Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (307 page)

I was now within hail of my friends, and not much the better.  The house appeared asleep; yet if I attempted to wake any one, I had no guarantee it might not prove either the aunt with the gold eyeglasses (whom I could only remember with trembling), or some ass of a servant-maid who should burst out screaming at sight of me.  Higher up I could hear and see a shepherd shouting to his dogs and striding on the rough sides of the mountain, and it was clear I must get to cover without loss of time.  No doubt the holly thickets would have proved a very suitable retreat, but there was mounted on the wall a sort of signboard not uncommon in the country of Great Britain, and very damping to the adventurous: Spring Guns and Man-Traps was the legend that it bore.  I have learned since that these advertisements, three times out of four, were in the nature of Quaker guns on a disarmed battery, but I had not learned it then, and even so, the odds would not have been good enough.  For a choice, I would a hundred times sooner be returned to Edinburgh Castle and my corner in the bastion, than to leave my foot in a steel trap or have to digest the contents of an automatic blunderbuss.  There was but one chance left — that Ronald or Flora might be the first to come abroad; and in order to profit by this chance if it occurred, I got me on the cope of the wall in a place where it was screened by the thick branches of a beech, and sat there waiting.

As the day wore on, the sun came very pleasantly out.  I had been awake all night, I had undergone the most violent agitations of mind and body, and it is not so much to be wondered at, as it was exceedingly unwise and foolhardy, that I should have dropped into a doze.  From this I awakened to the characteristic sound of digging, looked down, and saw immediately below me the back view of a gardener in a stable waistcoat.  Now he would appear steadily immersed in his business; anon, to my more immediate terror, he would straighten his back, stretch his arms, gaze about the otherwise deserted garden, and relish a deep pinch of snuff.  It was my first thought to drop from the wall upon the other side.  A glance sufficed to show me that even the way by which I had come was now cut off, and the field behind me already occupied by a couple of shepherds’ assistants and a score or two of sheep.  I have named the talismans on which I habitually depend, but here was a conjuncture in which both were wholly useless.  The copestone of a wall arrayed with broken bottles is no favourable rostrum; and I might be as eloquent as Pitt, and as fascinating as Richelieu, and neither the gardener nor the shepherd lads would care a halfpenny.  In short, there was no escape possible from my absurd position: there I must continue to sit until one or other of my neighbours should raise his eyes and give the signal for my capture.

The part of the wall on which (for my sins) I was posted could be scarce less than twelve feet high on the inside; the leaves of the beech which made a fashion of sheltering me were already partly fallen; and I was thus not only perilously exposed myself, but enabled to command some part of the garden walks and (under an evergreen arch) the front lawn and windows of the cottage.  For long nothing stirred except my friend with the spade; then I heard the opening of a sash; and presently after saw Miss Flora appear in a morning wrapper and come strolling hitherward between the borders, pausing and visiting her flowers — herself as fair. 
There
was a friend;
here
, immediately beneath me, an unknown quantity — the gardener: how to communicate with the one and not attract the notice of the other?  To make a noise was out of the question; I dared scarce to breathe.  I held myself ready to make a gesture as soon as she should look, and she looked in every possible direction but the one.  She was interested in the vilest tuft of chickweed, she gazed at the summit of the mountain, she came even immediately below me and conversed on the most fastidious topics with the gardener; but to the top of that wall she would not dedicate a glance!  At last she began to retrace her steps in the direction of the cottage; whereupon, becoming quite desperate, I broke off a piece of plaster, took a happy aim, and hit her with it in the nape of the neck.  She clapped her hand to the place, turned about, looked on all sides for an explanation, and spying me (as indeed I was parting the branches to make it the more easy), half uttered and half swallowed down again a cry of surprise.

The infernal gardener was erect upon the instant.  ‘What’s your wull, miss?’ said he.

Her readiness amazed me.  She had already turned and was gazing in the opposite direction.  ‘There’s a child among the artichokes,’ she said.

‘The Plagues of Egyp’! 
I’ll
see to them!’ cried the gardener truculently, and with a hurried waddle disappeared among the evergreens.

That moment she turned, she came running towards me, her arms stretched out, her face incarnadined for the one moment with heavenly blushes, the next pale as death.  ‘Monsieur de. Saint-Yves!’ she said.

