CHAPTER XIII.
There are moments in the life of every one, when some sudden and unexpected change hurries us rapidly through a bustling and exciting scene, where we are called upon to decide and act suddenly upon unforeseen conditions, and then leaves us to pause and reflect in solitude and silence upon what we have just done. The effect is strange, as all men arrived at mature life must have felt, when, left to our own thoughts, we scan the busy moments just passed, doubtful whether impulse or reason have guided us, and still more doubtful whether impulse or reason have guided us aright. Often the answer is, "Yes," and often, "No;" and, when it is negative, man, with his great skill in covering his own faults and follies from his eyes, satisfies himself by shrugging up his shoulders, and saying--"I acted for the best--" forgetting too often how much of the fault he would thus palliate is attributable to the evil habit of not making reason his ever-present and ready guide. Exercise her daily, use her upon all occasions, and she will act at the first call. Neglect her for an hour, she falls asleep, and requires time to be roused. All very trite; but do any of us remember this as much as we ought?
When Smeaton stood alone, shut up in the priest's chamber, he began to ask himself if he had done wisely in consenting to be hidden in that retreat, and he could not but acknowledge that love for Emmeline, and the thought of obtaining means of access to her under some remote and uncertain contingences, had shared more in fixing his determination than the consideration either of his own safety or of his own name and character. He saw that he had not acted in accordance with reason; but he too--for he was by no means perfect--treated the error lightly, saying to himself--
"Well, it is done, and cannot be undone. Let us make the best of it. There is always a way out of this secret chamber, that is one comfort; but I had better examine it more closely. I saw the key lying there, it is true, but I did not satisfy myself that it would turn in the lock, and it seemed somewhat rusty."
Thus musing, he took the light from the table, and walked quickly through the passage along which the old woman had led him.
"She was foolish," he thought, "to hesitate about showing me the way. No one could miss it."
At the end of the lower passage, he found the key lying in the little niche, and, taking it up, was about to apply it to the lock, when he thought he heard a step, without being able to distinguish at first whether it was in the passage behind him, or on the hill-side beyond the door. He turned round, and looked, and listened; and then clearly heard the step again, apparently close to him, but on the outside. The next instant, a voice was heard speaking in a grumbling tone, and with a strong Devonshire accent.
"I don't see what is the use of sending us down here," it said. "Why, twenty people could pass us in this wood."
"Never you mind, Jim; do your duty and obey orders," said another voice. "Let other people think what is the use. I am sure you would never find out for yourself, if it made you take ten steps off your horse's back. There, get on a little lower down. I'll mount guard here, where the path turns."
"Oh, ho!" exclaimed Smeaton, to himself; "the search has begun. I may as well wait here a little. Any one coming down the stairs, and along the passage, would soon be heard; and I think these two gentlemen outside would easily be dealt with."
He accordingly put the candle in the niche where the key had lain, brought the hilt of his sword a little round, and quietly placed the key in the lock. A few minutes passed in perfect silence, the men without either standing perfectly still, or sitting on the edge of the fountain; but then Smeaton's quick ear caught the sound of a distant footfall, which evidently came nearer and nearer, but not by the passage in which he was standing.
"Who may this new visitor be, I wonder!" he mentally ejaculated, and, bending down his head, listened more attentively. The step came nearer and nearer, and approached the door close to which he had placed himself. Then, a loud voice cried "Stand!" and Smeaton could hear the sound of what seemed a spring and a brief scuffle.
"Ugh, ugh! don't strangle me!" cried a good, round, jolly voice. "Man, I am apoplectic, by the blessing of God and the assistance of capons and strong waters. If you twist my cravat in that way, you will get nothing but a dead statuary, which is as bad as a dead lion."
The last words confirmed what the tone of voice had intimated to Smeaton before, that his good friend Van Noost was the person who had fallen into the hands of the Philistines; and, believing, from their conversation that morning, that the poor sculptor had more cause than himself to fear the pursuit of justice, he felt really sorry for him.
