Yule-Tide Yarns

by Unknown

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE

"F orest-dweller and outlaw I may be, Master Cork," I said; "but I would have you remember that I was an honest man before I was driven here, and an honest man I am still, though I must needs be in hiding for speaking up for the weaker side."

"Honest men don't slay the king's deer," sneered Cork. "It seems to me that you have run into a fair noose by this time, for all your fine talk, seeing that deer-slaying is a hanging matter—for the king is the king, whether you choose to own him or not."

"Hungry men cannot stay to think of that," I answered shortly. But I knew that he was right, and that I must needs, with every honest door closed to me, go on sinking in the mire, as it were.

"Hungry forsooth!" he said. "And gold to be had to-night for the picking up! Come with me, I say, and the forest will know you no longer. Listen! yonder fall more bedizened nobles, with good gold nobles in their purses moreover to prove their nobility!"

I had heard plainly enough. The cold wind of Maytime set from far-off Hexham level to where we were standing under the shadow of Blockhill, and not for the first time that day the heavy sound of cannon came down it, like and yet unlike thunder. There was another battle on hand between the white rose and the red. Margaret of Anjou was making one more struggle, for herself and her son and husband, against Edward of York.

"Outlaw and fallen as I am," I said bitterly, "I will have no share in robbing the dead."

And then the thought of what this ruffian had proposed to me came over me in all its horror—that he and I should prowl over the field of battle when night fell, and seek for riches among the quiet slain—and I shrank from him. Whereat he grinned evilly, and that turned my contempt to wrath, so that my hand went to the hilt of the broad forester's hanger that I wore.

"Away with you," I said, "I will have no more of you."

"Well, well; be not so hasty, I pray you. I did but jest," he stammered, giving back a pace or two.

But I knew better. No true man jests with such things, and I told him so, once more bidding him begone.

"Well, I will go," he growled; "but, mind you, there is a reward for him who brings a deer-slayer to justice."

"You can do as you like about earning that," I answered. "It seems all one to you how you get wealth, so that it comes easily."

So he went, looking back now and then to see, I suppose, if I was in earnest. I took my bow from the tree where I had set it, and plucked the arrow from the slain deer at my feet, at which he hastened to put as many tree trunks between me and himself as possible, and I lost sight of him.

I fell to brittling the deer quickly when he was gone, for I was by no means so sure that he would not set the sheriff on me, as he had hinted. I did not think it likely that that quiet old worthy would trouble himself about me, with a battle raging at his very doors, as one might say; but so far he had heard nothing of me, and I could come and go into the town pretty freely when I would, though the chance of some Yorkist from my own country seeing me was an ever-present danger that kept me out of sight as much as possible if I did go. Still there were things that I needed that must be bought there now and then, and it would be hard to have the place closed to me. Now, I thought it just as well to get the deer I had killed to my cave, in case I had to go into hiding; and I was glad that some old distrust of this man Cork had kept me from telling him of it when I first knew him.

That was about two years ago, when I had to fly from Yorkshire with a price on my head as a Lancastrian, while those who had come to take me lighted my way north across the moors by burning my own stronghold, the little Peel tower of which I had been as proud as of the old name of Barvill that I dared own no longer, behind me.

I had taken no part in the strife of the Roses, having enough fighting from time to time with the Scots raiders who had slain my father six years ago. But I had always been brought up to reverence King Henry, and made no secret thereof, which was quite enough to ruin me in the days when York first had the upper hand and meant to keep it.

So at last I had wandered to these Hexham moorlands, where none knew me, and where game was in plenty on hillside and in forest, and whence the rangers and their lords had gone by reason of the wars. Here, too, I had found by chance the cave of which I had spoken, under the slope of Blockhill, and close to the brook that runs in the valley. It was so warm and dry, and so easily hidden, that I bided in it the first winter of my outlawry, and taking kindly to the forest life, as a strong man of twenty-two who loves the open, and has none to think for but himself, will. Here I had bided for a second winter, ranging the country widely in the summer, even as far as the Scottish border, gathering thereby knowledge of the by-paths that was to be useful to others besides myself in time. Maybe I should have joined the company of some Border knight at last, for a good spear is always welcome without question; but there was to be another service for me, as will be seen.

There were other men, outlaws also, whom I would meet in the forest; but being a Barvill, and proud, I had nought much to do with them. Some were men ruined by the wars, like myself, but more were robbers at the best, and outlawed for their misdeeds. These kept away from the town, laying wait for harmless travellers and packmen in the wild passes; but there were other ways of making what money one needed wherewith to buy bread and arrowheads, wine, or clothing, than by robbery, and herein Master Cork saw his chance of profit, if not in any very honest way. He was a small householder on the outskirts of the town, and would buy our stolen deerskins or game at his own prices, and sell them at some distant market, doubtless to his great advantage. Therefore he was useful to me, and I saw him often enough, though, as I say, I always distrusted him.

To-day the woods were full of deer, and I had killed nearer home than usual, for I suppose that the great battle of Hedgley, of which I had heard, had driven them hither in terror. Now, with this fresh battle on hand, our woods would be deserted by them, and therefore I had taken the first chance that came. Thus Cork had stumbled across me first on his way to find some associate for his night's work. He had told me that it was not myself whom he was seeking specially, and made a great show of friendship in telling me his plan. After he had gone, I got my venison to my cave, and cooked some for my supper. Then I sat on the stream bank and watched the birds and beasts for a while before I slept. The sounds of battle had long ceased, and I mind that I heard the cuckoo that evening for the first time that year. It was late, even for the North. Then I went into my cave, built up its mouth in the way I had found the best, and troubled no more about anything.

I suppose that it was an hour after I had gone to sleep, with darkness, when my dog growled and woke me, and I roused at once and quieted him. Then I went to the little opening that I left for fresh air in the stones with which I closed the cave, and listened. At first I heard nothing, though the night was clear and still. There was wind coming, however, for the clouds were racing across the sky under the bright moon. But the dog was not wont to rouse me for nothing, and I was sure that there must be somewhat to find out.

Then as I waited there came a far-off shout, and then, clear through the air, a woman's scream. Then more shouting, and silence.

If it had been shouting only, I should have thought little of it, for I knew that the pursuit of the flying might pass this way. But the woman's voice roused me, and without staying to think, I armed myself, and hurried away towards the place whence the noise seemed to come. An ancient trackway, worn by ages of timber hauling, lay in that direction, and it was likely that some fugitives who had taken it as a road away from the pursuers, might have fallen in with some of the robber outlaws. At least I might be able to help the side that had a woman to protect if things went badly for them.

I went very quickly, knowing the woods so well, but I heard nothing more until I reached a little rise that overlooked the hollow in which the old lane ran. Then the voices, as of men quarrelling, were plain enough now and then to my left as I stood still to listen. The woman's voice was not to be heard among them, however, and I began to think that there was no need for me to trouble about the business. Still, I waited for a few minutes, and then my dog warned me that some one was at hand, and I turned.

A woman was coming straight towards me across a little glade, leading with her a boy, whose feet seemed to fail for weariness, and I surely thought for a moment, as the moonlight glinted on her rich dress and showed her, tall and stately, and seeming unafraid, that I saw a vision of Our Lady, so wondrous looked this one as she neared me unfaltering. For indeed had they but now escaped from the hands of the men I had heard, to meet with myself, armed and wild-looking as I was, with the unkempt locks and beard of forest life, might well have been fresh cause for fear to two such helpless ones. Yet the woman never stayed, though she must have seen me plainly as I saw her. A cloud passed over the moon for a moment, and when the light came again, she was close on me. Then I saw that her dress was torn and disordered, and that she had indeed been in no gentle hands. But for all that, I could do naught but doff my steel cap before her, for she was the most queenly woman that I had ever seen.

"This is the son of your king. I charge you with his care."

Then she spoke to me, low and quickly, drawing the slender, handsome boy before her and towards me.

"Friend, I am Margaret the Queen. This is the son of your king. I charge you with his care—see that you are worthy of such an honour."

And then, as I stared at her in amazement, stepping back a pace, she added, "Hide him in your forest till danger is past, and hereafter his palace shall be free to you—baron of England shall you be if you will. See! Is it fitting that a Prince of Wales should wander with no attendants?"

But I was on one knee before her by this time, needing and thinking of no promise of reward or honour. It was enough that I was asked for help by her who had been, and to me yet was, the highest in the land. And my heart ached that she should have to seek for succour from such as I.

"On my life be it, Queen Margaret," I stammered, "I will give life for you willingly."

But then as the dog growled fiercely at some fresh burst of noise that came from the road, making the young prince shrink from him, I leapt up, rousing to the danger close at hand, for the Queen would be sought for directly.

"Follow me, I pray you, Madam," I said, "it is not far to a safe place. Come, my prince, you are weary; fear not the good hound, but let me carry you."

"Aye, friend, I am aweary," he said, with a little smile, "but I am sorely heavy for you, and you are armed moreover."

But the weight of a slight boy of twelve is nothing, and I took him up, laughing to reassure him. The Queen followed me without a word, and we went back to my place by the way I had come—surely the strangest, saddest little company in all England.

I marvel how our Queen kept up in that rough walk until the cave was reached, but she never faltered. Once I pressed on her the boar spear that I carried, that she might use it as a staff, but she would not have it, and she never so much as put out her hand to my arm when she stumbled over root or jutting rock. It was a rough road for her, but I dared take no path lest we should be more easily followed. And all the way I listened for the voices of men who hunted us, but I heard none.

So we came to my cave without mischance and were safe. I set the half-sleeping prince on a heather-covered bank while I pulled away the stones of its entrance, and the Queen stood by him watching him, and I thought how any other woman had surely sunk down to rest after that weary flight. But she seemed tireless in this as in all else that she took in hand.

When the way was clear, I prayed her to enter, and she took the hand of the prince and led him in without a word, while I followed, hanging the great wild bull's skin that I used as a curtain across the as yet unblocked doorway, that no light might betray the place.

The fire still smouldered in its far corner, where some fathomless cleft in the rock took its smoke far into the heart of the hill and lost it there, and I stirred it to a blaze. I had long ago so screened it with a stone wall from the doorway that I might use it safely, for I had a mind to be in comfort when I spent the winter here. And indeed, to me at least, the cave seemed homelike enough. There was my couch of springy heather, skin-covered and warmly-blanketed, and the flat-topped stones that were my seats and table were set in order, and deerskins were on them also. My bows and quiver and spare arms were on the walls, with an antlered skull or two, and I was used to bare stone walls in my old tower in the bygone days. Yet, as I watched the weary face of the Queen, I knew how wretched all would seem to her.

"It is no fit place for you, Madam," I said, "but it is safe. When daylight comes again your people will be searching for you, and I will meet them and bring them to you, and all will be well."

"They fled from me even now," she said in a cold voice, "and here I do not even know the name of the friend who has come by chance to me."

"My name is Richard Barvill, Madam," I said—and it was good to own the honest old name once more—"I will say, even before my Queen, that I have no cause to be ashamed of it, being a forest dweller only because of the troubles."

This I added, lest the thought of being in the hands of some wrong-doer might cause her trouble presently when I left her and passed beyond her sight. One could not tell what fears of treachery might come into her mind.

"Because of the troubles," she repeated softly, "and they say that I am the main cause of them all. Yet I have my share in bearing them for his sake," and she looked towards the young prince, who was now asleep in earnest on my couch, where he had thrown himself at once when we came in.

I made no answer, for all this was beyond me, though I did think that now perhaps for the first time the Queen understood rightly the plight of many whom the wars had ruined. Instead of replying I busied myself in bringing out and setting on my table the best food that I had in the place, and then stood to wait her pleasure. There was cold venison and good wheaten bread and one flask of red wine, if the platters were wooden and the cups of pewter, and it was no bad meal for one who was hungry with a forest hunger.

When the Queen saw that all was ready she rose up from the seat she had taken beside the fire and thanked me as she roused the prince. Then I served them both as best I knew how, and presently the Queen spoke to me of what we might do next.

"Now I am outlaw and forester even as yourself, friend," she said with a wan smile. "For once I have no plans in my mind, for I am helpless here. Tell me what we can do."

Now I had been thinking of that even as we crossed the forest, and there were one or two things that I must know. So I begged leave to ask her somewhat, and she gave it.

Then I learnt how she had fled from the battle with but few attendants, and those of no rank, carrying with her some of the crown jewels and other treasure, and meaning to make for the Scotch border. In the old lane her servants had fled at the first attack, and both she and the prince had been dragged from their horses and roughly handled for the sake of their jewels. Then their captors had forgotten them in a quarrel over the treasure in the waggon, and she had been able to slip away with the prince.

"Then, friend, we met with you. I thought you another of the robbers, but a Queen learns to read faces, and there was that in yours which told me that I could trust you. So I am here in safety—and some day you shall know that Margaret of Anjou does not forget her friends."

"Queen Margaret," I said, "there are many things to be seen before I deserve such a name from you, but I will try to earn it."

And then, because I did not rightly know what else to say, I asked if these plunderers were Yorkists.

"Outlaws rather," she answered decidedly. "York's men had not let me escape, for to take me had been worth more than treasure to them. Nor was there one who wore the badge of the white rose. I heard the name of their leader—they called him Cork—and I shall not forget him."

So this man must have followed the treasure, if not the Queen, from the field, and if he knew her there might be trouble in store. But I saw that if ever the red rose bloomed again Cork's case would be a hard one.

But at least the Yorkists were not scouring the woods in search of the Queen, and that was good hearing. Probably I was the only man who knew that she was in them, unless Cork guessed that the woman who had slipped through his hands were she. If he did so, however, he would be likely to keep the knowledge to himself, in order to have all the credit of what he would expect to be an easy capture presently.

"Madam," I said, "I think that there will be no great search for you as yet. The Yorkists will believe you to have escaped, and your servants will take word that you are a prisoner. It will be a long day before those mistakes are found out. The army of York will pass on, and your people will scatter, and go north in little parties, and I shall meet with them. Here you are safe, and you may sleep in peace, even were you to hear voices of men searching for you close at hand, for the secret of this cave is mine only. Now I must go, and I pray you to be content until I return with news in the morning. I must close the cave carefully, and thereafter answer no call save that of my name, Barvill, for that is known here to none save yourself."

Then I knelt and kissed her hand, and was going, but she asked me, very kindly—

"Friend Barvill, what of yourself? We have taken your place, and for our sakes again you are homeless."

"I have other hiding-places, if I need them," I answered, "but now I have work to do, for your sake and the prince's."

I went out of the cave and built up the doorway, as I was wont when I left it for some long time, with the Queen's words of thanks in my ears. More than all else that might bind me to her was this, that not so much as by a look did she show one sign of distrust of me or of my word.

When my work was done, so that even from a yard or two away one might not tell that any cave was there, I went away and left my dog in a hollow tree that was one of my hiding-places to which he was used, and then took my way to Hexham, to learn what I might.

It was close on midnight when I came there, and yet the town was alive with men, as if it were fair-time. Every house was lighted up, and great fires, round which were gathered groups of noisy men, burned in the market-place and in the wider streets. One would have thought that all the army was gathered there to drink after victory, but these were only stragglers, for the camp was on the battlefield, some miles to the southward. All of these men wore the badge of the white rose, however, in some form or other, and to mix with them I must do likewise.

When I found that out, I had not far to seek for what I needed. A man lay in a dark doorway sleeping after overmuch ale, and I borrowed from him. He did not so much as stir when I took the twisted scrap of rag that stood for the proud rose of York from his arm and pinned it to my own.

