Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (345 page)

‘It is a good bit of steel, Dick,’ said one, putting the point against the stone floor, and pressing down until he touched it with the handle. ‘See, with what a snap it rebounds! No maker’s name, but the date 1638 is stamped upon the pommel. Where did you get it, fellow?’ he asked, fixing his keen gaze upon my face.

‘It was my father’s before me,’ I answered.

‘Then I trust that he drew it in a better quarrel than his son hath done,’ said the taller officer, with a sneer.

‘In as good, though not in a better,’ I returned. ‘That sword hath always been drawn for the rights and liberties of Englishmen, and against the tyranny of kings and the bigotry of priests.’

‘What a tag for a playhouse, Dick,’ cried the officer. ‘How doth it run? “The bigotry of kings and the tyranny of priests.” Why, if well delivered by Betterton close up to the footlights, with one hand upon his heart and the other pointing to the sky, I warrant the pit would rise at it.’

‘Very like,’ said the other, twirling his moustache. ‘But we have no time for fine speeches now. What are we to do with the little one?’

‘Hang him,’ the other answered carelessly.

‘No, no, your most gracious honours,’ howled Master Tetheridge, suddenly writhing out of the corporal’s grip and flinging himself upon the floor at their feet. ‘Did I not tell ye where ye could find one of the stoutest soldiers of the rebel army? Did not I guide ye to him? Did not I even creep up and remove his sword lest any of the King’s subjects be slain in the taking of him? Surely, surely, ye would not use me so scurvily when I have done ye these services? Have I not made good my words? Is he not as I described him, a giant in stature and of wondrous strength? The whole army will bear me out in it, that he was worth any two in single fight. I have given him over to ye. Surely ye will let me go!’

‘Very well delivered — plaguily so!’ quoth the little officer, clapping the palm of one hand softly against the back of the other. ‘The emphasis was just, and the enunciation clear. A little further back towards the wings, corporal, if you please. Thank you! Now, Dick, it is your cue.’

‘Nay, John, you are too absurd!’ cried the other impatiently. ‘The mask and the buskins are well enough in their place, but you look upon the play as a reality and upon the reality as but a play. What this reptile hath said is true. We must keep faith with him if we wish that others of the country folk should give up the fugitives. There is no help for it!’

‘For myself I believe in Jeddart law,’ his companion answered. ‘I would hang the man first and then discuss the question of our promise. However, pink me if I will obtrude my opinion on any man!’

‘Nay, it cannot be,’ the taller said. ‘Corporal, do you take him down. Henderson will go with you. Take from him that plate and sword, which his mother would wear with as good a grace. And hark ye, corporal, a few touches of thy stirrup leathers across his fat shoulders might not be amiss, as helping him to remember the King’s dragoons.’

My treacherous companion was dragged off, struggling and yelping, and presently a series of piercing howls, growing fainter and fainter as he fled before his tormentors, announced that the hint had been taken. The two officers rushed to the little window of the mill and roared with laughter, while the troopers, peeping furtively over their shoulders, could not restrain themselves from joining in their mirth, from which I gathered that Master Tetheridge, as, spurred on by fear, he hurled his fat body through hedges and into ditches, was a somewhat comical sight.

‘And now for the other,’ said the little officer, turning away from the window and wiping the tears of laughter from his face. ‘That beam over yonder would serve our purpose. Where is Hangman Broderick, the Jack Ketch of the Royals?’

‘Here I am, sir,’ responded a sullen, heavy-faced trooper, shuffling forward; ‘I have a rope here with a noose.’

‘Throw it over the beam, then. What is amiss with your hand, you clumsy rogue, that you should wear linen round it?’

‘May it please you, sir,’ the man answered, ‘it was all through an ungrateful, prick-eared Presbyterian knave whom I hung at Gommatch. I had done all that could be done for him. Had he been at Tyburn he could scarce have met with more attention. Yet when I did put my hand to his neck to see that all was as it should be, he did fix me with his teeth, and hath gnawed a great piece from my thumb.’

