Micah Clarke

by Arthur Conan Doyle

  Chapter XII. Of certain Passages upon the Moor

  In the morning, after a breakfast furnished by the remains of oursupper, we looked to our horses and prepared for our departure. Ere wecould mount, however, our kindly host came running out to us with a loadof armour in his arms.

  'Come hither,' said he, beckoning to Reuben. 'It is not meet, lad, thatyou should go bare-breasted against the enemy when your comrades aregirt with steel. I have here mine own old breastplate and head-piece,which should, methinks, fit you, for if you have more flesh than I, I ama larger framework of a man. Ah, said I not so! Were't measured for youby Silas Thomson, the court armourer, it could not grip better. Nowon with the head-piece. A close fit again. You are now a cavalier whomMonmouth or any other leader might be proud to see ride beneath hisbanner.'

  Both helmet and body-plates were of the finest Milan steel, richlyinlaid with silver and with gold, and carved all over in rare andcurious devices. So stern and soldierly was the effect, that theruddy, kindly visage of our friend staring out of such a panoply had anill-matched and somewhat ludicrous appearance.

  'Nay, nay,' cried the old cavalier, seeing a smile upon our features,'it is but right that so precious a jewel as a faithful heart shouldhave a fitting casket to protect it.'

  'I am truly beholden to you, sir,' said Reuben; 'I can scarce find wordsto express my thanks. Holy mother! I have a mind to ride straight backto Havant, to show them how stout a man-at-arms hath been reared amongstthem.'

  'It is steel of proof,' Sir Jacob remarked; 'a pistol-bullet mightglance from it. And you,' he continued, turning to me, 'here is a smallgift by which you shall remember this meeting. I did observe that youdid cast a wistful eye upon my bookshelf. It is Plutarch's lives of theancient worthies, done into English by the ingenious Mr. Latimer. Carrythis volume with you, and shape your life after the example of the giantmen whose deeds are here set forth. In your saddle-bag I place a smallbut weighty packet, which I desire you to hand over to Monmouth uponthe day of your arrival in his camp. As to you, sir,' addressing DecimusSaxon, 'here is a slug of virgin gold for you, which may fashion into apin or such like ornament. You may wear it with a quiet conscience, forit is fairly given to you and not filched from your entertainer whilsthe slept.'

  Saxon and I shot a sharp glance of surprise at each other at thisspeech, which showed that our words of the night before were not unknownto him. Sir Jacob, however, showed no signs of anger, but proceeded topoint out our road and to advise us as to our journey.

  'You must follow this sheep-track until you come on another and broaderpathway which makes for the West,' said he. 'It is little used, andthere is small chance of your falling in with any of your enemies uponit. This path will lead you between the villages of Fovant and Hindon,and soon to Mere, which is no great distance from Bruton, upon theSomersetshire border.'

  Thanking our venerable host for his great kindness towards us we gaverein to our horses, and left him once more to the strange solitaryexistence in which we had found him. So artfully had the site ofhis cottage been chosen, that when we looked back to give him a lastgreeting both he and his dwelling had disappeared already from our view,nor could we, among the many mounds and hollows, determine where thecottage lay which had given us such welcome shelter. In front of us andon either side the great uneven dun-coloured plain stretched away to thehorizon, without a break in its barren gorse-covered surface. Over thewhole expanse there was no sign of life, save for an occasional rabbitwhich whisked into its burrow on hearing our approach, or a few thin andhungry sheep, who could scarce sustain life by feeding on the coarse andwiry grass which sprang from the unfruitful soil.

  The pathway was so narrow that only one of us could ride upon it at atime, but we presently abandoned it altogether, using it simply as aguide, and galloping along side by side over the rolling plain. We wereall silent, Reuben meditating upon his new corslet, as I could see fromhis frequent glances at it; while Saxon, with his eyes half closed, wasbrooding over some matter of his own. For my own part, my thoughts ranupon the ignominy of the old soldier's designs upon the gold chest, andthe additional shame which rose from the knowledge that our host had insome way divined his intention. No good could come of an alliance with aman so devoid of all feelings of honour or of gratitude. So strongly didI feel upon it that I at last broke the silence by pointing to across path, which turned away from the one which we were pursuing, andrecommending him to follow it, since he had proved that he was no fitcompany for honest men.