"Lion, or whatever else you may call yourself," replied the soldier's voice, "you must along with me. Come, come, no struggling, or I'll break your pate, master. By ----, they say, 'as fat as a lord;' and, if this is a lord, it is a fat one of the sort."
"Ugh, ugh!" cried Van Noost. "I tell you, you will strangle me if you drag me in that way."
Smeaton could bear it no more. The impulse to help the poor caster of leaden figures was too strong to be resisted; and he gave way to it. In a moment, the key was turned in the lock and the door drawn back, hiding completely the light in the niche. A slight gleam of the risen moon showed the waters of the well about three feet across, with a little path beyond, and a soldier pulling Van Noost along. In a moment, Smeaton was across the well; the man, hearing a noise, turned his head; but, before he could see whence it came, or who was his assailant, a blow from Smeaton's clenched fist forced him to relax his grasp upon the sculptor, and a second, before he could use his sword, sent him rolling down the hill-side amongst the trees and bushes.
"Quick! Come with me!" cried Smeaton, seizing Van Noost's hand, and pulling him on. "Jump!--take a good spring."
The last words were uttered after he himself had cleared the well, and was standing in the passage, but still holding Van Noost's hand across the water. Some of the lead of the statuary's profession, however, seemed to have got into the poor man's hinder quarters, for, though he made a great effort to follow his conductor, he fell short by a few inches; and, had it not been for Smeaton's grasp, might probably have been drowned. The other, however, dragged him into the passage head foremost, and quietly closed and locked the door.
"Hush!" he whispered, seeing that Van Noost was about to speak. "Hush! be perfectly still."
"Jim, Jim," cried the voice of the soldier without--"look after them. They are coming your way--stop them--shoot them dead, if they won't stand."
As he spoke, he scrambled up again towards the path, displacing a large stone which rolled down into the valley. Whether the other soldier took it for a flying enemy or not, I cannot tell; but, instantly after, he vociferated loudly--"Stand!" and the next moment the report of a pistol shot was heard.
Smeaton smiled, and whispered to his companion--"All is safe; but keep perfectly silent."
The sound of many feet running from above was then heard, as some of the companions of the men below hurried down, alarmed by the shot, and great confusion, with much talking, ensued, of which only fragments reached the ears of those in the passage, somewhat after the following fashion.
"What is the matter, what is the matter?" "Here, come here. They have gone down here. I had got hold of him by the neck; but another came up, and knocked me down." "Who did you get hold of?" "They have got a dark lantern with them; for the light flashed out and dazzled my eyes. If you don't make haste, they will be gone. They ran straight down for the bay."
Many other cries, questions, and answers were going on at once; but two or three of the soldiers, answering the call of the man who had fired the pistol below, hurried down the path and, accompanied by him, ran on, some between the back of the houses and the steep hill-side, and others along the verge of the little stream, thus sweeping the whole course of the valley till they reached the smooth white sand on the shore of the bay.
The scene was calm and beautiful, the moon shining brightly over the sheltered water of the bay, and changing it into rippling silver, while Ale Head, dark and shadowy, swept like a gigantic wall round the south-western side, and the opposite point of Ale Down just caught the gleam of moonlight on its high head. It was a scene which might have led a lover of the picturesque, or one of the unhappy children of Imagination, to pause and dream. But the soldiers had no such thoughts; one single object attracted their whole attention. This was a fishing-boat, quietly rowing out of the little mouth of the bay, and darkening a diminutive space on the shining sea beyond.
They drew their own conclusions, which, like most hasty conclusions from insufficient premises, were altogether false. The boat was merely filled with fishermen; and, if the pursuers had paused to consider, they would have comprehended that sufficient time had not elapsed between the firing of the shot above, and the moment that they reached the beach, for any person to have pushed off the boat and rowed to the entrance of the bay. They determined in their own minds, however, that the persons of whom they came in search had made their escape by that means, and one said to the others--
"Well, they are off, that's clear, and there is no use of trying to follow; for, even if we were to get the boats off, I know no more about 'em than a jackass does of a powder-horn. Do you, Symes?"
