I
THE STRANGER AT THE GATES
The village of Harby was vastly proud of its inn, and by consequencethe innkeeper thought highly of the village of Harby. He had been ahappy innkeeper for the better part of a reasonably long life, and hehad hoped to be a happy innkeeper to that life's desirably distantclose. But the world is not made for innkeepers by innkeepers, andMaster Vallance was newly come into woes. For it had pleased certainpersons of importance lately to come to loggerheads without anyconsideration for the welfare of Master Vallance, and in trying topeer through the dust of their broils on the possible future forEngland and himself, he could prognosticate little good for either.Master Vallance was a patriot after his fashion; he wished hiscountry well, but he wished himself better, and the brawling ofcertain persons of importance might, apart from its direct influenceupon the fortunes of the kingdom, indirectly result in MasterVallance's downfall. For the persons of importance whose bickeringsso grievously interested Master Vallance were on the one side hismost sacred and gracious Majesty King Charles I., and on the other anumber of units as to whose powers or purposes Master Vallanceentertained only the most shadowy notions, but who were disagreeablyfamiliar to him in a term of mystery as the Parliament.
In the mellow October evening Master Vallance sat at his inn door anddandled troubled thoughts. The year of his lord 1642 having begunbadly, threatened to end worse. Master Vallance chewed the cud ofcountry-side gossip. He reminded himself that not so very far awaythe King had set up his standard at Nottingham and summoned all loyalsouls to his banner; that not so very far away in Cambridge, a fussygentleman, a Mr. Cromwell, member for that place, had officiouslypushed the interests of the Parliament by raising troops ofvolunteers and laying violent hands upon the University plate. MasterVallance tickled his chin and tried to count miles and to weighprobabilities. Royalty was near, but Parliament seemed nearer; whichwould be the first of the fighting forces to spread a strong handover Harby?
Master Vallance emptied his mug and, turning his head, looked up thevillage street, and over the village street to the rising groundbeyond and the gray house that crowned it. He sighed as he surveyedthe familiar walls of Harby House, because of one unfamiliar object.Over the ancient walls, straight from the ancient roof, sprang aflag-staff, and from that flag-staff floated a banner which MasterVallance knew well enough to be the royal standard of England's King.Master Vallance also knew, for he had been told this by MasterMarfleet, the school-master, that the Lady of Harby had no right tofly the standard, seeing that the presence of that standard impliedthe bodily presence of the King. But he also knew, still on MasterMarfleet's authority, that the Lady of Harby had flung that standardto the winds in no ignorance nor defiance of courtly custom. He knewthat the high-spirited, beautiful girl had been the first in all thecountry-side to declare for the King, prompt where others were slow,loyal where others faltered, and that she flew the King's flag fromher own battlements in subtle assertion of her belief that in everyfaithful house the King was figuratively, or, as it were,spiritually, a guest.
Master Vallance, reflecting drearily upon the uncertainties of anexistence in which high-spirited, beautiful young ladies played animportant part, became all of a sudden, though unaccountably, awarethat he was not alone. Moving his muddled head slowly away from thewalls of Harby, he allowed it to describe the better part of asemicircle before it paused, and he gazed upon the face of astranger. The stranger was eying the innkeeper with a kind ofgood-natured ferociousness or ferocious good-nature, which little inthe stranger's appearance or demeanor tended to make more palatableto the timid eyes of Master Vallance.
"Outlandish," was the epithet which lumbered into Master Vallance'smind as he gaped, and the epithet fitted the new-comer aptly. He was,indeed, an Englishman; that was plain enough to the instinct ofanother Englishman, if only for the gray-blue English eyes; and yetthere was little that was English in the sun-scorched darkness of hisface, little that was English in the almost fantastic effrontery ofhis carriage, the more than fantastic effrontery of his habit.