So marked, I went boldly to the market-place, and followed a press of men into the chief inn of the place in order to get a can of ale, that I might be welcome at one of the fires, where I should best hear what was to be told. Inside the tavern all was confusion, the good old host and his tapster being hard put to with a noisy crowd thronging them for ale that could not be drawn fast enough. I knew the old man by repute, but well I knew his orphan niece, fair Mistress Annot, whose face, when she stayed at a mill, where I was welcome, made me feel my loneliness overmuch at times, for she did not scorn a forest man with whom her cousin, the miller, had friendly dealings. So as the throng shouted and pushed round me, the thought of the girl's terror with this wild mob in the house came over me. But I could do nothing for her, and presently I got a can of ale and went out and across to a big fire, and sat down in a place left vacant when a man rose. None heeded me, for there was constant coming and going.

There were many things that were not all of revelry after victory that I saw as I sat and listened. One or two houses had been wrecked—those of known Lancastrians, as one would think—and one was burning out, fired early in the day. Many times I saw parties bringing in wounded men, and more than once a hush fell on those who drank and wrangled, as the sound of a little silver bell came down the street, and a priest and his servers passed, bearing the last sacrament to some man who had been brought here to die. There were more things to be seen also, and it was a heavy tale that I must take back with morning. The Lancastrian forces had been utterly scattered, and some said that the King had been taken. The great Duke of Somerset had been taken and beheaded here that evening, and it would seem that most of the Queen's best followers had been slain or were prisoners. The only good hearing was that the Queen was thought to have escaped altogether, and that the army was to march on Bamborough Castle at once, for it was her best stronghold, and a likely rallying place. The way for her flight would soon be clear, therefore.

Then, all in a moment, I forgot even the Queen, for from the tavern came the noise of a riot, and some leapt up and ran thither, I with the fear for Annot again. Men came tumbling out of the doorway, and I asked a grey-haired and well-armed man, who almost upset me in his haste, what was amiss.

"The butts are all empty," he said, "and the sorry knaves have struck down the host for telling them so—have slain him, I think. Then some struck his slayer, and now there is fighting enough."

The man was plainly an honest soldier, and sober, and I told him, therefore, that there was a lone girl in the house, who would be frightened, adding, "Maybe they will wreck the house yet."

"Likely enough, for they are camp followers, with none over them. Do you know the house?"

"Not well, but the yard is down yon lane, and the back-door opens into it. I know the girl's friends, if you will help me to get her away."

He nodded, and we went into the lane, which was empty now, by reason of the noise in the market-place, which had drawn all thither. We reached and tried the back-door, but it was locked, and now there was a sound as of wild wrecking in the house that made it useless to knock, and told us to hurry. So I put my shoulder to the door and it flew open, letting us into a long passage, from which opened larders and the like, and at the end of which was a great inner door, which plainly led to the guest room, where the riot was going on. And as the moonlight streamed in I saw a white figure at this door. It was Annot herself; and she was putting up the heavy bar that was used to keep house and tavern apart, as one might say, if the great room were full of wild drovers and the like at fair-time.

She turned in terror when the door burst open, but my companion spoke quickly to reassure her.

"Eh, my lass, that is well done, and bravely thought of! But the place is over-noisy for you now, and we have come to take you into a safer. See, here is a friend of yours, if I make no mistake."

He had almost to shout, so wild was the clamour on the other side of the door, and though she answered, we could not hear what she said; but I saw that she knew me at least.

"Get her away," my comrade howled in my ear; "they will be round to the back directly."

Then blows fell on the door that had just been barred, and Annot started away from it towards us. And at that my comrade, not in the least knowing who this girl was, and most likely thinking her but a servant, went close to her.

"Come away, lass, I tell thee. The master is slain, and the knaves will likely burn the house."

She turned to me with a blanched face, as if to ask if this could be true, and I could only nod in assent, and I thought that she was about to faint; so did my comrade, and we took her arms and led her out into the yard, where the noise was less.

"Come, Mistress Annot," I said, "it may not be so bad as that, but it is true that you must leave here. Let us take you to the miller, and I will come back for your uncle."

"I am frightened," she said, "and cannot rightly understand. Were you sent for me?"

"Ay—sent—both of us," answered the soldier promptly. "Miller could not come himself, in times like these. Quickly, mistress, or they will catch us."

"I will go with you," she said, "but it is cold, and I would find a cloak."

But there was no time for that now. The barred door was splintering as men swung a bench against it, and that sight decided her. She bade us lead her, and we hurried out into the lane, and away down it in the direction opposite to that in which the market-place lay. Across that end of the lane the crowd that the scuffle had attracted was gathering thickly, and for that reason, perhaps, the lane was empty. But I knew that it would not be long before outsiders would take part in wrecking a tavern, and then a rush would be made to the back, of course.

Outside the gate the soldier halted.

"Any more lasses in the house?" he asked.

"They have all gone," Annot answered. "I and uncle, and the man, were all who stayed when the cannons began this morning. The rest left us."

"Thy uncle? eh! poor lass, poor lass! come away," he said on that. "Where do we take her, comrade?"

"Out of the town, to a mill a mile or more eastward down the river. It will be safe going enough, for we can get away by by-lanes."

So we went on hastily, meeting few people at that hour in the dark alleys of the town, and were soon across a breach in the old useless walls, and in the quiet meadows along the Tyne side. Annot walked quickly and firmly enough, though she was hard put to it not to weep now and then.

We had hardly gone the breadth of two meadows beyond the last cottages, when a trumpet call rang sharply through the night, and the soldier pricked up his ears.

"Ho, comrade, I am wanted, and must get back. That call is for guard changing, and my name is never missing on roll-call," he said. "Good luck go with you, you are safe now. Forgive me, pretty lass, if I told you bad news over-roughly just now—but you can but ken the worst once."

With that he nodded to me, and was off, but he turned to call once more, "Name of John Sykes of Birkbeck's company. Bring me word how you fare."

There were more half-lost words about ale-drinking over the adventure, but he was running fast, and I hardly listened, for Annot was speaking to me, calling me by the name I had taken when my own was not to be used any longer. They were wont to call me "Barvill of the Peel" in the old days, and so I kept some remembrance of the name, as it were.

"Master Peel," she said, "is all true that the soldier said?"

"True it is, Mistress Annot, I fear. But presently I will go back and find that out for certain."

She sobbed a little, and hurried on, and it was not long before we saw the mill, and heard the rush of the water through its sluices.

As one might have expected, there were no lights to be seen about the house, but when we came to the door, we found that open, which seemed strange, and, to me at least, of ill omen at such a time of trouble. But Annot, who knew the ways of the place, went into the dark entry and called softly. There was no answer, and she came out to me again.

"I suppose that miller has gone to see to the sluices, leaving the door open, as he often will. He will be back anon. I will go up to the wife's room and wake her, that she may not be frightened." And then she added, "I think that I have much to thank you for, Master Peel, but I must not stay now."

I tried to say that no thanks were needed, but she was gone into the darkness of the stairway, and I would not call after her. But I lingered, for I did not like the silence and open door at all. And I was right in doing so, for in a few minutes she was back, calling to me with fear in her voice.

She had found a lantern in some accustomed place, and had lighted it, and in its dim light I saw that she was more terrified than even in the town.

"Master Peel," she cried breathlessly; "the house is empty and all in disorder. What can be wrong, and what shall I do?"

It was plain to me then that the poor folk had fled from some raid of the Yorkist troops. Possibly the house had been searched for fugitives, and the miller arrested, with some unfortunate found on the place, as a sympathiser. But I would not say so at once.

"Let us make certain," I said; "maybe all are in the mill."

We went round the buildings and called, but there was no answer anywhere. And all the while I was thinking what I could do now for this poor girl who was thus dependent on me. Perhaps she had other friends in the town, but, if they lived in the broad streets, I dared not take her back through a mob whose ways would not grow quieter as night went on. If she had any other refuge outside the town it were well.

But she had not; nor was there any house to which she dared go in Hexham now. I had to ask her this directly, for it was plain that the mill was deserted. And I will say that she met the trouble bravely.

"I will bide here," she said. "Mayhap they will come back now that all is quiet."

At first that plan seemed good, but then I remembered that the first place where the purveyors for the army would seek for forage of all sorts would be in a miller's stores. There would be no real refuge here for more than the few hours of darkness left. Then, of course, as I thought of keeping guard here, the remembrance of what my cave held came back to me plainly. I cannot say that it had ever been forgotten, but this trouble had seemed but a passing one. Now that I found it more than that, the other duty came forward again.

Even as I realised that I owed all to the Queen first, I saw what I might do both for her and Annot. The girl had trusted me, and I would trust her entirely, for with her as an attendant our Queen would at least feel her captivity less.

"Annot," I said, "there is one place to which I can take you where you will be safe till all is quiet again, and there you will be with a lady who is a fugitive like yourself from these people."

She looked at me eagerly, and answered at once—

"Take me there, I pray you, Master Peel. I trust myself to you in all things."

"Ay, and now the trust must be altogether on my side, for, if I take you to this lady, I am putting the greatest of secrets in your charge."

"If some poor lady is hiding alone, let me go to her," she answered; "then I may feel that my own trouble has brought help to another. Truly I have trusted you, good friend, for, from the moment we came here, I knew that you could not have been sent for me, as the soldier said."

"I will answer with trust for trust," I said. "Come, we will borrow some cloak or blanket from the mill, that you may go warmly."

Then we went in. The place had not been plundered, and I gathered things that would be of use to the Queen also. I was glad of the chance of thus getting food and other comforts without having to ask for them, and so, perhaps, drawing suspicion on me. At last I asked Annot if the miller had any wine by some chance.

"Plenty," she said, wondering; "but we must not take that."

"You may need it," I said, "but the lady will need it more. And she is one to whom nothing must be refused."

"Almost do you speak as if she were the Queen herself."

"I am speaking of the Queen," I said plainly.

"And she is alone!" the girl said, with wide sad eyes. "Oh, had you asked me to go to her, even from my uncle's house, I would have gone."

Then she too gathered things and hurried me, and at last we were on our way to my cave. And as we went I told her how I had met with the Queen, and gave her many instructions as to the care of the hiding and the like, that I might have the less to say in the Queen's presence. It was a long way, and the day was breaking when we came there, and the Queen answered from within to the call of my own name.

Now how those two met I can hardly say, for I told the Queen whom I had brought as I opened the cave mouth, and when I saw the look of thanks she gave me, and saw Annot fall on her knees and kiss her hand, I turned away with a sort of lump in my throat, for even that night alone in the place that was home to me had brought a look to the face of Margaret of Anjou that was terrible.

So I went aside a little way and sat down until Annot called me, and then went back and spoke long with her and the Queen. All that we said need not be set down, nor how the Queen mourned over the news that I must needs give her. But the end of it all was that I was to seek out the Sire de Brezè, the leader of her Angevin levies, and bring him here. She could be patient now with Annot to cheer her.

Therefore I went all day among our outlaws, hearing what they knew of the flight, and at last heard of De Brezè, as the foreigner who had passed through the forest. Then I saw the march of the Yorkist army from Hexham towards the coast, and my heart grew lighter for their going. None had seen Cork that day, and so he had not been scouring the wood, but presently I went to the place where the Queen had been robbed, and the waggon was yet in the lane, empty. Cork and his men must have gone away with the plunder.

I went into Hexham at nightfall, and the place was in confusion and wretchedness. There were many who had been plundered of all, and I learnt without going to the market-place that Annot's uncle was indeed slain. The tavern had been wrecked, but no worse, though they told me that several men had lost their lives in the riot before the provost marshal had ended it too late.

Now as I passed down a lane on my way back to the forest, I came suddenly on two men who sat under a hedge, and I heard a word or two of their talk before they saw me. They were not speaking English, and at once I hoped that I had found some of De Brezè's men. So I gave them good-night, using passwords that the Queen had taught me—words that spoke of hope to the cause of the red rose if a man knew them—made in troubles like these two years ago.

"Good-even, friends. One had wished for a brighter sunset."

"Ay, but the morn may be redder," one answered in good English enough.

"A red morning is a sign of storm," I said, passing on.

"A storm is needed to clear the air," he replied; "then the rose may bloom once more."

With that the two leapt up and followed me, and when they caught me up they passed another word or two for certainty, and then spoke freely enough. Then I learnt that I had met with none other than De Brezè himself and his squire Varennes, who had come back to seek their lost Queen, leaving their few followers in some nook of the hills to wait their return.

What their joy was when they heard all that I had to tell them, and how they met the Queen, is beyond my writing; but I had heavy news for poor Annot, which filled my thoughts now that the care of the Queen seemed to be shifted from my shoulders for a little.

She bore them very bravely, having made up her mind for the worst, and she told me that now she would bide with the Queen as long as she had need of her. I had promised the same to De Brezè, for I could guide the flight across the moors well, and so I was content, for I should be at hand to help Annot if need was, while doubtless the Queen would find her some place in a great house in Scotland, were she asked.

Now Varennes went to his men presently and all was planned well, so that in the grey of the next morning we rode safely northwards, joining presently the Duke of Exeter, and some other nobles with their men, thus making a strong party against any attack. And even as I thought that all was well, there rose one shadow to dim my content, though I hardly knew why.

Across the moor rode toward us one man, who hastened to put a stretch of boggy land between us and him before he met us, and that was natural enough in that place and time, so that we paid no heed to him. But, as we passed nearer, I knew him, and it was Cork himself; and I thought, as he reined up and stared after us, that he recognised the Queen as his captive, and that what he had found in the waggon had told him whom he had lost. I said nothing, however, for we had no time to waste in chasing him, and I could not see what harm he could do, since, ride as hard as he might, he could not bring any force on us in time to stay our passing the border. Yet, as I say, he brought me a feeling as of ill omen, and I was uneasy until we could see him no longer. I thought that he lingered as if watching us, though indeed one might have wondered if any man did not do so.

Now our journey was safe and unhindered, and well was I thanked for my guidance. I thought that I should be dismissed when we reached Scotland, but the Queen herself asked me if I would not remain in her service, taking my place as a Barvill should among her gentlemen-at-arms, for she would prove that she was not ungrateful for what I had done for her and the prince. And one may suppose that I gladly did so, the more willingly that I should be near Annot, if the truth is told.

Thus, for good or ill, my fortunes were cast in with Margaret of Anjou, and I thought that my troubles were over.

Maybe one may say that they were, for the trouble to come yet was the Queen's, and though I had part in it, that is a different matter to being an outlaw on one's own account. Outlaw, as it were, in truth our poor mistress was yet, but in sharing her distress was truest honour.

For no sooner were we over the border than we learnt that all that the Queen could hope for was to be unnoticed at the most. The surrender of Berwick, that should have made Scotland her lasting friend, had been forgotten in new treaties made with York, and she was warned that she might even be given up to him. So we rode westward along the border until we came to Kirkcudbright, where the Queen had been in hiding before, and there bided in poor lodgings enough as nothing more than a noble Lancastrian lady with her household. None knew her to be the Queen, but even were she to be recognised, we supposed that the Scots king would hear no more than he knew already of her whereabouts.

