CHAPTER VI
THE "GOOD HOPE" (_concluded_)
The moans of the wounded baron blended with the wailing of the ship'sdog. The poor animal, whether he was merely sick at heart to beseparated from his friends, or whether he indeed recognised some perilin the labouring of the ship, raised his cries, like minute-guns, abovethe roar of wave and weather; and the more superstitious of the menheard, in these sounds, the knell of the _Good Hope_.
Lord Foxham had been laid in a berth, upon a fur cloak. A little lampburned dim before the Virgin in the bulkhead, and by its glimmer Dickcould see the pale countenance and hollow eyes of the hurt man.
"I am sore hurt," said he. "Come near to my side, young Shelton; letthere be one by me who, at least, is gentle born; for after having livednobly and richly all the days of my life, this is a sad pass that Ishould get my hurt in a little ferreting skirmish, and die here, in afoul, cold ship upon the sea, among broken men and churls."
"Nay, my lord," said Dick, "I pray rather to the saints that ye willrecover you of your hurt, and come soon and sound ashore."
"How?" demanded his lordship. "Come sound ashore? There is, then, aquestion of it?"
"The ship laboureth--the sea is grievous and contrary," replied the lad;"and by what I can learn of my fellow that steereth us, we shall dowell, indeed, if we come dryshod to land."
"Ha!" said the baron gloomily, "thus shall every terror attend upon thepassage of my soul! Sir, pray rather to live hard, that ye may dieeasy, than to be fooled and fluted all through life, as to the pipe andtabor, and, in the last hour, be plunged among misfortunes! Howbeit, Ihave that upon my mind that must not be delayed. We have no priestaboard?"
"None," replied Dick.
"Here, then, to my secular interests," resumed Lord Foxham: "ye must beas good a friend to me dead, as I found you a gallant enemy when I wasliving. I fall in an evil hour for me, for England, and for them thattrusted me. My men are being brought by Hamley--he that was your rival;they will rendezvous in the long room at Holywood; this ring from off myfinger will accredit you to represent mine orders; and I shall write,besides, two words upon this paper, bidding Hamley yield to you thedamsel. Will ye obey? I know not."
"But, my lord, what orders?" inquired Dick.
"Ay," quoth the baron, "ay--the orders"; and he looked upon Dick withhesitation. "Are ye Lancaster or York?" he asked at length.
"I shame to say it," answered Dick, "I can scarce clearly answer. But somuch I think is certain: since I serve with Ellis Duckworth, I serve theHouse of York. Well, if that be so, I declare for York."
"It is well," returned the other; "it is exceeding well. For, truly, hadye said Lancaster, I wot not for the world what I had done. But sith yeare for York, follow me. I came hither but to watch these lords atShoreby, while mine excellent young lord, Richard of Gloucester,[1]prepareth a sufficient force to fall upon and scatter them. I have mademe notes of their strength, what watch they keep, and how they lie; andthese I was to deliver to my young lord on Sunday, an hour before noon,at St. Bride's Cross beside the forest. This tryst I am not like tokeep, but I pray you, of courtesy, to keep it in my stead; and see thatnot pleasure, nor pain, tempest, wound, nor pestilence withhold you fromthe hour and place, for the welfare of England lieth upon this cast."
"I do soberly take this upon me," said Dick. "In so far as in me lieth,your purpose shall be done."
"It is good," said the wounded man. "My lord duke shall order youfurther, and if ye obey him with spirit and goodwill, then is yourfortune made. Give me the lamp a little nearer to mine eyes, till that Iwrite these words for you."
He wrote a note "to his worshipful kinsman, Sir John Hamley"; and then asecond, which he left without external superscription.
"This is for the duke," he said. "The word is 'England and Edward,' andthe counter, 'England and York.'"
"And Joanna, my lord?" asked Dick.
"Nay, ye must get Joanna how ye can," replied the baron. "I have namedyou for my choice in both these letters; but ye must get her foryourself, boy. I have tried, as ye see here before you, and have lost mylife. More could no man do."
By this time the wounded man began to be very weary; and Dick, puttingthe precious papers in his bosom, bade him be of good cheer, and lefthim to repose.
The day was beginning to break, cold and blue, with flying squalls ofsnow. Close under the lee of the _Good Hope_, the coast lay in alternaterocky headlands and sandy bays; and farther inland the wooded hill-topsof Tunstall showed along the sky. Both the wind and the sea had gonedown; but the vessel wallowed deep, and scarce rose upon the waves.
