"Right gladly," he answered, and seemed to muse for a little. And then, "'T is well," he said, "that I did not wake the sentry that lay sleeping at his door."
"Why did you not?" I asked.
"Because," he replied, "though I thought all was safe, I would not have it known that I had left my post." With that he went softly to the door of the gallery and listened. "It is strange," he said, when he was come again to my side, "that I hear no sound of his capture. Yet he could not pass the sentry at the stair-head."
"He did not go that way," said I.
"But it was to defend that door," he retorted, "that you drew on me."
"Ay, dear Ned," I answered, "but that was to deceive you."
"But why, cunning one," he said, "did you not at once tell me all?"
"I feared you would be mighty stern," I answered; "also, I was loath to tell you who I was. Moreover, Ned, I did think it best for you to have neither knowledge nor share in his escape, if I might procure it without your aid. I was afraid for you."
"And yet not afraid of your life?" he asked.
"Nay, that too. But I thought," I replied ruefully, "that I had enough cunning of fence to keep you off for a while; for I did often use to hold my own with the foils against you. In extremity I was to cry: ''T is I, Ned! kill me not!' But you were so fierce and strong." Whereat he laughed a little, sheathing his own sword and handing me mine.
"These are not foils," he said. "But, if your brother went not by the gallery, where then? Is he returned to the chamber above?" And he pointed to the gaping mouth of the secret stair.
And right upon his words Philip entered the chamber from the Prince's stairway, and, closing the door behind him: "I am here, Royston," he said.
Royston heard, and, turning, grasped him by the hand. "Ah! so it was there you did hide, old friend," he said. "Faith, they did spoil a good man of his hands when they made you priest." And then I saw Ned's eyes travel to the door just closed; and he dropped Philip's hand, and his face blanched. "In the name of God!" he cried, "what did you up there? Say that you were not in the Prince's chamber!" And for the first time and the last I saw Edward Royston shaken by a passion of fear.
"It is from his chamber that I come," said Philip, speaking and bearing himself with great serenity.
Poor Ned caught his breath with a sound sharp and hissing. "Then, as there is a God above us," he whispered, "if any harm has happened, I will slay you and the maid your sister, though I do love her, only before I kill myself."
"Go," said the priest, pointing to the stair, "look on your Prince as he sleeps."
"Yes, I will go," replied Ned, flushing a little with hope born of Philip's calm. "But I will not leave you free."
I caught his great horseman's pistol from the table where Ned had laid it after escorting His Highness to his chamber.
"Go up, Ned," said I; and to Philip, as I pointed to a chair, "Sit there, brother." And to Ned again: "If he but rise from his chair before you return, I will shoot him, as surely as you shall kill me after him. Is it primed?" I asked, for the pistol was of the pattern then coming into use, discharged by means of a falling flint. And he, taking it from my hand, and raising the dog, and peering into the pan for the priming, I added: "But he will not move, for he has done no wrong."
He put the weapon in my hand. "You will not fail me?" he asked, with a countenance very awful to see. For answer I looked once in his face. He turned and went swiftly through the little door and up the stair.
Philip, as I think, knew it was no vain threat that I had made. But I, believing his conscience clean, had little doubt of a willing captive.
The time passed unbroken with a word; hours it could not be, but whether minutes or seconds I do not know. And somewhere in the heart of my confidence there throbbed a little pricking pain of doubt. For, brother as he was, to me the man was yet a stranger. What if he were of those with whom all means are held lawful to the cherished end? Had not I, but an ignorant girl, done for one end what I had held base indeed for another? And for answer I clung to the stock of my weapon, and swore he should die if His Highness had suffered. For not only Drayton, but Royston honor also lay in the hollow of my hand. But I swore, too, that I would not long survive him; and, if Ned would do it, even death would not be wholly without sweetness.
At last a step was on the stair, and my eyes went again to the little door. And, when I saw his returning face, I laughed aloud.
"You may well laugh, Mistress Philippa," he said, sheathing the sword that had not, I suppose, left his hand since it had leapt from the scabbard on his first doubt of Philip, "for I was indeed a fool to doubt him." Then, turning to Philip: "I did you wrong, Drayton," he said; "the blame must lie on the evil company we did find you in."
"I should myself, I fear, doubt any man in such case," answered Philip.
With that they fell to considering what should be done. Philip was at first for returning to his chamber above. But Ned had already taken his resolution. Sir Michael, he said, should not, in the sweet evening of a life of honor, see his house come to shame. "You cannot, I do suppose," he continued, "bring proof or witness of your innocence in the matter?"
"He that alone could clear me," replied my brother, "is escaped. Moreover, I do not think he bears me any good-will."
"Then you must go," declared Royston, in accents very positive.
And I could not find it in me, for all the risk to him, to say him nay. So without more ado Ned went to the hearth, where, by means I did not till long after understand, he very quickly closed the opening in the wall whence Philip had entered. He next caused to appear, on the opposite side of the fire, a passage that was the counterpart of the first. He then returned to the table, and, pouring out wine from the flagon he had brought for me: "Drink," he said to Philip, "and listen. There is little time to spare, for the officer of the watch will soon go again upon his round. You found but half the secret. There," he said, pointing to the grim aperture in the wall of the hearth, of which the dancing light of the flames served but to mark the deeper gloom, "there is the other half. Descend these stairs and follow the gallery. You cannot miss the way. It will take you out among the rocks below the bridge. Thence follow the stream until you are come to the old mill, whence you may with ease reach the highroad."
"From the mill," answered Philip, "I shall know my way. God bless you, Royston! It is for the old man's sake."
He grasped Ned's hand, laid his own upon my head as if in benediction, and would have left us.
"There is one word more to say," said Royston; and Philip turned on the edge of the hearth to hear it. "I cannot let you go," continued the man who would not take the smallest risk of harming his master even in the moment when he was going open-eyed into the danger of branding as a traitor, "I cannot let you go to do further hurt, how honest and open soever, to the cause I serve."
"As I gave it to my sister but now," answered Philip, "you have my promise to do nothing for the King, nor against him of Orange, until I have set foot in France."
"It will serve," replied Ned. "But—" he added, and then paused, as if with a hesitation of delicacy.
"What? Another doubt?" cried Philip, with a laugh.
"They say—with what truth I do not know," continued Ned,—"but said it is, that those of your order have strange quirks and quibbles to ease the conscience of oaths and other matters."
"Ah!" said Philip. "On what, then, or by what, shall I swear to you?"
"Swear me no oath," answered Royston. "Give me your hand and your word as a gentleman of England to abide by the spirit of your promise."
So Philip gave him his hand and a straight look in the eyes.
"You have it, lad," he said, in convincing accents of simple truth, and so left us, disappearing into the dark chasm of the wall.
Now Ned had but just closed behind his retreat the door of stone (by that means which I now know, but will not here set down; for who can tell if political trouble be even yet forever at an end in England?) when there came a hand upon the door. Ned dropped into a seat, muttering: "But just in time!" while I, feigning sleep, stretched myself in my corner of the settle.
"Is all well, Captain?" asked the cheery voice of M. de Rondiniacque, as he entered from the gallery.
