Tom Tufton's Travels by Evelyn Everett-Green (freda ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Italy, for I have heard that Savoy lies in that land?" said Tom.

"Ay; Italy has had its strange vicissitudes of fortune, and has been divided and redivided into duchies and kingdoms, till it needs a clever scholar to tell her history aright. But it is enough for our purpose that Savoy lies just beneath those grim mountains which we must scale; and that for the present no other entrance is possible."

"But there are other ways then?"

"Why, yes, we could at other times go by sea; but now that the Spaniards are seeking to win back the rock of Gibraltar, which we have lately reft from them, and which Marlborough says must never be yielded up again, we cannot safely try that way; for we might well fall into the hands of some Spanish vessel, and languish, unknown and uncared for, in Spanish dungeons. We cannot travel through France, and reach it from the shores of Genoa; because it were too great peril for Englishmen to ride through the dominions of the French monarch. So we must needs land at some friendly Dutch port, and ride through their country, and so into Westphalia, and thence to these mountain regions which cut us off from our destination.

"Have you ever seen snow mountains, Tom, towering to the very skies in virgin whiteness, with the rivers of ice, miles in width, flowing silently down their rocky sides? It is a strange and marvellous sight when viewed for the first time. I could find it in my heart to wish I stood in your shoes, that all these new things might be seen and heard for the first time!"

"And I would that I knew more of these strange lands, and the ways of the people there," answered Tom; "for I fear me lest mine ignorance may lead us into peril. But if such a thing as that were to befall, I would lay down my life to save yours, my lord."

"I believe you, Tom," answered the other very gravely. He was silent a while, and then he said slowly, "Tom, I am going to say a strange thing to yon--at least it would sound strange to some; and, indeed, I should not dare to say it to every companion in peril. But I believe you to be stanch and true."

"I trust you will ever find me so, my lord."

"Well, Tom, this is the word that I would say to you. It may chance that things come to this pass with us, that one of us twain must needs fall into the hands of the enemy, and die; for there is little hope of any other end when that befalls. And if we know and can so arrange matters, it must be you and not I who will fall into that peril."

Tom looked back without flinching.

"You speak well, my lord," he said. "It must be my lot to die. You will not find me hold back when the moment comes."

Lord Claud took his hand and held it in both of his.

"It must be you, Tom; and yet I would rather it were myself. But I have that intrusted to me which I must speak in the Duke's ear. The despatches are as little compared with what I have had from Marlborough's own lips--what may not be trusted upon paper. Moreover, I could find my way through the countries, where you would be lost for lack of words to ask your way. If one of us has to be delivered over to death, it must be you."

"It must. I see it well."

"Yet we may both succeed in getting through, or we may both leave our bones lying amid the eternal snows. Perhaps in years to come it will matter little enough. Just now it seems a matter of more importance. But I have told you this to show my trust in you, Tom. There are not many comrades to whom I could have thus unburdened myself. I should have had to use subtlety where now I use truth and openness."

"You shall not find me fail you, my lord," answered Tom.

CHAPTER X. IN PERIL.

"Halt! and declare yourselves!" cried a hoarse voice speaking in the French tongue.

"Now for it, Tom," said Lord Claud quietly, speaking between his shut teeth. "Remember what I have told you. Be wary, be ready. We shall get through all right. There are but two or three score, and none of them mounted."

The travellers were passing now through the narrow territory of the Margrave of Baden, with the Rhine upon their right, the only protection from the frontier of France with all its hostile hosts.

The slow and inactive policy of the Margrave of Baden naturally encouraged the enemy to send small parties of soldiers across to harry his country; and already Tom and his master had had to dodge and hide, or go out of their way, to avoid meeting with these bands of inimical marauders. They were not the class of opponents whom Lord Claud most dreaded, still they might well fall upon and make prisoner the two English travellers; and if despatches were found upon the person of either, they would almost certainly be shot as spies. Indeed, so bitter was the feeling on the part of the French after their defeat at Blenheim, that any travellers belonging to the hated English nation went in danger of their lives.

For some time now Tom had been wearing the garb of a serving man. His peruke had disappeared, and he wore a little dark wig that looked like his natural hair. It excited less comment for master and servant to travel from town to town together than for two English gentlemen to be riding unattended through such a disturbed country; and as they pursued their way, Lord Claud would give minute and precise directions to Tom how to act in the event of their falling in with one of these scouting or marauding parties, showing such a wonderful knowledge of the tactics of forest warfare that Tom was often astonished at him, and would have liked to ask where he had obtained his experience.

And now, for the first time, Tom was face to face with a real foe--no mere antagonist of the hour, with whom he had exchanged some angry word, and was ready to follow it up with blows, but with armed foes of a hostile race, whose blood was stirred by the hatred bred of long-continued warfare, and who would think as little of taking the lives of two Englishmen as Tom would of shooting a fat buck in his native woodlands.

