The Duke’s
Reappearance
A FAMILY TRADITION
According to the
kinsman who told me the story, Christopher Swetman's house, on the outskirts of
King's-Hintock village, was in those days larger and better kept than when,
many years later, it was sold to the lord of the manor adjoining; after having
been in the Swetman family, as one may say, since the Conquest.
Some people would
have it to be that the thing happened at the house opposite, belonging to one
Childs, with whose family the Swetmans afterwards intermarried. But that it was
at the original homestead of the Swetmans can be shown in various ways; chiefly
by the unbroken traditions of the family, and indirectly by the evidence of the
walls themselves, which are the only ones thereabout with windows mullioned in
the Elizabethan manner, and plainly of a date anterior to the event; while
those of the other house might well have been erected fifty or eighty years
later, and probably were; since the choice of Swetman's house by the fugitive
was doubtless dictated by no other circumstance than its then suitable
loneliness.
It was a cloudy
July morning just before dawn, the hour of two having been struck by Swetman's
one-handed clock on the stairs, that is still preserved in the family.
Christopher heard the strokes from his chamber, immediately at the top of the
staircase, and overlooking the front of the house. He did not wonder that he
was sleepless. The rumours and excitements which had latterly stirred the
neighbourhood, to the effect that the rightful King of England had landed from
Now as he lay
thinking of these and other things he fancied that he could hear the footfall
of a man on the road leading up to his house—a byway, which led scarce anywhere
else; and therefore a tread was at any time more apt to startle the inmates of
the homestead than if it had stood in a thoroughfare. The footfall came
opposite the gate, and stopped there. One minute, two minutes passed, and the
pedestrian did not proceed. Christopher Swetman got out of bed, and opened the
casement. 'Hoi! who's there?' cries he.
'A friend,' came
from the darkness.
'And what mid ye
want at this time o' night?' says Swetman.
'Shelter. I've lost
my way.'
'What's thy name?'
There came no answer.
'Be ye one of King
Monmouth's men?'
'He that asks no
questions will hear no lies from me. I am a stranger; and I am spent, and
hungered. Can you let me lie with you to-night?'
Swetman was
generous to people in trouble, and his house was roomy. 'Wait a bit,' he said,
'and I'll come down and have a look at thee, anyhow.'
He struck a light,
put on his clothes, and descended, taking his horn-lantern from a nail in the
passage, and lighting it before opening the door. The rays fell on the form of
a tall, dark man in cavalry accoutrements and wearing a sword. He was pale with
fatigue and covered with mud, though the weather was dry.
'Prithee take no
heed of my appearance,' said the stranger. 'But let me in.'
That his visitor
was in sore distress admitted of no doubt, and the yeoman's natural humanity
assisted the other's sad importunity and gentle voice. Swetman took him in, not
without a suspicion that this man represented in some way Monmouth's cause, to
which he was not unfriendly in his secret heart. At his earnest request the
new-comer was given a suit of the yeoman's old clothes in exchange for his own,
which, with his sword, were hidden in a closet in Swetman's chamber; food was
then put before him and a lodging provided for him in a room at the back.
Here he slept till
quite late in the morning, which was Sunday, the sixth of July, and when he
came down in the garments that he had borrowed he met the household with a
melancholy smile. Besides Swetman himself, there were only his two daughters, Grace
and Leonard (the latter was, oddly enough, a woman's name here, and both had
been enjoined to secrecy. They asked no questions and received no information;
though the stranger regarded their fair countenances with an interest almost
too deep. Having partaken of their usual breakfast of ham and cider he
professed weariness and retired to the chamber whence he had come.
In a couple of
hours or thereabout he came down again, the two young women having now gone off
to morning service. Seeing Christopher bustling about the house without
assistance, he asked if he could do anything to aid his host.
As he seemed
anxious to hide all differences and appear as one of themselves, Swetman set
him to get vegetables from the garden and fetch water from Buttock's Spring in
the dip near the house (though the spring was not called by that name till
years after, by the way).
'And what can I do
next?' says the stranger when these services had been performed.
His meekness and
docility struck Christopher much, and won upon him. 'Since you be minded to,'
says the latter, 'you can take down the dishes and spread the table for dinner.
Take a pewter plate for thyself, but the trenchers will do for we.'
But the other would
not, and took a trencher likewise, in doing which he spoke of the two girls and
remarked how comely they were.