"All is well, Lieutenant," replied Royston, with a very fine assumption of carelessness. And then the officer of the watch drew near, looking down upon me, as I suppose (for my eyes were fast closed), with curiosity.
"Ma foi!" he cried, "the peevish youth leaves you not, Captain. He is mighty pale in the face for one that sleeps."
"He is little used, I think, to fatigue," replied Ned. "Is all well without, Lieutenant?"
"Mon capitaine," said De Rondiniacque, "not a mouse stirs." And so saluted and retired as he had come.
When the sound of his feet had died away,
"Thank Heaven!" I whispered, "the danger is past!"
"For your brother, yes," Ned answered softly. "For us it is to come."
"Nay, indeed, I hope not so," said I. "And for him, how shall I thank you, Captain Royston?"
"Dear child," he said, with a flash of eagerness lighting his eyes, "do not call me captain. Were I not like ere long to be a man disgraced, I could ask you for thanks, but——"
And I, who had ever wholly trusted him and desired nothing so much as that he should ask in payment what had long been his, made no parley with modesty, but at once replied: "Nay, but ask, dear Ned; do but ask. You will never in my eyes be disgraced."
But when he began to reply that it was a great thing he would ask, of which the granting would bear the balance well down on the other side, Dame Fate played the carefuldueñato the poor maid that thought herself in hands safe enough without any such protection.
I mean that before Ned was well launched in that tale of what he would have of me, the door at the winding stair's foot did again open; and, of all the many times these divers doors had in the last few hours moved upon their hinges, this was the worst opening; for, wrapped in a great black cloak thrown hurriedly around him, there came His Highness of Orange. And, but that I knew none other could then come that road, I do not think I should have known him for the man that had of late bid me so kindly good-night. For over his face was a cloud of anger very awful to see.
We sprang to our feet, and Captain Royston saluted. Passing this military courtesy unacknowledged, the Prince at once addressed him in a voice so harsh and with a manner so cruel (as it seemed to me) that I fell into a great fear and assurance that he had by some means discovered both too much and too little; and my heart seemed to melt to water within me, so that I despaired of ever setting my lover right in the eyes of his Prince.
"You watch well over my slumbers, Captain," was indeed all he said; but voice and countenance were more than words, and I felt as I have said.
"It has been my endeavor, Your Highness," answered Royston, with much dignity, and a face the color of ashes.
"A good watch: a mighty careful and anxious watch, Captain!" the Prince continued. "I do not always sleep, Captain Royston, when my eyes seem closed, and I truly believe your care lacked little of prolonging my rest to the awful Day of Judgment."
"I do not understand Your Highness's words," said Royston.
The Prince crossed the room to the outer door, and, with his hand upon it: "I shall presently explain them," he said, and so went out into the gallery.
"Ned," I cried, so soon as he was gone, "I will tell him all!"
"That you shall not," he replied.
"How much does he know?" I asked, trembling as I spoke.
"I cannot tell," answered Ned. "But to tell him all in this mood will but harm you and yours; perhaps lead to Philip's capture, and yet do me no service. He will never pass over this one thing,—that I did let your brother go. And he will know that soon enough, telling or none."
And here the door opening again, we were perforce silent. I could hear His Highness's last few words to the sentry, spoken in a tongue I took to be Dutch, because I did not understand it, but, among them occurring the names Schomberg, Bentinck, De Rondiniacque, I guessed he had summoned those gentlemen to attend him. Then His Highness returned into the chamber, and for a while we stood silent, regarding one another as the footsteps of the sentry died away down the gallery.
At last Royston would have spoken. "Your Highness—" he began.
But the Prince interrupted him. "Be silent," he said, "and wait."
So in silence we waited, but how long I do not know. At length came M. de Rondiniacque, to be soon followed by Count Schomberg and Mr. Bentinck. These two had, it appeared, resumed their clothes in haste, and concealed the disorder of their attire each in long horse-cloaks, even as His Highness had done. And in these three stern figures of Prince, soldier, and statesman, close wrapped to the chin in dark and twisted folds of cloth, there was, I thought, an awful likeness to the bench of judges that sat in Hades.
When the last had entered, the Prince thus addressed the three: "It seems, gentlemen, that in the master of this house I have an enemy."
At which point Mr. Bentinck, without at all staying the flow of the Prince's words, ejaculated a deep and guttural "Ah!" as one finding but what he had looked for.
"I therefore purpose, gentlemen, to question Captain Royston in your presence, and thereafter to take your censures in the matter of bringing him to fitting military trial for treason."
"I am no traitor to Your Highness, nor to any man," cried Royston, with blunt indignation.
"That we shall soon see, I believe," said His Highness. "Did you not appoint yourself this night, with my consent, the innermost guard of my person?"
"I did," answered Royston.
"Then where is the prisoner; he that called himself priest?" asked the Prince, turning on him a gaze that called to my mind tales I had read of the Inquisitors of Spain, so piercing and ruthless was it.
"He is escaped!" replied poor Ned.
"By your aid?" asked the Inquisitor.
"By my aid," replied the accused.
"He was here in converse with you?"
"He was."
"By what means did he avoid the guard?"
"That," said Royston, "I will not tell." And his eyes flashed, and his head, never humbled, rose yet more erect; and I knew he was glad he could now use boldness where he saw he was to expect no mercy. And, of the three men that were listening to these questions and answers, one said: "Oh!" another "Ah!" while the third drew in his breath with a sound of hissing.
"I see, gentlemen," said William, "that you mark him." Then, to Royston: "To what end did you aid his flight? Will you at least tell me that?"
"Nor that neither," said he boldly, yet without insolence.
"The priest," said His Highness, "did enter my chamber while he thought I slept."
"'T is like enough that he did," replied Royston.
"And afterwards you also," said the Prince, "with naked sword."
"I did," said Royston, "but to no end but to be assured of Your Highness's safety."
Now when Captain Royston had first declared the escape of the priest, I had marked M. de Rondiniacque step for a moment into the gallery, whence he soon returned. It appears that he had in that moment's absence despatched one of the three soldiers that were on duty without the door to the room on the floor above, whence that escape had been effected. This man now rapping upon the door, M. de Rondiniacque opened to him, heard his report, and returned to his place beside Marshal Schomberg. His Highness observing these movements, and enquiring what was to do, M. de Rondiniacque replied that it was even as Captain Royston had said, the priest's door being unfastened and his chamber empty.
His Highness acknowledged the news with a brief gesture, and continued: "Do I then, gentlemen, greatly err to suppose that this house has been a snare to us? Do not the events of this night give a dreadful significance to those of the afternoon?"
"It is plainly so," said Count Schomberg.
"Your Highness," growled Mr. Bentinck, "knows well my opinion, from the warnings I have already given him."
As it appeared now M. de Rondiniacque's turn to add his voice to this concert of his superiors, while yet no sound came from him, the Prince turned upon him a keen glance of enquiry.
"I must agree, Monseigneur," he said, with a very lively distress appearing in his countenance, "unless, indeed, there be some reason behind it all, which Captain Royston may now disclose. I have always found him a gentleman of the nicest honor," he continued, gathering courage, "and I observe that there is against him no proof but what his own word has afforded. None saw the unfastening of the door, none saw the man's escape: it were more after the fashion of the vulgar traitor to deny all, and to ascribe his appearance in Your Highness's chamber—" and here the good Frenchman checked his speech.
