A Gentleman Player Part 16

"The devil!" was all that he could say.

"She cannot have given up, and gone back," volunteered Anthony. "She would have had to pa.s.s your man Bottle, and he would have ridden hither to tell you she was stirring."

"Ay, 'tis plain enough she hath not fled southward, where Kit keeps watch for Barnet's men. She hath ridden forward! Ho, John Ostler, a murrain on you!" cried Hal. "The lady--whither hath she gone, and when?

Speak out, or 'twill fare hard with you!"

"'Twas but your own two beasts your honor bade me guard," said the hostler, coming from the stables. "As for the lady, her and the lad went that way, an hour since or so!" And the fellow pointed northward.

"Haste, Anthony!" muttered Hal, untying his own horse. "Ride yonder for Kit Bottle, and then you and he gallop after me! She hath gone to raise the country ahead of us! Failure of other means hath pushed her to belie her declaration."

"A woman's declaration needeth little pushing, to be o'erthrown,"

commented Anthony, sagely, as he mounted.

"Tut, knave, 'tis a woman's privilege to renounce her word!" replied Master Marryott, sharply, having already leaped to saddle.

"It may be so; I know not," said Anthony, with sour indifference; and the two made for the road together.

"Well, see that Kit and you follow speedily, while I fly forward to stay that lady, lest we be caught 'twixt Barnet's men behind us, and a hue and cry in front!" Whereupon, without more ado, Hal spurred his horse in the direction that Anne had taken, while Anthony turned southward in quest of Bottle.

As Hal sped along, he did not dare confess which of the two motives more fed his anxious impatience: solicitude for his own cause, or fear that Anne might meet danger on the road,--for he recalled what the countryman had told him of highway robbers infesting the neighborhood.

He put four miles behind him, neither winning glimpse of her nor being overtaken by Kit and Anthony. Seeking naught in the forward distance but her figure--now so distinct in his imagination, so painfully absent from his real vision,--he paid no heed, until he had galloped into the very midst of it, to a numerous crowd of heavy-shod countrymen that lined both sides of the road at the entrance to the village of Clown.

So impetuous had been Hal's forward movement, so complete the possession of his mind by the one image, that he had seen this village a.s.semblage with dull eyes, and with no sense of its possibly having anything to do with himself; yet it was just such a gathering that he ought to have expected, and against which he ought to have been on his guard. Not until it closed about him, not until a huge loutish fellow caught the rein of his suddenly impeded horse, and a pair of rustics drew across the road--from a side lane--a clumsy covered coach that wholly blocked the way, and a little old man on the edge of the crowd brandished a rusty bill and called out in a squeaky voice, "Surrender!" did Hal realize that he had ridden right into the hands of a force hastily gathered by the village constable to waylay and take him prisoner.

Hal clapped hand to sword-hilt, and surveyed the crowd with a sweeping glance. The constable had evidently brought out every able-bodied man in the near neighborhood. Three or four were armed with long bills, hooked and pointed, like that borne by the constable himself. Others carried stout staves. Emboldened by the example of the giant who had seized Hal's rein, the clowns pressed close around his horse. Ere Hal could draw sword, his wrist was caught in the iron grasp of one of the giant's great brown paws. Two other burly villagers laid hold of his pistols. With his free hand, Hal tried to back his horse out of the press, but was prevented both by the throng behind and by the big fellow's gripe of the rein. Marryott thereupon flashed out his dagger, and essayed to use it upon the hand that imprisoned his wrist. But his arm was caught, in the elbow crook, by the hook of a bill that a yeoman wielded in the nick of time. The next instant, a heavy blow from a stave struck the dagger from Hal's hand. His legs were seized, and he was a captured man.

All this had occurred in short time, during the plunging of Hal's horse and the shouting of the crowd. It had been a vastly different matter from the night encounter with Mistress Hazlehurst's servants. These yokels of Clown, a.s.sembled in large number, led by the parish Hercules, bearing the homely weapons to which they were used, opposing afoot and by daylight a solitary mounted man to whom their attack was a complete surprise, were a force from whom defeat was no disgrace. Yet never did Master Marryott know keener rage, humiliation, and self-reproach --self-reproach for his heedless precipitancy, and his having ridden on without his two men--than when he found himself captive to these rustics; save when, a moment later, his glance met an open cas.e.m.e.nt of an ale-house at one side of the road, and he saw Anne Hazlehurst! Her look was one of triumph; her smile like that with which he had greeted her after the incident of the locked door at Oakham. And, for the s.p.a.ce of that moment, he hated her.

"Sir Valentine Fleetwood," cried the constable, in his senile squeak, pushing his way with a sudden access of pomposity from his place at the crowd's edge, "I apprehend you for high treason, and charge you to get down from your horse and come peaceably to the justice's house."

"Justice's house!" cried Hal, most wrathfully. "Of what do you prate, old fool? What have I to do with scurvy, rustical justices?"

"To Justice Loudwight's, your honor," replied the constable, suddenly tamed by Hal's high and mighty tone. "In good sooth, his house is pleasant lodging, even for a knight, or lord either, and his table and wine--"

"Devil take Justice Loudwight's table and wine, and a black murrain take yourself!" broke in Hal, from his horse. "Give me my weapons, and let me pa.s.s! What foolery is this, you rogue, to hinder one of her Majesty's subjects travelling on weighty business?"

