Part 29

He was accordingly removed to the town jail, then situated to the west of Friargate. This building had been formerly a Franciscan convent of Grey Friars, or Friars Minor, built by Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, son of Henry III., in 1221, to which Robert de Holland, who impeached Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, for high treason, contributed largely, and was buried there. In its original state it was a small collegiate building, with a chapel attached to its quadrangular cloisters. By the mutations of time, it became the residence of the Breares of Hammerton, in Bowland; next a house of correction, until the prison at the bottom of Church Street was erected in 1790.

The clerk, being more particular in his inquiries than his worship, addressed the stranger as follows when their mission was ended:--

"Thou hast given good evidence of this plot, and too full of circumstance and confirmation to be disbelieved. The name is Oswald thou sayest, and one of the party who have plotted for his rescue?"

"I have told thee of this before," replied the stranger, sullenly.

"What should prompt thee to betray him?"

"The same that prompts thee to minister to the hangman's trade--gold!"

"Humph!" replied the other drily, wiping his spectacles; "and what will satisfy your craving?"

"Why, thinkest thou that I deserve not a reward for my loyalty and readiness to reveal this plot? I will to London with the prisoner; the king will not fail to grant me great largess for what this proud lack-land calls my treachery."

"Why an it be a noose mayhap: for my part," continued the greedy and disappointed man of law, "I have touched never a doit of the bounty, though I have got many a sound rating, and am harder worked than a galley-slave, without even so much as a 'thank ye' for my pains. The mayor himself, who dreams he shall be knighted, may whistle a duet with 'my lady' as he calls her, as long as a county precept, or ere his title be forthcoming, though it be only a puff of empty breath. There's no luck in being loyal; neither honour nor honesty thrive therein. But 'tis the spoke that's uppermost; and so are we."

"Thinkest thou that I may get no share of the reward for his apprehension?" inquired the avaricious betrayer.

"Yes; Judas's reward, maybe, who sold his Master," said the indomitable clerk, much diverted by his own talents for tormenting. "Hold--I bethink me thou mayest claim the earl's linsey-woolsey gown and petticoats."

A loud laugh proclaimed that he had fully appreciated his own wit; though the stranger made no comments thereon.

"To-night, thou sayest, a boat will be in readiness, one hour before midnight and by the mayor's orders?"

"Yes; arrangements will be made, and soon after daylight we shall have our prisoner safe aboard the king's cruiser," replied the stranger, "for I know her bearing to a league."

"Thou wilt with us then?"

"Why, ay, if they will grant me a free passage. I would fain see him safe at head-quarters."

"I know not but thou art right; though, rest thee satisfied, he shall be sufficiently guarded."

The worthies here separated--one to his indictments and his desk, the other to gloat on the mischief he had either committed or prevented.

About an hour before midnight a heavy jarring sound announced to the prisoner that the time was at hand for his departure.

"Quick--quick, sir," said the jailer; "the mayor and his posse will see you safe aboard."

"The mayor! Wherefore comes he to swell the procession?"

"A prisoner of your rank and influence must be well looked after, I guess. The mayor will see you safely afloat, sir, and then he may go home with a quiet heart. He has had sore misgivings on account of your safety."

The earl accompanied his keeper; a close carriage was at the gate, well guarded. Mr Mayor and his green-eyed clerk took their seats with the prisoner: and the heavy vehicle rumbled dismally through the now deserted streets, wakening many a drowsy burgher as it passed.

They gained the low landing-place without interruption, having taken the precaution to chain the legs and wrists of their prisoner to prevent escape. The mayor and his shadow, the gossiping clerk, stepped out first, the carriage being well guarded on each side. Conducted along a jet or wooden pier, they saw a fishing-boat lying beneath. The waves flapped heavily on her sides, beating to and fro against the pier. Four rowers were leaning silently on their oars, awaiting the arrival of their cargo; their dark, low-crowned hats heaving above the dim light which yet lay upon the water.

