The Master of Appleby Part 65

"'Twas our trapper clapping the shutter on the window over your head,"

said I. "He was looking in to see if we were ripe for hanging."

"'Tis no time for riddles; what mean you?"

"I mean that we shall have a file of redcoats down upon us as soon as ever Mr. Owen Pengarvin can give the alarm."

"Oho!" said d.i.c.k; and then he pulled his sword from its scabbard, and I could see the battle-veins swelling in his forehead. "They can hang me when I am too dead to cut and thrust more--not sooner."

I got me up and went to find the sword which I had laid aside in the horse-baiting. 'Twas a poor blade--one of our captures at the Cowpens; and when I tried its temper it snapped in my hand.

"Never mind," said I; "give me the broadsword scabbard and I will play it as a cudgel, 'tis long enough and full heavy enough."

He laughed and clapped me on the shoulder, swearing out his love for me as if I had said something moving. "You are every inch a soldier, Jack; you would put heart into a worse craven than I am ever like to be." And he loosed the iron scabbard and gave it me.

Now ensued a most painful time of waiting and listening for the tramp of our takers. We posted us near the door, a little to the side, so that its inswing might not catch us; and so, bracing for the onset, we waited till the strain of suspense grew so great that we both started like frighted children, when finally the key was thrust into the lock and the bolt shot back.

But when the heavy door gave inward, as at the pus.h.i.+ng of a weak or timid hand, we saw our dear lady standing in the half gloom of the ante-dungeon, breathless and trembling with excitement.

"Come!" she panted; "come quickly--there is not an instant to spare.

The factor has betrayed you; he will be here directly with the dragoons!"

I cut in swiftly. "He has not seen d.i.c.k; does he know we are both here?"

She had one hand on her heart to still its tumultuous beating, and the other held behind her, and she could scarce speak more for her eagerness to have us out and away.

"No; it was you he saw; and my father heard Colonel Tarleton give the order. Lieutenant Tybee is to take a file of his troopers and hang without grace the man he will find hiding in the wine cellar; those were his very words. Oh, merciful heaven! will you never stir?"

Richard gave a low whistle.

"So Tybee has come alive in good time to square the old account with us," he would say; but my wonder was greater on the other head. "Your father?" I gasped. "And he sent you to save me?"

"Surely," she said. "Are you not once again his guest, Captain Ireton?"

Then she stamped her foot, and though the candle-light was of the poorest, I could see her eyes flash. "Will you squander the last moment in silly questions?" she burst out. "Come, I say!"

I smiled. "Give me that sword you are hiding behind you and I will keep the door whilst you spirit d.i.c.k away. He is not to be in this."

She gave me the weapon, though not, as I made sure, in any consenting to my proposal. I could have cried out in sheer joy when I found the sword to be my own good blade of proof--the ancient Ferara willed me by my father.

Sharp as the crisis was, I make no doubt I should have asked her then and there how she came by the blade I had last seen when my Lord Cornwallis tried to break it over his knee; but the march of events suddenly became too swift for me. There was a sound of cautious footsteps in the inclined pa.s.sage leading from the butler's pantry above, and our chance for escape that way was gone.

"Too late!" said d.i.c.k; and with an arm about Margery he whipped behind the great oaken door opened back against the cellar wall, whispering me to follow.

We were scarce in hiding, with the door well drawn back to screen us, when the cautious footsteps came slowly into the out-cellar. Peeping through the crack behind the door we saw Pengarvin--alone.

What brought him there without his tale of armed men at his back no man will ever know; but since his ways were always crooked and devious, I guessed he would not wish to appear in the matter in his own proper person, and yet could not deny himself a 'forehand peep to see if the trap were still safe shut and secure.

'Twas evident he was much disconcerted at finding the door open and the wine vault apparently empty. At first he would start and dodge as if to run away; then his rage got the better of his caution and he had one of those senseless cursing fits I have before told you of, raving and swearing and promising all manner of fiendish recompense to Mistress Margery when he should have her in his power.

A little longer dwelling upon this variation of the cursing theme--ravings in which d.i.c.k learned for the first time of the factor's design to marry my widow and the estate--and I do think the lad would have gone out to make him sing another tune. But now the factor left off suddenly to c.o.c.k his ear and listen, and afterward to come tiptoeing into the cellar, all eyes to spy and legs to run if a mouse should but squeak at him.

