CHAPTER V--HOW DICK CHANGED SIDES
Dick, blowing out his lamp lest it should attract attention, led the wayup-stairs and along the corridor. In the brown chamber the rope had beenmade fast to the frame of an exceeding heavy and ancient bed. It had notbeen detached, and Dick, taking the coil to the window, began to lower itslowly and cautiously into the darkness of the night. Joan stood by; butas the rope lengthened, and still Dick continued to pay it out, extremefear began to conquer her resolution.
"Dick," she said, "is it so deep? I may not essay it. I shouldinfallibly fall, good Dick."
It was just at the delicate moment of the operations that she spoke.Dick started; the remainder of the coil slipped from his grasp, and theend fell with a splash into the moat. Instantly, from the battlementabove, the voice of a sentinel cried, "Who goes?"
"A murrain!" cried Dick. "We are paid now! Down with you--take therope."
"I cannot," she cried, recoiling.
"An ye cannot, no more can I," said Shelton. "How can I swim the moatwithout you? Do you desert me, then?"
"Dick," she gasped, "I cannot. The strength is gone from me."
"By the mass, then, we are all shent!" he shouted, stamping with hisfoot; and then, hearing steps, he ran to the room door and sought toclose it.
Before he could shoot the bolt, strong arms were thrusting it back uponhim from the other side. He struggled for a second; then, feelinghimself overpowered, ran back to the window. The girl had fallen againstthe wall in the embrasure of the window; she was more than halfinsensible; and when he tried to raise her in his arms, her body was limpand unresponsive.
At the same moment the men who had forced the door against him laid holdupon him. The first he poinarded at a blow, and the others falling backfor a second in some disorder, he profited by the chance, bestrode thewindow-sill, seized the cord in both hands, and let his body slip.
The cord was knotted, which made it the easier to descend; but so furiouswas Dick's hurry, and so small his experience of such gymnastics, that hespan round and round in mid-air like a criminal upon a gibbet, and nowbeat his head, and now bruised his hands, against the rugged stonework ofthe wall. The air roared in his ears; he saw the stars overhead, and thereflected stars below him in the moat, whirling like dead leaves beforethe tempest. And then he lost hold, and fell, and soused head over earsinto the icy water.
When he came to the surface his hand encountered the rope, which, newlylightened of his weight, was swinging wildly to and fro. There was a redglow overhead, and looking up, he saw, by the light of several torchesand a cresset full of burning coals, the battlements lined with faces.He saw the men's eyes turning hither and thither in quest of him; but hewas too far below, the light reached him not, and they looked in vain.
And now he perceived that the rope was considerably too long, and hebegan to struggle as well as he could towards the other side of the moat,still keeping his head above water. In this way he got much more thanhalfway over; indeed the bank was almost within reach, before the ropebegan to draw him back by its own weight. Taking his courage in bothhands, he left go and made a leap for the trailing sprays of willow thathad already, that same evening, helped Sir Daniel's messenger to land.He went down, rose again, sank a second time, and then his hand caught abranch, and with the speed of thought he had dragged himself into thethick of the tree and clung there, dripping and panting, and still halfuncertain of his escape.
But all this had not been done without a considerable splashing, whichhad so far indicated his position to the men along the battlements.Arrows and quarrels fell thick around him in the darkness, thick likedriving hail; and suddenly a torch was thrown down--flared through theair in its swift passage--stuck for a moment on the edge of the bank,where it burned high and lit up its whole surroundings like abonfire--and then, in a good hour for Dick, slipped off, plumped into themoat, and was instantly extinguished.
It had served its purpose. The marksmen had had time to see the willow,and Dick ensconced among its boughs; and though the lad instantly spranghigher up the bank, and ran for his life, he was yet not quick enough toescape a shot. An arrow struck him in the shoulder, another grazed hishead.
The pain of his wounds lent him wings; and he had no sooner got upon thelevel than he took to his heels and ran straight before him in the dark,without a thought for the direction of his flight.
For a few steps missiles followed him, but these soon ceased; and when atlength he came to a halt and looked behind, he was already a good wayfrom the Moat House, though he could still see the torches moving to andfro along its battlements.
He leaned against a tree, streaming with blood and water, bruised,wounded, alone, and unarmed. For all that, he had saved his life forthat bout; and though Joanna remained behind in the power of Sir Daniel,he neither blamed himself for an accident that it had been beyond hispower to prevent, nor did he augur any fatal consequences to the girlherself. Sir Daniel was cruel, but he was not likely to be cruel to ayoung gentlewoman who had other protectors, willing and able to bring himto account. It was more probable he would make haste to marry her tosome friend of his own.
