CHAPTER LVII

AN ADDLED EGG

“Go ahead, Jack!” said the baronet, after they had crunched the frozen snow in silence for a quarter of a mile. “See that everything is ready, and secure a couple of berths in the ‘Weekly Dispatch,’ or whatever they call that lumbering ‘Flying Post’ coach’s consort, for the whole trip. I’ll be down directly.”

“For you and me, Sir George?” asked Slap-Jack, exhilarated by the prospect of a voyage to London. “Deck passengers, both, if I may be so bold? The fore-hold of a slaver’s a joke to them London coaches between decks.”

“Do as you’re ordered,” answered his master, “and be smart about it. Keep your tongue between your teeth, and wait at the ‘Hamilton Arms’ till I come.”

Sir George was obviously disinclined for conversation, and Slap-Jack hastened on forthwith, delighted to have an hour or two of leisure in his favourite resort, for reasons which will hereafter appear.

No sooner was his servant out of sight than the baronet retraced his steps, and took up a position under some yew-trees, so as to be completely screened from observation. Hence he could watch the door opening on his wife’s garden, and the windows of the gallery, already lighted, which she must traverse to reach her own room.

It was a pitiful weakness, he thought, but it could do no harm just to see her shadow pass once more for the last, last time!

Meanwhile Slap-Jack, arriving all in a glow at the “Hamilton Arms,” found that hostelry in a great state of turmoil and confusion; the stables were full of horses, the parlours were crowded with guests, even the bar was thronged with comers and goers, most of whom had a compliment to spare for mistress Alice. It was some minutes before she could find an opportunity of speaking to him, but the whisper must have been ludicrous as well as affectionate, for her sweetheart burst out laughing, and exploded again at intervals, while he sat with Smoke-Jack over a cup of ale in the tap.

The two shipmates adjourned presently to the stable, where they were followed by Alice, with a lanthorn, an armful of waxed twine, and a large needle, furnished by the elder seaman, such as is used for thrumming sails.

Their occupation seemed to afford amusement, for they laughed so much as greatly to endanger the secrecy enjoined by their feminine assistant, who was so pleased with its progress that she returned to visit them more than once from her avocations in the bar.

The press of company to-night at the “Hamilton Arms” consisted of a very different class from the usual run of its customers; the horses in the stable were well-bred, valuable animals, little inferior in quality to Captain Bold’s bay mare herself; the guests, though plainly dressed, were of a bearing that seemed at once to extinguish the captain’s claims to consideration, and caused him to slink about in a very unassuming manner till he had fortified his failing audacity with strong drink. They threw silver to old Robin the ostler, and called for measures of claret or burnt sack with an unostentatious liberality that denoted habits of affluence, while their thoughtful faces and intellectual features seemed strangely at variance with the interest they displayed in the projected cock-fight, which was their ostensible cause of gathering. A match for fifty broad pieces a side need scarcely have elicited such eager looks, such anxious whispers, such restless, quivering gestures, above all, such morbid anxiety for the latest news from the capital. They wore their swords, in which there was nothing remarkable, but every man was also provided with a brace of pistols, carried on his person, as though loth to trust the insecurity of saddle-holsters.

Malletort walked about from one to the other like the presiding genius of the commotion. For these he had a jest, for those a secret, for all a word of encouragement, a smile of approval; and yet busy as he was, he never took his eye off Florian, watching him as one watches a wild animal caught in a snare too weak to insure its capture, and likely to break with every struggle.

Without appearing to do so, he had counted over the guests and found their number complete.

“Gentlemen,” said he, in a loud, open voice, “I have laid out pen and ink in the Cedars, as my poor apartment is loftily entitled. If you will honour me so far, I propose that we now adjourn to that chamber, and there draw out the conditions of our match!”

Every man of them knew he had a halter round his neck, and the majority were long past the flush of youth, yet they scuffled upstairs, and played each other practical jokes, like schoolboys, as they shouldered through the narrow doorway into the room.

Malletort, signing to Captain Bold, and taking Florian’s arm, brought up the rear.

“How now, Mrs. Dodge?” he called out, as he crossed the threshold. “I ordered a fire to be lighted. What have you been about?”

“Alice must be sent for! Alice had been told! Alice had forgotten! How careless of Alice!” And Mrs. Dodge, in the presence of such eligible customers, really felt much of the sorrow she expressed for her niece’s thoughtlessness.