Lawless was still fixed at the rudder; and by this time nearly all themen had crawled on deck, and were now gazing, with blank faces, upon theinhospitable coast.
"Are we going ashore?" asked Dick.
"Ay," said Lawless, "unless we get first to the bottom."
And just then the ship rose so languidly to meet a sea, and the waterweltered so loudly in her hold, that Dick involuntarily seized thesteersman by the arm.
"By the mass!" cried Dick, as the bows of the _Good Hope_ re-appearedabove the foam, "I thought we had foundered, indeed; my heart was at mythroat."
In the waist, Greensheve, Hawksley, and the better men of both companieswere busy breaking up the deck to build a raft; and to these Dick joinedhimself, working the harder to drown the memory of his predicament. But,even as he worked, every sea that struck the poor ship, and every one ofher dull lurches, as she tumbled wallowing among the waves, recalled himwith a horrid pang to the immediate proximity of death.
Presently, looking up from his work, he saw that they were close inbelow a promontory; a piece of ruinous cliff, against the base of whichthe sea broke white and heavy, almost overplumbed the deck; and, abovethat again, a house appeared, crowning a down.
Inside the bay the seas ran gaily, raised the _Good Hope_ upon theirfoam-flecked shoulders, carried her beyond the control of the steersman,and in a moment dropped her with a great concussion on the sand, andbegan to break over her, half-mast high, and roll her to and fro.Another great wave followed, raised her again, and carried her yetfarther in; and then a third succeeded, and left her far inshore of themore dangerous breakers, wedged upon a bank.
"Now, boys," cried Lawless, "the saints have had a care of us indeed.The tide ebbs; let us but sit down and drink a cup of wine, and beforehalf an hour ye may all march me ashore as safe as on a bridge."
A barrel was broached, and sitting in what shelter they could find fromthe flying snow and spray, the shipwrecked company handed the cuparound, and sought to warm their bodies and restore their spirits.
Dick, meanwhile, returned to Lord Foxham, who lay in great perplexityand fear, the floor of his cabin washing knee-deep in water, and thelamp, which had been his only light, broken and extinguished by theviolence of the blow.
"My lord," said young Shelton, "fear not at all; the saints are plainlyfor us; the seas have cast us high upon a shoal, and as soon as the tidehath somewhat ebbed, we may walk ashore upon our feet."
It was nearly an hour before the vessel was sufficiently deserted by theebbing sea, and they could set forth for the land, which appeared dimlybefore them through a veil of driving snow.
Upon a hillock on one side of their way a party of men lay huddledtogether, suspiciously observing the movements of the new arrivals.
"They might draw near and offer us some comfort," Dick remarked.
"Well, an they come not to us, let us even turn aside to them," saidHawksley. "The sooner we come to a good fire and a dry bed, the betterfor my poor lord."
But they had not moved far in the direction of the hillock before themen, with one consent, rose suddenly to their feet, and poured a flightof well-directed arrows on the shipwrecked company.
"Back! back!" cried his lordship. "Beware, in Heaven's name, that yereply not!"
"Nay," cried Greensheve, pulling an arrow from his leather jack. "We arein no posture to fight, it is certain, being drenchin
g wet, dog-weary,and three-parts frozen; but, for the love of old England, what aileththem to shoot thus cruelly on their poor country people in distress?"
"They take us to be French pirates," answered Lord Foxham. "In thesemost troublesome and degenerate days we cannot keep our own shores ofEngland; but our old enemies, whom we once chased on sea and land, donow range at pleasure, robbing and slaughtering and burning. It is thepity and reproach of this poor land."
The men upon the hillock lay, closely observing them, while they trailedupward from the beach and wound inland among desolate sandhills; for amile or so they even hung upon the rear of the march, ready, at a sign,to pour another volley on the weary and dispirited fugitives; and it wasonly when, striking at length upon a firm high-road, Dick began to callhis men to some more martial order, that these jealous guardians of thecoast of England silently disappeared among the snow. They had done whatthey desired; they had protected their own homes and farms, their ownfamilies and cattle; and, their private interest being thus secured, itmattered not the weight of a straw to any one of them, although theFrenchmen should carry blood and fire to every other parish in the realmof England.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] At the date of this story, Richard Crookback could not have been created Duke of Gloucester; but for clearness, with the reader's leave, he shall so be called.
BOOK IV
THE DISGUISE
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 8 Page 21
