[CHAPTER XVIII]
THE DOUBLE SIX
The time had not been wasted. I had had a stirring experience and got a hint of dangers and uncertainties ahead. Moreover, and on this I plumed myself most, I had acquired a handsome hat. It was a trifle roomy, but a wisp of paper tucked within the inside rim would remedy that defect. The moon was getting higher and brighter, and I pulled my new treasure off again and again to admire it. It had belonged to a rascal with an excellent taste in hats. I was very content with it, and looked forward eagerly to catching the glint in Margaret's eyes when she saw it. After all it behoved me to look well in her presence, and I regretted that the rogue had not shed his coat and breeches as well. No doubt they were equally modish and becoming, and would have set me up finely, though all the tailors in London town couldn't make me a match for Maclachlan. A man has to be born to fine clothes, like a bird to fine feathers, before he looks well in them. The thought made me rueful. I jammed my hat on fiercely, and slapped Sultan into a longer stride.
The man ahead of me was, out of question, the Government spy, Weir. It was now a full day and more since I had crammed my Virgil into his maw, and he had had time to get into these parts. Thirty years before there had been much feeling for the honest party hereabouts, and among the gentry along the border of the shires there would be some in whose hearts the old flame still flickered. Indeed, my own errand proved so much, and a noser-out like Weir would be well employed in rooting up fragments of gossip over the bottle and memories of beery confidences at market ordinaries--sunken straws which showed the back-washes of opinion beneath the placid surface flow of our rural life. I dug my fingers into my thigh and imagined I was wringing the rascal's greasy neck, and the feeling did me good.
I began to ride past scattered houses and then between rows of cottages. Sultan was tiring a little, but, being an experienced horse, pricked up at the sight and cantered down the dead main street of the town. The shadows of the houses on my left ended in an irregular line on the cobbled causeway on my right. Near the town end I came on an exception to the black-and-white stillness of the houses--an inn on my right ablaze with light and full of noise. A merry liquorish company it held, some quarrelling, some rowdily disputatious, and a few stentors trying to drown the rest by roaring a tipsy catch. I pulled Sultan towards the verge of the shadows to see if I could make anything out, and he, supposing, no doubt, that I was guiding him towards bait and stable, made a half-turn towards the portico that ran on pillars along the face of the inn. I checked him at once, but, in that trice of time, a man leaped from behind a pillar, laid one hand on the pommel of my saddle, and raised the other in warning. He was a little man, and in his eagerness he stood on tiptoe and whispered, "Ride on, Master Wheatman! One second may cost you dear!"
Even as he spoke, some movement within startled him, and he leaped back into the shadow before I could question him.
I urged Sultan onward, and once out of footfall of the inn, pricked him into a gallop. Out of the town he fled, past the end of the Stafford road, along which two hours of Sultan's best would bring me to the Hanyards and mother and Kate, and I kept him at it for a full two miles before I gave him a breather and settled down to think out what it meant.
I did not know the man from Adam, but he had me and my name quite pat. He was obviously a friend, for his bearing and his warning alike bespoke his goodwill towards me. He must be waiting there for some purpose, and he must have seen me somewhere and learned enough about me to know from what source danger to me was certain to come. In this case it was plain that the danger was within the inn. The carousers might be, nay, almost certainly were, soldiers, though there had been none in the town when Job Lousely had left it less than two hours ago. The news of my escapade might well have leaked into Stafford by now; I was very well known in the town, and the stranger might be some Stafford chap benighted at Uttoxeter after his business at the market. As I say, I did not know the man, but he might very well know me; he was, perhaps, some old schoolfellow, grown out of recollection by moonlight, and still willing to serve an old butty. This seemed the likeliest solution of the difficulty, and it made me very sad. The news about Jack would be whispered round by now, and I could never walk the old streets again without seeing nods and shudders everywhere. See him? That's him! Killed his best friend! Wheatman of the Hanyards! Never held his head up since! And hadn't ought to! The chatter of the townsfolk crept into my ears between the hoof-beats, and made me sick and dizzy.
It would not have happened but for the bladder-faced scoundrel ahead of me, now creeping around like a loathsome insect to sting a man of ancient name and fame, and I was eager to be at him again. Sultan, without more urging, had made the furlongs fly in gallant style, and it was time to be looking out for my landmarks. Nance had made me letter-perfect in them. Here, on the right, was the woodward's cottage where the road began to run downhill into a bottom dark with ancient elms: there, on my left, in an open space among the boles, the moon showed up a worn, grey column which marked the spot where, in the wild days of the Roses, a Parker Putwell had slain a Blount in unfair fight for a light of love not worth the blood of a rabbit. Nance had very earnestly told me the old, sad tale, to impress the spot on my mind, for the long lane up to Ellerton Grange began in the shadows just beyond the monument, and wound away up the slope to the right. The road carried us up where the moon-light fell on meadows that were almost lawns, and across them to a maze of buildings. A minute later, I leaped off Sultan and hammered away at the studded oaken door of Ellerton Grange.
No man came to my summons, and I sent a second volley of rat-tats echoing through the house before I heard a shuffling of feet within and a drawing of big bolts. The door crept open for a foot or so, and an old man's head, with a lantern trembling over it, appeared in the gap.