"Well," thought Dick, "between then and now I will find me the means tobring that traitor under; for I think, by the mass, that I be nowabsolved from any gratitude or obligation; and when war is open, there isa fair chance for all."
In the meanwhile, here he was in a sore plight.
For some little way farther he struggled forward through the forest; butwhat with the pain of his wounds, the darkness of the night, and theextreme uneasiness and confusion of his mind, he soon became equallyunable to guide himself or to continue to push through the closeundergrowth, and he was fain at length to sit down and lean his backagainst a tree.
When he awoke from something betwixt sleep and swooning, the grey of themorning had begun to take the place of night. A little chilly breeze wasbustling among the trees, and as he still sat staring before him, onlyhalf awake, he became aware of something dark that swung to and fro amongthe branches, some hundred yards in front of him. The progressivebrightening of the day and the return of his own senses at last enabledhim to recognise the object. It was a man hanging from the bough of atall oak. His head had fallen forward on his breast; but at everystronger puff of wind his body span round and round, and his legs andarms tossed, like some ridiculous plaything.
Dick clambered to his feet, and, staggering and leaning on thetree-trunks as he went, drew near to this grim object.
The bough was perhaps twenty feet above the ground, and the poor fellowhad been drawn up so high by his executioners that his boots swung clearabove Dick's reach; and as his hood had been drawn over his face, it wasimpossible to recognise the man.
Dick looked about him right and left; and at last he perceived that theother end of the cord had been made fast to the trunk of a littlehawthorn which grew, thick with blossom, under the lofty arcade of theoak. With his dagger, which alone remained to him of all his arms, youngShelton severed the rope, and instantly, with a dead thump, the corpsefell in a heap upon the ground.
Dick raised the hood; it was Throgmorton, Sir Daniel's messenger. He hadnot gone far upon his errand. A paper, which had apparently escaped thenotice of the men of the Black Arrow, stuck from the bosom of hisdoublet, and Dick, pulling it forth, found it was Sir Daniel's letter toLord Wensleydale.
"Come," thought he, "if the world changes yet again, I may have here thewherewithal to shame Sir Daniel--nay, and perchance to bring him to theblock."
And he put the paper in his own bosom, said a prayer over the dead man,and set forth again through the woods.
His fatigue and weakness increased; his ears sang, his steps faltered,his mind at intervals failed him, so low had he been brought by loss ofblood. Doubtless he made many deviations from his true path, but at lasthe came out upon the high-road, not very far from Tunstall hamlet.
A rough voice bid him stand.
"Stand?" repeated Dick.
"By the mass, but I am nearer falling."
And he suited the action to the word, and fell all his length upon theroad.
Two men came forth out of the thicket, each in green forest jerkin, eachwith long-bow and quiver and short sword.
"Why, Lawless," said the younger of the two, "it is young Shelton."
"Ay, this will be as good as bread to John Amend-All," returned theother. "Though, faith, he hath been to the wars. Here is a tear in hisscalp that must 'a' cost him many a good ounce of blood."
"And here," added Greensheve, "is a hole in his shoulder that must havepricked him well. Who hath done this, think ye? If it be one of ours,he may all to prayer; Ellis will give him a short shrift and a longrope."
"Up with the cub," said Lawless. "Clap him on my back."
And then, when Dick had been hoisted to his shoulders, and he had takenthe lad's arms about his neck, and got a firm hold of him, the ex-GreyFriar added:
"Keep ye the post, brother Greensheve. I will on with him by myself."
So Greensheve returned to his ambush on the wayside, and Lawless trudgeddown the hill, whistling as he went, with Dick, still in a dead faint,comfortably settled on his shoulders.
The sun rose as he came out of the skirts of the wood and saw Tunstallhamlet straggling up the opposite hill. All seemed quiet, but a strongpost of some half a score of archers lay close by the bridge on eitherside of the road, and, as soon as they perceived Lawless with hisburthen, began to bestir themselves and set arrow to string like vigilantsentries.
"Who goes?" cried the man in command.
"Will Lawless, by the rood--ye know me as well as your own hand,"returned the outlaw, contemptuously.
"Give the word, Lawless," returned the other.
