 
 land militia. They had ridden out that morning to see him, 
 at which point her tale linked up with mine and ended. 
 
 " I am greatly indebted to you, Margaret," said I, very 
 lamely, slipping out her name at unawares. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " she cried. " May I not do as much as your 
 pet ghostie did for you without being a miracle ? Do not you 
 dare, sir, to offer me a pinnerfull of guineas ! " 
 
 She looked at me with a merry twinkle in her eyes, and I 
 feel sure I knew what she was thinking of. But Nance 
 Lousely was a simple country maiden, such as I was born and 
 bred amongst, and at that time I had no vile red stubble, 
 rough as a horse-comb, on my chin. 
 
 We were interrupted by the lackey, who came with Mr. 
 Dot Gibson's respects to his honour, and would his honour 
 like the refreshment of a shave and a bath as both were at his 
 service ? Like master, like man. This resplendent person 
 was for the nonce humility's self. I went with him and was 
 made clean and comfortable, and my rags trimmed a little. 
 
 This was preliminary to being summoned by Master 
 Freake to a discussion with their lordships, with whom was 
 Margaret, aloof and icy. 
 
 " At the ' Ring o' Bells,' " began Master Freake, addressing 
 me, " you took from my lord Brocton's sergeant, now dead, a 
 bundle of papers ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Among them a letter addressed simply, ' To His Royal 
 Highness ' ? " 
 
 " That is so, sir." 
 
 " You gave that -letter to me, unopened, in the presence of 
 Mistress Waynflete ? " 
 
 " I did," said I, and Margaret nodded agreement. 
 
 " Several attempts have been made to recover the letter 
 from you ? " 
 
 " At least three such attempts were made by the late 
 sergeant, and two by my lord Brocton," I replied.
 
 300 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " Their lordships' urgent need of recovering the letter 
 is thus proven, and the Court will attach due weight to the 
 facts," said Master Freake. Brocton turned white as a 
 sheet, and the old rogue shook as a dead leaf shakes on its 
 twig before the wind strips it off. There was in them none of 
 the family pride which keeps the great families agoing. 
 
 " I opened the letter. I mastered its contents. I still 
 have it," continued Master Freake, every sentence, like the 
 crash of a sledge-hammer, making these craven bystanders 
 shake at the knees. " It is deposited, sealed up again, 
 with a sure friend, who has instructions, unless I claim it in 
 person on or before the last day of this year, to deliver it in 
 person to the King. At present no one knows its contents 
 except my lord Brocton who wrote it, and I who read it." 
 
 " Thank God ! " ejaculated the rascal old earl fervently. 
 
 " Egad," thought I to myself. " It's the Ridgeley estates, 
 no less." 
 
 " We will call it, for the purposes of our discussion," said 
 Master Freake soothingly, " a letter about certain lands." 
 
 " Yes ! Yes ! Certainly ! A letter about lands ! So 
 it was ! " cried the Earl eagerly, and Brocton began to look 
 less like a coward on the scaffold. 
 
 " Would you prefer any other designation or description, 
 my lords ? " inquired Master Freake. 
 
 " I'm quite satisfied, my good Master Freake," babbled 
 the Earl. 
 
 " What lands ? " I burst out, unaole to hold in my 
 curiosity any longer. 
 
 " The lands known as the Upper Hanyards in the county 
 of Staffordshire," replied Master Freake. 
 
 " Well I'm ," cried I, in amazement, but pulling up 
 
 in time, and Margaret's blue eyes were as wide open as mine. 
 
 " You are, Master Oliver Wheatman," said Master Freake, 
 " the future, rightful owner of the ancient estate of your 
 family in all its former amplitude ; and all arrearages of rents 
 and incomings as from the thirteenth of April, one thousand 
 seven hundred and thirty-two, with compound interest at 
 the rate of ten per cent per annum, together with a com- 
 pensation for disturbance and vexation caused to you and 
 yours, provisionally fixed in the sum of two thousand pounds.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 301 
 
 The Earl of Ridgeley, smitten to the heart by the remem- 
 brance of his roguery and knavery, has agreed to make this 
 full restitution. Am I right, my lord ? " 
 
 " Absolutely, Master Freake, if you please," whined the 
 rascal old earl. " My God, I'm a mined man ! " 
 
 " Well, my lord," said Master Freake, " if you lose your 
 lands and moneys, and I will not bate an acre or a guinea of 
 the full tale, you and your son will at least retain what, as I 
 see, you both value more highly. The restitution is to be 
 made by you to me personally, so that we can avoid quibbles 
 about Oliver's legal position, he being a rebel confessed, and 
 the day after he is inlawed I will in my turn convey the 
 property in both kinds to him. When the restitution has 
 been fully and legally made, without speck or flaw in title, 
 and passed as such by my lawyers, the letter will be returned 
 to you sealed as now, and of course I shall be rigidly silent 
 on the matter. Your lordships," he ended coldly, " may 
 start for London at once to see to the matter." 
 
 The old earl started for the door eagerly, calling down on 
 his son dire and foul curses. Brocton looked poisonously at 
 me before following, and I knew I had not done with him yet. 
 
 " I've got you your lands, Oliver, but there has been no 
 time to get you pardoned. The King was at Windsor ; every 
 moment was precious ; and there was no use, in the temper 
 of the town, in dealing with underlings. It will not do to 
 run any risk of your being retaken, for Cumberland loves 
 blood-letting, and is no friend of mine. We shall take you 
 to a little fishing village on the Soiway and get you a cast 
 over to Dublin, whither my good ship, " Merchant of London," 
 Jonadab Kilroot, Master, outward bound for the Americas, 
 will pick you up. When we all meet again in London, in a 
 few months, you will be pardoned. Margaret and I must 
 now follow her father. The Stuart cause is smashed to 
 pieces." 
 
 Late that night I stood with Margaret on the end of a 
 jetty in a little fishing village on the Cumberland coast. 
 Master Freake was giving final instructions to the owner of 
 a herring-buss that was creaking noisily against the side 
 of the jetty under the swell of the tide. Dot was busily
 
 302 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 handing to one of her crew of two certain packages for 
 my use. 
 
 We stood together, and she had linked her arm in mine. 
 We who had been so close together for a month were now to 
 have an ocean put between us. Not that that mattered to 
 me, already separated from her by something wider than the 
 Atlantic, a lonely unnamed grave away there in Stafford- 
 shire. 
 
 Suddenly she called to Dot, and he, as knowing just what 
 she wanted, brought her a box. She loosed her arm from 
 mine and took it from him, and when I would in turn have 
 relieved her of it, she gently refused. 
 
 " Oliver," she said, in quiet, firm tones, " you met me 
 when I was in grave danger and immediately, like the gallant 
 gentleman you are, left mother and home to do me service." 
 
 " It was the privilege of my life, madam," I said earnestly. 
 
 " You have sweetened your service by so regarding it, 
 giving greatly when you gave. And, sir, that service put me 
 in your debt. You see that ? " 
 
 " It is like you to say so. What of it ? " 
 
 " The time came when you were in danger, and I, in my 
 turn, left my father and rode hard to save you. I am not 
 boasting, you understand, sir. I am merely stating a fact. 
 I rendered service for service, like for like, did I not, sir ? " 
 
 " You did, madam, and did it splendidly," said I. 
 
 " Then, sir, when we meet again," she said, and she 
 was now speaking very clearly and sweetly, looking me 
 full in the eyes, potent in all her beauty and queenliness, 
 " when we meet again, we meet on level terms." 
 
 " Are you ready, lad ? " called Master Freake. 
 
 " Coming, sir ! " I cried, almost glad at heart of the 
 escape. 
 
 " One moment, Oliver 1 " said Margaret. " So anxious 
 to be rid of me ? Nay, I jest of course ! I've a little 
 present for you here, Oliver. It will, I hope, make you 
 think of me at times." 
 
 " It will not," I replied, smiling. " It will make me 
 think oftener of you, that's all." 
 
 She handed me the box, and we walked up to the boat. 
 
 The half-moon was bright in an unclouded sky, and it
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 303 
 
 showed me tears on Margaret's cheeks, as I bent to clasp 
 and kiss her hand. Then I said good-bye to Master Freake 
 and Dot, and was helped into the boat. 
 
 So we parted, and I set my face toward the New World. 
 For ten weary months there is nothing to be said that belongs 
 of right and necessity to my story. 
 
