The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 8

by Robert Louis Stevenson

  CHAPTER I

  THE DEN

  The place where Dick had struck the line of a high-road was not far fromHolywood, and within nine or ten miles of Shoreby-on-the-Till; and here,after making sure that they were pursued no longer, the two bodiesseparated. Lord Foxham's followers departed, carrying their woundedmaster towards the comfort and security of the great abbey; and Dick, ashe saw them wind away and disappear in the thick curtain of the fallingsnow, was left alone with near upon a dozen outlaws, the last remainderof his troop of volunteers.

  Some were wounded; one and all were furious at their ill-success andlong exposure; and though they were now too cold and hungry to do more,they grumbled and cast sullen looks upon their leaders. Dick emptied hispurse among them, leaving himself nothing; thanked them for the couragethey had displayed, though he could have found it more readily in hisheart to rate them for poltroonery; and having thus somewhat softenedthe effect of his prolonged misfortune, despatched them to find theirway, either severally or in pairs, to Shoreby and the "Goat andBagpipes."

  For his own part, influenced by what he had seen on board of the _GoodHope_, he chose Lawless to be his companion on the walk. The snow wasfalling, without pause or variation, in one even, blinding cloud; thewind had been strangled, and now blew no longer; and the whole world wasblotted out and sheeted down below that silent inundation. There wasgreat danger of wandering by the way and perishing in drifts; andLawless, keeping half a step in front of his companion, and holding hishead forward like a hunting dog upon the scent, inquired his way ofevery tree, and studied out their path as though he were conning a shipamong dangers.

  About a mile into the forest they came to a place where several waysmet, under a grove of lofty and contorted oaks. Even in the narrowhorizon of the falling snow, it was a spot that could not fail to berecognised; and Lawless evidently recognised it with particular delight.

  "Now, Master Richard," said he, "an y' are not too proud to be the guestof a man who is neither a gentleman by birth nor so much as a goodChristian, I can offer you a cup of wine and a good fire to melt themarrow in your frozen bones."

  "Lead on, Will," answered Dick. "A cup of wine and a good fire! Nay, Iwould go a far way round to see them."

  Lawless turned aside under the bare branches of the grove, and, walkingresolutely forward for some time, came to a steepish hollow or den, thathad now drifted a quarter full of snow. On the verge a great beech-treehung, precariously rooted; and here the old outlaw, pulling aside somebushy underwood, bodily disappeared into the earth.

  The beech had, in some violent gale, been half-uprooted, and had torn upa considerable stretch of turf; and it was under this that old Lawlesshad dug out his forest hiding-place. The roots served him for rafters,the turf was his thatch; for walls and floor he had his mother theearth. Rude as it was, the hearth in one corner, blackened by fire, andthe presence in another of a large oaken chest well fortified with iron,showed it at one glance to be the den of a man, and not the burrow of adigging beast.

  Though the snow had drifted at the mouth and sifted in upon the floor ofthis earth-cavern, yet was the air much warmer than without; and whenLawless had struck a spark, and the dry furze bushes had begun to blazeand crackle on the hearth, the place assumed, even to the eye, an air ofcomfort and of home.

  With a sigh of great contentment Lawless spread his broad hands beforethe fire, and seemed to breathe the smoke.

  "Here, then," he said, "is this old Lawless's rabbit-hole; pray Heaventhere come no terrier! Far I have rolled hither and thither, and hereand about, since that I was fourteen years of mine age, and first ranaway from mine abbey, with the sacrist's gold chain and a mass-book thatI sold for four marks. I have been in England and France and Burgundy,and in Spain, too, on a pilgrimage for my poor soul; and upon the sea,which is no man's country. But here is my place, Master Shelton. This ismy native land, this burrow in the earth. Come rain or wind--an whetherit's April, and the birds all sing, and the blossoms fall about my bed,or whether it's winter, and I sit alone with my good gossip the fire,and robin-redbreast twitters in the woods--here is my church and market,my wife and child. It's here I come back to, and it's here, so pleasethe saints, that I would like to die."

