Part 3

The morn came chill and grey. A drear wind was abroad; the pale dust whirled down the highway. I waited in the cold for a good half-hour—the sun was up, and the countryside leaping in its light from blackness and greyness into the rich green of spring—ere the coach and pair bearing Mr. Bradbury approached, driven rapidly from Chelton. As the driver pulled up for me, Mr. Bradbury’s gloved hand let down the glass; nodding his head to me in welcome, he hastened to admit me into the coach. It had been repaired from the damages of its overthrow; it was cushioned luxuriously; my body sank into its warm depth, and Mr. Bradbury, with all politeness, hastened to wrap a robe of furs about me for the chill of the morning. He embarrassed me by his close scrutiny; I assumed that he regarded superciliously my rustic appearance in the best clothes I had; realising my confusion, he said, laughing, “Forgive me, Mr. Craike, I marvel only that a lady of your mother’s intelligence should ever have thought to keep your kinship to the Craikes a secret.”

“She has left me, sir, very much in the dark,” I told him. “A week since I was John Howe. To-day I am John Craike and ride with you. I do not understand your interest in me.”

“Mr. Craike,” he said, leaning towards me, “if you have your father’s look, you have a little of your mother’s, too. I esteem highly her prudence and intelligence. And, sir, your likeness to your mother encourages me to be frank and open with you, realising that, whatever passes between us is said in confidence,—I, acting in your interest, and in the interest of Mr. Edward Craike, whose adviser I have the honour to be.”

“To be sure, sir, I ask for frankness, and pledge my word of honour to you.”

He said earnestly, “Mr. Craike, in serving your interest I believe that I shall best serve the interest of my client. I purpose, to be sure, to take you to London and prepare you for presentation to your grandfather. I purpose to accompany you to his house. You are by no means assured of a welcome from him; you are assured only of the hostility of your Uncle Charles,—your mother’s enemy—and mine! Ay,—and mine! I have a purpose in promoting your interests. I have the purpose of keeping from the inheritance of a great estate—Charles Craike!”

“A great estate!”

“No great acreage, but wealth such as few commoners in England own. I would keep this from the hands of Charles Craike, knowing that if it pass to him, it becomes a force for evil, surely it becomes.”

“Why?”

He answered swiftly, “A week or more from now, Mr. Craike, you’ll know Charles Craike. Judge for yourself.”

“But from where did my grandfather derive his fortunes?” I asked, remembering my mother’s words after Mr. Bradbury had left her that night at the cottage. “By trade, or as an inheritance?”

I believed that his eyes flickered and that he hesitated. He answered glibly, “The fruits, Mr. Craike, of his own industry.”

I stared at him and muttered, “What should my mother mean, Mr. Bradbury, by the words ‘that doomed house’ and ‘the wealth ill-gotten’?”

He said swiftly, “Doomed, if the inheritance go to Charles Craike! Surely doomed! Ill-gotten! Gotten as honestly as most!”

“Mr. Bradbury, forgive me,—are you frank with me?”

He took snuff ere he replied. “Mr. John Craike, at your grandfather’s house you’ll learn the answers to your questions. Will you forgive me if now I do not answer you?”

“Well, then, concerning this house—its whereabouts? I know nothing.”

He laughed a little. “Craike House,” he said, “passes among the folk of the neighbourhood—it is far from here—by an odd name. ‘Rogues’ Haven,’ sir. ‘Rogues’ Haven.’”

“From the reputation of my kinsfolk?”

“Surely not,” he answered, “but from the retired nature of your grandfather’s life, and from the practice of the vulgar to ascribe mystery and evil where their curiosity is not satisfied. And from the charity of your grandfather in keeping about him his old servants and dependants. An odd company, maybe, Mr. John—a very odd company. But judge of the house and its inmates yourself, sir. I warn you only—I am bound to warn you—against Mr. Charles Craike.”