"No more than you do, corporal," replied the other. "We had better go back to the house and tell the Justice."
"Tell the captain, Symes--tell the captain," replied the corporal. "That is what we must do. We know nothing of Justices. Justice has no more to do with us than my cap has with a bunch of keys. We act under our captain, Symes, and to him I shall go and report. Come along, my men."
In the mean time, while all these events had been passing on the side of the hill and in the passage near the well, other occurrences had taken place in Ale Manor House itself, which I must briefly notice.
Richard Newark had crept quietly after Smeaton and Mrs. Culpepper as far as he dared; and, at all events, had discovered the direction which they had taken. Emmeline had run out upon the terrace, and, watching the windows above, had gained some farther knowledge from the way in which she saw the light travel. Indeed, she clearly perceived it through the windows next to her own, and it seemed to pause for some time there. A distant sound, however, caused her to return suddenly into the house and order the doors to be closed. This had hardly been done, when the old housekeeper returned; and, going from servant to servant, in her quiet smooth way, cautioned each to say, if Colonel Smeaton was asked for, that he had ridden away to Axminster for the day.
Then came a period of suspense; but it did not last very long; for, at the end of five or six minutes, the approach of the troopers was intimated by the noise of their horses upon the terrace. Sundry orders were given in a loud voice, and then the great bell at the door rang.
"Don't open the door," said Richard Newark, to one of the servants who was crossing the hall. "Let me see who these folks are."
Then, partly opening one of the windows of the saloon, he called out--
"What do you want, my masters? Do you think we hold a horse fair here, that you bring so many beasts for sale?"
"Open the door, in the king's name and to the king's troops," said the officer in command, who had imbibed as much punch as was compatible with the due exercise of his understanding. "We require to search this house."
"That you shall not do, were you twice as tall," replied the boy, boldly, "without a lawful right to do so. Do you know this is the house of Sir John Newark, a Justice of peace for the county?"
"Oh, let them in, Richard," said Emmeline. "You cannot keep them out."
At the same moment, Justice Best advanced on foot to the window, saying--
"Let your people open the door, Master Richard. My name is Best. You have seen me with your father, and must know that I am a Justice of the peace too. Sir John is aware of our coming, and makes no opposition.
"Oh, that is another case, worshipful Master Best," replied the boy. "Open the door, my men, and let in the great magistrate."
Then, taking a light from the table, he went out into the hall and bowed low with mock reverence as the Justice and two or three of the soldiers entered.
"Pray, what is your good will and pleasure, and whom do you seek, worshipful sir?" asked the boy, whose wits seemed to sharpen under exercise. "As for myself, I am quite harmless. I heard an old woman, one day, call me an innocent, and my nurse used to call me her lamb. So that, unless Justice be a wolf, I have nothing to fear from her fangs. Indeed, this knowledge-box of mine is so empty, that there are not materials within it sufficient to manufacture treason, even against a farmer's orchard; and, as for robbery or murder, upon my life they never came into my noddle--always excepting birds' nests and mackerel in the bay."
"You are a merry boy, Master Richard," returned the Justice; "but our purpose in coming hither, is to seek a certain personage, passing for and reputed to be a servant of one Colonel Henry Smeaton. If he is produced at once, we shall give you no further trouble; but if not, we must search the house; for we are credibly informed that this man, in the disguise of a servant, is no other than the Earl of Eskdale, a known adherent of the Pretender. It is impossible for him to escape; for the house is surrounded. So you had better produce him at once. As I wish to do everything with courtesy, however, you had better communicate what I say to Colonel Smeaton, who may escape injurious suspicions if he gives his companion up freely."
"Colonel Smeaton has gone over to Axminster this afternoon," said one of the servants, coming forward, "and won't be back to-night; but, as for his man, your worship, he was in the hall not a minute ago, and making all the maids laugh with his funny stories."