  'By the living rood!' he cried, laying his hand upon the hilt of hisrapier,' have you taken leave of your senses? These are words such as nohonourable cavaliero can abide.'

  'They are none the less words of truth,' I answered.

  His blade flashed out in an instant, while his mare bounded twice herlength under the sharp dig of his spurs.

  'We have here,' he cried, reining her round, with his fierce lean faceall of a quiver with passion, 'an excellent level stretch on which todiscuss the matter. Out with your bilbo and maintain your words.'

  'I shall not stir a hair's-breadth to attack you,' I answered. 'Whyshould I, when I bear you no ill-will? If you come against me, however,I will assuredly beat you out of your saddle, for all your tricky swordplay.' I drew my broadsword as I spoke, and stood upon my guard, for Iguessed that with so old a soldier the onset would be sharp and sudden.

  'By all the saints in heaven!' cried Reuben, 'which ever of ye strikesfirst at the other I'll snap this pistol at his head. None of yourjokes, Don Decimo, for by the Lord I'll let drive at you if you were myown mother's son. Put up your sword, for the trigger falls easy, and myfinger is a twitching.'

  'Curse you for a spoil-sport!' growled Saxon, sulkily sheathing hisweapon. 'Nay, Clarke,' he added, after a few moments of reflection,'this is but child's play, that two camarados with a purpose in viewshould fall out over such a trifle. I, who am old enough to be yourfather, should have known better than to have drawn upon you, for aboy's tongue wags on impulse and without due thought. Do but say thatyou have said more than you meant.'

  'My way of saying it may have been over plain and rough,' I answered,for I saw that he did but want a little salve where my short words hadgalled him. 'At the same time, our ways differ from your ways, and thatdifference must be mended, or you can be no true comrade of ours.'

  'All right, Master Morality,' quoth he, 'I must e'en unlearn some of thetricks of my trade. Od's feet, man, if ye object to me, what the henkerwould ye think of some whom I have known? However, let that pass. Itis time that we were at the wars, for our good swords will not bide intheir scabbards.

  "The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty, For want of fighting was grown rusty, And ate into itself for lack Of somebody to hew and hack."

  You cannot think a thought but old Samuel hath been before you.'

  'Surely we shall be at the end of this dreary plain presently,' Reubencried. 'Its insipid flatness is enough to set the best of friends by theears. We might be in the deserts of Libya instead of his most gracelessMajesty's county of Wiltshire.'

  'There is smoke over yonder, upon the side of that hill,' said Saxon,pointing to the southward.

  'Methinks I see one straight line of houses there,' I observed, shadingmy eyes with my hand. 'But it is distant, and the shimmer of the sundisturbs the sight.'

  'It must be the hamlet of Hindon,' said Reuben. 'Oh, the heat of thissteel coat! I wonder if it were very un-soldierly to slip it off and tieit about Dido's neck. I shall be baked alive else, like a crab in itsshell. How say you, illustrious, is it contravened by any of thosethirty-nine articles of war which you bear about in your bosom?'

  'The bearing of the weight of your harness, young man,' Saxon answeredgravely, 'is one of the exercises of war, and as such only attainable bysuch practice as you are now undergoing. You have many things to learn,and one of them is not to present petronels too readily at folk's headswhen you are on horseback. The jerk of your charger's movement
even nowmight have drawn your trigger, and so deprived Monmouth of an old andtried soldier.'

  'There would be much weight in your contention,' my friend answered,'were it not that I now bethink me that I had forgot to recharge mypistol since discharging it at that great yellow beast yesternight.'

  Decimus Saxon shook his head sadly. 'I doubt we shall never make asoldier of you,' he remarked. 'You fall from your horse if the brutedoes bit change his step, you show a levity which will not jump with thegravity of the true soldado, you present empty petronels as a menace,and finally, you crave permission to tie your armour--armour which theCid himself might be proud to wear--around the neck of your horse. Yetyou have heart and mettle, I believe, else you would not be here.'

