"I came to Paris with no thought but of serving you as faithfully as I endeavoured to serve Sir John before you. But it was your reluctance that put the thought of Mr. Jervas into my head; and once it was there, it stayed and grew; for I loved Mr. Jervas, sir. It was Mr.
Jervas I served in my heart, and not Sir John."
The fellow spoke with such evident contrition, and a devotion so seemingly sincere, that I felt reproved for the severity I had used, and I began to admire what sort of man my cousin must be who could leave so clear an image of himself in the hearts of his dependents. I was for saying something of the sort, when a movement which Ashlock made arrested me. It was an insignificant movement--just the reaching out of his hand to the snaffle of his bridle--but it woke all my distrust of him; for I noted the quick play of his long, sinuous fingers, and I recalled his stealthy advance from the tiller of the pinnace to the bows, and the hovering of his hands above my chest.
"Get down from your horse!" I cried suddenly.
He looked in surprise at me, as well he might. I repeated the order; he obeyed it.
"Are you Catholic or Protestant?" I asked.
Ashlock"s surprise increased.
"Catholic, sir," he answered.
"Good! Now, understand this. Of the journey to Bar-le-Duc, of the pa.s.sage from Dunkirk, you must never speak, you must never think. So much hangs on your silence and mine as you can have no notion of. You came to Paris, and from Paris I returned with you. That is all you know. Of the rest, whisper so much as a hint to the deafest yokel in the valley, and it will go very ill with you."
"I promise," he answered.
"But I need more than a promise; I need an oath. You are Catholic, you say, so there"s better chance of your keeping it. Down on your knees here, and swear to me that not a word, whatever you know, whatever you believe, shall escape your lips."
Ashlock started back, looking about him, as though he would find some diversion or excuse. But the blue, sunlit sky was above us, the brown fells about us, and never a living soul beside us two.
"Come!" said I, insisting. "Swear it! Swear it by the Cross; swear it by the Holy Virgin."
"I swear," he began, holding up his hand.
"Nay," I broke in upon him. "On your knees! on your knees!"
Again he looked about him, and then to my face. But I kept my eyes stubbornly upon him. I would have him swear that oath, and I gathered all my strength into the resolution, that I might compel him; for I felt, in some strange way, that we were pitted in a contest for the mastery of Blackladies, and I was minded to settle that contest before I set foot across its door. I looked upon this oath that he would swear before me on his knees chiefly as an emblem of his submission. I might be to him a vicarious master; still, his master I would be, not having that confidence in him that I could allow him to harbour doubts upon the score.
Of a sudden his horse gave a startled plunge and broke away from him.
It ran past me, and, leaning over as it pa.s.sed, I caught it by the bridle and so held it.
"Come!" said I. "There will be many days on which I can see the sunset from Coldbarrow Fell."
There was no escape for Ashlock except by a direct refusal, and that he did not venture. So with a very ill grace he plumped down on his knees upon the heather and grumbled out his oath.
"Now," said I, "we will ride down to Blackladies;" and I descended the track mightily pleased with myself at the high way in which I had carried it. But my elation was short-lived, for so engaged was I in pluming myself, that I took little care of how my horse set his feet, and in a short while he slips on a stone, shies of one side, and I--I was lying with all the breath knocked out of my body on the gra.s.s.
I picked myself up on to my knees; I saw Ashlock sitting on his horse in front of me, and he held my horse by the bridle. I remained on my knees for a moment, recovering my breath and my wits. Then of a sudden I realised that here was I kneeling before Ashlock as but a minute since he had knelt before me; and here was Ashlock sitting his horse and holding mine by the bridle, precisely as I had sat and held his.
In a word, we had just changed places, by the purest accident, no doubt, but I had set such great store upon bringing about that earlier position and relationship, that this complete reversal of it within the s.p.a.ce of a few moments filled me with the keenest humiliation. And mingled with that humiliation was a certain fear that ran through my veins, chilling my blood. I felt that the man mocked at me. I looked into his face, expecting to discover on it a supercilious smile. But there was no trace of such a thing.
"You are hurt, sir?" he asked gravely, and dismounted.
"No," said I, rising to my feet
Ashlock moved a few steps from me, and stooped down, parting the gra.s.s with his hands.
"What is it?" I asked, setting a foot in the stirrup.
"Something, sir, that you dropped when you fell It is too big for a coin."
He was standing with his back to me, turning that something over in his palms. I clapped my hand into my fob.
"It is mine, yes!" I cried, and I ran towards him. "Give it to me at once;" and I made as though I would take it from him.
"You asked me what it was," said Ashlock, and he placed in my hands the medal the King had given me. I looked it over carefully, noticing certain scratches upon the King"s face, and seeking to rub them out I saw Ashlock looking at me shrewdly.
"I know," said I in a fl.u.s.ter; "but it has memories for me, and I would not lose it;" and with that we got again to our horses, and so down to the Blackladies.
