Mistress Goel hinted a desire for a walk, and I, being eager enough,
stood ready to accompany her.  While she put on her hat and wrap, I
waited in the hall, and Luke, who was never far from my elbow at this
time, came to me with my pistols.

"You may need 'em," said he, in a low voice.  "I've seen some ugly
fellows about this evening."

I laughed, but took them, and the belt which Luke had not forgotten,
and armed myself besides with a tough ash-stick, which I reckoned the
best weapon a man could carry.

We took the path winding upward through the wood to Crown Hill, the
moon, now nearly full, shining intermittently through scudding clouds
into our faces.

"I want to ask about the attempt made on your life the other evening,"
my companion said abruptly.  "Oh!" she continued, "I know the tale
about a thunderbolt is altogether false.  You were struck down from
behind, and left for dead.  Your assailant cannot understand how it is
you are alive, so he makes up a story as a defence for himself,
perhaps, or, more probably, to provoke you to say something which may
clear up what is mysterious to him.  And you saw the design, and would
not betray the secret."

"This is wizardry!" I said, staring.

"Oh dear, no! it is ordinary woman's wit, enlightened by the looks
which passed between you and your enemy."

I granted that she had rightly discerned, but said nothing of what
followed the knock-down blow.

"You are determined to keep secret the manner of your rescue?" she
asked.

"At present, yes," I answered.

"Doubtless you have good reason.  But there is another matter on which
I wished to speak with you.  Do you allow that there is such a virtue
as prudence?  If so, is it prudent to expose yourself to an enemy--a
powerful, crafty, unscrupulous enemy?"

Then I burst out, "Do you bid me run away from him?  Because----"

"Stay one moment," said she.  "Surely prudent avoidance and cowardly
flight are not the same thing."

"There is too much of a family likeness for me to distinguish between
them," said I.

"So I feared," she answered.  "What is the noise we hear?"

It was the noise of a crowd--hurrying feet, hoarse shouts.  It came
rapidly near.  The mob was coming up the hill.  Now I could hear
distinctly "foreign witch," "Dutch devil," and other cries of a fouler
kind.  Unmistakably we were pursued.  On the crest of the hill stood an
old windmill, which might shelter us, and thither I hurried Mistress
Goel.  The door was padlocked, but one strong kick crashed it open.
Pushing my companion inside, I took up the door, laid it across the
entrance, dragged a few sacks of corn against it, and had a tolerable
barricade; not a moment too soon, for the mob was upon us, with a yell
of disappointed rage at sight of the obstacle in their way.

"Can you load a pistol?" I asked Mistress Goel.

"Yes," she answered.

I detached powder-horn and shot-bag from my belt, and passed them to
her.

"I will throw my pistol into your lap, if I have to fire; reload it and
give it to me, keeping well behind me," I ordered.

By this time the crowd had gathered in front of the mill.  Luckily we
were in shadow, and the moonlight was full on them.  For half a minute
they halted, and a murmur of talk among the leaders was the only sound.
Then one of them stepped forward.

"One stride nearer, and I fire," I said quietly.

"Nobody wants to hurt you, Measter Frank," the fellow said.  "Give up
the witch, that's all we ask."

"There's no witch here," I answered.  "There is a lady, the guest of
your vicar; woe betide you if she comes to harm at your hands!  But you
will have to murder me before you lay finger on her."

"She be a witch, and brought the water on us; Nancy Isle knows it for
sartain sure," replied the spokesman.

(This Nancy Isle was a poor creature in her dotage, but still held in
repute as a "wise woman.")

"She gave Mat, hostler, stuff that cured his ague in no time," shouted
a voice.  "Has a charm to tame wild things," cried another.  "Doth wash
all over in cold water every morning, which would kill any Christian;
Lisabeth, maid at the vicarage, told me herself," bawled another.  "She
makes hell-broth of galls and toadstools and caterpillars.  I've seen
the old devil agathering 'em for her," said another.  "On with you, you
cowards," shrieked a female voice.  "Are you feared of one man, and him
bewitched?  She killed my innocent babe, and I'll tear her eyes out."
And Ducker's wife came forward with a rush, three men following.

I shot the first of them through the shoulder, and he fell; I brought
the butt of the pistol down heavily on one hand of the woman, who was
clawing at the barrier like a wild cat, which sent her howling.  The
other two men came on slowly enough to give me time to toss the pistol
into my companion's lap, and to cower for an upward blow with the fist.
I struck one of them under the chin, and he went backward insensible;
but the second got half over the door before I could deal with him.
With some shame, though I was fighting for more than life, I gave him a
kick in the "wind," which settled him for a while.  So far I had
splendid luck, and the enemy were a bit cowed, but if they came on in a
body, I must be overborne by sheer weight.  Their pluck was not
sufficient for that just now; they began to throw stones, which was not
a bad move, seeing that I was bound to guard the doorway.  I received a
tremendous blow on the jaw.  Then followed a lull, which ended in one
of the crowd calling to me--

"We don't want to kill thee, young squire."

"Thanks," I replied.  "I am not much killed so far."

"We don't want to kill thee.  Give up the witch, and we'll swim her.
If she sinks, we'll go away.  If she floats, thou'lt leave her.  We
can't say fairer nor that."

"Now listen to me," I answered.  "You can have any one tried by proper
course of law for witchcraft.  If you take the law into your own hands,
I shall kill some of you, and the rest will be hanged for killing me."

They replied by a volley of stones, and a furious rush.  A stone struck
Mistress Goel, and she sank to the floor.  I could do nothing for her,
save push her with my foot as far back from the door as I could reach,
for the men were on me, shouting, and brandishing sticks and knives.  I
stepped back, counting on their jamming themselves together in the
opening, which they did, coming on pell-mell.  Attempting no kind of
guard, I stood to crack intruding heads.  A knife was thrown, and stuck
in my left shoulder, whether in cloth or flesh, I knew not.  My good
ash-plant struck three heads down, and my boot smashed a face at a
corner.  Then the fellows drew off a little, dragging their fallen
comrades with them, but still facing the doorway; so I whipped out
pistol, and shot one of them in the leg.  That sent them out of range.

"Hand me the pistol," said my companion, rather faintly.

"Thank God!" I ejaculated, but I could not leave my post to see her.

Some of the men were talking loudly, and pointing; others ran off in
various directions.  Shortly, they returned, carrying dead branches and
heaps of straw.  They made for the other side of the mill, keeping well
out of pistol shot.  Plainly they meant to set the mill on fire and
burn us out.  It would blaze quickly, for it was slightly built, and
the timber old and dry, and I feared that the place would be too hot
for us long before a large number of people were drawn to the spot; but
our best plan was to stay where we were as long as might be possible.
The bulk of our enemies now sat on the ground to await the result of
the fire.  I might have broken a hole through the mill wall, but our
safety--such as it was--depended on there being only one opening to
guard.  So, keeping one eye on the enemy, I looked at Mistress Goel's
hurt.  It was a gash over the eye, and had bled copiously, but the
bleeding had ceased.  She insisted on cutting open my sleeve, from
which the knife had fallen, after sticking there some time, and found a
deepish cut, and my sleeve soaked with blood.  She bound up the wound
with a strip from her dress.  Now we heard a great crackling and
roaring outside.  The fire had taken hold.

"Frank," said Mistress Goel, and my heart thrilled at the word and the
tone.  "Frank, promise that you will kill me rather than let me fall
into their hands.  I would ask for a pistol to do it myself, but you
may have need of them.  Promise me, by all that is most sacred to you."

"I promise you that you shall not be taken alive, by the most sacred of
all things to me--my love for you."

The heat of the mill grew stifling.  Snaky flames came through the
cracks and crevices, and hissed upward.

"We must try for life," I said, and pulled away the sacks and the door.

The enemy awaited us.  All at once, they turned the other way, and the
head constable rode into view, followed by a posse of young men, some
on horseback, some on foot.  Then the crowd fled a dozen ways, and I
carried my fainting lady into the midst of a group of cheering,
laughing friends.

CHAPTER VIII

The task of answering the hundred and one questions of our rescuers
fell upon Mistress Goel, for I could not speak distinctly, my cheek and
lips being so swollen.  Two of my friends hoisted me upon their
shoulders, in spite of my growling resistance, while other two made "a
chair" for her with their arms and sticks, and we were carried with
shouting to the vicarage, terrifying the good folk there no little by
the noise.  When my aunt saw Mistress Goel's blood-stained face and my
puffed cheek, she fell to laughing and crying in a breath, and cried
out that I was the most reckless fellow in the world, and not to be
trusted with the care of a lady.  The doctor clasped his daughter to
his breast, and then held her off to examine her hurt, and turned to
glare at me fiercely, as if I had done the mischief.  Oddly enough it
was the vicar who called for sponge and water, bandages, plaister, and
the like; recommended the doctor to lose no time in attending to our
wounds; imposed silence on the dozen who were babbling all at once,
and, in short, put us into order.

Luke told how he had followed us, being in some fear that we might be
attacked, but he had been astonished by the number of the crowd, which
had gathered so quickly, and appeared to be under the direction of a
man, who was a stranger to him.  He saw us take refuge in the old mill,
and then thought it better to call a party to our aid than to come
single-handed.  Accordingly, he had set off to give the alarm to the
young fellows who had worked with us on the day after the flood, and,
by great good luck, found the chief constable of the wapentake at
supper in one of the houses at which he called.  The rest of the story
may be understood without the tedium of further words by me.  During
Luke's recital, Doctor Goel had attended to his daughter's hurt, and
now gave me his care.  My cut in the shoulder he pronounced
unimportant, but shook his head over the injury to my jaw.  At present,
he could do little but bind a wet rag about my face, and give me a wash
for the mouth, with a caution to swallow none of it.  Meanwhile, my
friends, on Mistress Goel's report, were making me out to be a hero,
and there I sat with a swelled face, rolling a liquid in my mouth which
made me wince, and unable to say a word.  It struck me as so queer a
fix for a hero to be in that I laughed, spurting out some of the
doctor's stuff, and gulping some of it down, but the coughing fit and
the pain which followed effectually cured me of inclination to further
laughter.

The chief constable deemed it advisable to set a watch over the
vicarage for the night, himself remaining in command.

"There is no telling to what lengths the rabble may go, when they have
got suspicion of witchcraft into their heads," said he; "and, in my
judgment, it would be wise for Doctor and Mistress Goel to take shelter
among their own people at Sandtoft as soon as may be."

We were not disturbed during the night, and that happened on the morrow
which, for a time at least, put our affairs into the shade.  We
received a visit from a Royal Commissioner, who caused public
proclamation, with beat of drum, that all well-disposed persons and
good subjects were to wait on him in the course of the next three days
in the Court-room at the White Hart, where the Manor Court was usually
held, there to prove their loyalty to the throne by loans,
benevolences, free gifts of money, and tender of service to his
Majesty.  This personage appeared at the vicarage early in the day,
attended by a file of musketeers, I happened to be with the vicar in a
room where he transacted such parish business as he could not depute to
my aunt, when a pot-bellied man swaggered in, with what he meant for an
air of dignity, but which in reality was a consciousness of the
musketeers outside.  After curt salutation, he took a seat, and opened
by saying--

"You received instructions from the archbishop to preach to your flock
on the duty of contributing to the royal exchequer, so preparing them
for my visit.  You thought it sufficient to read the letter from the
pulpit.  Explain your disobedience."

Something of the old Adam still lived in the clergyman, and flashed
from his eyes.

"By what authority do you----" he began.

But the other broke out--

"Authority! authority, quotha!  Authority enough to send a bishop to
jail, if he gave me occasion."

At this point I did an exceedingly prudent action.  The commissioner
held his neck awry, and my hands itched to give it a twist right round,
so I walked out of the room and a temptation which might become too
strong for me.  From prudence to policy is but one step.  The next
thing I did was to send Luke out to the musketeers with strong ale,
bidding him stay to learn how they liked the brew, and anything else
they chose to tell him.  They told him a good deal.  The commissioner
had a list of the gentry and farmers in the neighbourhood, and against
each name the amount to be demanded.  He had another list of poorer
folk, including the names of young men who might be impressed for
service in the army or navy, unless they, or their relatives, were
ready to buy a discharge.  There did not appear to be any limit to the
powers of this bashaw.  Before his entry into the Isle he had sent
several gentlemen to prison for refusing to pay his demand in full.
Some reputed misers of low degree, who had pleaded poverty, he had tied
up by the thumbs.  Incredible sums had been extorted from poor old
women by threatening to take away their sons.

Fellows who had been "insolent" to his Majesty's representative, had
been shipped off to the plantations.  The corporal had favoured Luke
with the opinion that the King would get so much money by this
collection as to put him above the need to ask Parliament for another
shilling.

The pot-bellied man left the vicarage soon after I received this
account, taking with him fifty pounds, and the vicar retired to his
study, perhaps for prayer.

