Part 24

“I am taking my own life in my hands, Dick,” he said. “There is nothing else for me to do. They are desperate men, you say; I grant it you. They will murder this woman, Dick, and I, too—am desperate. The law will not help me. I tell you I am going to Pevensel to try and save her, though she be another man’s wife.”

Wilson, with a helpless gesture, sank back into his chair.

“I see that I waste my words,” he said.

“Good-bye, Dick; give me your hand.”

“God keep you, sir, from getting your brains scattered for the sake of a green petticoat.”

The sky was breaking in the west when Jeffray mounted his black mare, rode down through the park, and passed the gibbet on Rodenham heath. A splendor of rain-drenched gold streamed from under the lifting edge of the clouds. The whole landscape grew bathed in a flood of slanting light. The moorland and the green woods flashed and glittered; masses of wild tawny vapor crowned the heights of Pevensel. Rain was still falling lightly from the black clouds above, but the mutterings of the thunder and the streaks of fire were passing southward towards the sea.

Jeffray left the road below Beacon Rock and crossed the heath towards the forest. His eyes, dark and alert in his sallow face, searched the waste for signs of life. A solitary plover flapped and wailed against the sun, but for all else the wilderness and the welkin seemed deserted. Soon Jeffray was riding down the long slope that fell away towards the purlieus of the forest. He found the path that Bess had shown him of old, and passed in under the trees.

Pevensel was a magic wilderness that evening, with the sunlight flooding through from the wet west, and every bough glistening with dew. Under the pines the damp mast shone a deep rich bronze. The scent of the rain-drenched bracken and the pines steamed up into the slanting sunlight. Jeffray had no eye for the mere beauty of it at that moment. All tangible things were without significance save when they prompted the vigilance of the senses. The trees were a dumb and unmeaning multitude, the sunlight a curse when it blurred and obscured the distance. Jeffray had no vision before him save the vision of Bess lying senseless and broken in Dan’s great arms.

A confused sound of voices came suddenly to Jeffray through the forest, as he neared the broad ride known as White Hind walk. He reined in to listen, heard the gruff and angry growling of men’s voices rising from the deeps below him. Pushing on cautiously he came to where the ride clove a great pathway through the forest, and, putting spurs to his mare, dashed across it at a canter. As he flashed across the open he caught a glimpse of a line of pack-horses being driven at a trot along the ride some two hundred paces towards the south. Men were cursing and belaboring the beasts with sticks, the fierce and strenuous figures looming dim and blurred under the light through the trees. The significance of the thing flashed through Jeffray’s mind, as he held the mare well in hand and swung along the winding path, dodging the swooping boughs as they trailed above his head. He had seen a smuggling cavalcade threading through the forest, in some peril of capture, to judge by the way the men were beating the pack-horses. Jeffray remembered, at the same moment, the cornet and the light-horse at Rodenham village. There might be fighting afoot, and what if the Grimshaws were entangled in the scrimmage?

It was not long before the trees began to thin before him, the open west shining a wall of amber pilastered by the dark boles of the pines. Jeffray, growing cautious, dismounted and led his mare aside from the path, and tethered her in a slight hollow of the ground where she was hidden from the path by undergrowth and bracken. He took the pistols out of the holsters, reprimed them, and pushed on towards the hamlet. Looking down from the converging aisles of the forest, he saw the green break in the woods lying calm and quiet under the western sun. The place appeared deserted and silent, save for a few cows with swelling udders that were waiting at a byre-gate to be milked.

Jeffray’s eyes fixed themselves upon the cottage farthest from him. The gray walls were half hidden by the apple-trees of old Isaac’s orchard. The cottage was Dan Grimshaw’s cottage; Bess had spoken of it to Jeffray, and he recognized it from her words. But what was more significant to him for the moment was that a man stood leaning against the rough fencing of the garden with a musket lying in the crook of his left arm. The sunlight flashed on the long barrel, and the faint sound of the man’s whistling came up to Jeffray in the woods. He felt convinced, as he scanned the hamlet, that the Grimshaws were entangled in the smuggling enterprise, that Bess was in the cottage, and that they had left one of their men on guard.