  "'Tis a warm corner, to be sure," replied Dick, "and a pleasant, and awell-hid."

  "It had need to be," returned Lawless, "for an they found it, MasterShelton, it would break my heart. But here," he added, burrowing withhis stout fingers in the sandy floor, "here is my wine-cellar, and yeshall have a flask of excellent strong stingo."

  Sure enough, after but a little digging, he produced a big leathernbottle of about a gallon, nearly three parts full of a very heady andsweet wine; and when they had drunk to each other comradely, and thefire had been replenished and blazed up again, the pair lay at fulllength, thawing and steaming, and divinely warm.

  "Master Shelton," observed the outlaw, "y' have had two mischances thislast while, and y' are like to lose the maid--do I take it aright?"

  "Aright!" returned Dick, nodding his head.

  "Well, now," continued Lawless, "hear an old fool that hath beennigh-hand everything, and seen nigh-hand all! Ye go too much on otherpeople's errands, Master Dick. Ye go on Ellis's; but he desireth ratherthe death of Sir Daniel. Ye go on Lord Foxham's; well--the saintspreserve him!--doubtless he meaneth well. But go ye upon your own, goodDick. Come right to the maid's side. Court her, lest that she forgetyou. Be ready; and when the chance shall come, off with her at thesaddle-bow."

  "Ay, but, Lawless, beyond doubt she is now in Sir Daniel's own mansion,"answered Dick.

  "Thither, then, go we," replied the outlaw.

  Dick stared at him.

  "Nay, I mean it," nodded Lawless. "And if y' are of so little faith, andstumble at a word, see here!"

  And the outlaw, taking a key from about his neck, opened the oak chest,and dipping and groping deep among its contents, produced first afriar's robe, and next a girdle of rope; and then a huge rosary of wood,heavy enough to be counted as a weapon.

  "Here," he said, "is for you. On with them!"

  And then, when Dick had clothed himself in this clerical disguise,Lawless produced some colours and a pencil, and proceeded, with thegreatest cunning, to disguise his face. The eyebrows he thickened andproduced; to the moustache, which was yet hardly visible, he rendered alike service; while, by a few lines around his eye, he changed theexpression and increased the apparent age of this young monk.

  "Now," he resumed, "when I have done the like, we shall make as bonny apair of friars as the eye could wish. Boldly to Sir Daniel's we shallgo, and there be hospitably welcome for the love of Mother Church."

  "And how, dear Lawless," cried the lad, "shall I repay you?"

  "Tut, brother," replied the outlaw, "I do naught but for my pleasure.Mind not for me. I am one, by the mass, that mindeth for himself. Whenthat I lack, I have a long tongue and a voice like the monastery bell--Ido ask, my son; and where asking faileth, I do most usually take."

  The old rogue made a humorous grimace; and although Dick was displeasedto lie under so great favours to so equivocal a personage, he was yetunable to restrain his mirth.

  With that Lawless returned to the big chest, and was soon similarlydisguised; but below his gown Dick wondered to observe him conceal asheaf of black arrows.

  "Wherefore do ye that?" asked the lad. "Wherefore arrows, when ye takeno bow?"

  "Nay," replied Lawless lightly, "'tis like there will be headsbroke--not to say backs--ere you and I win sound from where we're goingto; and if any fall, I would our fellowship should come by the crediton't. A black arrow, Master Dick, is the seal of our abbey; it showethyou who writ the bill."

  "An ye prepare so carefully," said Dick. "I have here some papers that,for mine own sake, and the interest of those that trusted me, werebetter left behind than found upon my body. Where shall I conceal them,Will?"

  "Nay," replied Lawless, "I will go forth into the wood and whistle methree verses of a song; mean
while do you bury them where ye please, andsmooth the sand upon the place."

  "Never!" cried Richard. "I trust you, man. I were base indeed if I nottrusted you."