In the course of the morning Mr. Butharwick came over to see me,
bringing a summons from the commissioner, requiring my father's
attendance at the White Hart, so about one o'clock I joined the company
assembled there.  The commissioner, Tunstall by name, as we learned
from the reading of his warrant under the Great Seal, which he allowed
some of the gentlemen to inspect, sat at a table, with a scribe on his
left hand, four or five of his musketeers standing behind him.  There
were seats for the men of rank and condition, but two-thirds of the
floor were filled by a standing crowd.  After the reading of the
warrant, Tunstall made a long pompous speech, setting forth the
necessities of the King, the duty of his subjects, and the trouble
caused in the realm by factious and treasonable persons, who had abused
their privileges and his Majesty's leniency by contriving to delay the
voting of supplies, urgently required for the defence of the kingdom,
and the dignity of the Crown.  The short of it was the king wanted
money badly, and we were to find it, or the consequences would be
disagreeable.  The commissioner looked at his papers, and then said
that the first name on his list was that of George Stovin of Totlets,
assessed at five hundred pounds.  Squire Stovin rose, and spoke--

"It is not for me to judge of his Majesty's requirements, or to give an
opinion as to the propriety of this unwonted way of meeting them, but
only to say that the demand made on the gentry and farmers of
Crowle--and on the gentry and farmers of Axholme generally--is to the
last degree ill-timed.  Hundreds of acres in various parts of the Isle,
which last year bore heavy crops, are reduced to swamp by the action of
foreign invaders, who are under his Majesty's protection.  In this part
of the Isle, many of us have been brought within a little of beggary.
I myself have had the cottages in which my labourers lived swept away,
and most of my barns and outbuildings.  Scores of my sheep have been
drowned--my crops are lost.  It is monstrous to ask me to give money to
the King.  I want compensation from the King."

There followed a loud rumble of assent to Squire Stovin's speech.  As
soon as it ceased, the commissioner gave some order in a low voice to
the corporal, and then said--

"That treasonable talk will cost thee more than five hundred pounds,
thou impudent rebel.  I allow thee one hour to send and get what may be
wanted for a sojourn in Lincoln castle."

At the word, a musketeer seized the squire, and tied his hands behind
him.  A growl of angry voices was heard all over the room, and, a
tumult might have happened, but, at some signal which I did not
perceive, a score musketeers entered by the door behind the assemblage.

Squire Stovin called out: "Will some friend be kind enough to go to
tell Mrs. Stovin I am going a journey, and want my portmanteau?"

"No man quits the room except by my permission," bawled the
commissioner, as a number of gentlemen turned to do the squire's errand.

Daft Jack, the town idiot, shambled forward from the rear to the table.

"May be your worship's honour will give me leave to go," he said; "but
I should like to give the poor King ninepence."  And with that the fool
laid the coin on the table.

The commissioner, mindful of the chuckling sound of laughter, threw the
piece back to poor Jack, bidding him begone about his business.

The fellow made a gesture of amazement, and then repocketed his money,
and shambled off to the other end of the room, talking to himself in
his high falsetto voice the while--

"'Tis a long way to Lincoln, and ferries to cross, and nasty bits of
road, and footpads and highwaymen about.  I wish the squire may get
there safely, poor man."

A faint smile at Daft Jack's concern for the prisoner's safe arrival,
crossed the commissioner's face.  He evidently did not suspect Daft
Jack's real intent.  Then he called out--

"See you bring the prisoner's portmanteau straight to me, d'ye hear,
fool?"

"Yes, yes, your honour," answered Jack.

"James Tankersley, wheelwright," the clerk read out, and the
wheelwright stepped forward, well known as a poor, but industrious man,
the sole support of an aged mother and his sisters, two sickly women.

"Hast the honour to be chosen to serve his Majesty, Tankersley,"
grinned the commissioner.

"Would ask nothing better, your worship, but my poor old mother and my
misters depend on me for their bread."

"That's no affair of mine, man.  The day after to-morrow you march with
me.  If you skulk, you'll be shot as a deserter, that's all."

The big fellow trembled like a leaf in the wind.

"Oh! your honour," he cried, in a choking voice, "have pity on us.
'Twill kill my mother."

"Stop your snivelling!" shouted the commissioner, "or I'll have you
strapped up and flogged.  If you're a damned coward, pay me ten pounds
for a discharge."

"Ten pounds!" cried the poor fellow; "I haven't a pound in the world,
and half the wood in the yard isn't paid for."

Farmer Brewer came to the front, and said: "I will buy his discharge."

"God bless you, Mr. Brewer," said the wheelwright.

"Brewer?  Have we that name on the list?" asked the commissioner of his
clerk.

Then the two of them rummaged among their papers, but seemed to have no
record of the farmer's existence.  At length the commissioner looked up
and said--

"A man who has ten pounds to spare for another must be well to pass,
Mr. Brewer.  Fifty pounds for the King will be no burdensome demand."

A murmur went round the room, for the farmer had lost heavily in the
flood, and everybody knew that he had never prospered greatly.
Something to this effect, Brewer began to plead, but was cut short.

"I am not here to argue, my man, but to collect money.  If you are
obstinate, I have the means at hand to persuade you feelingly.  Bring
the sixty pounds by three o'clock, or you will learn what they are.
Corporal, pass this man out."

So things went on, man after man being bullied and threatened, and sent
off to scrape money according to the commissioner's assessment.  The
proceedings were exciting enough at the time, but they would be
wearisome to narrate.  They were interrupted by Daft Jack's return, in
less than the hour allotted, with the squire's portmanteau, which he
dumped down with a bang just inside the room, saying as he sat down on
the floor with his back against the door, mopping his face, "I can't
carry it a step furder; take it to his honour, one of you."  At a nod
from the corporal, one of his men went forward with it, and placed it
on the table.  The clerk opened it for the inspection of his chief,
when with a humming and buzzing noise which filled the room, a swarm of
angry wasps rushed out.  What happened then I cannot describe.  I saw
the commissioner and his clerk striking, dancing, in a frenzy, through
a darting haze of furious insects.

Looking the other way, I saw a mass of hunched backs and bent heads,
helter skelter to the door.  Exit thus was too slow for my fancy, with
a cloud of wasps round my head, so I jumped from the only window which
opened door-wise.  It was a good long drop to the ground, but several
active men followed me.  We found Squire Stovin in saddle in front of
the inn, his feet tied under the horse's belly, his guards mounted on
each side, and a big crowd gathered round them, hustling and jostling
one another in a manner that boded no good to the troopers, most of the
men having their poles in their hands.  Mischief would have begun
before now, but for Mr. Stovin's authority with the fellows.  Shortly,
the corporal came out to say that the commissioner being unable to give
the instructions for which the men were waiting, he would take the
responsibility of setting the squire free on parole.  Mr. Stovin
readily gave it; his bonds were removed, and a mob escorted him home,
huzzaing until they were hoarse.  Host Hind told me that Tunstall and
his clerk were fearfully stung, and in no small danger.  "His head's
near as big as his belly," said Hind of the commissioner.  About him I
had no concern, but much about poor Jack, who would be horribly
punished, doubtless, if he were caught.  And, besides, I felt some
curiosity.  I found Jack in his one-roomed hovel at the south end of
the town, with a quantity of articles spread out on the clay floor: a
pair of cleat boards, a leather bottle, a whittle, coils of wire and
band, a ball of worsted string, fish-hooks, corks, cross-bow, a few
cakes of black bread, and other things, some of which he was in process
of transferring to his many and capacious pockets.

"I'm going to my hunting-lodge on Thorne moors," said he, with perfect
gravity.

"A little money may be of use," I said, tendering some.

"No, thank you, Mester Frank," he replied.  "I'm not likely to want
any.  There's a plenty of hares, rabbits, moor-fowl, fish, eggs on my
estate."

Jack's confidence was well grounded, I knew, as he had the utmost skill
in placing a snare for a rabbit, snickling a pike, or luring a bird
within shot.

"Do you mind telling me how you came to put a wasp's nest into the
squire's portmanteau, Jack?"

"All a mistake through being deep in thought, Mester Frank."

"How so?"

"Coming down the drive, I see a wasp-hole in the bank.  And I wanted
wasp-grub for bait.  So I clodded the hole, and pulled the nest out,
you see."

"But you didn't want live wasps, Jack."

"Live wasps are very good for dibbing, Mester Frank, if you know how to
handle 'em.  But, being deep in thought, I put the nest into Squire's
porkmankle instead of into my handkerchief.  And I forgot the nest when
I put the porkmankle down, and give it a shake, through being so deep
in thought."

"But what were you thinking about so deeply?"

"Tryin to puzzle it out why the pot-bellied man called me a fool."

And Jack looked as if the question still perplexed him.

"Fool, or no fool, Jack, you have done what none of the rest of us had
the wit or pluck to do.  But he will kill you, if ever he gets well
enough to do it."

"If I live till he kills me, I shall be a very old man," Jack replied,
with immense scornfulness.

He had now stowed away his properties, some in his pockets, and some in
a sack, which he slung over his shoulder, and stood ready for flight.
We shook hands, and he said--

"Luke Barnby knows the way to my lodge."

Desirous as I was to return to the vicarage, it took me a long time to
do so, for everybody was in the main street, talking and laughing over
the sudden break-up of the meeting summoned by the commissioner.  Here
I met one who had not been present, and wished to hear my account of
the affair; there another, who had been present, and wanted to go over
it again.  A knot of young fellows dragged me into the White Hart,
where they drank Daft Jack's health, and the health of the man who had
"put him up to the trick."  For no reason they had given me the credit
of the device, nor did my plain denial quite remove their belief that I
had a hand in the business.  At last I got away from them, and found
all quiet at the vicarage.

It had been agreed to act on the suggestion of the chief constable the
following day, and he had engaged to protect the house during the
night.  Anna, as I had come to name her to myself, had recovered from
the shock of the previous evening, and looked charming even with a
cross of plaister on her brow.  After I had told the true and full
story of Daft Jack's achievement, the doctor and the parson prosed
alternately, the one describing all the venomous insects known to man,
I should think; the other giving instances from history, sacred and
profane, of their intervention in human affairs, and seeming to have
pleasure in recounting the torture inflicted on an unlucky wight, whose
name I forget, by an enemy who had him smeared with honey, and exposed
to the stings of bees and wasps.  The vicar was too good a Christian to
rejoice in the sufferings of the commissioner, but I am sure he got
some kind of consolation in the very particular description which he
made of the torments of the other man.

Anna was unusually silent, which I hoped might be due to the same
thought as kept me so, that of the parting to come on the morrow.  I
noted with secret delight that the songs she chose, when she went to
the spinet at my request, were tinged with a sweet melancholy, which
might be that of love.

CHAPTER IX

"I asked you to come out with me because there is something I must say
before you return to Sandtoft."  So I feebly began, as we paced the
garden, now somewhat cleared of the mire and refuse brought by the
flood, a few flowers lifting their heads to the July sun.  "I told you
the other night I loved you.  I might never have dared to say it, but
for the fear that I should not have another chance.  Mistress
Goel--Anna--do you, can you love me?"

She lifted her noble face a little, gave me a look which I could not
understand, and then the eyelids drooped, as she answered with
trembling lips--

"It would be only too easy to love you, Frank, but I am
bound--betrothed already.  Have patience with me, while I tell you my
miserable story."  She sat down, and I beside her, heavy-hearted.

"Years ago, my father and his dearest friend, Cornelius Vliet, agreed
upon a marriage between me and his friend's only son.  I shrank from
the thought of it, and begged my father to allow me to refuse; but he
laughed at what he took to be girlish perversity.  He could not believe
I had a repugnance against a young man, who was reckoned handsome,
well-bred, brave, the heir to a large fortune.  And, indeed, I could
say nothing against Sebastian, but only that I had the strongest
dislike to be married to him, or to any man.  My father so far yielded
as to defer the matter awhile.  Then he was seized and thrown into
prison, and we knew his doom would be death, or lifelong imprisonment.
Sebastian came to me, and offered to secure my father's escape--on one
condition.  I gave him my promise, and he fulfilled his own by lavish
bribery, and, I must acknowledge, at the risk of his own liberty,
perhaps his life.  He accompanied us to Paris.  There I saw and heard
much more of his manner of living than I had known at home, and it was
fearful and loathsome to me.  My father assured me young men were no
worse for--what was so offensive to me.  I cannot tell you how dreadful
I felt it to be to fail in duty and love toward my father, and to be so
ungrateful to Sebastian for my father's life and freedom, but I could
not keep my plighted word.  I vowed that I would not be married until
Sebastian changed his course.  He did not upbraid or taunt me, or argue
with me, but disappeared.  For some months we have heard nothing of
him.  I supposed he had been disgusted with what he must think my
ingratitude and fickleness; but yesterday my father received a letter
from him, saying he has given up drinking and dicing and all evil ways,
and is coming to claim his bride.  He has decided to join Vermuijden,
and to share our exile, and will quickly follow his letter.  My father
is delighted.  Forgive me, Frank, that I have not avoided you.  I am
guilty, I know.  Forgive me."

I had been on the point to interrupt the story a dozen times; but
seeing how hard Anna found the telling of it, I would not make it
harder.  Now I burst out.  "Forgive her!  Forgive the sun for shining,
the flowers for blooming!"  I told her how sorely my heart ached for
her, but she must bear up bravely still.  I would not hear of duty to
her father in regard to this marriage.  I declared that a promise so
extorted could not bind her.  To try to keep it would be to sin against
herself, against the man, against her father, who must be made wretched
by it in the end, against me, against love, against God.  I told her I
was sure she loved me a little, and I would never give her up.  She was
_mine_, and should be mine as long as she or I lived.  Where the words
came from I did not know, for I am commonly slow of speech, but they
came hot and swift, and Anna looked up at me, as I stood over her (my
feelings had raised me to my feet) smiling through swimming eyes, and
said tremulously--

"You masterful Frank!  I could almost believe you; but oh! it cannot
be."

She rose to her feet in a sudden agitation.  "Here is Sebastian!" she
exclaimed, and I turned and saw him, accompanied by Doctor Goel,
approaching us.  After greeting had passed between Anna and him, the
doctor said something by way of introduction, and Vliet and I bowed, he
looking as black as a thundercloud, and I, doubtless, equally so.  I
think he knew me his rival at first glance, and hated me accordingly.
How heartily I detested him there are no words to express.