‘My dear young lady,’ I said, ‘this is the damnedest liberty — I know it!  But what else was I to do?’

‘You have escaped?’ said she.

‘If you call this escape,’ I replied.

‘But you cannot possibly stop there!’ she cried.

‘I know it,’ said I.  ‘And where am I to go?’

She struck her hands together.  ‘I have it!’ she exclaimed.  ‘Come down by the beech trunk — you must leave no footprint in the border — quickly, before Robie can get back!  I am the hen-wife here: I keep the key; you must go into the hen-house — for the moment.’

I was by her side at once.  Both cast a hasty glance at the blank windows of the cottage and so much as was visible of the garden alleys; it seemed there was none to observe us.  She caught me by the sleeve and ran.  It was no time for compliments; hurry breathed upon our necks; and I ran along with her to the next corner of the garden, where a wired court and a board hovel standing in a grove of trees advertised my place of refuge.  She thrust me in without a word; the bulk of the fowls were at the same time emitted; and I found myself the next moment locked in alone with half a dozen sitting hens.  In the twilight of the place all fixed their eyes on me severely, and seemed to upbraid me with some crying impropriety.  Doubtless the hen has always a puritanic appearance, although (in its own behaviour) I could never observe it to be more particular than its neighbours.  But conceive a British hen!

CHAPTER VIII — THE HEN-HOUSE

I was half an hour at least in the society of these distressing bipeds, and alone with my own reflections and necessities.  I was in great pain of my flayed hands, and had nothing to treat them with; I was hungry and thirsty, and had nothing to eat or to drink; I was thoroughly tired, and there was no place for me to sit.  To be sure there was the floor, but nothing could be imagined less inviting.

At the sound of approaching footsteps, my good-humour was restored.  The key rattled in the lock, and Master Ronald entered, closed the door behind him, and leaned his back to it.

‘I say, you know!’ he said, and shook a sullen young head.

‘I know it’s a liberty,’ said I.

‘It’s infernally awkward: my position is infernally embarrassing,’ said he.

‘Well,’ said I, ‘and what do you think of mine?’

This seemed to pose him entirely, and he remained gazing upon me with a convincing air of youth and innocence.  I could have laughed, but I was not so inhumane.

‘I am in your hands,’ said I, with a little gesture.  ‘You must do with me what you think right.’

‘Ah, yes!’ he cried: ‘if I knew!’

‘You see,’ said I, ‘it would be different if you had received your commission.  Properly speaking, you are not yet a combatant; I have ceased to be one; and I think it arguable that we are just in the position of one ordinary gentleman to another, where friendship usually comes before the law.  Observe, I only say
arguable
.  For God’s sake, don’t think I wish to dictate an opinion.  These are the sort of nasty little businesses, inseparable from war, which every gentleman must decide for himself.  If I were in your place — ’

‘Ay, what would you do, then?’ says he.

‘Upon my word, I do not know,’ said I.  ‘Hesitate, as you are doing, I believe.’

‘I will tell you,’ he said.  ‘I have a kinsman, and it is what
he
would think, that I am thinking.  It is General Graham of Lynedoch — Sir Thomas Graham.  I scarcely know him, but I believe I admire him more than I do God.’

‘I admire him a good deal myself,’ said I, ‘and have good reason to.  I have fought with him, been beaten, and run away. 
Veni
,
victus sum
,
evasi
.’

‘What!’ he cried.  ‘You were at Barossa?’

‘There and back, which many could not say,’ said I.  ‘It was a pretty affair and a hot one, and the Spaniards behaved abominably, as they usually did in a pitched field; the Marshal Duke of Belluno made a fool of himself, and not for the first time; and your friend Sir Thomas had the best of it, so far as there was any best.  He is a brave and ready officer.’

‘Now, then, you will understand!’ said the boy.  ‘I wish to please Sir Thomas: what would he do?’