"Ah, very likely," replied the Justice. "We have heard he is a jocular person. This confirms our information. Be so good as to ask him to walk hither, and remember you have admitted that he was in this house not a minute ago."
"To be sure I did," retorted the man, surlily; "and I don't doubt that he'll be in this hall in less than a minute more."
So saying he walked away, murmuring something about a pack of fools, which the Justice did not hear, or did not choose to hear.
Turning quietly to the door of the smaller saloon, his worship observed, in his usual soft and courteous accents, "Perhaps, Master Richard, you will allow me to examine my prisoner in this room. We have had a long ride, and a seat in a chair would be pleasanter to me than to remain in the saddle or to stand upon my legs."
"Ay, they seem weakly," answered the lad; "but you shall have right good leave and license to sit as long as a hen, if it pleases you, and see what you can hatch--a brood of nonsensicalities, doubtless!" he added to himself, as he followed the Justice into the room. Then, raising his voice again, he said--"Here is Justice Best, Emmy, come to look for Henry Smeaton's servant, accusing him of being attached to the three Kings of Brentford, and committing high treason against the wise men of Gotham. He is going to examine him in here, and we shall have rare fun, I don't doubt. Do stay and see the proverbs of Solomon put into action."
Emmeline, however, was fain to escape from the room, with an inclination of her head to the Justice as she passed; for, although she was desirous enough to hear all that took place, she feared that her anxiety and alarm might be evidenced too strongly.
It was clear enough to Mr. Justice Best that Richard Newark was laughing at him; but, as the lad was generally considered in the county deficient in intellect, he contented himself with saying, "Poor boy!" and seated himself solemnly at the table.
"This fellow is not coming, it seems," said Captain Smallpiece, who had followed with some of the soldiers into the room. "I had better search the house, your worship."
"Nay, nay, nay!" exclaimed the Justice, "have a little patience, Smallpiece. One of you have the goodness to call in my clerk."
"Here I am, sir," said a small man from behind; and, almost at the same moment, Smeaton's servant entered the room, with a curious and peculiar sort of leer upon his countenance, which seemed to show that he, at all events, entertained no apprehension of the result. He was followed by the servant who had spoken to the Justice in the hall, and some other domestics; and, raising his eyes to his face, the Justice asked, with an important air, "Pray, who are you, sir?"
"I am Colonel Smeaton's servant," he answered, with a strong Cockney accent. "They told me you wanted me."
"Are you his only servant?" asked the Justice, a good deal staggered by the man's appearance.
"He could not have a better," replied the man; "and, though I'm the only one, I'm as good as two; for I groom the horses and valet the master."
"Oh, ho!" ejaculated the Justice. "Now we are coming to it. Methinks a common lackey, sir, would not put on such a demeanour to a magistrate of the county acting in the king's name. My lord, concealment is of no avail. We know all about you, and have full information."
"Lord! lord! I, my lord!" cried the man; "to think of my turning out a lord!--I, who was born in a back garret at the corner of Fetter Lane, fattened upon the fumes of soap-suds--for my mother was a washerwoman, your worship--an honest woman, for all that--I, to turn out a lord! Well, the transmogrifications of this 'varsal world are miraculous, I do declare. Has your worship got my certificate in that little book; for if you have, I'll be a lord for all the rest of my life--see if I don't--and get a pension from the King, to keep up my dignity."
"Five foot, eleven, and a half," said the Justice, reading from a paper he had taken out of his pocket-book, and then raising his eyes to the man's figure. "Deuce take it! he does not seem so tall as that."
"Five foot three quarters, without my shoes," replied the man, smartly; "but perhaps I shall grow, seeing that I am only one-and-thirty, and a peer of the realm. I don't see why I should not grow to any height, now I have right and title to hold my head higher than I ever thought to hold it. Humility has shortened me all this while."
"Come, come, sir," said the Justice, thrown into a great state of doubt and indecision. "If you are the Earl of Eskdale, you had better acknowledge it at once; and, whether you are or are not, treat the Court with respect."
