Lawrence Clavering Part 38

However, as I say, I found him at the last, and when General Wills marched into Preston Market-place at seven o'clock of the Monday morning, Mr. Lawrence Clavering, with a blue ap.r.o.n about his waist, was taking down the shutters from the apothecary's shop, while Mr.

Curwen, much broken by fatigue and disappointment, lay abed in an attic of the house, with Ashlock to tend on him.

All that day, which was Monday the 14th of November, I lived in a jumping anxiety. For the shop from morn to night was beset with people seeking remedies for the wounded. These people, however, for the most part, belonged to General Wills' force; and luckily the citizens of the town had so much to distract them in the spectacle of the troops and of the prisoners--now ranged in the market-place, now marched off and locked up in the church--and in their own joy at escaping from the siege with so little damage, that they forgot those trivial ailments which bring them to the apothecary's. So the new journeyman, pounding drugs in a corner as far from the window as he could creep, escaped notice for that day and lay down to sleep beneath the counter with a mind a thought easier than his aching arm.

In something less than a minute, it seemed to me, I felt a tug at my coat. I started up with a cry, and looking to see the red coat of a soldier, beheld the homely brown of my friend the apothecary. His hat was on his head, the door of the shop stood open, and the full daylight poured into it.

"Thomas," he said, with a whimsical glance through his spectacles, "I cannot do with an idle apprentice. I must cancel your indentures."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"w.i.l.l.y nilly I must keep you for to-day, since I have a little journey to take and I cannot leave the shop untended. But to-morrow, Thomas, you must go." With that he grew more particular, and informed me that General Carpenter intended to lead his troops to Wigan no later than this very morning, since they could not be housed in Preston, and were, moreover, in sore need of rest from the rapidity of their march.

"General Wills," he continued, "is left to guard the prisoners, and that doubtless he can do--but he cannot watch the streets as well."

Thereupon he gave me some directions as to what answers I should give to his customers, and went off upon his errand. And as a result of this errand, on the Wednesday evening the apothecary took a walk. He walked down the Fishergate Street, and every now and again, when a watchman or an officer going his rounds approached, he knocked twice upon the pavement with a heavy cane he carried, and maybe loitered for a little until the officer had pa.s.sed. There were three men following him, whereof one I can affirm kept his hand beneath his great-coat tightly clasped about the b.u.t.t of a loaded pistol; and whenever that double knock sounded, the three men dived into the first alley that presented. The apothecary's walk led across the marsh to the river's bank. The marsh itself might be deemed an unlikely spot for a comfortable citizen to take the air in when the night mist was smoking up from it to a November moon. But the rest of his peregrination was more extraordinary still. For he chose that point of the bank at which the river shallows and makes a ford, and without hesitation waded across. On the opposite side he waited for the three who followed to come up with him; which they did with a little delay, since two of them were old and the footing not the steadiest in the world. Half a mile along the bank the apothecary went forward and whistled. A boat slipped out from a clump of alders and the fugitives stepped on board. There was a hurried whisper of thanks from the boat, a bluff pooh-poohing of them from the bank, and the boatman pushed off. We kept down the stream for some two hours, and disembarking again, after once more re-crossing the river, struck slantwise over the fields, and so towards morning came to a fisherman's cottage set amongst the sand-hills by the sea. It was here that my apothecary was wont to come upon his holidays and spend the time fis.h.i.+ng; and he could have hit upon no refuge better suited to my purpose.

My first thought, however, when the boatman admitted us into his cottage, was for Mr. Curwen. It was now some hours since he had waded through the ford, and what with his wet limbs and the weary tramp across the fields, I was afraid lest he might fall into some dangerous fever. I was the more inclined to credit this fear from a perception that he was more troubled and downcast than I had seen him even after our submission and defeat. Accordingly, I asked the boatman to lend him some woollen stockings and other dry garments, which the man very readily did, and set before us thereafter a meal.

