Mary Anerley. Richard Doddridge Blackmore

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СКАЧАТЬ so that many people called him “Captain” now; and the loss of his suppleness at knee and elbow had turned his mind largely to politics, making him stiffly patriotic, and especially hot against all free-traders putting bad bargains to his wife, at the cost of the king and his revenue. If the bargain were a good one, that was no concern of his.

      Not that Mary, however, could believe, or would even have such a bad mind as to imagine, that any one, after being helped by her, would be mean enough to run off with her property. And now she came to think of it, there was something high and noble, she might almost say something downright honest, in the face of that poor persecuted man. And in spite of all his panting, how brave he must have been, what a runner, and how clever, to escape from all those cowardly coast-riders shooting right and left at him! Such a man steal that paltry skirt that her mother made such a fuss about! She was much more likely to find it in her clothes-press filled with golden guineas.

      Before she was as certain as she wished to be of this (by reason of shrewd nativity), and while she believed that the fugitive must have seized such a chance and made good his escape toward North Sea or Flamborough, a quick shadow glanced across the long shafts of the sun, and a bodily form sped after it. To the middle of the Dike leaped a young man, smiling, and forth from the gully which had saved his life. To look at him, nobody ever could have guessed how fast he had fled, and how close he had lain hid. For he stood there as clean and spruce and careless as even a sailor can be wished to be. Limber yet stalwart, agile though substantial, and as quick as a dart while as strong as a pike, he seemed cut out by nature for a true blue-jacket; but condition had made him a smuggler, or, to put it more gently, a free-trader. Britannia, being then at war with all the world, and alone in the right (as usual), had need of such lads, and produced them accordingly, and sometimes one too many. But Mary did not understand these laws.

      This made her look at him with great surprise, and almost doubt whether he could be the man, until she saw her skirt neatly folded in his hand, and then she said, “How do you do, Sir?”

      The free-trader looked at her with equal surprise. He had been in such a hurry, and his breath so short, and the chance of a fatal bullet after him so sharp, that his mind had been astray from any sense of beauty, and of every thing else except the safety of the body. But now he looked at Mary, and his breath again went from him.

      “You can run again now; I am sure of it,” said she; “and if you would like to do any thing to please me, run as fast as possible.”

      “What have I to run away from now?” he answered, in a deep sweet voice. “I run from enemies, but not from friends.”

      “That is very wise. But your enemies are still almost within call of you. They will come back worse than ever when they find you are not there.”

      “I am not afraid, fair lady, for I understand their ways. I have led them a good many dances before this; though it would have been my last, without your help. They will go on, all the morning, in the wrong direction, even while they know it. Carroway is the most stubborn of men. He never turns back; and the further he goes, the better his bad leg is. They will scatter about, among the fields and hedges, and call one another like partridges. And when they can not take another step, they will come back to Anerley for breakfast.”

      “I dare say they will; and we shall be glad to see them. My father is a soldier, and his duty is to nourish and comfort the forces of the king.”

      “Then you are young Mistress Anerley? I was sure of it before. There are no two such. And you have saved my life. It is something to owe it so fairly.”

      The young sailor wanted to kiss Mary’s hand; but not being used to any gallantry, she held out her hand in the simplest manner to take back her riding skirt; and he, though longing in his heart to keep it, for a token or pretext for another meeting, found no excuse for doing so. And yet he was not without some resource.

      For the maiden was giving him a farewell smile, being quite content with the good she had done, and the luck of recovering her property; and that sense of right which in those days formed a part of every good young woman said to her plainly that she must be off. And she felt how unkind it was to keep him any longer in a place where the muzzle of a gun, with a man behind it, might appear at any moment. But he, having plentiful breath again, was at home with himself to spend it.

      “Fair young lady,” he began, for he saw that Mary liked to be called a lady, because it was a novelty, “owing more than I ever can pay you already, may I ask a little more? Then it is that, on your way down to the sea, you would just pick up (if you should chance to see it) the fellow ring to this, and perhaps you will look at this to know it by. The one that was shot away flew against a stone just on the left of the mouth of the Dike, but I durst not stop to look for it, and I must not go back that way now. It is more to me than a hatful of gold, though nobody else would give a crown for it.”

      “And they really shot away one of your ear-rings? Careless, cruel, wasteful men! What could they have been thinking of?”

      “They were thinking of getting what is called ‘blood-money.’ One hundred pounds for Robin Lyth. Dead or alive—one hundred pounds.”

      “It makes me shiver, with the sun upon me. Of course they must offer money for—for people. For people who have killed other people, and bad things—but to offer a hundred pounds for a free-trader, and fire great guns at him to get it—I never should have thought it of Captain Carroway.”

      “Carroway only does his duty. I like him none the worse for it. Carroway is a fool, of course. His life has been in my hands fifty times; but I will never take it. He must be killed sooner or later, because he rushes into every thing. But never will it be my doing.”

      “Then are you the celebrated Robin Lyth—the new Robin Hood, as they call him? The man who can do almost any thing?”

      “Mistress Anerley, I am Robin Lyth; but, as you have seen, I can not do much. I can not even search for my own earring.”

      “I will search for it till I find it. They have shot at you too much. Cowardly, cowardly people! Captain Lyth, where shall I put it, if I find it?”

      “If you could hide it for a week, and then—then tell me where to find it, in the afternoon, toward four o’clock, in the lane toward Bempton Cliffs. We are off tonight upon important business. We have been too careless lately, from laughing at poor Carroway.”

      “You are very careless now. You quite frighten me almost. The coast-riders might come back at any moment. And what could you do then?”

      “Run away gallantly, as I did before; with this little difference, that I should be fresh, while they are as stiff as nut-cracks. They have missed the best chance they ever had at me; it will make their temper very bad. If they shot at me again, they could do no good. Crooked mood makes crooked mode.”

      “You forget that I should not see such things. You may like very much to be shot at; but—but you should think of other people.”

      “I shall think of you only—I mean of your great kindness, and your promise to keep my ring for me. Of course you will tell nobody, Carroway will have me like a tiger if you do. Farewell, young lady—for one week farewell.”

      With a wave of his hat he was gone, before Mary had time to retract her promise; and she thought of her mother, as she rode on slowly to look for the smuggler’s trinket.

      CHAPTER VIII

      CAPTAIN CARROWAY

      Fame, that light-of-love trusted by so many, and never a wife till a widow—fame, the fair daughter of fuss and caprice, may yet take the СКАЧАТЬ