The Alphabet Toast

by E. R. Punshon

THE ALPHABET TOAST

 

By E. R. Punshon

 

Illustrated by J. Jellicoe

 

THE lady, cloaked and hooded till not a feature of her could be seen, sat alone in a corner of the inn parlour; and the stranger, busy as he was with his cold beef and tankard of ale, yet spared time for many a wondering and half-uneasy glance at her as he asked himself what could bring a lady of her apparent rank and breeding alone to such a wayside inn as this.

It had not seemed that she observed him much, but when he pushed away the fragments of his meal, thrust out his heavily booted feet towards the fire, and called for a bottle of wine, she rose suddenly and stood at the corner of the table close to him.

He eyed her sideways but said nothing, though to himself he noted how gracefully she walked and stood, and how proudly her small head was set upon her slender neck. Immobile she stood, like a spirit of the night, in her long black cloak. A faint uneasiness stole over the man as he wondered who and what she was. She stood so still; she was so silent, that a chill fell upon him as she watched him thus closely. He would not be the first to speak, and he raised his hand to pour out for himself a glass of heart-warming wine.

“Sir,” she said so suddenly that he started, “will you drink me a toast?”

“Madam,” he answered, and put his glass to his lips with a flourish, wondering anew at the soft and exquisite beauty of her voice.

“Nay, nay,” she stayed him with a hasty gesture. “Sir, I pray you, drink with me to the alphabet?”

He eyed her askance and doubtfully.

“To the alphabet?” he said slowly, “well, 'tis an old friend; and though in my time I have suffered stripes, many and sore, for its sake, still forgiveness is a Christian virtue. Madam, I drink to the alphabet and you.”

“A. B. C., then,” she said quickly, with a touch of defiance in her voice, as if she liked little the light tone he assumed.

“A. B. C.,” he repeated, and drank. “And A Blessed Change it is, indeed,” he added, “from wind and rain and saddle without, to the warm fireside within.”

“Ha! I see you take me,” she flashed with eagerness, slightly disarranging her cloak with the quick movement she made, so that he had vision of a tangle of loose dark hair and two bright, eager eyes beneath.

“D. E. F.,” she went on, drawing a step or two nearer to him.

“D. E. F., with all my heart,” said the stranger. “Down Every Foreigner, must always be the true Englishman's heartiest wish—always except those who would aid her in her present need.”

“Sir,” she said, “I have heard this toast drunk with fewer words. I pray you now to drink with no words at all—G. H. J.”

“Right heartily,” he cried, “for, indeed, the poor soul needs it—so here's, God Help James. But, sure, Madam, you should drink also?”

“I'll toast the next two,” she answered, and lifted the wine high. “K. L. M.,” she said, “N. O. P.,” and twice she wetted her lips. “Keep Lord Mar, Noble Ormund Preserve. And now, sir, Q. R. S., Q. R. S.,” she repeated, as though this were in some way the supreme test.

“O. R.S.,” and he rose to his feet. “Nay; R.S. Q!” he cried, and drained the glass, then dashed it on the hearth, where it shivered into fragments. “No other toast shall be drunk from it after that one,” he cried with a great heat of passion.

“Good!” she cried excitedly. “Sir, pardon me if I doubted you. I crave your forgiveness. But now I see you are honest beyond doubt, let us finish the toast—T. U. V. W.,” she cried, with a heat and temper of passion that seemed to equal his own.

“Truss Up Vile Whigs,” he repeated, with a grim smile. “Truly, I see I need not pledge you the last—X. Y. Z., since you most certainly 'Xert Your Zeal to the uttermost.”

She made him a low curtsey, in so doing displacing her cloak and showing for an instant her clear and lovely features and shining eyes of brown, like the sun through autumn clouds. Then in a moment she veiled herself and moved quickly towards the door.

“Follow!” she said, as she passed him, whispering it softly. “Follow!” she said again, and her tones pealed like a trumpet calling to high deeds. “Follow!” she repeated, lifting her slim white hand to point before her as she went out of the room.

