The Yeoman Adventurer Part 10

"Sir," and her tone was almost unpleasant, "for the modesty you attribute unto me, I thank you. For the grat.i.tude you decline to attribute unto me, I dislike you. But pray give me credit for a little common sense. I shall desire your services in the morning, and I do not want to find you under a rick, frozen to a fossil."

"No, madam."

She sprang out of bed, tumbling the hay in all directions.

"Master Wheatman, I will not pretend to misunderstand you, and indeed, I thank you, but you are going to put your bed here," stamping her foot, "so that we can talk without raising our voices. I am much more willing to sleep in the same barn with you than in the same town with my Lord Brocton. Where's your share of the sacks?"

I did without sacks, but I fetched more chunks of hay, and she helped me strew a bed for myself close up to her own. I tucked her up once more, and then made myself cosy. I was miserable lest I should snore. Yokels so often do. Joe Braggs, for instance, would snore till the barn door rattled.

I remembered the cordial, and we each had a good pull at the flask. I felt for days the touch of her smooth, soft fingers on mine as she took it.

"It certainly does warm you up," she said. "I feel all aglow without and within."

"Then I may take it that you are comfortable?"

"If it were not for two things, I should say this was a boy-and-girl escapade of ours, every moment of which was just pure enjoyment."

"Naturally you are uneasy about your father, but I cannot think he will come to any immediate harm. Why Brocton should send him north instead of south is, I confess, a mystery, but to-morrow will solve it. And what else makes you uneasy?"

"You," she replied, very low and brief.

"I? And pray, madam, what have I done to make you uneasy?"

"Met me." Still the same tone.

"I am not able to talk to you in the modish manner, nor do I think you would wish me to try to ape my betters, so I say plainly that our meeting has not made me uneasy. Why then you?"

"Had you not met me, you would now be asleep at the Hanyards, a free and happy country gentleman. Instead you are here, a suspect, a refugee, an outlaw, one tainted with rebellion, the jail for certain if you are caught, and then--"

She broke off abruptly, and I think I heard a low sob.

"And then?"

"Perhaps the gibbet."

"It's true that the thieving craft is a curst craft for the gallows, but to-morrow's trouble is like yesterday's dinner, not worth thinking on. We are here, safe and comfortable. Let that suffice. And to-day, so far from doing harm at which you must needs be uneasy, you have wrought a miracle."

"Wrought a miracle? What do you mean?"

"You have found a cabbage, and made a man. Good night, Mistress Waynflete."

"Good night, Master Wheatman."

I imitated the regular breathing of a tired, sleeping man. In a few minutes it became clear that she was really asleep, and I pretended no longer, but stretched out comfortably in the fragrant hay and soon slept like a log.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CONJURER'S CAP

I awoke between darkness and daylight. Mistress Waynflete still slept peacefully and there was as yet no need to rouse her. I had slept in my shoes, but now, I drew them off, lifted the bar of the door, and stole out to look around. Not a soul was stirring about the farm, and the only living creature in sight was a sleepy c.o.c.k, which scuttled off noisily at my approach. I entered a cowshed, where a fine, patient cow turned a reproachful eye on me, as if rebuking me for my too early visit. I cheerily clucked and slapped her on to her hoofs, and then, failing to find any sort of cup or can, punched my hat inside out and filled it with warm foaming milk. With this spoil I hurried back to our quarters.

I had to leave the door open, and this gave me light enough to look more closely at my companion. She was still sleeping, her face calmly content, and so had she slept through the night, for the coverlet of hay was rising and falling undisturbed on her breast. It was now time to wake her, and, having no free hand, I knelt down to nudge her with my elbow. As I did so, her face changed. A look of concern came over it, then one of hesitation, then a sweet smile, chasing each other as gleam chases gloom across the meadows on an April day. She was dreaming, dreaming pleasantly, and it was to a hard world that I awakened her.

At my second nudge she half-opened her eyes and murmured, "It's very wide." Then my greeting aroused her fully, and she blushed wondrous red and beautiful.

"Good morrow, Mistress Waynflete," said I. "I grieve to disturb you, and, pray you, do not move too abruptly or over goes the breakfast."

"Good morrow, Master Oliver," she replied. "I have slept well. I feel as if I've quite enjoyed it. We do enjoy sleep, I think, sometimes."

"Or the dreams it brings, madam."

She glanced quickly at me, as if afraid that I had the power of reading dream-thoughts, and gaily said, "And breakfast ready! This is even better than the Paris fas.h.i.+on. What is it? More of dear Kate's cordial?"

I did not know what the Paris fas.h.i.+on of breakfast was, and she did not enlighten me. Anyhow, I, the yokel, had improved on it, and that was something.

"A far better brewage, madam," I said, "but you must pardon the Staffords.h.i.+re fas.h.i.+on of serving it."

