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"THE BRAZEN NOTES CLOVE THE AIR."
—his line and hers—so that they might be determined by a single, concentrated exertion of his own prowess.
Should matters so shape that her life be endangered by her position, Hal might, at the last moment, sever with his dagger the cord that bound her to him. She, being now deprived of weapons, could not do this.
As for Francis, stealthy and resolute as recent occurrences had shown him to be, there was nothing to fear from him while he bestrode the saddle-bow of Anthony Underhill.
It was eight o'clock when they started from the abandoned coach. A little after nine they passed through Skipton. The town was half invisible through the falling snow, which, as it came, was the sport of the same wind that made casements rattle and weather-cocks creak, and street-folk muffle themselves and pay small heed to passing riders.
To test his device and his men, Master Marryott, when half way through the town, sounded his horn and gave his horse the spur. The response, from all but Captain Rumney, was instant and hearty. The brazen notes clove the air, the men emitted a score of unearthly yells, the horses dashed forward; and the clamor, which caused the few snow-blinded outdoor folk to stare blinkingly, might well have awakened the ghosts of the ancient castle of the Cliffords.But neither ghosts nor townspeople stayed the turbulent strangers.
When Hal ordered a cessation, outside the town, he found that the men were in the better humor for the little outlet to their pent-up deviltry; all with the exception of Rumney, who had galloped with the rest, but in silence.
Rumney had indeed been moody since the abandonment of the coach. He had kept his place behind Marryott, in full range of the eyes of the lady on the pillion, who, as she sat sidewise, could look back at him with ease. Her glances, eloquent of a kind of surprise at his inaction, gave him an ill opinion of himself which he soon burned to revenge upon some one. And his feelings were not sweetened by his men's good humor over an incident from which he had excluded himself.
Of the roads from Skipton, Marryott chose that which he thought would take him soonest into the North Riding. The cavalcade had gone perhaps four miles upon this road, when, suddenly, Captain Rumney called out:
"Halt, lads, and close in upon this quarry!"
His men checked their horses, some with surprise, some as if the order might have been expected. They drew their blades, too,—blades of every variety,—and turned their horses about.
Captain Bottle instantly urged his steed backtoward Hal, charging through the confusion of plunging horses in true cavalry fashion. Marryott himself wheeled half around to face Rumney. Anthony Underhill, with Francis on his saddle-bow, grimly menaced the robbers who had turned.
"What means this, Captain Rumney?" said Hal, quietly. Every sword in the company was now unsheathed.
"It means that I cry, stand and deliver!" replied the robber, finding all needful confidence and courage in the very utterance of the habitual challenge. He felt himself now in his own rôle, and feared nothing.
"Is it not foolish," answered Marryott, without raising his voice, "to risk your skin thus, for the sake of money that would be yours to-morrow in payment of service?"
"To the devil with your money,—though I'll have that, too, ere all's done! First deliver me the lady!"
"I am much more like to deliver you to the flames below!" replied Hal.
"Say you so! Upon him, boys!" cried Rumney, raising a pistol, which he had furtively got ready to fire.
Two things occurred at the same moment: Anthony Underhill got his sword engaged with that of the nearest robber who had moved to obeyRumney's order; and Master Marryott struck Rumney's pistol aside with his rapier, so that it discharged itself harmlessly into the falling snow.
Hal's next movement was to turn Rumney's sword-point with his dagger, which he held in the same hand with his rein. Behind him, Mistress Hazlehurst clung to her pillion, in a state of mind that may be imagined. In front of Anthony Underhill. Francis, the page, made himself small, to avoid a possible wild thrust from the fellow that contested with the Puritan.
By this time Kit Bottle had reached Anthony's side.
"What, ye jolly bawcocks!" he cried to the robbers, his sword-point raised aloft, as if he awaited the result of his words ere choosing a victim for it. "Will ye follow this cheap rascal Rumney 'gainst gentlemen? He'll prove traitor to you all, an ye trust him long enough; as he did to me in the Low Countries! Mr. Edward Moreton, and honest John Hatch, and good Oliver Bunch, I call on you stand by true men!"
"And Tom Cobble!" shouted Hal, without looking back from his combat with Rumney, which, although it was now one of rapiers, they continued to wage on horseback. "You're my man, I wot! A raw rustical rogue like this, is not fit for London lads to follow!"
"What say ye, mates?" cried Tom Cobble. "I am for the gentleman!"
"And I!" quoth John Hatch, stoutly; Ned Moreton, airily; Oliver Bunch, timidly; and two or three others.
"A murrain on gentlemen!" roared a burly fellow, and a chorus of approving oaths and curses showed that a majority of Rumney's men remained faithful to their old leader.
"Good, my hearts!" cried their captain, his brow clearing of the cloud that had risen at the first defection. "There shall be the more pickings for you that are staunch! I'll kill every deserter!"
"Look to't you be not killed yourself!" quoth Master Marryott, leaning forward to keep the area of steel-play far from Mistress Hazelhurst.
Rumney had exchanged his emptied pistol for a dagger, and he imitated Hal in using it with the hand that held his rein. In rapier-and-dagger fights, the long weapon was used for thrusting, the short one for parrying. Such contests were not for horseback. When mounted enemies met, so armed, they would ordinarily dismount and fight afoot. But Marryott was determined not to separate himself from his prisoner, and Rumney chose to remain in readiness for pursuit in case his antagonist should resort to flight.
