Abraham Dyson was having a new sloop built for trading purposes, and both Jacob and Cuthbert took the keenest interest in the progress of the work. The sloop was to be called the Cherry Blossom when complete, and it was Abraham Dyson"s plan that the christening of the vessel by Cherry herself should be the occasion of her formal betrothal to his son.
This ceremony, however, would not take place for some while yet, as at present the little vessel was only in the earlier stages of construction. Neither Jacob nor Cuthbert had heard anything about this secondary plan, but both took the greater interest in the sloop from the fact that she was to be named after Cherry.
Cuthbert visited her daily, and Jacob as often as his duties at his father"s warehouse allowed him. On this particular bright February afternoon the pair had been a great part of their time on the river, skimming about in the wherry, and examining every part of the little vessel under the auspices of the master builder. Dusk had fallen upon the river before they landed, and a heavy fog beginning to rise from the water made them glad to leave it behind. They secured the wherry to the landing stage, leaving the oars in her, as they not unfrequently did when returning late, and were pursuing their way up the dark and unsavoury streets, when the sound of a distant tumult smote upon their ears, and they arrested their steps that they might listen the better.
Cuthbert"s quick ears were the first to gather any sort of meaning from the discordant shouts and cries which arose.
"They are chasing some wretched fugitive!" he said in a low voice. "That is the sound of pursuit. Hark! they are coming this way. Who and what are they thus hounding on?"
Nearer and nearer came the surging sound of many voices and the hurried trampling of feet.
"Stop him--catch him--hold him!" shouted a score of hoa.r.s.e voices, rolling along through the fog-laden air long before anything could be seen. "Stop him, good folks, stop him! stop the runaway priest--stop the treacherous Jesuit! He is an enemy to peace--a stirrer up of sedition and conspiracy! Down with him--to prison with him! it is not fit for such a fellow to live. Down with him--stop him!"
"A priest!" exclaimed Cuthbert between his shut teeth, a sudden gleam corning into his eyes. "Jacob, heard you that? A priest--a man of G.o.d! one man against a hundred! Canst thou stand by and see such a one hunted to death? that cannot I."
Jacob cared little for priests--indeed, he had no very good opinion of the race, and none of Cuthbert"s traditional reverence; but he had all an Englishman"s love of fair play, and hated the cruelty and cowardice of an angry mob as he hated anything mean and vile, and he doubled back his wrist bands and clinched his h.o.r.n.y fists as he answered:
"I am with thee, good Cuthbert. We will stand for the weaker side. Priest or no, he shall not be hounded to death in the streets without one blow struck in his defence. But how to find him in this fog?"
"We need not fight; that were mere madness," answered Cuthbert in rapid tones. "Ours is to hurry the fugitive into the wherry, loose from sh.o.r.e, and out into the river; and then they may seek as they will, they can never find us. Mist! hark! the cries come nigher. If the quarry is indeed before them, it must be very nigh. Mark! I hear a gliding footfall beside the wall. Keep close to me; I go to the rescue."
Cuthbert sprang swiftly through the darkness, and in a moment he felt the gown of a priest in his hand, and heard the sound of the distressed breathing of one hunted well nigh to the verge of exhaustion. As the hunted man felt the clasp upon his robe he uttered a little short, sharp cry, and made as if he would have stopped short; but Cuthbert had him fast by the arm, and hurried him along the narrow alley towards the river, upholding him over the rough ground, and saying in short phrases: "Fear nothing from us, holy Father; we are friends. We have come to save you. Trust only to us and, believe me, in three more minutes we shall be beyond the reach of these savage pursuers. The river is before us, though we see it not, and our boat awaits us there. Once aboard, they may weary themselves in their vain efforts to catch us; they will never find us in this fog.
"Here is the water side. Have a care how you step--Jacob, hold fast the craft whilst the Father steps in. So. All is well; cast off and I will follow."
There was the sound of a light spring; the boat gave a slight lurch, and then, gliding off into the mysterious darkness of the great river, was lost to sight of sh.o.r.e in the wreaths of foggy vapour.
"Where is the hound? where is the caitiff miscreant? Has he thrown himself into the river? Drowning is too good for such a dog as he!" shouted angry voices on the river"s bank, and through the still air the sound of trampling footsteps could be heard up and down the little wharf which formed the landing stage.
"I hear the sound of oars!" shouted one.
"He has escaped us--curse the cunning of that Papist brood!" yelled another.
"Let us get a boat and follow," counselled a third; but this was more easily said than done, as there was no other boat tied up at that landing stage, and the fog rendered navigation too difficult and dangerous to be lightly attempted. With sullen growls and many curses the mob seemed to break up and disperse; but the leaders appeared to stand in discussion for some moments after the rest had gone, and several sentences were distinctly heard by those in the boat, who thought it safer to drift with the tide awhile close to the sh.o.r.e than to use their oars and betray their close proximity to their foes.
