The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 8

  CHAPTER I

  DICK ASKS QUESTIONS

  The Moat House stood not far from the rough forest road. Externally itwas a compact rectangle of red stone, flanked at each corner by a roundtower, pierced for archery and battlemented at the top. Within, itenclosed a narrow court. The moat was perhaps twelve feet wide, crossedby a single drawbridge. It was supplied with water by a trench, leadingto a forest pool, and commanded, through its whole length, from thebattlements of the two southern towers. Except that one or two tall andthick trees had been suffered to remain within half a bowshot of thewalls, the house was in a good posture for defence.

  In the court Dick found a part of the garrison busy with preparationsfor defence, and gloomily discussing the chances of a siege. Some weremaking arrows, some sharpening swords that had long been disused; but,even as they worked, they shook their heads.

  Twelve of Sir Daniel's party had escaped the battle, run the gauntletthrough the wood, and come alive to the Moat House. But out of thisdozen, three had been gravely wounded: two at Risingham in the disorderof the rout, one by John Amend-All's marksmen as he crossed the forest.This raised the force of the garrison, counting Hatch, Sir Daniel, andyoung Shelton, to twenty-two effective men. And more might becontinually expected to arrive. The danger lay not, therefore, in thelack of men.

  It was the terror of the Black Arrow that oppressed the spirits of thegarrison. For their open foes of the party of York, in these mostchanging times, they felt but a far-away concern. "The world," aspeople said in those days, "might change again" before harm came. Butfor their neighbours in the wood they trembled. It was not Sir Danielalone who was a mark for hatred. His men, conscious of impunity, hadcarried themselves cruelly through all the country. Harsh commands hadbeen harshly executed; and of the little band that now sat talking inthe court, there was not one but had been guilty of some act ofoppression or barbarity. And now, by the fortune of war, Sir Daniel hadbecome powerless to protect his instruments; now, by the issue of somehours of battle, at which many of them had not been present, they hadall become punishable traitors to the State, outside the buckler of thelaw, a shrunken company in a poor fortress that was hardly tenable, andexposed upon all sides to the just resentment of their victims. Nor hadthere been lacking grisly advertisements of what they might expect.

  At different periods of the evening and the night, no fewer than sevenriderless horses had come neighing in terror to the gate. Two were fromSelden's troop; five belonged to men who had ridden with Sir Daniel tothe field. Lastly, a little before dawn, a spearman had come staggeringto the moat-side, pierced by three arrows; even as they carried him in,his spirit had departed; but, by the words that he uttered in his agony,he must have been the last survivor of a considerable company of men.

  Hatch himself showed, under his sun-brown, the pallor of anxiety; andwhen he had taken Dick aside and learned the fate of Selden, he fell ona stone bench and fairly wept. The others, from where they sat on stoolsor doorsteps in the sunny angle of the court, looked at him with wonderand alarm, but none ventured to inquire the cause of his emotion.

  "Nay, Master Shelton," said Hatch at last--"nay, but what said I? Weshall all go. Selden was a man of his hands; he was like a brother tome. Well, he has gone second; well, we shall all follow! For what saidtheir knave rhyme?--'A black arrow in each black heart.' Was it not soit went? Appleyard, Selden, Smith, old Humphrey gone; and there liethpoor John Carter, crying, poor sinner, for the priest."

  Dick gave ear. Out of a low window, hard by where they were talking,groans and murmurs came to his ear.

  "Lieth he there?" he asked.

  "Ay, in the second porter's chamber," answered Hatch. "We could not bearhim farther, soul and body were so bitterly at odds. At every step welifted him he thought to wend. But now, methinks, it is the soul thatsuffereth. Ever for the priest he crieth, and Sir Oliver, I wot not why,still cometh not. 'Twill be a long shrift; but poor Appleyard and poorSelden, they had none."

  Dick stooped to the window and looked in. The little cell was low anddark, but he could make out the wounded soldier lying moaning on hispallet.

  "Carter, poor friend, how goeth it?" he asked.

  "Master Shelton," returned the man, in an excited whisper, "for the dearlight of heaven, bring the priest. Alack, I am sped: I am brought verylow down; my hurt is to the death. Ye may do me no more service; thisshall be the last. Now, for my poor soul's interest, and as a loyalgentleman, bestir you; for I have that matter on my conscience thatshall drag me deep."

