Collected works of j s f.., p.96
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 96
Upon the twenty-seventh day of October, 1644, was fought the second battle of Newbury. Essex was ill, and the army was commanded by Manchester, who had with him Cromwell as general of the cavalry. Which of us it was that had the advantage I cannot say — the king retired upon Oxford, but there was no pursuit of him. Some said there was a difference of opinion between Manchester and Cromwell, and as to that I know naught either. What I do know is that on the following morning I was fetched to Cromwell’s tent, where I found him sealing a despatch, and conversing with Ireton. He looked me up and down, with that keen glance of his, which seemed to read a man’s thoughts on the instant.
“You are a Yorkshireman?” says he.
“I am, sir,” says I.
“I have here a despatch of the strictest importance for Sir Thomas Fairfax, who is now investing the castle at Pomfret,” says he. “I think you are the man to carry it.”
“Sir,” says I, “I am at your orders.”
He sat looking at me, his fingers playing drum-taps on the sealed packet.
“This,” says he, “must not be permitted to fall into the hands of the enemy. ‘Twixt Sheffield and Pomfret they are now in full force. I think you, as a native of that part, should circumvent them.”
“I’ll undertake that, too,” says I.
“What do you propose?” says he.
“Not to travel like this,” says I, with a glance at my uniform. “I’ll go as a travelling scholar — I have my old suit at hand.”
“Begone,” says he, and hands over the packet. He kept his thumb and finger on one corner of it, and looked me squarely in the face. “If this should fall into the enemy’s hand,” he says, and pauses. He let the packet go. “You will be on your way in an hour, Master Coope,” says he, and waves me out.
I was out of the camp in half-an-hour after that, and on my way northward. I wore my old suit, and out of one pocket stuck a Livy, and out of the other a Horace. As for the packet for Sir Thomas Fairfax, it was sewed within the lining of my doublet. I had ridden a good ten mile before I remembered that my mission would give me the opportunity of waiting upon Sir Nicholas. That, I think, added some zest to my adventure, for I was honestly anxious to see the good old knight once more.
Now, I made good speed in my journey, and met with little hindrance until the afternoon of the fourth day, when I was brought up by as unfortunate an accident as a man in my position could encounter. My horse, which had left Sheffield that morning, seemingly fresh and fit for the last stage of his journey, suddenly fell dead under me on the roadside ‘twixt Hickleton and Barnsdale, leaving me staring at him with as rueful thoughts as ever I had in my life. It was then four o’clock in the afternoon, and by six I had trudged forward to Barnsdale. There, pausing under the trees, I stood to catch a glimpse of the Manor House in the distance. I laid my hand on the packet hidden in my doublet. “That must be delivered ere nightfall,” says I. But I was dead tired, and by no means certain as to how my resolution was to be carried out.
CHAPTER III
Of my Second Meeting with Anthony Dacre, and its Results — and of my Serious Quandary as to which of two Duties must first be performed.
I.
I was by this time on the threshold, as it were, of my destination, for only a short seven miles lay ‘twixt me and Fairfax’s headquarters, but seven miles to a weary man is no light thing to venture on, and the packet which lay in my doublet was of a strict importance. However, fate being plainly against me, I ceased to fight with it, and resolved to rest for awhile, leaning against a beech tree that was damp and black with the November mists, debating in my mind as to the advisability of doing this or that.
“Faith!” says I to myself at last. “With my knowledge of the country it shall go hard if I don’t reach Pomfret to-night, and on a good horse, too. And so let’s see for such means as the neighbourhood affords.”
As luck would have it the barking of a dog across the fields reminded me of a farmhouse that stood there. ’Twas a lonely place, lying a long way back from the road, and so well hidden by great trees that you might have passed it, going north or south, and never caught a glimpse of its gables. I had forgotten it quite till the dog barked. “Egad!” says I, hearing him. “Here’s the very thing for me. Reuben Trippett’s bay mare will carry me across this seven miles in a trice, and I’ll take her without as much as a ‘by your leave,’ if only the stable-door be open.” And without pausing to reflect upon such questions as to whether Reuben still lived there, and if the bay mare (which he had lent me more than once in by-gone days) was still his property. I climbed the hedge at the next convenient opening, and made my way across the dank meadows towards the farmhouse.
