The Wrothams of Wrotham Court

Chapter I. Runaway The First

On a late March afternoon in the year 1669, a horse man was passing slowly at sunset along the Borough in Southwark. Both man and beast were covered with the dust of the country roads, and the rider was doubtfully scanning the signs which hung out to right and left, as if searching for some one inn, but unfamiliar with the place. A stranger in that land of hostels might well be perplexed, for the way was lined with houses of entertainment, and it was not easy by the fading light to distinguish between their signs. He passed by " Nag's Head " and " Boar's Head," " King's Head " and " Queen's Head," " Greyhound," " Falcon," " Red Lion," and a host of the other creatures, fabulous or otherwise, from which inns are wont to take their names. At length, when he came to the fork of the road on St. Margaret's Hill, he pulled up his horse, and, hailing a labourer, asked him for the George Inn.

" That's on the road to Lond'n Bridge, sir," answered the man ; and then, as a happy afterthought, indicated the right-hand turning by a jerk of his head. " ' Tis just a step," he added. B The horseman glanced up at the group of buildings immediately to his right, indicated by the sign of a dog. It had once been the Tabard of the Canterbury Tales, but he troubled his head little about that, and rode slowly on to the next. Here, sure enough, St. George " sat on horseback at mine hostess' door ; " and he turned his horse and rode into the yard. As he dis mounted, he inquired of the ostler whether one Mr. Wrotham was to be heard of at that house. The ostler scratched his head, holding the tired horse by the bridle, and considered. " I don't mind the name, sir," said he at last. " A young gentleman on a blue roan mare — dark, and not very tall," said the traveller rather im patiently.

" Ay, sir," answered the ostler, becoming less vacant in aspect. "He came in half an hour since. I think you'll hear of him at the bar, sir." " Half an hour since ? I suppose you mean yester day," said the other, whose ride did not seem to have left him in the most affable of humours. " That was the first I see of him, sir ; just half an hour ago." The horseman turned towards the house, and as the ostler led the horse up and down the yard by way of cooling him, he watched the rider with some interest. He looked like a country gentleman rather than a man of fashion, for though young, he wore, after the slow moving country custom, clothes of a cut that had been modish about town twenty years before. His riding cloak and boots were meant for hard service on country roads ; he evidently troubled himself little about feathers and lace, and wore his own dark brown hair in preference to a periwig.

He was well-made, however, above the common height, and, though now stiff and travel-stained after a long day's ride, would ha.ve been pronounced a fine young fellow anywhere. His accent proclaimed him to be from Kent ; his horse, the best that could be hired, made it no less clear that he was a gentleman's son ; and though from his speech he might have been thought nothing but a yokel, his active movements were those of a man accustomed to good food and varied exercise. He had, too, an air of command which sat well enough upon him, and gave the impression that he was used to be obeyed. His face was a powerful and not a very genial one ; but it was free as yet from the look of coarse excess that often grew with years upon men of his class — free, too, from any sinister expression, with marked but not heavy features, a good forehead, and keen, dark grey eyes.

He made his way to the bar, and inquired again for Mr. Wrotham. That individual, it appeared, was not forthcoming for the moment ; but the visitor was shown to a private room, and, with many assurances that the gentleman could only have gone to the top of the street, and must be back in the twinkling of an eye, the serving man addressed himself to pulling off the traveller's boots. He laid supper on the table and left the room ; but half an hour passed, and the young man had finished his meal and called for a pipe, when a quick footstep sounded in the passage, and the door was thrown open. A slight young fellow came in hastily, and greeted his guest with an eager exclamation. The visitor, even by the uncertain light of the fire, might easily have been seen to be his elder brother. In face they were like, and yet unlike ; the last arrival had the same strong features as the other, but finer and more delicate.

The skin was darker, the eyes brighter, the face more vivid and quick to change. It took on an expression of quaint drollery as he pulled off his hat with an elaborate flourish, and made a low bow. The other looked up with a quick flash of recognition, and, for a moment, the likeness between them became very marked, though the difference was not lost. Anthony Wrotham's at its best was a face that men and women might have trusted ; but his younger brother Rupert had a face that men and women loved. b " I'm glad to see your worship," Rupert began, " but you've been an unconscionable time coming." " Well," said Anthony, " 'tis pretty to hear that, certainly ; I've been waiting for you here half an hour as it is. You left Sandwich yesterday morning, didn't you ? Anybody might have thought by the note you sent there was some call to hurry over that cursed road — but it seems not."

