第 十二 章 · Of certain Passages upon the Moor

In the morning, after a breakfast furnished by the remains of our

supper, we looked to our horses and prepared for our departure. Ere we

could mount, however, our kindly host came running out to us with a load

of armour in his arms.

‘Come hither,’ said he, beckoning to Reuben. ‘It is not meet, lad, that

you should go bare-breasted against the enemy when your comrades are

girt with steel. I have here mine own old breastplate and head-piece,

which should, methinks, fit you, for if you have more flesh than I, I am

a larger framework of a man. Ah, said I not so! Were’t measured for you

by Silas Thomson, the court armourer, it could not grip better. Now

on with the head-piece. A close fit again. You are now a cavalier whom

Monmouth or any other leader might be proud to see ride beneath his

banner.’

Both helmet and body-plates were of the finest Milan steel, richly

inlaid with silver and with gold, and carved all over in rare and

curious devices. So stern and soldierly was the effect, that the

ruddy, kindly visage of our friend staring out of such a panoply had an

ill-matched and somewhat ludicrous appearance.

‘Nay, nay,’ cried the old cavalier, seeing a smile upon our features,

‘it is but right that so precious a jewel as a faithful heart should

have a fitting casket to protect it.’

‘I am truly beholden to you, sir,’ said Reuben; ‘I can scarce find words

to express my thanks. Holy mother! I have a mind to ride straight back

to Havant, to show them how stout a man-at-arms hath been reared amongst

them.’

‘It is steel of proof,’ Sir Jacob remarked; ‘a pistol-bullet might

glance from it. And you,’ he continued, turning to me, ‘here is a small

gift by which you shall remember this meeting. I did observe that you

did cast a wistful eye upon my bookshelf. It is Plutarch’s lives of the

ancient worthies, done into English by the ingenious Mr. Latimer. Carry

this volume with you, and shape your life after the example of the giant

men whose deeds are here set forth. In your saddle-bag I place a small

but weighty packet, which I desire you to hand over to Monmouth upon

the day of your arrival in his camp. As to you, sir,’ addressing Decimus

Saxon, ‘here is a slug of virgin gold for you, which may fashion into a

pin or such like ornament. You may wear it with a quiet conscience, for

it is fairly given to you and not filched from your entertainer whilst

he slept.’

Saxon and I shot a sharp glance of surprise at each other at this

speech, which showed that our words of the night before were not unknown

to him. Sir Jacob, however, showed no signs of anger, but proceeded to

point out our road and to advise us as to our journey.

‘You must follow this sheep-track until you come on another and broader

pathway which makes for the West,’ said he. ‘It is little used, and

there is small chance of your falling in with any of your enemies upon

it. This path will lead you between the villages of Fovant and Hindon,

and soon to Mere, which is no great distance from Bruton, upon the

Somersetshire border.’

Thanking our venerable host for his great kindness towards us we gave

rein to our horses, and left him once more to the strange solitary

existence in which we had found him. So artfully had the site of

his cottage been chosen, that when we looked back to give him a last

greeting both he and his dwelling had disappeared already from our view,

nor could we, among the many mounds and hollows, determine where the

cottage lay which had given us such welcome shelter. In front of us and

on either side the great uneven dun-coloured plain stretched away to the

horizon, without a break in its barren gorse-covered surface. Over the

whole expanse there was no sign of life, save for an occasional rabbit

which whisked into its burrow on hearing our approach, or a few thin and

hungry sheep, who could scarce sustain life by feeding on the coarse and

wiry grass which sprang from the unfruitful soil.

The pathway was so narrow that only one of us could ride upon it at a

time, but we presently abandoned it altogether, using it simply as a

guide, and galloping along side by side over the rolling plain. We were

all silent, Reuben meditating upon his new corslet, as I could see from

his frequent glances at it; while Saxon, with his eyes half closed, was

brooding over some matter of his own. For my own part, my thoughts ran

upon the ignominy of the old soldier’s designs upon the gold chest, and

the additional shame which rose from the knowledge that our host had in

some way divined his intention. No good could come of an alliance with a

man so devoid of all feelings of honour or of gratitude. So strongly did

I feel upon it that I at last broke the silence by pointing to a

cross path, which turned away from the one which we were pursuing, and

recommending him to follow it, since he had proved that he was no fit

company for honest men.