"To what, sir?" demanded the Prince, the gloom of anger growing, I thought, yet deeper upon his face.
"To the disordered fancy of an uneasy sleeper," replied De Rondiniacque fearlessly.
"Your advocacy carries you too far, Lieutenant," said His Highness, in tones that I feared must at once silence our only friend.
"Your Highness will pardon me if I point out that I make no defence for Captain Royston," insisted De Rondiniacque, stepping a little forward with a graceful ease and a frank glance in His Highness's face that I think had taken by storm any woman's heart less strongly garrisoned than the only one in reach. "I but point out the traitor's refuge, of which he has made no use. If I err in saying as much, I will beg Your Highness to remember that the accused gentleman has been my friend and comrade." With which words he saluted and retired to his former position. And I think that what he had said and the way he bore himself were not wholly without effect upon the Prince: for he turned to Captain Royston, and asked him, with some slight approach to gentleness, had he any explanation to offer.
"I can but assure Your Highness," said Captain Royston, "that throughout I have done nothing adverse to Your Highness's great cause, nor to his person, nor to the honor and faith I do hold them in."
"And is this all?" asked William.
"Before these gentlemen, sir," he replied, "it is all. But I hold the true fulness of the matter ever ready for your private ear."
"My private ear, sir," answered the Prince, "is like to be much abused if I give my closet for every traitor's subtile excuses."
"I offer none," said Royston, with the rigid pride of despair.
"And none," said His Highness, "save in this company, will I hear. Keep your tale, sir, for to-morrow's court-martial. You are under arrest. Your sword, Captain Royston. Lieutenant de Rondiniacque, see to it that this one at least do not escape." And then, as poor Ned slowly drew his sword, and tendered the hilt to the Prince, His Highness, waving it aside, signified to M. de Rondiniacque by a gesture that he should take it.
"'T is not such," he said, "that I have need of."
Which bitter speech came near to breaking down the restraint in which the man had held himself. I saw the blood fly to his face, the half-step forward, the hands clenched by his sides; I heard the one dread word on his lips. "God—!" he gasped, and again curbed himself.
"No words of heat, sir!" said the Prince. "I did once take you for my friend. Is mine the fault that you prove an enemy? Weigh well what defence you will make to-morrow; let me warn you that courts-martial in time of war are swift in procedure and deadly in sentence. Should such court hear from your lips no more than we have now heard, make your peace with God." And with that he would have left the room; but I, beside myself with terror, caught him by the arm, and tried to speak.
The Prince, however, shook me off, bidding me roughly not to court his notice; saying that this was not a court of justice nor of favor, but a camp; and that I was happy not to come within the purview of its jurisdiction.
But I found my tongue, and said: "Your Highness must in courtesy hear me."
On which, with little enough, he bade me speak.
"I do solemnly swear," said I, "before the God that shall judge us all——"
"Beware, young man," interrupted His Highness, "lest you take that awful name in vain."
"The more awful, great, and holy," I replied, "the readier my will to take it now. And even so I swear that Captain Royston is no traitor. What he has done, I have done. I will tell Your Highness all."
"Be silent," said Ned. "I do forbid it. You harm my case."
"Nay, then," I replied, "I will not. But it is even as I say."
The Prince looked in my face, and I thought that his did a little soften. "I would I believed you, boy," he said, in gentler tones. "But I do not believe."
And with that a great hope sprang into my mind, and—"Some day you must believe," I cried. "But now I will ask no more than Your Highness has already granted." And I drew forth from its sheath the sword His Highness had given me.
"What is your meaning?" asked the Prince sternly, the frown coming dark again across his face.
"They say that I came between Your Highness and great danger," I replied, with an inward prayer for the courage and the skill of words that I so sorely needed, "in recompense of which you have given me this sword. According to the word that was given with it, I now render it again," and here I knelt before him, holding out the weapon by the blade, the handle toward the Prince, "praying that my friend, Edward Royston, Captain in Your Highness's Swedish Regiment of Horse, may stand in rank, duties, and honor, as he stood before this matter did arise. And I ask, moreover, that, when there shall be an end of the present troubles, Your Highness will bring him to fitting examination and judgment, to the end that his virtue may appear to all men."
"'T is a request of many heads and much length," said the Prince, with a smile of much sarcasm.
"Indeed, it has but one head," I replied. "I pray Your Highness to suspend his case till the war be done. Is it granted?"
"No," said the Prince; "it is not granted, and it shall not be."
"And wherefore not?" I demanded, with a boldness that does at this present vastly astonish me to think on.
"I gave the sword, with its pledge," he replied, "to one I thought loyal to my person and a friend to my cause, the liberties of England. I am not, and may never be, a king; and I have not learned," he said, with irony very cynical, "to grant favor to traitors."
"But you are a great Prince," I persisted; "a Prince, I have heard tell, that never departs from his plighted word. This pledge I hold until it be redeemed. Again I entreat Your Highness to return to Captain Royston his sword."
"Give me that in your hand," he said, after a moment's thought, which had taken him, with a few pondering paces, to some distance from the spot where I yet knelt. But as I rose to bring it to him, I believe he read in my face the joy that I felt within, for, raising his hand with a gesture that at once checked my advance—"Nay," he said, "I will not give him back the sword he has dishonored. But, for my word's sake, he has his life and liberty. Let him begone. And if he cross my path again, to raise his hand by never so little against me or mine; if he be found after this night ever within my lines, he dies—as spies die,MasterRoyston," he added, turning upon him a glance of keen contempt. Then, after a little pause, he said, with great solemnity, "May the life I give serve unto repentance."
In that moment I think poor Ned's heart was very near breaking. In a voice slow and measured from the restraint he used, he said that he would not accept his life at such a price. His Highness, replying that the choice did not lie with him, turned sharply to me and said: "Give me the sword."
And then the sight of the stricken man's white and ghastly face—stricken for his faith to me and my people—inspired my heart to the most audacious act of my life. I took the sword by the hilt, and, pressing hard upon it with both hands, bent down the lower part until a portion lay upon the floor. On this setting my foot with all my body's weight to back it, I wrenched the hilt over toward the point, so that the blade broke some seven inches from the end. M. de Rondiniacque, stepping forward to arrest my purpose, was too late. I waved him back with a gesture I took to be mighty full of haughtiness, and, standing firm upon the fragment, I presented the hilt to His Highness of Orange. On the snapping of the blade the Prince had started in anger; as I handed him the truncated weapon, he drew back and—"What is this?" he cried.
"Your Highness grants no more than half my prayer," I replied. "I render half the pledge."
"The greater half," he said, and in despite of himself he smiled.
Being by that smile much emboldened, I answered: "Then I am more generous than William, Prince of Orange. For life," I said, lifting from the floor the broken point of the sword, "is less than honor. Yet, like His Highness, I keep the point that kills."
When I try to write that part of my story that should here immediately ensue, I find the attempt at first more destructive of the feather than the nib of my pen. If I close my eyes and seek to live again in memory the hour that followed upon what I have last related, the result is always the same: I find myself awaking, as it were, from a kind of inner dream to the outward consciousness of heavily pouring rain, the rhythmic jingle of bridles, and the discordant squeaking of wet saddle under wetter boots.