  'Gracias, Signor!' cried Reuben, with a bow which nearly unhorsed him;'the last remark makes up for all the rest, else had I been forced tocross blades with you, to maintain my soldierly repute.'

  'Touching that same incident last night,' said Saxon, 'of the chestfilled, as I surmise, with gold, which I was inclined to take as lawfulplunder, I am now ready to admit that I may have shown an undue hasteand precipitance, considering that the old man treated us fairly.'

  'Say no more of it,' I answered, 'if you will but guard against suchimpulses for the future.'

  'They do not properly come from me,' he replied, 'but from WillSpotterbridge, who was a man of no character at all.'

  'And how comes he to be mixed up in the matter?' I asked curiously.

  'Why, marry, in this wise. My father married the daughter of this sameWill Spotterbridge, and so weakened a good old stock by an unhealthystrain. Will was a rake-hell of Fleet Street in the days of James, achosen light of Alsatia, the home of bullies and of brawlers. His bloodhath through his daughter been transmitted to the ten of us, though Irejoice to say that I, being the tenth, it had by that time lost muchof its virulence, and indeed amounts to little more than a proper pride,and a laudable desire to prosper.'

  'How, then, has it affected the race?' I asked.

  'Why,' he answered, 'the Saxons of old were a round-faced, contentedgeneration, with their ledgers in their hands for six days and theirbibles on the seventh. If my father did but drink a cup of small beermore than his wont, or did break out upon provocation into any fondoath, as "Od's niggers!" or "Heart alive!" he would mourn over it asthough it were the seven deadly sins. Was this a man, think ye, in theordinary course of nature to beget ten long lanky children, nine ofwhom might have been first cousins of Lucifer, and foster-brothers ofBeelzebub?'

  'It was hard upon him,' remarked Reuben.

  'On him! Nay, the hardship was all with us. If he with his eyesopen chose to marry the daughter of an incarnate devil like WillSpotterbridge, because she chanced to be powdered and patched to hisliking, what reason hath he for complaint? It is we, who have the bloodof this Hector of the taverns grafted upon our own good honest stream,who have most reason to lift up our voices.'

  'Faith, by the same chain of reasoning,' said Reuben, 'one of myancestors must have married a woman with a plaguy dry throat, for bothmy father and I are much troubled with the complaint.'

  'You have assuredly inherited a plaguy pert tongue,' growled Saxon.'From what I have told you, you will see that our whole life is aconflict between our natural Saxon virtue and the ungodly impulses ofthe Spotterbridge taint. That of which you have had cause to complainyesternight is but an example of the evil to which I am subjected.'

  'And your brothers and sisters?' I asked; 'how hath this circumstanceaffected them?' The road was bleak and long, so that the old soldier'sgossip was a welcome break to the tedium of the journey.

  'They have all succumbed,' said Saxon, with a groan. 'Alas, alas! theywere a goodly company could they have turned their talents to betteruses. Prima was our eldest born. She did well until she attainedwomanhood. Secundus was a stout seaman, and owned his own vessel whenhe was yet a young man. It was remarked, however, that he started on avoyage in a schooner and came back in a brig, which gave rise to someinquiry. It may be, as he said, that he found it drifting about in theNorth Sea, and abandoned his own vessel in favour of it, but they hunghim before he could prove it. Tertia ran away with a north-countrydrover, and hath been on the run ever since. Quartus and Nonus have beenlong engaged in busying themselves over the rescue of the black folkfrom their own benighted and heathen country, conveying them over by theshipload to the plantations, where they may learn the beauties of theChristian religion. They are, however, men of violent temper and profanespeech, who cherish no affection for their younger brother. Quintus wasa lad of promise, but he found a hogshead of rumbo which was thrown upfrom a wreck, and he died soon afterwards. Sextus might have done well,for he became clerk to Johnny Tranter the attorney; but he was of anenterprising turn, and he shifted the whole business, papers, cash, andall to the Lowlands, to the no small inconvenience of his employer, whohath never been able to lay hands either on one or the other from thatday to this. Septimus died young. As to Octavius, Will Spotterbridgebroke out early in him, and he was slain in a quarrel over some dice,which were said by his enemies to be so weighted that the six must evercome upwards. Let this moving recital be a warning to ye, if ye arefools enough to saddle yourselves with a wife, to see that she hathno vice in her, for a fair face is a sorry make-weight against a foulmind.'