The wind howled in the rising sail, and the creaking cordage whistled through the block. The sail was hoisted. The wind was fresh, and the rowers raised their oars. The earl was lifted into the boat by two of the attendants. The jailer next stepped in; three other myrmidons of justice followed.

"You know the offing well, my lads, I guess?" said the jailer.

"Ay, ay, sir," replied several voices.

"Where is the king's cutter?" said he, addressing the stranger, who was already in the boat.

"Lying to, between us and the Peel of Fouldrey," replied he.

"This is a strange boat I think," said the inquisitive jailer.

"We came with fish to market from Church Town," was the reply.

"One of your own men engaged her," said the stranger; "and these have grumbled long and hard enough, that they should have the ill-luck to be pressed into this disagreeable service."

"I would you had laid your paws on some other boat. We shall ha' na' luck after this," said the elder of the seamen. "You may hire another now, and welcome."

But there were none at hand. The jailer, with a hearty curse at his insolence, bade him be silent and push off.

"Hast thou gotten the memorial touching my poor services to the king?" inquired the trenchant mayor.

"Have ye gotten the warrant safe, and the prisoner in close custody?" inquired the clerk.

But the boat pushed from shore, and the answer was scarce heard, mingling with the rush of the waves and the hollow wind, while the trampling of horses and the rumbling of the coach announced the departure of Preston's high and illustrious ruler and his learned clerk: one to dream of swords, knights, and drawing-rooms; the other to soar through those mystic regions, sublime and incomprehensible--the awful, inscrutable forms, fictions, and subtleties of law.

The boat soon gained the mid-channel. The wind was favourable, and the tide, beginning to return, swept them rapidly down the river. The stranger, at whose instigation this plan had been adopted, lay in the little cabin, or rather coop, wrapped in a fisherman's coat, apparently asleep. Derwentwater sought not repose; he sat, moody and silent, in a deep reverie, unconscious or insensible to all but his own dark and untoward fate.

The loud dash and furrowing of the wave, the roar of the wind, and the cry of the boatman as he gave the soundings, were often the only audible sounds. No one was inclined to converse, and the roll and pitching of the boat when they approached the river's mouth made the jailer and his friends still less willing to disturb their comrades.

After nearly four hours the lights of the little fishing hamlet of Lytham were passed, and they were fast entering upon the open sea. The stranger came out of the cabin, stationing himself by the steersman. They were evidently on the look-out for signals. It was not yet daybreak, and the wind was from the north, a bitter and a biting air, that made the jailer's teeth to chatter as he raised himself up to examine their course and situation as well as the darkness would permit.

"How long run we on through these great blubbering waves ere we end our voyage? This night wind is worse than a Robin Hood's thaw."

"We will hoist signals shortly," was the reply; "if the ship is within sight, she will answer and bring to."

"Have ye any prog[iv] aboard?" inquired the officer.

A bottle was handed to him. He drank eagerly of the liquor, and gave the remainder to his assistants.

"I wish with all my heart," said he, "the prisoner were safe out of my custody, and I on my way back. I had as lief trot a hundred miles on land bare-back as sit in this confounded swing for a minute. How my head reels!"

He leaned against one of the benches, to all appearance squeamish and indisposed.

A faint light now flickered on the horizon and disappeared. Again. It seemed to rise above the deep. They were evidently approaching towards it, and the stranger spoke something in a low tone to the steersman.

"Yonder it be, I reckon," said the jailer, lifting up his head on hearing an unusual bustle amongst the crew. "I am fain to see it, for I am waundy qualmish dancing to this up-an'-down tune, wi' nought but the wind for my fiddle."

"And who pays the piper?" asked a wavering voice from below.

"Thee Simon Catterall, bumbailiff, catchpole, thieftaker, and"----

Here a sudden lurch threw the jailer on his beam-ends. A pause was the result, which this worthy official was not inclined to interrupt.

A light hitherto concealed, was now hoisted up to the masthead. This was apparently answered by another signal at no great distance.

