Chapter 23 - No Quarter! by Mayne Reid
A Grand Sergeant of Guard
Getting within sight of the city’s gate, the cadgers could see it was shut, drawbridge up, and portcullis down. Bristol was then a walled town, with an enceinte of ancient fortifications that had lately been repaired and strengthened. Night had now come on, and it was pitch dark. But a lamp set high on one of the gate towers threw its light across the moat, revealing to the eyes of the sentry who held post overhead the party seeking admittance. At sight of their humble mien, he thought of the bitterly cold night, and hearing of their reasonable request, called to the guard-sergeant below; then, to the inquiry of the latter, gave description of them in brief soldierly phrase—“Woman, man, and donkey.”
Whether his reversing the usual rule, by putting the woman before the man, was due to her superior stature, or because of her being better under the lamplight, his words seemed to produce a singular effect on the sergeant. Starting suddenly up from his seat by the guard-house fire, he rushed out and on to the wicket. There, placing his eye to the peep-hole, he saw what influenced him to give instant orders for the lowering of the bridge.
By this he was taking a great responsibility on his shoulders, though they seemed strong and broad enough to bear it; for the guard-sergeant was no other than Rob Wilde. As it chanced, the captain of the guard was just then out of the way; and Rob had reason to think he would be pardoned for the little stretch of vicarial authority.
“Ha’ patience, Win!” he shouted across. “We won’t be more than a minnit.”
Then with a will he set on to assist the others in letting the bridge down.
Win was patient; could well be, after hearing that voice, at once recognised by her. She thought nothing of the cold now; no more feared the raiding “Cavalières.”
Never was drawbridge more promptly made passable. The creaking of a windlass; with a rattling of chains, and it was down in its place. The wicket was at the same time drawn open, and the cadger party passed over and in.
“Lor, Win!” said Rob, drawing the great woman aside under the shadow of the guard-house wall, and saluting her with a kiss, “where be yees from?”
“Glo’ster east,” she responded, soon as her lips were released from the osculation.
“An’ what ha’ brought ye to Bristol?”
“Business o’ diff’rent kinds.”
“But ye don’t appear to ha’ any ladin’ on the donkey?”
“Us may goin’ back—hope to.”
The cadgeress was prevaricating. No commercial speculation was the cause of their being there; and if in passing through Gloucester they had picked up a commission, it was quite a windfall, having nought to do with the original object of their extended excursion. Neither on leaving Ruardean, nor up to that moment, was Jerky himself aware of its purpose, Winny having been its projector. But he could trust her, and she, in her usual way, insisting upon the tramp, he had no alternative but to undertake it. He knew now, why his sister had brought him to Bristol, and that Rob Wilde was the lure which had attracted her thither.
Rob had some thought of this himself, or at least hoped it so; the unburdened donkey helping him in his hope.
“But ye bean’t goin’ back, surely?” he said.
“Why not?”
“The danger o’ the roads now. If I’d a known you war on them, Win, dear, I should ha’ been feelin’ a bit uneasy.”
Her game of false pretence was now nearly up. It had all been due to a fear which had suddenly come over her on seeing him again. Months had elapsed since they last met, and the rough Forester, erst in coarse common attire, his locks shaggy and unkempt, was now a man of military bearing, hair and whiskers neatly trimmed, in a well-fitting uniform resplendent with the glitter of gold. He was only a sergeant; but in her eyes no commanding officer of troop or regiment, not even the generalissimo of the army, could have looked either so grand or so handsome. But it was just that, with the thought of the long interval since they had last stood side by side, that now held her reticent. How knew she but that with such change outwardly, there might also have come change within his heart, and towards herself? A soldier too, now; one of a calling proverbial for gallantry as fickleness, living in a great city where, as she supposed, the eyes of many a syren would be turned luringly upon her grand Rob.
Had he yielded to their lures or resisted them? So she mentally and apprehensively interrogated. But only for a short while; the “Win, dear,” in his old voice, with its old affectionate tone, and his solicitude for her safety, told he was still true.
Doubting it no longer, she threw aside the reserve that was beginning to perplex him, at the same time flinging her arms round his neck, and in turn kissing him.