Mr. Curwen, however, eat little or nothing, but sat shaking his head, as though the world had crumbled about his ears. I made an effort therefore to rally him into the recovery of his good spirits, though with the heaviest heart. "All was not lost," I said, "for here were we with whole skins, in a secure retreat, while, on the other hand, the Earl of Mar might be winning who knows what victories in Scotland."

"It is not of the King," he replied regretfully, "nor of myself that I was thinking. It was of my daughter. I fear me, Mr. Clavering, I have given too much thought to a cause in which I was of the smallest use, and too little to Dorothy, with whom my duty lay."

He spoke in a breaking voice and with a gleam of tears in his lack-l.u.s.tre eyes.

"Mr. Curwen," said I, changing my note on the instant, "on the Sunday afternoon at the barricade I bethought me with all humility of the path which I must take through this tangle of our misfortunes; I saw very clearly that there were three duties enjoined on me. The first was, to help you to security, if by any means I could. Nay," I said, as he raised a hand in deprecation, "it was a promise I made to your daughter, and, believe me, it is one of the few comforts left to me in what remains of life that I see some prospect of carrying that promise to a successful issue. The second duty was, to bring your daughter Dorothy," and it was my voice now which broke upon the word, "safely to you. That I have promised to myself, but I hold it no less sacred than the first."

He reached out a hand to me across the table.

"And the third?" he asked timidly.

"It is the payment of a debt," I replied--"a debt incurred by me to be repaid by me, and I put it last, not because it is of less inc.u.mbency than the other two, but because it ends my life, and with my life such poor service as I can do my friends."

"It ends your life!" he exclaimed.

"So I do hope," I replied, and since I meant the words, I can but trust there was no boastfulness in the expression, "for it is my life alone that can now set the tally straight G.o.d knows, my trouble lies not in the payment, but in the means of payment. For there are matters which I do not know, and it may be that I shall waste my life."

This I said, thinking of my ignorance as to where Mr. Herbert lay imprisoned. I had a plan in my head, it is true, which offered me some chance of accomplis.h.i.+ng this duty, but it only offered me a chance.

Mrs. Herbert had promised me that she would remain in the lodging at Keswick, and during the interval since I had last set eyes on her, she might well have received news of her husband's whereabouts. But would she keep the promise--she had every reason in the world to distrust me--would she keep the promise I had so urgently besought of her?

"Mr. Clavering," said my friend, "I told you just now I was afeared I had thought too much of the King and too little of my Dorothy, but these words of yours put even that better thought to the blush. You have been at my elbow all the last days protecting me; you have brought about my escape; you are planning how to save my daughter; and all this while you have seen--you, young in the sap of your strength--you have seen the limits of your life near to you, as that barrier by the church was near to us at Preston. And not a word of it have you spoken, while we have bemoaned ourselves and made no secret of our misery. Not a word have you spoken, not a hint has your face betrayed."

"Mr. Curwen, I beg of you," I replied quickly, for the praise jarred on me, as well it might. "A man does not speak what it shames him even to think of. But to my plan."

I drew from my pocket a sheet of paper and a pencil, with which I had provided myself before I quitted the apothecary's shop.

"Your sloop the _Swallow_ should be lying now off the mouth of the Esk by Ravengla.s.s."

Mr. Curwen started at my abrupt remark. Was it merely that, amidst the turmoil and hurry of the last weeks, he had clean forgotten his design to set me over into France? Or was it that he had countermanded his order since that night when I had fled from Applegarth?

"It should be cruising thereabouts to pick me up," I said, feeling my heart drumming against my breast. I did not dare to put the question in its naked directness. "It should have reached Ravengla.s.s by now."

Mr. Curwen sat staring at me. "The s.h.i.+p--the s.h.i.+p I mean! Oh, answer me!" I cried. "Answer me!"

"Yes!" he said slowly. "The _Swallow_ should be now at Ravengla.s.s.