He was a fairly well-made man two or three inches below my height, with
cold, bluish-grey eyes, rather closely set, a big mouth, thick-lipped,
a low forehead, and cheeks somewhat bloated.  That he had turned to
sober and cleanly living I did not believe, or that he ever would, and
my unbelief was warming to the heart.  Having no part in the Dutch
conversation, I left the three, and returned to the house, where I
heard that Vermuijden was again at Sandtoft, and had sent Sebastian
Vliet in command of six of his men to escort Doctor Goel and his
daughter thither, with request that they would come with speed.

Within the hour the party was ready to set off, two of the Dutchmen
carrying the baggage (except certain small boxes, which the doctor
would not entrust to other hands), and the other three men with
muskets, cutlasses, and pistols, going in front.  Then came the doctor
and Vliet, Anna and I last.  As the landing-place, where they had left
their boat in charge of one of their number, was not more than half a
mile away, I hastened to take up the thread of our previous talk, but
was baulked of my intent.  At a spot where three roads met we
encountered a crowd "riding the stang."  At the head of the procession
strode a fellow blowing a horn; then a dozen others, beating pans and
kettles with pokers and iron spoons; a bagpiper made a noise like pigs
in a storm; a ragged rascal, sitting a donkey, carried a pole on which
dangled a woman's smock.  After this standard bearer followed an old
horse, bestridden by a grinning woman, who held an enormous ladle, with
which she merrily belaboured her husband, who rode behind her, his face
turned to the horse's tail, pretending to work at a distaff.  Two lads
marched behind the couple on horseback, bearing a pole, on which rode a
third, thumping a pan, and repeating--

  "With a ran, tan, tan,
  On my old tin can,
  Mrs. Mooley and her good man,
  She banged him, she banged him,
  For spending a penny when he stood in need.
  She up with a three-footed stool;
  She struck him so hard, and cut him so deep,
  Till the blood ran down like a new-stuck sheep."

A shouting, jeering rabble accompanied the cavalcade, making uproar
with marrow-bones and cleavers, tongs, gridirons, and kettles, and
'some half-score of barking and yelping curs swelled the din.  A
prominent figure in the rout was Ducker's wife, who had gone crazy
through the loss of her child.  She skipped and screamed and laughed,
now here, now there, almost as much the object of amusement to the mob
as the henpecked husband and his shrew of a wife.

If the mad woman caught sight of Anna there would be trouble, I felt
sure; so I pushed on, hoping to avoid touch with the crowd, who would
most likely turn by the road we had come, to make the circuit of the
town.  But the spectacle had some attraction for Vliet, who stood to
see the crowd go by, saying with a laugh, "Ah! justitia de los
cornudos!" from which I surmised he had seen the riding of the stang in
Spain.

I asked Anna to urge the five Dutchmen forward, the boat being yet some
four hundred yards away.  As I feared, some of the mob stopped to stare
at Vliet in his foreign costume, and this led to Ducker's wife
perceiving Anna and me.  She raised the cry, "Witches! witches!" and
the crowd took it up instantly.  I saw the vixen leap down from her
charger to join the blacksmith's wife in the leadership of the gang,
which followed us pell-mell.  Then I ran for the boat, half carrying
Anna, who at first hung back, imploring me to go to her father's
rescue.  As he had six men well armed to defend him--for the Dutchmen
had faced about and behaved manfully, the two who had borne the baggage
pitching it into the reed-bed that bordered the road, and taking to
their weapons--I attended to nothing but Anna's safety.  I had put her
into the boat, and made the man understand that he must push out into
the stream, and take shelter under the reeds, when the rest of our
party came up, the mob at their heels, brandishing their pokers,
gridirons, cleavers, and what not, encouraging one another with shouts
of "The witch!  Tear her to scotticks!" and savage curses.

With great coolness and quickness, the Dutchmen took in the condition
of things, and faced the angry rabble, and two of them fired.  Whether
any one was hurt, I could not see, but the yelling mob was not even
checked.  On they came furiously, and for some minutes we were engaged
in a confused hand-to-hand struggle, which would have ended, most
likely, in our being forced into the river by sheer weight of numbers,
but for a pistol-shot fired into the rear of the crowd, which took them
by surprise, and scattered them a little.  This gave the Dutchmen the
chance to use their muskets, and as one of the leaders of the mob fell,
the rest were somewhat daunted, and drew off a few yards.  Then Luke
ran from behind them, and took his stand by me.  He it was who had
fired the shot which saved us, having followed me with my pistols.  In
this lull of the storm, I tried to persuade the folk to go away; but I
had scarcely begun to speak, when one of the men took a stride forward
and hurled a gridiron at my head, which happily flew wide, for I leaped
on him in the act, snatching him up, and tossing him into the reed-bed.
But he had given the others a lead which they were quick to follow; all
sorts of missiles hurtled about us, and one of the musketeers was
struck and fell backwards into the river.  We could do nothing for him,
because another shower of knives, pots, and stones flew about us, and
our assailants came on with a rush.  I gave Vliet a hint, though I knew
not whether he understood English.  He nodded, and spoke to his men.
When the foremost of the crowd were right upon us, we drew apart
swiftly, Vliet and three of the Dutchmen on one side, I and Luke and
one of the Dutchmen on the other.  The pressure of those behind sent
five or six of the leaders headlong into the river, and we threw or
thrust several more after them.  The rest took fright, and ran like so
many rabbits.  I believe the discovery that the "witch" had vanished
had as much to do with their panic as the loss of their boldest
spirits, who were floundering in the water.  As the rabble fled, I
perceived that blood was spouting from my right wrist, and my strength
going with it.  I asked Luke to tie my handkerchief tightly round it,
but that did no good; the handkerchief was a soaked rag in no time, and
the blood still pouring.  Luke in great alarm called for Doctor Goel,
who came and ripped up my coat and shirt-sleeves, and placing a bit of
wood on my arm some distance above the elbow, fastened it there with a
bandage torn from my shirt.  This marvellously staunched the bleeding,
but I became queerly drowsy, and sat on the ground, overcome with
languor.  The doctor went from me to look at two fellows, dead, or
badly wounded, who lay in the road.

The Dutchmen were chasing the men in the river, firing now and then,
but everything was dreamlike to me, until I heard a light footstep
behind me, which I knew was Anna's.  Before I could turn round, I saw a
movement in the reeds, and then a face, the mad woman's face, glaring
at me, or at some one behind me.  The next instant she sprang from her
hiding-place, knife in hand, and I, now roused from my stupor, rose to
seize her.  I caught her in my arms, but she bore me to the ground.
She writhed and twisted; she clasped her hands round my neck, trying to
strangle me; she bit my bare shoulder; but I had just sense and
strength enough to hold her fast until I heard Luke say--

"Let go, Measter Frank--let go; I have her safe, and you're bleeding to
death."

The next thing I knew was that the vicar stood near in his old gown,
and he and everybody looked so solemn that I got the notion this was a
funeral company, and I the person they meant to bury.

"You mustn't," I whispered.  "I'm not dead."

Wine was produced in some mysterious way, and Anna held the horn to my
lips.  The draught revived me greatly, and they told me what had passed
during my fainting fit.  As soon as the crazy woman had been secured,
Luke had run to the vicarage for wine, and had ordered the sexton to
bring the bier as the handiest means of conveyance.  The vicar had
followed.  The doctor had attended to my wounds, and given instructions
for their future treatment, and now Vliet was impatient to be gone.  So
we said our adieux, and Anna's right hand lay for a moment in my left,
and my lips touched it.  Then the boat moved off, and I was carried to
the vicarage.

CHAPTER X

No one cares to read of sickness and pain (unless it may be those whose
business it is to cure them), but I am in a manner compelled to say
something of my wounds, else my story later on would be hardly
understood.  The cut in my wrist caused me much trouble by the third
day, so much that I could scarcely forbear from ripping off the
bandage.  By-and-by the pain in my hand was almost intolerable.  The
hurts in my shoulder were painful too.  The earlier wound broke out
again, and the bite inflamed greatly, and a kind of fever came upon me,
so that I grew light-headed at times, and hardly knew where I was, or
what I said.  When I was myself again, I fumed and chafed at my weak
and helpless condition, and sometimes grew frightened lest the bite of
the mad woman might communicate madness.  I could not comprehend my own
irritability and want of self-command.  The servants enraged me by
stealing in and out of my room so softly, and by speaking in sharp
whispers which went to my brain like stiletto thrusts.  Good Mr.
Butharwick, who nursed me with nigh unsleeping care, nearly drove me
crazy by bidding me not to think of subjects which disturbed me, and by
talking of matters that in nowise concerned me.  He had made some
astounding discovery about the children of Israel, and how their
destiny was written in the sky, as also were the future of the true
Church and the doom of Antichrist.  Everything could be made plain to
one who read the Bible and knew astrology, and my good tutor appeared
to think I might be soothed by hearing these mysteries expounded.  I
refrain from blasphemous language about the Holy Scriptures, but I said
things about the stars and star-gazing which hurt Mr. Butharwick
grievously.

Dick Portington watched with me one night, and in my intervals of
relief from pain, he told me how the commissioner had been carried away
more dead than alive, but vowing vengeance on those who had caused his
sufferings.  Of fights between the Dutch and the Islonians he had much
to tell; how the men of Haxey had driven off Vermuijden's men, thrown
down their embankments, filled up the drains, burned carts and tools,
and utterly destroyed their works in the south of the Isle; how an
attack had been made on Sandtoft and repelled, some of the assailants
falling into the hands of the Dutch, who had flogged them within an
inch of their lives, and then turned them loose to shift as best they
could, threatening worse punishment to the next batch of captives.
This was done by order of the new commandant, Vliet, who was in high
esteem with the Dutchmen on account of his boldness and cunning.
Vermuijden had gone away to oversee another operation in Bedfordshire,
leaving Vliet in full authority.

For the next two days I was in high fever, and my guardians refused to
give Dick another opportunity of conversing with me.  Luke was my best
nurse and companion in these days, for my stolid man was in love, and
in love with Martha, Anna's maid.  They contrived to meet somehow,
whenever I gave him permission to cross to Sandtoft, which I was never
loath to do.  If he had asked leave to go seven times a week, I should
not have said him nay.  In fact, losing count of time as I sometimes
did, by reason of weakness and wandering of mind, I would ask him if he
meant to go to-day, and he would answer, "Lord love you, Measter Frank,
an' 'twere but yesterday I fared across."  Through Luke I heard of my
love, and she sent me messages, and gave him directions about the
treatment of my hurts and as to my diet, Luke it was who told me that
her mother was an English woman, the daughter of a London merchant, who
had gone into exile for conscience sake.  Martha also was of English
parentage, the child of a servant who had accompanied the family to the
Netherlands.  "Which accounts for her pastry-making," added Luke.
Through Luke I heard that Vliet pressed his suit with ardour, Doctor
Goel seconding him; but that I had a friend at court in the maid, who
was a humble friend rather than a common servant, and hated Sebastian
with a perfect hatred.  I was surprised and perplexed to hear Sheffield
had visited Sandtoft, and struck up a friendship with Vliet.  This I
could not understand, and it disquieted me.

At the end of a fortnight I could go about a little, but the wounds in
the shoulder did not properly heal, and I recovered strength but slowly.

One day as I sat out on the lawn in front of the house, Luke near me,
busied in cleaning a gun, an old woman, with a tattered shawl over her
head and a basket on her arm, came feebly up the drive, now and then
coughing asthmatically.  In a wheezing voice she begged to be allowed
to show me the contents of her basket.  Luke gave her his stool, which
she accepted with profuse gratitude, and then asked for a drink of
water.

"Bring her a cordial, Luke," I said, as he went off to the kitchen.

As soon as he was out of hearing, the old woman said in Bess Boswell's
voice.

"Send him away again when he returns.  I must have a private word with
you."

Sure enough, now I looked narrowly at her, I recognised the eyes, but
the rest of the face was that of an aged woman.

"What is the meaning of this mummery, Bess?" I asked.

"Have you forgotten what I told you?  It is dangerous for me to be seen
speaking to you," she replied.

"No; but I can't for the life of me understand the danger," said I.

"Certainly you can't; but that does not alter the fact," answered she,
in a tone rather scornful of my sagacity, I thought.

Luke came toward us with the cordial at this point, and I bade him
leave us awhile, as the poor body had something to tell me of her
affairs.  He withdrew out of earshot, but remained within sight of us.

"Your man is quicker of apprehension than you," she said.  "He doesn't
know me, and he doesn't trust me.  He is loading his gun, and keeping a
watchful eye on me; a good servant, that.  I wish you would take a leaf
out of his book, and be on your guard against strangers.  Two months
ago I begged you to go away out of the Isle, and it is by the most
wonderful luck you are alive to-day."

"I have been in danger once or twice; I do know so much."

Bess waved her hand loftily.

"I do not speak of mobs and crazy women; your enemies are much more
formidable."

"Come now, Bess, drop this mysterious style, and tell a plain tale, if
you have one.  You mean that Sheffield owes me a grudge, and won't
stick at trifles to pay it.  I know that as well as you, and I am not
shaking in my shoes about it."

Bess laughed.  "One of your worst enemies is your confidence in bodily
strength and pluck.  Lord Sheffield is not blessed with the sharpest
wits in the world, though he is more than your match in craftiness, but
he has the help of a man as cunning as the devil."

"Do you mean the Dutchman, Vliet?" I asked.

Bess laughed again.  "The Dutchman is a bulldog, and, if you are
prudent, you will not go near his kennel.  But you have to be on your
guard against one who can intrigue.  Let me tell you there are sworn
accusations now at Castle Mulgrave that Daft Jack was your tool, and if
the poor fellow is caught he will be made to confess that he was."

