Martin Hyde (21 page)

After grubbing up a hollow with my knife, I swathed myself in my blanket with a saddle for a pillow. I watched the stars for a while, as they drifted slowly over me. The horses stamped, shaking their picket-ropes. The sentries walked their rounds, or came to the camp-fires to call their reliefs. The night was full of strange noises. The presence of so many sleeping men was strange. It was very beautiful, very solemn. It gave one a kind of awe to think that thus so many famous armies had slept before the battles of the world, before Pharsalia, before Chalons, before Hastings. Presently the murmuring became so slight that I fell asleep, forgetting everything, only turning uneasily from time to time, to keep the cool night wind from blowing on my cheeks so as to wake me.

It must have been two in the morning when I was
wakened by some armed men, evidently our sentries, who rolled me over without ceremony.

"Wake up, young master," they said, grinning. "You'm wanted. You be to get up to go a errand. You be a soldier now. You does your sleeping in peacetimes when you be a soldier." I sat up blinking my eyes, in the early light, thinking how nice t'other forty winks would be.

"Heigho," I yawned. "All right. I'm awake. What is it? What's the matter?"

"Lord Grey be a wanting you, young master," said one of the men. "Down there, where them horses be in the road." I picked myself up at that, wishing for a basin of water into which I might shove my head.

"Yes, yes," I said. "Thank you. I'll go down." I left my blanket where it was, as I expected to be back in a few minutes. I walked down hill out of the camp to the road where the horses stood; there were four horses, two of them mounted. The mounted men were regular country bumpkins, with green sprays in their hats, like the rest of our men; but their horses were pretty good, much better than most of those we had. One of them was a stocky old cob, which was no doubt to be mine. The other was a beast with handsome harness for Lord Grey. "Alas," I thought. "No more sleep for me. I've got to ride. I wonder where we are going." The men touched their hats to me; for as I was in the Duke's retinue I was much respected. Some
of them no doubt thought I was a princeling or little lord.

"Where are we going?" I asked the troopers.

"Going scouting out towards Colyton yonder, sir," said one of them. "Us be to pick up his Lordship in the town."

CHAPTER XIX

I MEET
THE
CLUB
MEN

I
WONDERED
when I was to get breakfast; but I knew Lord Grey well enough to know that he was not a man to go willingly without food for more than a few hours at a time. Breakfast I should have presently, nor would it be skin-boiled beef, smelling of singed hair. So I mounted my cob with a good will. The first trooper rode by my side, the other waited for a moment to examine the feet of Lord Grey's charger. He trotted after us, leading the riderless horse, some fifty yards behind us. We trotted smartly through Axminster, where we set the dogs barking. People sprang from their beds when they heard us, fearing that we were an army coming to fight. We cantered out of the town over the river, heading towards a hilly country, which had few houses upon it. I looked back after leaving Axminster, to see if Lord Grey wanted me. He had mounted his horse somewhere in the town; but he was now a couple of hundred yards behind us, riding with a third man, whom I judged to be Colonel Foukes, by his broad white regimental scarf. After we had gone a few miles, we came to a cross-roads where my guide bade me halt to wait for orders. The others had
pulled up, too. I could see Lord Grey examining a map, while his horse sidled about across the road. The trooper who had been riding with him, joined us after a while, telling us to take the road to our right, which would take us, he said, towards Taunton. We were to keep our eyes skinned, he said, for any sign of armed men coming on the high-road from Honiton, so as to threaten our left flank. The gentlemen were going to scout towards the sea. At eight o'clock, if we had seen no trace of any armed force coming, we were to make for Chard, where we should find the Duke's army. We were to examine the roads for any signs of troops having passed recently towards Taunton. We were to enquire of the country people, if troops were abroad in that countryside, what troops they might be, how led, how equipped, etc. If we came across any men anxious to join the Duke we were to send them on to Chard or Ilminster, on the easterly road to Taunton. We were to ride without our green boughs, he said; so before starting on our road we flung them into the ditches. Lord Grey waved his hand to us, as he turned away with his friend. We took off our hats in reply, hardly in a soldierly salute; then we set off at a walk along the Taunton road. It is a lonely road leading up to the hills, a straight Roman road, better than any roads laid in England at that time; but a road which strikes horror into one, the country through which it runs is so bleak.

