"Well?"

"Fairholt sent me--to stop you."

"Fairholt!"

"Ay, he is here."

"Here?" my companion cried, in a tone of rage and surprise. "What the----! Why, he should be--you know where, by this time!"

"Ay, but his horse threw him this morning, and he is lying at the White Horse here, with a broken leg!"

Smith cursed the absent man for a fool. "I wish he had broken his neck!" he said savagely. And then, after an interval, "Has he sent anybody?"

"He has had something else to think about," the man answered drily.

"And so would you, master, with his leg!"

Smith swore again, and sat gloomily silent.

"He says if you can stead it off for twenty-four hours," the man continued, "he will arrange that----"

"No names," Smith cried sharply, interrupting him.

"Well, that--someone shall take his place and do the job."

Smith did not answer for a time, but at length in a curt, incisive tone, "Tell him, yes," he said. "I will see to it. And you--keep a still tongue, will you? You were going with him, I suppose?"

"Ay."

"And you will come with the other?"

"May be. And if not I shall not blab."

Smith by a nod showed that the man had taken his meaning; after which, bidding him good-night, he p.r.i.c.ked up his horse. "Come on," he said, addressing me with impatience. "I thought to have had companions, and so ridden more securely. But we must make the best of it."

Heaven knows that I too would have liked companions, and took the road again dolefully enough. Nor was that the worst of it; Smith, in speaking to the stranger, had mentioned Fairholt. Now, I knew the name, and knew the man to be one of the messengers attached to the Secretary's office, one whose business it was to execute warrants and arrest political prisoners. But what had Smith, riding to a secret interview with a man outlawed and in hiding, to do with messengers?

With Fairholt?

And then, as if this were not enough to disturb me with a view of treachery, black as gulf seen by traveller through a rift in the mist--if this glimpse, I say, were not enough, how was I going to reconcile Smith's statement that he had expected companions with his first cry, uttered in wrath and surprise--that Fairholt ought to be by this time--well, at some distant point?

In fine, I was so far from being persuaded that Smith had expected company, that I gravely suspected that he had made quite other arrangements; arrangements of the most perfidious character. And as the horses' hoofs rang monotonously on the hard road, and we rose and fell in the saddle, and I peered forward into the gloom, fearing all things and doubting all things, for certain I feared and doubted nothing so much as I did the dark and secret man beside me; whose scheming brain, spinning plot within plot, each darker and more involved than the other, kept all my ingenuity at a stretch to overtake the final end and purpose he had at heart.

Indeed, I despair of conveying to others how gravely this sombre companionship and more sombre uncertainty aggravated the terrors of a journey, that at the best of times must have been little to my taste.

To the common risks of the road, deserted at that hour by all save cutpurses and rogues, was added a suspicion, as much more hara.s.sing than these, as unseen dangers ever surpa.s.s the known. It was in vain that I strove to divert my mind from the figure by my side; neither the bleak heath above Greenwich--whence we looked back at the reddish haze that canopied London, and forward to where the Thames marshes stretched eastward under night--nor the gibbet on Dartford Brent, where a body hung in chains, poisoning the air, nor the light that shone dim and solitary, far to the left, across the river, and puzzled me until he told me that it was Tilbury--neither of these things, I say, though they occupied my thoughts by turns and for a moment, had power to drive him from my mind, or divert my fears to dangers more apparent. And in this mood, now glancing askance at him, and now moving uneasily under his gaze, I might have ridden to Rochester if my ear had not caught--I think when we were two or three miles short of the city--the sound of a horse trotting fast on the road behind us.

At first it followed so faintly on the breeze that I doubted, thinking it might be either the echo of our hoofs, or a pulse beating in my ears. Then, on a hard piece of ground, it declared itself unmistakably; and again as suddenly it died away.

At that I spoke involuntarily. "He has stopped," I said.

Smith laughed in his teeth. "He is crossing the wet bottom, fool--by the creek," he said.

And before I could answer him the dull sound of a horse galloping fast, but moving on the turf that ran alongside the road, proved him to be right. "Draw up!" he whispered in something of a hurry, and then, as I hesitated, "Do you hear?" he continued, sharply seizing my rein. "What do you fear? Do you think that night birds prey on night birds?"

