Lawrence Clavering Part 20

"Therefore," I interrupted, "you must serve Sir John Rookley's son. It is very right," and I patted him gently on the shoulder. "It is just for that reason a man serves his King. It is the house one serves, not the man who heads it."

"But I would you were Sir John Rookley's son."

The tenderness with which he spoke cut me like a knife.

"Nay," said I, "if there were a choice to be made, you would not be right in choosing me."

I had barely ended the sentence before a cry rang out from the garden.

It came, however, faintly to our ears.

"Quick!" I said. "They have come upon our tracks in the gra.s.s. Quick!

That note must reach Keswick to-day, and your hand must deliver it."

With that we parted. I mounted the hillside until I came to a large boulder, and threw myself on the ground beneath its shelter. In a fever of impatience I watched Ashlock descend along the wall, and yet the moment he had turned the corner and was clean out of my sight, I wished him back again. I was, in truth, sunk to such a depth of shame and self-contempt as made this old servant's goodwill an extraordinary consolation. For now that I had had time to grow used to the knowledge that Anthony Herbert was not dead, I began to see more clearly the wickedness of my preceding conduct.

It was, then, with a very lonely feeling that I climbed to the ridge of Green Comb. Beneath me I could see Blackladies and its garden much as on that morning when I first rode thither over Cold-barrow Fell.

But I saw it with very different eyes. Then, proud of my entrusted mission, I had looked upon it as an instrument of loyalty, a prop, however fragile, of the cause I served and my father had served before me. Now it was to me a monument of failure. Here I had failed through and through. I had proved false to Mr. Herbert; I had been juggled like the merest fool in my service to the King. I had but to turn, and over against me I could see the very spot where I had forced Jervas Rookley to make his vow of concealment upon his knees, and a little lower down the winding path, where I had come to my knees and Jervas Rookley had sat his horse over me. Well, I had kept faith with him, at all events, and how had he kept faith with me? The red-coats sprinkled in the garden below gave me the answer. Yes, I had kept faith with him. It seemed to me a wonderful and astonis.h.i.+ng thing, so deep was my humiliation, but it was true. I had kept faith with him, and I hugged the thought to my very breast. In the wreck of my hopes and pride, it stood erect as you may see a single column standing amidst a pile of ruins; and perhaps, I thought, since that one column stands, if he could but bring perseverance to the work, a man might in time rebuild the whole.

To effect anything of this sort, however, I must needs first of all escape, and to that end I kept all the day along the hilltops, and at the fall of the dark came down Bleaberry Fell, to the great wood that fringes Derwent.w.a.ter over against Rampsholme Island. About a mile to the east of the wood was a fisherman's cottage with which I was sufficiently familiar, since the fisherman had ferried me over often enough to Lord's Island, and many another visitor to my Lord Derwent.w.a.ter besides, who came in a great hurry when the night was fallen dark. To this cottage I crept, and tapping at the window-pane presently the man came out and joined me.

He asked no questions, being well practised in the habit of secrecy, but put me across to the steps and so pushed off again without a word.

I thought it best not to openly knock at the door, but crept round to a room wherein I knew Lord Derwent.w.a.ter was used to sit of an evening.

To my inexpressible relief I saw that the windows were lighted. I knocked on the pane; the sash was thrown up.

"Who is it?" asked Lord Derwent.w.a.ter.

I set my band on the sill and climbed into the room.

CHAPTER X.

A TALK WITH LORD DERWENt.w.a.tER. I ESCAPE.

"Lawrence!" he exclaimed, starting back at the sight of me, and with a cry Lady Derwent.w.a.ter came forward and took my hand. In truth, I must have cut a sufficiently pitiable figure, for my dress was all fouled from head to foot, and my face, I have no doubt, the complement of my dress.

"The soldiers are after me," I gasped out.

"Ah! Jervas Rookley!" cried Lord Derwent.w.a.ter, with a bang of his fist upon the table, the while his wife got me some brandy from a sideboard. "But I warned you, Lawrence! I warned you, when I caught sight of him in Keswick."

"I know," I answered. "But you did not warn me he was a traitor. All this while Jervas Rookley has been my steward at Blackladies."

"Your steward!" exclaimed Lord Derwent.w.a.ter; "and you did not know."

"Nay," I replied, "it was not so much that But I would not know. I pledged my word to him." With that I drank off the brandy.

"Oh, if you had only told me this!" he cried.

"I could not," I answered "I had but conjectures, and they were not enough to warrant me. There was but one fact in all the business which was clearly known to me: I had pledged my word to him."

"Nay," said Lady Derwent.w.a.ter, and she laid a pitying hand upon my shoulder, "he was right, since he had given his word;" and I--why, I groaned aloud and let my face fall forward on my arms. "Ah, poor boy!"

she exclaimed. "All this day he has been out upon the hills, and here we stand plaguing him with questions, when we should be ransacking the pantry. We deserve to be whipped."

She cautiously slipped out of the room.

But it was not any bodily want that troubled me so much as the unmerited kindliness of her tone and gesture. It wrought on me, indeed, with such a melting compulsion that had she remained within the room, I verily believe I should have blurted out that other story, with a "Withold your pity until it is deserved."

Lord Derwent.w.a.ter locked the door behind his wife and began to walk about the room.

"Lawrence," said he, "I am in some way to blame for this. But I did not know the fellow was masquerading at Blackladies as your steward.

He was disinherited, you know. But do you know why?"

"Because he was a Jacobite," I replied.

"Because he was a spy," cried Lord Derwent.w.a.ter. "A spy--do you understand?--paid by the Government to worm himself into the Jacobite councils. I know, for his father told me, and told me on his death-bed. Sir John was a Whig, you know, but an honest one and a gentleman, and the shock the knowledge caused him, caused his death."

"A spy!" I exclaimed. "And I might have known! I might have known it at Commercy."

"At Commercy?" said he with a start

"I might have known it in mid-channel. It was the letter his hands were searching for;" and noticing Lord Derwent.w.a.ter's perplexity, I related to him the whole story of Rookley's coming to Paris, the promise I made to him there, the journey to Lorraine.

"You had speech with the King!" he exclaimed, "and Jervas Rookley knew. You carried a letter----"

"In the King's hand, to the Duke of Ormond."

"And Jervas Rookley knew!"

"Ay, for he tried to steal it," and a great silence fell upon us both.

We looked into each other's eyes; I know I held my breath. With a swift, stealthy movement, more significant to me than even the silence was, he unlocked the door again and peered into the pa.s.sage.

"We were speaking over-loud, Lawrence," he said, in a hushed whisper.

He was on the point of locking the door again, when Lady Derwent.w.a.ter returned, bearing a loaded tray.

"It is a bad case you are in," said Lord Derwent.w.a.ter. "You had best fall to. It must not be known you were here to-night. I would gladly hide you."

"Nay," said I, "I have brought you near enough to danger as it is."

He waved the remark aside.

"There is no sense in such talk between friends. But Lord's Island is no safe place for you. I am suspected; you are known for my friend.

Here will they come first to search for you."

"But to-morrow," interrupted his wife, "not to-night"

"It were best he leave to-night," replied Lord Derwent.w.a.ter.