The doom trail

II SMALL TALK AND MULLED ALE

II

SMALL TALK AND MULLED ALETen minutes later we stopped before a tall, gabled house of brick and timber on the near side of Holborn. My companion produced a key from his person and unlocked a heavy door which opened upon a staircase leading to the second story. The first floor was occupied by a shop. Over the window was hung a small stuffed animal, who seemed to be attempting to climb the front wall as the wind swayed him to and fro.

"Enter, Master Ormerod," said Juggins. "You are right welcome. I hope you have none of the country gentleman's scorn for the home of an honest merchant."

"A beggar must not be a chooser," I answered. "But if I were not indebted to you for my liberty I should still be glad to visit a Dorset man who knows how to fight and who remembers the woods of Foxcroft."

"Well spoken," applauded Juggins as he fastened the door behind us and lit the candle in a lantern which was ready on a shelf in the vestibule at the foot of the stairs. "So I might have expected your father's son to speak."

"That is the second time you have called me 'my father's son,'" I said. "Prithee, Master Juggins, had you acquaintance with my father?"

"Bide, bide," he replied enigmatically. "We shall settle all that anon. After you, sir."

And he ushered me up the stairs, which were hung with the skins of many kinds of animals, some of which I did not even know. At intervals, too, were suspended various savage weapons—bows, arrows and clubs—gaily painted and decorated with feathers.

The stairs gave upon a large hall, similarly decorated, and through this we passed into a comfortable chamber which stretched across the front of the house. At one side blazed a warm fire under a massive chimney-piece; candelabra shed a soft glow over thick rugs and skins, polished furniture and well-filled shelves along the walls.

Master Juggins relieved me of my cloak and hat and motioned to a deep chair in front of the fire.

"Rest yourself, Master Ormerod. Presently we shall have provender for the inner man as well."

"But your arm!" I suggested, pointing to the bloody stains on his coat sleeve. "I am not unskilled in such matters, if——"

"I doubt not, sir; but I have one at hand, I make bold to say, has forgotten more than you ever learned of cures and simples."

He went to the door by which we had entered and clapped his hands.

"Ho, Goody! Art abed after all?"

"Abed! Abed!" answered a thin, old voice that was inexpressibly sweet, with a Dorset burr that made Master Robert's sound like the twang of a Londoner. "The lad is mad! Gadding around at all hours of the night; aye, sparking in his old age, I'll be bound, with never a thought to his granny at home or the worries he pours on her head. Abed! says he. When did I ever feel the sheets, and not knowing he was warm and safe and his posset-cup where it belongs—which is in his stomach! Abed! Didst ever find——"

She stepped into the room, a quaint little figure in hodden-gray, a dainty cap perched on her wispy white hair, her brown eyes gleaming in the candle-light, the criss-crossed wrinkles of her cheeks shining like a network of fine lace. In her hands she held a tray supporting a steaming flagon and divers covered dishes of pewterware.

Juggins favored me with a humorous glance.

"Sure, I grow more troublesome year by year, granny," he said as she paused at sight of me. "Here I am come home later than ever, bringing a guest with me."

But she made no answer, and as I looked closer at her I saw that she had perceived the blood on his sleeve. She tottered in her tracks, and I jumped to take the tray from her hands. But she regained her self-command, waved me away with a nod of her head and stepped quickly across the chamber to a table by the fire.

In an instant she was at Master Juggins' side and had stripped the coat off his arm and shoulder. Then she stepped back with a sigh of relief, and for the second time looked at me.

"'Tis nothing, after all," she said. "But ever since he came back from those years amongst the savages when I had thought him dead a score of times and——"

She broke off to glance swiftly at Juggins' face.

"Who did it! Was it——"

She hesitated, and he answered before she could continue:

"Aye; it was he, granny, or minions hired by him. But enough of that for the present. You have not spoken to our guest. Who think you he is?"

"Whoever he may be, if he helped you in danger, Robert, he is a good lad and we owe him thanks."