‘By the living rood!’ he cried, laying his hand upon the hilt of his

rapier,’ have you taken leave of your senses? These are words such as no

honourable cavaliero can abide.’

‘They are none the less words of truth,’ I answered.

His blade flashed out in an instant, while his mare bounded twice her

length under the sharp dig of his spurs.

‘We have here,’ he cried, reining her round, with his fierce lean face

all of a quiver with passion, ‘an excellent level stretch on which to

discuss the matter. Out with your bilbo and maintain your words.’

‘I shall not stir a hair’s-breadth to attack you,’ I answered. ‘Why

should I, when I bear you no ill-will? If you come against me, however,

I will assuredly beat you out of your saddle, for all your tricky sword

play.’ I drew my broadsword as I spoke, and stood upon my guard, for I

guessed that with so old a soldier the onset would be sharp and sudden.

‘By all the saints in heaven!’ cried Reuben, ‘which ever of ye strikes

first at the other I’ll snap this pistol at his head. None of your

jokes, Don Decimo, for by the Lord I’ll let drive at you if you were my

own mother’s son. Put up your sword, for the trigger falls easy, and my

finger is a twitching.’

‘Curse you for a spoil-sport!’ growled Saxon, sulkily sheathing his

weapon. ‘Nay, Clarke,’ he added, after a few moments of reflection,

‘this is but child’s play, that two camarados with a purpose in view

should fall out over such a trifle. I, who am old enough to be your

father, should have known better than to have drawn upon you, for a

boy’s tongue wags on impulse and without due thought. Do but say that

you have said more than you meant.’

‘My way of saying it may have been over plain and rough,’ I answered,

for I saw that he did but want a little salve where my short words had

galled him. ‘At the same time, our ways differ from your ways, and that

difference must be mended, or you can be no true comrade of ours.’

‘All right, Master Morality,’ quoth he, ‘I must e’en unlearn some of the

tricks of my trade. Od’s feet, man, if ye object to me, what the henker

would ye think of some whom I have known? However, let that pass. It

is time that we were at the wars, for our good swords will not bide in

their scabbards.

“The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty,

For want of fighting was grown rusty,

And ate into itself for lack

Of somebody to hew and hack.”

You cannot think a thought but old Samuel hath been before you.’

‘Surely we shall be at the end of this dreary plain presently,’ Reuben

cried. ‘Its insipid flatness is enough to set the best of friends by the

ears. We might be in the deserts of Libya instead of his most graceless

Majesty’s county of Wiltshire.’

‘There is smoke over yonder, upon the side of that hill,’ said Saxon,

pointing to the southward.

‘Methinks I see one straight line of houses there,’ I observed, shading

my eyes with my hand. ‘But it is distant, and the shimmer of the sun

disturbs the sight.’

‘It must be the hamlet of Hindon,’ said Reuben. ‘Oh, the heat of this

steel coat! I wonder if it were very un-soldierly to slip it off and tie

it about Dido’s neck. I shall be baked alive else, like a crab in its

shell. How say you, illustrious, is it contravened by any of those

thirty-nine articles of war which you bear about in your bosom?’

‘The bearing of the weight of your harness, young man,’ Saxon answered

gravely, ‘is one of the exercises of war, and as such only attainable by

such practice as you are now undergoing. You have many things to learn,

and one of them is not to present petronels too readily at folk’s heads

when you are on horseback. The jerk of your charger’s movement even now

might have drawn your trigger, and so deprived Monmouth of an old and

tried soldier.’

‘There would be much weight in your contention,’ my friend answered,

‘were it not that I now bethink me that I had forgot to recharge my

pistol since discharging it at that great yellow beast yesternight.’

Decimus Saxon shook his head sadly. ‘I doubt we shall never make a

soldier of you,’ he remarked. ‘You fall from your horse if the brute

does bit change his step, you show a levity which will not jump with the

gravity of the true soldado, you present empty petronels as a menace,

and finally, you crave permission to tie your armour--armour which the

Cid himself might be proud to wear--around the neck of your horse. Yet

you have heart and mettle, I believe, else you would not be here.’

