So deep was Evander in his book that he did not hear a lady’s footfalls on the grass. When the discomfited Sir Blaise had quitted the arena Brilliana held herself unseen and then swiftly sped back to the pleasaunce. She stood for some seconds on the threshold of a yew arch watching the reading man and wondering why it had pleased Providence to make a Puritan so personable and skilful, wondering why she of all women should take any interest either in his person or in his skill, wondering how long he would remain buried in his tiresome book unconscious of her presence. She decided that she would slip away and leave him ignorant of her coming, and having decided that, she coughed loudly, at which sound, of course, he turned round, saw her, and rose respectfully to his feet.
“I fear I trespass in your paradise,” he said, wistfully.
“My honor, no!” Brilliana cried, pretendingto look about her anxiously. “But where is Sir Blaise? I hope you two did not quarrel.”
“No, no,” Evander protested; “we parted on clasped hands. Some pressing matter called him to his quarters.”
“Did you pay him apology for your equivocal wit?” Brilliana asked, demurely.
Evander answered gravely: “He professed himself satisfied.”
Brilliana feigned a cry of horror.
“I trust you did not eat your words.”
Evander shook his head.
“I am not so hungry. Have I your leave to go?”
He made as if to depart; Brilliana met his motion with a little frown.
“Are you so eager?” she asked, in a voice in which regret and petulance were dexterously commingled.
Evander answered her gravely. “Yesterday you said that a Puritan presence was hateful.”
Brilliana laughed blithely and her curls quivered in the sunshine.
“You must not harp on a mad maid’s anger. Yesterday you were my enemy, a thing of threats and treason. To-day all’s different; to-day you are my guest. Soon you will ride hence, and we will, if Providence please, nevermeet again. But for a span of hours let us make believe to be friend and friend, till Colonel Cromwell send my cousin and your liberty.”
Evander was tempted to quarrel with himself for being so ready to welcome this overture. But yesterday this woman had spattered him with insults, snared him on a strained plea, bargained away his life for the body of a spy. Yesterday she had shuddered at the thought of any link of kinship between them, as she might have shuddered at kinship with a wronger of women, a killer of children, a coward. Yet to-day, as she stood there, sunshine on her hair, sunshine in her eyes, a fairy lady standing in that circle of solemn yews, he could find in his heart no regret for anything that had brought him to her presence. He would take gladly what she offered gayly, two days of friendship with so radiant a maid—and then? He left that thought unanswered to reply to Brilliana.
“Madam,” he said, with a very ceremonious bow, “I will pretend that we are going to be friends till the end of my life.”
Brilliana clapped her hands like a child that has been promised some coveted comfit.
“You are brave at make-believe. In the mean time let us keep each other company a little. Surely it is dull for a man of action to bea prisoner, and for my own part I mope sadly now that my little war is well over.”
She had seated herself as she spoke, and she motioned to Evander to take his place by her side. When she paused he asked:
“Are you so strenuous an amazon?”
She answered him very earnestly:
“I miss the splendid music of the siege, the stir of arms, the bustle of giving order, the alertness of expectation. I did not think a woman’s life could be tuned to so high a diapason. Just think of it! Yesterday, and for many yesterdays, I was a leaguered lady, a priestess of battles; I stood for the King; existence was one fierce ecstasy. To drop from that brisk spin and whetted edge of life into this housewife’s twilight is all one with being some sea-old admiral and drowning in a canal.”
The daughters of Israel could not have thrown more sadness into their voice, Evander thought, as they sang by the waters of Babylon. If her face was fair in animation, it seemed still more fair in sadness.
“Has the Lady of Harby no employment,” he asked, gently, “to spur the trudging time?”
Brilliana laughed rather cheerlessly.
“Oh, mercy, yes! Can she not overwatch the gardener to see that he planteth the rightsort of herbs and flowers at the new of the moon, at moon full, and at moon old? She can chat with Mistress Cook of sallets and fricassees and fritters; she can count the linen; she can preserve quinces; she can distil you aqua composita or imperial water, or water of Bettony, against she grow old; she can be dairy-wise, cellar-wise, laundry-wise—oh, there are a thousand thousand things she can do if she want to do them, but the plague of it is, since I have burned powder, these decent drudgeries no longer divert me.”
She gave a little sigh as she ended her enumeration of a housewife’s tasks, and then banished the sigh with a smile. Evander found himself thinking that a man might count himself happy for whom this lady should sigh so at parting and smile so in welcome. But what he said was:
“Against your next distillation I can give you a very praisable recipe for a cordial. It is a Swedish fancy and much favored by the ladies of the North.”
Brilliana looked him full in the face and laughed very merrily, and he felt his cheeks redden at her gaze and her mirth.
“Was there ever such a man-marvel?” she asked. “All my people praise you for somedifferent accomplishment. A horseman, a gardener, the best at fence, the best, too, with a cudgel—”
“Ah, madam,” Evander interrupted, apologetically, “pray how has that come to your ears?”
“Never mind how it came,” Brilliana answered, “so that it has come and that I owe you no ill-will for teaching a foolish gentleman a lesson. But you can shoot, it seems, and play games, and are apt in out-door arts and wise in out-of-doors wisdom—for all the world like a country gentleman.”
“Madam, I am, as I hope, a gentleman, and as for the country knowledge, I have lived its life in many lands and learned something by the way.”
“And now,” Brilliana bantered on, “you boast some science of the still-room, and Mistress Satchell speaks of a Spanish manner of grilling capons. Are you, perhaps, a herald as well as a master cook, and do you know something of the gentle and joyous craft of the huntsman?”
Evander took her in her humor and bandied back the ball of qualification.
“I can prick a coat indifferently well,” he responded, solemnly, “and if such trifles delight you, I can blaze arms by the days of the weekor the ages of man or the flowers of the field, though I hold that a true herald will never stray beyond colors.”