 Except this : The first thing I did when I was alone in 
 my cabin on the good ship, the " Merchant of London," was 
 to open Margaret's box. It contained a full supply of 
 books wherefrom to learn " the only language one can love 
 in," and on the fly-leaf of a sumptuous " Dante " she had 
 written, " From Margaret to Oliver." 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 I SETTLE MY ACCOUNT WITH MY LORD BROCTON 
 
 OF how I fared the seas with Jonadab Kilroot, master 
 of the stolid barque, "Merchant of London," I say 
 nothing, or as good as nothing. Master Kilroot was 
 a noisy, bulky man, with a whiff of the tar-barrel ever 
 about him and a heart as stout as a ship's biscuit. He 
 feared God always, and drubbed his men whenever it was 
 necessary ; in his estimation the office of sea-captain was 
 the most important under heaven, and Master John Freake 
 the greatest man on earth. 
 
 The ship remained at anchor in Dublin harbour while 
 tailors and tradesmen of all sorts fitted me out, for Master 
 Freake had given me guineas enough .for a horse-load. I 
 did very well, for Dublin is a vice-regal city, with a Parlia- 
 ment of its own and reasonable society, so that the modes 
 and fashions are not more than a year or so behind London, 
 which did not matter to a man going to the Americas. 
 
 From Dublin I wrote home. I had laid one strict 
 injunction on Margaret. She was not to go to the Hanyards, 
 or write there, or allow anyone else to do either. I would 
 not suffer her to know, or to run any chance of knowing,
 
 304 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 about Jack. She was greatly troubled over the matter, 
 but I was so decided that she consented to my demand. 
 
 It cost me a world of pains to write. I wrote, rewrote, 
 and tore up scores of letters. Finally I merely sent them 
 word that I was going to America to wait till the trouble 
 was blown over, and that I should be with them again as 
 soon as possible. I gave them no address. It was cowardly, 
 but I could not bring myself to it. The nightmare that 
 haunted me was my going home, home to our Kate, the 
 sweetest sister man ever had, with her young heart wrapped 
 for ever in widow's weeds. I used to dream that I rode up 
 to the yard-gate on Sultan, and every time, in my dream, 
 the Hanyards looked so desolate and woebegone, as if the 
 very barns and byres were mourning for the dear dead lad 
 who had played amongst them, that I pulled Sultan round 
 and spurred him away till he flew like the wind, and I woke 
 up in a cold sweat. 
 
 On a Wednesday morning in the middle of February 
 the " Merchant of London " swung into Boston Harbour on a 
 full tide and was moored fast by the Long Wharf. Master 
 Kilroot hurried me ashore to the house of the great Boston 
 merchant, Mr. Peter Faneuil, to whom I carried a letter 
 from Master Freake. It was enough. My friend's pro- 
 tecting arm reached across the Atlantic, and if it were part 
 of my plan to tell at length of my doings in the New World, 
 I should have much to say about this worthy merchant of 
 Boston. He was earnest and assiduous in his kindness, 
 and so far as my exile was pleasant he made it so. 
 
 Mr. Faneuil was urgent that I should take up my abode 
 with him, but this I gratefully declined, and he thereon 
 recommended me to lodge with the widow of a ship-captain 
 who had been drowned in his service. So I took lodging 
 with her at her house in Brattles Street, and she made me 
 very comfortable. She had a daughter, a pretty frolic lass 
 of nine, who promoted me uncle the first day, and one negro 
 slave, who was the autocrat of the establishment till my 
 coming put his nose out of joint, as we say in Staffordshire. 
 
 Master Kilroot unshipped most of his inward cargo and 
 sailed away for Carolina and Virginia to get rice and 
 tobacco. Then he would come back here to make up his
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 305 
 
 return cargo with dried fish, to be exchanged at Lisbon for 
 wine for England. This was his ordinary round of trade, 
 and a very profitable traffic it was. 
 
 When he had left, I settled down to make my exile 
 profitable. By a great slice of luck there was at this tune 
 in Boston an Italian, one Signer Zandra, who gave lessons 
 in his native tongue openly and in the art of dancing secretly. 
 The wealth of the town was growing apace ; there was a 
 leisured class, and, speaking generally, the Bostonians were 
 alert of mind and desirous of knowledge above any other 
 set of men I have ever lived among. In the near-by town of 
 Cambridge there was a vigorous little university with more 
 than a hundred students. Moreover, there was a rising 
 political spirit which gave me a keen interest in the men who 
 breathed the quick vital air of this vigorous new England. 
 In many respects I found myself back in the times of Smite- 
 and-spare-not Wheatman, captain of horse in the army of 
 the Lord-General. The genuine, if somewhat narrow, piety 
 of the Bostoneers reminded me of him, and still more their 
 healthy critical attitude towards rulers in general and kings 
 in particular. They had the old Puritan stuff in them too, 
 for some eight months before they had captured Louisberg 
 from the French, a famous military exploit which the great 
 Lord-General would have gloried in. 
 
 My days were all twins to each other. Every morning, 
 after breakfast, I went abroad and always the same way : 
 past the quaint Town House, down King Street, and so on 
 to the Long Wharf to see if a ship had come in from England, 
 and to ask the captain thereof if he had brought a letter for 
 one Oliver Wheatman at Mr. Peter Faneuil's. I got no 
 letter and no news. Then, always a little sad in heart. I 
 strolled back, and looked in at Wilkins' book-shop, where 
 some of the town notables were always to be found, and 
 where, one May morning, as I was higgling over the purchase 
 of a fine Virgil, I made the acquaintance of a remarkable 
 young gentleman, Mr. Sam Adams, a genius by birth, a 
 maltster by trade, and a politician by choice. We would 
 discuss books together in Master Wilkins', or slip out to a 
 retired inn called " The Two Palaverers " and discuss politics 
 over a glass of wine and a pipe of tobacco. I liked him so 
 
 20
 
 306 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 much that I was afraid to tell him I had been fighting for the 
 Stuarts, and was content to pass in the role Mr. Faneuil 
 had assigned to me of an ingenuous young English gentleman 
 who had come out to study colonial matters on the spot 
 before entering Parliament. Our talk over, I went on to 
 Signer Zandra's and worked at Italian for two hours. Most 
 days I took him back to my lodging for dinner and read and 
 talked Italian with him for another hour or two. The rest 
 of the day I gave to reading, exercising, and, thanks to the 
 good merchant, to the best society in Boston. 
 
 Occasionally, when I knew for certain that no ship would 
 clear for home for two or three days, I made little shooting 
 journeys inland, but in the main this is how I spent my 
 days, filling them with work and distraction so as not to have 
 idle hours for idler thinking. Spring passed, summer came 
 and went, and the leaves were turning from gold to brown 
 when one morning, as I was at breakfast, Mr. Faneuil's man 
 came in with a letter. It was from Master Freake, summon- 
 ing me home as all was put right. It contained a few lines 
 from Margaret, written in Italian. A ship was sailing for 
 London that day, and I went on her. 
 
 Jonadab Kilroot had found his way across the Atlantic 
 into Boston Harbour much more easily than I was finding 
 mine across London to Master Freake's house in Queen 
 Anne's Gate. It was after nine at night, at which late hour, 
 of course, I did not intend to arouse the inmates, but I meant 
 to find the place so that I could stand outside and imagine 
 Margaret within, perchance dreaming of me. At last I 
 observed that men with torches were clearly being used as 
 guides through this black maze of streets, and I stopped one 
 such and offered him a guinea to do his office for me. He 
 was a lean, shabby, hungry-looking man, who might be forty 
 by the look of him. He stared vacantly at me for a few 
 seconds, and then hurriedly led the way, holding his link 
 high over his head. 
 
 This trouble over, another began, which put me in a 
 towering rage. A gaudy young gentleman bumped into me 
 and, though it was clearly his fault, I apologized and passed 
 on, leaving him hopping about on one foot and nursing the
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER . 307 
 
 other, which I had trodden on. He swore at me worse than 
 a boatswain at a lubber, and but for the exquisite pain I 
 had caused him I should have gone into the matter with him. 
 I found my linkman leaning against a post and laughing 
 heartily. 
 
 " Never you mind, sir. He'll not take the wall of you 
 again in a hurry." 
 
 " Take the wall ? " I said. 
 
 " Done on purpose, sir, to pick a quarrel with you. The 
 young sparks do it for a game." 
 