There was no time to be wasted, and Jeffray, casting a half circle round the clearing, came to the thickets to the north of the cottage. The trees grew close to the garden on the north and west. Crouching behind the bracken, Jeffray won a clear view of the man leaning against the fence. He was Enoch, Solomon Grimshaw’s eldest son, a raw-boned lout, with a red beard fringing his chin. He was whistling a country song, dandling his musket lazily on his left arm, and taking his duty very stolidly.

Jeffray’s wit served him at the crisis. He slipped back from the bracken, and skirted round under the trees till he came to the back of the cottage. There was no second door to it, and the narrow lattices were closed. He gained the back of the cottage, moved step by step to the angle of the wall, and peered round it with his pistols ready. An apple-tree half hid from him the man leaning against the fence. The fellow was still whistling stolidly, and seemed in no fear of a surprise.

The grass path gave Jeffray the advantage that he needed. He crept on till he reached the farther edge of the cottage, and had the broad back of Solomon’s son in full view. Covering the man with one of his pistols, he stamped his foot, and kept his finger tight upon the trigger.

The man by the fence whipped round as though he had been touched on the shoulder. The levelled pistol, with the black circle of the muzzle covering him, appeared to astonish him considerably.

“Put down your musket, or I fire.”

The clear, tense tones rang out like a pistol-shot. Solomon’s son hesitated and obeyed.

“Hold up your hands.”

A pair of dirty paws went up.

“March off ten paces.”

Jeffray advanced on the fellow from the cottage. His last command was obeyed with such exaggerated nimbleness that Jeffray saw the sentinel take to his heels and scud towards the woods. He held his fire, and, reaching over the fence, possessed himself of the abandoned musket. He had hardly turned back towards the cottage when he heard the sound of shouting coming from the forest. He ran up the path and put his shoulders to the door of the cottage. It was locked and the key was gone. Clinching his teeth, he levelled the musket and blew in the lock. The door yielded to him, and he crossed the threshold.

One rapid glance showed Bess lying full length upon the oak table, bound wrist and ankle, the cords passing also about her body. The voices increased in volume rapidly. Jeffray ran to the door, and looked out. Pack-horses were being driven from the clearing into the woods; men were rushing to and fro in the sunlight, cursing, and cutting the bales from the beasts’ backs. Jeffray saw Solomon’s son shouting and waving his arm in the direction of Dan’s cottage. Several figures broke away from the mob of pack-horses and gathered round the man. Jeffray slammed the door to, shot the heavy bolts, snatched the wooden bar from the corner and ran it through the staples. He turned back into the room, took the knife from the sheath at his belt, and cut the cords that bound Bess.

She struggled up, flung her arms round Jeffray, and kissed him on the lips.

“They are coming,” she said, hoarsely.

“Yes, yes.”

“Give me the musket. I can fight.”

Jeffray gave the musket into her hands, looked at his pistols, laid his sword upon the table and the belt that carried the powder-flask and bullets.

“Load it,” he said, quietly; “ram home several slugs. Kneel down behind the chair.”

Bess, giving him a fierce love glance, did as he commanded her.

“Watch the window; I will hold the door. Reload for me if you can. We shall have the whole smuggling crew on us in a moment.”

Even as he spoke they heard the sound of men running. Heavy footsteps came up the path towards the cottage. They heard Dan’s voice roaring at them, bidding them open to him, or they would break down the door.

XLII

Jeffray stood gripping his pistols in the cottage room, driven by strange stress of circumstances to fight for a peasant girl against a crowd of cursing and sweating smugglers. He had never stood forward as a hero among his peers, those blue-eyed, plump-bellied worthies who preached or swore in the pulpit and at the dining-table. Slim, sensitive, yet strong now as a band of steel, he waited, watching the door heave and creak beneath the weight of Dan’s great body. Bess, kneeling behind her chair, was plying the ramrod. Her eyes met Jeffray’s for a moment, the gleam in them speaking for her woman’s heart.