‘Gracias, Signor!’ cried Reuben, with a bow which nearly unhorsed him;

‘the last remark makes up for all the rest, else had I been forced to

cross blades with you, to maintain my soldierly repute.’

‘Touching that same incident last night,’ said Saxon, ‘of the chest

filled, as I surmise, with gold, which I was inclined to take as lawful

plunder, I am now ready to admit that I may have shown an undue haste

and precipitance, considering that the old man treated us fairly.’

‘Say no more of it,’ I answered, ‘if you will but guard against such

impulses for the future.’

‘They do not properly come from me,’ he replied, ‘but from Will

Spotterbridge, who was a man of no character at all.’

‘And how comes he to be mixed up in the matter?’ I asked curiously.

‘Why, marry, in this wise. My father married the daughter of this same

Will Spotterbridge, and so weakened a good old stock by an unhealthy

strain. Will was a rake-hell of Fleet Street in the days of James, a

chosen light of Alsatia, the home of bullies and of brawlers. His blood

hath through his daughter been transmitted to the ten of us, though I

rejoice to say that I, being the tenth, it had by that time lost much

of its virulence, and indeed amounts to little more than a proper pride,

and a laudable desire to prosper.’

‘How, then, has it affected the race?’ I asked.

‘Why,’ he answered, ‘the Saxons of old were a round-faced, contented

generation, with their ledgers in their hands for six days and their

bibles on the seventh. If my father did but drink a cup of small beer

more than his wont, or did break out upon provocation into any fond

oath, as “Od’s niggers!” or “Heart alive!” he would mourn over it as

though it were the seven deadly sins. Was this a man, think ye, in the

ordinary course of nature to beget ten long lanky children, nine of

whom might have been first cousins of Lucifer, and foster-brothers of

Beelzebub?’

‘It was hard upon him,’ remarked Reuben.

‘On him! Nay, the hardship was all with us. If he with his eyes

open chose to marry the daughter of an incarnate devil like Will

Spotterbridge, because she chanced to be powdered and patched to his

liking, what reason hath he for complaint? It is we, who have the blood

of this Hector of the taverns grafted upon our own good honest stream,

who have most reason to lift up our voices.’

‘Faith, by the same chain of reasoning,’ said Reuben, ‘one of my

ancestors must have married a woman with a plaguy dry throat, for both

my father and I are much troubled with the complaint.’

‘You have assuredly inherited a plaguy pert tongue,’ growled Saxon.

‘From what I have told you, you will see that our whole life is a

conflict between our natural Saxon virtue and the ungodly impulses of

the Spotterbridge taint. That of which you have had cause to complain

yesternight is but an example of the evil to which I am subjected.’

‘And your brothers and sisters?’ I asked; ‘how hath this circumstance

affected them?’ The road was bleak and long, so that the old soldier’s

gossip was a welcome break to the tedium of the journey.

‘They have all succumbed,’ said Saxon, with a groan. ‘Alas, alas! they

were a goodly company could they have turned their talents to better

uses. Prima was our eldest born. She did well until she attained

womanhood. Secundus was a stout seaman, and owned his own vessel when

he was yet a young man. It was remarked, however, that he started on a

voyage in a schooner and came back in a brig, which gave rise to some

inquiry. It may be, as he said, that he found it drifting about in the

North Sea, and abandoned his own vessel in favour of it, but they hung

him before he could prove it. Tertia ran away with a north-country

drover, and hath been on the run ever since. Quartus and Nonus have been

long engaged in busying themselves over the rescue of the black folk

from their own benighted and heathen country, conveying them over by the

shipload to the plantations, where they may learn the beauties of the

Christian religion. They are, however, men of violent temper and profane

speech, who cherish no affection for their younger brother. Quintus was

a lad of promise, but he found a hogshead of rumbo which was thrown up

from a wreck, and he died soon afterwards. Sextus might have done well,

for he became clerk to Johnny Tranter the attorney; but he was of an

enterprising turn, and he shifted the whole business, papers, cash, and

all to the Lowlands, to the no small inconvenience of his employer, who

hath never been able to lay hands either on one or the other from that

day to this. Septimus died young. As to Octavius, Will Spotterbridge

broke out early in him, and he was slain in a quarrel over some dice,

which were said by his enemies to be so weighted that the six must ever

come upwards. Let this moving recital be a warning to ye, if ye are

fools enough to saddle yourselves with a wife, to see that she hath

no vice in her, for a fair face is a sorry make-weight against a foul

mind.’