  Reuben and I could not but laugh over this frank family confession,which our companion delivered without a sign of shame or embarrassment.'Ye have paid a heavy price for your father's want of discretion,' Iremarked. 'But what in the name of fate is this upon our left?'

  'A gibbet, by the look of it,' said Saxon, peering across at the gauntframework of wood, which rose up from a little knoll. 'Let us ride pastit, for it is little out of our way. They are rare things in England,though by my faith there were more gallows than milestones when Turennewas in the Palatinate. What between the spies and traitors who were bredby the war, the rascally Schwartzritter and Lanzknechte, the Bohemianvagabonds, and an occasional countryman who was put out of the way lesthe do something amiss, there was never such a brave time for the crows.'

  As we approached this lonely gibbet we saw that a dried-up wisp of athing which could hardly be recognised as having once been a human beingwas dangling from the centre of it. This wretched relic of mortalitywas secured to the cross-bar by an iron chain, and flapped drearilybackwards and forwards in the summer breeze. We had pulled up ourhorses, and were gazing in silence at this sign-post of death, when whathad seemed to us to be a bundle of rags thrown down at the foot of thegallows began suddenly to move, and turned towards us the wizened faceof an aged woman, so marked with evil passions and so malignant in itsexpression that it inspired us with even more horror than the uncleanthing which dangled above her head.

  'Gott in Himmel!' cried Saxon, 'it is ever thus! A gibbet draws witchesas a magnet draws needles. All the hexerei of the country side will sitround one, like cats round a milk-pail. Beware of her! she hath the evileye!'

  'Poor soul! It is the evil stomach that she hath,' said Reuben, walkinghis horse up to her. 'Whoever saw such a bag of bones! I warrant thatshe is pining away for want of a crust of bread.'

  The creature whined, and thrust out two skinny claws to grab the pieceof silver which our friend had thrown down to her. Her fierce darkeyes and beak-like nose, with the gaunt bones over which the yellowparchment-like skin was stretched tightly, gave her a fear-inspiringaspect, like some foul bird of prey, or one of those vampires of whomthe story-tellers write.

  'What use is money in the wilderness?' I remarked; 'she cannot feedherself upon a silver piece.'

  She tied the coin hurriedly into the corner of her rags, as though shefeared that I might try to wrest it from her. 'It will buy bread,' shecroaked.

  'But who is there to sell it, good mistress?' I asked.

  'They sell it at Fovant, and they sell it at Hindon,' she answered. 'Ibide here o' days, but I travel at night.'

  'I warrant she does, and on a broomstick,' quoth Saxon
; 'but tell us,mother, who is it who hangs above your head?'

  'It is he who slew my youngest born,' cried the old woman, casting amalignant look at the mummy above her, and shaking a clenched hand at itwhich was hardly more fleshy than its own. 'It is he who slew my bonnyboy. Out here upon the wide moor he met him, and he took his young lifefrom him when no kind hand was near to stop the blow. On that groundthere my lad's blood was shed, and from that watering hath grown thisgoodly gallows-tree with its fine ripe fruit upon it. And here, comerain, come shine, shall I, his mother, sit while two bones hang togetherof the man who slow my heart's darling.' She nestled down in her ragsas she spoke, and leaning her chin upon her hands stared up with anintensity of hatred at the hideous remnant.

  'Come away, Reuben,' I cried, for the sight was enough to make oneloathe one's kind. 'She is a ghoul, not a woman.'

  'Pah! it gives one a foul taste in the mouth,' quoth Saxon. 'Who is fora fresh gallop over the Downs? Away with care and carrion!