So resting there we passed a quiet week, and then one day as I wandered on the town quay, watching the vessels alongside, the remembrance of Cork was brought back to me by the walk and bearing of a man who was boarding a small trading buss. His back was towards me, and he seemed to be a seaman altogether, but, I suppose because the thought of Cork was always unpleasant to me, I asked who yon man might be, and was told that he was master of the buss, and given his name also. So I was somewhat angry with myself for letting such a ruffian as my former acquaintance trouble my mind at all, and thought no more of him.

That evening I went in attendance on De Brezè beyond the town to the house of a friend of the cause, in order to learn whether there were any better tidings for the Queen from Edinburgh. There were none, and we walked back to the town by the same roads we had passed in going, which is a thing that an outlaw learns not to do, for plain reasons enough. It was not very dark, and the road was not lonely as we came near the town, for two men struck it from a by-path, and remained some fifty yards behind us, talking and laughing freely, so that we thought them lively company.

Just where the street down which we passed comes to the quay it grows narrow, and at the corner house three men were quarrelling in a half-drunken sort of way. However, they stumbled aside as we came near them, and lest I should oblige my leader to pass too close to them, I dropped back a pace or two, and we went quickly. Then one of the men seemed to push another, and sent him falling right across de Brezè's feet, causing him to stumble heavily. I sprang forward to save him from the fall, and in a moment was down also, with the weight of several men on me. The two men had run up from behind us and had thrown me. I shouted, and tried to reach my dagger, but I was pinioned and gagged quickly, and De Brezè was being treated in the same way.

Then the men set us on our feet, and the first man my eyes lit on was Cork himself. He did not know me because half my face was covered with a thick cloth, and besides that I no longer wore the wild hair and beard of the forest. Then I knew that it was indeed he whom I had seen this morning, and now we were in his hands and helpless, as his men dragged us across the quay and to his vessel. The place was deserted, for the townsfolk did not love late hours.

They took us on board the buss, and half threw us into a small ill-smelling fore-peak under the high forecastle, through a low door under the break of the deck and down three steps. Bound as I was, I stumbled and could not save myself, and so fell headlong, with De Brezè on me. My head came heavily against a timber, and that was all I knew for a time.

When I came round I was free so far as bonds were concerned, but I was in the same place, and De Brezè was beside me, in the dark. The vessel was certainly at sea, and making her way against a light head-wind, for though she was steady she went about and rolled me against my comrade. Whereat I asked pardon.

"Why, that is well," he answered in a low voice, "for your senses have suffered no hurt. I thought your neck might be broken, for when I had managed to wrench my own bonds off and free you, you never stirred. Now, what may all this mean? We put to sea directly after we were taken, and have been out of harbour for two hours or so."

"I shouted, and tried to reach my dagger."

I told him what I knew of Cork, and then it seemed plain to us that he had trapped us for the sake of the price that was on our heads, that for De Brezè's taking being very great, as one might suppose. We should therefore be on our way to England, which was no pleasant thought, considering the fate of so many of the Queen's best followers. I think it likely that I was taken for Varennes, who was far more valuable, as one might say, than myself.

"Why, then," said De Brezè, "they will come presently and offer us our freedom if we will promise to behave ourselves. Then we may see if anything can be done to make the bargain not all on one side, as we have the use of our hands already."

I saw what he meant, and we began to plan many ways of surprising our captors. It seemed as well to be slain in making a bold try for liberty as to be given up to York to be beheaded. But we must wait for daylight, and so we tried to sleep in turns, though I do not know if either of us did so.

Presently the sun rose, and the light streamed through the chinks of the bulkhead that closed the break of the deck, and I crept to one of them and looked aft. There were but three men to be seen, one of whom was Cork, and another the helmsman on the high poop. Cork and the third man were on the main deck, leaning against the rail that was all the bulwark that went round the waist, and both were armed. How many more men there might be I could not tell, but the vessel was small, and I thought that the five who had taken us might be the whole crew. De Brezè came and peered out also.

"So far there are only two to one," he said, "for the helmsman cannot leave his place. If we can settle with these two with a rush the rest comes easily enough. But where shall we find weapons?"

All that I could see were the sweeps of the vessel, twenty-foot oars that rested on chocks amidships and were not lashed. I pointed these out, saying that one might handle them well as one uses a border spear, and at that De Brezè made up his mind.

"They thought us so well bound that the door is only latched," he said with a chuckle. "Are you ready?"

"At your word," I answered.

"Well, then, I go first and take an oar from the right side of the mast and make for the right-hand man. Do you take the left, and then we shall clear one another."

He turned up his long sleeves, shook hands with me, and was out through the low door in a moment with myself at his heels, and we had the long oars in our hands and were charging the two men before they knew that we were not some of their own crew. Then Cork shouted and drew his sword, making for me just as my comrade's levelled weapon struck his man fairly in the chest, so that he doubled up with a howl and was hurled under the rail into the sea. Perhaps the sudden shifting of the deck as the helmsman threw the vessel's head into the wind put me out, for I missed Cork, and in a moment he was inside my guard, and I had hard work for a time to keep away from his sword, using the oar as a quarter-staff.

Then I got a fair blow at him from aloft, and that ended all scores between me and him in good time, for De Brezè was fighting two more men who had come on deck from a forward hatch. He had the sword of the first man he had set on, and one might see that he was a master of the weapon.

Two to one was unfair, however, and I thought that the helmsman might take part, so I swept one of these two overboard with a lucky swing of the oar, and de Brezè ended the matter with the other at once. Whereon the helmsman cried for quarter, and it was plain that there were no more men on board. Then as De Brezè and I looked at one another, the door of the cabin under the high poop opened, and in it, frightened and pale, stood Annot herself. She gave a little cry of relief when she saw me, and I sprang towards her.

"I got a fair blow at him from aloft."

"What is it all, Richard?" she said, using my name for the first time thus.

"How are you here?" I answered.

But before either of us had replied, a stately figure crossed the rough threshold of the cabin, and the Queen herself was before me, looking on the bodies of the slain with disdainful eyes, in which was no fear, for the field of battle was not new to her.

"There is ever hope for the Red Rose while I have such arms to strike for me," she said, as De Brezè and I knelt before her in wonder.

Then we learnt that almost as soon as we were taken both Queen and prince had been decoyed from the house by some crafty message purporting to come from a dying Lancastrian who would fain see them before he passed. Varennes had gone to Edinburgh to seek for tidings of the king, and so taking only Annot with her, the Queen had gone out, only to be seized and hurried on board the buss, which had at once put to sea. Doubtless Cork had meant to take his captives to England for the sake of the great reward that would be his, but if my forebodings concerning him were justified, he had met his deserts at my hand.

Then we made the helmsman put about, and were soon back in harbour with the light breeze that had kept the vessel in sight of land in our favour.

Now in a few days Varennes returned, and it was plain that no help could be looked for from Scotland, nor was it known where the king was for many a long day. Then we must wander from place to place in hiding always, until at last, on a short sea passage on the east coast, stress of storm took us to Flanders, and then came the end of troubles, for though the Duke Of Burgundy was a foe, he was a noble one, and sent our Queen home to her own people in Angers in all honour, at last.

Here I and Annot my wife serve her yet, looking back with content to the troubled days when we first learnt to love one another. For if it must be that we shall not see England again, our home is where the Queen is, and that is enough, and has been so since we served her for the first time in the cave under the shadow of the Hexham moors.

---

["A FLIGHT FROM JUSTICE;"
OR, HOW I BECAME A LIGHT DRAGOON]

By Lieut.-Col. PERCY GROVES, Royal Guernsey Artillery
(late 27th Inniskillings)

CHAPTER I

I was born in 1795, at the Kentish village of Charfield, of which my father, the Rev. James Wilmot, was patron and rector. My mother died before I was a week old, commending me with her latest breath to the care of a trusted servant, the wife of our factotum John Fowles—"Corporal Jack," as the villagers commonly called him. Nancy Fowles had also charge of my sister Kate, who was six years my senior.

In his youth my father had held a cornet's commission in the 17th Light Dragoons, but being severely wounded at Bunker's Hill, he was invalided home. He then retired from the service, went to Oxford, took his degree, was ordained, got married, and on the death of his father, in 1788, succeeded to our family living.

When my father returned from America he was accompanied by Corporal John Fowles (who had also received a wound while rescuing his disabled cornet from the enemy), and on quitting the army he purchased the corporal's discharge, and took him as his body-servant. Three years before I was born, Fowles married my mother's maid, Nancy Buck; they never had children, so continued in their respective situations.

A strong, healthy child, I grew into a strong, healthy boy, with more than a fair share of animal spirits, and a most impetuous temper. I loved to "roam the fields for health unbought," to box and play single-stick with John Fowles, ride about the country with my sister, and take an occasional cruise in a Deal lugger—for Deal was barely an hour's walk from Charfield Rectory, and I knew nearly every fisherman on that part of the coast. Meanwhile my education was not neglected, as I studied daily with our curate, and with Mademoiselle Hettier, Kate's governess, an emigrée whose relatives had all perished during the "Terror." Thus passed my life until I attained my fourteenth year, by which time I was well instructed in the "three Rs," history and geography, could speak French fluently and with a tolerable accent, knew a very little Latin, and was able to stammer through the Greek alphabet.

"I wish to speak about your future," said my father one evening when I bade him good-night. "You are now fourteen, and it is quite time that I expressed my views on that subject. My great desire is, that you should take orders and eventually succeed to the living. Do you like the prospect?"

"Ye—es, sir," I hesitatingly replied; "yes, I think so—that is, if it wasn't for Latin and Greek. I am very poor at them, you know."

"That's not altogether your fault, my boy," was his rejoinder. "Mr. Scott owns he does not possess the gift of teaching, but he is leaving us, on preferment, next week, and the new curate I have engaged is a very competent tutor. You have heard me mention my nephew Septimus Blagg?"

"Yes, father."

"Well Septimus is a sound classical scholar, and has coached men at Oxford. He has just been ordained, and is coming here as curate and your tutor. He will soon bring you on, and when you're sufficiently prepared you shall go up for matriculation. Good-night, Dick."

"Good-night, sir." And I retired, not quite sure whether I felt pleased or the contrary.

Septimus Blagg arrived at Charfield in due course. He was a lanky, sallow-faced, red-haired young man, with a fawning manner and a low purring voice. From the very first, Kate and I disliked and mistrusted him. The new tutor was, no doubt, a fine scholar, and apparently took considerable pains to instruct me; but somehow or other, I did not seem to make much progress with my classical studies; we were always doing the same work over and over again; never going ahead. At the end of twelve months, Septimus informed my father that I had no talent whatever for Latin or Greek, and recommended him to choose for me some profession in which a knowledge of classics was not indispensable.

"No, nephew, no! Dick must stick to the Church," was the decided reply. "He's still but a boy, and I'll wager he will easily matriculate when the time comes. With you for his tutor he is certain to succeed," my father added; for he had a high opinion of his curate, who made himself useful in many ways, and had completely hoodwinked his easy-going rector.

"As you please, sir," responded Septimus. "It was my duty to warn you of the possibility, nay, I must say the probability of failure; but of course I will continue to do my utmost for dear Richard." And the subject dropped.

Now Kate chanced to overhear this conversation, and asked me whether I really tried to profit by our cousin's teaching.

"Honestly I do, Kate," I answered. "With other work I get on well enough, as you know; but, though I try hard to pick up Latin and Greek, I never seem to make any progress. It's always the same work over and over again, until I'm fairly sick of it! If Cousin Septimus would only let me go ahead I'm sure I'd do better, but really I sometimes fancy he——"

"Keeps you back on purpose," interposed Kate, taking the words out of my mouth. "That is exactly what I think, Dick. I believe the wretch will do all he can to prevent you taking orders, in the hope of getting Charfield for himself. That is the reason you do not get on with your classics!"

"Egad! you're right," I exclaimed. "What shall we do—speak to father?"

"No, dear boy; we have no proof, and may be wrong in our suspicions," my sister replied. "We must try to outwit the man. Do your utmost, Dick, to master Latin and Greek in spite of his endeavours to hinder you; pick up all you can from him, but trust chiefly to your own efforts. Ma'moiselle could, I am sure, help you with Latin, for she is so clever at languages. I will speak to her."

I followed Kate's advice to the letter, and never hinted to my father that I doubted Mr. Blagg's good faith; but setting to work with a determination to succeed, by dint of hard study and the assistance of Mademoiselle Hettier—who still lived with us as Kate's companion—I made such progress that in a year's time all doubt of my being able to matriculate and subsequently take a respectable degree was removed. My father was delighted; my tutor unmistakably puzzled and discomfited—though he received with complaisance the compliments of his unsuspecting uncle, for Kate and I kept our secret.

Foiled in his attempt to retard my classical studies, Septimus Blagg tried other means to attain his end: he sought to blacken my character, knowing well that my father had too much respect for his cloth to permit a reputed ne'er-do-well to enter the Church. Septimus was far too wary to speak against me himself, so he bribed his landlord, Joseph Dobbs, the parish constable, to do his dirty work. Dobbs was a cowardly, bullying jack-in-office, quite unscrupulous; in fact the very man for the job. This rascal now began to play the spy upon me, and to report, with gross exaggerations, every boyish escapade. My father, however, knew Mr. Dobbs of old, and paid little heed to his reports. Indeed, on one occasion, when the fellow brought a palpably false charge against me, my indignant sire rated him soundly, threatened to deprive him of his office, and ordered John Fowles to turn him off the premises—an order which the ex-corporal cheerfully obeyed, and even exceeded by giving the slanderer a sound thrashing, on the plea that he "resisted the escort."

At this time I had no suspicion that Septimus Blagg was the instigator of these malicious charges, or I should certainly have shown him up.

For a few months after his warm reception at the rectory, Dobbs let me alone, but he was only biding his opportunity, and ere long he and his scoundrelly employer succeeded in landing me in a rare scrape.

In the month of March 1812, my father, Kate, and Mademoiselle Hettier went on a visit to Bingley Manor, twenty odd miles from Charfield. On Tuesday, March the 11th—I have good reason to remember the day!—I rode over to Bingley with an important letter, and did not reach home until after dark. As I entered the village Septimus Blagg stopped me.

"I am glad you have returned, Richard; in fact, I have been watching for you," he said. "There is painful news to tell you."

"Painful news, cousin!" I exclaimed.

"Yes, Richard," he rejoined. "Your young servant Harry Symes has been arrested on a very grave charge."

Now Harry Symes was a particular favourite of mine. He had been in our service some three years, but I had known him since childhood. His father was one of the most skilful and daring boatmen on the coast; he was also, unhappily, a notorious smuggler—a man who would stick at nothing when his blood was up. But though a determined law-breaker himself, William Symes had no wish that his only son should follow in his footsteps, so he had begged my father to take Harry into his service, and accordingly the lad was taken on as under-groom and to make himself generally useful indoors and out.

"What is Harry accused of?" I anxiously inquired. "Nothing disgraceful, I'll swear!"

"His father and other smugglers attempted to run a cargo before daybreak this morning, and were surprised by the Preventive Service officers. They made a desperate resistance, lives being lost on both sides. William Symes managed to escape, and came here to borrow some money from his son. He was seen by Joseph Dobbs, who very properly arrested him, but Harry interfered, assaulted Dobbs and his assistant with a hay-fork, and enabled his father to get clear away."

"And Harry was arrested?"

"Certainly he was, Richard, but not before he had dealt Dobbs a severe blow on the head, rendering him nearly insensible," answered Septimus. "He is now in the village cage, and I am uneasy lest any of his friends should attempt to rescue him. I shall advise Dobbs to keep watch over the cage all night, and remove the prisoner to Deal in the morning."