For Ned and I are out in the foulest night of that foul November, and Roan Charley beneath me makes brave use of his tired limbs to come the sooner at his own stable. And then the sound of Ned's voice speaking to his horse in some manner brings back to me a few incidents of our passing from my Lady Mary's withdrawing-room to this wet and pitiless night; things which at this time of writing I do not clearly nor directly recall, but merely remember that I did then recollect; how His Highness had turned his back upon us, and departed in company of Mr. Bentinck and Count Schomberg; how Ned had sworn he would not leave his own house, saying they should hang him in the morning if they would; how M. de Rondiniacque and I had between us well-nigh forced him from the house; and how, with the Frenchman's help, I had gotten the two of us to horse; and how this good friend had, ere we left, said many things; but not one word of his could I recall.
So, having gathered out of my stupor the remnants of the nearer past, I was already again in my mind busily at work with divers plots and plannings to bring out of this dismal present a glorious and golden future. This change had been indeed brought to pass; nor was Dame Fate's change of front tedious of accomplishment; but I feel it is due to any that reads me to confess at once that the passage from evil fortune to good was the work rather of the hand of God and the goodness of men, than brought about by any skill or wit of the poor maid that would gladly have foregone all merriment here and hereafter to see once more a smile on the lips of the man she loved.
I have said that the present was dismal; to my companion, indeed, it could be no otherwise; yet to me the awful gloom of disfavor and disgrace was somewhat lightened by a little throb of joy, trembling and intermittent indeed, but growing in force, and of decreasing interval, as the horses swung, splashing through rain and mud, and their riders spoke never a word. I was a woman; and I was out alone in the darkest night of our two lives with the man who to me was all men since God gave me memory; I had him to myself, to cherish, to comfort, and, if it might be, to serve; what else should I do, but, woman-like, yearn over him with bowels of compassion, and rejoice that I was the angler that should, if it pleased Heaven, fish his soul from the dark and turbid waters of despair?
At length—"Ned!" I cried, but had no answer; and again, "Ned! dear Ned!" with no better luck. So I pushed my horse over against his till our knees came together, and laid my hand on his arm. And then somehow I knew, dark as pitch though it was, that he turned his head to me.
"Though you be unhappy," I said, letting of set purpose the catch of a small sob come into my voice, "you do not need to flout your little friend. 'T is very like you think it all my fault, but all I could, since Philip left us, I have done,—all, I would say, that you would let me do."
"More!" he cried in answer; "you have done far more than I would have had you do; for I believe you did save my life. If I thank you now," he added, with great bitterness, "I do fear my words will lack the ring of truth."
"Nay," I said, as coldly as I might, in hope to engage his interest, "there is but one owes thanks for that; and it is not you."
"Who then?" he asked, but languidly, as having little care for an answer.
"Who but the person," I replied, "in whose sole interest it was saved?"
"You speak in riddles, lad," he said, and then at once burst into a very hearty laugh at his own mistake; at which my heart danced within me to a tune very sweet; for laughter was at least a step in the way I would have him walk. "My wits have gone browsing like sheep," he went on. "Life is sweet, I do suppose, and soon I shall thank you. Even now I feel the savor of it coming back to me. Let us push on," he said, and put spurs to his horse.
When I was once again by his side—"Ah!" he cried, "one is a man again with a horse between his knees."
"I do not know," I replied. "Was it for that you called me lad, Captain?"
And so for a mile or more we talked. There was indeed but a poor heart in what gaiety we used, but it served to lead at last to matter more important. And then I found his purpose was but to escort me in safety to my father's house, and himself pass on; whither, he would not say, and at length confessed he did not know. And I vowed in my heart he should go no further than Drayton, but bided my time. There followed, in a bad part of the way, a little silence. And now the rain, for some time slackening, ceased altogether, and a little pale light from the moon struggling through the clouds, we drew together again. This time it was Ned did break the silence, and his words showed me he had begun to review that night's work.
"That was bold juggling you did with His Highness and the sword, mistress," he said. "Wherefore did you break it?"
"Because I hold men should keep faith, even princes," I answered, "and I will make him fulfil his word, up to the hilt—I would say down to the point, which I keep until it is earned." And I felt for the fragment of His Highness's sword in the place where I had it safe hidden. And then I drew rein on Charley, catching at my comrade's rein with the other hand. "O Ned!" I cried, "how am I to do all this, if you will leave me? Take me and your story to my father, and among us we shall find a way."
In the pale moonlight I could see his pale face, and on it I read the bitterness and sorrow of a conflict that he deemed finished.
"Sweet mistress," he said, "you must not tempt me. This thing is the fault of no man, but the hand of fate is heavy upon me. Since we were children together, it is somewhere written that only in danger and disgrace may I meet you. I do believe that in your heart you know much that, but for what has happened this day to part us, I would say to you. I will not say it, and because I will not, I must leave you when I have brought you to your father. Do not urge me again."
"If all the world cried out upon Philippa," I replied, feeling in my heart as those must feel who take their lives in their hands to carry through some desperate enterprise, or to die in default of success, "and would have her guilty of all the crimes a woman could guiltily do, I would laugh them all to scorn while you held me innocent and dear."
"Comfort you might find in my faith," he said, "even as I find much in yours. But you would not company with me, nor let your name go with mine in men's mouths; and much less would you wed me before your name was cleared. It is perhaps the last time we shall speak together, little Phil, and my despair shall bring me one good thing: because I have no hope, I will tell you now very fully and frankly what has been in my mind to say since my weight on a horse's back was less than is now your own. When I left Oxford to come into the west in those days of Monmouth's trouble, my tongue was ready and my heart hot to tell you my love, and, having told, to ask yours, and with it the sweetest wife in all England. Now, I must tell and not ask. I say, then, Philippa, that I love you, that I shall love you, and that I have loved you, for how long it is hard to know, but truly I believe my love began when you sat in the dust and looked to me for comfort, stretching up your little arms, tremulous and appealing. Ah!" he cried, "with what an urgent and tender clinging they held me as we fled from pursuing Betty."
"I did then think, Ned," I murmured, "that the little horse had wings, and that we fled together from Betty and all troubles forever."
"It was only Betty then," he answered, with a little laugh that hurt me to hear.
"And it is no worse than Betty now, dear," I cried, "if you will but keep me with you. I have but just gotten you again. Three years is very long and lonesome. Do not leave me."
Our horses were standing, and the moon showed me his face and the great struggle that there was in him between tenderness of love and insistence of duty. And I saw the softness die out of his countenance, and the features grow set in resolve.
"I forget," he said, drawing the reins short through his fingers. "Let us press on; 't is six good miles yet to Drayton." At which his horse broke into a canter.
