CHAPTER XIV.HOW THE PAGE WALKED IN HIS SLEEP.
"I spy a black, suspicious, threatening cloud."—Henry VI., Part III.
Master Marryotthad lost nearly two hours at Clown, through his detention by the constable, his waiting to enlist the highway robbers, and his measures for putting the coach into service. And such was the badness of the road, that he had consumed more than an hour in covering, with alternate dashes and delays, the seven miles from Clown to the place where he had overtaken Anne. Almost another hour had been used in awaiting the coming of the coach, and lodging the prisoner therein. It was, thus, between two and three in the afternoon when the northward journey was again taken up.
Hal, as he rode beside the coach, considered his situation with regard to his pursuer, Roger Barnet. The latter, arriving with tired horses at the scene of Hal's wine-drinking, and thereafter compelled to stop often for traces of the fugitives, must have been as great a loser of time as Hal had been; and this accounted for his non-appearance during either of therecent delays. But, by this time, he was probably not very far behind; and hereafter Hal's rate of speed must be, by reason of the coach, considerably slower. The latter circumstance would offset, in Barnet's favor, the two disadvantages under which he labored. Moreover, upon learning at Clown what company Hal had reinforced himself with, the pursuivant would find the track easier, and hence speedier, to follow; the passage of so numerous and ill-looking a band being certain to attract more attention than would that of a party of three or five.
But Hal counted upon one likelihood for a compensating gain of a few hours,—the likelihood that Barnet, to strengthen himself for possible conflict with Hal's increased force, would tarry to augment his own troop with men from the neighborhood, and that, in his subsequent pursuit, as well as in this measure, his very reliance on his advantages would make him less strenuous for speed.
Cheering himself with the best probabilities, though not ignoring the worst, Master Marryott pressed steadily on, after the manner of the tortoise. When bad spots in the road appeared, Kit Bottle, at the head of the line, caused the robbers to whip up their horses; and if this did not avail to keep the coach from being stayed, Hal had the men dismount and put their shoulders to the wheels. A grumblingdislike to this kind of service evinced itself, but Captain Rumney, flattered by the courteous way in which Hal gave him the necessary orders for transmission, checked with peremptory looks the discontent. Hal conceded a short stop, at a solitary tavern, for a refection of beer and barley-cakes. During this pause, and also while passing through villages, Hal remained at the coach-opening, ready to close its curtain with his own hand, on the least occasion from the inmates.
But Anne and her page, whose flight from Scardiff that morning had shortened their sleeping-time, were too languid for present effort. In attitudes best accommodated to the movements of the coach, they sat—or half reclined—with their backs against the side of the vehicle for support. With changeless face and lack-lustre eyes, Anne viewed what of the passing country she could see through the opening; heedless whether Hal's figure interrupted her vision or not; whether she passed habitations, or barren heath, or fields, or forest. Yet she did not refuse the repast that Hal handed into the coach, which, when resort was had to the lone tavern, he had caused to stop at some distance from the house.
Only once during the afternoon did he take the precaution of shutting the coach entrance; it was while passing through the considerable town of Rotherham.
Night fell while the travellers were toilsomely penetrating further into the West Riding of Yorkshire. When at last Hal gave the word to halt, they found themselves before a rude inn with numerous mean outbuildings, on a hill about six miles beyond Rotherham.
Hal had now to provide, because of new conditions, somewhat otherwise than he had done at his previous stopping-places. Anne and Francis were to be closely guarded, a repressive hand held ready to check the least hostile act or communication. Fresh horses could not be obtained in number equal to the company. Ere he had ordered the halt, Master Marryott had formed his plans.
At first it seemed that he might not unopposedly have his way with the frowsy-headed landlord who appeared in the doorway's light in response to his summons. But when the blinking host became aware of the numerousness of the company, and when Captain Rumney rode forward into the light, he instantly grew hospitable. Evidently the captain and the innkeeper were old acquaintances, if not occasional partners in trade. So Hal arranged a barter for what fresh horses were at the fellow's command; took lodgings for the night in the several outhouses, caused open fires to be made on the earthen floors therein, and ordered food and drink. He had the coach drawn into shelter,near one of the fires, and bedding placed in it, with other comforts from the inn.
