Shrewsbury: A Romance

by Stanley John Weyman

A voice feebly yet unmistakably d----d Sir John and the captain.

The master chuckled hoarsely. "Set a frigate behind us with a noose flying at the yard-arm, and there is no man like him!" he said. "None, Sir John; and I have carried him across seventy times and over, sick and well, he should know the road from the Marsh to Southwark if any man does. But let him be for the present, and do you lie down in the bunk above him, and I will bring you some Nantz and a crust. When he is better, he will be as glad to see you as if you were his brother."

I obeyed, and fortified by the strong waters he brought me, was glad to lie down, and under cover of darkness consider my position and what chance I had of extricating myself from it. For the time, and probably until we reached Dunquerque, I was safe; but what would happen when Birkenhead--the man whom the Jacobites called the Royal Post, and who doubtless knew Sir John Fenwick by sight--what would happen, I say, when he roused himself, and found that he had not only taken off the wrong man but left Sir John to his fate? Would he not be certain to visit the mischance on my head? Or if I escaped his hands, what must I expect, a stranger, ashore in a foreign land with little money, and no language at my command? I shuddered at the prospect; yet shuddered more at the thought of Birkenhead's anger; so that presently all my fore-looking resolved itself into a strenuous effort to put off the evil day, and prolong by lying still and quiet the sleep into which he appeared to have fallen.

He lay so close to me, divided only by the one board on which I reclined, that all the noises of the ship--the creaking of the timbers, the wash of the seas as they foamed along the quarter, and the banging of blocks and ropes--noises that never ceased, failed to cover the sound of his breathing. And this nearness to me, taken with the fact that I could not see him, so tormented me with doubt whether he was awake or asleep, was recovering or growing worse, that more than once I raised my head and listened until my neck ached. In the twilight of the cabin I could see his cloak swaying lazily on a hook; on another hung a belt with pistols, that slid this way and that with the swing of the vessel. And presently watching these and listening to the regularity of his breathing, I laid my head down and did the last thing I proposed to do or should have thought possible; for I fell asleep.

I awoke with a man's hand on my shoulder; and sat up with a start of alarm, a man's voice in my ear. The floor of the cabin slanted no longer, the cloak and swordbelt hang motionless on the wall; and in place of the sullen plash of the waves and the ceaseless creaking of joists and knees, that had before filled the inwards of the ship, a medley of shouts and cries, as shrill as they were unintelligible, filled the pauses of the windlass. These things were, and I took them in and drew the inference, that we were in harbour; but mechanically, for it seemed, at the moment, that such wits as terror left me were in the grasp of the man who shook me and swore at me by turns; and whose short hair--for he was wigless--fairly bristled with rage and perplexity.

"You! Who the devil are you?" he cried, frantically. "What witchcraft is this? Here, Gill! Gill! Do you hear, you tarry pudding-head? Who is this you have put in my cabin? And where is Fenwick? Where----"

"Where is Sir John?" cried a voice somewhat distant, as if the speaker stooped to the hatchway. "He is there, Mr. Birkenhead. I set him there myself. And between gentlemen, such words as those, Mr. Birkenhead----"

"As what?" cried the man who held me.

"As tarry. But never mind; between friends----"

"Friends be hanged!" cried my assailant with violence. "Who is this fool? That is what I asked. And you, have you no tongue?" he continued, glaring at me. "Who are you, and where is Sir John Fenwick?"