The Highwayman Part 40

So Harry, with a long face, I suppose, drifted away to the back of the house. The coach was already moving out of the yard, and he saw no sign of his father's legion. In a moment the groom, with one of O'Connor's men to help him, was busy again in the stable. Still the legion did not reveal themselves. O'Connor's man ran back into the house, leaving two horses saddled in the stable. Then the Pretender and my lord hurried out, and the horses were brought to meet them. As they mounted, Harry heard the clatter of the coach and then pistols and shouts, and the clash of fighting.

The Pretender spurred off, my lord taking the lead of him through the gate. As they pa.s.sed, a shot was fired out of the hedge. My lord swayed, fumbling at his holsters, and crying out: "Ride on, sir, ride," fell from the saddle. His foot was caught in the stirrup, and the frightened horse dragged him along the ground.

Harry ran up and s.n.a.t.c.hed the bridle. "How is it with you, my lord?"

"I have enough, I believe," my lord gasped. "Damme, sir, don't fumble at me. Mount and after him."

So Harry went b.u.mping in the saddle after the Pretender.

CHAPTER XXIV

QUEEN ANNE IS DEAD

The Pretender looked over his shoulder as Harry came up. "Where is he hit?"

"He has it in the body and he suffers."

The Pretender muttered something. "I bring ill-luck to my friends, you see. Best ride off, Mr. Boyce."

"You can do me no harm, sir. G.o.d knows if I can do you any good."

The Pretender looked at him curiously. "I think you are something of my own temper. In effect, there is little to hope with me."

"Who knows?" Harry shrugged. "_Par exemple,_ sir, do you know where we are going now?"

"This is a parable, _mordieu_! I leave my friends to be shot for me and die, perhaps, while I ride off and know not the least of my way."

"Egad, sir, you were in enough of a hurry to go somewhere." Harry reined up. "Am I to be trusted in the affair?"

The Pretender amazed Harry by laughing--a laugh so hearty and boyish that he seemed another man from the creature of stiff, pedantic melancholy.

"Oh Lud, Mr. Boyce, don't scold. You might be a politician. Tell me, where is this d.a.m.ned palace?"

"Kensington, sir? Bear to the left, if you please."

So they swung round, and soon hitting upon a lane saw the village and the trees about the palace. In a little while, "Mr. Boyce: how much do you know?" the Pretender said; and still he was more the boy than the disinherited king.

"Egad, sir, no more than I told you: that my father had bullies watching for you."

"And I believe I have not thanked you."

It was Harry's turn to laugh. "Faith, sir, you ought to be grateful to the family of Boyce."

"I shall not forget."

"He takes care that you shall remember him, my honourable father."

"I do not desire repartees, Mr. Boyce. Come, sir, you carry yourself too proudly. You are not to disdain what you have done, or yourself."

Harry bowed,--permitted himself, I suppose, some inward ironic smile,--he was not born with reverence, and the royal airs of this haughty, gloomy lad had no authority over him. Then and always the pretensions of the Pretender appeared to him pathetically ridiculous. But for the man he would sometimes profess a greater liking than he had learnt to feel for any other in the world.

Harry was careful to avoid most of the village. As they came into it on the eastward side a horseman galloped up to them. "From my Lord Masham, sir. Pray you follow me at speed." He led them on to the palace, but not by the straight approach, and brought them to a little door in the garden wall upon the London side.

There a handsome fellow stood waiting for them, and bowed them in with a "Sir, sir, we have been much anxious for you. I trust to G.o.d nothing has fallen out amiss?"

"There was a watch set for me, my lord, and I fear some of our friends are down. But for this gentleman I had hardly been here."

Masham swore and cried out, "They have news of the design! I profess I feared it. Pray, sir, come on quickly. The Queen is weaker, and my lady much troubled for her. By G.o.d, we have left it late. And the ministers must still be wrangling, and my Lord Bolingbroke like a man mazed. We must be swift and downright with the Council."

Then at last Harry understood. The Pretender was to be brought face to face with his sister, the weakening weak Queen, and a Privy Council was to be in waiting. Suppose she declared him her heir; suppose she presented him to a Council all high Tories and good Jacobites! A good plot, a very excellent plot, if there were a man with the courage and the will to make it work.

Within the palace it was now twilight. They were hurried up privy stairways and along corridors, and Harry fancied behind the gloom a hundred watching eyes, and could not be sure they were only fancy. As they crossed the head of the grand staircase Masham made an exclamation and checked and peered down. The Pretender turned and Harry, but Masham plunged after them and wildly waved them on.

"What is it, my lord? Have you seen a ghost?" The Pretender smiled.

"Oh G.o.d, sir, go on!" Masham gasped. "We can but challenge the hazard now," and he muttered to himself.

"You are inconvenient, my lord," says the Pretender with a shrug. "Go before. Conduct me, if you please," Masham brushed by him and hurried on.

Harry understood my lord's alarm. He, too, had seen a little company below by the grand entry, and among them one of singular grace, a rare n.o.bility of form and feature, a strange placidity. There was no forgetting, no mistaking him. It was the gentleman of the bogged coach, the Old Corporal, the Duke of Marlborough.. Marlborough, who was in disgrace, who should be in exile, back at the palace when the Tories were staking their all on a desperate, splendid throw: Marlborough, who had betrayed and ruined James II, come back to baffle his son! No wonder Lord Masham was uneasy for his head.

They were brought to a small room, blatantly an antechamber, and Masham, brusquely bidding them wait, broke through the inner door. He was back in a moment as pale as he had been red. "Come in, sir," he muttered. "I believe we had best be short." And through the open door Harry heard another voice. It was thin and strained, and seemed to make no words, like a baby's cry or an animal's.

Across another antechamber, they came into a big room of some prim splendour, and as they pa.s.sed the door Harry made out what that feeble voice was saying: "The Council, Abbie: we must go to the Council: we keep the Council waiting, Abbie:" that came over and over again, and he knew why he had not understood. The words were run together and slurred as if they were shaped by a mind drowsy or fuddled.

A great fire was burning though the day was warm enough, and by the fire sat a mound of a woman. She could be of no great height, perhaps she was not very stout, but she sat heaped together and shapeless, a flaccid ma.s.s. She had a table by her, and on it some warm drink that steamed.

Through the drifting vapour Harry saw her face, and seemed to see it change and vanish like the vapour. For it was all bloated and loose, and it trembled, and it had no colour in it but a pallid grey. And as he looked there came to him a sense of death.

Yet she was pompously dressed, in a dress cut very low, a dress of rich stuff and colour, and there was an array of jewels sparkling about her neck and at her bosom, and her hands lay heavy with rings.

There hung about her a woman buxom and pleasant enough, yet with something sly in her plump face. "Fie, ma'am, fie," she was saying, "the Council is here but for your pleasure:" she looked up and nodded imperiously at Masham.

"The Prince James, ma'am," Masham cried.

The Queen, who had seemed to see nothing of their coming, started and shook and blinked towards him. "He is loud, Abbie. Tell him not to be loud," she complained.

"Look, ma'am, look," Lady Masham patted at her. "It is your brother, it is Prince James."

The Pretender came forward, holding out his hand. "Am I welcome, Anne?"

he said heavily.

The Queen stared at him with dull eyes. "It is King Charles," she said, and stirred in her chair and gave a foolish laugh. "No, but he is like King Charles. But King Charles had so many sons. Who is he, Abbie? Why does he come? The Council is waiting."

"I am your brother, Anne," the Pretender said.