‘I am sorry for you,’ said the officer. ‘You know, no doubt, that the human bite under such circumstances is as deadly as that of the mad dog, so that you may find yourself snapping and barking one of these fine mornings. Nay, turn not pale! I have heard you preach patience and courage to your victims. You are not afraid of death?’

‘Not of any Christian death, your Honour. Yet, ten shillings a week is scarce enough to pay a man for an end like that!’

‘Nay, it is all a lottery,’ remarked the Captain cheerily. ‘I have heard that in these cases a man is so drawn up that his heels do beat a tattoo against the back of his head. But, mayhap, it is not as painful as it would appear. Meanwhile, do you proceed to do your office.’

Three or four troopers caught me by the arms, but I shook them off as best I might, and walked with, as I trust, a steady step and a cheerful face under the beam, which was a great smoke-blackened rafter passing from one side of the chamber to the other. The rope was thrown over this, and the noose placed round my neck with trembling fingers by the hangman, who took particular care to keep beyond the range of my teeth. Half-a-dozen dragoons seized the further end of the coil, and stood ready to swing me into eternity. Through all my adventurous life I have never been so close upon the threshold of death as at that moment, and yet I declare to you that, terrible as my position was, I could think of nothing but the tattoo marks upon old Solomon Sprent’s arm, and the cunning fashion in which he had interwoven the red and the blue. Yet I was keenly alive to all that was going on around me. The scene of the bleak stone-floored room, the single narrow window, the two lounging elegant officers, the pile of arms in the corner, and even the texture of the coarse red serge and the patterns of the great brass buttons upon the sleeve of the man who held me, are all stamped clearly upon my mind.

‘We must do our work with order,’ remarked the taller Captain, taking a note-book from his pocket. ‘Colonel Sarsfield may desire some details. Let me see! This is the seventeenth, is it not?’

‘Four at the farm and five at the cross-roads,’ the other answered, counting upon his fingers. ‘Then there was the one whom we shot in the hedge, and the wounded one who nearly saved himself by dying, and the two in the grove under the hill. I can remember no more, save those who were strung up in ‘Bridgewater immediately after the action.’

‘It is well to do it in an orderly fashion,’ quoth the other, scribbling in his book. ‘It is very well for Kirke and his men, who are half Moors themselves, to hang and to slaughter without discrimination or ceremony, but we should set them a better example. What is your name, sirrah?’

‘My name is Captain Micah Clarke,’ I answered.

The two officers looked at each other, and the smaller one gave a long whistle. ‘It is the very man!’ said he. ‘This comes of asking questions! Rat me, if I had not misgivings that it might prove to be so. They said that he was large of limb.’

‘Tell me, sirrah, have you ever known one Major Ogilvy of the Horse Guards Blue?’ asked the Captain.

‘Seeing that I had the honour of taking him prisoner,’ I replied, ‘and seeing also that he hath shared soldier’s fare and quarters with me ever since, I think I may fairly say that I do know him.’

‘Cast loose the cord!’ said the officer, and the hangman reluctantly slipped the cord over my head once more. ‘Young man, you are surely reserved for something great, for you will never be nearer your grave until you do actually step into it. This Major Ogilvy hath made great interest both for you and for a wounded comrade of yours who lies at Bridgewater. Your name hath been given to the commanders of horse, with orders to bring you in unscathed should you be taken. Yet it is but fair to tell you that though the Major’s good word may save you from martial law, it will stand you in small stead before a civil judge, before whom ye must in the end take your trial.’

‘I desire to share the same lot and fortune as has befallen my companions-in-arms,’ I answered.

‘Nay, that is but a sullen way to take your deliverance,’ cried the smaller officer. ‘The situation is as flat as sutler’s beer. Otway would have made a bettor thing of it. Can you not rise to the occasion? Where is she?’