For a minute he hesitated, frowning deeply, one hand on his sword and the other thrust within his bosom, but for a minute only. Then he leaped to his feet and ran to the parlour door. He heard her faint laugh float back to him as he followed where she led the way from the warm and lighted inn to the darkness without. On the threshold he paused again, frowning deeply; one hand upon his sword which called to adventure; then he thrust a hand within his bosom, to clasp a letter lying there, and that spoke of sober duty. Still he lingered, gazing where the wild wind tossed the arms of the groaning old oaks in the forest beyond. But again he heard her faint high laugh float back to him on a gust of the wind, and again he heard the summons, “Follow, follow!”

A man came after him from the inn kitchen, whose door he had passed, and now stood just behind, and to him the stranger turned.

“Dick, boy,” he said, “thou hast served me faithfully for years. Thou knowest what to do with this.” He gave him the letter he had clasped in his bosom and a handful of guineas with it.

“Mount at dawn and reach Newcastle by noon.”

“But, sir,” said the man, protestingly, “where go you—and at so late an hour?”

“Faith, and that's what I go to find out,” answered his master, as he plunged away into the darkness, whence a faint laugh seemed to float and a low voice to bid him follow beneath the groaning oaks that tossed so high their limbs as if wrestling with an invisible grief.

Dick stared and rubbed his head and looked at the letter and the handful of gold he held; but without giving so much as one look back, his master ran quickly on. Still onward he went, plunging through the darkness, till at last, seeing nothing of her he had followed, he paused. Through the dark trunks of the trees the lights of the inn were still visible, twinkling with a kind and friendly radiance. He had turned towards the inn when he felt a soft touch on his shoulder, and heard a low voice whisper:

“Why pause you? Follow, follow!”

So again he followed where she led, while the wind blew wildly round them and a gust of rain beat chilly in their faces, and the huge writhing oaks tossed their great limbs above them. To the man it hardly seemed he was the same as he who, but half an hour gone, had drunk good wine in a warm inn parlour and half-jestingly answered a woman's challenge to that odd toast, whose meaning all the while he had known well enough. Was it not a sign and token of fellowship common enough in the Jacobite party? And to the woman, leading on, it no longer seemed that she was woman at all, but rather a power possessed, destined to accomplish a great deed. She turned and looked at him.

“Good,” she said. “This is the place.”

It was a small glade in the forest where a huge, bare rock, relic of some vast primeval convulsion of nature, rose with scarred abruptness from a level sward of green turf. Round it a small stream flowed, and across this a bridle path led, its passage of the shallow stream marked by a patch of black and filthy mud, half a yard deep and like a sponge with water. High above, the full moon raced through a turmoil of scurrying clouds, the wind howled mournfully above the huge old rock that for so many ages had defied it; the labouring oaks quivered and moaned without ceasing, and, when the moon shone out, threw a network of moving shadows on the green turf of the glade.

“This is the place,” she said again.

“This is the place,” he repeated, and in a whisper he asked: “Who art thou?”

But if she made any reply the moaning of the winds bore away her words, and the groaning of the forest drowned her voice.

He came a yard or two nearer with his hand ready on his sword.

“Why have you brought me here?” he asked.

“To slay a man,” she said.

Her eyes were fierce, and his, seeking hers, flamed with a like fire.

“So, so!” he said rapidly; “and how—if I'll not?”

Then, in her turn, she came nearer, so that they stood almost breast to breast, with the thick shadows covering them like a cloak.

He crossed himself rapidly, and found comfort in the action.

“Who is the man?”

“What does that matter?” she asked.

“Nay; one might have thought it mattered,” he answered. “And—why?”

“Or that either?” she returned.

“By the Lord!” he said, and a gust of wind flew howling round the side of the great rock and beat on them till they bent, bowing to its might. “By the Lord, and my own soul,” he said again, “but I——”

“Hist! listen!” she interrupted, and, obeying, he heard the sound of horse's hoofs approaching.

“It is he,” she said. “Your sword, your sword!”

He handled it reluctantly, half drawing it, half sheathing it.

“No,” he said abruptly.

“Ah,” she cried; “art traitor, then—traitor?”