 Not much farther on, we met a sedan, with an elegant 
 young lady in it, and an elegant gentleman walking along 
 by her close up to the chains, she being in the roadway. 
 There was ample room for me to pass between him and the 
 wall, which was also the courteous thing to do ; but as soon 
 as my linkman had passed him, he shot clean in my way. 
 I gave him all the wall he wanted and more, bumping his head 
 against it till he apologized humbly through his rattling teeth. 
 The lady shrieked viciously at me, and one of her chairmen, 
 my back being turned, pulled out his pole and came to 
 attack me. My man, however, very dexterously pushed the 
 link in his face as he was straddling over the chains, and he 
 dropped the pole and spat and spluttered tremendously. 
 I stepped across to the lady and apologized for detaining 
 her, and then my man and I went on, easy victors. 
 
 Arrived at Queen Anne's Gate, another surprise awaited 
 me. Master Freake's windows were ablaze with light, and 
 the door was being held open by a man in handsome livery 
 to admit an exquisite gentleman and a more exquisite lady 
 who had just arrived there in chairs. I gave my man his 
 guinea, and, after douting his link in a great iron extinguisher 
 at the side of the door, he sped happily away. After watching 
 the arrival of three or four more chairs and one carriage, 
 I summoned up all my resolution and gave a feeble rat- 
 tat with the massive iron lion's-head which served as 
 knocker. 
 
 The man in livery opened to me, and I was inside before 
 he could observe that I was an intruder. True, I was in my 
 best clothes my Sunday clothes, as I should have called them 
 at home and they were none so bad ; but they had been
 
 308 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 made in Boston, where fashions ranged on the sober side. 
 Here I looked like a sparrow in a flight of bull-finches. 
 
 " Can I see Master Freake ? " said I. 
 
 " No," said he, with uncompromising promptness. 
 
 " Is he at home ? " 
 
 ' No," he retorted. 
 
 " This is his house, I think ? " 
 
 " It is," he assented. 
 
 " Then I suppose all these people are coming to see you 
 and cook," said I gravely. 
 
 The sarcasm might have got through his thick skin 
 perhaps but for the intervention of another liveried gentle- 
 man, who briefly asserted that I was " off my head," and 
 proposed a muster of forces to throw me out. My own feeling 
 distinctly was that I was on my head, not off it; but his 
 suggestion interested me, as I do not take readily to being 
 thrown out of anything or anywhere. Luckily, a fresh arrival 
 took their attention off me for a minute or two, and while I 
 was standing aside to admire the lady, who should come 
 statelily down the grand staircase into the hall but Dot 
 Gibson. He too was in livery, but of a grave, genteel 
 sort. 
 
 " Hello, Dot," said I, accosting him quietly. 
 
 It bounced all the gravity out of him. He shook my 
 outstretched hand vigorously, and then apologized for doing 
 so, saying he was so glad to see me. " Jorkins, you great 
 ass," cried he to the first servant, "what do you mean by 
 keeping his honour waiting ? " 
 
 Jorkins looked apprehensively at Dot and the suggester 
 of violence looked apprehensively at Jorkins ; but Dot was 
 too full to bother with them, and went on : " Mr. Freake 
 will be delighted, sir, and so will Miss Waynflete. They're 
 always talking of you. Come along, sir ! Allow me to 
 precede you." 
 
 He took me upstairs into the library, and left me there 
 alone. In a few seconds Master Freake burst in on me. 
 
 " My dear lad," he cried, wringing my hand heartily, 
 " welcome a thousand times welcome ! " 
 
 " Thank you, sir. I'm glad to be back," was all I could 
 say.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 309 
 
 He put a hand on each shoulder and stood at arm's 
 length to examine me. 
 
 " And we're glad to have you back, looking as fit and 
 brown as a bronze gladiator. Come along to your room ! 
 It's been ready for you this three months, for that silly 
 Margaret set to work on it the very day we sent off your 
 letter." 
 
 " How is Mistress Waynflete, sir ? " 
 
 " You'll see in five minutes if you'll only bestir yourself. 
 The wits say that there's no need for George to furnish the 
 town with a new queen as I have provided it with an empress." 
 
 He hurried me off to my room, as he called it, and it was 
 so grand that I crept about it on tiptoe for fear of damaging 
 something. There was everything a young man could want 
 except clothes, and Master Freake laughingly assured me 
 that they (meaning Margaret and himself) had puzzled for 
 hours to see if they could manage them, but had given it up in 
 despair. 
 
 " I declared you'd pine and get thin," he said, " and she 
 vowed you'd get lazy and fat." 
 
 I felt very doltish and unready as I followed him to the 
 drawing-room. It was very clear to me that no meeting on 
 level terms was in front of me, and when I got into a large, 
 brilliant room where some dozen splendid ladies and as many 
 elegant, easy-mannered gentlemen were assembled, I felt in- 
 clined to turn taiL 
 
 " Empress." It was the exact word. Master Freake 
 put his arm in mine and led me towards her. She was 
 sitting throned in one corner of a roomy, cushioned sofa, 
 with half a dozen young men the least of them an earl, I 
 thought bitterly bending round her as the brethren's sheaves 
 bent round Joseph's. And, as if she were not overpowering 
 enough of herself, everything that consummate skill and the 
 nicest artistry could do to enhance her beauty had been done. 
 Juno banqueting with the gods had not looked more superb. 
 " On level terms," I whispered to myself mockingly, as 
 Master Freake led me on, for one of the circling sheaves, with 
 whom she was exchanging easy, lightsome banter, was my 
 finely chiselled acquaintance, the Marquess of Tiverton. 
 
 Except that she cut a quip in two when she saw who it
 
 310 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 was that Master Freake was bringing, Margaret gave no sign 
 of surprise. She neither paled nor reddened, nor gushed nor. 
 faltered. Empress-like she simply added me to her train. 
 
 " I bring you an old friend, Margaret," said Master 
 Freake, for whom, as I saw, the worshippers round the idol 
 made way respectfully. 
 
 " And my old friend is very welcome, sir," she answered, 
 holding out her hand. I bowed over it and kissed it. I 
 thought that it trembled a little as it lay in mine, but it is 
 at least probable that I was the source of what fluttering 
 there was. 
 
 " I trust you have had a good voyage, Mr. Wheatman ? " 
 she questioned easily. 
 
 " Excellent, madam," I replied, with imitative lightness 
 of tone. " It was like rowing on a river." 
 
 For a moment her eyes steadied and darkened, then she 
 said with a smile, " That being so, even I, who am no sailor, 
 should have enjoyed it along with you." 
 
 This was how we met. Whether on level terms or not, 
 who shall decide ? 
 
 " I say, Mr. Wheatman," broke in the pleasant voice of 
 the Marquess, " you don't happen to have any venison-pasty 
 on you, I suppose ? I've got some rattling good snuff, and 
 I'll give you a pinch for a plateful, as I did up in Stafford- 
 shire. I vow, Miss Waynflete, it makes me hungry to see 
 him." 
 
 This speech caused much laughter, and Margaret said it 
 was fortunate supper was ready. She then introduced 
 me to the company around, and when this was done, Master 
 Freake fetched me to renew the acquaintance of Sir James 
 Blount and his lady, so that I was soon full of talk and 
 merriment. 
 
 Supper and talk, wine and talk, basset and talk so the 
 time went by till long after midnight. Then one by one 
 the guests dropped off. The Marquess lingered longest, and 
 on going, pledged me to call on him next morning. 
 
 " At last," said Margaret. " Beauty sleep is out of 
 the question to-night, Oliver, so tell us everything about 
 e.-erything. It's glorious to have you back." 
 
 It is not my purpose to dwell on my life in London.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 311 
 
 After a few days it became one long agony because of, but 
 not by means of, Margaret. She did her best for me, and 
 was all patience, kindness, and graciousness, and was plainly 
 bent on living on level terms with me according to her 
 promise and prophecy. It only required a day or two to 
 show me that she had many a man of rank and wealth in 
 thrall. As wealth went then, the Marquess of Tiverton was, 
 by his own fault and foolishness, a poorish man, but he was 
 lost in love of her, and he was only one of the many exquisites 
 who were for ever in and out of Master Freake's fine mansion. 
 It did not become a Wheatman of the Hanyards to cringe 
 or be abashed in any company, and with the best of them I 
 kept on terms of ease and intimacy. I dressed as well, 
 and perchance looked as well, as they did, and if my accom- 
 plishments differed from theirs they differed for the better 
 in Margaret's eyes, which were the only eyes that mattered. 
 