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

  Just then Sir Daniel appeared upon the threshold of the hall. He had aletter 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. Thisold Harry the Sixt has had the undermost. Wash we, then, our hands ofhim. I have a good friend that rideth next the duke, the Lord ofWensleydale. Well, I have writ a letter to my friend, praying his goodlordship, and offering large satisfaction for the past and reasonablesurety for the future. Doubt not but he will lend a favourable ear. Aprayer without gifts is like a song without music: I surfeit him withpromises, boys--I spare not to promise. What, then, is lacking? Nay, agreat thing--wherefore should I deceive you?--a great thing and adifficult: a messenger to bear it. The woods--y' are not ignorant ofthat--lie thick with our ill-willers. Haste is most needful; but withoutsleight and caution all is naught. Which, then, of this company willtake me this letter, bear it to my Lord of Wensleydale, and bring me theanswer back?"

  One man instantly arose.

  "I will, an't like you," said he. "I will even risk my carcass."

  "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. Yewould blunder me headforemost into John Amend-All's camp. I thank youboth 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," returnedthe knight; and then, several coming forward in a group, Sir Daniel atlength selected one and gave him the letter.

  "Now," he said, "upon your good speed and better discretion we do alldepend. Bring me a good answer back, and before three weeks I will havepurged my forest of these vagabonds that brave us to our faces. But markit well, Throgmorton: the matter is not easy. Ye must steal forth undernight, 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 shallswim first of all in nut-brown ale." And with that he turned back intothe 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 outplainly 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 borncaptain! Not a man but he is some deal heartened up! See how they fallagain 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 aman's own business there he may speak; but of hearsay matters and ofcommon talk, not so. Ask me Sir Oliver--ay, or Carter, if ye will; notme."

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

  "Wherefore would he not tell me?" thought the lad. "And wherefore namedhe Carter? Carter--nay, then Carter had a hand in it, perchance."

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

  "Have ye brought the priest?" he cried.

  "Not yet awhile," returned Dick. "Y' have a word to tell me first. Howcame 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 shallstay. There shall no priest come near you, rest assured. For of whatavail is penitence, an ye have no mind to right those wrongs ye had ahand in? and without penitence, confession is but mockery."

  "Ye say what ye mean not, Master Dick," said Carter composedly. "It isill threatening the dying, and becometh you (to speak truth) little. Andfor as little as it commends you, it shall serve you less. Stay an yeplease. Ye will condemn my soul--ye shall learn nothing! There is mylast word to you." And the wounded man turned upon the other side.

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

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

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

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

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

  "And yet," he thought, "of what use is courage without wit? Had hishands been clean, he would have spoken; his silence did confess thesecret louder than words. Nay, upon all sides, proof floweth on me. SirDaniel, he or his men, hath done this thing."

  Dick paused in the stone passage with a heavy heart. At that hour, inthe ebb of Sir Daniel's fortune, when he was beleaguered by the archersof the Black Arrow, and proscribed by the victorious Yorkists, was Dick,also, to turn upon the man who had nourished and taught him, who hadseverely 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 gravelytowards the lad.

  "One seeketh you earnestly," said Dick.

  "I am upon the way, good Richard," said the priest. "It is this poorCarter. 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 extraordinaryeagerness.

  "He but cried for you the more piteously, Sir Oliver. It were well doneto 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. Wemust 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 hurriedon.

  "He too!" thought Dick--"he, that taught me in piety! Nay, then, what aworld is this, if all that care for me be blood-guilty of my father'sdeath! Vengeance! Alas! what a sore fate is mine, if I must be avengedupon my friends!"

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

  About an hour after, mass being somewhat hastily run through by SirOliver, the company gathered in the hall for dinner. It was a long, lowapartment, strewn with green rushes, and the walls hung with arras in adesign of savage men and questing bloodhounds; here and there hungspears and bows and bucklers; a fire blazed in the big chimney; therewere arras-covered benches round the wall, and in the midst the table,fairly spread, awaited the arrival of the diners. Neither Sir Daniel norhis lady made their appearance. Sir Oliver himself was absent, and hereagain there was no word of Matcham. Dick began to grow alarmed, torecall his companion's melancholy forebodings, and to wonder to himselfif 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 inwith 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 camenot 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 beginto weary of the game!"

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

  "Friend Dick," he said, as soon as they were alone, "are ye a moonstrucknatural? An ye leave not certain things in peace, ye were better in thesalt sea than here in Tunstall Moat House. Y' have questioned me; y'have baited Carter; y' have frighted the jack-priest with hints. Bearye more wisely, fool; and even now, when Sir Daniel calleth you, show mea 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. "Ido but warn you. And here cometh one to call you."

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