Whatever I feared, I feared him more: and turning my horse, I sat shivering. For notwithstanding his confident words I saw that he was handling his holster; and I knew that he was drawing a pistol; and it was well the suspense was short. Before I had time for many qualms, the horseman, a dark figure, lurched on us through the gloom, pulled his horse on to its haunches, and, with raised hand, cried to us to deliver.

"And no nonsense!" he added sharply. "Or a brace of b.a.l.l.s will soon----"

Smith laughed. "Box it about!" he cried.

"Hallo!" the stranger answered, taking a lower tone; and he peered at us, bending down over his horse's neck. "Who are you, in fly-by-night?"

"A box-it-about!" my companion answered with tartness. "That is enough for you. So good-night. And I wish you better luck next time."

"But----"

"St!" Smith answered, cutting him short. "I am going to my father, and the less said about it the better."

"So? Well, give him my love, then." And backing his horse, the stranger bade us good-night, and with a curse on his bad fortune turned and rode off. Smith saw him go, and then wheeling we took the road again.

Safely, however, as we had emerged from this encounter, and far as it went towards proving that we bore a talisman against the ordinary perils of travellers, it was not of a kind to rea.s.sure a law-abiding man. To be hung as the accomplice of footpads and high-tobys was a scarcely better fate than to be robbed and wounded by them, and I was heartily glad when we found ourselves in the outskirts of Rochester, and stopping at a house of call outside the sleeping city, roused a drowsy hostler, and late as the hour was, gained entrance and a welcome.

I confess, that safe in these comfortable quarters, on a sanded hearth, before a rekindled fire, with lights, and food, and ale at my elbow, and a bed in prospect, I found my apprehensions and misgivings less hard to bear than on the dark road above Tilbury flats. I began to think less of the body creaking in its irons on the gibbet above Dartford, and more of the chances of ultimate safety. And Smith growing civil, if not genial, I went on to count the hours that must elapse, before, our miserable mission accomplished, I should see London again. After all, why should I not see London again? What was to prevent me? Where lay the hindrance? In three days, in three days we should be back. So I told myself; and looking up quickly met Smith's eyes brooding gloomily on me.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

Such a night ride as I have described, would have been impossible, or at least outrageously dangerous, a year or two later; when a horde of disbanded soldiers, dismissed from the colours by the Peace of Ryswick, took to the roads for a subsistence, and for a period, until they perished miserably, made even the purlieus of Kensington unsafe.

At the time of which I write we ran risk enough, as has been demonstrated; but the reasons which induced Smith to leave London at that hour, and under cover of darkness, may be conceived. Apparently they did not extend to the rest of the journey; for, after lying late at Rochester, we rode on by Sittingbourne to Feversham, and thence after a comfortable dinner, turned south by Badlesmere, and so towards Ashford, where we arrived a few minutes after nightfall.

Those who are acquainted with the Old Inn at the entrance into Ashford will remember that the yard and stables are as conspicuous for size and commodiousness as the house, a black and white building, a little withdrawn from the street, is strikingly marked by the lack of those advantages. I believe that the huge concourse thither of cattle-drovers at the season of the great fairs is the cause of this; those persons lying close themselves but needing s.p.a.ce for their beasts. And at such times I can imagine that the roomy _enceinte_, and those long lines of buildings, may be cheerful enough.

But seen, as we saw them, when we rode in, by the last cold light of a dull evening, with nothing clear or plain save the roof ridge, and that black against a pale sky, they and the place looked infinitely dismal. Nor did any warmth of welcome, or cheerful greeting, such as even poor inns afford to all and sundry, amend the first impression of gloom and decay, which the house and its surroundings conveyed to the mind. On the contrary, not a soul was to be seen, and we had ridden half way across the yard, and Smith had twice called "House! House!"

before anyone was aroused.

Then the upper half of a stable-door creaked open, and a man holding up a great horn lanthorn, peered out at us.

"Are you all asleep?" cried my companion. And when the man made no answer, but still continued to look at us, "What is in the house," he added, angrily, "that you stick out your death's head to frighten company? Is it lace or old Nantz? Or French goods? Any way, box it about and be done with it, and attend to us."

"Eight, master, right, I am coming," the man answered, suddenly rousing himself; and opening the lower half of the door, he came heavily out. "At your service," he said. "But we have little company."

"The times are bad?"

"Ay, they looked a bit better six months back."

"But nothing came of it?"