Martin Hyde (11 page)

At last, far away I saw the church of Egmont, rising out of a flat land (not unlike the Broad land) on which sails were passing in a misty distance. I rose in my stirrups with a holloa; for now, I thought, I was near my journey's end. I clapped my horse's neck, promising him an apple for his supper. Then, glancing back, I looked out over the land. The Oulton barge was far away now, a patch of dark sail drawing itself slowly across the sky. Out to sea a great ship seemed to stand still upon the skyline. But directly behind me, perhaps a mile away, perhaps two miles, clearly visible on the white straight ribbon of road, a clump of gallopers advanced, quartering across the road towards me. There may have been twenty of them all told; some of them seemed to ride in ranks like soldiers. I made no doubt when I caught sight of them that they were coming after me, about that matter of the lady's harness. My first impulse was to pull up, so that Old Blunderbore, as I had christened my horse, might get his breath. But I decided not to stop, as I knew how dangerous a thing it is to stop a horse in his pace after he has settled down to it. I had still three miles to go to shelter. If I could manage the three miles all would be well. But could I manage them? Old Blunderbore had taken the eighteen miles we had come together very easily. Now I was thankful that I had not pressed him in the early part of the ride. But Egmont seemed a long, long way from me. I dared not begin to gallop so far from shelter. I went loping on as before, with my heart in my mouth, feeling like one pursued in a nightmare.

As I looked around, to see these gallopers coming on, while I was still lollopping forward, I felt that I was tied by the legs, unable to move. Each instant made it more difficult for me to keep from shaking up my horse. Continual promptings flashed into my mind, urging me to bolt down somewhere among the dunes. These plans I set aside as worthless; for a boy would soon have been caught among those desolate sand-hills. There was no real hiding among them. You could see any person among them from a mile away. I kept on ahead, longing for that wonderful minute when I could hurry my horse, in the wild rush to Egmont town, the final wild rush, on the nag's last strength, with my pursuers, now going their fastest, tailing away behind, as their beasts foundered. The air came singing past. I heard behind me the patter of the turf sent flying by Old Blunderbore's hoofs. The excitement of the ride took vigorous hold on me. I felt on glancing back that I should do it, that I should carry my message, that the Dutchmen should see my mettle, before they stopped me. They were coming up fast on horses still pretty fresh. I would show them, I said to myself, what a boy can do on a spent horse.

Old Blunderbore lollopped on. I clapped him on the neck. "Come up, boy! Up!" I cried. "Egmont—Egmont! Come on, Old Blunderbore!" The good old fellow shook his head up with a whinny. He could see Egmont. He could smell the good corn perhaps. I banged him with my cap on the shoulder. "Up, boy!" I cried. I felt that even if I died, even if I was shot there, as I sailed along with my King's orders, I should have tasted life in that wild gallop.

A countryman carrying a sack put down his load to stare at me, for now, with only a mile to go, I was going a brave gait, as fast as Old Blunderbore could manage. I saw the man put up his hands in pretended terror. The next instant he was far behind, wondering no doubt why the charging squadron beyond were galloping after a boy. Now we were rushing at our full speed, with half a mile, a quarter of a mile, two hundred yards to the town gates. Carts drew to one side, hearing the clatter. I shouted to drive away the children. Poultry scattered as though the king of the foxes was abroad. After me came the thundering clatter of the pursuit. I could hear distant shouts. The nearest man there was a quarter of a mile away. A man started out to catch my rein, thinking that my horse had run away with me. I banged him in the face with my cap as I swung past him. In another second, as it seemed, I was pulled up inside the gates.

As far as I remember,—but it is all rather blurred now,—the place where I pulled up was a sort of public square. I swung myself off Old Blunderbore just outside a tavern. An ostler ran up to me at once to hold him. So I gave him a silver piece (what it was worth I did not know) saying firmly "Zwolle-Haus. Go on. Zwolle-Haus."

The ostler smiled as he repeated Zwolle-Haus, pointing to the tavern itself, which, by good luck, was the very house.

"M. Stendhal," I said. "Where is M. Stendhal? Mynheer Stendhal? Mynheer Stendhal Haus?"

The ostler repeated, "Stendhal? Stendhal? Ah, ja. Stendhal. Da." He pointed down a narrow street which led, as I could see, to a canal wharf.