So this unique duel went on,—a single combatwith rapier and dagger, on horseback, one of the contestants sharing his horse with a lady on a pillion behind him! The combat remained single because Rumney's men had all they could do in defending themselves against the vigorous attack of Kit Bottle. Anthony Underhill, and the deserters from their own band.
These deserters, knowing that the defeat of the side they had taken would leave them at the mercy of the Rumney party, fought with that fury which comes of having no alternative but victory or death. There was not an idle or a shirking sword to be found on either side. Each man chose his particular antagonist, and when one combatant had worsted his opponent he found another or went to the aid of a comrade. In the narrow roadway, in blinding flakes, and with mingled cries of pain, rage, and elation, these riders plied their weapons one against another, until blood dripped in many places on the fallen snow that was tramped by the rearing horses.
The strange miniature battle, fought in a place out of sight of human habitation, and with no witnesses but the two prisoners so dangerously placed for viewing it, lasted for ten minutes. Then Master Marryott, whose adroitness, sureness, and swiftness had begun to appall and confuse Rumney, ran his rapier through the latter's sword-arm.
With a loud exclamation, the robber dropped thearm to his side, and backed his horse out of reach with his left hand.
But Hal, with a fierce cry "Talk you of killing?" spurred his horse forward as if to finish with the rascal. This was a pretence, but it worked its purpose.
"Quarter," whimpered the robber captain, pale with fear.
"Then call off your hounds!" replied Hal, hotly, checking his horse.
"I will," answered the trembling Rumney, quickly. "Lads, a truce! Put up your swords, curse you!"
His men were not sorry to get this order, nor their opponents to hear it given. The fight had gone too evenly to please either side, and wounds—some of them perhaps destined to prove fatal—had been nearly equally distributed. Hal's adherents ceased fighting when their foes did, Kit Bottle being the last, and probably the only reluctant one, to desist.
"And now you will turn back, Master Rumney," said Marryott, in a hard, menacing tone, "and find another road to travel! Take with you the knaves that stood by you. The others, an they choose, shall remain my men, in my pay. Come, you rogues, march!"
Master Marryott backed to the side of the road, that Rumney's followers might pass. They did so,readily enough, those who were unhorsed being lifted to saddles by their comrades. Until the two parties were distinctly separated, and several paces were between them, every weapon and every eye on either side remained on the alert to meet treachery. All the deserters from Rumney stayed with Hal.
"'God bless you, Ancient Rumney,'" called out Kit Bottle, slightly altering a remembered speech from a favorite play, as the robber turned his horse's head toward Skipton. "'You scurvy, lousy knave. God bless you!'"
Rumney and his men rode for some distance without answer; Hal and his company, motionless, looking after them. Suddenly, when he was beyond easy overtaking, the robber leader turned in his saddle, and shouted back, vindictively:
"I scorn you, Kit Bottle! You are no better than an Irish footboy! And your master there is a woman-stealing dog, that I'll be quits with yet. He's no gentleman, neither, but a scurvy fencing-master in false feathers!"
"Shall I give chase and make him eat his words?" asked Kit of Master Marryott.
"Nay, the cur that whines for mercy, and receives it, and then snarls back at a safe distance, is too foul for thy hands, Kit! Let those fellows on the ground be put on horses and supported till we find a safe place for them. I'll not abandon any thatstood by me. And then, onward! Madam, I trust you were not incommoded. Your page, I see, is safe."
Mistress Hazlehurst deigned no answer. Her feelings were wrapped in a cloak of outward composure.
The wounded men were soon made safe upon horses, and the northward journey was again in progress.
"I thank heaven we are rid of Captain Rumney!" said Hal to Kit Bottle, who now rode beside him. Anthony having taken the lead.
"I would thank heaven more heartily, an I were sure wewererid of him!" growled Kit, blinking at the snowflakes.
CHAPTER XVI.FOXBY HALL.
"O most delicate fiend! Who is't can read a woman?"—Cymbeline.
Theforenoon on which this fray and separation occurred was that of Saturday, March seventh, the fourth day of the flight. Marryott's company now consisted of his two original followers, his two prisoners. Ned Moreton, Tom Cobble, Oliver Bunch. John Hatch, and a few more of the robbers. What wounds had been received were bound up as well as possible, with strips torn from clothing, and were so stoically endured as not to impede the forward journey. The able-bodied rode by the disabled, giving them needful support.
Marryott had travelled some two hundred miles from Fleetwood house in three and a half days, accomplishing an average of nearly sixty miles a day, despite all delays and the slow going of the coach. Now that the storm had come up, to make the roads well-nigh impassable, it would take a rider at least three and a half days to return from Hal's present place to Fleetwood house. Thus, even if the pursuivantshould overtake the fugitives at any moment, seven days were already gained for Sir Valentine. Another day and a half would, under the storm-caused conditions of travel, procure him the full ten days.
Now, before the beginning of the storm, Roger Barnet, had he gone at the speed for which the men of his office were then proverbial ("like flying pursuivant" is Spenser's simile for swift-moving angels), would have overtaken a traveller hampered as Hal was. But it happened—so prone is circumstance to run to coincidence, as every man perceives daily in his own life—that Roger Barnet, too, had his special hindrances. That part of the chase which had culminated in his almost catching Hal at the hostelry near the Newark cross-road, had been delayed at the outset by the delivery of the queen's letters. And in the subsequent pursuit, when Hal's several impediments had given the pursuivant the best opportunities, Master Barnet had suffered most annoying checks.
Of these, there were those that Hal had conjectured; but, in addition, there was a bodily accident to no less a person than Master Barnet himself. In that very village of Clown, where Hal had been detained by the constable, an exhausted horse had fallen at the moment when the pursuivant was dismounting from it, and had so bruised the pursuivant'sleg that he had been perforce laid up at the ale-house for some hours, unable to stand, or to sit his saddle. For his own reasons, of which a hint has been given earlier in this narrative, he had not allowed his men to continue the chase without him; but he had resumed it at the first moment when he could endure the pain of riding.
Of this interference of fortune in his behalf, Master Marryott knew nothing, as he and his riders toiled forward through the blown clouds of snow. He took it on faith that the pursuivant, obliged by duty and enabled by skill, was following through similar clouds somewhere behind. He would not, at this stage, give a moment's room to any thought opposed to this.
The travellers covered thirty miles or more, through unremitting snowfall and increasing wind; passing Rylston, Cumiston, Kettlewell, Carlton, Middleham, and Harmby,—names, some of which have lost their old importance, some of which have given place to others, some of which have quite vanished from the map,—stopping twice for food, drink, and to rest the horses. In the inhabited places, the riders were too much obscured by snow, the people outdoors were too few, for Mistress Hazlehurst to place any hope in an appeal for rescue. Nevertheless, to hearten his men up, and to leave the deeper trace for Barnet to follow. Marryott went through these places at a gallop, withgreat noise of voices and horns. Strange must have been the spectacle to gaping villagers drawn to casements by the advancing clamor, when this mad band of riders—one of them a woman—dashed into sight, as if borne by the wind like the snow clouds, rushed by with blast and shout, and disappeared into the white whirl as they had come!
All through the afternoon Mistress Hazlehurst was silent, close-wrapped in cloak and hood. She accepted with barely uttered thanks the ale and food that Master Marryott caused Kit Bottle to bring her from the rude inns near which they stopped. Hal showed his solicitude, at first, in brief and courteous inquiries regarding her comfort; then, as these were answered either not at all, or in the coldest monosyllables, in glances over his shoulder. Was her inertia, he asked himself, a sign that she had given up the battle?—or a sign that she was nourishing some new plan, sufficiently subtle to fit the new circumstances?
During the afternoon, Kit Bottle rode often among the men from Rumney's band, talking with them, and seeing how the wounded bore themselves.
As the riders passed in sight of Middleham castle, whose wind-beaten walls, with their picturesque background of Nature's setting, were now scarce visible behind the driven nebules of snow, Kit brought his horse close to Hal's, and said, in a low voice:
"Some of those fellows have ugly little cuts. They would fare better under roof, and on their backs, than on horse, in this weather."
"But where may they be left?" asked Hal. "What yeoman or hind would take them under shelter? And the inns where their robber-skins would be safe, look you, are those where Rumney is a favored guest. If he should come and find them, how many three-farthing pieces would their lives be worth, think you?"
"Thou speakest by the card there, God wot! But I have in mind a shelter where these honest knaves can lie safe, and where we all may snatch an hour or two of comfort. This Oliver Bunch hath turned himself inside out to me. The lands where he was under-steward, before the family fled to France for their necks' sake, are five or six mile ahead of us. The mansion, he tells me, is closed tight, and empty. Whether confiscation hath been made, I know not; but, be the place the crown's, or some one's else by gift or purchase, there it now stands for our use, without e'en bailiff or porter to say us nay. 'Tis called Foxby Hall."
"If it be so tight closed that others have not entered, for thievery or shelter, how can we get in?"
"With a key that this Bunch hath hid in a safe hole in the wall. It opens a side door. He hath kepthis secret, for love of his old place of service, till this hour."
"He is a very worthy rascal, truly. Well, let us make the better haste to this house, that we may have the more time to tarry in it. Foxby Hall, say you? I like the name; it hath a sound of hospitable walls amidst the greenwood."
Speed was made, therefore; and about five o'clock, while the snow still fell unceasingly, the riders came to a place where, on one hand, the road was flanked by varied and well-wooded country, and where, on the other hand, there ran for some distance a wooden fence, beyond which there were at first fields, and then the stately trees of a park. The fence was finally succeeded by a stone wall, at a point where a similar wall ran back at right angle with the first. The wall along the road had in its middle a broken-down gate. Before this gate Oliver Bunch stopped; and, with a look at Kit Bottle, pointed through it.
When Hal drew up his horse, and looked into the grounds to which the gate afforded entrance, he saw, some way up a thinly-wooded slope, a turreted and gabled building. From its main front, which was parallel with the road, two wings projected forward. These three parts enclosed three sides of a square: the fourth side was bounded by a little terrace, which descended toward the road, and at whose footran a second wall, quite low, across part of the grounds.
The main front, which had two gables, was partly of stone, partly of wood and plaster. The wings, more recent, were of brick; they were flanked by turrets, and their ends were gabled. The windows of the main front were high, narrow, and pointed at the tops; those of the wings also were high, but they were wide and rectangular. There was a porched Gothic door in the middle of the main front; and one of the wings, in its inner side, had a smaller door. A basin for a fountain was in the centre of the square. Tall trees grew on the terrace.
"It hath an inviting look," said Master Marryott. "But 'tis far from the road. Were Barnet sighted, we could scarce get to horse and reach the gate ere he arrived."
"An't please your worship," put in Oliver Bunch, deferentially, "the house hath a way through the park, to a gate further on the road. 'Tis a shorter way to the north than the road itself is, sir, for it runs straight from the stables, while the road goes somewhat roundabout."
"Then seek your key, good Oliver Bunch; and heaven grant it be safe in its hiding-place!"
The fat household servant of former days slid from his horse with unwonted alacrity, and disappeared through the gate, gliding thence along the inner sideof the wall. He soon returned with sparkling eyes, holding up the key.
"Lead Oliver's horse, Kit," said Hal. "Let him show us the way, afoot. Yon turret window hath a long view of the road. We can keep watch there for Barnet."
The worthy Bunch, gazing fondly at the deserted mansion amidst the trees, hastened up the gentle incline of land, followed by the riders. All looked with curious eyes upon the house as they ascended. The horse-path, after passing through an alley of neglected hedgerows, skirted the terrace, and led across one side of the square court to the Gothic main door.
Bidding the riders halt there, Bunch traversed the other side of the court, and vanished behind the angle of a wing. For some minutes the company waited in expectation, Hal watching Mistress Hazlehurst as her gaze slowly ranged the exterior of the house. At last an unchaining, unbarring, unbolting, and key-turning were heard from within the door. Then it swung heavily inward, with a creak, and Oliver Bunch appeared with a welcoming face.
"Anthony, you will look to the stabling of the horses," said Master Marryott. "Oliver Bunch, be so kind to show him where that may be done. Tom Cobble, take you charge of the boy, and follow me into the house. Master Moreton, have the able fellowshelp in the wounded. Captain Bottle, find you the turret window of yonder wing, and watch there till I send word. Come to this door, Anthony and Oliver, as soon as the horses be in shelter; I shall have commands, regarding their comfort and our own. Madam, I pray you dismount and enter!"
Hal had swiftly, on finishing his orders to the men, untied the cord that bound him to his prisoner, and had leaped to the ground, holding in one hand the loose ends.
She accepted his hand mechanically, in descending from the pillion, and then preceded him into the hall of the mansion.
This was a large, lofty apartment, with a timber roof, a great fireplace, walls hung with old tapestry and armor, and a stairway ascending along the rear. In a corner some trestles and boards remained as evidence of the last feast upon which the woven, many-colored hunting party in the arras had looked down.
Marryott sat beside Mistress Hazlehurst, on a bench by the empty fireplace, and watched Moreton and Hatch help the wounded men to a pile of rushes at one side of the hall. By the time that Anthony and Oliver had returned, Hal had made plans for the next few hours. He had travelled so rapidly since morning, that he thought he might make this mansion his stopping-place for as much of the nightas he should take for rest. Beginning the nightly halt at five, instead of at eight, he might set forth again at twelve instead of at three; unless, of course, an alarm of pursuit should send him to the saddle in the meanwhile.
This plan would obviate the difficulty he had anticipated of finding a suitable night's lodging for his prisoner. As the next day would be the fifth and last of his flight, that difficulty would not recur after to-night. He saw, with elation, the end of his mission at hand; and at the same time, with a feeling of blankness and chill, the end of his fellowship with Mistress Hazlehurst. But meanwhile there was the immediate future, for which he thus arranged:
He learned from Oliver Bunch that there was an inn some distance beyond where the park path joined the highroad. To that inn he sent Anthony Underhill for provisions. Going and returning by the park way, which the travellers would use in a hasty flight, the Puritan would meet them in case of such flight during his absence.
Marryott then set his men to fetching logs and making fires: one in the great hall, for the benefit of the injured robbers; one in an upper chamber that he chose, upon Oliver's description, for Mistress Hazlehurst's use; and a third in the large room from which this chamber had its only entrance.
Guided by Oliver, Hal conducted his unresistingprisoner up the stairs, thence through a corridor that made a rectangular turn, thence into the large room, and to the threshold of her chamber. He gave permission, unasked, that Francis might wait upon her, but stationed Tom Cobble in the large room with instructions to follow the Page_wherever the latter went outside her chamber, and to restrict his movements to the house itself. Having heard these orders and made no comment, Mistress Hazlehurst beckoned the Page_to follow, and disappeared into the chamber.
Hal had chosen as his own resting-place the large outer room. It was in the same wing with the turret to which he had sent Kit Bottle to keep watch. Perceiving that the great embayed window of the room gave as good a view of the southward road as the turret itself could give, Hal summoned Kit, and sent him to stay with the robbers in the hall below. The captain might sleep, if he chose; he had kept vigil the previous night. Hal would now watch from the window, until Anthony's return; then the Puritan should go on guard.
Tom Cobble sat, half asleep, on a chest at one side of the door to Mistress Hazlehurst's chamber. Marryott reclined on the window-seat, looking now through the casement at the snow-covered, rolling, grove-dotted country; now at the blazing, crackling logs in the fireplace opposite; now at the tapestry, which sometimes stirred in the wind that entered bycracks of door and window. The room was well furnished, as indeed most of the house was, for its occupants, whatever the cause of their flight from the country, had valued haste above property. They had not even taken all their trunks; for one of these stood in the room as a piece of furniture, in accordance with the custom of the time. This apartment had probably served as a ladies' room. It had a case of books; a table on which were some scattered playing-cards, and a draughts-board with the pieces in the position of an unfinished game; and another table, on which lay an open virginal, a viol, and smaller musical instruments. The chairs were heavy and solid. Overhead was visible the timber work of the roof.
Marryott went and examined the viol, and, returning to the window-seat, drew from it a few tremulous strains. As he was adjusting the strings, he heard a sound at the end of the apartment, looked up, and saw, to his surprise, that Mistress Hazlehurst was returning. Francis followed her. Her face showed the refreshing effect of the cold water with which Oliver had supplied her room. Hal watched her in silence.
Motioning Francis to sit by the fire, she crossed to the music-table, sat down before it, and touched the keys of the virginal. The response showed the work of weather and neglect upon the instrument;but after twice or thrice running her fingers up and down the short keyboard, she elicited the notes of a soft and pensive melody.
After a while of silent listening, Marryott gently took up the melody upon his viol. For an instant he was fearful that she might break off at this, but she played on, at first as if not heeding his uninvited participation, and at last accommodating her own playing, where the effect required, to his.
From one tune they went to another, and then to a third and fourth. At first it was she that led in the transition; but, at length, having ventured with some trepidation to pass, of his own initiative, from one piece to another, he had the delight of being immediately accompanied by her. There was in her first note, it was true, an instant's dragging, as if she hesitated under the protest of certain feelings, but finally the yielding was complete, the accompaniment in perfect accord. Thereafter it was he that led, she that followed.
What might he infer from this? Aught beyond the mere outward appearance, the mere indifferent willingness to join in a musical performance for the sake of the aural pleasure? Or was there signified an inner, perhaps unconscious, yielding of the woman's nature to the man's? Was his domination over her, begun, and hitherto maintained, by physical force, at last obtaining the consent of her heart?Marryott dared not think so; he recoiled in horror from the thought, when he saw himself, with her eyes, as her brother's supposed slayer. And then, still viewing himself with her eyes, he was fascinated by that very situation from which he had recoiled. It was, of course, as she must regard it, a tragic situation; in that circumstance lay both its horror and its fascination.
But did this situation exist? When he remembered that the mere attraction of the one woman for the one man, or the one man for the one woman, ofttimes annihilates all opposing considerations, he knew that this situation was not impossible. To be loved by this woman, even across the abyss of blood she saw between them! The idea possessed and repossessed him, though again and again he put it from him as horrible, or improbable, or both. Perhaps he spoke his thoughts in the notes he drew from his viol; perhaps she spoke thoughts of her own in the language of the virginal; perhaps they spoke unconsciously to each other's deepest hidden comprehension; neither could outwardly analyze an impression received from the other's playing, or certainly know whether that impression had been intended.
The day faded. The snow fell between the window and the trees of the park; fell as thick as ever, but more slowly and gently now, the wind being atless unrest. The firelight danced oddly on the tapestry, the shadows deepened in its brighter radiance. Not a word was uttered. Only the viol and the virginal spoke.
This strange concert was interrupted, at last, by the return of Anthony and Oliver, with a supply of cheese, spice-cakes, and apples, a bottle of wine, a large pot of ale, and a bag of feed for the horses. Marryott caused the wine and a part of the food to be brought to the room in which he sat. The ale and other provisions were served to the men in the hall. Anthony, after supping, and seeing the horses fed, was to keep the usual vigil on the road, as approaching horsemen might not be seen from the window after dark, and as the Puritan had slept the previous night.
"Will you sup in your chamber, or with me at this table?" Hal asked his prisoner.
Without speaking she pointed to the table on which Oliver Bunch had set the eatables. It was that on which the cards and draughts-board were. As the viands, with the glasses and plate that Bunch had furnished, occupied only the table's end next the fire, the draughts-board was not disturbed. Captor and captive sat opposite each other, as they had sat in the inn near the Newark cross-road. Tom and Francis, having lighted a candle-end brought by Oliver, stood to wait on them; but Hal, handingthem a platter on which was a good portion of the supper, bade them go to another part of the room and wait on themselves. He gave them also a glass of the wine, reserving the rest, with a single glass, for his prisoner and himself.
The meal went in silence. Darkness fell over the outer world. The candle added little light to that of the fire; hence much of the room was shadowy. Only the table near the fire, where the two sat, was in the glow. Marryott would have spoken, but a spell had fallen upon him like that which had locked his lips on the first day of their travelling. Sometimes he sighed, and looked at her wistfully. When his eyes met hers, she would glance downward, but without disdain or dislike.
What was in her thoughts? What was her mind toward him? He sought answer in her face, but in vain. When it came to drinking from the same glass he used, she did so, in obedience to custom, with no sign of antipathy or scruple.
Supper over, Marryott idly turned to the cards lying near at hand. Three of them faced upward. He grasped these, and held them between thumb and forefinger in the light. It was strange. They were the knave of hearts, the queen of spades, the eight of clubs,—a fair man, a dark woman, a battle. Mistress Hazlehurst gave him a glance signifying that she noted the coincidence.He reached for one of the cards that lay face downward, thinking it might foretell the issue of the battle. It was the nine of clubs,—more battle. He smiled amusedly, and looked at her; but her face told nothing. He turned to the draughts-board, which was portable, and carefully drew it nearer without displacing any of the pieces. There were four of each color left on the board. At first glance one could not see that either side had advantage. Hal observed, under his lashes, that Mistress Hazlehurst's look had fallen, with slight curiosity, upon the board. He made a move, with one of the white pieces, and waited. She continued gazing at the board. At length she placed a delicate finger on one of the black pieces, and moved. Hal soon replied. Thus was the game, left unfinished by players now self-exiled to foreign lands, and who little imagined at this moment by what a strangely matched pair it was taken up, carried on.
And, after all, it ended as a drawn game.
Mistress Hazlehurst, perceiving that one piece of each color was left on the board as a result of an exchange which she had thought would leave two blacks and one white, gave a little shrug of the shoulders; then rose, and walked toward her chamber.
Marryott swiftly seized the candle, and offered it to her, saying:
"We set forth again at midnight. I will knock at your door a little before."
She took the candle, and went from the room; but on her threshold she turned for a moment, and said, softly:
"Good night!"
Marryott stood in a glow of incredulous joy. Her tone, her gracious look, the mere fact of her uttering the civility, or of her volunteering a speech to him, could not but mean that she had softened. Had she come to doubt whether he was indeed her brother's slayer? Or had her heart come to incline toward him despite the supposed gulf of bloodshed that parted them? Either conjecture intoxicated him; the first as with an innocent bliss, the second as with a poignant ecstasy darkly tinged with horror and guilt.
Francis and Tom had fallen asleep where they had sat at supper. Anthony, as Marryott knew, had long since ridden out to keep his cold and lonely watch. Kit and the other men in the hall were asleep, for the sounds of their supper merriment had ceased to come up from below. The horses were in the stables, resting, in readiness for a swift departure. The fire crackled; the wind, having risen again, wailed around the turrets and gables of Foxby Hall, and the snow beat against the window. Marryott took a large book from the case, put it on a chest as a pillow,wrapped himself in his cloak, and lay down with his new and delicious dreams. From waking dreams, they soon became dreams indeed. For the first night in three, he slept.
CHAPTER XVII.A WOMAN'S VICTORY.
"My heart hath melted at a lady's tears."—King John.
A shrillwhistle roused Marryott from his sleep. He sprang to his feet. The fire was quite low now; some hours must have passed. The whistle was repeated; it came from outside the house, beneath the window. Marryott threw open the casement, letting in a dash of wind and snow, and leaned out. Below him, in the snowy darkness, was Anthony, on horseback.
"How now, Anthony?"
"A score of men have rid into Harmby, from the south. I saw them from this side of the town. I had gone so far back to keep warmth in my horse. 'Tis bitter cold. They stopped at the inn there, these men; whether to pass the night, or to get fresh horses, I wot not."
"Are they Barnet's men, think you?"
"There is no knowing. The darkness and snow make all men look alike at a distance. They mightbe the pursuivant's men, or they might be Captain Bottle's friends."
By "Captain Bottle's friends" the Puritan meant Rumney and his robbers.
"Harmby is but four miles away," said Marryott. "An they came on to-night, they would stop here to inquire of our passing. Or if they asked further on, and found we had not passed, they would soon hound us out. 'Tis well you brought the news forthwith. Anthony!"
"Why, as for that, 'twas eleven by Harmby clock when I turned my back on't. So it must be near starting-time now."
"Then go you to the hall and call the men, and bring the horses to the door. We shall ride by the road, if we can, to leave the trace there. But if these fellows by chance come up too soon, we shall use the way through the park."
"What of the wounded men, sir?"
"Those that cannot go with us may lie close in some outhouse loft here, with John Hatch to care for them. I'll give him money for their needs. Look to it all, Anthony. I'll meet you at the hall door."
The Puritan rode off, to round the corner of the wing. Marryott, not waiting to close the casement, awoke Tom Cobble and Francis, and sent them to join the men in the hall, the apprentice still in chargeof the page. When these two had gone, Marryott knocked at Mistress Hazlehurst's door.
He waited. Nothing was heard but the wind, and the beating of flakes upon the window. He knocked again.
By roundabout ways came faint and indistinct scraps of the noise attendant upon Anthony's awakening the men.
"Mistress Hazlehurst!" called Marryott, softly. "It is time for us to go."
In the ensuing silence, a vague fear grew within him,—fear for his mission, fear for her. Could aught have befallen her?
"Madam!" he said, a little louder and faster. "I must bid you rise. We must set forth."
Marryott's heart was beating wildly. His was not a time of, nor this the moment for, false delicacy. He flung open the door, and strode into her chamber.
There was yet a little firelight left in the room. It shone upon the bed, of which the curtains were apart. Mistress Hazlehurst lay there, wrapped loosely in her cloak, the hood not up. Her eyes were wide open. Their depths reflected the red glow of the embers.
She sprang up, and stood beside the bed, her gaze meeting Marryott's. An instant later, she moved as if to step toward him, but seemed to lose her powers, and staggered.
He reached out to catch her, lest she should fall. But she avoided him, and hastened with swift but uncertain steps toward the door. Having neared it, she leaned against the post for support, and raised her hand to her forehead, uttering at the same time a low moan of pain.
"What is the matter?" asked Marryott, going quickly after her.
She moved, as by a desperate summoning of what small strength remained to her, into the outer room. She went as far as to the table near the fireplace. On this table she placed her hands, as if to prevent her sinking to the floor.
"What is the matter?" repeated Marryott, reaching her side in three steps, and putting his arms around her just in time to uphold her from falling.
