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Stephen Of Steens; A Tale Of Wild Justice, a fiction by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
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Chapter 15 |
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_ CHAPTER XV He served the supper himself, explaining Jane's absence by a lie. Towards midnight the volunteers began to arrive, dropping in by ones and twos; and by four in the morning, when Roger withdrew to his attic to snatch a few hours' sleep, the garrison seemed likely to resume its old strength. The news of the widow's capture exhilarated them all. Even those who had come dejectedly felt that they now possessed a hostage to play off, as a last card, against the law. That night Roger Stephen, in his attic, slept as he had not slept for months, and awoke in the grey dawn to find Trevarthen shaking him by the shoulder. "Hist, man! Come and look," said Trevarthen, and led him to the window. Roger rubbed his eyes, and at first could see nothing. A white sea-fog covered the land and made the view a blank; but by-and-by, as he stared, the fog thinned a little, and disclosed, two fields away, a row of blurred white tents, and another row behind it. "How many do you reckon?" he asked quietly. "Soldiers? I put 'em down at a hundred and fifty." "And we've a bare forty." "Fifty-two. A dozen came in from Breage soon after five. They're all posted." "A nuisance, this fog," said Roger, peering into it. Since the first assault he and his men had levelled the hedge across the road, so that the approach from the fields lay open, and could be swept from the loopholes in the courtlage wall. "I don't say that," answered Trevarthen cheerfully. "We may find it help us before the day is out. Anyway, there's no chance of its lifting if this wind holds." "I wonder, now, the fellow didn't try a surprise and attack at once." "He'll summon you in form, depend on't. Besides, he has to go gently. He knows by this time you hold the woman here, and he don't want her harmed if he can avoid it." "Ah!" said Roger. "To be sure--I forgot the woman." While the two men stood meditating a moan sounded in the room below. It seemed to rise through the planking close by their feet. Trevarthen caught Roger by the arm. "What's that? You haven't been hurting her? You promised--" "No," Roger interrupted, "I haven't hurt her, nor tried to. She's sick, maybe. I'll step down and have a talk with Jane." On the landing outside Mrs. Stephen's room the two men shook hands, and Trevarthen hurried down to go the round of his posts in the out-buildings. They never saw one another again. Roger hesitated a moment, then tapped at the door. After a long pause Jane opened it with a scared face. She whispered with him, and he turned and went heavily down the stairs; another moan from within followed him. At the front door Malachi met him, his face twitching with excitement. The Sheriff (said he) was at the gate demanding word with Master Stephen. For the moment Roger did not seem to hear. Then he lounged across the courtlage, fingering and examining the lock of his musket, with ne'er a glance nor a good morning for the dozen men posted beside their loopholes. Another half-dozen waited in the path for his orders; he halted, and told them curtly to march upstairs and man the attic windows, whence across the wall's coping their fire would sweep the approach from the fields; and so walked on and up to the gate, on which the Sheriff was now hammering impatiently. "Who's there?" he demanded. "Are you Roger Stephen?" answered the Sheriff's voice. "Roger Stephen of Steens--ay, that's my name." "Then I command you to open to me, in the name of King George." "What if I don't?" "Then 'twill be the worse for you and the ignorant men you're misleading. I'll give you five minutes to consider your answer." "You may have it in five seconds. What you want you must come and take. Anything more?" "Yes," said the Sheriff, "I am told that you have taken violent possession of the plaintiff in this suit. I warn you to do her no hurt, and I call upon you to surrender her." Roger laughed, and through the gate it sounded a sinister laugh enough. "I doubt," said he, "that she can come if she would." "I warn you also that any agreement or withdrawal of claim which you may wrest from her or force her to sign will under the circumstances be not worth the paper 'tis written on." Roger laughed again. "I never thought of such a thing. I leave such dirty tricks to your side. Go back with ye, Master Sheriff, and call up your soldiers, if you must."