When Alice did arrive to light the fire, her candle went out, her paper refused to catch, her sticks to burn; altogether, she put off so much time about the job, that, despite her good looks, the meeting lost patience, and resolved to go to business at once; Captain Bold, who had recovered his impudence, remarking that, “If what he heard from London was true, some of them would have warm work enough now before all was done!”

The captain seemed a privileged person: all eyes turned on him anxiously, while several eager voices asked at once—

“What more have you heard?”

Bold looked to the Abbé for permission, and on a sign from the latter, handed him a letter, which Malletort retained unopened in his hand.

Sensations of excitement, and even apprehension, now obviously pervaded the assembly. Rumours had as usual mysteriously flown ahead of the real intelligence they were about to learn, and men looked in each other’s faces, for the encouragement they desired, in vain.

“Gentlemen,” said the Abbé, taking his place at the table, and motioning the others to be seated, whilst he remained standing, “if I fail to express myself as clearly as I should wish, I pray you attribute my shortcomings to a foreign idiom, and an ignorance of your expressive language, rather than to any doubt or hesitation existing in my own mind as to our line of conduct in the present crisis. I will not conceal from you—why should I conceal from you—nay, how _can_ I conceal from you, that the moment of action has now arrived. I look around me, and I see on every countenance but one expression, a noble and courageous anxiety to begin.”

Murmurs of applause went through the apartment, while two or three voices exclaimed, “Hear! hear!” “Well said!” “Go on!”

“Yes, gentlemen,” resumed the Abbé, “the moment has at last arrived, the pear is ripe, and has dropped off the wall from its own weight. The first shot, so to speak, has been fired by the enemy. It is the signal for attack. Gentlemen, I have advices here, informing me that the Bishop of Rochester has been arrested, and is now imprisoned in the Tower.”

His listeners rose to a man, some even seizing their hats, and drawing the buckles of their sword-belts, as if under an irresistible impulse to be off. One by one, however, they sat down again, with the same wistful and even ludicrous expression of shame on the countenance of each, like a pack of foxhounds that have been running hare.

The reaction did not escape Malletort, who was now in his element.

“I should have been unworthy of your confidence, gentlemen,” he proceeded, with something of triumph in his tone, “had such a blow as this fallen and found me unprepared. I was aware it had been meditated, I was even aware that it had been resolved on, and although the moment of execution could only be known to the government, I learned enough yesterday to impress on me the policy of calling together this influential meeting to-night. Our emissary, Captain Bold, here, will tell you that the intelligence had only reached his colleague at the next post two hours ago, though it travelled from London as fast as your English horses can gallop and your English couriers can ride. It must be apparent to every gentleman here that not another moment should be lost. My lord, I will ask your lordship to read over the resolutions as revised and agreed to at our last meeting.”

He bowed low to an elderly and aristocratic-looking personage, who, taking a paper from the Abbé’s hands, proceeded somewhat nervously to read aloud as follows:—

“Resolved—No. 1. That this Meeting do constitute itself a Committee of Direction for the re-establishment of public safety, by authority of His Majesty King James III., as authorised under his hand and seal.

“No. 2. That the noblemen and gentlemen whose signatures are attached to the document annexed, do pledge themselves to act with zeal, secrecy, and unanimity, for the furtherance of the sacred object declared above.

“No. 3. That for this purpose the oath be administered, jointly and severally, as agreed.

“No. 4. That the person now officially in correspondence with His Majesty’s well-wishers in Artois be appointed Secretary to the Committee, with full powers, as detailed under the head of Secret Instructions for Committee of Safety, No. 7.

“No. 5. That the Secretary be authorised in all cases of emergency to call a meeting of the entire Committee at his discretion.”

His lordship here paused to take breath, and Malletort again struck in.

“By authority of that resolution, I have called you together to-night. I cannot conceive it possible that there is present here one dissentient to our great principle of immediate action. Immediate, because thus only simultaneous. At the same time, if any nobleman or gentleman at this table has a suggestion to make, let him now submit his views to the meeting.”

Several heads were bent towards each other, and a good deal of conversation took place in whispers, ere a stout, good-humoured looking man, constituting himself a mouthpiece for the rest, observed bluntly—

“Tell us your plan, Mr. Secretary, and we’ll answer at once. Not one of us is afraid of a leap in the dark, or we should scarcely be here now; but there is no harm in taking a look whilst we can!”

