My Lady Rotha: A Romance

  CHAPTER IX.

  WALNUTS OF GOLD.

  Night is like a lady's riding-mask, which gives to the mostfamiliar features a strange and uncanny aspect. When to nightare added silence and alarm, and that worst burden of all,responsibility--responsibility where a broken twig may mean a shot,and a rolling stone capture, where in a moment the evil is done--thenyou have a scene and a time to try the stoutest.

  To walk boldly into a wall of darkness, relying on daylight knowledge,which says there is no wall; to step over the precipice on the faithof its depth being shadow--this demands nerve in those who are notused to the vagaries of night. But when the darkness may at anyinstant belch forth a sheet of flame; when every bush may hide acowardly foe and every turn a pitfall, and there are women in companyand helpless children, then a man had need to be an old soldier orforest-born, if he would keep his head cool, and tell one horse fromanother by the sound of its hoofs.

  We started about eight, and started well. The Waldgrave and half adozen men crossed first on foot, and took post to protect the fartherend of the bridge. Then I led over the horses, beginning with the foursumpter beasts. Satisfied after this that the arch remained uninjured,and that there was room and to spare, I told my lady, and she rodeover by herself on Pushka. Marie Wort tripped after her with the childin her arms. Fraulein Max I carried. My lady's women crossed hand inhand. Then the rest. So like a troop of ghosts or shadows, with hardlya word spoken or an order given, we flitted into the darkness, and metunder the trees, where those who had not yet mounted got to horse. Ledby young Jacob, who knew every path in the valley and could find hisway blindfold, we struck away from the road without delay, and takinglanes and tracks which ran beside it, presently hit it again a leagueor more beyond the town and far on the way.

  That was a ride not to be forgotten. The night was dark. At a distancethe dim lights of the town did not show. The valley in which we rode,and which grows straighter as it approaches the mouth and the river,seemed like a black box without a lid. The wind, laden with mysteriousrustlings and the thousand sad noises of the night, blew in our faces.Now and then an owl hooted, or a branch creaked, or a horse stumbledand its rider railed at it. But for the most part we rode in silence,the women trembling and crossing themselves--as most of our people doto this day, when they are frightened--and the men riding warily, withstraining eyes and ears on the stretch.

  Before we reached the ford, which lies nearly eight miles from thecastle, the Waldgrave, who had his place beside my lady, began totalk; and then, if not before, I knew that _his_ love for her wasa poor thing. For, being in high spirits at the success of ourplan--which he had come to consider _his_ plan--and delighted to findhimself again in the saddle with an adventure before him, he forgotthat the matter must wear a different aspect in her eyes. She wasleaving her home--the old rooms, the old books, and presses andstores, the duties, stately or simple, in which her life had beenpassed. And leaving them, not in the daylight, and with a safe andassured future before her, but by stealth and under cover of night,with a mind full of anxious questionings!

  To my lord it seemed a fine thing to have the world before him; toknow that all Germany beyond the Werra was convulsed by war, and atheatre wherein a bold man might look to play his part. But to awoman, however high-spirited, the knowledge was not reassuring. To onewho was exchanging her own demesne and peace and plenty for awandering life and dependence on the protection of men, it was thereverse.

  So, while my lord talked gaily, my lady, I think, wept; doing thatunder cover of darkness and her mask, which she would never have donein the light. He talked on, planning and proposing; and where a truelover would have been quick to divine the woman's weakness, he felt nomisgiving, thrilled with no sympathy. Then I knew that he lacked thesubtle instinct which real love creates; which teaches the strong whatit is the feeble dread, and gives a woman the daring of a man.

  As we drew near the ford, I dropped back to see that all crossedsafely. Pushka, I knew, would carry my lady over, but some of theothers were worse mounted. This brought me abreast of the Catholicgirl, though the darkness was such that I recognized her only by thedark mass before her, which I knew to be the child. We had had somedifficulty in separating her from Steve, and persuading her that theman ran no risk where he lay; otherwise she had behaved admirably. Idid not speak to her, but when I saw the gleam of water before us, andheard the horses of the leaders begin to splash through the shallows,I leant over and took hold of the boy.

  'You had better give him to me,' I said gruffly. 'You will have bothhands free then. Keep your feet high, and hold by the pommel. If yourhorse begins to swim leave its head loose.'

  I expected her to make a to-do about giving up the child; but she didnot, and I lifted it to the withers of my horse. She mutteredsomething in a tone which sounded grateful, and then we splashed on insilence, the horses putting one foot gingerly before the other; somesniffing the air with loud snorts and outstretched necks, and somestopping outright.

  I rode on the upstream side of the girl, to break the force of thewater. Not that the ford is dangerous in the daytime (it has beenbridged these five years), but at night, and with so many horses, itwas possible one or another might stray from the track; for the fordis not straight, but slants across the stream. However, we all passedsafely; and yet the crossing remains in my memory.