Men were massing outside the cottage, brown handed, brown faced, redolent of liquor and of the sweat of action. Bess heard old Isaac’s treble, warning the fellows to keep clear of the window, and calling for a beam to break down the door. Jeffray saw the hole that he had blown in the lock with the musket darkened by the shadow of a man’s head. The glittering white of an eyeball showed through the rent. He stepped aside from the stretch of floor that the hole commanded, knowing that a pistol’s snout might take the place of a man’s eye. Nor was he too swift in the conclusion. There was a brisk report, a belching of smoke into the room, and a ball flattened itself against the opposite wall. Bess’s eyes flashed round to see whether Jeffray were hurt or no. He shook his head at her, smiled, and pointed to the window.

A lull followed. Then there was much shouting and a stamping of feet along the pathway to the cottage. They were bringing up a wagon-pole to beat in the door, and the oaken barrier shook and quivered at the first charge. A second shout like the shout of sailors heaving at a rope, a second swing of the pole, and the door split in the centre. Jeffray levelled a pistol and fired. He saw a contorted face sink back out of sight, heard a cry of pain, and a volley of curses. Turning quietly to the table he began recharging the empty pistol. Bess was crouching behind her chair, the musket resting on the rail, its muzzle covering the window.

She gave a sudden sharp cry, and pressed her cheek close to the stock. Jeffray, who was watching her, saw her eyes gleam out, the white crook of her forefinger tightening on the trigger. An echoing roar filled the room. Smoke swirled about the beams, wreathed and drifted into the corners. Jeffray, looking towards the window, saw nothing but a shattered lattice and blue vapor curling out into the sunlight. He gazed hard at Bess as he rammed home the bullet and sprinkled the powder on the pan. She seemed unconscious for the moment of his presence, a strange smile playing about her mouth.

“Who was it?” he asked her.

She did not move or look at Jeffray.

“A man. He was pointing a pistol at you through the window.”

“Is he down?”

“I saw him fall.”

The shots from the cottage seemed to have sobered the gentry for the moment. Jeffray heard old Isaac screaming and cursing, urging on the men to break in the door. Gathering together in a bunch, they lunged at it again with the wagon-pole, the door splitting from floor to lintel and the pole starting fully three feet into the room. Jeffray had a confused vision of tanned throats and fierce faces, a brandished cutlass, an upraised arm. He fired once, saw a red blotch show on one sun-tanned cheek, and the men hesitate and edge back from the broken door. The pole sank and wedged itself between the rent planking; the shifting figures melted away towards the garden-gate.

Loud cries had risen on the outskirts of the forest.

“Look out, lads, the redcoats; gather, gather!”

There was a scattering of pistol-shots, a confused trampling of feet, the clear-ringing voice of a man shouting orders. A bullet came crashing through the cottage window to bury itself in one of the great beams of the ceiling. Frightened horses were screaming and cantering about the clearing.

Bess was standing by the table reloading the musket. Jeffray, with the empty pistol still smoking in his hand, went to the window and looked out. He saw a man crawling down the path on his hands and knees, coughing and spitting blood, his head lolling from side to side. The open space between the trees seemed a-swirl for the moment with swords and plunging horses, a tangle of redcoats and of blurred and dusky figures. The smuggling folk and the troopers were stabbing and cutting at one another amid the plunging pack-horses. From the southern end of the clearing Jeffray saw a mounted excise-officer cantering up with some twenty revenue men at his heels. They had tracked the smuggling folk up from Thorney Chapel, while the cornet of Light-Horse, led by a spy, had brought his troopers through the woods from Rodenham. Soon the struggling knot of fustian and scarlet broke and spread into scattering eddies. Figures went scudding from the woods, some dropping and grovelling before they reached the cover. The fight was over. The foresters and the smuggling folk, such as were left of them, scattered and fled for the sanctuary of the forest.

Jeffray felt that Bess was near him, and turning sharply he found her standing at his elbow.

“The revenue men,” she said, in her husky voice, putting her hands upon the sill and looking out through the broken lattice.

Jeffray, conscious of the white and desirable face that dreamed up at him out of a cloud of hair, thrilled to the wild charm of it all, the uprushing of romance into his brain.

“Bess,” he said, smiling, “what are we to do?”

She looked at him half puzzled, smiling a little for the sheer sweetness of having her head resting upon his arm.

“We are free now, are we not, Richard?”

Jeffray pursed up his mouth grimly, and pointed to the broken door.

