My lady of Cleeve

by Percy John Hartley

I bade one of the men give up his mount to the marquis, and collecting the men I had stationed upon the terrace, I climbed into the saddle, and so for the first time I left Cleeve.

The fog had collected somewhat, though it was still very dark, and the brightly lighted room from which we had come rendered the blackness that surrounded us more opaque.

For myself I was content to resign the lead to Cornet Graham and to follow behind the others with only my thoughts for company. And if ever there was all hell in a man’s heart, it was in mine that night.

For now that I was alone, now that I had no longer to keep up appearances, I gave way to the passion I had so far restrained. That I—I of all men, should be struck by a woman! And in public! As the thought of the men in front who had been witnesses of my disgrace recurred to me, I ground my teeth with anger and cursed this woman who had brought me to shame.

But bitterly, bitterly should she repent the blow! Oh, to hurt her! to humble her pride! to see her at my feet begging for mercy—and to refuse it! I gloated over the thought, and I swore in my heart that I would not spare her in the hour of my triumph one throb of the pain I was now enduring. She should drink the cup of my revenge to the bitterest dregs; and so taken up was I with these thoughts that it was not until I saw the lights in the windows of the houses on either side of me that I realised that we had reached the village.

I spurred forward then and overtook the troop in front. From the length of the street and the size of the houses I saw that the place was larger than I had been given to understand. Here and there, at the trampling of our horses’ feet, windows were opened, and dark figures appeared in the doorways, or ran out, heedless of the falling rain, into the street. But the sight of the troopers’ swarthy faces and of the hated uniform they wore drove them swiftly indoors again. For though it was June of the year 1690, and Dutch William had now been two years upon the throne, yet so great was the terror which the “Tangier devils” had inspired throughout the West, both in friend and foe alike, at the time of Monmouth’s ill-fated rebellion, that Catholics though the villagers were, they knew by past experience that these very troopers who had fought for James at Sedgemoor and elsewhere were now equally ready to plunder them as Papists and Jacobites in the name of William; and behind their barred doors there was many a one, I wot, that night who trembled for the loss of such goods as he possessed and for the safety of his women folk.

At the end of the street the cornet turned sharply to the right and entered a square courtyard, at the opposite side of which stood an old-fashioned inn.

A blaze of light came from its windows, through one of which could be distinguished the dark figures of the troopers of De Brito’s party. We drew rein before the door, and almost ere we could dismount the landlord stood upon the steps.

“Welcome, gentlemen,” he said, bowing. “What is your pleasure?”

He was a round-faced, portly man, with an air somewhat above that of the keeper of a country inn. There was a nameless something about him that told me he had at one time been a soldier.