Part 9

The morning's ride had been for Moonbeam no more than a journey to the meet, and the beautiful animal now laid back his ears and settled down to his share in that game which he understood as well as any two-legged mortal. But in the very perfection of the horse lay the rider's peril. Moonbeam was accustomed to top the hunt, for Squire Thicknesse was famed over three shires as a good goer. He would not be content to travel a field or two behind hounds; he must keep them company. Alastair found that no checking could restrain his mount. The animal was lightly bitted and he had not the skill or the strength to hold him back. True, he could have swerved and fetched a wide circuit, but in that first rush these tactics did not suggest themselves, and he set himself to a frantic effort at reining in, in which he was worsted. Moonbeam crossed the brook like a swallow; in a boggy place he took off badly, topped an ox-bar in the hedge, and all but fell on his nose in the next meadow. But after that he made no mistake, and in five minutes Alastair found himself looking from ten yards' distance at the broad back of the huntsman, with no rider near him except Squire Thicknesse on the grey.

The going was good over old pasture, and the young man had leisure to recover his breath and consider his position. He had hunted buck in France--stately promenades in the forests of Fontainebleau and Chantilly, varied by mad gallops along grassy rides where the only risk was the cannoning with other cavaliers. But this chase of the fox was a very different matter, the glory of it went to his head like strong wine, and he would not have cried off if he could. So far he was undiscovered. Were the fumes of last night's revel still in the Squire's head, or had he never meant to ride Moonbeam that day and his groom kept the loss from him? Crossing a thickset hedge neck by neck, Alastair stole a glance at him, and decided that the former explanation was the true one. His late host was still in the process of growing sober. . . . It could not last for ever. Sooner or later must come a check or a kill, when he would have a chance to look at his neighbour and his neighbour's horse. . . Then he must ride for it, become himself the fox, and trust to Moonbeam. Pray God that the run took them to the north and ended many miles from Flambury.

For the better part of an hour hounds ran without a check--away from the enclosed fields and the woodlands to a country of furzy downs and bracken-filled hollows, and then once more into a land of tangled thickets. It took about twenty minutes to clear Squire Thicknesse's brain. Alastair heard a sudden roar behind him and looked over his shoulder to see a furious blue eye fixed on him, and to hear a bellow of--"Damme, it's my horse. It's my little Moonbeam!" He saw a whip raised, and felt it swish a foot from his leg. There was nothing for it but to keep his distance from the wrathful gentleman, and so gallantly did Moonbeam respond that he was presently at the huntsman's elbow.

Had he known it, the grey was the faster of the two, though lacking Moonbeam's sweet paces and lionlike heart. His enemy was up on him at once, and it looked as if there was nothing before him but to override hounds. But the discipline of the sport was stronger than a just wrath. The Squire took a pull on the grey and drew back. He was biding his time.

Alastair seized the first chance, which came when hounds were engulfed in a wide wood of oaks on the edge of a heath. Taking advantage of a piece of thick cover, he caught Moonbeam by the head and swung him down a side glade. Unfortunately he was observed. An oath from Squire Thicknesse warned him that that sportsman had forgone the pleasure of being in at the death for the satisfaction of doing justice on a horse-thief.

Now there was no hunt etiquette to be respected. The grey's hooves spurned the rotten woodland turf, and pursuer and pursued crashed into a jungle of dry bulrushes and sallows. Alastair was saved by the superior agility of his horse, which could swerve and pivot where the heavier grey stumbled. He gained a yard or two, then a little more by a scramble through a gap, and a crazy scurry down a rabbit track. . . . He saw that his only chance was to slip off, for Moonbeam had the madness of the chase on him, and if left riderless would rejoin the hounds. So when he had gained some forty yards and was for the moment out of the Squire's sight, he took his toes from the stirrups and flung himself into a bed of bracken. He rolled over and over into a dell, and when he came to a halt and could look up he saw the grey's stern disappearing round the corner, and heard far off the swish and crash of Moonbeam's flight.

