The Blue Pavilions by Arthur Quiller-Couch (most read books .txt) 📖

Stick your knees tightly into the saddle—so."

The wind and the night began to race by Tristram's ears as his horse leapt forward. The motion became easier, but the pace was terrifying to a desperate degree; for it seemed that he sat upon nothing, but was being whirled through the air as from a catapult at the heels of his father, who pounded furiously through the darkness a dozen yards ahead. For three minutes at least he felt at every stride an extreme uncertainty as to his chances of realighting in the saddle. It reminded him of cup-and-ball, and he reflected with envy that the ball in that game is always attached to the cup with a string.

At the end of ten minutes Captain Salt reined up, and Tristram's horse, after being carried past for twenty yards by his mere impetus, stopped of his own accord and to his rider's intense satisfaction.

"Look," said the Captain, pointing to the sky behind them, which was now illumined by a broad scarlet glare.

"What is that?"

"One of the ships on fire."

"Then I am better off where I am."

"Did you doubt it?"

"I was beginning to.&#8230 How much farther must we ride?"

"Two leagues."

Tristram groaned, and they set off again, but more slowly, for the road now was paved with bricks instead of the loose sand over which they had travelled hitherto, and moreover it ran, without fence or parapet, along the top of a formidable dyke, the black waters of which far beneath him caused Tristram the most painful apprehension. Captain Salt, guessing this, slackened the pace to a walk. The glare still reddened the sky behind: but either the firing had ceased or they had passed beyond sound of it. At any rate, they heard only the water lapping in the dykes and the wind that howled over the wastes around.

Tristram had long since lost his hat, and his nose was bleeding from a sharp blow against his horse's neck. He was trying to stanch the flow when the chimes of a clock pealed down the wind from somewhere ahead and upon his right. His father halted again, and after scanning the gloom for a minute uttered again the three calls that were like the wailing of a gull.

Again the signal was answered, this time from their left, and the spark of a lantern appeared. "Dismount, my son," said the Captain, setting the example and leading his horse by the bridle towards the light; "we leave our horses here."

"For others?"

"No, for a canal-boat."

"This country may be flat," thought Tristram; "but decidedly the travelling is not monotonous."

As he drew near the lantern, he saw indeed that they were on the edge of a canal, wherein lay a long black barge, with a boy on horseback waiting on the tow-path, a little ahead of it. On the barge's deck by the tiller an immensely fat boatman leant and smoked his pipe, which he withdrew placidly from his lips as Captain Salt gave the password to the man with the lantern and handed over the smoking horses.

"Modena!"

The fat man spat, stood upright and prepared for business as the passengers stumbled on board. Not a word more was spoken until Tristram found himself in a long, low cabin divided into two parts by a deal partition. By the light of a swinging lamp he saw that a bench ran along the after-compartment, and asked if he might stretch himself out to sleep.

"By all means," said his father. "I was going to propose it myself. We shall travel without halting till morning."

"Then 'good night.'"

"You appear in a hurry."

"It seems to me that it's my turn."

The barge was hardly in motion before Tristram began to snore. Nor did he awake till the sun was up and shining in through the little opening by the stern, through which he could see the legs of the fat steersman on deck. While he rubbed his eyes his father appeared at the cabin door with a bundle in one hand and a big market-basket in the other.

"You sleep late, my son. I have already been marketing, as you see."

"Then we are at a standstill."

"Yes, but we move on again in three minutes."

"What have you bought?"

"Your breakfast. See—" and the Captain spread on the cabin table an enormous sausage, two loaves of bread and a bottle of red wine.

"That is good, for I warn you I am hungry."

"But first of all you must dress."

"Am I not already dressed?"

"Let me point out that the uniform of a private soldier in his Majesty's Coldstream Guards differs in so many respects from the native costume of these parts that it can hardly fail to excite remark. Listen: I have here two suits of clothes, in which we must travel for the next day or two; I as a private gentleman and you as my lackey."

"I begin to see that this way back to Harwich has its difficulties as well as the other," sighed Tristram while they changed their suits. This reflection threw him into a melancholy which lasted throughout the day, insomuch that he hardly found heart to go on deck, but sat on his bench in the cabin, feeding his heart on the prospect of Sophia's joy at his return and listening to his father, who sat and whistled on the cabin hatch, to the thuds of the towing-horse's hoofs, and to the monotonous "huy!" and "vull!" of the boatman whenever their barge encountered another and one of the twain slackened rope to allow passage.

Occasionally they were hailed from the bank by travellers who desired to journey downstream; but the invariable answer was that this barge had been hired by a nobleman who wished to travel without company and at his leisure. As Tristram, however, knew nothing of the Dutch language, he imagined these to be but kindly salutations of the inhabitants designed to enliven a voyage which (as he judged) must be inexpressibly tedious to anyone who made it with any other purpose than that of being restored to Sophia's embrace.