This quietude was
put an end to by a stir out of doors, which was sufficient to draw Swetman's
attention to it, and he went out. Farm hands who had gone off and joined the
Duke on his arrival had begun to come in with news that a midnight battle had
been fought on the moors to the north, the Duke's men, who had attacked, being
entirely worsted; the Duke himself, with one or two lords and other friends,
had fled, no one knew whither.
'There has been a
battle,' says Swetman, on coming indoors after these tidings, and looking
earnestly at the stranger.
'May the victory be
to the rightful in the end, whatever the issue now,' says the other, with a
sorrowful sigh.
'Dost really know
nothing about it?' said Christopher. 'I could have sworn you was one from that
very battle!'
'I was here before
three o' the clock this morning; and these men have only arrived now.'
'True,' said the
yeoman. 'But still, I think—'
'Do not press your
question,' the stranger urged. 'I am in a strait, and can refuse a helper
nothing; such inquiry is, therefore, unfair.'
'True again,' said
Swetman, and held his tongue.
The daughters of
the house returned from church, where the service had been hurried by reason of
the excitement. To their father's questioning if they had spoken of him who
sojourned there they replied that they had said never a word; which, indeed,
was true, as events proved.
He bade them serve
the dinner; and, as the visitor had withdrawn since the news of the battle,
prepared to take a platter to him upstairs. But he preferred to come down and
dine with the family.
During the
afternoon more fugitives passed through the village, but Christopher Swetman,
his visitor, and his family kept indoors. In the evening, however, Swetman came
out from his gate, and, harkening in silence to these tidings and more,
wondered what might be in store for him for his last night's work.
He returned
homeward by a path across the mead that skirted his own orchard. Passing here,
he heard the voice of his daughter Leonard expostulating inside the hedge, her
words being:
'Don't ye, sir;
don't! I prithee let me go!'
'Why, sweetheart?'
'Because I've
a—promised another!'
Peeping through, as
he could not help doing, he saw the girl struggling in the arms of the
stranger, who was attempting to kiss her; but finding her resistance to be
genuine, and her distress unfeigned, he reluctantly let her go.
Swetman's face grew
dark, for his girls were more to him than himself. He hastened on, meditating
moodily all the way. He entered the gate, and made straight for the orchard.
When he reached it his daughter had disappeared, but the stranger was still
standing there.
'Sir!' said the
yeoman, his anger having in no wise abated, 'I've seen what has happened! I
have taken 'ee into my house, at some jeopardy to myself; and, whoever you be,
the least I expected of 'ee was to treat the maidens with a seemly respect. You
have not done it, and I no longer trust you. I am the more watchful over them
in that they are motherless; and I must ask 'ee to go after dark this night!'
The stranger seemed
dazed at discovering what his impulse had brought down upon his head, and his
pale face grew paler. He did not reply for a time. When he did speak his soft
voice was thick with feeling.
'Sir,' says he, 'I
own that I am in the wrong, if you take the matter gravely. We do not what we
would but what we must. Though I have not injured your daughter as a woman, I
have been treacherous to her as a hostess and friend in need. I'll go, as you
say; I can do no less. I shall doubtless find a refuge elsewhere.'
They walked towards
the house in silence, where Swetman insisted that his guest should have supper
before departing. By the time this was eaten it was dusk and the stranger
announced that he was ready.
They went upstairs
to where the garments and sword lay hidden, till the departing one said that on
further thought he would ask another favour: that he should be allowed to
retain the clothes he wore, and that his host would keep the others and the
sword till he, the speaker, should come or send for them.
'As you will,' said
Swetman. 'The gain is on my side; for those clouts were but kept to dress a
scarecrow next fall.'
'They suit my
case,' said the stranger sadly. 'However much they may misfit me, they do not
misfit my sorry fortune now!'
'Nay, then,' said
Christopher relenting, 'I was too hasty. Sh'lt bide!'
But the other would
not, saying that it was better that things should take their course.
Notwithstanding that Swetman importuned him, he only added, 'If I never come
again, do with my belongings as you list. In the pocket you will find a gold
snuff-box, and in the snuff-box fifty gold pieces.'
'But keep 'em for
thy use, man!' said the yeoman.
'No,' says the
parting guest; 'they are foreign pieces and would harmme if I were taken. Do as
I bid thee. Put away these things again and take especial charge of the sword.
It belonged to my father's father and I value it much. But something more
common becomes me now.'