“Why, traitor is a good word,” he told her; “human, living men are traitors; traitor smacks homely, and I hope there's no worse word between us.”

“No worse word than traitor?” she cried amazed, for she had no inkling of the weird superstitious fears the hour and the place and her own strange personality had wrought in him. “What! art thou a traitor, then?”

“Truly, I think not,” he answered, “yet this business is strange to me. Is it a traitor's part to hesitate to slay a man; who and why he knows not?”

“You drank the toast,” she said fiercely: “Q. R. S.—Quickly Restore Stuart—those who drink that must be ready with their swords for the cause.”

“Q. R. S.,” he said, and bowed low. “Rare Sophy Qualtrough—R. S. Q.—'twas at Newcastle I heard that toast drunk—a bumper to every letter.”

“You know me?” she muttered, evidently much disturbed, and drew her cloak closer round her, as if still to preserve a secret already betrayed. “Well, then, if you know so much, you know your errand; you know this fellow must be slain, this Robert Merton, or a hundred lives more worthy may be sacrificed?”

“Robert Merton?” he repeated, and then he bowed low. “Madam,” he said, “how could Robert Merton hope to live when your eyes fell upon him?”

“Sir, is this a drawing-room?” she flashed at him. “No more such empty speeches.” And just then the horseman, the sound of whose approach had been growing ever louder, appeared from among the trees and rode swiftly down the faint bridle path that led to the stream and the patch of thick mud on its hither side.

“See,” she said in his ear, and he could hear how her breath came fast and heavy, “see—thou canst fall on him at a vantage when he is mired there in the mud.”

Without answering her, he moved out of the shadow of the rock in which they stood and into the open glade, just as the newly-arrived horseman, having crossed the stream, was picking his way with care and difficulty through the patch of black, half-liquid mud that lay beyond.

“Good e'en, sir,” he said, and the rider, starting violently at the unexpected salutation, pricked his horse with his spur, so that the already frightened animal shied away, fetlock deep in the mud.

“Now, now,” said the woman's voice behind, “make in—make in at him. Give me the sword if thou art afraid,” she added in a fierce low tone as he did not stir.

But he remained motionless, while the dismounted horseman floundered through the mire to firmer land.

The horse still plunged and kicked in the mud that encumbered it; the two men faced each other with drawn swords; the woman fluttered in the darkness behind them, amazed and fearful.

“Oh, sure, thou art a traitor?” she wailed, wringing her hands.

“Not I,” he answered sternly, “not I”; and then the newcomer, peering through the darkness as the moon shone momentarily out, seemed as if he recognized them both.

“Robert Merton,” he said, “is it thou? Mistress Qualtrough, sure, I know thy voice; but is this Robert Merton?”

“Nay, surely,” cried the woman; “nay, for I met him at the inn appointed, and he drank the alphabet toast as they said. Alas! Alas!” she wailed despairingly. “How have I blundered, then?”

“Robert Merton am I,” said he of the inn, standing lightly, his sword drawn and held across his body, ready to flash and thrust at a moment's need. “Robert Merton am I, as sure as thou art Roger Tring and a proscribed traitor to the King's Majesty—yea, Robert Merton am I, and our most humble servant, Mistress Qualtrough,” he added, bowing to her.

“Ah, but it is not possible,” she cried loudly; “sure, I took thee for Master Tring; sure, it is not possible, or thou wouldst never have followed me.”

“Madam,” he said, bowing again, “have I so little breeding as to refuse to follow when a lady leads?”

“Did I not tell thee,” she said with a sombre intensity of manner, “that it was to slay a man?”

“Surely,” he said, handling his sword, his eyes keen and alert.

“There is a letter,” she continued, moodily, “a letter we have knowledge of as being carried by one Robert Merton. It must not reach Newcastle—no, not for ten lives such as thine and mine.”

He did not answer, but it seemed she understood his smile. She signed to Roger Tring, who came near with caution, his sword ready. Merton raised his, and the two weapons crossed, feeling each other delicately, as it were, with a soft yet terrible caress.

“Hold!” cried Sophy Qualtrough, stepping forward swiftly.