"We shall know him again; and if he dares to show his face in the city, we will have him at last, even if we have to search for him in Alsatia with a band of soldiers. He has too long escaped the doom he merits, the plotter and schemer, the vile dog of a seminary priest! Once let us get him into our hands and he shall be hanged, drawn, and quartered, like those six of his fellows. No mercy for the Jesuits; it is not fit that such fellows should camber the earth. There will be no peace for this realm till we have destroyed them root and branch."
The boat had now drifted too far for the conversation to be any longer audible. Jacob gave a long, low whistle, and took to the oars. Cuthbert, who sat beside the priest in the stern, had his hand upon the tiller; and as the fog cloud lifted just a little, so that the darkness about them became hardly more than that of twilight, he looked at the silent, motionless figure beside him, and exclaimed in surprise:
"Father Urban!"
A slight smile hovered for a moment over the wan face of the priest. He lifted his thin hand and said solemnly:
"Peace be with thee, my son."
Cuthbert bent his head in reverence, and then turned again towards the Father.
"What hast thou done that they should rail at thee thus--thou the friend of the poor, the friend even of the leper? What has come to them that they turn thus against thee? Sure, but a few short weeks ago and thou didst hold back an angry crowd by the glance of thine eye."
"My son, trust not in the temper of the crowd, in the goodwill of the mult.i.tude. Was it not the same crowd who on the Sabbath shouted, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" that on the Friday yelled, "Crucify Him! crucify Him!" Never put faith in man, still less in the mult.i.tude that is ever swayed like a reed, and may be driven like a wave of the sea hither and thither as the wind listeth.
"And then I was not amongst mine own flock. I had--rashly, perchance--adventured myself further than I ought, for I had a message of consequence to execute, and I have not been wont to hide myself from my fellow men. But there is no knowing in these fearful times of lawlessness and savage hate what will be the temper either of rulers or people. It seems that I am known--that there is some warrant out against me. So be it. If I must flee from this city to another, holier men have done the like ere now. I would mine errand had been completed. I would I had accomplished my task. But--"
The priest"s voice had been growing fainter for some moments. Cuthbert supposed it to be a natural caution on his part, lest even Jacob should hear him as he plied his oars; but as he came to this sudden stop, he felt that the slight frame collapsed in some way, and leaned heavily against him as he sat. Turning his eyes from the dim, rippling water, so little of which could be seen in the darkness and the fog, to the face of the priest, he saw that it had turned ghastly pale, and that the eyes were glazing over as if with the approach of death. Plainly the fugitive had received some bodily hurt of which he had not spoken, and the question what to do with their helpless burden became a difficult one to answer.
"My father will not receive him," said Jacob, shaking his head, as he leaned upon his oars and let the boat drift along with the tide that was carrying them towards the bridge. "He hates the priests worse than your good uncle and mine, who has something of a fellow feeling for them in these days of common persecution; and you know well what sort of a welcome we should receive from him did we arrive with a seminary priest in our arms."
"And I trow the mob would be upon us ere we had got him safe housed, and for aught we could do to stop it might tear him limb from limb in our very sight."
"Ay, there is always some rumour afoot of a new Papist plot; and whether it be true or no, the people set on to harry the priests as dogs harry the hunted hare. I know not what to do. To land with him will do neither good to him nor to us. A fine coil there would be at home if my father heard of me mixing myself up with Jesuit traitors; and Martin Holt would not be much better pleased neither."
"Martin Holt is not my father," answered Cuthbert, with a touch of haughtiness; "and let him say what he will, I must save this man"s life, even if it cost me mine own. Thou knowest how he saved me that day in the dens of Whitefriars. To leave him to the mercy of the howling mob would be an act of blackest treachery; it would disgrace my manhood for ever."
"Tush, man, who asked that of thee?" answered Jacob, with something of a smile at the lad"s impetuosity. "I love not a black ca.s.sock nor a tonsured head so pa.s.sing well; but a man is a man, even though he be a priest, and I call shame upon those who would thus maltreat a brother man, and the more so when he is one who has visited the sick and tended the leper, and been the friend of those who have no friends in this great city. I would no sooner than thou give him up to the will of the mob; but we must bethink ourselves where he may be in safety stowed, else the mob will have him whether we will or no. All I was meaning by my words was that neither my home nor thine could be the place for him."
"I ask thy pardon, good Jacob, for my heat," answered Cuthbert humbly. "I should have known better thy good heart than to have thought such a thing of thee."
"Nay, nay; I am no hero."
"Thou art a kindly hearted and an honest man, which I mis...o...b.. me if all the world"s heroes are," answered Cuthbert quickly. "And now, Jacob, it behoves us to think. Yes, I have it. We must ask counsel of Master Anthony Cole. He would be the one to hide Father Urban if it could be done. Let me land nigh to the bridge, and go to them and tell them all; and do thou push out once more and anchor the craft beneath the pier on which their house rests. Methinks when I have taken counsel with them I can make shift to slip down the wooden shaft of that pier, and so hold parley with thee. Walter has done the like before now, and I am more agile in such feats than he; moreover, I can swim like a duck if I should chance to miss my hold, and so reach the water unawares. That will be the best, for the boat may not linger at the wharf side. We know not what news may be afoot in the city, nor that there may not be searchers bent on finding Father Urban, let him land where he may."
