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The Shoes of Fortune

Page 35

by Neil Munro


  CHAPTER XXXVIII

  THUROT'S PRISONER. MY FRIEND THE WATCH

  It was plain from the first that my overhearing of the plot must compelThurot to the step he took. He was not unkind, but so much depended onthe absolute secrecy of the things he had talked to the Prince, that,even at the unpleasant cost of trepanning me, he must keep me fromcarrying my new-got information elsewhere. For that reason he refused toaccede to my request for a few minutes' conversation with the priest ormy fellow-countrymen. The most ordinary prudence, he insisted, demandedthat he should keep me in a sort of isolation until it was too late toconvey a warning across the Channel.

  It was for these reasons I was taken that Sabbath afternoon to thefrigate that was destined to be in a humble sense his flagship, and waslying in the harbour with none of her crew as yet on board. I was givena cabin; books were furnished to cheer my incarceration, for it wasno less. I was to all intents and purposes a prisoner, though enjoyingagain some of the privileges of the _salle d'epreuves_ for the sake ofold acquaintance.

  All that day I planned escape. Thurot came to the cabin and smoked andconversed pleasantly, but found me so abstracted that he could scarcelyfail to think I meant a counter-sap.

  "Be tranquil, my Paul," he advised; "Clancarty and I will make your lifeon ship-board as little irksome as possible, but it is your own cursedluck that you must make up your mind to a fortnight of it."

  But that was considerably longer than I was ready to think of withequanimity. What I wished for was an immediate freedom and a ship toEngland, and while he talked I reviewed a dozen methods of escape. Herewas I with a secret worth a vast deal to the British Government; if Icould do my country that service of putting her into possession of itin time to prevent catastrophe, might I not, without presumption, expectsome clemency from her laws for the crime I had committed in thehot blood of ignorant and untutored youth? I saw the most cheerfulpossibilities rise out of that accident that had made me an eavesdropperin Thurot's lodging--freedom, my family perhaps restored to me, my namepartly re-established; but the red shoes that set me on wrong roads tostart with still kept me on them. Thurot was an amiable enough gaoler,but not his best wine nor his wittiest stories might make me forget byhow trivial a chance I had lost my opportunity.

  We were joined in the afternoon by Lord Clancarty.

  "What, lad!" cried his lordship, pomaded and scented beyond words;fresh, as he told us, from the pursuit of a lady whose wealth wasshortly to patch up his broken fortunes. "What, lad! Here's a prettymatter! Pressed, egad! A renegade against his will! 'Tis the most cursedluck, Captain Thurot, and wilt compel the poor young gentleman to cutthe throats of his own countrymen?"

  "I? Faith, not I!" said Thurot. "I press none but filthy Swedes. M.Greig has my word for it that twelve hours before we weigh anchor he maytake his leave of us. _Je le veux bien_."

  "Bah! 'Tis an impolite corsair this. As for me I should be inconsolableto lose M. Greig to such a dull country as this England. Here's anOccasion, M. le Capitaine, for pledging his health in a bottle, andwishing him well out of his troubles."

  "You do not stand sufficiently on your dignity, Clancarty," laughedThurot. "Here's the enemy--"

  "Dignity! pooh!" said his lordship. "To stand on that I should need ayear's practice first on the tight-rope. There's that about an Irishgentleman that makes the posturings and proprieties and pretences ofthe fashionable world unnecessary. Sure, race will show in his faceand action if he stood alone in his shirt-sleeves on a village commonjuggling balls. I am of the oldest blood that springs in Irish kings.'Tis that knowledge keeps my heart up when circumstances make the worldlook rotten like a cheese. But the curst thing is one cannot for everbe drinking and dining off a pedigree, and here I am deserted by M.Tete-de-mouche----"

  Thurot put up his hand to check one of these disloyalties to thePretender that I had long since learned were common with Lord Clancarty.