‘She! Who?’ I asked.

‘She. The she. The woman. Your wife, sweetheart, betrothed, what you will.’

‘There is none such,’ I answered.

‘There now! What can be done in a case like that?’ cried he despairingly. ‘She should have rushed in from the wings and thrown herself upon your bosom. I have seen such a situation earn three rounds from the pit. There is good material spoiling here for want of some one to work it up.’

‘We have something else to work up, Jack,’ exclaimed his companion impatiently. ‘Sergeant Gredder, do you with two troopers conduct the prisoner to Gommatch Church. It is time that we were once more upon our way, for in a few hours the darkness will hinder the pursuit.’

At the word of command the troopers descended into the field where their horses were picketed, and were speedily on the march once more, the tall Captain leading them, and the stage-struck cornet bringing up the rear. The sergeant to whose care I had been committed — a great square-shouldered, dark-browed man — ordered my own horse to be brought out, and helped me to mount it. He removed the pistols from the holsters, however, and hung them with my sword at his own saddle-bow.

‘Shall I tie his feet under the horse’s belly?’ asked one of the dragoons.

‘Nay, the lad hath an honest face,’ the sergeant answered. ‘If he promises to be quiet we shall cast free his arms.’

‘I have no desire to escape,’ said I.

‘Then untie the rope. A brave man in misfortune hath ever my goodwill, strike me dumb else! Sergeant Gredder is my name, formerly of Mackay’s and now of the Royals — as hard-worked and badly-paid a man as any in his Majesty’s service. Right wheel, and down the pathway! Do ye ride on either side, and I behind! Our carbines are primed, friend, so stand true to your promise!’

‘Nay, you can rely upon it,’ I answered.

‘Your little comrade did play you a scurvy trick,’ said the sergeant, ‘for seeing us ride down the road he did make across to us, and bargained with the Captain that his life should be spared, on condition that he should deliver into our hands what he described as one of the stoutest soldiers in the rebel army. Truly you have thews and sinews enough, though you are surely too young to have seen much service.’

‘This hath been my first campaign,’ I answered.

‘And is like to be your last,’ he remarked, with soldierly frankness. ‘I hear that the Privy Council intend to make such an example as will take the heart out of the Whigs for twenty years to come. They have a lawyer coming from London whose wig is more to be feared than our helmets. He will slay more men in a day than a troop of horse in a ten-mile chase. Faith! I would sooner they took this butcher-work into their own hands. See those bodies on yonder tree. It is an evil season when such acorns grow upon English oaks.’

‘It is an evil season,’ said I, ‘when men who call themselves Christians inflict such vengeance upon poor simple peasants, who have done no more than their conscience urged them. That the leaders and officers should suffer is but fair. They stood to win in case of success, and should pay forfeit now that they have lost. But it goes to my heart to see those poor godly country folk so treated.’

‘Aye, there is truth in that,’ said the sergeant. ‘Now if it were some of these snuffle-nosed preachers, the old lank-haired bell-wethers who have led their flocks to the devil, it would be another thing. Why can they not conform to the Church, and be plagued to them? It is good enough for the King, so surely it is good enough for them; or are their souls so delicate that they cannot satisfy themselves with that on which every honest Englishman thrives? The main road to Heaven is too common for them. They must needs have each a by-path of their own, and cry out against all who will not follow it.’

‘Why,’ said I, ‘there are pious men of all creeds. If a man lead a life of virtue, what matter what he believes?

‘Let a man keep his virtue in his heart,’ quoth Sergeant Gredder. ‘Let him pack it deep in the knapsack of his soul. I suspect godliness which shows upon the surface, the snuffling talk, the rolling eyes, the groaning and the hawking. It is like the forged money, which can be told by its being more bright and more showy than the real.’

‘An apt comparison!’ said I. ‘But how comes it, sergeant, that you have given attention to these matters? Unless they are much belied, the Royal Dragoons find other things to think of.’