‘Well, I can tell you a story,’ said I, ‘a true one too, and about this very combat of Chiclana, or Barossa as you call it.  I was in the Eighth of the Line; we lost the eagle of the First Battalion, more betoken, but it cost you dear.  Well, we had repulsed more charges than I care to count, when your 87th Regiment came on at a foot’s pace, very slow but very steady; in front of them a mounted officer, his hat in his hand, white-haired, and talking very quietly to the battalions.  Our Major, Vigo-Roussillon, set spurs to his horse and galloped out to sabre him, but seeing him an old man, very handsome, and as composed as if he were in a coffee-house, lost heart and galloped back again.  Only, you see, they had been very close together for the moment, and looked each other in the eyes.  Soon after the Major was wounded, taken prisoner, and carried into Cadiz.  One fine day they announced to him the visit of the General, Sir Thomas Graham.  “Well, sir,” said the General, taking him by the hand, “I think we were face to face upon the field.”  It was the white-haired officer!’

‘Ah!’ cried the boy, — his eyes were burning.

‘Well, and here is the point,’ I continued.  ‘Sir Thomas fed the Major from his own table from that day, and served him with six covers.’

‘Yes, it is a beautiful — a beautiful story,’ said Ronald.  ‘And yet somehow it is not the same — is it?’

‘I admit it freely,’ said I.

The boy stood awhile brooding.  ‘Well, I take my risk of it,’ he cried.  ‘I believe it’s treason to my sovereign — I believe there is an infamous punishment for such a crime — and yet I’m hanged if I can give you up.’

I was as much moved as he.  ‘I could almost beg you to do otherwise,’ I said.  ‘I was a brute to come to you, a brute and a coward.  You are a noble enemy; you will make a noble soldier.’  And with rather a happy idea of a compliment for this warlike youth, I stood up straight and gave him the salute.

He was for a moment confused; his face flushed.  ‘Well, well, I must be getting you something to eat, but it will not be for six,’ he added, with a smile: ‘only what we can get smuggled out.  There is my aunt in the road, you see,’ and he locked me in again with the indignant hens.

I always smile when I recall that young fellow; and yet, if the reader were to smile also, I should feel ashamed.  If my son shall be only like him when he comes to that age, it will be a brave day for me and not a bad one for his country.

At the same time I cannot pretend that I was sorry when his sister succeeded in his place.  She brought me a few crusts of bread and a jug of milk, which she had handsomely laced with whisky after the Scottish manner.

‘I am so sorry,’ she said: ‘I dared not bring on anything more.  We are so small a family, and my aunt keeps such an eye upon the servants.  I have put some whisky in the milk — it is more wholesome so — and with eggs you will be able to make something of a meal.  How many eggs will you be wanting to that milk? for I must be taking the others to my aunt — that is my excuse for being here.  I should think three or four.  Do you know how to beat them? or shall I do it?’

Willing to detain her a while longer in the hen-house, I displayed my bleeding palms; at which she cried aloud.

‘My dear Miss Flora, you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs,’ said I; ‘and it is no bagatelle to escape from Edinburgh Castle.  One of us, I think, was even killed.’

‘And you are as white as a rag, too,’ she exclaimed, ‘and can hardly stand!  Here is my shawl, sit down upon it here in the corner, and I will beat your eggs.  See, I have brought a fork too; I should have been a good person to take care of Jacobites or Covenanters in old days!  You shall have more to eat this evening; Ronald is to bring it you from town.  We have money enough, although no food that we can call our own.  Ah, if Ronald and I kept house, you should not be lying in this shed!  He admires you so much.’

‘My dear friend,’ said I, ‘for God’s sake do not embarrass me with more alms.  I loved to receive them from that hand, so long as they were needed; but they are so no more, and whatever else I may lack — and I lack everything — it is not money.’  I pulled out my sheaf of notes and detached the top one: it was written for ten pounds, and signed by that very famous individual, Abraham Newlands.  ‘Oblige me, as you would like me to oblige your brother if the parts were reversed, and take this note for the expenses.  I shall need not only food, but clothes.’

‘Lay it on the ground,’ said she.  ‘I must not stop my beating.’

‘You are not offended?’ I exclaimed.

She answered me by a look that was a reward in itself, and seemed to imply the most heavenly offers for the future.  There was in it a shadow of reproach, and such warmth of communicative cordiality as left me speechless.  I watched her instead till her hens’ milk was ready.

‘Now,’ said she, ‘taste that.’

I did so, and swore it was nectar.  She collected her eggs and crouched in front of me to watch me eat.  There was about this tall young lady at the moment an air of motherliness delicious to behold.  I am like the English general, and to this day I still wonder at my moderation.