"Well, Dick Hetford stopped me at Rochester, and swore I must he the night at his mother's ; else I should have been half over the town by this time. But now I come to think on't, hast surely not ridden Cavalier up the Dover road in one day — a man might as well be riding over the shingle on the beach." " It's the best road in England," said Anthony, " and is it likely I should ride Cavalier when I must have a change of horses on the way ? You may make sure enough I don't leave the best horse in the county at an inn." " Oh, ay ! Cavalier's the pride of thy heart, and nobody is to abuse the Kentish roads but thyself. I forgot all that. But why not have taken John to Rochester to bring him back, for that matter ? " " Why, because John can't be spared all in a hurry. Now, hast got any more questions to ask ?

" " No, no, never stir, Tony, it's no great matter," said my lord, magnificently. •' Something is some great matter, I hope, unless thou hast brought me up here on a fool's errand ; some thing keeps thee in a fair fidget, anyway." Anthony reached out as he spoke for the ale can which stood on the corner of the table, but Rupert whisked it away, and seated himself easily in its place. " Come, old boy, no more of that ; thou'rt always enough in the sulks at the end of a long day, and I would not have thee inflame thyself more than need be ■ I have news to tell thee." " What a murrain art waiting for all this time, then ?" '' I was waiting," said Rupert sweetly, " till thou wert in a humour to be spoken to ; I know it does not come about every day, but I pray Heaven it be not very long, for I am in a hurry."

Anthony was not the man to change his mood with indecent haste, but the corners of his mouth here underwent a slight contortion, which his brother rightly construed into an irrepressible smile. " When I set out for London 'tother day," Rupert began upon this encouragement, " I put my fortune in my pocket before I left." " I'm glad to hear it, I'm sure," said Anthony, relaxing into a chuckle ; " mostly if you were starting on a long ride, the money 'ud be the last thing in the world you'd think of — unless indeed it was the horse." " 'Twas not money, old lad, but it shall make money ; being, as I told thee once at home, the best set of verses " " Ay," said Anthony, getting up and standing before the fire, " I mind you did tell me some such truck before." " And now I will prove it to thee. I am going to live in town."

" Oh, ay, live there. Till we start home the day after to-morrow ? or till you get a new crotchet in your head next week ? " " No ! " shouted the other, starting from his seat like a cork from a bottle. " I've left the countiy, I tell you, once and for all. Cocke told me at Oxford I might make a poet, and, upon my word, I'll try it. A man may as well starve in a garret as stick in the mud." "What mud hast been sticking in of late, then?" inquired Anthony, soothingly. " Faith, the mud of Kent that's on your boots now." " Oh, keep a civil tongue in your head for Kent. It's the county I was born and bred in ; and as for the mud on my boots, 'tis mostly the mud of the Borough, for the Kent roads are dry." " Oh, sink the mud— listen to me, will you ? " said Rupert, bringing down his hand on the table with a bang.

" Careful, careful, man ; wilt have mine host up. I'm listening ; wert talking of starving in a garret." " So I may. Say what you will, Tony ; call me a fool if you like— I don't go back to be buried alive at Wrotham." Anthony shifted his position before the fire. " Mass," he said — for like other countrymen, he used the oaths of his great grandfathers — " couldst not have done all this vapouring at home ? 'Twould have saved me a matter of seventy mile on a road like the bed of a stream — and the horse jolting fit to fire off the pistols through the holsters." " As thou wilt, old boy — ' twas the best road in England just now — and what wouldst thou have said ? " " Why, I should have told thee thou couldst bide at home." " Ah," said Rupert, " and knowing thee to be a man of thy hands, I thought best to tell thee the news at 'tother end of the journey.

A bird in the hand, you know." Anthony was minded to Hing the ale can at him, but restrained himself, because he did not want to waste the ale. " Talking of pistols," Rupert went on, " didst thou find any use for 'em on the road ? " " Ay, a fellow on a piebald screw, ten mile this side of Canterbury. He waited when he saw me coining up." " Ah ! what didst thou say to him ?" " I thought maybe he didn't see I carried pistols, so I showed him six inches of one of 'em." " Why not the whole ? " "Why, because half was enough, and the thing is a plague to be for ever lugging in and out of the holster. He was off before I could get her back, and a vile dust he kicked up in my face as he went " Rupert returned to his former theme. " I'll take my verses to Mr. Dryden to-morrow," he said, going to the window.

