Part 1 (2/2)
As we neared the clump a voice, authoritative, harsh, and yet familiar, shouted: ”Stand!”
And into the moonlight stepped a short, thick-set man, whom I recognized as the soldier who caused the turmoil at the inn, Increase Joyce.
For the second time that night my father unsheathed his hanger, and, pus.h.i.+ng me behind him, advanced towards the man.
”Stand!” he repeated. ”See here; a word in thine ear, Master Wentworth. Less than an hour agone I said: 'I fight not with old men'. I recall those words. With me it is a case of doing in Rome as do the Romans. The Commonwealth is at an end, therefore I am a Parliamentarian no longer. Instead, I journey to the Rhine to join the German freebooters, or else to the Spanish Main to throw in my lot with the buccaneers of the Indies--it matters not which; but ere I go I have an account to settle with the Lord of Holwick. Little did I think to find him hiding in an obscure Suss.e.x village. Dost remember twenty years aback--the trysting place under the Holmwood Oak?--Ah! ... Nay! Stand, at thy peril!”
But my father, white with pa.s.sion, still advanced, the moonbeams dancing on his glittering blade. Joyce unslung his petronel, and covered his antagonist when within fifteen or twenty paces.
”Murderer!” shouted my father.
”As you will; I take no risks with steel,” and immediately the report of the weapon burst upon my ears like a clap of thunder, while the trees were illuminated by the flash of the discharge. I shut my eyes and screamed in terror, and on opening them I saw--oh, merciful Heaven!--a convulsive form lying in the road, while the Roundhead stood watching me intently, the smoke from his petronel hanging round like a pall, and slowly ascending in the chill night air.
In an instant my terror left me and I became a demon. Grasping my oak cudgel in my hand, I ran at my father's murderer and rained blow after blow upon his head and body. It was but a forlorn attempt. His headpiece and armour received the blows as lightly as if they were from a straw, and with an oath he smote me heavily on the chest with the b.u.t.t of his pistol, so that I reeled, fell backward across the body of my murdered sire, and struck my head on the frosty road. Mult.i.tudes of lights flashed before my eyes, followed by a red glare, and I lost all consciousness.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”I RAN AT MY FATHER'S MURDERER AND RAINED BLOW AFTER BLOW UPON HIS HEAD AND BODY”]
CHAPTER II.
--Of the Arrest and Escape of Increase Joyce.
When I came to, the first vague impressions of consciousness were the excited chatterings of what seemed to me a mult.i.tude of people. Then I saw the flas.h.i.+ng of the light of a log fire lightening the dark oak beams of a room. I lay still, my temples throbbing like to burst, and my head swimming till I felt ready to vomit. Trying to collect my thoughts, I realized that I was in the kitchen of our own house. Then in an instant the whole scene of the tragedy in the pine-shrouded lane burst upon me in all its horror, and I raised myself on one elbow and feebly articulated: ”Father, say it is but a dream!”
Gentle hands firmly put my head back upon a pillow, and a voice, which I recognized as that of Master Salesbury, the chirurgeon, said: ”The lad will surely recover. No more letting of blood or cupping is needful. A hot posset will not come amiss, good Mistress Heatherington, ere I take my leave, for 'tis cold abroad.”
”Thou art right, Master Salesbury,” replied another, Sir George Lee, who, I afterwards found out, had been summoned as a Justice of the Peace to take down such evidence as could be obtained. ”And as for you, sir, I must ask you to accompany me as my guest till this unfortunate matter can fully be gone into.”
”Right gladly would I, worthy sir, but I ride hot-foot on affairs of State. By ten of the clock I must deliver a sealed packet into the hands of Master Jack Tippets, the Mayor of Portsmouth.”
I started, and strove again to rise; the voice seemed but too familiar to my ears; but once more I was soothed into repose.
”To Portsmouth, say you? Then why, may I ask, were you so far from the highway?”
”I had also to summon the Squire of Trotton----”
”Trotton, say you? Then why didst take this road, seeing that the turning at Milland is the right and proper one?” demanded Sir George sternly.
”I must have missed the right road, and, hearing shots, I suspected some foul crime, and rode hither----”
In an instant I connected that voice with that of the murderer, Increase Joyce, and with what strength yet remained I shouted: ”Seize him; he is my father's murderer!”
Immediately all was commotion. Women shrieked--men shouted. Sir George Lee sprang to his feet and whipped out his sword. ”Arrest him,” he ordered. Two men, who were attendants at the Court Leet, placed their hands on Joyce's shoulder.