  As I held the child before me--it was a gallant little thing, andclung to me without cry or word--I felt something rough round itsneck. At the moment I was deep in the water, and I had no hand tospare. But by-and-by, as we rode out and began to clamber up thefarther bank, I laid my hand on its neck, suspecting already what Ishould find.

  I was not mistaken. Under my fingers lay the very necklace which Peterhad described to me with so much care! I could trace the shape androughness of the walnuts. I could almost count them. Even of thelength of the chain I could fairly judge. It was long enough to gotwice round the child's neck.

  As soon as I had made certain, I let it be, lest the child should cryout; and I rode on, thinking hard. What, I wondered, had induced thegirl to put the chain round its neck at that juncture? She had hiddenit so carefully hitherto, that no eye but Peter's, so far as I couldjudge, had seen it. Why this carelessness now, then? Certainly it wasdark, and, as far as eyes went, the chain was safe. But round her ownneck, under her kerchief, where it had lain before, it was stillsafer. Why had she removed it?

  We had topped the farther bank by this time, and were riding slowlyalong the right-hand side of the river; but I was still turning thisover in my mind, when I heard her on a sudden give a little gasp. Iknew in a moment what it was. She had bethought her where the necklacewas. I was not a whit surprised when she asked me in a tremulous toneto give her back the child.

  'It is very well here,' I said, to try her.

  'It will trouble you,' she muttered faintly.

  'I will say when it does,' I answered.

  She did not answer anything to that, but I heard her breathing hard,and knew that she was racking her brains for some excuse to get thechild from me. For what if daylight came and I still rode with it, thenecklace in full view? Or what if we stopped at some house and lightswere brought? Or what, again, if I perceived the necklace and tookpossession of it!

  This last idea so charmed me--I was in a grim humour--that my hand wason the necklace, and almost before I knew what I was doing, I wasfeeling for the clasp which fastened it. Some fiend brought the thingunder my fingers in a twinkling. The necklace seemed to fall loose ofits own accord. In a moment it was swinging and swaying in my hand. Inanother I had gathered it up and slid it into my pouch.

  The trick was done so easily and so quickly that I think some devilmust have helped me; the child neither moving nor crying out, thoughit was old enough to take notice, and could even speak, as children ofthat age can speak--intelligibly to those who know them, gibberish tostrangers.

  I need not say that I never meant to ste
al a link of the thing. Thetemptation which moved me was the temptation to tease the girl. Ithought this a good way of punishing her. I thought, first to tormenther by making her think the necklace gone; and then to shame her byproducing it, and giving it back to her with a dry word that shouldshow her I understood her deceit.

  So, even when the thing was done, and the chain snug in my pocket, Idid not for a while repent, but hugged myself on the jest and smiledunder cover of the darkness. I carried the child a mile farther, andthen handed it down to Marie, with an appearance of unconsciousnesswhich it was not very hard to assume, since she could not see my face.But doubtless every yard of that mile had been a torture to her. Iheard her sigh with relief as her arms closed round the boy. Then, thenext moment I knew that she had discovered her loss. She uttered asobbing cry, and I heard her passing her hands through the child'sclothing, while her breath came and went in gasps.

  She plucked at her bridle so suddenly that those who rode behind raninto us. I made way for them to pass.

  'What is it?' I said roughly. 'What is the matter?'

  She muttered under her breath, with her hands still searching thechild, that she had lost something.

  'If you have, it is gone,' I said bluntly. 'You would hardly find ahayrick to-night. You must have dropped it coming through the ford?'

  She did not answer, but I heard her begin to sob, and then for thefirst time I felt uncomfortable. I repented of what I had done, andwished with all my heart that the chain was round the child's neckagain. 'Come, come,' I said awkwardly, 'it was not of much value, Isuppose. At any rate, it is no good crying over it.'

  She did not answer; she was still searching. I could hear what she wasdoing, though I could not see; there were trees overhead, and it wasas much as I could do to make out her figure. At last I grew angry,partly with myself, partly with her. 'Come,' I said roughly, 'wecannot stay here all night. We must be moving.'

  She assented meekly, and we rode on. But still I heard her crying; andshe seemed to be hugging the child to her, as if, now the necklace wasgone, she had nothing but the boy left. I tried to see the humour inthe joke as I had seen it a few minutes before, but the sparkle hadgone out of it, I felt that I had been a brute. I began to reflectthat this girl, a stranger and helpless, in a strange land, hadnothing upon which she could depend but these few links of gold. Whatwonder, then, if she valued them; if, like all other women, she hidthem away and fibbed about them; if she wept over them now they weregone?

  Of course it was in my power in a moment to bring them back again; andnothing had seemed easier, a few minutes before, than to hand themback--with a little speech which should cover her with confusion andleave me unmoved. Now, though I wished them round her neck again withall the good-will in life, and though to effect my wish I had only todo what I had planned--only to stretch out my hand with that word ortwo--I sat in my saddle hot and tongue-tied, my fingers sticking tothe chain.

