VC -- A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea | Page 2

his hat, and the water trickled out of his hair in rivulets.
'I've seen worse weather than any they can brew in the neighbourhood of Beacon Hargate,' he panted to himself, 'but it's one thing to have a good tight craft under your feet, and it's another to be bogged in the dark, over half a mile of rotten plough-land. All right, my lads, you haven't got Jack Jervase under yet. Here goes.'
With this he faced the hill and the rain again, and made his difficult and slippery way upward, impeded by his clinging clothes, and snorting like a grampus. Right at the crown of the hill, most fortunately for the wayfarer, there was a thick coppice of stunted trees, which afforded refuge from the gale and shelter from the rain. He was quite blown by the time he reached it, and he clutched at the nearest sapling as a drowning man clutches at a spar. He stood there perforce for a full minute, panting hard. Then he shook his head doggedly, and muttered a second time:
'All right, my lads. You haven't got Jack Jervase yet.'
And then, helping himself along from hand to hand, he skirted the coppice, until he came to the unsheltered brow of the hill. It was well for him then that he had something to hold on by. Even as it was, he was clean lifted from his feet, and it was only by a prodigious effort that he saved himself from being blown away like a leaf. But having once struggled past the actual summit, he had escaped that danger, and a minute later, through howling-wind and scourging rain, the fire-lit windows of the house were beaming 'home!' upon him. Another instant and his feet were on the firm gravel, and he went scudding before the wind until he had gained the corner of the house. Here, feeling his troubles over, he paused once more for breath, and took a dripping way towards the rear of the building.
He stayed for an instant to glance in at an old-fashioned broad mullioned window. He looked into a room where a jolly coal fire was burning in the grate, and blazing up the chimney. About it half-a-dozen people sat comfortably grouped, and there was a big brown steaming jug upon the wooden table in the centre of the room, which was paved with the large square tiles locally called 'quarries.' One of the group about the fire turned to this jug and poured out from it a generous-looking stream of dark brown liquid into a number of mugs of the old Staffordshire ware, which at that time of day was common in rustic households, though it seems now to have vanished from all places but the shelves of the collector. The onlooker shivered and spoke under his breath.
'You're making pretty free with old Jack's old October inside there, ain't you? Pretty fine old crowd to come home to!--guzzling at my expense. I'll sort ye.'
A moment later he was in the room, but short as the interval was between the close of his speech and his appearance before the group about the fire, his temper had apparently changed, for he broke out in a cheery voice:
'Hilloa, my lads! I reckon one or two of you are weatherbound. Well, you've found a snug harbour here, and you're welcome to it. Mary,' he went on, addressing a thick-set woman of middle age, who had risen at his entrance, and stood before him with an embarrassed aspect, 'don't tell the missus that I'm at home, but go upstairs and lay out dry things for me. I'm wet through to the marrow. I'll have a drop of that myself,' he said, laying a hand on one of the mugs and nodding round the little circle, with a beaming face.
One of the men noisily shifted his chair to make room for him, and the master of the house approached the fire, and, turning his back to it, began to steam like a whole washing day.
He sipped comfortably at the creaming contents of the mug, and fairly beamed upon his guests.
'You chaps,' he said, 'will have to wake up by and by. I hope there isn't one of you that hasn't got the spirit to go out and fight for his Queen and country?'
'There ain't a-going to be no fightin', Mr. Jervase,' said one of the men sheepishly.
'Don't you make any mistake about that, my lad,' said Mr. Jervase. 'I've got a bit of news for you as will set old England in a blaze within another four-and-twenty hours. And I suppose I'm the only man within five miles that knows it. You mark my words, now, all of you. You'll remember this night to the last day o' your lives. This is the 27th March,