 Brief as I intend to be, I must set down a few jottings on 
 things that belong to the texture of my story. To begin 
 with, the Colonel, though pardoned, was still in France, 
 looking after his affairs there, for before starting to join the 
 Prince he had wisely shifted all his fortune over to Paris. 
 
 Davie Ogilvie had got clear away after Culloden, and his 
 sweet Ishbel, though taken after the battle, had been per- 
 mitted to join him there. It was a great comfort to know 
 they were safe, for there were sad relics of my escapade in 
 London the row of ghastly, grinning heads over Temple Bar. 
 
 Soon after my arrival, Master Freake had sent for his 
 lawyers and delivered to me in full possession the Upper 
 Hanyards and the huge tale of guineas which the rascal 
 old earl had disgorged as the price of the letter. Master 
 Freake kept a rigid silence over the contents of that famous 
 document " about lands," and I had no wish to know. It 
 was worth a thousand acres and near ten thousand guineas 
 to the Earl. I was satisfied if he was. I put my guineas 
 in a bank of Master Freake's choosing. What a dowry I 
 could have given Kate if 
 
 My Lord Brocton was in town. I saw him several times, 
 in the street or at the play, but took no notice of him. He 
 was said to be eagerly hunting after a lady of meagre attrac- 
 tions but enormous fortune. Twice when I saw him he had
 
 312 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 with him the fellow I had bumped against the wall, a notorious 
 shark and swashbuckler, by name and rank Sir Patrick Gee. 
 Tiverton, who had his own reasons for being interested in 
 Brocton, told me they were hand and glove together. 
 
 In a little while, a month may be, a change came over the 
 relation in which Margaret and I stood to each other. We 
 both fought against it but in vain. We could not travel on 
 parallel lines, we two. We must either converge or diverge, 
 and fate had given me no choice. 
 
 I used to pretend I was going out, to ride or lounge with 
 the Marquess or some other acquaintance, and then slip up- 
 stairs to the quiet old library, bury myself in a windowed 
 recess cut off by curtains, and try to forget it all in a book. 
 Fool-like I thought I could solve my problem so. The 
 Hanyards was calling me and I dared not go. I should leave 
 Margaret, and I could not leave her. 
 
 Why, I asked myself a thousand times, was I so poor a 
 cur compared with Donald ? He had done what I had done, 
 and he had seen his way at once and followed it. He would 
 not live, having, in all innocence and with the most urgent of 
 all reasons, killed his friend Not that I felt that his solution 
 was my solution. My duty was to leave Margaret and to go 
 to Kate, to help her, to the best of my ability, to live down 
 her sorrow, and to show by my life and conduct that I would 
 pay the price. And here I was, hovering moth-like round 
 the flame. 
 
 Then again I would say that I would wait till the in- 
 evitable had happened, and Margaret was married to Tiverton. 
 Anything to put it off, that was really all I was capable of. 
 
 To me, in my recess, Margaret came one morning. 
 
 " I thought you'd gone out, Oliver," she began. 
 
 " No," said I. " I altered my mind, and thought I'd 
 like reading better." 
 
 " You puzzle me. Are you quite well ? " 
 
 " As fit as a fiddle," said I cheerily, and rose to give her 
 my seat, for the recess would only hold one. 
 
 " You're not to move, sir." 
 
 She fetched a couple of cushions, flung them by the 
 window, and curled up on them. I wished she wouldn't, 
 for she made a glorious picture.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 313 
 
 " Now, sir, I am going to have it out with you," she said 
 severely and smilingly. I smiled back, and pulled myself 
 together. 
 
 " I hope ' it ' is not a very serious ' it,' madam," I 
 replied. 
 
 " It may be. Does your head ever trouble you ? " 
 
 " My head ever trouble me ? " I gasped, taken aback. 
 
 " Yes, your head, sir. When you fell down those stairs 
 you received a very serious wound on the head. It gaped 
 open so that I could have laid a finger in the hole. Are you 
 sure it doesn't trouble you, Oliver ? Blows on the head are 
 dreadful things, you know." 
 
 " Look at it," said I, popping my head down, and very 
 glad of the chance. 
 
 Her beautiful fingers parted my thick, short, bristly hair 
 and found the spot. 
 
 " There's nothing wrong with the skull, is there ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 " No," very doubtfully. " It's healed splendidly." 
 
 " Now, madam," said I, " talk to me in Italian ! " 
 
 It was the first time, by chance, that I had thought of it. 
 
 For ten minutes she questioned and cross-questioned me 
 in Italian on all sorts of subjects, and I came out of the ordeal 
 pretty well thanks to Signer Zandra. 
 
 " Point one," said I in English. " The outside of my 
 head is all right. Point two : are you satisfied with the 
 inside ? " 
 
 For a full minute she gazed in silence at her feet, twisting 
 them about swiftly and somewhat forgetfully. It was trying, 
 almost merciless, for she was very beautiful. 
 
 " Yes," she said at length, but without looking at me. 
 " You've done marvellously well." 
 
 " In the only language one can love in," I said bitterly. 
 
 The words had no apparent effect. She still stared at her 
 twinkling feet. Suddenly she lifted her eyes up to mine and 
 said, almost sharply, " Then what did happen to you be- 
 tween the Hanyards and Leek to change you ? " 
 
 It was clean, swift hitting, and made me gasp, but I 
 managed to escape. 
 
 " Madam," said I, " I set out with you from the Han-
 
 314 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 yards to serve you and for no other purpose whatsoever. In 
 my opinion, speaking in all modesty, I served you as well 
 after Leek as before it. At least, I tried to." 
 
 She leaped up, and, with great sweeps of her arm, flung the 
 cushions into the library. She said briefly, " And you suc- 
 ceeded, sir ! " Then she left me, swiftly and passionately, 
 without another word or look. 
 
 After this, the gap between 415 became obvious. 
 
 Meanwhile the Marquess of Tiverton was doing his best 
 to give me a competent knowledge of the Court-end of the 
 town. He had a spacious mansion in Bloomsbury Square, 
 but this was now let to a great nabob, and he himself lived 
 in close-shorn splendour in a small house in St. James's. 
 Here I saw much of him, for commonly I would stroll round 
 late in the forenoon and rout him out of bed. By an odd 
 turn we took to each other greatly, and while he drank 
 chocolate in bed or trifled with his breakfast we had many 
 talks on the few subjects that mattered to him. 
 
 Our favourite theme was Margaret, whom he outspokenly 
 worshipped. He rhapsodized over her in great stretches, 
 calling me to testify with him to her divineness, and rating 
 me soundly if, in the bitterness of my heart, I was a little 
 laggard in my devotions. And, at irregular intervals, like 
 Selah in the Psalms, he would intone dolefully, " And I 
 can't many her ! " 
 
 It was no use my protesting that an unmarried man 
 could marry any woman he liked if she would have him. 
 
 " A man can," he would reply, " but a bankrupt marquess 
 can't. I've got to marry that jade. Pah ! She's as lank as a 
 hop-pole and as yellow as a guinea. But what's a marquess 
 to do, Noll ? They say she could tie up the neck and armholes 
 of her shift and fill it with diamonds. Damn her ! I wish 
 Brocton would snap her up, but he can't. He'll never be 
 more than an earl and I'm a marquess. Curse my luck ! 
 Fancy me a marquess ! I'm a disgrace to my order and as 
 poor as a crow." 
 
 The ' jade ' referred to was the nabob's only daughter 
 and heiress, who was, as all the town knew, to make a great 
 match. My Lord Brocton was keenly in pursuit of her, but 
 she inclined to the Marquess, who could have had her and her
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 315 
 
 vast fortune any day for the asking. She was certainly 
 not overdone with charms, but Tiverton in his anger had made 
 her out worse than she was. 
 
 The morning after my encounter with Margaret in the 
 recess, Tiverton was more than usually talkative, the fact 
 being not unconnected, I imagine, with an unsuccessful 
 bout at White's the night previous. We got through our 
 usual talk about Margaret and the nabobess, and then he 
 struck out a new line. 
 