Brilliana nodded her head with an air of profound approval. “Better and better,” she murmured. Evander went on with his catalogue of self-compliment.
“And as for my woodcraft, I can name you all the names of a male deer, from hind calf, year by year, through brocket and spayed, and staggard and stag, till his sixth year, when he is truly a hart and has his rights of brow, bay, and tray antlers. I am skilled in the uses of falcon-gentle, gerfalcon, saker, lanner, merlin, hobby, goshawk, sparrow-hawk, and musket—”
Brilliana interrupted him with an impetuous gesture of command, and Evander made an end of his display.
“Enough, enough!” she cried. “I feel like Balkis when she came to sip wisdom from Solomon’s goblet. If I question you further I may find that, like my Lord Verulam, you have taken all knowledge for your province. This is something uncanny in a Puritan.”
Evander protested.
“Why should a man deny the arts of life because he finds strength in the faith of the Puritans?”
“I know not why,” Brilliana answered, “but so it is generally believed among us who are not Puritans.”
“There are fanatic fellows with us as in all causes,” Evander admitted, “and some, it may be, who wear moroseness to gain favor. But these are no more than the fringe of a stout cloak. I am no exceptional Puritan, I promise you. Colonel Cromwell himself—”
Brilliana interrupted him with a frowning imperiousness.
“Let us not talk of Colonel Cromwell,” she commanded.
“I wish you would let me speak of Colonel Cromwell,” Evander pleaded. “He has long been my dear friend, and—”
“Let us not talk of Colonel Cromwell,” Brilliana repeated, with a peremptory stamp of the foot. “I want to talk of you and your curious Puritanism. I thought you were all too hypocritically devout to have any care for the toys and colors of life.”
“To be devout is not to be hypocritical,” Evander urged, gently. “And, to speak for myself, I hope I am devout, but I do not find my faith weakened by honorable enjoyment of honorable pleasures. Yet, indeed, what poor accomplishments I can lay claim to—and toafford you diversion, I have somewhat exaggerated their scope and number—are due directly to my being a Puritan—”
“You are pleased to be paradoxical,” Brilliana asserted. Evander put the suggestion aside with a head shake.
“To my being a Puritan and to my being of your kin. When I was a boy I learned of that kinship, learned how her marriage with a Puritan had earned for a woman of your race the scorn, indeed the hatred of her family, or those who should most and best have loved her.”
“You do not understand how strongly those who think as we think feel on such a matter,” Brilliana urged, one-half of her spirit angry that she was speaking almost apologetically, the other half vexed that the first half was not more angry.
“Forgive me,” said Evander, “but I do understand; I understand very well; I made it my business to understand. And, therefore, I resolved that so far as in me lay I would show those who scorned my people and my creed that a Puritan might compete with his enemies in all the arts and graces they held most dear, and not come off the worst in all encounters.”
“That was a brave resolve!” Brilliana’s eyesand voice applauded him. He flushed a little as he went on.
“It was a kind of oath of Hannibal. God was gracious in the gift of a strong will, and I stuck to my purpose. I mastered arts, acquired tongues, forced myself to dexterity in all manly exercises. I had a modest patrimony which allowed me to travel after I left Cambridge, and so gain that knowledge of the world which is so dear to English gentlemen. And always in my thoughts it was: some day I may meet some son of the house that cast us out and show him that a Puritan might fear God and yet ride a horse, fly a hawk, and use a sword with the best of his enemies.”
“Instead of which,” said Brilliana, as he paused, “you meet a daughter of the house and play your well-practised part to her.” Her voice was stern now and her eyes shone fiercely as she leaned forward and continued in a low voice, “Was this the cause of your coming to Harby?”
“No,” Evander answered. “I should never have come to Harby of my own accord. But news came to Cambridge of your flying the King’s flag. The example was dangerous; Harby was a good house for either side to hold. Colonel Cromwell commanded me to marchwith the volunteers I had raised at Cambridge to secure Harby in the name of the Parliament.”
“And you were very glad to obey,” Brilliana said, bitterly, and again Evander shook his head.
“I was very sorry to obey. But I had no choice. Colonel Cromwell was my father’s friend; he knew the story of my people; he set it upon me as a special seal for righteousness that I should do this thing. ‘Kin shall be set against kin in this strife,’ he said, ‘father against son, and brother against brother. Go forth in the name of the Lord and pluck the banner of Baal from the wall of Harby.’ And I went.”
Brilliana, lifting her head, looked over the green wall of yews to where, in the cool, gray-blue of the October sky, the royal standard fluttered its gaudy folds in the wind. She said nothing, but her smile spoke whole volumes of victories; the panegyrics of a thousand triumphs gleamed in her eyes. Evander read smile and gleam rightly.
“True, I failed,” he admitted. “Yet I may not say that I am sorry, for if I had not failed I should have lost a friend.”
He looked admiringly at her, but Brilliana drew herself up stiffly and regarded him coldly.
“You may be my kinsman without being my friend,” she said, with a sourness which had the effect of making Evander laugh like a boy.
“Why, lady,” he protested, “it is not ten minutes since that you proffered me your friendship.”
“Did I so?” Brilliana asked, puckering her brows as if in doubt, though she had not the least doubt upon the matter.
“Indeed, madam,” said Evander, very earnestly, “friends for a lifetime.” Brilliana snapped contradiction.
“No, no; it was you who said that. I admit the friendship for three days.”
“And I assert the friendship of a lifetime,” Evander persisted. His voice and his eyes were very merry, but there came an unconquerable gnawing at his heart that, in spite of the fair place and the fair face and the sweet discourse, life for him meant no more than a space of three days. Well, then, he would live his three days bravely, brightly. He lifted his eyes to the lady.