By about six o'clock (according to one of the troopers, who judged by the height of the sun) we were in a clump of firs high up on a hill, looking over a vast piece of eastern Devon. We had scouted pretty closely all round Honiton, examining the country people, without hearing of any troops. We were now looking out for some gleam upon a road, some rising of dust over a hedge, some scattering of birds even, any sign of men advancing, which might be examined more closely. The morning was bright; but the valleys had mist upon them, which would soon turn to the quivering blue June heat-haze. The land lay below us, spread out in huge folds; the fields, all different colours, looked like the counties on a map; we could see the sea, we could see the gleam of a little river. We could see Axminster far to the east of us; but the marching army was out of sight, somewhere on the Chard high-road. After scanning pretty well all round us, I caught sight of moving figures on the top of one of the combes to south of us. We all looked hard at the place, trying to make out more of them. They were nearly a mile from us. They seemed to be standing there as sentries. At first we thought that they must be people with Lord Grey; but as we could see no horses we decided that they could not be. One of the men said that as far as he'd heard tell like, the combe on which they stood was what they call a camp, where soldiers lived in the old time. He didn't know much more about it; but
he said that he thought we ought to examine it, like, before riding on to some inn where we could breakfast. The other man seemed to think so, too; but when we came to talk over the best way of doing our espials, we were puzzled. We should be seen at once if we went to them directly. We might be suspected if we approached them on horseback. If the men went, they might be detained, because, for all that we knew, the combe might be full of militia. So I said that I had better go, since no one would suspect a boy. To this the men raised a good many objections, looking at each other suspiciously, plainly asking questions with their raised eyebrows. I thought at the time that they were afraid of sending me into a possible danger, because I was a servant attached to the Duke's person. However, when I said that I would go on foot, taking all precautions, they agreed grudgingly to let me go.

I crept along towards this combe on foot, as though I were going bird's nesting. I beat along by the hedges, keeping out of sight behind them, till I was actually on the combe's north slope, climbing up to the old earthwork on the top. I took care to climb the slope at a place where there was no sentry, which was, of course, not only the steepest bit of the hill but covered with gorse clumps, through which I could scarcely thrust my way. Up towards the top the gorse was less plentiful; there were immense foxgloves, ferns, little marshy tufts where rushes grew, little spots of wet
bright green moss. Yellow-hammers drawled their pretty tripping notes to me, not starting away, even when I passed close to them. All the beauty of June was on the earth that day; the beauty of everything in that intense blue haze was wonderful.

The top of the combe was very steep, steeper than any of the ascent, because it had been built up like an outer wall by the savages who once lived there with their cattle. I could see just the bare steep wall of the rampart standing up in a dull green line of short-grassed turf against the sky, now burning with the intense blue of summer. One hard quick scramble, with my finger-nails dug into the ground, brought my head to the top of the rampart, beyond which I could see nothing but great ferns, a forest of great ferns, already four or five feet high, stretching away below, into the cup of the camp or citadel. I did not dare to stand up, lest I should be seen. I burrowed my way among the ferns over the wall into the hollow, worming my way towards the edge of the fern clump so that I could see. In a minute, I was gazing through the fern-stems into the camp itself; it was a curious sight.

About fifty people (some of them women) were sitting about a hollow in the ground, which I guessed to be a sort of smokeless fireplace or earth-oven. Everywhere else, all over the hollow of the camp, which must have been a full three hundred yards across, were various kinds of farm-stock, mostly cattle, though there were
many picketed horses, too. At first I thought that I had climbed into a camp of gipsies, which gave me a scare; for gipsies then were a wild lot, whom wise folk avoided. Then, as I glanced about, I saw a sentry standing not thirty yards from me, but well above me, on the rampart top. He was no gipsy. He was an ordinary farmer's lad, with the walk of a ploughman. His sleeves, which were rolled back, showed me a sunburnt pair of arms, such as no gipsy ever had. What puzzled me about him was his heavy double-barrelled pistol, which he carried in his right hand, with something of a military cock, yet as though awed by it. He was not over sure of that same pistol. I could see that he confounded it in some way with art-magic.

