Chapter III Master and Man
A Midnight Summons—A Warm Reception—Righteous Indignation—Aglionby Retorts—The Berkeley Arms—A Village Sensation—The Constable’s Story—Aspersions—Unimpeachable References—Waylaid—Squaring Accounts—The Captain Rides Away
The clock of St. Mary’s church had just chimed the first quarter after midnight, and the deep note of the lowest bell was dying away over the tree-tops, when the sound was intercepted by the distant clink and clatter of iron-shod hoofs on the hard road, approaching from the direction of Salisbury. The horse’s pace was slow, and there was something in the fall of the hoofs that betokened a jaded steed. It was a clear calm night; the air carried every sound distinctly; and nothing broke the stillness save the footfalls of the horse, an occasional murmur from the birds in the trees, and the whirr of wings as a solitary owl, disturbed by the nocturnal rider, left its search for food and rustled back to its nook in the tower.
The horseman came presently to the church, wheeled round to the right, and urged his flagging beast along the road leading to the manor house. Arriving at the park, he flung himself from the saddle, hitched the bridle over his left arm, and turned the handle of the massive iron gate. But there was no yielding to his push: the gate was locked. The man shook and rattled the handle impatiently, to assure himself that he was not mistaken, then turned aside with an inarticulate rumble of anger, and went to the lodge, a low ivy-grown cottage abutting on the road. He tapped on the small latticed window with the butt of his riding-whip; there was no reply. The horse by his side hung its head and breathed heavily; it was jaded to the point of exhaustion. Again he rapped on the glass, growling between his teeth; and when his summons still met with no response he dealt so smart a blow that one of the thick square panes fell in with a crash. A moment later a voice was heard from within.
“Away wi’ ’ee! Who be you, a-breaken an honest man’s rest at this fearsome time o’ night?”
A night-capped head appeared at the hole, just visible in the faint illumination of the clear summer sky.
“Open the gate, Dick,” said the rider impatiently. “Ods my life, will you keep me waiting here, will you?”
“Be it you, Cap’n?”
“Zounds, man, must I tell you my name? Ha’ ye never seen me before! Stir your old stumps, or by the lord Harry——”
“Squire give orders t’ gate were to be locked and kep’ locked; not a man to come in, not a soul. They’s my orders, ay sure, Cap’n.”
“Orders! orders!” cried the other in a burst of passion. “Adslidikins, if you’re not at the gate with the key inside of two minutes I’ll put a slug through your jolt head, you mumper, you miching rogue you!”
And indeed Captain Aglionby displayed a monstrous blunderbuss, and pointed it full in the face of the scared lodge-keeper. For an instant the man hesitated; then, muttering to himself, he disappeared from the window, and soon afterwards emerged from the side door within the palings, his night-gown showing beneath a heavy driving coat. He came towards the gate with the key—a bent old man, tottering and mumbling.
“I shall lose my place; Squire give orders, a’ did, not a soul to come in; to drag a aged man from his nat’ral sleep an’ lose him his place an’ all; well, I was forced; no man can zay as I warn’t forced; mumper as I be, I vallies my little bit o’ life, and——”
“Hold your tongue, you old flap-eared dotard, and make haste, or I’ll pink your soul. Don’t you see the jade’s dead-beat; ’tis time I stabled her.”
The man turned the key and slowly opened the gate. With a grunt the captain led his horse through, and, without so much as a glance at the lodge-keeper, proceeded up the quarter-mile drive leading to the house.
“Old Nick’s not abed,” he said to himself as he cast his eye over the house front. A light shone from a window in the turret over the porch. “The old nightbird! Lock me out! Oons!”
He threw the bridle over an iron post at the side of the entrance, and walked round a projecting wing of the building till he came to a small door in the wall. He turned the iron ring, pushed, rattled; the door was fast shut. Cursing under his breath, he was proceeding towards the servants’ quarters when he heard the creak of a key turning, and, wheeling round, came to the postern just as it was opened by Squire Berkeley himself, his tall, lean, bent figure enwrapped from neck to heel in a black cassock-like garment, a skull-cap of black velvet covering his head. He held a lighted candle; his piercing eyes flashed in the darkness.
“Hey, Squire!” cried the captain in a tone of forced good-humour, “I had much ado to rouse old Dick. ’Tis late to be sure; but if you’ll give me the key of the stables I’ll settle Jenny for the night and get to bed.”
He made as if to enter, but Mr. Berkeley spread himself across the narrow doorway.
“Who are you, sirrah,” he said, “to break into my park against my express orders?”
There was contempt in his cold incisive tones, and anger with difficulty curbed.