Reuben and I could not but laugh over this frank family confession,

which our companion delivered without a sign of shame or embarrassment.

‘Ye have paid a heavy price for your father’s want of discretion,’ I

remarked. ‘But what in the name of fate is this upon our left?’

‘A gibbet, by the look of it,’ said Saxon, peering across at the gaunt

framework of wood, which rose up from a little knoll. ‘Let us ride past

it, for it is little out of our way. They are rare things in England,

though by my faith there were more gallows than milestones when Turenne

was in the Palatinate. What between the spies and traitors who were bred

by the war, the rascally Schwartzritter and Lanzknechte, the Bohemian

vagabonds, and an occasional countryman who was put out of the way lest

he do something amiss, there was never such a brave time for the crows.’

As we approached this lonely gibbet we saw that a dried-up wisp of a

thing which could hardly be recognised as having once been a human being

was dangling from the centre of it. This wretched relic of mortality

was secured to the cross-bar by an iron chain, and flapped drearily

backwards and forwards in the summer breeze. We had pulled up our

horses, and were gazing in silence at this sign-post of death, when what

had seemed to us to be a bundle of rags thrown down at the foot of the

gallows began suddenly to move, and turned towards us the wizened face

of an aged woman, so marked with evil passions and so malignant in its

expression that it inspired us with even more horror than the unclean

thing which dangled above her head.

‘Gott in Himmel!’ cried Saxon, ‘it is ever thus! A gibbet draws witches

as a magnet draws needles. All the hexerei of the country side will sit

round one, like cats round a milk-pail. Beware of her! she hath the evil

eye!’

‘Poor soul! It is the evil stomach that she hath,’ said Reuben, walking

his horse up to her. ‘Whoever saw such a bag of bones! I warrant that

she is pining away for want of a crust of bread.’

The creature whined, and thrust out two skinny claws to grab the piece

of silver which our friend had thrown down to her. Her fierce dark

eyes and beak-like nose, with the gaunt bones over which the yellow

parchment-like skin was stretched tightly, gave her a fear-inspiring

aspect, like some foul bird of prey, or one of those vampires of whom

the story-tellers write.

‘What use is money in the wilderness?’ I remarked; ‘she cannot feed

herself upon a silver piece.’

She tied the coin hurriedly into the corner of her rags, as though she

feared that I might try to wrest it from her. ‘It will buy bread,’ she

croaked.

‘But who is there to sell it, good mistress?’ I asked.

‘They sell it at Fovant, and they sell it at Hindon,’ she answered. ‘I

bide here o’ days, but I travel at night.’

‘I warrant she does, and on a broomstick,’ quoth Saxon; ‘but tell us,

mother, who is it who hangs above your head?’

‘It is he who slew my youngest born,’ cried the old woman, casting a

malignant look at the mummy above her, and shaking a clenched hand at it

which was hardly more fleshy than its own. ‘It is he who slew my bonny

boy. Out here upon the wide moor he met him, and he took his young life

from him when no kind hand was near to stop the blow. On that ground

there my lad’s blood was shed, and from that watering hath grown this

goodly gallows-tree with its fine ripe fruit upon it. And here, come

rain, come shine, shall I, his mother, sit while two bones hang together

of the man who slow my heart’s darling.’ She nestled down in her rags

as she spoke, and leaning her chin upon her hands stared up with an

intensity of hatred at the hideous remnant.

‘Come away, Reuben,’ I cried, for the sight was enough to make one

loathe one’s kind. ‘She is a ghoul, not a woman.’

‘Pah! it gives one a foul taste in the mouth,’ quoth Saxon. ‘Who is for

a fresh gallop over the Downs? Away with care and carrion!

