by Talbot Mundy
“A foul lie, Dodson!” said their leader’s voice. “A trick o’ yours to turn me toward you farmhouse! You heard eggs a-frying in your dream, you glutton! A fine greeting his Grace will give us if he learns we missed our quarry by turning after every smell o’ bacon that tickled sleepy Dodson’s snout! Horses, you say? You heard ’em splashing. ’Twas but an echo — of your fancy. Ride on!”
Twelve rode forward, but the thirteenth stayed, and he their leader. I could sense him more than I could see him nosing through the hedge-gap. He would come through if he heard the least sound, and he could not help but hear one, since the horses, weary though they were, would not stand still for ever. I slipped bridle and saddle off Futtok’s beast that was closest to me, and he cried out, for he heard that, careful though I was.
“Who lurks there? Come out and show yourself!”
I pricked the horse towards him, using my swordpoint, and the beast went to the gap to nuzzle the new-corner, both of them wickering.
“‘Od’s passion! A plough-horse!” I could hear him stroke the horse’s muzzle. “Left you straying on a night like this, eh, Dobbin? Such a master should ride at a horse’s tail and hop headless!” He struck our plough-horse to prevent his following, and rode on.
Thinking myself well rid of that party, but wondering how, now they were ahead of me, I could keep them from capturing Tony and Mildred, I caught and re-saddled the horse for Futtok, he being unable as much as to attempt it in the dark, although at sea he could find his way aloft at midnight and attend to rigging of whose existence not a landsman dreamed. And after a while I led the way along the high-road, slowly because it was growing light. I showed a bold enough back to my men, but felt unpleasantly unlike the valiant hero of my previous imagining.
Anon we came to a by-road, leading northward, where I noticed tracks that were not those of the Earl of Leicester’s men. There was one place close to a tree, where a horse had stood a long while, and not far beyond it was a place where the mud was stoached up and a horse had gone in hock-deep. It was hard to judge how old the tracks were since the rain lay deep in them, but I judged they might have been made the evening before, or later.
Seeing that the Earl of Leicester’s men had ridden on not noticing those hoof-marks in the dawning light — and in truth, if I were not a huntsman I should not have seen them either — I turned along the by-road to discover what they might mean. And I remember, I was glad of the excuse. I liked not at all the thought of following those thirteen all the way to London, nor no advantage to be had by it that a man could foresee, since if they should pounce on Tony Pepper day and Mildred, mine would be nothing but mortification and theirs the profit I drew back to a walk to spare my men and horses, and I had not ridden far when I saw smoke rising from a hole in a thatch of what might be a shepherd’s cabin — but no sheep near, for there was neither dog, nor smell, nor bleating; nor was there much smoke. We were following the tracks of six horses, of which one was lame and had turned aside across the fields toward that hut; and at the place where he had left the lane there was a confusion of marks, as if the riders of all six horses had paused there holding conference. There I left my three men and rode alone along a hedgerow toward the hut, picking the way along the headland carefully so as to make no noise; and dismounting when I reached the farther hedgerow that ran north and south, I tied my horse and approached the hut on foot.
It was a small hut, with a door at one end and a window, or rather a hole in the midst of the side that faced toward me. There was a nag’s head sticking through that hole. The creature whinnied to my animal, who answered; and even while I cursed that ill-luck I recognized the ungainly lazy sorrel on which Will Shakespeare had commenced his ride to London. In another moment Jeremy Crutch came through the door, a flute in one hand and a pistol in the other. He was noticeably no more pleased to meet me than I him.
“How now, Jeremy?” I said. “Not in Plymouth yet? Would the nag not carry you?”
“By the rood, have you come to make me fair exchange again?” he answered. And with that he drew aim at me, squinting along the barrel of his pistol. But I remembered he had missed me once, and I had taken away his powder; true, he might have bought or stolen more, but there was a chance that his pistol was as empty as the flute he carried in the other hand.
“Which weapon will you shoot me with?” I asked him, walking forward. “Down your weapon, Jeremy. I am here to talk, not to quarrel.” Then I remembered Will Shakespeare’s speech about my having robbed the fellow of his self-esteem. “We may end by being friends,” I told him, remembering, too, how my father had thought him worth running a risk for at the Coventry assizes.
He was glad enough to stick his pistol in the holster, and I held it in his favour that he did not think me treacherous, my father having taught me, and I myself having seen, that the least trustful men are the least to be trusted. He who can recognize good faith in others has that quality himself in some degree.
He went into the hut where he had made a fire of bits of sticks and thatch and what not else; and what with the horse being in there, and the dung smoking on the floor, it was warm. I was glad to sit down on a stool by the hearth. I left Jeremy standing.
“That old skate,” he said, making the horse stand over out of his way, “would ruin anyone. Not even a woman is feared of a highwayman so mounted, and at the inns they bid me begone. I’ll hang next.” And he played a few piteous bars on his flute.
“What woman worsted you?” I asked him.
“Master Will,” he said, “I’m not worth a King Harry groat no more since you took that mare o’ mine.”
“I have her yet,” I answered, and he cocked an eye at me. I thought him thin and melancholy, with a merry spirit trying now and then to peep through.
“It’s more than a mare you lack,” said I, “and it isn’t manhood, for you have it. Would you turn honest?”
“‘Od’s bones, try me!” he retorted. “But they’ve given me a bad name, Master Will.” He played a few more measures on his flute, the while I watched him.
“The Earl of Leicester’s men are riding,” I said. “Twelve of them and a lieutenant.”
“Near?” he asked. “Then it’s all up. That lame sorrel couldn’t show tail to a tortoise. Better leave me, Master Will, or they’ll swear we’re partners and they’ll hang you to the self-same gibbet. Seems I heard somewhere that the Earl of Leicester does not love you as they say the Queen loves him.” And he went on playing melancholy music.
“I’d expect good service, Jeremy,” said I. “Good loyal service and no naughty manners.”
“And the mare?” he asked, stopping the music midway of a note to cock an eye at me again.
“She’s in a mews,” said I, “in London.”
“And how many gibbets between here and London?” He shook his head and smiled. I thought him sorrowful. “It’s no use, Master Will. I’d like it. But they’ll hang me to the nearest gallows-tree.”
“What woman worsted you?” I asked him again. “Was it down there near the high-road where I saw the mud all stoached up?”
He nodded. “That brute,” he glanced at the sorrel, “stuck a hind foot in a mud-hole. And a maid that I thought was a man clapped pistol to me — and then saved me a trouncing from a pair o’ hinds. She mocked me something shameful. I’d rather ha’ had the broken pate, and if she weren’t a maid, I’d ha’ slain her.”
“Maid?” I said. “Heard you her name?”
“Mildred.” He began to play the flute again right prettily. Then: “I wasn’t the only lack-spunk. One with a blunderbuss rode ahead, and I let him pass before I rode out on the other three. When he heard me (it was too dark: to see much) he went spurring up the lane. He had a cracked voice. When he was out o’ pistol shot he called ‘Mildred! Mildred!’ The two hinds had bolted the other way, but they came back when they heard the maid laugh. There was nothing I could do. She had a pistol against my face — and mine empty since you took my last powder — and s
he too merry for a merry man like me to have at. ‘Let him alone,’ she says, ‘unhand him,’ when the hinds swung their cudgels. And then she said some more that weren’t so welcome from a merry maid. I’m red yet, back o’ the ears.”
“How long gone?” I demanded.
“Two hours. They’ll be resting at the farmhouse a mile up the lane, for the lane goes nowhere else but to Tibbetts’s place.”
“Good,” I said. “Mount the sorrel and we’ll ride to breakfast, Jeremy. Does Tibbetts keep decent table? I’m famished.”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I’ve fed the flute the wind I’m full of. If grace and fasting are the same I’ll go swift to Heaven when they hang me.”
“They shan’t hang you, Jeremy,” I said, “if you look after that mare rightly and deliver me good service. You’re a masterless man no longer, but remember to deserve good treatment.”
He was too starven to argue, having lived, I did not doubt, on air and wishes longer than his stomach liked. He led the sorrel until we both mounted where I had left my horse, and then rode limping along behind me until Futtok and Gaylord looked him over, jealous, feeling themselves already old retainers and him new. But he smiled his way into their favour. Every bit of the sourness of his features vanished when he laughed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Of John Coningsby, and rumour of rebellion.
TIBBETTS’S was an olden house, still standing from one of the Edwards’ reign, I know not which. It had a floor below the level of the ground, and no upper story, so that at first sight it looked like a monstrous pig-pen and a mounted man could wellnigh see over the roof to the far side. And Tibbetts was what might be looked for in a friend of Tony Pepperday’s, who loved such coney-catchers as himself.
Zachary Tibbetts came out toward us with a hayfork in his hand the moment the curs began barking. He had on a broad-brimmed leather hat and a leather smock reaching to his knees. His skin was of the same dark-walnut hue, so that he looked like one of those Egyptian corpses that the wandering showmen let you see for a penny. Only he had more to say, and that uncivil.
“Men and horses! Will ye eat me out o’ barn and cellar? There’s a good inn nine mile on the London Road,” he shouted.
He could have kept a bull out of his house more easily than me. I could see Mildred’s mare through the barn door, the white stocking of its near hind showing through the mud. I could have picked that mare out of a thousand. I shouted and Mildred looked out of the house, framed from the knees up in the open doorway, looking like a handsome gallant in her velvet suit and gilded sword-hilt; only her hair was down over her shoulders; I suppose she had been drying out the night’s rain.
In a moment she and I were in each other’s arms, Tony, trying to separate us, scolding like a cur-dog for another’s bone. I pulled the warrant out and rapped him with it, saying: “Tony, I arrest you in the Queen’s name!”; nor knew I whether he or Mildred was the more astonished.
Then in the Queen’s name I commanded Tibbetts to bring food for all of us, and I sent Jeremy out to see the horses baited and to choose for himself a mount from Tibbetts’s stable in place of his own useless sorrel. Tibbetts objecting, I asked him whether he would like thirteen of the Earl of Leicester’s men and horses to provide for, too, adding they were not far up the road and would be glad enough to rest o’ their long ride. So Tibbetts put a better grace on it, ordering his ill-favoured hag of a wife to spread a table — nor not bad viands either.
While the table was laying I took Mildred into the room beside the pantry, where I thought none could hear us and was equally sure we were unseen, for I like not lovers’ talk or deed before an audience. And presently I asked her where she had the velvet suit. She answered, it belonged to a friend of Tony’s, who had left it at Brownsover, on his way from Bristol; but I thought from the way she answered that she had not told all.
It was a new suit of good French velvet. She said she did not know its owner’s name, but that Tony had insisted on her wearing it so that they might be in less danger from the footpads on the way to London. Then she said: “Will, it must be we are destined for each other. How else could you have found me — you not knowing I had left home? Tony was for taking me out of England, to be far from your reach and the Earl of Leicester’s.
I never even guessed it until about an hour ago, when I overheard him whispering to Tibbetts; he had told me we were to visit Roger Tunby. But what is this about a warrant? You were jesting? Playing a trick on Tony?”
I let her read the warrant and examine the great seal, she marvelling that I should so soon ride on royal business. But she was angry — Lord God, she was angry! I loved her so, showing her spirit, although she dubbed me pick-thank for having sought my own advancement at Tony’s cost; aye, and she used less honourable names.
“A scurvy, underhanded way of winning me, Will! Never, they say, was a Halifax who hadn’t more ability than most men, but aren’t you the first of them to act like David, who sent Uriah to his death that he might have Bathsheba? What would your father Sir Harry have said? I know what I say: you shall never have me boughten in that market!”
It was a long time before I could persuade her I was saving Tony and herself from the Earl of Leicester’s clutches. I had to tell her all my story, she not singing Tony’s praises, since she knew him for the crooked little caitiff that he was, but bitter against what she supposed had been my underhanded dealing. She rested at last content with me, although I could offer no assurance as to Tony’s fate, but she made me promise I would do my best for him, which indeed I would have done in any event unless Tony himself should make me impotent to forfend evil that his own devices caused. I said the only hope that I could see for him was that the Lords in Council, who were men of dignity, might possibly not deign to smirch their feet by crushing such a cockroach.
When I told her I had fifteen hundred pounds, and how I came by it, she was ready enough to marry me if I could find a parson who would dare to take the responsibility; for neither of us understood what risk we ran, nor had more than an inkling yet of what influences were arrayed against us. Nor knew we how to go about it by other means than publishing of banns against three Sundays running, those already published having been forbidden, which I did not doubt would invalidate our marriage unless we should have them repeated. I thought of publishing the banns in London, where our names might be read in church unrecognized.
And then, by some mischance, I found my hands testing of the stuffs of her velvets, trying the buttons till, in truth, they were undone, and she called me no more graceless; but pressed her lips to mine in very passion.
Then, bannless and without nuptials, Mildred became my wife to spite heaven and her caitiff stepfather under Queen’s warrant arrest a wall’s-breadth apart.
They summoned us to table, but I turned back, remembering the wet cloak I had hung on a hook and being minded to spread it to dry before the fire, where Mildred’s cloak was. And as I took my wet cloak from the wall I heard a voice, as of someone hidden there who had thought me gone already. But the wall seemed solid, of oak as old as England. It was not panelled but of stout boards running up and down, well fitted, nor no crack between them that would have taken a knife’s edge without forcing. Nevertheless, my ears are not so easily mistaken; and I was vexed that someone might have overheard our confidences. I remembered Berden’s warning — spies — spies everywhere! And I knew of many a priest-hole in which we country gentry, aye, and my Protestant father not least, made no bones about hiding the poor devils of wandering Papists, who brought us news of foreign parts and set us all a-laughing (when we were safe hidden in the holes) at the ambitious malice of tire enemies of England’s Queen. There had been such a hole in our house and I knew no cursory search could find the opening.
So I stamped on the floor with my feet as if leaving the room, but in truth I made no progress, only less noise, and less, so that it should seem that I walked away whereas I stood still on the same spot. Presently I h
eard the sound again, as of a man who stretched himself in darkness, not seeing the wall but feeling of it, easing the discomfort of his long restraint. Yet I could see no crack through which such sound could come. But now my wits were working.
So I went into the kitchen, which was the only room beside the bedrooms that the farmhouse boasted, and there Tony was shivering between Futtok and Gaylord. Nor was it the cold that made him shiver. If ever I saw a man whose conscience carked him and filled him with dread, it was Tony thinking of the warrant I had rapped on his shoulder and of the hopelessness of persuading me to befriend him since the unkind speeches he had made me and his forbidding of the banns.
Said I: “Tony, you are like to forfeit to the crown on the count of treason all those heritages that you won from me by cozening my father; so neither of us richer — and you headless for the love o’ vanity. For it is naught but vanity that led you into treason with the Scots Queen.”
He sat still, working his jaws as if he chewed on something. If there was speech in him he could not bring it forth.
“Tony,” I said, “you little miserable caitiff, did you ever spare a debtor because he did you a service not included in the count? Nay, not you! Waste no thought on it. But see you that some other, less ungodly than yourself, might act magnanimous and spare you for the sake of loyalty that offset treason? You have seen the warrant. I must surrender you in London. Will you ride with the chances all against you in the one dish o’ the balance? Or will you fill the other dish to weigh the beam back to the level, and mayhap tip it to your favour?”