The Shoes of Fortune

“‘Art all right, Lord Clancarty,” said Thurot. “Here’s a man will row you to the quay in two breaths, and you’ll be snug in bed before M. Greig and I have finished our prayers.” Then he cried along the deck for the seaman.

I felt that all was lost now the fellow’s absence was to be discovered.

What was my astonishment to hear an answering call, and see the Dutchman’s figure a blotch upon the blackness of the after-deck.

“Bring round the small boat and take Lord Clancarty ashore,” said the captain, and the seaman hastened to do so. He sprang into the small boat, released her rope, and brought her round.

“A demain, dear Paul,” cried his lordship with a hiccough. “It’s curst unkind of Tony Thurot not to let you ashore on parole or permit me to wait with you.”

The boat dropped off into the darkness of the harbour, her oars thudding on the thole-pins.

“There goes a decent fellow though something of a fool,” said Thurot. “‘Tis his kind have made so many enterprises like our own have an ineffectual end. And now you must excuse me, M. Greig, if I lock you into your cabin. There are too few of us on board to let you have the run of the vessel.”

He put a friendly hand upon the shoulder I shrugged with chagrin at this conclusion to an unfortunate day.

“Sorry, M. Greig, sorry,” he said humorously. “Qui commence mal finit mal, and I wish to heaven you had begun the day by finding Antoine Thurot at home, in which case we had been in a happier relationship to-night.”

CHAPTER XXXIX

DISCLOSES THE MANNER OF MY ESCAPE AND HOW WE SET SAIL FOR ALBION

Thurot turned the key on me with a pleasantry that was in no accordance with my mood, and himself retired to the round house on deck where his berth was situated. I sat on a form for a little, surrendered all to melancholy, then sought to remove it by reading, as sleep in my present humour was out of the question. My reading, though it lasted for an hour or two, was scarcely worth the name, for my mind continually wandered from the page. I wondered if my note to Kilbride had been delivered, and if any step on his part was to be expected therefrom; the hope that rose with that reflection died at once upon the certainty that as the Dutch seaman had not signalled as he had promised he had somehow learned the true nature of my condition in the frigate. Had he told Thurot? If he had told Thurot – which was like enough – that I had communicated with any one outside the vessel there was little doubt that the latter would take adequate steps to prevent interference by Kilbride or any one else.

We are compact of memories, a mere bundle of bygone days, childish recollections, ancient impressions, and so an older experience came to me, too, of the night I sat in the filthy cabin of Dan Risk’s doomed vessel hearing the splash of illegitimate oars, anticipating with a mind scarcely more disturbed than I had just now the step of the officer from the prison at Blackness and the clutch of the chilly fetters.

There was a faint but rising nor’-east wind. It sighed among the shrouds of the frigate. I could hear it even in the cabin, pensive like the call of the curfew at a great distance. The waves washed against the timbers in curious short gluckings and hissings. On the vessel herself not a sound was to be heard, until of a sudden there came a scratching at my cabin door!

It was incredible! I had heard no footstep on the companion, and I had ceased to hope for anything from the Dutchman!

“Who’s there?” I asked softly, and at that the key outside was turned and I was fronted by Kilbride!

He wore the most ridiculous travesty of the Dutchman’s tarry breeks and tarpaulin hat and coarse wide jumper, and in the light of my candle there was a humorous twinkle on his face as he entered, closed the door softly after him, and sat down beside me.

“My goodness!” he whispered, “you have a face on you as if you were in a graveyard watching ghosts. It’s time you were steeping the withies to go away as we say in the Language, and you may be telling me all the story of it elsewhere.”

“Where’s the Dutchman that took my letter?” I asked.

“Where,” said Kilbride, “but in the place that well befits him – at the lug of an anker of Rotterdam gin taking his honest night’s rest. I’m here guizing in his tarry clothes, and if I were Paul Greig of the Hazel Den I would be clapping on my hat gey quick and getting out of here without any more parley.”

“You left him in the hoy!” said I astonished.

“Faith, there was nothing better for it!” said he coolly. “Breuer gave him so much of the juniper for old acquaintance that when I left he was so full of it that he had lost the power of his legs and you might as well try to keep a string of fish standing.”

“And it was you took Clancarty ashore?”

“Who else? And I don’t think it’s a great conceit of myself to believe I play-acted the Dutch tarry-breeks so very well, though I was in something of a tremble in case the skipper here would make me out below my guizard’s clothes. You may thank your stars the moon was as late of rising this night as a man would be that was at a funeral yesterday.” “And where’s the other man who was on this vessel?” I asked, preparing to go.

