BOOK ONE: BATH, 1793
CHAPTER I
THE MOOR
I
Silence. Loneliness. Desolation.
And the darkness of late afternoon in November, when the fog from theBristol Channel has laid its pall upon moor and valley and hill: thelast grey glimmer of a wintry sunset has faded in the west: earth andsky are wrapped in the gloomy veils of oncoming night. Some little wayahead a tiny light flickers feebly.
"Surely we cannot be far now."
"A little more patience, Mounzeer. Twenty minutes and we be there."
"Twenty minutes, mordieu. And I have ridden since the morning. And youtell me it was not far."
"Not far, Mounzeer. But we be not 'orzemen either of us. We doan'ttravel very fast."
"How can I ride fast on this heavy beast? And in this _satane_ mud. Myhorse is up to his knees in it. And I am wet--ah! wet to my skin in this_sacre_ fog of yours."
The other made no reply. Indeed he seemed little inclined forconversation: his whole attention appeared to be riveted on the businessof keeping in his saddle, and holding his horse's head turned in thedirection in which he wished it to go: he was riding a yard or two aheadof his companion, and it did not need any assurance on his part that hewas no horseman: he sat very loosely in his saddle, his broad shouldersbent, his head thrust forward, his knees turned out, his hands clingingalternately to the reins and to the pommel with that ludicrousinconsequent gesture peculiar to those who are wholly unaccustomed tohorse exercise.
His attitude, in fact, as well as the promiscuous set of clothes whichhe wore--a labourer's smock, a battered high hat, threadbare corduroysand fisherman's boots--at once suggested the loafer, the do-nothing whohangs round the yards of half-way houses and posting inns on the chanceof earning a few coppers by an easy job which does not entail too muchexertion on his part and which will not take him too far from hisfavourite haunts. When he spoke--which was not often--the soft burr inthe pronunciation of the sibilants betrayed the Westcountryman.
His companion, on the other hand, was obviously a stranger: high ofstature, and broadly built, his wide shoulders and large hands and feet,his square head set upon a short thick neck, all bespoke the physique ofa labouring man, whilst his town-made clothes--his heavy caped coat,admirably tailored, his buckskin breeches and boots of fineleather--suggested, if not absolutely the gentleman, at any rate onebelonging to the well-to-do classes. Though obviously not quite soinexperienced in the saddle as the other man appeared to be, he did notlook very much at home in the saddle either: he held himself very rigidand upright and squared his shoulders with a visible effort at seemingat ease, like a townsman out for a constitutional on the fashionablepromenade of his own city, or a cavalry subaltern but lately emergedfrom a riding school. He spoke English quite fluently, evencolloquially at times, but with a marked Gallic accent.
II
The road along which the two cavaliers were riding was unspeakablylonely and desolate--an offshoot from the main Bath to Weston road. Ithad been quite a good secondary road once. The accounts of the countyadministration under date 1725 go to prove that it was completed in thatyear at considerable expense and with stone brought over for the purposeall the way from Draycott quarries, and for twenty years after that acoach used to ply along it between Chelwood and Redhill as well as twoor three carriers, and of course there was all the traffic in connexionwith the Stanton markets and the Norton Fairs. But that was nigh onfifty years ago now, and somehow--once the mail-coach wasdiscontinued--it had never seemed worth while to keep the road in decentrepair. It had gone from bad to worse since then, and travelling on itthese days either ahorse or afoot had become very unpleasant. It wasfull of ruts and crevasses and knee-deep in mud, as the stranger hadvery appositely remarked, and the stone parapet which bordered it oneither side, and which had once given it such an air of solidity and ofvalue, was broken down in very many places and threatened soon todisappear altogether.
The country round was as lonely and desolate as the road. And that senseof desolation seemed to pervade the very atmosphere right through thedarkness which had descended on upland and valley and hill. Thoughnothing now could be seen through the gloom and the mist, the senseswere conscious that even in broad daylight there would be nothing tosee. Loneliness dwelt in the air as well as upon the moor. There were nohomesteads for miles around, no cattle grazing, no pastures, no hedges,nothing--just arid wasteland with here and there a group of stuntedtrees or an isolated yew, and tracts of rough, coarse grass not nearlygood enough for cattle to eat.
There are vast stretches of upland equally desolate in many parts ofEurope--notably in Northern Spain--but in England, where they are rare,they seem to gain an additional air of loneliness through the very lifewhich pulsates in their vicinity. This bit of Somersetshire was one ofthem in this year of grace 1793. Despite the proximity of Bath and itsfashionable life, its gaieties and vitality, distant only a little overtwenty miles, and of Bristol distant less than thirty, it had remainedwild and forlorn, almost savage in its grim isolation, primitive in thegrandeur of its solitude.