She swept me a stately curtsey such as might have graced a court ball at Versailles.

"No, the boot is on the other leg," I protested. "'Tis I who owe gratitude to Master Juggins, for he has taken me in out of the cold and the fog—and worse dangers perhaps."

"Poor young gentleman," she said softly. "For you are gentle, young sir. I did not live my youth in gentlefolks' houses for naught, and I can see gentility when it comes before my eyes, old though they be."

"You have not asked his name," suggested Master Juggins.

She looked at us inquiringly.

"'Tis Master Ormerod."

"Ormerod! Not——"

"Aye; Master Harry."

"But he is in France!"

"Nay; he is here."

"But——"

She drew closer, and studied my features under the candles that shone from the mantel-shelf.

"Is he in danger?" she asked breathlessly.

"The watch were after him when he came to my rescue," replied Juggins.

"Yet he came."

She patted my cheek with her hand.

"That was a deed which you need never be shamed of, Master Ormerod, and you shall win free to safety, whatever it may be or wherever, if Robert and I have any wits between us."

"But, granny," protested Juggins, "he is a rebel. He has just landed from France on a mission against the Crown."

"A rebel! Against the Crown?"

Her eyes flared.

"Tut! A likely tale! And what if he has? Is he not an Ormerod? His father's son!"

She wheeled around upon me.

"Your father was Sidney Ormerod!"

"Yes," I assented dazedly.

"Are you in truth a rebel!" she demanded without giving me time to catch my breath.

"Faith, I was one."

"But are you one now!"

"Not in my own heart; but the Bow Street runners think otherwise."

"A fig for them!" she cried. "Men have little enough sense, and when you place 'em in authority they grow imbecile. Sit yourself down again, Master Ormerod, the while I set a bandage about this arm of Robert's, and then you shall have a draft of mulled ale and a dish of deviled bones and thereafterward a bed with sheets that have lain in Dorset lavender. Hath it a welcome sound to you!"

The tears came into my eyes.

"I am happier this night than I have been any time since Charles and I left Foxcroft," I said. "But pray tell me why you two, who are strangers to me, should be so interested in an outcast?"

"He does not know?" exclaimed the little old lady.

"I have told him nothing," said Juggins, smiling.

"Tut, tut," she rebuked him. "Was it well to be tight-mouthed with an Ormerod?"

"I found him in the fog out there—or rather he found me," answered Jugging humorously. "And I did not know he was this side of St. Germain."

"Well, 'tis time enough he knew he was amongst the right sort of friends," the little lady said, her fingers all the time busied in adjusting bandages to the wounded arm. "You are too young, Master Ormerod, to remember old Peter Juggins——"

A light burst upon my addled wits.

"Why, of course!" I cried. "He was steward under my father, and in his father's time before him! But you?"

"Peter was my husband," she said simply. "Robert here is our grandson. As I said, sir, it was all too long ago for you to remember; but when Peter died your father offered his place to Robert. Robert would have none of it. He had the wandering bee in his bonnet. He was young, and he must see the world. He would make his fortune, too. No life as an estate steward for him."

"And wise I was, too, granny," interjected Master Juggins. "Even you will grant that now."

"Be not too elevated by your good fortune," she retorted. "Had you followed your grandfather at Foxcroft your counsel might have restrained Master Harry and his brother from their madness——"

"I wish it might have," I said bitterly, thinking of Charles' lonely grave on a mist-draped hillside in the Scotch Highlands.

"But in that case," Master Juggins gravely pointed out, "you would not have been at hand to rescue me tonight."

"Nor would you have been getting yourself mixed into intrigues which would place you in fear of assassination," she snapped. "Have done with your foolery, Robert. Master Ormerod knows naught of his father's kindness to you."

"He shall have earnest enough of it anon," returned Juggins heartily. "But do you go on, granny. You make a brave tale-teller."

