Anthony Wilding

by Rafael Sabatini

  “You have scared him with your bellowing,” she panted, tugging at the bridle, and all but backed into the constable who had been endeavouring to get round behind her. The beast continued its wild prancing, and the Duke abated nothing in his furious profanity, until suddenly the groom, having relinquished to Diana the reins of the other horse, sprang to Ruth’s assistance and caught her bridle in a firm grasp which brought the animal to a standstill.

  “You fool!” she hissed at him, and half raised her whip to strike, but checked on the impulse, bethinking her in time that, after all, what the poor lad had done he had done thinking her distressed.

  The constable and a couple of his fellows won through; others were rousing the stable and getting to horse, and in the courtyard all was bustle and commotion. Meanwhile, however, Mr Wilding and Trenchard had made the most of their start, and were thundering through the town.

  Chapter 12

  AT THE FORD

  As Mr Wilding and Nick Trenchard rode hell-to-leather through Taunton streets they never noticed a horseman at the door of the Red Lion Inn. But the horseman noticed them. He looked up at the sound of their wild approach, started upon recognizing them, and turned in his saddle as they swept past him to call upon them excitedly to stop.

  “Hi!” he shouted. “Nick Trenchard! Hi! Wilding!” Then, seeing that they either did not hear or did not heed him, he loosed a volley of oaths, wheeled his horse about, drove home the spurs, and started in pursuit. Out of the town he followed them and along the road towards Walford, shouting and clamouring at first, afterwards in a grim and angry silence.

  Now, despite their natural anxiety for their own safety, Wilding and Trenchard had by no means abandoned their project of taking cover by the ford to await the messenger whom Albemarle and the others would no doubt be sending to Whitehall; and this mad fellow thundering after them seemed in a fair way to mar their plan. As they reluctantly passed the spot they had marked out for their ambush, splashed through the ford and breasted the rising ground beyond, they took counsel. They determined to stand and meet this rash pursuer. Trenchard calmly opined that if necessary they must shoot him; he was, I fear, a bloody-minded fellow at bottom, although, it is true, he justified himself now by pointing out that this was no time to hesitate at trifles. Partly because they talked and partly because the gradient was steep and their horses needed breathing, they slackened rein, and the horseman behind them came tearing through the water of the ford and lessened the distance considerably in the next few minutes.

  He bethought him of using his lungs once more. “Hi, Wilding! Hold, damn you!”

  “He curses you in a most intimate manner,” quoth Trenchard.

  Wilding reined in and turned in the saddle. “His voice has a familiar sound,” said he. He shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked down the slope at the pursuer, who came on crouching low upon the withers of his goaded beast.

  “Wait!” the fellow shouted. “I have news – news for you!”

  “It’s Vallancey!” cried Wilding suddenly. Trenchard too had drawn rein and was looking behind him. Instead of expressing relief at the discovery that this was not an enemy, he swore at the trouble to which they had so needlessly put themselves, and he was still at his vituperations when Vallancey came up with them, red in the face and very angry, cursing them roundly for the folly of their mad career, and for not having stopped when he bade them.

  “It was no doubt discourteous,” said Mr Wilding, “but we took you for some friend of the Lord-Lieutenant’s.”

  “Are they after you?” quoth Vallancey, his face of a sudden very startled.

  “Like enough,” said Trenchard, “if they have found their horses yet.”

  “Forward, then,” Vallancey urged them in excitement, and he picked up his reins again. “You shall hear my news as we ride.”

  “Not so,” said Trenchard. “We have business here – down yonder at the ford.”

  “Business? What business?”

  They told him, and scarce had they got the words out than he cut in impatiently, “That’s no matter now.”

  “Not yet, perhaps,” said Mr Wilding; “but it will be if that letter gets to Whitehall.”

  “Odso!” was the impatient retort, “there’s other news travelling to Whitehall that will make small beer of this – and belike it’s well on its way there already.”

  “What news is that?” asked Trenchard.

  Vallancey told them. “The Duke has landed – he came ashore this morning at Lyme.”