But, when Charley would have followed, I drew rein, kicked feet from stirrups, flung my right foot over his neck, and so slipped to ground; let slip the reins, and so sat me down forlorn by the roadside. So far I had acted of design, to the end that Ned should return, and I have my way to the full as the one price of proceeding further. But, when Roan Charley, having twice snuffed at my crouching figure, set off whinnying in pursuit of his fellow, I burst into tears wholly devoid of affectation, weeping for the loneliness that was my own making, and the stubbornness of a man's will that I could not break. And, the soft thud of hoofs on the wet and sandy road now seeming to die away with growing distance, I did begin to feel that the childish weapon I had taken in hand was indeed turned against myself. To set the coping on my misery, there came a great and sudden gust of wind, and with it, across the moon, a thick storm-cloud, from which fell a driving slant of heavy rain, shutting out at once all sight and sound, as it were with a thick blanket of cold and turbid wetness; so that, drenched to the skin, I soon shivered as much from cold as from the sobs that shook my overwrought body. Now that he could no longer hear my voice, I found some dismal comfort in leaping to my feet and crying aloud on Ned to come back; and, even as I called, fell to running with weary and staggering feet, in pursuit of him I believed far away, until I pitched well-nigh headlong, not into his arms, for they were stretched wide, holding a horse in either hand, but upon his broad breast, where I soon laid my head; crying, as I clutched him by the shoulders, that he had left me too long, and frightened me.
"Why, Phil!" he answered, "I heard your nag following, and, even when he drew abreast, it was not at once I knew you were not in the saddle." And here I felt his right arm move behind his back, to pass his horse's bridle to the left hand that already held Roan Charley's. "But when he pushed close," he continued, "and his swinging stirrup-iron struck my boot, I turned to find the voice and eyes I dreaded were no longer near. And then, sweetheart, the rain was upon us, and in the darkness it was little speed I could make returning, but must needs dismount and go gingerly, for fear of riding over you. How came he to throw you, Phil?"
Perceiving that alarm had brought back all his tenderness, for here his right arm came round my neck in an embrace most sweet and full of protection, I cast to the winds my facile repentance for the trick I had played him, and answered him thus, using what remnant of dignity I could muster: "'T was not my good Charley that did cast me off, Ned. But when I found you would not heed my prayers; when I found that for some fancy of what the world should say of us you would again leave me alone, with, this time, perhaps, no hope of a return; when I thought how bitter three years of waiting have proved for a half-fledged maid, and perceived how much worse a thing were waiting without hope or limit for a woman grown, I dismounted and sat me down by the roadside. For I said I would never return to Drayton to see go out again into the night, alone and unhappy, the man that has saved our honor, giving to us out of the abundance of his own." And I waited for him, but even yet he would not speak. "What! will you shame me, Ned?" I cried. "Must I even say more? Then I here solemnly vow that unless you now say to me all—ask of me all that you would were you now as famous as Marshal Schomberg, and as high in favor as Mr. William Bentinck, I will not budge from this spot." This, with voice and bearing no doubt vastly heroical, I said. But, fearing it yet insufficient, I added shudderingly, in a manner I have since thought most humorously bathetical: "And I almost die for cold."
Now, scarce even for my children, can I set down very particularly what followed. But there was much rain, and now two arms about me, and my head lay where it is not yet tired of lying, while my lover let flow in words the passion of his love that had so long been pent and dammed up in his heart. And I remember that when he kissed me, there came between his lips and mine a patch of mud, cast there doubtless by the feet of his horse in his flight from me; and also that we laughed together like children with no sorrow upon them, as he did try in the dark to wipe it away with his handkerchief, and how some of the soil did get in my mouth as I laughed. So strong in memory is often a little matter of this nature that when, not two days back from the time I sit here writing, being abroad with Colonel Royston to see some sport with Sir Giles Blundell's hounds, I received full in the teeth a hoof-shaped clod of earth, I was, for all the pain and discomfort of it, translated at once from the free air and pale, sweet winter sun back to that foul and bitter night and its dear core of love, red and glowing with the fire that shall comfort and illumine us both to the end of our days.
Now, how long we stood there, how long we talked, and how long we were silent I do not know. But Dame Nature the stepmother had become Mother Nature our friend; and wind, cold, and wet were but the veil she cast kindly to wrap our sacred hour in holier secrecy. And when again a little light showed from the moon, of course it was the woman that cried: "Why, Ned! where are the horses?"
I will not dwell on the labor to pursue and catch our nags. The charger, at length responding to a cry his master used, was caught, mounted, and ridden in chase of Roan Charley. So I was again for a while left solitary, but in a state of mind how different! Not now did I sit forlorn with my feet in the ditch, but tramped cheerily forward; for I had his promise not to leave me again, but to lay the whole matter before Sir Michael, and to abide by his advice. For Ned, notwithstanding the anguish of his disgrace, did in his modesty set so low a price on the action which had procured it, that I think it had not yet become clear to him how wholly my very just and most noble-minded father must be engaged to counsel all things in the interest of Philip's savior.
It was not long before I encountered all three returning to meet me, truant Charley grown reluctant and rebellious. And thence into Drayton village the way seemed short indeed. Only twice did Ned refer to his misfortune and the anger of His Highness of Orange; once, in saying it was strange a single night should hold the greatest joy and the greatest sorrow he had known; and again, when I said many hard things of the Prince, he would not hear me, saying he was not to blame; and then he asked me did I note the last words of M. de Rondiniacque as he bade us farewell. 'T was that gentleman's opinion, it appeared, that the Prince was in his heart not sorry to find in my importunity good occasion to avoid the scandal that must arise from a court-martial held upon an officer whose family was so well known in the neighborhood at present occupied by his army. M. de Rondiniacque had added, moreover, that he believed His Highness's anger much exacerbated by a lurking doubt as to the substantial guilt of one he had hitherto highly esteemed. All this I must have heard as one in a dream, and the narration of it now furnished me with material for the more sober thoughts that occupied the almost unbroken silence of our passage from the village of Drayton to the house.
It was now more than an hour past midnight, so that it was with no little surprise we beheld, through the ill-closed hangings of the windows, the great hall bright with candles and fire. As he lifted me, now well-nigh crippled with fatigue, from the saddle, I prayed Ned to enter quickly and engage whom he should find for a moment in talk, while I slipped quietly by to the refuge of my chamber. In the morning I had trifled with the fancy that it were better to be born a man; now I knew it was best of all to be a woman; and thus I had no mind, while I could still by some sense of lingering contact mark the places where my lover's kisses had fallen, to be seen in the garb I wore by any man or woman whatsoever. And Ned, acting most comfortably in accordance with my desire, I was soon fast in the haven of my room, of whose door I did that night but once again draw the bolt; and even then I do think it was rather from desire of the food and the posset that she carried, than from any need of her company, that I admitted Prudence; and of the torrent of questions with which my ears were assailed as she tenderly waited on me, I answered few and heeded none. I would have been alone to think of Ned, and of the change of so strange a sweetness that I now began to discover in myself. I was indeed in that temper of mind wherein a maid will find even the object of her thought a hindrance to the right management of her thinking; and so I got very quickly to bed, feigning sleep to escape little Prue's chatter, the while I hugged to my breast the memories of the journey homeward; cherishing the sweetest fragments for a perpetual possession.
But feigning passed very soon into reality, and the last I recall of that night is my dreamy watching of Prudence, as she busied herself, with a bearing of no little pique, in hanging out poor Rupert's clothes before the great fire, and muttering dark sayings of the folk that had secrets, and how, if that were the way of it, she could, nay, would, keep her own to herself.
