Shrewsbury Part 12

"For, the good cause, the cause you love so dearly, d.i.c.k, is prospering. Another month and you and I know what will happen. Ha! ha!

we know. In the meantime, work while it is day, d.i.c.k. Put your hand to the plough and look not back. If all were as forward as you, our necks would be in little peril, and we might see a rope without thinking of a cart."

"Curse you!" I cried, almost beside myself between disappointment, and the rage into which his fiendish teasing threw me. "Cannot you keep your tongue off that? Is it not enough that you----"

"Have taught me to limp!" quoth he winking hideously. "Here's to Louis, James, Mary, and the Prince--L. I. M. P., my lad! Oh, we can talk the deealect. We have had good teachers."

I could have burst into tears. "Some day you'll be caught!" I cried.

"Well?" he said with a grin. "And what then?"

"You'll be hanged! Hanged!" I cried furiously. "And G.o.d grant I may be there to see."

"You will that," he answered with composure. "Make your mind easy, my man, for, trust me, if I am in the first cart, you'll be in the second. That is my security, friend d.i.c.k. If I go, you go. Who carried to Mr. Warmaky's chambers the letters from France, I would like to know? And who---- But the cause!" he continued, breaking off, "the cause! To business, and no more havers. Here's work for you. You shall go, do you hear me, Richard, to Covent Garden to the Piazza there, in half an hour's time. It will be full dark then. You will see there a fine gentleman walking up and down, taking his tobacco, with a white handkerchief hanging from his pocket. You will give him that note, and say 'Roberts and Guiney are good men'--d'ye take it? 'Roberts and Guiney are good men,' say that, and no more, and come back to me."

I answered at first, being in a rage, and not liking this errand better than others I had done for him, that I would not--I would not, though he killed me. But he had a way with him that I could not long resist; and he presently cowed me, and sent me off.

I had so far fallen into his sneaking habits that though it was dark night when I started, I went the farthest way round by Holborn, and the new fas.h.i.+onable quarter, Soho; and pa.s.sing through King's Square itself, and before the late Duke of Monmouth's house--the sight of which did not lessen my distaste for my errand--I entered Covent Garden by James Street, which comes into the square between the two Piazzas. At the corner, I had to turn into the roadway to avoid a party of roisterers who had just issued from the Nag's Head coffee-house and were roaring for a coach; and being in the kennel, and observing under the Piazza and before the taverns more lights and link-boys than I liked, I continued along the gutter, dirty as it was (and always is in the neighbourhood of the market), until I was half-way across the square, where I could turn and reconnoitre at my leisure. Here for a moment, running my eye along the Piazza, which had its usual fringe of flower girls and mumpers, swearing porters and hackney coaches, I thought my man with the white handkerchief had not come; but s.h.i.+fting my gaze to the Little Piazza, which was darker and less frequented, I presently espied him walking to and fro under cover, with a cane in his hand and the air of a gentleman who had supped and was looking out for a pretty girl. He was a tall, stout man, wearing a large black peruke and a lace cravat and ruffles; and he carried a steel-hilted sword, and had somehow the bearing of one who had seen service abroad.

Satisfied that he was the person I wanted, I went to him; but stepping up to him a little hastily, I gave him a start, I suppose, for he backed from me and laid his hand on his hilt, rapping out an oath.

However, a clearer view rea.s.sured him, and he c.o.c.ked his hat, and swore at me again but in a different tone. "Sir," said he very rudely, "another time give a gentleman a wider berth, unless you want his cane about your shoulders!"

For answer I merely pulled out the note I had and held it towards him, being accustomed to such errands and anxious only to do this one, and begone; the more as under the Great Piazza a number of persons were loitering, and among them link-boys and chairmen and the like who notice everything.

However he made no movement to take the letter, but only said, "For me?"

"Yes," I answered.

"From whom?" said he, roughly.

"You will learn that inside," I said. "I was bidden only to say that Roberts and Guiney are good men."

"Ha!" he exclaimed, "why did you not say that before?" and at that took the letter. On which, having done my part and not liking the neighbourhood, I was for going, and had actually made a half turn, when a man slighter than the first and taller, came out of the shadow behind him, and standing by his side, touched his hat to me. I stopped.

"Good evening, my lord," he said, addressing me with ceremony, and a sort of dignity. "I little thought to see you here on this business.

It is the best news I have had myself or have had to give to others this many a day. It shall be well represented, and the risk you run. And whatever be thought on this side, believe me, at St.

