The MS. in a Red Box Part 11

A faint smile at Daft Jack's concern for the prisoner's safe arrival, crossed the commissioner's face. He evidently did not suspect Daft Jack's real intent. Then he called out--

"See you bring the prisoner's portmanteau straight to me, d'ye hear, fool?"

"Yes, yes, your honour," answered Jack.

"James Tankersley, wheelwright," the clerk read out, and the wheelwright stepped forward, well known as a poor, but industrious man, the sole support of an aged mother and his sisters, two sickly women.

"Hast the honour to be chosen to serve his Majesty, Tankersley,"

grinned the commissioner.

"Would ask nothing better, your wors.h.i.+p, but my poor old mother and my misters depend on me for their bread."

"That's no affair of mine, man. The day after to-morrow you march with me. If you skulk, you'll be shot as a deserter, that's all."

The big fellow trembled like a leaf in the wind.

"Oh! your honour," he cried, in a choking voice, "have pity on us.

'Twill kill my mother."

"Stop your snivelling!" shouted the commissioner, "or I'll have you strapped up and flogged. If you're a d.a.m.ned coward, pay me ten pounds for a discharge."

"Ten pounds!" cried the poor fellow; "I haven't a pound in the world, and half the wood in the yard isn't paid for."

Farmer Brewer came to the front, and said: "I will buy his discharge."

"G.o.d bless you, Mr. Brewer," said the wheelwright.

"Brewer? Have we that name on the list?" asked the commissioner of his clerk.

Then the two of them rummaged among their papers, but seemed to have no record of the farmer's existence. At length the commissioner looked up and said--

"A man who has ten pounds to spare for another must be well to pa.s.s, Mr. Brewer. Fifty pounds for the King will be no burdensome demand."

A murmur went round the room, for the farmer had lost heavily in the flood, and everybody knew that he had never prospered greatly.

Something to this effect, Brewer began to plead, but was cut short.

"I am not here to argue, my man, but to collect money. If you are obstinate, I have the means at hand to persuade you feelingly. Bring the sixty pounds by three o'clock, or you will learn what they are.

Corporal, pa.s.s this man out."

So things went on, man after man being bullied and threatened, and sent off to sc.r.a.pe money according to the commissioner's a.s.sessment. The proceedings were exciting enough at the time, but they would be wearisome to narrate. They were interrupted by Daft Jack's return, in less than the hour allotted, with the squire's portmanteau, which he dumped down with a bang just inside the room, saying as he sat down on the floor with his back against the door, mopping his face, "I can't carry it a step furder; take it to his honour, one of you." At a nod from the corporal, one of his men went forward with it, and placed it on the table. The clerk opened it for the inspection of his chief, when with a humming and buzzing noise which filled the room, a swarm of angry wasps rushed out. What happened then I cannot describe. I saw the commissioner and his clerk striking, dancing, in a frenzy, through a darting haze of furious insects.

Looking the other way, I saw a ma.s.s of hunched backs and bent heads, helter skelter to the door. Exit thus was too slow for my fancy, with a cloud of wasps round my head, so I jumped from the only window which opened door-wise. It was a good long drop to the ground, but several active men followed me. We found Squire Stovin in saddle in front of the inn, his feet tied under the horse's belly, his guards mounted on each side, and a big crowd gathered round them, hustling and jostling one another in a manner that boded no good to the troopers, most of the men having their poles in their hands. Mischief would have begun before now, but for Mr. Stovin's authority with the fellows. Shortly, the corporal came out to say that the commissioner being unable to give the instructions for which the men were waiting, he would take the responsibility of setting the squire free on parole. Mr. Stovin readily gave it; his bonds were removed, and a mob escorted him home, huzzaing until they were hoa.r.s.e. Host Hind told me that Tunstall and his clerk were fearfully stung, and in no small danger. "His head's near as big as his belly," said Hind of the commissioner. About him I had no concern, but much about poor Jack, who would be horribly punished, doubtless, if he were caught. And, besides, I felt some curiosity. I found Jack in his one-roomed hovel at the south end of the town, with a quant.i.ty of articles spread out on the clay floor: a pair of cleat boards, a leather bottle, a whittle, coils of wire and band, a ball of worsted string, fish-hooks, corks, cross-bow, a few cakes of black bread, and other things, some of which he was in process of transferring to his many and capacious pockets.

"I'm going to my hunting-lodge on Thorne moors," said he, with perfect gravity.

"A little money may be of use," I said, tendering some.

"No, thank you, Mester Frank," he replied. "I'm not likely to want any. There's a plenty of hares, rabbits, moor-fowl, fish, eggs on my estate."

Jack's confidence was well grounded, I knew, as he had the utmost skill in placing a snare for a rabbit, snickling a pike, or luring a bird within shot.

"Do you mind telling me how you came to put a wasp's nest into the squire's portmanteau, Jack?"

"All a mistake through being deep in thought, Mester Frank."

"How so?"

"Coming down the drive, I see a wasp-hole in the bank. And I wanted wasp-grub for bait. So I clodded the hole, and pulled the nest out, you see."

"But you didn't want live wasps, Jack."

"Live wasps are very good for dibbing, Mester Frank, if you know how to handle 'em. But, being deep in thought, I put the nest into Squire's porkmankle instead of into my handkerchief. And I forgot the nest when I put the porkmankle down, and give it a shake, through being so deep in thought."

