Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (38 page)

He groaned, and Dick heard the grating of his teeth, whether in pain or terror.

Just then Sir Daniel appeared upon the threshold of the hall. He had a letter in one hand.

“Lads,” he said, “we have had a shog, we have had a tumble; wherefore, then, deny it? Rather it imputeth to get speedily again to saddle. This old Harry the Sixt has had the undermost. Wash we, then, our hands of him. I have a good friend that rideth next the duke, the Lord of Wensleydale. Well, I have writ a letter to my friend, praying his good lordship, and offering large satisfaction for the past and reasonable surety for the future. Doubt not but he will lend a favourable ear. A prayer without gifts is like a song without music: I surfeit him with promises, boys — I spare not to promise. What, then, is lacking? Nay, a great thing — wherefore should I deceive you? — a great thing and a difficult: a messenger to bear it. The woods — y’are not ignorant of that — lie thick with our ill-willers. Haste is most needful; but without sleight and caution all is naught. Which, then, of this company will take me this letter, bear me it to my Lord of Wensleydale, and bring me the answer back?”

One man instantly arose.

“I will, an’t like you,” said he. “I will even risk my carcase.”

“Nay, Dicky Bowyer, not so,” returned the knight. “It likes me not. Y’are sly indeed, but not speedy. Ye were a laggard ever.”

“An’t be so, Sir Daniel, here am I,” cried another.

“The saints forfend!” said the knight. “Y’are speedy, but not sly. Ye would blunder me head-foremost into John Amend-All’s camp. I thank you both for your good courage; but, in sooth, it may not be.”

Then Hatch offered himself, and he also was refused.

“I want you here, good Bennet; y’are my right hand, indeed,” returned the knight; and then several coming forward in a group, Sir Daniel at length selected one and gave him the letter.

“Now,” he said, “upon your good speed and better discretion we do all depend. Bring me a good answer back, and before three weeks, I will have purged my forest of these vagabonds that brave us to our faces. But mark it well, Throgmorton: the matter is not easy. Ye must steal forth under night, and go like a fox; and how ye are to cross Till I know not, neither by the bridge nor ferry.”

“I can swim,” returned Throgmorton. “I will come soundly, fear not.”

“Well, friend, get ye to the buttery,” replied Sir Daniel. “Ye shall swim first of all in nut-brown ale.” And with that he turned back into the hall.

“Sir Daniel hath a wise tongue,” said Hatch, aside, to Dick. “See, now, where many a lesser man had glossed the matter over, he speaketh it out plainly to his company. Here is a danger, ‘a saith, and here difficulty; and jesteth in the very saying. Nay, by St. Barbary, he is a born captain! Not a man but he is some deal heartened up! See how they fall again to work.”

This praise of Sir Daniel put a thought in the lad’s head.

“Bennet,” he said, “how came my father by his end?”

“Ask me not that,” replied Hatch. “I had no hand nor knowledge in it; furthermore, I will even be silent, Master Dick. For look you, in a man’s own business there he may speak; but of hearsay matters and of common talk, not so. Ask me Sir Oliver — ay, or Carter, if ye will; not me.”

And Hatch set off to make the rounds, leaving Dick in a muse.

“Wherefore would he not tell me?” thought the lad. “And wherefore named he Carter? Carter — nay, then Carter had a hand in it, perchance.”

He entered the house, and passing some little way along a flagged and vaulted passage, came to the door of the cell where the hurt man lay groaning. At his entrance Carter started eagerly.

“Have ye brought the priest?” he cried.

“Not yet awhile,” returned Dick. “Y’ ‘ave a word to tell me first. How came my father, Harry Shelton, by his death?”

The man’s face altered instantly.

“I know not,” he replied, doggedly.

“Nay, ye know well,” returned Dick. “Seek not to put me by.”

“I tell you I know not,” repeated Carter.

“Then,” said Dick, “ye shall die unshriven. Here am I, and here shall stay. There shall no priest come near you, rest assured. For of what avail is penitence, an ye have no mind to right those wrongs ye had a hand in? and without penitence, confession is but mockery.”

“Ye say what ye mean not, Master Dick,” said Carter, composedly. “It is ill threatening the dying, and becometh you (to speak truth) little. And for as little as it commends you, it shall serve you less. Stay, an ye please. Ye will condemn my soul — ye shall learn nothing! There is my last word to you.” And the wounded man turned upon the other side.

