A Gentleman Player Part 13

"I know not yet," she answered, with high serenity. "But I shall find a way."

"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 rested upon 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 my humor to be alone the means of throwing you into the hands that bring the warrant for you. Nor shall I lose sight of you time enough to seek rustic officers and set them on you."

"You are wise in that," said Hal; "for, indeed, if you took but time to cry out against me to some pa.s.sing wayfarer, I and my men would be up-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 as fellow traveller."

She colored with indignation at this compliment, and Hal, thereby reminded that she saw in him her brother's slayer, and sensible how much affront lay in the speech in the circ.u.mstances, reddened as deeply. If he could but find a way, without making her doubt that he was Sir Valentine, of convincing her that he had not been her brother's opponent! He had thought vaguely that, by his reiterated denials of a hand in the killing, he might finally implant in her mind the impression that, 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 Sir Valentine's neighborhood. There she might find conclusive evidence of Sir Valentine's responsibility for her brother's death, and make upon Fleetwood house some kind of invasion that would endanger the real Sir Valentine. Moreover, Hal took a keen, though disturbed, joy in her presence, despite the bar of bloodshed that in her mind existed between them; and though to retain that joy he must let her continue in that supposition, he elected to retain it at the price.

After a pause, during which she acquired the coolness of voice to answer Hal's thoughtlessly offensive words, she said:

"I pray G.o.d to hasten the hour when I shall be your fellow traveller toward London!"

"An Roger Barnet, with his warrant of the council, were left out, I should pray G.o.d to be your fellow traveller anywhere!" was Hal's reply,--and again he had to curse his heedlessness, as again he saw how odious to her was the truth that had slipped so readily out of him. "You rode fast, else you had not overtaken me," he said, in hope of changing her 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 in with robbers!"

"That danger is past," she said. "Henceforth, till the officers be with us, I shall go in your company, and the appearance of you and your men will be my guard against robbers."

"Nay, an you were threatened, I and my men would offer more than mere appearance in your protection, I do a.s.sure you!"

"Be that as it may," she answered, coldly. "Appearance would serve. I take protection of you while I have need of it, and not as a favor or a courtesy, 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 a practice in war to avail oneself of the enemy without scruple, in all ways possible!"

Hal sighed. He would rather let his protection be accepted otherwise.

But he inwardly valued her unconscious tribute to the gentlemanhood she divined in him,--the tribute apparent in her taking for granted that he would act her protector even on a journey in which her declared object was to hold him back for the death he was flying from. There were such gentlemen in those days; and there have been such women as Anne--women who will avail themselves of the generosity of men they are seeking to destroy--in all days.

He was glad of the a.s.surance received from her that Roger Barnet was still on his track. Thus far, all was going well. If this woman, from pride or caprice or a strange jealousy of keeping her vengeance all to herself, did indeed think to impede him by other and more exclusive means than public denunciation or hue and cry, he felt that he had little to fear from her. To put her declaration to the test, he held the horses down to an easy gait in pa.s.sing through the next villages, though he was ready to spur forward at a sign; but she indicated no thought of starting an outcry. She kept her eyes averted in deep thought. Hal would have given much to read what was pa.s.sing within that shapely head.

Without doubt, she was intent upon some plan for making a gift of him to his pursuers, some device for achieving that revenge which she craved as a solitary feast, and which she was not willing to owe to any one but herself. What design was she forming? Hal imagined she could not be very expert in designs. A crafty nature would not have declared war openly, as her proud and impulsive heart had bade her do. He admired her for that frankness, for that unconscious superiority to underhand fighting.

It showed a n.o.ble, masterful soul, and matched well her imperious beauty.

They rode through Clapton and Deane. Her fatigue became more and more evident, though pride and resolution battled hard against it. Her only food during the forenoon was some cold ham she got at a country inn in Northamptonshire, at which Hal paused to bait the horses. They proceeded into Rutlandshire. Before entering Glaiston she swayed upon her side-saddle, but instantly recovered herself. At Manton she was shivering,--the day was indeed a cold one, though the sun had come out at 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 inn chosen by Hal for its situation favorable to hasty flight northward,--the clocks in the town were sounding noon; noon of Wednesday. March 4, 1601; noon of the long first day of the hoped-for five days' flight.

CHAPTER X.

THE LOCKED DOOR.

"When I was at home, I was in a better place: but travellers must be content."

--_As You Like It._

Before alighting from her horse, Mistress Hazlehurst waited to see what her enemy should do. The enemy's first proceedings were similar to those taken upon his arrival at Catworth Magna. That is to say, through the expeditious offices of Captain Bottle, new horses were placed ready before the inn, ere the party dismounted from the tired ones; dinner and a room were bespoken; and all possible charges were forestalled by advance payment. Anne imitated this whole arrangement precisely, causing no little wonder on the part of the inn people, that she should give her orders independently, though they were exactly like those of the three men with whom she and her page were manifestly travelling. It was mentally set down by the shrewd ones that here were man and wife, or brother and sister, not on speaking terms, yet obliged to perform a journey together.

Hal remained outside the inn with Anthony, till Bottle should ride back to keep watch. Anne stood near him, not irresolute, but to observe his actions. Refreshed with a stirrup-cup and some cakes, Bottle soon rode off, with two led horses. Perceiving the object of this movement, Anne dismissed the captain from her observation, that she might concentrate it upon the supposed Sir Valentine. As her boy Francis was in no less need of food and sleep than herself, she gave a coin to one of the hostlers, with orders to walk her horses up and down before the inn till she should come for them.

