The Courtship of Morrice Buckler Part 12

"It was not for that end that he sent for me," I hastened to add, and then I stuck. I had determined to relate to Jack forthwith the story of my mission, and to engage his a.s.sistance, but the actual sight of him overturned my intentions. I felt tongue-tied; I dared not tell him lest my resolution should trickle away in the telling; for I read upon his face his poor estimation of my powers, and I dreaded the ridicule of his comments upon my unfitness for the task to which I had set my hand. I had sufficient doubts of my own upon that score. Indeed, since I had entered the room, they had buzzed about me importunate as a cloud of gnats; for Larke had never been sparing of his homilies upon my incapacity. I think every article I possessed, at one time or another, had been twisted into a text for them; and now they all came flocking back to me, as my eyes ranged over the familiar objects they had been based upon. They seemed, in truth, to saturate the very air.

Hence, I confided to Larke no more than the fact of our journey into the Tyrol; its reason and purpose I kept secret to myself. And to this self-distrust, trivial matter though it was, I owed my subsequent misfortunes. It was the first link in the chain of disaster, and I forged it myself unwittingly.

"Jack," said I, "you were ever fond of adventures. One lies at your door."

"Of what kind?" he asked.

"A journey into the Tyrol."

"For what purpose?"

"I cannot tell you. You must trust me if you come."

He looked at me doubtfully.

"Your life will be risked," I urged; "I can gratify you so far."

He closed the Shakespeare with a bang.

"When do we start?"

"As soon as ever we are prepared. To-morrow."

"'Twere a pity to waste a day."

I a.s.sured him that so far from wasting it, we should have much ado to get off even the next morning. For there were a couple of stout horses to be purchased, besides numberless other arrangements to be made. The horses we bought of a dealer in the Rapenburg, and then, enlisting the fencing-master to aid us, we sought the shop of an armourer in the Hout-Straat. From him we bought a long sword and a brace of pistols each, whereupon Larke declared that we were equipped cap-a-pie, and loudly protested against further hindrance. I insisted, however, in adding a pair of long cloaks of a heavier cloth than any we possessed, and divers other warm garments. For we were now in the last days of September, and I knew that winter comes apace in upland countries like the Tyrol. Then there were maps to be procured, and a route to be p.r.i.c.ked out, so that it was late in the evening before we had completed our preparations.

Meanwhile I inquired of Larke how it had fared with Swasfield. It appeared that it was not until some hours after I had ridden off that the man regained his senses, and then he was still too weak to amplify his tidings; in fact, he had only recovered sufficiently to depart from Leyden two days before I returned. Doubtless to some extent his convalescence was r.e.t.a.r.ded by grief for that he had not fulfilled his errand. For he was ever lamenting the omission of his message, and more particularly of that portion which referred to the road between Bristol and London. For swift horses had been stabled at intervals of fifteen miles along the whole stretch, and in order to make sure that no one but myself should have the profit of them, as Swasfield said, or rather, as I think, in order that my name might not transpire if Count Lukstein's spies were watching the road and became suspicious at this posting of relays, it was arranged that they should be delivered only to the man who pa.s.sed the word "Wast.w.a.ter," that being the name of the lake in c.u.mberland on which my lands ab.u.t.ted.

Of our journey into the Tyrol I have but faint recollections. We set off the next morning with no more impediments than we could carry in valises fixed upon our saddles. Even Udal, my body-servant, I left behind, for he had neither liking nor apt.i.tude for foreign tongues, a few sc.r.a.ps of French and a meagre knowledge of Dutch forced on him by his residence in the country, being all that he possessed. He would, therefore, have only hindered our progress, and, besides, I had no great faith in his discretion. I was minded, accordingly, to secure some foreigner in Strasbourg who would think we were engaged upon a tour of pleasure; which I did, and dismissed him at Innspruck.

For the rest I rode with little attention or regard for the provinces through which we pa.s.sed. The very cities wherein we slept seemed the cities of a dream, so that now I am like one who strives to piece together memories of a journey taken in early childhood. An alley of trees recurs to me, the s.h.i.+ne of stars in a midnight sky, or, again, the comfortable figure of a Boniface; but the images are confused and void of suggestion, for I rode eyes shut and hands clenched, as a coward rides in the press of battle.