" Cocke said he might be glad to look 'em over ; but I'd like to know how I was to come at Mr. Dryden without coming to town." " I'll go to Will's every night if I must, but I'll be hanged if I don't see him," he continued after a pause. " You wait till I've made my fortune, Tony, and then come back ; you'll find me another sort of a fellow. I'm sick of Jack and Jill in their work-a-day clothes on week days ; and, hang me, Jack and Jill in their Sunday clothes is all I see on Sundays, and not that without going to church. I want men who can think, and talk, and write — what's more, I want to do 'em myself." Anthony began to wonder, with some dismay, how much meaning might lie behind this tirade. Like other gentlemen, he thought the trade of author one of the most disreputable of callings ; his brother might almost as well have proposed to become a highwayman at once, and a great deal better to rent a shop in Canterbury.

Finally, however, the young aspirant resolved all doubt by saying — " I sent for thee to let thee know where I was gone ; thou canst tell the old man if thou wilt, but he's not very like to ask." " It's likely I should tell him any such tomfoolery, isn't it ? " said Anthony. " I never heard the like of it, to be told to a gentleman of his son." " Oh, he'll survive the loss of me ; he's over tough to die of that. Tell me, now, what wert thou doing when Harry brought my note ? " " At bowls," said Anthony, after a moment's con sideration. " And before that ? " " In the forenoon ? why, looking over the stock." " Ay, there it is," said Rupert. " Do you think I can spend my life playing bowls and looking at stock ? " " And how about starving in a garret ? you'll find that maybe none so pleasant as you think."

" ' Twill be sooner over, any way," said Rupert, " and maybe 'tis like being skinned — all well enough when a man's used to it. You don't know how I hate the place, Tony, indeed, you don't." He looked at his brother with a kind of despair in his dark eyes, and Anthony put his hand kindly enough on the lad's shoulder ; but the momentary weakness was soon shaken off. " I cannot spend my days among hogs and bullocks for any father alive. Go you back to him, Tony ; I'm no favourite of his. Wish me God speed, and I'll stay here and make my fortune." " I tell thee 'tis not fit for a gentleman's son," said Anthony. " I took thee for more of a Wrotham." Rupert turned on him at once. " Gentleman's son ? What about Etherege and Sedley and Lovelace ? What about Dryden ? What about the Howards ? What's good enough for them's good enough for me."

" And how dost thou know all these fine gentle men ? " said Anthony, bewildered by the long string of unknown gods. " Know them ? I don't know them. Cocke told me all about these things at Oxford. Why, man, how do I luiow Will's coffee-house ? I never was there in my life, but I've not been to Oxford for nothing." " So it seems," said Anthony, giving up the discussion ; and they talked of indifferent matters for a while. When they rose to part for the night, Anthony said suddenly — " How was it thou didst not stop in London on thy way home from Oxford ? " " They must needs tell me the plague was about in town — much 1 believed it, but still, I came across country. Plaguy ill-luck it was for me. You lie here, of course ? " " Ay ; and to-morrow morning we go home together." Rupert shook his head, and laughed.

" Wait six months, old lad," he said. " Good-night." When they met again at breakfast the next morning, Anthony was booted and spurred — Rupert was not. " Take Kate back with you — she's not mine," said Rupert as they rose. He meant the blue roan mare. " Put on your boots, and bring her back yourself, man," said Anthony ; but Rupert took no notice. They passed into one of the long galleries running round the yard, into which the room opened, and moved slowly along it, looking at the horses which were being saddled below. " If you ever want to hear of me again, Tony," said Rupert. " Well ? " " Go to Cocke's brother, at the sign of the Bear, in Gracious Street, London. I'll keep them acquainted where I am." " If you will stay, you will," said the other. " I'll mind the name. And now, I may as well be off."

He led the way down into the yard, and mounted, taking Kate by the bridle. " I shall be talking to Dryden when thou'rt at Canterbury," said Rupert ; and so they parted.