  “The Duke?” quoth Mr Wilding, whilst Trenchard merely stared. “What Duke?”

  “What Duke! Lord, you weary me! What Dukes be there? The Duke of Monmouth, man.”

  “Monmouth!” They uttered the name in a breath.

  “But is this really true?” asked Wilding. “Or is it but another rumour?”

  “Remember the letter your friends intercepted,” Trenchard bade him.

  “I am not forgetting it,” said Wilding.

  “It’s no rumour,” Vallancey assured them. “I was at White Lackington three hours ago when the news came to George Speke, and I was riding to carry it to you, going by way of Taunton that I might drop word of it for our friends at the ‘Red Lion.’ ”

  Trenchard needed no further convincing; he looked accordingly dismayed. But Wilding found it still almost impossible – in spite of what already he had learnt – to credit this amazing news. It was hard to believe the Duke of Monmouth mad enough to spoil all by this sudden and unheralded precipitation.

  “You heard the news at White Lackington?” said he slowly. “Who carried it thither?”

  “There were two messengers,” answered Vallancey, with restrained impatience, “and they were Heywood Dare – who has been appointed paymaster to the Duke’s forces – and Mr Chamberlain.”

  Mr Wilding was observed for once to change colour. He gripped Vallancey by the wrist. “You saw them?” he demanded, and his voice had a husky, unusual sound. “You saw them?”

  “With these two eyes,” answered Vallancey, “and I spoke with them.”

  It was true then! There was no room for further doubt.

  Wilding looked at Trenchard, who shrugged his shoulders and made a wry face. “I never thought but that we were working in the service of a hare-brain,” said he contemptuously.

  Vallancey proceeded to details. “Dare and Chamberlain,” he informed them, “came off the Duke’s own frigate at daybreak today. They were put ashore at Seaton, and they rode straight to Mr Speke’s with the news, returning afterwards to Lyme.”

  “What men has the Duke with him, did you learn?” asked Wilding.

  “Not more than a hundred or so, from what Dare told us.”

  “A hundred! God help us all! And is England to be conquered with a hundred men? Oh, this is midsummer frenzy.”

  “He counts on all true Protestants to flock to his banner,” put in Trenchard, and it was not plain whether he expressed a fact or sneered at one.

  “Does he bring money and arms, at least?” asked Wilding.

  “I did not ask,” answered Vallancey. “But Dare told us that three vessels had come over, so that it is to be supposed he brings some manner of provisions with him.”

  “It is to be hoped so, Vallancey; but hardly to be supposed,” quoth Trenchard, and then he touched Wilding on the arm and pointed with his whip across the fields towards Taunton. A cloud of dust was rising from between tall hedges where ran the road. “I think it were wise to be moving. At least, this sudden landing of James Scott relieves my mind in the matter of that letter.”

  Wilding, having taken a look at the floating dust that announced the oncoming of their pursuers, was now lost in thought. Vallancey, who, beyond excitement at the news of which he was the bearer, seemed to have no opinion of his own as to the wisdom or folly of the Duke’s sudden arrival, looked from one to the other of these two men whom he had known as the prime secret agents in the West, and waited. Trenchard moved his horse a few paces nearer
the hedge, whence he could the better survey the winding road to westward, and slightly below them. Wilding’s thoughtful silence began to fret him, and he hummed a moment impatiently. At last: “Whither now, Anthony?” he asked suddenly.

  “You may ask, indeed!” exclaimed Wilding, and his voice was as bitter as ever Trenchard had heard it. “’S heart! We are in it now! We had best make for Lyme – if only that we may attempt to persuade this crack-brained boy to ship back to Holland again, and ship ourselves with him.”

  “There’s sense in you at last,” grumbled Trenchard. “But I misdoubt me he’ll never turn back after having come so far. Have you any money?” he asked. He could be very practical at times.

  “A guinea or two. But I can get money at Ilminster.”

  “And how do you propose to reach Ilminster with these gentlemen by way of cutting us off?”