By this time the night was closing in, very dull and misty, and as there was no light in Reuben Trippett’s window by which to guide my steps, I had some little difficulty in finding my way. There were three fields to cross, and in the middle one I called to mind a wide stretch of marshy land in which as a lad I had gathered many a handful of rare butter-bums. “Keep me out o’ that!” says I to myself, but the words were scarce out of my mouth when into it I flops, to my sore discomfort, and the sad besmirching of my breeches. But having met with it — and floundered out on t’other side after some difficulty — I knew where I was, and so went forward until at last I saw the farmhouse chimneys make a faint outline against the grey sky. There was a glint of light through a crack in the kitchen shutters. “Softly does it,” says I, and I crept along the wall till the sneck of the fold gate lay in my hand. “Why, this,” I says, chuckling to myself, “is the rarest adventure” — and so I was across the rotting straw in the fold and at the stable-door quicker than a star can shoot. “These cobble-stones,” thinks I, “must be covered up, or they’ll hear the mare’s feet on ’em” — and I ran across to the tumbril in the middle of the fold and brought back an armful of straw and spread it carefully over the stones. “And pray God,” I says, “that old Reuben hears naught, for his blunderbuss will spread pepper-corns over a good twenty yards!”
The stable door was unlocked — there was naught for me to do but lift the sneck and enter. Once inside I stood listening. On the instant I knew that there were no horses there. The place was cold, damp, evil-smelling, and silent as a dead-house. Now a stable in which horses have their habitation is warm as one’s own bed at getting-up time, and so I knew from its very coldness that neither the bay mare nor any other mare or horse stood ready to hand. And I was outside again in a moment and standing on the straw that I had laid down so carefully just before, with my brains busily wondering what had come to Reuben Trippett, whose stables and byres had always been full of cattle.
As I stood stroking my chin, I minded me of the chink in the kitchen window. “I’ll peep within,” says I, “whatever comes of it,” for I was in the mood for adventures that night. And so, crossing the fold with cautious steps I approached the window very gingerly, and put my eye to the crack through which the light streamed. And seeing that within which interested me more than a little, I kept it there and took a longer and steadier look.
There was naught in that kitchen (which I remembered as being well stocked with house stuff of all sorts) in the way of plenishing but a rickety table, a mouldering settle, and a crazy chair. The lath and plaster hung from the ceiling and walls in strips— ’twas plain to me that old Reuben was either gathered to his fathers and sleeping quiet in Badsworth churchyard, or gone elsewhere. Nevertheless, there was human life in the place, and it was the form under which it came that surprised me. Three men sat on the settle, and a fourth leaned against the jamb of the black, empty fire-place, the fifth sat on the broken chair with his back to the window through which I peered. One of the three on the settle I recognised for Jack Bargery, as villainous a rogue as all Osgoldcross, either Upper or Lower, could show, the men on each side of him and the fellow leaning against the jamb I had no knowledge of. But the figure in the chair, and mark you, I saw nought of it but the back, which made a black mass against the light of the candle burning on the table, seemed somewhat familiar to me and set some memories itching in my brain. And then a sudden turn of the man’s head brought it all back to me, and I knew him at once for my precious kinsman, Anthony Dacre.
“Ho-ho!” thinks I to myself. “Here’s a pretty meeting by candle-light. What may these five sweet gentlemen be about?” I says. And because my curiosity was aroused I straight forgot everything, Cromwell’s despatch and all, in a rare desire to hear what the fellows were talking of. But ’twas no good straining my ear, for there was a thick pane of dullish glass ‘twixt me and them, and I could make naught out, though I heard a mumbling sound, and saw their jaws move now and then. And just because ’twas Anthony Dacre that seemed to be doing all the talking, the others only putting in an occasional yea or nay, my curiosity warmed to boiling point and must needs be satisfied. So for the second time that night I began to cast about for means.
Now, in the old times, I knew every inch of the land round about my uncle’s estate, and the farmsteads were as familiar to me as the pump in our own stable-yard. I remembered, as I stood with my eye to the crack in the shutter, that in the rear of Reuben Trippett’s kitchen there was a lattice at which the maids used to hand in the milk-pails from the byre. ’Twas a matter of thin strips of lath, and in the daytime was left swinging as the wind liked, but in the night a shutter came down over it, and was secured by a bolt. If the shutter, by any good or ill luck, — I cared not which it might properly be called, — had been left up when the house was deserted, I should be able from the byre to hear every word spoken in the kitchen as well as if I had been inside. So, remembering this, I stole round the corner of the house to the byre, all agog to hear what mischief Master Dacre, that scamp Bargery, and t’other three were compassing. That it was mischief I never doubted for a moment; there was not an honest pair of eyes amongst the four that I had seen, and I remembered Anthony’s for more years than I could then call to mind.