Not a second was to be lost, for the Squire would soon see that the rider had gone and turn back in the search for him. Alastair forced his stiff legs to a run, and turned in the direction which he thought the opposite of that taken by hounds. Up a small path he ran, among a scrub of hazels and down into a desert of red bracken and sparse oak trees. The noises in the wood grew fainter, and soon his steps were the loudest sound, his steps and the heavy flight of an occasional scared pigeon. He ran till he had put at least a mile of rough land behind him, and had crossed several tracks, which would serve to mislead the pursuit. Lacking a bloodhound, it would not be easy to follow his trail. Then in a broader glade he came upon a thatched hovel, such as foresters and charcoal-burners use when they have business abroad in the night hours.

Alastair crept up to it cautiously, and through a crack surveyed the interior. His face hardened and an odd light came into his eye. He strode to the door and pushed the crazy thing open.

Within, breakfasting on a hunch of bread and cheese, sat the man Edom, Mr Kyd's servant.

_VIII Broom at the Cross-Roads_

The face before him had the tightened look of a sudden surprise: then it relaxed into recognition; but it showed no fear, though the young man's visage was grim enough.

"You are Mr Kyd's servant?"

"Your honour has it. I'm Edom Lowrie at your honour's service."

"Your master started yesterday for Wiltshire. Why are you not with him?"

The man looked puzzled.

"Ye're mista'en, sir. My master came here yestereen. I left him at skreigh o'day this morning."

It was Alastair's turn to stare. Kyd had lied to him, thinking it necessary to deceive him about his road--scurvy conduct, surely, between servants of the same cause. Or perhaps this fellow Edom was lying. He looked at him and saw no hint of double-dealing in the plain ugly face. His sandy eyebrows were indistinguishable from his freckled forehead and gave him an air of bald innocence, his pale eyes were candid and good-humoured, the eaves of his great teeth were comedy itself. The more Alastair gazed the harder he found it to believe that this rustic zany had betrayed him. But what on earth was Kyd about?

"Where is your master now?" he asked.

The other took off his hat and scratched his head. "I wadna like to say, sir. You see he telled me little, forbye sayin' that he wadna see me again for the best pairt o' a month. I jalouse mysel' that he's gone south, but he micht be for Wales."

"Were you in Flambury last night?"

The man looked puzzled till Alastair explained. "Na, na, I was in nae village. I had a cauld damp bed in a bit public. My maister wasna there, but he appeared afore I was out o' the blankets, a' ticht and trim for the road, and gied me my marching-orders. I was to traivel the woods on foot, and no get mysel' a horse till I won to a place they ca' Camley."

"Are you for Scotland?"

"Nae sic fortune. I'm for the Derbyshire muirs wi' letters." He hesitated. "Your honour's no gaun that road yoursel'? I wad be blithe o' company."

The light in the hut was too dim to see clearly, for there was no window, the door was narrow and the day was sullen.

"Step outside, Mr Lowrie, till I cast an eye over you," said Alastair.

The man pocketed the remains of his bread and cheese and shambled into the open. He wore a long horseman's coat and boots, a plain hat without cocks, and carried a stout hazel riding-switch. He looked less like a lackey than some small yeoman of the Borders, habited for a journey to Carlisle or St Boswell's Fair.

"You know who I am," said Alastair. "You are aware that like your master I am in a certain service, and that between him and me there are no secrets."

"Aye, sir. I ken that ye're Captain Maclean, and a gude Scot, though ower far north o' Forth for my ain taste, if your honour will forgie me."

"You carry papers? I must know more of your journey. What is your goal?"

"A bit the name o' Brightwell near a hill they ca' the Peak."

Alastair had not been prepared for this, had had no glimmering of a suspicion of it, and the news decided him.

"It is of the utmost importance that I see your papers. Your master, if he were here now, would consent."

The man's face flushed. "I kenna how that can be. Your honour wadna have me false to my trust."

"You will not be false. You travel on a matter of the Prince's interest, as I do, and I must know your errand fully in order to shape my own course. Your master and I have equal rank in His Highness's councils."

