CHAPTER IX
DESCRIBES THE ADVENTURES OF THE TRUE BELIEVER
One o’clock was striking as they rumbled into the ancient town of Dieppe and pulled up before the posting-inn. Here Sir John, having paid and feed his driver, was for ordering supper, but Sir Hector would have none of it.
“Come awa’, Johnnie,” he insisted, “an’ if ye’re hungry, I’ll find ye a red herring—mebbe a couple. Come awa’!”
“A herring? How say you, Rose child?” questioned Sir John, but my lady not troubling to answer, he tucked her hand within his arm and bade Sir Hector lead on.
“Ha—but the girl, John—ye’ll no’ be for draggin’ the puir lassie awa’ wi’ ye tae sea—at midnight?”
“No, indeed, Hector; if she will not walk I must carry her. Howbeit, she comes to share my herring!”
“O John!” sighed Sir Hector; “O Johnnie man, I’m fair amazed at ye!” And shaking gloomy head he turned and strode on before.
Once out of the dim-lit innyard, darkness engulfed them, but Sir Hector strode unhesitatingly; along narrow streets he led them, beneath the grim shadow of frowning archways and buildings, through a maze of winding alleys and ill-paved byways, turning sudden corners until, all at once, they were treading firm sand and there met them a wind fresh and sweet with the salt tang of the sea. Presently before them, vague in the gloom, was a small bay or inlet with a jetty, and beyond this the dim bulk of a ship, a very silent craft with never a glimmer of light from stem to stern.
“John, bide ye here!” said Sir Hector softly, and strode forward, to vanish in the dark; then rose a sweet, flute-like whistle rendering the first bars of “Blue Bonnets over the Border,” which was answered, after a little, by a hoarse voice in English:
“Be that your honour?”
“Aye, aye, Sharkie man, wi’ twa friends. Send the boat!”
“Nay, I be comin’ myself, sir!”
Followed a scrambling, scuffling sound, the dip of oars, creak of rowlocks and a mutter of voices, then Sir Hector called softly:
“This way, John.”
With his companion’s hand in his, Sir John advanced cautiously until, above the stones of the jetty, at his very feet, he visioned the dim outline of a human head that admonished him thus:
“Gi’e’s a holt o’ the young ’ooman, sir, an’ easy it is!”
Here my lady manifested very decided unwillingness to be taken a “holt of”, but was swung suddenly aloft in compelling arms, passed below to other arms and safely deposited in the stern-sheets of a swaying boat; then the others followed in turn, and they pushed off. Half a dozen strokes brought them to the side of a fair-sized vessel, and very soon my lady found herself set on deck, her hand securely tucked within Sir John’s arm.
“Perfect!” he exclaimed, glancing aloft at dim-seen, raking masts. “But wherefore all this stealth and secrecy, Hector?”
“Whisht, man! Wha’ gars ye tae say sic things o’ honest fusher-folk? Ye’re aboard the True Believer, Johnnie lad, juist a bit fushin’-boat out o’ Newhaven.”
“She’s something large and heavily sparred for a fishing-boat, isn’t she, Hector?”
“Gude sakes, John, and wha’ d’ye ken o’ fushin’-boats whateffer?”
“The True Believer? ’Tis a strange name!”
“’Tis a graund, godly name, John, an’ she’s owned by a godly man, a man as sings bass in the church choir, a worthy fushin’-body, as I ken fine. Dinna fash ye’self, John lad; wi’ luck an’ a favourin’ wind we should be ashore a little after dawn.”
“Why, then, this fishing-boat doth not fish to-night, Hector?”
“I’m no’ tellin’ ye she will.”
“But, Hector, if a fishing-boat fisheth not then fishing-boat she cannot be except she fish for other than fish, and yet, so fishing, she fisheth not truly, and truly can be no true fishing-boat——” But finding Sir Hector had vanished, he drew his companion into a corner well screened from the wind, and here, despite the dark, contrived a seat with canvas and a coil of rope.