He then informed Anne that she was to remain in her prison overnight; and he assigned to Francis a sleeping-place on a pile of straw, within sword reach of where he himself intended to guard the curtained opening of the coach. Anthony, on one of the fresh horses, should keep the usual watch for Barnet's party. Bottle, who had watched at Scardiff, was to sleep in the stable-loft, as was also Rumney, whose men were to occupy different outbuildings. No one was to remove his clothes, and, in case of alarm, all were to unite in hitching the horses, and to resume the flight.
The horses themselves were placed in stalls, but in as forward a state of readiness as was compatible with their easy resting. It was made clear that, should any of these movements be interrupted or followed by attack from a pursuing party, all the resistance necessary was to be offered.
The supper ordered was brought on wooden platters, and eaten in the light of the fires. Hal, as before, served Anne through the coach doorway, and she accepted the cakes and ale with neither reluctance nor thanks. But under her passiveness. Hal saw no abandonment of her purpose. He saw, rather, a design to gather clearness of mindand strength of body, for the invention and execution of some plan not only possible to her restraint, but likely to be more effectual than any she had tried when free.
When the company had supped, and the robbers could be heard snoring in the adjacent sheds, and Francis lay in the troubled sleep of excessive fatigue, and the regular breathing of Anne herself was audible through the coach curtain; when, in fine, every member of his strange caravan slept, save Anthony watching at the hill's southeastern brow, Master Marryott sat upon a log, and gazed into the sputtering fire on the ground, and mused. He marvelled to think how many and diverse and cumbrous elements he had assembled to his hand, and undertaken to keep in motion, for what seemed so small a cause.
To herd with robbers; to lavish the queen's money; to deceive a woman—the object of his love—so that he brought upon himself her hate meant for another; to carry off this woman by force, and put her to the utmost fatigue and risk; to wear out the bodies, and imperil the necks, of himself and so many others,—was it worth all this merely to create a fair opportunity—not a certainty—of escape for a Frenchified English Catholic, whose life was of no consequence to the country? Hal laughed to think how unimportantand uninteresting was the man in whose behalf all these labors and discomforts were being undergone by so many people, some of whom were so much more useful and ornamental to the world.
And yet he knew that the businesswasworth the effort; worth all the toil and risk that he himself took, and that he imposed upon other people. It was worth all this, perhaps not that a life might be saved, but that a debt might be paid, a promise made good,—his debt of gratitude to Sir Valentine, his promise to the queen. It was worth any cost, that a gentleman should fulfil his obligations, however incurred. To an Englishman of that time, moreover, it was worth a world of trouble, merely to please the queen.
But what most and deepest moved Hal forward, and made turning back impossible, was the demand in him for success on its own account, the intolerableness of failure in any deed that he might lay upon himself. Manly souls daily strain great resources for small causes, or for no cause worth considering, for the reason that they cannot endure to fail in what they have, however thoughtlessly, undertaken. The man of mettle will not relinquish; he will die, but he will not let go. It is because the thing most necessary to him is his own applause; he will not forfeit that, though he must pay with his life to retain it. Once his hand isto the plow, though he find too late that the field is barren, he will furrow that field through, or he will drop in his tracks; what concerns him is, not the reason or the reward, but the mere fact of success or failure in the self-assigned work. Men show this in their sports; indeed, the game that heroes play with circumstance and destiny, for the mere sake of striving to win, is to them a sport of the keenest. "Maybe it was not worth doing, but I told myself I would do it, and I did it!" Hal fancied the deep elation that must attend those words, could he truly say them three days hence.
About three hours after midnight he awoke his people, had the horses put to the coach, sent for Anthony by one of the robbers,—a renegade London apprentice, Tom Cobble by name, whose face he liked for its bold frankness,—and rode forth with his company toward Barnesley. They passed through this town in the early morning of Friday. March 6th, the third day of the flight. Though Anne showed the utmost indifference to her surroundings. Hal closed her curtain, as he had done at Rotherham, until the open country was again reached.
