A Gentleman Player Part 26

"'Tis true!" muttered Marryott, in a tumult of perplexity. "Against a score of desperate rascals, what six men under heaven would long risk their lives for a lady's sake, unless they were gentlemen, or by a gentleman led? And what gentleman leading them, and fighting with them, could hope to win unless he were armed, as I should be, by love for that lady? Well I know that gentlemen do not protect ladies by deputy, nor trust to underlings the safety of those they love!"

There was a moment's silence. She moved not; gave no start, or frown, or look of surprise, or other sign that she had noted this, his first spoken confession of love. Yet that very absence of all sign ought to have told him that she had heeded it,--that she had even been prepared for it.

"Bitter is my fortune," she replied, using a tone a trifle lower and more guarded than hitherto. "Of all who are at hand, only you, being a gentleman and moved by the spirit of chivalry, would protect a lady to the last, against odds. Only you, with the valor and strength that a chivalrous heart bestows, might hope to prevail against such odds. Only you, with the power of leadership over those men below, could give them either will or courage for the contest. Only your remaining, therefore, might save me from this villain. Your cause forbids your remaining. Go, then; save yourself, save your cause, and leave me to my fate!"

Her voice had fallen to a whisper. She now lay perfectly still, as if too exhausted even to deplore what might be in store for her.

"Oh, madam!" said Marryott, his voice betraying the distress he no longer tried to conceal. "What a choice is mine! Lest these men approaching be Rumney's. I dare not go from you; lest they be the pursuivant's, I dare not stay with you! Must I, then, leave you here, in this deserted house, in this wild night, to what terrible chances I dare not think of? Can you not ride forth? Is it not possible? Can you not find strength, somewhere deep-stored within you?"

Her only answer was a faint smile as at his incredulity to her state, or at his futile return to impossible hopes.

He had already forgotten, for the time, what strength she had found to make her body rigid.

"Fare thee well, then!" he cried, abruptly, and hastened, with steps almost as wild as hers had been, to the door leading to the pa.s.sage.

A low sob arrested him at the threshold. He turned and looked at her; his heart, which seemed to have stopped as he was crossing the room to leave her, now began to beat madly.

She was not looking after him. She had not changed position. But, by the firelight, to which his sight was now accustomed, a welling up of moisture was visible in her eyes.

While he stood gazing at her, she gave another sob,--a convulsive note of despair, in which Marryott read a sense of her forlorn situation and possible fate; of being abandoned in dire illness, in an empty country-house, on this wildest of nights, to become, perchance, the prey of a vile, unscrupulous rascal.

By the time that Marryott, moving in long strides, had reached her side, her cheeks were wet with tears.

"Lady," he said, in a voice unsteady with emotion, as he flung himself on his knees beside her couch, and caught both her hands in his, "be not afraid! Though I forfeit my life, and fail in my cause, I will not go from you! May G.o.d above forgive me; and may those for whom I have these four days striven; and may my fathers, who never, for fear of man or love of woman, fell short of their given word! But I love thee! Ay, madam, 'tis a right I earn, that of holding thee thus in mine arms; thou know'st not what I pay for it! I love thee!"

He had resigned her hands, only that he might enfold her body; and she was so far from resisting his clasp that she had thrown her own arms, soft and warm, around his neck. She no longer wept, yet the tears still stood in her eyes; through them, however, as she met his impa.s.sioned gaze, glowed a light at once soft and powerful. Her nostrils heaved in quick but regular respirations. As his face neared hers, her lips seemed unconsciously to await the contact of his own. Nor did they fail of humid warmth when he pressed upon them a score of kisses.

"Oh, thou beautiful one!" he whispered, raising his face that he might find again in the depths of her eyes the rapture which, by the responsive intentness of her look, it was evident she found in his own eyes. "Never did I think I should prove so weak, or know such joy!

Though I hazard my mission and my life, yet methinks for this moment I would barter my soul! For at this moment thou lov'st me, dost thou not?

Else all kisses are false, all eyes are liars! Tell me, mistress! For thine own rest's sake, tell me; or be slain with mine importunings!"

"Wouldst thou have my lips," she whispered, and paused an instant for strength to finish, "confess by speech--what they have too well betrayed--otherwise?"

"I did not slay thy brother," he answered, still looking into her eyes.

"That thou must believe! Yet thou wouldst love me, this one moment, even though the red gulf were indeed between us? Is't not so?"

She would not answer. When he again opened his lips to urge, she, by a movement of the arm, caused them to close against her own.

Then, as by a sudden change of impulse, she closed her eyes and thrust him from her with all the force of which her arms were capable.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE HORs.e.m.e.n ARRIVE.

"'Faith, I will live so long as I may, that's the certain of it!"--_Henry V._

There was a rapid, heavy tread in the pa.s.sage without. Marryott hastily rose from his kneeling posture, turned, and took a step toward the door.

Kit Bottle entered.

"All's ready for going, sir," said the captain.

"We shall not go," said Marryott, quietly, with as much composure as he could command. "We shall stay here the rest of the night; I know not how much longer."

