I repeated, and in my turn I dipped my hands into the curling mist.
She gave a shrill scream, as though I had laid violent hands on her, sprang to her feet, and made in a stumbling run beneath the trees towards the house. I kneeled down where she had kneeled and plunged my hands in the mist as she had done.
What they touched was a fallen tree-trunk.
I started to my feet and ran back to the house. There was no one in the parlour. I hurried into the hall. There was no one there. I ran down the road. At the gates I saw ahead of me in the darkness the flutter of a dress. I raced after it; I heard a cry, which the sound of my running provoked, and Mrs. Herbert began to run from me.
I called to her, but she only quickened her pace, and accordingly I relaxed mine. In a little her run became a walk, and so keeping behind her I followed her to the outskirts of Keswick and then returned to Blackladies.
The house, however, was now lighted up, and the door closed. I knocked, and one of the servants opened it to me. I did not speak to him, but ran through the hall to the garden and resumed the search, I continued it until the sky in the east grew white, and after that when the sun had risen and the birds were singing. The mist cleared from the ground, and at last in the clear daylight I came again to the shrubs whither I had marched at the outset, and I saw something which made the hope spring again in my breast The gra.s.s for some yards was trampled and crushed as though from a struggle. I picked up a shred of lace; it might have been torn in a struggle from a ruffle or cravat. I dropped upon my knees and searched in the gra.s.s; in a little I came upon a pistol--it was the pistol which I had noticed in Mr. Herbert"s lodging, and, moreover, it was discharged. It was he, then, who had fired, but--but it was plain he had not fired it at himself. In a feverish haste I crawled on my knees within this trampled circle. If he had been attacked, who attacked him? I needed a clue to answer me that question, and I found the clue. After a long while, it is true, but nevertheless I found it. It was no more than a metal b.u.t.ton, but I had seen the like upon the uniforms of King George"s officers.
I held it in my hands, turning it over and over. For, to my thinking, the mines of Golconda held no jewel half so precious. It was a sign to me that Anthony Herbert was not dead. The one pistol which had been discharged was his own. He had been captured, and capture seemed to me so small a thing in the revulsion of my feelings. Of the reason for his capture I did not conjecture at all; I stood with an intense feeling of gratefulness softening at my heart and dimming my eyes.
Then I remembered that there was one whose right to share my knowledge and my grat.i.tude I had already too long deferred. I started with all speed for the house; the garden laughed in the sunshine as I ran, and the flowers took on a richer beauty and sprinkled the air with a sweeter perfume.
But as I neared the open s.p.a.ce, I saw through an opening of the trees Aron run from the parlour and down the steps in a great haste. I shouted to him, and he lifted his head and seemed to look for the spot whence the shout came. But he did not in any measure slacken his pace.
I shouted again, and he caught sight of me and waved his hands. I ran on, and again he waved his hands, but with a more violent gesture. I met him half-way across the open s.p.a.ce of meadow.
"Quick, sir," said he, panting in a great disorder, "back--back to the trees;" and he caught me by the flap of the coat.
I tugged the coat away.
"For G.o.d"s sake, Master Lawrence, stop!"
But I was already running past him; the which he saw, and putting out a foot tripped me up without ceremony. I sprawled full length on the gra.s.s.
"How dare you?" I spluttered out in a rage.
"I would do as much again, sir, and more, were there the same need.
Quick, sir, to the trees;" and he stooped to help me to my feet. Then, "It"s too late," he whispered, and pressing me down by the shoulder dropped at my side.
"Look, Master Lawrence. Look!" and he nodded towards the house.
I saw the flash of a red-coat in the little parlour, then another and another. The room filled with soldiers.
"Keep your head low, sir! G.o.d send they do not look this way. If only we had reached the trees!" And he stretched himself flat in the gra.s.s and began to wriggle and crawl towards the shelter.
"They come for me?" I whispered, imitating his example.
"Yes!" he returned. "I must needs think so."
"Why?"
"I saw them marching up the drive, and Mr."--he paused over the name--"Mr. Ashlock was with them."
"Ashlock?" I exclaimed with a start, for in the press of trouble which these last twelve hours had brought, I had clean forgotten the man.
"Hush!" replied Aron.
"Oh, why keep up the lie?" I answered savagely. "Call him Jervas Rookley and have done with it. He came with King George"s soldiers, did he? Aron, or Ashlock, I take it, I should call you, when next Mr.