Germain's----"

"Hus.h.!.+" cried the first man, interrupting him at that, and rather sharply. I think he had been too much surprised to speak before. "You are too hasty, sir," he continued. "There must be a mistake here. The gentleman to whom you are speaking----"

"There is no mistake. This gentleman and I are well acquainted," the other responded coolly, and in the tone of a man who knows what he is doing. And then to me, and with a different air, "My lord, you may not wish to say your name aloud; that I can understand, and this is no very safe place for either of us. But if we could meet somewhere, say at----"

"Hush, sir," the man with the handkerchief cried, and this time almost angrily. "There _is_ a mistake here, and in a moment you will say too much, if you have not said it already. This gentleman--if he is a gentleman--brings a letter from R. F., and is no more of a lord, I'll be sworn, than I am!"

"From R. F.?"

"Yes; and therefore if he is the person you think him---- But come, sir," he continued, eyeing me angrily, "what _is_ your name? End this."

I did not wish to tell him, yet liked less to refuse. So I lied, and on the spur of the moment said, "Charles Taylor," that being the name of a man who lived below me.

The taller man struck one hand into the other. "There! Charles!" he cried, and looked at me smiling. "I have an eye for faces, and if you are not----"

"Nay, sir, I pray, be quiet," the man with the white handkerchief remonstrated. "Or if you are so certain----" and then he looked hard at me and frowned as if he began to feel a doubt. "Step this way and tell me what you think. This gentleman will doubtless excuse us, and wait a moment, whether he be whom you think him or not."

I was as uneasy and as unwilling to stay as could be; but the man's tone was resolute, and I saw that he was not a man to cross; so with an ill grace I consented, and the two drawing aside together into the deeper shadow under the Piazza, began to confer. This left me to kick my heels impatiently, and watch out of the corner of my eye the loiterers under the other Piazza, to learn if any observed us.

Fortunately they were taken up with a quarrel which had just broken out between two hackney coachmen, and though a man came near me, bringing a woman, he had no eyes for me, and, calling a sedan-chair, went away again almost immediately.

I was so engrossed with watching on that side and taking everyone who looked towards me for an informer, that it was with a kind of shock that I found my two friends had grown in the course of their conference to three; nor had I more than discovered this before the new comer left the other two and sauntered up to me. "Oh, ah," he said carelessly, "and who do you say that you----" and there he stopped, staring in my face. And then, "By heavens, it is!" he cried.

By this time I was something astonished, and more amazed; and answered with spirit--though he was a hard-bitten man, with the look of a soldier or gamester, to whom ordinarily I should have given the wall--that I was merely a messenger, and knew nothing of the matter on which I was there, nor for whom they took me.

His face, which for a second or more had blazed with excitement, fell suddenly; and when I had done speaking, he laughed.

"Don't you?" he said.

"No," said I. "Not a groat!"

"So it seems," he said again, as if that settled the matter. "Well, then what is your name?"

"Charles Taylor," I answered.

"And you come from that old rogue Ferg--R. F., I mean?"

"Yes."

"Well then you can go back to him," he said, dismissing me with a nod.

"Or wait. Did you know that gentleman, my friend?"

"Which?" said I.

"The tall one."

"Not from Adam," I said.

"Good! Then there is no need you should know him," he answered coolly.

"So, go. And do you tell that old fox to lie close. He was never in anything yet but he spoiled it. Tell him to lie close, and keep his bragging tongue quiet if he can. And now be off. I will explain to the gentlemen."

I needed no second bidding, but before the words were well out of his mouth, had crossed the square, to the market side, where there were no lights; thence skirting the garden of Bedford House, I made my way into the Strand, and home by a pretty direct route. The farther I left the men behind me, however, the higher rose my curiosity; so that by the time I reached Bride Lane, and had climbed the stairs to my garret, I was agape to know more, and for once in my life, was glad to find the old plotter in my room. Nor was it without satisfaction, that to his eager question, "You gave the note to the gentleman?" I answered shortly that I had given it to three.

"To three?" he exclaimed, starting up in a sudden fury. "You d----d cur, if you have betrayed me! What do you mean?"

"Only that I did what you told me," I answered sullenly; at which he sat down again. "I gave it to the gentleman; but he had two with him----"

"The more to hang him," he sneered, quickly recovering himself. "And what did he say?"

"Very little. Nothing that I remember. But the two with him----"

"Ay?"

"One of them said, 'Tell the old fox'--or the rogue, for he called you both--'to lie close!' And he added," I continued, spite giving me courage, "that you had hitherto spoiled everything you had been in, Mr. Ferguson."