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

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Of those three months I need not say very much; especially of the beginning of them, since I received then, I think, more compliments than ever in my life before. My interviews had been very many; not with Mr. Chiffinch only, but with two other personages whose lives, they were pleased to say, I had saved.

His Majesty had laughed very heartily indeed at the tale of my adventures.

"Odds-fish!" said he. "We had all been done, but for you, Mr. Mallock. It was three or four days after, at the least, that I had intended returning; and by that time, no doubt, our friends would have had their ambushment complete. But when your man came, all a-sweat, into my very bed-chamber, telling me to fly for my life--well; there was no more to be said. There was a fire too at my lodgings that same morning;--and poor Sir Christopher's low ceilings all ruined with the smoke--but that would not have brought me, though I suppose we must give out that it did. No; Mr. Mallock, 'twas you, and no other. Odds-fish! I did not think I had such an accomplished liar in my service!"

His Royal Highness, too, was no less gracious; though he talked in a very different fashion.

To him there was no humour in the matter at all; 'twas all God's Providence; and I am not sure but that he was not more right than his brother; though indeed there are always two sides to a thing. His talk was less of myself, and more of the interests I had served; and there too he was right; for, as I have said, if there had been any mistake in the matter, good-bye to Catholic hopes.

My first interview with Mr. Chiffinch astonished me most. When he had finished paying compliments, I began on business.

"You will hardly catch Rumbald," said I, "unless you take him pretty soon. He too will be off to Holland, I think."

He shook his head, smiling.

"I am sorry not to be able to give you vengeance for that cleaver-throwing; but you must wait awhile."

"Wait?" cried I.

"What single name do you know besides that of Rumbald, which was certainly involved in this affair? Why, Mr. Mallock, you yourself have told me that he observed discretion so far; and did not name a single man."

"Well; there is Keeling," I said.

"And what is Keeling?" he asked with some contempt. "A maltster, and a carpenter: a fine bag of assassins! And how can you prove anything but treasonable talk? Where were the 'swan-quills' and the 'sand and the ink'? Did you set eyes on any of them?"

I was silent.

"No, no, Mr. Mallock; we must wait awhile. I have even talked to Jeffreys, and he says the same. We must lime more birds before we pull our twig down. Now, if you could lay your hand on Keeling!"

He was right: I saw that well enough.

"And meantime," said I, smiling, "I must go in peril of my life. They surely know now what part I have played?"

"They must be fools if they do not. But there will be no more cleaver-throwing for the present, if you take but reasonable care. Meanwhile, you may go to Hare Street, if you will; though I cannot say I should advise it. And I will look for Keeling."

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Well; I did not take his advice. That was too much to expect. I went to Hare Street in April and remained there a couple of months; but I do not propose to discourse on that beyond saying that I was very well satisfied, and even with Cousin Tom himself, who appeared to me more resigned to have me as a son-in-law. To neither of them could I say a word of what had passed, except to tell Dolly that my peril was over for the present, and to thank her for her prayers. During those two months I had no word of Rumbald at all; and I suspect that he lay very quiet, knowing, after all, how little I knew. If he went to Holland, he certainly came back again. Then, in June, once more a man came from Mr. Chiffinch, to call me to town. So here I sat once more, with the birds singing their vespers, in the Privy Garden, a hundred yards away, and the river flowing without the windows, as if no blood had ever flowed with it.

"Well," said Chiffinch, when I was down in a chair, "the first news is that we have found Keeling. You were right, or very nearly. He is a joiner, and lives in the City. He hath been to the Secretary of the Council, and will go to him again to-morrow."

"How was that done?" I asked.

"Why, I sent a couple of men to him," said the page, "when we had marked him down; who so worked on his fears that he went straight to my Lord Dartmouth; and my Lord Dartmouth carried him to Sir Leoline Jenkins. The Secretary very properly remarked that he was but one witness; and Keeling went away again, to see if he can find another. Well; the tale is that he hath found another--his own brother--and that both will go again to the Secretary to-morrow. So I thought it best that you should see him first here, to-night, to identify him for certain."

"That is very good," I said. "But, Mr. Chaffinch, if I appear too publicly in this matter, I shall be of very little service to the King hereafter."