But the momentary dismay of the main body had been fatal. Each man at the loopholes had two guns, and each pair an attendant to reload for them. Before the soldiers could pull themselves together a second volley poured from the loop-holes, and again three men dropped. One or two belated shots followed the volley, and a moment later the captain in command, as he waved his men forward, let drop his sword, clenched his fists high above him, and fell headlong in the roadway across their feet. Instinct told them that the course to which he had been yelling them on was, after all, the safest--to rush the road between two volleys and get close under the wall. Once there, they were safe from the marksmen, who could not depress their guns sufficiently to take aim. And so, with a shout, at length they carried the road; but too late to recover the first ladder, the foot of which swung suddenly high in air. This ladder was a tall one, overtopping the wall by several feet; and Pascoe, remembering the wain-rope lying beneath the ash tree, had run for it, cleverly lassoed its projecting top, and, with two men helping, jerked it high and dragged it inboard with a long slide and a crash. There were now about a hundred soldiers at the foot of the wall, and the fate of Steens appeared to be sealed, when help came as from the clouds. Throughout the struggle forms had been flitting in the rear of the soldiers. The fog had concealed from the Sheriff that he was fighting, as his predecessor had fought, within a ring of spectators many hundreds in number; and to-day not a few of these spectators had brought guns. It is said that in the hottest of the fray Trevarthen broke out from the rear of Steens and marshalled them. Certain it is that no sooner were the soldiers huddled beneath the wall than a bullet sang down the road from the north, then another, then a volley; and as they faced round in panic on this flanking fire, another volley swept up the road from the south and took them in the rear. They could see no enemy. Likely enough the enemy could not see them. But, packed as they were, the cross-fire could not fail to be deadly. The men in the courtlage had drawn back towards the house as the ladder began to sway above the wall. They waited, taking aim, but no head showed above the coping. They heard, and wondered at, the firing in the road: then, while still they waited, one by one the ladders were withdrawn. The soldiers, maddened by the fire, having lost their captain, and being now out of hand, parted into two bodies and rushed, the one up the other down the road, to get at grips with their new assailants. But it is ill chasing an invisible foe, and a gun is easily tossed over a hedge. After pursuing maybe for quarter of a mile they met indeed two or three old men, innocent-looking but flushed about the face, sauntering towards the house with their hands in their pockets; and because their hands when examined were black and smelt of gunpowder, these innocent-looking old men went back in custody to the post where the bugles were sounding the recall. The soldiers turned back sullenly enough, but presently quickened their pace as a yellow glare in the fog gave the summons a new meaning. Their camp was ablaze from end to end! This was a bitter pill for the Sheriff. He had come in force, determined to prove to the rebels that they had a stronger man than Sir James Tillie to deal with, and he had failed even more ignominiously. He cursed the inhabitants of West Cornwall, and he cursed the fog; but he was not a fool, and he wasted no time in a wild-goose chase over an unknown country where his men could not see twenty yards before them. Having saved what he could of the tents and trodden out the embers, he consulted with the young lieutenant now in command and came to two resolutions: to send to Pendennis Castle for a couple of light six-pounders, and, since these could not arrive until the morrow, to keep the defence well harassed during the remaining hours of daylight, not attempting a second assault in force, but holding his men in shelter and feeling around the position for a weak point. The day had passed noon before these new dispositions were planned. Posting ten men and a corporal to guard the charred remains of the camp, and two small bodies to patrol the road east and west of the house and to keep a portion of the defence busy in the courtlage, the lieutenant led the remainder of his force through an orchard divided from the south end of the house by a narrow lane, over which a barn abutted. Its high blank wall had been loopholed on both floors and was quite unassailable, but its roof was of thatch. And as he studied it, keeping his men in cover, a happy inspiration occurred to him. He sent back to the camp for an oil-can and a parcel of cotton wadding, and by three o'clock had opened a brisk fire of flaming bullets on the thatch. Within twenty minutes the marksmen had it well ignited. Behind and close above it rose a gable of the house itself, with a solitary window overlooking the ridge, and their hope was that the wind would carry the fire from one building to another. Thatch well sodden with winter's rain does not blaze or crackle. Dense clouds of smoke went up, and soon small lines of flame were running along the slope of the roof, dying down, and bursting forth anew. By the light of them, through the smoke, the soldiers saw a man at the window above, firing, reloading, and firing again. They sent many a shot at the window; but good aim from their cover was impossible, and the loopholes of the barn itself spat bullets viciously and kept the assault from showing its head. The man at the window--it was Roger Stephen--exposed himself recklessly even when the fire from the loopholes ceased, as to the lieutenant's surprise it did quite suddenly. For a minute or so the thatch burned on in silence. Then from within the building came the sound of an axe crashing, stroke on