Shrewsbury: A Romance

by Stanley John Weyman

  CHAPTER XXVI

  If, a few minutes before, I had thought myself the most unlucky of menand placed by that which had already happened beyond fear ormisfortune, I knew better when I saw that sight from the window; andfell back into the darkness, as if even from the road and through thepanes Ferguson's eyes must discover me. Ignorant whether the room inwhich I stood contained anything to shelter me, or barewalled must ofnecessity discover me to the first person who entered with a light, mynatural impulse, when the moment of panic passed, was to escape fromit.

  But it was not easy to do this in haste. By the time that, tremblingin every limb, I had groped my way into the passage, the key wasturning in the lock of the outer door, and I saw myself within anarm's length of capture. This so terrified me that I sprangdesperately for the staircase, but stumbled over the lowest step, andfell on my knees with a crash that seemed to shake the walls. For amoment the pain was so sharp that I could only lie where I fell; norwhen, spurred by the imminence of the danger, I had got to my feet,could I do more than crawl up the stairs and crouch down on thelanding, a little to one side, and out of eye-shot from below.

  Willingly now, in return for present safety, would I have forgivenFortune all her past buffets; for if Ferguson came up, as I thoughthim sure to come up, I was lost; since I could neither retreat withoutnoise, nor if I could, knew where to hide. In this extremity, my heartbeating so thickly that I could scarcely listen, and thought I mustchoke, I was relieved to hear Ferguson--after spending what seemed tome to be an age, striking flint and steel in the passage--go grumblinginto the lower room, whence a glimmer falling on the wall of thepassage told me that he had at last succeeded in procuring a light.

  It was no surprise to me as I sweated and cringed in my hiding-place,to learn that he was in the worst of tempers. I heard him swear--as Isupposed--at the open shutter; then, almost before I had thankedProvidence for present safety, he was out again in the passage. I madeno doubt that he was going to ascend now, and I gave myself up forlost. But instead, he stood and called "Mary! Mary! Do ye hear, youhussy? If ye are hiding above there, it will be the worse for you, yed----d baggage! Come down, d'ye hear me?"

  Surely now, I thought, getting no answer, he would come up, and myheart stood. But it seemed he called only to make sure, and notbecause he thought that she was above; for he went back into the lowerroom, and I heard him moving to and fro, and going about to light afire, the crackling of which gave an odd note of cheerfulness in thehouse. I was beginning to weigh the possibility of slipping by thehalf-open door, on the chance of finding the outer door unfastened;and with this in view, had risen to my feet, when a key again gratedin the lock, and supposing it to be Smith, I returned to my formerposition.

  Had it been Smith, it would have been some comfort to me; for Ithought him more prudent if no less dangerous than the plotter, and Ifancied that I had more to fear from one than from two. But the stepthat entered was lighter than a man's, while Ferguson's greeting toldthe rest and made the situation clear.

  "Ha, you are here at last, are you!" he cried with an angry oath. "Didyou want me to break every bone in your body, lass, that you stayedout till now, and I to have the fire to light? You should have apretty good tale to tell or have kept clear of this! D'ye hear me?Speak, you viper, and don't stand there glowering like a wood-cat!"

  "I am here now," was the answer. My heart leapt, for the voice wasMary's; the tone, sullen and weary, I could understand.

  "Here now!" he retorted. "And that is to be all, is it? Perhaps, mygirl, I will presently show you two minds about that. Where is thebaggage?"

  "It is not here."

  "Not here?" he cried.

  "No," she answered.

  "And why not, you Jezebel?"

  "You need not misname me," she answered coolly. "I was followed andcould not come here; and I could not carry it about with me all day.And I could not send it, for there was no one here to take it in. Itis at the Spread Eagle in Gracechurch Street, to go by tomorrow'swaggon to Colchester. That is what I told them, but it can be fetchedaway to-morrow."

  "If I did not think you were a big liar, girl?" he answereddoubtfully; but I knew by his tone that he believed her.

  "You may think what you like," she replied.

  "And how do you think I am to do for to-night?" he answeredquerulously.

  "You must do as you can," she said. "You have your Hollands, and Ihave brought some bread and meat."

  "It is a dog's life," he said, with a snarl.

  "It is the life you choose," she retorted sharply.

  "_Peste!_" he answered after a pause of sheer astonishment at heraudacity. "What is it to you, you slut?"

  "Why, a dog's life too! and not of my choice!" she cried passionately,her voice breaking. "What am I better, as I live, than an orange girlin the streets? What do I get, and walk the pavement on your errandsnight and day? What do I get? And always hiding and sneaking, hidingand sneaking! And for what?"

  "For your living, yon beggarly baggage!" he roared. "Who feeds you andclothes you, you graceless hussy? Who boards you and lodges you, andfinds you in meat and malt, you feckless toad? You shameless----"

  "Ay, call names!" she answered bitterly--and it was not hard todiscern that she was beside herself with the long sick waiting and thedisappointment. "It is what you are good for! It is all that yourplots end in! Call names, and you are happy! But I am tired, and tiredof it, I tell you. I am tired of bare boards and hiding, and all forwhat? For those that, when you have brought them back, you will be asfierce to oust as you are now to restore! And shameless it is you callme?" she continued with feverish rapidity. "Shameless? Have you notsent me out into the streets a hundred times, and close on midnight,and not a thought or care what would happen to me so long as yourletter went safe? Have you not sent me where to be taken was to bejailed and whipped, and not a thought of pity or what a life it wasfor a girl? Have you not done this and more?" she continued,breathless with passion. "And more? And yet you take praise forfeeding me! And call me graceless and shameless----"

  She paused and gave him room to speak, but though he put on a show ofbluster it was evident her violence alarmed him. "Odd's name, and whatis all this?" he said. "What ails the girl? What has set you up now,you vixen?"