“Rose,” said he, as they sat side by side, “it seems that some time to-morrow we shall have reached our journey’s end and must say good-bye. Shall you miss me, child ... grieve a little?”
For a moment she was silent, and when she answered her tone was primly demure.
“Oh yes, sir, and indeed I shall, for your honour’s been mortal kind, I’m sure!”
“Ha’ done with your play-acting, girl!” said he so sharply that she started and would have risen, but his grip on her arm restrained her.
“Play-acting?” she repeated in altered voice. “How, sir? D’ye think——”
“’Tis no matter, child,” he answered lightly; “my thoughts are my own. But for a little space I would have you your best, most worthy self. To-morrow we part and may meet again but rarely ... if ever. Shall you bear in your mind a kindly memory of me, Rose?”
“Yes,” she answered gravely.
“When you shall hear wild tales of the ‘Wicked Dering,’ will you think of him as ... as he is now ... a man perchance a little better than he is painted?”
“Yes,” she answered again, conscious of his dejected attitude though she saw his face but a pale blur in the gloom. “And will your honour be returning to Paris?”
“No, child.”
“To London?”
“Nor London. I intend to live in the country for awhile.”
“Then why can’t your honour see me now an’ then?” Here she was aware that he had lifted his head and turned to peer at her.
“I shall be very ... busy,” he answered, with a strange pause between the two words.
“And will your honour have time to miss me?”
“Heaven knows it, child!” he answered, leaning nearer.
“And shall you be—always busy, sir?” she questioned softly, swaying towards him until, despite the darkness, he could behold all the witchery of her look. “Shall you think of me sometimes?”
“Often, Rose ... as the most wonderful ... of—serving-maids!” he answered, turning suddenly away.
“How wonderful?” she demanded.
“Vastly wonderful, child.”
“What d’you mean by wonderful?”
“Just—wonderful; you fill me with wonder.”
“What of, pray?”
“Yourself.”
“Why?”
“Heavens, child! Just because you are a woman and possess a mind feminine, which is the wonder of wonders since ’tis beyond the understanding of man or woman. As saith the song:
‘The mind of a woman can never be known,
You never can tell it aright.
Shall I tell you the reason?—She knows not her own,
It changes so often ere night.
’Twould puzzle Apollo
Her whimsies to follow,
His oracle would be a jest.
At first she’ll prove kind,
Then quickly you’ll find
She’ll change like the wind,
And often abuses
The man that she chooses;
And what she refuses,
Loves best!’
And there y’have it, child!”
“Oh, indeed, sir! But when a woman makes up her mind to hate she can be fiercely determined as any man——”
“Aye—until she remembers she’s a woman!”
“And what then, sir?”
“Then, child, she becometh truly dangerous!” he answered. “Now here’s you, my Rose, a sweet, simple, country maid that talks like Aspasia, Sophonisba, Pallas Athene and the Three Wise Women of Hunsdon—or Hogsden, or whatever it was—all rolled into one. Yet, child, thou couldst never truly hate, thine eyes are too gentle, thy lips too tenderly full, thyself too generously formed——”
“Meaning ‘buxom,’ I s’pose?”
“Juno-like, let us say.”
“Pray, sir,” she inquired, after another pause, “if your honour marries your enemy—the great lady——”
“When I marry her, child!”
“When your honour marries her—if she doth not wed another—will your honour still think of poor Rose?”
“My honour will, indeed!”
“Then ’twill be wicked and dishonourable in your honour.”
“But very natural! For indeed I think my honour might learn to love thee, child, could we but find thee a soul.”
“Love?” she repeated a little scornfully. “Could Sir John Dering love any but Sir John Dering?”
“’S heart, child, your speech improves very marvellously at times; and let me perish, Rose, but you have an air that matches extreme ill with your homespun!”
“I ... I ha’n’t lived always i’ the country, sir!” she retorted.
“And despite the mild innocence o’ thy look, thou hast a temper and a tongue, Rose.”
“I’d be a poor, helpless creature without ’em, sir.”
