Part 75 (2/2)

”The neck again?”

”Worst bleeding crick in the neck I've ever had.” He reaches up to rub a raw place, then flinches, and settles for re-composing his silk neckerchief.

”You should try to avoid being hanged.”

”I did try to avoid it, but the thing was complicated.”

She appears on the bank, holding up one hand with thumb and index finger pressed together. appears on the bank, holding up one hand with thumb and index finger pressed together.

”Morning, Jack.”

”Bonjour, Madame la d.u.c.h.esse.” The one named Jack executes a courtly bow, so exaggerated as to border on open mockery. Each and every one of his vertebrae has something to say about it. The one named Jack executes a courtly bow, so exaggerated as to border on open mockery. Each and every one of his vertebrae has something to say about it.

”I've something here that you lost!” she announces.

”My heart?”

She hurls the bird-pellet at him. The men on the barge avert their eyes as it impacts on a chair-arm and ricochets around. ”La Palatine wants you two to know that she is too old to be the target of musket-fire.” wants you two to know that she is too old to be the target of musket-fire.”

”Fortunately Pepe is bringing you a peace-offering,” says the King, and indicates the curly-haired dog, who's up on the bank now, wagging his tail at Eliza. He trots up and drops the dead bird at her feet.

”I've little taste for such things,” she says, ”but Liselotte was a great huntress in her day and so it might placate her.” She bends down, pinches the bird's neck, and walks away from them holding it out at arm's length. The men watch in awe. Leroy gives Jack a dig in the ribs.

”Magnifique, eh?” eh?”

”Old goat.”

”Ah, she is a great woman,” says the King, ”and you, mon cousin, mon cousin, are a fortunate man.” are a fortunate man.”

”To meet her in the first place was fortunate, I'll give you that. To lose her was stupid. Now, I don't know the word to describe what I am, besides tired.”

”You will have ample time to rest from your travails, and lovely places in which to do it,” says Leroy.

Jack, suddenly alert, pulls one of the blind doors to, and crouches behind it. A trio of French courtiers, drawn by the sound of the fowling-pieces, are approaching. ”Lovely places indeed,” says Jack, ”as long as I stay out of sight, and out of gossip.”

”Ah, but in such places as La Zeur and St.-Malo, this is not so terribly difficult, eh?”

”That is where I shall live out my retirement,” Jack allows, ”as long as she'll have me.”

The King looks mock-astonished. ”And if she throws you out?”

”Back to England, and back to work,” says Jack.

”As a coiner?”

”As a gardener.”

”I do not believe such a thing!”

”Believe it, Leroy, for 'tis a notorious weakness of Englishmen who are too old to do anything useful. My brother has found a position on a rich man's estate. If Eliza ever grows weary of supporting a broken-down old Vagabond, I may go thither and live out my days killing the Duke's weeds and poaching his game.”

Blenheim Palace ”FINE! S SO BE IT, then! I'll get along unshod!” bellows a man of similar age and proportions to Jack. He seizes one of his knees with both hands and yanks up. A bare foot emerges from a boot, which is sunk almost to its top in the mud. He plants the foot, grabs the other knee, and repeats. Bob Shaftoe now stands, a free man, in mud almost up to his knees. His boots are stranded nearby, rapidly filling with rain. He salutes them. ”Good riddance!” then! I'll get along unshod!” bellows a man of similar age and proportions to Jack. He seizes one of his knees with both hands and yanks up. A bare foot emerges from a boot, which is sunk almost to its top in the mud. He plants the foot, grabs the other knee, and repeats. Bob Shaftoe now stands, a free man, in mud almost up to his knees. His boots are stranded nearby, rapidly filling with rain. He salutes them. ”Good riddance!”

”Hear, hear!” calls a voice from a tent, pitched nearby on slightly higher and firmer ground. A man rises from a table and turns toward him. The table is lit by several candles even though it is two o'clock in the afternoon.

Bob's wearing a broad-brimmed felt hat, which supports approximately a gallon of rainwater, distributed among several discrete pools. He c.o.c.ks his head in a most deliberate and calculating manner, and the pools slide, merge, slalom round the hat's contours, and spring off its back brim, splatting into the mud behind him. This enables him to get a clear sight-line into the tent.

