Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (332 page)

‘It ist false report!’ said the officer.

Festus was a man again.  He felt that nothing was too much for him.  The officer, after some explanation of the cause of alarm, said that he was going across to the road which led by the moor, to stop the troops and volunteers converging from that direction, upon which Festus offered to give information along the Casterbridge road.  The German crossed over, and was soon out of sight in the lane, while Festus turned back upon the way by which he had come.  The party of yeomanry cavalry was rapidly drawing near, and he soon recognized among them the excited voices of Stubb of Duddle Hole, Noakes of Muckleford, and other comrades of his orgies at the hall.  It was a magnificent opportunity, and Festus drew his sword.  When they were within speaking distance he reined round his charger’s head to Budmouth and shouted, ‘On, comrades, on!  I am waiting for you.  You have been a long time getting up with me, seeing the glorious nature of our deeds to-day!’

‘Well said, Derriman, well said!’ replied the foremost of the riders.  ‘Have you heard anything new?’

‘Only that he’s here with his tens of thousands, and that we are to ride to meet him sword in hand as soon as we have assembled in the town ahead here.’

‘O Lord!’ said Noakes, with a slight falling of the lower jaw.

‘The man who quails now is unworthy of the name of yeoman,’ said Festus, still keeping ahead of the other troopers and holding up his sword to the sun.  ‘O Noakes, fie, fie!  You begin to look pale, man.’

‘Faith, perhaps you’d look pale,’ said Noakes, with an envious glance upon Festus’s daring manner, ‘if you had a wife and family depending upon ye!’

‘I’ll take three frog-eating Frenchmen single-handed!’ rejoined Derriman, still flourishing his sword.

‘They have as good swords as you; as you will soon find,’ said another of the yeomen.

‘If they were three times armed,’ said Festus — ’ay, thrice three times — I would attempt ‘em three to one.  How do you feel now, my old friend Stubb?’ (turning to another of the warriors.)  ‘O, friend Stubb! no bouncing health to our lady-loves in Oxwell Hall this summer as last.  Eh, Brownjohn?’

‘I am afraid not,’ said Brownjohn gloomily.

‘No rattling dinners at Stacie’s Hotel, and the King below with his staff.  No wrenching off door-knockers and sending ‘em to the bakehouse in a pie that nobody calls for.  Weeks of cut-and-thrust work rather!’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Fight how we may we shan’t get rid of the cursed tyrant before autumn, and many thousand brave men will lie low before it’s done,’ remarked a young yeoman with a calm face, who meant to do his duty without much talking.

‘No grinning matches at Mai-dun Castle this summer,’ Festus resumed; ‘no thread-the-needle at Greenhill Fair, and going into shows and driving the showman crazy with cock-a-doodle-doo!’

‘I suppose not.’

‘Does it make you seem just a trifle uncomfortable, Noakes?  Keep up your spirits, old comrade.  Come, forward! we are only ambling on like so many donkey-women.  We have to get into Budmouth, join the rest of the troop, and then march along the coast west’ard, as I imagine.  At this rate we shan’t be well into the thick of battle before twelve o’clock.  Spur on, comrades.  No dancing on the green, Lockham, this year in the moonlight!  You was tender upon that girl; gad, what will become o’ her in the struggle?’

‘Come, come, Derriman,’ expostulated Lockham — ’this is all very well, but I don’t care for ‘t.  I am as ready to fight as any man, but — ’

‘Perhaps when you get into battle, Derriman, and see what it’s like, your courage will cool down a little,’ added Noakes on the same side, but with secret admiration of Festus’s reckless bravery.

‘I shall be bayoneted first,’ said Festus.  ‘Now let’s rally, and on!’

Since Festus was determined to spur on wildly, the rest of the yeomen did not like to seem behindhand, and they rapidly approached the town.  Had they been calm enough to reflect, they might have observed that for the last half-hour no carts or carriages had met them on the way, as they had done further back.  It was not till the troopers reached the turnpike that they learnt what Festus had known a quarter of an hour before.  At the intelligence Derriman sheathed his sword with a sigh; and the party soon fell in with comrades who had arrived there before them, whereupon the source and details of the alarm were boisterously discussed.