_Chapter VI_. _Through the Darkness_

Three weeks thence I accompanied Mr. Bradbury on the journey down from London to my grandfather’s house. Mr. Bradbury had sent off a letter to Mr. Craike announcing that he purposed to visit him, and to present his grandson to him. He had received only a few lines of a letter in reply, penned, he believed, not by the old man but by his son Charles,—to the effect that Mr. Bradbury’s information astounded Mr. Edward Craike, but that he consented to receive Mr. Bradbury and the young gentleman when it should be convenient for them to journey down to Craike. Mr. Bradbury seemed ill-pleased with the nature of the letter; he took pains to impress on me the desirability of my commending myself to my grandfather’s favour and affection.

From Mr. Bradbury’s first admission to me, on our journey up to London, that he had no liking for Charles Craike, and that his purpose was to prevent his inheriting his father’s fortune, he had stressed repeatedly my uncle’s certain chagrin at my appearance in Craike House and his inevitable hostility to me. Already, indeed, I hated my Uncle Charles, and was ardent to avenge on him my parents’ sufferings at his hands; else, I had only a natural curiosity in these kinsfolk of mine, and a lively interest in the prospect of adventure. “Rogues’ Haven”—so the country folk named Craike House; Mr. Bradbury would tell me only that the name resulted from rustic curiosity and from the eccentricities of my grandfather’s servants; the gentleman’s very reticence concerning my kinsmen, the stock from which they were sprung, and the sources of their wealth, intrigued me the more.

Mr. Bradbury had treated me handsomely at his fine house in London; a country lad, I had enjoyed the wonders and diversions of the Town. He had put me into the hands of his tailor; so that now I was dressed, if not as fastidiously, at least with a fashion equal to his own. I had not ceased to admire my blue cloth coat, silver-buttoned and braided, or my white breeches, or to appreciate the ease of silken stockings on my legs and fine linen on my body. Now wrapped warmly in greatcoat and shawls I sat with Mr. Bradbury in his coach, driven through the night towards Craike House. We should have arrived at our destination on the second afternoon of our journey, but delayed by a cast shoe, here were we now seated still in the coach, stiff and weary; I felt my stomach sinking from the lack of a meal; and the dark was come. Ay, the night was come with a rough gale from the sea; the mud from the wet roads obscured the glass; this mattered nothing, for the night was inky black with clouds wind-driven. We were out, Mr. Bradbury told me, on a wild and lonely stretch of road, and not more than nine miles from our destination. But when the lash of rain washed clear the carriage-glass, and the light of the lamps flashed on his face, I saw him anxious and his eyes alert; I understood his concern, which I had remarked throughout our journey, over a little oaken box by his side. I had assumed that it contained documents; now that it was open on his knees, I saw that it held a pair of pistols; he was looking at the priming of them as the light allowed him. I cried out, to be heard above the roll of the wind and the rumble of the wheels, “What d’ye fear, sir? Highwaymen?”

He cried back, “A mere precaution, Mr. Craike. I’m always cautious on these roads,—lonely and dark, and no one within hail.”

“Pray let me handle one,” I called; but he answered, smiling, “Nay, my dear sir, I’ll not trust you with ’em, if you’ll allow me. For you might easily be pistoling one of your own folk, not knowing.”

“Have no fear, sir, I’ve had the handling of a pistol ere this,” I assured him. But, smiling that odd smile of his, he answered nothing.

Now it seemed that Mr. Bradbury’s coachboy knew the road well—the gentleman having travelled over it often before; for, without direction from his master he drove on as steadily through the dark as the roughness of the way and the weariness of the horses would allow. Ay, and the wildness of the night—the great wind from the sea; we were travelling near to the coast; once when Mr. Bradbury let down the glass to peer out, the salt tang and the reek of mud flats was borne in on the chill air. I realised that Mr. Bradbury’s apprehension grew with the darkness and the storm. When he drew up the glass and sat down, he did not lie back on his cushions or muffle his shawl about his ears; he leaned towards the window, staring forth into the dark, seeming, too, by his impatient wave of his hand when I would have spoken, to be listening intently. I strained my ears to hear, but for the time heard nothing save the rumble of wheels, and the rushing of the wind; afar a thunderous sound as the beating of the sea, no more, until the wind was cut from us in a dip of the road, as if we drove among great trees, or between high hedgerows; then it seemed I heard the pounding of hoofs upon the road, as if the riders were at no great distance in the rear. The sound was indistinguishable, when presently we swept out into the open country; and the wind had its way with us once more. As we drove on apace, Mr. Bradbury remained intent by the window; committing myself to Providence and Mr. Bradbury, I lay back on my cushions. Indeed, I attached little import to the sounds; I was dull with weariness and hunger; I had been travelling for nigh two days. I had spent the worst of bad nights through the suffocation of a deep feather bed at the inn in which we had lodged for the night. I tell you the desire for sleep prevailed over uneasiness at the loneliness of our way and sounds of riders through the night; or my excitement at the thought of presentation to my kinsfolk. I lay back; pulled my greatcoat about me, and slept. From time to time, the jolting of the coach, as the wheels dipped in the ruts or struck on stones, would rouse me; always I saw dully that Mr. Bradbury sat stiffly by the window, and that his left hand strayed towards the case of pistols open on the seat beside him.