“As to my capacity for loving, I think I might love as well and truly as most, aye, even to the forgetting of John Dering. For, hid within John Dering I am conscious of a soul, Rose, a soul so very much greater than John Dering that ’tis great marvel John Dering is not greater than John Dering, seeing John Dering is the outward though very imperfect manifestation of John Dering’s soul—a soul that will live and love and go marching on when poor John Dering is dust. And, look you! True love being not passion of the flesh but virtue o’ the soul, ’tis therefore sure that I, John Dering, shall some day love with a love exceeding great, a love as imperishable as John Dering’s soul. How think you, my——” Here Sir John, chancing to lift his gaze, descried amidst the pervading gloom a solid, round object that projected itself immediately above him from the roof of the deck-house behind; and, reaching up suddenly, he grasped a shock of coarse hair.
“Aha!” he exclaimed, and gave the dim head a shake; whereupon came a groping hand to rend and smite, a hand that shrank and vanished at the threatening click of Sir John’s ready pistol.
“Who are you, rascal?” demanded Sir John.
“Nobody ... only me!” quavered a voice in hoarse, wheedling tones. “So put up your wepping, sir!”
“What are you after?”
“Nothin’, sir ... only a-layin’ by till all ’ands is turned up. So don’t go shooting of a innocent wictim, sir.”
“What d’ye mean by eavesdropping?”
“No sech thing, y’r honour ... no, never in my life, sir. So away wi’ your wepping.”
“What’s your name, rogue?”
“Jonas, y’r honour, Jonas Skag, as honest a innocent as ever trod plank. So if y’r honour will put up y’r wepping and leggo my ’air kindly, I’ll be obleeged to your honour ’umbly.”
Sir John loosed the wheedling Jonas with a final shake, uncocked and re-pocketed his pistol, and looked round to find his companion had risen.
“The rogue disturbed us,” he sighed, “which is pity, for I was but warming to my theme. When I am upon the soul, and especially my own, I grow well-nigh lyrical. Let us sit down again and continue.”
“Nay, I’m a-cold!” she answered, drawing her cloak. “Hark! I think theym getting ready to sail.”
All about them was a hushed stir, a murmurous whispering, a thud of quick, soft feet, a flitting to and fro of dim forms, the faint sound of well-greased blocks and rousing-gear, the scarce-heard rattle of a chain, as the great yards rose slowly into the gloom above, and the anchor was hove.
“Yes,” answered Sir John, “we are stealing away to sea, and never surely was it quieter done! Come, let us go forward and watch!”
Now it chanced that as they went she tripped suddenly, fell against him, and then he had her in his arms. Passive she lay in his clasp, her face upturned to his, and, dark though it was, he saw the lure of those parted lips so near his own, the down-sweeping lashes, felt all the urge and coquetry of her.
“O Rose of love!” he murmured. “Were I any other than John Dering and thou any other than—thyself! O Innocence!” And uttering a strange, harsh laugh, he set her upon her feet. “Stand up, Rose, stand up!” he commanded. “And a heaven’s name be more wary o’ thy going. Come!” But she neither stirred nor spoke. “I might have kissed thee and—did not!” said he. “And for this, being very woman, thou’rt like to hate me more than ever. Is’t not so?”
But, giving utterance to an inarticulate exclamation, she turned swiftly and left him.
As he stood looking after her, he was presently aware of a gigantic form looming beside him.
“Aha!” sighed he, slipping his hand within Sir Hector’s arm. “Pray now resolve me this riddle, friend, namely and to wit: Why doth this ‘True-believing’ fishing-boat steal forth so silently a-fishing? Is it, think ye, that she may surprise the fish and take ’em in their sleep?”
“Havers, Johnnie man, dinna fash me wi’ sic fule questions,” answered Sir Hector. “B’my soul, I believe yo’ve fush on y’r brain, whateffer!”
“Mayhap, Hector, but I’ve one or two other things as well,” sighed Sir John, drawing his cloak against the freshening breeze.