Soon after this, Mistress Hazlehurst changed her place to the forward part of the coach, and her position so as to face the backward part. She couldthus be seen by any one riding at the side of the coach's rear, and glancing obliquely through the opening. It was, at present, Anthony Underhill that benefited by this new arrangement.
Five miles after Barnesley, Master Marryott ordered a halt for breakfast. As before, food was brought to the prisoners. The stop gave Captain Rumney an opportunity of peering in through the coach doorway.
When, at nine o'clock, the journey was resumed. Rumney, without a word, took the place behind Marryott, formerly kept by Anthony.
"By your leave, sir," said the Puritan, forced by this usurpation to drop behind the coach, "that is where I ride."
"Tut, man!" replied Rumney, with an insolent pretence of carelessness; "what matters it?"
"It matters to me that I ride where I have been commanded to," said the Puritan, with quiet stubbornness, heading his horse to take the place from which he expected the other to fall out.
"And it matters to me that I ride where I please to," retorted Rumney, with a little less concealment of the ugliness within him.
Anthony frowned darkly, and looked at Marryott, who had turned half around on his horse at the dispute. Rumney regarded Hal narrowly through half shut eyes, in which defiance lurked, ready to burstforth on provocation. Hal read his man, choked down his feelings, considered that an open break was not yet to be afforded, and to make the matter in which he yielded seem a trifle, said, quietly:
"My commands were too narrow, Anthony. So that you ride behind me, one side of the road will do as well as another. The fault was mine, Captain Rumney."
So Anthony fell back without protest or complaint. He cast his look earthward, that it might not seem to reproach Master Marryott. And a bitter moment was it to Master Marryott, for his having had to fail of supporting his own man against this rascal outlaw. A moment of keener chagrin followed, when Hal caught a swift glance of swaggering triumph—a crowing kind of half smile—that Rumney sent to Mistress Hazlehurst, with whom he was now in line of vision. It seemed to say, "You see, mistress, what soft stuff this captor of yours shall prove in my hands?" And in Anne's eyes, as Hal clearly beheld, was the light of a new hope, as if she perceived in this robber a possible instrument or champion.
But Master Marryott let none of his thoughts appear; he hardened his face to the impassibility of a mask, and seemed neither to suspect nor to fear anything; seemed, indeed, to feel himself above possibility of defeat or injury. He realized that herewas a case where danger might be precipitated by any recognition of its existence.
During the next six hours, he saw, though appeared not to heed, that Anne kept her gaze fixed behind him, upon the robber captain. There was no appeal in her eyes, no promise, no overture to conspiracy; nothing but that intentional lack of definite expression, which makes such eyes the more fascinating, because the more mysterious. Even savages like Rumney are open to the witchery of the unfathomable in a pair of fine eyes. Hal wondered how long the inevitable could be held off. He avoided conversation with Rumney, did not even look back at him, lest pretext might be given for an outbreak. He was kept informed of the knave's exact whereabouts by the noise of the latter's horse, and, most of the time, by the direction of Mistress Hazlehurst's look. He had no fear of a sudden attack upon himself, for he knew that Anthony Underhill held the robber in as close a watch as Mistress Hazlehurst did.
In mid-afternoon, the caravan stopped within three miles of Halifax, for food and rest. Master Marryott stayed near the coach. Rumney, too, hovered close; but as yet a kind of loutish bashfulness toward a woman of Anne's haughtiness, rather than a fear of Master Marryott,—at least, so Hal supposed,—checked him from any attempt to address her. Marryott called Kit Bottle, and, while apparently viewingthe surrounding country as if to plan their further route, talked with him in whispers:
"Thy friend Rumney," said Hal, "seems a cur as ready to jump at one's throat as to crawl at one's feet."
"'Twas lack of forethought, I'm afeard, to take up with the knave, where a woman was to be concerned," replied Kit. "It was about a red and white piece of frailty that he dealt scurvily with me in the Netherlands. Were there no she in the case, we might trust him; he hath too great shyness of law officers, on his own account, to move toward selling us."
