The Great Mogul Part 4

"Neither Roger nor I broke the peace," protested Mowbray.

"They say that one of you nearly broke Lord Dereham's neck," put in a city sheriff, "and that will be held a grave crime when recited to his Majesty by his crony, Carr (Rochester). No, no, my lads, bide ye in the city until such time as inquiry shall be made with due circ.u.mspection.

The King hath a good heart and a sound understanding, and I'll wager my chain of office he shall not be pleased to hear that his name was used to decoy my worthy gossip, Sir Thomas Cave, from the company of his daughter and niece."

This shrewd comment was greeted with solemn nods and winks. The timely arrival of Alderman Cave, with the intelligence that Gondomar, summoned from play at Beaujeu's, had ridden furiously to Whitehall, determined Mowbray to accept the safe custody offered to him.

Gradually the a.s.semblage dispersed. A man was sent to the Swan Inn, by Holborn Bridge, where the travelers' nags and pack-horses were stabled.

Hence, ere supper was served, Walter wore garments of livelier hue, and Roger was able to discard his heavy riding coat and long boots for a sober suit of homespun.

The girls were discreetly reserved as to their adventure. True, they said that no incivility was offered them. For all they could tell to the contrary the Marquis of Bath and Sir Harry Revel, who made their names known to them, had really saved them from an affray of rowdies.

"I would I had been there," vowed young George Beeston, who seemed to resent the part played in the affair by Mowbray and his gigantic friend.

"A yard measure is of little avail when swords are drawn," cried Anna, tartly. The hit was, perhaps, unworthy of her wonted good nature, for Beeston belonged to the Linen-drapers' Company.

He reddened, but made no reply, and Sir Thomas took up the cudgels in his behalf:--

"When George weds thee, Ann, thou wilt find that a linen-draper of the city is better able to safeguard his wife than any mongrel popinjay who flaunts it at Whitehall."

"I am in no mind to wed anyone, father," said she, "nor do I seek other protection than yours."

"Nay, la.s.s, I am getting old. Be not vexed with young Master Beeston because he guessed not of your peril."

"I would brave a hundred swords to serve you," stammered George. Better had he remained silent. No girl likes love-making in public. Anna seemingly paid no heed to his bashful words, but her eyes sparkled with some glint of annoyance.

Roger Sainton, ever more ready to laugh than to quarrel, smoothed over the family tiff by breaking out into a diatribe on the virtues of the knight's Brown Devon ale. Mowbray, too, seeing how the land lay, offered more attention to Mistress Eleanor Roe than to her stately cousin.

Herein he only followed his secret inclination. The girl's shy blue eyes and laughing lips formed a combination difficult to resist, if resistance were thought of. She was dressed in simple white. Her hair, plaited in the Dutch style, was tied with a bow of blue riband, nor was her gown too long to hide the neat shoes of saffron-colored leather which adorned her pretty feet.

She wore no ornaments, and her attire was altogether less expensive than that of Anna Cave. His own experiences had given Mowbray a clear knowledge of domestic values. Judging by appearances, he thought that the house of Roe was not so well endowed with wealth as the house of Cave. He did not find the drawback amiss. He was young enough, and sufficiently romantic in disposition, to discover ample endowment in Eleanor's piquant face and bright, if somewhat timid, wit.

Anna, who looked preoccupied, quickly upset an arrangement which threatened to leave her and Beeston to entertain each other.

It was not yet dark when the supper was ended. Anna, rising suddenly when a waiting-man produced a dust-covered flagon of Alicant, a.s.sumed an animated air.

"I see you sip your wine rather than drink it, Master Mowbray," she cried. "Will you not join Nellie and me in the garden, and leave to these graver gentlemen the worship of Bacchus?"

"Aye," growled George Beeston, spurred into a display of spirit, "though Venus may be coy the G.o.d of wine never refuses his smile."

"Take an old man's advice, George," said Sir Thomas confidentially, "and never seek to woo a girl with a glum face."

"Better still," said Roger, reaching for the flagon, "wait until she woos thee. Gad, a woman plagues a man sufficiently after he is wed that his heart should ache before the knot is tied."

"If your heart ached, Master Sainton, its size would render the ailment of much consequence," said Eleanor.

"Mayhap 'tis like an August mushroom, which, when overgrown, hath the consistency of hide," he answered, and his jolly laugh caused even young Beeston to smile.