  "You!" she cried vehemently. "You and your trade!"

  "Well," he said, with a sort of sullen reasonableness, "and what isthe matter with the trade? What is wrong with the trade, I say? I'lltell you this, my lass, you would live badly without it."

  "I would live honestly," she cried. "And as my father lived!"

  "You drab!" he cried. "Leave that alone."

  At that, and when judging from the tone of his voice I expected him tobreak out with fresh oaths and curses, there was instead anastonishing silence, which fell for me at an unlucky moment, forforgetting, in my desire to see as well as hear, the risk I ran, I hadcrept down the stairs, and now lacked but a pace of seeing into theroom. The noise ceasing, I dared neither take that step nor retreat;and it was only when the silence had continued so long that curiosityovercame fear, that I ventured the advance, and looking in, saw thatthe girl, her fire and fury gone, was leaning against the wall besidethe hearth, her face averted; while Ferguson himself, in an attitudeof dejection scarcely less marked, stood near her, his head bowed andhis blood-shot eyes fixed on the fire.

  "Ay, he lived honestly, your father," he muttered at last. "It istrue, my lass. I grant it. But he had a fair wind, had Alan, and ashort course; and if he had lived to be sixty, God knows! We are whatwe are made. I mind him well, and the burn we fished and the picklethings we took out, and your mother that played with us in her cuttysark, and not a shoe between us nor a bodle of money; but the greenhills round us, and all we knew of the world that it lay beyond them.And that was all your father ever knew, my lass. And well for him! Ay,well for him! But woe's me, and woe to the man who took my living, andwoe to the evil King!"

  His voice was beginning to rise; in
a moment he would have reached hisusual pitch of denunciation, of which even now some of his manywritings afford a pale reflection; but at the word _King_ there came asharp knocking at the door, and he paused. For me, I turned in apanic, and, heedless what noise I made, hurried up the stairs. Thesteps creaked under me, but fortunately the knocking was repeated soquickly and persistently that it covered the sound of my flight; andbefore I had more than ensconced myself in the old place, Ferguson,doubtless in obedience to some signal, was at the door and had openedit.

  Immediately half-a-dozen men poured noisily in, breathing hard andgrowling in low tones, and passed into the room below. But until theouter door was closed and secured, nothing I could catch, though fearsharpened my ears, was said. Then, as Ferguson went in after them, oneof the newcomers raised his voice in answer to a question, and criedwith a rattling oath, "What is up? What is up, old fox? Why, all isup! And we'll all swing for it before the month is over, if we cannotclear out to-night! You are a clever one, Mr. Ferguson, but you arecaught this time, with better men. God! if I had the sneak here thatpeached on us, I would cut his liver out! I would----"

  Two or three voices joined in to the same tune and drowned his words,one asking where Prendergast was, another where Porter was, a thirdindulging in threats so horrid and blasphemies so profane that Iturned cold where I crouched. I began to understand what had happened,and my situation; but that nothing might be spared me Ferguson, in aquavering voice that proved all was news to him, asked again what wasthe matter.

  "The Blues are moved," cried three or four at once. "They weremarching out when we left. The guards at Kensington are doubled, andthe orders for the King's hunting to-morrow are cancelled. They werehurrying to and fro calling the Council when we came away, andmessengers were beginning to go round the taverns."

  "And they have seized the horses at the King of Bohemia's Head," addedanother, "so they know a lot."

  "But is it--certain?" Ferguson asked, with a break in his voice.

  "Ay, as certain as that we shall hang if we do not get over!" was thebrutal answer.

  "And the Captain?"

  "I have been at his lodgings. He has not been heard of since noon. Heordered his horse then and they say took the road; and hell to it, ifthat is so, he is half way to France by this! And safe! Safe, youdevils, and we are left here caught like rats!"

  "Ay, we'll go farther than France!" one shrieked. "As for me I am off.I shall----"

  "No, by God, you don't!" cried another; and flung himself, as itseemed to me, between him and the door. "You don't go and sell therest of us, and save your own neck. You----"

  "Where is Porter?" a third struck in.

  "And Prendergast?"

  "They are not here! Nor Sir William! Nor Friend! So what is the goodof talking like that?"

  "He will make a fat hang, will Sir William!" said one, with a madlaugh that died in his throat. "It will cure his gout."

  At that, one of the others cried with furious oaths for liquor; and Ijudged that Ferguson gave them of his Hollands. But it was littleamong so many, and was gone in a moment, and they calling for more."There is a keg upstairs," said he. "In the back-room. But get it foryourselves. You have hung me. To think that I should have played thegame with such fools."

  They laughed recklessly, a savage note in their voices. "Ay, youshould have stuck to your pen, old fox," one cried. "Then it was onlythe printer hung. But we'll drink your health before you swing. Up,Keyes, and fetch the stuff. It may be bad, but we'll drink to thesqueezing of the rotten orange once more; if it be the last toast Idrink!"