“You have seen her?”
“This very day. She carries her head as if she wore a crown on it, and her eyes are as happy as a child’s. I did not venture to present myself, for if she guessed that I had followed her she would have laid a whip over my back.” He stopped to laugh, with affection in his eyes. “She has done it before, sir, for ’tis a high-spirited lady. So I bribed a keeper with sixpence to allow me to watch from a covert, as she took her midday walk. She moved like Flora, and she sang as she moved. That is happiness, said I to myself, and whatever the faults of the man who is its cause, ’twould be sacrilege to mar it. So I slipped off, thanking my Maker that out of seeming ill the dear child had won this blessedness.”
Mr. Johnson ceased to drum on the table or waggle his foot, and fell into an abstraction, his body at peace, his eyes fixed on the fire in a pleasant dream. The company in the kitchen had thinned to half a dozen, and out-of-doors the din of the fair seemed to be dying down. Alastair was growing drowsy, and he too fell to staring at the flames and seeing pictures in their depths. Suddenly a hand was laid on his elbow and, turning with a start, he found a lean little man on the form behind him.
“Be ’ee the Dook’s man?” a cracked voice whispered.
Alastair puzzled, till he remembered that an hour back he had claimed to be Queensberry’s agent. So he nodded.
The little man thrust a packet into his hands.
“This be for ’ee,” he said, and was departing, when Alastair plucked his arm.
“From whom?” he asked.
“I worn’t to say, but ’ee knows.” Then he thrust forward a toothless mouth to the other’s ear. “From Brother Gilly,” he whispered.
“And to whom were you sent?”
“To ’ee. To the Dook’s man at the Dog and Gun. I wor to ask at the landlord, but ’e ain’t forthcoming, and one I knows and trusts points me to ’ee.”
Alastair realised that he was mistaken for Mr. Nicholas Kyd, now posting south; and, since the two were on the same business, he felt justified in acting as Mr. Kyd’s deputy. He pocketed the package and gave the messenger a shilling. At that moment Mr. Johnson came out of his reverie. His brow was clouded.
“At my lord Cornbury’s house there was a tall man with a florid face. He treated me with little politeness and laughed out of season. He had a servant, too, a rough Scot who attended to my horse. I have seen that servant in these parts.”
Alastair woke to a lively interest. Then he remembered that Mr. Kyd had told him of a glimpse he had had of the tutor of Chastlecote. Johnson had seen the man Edom before he had started south.
His thoughts turned to the packet. There could be no chance of overtaking Mr. Kyd, whose correspondent was so culpably in arrears. The thing might be the common business of the Queensberry estates, in which case it would be forwarded when he found an occasion. But on the other hand it might be business of “Menelaus,” business of urgent import to which Alastair could attend. … He debated the matter with himself for a little, and then broke the seal.
The packet had several enclosures. One was in a cipher to which he had not the key. Another was a long list of names, much contracted, with figures in three columns set against each. The third riveted his eyes, so that he had no ear for the noises of the inn or the occasional remarks of his companion.
It was a statement, signed by the word “Tekel” and endorsed with the name of “Mene”—a statement of forces guaranteed from Wales and the Welsh Marches. There could be no doubt about its purport. There was Sir Watkin’s levy and the day and the hour it would be ready to march; that was a test case which proved the document authentic, for Alastair himself had discussed provisionally these very details a week ago at Wynnstay. There were other levies in money and men against the names of Cotton, Herbert, Savage, Wynne, Lloyd, Powell. Some of the figures were queried, some explicit and certified. There was a note about Beaufort, promising an exact account within two days, which would be sent to Oxford. Apparently the correspondent called Gilly, whoever he might be, knew of Kyd’s journey southward, but assumed that he had not yet started. At the end were three lines of gibberish—a cipher obviously.
As his mind grasped the gist of the thing, a flush crept over his face and he felt the beat of his heart quicken. Here was news, tremendous news. The West was rising, careless of a preliminary English victory, and waiting only the arrival of the Prince at some convenient rendezvous. There were ten thousand men and half a million of money in these lists, and they were not all. Beaufort was still to come, and Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, and the Welsh southwest. The young man’s eyes kindled, and then grew a little dim. He saw the triumph of his Prince, and the fulfilment of his dreams, for the war would no longer be a foreign invasion but a rising of Englishmen. He remembered Midwinter’s words, “You can win only by enlisting Old England.” It looked as if it had been done. … He saw now why Kyd must linger in the south. He was the conduit pipe of a vital intelligence which must go to the Prince by the swiftest means, for on it all his strategy depended. He himself would carry this budget, and for the others Kyd had doubtless made his own plans. Even now Lancashire would be up, and Cheshire stirring. …
The kitchen door