Then I remembered what the old soldier had said the night before about club men. This camp must be a camp of club men, I thought. They had come there to protect their stock from the rapine of our vile pillagers, who had spread such terror amongst the farmers the day before. Perched up on the combe, with sentries always on the look-out, they could see the Duke's raiders long before they came within gunshot. If an armed force had tried to rush the camp, after learning that the beasts were shut up within it (which, by the way, no man could possibly suspect until he saw them from the rampart top), the few defenders clubbed together there could have kept them out without difficulty; for there was only one narrow entrance to the
camp, so constructed that any one entering by it could be shot at from three sides, if not from all four. I looked about me carefully from my hiding-place, till I decided that I could get a better view from another part of the fern clump. I began to wriggle through the thick, sweet-scented stalks, towards the heart of the camp, going with infinite care, so as not to break down the fern into a path. I hoped to make no more stir among the fern-tops than would be made by one of the many pigs scattering about in the enclosure.

While I was crawling along in this way, I suddenly heard a curious noise from an intensely thick part of the fern in front of me. It was a clinking noise, followed by a sort of dry rasping, as though a very big person were gritting his teeth very hard. It stopped suddenly, but soon began again. I thought that it must be some one mending harness with a file, or perhaps some old sheep or cow, with the remnants of a bell about her neck, licking a stone for salt. As I was in an adventure, I thought that I would see it out to the end; for I was enjoying my morning. In spite of the want of breakfast I felt very like a red Indian or a pirate, creeping through the jungle to the sack of a treasure train. So I wormed on towards the noise. As I came near to it, I went more cautiously, because in one of the pauses of the noise, I heard a muttered curse, which told me that the unseen noise-maker was a man. If I had been wise I should have stopped there; for I had learned all that I came
out to learn. But I was excited now. I wished to see everything, before creeping away unseen to make my report. Perhaps I wished to see something which had nothing to do with the club men, a private main of cocks, say, or a dog, or bull-baiting, carried on with some of the squire's creatures, but without his knowledge. I had a half wish that I might have something of the kind to report; because in my heart I longed to say nothing to any of the Duke's party which might lead to the ruin of these poor people who were trying so hard to protect their property.

A few feet further on, I was wishing most heartily that I had never left my room in London. It was like this. In the very heart of the fern clump, where the ferns were tallest, a little spring bubbled out of the ground, at the rate, I suppose, of a pint of water in a minute. The ferns grew immensely thick there; but someone had thinned out a few of the roots from the ground, leaving the uprooted plant with the ferns still living, to form a rough kind of thatch above a piece of earth big enough for a man's body. In the scented shade of this thatch, with the side of his face turned towards me, a big, rough, bearded man sat, filing away some bright steel irons which were riveted on his ankles. He swore continually in a low whisper as he worked, not even pausing in his curses when he spat on to the hollow scraped in the irons by his file. He was the fiercest looking savage of a man I have ever seen. His
face had a look of stern, gloomy cruelty which I shall never forget. His general appearance was terrible; for he had a face burnt almost black by the sun (some of it may have been mud) with a nasty white scar running irregularly all down his left cheek, along the throat to the shoulder. He was not what you might call naked. A naked man, such as I have seen since in the hot countries, would have looked a nobleman beside him. He wore a pair of dirty linen knickerbockers, all frayed into ribbons at the knees, a pair of strong hide slippers bound to his ankles by strips of leather, a part of a filthy red shirt without sleeves, a hat stolen from a scarecrow, nothing else whatever, except the mud of many days' gathering. His shirt was torn all down the back in a great slit which he had tried to secure by what the sailors call "Bristol buttons," i. e. pieces of string. The red flannel hung from him so as to show his back, all criss-crossed with flogging scars. I knew at once from the irons that he was a criminal escaped from gaol; but the criss-crossed scars taught me that he was a criminal of the most terrible kind, probably one who had shipped into the Navy to avoid hanging.