CHAPTER XII

I FOLLOW A COVERED CART NEARLY TO MY DESTINATION

At last I began to draw near, by reasonable stages, to the neighbourhood

of Wakefield; and the name of Mr. Burchell Fenn came to the top in my

memory. This was the gentleman (the reader may remember) who made a

trade of forwarding the escape of French prisoners. How he did so:

whether he had a signboard, _Escapes forwarded, apply within_; what he

charged for his services, or whether they were gratuitous and

charitable, were all matters of which I was at once ignorant and

extremely curious. Thanks to my proficiency in English, and Mr.

Romaine's bank-notes, I was getting on swimmingly without him; but the

trouble was that I could not be easy till I had come to the bottom of

these mysteries, and it was my difficulty that I knew nothing of him

beyond the name. I knew not his trade beyond that of Forwarder of

Escapes--whether he lived in town or country, whether he were rich or

poor, nor by what kind of address I was to gain his confidence. It would

have a very bad appearance to go along the highwayside asking after a

man of whom I could give so scanty an account; and I should look like a

fool, indeed, if I were to present myself at his door and find the

police in occupation! The interest of the conundrum, however, tempted

me, and I turned aside from my direct road to pass by Wakefield; kept my

ears pricked, as I went, for any mention of his name, and relied for the

rest on my good fortune. If Luck (who must certainly be feminine)

favoured me as far as to throw me in the man's way, I should owe the

lady a candle; if not, I could very readily console myself. In this

experimental humour, and with so little to help me, it was a miracle

that I should have brought my enterprise to a good end; and there are

several saints in the calendar who might be happy to exchange with St.

Ives!

I had slept that night in a good inn at Wakefield, made my breakfast by

candle-light with the passengers of an up-coach, and set off in a very

ill temper with myself and my surroundings. It was still early; the air

raw and cold; the sun low, and soon to disappear under a vast canopy of

rain-clouds that had begun to assemble in the north-west, and from that

quarter invaded the whole width of the heaven. Already the rain fell in

crystal rods; already the whole face of the country sounded with the

discharge of drains and ditches; and I looked forward to a day of

downpour and the hell of wet clothes, in which particular I am as dainty

as a cat. At the corner of the road, and by the last glint of the

drowning sun, I spied a covered cart, of a kind that I thought I had

never seen before, preceding me at the foot's pace of jaded horses.

Anything is interesting to a pedestrian that can help him to forget the

miseries of a day of rain; and I bettered my pace and gradually overtook

the vehicle.

The nearer I came the more it puzzled me. It was much such a cart as I

am told the calico-printers use, mounted on two wheels, and furnished

with a seat in front for the driver. The interior closed with a door,

and was of a bigness to contain a good load of calico, or (at a pinch

and if it were necessary) four or five persons. But, indeed, if human

beings were meant to travel there, they had my pity! They must travel in

the dark, for there was no sign of a window; and they would be shaken

all the way like a phial of doctor's stuff, for the cart was not only

ungainly to look at--it was besides very imperfectly balanced on the one

pair of wheels, and pitched unconscionably. Altogether, if I had any

glancing idea that the cart was really a carriage, I had soon dismissed

it; but I was still inquisitive as to what it should contain, and where

it had come from. Wheels and horses were splashed with many different

colours of mud, as though they had come far and across a considerable

diversity of country. The driver continually and vainly plied his whip.

It seemed to follow they had made a long, perhaps an all-night, stage;

and that the driver, at that early hour of a little after eight in the

morning, already felt himself belated. I looked for the name of the

proprietor on the shaft, and started outright. Fortune had favoured the

careless: it was Burchell Fenn!

"A wet morning, my man," said I.

The driver, a loutish fellow, shock-headed and turnip-faced, returned

not a word to my salutation, but savagely flogged his horses. The tired

animals, who could scarce put the one foot before the other, paid no

attention to his cruelty; and I continued without effort to maintain my

position alongside, smiling to myself at the futility of his attempts,

and at the same time pricked with curiosity as to why he made them. I

made no such formidable a figure as that a man should flee when I

accosted him; and, my conscience not being entirely clear, I was more

accustomed to be uneasy myself than to see others timid. Presently he

desisted and put back his whip in the holster with the air of a man

vanquished.

"So you would run away from me?" said I. "Come, come, that's not

English."

"Beg pardon, master; no offence meant," he said, touching his hat.

"And none taken!" cried I. "All I desire is a little gaiety by the way."

I understood him to say he didn't "take with gaiety."

"Then I will try you with something else," said I. "O, I can be all

things to all men, like the apostle! I dare to say I have travelled with

heavier fellows than you in my time, and done famously well with them.

Are you going home?"

