Chapter XVII In the Dusk
Katrinka—Filial—Fine Feathers—A Practical Joke—Up a Tree—A Trap—In Waiting—The Last Minute—A Bolt from the Blue—Ad Misericordiam—A Theory—With Thanks
Harry had for some time been itching for an opportunity of active service in his new calling. Garrison life, with its drilling and exercising, was all very well, and he had much to learn; but the business of a soldier was to fight, and he was eager to take his share in the campaign, on the issue of which so many important interests depended. His chance came at last, and though the result was too tame for his active spirit, he felt that it was at least a beginning.
At the end of the first week in September his regiment received orders to join a corps forming under General Brulau to begin the investment of Limburg, a little hill-town south-east of Breda. On the 10th the force of twenty-four squadrons encamped before the town, cutting off all access, and occupying the approaches and the lower town without resistance. Some ten days later the Duke of Marlborough arrived with his main force; batteries played night and day on the upper town, and made so wide a breach that orders were given for a grand assault. At this point, however, the French commander, seeing the futility of resistance and the hopelessness of relief from the outside, beat a parley, and in less than twenty-four hours agreed to surrender. On the 28th the garrison of 1400 men laid down their arms and marched out. The duke, having taken possession of the place, announced that the campaign was closed, and the army would at once go into winter quarters. Harry therefore returned to Breda without having drawn his sword, and had to reconcile himself to the thought of a long winter of inaction.
One morning a messenger came to him from Mynheer Grootz, bearing a present of tea and Japanese ware from the merchant to Madame de Vaudrey, part of a cargo from the east which had eluded the French warships and privateers that scoured the narrow seas. Since the incident of Polignac’s discomfiture at Lindendaal, Grootz had been assiduous in paying little attentions of this kind to the ladies, and often sought Harry’s aid in conveying his presents. Harry was somewhat amused at this amiable side of his former employer’s character; Grootz was not on the surface a likely squire of dames. No doubt, Harry thought, he was anxious about the welfare of the ladies in their solitary position, with no master of the house, but only a number of faithful though not too intelligent servants. He was nothing loth to be the medium through whom these gifts reached Madame de Vaudrey, and he found that Fanshawe was always very ready to accompany him on these and other occasions.
It happened that on this day Harry was on duty, and saw no opportunity of getting away until the evening. Having been absent from Breda for nearly three weeks, he was anxious to learn how things were at Lindendaal. The proximity of Polignac always gave him some uneasiness, and though that gentleman’s hold on the ladies had been effectually snapped, Harry felt by no means sure that he would accept his rebuffs as final. He therefore sent for Sherebiah, and ordered him to ride over with Mynheer Grootz’s parcel. Sherebiah’s eagerness to set off amused his master.
“You want to see Katrinka—is that it?” he said.
“Well, sir, her do have a good hand at griddle-cakes, and I ha’n’t tasted ne’er a one for three weeks.”
“’Tis cupboard love, eh, Sherry?”
“The truth on’t is, Master Harry, I be a-thinken o’ old gaffer at home. He’s had a deal of trouble wi’ maids and housekeepers; can’t get ne’er a one to cook his bacon to his mind, and besides has a sweet tooth for griddle-cakes. Katrinka be a rare buxom wench; not a beauty, sure, though handsome is as handsome doos; and when I found out her tidy ways and light hand wi’ the kickshawses—well, says I, she be the right maid to keep old feyther o’ mine above-ground for another ten year.”
“Oh! and have you put the matter to Katrinka?”
“There’s the rub, sir. Her be in the main willen, but there’s a worm in th’ apple. The truth on’t is, sir, her have high notions.”
“Indeed! She wants to be something better than a nurse-cook, eh?”
“Not zackly that, sir; her notions be husband high, sir; her won’t make griddle-cakes for feyther o’ mine not unless her be his darter, which is a backward way o’ sayen, marry me.”
“That’s terrible, Sherry.”
“It med be wuss, Master Harry. I ha’n’t no fears myself, but ’tis old feyther I be thinken on. ‘Ee see, I’m his boy; though I be forty-five by nature, to his old aged life I be but a younker yet; and I be afeard he’d think me a forrard youth did I venture a word about marryen.”
Harry laughed outright.