"But what were you thinking about so deeply?"

"Tryin to puzzle it out why the pot-bellied man called me a fool."

And Jack looked as if the question still perplexed him.

"Fool, or no fool, Jack, you have done what none of the rest of us had the wit or pluck to do. But he will kill you, if ever he gets well enough to do it."

"If I live till he kills me, I shall be a very old man," Jack replied, with immense scornfulness.

He had now stowed away his properties, some in his pockets, and some in a sack, which he slung over his shoulder, and stood ready for flight.

We shook hands, and he said--

"Luke Barnby knows the way to my lodge."

Desirous as I was to return to the vicarage, it took me a long time to do so, for everybody was in the main street, talking and laughing over the sudden break-up of the meeting summoned by the commissioner. Here I met one who had not been present, and wished to hear my account of the affair; there another, who had been present, and wanted to go over it again. A knot of young fellows dragged me into the White Hart, where they drank Daft Jack's health, and the health of the man who had "put him up to the trick." For no reason they had given me the credit of the device, nor did my plain denial quite remove their belief that I had a hand in the business. At last I got away from them, and found all quiet at the vicarage.

It had been agreed to act on the suggestion of the chief constable the following day, and he had engaged to protect the house during the night. Anna, as I had come to name her to myself, had recovered from the shock of the previous evening, and looked charming even with a cross of plaister on her brow. After I had told the true and full story of Daft Jack's achievement, the doctor and the parson prosed alternately, the one describing all the venomous insects known to man, I should think; the other giving instances from history, sacred and profane, of their intervention in human affairs, and seeming to have pleasure in recounting the torture inflicted on an unlucky wight, whose name I forget, by an enemy who had him smeared with honey, and exposed to the stings of bees and wasps. The vicar was too good a Christian to rejoice in the sufferings of the commissioner, but I am sure he got some kind of consolation in the very particular description which he made of the torments of the other man.

Anna was unusually silent, which I hoped might be due to the same thought as kept me so, that of the parting to come on the morrow. I noted with secret delight that the songs she chose, when she went to the spinet at my request, were tinged with a sweet melancholy, which might be that of love.

CHAPTER IX

"I asked you to come out with me because there is something I must say before you return to Sandtoft." So I feebly began, as we paced the garden, now somewhat cleared of the mire and refuse brought by the flood, a few flowers lifting their heads to the July sun. "I told you the other night I loved you. I might never have dared to say it, but for the fear that I should not have another chance. Mistress Goel--Anna--do you, can you love me?"

She lifted her n.o.ble face a little, gave me a look which I could not understand, and then the eyelids drooped, as she answered with trembling lips--

"It would be only too easy to love you, Frank, but I am bound--betrothed already. Have patience with me, while I tell you my miserable story." She sat down, and I beside her, heavy-hearted.

"Years ago, my father and his dearest friend, Cornelius Vliet, agreed upon a marriage between me and his friend's only son. I shrank from the thought of it, and begged my father to allow me to refuse; but he laughed at what he took to be girlish perversity. He could not believe I had a repugnance against a young man, who was reckoned handsome, well-bred, brave, the heir to a large fortune. And, indeed, I could say nothing against Sebastian, but only that I had the strongest dislike to be married to him, or to any man. My father so far yielded as to defer the matter awhile. Then he was seized and thrown into prison, and we knew his doom would be death, or lifelong imprisonment.

Sebastian came to me, and offered to secure my father's escape--on one condition. I gave him my promise, and he fulfilled his own by lavish bribery, and, I must acknowledge, at the risk of his own liberty, perhaps his life. He accompanied us to Paris. There I saw and heard much more of his manner of living than I had known at home, and it was fearful and loathsome to me. My father a.s.sured me young men were no worse for--what was so offensive to me. I cannot tell you how dreadful I felt it to be to fail in duty and love toward my father, and to be so ungrateful to Sebastian for my father's life and freedom, but I could not keep my plighted word. I vowed that I would not be married until Sebastian changed his course. He did not upbraid or taunt me, or argue with me, but disappeared. For some months we have heard nothing of him. I supposed he had been disgusted with what he must think my ingrat.i.tude and fickleness; but yesterday my father received a letter from him, saying he has given up drinking and dicing and all evil ways, and is coming to claim his bride. He has decided to join Vermuijden, and to share our exile, and will quickly follow his letter. My father is delighted. Forgive me, Frank, that I have not avoided you. I am guilty, I know. Forgive me."

I had been on the point to interrupt the story a dozen times; but seeing how hard Anna found the telling of it, I would not make it harder. Now I burst out. "Forgive her! Forgive the sun for s.h.i.+ning, the flowers for blooming!" I told her how sorely my heart ached for her, but she must bear up bravely still. I would not hear of duty to her father in regard to this marriage. I declared that a promise so extorted could not bind her. To try to keep it would be to sin against herself, against the man, against her father, who must be made wretched by it in the end, against me, against love, against G.o.d. I told her I was sure she loved me a little, and I would never give her up. She was _mine_, and should be mine as long as she or I lived. Where the words came from I did not know, for I am commonly slow of speech, but they came hot and swift, and Anna looked up at me, as I stood over her (my feelings had raised me to my feet) smiling through swimming eyes, and said tremulously--