CHAPTER XXI.ROGER BARNET CONTINUES TO SMOKE TOBACCO.
"The best man best knows patience."—Thierry and Theodoret.
Theday dragged on,—grayest of gray Sundays. The snowfall ceased, but the sky remained ashen, and the wind still moaned intermittently, though with subdued and failing voice. In the great, silent house, faint creaks had the startling effect of detonations, and the flapping of tapestry in the wind seemed fraught with mysterious omen.
Marryott, in the course of his next round of the mansion, told the men of the loss of the provisions. Some of them had already known of it. No complaint was uttered. The men replied with a half respectful, half familiar jest, or with good-humored expression of willingness to fast awhile. Fortunately, the supply of water was such as to obviate any near dread of the tortures of thirst.
When he went to the room adjoining Mistress Hazlehurst's chamber, Marryott found Tom, Francis, and the robber, all three quiescent under the ministrationsof Oliver Bunch. Anthony Underhill, seated on a trunk that he had placed on the end of the prostrate ladder, was observing the Sabbath by singing to himself a psalm. Scarce audible as was his voice, it still had something of that whine which the early English Puritans, like the devoutest of the French Huguenots, put into their vocal worship, and from which some think the nasal twang of the Puritans' New England descendants is derived.
Mistress Hazlehurst either was, or wished to seem, asleep; for when Marryott knocked softly upon her half open door, that he might more courteously explain to her the lack of food, she gave no answer.
He, thereupon, sent Kit Bottle to the oriel window to sound Roger Barnet's mind toward supplying the prisoner, who was indeed to be considered the pursuivant's ally, with food.
Kit put the necessary question, taking care to show no more of his person than was needful, and to keep his eyes upon the firearms of the pursuivant and the two guards in the court.
But Roger Barnet, who still sat smoking with a kind of hard, surly impassibility, made no movement as to his pistols. Neither did he show a thought of ordering his men to fire. He evinced a certain grim satisfaction at the evidence that the besieged had no provisions. He then expressed asuspicion that Kit was using the lady's name in order to obtain food for his own party, and said that if Sir Valentine Fleetwood desired the lady not to hunger, Sir Valentine might set her free. He, Barnet, would provide her with an escort to some neighboring inn or gentleman's house.
But Marryott, who was listening unseen at Kit's elbow, dared not yet risk her describing himself as Sir Valentine Fleetwood to the pursuivant; and so he prompted Kit to reply that the lady was too ill to go at present from the house. To which Roger, between vast puffs of smoke, tranquilly replied that he feared the lady must for the present go hungry.
Afire with wrath at this stolid churlishness, Hal caused Kit to remind Barnet that the lady had come into her present case through aiding the pursuivant himself. Roger answered that he had not requested the lady's assistance. At Marryott's further whispered orders, Kit informed Barnet that, but for her work, the latter should not at that moment have had Sir Valentine surrounded. Roger replied that he had only Kit's word for that; moreover, what mattered it? He was not responsible for the lady's ill fortune, even if she were creditable with his good fortune. In short, and by God's light, he would not let any food enter that house unless he and his men went in with it!
"When your bellies will no more away with theiremptiness, open the door and let us in," he added, phlegmatically, and replaced his pipe in his mouth as if the last word had been said.
"Nay, thou swinish rogue," said Kit, "we're better taught than to leave doors open in March weather!" He then bombarded his old-time comrade of Walsingham's day with hard names. Barnet showed no resentment, but continued to smoke stolidly. At last, when his reviler had well-nigh exhausted the vocabulary of Thersites, Roger began to finger abstractedly the butt of one of his pistols; at which gentle intimation, Kit suddenly disappeared from the window.
"There is no help for it," said he to Marryott. "She must starve with the rest of us unless you set her free."
"That I must not do till Tuesday morning," said Hal, with an inward sigh. He went from the gallery, and told Francis, for Mistress Hazlehurst's information should she inquire, of the failure of his attempt to obtain food for her. She still slept, or feigned sleep.
Marryott then newly assigned the posts to be guarded, dividing the company into two watches, one headed by himself, the other by Bottle. The latter took the first period of duty. The men who were thus for a time relieved were prompt to assuage their thirst, though water was a beverage unusual tothem; then they stretched themselves on the rushes in the hall to sleep. Hal also slept.
At evening, being awakened by Kit, he and his quota of men arose to do sentinel duty during the first half of the night.