  “We’ll double back as far as the crossroads,” said Wilding promptly, “and strike south over Swell Hill for Hatch. If we ride hard we can do it easily, and have little fear of being followed. They’ll naturally take it we have made for Bridgwater.”

  They acted on the suggestion there and then, Vallancey going with them; for his task was now accomplished, and he was all eager to get to Lyme to kiss the hand of the Protestant Duke. They rode hard, as Wilding had said they must, and they reached the junction of the roads before their pursuers hove in sight. Here Wilding suddenly detained them again. The road ahead of them ran straight for almost a mile, so that if they took it now they were almost sure to be seen presently by the messengers. On their right a thickly-grown coppice stretched from the road to the stream that babbled in the hollow. He gave it as his advice that they should lie hidden there until those who hunted them should have gone by. Obviously that was the only plan, and his companions instantly adopted it. They found a way through a gate into an adjacent field, and from this they gained the shelter of the trees. Trenchard, neglectful of his finery and oblivious of the ubiquitous brambles, left his horse in Vallancey’s care and crept to the edge of the thicket that he might take a peep at the pursuers.

  They came up very soon, six militiamen in lobster coats with yellow facings, and a sergeant, which was what Mr Trenchard might have expected. There was, however, something else that Mr Trenchard did not expect; something that afforded him considerable surprise. At the head of the party rode Sir Rowland Blake – obviously leading it – and with him was Richard Westmacott. Amongst them went a man in grey clothes, whom Mr Trenchard rightly conjectured to be the messenger riding for Whitehall. He thought with a smile of what a handful he and Wilding would have had had they waited to rob that messenger of the incriminating letter that he bore. Then he checked his smile to consider again how Sir Rowland Blake came to head that party. He abandoned the problem as the little troop swept unhesitatingly round to the left and went pounding along the road that led northwards to Bridgwater, clearly never doubting which way their quarry had sped.

  As for Sir Rowland Blake’s connection with this pursuit, the town-gallant had by his earnestness not only convinced Colonel Luttrell of his loyalty and devotion to King James, but had actually gone so far as to beg that he might be allowed to prove that same loyalty by leading the soldiers to the capture of those self-confessed traitors, Mr Wilding and Mr Trenchard. From his knowledge of their haunts he was confident, he assured Colonel Luttrell, that he could be of service to the King in this matter. The fierce sincerity of his purpose shone through his words; Luttrell caught the accent of hate in Sir Rowland’s tense voice, and, being a shrewd man, he saw that if Mr Wilding was to be taken, an enemy would surely be the best pursuer to accomplish it. So he prevailed, and gave him the trust he sought, in spite of Albemarle’s expressed reluctance. And never did bloodhound set out more relentlessly purposeful upon a scent than did Sir Rowland follow now in what he believed to be the track of this man who stood between him and Ruth Westmacott. Until Ruth was widowed, Sir Rowland’s hopes of her must lie fallow; and so it was with a zest that he flung himself into the task of widowing her.

  As the party passed out of view round the angle of the white road, Trenchard made his way back to Wilding to tell him what he had seen and to lay before him, for his enucleation, the problem of Blake’s being the leader of it. But Wilding thought little of Blake, and cared little of what he might be the leader.

  “We’ll stay here,” said he, “until they have passed the crest of the hill.”

  This, Trenchard told him, was his own purpose; for to leave their concealment earlier would be to reveal themselves to any of the troopers who might happen to glance over his shoulder.

  And so they waited some ten minutes or so, and then walked their horses slowly and carefully forward through the trees towards the road. Wilding was alongside and slightly ahead of Trenchard; Vallancey followed close upon their tails. Suddenly, as Wilding was about to put his mare at the low stone wall, Trenchard leaned forward and caught his bridle.

  “Ss!” he hissed. “Horses!”

