CHAPTER IV

A NIGHT JOURNEY

As the wagon-wheels creaked nearer and nearer, and the singing of the merry-makers came past him, Charles had all the work in the world to keep himself from leaping up out of the hole to join them, they seemed so happy. He himself did not feel anything like so happy as he had expected. He could not have laughed in that light-hearted way as the children did, chasing each other in and out of the gorse-bushes so near the edge of the hole that he could have caught them by the ankles as they ran.

At last all had passed by, and the only sound to be heard was the distant rumbling of the heavy-laden wagon-wheels down the hilly lane, or could it be the roll of distant thunder? for as he peeped over the edges of the hole he saw that the sun was setting in a bank of nearly black clouds. When he thought, that he was quite safe from being seen he scrambled up to the top of the hole, and a strange sight he looked, for his velvet breeches and his shirt and his face and hands were all one grimy drab color with the cobwebby dust and dirt he had gone through. Really, if anybody had spied him, there would have been no small difficulty in recognizing the little Prince who always went so richly and tastefully attired. No one, however, saw him as, taking one sharp look round, he sped like a lapwing with bent head through the thick tall furze-bushes covering the waste ground to the edges of the thicket beyond. At the other side of the thicket ran the bright stream whose course he intended to follow, as he knew that some miles ahead it joined the river Thames.

There, at the bottom of the broad steep-sloping bank he soon reached, lay a largish boat tied by a rope to the stem of an elm-tree. Charles’s heart leapt within him: that was just the thing he wanted. Surely some kind woodland fairy must have placed it there, as fairies do in story-books, for his convenience. The next minute his delight faded out: another glance showed that the craft was loaded rather heavily for its size with some wicker-baskets and a small cask and a sack which peeped out from beneath a big canvas covering, and of course to get in and row off, with all that cargo aboard, would make him like a thief, so the plan was impossible. While he was cogitating on this most difficult question he heard voices, and voices that he knew well, too. No less than those of Lady Chauncy and Wynkin, who seemed to be coming through the trees. Charles turned all gooseflesh with dismay. To make a run for it would, likely as not, land him right into her ladyship’s stiff brocade skirts. There was not a minute to think, and so he ran the other way down the bank faster than a rabbit, and hey presto! with one leap he was at the bottom of the boat, and, creeping under the canvas among the sacks.

Feeling as if his heart was really in his mouth, he listened to what the lady and her serving-man were saying, and her ladyship, who spoke first, seemed in one of her pleasantest humors.

“And so you are off, Wynkin,” said she; “well, the sooner the better perchance, for I believe there will be a storm before morning, and you have a long way to go, and your good father and mother are, I doubt not, wearying to give you a welcome. You must tell them that when his Highness hath been delivered safe back to his Majesty out of our charge, you will tarry with them a longer time. But now I shall look for you at midday to-morrow. Meantime I shall wait upon the Prince entirely myself, since my husband desires it. And so a good journey to you, and make my remembrances to your parents, and I trust they will have good enjoyment of the gallimaufries and the what-nots I beg their acceptance of, and that your mother will find the red cloak warm and a good fit. Is all well and securely packed in the boat, Wynkin?”

“Yes, madam,” replied Wynkin, making a low bow to his mistress, though, of course, Charles was only able to imagine that. “I have placed the cloak and the fresh butter, and the new-laid eggs, and the manchets, all in their baskets between the sacks,” and, stepping into the punt, he loosed the rope from the tree, struck out into midstream, and away glided the punt to the music of the river ripples.

If Wynkin had only known what he was carrying away from the Manor House along with his sacks and what-nots, as my lady called them, he might have whistled other sort of tunes than the jolly ones he indulged in as he punted on, on, till twilight darkened into night, and Charles, cooped up between the sacks, could no longer discern hedges from banks through the peephole he could keep open for himself only with difficulty.

All of a sudden, just as he heard the distant church clocks striking eight, a brilliant flash of lightning covered all he could see, followed by a crash of thunder, and then down upon the canvas covering pattered rain-drops as heavily as if they were crown pieces. For a short time the hurly-burly was so terrific that he almost, if not quite, wished himself back in the Cedar Room.