The rest of that day I spent in examining the many corridors and galleries of the house, and in particular the garden, which had greatly whetted my curiosity. It had been laid out, Ashlock informed me, by Sir John Rookley"s father, and with a taste so fantastic as would have gladdened Sir William Temple himself. There were three terraces linked to each other by three stone staircases--one at each of the two ends, and the third in the centre, and at the top of each of these last flights were heavy iron gates. From the bottom of these steps the parterre spread out, and beyond the parterre was a s.p.a.ce of meadow-land, fringed by a grove of trees which they called the wilderness. The strangest device of all, however, was a sort of labyrinth beyond the trees at the extreme end of the garden. The labyrinth, in fact, was a number of little gardens, each with a tiny plot of gra.s.s, and flowers planted about it, like so many rows of b.u.t.tons. These gardens were shut in by hedges of quickset ten feet or more in height, and led from one to the other by such a perplexing diversity of paths, that once you had entered deep among them it was as much as you could do to find your way out of them again. Even Ashlock, who guided me amongst them, ended by losing his way, so nearly alike was one to the other; and I, not stopping to consider that where he failed, I, a stranger, was little likely to succeed, must needs separate from him and go a-searching on my own account, with this very natural result--that I got more and more enmeshed in the labyrinth, and was parted from Ashlock into the bargain.
"Ashlock!" I shouted, and again and again, with never a reply, for the s.p.a.ce of half an hour or more. At last, by the merest chance, I happened upon the right path, and so came out upon that meadow-like s.p.a.ce they called the wilderness.
"Ashlock!" I called again, and again there was no answer. Had he got himself free, I wondered, and gone quietly about his business, leaving me there? I walked up the steps in an ill enough humour at the slight, and pa.s.sed through the parlour into the hall.
It was of a great size and height, with long, painted windows from the ceiling to the ground; its roof, indeed, was the roof of the house, and somehow it struck upon me as very empty and desolate.
"Ashlock!" I cried, and I heard my voice reverberating and dying away down the corridors. Then came the sound of a man running from the inner part of the house.
"Ashlock!" I repeated, and a servant appeared. He was a tall, spare man, past the middle age, I should say, and was called Jonnage Aron. I sent him to look for the steward, but it was evening before he found him.
"I thought, sir, that you had hit upon the path before I did," Ashlock explained.
"But you heard me shouting?"
"No, sir," said he. "I found the way out a few minutes after you had parted from me, and thought that I was following you."
I bade him show me to his office and give me some account of the estate, which he did, laying considerable stress upon the wad-mines, from which some part of the revenue was derived.
"Sir John"s attorney," said I, when he had finished, "lives at Keswick. It will be well that I should see him to-morrow."
"It is but nine miles from here to Keswick," he a.s.sented, "and the road is good."
"Then send a servant early in the morning to fetch him here." Ashlock shot a quick glance at me. "We will go over these matters again," I continued, "with his help--the three of us together."
Ashlock bent his head down upon the papers.
"Very well," he said, and seemed diligently to peruse them. Indeed, he held one in his hand so long that I believed he must be learning it by heart. "Very well," he repeated, in a tone of much thought.
But during the night I changed my mind, reasoning in this way. I recognised clearly enough that the advice which King James had given me--I mean that I should not disclose myself as a Jacobite--was due to the promptings of Lord Bolingbroke, and those promptings in their turn took their origin from a regard for my safety, rather than for the King"s interest I was, therefore, inclined to look upon the recommendation as a piece of advice to be followed or not, as occasion pointed, rather than as a command. On the whole, I believed that it would be best, considering the ends I had in view, to express myself moderately as favouring the Stuart claims. Moderately, I say, because I could not avow myself an emissary of King James without stating the special business on which I had come, and that I was forbidden to do.
At the same time, I had to carry that business to an issue, and with as little delay as might be. Now, it was evident to me that I should get little knowledge of the Jacobite resources, and less of their genuine thoughts, if I were to sit down at Blackladies in this nook of Borrowdale. I must go abroad to do that, and if I was to excite no suspicion, I must have a simple and definite excuse. The attorney at Keswick would, for the outset, at all events, serve my turn very well.
So the next morning I countermanded the order I had given to Ashlock, and rode in past Castle Crag and Rosthwaite to Keswick. And this I did on many a succeeding day, to the great perturbation of the little attorney, who had never been so honoured before by the courtesy of his clients. Also, I made it my business to attend the otter-hunts, coursing matches, fairs, and wrestling-bouts, of which there were many here and there about the countryside; so that in a short while I became acquainted with the princ.i.p.al gentry, and got some insight, moreover, into the dispositions of the ruder country folk.
Now amongst the gentry with whom I fell in, was my Lord Derwent.w.a.ter and his lady, who were then living in their great house upon Lord"s island of that lake, and from them I received great courtesy when they came to know of my religion and yet more after that I had made avowal of my politics; so that often I was rowed across and dined with them.
Upon one such occasion, some three weeks after I had come to Blackladies, that is to say, about midway through August, Lord Derwent.w.a.ter showed to me a portrait of his wife, newly painted and but that day brought to the house. I was much struck by the delicacy of the craftsmanship, and stooped to examine the signature.