"Is Barnet still yonder?" he asked Kit, before leaving the hall.
"No; he has set Hudsdon in's place. Roger has divided his troop into watches. He and some of his men have made their beds in the outhouses. Hudsdon and the rest have planted torches in a line around the house. There's not an ell's distance of the mansion's outside, from ground to second story, that cannot be seen by the torch-light. The men are posted beyond the line, out of our sight; only here and there you may catch now and then the light of a slow-match that some fellow blows. If we made a sortie from the house into their torch-light, they would mow us down with muskets and arquebuses from the dark."
Marryott sat out his watch in a partly torpid state of mind. The deception that Mistress Hazlehurst had practised upon him, though he acknowledged an avowed enemy's and unwilling prisoner's right to practise it, had struck down his heart, benumbed it, robbed it of hope and of its zest for life. He thought of nothing but present trifles—the writhing of the flames in the fireplace, the snoring of the sleeperson the hall floor—and his chances of accomplishing his mission. All things, he felt, could be endured,—all but failure in the task he had so far carried toward success. Regarding his life, which indeed seemed to be doomed, he was apathetic.
During the second half of the night, Marryott slumbered, Bottle watched. Dawn found Roger Barnet again at the fountain's edge, again smoking. But, as Kit observed while furtively inspecting him through a window, he puffed a little more vehemently, was somewhat petulant in his motions, more often changed position. Bottle, from having known him of old, and from his slight lameness, took it that he was in some pain.
His injured leg was, indeed, a seat of great torment; but of this, being stoical as well as taciturn, the frowning man of iron gave no other sign than the tokens of irritation noticed by Kit.
"I'm afeard Roger will be, later, of a mind to hasten matters," said the captain. "Peradventure his tobacco is falling low."
"I pray 'twill last till the morrow," said Marryott.
This morning (Monday) the sky was clear, but it was a cold sun that shone down upon the world of snow around beleaguered Foxby Hall. Marryott was on the watch till noon. Then, Kit having taken his place, and before lying down to sleep, he went to see if Mistress Hazlehurst had aught torequest. He felt that, though his position as her captor was one of necessity, it nevertheless required of him a patient attention to all complaints and reproaches she might make.
But she made none. To his inquiry, spoken after a gentle knock upon her door, she answered that she desired of him nothing under heaven but to be left alone. If she must starve, she would choose to starve not before spectators. He informed her that he intended to give her, on the morrow, her freedom, as the royal pursuivant had offered her an escort and might be trusted to treat a lady with respect. To this she made no reply. Hal thereupon went away.
When he was awakened to resume guard duty, at evening, he learned from Kit that the afternoon had been without occurrence. Roger Barnet had continued to show signs of an ailing body, and hence of an ailing temper, but had not deviated from his policy of waiting. The men in the house were very hungry; they had ceased jesting about their enforced fast, and had betaken themselves to dumb endurance. Hal was made aware by his own pangs of the stomach, his own feverish weakness of the body, how they must be suffering, though only two days of abstinence had passed.
The precautions of the besiegers this evening were like those of the preceding night. Marryott lookedmore than once, through narrow openings in the windows, at the torches lighting up redly the snow that stretched away from the walls of the mansion.
Some time after dark, while Marryott was pacing the hall, Kit Bottle suddenly awoke, and after gazing around a few moments, said, quietly:
"Methinks, lad, 'tis eight o'clock, or after."
"'Tis so, I think," replied Hal, softly.
"Then 'tis full six days since we rode from Sir Valentine Fleetwood's gate."
"Ay, just six days."
"Then thy work is done, boy!"
"'Tis done, old Kit; and thanks to thee and Anthony, with your true hearts, strong bodies, and shrewd heads!"
"Thou'rt a valiant and expert gentleman, Hal; beshrew me else!"
Whereupon the old soldier turned upon his side, and slept again, and Hal looked dreamily into the fire.
Their words had been no louder than whispers. Nor was Hal's feeling aught like the bursting elation, the triumph that would shout, the joy that intoxicates. It was but a gentle transition from suspense to relief, from anxiety to ease of mind; a mild but permeating glow of satisfaction; a sweet consciousness of having done a hard task, a consciousnessbest expressed by a single sigh of content, a faint smile of self-applause.