Hal counted on her fatigue to reinforce her proud determination that she would not resort to the local authorities against him. Yet he would not go to his chamber ere she went to hers. Deducing this from his actions--for no speech pa.s.sed between them while they tarried before the inn--and being indeed well-nigh too exhausted to stand, she finally called for a servant to show her to her room. Francis followed her, to wait upon her at dinner and then to lie on a bench outside her door.

Hal watched her into the entrance-hall of the inn. At the foot of the stairs leading to the upper floor, she stopped, handed a piece of money to the attendant, and spoke a few words in a low tone. The fellow glanced toward the inn porch in which Hal was standing, and nodded obedience. Hal inferred that she was engaging to be notified instantly in case of his departure. A moment later Hal beckoned Anthony to follow, and went, under the guidance of the landlady herself, up to his own room.

As he turned from the stair-head into the upper pa.s.sage, he saw a door close, which he divined to be that of his fair enemy. A moment later an inn servant appeared with a bench, and placed it outside this door. On reaching his own room, in the same pa.s.sage, Hal noticed that this bench, on which Francis was to rest, stood in view of his own door, and also--by way of the stairs--of the entrance-hall below. He smiled at the precautions taken by the foe.

Examining his room, he saw that it had the required window overlooking the front inn yard and the road beyond. Immediately beneath this window was the sloping roof of the inn porch. Having opened the cas.e.m.e.nt, and moved the bed's head near it, Hal turned to the dinner that a servant was placing on a small trestle-table, for which there was ample free s.p.a.ce in the chamber. The English inns of those days were indeed commodious, and those in the country towns were better than those in London. Hosts took pride in their tapestry, furniture, bedding, plate, and gla.s.ses. Some of the inns in the greater towns and roads had room for three hundred guests with their horses and servants. n.o.blemen travelled with great retinues, and carried furniture with them. It was a golden age of inns,--though, to be sure, the servants were in many cases in league with highway robbers, to whom they gave information of the wealth, destinations, routes, and times of setting forth of well-furnished guests. The inn at which Hal now refreshed himself, in Oakham, was not of the large or celebrated ones. He had his own reasons for resorting to small and obscure hostelries. Yet he found the dinner good, the ale of the best, and, after that, the bed extremely comfortable, even though he lay in his clothes, with his hand on his sword-hilt.

He had flung himself down, immediately after dinner, not waiting for the platters and cups to be taken away. Anthony, who had been as a table-fellow sour and monosyllabic, but by no means abstemious, for all his Puritanism, was as prompt as Hal to avail himself of the comfort of the bed. His appreciation was soon evinced by a loud snoring, whose st.u.r.dy nasality seemed of a piece with his canting, rebuking manner of speech when he allowed himself to be lured into conversation. There was in his snore a rhythmic wrestling and protesting, as of Jacob with the angel, or a preacher against Satan, that befitted well his righteous non-conformity. From this thought--for which he wondered that he could find place when his situation provided so much other matter for meditation--Hal's mind lapsed into the incoherent visions of slumber, and soon deep sleep was upon him.

Hal had arranged that Kit Bottle should return to the inn and call him, after four hours, in the event of no appearance of the pursuit. When Hal awoke with a start, therefore, and yet heard no such hallooing as Anthony had given at Catworth, he supposed that Kit must have summoned him by a less alarming cry. His head shot out of the window, but he beheld no Kit. Turning to Anthony, he saw that the Puritan had just opened his eyes.

"Didst hear anything?" queried Hal.

"Not sith I awoke," was the answer. "Yet meseems in my sleep there was a loud grating sound and a terrific crash."

"In our dreams we multiply the sounds that touch our ears," said Hal.

"It must have been a sound of omen, to have waked us both. So let us think of a small grating sound--"

At that instant his eyes alighted on the door. He would have sworn a key had been in that door, though he had not locked it before sleeping. He had noticed the key for its great size and rustiness. But no key was there now, at least on the inside. Hal strode from the bed, and tried the door. It was locked.

"How now?" quoth he. "Some one has robbed us of our key, and used it on the wrong side of the door!"

"I warrant it should be no far seeking to find that some one," growled Anthony, rising to his feet.

"Ay," said Hal, "'tis just the shallow, childish stop-n.o.body thing a woman would do, and think she hath played a fine trick! Come, Anthony,"--Hal spoke the Puritan's name not superciliously now, for he was beginning to like a fellow who could toil forward so uncomplainingly through fatigue and danger, yet make such full use of comforts when they fell to him,--"I see Captain Bottle riding hither, at a walk. That means 'tis four o'clock, though Master Barnet hath not yet shown his face. We must be taking horse again."

And he dropped out of the window to the porch roof, let himself down a corner-post, and stood in the inn yard. Anne's horses were still there.

As soon as Anthony was beside him, Hal stepped into the entrance-pa.s.sage. At the stair-foot stood Mistress Hazlehurst, her back to the door, giving some swift and excited commands to her page, Francis, who was ready to ride.

She turned to see who had entered the inn. On perceiving it was Hal, and that his face wore an involuntary quizzical smile, she caught her breath, and became the very picture of defeat and self-discovered foolishness.