  "Sir John got on his bonny brown steed, To Monmouth for to ride--a. A brave buff coat upon his back, A broadsword by his side--a. Ha, ha, young man, we rebels can Pull down King James's pride--a!"

  Hark away, lads, with a loose rein and a bloody heel!'

  We spurred our steeds and galloped from the unholy spot as fast as ourbrave beasts could carry us. To all of us the air had a purer flavourand the heath a sweeter scent by contrast with the grim couple whom wehad left behind us. What a sweet world would this be, my children, wereit not for man and his cruel ways!

  When we at last pulled up we had set some three or four miles betweenthe gibbet and ourselves. Right over against us, on the side of a gentleslope, stood a bright little village, with a red-roofed church rising upfrom amidst a clump of trees. To our eyes, after the dull sward of theplain, it was a glad sight to see the green spread of the branches andthe pleasant gardens which girt the hamlet round. All morning we hadseen no sight of a human being, save the old hag upon the moor and a fewpeat-cutters in the distance. Our belts, too, were beginning to be looseupon us, and the remembrance of our breakfast more faint.

  'This,' said I, 'must be the village of Mere, which we were to passbefore coming to Bruton. We shall soon be over the Somersetshireborder.'

  'I trust that we shall soon be over a dish of beefsteaks,' groanedReuben. 'I am well-nigh famished. So fair a village must needs have apassable inn, though I have not seen one yet upon my travels which wouldcompare with the old Wheatsheaf.'

  'Neither inn nor dinner for us just yet,' said Saxon. 'Look yonder tothe north, and tell me what you see.'

  On the extreme horizon there was visible a long line of gleaming,glittering points, which shone and sparkled like a string of diamonds.These brilliant specks were all in rapid motion, and yet kept theirpositions to each other.

  'What is it, then?' we both cried.

  'Horse upon the march,' quoth Saxon. 'It may be our friends ofSalisbury, who have made a long day's journey; or, as I am inclinedto think, it may be some other body of the King's horse. They are fardistant, and what we see is but the sun shining on their casques; yetthey are bound for this very village, if I mistake not. It would bewisest to avoid entering it, lest the rustics set them upon our track.Let us skirt it and push on for Bruton, where we may spare time for biteand sup.'

  'Alas, alas! for our dinners!' cried Reuben ruefully. 'I have fallenaway until my body rattles about, inside this shell of armour, like apea in a pod. However, lads, it is all for the Protestant faith.'

  'One more good stretch to Bruton, and we may rest in peace,' said Saxon.'It is ill dining when a dragoon may be served up as a grace after meat.Our horses are still fresh, and we should be there in little over anhour.'

  We pushed on our way accordingly, passing at a safe distance from Mere,which is the village where the second Charles did conceal himself afterthe battle of Worcester. The road beyond was much crowded by peasants,who were making their way out of Somersetshire, and by farmers' waggons,which were taking loads of food to the West, ready to turn a few guineaseither from the King's men or from the rebels. We questioned many as tothe news from the war, but though we were now on the outskirts of thedisturbed country, we could gain no clear account of how matters stood,save that all agreed that the rising was on the increase. The countrythrough which we rode was a beautiful one, consisting of low swellinghills, well tilled and watered by numerous streamlets. Crossing over theriver Brue by a good stone bridge, we at last reached the small countrytown for which we had been making, which lies embowered in the midst ofa broad expanse of fertile meadows, orchards, and sheep-walks. From therising ground by the town we looked back over the plain without seeingany traces of the troopers. We learned, too, from an old woman of theplace, that though a troop of the Wiltshire Yeomanry had passed throughthe day before, there were no soldiers quartered at present in theneighbourhood. Thus assured we rode boldly into the town, and soon foundour way to the principal inn. I have some dim remembrance of anancient church upon an eminence, and of a quaint stone cross within themarket-place, but assuredly, of all the recollections which I retain ofBruton there is none so pleasing as that of the buxom landlady's face,and of the steaming dishes which she lost no time in setting before us.