Chapter II. Runaway The Second

On the afternoon of that same day when Anthony Wrotham set out on his homeward journey, the east wind was moaning dismally over the old town of Sandwich. The clouds were grey, and the narrow streets and the three church towers, robbed of the sunshine under which they were as pretty a sight as any town could show, had a dreary and forsaken look. Kent, the garden of England, has its bleak corners, and Sandwich lies in one of them. Standing as it does without shelter on a green plain, the wind sweeps over it with a wild, relentless fury. On this sombre day, the Stour, as it flowed by the north side of the town, and out through Minster marshes to the sea, had taken the sullen colour of the sky, and the very barges were a dreary sight as they lay near the bridge or came slowly up the river — the only relics that were left to Sandwich of the hundred keels that once rode in her vanished haven, and the tiny remnant of a busy trade.

Sandwich lay on the sea coast in her early days, and was a seaport of no mean dignity, said to be the most famous of all the English harbours. She witnessed some of the side scenes in the drama of the world's history in days when it was acted upon a narrower stage. She heard in old times the tramp of many invading feet ; felt her share of the circulation of commerce ; sheltered many persecuted exiles who chose their faith rather than their homes, and was repaid by them with good measure, pressed down and running over, for they Runaway the Second. 1 1 taught her many of the arts of peace. But by the time King Charles came back to his own again, she was past her stirring and enthusiastic youth. "A caryke," according to Leland, "was sank in the haven in Pope Paulus' time, which did much harm to the haven, and gether a great bank."

Not wholly owing to the caryke, perhaps, the haven became filled up with sand and mud. The sea receded from Sandwich, and when no vessels could reach her but by way of the Stour, the con sequence of the old borough began to dwindle away. Deal had the impudence to grow up under her very nose, forsooth ; though Sandwich alone as yet, thank Heaven, possessed the rights and privileges of a market town. A melancholy fancy on this bleak afternoon might have invested the place with the air of one making lamentation over past greatness. Not far from where the old church of St. Mary's, sunk together, tower and nave, like someone stooping and shrunk with age, stood in Strand Street by the river, a small house was to be seen in a side turning, some thing above the rank of a cottage. The timbered front leaned forward oddly, as if it were trying to look down into the kennel, and the tiny dormer window above had sunk back with the sinking of the tiled roof.

As the church clocks struck, the heavy door opened with a click, and a fair-faced girl came out, and stood holding the door back with one hand, looking up and down the street. She made a pretty picture as she stood there, though her smooth, fair hair was all but hidden by the black kerchief tied over it, and her hands were roughened with house work. Her grey russet petticoat was nearly covered by a great linsey-woolsey apron, and the wooden clogs on her feet were clumsy and ill-made. She was plainly of humble station ; but the fresh, clear colour in her face might have been envied by the finest lady in the land, and her sweet mouth, with its delicate lips a little parted, gave her face a certain very winning and appealing air. She was evidently looking for someone. She was just about to return into the house when a boy of some fourteen years old came in sight, loitering slowly along the street.

The girl's face brightened as she caught sight of him into a smile that was pleasant to see, but he did not offer to hurry himself. " Why, where hast thou been, Robby dear ? " said the girl, putting her hands on his shoulders as he came up, and turning with him into the house. " Been on the bridge," said the boy, not over civilly. " Dear child ! all this time ? " " Only six o'clock," said the boy with the same sulky indifference. He was not fond of questions, and his sister wisely said no more ; but produced a loaf, a jug of milk, and a dish of cold broad beans, which she set on the kitchen table before him. The household was a poor one, and even bacon was conspicuous by its absence. " Where's father, Meg ? " inquired the boy as he sat down. " Gone to Canterbury, dear, for the seed. He'll not be in till late.

It's as well for thee that he is. But is anything the matter, Robby ?" " No ; o' course not — what should there be ? I was only staying on the bridge — what's the harm, I'd like to know ? " " Well, father likes thee to come in. " Daresay he does. Likes me to go to the old grammar school too, don't he ? Let him go himself for a se'nnight, and find out what it's like. I get no peace of my life because he chooses to set up for a Quaker, and I say it's a shame." " Well, well," said Margaret, who had heard this sort of thing before; "if thou wert at no harm, dear, there's no need to say so much about it. I'm sorry they laugh at thee. But it's not father's wish for them to tease thee, only how can he help it ? " She moved as she spoke to catch the light on the stocking she was darning. The boy muttered something about there being no need to be a Quaker.