The man who has just spoken stands in its entrance, gazing down on him; at the table, a peg-legged fellow sits on a folding chair and graciously accepts a cup of chocolate from a woman who has been at work over a little cook-fire in the rear. ”Bob,” calls the standing gentleman, ”you are now barefoot in the rain, which calls to mind how I first saw you nigh on fifty years ago, and I say it becomes you, and may you leave those boots there to rot, and never again wear such odious contraptions. Now, do come back to us before you catch your death. Abigail has made chocolate.”

Bob wrenches a foot clear of the mud, plants it on a rock, and uses this as a foundation on which to pull the opposite one free. He risks a glance back at the abandoned boots. ”Do the b.l.o.o.d.y plans plans call for a pair o'boots there?” call for a pair o'boots there?”

”They call for a shrubbery!” announces the peg-leg, peering at Bob through a transit, and consulting a garden-plan spread out on the table. ”But never you mind, those boots will be eaten by vermin long before planting-season.”

”What would the Vicar of Blenheim know about planting-season?”

”As much as I know about being a vicar.”

”And that is as much as I I know about being a country gentleman,” says the Duke of Marlborough, gazing fretfully across a half-mile of mud and stumps at the still-building pile of Blenheim. ”But we must all adapt-we must all learn. Except for Abigail, who is already perfect.” Abigail gives him a skeptical look and a cup of chocolate. Bob squelches another step closer. The gaze of (formerly) Colonel, (and now) the Reverend Barnes strays back to the great map, which looks ever so fanciful when contrasted against the gloomy reality outside. His eye wanders across the orderly geometry of the plan until it fixes upon a wee Chapel and a nearby Vicarage. know about being a country gentleman,” says the Duke of Marlborough, gazing fretfully across a half-mile of mud and stumps at the still-building pile of Blenheim. ”But we must all adapt-we must all learn. Except for Abigail, who is already perfect.” Abigail gives him a skeptical look and a cup of chocolate. Bob squelches another step closer. The gaze of (formerly) Colonel, (and now) the Reverend Barnes strays back to the great map, which looks ever so fanciful when contrasted against the gloomy reality outside. His eye wanders across the orderly geometry of the plan until it fixes upon a wee Chapel and a nearby Vicarage.

Marlborough says, ”We shall mount a last Campaign from this tent, and pick off the vermin who are drawn hither by the intoxicating fragrance of Bob's boots. Bob shall study how to look after plants, Barnes shall learn how to look after souls, I shall learn how to be idle, and Abigail shall look after all of us.”

”It sounds as if it ought to work,” says Bob, ”so long as my brother does not show up.”

”He is dead,” Marlborough avers. ”But if he shows up, we'll shoot him. And if he recovers, we'll pack him off to Carolina, where he may work alongside his offspring. For I am told that you are not the only Shaftoe, Bob, to have turned over a new leaf, and become a tiller of the soil.”

Bob has finally reached the tent's threshold. ”It is a strange fate indeed,” he mutters, ”but only fitting.”

”Why fitting?”

”Jack, Jimmy, and Danny ought by rights to become tillers of the soil,” says Bob, ”because they have made so much trouble in the past, as soilers of the till.”

”If you are going to make such jests,” says Barnes, ”you are welcome to stay out in the rain.”

Carolina ”I SPIED 'EM AGAIN SPIED 'EM AGAIN this morning, Tomba! The weather cleared, just after sunup, and I looked to the West and saw 'em, all lit up by the red sun s.h.i.+ning in off the sea. A line of hills, or mountains if you please. Laid out, waiting for us, like baked apples in a pan.” this morning, Tomba! The weather cleared, just after sunup, and I looked to the West and saw 'em, all lit up by the red sun s.h.i.+ning in off the sea. A line of hills, or mountains if you please. Laid out, waiting for us, like baked apples in a pan.”

Tomba is lying face down on the sack of desiccated pine-branches that answers to the name of bed here, in the indentured servants' quarters of Mr. Ickham's Plantation. Not for the first time in his life, his back is striped with long whip-cuts. Jimmy Shaftoe hauls a sopping ma.s.s of rags out of a bucket, wrings it out, and lays it on Tomba's raw flesh. Tomba opens his mouth to scream, but makes no sound. Danny keeps talking, trying to get Tomba to think about something else. ”A week's hard traveling,” he says, ”less than that if we steal some horses. We can manage without food for that long. When we make it to those hills, there'll be game a-plenty.”

”Game,” says Tomba, ”and Indians.”

”Tomba, look at the state you're in, and tell me Indians are worse than the Overseer.”

”Nothing's worse than him,” Tomba admits. ”But I'm in no condition to run cross-country for seven days.”

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