At midnight, giving place again to Kit, Marryott sank into a troubled sleep, in which he dreamed of juicy beef, succulent ham, every kind of plump fowl, well basted, and the best wines of France, Spain. Italy, and the Rhine. He woke to tortures of the stomach, and the news that Roger Barnet was still smoking, but peevishly walking, despite his lameness of leg, to and fro in the courtyard.
"I tell thee, Hal," said Bottle, after imparting this information, "we may look to see things afoot soon! If Roger is a devil of pertinacity when he is upon the chase, and a devil of patience when he waits, he is a devil of activity when his body ails overmuch!"
"We shall be the sooner forced, then, to set our lives upon a cast!"
"Ay, and better work losing them, than stretching them out to the anguish of our bellies! This fasting is an odious business. The men are chewing the fire-wood and their leather jerkins."
"Have they complained?" asked Hal.
"Not a dog among 'em! These be choice rascals all! They bear hunger with no more words than dumb beasts. They'll starve with thee, or die with thee, to the last knave of them!"
Marryott looked silently at Bottle; and saw in hisface the very dog-like fidelity he described in the others. He knew what uncomplaining, unpretending steadfastness there was in Anthony Underhill, too.
"Brave hearts!" murmured Hal, and the next instant he had taken a resolution.
"Is Roger Barnet a keeper of his word?" he asked.
"When he hath not overmuch to lose by it," replied Kit, wondering at the question.
"If, on condition of his letting mine innocent followers go free, I proposed to shorten his task by giving myself up, and he agreed thereto, would he keep that agreement?"
"But, God's death, Hal, thou'lt propose no such thing!"
"Thou'lt propose it for me; till all is done I must not show my face. And thou'lt not name me as Sir Valentine Fleetwood, but speak of me merely as the gentleman you serve. So when Barnet discovers I am not the knight, he will find himself still bound by his word to the condition."
"But old Kit will never be go-between to buy his life with thy giving thyself up!"
"'Troth, thou wilt! For, look you, since I must in any case be taken, why need also my men suffer? Wilt rob me of my one consolation, the saving of my faithful followers? Wilt send me entirely sad of heart to London? Wilt not let me cheer myselfwith knowledge of having done this little deed befitting a gentleman? Have I not full right to get my self-approval by this act? Wouldst thou hinder my using the one right by which I may somewhat comfort myself? Thou wilt do as I bid thee, old Kit; else I swear on this crossed hilt I will go forth at once, and surrender myself the more unhappily for that I may not save my men!"
"Nay, Hal, softly! If the thing lies so to thy heart, 'tis not old Kit shall go against thy wish. But I have the right of giving myself up with thee. Save the rest an thou wilt, I shall not be sorry. But let Kit Bottle attend thee still, to the end of it!"
"Now thou talkest arrant foolishness, Kit! For look you, if thou'rt free, canst thou not serve me to the better effect? Consider how many miles and days it is to London. Once I am this fellow's prisoner, and seem to have no will or spirit left, may not my guards grow heedless? An thou art free, riding after me to London, who can say what chance may not occur for rescue and escape? Let me but save thee and these true fellows by giving myself up; then may we look for means of saving myself on the journey to London." Hal said this but to induce Kit to accept freedom with the others if it could be obtained, and it seemed to make the desired impression.
"Why, there is something in that," said Kit, thoughtfully. "But we have been wasting talk. Roger Barnet, now that thy taking is but matter of time, will not make terms. He is no man for concessions or half-way meetings."
"But he hath much to gain by my offer: the time saved, the certainty of taking his man alive and without loss to his own party, the greater ease of carrying one prisoner than many to London. He should be glad of pretext to be rid of the underlings."
"Truly said, in sooth. But the nature of the man is against making treaty with an opponent, e'en though to his own advantage."
Marryott thought for a moment. Then he said:
"Let him not seem to make treaty with his opponent. Let the treaty be with my seeming betrayers. This will better accord with his nature, methinks. My men shall offer to give me up to him, in purchase of their own freedom. So will he regard my men as choosing to become his allies, and he will think that through them he gets the better of their master; he will have justification for letting them go free."
"By my troth, thou'rt a knower of men, Hal! Roger would be ashamed to profit by a treaty with his enemy, but not by treachery of that enemy's following. There'll be some relish in fooling him thus!"
"Then set straightways about it. Speak to him from the oriel, stealthily, as befits the seeming treason."
"I hate even to seem traitor to thee, Hal; but 'tis for thy purposes, and to make a gull of Roger Barnet."
