The Lady of Loyalty House Part 15

"Is not he a dashing lad for a Puritan?" she gasped, patting her ample chest with both hands as if to fondle her newly recovered breath. Tiffany, who was bearing her mistress's lute, shrugged and pouted.

"I see little to like in him," she snapped. This was not at all true, but she was not going to admit as much to Mistress Satch.e.l.l, or, for that matter, to herself. Mistress Satch.e.l.l snorted fiercely, like an offended war-horse.

"Because he has not clipped you round the waist, pinched you in the cheek, kissed you on the lips--such liberties as our rufflers use.

But he is a man for my money."

She spoke with vehemence. Pretty Tiffany made a dainty grimace as she answered:

"I think I am pleasing enough to behold, yet he gave me no more than a glance when he gave me good-day."

Mistress Satch.e.l.l's ample bulk swayed with indignation.

"He is a lad of taste, I tell you. Why should he waste his gaze on such small goods when there was n.o.bler ware anigh? He smiled all over his face when he greeted me."

Tiffany was sorely tempted to smile all over her face as she listened, but Mistress Satch.e.l.l's temper was short and her arm long, so she kept her countenance as she answered, shortly:

"He is little."

This Mistress Satch.e.l.l swiftly countered with the affirmation:

"He is great."

Tiffany thrust again.

"He is naught."

Again Dame Satch.e.l.l parried.

"He is much," she screamed, and her face was poppy-red with pa.s.sion, but Tiffany, retreating warily and persistent to tease, was about to start some fresh disclaimer of the Puritan's merits when she caught sight through a yew arch vista of a gown of gold and gray, and her tongue faltered.

"Our lady," she whispered to Mistress Satch.e.l.l, who had barely time to compose her ruffled countenance when Brilliana came through the yew arch and paused on the edge of the pleasaunce surveying the belligerents with an amused smile.

"What are you two brawling about?" she asked, as she moved slowly towards the marble seat. Tiffany thrust in the first word.

"Goody Satch.e.l.l will vex me with praise of the Parliament man."

By this time Brilliana had seated herself, observing her vehement shes with amus.e.m.e.nt. She turned a face of a.s.sumed gravity upon the elder.

"So, so, Mistress Satch.e.l.l, have you turned Roundhead all of a sudden?"

Mrs. Satch.e.l.l shook her head at Brilliana and her fist at Tiffany.

"Tiffany is a minx, but I am an honest woman; and as I am an honest woman, there are honest qualities in this honest Puritan."

Brilliana knew as much herself and fretted at the knowledge. It cut against the grain of her heart to admit that a rebel could have any redemption by gifts. But she still questioned Mistress Satch.e.l.l smoothly, thinking the while of a man intrenched behind a table, one man against six.

"What are these marvels?" she asked.

Mistress Satch.e.l.l was voluble of collected encomiums.

"Why, Thomas Coachman swears he is a master of horse-manage, and he has taught Luke Gardener a new method of grafting roses, and Simon Warrener swears he knows as much of hawking as any man in Oxford or Warwick."

She paused, out of breath. Brilliana, leaning forward with an air of infinite gravity, commented:

"It were more to your point, surely, if the gentleman had skill in cook-craft."

Mistress Satch.e.l.l was not to be outdone; she clapped her hands together noisily and shrilled her triumph.

"There, too, he meets you. After breakfast this morning, when I asked him how he fared, he overpraised my table, and he gave me a recipe for grilling capons in the Spanish manner--well, you shall know, if you do but live long enough."

The ruddy dame nodded significantly as she closed thus cryptically her tables of praises. Brilliana uplifted her hands in a pretty air of wonder.

"The phoenix," she sighed, "the paragon, the nonpareil of the b.u.t.tery." Instantly her smiling face grew grave.

"Well, it is not for us to praise him or blame him while he is on our hands. See that you give him good meals, Mistress Satch.e.l.l."

Dame Satch.e.l.l stared at her mistress in some amazement.

"Will he not dine in hall, my lady?"

Brilliana frowned now in good earnest.

"Lordamercy! do you think I would sit at meat with a rebel? Have I not set him a room apart, to spare myself the sight of him? Serve him in his own rooms, but look you serve him well."

Dame Satch.e.l.l wagged her head with an air of the deepest significance.

"I warrant you," she muttered, "he commended my soused cuc.u.mbers."

And so nodding and chuckling she moved like a great galleon over the green, and soon was out of sight. The moment her broad back was well turned, Tiffany permitted herself to utter the protests which had been boiling within her.

"To listen to Dame Satch.e.l.l, one would think that no man had ever seen a horse or known one dish from another before this."

Brilliana gave her handmaid a glance of something near akin to displeasure.

"I think you all talk and think too much of the gentleman. I see little to praise in him save a certain coolness in peril. Let us have no more of him. We must use him well, but he will soon be gone, and a good riddance. Is my lute tuned, Tiffany?"

Tiffany answered "Ay," and her lady took up the lute and picked at a tune, yawning. The world seemed to have grown very tedious all of a sudden, and it did not seem so pleasant as she deemed it would prove to sit again in the yew circle and sing. She began a song or two, to leave each unfinished with a yawn, and, because yawning is contagious, Tiffany yawned too, discreetly behind her fingers. It was while Tiffany looked away to conceal a vaster yawn than its fellows, too vast for masking with finger-tips, that she saw a soldierly figure coming across the garden towards the pleasaunce.

"My lady," she cried, turning to Brilliana, "here comes Captain Halfman. Let us ask him his mind as to the Parliament man."

Brilliana's face brightened. Here was company, and good company. She had believed him too busy to be seen so soon, for she had bade him see about raising a troop of volunteers in the village, and she turned round readily to greet her companion of the siege.

Through the yew portal Halfman came, gravity reigning in his eyes and slaking their wild fire. He saluted Brilliana with the deep reverence he always showed to his fair general. Brilliana turned to her adjutant eagerly:

"Master Halfman, Master Halfman," she cried, "how do you measure our rebel?"

Halfman's gravity lightened amazingly at the thought of his prisoner.

"I take him," he answered, emphatically, "for as proper a fellow as ever I met in all my vagabond days. Barring his primness he would have proved a gallant"--he was going to say "pirate," but paused in time and said "seaman." "G.o.d pardon him for a Puritan," he went on, "for he has in him the making of a rare Cavalier."