A Gentleman Player Part 20

Master Marryott, sitting by the fire, was a.s.sailed by fears lest the pursuivant had abandoned the false chase. If not, it was strange, when the slow progress with the coach was considered, that he had not come in sight. Hal rea.s.sured himself by accounting for this in more ways than one. Barnet must have been detained long in recruiting men to join in the pursuit. He may have been hindered by lack of money, also, for he had left London without thought of further journey than to Welwyn. He could press all necessary means into service, in the queen's name, as he went; but in doing this he must experience much delay that ready coin would have avoided. True, Barnet would have learned at Clown that the supposed Sir Valentine had named himself as a London player; but he would surely think this a lie, as Mistress Hazlehurst had thought it.

A slight noise--something like a man yawning aloud, or moaning in sleep--turned Marryott's musings into another channel. The sound had come from one of the other outhouses, probably that in which were Captain Rumney and Anthony Underhill. It put dark apprehensions into Hal's mind, because of its resemblance to the groan a man might give if he were stabbed to death in slumber.

Suppose, thought he, this Rumney were minded for treason and robbery.

How could he better proceed, in order to avoid all stir, than to avail himself of the present separation of Hal's party; to slay Anthony first, while Bottle was away on the watch; and thus have Marryott and Kit each in position to be dealt with single-handed?

Hal now saw the error of having Anthony sleep out of his sight; for the Puritan was one who watched while he watched, and slept while he slept.

The present situation ought not to be continued a moment longer. Yet how was Hal to summon Anthony? To awaken him by voice, one would have to raise such clamor as would alarm the robbers and perchance excite their leader's suspicions. A touch on the shoulder would accomplish the desired result quietly. Might Hal venture from his present post for the brief time necessary to his purpose?

Francis lay near the fire, his eyes closed, his respirations long and easy. The softer breathing of the prisoner in the coach was as deep and measured. Hal stole noiselessly out, and made for the shed in which the Puritan slept.

Anthony lay in his cloak, on a pile of hay, his back turned to that of Rumney. The highway robber's eyes were closed; whether he slept or not, Hal could not have told. But there was no doubt of the somnolent state of the Puritan. A steady gentle shaking of his shoulder caused him to open his eyes.

"Come with me," whispered Hal. The Puritan rose, without a word, and followed from the one shed to the other, and to the fire by the coach.

"'Tis best you sleep in my sight, beside the lad," said Marryott, turning toward the designated spot as he finished. In the same instant, he stared as if he saw a ghost, and then stifled an oath.

Francis was gone.

Hal looked about, but saw nothing human in range of the firelight. He hastened to the curtained opening of the coach. The same soft breathing--there could be no mistaking it--still came from within.

"She is here, at least," Hal said, quickly, to the somewhat mystified Anthony. "But he hath flown on some errand of her plotting, depend on't!

He must have feigned sleep, and followed me out. He can't be far, as yet. 'Tis but a minute since. Watch you by the coach!"

With which order, Master Marryott seized a brand from the fire, and ran out again to the yard.

But he had scarce cast a swift glance around the place, ere he saw Francis coming out of the very shed from which Hal himself had led Anthony a few moments earlier.

"What is this?" cried Marryott, grasping the boy's arm, and thrusting the firebrand almost into his face.

Francis stared vacantly for an instant, then gave a start, blinked, and looked at Hal as if for the first time conscious of what was going on.

"What's afoot, you knave?" said Hal, squeezing the page's arm. "What deviltry are you about, following me from your bed, hiding in the darkness while I pa.s.s, and going to yonder shed? You bore some message from your mistress to Master Rumney. I'll warrant! Confess, or 'twill go ill!"

"I know not where I've been, or what done," replied the boy, coolly. "I walk in my sleep, sir."

Hal searchingly inspected the lad's countenance, but it did not flinch.

Pondering deeply, he then led the way back to his fire, and commanded the page to lie down. Francis readily obeyed.

Bidding the puzzled but unquestioning Puritan sleep beside the boy, Hal soon lost himself in his thoughts,--lost himself so far that it did not occur to him to step now and then to the door and look out into the night; else he might presently have seen a dark figure move stealthily from outhouse to outhouse as if in search of something. It would then have appeared that Captain Rumney, also, was given to walking in his sleep.

CHAPTER XV.

TREACHERY.

"G.o.d pless you, Aunchient Pistol! you scurvy, lousy knave, G.o.d pless you!"--_Henry V._

"Here is the snow thou hast foretold," said Master Marryott to Anthony Underhill, as the cavalcade set out, three hours after midnight.