The other shook his head, as if perplexed. "Nae doot--nae doot. But, ye see, sir, I've my orders, and I maun abide by them. 'Pit thae letters,' my maister says, 'intil the hand of him ye ken o' and let naebody else get a glisk o' them.'"

"Then it is my duty to take them by force," said Alastair, showing the hilt of his sword and the butt of a pistol under his coat.

Edom's face cleared.

"That is a wiser-like way o' speakin'. If ye compel me I maun e'en submit, for ye're a gentleman wi' a sword and I'm a landward body wi' nocht but a hazel wand. It's no that I mistrust your honour, but we maun a' preserve the decencies."

He unbuttoned his coat, foraged in the recesses of his person, and from some innermost receptacle extracted a packet tied with a dozen folds of cobbler's twine. There was no seal to break, and Alastair slit the knots with his sword. Within was a bunch of papers of the same type as those he had received from Brother Gilly, and burned in the fire of the Dog and Gun. These he put in his pocket for further study. "I must read them carefully, for they contain that which must go straight to the Prince's ear," he told the perplexed messenger.

But there was a further missive, which seemed to be a short personal note from Mr Kyd to the recipient of the papers.

"_Dear Achilles_," it ran. "_Affairs march smoothly and the tide SETS well to bring you to Troy town, where presently I design to crack a bottle and exchange tales. The Lady Briseis purposes to join you and will not be dissuaded by her kinsman. A friendly word:_ _mix caution with your ardour her-ward, for she has got a political enthusiasm and is devilish strong-headed. The news of the Marches and the West will travel to you with all expedition, but I must linger behind to encourage my correspondents. Menelaus greets you--a Menelaus that never owned a Helen._"

The full sense of the document did not at first reach Alastair's brain. But he caught the word "_Achilles_," and remembered a girl's whispered confidence the night before. A second phrase arrested him--"Briseis"--he remembered enough of Father Dominic's teaching to identify the reference. This Norreys, this husband of the russet lady, was far deeper in the secrets of the Cause than he had dreamed, if he were thus made the channel of vital intelligence. He was bidden act cautiously towards his new wife, and Mr Kyd, who had heard Johnson's accusations at Cornbury and said nothing, had all the time been in league with him. A sudden sense of a vast insecurity overcame the young man. The ground he trod on seemed shifting sand, and nowhere was there a firm and abiding landmark. And the girl too was walking in dark ways, and when she thought that she tripped over marble and cedar was in truth skimming the crust of quicksands. He grew hot with anger.

"Do you know the man to whom these are addressed?" he asked with stern brows.

Edom grinned.

"I ken how to find him. I'm to speir in certain quarters for ane Achilles, and I mind eneuch o' what the Lauder dominie lickit intil me to ken that Achilles was a braw sodger."

"You do not know his name? You never saw him?"

The man shook his head. "I wad like the letters back, sir," he volunteered warily, for he was intimidated by Alastair's dark forehead.

The latter handed back the _Achilles_ letter, and began to read more carefully the other papers. Suddenly he raised his head and listened. The forest hitherto had been still with the strange dead quiet of a November noon. But now the noise of hounds was heard again, not half a mile off, as if they were hunting a line in the brushwood. He awoke with a start to the fact of his danger. What better sport for the patrons of the Flambury Hunt than to ride down a Jacobite horse-thief? A vague fury possessed him against that foolish squire with the cherubic face and the vacant blue eye.

"The hunt is cried after me," he told Edom, "and I take it you too have no desire to advertise your whereabouts. For God's sake let's get out of this place. Where does this road lead?"

Edom's answer was drowned in a hubbub of hounds which seemed to be approaching down the ride from the east. Alastair led the way from the hut up a steepish hill, sparsely wooded with scrub oak, in the hope of finding a view-point. Unfortunately at the top the thicket was densest, so the young man swung himself into a tree and as quickly as riding-boots would permit sought a coign of vantage in its upper branches. There he had the prospect he wanted--a great circle of rolling country, most of it woodland, but patched with large heaths where gorse-fires were smouldering. The piece of forest in which he sat stretched far to east and west, but to the north was replaced in less than a mile by pasture and small enclosures. As he looked he saw various things to disquiet him. The grassy road they had left was visible for half a mile, and down it came horsemen, while at the other end there seemed to be a picket placed. Worse still, to the north, which was the way of escape he had thought of, there were mounted men at intervals along the fringe of the trees. The hounds could be heard drawing near in the scrub east of the hut, and men's voices accompanied them. He remembered that they would find the hut door open, see the crumbs of Edom's bread and cheese, and no doubt discover the track which led up the hill.