“I have spilled blood,” he said, “and kept a man from the charge of his own wife. The law takes knowledge of these things. Tell me, Bess, who was the man you fired at through the window?”

She drew closer to Jeffray as though afraid.

“I do not know,” she answered.

“Was it Dan?”

“I don’t know—I don’t know. Take me away,” and she clung to Jeffray like a frightened child.

Jeffray wrenched the two halves of the broken door apart and thrust back the wagon-pole, so that there was room for them to pass. He sheathed his sword, buckled on the belt with the powder-flask and hunting-knife, and, picking up the pistols, looked round for Bess. She had climbed the stairs, and Jeffray could hear her moving to and fro in the room above, while the clock on the kitchen mantle-shelf ticked on as though death and desire were of no account.

The redcoats were securing such prisoners as they had taken, while the revenue men gathered the pack-horses together and broke into the cottages and out-houses to ransack them to the very rafters. Jeffray watched them at work through the broken door. Soon he heard Bess descending the stairs. She had tidied her clothes and bound up her hair, and thrown an old cloak over her shoulders. He held the broken halves of the door apart from Bess, and followed her down the garden path. The dusk was fast falling, but there was enough light to show the blood-stains on the bricks. Bess shivered a little, drew up her petticoats and picked her way towards the gate. Jeffray swung it back for her, and they passed out into the open land that was still lit by the slanting sunlight.

Bess came to a dead halt suddenly some ten paces from the palings. She seized Jeffray’s wrist, and stood pointing to the body of a man lying in the long grass. Her eyes had dilated, the pupils swimming black, and awed under the long lashes.

“Look!”

Jeffray went a step nearer and gazed down at the man lying in the grass. His head was twisted to one side, the upper lip drawn up over the teeth in a snarling grin. There was blood on the black beard, blood on the hairy chest and on the shirt that flapped open from the massive throat. It was Dan who lay dead with a musket-bullet through his chest.

Bess and Jeffray stood and looked into each other’s eyes. Her hand still gripped his wrist spasmodically. He saw her lips move, saw the unuttered question in her eyes.

“He is dead,” he said, solemnly.

“Who, who?”

“Dan, your husband.”

She tottered and clung to him, struggling for her breath, yet still staring at the dead man in the grass. Jeffray had one arm about her body. He was as white as Bess, yet the master of his own manhood. A shout came to him across the clearing. Several red-coats were approaching the cottage, led by an officer with his sword drawn.

XLIII

Jeffray, rising above the entanglements of the moment, took Bess by the arm, and led her back through the gate towards the cottage. He spoke a few words to her, warning her to keep the manner of Dan’s death secret, and to leave the unravelling of the coil to him. Bess, looking like one in pain, sank down on the rough bench beside the door. The shock of seeing her dead husband’s face had unnerved her utterly for the moment.

Jeffray, turning from her with his mouth set, found that the officer and his troopers were already at the gate, their red coats shining out against the dark background of the trees. Jeffray acted on the inspiration of the moment. He walked coolly down the garden path, took off his hat to the officer, to be surprised by hearing his own name coming glibly from the soldier’s lips.

“Mr. Richard Jeffray, I believe?”

The civilian bowed. He recognized the officer as the cornet of Light-Horse, whom he had seen lounging in the doorway of the Wheat Sheaf Inn at Rodenham.

“I see, sir, that I am known to you.”

The cornet showed his regular white teeth in a good-humored smile, and ordered his men to stand back some paces.

“A mounted servant of yours,” he said, “fell in with us as we were crossing Rodenham heath. The fellow appeared much concerned about your safety.”

The cornet was studying Jeffray curiously with his large and melancholy eyes. He had the dreamy and sensuous look of a young man whose amiability made him popular with women. It was evident that he had been enlightened in some measure as to the nature of Jeffray’s romantic quest, and that being something of a sensualist, he regarded the civilian with an erotic interest. Jeffray knew not for the moment whether to bless or curse Wilson and the butler for meddling in his adventures. He looked hard at the soldier as though to discover what species of man he had to deal with.

“Of one thing, sir, I am assured,” he said, assuming an air of candor, “that I have to thank you for rescuing me from a very hot and dangerous corner.”