"The Earl of Eskdale!" cried old Mrs. Culpepper, who had come into the room with the other servants. Then, seeing that surprise had done what few things ever did do, thrown her off her guard, she added, "No, I can answer for it he is none of that blood. Why, the Earl of Eskdale must be an old white-headed man."
"Ay, ay, but that earl is dead," exclaimed the Justice. "This is the young earl we talk of, my good lady--Mrs. Culpepper, I believe; I hope you are well, Mrs. Culpepper--but don't meddle with this business, for I don't think you can know anything about it."
"How can you know, Goody?" cried the servant, turning sharply round to her, with a mock look of indignation. "Pray don't do me out of my dignity--I may be a peer or a prince, for aught you know."
"I never saw such a one," said the old woman, sarcastically; "but I can answer for your being none of the Eskdale family, for they were all tall handsome men and women; and you are no more like them than a beggar's cur is like a stag-hound."
"Civil, you see, civil!" said the man. "You perceive that high station is not without its inconveniences; but if your worship will only make me out a peer, I will take any title you please. I am quite indifferent as to names. Suppose you call me Lord Fetter Lane, or the Earl of Newgate."
"You may soon have a better right to either title than you expect," growled Captain Smallpiece, who was difficult to convince; but the Justice, whose wits were somewhat clearer, though not very pellucid either, began to have marvellous doubts on the subject of the man's real condition.
"Pray, sir," he said, "if you are really Colonel Smeaton's servant, and nobody else, when did you enter that gentleman's service, and where?"
"In Lunnun town," replied the man, drily, "on the fifth day of June last, at about half past three in the evening. Thank God, I have had a good edication, considering the mess I was brought up in; and I am very reg'lar in my habits--which I owe to my dear departed mother, who always kept her washing-books very correct, and wiped her hands whenever she took them out of the tub. She used to say she could always go into court with clean hands, poor woman; and so can I; for you see I always keep a little book here in my pocket, in which I put down when I enter, and when I quit, a service, and I get my kind masters to sign for me. Some of them don't speak as well as I deserve, it is true; but still they cannot say much harm. There is the book. You may look at it."
"Let me see, let me see," said the Justice; and, taking the book, he read some of the various characters which had been given to the man before him by the different masters whom he had served; one of which was as follows:
"This is to certify that Thomas Higham was in my service for eleven months and three days--a clever fellow, but a saucy rascal--passably honest, and not given to drink. I discharged him for his impudence.
"Henry Sackville,
"Deputy Comptroller of Her Majesty's Household."
Such was the first certificate he read; but there were a number of others, all much to the same purpose, which fully accounted for the time of Master Thomas Higham, from the age of sixteen up to the moment at which he stood before the magistrate.
"There must be some mistake here," said Mr. Best, beckoning up Captain Smallpiece and pointing to the papers before him. At that instant, the report of fire-arms was heard through the window which Richard Newark had left open, and the Justice exclaimed: "Hark! What is that?"
"Some of the fools let a pistol off by accident," answered the military officer. "Being fools, they are always committing some folly."
Having been thus oracular, he proceeded, with a somewhat unsteady gaze, to examine the certificates before him. He was one of those men who, even in their most sober moments (and he was not now sober), have a certain obscurity of mental vision which prevents them from perceiving anything but what is immediately before them. He stumbled and blundered through several of the testimonials, repeating from time to time--"Well, I don't see what that has to do with it. Well, I don't see--Tom Higham may be a good sort of saucy fellow; but who is Tom Higham? I should like to know. You cannot tell that this is Tom Higham."
"But it is very clear that he cannot be Lord Eskdale," replied the magistrate; "for his lordship is six foot high, and this man is five foot four. I am sure there has been some mistake. Our information is decided, it is true, that the Earl was seen passing this way. But we have no proof that he came to this house."
"Well, we had better search at all events," said the officer.
