The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales Read online

  CHAPTER VIII.

  THE COMING OF THE CUTTER.

  I never felt quite the same to our lodger after that little business atthe Peel Castle. It was always in my mind that he was holding a secretfrom me--indeed, that he was all a secret together, seeing that healways hung a veil over his past. And when by chance that veil was foran instant whisked away, we always caught just a glimpse of somethingbloody and violent and dreadful upon the other side. The very look ofhis body was terrible. I bathed with him once in the summer, and I sawthen that he was haggled with wounds all over. Besides seven or eightscars and slashes, his ribs on one side were all twisted out of shape,and a part of one of his calves had been torn away. He laughed in hismerry way when he saw my face of wonder.

  "Cossacks! Cossacks!" said he, running his hand over his scars."And the ribs were broke by an artillery tumbril. It is very bad tohave the guns pass over one. Now with cavalry it is nothing. A horsewill pick its steps however fast it may go. I have been ridden over byfifteen hundred cuirassiers A and by the Russian hussars of Grodno, andI had no harm from that. But guns are very bad."

  "And the calf?" I asked.

  "_Pouf!_ It is only a wolf bite," said he. "You would not think how Icame by it! You will understand that my horse and I had been struck,the horse killed, and I with my ribs broken by the tumbril. Well, itwas cold--oh, bitter, bitter!--the ground like iron, and no one to helpthe wounded, so that they froze into such shapes as would make yousmile. I too felt that I was freezing, so what did I do? I took mysword, and I opened my dead horse, so well as I could, and I made spacein him for me to lie, with one little hole for my mouth. _Sapristi!_ Itwas warm enough there. But there was not room for the entire of me, somy feet and part of my legs stuck out. Then in the night, when I slept,there came the wolves to eat the horse, and they had a little pinch ofme also, as you can see; but after that I was on guard with my pistols,and they had no more of me. There I lived, very warm and nice, for tendays."

  "Ten days!" I cried. "What did you eat?"

  "Why, I ate the horse. It was what you call board and lodging to me.But of course I have sense to eat the legs, and live in the body. Therewere many dead about who had all their water bottles, so I had all Icould wish. And on the eleventh day there came a patrol of lightcavalry, and all was well."

  It was by such chance chats as these--hardly worth repeating inthemselves--that there came light upon himself and his past. But theday was coming when we should know all; and how it came I shall try nowto tell you.

  The winter had been a dreary one, but with March came the first signs ofspring, and for a week on end we had sunshine and winds from the south.On the 7th Jim Horscroft was to come back from Edinburgh; for though thesession ended with the 1st, his examination would take him a week.Edie and I were out walking on the sea beach on the 6th, and I couldtalk of nothing but my old friend--for, indeed, he was the only friendof my own age that I had at that time. Edie was very silent, which wasa rare thing with her; but she listened smiling to all that I had tosay.

  "Poor old Jim!" said she once or twice under her breath. "Poor oldJim!"

  "And if he has passed," said I, "why, then of course he will put up hisplate and have his own house, and we shall be losing our Edie."

  I tried to make a jest of it and to speak lightly, but the words stillstuck in my throat.

  "Poor old Jim!" said she again, and there were tears in her eyes as shesaid it. "And poor old Jock!" she added, slipping her hand into mine aswe walked. "You cared for me a little bit once also, didn't you, Jock?Oh, is not that a sweet little ship out yonder!"

  It was a dainty cutter of about thirty tons, very swift by the rake ofher masts and the lines of her bow. She was coming up from the southunder jib, foresail, and mainsail; but even as we watched her all herwhite canvas shut suddenly in, like a kittiwake closing her wings, andwe saw the splash of her anchor just under her bowsprit. She may havebeen rather less than a quarter of a mile from the shore--so near that Icould see a tall man with a peaked cap, who stood at the quarter with atelescope to his eye, sweeping it backwards and forwards along thecoast.

  "What can they want here?" asked Edie.

  "They are rich English from London," said I; for that was how weexplained everything that was above our comprehension in the bordercounties. We stood for the best part of an hour watching the bonnycraft, and then, as the sun was lying low on a cloudbank and there was anip in the evening air, we turned back to West Inch.

  As you come to the farmhouse from the front, you pass up a garden, withlittle enough in it, which leads out by a wicket-gate to the road; thesame gate at which we stood on the night when the beacons were lit, thenight that we saw Walter Scott ride past on his way to Edinburgh.On the right of this gate, on the garden side, was a bit of a rockerywhich was said to have been made by my father's mother many yearsbefore. She had fashioned it out of water-worn stones and sea shells,with mosses and ferns in the chinks. Well, as we came in through thegates my eyes fell upon this stone heap, and there was a letter stuck ina cleft stick upon the top of it. I took a step forward to see what itwas, but Edie sprang in front of me, and plucking it off she thrust itinto her pocket.

  "That's for me," said she, laughing. But I stood looking at her with aface which drove the laugh from her lips.

  "Who is it from, Edie?" I asked.

  She pouted, but made no answer.

  "Who is it from, woman?" I cried. "Is it possible that you have been asfalse to Jim as you were to me?"

  "How rude you are, Jock!" she cried. "I do wish that you would mindyour own business."

  "There is only one person that it could be from," I cried. "It is fromthis man de Lapp!"

  "And suppose that you are right, Jock?"

  The coolness of the woman amazed and enraged me.

  "You confess it!" I cried. "Have you, then, no shame left?"

  "Why should I not receive letters from this gentleman?"

  "Because it is infamous."

  "And why?"

  "Because he is a stranger."

  "On the contrary," said she, "he is my husband!"