The Yeoman Adventurer | Page 4

my day-dreams had wrought no such marvel as here I saw in very flesh before me. I felt as one who drinks deep of some rich and rare vintage, and wonders why the gods have blessed him so. And further, as small things jostle big things in the mind, I knew that this was the real queen that had dazzled Joe Braggs.
"What do you call it?" she said, looking down at the fish.
"A jack, or pike, madam."
"'The tyrant of the watery plains,' as Mr. Pope calls him. You've heard of Mr. Pope, the poet?" She spoke as if 'No' was the inevitable answer.
"Strictly speaking, no, madam," said I gravely, "but I have read his so-called poems." She frowned. "Horace calls the jack," I continued, "lupus, the wolf-fish, as one may say, and a very good name too. Doubtless madam has heard of Horace."
My quip brought a glint into her eyes and a richer colour to her cheek. "Yes, heard of him," she said, with a trace of chagrin in her voice. "And now, O Nimrod of the watery plains, how far is it to the village smithy?"
"Just under a mile, madam."
"And how long does it take to shoe a horse?"
"How many shoes, madam?"
Again the glint in her eyes, and this time I saw some of the blue in them. "One, sir," she said shortly.
"Ten to fifteen minutes, madam."
"He's a very long time," she said under her breath.
"The smith is probably very busy to-day."
"Busy! Why so?"
"The dragoons may have found him much work," said I, merely my way of explaining the delay. But the words stabbed her. She laid a hand on my arm and cried gaspingly, "Dragoons! What do you mean? Quick!"
"The Duke of Cumberland is marching north from Lichfield against the Stuart, and Lord Brocton's dragoons are in the village."
"Brocton! O God! Brocton! My father is taken! And by Brocton!" She spoke aloud in her agitation, and I saw that she was cut to the quick. And I rejoiced, so strange is the human heart, that it was Lord Brocton's name that came in anguish off her tongue. Oh for one blow at the man whose father had harried mine into an untimely grave!
In sharp, frosty air sound travels far across the meadows of the Hanyards. The hills that hem the valley to the west perhaps act as a sounding board. Anyhow, further inquiry as to her trouble was stopped by the rattle of distant hoofs. We were standing now less than a dozen paces from the bridge. A straggling hedge, on a low bank, crossed flush up to the bridge by a stile, cut the field off from the road. I rushed to the stile, and cautiously pushed my head through near the ground. Half a mile of level road stretched to my right towards the village, and along it, and now less than six hundred yards away, a squad of dragoons was galloping towards us. The hedge was thin and leafless, and there was not cover enough for a rabbit. I ran back. "Dragoons," said I.
"After me," she replied carelessly, and I saw that danger for herself left her cold.
I kicked the great jack motionless, flung him to the foot of the bank under the hedge, and the rod after him, hurried her up to the stile, leaped into the water, took her in my arms, and carried her under the bridge. In less than a minute after I stopped wading, the dragoons clattered overhead.
Not an hour ago I had been aching for life and adventures, and here I was, up to the loins in water, with a goddess in my arms. Her right arm was round my neck, and her cheek so near that I felt her sweet, warm breath fanning my own. As the sounds died away, I turned and looked at her face, and I had my reward. Her eyes told me that she thanked and trusted me.
"Well done, fisherman!" she said for the second time.
"You're heavier than the jack," replied I, hitching her as far from the water as possible before wading back. A minute later I put her down on the bank with tumbled, yellow hair and face flaming red. I examined her critically, and cried triumphantly, "Not a stitch wet!"
CHAPTER II
THE SERGEANT OF DRAGOONS
I threw the jack across my shoulder and we started for the Hanyards. Madam offered no explanations, and I made no inquiries. It was obvious to me that the dragoons had gone on to the little hedge ale-house, a good, long mile away, where the road from the village struck into a roundabout road to Stafford. Here, in the "Bull and Mouth," Mother Braggs ruled by day and Master Joe by night, and here beyond a doubt the stranger lady had tarried while her father had gone on