I was awakened by the crash and splintering of glass. As I started up, I was flung backwards by the shock of plunging horses and reeling coach; half-dazed, I believed that I heard hoarse voices above the roaring wind. I believed that the door of the coach was dragged open; that Mr. Bradbury sought to hold it; failing, swung round and gripped his pistols; but at that instant the coach reeled, and he was flung out into the road; I saw the flashes of his discharging pistols as he fell.

The coach came to a standstill. I remember crying out, and leaping to my feet, to spring down into the road to Mr. Bradbury. I remember then only a flash of light—no more.

_Chapter VII_. _The Riders_

I remember that once an itinerant showman, passing through Chelton, essayed _Mazeppa_; none the less, the sorry performance took my fancy. Now, when I became conscious, I had a sense that I was borne forward so through the night bound upon a horse; my next sensation, after the throbbing of my head, was the friction of the saddle beneath me. I realised at last that I was, indeed, held upon the horse; not cords, but the strong arm of the rider held me before him in saddle; he was riding with me at a great speed through the night. I must have cried out, for I recall his hoarse voice in my ear, “Keep your mouth shut, my lad, or ’twill be the worse for you!”—and the grip of his arm tightened about me.

Now I was no light burden, and I was stoutly built for a stripling; even so, he carried me easily, and when my head cleared and my strength came back, the grip of his arm held me securely. I must needs sit before him helpless, though the saddle galled me sorely; my brows throbbed, and my mind was dark with apprehensions. To be sure my coming to Rogues’ Haven must have been dreaded by my uncle; and to be sure this was some trick of his to prevent my presentation to my grandfather; but what should be the end of this adventure, and to what fate would my enemies consign me? I told myself that surely, if they had planned to make an end of me, they would have done so immediately on the taking of the coach, and not have borne me off in this mysterious manner through the night.

And what of Mr. Bradbury? Had he died in his fall? Had they done him further violence? I had grown to have a high regard for the gentleman, yet I fear my immediate concern for his fate was chiefly that he should be alive to bring me speedy aid. Lying passive in the grip of that strong arm, I believed that one other horseman bore us company; I could hear hoof-beats and the jingle of accoutrements; once, as the moon flashed through the racing clouds, I caught a glimpse of a dark rider a little ahead. My captor pushed his horse forward at scarcely less speed, though the moon, ere the clouds hid it, revealed to me that we were riding over rough country. I saw the boughs of gnarled and twisted trees toss to the stormy heaven; I saw a waste of rock and furze before me; I believed that we were yet at no great distance from the coast, for the salt was upon my lips, as though the gale sweeping up bore scud with it. Momentarily we paused upon an upland; such was the force of the wind that it seemed the horse must be rolled over with us; then, with the wind blowing at our backs, we struck away inland.

The blow had torn my scalp; the blood was wet upon my brows; my head was racked with the movement of the horse beneath us; my body cruelly galled. All this was nothing to the ever-increasing terror of the thought—what would they do to me, now that they had me captive? Once I cried out, “What’s your purpose with me, in God’s name?” but the sole answer was the tightening of the grip upon me. Bending back my head, I tried to make out in the dark what manner of man was holding me; save for the shoulders, the thick neck, and the great head, I could discern nothing; I heard his jeering laughter above me. How long, how far we rode, I could not conjecture; the time seemed endless for my pains and terrors. Ever the thought tormented me—what would they do with me? Put me aboard some ship to carry me overseas? No, for it seemed that they were bearing me away from the coast, and mounting slowly to wild and rugged country; would they hold me prisoner there, or murder me out of the ken of folk? And, if Mr. Bradbury lived, how would he endure defeat by Charles Craike, through whose agency surely I came to be in this plight?

