One of Clive's Heroes Part 7

"The bird is flitting, Sim, that's all. He has not been home. His mother was in a rare to-do. I pacified her, told her I'd sent him to Chester to sell oats--haw, haw! He has taken some clothes and gone. But he won't go far, I trow, without seeing you, and I look to you to carry out the bargain."

"Egad, d.i.c.k, I need no persuasion. He won't go without me, I promise you that. I've a bone to pick with him myself--eh, friend Job?"

Grinsell swore a hearty oath. At this moment the silence without was broken by the sound of a trotting horse.

"Is the door bolted?" whispered Burke. "I mustn't be seen here."

"Trust me fur that," said Grinsell. "But no one will stop here at this time o' night."

But the three men stood silent, listening. The sound steadily grew louder; the horse was almost abreast of the inn; it was pa.s.sing--but no, it came to a halt; they heard a man's footsteps, and the sound of the bridle being hitched to a hook in the wall. Then there was a sharp rap at the door.

"Who's there?" cried Grinsell gruffly.

"Open the door instantly," said a loud, masterful voice.

Burke looked aghast.

"You can't let him in," he whispered.

The others exchanged glances.

"Open the door," cried the voice again. "D'you hear, Grinsell? At once!--or I ride to Drayton for the constables!"

Grinsell gave Diggle a meaning look.

"Slip out by the back door, Mr. Burke," said the innkeeper. "I'll make a noise with the bolts so that he cannot hear you."

Burke hastily departed, and Grinsell, after long, loud fumbling with the bolts, threw open the door and gave admittance to the Squire.

"Ah, you are here both," said Sir Willoughby, standing in the middle of the floor, his riding-whip in his hand. "Now, Mr.--Diggle, I think you call yourself. I'm a man of few words, as you know. I have to say this. I give you till eight o'clock to-morrow morning; if you are not gone, bag and baggage, by that time, I will issue a warrant. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly," said Diggle with his enigmatical smile.

"And one word more. Show your face again in these parts and I will have you arrested. I have spared you twice for your mother's sake. This is my last warning. Grinsell, you hear that too?"

"I hear 't," growled the man.

"Remember it, for, mark my words, you'll share his fate."

The Squire was gone.

Grinsell scowled with malignant spite; Diggle laughed softly.

"'Quanta de spe decidi!'" he said, "which in plain English, friend Job, means that we are dished--utterly, absolutely. I must go on my travels again; well, such was my intention; the only difference is, that I go with an empty purse instead of a full one. Who'd have thought the old dog would ha' been such an unconscionable time dying!"

"Gout or no gout, he's good for another ten year," growled the innkeeper.

"Well, I'll give him five. And with the boy out of the way, maybe I'll come to my own even yet. The young puppy!" At this moment Diggle's face was by no means pleasant to look upon. "Fate has always had a grudge against me, Job. In the old days, I bethink me, 'twas I that was always found out. You had many an escape."

"Till the last. But I've come out of this well." He chuckled. "To think what a fool blood makes of a man! Squire winna touch me, 'cause of you. But it must gall him; ay, it must gall him."

"Hist!" said Diggle suddenly. "There are footsteps again. Is it Burke coming back? The door's open, Job."

The innkeeper went to the door and peered into the dark. A slight figure came up at that moment--a boy, with a bundle in his hand.

"Is that you, Grinsell? Is Mr. Diggle in?"

"Come in, my friend," said Diggle, hastening to the door. "We were just talking of you. Come in; 'tis a late hour; 'si vespertinus subito'--you remember old Horace? True, we haven't a hen to baste with Falernian for you, but sure friend Job can find a wedge of Ches.h.i.+re and a mug of ale.

Come in."

And Desmond went into the inn.

CHAPTER THE SIXTH

*In which the reader becomes acquainted with William Bulger and other sailor men; and our hero as a squire of dames acquits himself with credit.*

One warm October afternoon, some ten days after the night of his visit to the _Four Alls_, Desmond was walking along the tow-path of the Thames, somewhat north of Kingston. As he came to the spot where the river bends round towards Teddington, he met a man plodding along with a rope over his shoulder, hauling a laden hoy.

"Can you tell me the way to the _Waterman's Rest_?" asked Desmond.

"Ay, that can I," replied the man without stopping. "'Tis about a quarter-mile behind me, right on waterside. And the best beer this side o' Greenwich."

Thanking him, Desmond walked on. He had not gone many yards further before there fell upon his ear, from some point ahead, the sound of several rough voices raised in chorus, trolling a tune that seemed familiar to him. As he came nearer to the singers, he distinguished the words of the song, and remembered the occasion on which he had heard them before: the evening of Clive's banquet at Market Drayton--the open window of the _Four Alls_, the voice of Marmaduke Diggle.

Sir William Norris, Masulipatam--

these were the first words he caught; and immediately afterwards the voices broke into the second verse:

Says Governor Pitt, Fort George, Madras, "I know what you are: an a.s.s, an a.s.s, An a.s.s, an a.s.s, an a.s.s, an a.s.s,"

Signed "Governor Pitt, Fort George, Madras."

And at the conclusion there was a clatter of metal upon wood, and then one voice, loud and rotund, struck up the first verse once more--

Says Billy Norris, Masulipatam--

The singer was in the middle of the stave when Desmond, rounding a privet hedge, came upon the scene. A patch of greensward, sloping up from a slipway on the riverside; a low, cosy-looking inn of red brick covered with a crimson creeper; in front of it a long deal table, and seated at the table a group of some eight or ten seamen, each with a pewter tankard before him. To the left, and somewhat in the rear of the long table, was a smaller one, at which two seamen, by their garb a cut above the others, sat opposite each other, intent on some game.

Desmond's attention was drawn towards the larger table. Rough as was the common seaman of George the Second's time, the group here collected would have been hard to match for villainous looks. One had half his teeth knocked out, another a broken nose; all bore scars and other marks of battery.

Among them, however, there was one man marked out by his general appearance and facial expression as superior to the rest. In dress he was no different from his mates; he wore the loose blouse, the pantaloons, the turned-up cloth hat of the period. But he towered above them in height; he had a very large head, with a very small squab nose, merry eyes, and a fringe of jet-black hair round cheeks and chin. When he removed his hat presently he revealed a s.h.i.+ny pink skull, rising from short wiry hair as black as his whiskers. Alone of the group, he wore no love-locks or greased pigtail. In his right hand, when Desmond first caught sight of him, he held a tankard, waving it to and fro in time with his song. He had lost his left hand and forearm, which were replaced by an iron hook projecting from a wooden socket, just visible in his loose sleeve.

He was half-way through the second stanza when he noticed Desmond standing at the angle of the hedge a few yards away. He fixed his merry eyes on the boy, and, beating time with his hook, went on with the song in stentorian tones--