I thanked him in English, giving him another silver piece. Then off I went, tottering on my toes with the strangeness of walking after so long a ride. I was not out of the wood yet, by a long way. At every second, as I hurried on, I expected to hear the cries of my pursuers, as they charged down the narrow street after me. I tried to run, but my legs felt so funny, it was like running in a dream. I just felt that I was walking on pillows, instead of legs. Luckily that little narrow street was only fifty yards long. It was with a great gasp of relief that I got to the end of it. When I could turn to my right out of sight of the square I felt that I was saved. I had been but a minute ahead of the pursuers outside on the open. Directly after my entrance, some cart or waggon went out of the town, filling the narrow gateway full, so that my enemies were forced to pull up. This gave me a fair start, without which I could hardly have won clear. If it had not been for that lucky waggon, who knows what would have happened?

As it was, I tottered along with drawn pistol to the door of a great house (luckily for me the only house), which fronted the canal. I must have seemed a queer object, coming in from my ride like that, in a peaceful Dutch town. If I had chanced upon a magistrate I suppose I should have been locked up; but luck was with me on that day. I chanced only on Mynheer Stendhal as he sat smoking among his tulips in the front of his mansion. He jumped up with a "God bless me!" when he saw me.

"Mynheer Stendhal?" I asked.

"Yes," he said in good English. "What is it, boy?"

"Take me in quick," I said. "They're after me."

CHAPTER X

SOUNDS IN THE NIGHT

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another minute, after Mr. Stendhal had read my note, I was skinning off my clothes in an upper bedroom. Within three minutes I was dressed like a Dutch boy, in huge baggy striped trousers belonging to Stendhal's son. In four minutes the swift Mr. Stendhal had walked me across the wharf in sabots to one of the galliots in the canal, which he ordered under way at once, to pick up Argyle at sea. So that when my pursuers rode up to Mr. Stendhal's door in search of me, I was a dirty little Dutch boy casting off a stern-hawser from a ring bolt. They seemed to storm at Mr. Stendhal; but I don't know what they said; he acted the part of surprised indignation to the life. When I looked my last on Mr. Stendhal he was at the door, begging a search party to enter to see for themselves that I was not hidden there. The galliot got under way, at that moment, with a good deal of crying out from her sailors. As she swung away into the canal, I saw the handsome lady idly looking on. She was waiting at the door with the other riders. She was the only woman there. To show her that I was a skilled seaman I cast off the stern-hawser nimbly, then dropped on to the deck like one bred to the trade. A moment later I was aloft, casting loose the gaff-topsail. From that fine height as the barge began to move I saw the horsemen turning away foiled. I saw the lady's feathered hat, making a little dash of green among the drab of the riding coats. Then an outhouse hid them all from sight. I was in a sea-going barge, bound out, under all sail, along a waterway lined with old reeds, all blowing down with a rattling shiver.

Now I am not going to tell you much more of my Holland experiences. I was in that barge for about one whole fortnight, during which I think I saw the greater part of the Dutch canals. We picked up Argyle at sea on the first day. After that we went to Amsterdam with a cargo of hides. Then we wandered about at the wind's will, thinking that it might puzzle people, if any one should have stumbled on the right scent. All that fortnight was a long delightful picnic to me. The barge was so like an Oulton wherry that I was at home in her. I knew what to do, it was not like being in the schooner. When we were lying up by a wharf, I used to spend my spare hours in fishing, or in flinging flat pebbles from a cleft-stick at the water-rats. When we were under sail I used to sit aloft in the cross-trees, looking out at the distant sea. At night, after a supper of strong soup, we all turned in to our bunks in the tiny cabin, from the scuttle of which I could see a little patch of sky full of stars.

A boy lives very much in the present. I do not think that I thought much of the Duke's service, nor of our venture for the crown. If I thought at all of our adventures, I thought of the handsome woman with the gray, fierce eyes. In a way, I hoped that I might have another tussle with her, not because I liked adventure, no sane creature does, but because I thought of her with liking. I felt that she would be such a brave, witty person to have for a friend. I felt sad somehow at the thought of not seeing her again. She was quite young, not more than twenty, if her looks did not belie her. I used to wonder how it was that she had come to be a secret agent. I believed that the sharp-faced horsey man had somehow driven her to it against her will. Thinking of her at night, before I fell asleep, I used to long to help her. It is curious, but I always thought tenderly of this woman, even though she had twice tried to kill me. A man's bad angel is only his good angel a little warped.