We were riding at last over more level country from the increasing swiftness of our flight; we slackened speed going among trees; I heard the rushing of the wind through their complaining boughs. We mounted a low hill, and swiftly descended. Again the moon was clear; I believed that we were going down into a cup in the moors; that rocks and woods were all about us. And ahead at last I saw a light flicker like a will-o’-the-wisp,—a spark of light that increased to the square shining of a window—a greenish light; the moon breaking again from the clouds I saw that we rode down to a house alone in this lonely hollow of the moors. We rode soon over level ground; we reached a high stone wall; the rider ahead of us had leaped down and was unlocking an iron gate; we passed through, and the gate crashed to behind us. At a walk now we clattered over cobbles up to the front of the house; I saw the green shining off the curtained window from the grey front of moonlit stone. It was a house of two stories in height, a drear grey house, grey-roofed and over-topped by chimney stacks; looking up I believed that I saw iron bars before the unshuttered windows. My captor roared out, “Hallo, there!” as we pulled up before the door; and gripping me by my collar lowered me to the ground, dropping down after me, and lugging me with him into the porch. The door opened with a clash and clatter like the iron-bound door of a prison. And blinking for the light from a lantern, I saw peering out a crone, bent nigh double, one skinny claw holding up the lantern, so that it shone upon her shrivelled livid face, her red-lidded, pale green eyes, on her grey hair wind-blown, and the blue shawl she clutched at her throat. I saw her looking malevolently at me, and heard her tittering laughter, as my captor thrust me past her into the house.

The door clashed after us. He lugged me through a dark stone hall, and brought me into the green-curtained room; so thick was the air with the smoke of peat and the reek of an oil-lamp that in a moment my eyes were blinded; and I was coughing, choking.

_Chapter VIII_. _The Green-Curtained Room_

When my sight cleared, I found myself in a long, low grey room—grey from the smoke and the stone walls. It was lit by a curious hanging lamp of iron, black with soot and oil; a fire of peat smouldered on the deep hearth; for furniture the room had in it a long table black with age, and grease, and oil dribbling from the lamp; heavy black chairs were set on either side of the hearth and at the table, and a black press standing against the wall, its brass fittings green and corroded. The brass candlesticks upon the chimney-piece were green and corroded, too; the curtain drawn before the window was green and moth-eaten; the floor was sanded; the rafters above were black with soot and dusty cobwebs. My captor pulling me forward,—as the old woman waited by the door presently to admit the other rider—dropped me like a sack of meal on to a chair; and straddled before the fire, stretching his arm cramped by the weight of me all that while in saddle.

Blinking up at him I saw him for a huge fellow; he must have stood six feet in height, and was of a great breadth of shoulder and depth of chest. As his sleeve slipped back from his hairy forearm I saw its swelling muscles, and understood ruefully the ease with which he had held me. His face was handsome in a rough, bold way, though coarse and besotted; his chin and jaws were blue-black from the razor; his hair black and curling; his eyes blood-shot from drink. He wore a battered brown hat, a rough, brown riding coat, with leather breeches and mud-splashed riding boots; his soiled cravat was held by a brooch of flashing red stones. Looking up at him, understanding the strength of the man, for something of good humour in his coarse drunken face I did not fear him, as I feared the crone, whose evil green eyes had glittered at me when my captor thrust me into the house. He grinned down at me, and growled, “So you’re well enough for the time, eh, young sir?”

“Well enough but what’s your purpose with me? Why have you brought me here?”

“When you know that,” said he, “you’ll know as much as I do. Nay, you’ll know more.”

“You mean that you’re hired for this? You’re only the servant of an enemy of mine, whose interest it is to keep me out of Rogues’ Haven?”

“Rogues’ Haven! So you’ve caught the name?”