”Unhand me, men!” he exclaimed; ”'tis a mistake--a grave mistake. Would ye pay heed to the ravings of a light-headed child?”
A wave of indecision swept over the people present; but, in spite of extreme physical pain, I had raised myself on my elbow, and in reply I repudiated the Roundhead's taunt. ”I am not light-headed nor is it a mistake. That man shot my father with a petronel not a furlong from this house.”
But Joyce doggedly followed up his line of argument. ”Look, worthy sir,” he reiterated, ”the lad is still wandering. Why, when I came upon them, the boy was stretched senseless on the roadway. I pray you, order your men to release me. I journey on the business of the Commonwealth.”
The two men released their hold, but Sir George turned on them with a rage quite unusual to him. ”Were ye told to unhand him, dolts?” he shouted. ”A messenger of the Commonwealth or no messenger, I take the responsibility. Bind him, and away to Midhurst with him at once.”
With an oath the scoundrel shook off his two captors and threw himself bodily on Sir George. Taken unawares, the knight could ill defend himself, and before the bystanders could interfere, a knife flashed in the firelight and was buried in his body. Then the two henchmen grappled with the Roundhead, and all three rolled in a heap on the floor. It was not until the miscreant was stunned by a blow from a milking stool that he was finally secured, and attention could be given to Sir George Lee.
The knight was leaning against the wall, his head slightly bent, while a deadly pallor overspread his face, on which, however, lurked a peculiarly grim smile.
”Art hurt, Sir George?” asked Master Salesbury.
”Nay, Doctor, 'tis not a case for your hands this time, thanks to Lawyer Whitehead; I am but winded.”
”To Lawyer Whitehead! How?”
”Ay, to Lawyer Whitehead! 'Tis the first time in twenty-nine years that I have been well served by a lawyer, and even this once it was not as a deliberate act of kindness.” And, drawing from his pocket a thick bundle of parchment, partly cut through by the villain's knife, he held it up for inspection.
At that moment the door opened and a st.u.r.dy countryman entered, pulling his forelock as a mark of respect to Sir George, and handed him a petronel which I recognized only too well.
”Zure, sir, I did find 'e but d'ree paces from t' road where they killed Maister Wentworth.”
Under guard, the villain, now in a half-dazed condition, was removed in a cart to the jail at Midhurst. Most of those present dispersed, and, faint and tired, I fell into a troubled sleep.
A week pa.s.sed ere I had sufficient strength to be able to sit up. Under the careful nursing of Mistress Heatherington my bodily hurts were healed, though the mental anguish of that terrible night still gripped me in a relentless grasp.
It was on a Tuesday morning when Sir George came to the cottage to enquire how I progressed, and to tell me that he was taking me to the courthouse at Midhurst on the following Monday morning, should I be well enough to bear the journey.
”Lad,” he exclaimed, ”I would I could fathom this mystery! Thy father's slayer is no mean reaver or cutpurse; yet, though we have him safe by the heels, manacled and leg-ironed, and threaten him with the thumbscrews, never a word can be wrung from him. Was there ever a feud 'twixt thy sire and him?”
I told the knight of the event that took place at the sign of the ”Flying Bull”, and of the meeting with the villain in the moonlit lane. Sir George listened attentively, and, proud of being privileged to talk to so exalted a personage as the wealthiest man for miles around Rake, I let my tongue run wild for the s.p.a.ce of nigh on an hour.
When I had finished, Sir George, who had never ceased to stroke his beard and play a tattoo with his fingers on the table, remained silent for a few minutes; then suddenly he exclaimed: ”Holwick! Captain Slingsby of Monk's Regiment of Horse! 'Tis pa.s.sing strange, yet----”
His remarks were cut short by the thunder of a horse's hoofs, and a man suddenly burst in through the door and exclaimed breathlessly: ”Oh, Sir George! Sir George!”
”Well, sirrah?”
But the man could only stammer out: ”Oh, Sir George!”
This was more than the choleric old knight could stand. ”Don't stand there babbling like a drunken mummer at Martinmas fair!” he shouted, with a round oath. ”Deliver thy message, dolt!”
”Oh, Sir George! The murderer Joyce hath escaped!”
With another furious outburst the knight rushed out of the room, mounted his horse, and, followed by his two servants and the messenger of ill-tidings, rode furiously down the road to Midhurst, the noise of the horses' hoofs clattering on the frosty road testifying to the speed at which they were urged.
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