 " Now if the divine Margaret," he said, " rightly so named 
 as the pearl of great price among women, were only Freake's 
 daughter and heiress, I'd be on my knees before her in a 
 jiffy. They say he made cartfuls of money over that Jacobite 
 business. Everybody here was selling at any price the 
 stocks would fetch, and he was buying right and left on his 
 own terms. He was back here, knowing of the retreat from 
 Derby, over twenty-four hours before the courier came, and 
 the old fox kept the news to himself. He's the first man out 
 of the city to set up house in the Court-end. Old Borrowdell 
 shifted his tabernacle as far west as Hatton Gardens in my 
 father's time, and that was thought pretty big and bold, 
 but here's Freake right in the thick of it, and holds his own 
 like a lion among jackals. Fact is, he's a right-down good 
 fellow. Being a marquess, I ought to despise him, 'stead of 
 which I feel like a worm whenever he comes near me, and 
 that, mark ye, Noll, not because I owe him close on ten 
 thousand. I used to owe a rascal named Blayton quite as 
 much, and every time he came whining round here I either 
 wanted to kick him out or did it. Heigh-ho ! I'm in the 
 very devil of a mess but I'll cheat scraggy-neck yet. I'll 
 reform outright, Noll. I'll never touch a card again as long 
 as I live." 
 
 " That's the talk ! " said I heartily. " Eat something 
 and let's have the horses out for a gallop across Putney 
 Heath." 
 
 Next evening, early, being very miserable, I went round 
 to the Blounts, with whom I was very friendly. I forgot 
 myself for a time, it being impossible to think of anything 
 while lying on my back on the hearth, with baby Blount 
 trying to pull my hair out by the roots and cutting a stubborn
 
 316 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 tooth on my nose. He was a delightful, pitiless, young 
 rascal and would leave anything and anybody to maul me 
 about. 
 
 I had, however, for once mistaken my billet, for while 
 thus engaged who should come in with his mother but 
 Margaret ? 
 
 " Aren't you afraid to trust baby with such an inex- 
 perienced nurse ? " asked Margaret, smiling at my discom- 
 fiture, for I had to lie there till I was rescued from the young 
 dog's clutches. 
 
 " Not at all. When he's with a baby, he becomes a 
 baby, which is what they want. He'll make an ideal father, 
 don't you think ? " said her ladyship happily. 
 
 " I think he will," said Margaret in a very judicial tone, 
 but she coloured as she said it. 
 
 While Lady Blount disposed of baby, Margaret beckoned 
 me aside. " Oliver, you'll do me a favour, won't you ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 " Certainly," said I. 
 
 " As I came here in a chair, I saw the Marquess going into 
 White's. I fear he may be gambling again. He easily yields 
 to the temptation, and soon becomes reckless. Will you call 
 in, as if by chance, and coax him out ? I would have him 
 saved from himself, and you have great influence over him." 
 
 " If he won't come out," said I, smiling, " I'll lug him 
 out ! " 
 
 I excused myself to Lady Blount and set forth on my 
 errand, willingly enough, since she desired it and I liked him, 
 but all the way I thought of her anxious face as she asked 
 me. 
 
 At White's I found Tiverton playing piquet with Brocton. 
 A heap of oiineas was by his side, and he was flushed and 
 excited with success. The bout had attracted some atten- 
 tion, for the stakes were running high, and eight or nine men 
 were gathered round the players, among them Sir Patrick 
 Gee. I waited while the hand was played out. Tiverton re- 
 piqued his opponent, and joyously raked over to his side of 
 the table four tall piles of guineas. 
 
 It was my first meeting with Brocton. Chance and 
 Margaret had brought us together again.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 317 
 
 " Egad, Tiverton," said I to the Marquess, who now first 
 observed me, " you had the cards that time with a vengeance. 
 Are you playing on ? What about your engagement with 
 me? " 
 
 The Marquess coloured slightly at my veiled rebuke. He 
 looked doubtfully at his watch, then at me, and finally at 
 Brocton. 
 
 " Have you had enough ? " he asked. 
 
 " Enough ? " cried Brocton. " Since you took up with 
 farmers you've got chicken-hearted at cards. Play on, my 
 lord ! " 
 
 " I have told you," said I quietly to Brocton, " that his 
 lordship has an engagement with me. That should be 
 enough. If you want your revenge, which is natural, there 
 are other nights available." 
 
 " I want my revenge now, and will have it," he said mean- 
 ingly, " and this is how I serve men who come between me 
 and my revenge." He was shuffling a pack of cards as he 
 spoke, and, with the words, he flung them in my face. 
 
 At most of the tables play stopped, and the players there 
 became silently intent on this new game where the stakes ran 
 highest of all. It meant a fight, a fight between an expert 
 swordsman and a man who knew nothing of the craft. To 
 such a fight there could be but one end. 
 
 Tiverton was beside himself. " She'll never forgive 
 me ! " he muttered, and I looked amusedly at him and 
 whispered, " Who ? The nabobess ? " 
 
 He was the highest in rank there, and as such a court of 
 appeal and a sort of master of the ceremonies. 
 
 " My Lord Tiverton," said I aloud, " I am, as you know, 
 a recent arrival in town from the Americas and other out- 
 landish places, and, naturally enough under these circum- 
 stances, I am not clear on some points." 
 
 " It's clear you've been swiped across the face," broke in 
 Sir Patrick Gee. 
 
 " Hold your tongue, sir ! " said Tiverton, looking quietly 
 at him. " Proceed, Mr. Wheatman ! " 
 
 It made me smile again, tight as the corner was, to see 
 the play-acting spirit creeping over him. He was beginning 
 to enjoy himself.
 
 318 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 " Therefore, my lord, I should like to ask you a few 
 questions," I continued. 
 
 " Certainly, sir," he replied, with great impressiveness, 
 taking snuff in great style while he awaited my questioning. 
 
 " Is there any doubt that I am the insulted person ? " 
 
 " None whatever," he replied. " My Lord Brocton in- 
 sulted you wantonly and deliberately." 
 
 " Then, my lord Marquess, I may be wrong, but I think 
 I have the right of choosing the place, the time, and the 
 weapons." 
 
 " Certainly, Mr. Wheatman," he answered. 
 
 "Then if I choose to say, ' On the banks of the Susque- 
 hanna, ten years hence, with tomahawks,' so it must be ? " 
 
 A wave of scornful laughter went round the room as the 
 question passed from mouth to mouth. Even the most 
 ardent gamblers left their play to join the circle around us. 
 English even in their vices, they took a fight for granted, but 
 were up in a moment to see some fun. 
 
 The Marquess was disconcerted. He obviously felt that I 
 was about to reflect on him in the gravest way ; that, in short, 
 I was backing out. He would be tarnished by the dis- 
 honour that had driven me out of the world of gentlemen. 
 
 " I think," said he, " that would be overstraining the 
 privileges of an insulted gentleman." 
 
 " Run away, farmer ! " bellowed Sir Patrick raucously. 
 
 Tiverton looked disdainfully at him. " You may like to 
 know, my lords and gentlemen," he said, as grandly as if he 
 were reciting a set piece from the stage, " that on the night of 
 his arrival from Boston my friend was rudely insulted in the 
 Strand by a certain person." Here he stopped, whirled round 
 on the hulking scoundrel, and added grimly to him, " I shall 
 finish the story unless you leave the room at once." 
 
 Gee thought better of it and slipped off like a disturbed 
 night-prowler. 
 
 " Thank you, my lord," said I very humbly, " for your 
 decision. I hope my unavoidable ignorance entitles me to 
 try again." 
 
 " Certainly," said he, but with unmistakable uncertainty 
 
 I looked round the intent curious circle of faces and then 
 at Brocton. On his face and in his cruel eyes there were
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 319 
 
 the same gloating anticipations that were there when, in 
 Marry-me-quick's cottage, he thought he was bending 
 Margaret to his foul will. You could have heard a card 
 drop in that crowded room. 
 
 My time had come to the tick. Stretching myself taut, 
 I said slowly and distinctly, " Here. Now. Fists." 
 
 Brocton went limp and ghastly. I strode up to him, 
 took him, unresisted, by the scruff of the neck, and then 
 said curtly, " Open the door, Tiverton." 
 
 The willing little Marquess ran delightedly to do my ( 
 bidding, and I kicked my lord Brocton into the kennel and 
 out of my life. 
 
 Next morning I went round to Tiverton's as usual, and 
 while he was at breakfast, and we were starting our usual 
 round of talk, in came Sir James Blount, a stranger at 
 such an hour. 
 
 " Have you heard the news ? " he asked abruptly. 
 
 " What news ? " asked Tiverton, rather sour at being 
 cheated out of his morning's consolatory grumble with me. 
 
 " Mr. Freake has declared that Miss Waynflete is to be 
 his sole heiress," he replied. 
 