‘What, didn’t you know of the mistake till now?’ asked one of these of the new-comers.  ‘Why, when I was dropping over the hill by the cross-roads I looked back and saw that man talking to the messenger, and he must have told him the truth.’  The speaker pointed to Festus.  They turned their indignant eyes full upon him.  That he had sported with their deepest feelings, while knowing the rumour to be baseless, was soon apparent to all.

‘Beat him black and blue with the flat of our blades!’ shouted two or three, turning their horses’ heads to drop back upon Derriman, in which move they were followed by most of the party.

But Festus, foreseeing danger from the unexpected revelation, had already judiciously placed a few intervening yards between himself and his fellow-yeomen, and now, clapping spurs to his horse, rattled like thunder and lightning up the road homeward.  His ready flight added hotness to their pursuit, and as he rode and looked fearfully over his shoulder he could see them following with enraged faces and drawn swords, a position which they kept up for a distance of more than a mile.  Then he had the satisfaction of seeing them drop off one by one, and soon he and his panting charger remained alone on the highway.

CHAPTER XXVII. 

DANGER TO ANNE

He stopped and reflected how to turn this rebuff to advantage.  Baulked in his project of entering the watering-place and enjoying congratulations upon his patriotic bearing during the advance, he sulkily considered that he might be able to make some use of his enforced retirement by riding to Overcombe and glorifying himself in the eyes of Miss Garland before the truth should have reached that hamlet.  Having thus decided he spurred on in a better mood.

By this time the volunteers were on the march, and as Derriman ascended the road he met the Overcombe company, in which trudged Miller Loveday shoulder to shoulder with the other substantial householders of the place and its neighbourhood, duly equipped with pouches, cross-belts, firelocks, flint-boxes, pickers, worms, magazines, priming-horns, heel-ball, and pomatum.  There was nothing to be gained by further suppression of the truth, and briefly informing them that the danger was not so immediate as had been supposed, Festus galloped on.  At the end of another mile he met a large number of pikemen, including Bob Loveday, whom the yeoman resolved to sound upon the whereabouts of Anne.  The circumstances were such as to lead Bob to speak more frankly than he might have done on reflection, and he told Festus the direction in which the women had been sent.  Then Festus informed the group that the report of invasion was false, upon which they all turned to go homeward with greatly relieved spirits.

Bob walked beside Derriman’s horse for some distance.  Loveday had instantly made up his mind to go and look for the women, and ease their anxiety by letting them know the good news as soon as possible.  But he said nothing of this to Festus during their return together; nor did Festus tell Bob that he also had resolved to seek them out, and by anticipating every one else in that enterprise, make of it a glorious opportunity for bringing Miss Garland to her senses about him.  He still resented the ducking that he had received at her hands, and was not disposed to let that insult pass without obtaining some sort of sweet revenge.

As soon as they had parted Festus cantered on over the hill, meeting on his way the Longpuddle volunteers, sixty rank and file, under Captain Cunningham; the Casterbridge company, ninety strong (known as the ‘Consideration Company’ in those days), under Captain Strickland; and others — all with anxious faces and covered with dust.  Just passing the word to them and leaving them at halt, he proceeded rapidly onward in the direction of King’s-Bere.  Nobody appeared on the road for some time, till after a ride of several miles he met a stray corporal of volunteers, who told Festus in answer to his inquiry that he had certainly passed no gig full of women of the kind described.  Believing that he had missed them by following the highway, Derriman turned back into a lane along which they might have chosen to journey for privacy’s sake, notwithstanding the badness and uncertainty of its track.  Arriving again within five miles of Overcombe, he at length heard tidings of the wandering vehicle and its precious burden, which, like the Ark when sent away from the country of the Philistines, had apparently been left to the instincts of the beast that drew it.  A labouring man, just at daybreak, had seen the helpless party going slowly up a distant drive, which he pointed out.

No sooner had Festus parted from this informant than he beheld Bob approaching, mounted on the miller’s second and heavier horse.  Bob looked rather surprised, and Festus felt his coming glory in danger.

‘They went down that lane,’ he said, signifying precisely the opposite direction to the true one.  ‘I, too, have been on the look-out for missing friends.’

