CHAPTER IX.
THE FIRST DAY OF THE FLIGHT.
"That wench is stark mad, or wonderful froward."--_The Taming of theShrew._
The object of this double chase, Master Marryott, rode on with his twomen, through the night, beyond Stevenage, at what pace it seemed best tomaintain. The slowness, incredible to a bicyclist or horseman who to-dayfollows the same route, was all the greater for the darkness; butslowness had good cause without darkness. English horse-breeding had notyet shown or sought great results in speed. An Elizabethan steed wouldmake a strange showing on a twentieth century race-track; for thespecial product of those days was neither horses nor machines, but men.And such as the horses were, what were the roads they had to traverse!When a horse put his foot down, the chances were that it would land in adeep rut, or slide crunching down the hardened ridge at the sidethereof, or find lodgment in a soggy puddle, or sink deep into softearth, or fall, like certain of the Scriptural seed, upon stony places.It is no wonder, then, that on a certain occasion, when Queen Elizabethwas particularly impatient for a swift answer to a letter she causedsent to the keepers of Mary Stuart, the messenger's time from London toFotheringay and back was at the rate of less than sixty miles a day. Asfor travel upon wheels, an example thereof will occur later in thisnarrative. But there was in those days one compensatory circumstance tofugitives flying with a rapidity then thought the greatest attainable:if they could not fly any faster, neither could their pursuers.
The night journey of our three riders continued in silence. As no soundof other horses now came from behind or from anywhere else, and as theobjects passed in the darkness were but as indistinct figures in thickink against a ground of watered ink. Hal's senses naturally turnedinward, and mainly upon what was then foremost in the landscape of hismind. This was the face of Mistress Anne Hazlehurst; and the more hegazed upon the image thereof, the more he sighed at having to increasethe distance between himself and the reality. His reluctance to goingfrom the neighborhood of her was none the less for the matter-of-factpromptness with which he did go therefrom. The face was no less a magnetto him for that he so readily and steadily resisted its drawing powers.Those drawing powers would, of course, by the very nature of magnets,decrease as he went farther from their source; but as yet they weremarvellously strong. Such is the charm exerted upon impressionable youthby a pair of puzzling eyes, a mysterious expression, a piquant contour,allied to beauty. All the effect of his first sight of that face wasrevived, and eked to greater magnitude by his strange confrontation withher, proud and wrathful in the poor lantern rays that fellintermittently and shiftingly upon her in the dark road.
He wondered what would be her subsequent proceedings that night; triedto form a mental panorama of her conduct regarding her wounded servants;of her actions now that she saw her design upset, the tenor of her lifenecessarily affected by this new catastrophe to her household. He pitiedher, as he thought of the confused and difficult situation into whichshe had been so suddenly plunged. And then he came to consider what mustbe her feelings toward himself. Looking upon him as her brother'sslayer, she must view him with both hate and horror. His violenttreatment of her servants would augment the former feeling to a verymadness of impotent wrath.
Yet it was not Hal Marryott that she hated,--it was the make-believe SirValentine Fleetwood; not the player, but the part he played. Still, adislike of a character assumed by an actor often refuses to separatethe actor from the character; moreover, she must necessarily hate him,should she ever come to know him, for having assumed that part,--forbeing, indeed, the aider of her enemy against herself. Hal registeredone determination: should the uncertain future--now of a most exceedinguncertainty in his case--bring him in his own person into the horizon ofthis woman, he would take care she should not know he had played thispart. What had passed between them should be blotted out; should be asif indeed Sir Valentine, not Hal Marryott, had escaped her in the road.And Hal bethought himself of one gain that the encounter had yieldedhim: it had acquainted him with the name and place of the previouslyunknown beauty. Some day, when he should have gone through with all thisbusiness, he might indeed seek her.