“Are you of Master Amiens’ school?” he asked—
“‘Most friendship is feigning, most love is mere folly.’”
“‘Most friendship is feigning, most love is mere folly.’”
She made no reply to his question, but itsmatter surprised her and prompted her to another.
“Do you go to Master Shakespeare’s school?” she asked; and even as she spoke she leaned forward to look at the book he had laid down and to which, till that moment, she had paid no heed. She drew it towards her and saw what it was.
“Why, here are his plays. Can you affect him when ’tis known that the King loves him?”
“I would the King had no worse counsellors,” Evander said, gravely.
Brilliana had lifted the big book onto her lap and was turning the pages tenderly, pausing here and there with loving murmurs.
“Had I been a man,” she said, softly, “I should have turned player for the pleasure to speak such golden words.”
Evander, watching her fair, lowered face under its crown of dark hair, thought of all that Imogen might mean, or Rosalind or Juliet, did each of these dear ones show on the stage like this lady. He gave the odd thought form in speech.
“It is strange,” he said, almost to himself, “that a Cavalier world is content without women players.”
Brilliana lifted her face from the book, andthere was a look of astonishment and even of pain upon it.
“Oh, that is quite another matter,” she said, quickly. “That could never come to pass.”
Evander’s Puritanism, recalled to recollection of itself, felt compelled to assent.
“I trust not,” he said, gravely. He was looking at Brilliana with eyes that were honestly admiring. She rose from her seat.
“I must dismiss you now,” she said, “for I have much to do ere dinner. You will dine with me, I pray.”
Evander made her a not uncourtly bow.
“If I be not unwelcome,” he suggested.
Brilliana shook her head very positively.
“We are pledged friends for the time, and friends love to break bread together.”
There was no countering this argument. Evander took up the folio and made its owner another bow.
“I will attend you at the dinner-hour,” he said. “This treasure I restore to its home.”
As the Parliament man moved away across the grass, his image very dark against its green, Brilliana looked after him, nursing her chin in her palm and her elbow on her knee. As he entered the house with the big book under his arm she took out her pretty handkerchief, andwith much deliberation tied a small knot in one corner of it.
“Master Puritan, Master Puritan,” she murmured, “I must tie a knot in my handkerchief to remind me that you and I are enemies.”
At the dinner-hour Halfman came for Evander, where he sat in the library, and told him that Lady Brilliana awaited him. The meal was served in the banqueting-hall, a splendid, panelled room with deep-embrasured windows, from which the defences had now been removed and through which the inmates could have noble views of the lawns and gardens beyond the moat. The little company of three seemed, as it were, lost in the vastness of the chamber as they sat at meat together at the oak table by the hearth at one end of the room, Brilliana at the head, with Halfman at her right and Evander at her left as the guest and stranger. It proved a vastly pleasant meal to Evander, for the talk was brisk and entertaining, and there was no allusion made to those civil and religious differences which in distracting the country had their curious effect, so unimportant to the country, so important to themselves, of bringing that oddly assorted trio together. Brilliana gave agracious equality of attention to her companions; showed no keener interest in her new visitor than she had found in the conversation of her old acquaintance, and thus made both men very happily at their ease. Indeed, Halfman was at his best that afternoon, playing the genial, ripe, mellow man of the world to perfection, so that Evander found him a most entertaining board-fellow.
They were at the fruit, and Halfman showing them tricks of carving faces in October apples, when Tiffany skipped into the room a-twitter with excitement.
“My lady,” she cried, “here is come Master Paul and two of our people bearing a great box. And I can spy Master Peter and his party with another at the turn of the road.”
Halfman laughed loudly; Brilliana laughed softly; Evander wondered what there was to laugh at.
“Lodge them apart and bring them in by turn,” Brilliana gave order. “Master Paul first and then Master Peter. This is rare. Bring them in, bring them in.”
Tiffany fluttered out and Evander rose from his chair.
“Shall I leave you, lady?” he asked, thinking that she would be private. But Brilliana wouldnot hear of this and motioned to him to keep his seat.
“Nay, sir, stay,” she said, “if you would see some sport.”
Even as she spoke Tiffany returned, ushering in Master Hungerford, followed by two men in Brilliana’s livery, bearing with pains a chest which they set down with a deep breath of relief. Tiffany, who was now in the secret, pretended to be busy at a sideboard so as to stay in the room. Master Paul rubbed his lean fingers together and scraped to the company.
“You have been swift, Master Hungerford,” Brilliana said, approvingly. Master Hungerford smiled furtively.
“Who would not use despatch in the King’s cause and yours. ’Tis as I said: the pestilent Roundhead had a chest full of broad-pieces stuffed under his bed. And here it now is at your feet.” And he pointed victoriously at the spoils of war. Brilliana applauded as if she had been at the play.
“You have done well,” she said, with the tears in her eyes for laughter. Halfman kept a grave face and Evander wondered.
“Call me your knight,” Master Paul pleaded, with a languishing look.
“You have done well, my knight,” Brillianarepeated; then, turning to Tiffany, she bade her see that the chest was set in a place of safety. The two men took up their burden again and followed Tiffany out of the room. But in a jiffy the maid was back again and whispering in her mistress’s ear.
Brilliana turned her amused gaze upon Master Paul.
“Master Hungerford,” she entreated, “will you be so good as to wait awhile in the next chamber. I have some immediate business to deal with, but I would be loath to part company with you so soon if you have the leisure to wait.”
Master Hungerford, protesting his readiness to attend upon her pleasure, was promptly ushered by Halfman into an adjoining room, where he left him, and having closely shut the door, came back shaking with suppressed laughter to Brilliana. Evander, looking from the mirthful man to the mirthful maid, felt constrained to question.
“Why are you so merry?”
“You will know ere the sun is much older,” Brilliana answered, composing her countenance, “for here comes the other.”