The byre, like the stable, was cold and empty. I warrant me there had been no cows in it for a twelve-month. I had grown somewhat heated by my adventures in the bog, and the chill stuck to my bones and made me shiver. One glance at the far end of the mistal, however, helped me to forget cold and everything. They had forgotten to put down the shutter when they left the old house, and the lattice window made dim bars of shadow against the swimming light of the candle. There was naught left to me but to steal gently along the slimy walls of the byre (ugh! I can feel the damp of them now, and snuff their fetid odour, which then came thick and heavy to my nostrils) until I came to the lattice. And since I dared not venture to stick my head before it, lest the fellows within should catch sight of me, I got as near to the window frame as I dared, and listened with more attention than I had ever given, I think, to aught before.
Anthony Dacre was speaking when I put my ear as close to the latch as I dared, but he had evidently come to the tail of his sentence, and I could make little sense of it.
“Fair or foul,” says he, to wind up; “fair or foul.”
“And more foul than fair, I warrant me,” thinks I. “A deal more o’ the foul than the fair, Master Anthony, if I know aught o’ thee.” And I composed myself to hear somewhat more.
I heard a shuffling of feet on the kitchen floor, as if each man nudged his neighbour’s knee.
“Come,” says Anthony; “is there ne’er a tongue amongst the lot o’ you?”
The man Bargery spoke — I knew his voice, too.
“Why,” says he, “’tis like this: what use is speaking till we know Master Dacre’s plans? Or are we as soldiers that march under sealed orders?”
“Ah!” says another; “well put.”
“Why,” says Anthony, “I see no objection to telling you all that’s in my mind — why not? The main object’s in your knowledge already; ’tis the details that you’re curious about, eh?”
“There might be cutting of throats, and such like,” said another. “’Tis best we should know. Forewarned is forearmed, so they say.”
“Listen, then,” says Anthony. “Faith, I think you’ll say ’tis as pretty a bit o’ contrivance as was ever devised. Sir Nicholas, as you know, has made himself something beyond obnoxious to the Parliamentarians, and I saw a rare chance in that. So this morning I goes to Fairfax in his camp, and professes my devotion to the Parliament, and then spins him a long yarn about Sir Nicholas Coope and his efforts to keep the king’s flag flying over his old barn of a house. And, ‘sdeath, lads! I played my cards so well that I got a warrant from him to apprehend my worthy relative, and take him before Fairfax. Here ’tis — there’s Fairfax’s own seal and fist.”
I heard a murmuring growl from the four men, and the shuffle of their feet as they drew near to the table to inspect the paper.
“But — —” says Bargery.
“When I’ve finished,” says Anthony Dacre. “Now, here’s my plan: we shall go, the five of us, and apprehend Sir Nicholas, and thus get admission to the house, the door o’ which my pretty mistress keeps so persistently shut in my face. If the old knight calls up his fellows, we must give them as many tastes of cold steel as will suffice for their supper. I have little fear of trouble in that quarter, however.”
“There are four stout men i’ the house,” says Bargery, “and as many arms as would set up a troop.”
“What are four men to five, with Fairfax’s warrant behind them? And thy four men — zounds, there is but old Gregory, and ancient Jasper, and two lads that cannot tell the difference ‘twixt a musket and Sir Nicholas’s cane! Besides, we go in peace — leave it to me to make fair professions. I look not for any fighting — nevertheless, ’tis as well to be prepared. But hark ye, lads, I have a second paper from Fairfax that I set more store by than the first. Look at that for a piece o’ rare generalship.”
I heard the shuffle of their feet again as the men approached the table, and a murmuring as if none of the four could read over well. “’Tis such a crabbed fist,” says Bargery at last, and they shuffled back to the hearth and the settle.
“But plain enough for all I want,” says Anthony. “’Tis a safe conduct, lads, granted at the request of Master Anthony Dacre to Mistress Alison French, so that she may pass through any opposition of the Parliamentary troops to her father’s house. Now ye see my plan, eh? We shall go to the old knight and arrest him, but I shall be so full of concern and care for my cousin that I shall tell ’em great tales of my procuring this favour for her lest she should experience discomfort.”