"I know not," she whispered, as with a last remnant of departing breath. "I am dying, I think!"
And she let her head rest on his shoulder, as if for inability to hold it erect.
"Dying!" echoed Marryott, gazing with affrighted eyes into hers; whose lids thereupon fell, like those of a tired child.
She shivered in his arms, and murmured, feebly. "How cold it is!"
"Madam!" cried Marryott. "This is but a moment's faintness! It will pass! Call up your energies, I pray! I dare not delay. Already themen are waiting for us in the court below. We must to horse!"
"To my grave, 'twould be!" she answered, drowsily. Then a spasm of pain distorted her face. She became more heavy in Marryott's grasp.
"God's light! What am I to do?" he muttered. "Mistress, shake off this lethargy! Come to the window; the air will revive you!"
He moved to the open casement, bearing her in his arms. He feared to place her on the window-seat, lest the little animation she retained might pass from her.
She shuddered in the blast of wind.
"The cold kills me!" she said, huskily. "The snow hath a sting like needle-points!"
"Yet your face is warm!" He had placed his cheek against her forehead to ascertain this.
"It burns while my body freezes!" she replied.
"But your hands are not cold!" A tight clasp had made the discovery.
She did not move away her head, of which the white brow and dark hair were still pressed by his cheek, nor did she withdraw her hand. Neither did her body shrink from his embrace, though it trembled within it.
"I am ill unto death," was her answer. "I cannot move a step."
"But you are revived already. Your voice is notso faint now. Madam, in a few moments you will have strength to ride."
"I should fall from the horse. My God, sir, can you be a gentleman, and subject a half dying woman to more of that fatigue which hath brought her to this pass—and on a night of such weather? If my voice has strength, 'tis the strength of desperation, which impels me to beg pity at your hands in mine hour of bitter illness!"
Thereupon, as if grown weaker, she sought additional support to that of his embrace, by clinging to him with her arms.
"But, madam, do you not perceive all is at stake upon my instant flight? A score of horsemen have entered Harmby; 'tis but four miles distant. They may be here any moment. Perchance they are the pursuivant and his men; perchance, Captain Rumney, with his band augmented! We must begone! God knows how it wounds my soul to put you to discomfort! But necessity cries 'on,' and ride forth we must!"
"Then ride forth without me. Let me die here alone."
"But I dare not leave you here. If Roger Barnet came and found you—" He did not complete the sentence. His thought was, that her account of him to Barnet might send men flying back for the real Sir Valentine. But, indeed, Marryott's continuedflight, and her illness, would minimize the chances of Barnet's stopping where she was; or, if he did stop, of his waiting for much talk with her.
"An you take me with you," said she, "you may take but a cold corpse!"
The idea struck Marryott to the soul. To think of that beauty lying cold and lifeless, which now breathed warm and quivering in his arms!
"Mistress, you mistake! Your fears exceed your case! You will find yourself able to ride. I will wrap you well; I will let you ride in front of me, and I will support you. I must compel you, even as my cause compels me!"
"You would compel me to my death, to save your own life!"
"'Tis not my poor life I think of! There is that in my flight you wot not of."
"Then betake yourself to your flight, and leave me!" And, for the first time, she made some faint movement to push from his embrace.
"No, no!" he cried, tightening his grasp so that she ceased her opposing efforts. "For your own sake I dare not leave you. These riders may be Rumney and his men. If you should fall into their hands!"
"Leave me to their hands!" she cried, again exerting herself feebly to be free. "'Tis a wise course for you. If it be Rumney that hath followed,'tis easy guessing what hath brought him. An he find me, he will cease troubling you."
"Madam, madam, would you be left to the will of that villain? Know you—can you suppose—?"
"Yes, I know; and can imagine how such villains woo! But what choice have I? I cannot go with you. Would you drag me forth to meet my death? But that you cannot do, an you would. Here will I remain, and if you go you must leave me behind."
And, with an effort for which he was quite unprepared, she thrust him from her, and slipped from his somewhat relaxed embrace. The next instant she traversed, with wavering motions, the distance to the chest. Upon this she let herself fall, and straightened her body to a supine position.
When Marryott ran to her side, and tried to lift her, he found her so rigid that nothing short of violently applied force could place her upon horseback, or keep her there afterward.
A moment later a spasmodic shiver stirred her body, and she uttered so pitiful a groan that Marryott could no longer hold out against the conviction—which he had thus far resisted, as one hopes against hope—that she was indeed beyond all possibility of taking horse that night. Having, perforce, admitted to himself her condition, he ran and closed the casement, then returned to her.
"Madam, what am I to do?" he asked. "'Tis plain that a brief delay would find you no more able to go than you now are. For such illness as hath laid hold of you, after so long exposure, I well know one recovers not in an hour. If I tarried at all for you, it would needs be a long tarrying."
"Then tarry not," she moaned. "Go, and leave me."
"If I left men to protect you?"
"Ay, my Page_Francis! The boy would avail much against Rumney and the score of men you say are at Harmby!"
"If I left, also, the men who joined us from Rumney's band?"
"Why, those that are wounded would sure stay by me, for want of power to run away! And the other four might stay till they caught sight of their old leader. Then they would have choice of turning tail, or of crawling to him for pardon, or of dying, either in my defence or for his revenge."
"If I left Captain Bottle and Anthony Underhill with them?"
"Certes, if this score of men be the pursuivant's, 'tis better for you that your two faithful dogs die as your accomplices, and you go safe alone!"