"Friends!" said the stranger; "and now hold on to your course."

They had passed the banks and were some leagues from shore. Morning was feebly dawning behind them, when the dark hull of a ship, rapidly enlarging, seemed to rise out, broad and distinct, from the thin mist towards the west. The loud and incessant moan of the waves, the dash and recoil of their huge tops breaking against the sides of the vessel, with voices from on board, were distinctly heard, and immediately the boat was alongside.

The transfer of their cargo was a work of more difficulty, partly owing to the clumsiness and unseamanlike proceedings of the men who had charge of the prisoner, and partly owing to the light being yet too feeble for objects to be distinctly seen. A considerable interval in consequence elapsed ere the jailer, his assistants, and their charge were hoisted on the deck, not of a trim, gallant war-ship, well garrisoned and appointed, but of a lubberly trading vessel, redolent of tar, grease, and fish-odours, bound for merry Scotland.

"Yoh-o-ih! There--helm down--back maintopsail. So, masters, we had nigh slipped hawser and away. Why, here have we been beating about and about for three long nights; by day we durst not be seen in-shore. Yon cruiser overhauls everything from a crab to a crab-louse. What! got part of your company in the gyves! Where is the earl?"

"Here!" said the prisoner, coolly.

"Hold, captain," cried the wondering jailer, "the vessel goes not on her voyage until I and two of my friends here depart with the boat; we go not farther with our prisoner. The remaining two will suffice to see him delivered up at head-quarters. Yet, this cannot be." Here the bewildered officer looked round. "I have a warrant to commit this rebel unto the safe keeping of--ay, the captain of his majesty's cutter, the _Dart_. But this," surveying the deck with a suspicious glance, "is as frowsy and fusty a piece of ship-timber as ever stowed coals and cods' tails between her hatches. I pray we be not nabbed!" said he in a supplicating tone to his head craftsman.

The prisoner himself seemed as much surprised as any of the group; but the stranger, now addressing him, unravelled the mystery.

"My lord; I am no traitor; though until now labouring under that imputation; but you are amongst friends. Thanks to a woman's wits, we are, despite guards, bolts, and fetters, aboard the vessel which was waiting for us when you were surprised and seized, unfortunately, as we were trying our escape towards the coast. With the aid of my parent, I have been at last successful. You are now free!" It was Katherine who said this.

She changed her hitherto muffled voice as she continued:--"Captain, we have nabbed as cunning a jailer as ever took rogue to board in a stone crib. We will trouble thee to use thy craft; undo these fetters, prithee. He must with you, captain, till you can safely leave him and his companions ashore; but use him well for his vocation's sake. My lord, through weal and woe I have been your counsellor--your friend; but we must now part--'tis fitting we should. While you were in jeopardy, that alone could excuse my flight. Should better times come!"----Her voice faltered; she could not proceed; and old Grimes drew his hat over his face.

"Father," said Katherine, "you will take me to our home again. I will be all to you once more; and to my mother, now that _he_ is safe."

One kiss from the gallant earl, and the high-minded, though low-born, maiden stepped into the boat. One wave of the hand, when the morning mist interposed its white veil, and parted them for ever;--yet not before old Grimes, taking a last survey of the vessel, was quite sure he saw the magician of the casket looking at him over the ship's side. In all probability his fancy had not deceived him; the affair of the casket, though supposed by the fisherman to be altogether of a supernatural nature, was, in all likelihood, a means of supplying the earl with money and information to aid his escape.

The subsequent history of this unfortunate but misguided chieftain, whose daring and audacious bravery was worthy of a better cause and a more disinterested master, is but too well known.

The vessel, being ill equipped and hardly sea-worthy, was pursued--the earl taken, and an ignominious death gave to the world assurance of a traitor.

[Illustration: THE MAID'S STRATAGEM]

THE MAID'S STRATAGEM;

OR,

THE CAPTIVE LOVER.

