The Tavern Knight Part 31

"Why, then it will be difficult, well-nigh impossible." And the Irishman became grave.

But Crispin laughed unpleasantly. Years and misfortune had made him cynical.

"What is the love of a maid?" quoth he derisively. "A caprice, a fancy, a thing that may be guided, overcome or compelled as the occasion shall demand. Opportunity is love's parent, Hogan, and given that, any maid may love any man. Cynthia shall love my son."

"But if she prove rebellious? If she say nay to your proposals? There are such women."

"How then? Am I not the stronger? In such a case it shall be mine to compel her, and as I find her, so shall I carry her away. It will be none so poor a vengeance on the Ashburns after all." His brow grew clouded. "But not what I had dreamed of; what I should have taken had he not cheated me. To forgo it now--after all these years of waiting--is another sacrifice I make to Jocelyn. To serve him in this matter I must proceed cautiously. Cynthia may fret and fume and stamp, but w.i.l.l.y-nilly I shall carry her away. Once she is in France, friendless, alone, I make no doubt that she will see the convenience of loving Jocelyn--leastways of wedding him and thus shall I have more than repaired the injuries I have done him."

The Irishman's broad face was very grave; his reckless merry eye fixed Galliard with a look of sorrow, and this grey-haired, sinning soldier of fortune, who had never known a conscience, muttered softly:

"It is not a nice thing you contemplate, Cris."

Despite himself, Galliard winced, and his glance fell before Hogan's.

For a moment he saw the business in its true light, and he wavered in his purpose. Then, with a short bark of laughter:

"Gadso, you are sentimental, Harry!" said he, to add, more gravely: "There is my son, and in this lies the only way to his heart.".

Hogan stretched a hand across the table, and set it upon Crispin's arm.

"Is he worth such a stain upon your honour, Crispin?"

There was a pause.

"Is it not late in the day, Hogan, for you and me to prate of honour?"

asked Crispin bitterly, yet with averted gaze. "G.o.d knows my honour is as like honour as a beggar's rags are like unto a cloak of ermine. What signifies another splash, another rent in that which is tattered beyond all semblance of its original condition?"

"I asked you," the Irishman persisted, "whether your son was worth the sacrifice that the vile deed you contemplate entails?"

Crispin shook his arm from the other's grip, and rose abruptly. He crossed to the window, and drew back the curtain.

"Day is breaking," said he gruffly. Then turning, and facing Hogan across the room, "I have pledged my word to Jocelyn," he said. "The way I have chosen is the only one, and I shall follow it. But if your conscience cries out against it, Hogan, I give you back your promise of a.s.sistance, and I shall s.h.i.+ft alone. I have done so all my life."

Hogan shrugged his ma.s.sive shoulders, and reached out for the bottle of strong waters.

"If you are resolved, there is an end to it. My conscience shall not trouble me, and upon what aid I have promised and what more I can give, you may depend. I drink to the success of your undertaking."

Thereafter they discussed the matter of the vessel that Crispin would require, and it was arranged between them that Hogan should send a message to the skipper, bidding him come to Harwich, and there await and place himself at the command of Sir Crispin Galliard. For fifty pounds Hogan thought that he would undertake to land Sir Crispin in France. The messenger might be dispatched forthwith, and the Lady Jane should be at Harwich, two days later.

By the time they had determined upon this, the inmates of the hostelry were astir, and from the innyard came to them the noise of bustle and preparation for the day.

Presently they left the chamber where they had sat so long, and at the yard pump the Tavern Knight performed a rude morning toilet. Thereafter, on a simple fare of herrings and brown ale, they broke their fast; and ere that meal was done, Kenneth, pale and worn, with dark circles round his eyes, entered the common room, and sat moodily apart. But when later Hogan went to see to the dispatching of his messenger, Crispin rose and approached the youth.

Kenneth watched him furtively, without pausing in his meal. He had spent a very miserable night pondering over the future, which looked gloomy enough, and debating whether--forgetting and ignoring what had pa.s.sed--he should return to the genteel poverty of his Scottish home, or accept the proffered service of this man who announced himself--and whom he now believed--to be his father. He had thought, but he was far from having chosen between Scotland and France, when Crispin now greeted him, not without constraint.

"Jocelyn," he said, speaking slowly, almost humbly. "In an hour's time I shall set out to return to Marleigh to fulfil my last night's promise to you. How I shall accomplish it I scarce know as yet; but accomplish it I shall. I have arranged to have a vessel awaiting me, and within three days--or four at the most--I look to cross to France, bearing your bride with me."

He paused for some reply, but none came. The boy sat on with an impa.s.sive face, his eyes glued to the table, but his mind busy enough upon that which his father was pouring into his ear. Presently Crispin continued:

"You cannot refuse to do as I suggest, Jocelyn. I shall make you the fullest amends for the harm that I have done you, if you but obey my directions. You must quit this place as soon as possible, and proceed on your way to London. There you must find a boat to carry you to France, and you will await me at the Auberge du Soleil at Calais. You are agreed, Jocelyn?"

There was a slight pause, and Jocelyn took his resolution. Yet there was still a sullen look in the eyes he lifted to his father's face.