"Madam, I deserve not this irony! I say to you again, 'tis not for mine own life that I would leave others to die on my account without me. 'Tis forSir—for the qu—for the cause to which I have bound myself, and of which you know not. My God, I would this were to-morrow's night! Then you would see how fearful I am for my life! But for another day, my life is not mine own!"
The woman to whom he spoke paid no heed to words whose significance she did not understand.
"Then why do you stay here?" she said. "Is it of my asking? Do I request aught of you? Go, and take your men with you. You may have need of them."
"That is true," thought Marryott, appreciating how much easier it was for the pursuivant to follow a trace left by three men than that left by one.
"Your two henchmen are stout fellows, I ween," she went on, speaking as with difficulty, "but scarce like to use much zeal in my behalf. I'll warrant that Puritan would not stir for me, were you not here to command him."
"'Tis true!" muttered Marryott, in a tumult of perplexity. "Against a score of desperate rascals, what six men under heaven would long risk their lives for a lady's sake, unless they were gentlemen, or by a gentleman led? And what gentleman leading them, and fighting with them, could hope to win unless he were armed, as I should be, by love for that lady? Well I know that gentlemen do notprotect ladies by deputy, nor trust to underlings the safety of those they love!"
There was a moment's silence. She moved not; gave no start, or frown, or look of surprise, or other sign that she had noted this, his first spoken confession of love. Yet that very absence of all sign ought to have told him that she had heeded it,—that she had even been prepared for it.
"Bitter is my fortune," she replied, using a tone a trifle lower and more guarded than hitherto. "Of all who are at hand, only you, being a gentleman and moved by the spirit of chivalry, would protect a lady to the last, against odds. Only you, with the valor and strength that a chivalrous heart bestows, might hope to prevail against such odds. Only you, with the power of leadership over those men below, could give them either will or courage for the contest. Only your remaining, therefore, might save me from this villain. Your cause forbids your remaining. Go, then; save yourself, save your cause, and leave me to my fate!"
Her voice had fallen to a whisper. She now lay perfectly still, as if too exhausted even to deplore what might be in store for her.
"Oh, madam!" said Marryott, his voice betraying the distress he no longer tried to conceal. "What a choice is mine! Lest these men approaching be Rumney's. I dare not go from you; lest they be the pursuivant's,I dare not stay with you! Must I, then, leave you here, in this deserted house, in this wild night, to what terrible chances I dare not think of? Can you not ride forth? Is it not possible? Can you not find strength, somewhere deep-stored within you?"
Her only answer was a faint smile as at his incredulity to her state, or at his futile return to impossible hopes.
He had already forgotten, for the time, what strength she had found to make her body rigid.
"Fare thee well, then!" he cried, abruptly, and hastened, with steps almost as wild as hers had been, to the door leading to the passage.
A low sob arrested him at the threshold. He turned and looked at her; his heart, which seemed to have stopped as he was crossing the room to leave her, now began to beat madly.
She was not looking after him. She had not changed position. But, by the firelight, to which his sight was now accustomed, a welling up of moisture was visible in her eyes.
While he stood gazing at her, she gave another sob,—a convulsive note of despair, in which Marryott read a sense of her forlorn situation and possible fate; of being abandoned in dire illness, in an empty country-house, on this wildest of nights, to become, perchance, the prey of a vile, unscrupulous rascal.
By the time that Marryott, moving in long strides, had reached her side, her cheeks were wet with tears.
"Lady," he said, in a voice unsteady with emotion, as he flung himself on his knees beside her couch, and caught both her hands in his, "be not afraid! Though I forfeit my life, and fail in my cause, I will not go from you! May God above forgive me; and may those for whom I have these four days striven; and may my fathers, who never, for fear of man or love of woman, fell short of their given word! But I love thee! Ay, madam, 'tis a right I earn, that of holding thee thus in mine arms; thou know'st not what I pay for it! I love thee!"
He had resigned her hands, only that he might enfold her body; and she was so far from resisting his clasp that she had thrown her own arms, soft and warm, around his neck. She no longer wept, yet the tears still stood in her eyes; through them, however, as she met his impassioned gaze, glowed a light at once soft and powerful. Her nostrils heaved in quick but regular respirations. As his face neared hers, her lips seemed unconsciously to await the contact of his own. Nor did they fail of humid warmth when he pressed upon them a score of kisses.
"Oh, thou beautiful one!" he whispered, raising his face that he might find again in the depths of her eyes the rapture which, by the responsive intentness of her look, it was evident she found in his owneyes. "Never did I think I should prove so weak, or know such joy! Though I hazard my mission and my life, yet methinks for this moment I would barter my soul! For at this moment thou lov'st me, dost thou not? Else all kisses are false, all eyes are liars! Tell me, mistress! For thine own rest's sake, tell me; or be slain with mine importunings!"
"Wouldst thou have my lips," she whispered, and paused an instant for strength to finish, "confess by speech—what they have too well betrayed—otherwise?"
"I did not slay thy brother," he answered, still looking into her eyes. "That thou must believe! Yet thou wouldst love me, this one moment, even though the red gulf were indeed between us? Is't not so?"
She would not answer. When he again opened his lips to urge, she, by a movement of the arm, caused them to close against her own.
Then, as by a sudden change of impulse, she closed her eyes and thrust him from her with all the force of which her arms were capable.