The soldier bowed slightly, and smiled in his tired and melancholy fashion.

“We were ordered to assist these revenue fellows,” he explained, “in rounding up one of the most savage smuggling gangs in Sussex. I can only express my satisfaction at having been able to assist a gentleman whose courage had carried him into the enemy’s lines.”

Such stately civility appeared to promise well for the adaptability of the cornet’s sentiments. Jeffray felt by instinct that it would be expedient for him to trust the man, pretend to make a friend of him, and thus get Bess safely out of Pevensel.

“I suspect that we can understand each other, sir,” he said, with a boyish laugh, “and I hold myself fortunate in having been thrown in contact with a gentleman. If you will walk aside with me—I can explain.”

The cornet stood aside from the gate, and confessed himself at Jeffray’s service. He was one of those men who never quarrel by inclination, and was indeed the very creature Jeffray needed, lazy, good-tempered, eager for popularity, a man tinged with a sentimental devotion towards women, a devotion that bowed down before a dimpled chin, and capitulated smilingly to a pair of mischievous eyes.

“I am at your service, sir,” he said, bowing.

Jeffray took the soldier at his word, and, with an air of unpremeditated abstraction, marched him straight for Dan Grimshaw’s body. The exquisite son of Mars started at the sight of the contorted face shining a dead white from the grass. He touched the body a little contemptuously with his foot, sniffed, and shrugged his padded shoulders.

“Another poor devil shot,” he said.

Jeffray bent over the body as though it were new and strange to him.

“Hit in the chest,” he said, reflectively. “Your men were firing pretty briskly into the mob.”

“They fired on us first, sir,” quoth the cornet, as though moved to justify his orders.

“I don’t doubt it. Some of your shots came into the cottage where I was cornered with the girl whose life I was trying to save.”

With much parade of mystery Jeffray unfolded to the sentimental youth as much of the past as suited the occasion. He told how he had come to be blockaded in the cottage, and confessed that he had been compelled to fire on the smuggling folk in self-defence. Concerning Dan’s death he was discreetly silent, nor did he divulge the fact that Bess had helped him to hold the cottage. The cornet listened with the most serious and sympathetic attention, stroking the silver facings of his coat, and never so much as dreaming to wink at Jeffray.

“I am not astonished, sir,” he said, at the end thereof, “that the lady should be a little shaken after such adventures.”

“Your sympathy does you credit,” returned Jeffray, with a bow.

“May I ask what is to be done with the lady?”

“I desire to disentangle her from such painful surroundings, and place her under my housekeeper’s care at Rodenham.”

The cornet looked sadly at Jeffray, as though taking him for a very eccentric person or a most human and devoted fool. Being an amiable and sentimental creature, and not given to legal methods of reflection, he showed himself very ready to assist Jeffray with the true courtesy of a cavalier.

“Shall I lend you two troopers and a guide,” he said, “to convey you to Rodenham? Is the lady fit to travel?”

Jeffray accepted the suggestion.

“I thank you for your courtesy,” he said; “the ride will take the girl away from her own thoughts. I shall be very grateful to you if you will make inquiries as to her husband—Daniel Grimshaw, and the old man, Isaac. If you discover any facts bearing upon the mystery of the girl’s past I shall be eager to receive them. My own mare is tethered in the woods. One of the pack-horses would carry the lady.”

The soldier proved himself the very perfection of a Pandar in scarlet and silver. He would as soon have assisted in so romantic an intrigue, for such he fully believed it to be, as have perused one of the most interesting passages in the life of one of Mr. Fielding’s heroes. Jeffray’s mare was discovered safely hidden in the woods where he had left her. One of the pack-horses was saddled and Bess mounted thereon. Two troopers and a guide were ordered to put themselves at Jeffray’s service.

“I wish you good speed, sir,” said the cornet, bowing and raising his hat to Bess.

Jeffray, charmed by the young man’s urbanity, shook him heartily by the hand.

“You will do me the honor of dining with me to-morrow?” he asked.

The cornet bowed, his brown eyes brightening with momentary relish.

“Certainly, if my duties permit the pleasure,” he said, smiling a tired smile.