"Yes, I'm a-goin' home, I am," he said.

"A very fortunate circumstance for me!" said I. "At this rate we shall

see a good deal of each other, going the same way; and, now I come to

think of it, why should you not give me a cast? There is room beside you

on the bench."

With a sudden snatch he carried the cart two yards into the roadway. The

horses plunged and came to a stop. "No, you don't!" he said, menacing me

with the whip. "None o' that with me."

"None of what?" said I. "I asked you for a lift, but I have no idea of

taking one by force."

"Well, I've got to take care of the cart and 'orses, I have," says he.

"I don't take up with no runagate vagabones, you see, else."

"I ought to thank you for your touching confidence," said I, approaching

carelessly nearer as I spoke. "But I admit the road is solitary

hereabouts, and no doubt an accident soon happens. Little fear of

anything of the kind with you! I like you for it, like your prudence,

like that pastoral shyness of disposition. But why not put it out of my

power to hurt? Why not open the door and bestow me here in the box, or

whatever you please to call it?" And I laid my hand demonstratively on

the body of the cart.

He had been timorous before; but at this he seemed to lose the power of

speech a moment, and stared at me in a perfect enthusiasm of fear.

"Why not?" I continued. "The idea is good. I should be safe in there if

I were the monster Williams himself. The great thing is to have me under

lock and key. For it does lock; it is locked now," said I, trying the

door. "_A propos_, what have you for a cargo? It must be precious."

He found not a word to answer.

Rat-tat-tat, I went upon the door like a well-drilled footman. "Any one

at home?" I said, and stooped to listen.

There came out of the interior a stifled sneeze, the first of an

uncontrollable paroxysm; another followed immediately on the heels of

it; and then the driver turned with an oath, laid the lash upon the

horses with so much energy that they found their heels again, and the

whole equipage fled down the road at a gallop.

At the first sound of the sneeze I had started back like a man shot. The

next moment a great light broke on my mind, and I understood. Here was

the secret of Fenn's trade: this was how he forwarded the escape of

prisoners, hawking them by night about the country in his covered cart.

There had been Frenchmen close to me; he who had just sneezed was my

countryman, my comrade, perhaps already my friend! I took to my heels in

pursuit. "Hold hard!" I shouted. "Stop! It's all right! Stop!" But the

driver only turned a white face on me for a moment, and redoubled his

efforts, bending forward, plying his whip and crying to his horses;

these lay themselves down to the gallop and beat the highway with flying

hoofs; and the cart bounded after them among the ruts and fled in a halo

of rain and spattering mud. But a minute since, and it had been

trundling along like a lame cow; and now it was off as though drawn by

Apollo's coursers. There is no telling what a man can do until you

frighten him!

It was as much as I could do myself, though I ran valiantly, to maintain

my distance; and that (since I knew my countrymen so near) was become a

chief point with me. A hundred yards farther on the cart whipped out of

the high-road into a lane embowered with leafless trees, and became lost

to view. When I saw it next the driver had increased his advantage

considerably, but all danger was at an end, and the horses had again

declined into a hobbling walk. Persuaded they could not escape me, I

took my time, and recovered my breath as I followed them.

Presently the lane twisted at right angles and showed me a gate and the

beginning of a gravel sweep; and a little after, as I continued to

advance, a red-brick house about seventy years old, in a fine style of

architecture, and presenting a front of many windows to a lawn and

garden. Behind, I could see outhouses and the peaked roofs of stacks;

and I judged that a manor-house had in some way declined to be the

residence of a tenant-farmer, careless alike of appearances and

substantial comfort. The marks of neglect were visible on every side, in

flower-bushes straggling beyond the borders, in the ill-kept turf, and

in the broken windows that were incongruously patched with paper or

stuffed with rags. A thicket of trees, mostly evergreen, fenced the

place round and secluded it from the eyes of prying neighbours. As I

came in view of it, on that melancholy winter's morning, in the deluge

of the falling rain, and with the wind that now rose in occasional gusts

and hooted over the old chimneys, the cart had already drawn up at the

front-door steps, and the driver was already in earnest discourse with

Mr. Burchell Fenn. He was standing with his hands behind his back--a man

of a gross, misbegotten face and body, dewlapped like a bull and red as

a harvest moon; and in his jockey-cap, blue coat and top-boots, he had

much the air of a good, solid tenant-farmer.

The pair continued to speak as I came up the approach, but received me

at last in a sort of goggling silence. I had my hat in my hand.

"I have the pleasure of addressing Mr. Burchell Fenn?" said I.

"The same, sir," replied Mr. Fenn, taking off his jockey-cap in answer

to my civility, but with the distant look and the tardy movements of one

who continues to think of something else. "And who may you be?" he

asked.