"But it is a lie!" I exclaimed.

"I wonder how many lies have been confessed on the rack," retorted
Bess.  "There is a charge against you--waiting for something to
strengthen the case--of having resisted the King's authority at Thorne,
and inciting others to do so.  At the same time it is being whispered
about among the common sort that you are a traitor to the Islonian
cause, and to your father.  The Dutch are told that you are their
secret enemy, the instigator of the attacks made on them."

"But these stories are contradictory, the one of the other!"

"What does that matter?  The effect of them is that you are looked upon
with hate and disgust all round.  You were in great favour with the
people just after the Crowle flood, but they are in a different mind
to-day.  Tales are told of you in every alehouse which would be
laughable, if they were not believed.  All this is done on the chance
that your enemy may be saved the trouble of your taking off; he is
prepared to act himself, if they don't."

"But what motive can he have?" I asked, incredulously.

"To get money," she answered.

"Who is the man?"

"Before I tell you, I must have your word never to betray me--never to
tell any one else, directly or indirectly."

"I give it you."

"The man is my father."

I laughed now.  "Lord Bozzy," "cheating Bozzy," the gipsy rascal, whose
feats and pranks were a perpetual and relishing jest all over the Isle!
It was ridiculous to consider him in the light of a malignant, subtle
enemy.

Bess gave me a contemptuous smile.  "Do you happen to know that he has
stolen a horse, and sold it afterwards to the man from whom he had
stolen it?  Did you ever hear of his being entertained as an honoured
guest at the house of a magistrate, who had condemned him to the stocks
a day or two before?  Have you heard of his passing for a clergyman,
London merchant, French traveller, and a dozen other characters, among
people who knew him well, or thought they did?  And if he can take in
every dull-witted squire in the Isle just for mirth and play, what do
you suppose he can't do, when he is to gain a fortune by doing it?"

On reflection, I admitted to myself that contempt for Boswell might be
foolish, and passed at once to suspicion.  What if this girl had been
employed to frighten me away?  Her I did not suspect, but might she not
have been allowed to hear this and that, in the hope that she would
inform me, and so I might be driven out of the Isle?  A fine fellow I
should be to run for my life, because a wench cried Bugaboo!

"Well, Bess, I am infinitely obliged to you," I said; "but I am not
likely to take to flight.  If you are good enough to warn me of any
scheme you may hear of, I shall be forearmed."

"Do you suppose my father imparts his plans to me, or any one?  I may
guess his design by some direction he gives; I may divine a purpose by
watching him closely.  He doesn't talk of doing a thing, he does it."

It was curious to see the sort of pride she had in the man whose plans
she was endeavouring to thwart, pride mingled with fear.

We sat a little while in silence.  Then Bess got up to go.

"You will not heed my warning?  Oh, you are bewitched, or you would not
lose house and land, scorn a fair damsel, who would be your loving,
faithful wife, break your father's heart, risk your life, all for--an
outlandish woman!"

"I believe you honest, Bess," I rejoined; "but is all this of your own
motion?"

"And who should prompt me?" she asked.

"Nay, that I cannot guess."

"Nor ever will."  And away she went without another word.

A day or two later, my father returned, looking worn and aged, so that
my heart ached to see the change.  He, on his part, was deeply
concerned to find me weak and ailing, and sent Luke to Doncaster with a
letter to a physician there, forbidding him to return until he could
bring the doctor.  When he heard that my wounds had been got in
defending the Goels, he refrained from speech, but his looks were of
sorrow and anger both.

Late in the evening he gave to Mr. Butharwick and me an account of what
he had done to get the decision of the judges put in force against
Vermuijden, but all in vain.  At length he determined to appeal to the
King himself, whose will made null and void the sentence of the law.
He bribed some of his Majesty's attendants heavily, but could not for a
long time obtain audience.  The King was in such anxiety and excitement
about the Queen's French servants, of whom he greatly desired to be
rid, and to have them sent back to their own country, that he could
think or hear of nothing else, unless it were of some means of laying
hands on money, which he wanted sorely.  So the courtiers and servants
said.  Nevertheless, my father followed the King, who was exceedingly
restless, from one place to another, seeking a favourable occasion, and
at last found it in a village near Cambridge.  One of the King's
gentlemen, who had taken my father's money, came to him at his lodging,
reporting his Majesty to be in better humour that evening, having had
from his Grace of Buckingham a letter which satisfied him the mounseers
would soon be packed off to France.  Seeing him in this temper, the
gentleman had presented my father's petition, which the King had read,
and then signified that the petitioner might be admitted to his chamber.

"But as soon as I came into the King's presence," said my father, "I
knew, by the scowl on his face, my plea had no chance of success.  He
did not condescend to speak to me until he had told his people I was
from Lincolnshire, which Henry VIII. had declared the most disloyal
county in England, which condemnation was justified in his own
experience.  And of this rebellious county, the worst part was the Isle
of Axholme, where one of his commissioners had been vilely used of
late.  Then he went on to say that in his care for his subjects in that
barbarous corner of his dominions, he had authorized a scheme for
reclaiming many acres of soil now under water, and, pointing to me, he
said, 'This fellow has dared to defy his King by opposing our gracious
purpose, setting forth I know not what legal quibbles in the courts of
law; and when he fails in his rebellious design, actually has the
audacity to approach us in person.'  Then he tore up the paper and
threw it into the fire, and turned to me, saying, 'Go to the devil, and
thank your stars you are not helped thither by a sword through your
body.'  Whereupon I was jostled out of the sacred presence."

After Mr. Butharwick had retired, my father opened out to me on the
state of our affairs, and in a strain altogether new.  The change was
so great as to make me afraid of I hardly knew what.  He, who was used
to speak and act with so much resolution and masterfulness, now
lamented his unwisdom in taking upon him the burdensome charge of the
"solicitorship," and accused himself of wronging me thereby.  I could
scarcely believe my ears, and doubted whether I was awake or dreaming.

"I had confidence that a just cause must prevail in England, but I
ought to have perceived that everything is changed in this country.  A
King, who despises the rights of his people in general, and flouts his
Parliament, cannot be hindered of his will with a few landowners and
poor folk in Axholme, when he is in dire straits for money, and can get
it by trampling us underfoot.  In my foolish confidence I have done a
great wrong by encumbering the estate so heavily."

I knew not how to answer; babbled something about doing our utmost to
repair the mischief.

"Happily, it is possible to do that," he replied.  "There is no doubt
that Mistress Ryther and her father will welcome you as a suitor for
her hand in marriage.  You may not be inclined for matrimony just at
present, and there is no hurry, but you should lose no time in asking
the lady's promise.  That obtained, all our troubles are at an end.
And as soon as you are wedded I will go abroad, taking Butharwick with
me, leaving the bride to queen it here.  When I return, a house in
Beltoft will suffice for me.

"Unfortunately, I cannot ask Mistress Ryther to marry me," I answered,
"because I love another lady with every fibre of my body and every
thought of my heart."

My father smiled.  "You think so, Frank; and it is partly my fault.  I
ought to have turned you loose in town, sent you on the grand tour,
given you a chance to prove how often we can be in love, and how
quickly out of it again.  'Tis a malady incident to youth, a passing
fever; but while the delirium lasts, we see and converse with angels.
Change of air is a cure for it."

How I threw scorn on this scorn of love, how I protested and vowed my
love could not die, may be imagined by a lover, and no other would care
to read such matter.

My father replied, with an indulgent smile, "Yes, yes, my son, I know.
But you must see that marriage with the Dutch girl is out of the
question.  You have nothing to marry on.  If you refuse Mistress
Ryther, you are a landless, penniless man.  Even if it were otherwise,
how can you wed the daughter of a fellow who broke prison and fled his
country, sooner than take his trial for conspiracy to murder his
Prince?  A pretty family connection for the master of Temple Belwood!
You might as well propose to marry a gipsy; better indeed, for your own
people would not burn the house over your head for that, as they
certainly would, if you took a wife from the camp of the Dutch
invaders.  Besides, the girl is mated already--or as good as
mated--with a rascal who was drummed out of King Christian's army for
cheating at dice.  You see I have taken some pains to inform myself
about your Fancy and her associates."

"And who is your informant, may I ask?"

"A Frenchman, Chavatte by name, a gentleman and a man of affairs, who
came over with Vermuijden, putting much money into the business.  I met
with him at Cambridge, where he was seeking Vermuijden, as I was
seeking the Lord's Anointed.  He has withdrawn from the company for
good reasons.  For one thing, he is convinced that the plan for the
drainage is fatally defective, and Vermuijden will not hear of
alteration.  Then he has discovered that the King has sold what never
belonged to him, and has no mind to be a receiver of stolen goods, nor
does he expect that the rightful owners will ever submit to the
robbery.  And he has the strongest distaste to Vermuijden's lieutenant
and deputy.  He is trying to recover some of his money, and will
shortly go home.  You will be inclined to consider him a man of sense,
for he admires Mistress Goel's beauty, and applauds her devotion to her
father, whom he regards as lunatic, most especially because he desires
to give her in marriage to this Vliet.  'But he finds favour with the
incomprehensible sex,' Chavatte added, with his French shrug of the
shoulders."

I did not speak for some time.  A horrible doubt had crept into my
mind.  Suppose Anna's filial piety should overcome her repugnance to
Sebastian Vliet.  Suppose the fellow had reformed his conduct.  Suppose
he succeeded in gaining her consent.  If Anna were lost to me, what
mattered it to me whether I married Mistress Ryther, or a gipsy, or a
blackamoor?  If I could redeem the dear old place, and make my father
happy, was it not my duty to do so?  Always supposing that Anna could
not, or would not be my wife.  It was the first time I had given way to
despondency, and even now I do not understand what it was that plunged
me into gloom.

One thing only was clear to me, that I must see Anna without delay, and
learn whether I was to be blessed or miserable for the whole of my
life.  I could not keep before myself that I had nothing to offer for
her acceptance, or that her father might treat the offer with ridicule.
I could think of nothing but the necessity to see Anna, and hear the
word which should decide my fate.  My father said nothing to interrupt
my meditations.  Since he had been away from home, he had formed the
habit of smoking, and he now lighted his pipe and puffed silently.
When he had finished his pipe and knocked out the ashes, he said--

"I will not press you for an answer to-night; but it is to be
remembered that handsome young women, who have heaps of money, are not
as plentiful as blackberries in September."

"I will give you an answer to-morrow evening," I replied; but did not
say anything of my intention to go to Sandtoft in the morning, for I
felt certain my father would oppose it strongly.  Indeed, what with the
lightness of my head and the heaviness of my heart, it took me some
time to get upstairs and to bed.  Luke, who was accustomed to help me,
was away, and it occurred to me that if I missed him to-night, I should
miss him much more to-morrow.

CHAPTER XI

As I was about to turn in to bed, I perceived a red glare in the sky
westward, and feared it meant trouble at Sandtoft, so I lay long awake;
but at length weariness overpowered me, and I slept for some hours.  I
awoke early, and, having dressed in a slow, fumbling way--my arm being
more than usually painful--I walked out as if I sought the morning air,
taking care to give no inkling of my purpose to the servants, who were
already astir.

At that time of the year, the middle of August, there was choice of
three modes of crossing the fen.  One might pick one's way on stilts,
or with cleat-boards, but in my present weakness I dared not adventure
either method.  The third course was to take boat at Belshaw, on a
winding stream, which in the end joined the Idle a mile or so above
Sandtoft.  Luke had told me that the Idle was flowing again since the
destruction of Vermuijden's work in the south of the Isle, so I chose
the easiest, if slowest, manner of going; but when I reached the little
inn at Belshaw, there was no boat to be had.  Dame Drury told me their
boat was at the carpenter's under repair, and the flat-bottomed punt
Drury had taken out, meaning to try for half-duck and snipe, which had
begun to appear in the fen.  There was nothing for me but to await his
return, which would be early or late, according to his luck in fowling.

While the dame got ready a breakfast for me, she chanced to make
mention of her husband's cousin, who had lain at their house for a
year, crippled with a kind of palsy.  Half in curiosity, half in
compassion, I questioned her, and learned that he was about thirty
years of age, that he had inherited a moderate property on the death of
his father thirteen years ago, and had gone out to see the world,
seeking knowledge and adventure in many countries.  Some twelve months
before this time he had arrived in London, intending to visit his
friends in the Isle, and then to go to Virginia to join Captain John
Smith (who was a distant kinsman of the Drurys); but he had been
suddenly struck down by a mysterious disease, and now lay helpless in
an upper room.  On my asking whether the poor fellow would welcome a
visitor, she went to inquire, while I took my meal, and came back with
the message that he would be very glad to receive me.

At first sight my heart warmed to him, though what was the secret of
his charm for me I do not know.  Do we ever know what it is which draws
us toward another?  He had a handsome face, but his eyes only were
remarkable.  The broad brow was crowned with clusters of dark hair;
mouth and chin were hidden under moustachios and beard, but the eyes
glowed.  There was witchery in his smile, as he extended his thin hand,
saying--

"This is a day to be marked with a white stone.  I have often heard of
you, but little expected ever to see you in my den."

I gripped the hand, with a choking in my throat to see such a man a
prisoner, and said--

"If I had known, I would have come earlier."

"I thank Dame Fortune that you have come now," said he.

He had made his poor little room a wonderful place.  On the walls were
many sketches, pencilled from memory chiefly, as I came to know
afterwards, full of life and spirit.  Quaint drawings, the expression
of his humorous fancy, there were also.  A few well-thumbed books in
several languages stood at his bed's head.  On the table lay papers
covered with mathematical studies.  He followed my glance, and said--

"The hours are not so leaden-footed as you might fear.  With books and
pencil and a questioning habit of mind, one need not be idle."