stroke, upon the posts and timbers of the roof. Some madman was bringing down the barn-roof upon him to save the house. The man at the window went on loading and firing. The soldiers themselves held their breath, and almost let it go in a cheer when, with a rumble and a thunderous roar, the roof sank and collapsed, sending up one furious rush of flame in a column of dust. But as the dust poured down the flame sank with it. The house was saved. They looked about them and saw the light fading out of the sky, and the lieutenant gave the order to return to camp. The man at the window sent a parting shot after them. And with that ended the great assault, but scarcely had the Sheriff reached camp when a voice came crying after him through the dusk, and, turning, he spied a figure waving a white rag on a stick. The messenger was old Malachi, and he halted at a little distance, but continued to wave his flag vigorously. "Hey?" bawled back the Sheriff. "What is it?" "Flag o' truce!" bawled Malachi in answer. "Master's compliments, and if you've done for the day he wants to know if you've such a thing as a surgeon." "Pretty job for us if we hadn't," growled the Sheriff. "I keep no surgeons for lawbreakers. How many wounded have you?" "Ne'er a man amongst us, 'cept poor Jack Trevarthen, and he's dead. 'Tisn' for a man, 'tis for a woman. Mistress Stephen's crying out, and the master undertakes if you send a surgeon along he shall be treated careful." So back with Malachi went the regimental surgeon, who had done his work with the wounded some hours before. Roger Stephen met him at the side wicket, and, leading him indoors, pointed up the stairs. "When 'tis over," said he, "you'll find me yonder in the parlour." He turned away, and upstairs the young doctor went. Roger entered the parlour and shut the door behind him. The room was dark and the hearth cold; but he groped for a chair and sat for two hours alone, motionless, resting his elbows on the table and his chin on his clasped, smoke-begrimed hands. He was listening. Now and again a moan reached him from the room overhead. From the kitchen came the sound of voices cursing loudly at intervals, but for the most part muttering-- muttering. . . The cursers were those who came in from their posts to snatch a handful of supper, and foraged about in larder and pantry demanding to know what had become of Jane. Jane was upstairs. . . The mutterers were men who had abandoned their posts to discuss the situation by the kitchen fire. A brisk assault just now could hardly have missed success. Trevarthen's death had demoralised the garrison, and these men by the fire were considering the risk to their necks. Roger knew what they were discussing. By rising and stepping into the kitchen he could at least have shamed them back to duty. He knew this full well, yet he sat on motionless. . . A sound fetched him to his feet--a child's wail. He stood up in the darkness lifting his arms . . . as a man might yawn and stretch himself awaking from a long dream. Someone tapped at the door, turned the handle, and stood irresolutely there peering into the darkness. "Yes?" said Roger, advancing. "Ah!" it was the surgeon's voice--"I beg your pardon, but finding you in darkness--Yes, it's all right--a fine boy, and the mother, I should say, doing well. Do you wish to go up?" "God forbid!" said Roger, and led him to the kitchen, where the whisperers started up at his entrance. In the middle of the room, on a board across two trestles, lay something hidden by a white sheet--Trevarthen's body, recovered from the ruins of the barn. "He was my friend," said Roger simply, pausing by the corpse. Then he turned with a grim smile on the malcontents. "Where's the brandy?" he asked. "The doctor'll have a drink afore he turns out into the night." "No, I thank you, Mr. Stephen," said the young surgeon. "Won't take it from me? Well, I thank ye all the same." He led his guest forth, let him out by the wicket, and returned to the kitchen. "Lads," said he, "the night's foggy yet. You may slip away to your homes, if you go quiet. Step and tell the others, and send Malachi to me. I--I thank ye, friends, but, as you've been arguing to yourselves, the game's up; we won't stand another assault to-morrow." They filed out and left him, none asking--as Trevarthen would have asked-- concerning his own safety. By Trevarthen's body Malachi found him standing; and again, and in the same attitude, found him standing by it a quarter of an hour later, when, having muffled the horses' hoofs in straw, he returned to announce that all was ready, and the lane clear towards the moors. In so short a time the whole garrison had melted away. "He was my friend," said Roger again, looking down on the sheet, and wondered why this man had loved him. Indeed, there was no explanation except that Trevarthen had been just Trevarthen. He followed Malachi, wondering the while if he had ever thrown Trevarthen an affectionate word. Yet this man had cheerfully given up life for him, as he, Roger Stephen, was at this moment giving up more than life for a woman he hated. He walked forth from Steens, leading his horse softly. At the foot of the lane he mounted, looked back in the darkness, and lifted a fist against the sky. Then they headed eastward, and rode, Malachi and he, over the soundless turf and through the fog, breasting the moor together. A little after midnight, on the high ground, they reined up, straining their ears at a rumbling sound borne up to them from the valley road below--the sound (though they knew it not) of two cannon ploughing through the mire towards Steens. At eight o'clock next morning one of these guns opened fire, and with its first shot ripped a breach through the courtlage wall. There came no answer. When the Sheriff, taking courage, rode up to summon the house, its garrison consisted of two women and one sleeping babe. _ |
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