In telling how we came happily through this trouble of Captain Royston's disgrace, I perceive that there is from this point a greater number of those incidents in which, although they are necessary to the proper understanding of my tale, I had myself no personal share. While, however, my knowledge in such case is but second-hand, it is hearsay of the best quality, drawn from divers witnesses whose testimony I have found seldom divergent. I therefore purpose in my remaining chapters (now happily few), for greater ease to the reader, to make of what I know and what I believe a narrative as plain and straightforward as I may, without further reference to my sources of information, which would but encumber those efforts at despatch that must, if my story cannot, earn me a reader's approbation. Colonel Royston, coming fresh and crammed with law from the justice-room (he being of late on their Majesties' Commission of the Peace), tells me that hearsay is not evidence. To which I can but reply that such as I give will be nearer the truth than much that he hears on oath.
When Ned, covering my retreat, presented himself before my father in the dining-hall, he found Sir Michael seated in his great chair by the hearth; on his one side at respectful distance stood Farmer Kidd, while on the other, and close to his father, sat Philip.
Now Kidd, much delayed by the foundering of his horse, had come in about midnight, bringing the first clear news of my safety. He had found Sir Michael in some disorder, between the pain in his leg, much aggravated by his vigil, and anxiety for his daughter. Poor Christopher was like to have suffered in consequence; for Sir Michael, while filling him with food and drink, rated him soundly for leaving me behind, and would have had him return at once to Royston. Philip, whose name and face had gotten him a good mount upon the road, arriving about half an hour later than Christopher, found him dulled with fatigue and feeding, and halting half-way between slumber and tears. My father's mind was soon at rest about his errant daughter; for, when he learned that Ned Royston had me in charge, and knew that I was Philippa, he merely said that I could not be in safer hands, and thereafter addressed himself at once to the consideration of Philip's story.
"And so, dear sir," said my brother, when his tale was done, "give me a horse and money, and I will make my way back to France, that I may keep faith with Royston, and set myself again to serve those that sent me into England."
"Not so, Philip," answered his father, "for I will give you nothing to become once more the active enemy of the Prince of Orange. If I do clip thy claws, thou must stay with me till these troubles are done. I like not your faith; Gad 's my life! I like not your cause, for all it was once mine. But yourself I do love. For the sweet sake of your mother, son of mine, stay with me whom all have left."
"A Drayton, sir," replied Philip, "must do his part, on what side soever it has pleased God to set him."
"You are right, lad," the old man answered; "and therefore will I give you neither horse nor money."
Thus it was that upon his coming amongst them Captain Royston had but to tell the dreadful sequel of Philip's escape. But, between his very cordial greeting of Ned and the hearing his story, my father, with a fine discretion, begged Kidd that he would attend to the Captain's horse, the grooms being all abed. Which Christopher very willingly hastened to do, preferring a stable and a bed of straw to the dining-hall and Sir Michael's varied cheer.
His story told, and they asking where was Philippa, Ned answered, between draughts from a great tankard of spiced ale, that he believed I was gone to my chamber. On this Sir Michael himself hobbled to the room where lay my Lady Mary, whence he transferred Prudence from attendance on her ladyship to the duty she vastly preferred, of waiting upon me. Alone with Ned, Philip at once declared the purpose of making his way to Exeter, and of laying before His Highness, in the act of surrendering himself, the true state of the whole matter. Sir Michael returning in the midst of Royston's objections to what he called so useless a sacrifice, the matter was debated among the three far into the morning, my lover concluding that ill was best let alone, for fear of worse; my brother, that he had no choice in honor but to give himself up; my father, that they were both fools, and that he himself was the person to set the matter in its true light before His Highness of Orange. And so they separated for the night, which of them all being in most need of rest it would be hard to say.
But my good father, before he slept, paid a secret visit to the stable, there leaving orders with Kidd, the sleepy chief of a sleepy band of agrestic warriors (for the squadron I had led out at noon was at length painfully gathered in and billeted in the hay-loft), and with the chief groom of his own establishment, that no man (adding hastily, "nor no woman neither") should take horse from their door without his own express command. For he feared that either Ned would escape him, and so cut this knot of his own generous making; or that Philip would effect an early start to throw himself, with little gain to us all, into the hands of his enemies. And so, after threats of the most terrible, which served at least, as the sequel shows, to keep his commands from mixing with their dreams, Sir Michael got him to his bed where, if the just indeed sleep well, he slumbered very peacefully till the unwonted hour of nine in the morning.
I do not think that poor Philip found much sleep. The choice between divergent duties, with harm to his family involved in one decision, to a brave and generous friend in the other, may well keep even the just awake. The household being much belated, he was able between six and seven of the morning to let himself out unobserved. On coming to the stable, however, he found that he could on no terms but Sir Michael's order be furnished with a horse; not even with that which had brought him to the house the night before. After some minutes of deep thought, he hastily penned a few lines on a leaf of his tablets, which he then tore out and carefully folded, begging Christopher, as he loved the honor of the house, to keep it unread and undivulged until two o'clock of the afternoon, when he should hand it to Sir Michael. But if, as he deemed by no means likely of occurrence, His Highness of Orange should before that hour honor Sir Michael with a visit, the letter must at once be delivered. With which he left the yet sleep-ridden Christopher, willing, indeed, to do his behest, but so mightily astonished at the mystery in which he found himself involved, that he failed even to mark the road of Philip's departure.
The letter, which I hold to be a notable example of my brother's forethought, I will give here rather than in its place of coming to light, for the better understanding of Philip's motive and action.
"TO MY DEAR AND HONORED FATHER: Being resolved to do what I may to repair the great evil I have brought upon Edward Royston, and fearing hindrance at your hands or his, I have taken myself off while you are yet sleeping. Finding, however, that you have laid a strict embargo upon the stable, I go first afoot to the Grange, where old Simcox will doubtless mount me with the best in his stable.
"I call to mind some words of Royston's, however, of His Highness of Orange intending a visit to Drayton. Now, although it is more than likely he has foregone this purpose after what ensued upon my escape, it is yet possible that some compunction of his own hastiness, or return of gratitude to Philippa, may bring him to your door. From the Grange, therefore, I purpose taking the road to Exeter that runs by 'The Crow's Nest,' whence one may see the roofs of Drayton. I shall be particular not to leave that point before the stroke of noon. If, therefore, the improbable occur, and the Prince be come, or announced to come, to Drayton before that hour, I beg of you, my dear sir, to fly the old flag from the turret mast; which, if I see, I will make the best of my way back to you, knowing that you will not contrive from my plan a ruse to lure me home against my conscience.
"If the Prince be gone to Exeter, and I there get audience of him, remember that even the failure of my plea for Royston will not injure your own subsequent representations, but will rather by corroboration of evidence strengthen them. Your obedient son,
"P.D."
Thus it ran. The Grange, I should say, is the old Holroyd house, and Simcox, my father's bailiff for the estate.
So much for two of those that sat so late in the hall.
As for Ned, neither joy (if, as I suppose, some joy was in him) nor grief, of which he thought never through life to be rid, was to prevail against the oppression of sleep long denied. He slept as the dead sleep, till long after my father was abroad.
