Oddsfish!, Robert Hugh Benson [best books to read for women .txt] 📗

them all go into the parlour together, I understood that if my Cousin Tom had been shrewd, his daughter had been shrewder; and had said what she had, knowing that a man was within earshot.

But there was nothing for me to do but to lie there still; for I could hear nothing from the parlour but a confused sound of voices, now three or four speaking at once, now a man's voice (which I took to be the magistrate's), and now, I thought my Cousin Dolly's. I heard, too, above me, my Cousin Tom speaking very angrily, and understood that he was kept from his daughter--which was the best thing in the world for me, since he might very well have spoiled the whole design. At last I heard Dolly cry out very loud; then I heard the parlour-door open and three or four men came tumbling out, who ran beneath my hiding-hole and out through the kitchen passage to the stable. I was all a-tremble now, especially at my cousin's cry; but I gave her credit for being as shrewd still as I had heard her to be on the stairs; and I proved right in the event; for almost immediately after that my Cousin Tom was let come downstairs, and I heard every word, of the colloquy.

"Well, Mr. Jermyn," said the gentleman's voice, immediately without my little door, "I am sorry indeed to have troubled you in this way; but I am the King's justice of the peace and I must do my duty. Which way did you say Mr. Mallock was gone?"

"By...by Puckeridge," stammered poor Tom.

"Ah! indeed," said the other voice, with something of a sneer in it. "Why Mistress Dorothy here says it was by Barkway and so to Harwich; and of the two versions I prefer the lady's. For, first, we should have seen him if he had come by Puckeridge, since we have been lying there since three o'clock this afternoon; and second, no such man in his senses would go to Rome by London. I am sorry I cannot commend your truthfulness, Mr. Jermyn, as much as your professions of loyalty."

"I tell you--" began my Cousin Tom, angrily enough.

"I need no telling, Mr. Jermyn. Your cousin is gone by Barkway; and my men are gone to get the horses out to follow him. We shall catch him before Newmarket, I make no doubt."

Then I heard Dolly's sobbing as she clung to her father.

"Oh! father! father!" she mourned. "The gentleman forced it out of me. I could not help it. I could not help it!"

(As for me, I smiled near from ear to ear in the dark, to hear how well she feigned grief; and I think I loved my Cousin Dolly then as never before. It would have made a cat laugh, too, to hear the gentleman's chivalry in return.)

"Mistress Dorothy," he said, "I grieve to have troubled you like this. But you have done your duty as an English maid should; and set your loyalty to His Majesty before all else."

Mistress Dorothy sobbed so admirably in return that my own eyes filled with tears to hear her; and I was a little sorry for the poor gentleman too. He was so stupid, and yet so well mannered too now that he had got all that he wanted, or thought he had.

"Well, mistress, and Mr. Jermyn, I must not delay any longer. The horses will be ready."

They moved away still talking, all except my Cousin Dolly who sank upon the stairs still sobbing. She cried out after Mr. Harris to have mercy; and then fell a-crying again. When the door of the kitchen passage shut--for they were all gone out by now--her crying ceased mighty soon; and then I heard her laugh very softly to herself, and break off again, as if she had put her hand over her mouth. But I dared not speak to her yet.

I listened very carefully--for all the house was still now--for the sound of the horses' feet; and presently I heard them, and reckoned that a dozen at least must have come after me; and I heard the voices of the men too as they rode away, grow faint and cease. Then I heard my Cousin Dolly slip through the door beneath me, and she gave me one little rap to the floor of my hiding-hole as she went beneath it.

I did not hear her come back; for Cousin Tom's footsteps were loud in the kitchen passage; and the men too were tramping in and upstairs, while the maids went back to bed through the kitchen; and then, when all was quiet again I heard her voice speak suddenly in a whisper.

"You can open now, Cousin Roger, they be all gone away." I unbolted and pushed open the little door quickly enough then; and though I was dazed with the candlelight the first thing that I saw was Dolly's face, her eyes as bright as stars with merriment and laughter, and her cheeks flushed to rose, looking up at me.