"Now, Heaven lighten thee, thou great fool," replied Lawless. "Did I nottell it thee myself? But ye are all mad for this playing at soldiers.When I am in the greenwood, give me greenwood ways; and my word for thistide is: 'A fig for all mock soldiery!'"
"Lawless, ye but show an ill example; give us the word, fool jester,"said the commander of the post.
"And if I had forgotten it?" asked the other.
"An ye had forgotten it--as I know y' 'ave not--by the mass, I would clapan arrow into your big body," returned the first.
"Nay, an y' are so ill a jester," said Lawless, "ye shall have your wordfor me. 'Duckworth and Shelton' is the word; and here, to theillustration, is Shelton on my shoulders, and to Duckworth do I carryhim."
"Pass, Lawless," said the sentry.
"And where is John?" asked the Grey Friar.
"He holdeth a court, by the mass, and taketh rents as to the mannerborn!" cried another of the company.
So it proved. When Lawless got as far up the village as the little inn,he found Ellis Duckworth surrounded by Sir Daniel's tenants, and, by theright of his good company of archers, coolly taking rents, and givingwritten receipts in return for them. By the faces of the tenants, it wasplain how little this proceeding pleased them; for they argued veryrightly that they would simply have to pay them twice.
As soon as he knew what had brought Lawless, Ellis dismissed theremainder of the tenants, and, with every mark of interest andapprehension, conducted Dick into an inner chamber of the inn. There thelad's hurts were looked to; and he was recalled, by simple remedies, toconsciousness.
"Dear lad," said Ellis, pressing his hand, "y' are in a friend's handsthat loved your father, and loves you for his sake. Rest ye a littlequietly, for ye are somewhat out of case. Then shall ye tell me yourstory, and betwixt the two of us we shall find a remedy for all."
A little later in the day, and after Dick had awakened from a comfortableslumber to find himself still very weak, but clearer in mind and easierin body, Ellis returned, and sitting down by the bedside, begged him, inthe name of his father, to relate the circumstance of his escape fromTunstall Moat House. There was something in the strength of Duckworth'sframe, in the honesty of his brown face, in the clearness and shrewdnessof his eyes, that moved Dick to obey him; and from first to last the ladtold him the story of his two days' adventures.
"Well," said Ellis, when he had done, "see what the kind saints have donefor you, Dick Shelton, not alone to save your body in so numerous anddeadly perils, but to bring you into my hands that have no dearer wishthan to assist your father's son. Be but true to me--and I see y' aretrue--and betwixt you and me, we shall bring that false-heart traitor tothe death."
"Will ye assault the house?" asked Dick.
"I were mad, indeed, to think of it," returned Ellis. "He hath too muchpower; his men gather to him; those that gave me the slip last night, andby the mass came in so handily for you--those have made him safe. Nay,Dick, to the contrary, thou and I and my brave bowmen, we must all slipfrom this forest speedily, and leave Sir Daniel free."
"My mind misgiveth me for Jack," said the lad.
"For Jack!" repeated Duckworth. "O, I see, for the wench! Nay, Dick, Ipromise you, if there come talk of any marriage we shall act at once;till then, or till the time is ripe, we shall all disappear, even likeshadows at morning; Sir Daniel shall look east and west, and see noneenemies; he shall think, by the mass, that he hath dreamed awhile, andhath now awakened in his bed. But our four eyes, Dick, shall follow himright close, and our four hands--so help us all the army of thesaints!--shall bring that traitor low!"
Two days later Sir Daniel's garrison had grown to such a strength that heventured on a sally, and at the head of some two score horsemen, pushedwithout opposition as far as Tunstall hamlet. Not an arrow flew, not aman stirred in the thicket; the bridge was no longer guarded, but stoodopen to all corners; and as Sir Daniel crossed it, he saw the villagerslooking timidly from their doors.
Presently one of them, taking heart of grace, came forward, and with thelowliest salutations, presented a letter to the knight.
His face darkened as he read the contents. It ran thus:
_To the most untrue and cruel gentylman_, _Sir Daniel Brackley_, _Knyght_, _These_:
I fynde ye were untrue and unkynd fro the first. Ye have my father's blood upon your hands; let be, it will not wasshe. Some day ye shall perish by my procurement, so much I let you to wytte; and I let you to wytte farther, that if ye seek to wed to any other the gentylwoman, Mistresse Joan Sedley, whom that I am bound upon a great oath to wed myself, the blow will be very swift. The first step therinne will be thy first step to the grave.
RIC. SHELTON.