Part 11 (1/2)
It was with a mistrusting conscience, as to the propriety of his separation from his companions, that Garret, when he had leisure for reflection, set himself to scanning his deportment at this juncture.
His chief scruple had reference to the point of view in which Dauntrees and Arnold de la Grange would hereafter represent this incident: would they set it down, as Weasel hoped they might, to the account of a proper and soldier-like disposition of the forces, which required a detachment to defend a weak point? or would they not attribute his hanging back to a want of courage, which his conscience whispered was not altogether so wide of the truth, but which he had hoped to conceal by his martial tone of bravado? There are many brave men, he reflected, who have a const.i.tutional objection to fighting in the dark, and he was rather inclined to rank himself in that cla.s.s. ”In the dark,” said he, as he sat down by the fire, with his hands locked across his knees, which were drawn up before him in gra.s.shopper angles, and looked steadily at the blazing brushwood; ”in the dark a man cannot see--that stands to reason. And it makes a great difference, let me tell you, masters, when you can't see your enemy. A brave man, by nature, requires light. And, besides, what sort of an enemy do we fight?
Hobgoblins--not mortal men--for I would stand up to any mortal man in Christendom; ay, and with odds against me. I have done it before now.
But these whirring and whizzing ghosts and their cronies, that fly about one's ears like cats, and purr and mew like bats--what am I saying? no, fly like bats and mew like cats--one may cut and carve at them with his blade with no more wound than a boy's wooden truncheon makes upon a south wind. Besides, the Captain, who is all in all in his command, hath set me here to watch, which, as it were, was a forbidding of me to go onward. He must be obeyed: a good soldier disputes no order, although it go against his stomach. It was the Captain's wish that I should keep strict watch and ward here on the skirt of the wood; otherwise, I should have followed him--and with stout heart and step, I warrant you! But the Captain hath a soldierly sagacity in his cautions; holding this spot, as he wisely hath done, to be an open point of danger, an inlet, as it were, to circ.u.mvent his march, and therefore straightly to be looked to. Well, let the world wag, and the upshot be what it may, here are comforts at hand, and I will not stint to use them.”
Saying this the self-satisfied martialist opened the basket and solaced his appet.i.te with a slice of pasty and a draught of wine.
”I will now perform a turn of duty,” he continued, after his refreshment; and accordingly drawing his hanger, he set forth to make a short circuit into the open field. He proceeded with becoming caution on this perilous venture, looking slyly at every weed or bush which lay in his route, shuddering with a chilly fear at the sound of his own footsteps, and especially scanning, with a disturbed glance, the vibrations of his long and lean shadow which was sharply cast by the fire across the level ground. He had wandered some fifty paces into the field, on this valorous outlook, when he bethought him that he had ventured far enough, and might now return, deeming it more safe to be near the fire and the horses than out upon a lonesome plain, which he believed to be infested by witches and their kindred broods. He had scarcely set his face towards his original post when an apparition came upon his sight that filled him with horror, and caused his hair to rise like bristles. This was the real bodily form and proportions of such a spectre as might be supposed to prefer such a spot--an old woman in a loose and ragged robe, who was seen gliding up to the burning f.a.gots with a billet of pine in her hand, which she lighted at the fire and then waved above her head as she advanced into the field towards the innkeeper. Weasel's tongue clave to the roof of his mouth, and his teeth chattered audibly against each other, his knees smote together, and his eyes glanced steadfastly upon the phantom. For a moment he lost the power of utterance or motion, and when these began to return, as the hag drew nearer, his impulse was to fly; but his bewildered reflection came to his aid and suggested greater perils in advance: he therefore stood stock-still.
”Heaven have mercy upon me!--the Lord have mercy upon me, a sinner!” he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed; ”I am alone, and the enemy has come upon me.”
”Watcher of the night,” said a voice, in a shrill note, ”draw nigh.
What do you seek on the wold?”
”Tetra grammaton, Ahaseel--in the name of the Holy Evangels, spare me!”
muttered the innkeeper, fruitlessly ransacking his memory for some charm against witches, and stammering out an incoherent jargon.