That is true." He seemed to be a.s.suring himself of the fact and speculating on its import.

"You sent no message to prevent it sailing, after I left you?"

"None!" said he.

I drew a breath of relief.

"But we are now at the fifteenth of November. How long did you bid the captain wait?"

Mr. Curwen seemed of a sudden to grasp my design, though, as he showed me in a moment, he had got no more than an inkling of it.

"Until you hailed him," he replied, rising from his chair in some excitement "He was to wait for you. That was the top and bottom of his orders. There was no time fixed for your coming."

"Then," said I, in an excitement not a whit less than his, "the _Swallow_ will be waiting now up the coast?"

In the little room we could hear the surf booming upon the sand. I flung open the window. The sound swelled of a sudden, as though the music of a spinet should magically deepen to an organ-harmony.

"Your _Swallow_," I exclaimed, "lifts and falls upon the very waves which we hear breaking on the sands."

Mr. Curwen stepped over to my side. The sandhills stretched before us, white under the moon, and with a whisper from the gra.s.ses which crowned them. I found a cheering comfort in their very desolation.

Beyond the sandhills, the sea leaped and called, tossing to and fro a hundred jewelled arms. I felt my heart leaping with the waves, answering their call, and the fresh brine went stinging through my veins.

"Northwards," I cried, reaching out an arm, "round the point there, up the coast, beyond Morcambe Bay the _Swallow_ waits for us. It is no great distance, Mr. Curwen. G.o.d save Lord Bolingbroke, who betrayed the Catalans!" I heard my voice ring with an exultation I had not known for many a day. I strained my eyes northwards along the sea. It seemed to my heated fancies, that the barrier of the sh.o.r.es fell back.

My vision leaped over cape and bay, and where the Esk poured into the sea by Muncaster Fell I seemed to see the _Swallow_, its black mast tapering across the moon; I seemed to hear the grinding of its cable as it strained against the anchor.

Then very quickly Mr. Curwen spoke at my side.

"There is my daughter. In this great hope of ours, are we not forgetting her?"

"Nay," I replied, "it is of your daughter I am thinking. You trust your captain, you say? You trust your captain will be waiting now? If so, he will be waiting a fortnight's time; he waits until I come." I drew Mr. Curwen back to the table.

"Look you, Mr. Curwen, I marched with Mr. Forster from the outset of the rising. We crossed from the Cheviots into England on the 1st of November; we proclaimed King James in Preston Market-square upon the 10th. Nine days enclosed our march, and we marched in force. There were other necessities beyond that of speed to order our advance.

There was food to be requisitioned, towns to be chosen for a camp wherein our troops could quarter. At Penrith, at Appleby, we drew up for battle. All this meant delay. Some of us rode, no doubt, but our pace was the pace of those who walked. And, mark, nine days enclosed our march. A man alone and free to choose his path would shear two days from that nine, maybe three. I cannot choose my path, there will be hindrances. I must travel for the chief part by night. But I have not so far to go. Grant me nine days, then! It is the sixteenth--nay, the seventeenth. On the twenty-sixth I should be knocking at the door of Applegarth."

"Nay," said he, "you will be captured. You have risked enough for us, more than enough. Mr. Clavering, I cannot permit that you should go."

"Yet," said I, with a smile, "you will find that easier than to prevent me. You told me of a safe route between Applegarth and Ravengla.s.s," I continued. "How long will it take a woman to traverse it?"

"I called it safe," he answered doubtfully, making dots upon the paper with the point of his pencil, "because it stretched along the watersheds. But that was in September. Now it may be there will be snow."

The winter indeed had fallen early that year. Yes, the snow might be deep on the hills. I had a picture before my eyes of Dorothy struggling through it.

"Then we will add another day," I answered, and strove to make the answer light. "Given that other day, how long shall we take from Applegarth to Ravengla.s.s?"

"Three days," said he, "or thereabouts."