“Why now——” Aglionby began.
“Who are you, I say? And what am I, that my orders are defied, and my house made a common inn, a toping house for you and your toss-pot ruffians? Go—go, I say!”
The captain was for a moment staggered; the old man’s manner left no room for doubt that he was in earnest. But Aglionby was too old a campaigner to cry off so easily. In a tone half-conciliatory, half-aggrieved he said—
“Fair and softly, Squire! this is but scurvy treatment of a tired man. Look you, I’ve been in the saddle this livelong day; the mare’s well-nigh foundered; and for myself—gads so, I could eat an ox and drink a hogshead. To-morrow, in a few hours, I’ll bid ye good-bye—for a time, if ye want a change; but to-night—no, Squire, ’tis not hospitable of you, ’tis not indeed.”
“You dally with me!” cried the squire, the hand that held the candle shaking with passion. “You set no foot within this door—now, nor ever again. Begone, while there is time.”
“While there is time! Look ye, Master Berkeley, I will not brook insults from you. Yesterday you must put an affront on me in the presence of my lord Godolphin, shoving me out of the way as I were a leper, and at the very moment, stap me! when I might ha’ paid court to his lordship, and got the chance o’ my life. Adsbud, I was not good enough to approach my lord, to accost him, have speech with him——”
“An omission you have since repaired,” interjected the old man with a meaning look. The captain started, and there was a perceptible interval before he resumed, in a tone still more blusterous—
“Ods my life, what mean you now? You took care I should not meet my lord in your company; and, i’ faith, he showed he wanted none of that neither.”
“Hold your peace and begone!” cried the squire in a fury. “You think I know nothing of your villainies? How many times have I harboured you—ay, saved you perchance from the gallows! How many times have you eat my food, rid my horses, browbeat my servants, roistered it in my house, till I could bear with you no longer, and then betaken yourself to your evil practices abroad, consorted with villains, run your neck well-nigh into the hangman’s noose, and then come back with contrite face and vows of amendment, to fawn and bluster and bully again? Out upon you! Your rapscallion of a servant is even now laid by the heels, and to-morrow will have to answer to the charge of waylaying the Lord Treasurer. He’s a white-livered oaf, and his tongue will wag, and you’ll companion him before Fanshawe, and you’ll swing on the same gibbet.”
At the mention of his man’s plight the captain’s face had fallen; but when Mr. Berkeley’s tirade was ended he broke into a laugh.
“Ha! ha! Squire, now I come to understand you. ’Tis your own skin you have a care for! Ha! ha! I might have known it. I am to be haled before Sir Godfrey, am I? and to hold my tongue, am I? and to be mum about certain little affairs in the life of Master Nicolas Berkeley—that paragon of virtue, that pampered, patched old interloper, am I? By the lord Harry, if I stand in manacles before Sir Godfrey, you shall bear me company, you painted pasteboard of a saint!”
Berkeley’s pale face blanched with fury. For a moment he was incapable of speech. Then he stepped forward a pace; the hand holding the candle shook so, that the grease sputtered upon his gown. His voice came in vehement passionate whispers:
“You threaten me! Do your worst—I defy you!—Back to your wallow, bully!—begone!”
He suddenly withdrew within the doorway, slammed the door, and bolted it.
“Whew!” whistled the captain, left standing outside. “’Tis the worst passion ever I saw him in. Defies me! Well, Master Nicolas, would I could afford to take you at your word! A plague on Simmons! I thought he was dead. He’ll split, sure enough, and there’s an end of Ralph Aglionby. Jenny, my dear, you’re a sorry jade, but you’ll have to bear my carcase till we’re out of harm’s way. We have five or six hours before the world’s astir. Do your best, my girl, and we’ll cheat ’em yet.”
Captain Aglionby led his tired steed down the drive to the gate, roused Dick the lodge-keeper with scant ceremony, and in a few minutes was riding slowly towards the village. As he came into the principal street, he was surprised to notice that the only inn was lit up, a most unusual circumstance at that time of night. The door stood open, and there were lights in several of the rooms on the ground floor. A feeling of apprehension seized upon him; he could not but connect these lively signs with the events of the morning, and especially with the capture of his man. Could the fellow have blabbed already? He was just making up his mind to spur the mare past the inn, over the bridge, on to the London road, when two persons came to the door and caught sight of him. One was Mistress Joplady, the buxom hostess; the other William Nokes, the village constable. It was too late to evade them: indeed he heard the hostess exclaim, “Well, I never! ’tis the Cap’n hisself, sure.” Resolving like a wise man to make the best of it, he rode up to the door, dismounted, and, swaggering, with his usual air of assurance said:
“Egad, mistress, I’m glad to find you afoot. My mare’s dead-beat, has carried me nigh forty miles this day; send Tom ostler to stable her, like a good soul; and give me a bite and a bed. I didn’t care about disturbing the squire at this time o’ night.”