Jervas Rookley makes up his accounts for me, he shall make them up with his own hand, I promise you that."
The old man shook his head very sadly.
"I fear me," he agreed, "that Mr. Jervas is for something in all this."
"For more than you know," I replied, "and indeed for more than I know too as yet."
Of a sudden I remembered that evening when I had seen Jervas Rookley enter through the parlour window.
"There is a secret way into the garden," I said, and then a new thought flashed in upon me. "It was doubtless by that way the soldiers came."
"No, sir," said Ashlock, "they came by the highroad. Else I should not have seen them."
"True," said I, "those soldiers did, but they are not all the soldiers in c.u.mberland. And this secret way--you know it?"
"I know it," he answered. "But we must reach the thicket first."
I looked backwards across my shoulder. The soldiers were spreading over the terrace. I turned my face and strained every muscle to help me forward. Each moment I expected to hear the clink of a sabre against a spur, and a voice cry "Halt," or to see a shadow fall from behind my shoulder across the gra.s.s in front. "I must not be taken," I said to myself, yet knew full well that I might, "I must not be taken." It was not so much the thought of my own peril that plagued me, but rather the desire to inform Mrs. Herbert that her husband was not dead. It pressed upon me like a sheer necessity. I must escape.
Ashlock at my side uttered a groan.
"I can go no further, Master Lawrence," he said, and lay p.r.o.ne in an extremity of exhaustion, his face purple, and the veins pulsing upon it "Were I ten years younger--but I cannot."
For answer I twined my arm about his body and dragged him forward.
Every muscle in his body was a-quiver, the sweat poured from his forehead, and his chest heaved upon my arm as though it would crack; and all the while the screen of gra.s.s was close about our eyes and the sun burning upon our backs and heads. At last a shadow fell between the sun and us. I stopped with a groan and let my forehead fall forward on the ground. In a trice I saw myself captured, tried, executed, and meanwhile Mrs. Herbert would sit a-weeping in Keswick for a husband who was not dead.
"Thank G.o.d!" said Ashlock. "It is the shadow of the first tree."
I raised my head, just checking the cry of joy which sprang to my lips. A little to the left of us a great leafy branch stretched out towards us. We crawled forward again, past a tree-trunk, then another, then another, and in a minute I was standing up behind a shrub, and Ashlock was lying at my feet, his breath coming in hoa.r.s.e gasps from between his parched lips, his eyes closed, and his whole body limp and broken.
I peered round the shrub. The soldiers were scattered over the parterre, and then of a sudden I saw something which doubled my fears.
For right across the meadow a furrow was drawn in a wavering line as though by the clumsiest scytheman. And it led straight to this bush.
In a very short while the soldiers must see it. I sprang to Ashlock.
It was no less than a necessity that Ashlock should escape from that garden without incurring a suspicion. I needed a friend in the house for one thing. For another I needed a messenger who could safely show himself in Keswick.
Accordingly I raised Ashlock to his feet and supported him through the thicket until we came to the labyrinth. The secret entrance to the garden lay in the last square of the labyrinth at the corner against the hillside, and had been constructed by Jervas Rookley during the lifetime of his father. It consisted of no more than a number of iron pegs driven into the interstices of the stone wall and hidden beneath a drapery of ivy. I descended first, and Ashlock followed me closely, so that if by any chance he slipped I might be able to lend him a hand. As soon as we were safely at the bottom, I said--
"Now, Ashlock, your way lies down the valley, mine up the hillside.
You will get back into the house unnoticed, make sure of that! And to-day you will ride into Keswick and take this message from me to Mrs. Herbert."
I tore a page from the note-book which I carried in my pocket, and hurriedly scribbled on it, "He is not dead," and added thereto my initials. "Now good-bye. Be instant with the message! I doubt me but it is the last order you will ever take from me," and so I turned from him and began running up the hillside.
Ashlock called out to me--
"Sir," he cried, "I know not where I can have news of you. It will be well that I should know."
"You can have news of me," I replied, "at my Lord Derwent.w.a.ter"s, but be careful how you come there lest you imperil him;" and of a sudden he s.n.a.t.c.hed up my hand and kissed it.
"Master Lawrence," he said in a broken voice of apology, "my father served Sir John Rookley"s father."