Now, I made good speed in my journey, and met with little hindrance until the afternoon of the fourth day, when I was brought up by as unfortunate an accident as a man in my position could encounter. My horse, which had left Sheffield that morning, seemingly fresh and fit for the last stage of his journey, suddenly fell dead under me on the roadside ’twixt Hickleton and Barnsdale, leaving me staring at him with as rueful thoughts as ever I had in my life. It was then four o’clock in the afternoon, and by six I had trudged forward to Barnsdale. There, pausing under the trees, I stood to catch a glimpse of the Manor House in the distance. I laid my hand on the packet hidden in my doublet. “That must be delivered ere nightfall,” says I. But I was dead tired, and by no means certain as to how my resolution was to be carried out.
| Chapter III | Of my Second Meeting with Anthony Dacre, and its Results—and of my Serious Quandary as to which of two Duties must first be performed. |
I.
I was by this time on the threshold, as it were, of my destination, for only a short seven miles lay ’twixt me and Fairfax’s headquarters, but seven miles to a weary man is no light thing to venture on, and the packet which lay in my doublet was of a strict importance. However, fate being plainly against me, I ceased to fight with it, and resolved to rest for awhile, leaning against a beech tree that was damp and black with the November mists, debating in my mind as to the advisability of doing this or that.
“Faith!” says I to myself at last. “With my knowledge of the country it shall go hard if I don’t reach Pomfret to-night, and on a good horse, too. And so let’s see for such means as the neighbourhood affords.”
As luck would have it the barking of a dog across the fields reminded me of a farmhouse that stood there. ’Twas a lonely place, lying a long way back from the road, and so well hidden by great trees that you might have passed it, going north or south, and never caught a glimpse of its gables. I had forgotten it quite till the dog barked. “Egad!” says I, hearing him. “Here’s the very thing for me. Reuben Trippett’s bay mare will carry me across this seven miles in a trice, and I’ll take her without as much as a ‘by your leave,’ if only the stable-door be open.” And without pausing to reflect upon such questions as to whether Reuben still lived there, and if the bay mare (which he had lent me more than once in by-gone days) was still his property. I climbed the hedge at the next convenient opening, and made my way across the dank meadows towards the farmhouse.
By this time the night was closing in, very dull and misty, and as there was no light in Reuben Trippett’s window by which to guide my steps, I had some little difficulty in finding my way. There were three fields to cross, and in the middle one I called to mind a wide stretch of marshy land in which as a lad I had gathered many a handful of rare butter-bums. “Keep me out o’ that!” says I to myself, but the words were scarce out of my mouth when into it I flops, to my sore discomfort, and the sad besmirching of my breeches. But having met with it—and floundered out on t’other side after some difficulty—I knew where I was, and so went forward until at last I saw the farmhouse chimneys make a faint outline against the grey sky. There was a glint of light through a crack in the kitchen shutters. “Softly does it,” says I, and I crept along the wall till the sneck of the fold gate lay in my hand. “Why, this,” I says, chuckling to myself, “is the rarest adventure”—and so I was across the rotting straw in the fold and at the stable-door quicker than a star can shoot. “These cobble-stones,” thinks I, “must be covered up, or they’ll hear the mare’s feet on ’em”—and I ran across to the tumbril in the middle of the fold and brought back an armful of straw and spread it carefully over the stones. “And pray God,” I says, “that old Reuben hears naught, for his blunderbuss will spread pepper-corns over a good twenty yards!”
The stable door was unlocked—there was naught for me to do but lift the sneck and enter. Once inside I stood listening. On the instant I knew that there were no horses there. The place was cold, damp, evil-smelling, and silent as a dead-house. Now a stable in which horses have their habitation is warm as one’s own bed at getting-up time, and so I knew from its very coldness that neither the bay mare nor any other mare or horse stood ready to hand. And I was outside again in a moment and standing on the straw that I had laid down so carefully just before, with my brains busily wondering what had come to Reuben Trippett, whose stables and byres had always been full of cattle.