"Roger and I were bred together," said Mowbray, as he walked with the two girls into the small public garden which faced the house. "I vow he never cared for woman other than his mother."

"Belike it is the fashion in Wensleydale," was Anna's comment.

"Nay, Mistress Cave, such fashion will not commend itself anywhere.

Certes, I have observed that it does not prevail in London."

This with a glance at Eleanor, but the retort told Anna that although Mowbray came from the shires his wits were not dull.

As his hostess, however, she curbed the inclination to make some one suffer vicariously for poor George Beeston.

"May I make bold to ask if you seek advancement at court?" she inquired civilly.

"Yes, if it help one at court to wish to fight for his Majesty. That is my desire. After much entreaty, my mother allowed me to travel hither, in the hope that my distant kinsman, the Earl of Beverley, might procure me the captaincy of a troop of horse. As for Roger, his mother was my mother's foster-sister, so the worthy dame sent her son to take care of me."

"What will the good ladies say when they hear that you had not been in London an hour ere you stormed Gondomar's house to succor a couple of silly wenches?" put in Eleanor.

"My mother will remember that my father lamed two men who sought to stop their wedding, but Mistress Sainton will clap her hands and cry, 'Mercy o' me! what manner o' fules be those Spaniards that they didna run when they set eyes on my Roger? They mun be daft!'"

His ready reproduction of the Yorkshire dialect brought a laugh to their lips; it aided Eleanor in no small degree to hide the blush which mantled her fair cheeks when Walter so aptly turned the tables on her.

But Anna, if restrained in her own behalf, thought that this young spark's wooing of her friend should be curbed.

"There was purpose in your father's prowess," she said. "Sir Harry Revel told me he wished us no indignity, so, perchance, you erred in your boldness, though, indeed, I do not cavil at it."

"Sir Harry Revel lied. When I meet the fop I shall tell him so."

"Nay, nay. You take me too seriously. I pray you forget my banter. It would ill requite your service were careless words of mine to provoke another encounter."

"For my part, I plead with you on behalf of the Marquis of Bath. He is but a goose, though he carries the feathers of a peac.o.c.k," added Nellie.

In their talk they pa.s.sed along the north side of the garden. Here, a number of trees gave grateful shade in the daytime. A wall beyond, with foliage peeping over it, showed that another smaller enclosure, belonging to some civic dignitary, occupied one of the few open s.p.a.ces remaining within the city defenses.

At this moment, though darkness had not yet fallen, the gloom cast by the trees rendered persons near at hand indistinct. Their voices must have given warning of their coming, for a tall cavalier, wrapped in a cloak, suddenly stepped from behind a broad-beamed elm.

"Anna!" he said, "and Nellie! But whom else have we here?"

The girls started, and Mowbray would have resented the newcomer's manner had not Eleanor cried:--

"My brother!"

Anna, too, quickly intervened.

"This is Master Walter Mowbray," she said, "and his breeding, no less than the help he rendered so freely to-day, warrants more courteous greeting from Sir Thomas Roe."

The stranger, a young man of dignified appearance, made such amends for the abruptness of his challenge that Mowbray wondered how it happened that so elegant and polished a gentleman should have startled two ladies with a peremptory challenge.

Soon this bewilderment pa.s.sed. They strolled on in company, and they had not been discoursing five minutes before he discovered that Sir Thomas Roe was favored of Anna if young Beeston was favored of her father.

A certain reluctance on their part to return to the more open part of the garden did not escape him, and, although there was no actual pairing off, he found little difficulty in addressing his conversation exclusively to the bewitching Eleanor.

In the half light of evening she was fairy-like, a living dream of beauty, a coy sprite, who laughed, and teased, and tantalized by her aloof propinquity. It was strange, too, that a youngster who could hold his own so fairly in an encounter of wits with Anna should be suddenly overtaken by one-syllable bashfulness when left alone with Eleanor. Yet, if Master Mowbray's confusion were inexplicable, what subtle craft can dissipate the mystery of Nellie Roe's change of manner? From being shy, she became pert. She seemed to pa.s.s with a bound from demure girlhood to delightful womanhood. When Walter strove to rally her with an apt retort she overwhelmed him with a dozen. Her eyes met his and looked him out of face. It might be that the presence of her brother gave her confidence, that the sweet gloaming of a summer's eve enchanted her, that the day's adventures flashed a new and wondrous picture into the undimmed mirror of her mind. Whatever the cause, Mowbray was vanquished utterly, and, being of soldierly stock, he recognized his defeat.