  "Bah!" cried his lordship. "I love you, Tony, and all the other boys,but your Prince is a madman--a sotted madman tied to the petticoat tailsof a trollope. This Walkinshaw--saving your presence, Paul Greig, forshe's your countrywoman and by way of being your friend, I hear--hasruined Charles and the Cause. We have done what we could to make himsend madame back to the place she came from, but he'll do nothing of thekind. 'She has stuck by me through thick and thin, and lost all for me,and now I shall stick by her,' says foolish Master Sentiment."

  "Bravo!" cried Thurot. "'Tis these things make us love the Prince andhave faith in his ultimate success."

  "You were ever the hopeful ass, Tony," said his lordship coolly. "_Ilriest pire sourd que celui qui ne veut pas entendre_, and you must shutyour ears against a tale that all the world is shouting at the pitch ofits voice. Who knows better than Tony Thurot how his Royal Highness hasdeclined? Why! 'tis manifest in the fellow's nose; I declare he drinkslike a fish--another vice he brought back from your mountain land, M.Greig, along with Miss Walkinshaw----"

  "There is far too much of Miss Walkinshaw about your lordship'sremarks," I cried in an uncontrollable heat that the lady should be thesubject of implications so unkind.

  He stared, and then kissed his hand to me with laughter and a bow, "Ha!"he cried, "here's another young gentleman of sentiment. Stap me if I saya word against the lady for your sake, Andy Greig's nephew." And back hewent to his bottle.

  In this light fashion we spent a day that by rights should have beenmore profitably and soberly occupied. The frigate lay well out from thequays from which Thurot had conveyed me with none of the indignitiesthat might be expected by a prisoner. There was, as I have said, none ofher crew on board save a watch of two men. Beside her quarter there hunga small smuggling cutter that had been captured some days previously. AsI sat in the cabin, yawning at the hinder-end over Clancarty's sallies,I could hear now and then the soft thudding of the smuggler's craftagainst the fenders as the sea rocked us lightly, and it put a mad fancyinto my head.

  How good it would be, I thought, to be free on board such a vessel andspeeding before a light wind to Britain! Was it wholly impossible? Thenotion so possessed me that I took an occasion to go on deck and see howthings lay.

  The smuggler's boat had her mast stepped, but no sails in her. Over thebulwark of the frigate leaned one of the watch idly looking at sea-gullsthat cried like bairns upon the smuggler's thwarts and gunnels. He wasa tarry Dutchman (by his build and colour); I fancy that at the time henever suspected I was a prisoner, for he saluted me with deference.

  The harbour was emptier than usual of shipping. Dusk was falling on thetown; some lights were twinkling wanly and bells rang in the cordageof the quays. I asked the seaman if he knew where the hoy _Vrijster_ ofHelvoetsluys lay.

  At that his face brightened and he promptly pointed to her yellow hullon the opposite side of the harbour.

  "Did my honour know Captain Breuer?" he asked, in crabbed French.

  My honour was very pleased to confess that he did, though in truth myacquaintance with the skipper who had taken us round from Helvoetsluyswent scarcely further than sufficed me to recall his name.

  The best sailor ever canted ship! my Dutchman assured me withenthusiasm. How often have I heard the self-same sentiment frommariners? for there is something jovial and kind in the seaman's mannerthat makes him ever fond of the free, the brave and competent of his owncalling, and ready to cry their merits round the rolling world.

  A good seaman certainly!--I agreed heartily, though the man might havebeen merely middling for all I knew of him.

  He would like nothing better than to have an hour with Captain Breuer,said Mynheer.

  "And I, too," said I quickly. "But for Captain Thurot's pressing desirethat I should spend the evening here I should be in Breuer's cabin now.Next to being with him there I would reckon the privilege of having himhere."

  There might be very little difficulty about that if my honour waswilling, said Mynheer. They were old shipmates; had sailed the ZuyderSea together, and drunken in a score of ports. Dea
rly indeed would helove to have some discourse with Breuer. But to take leave from thefrigate and cross to the hoy--no! Captain Thurot would not care for himto do that.

  "Why not have Breuer come to the frigate?" I asked, with my heartbeating fast.