Now, Dick, to say truth, had spoken hastily, and was ashamed of his threat. But he made one more effort.

“Carter,” he said, “mistake me not. I know ye were but an instrument in the hands of others; a churl must obey his lord; I would not bear heavily on such an one. But I begin to learn upon many sides that this great duty lieth on my youth and ignorance, to avenge my father. Prithee, then, good Carter, set aside the memory of my threatenings, and in pure good-will and honest penitence give me a word of help.”

The wounded man lay silent; nor, say what Dick pleased, could he extract another word from him.

“Well,” said Dick, “I will go call the priest to you as ye desired; for howsoever ye be in fault to me or mine, I would not be willingly in fault to any, least of all to one upon the last change.”

Again the old soldier heard him without speech or motion; even his groans he had suppressed; and as Dick turned and left the room, he was filled with admiration for that rugged fortitude.

“And yet,” he thought, “of what use is courage without wit? Had his hands been clean, he would have spoken; his silence did confess the secret louder than words. Nay, upon all sides, proof floweth on me. Sir Daniel, he or his men, hath done this thing.”

Dick paused in the stone passage with a heavy heart. At that hour, in the ebb of Sir Daniel’s fortune, when he was beleaguered by the archers of the Black Arrow and proscribed by the victorious Yorkists, was Dick, also, to turn upon the man who had nourished and taught him, who had severely punished, indeed, but yet unwearyingly protected his youth? The necessity, if it should prove to be one, was cruel.

“Pray Heaven he be innocent!” he said.

And then steps sounded on the flagging, and Sir Oliver came gravely towards the lad.

“One seeketh you earnestly,” said Dick.

“I am upon the way, good Richard,” said the priest. “It is this poor Carter. Alack, he is beyond cure.”

“And yet his soul is sicker than his body,” answered Dick.

“Have ye seen him?” asked Sir Oliver, with a manifest start.

“I do but come from him,” replied Dick.

“What said he? what said he?” snapped the priest, with extraordinary eagerness.

“He but cried for you the more piteously, Sir Oliver. It were well done to go the faster, for his hurt is grievous,” returned the lad.

“I am straight for him,” was the reply. “Well, we have all our sins. We must all come to our latter day, good Richard.”

“Ay, sir; and it were well if we all came fairly,” answered Dick.

The priest dropped his eyes, and with an inaudible benediction hurried on.

“He, too!” thought Dick — ”he, that taught me in piety! Nay, then, what a world is this, if all that care for me be blood-guilty of my father’s death? Vengeance! Alas! what a sore fate is mine, if I must be avenged upon my friends!”

The thought put Matcham in his head. He smiled at the remembrance of his strange companion, and then wondered where he was. Ever since they had come together to the doors of the Moat House the younger lad had disappeared, and Dick began to weary for a word with him.

About an hour after, mass being somewhat hastily run through by Sir Oliver, the company gathered in the hall for dinner. It was a long, low apartment, strewn with green rushes, and the walls hung with arras in a design of savage men and questioning bloodhounds; here and there hung spears and bows and bucklers; a fire blazed in the big chimney; there were arras-covered benches round the wall, and in the midst the table, fairly spread, awaited the arrival of the diners. Neither Sir Daniel nor his lady made their appearance. Sir Oliver himself was absent, and here again there was no word of Matcham. Dick began to grow alarmed, to recall his companion’s melancholy forebodings, and to wonder to himself if any foul play had befallen him in that house.

After dinner he found Goody Hatch, who was hurrying to my Lady Brackley.

“Goody,” he said, “where is Master Matcham, I prithee? I saw ye go in with him when we arrived.”

The old woman laughed aloud.

“Ah, Master Dick,” she said, “y’ have a famous bright eye in your head, to be sure!” and laughed again.

“Nay, but where is he, indeed?” persisted Dick.

“Ye will never see him more,” she returned — ”never. It is sure.”

“An I do not,” returned the lad, “I will know the reason why. He came not hither of his full free will; such as I am, I am his best protector, and I will see him justly used. There be too many mysteries; I do begin to weary of the game!”

But as Dick was speaking, a heavy hand fell on his shoulder. It was Bennet Hatch that had come unperceived behind him. With a jerk of his thumb, the retainer dismissed his wife.