"But accustomed to liberty and travel----" I began.

"And, therefore, with store of remembrances," he interrupted.  "I used
to roam the field and browse; now I lie and chew the cud.  You may
laugh when I tell you that my worst plague is the perpetual swarm of
flies.  At times their buzzing and their touch nearly madden me.  The
idlest, foulest, most impudent and vilest things on earth, no wonder
the Bible ascribes their creation to Beelzebub.  You don't happen to
know what is the proper sacrifice to offer him?  I should make it, if
he would be favourable to me, and remove his creatures from me."

"The dame would prepare you a paper to catch them."

"Don't speak of it!  She did, and the horror of it abides with me.  But
one thing I learned therefrom.  The priests are wrong with their
doctrine of everlasting torment.  Why, I could not endure the miserable
struggles of the most loathsome and detestable and worthless insects.
_A fortiori_."

"Questions of divinity are beyond me," I said, laughing.

"Whereas questions of all sorts are my occupation," he answered.

Then the conversation turned on his travels, and he talked of men and
things in nearly all the countries of Europe.  He seemed to have made
friends wherever he had been, and had something to say of the virtues
of every people.  He had seen with his own eyes and judged for himself,
and spoke with a delightful freshness.  Many a droll prank he had
played in his desire to see things from the inside, here to get into a
mosque, there to penetrate into a brigand's cave, and he told his
escapades briefly and lightly, as I had never heard man speak before in
my life.  Despite my longing to be away to Sandtoft, the time passed
quickly in his company, and we took our luncheon together pleasantly.
But when two o'clock, three o'clock struck, and Drury did not appear, I
grew restless and uneasy, and made some excuse for going out.

"As you will," said he; "but if you want only a vent for your
impatience, pace about, and swear a little.  It is long since I have
had the pleasure to watch a lover."

"And who tells you I am one?"

He laughed as I have never heard another man laugh, softly, musically.

"Oh, my friend, the name is writ all over you.  A blind beggar's card
is not so readable.  Sighs, fits of silence, eager hearkening for means
of flight--a dozen signs make it plain.  And besides, what could take a
wounded man, still ailing no little, across the fen to Sandtoft, of all
places in the world--but Love, the strongest of the most ancient gods,
venerable as Chaos and Mother Earth and the Nether Deep?"

"You speak like a votary," said I.

"Ay, of the god; not, like you, of the priestess.  The deity is one;
his ministrants are many."

To me this was a jangling and jarring note, but there came to my ears
the sound of Dame Drury's voice in grumbling welcome of her husband, so
I bade my new friend "Good day," and hurried downstairs.

I had difficulty in getting the loan of the punt.  Drury had this,
that, and the other to do to-morrow.  There was "a plenty of fowl"
about, which would fetch good prices so early in the season, and he
distrusted my assurance of return that evening; and even hinted doubt
of ever seeing the punt or me again, if he allowed me to take it to
Sandtoft, where "the Dutchees are as mad as bees when their skep has
been upset."  "Would he sell it outright?" I asked, impatient of the
waste of time in wrangling.  No; he wouldn't do that, because the price
of the punt would not cover the loss of time while a new one was being
put together.  "Take any price you please," said I, and at five o'clock
stepped into the punt, and began to pole down stream.  I could not ply
two poles by reason of the weakness of my right arm, so I got forward
but slowly.  Several times I was compelled to use both arms to the
single pole where the water was very shallow, or the weeds grew rank;
and heavy work I found it, so heavy that after an hour's toil, I was
taken with a kind of swimming in the head, and lay down in the bottom
of the punt to rest awhile.  I know not whether I fell asleep or
fainted, but when I came out of slumber or swoon, the light had faded,
and a gentle shower was falling.  I suppose the rain on my face awoke
me.  I pushed on, but so feebly that darkness overtook me before I
reached Sandtoft, for the thickening rainclouds cut off the twilight.
When I came to the settlement I got out at the first convenient spot
for landing, and, having moored the punt, walked slowly and cautiously
along the bank to find the gate.  Suddenly a lantern flashed in my
face, and my arms were seized from behind and pinioned.  My captors
hurried me forward, exchanging a few words in their own language, but
saying nothing to me.

Shortly, I was thrust into a bare room, lighted by a lamp slung from a
hook in the planking overhead, where Vliet and three others sat,
smoking, round a table, on which stood two or three square bottles,
several glasses, and a pitcher of water.  The closeness of the room
with the reek of tobacco and odour of Schiedam was choking and
sickening, and all things began to go round; but I pulled myself
together by strong effort of will, for something warned me that I must
have my wits about me here.  While Vliet and the others talked in
Dutch, one of the men loosed my bonds, and on looking down I saw my
right hand was red, and then felt a slow trickling down the arm.  Now I
understood my faintness.  My wound had broken out again, and loss of
blood had weakened me.

The man who had cut the cord which tied my arms now searched me, as if
he supposed I had weapons hidden under my clothing.  In so doing, he
stripped off my coat, and finding my shirt sleeve soaked in blood,
looked in my face narrowly, and then made some remark to Vliet, which
caused him to take the lantern from one of the men and poke it against
my nose.  He sat down after the inspection, and laughed until his face
grew purple.  Then he poured out a huge glassful of spirit, half of
which he took down at a gulp, and laughed again.  When his fit was
over, I said--

"You recognise me, I believe, Mynherr Vliet?"

He could speak English, I found, though abominably, and with a drunken
stutter.

"Oh yes, mister--devil take your name!  I know you."

"You cannot suppose that I came to Sandtoft with any ill intent."

"By heaven and hell, but I can suppose it, and be sure of it.  Thousand
devils, yes.  You are a spy, a traitor, a Judas."

Then he turned to his men, gabbling fast them in Dutch, finally issuing
an order to one of the men, which he went out to execute.

"These hurts got in defending your people should certify you, M.
Vliet," I said, pointing t my shoulder.

"Ah! you are crafty, Mister-Judas.  You fight a little in the daylight
for us, that you may plot against us in the dark.  You designing devil!"

Although I knew, looking at Vliet's countenance, in which raging hatred
was no less visible than drunkenness, that there was but a step between
me and death, I could not refrain from smiling at the character he gave
me.

"You laugh!  You will look very funny when you are hanged!" he said.

"Be sure of this," I said, speaking slowly, and as plainly as I could,
if perchance some of the Dutchmen, might have English enough to take my
meaning: "if you hang me, you will be hanged, and every man who aids
you."

I saw by the look of one of the fellows that he understood me.  He
whispered to Vliet, who looked up and asked--

"What lie have you to tell why you came here?"

"I came to speak with Doctor Goel and his daughter on private business."

"Under cover of darkness, like a thief!  You creep on the bank at an
unguarded place.  To see the doctor!  Liar!"

"I set out early this morning, but was hindered by the way, and, being
fatigued, I got out of my boat at the first spot I touched."

I saw I had somewhat impressed the one man, for he asked Vliet a
question, in which he mentioned the doctor's name, to which the answer
was a roaring negative; and as he gave it, Vliet took a pistol from a
drawer under the table, and looked at the man threateningly.  Then he
turned to me.

"You are a liar.  Your Lord Sheffield told me how you are cunning.  You
pretend to be a friend of some of our people that you may get knowledge
of our work and our defences.  Then you send your rascals to burn and
destroy, as they did last night.  I hanged two of them, and I will hang
you.  Your English law!--that for it!"--snapping his fingers.  "You are
a rebel against your King; and an English lord will stand my friend."

He swallowed another fiery draught.  I began to think my chance of life
was small.  Vliet might or might not really believe I was the
instigator of attacks on the settlement, but he had the word of
Sheffield for it, and would doubtless have Sheffield's men ready to
swear it, if so it pleased his lordship.  Vliet's real motive could be
well hidden under pretence of summary justice on a public enemy.  There
was, however, a possibility which had not occurred to him; I would put
it to him.  All this passed through my mind before Vliet placed his
empty glass on the table.

"Have you any witnesses to prove that Lord Sheffield told you I raised
rioters against you?  Because if you have not, when you have gratified
him by putting me out of the way, he will not lift a finger to keep you
out of the hangman's clutches.  He will deny that he ever said such
things, and laugh in your face."

For a moment he was staggered, but he was too far gone in liquor to be
able to think.

"Bah! you are a lying devil!" he said.

At this moment, the man whom he had sent out returned to say, as I
understood, that everything was ready.  I took a glass from the table,
rinsed it out with water from the pitcher, filled it again, and drank.
I was inclined to shiver, and the fellow might think I trembled with
fear.  Vliet gave a signal, and I was led out into the open.  Several
men stood by, with flaming torches and cressets in their hands, and by
these lights I saw the gallows overhead, from which a rope dangled.
The noose was slipped over my head.  Some men spat on their hands and
seized the other end of the rope, ready to haul upon it; and I closed
my eyes to pray the publican's prayer, when a loud cry in the clearest
voice in the world roused me.  The crowd parted, and Anna came up to
the foot of the gallows, saying something in Dutch with an imperious
tone.  The men slacked the rope, one of them giving it a turn or two
round a peg in the upright.  Then followed a rapid conversation between
Anna and Vliet, with an accompaniment of murmuring voices from the
bystanders.  I understood no word, but by tones and gestures I knew
that Anna began in indignation and anger, but was driven to pleading.
Then the doctor came up and joined in the talk, addressing himself to
his daughter chiefly.  It ended in Anna allowing Vliet to take her
hand, repeating a sentence which he seemed to dictate.  Anna now made
as if to come to me, but Vliet barred the way; and there ensued an
altercation, which again ended in Vliet having his will.  Anna went
reluctantly away with her father, and I was conducted to the room to
which I had been taken at first.

When we--that is, Vliet and I and his three toping
companions--re-entered the room, one of them handed me my coat, but I
did not put it on, for it was drenched with the rain.  He then found a
horse-blanket, threw it over my shoulders, and offered me the
spirit-bottle.  Seeing him thus far well inclined, I asked for bread,
and he produced some, which I munched before helping myself to a small
quantity of the liquor.  It made me shudder to drink it, but it put
life and warmth into me.  All this time Vliet lay back in his chair in
a sort of stupor, consequent, I imagined, on his having been, in the
fresh air after so much gin-drinking.  After awhile he roused himself
and took a dram.  Then he lighted his pipe and began to talk to his
comrades in a snuffling manner, and thickly.  By-and-by he turned to
me--

"I spare your life; I will not hang you.  Why do you not kneel down and
kiss my boots?  Where is your gratitude for my mercy?"

As I did not answer the inquiry, he continued--

"Stupid pig!  But I will make you speak.  I have given my word to my
wife--my _wife_, you understand--that I will not hang you; but I will
crop your ears and slit your nose.  Thousand devils, yes!  And then I
will kick you out into the fen, and if you die there that will not be
my fault."

"If you want revenge on me, take it like a man," I answered.  "You have
a knife in your belt; give me one and let us fight.  You are half
drunk, but I have only my left arm, and am otherwise weak.  Come, be a
man."

And I stood up, for I desired nothing better than a duel to the death.
Life without Anna was nothing worth, and if I could by any chance kill
him, she would be freed from the loathsome brute.  The other Dutchmen
jabbered among themselves and to Vliet, and, as far as I could
understand, they backed my demand for a fight.  Perhaps they would not
greatly grieve, if the bully got the worst of it.  He scowled savagely
round on us all, poured out more gin and drank it, let his pipe fall to
the floor, drew his knife, and came at me.  But he had drunk too much
to be dangerous.  One blow between the eyes sent him to the ground like
a log, and he lay there senseless.  The friendly Dutchman took me by
the arm and led me to Doctor Goel's house.

CHAPTER XII

Martha opened the door to us so quickly as to give me the notion she
had been waiting behind it in expectation of our coming.  She showed me
into a room which looked wondrous comfortable after the one I had just
left; and a cold chicken, bread, and a bottle of wine were pleasant
things to see, for I had the hunger of a famishing dog.  Anna came in,
and compelled me to sit down to eat and drink, untidy and dirty as I
was, with the horse-blanket round my body.  She would not suffer me to
talk much, and Martha bustled in with fresh supplies until I declared I
could eat no more.  Then the doctor came to examine my arm.  He
whistled as he laid it bare.

"How droll you English are!" he exclaimed.  "To think of using an arm
in this condition!  But, after all, it is fortunate you did."

Then, with much learned language, he endeavoured to explain to me how
well it was that my wound had broken out afresh.  He bathed and
cleansed the arm, anointed and tied it up, talking all the time to Anna
and Martha, who stood by to hand him things he wanted; but I was too
heavy to pay attention, being half asleep before he had done with me.
I felt some surprise at the appearance of Luke on the scene, but he had
me speedily to bed.

Late the next day I awoke, brighter and fresher than I had been for
many days, but exceedingly feeble.  Luke brought me a draught of some
strange kind of beer, which revived me greatly, and when I had taken
it, he told me how he had returned late yesterday from Doncaster with
the physician, and found everybody at Temple Belwood in much trouble
about my disappearance.  No one had surmised I might be gone to
Sandtoft, but Luke naturally guessed my purpose; so, taking pole,
lantern and cleat-boards, he made off to Belshaw, where he heard of my
doings, and struck across the fen in a bee-line for the settlement.  He
had only to make the signals which had been agreed on between him and
Martha, a whistle like that of the grey plover, followed by an owl's
cry, to bring his sweetheart to their trysting place, but was
confounded to learn that nothing had been seen or heard of me at Doctor
Goel's.  Prowling cautiously about, Martha keeping watch, he found the
punt, and having this assurance of my being in the neighbourhood, he
returned to Martha.  As they entered within the palisade through an
opening concealed by a clump of willows, a flare of cressets and
torches showed me and my conductors going from the guard-room to the
gallows, and they hurried to the doctor's house with the news.  What
followed is already written.

