Weyman Stanley John
The Story of Francis Cludde

CHAPTER XVIII
THE WITCH'S WARNING

"One minute!" I said. "That is the place."

Master Bertie turned in his saddle, and looked at it. The light was fading into the early dusk of a November evening, but the main features of four cross streets, the angle between two of them filled by the tall belfry of a church, were still to be made out. The east wind had driven loiterers indoors, and there was scarcely any one abroad to notice us. I pointed to a dead wall ten paces down one street. "Opposite that they stopped," I said. "There was a pile of boards leaning against it then."

"You have had many a worse bedchamber since, lad," he said, smiling.

"Many," I answered. And then by a common impulse we shook up the horses, and trotting gently on were soon clear of London and making for Islington. Passing through the latter we began to breast the steep slope which leads to Highgate, and coming, when we had reached the summit, plump upon the lights of the village, pulled up in front of a building which loomed darkly across the road.

"This is the Gatehouse Tavern," Master Bertie said in a low voice. "We shall soon know whether we have come on a fool's errand-or worse!"

We rode under the archway into a great courtyard, from which the road issued again on the other side through another gate. In one corner two men were littering down a line of packhorses by the light of the lanterns, which brought their tanned and rugged faces into relief. In another, where the light poured ruddily from an open doorway, an ostler was serving out fodder, and doing so, if we might judge from the travelers' remonstrances, with a niggardly hand. From the windows of the house a dozen rays of light shot athwart the darkness, and disclosed as many pigs wallowing asleep in the middle of the yard. In all we saw a coarse comfort and welcome. Master Bertie led the way across the yard, and accosted the ostler. "Can we have stalls and beds?" he asked.

The man stayed his chaffering, and looked up at us. "Every man to his business," he replied gruffly. "Stalls, yes; but of beds I know nothing. For women's work go to the women."

"Right!" said I, "so we will. With better luck than you would go, I expect, my man!"

Bursting into a hoarse laugh at this-he was lame and one-eyed and not very well-favored-he led us into a long, many-stalled stable, feebly lit by lanterns which here and there glimmered against the walls. "Suit yourselves," he said; "first come is first served here."

He seemed an ill-conditioned fellow, but the businesslike way in which we went about our work, watering, feeding, and littering down in old campaigners' fashion, drew from him a grunt of commendation. "Have you come from far, masters?" he asked.

"No, from London," I answered curtly. "We come as linen-drapers from Westcheap, if you want to know."

"Ay, I see that," he said chuckling. "Never were atop of a horse before nor handled anything but a clothyard; oh, no!"

"We want a merchant reputed to sell French lace," I continued, looking hard at him. "Do you happen to know if there is a dealer here with any?"

He nodded rather to himself than to me, as if he had expected the question. Then in the same tone, but with a quick glance of intelligence, he answered, "I will show you into the house presently, and you can see for yourselves. A stable is no place for French lace." He pointed with a wink over his shoulder toward a stall in which a man, apparently drunk, lay snoring. "That is a fine toy!" he ran on carelessly, as I removed my dagger from the holster and concealed it under my cloak-"a fine plaything-for a linen draper!"

"Peace, peace, man! and show us in," said Master Bertie impatiently.

With a shrug of his shoulders the man obeyed. Crossing the courtyard behind him, we entered the great kitchen, which, full of light and warmth and noise, presented just such a scene of comfort and bustle, of loud talking, red-faced guests, and hurrying bare-armed serving-maids, as I remembered lighting upon at St. Albans three years back. But I had changed much since then, and seen much. The bailiff himself would hardly have recognized his old antagonist in the tall, heavily cloaked stranger, whose assured air, acquired amid wild surroundings in a foreign land, gave him a look of age to which I could not fairly lay claim. Master Bertie had assigned the lead to me as being in less danger of recognition, and I followed the ostler toward the hearth without hesitation. "Master Jenkin!" the man cried, with the same rough bluntness he had shown without, "here are two travelers want the lace-seller who was here to-day. Has he gone?"

"Who gone?" retorted the host as loudly.

"The lace merchant who came this morning."

"No; he is in No. 32," returned the landlord. "Will you sup first, gentlemen?"

We declined, and followed the ostler, who made no secret of our destination, telling those in our road to make way, as the gentlemen were for No. 32. One of the crowd, however, who seemed to be crossing from the lower end of the room, failed apparently to understand, and, interposing between us and our guide, brought me perforce to a halt.

"By your leave, good woman!" I said, and turned to pass round her.