 I had to thump Tiverton to prevent him being choked 
 by something that went the wrong way. We had an excited 
 talk about the news, which Sir James had received direct 
 from Master Freake, which settled it as a fact beyond 
 dispute or change. Margaret was now the most desirable 
 match in London from every point of view. Blount went 
 away quite pleased with the stir he had made. 
 
 " Henry ! Henry ! " yelled Tiverton as soon as we were 
 alone, and in came his man hastily. " Henry ! What the 
 devil do you mean by putting me into these old rags ? 
 Damme ! I look like a chairman. Go and get some decent 
 things out, you old rascal ! I'm to call on the greatest 
 lady in London town." 
 
 He hurried off after his servant, and I heard him singing 
 and shouting over his second toilet. I crept miserably 
 out of the house and made my way to the mews. The 
 ostler saddled my horse, a beautiful chestnut mare which 
 Master Freake had given me, and I rode out of town, deep 
 in thought. Mechanically, I went the way we had intended
 
 320 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 to go, and found myself at last on the heights that overlook 
 London from the north. Then I pulled up. 
 
 The towers of the Abbey stood out nobly against the 
 steel-blue sky. Within their shadow was Master Freake's 
 house where, by now, Tiverton would not have pleaded 
 his love in vain. I saw her there, in the splendid room she 
 always dimmed with her greater splendour, the exquisite 
 Marquess at her feet, happy in possession of the pearl of 
 great price. Over this vision a shadow came, and I saw 
 the house-place at the Hanyards, with our widowed Kate 
 alone in her sorrow. Her flame-red hair was white as snow 
 and tears of blood were on her cheeks. Donald's farewell, 
 Weird mun hae way, boomed in my ears like a dirge. With 
 a sigh that was near of kin to a sob, I pulled the mare round 
 and urged her northwards, northwards and homewards. 
 
 In my fear and trembling I shirked everything, doing 
 childishly and more than childishly. I was not on Sultan, 
 and when I rode out of Lichfield I hugged that simple fact 
 to my heart. So much of my dream had at least not come 
 true, and I gave the lie to more of it by leaving the high 
 road and wandering devious ways till, within four or five 
 miles of home, I left even the by-ways and kept to the 
 fields. So keen was I on my little stratagems that I rode 
 over the Upper Hanyards without once recalling the fact 
 that it was now mine as it had been my father's before me. 
 About four o'clock on a December day, just over a year 
 since leaving home, I leaped the mare over a hedge and 
 was at the old gate. 
 
 More of the dream was untrue. The winter sun was 
 dropping down to the hill-tops like a great carbuncle set 
 in gold, and the Hanyards was all aglow in its flaming rays. 
 The gate was open, so that I could at least begin by pitching 
 into Joe Braggs for his negligence, and the windows of the 
 house-place shimmered a welcome because of the cheerful 
 blaze within. 
 
 Not a soul stirred. I jumped down, threw the reins 
 over the gate-post, and walked stealthily into the yard and 
 up to the window. Still not a soul stirred. 
 
 I peeped in.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 321 
 
 There was our Kate, leaning lovingly over my chair, 
 pillowed as she had never pillowed it for me, and in the 
 chair was clearly a man, for I could see his stockings and 
 breeches stretching comfortably past her skirts. She 
 laughed merrily at something said, and then stooped and 
 kissed the person in the chair. 
 
 This was woman's faith 1 With a great clatter, I strode 
 into the porch, thrust open the door, and stepped in. There 
 was a shout of delight, a babble of, " It's our Noll ! It's our 
 Noll ! * ' and Kate leaped into my arms and rained kisses on 
 me. 
 
 The man followed her, slowly and feebly, leaning heavily 
 on a stick. When he turned his face so that the firelight 
 showed him up, my legs sank beneath me and my knees 
 knocked together. It was Jack, dear old Jack, nothing but 
 the shadow of himself, but still Jack right enough, and his 
 hand was in mine. 
 
 " Run, Kit ! " he cried. " Get some wine ! The lad's 
 overcome. God bless you. old Noll, how are you ? " 
 
 Kate ran off into the parlour, where oar wine was stored. 
 
 "Jack!" 
 
 " Hello, Noll ! " 
 
 " I thought I'd killed you." 
 
 " Was it you ? " he asked, all amazed at my self-accusa- 
 tion. 
 
 " Yes," I faltered. 
 
 " By gom, Noll, you did give me a sock I " 
 
 He heard Kate tripping back with the wine, and put his 
 finger on his lips for a warning. And that was the first and 
 last remark Jack Dobson made on the subject. 
 
 si
 
 322 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 THE WAY OF A MAID WITH A MAN 
 
 IT took me to cure Jack. I administered one dose of 
 medicine and he at once began to fill out and get strong 
 and chesty in a manner almost absurd, whereon there 
 was much twitting of our Kate who, in her old way, rated me 
 soundly in public and crept up to me in private, and kissed 
 me and wept gladly in the most approved maiden-like style. 
 
 This was the way of it. I sent Joe Braggs into Stafford 
 the day after I got home to fetch out Master Dobson, and 
 had him alone in my room. True he was as near and grasping 
 as ever, but I saw even this side of him in a new light now, 
 for he had been near and grasping for Jack. He was rather 
 uncertain when we met ; glad enough, of course, to see an 
 old friend back again safe and sound, but dubious on the 
 main point. 
 
 " Master Dobson," said I, " your Jack desires to wed our 
 Kate." 
 
 " So he tells me," said he dolefully, rubbing his thin 
 finger under the edge of his bob-wig to scratch his perplexed 
 head. 
 
 " She is an excellent young woman, and a comely," said 
 I, grinning at him. 
 
 " Undoubtedly," he conceded. 
 
 " But, as the head of the family, Master Dobson, I offer no 
 objection to the proposal." Much it would have mattered 
 if I had, but I always take credit when and while I can. 
 
 " It's very kind of you, Ol . . . Mr. Wheatman," said 
 he, " but . . ." 
 
 " Yes," said I encouragingly. 
 
 " But there's what I may call the material side of the 
 matter to be considered. My son's bride should be suitable 
 from the business point of view." 
 
 " I've been considering that point, Master Dobson. It is 
 undoubtedly important. Jack's a careless young dog, and 
 I'm sure our Kate is just the woman he wants from a business
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 323 
 
 point of view. She'll keep an eye on every meg in his 
 pockets." 
 
 " Tut, tut ! " said he, stirred to action, as I knew he would 
 be. " You mistake me completely. My son will not be 
 wanting in this world's gear and he must have a wife to 
 match." 
 
 " I see," said I. " One with something substantial in 
 her pocket." 
 
 " Precisely," said he. 
 
 " Well. Master Dobson, if our Kate is willing to marry 
 your Jack, a point on which I can offer only a conjecture, 
 she will marry him with five thousand pound in her pocket." 
 
 He sat bolt upright and stared at me with his mouth wide 
 open. 
 
 We fetched them in, mother coming with them, and the 
 old man there and then gave them his blessing. Kate ran 
 into mother's arms, while Jack wrung my hand and danced 
 for joy. Afterwards he ate the most astonishing dinner 
 imaginable, loudly asseverating that he was as right as nine- 
 pence and sick of slops. 
 
 My coming back made a great noise all over our country- 
 side. Of what I had actually done there was no knowledge 
 whatsoever. The tale went that I had been to America 
 and found a goldmine, and come home and bought back 
 the lost Hanyards. Acute sceptics in barbers' shops and 
 market ordinaries advanced the opinion that it must have 
 been a very little goldmine, but they were unable to substi- 
 tute any other explanation and so fell into contempt. The 
 tale suited me and I never contradicted it. In a world where 
 a man who has travelled to London is a person of considera- 
 tion and renown, I, who had been to America, was as a god. 
 My first visit to Stafford put the sleepy old town into 
 commotion. 
 
 Every night around the fire in the house-place I told 
 them of my adventures. Jack, the sly fox, sat among his 
 cushions, which he had not been fool enough to discard 
 along with his slops, with Kate on a low stool at his knees. 
 The vicar sat by mother's side on the settle. I drew a chair 
 close to her, so that her hand could clasp mine as I talked, 
 and very helpful I found it, for she understood in silence and
 
 324 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 in silence comforted me. Jane laid supper, taking a long 
 time over it, for between journeys to and from the kitchen 
 she would stand behind the settle and listen wide-eyed to a 
 spell of my talk. Every night the vicar said grace, adding, 
 in his simple, apostolic way, a special thanksgiving to the 
 good God who had brought the young lad safe home again, 
 through perils by sea and perils by land, and out of the very 
 hands of evil men who had compassed him about to destroy 
 him. Then, after supper, I escorted the good man home 
 and came back through the moonlit lanes ; and every night, 
 without fail, I went and stood on the very spot where the gaff 
 had slipped out of my collar, and I had turned round to see 
 Margaret. 
 