At times, indeed, when we halted, I would turn industriously to my Horace. The book had fallen open at the Palinodia when I dropped it in the prison, so that Julian's sketch was on the page opposite to the date September 14. I append here the diagram which was to enable me to find an entrance into the Castle, and it will be seen that I had much excuse for studying it. In truth, I could make neither head nor tail of its signification.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Outline of Lukstein Castle]

'Twas ever this outline of Lukstein Castle that I pondered, though Jack knew it not, and when he beheld the book in my hands would gaze at me with a troubled look of distrust. On the instant I would fall miserably to taking count of myself. "Here are you," I would object to myself, "a bookish student of a mean stature and a dilatory mind. You have faced no weapon more deadly than a b.u.t.toned foil, and you would compel a man of great strength and indubitable cunning to a mortal encounter in the privacy of his own house, that is, supposing you are not previously done to death by his serfs, which is most like to happen." Then would my courage, a very ricketty bantling, make weak protest: "You faced a blunderbuss and a volley of slugs, and you were not afraid." "But," I would answer hotly, "you did not face them, you were running away. Besides, you had called your a.s.sailant a potatoe, and therefore had already a contempt for him. This time it is you who will be the potatoe, as you will most surely discover when Count Lukstein spits you on his skewer;" and so I would get me wretchedly to bed.

There were, indeed, but two thoughts which served to console me. In the first place, I was sensible that I had acquired some dexterity with the foils, and if I could but imagine a b.u.t.ton on the point of the Count's sword I might hope to hold my own. In the second, I remembered very clearly a remark of Julian's. "The man's a coward," he had said, and I hugged the sentence to my breast. I repeated the words, indeed, until they fell into the cadence of a rhythm and lost all meaning and comfort for me, sounding hollow, like the tapping of an empty nut.

Of what Larke suffered during that period I had no suspicion, but from subsequent hints I gather that his distress, though based upon far other grounds, was no whit inferior to my own. His behaviour, indeed, when I came to consider it, revealed to me new and amiable aspects of his character; for while he firmly disbelieved in my ability to captain an expedition, he never once pestered me for an explanation. I had entrusted the purse to his care, and at each town he made the arrangements for our stay, looked after the welfare of our horses, and in short, took modestly upon himself the troublesome conduct of our travels. Knowing nothing of my purpose but its danger, and distrustful of its achievement, he yet rode patiently forward, humming ever a French song, of which the refrain ran, I remember:

Que toutes joies et toutes honneurs Viennent d'armes et d'amours.

For he possessed that delicate gift of sympathy which keeps the friend silent when the acquaintance multiplies his questions.

Thus we journeyed for over a month. It was, I fancy, on the 12th November that we reached the town of Innspruck, the weather very shrewd and bitter, for snow had fallen in great quant.i.ties, and a cutting wind blew from the hills. That night I told my companion of our destination, but disclosed no more of the business than that I had a private message for Count Lukstein's ear, which must needs be delivered secretly if we were to save our lives. We stayed here for two days that we might rest our horses, and early on the 14th set off for Glurns, which lay some eighty miles away in a broad valley they called the Vintschgau. The snow, however, was ma.s.sed very deep, and though the road was sound, for it was the highway into Italy, we did not come up with the village until two o'clock on the third afternoon.

Beyond Glurns the road traversed the valley in a diagonal line through a dreary avenue of stunted limes, which in their naked leaflessness looked in the distance like a palisade. Into this avenue we pa.s.sed, and were well-nigh across the dale and under its northern barrier of mountains, when Larke suddenly reined up.

"'Childe Roland to the dark tower came,'" he sang out. "Heaven send there be no one to complete the quotation!"

I followed the direction of his gaze. Right ahead of us the Castle, the rock whereon it was pinnacled, and the village, huddled on a little plateau at its base, stood out from the hillside like a black stain upon the snow. A carriage-way, diverging from our road a hundred yards farther on, ran up towards it in long zigzags, and to this point we advanced.

"Look!" suddenly cried Larke. "We are not the first to visit the worthy Count to-day."

From both directions carriages or sledges had turned into this track, so that the snow at its entrance was trampled by the hoofs of horses, and cut by intersecting curves.