When I spoke of going home, the doctor took a tone of authority, and
vowed he would detain me, by force, if need were, until he had
satisfied himself I ran no more danger of losing my arm.  I made no
stout resistance, but despatched Luke to Temple to set my father's mind
at ease, and bring me a change of clothing and other matters of which I
stood in need, and settled myself down in the doctor's household most
contentedly.  A marvellous change had come over me, which may have been
due to the removal of the venom from my blood, as the doctor affirmed,
or to my being under the same roof with Anna, as I inclined to believe.
No one seemed to apprehend further trouble from Vliet, and I began to
doubt whether my experience of the previous evening had been real or
only a nightmare.  Doctor Goel sat in his own room, pipe in mouth, over
leaves and roots and such like rubbish, now and then coming out to ask
me questions, giving as his reason for so doing that I had a quick eye,
and a habit of observation remarkable in one unskilled in the sciences,
but I thought his true intent was to hinder my being alone with his
daughter, albeit there was small chance of that, for Anna had
housewifely duties (or made them), which caused her to be going and
coming continually.  Now it was to make up medicine for her father's
patients; now to confer with Martha about kitchen matters; now to look
out old clothing for some of the poorer sort among the settlers; always
something to break off our converse as I approached the topic nearest
my heart.  So, despairing of a talk with her for the present, I made
bold to interrupt the doctor in his curious pastime.  He bore the
interruption courteously, though he sighed as he put down his glass and
ceased to pore over the stuff on the table.  I asked him whether Vliet
had abandoned his drunken freak at Mistress Goel's intercession.

"Freak?  That is joke, is it not?" he replied.  "It was no joke, Mr.
Vavasour.  Sebastian was enraged by the mischief done on the previous
night, and he would have hanged you, but for my daughter's
intervention.  Oh yes.  Perhaps he would have endangered his own neck.
I know not.  The law appears to be in abeyance in this part of England.
But Sebastian would have taken his chance of that.  It was inconvenient
for you at the time, but what says your proverb?  'All's well that ends
well.'  My daughter was at hand to save your life.  I was at hand to
save your arm.  I have the satisfaction to be of some service to a
gentleman who has laid me under obligation.  And there is now an end to
a misunderstanding between my daughter and her affianced husband.  She
has consented to marriage within three months, and I have some hope of
being permitted to return to my own country by that time.  So 'all's
well,'" the doctor concluded, smiling.

Married within three months!  I wished Luke had lost his way, or Vliet
had been more stubborn.  What was my life worth to me, Anna being lost?
But chained to a drunken ruffian!  Better far, if I had been strangled
last night.  It could not be.  It should not be.

I know not how my outward bearing betrayed my feelings, but the doctor
perceived something of them, for he went on--

"There is a little irregularity, almost impropriety, in what I am about
to say, but there will be mutual advantage, perhaps.  I am aware you
admire my daughter, and imagine yourself in love with her.  Stay:
listen to me for a short time.  Doubtless you would describe your
feeling in stronger terms.  We will say you love her.  Consider, will
you, please, how impossible it is that her father should entertain a
proposal of marriage from you.  Your inheritance of your father's
estate depends on your father's pleasure, if I am rightly informed?"
(Who had informed him? I asked myself, as I nodded.)  "The estate is
heavily burdened, or so I am told?"  Again I nodded, and wondered.
"But, supposing your prospects were as good as they appear to be bad,
could I consent to my daughter's being buried in a half-savage region
like this?  Could I allow her, esteemed as an ornament of the most
intellectual society of Europe, to become the despised associate of fat
farmers' wives, to whom the sale of poultry and butter is the main
business of life, and whose amusements are coarse and frivolous in the
extreme?  It would be an unheard of folly on my part, even if there
were no precontracted arrangement for my daughter's settlement in life.
But it so happens she is affianced to a gentleman of large fortune, who
has shown the sincerity of his attachment by striking proofs" ("And
particularly last night," I murmured to myself), "not the least being
that he has forsaken agreeable scenes and companions to endure exile to
be near the lady of his choice."

I could hold my tongue no longer.

"You have brought Mynherr Vliet into discussion, doctor, so you must
pardon me for asking whether you believe any lady can love the drunken
brute?  And, if not----"

"There is no need to treat the matter hypothetically," the doctor
interrupted.  "I can assure you my daughter has all the affection for
Mynherr Vliet which her betrothed could reasonably look for.  We are
somewhat indelicate to touch on such a subject, but as I desire to
clear away any delusion which may exist in your mind, I give you my
word that any inclination toward yourself which you may have imagined,
was nothing more than a passing sentiment.  Young women of a certain
turn of mind, nourished by poetry and the drama, are apt to entertain a
transient fancy for a handsome young man, encountered in new scenes,
especially when they are somewhat piqued by the supposed desertion of
the accepted lover."

I looked at the old gentleman, who smiled on me benignly, as if
confident in his knowledge of the heart of woman, and wondered whether
he could by any possibility be right.  Or was he deluding himself about
his daughter's happiness, because he longed so much himself to be
restored to home and friends and congenial pursuits?  It might be true
enough that Anna did not really love me, that I could well believe; but
it was incredible she could love a beast like Vliet.  While I sat
silent, word was brought of Vermuijden's arrival, and of his wish to
see the doctor and Anna.  So I was left alone to ruminate.  Some things
which the doctor had said puzzled me not a little.  As for what he had
spoken against the Isle, I cared not a jot, nor was I much troubled
about the low state of my fortune, which, in my youthful confidence, I
hoped to mend in no long time.  Could he be speaking truth when he said
that Anna really chose to become the wife of Vliet?  That was the
question.  I could not but think that her avoidance of me pointed that
way.  And yet, what passed near the gallows looked rather as if she
gave her word to Vliet out of pure desire to save my life.  But that
promise, extorted under threat, and a threat which Vliet himself could
not in his sober senses attempt to justify, could not be held binding.
It was absurd to think it a sacred pledge.  Nor could I believe Anna
light-minded and fickle, even if her father accused her.  Only one
thing was clear to me--that I must have speech with Anna.  While I sat
pondering, I heard a knock at the door, and the buxom Martha came in to
say Luke had returned and awaited my pleasure.  Her bright, honest face
was good to see, and I fell into talk with her.  I asked her whether
she had heard what passed between Mistress Goel and Vliet last evening.

"Nearly all, sir," she answered, "and wished I was a man for the first
time in my life."

"Why so?"

"That I might have the strength to kill him then and there for
torturing the brightest, sweetest lady on earth."

"He demanded a promise that she would marry him within three months,
did he not?"

"Oh yes.  He took no heed of reason or warning.  He said you should
die, whatever might afterwards happen to him, unless she gave him her
word on the spot before witnesses."

"And Doctor Goel can think his daughter will be happy with him!" I said
to myself, in amazement.

"Oh, the doctor!" cried Martha contemptuously.  "He has wasted his
brains on weeds and creeping things, until he has none left to
understand his fellow-creatures with.  He thinks of Sebastian Vliet as
he used to be, before his cheeks were bloated and his hands shaky.
Then the doctor has lost his money, or as good as lost it, in this mad
business, and he wants to make up the loss to my mistress.  He thinks
Vliet has plenty of it, and hasn't sense to see that money melts like
snow in April, when it is in the hands of a drunken gambler.  And that
is what Vliet is.  Every night, when Vermuijden is away, he is toping
and playing--and losing, for the men he plays with know all his tricks
and more.  Then he is rooked by the lord who comes to see him, and by
another rascal who fetches and carries for the lord.  Vliet's money is
going at a great rate.  But what does Vliet matter?"

"He seems to be of some importance, since he has Mistress Goel's word
to marry him, and her father is well pleased it should be so."

"And what does that avail against a gentleman who loves her?  Every
lover I've heard of snapped his fingers at foolish old people, pinked
his rival, and rode off with the lady."

"Unluckily," thought I, "one needs a purse as well as a rapier for
that, and somewhere to ride to."  What I said was: "But the lady must
consent before even the hero of a ballad can run away with her."

"Consent!" repeated Martha.  "And what's a lover good for, if he does
not save her the trouble of consenting, cut all arguments short by
stopping her mouth, and have it out with her parents when the ring is
on her finger and the happy blush on her cheek?  You may think me a
bold hussy to talk so.  But I know what I know.  And my heart is sore
to hear sobbing and praying all last night, and to see the dear angel
with swollen eyelids, and a pitiful quiver on her lips this morning.
One thing is certain, Sebastian Vliet will never call her wife.  If he
escapes drunken surfeit, shooting by the men he bullies, the knife of a
boozing companion, the Almighty's lightning, I'll put rats-bane in his
meat myself."

She looked as if she meant it, her face pale, her eyes glowing.

"Shall I send Luke to you, sir?" she asked in another voice.

Luke had much to tell me, but the sum of it was that my father's
displeasure over my visit to Sandtoft and my continuance there was
great; and Mr. Butharwick had charged Luke to entreat me to return
without delay, the good old man being much alarmed by my father's
anger.  Neither had heard of my narrow escape from the gallows, as I
had forbidden Luke to mention it.

Not until the evening of the next day did I get five minutes talk with
Anna, who avoided me with astonishing skill; but, by Martha's help, I
contrived to meet her as she came out of a house which was used as a
hospital for sick and wounded Dutchmen.  Even then she tried to escape
me, but I would take no nay.  She must go with me where there might be
a talk without interruption, and that was on the river.  When she had
yielded, and we had got into a boat, she began to speak of her hope
that the feud between the Dutch and the Islonians might be abated by a
measure agreed upon at the council held the previous evening.  Large
pay was to be offered to such of the natives as could be induced to
labour in cutting trenches, rearing embankments and carrying material.
If the labour should not be directly profitable, the employment of it
might help toward more amicable feeling.  I suffered her to speak on,
well knowing who had advised this course, until we came to a broad
water with a small bank in mid-stream, on which grew an old birch tree.
I ran the boat close under the tree, gave the painter a twist or two
round an overhanging bough, shipped the oars, and took my turn to speak.

"The questions between Dutch and Islonians will keep, but not the
question between us two.  You know I love you, Anna.  I can't tell you
so in fine language, but never man loved woman more since the beginning
of the world, or ever will to the end of it.  I am a plain, rough
fellow, and I have nothing to offer you but my love--not money, or
land, or rank, or anything; but I will make or cut my way to something,
please God, if you will come to me when I've done it.  I think you love
me, but you have never said so.  Say 'I love you, Frank,' and----"

She stopped my long speech with one word--"Cruel!" and burst into
weeping.

Then I nearly capsized the boat.  It was a slight crazy thing, and my
weight considerable, but I scrambled to her side, and, putting my arm
round her, drew her head on to my breast.  She did not see how narrowly
we escaped an overturn, nor did she resist my embrace, but went on
sobbing, as though her heart would break.

Then I found out that one can be heavenly happy and full of sorrow at
the same time, for every sob of hers seemed to tear my bosom, while I
knew not how to contain my joy.  When she had recovered breath a
little, she made as if to withdraw herself, but that I would not allow.

"But, Frank, I shall be doubly, trebly perjured, and grieve and shame
my father beyond endurance."

"Say 'I love you, Frank,'" I insisted.

At last she did, and hid her blushing face against my breast.  Then I
told her--what I shall not repeat.  And in a great trembling, I gave
her a blundering, clumsy kiss.  How long I should have talked in my
rapture, trying to hearten my love, I know not, but the sun set without
our perceiving it, until the deepening dusk made Anna exclaim about the
time.  So I took the oars and rowed away from the loveliest islet in
the world.  Martha stood at the door, watching for our coming, and as
we entered the house, she seized my hand and lifted it to her lips.

CHAPTER XIII

The doctor had been summoned to a conference with his chief, so I had
hope we might have a long evening to ourselves, but Anna nipped it in
the bud.

"Fortune is kind," said she.  "I will give you something to eat, and
then you must away home."

"Away home?  Why?" I demanded.

"Because my father will be very angry when he knows what we have done."

"The more reason I should stay with you."

"Oh, you stupid Frank!  Do you think he will beat me?  But, if you are
here, he will say things he will one day be sorry for--things you may
find it hard to forgive.  Whereas, if I have him alone, I can coax, or
scold, or cry, as may be needed, and bring him to reason."

"Running away does not suit me," said I.

"Nor would I send you away, if you could do the least good.  There is
nobody to be knocked down or thrown into the river just now; only an
elderly gentleman to be managed.  And there is another at Temple
Belwood impatient to see his son.  Go and do your best with him,
leaving my father to me."

In the end I consented.  I called Luke to prepare things for my going,
and he had to tell me that a tract of the fen from Sandtoft, almost
direct to Belton, had been recently flooded to a depth of two to three
feet by the raising of an embankment for a drain which had been begun.
In a light boat one might cross more easily and quickly than had been
possible heretofore.

"Why not walk on the embankment?" I asked.

It seemed the bank was rough, and there would be awkwardness here and
there in the growing darkness and a rising mist.  So we settled on the
boat as my conveyance.  While we talked, Anna had made haste to provide
supper for me, eager to have me gone, nor would she permit me to linger
over the meal, or afterwards.  I wanted to talk of our future, but she
would not.

"Have you a ninepence?" she asked.  "Rustic lovers break one, do they
not?"

I broke one, and held out the halves to her.

She took one, and said, laughing, "Now we are properly plighted; what
need of more words?  When you bring your token, mine will be ready."