"Better mind your own business," I muttered; adding aloud, "Isn't the cage guarded at present?"

"No, Richard. Your father being absent, Dobbs has gone to Mr. Hardy's to report the arrest and ask for instructions; while his assistants, I believe, are on William Symes's track. Poor Harry! I fear he has committed a capital offence, and if so, his days are numbered."

These last words decided me. For aught I knew to the contrary, Harry Symes's life was in imminent peril, and I must save him if possible. The Charfield cage was an old ramshackle place, and if it was not watched I might be able to release my humble friend before Dobbs returned from the magistrate's. There was not a moment to lose, so bidding Septimus a curt good-night, I hastened to the stable and stalled and fed my mare without troubling the groom. Then, having procured a small crowbar from the tool-house, I ran to the cage, which stood quite apart from other buildings, and within five hundred yards of the rectory.

Not a soul was about, as far as I could see, so I whistled softly.

"That you, Master Dick?" whispered Harry, looking through the narrow grated window.

"Yes; I've come to release you. Keep very quiet."

The door of the cage was secured by a massive-looking staple and padlock, but both were old and eaten with rust; so a vigorous application of the crowbar wrenched them off. Pushing open the door, I entered the cage.

"Master Dick, you shouldn't have done this," Harry exclaimed. "You'll get yourself into rare trouble, I'm feared."

"Hush, you foolish fellow," I answered under my breath. "Take this money and cut away while the road's clear. I will meet you at the Dragon, Canterbury, early to-morrow, and we——"

"Not so fast, Master Wilmot," said a gruff voice, while a heavy hand fell on my shoulder, and turning quickly round, I found myself confronted by Dobbs and Septimus Blagg, behind whom stood the former's assistants—William Herd and Seth Fogg.

"I arrest you, Richard Wilmot, for attempting to rescue my prisoner," continued Dobbs. "Shove the darbies on t'other one, Bill, and do you, Seth, fetch the cart. We'll take these young devils to Dover jail this very night. Look sharp, both on ye."

Fogg went off on his errand with evident reluctance, and Herd, after fumbling in his pockets, declared that he must have left the handcuffs at home. Harry and I were so taken aback at the unexpected appearance of Dobbs and his companions that we stood stock-still, offering neither resistance nor remonstrance; but now Septimus Blagg came cringing up to me and, with well-feigned emotion, said: "Richard! Richard! has it come to this? Alas! what will my poor deluded uncle say?"

The sound of his hated voice roused me in a moment. Looking him fair in the face, I saw that his expression was one of triumph rather than regret. Then a sudden thought flashed across my mind—I had been betrayed by that fawning hypocrite!

"You hound!" I shouted in a fury. "You have set a trap for me—I'll swear it!"

"I reckon ye're not far wrong, Master Dick," muttered William Herd, casting an angry glance at the now trembling curate. "A darned dirty job it be!"

The man's remark, and my tutor's confusion, convinced me I had hit the right nail on the head—that Dodds and Septimus had deliberately planned to tempt me to rescue Harry Symes, there could be no reasonable doubt—and losing all control of my temper, and utterly regardless of the consequences, I rushed at Septimus Blagg and knocked him fairly off his legs. In falling his head came in violent contact with the half-open door, and he rolled over stunned and bleeding profusely.

"The young vill'n's killed the parson!" cried Dobbs, seizing me by the collar. "Help! Murder! Help!"

Snatching up a stool—the only piece of furniture in the cage—Harry Symes flew to my aid, and with a swashing blow stretched Dobbs senseless on the floor.

"Ecod! ye've done for the pair of 'em, I do believe," said Herd in scared tones, as he stooped to examine Dobbs's prostrate form. "Ye shouldn't have hit so mortal hard, lad; though it serves the rascal right."

"Knocked him fairly off his legs."

"Is he dead, Bill?" asked poor Harry anxiously.

"I'm feared so, lad," replied the old man, looking up. "Ye must get clear of the country both on ye, for it'll be a hangin' job if ye're cotched. Be off, lads, afore Seth Fogg comes back, and put a score of miles betwixt ye and Charfeld by mornin'."

"But you will get into trouble if we escape now, William," I said, hesitating to act on his advice.

"Never fear, Master Dick," he rejoined. "How could an old chap like me stop a couple of active lads such as ye be? Not as how I'd try, if I was as strong as Samson."

"That's true, sir," put in Harry; "and everybody in Charfield 'll know it."

"In course they will," said Herd. "Come, be off afore 'tis too late, and I'll take mighty good care that ye gets a fair start. And look ye, Master Dick," the old fellow went on, "I'll see that Parson Wilmot knows the rights of this business, never you fear. Now away ye goes, lads, and good luck go with ye!" And with that he pushed us out of the cage.

CHAPTER II

Fairly dismayed at our unfortunate position, we went off like hares, and turning out of the road, made our way across country in the direction of Ashford. It was a moonlight night and we could see our way fairly well, so on we ran until we were a good league from Charfield, when, hearing no sounds of pursuit, we threw ourselves down under a hay-stack to draw breath.

"This be a precious bad job, sir," said Harry; "I do wish you'd let me stop in the cage. Fancy you getting into such a scrape for the likes of me!"

"What is done cannot be undone, worse luck!" I answered dejectedly. "It is really my fault that we're in such a horrible mess, for had I not lost my temper and struck Mr. Blagg, I do believe they would have let us both go."

"Surely, Master Dick, they'd never have done that?"

"I think they would for their own sakes, Harry. You see, they knew I had guessed their plot, and that William Herd had an inkling of it, and I feel sure they would have gladly released us on our promising to hold our tongues."

"There's something in that, sir," assented my companion. "Mr. Blagg was regular skeert when you spoke your mind to him, and that's for sure."

"Yes; and had I only kept my hands off him, it would have been all right; but now the wretched affair cannot possibly be hushed up, and if we wish to save our liberty—if not our lives—we must fly the country."

In my excited state it never occurred to me that after all Blagg and Dobbs might not have been fatally injured; on the contrary, I made sure that Dobbs was dead, and thought it more than probable that my tutor, if not killed outright, would not survive. But for this firm impression, I should have made the best of way to Bingley Manor, and confessed everything to my father, leaving him to decide what was to be done; as it was, the bare idea of being tried for murder, or even manslaughter, filled me with horror, and I resolved to endure any hardships or privations rather than the disgrace of appearing in the prisoner's dock on such a terrible charge. How bitterly I reproached myself for that fatal burst of passion!—that mad blow which had brought such dire trouble upon Harry and myself; ruining our prospects and compelling us to fly from home and friends. I thought, with hot tears streaming down my cheeks, of my poor father and sister, how keenly they would feel the disgrace, and what fearful anxiety they would endure on my account. These mournful reflections were at length interrupted by Harry Symes.

"Don't you think, sir, that we should have made sure that Mr. Blagg was killed afore we run off?" he said.

"Herd declared that Dobbs was dead, and if caught we should be tried for his murder," I answered. "As far as our fate goes, it matters little whether my cousin is alive or not. I hope most sincerely that he is, poor fellow, though it would not save us."

"But you did not kill Dobbs, Master Dick," rejoined Harry. "That was my doing—may God forgive me for it!—and they can't punish you for my crime. Look ye, sir, let me go back and give myself up, and I'll warrant they won't trouble themselves about you once they gets hold of me."

This, of course, I would not hear of, and I told Harry that we were both in the same boat, and would sink or swim together. We were now fairly rested, so I proposed that we should continue on our way.

"Where are we bound for, sir?" he inquired.

"I hardly know, Harry. Suppose we make for Ashford and catch the early coach to London? I have five or six pounds with me, and my watch is worth as much more."

"I doubt Ashford would be safe, Master Dick," he replied. "As like as not the news of our escape will be brought by the early coach, and you're well known in Ashford. If we make for London we'd best take another road. But, sir, what'll we do in London when we get there? I reckon them Bow Street runners, as they talks so much of, will soon run us to ground."

"We must get out of England as soon as possible, and to do that we shall have to enlist or go to sea. I think London will be a good place either to take the shilling or get a berth on board some ship."

"Surely you never means to go for a soldier, Master Dick?" cried Harry aghast.

"Better that than be tried for murder at next assizes," I answered; adding, "Unless you would rather go to sea?"

"Not I, sir," was the reply. "Taint of myself I'm thinkin'; it's you, Master Dick. But if so be as your mind is made up, I'm with you. I'd as lief be a soldier as anything."

"Then come along, Harry; we'll take 'the king's shilling' together. Now, which way had we better follow?"

"The Maidstone road, I think, sir. Yon's Sheldon wood, and the lane as skirts it leads into the highway near Squire Cotton's, about two mile from here."

"True; we cannot do better. Come, lad! it is close on eleven o'clock, and we must be far on our way by daybreak."

"Beg pardon, sir," said my companion, touching his hat; "but hadn't you best take your spurs off in case we meets any folk?"

"Egad! I quite forgot I had them on," I laughed. "There! now we will put our best foot foremost."

CHAPTER III

In less than half-an-hour we reached the high-road, along which we proceeded at a brisk pace. Occupied with our thoughts—they were not of a pleasant nature—we conversed but little; in fact, we had walked in absolute silence for the last couple of miles, when Harry suddenly stopped and clapped hand to ear.

"What is it?" I asked.

"There's a carriage coming up behind us, sir," he replied. "At a hard pace too."

Turning round, I attentively listened, and, sure enough, heard the rattle of wheels and the sound of horses galloping furiously. The road was quite straight, and we had a clear view of a quarter of a mile or more. In a few moments a post-chaise came in sight, the horses tearing along, and evidently not under control.

"I shall try to stop them."

"See, Master Dick, there's no post-boy," cried my companion. "It's a runaway!"

Now, not fifty yards beyond where we stood was a very steep hill, and I knew that if the horses took the chaise down that hill at the pace they were going, a serious accident would be the almost inevitable result—nothing short of a miracle could prevent it. To stop the horses before they reached the hill would be a risky job, but in my present mood I cared very little about risk to life or limb, and so determined to make the attempt.

"Harry, lad, I shall try to stop them."

"Right, sir, I'm with you," was the prompt reply. "You take the near horse and I'll go for the off. Come on, sir."

We moved a few yards up the road, and the moment the horses came abreast of us we made a dash at them. Running by the near horse's head, I managed to catch his bridle close by the bit; at the same time throwing my right arm over his withers, I got a firm grip of the collar, and hung on like grim death. Harry was equally fortunate, and, after being dragged a short distance, we succeeded in bringing the runaways to a standstill, just as they reached the brow of the hill. As soon as the horses stopped the door of the chaise was flung open, and a gentleman, wearing an undress cavalry uniform, jumped out.

"Splendidly done, lads!" he exclaimed, clapping me on the shoulder. "You have undoubtedly saved me from a serious, if not fatal accident, and I thank you heartily. You're not hurt, I hope?"

"A bit shaken, that's all, thank you, sir," I answered. "Are you all right, Harry?"

"Yes, Master Dick. 'Twas a near thing, though! Another ten yards, and we'd gone full tear down the hill."

"I am Major Warrington, of the 14th Light Dragoons," said the officer, shaking me warmly by the hand. "May I ask your name, young gentleman, and that of your—your companion?"

"My name is Wilmot, sir," I replied, somewhat hesitatingly, for, under the circumstances, I did not much care to tell my name to a stranger.

"And I am Mr. Wilmot's servant, your honour," said Harry.

"Well, Mr. Wilmot, and you, my brave lad, I am very grateful for the service you have rendered me," rejoined Major Warrington; "very grateful indeed. To say nothing of my escape from bodily injury, I am thankful that the horses and chaise have not been damaged, as it is of the utmost importance that my journey should not be hindered. I am hastening to Northfleet, to join a transport which sails for Lisbon at ten o'clock in the morning, and even now I shall be pushed for time." Then with a laugh he added, "I suppose I must ride post myself, or else drive from the perch, for the rest of the stage, as there's small chance of my post-boy turning up."

"Was he thrown, sir?" I asked.

"No. What happened was this," the major replied. "I was fast asleep, when the sudden stopping of the chaise roused me. Looking out, I saw the boy knocking at the door of a cottage. Before I had time to inquire what he wanted, the door opened, and—startled, I presume, by the flash of light—the horses went off at full speed. Of course, it was impossible for me to stop them, so I let down the windows, covered myself with cloak, rug, and cushions, and awaited events. We must have come full six miles, at almost racing speed; and I certainly never expected to get clear of the chaise with whole bones."

"And what became of the post-boy?" I asked.

"When the horses bolted he was at the cottage door, and possibly he may have followed me, but I cannot wait on the chance of his coming up. I must get forward to the next stage without delay, and be my own post-boy."

"Beg pardon, sir," Harry chimed in, "Master Dick and I are going London way, and it willn't be much out of our road, if we come with you as far as Shelwick—that's the next stage, sir. I can ride post, if you'll take Master Dick in the chay? I know the road well."

Harry's most unexpected suggestion took me fairly aback, and annoyed me not a little; but I did not like to offer any objection, so held my tongue. Major Warrington, too, was evidently surprised at the proposal, and looked inquiringly first at me and then at Harry.

"That will suit me admirably, Mr. Wilmot," he said, after an awkward pause. "It will be a pleasure to have your company as far as Shelwick; or farther, if our roads lie together. What say you?"

"I am willing, Major Warrington," I replied in a half-hearted manner; but seeing that he appeared hurt at my reluctant assent, I added, "Indeed I shall be very glad to accompany you."

"Then we'll be off at once," he rejoined. "Jump up, my lad."

"One moment, your honour," said Harry. "Master Dick, will you put the shoe on? We shall want it going down the hill." And as I went round the chaise to fix the drag-shoe, he whispered, "Tell the gentleman everything, sir. I'm sure he'll give you good advice, and maybe help us."

CHAPTER IV

"Drive on," said Major Warrington, stepping into the chaise and seating himself beside me. "Twenty past one"—looking at his watch—"have you any idea how far we are from Shelwick?"

"Nearly six miles from the posting-house, which is some little distance beyond the village," I answered.

"Well, I hope they'll be able to give me four posters," the major said. "I could only get a pair at the last stage."

"Have you come far to-night, sir?" I inquired.

"From Bingley, Mr. Wilmot. I have been staying with my brother-in-law, Lord Buckland, at Buckland Court. My servant started with the baggage for Northfleet on Monday, but urgent business detained me until this, or rather last evening. By the way, do you know Colonel Gascoigne of Bingley Manor? I ask because there is a Mr. Wilmot, a clergyman, staying at the Manor; probably you are related to him?"

This was indeed a home question! What should I say? Should I follow Harry Symes's advice, and make a clean breast of everything to the major? I hesitated; then—for I could not bring myself to deny my father—I said, almost in a whisper, "I am Mr. Wilmot's son." And, unable to control my emotion, I burst into tears.

"My dear boy!" exclaimed Major Warrington, laying his hand on my arm, "what is wrong with you? I fear you have got into some trouble—is it not so?"

"Into very great trouble, sir; but I—I dare not tell you what it is."

"Nonsense, Wilmot," he rejoined; "do not be foolish. Tell everything without reserve, and if it is in my power to help you I will. Anyhow, you may be sure that I will respect your confidence. Remember, my dear boy," he went on, seeing that I hesitated, "I am under great obligations to you and your servant, and it will be a pleasure to me to assist or advise you. Come! confide in me without fear."