Whether or not Jacob relished this adventure, he was too stanch and too honest hearted to turn back now. The priest lay insensible at the bottom of the boat, his head pillowed upon the cloaks the youths had sacrificed for his better comfort. It was plainly a matter of consequence that he should soon be housed in some friendly shelter. His gray face looked ghastly in the dim moonlight which began to struggle through the fog wreaths. When Cuthbert leaped lightly ash.o.r.e hard by the bridge, and Jacob sheered off again in the darkness, he felt as though he were out alone on the black river, with only a corpse for company.
"If it were but for Cherry"s sake, I would do ten-fold more," he murmured, as he glanced up in the direction of the wool stapler"s shop, and pictured pretty Cherry stepping backwards and forwards at her spinning wheel. "But I trow she will hear naught of it; or if she does, she will think only of Cuthbert"s share. Alack! I fear me she will never think of me now. Why should she, when so proper a youth is nigh? If he should go away and leave her, perchance her heart might turn to me for comfort; but I fear me he looks every day more tenderly into her bright eyes. How could he live beneath the roof and not learn to love her? He would be scarce human, scarce flesh and blood, were he to fail in loving her; and what is my chance beside his? I might, almost as well yield her at once, and take good Kezzie instead. Kezzie would make a better housewife--my mother has told me so a hundred times; and I am fond of her, and methinks she--"
But there Jacob stopped short, blushing even in the darkness at the thought of what he had nearly said. Anchoring against the wooden piles of the bridge, and letting his fancy run riot as it would, he indulged in a shifting daydream, in which pain and a vague sense of consolation were oddly blended. He sighed a good many times, but he smiled once or twice likewise, and at last he gave himself a shake and spoke out aloud.
"At least it shall make no cloud and no bitterness betwixt us twain. He is a fine lad and a n.o.ble one, and he deserves more at Dame Fortune"s hands than such a clown as I. Shall I grudge him his luck if he gets her? never a whit! There may not be more than one Cherry in the world, but there are plenty of good wives and honest maidens who will brighten a man"s home for him."
Musing thus, Jacob kept his watch, and was not long in hearing strange and cautious sounds above his head. Looking up, he beheld a lithe form slipping, in something of a snake fashion, down the woodwork of the bridge, and the next moment Cuthbert sprang softly down, so deftly that the wherry only rolled a little at the shock.
"Hast thought me long? Hast been frozen with cold? I have made all the haste I could. All is planned. This is not strange work to them. See, I have brought with me this cradle of cord. We can place Father Urban within, and they will draw him up from above, that no man shall see him enter their house. All the windows be shuttered and barred by now. None will see or hear. They have harboured many a fugitive before, I take it. They had all the ropes and needful gear ready beneath their hand at a moment"s notice."
Whilst he was speaking, Cuthbert was wrapping the inanimate figure in the cloaks, and placing it gently in the hammock, as we should call it, that, suspended by strong cords from above, had a.s.sisted him in his descent to the boat. Then at a given signal this hammock, with its human load, was slowly and steadily drawn upwards, with a cautious, silent skill that betokened use and experience; and as the eager watchers pushed out their boat a little further into the river, they saw the bulky object vanish at last within the dimly-lighted window of the tall, narrow house. A light was flashed for a moment from the window, and then all was wrapped in darkness.
"All is well," exclaimed Cuthbert, with an accent of relief; "and I trow that not a living soul but our two selves knows whither the priest has fled. He is safe from that savage, howling mob. Methinks I hear their cries still! It was just so they yelled and hooted round me when Father Urban came so timely to my rescue."
Mistress Susan chid Cuthbert somewhat roundly for being late for supper that night. But when he said he had been belated by the fog on the river with Jacob, the excuse was allowed to stand. Cherry was eager to know the progress making with her namesake, and no inconvenient questions were asked of Cuthbert when once her chattering tongue had been unloosed.
Cuthbert"s dreams were a little troubled and uneasy that night; but he woke in good spirits, and was anxious to know the state of Father Urban. He made an early excuse for visiting the Coles" abode, and found the elder man busy over his type.
He looked up with a smile as Cuthbert appeared, but laid his fingers on his lips.
"Be cautious; he has but just sunk to sleep after a night of wakeful pain. He is anxious to see thee. He asked for thee a score of times in the night; but he must not be wakened now. Thou hast done a good deed, boy. Had Father Urban fallen a victim to yon hooting mob last eve, a deadly blow would have been dealt to the faith of this land."
"And is his sickness very sore? has he any grievous hurt?"
"He was sore knocked about and bruised ere he first wrenched himself from the officer of the law who sprang upon him with an order of arrest. Two of his ribs be broke; and that long and fearful race for his life did cause him sore pain and greater injury, so that a fever has been set up, and he has had to lose much blood to allay it. But he is quiet and at rest just now. Thou hadst better come again at sundown; he will doubtless be awake then. He has somewhat to say to thee, I know. I believe that he has some mission to entrust to thee. Thou hast a kindly heart and a strong arm. I trow thou wilt not fail him now."