The captain was no favourite with good Mistress Joplady, but she received him now with something more than her usual urbanity.
“Come away in, Cap’n Aglionby,” she said. “Sure your name was in our very mouths. Strange things be doing—ay, strange things in Winton Simmary; bean’t it so, William Nokes? Take the cap’n into the parlour, William; a few souls be there, Cap’n, not fit company for the likes o’ you, to be sure, but they’ll tell ’ee summat as’ll stir your blood, they will so. Tom’ll see to Jenny, so be easy.”
Captain Aglionby followed the constable into the parlour, where a group of the village worthies were assembled. They were neither smoking nor drinking, a sure sign that they had something momentous to talk about. A silence fell upon the company as the captain clanked into the room, and one or two of the more active-minded of them threw a quick glance at each other, which the new-comer did not fail to note.
“A fine night, men,” said the captain jovially.
“Ay, ’tis so.”
“And a late hour to find the Berkeley Arms open.”
“Ay, ’tis latish, sure enough.”
“Any news from the army in Flanders? A post from London, eh?”
“Nay, not ’zackly that.”
“Odzooks! speak up, men,” cried the captain impatiently. “Why are they all mumble-chopped to-night, mistress?” he asked, turning to the hostess, who had followed him with bread and cheese and beer.
“Ah, they be pondering strange things,” returned Mrs. Joplady. “Tell the cap’n all the long story, William Nokes.”
The constable, fingering the hat in his hand, looked for sympathy into the stolid faces of his fellows, cleared his throat, and began:
“Cap’n, your sarvant. Eight o’clock this mornin’, or mebbe nine—’twixt eight and nine, if the truth was told—comes Long Tom from the Grange, Sir Godfrey’s man, as ye med know, Cap’n. Says he to me, ‘Constable,’ says he, ‘Sir Godfrey commands ’ee as a justice o’ the peace to bring your staff and irons and other engines,’ says he, ‘up along to Grange, wi’out remorse or delay, and arrest a prisoner in the Queen’s name.’ You may think what a turn it gi’ me, souls, so early in the mornin’. ‘Be he voilent?’ says I. ‘Can I arrest the villain all alone by myself?’ ‘Ay sure,’ says he; ‘there’s no knowin’ what a tough job ’twould be an he were sound and hearty, but he’s dazed, so he be, wi’ a crack in the nob, and won’t give no trouble to no mortal constable, not a bit,’ says he. ‘A crack in the nob,’ says he; didn’t he, souls?”
A murmur of assent came from the group.
“So I ups and goos wi’ Long Tom hotfoot to the Grange, and Tom he tells me by the way the longs and shorts on’t. Seems ’twas Sherry Minshull as cracked his nob, leastways he picked un up, he and young master pa’son betwixt ’em, an’ hoisted him on a cart o’ Farmer Leake’s, an’ so carried un to Grange and laid un afore Sir Godfrey. ’Twas highway robbery, Cap’n, a-took in the very act, a-stoppen the carriage o’ the high lard as come this way yesterday, or day afore, as ’ee med say, seein’ ’tis mornin’ now by the rights on’t. And Sir Godfrey commits un, he do, dazed as he were wi’ the crack in the nob, and hands un over to the law, and says, ‘Constable,’ says he, ‘keep the knave fast in the lock-up, an’ hold un till I gets word from my Lard Godolphin in Lun’on.’ They be his words, Cap’n.”
“Well, well, cut your story short, man. Adsheart, ye’ve more words than matter.”
“Ay, but wait to th’ end, wait to th’ end,” put in a voice.
“The end of a rope ’twill be, and not for one neither,” added another.
The constable looked a little uncomfortable.
“So I had un fast in the lock-up, Cap’n,” he went on, “and ’twas the talk o’ the village all day long. Squire himself heard on’t, and down he come, so he do, and bein’ hisself a justice o’ the peace he goos into the lock-up and zees the man, and axes un questions, not for my ears, me bein’ a constable; nay, I stood guard at the door; and when Squire coom out he says to me, ‘Constable,’ says he, ‘keep a good guard on un; he deserves hangen, ay, and his mates too.’ Never seed I Squire so mad-like; ’twas ’cos it was a lard, maybe, and on his own ground, as ’ee med say.”
