The Courtship of Morrice Buckler Part 7

He glanced sharply up and down the lane, and went on:

"We have been together over-long as it is." Then he tapped with his foot for a moment on the pavement. "I have it," said he. "Go to the 'Thatched House Tavern,' in Lime Kiln Lane. I will seek you there.

Wait for me; and, mind this, let no one else have talk with you! Tell the people of the house I sent you--Mr. Joseph Vincott. It will commend you to their care."

With that he turned on his heel, ran up to the opening of the street, and after a cautious look this side and that, strolled carelessly away. I gave him a few moments' grace, and then hurried with all despatch to the tavern, asking my direction as I went. There I ordered a private room, and planting myself at the window, waited impatiently for Vincott's coming.

It must have been an hour afterwards that I saw him turn into the lane from a pa.s.sage almost opposite to where I stood. I expected him to cross the road, but he cast not so much as a glance towards the inn, and walked slowly past on the further side. I flung up the window, thinking that he had forgotten his errand, and leaned out to call him.

But or ever I could speak he banged his stick angrily on the ground, raised it with a quick jerk and pointed twice over his shoulder behind him. The movement was full of significance, and I drew back into the shadow of the curtain. Mr. Vincott mounted the steps of a house, knocked at the door, and was admitted. No sooner had he entered than a man stepped out from the pa.s.sage. He was of a large, heavy build, and yet, as I surmised from the litheness of his walk, very close-knit.

His face was swarthy and bronzed, and he wore ear-rings in his ears. I should have taken him for an English sailor but that there was a singular compactness in his bearing, and his gait was that of a man perfectly balanced. For awhile he stood loitering at the entrance to the pa.s.sage, and then noticing the inn, crossed quickly over and pa.s.sed through the door beneath me.

My senses were now strained into activity, and I watched with a quivering eagerness for the end of this strange game of hide-and-seek.

I had not long to wait. The little lawyer came down the steps, stopped at the bottom, took a pinch of snuff with great deliberation, and blowing his nose with unnecessary noise and vehemence, walked down the street. He had nearly reached the end of it before his pursuer lounged out of the inn and strolled in the same direction. The moment Vincott turned the corner, however, he lengthened his stride; I saw him pause at the last house and peep round the angle, draw back for a few seconds, and then follow stealthily on the trail.

The incident reawakened all my perplexed conjectures as to the business on which I was engaged. Why should the fact of my arrival in the town be so studiously concealed? Or again, what reason could there be for any one to suspect or fear it? The questions circled through my mind in an endless repet.i.tion. There was but one man who could answer them, and he lay helpless in his cell, adding to the torture of his last hours the belief that his friend had played him false. The thought stung me like Ino's gadfly. I paced up and down the room with my eyes ever on the street for Vincott's return. My heart rose on each sound of a nearing step, only to sink giddily with its dying reverberation. The daylight fell, a fog rolled up from the river in billows of white smoke, and still Vincott did not come. The very clock by the chimney seemed to tick off the seconds faster and faster until I began to fancy that the sounds would catch one another and run by in one continuous note. At last I heard a quick pattering noise of feet on the pavement below, and Vincott dashed up the stairs and burst into the room.

"I have shaken the rascal off," he gasped, falling into a chair; "but curse me if it's lawyer's work. We live too sedentary a life to go dragging herrings across a scent with any profit to our bodies."

"Then we can go," said I, taking my hat. But he struck it from my hands with his cane.

"And you!" he blazed out at me. "You must poke your stupid yellow head out of the window as if you wanted all Bristol to notice it! Sit down!"

"Mr. Vincott!" I exclaimed angrily.

"Mr. Buckler!" he returned, mimicking my tone, and pulling a grimace.

There was indeed no dignity about the man. "It may not have escaped your perceptions that I have some desire to conceal your visit to this town. Would it be too much to ask you to believe that there are reasons for that desire?"

He spoke with a mocking politeness, and waited for me to answer him.

"I suppose there are," I replied; "but I am in the dark as to their nature."

"The chief of them," said he, "is your own security."

"I will risk that," said I, stooping for my hat. "'Tis not worth the suffering which it costs Julian."

"Dear, dear!" he gibed. "Tis strange that so much heart should tarry so long. Let me see! It must be full eight days since Swasfield came to you at Leyden." And he struck my hat once more out of my grasp.

"Mr. Vincott," said I--and my voice trembled as I spoke--"if you have a mind to quarrel with me, I will endeavour to gratify you at a more seasonable time. But I cannot wrangle over the body of my friend. I came hither with all the speed that G.o.d vouchsafed me." And I informed him of my journey, and the hindrances which had beset my path.