He scrambled to the ground, his heart filled with forebodings and a deep disgust. He, who should long ago have been in the battle-field among the leaders, was befogged in this remote country-side, pursued by yokels, clogged and hampered at every step, and yet with the most desperate urgency of haste to goad him forward. His pride was outraged by such squalid ill-fortune. He must get his head from the net which was entangling and choking him. But for the moment there was nothing for it but to cower like a hare, and somewhere in the deep scrub find a hiding-place. Happily a fox-hound was not a bloodhound.

Down the other side of the hill they went, Edom panting heavily and slipping every second yard. At the bottom they came on another road running parallel with the first, and were about to cross it when a sound from in front gave them pause. There were men there, keepers perhaps, beating the undergrowth and whistling. The two turned to the west and ran down the track, keeping as far as possible in the shadow of the adjacent coppice. A fine rain was beginning, which brought with it a mist that lowered the range of vision to a few hundred yards. In that lay Alastair's one hope. Let the weather thicken and he would undertake to elude all the foresters and fox-hunters in England. He cursed the unfamiliar land, which had no hills where fleetness of foot availed or crags where a bold man could laugh at pursuit.

The place seemed terribly full of folk, as if whole parishes had emptied their population to beat the covers. Now he realised that the mist had its drawbacks as well as its merits, for he might stumble suddenly into a posse of searchers, and, though he himself might escape, the clumsier Edom would be taken. He bade the latter choose a line of his own and save himself, as he was not the object of the hunt, and owed his chief danger to his company, but this the man steadfastly refused to do. He ploughed stubbornly along in Alastair's wake, wheezing like a bellows.

Then the noises seemed to die down, and the two continued in a dripping quiet. It was idle to think of leaving the forest, and the best that could be done was to find a hiding-place when they were certain that the pursuit was outdistanced. But this meant delay, and these slow rustics might keep up their watch for a week. . . .

Presently they came to a cross-roads, where a broader path cut their ride, and in the centre stood an old rotting stake, where long ago some outlaw may have swung. They halted, for Edom had his breath to get. He flung himself on the ground, and at that moment Alastair caught sight of something tied to the post. Going nearer, he saw that it was a bunch of broom.

Had his wits not been sharpened by danger and disgust it might have had no meaning for him. But, as it was, Midwinter's parting words on Otmoor came back to him, and with it the catch which he had almost forgotten. As Edom lay panting, he shaped his lips to whistle the air. In the quiet the tune rang out clear and shrill, and as he finished there was silence again. Then the bushes parted, and a man came out.

He was a charcoal-burner, with a face like an Ethiopian, and red sore eyes curiously ringed about with clean white skin.

"Ye have the tune, master," he said. "What be your commands for the Spoonbills? Folks be huntin' these woods, and maybe it's you as they're seekin'."

"The place is surrounded," said Alastair, "and they are beating the covers between the rides. Get us out, or show us how we can be hid."

The man did not hesitate. "Escape's better'n hidin'," he said. "Follow me, sirs, and I'll do my best for ye."

He led them at a great pace some two hundred yards into a tiny dell. There a glaze hung in the dull air from a charcoal-oven, which glowed under a mound of sods. Neat piles of oak and birch billets stood around, and the shafts of a cart stuck up out of the long bracken. On one side an outcrop of rock made a fine wind-shelter, and, pushing aside the creepers which veiled it, the charcoal-burner revealed a small cave.

"Off with your clothes, sirs," he said. "They'll be safe enough in that hidy-hole till I gets a chance to return 'em. Them rags is my mates', and in this pickle are better'n fine silks."