  "Why, indeed?" repeated Mynheer with a laugh. "A hail across the harbourwould not fetch him."

  "Then go for him," said I, my heart beating faster than ever lest heshould have some suspicion of my condition and desires.

  He reminded me that he had no excuse to leave the frigate, though totake the small boat at the stern and row over to the hoy would mean buta minute or two.

  "Well, as for excuses," said I, "that's easily arranged, for I can giveyou one to carry a note to the care of the captain, and you may take itat your leisure."

  At his leisure! He would take it at once and thankfully while wegentlemen were drinking below, for there was no pleasure under heaven hecould compare with half an hour of good Jan Breuer's company.

  Without betraying my eagerness to avail myself of such an unlooked-foropportunity, I deliberately wrote a note in English intimating that Iwas a prisoner on the frigate and in pressing humour to get out ofher at the earliest moment. I addressed it to Kilbride, judging theHighlander more likely than Father Hamilton to take rational steps formy release if that were within the bounds of possibility.

  I assured the seaman that if he lost no time in taking it over I wouldengage his absence would never be noticed, and he agreed to indicate tome by a whistle when he returned.

  With a cheerful assurance that he would have Jan Breuer on this deck inless than twenty minutes the seaman loosed the painter of the smallboat and set forth upon his errand, while I returned to the cabin whereThurot and Clancarty still talked the most contrary and absurd politicsover their wine. The vast and tangled scheme of French intrigue was setbefore me; at another time it might have been of the most fascinatinginterest, but on this particular occasion I could not subdue my mind tomatters so comparatively trivial, while I kept my hearing strained forthe evidence that the Dutchman had accomplished his mission and gotback.

  The moments passed; the interest flagged; Clancarty began to yawn andThurot grew silent. It was manifest that the sooner my Dutchman was backto his ship the better for my plan. Then it was I showed the brightestinterest in affairs that an hour earlier failed to engage a second of myattention, and I discovered for the entertainment of my gaoler andhis friend a hitherto unsuspected store of reminiscence about my UncleAndrew and a fund of joke and anecdote whereof neither of them probablyhad thought me capable.

  But all was useless. The signal that the Dutchman had returned was notmade when Lord Clancarty rose to his feet and intimated his intentionthere and then of going ashore, though his manner suggested that itwould have been easy to induce him to wait longer. We went on deck withhim. The night was banked with clouds though a full moon was due; only afew stars shone in the spaces of the zenith; our vessel was in darknessexcept where a lamp swung at the bow.

  "_Mon Dieu!_ Tony, what a pitchy night! I'd liefer be safe ashore thanrisking my life getting there in your cockle-shell," said Clancarty.

  "'Art all right, Lord Clancarty," said Thurot. "Here's a man will rowyou to the quay in two breaths, and you'll be snug in bed before M.Greig and I have finished our prayers." Then he cried along the deck forthe seaman.

  I felt that all was lost now the fellow's absence was to be discovered.

  What was my astonishment to hear an answering call, and see theDutchman's figure a blotch upon the blackness of the after-deck.

  "Bring round the small boat and take Lord Clancarty ashore," said thecaptain, and the seaman hastened to do so. He sprang into the smallboat, released her rope, and brought her round.

  "_A demain_, dear Paul," cried his lordship with a hiccough. "It's curstunkind of Tony Thurot not to let you ashore on parole or permit me towait with you."

  The boat dropped off into the darkness of the harbour, her oars thuddingon the thole-pins.

  "There goes a decent fellow though something of a fool," said Thurot."'Tis his kind have made so many enterprises like our own have anineffectual end. And now you must excuse me, M. Greig, if I lock youinto your cabin. There are too few of us on board to let you have therun of the vessel."

  He put a friendly hand upon the shoulder I shrugged with chagrin at thisconclusion to an unfortunate day.

  "Sorry, M. Greig, sorry," he said humorously. "_Qui commence mal finitmal_, and I wish to heaven you had begun the day by finding AntoineThurot at home, in which case we had been in a happier relationshipto-night."

 

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