"Well, well," he said, when I had done, "I perceive that my thoughts have done you some injustice. And, after all, I am not sure but what your late coming is for the best. It has caused your friend no small anxiety, I admit. But against that we may set a gain of greater secrecy."

He picked up my hat from the floor, and placed it on the table.

"So," he continued, "you will pardon my roughness, but I have formed some affection for Sir Julian. 'Tis an unbusinesslike quality, and I trust to be well ashamed of it in a week's time. At the present, however, it angered me against you." He held out his hand with a genuine cordiality, and we made our peace.

"Now," said he, "the gist of the matter is this. It is all-essential that you be not observed and marked as a visitor to Sir Julian.

Therefore 'twere best to wait until it is quite dark; and meanwhile we must think of some disguise."

"A disguise?" I exclaimed.

"Yes," said he. "You must have noticed from that window that there are others awake beside ourselves."

I stood silent for a moment, reluctantly considering a plan which had just flashed into my head. Vincott drew a flint and steel from his pocket, and lighted the candles--for the dusk was filling the room--and drew the curtains close. All at once the dizzy faintness which had come over me in the side-street near the Guildhall returned, and set the room spinning about me. I clutched at a chair to save myself from falling. Vincott s.n.a.t.c.hed up a candle, and looked shrewdly into my face.

"When did you dine?" he asked.

"At breakfast-time," said I.

He opened the door, and rang a bell which stood on a side-table.

"Lucy!" he bawled over the bannisters.

A great buxom wench with a cheery face answered the summons, and he bade her cook what meats they had with all celerity.

"Meantime," said he, "we will while away the interval over a posset of Bristol milk. You have never tasted that, Mr. Buckler? I would that I could say the same. I envy you the pleasure of your first acquaintance with its merit."

The "milk," as he termed it, was a strong brewage of Spanish wine, singularly luxurious and palatable. Mr. Vincott held up his gla.s.s to the light, and the liquid sparkled like a clear ruby.

"'Tis a generous drink," he said. "It gives nimbleness to the body, wealth to the blood, and lightness to the heart. The true Promethean fire!" And he drained the gla.s.s, and smacked his lips.

"That is a fine strapping wench," said I. "She must be of my height, or thereabouts."

The lawyer c.o.c.ked his head at me. "Ah!" said he drily, "a wonderful thing is Bristol milk."

But I was thinking of something totally different.

The girl fetched in a stew of beef, steaming hot, and we sat down to it, though indeed I had little inclination for the meal.

"Now, Mr. Vincott," said I, "I will pray you, while we are eating, to help me to the history of Julian's calamities." I think that my voice broke somewhat on the word, for he laid his hand gently upon my arm.

"I know nothing of it myself beyond what you have told me, and a rumour that came to me in London."

The lawyer sat silent for a time, drumming with his fingers on the table.

"Your story," I urged, "will save much valuable time when I visit Julian."

"I was thinking," he replied, "how much I should tell you. You see, merely the facts are known to me. Of what lies underneath them--I mean the motives and pa.s.sions which have ordered their sequence--I may have surmised something" (here his eyes twinkled cunningly), "but I have no cert.i.tude. That part of the business concerns you, not me. 'Twere best, then, that I show you no more than the plain face of the matter."

He pushed away his plate, leaned both arms upon the table, and, with a certain wariness in his manner, told me the following tale:

"In the spring of the year, Miss Enid Marston fell sick at Court. The air of St. James's is hardly the best tonic for invalids, and she came with her uncle and guardian to the family house at Bristol to recruit.

Sir Julian Harnwood must, of course, follow her; and, in order that he may enjoy her company without encroaching upon her hospitality, he hires him a house in the suburbs, upon Brandon Hill. One night, during the second week of August, came two fugitives from Sedgemoor to his door. Sir Julian had some knowledge of the men, and the story of their sufferings so worked upon his pity that he promised to shelter them until such time as he could discover means of conveying them out of the country. To that end he hid them in one of his cellars, brought their food with his own hands, and generally used such precautions as he thought must avert suspicion. But on the morning of the 10th September he was arrested, his house searched, and the rebels discovered. The rest you know. Sir Julian was tried this afternoon with the two fugitives, and pays the penalty to-morrow. 'Tis the only result that could have been looked for. His best friends despaired from the outset--even Miss Marston."

"I had not thought of her," I broke in. "Poor girl!"

"Poor girl!" he repeated, gazing intently at the ceiling. "She was indeed so put back in her health, that her physician advised her instant removal to a less afflicting neighbourhood."

As he ended, he glanced sideways at me from under half-closed lids; but I chanced to be watching him, and our eyes crossed. It seemed to me that he coloured slightly, and sent his gaze travelling idly about the room, anywhere, in short, but in my direction, the while he hummed the refrain of a song.

"You mean she has deserted Julian?" I exclaimed.