CHAPTER X

THE INN-KEEPER'S BOY

The Seven Thorns was a lonely place. The long dusty road ran past it to the hills, and the country was desolate and wild. The road sloped down to the east and up to the west. As far as you could see to the east swept the trees of the Forest of Arne, and in a clearing, out of sight save for the smoke-wreaths and the church weathercock, lay Arncastor, the county town. There was nothing to the west but the sunset, where the white road ran out of sight into the sky, as it seemed.

Master Tomlinson and his wife Mistress Joan, and his cow and three pigs, a mongrel dog, some fowls, and "the boy" lived at the inn. It was not a place of good repute, for tradition said that travellers were robbed there. In quiet times Master Tomlinson had but little custom, but in these days the road was busy and the inn much frequented. Now a party of the King's horse would clatter up to the door, with waving plumes and jingling spurs, and rainbow coats and sashes. Anon, next week, maybe, a Puritan regiment would gallop up soberly, with grave, earnest faces under their steel head-pieces, and plain suits, and long swords clanking at their sides. Then would pass a party of travellers: a Royalist parson and his family, driven from the rectory-house, going they knew not whither. And to-morrow a Puritan divine, grave and pious, exhorting men to repentance, and denouncing the King and his gallants and the ladies of the Queen. Once or twice there was a skirmish between rival parties in the inn-yard, with oaths and cries and groans and great confusion. These scenes Master Tomlinson abhorred, for they meant that one or maybe both of the parties would ride off without paying the score.

Every week, on a Friday, Mistress Tomlinson rode over on the old white horse to Arncastor to buy necessaries for the house. Master Tomlinson never went with her, nor did she take the boy. Her husband's work was to lounge beside the door and wait for travellers, be polite to them if it seemed worth while, protesting he was all for the King to the Cavaliers, and all for the Parliament to the Puritans. He would carry the dishes and wait upon the officers, and drink, at their expense, confusion to the King to-day and to his enemies to-morrow.

The boy's duties were manifold: to rise at four, to go to his bed--a heap of straw--when Master Tomlinson had done with him, to make the fire and sweep the kitchens, to feed the pigs and clean the stables, to carry wood and wash the dishes, to hold and water tired horses, to draw the ale and wait on the common soldiers and low-class travellers, to turn the spits and dodge the blows, to bear burdens and get kicks and buffets, to eat his food where and when it could be found, to hear foul language, to see all things ugly and unpleasant, and to be always alert, always ready to obey. This was the business of the boy at the Seven Thorns, under the stick of the host, and the open hand of Dame Joan, and the promiscuous compliments of everybody else--a belt to-day from the trooper whose ale did not suit him, a switch to-morrow from the Cavalier whose stirrup he forgot to hold, the flat of an irritable officer's sword or a boot at his head from another, the shrill recriminations of some woman on whose dress he had spilled, or long exhortations from some Puritan preacher. Always ill-clothed, badly shod, in the bitterest weather, with work always to be done, and eyes swollen with crying, with bruises and wheals generally fresh and aching somewhere, Dick Chester served for six months as the boy of the inn.

Master Purvis never came. There was nothing else to hope for. The Cavaliers were his constant dread, lest, recognizing him, they should hale him back to exhibit him as a liar, and disgrace him. His spirit was broken. Had he thought of flight, whither could he fly? He had neither friend nor hope anywhere in the world. Giles was dead, or he would not have deserted him and covered him with dishonour. He was an outcast, one who lived under a ban. He never asked for pity after the first month, or looked for any mercy; Master Tomlinson cured him of that. If he ever dreamed of escaping he was checked by that fear of detection, for, child-like, he never thought that the world would have forgotten him completely in a week. Surely the Cavaliers all knew of him! He turned pale and trembled under their indifferent glances, for might not one of them recognize him, as the gentleman on the road had done? And he might not be suddenly turned to mercy, as that one had been, and then--!

There is no knowing how long Dick might have lived at the Seven Thorns but for an event which happened at the beginning of April. Perhaps he would have stayed there all his life, and grown from a cowed, terrified child into a stupid, ignorant man. He had been trustful, easily led, and so deeply impressed by Master Purvis's tale that he accepted his position without a word. Truthful, kindly, very simple, he had no idea of others deceiving him to this extent. Had John Dent appeared at all in this business he might have suspected trickery, but fat, dull Master Purvis, whom he had known all his life, carried no fear to his mind. Master Purvis had heard of his danger, and had saved him. Dick had always teased and despised Master Purvis, but now he was the only creature he thought of as a friend in the wide world.

It was on a gusty April day that Dick, feeding the pigs in the early morning, saw a troop of Parliamentarians gallop up to the inn door. He was about to run out to hold their horses when something in their bearing, and their haste, and the way they glanced behind them to the west, struck him. The troop did not dismount; only two soldiers swung themselves from their saddles, rushed into the inn, and returned in a moment, bringing with them Master Tomlinson, who was entreating, expostulating, and explaining all in a breath.

Dick had hidden himself in the yard, but he could hear the stern voice of the Puritan commander charging the host with some falseness that had led him and his men into the midst of a force three times their size. In vain Master Tomlinson denied all knowledge; in vain he protested 'twas all a mistake, that he had fully believed the King's force to be small. Dick could not catch all that was being said as to how and when the host had given the misleading information. But he saw the soldiers bind his hands, and put him up before one of their companions. Then out dashed Mistress Joan with tears and screams for her poor husband, and the officer was a kind man and would have pity, she was sure. And they were poor folks, he must observe, and had to turn a penny how they could in these bad days.