When he should have gone through with this business? The uncertainfuture came back to his thoughts. What would be the outcome of thisstrange flight? So strange, that if he should tell his friends in Londonof it, they would laugh at the tale as at a wild fiction. Fool a trainedman-hunter, a royal messenger grown old in catching people for thecouncil, and fool him by such a device as Hal had employed! Act a partin real life, even for a moment, to the complete deception of thespectator intended to be duped! To be sure, Dick Tarleton had done so,when he pretended in an inn at Sandwich to be a seminary priest, inorder to be arrested and have the officers pay his score and take him toLondon, where, being known, he was sure to be discharged. But DickTarleton was a great comedian, and had essayed to represent no certainidentifiable seminary priest; whereas Master Marryott, who had daredimpersonate a particular known man, was but a novice at acting.
But Hal soon perceived this fact: that playing a part on the stage andplaying a part in real life are two vastly different matters. A greatactor of the first may be a great failure in the second, and the worststage player may, under sufficient stress, fill an assumed characterdeceptively in real life. The spectator in a theatre expects to see acharacter pretended, and knows that what he sees is make-believe, notreal. A spectator in real life, chosen to be duped, expects no suchthing, and is therefore ready to take a pretence for what it purports tobe. Whatever may occur eventually to undeceive him, he is in proper mindfor deception at first contact with the pretence. And the veryunlikelihood of such an attempt as Hal's, the very seeming impossibilityof its success, was reason for Roger Barnet's not having suspected it.
These thoughts now occurred to Hal for the first time. Should he succeedin his novel adventure, he might congratulate himself upon theachievement, not of a great feat of stage-playing, indeed, though to hisstage training he owed his quick perception and imitation of SirValentine's chief physical peculiarities, but of a singular and daringact, in which he both actually and figuratively played a part.
But was he destined to succeed? Was Roger Barnet still upon his track?Or was he fleeing from nothing, leaving a track for nobody to follow?Well, he must trust to those at Fleetwood house to keep Sir Valentine'sactual whereabouts from discovery, and to Barnet's skill in picking upthe trace that a fugitive _must_ leave, willy-nilly. But what if fate,so fond of playing tricks on mortals, should conceive the whim ofcovering up the track of this one fugitive who desired his track to beseen? Hal cast away this thought. He must proceed, confidently, thoughin blindness as to what was doing behind him. At present, silence wasthere; no sound of far-off horse-hoofs. But this might be attributed toBarnet's interruption by Anne's party; to measures for procuring freshhorses, and to the necessary delivery of the letters of which the queenhad told him. And so, fleeing from cold darkness and the unknown intocold darkness and the unknown, deep in his thoughts, and trusting to hisstar. Master Marryott rode on through Baldock and toward Biggleswade.Kit Bottle presently called his attention to their having passed out ofHertfordshire into Bedfordshire.
The captain had been hard put to it for a fellow talker. His remarks toHal had elicited only absent monosyllables or silence. At last, with agulp as of choking down an antipathy, he had ridden forward to Anthonyand tried conversation with that person. Master Underhill listened asone swallows by compulsion a disagreeable dose, and gave brief, surlyanswers. Kit touched with perfect freedom upon the other's most privateconcerns, not deeming that a despised dissenter had a right to theordinary immunities.
"Marry, I know not which astoundeth me the more," said the soldier;"that a papist should keep a Puritan in's household, or that the Puritanshould serve the papist!"
Anthony was for a moment silent, as if to ignore the impudent speech;but then, in a manner of resignation, as if confession and apology werepart of his proper punishment, he said, with a l
ofty kind of humility:
"The case no more astoundeth you than it reproacheth me. It biteth myconscience day and night, and hath done so this many a year. Daily Iresolve me to quit the service of them that cherish the gauds andidolatries of papistry. But the flesh is weak; I was born in SirValentine's household, and I could not find strength to wrench me fromit."
"Ay," said Kit, "no doubt it hath been in its way a fat stewardship,though the estate be decreased. The master being so oft abroad, and allleft to your hands, I'll warrant there have been plump takings, for balmto the bites o' conscience."
"I perceive you are a flippant railer; but you touch me not. What shouldthey of no religion understand of the bites of conscience?"
"No religion! Go to, man! Though I be a soldier, and of a free life,look you, I've practised more religions than your ignorance wots of; andevery one of them better than your scurvy, hang-dog, vinegar-faced nonconformity! Nay, I have been Puritan, too, when it served my turn, inthe days when I was of Walsingham's men. He had precisian leanings, andso had the clerk o' the council. Mr. Beal. But you are an ingrate, tofatten on a good service, yet call it a reproach!"
"Fatten!" echoed the Puritan, glancing down at his spare frame. "Mayhapit hath been a good service formerly, by comparison with its having thisnight made me partaker in a five days' lie, abettor of a piece ofplay-acting, and associate of a scurrilous soldier!"
With which Anthony Underhill quickened his horse so as to move from thecaptain's side; whereupon Kit, too amazed for timely outwardresentment, lapsed into silent meditation.
They rode through Biggleswade. Fatigue was now telling on them. Hal'slatest sleep had been that of the previous morning, in the cold open airof Whitehall garden,--an age ago it seemed! Kit's most recent slumbers,taken even earlier, had been, doubtless, in equally comfortlesscircumstances. Hal learned, by a question, that Anthony had passedyesternight in bed, warm and sober. So Hal decided that when the threeshould stop at dawn for rest, food, change of horses, and the removal ofthe false beard, himself and Kit should attempt an hour's repose whileAnthony should watch. The Puritan should be one of the sleepers, Kit thewatcher, at the second halt. Hal planned and announced all details forassuring an immediate flight on the distant advent of the pursuers. Asystem of brief stops and of alternate watches could be employedthroughout the whole flight without loss of advantage, for Barnet alsowould have to make similar delays for rest, food, and the changing orbaiting of horses.
On wore the night. They passed through Eaton Socon, and continuednorthward instead of turning into St. Neots at the right. They tooknotice here, as they had taken at previous forkings of the road, thatthere were houses at or near the junction,--houses in which uneasyslumberers would be awakened by their passing and heed which way theirhorses went. Roger Barnet would have but to ride up noisily, and,perchance, pound and call at a house or two, to bring these persons towindows with word of what they had heard. Hal marvelled as he thought ofit the more, how the nature of things will let no man traverse thisworld, or any part of it, without leaving trace of his passage. He sawin this material fact an image of life itself, and in the night silence,broken only by the clatter of his horses and by some far-off dog's barkor cock's crow, he had many new thoughts. So he rode intoHuntingdonshire, and presently, as the pallor of dawn began to blanchthe ashen sky, he passed Kimbolton, whose castle now seemed a chilldeath-place for poor Catherine of Aragon; and, four miles farther on, hedrew up, in the dim early light, before the inn at Catworth Magna, andset Kit bawling lustily for the landlord.
A blinking hostler came from the stable yard, and the beefy-looking hostfrom the inn door, at the same time. But the travellers would not getoff their mounts until they were assured of obtaining fresh ones.Captain Bottle did the talking. The new horses were brought out to thegreen before the inn. Kit dismounted and examined them, then struck abargain with the innkeeper for their use, dragging the latter's slowwits to a decision by main force. This done, Hal leaped to the ground,called for a room fronting on the green, a speedy breakfast servedtherein, a razor and shaving materials taken thither, and some oat-cakesand ale brought out to Anthony, who should stay with the horses.
Hal then strode up and down the green, while Anthony ate and Kit and thehostler transferred the saddles and bridles. He kept well muffled aboutthe face with his cloak, in such manner as at once to display his beardand yet conceal the evidence of its falseness. The new horses ready,Anthony mounted one, and, under pretence of exercising them, moved offwith them toward the direction whence Barnet would eventually come. Hal,to forestall hindrance in case of a necessarily hasty departure, handedthe innkeeper gold enough to cover all charges he might incur, and wasshown, with Kit, to a small, bare-walled, wainscoted, plastered,slope-roofed room up-stairs. He threw open the casement toward thegreen, and promptly fell upon the eggs, fish, and beer that were by thistime served upon a board set on stools instead of on trestles. Finishingsimultaneously with Kit, Hal took off his false beard, strewed itssevered tufts over the floor, and then submitted his face, which had afew days' natural growth of stubble, to a razor wielded by the captain.After this operation, the two stretched themselves upon the bed, intheir clothes, their heads toward the open window.
A dream of endless riding, varied by regularly renewed charges against awall of plunging horses that invariably fled away to intervene again,and by the alternate menacings and mockings of a beautiful face,culminated in a clamorous tumult like the shouting of a multitude. Halsprang up. Bottle was bounding from the bed at the same instant.
The sound was only the steadily repeated, "Halloo, halloo!" of AnthonyUnderhill beneath the open window. Hal looked out. The Puritan sat hishorse on the green, holding the other two animals at his either side,all heads pointed northward. On seeing Hal, he beckoned and was silent.
Hal and Kit rushed to the passage, thence down the stairs, and throughthe entrance-way, to horse. The landlord, called forth by Anthony'shullabaloo, stared at them in wonder. Hal returned his gaze, that animpression of the newly shaven face might remain well fixed in thehost's mind; and then jerked rein for a start. Neither Hal nor Kit hadyet taken time to look for the cause of Anthony's alarm. As theygalloped away from the inn, Hal heard the patter of horses coming upfrom the south. He turned in his saddle, expecting to see Roger Barnetand his crew in full chase.
But the horses were only two in number, and on them were MistressHazlehurst, in a crimson cloak and hood, and the page in green who hadattended her at the theatre. Hal's heart bounded with sudden pleasure.As he gazed back at her, he caught himself smiling.
She saw him, noted his two companions, and seemed to be in doubt. Thelandlord was still before the inn. She reined up, and spoke to him. Halcould see the innkeeper presently, while answering her, put his hand tohis chin. "Good!" thought Hal; "he is telling her that, though I departsmooth-faced, I arrived bearded."
The next moment, she and the page were riding after the three fugitives.
Without decreasing his pace, Hal asked Anthony:
"Was it she only that you saw coming? Are Barnet's men behind?"
"'Twas she only. But she is enough to raise the country on us!"
"Think you that is her purpose?"
"Ay," replied Anthony. "She hath heard of the treason matter from thepursuivant, and hath shot off, like bolt from bow, to denounce you. 'Tisher method of vengeance."
"'Tis like a woman--of a certain kind," commented Kit Bottle, who hadtaken in the situation as promptly as the others had.
"'Tis like a Hazlehurst," said Anthony.
"Well," said Master Marryott, for a pretext, "'tis doubtless as you say;but I desire assurance. It may serve us to know her intentions. Shecannot harm us here." (They were now out of the village.) "Though shewould raise hell's own hue and cry about us, she might halloo herloudest, none would hear at this part of the road. We shall wait forher."
Anthony cast a keen glance at Hal, and Kit Bottle thrust his tongue inhis cheek and looked away,--manifestations at which H
al could only turnred and wish that either of the two had given some open cause forrebuke. He was determined, however; the temptation to play with fire inthe shape of a beautiful woman was too alluring, the danger apparentlytoo little. So the three horses dropped to a walk, and presently the twothat followed were at their heels. Hal looked back as she came on, tosee if she still carried the sword she had used on the previous night;but he saw no sign of it about her. In fact, she had given it toFrancis, who bore at his girdle a poniard also.
"Mistress, you travel ill-protected," was Hal's speech of greeting.
"So my brother must have done when he met you last," was her prompt anddefiant answer.
She let her horse drop into the gait of Hal's, and made no move to gofrom his side. The Puritan resumed his place at the head, and Francis,in order to be immediately behind his mistress, fell in with KitBottle. In this order the party of five proceeded northward, theirhorses walking.
"I did not harm your brother," reiterated Marryott, with a sigh.
"I perceive," she replied, ironically, "you are not the man that hurt mybrother. You have made of yourself another man, by giving yourselfanother face! God 'a' mercy, the world is dull, indeed, an it is to befooled with a scrape of a razor! You should have bought the silence ofmine host yonder, methinks! And changed your company, altered yourattitude, rid yourself of the stiffness from the wound my brother gaveyou, and washed your face of the welt my sword left! You have a goodbarber, Sir Valentine; he hath shaved a score of years from your face;he hath renewed your youth as if with water from that fountain men tellof, in America!"
"The loss of a long-worn beard indeed giveth some men a strange look ofyouth," assented Hal, as if humoring her spirit of bitter derisionagainst himself. He was glad of her conviction that he could lookyouthful and yet be the middle-aged Sir Valentine.
"'Twas so in the case of an uncle of mine," she said, curtly, "which themore hindereth your imposing on me with a face of five and twenty."
"Five and twenty?" echoed Hal, involuntarily, surprised that he shouldappear even so old. But a moment's reflection told him that his age mustbe increased in appearance by the assumed stiffness of his attitude; bythe frown and the labial rigidity he partly simulated, partly hadacquired since yesterday; by the gauntness and pallor, both due tonervous tension and to lack of sleep and food. He was indeed an olderman than the "Laertes" of two days ago, and not to be recognized as thesame, for in the play he had worn a mustache and an air little like hispresent thoughtful mien.
"And I'll warrant this new face will serve you little to throw them offthat are coming yonder," she went on, indicating the rearward road by aslight backward toss of the head.
"Certain riders from London, mean you?" said Hal. "By your leave, madam,sith you be in their secrets, I would fain know how far behind us theyride?"
"Not so far but they will be at your heels ere this day's sun grow tiredof shining."
"Ay, truly? They will do swift riding, then!"
"Mayhap 'twill come of their swift riding," she replied, taunted by hiscourteous, almost sugary, tone. "And mayhap, of your meeting hindrance!"
"Prithee, what should put hindrance in my way?" he inquired, with a mostannoying pretence of polite surprise and curiosity.
"I will!" she cried. "I have run after you for that purpose!"
"God's light, say you so? And what will you do to hinder me?"
"I know not yet," she answered, with high serenity. "But I shall find away."
"No doubt you will choose the simplest way," said Hal.
"What is that, I pray you?" she asked, quickly.
But Hal merely smiled. She followed his glance, however, which restedupon a gabled country-house far across the open field at their right,and she read his thought.
"Nay," she said, her chin elevated haughtily, "I disdain help. 'Tis myhumor to be alone the means of throwing you into the hands that bringthe warrant for you. Nor shall I lose sight of you time enough to seekrustic officers and set them on you."
"You are wise in that," said Hal; "for, indeed, if you took but time tocry out against me to some passing wayfarer, I and my men would beup-tails-and-away in a twinkling. For my own interest, I tell you this;sith I'd fain not have you do aught to deprive me of your company asfellow traveller."
She colored with indignation at this compliment, and Hal, therebyreminded that she saw in him her brother's slayer, and sensible how muchaffront lay in the speech in the circumstances, reddened as deeply. Ifhe could but find a way, without making her doubt that he was SirValentine, of convincing her that he had not been her brother'sopponent! He had thought vaguely that, by his reiterated denials of ahand in the killing, he might finally implant in her mind the impressionthat, though he was Sir Valentine, he had not given the mortal thrust;that there was some mystery about the fight, to be explained in time.But he now perceived that if such an idea could be rooted into her mind,its effect must be to make her drop the chase and go back to SirValentine's neighborhood. There she might find conclusive evidence ofSir Valentine's responsibility for her brother's death, and make uponFleetwood house some kind of invasion that would endanger the real SirValentine. Moreover, Hal took a keen, though disturbed, joy in herpresence, despite the bar of bloodshed that in her mind existed betweenthem; and though to retain that joy he must let her continue in thatsupposition, he elected to retain it at the price.
After a pause, during which she acquired the coolness of voice to answerHal's thoughtlessly offensive words, she said:
"I pray God to hasten the hour when I shall be your fellow travellertoward London!"
"An Roger Barnet, with his warrant of the council, were left out, Ishould pray God to be your fellow traveller anywhere!" was Hal'sreply,--and again he had to curse his heedlessness, as again he saw howodious to her was the truth that had slipped so readily out of him. "Yourode fast, else you had not overtaken me," he said, in hope of changingher thoughts.
"And having overtaken you, I shall not lose you," she answered.
"And you have not slept nor eaten! Marry, you must be weary and faint,mistress!"
"Neither too weary nor too faint to dog you to your undoing," she said,resolutely throwing off all air of fatigue.
"And you risked the dangers of the road. Ods-death, if you had fallen inwith robbers!"
"That danger is past," she said. "Henceforth, till the officers be withus, I shall go in your company, and the appearance of you and your menwill be my guard against robbers."
"Nay, an you were threatened, I and my men would offer more than mereappearance in your protection, I do assure you!"
"Be that as it may," she answered, coldly. "Appearance would serve. Itake protection of you while I have need of it, and not as a favor or acourtesy, but as a right--"
"From a gentleman to a lady, yes," put in Hal.
"From an enemy," she went on, ignoring his interruption, "sith it be apractice in war to avail oneself of the enemy without scruple, in allways possible!"
Hal sighed. He would rather let his protection be accepted otherwise.But he inwardly valued her unconscious tribute to the gentlemanhood shedivined in him,--the tribute apparent in her taking for granted that hewould act her protector even on a journey in which her declared objectwas to hold him back for the death he was flying from. There were suchgentlemen in those days; and there have been such women as Anne--womenwho will avail themselves of the generosity of men they are seeking todestroy--in all days.
He was glad of the assurance received from her that Roger Barnet wasstill on his track. Thus far, all was going well. If this woman, frompride or caprice or a strange jealousy of keeping her vengeance all toherself, did indeed think to impede him by other and more exclusivemeans than public denunciation or hue and cry, he felt that he hadlittle to fear from her. To put her declaration to the test, he held thehorses down to an easy gait in passing through the next villages, thoughhe was ready to spur forward at a sign; but she indicated no thought ofstarting an outcry. She kept her eyes aver
ted in deep thought. Hal wouldhave given much to read what was passing within that shapely head.Without doubt, she was intent upon some plan for making a gift of him tohis pursuers, some device for achieving that revenge which she craved asa solitary feast, and which she was not willing to owe to any one butherself. What design was she forming? Hal imagined she could not be veryexpert in designs. A crafty nature would not have declared war openly,as her proud and impulsive heart had bade her do. He admired her forthat frankness, for that unconscious superiority to underhand fighting.It showed a noble, masterful soul, and matched well her imperiousbeauty.
They rode through Clapton and Deane. Her fatigue became more and moreevident, though pride and resolution battled hard against it. Her onlyfood during the forenoon was some cold ham she got at a country inn inNorthamptonshire, at which Hal paused to bait the horses. They proceededinto Rutlandshire. Before entering Glaiston she swayed upon herside-saddle, but instantly recovered herself. At Manton she wasshivering,--the day was indeed a cold one, though the sun had come outat eight o'clock, but she had not shivered so before.
"We shall have dinner and a rest at Oakham," said Master Marryott,softly. "'Tis but three miles ahead."
"All's one, three miles or thirty!" she answered.
As they stopped before an inn at the farther end of Oakham,--an innchosen by Hal for its situation favorable to hasty flightnorthward,--the clocks in the town were sounding noon; noon ofWednesday. March 4, 1601; noon of the long first day of the hoped-forfive days' flight.
A Gentleman Player; His Adventures on a Secret Mission for Queen Elizabeth Page 11