As Festus was riding back there was no reason to doubt his information, and Loveday rode on as misdirected.  Immediately that he was out of sight Festus reversed his course, and followed the track which Anne and her companions were last seen to pursue.

This road had been ascended by the gig in question nearly two hours before the present moment.  Molly, the servant, held the reins, Mrs. Loveday sat beside her, and Anne behind.  Their progress was but slow, owing partly to Molly’s want of skill, and partly to the steepness of the road, which here passed over downs of some extent, and was rarely or never mended.  It was an anxious morning for them all, and the beauties of the early summer day fell upon unheeding eyes.  They were too anxious even for conjecture, and each sat thinking her own thoughts, occasionally glancing westward, or stopping the horse to listen to sounds from more frequented roads along which other parties were retreating.  Once, while they listened and gazed thus, they saw a glittering in the distance, and heard the tramp of many horses.  It was a large body of cavalry going in the direction of the King’s watering-place, the same regiment of dragoons, in fact, which Festus had seen further on in its course.  The women in the gig had no doubt that these men were marching at once to engage the enemy.  By way of varying the monotony of the journey Molly occasionally burst into tears of horror, believing Buonaparte to be in countenance and habits precisely what the caricatures represented him.  Mrs. Loveday endeavoured to establish cheerfulness by assuring her companions of the natural civility of the French nation, with whom unprotected women were safe from injury, unless through the casual excesses of soldiery beyond control.  This was poor consolation to Anne, whose mind was more occupied with Bob than with herself, and a miserable fear that she would never again see him alive so paled her face and saddened her gaze forward, that at last her mother said, ‘Who was you thinking of, my dear?’  Anne’s only reply was a look at her mother, with which a tear mingled.

Molly whipped the horse, by which she quickened his pace for five yards, when he again fell into the perverse slowness that showed how fully conscious he was of being the master-mind and chief personage of the four.  Whenever there was a pool of water by the road he turned aside to drink a mouthful, and remained there his own time in spite of Molly’s tug at the reins and futile fly-flapping on his rump.  They were now in the chalk district, where there were no hedges, and a rough attempt at mending the way had been made by throwing down huge lumps of that glaring material in heaps, without troubling to spread it or break them abroad.  The jolting here was most distressing, and seemed about to snap the springs.

‘How that wheel do wamble,’ said Molly at last.  She had scarcely spoken when the wheel came off, and all three were precipitated over it into the road.

Fortunately the horse stood still, and they began to gather themselves up.  The only one of the three who had suffered in the least from the fall was Anne, and she was only conscious of a severe shaking which had half stupefied her for the time.  The wheel lay flat in the road, so that there was no possibility of driving further in their present plight.  They looked around for help.  The only friendly object near was a lonely cottage, from its situation evidently the home of a shepherd.

The horse was unharnessed and tied to the back of the gig, and the three women went across to the house.  On getting close they found that the shutters of all the lower windows were closed, but on trying the door it opened to the hand.  Nobody was within; the house appeared to have been abandoned in some confusion, and the probability was that the shepherd had fled on hearing the alarm.  Anne now said that she felt the effects of her fall too severely to be able to go any further just then, and it was agreed that she should be left there while Mrs. Loveday and Molly went on for assistance, the elder lady deeming Molly too young and vacant-minded to be trusted to go alone.  Molly suggested taking the horse, as the distance might be great, each of them sitting alternately on his back while the other led him by the head.  This they did, Anne watching them vanish down the white and lumpy road.

She then looked round the room, as well as she could do so by the light from the open door.  It was plain, from the shutters being closed, that the shepherd had left his house before daylight, the candle and extinguisher on the table pointing to the same conclusion.  Here she remained, her eyes occasionally sweeping the bare, sunny expanse of down, that was only relieved from absolute emptiness by the overturned gig hard by.  The sheep seemed to have gone away, and scarcely a bird flew across to disturb the solitude.  Anne had risen early that morning, and leaning back in the withy chair, which she had placed by the door, she soon fell into an uneasy doze, from which she was awakened by the distant tramp of a horse.  Feeling much recovered from the effects of the overturn, she eagerly rose and looked out.  The horse was not Miller Loveday’s, but a powerful bay, bearing a man in full yeomanry uniform.