"Stay here?" muttered Kit, staring at Marryott, with amazed eyes.

"Ay. Let Anthony take the horses back to stable. And--" Marryott felt that so unaccountable a change of plan required some further orders, as if there were a politic reason behind it; moreover. Kit's astonished look seemed to call for them. So, begotten of Hal's embarra.s.sment in the gaze of his lieutenant, came a thought, and in its train a hope. "And then we'll make this house ready for a siege," he added. "Go below; send hither the boy Francis, and Tom Cobble, and let all the others await my commands in the hall."

Kit disappeared. He saw Marryott's plan as soon as it had taken shape.

The word "siege" was key sufficient for the captain. Ten days were to be gained for Sir Valentine. Four were past. Four more would be required for a return to Fleetwood house in this weather and over s...o...b..und roads. Two days thus remained to be consumed. If Foxby Hall could be held for two days against probable attempts of Roger Barnet to enter it, and without his discovering Hal's trick, the mission would be accomplished.

But after that, what of the lives of Master Marryott and his men? It was not yet time to face that question. The immediate problem was, to gain the two days.

Mistress Hazlehurst, who believed Marryott to be the real Fleetwood, and knew nothing of the matter of the ten days, saw in this prospective siege the certainty of the supposed knight's eventual capture; saw, that is to say, the accomplishment of the vengeful purpose for which she had beset his flight. She lay motionless on her improvised couch, her feelings locked within her.

"And now, mistress," said Marryott, turning to her, and speaking in a low voice, "what may be done for thy comfort? I have no skill to deal with ailments. It may be that one of the men below--"

"Nay," she answered, drowsily; "there is naught can do me any good but rest. My ailment is, that my body is wearied to the edge of death. The one cure is sleep."

"Shall I support thee to thy bed?"

"An thou wilt."

When he had borne her into her chamber, and laid her on the bed, she appeared to sink at once into that repose whence she might renew her waned vitality. He gazed for a moment upon her face, daring not to disturb her tranquillity with another caress. Hearing steps approaching in the pa.s.sage beyond the outer room, he went softly from the chamber and met Francis and Tom.

"Your mistress sleeps," said he to the page. "Leave her door ajar, that you may hear if she be ailing or in want of aught. Go not for an instant out of hearing of her; and if there be need, let Tom bring word to me in the hall."

He then hurried down to where the men were a.s.sembled with Kit Bottle.

The fire had been replenished, and some torches lighted. Marryott, seeing that Anthony and Bunch were still absent with the horses, awaited their return before addressing his company. In this interim, he strode up and down before the fire, forming in his mind the speech he would make. When the two came in, and had barred the door after them, Marryott said:

"My stout fellows, four miles yonder, or maybe less now, are a score of hors.e.m.e.n. Most like, they are either Master Rumney and a reinforced gang, or a pursuivant's troop from London with a warrant to arrest me.

An it be Rumney, hounding us for revenge and other purposes, we can best offset his odds by fighting him from this house; and he must in the end give up and depart, lest the tumult bring sheriff's men upon him when the weather betters. But if it be the pursuivant, he will persist till he take me or starve me out, an I do not some way contrive to give him the slip. Now if he take you aiding me, 'tis like to bring ropes about your necks forthwith! So I give you, this moment, opportunity of leaving me; knowing well there is not one so vile among you to use this liberty in bearing information of me to shire officers,--which indeed they would find pretext for ignoring, in such weather for staying indoors. Stand forth, therefore, ye that wish to go hence; for once we fortify the house, none may leave it without my order, on pain of pistol-shot."

Whether from attachment to Marryott, or fear of falling into Rumney's hands, or a sense of present comfort and security in this stout mansion, every man stood motionless.

"Brave hearts, I thank you!" cried Marryott, after sufficient pause.

"And mayhap I can save you, though I be taken myself. But now for swift work! Captain Bottle, an there be any loose timber about, let Oliver show it you, and let the men bear it into the house. If there be none such, take what fire-logs there be, and cut timbers from the outhouses with what tools ye may come upon. With these, and with chests and such, ye will brace and bar the doors and all windows within reach of men upon the ground. As soon as Oliver has shown where timber may be found, let him point out all such openings to Captain Bottle. And meanwhile, till timber is here collected, I and the captain will begin the barricading with furniture. As the timbers are brought in, we shall use them, and when enough be fetched, every man shall join us in the fortifying."

"There be posts and beams, piled 'neath a pentice-roof by the stables; and fire-wood a-plenty," said Oliver Bunch.

"Good! And which door is best to carry it in through?"

"There is an old door from the kitchen wing to the stables; 'tis kept ever bolted and barred."

"Unbolt and unbar it, then! And make fast, instead, the outer stable doors, when ye have brought in the timber. Thus we may secure the horses,--which may now rest unsaddled; for here we must abide two days, at least. To it now, my staunch knaves! And leave all your weapons on these settles, and your powder and ball, that I may see how we are provided for this siege. I thank G.o.d for this storm, Kit; it must limit our besiegers to the enemies we wot of. No lazy rustics will poke nose into the business while such weather endures."