“Come on deck and I’ll show you,” said Kilbride, checking a chuckle of amusement at something.

We crept softly on deck into the night now slightly lit by a moon veiled by watery clouds. The ship seemed all our own and we were free to leave her when we chose for the small boat hung at her stern.

“You were asking for the other one,” said Kilbride. “There he is,” and he pointed to a huddled figure bound upon the waist. “When I came on board after landing Clancarty this stupid fellow discovered I was a stranger and nearly made an outcry; but I hit him on the lug with the loom of an oar. He’ll not be observing very much for a while yet, but I was bound all the same to put a rope on him to prevent him disturbing Captain Thurot’s sleep too soon.”

We spoke in whispers for the night seemed all ear and I was for ever haunted by the reflection that Thurot was divided from us by little more than an inch or two of teak-wood. Now and then the moon peeped through a rift of cloud and lit a golden roadway over the sea, enticing me irresistibly home.

“O God, I wish I was in Scotland!” I said passionately.

“Less luck than that will have to be doing us,” said Kilbride, fumbling at the painter of the boat. “The hoy sets sail for Calais in an hour or two, and it’s plain from your letter we’ll be best to be taking her round that length.”

“No, not Calais,” said I. “It’s too serious a business with me for that. I’m wanting England, and wanting it unco fast.”

“Oh, Dhe!” said my countryman, “here’s a fellow with the appetite of Prince Charlie and as likely to gratify it. What for must it be England, loachain?”

“I can only hint at that,” I answered hastily, “and that in a minute. Are ye loyal?”

“To a fine fellow called MacKellar first and to my king and country after?”

“The Stuarts?” said I.

He cracked his thumb. “It’s all by with that,” said he quickly and not without a tone of bitterness.

“The breed of them has never been loyal to me, and if I could wipe out of my life six months of the cursedest folly in Forty-five I would go back to Scotland with the first chance and throw my bonnet for Geordie ever after like the greasiest burgess ever sold a wab of cloth or a cargo of Virginia in Glasgow.”

“Then,” I said, “you and me’s bound for England this night, for I have that in my knowledge should buy the safety of the pair of us,” and I briefly conveyed my secret.

He softly whistled with astonishment.

“Man! it’s a gey taking idea,” he confessed. “But the bit is to get over the Channel.”

“I have thought of that,” said I. “Here’s a smuggler wanting no more than a rag of sail in this wind to make the passage in a couple of days.”

“By the Holy Iron it’s the very thing!” he interrupted, slapping his leg.

It takes a time to tell all this in writing, but in actual fact our whole conversation together in the cabin and on the deck occupied less than five minutes. We were both of us too well aware of the value of time to have had it otherwise and waste moments in useless conversation.

“What is to be done is this,” I suggested, casting a rapid glance along the decks and upwards to the spars. “I will rig up a sail of some sort here and you will hasten over again in the small-boat to the hoy and give Father Hamilton the option of coming with us. He may or he may not care to run the risks involved in the exploit, but at least we owe him the offer.”

“But when I’m across at the hoy there, here’s you with this dovering body and Captain Thurot. Another knock might settle the one, but you would scarcely care to have knocks going in the case of an old friend like Tony Thurot, who’s only doing his duty in keeping you here with such a secret in your charge.”

“I have thought of that, too,” I replied quickly, “and I will hazard Thurot.”

Kilbride lowered himself into the small-boat, pushed off from the side of the frigate, and in silence half-drifted in the direction of the Dutch vessel. My plans were as clear in my head as if they had been printed on paper. First of all I took such provender as I could get from my cabin and placed it along with a breaker of water and a lamp in the cutter. Then I climbed the shrouds of the frigate, and cut away a small sail that I guessed would serve my purpose, letting it fall into the cutter. I made a shift at sheets and halyards and found that with a little contrivance I could spread enough canvas to take the cutter in that weather at a fair speed before the wind that had a blessed disposition towards the coast of England. I worked so fast it was a miracle, dreading at every rustle of the stolen sail – at every creak of the cutter on the fenders, that either the captain or his unconscious seaman would awake.

My work was scarcely done when the small-boat came off again from the hoy, and as she drew cautiously near I saw that MacKellar had with him the bulky figure of the priest. He climbed ponderously, at my signal, into the cutter, and MacKellar joined me for a moment on the deck of the frigate.

“He goes with us then?” I asked, indicating the priest.

“To the Indies if need be,” said Kilbride. “But the truth is that this accident is a perfect God-send to him, for England’s the one place below the firmament he would choose for a refuge at this moment. Is all ready?”