"The French?"
"Didn" I tell you? Then I must have overlooked it. Iss, iss, the French be landed at Talland Cove, and murderin" as they come!
And the Troy lads be cut down like a swathe o" gra.s.s; and I, only I, escaped to carry the news. And you call this a Millenyum, I suppose?" he wound up with sudden inconsequent bitterness.
But the Vicar apparently did not hear. "The French? The French?" he kept repeating. "Oh, Heaven, what"s to be done?"
"If you was something more than a pulpit Christian," suggested Gunner Sobey, "you"d hoist me pickaback an" carry me over to hospital; for I can"t walk with any degree of comfort, an" that"s a fact. And next you"d turn to an" drive off the cattle inland, an" give warning as you go. "Tis a question if I live out this night, an" "tis another question if I want to; but, dead or alive, it sha"n"t be said of me that I hadn" presence of mind."
CHAPTER XI.
THE MAJOR LEAVES US.
Two minutes later the Vicar, staggering up to the hospital door with Gunner Sobey on his back, came to a terrified halt as his ears caught the _tramp, tramp_ of a body of men approaching from the direction of Pa.s.sage Slip, which is the landing-place of the Little Ferry. He had scarce time to lower his burden upon the doorstep before the head of the company swung into view around the street corner. With a gasp he recognised them.
They were the Troy Gallants, and Major Hymen marched beside them.
But they came with no banners waving, without tuck of drum--a sadly depleted corps, and by their countenances a sadly dejected one.
For the moment, however, in the revulsion of his feelings, the Vicar failed to observe this. He ran forward with both arms extended to greet the Major.
"My friend!" he cried tremulously. "You are alive!"
"Certainly," the Major answered. "Why not?" He was dishevelled, unshaven, travel-stained, haggard, and at the same time flushed of face. Also he appeared a trifle sulky.
"What has happened?"
"Well"--the Major turned on him almost viciously--"_you_ may call it the Millennium!"
"But the French--?"
"Eh? Excuse me--I don"t take your meaning. _What_ French?"
"I was given to understand--we have been taking certain precautions,"
stammered the Vicar, and gazed around, seeking Gunner Sobey (but Gunner Sobey had dived into the hospital and was putting himself to bed). "You don"t tell me the alarm was false!"
"My good Vicar, I haven"t a notion at what you"re driving; and excuse me again if in this hour of disgrace I find myself in no humour to halt here and bandy explanations."
"Disgrace?"
"Disgrace," repeated the Major, gazing sternly back on his abashed ranks. His breast swelled; he seemed on the point to say more; but, indignation mastering him, mutely with a wave of the hand he bade the Gallants resume their march. Mutely, contritely, with bowed heads, they obeyed and followed him down the street, leaving the Vicar at gaze.
What had happened? Why, this.--
After the fiasco in Talland Cove Captain Arbuthnot had formed up his Dragoons and given the word to ride back to Bodmin Barracks, their temporary quarters, whence Mr. Smellie had summoned them.
He was in the devil of a rage. From the Barracks to Talland Cove is a good fourteen miles as the crow flies, and you may allow another two miles for the windings of the road (which, by the way, was a pestilently bad one). To ride sixteen miles by night, chafing all the while under the orders of a civilian, and to return another sixteen, smarting, from a fool"s errand, is (one must admit) excusably trying to the military temper. Smellie, to be sure, and Smellie alone, had been discomfited. Smellie"s discomfiture had been so signally personal as to divert all ridicule from the Dragoons.
Smellie, moreover, had made himself confoundedly obnoxious.
Smellie had given himself airs during the ride from Bodmin; and Captain Arbuthnot had with an ill grace submitted to them, because the fellow knew the country. They were quit of him now; but how to find the way home Captain Arbuthnot did not very well know. He rode forward boldly, however, keeping his eyes upon the stars, and steering, so far as the circuitous lanes would allow him, north by west.
Bearing away too far to the right, as men are apt to do in the darkness, he missed the cross-ways by Ashen-cross, whence his true line ran straight through Pelynt; and after an hour or so of blind-man"s-buff in a maze of cornfields, the gates of which seemed to hide in the unlikeliest corners, emerged upon a fairly good high road, which at first deceived him by running west-by-north and then appeared to change its mind and, receding through west, took a determined southerly curve back towards the coast. In short, Captain Arbuthnot had entirely lost his bearings.
Deciding once more to trust the stars, he left the high road, struck due north across country again and by and by found himself entangled in a valley bottom beside the upper waters of the same stream which Gunner Sobey had forded two hours before and some miles below.
The ground hereabouts was marshy, and above the swamp an almost impenetrable furze-brake clothed both sides of the valley.