As she spoke Tiffany returned, ushering in Master Peter Rainham and a fresh brace of Brilliana’s servants, staggering, like their predecessors,under the weight of a great chest. The certainty that some astonishing jest was towards set Evander on the alert as he scrutinized the forbidding form and features of the new-comer.
“Welcome, thrice welcome, Master Peter Rainham,” cried Brilliana. “You have made good speed.”
Master Peter proffered her an uncouth salutation and pointed to the chest on the floor significantly.
“Lady,” he said, “I have done the King a good turn. There are gold plates there, gold dishes, gold ewers, that will change in the melting-pot to many a troop of horse for the King’s cause.”
“I thank you with all my heart,” Brilliana said, quietly.
Master Peter leered cunningly at her, and earned the cordial dislike of Evander.
“Do you give me your heart with your thanks?” he asked, with what he believed to be gallantry.
Brilliana made a little fanning motion at him with her hand.
“You are too hot,” she said. Then ordered Tiffany, “See these treasures despatched to the King under guard.”
As before, the serving-men took up the chest, which seemed even heavier than the former box, and were convoyed by Tiffany out of the room. Then Brilliana turned to Master Peter, who stood apart biting his nails awkwardly.
“Master Rainham,” she said, “you have shown rare discretion and made brave despatch. I would thank you at greater length were it not that I have company. There is one in the next room who waits to see me. Entreat the gentleman to enter, Captain Halfman.”
Halfman went to the nigh door, and, opening it, summoned with beckoning finger its tenant to come forth. Master Hungerford emerged radiant. For a moment neither squire saw the other. Then Master Rainham, looking away from Brilliana, saw Master Hungerford; and Master Hungerford, looking away from Halfman, saw Master Rainham.
To those who watched the comedy the silence was intense, and throbbing with possibilities as summer air throbs with heat. Brilliana heard Master Rainham say, “What a devil, Master Hungerford,” and Halfman, for his part, averred later that Master Hungerford, too, greeted his neighbor’s presence with an oath. The spectators wondered what would happen: it was plain as noon that each squire for an instantbelieved that the other had discovered larceny and had posted to avenge it. But while each man knew of his own guilt neither could guess or did guess at the other’s theft, and neither reading anger in the other’s visage, each concluded that the meeting was a piece of chance, and each resolved to make the best of it, laughing heartily in his sleeve at the other’s catastrophe. So “Good-morrow, neighbor,” nodded Master Paul, and “Good-day, good-day,” responded Master Peter, and Brilliana thought her bodice would burst with her effort to keep her appreciation a prisoner.
“Why, sirs,” she cried, “this is a good seeing, a pair of neighbors under my roof.”
“What does this fellow here?” Master Paul asked behind his hand of Halfman, who answered, very coolly,
“He comes to pay court to our lady.”
At the same moment, beneath his breath, Master Peter was questioning Brilliana, “Why is that disloyal rogue here?” Brilliana answered, with a pretty toss of the head:
“Would you ever believe it? He came to assure me of his devotion to me and his zeal for his Majesty.”
Master Peter, in wrath, looked more porcine than ever.
“The lying knave,” he grunted. “What are his words to my deeds?”
“What, indeed,” answered Brilliana, demurely. “I pray you persuade him hence.”
“So that I may return alone?”
Thus Master Peter interpreted Brilliana, and the minx gave him a glance which might well be taken as justifying his interpretation. At this moment Master Paul broke in upon their colloquy.
“A word with you, I pray you,” he said, sourly, “if my good neighbor will give me good leave.”
Master Rainham withdrew a little way his self-satisfaction and himself, while Master Paul whispered to Brilliana:
“You know me now: I am proved your friend. Prithee get rid of that mean huckster.”
Brilliana desired nothing better. She gave him the same advice that she had given his neighbor, and was mischievously delighted to find that he interpreted it after the same fashion. It did her heart good to see how the two squires approached each other with many formal expressions of good-will, each persuading the other to depart, and each warmly proffering companionship on the homeward road. In the end they went off together arm in arm, eachendeavoring to convey to Brilliana by nods and winks that he proposed to return alone very shortly.
As soon as they were fairly gone Brilliana and Halfman allowed themselves to laugh like school-boy and school-girl, and then Brilliana commanded Halfman to take order that neither gentleman was to be admitted again. When he had gone on this business she turned to Evander.
“Well,” she said, “have you found the key to the riddle?”
“You have made these two neighbors plunder each other?” he hazarded. Brilliana nodded gleefully, and then, guessing at disapproval in his gravity, she asserted, defiantly:
“It was for the King’s cause. Everything is right for the King’s cause.”
At this flagrant enunciation of Cavalier policy Evander could not but smile.
“How will it end?” he asked. He was to learn that very soon, but first he was to learn other things of greater import to himself.
A day is twenty-four hours if you take it by the card, but the spirit of joy or the spirit of sorrow has the power to multiply its potentialities amazingly. Both these spirits walked by Evander’s side during his second day at Harby. The one that went in sable reminded him that his horizon was dwindling almost to his feet; the other, in rose and gold, hinted that it is better to be emperor for a day than beggar for a century. And truly through all that day Evander esteemed himself happier than an emperor. For he had discovered that Brilliana was the most adorable woman in the world, and, knowing how his span of life was shrinking, he allowed himself to adore without let or hinderance of hostile faiths and warring causes. He did not, as another in his desperate case might have done, make the most of his time by using it for very straightforward love-making. There was a fine austerity in him that denied such a course. Were he an undoomedman his creed and his cause would forbid him to philander; being a doomed man, it could not consort with his honor to act differently. But he was radiantly happy in her constant companionship, and the hours fled from him iris-tinted as he relived the age of gold.