“Take my advice, Sherry,” he said. “If Katrinka’s a good girl, get the knot tied; we sha’n’t be home again for a year at least; you can break it gently to the old man, and sing the praises of your wife in respect of bacon and girdle-cakes and other housewifely virtues.”
“Thank ’ee, sir; and ’ee won’t mind if I be a bit late back, ’cos ’twill take a good time to talk over all that wi’ Katrinka; her be terrible slow wi’ her mind, sir.”
“All right! Get along; and you may give her a kiss from me. ’Tis the chubby one, isn’t it?”
“True, sir; a apple face, wi’ a dimple in the chin, and eyes as blue as her chiney, and hair this side o’ red, and——”
“There, there. You’re in a bad way, Sherry; go and get it over, man.”
Not long after Sherebiah’s departure, Fanshawe came in.
“What do you think?” shouted Harry. “That old oddity Sherry is in love with Katrinka, one of the maids at Lindendaal, but was afraid to pop the question lest his father thought him too young. He has gone over to Lindendaal to-day; I fancy ’twill be a settled thing by the time he returns.”
“Oh!” Fanshawe appeared somewhat constrained. “The fact is, Harry, I am riding to Lindendaal myself, and I came to see—to ask—that is, have you any message for the ladies?”
“No; as it happens, Sherry is taking them a parcel from Mynheer Grootz.—You’ve got a new coat, surely?”
“Ay; you see my old one was faded; things bleach soon in this country——”
“And a new hat, I declare!”
“The old one was too vexatious shabby. Then you have no message?”
“No; Sherry conveys my regards. You’ll have his company back; I suppose you will be rather late, and ’twill be no bad thing to have a companion; there have been one or two robberies by night on the Helmund road.”
Until the evening Harry was fully occupied. The regimental riding-master had begged his assistance in training a number of recruits, and, since example is better than precept, he had been for several hours on horseback, showing the Dutch youths the manage of their steeds. When this was finished he had a turn at the foils with the quarter-master, who had taken a fancy to him, and was wont to declare him one of the best swordsmen in the army. After his evening meal he felt he should like to stretch his legs, and, guessing that Fanshawe and Sherebiah would soon be on the way home, decided to walk out and meet them. It was a fine still evening, the road was dry, and a spin of a couple of miles, as far as a big chestnut-tree that marked the limit of the Sunday promenaders, would pleasantly end the day.
The sun was going down as he left the walls of Breda behind him, throwing a long shadow on the road. He did not hurry his pace, but ambled easily along, musing as a walker will, and paying little heed to things around him. His thoughts were bright and clear, for he was in the pink of physical health, and he felt that Providence was very good to him. It was just a year ago that his father had died, and all the prospect looked black. How strangely things had turned out! The very event that had seemed to fling a pall over his life had really proved the entrance to the career nearest to his heart. He was already impatient for the winter to be over; surely with the next spring the war would be prosecuted more vigorously, and the Dutch authorities would not hang like a drag upon the wheels of Marlborough’s plans! He was ambitious, as every young officer must be, to distinguish himself; and in his ambition there was a spice of amour propre; he felt that he should dearly like to prove to the great duke himself that he would have done no discredit to his sponsor if his commission had been an English one. But a Dutch cornet, he thought, would have little chance of coming under Marlborough’s personal notice; and, after all, what did it matter? Duty was duty, wherever and for whomsoever it was done.
Thus weaving a chain of imaginings, he came to the big solitary tree before he was aware of it. He halted; Fanshawe and Sherebiah were not in sight; the dusk was thickening, and he did not care to walk farther; yet, having come so far, he was loth to go back without them. Surely they could not be long now! Opposite the tree there was a gate into a field. He climbed on to that, and sat with his feet tucked below one of its bars, intending to wait their arrival. From his higher position he now descried two figures in the distance; in another moment he saw that they were horsemen. “Here they are at last!” he thought.
A whimsical idea flashed into his head. They would not expect to see him; he felt sportive, the boyish instinct for fun asserting itself. What if he could surprise the two—dart out on them unawares and make them jump? The tree opposite overhung the road for several yards, its foliage was still fairly thick, for the season had been mild; the autumn frosts and gales had not yet begun; and it would provide ample shelter. He sprang off the gate, ran across the road, leapt the ditch at the side, scaled the trunk with an agility bred of long practice in Wiltshire, and was soon hidden among the leaves, some fourteen feet above the road. He filled his pocket with burrs he found still clinging to the branches, laughing inwardly as he pictured Fanshawe’s consternation when he should receive one of those prickly missiles on his head.
