Chapter 40 - No Quarter! by Mayne Reid
The Cadgers on the Kymin
“Laws, Jack! fear us be takin’ back bad news to Sir Richard. An worse for the poor young lady at Glo’ster. Rob’s tolt me her wor well-nigh deestract when her heerd he wor took pris’ner. What’ll it be as her get to hear o’ his bein’ bad wounded too? Her knows nothin’ o’ that.”
“Maybe ’tant so much o’ a wownd after all, nothin’ for he to go dead on. Folks allays zagerates sich things. An’ if he live it through, like ’nough ’twon’t be very long fores they git un free o’ his ’prisonment. I ha’ an idea, Winny dear, the letter us ha’ got be relatin’ to that same. Else-wise why shid the Colonel Kyrle, who wor onct on the Parlamenteery side, an’s now on t’other why shid him be writin’ to Sir Richard, or Sir Richard to he? Beside, all this queery business us be a doin’. It seem to mean somethin’ ’bout gittin’ the young gen’lemen out o’ gaol; maybe by changin’ he for another. Don’t ee think so?”
“Like it do.”
She knew it meant that, and more. For Rob Wilde had given her a hint of why they had been sent to Monmouth market—ostensibly cadging on their own account, but in reality as messengers in the pay and employ of Sir Richard Walwyn. Though Jack was personally the bearer of the secret despatches, Winny was the one entrusted with the diplomacy, and knew more than she thought necessary to confide to him.
They were on return from the market—for it was afternoon—and once more climbing a steep hill; this time not the Cat’s but the Kymin—the old Roman Road (Camen), which, crossing the Wye at Monmouth (Blestium), led up to the Forest table-land by Staunton. The ascent commences at the bridge, winding for miles through romantic woods and scenery unsurpassed in England. The bridge as then was a quaint, massive structure, having a towered gate on its tête de pont, with portcullis, draw-arch, and guard-house. A guard of Royalist soldiers were stationed on it; for ever since the breaking out of the war Monmouth had been kept for the King. But the cadgers had found no difficulty in passing this guard, either at going in, or coming out. It was market day, and Jinkum was laden with marketable commodities—a motley collection of farmyard fowls—hens, ducks, and geese—making a very pandemonium in the panniers. Had the soldiers upon the bridge but known what the little limping man carried inside his wooden leg, like enough they would have pitched him over the parapet. It was after getting clear of them, and well uphill, that the brother and sister were unburthening themselves to one another, as above described. The dialogue had commenced by Jack chuckling over the way they had outwitted the bridge guards, and referring back to how they had done the same, some fifteen months before, with the “Cavalières,” encountered on the Bristol road by Berkeley. He was in high glee, jesting about and praising his artificial leg—which had proved worth more to him than the real one—again in pleasant anticipation of a like remunerative result. The sister, however, was not joyous as he; her thoughts just then dwelling on that poor young lady described by Rob Wilde as having been “well-nigh deestract.” That was it which had turned their conversation into the channel it had taken.
There was a short interregnum of silence after Winny’s assenting rejoinder. Broken by Jack with an observation bearing on the same topic of discourse, but about a different place and time.
“’Twor a pity the Captain goed back to Hollymead wi’ so few o’ his sodgers along. I cud a tolt he that wan’t safe, seein’ the Colonel Lingen ha’ his quarters so near by, in Goodrich Castle. Him be a dangerous neighbour, an’ master o’ all round about theer now.”
“Ye be right, Jack; ’twor a pity,” she answered, echoing his first reflection. “But theer wor a good reason for ’t, Rob’s gied me. Seems Master Powell had somethin’ at Hollymead—him wanted gettin’ to Glo’ster, so’s to be safer theer. ’Twor a thing o’ great value him had hid away, fores leavin’ for Bristol that time, an’ the Captain volunteered like to go for it. How could him know o’ the danger frae Goodrich? That wor brought about by treezun; one o’ his men, who stepped away in the night an’ warned the Colonel Lingen. So him got tooked by surprise.”
“Well, they didn’t take he, ’ithout gettin’ a taste of his steel; a sharp taste, too; beside more frae his sodgers, few as they wor. Jim Davis, who wor up to the house, mornin’ after, seed blood all ’bout the place; more’n could a’ comed o’ them as lay killed. The Cavalières had carried away the wounded a’ both sides, wi’ theer own dead; as Jim think a good dozen.”
“That be true enough; more nor a dozen, I ha’ myself heerd. But what do it signify how many o’ Lingen’s wolves be gone dead, if that handsome young gentlemen ha’ to die, too? Sure as we be on Kymin hill, ’twill break Mistress Vaga’s heart.”
“Stuff an’ nonsense! Hearts beant so eezy broke.”
“Ah! that’s all you know about it.”
She could make the remark with confidence in its truth. There was no record of Jerky ever having had sweetheart, or feeling the soft sentiment of love. And for herself, some pangs of jealousy which Rob Wilde had occasioned her, though unconsciously, made her a believer that hearts could be broken. For this great Forest woman loved like a lioness, and could be jealous as a tigress.
“Oh, well!” rejoined the amiable brother, without taking notice of the slur on his lack of his amatory experience, “it mout be as ye say, sister Winny; supposin’ the young gen’leman’s wounds to prove mortyal. But that an’t like, from all us ha’ heerd the day. So let’s we live in hope. An’ I wudn’t wonner,” he added, in a more cheerful tone; “wudn’t a bit wonner, if, inside this timmer leg o’ mine, theer be somethin’ to tell Sir Richard the Captain an’t in any great danger. Maybe to say him will soon be out o’ prison, an’ bade in his saddle, to cut down another Cavalière or two.”
“Hope that’s the news us be takin’ to High Meadow. Whativer ’tis, let we get theer quick’s us can. Whack on the creetur.”
The final admonition referred to Jinkum; and his master, in obedience to it, gave out the customary “yee-up!” accompanied by the less usual application of cudgel.
A good deal of this last the donkey now needed. The morning had been hot, with the panniers full and heavy, toward the market. Now, on return, it was still sultry, and the wicker weighted as ever, Sir Richard Walwyn was not the strategist to let his scheme have a chance of miscarrying; and Jinkum was bearing back into the Forest country a large consignment of grocery goods; for which the consignee would care little, save as to the time of delivery. But about this he would be particular to an instant, as the cadgers knew; and so, on up the Kymin, Jinkum caught stick, in showers thick as had ever rained upon his hips, even when climbing the sharper and more familiar pitches of Cat’s Hill.