When the stranger perceived that he had riveted Master Vallance'sattention, he smiled a derisive smile, which allowed the innkeeper toobserve a mouthful of teeth irregular but white. Then he extended alean, brown hand whose fingers glittered with many rings, and caughtMaster Vallance by his fat shoulder, into whose flesh the gripseemed to sink like the resistless talons of a bird of prey. Slowlyhe swayed Master Vallance backward and forward, while over the darkface rippled a succession of leers, grins, and grimaces, which hadthe effect of making Master Vallance feel thoroughly uncomfortable.Nor did the stranger's speech, when speech came, carry much ofreassurance.
"Bestir thee, drowsy serving-slave of Bacchus," the stranger chanted,in a pompous, high-pitched voice. "Emerge from the lubberland ofdreams, and be swift in attendance upon a wight whose wandering starhas led him to your hospitable gate."
As the stranger uttered these last words his hand had drawn thebemused innkeeper towards him: with their utterance he suddenlyreleased his grip, thereby causing Master Vallance to lurch heavilybackward and bump his shoulders sorely against the inn wall. Thestranger thrust his face close to Master Vallance's, and while asuccession of grimaces rippled over its sunburned surface hecontinued, in a tone of mock pathos:
"Do you shut your door against the houseless and the homeless, Oiron-hearted innkeeper? Can the wandering orphan find no portion inyour heart?"
Then, as Master Vallance was slowly making sure that he had to dealwith a dangerous lunatic, the stranger drew himself up and swayed toand fro in a fit of inextinguishable laughter.
"Lordamercy upon me," he said, when he had done laughing, in aperfectly natural voice. "I have seen some frightened fools before,but never a fool so frightened. Tell me, honest blockhead, did youever hear such a name as Halfman?"
Master Vallance, torpidly reassured, meditated. "Halfman," hemurmured. "Halfman. Ay, there was one in this village, long ago, hadsuch a name. He had a roguish son, and they say the son came to a badend."
The new-comer nodded his head gravely.
"He had a roguish son," he said; "but I am loath to admit that hecame to a bad end, unless it be so to end at ease in Harby. For I amthat same Hercules Halfman, at your service, my ancient ape, comeback to Harby after nigh thirty years of sea-travel and land-travel,with no other purpose in my mind than to sit at my ease by mine ownhearth in winter and to loll in my garden in summer. What do you sayto that, O father of all fools?"
Master Vallance, having nothing particular to say, said, for themoment, nothing. He was dimly appreciating, however, that thisvociferous intruder upon his quiet had all the appearance of one whowas well to do and all the manner of one accustomed to have his ownway in the world. It seemed to him, therefore, that the happiestsuggestion he could make to the home-comer was to quench his thirst,and, further, to do so with the aid of a flask of wine.
The stranger agreed to the first clause of the proposition and vetoedthe second.
"Ale," he said, emphatically. "Honest English ale. I am of a veryEnglish temper to-day; I would play the part of a true-heartedEnglishman to the life, and, therefore, my tipple is true-heartedEnglish ale."
Master Vallance motioned to his guest to enter the house, but Halfmandenied him.
"Out in the open," he carolled. "Out in the open, friend." He rattledoff some lines of blank verse in praise of the liberal air that setMaster Vallance staring before he resumed plain speech. "When a manhas lived in such hissing hot places that he is fain to spend hislife under cover, he is glad to keep abroad in this green Englishsweetness."
He had seated himself comfortably on the settle by now, and hestretched out his arms as if to embrace the prospect. Master Vallancedived into the inn, and when he emerged a few seconds later, bearingtwo large pewter measures, the traveller was still surveying thelandscape with the same air of ecstasy. Master Vallance handed him afull tankard, which Halfman drained at a draught and rattled on thetable with a sigh of sat
isfaction.
"Right English ale," he attested. "Divine English ale. What goldwould I not have given, what blood would I not have spilled for sucha draught as that, so clean, so cool, so noble, in the lands where Ihave lived. The Dry Tortugas--the Dry Tortugas, and never a drop ofEnglish ale to cool an English palate."
He seemed so affected by the reflection that he let his hand close,as if unconsciously, upon Master Vallance's tankard, which MasterVallance had set upon the table untasted, and before the innkeepercould interfere its contents had disappeared down Halfman's throatand a second empty vessel rattled upon the board.