But she foiled me with unexpected nimbleness, and I could not push her aside, she was so very old. Her gums were toothless and her forehead was lined and wrinkled. About her eyes, which under hideous red lids still shone with an evil gleam-a kind of reflection of a wicked past-a thousand crows' feet had gathered. A few wisps of gray hair struggled from under the handkerchief which covered her head. She was humpbacked, and stooped over a stick, and whether she saw or not my movement of repugnance, her voice was harsh when she spoke.

"Young gentleman," she croaked, "let me tell your fortune by the stars. A fortune for a groat, young gentleman!" she continued, peering up into my face and frustrating my attempts to pass.

"Here is a groat," I answered peevishly, "and for the fortune, I will hear it another day. So let us by!"

But she would not. My companion, seeing that the attention of the room was being drawn to us, tried to pull me by her. But I could not use force, and short of force there was no remedy. The ostler, indeed, would have interfered on our behalf, and returned to bid her, with a civility he had not bestowed on us, "give us passage." But she swiftly turned her eyes on him in a sinister fashion, and he retreated with an oath and a paling face, while those nearest to us-and half a dozen had crowded round-drew back, and crossed themselves in haste almost ludicrous.

"Let me see your face, young gentleman," she persisted, with a hollow cough. "My eyes are not so clear as they were, or it is not your cloak and your flap-hat that would blind me."

Thinking it best to get rid of her, even at a slight risk-and the chance that among the travelers present there would be one able to recognize me was small indeed-I uncovered. She shot a piercing glance at my face, and looking down on the floor, traced hurriedly a figure with her stick. She studied the phantom lines a moment, and then looked up.

"Listen!" she said solemnly, and waving her stick round me, she quavered out in tones which filled me with a strange tremor:

 
"The man goes east, and the wind blows west,
Wood to the head, and steel to the breast!
The man goes west, and the wind blows east,
The neck twice doomed the gallows shall feast!
 

"Beware!" she went on more loudly, and harshly, tapping with her stick on the floor, and snaking her palsied head at me. "Beware, unlucky shoot of a crooked branch! Go no farther with it! Go back! The sword may miss or may not fall, but the cord is sure!"

If Master Bertie had not held my arm tightly, I should have recoiled, as most of those within hearing had already done. The strange allusions to my past, which I had no difficulty in detecting, and the witch's knowledge of the risks of our present enterprise, were enough to startle and shake the most constant mind; and in the midst of enterprises secret and dangerous, few minds are so firm or so reckless as to disdain omens. That she was one of those unhappy beings who buy dark secrets at the expense of their souls, seemed certain; and had I been alone, I should have, I am not ashamed to say it, given back.

But I was lucky in having for my companion a man of rare mind, and besides of so single a religious belief that to the end of his life he always refused to put faith in a thing of the existence of which I have no doubt myself-I mean witchcraft.

He showed at this moment the courage of his opinions. "Peace, peace, woman!" he said compassionately. "We shall live while God wills it, and die when he wills it. And neither live longer nor die earlier! So let us by."

"Would you perish?" she quavered.

"Ay! If so God wills," he answered undaunted.

At that she seemed to shake all over, and hobbled aside, muttering, "Then go on! Go on! God wills it!"

Master Bertie gave me no time for hesitation, but, holding my arm, urged me on to where the ostler stood awaiting the event with a face of much discomposure. He opened the door for us, however, and led the way up a narrow and not too clean staircase. On the landing at the head of this he paused, and raised his lantern so as to cast the light on our faces. "She has overlooked me, the old witch!" he said viciously; "I wish I had never meddled in this business."

"Man!" Master Bertie replied sternly; "do you fear that weak old woman?"

"No; but I fear her master," retorted the ostler, "and that is the devil!"

"Then I do not," Master Bertie answered bravely. "For my Master is as good a match for him as I am for that old woman. When he wills it, man, you will die, and not before. So pluck up spirit."

Master Bertie did not look at me, though I needed his encouragement as much as the ostler, having had better proofs of the woman's strange knowledge. But, seeing that his exhortation had emboldened this ignorant man, I was ashamed to seem to hesitate. When the ostler knocked at the door-not of 32, but of 15-and it presently opened, I went in without more ado.

The room was a bare inn-chamber. A pallet without coverings lay in one corner. In the middle were a couple of stools, and on one of them a taper.

The person who had opened to us stood eying us attentively; a bluff, weather-beaten man with a thick beard and the air of a sailor. "Well," he said, "what now?"

"These gentlemen want to buy some lace," the ostler explained.

"What lace do they want?" was the retort.

"French lace," I answered.