But for a soporific commend me to a decoction of new-found love and great fatigue of body. It was from the pleasant action of this sleeping-draught that I awoke to find my chamber bathed in the first sunshine of many dreary days. And, as I lay with eyes half opened, I felt in my bosom a gladness answering to the sunshine without. And searching in my mind for the threads of memory that should join my life with the day that was past, and tell me the reason why I was glad, I found that the answer was Love. But a little cloud soon driving across the sun had also its inward response in my half-awakened spirit, and I asked myself was there then some evil thing in this sweet world of mine?
And so I stumbled heavily upon the memory that Ned's love had in its fulness come to me in the very hour of disgrace. And then I awoke from a maid floating blissfully upon the sweet sea of conscious repose to the woman fain to pay the price of love in deeds for her lover.
Prudence was not far, and I was not long in dressing. Having, however, more food for thought than use for my tongue, I by and by perceived that my little handmaid was very ready to make cause of a tiff out of my silence. This might have passed, for I thought with a gentle word or two and a smile to turn aside the coming storm.
Nor had I much doubt of success in this, when, after watching my face a while in the mirror, she exclaimed: "Why, madam, how beautiful you appear this morning! One would think some great good thing had befallen you yesterday, rather than a great fatigue. You are vastly changed, madam."
"Nay, Prudence, be not so fanciful," I cried, marking, nevertheless, in the mirror how the color rose in my face. "Pray, child, what difference do you find?"
"It is hard to name," she answered, "but 't is there. Your regard is large and tender. Your eyes, madam—your eyes hold some secret of joy."
Here she paused a while, turning her gaze from the mirror to my face itself. Then at length: "Why, madam, I have it," she cried; "you are in one night grown to be a woman!"
To hide my cheeks, that would soon, I knew, most furiously glow, I turned to the wardrobe to take from it the gown I proposed wearing. But when she saw that it was the finest in stuff, and latest in fashion of all my slender stock, her curiosity broke out afresh. Receiving no reply to her many questions, she watched me in dumb displeasure, while I shaped a piece of black plaister, and applied it to the little wound that Ned's sword had made on my bosom, for the gown, being cut somewhat more freely open than I mostly used, would have left the scratch uncovered from the air. All this was more than Prue could bear.
"I do perceive," she said, with pale cheeks and tilted chin, "that in some manner I have offended madam, since she no longer gives me her confidence; I fear it is no time to ask her advice in a matter that gives much distress and anxiety to one that she was wont to hold her very faithful servant." Whereupon she left the chamber very quickly, giving me no space to appease her anger.
Finishing my toilet alone, I began to wonder what was this mighty secret with which she had now twice threatened me; and, doubtless, nothing but my great preoccupation of thought saved Mistress Prudence, privileged person although she was become, from a mighty smart reprimand on our next encountering for her petulant conduct.
That excellent dignity of bearing which I believed myself to have endued, as well as my finest gown, was destined to be spent (if indeed it were not altogether thrown away) upon old Emmet and a single waiting-maid. From Simon I learned that it had been thought well not to disturb the three gentlemen, whom he supposed still sleeping. Lady Mary, he added, had been much shaken by her adventures of the previous day, and found herself unable to leave her bed. So I sat me down alone, and made a meal of most unblushing amplitude. Since I was a child, I may say, I had never known myself to lack good appetite, and I now found that so far from weakening my desire and enjoyment of my victuals, as would seem most fitting in a young woman of sentiment, the fatigues, emotions, and excitements of the day before had but set a keener edge to my relish of these, as of all other good things in what I could but think, despite all drawbacks, was a very engaging and gladsome world.
Now it was a custom with me to have Prudence wait upon me at breakfast, arising, I suppose, from a certain loneliness I did use to feel when my dear father's ailments would keep him for days together in his chamber. She being this morning absent, and I asking where she was, Simon soon made it plain that he was not pleased with his granddaughter.
"Faith, madam," he said, "I cannot tell where she is. The little baggage grows past my holding. She is as full of mysteries as an egg is full of meat."
"Nay, Simon," I answered, "'t is no mystery. She spoke very boldly to me but now, and fled to avoid correction. I make no doubt she is gone for comfort to Christopher Kidd."
"There 's more in it, madam, than Farmer Kidd," answered Simon, his old head shaking with the ominous relish of him that justifies suspicion of evil. "A loaf, a cheese, and a great piece of salted beef are this morning missed from the larder, and, as I live," he cried, peering into the great beer jack that stood upon the table, "who but the hussy should have taken more than the half of the ale that I drew for breakfast? She did pass through the hall on leaving your chamber, madam; Christopher and all his men are well fed in the kitchen, and have but to ask for what they lack."
And here I was scarce able to hold back my laughter. The picture of little Prudence, so dainty and modest, for all that something of coquetry was part of her nature, so feeding a secret lover did mightily tickle my fancy.
"Do not fret for the ale, Simon," I said gaily. "Please Heaven, it will find its way down a thirsty throat. If Prue be the thief indeed, I shall know the drinker before sunset. She is a good maid, and will not long keep a secret from a mistress that holds her in much affection and esteem." These last words were as much for the other serving-woman that was by as for Prue's censorious grandfather.
Sending word to Lady Royston that I would gladly know when her ladyship was willing I should wait upon her, I now retired to my garden, finding more company in its few remaining flowers, and in the fresh and sunny autumn air, than in a house but yet half awake. And I had within me, whether carried from the house, or gathered from the sweet odors drawn by the sun from the sodden earth, I know not, a sense that some great thing was coming; that this was but the lull before our wits and tongues should be again engaged in a conflict for love, for honor, and perhaps for life.
And I knelt on a little stone bench, warmed with the sun, and prayed to Him who did make these three best things, that wit might be keen, and tongue eloquent, to set them high above doubt and question hereafter.
To me, after it might be half an hour, came Prudence, bearing in a very innocent countenance an expression of injury most Christianly endured. Madam Royston, she said, would be vastly obliged by a visit from me, but she was bidden by Captain Royston to say he had matter for my ear that was of moment, to be delivered before I should speak with madam his mother.
"And where is Captain Royston to be found?" I asked.
"He is now taking his breakfast in the hall," answered the little minx, vastly demure.
"And why was I not informed that he was risen?" I demanded.
"If madam gave order to that effect," she replied, "it came not to my ear."
This petty vantage of feminine fence had not long remained hers, had I not been more concerned to reach the great hall than to open a general attack in the matter of the missing beef and beer. The better part of the way to the house I ran rather than walked—that part, I mean, that is not in sight of the hall windows. Within I found Ned alone, eating his breakfast. A cloud of gloom was over his face, and, though he rose with great courtesy and alacrity to meet me, his greeting seemed rather a submission to my embrace than the clasp of an ardent lover.