The magistrate, however, was of a different opinion. He thought he had gone quite far enough in offending Sir John Newark, of whom he stood in no little fear; he saw many means which the worthy knight might have of annoying, if not injuring, him, and knew that he would not at all scruple to use them.
A somewhat sharp altercation ensued, which highly amused Richard Newark, and not less Smeaton's servant, who, after it had gone on for some minutes, interposed with his usual saucy leer, saying:
"Will your worships tell me whether I am to be a Lord or not after all? I am very willing to be a Lord, if you wish it."
"Hold your tongue, fellow," said Justice Best. "You interrupt me in explaining to Captain Smallpiece that it would be wrong, discourteous, and perhaps illegal, to search Sir John Newark's house without information that an attainted person was actually here. All the suspicions were of yourself; and, if they turn out to be groundless, my functions in the case cease. If Captain Smallpiece, indeed, thinks fit to take upon himself--"
Before he could finish the sentence, one of the corporals of the regiment, followed by the men who had been down on the beach with him, pushed his way through the crowd round the door, and saluted in military fashion his commanding officer.
"Well, what the devil do you want, Corporal? I told you to keep watch outside."
"I have come to report that they have got off, sir," said the man. "We could not overtake them before they got into a boat and away."
"Who, who, who?" shouted the magistrate. "Who do you mean by 'they'?"
"Why, the Earl and his servant, I suppose, your worship," replied the corporal. "I got hold of one of them by the neck; but then up comes the other, flashed the light of a dark lantern in my eyes, and, before I could draw sword, knocked me head foremost down the hill. Good luck to the bush that stopped me. They ran away together down through the wood, and passed Jim, here, who fired his pistol at them."
"Ay, that I did," said a man behind him.
"They ran away down to the water, however," added the other, "and, before we could overtake them, had jumped into a boat and were rowing away out to sea."
"There, there, now," cried Mr. Best. "I told you how it would be." And he looked straight at Captain Smallpiece, as if the whole of this mischance had been of that officer's bringing about.
"No, you did not," rejoined the Captain. "You did not say anything of the kind. You were cock-sure, like all the rest of them, that this lackey was the Earl disguised, and that you would pounce upon him here like a hawk on a hedge-sparrow."
"But did you not wish to search the house without the slightest grounds of pretence?" demanded the magistrate. The officer, however, turned away from him, with a look of half-drunken contempt, and, addressing himself to the corporal, asked,
"What sort of men were they, corporal?"
"One was short and fat," said the corporal, "with a great many ribbons about him. The other was a tall man, and seemed youngish, as far as I could see."
"The Earl and his servant without doubt," said the Justice.
"I suppose so," grumbled Captain Smallpiece, in a disappointed tone. "What is to be done now? Shall we search?"
"Search! Search for what," demanded the Justice, "when they have got off to sea? There is no proof they were ever in the house at all, and very probably have been, during the time, down in one of the huts. What is to be done! Why, march off your men as fast as possible, and let us see how we can patch up matters with Sir John Newark. He won't forget it in a hurry, depend upon it. I require you, sir, to march off your men."
"Oh, very well," cried the Captain, indignantly. "That shall be done faster than you like perhaps. There, sound boot and saddle." And he walked away to the door.
"Could you favour me with a glass of wine, Master Richard?" said the Justice, in an insinuating tone. "We have ridden far; and this is dry work."
"Not a drop," replied the boy, boldly. "You came on a fool's errand; and you may go dry away. I can tell you, Master Best," he added, with a laugh, "you'll want all the wit in your noddle to settle accounts with my father; and it would be unkind to take a jot out of the canister by putting wine in. You have had quite enough to-night already, I should think; and, at all events, you'll get no more here."
The servants laughed; and, after trying hard for a look of dignity which would not come, Justice Best walked out of the room, with his clerk sneaking behind him, like a beaten cur.
"There, there," cried Richard Newark, running out into the hall and to the foot of the stairs, "shut all the doors and windows. Emmy, Emmy! Come down. All the fools are gone!"