He was muttering to himself as he pa.s.sed our hiding place.

"By all the devils, he must be here, some gait. The little jade would have warned him if she had known; but it is known only to the doddering old miser and me, and the girl is safe in her bed-room. Happen this devil of an Austrian captain has drunken himself sodden; ah, that would be a rare jest--to wake with the rope around his neck! If those cursed, slow-footed dragoons would but come! Damme! I'll have that bull-necked lieutenant cas.h.i.+ered if his high and mighty loitering balks me in this."

He stopped before the wine cask whereon the flickering candle stood and craned his neck to look beyond it. The candle was guttering smokily, and he reached a shaking thumb and finger to pluck the "dead man" from the wick. At that we heard him muttering again.

"'Twas a play to make the very devil envious; and to have it marred by that pig of a lieutenant! No one knew me in it save the legion colonel, and could we have sprung the trap fair and softly, not even Mistress Margery herself could have laid this swashbuckler's death at my door.

But now he's gone--vanished like a straw bailee, and all because that d.a.m.ned understrapper of Colonel Tarleton's must needs turn up his nose at a bit of sheriff's work. Curse him!"

The candle was burning brightly now, and he crept catlike around the cask to peer into the bin beyond it. Just then the shutter to the little window of espial fell open with a shrill creaking of its rusty hinges, and a blue glare of lightning came to p.r.i.c.k out every nook and corner of the cellar. Being almost within a blade's length of the factor, I saw him plainly; saw him start back and put his hands to his face and drop down all of a tremble on the bin's edge, where I had been sitting when he discovered me.

To second the flash a prolonged drum-roll of thunder dinned upon the still air of the vault, and mingled with the thunder came other flashes, searing the eye and making the candle flame appear as a sickly orange halo in the blue-white glare. What with the play of the storm artillery we could neither see nor hear for the moment; but when the candle-light came to its own again the scene had changed as if by magic. Under cover of the thunder din a squad of dragoons had come to ring the factor in where he sat upon the edge of the wine bin.

"So-ho!" said my good friend Tybee, with a little strident laugh, "'tis you I am to take out and hang, is it, Master Lawyer? I thought mayhap you'd double on your track once too often, and so it seems you have. Up with you and come along."

All in a flash Pengarvin was up and bursting out in a trembling frenzy-fit of protestation.

"Oh, 'tis all a mistake, my good sir--a devil's own trap! I--I am not the man; I pledge you my sacred word! I--hands off, you cursed villains, or I'll have the law on you!" this last when one of the men cast the noose of a rope over his head whilst a second drew his arms to his sides in the looping of another cord. "By G.o.d! you shall all smart for this; all, I say! Take me to Colonel Tarleton. The king has no stancher friend in all the province than I. Why, damme,'twas I who--"

A trooper came behind and gagged him with the loose end of the rope; and Tybee held the candle to light the knotting of it. And so they marched him out, with Tybee muttering between his teeth that it was rat-catcher's work, and no soldier's, this killing of vermin, and bidding his men make haste.

L

HOW RICHARD COVERDALE'S DEBT WAS PAID

For some breathless moments after we three were left alone in the Stygian darkness of the wine cellar, no word was spoken. The rolling of the thunder drum was m.u.f.fled now, as it were booming out the dirge of the man who had digged a pit and had himself fallen therein; and the lightning flashes coming at longer intervals served but to intensify the gloom they lit up for the instant.

It was a minced oath from Richard that first broke the spell that bound us.

"'Twas too much for Madge," said he, "she has fainted. Swing the door, and light another candle."

I did both as quickly as might be, and we bedded her on the floor, stripping our coats to soften the stone flagging for her and trying by all the means known to two unskilled soldier leeches to bring her to.

"Water!" said d.i.c.k; but when we had laved her face with that, and with wine as well, without effect, we were well dismayed, I do a.s.sure you.

For all our efforts she lay as one dead; and neither of us could be cold enough to pry her lips apart to play the drenching doctor with the wine.

"Lord!" cried d.i.c.k, the sweat standing out upon his face in great drops; "this is terrible! What shall we do?"

"Jeanne will know what to do," I a.s.serted. "We must get her out of this and up to her chamber."

Richard started to his feet and stooped to gather the dear body of her in his arms. But in the act he paused and straightened himself to look fixedly at me.

"Do you take her, Jack; she is--she is--your wife."