“To be sure I know the name,” I answered boldly for the good humour of the fellow. “And know the reason for it. And think I know the name of your principal.”

“Oh, ho! Though he plays his game in secret. You’ll be knowin’ more’n it’s safe for you to know, young sir. And”—with a sudden gesture towards the door—“if you’ll take a word from me, you’ll be wiser, if you keep your mouth shut.”

While yet I blinked at him, I heard the old woman once more unlock the door to admit the big fellow’s companion, who presently entered the room. I saw him for a lean, cadaverous, young man of no great height; his high-crowned hat, his coat, his buckskins, the laces at his throat dandified; he was jauntily flicking his top boots with his riding switch, and his spurs were jingling. An ill-looking fellow,—I marked his pale sneering lips and the sinister light of his green eyes; I feared him as an enemy even as I feared the crone with the blue shawl about her black rags, her evil eyes peering at me, and her jaws working, as she hobbled after him.

“So-ho, Martin, here we are, all safe and snug,” cried the big man from the hearth. “Find us the tipple in that cupboard of yours, Mother Mag, and then I’ll be packing.”

“You’ll be staying here, my friend Roger,” said Martin, coolly, dropping into a chair by the table. “You’re to wait until he comes.”

“I tell you I’ll have my drink and be off,” Roger growled, scowling at him. “Who the devil are you to be givin’ me orders? I’ve an affair twenty miles off as ever was by break o’ day.”

“Yet you’ll be staying,” the young man insisted quietly. “I’m giving you his orders, not mine. What’s it to me whether you go or stay?”

“I’m damned, if I’ll wait!” Roger asserted.

“You’re damned, if you go,” sneered Martin, his eyes flashing up suddenly like two wicked green gems. “Get him the drink, Mother Mag, and he’ll be staying—not risking his neck by going.”

I saw the red blood rush to Roger’s face. I heard him growl and mutter to himself; he straddled still across the hearth. Laughing hoarsely then he cried out, “Ay, the drink, Mother Mag—the drink,” and turning his back on Martin, kicked savagely at the fire.

While I sat blinking at them, and wondering whether it should be my Uncle Charles expected at the house, and what bearing his arrival should have upon my fortunes, the hag, taking a key from the jingling ring at her side, unlocked the press; and out of its recess drew a bloated bottle of violet-coloured glass; hugging this to her, she set out four thick, blue goblets, and poured into them some dark spirit or cordial, pausing ere she filled the fourth to point her skinny fingers at me, and then peer at Martin, as if to gather from him whether I was to drink with them.

He replied curtly, “Ay, pour him a dram,—half a glass—Mother Mag; he looks about to croak,” and sneered at me.

Roger, swinging round from the fire, took up his glass and tossed off the contents; snatching the bottle then from Mother Mag he filled up a glass which he handed to me, growling, “Drink it down, lad! it’ll put heart into you.” The woman, with a shrill cry, leaped like a cat upon him, seeking to snatch the bottle from him; holding it above her reach and fending her off from me, he refilled and drained his glass, and set the bottle down once more. She clutched it to her, set in the stopper, and poked it away in the cupboard, all the while chattering to herself and mouthing like some gibbering ape. Taking her own glass then, with so palsied a hand that she surely spilt half the contents, she hobbled to the hearth and crouched down by it, alternately licking her fingers and sipping her grog,—her green eyes glinting at Roger and me.

I tasted the liquor in the glass, and finding it a spirit that burnt my very lips, I did not drink it, but handed the glass back to Roger, who, muttering “Your health, young master,” drained it for me. Martin sat drinking slowly; Roger, as warming from the stuff, began to stamp impatiently to and fro over the stone floor. Pausing at last by Martin, he demanded, thickly, “What hour’s he like to be here? How long am I to wait in this stinkin’ den?”—at which Mother Mag cackled sardonically, choked and spat, lying back against the chimney-piece red-eyed and gasping.

“He did not say what hour,” Martin answered, indifferently. “How should he know what hour the coach would come, or we be here? Sit down by the fire, man. Get your pipe; there’s tobacco in the jar on the shelf.”

“Am I to be kept here all night, when by break o’ day I should be about my business?”