  And now that they halted they heard the hoof-beats clear and close at hand; the crackling of undergrowth and the rustle of the leaves through which they had thrust their passage had deafened their ears to other sounds until this moment. They checked and waited where they stood, barely screened by the few boughs that still might intervene between them and the open, not daring to advance, and not daring to retreat lest their movements should draw attention to themselves. They remained absolutely still, scarcely breathing, their only hope being that if these who came should chance to be enemies they might ride on without looking to right or left. It was so slender a hope that Wilding looked to the priming of his pistols, whilst Trenchard, who had none, loosened his sword in its scabbard. Nearer came the riders.

  “There are not more than three,” whispered Trenchard, who had been listening intently, and Mr Wilding nodded, but said nothing.

  Another moment and the little party was abreast of those watchers; a dark brown riding-habit flashed into their line of vision, and a blue one laced with gold. At sight of the first Mr Wilding’s eyelids flickered; he had recognized it for Ruth’s, with whom rode Diana, whilst some twenty paces or so behind came Jerry, the groom. They were returning to Bridgwater.

  They came along, looking neither to right nor to left, as the three men had hoped they would, and they were all but past, when suddenly Wilding gave his roan a touch of the spur and bounded forward. Diana’s horse swerved so that it nearly threw her. Ruth, slightly ahead, reined in at once; so, too, did the groom in the rear, and so violently in his sudden fear of highwaymen that he brought his horse on to its hind legs and had it prancing and rearing madly about the road, so that he was hard put to it to keep his seat.

  Ruth looked round as Mr Wilding’s voice greeted her.

  “Mistress Wilding,” he called to her. “A moment, if I may detain you.”

  “You have eluded them!” she cried, entirely off her guard in her surprise at seeing him, and there echoed through her words a note of genuine gladness that almost disconcerted her husband for a moment. The next instant a crimson flush overspread her pale face, and her eyes were veiled from him, vexation in her heart at having betrayed the lively satisfaction it afforded her to see him safe when she feared him captured already or at least upon the point of capture.

  She had admired him almost unconsciously for his daring at the town hall that day, when his strong calm had stood out in such strong contrast to the fluster and excitement of the men about him; of them all, indeed, it had seemed to her in those stressful moments that he was the only man, and she was – although she did not realise it – in danger of being proud of him. Then again the thing he had done. He had come deliberately to thrust his head into the lion’s maw that he might save her brother. It was possible that he had done it in answer to the entreaties which she had earlier feared she had poured into deaf ears; or it was possible that he had done it spurred by his sense of right and justice, which would not permit him to allow another to suffer in his ste
ad – however much that other might be caught in the very toils that he had prepared for Mr Wilding himself. Her admiration, then, was swelled by gratitude, and it was a compound of these that had urged her to hinder the tything-men from winning past her until he and Trenchard should have got well away.

  Afterwards, when with Diana and her groom – on a horse which Sir Edward Phelips insisted upon lending them – she rode homeward from Taunton, there was Diana to keep alive the spark of kindness that glowed at last for Wilding in Ruth’s breast. Miss Horton extolled his bravery, his chivalry, his nobility, and ended by expressing her envy of Ruth that she should have won such a man amongst men for her husband, and wondered what it might be that kept Ruth from claiming him for her own, as was her right. Ruth had answered little, but she had ridden very thoughtful; there was that in the past she found it hard to forgive Wilding. And yet she would now have welcomed an opportunity of thanking him for what he had done, of expressing to him something of the respect he had won in her eyes by his act of self-denunciation to save her brother. This chance it seemed was given her, for there he stood, with head bared before her; and already she thought no longer of seizing the chance, vexed as she was at having been surprised into a betrayal of feelings whose warmth she had until that moment scarce estimated.

  In answer to her cry “You have eluded them!” he waved a hand towards the rising ground and the road to Bridgwater.

  “They passed that way but a few moments since,” said he, “and by the rate at which they were travelling they should be nearing Newton by now. In their great haste to catch me they could not pause to look for me so close at hand,” he added with a smile, “and for that I am thankful.”

  She sat her horse and answered nothing, which threw her cousin out of all patience with her. “Come, Jerry,” Diana called to the groom. “We will walk our horses up the hill.”