 The only discontented person in our b'ttle circle was 
 Joe Braggs, who had caught the dace that caught the jack, 
 and so started me out of my jog-trot yeoman's round into 
 the great world of life and adventure. Joe had done well 
 while I had been away ; our fields had yielded fruitfully 
 under his care as bailiff ; and, having had a favourable 
 harvest, we were much money in hand on the year's working. 
 I had thanked him heartily, confirmed him as my bailiff 
 now that I was back, and given him fifty guineas, a sum 
 which to him was wealth untold. Still the rascal was not 
 satisfied, and went about with a bear on his back, as Jane 
 had it, so that I was greatly tempted to clip his ear for him. 
 
 The day before Christmas, he was busy all morning under 
 Jane's garrulous command, getting in bunches of holly and 
 other evergreens from the hedgerows. His last journey had 
 been to one of the farms on the Upper Hanyards in quest of 
 mistletoe, which grew abundantly there in an ancient orchard. 
 On getting back he had held a sprig over Jane's head for a 
 certain familiar and laudable purpose, and had been rewarded 
 with a smack that sounded like the dropping of an empty 
 milk-pail. A little later I found him glowering in a cow- 
 house, and had it out with him. 
 
 " Look here, Joe, my lad," said I, " tell me straight 
 what's the matter with you or I'll break your head." 
 
 " What d'ye want to come back 'ere for, upsettin' Jin 
 like this'n ? " he blurted. 
 
 " What the blazes have I done to upset Jin ? " I asked.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 325 
 
 " Why didna y' bring 'er back wi' ye, then ? " 
 
 " Who's her, you jolt-head ? " I demanded angrily. 
 
 " That leddy o' yourn. Jin's that upset 'er wunna luk at 
 me, an' we wor gettin' on fine." 
 
 It was no use talking to Joe. I explained that she was a 
 great lady and was to marry a marquess, that is a much more 
 important person than an earl. He knew what an earl was, 
 for of course he had heard of the ' Yuri,' meaning that old 
 rascal Ridgeley. A marquess, however, was outside his ken, 
 and the information was wasted. 
 
 " Why didna y' marry 'er y'rsel', Master Noll, and bring 
 'er back 'ere, then Jin wud 'a' bin all rate ? " 
 
 " I couldn't," said I. 
 
 " Did y' ask 'er ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " More fule yow," said he bitterly. " She'd V 'ad y', rate 
 enough. Jin says so, an' 'er knows." 
 
 What could be done with such a silly fellow ? I left off 
 discussing and took him indoors with me. In front of Jane 
 I pledged him in a mug of ale and told him he was one of the 
 best lads breathing, and I was greatly beholden to him. In 
 front of him I kissed Jane under the mistletoe and told her 
 that, bonny lass as she was, she was lucky to have the best 
 lad in Staffordshire. I left them in the kitchen, and heard 
 no more crashes. Later on, Joe whistled his three tunes 
 with admirable skill and intolerable persistency while, under 
 Jane's orders, he took in charge the boiling of the Christmas 
 puddings in a vast iron pot hung over the kitchen fire. 
 
 It was growing dark. Everybody was happy. Mother 
 was out and round the village with her Christmas gifts, 
 attended by one of our men and a cart packed with good 
 things. Nothing could have made her happier. Jack and 
 Kate were in the house-place busy with all sorts of house- 
 wiferies, in which he was as interested as she. Joe and Jane 
 were in the kitchen, as merry as grigs. I went into my own 
 room, across the passage from the parlour, sacrosanct to me, 
 my books and my belongings. 
 
 There, too, was the great jack, set up to the very life by 
 the skilful hand of Master Whatcot. He appeared to be 
 cleaving a bunch of reeds to pounce on a dace, just as he
 
 326 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 had done once too often on that memorable day. Brothers 
 of the angle had made pilgrimages to see him from thirty 
 miles round, and it was an added charm to fancy that the 
 monster had been caught in a spot where Izaak Walton had 
 fished as a boy, he having been born and bred in these parts. 
 My jack is a famous jack, for the curious reader will find 
 an account of him, with his dimensions and catching weight 
 exactly given, in Master Joshua Spindler's folio volume 
 entitled " Rudimenta Piscatoria, or the Whole Art of Angling 
 set forth in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son," 
 London, 1751. No one who has yet seen him has seen a 
 bigger, though most of them have heard o one. 
 
 I lit my candles, got my pipe going, and drew my chair 
 near the fire to read and smoke. It was, however, early 
 days yet for me to read for long. Moreover, by habit I had 
 picked up my Virgil, and it was as yet impossible for me to 
 feel the tips of my fingers in the teeth-marks without thinking 
 of the poor wretch who had made them. I could see in 
 exactest detail his dead body lying in the road and Swift 
 Nicks beside it, pitching the bag of guineas up and down 
 in the air, and smiling gleefully and yet wistfully at me. 
 From that grim event, whether my mind travelled backwards 
 or forwards, it traversed scenes such as few men are privileged, 
 or fated, to pass through. 
 
 It was, again, too soon for me to realize the full effect 
 of my experiences on myself. I was not moody, as in the 
 days aforetime. I neither loathed my lot nor cursed my 
 destiny. I had seen warfare and bloodshed, I had had my 
 heart wrung and my nerves racked, and now the peaceful 
 meadows winding along the river and stretching up to the 
 purple hills were dear to eyes from which the scales had 
 fallen. This was the life and labour on which the world 
 was based, and it was worthy of any man. I had seen Death 
 the Harvester at work, and he was a less alluring figure than 
 Joe Braggs with a flashing sickle in his hand and a swathe 
 of golden grain under his arm. 
 
 I should never be really alone again. I had company 
 of which I should never tire as I sat here with my memories. 
 Margaret was rarely absent from my mind, and every memory 
 of her was a blessing and an inspiration. I did not regret
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 327 
 
 my love, foolish and vain as it had been. The thing that 
 really mattered was that Jack was alive. I could now look 
 back on everything without bitterness. If Margaret came 
 for me now, to call me forth to another hard round of struggle 
 and adventure, I should be off with her like a shot. She 
 had made a splendid companion. She would make a splendid 
 marchioness. Some day, when the pain would not be un- 
 endurable, I would go to London and steal another peep at 
 those matchless eyes and that tower of golden, gleaming 
 hair. 
 
 I did not hear the door open, but I heard mother's calm 
 voice, gently reproving Jane for an unseemly giggle. A 
 pair of arms crept round my neck, and slim white fingers 
 cupped my chin. Kate did not know that it was I who had 
 so nearly sent her sweetheart to an untimely grave, for Jack 
 had sternly forbidden me to mention the subject to anyone, 
 and, as I have said, it might never have happened so far as 
 he was concerned. Therefore Kate, always a loving and 
 attentive sister, was now more loving and attentive than 
 ever because she knew in her heart that, though I had gained 
 much in my wanderings, I had lost the one thing she had 
 found in the quiet sickroom where, during long weary 
 months, she had lured Jack back to life. It was always her 
 task to fetch me from my books and my thoughts to the 
 beloved circle in the house-place, when, as now, she had 
 prepared a dish of tea for us. 
 
 The soft resolute hands raised my chin, and I gasped 
 as I looked into Margaret's eyes. 
 
 She lightly held me down, and, as if we had only parted 
 five minutes before in the house-place, began to speak, 
 quietly but rapidly. 
 
 " Oliver, do you remember wafcing me in the barn ? " 
 
 I nodded. I was too amazed to speak, and there was 
 that in her eyes which made me tremble. 
 
 " I was dreaming," she said, and I nodded again and 
 remembered how she had flushed like the dawn. 
 
 " Because you are the greatest goose of a man that ever 
 lived, I am going to tell you my dream. I dreamed that you 
 were carrying me across the Pearl Brook, and as you 
 carried me the brook got wider and wider you had made
 
 328 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 it as wide as you could, you know until it seemed as if we 
 should never get across it. And you would not put me 
 down, though I begged you to do so, but carried me on and 
 on. You grew tired and weary, and your face went white 
 and drawn, as I find it now, but you would not let me go. 
 Was it not a curious dream, Oliver ? " 
 
 Again I nodded. 
 