  "Brother, y' are but a child," replied the old outlaw, pausing andturning his face upon Dick from the threshold of the den. "I am a kindold Christian, and no traitor to men's blood, and no sparer of mine ownin a friend's jeopardy. But, fool child, I am a thief by trade and birthand habit. If my bottle were empty and my mouth dry, I would rob you,dear child, as sure as I love, honour, and admire your parts and person!Can it be clearer spoken? No."

  And he stumped forth through the bushes with a snap of his big fingers.

  Dick, thus left alone, after a wondering thought upon theinconsistencies of his companion's character, hastily produced,reviewed, and buried his papers. One only he reserved to carry alongwith him, since it in nowise compromised his friends, and yet mightserve him, in a pinch, against Sir Daniel. That was the knight's ownletter to Lord Wensleydale, sent by Throgmorton, on the morrow of thedefeat at Risingham, and found next day by Dick upon the body of themessenger.

  Then, treading down the embers of the fire, Dick left the den, andrejoined the old outlaw, who stood awaiting him under the leafless oaks,and was already beginning to be powdered by the falling snow. Eachlooked upon the other, and each laughed, so thorough and so droll wasthe disguise.

  "Yet I would it were but summer and a clear day," grumbled the outlaw,"that I might see myself in the mirror of a pool. There be many of SirDaniel's men that know me; and if we fell to be recognised, there mightbe two words for you, my brother, but as for me, in a paternoster-while,I should be kicking in a rope's-end."

  Thus they set forth together along the road to Shoreby, which, in thispart of its course, kept near along the margin of the forest, comingforth, from time to time, in the open country, and passing beside poorfolks' houses and small farms.

  Presently at sight of one of these Lawless pulled up.

  "Brother Martin," he said, in a voice capitally disguised, and suited tohis monkish robe, "let us enter and seek alms from these poor sinners._Pax vobiscum!_ Ay," he added, in his own voice, "'tis as I feared: Ihave somewhat lost the whine of it; and by your leave, good MasterShelton, ye must suffer me to practise in these country places, beforethat I risk my fat neck by entering Sir Daniel's. But look ye a little,what an excellent thing it is to be a Jack-of-all-trades! An I had notbeen a shipman, ye had infallibly gone down in the _Good Hope_; an I hadnot been a thief, I could not have painted me your face; and but that Ihad been a Grey Friar, and sung loud in the choir, and ate hearty atthe board, I could not have carried this disguise, but the very dogswould have spied us out and barked at us for shams."

  He was by this time close to the window of the farm, and he rose on histip-toes and peeped in.

  "Nay," he cried, "better and better. We shall here try our false faceswith a vengeance, and have a merry jest on Brother Capper to boot."

  And so saying he opened the door and led the way into the house.

  Three of their own company sat at the table, greedily eating. Theirdaggers, stuck beside them in the board, and the black and menacinglooks which they continued to shower upon the people of the house,proved that they owed their entertainment rather to force than favour.On the two monks, who now, with a sort of humble dignity, entered thekitchen of the farm, they seemed to turn with a particular resentment;and one--it was John Capper in person--who seemed to play the leadingpart, instantly and rudely ordered them away.

  "We want no beggars here!" he cried.

  But another--although he was as far from recognising Dick andLawless--inclined to more moderate counsels.

  "Not so," he cried. "We be strong men, and take: these be weak, andcrave; but in the latter end these shall be uppermost and webelow.--Mind him not, my father; but come, drink of my cup, and give mea benediction."

  "Y' are men of a light mind, carnal and accursed," said the monk. "Now,may the saints forbid that ever I should drink with such companions! Buthere, for the pity I bear to sinners, here I do' leave you a blessedrelic, the which, for your soul's interest, I bid you kiss and cherish."

  So far Lawless thundered upon them like a preaching friar; but withthese words he drew from under his robe a black arrow, tossed it on theboard in front of the three startled outlaws, turned in the sameinstant, and, taking Dick along with him, was out of the room and out ofsight among the falling snow before they had time to utter a word ormove a finger.

  "So," he said, "we have proved our false faces, Master Shelton. I willnow adventure my poor carcass where ye please."

  "Good!" returned Richard. "It irks me to be doing. Set we on forShoreby!"