"Forward!" cried the officer.

But Mistress Joan clung to his stirrup, and entreated and threatened, betraying so exact a knowledge of facts that the Puritan did not deem it safe to leave her behind. A warning cry from the rear made him look round. There was a dust-cloud on the sky-line.

"Turn her apron over her head," he commanded. "Up with her!"

Dick saw the dame hoisted up before a trooper, wringing her hands and filling the air with muffled wails.

"Forward!" again shouted the officer, and they were off down the hill with a swirl of wind and a clatter of hoofs, and in five minutes out of sight in the Forest of Arne.

Dick, wondering and frightened, had just gathered up enough courage to step from behind the haystacks when, with horses spume-flecked and riders swaying, past swept a Royalist troop at a hand-gallop, the earth shaking as they went by. Five minutes had scarcely passed before a long train of horsemen came more slowly down the road, with silken guidons fluttering in the April wind and the sun glittering on armour and bridle-chains. Dick's heart stood still. In the midst--tallest, handsomest, most debonnair--rode the gentleman who had teased and threatened him at Lumley. He had taken off his helmet, and was fanning himself with a lace handkerchief, commenting at the same time on the heat, the dust, and the tiresome haste of the enemy. He broke off to point at the seven thorn-trees by the inn door, then to the sign. He called an order, and he and his cavalry rode slowly on, leaving two officers and about a dozen men behind. They came into the yard, and discovered the boy behind the hay-ricks. They drove the cow off from her pasture, and led out the old white horse. The ducks were driven from their pond, and the pigs, squeaking and grunting, from their sty. They killed the cocks and hens, and the mongrel dog, who interfered injudiciously. They cut up the hay-ricks and bore them off in sections, and took all the corn they could find in the granaries.

Dick, meanwhile, stood quaking at the officers' mercy, being questioned, and giving confused replies. He did not dare to look up, fearing recognition. He knew both the gentlemen--one was called Balston, and had declared he had attended Dick's funeral, and the other was Captain Osborne, who had taken him before the teasing gentleman and his friends at Lumley.

"Was the man Tomlinson your father?" asked Osborne.

"No, sir," said Dick.

"Do you know where he is?"

"Gone with the enemy."

"With the rebels? Come--answer!"

Dick replied, and after much questioning they got from him the account of how Tomlinson and Dame Joan had been carried off.

"Ha! Traitor to both sides, of course," said Balston.

They dismounted and went into the house, leaving their chargers in Dick's care. He could hear them talking in the hall.

"We must take him," said Osborne.

"Take that dirty boy with us? Heavens and earth, Osborne! I'd as soon take a sack of coals!"

"Orders," said the other. "He can ride behind me, if you're afraid he'll soil your armour, my over-delicate gentleman. Or, 'slife, we'll give him a bath first in the pond."

Dick heard. He was lost! Quick as lightning terror woke the desire for escape at any cost. He slipped the horses' bridles over the gate-post, ran into the stables softly, passed through a door at the back, raced down a meadow, and hot, sick, with a wildly-beating heart, crouched under some bushes out of sight. He was sure the officers had recognized him, and that their chief had sent them to the Seven Thorns on purpose to arrest him, whereas their orders merely were to attach anyone at the inn, so that he might be questioned as to the Puritans' movements, which, it was supposed, were well known there. Dick lay still until he recovered his breath, and then ran away aimlessly across the fields till he was tired, pausing every now and then to listen for pursuit. He soon felt a lack--the lack of even the one piece of bread that would have been his breakfast at the inn. Being sure he was not followed, he lay down to rest under a budding chestnut-tree, and fell asleep. He woke fancying Master Tomlinson was whipping him, and found the rain beating his bare neck and legs. His only clothing consisted of a fragmentary shirt, and breeches that would have disgraced a scarecrow. Mistress Tomlinson had taken away the shoes and stockings she had lent him for the winter, saying, now spring had come, he had no need to wear out good woollen hose and leather shoes. A forlorn little object, with a cough that belied the good lady's opinion about warm clothing, he wandered over the country through the pouring rain. There was no road where he went, and he came to neither farm nor cottage. Cold and wet and hungry he had often been at the inn, and to-day he was neither struck nor scolded. There was no work to do, and if only there were some shelter to be found, he could lie down again and go to sleep. He thought very much of Giles as he wandered on. At the inn he had never had one moment for dreaming, but now he remembered all that had happened at Dent, and all that Giles and he had talked about.

But thinking did not satisfy hunger. The thought of a piece of dry crust and an onion, or, may be, a piece of cold bacon, made his mouth water, and as his strength failed him he cried bitterly for food. He was more faint and tired and wretched than he had ever been, even on the worst day at the inn. In his ignorance of death, thinking it would come very quickly, worn out and broken spirited he lay down towards evening to wait for it.

Death was tardy, and in two hours' time he was fainter, but as much alive to discomfort as before. Trudging on again, he knew not how, he came upon a deep, mossy lane, with primroses growing on its steep, high banks, and hare-bells drooping in the wind. Dick climbed, or rather rolled, down into the lane. Surely it would lead him to some dwelling, and every feeling was merged now into the desire for food. The stones and ruts cut his feet, and exhaustion made him dizzy. He slipped and fell; rose and stumbled on again twice. The third time he did not get up. It had ceased to seem worth while. It was getting dark and eerie, but he lay quite still. Half-starved always, one day of hard walking, absolutely without food, had been too much for Richard Chester. His last thought was of Giles.