But if Evander trod the air, there was another who pressed the earth with leaden feet and carried a heart of lead. Halfman read Evander’s happiness with hostile eyes; he read, too, very clearly, Brilliana’s content in Evander’s company, and he raged at it. He had grown so used to himself as Brilliana’s ally that he had come to dream mad dreams which were none the less sweet because of their madness. He had rehearsed himself if not as Romeo at least as Othello, and if Brilliana was not in the least like Desdemona that knowledge did not dash him, for he thought her much more delectable than the Venetian, and he thanked his stars that he was not a blackamoor. He had not pushed his thoughts to a precise formula; he had been content to delight during the hours of siege in the companionship of a matchless maid, and now the maid had found another companion, and he knew that he was fiercely in love and as foolishly jealous as a moon-calf. Brilliana was as kind to him as ever, but she gave her time tothe new man, and Halfman, inwardly bleeding and outwardly the magnificent stoic, left the pair to themselves and absented himself at meal-times on pretext of pressing business with the volunteer troop. But his temper grew as a gale grows and would soon prove a whirlwind.
The garden-room at Harby was one of its many glories. Its panelled walls, its portraits of old-time Harbys, its painted ceiling, were exquisite parts of its exquisite harmony. On the side towards the park the wall was little more than a colonnade—to which doors could be fitted in winter-time, and here, as from a loggia, the indweller could feast on one of the fairest prospects in Oxfordshire. Across the moat the gardens stretched, in summer-time a riot of color, flowers glowing like jewels set in green enamel. In the waning autumn the scene was still fair, even though the day was overcast as this day was, from which the weather-wise and even the weather-unwise could freely and confidently prophesy rain. Brilliana dearly loved her garden-room for many things, most, perhaps, because of its full-length portrait of her King, an honest copy from an adorable Vandyke, to which, as to a shrined image, Brilliana paid honest adoration. She knew more about the picture than anyone elsein Harby, and used sometimes to wonder if the knowledge would ever avail her. In the mean time, ever since the troubles began, she always bent a knee whenever she passed the portrait. She had never seen her King, yet she felt as if she saw him daily, visible in the living flesh, so keenly did her loyalty seem to quicken color and canvas. Brilliana was not the only soul in England whose loyalty gave the King a kind of godhead, but if she had many peers she had none, nor could have, who overpassed her.
On the morning of the third day of Evander’s stay at Harby, Halfman sat on the edge of the table in the garden-room and stared through the open doorway into the green beyond. He was alone, and he had flung off the stoic robe and was very frankly an angry man and very frankly a dangerous man. What he saw in the garden maddened him; his eyes glittered like a cat’s that stalks its prey. He had no room in his thoughts for the cottage of his earlier dreams, with its pleasant garden and its lazy hours over ale and tobacco. He thought only of a woman quite beyond his reach, and his heart lusted for the lawless days when your lucky buccaneer might take his pick of a score of women by right of fire and sword and tame his choice as he pleased.
To this mood fortune sent interruption in the person of Sir Blaise Mickleton. Sir Blaise had opened the door expecting to find in the room Brilliana, whom he had come with a purpose to visit, and instead of Brilliana he found this queer soldier swinging his legs from the table and scowling truculently. From what Sir Blaise had already seen of Halfman he found him very little to his mind, but he reflected that he had come on a mission, that Brilliana was nowhere in sight, and that Halfman, who had served her during the siege, might very well direct him where he should find her.
As Halfman took no notice whatever of him, Sir Blaise deemed it advisable, in the interests of his mission, to attract his attention. So he gave a politic cough and followed it with a “Give you good-morrow” of such sufficient loudness that Halfman could not choose but hear it. He did not change his attitude, however, or turn his face from the window, as he answered, in a sullen voice,
“I should need a good-morrow to mend a bad day.”
Sir Blaise had not the wit to let a sleeping dog lie, but must needs prod it to see if it could bark. So he very foolishly said what were indeed obvious even to a greater fool than he.
“You seem in the sullens.”
The sleeping dog could bark. Halfman turned a scowling face upon the knight as he answered, malevolently:
“Swamped, water-logged, foundering. You are a pretty parrakeet to come between me and my musings.”
The tone of Halfman’s speech, the way of Halfman’s demeanor were so offensive that the knight’s cheap dignity took fire. He swelled with displeasure, flushed very red in the gills, and cleared his throat for reproof.
“Master Majordomo, you forget yourself.”
Halfman proved too indifferent or too self-absorbed to take umbrage. He stared into the garden again with a sigh.
“No, I remember myself, and the memory vexes me. I dreamed I was a king, a kaiser, a demigod. I wake, rub my eyes, and am no more than a fool.”
Sir Blaise was patronizingly forgiving. He was thirsty, also the morning was chilly.
“Let us exorcise your devil with a pottle of hot ale,” he suggested. Halfman shook his head wistfully.
“I should be happier in a sable habit, with a steeple hat, and a rank in the Parliament army.”
It was plain to Sir Blaise that a man must be very deep in the dumps who was not to be tempted by hot ale.
“Lordamercy, are you for changing sides now?” he asked.
As Halfman made him no answer but continued to stare gloomily into the garden, Blaise concluded that the interest lay there which made him thus distracted. So he came down to the table and looked over Halfman’s shoulder. In the distance he saw a man and woman walking among the trees. The man was patently the Puritan prisoner, the woman was the chatelaine of Harby. The pair seemed very deep in converse. As Sir Blaise looked, they were out of sight round a turning. Halfman gave a heavy groan and spoke, more to himself, as it seemed, than to his companion.
“Look how they walk in the garden, ever in talk. Time was she would walk and talk with me, listen to my wars and wanderings, and call me a gallant captain.”
“Are you jealous of the Puritan prisoner?” Blaise asked, astonished. Halfman answered with an oath.
“Oh, God, that the siege had lasted forever, or that she had kept her word and blown us sky high.”