”Abracadabra--spare me, excellent and worthy dame! I seek no hurt to thee. I am old, mother, too old and with too many sins of my own to account for, to wish harm to any one, much less to the good woman of this wold. Oh Lord, oh Lord! why was I seduced upon this fool's errand?”
”Come nigh, old man, when I speak to you. Why do you loiter there?”
shouted the witch, as she stood erect some twenty paces in front of the publican and beckoned him with her blazing f.a.got. ”What dost thou mutter?”
”I but sported with my shadow, mother,” replied Weasel, with a tremulous attempt at a laugh, as he approached the questioner, in an ill a.s.sumed effort at composure and cheerfulness. ”I was fain to divert myself with an antic, till some friends of mine, who left me but a moment since, returned. How goes the night with you dame?”
”Merrily,” replied the hag, as she set up a shrill laugh which more resembled a scream, ”merrily; I cannot but laugh to find the henpecked vintner of St. Mary's at this time of night within the sound of the tide at the Black Chapel. I know your errand, old chapman of cheap liquors, and why you have brought your cronies. You pretend to be a liegeman of his Lords.h.i.+p, and you travel all night to cheat him of five s.h.i.+llings. You will lie on the morrow with as sad a face as there is in the hundred. I know you.”
”You know all things, worthy dame, and I were a fool to keep a secret from you. What new commodity, honest mistress, shall I find with Rob?
The port is alive with a rumour of the Olive Branch; I would be early with the Cripple. Ha, ha!” he added, with a fearful laugh, ”thou seest I am stirring in my trade.”
”Garret Weasel,” said the beldam, ”you may take it for a favour, past your deservings, that Rob will see thee alone at his hut even in day time: but it is as much as your life is worth to bring your huff-cap brawlers to St. Jerome's at midnight. It is not lawful ground for thee, much less for the hot-brained fools who bear you company. Who showed them the path to my cabin, that I must be driven out at this hour?”
”Worthy mistress, indeed I know not. I am ignorant of what you say!”
”They will call themselves friends to the Chapel: but we have no friends to the Chapel amongst living men. The Chapel belongs to the dead and the tormentors of the dead. So follow your cronies and command them back. I warn you to follow, and bring them back, as you would save them from harm. Ha! look you, it is come already!” she exclaimed, raising her torch in the air, as the flashes from the Haunted House illumined the horizon; ”the seekers have roused our sentries, and there shall be angry buffets to the back of it!” At this moment the first shot was heard. ”Friends, forsooth!” she shouted at the top of her voice: ”friends, are ye? there is the token that ye are known to be false liars. Wo to the fool that plants his foot before the Chapel!
Stand there, Garret Weasel: I must away; follow me but a step--raise thy head to look after my path, and I will strike thee blind and turn thee into a drivelling idiot for the rest of thy days. Remember----”
In uttering this threat the figure disappeared; Garret knew not how, as he strictly obeyed the parting injunction, and his horrors were greatly increased by the report of the several shots which now reached his ear from the direction of the Black House.
He had hardly recovered himself sufficiently to wander back to the fire, before Dauntrees, Arnold, and Pamesack arrived, evidently flurried by the scene through which they had pa.s.sed, as well as by the rapidity of their retreat.
”Some wine, Garret! some wine, old master of the tap!” was Dauntrees'
salutation; ”and whilst we regale as briefly as we may, have thou our horses loose from the trees; we must mount and away. To the horses, Garret! We will help ourselves.”
”I pray you, Master Captain,” inquired the publican, having now regained his self-possession, ”what speed at the Chapel? Oh, an we have all had a night of it! Sharp encounters all round, masters! I can tell you a tale, I warrant you.”
”Stop not to prate now,” interrupted Dauntrees, in a voice choked by the huge mouthful of the pasty he was devouring; ”we shall discourse as we ride. That flask, Arnold, I must have another draught e'er we mount, and then, friends, to horse as quickly as you may; we may be followed; we may have ghost, devil, and man of flesh, all three, at our heels.”
”I have had store of them, I can tell you--ghosts and devils without number,” said Weasel, as he brought the horses forward.
”You shall be tried by an inquest of both, for your life, if you tarry another instant,” interposed the Captain, as he sprang into his saddle.