"I have little choice, sir," he made answer, "and so I must agree. If you accomplish what you promise, I own that you will have made amends, and I shall crave your pardon for my yesternight's want of faith. I shall await you at Calais."

Crispin sighed, and for a second his face hardened. It was not the answer to which he held himself ent.i.tled, and for a moment it rose to the lips of this man of fierce and sudden moods to draw back and let the son, whom at the moment he began to detest, go his own way, which a.s.suredly would lead him to perdition. But a second's thought sufficed to quell that mood of his.

"I shall not fail you," he said coldly. "Have you money for the journey?"

The boy flushed as he remembered that little was left of what Joseph Ashburn had given him. Crispin saw the flush, and reading aright its meaning, he drew from his pocket a purse that he had been fingering, and placed it quietly upon the table. "There are fifty Caroluses in that bag. That should suffice to carry you to France. Fare you well until we meet at Calais."

And without giving the boy time to utter thanks that might be unwilling, he quickly left the room.

Within the hour he was in the saddle, and his horse's head was turned northwards once more.

He rode through Newport some three hours later without drawing rein. By the door of the Raven Inn stood a travelling carriage, upon which he did not so much as bestow a look.

By the merest thread hangs at times the whole of a man's future life, the destinies even of men as yet unborn. So much may depend indeed upon a glance, that had not Crispin kept his eyes that morning upon the grey road before him, had he chanced to look sideways as he pa.s.sed the Raven Inn at Newport, and seen the Ashburn arms displayed upon the panels of that coach, he would of a certainty have paused. And had he done so, his whole destiny would a.s.suredly have shaped a different course from that which he was unconsciously steering.

CHAPTER XXIII. GREGORY'S ATTRITION

Joseph's journey to London was occasioned by his very natural anxiety to a.s.sure himself that Crispin was caught in the toils of the net he had so cunningly baited for him, and that at Castle Marleigh he would trouble them no more. To this end he quitted Sheringham on the day after Crispin's departure.

Not a little perplexed was Cynthia at the topsy-turvydom in which that morning she had found her father's house. Kenneth was gone; he had left in the dead of night, and seemingly in haste and suddenness, since on the previous evening there had been no talk of his departing. Her father was abed with a wound that made him feverish. Their grooms were all sick, and wandered in a dazed and witless fas.h.i.+on about the castle, their faces deadly pale and their eyes l.u.s.treless. In the hall she had found a chaotic disorder upon descending, and one of the panels of the wainscot she saw was freshly cracked.

Slowly the idea forced itself upon her mind that there had been brawling the night before, yet was she far from surmising the motives that could have led to it. The conclusion she came to in the end was that the men had drunk deep, that in their cups they had waxed quarrelsome, and that swords had been drawn.

Of Joseph then she sought enlightenment, and Joseph lied right handsomely, like the ready-witted knave he was. A wondrously plausible story had he for her ear; a story that played cunningly upon her knowledge of the compact that existed between Kenneth and Sir Crispin.

"You may not know," said he--full well aware that she did know--"that when Galliard saved Kenneth's life at Worcester he exacted from the lad the promise that in return Kenneth should aid him in some vengeful business he had on hand."

Cynthia nodded that she understood or that she knew, and glibly Joseph pursued:

"Last night, when on the point of departing, Crispin, who had drunk over-freely, as is his custom, reminded Kenneth of his plighted word, and demanded of the boy that he should upon the instant go forth with him. Kenneth replied that the hour was overlate to be setting out upon a journey, and he requested Galliard to wait until to-day, when he would be ready to fulfil what he had promised. But Crispin retorted that Kenneth was bound by his oath to go with him when he should require it, and again he bade the boy make ready at once. Words ensued between them, the boy insisting upon waiting until to-day, and Crispin insisting upon his getting his boots and cloak and coming with him there and then. More heated grew the argument, till in the end Galliard, being put out of temper, s.n.a.t.c.hed at his sword, and would a.s.suredly have spitted the boy had not your father interposed, thereby getting himself wounded.

Thereafter, in his drunken l.u.s.t Sir Crispin went the length of wantonly cracking that panel with his sword by way of showing Kenneth what he had to expect unless he obeyed him. At that I intervened, and using my influence, I prevailed upon Kenneth to go with Galliard as he demanded.

To this, for all his reluctance, Kenneth ended by consenting, and so they are gone."

By that most glib and specious explanation Cynthia was convinced. True, she added a question touching the amazing condition of the grooms, in reply to which Joseph afforded her a part of the truth.

"Sir Crispin sent them some wine, and they drank to his departure so heartily that they are not rightly sober yet."

Satisfied with this explanation Cynthia repaired to her father.

Now Gregory had not agreed with Joseph what narrative they were to offer Cynthia, for it had never crossed his dull mind that the disorder of the hall and the absence of Kenneth might cause her astonishment. And so when she touched upon the matter of his wound, like the blundering fool he was, he must needs let his tongue wag upon a tale which, if no less imaginative than Joseph's, was vastly its inferior in plausibility and had yet the quality of differing from it totally in substance.