She tweaked him by the ear as if he had been a small lad, gave a final pat to the neat bandage she had fastened over his wound and continued:

"Many a gentleman would have taken in bad part such an answer to an offer made in kindness, Master Ormerod. But not your father. No, after trying all he could by fair means to dissuade Robert from his course, he asked where his fancies drifted, and then supplied him with money for the voyage to the Western Plantations and to enable him to secure a start when he entered the wilderness."

"Granny still has the Londoner's idea of New York Province," explained Juggins humorously. "'Tis a wilderness in the Western Plantations. And in New York, which has grown a fine, thriving town since we wrested it from the Dutch, they regard England as a welcome market for furs over against the side of Europe."

"'Tis north of the Virginias and this side of the French settlements in Canada, is it not!" I asked, more in politeness than in interest.

"Aye, Master Ormerod; and you could drop all of England and Scotland and Wales into it, and then go out and win new lands from the savages if you felt over-crowded."

"Y'are driving beside the point, Robert," declared the little old lady with round displeasure. "Would you seek to belittle the generosity of Master Ormerod's father? No? Then have done."

She turned to me.

"Indeed," she added, "'tis as I have told you, sir; we are greatly indebted to you. All that you see here we owe to your father's kindness. 'Twas that permitted Robert to go overseas and to set himself up as a fur-trader there and afterwards to return and establish his business down-stairs, which hath grown so that it is more than he can handle—aye, and to become in good time, as he has, Warden of the Worshipful Company of Merchant Traders to the Western Plantations. All of it, I say, we owe to you."

"All of it, granny," reaffirmed Master Juggins himself. "Y'have not made it one whit too strong for me. But now, look you, Goody, the hour is late for old folks——"

"You are not so young yourself, Robert," she remarked tartly.

"Nay, granny dear, I do not seek the last word with you," he laughed. "'Tis only that I would find out before we sleep how I may be of aid to Master Ormerod."

"Aid?" quoth she. "All that we have in the world is his, if he wants it; aye, the clothes off our backs."

She swept me another curtsey, deeper than ever—just such a one, I fancy, as she made to my mother when she brought her the housekeeper's keys.

"Good night to you, Master Ormerod. And remember, this house, poor though it be for your father's son, is to be your home until you have a better."

I rose and bowed my acknowledgments, but I could not speak. My heart was too full. Here in this bleak, unfriendly London, which had greeted me with suspicion and persecution, I had found friendship and assistance. My fortunes, at ebb an hour before, now seemed about to flow toward a happier future. It was almost too good to believe.

"I have no claim upon you, Master Juggins," I exclaimed as the door closed behind his grandmother. "Remember that. And let me not imperil for one moment two friends of my father, who revere his memory as I had not supposed any did, save myself."

He pushed me down into my chair by the fire.

"There is no question of claim, sir. 'Tis a privilege. Now do you set this glass to your lips. How tastes it?"

"Most excellent. In France they must spice their mulled drinks to make them palatable. No need to add aught to good, ripe English ale."

"You have not lost the tongue of an Englishman, Master Ormerod, and for that let us be thankful. Aye, 'tis a crotchet of mine to drink a posset of ale, fetched from a brewer in Dorset whose ways are known to me, each night before I rest. It settles the digestion—although my friends the savages in North America do protest that naught is necessary upon retiring save a long drink of clear, cold water."

"You have fought hard for the comfort I see around me?" I suggested.

"Aye, but we shall have time anon to speak of that. Do you tell me now of your present plight. Fear not to be frank with me, Master Ormerod. I do not mix in politics. I am none of your red-hot loyalists who would hang a man because he remarks that our worthy King is Hanoverian by birth. But on the other hand I'll have naught to do with these plotters who fume over the exiled Stuarts.

"The Stuarts went, sir, because they over-taxed the forbearance of a long-suffering people. They might have returned ere this, as you know, had they possessed the good sense to appreciate what their whilom people required. But they lacked that good sense, Master Ormerod, and with all deference I say to you they will never return unless they learn that lesson—and abjure Popery—very soon."

I leaned forward in my chair and interrupted him, the words bubbling from my lips.