That was her grateful rejoinder, sufficiently gratifying to him who received it, and leading him to further expressions of endearment. Glad was he they had arrived safe; and as to their errand at Bristol, which she cared no longer to keep from him, he forbore further questioning.
“Ye can tell me about it when we ha’ more time to talk,” he said. “But where do you an’ Jack ’tend passin’ the night?”
“The old place us always stop at,—Bird-in-the-Bush Inn.”
“That be over Avon’s bridge?”
“Yes; just a street or two the other side.” Bristol was no strange place to her. She, Jerky and Jinkum had made many a cadge thither before.
“I’d go ’long wi’ ye to the Bird-in-the-Bush,” said the guard-sergeant, “but, as ye see, I’m on duty at this gate, and musn’t leave it for a minnit. If the captain was here—unlucky he isn’t just now—he’d let me off, I know—seein’ who it be.”
“Why for seein’ that, Rob?”
“Because o’ his knowin’ ye. He ha’ seen you and Jack at Hollymead House.”
“It be Sir Richard?”
“No, no,” hastily responded the ex-deer-stealer, in turn, perhaps, experiencing a twinge of jealousy as when by the quarry on Cat’s Hill. “Sir Richard be in Bristol, too; but he’s a colonel, not captain.”
“Who be the captain, then?”
“That young Cavalier gentleman as comed to Hollymead ’long wi’ Sir Richard, after fightin’ him. He changed sides there, an’s now on ours. Ye heerd that, han’t you?”
“Deed, yes. An’ more; heerd why. ’Twas all through a sweet face him seed there—so be the word ’bout Ruardean.”
“Well; I hope her won’t disappoint he, after his doin’ that for her. Better nor braver than he an’t in this big town o’ Bristol. But, Win, dear,” he added, changing tone, and slinging an arm round her neck, “’tan’t any consarn o’ ours. Oh! I be so glad to see ye again.”
She knew he was now.
“Hang it!” he went on, “I only weesh my turn o’ guard was over, so’s I could go ’long wi’ ye. Maybe when the captain come back he’ll let me off for a hour or so. Sit up late, if ye ain’t too tired. Ye will, won’t ye?”
“I will; for you all night, Rob. Ay, till the sun o’ morning shines clear in the sky.”
Her passionate and poetic words were succeeded, if not cut short, by a thumping on the pavement. Jerky’s wooden leg it was; its owner approaching in the darkness, the rapid repetition of the thumps telling him to be in great haste.
“Winny!” he called to her in urgent tone, “us maunt linger here any longer. Ye know somethin’ as needs our bein’ quick about it.”
“Yes, yes,” she answered, excitedly, as if recalled to a duty she felt guilty of having trifled with or neglected. “I be ready to go on, Jack.”
The guard-sergeant looked a little puzzled. There was a secret, after all, which had not been confided to him. What could it be?
Rough Forester though he had been, bold soldier as he now was, he lacked the courage, or rather the rudeness, to ask. It might be a question unwelcome.
Divining his thoughts, the woman said in a whisper,—
“Something Rob, us have sweared not to tell o’ to anybody, ’till’t be all over an’ done. When’s I see you at the inn ’twill be over, an’ ye shall hear all about it.”
“That be enough, Win?” said in rejoinder the trusting Rob; and the two great figures went apart in the shadowy night, the separation preceded by their lips once more meeting in a resonant smack.
On along the streets passed the cadger party; Jack urging Jinkum to haste by a succession of vociferous “yee-ups,” and now and then a sharp touch of the stick. He seemed angry with himself, or perhaps more at Winny, for having tarried so long by the gate.
“Good gracious!” he exclaimed in a troubled tone, “what if us get theer too late? Ye know, the Glo’ster governor told we not to waste one second o’ time. Maybe better keep on straight to the castle. What d’ye say, Winny?”
“It be but a step to Bird-in-the-Bush, now. Won’t take we mor’n ten minnits; that can’t a make much difference. An’ us can go faster when’s we’ve left Jinkum in the inn yard.”
Thus counselled and controlled, Jack, as was customary with him, gave way; and the trio continued on for the Bird-in-the-Bush.