"I shall tell you afterwards," said I. "Suffice it, in the meantime,

that I come on business."

He seemed to digest my answer laboriously, his mouth gaping, his little

eyes never straying from my face.

"Suffer me to point out to you, sir," I resumed, "that this is a devil

of a wet morning; and that the chimney corner, and possibly a glass of

something hot, are clearly indicated."

Indeed, the rain was now grown to be a deluge; the gutters of the house

roared; the air was filled with the continuous, strident crash. The

stolidity of his face, on which the rain streamed, was far from

reassuring me. On the contrary, I was aware of a distinct qualm of

apprehension, which was not at all lessened by a view of the driver,

craning from his perch to observe us with the expression of a fascinated

bird. So we stood silent, when the prisoner again began to sneeze from

the body of the cart; and at the sound, prompt as a transformation, the

driver had whipped up his horses and was shambling off round the corner

of the house, and Mr. Fenn, recovering his wits with a gulp, had turned

to the door behind him.

"Come in, come in, sir," he said. "I beg your pardon, sir; the lock goes

a trifle hard."

Indeed, it took him a surprising time to open the door, which was not

only locked on the outside, but the lock seemed rebellious from disuse;

and when at last he stood back and motioned me to enter before him, I

was greeted on the threshold by that peculiar and convincing sound of

the rain echoing over empty chambers. The entrance-hall, in which I now

found myself, was of a good size and good proportions; potted plants

occupied the corners; the paved floor was soiled with muddy footprints

and encumbered with straw; on a mahogany hall-table, which was the only

furniture, a candle had been stuck and suffered to burn down--plainly a

long while ago, for the gutterings were green with mould. My mind, under

these new impressions, worked with unusual vivacity. I was here shut off

with Fenn and his hireling in a deserted house, a neglected garden, and

a wood of evergreens; the most eligible theatre for a deed of darkness.

There came to me a vision of two flagstones raised in the hall-floor,

and the driver putting in the rainy afternoon over my grave; and the

prospect displeased me extremely. I felt I had carried my pleasantry as

far as was safe; I must lose no time in declaring my true character,

and I was even choosing the words in which I was to begin, when the

hall-door was slammed-to behind me with a bang, and I turned, dropping

my stick as I did so, in time--and not any more than time--to save my

life.

The surprise of the onslaught and the huge weight of my assailant gave

him the advantage. He had a pistol in his right hand of a portentous

size, which it took me all my strength to keep deflected. With his left

arm he strained me to his bosom, so that I thought I must be crushed or

stifled. His mouth was open, his face crimson, and he panted aloud with

hard animal sounds. The affair was as brief as it was hot and sudden.

The potations which had swelled and bloated his carcase had already

weakened the springs of energy. One more huge effort, that came near to

overpower me, and in which the pistol happily exploded, and I felt his

grasp slacken and weakness come on his joints; his legs succumbed under

his weight, and he grovelled on his knees on the stone floor. "Spare

me!" he gasped.

I had not only been abominably frightened; I was shocked besides: my

delicacy was in arms, like a lady to whom violence should have been

offered by a similar monster. I plucked myself from his horrid contact,

I snatched the pistol--even discharged, it was a formidable weapon--and

menaced him with the butt. "Spare you!" I cried, "you beast!"

His voice died in his fat inwards, but his lips still vehemently framed

the same words of supplication. My anger began to pass off, but not all

my repugnance; the picture he made revolted me, and I was impatient to

be spared the further view of it.

"Here," said I, "stop this performance: it sickens me. I am not going to

kill you, do you hear? I have need of you."

A look of relief, that I could almost have called beautiful, dawned on

his countenance. "Anything--anything you wish," said he.

Anything is a big word, and his use of it brought me for a moment to a

stand. "Why, what do you mean?" I asked. "Do you mean that you will blow

the gaff on the whole business?"

He answered me "Yes" with eager asseverations.

"I know Monsieur de Saint-Yves is in it; it was through his papers we

traced you," I said. "Do you consent to make a clean breast of the

others?"

"I do--I will!" he cried. "The 'ole crew of 'em; there's good names

among 'em. I'll be King's evidence."

"So that all shall hang except yourself? You damned villain!" I broke

out. "Understand at once that I am no spy or thief-taker. I am a kinsman

of Monsieur de Saint-Yves--here in his interest. Upon my word, you have

put your foot in it prettily, Mr. Burchell Fenn! Come, stand up; don't

grovel there! Stand up, you lump of iniquity!"

He scrambled to his feet. He was utterly unmanned, or it might have gone

hard with me yet; and I considered him hesitating, as, indeed, there was

cause. The man was a double-dyed traitor: he had tried to murder me, and

I had first baffled his endeavours and then exposed and insulted him.

