Oddsfish! by Robert Hugh Benson (most interesting books to read .TXT) 📖

smiled to me, but nodded only, fixing his fierce eyes on my face. He had, more than I had ever noticed it before, that hard fanatic look of the Puritan. After all, I reflected, this maltster had commanded a troop under Cromwell at Naseby. His manner was very different from when I had last seen him; he appeared to me as if desperate.

However, I think I shewed nothing of what I felt. I saluted him easily, and swung myself off my horse. He had gone into the house at my approach; and I followed him straight through into a little parlour to which, it seemed, he had particular access, for he turned a key in the door as he went in. When I was in, after him, and the door was shut, he turned to me, with a very stern look.

"Well, Mr. Mallock?" he said. "I see you are come ready for a ride."

"Yes," I said. "I had your message."

He nodded. Then he came a little closer, looking at me with his fierce eyes.

"You understand what is forward?"

"I understand enough," said I.

"That is very good then. We will ride at once."

As we came out, a couple of men--one of them I noticed in particular, dressed as a workman--(I set him down for a carpenter or some such thing)--made as though they would speak to us; but Rumbald waved his hand at them sharply, as if to hold them off. I could see that he was displeased. I said nothing, but I marked the man closely: he was a little fellow, that looked ill. Mr. Rumbald's horse was already there; and mine was being held still by the ostler into whose hands I had given him. We mounted without another word; and rode away.

I think we did not speak one word at all till we were out from town. Such was his mood, and such therefore I imitated. He rode like a soldier, sitting easily and squarely in his saddle; and the more I observed him and thought of him, the less I liked my business. It was wonderful how some emotion had driven up the power that lay in him. All that genial hail-fellow manner was gone completely.

When we were clear of town he spoke at last.

"This is a very grave business, sir," he said. "We had best not speak of it till we are home. Have you no servants?"

He spoke so naturally of my servants that I saw he was astonished I had none. I had very little time to think what I should answer; it appeared to me that I had best be open.

"Yes," I said. "My man is gone on to Hoddesdon to await me there. I thought it was best he should not ride with us."

He looked at me with a peculiar expression that I could not understand; but only for an instant. Then he nodded, and turned his stern face again over his horse's ears.

My moods were very various as I rode on. Now I felt as a sheep being led to the slaughter; now as an adventurer on a quest; and, again, of a sudden there would sweep over me a great anxiety as to His Majesty's safety. The thought of Dolly, too, came upon me continually and affected me now in this way, now in that. Now I longed to be free and safe back at Hare Street; now I knew that I could never look her in the face again if I evaded my plain duty. One thing I can say, however, from my heart, and that is that never for an instant did I seriously consider any evasion. It was all in the course that I had chosen--to "serve the King." Well; I must do so now, wherever it led me. What, however, greatly added to the horror of my position was that I knew that this strong fellow at my side thought me to be a traitor to himself and was using that knowledge only for his own ends. He would surely be ruthless if he found I had served my turn; and here was I, riding to his house, and only two men in the world knew whither I was gone.

Rumbald had already dined; and thought not at all of me. We drew rein therefore, nowhere; but rode straight on, through village and country alike--now ambling for a little, once or twice cantering, and then walking again when the way had holes in it. So we passed through Totteridge and Barnet and Enfield Chase and Wood Green, and came at last to Broxbourne where the roads forked, and we turned down to the right. It was terrible that ride--all in silence; once or twice I had attempted a general observation; but he answered so shortly that I tried no more; and I am not ashamed to say that I committed myself again and again to the tuition of Our Lady of Good Counsel whose picture I had venerated in Rome. Indeed, it was counsel that I needed.

I did not know precisely where was the Rye, nor what it was like; for I had avoided the place, of design. I supposed it only a little place, perhaps in a village. I was a trifle disconcerted therefore when, as we crossed the Lea by a wooden bridge, he pointed with his whip, in silence, to a very solid-looking house that even had battlemented roofs--not two hundred yards away, to the left of the road. There was no other building that I could see, except the roofs of an outhouse or two, and suchlike. However, I nodded, and said nothing. No words were best: in silence we rode on over the bridge, and beyond; and in silence we turned in through a gateway, and up to the house, crossing a moat as we went.