“Ay, and nearer nor that,” said a voice.
The captain put down the tankard from which he was quaffing, and glared round the faces. They were blank as the wall behind them.
“And now what’ll he say?” pursued the constable. “He were mad afore, ay sure; now he’ll ramp and roar worse nor the lion beast at Salisbury Fair. Ye med not believe it, Cap’n, but ’tis true for all that; the godless villain ha’ dared Squire an’ Sir Godfrey an’ me an’ all; ha’ broke his bonds an’ stole away, like a thief i’ the night, as the Book says.”
“What!” cried the captain, leaning forward and thumping the table. “Escaped, has he?”
“A’ has so, like a eel off the hook.”
“Ha! ha! Stap me! eels are slippery things. But ’tis a rub for you, master constable. You’ll lose your place, i’ faith, you will.”
“Why now, it be no sin o’ mine. I left un snug in lock-up, I did, door double-locked and bar up, an’ went to take my forty winks like a honest poor man; an’ no sooner my back turned than out skips the pris’ner, like Simon Peter in the story. There be witchcraft in’t, an’ that ’ee ought to know, Cap’n, seein’ as the villain be your own sarvant.”
“Eh, fellow?”
“Sakes alive, I thowt as ’ee knowed that all the time! Sure ’twas John Simmons, your honour’s own body-slave, so to speak. An’ I was main glad to see ’ee, Cap’n, ’cause now ’ee know un for what he is, ’ee’ll help me to cotch un, in the Queen’s name.”
“Knows where he be, I’ll be bound,” said one of the group in a low tone. The captain sprang from his chair, ran round the table, and, before the speaker could defend himself, he caught him by the throat and hurled him to the floor.
“Zounds, loon!” he cried in a passion, “what do you mean? Will you affront me, eh? will you mouth your cursed insults to my very face? Odzooks, I’ll slit your weazand, hound, and any man of you that dares a hint o’ the sort, so ’ware all!”
The men looked abashed and uncomfortable; the hostess was pale with apprehension, and the constable edged away from the irate captain. His burst of passion over, he turned to Mrs. Joplady and spoke in quieter tones.
“I brook no insolence, mistress. I don’t answer for my servant’s deeds behind my back. I’ve been away all day, as poor Jenny will bear me witness; was I to know my fool of a servant would play highwayman in my absence? ’Tis a useful fellow, civil, too, beyond most; I picked him up in London; he was in truth commended to me by no less than his grace the Duke of Ormond, who tapped me on the shoulder in the Piazza at Covent Garden, and said, ‘Aglionby, my bawcock, you want a servant; I know the very man for you!’ Could I suspect a man after that? How he got mixed up in this business beats me. And as for helping master constable to repair his carelessness—adsbud, ’tis not likely. The man in truth is no longer servant of mine. I am on my way to serve the Queen in Flanders, and this very day arranged with my friend Sir Rupert Verney to take the fellow off my hands. You may hang him, for me!”
“There now, Sam,” said the hostess, turning to the man who had been felled, and was now at the door glowering; “your tongue runs away wi’ ’ee. Beg the cap’n’s pardon, and don’t go for to make a ninny o’ yourself.”
“Never mind, my good woman,” said Aglionby loftily. “The yokel knows no better. Now, I’m tired out; give me a bed, good soul, for I must away at sunrise—and egad, ’tis past one o’clock! Good-night to ’ee, men; and I hope Sir Godfrey will forgive you, constable.”
He went from the room, and soon afterwards the hostess bade the villagers get to their beds, and closed the inn for the short remnant of the night.
Before seven o’clock next morning the captain was on horseback. The ground was wet; it had been drizzling for several hours, but a misty sun was now struggling up the sky, and Tom ostler foretold a fine day. The captain rode off, answering with a bold stare the suspicious and lowering glances of the few villagers who were on the spot. He was in high spirits; the anxieties of the past night were gone; and as he rode he hummed a careless tune. He had ridden but little more than a mile when, from an intersecting lane, a man stepped out and gripped the horse’s reins.
“Get off that there horse!” he said bluntly.
“Gads so, Sherry, you gave me quite a turn,” said the captain with unusual mildness. “Don’t hinder me, man; I’m off to Flanders, and, i’ faith, that’s where you ought to be yourself, if all was known. Come, what’s the meaning o’t?”
“Get off that there horse!” repeated Sherebiah. “I’m a man o’ peace, I be, and I settles all scores prompt.”
There was a look of determination in his eyes, and in his right hand he grasped a knobby cudgel.