So, touched by his kind manner and evident desire to help me, I told the whole story.

"Umph! You and Harry Symes are certainly in an awkward scrape," said Major Warrington, when I had finished; "but I do not consider you have done anything disgraceful."

"Thank you for saying that, sir," I murmured.

"You have acted foolishly—very foolishly!—by walking, almost with your eyes open, into the trap set for you by those scoundrels the tutor and his confederate," the major went on; "and thereby have committed a serious offence against the law. As for the tutor and parish-constable," he added, "their conduct was most disgraceful, and they richly deserve punishment, in addition to the rough handling they got from you."

"But, sir, I fear the constable was killed in the scuffle," I put in, thinking he might not have understood me. "His assistant, William Herd, said——"

"Never mind what William Herd said; it is more than probable he was mistaken," interrupted Major Warrington. "You do not know the fellow was killed, and in discussing this affair it is better that we should stick to facts, and facts only. We do know that you have committed a serious legal offence by breaking into the Charfield lock-up and assisting a prisoner to escape, and what we have to consider is how you are to be saved from the consequences of your foolish action."

"What do you advise, sir?" I asked anxiously, after a brief silence.

"No doubt I ought to advise you to return home and surrender yourselves, but such a step would place your father in a very painful position—as a magistrate he must of necessity commit you to prison; the more so, because you are his son. Once you are arrested, the law must take its course, and I am afraid it would go hard with you both."

"I am afraid it would," I sighed.

"On the other hand," pursued the major, "I believe that if you can avoid arrest for a time, and proper influence is brought to bear, the matter may be hushed up. Therefore I advise you to keep out of the way for a time, and if possible leave the country."

"That was our intention, sir," I rejoined. "We are going up to London to enlist."

"You need not go to London, my boy," said Major Warrington. "I am both able and willing to assist you, and my proposal is that you and Symes should accompany me to the Peninsula. Now what say you to that?"

"Can such an arrangement be made?" I exclaimed half incredulously.

"Certainly it can," was the reply, "otherwise I should not have made the offer. I am in command of the drafts going out in the Morning Star, and nobody will raise any objection if I choose to take a couple of likely recruits with me. The question is—are you willing to come?"

"Indeed I am, Major Warrington!" I answered joyfully. "Thank you most heartily for the offer; you are truly 'a friend in need'!"

"And the lad Symes—will he care to go on active service?"

"Yes, sir. I can answer for that."

"Then that point is settled," said the major. "Symes will enlist in the 14th, and you shall join us as a gentleman volunteer; the colonel will, I am sure, accept you on my recommendation. Before we embark," he continued, "I will write to your father, explaining how I chanced to fall in with you, and my reasons for advising you to take this step. You, too, must send him a dutiful letter, giving full particulars of the fracas at Charfield, and stating your reasons for supposing that your tutor and the constable laid a trap for you."

"William Herd promised to tell my father everything, sir," I interposed; "but, of course, I will write as you suggest."

"I shall also send a full account of the case to Lord Buckland, and beg him to use all his influence to get the affair hushed up," the major went on. "No doubt his friendship with Mr. Wilmot will induce him to do all he can; but the fact of your having rendered me so great a service, at the risk of your life, will make him doubly anxious to help you. I feel pretty confident that the matter will be satisfactorily settled, and in a few months you will be able to return home without fear."

"I think, sir, that once in the army I should like to stick to it," I remarked. "My father would not object, as after this scrape I couldn't very well enter the Church, and if all goes well I shall beg him to get me a commission. We're at the bottom of the hill now; I will jump out and take off the shoe."

CHAPTER V

"Rock of Lisbon's just sighted, gentlemen," the steward informed us as we sat at breakfast in the cuddy of the Morning Star, a wall-sided old brig which the transport authorities considered quite good enough to convey his Majesty's troops from the Thames to the Tagus.

Three weeks and five days had elapsed since we embarked at Northfleet, and we were all heartily sick of being cooped up in our dirty "floating home." The voyage had been unusually tedious, owing to bad weather, head winds, and the wretched sailing of the brig, so the prospect of once more stretching our legs on terra firma was very welcome.

"We should be at anchor before dusk," said Major Warrington.

"What a blessing!" ejaculated Frank Bradley, a newly fledged cornet, and the only 14th officer on board besides the major.

"Praise the saints! we'll be clear of this ould flea-trap in a few hours," exclaimed Doctor Mulcahy, the surgeon in medical charge of the drafts. "I give ye me word of honour, major, that since I came on board, me life's been one prolonged scratch! As for the poor fellows on the troop-deck, their state just beggars description."

"Then pray don't attempt to describe it, doctor," laughed the major. "We know by experience that your descriptions are sometimes rather too vivid. Come on deck, Wilmot, and take your first look at Portugal."

Major Warrington had treated me with the greatest kindness and generosity, and but for my anxiety to receive some news from home, I should have felt perfectly happy and contented despite the discomforts of the voyage. As I had only a few pounds with me, and no "kit" except what I stood up in, the major insisted on being my banker until I could get remittances from my father. I had purchased some necessaries at Northfleet, and young Bradley was very glad to part with superfluous articles of the preposterous outfit with which a London tailor had saddled him; thus I was able to present a respectable appearance as a gentleman volunteer.

The Morning Star anchored in the Tagus, just abreast of Belem, in the afternoon of the 5th April. Hardly was our anchor down when we were hailed from the deck of a British corvette which lay in the river half a cable's length ahead of us.

"What brig is that?"

"Mornin' Star, transport; with drafts of the 14th Light Dragoons and 3rd and 66th Regiments. One hundred and fifty-eight all told," shouted our skipper. "Three weeks out of the Thames."

"Have you a Major Warrington of the 14th on board?" was the next question.

"We has," bawled the skipper. "He commands the troops."

"What can they want with me?" said the major, who had just come on deck.

"You'll soon know, major," observed Bradley, "for they're sending a boat off. Here she comes! Look at the Portuguese bumboats scuttling out of her way!" And the next minute the corvette's gig ran alongside, and a smart little midshipman sprang up the accommodation ladder.

"Major Warrington?" he said, looking inquiringly round.

"Major Warrington?" he said.

"My name is Warrington, young gentleman," the major answered, stepping forward.

"Captain Calvert's compliments, sir, and will you kindly come on board the Alacrity. He has brought out a packet of letters for you."

"Do you belong to the Alacrity?" said the major in a tone of surprise. "Why, when did she sail from Portsmouth?"

"On the 25th of last month, sir, and anchored here this morning," the middy replied. "We met with beastly weather in the Bay, or should have got in two days ago." Then with an impudent look on his chubby face, he said to our skipper, "You left the Thames on the 12th, I believe? By George! your old hooker has taken her time over the passage. How many knots can she do at a pinch?" But the surly old shellback walked forward without vouchsafing an answer, beyond growling something about the "cheek of them young reefers."

Telling the middy that he would be with him in five minutes, Major Warrington took me aside, and informed me that Captain Calvert of the Alacrity was Lord Buckland's cousin, and that probably the letters he had brought out referred to my case.

"Would they have had time to write, sir?" I questioned.

"Before the Alacrity sailed?—yes, I think so," he replied. "The letters we wrote from Northfleet must have reached your father and Buckland by the 14th, and you may be sure they would not let the grass grow under their feet. I met Captain Calvert at Buckland, and he was then under orders to sail on the 30th March, but it appears he had to put to sea on the 25th. No doubt Lord Buckland knew of this, and took the opportunity to forward our letters."

"I hope they bring good news," I sighed. "I feel very anxious, major."

"Nonsense, boy; keep up your spirits, and I'll wager a guinea I shall be able to tell you that everything has been satisfactorily arranged as far as you are concerned. If it were bad news my brother-in-law would not have been in a hurry to write. Now I must not keep the captain's gig waiting, so I am off."

The major proved a true prophet. In less than half-an-hour he returned to the brig, bringing me a letter from my father. The letter was couched in most affectionate terms, without a single word of reproach. To my great relief I now learned that neither Septimus Blagg nor Dobbs had been seriously injured; but the latter got such a shock, that thinking he was dying he made a full confession of the plot which he and Septimus had hatched against me. As to wishing to prosecute, the two scoundrels were thankful to escape being indicted for conspiracy. My father wound up by saying that I could return home at once if I chose, but he thought that now I had started on a military career it would be well for me to keep to it, at any rate for the present. Harry Symes could go back to the rectory, or remain with me as he pleased. A banker's bill for £200 was enclosed, and the letter concluded with affectionate wishes for my welfare.

"Now, my boy," said Major Warrington, when I had finished reading the letter, "you will commence your military life with an easy mind! I have one more piece of news for you," he added. "Buckland has seen Lord L——, and obtained a promise that you shall have the first vacant cornetcy in the 14th. So, Wilmot, we must pray that there be no change in the Ministry for some little time to come."

CHAPTER VI

Much to our annoyance, we were detained at Lisbon until the first week in July, when an order arrived for the draft to proceed at once to Salamanca. Lord Wellington had entered Salamanca at the end of June, and his forces were in position on the south bank of the Douro, while the French under Marmont occupied the northern. It was the general opinion there would be warm work before long, and we hoped to join the regiment in time to take part in it. During my four months' sojourn in the Portuguese capital I had made great progress with my drills, and Major Warrington pronounced me quite competent to command a troop or take charge of a picket or patrol.

About three weeks before we left Lisbon I received the welcome news of my appointment to a cornetcy in the 14th—thanks to the influence of Lord Buckland with his friend the Cabinet Minister.

"I wish you all success, my dear Wilmot," said Major Warrington when congratulating me on my good fortune. "After all, the trouble you got into has proved a blessing in disguise, for you have now a noble career before you, and I predict that you will make an excellent light-cavalry officer. Entre nous," he added with a smile, "I don't think you were ever cut out for a parson. To my mind no man should enter the Church unless he has a very decided leaning that way."

"I agree with you, sir," I replied; "and judging by his letter, my father seems to be of similar opinion. He must look out for a more worthy successor to our family living."

"Well, I trust he will not bestow it on Mr. Septimus Blagg," laughed the major.

"Little fear of that," I rejoined. "Cousin Septimus is now, so my sister writes, an usher in a London school. I wish the poor boys joy of the fellow!"

---

I will pass over our long march, for we met with no adventures worth recording. Harry Symes proved an excellent servant on the line of march, and one might have thought he had been campaigning all his life, so smart and intelligent was he. I urged him to go in for promotion, but he declared he would rather be my servant than regimental sergeant-major.

We arrived at Salamanca about nine o'clock on the evening of the 22nd July, just too late to share in the glorious victory in which our comrades had distinguished themselves. We, however, pushed on without delay, and came up with the regiment shortly after it had ceased from pursuing the flying enemy.

The officers of the 14th Light Dragoons welcomed me very cordially, the colonel being especially warm in his greeting.

"I am sorry you missed the fight to-day," said he. "It was a glorious affair, and we have given Marmont a thorough trouncing. Our losses are severe, and the 14th have to deplore the death of several gallant comrades. We shall follow up the French to-morrow, so you may have an opportunity of seeing a little fighting after all."

"He will see plenty of it before the campaign is over, colonel," observed Major Warrington.

The brigade to which the 14th belonged—it consisted of ourselves and the 1st Hussars of the German Legion—advanced next morning, and early on the 25th reached Arevalo. Here we halted and bivouacked. Patrols were sent out on the several roads, and, to my great delight, I was ordered to take charge of one, consisting of a sergeant and four men of the 14th, and four German hussars. My instructions were to proceed towards Blanchez Sancho, a small town some distance from Arevalo, and ascertain whether it was occupied by the enemy. Before we marched off, Major Warrington gave me a few words of advice and caution, and wished me good luck.

"You will hardly have a chance of distinguishing yourself," he concluded; "but it will please the colonel, who is already very well disposed towards you, if you carry out the duty intelligently, and do not get into a scrape."

The sergeant of my little party was a fine old soldier, William Hanley by name, who had been with the 14th at the passage of the Douro at Barca de Avinta, in May 1809, and in every engagement in which the regiment had fought since that date. He knew that part of the country well, and could speak a little Spanish. After riding four or five miles, we came to a small village—its name I forget—where I called a halt, as our horses were rather fatigued. The alcalde of the village welcomed us with many expressions of good feeling for the British and hatred for the French.

"As the old fellow seems so friendly, we might ask him to get a feed of corn for the horses," suggested Sergeant Hanley. "Poor beasts! they've had short rations and hard work these last four days, and we've a goodish distance to travel yet. Shall I ask him, sir?"

"Certainly, sergeant," I assented. "We might get some information from him as well."

The alcalde readily acceded to our modest request, and in a few minutes the corn was brought into the praça, where we sat. Having posted one of the German hussars on the church top, with orders to keep a sharp look-out, I gave the word to unbridle and feed. While the horses were feeding, Sergeant Hanley and I questioned the alcalde as to the whereabouts of the French, and he assured us that they were at Blanchez Sancho in some force.

The horses refreshed, we mounted and resumed our journey; three men being sent forward in advance, one fifty paces in front, the second fifty to the right, and the third fifty to the left front. Their orders were to halt the moment they came in sight of the enemy, a town, or any strange object.

The advance moved on in this order until they reached the summit of a hill overlooking Blanchez Sancho, when in accordance with my instructions they halted. I beckoned them to fall back, and then ordered my men to dismount. Accompanied by Sergeant Hanley, I now walked up to the summit of the hill, and from that coign of vantage perceived a column of French infantry drawn up to the east of the town.

"They're being inspected, Mr. Wilmot," observed the sergeant, looking through my field-glass—a present from Major Warrington. "They'll be moving off directly, I reckons. Ah! I thought so." As he spoke, the column took ground to its right, broke into the Madrid road, and in about ten minutes disappeared from our view.

We waited a quarter of an hour or so, then hurrying down the hill, rejoined our men. I gave the word to mount, and away we galloped towards the town, making for that side of it from which the column had marched. I have called Blanchez Sancho a town, but it was little more than a village, with one straggling street, standing on an open plain, and without hedges, walls, or inclosures of any kind.

Cautiously we rode down the street, keeping a sharp look-out for stragglers or followers of the column. At the end of the street the road turned to the right, and we now descried three dismounted dragoons running from a barley-field towards a house which stood isolated on the plain. We gave chase, and quickly caught them up. On my questioning them, they informed me that they belonged to a picket occupying the solitary house, and had been out to get forage. I inquired the strength of the picket.

"A sous-officier and ten dragoons, beside ourselves, m'sieur," was the reply, after a moment's hesitation. "Our comrades are now feeding their horses."

I interpreted the answer to Sergeant Hanley, and suggested that we might capture the entire picket if we could only take them by surprise.

"We can make the attempt, anyhow, Mr. Wilmot," the sergeant rejoined; "but, you'll excuse me, sir, we mustn't take all these chaps say for gospel. If they gives the strength of their party at fourteen, we'd best be prepared to tackle double that number."

"Ja wohl, mein herr," muttered one of the German troopers, nodding his head approvingly.

"And we'd better put it out of the power of these fellows to give the alarm," continued Sergeant Hanley. "With your leave we'll gag and pinion them."