The men waited motionless, each with his sword-arm tense and ready, each with eyes alert.

“Give up the letter,” cried the woman, “and go safe.”

“Nay,” answered Merton simply, “but you were unjust when you called me traitor. No traitor am I.”

She drew back, making an angry gesture with her hand. Tring thrust and Merton parried. The swords clashed and clashed again, the points flickering with light deadliness in the moon's uncertain rays. Already Merton's point had lingered lovingly on Tring's breast, lingered but failed to strike home. Again the two men thrust and parried and the woman came behind them, her long cloak now in her hands; she threw it over Merton's head. Tring shortened his sword to plunge it into his blinded and helpless adversary's body, but, at a sign from the woman, he struck instead with his weapon's hilt on the side of the head, knocking him down. Then he knelt on him whom the enveloping cloak held helpless, and in a moment or two with swift dexterity had fast bound him. When this was done, and Merton a prisoner with hands and feet secure, he drew his sheath knife from his belt and cut away the folds of the cloak from over his face so he could breathe more freely. Looking at the woman, Merton said, speaking with difficulty:

“'Twas ill done.”

“Search him for the letter,” she said.

“Spare the trouble,” smiled Merton. “The letter went to Newcastle by another and perchance a surer hand.”

“Thou liest,” cried Sophy, furiously “thou liest—a Whig lies as naturally as he breathes. Search him quickly.”

But though Tring searched he found nothing, and Robert Merton smiled again.

“The General at Newcastle hath it by now,” he said. 'God save King George, and confound his enemies and all their knavish tricks.”

“Tell us how 'twas' sent,” cried Sophy quickly; “perchance there yet may be time to recover it—”

Merton looked amused.

“Or you must hang,” she added.

He said nothing, and she glanced at Tring, who from out his saddle-bag drew a long cord. One end of this he threw over the limb of an oak near which they stood, and began to make a noose in it. Merton hummed a tune, showing care to have all the notes correct.

“That letter must be stopped,” said Sophy to him, speaking in a voice which did not seem quite under control, so oddly did its tones alter. “One man's life is nothing—indeed, a thousand lives depend on that letter, and, above all, the cause of the right- ful Prince of this land. Will you speak, and thus serve your true King and your God—for remember, the sin of rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.”

“Faith, that is a hackneyed text,” returned Merton, “and will stop no letters.”

“Then shalt thou hang,” she cried.

“Belike 'tis as well,” agreed Merton, “for if I lived there is a thing I have sworn to do, which would give me little pleasure.”

“What is that?” she asked quickly, her curiosity aroused by something in the swift glance he gave her.

“Why, truly this,” he answered, “to flog thee with my dog whip for a foul act of treachery; never practised since the days of Dame Helen of Troy.”

“You followed of your own free will,” she answered, flushing red and then going pale. “In truth I thought you the man sent me to intercept this Robert Merton—yourself. Nay, if there was treachery,” she cried with defiance, “'twas yours, for you drank my toast as you were honest, and only then did I bid you follow—I ignorant, but thou, knowing the truth.”

“Nay, I mean not that,” he answered. “I value that not a jot, but to come behind and fling thy cloak over a man to make him helpless and ashamed before his enemy—'tis for that,” he said, half, raising himself on his bound arms, and speaking in a voice hoarse and broken with anger, while the veins in his temples stood out swollen and visible, “'tis for that I have sworn to flog thee with my dog whip.”

“Instead, indeed, thou shalt hang,” she retorted, her lovely face pale with fury at the insult he offered her. “*Flog me,” she said, breathing hard, “so”—she made as if to spurn him with her foot. “Flog—me! Master Tring, is the rope ready?”

“Aye,” said Tring, knotting the noose with care.

“Of a verity thou hast the last word,” said Merton; “the last toss of the dice is thine—but my oath is mine own.”

Tring came forward and slipped the noose over his shoulders and round his neck, dragging him at the same time to his feet. The woman stood very still, watching intently.

“Wilt tell where the letter is?” she asked.

“At Newcastle—or will be soon,” he answered.

