CHAPTER XLIV
IN WHICH THE GHOST FLITS TO GOOD PURPOSE
It was dark as he reached the old stile hard by the little footbridge, and, perceiving a shrouded form thereby, halted suddenly; but as he peered, uncertain, a soft voice spoke:
“John!” He drew back hastily; the figure moved towards him. “Sir John Dering?” Off came Sir John’s hat in a moment, and he bowed profoundly.
“Gad’s my life!” he exclaimed. “Do I indeed behold your ladyship? Bide you still i’ the country, madam? A fair good-night to you!” And he turned away, only to find her beside him.
“Why—why will you hazard your life thus wantonly?” she questioned. “Nay, sir, do not prevaricate; I know ’tis your custom to walk thus solitary of a night.”
“Your ladyship’s interest flatters me!” he murmured.
“Surely, sir,” said she, in the same calm and gentle tones, “life is not to be thus lightly jeopardised.”
“Tush, madam,” he laughed, “you grow hysterical again, ’twould seem, and ’tis a weakness of your charming sex that I have ever found extreme embarrassing, not to say wearisome. I suggest a pill ... a bolus and sleep, madam. Aye, sleep is the thing ... you shall find your megrims gone i’ the morning. So sleep you soundly, madam, and farewell!” Having said which, he bowed and departed, leaving her to watch him through slow-gathering tears. And suddenly, finding herself thus deserted, she bowed her stately head upon the old stile, wetting its ancient timbers with her tears and weeping so unfeignedly that she actually sniffed, though to be sure there was none to hear.
Meanwhile Sir John, striding his solitary way, looked up at the stars and smiled happily.
“She cares!” quoth he within himself. “By all the saints in heaven, she cares!” And, halting suddenly, he glanced back, minded to return. “Either she loves me, or here was marvellous good play-acting ... which, now?” Here he went on again, though very slowly, and coming to a gate, leaned there to debate the point.
My lady, reaching the cottage, paused awhile, also with gaze uplifted, but saw the starry firmament blurred by smarting tears.
“Alas,” sighed she, “he never loved me or he would have known! He is but the heartless Sir John Dering after all!”
“The question being,” said Sir John within himself, his gaze yet uplifted to the firmament, “is she truly——”
The stars seemed to shoot wildly from their courses, the earth to sway giddily beneath his feet, then to plunge horribly down and down into a roaring blackness.
He awoke to a sense of pain, jolting and strangulation; slowly he became aware that he lay bound hand and foot across the withers of a horse, and with his mouth crammed almost to suffocation with a thing he took to be a neckerchief.
And after some while he was conscious of two voices wrangling together—voices these that sounded vaguely familiar; and the first was hoarse and sullen, the second sharp and querulous.
THE FIRST VOICE: An’ whoy not, I sez?
THE SECOND VOICE: Because I won’t have it.
THE FIRST VOICE: An’ ’oo be you t’ say no? I be good a man as you, aye an’ better! Ain’t I follered an’ follered ’im, waitin’ my chance? Wasn’t it me as got ’im at last? Well then, I sez we ought to finish an’ mak’ sure.
THE SECOND VOICE: AND I SAY NO!
THE FIRST VOICE: My lord bid us mak’ sure, didn’t ’e?
THE SECOND VOICE: He’ll be sure enough once aboard ship.
THE FIRST VOICE: An’ I tell ye ’e be better dead.
THE SECOND VOICE: And I say, I’ll ha’ no more bloodshed.
All about him was the tramp of feet muffled upon grass; and sometimes it seemed they laboured uphill and sometimes down, but always these two voices disputed, now waxing so loud and clear that he seemed on the point of recognising them, now blurred and indistinct, sinking to a murmur, a whisper, until they were not, and it seemed he was asleep and plagued by nightmare. It was after one of these many lapses that he was conscious the painful jolting had ceased, felt himself dragged roughly from the horse’s back, and had a dim vision of many legs that hemmed him in as he lay upon the grass.
“Ain’t dead, is ’e?” inquired a hearty voice, faintly interested.
“Dead—no, dang ’im!” answered the Sullen Voice, and a foot spurned him savagely. “Dead—not ’im! Though ’e ought to be, aye an’ would be, if I ’ad my way.”
“Easy, mate, easy!” admonished the Hearty Voice.
“Hold y’r tongue, you do!” cried the Querulous Voice. “Hold your tongue for a bloody-minded rogue or——”
“Avast, shipmates!” quoth the Hearty Voice. “Throat-slittin’ be a ticklish business.”
“Yah—dead men doan’t talk!”
“Mebbe not, mate, but live-un’s do! An’ then there be ghosts, shipmate, ghosts, d’ye see.”
“When can ye take him aboard?” demanded the Querulous Voice.
“Why, the tide wun’t sarve for ’arf an hour yet. Plenty time to finish my pipe.... An’ talkin’ o’ ghosts, there was my mate Jerry Banks as was knifed aboard the Belle Fortun’ ... pore Jerry’s ghost used to come an’ sit o’ nights perched aloft on our main-yard an’ mew like a cat! Aye, mew ’e would, an’ carry on that mournful ’twas ’orrible, mates——”
“Hold your tongue!” cried the Querulous Voice.
“Aye, we doan’t want none o’ your ghosts, do us, lads?” quoth the Sullen Voice; whereupon was a mutter of hearty assent.