Just as the hurricane began to calm a little, Wynkin punted towards the bank, which was now fringed by a row of pollard willows, and he shouted to a man who was standing under them, “Is it you, Dickon lad?”

“Ay,” answered the man, as he lent a hand to the punt, while Wynkin jumped out of it. “A nice storm you be come in, brother Wynkin.”

“Yes,” laughed Wynkin, “but ’tis giving over a bit now. Have you got the cart?”

“Nay,” said Dickon; “old Dobbin’s so mortal afeard o’ lightning that I wouldn’t bring him out, and I’ve trundled down the garden wheel-barrer mysen, just to load with any small odds and ends you may have with you, and in the mornin’ we can come down and fetch the sacks, eh?”

“Right,” said Wynkin, “and here you are—catch,” and, stretching his arm under the canvas without removing it, he drew out the neatly packed baskets of good things which Lady Chauncy had sent as presents to his parents. “Now then, help me to tow the punt up alongside under the trees, and then we’ll be starting, for I’m as wet through as a fish.”

Then in a few minutes they had the punt safely tied up to the willow-stems, and away they went chatting cheerily as they trundled the barrow over the bank into the wet road beyond. For the first time Charles ventured to stir, creeping out from among the sacks as quickly as his cramped limbs permitted, into the body of the punt. He was chilled to the bone, and very hungry, and thought longingly of that roast beef he had despised so much some hours before, and he almost wished he had not left his doublet behind him. Fortunately, however, in groping along, he tumbled right down over something soft. It turned out to be the crimson frieze cloak, which in the darkness and in the hurry must have dropped out of the basket. How beautifully soft and warm and dry it felt! And with a cry of delight, Charles wrapped himself round in it from his head to his little ice-cold feet, and then, as luck would have it, out fell a manchet of the white bread, which must have caught in among the folds of the cloak, and without more ado Charles took a deep bite into it as he sat down in the bottom of the punt, huddled up warmly in the cloak. “And then I must be on the march,” he said to himself, cheered a little by the warmth and the food, but before he had swallowed three mouthfuls, his eyelids drooped heavily, his weary limbs slackened, and he was fast asleep.

When he awoke, dawn was just breaking fair and rosy over the distant hills. He sprang to his feet in affright, quite unconscious for the moment where he was, but his wits soon came back to him, and he looked cautiously round across the still, shadowy, low-lying banks. He could now see that beyond the trees stretched a gorse-covered common, and between, alongside the stream, wound a road.

Drawing off the cloak, he placed it back under the canvas, though rather reluctantly, for the air was chilly. Then, having made short work of the morsel of the white bread he found in his fingers when he first opened his eyes, he mounted to the edge of the punt and sprang to the bank. Reaching the road, he walked on a little way, looking cautiously every step he took, but for a good mile he did not see a single human creature, though the birds were singing lustily and the bees and gnats were skimming and skipping in the sunshine, for the morning was lovely. But before long, however, the field and farm workers began to be about, and in spite of his best endeavors to dodge them by dropping in among the hedgerows and the gorse-clumps, he was forced to face some of them. They took little heed, however, of the little ragged boy, for ragged enough he was in his down-trodden and sodden shoes, and his fine white shirt and finest cloth gray breeches all gone to about the same mud color. With his dark locks and swarthy cheeks smudged with dirt and the juice of the blackberries he plucked and ate hungrily as he hastened on, the good folk, if they noticed him at all, took him for some gipsy boy. But his heart was beginning to grow as heavy as his limbs, which were so weary that he could hardly put one bruised and bleeding foot before the other. All his merry adventure-loving thoughts were fading fast, and in their place rose up the terrible fear that when he reached London the King, instead of being rejoiced to see him, might be displeased. It was just possible, and the more tired he got, the more possible somehow it seemed, till at last he became terrified, for when his father was angry, his frown made the hearts of even grown-up great lords quake. All at once he fancied he heard voices calling, and overwhelmed with terror and fatigue, he had just strength enough left to hobble away into the wood which now ran along the roadside, till he seemed quite hidden, and, huddling together into the hollow of an old oak-tree, he sank down, sobbing bitterly.