“Then,” she said unexpectedly, “'twill serve small purpose to hang thee.”

“Nay, madam,” he returned, “unless, in truth, you have a mind for a flogging from my dog whip—as I have sworn.”

“Insolent!” she cried, flaming into fury. Her bosom heaved with her fiery indignation, and she made to Tring what he took for a gesture of command. At once he pulled hard on the loose end of the rope, hitching it round the trunk of a tree as he saw Merton swing clear of the ground.

As Sophy saw the man swing to and fro before her, as the wind blew him, a panic seized her and she fled. Grumbling, Tring leaped on his horse and followed her, who had already disappeared in the trees.

Alone, with the huge rock towering high above, the great oak branches moaning over him as if in lamentation, hung the body of Robert Merton, blown like a withered leaf in each gust of the wind. Before his glazing eyes was darkness, shot with strange streaks of light. He realised that he was dying, but he felt no fear, only some astonishment. His neck, on which his weight suspended, caused him intolerable pain, which was slightly lessened when the cord, stretching somewhat from his weight, allowed him to touch earth with his toes. He was dimly conscious of a strange commotion in his body, as though his soul were slowly forcing its way upwards. He remembered Sophy Qualtrough, how beautiful she was, and then it seemed to him that from his eyes flashed out a stream of light in which he understood that his soul had finally escaped from his body, and with that conviction in his mind he lost consciousness.

But if he had suffered before the pain was nothing to the intolerable anguish he endured as his consciousness returned to him with a pricking and a thrusting as of ten million needles plunged into his body to mark out the course of every vein. When he moved the pain grew worse, so he lay still, and then he understood that this made him suffer still more. Stifling a groan he opened his eyes and saw a pale and lovely face bending over him. It was only then he remembered he had been hanged.

“Oh—,” he groaned again, thinking it hard he had to suffer so much, though dead. “Lord, Lord,” he muttered, and he tried to remember a prayer. “Art an angel?” he whispered to the lovely being bending so anxiously over him.

“Alas, alas!” he heard the whispered answer, and saw tears gather and fall fast.

“Do not weep, pray, do not weep!” he murmured, and tried to sit up. He fell back and heard a voice say softly: “How dost feel? Tell me, how dost feel now?”

“Why, tolerably—bad,” he jerked out. “Ugh, ugh!” Then he looked at her sharply. “Who are you?” he asked.

“I am Sophy Qualtrough,” she answered.

“Rare Sophy Qualtrough,” he muttered; “R. S. Q. So, so. But it was an ill deed,” he said.

She made no answer, but he felt her thrust something cool and hard into his hand. His fingers closed upon it mechanically, and then he discovered it to be a whip.

“Heavens!” he said, sitting up, and threw it from him with such vigour that it fell twenty yards away in a dense thicket of undergrowth.

“I came back for that,” she said, between tears and laughter.

“Who let me down?” he asked.

“I,” she answered, “I had to— . .. or you couldn't . . . fulfil your oath. As you swore,” she said, whimpering, “I should be punished, as in truth I know I well deserve, for it was an ill deed to take you treacherously from behind.”

“Nay, hush, pray,” he said, half ashamed, “I swore no such oath—I was angry, and said what I thought would move you most, but for utterance of such an oath, I crave your pardon right humbly.”

“Didst thou not mean it, then?” she asked, looking at him amazed.

“As much as thou to hang me,” he answered.

“Nay, but I meant that from my soul,” she cried.

“And did it, too,” he agreed, with a laugh that broke into an exclamation of pain. “I am somewhat faint,” he said.

In a moment she was tending hint with eager care, forgetting all else, for indeed he had been roughly handled, and he spent the next month in bed, where leeches took from him more blood than ever he had lost in all his life before. But the strength they diminished Mistress Qualtrough restored with such dainty and tempting dishes and delicious broths, that Robert Merton would have proved himself thankless had he not recovered. And seeing she had such skill in restoring him his health, he pleaded that she would make it her care for the rest of his life, that he swore was her's since she had saved it. So they were wed and lived happily, though they trod the road to the haven of happiness by the strangest path that lovers ever discovered.