"I could not have put neater my own feelings, Master Juggins. When I was a lad not yet of age I risked all I had for the Stuart cause. What came of it? A life of exile that might have ruined me, as it has many a better man. My family's estate was sequestrated; my outlawry was proclaimed. I have no place to lay my head, save it be by the bounty of a foreigner.

"Have I secured any moral satisfaction by these sacrifices? At first I thought I had.

"They told me it was all for the Good Cause, the Cause that some day must triumph. The man you call the Pretender—it irks my lips to brand him so, despite how I have suffered in his name—took me by the hand, made me a chamberlain at his trumpery Court. I received a commission to fight under an English prince in foreign wars, mayhap against my own land. 'Tis only accident has averted that so far.

"But when I looked closer I found that I had done nothing for my country. For this prince, whom some men call King and some Pretender, yes. But for my country, nothing."

"This made me think the harder, Master Juggins. At the beginning I had taken zest in the plots and plans which were aimed to bring about his restoration to power.

"But the longer I studied them the more insincere they became. I found my leader a catspaw of foreigners, used to undermine England's prestige. His spies were in the pay of Papists. His aims were not the good of England, but his own aggrandizement, the winning back of my country to the Pope, the furthering of France's ambitions."

Master Juggins reached over and smote me on the knee.

"Hast learned that, lad? Why, then, there's no more loyal Englishman in London!"

"So you think," I answered. "So I think. But hear me out. I brought myself to abandon my friends in France, the only friends I had. I told my feelings to a certain great gentleman who handles affairs at St. Germain. He cursed me for a turncoat, would have ordered his lackeys to flog me from the palace. I left him—in disgrace. The doors of my friends were closed to me. I thought I would make my way to England and begin a new life.

"So I applied to the English ambassador for a passport. He laughed at me. Did I think he was so innocent as to be blinded by such transparent trickery? Nay, the Pretender must seek otherwhere, for means to plant a fresh spy in England. In desperation then I sold a miniature of my mother's——"

Master Juggins held up his hand.

"Where?" he asked eagerly.

"How?" I replied, not understanding.

"Where sold you this miniature? To what dealer!"

"'Twas a Jew named Levy close by the Quai de l'Horloge."

"Good," he said with satisfaction. "It shall be recovered."

"But, Master Juggins——"

"Tush, sir," he brushed my objection aside. "'Tis naught. Some day you shall refund the money, if you wish. But I would not have you lose the miniature. I loved your lady mother, if I may say so."

I pressed his hand, and struggled for words to answer. But he would have none, and insisted that I continue my story.

"So you secured funds?" he said. "And next?"

"I bought passage from a smuggler of Dieppe, who landed me three weeks since in Sussex. I made my way to Dorset, hoping to find old friends who would help me to gain a pardon; but in Dorchester High Street I was recognized by one of my cousins who now hold Foxcroft House, and he raised a hue and cry after me, fearing no doubt that I sought to regain the estate.

"Since then I have been hunted like a beast. My last shilling was spent this morning. Tomorrow, had I escaped so long, I planned to sell my sword, and if all else failed to seek a press-gang."

"Let us thank God you heard my cries," said Juggins earnestly.

He rose from his chair, a stout, square-built man with a shrewd, weather-beaten face and a manner of authority, despite the simplicity of his demeanor and attire.

"I do," I said, "and with no lack of reverence, my friend, I also thank you."

He gave me a keen look.

"You call me friend. Do you mean the word!"

"Why not?"

"I was your father's servant," he said, and he said it so that the words were at once proud and humble.

I caught his hand in mine.

"You were his friend, too; and who am I, an outlaw without name or fortune, to set myself above a man who has prospered like you through the diligence of his own hands and brains?"

Master Juggins drew a deep breath and wrung my hand hard.

"You'll do, lad," he said. "My help would have been yours on any terms. But you have made it a glad privilege for me to help you. Doubt not we shall find a way.

"Now get you to bed. I shall have somewhat to say to you on the morrow."