“Right! but we’ve no accounts to settle.—What!” he cried, as he saw Sherebiah’s cudgel raised, “you play the bully, eh? Gadzooks, I’ll ferk ye if——”
He was drawing his sword, but the cudgel fell with a resounding whack upon his knuckles, and with a cry of pain he scrambled to the ground and stood, a picture of sullen rage, before his intercepter.
“I’ll thank ’ee for your pistols,” said Sherebiah, removing them from the holsters as he spoke. “Nay, don’t finger your sword; I be a man o’ peace, and you know my play with the quarterstaff. Jenny, old girl, crop your fill by the roadside while I have a reckonen wi’ Cap’n Aglionby.” He laid a curious stress upon the title. “Now, Ralph, you be comen wi’ me into wood yonder. ’Tis there we’ll settle our score.”
Seizing the captain with his left hand, he led him down the lane, through a gap in the hedge, into a thin copse of larches, until he came to a narrow glade. Aglionby assumed an air of jocular resignation; but that he was ill at ease was proved by the restless glances he gave Sherebiah out of the corner of his eye.
“Off wi’ your coat!” said Sherebiah, having reached the centre of the glade. “Off wi’t! I be gwine to pound ’ee; you can defend yourself, but you’m gwine to be pounded whether or no.”
“Confound you, man, what have I done to you? Why the——”
“Off wi’t, off wi’t! Least said soonest mended. Great barkers be no biters, so it do seem; doff your coat, Cap’n Aglionby!”
“Well, if you will!” cried the captain, with a burst of passion. “I’ll comb your noddle, I’ll trounce you, for an insolent canting runagate booby!”
He flung his coat on the wet grass; Sherebiah laid down the cudgel and followed his example.
“Come on, Cap’n Aglionby!” he said. “’Tis not, as ’ee med say, a job to my liken, trouncen a big grown man like you; but ’t ha’ got to be done, for your good and my own peace o’ mind. So the sooner ’tis over the better.”
To a casual onlooker the two would have seemed very unequally matched. The captain stood at least a head taller than his opponent, and was broad in proportion. But he was puffy and bloated; Sherebiah, on the other hand, though thick-set, was hard and agile.
As if anxious to finish an uncongenial task with the least delay, he forced matters from the start. The captain had no lack of bull-dog courage, and he still possessed the remnant of great physical strength. To an ordinary opponent he would have proved even yet no mean antagonist; and when, after a few sharp exchanges, Sherebiah’s punishing strokes roused him to fury, he rained upon the smaller man a storm of blows any one of which, had it got home, might have felled an ox. But Sherebiah parried with easy skill, and continued to use his fists with mathematical precision. Once or twice he allowed the captain, now panting and puffing, to regain his wind, and when the burly warrior showed a disposition to lengthen the interval he brought him back to the business in hand with a cheery summons.
“Now, Cap’n Aglionby,” he would say, “let’s to ’t again. Come, man, ’twill soon be over!”
At last, beside himself with rage, the captain attempted to close with and throw his opponent. He could scarcely have made a more unfortunate move. For a few moments the two men swung and swayed; then Aglionby described a semicircle over Sherebiah’s shoulder, and fell with a resounding thud to the ground. Neither combatant was aware that for some time a spectator had been silently watching them. Harry Rochester, coming whistling through the trees, had halted in surprise, at the edge of the glade, as his eyes took in the scene.
“There now, ’tis over and done,” said Sherebiah, stooping to pick up his coat. “That score’s wiped off. Stand on your feet, man! And I’ll trouble ’ee for your sword.”
The captain staggered to his feet. He was in no condition to refuse the victor’s demand.
Sherebiah took the weapon and broke it across his knee. From his own pocket he then took the captain’s pistols. He carefully drew their charges, and handed them back.
“Now, hie ’ee to Flanders,” he said. “You’ve done more fighten this mornin’ than you’ll ever do there. You’ll find Jenny on the road.”
The captain glared at him, and seemed about to reply. But he thought better of it, and with a vindictive glare walked slowly away.
“What’s it all about, Sherry?” said Harry, stepping forward when Aglionby had disappeared.
“Ah, that be ’ee, sir? ’Twas only a little small matter o’ difference ’twixt Cap’n Aglionby and me. We’re quits now.”
“You’ll have to get Mistress Joplady to give you a raw steak for your eye.”
“Ay sure, Cap’n did get in a hit or two,” replied Sherebiah placidly.
“I didn’t know you were such a fighter.”
Sherebiah gave him a quick look out of his uninjured eye.
“Nay, I bean’t a fighter, not me,” he said. “I’m a man o’ peace; I be so.”