CHAPTER X

That ride of mine all night to London was such as I shall never forget, not from any outward incident that happened, but for the thoughts that went continually through my heart and brain; and I do not suppose that I spoke twenty words to James all night, until we saw about seven o'clock the smoke and spires of London against the morning sky.

* * * * *


So soon as the coast was clear, and the last sound of the horses was died away on the hill beyond the Castle Inn--for the men rode fast and hard to catch me--I was out and away in the opposite direction, to Puckeridge; but first we brought the horses back as softly as we could, with James (who, like a good servant had not stirred an inch from his orders through all the tumult which he had heard plainly enough from the meadow), round to the head of the little lane that leads from Hormead Magna into Hare Street. There we waited, I say, all four of us in silence, until we heard the hoofs no more; and then James and I mounted on our horses.

I had said scarcely a word to Dorothy, nor she to me; for we both felt, I think, that there was no great need of words after such an adventure, and that it had knit us closer together than any words could do; and, besides, that was no place to talk. Yet it was not all pure joy; for here was the knowledge which we both had, that I must go away, and that God only knew when I should get back again; and, whatever that knowledge was to Dorothy, it was as a sword for pain to me. As for my Cousin Tom, he was no better than a dummy; for he was still terrified at all that had happened, and at the magistrate's words to him. I told them both, while we were still in the house, that I must go to London, partly for that that was the last place in the world that any would look for me in, and partly--(but this I told neither of them)--for that I must return the packet to His Majesty: and I said that from London I would go to France for a little, until it seemed safe for me to get back again. But there, waiting in the dark, I said nothing at all; but before I mounted I kissed Dorothy on the cheek; and her cheek was wet, but whether with the feigned tears she had shed in the house, or with tears even dearer to me than those, I do not know. But I dared not delay any longer, for fear that when Mr. Harris came to Barkway, which was five miles away, he might learn that no one that could be James and I had passed that way, and so return to search again.

* * * * *


The clouds had rolled away by now; and it was a clear night of stars until they began to pale about two o'clock in the morning; and I think that for a lover who desires to be alone with his thoughts, there is no light of sun or moon or candle so sweet as the light of stars; and by that time we were beyond Ware and coming out of the valley.

It was solemn to me to watch that dawn coming up, for it was, I thought, the last dawn that I should see in England for a while, since I was determined but to see the King in London, and push straight on to Dover and take the packet there: and it was a solemn dawn too, in another way, for it was the first I had seen since I had been certain not only that I loved my Cousin Dolly as I had my own heart, but that she loved me also; and that is a great day for a lover.

To see the King then, and to push on to Dover, was all that I had rehearsed to myself; but Providence had one more adventure for me first, that was one of the saddest I have ever had in all my life, and yet not all sad.

* * * * *


My road took me in through the City and down Gracechurch Street; but here I took a fancy to turn to the right up Leadenhall and Cornhill, which were all crowded with folks, though at first I did not think why, that I might go by Newgate where the Jesuits lay, and see at least the walls that enclosed those saints of God; for I was pretty bold here, knowing that Mr. Dangerfield who was my chief peril, was off to Harwich to find me; and even if they found that I was not gone through Barkway, I did not think that they could catch me, for their horses were tired and ours fresh; and you do not easily get a change of a dozen horses, or anywhere near it, in Hertfordshire villages. So I went very boldly, and made no pretence not to look folks in the face.

After we had passed up Cheapside it appeared to me that the streets were strangely full, and that all the folk were going the same way; and so astonished was I at this--for no suspicion of the truth came to me--that I bid my man ask someone what the matter was. When he came up with me again I could see that something was the matter indeed; and so it was.

"Sir," he said in a low voice, so that none else could hear, "they are taking the prisoners to execution this morning."

Then there came upon me a kind of madness--for, although by God's blessing it brought no harm to me--yet it was nothing else; and I determined to go to Newgate as I had intended, and at least see them brought out. For here was to be