Blaise began to snigger.
“’Ods-life! do you dare a love for your lady?” he said. He had better not have said it. Halfman turned on him with a face like a demon’s and the plump knight recoiled.
“Why the red devil should I not,” Halfman asked, hoarsely, “if a bumpkin squire like you may do as much?”
Blaise tried to domineer, but the effort was feeble before the fierceness in Halfman’s glare.
“Are you speaking to me, your superior?” he stammered. Halfman answered him mockingly, with a voice that swelled in menace as the taunting speech ran on.
“Will you ride against me, cross swords with me, come to grips with me any way? You dare not. I am well born, have seen things, done things ’twould make you shiver to hear of them. Come, I am in a fiend’s humor; come with your sword to the orchard and see which of us is the better man.”
Sir Blaise was in a fair panic at this raging fury he had conjured up and now was fain to pacify.
“Soft, soft, honest captain; why so choleric? I would not wrong you. But surely you do not think she favors this Puritan?”
“Oh, he’s a proper man, damn him!” Halfmanadmitted. “He has a right to a woman’s liking. And he must love her, God help him! as every man does that looks on her.”
Blaise looked pathetic.
“What is there to do?” he asked, helplessly. Halfman struck his right fist into his left palm.
“I would do something, I promise you. He is no immortal. But we shall be rid of him soon. If Colonel Cromwell do not surrender Cousin Randolph we are pledged to his killing, and if he do, then our friend rejoins his army; and I pray the devil my master that I may have the joy to pistol him on some stricken field.”
Sir Blaise thought it was time to change the conversation.
“Let us leave these ravings and vaporings,” he entreated, wheedling, “and return to the business of life. And ’tis a very unpleasant business I come on.”
Halfman drew his hand across his forehead as a man who seeks to dissipate ill dreams. Then, with a tranquil face, he gave Blaise the attention he petitioned.
“How so?” he asked. Any business were a pleasing change from his sick thoughts.
“Why, I am a justice of the peace for these parts,” Sir Blaise said, “and I am importunedby two honest neighbors to process of law against your lady.”
Halfman laughed unpleasantly.
“The Lady Brilliana’s wish is the law of this country-side, I promise you.”
He grinned maliciously and fingered at his sword-hilt. Sir Blaise felt exceedingly uncomfortable. Here was no promising beginning for a solemn judicial errand. But the knight had a mighty high sense of his own importance, and he felt himself shielded, as it were, from the tempers of this fire-eater by the dignity of his office and the majesty of the law. So he came to his business with a manner as pompous as he could muster.
“Master Rainham and Master Hungerford are exceedingly angry,” he asserted.
Halfman flouted him and his clients.
“Because she bobbed them so bravely? The knaves came raving to our gates when they found how they had been tricked into picking each other’s pockets. But I made them take to their heels, I promise you. You should have seen their fool faces at the sight of a musket’s muzzle.”
Sir Blaise looked righteously indignant.
“Sir, sir,” he protested, “muskets will not mend matters if these gentlemen have beenwronged. They came hot-foot to me, and in the interests of peace I have entreated them hither. They wait without in the care of two of your people to keep them from flying at each other’s throats.”
Halfman heard the distressing news with equanimity.
“Why not let them kill each other?” he suggested, blandly. Blaise lifted his hands in horror.
“Friend,” he said, “in this mission I am a man of peace. Will you acquaint your lady?”
Halfman grunted acquiescence.
“Oh, ay; bring in your boobies.”
He turned on his heel and swung out through the doorway into the garden.
Sir Blaise looked after him for a moment disapprovingly, then he went to the door by which he had entered, and, opening it, called aloud,
“This way, gentlemen, this way.”
There was a loud, scuffling noise without, as of the trampling of many feet and the inarticulate growlings of wild beasts. Then Clupp entered the room, clasping in his mighty arms the long body of Master Paul Hungerford. He was followed by Garlinge, who was performing the like embracive office for the short body of Master Peter Rainham. The two angry gentlemen plunged and struggled impotently to free themselves from their guardians and hurl themselves at each other’s throats. They might as well have tried to free themselves from clamps of iron. To the master-muscled Garlinge and Clupp—a strong Gyas, a strong Cloanthes, no less—they were no more difficult to restrain than would have been a brace of puling babes. Even their speech was not free to make amends for their captivity, for they were so brimful of choler and had so roared and shrieked their rage ere this that the torrent of their fury spent itself in vacant mouthings and splutterings.Sir Blaise eyed the brawlers with exceeding disfavor.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” he entreated, “be calm, I beg of you.”
At the sound of his voice the disputants found theirs, or rather found themselves restored to command over human speech. Each turned towards Sir Blaise, swaying over the clasped arms of his captor.
“Sir Blaise,” screamed Master Paul, “in the King’s name I call upon you to commit this thief to jail.”
“Set that footpad in the pillory, Sir Blaise,” yelled Master Peter. Then they turned upon each other again.
“You rogue,” cried Master Paul.
“You rascal,” answered Master Peter.
In a second they were again struggling to get at each other, and were, as before, imperturbably held asunder by Garlinge and Clupp.
Again Sir Blaise protested.
“Good friends, be calm, I entreat you.”
“I’ll cut his heart out,” Peter vociferated, stabbing a dirty hand in the direction of his enemy.
“I’ll make him mincemeat,” Paul promised, sawing at the air.
Sir Blaise, turning away in disgust, saw howin the garden Brilliana was making for the house. He frowned on the malcontents.
“Hush, here comes the lady.”
Even as he spoke Brilliana entered from the garden, followed by Evander and Halfman. The girl looked as bright as sunlight as she greeted the company.
“Good-morning, Sir Blaise; good-morning, my masters.”