Again came the word of command in the hoarse voice.

"Halt! and declare yourselves, or--"

But the threat remained unspoken, for Lord Claud had drawn rein, and was looking at the speaker with eyes of mild inquiry.

"What is your will, monsieur?" he asked, in his easy and excellent French.

At this seeming show of submission the face of the officer relaxed, and the men in his company lowered their carbines and stood more at ease pending the result of the dialogue.

"Monsieur is not a Frenchman?" questioned the officer, with a look from one face to the other.

Tom sat gazing before him with a stolid expression of countenance, which greatly belied the tingling which he felt through every vein in his body. It seemed as though this tingling sensation was in some way communicated to the mare he rode, for she began fidgeting in a fashion which plainly told Tom that she was ready to do her part when the tussle should come.

"How know you that, sir?" asked Lord Claud with a smile. "If you can tell me my nationality I shall be grateful, for I am ignorant upon the point myself."

The man's face clouded a little; he felt a certain suspicion of the handsome stranger, and yet he must not do despite to one of His Majesty's subjects, and Lord Claud had the air of a man of no mean status.

"Your servant is English," he said with a touch of sullenness, "and I take it your horses are, too. The army of His Majesty of France is badly in need of strong horses. If you are good subjects of his you will be willing to part with them. My horse was killed but a little way back; that one of yours would suit me right well," and he made a step forward as though to lay a hand on Lucifer's rein.

"Now, Tom, my boy!" said Lord Claud in a clear, low tone.

In a moment he had whipped out his pistols and fired straight at the officer, who fell face downwards almost without a groan. Tom had meanwhile marked his man--the foremost in the rank behind; and he rolled over like a log.

With a yell of rage and amaze the men were upon them; but Lucifer and Nell Gwynne had already reared almost upright, and now were fighting so wildly with their iron-shod hoofs that in fear and dismay the assailants fell back, whilst a second report from each pistol dropped another man dead upon the field.

"Forward! before they can take aim!" cried Lord Claud in a voice of thunder; and the horses obeyed the word without any touch of spur from their riders.

They bounded forward with an impetus which must have unseated any but an experienced horseman, and then laying themselves along the ground, they fled onwards at a gallop which astonished even Tom by its wild velocity.

A shower of bullets fell round them, but none touched either steeds or riders; the yells of the infuriated soldiers died away on their ears; the horses sped on and on as though they had wings to their feet, and only after some few miles had been traversed did the riders draw rein.

"That is always the best plan of action," said Lord Claud, as though such an occurrence as this was a matter of everyday experience with him. "Always appear ready to pause and parley. It invariably disarms suspicion. At the first every pistol or musket is levelled at your head; but if you stop to talk, these are lowered. Then, when you have put the enemy a little off guard, make a dash for it; take them by surprise, drop a few, and confuse the rest, and you almost invariably escape with a sound skin."

Then Lord Claud coolly proceeded to wipe and recharge his pistols, as though the escape of half an hour back had been a mere detail hardly worth discussion.

But Tom knew well that both his master and the horses they rode must have been through many such perils before this, or they could never (at any rate the horses) have shown such aptitude in playing their parts. He had felt that the mare he rode was prepared to fight furiously with hoofs and teeth; and, as it was, she had struck down two men who had been preparing to spring at her.

"Ah, my lady had always a temper of her own," replied Lord Claud with a smile, as Tom said something of this. "Yes; I have taken some pains with my horses to teach them to help in a fight. Travelling even in one's own land is none too safe, as you found to your cost, honest Tom. Nell Gwynne comes of a fighting stock, and showed an early aptitude for the fray. Trust to her, Tom, if ever you are hard pressed; she will bring you safely through, if it can be achieved at any price."

And, indeed, as the travellers pursued their long ride through a disturbed and often half-hostile country, they had frequently to depend as much upon the fleetness, fidelity, and strength of their horses as upon the strength of their own right arms.

Well did Tom now understand why Lord Claud had made such a point of having their own horses with them. Had they been jogging along upon some beast hired or purchased in the country, they would never have got through the divers perils of the way.

Once Tom was aroused from slumber in a little, ill-smelling inn by the sound of kicking and stamping proceeding from the stable; and when he had aroused his companion, and they had hastily dressed themselves and descended, it was to find that a desperate fight was going on between the two horses and a handful of French soldiers, who had followed after the fine animals, and were seeking to steal them whilst the travellers slept.

They had paid dearly for their temerity, however, for Nell Gwynne was stamping the life out of one wretched fellow; whilst Lucifer had broken the leg of a second, and had pinned his companion by the arm, so that he was yelling aloud in his agony.

Lord Claud sprang in, and at the sound of his voice the horse loosened his grip, and the man reeled hack against the wall, white and bleeding, and cursing beneath his breath. Tom was too late to save the life