With which the captain mounted the stairs leading to the gallery, leaving Marryott waiting by the fire.
Kit had the skill of gesture and grimace, to convey across the quadrangle to his one-time comrade that secret things were to be told, and that a truce, if granted, would not on his part be violated. Barnet, who could rely upon the steel he wore and the pistols he carried, as well as on Kit's pantomimic word of honor, strode boldly over to a place beneath the window. With an appearance of great caution, Kit asked him, on behalf of himself and his comrades, not of the gentleman they served, what would be done with them if they were taken. Roger lightly answered that he would see them hanged. This led naturally to the broaching of Kit's terms.
The ensuing conversation was of some length, and carried on mostly by Kit, who skilfully put before the pursuivant's mind the advantages to be gained by accepting the offer. Now, as Barnet's warrant called for Kit's supposed employer only, as Barnet had been so many days from London, as the lameness of his leg tried his patience, as the mansionlooked impregnable, and as he was loath to resort to local assistance in storming it, it really seemed folly for him to reject an important bird in hand for the doubtful satisfaction of bagging a number of insignificant birds who might prove only a burden to him. He held out, however, until he could bring himself to relinquish the cherished hope of conducting his old friend Bottle to the gallows.
It was at last agreed that Kit and his comrades should deliver over their commander, disarmed and with wrists bound, at the main door, within half an hour.
As soon as Marryott was informed of this, he summoned all the men (save Kit, to whom was assigned the guardianship of Mistress Hazlehurst's chamber for the while), and told them of the agreement. They stared at him and at one another with little show of feeling, and in silence, excepting Anthony, who muttered:
"I had as lief I had been left out of the purchase."
"Go to Mistress Hazlehurst's door, Anthony," said Marryott, "and send hither Captain Bottle, that he may tie my hands and deliver me forth. And conduct the lady hither, that she may go forth at the same time. I think she will not delay, for you will tell her she is to have her freedom."
He then divided his money among the men, that they might shift for themselves after his surrender;obtained the promise of the able-bodied to care for the wounded; and finally ordered them to remove the defences of the door. Hal had previously furnished Kit's purse; Anthony had his own supply of coin.
When Mistress Hazlehurst came down the stairs, a little pale and haggard from her fast, but no less beautiful of eye and outline, and with no less clearness of skin, Marryott stood already bound, Kit at his side, the men waiting silently in the background. She noticed that Hal's hands were behind his back, but could not make sure whether they were tied. Slightly puzzled at the scene, she looked back at Anthony as for an explanation.
Kit Bottle motioned one of the men to open the door; he then indicated to Mistress Hazlehurst, by a gesture, that she might pass out. She did so, in some wonder. Francis, whose head was bandaged, followed her. Anthony stopped at the other side of Marryott than that on which Kit Bottle was.
Beyond the porch outside, and facing the door, stood Roger Barnet; several men were in line on either hand of the way. The pursuivant looked at Anne as if she were not the one he expected. He made way for her to pass, however; but as soon as she had done so, she turned and looked curiously back at the open door.
Forth came the supposed Sir Valentine Fleetwood,walking listlessly, his hands still behind his back. Kit and Anthony grasping him by either shoulder.
"Take your man, master pursuivant," said Bottle, huskily. He and the Puritan then stopped, and seemed to thrust their prisoner slightly forward for Barnet's acceptance; but they still held his shoulders.
Barnet, whose left hand clasped a document, took a step toward the prisoner, who perforce remained motionless. Then the pursuivant paused, and stared at Hal with a mixture of bewilderment and slow-gathering dismay. The armed men craned their necks to see the object of their long pursuit.
"Why," said Barnet, his voice faltering for once, "this is not the man!"
Mistress Hazlehurst became acutely attentive.
"'Tis the gentleman we have served these last six days," replied Kit Bottle, with great composure.
"God's life!" cried Barnet, having recovered full vocal energy, "there is a scurvy trick here, to give Sir Valentine Fleetwood chance of leaving this house while I'm befooled! But 'twill not serve! All sides are watched! Into the house, you four; search every corner, and drag out the fox!"
The men to whom Barnet spoke hastened to obey, leaving four of their comrades with their leader.
"They'll find naught, Roger," said Kit. "I swearthis gentleman is he we have been travelling with from Welwyn."
"He says truly, pursuivant!" cried Mistress Hazlehurst, stepping forward to Barnet's side. "'Tis Sir Valentine Fleetwood, of a surety; for I, too, have travelled with him these six days."
"I don't gainsay you have travelled with him, lady," said Barnet. "But if you take him for Sir Valentine Fleetwood, either you know not Sir Valentine as well as I do, or your eyes play you tricks!"
"Nay," put in Marryott, quietly, "blame not others' eyes, man, till your own eyes never see false!" With which he thrust out his left elbow, stiffened his neck, and took on what other outward peculiarities he had caught from Sir Valentine.
"By the foul fiend," said Barnet, in a tone that befitted his dark, wrathful look, "there has been some kind of vile player's work here! 'Twas a false beard, that night!"
"Ay!" spoke up one of his men. "I have wondered where to place the gentleman. Your word player sets me right. He is an actor I have seen at the Globe, and in the ale-houses. I forget his name."
"Is it Marryott?" asked Barnet, remembering what he had learned in Clown.
"Ay, that's it! I drew him many a pot of beer when I was a tapster."
"Then by the devil's horns," quoth Barnet, irefully, "he hath played his last part when he hath played upon me, with his false beard and like devices! If, indeed, you have led me off, Master Marryott, and Sir Valentine Fleetwood hath fled over seas, by God, it shall go hard but you die in's place for aiding a traitor! I take you in the queen's name, Sir Player. Nay, question not my right; I have blank warrants for emergent use; your name is soon writ; and back to London you shall ride, with your feet tied 'neath the horse's belly! Mistress, this is part your doing; for you told me 'twas Sir Valentine passed you i' the road that night. You have had all your labor for the wrong man, and given the right one time to 'scape both you and me!"
But his words might have fallen upon the ears of a statue. Anne had realized in a flash all that words could tell her, and this much more: that the captured man loved her, and was a prisoner through her use of his love; and that, even though she had had the resolution to feign illness,—
Thought failed her, and she stood leaning on the shoulder of her page, pallor and inertia betokening the utter consternation of her heart.
CHAPTER XXII.SPEECH WITHOUT WORDS.
"Her eye discourses; I will answer it."—Romeo and Juliet.
Latein the afternoon of that day—Tuesday. March 10th—there rode into Skipton from the north, and took lodging for the night at the principal inn, a party of horsemen, commanded by a stout, hard-browed, black-bearded man, and conducting a pale, tired young gentleman whose hands were tied behind him and whose ankles were fastened with a rope that passed beneath the body of his led horse.
When the troop had come to a halt, and accommodations, had been bespoken, the leader caused two of his men to release the prisoner's legs, but not his hands, and then marched with him, preceded and followed by guards, to an upper room overlooking the stableyard. Here four armed men were left with the prisoner, to whom presently supper was brought. Though without weapons, his wrists were still kept tied; his food had to be conveyed to his mouth by one of his guards. He might sleep on thebed when he chose; but asleep or awake he must remain thus guarded and bound.
Five minutes after the arrival of this troop at the inn, a smaller party appeared from the same direction. Its chief figure was a weary-looking young lady, deeply buried in her thoughts, and attended by a youthful Page_whose head was bandaged, a boldfaced old fellow, and a lean and sad-visaged man in sombre garments. This company, finding the first inn now full, sought and obtained lodging at a smaller one, not far away.
On the journey thither, these two groups of riders had been more than once in sight of each other. Both Marryott and Barnet had observed that Captain Bottle and the Puritan were serving Mistress Hazlehurst as escort,—a circumstance that seemed to the pursuivant quite natural, since the lady was no friend of Marryott's and the two men were, in Barnet's belief, Marryott's betrayers. Barnet himself had offered to let her ride under his protection on the southward journey; but she had refused, and had watched in silence, with Kit and Anthony, the departure of the prisoner from Foxby Hall. Whatever arrangement she had made with the two men must have been made after that departure.
Hal explained matters to himself by the supposition that Kit Bottle and Anthony, whom she, too, must regard as his betrayers, had offered her theirescort, that they might with less suspicion follow close upon the heels of his captors toward London. He knew that she was ill supplied in purse for the homeward journey, and he guessed that she had obtained of Anthony a loan of money to pay the escort and inn charges. In this guess, he was right; but it was scarce possible that he should have divined what other understanding had passed between the lady and his two adherents.