“Why, very well,” answered he of the hearty voice, spitting, “only if you’d a-heered the ghost o’ pore Jerry ... used to mew like any cat, it did, only more dismal-like.... I never ’eered nothing in all my days so shiversome and——” The Hearty Voice ended in a hiss of breath suddenly in-drawn and thereafter was utter silence, a strange, unnatural stillness wherein it seemed that none moved or breathed; and then rose a hoarse, stammering whisper:
“Lord ... O Lord a’ mercy! What’s yon?”
Turning heavy head, Sir John saw about him a huddle of crouching men who all peered in the one direction, heard an incoherent, passionate muttering that changed to a groan, a gasping cry, and a man rose to his knees with rigid arms out-thrust, staggered to his feet and leapt down the grassy steep; hereupon the others awoke to sudden action; ensued a desperate scrambling, a wild babblement, a thudding of desperate feet, and Sir John lay staring on the empty dark alone save for the horse that cropped the grass near by. And then he too saw a vague and awful shape outlined in pale fire that flitted unheard upon the gloom and vanished, only to reappear as suddenly, gliding back up the slope to where he lay. And watching the thing approach, Sir John felt his flesh creep and he shivered with a growing dread that mocked at sanity and reason until he strove desperately against his bonds, but, finding this vain, lay still again, watching. On it came, looming more gigantic and frightful with every yard, nearer still, until he could distinguish the monstrous head surmounted by widespreading, fiery horns, nearer, until from this awful shape a whispering voice reached him.
“Be that Sir John Dering? Be ye there, sir?” Then the dreadful thing swayed, stooped upon itself, thudded to earth, and in its place was a tall, broad-shouldered man who, running forward, knelt and began to cut and loose off Sir John’s galling bonds. “Gagged ye too, ’ave they!” quoth the voice, and next moment Sir John, relieved of the gag, reached out fumbling hand and spoke:
“Mr. Potter—O George Potter, though you come like a demon o’ darkness, a very devil, yet no angel could be more welcome!”
“Why, sir, Potter frit’ they rogues praper, I rackon. They cut off amazin’ quick, an’ they ain’t like to come back—an’ yet they may. So up wi’ ye, sir, an’ quick’s the word!” Sir John arose but, clapping hand to head, reeled weakly. “Be your ’ead ’urted bad, sir?”
“Nothing to mention, thanks to my hat and wig.”
“Can ye ride, sir?”
“Easier than walk.”
“Well, up it is, then!” And, half lifting Sir John to the saddle, Mr. Potter laid a shapeless bundle across the withers and they set off together.
“How came you so fortunately to my relief, George?”
“Well, sir, I happed to be a-waitin’ for Mus’ Sturton an’ ... t’other ’un, meanin’ to frutten Sturton away an’ get t’other ’un alone if so might be, when ’long comes ’alf a dozen chaps wi’ this ’ere ’orse an’ you acrost it, though I didn’t know ’twas you then, sir. But suddent-like, t’other ’un says, ‘Why not finish ’im and ha’ done?’ ’e says. ‘Because I wun’t ’ave it!’ says Sturton, very determinated.”
“’T’other ’un’ being the man Jonas Skag, I think?” inquired Sir John.
“Why, sir, I wun’t deny it. Well, sir, they stops purty nigh wheer I wur a-hidin’ to arg’ the matter, an’ I soon found ’twas you they was a-quarrellin’ over. An’ presently on they goes an’ me creepin’ arter ’em bidin’ a chance to do what I might.”
“By means of your horns and bullock’s hide, George?”
“Aye, this ’ere!” answered Mr. Potter, laying his hand upon the shapeless bundle. “A good friend it’s been to pore Potter, sir. Ghosts be useful things hereabouts.”
“So I have observed!” smiled Sir John. “And, indeed, you were a terribly convincing ghost.”
“Naun so bad, sir,” admitted Mr. Potter modestly. “I done my best off an’ on. Though I don’t like hauntin’ in the open—gimme a wall! Ye see, some folks be apt to shoot ... there be four or five bullet-’oles in this ’ere ghost arlready!”
Talking thus, they at last reached the highroad, and Sir John saw the lights of Alfriston twinkling before them. Here the discreet Mr. Potter stopped and, lifting finger to eyebrow, bade Sir John good-night.
“You’ll be arl right now, I rackon, sir,” said he.
But Sir John reached down to grasp his hand.
“You know who I am, I think?” he questioned.
“Aye, Sir John, you be Dering o’ Dering.”
“And a magistrate besides, George Potter, a justice o’ the Peace and Quorum.”
“And I be Potter the smuggler, sir.”
“And a man, George! And ’tis as such that I shall always know you, so—give me your hand, friend George!”
So, in the gloom, hand met and grasped hand.
“Lord, sir,” quoth Mr. Potter, “I dunno as I bean’t a bit ... glad-loike, you callin’ Potter your friend an’ arl——”
“Why then, George, pray tell me why do you seek Jonas Skag so earnestly?”
“Well, from what I be hearin’ ... an’ likewise addin’ two an’ two, I rackon Jonas knows more’n a bit about that theer false signallin’ ... an’ if so be I find ’e do ... why then, sir—why then——”
“Well?”
“No matter, sir—mum for that. But I rackon ’e wun’t nowise betray no lads to theer deaths never no more!”
“What do you mean, George?”
“Nothin’ ’t arl, sir.... Only, talkin’ o’ ghosts, rackon I made a pretty tidy ’un, but the fire were old Pen’s idee, though she calls it phross-phross.” So saying, Mr. Potter shouldered his bundle and trundled off in the gloom of the hedge, leaving Sir John to ride thoughtfully into Alfriston.