The Tavern Knight Part 35

In the dim light of the October twilight the woman saw not the sudden pallor of her mistress's cheeks, but she heard the gasp of pain that was almost a cry. In her mortification, Cynthia could have wept had she given way to her feelings. The man who had induced her to elope with him sat at dice with a gentleman from London! Oh, it was monstrous! At the thought of it she broke into a laugh that appalled her tiring-woman; then mastering her hysteria, she took a sudden determination.

"Call me the host," she cried, and the frightened Catherine obeyed her at a run.

When the landlord came, bearing lights, and bending his aged back obsequiously:

"Have you a pillion?" she asked abruptly. "Well, fool, why do you stare?

Have you a pillion?"

"I have, madam."

"And a knave to ride with me, and a couple more as escort?"

"I might procure them, but--"

"How soon?"

"Within half an hour, but--"

"Then go see to it," she broke in, her foot beating the ground impatiently.

"But, madam--"

"Go, go, go!" she cried, her voice rising at each utterance of that imperative.

"But, madam," the host persisted despairingly, and speaking quickly so that he might get the words out, "I have no horses fit to travel ten miles."

"I need to go but five," she retorted quickly, her only thought being to get the beasts, no matter what their condition. "Now, go, and come not back until all is ready. Use dispatch and I will pay you well, and above all, not a word to the gentleman who came hither with me."

The sorely-puzzled host withdrew to do her bidding, won to it by her promise of good payment.

Alone she sat for half an hour, vainly fostering the hope that ere the landlord returned to announce the conclusion of his preparations, Crispin might have remembered her and come. But he did not appear, and in her solitude this poor little maid was very miserable, and shed some tears that had still more of anger than sorrow in their source. At length the landlord came. She summoned her woman, and bade her follow by post on the morrow. The landlord she rewarded with a ring worth twenty times the value of the service, and was led by him through a side door into the innyard.

Here she found three horses, one equipped with the pillion on which she was to ride behind a burly stableboy. The other two were mounted by a couple of stalwart and well-armed men, one of whom carried a funnel-mouthed musketoon with a swagger that promised prodigies of valour.

Wrapped in her cloak, she mounted behind the stable-boy, and bade him set out and take the road to Denham. Her dream was at an end.

Master Quinn, the landlord, watched her departure with eyes that were charged with doubt and concern. As he made fast the door of the stableyard after she had pa.s.sed out, he ominously shook his h.o.a.ry head and muttered to himself humble, hostelry-flavoured philosophies touching the strange ways of men with women, and the stranger ways of women with men. Then, taking up his lanthorn, he slowly retraced his steps to the b.u.t.tery where his wife was awaiting him.

With sleeves rolled high above her pink and deeply-dimpled elbows stood Mistress Quinn at work upon the fas.h.i.+oning of a pastry, when her husband entered and set down his lanthorn with a sigh.

"To be so plagued," he growled. "To be browbeaten by a slip of a wench--a fine gentleman's baggage with the airs and vapours of a lady of quality. Am I not a fool to have endured it?"

"Certainly you are a fool," his wife agreed, kneading diligently, "whatever you may have endured. What now?"

His fat face was puckered into a thousand wrinkles. His little eyes gazed at her with long-suffering malice.

"You are my wife," he answered pregnantly, as who would say: Thus is my folly clearly proven! and seeing that the a.s.sertion was not one that admitted of dispute, Mistress Quinn was silent.

"Oh, 'tis ill done!" he broke out a moment later. "Shame on me for it; it is ill done!"

"If you have done it 'tis sure to be ill done, and shame on you in good sooth--but for what?" put in his wife.

"For sending those poor jaded beasts upon the road."

"What beasts?"

"What beasts? Do I keep turtles? My horses, woman."

"And whither have you sent them?"

"To Denham with the baggage that came hither this morning in the company of that very fierce gentleman who was in such a pet because we had no horses."

"Where is he?" inquired the hostess.

"At dice with those other gallants from town."

"At dice quotha? And she's gone, you say?" asked Mrs. Quinn, pausing in her labours squarely to face her husband.

"Aye," said he.

"Stupid!" rejoined his docile spouse, vexed by his laconic a.s.sent. "Do you mean she has run away?"

"Tis what anyone might take from what I have told you," he answered sweetly.

"And you have lent her horses and helped her to get away, and you leave her husband at play in there?"

"You have seen her marriage lines, I make no doubt," he sneered irrelevantly.

"You dolt! If the gentleman horsewhips you, you will have richly earned it."

"Eh? What?" gasped he, and his rubicund cheeks lost something of their high colour, for here was a possibility that had not entered into his calculations. But Mistress Quinn stayed not to answer him. Already she was making for the door, wiping the dough from her hands on to her ap.r.o.n as she went. A suspicion of her purpose flashed through her husband's mind.

"What would you do?" he inquired nervously.

"Tell the gentleman what has taken place."

"Nay," he cried, resolutely barring her way. "Nay. That you shall not.

Would you--would you ruin me?"

She gave him a look of contempt, and dodging his grasp she gained the door and was half-way down the pa.s.sage towards the common room before he had overtaken her and caught her round the middle.

"Are you mad, woman?" he shouted. "Will you undo me?"

"Do you undo me," she bade him, s.n.a.t.c.hing at his hands. But he clutched with the tightness of despair.

"You shall not go," he swore. "Come back and leave the gentleman to make the discovery for himself. I dare swear it will not afflict him overmuch. He has abandoned her sorely since they came; not a doubt of it but that he is weary of her. At least he need not know I lent her horses. Let him think she fled a-foot, when he discovers her departure."

"I will go," she answered stubbornly, dragging him with her a yard or two nearer the door. "The gentleman shall be warned. Is a woman to run away from her husband in my house, and the husband never be warned of it?"