It is not unlikely that in a happier hour I had taken this reception ill, but, thinking I could read his thought, I let it pass, which I was soon very glad to have done, when his words made it plain that I had not read him amiss. For a while I pressed him with food, with questions of what rest he had taken, of his mother's health, and with other talk indifferent to the issue that yet, as I plainly saw, did lie between us. But, do what I might, I could bring no smile to his face; I could see the man held a tight rein upon himself, for all he could not keep his eyes from taking full account of my person on this his first seeing me after so many years in the full light of day, and in my proper garb. And there was great holiday in my heart, for I knew that I pleased him well; had I not the word both of mirror and handmaid that I was not ill to look upon? Moreover, those eyes of his, restrained though they were from all expressive admiration, could not conceal something that I took to be a kind of hunger.
At length, finding that his discomfort was in no way diminished, I asked him, speaking mighty small and meek, what it was he wished to say to me, before I should pay my respects to my Lady Mary.
"I would pray you," he answered, "by no means at this present to make mention to my mother of—of the matter—I mean, of my disgrace with His Highness of Orange."
It was only by an effort, it seemed, that the last words could be uttered. I arose from the seat whence I had confronted him at the table, dropped him a little courtesy, and walked toward the door. But, passing behind his chair as I went, I felt my heart so filled with pity and sorrow that I knew I must either fall into a passion of tears or speak more fully and closely with him who now bore such things for me and mine. So behind him I stayed, and, casting an arm about his neck, "Ned," I whispered, "dear Ned, wilt in no manner be comforted?'"
His voice shook a little, in spite of that curbing rein, as he answered me. "Where lies the comfort that I should take, sweet Phil?" he said.
"'T is unkind in you, dear, to make me speak unmaidenly," I replied. "I know your woes, but is it, then, nothing that I also share them? Am I perhaps of no account, for that my love is no new thing?"
"Your love, Philippa," he said, in a voice that was now become very tender and solemn, "is a pearl of price so great that but yesterday it was all I asked of Heaven. But shall this jewel be set in a filthy copper ring? I know, sweetheart," he went on, "that you have found me churlish this morning. But since I awoke I have one only thought in my mind, that I did wrong last night, with my honor thus overshadowed, to tell you of my love."
"Nay," I said, "there was no telling; and there needed none."
"Did I not tell you—" he began.
But from over his shoulder I gently clapped hand upon his mouth, crying: "Hush, dear Ned! 'T was this way that it befell. Listen, for all else is what you have dreamed." And I took here the tone and manner of one that tells to a child the sweetest fairy-tale he knows. "Two did ride in the night. The two had each a heart, and the heart of one was sore hurt. Now of the other the heart was well and safely lodged behind a little secret door. And this door was never opened, though there was one did know the way to it, and at his knock it had been wont of old to move somewhat ajar on the hinge. But in that dark night the heart that was hurt did cry aloud, and—and that small door did fly open, and now, Ned——"
"Ay, sweetheart?" he said, as I paused; and he tried to look round at me: but I would not let him.
"And now, Ned," I continued, "the door is closed forever; but the heart is abroad, and hath no home but here." And here I slipped to my knees by his side, leaning with hands tight clasped in supplication against his breast. "My lord," I said, "must even keep his promise to his handmaid, who will gladly bear all that she may share with him. But, without his presence and his love, the sun will be darkened to her eyes all the days of her life."
And so there was an end; for his arms came about me and ended all strife between us even to this moment of writing.
And thus my father surprised us, by which accident we were not a little taken aback. My lover, however, rose bravely to the occasion, and very plainly and without any mincing of the matter asked him for my hand in marriage; saying in conclusion, however, that he was aware his present state and condition might well justify Sir Michael's refusing to grant his request: "Which, sir," said he, "I had not made until cleared of all suspicion of treason to His Highness, but for you knowing me innocent, and the recent avowal of my affection being by surprise, as it were, wrung from me."
"Indeed, sir," I broke in, hoping by a little boldness to cover my confusion the better, "there was no surprise but this same gad-about daughter of yours. It was through no fault of his, for none but I did wring from Captain Royston that offer of alliance he now seems minded to repent."
"Be silent, child," said my father; "Captain Royston stands in need of no champion with me." Whereat I was abashed to a blushing hotter than before. "My lad," said Sir Michael, "I have twofold reason to be glad. It would go hard with me to refuse the man who has done for my name what you have done, even were he not the husband I have this many a day desired for my child. And, if we cannot put you right with the Prince, we must together endure. But I hope for better things." And with these words my father drew me to him, and put my hand in that of Captain Royston.
There is no need to rehearse all that was said and felt on this occasion of my betrothal. There was among us regard so reverent, friendship so strong, and acquaintance so well tested of time, that the dark shadow hanging over could not, even while it chastened, in any way jar with nor distort the joy of the two who saw the future each in the other's countenance; nor of him that saw in the faces of us both a vision of the past that was ever green and poignant in the young heart of the old man.
And as I left them to visit Lady Mary, now too long neglected, my father told me that I had gained a husband such as is not had every day.
So I went to my lady's door, and there, very proud in the thought that out of all the world Captain Royston had chosen me, I loitered a little; for I hoped that my cheeks would presently lose something of the telltale color that still seemed to burn in them. And after I entered her chamber the time for a while went so exceedingly heavily that I think it but charity to take my reader elsewhere.
Sir Michael and Captain Royston were now for a space engaged in discussion of the future. But, as they neither knew that Philip, in the obstinacy of his opinion, had escaped them, nor that events now in preparation should very shortly change the complexion of the whole matter, their animadversions and reflections upon this occasion are become of little moment.
Now my father, on his coming which did so mightily abash me, was carrying under his arm in its sheath the sword which, in its day and his, had been so terrible to many a man of the Parliament's forces. It was indeed many years that he had not worn steel at his side; but it was ever a custom with him, upon any occasion of state, danger, or solemnity, to fetch with him in the morning this sword from his chamber. More than once or twice, when I was a little maid with a conscience not seldom ill at ease, has the sight of that honorable blade, tucked slantwise beneath his arm as he painfully descended the great stair of a morning, driven me to hasty repentance and confession of yesterday's prank or peccadillo.
My father, then proposing that they should take the air a little, since the sun continued bravely to shine, remarked, as he laid this sword upon his chair by the hearth, that his companion had but an empty scabbard dangling at his sword-belt. To Sir Michael's civil offer of his own good weapon to replace that so unhappily lost, Ned replied that he thanked him, but would make shift for a while with the scabbard, having a mind to fill it again with the only blade that fitted it, if haply it might be done. And as he spoke his face was suffused with a flush of deep crimson; the only blush, my father said, that he had ever seen on the lad's goodly countenance.
And so they walked a turn in the park, amongst the trees and the deer, Sir Michael supported, until a pleasant bench was reached, by an arm that is, I have found, very good and comfortable to lean upon; where I, having from my lady's window seen them pass, made shift after a little to join them. Ned rose to meet me, and I was glad to see the shadow driven from his face by the smile of his welcome.
"My lady is very instant and pressing that you should go to her," I said, as I seized in both mine the hand he stretched to me.
"What, what!" says my father merrily. "Was all this bird-like haste of swooping down upon us but to drive the man again from your side? 'T is early days, little Phil—early days!"
"Indeed, sir," I replied, panting a little yet for the speed I had used, "I would not have the man leave me, and so ran to husband the minutes with him. Nor I would not have him go to Madam Royston, who will, without doubt, very quickly draw from him our morning's doings."