"If he had a mind, now, to rescue this lady from us—" began Hal.
"'Twould be a sorry rescue for the lady!" put in Bottle.
Hal shuddered.
"And yet she would throw herself into his hands, to escape ours, that she might be free to work me harm," said he.
"An she think she would find freedom that way, she knows not Rumney. If thine only care were to be no more troubled of her, thou couldst do little better than let Rumney take her off thy hands."
"I would kill thee, Kit, if I knew not thou saidst that but to rally me! Yet I will not grant it true, either. She might contrive to tame this Rumneybeast, and work us much harm. Well, smile an thou wilt! Thine age gives thee privileges with me, and I will confess 'tis her own safety most concerns me in this anxiety. Sink this Rumney in perdition!—why did I ever encumber us with him and his rascals?"
"Speaking of his rascals, now," said Kit, "I have noticed some of them rather minded to heed your wishes than Rumney's commands. There hath been wrangling in the gang."
"There is one, methinks," assented Hal, "that would rather take my orders than his leader's. 'Tis the round-headed, sharp-eyed fellow, Tom Cobble. He is a runagate 'prentice from London, and seemeth to have more respect for town manners than for Rumney's."
"And there is a yeoman's son, John Hatch, that rides near me," added Kit. "He hath some remnant of honesty in him, or I mistake. And one Ned Moreton, who is of gentle blood and mislikes to be overborne by such carrion as Rumney. And yon scare-faced, fat-paunched fellow, Noll Bunch they call him, hath been under-bailiff in a family that hath fled the country. I warrant he hath no taste for robbery; methinks he took to the road in sheer need of filling his stomach, and would give much to be free of his bad bargain. There be two or three more that might make choice of us, in a clash withtheir captain; but the rest are of the mangiest litter that was ever bred among two-legged creatures."
"Then win over quietly whom thou canst, Kit. But let us have no clash till we must."
Rumney and his men looked almost meek while passing through Halifax. And herein behold mankind's horror of singularity. In other towns these robbers had been under as much possibility of recognition and detention; but in those towns the result of their arrest would have been no worse than hanging, and was not hanging the usual, common, and natural ending of a thief? But in Halifax there was that unique "Gibbet Law," under which thieves were beheaded by a machine something like the guillotine which another country and a later century were yet to produce. There was in such a death an isolation, from which a properly bred thief, brought up to regard the hempen rope as his due destiny, might well shrink.
But the robbers could sleep with easy minds that night, for Master Marryott put Halifax eight miles behind ere he rested.
Similar arrangements to those of the preceding night were made at the inn chosen as a stopping-place. The coach, furnished for comfortable repose, stood near a fire, under roof. Hal, who thought that he had now mastered the art of living without sleep, set himself to keep guard again, by Francis, near thecoach doorway. It was Anthony's night to share Rumney's couch of straw; Kit Bottle's to watch for Barnet's men.
Master Marryott, sitting by the fire, was assailed 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 reassured 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 thesomnolent 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 theboy'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 pass, 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.
"God pless you, Aunchient Pistol! you scurvy, lousy knave, God pless you!"—Henry V.
"Hereis 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 muffled 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 horsemen shivered and grumbled unseen, and cursed their steeds, and wished red murrains and black plagues, and poxes of no designated color, upon the weather.
They passed 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.
"God'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 assist 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 passive 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 visitingthe 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,27had 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!"
"God-'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?"
"I say only that there is a strange circumstance in all this business, that may not yet be opened to you. Well, I see that till time shall permit explanation, I must despair of seeming other to you than stained with your brother's blood. My word of honor, my oath, avail not—"
"Speak you of oaths and words of honor? There was some talk of oaths two days ago, before the constable of Clown!"
Hal sighed. He did not notice that, in drawinghim further into conversation, she had drawn him further from the coach, which was indeed now hidden behind a slight turn of the road.
"Well," quoth he, resignedly, "time shall clear me; and show, too, why I have had to put so admired a lady to so irksome a constraint."