The eloquence of disappointment on Master Vallance's face as hebeheld this dexterity moved the thirst-slaked Halfman to new mirth.But while he laughed he thrust his hand in his breeches-pocket andpulled out a palm full of gold pieces.
"Never fear, Master Landlord," he shouted; "you shall drink of yourbest at my expense, I promise you. We will hob-a-nob together, I tellyou. Keep me your best bedroom, lavender-scented linen and all. Iwill take my ease here till I set up my Spanish castle on Englishearth, and in the mean time I swear I will never quarrel with yourreckoning. I have lived so long upon others that it is only fairanother should live upon me for a change. So fill mugs again, MasterLandlord, and let us have a chat."
Master Vallance did fill the mugs again, more than once, and he andthe stranger did have a chat; at least, they talked together for thebetter part of an hour. In all that time Master Vallance, fumblingfoolishly with flagrant questions, learned little of his companionsave what that companion was willing, or maybe determined, that heshould learn. Master Halfman made no concealment of it that he hadbeen wild at Cambridge, and he hinted, indeed, broadly enough, thathe had had a companion in his wildness who had since grown to be agodly man that carried the name of Cromwell. He admitted frankly thathis pranks cast him forth from Cambridge, and that he had been astage-player for a time in London, in proof whereof he declaimed tothe amazed Master Vallance many flowing periods from Beaumont,Fletcher, Massinger, and their kind--mental fireworks that bedazzledthe innkeeper. Of his voyages, indeed, he spoke more vaguely if notmore sparingly, conjuring up gorgeous visions to the landlord ofpampas and palm-lands, where gold and beauty forever answered to theready hand. But Master Halfman, for his part volubly indistinct andwithout seeming to interrogate at all, was soon in possession ofevery item of information concerning the country-side that was of theleast likelihood to serve him. He learned, for instance, what he hadindeed guessed, that the simple country-folk knew little and caredlittle for the quarrel that was brewing over their heads, and hadlittle idea of what the consequences might be to them and theirs. Helearned that the local gentry were, for the most part, lukewarmpoliticians; that Peter Rainham and Paul Hungerford were keepingthemselves very much to themselves, and being a brace of skinflintswere fearing chiefly for their money-bags; while Sir BlaiseMickleton, who had been credited with the intention of riding to joinhis Majesty at Shrewsbury, had suddenly taken to his bed sick of astrange distemper which declared itself in no outward form, butabsolutely forbade its victim to take violent action of any kind. Helearned that there were exceptions to this tepidity. Sir RandolphHarby, of Harby Lesser, beyond the hill, Sir Rufus Quaryll, ofQuaryll Tower, had mounted horse and whistled to men at the firstwhisper of the business and ridden like devils to rally on the King'sflag. He learned much that was familiar and important to him of theHarby family history; he learned much that was unfamiliar andunimportant to him of local matters, such as that Master Marfleet,the village school-master, was inclined to say all that might be saidin praise of the Parliament men, and that, when all was said anddone, the only avowed out-and-out loyalist in the neighborhood was noman at all, but a beautiful, high-spirited girl-woman, the LadyBrilliana Harby.
The Lady Brilliana Harby. When Halfman was a lad gray Roland was Earlof Harby, a choleric scholar, seeming celibate in grain, though thetitle ran in direct male line. Suddenly, as Halfman now learned, grayRoland married a maid some forty years younger than he, and she gavehim a child and died in the giving. This did not perpetuate thetitle, for the child was a girl, but it gave the gray lord somethingto cherish for the sake of his lost love. This child was now the LadyBrilliana, whom gray Roland had adored and spoiled to the day of hisown death, hastened by a fit of rage at the news of the King'sfailure to capture the five members. Since then the Lady Brillianahad reigned alone at Harby, indifferent to suitors, and had flown theKing's flag at the first point of war. "By Heaven!" said Halfman, "Iwill have a look at the Lady Brilliana."
The Lady of Loyalty House: A Novel Page 2