"You have come to the right shop, then," the man answered briskly. Nodding to our conductor to depart, he carefully let him out. Then, barring the door behind him, he as rapidly strode to the pallet and twitched it aside, disclosing a trap door. He lifted this, and we saw a narrow shaft descending into darkness. He brought the taper and held it so as to throw a faint light into the opening. There was no ladder, but blocks of wood nailed alternately against two of the sides, at intervals of a couple of feet or so, made the descent pretty easy for an active man. "The door is on this side," he said, pointing out the one. "Knock loudly once and softly twice. The word is the same."

We nodded and while he held the taper above, we descended, one by one, without much difficulty, though I admit that half-way down the old woman's words "Go on and perish" came back disquietingly to my mind. However, my foot struck the bottom before I had time to digest them, and a streak of light which seemed to issue from under a door forced my thoughts the next moment into a new channel. Whispering to Master Bertie to pause a minute, for there was only room for one of us to stand at the bottom of the shaft, I knocked in the fashion prescribed.

The sound of loud voices, which I had already detected, ceased on a sudden, and I heard a shuffling on the other side of the boards. This was followed by silence, and then the door was flung open, and, blinded for the moment by a blaze of light, I walked mechanically forward into a room. I made out as I advanced a group of men standing round a rude table, their figures thrown into dark relief by flares stuck in sconces on the walls behind them. Some had weapons in their hands and others had partly risen from their seats and stood in postures of surprise. "What do you seek?" cried a threatening voice from among them.

"Lace," I answered.

"What lace?"

"French lace."

"Then you are welcome-heartily welcome!" was the answer given in a tone of relief. "But who comes with you?"

"Master Richard Bertie, of Lincolnshire," I answered promptly; and at that moment he emerged from the shaft.

A still more hearty murmur of welcome hailed his name and appearance, and we were borne forward to the table amid a chorus of voices, the greeting given to Master Bertie being that of men who joyfully hail unlooked-for help. The room, from its vaulted ceiling and stone floor, and the trams of casks which lay here and there or near the table serving for seats, appeared to be a cellar. Its dark, gloomy recesses, the flaring lights, and the weapons on the table, seemed meet and fitting surroundings for the anxious faces which were gathered about the board; for there was a something in the air which was not so much secrecy as a thing more unpleasant-suspicion and mistrust. Almost at the moment of our entrance it showed itself. One of the men, before the door had well closed behind us, went toward it, as if to go out. The leader-he who had questioned me-called sharply to him, bidding him come back. And he came back, but reluctantly, as it seemed to me.

I barely noticed this, for Master Bertie, who was known personally to many and by name to all, was introducing me to two who were apparently the leaders: Sir Thomas Penruddocke, a fair man as tall as myself, loose-limbed and untidily dressed, with a reckless eye and a loud tongue; and Master Walter Kingston, a younger brother, I was told, of that Sir Anthony Kingston who had suffered death the year before for conspiracy against the queen-the same in which Lord Devon had showed the white feather. Kingston was a young man of moderate height and slender; of a brown complexion, and delicate, almost womanish beauty, his sleepy dark eyes and dainty mustache suggesting a temper rather amiable than firm. But the spirit of revenge had entered into him, and I soon learned that not even Penruddocke, a Cornish knight of longer lineage than purse, was so vehement a plotter or so devoted to the cause. Looking at the others my heart sank; it needed no greater experience than mine to discern that, except three or four whom I identified as stout professors of religion, they were men rather of desperate fortunes than good estate. I learned on the instant that conspiracy makes strange bedfellows, and that it is impossible to do dirty work even with the purest intentions-in good company! Master Bertie's face indicated to one who knew him as well as I did something of the same feeling; and could the clock have been put back awhile, and we placed with free hands and uncommitted outside the Gatehouse, I think we should with one accord have turned our backs on it, and given up an attempt which in this company could scarcely fare any way but ill. Still, for good or evil, the die was cast now, and retreat was out of the question.

We had confronted too many dangers during the last three years not to be able to face this one with a good courage; and presently Master Bertie, taking a seat, requested to be told of the strength and plans of our associates, his businesslike manner introducing at once some degree of order and method into a conference which before our arrival had-unless I was much mistaken-been conspicuously lacking in both.

"Our resources?" Penruddocke replied confidently. "They lie everywhere, man! We have but to raise the flag and the rest will be a triumphal march. The people, sick of burnings and torturings, and heated by the loss of Calais last January, will flock to us. Flock to us, do I say? I will answer for it they will!"

"But you have some engagements, some promises from people of standing?"

"Oh, yes! But the whole nation will join us. They are weary of the present state of things."

"They may be as weary of it as you say," Master Bertie answered shrewdly; "but is it equally certain that they will risk their necks to amend it? You have fixed upon some secure base from which we can act, and upon which, if necessary, we may fall back to concentrate our strength?"

"Fall back?" cried Penruddocke, rising from his seat in heat. "Master Bertie, I hope you have not come among us to talk of falling back! Let us have no talk of that. If Wyatt had held on at once London would have been his! It was falling back ruined him."

Master Bertie shook his head. "If you have no secure base, you run the risk of being crushed in the first half hour," he said. "When a fire is first lighted the breeze puts it out which afterward but fans it."

"You will not say that when you hear our plans. There are to be three risings at once. Lord Delaware will rise in the west."

"But will he?" said Master Bertie pointedly, disregarding the threatening looks which were cast at him by more than one. "The late rebellion there was put down very summarily, and I should have thought that countryside would not be prone to rise again. Will Lord Delaware rise?"

"Oh, yes, he will rise fast enough!" Penruddocke replied carelessly. "I will answer for him. And on the same day, while we do the London business, Sir Richard Bray will gather his men in Kent."

"Do not count on him!" said Master Bertie. "A prisoner, muffled and hoodwinked, was taken to the Tower by water this afternoon. And rumor says it was Sir Richard Bray."

There was a pause of consternation, during which one looked at another, and swarthy faces grew pale. Penruddocke was the first to recover himself. "Bah!" he exclaimed, "a fig for rumor! She is ever a lying jade! I will bet a noble Richard Bray is supping in his own house at this minute."

"Then you would lose," Master Bertie rejoined sadly, and with no show of triumph. "On hearing the report I sent a messenger to Sir Richard's house. He brought word back that Sir Richard Bray had been fetched away unexpectedly by four men, and that the house was in confusion."

A murmur of dismay broke out at the lower end of the table. But the Cornishman rose to the situation. "What matter?" he cried boisterously. "What we have lost in Bray we have gained in Master Bertie. He will raise Lincolnshire for us, and the Duchess's tenants. There should be five hundred stout men of the latter, and two-thirds of them Protestants at heart. If Bray has been seized there is the more call for haste that we may release him."

This appeal was answered by an outburst of cries. One or two even rose, and waving their weapons swore a speedy vengeance. But Master Bertie sat silent until the noise had subsided. Then he spoke. "You must not count on them either, Sir Thomas," he said firmly. "I cannot find it in my conscience to bring my wife's tenants into a plan so desperate as this appears to be. To appeal to the people generally is one thing; to call on those who are bound to us and who cannot in honor refuse is another. And I will not risk in a hopeless struggle the lives of men whose fathers looked for guidance to me and mine."

A silence, the silence of utter astonishment, fell upon the plotters round the table. In every face-and they were all turned upon my companion-I read rage and distrust and dismay. They had chafed under his cold criticisms and his calm reasonings. But this went beyond all, and there were hands which stole instinctively to daggers, and eyes which waited scowling for a signal. But Penruddocke, sanguine by nature and rendered reckless by circumstances, had still the feelings of a gentleman, and something in him responded to the appeal which underlay Master Bertie's words. He remained silent, gazing gloomily at the table, his eyes perhaps opened at this late hour to the hopelessness of the attempt he meditated.

It was Walter Kingston who came to the fore, and put into words the thoughts of the coarser and more selfish spirits round him. Leaping from his seat he dashed his slender hand on the table. "What does this mean?" he sneered, a dangerous light in his dark eyes. "Those only are here or should be here who are willing to stake all-all, mind you-on the cause. Let us have no sneaks! Let us have no men with a foot on either bank! Let us have no Courtenays nor cowards! Such men ruined Wyatt and hanged my brother! A curse on them!" he cried, his voice rising almost to a scream.

"Master Kingston! do you refer to me?" Bertie rejoined in haughty surprise.

"Ay, I do!" cried the young man hotly.

"Then I must beg leave of these gentlemen to explain my position."

"Your position? So! More words?" quoth the other mockingly.

"Ay! as many words as I please," retorted Master Bertie, his color rising. "Afterward I will be as ready with deeds, I dare swear, as any other! My tenants and my wife's I will not draw into an almost hopeless struggle. But my own life and my friend's, since we have obtained your secrets, I must risk, and I will do so in honor to the death. For the rest, who doubts my courage may test it below ground or above."

The young man laughed rudely. "You will risk your life, but not your lands, Master Bertie? That is the position, is it?"

My companion was about to utter a rejoinder, fierce for him, when I, who had hitherto sat silent, interposed. "The old witch told the truth," I cried bitterly. "She said if we came hither we should perish. And perish we shall, through being linked to a dozen men as brave as I could wish, but the biggest fools under heaven!"

"Fools?" shouted Kingston.

"Ay, fools!" I repeated. "For who but fools, being at sea in a boat in which all must sink or swim, would fall a-quarreling? Tell me that!" I cried, slapping the table.

"You are about right," Penruddocke said, and half a dozen voices muttered assent.

"About right, is he?" shrieked Kingston. "But who knows we are in a boat together? Who knows that, I'd like to hear?"

"I do!" I said, standing up and overtopping him by eight inches. "And if any man hints that Master Bertie is here for any other purpose or with any other intent than to honestly risk his life in this endeavor as becomes a gentleman, let him stand out-let him stand out, and I will break his neck! Fie, gentlemen, fie!" I continued, after a short pause, which I did not make too long lest Master Kingston's passion should get the better of his prudence. "Though I am young I have seen service. But I never saw battle won yet with dissension in the camp. For shame! Let us to business, and make the best dispositions we may."

"You talk sense, Master Carey!" Penruddocke cried, with a great oath. "Give me your hand. And do you, Kingston, hold your peace. If Master Bertie will not raise his men to save his own skin, he will hardly do it for ours. Now, Sir Richard Bray being taken, what is to be done, my lads? Come, let us look to that."

So the storm blew over. But it was with heavy hearts that two of us fell to the discussion which followed, counting over weapons and assigning posts, and debating this one's fidelity and that one's lukewarmness. Our first impressions had not deceived us. The plot was desperate, and those engaged in it were wanting in every element which should command success-in information, forethought, arrangement-everything save sheer audacity. When after a prolonged and miserable sitting it was proposed that all should take the oath of association on the Gospels, Master Bertie and I assented gloomily. It would make our position no worse, for already we were fully committed. The position was indeed bad enough. We had only persuaded the others to a short delay; and even this meant that we must remain in hiding in England, exposed from day to day to all the chances of detection and treachery.

Sir Thomas brought out from some secret place about him a tiny roll of paper wrapped in a quill, and while we stood about him looking over his shoulders, he laboriously added, letter by letter, three or four names. The stern, anxious faces which peered the while at the document or scanned each other only to find their anxiety reflected, the flaring lights behind us, the recklessness of some and the distrust of others, the cloaks in which many were wrapped to the chin, and the occasional gleam of hidden weapons, made up a scene very striking. The more as it was no mere show, but some of us saw only too distinctly behind it the figure of the headsman and the block.

"Now," said Penruddocke, who himself I think took a certain grim pleasure in the formality, "be ready to swear, gentlemen, in pairs, as I call the names. Kingston and Matthewson!"

Lolling against the wall under one of the sconces I looked at Master Bertie, expecting to be called up with him. He smiled as our eyes met; and I thought with a rush of tenderness how lightly I could have dared the worst had all my associates been like him. But repining came too late, and in a moment Penruddocke surprised me by calling out "Crewdson and Carey!"

So Master Bertie was not to be my companion! I learned afterward that men who were strangers to one another were purposely associated, the theory being that each should keep an eye upon his oath-fellow. I went forward to the end of the table, and took the book.

There was a slight pause.

"Crewdson!" called Penruddocke sharply; "did you not hear, man?"

There was a little stir at the farther end of the room, and he came forward, moving slowly and reluctantly. I saw that he was the man whom Penruddocke had called back when we entered, a man of great height, though slender, and closely cloaked. A drooping gray mustache covered his mouth, and that was almost all I made out before Sir Thomas, with some sharpness, bade him uncover. He did so with an abrupt gesture, and reaching out his hand grasped the other end of the book as though he would take it from me. His manner was so strange that I looked hard at him, and he, jerking up his head with a gesture of defiance, looked at me too, his face very pale.

I heard Penruddocke's voice droning the words of the oath, but I paid no attention to them-I was busied with something else. Where had I seen the sinister gleam in those eyes before, and that forehead high and narrow, and those lean, swarthy cheeks? Where had I before confronted that very face which now glared into mine across the book? Its look was bold and defiant, but low down in the cheek I saw a little pulse beating furiously, a pulse which told of anxiety, and the jaws, half veiled by the ragged mustache, were set in an iron grip. Where? Ha! I knew. I dropped my end of the book and stepped back.

"Look to the door!" I cried, my voice sounding harsh and strange in my own ears. "Let no one leave! I denounce that man!" And raising my hand I pointed pitilessly at my oath-fellow. "I denounce him-he is a spy and traitor!"

"I a spy?" the man shouted fiercely-with the fierceness of despair.

"Ay, you! you! Clarence, or Crewdson, or whatever you call yourself, I denounce you! My time has come!"