Indeed, now I was astonished more than ever at the house. It was liker a castle. There was an arched entrance, very solid, all of brick, with the teeth even of a portcullis shewing. An old man came out of a door on our right, as our hoofs rang out; but he made no sign or salute; he took our horses' heads as we dismounted, and I heard him presently leading them away.

Still without speaking, the Colonel led me through the little guard-room on the right, hung round with old weapons of the Civil War, and up a staircase at the further end. At the head of the staircase a door was open on the right, and I saw a bed within; but we went up a couple more steps on the left, and came out into the principal living-room of the house.

It was a very good chamber, this, panelled about eight feet up the walls, with the bricks shewing above, but whitewashed. A hearth was on the right; a couple of windows in the wall opposite, and another door beyond the hearth. The furniture was very plain but very good: a great table stood under the windows with three or four chairs about it. The walls seemed immensely strong and well-built; and, though the place could not stand out for above an hour or two against guns, in the old days it could have faced a little siege of men-at-arms, very well.

Rumbald, when he had seen me shut the door behind me, went across to the table and put down his whip upon it.

"Sit down, sir," he said. "Here is my little stronghold."

He said it with a grim kind of geniality, at which I did not know whether to be encouraged or not: I did as he told me, and looked about me with as easy an air as I could muster.

"A little stronghold indeed," I said.

He paid no attention.

"Now, sir," he said, "we have not very much time. Supper will be up in half in hour; we had best have our talk first, and then you may send for your servant. Old Alick will find him out."

"With all my heart," I said, wondering that he made so much of my servant.

He sat down suddenly, and looked at me very heavily and penetratingly.

"Sir," he said, "you are going to hear the truth at last, I said we had not much time. Well; we have not."

"Then let me have the truth quickly," I said.

He took his eyes from my face. I was glad of that; as I did not greatly like his regard. What, thought I, if I be alone with a madman?

"Well, sir," he said, "we are driven desperate, as you may have guessed. I say, we; for you have identified yourself with our cause a hundred times over. My Lord Shaftesbury is gone; my Lord Essex is hanging back. Well; but those are not all. We have other men besides those that have been urged on and urged on, and now cannot be restrained. I have tried to restrain them myself"--(here he gulped in his throat: lying was not very easy to this man, I think)--"and I have failed. Well, sir, I must trust you more than I have ever trusted you before."

Again he stopped.

Then all came out with a rush.

"Not half a mile from here," said he, "along the Newmarket road there be twenty men, with blunderbusses and other arms, waiting for His Majesty and the Duke, who will come to-morrow."

"But how do you know?" cried I--all bewildered for the instant.

His head shook with passion.

"Listen," said he. "We have had certain information that they come this way--Why, do you think we have not--" (again he broke off; but I knew well enough what he would have said!) "I tell you we know it. The King is not lying at Royston, to-night. He comes by this road to-morrow. Now then, sir--what do you say to that?"

My mind was still all in a whirl. I had looked for sudden danger, but not so sudden as this. Half a dozen questions flashed before me. I put the first into words:

"Why have you told me?" I cried.

His face contracted suddenly. (It was growing very dark by now, and we had no candles. The muscles of his face stood out like cords.)

"Not so loud!" said he; and then: "Well, are you not one of us? You are pledged very deeply, sir; I tell you."

Then came the blessed relief. For the first moment, so genuine appeared his passion, I had believed him; and that the ambushment was there, as he had said. Then, like a train of gunpowder, light ran along my mind and I understood that it was the same game still that they were playing with me; that there was no ambushment ready; that they had indeed fixed upon this journey of the King's; but that they were unprepared and desired delay. His anxiety about my servant; his evident displeasure and impatience; his sending for me at all when he must have known over and over again that I was not of his party--each detail fitted in like a puzzle. And yet I must not shew a sign of it!

I hid my face in my hands for a moment, to think what I could answer. Then I looked up.

"Mr. Rumbald," said I, "you are right. I am too deeply pledged. Tell me what I am to do. It is sink or swim with me now."

He believed, of course, that I was lying; and so I was, but not as he thought. He believed that he had gained his