"Say, rather, time shall give your prisoner revenge for all constraint. Think not you have put me to much distress! What says the play? Women can endure mewing up, so that you tie not their tongues!"
"I thank heaven you have not given me cause to tie your tongue!"
"Given you cause,—how?" she asked, looking full at him.
"Why, suppose, in the towns we passed, you had cried out from the coach to people, and I had found the closed curtain of no avail."
"What would you have done then?"
"Bound with a silken kerchief the shapeliest mouth in England! Ay, with these very hands of mine!"
"Ere that were done, I should have made stir enough to draw a concourse. Were I hard put to it, be sure I would attract questioners to whom you'd have to give account."
"Account were easy given. I should declare you were a mad woman committed to my charge."
"More perjury!"
"Nay, there is truly some madness in a woman's taking vengeance into her own small hands."
She answered nothing, and presently they returned to the coach. Captain Rumney stood pensively by his horse, his gaze averted, as if he thought of the past or the far away. He now looked mildly up, and mounted. The other robbers were already on their horses, Bottle at their head. Mistress Hazlehurst let Hal lift her into the coach. Francis followed. Marryott then whistled for Anthony, and got into the saddle.
"The snow falls thicker and thicker," remarked Captain Rumney, in a bland, sociable tone, while the caravan waited for the Puritan.
As soon as Anthony was in place, Hal motioned to Bottle, at whose word the robbers, with whip and rein, set their horses in motion. The harness strained, the coach creaked, the wheels turned reluctantly in the snow. The procession moved forward a short distance; then, suddenly, there was a splitting sound, a rear wheel fell inward, and the adjacent part of the coach dropped heavily to the ground. The vehicle, thereupon, was still, halting the horses with a violent jerk.
Anthony Underhill leaped from his saddle, and turned over the loose wheel. A single glance revealed that the axle had been, within a very short time past, cut nearly through with a saw.
Anthony looked at Master Marryott, who gazed at the axle with a singularly self-communing, close-mouthed expression. All was very clear to Master Marryott; a train of events had rushed through his mind in an eye's twinkling: Mistress Hazlehurst's subjugation of Captain Rumney by the use of her eyes; the nocturnal visit of her Page_to the robber in the single opportunity afforded by Hal's movements; the walk in which she had drawn Hal from the coach at a time when Anthony was on guard and Kit Bottle concerned with the horses. A few words would have sufficed for the message borne by Francis to Rumney, such as, "My mistress desires you to wreck the coach; she will make an opportunity." She had not asked Rumney to rescue her by force, for he might prove a worse captor than her present one. She had not asked him to injure the horses during the night, for the watch kept by Hal might prevent that, or the robber might be unwilling to sacrifice his own animals. What she sought was delay for the coming of Barnet; not an open revolt of the robbers, which might be so victorious as to put her at their mercy. And Rumney had obeyed her to the letter; had, doubtless, after receiving her message, searched the outhouses for a suitable tool; and probably carried at the present moment, beneath his leather jerkin, the hand-saw with which, during Hal's walk with Mistress Hazlehurst, he had severed the axle.
But, whatever lay concealed under his jerkin or his skull, Captain Rumney was now looking down at the wheel with a most surprised, puzzled, curious, how-in-God's-name-could-this-have-come-to-pass expression of face.
It was but the early morning of the fourth day of the flight. Could Hal but defer the inevitable break with his ally, for this day and another! Until the five days were up, an open breach with, or secret flight from, these robbers, meant the risk of either his mission or her safety. For such break or flight might leave her in their hands. This horrible issue could be provided against only by Hal's consigning her to protection in some town or some gentleman's house; but such provision he dared not make till his mission was accomplished, lest she defeat that mission by disclosures that would either cause his own seizure or raise doubts in Barnet as to his identity.
Decidedly, patience was the proper virtue here, and the best policy was that of temporizing.