 " Why can't you speak, Oliver ? Anything would make 
 it less hard. Then, because you were so weary, and so good 
 to me, and so faithful, and long-enduring, I did in my dream 
 ... in my dream, you mark . . . something very un- 
 maidenly . . . and immediately we were both on the other 
 side ; and I awoke as you put me down at last and found 
 you by my side, having, in your knightly unselfishness, 
 ruined your hat to give me a drink of milk. And because you 
 are the best man on earth, and also a blind silly goose, Oliver, 
 and I must take some risk or lose my all, I am going . . . 
 to do the unmaidenly thing I did in my dream . . . and . . . 
 you . . . must not misjudge me, Oliver." 
 
 She stopped, smiled as only Margaret can, and bent her 
 head until a loose coil of amber hair fell on my face Then 
 she brushed it aside and, after a little gasping cry, kissed 
 me on the lips. 
 
 EPILOGUE 
 THE LITTLE JACK 
 
 AT THE HANYARDS 
 
 STAFFORDSHIRE 
 August gth, 1757 
 
 MARGARET and I had a hot dispute this morning. 
 True she went away, singing happily, to rebuild the 
 masses of yellow hair that had fallen all over her 
 shoulders and mine, for the dreadful stuff seems to tumble 
 down if I look at it, but still we had disputed, and vigorously, 
 too. The plain fact is she had sniffed at Aristotle. 
 
 The trouble arose out of this story of mine which I have 
 been bus} writing for the last twenty months. It has been
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 329 
 
 hard work, for I was new to the business, and had to learn 
 how to do it, but it has been a pleasant task and a labour of 
 love. Now we disputed about it. I said it was finished. She 
 said it wasn't. I said I ought to know. She replied not 
 necessarily, since I was such a great goose. Then I loaded 
 my big gun and thought to blow her clean out of the water. 
 
 " My dear Margaret," said I, " Aristotle lays it down that 
 every work of art has a beginning, a middle, and an end. 
 The beginning of our story was the catching of the great 
 jack, the middle of it was the fight at the ' Red Bull,' and 
 the end of it was the kiss you gave me. You see, dear, how 
 exactly I have done what Aristotle says I ought to do." 
 
 " Bother Aristotle ! What does he know about us ? " 
 It was here that she sniffed, not figuratively but actually. 
 That is to say she held up her nose, on pretence of looking at 
 me, and audibly . . . well, sniffed. There's no other word 
 for it. Then she cried triumphantly, " What is the use, 
 Noll, of telling our story and not saying a single word about 
 the most important people in it ? " 
 
 To this question I made no reply. I was beaten. 
 Aristotle, had he been in my place, would have been beaten 
 too. If we had been in town I would have run round to Mr. 
 Johnson's and asked him to assist me, but I feel sure he would 
 have been as helpless as I was. There was no reply, so I 
 contented myself with playing with her gorgeous hair till it 
 was all a-tumble to the floor. 
 
 Bother Aristotle ! I must do as Margaret bids. 
 
 The Colonel and Master Freake were in the house-place 
 when, at last, that memorable Christmas Eve, I proudly 
 took my Margaret there. 
 
 " Sir," said I to the former, before he had ceased his 
 hearty handshake, " I love Margaret dearly and Margaret 
 loves me. May we be married ? " 
 
 " You young dog ! What d'ye say to that, John ? " he 
 said. 
 
 " Nothing is nearer to my heart," said the great merchant 
 of London, giving me his hand in turn. 
 
 " Nor to mine, so that settles it," cried the Colonel, fish- 
 ing out his snuff-box, while I led Margaret up to mother.
 
 330 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 We spent a happy Christmas as lovers, and were married 
 on New Year's Day by the vicar. 
 
 Jack and Kate were married in the spring, by which time 
 lie was as well and strong as ever. For years I feared lest 
 his severe wound should have left some permanent source of 
 weakness, but happily my fears were ill-founded. Jack, 
 having had enough of soldiering, took to business at Master 
 Freake's suggestion. He has developed all his father's 
 shrewdness while retaining all his own boyish charm. He is 
 now Master Freake's right hand, in the great London house 
 of Freake & Dobson. Kate is Kate still, ardent, busy, 
 level-headed, and loving, and the happy mother of three 
 girls and a boy. Jack and I are as twins to one another. 
 
 In the summer after our wedding, Margaret and I went 
 our journey over again. We saw Cherry-Cheeks, and made 
 sure that Sim should have not only a good wife but a good 
 business of his own to keep her on. We found out sweet 
 Nance Lousely, and filled her pinner full of guineas after all, 
 and left her tearful and happy. We knelt together by a 
 simple grave in the Catholic burial-ground at Leek, and on 
 the top of Shap we stood, with tears in our eyes, beside the 
 great stone that marked the resting-place of Donald and his 
 chief. 
 
 I did become a Parliament man, as Master Faneuil had 
 said I should, and am a strong supporter of Mr. Pitt. We 
 spend part of each year in London, where the Marquess is our 
 great friend. He married the nabobess after all, and she 
 loved him well enough to make it her business to reform him. 
 He vows she is the finest woman in England, with a head on 
 her shoulders as good as Mr. Freake's. She makes a good 
 marchioness, too, for she always had sense, and has developed 
 dignity. 
 
 But most of our time we spend at the Hanyards, which I 
 have made into a fine house by careful changes. Master Joe 
 Braggs and Mistress Jane Braggs are our loyal, willing 
 servants and our friends, and are as happy as sandboys 
 together. They have now quite a large family. 
 
 To-day we are all together again for a long stay at the 
 Hanyards. The Archdeacon of Lichfield. once our beloved 
 vicar, is with us, simple, fatherly, and learned as of old.
 
 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 331 
 
 I can see his white head when I lift mine up from my writing. 
 He is sunning himself in the garden and talking with mother, 
 who turns her eyes now and again to look at the road, for 
 Kate and Jack are coming in from Stafford with their 
 children. 
 
 All these are familiar names, but it is fit that the record 
 should be given before I go back to Margaret's sniff at Aris- 
 totle. For while I was busying myself with her hair, who 
 should come in sight, walking through the orchard from the 
 river, but the Colonel and Master Freake. They stopped to 
 join mother and the Archdeacon in their talk, and we, looking 
 at them, were proud and happy in the knowledge of their love 
 for us. 
 
 Then there was a great clatter and chattering and excited 
 shouting without. Margaret had left the door of my study 
 open, and in raced the most important people in our story. 
 They had a tale too big for coherent talk, and they gabbled 
 away, one after the other or both together, to tell us all 
 about it. 
 
 It was Oliver who had done it. He held up with a pride 
 that made him splutter a little jack about fourteen inches 
 long, which he had just caught. They say he is his father 
 over again. At any rate, he will fish morning, noon, and 
 night, if he can coax one of us elders to go with him to take 
 care of him. 
 
 There he stood, the fish dangling at arm's length, telling 
 his mother exactly how he had done it. I do not pretend to 
 be impartial, but a finer boy than mine is not to be found. 
 He drops the fish to the floor to rush into his mother's arms 
 to be kissed and praised. 
 
 I am busy, too ; busy as I love best of all to be. For on 
 my knee, her arms round my neck and her great mane of 
 glorious wheat-coloured hair tickling my face, is the dearest 
 little creature on God's earth, my other Margaret. If you 
 want to see me when I am intensely proud and happy, you 
 must see me with her at my side walking in the Park or down 
 the Green Gate at Stafford, with all eyes turning on her 
 because of her surpassing childish beauty. 
 
 " I helped him catch it, daddy," she says, lifting up her 
 face to be kissed.
 
 332 THE YEOMAN ADVENTURER 
 
 So does history repeat itself, and it is settled at once 
 that Noll's jack is to be put by Master Whatcot in the same 
 case as dad's, for all the world to know that he is as good 
 a fisherman as his father before him. Joe is to send it to 
 Stafford at once, and the two rush off eagerly to give it to 
 him, leaving us alone. 
 
 To the glowing beauty of her maidenhood Margaret has 
 added the serene beauty of motherhood. That is all the 
 change I can see in her, as I put my arms round her and draw 
 her to me. 
 
 When she could speak she said happily, " Well done 
 fisherman 1 "
 
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