Two filthy old smocks were unearthed, and two pairs of wooden-soled clogs which replaced their boots. The change was effected swiftly under the constant urging of the charcoal-burner, who kept his ears cocked and his head extended like a dog. In five minutes Alastair was outwardly a figure differing only in complexion from the master of the dingle. Then the latter set to work, and with a handful of hot charcoal smeared hands and faces, rubbing the dirt into the eye-sockets so that the eyes smarted and watered. Hats and cravats were left in the cave, and Alastair's trim hair was roughly clubbed, and dusted with soot for powder. There was no looking-glass to show him the result, but the charcoal-burner seemed satisfied. The transformation was simpler for Edom, who soon to Alastair's eyes looked as if he had done nothing all his days but tend a smoky furnace.

"I'll do the talking if we happen to meet inquiring folk," the charcoal-burner admonished them. "Look sullen and keep your eyes on the ground, and spit--above all, spit. Ours is a dry trade."

He led them back to the main ride, and then boldly along the road which pointed north. The forest had woke up, and there were sounds of life on every side. The hounds had come out of covert and were being coaxed in again by a vociferous huntsman. Echoes of "Sweetlip," "Rover," "Trueman," mingled with sundry oaths, came gustily down the wind. Someone far off blew a horn incessantly, and in a near thicket there was a clamour of voices like those of beaters after roebuck. The three men tramped stolidly along, the two novices imitating as best they could the angular gait, as of one who rarely stretched his legs, and the blindish carriage of the charcoal-burner.

A knot of riders swept down on them. Alastair ventured to lift his eyes for one second, and saw the scarlet and plum colour of Squire Thicknesse and noted the grey's hocks. The legs finicking and waltzing near them he thought belonged to Moonbeam, and was glad that the horse had been duly caught and restored. The Squire asked a question of the charcoal-burner and was answered in a dialect of gutturals. Off surged the riders, and presently the three were at the edge of the trees where a forester's cottage smoked in the rain. Beyond, wrapped in a white mist, stretched ploughland and pasture.

Alastair saw that his tree-top survey had been right. This edge of the wood was all picketed, and as the three emerged a keeper in buckskin breeches came towards them, and a man on horseback turned at his cry and cantered back.

The keeper did not waste time on them, once he had a near view.

"Yah!" he said, "it's them salvages o' coalies. They ain't got eyes to obsarve nothin', pore souls! 'Ere, Billy," he cried, "seen any strange gen'elmen a-wanderin' the woods this morning?"

The charcoal-burner stopped, and the two others formed up sullenly behind him.

"There wor a fallow-buck a routin' round my foorness," he grumbled in a voice as thick as clay. "Happen it come to some 'urt, don't blame me, gossip. Likewise there's a badger as is makin' an earth where my birch-faggots should lie. That's all the strange gen'elmen I seen this marnin', barrin' a pack o' red-coats a-gallopin' 'orses and blowin' 'orns."

The rider had now arrived and was looking curiously at the three. The keeper in corduroy breeches turned laughing to him. "Them coalies is pure salvages, Mr Gervase, sir. Brocks and bucks, indeed, when I'm inquirin' for gen'elmen. Gawd A'mighty made their 'eads as weak as their eyes."

What answer the rider gave is not known, for the charcoal-burners had already moved forward. They crossed a piece of plough and reached a shallow vale seamed by a narrow stagnant brook. Here they were in shelter, and to Alastair's surprise their leader began to run. He took them at a good pace up the water till it was crossed by a high-road, then along a by-path, past a farm-steading, to a strip of woodland, which presently opened out into a wide heath. Here in deference to Edom's heaving chest he slackened pace. The rain was changing from a drizzle to a heavy downpour and the faces of the two amateurs were becoming a ghastly piebald with the lashing of the weather.

The charcoal-burner turned suddenly to Alastair and spoke in a voice which had no trace of dialect.

"You have escaped one danger, sir. I do not know who you may be or what your desires are, but I am bound to serve you as far as it may lie in my power. Do you wish me to take you to my master?"

"I could answer that better, if I knew who he was."

"We do not speak his name at large, but in a month's time the festival of his name-day will return."