Soon he heard the measured beat of the approaching horses. Peering between the leaves, he was disappointed to notice that the riders were not Fanshawe and Sherebiah after all. One of them, a bulky man, had a familiar appearance, the other was masked; but in the first Harry recognized Captain Aglionby, and the second in figure and bearing unmistakably recalled Monsieur de Polignac. Harry wondered what was the meaning of the mask; knowing his men, he had little doubt that some villainy was afoot. His wonder gave way to uneasiness when he found that, instead of passing the tree, they dismounted and stood exactly beneath him. They opened the gate on which he had been seated a few minutes before, and led their horses through into the field, along the stone dike at the edge, and at some distance from the gate, as Harry could just see in the gathering darkness, secured them to the wall, after some difficulty in finding anything to hitch them to. Then they returned to the road, talking in low tones, and looking expectantly up and down.
“‘Sdeath!” muttered Aglionby, “what has become of them?”
“Raté encore une fois?” sneered Polignac, inferring the other’s meaning from his tone.
“Parbleu!” growled Aglionby, adding in French: “They ought to have been here a quarter of an hour ago. They cannot be long now.”
Harry’s curiosity was growing. The two men were clearly expecting somebody; for a moment he wondered whether Aglionby was meditating another attempt on Sherebiah, but it could hardly be that, for the captain had looked towards Breda as he spoke, not in the other direction. He listened with all his ears.
“They may as well stay away altogether if the others are here before them. We are only ten minutes ahead.”
“Nearer twenty, if you believe me. They were riding slowly when we saw them—a mile behind; and we saved several minutes by the short cut through the wood. There is time yet.”
As he spoke, three figures could be dimly seen coming along the road from the direction of Breda. Aglionby and his friend at once shrank back behind the dike, but after a moment’s scrutiny, being apparently satisfied, came out again and stood waiting by the side of the road. The three men approaching caught sight of them and hastened their steps, to be received with curses when they reached the spot. One of the men, an Englishman, sullenly defended himself.
“It is all due to that confounded church clock. It has never gone right since Mr. Fanshawe tampered with it. But we are in time, Captain.”
“No thanks to you,” growled Aglionby. “Where is the rope?”
One of the other men opened a sack he carried, and produced a stout rope some thirty feet long.
“Take one end,” said Aglionby, “and fix it to the gatepost; at the top, fool, not the bottom. You, Simmons, take the other end and loop it once round the tree. And quickly, do you hear?”
While the men were obeying his order, Aglionby put on a mask, not, as in Polignac’s case, as a precaution against recognition by the hirelings, but by the victims.
By this time Harry’s uneasiness had become real alarm. Motionless in the tree, he durst not rustle the leaves to make a peep-hole; he could only judge of what was going on below by the words he heard. It was clear that a carefully planned attack was to be made upon someone; he could not doubt that the someone was Sherebiah; both Polignac and the captain had heavy scores to pay off. Fanshawe would be involved in the same peril. His notion of playing a trick was forgotten; there was serious work for him to do.
“Let the rope lie on the road,” he heard Aglionby say, “and you men remain at the tree ready to raise it and draw it taut at my signal.”
Harry saw through the scheme in a flash. The rope was to be pulled taut across the road to stop the progress of the horsemen, and in the confusion the victim was doubtless to be attacked, every advantage being on the side of the ambuscaders. And at this moment his ears distinguished the faint distant beat of hoofs on the road.
“Captain,” said one of the men, “what if I were to climb the tree and pick them off from above?”
Crouching against the stem Harry felt his heart-beats quicken. The suggestion if promptly acted on would be fatal to the project he had already formed to turn the tables upon the unsuspecting party beneath.
There was a moment’s pause. Then another voice in low tones interjected:
“I hear horses on the road.”
“No,” interposed Polignac, replying rapidly to the man’s proposal. “We must have two men at the rope if they are riding abreast; that leaves only three when we stop them; it is easy to miss in this dark night, and they are both ready with their weapons. Remember, there must be no noise; one volley, then cold steel, lest we have the Breda garrison upon us.”