III
The road at the point now reached by the travellers begins to slope in agentle gradient down to the level of the Chew, a couple of miles furtheron: it was midway down this slope that the only sign of living humanitycould be perceived in that tiny light which glimmered persistently. Theair itself under its mantle of fog had become very still, only the waterof some tiny moorland stream murmured feebly in its stony bed ere itlost its entity in the bosom of the river far away.
"Five more minutes and we be at th' Bottom Inn," quoth the man who wasahead in response to another impatient ejaculation from his companion.
"If we don't break our necks meanwhile in this confounded darkness,"retorted the other, for his horse had just stumbled and theinexperienced rider had been very nearly pitched over into the mud.
"I be as anxious to arrive as you are, Mounzeer," observed thecountryman laconically.
"I thought you knew the way," muttered the stranger.
"'Ave I not brought you safely through the darkness?" retorted theother; "you was pretty well ztranded at Chelwood, Mounzeer, or I be muchmistaken. Who else would 'ave brought you out 'ere at this time o'night, I'd like to know--and in this weather too? You wanted to get toth' Bottom Inn and didn't know 'ow to zet about it: none o' the gaffersup to Chelwood 'peared eager to 'elp you when I come along. Well, I'vebrought you to th' Bottom Inn and.... Whoa! Whoa! my beauty! Whoa,confound you! Whoa!"
And for the next moment or two the whole of his attention had perforceto be concentrated on the business of sticking to his saddle whilst hebrought his fagged-out, ill-conditioned nag to a standstill.
The little glimmer of light had suddenly revealed itself in the shape ofa lanthorn hung inside the wooden porch of a small house which hadloomed out of the darkness and the fog. It stood at an angle of the roadwhere a narrow lane had its beginnings ere it plunged into the moorbeyond and was swallowed up by the all-enveloping gloom. The house wassmall and ugly; square like a box and built of grey stone, its frontflush with the road, its rear flanked by several small outbuildings.Above the porch hung a plain sign-board bearing the legend: "The BottomInn" in white letters upon a black ground: to right and left of theporch there was a window with closed shutters, and on the floor abovetwo more windows--also shuttered--completed the architectural featuresof the Bottom Inn.
It was uncompromisingly ugly and uninviting, for beyond the faintglimmer of the lanthorn only one or two narrow streaks of lightfiltrated through the chinks of the shutters.
IV
The travellers, after some difference of opinion with their respectivehorses, contrived to pull up and to dismount without any untowardaccident. The stranger looked about him, peering into the darkness. Theplace indeed appeared dismal and inhospitable enough: its solitaryaspect suggested footpads and the abode of cut-throats. The silence ofthe moor, the pall of mist and gloom that hung over upland and valleysent a shiver throug
h his spine.
"You are sure this is the place?" he queried.
"Can't ye zee the zign?" retorted the other gruffly.
"Can you hold the horses while I go in?"
"I doan't know as 'ow I can, Mounzeer. I've never 'eld two 'orzes all atonce. Suppose they was to start kickin' or thought o' runnin' away?"
"Running away, you fool!" muttered the stranger, whose temper hadevidently suffered grievously during the weary, cold journey fromChelwood. "I'll break your _satane_ head if anything happens to thebeasts. How can I get back to Bath save the way I came? Do you think Iwant to spend the night in this God-forsaken hole?"
Without waiting to hear any further protests from the lout, he turnedinto the porch and with his riding whip gave three consecutive rapsagainst the door of the inn, followed by two more. The next moment therewas the sound of a rattling of bolts and chains, the door was cautiouslyopened and a timid voice queried:
"Is it Mounzeer?"
"Pardieu! Who else?" growled the stranger. "Open the door, woman. I amperished with cold."
With an unceremonious kick he pushed the door further open and strodein. A woman was standing in the dimly lighted passage. As the strangerwalked in she bobbed him a respectful curtsey.
"It is all right, Mounzeer," she said; "the Captain's in thecoffee-room. He came over from Bristol early this afternoon."
"No one else here, I hope," he queried curtly.
"No one, zir. It ain't their hour not yet. You'll 'ave the 'ouse toyourself till after midnight. After that there'll be a bustle, I reckon.Two shiploads come into Watchet last night--brandy and cloth, Mounzeer,so the Captain says, and worth a mint o' money. The pack 'orzes will bethrough yere in the small hours."
"That's all right, then. Send me in a bite and a mug of hot ale."
"I'll see to it, Mounzeer."
"And stay--have you some sort of stabling where the man can put the twohorses up for an hour's rest?"
"Aye, aye, zir."
"Very well then, see to that too: and see that the horses get a feed anda drink and give the man something to eat."
"Very good, Mounzeer. This way, zir. I'll see the man presently.Straight down the passage, zir. The coffee-room is on the right. TheCaptain's there, waiting for ye."
She closed the front door carefully, then followed the stranger to thedoor of the coffee-room. Outside an anxious voice was heard muttering astring of inconsequent and wholly superfluous "Whoa's!" Of a truth thetwo wearied nags were only too anxious for a little rest.