Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (331 page)

Bob and his father soon became aware that the light was from the beacon.  By the time that they reached the top it was one mass of towering flame, from which the sparks fell on the green herbage like a fiery dew; the forms of the two old men being seen passing and repassing in the midst of it.  The Lovedays, who came up on the smoky side, regarded the scene for a moment, and then emerged into the light.

‘Who goes there?’ said Corporal Tullidge, shouldering a pike with his sound arm.  ‘O, ‘tis neighbour Loveday!’

‘Did you get your signal to fire it from the east?’ said the miller hastily.

‘No; from Abbotsea Beach.’

‘But you are not to go by a coast signal!’

‘Chok’ it all, wasn’t the Lord-Lieutenant’s direction, whenever you see Rainbarrow’s Beacon burn to the nor’east’ard, or Haggardon to the nor’west’ard, or the actual presence of the enemy on the shore?’

‘But is he here?’

‘No doubt o’t!  The beach light is only just gone down, and Simon heard the guns even better than I.’

‘Hark, hark!  I hear ‘em!’ said Bob.

They listened with parted lips, the night wind blowing through Simon Burden’s few teeth as through the ruins of Stonehenge.  From far down on the lower levels came the noise of wheels and the tramp of horses upon the turnpike road.

‘Well, there must be something in it,’ said Miller Loveday gravely.  ‘Bob, we’ll go home and make the women-folk safe, and then I’ll don my soldier’s clothes and be off.  God knows where our company will assemble!’

They hastened down the hill, and on getting into the road waited and listened again.  Travellers began to come up and pass them in vehicles of all descriptions.  It was difficult to attract their attention in the dim light, but by standing on the top of a wall which fenced the road Bob was at last seen.

‘What’s the matter?’ he cried to a butcher who was flying past in his cart, his wife sitting behind him without a bonnet.

‘The French have landed!’ said the man, without drawing rein.

‘Where?’ shouted Bob.

‘In West Bay; and all Budmouth is in uproar!’ replied the voice, now faint in the distance.

Bob and his father hastened on till they reached their own house.  As they had expected, Anne and her mother, in common with most of the people, were both dressed, and stood at the door bonneted and shawled, listening to the traffic on the neighbouring highway, Mrs. Loveday having secured what money and small valuables they possessed in a huge pocket which extended all round her waist, and added considerably to her weight and diameter.

‘‘Tis true enough,’ said the miller: ‘he’s come!  You and Anne and the maid must be off to Cousin Jim’s at King’s-Bere, and when you get there you must do as they do.  I must assemble with the company.’

‘And I?’ said Bob.

‘Thou’st better run to the church, and take a pike before they be all gone.’

The horse was put into the gig, and Mrs. Loveday, Anne, and the servant-maid were hastily packed into the vehicle, the latter taking the reins; David’s duties as a fighting-man forbidding all thought of his domestic offices now.  Then the silver tankard, teapot, pair of candlesticks like Ionic columns, and other articles too large to be pocketed were thrown into a basket and put up behind.  Then came the leave-taking, which was as sad as it was hurried.  Bob kissed Anne, and there was no affectation in her receiving that mark of affection as she said through her tears, ‘God bless you!’  At last they moved off in the dim light of dawn, neither of the three women knowing which road they were to take, but trusting to chance to find it.

As soon as they were out of sight Bob went off for a pike, and his father, first new-flinting his firelock, proceeded to don his uniform, pipe-claying his breeches with such cursory haste as to bespatter his black gaiters with the same ornamental compound.  Finding when he was ready that no bugle had as yet sounded, he went with David to the cart-house, dragged out the waggon, and put therein some of the most useful and easily-handled goods, in case there might be an opportunity for conveying them away.  By the time this was done and the waggon pushed back and locked in, Bob had returned with his weapon, somewhat mortified at being doomed to this low form of defence.  The miller gave his son a parting grasp of the hand, and arranged to meet him at King’s-Bere at the first opportunity if the news were true; if happily false, here at their own house.

‘Bother it all!’ he exclaimed, looking at his stock of flints.

‘What?’ said Bob.

‘I’ve got no ammunition: not a blessed round!’

‘Then what’s the use of going?’ asked his son.

The miller paused.  ‘O, I’ll go,’ he said.  ‘Perhaps somebody will lend me a little if I get into a hot corner?’

‘Lend ye a little!  Father, you was always so simple!’ said Bob reproachfully.

‘Well — I can bagnet a few, anyhow,’ said the miller.