Rosy-red she blushed, as I took her in my arms, and held her against my
quick-beating heart, and joined lip to lip.  But she withdrew herself,
cut short our leave-taking, and dismissed me.

I found Luke waiting for me with the little boat, and stepped in,
bidding him stay at Sandtoft till morning, and bring me word of
Mistress Goel then.  He raised some objection to my going unattended,
but I overruled him, and doubtless the prospect of a longer confab with
Martha disposed him to obedience.  He had put a lighted lantern into
the boat, which would be useful, he reminded me, when I came to the
will-pits.  The will-pits were pools, reputed bottomless, half
surrounded by very old birches, some still green, others fallen and
rotting.  Now the fen was under water, the trees might be plaguy unless
I had a light, for the night was darker than nights are wont to be in
August.

Thanking my good fellow for his care, I bade him good night, and
sculled off rapidly, keeping well away from the embankment, lest there
should be timbers near the foot of it.  When I had gone about a mile,
as I reckoned, I stopped sculling to pick up the lantern, and held it
forward on the lookout for the will-pit trees.  As I did so, I
perceived that the boat drifted backwards and a little toward the
embankment.  How could there be a current in a sheet of standing water?
But a current there certainly was; and running pretty strongly too.
The Dutchmen could not be at work at this time of night, opening the
sluice for any purpose that I could conjecture.  There might be a
defect in the embankment somewhere, a crack which was widening under
pressure of water.  Whatever might be the secret, my best course was to
go an as fast as I could scull; so I took both in hand, pulling with
all my might.  Up to this time I had used only one scull over the
stern, sparing my weaker arm.  Not more than five minutes later the
sculls scraped bottom and the boat stuck fast.  Shipping oars, I leaned
over the side, lantern in hand, and saw there were but a few inches of
water all round the boat.  I had not grounded on a mud-bank, but was
stranded by the draining away of the water!  What to do next was a
question.  If I could wade to the embankment, I could continue my
journey on foot; but that was not to be ventured until I knew the
nature of the ground, for in this part of the fen were many mire-pits,
and to step into one of them meant being sucked down to a horrible
death.  I prodded the soil with a scull, and it went down like a spoon
into porridge.  I was right over a mire-pit.  I tried sculling again,
but that was of no use whatever.  Then I attempted to thrust the boat
forward, but there was nothing to thrust against.  I stood up, holding
the lantern above my head, peering through the mist, and saw a bush
some six or seven yards ahead of me, so there was a bit of solid ground
just beyond reach!  If I had had a coil of rope with me, I might have
thrown a loop into the bush, and so saved myself; but the painter was
the only rope in the boat, and it was not more than six feet long.  The
only thing left for me was to wait as patiently as I could until
morning, when some one might come within hail, or Luke might seek me,
unless by good luck the water should rise again.  'Twas no great
hardship after all: the night was not cold, but a shade chilly with the
mist.  As I came to this conclusion, I was startled by something which
whizzed over my head and fell with a splash and a soft thud some yards
beyond the boat.  Somebody must be throwing from the embankment, and at
me apparently.  My lantern must assist his aim, so, not wishing to
extinguish it, having no means of relighting it, I wrapped a thick
neckerchief I wore over the horn, and stowed it in the bow.  While I
did this another stone crashed into the boat with such force that I
judged it was hurled from a sling.  Other stones followed in swift
succession, but not more than one in three or four hit the boat; but
one struck me such a thump on the buttock as to set me thinking what
the consequence would be of receiving another blow like it in a more
vital part.

I could not devise any kind of protection at the moment, but it
occurred to me that a little dodge might puzzle my enemy.  I pulled up
one of the thwarts with no great effort, for the little craft was old
and rotten, took off my coat to hide my operations from the enemy, cut
a bit of the painter, and lashed the lantern to the thwart, and set it
afloat on the water, trusting to the chance that it might drift away.
I placed it with the horn on the side from the embankment, hoping it
might go a little way before my assailant caught sight of it.  To my
great relief it glided gently off, not rounding until it had gone, as
nearly as I could guess, some twenty yards.  It drew his volleys for a
while, and then it vanished, though whether he struck it, or it toppled
over by chance, I knew not.  While his attention was thus diverted from
me, I had time to think what to do in case he contrived to discover my
whereabouts again, which I was sanguine enough to consider unlikely.
In this I was mistaken, my enemy was not to be so easily beaten.  But I
turned the temporary respite to the best advantage I could think of by
tearing up the other thwart, so as to get room to stretch myself in the
bottom of the boat, and rolling to one side, depressing the gunnel
nearly to the surface of the water, thus shielding myself from hurt as
long as the crazy boards might hold against his battery.

I had been none too quick.  A faint red gleam began to show through the
mist, and having some notion of what the enemy might be about, I
slightly enlarged the aperture of a gaping seam, and looked toward the
embankment.  A fire had been kindled, and the man who had lighted it
stood full in the glare of it.  As I had supposed, the man was Vliet.
He had a gun hanging at his back and a sling in his hand.  Doubtless he
had seen my departure from Sandtoft, pulled up the sluice-gate to let
off the water, and followed me along the embankment.  Chance had
favoured him by stranding me on a spot from which I could not move.  He
had only to knock my boat to pieces, or even to make it unfloatable,
and my fate was sealed.  He could return to close the sluice, and in a
few hours the water would cover both the boat and me.  That was pretty
safe, if he did no more than smash the boat.  He would try to do more
than that, I had no doubt.  I could do nothing.  To attempt to crawl
over the slime would be to seek death.  I must stick to the boat as
long as the planks held together, hiding myself, if possible, and
making no sound.  He might imagine that I had escaped, or that I was
dead, if I made no sign.

As I watched his doings, he gave me a ray of hope.  He lifted a bottle
to his mouth, and he did not tilt it high.  How fervently I hoped that
he had enough to get drunk on!  His next move showed he was not by any
means drunk at present.  He walked away from the fire, often stopping
down, as I supposed, to pick up stones.  He evidently meant to spare
powder and shot as long as he could, and to do his work as silently as
possible.  When he came back to the fire, he lighted a torch and
descended the embankment, looking carefully, at the soil of the fen, as
if he sought to get nearer to the boat, but he had too much prudence to
venture.  Then he ascended the bank and resumed his sling.  He had
found where the boat lay, for he managed to hit about once in three
times.  His aim was so bad that it would have been laughable under
other circumstances, but I had no inclination to laugh, as plank after
plank cracked and started.  I turned over, and lay with my back to him,
grinding my teeth with rage to be so ignominiously stoned and so
utterly helpless.  At length, perhaps after an hour of continuous
firing, came a pause, and I turned over to look at my enemy.  It was
only too easy to see him through gaping seams and holes broken in the
planking.  He sat between the fire and me, so that his every movement
was clearly discernible.  If I had had a gun I could have shot him
wherever I chose.  He rubbed his right shoulder with his left hand, as
if it ached with his exercise.  Then he drank from his bottle, tilting
it higher this time.  He sat so long that I began to hope he imagined
he had made an end of me; but by-and-by he rose to his feet, took his
gun in hand, and prepared to fire.  I rolled to the very edge of the
gunnel now, and the water and ooze flowed softly in on me.  It was well
I did, for Vliet's aim with a gun was another matter than his aim with
a sling.  Shot after shot struck and riddled the heap of boards which
had been a boat, but as by a miracle, shot after shot missed me.  Vliet
plainly believed that there could be no one in the wreck except a dead
man, for he began to sing.  Never have I listened to music, even the
best, with more pleasure than I had in hearing that thick and drunken
voice yelling a tuneless song!  I watched him finish his bottle,
scatter the fire, and heard by the diminishing noise that he was going
back to Sandtoft.

It was not until he had gone, that I knew how cold and wet I was, and
then discovered that the half of the boat on which I lay had sunk into
the mire.  At first I fancied that I had to do with nothing more
serious than the ooze, which had flowed in when I lay on the edge of
the boat; but by dipping my fingers straight down into the mud, I found
that the pit was swallowing my raft and me slowly, but surely, at the
rate, it might be, of a barleycorn a minute.  I could not be sure of
that, for I had no certainty about time.  The one certainty was that
the mud was gaining on me.  I feared to move about, lest my weight
should make worse of the wreck; but I could not lie still in the dark
to be steadily sucked under, so I rolled over in a very gingerly
manner, and by degrees pressed down the holed and shattered planking on
to the surface of the mire, thus upheaving the side on which I had
before lain.  For a wonder it did not go utterly to pieces, and I lay
on it some time before it began to be overflowed by the mud, when I
turned gently over to the other side which had been raised by my
weight.  This gave way more quickly than before, but it held me up for
perhaps ten minutes, and then I repeated the performance, and continued
this kind of see-saw for, I should think, an hour or more, but on the
seventh or eighth turning, with a great cracking, the one side parted
from the other, the line of breakage being not far from the keel, as I
made out by groping.  For a second or two, I fell into despair, but
soon perceived that my chances of escape were perhaps improved by the
splitting of the boat.  Kneeling on the less broken half, with my legs
as far apart as I could stretch them, I tried to pull the other half
upwards and forwards.  It was hard work, for the mire held it fast, and
my half sank at least half a foot while I tugged at the other, but at
length I had the mass in front of me, and crawled on to it.  My arms
felt as if they were pulled half out of their sockets, but there was no
time to rest.  I must try to get the piece of the wreck on which I had
knelt out of the mire and before the other.  This proved a tougher job
still.

Before the thing was done, I was up to the middle of my thighs in the
pit, and almost spent, but done it was at last, and as I pushed it
forward, it encountered some solid obstacle.  There was dry ground, or
a tree, not more than three yards or so ahead of me.  That assurance
gave me the strength of madness.  I dragged myself a little out of the
mud, and threw myself on the piece of wreckage with such force, that it
sank beneath my weight so deeply that I was swallowed up in the mire,
shoulder high.  But the other end of my raft remained firm, and by
clutching, writhing, pulling, I got inch by inch out of the slough,
and, while doing so, to my unspeakable joy I perceived a faint glimmer
of dawn.  That showed me a down-drooping branch of birch above my head,
which at last I reached, and clung to it trembling lest it should
break.  It held, and by its aid I gained solid ground.  I threw my arms
round the trunk of the tree as though it had been a human friend,
laughing and sobbing in a breath.  Then I vowed Sebastian Vliet should
answer to me for his dastard trick before he was many hours older.
After that, I remembered to thank God for my deliverance, and fell
asleep over my thanksgiving.  I must have slept an hour or more, for
the sun was above the horizon when I awoke cold and shivering.

It would be wearisome to relate how I got home, for nothing happened by
the way; though I have the keenest recollection of the effort it cost
to walk the two miles, which were as long as twenty, my clothing being
caked with mire even to my shirt, and my limbs shaking with cold and
exhaustion.

But by the usual breakfast hour I had eaten and drunk, washed and
changed, and was my own man again.  I had need of all my strength, for
my father came into the room with suppressed fury in face and voice.

"At last you have condescended to honour me," he began.  "Have you come
to say you will save Temple from the hammer, or that you choose beggary
for yourself and disgrace for your father?  Quick: let me know your
mind."

"If you mean will I wed a girl I do not love----"

I was answering, when my father burst out--

"Bah!  Do not sicken me with play-actor rubbish.  Are you going to act
like a man of sense and of honour, or like an idiot?"

"I will not offer marriage to Mistress Ryther," I replied.

"Then begone out of the house," he thundered, "and let me never see
your fool-face again, and if there is anything in a father's curse, may
it cling to you as long as you live."

At this moment, Mr. Butharwick entered the room with a feeble step.  He
stretched out his hands imploringly to my father, and said in a voice
not his own--

"My honoured patron, my friend and benefactor," and something more
which was indistinguishable, for his mouth began to work strangely.
Then he staggered, and would have fallen but my father caught him in
his arms, and laid him on the couch.

I called for help, and servants came hurrying into the room, to whom my
father gave order about fetching a surgeon, and this, that, and the
other, adding--

"Bid Savage, the attorney, come to me without delay."  Then, turning to
me, he said: "Will you go, or must I have you thrown out by the
servants?"

My dear old tutor's face looked my way, and I thought I saw a
beseeching in his eyes, but I could do nothing.  I went out, haunted by
the drawn face and the wistful eyes, and the face of my father hard as
if cut in marble.  It was my last sight of both of them.

Luke met me in the hall, and I bade him follow me to my room.  He had a
letter for me, the first I had received from my love, full of courage
and cheer, which just then I sadly needed.  Luke told me the doctor was
transported with rage on hearing his daughter avow her fixed
determination to abide by her promise to me, so that even Martha was
terrified by his furious wrath.  And my true-hearted love could write
to sustain my nagging spirits when she was in such trouble herself!
Everybody had been at a loss to understand Vliet, who had tried to
soothe the doctor, affecting to think Mistress Goel would be in a more
compliant temper by-and-by.  I understood him well enough.  The
scoundrel was confident he had put me out of the way: he should soon
know better.  It eased my heart a little to write him a few lines, in
which I challenged him to meet me in open fight, and declared I would
hunt him down like a verminous beast if he was too cowardly to meet me
fairly.  This I gave to Luke to be delivered into Vliet's hand without
loss of time.

After I had told Luke of my last night's adventure, to which he
listened with wide eyes and some muttered curses, he cried out--

"From this time forrard, Measter Frank, I'se stick to you like your
shadder."

"That is just what you will not do, my good fellow, for I am an outcast
from my father's house; and where I may go, or what I shall do is all
in the dark to me, except that I kill Vliet, if he does not kill me,
to-day or to-morrow."

"Wherever you go, I go too," answered my man.