Then she burst out laughing at the furious faces and helpless gesticulations of the irate claimants. Her laughter was very delightful for most men to hear, but it goaded the squires to frenzy.
“Sir Blaise,” cried Master Paul, “I call you to witness that the lady laughs at us.”
“Sir Blaise,” cried Master Peter, “there stands our undoing.” Brilliana frowned a little and turned to Halfman.
“Friend,” she said, “will you see order here.”
“Very blithely,” Halfman answered. He commanded the servants.
“You, Garlinge and Clupp, see that your prisoners keep silence.”
Master Paul and Master Peter began to protest in chorus.
“We are no prison—” But they got nofurther, for Garlinge and Clupp silenced them by clapping huge hands over their gaping mouths. Brilliana gave a little sigh of relief at the welcome quiet.
“Now, Sir Blaise,” she asked, “why are these gentlemen here?”
Sir Blaise made salutation and answered, “Truly, most paradisiacal lady, these gentlemen make grave allegations that you did insidiously incite them to the commission of a felony.”
Brilliana looked from Sir Blaise to the muffled, grappled plaintiffs and made mirthful decision.
“I represent the King here. I will try this matter.”
Blaise felt bound to lodge protest against this monstrous proposition.
“Perhaps, most Elysian of fair ladies, it would be, as one might say, more seemly if I, as a justice of the peace—”
Brilliana daffed him down.
“Sir Blaise, we are at war now, and by your leave I will handle this matter after my own fashion.”
“I must protest,” Blaise bleated, but Brilliana would not listen to him.
“You must do nothing,” she insisted, “buthelp me to set chairs. One here for me, one there for you, my brother justice; one there for Captain Cloud, who, as a stranger of distinction, shall have a seat on the bench.”
“I thank you for the honor,” said Evander, watching the scene with much entertainment. As Brilliana talked she, with Blaise and Halfman, had been busy placing seats as she directed at the table.
“Captain Halfman,” Brilliana went on, “you write a clerkly hand. Sit you here; you shall be our clerk. Arraign the prisoners.”
By this time all were seated as Brilliana had disposed; Sir Blaise had completely surrendered his dignity to her spell. Even Halfman found pleasure in the grotesque sham trial.
Garlinge and Clupp brought their charges down to face the newly formed tribunal. Halfman spoke.
“Here, my lady, we have two hobs who have come to loggerheads as to which is best disposed to the King. Garlinge, let Master Hungerford speak.” Garlinge removed his massive hand from his prisoner’s mouth, and Paul, after gaping like a fish for some seconds, gasped out,
“Lady, you know well enough how you have befooled us.”
Brilliana stared upon him, bewitchingly unembarrassed by the charge.
“Manners, master,” cried Halfman, angrily, “or I’ll manner you.”
Brilliana daintily deprecated his heat.
“Wait, wait,” she said. “First of all, are you a loyal subject of the King?”
Master Paul rubbed his chin dubiously. “That is as it may be,” he muttered.
Brilliana tapped the table. “Faint hesitation is flat treason,” she cried. Turning to Halfman, she commanded, “Write him down for a confessed Roundhead.”
Master Paul clawed towards her excitedly.
“No, no; pray you not so fast,” he entreated. “I am a good King’s man.”
Brilliana condescended approval.
“He amends his plea,” she noted to Halfman. Master Paul went on, fractiously,
“But that does not make me love to be plundered.”
Brilliana rose and, resting the tips of her fingers on the table, addressed Master Hungerford sternly.
“Master Hungerford, one of two things. Either you are a Roundhead, in which case you have no rights in loyal, royal Oxfordshire—say I not well, Sir Blaise?”
“Marvellous well,” Sir Blaise assented.
“Ergo,” Brilliana continued, “having no rights you have no goods, having no goods you cannot be plundered.”
“Yet I was plundered,” Master Paul protested. Brilliana exorcised the plea.
“We shall convince you to the contrary. If you are no Roundhead then you are a stanch Cavalier, and in the King’s name you confiscated certain gear of your fellow-prisoner.”
Now, while Paul was being interrogated Clupp had removed his hand from Master Peter’s mouth and contented himself with holding him fast. Master Peter now saw an opportunity to assert himself.
“I am not a prison—” he began, but was not suffered to speak further. Instantly Clupp’s palm closed again upon the parted jaws and reduced him to silence once more, while Brilliana went on.
“In doing which you deserved well of his Majesty.”
“Ay, all was well so far,” Master Paul grumbled; “but he played the like trick upon me at your instigation.”
Brilliana would not hear of it.
“You misuse speech. ’Tis no trick to servethe King. As I understand, each of you accuses the other of robbing him.”
Master Paul agreed. Master Peter, gagged behind Clupp’s hand, nodded dismally. Brilliana went on.
“This is at first blush a dilemma, but our wit makes all clear. Each of you, avowedly in the King’s name, did descend upon the dwelling of a disaffected rebel and make certain seizures there which have been duly sent to his Majesty. Each of you is, therefore, proved to be a loyal subject and honorable gentleman. So far you are with me, Sir Blaise?”
“Surely, surely,” the knight agreed.
“Yet, on the other hand,” continued Brilliana, “each of you accuses the other of robbing him. Now to rob is to offend against the King’s law, to be, therefore, an enemy to the King; and an enemy to the King is a Roundhead. Is not this well argued, Sir Blaise?”
“Socrates could not have bettered it,” commended Sir Blaise.
“We arrive, therefore, at the strange conclusion,” said Brilliana, judicially, “that each of you is at the same time an honest Cavalier and a dishonest Roundhead. Now, as no man living can be in the same breath Cavalier and Roundhead, it follows as plainly as B follows Athat whichever one of you complains of the other is avowedly the King’s enemy and a palpable rebel.”
Master Paul scratched his head.
“I do not follow your reasoning,” he mumbled. Brilliana appealed to the justice of the peace.