“Sir John got on his bonny brown steed,

To Monmouth for to ride--a.

A brave buff coat upon his back,

A broadsword by his side--a.

Ha, ha, young man, we rebels can

Pull down King James’s pride--a!”

Hark away, lads, with a loose rein and a bloody heel!’

We spurred our steeds and galloped from the unholy spot as fast as our

brave beasts could carry us. To all of us the air had a purer flavour

and the heath a sweeter scent by contrast with the grim couple whom we

had left behind us. What a sweet world would this be, my children, were

it not for man and his cruel ways!

When we at last pulled up we had set some three or four miles between

the gibbet and ourselves. Right over against us, on the side of a gentle

slope, stood a bright little village, with a red-roofed church rising up

from amidst a clump of trees. To our eyes, after the dull sward of the

plain, it was a glad sight to see the green spread of the branches and

the pleasant gardens which girt the hamlet round. All morning we had

seen no sight of a human being, save the old hag upon the moor and a few

peat-cutters in the distance. Our belts, too, were beginning to be loose

upon us, and the remembrance of our breakfast more faint.

‘This,’ said I, ‘must be the village of Mere, which we were to pass

before coming to Bruton. We shall soon be over the Somersetshire

border.’

‘I trust that we shall soon be over a dish of beefsteaks,’ groaned

Reuben. ‘I am well-nigh famished. So fair a village must needs have a

passable inn, though I have not seen one yet upon my travels which would

compare with the old Wheatsheaf.’

‘Neither inn nor dinner for us just yet,’ said Saxon. ‘Look yonder to

the north, and tell me what you see.’

On the extreme horizon there was visible a long line of gleaming,

glittering points, which shone and sparkled like a string of diamonds.

These brilliant specks were all in rapid motion, and yet kept their

positions to each other.

‘What is it, then?’ we both cried.

‘Horse upon the march,’ quoth Saxon. ‘It may be our friends of

Salisbury, who have made a long day’s journey; or, as I am inclined

to think, it may be some other body of the King’s horse. They are far

distant, and what we see is but the sun shining on their casques; yet

they are bound for this very village, if I mistake not. It would be

wisest to avoid entering it, lest the rustics set them upon our track.

Let us skirt it and push on for Bruton, where we may spare time for bite

and sup.’

‘Alas, alas! for our dinners!’ cried Reuben ruefully. ‘I have fallen

away until my body rattles about, inside this shell of armour, like a

pea in a pod. However, lads, it is all for the Protestant faith.’

‘One more good stretch to Bruton, and we may rest in peace,’ said Saxon.

‘It is ill dining when a dragoon may be served up as a grace after meat.

Our horses are still fresh, and we should be there in little over an

hour.’

We pushed on our way accordingly, passing at a safe distance from Mere,

which is the village where the second Charles did conceal himself after

the battle of Worcester. The road beyond was much crowded by peasants,

who were making their way out of Somersetshire, and by farmers’ waggons,

which were taking loads of food to the West, ready to turn a few guineas

either from the King’s men or from the rebels. We questioned many as to

the news from the war, but though we were now on the outskirts of the

disturbed country, we could gain no clear account of how matters stood,

save that all agreed that the rising was on the increase. The country

through which we rode was a beautiful one, consisting of low swelling

hills, well tilled and watered by numerous streamlets. Crossing over the

river Brue by a good stone bridge, we at last reached the small country

town for which we had been making, which lies embowered in the midst of

a broad expanse of fertile meadows, orchards, and sheep-walks. From the

rising ground by the town we looked back over the plain without seeing

any traces of the troopers. We learned, too, from an old woman of the

place, that though a troop of the Wiltshire Yeomanry had passed through

the day before, there were no soldiers quartered at present in the

neighbourhood. Thus assured we rode boldly into the town, and soon found

our way to the principal inn. I have some dim remembrance of an

ancient church upon an eminence, and of a quaint stone cross within the

market-place, but assuredly, of all the recollections which I retain of

Bruton there is none so pleasing as that of the buxom landlady’s face,

and of the steaming dishes which she lost no time in setting before us.