"That is quite impossible, Luke," said I.  "We must part for the good
reason that I have not five pounds in the world, and that won't keep
me, to say nothing of a serving man, for many days.  Besides," I added,
"you can be much more useful to me by staying at Temple.  I may want a
friend in the house, and I want above all things, some trusty friend to
watch over the safety of Mistress Goel, when I may be far away.  You
can come and go between this and Sandtoft, and I shall be sure that
whatever two true souls can do for her will be done."

We argued and wrangled for a good while, Luke urging everything he
could think of to induce me to take him with me, but I would not give
way.  He took my instructions sorrowfully, not to say sulkily, as to
what was to be done with my belongings, the main of which I desired him
to carry to the vicarage at Crowle, with a message to my aunt.  Just
then I could not face the dear lady, or bear her exclamations and
expostulations, nor did I incline to see my friend Portington.  I had
resolved to spend the time between now and my duel with Vliet at
Belshaw, in the company of my new friend, because there could be no
heartrending talk with him, and also because I hoped to learn from him
how to join Captain John Smith, which appeared to me the likeliest
means of earning my living, with some chance of cutting my way to
fortune.  For the few days which I expected to pass in the
neighbourhood, I meant to ride Trueboy, and afterwards to sell him to
replenish my purse.  These things being arranged, I appointed a place
where Luke was to meet me the next evening, and went to the stables.  I
hoped to get away quietly, but it was not to be.  Almost every servant
in and about the house, down to the kitchen wench and the youngest
stable-boy, had assembled to say good-bye to me, the women crying, and
the men murmuring hoarsely what they meant for encouragement.  They
would have unmanned me, but for Trueboy.  He, having had far too little
exercise lately, was as frisky as an unbroken colt, rearing, and
lashing out his heels in sheer delight, so the little crowd scattered
right and left, and I mounted and rode off at full gallop across the
park, the shortest cut to Belshaw.

CHAPTER XIV

"I suppose Vliet will be blotted out of existence, if he be fool enough
to meet you, which I doubt.  But, my friend, you are of a charming
simplicity.  We are not an extremely law-abiding people in the Isle,
but there is a constable of the wapentake; there are justices of the
peace.  Would it have been very troublesome to send the Dutchman to
Lincoln Castle to await his trial for attempted murder?  He would have
been out of the way for a time, at any rate, and there is just a chance
he might have been hanged.  You prefer to give him the opportunity to
shoot you, or to devise some other means of killing you more convenient
to himself.  Or, if you should kill him, the law may be set in motion
against you, probably by the gentleman who objects to you as a
son-in-law.  If you will be advised by me, you will retract your cartel
of defiance, and take steps to commit Mynherr Vliet to gaol."

So spoke my friend Drury, when I told him how matters stood with me.
One half of my mind held him wise, but that did not in the least quench
my desire to settle my quarrel with Vliet man to man.  I have often
done things, knowing all the while I was a fool for doing them; my
difficulty not being lack of wisdom (for my friends have always been
ready to supply me with the best) so much as want of liking for it.

While I waited at Belshaw for the answer to my challenge, my friend
gave me many particulars of the history of Captain John Smith, whom he
thought one of the greatest men in the world, although the captain was
his cousin.

"He is now in London," said John, "and in hope to lead another
expedition.  He will snap you up at a word.  A tall fellow who has more
lives than a cat, and relishes fighting better than his victuals, will
suit him to admiration."

"There, indeed, you mistake me," I protested.  "I am no lover of
brawls, and would go far to avoid one."

"But not so far as to the house of a justice of the peace--eh?"
answered John, with his low, pleasant laugh.  "I have been wondering
why you hate Lord Sheffield so cordially."

"Oh! that is a very old story.  His younger brother--younger by nine or
ten years--and I were playmates.  He was a tender little chap, and I
was a big, hulking boy; but I was his squire, ready almost to be his
dog, partly because he was as delicate as a girl, and partly because he
was of so fine a spirit.  Child as he was, he could make me laugh or
cry by the music he drew out of his fiddle.  What was the driest
taskwork to me was play to him, and while I slowly spelled out a story
of Greece or Rome, he was somehow rapt away, and seeing it all enacted
before his eyes.  And he told tales of his own making such as I never
heard or read.  But I cannot describe him.  His elder brother used to
torment him with the devil's own cunning.  Edmund was feeble in body
and timid, but he scorned to be a coward.  His chief pride he took in
that his father had received the Garter for his courageous exploits
against the Spanish Armada, and he would not own to fear, even when he
was ready to die of it.  Sheffield practised on the child's pride and
terror, endlessly.  An old mastiff, chained in the courtyard, was so
savage (with some kind of pain, poor beast, I doubt not) that the
kennel-man feared to deal with it.  One day Sheffield dared his little
brother to go up to the dog, swearing him a coward if he did not.
Edmund went within the reach of the mastiff, and fell down in a faint.
The dog was nobler than the brother, and did not touch the child.  At
another time, Sheffield tied a rope round Edmund's body and lowered him
far down the deepest well, threatening to let go the rope, and paying
it so fast as to terrify the boy into thinking he had done so."

"But why, in Heaven's name, didn't the little one appeal to his father?"

"He would have died sooner.  He was drawn up from the well more dead
than alive, and was ill for days after, but he never breathed a word
about the torture he had been put to, except to me."

"But why didn't you acquaint his lordship with what went on?  You
couldn't be afraid of the big brother."

"I was afraid of my hero's contempt.  He would have thought me
dastardly, traitorous, I know not what, if I had told tales of the
cruelty he was too proud to complain of himself.  But there came an end
to the business, and I made it.  Looking for Edmund one day, I went
into an outhouse, where Sheffield had the little fellow across his
knee, held fast as in a vice, and the demon was pinching his tender
body with slow, screwing pinches.  Edmund was writhing and moaning.  I
didn't stop to think, but struck the tormentor's cheek as hard as I
could with my fist, and the next instant we were going at each other
with all our might.  I was only a lad of fourteen and he a man of
twenty-four, but I was tall and strong for my age.  He knocked me down
pretty often, but I was up like a cat and flew at him again, until,
either in fear lest he should kill me, or in fear for himself, he
opened the door and ran.  Shortly afterward, as Edmund led me across
the courtyard--for both my eyes were puffed up so that I could not
see--it chanced that the earl met us, and would have an account of what
I had been doing.  Nothing loth, I answered his questions, and he heard
enough to make him careful Edmund suffered no more at the hands of his
brother.  The dear little fellow died a year later.  I could tell you
more, but do you wonder I hate my Lord Sheffield?"

"No," answered John.  "I don't wonder at that.  I am inclined to wonder
that he is still alive."

"I have had very little to do with him since Edmund's death.  The earl,
who used to have a kindness for me, seemed to shun the sight of me from
that time forward."

In the afternoon Luke appeared, grinning as he entered the room.

"What tickles you so much?" I asked.

"That Dutchman," answered Luke, laughing outright.  "Was as scart as if
'a'd seen a bogle, when 'a oppened t' letter, and said sommat in 's own
lingo, swearing like.  Asked me when you gev it me.  So I says, 'This
morning, when 'a came down to breakfass.'  Then 'a stared at me with
his mouth as wide as a church door, and I stared at him as simple as a
sheep."

We laughed, and I opened Vliet's letter.  He had written in Dutch for
some unimaginable reason, perhaps because he was puzzled and shaken out
of his wits.

Drury reached out his hand.  "I have some acquaintance with the
tongue," he said.

Vliet accepted my challenge, and would meet me the next evening at six
o'clock at a spot about three-quarters of a mile from my present
lodging, where we might be free from interruption.  He would come
alone.  He chose the sword as his weapon, and sent me its length.

From time to time between the coming of Vliet's letter and the hour
appointed, Drury expressed apprehension of some treachery on the part
of the Dutchman, begging me not to go alone, and to have some other
weapon besides my sword, but I smiled at his fears.  As I said again
and again, Vliet could not bring accomplices with him without my seeing
them on the fen, and I meant to keep a good look-out.  I would not take
Luke with me, for I had other occasion for his service, namely, to go
with a letter to Anna, in which I asked her to meet me on the following
day.  John shook his head over what he deemed reckless folly, and I
laughed the more, though I felt sorry his long confinement to his couch
had made him so timorous.

About five o'clock on Sunday evening, I ascended the rising ground
behind the tavern, and watched for Vliet's coming, which was not long
delayed.  He came alone in a punt, and as far as I could see without
other arms than his sword.  I had pistols in my belt.  I met him at the
little wharf, and after salutations, we walked in silence to the
ground, he making no remark on my firearms.

The country had never seemed more lovely to my thinking than it did on
this still August evening.  Ridges and islets, purple with ling, stood
out of the green and golden brown of the fen; water-lilies, yellow and
white, spotted the surface of the water, and patches of the blue
trumpets of the gentian brightened the edges of the marsh.  Young
broods of duck and moorhen were playing and splashing near the shelter
of the reed-beds, which swayed gently under the evening breeze, and the
sound of Belton church-bells came, now loudly, now softly, with the
rising and falling of the light wind.  'Twas not a suitable time or
place for killing a man, methought, as I looked at the landscape, but a
glance at Vliet changed my feeling.  As for being killed myself, that
never came into my mind.  The road wound to the right, and again to the
right, out of view of Belshaw, to a sort of natural terrace, which
would fit our business.  Above us on one side the ground sloped
gradually upward to an oak plantation, thirty yards away; below the
terrace there lay a sharp incline which ended at the margin of the fen.

"Dis vill do--dis vill do!" shouted Vliet at the top of his voice; and
as I began a remonstrance at the noise he made, three horsemen rode
swiftly out of cover of the plantation, one straight toward us, and the
other two in a more curving course, as if to cut off my retreat.

"Yield, or we fire," said one of them.

I answered by drawing pistol out of belt, and shooting at the villain
who had laid this ambush for me, but I missed him.  Then I flew up the
bank to an old tree, the nearest of the plantation.  If I could get my
back against it, there was a bare chance I might keep them all at bay
for a short time, and the sound of firing might bring me help from
Belshaw.  I gained the tree, my pursuers close on my heels, but not
firing.  As I turned to face them, my foot slipped on one of the roots,
and I fell backward against the tree with some force.  With a great
crunch, the bark gave way, and back I went into the hollow, jammed
tight from rump to knees.  Before I could work myself free, the men
were on me.  They disarmed, bound, and gagged me in no time, and then
fell into great laughter at the ease of the capture.  All three wore
short cloaks with high collars, and had pulled their hats down over
their brows, but I saw that one was Sheffield's big negro.  Vliet lay
down and roared with glee, and ended by rolling over near to me and
spitting in my face.  One of the others gave him a kick in the ribs,
calling him "dunghill cock" in a voice I did not know.  Vliet jumped to
his feet, and drew his sword, but a cudgel fell like lightning on his
wrist, disabling him for the present.

"No more waste of time," said he who had struck the blow.  "You,
Mynherr, will go north as far as Belton, and home by your new
embankment.  If you are questioned, you will say that you met Mr.
Vavasour here, intending to fight him, but before you could draw sword,
he rushed up the hill, and disappeared in the plantation."

"Backside first," one of the others threw in, laughing.

The first speaker continued, "He disappeared, and you could find no
trace of him.  It is a short story, and can be remembered, even when
one is muddled with strong liquor.  If you don't stick to it, you will
be dead meat soon.  Now, stir your stumps."

When Vliet had gone out of hearing, two of the men carried me through
the plantation, on the other side of which ran the high-road.  Here
waited a fourth man in charge of a horse and cart.  They bundled me
into the cart, throwing sacks over me.  I heard the man who had done
all the talking say, "Two within hail in front, and one behind.
Remember, you have nothing to do with me unless I whistle twice."  So
the director was my charioteer.  By-and-by the jogging of the cart
shook a piece of sacking from my face, and I could see the driver, a
common labourer by his dress, with a fringe of ragged beard all round
his face.  He sat slouching forward, staring vacantly before him, as
stupid as any lout in the Isle.  As we rumbled through Epworth some one
accosted him.

"Cartin' o' Sunday!  What hasta getten theer?"

"Nobbut a half deead mon from Keadby for Doctor Hoggatt," was the
reply.  "Ah'd keeap ma distance, if ah wor theea, fur 'a smells loike
t' plague tu meea."

The hint sufficed to make the inquirer sheer off quickly.

When we had passed through Epworth, we rattled on faster, and in half
an hour arrived at the gates opening into the grounds of Melwood
Priory, a house which had had many tenants since the Carthusians were
driven out of it, and all unlucky.  It had stood unoccupied now for ten
or a dozen years, falling into decay, and was believed to be haunted by
the ghost of Matthew Meekness, the last lord prior.  Few persons cared
to enter its precincts alone, even by day, and fewer still would dare
to enter them by night.  My conductors had chosen a very safe place of
concealment for whatever crime they had in view.  We entered the
avenue, or rather what had been one, for all the trees had been cut
down long ago, and the cart bumped and joggled along the unkempt road
until it came to a stand at the main entrance.  My captors pulled me
out of the cart, carried me in, and down some steps into a large,
vaulted chamber, which, as I saw by the light of a fire of logs blazing
on the hearth, showed such signs of occupation as a table, a chair,
several stools, a rough couch, pots and pans on a shelf, and other odds
and ends.  Here they laid me down on the floor and left me.  I heard
coming and going, slamming of doors, shouts of laughter, and supposed
my captors were telling their story to comrades, but I could not think.
My head throbbed fearfully, and my limbs were cramped and cut by the
ropes with which I was bound.  In a while, the driver of the cart came
in, attended by the Moor, carrying a lamp, which he placed on the
table.  The driver knelt down beside me.  His fringe of beard had gone,