“But,” says Bargery, “they tell me that she sets great store by the old man, and she’ll therefore let it count heavy against you that you come to hale him out o’ the house.”
“And I thought o’ that, too,” says Anthony. “And so I arranged that two of Fairfax’s troopers should accompany us to the house. We shall, therefore, be seven to four if it comes to fighting. Now, hark ye, lads, this is the whole manner of it. At nine o’clock to-night we meet the troopers at the corner of Hardwick village. They, Bargery there, and myself, go to the Manor House, and seek admission — t’other three o’ you wait me in the lane that leads past Hundhill. We gain admission, and I, very sorrowful, crave private audience of Sir Nicholas. I tell him how it grieves me that he and I should think differently on these matters of state, but that I am at least an honest man. Then I go on to say that I have learnt in the camp that Fairfax has issued a warrant against him, and that being personally much concerned because of it, I am come with the troopers myself to see that no indignity is offered him. Eh, you follow my notions?”
“Excellent!” says Bargery. “I see the reason on’t.”
“Then I brings out my safe conduct for Mistress Alison,” continues Anthony, “and offers her myself and three o’ my own men as escort along the road. Once the old knight is off to Fairfax’s camp, she will set out with me and you three that have waited for us, towards Doncaster. And as for the rest,” he says, with a laugh, “why, I need say naught of it. And now, lads, we’ll make arrangements for our meeting.”
Then there was a silence, and I wondered what they were doing, and whether I had best not slip away ere they came out of the house. But I think the four men must have been staring at each other, each wanting to say something that was on his mind. For presently one of them, a fellow with as hoarse a voice as ever I heard, growls out, “And our pay, Master Dacre; ye han’t said e’er a word o’ that.” At that I pricked up my ears. “Ha, ha!” says I. “Now there’s a chance for honest men.” But as luck would have it there was no falling out amongst these rogues, for Anthony promised to satisfy their demands, and presently they talked of parting. Thereat I stole away from the hatch and into the fields. The night had come on as black as a dog’s throat, and I found it hard work to make my way back to the road, but, faith! I had so much to think of that I never once stayed to consider the whereabouts of the marshy ground. And it was most likely, because I never remembered it, that I missed it and went sailing along in the darkness, comfortable enough — for I never thought of the discomfort — until I found myself in the hedge which separated me from the road. That I had not perceived, but I forgave it, for all that it had run various thorns into tender parts o’ my body. And so I climbed over it — having hurried alongside it till I found a post and rails — and stood on the road, once more wondering what to do next.
“Here’s a pretty coil!” says I. “Egad, Master Anthony, I used to trounce thee in the old days — why did I not give thee such a trouncing that thou hadst never needed more?”
But what was the good of that? The thing was to do — not to stand there thinking. But as thought goes before action — at least with wise men — I gave two minutes to it. And this is what I thought: First, it was plain that my rascally kinsman, Anthony Dacre, whom I there and then prayed God to utterly confound, meditated some serious injury to Mistress Alison French, and was minded to stop at naught, not even the seizure of Sir Nicholas himself by force, in order to compass his evil intentions. Second: There was nobody but myself who, knowing his plans, could warn my uncle and cousin of their danger. Third: I had a packet from Cromwell to Fairfax in my breast, which I was in honour bound to deliver as quickly as I might. Fourth: It seemed but a Christian-like thing to stay at my uncle’s house and tell him and Alison of that villain Anthony’s notions concerning them. Fifth: What was I going to do? — go straight on to Fairfax’s camp, or proceed to the Manor House? Sixth: Why the dickens should I interfere on behalf of Sir Nicholas (who had misunderstood me) or of my cousin Alison (who had — to my face, too! — called me a poltroon). Seventh: I hated Anthony Dacre, and would give much to circumvent him. Eighth: Blood is a deal thicker than water. Ninth: If I made haste I could inform Sir Nicholas, speak a word of warning in my cousin’s ear, and go forward to Pomfret before nine o’clock. And tenth: Soldier of the Parliamentary army as I was, and faithful to the cause of the people, and to the special trust that their leaders had reposed in me, I would see Parliament, people, Cromwell, Fairfax, and everything, damned before Anthony Dacre should have his will of an old man and an innocent girl!