The Dragoons fought their way through, however, and were rewarded, a little before dawn, by reaching a good turf slope and, at the head of it, a lane which led them to the small village of Lanreath.
The inhabitants of Lanreath, aroused from their beds by the tramp of hoofs and with difficulty persuaded that their visitors were not the French, at length directed Captain Arbuthnot to the village inn, the "Punchbowl," where he wisely determined to bait and rest his horses, which by this time were nearly foundered. Being heavy brutes, they had fared ill in the mora.s.s, and the most of them were plastered with mud to their girths.
The troopers, having refreshed themselves with beer, flung themselves down to rest, some on the settles of the inn-kitchen, others on the benches about the door, and others again in the churchyard across the road, where they snored until high day under the curious gaze of the villagers.
So they slept for two hours and more; and then, being summoned by trumpet, mounted and took the road again, the most of them yet heavy with slumber and not a few yawning in their saddles and only kept from nodding off by the discomfort of their tall leathern stocks.
In this condition they had proceeded for maybe two miles, when from a by-lane on their left a horseman dashed out upon the road ahead, reined up, and, wheeling his horse in face of them, stood high in his stirrups and waved an arm towards the lane by which he had come.
It took Captain Arbuthnot some seconds to recognise this apparition for Mr. Smellie. But it was indeed that unfortunate man.
He had lost both hat and wig; his coat he had discarded, no doubt to be rid of its noisome odour: and altogether he cut the strangest figure as he gesticulated there in the early sunshine. But the man was in earnest--so much in earnest that he either failed to note, or noting, disregarded, the wrathful frown with which Captain Arbuthnot, having halted his troop, rode forward at a walk to meet him.
"Back, Captain, back!" shouted Mr. Smellie, pointing down the lane.
"I beg your pardon, sir"--the Captain reined up and addressed him with cold, incisive politeness--"but may I suggest that you have played the fool with us sufficiently for one night, and that my men"s tempers are short?"
"Havers!" exclaimed the indomitable Smellie, rising yet higher in his stirrups and lifting a hand for silence. "I ask ye to listen to the racket down yonder. The drum, now!" (Sure enough Captain Arbuthnot, p.r.i.c.king his ears, heard the tunding of a drum far away in the woods to the southward.) "Man, they"ve diddled us! While they put that trick on us at Talland Cove, their haill womankind was rafting the true cargo up the river. I"ve ridden down, I tell you, and the clue of their game I hold in my two hands here from start to finish.
The brandy"s yonder in Sir Felix"s woods, and the men are lying around it fou-drunk as the Israelites among the pots. Man, if ye would turn to-night"s laugh, turn your troop and follow, and ye shall cull them like gowans!"
"It is throwing the haft after the hatchet," hesitated Captain Arbuthnot, impressed against his will by the earnestness of the appeal. "You have misled us once to-night, I must remind you; and I give you fair warning that my troopers will not bear fooling twice."
With all his faults the Riding Officer did not lack courage.
Disdaining the threat, he waved his hand to the Dragoons to follow and put his horse at a canter down the leafy lane.
It is recorded in the High History of the Grail, of Sir Lohot, son of King Arthur, that he had a marvellous weakness; which was, that no sooner had he slain a man than he fell across his body. So it happened this night to the valiant men of Troy.
The Dragoons, emerging from the woods of Pentethy into close view of the house and its terrace and slope that falls from the terrace to the river, found themselves intruders upon the queerest of domestic dramas.
On the terrace among the leaden G.o.ds danced a little man, wigless, in an orange-coloured dressing-gown and a fury of choler. At the head of the green slope immediately under the bal.u.s.trade Major Hymen, surrounded by a moderately sober staff, faced the storm in an att.i.tude at once dignified and patient.
"An idea has occurred to me," he put in at length with stately deliberation as Sir Felix paused panting for fresh words of opprobrium. "It is, sir, that overlooking the few minutes by which our salvoes were--er--antedated, you allow us to acclaim your latest-born as Honorary-Colonel of our corps."
"But," almost shrieked Sir Felix, "d.a.m.n your eyes, it"s _twins_--and both _girls_!"
The Major winced. A rosy flush of indignation mantled his cheeks, and only his habitual respect for the landed gentry (whom he was accustomed to call the backbone of England) checked him on the verge of a severe retort. As it was, he answered with fine suavity.
"There is no true patriot, Sir Felix, but desires an accelerated increase in our population just now, whether male or female. I trust your good lady"s zeal may be rewarded by a speedy recovery."
Sir Felix fairly capered. "Accelerated! Acc--" he began, and, choking over the word, turned and caught sight of the Dragoons as they emerged from the woods, the sunlight flashing on their cuira.s.ses.