"'Tis not certain," I said, "that the marks were made to-day."

"It is," he replied, "else would the ruts have frozen."

The thought that the Count had company doubled my disquiet. For there was the less chance of finding him alone, and I was anxious to have done with the matter.

The first angle made by the zigzags was thickly covered with a boskage of pines. Into this we led our horses, and fastening them in the heart of it where the trees were most dense, we crept towards the west corner. At this point the track bent back upon itself and mounted eastwards to the border of the village, turned again, threading the houses at the bottom of the cliff, struck up thence at a right angle in a clear, open stretch beneath the west face of the rock, and finally curved round at the back to the gates. For the entrance to the Castle fronted the hillside and not the valley.

I took my Horace from my pocket, and in an instant the diagram became intelligible to me. The long curving line represented the road, and the way of ascent, marked by the cross, was to be found on the western wall of rock, and above the open stretch of road. Of this we now commanded an unimpeded view, for the corner of the road at which we stood was situate to the west of the Castle.

"I see it!" I exclaimed, and I handed the book to Larke.

"So this is the secret of the poet's fascination," he answered. "But I see no path. The cliff is as smooth as an egg-sh.e.l.l, save for that one projecting rib."

"That is the path," I replied.

A shoulder of rock with a ribbon of snow upon its ridge jutted out from the summit of the cliff, and descended in an unbroken line to the road.

"'Tis impossible to ascend that," said he. "We should break our necks for a surety or ever we were half-way up."

"It shows steeper than it is," I answered. "We are not well-placed for judging of its incline; for that we should see it in profile. But where snow lies, there a man may climb."

Jack raised no further objection; but ever and again I noticed him gazing at me with a puzzled expression upon his face. We crouched down in the undergrowth until such time as the night should fall, blowing on our fingers and pressing close against each other for warmth's sake. But 'twas of little use; my body tingled with cold, and I began to think my muscles would be frozen stiff, before the darkness gave us leave to move. The valley, moreover, looked singularly mournful and desolate in its shroud of white. As far as the eye could travel not a living thing could be seen, nor could the ear detect a sound. The region brooded in a sinister silence. I verily believe that I should have loosed my horse and fled but for the presence of my companion.

Jack, however, was in no higher spirits than myself, and from the continual glances of his eyes I think that he was infected with a wholesome fear of the rib of rock. At last the dusk fell; the lights began to twinkle in the village and in the upper windows of the Castle. For a wall, broken here and there by round turrets, circled about the edge of the cliff and hid the lower storey from our sight.

We looked to the priming of our pistols, buckled our swords tighter about the waist, shook the snow from our cloaks, and cautiously stepped out on to the path. At the edge of the village we stopped.

'Twas but one street; but that very narrow and busy. Not a moment pa.s.sed but a door opened, and a panel of orange light was thrown across the gloom, and the figures of men and women were seen pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing. The village was astir and humming like a hive. But there was no other way. For on our right rose the tooth of rock in a sheer scarp; on our left the ground broke steeply away at the backs of the houses.

"We must make a dash for it," said Larke. We waited until the street cleared for a moment, and then ran between the houses as fast as our legs would carry us. The snow deadened the sound of our feet, and we were well-nigh through the village when Larke tripped over a hillock and stumbled forward on his face with a curse. The next instant I dropped down beside him, and covering his mouth with my hand, forced him p.r.o.ne to the ground. For barely twenty feet ahead a door had suddenly opened, and a man dressed in the jacket and short breeches of the Tyroler came out on to the path. He stood with his back towards us and exchanged some jest with the inmates of the house, and I recognised his voice. I had heard it no more than once, it is true, but the occasion had fixed the sound of it for ever in my memories. It was the voice of the spy who had tracked us in the streets of Bristol.

He turned towards the door, so that the light streamed full upon his face, shouted a "G.o.d be with you," and strode off in the direction of the Castle. The sight of him left me no room for doubt. That he had outstripped us caused me, indeed, little surprise, for we had travelled by a devious way, and had, moreover, delayed here and there upon the road.

Larke commenced to sputter and cough.

"Quiet!" I whispered, for the man was yet within hearing.

"Loose your hand, then!" he returned. "Tis easy enough to say quiet, but 'tis not so easy to choke quietly."