Runaway the Second. 13 " He's been whipped and in gaol for that himself," said Margaret a little indignantly, " and 'tis not likely he should leave it because they tease thee at school." " Where's grandad ? I'm going out to him," said Bob, when his supper was finished. " And going to school to-morrow morning like a good boy," said Margaret, with some secret amusement, though she felt for him. " Where's grandad ? " repeated the boy shortly ; this admonition not being exactly to his taste. " On the town wall, dear " — by which she meant the broad, raised walk that had taken its place — "and make him come in soon, Robby ; the dew'll be falling." The boy went out at the back of the house into a little plot of land behind, sown -in neat rows with turnips, and cabbages, and carrots with the feathery sprays of foliage which great ladies, much to the credit of their taste, were in the habit of wearing as orna ments.

There were one or two rows also ot apple and cherry trees, and this little combination of orchard and vegetable ground, stretching nearly to the town wall, formed the estate and livelihood of Thomas Field, market gardener. Margaret went about her work indoors by the firelight as long as it would serve her, and, just as she was lighting a candle, debating within her own mind whether she had not better go herself to fetch her grandfather, and wishing for the hundredth time that Bob were not so forgetful, a bent and wizened old man appeared in the doorway, and after pausing there a moment to take a survey of the lighted room, crossed it to the chimney corner. It was plain from his walk that he had been a sailor. "Where's Bob, grandad?" said Margaret, as old Reuben lowered himself gradually into a seat.

" Eh ? The lad's stopped to tie up the vines. The wind do be blowing cruel hard." " Is it an east wind ? " "Ay, ay, from the sea." Reuben sat gazing quietly about the room, his mind running on certain tales of the sea that he had been in the habit of telling to his grandson. Having made his last voyage some years ago, and having nothing in particular to do, since he was maintained by his son, it was not unnatural that he should fall to talking very often to the boy, and that, as befitted his age, he should talk of old times. He had remained on service until the earlier days of Oliver's administration had covered the English name with splendour, and it is not much to be wondered at that Bob, under his tuition, devoutly believed that life at sea was a mixture of freedom, madcap pranks, and dazzling glory.

It is true Reuben had sailed in his young days with Buckingham's ill-starred, ill-paid, ill-fated expedition to Rochelle ; but he forgot this when he sat sunning himself on the wall on summer evenings, preferring to tell how he had helped to thrash the Spaniards with Blake at Teneriffe. Bob had lost his mother, and the good man Thomas Field was somewhat strict and stern, as one who had little time left him, between persecution on the one hand, and a pretty severe struggle to live and pay his just debts on the other, to spend in sympathy with childish trifles. Margaret was only a girl, and so the boy naturally turned to the one other confidant at hand. Margaret busied herself with her needle, and neither she nor the old man spoke till, when twilight had become darkness even outside, she started and said half aloud, though more to herself than to her grandfather — " ' Tis dark by now — it can't have taken him all that time to tie up the vines."

" Eh ? " said the old man sharply. Margaret sprang up, pushing back her chair, and went into the passage. No sooner had she reached it, however, than a tap sounded on the door that led into the garden, and she went to open it, thinking at the same time that her brother must certainly have known that he had left it unbolted. But it was not her brother who came in, but a red-haired man of small stature Runaway the Second. 15 who put his arm round her and kissed her as he shut the door. " It's earlier than usual for thee to be home, father." " Ay, my girl. I wanted to get to the garden before nightfall, to tie up some o' the things again — the wind's getting so strong." " Why," said Margaret, pausing in the kitchen door way as her father was following her in, " Bob went to do it half an hour ago."

Thomas Field stared at her. " I've not seen him," he said slowly, " and I've been there these twenty minutes, setting the things to rights myself." " He must have gone out," said Margaret. " I'd as lief know where, then," said her father, setting down on the kitchen table a bundle that he carried. " I cannot say I've hked his ways of late, Margaret." " Now I tell thee what it is, Thomas," said Reuben, getting up from the chimney corner, and laying a hand on his son's shoulder, " thou'dst better by half not ha' kept the lad in so tight. He's not a bad lad, but he'll never keep his meetings, he won't. 'Tis different with a lass." " I don't take thy meaning, father." " Well, the lad did always have a kind 0' hankering for the sea. If I was thee, Thomas, I should go down on the quay and see if I could set eyes on him."

Thomas Field stood thinking for a minute, and then threw over his shoulders again the cloak which he had taken off. " I shall be back soon, I hope," he said to Margaret, and departed into the darkness and the rising storm.