Part 1

COPYRIGHT, 1906 BY B. W. DODGE AND COMPANY New York

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Charles Stuart, of song and legend, subsequently the “Merry Monarch,” King Charles Second, is perhaps the most romantic figure in English history. Much has been said of him; little good, much evil; but at all events whatever his shortcomings and capitulations to the flesh, it cannot but be conceded that he is the focussing point for all the speculation and cogitation of the romanticist. He gave to history a chapter of sovereignty replete with debauchery and misrule. But there was occasional worthy reading between the lines; reading that conveyed friendship, faith, and loyalty.

The incidents of the following narrative, “Patricia at the Inn,” purport to deal with Charles Stuart’s adventures immediately subsequent to the historical battle of Worcester. It will be remembered that following the execution of the ill-fated Charles the First, the Prince of Wales was crowned by the Scottish people at Scone, January 1, 1651. Oliver Cromwell was not to be declared Lord Protector of the Commonwealth until almost two years later, but already he had stamped his inexorable will upon the nation. Prince Charlie backed by twenty thousand men marched upon Stirling, determined to enforce the sovereignty of the Stuart dynasty and by right of blood and sword to teach this upstart man of the people that sovereigns were born, not made, and that the memory of the “martyred king” should be vindicated in the person of the surviving Stuart. However, the redoubtable Cromwell wasted no time on vow-making, but with his usual energy placed himself in the rear of the Royalist army and cut it off from communication with Scotland. Prince Charlie was thus compelled to continue his march on England. He got as far as Worcester, where the mayor and certain unclassibles crowned him King Charles the Second. But on the same day Cromwell appeared for the coronation festivities and a memorable battle ensued, lasting five hours. The Scots were decisively routed. Prince Charlie escaped, and after experiencing many vicissitudes and amazing adventures, extending over a period of some six weeks, finally succeeded in being smuggled aboard a waiting vessel and so won safely away to Normandy.

It was this period of outlawry, during which a price was set on the royal head of Charles Stuart and he was being hunted like a dangerous criminal, that Mr. Snaith has employed as the basic theme on which to graft a romance. In the main the narrative offers a striking instance of the predominant trait of the Stuart character--the sovereignty of the flesh to the exclusion of all else, even personal safety.

W. B. M. FERGUSON.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE MAN OUT OF THE NIGHT 1

II. THE QUEST OF THE KING 12

III. THE STRANGE VISITORS THAT CAME TO THE “SEA ROVER” 27

IV. WILL JACKSON 41

V. SHOWS THE INCONVENIENCES THAT MAY SOMETIMES ATTEND AN ACTIVE MIND 65

VI. THE NIGHT: THE SEA: THE ROCKS 80

VII. THE WOMAN 94

VIII. THE KING’S FACE 110

IX. THE MAN IN BED 128

X. LE ROI S’AMUSE 149

XI. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COWARDICE 164

XII. THE MARINER 175

XIII. THE SOLDIERS 197

XIV. THE DIVINITY THAT DOTH HEDGE A KING 212

XV. “WAY THERE FOR THE KING’S SERVITOR!” 227

XVI. THE DEPARTING GUESTS 232

XVII. THE LANDLORD 245

It had been remarked that the weather was extreme for the time of year. The little inn, huddling on the desolate bridle-path that ran in front of the open sea, was wrapped in a cloud of fog; the night was as hollow as a crypt; of a temper to warp the spirit; and so silent, that when a wild fowl cried as it shivered by the tide, a hundred echoes woke in the high rocks rising behind the tavern.

The house was on a wild and lonely coast. It stood on the road to nowhere, high hills and seas about it; and as not one traveller a month came to it from the landward, it was frankly for the service of that strange, furtive company of adventurers who came in the night from France and Holland when the winds were friendly.

All the bitter evening had the landlord kept the chimney-side. Flanked on the one hand by a fire of red faggots, hissing with blue flame; on the other by a stiff glass of hot rum-and-water, the old man sat, the image of bodily contentment.