On the second of May, though I did not know it then, Argyle set sail for Scotland, to raise the clans for a foray across the Border. On the same day I was summoned from my quarters in the barge to take up my King's service. Late one evening, when it was almost dark night, Mr. Jermyn halted at the wharf-side to call me from my supper. "Mount behind me, Martin," he said softly, peering down the hatch. "It's time, now." I thought he must mean that it was time to invade England. You must remember that I knew little of the rights of the case, except that the Duke's cause was the one favoured by my father, dead such a little while before. Yet when I heard that sudden summons, it went through me with a shock that now this England was to be the scene of a bloody civil war, father fighting son, brother against brother. I would rather have been anywhere at that moment than where I was, hearing that order. Still, I had put my hand to the plough. There was no drawing back. I rose up with my eyes full of tears to say goodbye to the kind Dutch bargemen. I never saw them again. In a moment I was up the wharf, scrambling into the big double saddle behind Mr. Jermyn. Before my eyes were accustomed to the darkness we were trotting off into the night I knew not whither.

"Martin," said Mr. Jermyn, half turning in his saddle, "talk in a low voice. There may be spies anywhere."

"Yes, sir," I answered, meekly. For a while after that we were silent; I was waiting for him to tell me more.

"Martin," he said at length, "we're going to send you to England, with a message."

"Yes, sir?" I answered.

"You understand that there's danger, boy?"

"Yes, sir."

"Life is full of danger. But for his King a Christian man must be content to run risks. You aren't afraid, Martin?"

"No, sir," I answered bravely. I was afraid, all the same. I doubt if any boy of my age would have felt very brave, riding in the night like that, with danger of spies all about.

"That's right, Martin," he said kindly. "That's the kind of boy I thought you." Again we were quiet, till at last he said:

"You're going in a barquentine to Dartmouth. Can you remember Blick of Kingswear?"

"Blick of Kingswear," I repeated. "Yes, sir."

"He's the man you're to go to."

"Yes, sir. What am I to tell him?"

"Tell him this, Martin. Listen carefully. This, now. King Golden Cap. After Six One."

"King Golden Cap. After Six One," I repeated. "Blick of Kingswear. King Golden Cap. After Six One."

"That's right," he said. "Repeat it over. Don't forget a word of it. But I know you're too careful a lad to do that." There was no fear of my forgetting it. I think that message is burned in into my brain under the skull-bones.

"There'll be cipher messages, too, Martin. They're also for Mr. Blick. You'll carry a little leather satchel, with letters sewn into the flap. You'll carry stockings in the satchel. Or school-books. You are Mr. Blick's sister's son, left an orphan in Holland. You'll be in mourning. Your mother died of low-fever, remember, coming over to collect a debt from her factor. Your mother was an Oulton fish-boat owner. Pay attention now. I'm going to cross-examine you in your past history."

As we rode on into the gloom, in the still, flat, misty land, which gleamed out at whiles with water dykes, he cross-examined me in detail, in several different ways, just as a magistrate would have done it. I was soon letter-perfect about my mother. I knew Mr. Blick's past history as well as I knew my own.

"Martin," said Mr. Jermyn suddenly. "Do you hear anything?"

"Yes, sir," I answered. "I think I do, sir."

"What is it you hear, Martin?"

"I think I hear a horse's hoofs, sir."

"Behind us?"

"Yes, sir. A long way behind."

"Hold on then, boy. I'm going to pull up."

We halted for an instant in the midst of a wide flat desert, the loneliest place on God's earth. For an instant in the stillness we heard the trot trot of a horse's hoofs. Then the unseen rider behind us halted, too, as though uncertain how to ride, with our hoofs silent.

"There," said Mr. Jermyn. "You see. Now we'll make him go on again." He shook the horse into his trot again, talking to him in a little low voice that shook with excitement. Sure enough, after a moment the trot sounded out behind us. It was as though our wraiths were riding behind us, following us home. "I'll make sure," said Mr. Jermyn, pulling up again.