Shrewsbury: A Romance

by Stanley John Weyman

The landlord was saddling our horses; and a little cheered by the warmth of his lanthorn, I went to help him. Smith turned aside, as I thought, into the next stall. But Brown was sharper and more suspicious, and in a twinkling called to him lustily, to know what he was doing. Getting no answer, "Devil take him," the landlord cried. "He cannot keep from that horse! Here, you! What are you doing there?"

"Coming!" Smith answered; but even as he spoke I caught the smart click of iron falling on iron, and the horse in the distant stall moved sharply with a hurried clatter of hoofs on the stones. "Coming!" Smith repeated. "What is the matter with you, man?"

"You had better come," the landlord answered savagely. "Or I shall fetch you. Here you!" this to me, "lead yours out, will you. I want to see your backs, and be quit of you!"

I took my horse by the bridle, and led it out of the stable, while Brown went to bit the other. And so, being alone outside, and the moon rising at the moment over the roof of the house and showing me the open gates at the end of the yard, the impulse to escape from Smith while I had the opportunity came on me with overpowering force. Better acquainted than the landlord with the villain's plans I had not a doubt that at that very moment he was laming Sir John's horse for the purpose of detaining him; and the cold-blooded treachery of this act, filling me with as much terror on my own account--who might be the next victim--as hatred of the perpetrator, I climbed softly to my saddle, and began to walk my horse towards the gates. Doubtless Smith was too busy, cloaking his own movements, to be observant of mine. I reached the gates unnoticed, and turning instinctively from London--in which direction I fancied that he would be sure to pursue me--I kicked my mare first into a quick walk, then into a cautious trot, finally into a canter. The beast, though far from speedy, was fresh from its corn; it took hold of the bit, shied at a chance light in a cotter's window, and went faster and faster, its ears pricked forward. In a minute we had left Ashford behind us, and were clattering through the moonlight. With one hand on the pommel and the other holding the shortened reins I urged the mare on with all the pressure of my legs; and albeit I trembled, now at some late-seen obstacle, which proved to be only the shadow of a tree, thrown across the road, and now at the steepness of a descent that appeared suddenly before me, I never faltered, but uphill and downhill drove in my heels, and with fear behind me, rode in the night as I had never before dared to ride in the daylight.

I had known nothing like it since the summer day twelve years before when I had fled across the Hertfordshire meadows on my feet. The sweat ran down me, I stooped in the saddle out of pure weakness; if the horse pricked its ears forward I spread mine backward listening for sounds of pursuit. But such a speed could not be long maintained, and when we had gone, as I judged, two miles, the mare began to flag, and the canter became a trot. Still for another mile I urged her on, until feeling her labour under me, and foreseeing that I must ride far, I had the thought to turn into the first lane to which I came, and there wait in the shadow of a tree until Smith, if he followed, should pass.

I did this, sprang down, and standing by my panting horse, in a marshy hollow, some two hundred paces from the road, listened intently, for twenty minutes, it may be, but they seemed to be hours to me. After the life I had been leading in London, this loneliness in the night in a strange and wild place, and with a relentless enemy on my track, appalled my very soul. I was hot and yet I shivered, and started at the least sound. The scream of a curlew daunted me, the rustling of the rushes and sedge shook me, and when a sad wail, as of a multitude of lost souls passed overhead, I cowered almost to my knees. Yet, inasmuch as these sounds, doleful and dreary as they were, were all I heard, and the night air brought no trampling of distant hoofs to my ear, I had reason to be thankful, and more than thankful; and my mare having by this time got her wind again, I led her back to the road, climbed into the saddle and plodded on steadily; deriving a wonderful relief and confidence from the thought that Smith had followed me London-wards.

Moreover, I had conceived a sort of horror of the loneliness of the waste country-side, and to keep the highway was willing to run some risk. I took it that the road I was travelling must bring me to Romney, and for a good hour and a half, I jogged with a loose rein through the gloom, the way becoming ever flatter and wetter, the wind more chill and salt, and the night darker, the moon being constantly overcast by clouds. In that marshy district are few hamlets or farms, and those of the smallest, and very sparsely scattered. Once or twice I heard the bark of a distant sheep dog, and once far to the left I saw a tiny light and had the idea of making for it. But the reflection that a dozen great ditches, each wide enough and deep enough to smother my horse, might lie between me and the house, availed to keep me in the road; the more as I now felt sure from the saltness of the night air that Romney and the sea were at no great distance in front of me. Presently indeed, I made out in front of me two moving lights, that I took to be those of ships riding at anchor, and my weary mare quickened her pace as if she smelt the stable and the hayrack.

For five minutes after that I plodded on in the happy belief that my journey was as good as over, and I saved; and I let my mind dwell on shelter and safety, and a bed and food and the like, all awaiting me, as I fancied, in the patch of low gloom before me where my fancy pictured the sleeping town. Then on a sudden, my ear caught the dull beat of a horse's hoofs on the road behind me; and my heart standing still with terror, I plucked at my reins, and stood to listen. Ay, and it was no fancy; a moment satisfied me of that. Thud-thud, thud-thud, and then squash-squash, squish-squish! a horse was coming up behind me; and not only behind me, but hard upon me--within less than a hundred paces of me. The soft wet road had smothered the sound up to the last moment.

The rider was so close to me indeed, and I was so much taken by surprise that the moon sailing at that instant into a clear sky, showed me to him before I could set my horse going; and, as I started, whipping and spurring desperately, I heard the man shout. That was enough for me; plunging recklessly forward along the wet, boggy road, I flogged my horse into a jaded canter, and leaning low in the saddle in mortal fear of a bullet, closed my eyes to the dangers that lay ahead, and thought only of escape from that which followed on my heels.

Suddenly, and while I was still kicking and urging on my horse, before the first flush of fear had left me, I heard a crash and a cry behind me; but I did not dare at the moment to look back. I only leaned the lower, and clung the more tightly to my horse's mane and still pressed on. By-and-by, however, hearing nothing, it flashed on me that I was riding alone, that I was no longer pursued; and a little later taking courage to draw rein and look back wearily, I found that I could see nothing, nor hear any sound save the heavy panting of my own horse. I had escaped. I had escaped and was alone on the marsh. But as I soon satisfied myself, I was no longer on the causeway along which I had been travelling when the man surprised me. The wind which had then met me was now on my right cheek; the lights for which I had been heading were no longer visible. The track, too, when I moved cautiously forward, seemed more wet and rough; after that it needed little to convince me that I had strayed from the highway, probably at the point where my pursuer had fallen.