"And a plague of wind," put in Captain Rumney, with a good humor in which Marryott smelt some purpose of cultivating confidence.

The riders wrapped themselves in their cloaks, and m.u.f.fled their necks to keep out the pelting flakes. The night being at its darkest, the snow was more "perceptible to feeling" than "to sight," save where it flew and eddied in the light of a torch carried by Bottle at the head of the line, and of a lanthorn that Hal had caused to be attached to the rear of the coach. Between these two dim centres of radiance, the hors.e.m.e.n s.h.i.+vered and grumbled unseen, and cursed their steeds, and wished red murrains and black plagues, and poxes of no designated color, upon the weather.

They pa.s.sed through Keighley about dawn. Two miles further on, they stopped at an isolated house for breakfast. As Marryott opened the coach curtain (it had been closed against the whirling snow), to convey to the prisoners some cakes and milk, Mistress Hazlehurst motioned Francis to set the platter on a coach seat, and said to Hal:

"If you wish not to murder me, you will let me walk a little rather than eat. I seem to have lost the use of legs and arms, penned up in this cage these two days."

"Nay, 'tis but a day and a half," corrected Marryott. "But you may walk whiles we tarry here, an you choose. The snow is ankle-deep in the road, however."

"I care not if it be knee-deep."

"Will you promise to return to the coach at my word, if I let you out to walk?" Hal did not feel equal to putting her into the coach again by bodily force.

"G.o.d's light, yes! What choice have I?"

"And while you walk, I must walk beside you, and Francis at my other side."

"I have said, what choice have I?"

He offered his hand to a.s.sist her from the coach. But she leaped out unaided, and started forthwith in the direction whence the travellers had just come. Hal waited for Francis, and then strode after her, holding the page by a sleeve. Kit Bottle was busy looking to the refreshment of the horses. Captain Rumney was stalking up and down the road, his whole attention apparently concentrated upon a pot of ale he carried. Anthony Underhill had ridden back to a slightly elevated spot, to keep watch.

Master Marryott was soon at his prisoner's side. She could not, for snow and wind, long maintain the pace at which she had started from the coach. The weather reddened her cheeks, which took hue also from her crimson cloak and hood. Hal thought her very beautiful,--a thing of bloom and rich color in a bleak, white desert. It smote him keenly to remember that she deemed him her brother's slayer. He was half tempted to tell her the truth, now that she was his prisoner and could not go back to undeceive Roger Barnet. But would she believe him? And if she should, was it certain that she might not escape ere the next two days were up? Prudence counselled Hal to take no risks. So, in faintest hope of shaking her hatred a little, of creating at least a doubt in his favor, he fell back on the poor device of which he had already made one or two abortive trials.

"I swear to you, Mistress Hazlehurst," he began, somewhat awkwardly, "'twas not I that gave your brother his unhappy wound. There is something unexplained, touching that occurrence, that will be cleared to you in time."

A little to his surprise, she did not cut short all possible discussion by some sharp derisive or contemptuous answer. Though her tone showed no falling away from conviction, she yet evinced a pa.s.sive willingness to talk of the matter.

"There hath been explanation enough for me," she answered. "I had the full story of my brother's servants, who saw all."

"The officers of justice could not have had a like story," said Hal, at random. "Else why came they never to Fleetwood house?"

"You well know. The quarrel was witnessed of none but your man and my brother's servants. They kept all quiet; your man, for your safety's sake; my brother's men, for--for the reason--My brother's men kept all quiet, too, till I came home."

"And why did your brother's men so? You broke off there."

"Oh, I care not if I say it! My brother's servants were not as near the encounter as your man was, and they saw ill; they were of a delusion that you struck in self-defence. And my brother, too, bade them hush the matter."

"'Twas as much as to admit that he was the offender."

"Well, what matters that? At best there was little zeal he might expect of his neighbors in visiting the law upon you. He was a man of too strong mettle; he was too hated in the county to hope for justice, even against a Catholic. Well you know that, Sir Valentine Fleetwood! But I would have had my rights of the law, or paid you in mine own way,[27]

had not this other means of vengeance come to my hand! Self-defence or no self-defence, you shed my brother's blood, and I will be a cause of the shedding of yours!"

"But I say naught of self-defence. I say I am not he that, rightly or wrongly, shed your brother's blood!"

"G.o.d-'a'-mercy, sir, I marvel at you! Tis sheer impudence to deny what mine own family servants saw with their eyes and told me with their lips! Think you, because I am some miles and days from all witnesses of the quarrel, save your own man, my mind is to be clouded upon it?"