The bugle had been blown ere this, and Loveday the father disappeared towards the place of assembly, his empty cartridge-box behind him.  Bob seized a brace of loaded pistols which he had brought home from the ship, and, armed with these and a pike, he locked the door and sallied out again towards the turnpike road.

By this time the yeomanry of the district were also on the move, and among them Festus Derriman, who was sleeping at his uncle’s, and had been awakened by Cripplestraw.  About the time when Bob and his father were descending from the beacon the stalwart yeoman was standing in the stable-yard adjusting his straps, while Cripplestraw saddled the horse.  Festus clanked up and down, looked gloomily at the beacon, heard the retreating carts and carriages, and called Cripplestraw to him, who came from the stable leading the horse at the same moment that Uncle Benjy peeped unobserved from a mullioned window above their heads, the distant light of the beacon fire touching up his features to the complexion of an old brass clock-face.

‘I think that before I start, Cripplestraw,’ said Festus, whose lurid visage was undergoing a bleaching process curious to look upon, ‘you shall go on to Budmouth, and make a bold inquiry whether the cowardly enemy is on shore as yet, or only looming in the bay.’

‘I’d go in a moment, sir,’ said the other, ‘if I hadn’t my bad leg again.  I should have joined my company afore this; but they said at last drill that I was too old.  So I shall wait up in the hay-loft for tidings as soon as I have packed you off, poor gentleman!’

‘Do such alarms as these, Cripplestraw, ever happen without foundation?  Buonaparte is a wretch, a miserable wretch, and this may be only a false alarm to disappoint such as me?’

‘O no, sir; O no!’

‘But sometimes there are false alarms?’

‘Well, sir, yes.  There was a pretended sally o’ gunboats last year.’

‘And was there nothing else pretended — something more like this, for instance?’

Cripplestraw shook his head.  ‘I notice yer modesty, Mr. Festus, in making light of things.  But there never was, sir.  You may depend upon it he’s come.  Thank God, my duty as a Local don’t require me to go to the front, but only the valiant men like my master.  Ah, if Boney could only see ‘ee now, sir, he’d know too well there is nothing to be got from such a determined skilful officer but blows and musket-balls!’

‘Yes, yes.  Cripplestraw, if I ride off to Budmouth and meet ‘em, all my training will be lost.  No skill is required as a forlorn hope.’

‘True; that’s a point, sir.  You would outshine ‘em all, and be picked off at the very beginning as a too-dangerous brave man.’

‘But if I stay here and urge on the faint-hearted ones, or get up into the turret-stair by that gateway, and pop at the invaders through the loophole, I shouldn’t be so completely wasted, should I?’

‘You would not, Mr. Derriman.  But, as you was going to say next, the fire in yer veins won’t let ye do that.  You are valiant; very good: you don’t want to husband yer valiance at home.  The arg’ment is plain.’

‘If my birth had been more obscure,’ murmured the yeoman, ‘and I had only been in the militia, for instance, or among the humble pikemen, so much wouldn’t have been expected of me — of my fiery nature.  Cripplestraw, is there a drop of brandy to be got at in the house?  I don’t feel very well.’

‘Dear nephew,’ said the old gentleman from above, whom neither of the others had as yet noticed, ‘I haven’t any spirits opened — so unfortunate!  But there’s a beautiful barrel of crab-apple cider in draught; and there’s some cold tea from last night.’

‘What, is he listening?’ said Festus, staring up.  ‘Now I warrant how glad he is to see me forced to go — called out of bed without breakfast, and he quite safe, and sure to escape because he’s an old man! — Cripplestraw, I like being in the yeomanry cavalry; but I wish I hadn’t been in the ranks; I wish I had been only the surgeon, to stay in the rear while the bodies are brought back to him — I mean, I should have thrown my heart at such a time as this more into the labour of restoring wounded men and joining their shattered limbs together — u-u-ugh! — more than I can into causing the wounds — I am too humane, Cripplestraw, for the ranks!’

‘Yes, yes,’ said his companion, depressing his spirits to a kindred level.  ‘And yet, such is fate, that, instead of joining men’s limbs together, you’ll have to get your own joined — poor young sojer! — all through having such a warlike soul.’

‘Yes,’ murmured Festus, and paused.  ‘You can’t think how strange I feel here, Cripplestraw,’ he continued, laying his hand upon the centre buttons of his waistcoat.  ‘How I do wish I was only the surgeon!’

He slowly mounted, and Uncle Benjy, in the meantime, sang to himself as he looked on, ‘
Twen-ty-three and half from N.W.
 
Six-teen and three-quar-ters from N.E.
’

‘What’s that old mummy singing?’ said Festus savagely.