Towards sunset he went on deck, and observed his father steadily gazing at the left bank of the canal, parallel to which, and at a distance of five hundred yards or less, there ran an embankment with a highroad along the top of it. Following the direction of Captain Salt's eyes, he descried a party of four horsemen about half a mile behind them advancing down this road at a steady trot. The Captain had paused in his whistling—which had been pretty continuous all day—and was regarding these horsemen with great interest.

"I do not like them," he said reflectively, and spoke a few words to the steersman, who glanced back over his shoulder.

"You have met them before?" Tristram inquired.

"Not that I know of. Nevertheless, I do not like them."

Tristram thought this odd, for it was impossible at that distance to descry the features of the riders.

"We will go below," his father announced, rising in a leisurely manner.

They did so, and stood by the cabin door, so that their forms were hidden while they could see perfectly all that passed on the bank. The four horsemen drew near and trotted by at the same pace without seeming to turn their heads towards the canal. Two rode horses of a dark bay colour, the third a dapple grey, and the fourth a sorrel. As soon as they had passed out of sight, Captain Salt ascended to the deck again and entered into a long conversation in Dutch with the fat boatman. As this did not amuse Tristram any more than the windmills of which the scenery was mainly composed, he remained below and, stretching himself again on the bench, began to dream of Sophia.

Three hours later he awoke, said his prayers, and was preparing to go to sleep again, when his father entered the cabin.

"Hullo! What are you doing?"

"I was just thanking Heaven, which, against my inclinations, makes our journey a slow one."

"You do not wish to reach home in a hurry?"

"On the contrary, I desire it ardently. But having remarked that whenever I travel fast I am either seasick or jolted raw, I feel grateful for every restraint put upon my ardour."

"In that case I almost fear to announce that we shall move faster to-morrow."

"I am willing to be coerced," said Tristram, and dropped off again.

It was but an hour after dawn when his father aroused him. The boat lay moored by a little quay, beyond which his eye travelled to clusters of red roofs glowing in the easterly sunshine, and a dominant spire, the weathercock of which dazzled the eye with its brightness. The town was just waking up, as could be perceived from the blue wreaths of smoke that poured out of the chimneys.

Captain Salt was in an evident hurry. Without giving Tristram time to wash in the fore-cabin, he hustled him on shore and up a narrow street to an inn, over the archway of which hung the sign of a White Lamb with a flag between its forelegs. Here they rang a bell, and were admitted after ten minutes by a sleepy chambermaid, who led them upstairs to a low-browed sitting-room facing the street, as they perceived when she drew back the shutters. At the back of this room lay two bedchambers; and Tristram withdrew into the nearer, while his father ordered breakfast.

It happened that these two bedrooms overlooked a broad court or stable-yard behind the White Lamb. Captain Salt, having given his instructions, retired, whistling cheerfully, to perform his toilet. He was in the best of spirits, and broke now and again into snatches of song, which he trolled out in a tenor voice of great richness and flexibility. Tristram listened in admiration on the other side of the partition. The songs were those of Tom d'Urfey and his imitators, and dealt in a strain of easy sentimentality with hay-rakes, milking-pails and all the apparatus of a country life as etherealised by a cockney fancy; but the Captain sang with such a gusto, such bravura, and such an appealing tremolo in the pathetic passages, that you might have mistaken the splashing of water in his basin, as he broke off to wash his face, for tears of uncontrollable regret that he had not been born a "swain" (as he put it). Suddenly, however, one of his roulades ceased with more abruptness than usual and the enchanted Tristram waited in vain for the ditty to be resumed. The fact was that Captain Salt had glanced out of the window and seen at a stable door across the court a man stooping with his back to the inn and washing down the legs of a dark bay horse.

The Captain contemplated this group for a moment; then hastily donning his coat and turning into the parlour looked out upon the street.

Immediately under the signboard of the White Lamb, and before the front-door, stood a couple of men who chatted as they passed a tankard of beer to each other. Captain Salt could not see their faces owing to the extreme width of their hat-brims. But he turned a shade paler, and drawing back from the window stepped to the door, which opened upon the landing. Moving softly to the balusters, he peered over. Directly beneath him, at the foot of the stairs, sat yet another man in a broad-brimmed hat, who was engaged very tranquilly in polishing a pistol with an oily rag. The barrel glimmered in the light that shone down the well of the staircase from a skylight above Captain Salt's head.

He retired to the parlour again and, after trying the lock of the door, walked to and fro in deep thought for awhile. Then, from the bedroom, he fetched his sword and belt, with the two pistols which he had carried throughout the journey. He was examining the priming of these very narrowly when Tristram appeared, red and glowing from his ablutions. Almost at the same instant footsteps were heard ascending the stairs. The Captain went quickly to the door pistol in hand.

It was only the waitress, however, with the tray containing their breakfast. He told her to set it down, looked at the tray and, announcing that he was hungrier than he had imagined, desired her to bring up a ham, another loaf, and four bottles of wine. Tristram stared.

"You seem puzzled, my son."

"It is my turn again. Let me remind you that two days ago you marvelled at my appetite."

"But this has to last us for a whole day, and perhaps longer."

"Are we not, then, to proceed farther to-day?"

"I doubt if we can."

"Decidedly this