He was not a prepossessing fellow. His face had all the cunning of his years. He had a pair of hard, colourless, averted eyes, divided by a hill of flesh, whose blue-veined prominence said where his profits went to; a close-kept mouth; and over and above it all a fixed expression of calculated greed, of sustained, unwavering rapacity. It was not a good countenance to look upon. But to-night it was as near benignity as it could ever be. For while he sat with the warm fire and the generous waters inflaming his ruddy jowl, his mind and person were never so composed. It made him purr internally, like the cat nestling in the cinders, to compare his own fortunate condition with that of those frozen men upon the sea. While he reproduced, and even enhanced, in his imagination the discomforts and the perils they endured, he thanked the god of his physical well-being for the happy chance that had saved him from being a mariner. He called upon the serving-maid to brew a stronger posset for her master’s constitution.

“Cold as the bowels o’ the ground,” he groaned in his fleshly happiness. “And b’aint it sing’lar how the frost crawls round me. Ugh, it’s in my toes now, and now it’s in my blood; and, Lord, I feels a little iceberg a-creepin’ down my spine! Zakes! if it were not for a drop o’ stingo I might be very poorly.”

He hugged his toasting limbs, and drew his stool yet closer to the blaze.

“Keep them dogs hot,” said the landlord, when the girl came with the fresh concoction. “Keep the faggots crackling. The night’s a stinger, isn’t she? Lord! I wouldn’t like to be upon the sea.”

He fell to tracing weird shapes in the fire, and presently to dreams of pleasant things. Suddenly he started from his doze, and called out to his son:

“Joseph, d’ye hear me? Put them shutters up, and drop the bolt across. There’ll be no comp’ny, so ye and Cicely can both get bed’ards. ’Tis a night to freeze a dog.”

But even as the landlord spoke, his judgment was shown to be for once at fault. For as his son opened the door and let in a few gusts of frost and sea-fog, a man was found upon the threshold. He was the first of all the unexpected visitors who came to the “Sea Rover” that wintry evening; he made the first among those strange incidents that were so soon to invade the peace of the landlord’s life.

The man from the night pushed Joseph aside, and lumbered into the shadows of the room. He proved to be a seafaring man, in a dogskin cap, with a pair of large earrings in his ears. Like the landlord, his visage bore no superficial graces. The rime glistened on every inch of him; and his tawny face, tanned by the winds and the seas, showed fiercely from out of it. There was only one eye to his countenance, but that shone on the landlord like a beacon; there was an oath on his lips; and he came to the fire and put his hands to the blaze, with an air of mastery that startled the drowsy host even more than his appearance. This was hardly a friendly smuggler here in the ordinary course of trade.

While the mariner melted the rime on his jerkin and thawed his frozen limbs, Master Gamaliel Hooker shook up his wits and asked what his pleasure was.

“A go o’ rum,” said the mariner, gruffly.

He drew up a settle opposite the landlord’s stool and flung himself on to it. Then it was, in the full light of the candles, that the weather-beaten ugliness of the man was revealed. Violence had closed his right eye forever; a scar ran from his temple to his under-jaw; and in contradistinction to the greed, the subtlety, and the cunning of the host, there was a brutal insolence about the fellow that had a whimsicality in it too, as is sometimes to be observed in those indomitable characters who, conscious of their qualities, presume upon them. Master Hooker, distrustful by nature as he was, had already discovered this sinister audacity, and while that in itself was enough to unsettle the peace of his mind, it was the fact that a naked knife was gleaming under his visitor’s jerkin that most contributed to his discomposure.

For a time the landlord and the mariner sat watching one another. On the one side was a contemptuous carelessness; on the other a measure of suspicion amounting to hatred. But the landlord deemed it wiser to conceal his emotions under an appearance of friendliness. He proffered a pipe of tobacco to the mariner.

“You’re almighty kind, mate,” said the sailor, accepting a clay pipe from the mantelpiece and pressing in the contents of Gamaliel’s box.

It was the beginning of conversation. The landlord was eager to discover the particular business that had carried his visitor to the “Sea Rover,” of all the places in the world, at that hour and on such a night. Had he a cargo for disposal; was he waiting for his ship; was he running from the law; or had he come to cut the throats of himself, his son, and Cicely, and afterwards to despoil the inn? Certainly a more ill-favoured pirate he never saw.

The sailor, rather silent at first and ill-disposed to communicate his designs, gradually thawed into talk under the benign influences of hospitality. He even went to the length of revealing the business that had carried him so strangely there.

“You don’t happen, mate,” says he, with a leer,--“you don’t happen to ’a’ seen a young man wandering about this here coast, do you?”

“What kind of a young man might he be like?” says the landlord.

He had seen no young man whatever. He would certainly have remarked the smallest detail of his appearance, had he done so; for the first of all Gamaliel Hooker’s characteristics was his inveterate curiosity. It was this which led him to push a topic that otherwise would have had no interest for him.

“Well, mate,” says the mariner, “he ain’t very easy to describe, d’ye see. I’ve got to set eyes on him myself yet.”

“A seafaring man?” said the landlord.

“Not he,” said the mariner.

“Gentle or simple?” said the landlord.

The sailor hesitated an instant, while he gazed keenly at the host. He seemed to be calculating how far he could safely take Gamaliel Hooker into his affairs.

“Gentle enough,” he said, reluctantly. “But he’d come unattended, I daresay; and he mought be drest like the commonalty.”

“A soldier?” asked the landlord, with a flash of inspiration.

“Never you mind,” said the other, roughly.

“But how can I tell you whether I’ve seen him or not,” said the cunning Gamaliel, “unless I know the kind o’ young man he is?”

“Well, a soldier then,” said the unwilling mariner.

“No, I’ve not seen no proscribed Cavalier,” said the landlord.

The mariner sprang up with an oath.

“Who said ye had!” he cried. “Did I say ye had, you rum-peddling lubber?”

“No; but you asked me,” said the cunning old rogue of a landlord.

“I am damned if I did!” said the angry mariner.

“Well, you didn’t then,” said the landlord, with a soft smile, “but I thought you did.”

The sailor turned his ugly face full on the landlord’s. He looked him over steadily and fiercely. He then put down his pipe, spread out the palm of one hand, and tapped upon it with two fingers of the other to lend an emphasis to what he was about to say. And he chose his words with a most particular and deliberate care.

“Now look you here, mate,” said he, “I know the sort you are. I’ve not followed the sea and run cargoes on this coast for twenty year without getting a wind as to the repitation of Gamaliel Hooker. I know the kind o’ man you are, my hearty. But I’m just going to sing a word in your ear. I’m a plain-dealing man, I am: rough, you’ll say, almighty rough; but I’m a man o’ my word, and you can lay to that. Now, if a young man comes to your lousy, rat-ridden old hulk of a tavern, and asks for Diggory Fargus, you just have the goodness to tell him he’ll find me showing a light from the boat, at twelve o’clock at midnight, a short sea-mile up the shore at Pyler’s Cove. You just tell him that. And if he should come, you are to keep him snug, d’ye see, here in this house till nightfall. He must not be seen by a living soul. Do this, my hearty, and you may have such a reward one day as will go beyond your dreams. But you just play me false, mate; you just send the young man to the wrong place, or set it abroad that he’s at your tavern, and as surely as Diggory Fargus hath followed the sea for twenty years, he will twist your head off your body with these two hands.”

To the deliberation of the seaman’s words was added a fierceness of countenance that made the landlord quail. Gamaliel grew terrified. He was fascinated by that unpleasant face. When Diggory Fargus pointed his threat by expanding his great gnarled brown paws, sweat sprang out of the landlord’s hair. When his eyes fell on the knife that gleamed at the seaman’s waist, he was held in the paralysis of fear. And, in the height of his sufferings, the mariner bestowed a kind of dramatic poignance upon them, by laughing aloud at poor Gamaliel’s fat, pale face; by striding to the door, flinging it wide, and disappearing into the wintry darkness.