‘Only a hymn for preservation from our enemies, dear nephew,’ meekly replied the farmer, who had heard the remark.  ‘
Twen-ty-three and half from N.W
.’

Festus allowed his horse to move on a few paces, and then turned again, as if struck by a happy invention.  ‘Cripplestraw,’ he began, with an artificial laugh, ‘I am obliged to confess, after all — I must see her!  ‘Tisn’t nature that makes me draw back — ’tis love.  I must go and look for her.’

‘A woman, sir?’

‘I didn’t want to confess it; but ‘tis a woman.  Strange that I should be drawn so entirely against my natural wish to rush at ‘em!’

Cripplestraw, seeing which way the wind blew, found it advisable to blow in harmony.  ‘Ah, now at last I see, sir!  Spite that few men live that be worthy to command ye; spite that you could rush on, marshal the troops to victory, as I may say; but then — what of it? there’s the unhappy fate of being smit with the eyes of a woman, and you are unmanned!  Maister Derriman, who is himself, when he’s got a woman round his neck like a millstone?’

‘It is something like that.’

‘I feel the case.  Be you valiant? — I know, of course, the words being a matter of form — be you valiant, I ask?  Yes, of course.  Then don’t you waste it in the open field.  Hoard it up, I say, sir, for a higher class of war — the defence of yer adorable lady.  Think what you owe her at this terrible time!  Now, Maister Derriman, once more I ask ye to cast off that first haughty wish to rush to Budmouth, and to go where your mis’ess is defenceless and alone.’

‘I will, Cripplestraw, now you put it like that!’

‘Thank ye, thank ye heartily, Maister Derriman.  Go now and hide with her.’

‘But can I?  Now, hang flattery! — can a man hide without a stain?  Of course I would not hide in any mean sense; no, not I!’

‘If you be in love, ‘tis plain you may, since it is not your own life, but another’s, that you are concerned for, and you only save your own because it can’t be helped.’

‘‘Tis true, Cripplestraw, in a sense.  But will it be understood that way?  Will they see it as a brave hiding?’

‘Now, sir, if you had not been in love I own to ye that hiding would look queer, but being to save the tears, groans, fits, swowndings, and perhaps death of a comely young woman, yer principle is good; you honourably retreat because you be too gallant to advance.  This sounds strange, ye may say, sir; but it is plain enough to less fiery minds.’

Festus did for a moment try to uncover his teeth in a natural smile, but it died away.  ‘Cripplestraw, you flatter me; or do you mean it?  Well, there’s truth in it.  I am more gallant in going to her than in marching to the shore.  But we cannot be too careful about our good names, we soldiers.  I must not be seen.  I’m off.’

Cripplestraw opened the hurdle which closed the arch under the portico gateway, and Festus passed under, Uncle Benjamin singing,
Twen-ty-three and a half from N.W.
with a sort of sublime ecstasy, feeling, as Festus had observed, that his money was safe, and that the French would not personally molest an old man in such a ragged, mildewed coat as that he wore, which he had taken the precaution to borrow from a scarecrow in one of his fields for the purpose.

Festus rode on full of his intention to seek out Anne, and under cover of protecting her retreat accompany her to King’s-Bere, where he knew the Lovedays had relatives.  In the lane he met Granny Seamore, who, having packed up all her possessions in a small basket, was placidly retreating to the mountains till all should be over.

‘Well, granny, have ye seen the French?’ asked Festus.

‘No,’ she said, looking up at him through her brazen spectacles.  ‘If I had I shouldn’t ha’ seed thee!’

‘Faugh!’ replied the yeoman, and rode on.  Just as he reached the old road, which he had intended merely to cross and avoid, his countenance fell.  Some troops of regulars, who appeared to be dragoons, were rattling along the road.  Festus hastened towards an opposite gate, so as to get within the field before they should see him; but, as ill-luck would have it, as soon as he got inside, a party of six or seven of his own yeomanry troop were straggling across the same field and making for the spot where he was.  The dragoons passed without seeing him; but when he turned out into the road again it was impossible to retreat towards Overcombe village because of the yeomen.  So he rode straight on, and heard them coming at his heels.  There was no other gate, and the highway soon became as straight as a bowstring.  Unable thus to turn without meeting them, and caught like an eel in a water-pipe, Festus drew nearer and nearer to the fateful shore.  But he did not relinquish hope.  Just ahead there were cross-roads, and he might have a chance of slipping down one of them without being seen.  On reaching the spot he found that he was not alone.  A horseman had come up the right-hand lane and drawn rein.  It was an officer of the German legion, and seeing Festus he held up his hand.  Festus rode up to him and saluted.