A dark friendly face was looking down at him.
“You may travel the world’s roads for a hundred years,” said the Spainneach, “and never be nearer death. I warned you, Sir Sandy. You have been overlong in the South.”
XIV
Duchess Kitty on the Road
Five hours’ sleep were not enough to rest his body, but they were all that his unquiet mind would permit. He woke to a sense of great weariness combined with a feverish impulse to drive himself to the last limits of his strength. His limbs were desperately stiff, and at his first attempt to rise he rolled over. A bed had been made for him in the attic of the farm, and the view from the window showed only the benty shoulder of a hill. Slowly the doings of the night came back to him; from the bowels of the earth he seemed to hear the mutterings of Journeyman John, and he crawled down the trap-ladder in a fret to escape from the place of horror.
In the kitchen the Spainneach was cooking eggs in a pan, smiling and crooning to himself as if the morning and the world were good. He put Alastair in a chair and fed him tenderly, beating up an egg in a cup with French brandy.
“Have that for your morning’s draught, Sir Sandy,” he said. “You are with your friends now, so let your anxieties sleep.”
“They cannot,” said the young man. “I have lost weeks of precious time. My grief! but I have been the broken reed to lean on! And the Prince is in this very shire.”
“Tonight he will lie in Derby. Lord George Murray has led a column in advance to Congleton and the Duke of Kingston has fled back to Lichfield. His Grace of Newcastle has sent offers to the Prince. All goes well, heart’s darling. Your friends have given Cumberland the slip and are on the straight road to London.”
The news stirred his languid blood.
“But the West,” he cried. “What news of the West—of Barrymore and Sir Watkin and Beaufort? There is the rub.” And with the speaking of the words the whole story of the past weeks unrolled itself clear and he dropped his head into his hands and groaned. Then he staggered to his feet.
“There is a man reaches Brightwell this day. He must be seized—him and his papers.” Swiftly he told the story of Kyd. “Let me lay hands on him and I will extort the truth though I have to roast him naked, and that truth the Prince must have before a man of us sleep. It is the magic key that will unlock St. James’s. Have you men to lend me?”
The Spainneach smiled. “Last night they tracked you, as few men in England could, and they were here to overpower the rascaldom that held the door. Now they are scattered, but I have a call to pipe them back like curlews. The Spoonbills are at your back, Sir Sandy.”
“Then for God’s sake let us be going,” Alastair cried. “Have you a horse for me, for my legs are like broomshanks?”
“Two are saddled and waiting outbye. But first I have a little errand to fulfil, which the Master charged on me.”
From a shed he brought armfuls of hay and straw and piled them in a corner where the joists of the roof came low and the thatch could be reached by a man’s hand. Into the dry mass he flung a smouldering sod from the fire. As Alastair, stiffly feeling his stirrups, passed between the dry-stone gateposts, he heard a roaring behind him, and, turning, saw flames licking the roof.
“Presently Journeyman John will lie bare to the heavens,” said the Spainneach, “and the wayfaring man, though a fool, will understand. Brightwell is your goal, Sir Sandy? ’Tis fifteen moorland miles.”
“First let us go to the Sleeping Deer,” was the answer. “I have a beard weeks old, and my costume is not my own. Please God, this day I am going into good society and have a high duty to perform, so I would be decently attired.”
The Spainneach laughed. “Still your old self. You were always for the thing done in order. But for this Kyd of yours—he comes to Brightwell today, and may depart again, before you take order with him. It is desirable that he be detained?”
“By God, he shall never go,” cried Alastair.
“The Spoonbills do not fight, but they can make a hedge about a man, and they can bring us news of him.”
So at a grey cottage in the winding of a glen the Spainneach turned aside, telling Alastair that he would overtake him, and when he caught him up his face was content. “Mr. Kyd will not enter Brightwell unknown to us,” he said, “and he will assuredly not leave it.”
The day had been bright in the morning, but ere they descended from the high moors to the wider valleys the wind had veered to the north, and a cold mist had blown up, which seemed a precursor of storm. Rain fell heavily and then cleared, leaving a windy sky patched with blue and ruffled with sleet blasts. The tonic weather did much to refresh Alastair’s body, and to add fuel, if that were possible, to the fire in his brain. He knew that he was living and moving solely on the passion in his spirit, for his limbs were fit only for blankets and sleep. When his horse stumbled or leaned on the bit he realised