A murmur of applause denoted the concurrence of the majority in this prudent remark, and Malletort, still with his eye on Florian, rose once more to address them.

“I need not recapitulate to this meeting, and especially to you, Sir Rupert (saluting the last speaker), all the details set forth in those secret instructions of which each man present has a copy. The invasion from the Continent will take place on the appointed day, but with this additional assurance of success, that three thousand Irish troops are promised from a quarter on which we can implicitly rely. His lordship here, as you are aware, following the instincts of his illustrious line, assumes the post of honour and the post of danger amongst us in the north, by placing himself at the head of a loyal and enthusiastic multitude, only waiting his signal to take up arms. You, Sir Rupert, have pledged yourself and your dalesmen to overawe the Whigs and Puritans of the east. Other gentlemen, now listening to me, are prepared to bring their several troops of an irregular, but highly efficient cavalry, into the field. To you, who are all intimately acquainted with our military dispositions, I need not insist on the certainty of success. Let each man read over his secret instructions and judge for himself. But gentlemen, the scheme of a campaign on a grand scale is not all with which we have to occupy ourselves. Something more than a military triumph, something more than a victorious battle is indispensable to our complete success. And I need not remind you that there is no compromise between complete success and irremediable disaster. It is an unavoidable choice between St James’s Palace and Temple Bar. I now come to the germ of the undertaking—the essence of the whole movement—the keystone of that bridge we must all pass over to reach the wished-for shore. I allude to the suppression of the Usurper and the fall of the House of Hanover.”

A stir, almost a shudder, went through the assemblage. Men looked askance at the papers on the table, the buckles of their sword-belts, the spur-leathers on their boots, anything rather than betray to their neighbours either too eager an apprehension of the Abbé’s meaning, or too cold an approval of his object. He was speaking high treason with a vengeance, and the one might place them in too dangerous a prominence, while the other might draw down the equally dangerous mistrust of their fellow-conspirators. Malletort knew well what was passing in his hearers’ minds, but he never expected to get the iron hotter than it was to-night, and he struck at it with his whole force.

“The arrangements for our great blow,” said he, “have been confided to a few zealous loyalists, with whose plans, as your Secretary, I have been made acquainted. In five days from the present, King George, as he is still called, returns to Kensington. He will arrive at the palace about dusk. What do I say? He will never arrive there at all! Captain Bold here, whom I have had the honour to present to this meeting, has organised a small body of his old comrades, men of tried bravery and broken fortunes, who are pledged to possess themselves of the Usurper’s person. His guard will be easily overpowered, for it will be outnumbered three to one. The titular Prince of Wales and his children will at the same time be made prisoners, and the chief officers of state secured, if possible without bloodshed. Such a bold stroke, combined with a simultaneous rising here in the north, cannot but insure success. It is for you, gentlemen, to assemble your followers, to hold yourselves in readiness, and trusting implicitly to the co-operation of your friends in London, to declare on the same day for His Majesty King James III.!”

The enthusiasm Malletort contrived to fling into his last sentence caught like wildfire.

“Long live James the Third!”—“Down with the Whigs!” exclaimed several of his listeners; and Sir Rupert flung his hat to the low ceiling ere he placed it on his head, as if preparing to depart; but the tall figure of the elderly nobleman, as he rose from his chair, seemed to dominate the tumult, and every syllable was distinctly audible, while he inquired, gravely—

“Can this be accomplished without violence to the person of him whom we deem a Usurper?”

Only the narrowest observers could have detected the sneer round Malletort’s mouth, while he replied—

“Certainly, my lord!—certainly! With as little personal violence as is possible when armed men are fighting round a king in the dark! My lord, if you please, we will now pass on to a few trifling matters of finance, after which I need detain the meeting no longer.”

The meeting, as usual, was only too happy to be dissolved. In less than ten minutes hats and cloaks were assumed, reckonings paid, horses led out from the stable, and riders, with anxious hearts, diverging by twos and threes on their homeward tracks.

There was no question, however, about the cock-fight which was supposed to have called these gentlemen together.

Malletort, Florian, and Captain Bold remained in the Cedars. The two priests seemed anxious, thoughtful, and preoccupied; but the Captain’s eye twinkled with sly glances of triumphant vanity, and he appeared extremely self-satisfied, though a little fidgety, and anxious for his employer to leave the room.