She sat up, took the cap, and drank heartily, the dawn still in her eyes and cheeks, and ma.s.ses of yellow hair tumbling down from under her hood on throat and bosom. When she handed back the cap, I could not forbear from saying, "You look charming after your night's rest, and I profess that tear of milk on the tip of your nose becomes you admirably." With the rim of my cap at my lips, I added with mock concern, "Have a care, Mistress Waynflete, or you'll rub off tip as well as tear."

"I suppose you thought 'As a jewel of gold' and the rest of it," she said, squinting comically down to examine her nose.

"Really, no, madam; I thought of nothing so scandalous, from the Bible though it be. I thought of--of...."

"I'm all ears," she said archly.

"I'm a poor hand at turning compliments to ladies," said I.

"On the contrary, you turn them admirably. See!" She held up my sopping cap, and laughed merrily.

"It's ruined for best," said I, "but it will do for market days. And now, madam, it's cold enough to freeze askers, as Joe Braggs says, and for toilet you must e'en be content with first a s.h.i.+ver and then a shake. I will await you at the yard gate, and pray close the door behind you. The quicker the better."

She rejoined me in two or three minutes. I closed the gate cautiously behind me, and we started our journey. From the farm we got away quite un.o.bserved, but I looked behind me at every other step to make surer, till we turned the top of the knoll, and it was with great relief that I saw the chimney-pots sink out of sight.

For a time we walked along briskly and in silence. So far I had carried everything with a high hand and successfully, but the cold grey of the morning began to creep into my thoughts as I looked ahead over miles and miles of dreariness and danger. Houses were few and far between; every village was a source of danger; the high roads were closed to us by our fear of the troops. Further, the object we had in view was vague and unformed, if not impossible of achievement, for even if we arrived at the very place where Colonel Waynflete was held prisoner, what could we do to help him? We should be safe from immediate need and danger if we could reach the Prince's army, but where that was, and which way it was travelling, were unknown to us. Certain it was that between us and any real help ranged some thirty miles of cold, bleak country packed with enemies for miles ahead. And here we were, on foot, penniless and hungry.

I had longed for a man's work; this was a regiment's.

A sidelong look at my companion drove all the mist and frost out of my heart. Something about her made me feel a sneak and a traitor even for harbouring such thoughts. From the first she had asked for no help of mine. I had forced it on her, or circ.u.mstances had forced me to help her in helping myself, as when I cut our way from Marry-me-quick's cottage.

The more I was with her, the better I began to understand Brocton's madness. It was the madness of the mere brute in him to be sure, and a man should kick the brute in him into its kennel, though he cannot at times help hearing it whine. Her majestic beauty had dazzled him as a flame dazzles a moth, but at this stage, at any rate, it was not her beauty that made me her thrall. That I could have withstood. Because she was so beautiful, so stately, so compelling, she made no appeal to me. What I mean is, that I did not fall in love with her at first sight, simply because the mere stupidity of such a thing kept me from doing it.

Glow-worms do not fall in love with stars or thistles with sycamores. She was something to be wors.h.i.+pped, served at any cost, saved at any sacrifice, but not loved. No, that was for some lucky one of her own cla.s.s and state, not for a simple squireling like me. Her comrades.h.i.+p, her graciousness, her sweet equalizing of our positions, were, I felt, just the simple, natural adornments of the commanding modesty which was her spiritual garment.

Manlike, however, I had an evil streak in me, and thence, later, came madness. In any company I must be top dog. I had been head of the school, not because of any special cleverness, but because I would burst rather than be second to anybody in anything. I had fought and fought, at all hazards, until not a boy in school or town dare come near me. So now, since my Lord Brocton--and many a lord beside, I doubted not--had failed, I must needs step in and say, "I will please her, whether she like it or not." And so, plain countryman as I was, I had done my work ungrudgingly but not, I feared, too modestly, and since I could not speak court-like, I had been over-masterful, and given her mood for mood, and turned no cheek for her sweet smiting. And as I had of old time licked every lad in Stafford, so now neither Staffords.h.i.+re nor all the King's men in it should turn me back. Through she should go, and in safety and comfort, so that when the time came for me to hand over my precious charge to a worthier, she should say that the yokel had done a man's work and done it gentlemanly. Therefore, when Mistress Waynflete looked up to me from the bleak uplands with serious, questioning eyes, I said, as calmly as if we were pacing the garden at the Hanyards, with Kate and Jane active in the kitchen behind us, "Ham and eggs for breakfast!"

"I don't see any," she said, in answering mood, scanning the fields around us. "Not that that matters. I didn't see the steps, but they were there. You make me think, Master Wheatman, of a Turk I saw in a booth at Vienna, who drew rabbits and rose-bushes out of an empty hat.

Staffords.h.i.+re is your conjurer's hat. And I do like ham and eggs."