"Let me alone with him. If I do not gull him into a nayword, and make him a common recreation, do not think I have wit enough to lie straight in my bed."

--_Twelfth Night._

The following tale is perhaps the most apocryphal in our series. There has been considerable difficulty in fixing its locality: and, indeed, we are hardly sure that the names, dates, and places we have hit upon, will answer to the facts in every particular. We have done our best to verify it, and have succeeded, we trust, in the attempt, more to our reader's satisfaction than our own.

"There be more fools than farthingales, and more braggarts than beards, in this good land of ours. A bald-faced impertinent! it should cost the grand inquisitor a month's hard study to invent a punishment for him. This pretty morsel! Hark thee, wench; I'll render his love-billet to thine ear. Listen and be discreet.

"'If my sighs could waft the soft cargo of their love to thy bosom, I would freight the vessel with my tears, and her sails should be zephyr's wings, and her oars love's fiercest darts. If I could tell but the lightest part of mine agony, your heart, though it were adamant, would melt in the furnace of my speech, and your torture should not abate till one kind glance had irradiated the bosom of your most unhappy, and most wretched of lovers,

ANTONIO.'

"Now for the _post scriptum_. If thy sighs be as long as thine ears,----help the furnace they are blown through. Again.

"'If one ray of compassion lurks in your bosom, lady, let those radiant fingers illuminate your pen, touching one little word by way of answer to this love-billet, though it were but as a rope thrown out in this overwhelming ocean of love to keep from sinking your unhappy slave. These from my dwelling at ----.'

"O' my troth, answer thou shalt have, and that quickly, on thy fool's pate. Dost think, Marian, it were not a deed worth trying, to quell this noisome brute with a tough cudgel?"

"It were too good for him," replied the maid; "but if you will trust the rather to my conceits, lady, we will make this buzzard spin. He shall dance so rare a coarnto[v] for our pastime; beshrew me, but I would not miss the sport for my best holiday favours."

But we leave the beauteous Kate and her mischief-loving maiden, to plot and machinate against the unsuspecting lover. It behoveth us, moreover, to be absent for a somewhat grave and weighty reason, to wit, that when women are a-plotting, another and a more renowned personage--the _beau ideal_ of whose dress and personal appearance, according to the testimony of a reverend divine, consists of a black coat and blue breeches--generally contrives to be present, as was by that learned dignitary umquhile set forth in a well-known ditty, of which the veracity is only equalled by the elegance and propriety of the subject, and the classical dignity of its composition.

Leaving them, though in somewhat dangerous company, we just glance at the lover, whose epistle to the proud maiden proved so galling to her humours.

Master Anthony Hardcastle was the only son of a substantial yeoman of good repute long resident in ----. Dying he left him, when scarcely at man's estate, the benefit of a good name, besides a rich store of substance, in the shape of broad pieces, together with lands and livings. The sudden acquisition of so much loose wealth to one whose utmost limit of spending money aforetime had been a penny at Easter and a groat at Michaelmas, did seem like the first breaking forth of a mighty torrent, pent up for past ages, forming its own wild and wilful channel, in despite of all bounds and impediments. His education had been none of the most liberal or extensive; and, astonished at his own aggrandisement, he found himself at once elevated into an object of importance ere he could estimate his own relative insignificance in the great world around him. Thus he became an easy prey to the hordes of idlers and braggarts with whom he associated. He had been to town, kept company with some of the leading cut-and-thrust bullies of the day; but Nature had denied him the headstrong boldness, the desperate recklessness of disposition, requisite for this amiable occupation. His infirmity had consequently often led him to play the coward. At the same time it probably was the means of restraining him from many of those evils into which his lavish and simple disposition might have been enticed, and he was now settling down quietly in the character of a good-natured, well-furnished simpleton. Fond of dress and a gaudy outside, he aimed at ladies' hearts through the medium of silken cloaks and ponderous shoe-buckles;--designing to conquer not a few of the fair dames with whom he associated. But, alas! the perversity of woman had hitherto rendered his efforts unavailing; still an overweening opinion of his own pretensions to their favour prevented him from giving up the pursuit, every succeeding mishap in no wise hindering him from following the allurements of the next fair object that fluttered across his path. He had heard of the wit and beauty of Kate Anderton, only daughter to Justice Anderton of Lostock Hall, a bluff and honest squire who spent his mornings in the chase and his evenings in the revel incident thereto; a man well looked upon by his less distinguished neighbours, being of a benevolent disposition, and much given to hospitality. Kate's disposition was fiery and impetuous, but tempered withal so pleasantly by the sweetness of a naturally tender and affectionate spirit, that you loved her the better for these sharp and wayward ingredients, which prevented that sweetness from cloying.