Saying which, he
took, as he went downstairs, one of the ash sticks used by Swetman himself for
walking with. The yeoman lighted him out to the garden hatch, where he
disappeared through Clammers Gate by the road that crosses
Christopher
returned to the upstairs chamber, and sat down on his bed reflecting. Then he
examined the things left behind, and surely enough in one of the pockets the
gold snuff-box was revealed, containing the fifty gold pieces as stated by the
fugitive. The yeoman next looked at the sword which its owner had stated to
have belonged to his grandfather. It was two-edged, so that he almost feared to
handle it. On the blade were inscribed the words 'ANDREA FERARA,’ and among the
many fine chasings were a rose and crown, the plume of the Prince of Wales, and
two portraits; portraits of a man and a woman, the man's having the face of the
first King Charles, and the woman's, apparently, that of his Queen.
Swetman, much awed
and surprised, returned the articles to the closet, and went downstairs
pondering. Of his surmise he said nothing to his daughters, merely declaring to
them that the gentleman was gone; and never revealing that he had been an
eye-witness of the unpleasant scene in the orchard that was the immediate cause
of the departure.
Nothing occurred in
Hintock during the week that followed, beyond the fitful arrival of more
decided tidings concerning the utter defeat of the Duke's army and his own
disappearance at an early stage of the battle. Then it was told that Monmouth
was taken, not in his own clothes but in the disguise of a countryman. He had
been sent to
The possibility
that his guest had been no other than the Duke made Swetman unspeakably sorry
now; his heart smote him at the thought that, acting so harshly for such a
small breach of good faith, he might have been the means of forwarding the unhappy
fugitive's capture. On the girls coming up to him he said, 'Get away with ye,
wenches: I fear you have been the ruin of an unfortunate man!'
On the Thursday
night following, when the yeoman was sleeping as usual in his chamber, he was,
he said, conscious of the entry of some one. Opening his eyes, he beheld by the
light of the moon, which shone upon the front of his house, the figure of a man
who seemed to be the stranger moving from the door towards the closet. He was
dressed somewhat differently now, but the face was quite that of his late guest
in its tragical pensiveness, as was also the tallness of his figure. He neared
the closet; and, feeling his visitor to be within his rights, Christopher
refrained from stirring. The personage turned his large haggard eyes upon the
bed where Swetman lay, and then withdrew from their hiding the articles that
belonged to him, again giving a hard gaze at Christopher as he went noiselessly
out of the chamber with his properties on his arm. His retreat down the stairs
was just audible, and also his departure by the side door, through which
entrance or exit was easy to those who knew the place.
Nothing further
happened, and towards morning Swetman slept. To avoid all risk he said not a
word to the girls of the visit of the night, and certainly not to any one
outside the house; for it was dangerous at that time to avow anything.
Among the killed in
opposing the recent rising had been a younger brother of the lord of the manor,
who lived at
'He'd no business
there!' answered the other. His words and manner showed the bitterness that was
mingled with his regret. 'But say no more of him. You know what has happened
since, I suppose?'
'I know that they
say Monmouth is taken, Sir Thomas, but I can't think it true,' answered
Swetman.
'O zounds! 'tis
true enough,' cried the knight, 'and that's not all. The Duke was executed on
Tower Hill two days ago.'
'D'ye say it
verily?' says Swetman.
'And a very hard
death he had, worse luck for 'n,' said Sir Thomas. 'Well, 'tis over for him and
over for my brother. But not for the rest. There'll be searchings and siftings
down here anon; and happy is the man who has had nothing to do with this
matter!'
Now Swetman had
hardly heard the latter words, so much was he confounded by the strangeness of
the tidings that the Duke had come to his death on the previous Tuesday. For it
had been only the night before this present day of Friday that he had seen his
former guest, whom he had ceased to doubt could be other than the Duke, come
into his chamber and fetch away his accoutrements as he had promised.
'It couldn't have
been a vision,' said Christopher to himself when the knight had ridden on. 'But
I'll go straight and see if the things be in the closet still; and thus I shall
surely learn if 'twere a vision or no.
To the closet he
went, which he had not looked into since the stranger's departure. And
searching behind the articles placed to conceal the things hidden, he found
that, as he had never doubted, they were gone.
When the rumour
spread abroad in the West that the man beheaded in the Tower was not indeed the
Duke, but one of his officers taken after the battle, and that the Duke had
been assisted to escape out of the country, Swetman found in it an explanation
of what so deeply mystified him. That his visitor might have been a friend of
the Duke's, whom the Duke had asked to fetch the things in a last request,
Swetman would never admit. His belief in the rumour that Monmouth lived, like
that of thousands of others, continued to the end of his days.
Such, briefly,
concluded my kinsman, is the tradition which has been handed down in
Christopher Swetman's family for the last two hundred years.