He was glad, in the dull way in which thought and feeling now worked within him, that she had found so good an escort. When she had declined Barnet's offer, he had feared she might unwittingly expose herself to new danger, though he had believed that Kit and Anthony, knowing his own wishes, would protect her, in spite of herself, to some gentleman's house where she might procure both money and servants.
As for the robbers who had shared his siege at Foxby Hall, Hal knew, by their absence from Mistress Hazlehurst's party, that they had been left to choose their own ways. The money he had given them would enable them to transport themselves to distant parts of the kingdom ere Rumney was likely to traverse again the neighborhood of Foxby Hall.
Hal slept lightly but calmly. His slumber was but half slumber, even as his waking state was a kindof lethargic dream. He recked not of past, present, or future.
At dawn breakfast was brought to him and readily eaten. So indifferent had he become, so little feeling was active in him, so little emotion was there to affect his physical state, that not even his appetite was altered; his body led a healthy, normal existence, save for the fatigue from which it was already recovering, but his mind and heart languished half inert.
After breakfast the southward road was resumed, with no deviation from the order of the previous day. Anne's party rode out from the other inn as Barnet's was passing. Was this mere accident, thought Hal, or was it by precaution of Kit Bottle?
The way was choked with snow. In some places this had drifted so as to bury the fences, where it happened—as was rare—that the road was flanked by such enclosures. In other spots, the earth was swept bare. The drifting still continued, for, though the day was clear, another high wind had arisen. It blew the fine, biting crystals into the riders' faces, reddened their cheeks and eyelids, and seemed to add to the discomfort of Roger Barnet.
For the sufferings of the pursuivant, due to the use of the wounded leg when it demanded rest, were now plainly telling upon him. His face was haggard; under his breath, he was fretful; such manifestations,on the part of a man so obstinate against the show of pain, meant that he was in physical agony.
At Halifax, he ordered a rest for dinner. The day being very cold, Marryott was led to a room in the inn's topmost story, where he dined with four guards precisely as he had supped at Skipton. Before entering the town, he had lost sight of Mistress Hazlehurst's party; indeed, it was not often, on the journey, that he availed himself of some bend of the road to turn his head and look back.
When he had finished his dinner, Marryott let his glance stray idly through the window. He had a view of a side lane that ran, apparently, from a street beneath his room. The lane ended at its junction with another street. Up and down that other street, so as to cross the end of the lane at brief intervals, a riderless horse was being led by a boy whose head was wrapped around with handkerchiefs. Was not the boy Francis? And why was he exercising a saddled horse in such a place so far from this inn, not perceptibly near any other? The question dwelt in Hal's mind for a moment: then fled, at Barnet's summons to horse.
Not till he had covered several miles out of Halifax did Marryott catch his next glimpse of Anne and her three attendants. They were then at a good distance behind; but gradually during theafternoon they decreased the distance,—a natural enough thing to do, for the proximity of Barnet's martial-looking troop was a protection. That evening both parties lodged at Barnesley. The state of the roads, and of Barnet's leg, had forbidden faster progress. It was not quite dark when Hal was led into the chamber where he was to sup and sleep. He sat down on a joint-stool by the window.
Ten minutes passed. Awaiting his supper, he was still looking listlessly out of the window at the darkening evening. Was not that Anthony Underhill yonder, leading a riderless horse to and fro upon the green that was visible through a gap in the row of houses opposite the inn? It was odd that he should haply be repeating in Hal's view at supper-time the action that Francis had performed in Hal's sight at dinner-time. The arrival of pickled herrings and ale drew Marryott's eyes from the window, and his mind from the spectacle.
The next morning, on arising to depart, Marryott by chance beheld, this time with a touch of wondering amusement, another repetition of the same performance, with the single difference that now the leader of the horse was Kit Bottle.
When some hours of the forenoon journey had been spent, Marryott, looking back, saw with a little surprise that Anne's party was close behind his own. Barnet rode at his side, leading his horse; half ofthe escort rode two and two in front, the other half in the rear. These rear horsemen intervened between Hal and Anne; but as he ascended the side of a hollow he could look over the heads behind him to her as she descended the farther side.
Her glance met his; and in it was a kind of message, which she seemed to have long awaited the moment for delivering. With all possible eloquence of eyes and face, she appeared to express apology, a request for pardon, a wish to serve him! Ere he could assure himself by keener inspection whether he had read aright the look that had thrilled him out of his lethargy, he had reached the crest of the ascent, and the men behind him had closed his view.
Poignantly alive now in mind and heart, he tormented himself for several miles with conjectures whether her expression had been intentional on her part or correctly translated on his. This he could best ascertain by sending her, at the first opportunity, a look in reply.
When he was next in line of sight with her, he glanced back his answer. It consisted merely of a faint smile, soft and kindly, by which he hoped to say that he understood, forgave, and loved.
To his unutterable joy, she instantly responded with a smile that was the echo of his own.
This conversation, carried on so silently and at such distance, but so decisive and full of import,was of course so conducted that Marryott's captors suspected nothing of it. A certain curiosity as to whether his supposed betrayers were following him toward London was natural on the part of one in his situation, and it accounted, in Barnet's mind, for his looking back.
At Clown, dining in the very ale-house chamber whence Mistress Hazlehurst had looked at his detention by the constable's men, Marryott saw, some way down the lane from which the coach had been drawn, a riderless horse led back and forth by Francis. It flashed upon him at last that the continual recurrence of this scene must be more than mere coincidence.
In the afternoon, Marryott had but one opportunity to exchange looks with Anne. This was where the road turned sharply in such direction that, by glancing sidewise and across the back of Barnet's horse, he could see her through a sparse copse that filled the angle. Her expression now suggested alertness and craft, as if for his imitation; and she pointed with her forefinger to the horse ridden by Francis at her side. The trees cut off his view ere the gesture was complete; but he understood; it meant, "You will find a horse ready, if you can break from your guards!"
CHAPTER XXIII.THE LONDON ROAD.
"How many miles to London town?"—Old Song.
Andnow Master Marryott was himself again, with the will to break away if he could, and the eye for the opportunity if it should occur. It was plain that she had ceased to view him with antagonism or indifference. And her interest in him—an interest so strong as to overcome or exclude resentment toward him as the agent of Sir Valentine Fleetwood's escape from her as well as from the government—surely sprang from some more powerful feeling than mere regret for a man placed by her in a peril she had designed for another. To have caused her to order or sanction the holding of the horse in readiness, her interest must have fully taken up her mind. Perhaps to this fact was due her evident relinquishment of revenge upon Sir Valentine, as much as to that knight's present inaccessibility, and to the stupefying blow her vengeful impulse had received in the disclosure that her far and toilsome quest inits service had but led her from the right object to the wrong one.
Whence had this interest arisen? Doubtless from her musing on the love he had shown in staying to protect her that night at Foxby Hall; on the annoyances and delays to which she had subjected him during his long flight, and on his uniform gentleness to her in his necessary severity toward her.
Could he indeed break from his guards and escape, that he might satisfy himself on these questions, and profit in his love by that interest!
But Roger Barnet's vigilance, like his iron grip on Marryott's bridle when they rode, and on Marryott's arm when they alighted, seemed to increase with his increasing distress of body.
This night they ate and slept at Nottingham. Barnet occupied a second bed in Marryott's chamber. More than once Hal was awakened from sleep—a sleep in which his dreams carried out the wildest plans of escape—by the pursuivant's groans of pain. At dawn Roger's face was that of a man who had neither slept nor known a moment's ease. It was with a desperate stiffening of muscles and clenching of teeth that he forced himself to rise for the continuance of his journey.
Marryott had taken pains to view out the whereabouts of the led horse the previous evening, when, as usual, it had appeared in sight of his window. Hemarvelled not that his friends never failed to find a spot on which his gaze might alight. Kit Bottle, as he knew, had ways of learning, from inn menials of either sex, what room was taken for the prisoner. This morning the horse was at a place some distance from where it had been yesternight. Bottle was leading it; and the picture had a new figure, in the shape of a horse a little farther off. This second horse had a rider,—Anne Hazlehurst!
What would he not give now for means of escape? But there, hemming him in, were his four silent, stalwart guards; and beyond them, with cold eyes now red-rimmed from a restless night but fixed implacably on him, was the equally silent Barnet.
The wind had blown itself to other regions; the day was as fair as it was serene; it was milder, too, than days had been of late. But Hal's captors made poor travelling. Barnet had to halt often, as he could now scarce endure the pain caused by the movement of his horse. He stopped for dinner when he had ridden no farther than to Melton Mowbray and when it was no later than eleven o'clock.