Master Anthony, hearing of this goodly maiden, found himself, after secretly beholding her, moved to the exploit of winning and wearing in his bosom so precious a gem, which many a high-flown gallant had essayed to appropriate. He began the siege by consulting the most approved oracles and authorities of the time for the construction of love-billets. The cut and fashion of the paper, too, were matters of deep and anxious consideration. Folded and perfumed, the missile was despatched, and the result was such as we have just seen.

Upon this memorable day, it then drawing on towards eventide, Anthony, full of solicitude and musing on the fate of his billet, was spreading himself out, like a newly-feathered peacock, in the trim garden behind his dwelling. A richly-embroidered Genoa silk waistcoat and amber-coloured velvet coat glittered in the declining sun, like the church weathercock perched just above him at a short distance from the house.

The mansion of Squire Anderton lay a few miles off; yet there had been sufficient time for the return of his trusty valet, who was the bearer of this love-billet. Several times had he paced the long straight gravel walk stretching from the terrace to the Chinese temple, and as often had he mounted the terrace itself to look out for the well-known figure of Hodge, ere the hind was descried through a cloud of hot dust, urging on his steed to the extremity of a short but laborious trot. Needless were it to dwell upon the anxiety and foreboding with which he awaited the nearer approach of this leaden-heeled Mercury. To lovers the detail would be unnecessary, and to others description would fail to convey our meaning.

"I ha't, measter."

"What hast thou brought, Hodge?"

"A letter."

"Quick--quick, fellow. Canst not give it me?"

"Ay, i' fackens; but where is it?"

Great was the consternation depicted in the flat and vapid face of the boor as he fumbled in his pocket, turned out the lining, and groped down incontinently "five fathom deep," into his nether appendages; but still no letter was forthcoming.

"She gi'ed me one, though; an' where it is----I'se sure it waur here, an'----Bodikins if those de'ilments hanna twitched it out o' my----Thoose gigglin' wenches i' th' buttery took it when I waur but putting my nose to the mug the last time, for a lift i' the stirrup."

Terrible was the wrath and disapprobation evinced by Master Anthony at this disaster. He had nigh despoiled the curls of his new wig, which were become twisted and awry with choler.

Patiently to endure was the business of Hodge; and his master's fury having "sweeled" down into the socket, a few hasty flashes just glimmered out from the ignited mass, ere it was extinguished.

"But thou hadst a letter--dolt--ass!"

"Ay, master, as sure as I am virtuous and well-favoured."

"Then is the lady kindly affected towards my suit? But oh, thou gull--thou dunderpate--thou losel knave, to lose one line moved by her sweet fingers. Get in; I'll not defile my rapier with beating of thee. Thanks to the lady thou hast just left; her condescension so affecteth my softer nature that I could not speak an angry word without weeping. March, rascal, and come not into my presence until thou art bidden, lest I make a thrust at thee with my weapon. O Katherine! my life--my love,--'my polar star, my axle; where all desire, all thought, all passions turn, and have their consequence!'"

Anthony had picked up this scrap from the players, with whom he had smoked, and committed the usual delinquencies, not peculiar to that age of folly and licentiousness.

"I'll go dream of thee where there be a bank of flowers. Here let me lose myself in a delirium of sweets."