This was quickly done, and placing the prisoners under charge of a hussar, we rode towards the house. It was a one-storeyed building, and in its rear was a high wall extending from its gable-ends, forming a yard or fodder-shed for feeding cattle in. This yard had only one means of ingress or egress, and that was by the door of the house through a narrow passage. We reached this door without being observed, and found it locked. It was quickly burst open. The French dragoons were in the yard feeding their horses and attending to stable duties for the night—so far our prisoners had spoken the truth. At the sound of the crash several of them rushed into the passage. Five of my men had dismounted, and they immediately opened fire with their carbines.

"Keep up a brisk fire, lads," I called to them, "and the enemy will think our strength is greater than it is."

Two or three of the Frenchmen returned our fire, but without effect, and they soon retired from the passage into the yard. While this was going on, I remained on horseback, giving orders as occasion required. Close to me was the open window of a room on the ground-floor, and suddenly an officer, springing up from beneath the window-sill, discharged a pistol at my head, the ball passing through my shako, or cap as we called it in those days. Harry Symes was standing beside me, and seizing the officer, he dragged him through the window.

"Rendez vous, m'sieur!" I exclaimed, presenting a pistol. "You are our prisoner."

"It is the fortune of war!" he said, shrugging his shoulders; and unbuckling his sword he handed it to me.

This was an important capture, and I determined to make the most of it.

"M'sieur," I said to the lieutenant, for such was our prisoner's rank, "the brigade to which we belong is close at hand, and I call upon you to order your men to surrender before its arrival."

"What if they refuse?" he replied.

"I shall fire the premises, and not a man will escape."

"Sapristie! you must be a Spaniard, not an Englishman," he exclaimed. "I am in your power and must obey you."

"Bien, m'sieur," I answered; and calling one of the Germans who spoke French fluently, I bade him escort the officer to the yard.

In a few minutes they returned and informed me that the whole picket had surrendered, and awaited my further orders. After a short consultation with Sergeant Hanley, I told the officer to call upon his men to come out one by one, each leading his horse, but leaving his sword in the yard. There was just room in the passage for a man and horse to pass. My order was obeyed; and as each dragoon passed through the door his carbine was taken from him, the butt smashed, and the pieces thrown aside. In this manner the whole picket—numbering twenty-eight sous-officiers and troopers—passed out, and formed up in ranks of four; each man standing at his horse's head, and his stirrups being crossed over his saddle. As soon as all the Frenchmen were out of the yard I gave the word to march, and we moved off; Sergeant Hanley and a German hussar heading the little column, three men riding on either flank, and Harry Symes and I, with the officer—whom I allowed to ride—between us, bringing up the rear.

"You are our prisoner."

The French dragoons marched very slowly, and it was nearly dark before we came in sight of the village where we had baited our horses on the way to Blanchez Sancho. The French officer now expressed his surprise that we had not fallen in with the brigade. I returned an evasive answer, and thinking it would be well to halt at the village for the night—at the pace we were travelling we should not have reached Arevalo before daybreak—I called Sergeant Hanley and told him to gallop on to the village and request our friend the alcalde to provide a secure resting-place for our prisoners, and, if possible, refreshment for man and beast.

"I fear the officer suspects that the brigade is not so near at hand as we led him to believe," I said in an undertone, "and it would be a risky job to march all these prisoners to Arevalo by night."

"True, sir," was the reply; "if they took it into their heads to make a sudden rush we'd have a warm time with 'em. I'll see the alcalde, sir, and arrange for their accommodation to-night, and then get a dozen or so of the villagers to come back with me and help guard 'em until we reach the village. There's nothing like being on the safe side!"

He then galloped off, and returned in about an hour's time accompanied by a score of villagers armed with sticks, pitchforks, and one or two old fowling-pieces.

"Mais, m'sieur! who are these rascals?" cried the Frenchman in some alarm.

"Do not fear, lieutenant," I answered, "these good people are the 'brigade'; they have come to escort you to the village."

"Sacré—you have deceived me!" he hissed, with all the venom of a Frenchman.

"Un ruse de guerre, mon ami, that is all," I retorted. "All is fair in love and war."

The Frenchman, however, was very sulky, and bitterly reproached me for the trick I had played him; it was not until we were seated in the alcalde's house, discussing a flask of good wine and a capital ham, that he recovered his good-humour.

At daybreak on the following morning we resumed our journey, and I had the satisfaction of bringing in my prisoners to Arevalo in safety.

---

I will here bring my story to a close, for my adventures in the Peninsula would fill a small volume. I served with the gallant 14th Light Dragoons until the Peace of 1814; and as I am now an old man, I hope the reader will not accuse me of vanity when I say that Major Warrington's prediction was fulfilled, and I gained the reputation of being "an excellent light-cavalry officer."

The 14th returned to England in July 1814; and as soon as I could obtain leave of absence I hastened to Charfield, Harry Symes accompanying me. The whole village turned out to welcome us, and we felt fully repaid for the hardships and dangers we had experienced by the affectionate greeting we received.

I remained in the army until 1830, when having entered into the married state, I thought it time to retire and settle down to private life. My father attained a ripe old age, and before he died had the satisfaction of seeing his grandson, the Rev. Richard Warrington—son of Colonel Sir Charles Warrington by his marriage with my sister Kate—installed as Rector of Charfield; so the living did not go out of the family after all.

Harry Symes is now a prosperous farmer, and lives within a mile of our gates. He often pays me an evening visit to chat over the days "when we went soldiering," and I am sure that neither of us has ever regretted our "Flight from Justice."

---

[LONGITUDE TEN DEGREES]

By ROBERT LEIGHTON

I

"'T is our best chance," Ben said, as he dipped the quill into the captain's silver ink-pot. "Nay, 'tis our only chance."

The brig was labouring heavily on the sweeping swell of the North Atlantic. From where he sat, facing the square stern windows that looked out upon the helpless vessel's wake, Ben could see the dark, pursuing rollers as they loomed up against the lighter rack of leaden clouds. All was silent, terribly silent, on board. There was no sound now of busy seamen's voices, no measured tread of patrolling feet upon the decks; nothing but the slow, monotonous creaking of the ship's oaken timbers as she lazily slid into the furrow and buoyantly rose to mount the glassy slope of the next on-coming wave.

"Yes, 'tis our only chance," the boy repeated, as he drew towards him the blank leaf of paper that he had torn from the log-book. "God grant that it may be of some avail!"

The plaintive cry of a distant gull startled him in his loneliness. It was like the cry of one of his dead shipmates calling upon him from another world. He glanced nervously through the open door of the captain's room, where the captain lay silent in his last sleep. Again he dipped the quill into the ink, and began to write the words that he had already prepared in his mind—

"God send speedie help to his Majesties brig Aurora, homeward bound fr. S. John's to Plimouthe and in dyer distresse. N. Lat. 58°, W. Long. 10° as nere as can be made out. Benjamin Clews 27 July 1746."

This was the message upon which he rested his firmest hopes. And when it was written and the ink was dry, he folded up the paper, wrapped it in a piece of oilskin, and inclosed the packet in a little box-like boat which he had fashioned for the purpose. On the tightly fitting lid of the box he had carved the words "Pleas open," so that no one finding it should doubt there was something precious within.

It was already dusk when he carried the box from the cabin and strode forward along the brig's desolate deck. Mounting to the forecastle, he climbed up on one of the guns, and, leaning over the stout bulwarks, peered down into the darkening sea, with its flickering, phosphorescent lights. The vessel was still drifting, drifting eastward with the ocean current, as she had been drifting for many days.

"It may never be found," the lad sighed, as he flung the box far out upon the waves. "And even if perchance it be picked up, nothing may come of it." He walked slowly aft again. "'Tis not for myself that I care," he mused; "I'd die like the rest of 'em. But the brig is the King's. She is in my charge, so to speak, and I must save her if I can."

He glanced aloft at the close-reefed maintop-sail and at the two storm staysails, and wished in his heart that he had the skill and strength to unfurl more canvas, and thus bring the vessel more speedily to land. Sail had been shortened in the gale of twelve days before, when there had yet been seamen alive and well enough to work the ship. But the gale had fallen to a calm, and now the few small sails that were set only served to keep the brig before the light breeze that came from the westward over the sea.

Ben walked aft to the helm, luffed the Aurora up to the wind, and again lashed the tiller. Then he went below to the cook's galley, where a fire was still burning, and lighted two lanterns. He left one of them on the deck outside the galley door, and taking the other in his hand, strode forward and descended to the lower deck.

Silently entering the petty officers' quarters, he approached one of the hammocks—the only one that was not empty—and gently rested his hand upon it. A slight movement satisfied him.

"How are you now, Mr. Avison?" he inquired, holding up the lantern.

The man turned and looked over the hammock's side. His face was unsightly with the eruption of the terrible disease that had decimated the Aurora's crew.

"Thank'ee, Ben, I'm a bit easier now," he answered, in a thin, weak voice. "What's o'clock? 'Tis after sundown, I see."

"It's five bells in the first night watch," said Ben. "You've been asleep these two watches. Could you eat something, think you, quartermaster? There's a canful of soup in the galley. 'Twould do you a vast of good. I could warm it, if you'd take a drop. Will you?"

"Well, my lad," returned the quartermaster, "I might try to manage just a little, if you'd be so kind. But you're too weary to do cook's work now, sure. How long might it be since you had a rest?"

Ben smiled a sickly smile. "Never mind me," he said, "I'm all right. I'd a watch below the day before yesterday, after the captain was past my help. Doctor Rayner forced me to have a snooze on top of his box; said he'd not forgive me unless I did. I tied a lanyard to my wrist and gave him the other end of it, so that he might haul tight and wake me if he wanted me for anything. He never did haul, though. When I awoke he'd slipped his moorings and sailed off on the long voyage, as Tom Harkiss would have said."

The quartermaster drew a sharp breath and leaned over, gazing at the boy with bleared and lustreless eyes.

"Dead?" he cried. "The surgeon dead?"

Ben nodded.

"God help us, then!" said the quartermaster. "And do you say, boy, that there's only me and you left?"

"That's all," answered Ben sadly. And then he added more cheerfully, "Now I'll lay aft and fetch that soup."

Some few minutes later Ben Clews returned with the flagon of warm soup, and proceeded slowly to feed his sick companion spoonful by spoonful. Very soon the quartermaster fell back exhausted.

"That's enough, boy," said he; "I can't manage no more. You'd best take what's left for yourself, and then get into your bunk. The brig's all safe for a day or two, so long as there's no wind. But if a wind should spring up, look you, we shall be as good as a derelict, short-handed as we are, and maybe be blown back again into the Roarin' Forties. You may lay we shan't run aground at the rate we're goin' now, though. I daresay I shall be well again afore we make land. I've got over the worst of it, and'll be able to lend a hand in a day or two. Then we must see about givin' the poor cap'n and the surgeon a decent buryin', as befits gen'lemen." He paused to take breath. "Of course, Ben, there aren't no sort of sign of land yet, eh? You've kep' a good look-out, I suppose?"

Ben was sitting on the corner of a sea-chest pulling off his boots. He leaned wearily back, and answered with a yawn—

"I can't say as I've seen any real sign," he said. "But somehow it seems to me we can't be very far off. A school of gulls flew over us this morning, and one of 'em—quite a young one—perched on the taffrail. She looked as if she'd just come off her roost."

"That should be a kind of sign," agreed the quartermaster. "What did the cap'n say when the last reckonin' was took? Did he give any word as to where we might make a landfall?"

Ben drowsily answered, "Somewheres off the west of Ireland, if I remember aright."

The quartermaster was silent for many moments. He was mentally calculating the chances of the Aurora reaching land in safety.

"Ben," he said presently, "d'ye think you could put your hand on a chart and find out our bearings?"

But Ben did not answer. He was sound asleep.

And while he slept, the message that he had cast upon the waters went drifting eastward. It drifted for many days, but always steadily eastward in the grip of the great Gulf Stream. And at last it was found. It was picked up by an Orkney fisherman off the west coast of Pomona Island. The slip of paper was duly passed from hand to hand until it came into the possession of Captain Speeding, whose little frigate the Firebrand, twenty-eight guns, was at that time stationed in Stromness Bay for the protection of fisheries and of trade.

Of course Captain Speeding could not think of quitting his comfortable quarters and sailing off on what, after all, was probably a wild-goose chase. How could he tell that the message was genuine? It might well be a mere hoax, a wily ruse of one of the Scapa Flow smugglers, or even (which was quite likely) a clever trick of John Goff, the redoubtable pirate of the Pentland Firth, to get his Majesty's ship Firebrand and her bristling guns temporarily away from the islands, so that he might run in his ill-gotten cargo undisturbed. Captain Speeding had been in active search of John Goff and his freebooting crew for months past, and it was not his intention to let the rascals slip through his fingers.

And yet, considering the matter from the point of view of duty, he dared not ignore the summons that had come to him from across the sea. The distressed ship was one of his Majesty's, and if the writing of the appealing letter was to be credited, succour was urgent.

"Look here, Brown," cried the captain of the Firebrand, flinging the torn and sea-stained slip of paper across the wardroom table to his first lieutenant—"this thing troubles me. If there's anything in it, 'tis my bounden duty, I take it, to send relief of some sort—eh? Read it over again. Read it, and tell me if you think 'tis genuine."

Mr. Brown spread out the flimsy sheet in front of him, screwed up his eyes, and read aloud, slowly and deliberately, the words inscribed upon it—

"God send speedy help to his Majesty's brig Aurora, homeward bound from St. John's to Plymouth, and in dire distress. North latitude 58 degrees, west longitude 10 degrees, as near as can be made out. Benjamin Clews, 27th July 1746."

"Well?" interrogated the captain.

"I'd lay my life 'tis genuine," said Mr. Brown. "I know the Aurora. I saw her in Chatham dockyard three years ago. What's more, I believe my old messmate Arthur Vincent sailed with her on this same cruise. The only thing that troubles me is the writing on this thing." He tapped the paper with his fingers. "This is a youngster's hand—some swab of a ship's boy. Why didn't one of the officers write it? That's what I want to know."

Captain Speeding took a turn aft along the cabin floor with his hands clasped behind his back, and stood at the open port meditatively looking out across the calm, sunlit bay to where a faint film of blue peat smoke floated above the quaint old gabled houses of Stromness. Then he returned to the table, hastily took out his watch, and said decisively—

"Brown, get the chart of the North Atlantic. Find the brig's position at the time when the word was sent off; allow for her being disabled, and calculate where she may be found. I am going to despatch Moreland in search with the cutter. The craft can't be far off, for, you see, this message has only been in the water fourteen days."

"I have already consulted the chart," remarked Mr. Brown. "I make out that the Aurora is somewhere in the neighbourhood of the St. Kilda Islands."

"I never heard of them," confessed the captain. "Are they inhabited?"

"God knows," said Mr. Brown.

II

"D'ye hear, Ben? D'ye hear?"

Ben woke up with a start and rubbed his eyes.

"Did you speak, quartermaster?"

"Speak? Lor' bless you, lad, I've been a-speakin' this half-hour past. What in thunder's all that noise? Listen! I've heard it ever since daybreak. I can't make it out nohow."

Ben sat up and listened. A prolonged half-roaring, half-musical sound filled the air from without.

"It do sound queer, don't it?" he said. "I wonder what 'tis?"

"Best tumble up and find out," advised the quartermaster. "I'd say 'twas birds if it wasn't so loud. Birds couldn't make all that row."

Ben pulled on his boots and went up to the forecastle deck. The sight and sounds that met him were such as he had never before encountered in all his three years' voyaging.

"The sight and sounds that met him were such as he had never
before encountered."