  Her grief had somehow put a new face on the matter. I could not bearto confess that I had caused it wantonly and for a jest. The rightwords would not come, while every moment which prolonged the silencebetween us made the attempt seem more hopeless, the task moredifficult; till, like the short-sighted craven I was, I thrust backthe chain into my pocket, and, determining to take some secret way ofrestoring it, put off the crisis.

  In a degree I was hurried to this decision by our arrival at the placewhere we were to rest. This was an outlying farm belonging toHeritzburg and long used by the family, when journeying to Cassel.Alas! when we came to it, cold, shivering, and hungry, we found itruined and tenantless, with war's grim brand so deeply stamped uponthe face of everything that even the darkness of night failed to hidethe scars. I had not expected this, and for a while I forgot thenecklace in anxiety for my lady's comfort. I had to get lights and seefires kindled, to order the disposal of the horses, to unpack thefood: for we found no scrap, even of fodder for the beasts, in thegrimy, smoke-stained barn, which I had known so well stored. Nor wasthe house in better case. Bed and board were gone, and half the roof.The door lay shattered on the threshold, the window-frames, smashed inwanton fury, covered the floor. The wind moaned through the emptyrooms; here and there water stood in puddles. Round the hearth laybroken flasks, and rotting _debris_, and pewter plates bent double--the relics of the ravager's debauch.

  We walked about, with lights held above our heads, and looked at allthis miserably enough. It was our first glimpse of war, and itsilenced even the Waldgrave. As for my mistress, I well remember thelook her face wore, when I left her standing with her women, who werealready in tears, in the middle of the small chamber assigned to her.I had known her long enough to be able to read the look, and to besure that she was wondering whether it would always be so now. Had sheexchanged Heritzburg, its peace and comfort, for such nights as these,divided between secret flittings and lodgings fit only for thehomeless and wretched?

  But neither by word nor sign did she betray her fears; and in themorning she showed a face that vied with the Waldgrave's incheerfulness. Our horses had had little exercise of late and werein poor condition for travelling. We gave them, therefore, untilnoon to rest, and a little after that hour got away; one and all, Ithink--with the exception perhaps of Marie Wort--in better spirits.The sun was high, the weather fine, the country on either side of uswoodland, with fine wild prospects. Hence we saw few signs of theravages which were sure to thrust themselves on the attention whereverman's hand appeared. We could forget for the moment war, and even ourown troubles.

  We proposed to reach the little village of Erbe by sunset, butdarkness overtook us on the road. The track, overgrown and narrowed byspring shoots, was hard to follow in daylight; to attempt to pursue itafter nightfall seemed hopeless. We had halted, therefore, and theWaldgrave and my lady were considering whether we should camp where wewere, or pick our way to a more sheltered spot, when young Jacob, whowas leading, cried out that he saw the glimmer of a camp-fire some wayoff among the trees. The news threw our party into the greatest doubt.My lady was for stopping where we were, the Waldgrave for going on. Inthe end the latter had his way, and it was agreed that we should jointhe company before us, or at any rate parley with them and learn theirintentions. Accordingly we shook up our tired horses and movedcautiously forward.

  The distant gleam which had first caught Jacob's eye soon widened intoa warm and ruddy glow, in which the polished beech-trunks stood uplike the pillars of some great building. Still drawing nearer, we sawthat there were two fires built a score of paces apart, in a slighthollow. Round the one a number of men were moving, whose black figuressometimes intervened between us and the blaze. Two or three dogssprang up and barked at us, and a horse neighed out of the darknessbeyond. The other fire seemed at first sight to be deserted; but asthe dogs ran towards us, still barking, first one man, then another,rose beside it, and stood looking at us. The arrival of a second partyin such a spot was no doubt unexpected.

  Judging that these two were the leaders of the party, I went forwardto announce my lady's rank. One of the men, the shorter and younger, aman of middle height and middle age and dark, stern complexion, came afew paces to meet me.

  'Who are you?' he said bluntly, looking beyond me at those whofollowed.

  'The Countess Rotha of Heritzburg, travelling this way to Cassel,' Ianswered; 'and with her, her excellency's kinsman, the noble Rupert,Waldgrave of Weimar.'

  The stranger's face lightened strangely, and he laughed. 'Take me toher,' he said.

  Properly I should have first asked him his name and condition; but hehad the air, beyond all things, of a man not to be trifled with, and Iturned with him.

  My lady had halted with her company a score of paces from the fire. Iled him to her bridle.

  'This,' I said, wondering much who he was, 'is her excellency theCountess of Heritzburg.'

  My lady looked at him. He had uncovered and stood before her, a smilethat was almost a laugh in his eyes. 'And I,' he said, 'have thehonour to be her excellency's h
umble and distant cousin, General JohnTzerclas, sometimes called, of Tilly.'