Was it wise to place myself any longer at his mercy? With his help I

should doubtless travel more quickly; doubtless also far less agreeably;

and there was everything to show that it would be at a greater risk. In

short, I should have washed my hands of him on the spot, but for the

temptation of the French officers, whom I knew to be so near, and for

whose society I felt so great and natural an impatience. If I was to see

anything of my countrymen, it was clear I had first of all to make my

peace with Mr. Fenn; and that was no easy matter. To make friends with

any one implies concessions on both sides; and what could I concede?

What could I say of him, but that he had proved himself a villain and a

fool, and the worse man?

"Well," said I, "here has been rather a poor piece of business, which I

dare say you can have no pleasure in calling to mind; and, to say

truth, I would as readily forget it myself. Suppose we try. Take back

your pistol, which smells very ill; put it in your pocket or wherever

you had it concealed. There! Now let us meet for the first time.--Give

you good morning, Mr. Fenn! I hope you do very well. I come on the

recommendation of my kinsman, the Vicomte de Saint-Yves."

"Do you mean it?" he cried. "Do you mean you will pass over our little

scrimmage?"

"Why, certainly!" said I. "It shows you are a bold fellow, who may be

trusted to forget the business when it comes to the point. There is

nothing against you in the little scrimmage, unless that your courage is

greater than your strength. You are not so young as you once were, that

is all."

"And I beg of you, sir, don't betray me to the Viscount," he pleaded.

"I'll not deny but what my 'eart failed me a trifle; but it was only a

word, sir, what anybody might have said in the 'eat of the moment, and

over with it."

"Certainly," said I. "That is quite my own opinion."

"The way I came to be anxious about the Viscount," he continued, "is

that I believe he might be induced to form an 'asty judgment. And the

business, in a pecuniary point of view, is all that I could ask; only

trying, sir--very trying. It's making an old man of me before my time.

You might have observed yourself, sir, that I 'aven't got the knees I

once 'ad. The knees and the breathing, there's where it takes me. But

I'm very sure, sir, I address a gentleman as would be the last to make

trouble between friends."

"I am sure you do me no more than justice," said I; "and I shall think

it quite unnecessary to dwell on any of these passing circumstances in

my report to the Vicomte."

"Which you do favour him (if you'll excuse me being so bold as to

mention it) exac'ly!" said he. "I should have known you anywheres. May I

offer you a pot of 'ome-brewed ale, sir? By your leave? This way, if you

please. I am 'eartily grateful--'eartily pleased to be of any service

to a gentleman like you, sir, which is related to the Vis-count, and

really a fambly of which you might well be proud! Take care of the step,

sir. You have good news of 'is 'ealth, I trust? as well as that of

Monseer the Count?"

God forgive me! the horrible fellow was still puffing and panting with

the fury of his assault, and already he had fallen into an obsequious,

wheedling familiarity like that of an old servant--already he was

flattering me on my family connections!

I followed him through the house into the stable-yard, where I observed

the driver washing the cart in a shed. He must have heard the explosion

of the pistol. He could not choose but hear it; the thing was shaped

like a little blunderbuss, charged to the mouth, and made a report like

a piece of field artillery. He had heard, he had paid no attention; and

now, as we came forth by the back door, he raised for a moment a pale

and tell-tale face that was as direct as a confession. The rascal had

expected to see Fenn come forth alone; he was waiting to be called on

for that part of sexton, which I had already allotted to him in fancy.

I need not detain the reader very long with any description of my visit

to the back-kitchen; of how we mulled our ale there, and mulled it very

well; nor of how we sat talking, Fenn like an old, faithful,

affectionate dependant, and I--well! I myself fallen into a mere

admiration of so much impudence, that transcended words, and had very

soon conquered animosity. I took a fancy to the man, he was so vast a

humbug. I began to see a kind of beauty in him, his _aplomb_ was so

majestic. I never knew a rogue to cut so fat; his villainy was ample,

like his belly, and I could scarce find it in my heart to hold him

responsible for either. He was good enough to drop into the

autobiographical; telling me how the farm, in spite of the war and the

high prices, had proved a disappointment; how there was "a sight of

cold, wet land as you come along the 'igh-road"; how the winds and rains

and the seasons had been misdirected, it seemed "o' purpose"; how Mrs.

Fenn had died--"I lost her coming two year agone; a remarkable fine

woman, my old girl, sir; if you'll excuse me," he added, with a burst of

humility. In short, he gave me an opportunity of studying John Bull, as

I may say, stripped naked--his greed, his usuriousness, his hypocrisy,

his perfidy of the back-stairs, all swelled to the superlative--such as

was well worth the little disarray and fluster of our passage in the

hall.