A fresh westerly breeze was blowing, filling the vessel's few sails. The sun was rising in the east, over a grey-blue sea, and between it and the brig, scarcely, as it seemed, a mile away, lay a group of jagged, rocky islands, whose tallest point was a green-topped mountain, shining bright in the early sunlight like an emerald set in ebony. Above the islands there whirled in ceaseless movement, even as specks in a sunbeam, thousands and thousands of clamorous sea-birds. All around the ship, and as far as the boy's amazed sight could reach, the sea was dotted with swimming puffins and kittiwakes, gannets and fulmars. A green-backed shag was preening its feathers on the extremity of the Aurora's bowsprit; a fearless eider-duck strutted across the deck; along the rail a school of puffins sat, like charity children in their black tippets and white bibs.

But Ben Clews thought less of the sea-birds and their noisy voices than of the one great fact that land was near. He hurried below.

"Land, ho!" he cried, and again, "Land ho!"

"Where away?" called the quartermaster, in a feeble voice from his hammock.

"Right under our bows," answered Ben. "An island—three islands I counted, and we're drifting on to them, hand over hand!"

"Then if that be so, 'tis no place for you down here, my hearty," declared the quartermaster. "Don't think of me, but take your trick at the helm and look arter the ship; for you're cap'n, and crew as well, till I can move, God mend me! Our fate's in your hands for good or bad, and you may lay to that."

"Ay, ay," returned Ben; "but there aren't no hurry just yet a bit, quartermaster. There's time and to spare for me to see you snug. 'Tarn't as if we was bowling along under full sail. Why, we aren't making above a knot an hour at best, and the nearest land's a good mile off yet."

The boy lost no time, however, in making his companion comfortable. Placing a prescribed dose of medicine, a dipper of water, and a softened biscuit within the quartermaster's easy reach, he returned to the deck and took up his post at the helm, heading the brig towards the lee side of the largest island. The rate at which the Aurora was drifting was less than he had calculated, and her distance from the land was greater. Yet slow though her progress was, the islands became more and more distinct with every half-hour. At first it had seemed that there were but three separate islands—a high, isolated rock, whose splintered outline with its many spires and pinnacles gave it the appearance of a great Gothic cathedral rising out of the blue sea on the larboard bow; to the southward, a smaller islet with a rounded, grassy top; and between these two sentinels, the long stretch of the main island with its dark, precipitous sides ascending to verdant slopes. But as the brig drew nearer still, many detached stacks and smaller rocks appeared, the frowning cliffs revealed their yawning caves and caverns, and thousands of tiny specks, that at first had looked like white pebbles in the rock, resolved themselves into roosting sea-birds.

Ben's alert eyes sought for an anchorage, and soon, near the western headland of the largest island, he caught a glimpse of sandy beach, and the gleaming white ribbon of a watercourse. The beach sloped down to a channel of calm sea that was sheltered behind the hill of a protecting island. The calm bay seemed to offer a likely refuge, and towards it Ben steered the brig. Another hour's slow sailing brought the little vessel into the safety of this roadstead, where she lost her headway and rode for the time secure on the swell of the clear green water.

Already Ben Clews had realised the impossibility of casting the heavy anchors. He was only a weak boy, and his weakness was greater than ordinary now, for he had but lately recovered from his own attack of the fell disease which had been fatal to the Aurora's crew, and which now held the quartermaster helpless in his hammock. Ben had been the first in the ship's company to be laid up by the awful visitation. It had been caught from a distressed slave-ship which they had boarded off the Newfoundland Banks, and each of the brig's crew had taken it in his turn. Ben's attack had been only a slight one; but his face still told its tale, and his limbs were yet weak. But if he had not strength to move the anchor, he at least had the ingenuity to devise a workable substitute in the use of a pair of stout hawsers, which he paid out fore and aft, lashing them taut round convenient rocks, which he reached by the means of the ship's smallest boat.

In the afternoon the Aurora lay so snug at her moorings that even the quartermaster, when he heard Ben's report, was forced to express satisfaction.

"You have done well, boy," said he, with an approving nod; "but now that we've fetched land," he added, fixing his bleared eyes on the lad's marred face, "what d'ye mean for to do? Tell me that! It don't seem to me, lookin' at the matter all round, as you might say, that we're any better off than we was before. We've got victuals enough to last us for months, I know; but barrin' the cannibal savages, you can't say as we're in anywise more fortunate than that chap Robisson Crusoe. We haven't saved the Aurora yet, look you. You'd look queer if a gale was to spring up and her be smashed to pieces on them rocks you speak of, wouldn't you?"

"I was thinking we might manage to get a crew together," ventured Ben, somewhat downcast.

"A crew of auks and gannets, I suppose?" sneered the quartermaster.

"No," returned Ben; "I mean men, of course."

The quartermaster had been sitting up in his hammock to listen to the boy's account of how he had brought the brig into the bay, but now he leaned back and lay watching the play of the reflected sunlight on the timbers above him.

"I thought you said as how you had made out no signs of houses?" he pursued.

Ben admitted that he had discovered no dwelling-places on the land. For all he knew, indeed, the islands might never have known human inhabitants. Certainly no fields nor growing crops were visible from this west bay. "But," he added more hopefully, "I saw a dead sheep on the hillside when I rowed ashore with the bight of the hawser; and where there's sheep, d'ye see, there's pretty sure to be men."

"I'll allow that," agreed the quartermaster. "But even if so be you find your men, you can't force 'em to come aboard a plague ship."

Ben lapsed into silence at this sane remark; but presently, as if a bright thought had struck him, he said—

"Anyhow, I've a mind to make a trip in the dingey and see if I can find some people. From what I can make out, these here islands must belong to Great Britain somehow; and if there's any one living on 'em, why, they'll speak our own tongue and tell us where we are, and that's something."

So when he had cooked some food and prepared a meal for himself and his companion, he set off upon his voyage of discovery. He pulled the little boat round under the tremendous cliffs of the north coast of the island, but sought in vain for a landing-place or for a sign of habitation. Sea-birds were everywhere—on the ledges of the cliffs, and in the long dark caverns; they filled the sunlit air, they speckled the sea, and the outlying skerries were white with them. The cries they made were mingled in a strange musical harmony that was like the pealing of a church organ. The short shrill treble of the auks and puffins, the trumpet cry of the wild swans, the mewing notes of the kittiwakes, the tenors of the divers and guillemots, and the deep bass croaking of the cormorants and ravens united in a prolonged symphony, and through it all was the profound roar of the sea from the throats of countless caves.

If Ben had been a naturalist, instead of an ill-informed ship's boy, he would have recognised this as a paradise of birds. But he only thought of his sick companion on board the Aurora, and of how he might find human help. He rowed along the coast for some two miles without discovering even so much as a yard of beach. Once he came upon a floating log of driftwood—the remnant of some bygone shipwreck. Once, too, he heard what he took to be the bleating of a sheep, but there were no signs of human inhabitants. His little voyage was useless. So he went about, and returned disappointed towards the brig, resolving to make his next journey of exploration by land.

As he came again into the bay where the Aurora lay at her moorings, he glanced up the little glen that led up between the hills. The land was bare of trees—a barren moor, with tufts of purple heather growing among the boulders on the higher ground, and level beds of grass marking the course of a fresh-water stream.

On the heights he saw the figure of a man.

For a moment Ben questioned within himself if it would be wise to prolong his absence from the brig and go up to the man and speak with him; but as the stranger was only a short distance away, he decided to go ashore and follow him. He brought the boat in to the beach, pulled her up a yard or two above the tide, and set off in pursuit.

When he reached the spot where he had first seen him, the man had disappeared. Ben was about to turn and walk back to the boat when a movement near him on the heather attracted his eye. A dog approached him, smelt at his heels, and then scampered away. Ben followed the animal over the brow of the hill, and at this point he came within view of the farther end of the island, and a wide bay that opened out between two great rocky headlands. He stood for a time contemplating the scene, almost forgetting the Aurora and her sick quartermaster.

A voice at his elbow startled him. It was a woman's voice, strangely gentle and sweet.

"You are a stranger here," she said. "Where have you come from?"

Ben turned. At sight of his scarred face the woman shrank from him, and then the lad remembered the infection that was upon him.

"The woman shrank from him."

"Stand back from me!" he cried. "I have been ill—it is the smallpox, as they call it—and all my shipmates are dead of it; all except one, who is now aboard the brig, across the hill there, in the bay." He stepped back as he spoke, and put her to the windward of him, so that the infection might not reach her.

"A ship!" she cried in agitation, clasping her hands. "At last! at last! And you can rescue me. You can carry me across to Scotland, and I shall no longer pine and languish on this barren, heaven-forsaken rock!"

The boy marvelled at her words, not understanding her meaning. He even wondered if she were in her right senses.

"How do you name these islands, ma'am?" he asked, as if to test her sanity.

She looked about her nervously, as though half afraid that the very birds should overhear her.

"This where we now are is called Hirta," she answered. "The rock to the north is Borrera. The one to the west is Soa. They are the St. Kilda islands, and they lie out some fourscore miles west from the mainland of Scotland."

As Ben listened to her voice, and contemplated her delicate hands and her refined face, he knew almost by instinct that, in spite of her coarse, homespun clothing, she was not of the common sort, but a woman of good birth. He stood silently watching her, wondering how it happened that a gentlewoman should be in such a place.

"From what land do you come?" she questioned. "You are English by your tongue."

"We are from Newfoundland," explained Ben. "But our ship is English—his Majesty's brig-of-war Aurora. And you, ma'am, how do it happen as a lady like you is here?"

"I am a prisoner," she answered. "I am Rachel Chiesley. My husband has imprisoned me here because I knew his secrets—his secrets that would be the hanging of him if they were known to the King. He told people that I was dead, and they believed him. There was a public funeral, but the coffin was filled with stones, and I, who was supposed to be buried, was secretly carried off by his agents and brought over here to St. Kilda. I have been here for five long years, living among islanders who are little more than savages, and who understand no word that I speak. No ship have I seen during all that time. But now yours has come. God has sent you, and you will rescue me!"

Ben hesitated for an instant. Then he said awkwardly—

"It might be done, ma'am, if so be you could get some of your savages to make up a crew and work our ship home to Plymouth. We're short-handed, d'ye see. In fact, barring myself, and the quartermaster, what's lying ill with the smallpox, there aren't nobody aboard to trim the sails or do anything."

The marooned woman made a step towards the boy, but he waved her back.

"Don't come nigh me!" he cried, "'tis dangerous."

She shook her head. "I am not afraid," she said, "and I would risk any danger to get away from this horrible place." She glanced swiftly westward to where a vast cloud of sea-birds now darkened the sky. "Something has disturbed the gulls," she added.

At the same moment the report of a firearm sounded faintly from the distance.

"It must be the shipwrecked seamen," explained the lady. "Their ship was broken on the crags in the storm last week, and they have been living in one of the caves. They are evil-looking men, and the islanders fear them."

"The shot seemed to me to come from where the Aurora is lying," cried Ben in alarm. "I'll engage 'tis the quartermaster signalling to me to go back." And giving a hasty seaman's salute, he abruptly left his strange companion, and ran across the moor in the direction of the brig. An unaccountable dread of some impending disaster oppressed him as he ran. From the top of the hill he saw that the Aurora was still riding safe at her moorings; but his quick eye discovered the figures of two men moving upon her quarter-deck. Who could they be? He made his way down to the beach. He glanced at the water's edge where he had left his boat, but the boat was gone.

III

"I'm not by half so ill as Ben thinks," ruminated the quartermaster, as he lay in his lonely hammock pondering over the situation during Ben's absence. "I do believe I'm fit even now to take watch and watch about with him. 'Tis hard on the lad to leave him to do all the work, and me able to lend a hand." He glanced towards the open port, through which he could see a snowy-white seagull calmly floating on the green water. Then looking down at the deck below him, he added, "Blamed if I don't get out of this and see what I can do." He sat up, dangling his trembling legs over the side of his hammock; his toes were but a dozen inches from the flooring.

"I believe I can do it," he went on; and turning over, he gripped the hammock with his two hands, and swung himself slowly and cautiously down until his feet touched the boards.

His limbs were shaky, and his head seemed to swim; but stepping out, he succeeded in tottering across to the nearest bulkhead. Supporting himself by his outstretched hands, he went step by step along the gangway to the foot of the companion-way. Slowly he mounted the stairs, until the fresh sea-air played upon his bare head. He sat on the top stair for a long time, drinking in the sweet cool atmosphere, and looking up into the blue sky and its sailing white clouds.

"Seems to me I'd best step aft to the cap'n's room," he muttered to himself. "'Tis no place for the likes o' me to enter, certainly; but being as Ben and me are in charge of the brig, why, 'tis no court-martial matter. Nay, now I come to think of it, 'tis my duty to go in." And rising with difficulty to his feet, he staggered aft and boldly but respectfully entered.

The first thing that caught his eye was the captain's silver ink-pot on the table; then it was the mingled red and blue folds of the Union Jack lying across the dead body of the captain in the inner sleeping-room.

"Good boy, Ben," he said. "You haven't forgot what's due to a king's officer. You and me'll have to act the parson soon, too, if we can lay our hands on a prayer-book. Mayhap you know the words without the book; you must ha' heard 'em pretty often lately. But I don't know 'em, except 'We therefore commit his body to the deep until the sea shall give up her dead——'"

An unexpected sound startled the quartermaster in his ruminations. It was a man's gruff voice, and it came from outside, below the brig's counter.

"I don't know what you bullies think," it said, "but it looks to me as if the crew'd all gone off on a holiday. Pull round to the gangway ladder, Alick, and let's get aboard of her. Crew or no crew, King's ship or merchantman, I'm going to take her, and the Jolly Roger shall fly at her gaff peak before——"

The quartermaster did not hear what limit of time the man allowed himself for the accomplishment of his daring proposal; but a thrill of terror ran through him as he realised what manner of men these were.

"God! Where is Ben?" he cried, and he looked round the cabin for some weapon with which to defend himself and the ship. The captain's pistols were in their rack. With what speed his bodily weakness allowed him, he went to them and took a pair of them down. They were already loaded.

"It's one sick man against a boatload of pirates!" he said. "But, God helping me, they shall not take the ship while I'm alive!" As he passed to the door he caught sight of the reflection of his own face in the captain's mirror, and started back appalled. But the remembrance of the scourge that had killed off the Aurora's company leapt to his mind. "We've got at least one strong ally, me and the King," he cried, as he staggered out to the doorway under the poop. He stood there, steadying himself with one foot on the companion-ladder, not venturing to go nearer to the open gangway, where already he could hear the talk of the strangers on the ladder as they climbed up from their boat.

The quartermaster listened intently, trembling the while.

"Tumble up!" cried the one in authority. "Make for the quarter-deck."

A man sprang in upon the deck—a tall, evil-looking man, with a bushy black beard and bedraggled clothing, a naked cutlass in his hand. He was followed by three others, and then a fifth. The fifth man was young and handsome, and his blue coat was adorned with tarnished gold braid. The five of them advanced towards the poop. The quartermaster levelled his pistol at their bodies.

"Stand back!" he commanded. "Who are you? and what is your business on this ship? 'Tis King George's ship, look you, and——"

"Shut your ugly face!" cried the tall black-bearded man, with an oath.