"Nay, sir, I know my duty, and Mr. Loudwight shall judge. I must hold you till he come back from Chesterfield, whither he hath gone to--"

"I care not wherefore Mr. Loudwight hath gone to Chesterfield, or if every other country wight in Derbyshire hath gone to visit the foul fiend! Nor can I tarry for their coming back," quoth Hal, truly enough, for such tarrying meant his detention for the arrival of Roger Barnet.

"Let me pa.s.s on, or this place shall rue this day!"

"I be the constable, and I know my duty, and I must apprehend all flying traitors, whether they be traitors or no, which is a matter for my betters in the law to give judgment on."

The constable's manner showed a desire to prove himself an authoritative personage, in the eyes of the community and of Mistress Hazlehurst. He was a quailing old fellow, who pretended boldness; a simple soul, who affected shrewdness.

"Know your duty, say you?" quoth Hal. "Were that so, you would know a constable may not hold a gentleman without a warrant. Where is your writ?"

"Talk not of warrants! I'll have warrants enough when Justice Loudwight cometh home. Though I have no warrant yet, I have information," and the constable glanced at the window from which Anne looked down at the scene.

Hal thought of the surely fatal consequences of his remaining in custody till either Justice Loudwight should come home or Roger Barnet arrive.

His heart sank. True, Kit Bottle and Anthony Underhill might appear at any moment; but their two swords, unaided by his own, would scarce avail against the whole village toward effecting a rescue. He pondered a second; then spoke thus:

"Look you, Master Constable! You have information. Well, information is but information. Mine affairs so press me onward that I may not wait to be judged of your Mr. Loudwight. Hear you, therefore, the charge against me, and mine answer to't. While the justice is away, is not the constable the main pillar of the law? And shall not a constable judge of information that cometh to him first? Ods-light, 'tis a pretty pa.s.s when one may say this-and-that into the ears of a constable, and bid him act upon it as 'twere heaven's truth! Hath he no mind of his own, by which he may judge of information? If he have authority to receive information, hath he not authority to receive denial of it, and to render opinion 'twixt the two?"

The constable, flattered and magnified--he knew not exactly why--by Hal's words and mien, expanded and looked profound; then answered, with a sage, approving nod:

"There is much law and equity in what you say, sir!"

Quick to improve the situation, Hal instantly added:

"Then face me with your informer, Master Constable, and judge lawfully between us!"

"Bring this worshipful prisoner before me!" commanded the constable, addressing the giant and the others in possession of Hal's horse, legs, and weapons; and thereupon walked, with great authority, into the ale-house. Hal was promptly pulled from his saddle, and led after him.

The constabulary presence established itself behind a table at one side of the public room. The giant and another fellow held Hal, while a third tied his hands behind with a rope.

The villagery crowded into the room, pushing Hal almost against the constable's table. But, after a moment, the crowd parted; for Anne Hazlehurst, having witnessed the course of events from her window, had come down-stairs without being summoned, and she now moved forward to Hal's side, closely followed by Francis. Meanwhile, at the constable's order, a gawkish stripling, whose looks betokened an underdone pedagogue, took a seat at the table's end, with writing materials which the officer of the peace had commanded from the ale-house keeper in order to give an imposing legal aspect to the proceedings.

"Now, sir," began the constable, with his best copy of a judicial frown, "there is here to be examined a question of whether this offender be in truth a pursued traitor--"

"Pardon me, Master Constable," objected Hal. "Sith it is questionable whether I be that traitor. I may not yet be called an offender."

"Sir," replied the constable, taking on severity from the presence of Anne, "leave these matters to them that stand for the laws. Offender you are, and that's certain, having done offence in that you did resist apprehension."

"Nay, if I be the pursued traitor I am charged with being," said Hal, "then might that apprehension have been proper, and I might stand guilty of resistance; but if I be no such traitor, the apprehension was but the molesting of a true subject of the queen, and my resistance was but a self-defence, and the offence was of them that stayed me."

The constable began to fear he was in deep waters; so cleared his throat for time, and at last proceeded:

"There is much can be said thereon, and if it be exhibited that there was resistance, then be sure justice will be rendered. If it be proven you are no traitor, then perhaps it shall follow that there was no resistance. But yet I say not so for certain. What is your name, sir?"

Before Hal could answer, Mistress Hazlehurst put in:

"His name is Sir Valentine Fleetwood, and he is flying from a warrant--"

"Write down Sir Valentine Fleetwood," said the constable, in an undertone, to the youth with quill, ink-horn, and paper.

"Write down no such name!" cried Hal. "Write down Harry Marryott, gentleman, of the lord chamberlain's company of players!" And Hal faced Anne, with a look of defiance. Ere any one could speak, he went on, "This lady, whom I take to be your informer, will confess that, if I be not Sir Valentine Fleetwood, I am not the person she doth accuse."

During the silence of the a.s.semblage, Anne regarded Hal with a contemptuous smile, as if she thought his device to escape detention as shallow and foolish as had been her own first attempt to hinder him.

"What name shall I put down?" asked the puzzled scribe, of the constable.

"Write Sir Valentine Fleetwood!" repeated Anne, peremptorily. "This gentleman's sorry shift to evade you, Master Constable, is scarce worthy of his birth."

"Write down Sir Valentine Fleetwood," ordered the constable. "Is not this the examination of Sir Valentine Fleetwood, and whose name else--?"

"If it be the examination of Sir Valentine Fleetwood," interrupted Hal, "then 'tis not my examination, and I demand of you my liberty forthwith; for I do not acknowledge that name! I warn you, constable!"