It was not easy for the landlord to recover of his terror. Your rogue is a nervous creature. How often does he anticipate his doom! When the wind sighs through the branches, he hears the creakings of the gallows tree. Long after his visitor’s departure, Gamaliel felt two strong hands upon his throat. Why he should have been so conscious of them it is not easy to know. He had certainly done nothing as yet to provoke the wrath of Diggory Fargus. He had not so much as encountered the mysterious youth, let alone betray him. Perchance the innkeeper had no command of his own integrity. He may have distrusted himself. Perchance he had that grim insight into his own character that could foresee his instincts leading him into a course of action that he knew to be fraught with peril. A man who all his life long had first sought his own pecuniary advantage in any circumstance that might arise, did well to fear that his rapacity in any given case might get the better of his judgment.

As Gamaliel Hooker sat cossetting himself beside the fire, this mysterious young man of the mariner’s dwelt much in his mind. A proscribed cavalier, he would stake his leg. Diggory Fargus lay with his boat in the Cove, waiting to take him out of England over the sea. As likely as not this fugitive was a person of consideration and great place, such was the mariner’s solicitude for his well-being. If that were the case, Parliament would know how to reward him who stayed his flight. Doubtless a specific reward was already upon his head. If Fortune directed him to the “Sea Rover,” Master Hooker shrewdly foresaw that he might have to choose between his greed and his personal safety. But there was a phrase also of the sailor’s that he would do well not to forget. He had hinted at a recompense that might exceed the dreams of his avarice. Plainly this fugitive was a person to be welcomed.

With one hand clasping the liquor-cup, the landlord presently fell into a doze. Even in this state of semi-consciousness, the unknown young man still ran much in his mind. Once the sleeper started up and thought he heard his knock upon the door. It was but a coal that had fallen on the hearth. He looked into the fire and saw his picture there. A very handsome, proud young man, with curls on his shoulders and great diamonds glistening on his hands. But farther back in the bright embers was the face of the ugly sailor glowering behind it, with his earrings, his knife, and his strong two hands.

Suddenly the landlord jumped up from his stool with a little cry. He ran to the window and pressed his ear against the drawn shutters. The silence of the wintry night had been invaded by strange sounds. At first they were so remote that their nature was hardly to be distinguished. But presently they grew plain. Horses!

Hoofs were on the frosty road. The music of iron upon adamant rang nearer at every clock-tick. They were coming to the inn. What could it mean? Gamaliel was not expecting visitors to-night. Yet stay, he was! Was there not this young man of the sailor’s? Again Gamaliel put his ear to the shutter, to withdraw it suddenly, however, with a spasm of fear.

It was not one horse alone on the road; rather a company. He had heard the rattle of sword and breast-piece; besides, the regulated manner of approach told the nervous landlord that the law had come to his inn at last. For years he had expected it. But now it was at his threshold, God knew he was in no case to greet it. Could it be that his misdemeanours, stealthy and hidden as they were, had been uncovered, and that now he was to be called on to pay the penalty!

For a minute the landlord faltered. He surrendered his mind to fear. Again the sweat burst out of him; it glistened on his white cheeks; he could not restrain the convulsive twitch of his old, irresolute hands. It was for only a minute, however. Gamaliel’s mind recurred to the fugitive of the mariner’s, and once more he became himself. Of course, these on-coming soldiers were seeking that mysterious youth. What a fool he was to be frightened so easily!

In the comfort of this thought Master Gamaliel wiped the sweat from his face, drained his glass, and made ready to receive his unwelcome visitors grandly. He opened his portals, even before they knocked upon them; and, standing in the full light of the fire and the candles as it met the darkness and the sea-fog, he inquired their pleasure with a bow and his hand on his heart.

Through the driving mists of the night, steaming horses, and cold, rime-coated men clad in morions and corselets of steel, were visible. The foremost of these soldiers sprang from his steed briskly and strode past the landlord into the warm kitchen of the inn. He was a nimble, ruddy little fellow, with a human look to his countenance, and, for all the cold night, a cheerful way with him.