“Yet it is very clear. Is it not, Sir Blaise?”
“Limpidity itself,” Sir Blaise approved, complacently. Brilliana resumed.
“One or other of you is a traitor and shall be sent to Oxford in chains, to await the King’s pleasure and his own pain. I care not which it be.”
“You have set me in such a quandary,” Master Paul protested, “my head buzzes like a hive.”
Brilliana directly questioned him.
“You, Master Hungerford, are you a King’s man?”
Master Paul was vehement in asseveration.
“I am a King’s man, hook and eye.”
“Then,” Brilliana assumed, “’tis Master Rainham must fare in chains to Oxford.”
Master Rainham, staring at her over Clupp’s paw, had such appealing terror in his eyes that Brilliana pitied him.
“’Tis your turn now,” she said. “Let him give tongue, Clupp.”
Clupp withdrew his hand and Master Rainham gurgled:
“I proclaim myself a faithful subject of the King. Let that dog trot to Oxford.”
“You matchless basilisk!” screamed Master Paul at him, and “You damnable mandrake!” retorted Master Peter. The pair would have flown at each other if they could have wriggled free. But as they could not they perforce resigned themselves to hear what Brilliana would say next.
“Why, then, it stands thus,” Brilliana summed up. “This court decides that you are both servants of the King; that you have both done the King good service, willing and yet unwilling. I think I shall have some little credit with the King, and I shall use it with his Majesty by entreating him to grant the grace of knighthood to two honest friends of mine and two honest lovers of his—Master Hungerford and Master Rainham.”
Master Paul looked at Master Peter; Master Peter looked at Master Paul. Master Paul smiled. Master Peter smiled.
“A knighthood!”
Master Peter mumbled the word lovingly. Master Paul blew a kiss towards Brilliana.
“Then I shall be indeed your knight,” he simpered.
“Are you content?” Brilliana asked, gravely, and the two squires answered in union,
“We are content.”
“Then this worshipful court adjourns sine die. Captain Halfman, see that our friends be refreshed ere they depart.”
Halfman rose, and with a “Follow me, sirs,” made for the door. Sir Blaise stooped over Brilliana’s finger-tips.
“Farewell, my lady wisdom. Solomon was not more wise nor Minos more sapient.”
“I thought you would uphold me,” Brilliana replied. “Farewell.”
Sir Blaise saluted Evander, who returned the salutation and quitted the room. Master Paul, taking leave of Brilliana, whispered,
“When I am knight, you shall be my lady.”
“When you are king, diddle-diddle, I shall be queen,” Brilliana laughed at him, making a reverence. He joined Halfman at the door and Master Peter approached Brilliana.
“When I wear my new title, I will lay it at your feet,” he promised, solemnly.
“Can you not keep it in your own hands?” Brilliana questioned. She made him a reverence, he made her his best bow and went tothe door, where Master Paul waited with Halfman. Here a point of ceremony arose.
“After you, Sir Peter,” Master Paul suggested. Master Peter fondled the title.
“Sir Peter! It sounds nobly. Nay, after you, Sir Paul,” he protested. They were at this business so long that Halfman lost patience.
“Stand not on the order of your going,” he growled between his teeth, then grasping with an air of bluff good-fellowship an arm of either squire, he banged them somewhat roughly together.
“Nay, arm in arm, as neighbor knights should,” he suggested, and so jostled them out of the chamber and conducted them to the buttery, where for the next hour he diverted himself by making them very drunk indeed.
Brilliana turned to Evander.
“Well, Captain Puritan, are you displeased with me?”
Evander disclaimed such thought.
“Why should I be displeased that you, a King’s woman, serve the King?”
Brilliana was pertinacious.
“If you were a King’s man would you applaud me?”
“If I were a King’s man,” Evander confessed, “I could not choose but applaud you.”
“But being a Puritan?” Brilliana persisted.
“Why,” said Evander, “being a Puritan, I must ask you, were you just to your victims?”
Brilliana swept them away disdainfully.
“Each would have cheated the King in an hour, when, to all who think with me, to cheat the King is little better than to cheat God. But your scrupulosity need not shiver. If the King do not knight my misers I will requite them, little as they deserve it.”
Evander admired her.
“You are a brave lady.”
Brilliana gave a sigh.
“No, I am not brave at all; I am newly very timid. I am frightened of the real world now, and feel only at my ease with shadows.”
“Shall we journey into shadow-land?” Evander asked.
“By what path?” Brilliana questioned. Evander touched a brown, torn book.
“Shall we read again in Master Shakespeare’s book?”
For indeed they had read much in his pages that morning. Brilliana looked pleased.
“Yes, indeed. Let us go into my paradise.”
She looked into the garden and came back with a shiver.
“Ah, no, it is raining. It rained when the King raised his standard at Nottingham. Well, well, we can read here.”
Evander was turning the leaves.
“What shall we read? Comedy, history, tragedy?”
Brilliana was for the solemn mask.
“Let it be tragedy. I have laughed so much this morning that my mind turns to melancholy.”
Evander looked up at her with his finger on a page.
“Shall we read ‘Romeo and Juliet’?”
“I know that play by root of heart,” Brilliana said.
“Truly, so do I,” said Evander.
Brilliana was silent, pensive, a finger on her lip, considering some project. Then she said, doubtfully:
“You spoke the other day of women players, a thing that seemed to me incredible. Shall we see how it would seem here for us two? Let us while away a wet morning by playing a stage play.”
Evander’s heart leaped.
“With you for the sweet scene in the garden,” he cried.
In a moment Brilliana was busy in the setting of her scene. She pulled round a heavy, high-backed chair and leaped into it, leaning over the back and looking up as if the painted ceiling glowed with the stars of an Italian night. Then the words flowed from her, the wonderful words: