By What Authority? by Robert Hugh Benson (large ebook reader txt) 📖

now to ride to East Maskells, with two grooms and a maid behind one of them. She will ride her own horse. When she has passed the inn she will bid the groom who has the maid to wait for her, while she rides down the lane with the other, Robert, to speak to me through the window. The pursuivant, we suppose, will not forbid that, as he knows they have supped with me just now. As we talk, Robert will watch his chance and spring on the pursuivant. As soon as the struggle begins you will drop from the window; it is but eight feet; and help him to secure the man and gag him. However much din they make the others cannot reach the man in time to help, for they will have to come round from the house, and you will have mounted Robert's horse; and you and Mary together will gallop down the lane into the road, and then where you will. We advise East Maskells. I do not suppose there will be any pursuit. They will have no horses ready. Do you understand it?"

There was silence a moment; Mr. Buxton could hear Anthony breathing in the darkness.

"I do not like it," came the whisper at last; "it seems desperate. A hundred things may happen. And what of Isabel and you?"

"Dear friend; I know it is desperate, but not so desperate as your remaining here would be for us all."

Again there was silence.

"What of Robert? How will he escape?"

"If you escape they will have nothing against Robert; for they can prove nothing as to your priesthood. But if they catch you here--and they certainly will, if you remain here--they will probably hang him, for he fought for you gallantly in the house. And he too will have time to run. He can run through the door into the meadows. But they will not care for him if they know you are off."

Again silence.

"Well?" whispered Mr. Buxton.

"Do you wish it?"

"I think it is the only hope."

"Then I will do it."

"Thank God! And now you must come up with me. Put off your shoes."

"I have none."

"Then follow, and do not make a sound."

* * * *


Very cautiously Mr. Buxton extricated himself; for he had been lying on his side while he whispered to Anthony; and presently was crouched on the stairs above, as he heard the stirrings of his friend in the dark below him. There came the click of the brickwork door; then slow shufflings; once a thump on the hollow boards that made his heart leap; then after what seemed an interminable while, came the sound of latching the fifth stair into its place; and he felt his foot grasped. Then he turned and ascended slowly on hands and knees, feeling now and again for the trap-door over him--touched it--raised it, and crawled out on to the rugs. The room seemed to him comparatively light after the heavy darkness of the basement, and passage below, and he could make out the supper-table and the outline of the targets on the opposite wall. Then he saw a head follow him; then shoulders and body; and Anthony crept out and sat on the rugs beside him. Their hands met in a trembling grip.

"Supper, dear lad?" whispered Mr. Buxton, with his mouth to the other's ear.

"Yes, I am hungry," came the faintest whisper back.

Mr. Buxton rose and went on tip-toe to the table, took off some food and a glass of wine that he had left purposely filled and came back with them.

There the two friends sat; Mr. Buxton could just hear the movement of Anthony's mouth as he ate. The four windows glimmered palely before them, and once or twice the tall doors rattled faintly as the breeze stirred them.

Then suddenly came a sound that made Anthony's hand pause on the way to his mouth; Mr. Buxton drew a sharp breath; it was the noise of three or four horses on the road beyond the church. Then they both stood up without a word, and Mr. Buxton went noiselessly across to the window that looked on to the lane and remained there, listening. The horses were now passing down the street, and the noise of their hoofs grew fainter behind the houses.

Anthony saw his friend in the twilight beckon, and he went across and stood by him. Suddenly the hoofs sounded loud and near; and they heard the pursuivant below stand up from the bank opposite. Then Mary's voice came distinct and cheerful.

"How dark it is!"

The horses were coming down the lane.


CHAPTER XII


THE NIGHT-RIDE

The sound of hoofs came nearer; Anthony's heart, as he crouched below the window, ready to spring up and over when the signal was given, beat in sick thumpings at the base of his throat, but with a fierce excitement and no fear. His hands clenched and unclenched. Mr. Buxton stood back a little, waiting; he must feign to be asleep at first.

Then came suddenly a sharp challenge from the sentry.

"It is Mistress Corbet," came Mary's cool high tones, "and I desire to speak with Mr. Buxton."

The man hesitated.

"You cannot," he said.

"Cannot!" she cried; "why, fellow, do you know who I am? And I have just supped with him."

There came a sudden sound from the other side of the summer-house, and both men in the room knew that the guards in the garden were listening.

"I am sorry, madam, but I have no orders."

"Then do not presume, you hound," came Mary's voice again, with a ring of anger. "Ho, there, Mr. Buxton, come to the window."

"Be ready," he whispered to Anthony.

"Stand back, madam," said the pursuivant, "or I shall call for help."

Then Mr. Buxton threw back the window.

"Who is there?" he asked coolly. ("Stand up Anthony.")

"It is I, Mr. Buxton, but this insolent dog----"

"Stand back, madam, I say," cried the voice of the guard. Then from the garden behind came running footsteps and voices; and a red light shone through the windows behind.

"Now," whispered the voice over Anthony's head sharply.

There came a loud shout from the guard, "Help there, help!"

Anthony put his hands on to the sill and lifted himself easily. The groom had slipped from his horse while Mary held the bridle, and was advancing at the guard, and there was something in his hand. The sentry, who was standing immediately under the window, now dropped his pike point forward; and as a furious rattling began at the doors on the garden side, Anthony dropped, and came down astride of the man's neck, who crashed to the ground. Then the groom was on him too.

"Leave him to me, sir. Mount."

The groom's hands were busy with something about the struggling man's neck: the shouts choked and ceased.

"You will strangle the man," said Anthony sharply.

"Nonsense," said Mary; "mount, mount. They are coming."

Anthony ran to the horse, that was beginning to scurry and plunge; threw himself across the saddle and caught the reins.

"Up?" said Mary.

"Up"; and he slung his right leg over the flank and sat up, as Mary released the bridle, and dashed off, scattering gravel.

From the direction of the church came cries and the quick rattle of a galloping horse. Anthony dashed his shoeless heels into the horse's sides and leaned forward, and in a moment more was flying down the lane after Mary. From in front came a shout of warning, with one or two screams, and then Anthony turned the corner, checking his horse slightly at the angle, saw a torch somewhere to his right, a group of scared faces, a groom and woman clinging to him on a plunging horse, and the white road; and then found himself with loose reins, and flying stirrups, thundering down the village street, with Mary on her horse not two lengths in front. The roar of the hoofs behind, and of the little shouting crowd, with the screaming woman on the horse, died behind him as the wind began to boom in his ears. Mary was looking round now, and slightly checking her horse as they neared the bottom of the long village street. In half a dozen strides Anthony came up on her right. Then the pool gleamed before them just beyond the fork of the road.

"Left!" screamed Mary through the roar of the racing air, and turned her horse off up the road that led round in a wide sweep of two miles to East Maskells and the woods beyond, and Anthony followed. He had settled down in the saddle now, and had brought his maddened horse under control; his feet were in the stirrups, but there was no lessening of the speed. They had left the last house now, and on either side the black bushes and heatherland streamed past, with the sudden gleam of water here and there under the starlight that showed the ditches and holes with which the ground on either side of the road was honeycombed.

Then Mary turned her head again, and the words came detached and sharp.

"They are after us--could not help--horses saddled."

Anthony turned his head to release one ear from the roar of the air, and heard the thundering rattle of hoofs in the distance, but even as he listened it grew fainter.

"We are gaining!" he shouted.

Mary nodded, and her teeth gleamed white in a smile.

"Ours are fresh," she screamed.

Then there was silence between them again; they had reached a little hill and eased their horses up it; a heavy fringe of trees crowned it on their right, black against the stars, and a gleam of light showed the presence of a house among them. Farther and farther behind them sounded the hoofs; then they were swaying and rocking again down the slope that led to the long flat piece of road that ended in the slope up to East Maskells. It was softer going now and darker too, as there were trees overhead; pollared willows streamed past them as they went; and twice there was a snort and a hollow thunder of hoofs as a young sleeping horse awoke and raced them a few yards in the meadows at the side. Once Anthony's horse shied at a white post, and drew in front a yard or two; and he heard for a moment under the rattle the cool gush of the stream that flowed beneath the road and the scream of a water-fowl as she burst from the reeds.

A great exultation began to fill Anthony's heart. What a ride this was, in the glorious summer night--reckless and intoxicating! What a contrast, this sweet night air streaming past him, this dear world of living things, his throbbing horse beneath him, the birds and beasts round him, and this gallant girl swaying and rejoicing too beside him! What a contrast was all this to that terrible afternoon, only a few hours away--of suspense and skulking like a rat in a sewer; in a dark, close passage underground breathing death and silence round him! An escape with the