“Landlord,” said he, clapping his wet form to the face of the fire, “you see us highly in need of your kindness. Brew us your hottest posset in your biggest bowl, and waste no time upon it. We have come far, but we have further to go by many a weary mile, unless our fortune is kinder than it promises.”

“Yes, yes, Captain, to be sure,” said the landlord; “you shall drink of the best of my poor hostelry, and that right speedily.”

Master Hooker, his fears allayed by the frank good humour of the soldier’s demeanour, became the pattern of a host. He called his son and his serving-maid to procure the liquor and boil the pot; and he himself fussed so much about the details of the brew, that in a surprisingly few minutes the soldier and his nine cold men were entertained. The little man, under the benignant influences of the warmth and liquor, became disposed for intercourse. With his back to the fire, he communicated things that the landlord wanted mightily to hear.

A battle had been fought by Worcester City between the arms of Oliver, Protector, and Charles Stuart, King of Scots. The Lord, it seemed, had vouchsafed “a crowning mercy” unto the former ones, to such a degree, forsooth, that those of the latter had been beaten incontinently from the field. And Charles Stuart was even now being hunted mile by mile over the West Country; that almost every hour he was likely to be ta’en; and that whosoever had that good fortune would have a goodly recompense, so considerable a price there was upon his head.

“A considerable price is on his head!” cried the landlord, scalding his mouth in his excitement, “and he is in these parts even now!”

“True i’ faith,” said the soldier, “or I’d be snug in Hounslow Camp. We hold an information that he lies in hiding on this shore, and on some night such as this he will try to make the coast of France. But it will be a darkish evening when he goes, I fancy, there being so many of us prick-ears along this beach, d’ye see.”

“Well, I reckon, friend,” Gamaliel said with deep emotion, “that if Charles Stuart, king or no king, comes to the ‘Sea Rover,’ you can lay to it he will not go off again so freely as he came. A considerable reward, I think ye said, sir?”

“And while your mind’s upon it,” said the soldier, “look to the proscribed. There’ll be lords and cavaliers, as well as kings, awaiting a wind for France. We shall tarry on this shore until we hold the Stuart; so if lace shirts and velvet breeches come your way, just you keep them, Master, and send us word along the coast. I’ll answer for it that you shan’t be a loser by it.”

Gamaliel Hooker might be said to drink these phrases, so agreeable were they to his receptive ears. He had a particular talent for the devious and the underhand. And the prospect of turning an unexpected penny, and at the same time winning the approbation of the law, tickled his mind so tenderly, that he could not repress a beam of pleasure that crept out of his crafty eyes.

“Drain the bowl, good soldier; I will brew again!” he cried.

The soldier drained the bowl. Cheek by jowl, they sat together beside the blaze. Outside the awaiting troopers stamped their feet, beat their arms, and damned the cold with a Scriptural directness. But the host was thoughtful to the last degree. He caused his son to bear hot meal and water to the rime-clad horses, while the servant-maid took mulled sack and spiced October to their riders. And when at last they went forth again to scour the bitter night for a hunted solitary, mine host stood bareheaded by his door waving a candle to them until they passed from sight into the blackness of the rocks. Thereon the good Gamaliel, mirror of hospitality, soul of ancient cheer, closed his portals with a crash, slipped bolt and chain across, and returned to his wassail. For a whole minute he puckered his wits with some tough arithmetic, and then said to his son:

“I reckon, Joseph, I’m nineteen shillings and fivepence out on this visit up to now. But I’m not complaining; for I rather think, my son, since things are as they are, we shall have that money back before the week’s spent, with maybe a few groats emolument over and above.”

The landlord chuckled at the thought, and began to build his castles. Soon his son and the servant-maid went to their repose; but Gamaliel sat for long enough about the fire, staring into its ever-changing caverns and abysses--now sipping his liquor, now lost in meditation, now revolving choice schemes in his mind. Indeed, so happy was he in these circumstances, that it seemed better far to pass the night before the cheerful hearth in the society of his cups than with ice-cold sheets about him, and rats scuttling behind the wainscot of his chamber.