“Friend Dick,” he said, as soon as they were alone, “are ye a moon-struck natural? An ye leave not certain things in peace, ye were better in the salt sea than here in Tunstall Moat House. Y’ have questioned me; y’ have baited Carter; y’ have frighted the jack-priest with hints. Bear ye more wisely, fool; and even now, when Sir Daniel calleth you, show me a smooth face for the love of wisdom. Y’are to be sharply questioned. Look to your answers.”

“Hatch,” returned Dick, “in all this I smell a guilty conscience.”

“An ye go not the wiser, ye will soon smell blood,” replied Bennet. “I do but warn you. And here cometh one to call you.”

And indeed, at that very moment, a messenger came across the court to summon Dick into the presence of Sir Daniel.

CHAPTER II

THE TWO OATHS

Sir Daniel was in the hall; there he paced angrily before the fire, awaiting Dick’s arrival. None was by except Sir Oliver, and he sat discreetly backward, thumbing and muttering over his breviary.

“Y’ have sent for me, Sir Daniel?” said young Shelton.

“I have sent for you, indeed,” replied the knight. “For what cometh to mine ears? Have I been to you so heavy a guardian that ye make haste to credit ill of me? Or sith that ye see me, for the nonce, some worsted, do ye think to quit my party? By the mass, your father was not so! Those he was near, those he stood by, come wind or weather. But you, Dick, y’are a fair-day friend, it seemeth, and now seek to clear yourself of your allegiance.”

“An’t please you, Sir Daniel, not so,” returned Dick, firmly. “I am grateful and faithful, where gratitude and faith are due. And before more is said, I thank you, and I thank Sir Oliver; y’ have great claims upon me both — none can have more; I were a hound if I forgot them.”

“It is well,” said Sir Daniel; and then, rising into anger: “Gratitude and faith are words, Dick Shelton,” he continued; “but I look to deeds. In this hour of my peril, when my name is attainted, when my lands are forfeit, when this wood is full of men that hunger and thirst for my destruction, what doth gratitude? what doth faith? I have but a little company remaining; is it grateful or faithful to poison me their hearts with your insidious whisperings? Save me from such gratitude! But, come, now, what is it ye wish? Speak; we are here to answer. If ye have aught against me, stand forth and say it.”

“Sir,” replied Dick, “my father fell when I was yet a child. It hath come to mine ears that he was foully done by. It hath come to mine ears — for I will not dissemble — that ye had a hand in his undoing. And in all verity, I shall not be at peace in mine own mind, nor very clear to help you, till I have certain resolution of these doubts.”

Sir Daniel sat down in a deep settle. He took his chin in his hand and looked at Dick fixedly.

“And ye think I would be guardian to the man’s son that I had murdered?” he asked.

“Nay,” said Dick, “pardon me if I answer churlishly; but indeed ye know right well a wardship is most profitable. All these years have ye not enjoyed my revenues, and led my men? Have ye not still my marriage? I wot not what it may be worth — it is worth something. Pardon me again; but if ye were base enough to slay a man under trust, here were, perhaps, reasons enough to move you to the lesser baseness.”

“When I was a lad of your years,” returned Sir Daniel, sternly, “my mind had not so turned upon suspicions. And Sir Oliver here,” he added, “why should he, a priest, be guilty of this act?”

“Nay, Sir Daniel,” said Dick, “but where the master biddeth there will the dog go. It is well known this priest is but your instrument. I speak very freely; the time is not for courtesies. Even as I speak, so would I be answered. And answer get I none! Ye but put more questions. I rede ye be ware, Sir Daniel; for in this way ye will but nourish and not satisfy my doubts.”

“I will answer you fairly, Master Richard,” said the knight. “Were I to pretend ye have not stirred my wrath, I were no honest man. But I will be just even in anger. Come to me with these words when y’are grown and come to man’s estate, and I am no longer your guardian, and so helpless to resent them. Come to me then, and I will answer you as ye merit, with a buffet in the mouth. Till then ye have two courses: either swallow me down these insults, keep a silent tongue, and fight in the meanwhile for the man that fed and fought for your infancy; or else — the door standeth open, the woods are full of mine enemies — go.”

The spirit with which these words were uttered, the looks with which they were accompanied, staggered Dick; and yet he could not but observe that he had got no answer.

“I desire nothing more earnestly, Sir Daniel, than to believe you,” he replied. “Assure me ye are free from this.”

“Will ye take my word of honour, Dick?” inquired the knight.