Harry wore his sword, and had with him the pistol without which he never stirred abroad. He had been rapidly deciding upon his course. If he was to be of any use, he must warn his friends before they came within range of the ambuscade; yet he durst not fire too soon, for the only result would be to bring them up at a gallop, and they would then almost certainly fall victims. Now that almost complete darkness had fallen, he ventured to make an opening in the foliage and to peer cautiously down.
He saw Aglionby and Polignac on the other side of the road crouching behind the gate-posts. Two men had concealed themselves behind the tree’s thick trunk, holding the slack end of the rope; the third waited near them, pistol in hand. Though Harry could not see weapons in the hands of Polignac and Aglionby, he had no doubt that they too had pistols, ready to be used as soon as the riders were brought to a stand-still. On the side overhanging the road, the tree had been lopped of one or two lower branches, but a fairly thick bough ran out on the other side just above the man holding the pistol. Quickly, for time pressed, yet with great caution in order to avoid the slightest noise, Harry crept from his perch over the road, sliding backward down the branch until he reached the trunk. Then, holding his sword lest it clinked against the tree, he straightened himself and turned round, steadying himself with his free hand. One careful step brought him to the fork of the horizontal stem and the parent trunk. He heard the hoof-beats coming very near; the riders could be but a few hundred yards away; fortunately the growing sound was loud enough to drown the slight rustle he could not avoid; and besides, the men below were too much preoccupied with their stratagem to have wits for anything but their advancing victims.
Harry’s feet were now wedged somewhat awkwardly; he felt by no means secure, and was for an instant perplexed how to dispose of his sword, for in drawing his pistol with the right hand he would need the left to maintain his equilibrium. He hit on a solution. Grasping the lower part of the scabbard with his knees he prevented it from rattling against the tree trunk; then, resting on his left hand, he bent over to get as clear a view as the circumstances afforded of the man immediately beneath. For a second he hesitated. It went against the grain to fire at the unsuspecting wretch; but the sound of the hoof-beats now certainly within musket-shot banished his hesitation and clinched his resolve. It was life against life: the lives of Fanshawe and Sherebiah against those of the villains ambushing them. Taking careful aim he fired. The cry of the wounded man was smothered by his own shout:
“Stop, Fanshawe! Jump the ditch and make for the tree!”
Without waiting to learn the result of his warning, he sprang round, heedless now of what noise he made, and, swinging by a branch to his right, dropped to the ground just behind the two other men, who had let go of the rope in their alarm and were transfixed with terror and amazement, staring into the black depths of the tree above them. One of them faced round as he heard the thud of Harry’s descent. Without pausing to draw his sword Harry hurled himself at the man, hit out at him with all his strength, and felled him to the ground. The other, the first moment of paralysis past, whipped out a pistol and snapped it before Harry had time to recover himself. It missed fire; Harry closed with the man. There was a brief, sharp struggle; in the midst came Sherebiah’s voice:
“Where bist, sir, where bist?”
“Here; by the tree; get a grip of this knave!”
At the sound of Sherebiah’s voice Harry felt his opponent’s efforts relax; the man tried to free himself; but Sherebiah had ridden his horse up to the tree, and bending low from the saddle to distinguish between the combatants, he brought the butt of his pistol down on the man’s head. He fell without a groan.
Now Fanshawe dashed up. His horse had slipped at the ditch, thus giving Sherebiah a slight start.
“Two men on the other side of the road,” panted Harry. “Follow me!”
Springing across the ditch he gained the other side of the road, and vaulted the gate. Fanshawe and Sherebiah had to dismount to follow him, for the road was too narrow to allow of their leaping the gate. Aglionby and his companion had not waited; discovering that their plan had failed, they had hurried away towards their horses. But they had not gone far. Harry heard a noise ahead; there was a chance of overtaking them before they gained their saddles. He dashed on over the stubble, and soon descried a broad figure lumbering along; from its stertorous breathing he guessed it to be Aglionby, an opinion confirmed immediately by the mingled oaths and entreaties which the captain sent after Polignac, who being lighter of foot had far outstripped his fellow-conspirator. Hearing Harry’s step just behind him, Aglionby at length halted, swung round, and fired his pistol. But hard running and breathlessness flurried him and spoilt his aim; the ball whistled harmlessly past. So impetuous had been Harry in pursuit that he had had no time to draw his sword. He struck out at Aglionby, who only half warded the blow, staggering backward and endeavouring to parry this lively attack. Seeing his opportunity, Harry closed and tripped the big man up with a favourite fall taught him by Sherebiah; and Fanshawe coming up with Sherebiah at this moment, Aglionby was secured in a trice.