"'Tis a curious smooth break," said Hal, with an indescribable something in his voice for the benefit of Anthony, and of Kit, who had ridden back to see what stayed the coach. "But I have seen wood break so, when decay hath eaten a straight way through it. Mistress, I rejoice to see you are not hurt by the sudden jar."
He spoke to her through the coach doorway.Both she and Francis were sitting quite undisturbed. The jar had, in fact, not been sudden to them. As Hal knew, they had expected the breakdown. But his dissembling must be complete.
"Here's delay!" put in Captain Rumney, most sympathetically vexed.
"Yes," said Marryott, very dismally, as if bereft of hope. His wisest course lay in holding the plotters passive by making them think they had already accomplished enough. If Mistress Hazlehurst supposed that sufficient delay was now obtained, she would not further instigate Rumney. And without instigation Rumney was not likely to invite open warfare at a place only two miles from Keighley. In fact, he would not, of his own initiative, have chosen a spot so near a town, for causing the breakdown, which might result in tumult. He would have waited for a more solitary neighborhood. He was of no mind for needlessly chancing any kind of violent contact with the authorities. Mistress Hazlehurst, not divining his feelings on this point, had created the opportunity at this spot, and he had taken the risk. But he was well content that the supposed Sir Valentine accused him not. In roads more remote, accusation might be positively welcome; but not in close vicinity to a centre of law and order.
With a kind of vague, general sense of what Captain Rumney's mental attitude must be, Marryottfelt that he need fear no interruption to the plan his mind now formed, in a moment's time, for an early resumption of the flight. But he did not communicate this plan to any but Anthony, who alone was necessary to its inauguration. Even Bottle was kept in the dark, in order that Rumney might not find, in being excepted from a council of leaders, a pretext for subsequent complaint.
As for his instructions to the Puritan, Hal gave them very quickly, in whispers, leaning down from his saddle to approach more nearly the other's ear.
Anthony, having listened without speech or sign, remounted his horse, rode to the house at which the breakfast had been obtained, and made a few brief inquiries of the man who came to the door.
The result of his questions was evidently not satisfactory; for he rode from the door, shaking his head in the negative to Master Marryott; and forthwith cantered off through the falling snow, toward Keighley.
Bottle, who had sat his horse in silent observation of these movements, as had Rumney also, now glanced at Hal as if to question the propriety of sending the Puritan away.
"Fear not," said Hal, reassuringly. "If he see thy friend Barnet ere he find what he seeks, he will drop all and come back a-flying. And then we shall meet Barnet, or dodge him, in what manner we must!"
It has been told that Marryott was always prepared, as a last resource, to use his forces in resistance to the pursuivant. A close meeting was to be avoided to the utmost, however; not only for its uncertainty of issue to the immediate participants, but for its likelihood of informing Barnet that the pursued man was not Sir Valentine. In the event of that disclosure, Hal saw safety for his mission in one desperate course; that was, to kill or disable the pursuivant and all his men. But such a feat of arms was barely within possibility, a fact which made Master Hal extremely unwilling that matters should come to an encounter. Therefore he groaned and fretted inwardly during the minutes of inaction that followed Anthony's departure. He sought relief from thoughts of a possible combat with his pursuers, in following out his plan for his forward movement; and saw with joy that the very method he had chosen for going on with his prisoner was the better adapted to his bearing her safely off from Rumney in case of a conflict with that gentleman.
"Have your men take their horses from the coach. Captain Rumney," Hal had said very soon after Anthony had departed. The words were spoken lightly, not as if they accorded with a plan, but as if they indeed had no other inspiration than was shown when Hal added, "'Tis no use now keeping them hitched to this moveless heap of lumber."
Prompt obedience had been given to an order so suggestive of greater delay. And now the robbers idly sat their horses, jesting, railing at one another, grumbling, and some of them wondering in dull discontent whither in the fiend's name they were bound. Anne and her Page_kept their places in the derelict vehicle, withholding their thoughts. Bottle and Rumney rode up and down, saying little. They were old soldiers, and used to waiting. Moreover, in the days of slow transit, patience was a habit, especially with those who travelled.