"I know that very well," said the page. "And you shall not appear publicly at all, neither shall your name. Indeed, the King hath a little more business for you at last, in France; and you will wish perhaps to go to Rome. So the best thing that you can do, when we have seen that all is in order, is to wait no longer, but be off, and for a good while too. Your life may be in some peril for the very particular part that you played, for though we shall catch, I think, all the principal men in the affair, we shall not catch all the underlings; and even a joiner or a scavenger for that matter, if he be angry enough, is enough to let the life out of a man. And we cannot spare you yet, Mr. Mallock."

This seemed to me both reasonable and thoughtful; and it was not altogether a surprise to me. Indeed I had prepared Dolly for a long absence, thinking that I might go to Rome again, as I had not been there for a long while. Besides, waiting in England for the time laid down by Tom and agreed to by both of us, would make that time come no swifter; and, if there were work to be done, I had best do it, before I had a wife to engage my attention.

But I sighed a little.

"Well," said I; "and where is Keeling?"

"I have been expecting him this last ten minutes," said he.

Even as he spoke, a knock came upon the door. The page cried to come in; and there entered, first a servant holding the door, and then the little joiner himself, flushed in his face, I supposed with the excitement. He was dressed in his Sunday clothes, rather ill-fitting. He did not know me, I think, for he made no movement of surprise. I caught Mr. Chiffinch's look of inquiry, and nodded very slightly.

"Well, sir," began the page in a very severe tone, "so you have made up your mind to evade the charge of misprision of treason--that, at the least!"

"Yes, sir," said the man in a very timid way. (He must have heard that phrase pretty often lately.)

"Well; and you have found your other witness?"

"Yes, sir; my own brother, sir."

"Ah! Was he too in this detestable affair?"

"No, sir."

"Well, then; how do you bring him in?"

"Sir," said the man, seeming to recover himself a little, "I put my brother in a secret place; and then caused him to overhear a conversation between myself and another."

"Very pretty! very pretty!" cried the page. "And who was this other?"

"Sir; it was a Mr. Goodenough--under-sheriff once of--"

I could not restrain a start; for I had not thought Mr. Goodenough, the friend of my Lord Essex, to be so deep in the affair as this. Keeling saw me start, I suppose; for he looked at me, and himself showed sudden agitation.

"Good evening, Keeling," said I. "We have had a little conversation once before."

"Oh! for God's sake, gentlemen! for God's sake! I am already within an inch of my life."

"I know you are," said Mr. Chiffinch severely, "and you will be nearer even than that, if you do not speak the whole truth."

"Sir; it is not that I mean," cried the man, in a very panic of terror. "Rumbald hath been--"

"Eh? What is that?" said Mr. Chiffinch.

"Rumbald, sir, the old Colonel, of the Rye--"

"God, man! We know all about Rumbald," said the page contemptuously. "What hath he been at now?"

"Sir; he and some of the others caught me but yesterday. They had heard some tale of my having been to Mr. Secretary, and--"

"And you swore you had not, I suppose," snarled the other.

"Sir; what could I do? Rumbald was all for despatching me then and there. They caught me at Wapping. I prayed them for God's love not to believe such things: I entreated: I wept--"

"I'll be bound you did," said Mr. Chiffinch. "Well? And what then?"

"Sir! they let me go again."

"They did? The damned fools!" cried Chiffinch.

I was astonished at his vehemence. But, like his master, if there was one thing that the page could not bear, it was a fool. I made him a little sign.

"Keeling," said I, "you remember me well enough. Well; I need not say that we know pretty near everything that there is to know. But we must have it from you, too. Tell us both now, as near as you can recollect, every name to which you can speak with certainty. Remember, we want no lies. We had enough of them a while back in another plot." (I could not resist that; though Mr. Chiffinch snapped his lips together.) "Well, now, take your time. No, do not speak. Consider yourself carefully."

It was, indeed, a miserable sight to see this poor wretch so hemmed in. The sweet evening light fell full upon his terrified eyes and his working lips, as he sought to gather up the names. He was persuaded, I am sure, that we were as gods, knowing all things--above all, he feared myself, as I could see, having met me first at the very house of Rumbald, as if I were his friend, and now again in the chamber of his accuser. It was piteous to see how he sought to be very exact in his memories, and not go by a hair's breadth beyond the truth.