“That cursed coward!” he spluttered, as they led him back to the road. “Odsnigs! I’ll be even with him for this.”
“Nay,” said Sherebiah, who had him grimly by the collar, “’ee’ll never be even wi’ un, Rafe Aglionby. Your carcass’ll need a longer rope.”
“’Tis all a mistake, coz, on my honour,” pleaded the captain.
“Don’t ’ee coz me, I disown ’ee. I’ll see a villain hung; and that’ll be no mistake.”
“Leave him to me, Sherry,” said Harry, “and go and see to the man we hit.”
A short examination proved that the man Harry had shot was less seriously wounded than he who had fallen to Sherebiah’s pistol-butt. The third man whom Harry had knocked down had escaped in the darkness. The other two, injured as they were, were unable to walk, so Harry had them hoisted on to the horses, where they were held up by Fanshawe and Sherebiah. With Aglionby in his own keeping Harry led the march to Breda. On arriving there, all three prisoners were handed over to the Dutch authorities, and Harry asked Fanshawe to his rooms to talk over this adventure of the road.
“Faith,” said Fanshawe, when Harry had explained his presence on the spot, “’twas a mercy you had the thought to walk out. But it passes my understanding why that fellow Aglionby should have been minded to waylay me.”
“’Twas not you, ’twas Sherry that was the intended victim. I told you of the neat way he bundled the captain out of Madame de Vaudrey’s house; that was only one of several affronts the bully has had to suffer. And I rather suspect that you were mistaken for me.”
“How so?”
“’Twas part of the scheme of old Berkeley’s to get rid of me; of that I am sure. And the other fellow, the Frenchman, must be pretty sore at his two discomfitures.”
“You will, of course, inform against him.”
“’Twould be little use, I fear. He was masked; I knew him only by his voice, and my testimony would not suffice to convict him on that ground alone.”
“Did Aglionby say nothing as you walked into the town?”
“Nothing. I plied him with questions, but he held an obstinate silence; scarce opened his mouth except to say ’twas all a mistake.”
“I am not sure you are right. Don’t you think it may have been the Frenchman’s plan—to get rid of me?”
“Why of you?”
“Well, you told me he is a suitor for Mademoiselle’s hand——”
“What then?”
“He may have looked on me as a rival.”
“Come, that’s a good joke. You’ve known Mademoiselle for little better than a month.”
“Ah! One can see you’re young, Harry, and fancy free; I wish I were. But your Monsieur de Polignac might have spared his pains.”
“You’re talking in riddles, Fanshawe; speak plain English, man.”
“Well, ’twas true.”
“What was true?”
“She wouldn’t have me.”
Harry stared in puzzlement. Then a light dawned, and he smiled.
“You don’t mean to say you’ve been on your knees to Mademoiselle Adèle?”
“Indeed I have! By George, Harry! isn’t she a splendid creature? But she wouldn’t have me: that’s all over; life isn’t worth living now: I don’t care how soon a bullet puts an end to my miserable existence.”
Fanshawe sighed lugubriously; Harry laughed.
“Poor fellow! is it so bad as that? She didn’t fall a victim to your new coat, then?”
“’Tis all very well for you to laugh. Wait till you suffer just such a rebuff.”
“Tell me what you said.”
“How do I know what I said? I only know what she said. She dropt me a curtsy, the hussy, and thanked me for the honour, and said she had no mind to a husband and would never wed, but stay with her mother. And then she opened the harpsichord and said: ‘Don’t let us be children, Monsieur. Sing me that amusing song of yours and be amiable.’ And ’pon my word, Harry, I couldn’t resist; she has a masterful way; and when her mother came in there was I trolling ‘Widdicombe Fair’ as if there’d been never a word of love betwixt us.”
“Cheer up! you were too sudden. Wait a few months and then try your luck again.”
“Never! I know she won’t look at me. And take my advice, Harry. If ever you fall in love with a girl, don’t make yourself cheap and sing cheerful songs. Egad, if I’d sung dying ditties and sighed like a furnace I might have had a different tale to tell. I’ll go to quarters; but I sha’n’t sleep; I know I sha’n’t; good-night!”