At last Anthony's figure reappeared, rising and falling in the whirling snow as his movements obeyed those of his horse. His manner showed that he did not bear any tidings of Barnet. He brought with him an old pillion and a collection of battered hunting-horns, the former behind his saddle, the latter all slung upon a single cord. It was to procure these things that he had gone back to Keighley, where there were saddlers, innkeepers, hostlers, smiths, and others from whom such articles were to be had. Hal's companions looked with curiosity at these acquisitions.
Marryott now ordered both Anthony and Kit to dismount. He then had the horse formerly ridden by Francis led back to the coach doorway. Here he caused Bottle to hold the animal, and Anthony to adjust the pillion behind the saddle thereon.
"Now, mistress," said Hal, when this was done, "pray let me aid you to the pillion."
From her seat in the coach she did not move, nor made she the smallest answer. She merely cast a look at Captain Rumney.
Hal saw the need of swift action; delay would give her mute appeal to the robber time to take effect. Summary proceedings would bewilder him.
"Tom Cobble, hold my horse," he said, and was afoot in an instant. In another, he was inside the coach, raising Mistress Hazlehurst bodily from her seat, and conveying her out of the doorway to the pillion, which was not too high or far to permit his placing her upon it. Taken quite by surprise, she found herself on horseback ere she thought to brace herself for physical resistance.
"The cord, Anthony," called Hal. The Puritan threw it to him, having already unfastened it from the hunting-horns. Before Mistress Hazlehurst had time to think of sliding from the pillion to the ground. Hal had her waist twice encircled by the cord, of which he retained both ends. He then, from the coach doorway, mounted the saddle in front of her, brought the rope's ends together before him, joined them in a knot, and let Kit Bottle lead the horse a few paces forward so that his prisoner might not impede matters by seizing hold of the coach.
"And now the boy, Anthony. Carry him on yoursaddle-bow," said Marryott. The Puritan, reaching into the coach with both arms, laid hold of the page, and placed him on the saddle-bow; then, at a gesture, mounted behind him.
"Take one of the horns, Kit," was Hal's next command. "Give one to me, one to Anthony, one to Captain Rumney, and the other to Tom Cobble. John Hatch, lead the spare horse. And now all to your saddles. Kit, ride at the head. Anthony, you shall go at my right hand; Tom Cobble, at my left. Captain Rumney shall choose his place. And heed this, all of you: When I sound this horn, all ye that have like instruments, blow your loudest; the rest, halloo your lustiest; and every mother's son set his horse a-galloping till I call halt, taking heed to keep together. And now, forward!"
A minute later, the cavalcade was moving through the downcoming flakes, leaving the wrecked coach to bury itself in the snow.
Mistress Hazlehurst could not but see her captor's reason for the order of which a blast from his horn was to be the signal. Now that she was no longer concealed in the coach, it would be easier—the temptation would be greater—for her to make an outcry when passing habitations. The noise of the horns and of the hallooing would drown the words she might utter, and the galloping would rob her gesticulations of their intended effect. The conductof the whole party would strike beholders as the sportive ebullition of a company of merry blades bent on astonishing the natives; and any cries or motions she might make would seem, in the flash of time while they might be witnessed, but of a piece with the behavior of her boisterous companions. There were roysterers of the gentler sex in those days,—witness Mary Frith, otherwise "Moll Cutpurse," who was indeed a very devil of a fellow.28Such roaring women were not of Mistress Hazlehurst's quality; but who would have time to discern her quality in the brief while of the company's mad transit through such small towns as lay before them?
It was less clear to her why her enemy should have placed her on the same horse with himself, when he might have bound her upon another, of which he could have retained hold of the bridle. But the case was thus: Though a possible contest with Rumney or Barnet might result in Hal's own personal escape, such a contest might, were she on another horse, enable her to free herself, and either make disclosures fatal to Hal's mission, or fall prisoner to the robber. But, she being on his horse, and unable to act independently of him, Hal's escape would leave her still his captive. That escape he must, then, contrive to make. He thus simplified his course in the event of an encounter; twined two threads into one; united two separate lines of possible befalling