Marryott took what scant comfort of mind he could, in this slowness of the journey toward London. Yet slow as it was, it was all too fast. London was but little more than a hundred miles away, now. Only a hundred miles of opportunity for that miracle of accident, or ingenuity and skill, by which hemight save himself for the joys awaiting him in Anne Hazlehurst's love! Life had begun to taste ineffably sweet. The world was marvellously beautiful on such a day. But when he faced the terrible likelihood of a speedy hurling hence to "that undiscovered country," where there could not be a fairer sky to look upon, or purer air to breathe, and where there was no Anne Hazlehurst, the beauty of the day mocked him.
And the sight of the horse, too, mocked him, as it passively waited to bear him far from the reclaiming pursuit of death the moment he might slip from death's arms closing tighter around him. His heart cried "Avaunt, death! I am not for thee! Love and beauty await me; they, and this glad earth even now waking to joy at the first breath of spring! I am for this world, with its music and its wine, its laughter and its poetry, its green fields and its many-colored cities, its pleasures of good-fellowship, its smiles of the woman beloved! Unhand me, death; go your ways, black monster; I am life's own!" He had moments wherein he was half mad, not with the fear of death, but with the love of life; yet his madness had so much method in it that he gave no outward sign of it, lest his alertness for some means of escape might be suspected.
Back in the saddle, after dinner, to decrease by another afternoon's riding: those hundred miles toLondon town, Marryott observed in Barnet's face the fierce resolution which a man gathers for a last fight against physical anguish. So these two rode side by side, the captor concealing tortures of the body, the prisoner veiling tortures of the mind. At two o'clock they clattered into Oakham. When they arrived before the gate of a large inn, Roger Barnet suddenly called a halt, and said, in tones whose gruffness was somewhat broken by a note of bodily suffering:
"We'll tarry the day out here, and start fresh on the morrow. The foul fiend is in my leg!"
He thereupon sent Hudsdon to order rooms made ready, so that the prisoner might, as usual, be conducted from the horse to his chamber without stoppage. Barnet did not yet ride into the inn yard, for he noticed a crowd and a bustle therein, and preferred not to enter until it should be certain he would not have to go elsewhere for lodging. Here, as in other towns, the pursuivant kept his men close around the prisoner, as much to conceal the latter's bound wrists and legs from lookers-on as for any other purpose. Thus few people, if any, observed that here was a prisoner, and so no crowd collected.
As Hal sat his horse, awaiting Hudsdon's return, he bethought him that this day was Friday, March 13th,—the tenth day since his departure from Fleetwood house. The time he had undertaken to obtainfor Sir Valentine would be past that evening,—and Welwyn was still seventy miles away!
This geographical fact, connected as it was with the certainty that he had more than accomplished his adventure, called up another and less pleasing fact, of which indeed he needed little reminder,—the fact that not a hundred miles now remained of the road to London.
His reflections were cut short by the reappearance of Hudsdon, who spoke to Barnet in whispers. The party then rode around to a side door of the inn, doubtless to avoid taking the prisoner through the crowd in the great yard. The hostess had already opened this door. Barnet and four men alighted from their horses, enabled Hal to dismount, and led him, at the heels of a chamberlain, through passages and up-stairs to a room. He had noticed, as he entered, that hostlers had already come from the inn gate to take the horses to stable by the usual route.
Hal's first glance, on entering his chamber, was for the window. To his dismay, it opened, not so as to give a view of street or of places exterior to the inn, but so as to command a part of the square inn yard, which was enclosed on three sides by the inn itself, on the fourth by a wall and gate. What hid a portion of this yard, which was far below, was the downward-sloping roof of the long upper galleryor balcony that traversed the three inner sides of the house. Situated as he now was, he could have no sight of the waiting horse.
"What do you see to make you stare so?" asked the watchful Barnet.
"Naught but the crowd in the inn yard," replied Hal, with barely the heart to dissemble. "'Tis more than common, methinks."
"Yes. Heard you not what Hudsdon said? There is to be a play in the yard; the town will not give the guildhall for plays on a Friday in Lent."30
"A play? Who are the players?"
"The lord chamberlain's men that are now travelling. They are wont to play at the Globe,—why, that is where you played, is't not so?"
But Hal heeded not the question. The lord chamberlain's men! Shakespeare, Sly, his friends, who a moment since had seemed worlds and ages away!
And, that very instant, a familiar voice rang out above the noise of the crowd below.