The quartermaster fired his two pistols, and the man fell. His four companions hesitated, staring at the quartermaster's disease-scarred countenance. None of them carried firearms; or if they did so, they were without ammunition. Their leader, the youngest of the band, stepped forward, sword in hand. The quartermaster, already exhausted, retreated into the cabin, banging to and bolting the door.

"The quartermaster fired his two pistols,
and the man fell."

The pirates (for such he was now assured that they were) went up to the poop-deck, and from this point of vantage surveyed the ship.

"You're right, Goff," said one of them, addressing the leader. "The craft's got no crew—none, at least, except that strawberry-faced lubber that has shot poor Tom."

"It seems so, Alick," returned Goff. "But some of 'em must have gone ashore in the boat. They'll have gone across to St. Kilda village. One of you had better pull ashore to the cave and bring off our men while there's time. Phillips, go you. But you might take a bigger boat than the one we found. There's plenty of them, see. Lend a hand there, Flett, and you, Dewson, and launch that starboard boat. Well," he continued speaking to the man named Alick, "she's a real goddess, this Aurora. Not very clean about the decks, 'tis true, but well found, in a double sense, eh? I wonder how she came in here? She doesn't seem to have suffered much in the gale that was so fatal to our poor ship. But 'tis a mystery how she came to be so short-handed. Why, they've not even anchored her!"

He strode towards the men who were launching the boat, and gave them some directions, while Alick stepped to the skylight, and leaning over it, peered down into the cabin where the quartermaster had temporarily entrenched himself.

It was at this moment that Ben Clews came down to the beach and discovered that the brig's boat had disappeared. From behind the rock near which he had left it, he looked over at the Aurora in terrified amazement. Who were these men that were aboard of her? And what was the meaning of the shot that he had heard? Surely there was something wrong! He blamed himself now for having left the brig. While he watched, he saw a boat put out from her, with one man at the oars, and his heart leapt with hope at the thought that it was coming shoreward for himself. He waved his hand; but the rower did not see, or disregarded, his signal, and pulled with steady, measured stroke through the sound in the direction of the western headland of the bay, soon to be lost to sight beyond the cliffs, where the homing sea-birds screamed.

Ben noted the drift of the current, and calculated the distance that divided him from the brig. The vessel's wide square stern was towards him, and from over her taffrail the stout hawser was stretched to the isolated rock round which he had bound it. The bight of the rope dipped into the water, making a rippled track as the brig rose and fell on the ocean swell. The rock was but a dozen yards away from him, separated from him by a deep channel of calm sea. Ben was not a great swimmer, but he thought he could cross those dozen yards; and reaching the rock, he would then be able to gain the ship, dragging himself hand over hand along the hawser. He pulled off his heavy sea-boots and left them on the shingle, waded breast deep into the sea, and throwing himself forward, struck out. The current was sweeping strong, but he had allowed for its carrying him out of the straight course. After a tough struggle, he came within a few feet of the rock. The tide was taking him past it, but he grabbed at a tangle of seaweed, caught it, and dragged himself into safety.

He rested for many minutes on the rock, shivering. Then he climbed up to the hawser and prepared for the final battle. With hands and legs at work, he slipped down the incline of the rope until his body was again in the water. Hand over hand he pulled himself along. The upward ascent was more difficult, for his limbs were already tired and sore. Very soon he found that the task of swarming up to the brig's rail was impossible. Besides, he was not sure that the strange men were not still on the quarter-deck. So he dropped once again into the sea, and swam round to the Aurora's larboard side, where the small boat was dragging at her painter at the foot of the gangway ladder.

Exhausted and breathing heavily, he at last caught at a rung of the ladder, and climbed up a few steps. When he had rested and recovered his free breathing, he mounted farther, and peeped in through the open gangway. No one was in sight. Yet, what was that lying on the main deck? He shuddered as his eyes rested on the prostrate form of the huge black-bearded man, and the wet crimson stain that lay about it, and converged in two thin lines that ended at the scupper.

At sight of the dead man the boy drew back in horror. Murder had been committed, and he had not the courage to enter upon the deck. As he turned to go down the ladder a few steps, he looked towards the shore and saw the woman Rachel Chiesley standing there at the water's edge, waving her hand in signal to the ship. Ben descended and quietly stepped into the boat. No one in the brig saw him as he rowed away to where the woman waited.

"Take me with you!" she implored, as the boat's keel grounded on the shingle. "In mercy take me away in your ship!"

Ben bade her get into the dingey, and she obeyed. He felt that, with a human companion to encourage him, he could now go on board the brig with all his lost boldness. Neither spoke as the little craft was pulled back to the vessel's side. When he had secured the boat he got out and climbed the ladder, signing to the woman to follow. He crept on board, rose to his feet, and sped forward and down the stairs to the lower deck. At the foot of the stairs he paused until Rachel Chiesley joined him; and there he pointed towards the open door of a tiny dark cabin, telling her to enter and remain in there until he should see that all was safe on board.

His heart seemed to cease its beating when, on going into the compartment where he had left the quartermaster, he discovered that the sick man's hammock was empty. What had happened? What was to be done?

He saw a cup of rum and water that the quartermaster had left untouched in the forenoon on the top of a chest. He drank some and it revived him. Leaving the cabin, he made his way through a dark passage along the lower deck to the gunner's storeroom; and there he provided himself with a cutlass, a brace of small pistols, a full powder-flask, and a handful of shot. He carefully charged the pistols, and when he was thus armed he returned to the main-deck and stole aft to the poop. The door of the captain's quarters was open now, and the splintered lock told its own tale. Voices came from within. Ben listened, crouching down on his hands and knees.

"You'd best come out of there, Mr. Strawberry-face," Goff was saying, "unless you want us to break in the door and drag you out. We'll not harm you. Come out and have a drink with us. 'Tis charming brandy, this." There was a clink of glasses. "Come," he added persuasively. "Join us in a glass, and tell us your yarn. We can get nothing from this silent shipmate of yours in the bunk here." Ben knew that the man was referring to the dead surgeon. "Twas the King's ship, you say. You may well say 'was'; for 'tis his no longer, but mine! mine! And I mean to set sail and be off on a glorious cruise so soon as my men come aboard. We'll run up the Jolly Roger and scour the seas, and send Jimmy Speeding and his Firebrands to the bottom of the Pentland Firth to play with the mermaids. Won't we, Alick?"

"That we will," gurgled Alick into the mouth of his glass of brandy. "And Strawberry-face shall be our master-gunner, and share in the swag with the rest of us."

The quartermaster's voice came faintly from within the captain's sleeping-room.

"I'll see you all hanged first!" he growled with a fierce seaman's oath. "Wait till my mates come aboard. They'll let you know what it means to trespass on a king's ship."

"Mates?" cried Goff with a short laugh. "There can't be many of 'em if they all went ashore in the cockleshell we found on the beach!"

Ben knew now what these men were; knew, too, that the quartermaster was still alive and game. He crept out from his place of concealment, stole up to the quarter-deck, climbed over the rail, and with the help of a rope lowered himself down to the port-hole of the room in which the quartermaster had ensconced himself. The port-hole was open. He saw the quartermaster sitting on the edge of the dead captain's bunk with a pistol gripped in each hand.

"I'm here, quartermaster," whispered Ben. "Come to the port-hole."

"Thank God!" cried the quartermaster. And without preface or questioning he added in a whisper, "You see what these rats of pirates are up to. They're in possession, as you might say, and there's more of 'em coming. But we've got to save the brig, Ben, come what may. Listen! Have you got your pistols?" Ben nodded. "Right. Well, crawl round to the poop door. Stay there till you hear me cough. Then run in and let fly at 'em. Pick your men and be smart. I'll do the same. When we've killed 'em—the four of 'em—one of the carronades'll help us to keep the others from boarding us, d'ye see?"

"I understand," returned Ben, and he moved quietly away to obey his instructions.

Many minutes passed before he heard the quartermaster's signal. From where he crouched in the shadow of the passage he saw the inner door of the captain's bedroom flung open. A moment afterwards four shots were fired, and three of the pirates fell. The fourth, Goff himself, had seen the quartermaster's uplifted pistols. One was levelled at himself. With the quickness of thought he snatched his dagger from its sheath and dexterously hurled it across the room. The flashing weapon turned in its flight and the point plunged into the quartermaster's bared throat. The pistol-shot, intended for Goff, buried itself in a cross-beam of the cabin ceiling.

Ben Clews and the pirate leader were now alone together. Ben gripped his cutlass and rushed forward in a desperate charge, but tripping over the body of one of the two men he himself had shot dead, he gave a false thrust. His cutlass was snatched from his grip by the pirate's left hand, while at the same instant a full brandy bottle, wielded as a bludgeon, came down upon his head with a blow that stunned him.

IV

When Ben returned to consciousness he still lay upon the cabin floor. The blood from cuts made by the broken glass was dry upon his face. He heard the thud of waves against the brig's quarter. The vessel was heeling over, pitching as she sailed under a fresh breeze upon the open sea. From the deck above him came the sound of feet, the splash of water, and the scrubbing of holystones. A shaft of sunlight came in through the stern windows, shedding light about the cabin. The door of the captain's inner room was open; the Union Jack coverlet was gone, and the bed was vacant. The surgeon's body and the bodies of the dead quartermaster and the three pirates had also been removed. On the table a white cloth was laid, and upon it were the remains of a meal. It was evident that the pirates were making themselves thoroughly at home, and that they had taken possession of the brig in good earnest.

Ben anxiously looked at the great iron-bound chest in which, as he knew, there had been inclosed certain State documents of greatest importance to the Government. The iron bands and the hinges had been tampered with, but they had withstood the assault, and the chest and its precious contents were still safe.

Some one entered the cabin. It was John Goff. He had apparently been helping himself to the captain's wardrobe, for he was now attired in the full naval costume of the time.

"So ho! my lad," said he, seeing that Ben had recovered. "You have come back to your senses, eh? That's good. Now you can tell me all about this ship. Where was she bound for?"

"Plymouth," answered Ben. "From St. John's. Newfoundland." And then, in response to further questioning, the boy told the whole history of the voyage, omitting only such facts as he deemed too sacred to betray. And when he had come to the end of the story the pirate thanked him, said he was a good lad, and that he should now be rated as a junior quarter-deck officer. Ben did not demur to this, but while seeming to agree to the proposal, resolved in his mind still to do what lay in his power to retake the brig and bring her into an English port. And for the days that followed he performed such duties as were expected of him, always remembering that he was a servant of the King, and that the safety of the Aurora now depended solely upon his own life and his own integrity.

"You have come back to your senses, eh?"

As soon as he was at liberty to move unsuspected about the ship, he made his way to the little cabin where he had left Rachel Chiesley. She had not yet been discovered by Goff or his men. Ben conducted her to a yet safer hiding-place in the ship where she could remain secure from the pirates; and every morning the lad secretly brought her food and attended to her wants. On one occasion when he was with her she told him more of her history, and he learned that Rachel Chiesley was but the name of her girlhood, and that her title now was Lady Grange. Her husband was a notorious Jacobite, and it was because she had threatened to betray an evil plot which he was hatching that he had cruelly marooned her on the sea-girt rock of St. Kilda. This knowledge made Ben glad that he had chanced thus far to be of service to her, and for her sake, as well as for the sake of preserving the precious State documents that were in the cabin, he prayed that he might be able at last to save the ship.

He learned by degrees that it was Goff's intention to keep the brig beating about in the open sea until his crew of eleven men should have time so to disguise the vessel, by altering her rig and painting out her white stripe, that no one might recognise her again. This plan was helped by the fact that the brig was amply provisioned and was in good seaworthy trim. But the work progressed slowly, and ten days had gone by before Goff deemed it expedient to make a direct course and steer for the Orkneys.

Ben had been watching the crew day by day, little doubting that sooner or later the plague of which so many of his messmates had died would again assert itself. Already he observed that some of the men were beginning to move languidly and to look haggard and sick. On the twelfth day one of them took to his hammock. In the evening of the same day two others fell ill. Bold and careless of danger though these pirates were when it was a question of waylaying a merchant ship or engaging in an action with a vessel of war, they were one and all panic-stricken in contemplation of smallpox.

On the thirteenth day the Aurora was again within sight of the St. Kilda islands, giving them, however, a wide berth. Late in the evening Ben was in the watch on deck, when he espied a sail on the starboard bow. He did not report it, although it was the first that he had seen for many weeks. Instead, he strolled to the flag locker, took out a white ensign, and boldly ran it up, reversed, to the gaff peak. The signal of distress was answered by the approaching vessel. Then Ben hauled down his flag, lest Goff, coming up on deck, should see it and guess its meaning. So far, none but the man at the helm had observed this action, and he, as it chanced, was so far advanced in the sickness that he minded nothing. Ben glanced into his face.

"Y'are looking sick, Allen," said he. "Give me the tiller for a spell, and go you below."

The man relinquished it willingly enough, and Ben, now alone on deck, steered the brig down upon the on-coming stranger. He had a brace of loaded pistols in his belt, prepared to fire upon Goff if he should appear from below and interfere.

When the two vessels drew nearer, Ben recognised, to his joy, that the stranger was a man-of-war's cutter. He waited until they drew within hailing distance of each other, then suddenly put over the helm, throwing the brig's sails aback. She lost her headway, and the cutter dropped alongside.

"Ahoy, there!" cried the young lieutenant from her bow. "What ship are you?"

Ben answered at the fullest pitch of his voice—

"His Majesty's brig Aurora. For the love of God stand by us!"

"The very craft we're in search of," returned Captain Speeding's messenger. "Throw us a line, and I'll come aboard you!"

Ben flung a coil of rope; but before he could see whether or not it had been caught, John Goff had run up on deck, furious and cursing.

"You young traitor!" he cried, seeing what was going on. "What are you up to?"

"I'm up to saving his Majesty's ship," coolly returned Ben, levelling his pistol at the pirate. "Stand back, John Goff, or you're a dead man!" For full ten minutes he kept the man at bay. Perhaps he could not have done so if Goff had not been in the first stage of the sickness and too languid to act the bully. Once, indeed, Goff made a step forward as if with the intention of wresting the weapon from the boy's hand. Ben altered his aim a few inches and pulled the trigger. The shot entered Goff's shoulder. Ben took out his other pistol.

At this juncture the cutter's lieutenant leapt upon the brig's bulwarks, and in another moment appeared on the quarter-deck.

Lowering his weapon, Ben turned and saluted him. The lieutenant, however, had caught sight of the pirate and recognised him.

"Goff!" he cried.

"Ay, Goff," returned the pirate with meek submission. "You've got me at last, Master Firebrand—thanks to this meddlesome swab. I suppose I must surrender. I wouldn't do so if 'twere not that my men are all ill. This blessed craft's plague-stricken, Mr. Moreland. You'd best take care of your crew. Work the brig into Stromness, or any other handy port—even into Execution Dock if you will. I'll not interfere. I haven't the strength."

---

How Lieutenant Moreland succeeded in taking the Aurora into Stromness without endangering the health of his men; how the brig was there disinfected, remanned, and sent home to Plymouth, need not here be told. Lady Grange found that her evil husband had died a week before the ship brought her home, and she took possession of his estates, none questioning her rights; and she proved a good friend to Ben Clews, who was recompensed for his conduct by promotion to the quarter-deck, and as midshipman, lieutenant, and finally captain, served in the King's navy through war and through peace for many, many years, and always with honour.

---

[A SOLDIER'S VOW, AND HOW HE
KEPT IT]

By DAVID KER

CHAPTER I